From 33e72857bf7b7745cd98adc89e8fa46d0c708ddc Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: Newnius Date: Tue, 10 Apr 2018 20:53:13 +0800 Subject: [PATCH] add dependencies --- src/diskv/client.go | 165 + src/diskv/common.go | 43 + src/diskv/server.go | 274 + src/diskv/test_test.go | 1280 + src/kvpaxos/client.go | 84 + src/kvpaxos/common.go | 33 + src/kvpaxos/server.go | 144 + src/kvpaxos/test_test.go | 711 + src/kvraft/client.go | 110 + src/kvraft/common.go | 36 + src/kvraft/config.go | 346 + src/kvraft/server.go | 193 + src/kvraft/test_test.go | 397 + src/labrpc/labrpc.go | 458 + src/labrpc/test_test.go | 518 + src/lockservice/client.go | 93 + src/lockservice/common.go | 33 + src/lockservice/server.go | 159 + src/lockservice/test_test.go | 478 + src/main/diskvd | Bin 0 -> 9970464 bytes src/main/diskvd.go | 74 + src/main/ii.go | 40 + src/main/lockc.go | 31 + src/main/lockd.go | 31 + src/main/mr-challenge.txt | 10 + src/main/mr-testout.txt | 10 + src/main/pbc.go | 44 + src/main/pbd.go | 23 + src/main/pg-being_ernest.txt | 3495 + src/main/pg-dorian_gray.txt | 8904 +++ src/main/pg-dracula.txt | 15973 ++++ src/main/pg-emma.txt | 16631 +++++ src/main/pg-frankenstein.txt | 7653 ++ src/main/pg-great_expectations.txt | 20421 ++++++ src/main/pg-grimm.txt | 9569 +++ src/main/pg-huckleberry_finn.txt | 12361 ++++ src/main/pg-les_miserables.txt | 68116 ++++++++++++++++++ src/main/pg-metamorphosis.txt | 2362 + src/main/pg-moby_dick.txt | 22108 ++++++ src/main/pg-sherlock_holmes.txt | 13052 ++++ src/main/pg-tale_of_two_cities.txt | 16271 +++++ src/main/pg-tom_sawyer.txt | 9206 +++ src/main/pg-ulysses.txt | 33055 +++++++++ src/main/pg-war_and_peace.txt | 65007 +++++++++++++++++ src/main/test-ii.sh | 11 + src/main/test-mr.sh | 21 + src/main/test-wc.sh | 11 + src/main/viewd.go | 23 + src/main/wc.go | 42 + src/mapreduce/824-mrinput-0.txt | 100000 ++++++++++++++++++++++++++ src/mapreduce/common.go | 43 + src/mapreduce/common_map.go | 49 + src/mapreduce/common_reduce.go | 34 + src/mapreduce/common_rpc.go | 66 + src/mapreduce/master.go | 144 + src/mapreduce/master_rpc.go | 66 + src/mapreduce/master_splitmerge.go | 72 + src/mapreduce/readme.go | 45 + src/mapreduce/schedule.go | 26 + src/mapreduce/test_test.go | 208 + src/mapreduce/worker.go | 109 + src/paxos-shardkv/client.go | 165 + src/paxos-shardkv/common.go | 43 + src/paxos-shardkv/server.go | 166 + src/paxos-shardkv/test_test.go | 360 + src/paxos-shardmaster/client.go | 120 + src/paxos-shardmaster/common.go | 60 + src/paxos-shardmaster/server.go | 141 + src/paxos-shardmaster/test_test.go | 372 + src/paxos/paxos.go | 273 + src/paxos/test_test.go | 957 + src/pbservice/client.go | 103 + src/pbservice/common.go | 36 + src/pbservice/server.go | 138 + src/pbservice/test_test.go | 1143 + src/shardkv/client.go | 135 + src/shardkv/common.go | 45 + src/shardkv/config.go | 350 + src/shardkv/server.go | 102 + src/shardkv/test_test.go | 830 + src/shardmaster/client.go | 101 + src/shardmaster/common.go | 76 + src/shardmaster/config.go | 343 + src/shardmaster/server.go | 80 + src/shardmaster/test_test.go | 377 + src/viewservice/client.go | 88 + src/viewservice/common.go | 80 + src/viewservice/server.go | 123 + src/viewservice/test_test.go | 235 + 89 files changed, 438014 insertions(+) create mode 100644 src/diskv/client.go create mode 100644 src/diskv/common.go create mode 100644 src/diskv/server.go create mode 100644 src/diskv/test_test.go create mode 100644 src/kvpaxos/client.go create mode 100644 src/kvpaxos/common.go create mode 100644 src/kvpaxos/server.go create mode 100644 src/kvpaxos/test_test.go create mode 100644 src/kvraft/client.go create mode 100644 src/kvraft/common.go create mode 100644 src/kvraft/config.go create mode 100644 src/kvraft/server.go create mode 100644 src/kvraft/test_test.go create mode 100644 src/labrpc/labrpc.go create mode 100644 src/labrpc/test_test.go create mode 100644 src/lockservice/client.go create mode 100644 src/lockservice/common.go create mode 100644 src/lockservice/server.go create mode 100644 src/lockservice/test_test.go create mode 100644 src/main/diskvd create mode 100644 src/main/diskvd.go create mode 100644 src/main/ii.go create mode 100644 src/main/lockc.go create mode 100644 src/main/lockd.go create mode 100644 src/main/mr-challenge.txt create mode 100644 src/main/mr-testout.txt create mode 100644 src/main/pbc.go create mode 100644 src/main/pbd.go create mode 100644 src/main/pg-being_ernest.txt create mode 100644 src/main/pg-dorian_gray.txt create mode 100644 src/main/pg-dracula.txt create mode 100644 src/main/pg-emma.txt create mode 100644 src/main/pg-frankenstein.txt create mode 100644 src/main/pg-great_expectations.txt create mode 100644 src/main/pg-grimm.txt create mode 100644 src/main/pg-huckleberry_finn.txt create mode 100644 src/main/pg-les_miserables.txt create mode 100644 src/main/pg-metamorphosis.txt create mode 100644 src/main/pg-moby_dick.txt create mode 100644 src/main/pg-sherlock_holmes.txt create mode 100644 src/main/pg-tale_of_two_cities.txt create mode 100644 src/main/pg-tom_sawyer.txt create mode 100644 src/main/pg-ulysses.txt create mode 100644 src/main/pg-war_and_peace.txt create mode 100755 src/main/test-ii.sh create mode 100755 src/main/test-mr.sh create mode 100755 src/main/test-wc.sh create mode 100644 src/main/viewd.go create mode 100644 src/main/wc.go create mode 100644 src/mapreduce/824-mrinput-0.txt create mode 100644 src/mapreduce/common.go create mode 100644 src/mapreduce/common_map.go create mode 100644 src/mapreduce/common_reduce.go create mode 100644 src/mapreduce/common_rpc.go create mode 100644 src/mapreduce/master.go create mode 100644 src/mapreduce/master_rpc.go create mode 100644 src/mapreduce/master_splitmerge.go create mode 100644 src/mapreduce/readme.go create mode 100644 src/mapreduce/schedule.go create mode 100644 src/mapreduce/test_test.go create mode 100644 src/mapreduce/worker.go create mode 100644 src/paxos-shardkv/client.go create mode 100644 src/paxos-shardkv/common.go create mode 100644 src/paxos-shardkv/server.go create mode 100644 src/paxos-shardkv/test_test.go create mode 100644 src/paxos-shardmaster/client.go create mode 100644 src/paxos-shardmaster/common.go create mode 100644 src/paxos-shardmaster/server.go create mode 100644 src/paxos-shardmaster/test_test.go create mode 100644 src/paxos/paxos.go create mode 100644 src/paxos/test_test.go create mode 100644 src/pbservice/client.go create mode 100644 src/pbservice/common.go create mode 100644 src/pbservice/server.go create mode 100644 src/pbservice/test_test.go create mode 100644 src/shardkv/client.go create mode 100644 src/shardkv/common.go create mode 100644 src/shardkv/config.go create mode 100644 src/shardkv/server.go create mode 100644 src/shardkv/test_test.go create mode 100644 src/shardmaster/client.go create mode 100644 src/shardmaster/common.go create mode 100644 src/shardmaster/config.go create mode 100644 src/shardmaster/server.go create mode 100644 src/shardmaster/test_test.go create mode 100644 src/viewservice/client.go create mode 100644 src/viewservice/common.go create mode 100644 src/viewservice/server.go create mode 100644 src/viewservice/test_test.go diff --git a/src/diskv/client.go b/src/diskv/client.go new file mode 100644 index 0000000..7cc0d1b --- /dev/null +++ b/src/diskv/client.go @@ -0,0 +1,165 @@ +package diskv + +import "shardmaster" +import "net/rpc" +import "time" +import "sync" +import "fmt" +import "crypto/rand" +import "math/big" + +type Clerk struct { + mu sync.Mutex // one RPC at a time + sm *shardmaster.Clerk + config shardmaster.Config + // You'll have to modify Clerk. +} + +func nrand() int64 { + max := big.NewInt(int64(1) << 62) + bigx, _ := rand.Int(rand.Reader, max) + x := bigx.Int64() + return x +} + +func MakeClerk(shardmasters []string) *Clerk { + ck := new(Clerk) + ck.sm = shardmaster.MakeClerk(shardmasters) + // You'll have to modify MakeClerk. + return ck +} + +// +// call() sends an RPC to the rpcname handler on server srv +// with arguments args, waits for the reply, and leaves the +// reply in reply. the reply argument should be a pointer +// to a reply structure. +// +// the return value is true if the server responded, and false +// if call() was not able to contact the server. in particular, +// the reply's contents are only valid if call() returned true. +// +// you should assume that call() will return an +// error after a while if the server is dead. +// don't provide your own time-out mechanism. +// +// please use call() to send all RPCs, in client.go and server.go. +// please don't change this function. +// +func call(srv string, rpcname string, + args interface{}, reply interface{}) bool { + c, errx := rpc.Dial("unix", srv) + if errx != nil { + return false + } + defer c.Close() + + err := c.Call(rpcname, args, reply) + if err == nil { + return true + } + + fmt.Println(err) + return false +} + +// +// which shard is a key in? +// please use this function, +// and please do not change it. +// +func key2shard(key string) int { + shard := 0 + if len(key) > 0 { + shard = int(key[0]) + } + shard %= shardmaster.NShards + return shard +} + +// +// fetch the current value for a key. +// returns "" if the key does not exist. +// keeps trying forever in the face of all other errors. +// +func (ck *Clerk) Get(key string) string { + ck.mu.Lock() + defer ck.mu.Unlock() + + // You'll have to modify Get(). + + for { + shard := key2shard(key) + + gid := ck.config.Shards[shard] + + servers, ok := ck.config.Groups[gid] + + if ok { + // try each server in the shard's replication group. + for _, srv := range servers { + args := &GetArgs{} + args.Key = key + var reply GetReply + ok := call(srv, "DisKV.Get", args, &reply) + if ok && (reply.Err == OK || reply.Err == ErrNoKey) { + return reply.Value + } + if ok && (reply.Err == ErrWrongGroup) { + break + } + } + } + + time.Sleep(100 * time.Millisecond) + + // ask master for a new configuration. + ck.config = ck.sm.Query(-1) + } +} + +// send a Put or Append request. +func (ck *Clerk) PutAppend(key string, value string, op string) { + ck.mu.Lock() + defer ck.mu.Unlock() + + // You'll have to modify PutAppend(). + + for { + shard := key2shard(key) + + gid := ck.config.Shards[shard] + + servers, ok := ck.config.Groups[gid] + + if ok { + // try each server in the shard's replication group. + for _, srv := range servers { + args := &PutAppendArgs{} + args.Key = key + args.Value = value + args.Op = op + var reply PutAppendReply + ok := call(srv, "DisKV.PutAppend", args, &reply) + if ok && reply.Err == OK { + return + } + if ok && (reply.Err == ErrWrongGroup) { + break + } + } + } + + time.Sleep(100 * time.Millisecond) + + // ask master for a new configuration. + ck.config = ck.sm.Query(-1) + } +} + +func (ck *Clerk) Put(key string, value string) { + ck.PutAppend(key, value, "Put") +} +func (ck *Clerk) Append(key string, value string) { + ck.PutAppend(key, value, "Append") +} diff --git a/src/diskv/common.go b/src/diskv/common.go new file mode 100644 index 0000000..b7dc914 --- /dev/null +++ b/src/diskv/common.go @@ -0,0 +1,43 @@ +package diskv + +// +// Sharded key/value server. +// Lots of replica groups, each running op-at-a-time paxos. +// Shardmaster decides which group serves each shard. +// Shardmaster may change shard assignment from time to time. +// +// You will have to modify these definitions. +// + +const ( + OK = "OK" + ErrNoKey = "ErrNoKey" + ErrWrongGroup = "ErrWrongGroup" +) + +type Err string + +type PutAppendArgs struct { + Key string + Value string + Op string // "Put" or "Append" + // You'll have to add definitions here. + // Field names must start with capital letters, + // otherwise RPC will break. + +} + +type PutAppendReply struct { + Err Err +} + +type GetArgs struct { + Key string + // You'll have to add definitions here. +} + +type GetReply struct { + Err Err + Value string +} + diff --git a/src/diskv/server.go b/src/diskv/server.go new file mode 100644 index 0000000..79ea147 --- /dev/null +++ b/src/diskv/server.go @@ -0,0 +1,274 @@ +package diskv + +import "net" +import "fmt" +import "net/rpc" +import "log" +import "time" +import "paxos" +import "sync" +import "sync/atomic" +import "os" +import "syscall" +import "encoding/gob" +import "encoding/base32" +import "math/rand" +import "shardmaster" +import "io/ioutil" +import "strconv" + + +const Debug = 0 + +func DPrintf(format string, a ...interface{}) (n int, err error) { + if Debug > 0 { + log.Printf(format, a...) + } + return +} + + +type Op struct { + // Your definitions here. +} + + +type DisKV struct { + mu sync.Mutex + l net.Listener + me int + dead int32 // for testing + unreliable int32 // for testing + sm *shardmaster.Clerk + px *paxos.Paxos + dir string // each replica has its own data directory + + gid int64 // my replica group ID + + // Your definitions here. +} + +// +// these are handy functions that might be useful +// for reading and writing key/value files, and +// for reading and writing entire shards. +// puts the key files for each shard in a separate +// directory. +// + +func (kv *DisKV) shardDir(shard int) string { + d := kv.dir + "/shard-" + strconv.Itoa(shard) + "/" + // create directory if needed. + _, err := os.Stat(d) + if err != nil { + if err := os.Mkdir(d, 0777); err != nil { + log.Fatalf("Mkdir(%v): %v", d, err) + } + } + return d +} + +// cannot use keys in file names directly, since +// they might contain troublesome characters like /. +// base32-encode the key to get a file name. +// base32 rather than base64 b/c Mac has case-insensitive +// file names. +func (kv *DisKV) encodeKey(key string) string { + return base32.StdEncoding.EncodeToString([]byte(key)) +} + +func (kv *DisKV) decodeKey(filename string) (string, error) { + key, err := base32.StdEncoding.DecodeString(filename) + return string(key), err +} + +// read the content of a key's file. +func (kv *DisKV) fileGet(shard int, key string) (string, error) { + fullname := kv.shardDir(shard) + "/key-" + kv.encodeKey(key) + content, err := ioutil.ReadFile(fullname) + return string(content), err +} + +// replace the content of a key's file. +// uses rename() to make the replacement atomic with +// respect to crashes. +func (kv *DisKV) filePut(shard int, key string, content string) error { + fullname := kv.shardDir(shard) + "/key-" + kv.encodeKey(key) + tempname := kv.shardDir(shard) + "/temp-" + kv.encodeKey(key) + if err := ioutil.WriteFile(tempname, []byte(content), 0666); err != nil { + return err + } + if err := os.Rename(tempname, fullname); err != nil { + return err + } + return nil +} + +// return content of every key file in a given shard. +func (kv *DisKV) fileReadShard(shard int) map[string]string { + m := map[string]string{} + d := kv.shardDir(shard) + files, err := ioutil.ReadDir(d) + if err != nil { + log.Fatalf("fileReadShard could not read %v: %v", d, err) + } + for _, fi := range files { + n1 := fi.Name() + if n1[0:4] == "key-" { + key, err := kv.decodeKey(n1[4:]) + if err != nil { + log.Fatalf("fileReadShard bad file name %v: %v", n1, err) + } + content, err := kv.fileGet(shard, key) + if err != nil { + log.Fatalf("fileReadShard fileGet failed for %v: %v", key, err) + } + m[key] = content + } + } + return m +} + +// replace an entire shard directory. +func (kv *DisKV) fileReplaceShard(shard int, m map[string]string) { + d := kv.shardDir(shard) + os.RemoveAll(d) // remove all existing files from shard. + for k, v := range m { + kv.filePut(shard, k, v) + } +} + + +func (kv *DisKV) Get(args *GetArgs, reply *GetReply) error { + // Your code here. + return nil +} + +// RPC handler for client Put and Append requests +func (kv *DisKV) PutAppend(args *PutAppendArgs, reply *PutAppendReply) error { + // Your code here. + return nil +} + +// +// Ask the shardmaster if there's a new configuration; +// if so, re-configure. +// +func (kv *DisKV) tick() { + // Your code here. +} + +// tell the server to shut itself down. +// please don't change these two functions. +func (kv *DisKV) kill() { + atomic.StoreInt32(&kv.dead, 1) + kv.l.Close() + kv.px.Kill() +} + +// call this to find out if the server is dead. +func (kv *DisKV) isdead() bool { + return atomic.LoadInt32(&kv.dead) != 0 +} + +// please do not change these two functions. +func (kv *DisKV) Setunreliable(what bool) { + if what { + atomic.StoreInt32(&kv.unreliable, 1) + } else { + atomic.StoreInt32(&kv.unreliable, 0) + } +} + +func (kv *DisKV) isunreliable() bool { + return atomic.LoadInt32(&kv.unreliable) != 0 +} + +// +// Start a shardkv server. +// gid is the ID of the server's replica group. +// shardmasters[] contains the ports of the +// servers that implement the shardmaster. +// servers[] contains the ports of the servers +// in this replica group. +// Me is the index of this server in servers[]. +// dir is the directory name under which this +// replica should store all its files. +// each replica is passed a different directory. +// restart is false the very first time this server +// is started, and true to indicate a re-start +// after a crash or after a crash with disk loss. +// +func StartServer(gid int64, shardmasters []string, + servers []string, me int, dir string, restart bool) *DisKV { + + kv := new(DisKV) + kv.me = me + kv.gid = gid + kv.sm = shardmaster.MakeClerk(shardmasters) + kv.dir = dir + + // Your initialization code here. + // Don't call Join(). + + // log.SetOutput(ioutil.Discard) + + gob.Register(Op{}) + + rpcs := rpc.NewServer() + rpcs.Register(kv) + + kv.px = paxos.Make(servers, me, rpcs) + + // log.SetOutput(os.Stdout) + + + + os.Remove(servers[me]) + l, e := net.Listen("unix", servers[me]) + if e != nil { + log.Fatal("listen error: ", e) + } + kv.l = l + + // please do not change any of the following code, + // or do anything to subvert it. + + go func() { + for kv.isdead() == false { + conn, err := kv.l.Accept() + if err == nil && kv.isdead() == false { + if kv.isunreliable() && (rand.Int63()%1000) < 100 { + // discard the request. + conn.Close() + } else if kv.isunreliable() && (rand.Int63()%1000) < 200 { + // process the request but force discard of reply. + c1 := conn.(*net.UnixConn) + f, _ := c1.File() + err := syscall.Shutdown(int(f.Fd()), syscall.SHUT_WR) + if err != nil { + fmt.Printf("shutdown: %v\n", err) + } + go rpcs.ServeConn(conn) + } else { + go rpcs.ServeConn(conn) + } + } else if err == nil { + conn.Close() + } + if err != nil && kv.isdead() == false { + fmt.Printf("DisKV(%v) accept: %v\n", me, err.Error()) + kv.kill() + } + } + }() + + go func() { + for kv.isdead() == false { + kv.tick() + time.Sleep(250 * time.Millisecond) + } + }() + + return kv +} diff --git a/src/diskv/test_test.go b/src/diskv/test_test.go new file mode 100644 index 0000000..daa614e --- /dev/null +++ b/src/diskv/test_test.go @@ -0,0 +1,1280 @@ +package diskv + +import "testing" +import "shardmaster" +import "runtime" +import "strconv" +import "strings" +import "os" +import "os/exec" +import "time" +import "fmt" +import "sync" +import "io/ioutil" +import "log" +import "math/rand" +import crand "crypto/rand" +import "encoding/base64" +import "path/filepath" +import "sync/atomic" + +type tServer struct { + p *os.Process + port string // this replica's port name + dir string // directory for persistent data + started bool // has started at least once already +} + +// information about the servers of one replica group. +type tGroup struct { + gid int64 + servers []*tServer +} + +// information about all the servers of a k/v cluster. +type tCluster struct { + t *testing.T + dir string + unreliable bool + masters []*shardmaster.ShardMaster + mck *shardmaster.Clerk + masterports []string + groups []*tGroup +} + +func randstring(n int) string { + b := make([]byte, 2*n) + crand.Read(b) + s := base64.URLEncoding.EncodeToString(b) + return s[0:n] +} + +func (tc *tCluster) newport() string { + return tc.dir + randstring(12) +} + +// +// start a k/v replica server process. +// use separate process, rather than thread, so we +// can kill a replica unexpectedly. +// ../main/diskvd +// +func (tc *tCluster) start1(gi int, si int) { + args := []string{"../main/diskvd"} + + attr := &os.ProcAttr{} + in, err := os.Open("/dev/null") + attr.Files = make([]*os.File, 3) + attr.Files[0] = in + attr.Files[1] = os.Stdout + attr.Files[2] = os.Stderr + + g := tc.groups[gi] + s := g.servers[si] + + args = append(args, "-g") + args = append(args, strconv.FormatInt(g.gid, 10)) + for _, m := range tc.masterports { + args = append(args, "-m") + args = append(args, m) + } + for _, sx := range g.servers { + args = append(args, "-s") + args = append(args, sx.port) + } + args = append(args, "-i") + args = append(args, strconv.Itoa(si)) + args = append(args, "-u") + args = append(args, strconv.FormatBool(tc.unreliable)) + args = append(args, "-d") + args = append(args, s.dir) + args = append(args, "-r") + args = append(args, strconv.FormatBool(s.started)) // re-start? + + p, err := os.StartProcess(args[0], args, attr) + if err != nil { + tc.t.Fatalf("StartProcess(%v): %v\n", args[0], err) + } + + s.p = p + s.started = true +} + +func (tc *tCluster) kill1(gi int, si int, deletefiles bool) { + g := tc.groups[gi] + s := g.servers[si] + if s.p != nil { + s.p.Kill() + s.p.Wait() + s.p = nil + } + if deletefiles { + if err := os.RemoveAll(s.dir); err != nil { + tc.t.Fatalf("RemoveAll") + } + os.Mkdir(s.dir, 0777) + } +} + +func (tc *tCluster) cleanup() { + for gi := 0; gi < len(tc.groups); gi++ { + g := tc.groups[gi] + for si := 0; si < len(g.servers); si++ { + tc.kill1(gi, si, false) + } + } + + for i := 0; i < len(tc.masters); i++ { + if tc.masters[i] != nil { + tc.masters[i].Kill() + } + } + + // this RemoveAll, along with the directory naming + // policy in setup(), means that you can't run + // concurrent tests. the reason is to avoid accumulating + // lots of stuff in /var/tmp on Athena. + os.RemoveAll(tc.dir) +} + +func (tc *tCluster) shardclerk() *shardmaster.Clerk { + return shardmaster.MakeClerk(tc.masterports) +} + +func (tc *tCluster) clerk() *Clerk { + return MakeClerk(tc.masterports) +} + +func (tc *tCluster) join(gi int) { + ports := []string{} + for _, s := range tc.groups[gi].servers { + ports = append(ports, s.port) + } + tc.mck.Join(tc.groups[gi].gid, ports) +} + +func (tc *tCluster) leave(gi int) { + tc.mck.Leave(tc.groups[gi].gid) +} + +// how many total bytes of file space in use? +func (tc *tCluster) space() int64 { + var bytes int64 = 0 + ff := func(_ string, info os.FileInfo, err error) error { + if err == nil && info.Mode().IsDir() == false { + bytes += info.Size() + } + return nil + } + filepath.Walk(tc.dir, ff) + return bytes +} + +func setup(t *testing.T, tag string, ngroups int, nreplicas int, unreliable bool) *tCluster { + runtime.GOMAXPROCS(4) + + // compile ../main/diskvd.go + // cmd := exec.Command("go", "build", "-race", "diskvd.go") + cmd := exec.Command("go", "build", "diskvd.go") + cmd.Dir = "../main" + cmd.Stdout = os.Stdout + cmd.Stderr = os.Stderr + if err := cmd.Run(); err != nil { + t.Fatalf("could not compile ../main/diskvd.go: %v", err) + } + + const nmasters = 3 + + tc := &tCluster{} + tc.t = t + tc.unreliable = unreliable + + tc.dir = "/var/tmp/824-" + tc.dir += strconv.Itoa(os.Getuid()) + "/" + os.Mkdir(tc.dir, 0777) + tc.dir += "lab5-" + tag + "/" + os.RemoveAll(tc.dir) + os.Mkdir(tc.dir, 0777) + + tc.masters = make([]*shardmaster.ShardMaster, nmasters) + tc.masterports = make([]string, nmasters) + for i := 0; i < nmasters; i++ { + tc.masterports[i] = tc.newport() + } + log.SetOutput(ioutil.Discard) // suppress method errors &c + for i := 0; i < nmasters; i++ { + tc.masters[i] = shardmaster.StartServer(tc.masterports, i) + } + log.SetOutput(os.Stdout) // re-enable error output. + tc.mck = tc.shardclerk() + + tc.groups = make([]*tGroup, ngroups) + + for i := 0; i < ngroups; i++ { + g := &tGroup{} + tc.groups[i] = g + g.gid = int64(i + 100) + g.servers = make([]*tServer, nreplicas) + for j := 0; j < nreplicas; j++ { + g.servers[j] = &tServer{} + g.servers[j].port = tc.newport() + g.servers[j].dir = tc.dir + randstring(12) + if err := os.Mkdir(g.servers[j].dir, 0777); err != nil { + t.Fatalf("Mkdir(%v): %v", g.servers[j].dir, err) + } + } + for j := 0; j < nreplicas; j++ { + tc.start1(i, j) + } + } + + // return smh, gids, ha, sa, clean + return tc +} + +// +// these tests are the same as in Lab 4. +// + +func Test4Basic(t *testing.T) { + tc := setup(t, "basic", 3, 3, false) + defer tc.cleanup() + + fmt.Printf("Test: Basic Join/Leave (lab4) ...\n") + + tc.join(0) + + ck := tc.clerk() + + ck.Put("a", "x") + ck.Append("a", "b") + if ck.Get("a") != "xb" { + t.Fatalf("wrong value") + } + + keys := make([]string, 10) + vals := make([]string, len(keys)) + for i := 0; i < len(keys); i++ { + keys[i] = strconv.Itoa(rand.Int()) + vals[i] = strconv.Itoa(rand.Int()) + ck.Put(keys[i], vals[i]) + } + + // are keys still there after joins? + for gi := 1; gi < len(tc.groups); gi++ { + tc.join(gi) + time.Sleep(1 * time.Second) + for i := 0; i < len(keys); i++ { + v := ck.Get(keys[i]) + if v != vals[i] { + t.Fatalf("joining; wrong value; g=%v k=%v wanted=%v got=%v", + gi, keys[i], vals[i], v) + } + vals[i] = strconv.Itoa(rand.Int()) + ck.Put(keys[i], vals[i]) + } + } + + // are keys still there after leaves? + for gi := 0; gi < len(tc.groups)-1; gi++ { + tc.leave(gi) + time.Sleep(1 * time.Second) + for i := 0; i < len(keys); i++ { + v := ck.Get(keys[i]) + if v != vals[i] { + t.Fatalf("leaving; wrong value; g=%v k=%v wanted=%v got=%v", + gi, keys[i], vals[i], v) + } + vals[i] = strconv.Itoa(rand.Int()) + ck.Put(keys[i], vals[i]) + } + } + + fmt.Printf(" ... Passed\n") +} + +func Test4Move(t *testing.T) { + tc := setup(t, "move", 3, 3, false) + defer tc.cleanup() + + fmt.Printf("Test: Shards really move (lab4) ...\n") + + tc.join(0) + + ck := tc.clerk() + + // insert one key per shard + for i := 0; i < shardmaster.NShards; i++ { + ck.Put(string('0'+i), string('0'+i)) + } + + // add group 1. + tc.join(1) + time.Sleep(5 * time.Second) + + // check that keys are still there. + for i := 0; i < shardmaster.NShards; i++ { + if ck.Get(string('0'+i)) != string('0'+i) { + t.Fatalf("missing key/value") + } + } + + // remove sockets from group 0. + for _, s := range tc.groups[0].servers { + os.Remove(s.port) + } + + count := int32(0) + var mu sync.Mutex + for i := 0; i < shardmaster.NShards; i++ { + go func(me int) { + myck := tc.clerk() + v := myck.Get(string('0' + me)) + if v == string('0'+me) { + mu.Lock() + atomic.AddInt32(&count, 1) + mu.Unlock() + } else { + t.Fatalf("Get(%v) yielded %v\n", me, v) + } + }(i) + } + + time.Sleep(10 * time.Second) + + ccc := atomic.LoadInt32(&count) + if ccc > shardmaster.NShards/3 && ccc < 2*(shardmaster.NShards/3) { + fmt.Printf(" ... Passed\n") + } else { + t.Fatalf("%v keys worked after killing 1/2 of groups; wanted %v", + ccc, shardmaster.NShards/2) + } +} + +func Test4Limp(t *testing.T) { + tc := setup(t, "limp", 3, 3, false) + defer tc.cleanup() + + fmt.Printf("Test: Reconfiguration with some dead replicas (lab4) ...\n") + + tc.join(0) + + ck := tc.clerk() + + ck.Put("a", "b") + if ck.Get("a") != "b" { + t.Fatalf("got wrong value") + } + + // kill one server from each replica group. + for gi := 0; gi < len(tc.groups); gi++ { + sa := tc.groups[gi].servers + tc.kill1(gi, rand.Int()%len(sa), false) + } + + keys := make([]string, 10) + vals := make([]string, len(keys)) + for i := 0; i < len(keys); i++ { + keys[i] = strconv.Itoa(rand.Int()) + vals[i] = strconv.Itoa(rand.Int()) + ck.Put(keys[i], vals[i]) + } + + // are keys still there after joins? + for gi := 1; gi < len(tc.groups); gi++ { + tc.join(gi) + time.Sleep(1 * time.Second) + for i := 0; i < len(keys); i++ { + v := ck.Get(keys[i]) + if v != vals[i] { + t.Fatalf("joining; wrong value; g=%v k=%v wanted=%v got=%v", + gi, keys[i], vals[i], v) + } + vals[i] = strconv.Itoa(rand.Int()) + ck.Put(keys[i], vals[i]) + } + } + + // are keys still there after leaves? + for gi := 0; gi < len(tc.groups)-1; gi++ { + tc.leave(gi) + time.Sleep(2 * time.Second) + g := tc.groups[gi] + for i := 0; i < len(g.servers); i++ { + tc.kill1(gi, i, false) + } + for i := 0; i < len(keys); i++ { + v := ck.Get(keys[i]) + if v != vals[i] { + t.Fatalf("leaving; wrong value; g=%v k=%v wanted=%v got=%v", + g, keys[i], vals[i], v) + } + vals[i] = strconv.Itoa(rand.Int()) + ck.Put(keys[i], vals[i]) + } + } + + fmt.Printf(" ... Passed\n") +} + +func doConcurrent(t *testing.T, unreliable bool) { + tc := setup(t, "concurrent-"+strconv.FormatBool(unreliable), 3, 3, unreliable) + defer tc.cleanup() + + for i := 0; i < len(tc.groups); i++ { + tc.join(i) + } + + const npara = 11 + var ca [npara]chan bool + for i := 0; i < npara; i++ { + ca[i] = make(chan bool) + go func(me int) { + ok := true + defer func() { ca[me] <- ok }() + ck := tc.clerk() + mymck := tc.shardclerk() + key := strconv.Itoa(me) + last := "" + for iters := 0; iters < 3; iters++ { + nv := strconv.Itoa(rand.Int()) + ck.Append(key, nv) + last = last + nv + v := ck.Get(key) + if v != last { + ok = false + t.Fatalf("Get(%v) expected %v got %v\n", key, last, v) + } + + gi := rand.Int() % len(tc.groups) + gid := tc.groups[gi].gid + mymck.Move(rand.Int()%shardmaster.NShards, gid) + + time.Sleep(time.Duration(rand.Int()%30) * time.Millisecond) + } + }(i) + } + + for i := 0; i < npara; i++ { + x := <-ca[i] + if x == false { + t.Fatalf("something is wrong") + } + } +} + +func Test4Concurrent(t *testing.T) { + fmt.Printf("Test: Concurrent Put/Get/Move (lab4) ...\n") + doConcurrent(t, false) + fmt.Printf(" ... Passed\n") +} + +func Test4ConcurrentUnreliable(t *testing.T) { + fmt.Printf("Test: Concurrent Put/Get/Move (unreliable) (lab4) ...\n") + doConcurrent(t, true) + fmt.Printf(" ... Passed\n") +} + +// +// the rest of the tests are lab5-specific. +// + +// +// do the servers write k/v pairs to disk, so that they +// are still available after kill+restart? +// +func Test5BasicPersistence(t *testing.T) { + tc := setup(t, "basicpersistence", 1, 3, false) + defer tc.cleanup() + + fmt.Printf("Test: Basic Persistence ...\n") + + tc.join(0) + + ck := tc.clerk() + + ck.Append("a", "x") + ck.Append("a", "y") + if ck.Get("a") != "xy" { + t.Fatalf("wrong value") + } + + // kill all servers in all groups. + for gi, g := range tc.groups { + for si, _ := range g.servers { + tc.kill1(gi, si, false) + } + } + + // check that requests are not executed. + ch := make(chan string) + go func() { + ck1 := tc.clerk() + v := ck1.Get("a") + ch <- v + }() + + select { + case <-ch: + t.Fatalf("Get should not have succeeded after killing all servers.") + case <-time.After(3 * time.Second): + // this is what we hope for. + } + + // restart all servers, check that they recover the data. + for gi, g := range tc.groups { + for si, _ := range g.servers { + tc.start1(gi, si) + } + } + time.Sleep(2 * time.Second) + ck.Append("a", "z") + v := ck.Get("a") + if v != "xyz" { + t.Fatalf("wrong value %v after restart", v) + } + + fmt.Printf(" ... Passed\n") +} + +// +// if server S1 is dead for a bit, and others accept operations, +// do they bring S1 up to date correctly after it restarts? +// +func Test5OneRestart(t *testing.T) { + tc := setup(t, "onerestart", 1, 3, false) + defer tc.cleanup() + + fmt.Printf("Test: One server restarts ...\n") + + tc.join(0) + ck := tc.clerk() + g0 := tc.groups[0] + + k1 := randstring(10) + k1v := randstring(10) + ck.Append(k1, k1v) + + k2 := randstring(10) + k2v := randstring(10) + ck.Put(k2, k2v) + + for i := 0; i < len(g0.servers); i++ { + k1x := ck.Get(k1) + if k1x != k1v { + t.Fatalf("wrong value for k1, i=%v, wanted=%v, got=%v", i, k1v, k1x) + } + k2x := ck.Get(k2) + if k2x != k2v { + t.Fatalf("wrong value for k2") + } + + tc.kill1(0, i, false) + time.Sleep(1 * time.Second) + + z := randstring(10) + k1v += z + ck.Append(k1, z) + + k2v = randstring(10) + ck.Put(k2, k2v) + + tc.start1(0, i) + time.Sleep(2 * time.Second) + } + + if ck.Get(k1) != k1v { + t.Fatalf("wrong value for k1") + } + if ck.Get(k2) != k2v { + t.Fatalf("wrong value for k2") + } + + fmt.Printf(" ... Passed\n") +} + +// +// check that the persistent state isn't too big. +// +func Test5DiskUse(t *testing.T) { + tc := setup(t, "diskuse", 1, 3, false) + defer tc.cleanup() + + fmt.Printf("Test: Servers don't use too much disk space ...\n") + + tc.join(0) + ck := tc.clerk() + g0 := tc.groups[0] + + k1 := randstring(10) + k1v := randstring(10) + ck.Append(k1, k1v) + + k2 := randstring(10) + k2v := randstring(10) + ck.Put(k2, k2v) + + k3 := randstring(10) + k3v := randstring(10) + ck.Put(k3, k3v) + + k4 := randstring(10) + k4v := randstring(10) + ck.Append(k4, k4v) + + n := 100 + (rand.Int() % 20) + for i := 0; i < n; i++ { + k2v = randstring(1000) + ck.Put(k2, k2v) + x := randstring(1) + ck.Append(k3, x) + k3v += x + ck.Get(k4) + } + + time.Sleep(100 * time.Millisecond) + k2v = randstring(1000) + ck.Put(k2, k2v) + time.Sleep(100 * time.Millisecond) + x := randstring(1) + ck.Append(k3, x) + k3v += x + time.Sleep(100 * time.Millisecond) + ck.Get(k4) + + // let all the replicas tick(). + time.Sleep(2100 * time.Millisecond) + + max := int64(20 * 1000) + + { + nb := tc.space() + if nb > max { + t.Fatalf("using too many bytes on disk (%v)", nb) + } + } + + for i := 0; i < len(g0.servers); i++ { + tc.kill1(0, i, false) + } + + { + nb := tc.space() + if nb > max { + t.Fatalf("using too many bytes on disk (%v > %v)", nb, max) + } + } + + for i := 0; i < len(g0.servers); i++ { + tc.start1(0, i) + } + time.Sleep(time.Second) + + if ck.Get(k1) != k1v { + t.Fatalf("wrong value for k1") + } + if ck.Get(k2) != k2v { + t.Fatalf("wrong value for k2") + } + if ck.Get(k3) != k3v { + t.Fatalf("wrong value for k3") + } + + { + nb := tc.space() + if nb > max { + t.Fatalf("using too many bytes on disk (%v > %v)", nb, max) + } + } + + fmt.Printf(" ... Passed\n") +} + +// +// check that the persistent state isn't too big for Appends. +// +func Test5AppendUse(t *testing.T) { + tc := setup(t, "appenduse", 1, 3, false) + defer tc.cleanup() + + fmt.Printf("Test: Servers don't use too much disk space for Appends ...\n") + + tc.join(0) + ck := tc.clerk() + g0 := tc.groups[0] + + k1 := randstring(10) + k1v := randstring(10) + ck.Append(k1, k1v) + + k2 := randstring(10) + k2v := randstring(10) + ck.Put(k2, k2v) + + k3 := randstring(10) + k3v := randstring(10) + ck.Put(k3, k3v) + + k4 := randstring(10) + k4v := randstring(10) + ck.Append(k4, k4v) + + n := 100 + (rand.Int() % 20) + for i := 0; i < n; i++ { + k2v = randstring(1000) + ck.Put(k2, k2v) + x := randstring(1000) + ck.Append(k3, x) + k3v += x + ck.Get(k4) + } + + time.Sleep(100 * time.Millisecond) + k2v = randstring(1000) + ck.Put(k2, k2v) + time.Sleep(100 * time.Millisecond) + x := randstring(1) + ck.Append(k3, x) + k3v += x + time.Sleep(100 * time.Millisecond) + ck.Get(k4) + + // let all the replicas tick(). + time.Sleep(2100 * time.Millisecond) + + max := int64(3*n*1000) + 20000 + + { + nb := tc.space() + if nb > max { + t.Fatalf("using too many bytes on disk (%v > %v)", nb, max) + } + } + + for i := 0; i < len(g0.servers); i++ { + tc.kill1(0, i, false) + } + + { + nb := tc.space() + if nb > max { + t.Fatalf("using too many bytes on disk (%v > %v)", nb, max) + } + } + + for i := 0; i < len(g0.servers); i++ { + tc.start1(0, i) + } + time.Sleep(time.Second) + + if ck.Get(k3) != k3v { + t.Fatalf("wrong value for k3") + } + time.Sleep(100 * time.Millisecond) + if ck.Get(k2) != k2v { + t.Fatalf("wrong value for k2") + } + time.Sleep(1100 * time.Millisecond) + if ck.Get(k1) != k1v { + t.Fatalf("wrong value for k1") + } + + { + nb := tc.space() + if nb > max { + t.Fatalf("using too many bytes on disk (%v > %v)", nb, max) + } + } + + fmt.Printf(" ... Passed\n") +} + +// +// recovery if a single replica loses disk content. +// +func Test5OneLostDisk(t *testing.T) { + tc := setup(t, "onelostdisk", 1, 3, false) + defer tc.cleanup() + + fmt.Printf("Test: One server loses disk and restarts ...\n") + + tc.join(0) + ck := tc.clerk() + g0 := tc.groups[0] + + k1 := randstring(10) + k1v := "" + k2 := randstring(10) + k2v := "" + + for i := 0; i < 7+(rand.Int()%7); i++ { + x := randstring(10) + ck.Append(k1, x) + k1v += x + k2v = randstring(10) + ck.Put(k2, k2v) + } + + time.Sleep(300 * time.Millisecond) + ck.Get(k1) + time.Sleep(300 * time.Millisecond) + ck.Get(k2) + + for i := 0; i < len(g0.servers); i++ { + k1x := ck.Get(k1) + if k1x != k1v { + t.Fatalf("wrong value for k1, i=%v, wanted=%v, got=%v", i, k1v, k1x) + } + k2x := ck.Get(k2) + if k2x != k2v { + t.Fatalf("wrong value for k2") + } + + tc.kill1(0, i, true) + time.Sleep(1 * time.Second) + + { + z := randstring(10) + k1v += z + ck.Append(k1, z) + + k2v = randstring(10) + ck.Put(k2, k2v) + } + + tc.start1(0, i) + + { + z := randstring(10) + k1v += z + ck.Append(k1, z) + + time.Sleep(10 * time.Millisecond) + z = randstring(10) + k1v += z + ck.Append(k1, z) + } + + time.Sleep(2 * time.Second) + } + + if ck.Get(k1) != k1v { + t.Fatalf("wrong value for k1") + } + if ck.Get(k2) != k2v { + t.Fatalf("wrong value for k2") + } + + fmt.Printf(" ... Passed\n") +} + +// +// one disk lost while another replica is merely down. +// +func Test5OneLostOneDown(t *testing.T) { + tc := setup(t, "onelostonedown", 1, 5, false) + defer tc.cleanup() + + fmt.Printf("Test: One server down, another loses disk ...\n") + + tc.join(0) + ck := tc.clerk() + g0 := tc.groups[0] + + k1 := randstring(10) + k1v := "" + k2 := randstring(10) + k2v := "" + + for i := 0; i < 7+(rand.Int()%7); i++ { + x := randstring(10) + ck.Append(k1, x) + k1v += x + k2v = randstring(10) + ck.Put(k2, k2v) + } + + time.Sleep(300 * time.Millisecond) + ck.Get(k1) + time.Sleep(300 * time.Millisecond) + ck.Get(k2) + + tc.kill1(0, 0, false) + + for i := 1; i < len(g0.servers); i++ { + k1x := ck.Get(k1) + if k1x != k1v { + t.Fatalf("wrong value for k1, i=%v, wanted=%v, got=%v", i, k1v, k1x) + } + k2x := ck.Get(k2) + if k2x != k2v { + t.Fatalf("wrong value for k2") + } + + tc.kill1(0, i, true) + time.Sleep(1 * time.Second) + + { + z := randstring(10) + k1v += z + ck.Append(k1, z) + + k2v = randstring(10) + ck.Put(k2, k2v) + } + + tc.start1(0, i) + + { + z := randstring(10) + k1v += z + ck.Append(k1, z) + + time.Sleep(10 * time.Millisecond) + z = randstring(10) + k1v += z + ck.Append(k1, z) + } + + time.Sleep(2 * time.Second) + } + + if ck.Get(k1) != k1v { + t.Fatalf("wrong value for k1") + } + if ck.Get(k2) != k2v { + t.Fatalf("wrong value for k2") + } + + tc.start1(0, 0) + ck.Put("a", "b") + time.Sleep(1 * time.Second) + ck.Put("a", "c") + if ck.Get(k1) != k1v { + t.Fatalf("wrong value for k1") + } + if ck.Get(k2) != k2v { + t.Fatalf("wrong value for k2") + } + + fmt.Printf(" ... Passed\n") +} + +// check that all known appends are present in a value, +// and are in order for each concurrent client. +func checkAppends(t *testing.T, v string, counts []int) { + nclients := len(counts) + for i := 0; i < nclients; i++ { + lastoff := -1 + for j := 0; j < counts[i]; j++ { + wanted := "x " + strconv.Itoa(i) + " " + strconv.Itoa(j) + " y" + off := strings.Index(v, wanted) + if off < 0 { + t.Fatalf("missing element %v %v in Append result", i, j) + } + off1 := strings.LastIndex(v, wanted) + if off1 != off { + t.Fatalf("duplicate element %v %v in Append result", i, j) + } + if off <= lastoff { + t.Fatalf("wrong order for element in Append result") + } + lastoff = off + } + } +} + +func doConcurrentCrash(t *testing.T, unreliable bool) { + tc := setup(t, "concurrentcrash", 1, 3, unreliable) + defer tc.cleanup() + + tc.join(0) + ck := tc.clerk() + + k1 := randstring(10) + ck.Put(k1, "") + + stop := int32(0) + + ff := func(me int, ch chan int) { + ret := -1 + defer func() { ch <- ret }() + myck := tc.clerk() + n := 0 + for atomic.LoadInt32(&stop) == 0 || n < 5 { + myck.Append(k1, "x "+strconv.Itoa(me)+" "+strconv.Itoa(n)+" y") + n++ + time.Sleep(200 * time.Millisecond) + } + ret = n + } + + ncli := 5 + cha := []chan int{} + for i := 0; i < ncli; i++ { + cha = append(cha, make(chan int)) + go ff(i, cha[i]) + } + + for i := 0; i < 3; i++ { + tc.kill1(0, i%3, false) + time.Sleep(1000 * time.Millisecond) + ck.Get(k1) + tc.start1(0, i%3) + time.Sleep(3000 * time.Millisecond) + if unreliable { + time.Sleep(5000 * time.Millisecond) + } + ck.Get(k1) + } + + for i := 0; i < 3; i++ { + tc.kill1(0, i%3, true) + time.Sleep(1000 * time.Millisecond) + ck.Get(k1) + tc.start1(0, i%3) + time.Sleep(3000 * time.Millisecond) + if unreliable { + time.Sleep(5000 * time.Millisecond) + } + ck.Get(k1) + } + + time.Sleep(2 * time.Second) + atomic.StoreInt32(&stop, 1) + + counts := []int{} + for i := 0; i < ncli; i++ { + n := <-cha[i] + if n < 0 { + t.Fatal("client failed") + } + counts = append(counts, n) + } + + vx := ck.Get(k1) + checkAppends(t, vx, counts) + + for i := 0; i < 3; i++ { + tc.kill1(0, i, false) + if ck.Get(k1) != vx { + t.Fatalf("mismatch") + } + tc.start1(0, i) + if ck.Get(k1) != vx { + t.Fatalf("mismatch") + } + time.Sleep(3000 * time.Millisecond) + if unreliable { + time.Sleep(5000 * time.Millisecond) + } + if ck.Get(k1) != vx { + t.Fatalf("mismatch") + } + } +} + +func Test5ConcurrentCrashReliable(t *testing.T) { + fmt.Printf("Test: Concurrent Append and Crash ...\n") + doConcurrentCrash(t, false) + fmt.Printf(" ... Passed\n") +} + +// +// Append() at same time as crash. +// +func Test5Simultaneous(t *testing.T) { + tc := setup(t, "simultaneous", 1, 3, true) + defer tc.cleanup() + + fmt.Printf("Test: Simultaneous Append and Crash ...\n") + + tc.join(0) + ck := tc.clerk() + + k1 := randstring(10) + ck.Put(k1, "") + + ch := make(chan int) + + ff := func(x int) { + ret := -1 + defer func() { ch <- ret }() + myck := tc.clerk() + myck.Append(k1, "x "+strconv.Itoa(0)+" "+strconv.Itoa(x)+" y") + ret = 1 + } + + counts := []int{0} + + for i := 0; i < 50; i++ { + go ff(i) + + time.Sleep(time.Duration(rand.Int()%200) * time.Millisecond) + if (rand.Int() % 1000) < 500 { + tc.kill1(0, i%3, false) + } else { + tc.kill1(0, i%3, true) + } + time.Sleep(1000 * time.Millisecond) + vx := ck.Get(k1) + checkAppends(t, vx, counts) + tc.start1(0, i%3) + time.Sleep(2200 * time.Millisecond) + + z := <-ch + if z != 1 { + t.Fatalf("Append thread failed") + } + counts[0] += z + } + + fmt.Printf(" ... Passed\n") +} + +// +// recovery with mixture of lost disks and simple reboot. +// does a replica that loses its disk wait for majority? +// +func Test5RejoinMix1(t *testing.T) { + tc := setup(t, "rejoinmix1", 1, 5, false) + defer tc.cleanup() + + fmt.Printf("Test: replica waits correctly after disk loss ...\n") + + tc.join(0) + ck := tc.clerk() + + k1 := randstring(10) + k1v := "" + + for i := 0; i < 7+(rand.Int()%7); i++ { + x := randstring(10) + ck.Append(k1, x) + k1v += x + } + + time.Sleep(300 * time.Millisecond) + ck.Get(k1) + + tc.kill1(0, 0, false) + + for i := 0; i < 2; i++ { + x := randstring(10) + ck.Append(k1, x) + k1v += x + } + + time.Sleep(300 * time.Millisecond) + ck.Get(k1) + time.Sleep(300 * time.Millisecond) + + tc.kill1(0, 1, true) + tc.kill1(0, 2, true) + + tc.kill1(0, 3, false) + tc.kill1(0, 4, false) + + tc.start1(0, 0) + tc.start1(0, 1) + tc.start1(0, 2) + time.Sleep(300 * time.Millisecond) + + // check that requests are not executed. + ch := make(chan string) + go func() { + ck1 := tc.clerk() + v := ck1.Get(k1) + ch <- v + }() + + select { + case <-ch: + t.Fatalf("Get should not have succeeded.") + case <-time.After(3 * time.Second): + // this is what we hope for. + } + + tc.start1(0, 3) + tc.start1(0, 4) + + { + x := randstring(10) + ck.Append(k1, x) + k1v += x + } + + v := ck.Get(k1) + if v != k1v { + t.Fatalf("Get returned wrong value") + } + + fmt.Printf(" ... Passed\n") +} + +// +// does a replica that loses its state avoid +// changing its mind about Paxos agreements? +// +func Test5RejoinMix3(t *testing.T) { + tc := setup(t, "rejoinmix3", 1, 5, false) + defer tc.cleanup() + + fmt.Printf("Test: replica Paxos resumes correctly after disk loss ...\n") + + tc.join(0) + ck := tc.clerk() + + k1 := randstring(10) + k1v := "" + + for i := 0; i < 7+(rand.Int()%7); i++ { + x := randstring(10) + ck.Append(k1, x) + k1v += x + } + + time.Sleep(300 * time.Millisecond) + ck.Get(k1) + + // kill R1, R2. + tc.kill1(0, 1, false) + tc.kill1(0, 2, false) + + // R0, R3, and R4 are up. + for i := 0; i < 100+(rand.Int()%7); i++ { + x := randstring(10) + ck.Append(k1, x) + k1v += x + } + + // kill R0, lose disk. + tc.kill1(0, 0, true) + + time.Sleep(50 * time.Millisecond) + + // restart R1, R2, R0. + tc.start1(0, 1) + tc.start1(0, 2) + time.Sleep(1 * time.Millisecond) + tc.start1(0, 0) + + chx := make(chan bool) + x1 := randstring(10) + x2 := randstring(10) + go func() { ck.Append(k1, x1); chx <- true }() + time.Sleep(10 * time.Millisecond) + go func() { ck.Append(k1, x2); chx <- true }() + + <-chx + <-chx + + xv := ck.Get(k1) + if xv == k1v+x1+x2 || xv == k1v+x2+x1 { + // ok + } else { + t.Fatalf("wrong value") + } + + fmt.Printf(" ... Passed\n") +} diff --git a/src/kvpaxos/client.go b/src/kvpaxos/client.go new file mode 100644 index 0000000..f1a361c --- /dev/null +++ b/src/kvpaxos/client.go @@ -0,0 +1,84 @@ +package kvpaxos + +import "net/rpc" +import "crypto/rand" +import "math/big" + +import "fmt" + +type Clerk struct { + servers []string + // You will have to modify this struct. +} + +func nrand() int64 { + max := big.NewInt(int64(1) << 62) + bigx, _ := rand.Int(rand.Reader, max) + x := bigx.Int64() + return x +} + +func MakeClerk(servers []string) *Clerk { + ck := new(Clerk) + ck.servers = servers + // You'll have to add code here. + return ck +} + +// +// call() sends an RPC to the rpcname handler on server srv +// with arguments args, waits for the reply, and leaves the +// reply in reply. the reply argument should be a pointer +// to a reply structure. +// +// the return value is true if the server responded, and false +// if call() was not able to contact the server. in particular, +// the reply's contents are only valid if call() returned true. +// +// you should assume that call() will return an +// error after a while if the server is dead. +// don't provide your own time-out mechanism. +// +// please use call() to send all RPCs, in client.go and server.go. +// please don't change this function. +// +func call(srv string, rpcname string, + args interface{}, reply interface{}) bool { + c, errx := rpc.Dial("unix", srv) + if errx != nil { + return false + } + defer c.Close() + + err := c.Call(rpcname, args, reply) + if err == nil { + return true + } + + fmt.Println(err) + return false +} + +// +// fetch the current value for a key. +// returns "" if the key does not exist. +// keeps trying forever in the face of all other errors. +// +func (ck *Clerk) Get(key string) string { + // You will have to modify this function. + return "" +} + +// +// shared by Put and Append. +// +func (ck *Clerk) PutAppend(key string, value string, op string) { + // You will have to modify this function. +} + +func (ck *Clerk) Put(key string, value string) { + ck.PutAppend(key, value, "Put") +} +func (ck *Clerk) Append(key string, value string) { + ck.PutAppend(key, value, "Append") +} diff --git a/src/kvpaxos/common.go b/src/kvpaxos/common.go new file mode 100644 index 0000000..5618957 --- /dev/null +++ b/src/kvpaxos/common.go @@ -0,0 +1,33 @@ +package kvpaxos + +const ( + OK = "OK" + ErrNoKey = "ErrNoKey" +) + +type Err string + +// Put or Append +type PutAppendArgs struct { + // You'll have to add definitions here. + Key string + Value string + Op string // "Put" or "Append" + // You'll have to add definitions here. + // Field names must start with capital letters, + // otherwise RPC will break. +} + +type PutAppendReply struct { + Err Err +} + +type GetArgs struct { + Key string + // You'll have to add definitions here. +} + +type GetReply struct { + Err Err + Value string +} diff --git a/src/kvpaxos/server.go b/src/kvpaxos/server.go new file mode 100644 index 0000000..c3828da --- /dev/null +++ b/src/kvpaxos/server.go @@ -0,0 +1,144 @@ +package kvpaxos + +import "net" +import "fmt" +import "net/rpc" +import "log" +import "paxos" +import "sync" +import "sync/atomic" +import "os" +import "syscall" +import "encoding/gob" +import "math/rand" + + +const Debug = 0 + +func DPrintf(format string, a ...interface{}) (n int, err error) { + if Debug > 0 { + log.Printf(format, a...) + } + return +} + + +type Op struct { + // Your definitions here. + // Field names must start with capital letters, + // otherwise RPC will break. +} + +type KVPaxos struct { + mu sync.Mutex + l net.Listener + me int + dead int32 // for testing + unreliable int32 // for testing + px *paxos.Paxos + + // Your definitions here. +} + + +func (kv *KVPaxos) Get(args *GetArgs, reply *GetReply) error { + // Your code here. + return nil +} + +func (kv *KVPaxos) PutAppend(args *PutAppendArgs, reply *PutAppendReply) error { + // Your code here. + + return nil +} + +// tell the server to shut itself down. +// please do not change these two functions. +func (kv *KVPaxos) kill() { + DPrintf("Kill(%d): die\n", kv.me) + atomic.StoreInt32(&kv.dead, 1) + kv.l.Close() + kv.px.Kill() +} + +// call this to find out if the server is dead. +func (kv *KVPaxos) isdead() bool { + return atomic.LoadInt32(&kv.dead) != 0 +} + +// please do not change these two functions. +func (kv *KVPaxos) setunreliable(what bool) { + if what { + atomic.StoreInt32(&kv.unreliable, 1) + } else { + atomic.StoreInt32(&kv.unreliable, 0) + } +} + +func (kv *KVPaxos) isunreliable() bool { + return atomic.LoadInt32(&kv.unreliable) != 0 +} + +// +// servers[] contains the ports of the set of +// servers that will cooperate via Paxos to +// form the fault-tolerant key/value service. +// me is the index of the current server in servers[]. +// +func StartServer(servers []string, me int) *KVPaxos { + // call gob.Register on structures you want + // Go's RPC library to marshall/unmarshall. + gob.Register(Op{}) + + kv := new(KVPaxos) + kv.me = me + + // Your initialization code here. + + rpcs := rpc.NewServer() + rpcs.Register(kv) + + kv.px = paxos.Make(servers, me, rpcs) + + os.Remove(servers[me]) + l, e := net.Listen("unix", servers[me]) + if e != nil { + log.Fatal("listen error: ", e) + } + kv.l = l + + + // please do not change any of the following code, + // or do anything to subvert it. + + go func() { + for kv.isdead() == false { + conn, err := kv.l.Accept() + if err == nil && kv.isdead() == false { + if kv.isunreliable() && (rand.Int63()%1000) < 100 { + // discard the request. + conn.Close() + } else if kv.isunreliable() && (rand.Int63()%1000) < 200 { + // process the request but force discard of reply. + c1 := conn.(*net.UnixConn) + f, _ := c1.File() + err := syscall.Shutdown(int(f.Fd()), syscall.SHUT_WR) + if err != nil { + fmt.Printf("shutdown: %v\n", err) + } + go rpcs.ServeConn(conn) + } else { + go rpcs.ServeConn(conn) + } + } else if err == nil { + conn.Close() + } + if err != nil && kv.isdead() == false { + fmt.Printf("KVPaxos(%v) accept: %v\n", me, err.Error()) + kv.kill() + } + } + }() + + return kv +} diff --git a/src/kvpaxos/test_test.go b/src/kvpaxos/test_test.go new file mode 100644 index 0000000..53584f6 --- /dev/null +++ b/src/kvpaxos/test_test.go @@ -0,0 +1,711 @@ +package kvpaxos + +import "testing" +import "runtime" +import "strconv" +import "os" +import "time" +import "fmt" +import "math/rand" +import "strings" +import "sync/atomic" + +func check(t *testing.T, ck *Clerk, key string, value string) { + v := ck.Get(key) + if v != value { + t.Fatalf("Get(%v) -> %v, expected %v", key, v, value) + } +} + +func port(tag string, host int) string { + s := "/var/tmp/824-" + s += strconv.Itoa(os.Getuid()) + "/" + os.Mkdir(s, 0777) + s += "kv-" + s += strconv.Itoa(os.Getpid()) + "-" + s += tag + "-" + s += strconv.Itoa(host) + return s +} + +func cleanup(kva []*KVPaxos) { + for i := 0; i < len(kva); i++ { + if kva[i] != nil { + kva[i].kill() + } + } +} + +// predict effect of Append(k, val) if old value is prev. +func NextValue(prev string, val string) string { + return prev + val +} + +func TestBasic(t *testing.T) { + runtime.GOMAXPROCS(4) + + const nservers = 3 + var kva []*KVPaxos = make([]*KVPaxos, nservers) + var kvh []string = make([]string, nservers) + defer cleanup(kva) + + for i := 0; i < nservers; i++ { + kvh[i] = port("basic", i) + } + for i := 0; i < nservers; i++ { + kva[i] = StartServer(kvh, i) + } + + ck := MakeClerk(kvh) + var cka [nservers]*Clerk + for i := 0; i < nservers; i++ { + cka[i] = MakeClerk([]string{kvh[i]}) + } + + fmt.Printf("Test: Basic put/append/get ...\n") + + ck.Append("app", "x") + ck.Append("app", "y") + check(t, ck, "app", "xy") + + ck.Put("a", "aa") + check(t, ck, "a", "aa") + + cka[1].Put("a", "aaa") + + check(t, cka[2], "a", "aaa") + check(t, cka[1], "a", "aaa") + check(t, ck, "a", "aaa") + + fmt.Printf(" ... Passed\n") + + fmt.Printf("Test: Concurrent clients ...\n") + + for iters := 0; iters < 20; iters++ { + const npara = 15 + var ca [npara]chan bool + for nth := 0; nth < npara; nth++ { + ca[nth] = make(chan bool) + go func(me int) { + defer func() { ca[me] <- true }() + ci := (rand.Int() % nservers) + myck := MakeClerk([]string{kvh[ci]}) + if (rand.Int() % 1000) < 500 { + myck.Put("b", strconv.Itoa(rand.Int())) + } else { + myck.Get("b") + } + }(nth) + } + for nth := 0; nth < npara; nth++ { + <-ca[nth] + } + var va [nservers]string + for i := 0; i < nservers; i++ { + va[i] = cka[i].Get("b") + if va[i] != va[0] { + t.Fatalf("mismatch") + } + } + } + + fmt.Printf(" ... Passed\n") + + time.Sleep(1 * time.Second) +} + +func TestDone(t *testing.T) { + runtime.GOMAXPROCS(4) + + const nservers = 3 + var kva []*KVPaxos = make([]*KVPaxos, nservers) + var kvh []string = make([]string, nservers) + defer cleanup(kva) + + for i := 0; i < nservers; i++ { + kvh[i] = port("done", i) + } + for i := 0; i < nservers; i++ { + kva[i] = StartServer(kvh, i) + } + ck := MakeClerk(kvh) + var cka [nservers]*Clerk + for pi := 0; pi < nservers; pi++ { + cka[pi] = MakeClerk([]string{kvh[pi]}) + } + + fmt.Printf("Test: server frees Paxos log memory...\n") + + ck.Put("a", "aa") + check(t, ck, "a", "aa") + + runtime.GC() + var m0 runtime.MemStats + runtime.ReadMemStats(&m0) + // rtm's m0.Alloc is 2 MB + + sz := 1000000 + items := 10 + + for iters := 0; iters < 2; iters++ { + for i := 0; i < items; i++ { + key := strconv.Itoa(i) + value := make([]byte, sz) + for j := 0; j < len(value); j++ { + value[j] = byte((rand.Int() % 100) + 1) + } + ck.Put(key, string(value)) + check(t, cka[i%nservers], key, string(value)) + } + } + + // Put and Get to each of the replicas, in case + // the Done information is piggybacked on + // the Paxos proposer messages. + for iters := 0; iters < 2; iters++ { + for pi := 0; pi < nservers; pi++ { + cka[pi].Put("a", "aa") + check(t, cka[pi], "a", "aa") + } + } + + time.Sleep(1 * time.Second) + + runtime.GC() + var m1 runtime.MemStats + runtime.ReadMemStats(&m1) + // rtm's m1.Alloc is 45 MB + + // fmt.Printf(" Memory: before %v, after %v\n", m0.Alloc, m1.Alloc) + + allowed := m0.Alloc + uint64(nservers*items*sz*2) + if m1.Alloc > allowed { + t.Fatalf("Memory use did not shrink enough (Used: %v, allowed: %v).\n", m1.Alloc, allowed) + } + + fmt.Printf(" ... Passed\n") +} + +func pp(tag string, src int, dst int) string { + s := "/var/tmp/824-" + s += strconv.Itoa(os.Getuid()) + "/" + s += "kv-" + tag + "-" + s += strconv.Itoa(os.Getpid()) + "-" + s += strconv.Itoa(src) + "-" + s += strconv.Itoa(dst) + return s +} + +func cleanpp(tag string, n int) { + for i := 0; i < n; i++ { + for j := 0; j < n; j++ { + ij := pp(tag, i, j) + os.Remove(ij) + } + } +} + +func part(t *testing.T, tag string, npaxos int, p1 []int, p2 []int, p3 []int) { + cleanpp(tag, npaxos) + + pa := [][]int{p1, p2, p3} + for pi := 0; pi < len(pa); pi++ { + p := pa[pi] + for i := 0; i < len(p); i++ { + for j := 0; j < len(p); j++ { + ij := pp(tag, p[i], p[j]) + pj := port(tag, p[j]) + err := os.Link(pj, ij) + if err != nil { + t.Fatalf("os.Link(%v, %v): %v\n", pj, ij, err) + } + } + } + } +} + +func TestPartition(t *testing.T) { + runtime.GOMAXPROCS(4) + + tag := "partition" + const nservers = 5 + var kva []*KVPaxos = make([]*KVPaxos, nservers) + defer cleanup(kva) + defer cleanpp(tag, nservers) + + for i := 0; i < nservers; i++ { + var kvh []string = make([]string, nservers) + for j := 0; j < nservers; j++ { + if j == i { + kvh[j] = port(tag, i) + } else { + kvh[j] = pp(tag, i, j) + } + } + kva[i] = StartServer(kvh, i) + } + defer part(t, tag, nservers, []int{}, []int{}, []int{}) + + var cka [nservers]*Clerk + for i := 0; i < nservers; i++ { + cka[i] = MakeClerk([]string{port(tag, i)}) + } + + fmt.Printf("Test: No partition ...\n") + + part(t, tag, nservers, []int{0, 1, 2, 3, 4}, []int{}, []int{}) + cka[0].Put("1", "12") + cka[2].Put("1", "13") + check(t, cka[3], "1", "13") + + fmt.Printf(" ... Passed\n") + + fmt.Printf("Test: Progress in majority ...\n") + + part(t, tag, nservers, []int{2, 3, 4}, []int{0, 1}, []int{}) + cka[2].Put("1", "14") + check(t, cka[4], "1", "14") + + fmt.Printf(" ... Passed\n") + + fmt.Printf("Test: No progress in minority ...\n") + + done0 := make(chan bool) + done1 := make(chan bool) + go func() { + cka[0].Put("1", "15") + done0 <- true + }() + go func() { + cka[1].Get("1") + done1 <- true + }() + + select { + case <-done0: + t.Fatalf("Put in minority completed") + case <-done1: + t.Fatalf("Get in minority completed") + case <-time.After(time.Second): + } + + check(t, cka[4], "1", "14") + cka[3].Put("1", "16") + check(t, cka[4], "1", "16") + + fmt.Printf(" ... Passed\n") + + fmt.Printf("Test: Completion after heal ...\n") + + part(t, tag, nservers, []int{0, 2, 3, 4}, []int{1}, []int{}) + + select { + case <-done0: + case <-time.After(30 * 100 * time.Millisecond): + t.Fatalf("Put did not complete") + } + + select { + case <-done1: + t.Fatalf("Get in minority completed") + default: + } + + check(t, cka[4], "1", "15") + check(t, cka[0], "1", "15") + + part(t, tag, nservers, []int{0, 1, 2}, []int{3, 4}, []int{}) + + select { + case <-done1: + case <-time.After(100 * 100 * time.Millisecond): + t.Fatalf("Get did not complete") + } + + check(t, cka[1], "1", "15") + + fmt.Printf(" ... Passed\n") +} + +func randclerk(kvh []string) *Clerk { + sa := make([]string, len(kvh)) + copy(sa, kvh) + for i := range sa { + j := rand.Intn(i + 1) + sa[i], sa[j] = sa[j], sa[i] + } + return MakeClerk(sa) +} + +// check that all known appends are present in a value, +// and are in order for each concurrent client. +func checkAppends(t *testing.T, v string, counts []int) { + nclients := len(counts) + for i := 0; i < nclients; i++ { + lastoff := -1 + for j := 0; j < counts[i]; j++ { + wanted := "x " + strconv.Itoa(i) + " " + strconv.Itoa(j) + " y" + off := strings.Index(v, wanted) + if off < 0 { + t.Fatalf("missing element in Append result") + } + off1 := strings.LastIndex(v, wanted) + if off1 != off { + t.Fatalf("duplicate element in Append result") + } + if off <= lastoff { + t.Fatalf("wrong order for element in Append result") + } + lastoff = off + } + } +} + +func TestUnreliable(t *testing.T) { + runtime.GOMAXPROCS(4) + + const nservers = 3 + var kva []*KVPaxos = make([]*KVPaxos, nservers) + var kvh []string = make([]string, nservers) + defer cleanup(kva) + + for i := 0; i < nservers; i++ { + kvh[i] = port("un", i) + } + for i := 0; i < nservers; i++ { + kva[i] = StartServer(kvh, i) + kva[i].setunreliable(true) + } + + ck := MakeClerk(kvh) + var cka [nservers]*Clerk + for i := 0; i < nservers; i++ { + cka[i] = MakeClerk([]string{kvh[i]}) + } + + fmt.Printf("Test: Basic put/get, unreliable ...\n") + + ck.Put("a", "aa") + check(t, ck, "a", "aa") + + cka[1].Put("a", "aaa") + + check(t, cka[2], "a", "aaa") + check(t, cka[1], "a", "aaa") + check(t, ck, "a", "aaa") + + fmt.Printf(" ... Passed\n") + + fmt.Printf("Test: Sequence of puts, unreliable ...\n") + + for iters := 0; iters < 6; iters++ { + const ncli = 5 + var ca [ncli]chan bool + for cli := 0; cli < ncli; cli++ { + ca[cli] = make(chan bool) + go func(me int) { + ok := false + defer func() { ca[me] <- ok }() + myck := randclerk(kvh) + key := strconv.Itoa(me) + vv := myck.Get(key) + myck.Append(key, "0") + vv = NextValue(vv, "0") + myck.Append(key, "1") + vv = NextValue(vv, "1") + myck.Append(key, "2") + vv = NextValue(vv, "2") + time.Sleep(100 * time.Millisecond) + if myck.Get(key) != vv { + t.Fatalf("wrong value") + } + if myck.Get(key) != vv { + t.Fatalf("wrong value") + } + ok = true + }(cli) + } + for cli := 0; cli < ncli; cli++ { + x := <-ca[cli] + if x == false { + t.Fatalf("failure") + } + } + } + + fmt.Printf(" ... Passed\n") + + fmt.Printf("Test: Concurrent clients, unreliable ...\n") + + for iters := 0; iters < 20; iters++ { + const ncli = 15 + var ca [ncli]chan bool + for cli := 0; cli < ncli; cli++ { + ca[cli] = make(chan bool) + go func(me int) { + defer func() { ca[me] <- true }() + myck := randclerk(kvh) + if (rand.Int() % 1000) < 500 { + myck.Put("b", strconv.Itoa(rand.Int())) + } else { + myck.Get("b") + } + }(cli) + } + for cli := 0; cli < ncli; cli++ { + <-ca[cli] + } + + var va [nservers]string + for i := 0; i < nservers; i++ { + va[i] = cka[i].Get("b") + if va[i] != va[0] { + t.Fatalf("mismatch; 0 got %v, %v got %v", va[0], i, va[i]) + } + } + } + + fmt.Printf(" ... Passed\n") + + fmt.Printf("Test: Concurrent Append to same key, unreliable ...\n") + + ck.Put("k", "") + + ff := func(me int, ch chan int) { + ret := -1 + defer func() { ch <- ret }() + myck := randclerk(kvh) + n := 0 + for n < 5 { + myck.Append("k", "x "+strconv.Itoa(me)+" "+strconv.Itoa(n)+" y") + n++ + } + ret = n + } + + ncli := 5 + cha := []chan int{} + for i := 0; i < ncli; i++ { + cha = append(cha, make(chan int)) + go ff(i, cha[i]) + } + + counts := []int{} + for i := 0; i < ncli; i++ { + n := <-cha[i] + if n < 0 { + t.Fatal("client failed") + } + counts = append(counts, n) + } + + vx := ck.Get("k") + checkAppends(t, vx, counts) + + { + for i := 0; i < nservers; i++ { + vi := cka[i].Get("k") + if vi != vx { + t.Fatalf("mismatch; 0 got %v, %v got %v", vx, i, vi) + } + } + } + + fmt.Printf(" ... Passed\n") + + time.Sleep(1 * time.Second) +} + +func TestHole(t *testing.T) { + runtime.GOMAXPROCS(4) + + fmt.Printf("Test: Tolerates holes in paxos sequence ...\n") + + tag := "hole" + const nservers = 5 + var kva []*KVPaxos = make([]*KVPaxos, nservers) + defer cleanup(kva) + defer cleanpp(tag, nservers) + + for i := 0; i < nservers; i++ { + var kvh []string = make([]string, nservers) + for j := 0; j < nservers; j++ { + if j == i { + kvh[j] = port(tag, i) + } else { + kvh[j] = pp(tag, i, j) + } + } + kva[i] = StartServer(kvh, i) + } + defer part(t, tag, nservers, []int{}, []int{}, []int{}) + + for iters := 0; iters < 5; iters++ { + part(t, tag, nservers, []int{0, 1, 2, 3, 4}, []int{}, []int{}) + + ck2 := MakeClerk([]string{port(tag, 2)}) + ck2.Put("q", "q") + + done := int32(0) + const nclients = 10 + var ca [nclients]chan bool + for xcli := 0; xcli < nclients; xcli++ { + ca[xcli] = make(chan bool) + go func(cli int) { + ok := false + defer func() { ca[cli] <- ok }() + var cka [nservers]*Clerk + for i := 0; i < nservers; i++ { + cka[i] = MakeClerk([]string{port(tag, i)}) + } + key := strconv.Itoa(cli) + last := "" + cka[0].Put(key, last) + for atomic.LoadInt32(&done) == 0 { + ci := (rand.Int() % 2) + if (rand.Int() % 1000) < 500 { + nv := strconv.Itoa(rand.Int()) + cka[ci].Put(key, nv) + last = nv + } else { + v := cka[ci].Get(key) + if v != last { + t.Fatalf("%v: wrong value, key %v, wanted %v, got %v", + cli, key, last, v) + } + } + } + ok = true + }(xcli) + } + + time.Sleep(3 * time.Second) + + part(t, tag, nservers, []int{2, 3, 4}, []int{0, 1}, []int{}) + + // can majority partition make progress even though + // minority servers were interrupted in the middle of + // paxos agreements? + check(t, ck2, "q", "q") + ck2.Put("q", "qq") + check(t, ck2, "q", "qq") + + // restore network, wait for all threads to exit. + part(t, tag, nservers, []int{0, 1, 2, 3, 4}, []int{}, []int{}) + atomic.StoreInt32(&done, 1) + ok := true + for i := 0; i < nclients; i++ { + z := <-ca[i] + ok = ok && z + } + if ok == false { + t.Fatal("something is wrong") + } + check(t, ck2, "q", "qq") + } + + fmt.Printf(" ... Passed\n") +} + +func TestManyPartition(t *testing.T) { + runtime.GOMAXPROCS(4) + + fmt.Printf("Test: Many clients, changing partitions ...\n") + + tag := "many" + const nservers = 5 + var kva []*KVPaxos = make([]*KVPaxos, nservers) + defer cleanup(kva) + defer cleanpp(tag, nservers) + + for i := 0; i < nservers; i++ { + var kvh []string = make([]string, nservers) + for j := 0; j < nservers; j++ { + if j == i { + kvh[j] = port(tag, i) + } else { + kvh[j] = pp(tag, i, j) + } + } + kva[i] = StartServer(kvh, i) + kva[i].setunreliable(true) + } + defer part(t, tag, nservers, []int{}, []int{}, []int{}) + part(t, tag, nservers, []int{0, 1, 2, 3, 4}, []int{}, []int{}) + + done := int32(0) + + // re-partition periodically + ch1 := make(chan bool) + go func() { + defer func() { ch1 <- true }() + for atomic.LoadInt32(&done) == 0 { + var a [nservers]int + for i := 0; i < nservers; i++ { + a[i] = (rand.Int() % 3) + } + pa := make([][]int, 3) + for i := 0; i < 3; i++ { + pa[i] = make([]int, 0) + for j := 0; j < nservers; j++ { + if a[j] == i { + pa[i] = append(pa[i], j) + } + } + } + part(t, tag, nservers, pa[0], pa[1], pa[2]) + time.Sleep(time.Duration(rand.Int63()%200) * time.Millisecond) + } + }() + + const nclients = 10 + var ca [nclients]chan bool + for xcli := 0; xcli < nclients; xcli++ { + ca[xcli] = make(chan bool) + go func(cli int) { + ok := false + defer func() { ca[cli] <- ok }() + sa := make([]string, nservers) + for i := 0; i < nservers; i++ { + sa[i] = port(tag, i) + } + for i := range sa { + j := rand.Intn(i + 1) + sa[i], sa[j] = sa[j], sa[i] + } + myck := MakeClerk(sa) + key := strconv.Itoa(cli) + last := "" + myck.Put(key, last) + for atomic.LoadInt32(&done) == 0 { + if (rand.Int() % 1000) < 500 { + nv := strconv.Itoa(rand.Int()) + myck.Append(key, nv) + last = NextValue(last, nv) + } else { + v := myck.Get(key) + if v != last { + t.Fatalf("%v: get wrong value, key %v, wanted %v, got %v", + cli, key, last, v) + } + } + } + ok = true + }(xcli) + } + + time.Sleep(20 * time.Second) + atomic.StoreInt32(&done, 1) + <-ch1 + part(t, tag, nservers, []int{0, 1, 2, 3, 4}, []int{}, []int{}) + + ok := true + for i := 0; i < nclients; i++ { + z := <-ca[i] + ok = ok && z + } + + if ok { + fmt.Printf(" ... Passed\n") + } +} diff --git a/src/kvraft/client.go b/src/kvraft/client.go new file mode 100644 index 0000000..def7e3c --- /dev/null +++ b/src/kvraft/client.go @@ -0,0 +1,110 @@ +package raftkv + +import "labrpc" +import "crypto/rand" +import ( + "math/big" + "time" + "fmt" + "strconv" +) + + +type Clerk struct { + servers []*labrpc.ClientEnd + // You will have to modify this struct. + id int + cnt int +} + +func nrand() int64 { + max := big.NewInt(int64(1) << 62) + bigx, _ := rand.Int(rand.Reader, max) + x := bigx.Int64() + return x +} + +func MakeClerk(servers []*labrpc.ClientEnd) *Clerk { + ck := new(Clerk) + ck.servers = servers + // You'll have to add code here. + fmt.Println("MakeClerk") + ck.id = 0 + ck.cnt = 0 + return ck +} + +// +// fetch the current value for a key. +// returns "" if the key does not exist. +// keeps trying forever in the face of all other errors. +// +// you can send an RPC with code like this: +// ok := ck.servers[i].Call("RaftKV.Get", &args, &reply) +// +// the types of args and reply (including whether they are pointers) +// must match the declared types of the RPC handler function's +// arguments. and reply must be passed as a pointer. +// +func (ck *Clerk) Get(key string) string { + value := "" + success := false + for !success { + for i:=0;i logsize { + logsize = n + } + } + return logsize +} + +// attach server i to servers listed in to +// caller must hold cfg.mu +func (cfg *config) connectUnlocked(i int, to []int) { + // log.Printf("connect peer %d to %v\n", i, to) + + // outgoing socket files + for j := 0; j < len(to); j++ { + endname := cfg.endnames[i][to[j]] + cfg.net.Enable(endname, true) + } + + // incoming socket files + for j := 0; j < len(to); j++ { + endname := cfg.endnames[to[j]][i] + cfg.net.Enable(endname, true) + } +} + +func (cfg *config) connect(i int, to []int) { + cfg.mu.Lock() + defer cfg.mu.Unlock() + cfg.connectUnlocked(i, to) +} + +// detach server i from the servers listed in from +// caller must hold cfg.mu +func (cfg *config) disconnectUnlocked(i int, from []int) { + // log.Printf("disconnect peer %d from %v\n", i, from) + + // outgoing socket files + for j := 0; j < len(from); j++ { + if cfg.endnames[i] != nil { + endname := cfg.endnames[i][from[j]] + cfg.net.Enable(endname, false) + } + } + + // incoming socket files + for j := 0; j < len(from); j++ { + if cfg.endnames[j] != nil { + endname := cfg.endnames[from[j]][i] + cfg.net.Enable(endname, false) + } + } +} + +func (cfg *config) disconnect(i int, from []int) { + cfg.mu.Lock() + defer cfg.mu.Unlock() + cfg.disconnectUnlocked(i, from) +} + +func (cfg *config) All() []int { + all := make([]int, cfg.n) + for i := 0; i < cfg.n; i++ { + all[i] = i + } + return all +} + +func (cfg *config) ConnectAll() { + cfg.mu.Lock() + defer cfg.mu.Unlock() + for i := 0; i < cfg.n; i++ { + cfg.connectUnlocked(i, cfg.All()) + } +} + +// Sets up 2 partitions with connectivity between servers in each partition. +func (cfg *config) partition(p1 []int, p2 []int) { + cfg.mu.Lock() + defer cfg.mu.Unlock() + // log.Printf("partition servers into: %v %v\n", p1, p2) + for i := 0; i < len(p1); i++ { + cfg.disconnectUnlocked(p1[i], p2) + cfg.connectUnlocked(p1[i], p1) + } + for i := 0; i < len(p2); i++ { + cfg.disconnectUnlocked(p2[i], p1) + cfg.connectUnlocked(p2[i], p2) + } +} + +// Create a clerk with clerk specific server names. +// Give it connections to all of the servers, but for +// now enable only connections to servers in to[]. +func (cfg *config) makeClient(to []int) *Clerk { + cfg.mu.Lock() + defer cfg.mu.Unlock() + + // a fresh set of ClientEnds. + ends := make([]*labrpc.ClientEnd, cfg.n) + endnames := make([]string, cfg.n) + for j := 0; j < cfg.n; j++ { + endnames[j] = randstring(20) + ends[j] = cfg.net.MakeEnd(endnames[j]) + cfg.net.Connect(endnames[j], j) + } + + ck := MakeClerk(random_handles(ends)) + cfg.clerks[ck] = endnames + cfg.nextClientId++ + cfg.ConnectClientUnlocked(ck, to) + return ck +} + +func (cfg *config) deleteClient(ck *Clerk) { + cfg.mu.Lock() + defer cfg.mu.Unlock() + + v := cfg.clerks[ck] + for i := 0; i < len(v); i++ { + os.Remove(v[i]) + } + delete(cfg.clerks, ck) +} + +// caller should hold cfg.mu +func (cfg *config) ConnectClientUnlocked(ck *Clerk, to []int) { + // log.Printf("ConnectClient %v to %v\n", ck, to) + endnames := cfg.clerks[ck] + for j := 0; j < len(to); j++ { + s := endnames[to[j]] + cfg.net.Enable(s, true) + } +} + +func (cfg *config) ConnectClient(ck *Clerk, to []int) { + cfg.mu.Lock() + defer cfg.mu.Unlock() + cfg.ConnectClientUnlocked(ck, to) +} + +// caller should hold cfg.mu +func (cfg *config) DisconnectClientUnlocked(ck *Clerk, from []int) { + // log.Printf("DisconnectClient %v from %v\n", ck, from) + endnames := cfg.clerks[ck] + for j := 0; j < len(from); j++ { + s := endnames[from[j]] + cfg.net.Enable(s, false) + } +} + +func (cfg *config) DisconnectClient(ck *Clerk, from []int) { + cfg.mu.Lock() + defer cfg.mu.Unlock() + cfg.DisconnectClientUnlocked(ck, from) +} + +// Shutdown a server by isolating it +func (cfg *config) ShutdownServer(i int) { + cfg.mu.Lock() + defer cfg.mu.Unlock() + + cfg.disconnectUnlocked(i, cfg.All()) + + // disable client connections to the server. + // it's important to do this before creating + // the new Persister in saved[i], to avoid + // the possibility of the server returning a + // positive reply to an Append but persisting + // the result in the superseded Persister. + cfg.net.DeleteServer(i) + + // a fresh persister, in case old instance + // continues to update the Persister. + // but copy old persister's content so that we always + // pass Make() the last persisted state. + if cfg.saved[i] != nil { + cfg.saved[i] = cfg.saved[i].Copy() + } + + kv := cfg.kvservers[i] + if kv != nil { + cfg.mu.Unlock() + kv.Kill() + cfg.mu.Lock() + cfg.kvservers[i] = nil + } +} + +// If restart servers, first call ShutdownServer +func (cfg *config) StartServer(i int) { + cfg.mu.Lock() + + // a fresh set of outgoing ClientEnd names. + cfg.endnames[i] = make([]string, cfg.n) + for j := 0; j < cfg.n; j++ { + cfg.endnames[i][j] = randstring(20) + } + + // a fresh set of ClientEnds. + ends := make([]*labrpc.ClientEnd, cfg.n) + for j := 0; j < cfg.n; j++ { + ends[j] = cfg.net.MakeEnd(cfg.endnames[i][j]) + cfg.net.Connect(cfg.endnames[i][j], j) + } + + // a fresh persister, so old instance doesn't overwrite + // new instance's persisted state. + // give the fresh persister a copy of the old persister's + // state, so that the spec is that we pass StartKVServer() + // the last persisted state. + if cfg.saved[i] != nil { + cfg.saved[i] = cfg.saved[i].Copy() + } else { + cfg.saved[i] = raft.MakePersister() + } + cfg.mu.Unlock() + + cfg.kvservers[i] = StartKVServer(ends, i, cfg.saved[i], cfg.maxraftstate) + + kvsvc := labrpc.MakeService(cfg.kvservers[i]) + rfsvc := labrpc.MakeService(cfg.kvservers[i].rf) + srv := labrpc.MakeServer() + srv.AddService(kvsvc) + srv.AddService(rfsvc) + cfg.net.AddServer(i, srv) +} + +func (cfg *config) Leader() (bool, int) { + cfg.mu.Lock() + defer cfg.mu.Unlock() + + for i := 0; i < cfg.n; i++ { + _, is_leader := cfg.kvservers[i].rf.GetState() + if is_leader { + return true, i + } + } + return false, 0 +} + +// Partition servers into 2 groups and put current leader in minority +func (cfg *config) make_partition() ([]int, []int) { + _, l := cfg.Leader() + p1 := make([]int, cfg.n/2+1) + p2 := make([]int, cfg.n/2) + j := 0 + for i := 0; i < cfg.n; i++ { + if i != l { + if j < len(p1) { + p1[j] = i + } else { + p2[j-len(p1)] = i + } + j++ + } + } + p2[len(p2)-1] = l + return p1, p2 +} + +func make_config(t *testing.T, tag string, n int, unreliable bool, maxraftstate int) *config { + runtime.GOMAXPROCS(4) + cfg := &config{} + cfg.t = t + cfg.tag = tag + cfg.net = labrpc.MakeNetwork() + cfg.n = n + cfg.kvservers = make([]*RaftKV, cfg.n) + cfg.saved = make([]*raft.Persister, cfg.n) + cfg.endnames = make([][]string, cfg.n) + cfg.clerks = make(map[*Clerk][]string) + cfg.nextClientId = cfg.n + 1000 // client ids start 1000 above the highest serverid + cfg.maxraftstate = maxraftstate + + // create a full set of KV servers. + for i := 0; i < cfg.n; i++ { + cfg.StartServer(i) + } + + cfg.ConnectAll() + + cfg.net.Reliable(!unreliable) + + return cfg +} diff --git a/src/kvraft/server.go b/src/kvraft/server.go new file mode 100644 index 0000000..fba674b --- /dev/null +++ b/src/kvraft/server.go @@ -0,0 +1,193 @@ +package raftkv + +import ( + "encoding/gob" + "labrpc" + "log" + "raft" + "sync" + "fmt" + "time" +) + +const Debug = 1 + +func DPrintf(format string, a ...interface{}) (n int, err error) { + if Debug > 0 { + log.Printf(format, a...) + } + return +} + + +type Op struct { + Opt string + Key string + Value string + + UUID string +} + + +type RaftKV struct { + mu sync.Mutex + me int + rf *raft.Raft + applyCh chan raft.ApplyMsg + + maxraftstate int // snapshot if log grows this big + + // Your definitions here. + currentIndex int +} + + +func (kv *RaftKV) Get(args *GetArgs, reply *GetReply) { + kv.mu.Lock() + defer kv.mu.Unlock() + + op := Op{Opt:"Get", Key:args.Key, UUID:args.UUID} + index, _, isLeader := kv.rf.Start(op) + reply.WrongLeader = true + if isLeader { + fmt.Println(kv.me, "Get", args.Key, "") + /* wait until success */ + cnt := 0 + for { + //fmt.Println(kv.me, "waiting", index) + cnt += 1 + if cnt > 30 { + break + } + if kv.currentIndex == index { + fmt.Println("Get success at index", index) + _, logs, commitIndex := kv.rf.GetState2() + var db map[string]string + db = make(map[string]string) + + var UUIDs map[string]int + UUIDs = make(map[string]int) + + + fmt.Println("logs...") + for i:=0;i", op) + /* check duplicates */ + if op.Opt != "Get" && UUIDs[op.UUID] > 0 { + fmt.Println("skip", op) + continue + } + UUIDs[op.UUID] += 1 + + switch op.Opt { + case "Get": + break + case "Put": + db[op.Key] = op.Value + break + case "Append": + db[op.Key] = db[op.Key] + op.Value + break + } + } + fmt.Println("logs end...") + fmt.Println(kv.me, "Get", args.Key, "value:", db[args.Key]) + reply.WrongLeader = false + reply.Value = db[args.Key] + reply.ID = index + break + } + time.Sleep(time.Millisecond * 10) + } + } +} + +func (kv *RaftKV) PutAppend(args *PutAppendArgs, reply *PutAppendReply) { + kv.mu.Lock() + defer kv.mu.Unlock() + + op := Op{ + Opt:args.Opt, Key:args.Key, Value:args.Value, UUID: args.UUID} + index, _, isLeader := kv.rf.Start(op) + cnt := 0 + reply.WrongLeader = true + if isLeader { + fmt.Println(kv.me, args.Opt, args.Key, args.Value) + /* wait until success */ + for { + //fmt.Println(kv.me, "waiting", index) + cnt += 1 + if cnt > 500 { + break + } + //fmt.Println("currentIndex:", kv.currentIndex) + if kv.currentIndex >= index { + _, logs, _ := kv.rf.GetState2() + tmp := logs[index - 1]["command"].(Op) + if tmp.Opt == op.Opt && tmp.Key == op.Key && tmp.Value == op.Value { + fmt.Println(kv.me, args.Opt, args.Key, "success at index", index) + reply.WrongLeader = false + reply.ID = index + } + break + } + time.Sleep(time.Millisecond * 10) + } + } +} + +// +// the tester calls Kill() when a RaftKV instance won't +// be needed again. you are not required to do anything +// in Kill(), but it might be convenient to (for example) +// turn off debug output from this instance. +// +func (kv *RaftKV) Kill() { + kv.rf.Kill() + // Your code here, if desired. + fmt.Println(kv.me, "Killed") +} + +// +// servers[] contains the ports of the set of +// servers that will cooperate via Raft to +// form the fault-tolerant key/value service. +// me is the index of the current server in servers[]. +// the k/v server should store snapshots with persister.SaveSnapshot(), +// and Raft should save its state (including log) with persister.SaveRaftState(). +// the k/v server should snapshot when Raft's saved state exceeds maxraftstate bytes, +// in order to allow Raft to garbage-collect its log. if maxraftstate is -1, +// you don't need to snapshot. +// StartKVServer() must return quickly, so it should start goroutines +// for any long-running work. +// +func StartKVServer(servers []*labrpc.ClientEnd, me int, persister *raft.Persister, maxraftstate int) *RaftKV { + // call gob.Register on structures you want + // Go's RPC library to marshall/unmarshall. + gob.Register(Op{}) + + kv := new(RaftKV) + kv.me = me + kv.maxraftstate = maxraftstate + + // Your initialization code here. + + kv.applyCh = make(chan raft.ApplyMsg) + kv.rf = raft.Make(servers, me, persister, kv.applyCh) + fmt.Println(kv.me, "StartKVServer") + + go func() { + //fmt.Println("start sub") + for { + msg := <-kv.applyCh + if msg.Index > kv.currentIndex { + kv.currentIndex = msg.Index + } + //fmt.Println(kv.me, msg) + } + //fmt.Println("finish") + }() + + return kv +} diff --git a/src/kvraft/test_test.go b/src/kvraft/test_test.go new file mode 100644 index 0000000..bbb3e3f --- /dev/null +++ b/src/kvraft/test_test.go @@ -0,0 +1,397 @@ +package raftkv + +import "testing" +import "strconv" +import "time" +import "fmt" +import "math/rand" +import "log" +import "strings" +import "sync/atomic" + +// The tester generously allows solutions to complete elections in one second +// (much more than the paper's range of timeouts). +const electionTimeout = 1 * time.Second + +func check(t *testing.T, ck *Clerk, key string, value string) { + v := ck.Get(key) + if v != value { + t.Fatalf("Get(%v): expected:\n%v\nreceived:\n%v", key, value, v) + } +} + +// a client runs the function f and then signals it is done +func run_client(t *testing.T, cfg *config, me int, ca chan bool, fn func(me int, ck *Clerk, t *testing.T)) { + ok := false + defer func() { ca <- ok }() + ck := cfg.makeClient(cfg.All()) + fn(me, ck, t) + ok = true + cfg.deleteClient(ck) +} + +// spawn ncli clients and wait until they are all done +func spawn_clients_and_wait(t *testing.T, cfg *config, ncli int, fn func(me int, ck *Clerk, t *testing.T)) { + ca := make([]chan bool, ncli) + for cli := 0; cli < ncli; cli++ { + ca[cli] = make(chan bool) + go run_client(t, cfg, cli, ca[cli], fn) + } + // log.Printf("spawn_clients_and_wait: waiting for clients") + for cli := 0; cli < ncli; cli++ { + ok := <-ca[cli] + // log.Printf("spawn_clients_and_wait: client %d is done\n", cli) + if ok == false { + t.Fatalf("failure") + } + } +} + +// predict effect of Append(k, val) if old value is prev. +func NextValue(prev string, val string) string { + return prev + val +} + +// check that for a specific client all known appends are present in a value, +// and in order +func checkClntAppends(t *testing.T, clnt int, v string, count int) { + lastoff := -1 + for j := 0; j < count; j++ { + wanted := "x " + strconv.Itoa(clnt) + " " + strconv.Itoa(j) + " y" + off := strings.Index(v, wanted) + if off < 0 { + t.Fatalf("%v missing element %v in Append result %v", clnt, wanted, v) + } + off1 := strings.LastIndex(v, wanted) + if off1 != off { + fmt.Printf("off1 %v off %v\n", off1, off) + t.Fatalf("duplicate element %v in Append result", wanted) + } + if off <= lastoff { + t.Fatalf("wrong order for element %v in Append result", wanted) + } + lastoff = off + } +} + +// check that all known appends are present in a value, +// and are in order for each concurrent client. +func checkConcurrentAppends(t *testing.T, v string, counts []int) { + nclients := len(counts) + for i := 0; i < nclients; i++ { + lastoff := -1 + for j := 0; j < counts[i]; j++ { + wanted := "x " + strconv.Itoa(i) + " " + strconv.Itoa(j) + " y" + off := strings.Index(v, wanted) + if off < 0 { + t.Fatalf("%v missing element %v in Append result %v", i, wanted, v) + } + off1 := strings.LastIndex(v, wanted) + if off1 != off { + t.Fatalf("duplicate element %v in Append result", wanted) + } + if off <= lastoff { + t.Fatalf("wrong order for element %v in Append result", wanted) + } + lastoff = off + } + } +} + +// repartition the servers periodically +func partitioner(t *testing.T, cfg *config, ch chan bool, done *int32) { + defer func() { ch <- true }() + for atomic.LoadInt32(done) == 0 { + a := make([]int, cfg.n) + for i := 0; i < cfg.n; i++ { + a[i] = (rand.Int() % 2) + } + pa := make([][]int, 2) + for i := 0; i < 2; i++ { + pa[i] = make([]int, 0) + for j := 0; j < cfg.n; j++ { + if a[j] == i { + pa[i] = append(pa[i], j) + } + } + } + cfg.partition(pa[0], pa[1]) + time.Sleep(electionTimeout + time.Duration(rand.Int63()%200)*time.Millisecond) + } +} + +// Basic test is as follows: one or more clients submitting Append/Get +// operations to set of servers for some period of time. After the period is +// over, test checks that all appended values are present and in order for a +// particular key. If unreliable is set, RPCs may fail. If crash is set, the +// servers crash after the period is over and restart. If partitions is set, +// the test repartitions the network concurrently with the clients and servers. If +// maxraftstate is a positive number, the size of the state for Raft (i.e., log +// size) shouldn't exceed 2*maxraftstate. +func GenericTest(t *testing.T, tag string, nclients int, unreliable bool, crash bool, partitions bool, maxraftstate int) { + const nservers = 5 + cfg := make_config(t, tag, nservers, unreliable, maxraftstate) + defer cfg.cleanup() + + ck := cfg.makeClient(cfg.All()) + + done_partitioner := int32(0) + done_clients := int32(0) + ch_partitioner := make(chan bool) + clnts := make([]chan int, nclients) + for i := 0; i < nclients; i++ { + clnts[i] = make(chan int) + } + for i := 0; i < 3; i++ { + // log.Printf("Iteration %v\n", i) + atomic.StoreInt32(&done_clients, 0) + atomic.StoreInt32(&done_partitioner, 0) + go spawn_clients_and_wait(t, cfg, nclients, func(cli int, myck *Clerk, t *testing.T) { + j := 0 + defer func() { + clnts[cli] <- j + }() + last := "" + key := strconv.Itoa(cli) + myck.Put(key, last) + for atomic.LoadInt32(&done_clients) == 0 { + if (rand.Int() % 1000) < 500 { + nv := "x " + strconv.Itoa(cli) + " " + strconv.Itoa(j) + " y" + // log.Printf("%d: client new append %v\n", cli, nv) + myck.Append(key, nv) + last = NextValue(last, nv) + j++ + } else { + // log.Printf("%d: client new get %v\n", cli, key) + v := myck.Get(key) + if v != last { + log.Fatalf("get wrong value, key %v, wanted:\n%v\n, got\n%v\n", key, last, v) + } + } + } + }) + + if partitions { + // Allow the clients to perform some operations without interruption + time.Sleep(1 * time.Second) + go partitioner(t, cfg, ch_partitioner, &done_partitioner) + } + time.Sleep(5 * time.Second) + + atomic.StoreInt32(&done_clients, 1) // tell clients to quit + atomic.StoreInt32(&done_partitioner, 1) // tell partitioner to quit + + if partitions { + // log.Printf("wait for partitioner\n") + <-ch_partitioner + // reconnect network and submit a request. A client may + // have submitted a request in a minority. That request + // won't return until that server discovers a new term + // has started. + cfg.ConnectAll() + // wait for a while so that we have a new term + time.Sleep(electionTimeout) + } + + if crash { + // log.Printf("shutdown servers\n") + for i := 0; i < nservers; i++ { + cfg.ShutdownServer(i) + } + // Wait for a while for servers to shutdown, since + // shutdown isn't a real crash and isn't instantaneous + time.Sleep(electionTimeout) + // log.Printf("restart servers\n") + // crash and re-start all + for i := 0; i < nservers; i++ { + cfg.StartServer(i) + } + cfg.ConnectAll() + } + + // log.Printf("wait for clients\n") + for i := 0; i < nclients; i++ { + // log.Printf("read from clients %d\n", i) + j := <-clnts[i] + if j < 10 { + log.Printf("Warning: client %d managed to perform only %d put operations in 1 sec?\n", i, j) + } + key := strconv.Itoa(i) + // log.Printf("Check %v for client %d\n", j, i) + v := ck.Get(key) + checkClntAppends(t, i, v, j) + } + + if maxraftstate > 0 { + // Check maximum after the servers have processed all client + // requests and had time to checkpoint + if cfg.LogSize() > 2*maxraftstate { + t.Fatalf("logs were not trimmed (%v > 2*%v)", cfg.LogSize(), maxraftstate) + } + } + } + + fmt.Printf(" ... Passed\n") +} + +func TestBasic(t *testing.T) { + fmt.Printf("Test: One client ...\n") + GenericTest(t, "basic", 1, false, false, false, -1) +} + +func TestConcurrent(t *testing.T) { + fmt.Printf("Test: concurrent clients ...\n") + GenericTest(t, "concur", 5, false, false, false, -1) +} + +func TestUnreliable(t *testing.T) { + fmt.Printf("Test: unreliable ...\n") + GenericTest(t, "unreliable", 5, true, false, false, -1) +} + +func TestUnreliableOneKey(t *testing.T) { + const nservers = 3 + cfg := make_config(t, "onekey", nservers, true, -1) + defer cfg.cleanup() + + ck := cfg.makeClient(cfg.All()) + + fmt.Printf("Test: Concurrent Append to same key, unreliable ...\n") + + ck.Put("k", "") + + const nclient = 5 + const upto = 10 + spawn_clients_and_wait(t, cfg, nclient, func(me int, myck *Clerk, t *testing.T) { + n := 0 + for n < upto { + myck.Append("k", "x "+strconv.Itoa(me)+" "+strconv.Itoa(n)+" y") + n++ + } + }) + + var counts []int + for i := 0; i < nclient; i++ { + counts = append(counts, upto) + } + + vx := ck.Get("k") + checkConcurrentAppends(t, vx, counts) + + fmt.Printf(" ... Passed\n") +} + +// Submit a request in the minority partition and check that the requests +// doesn't go through until the partition heals. The leader in the original +// network ends up in the minority partition. +func TestOnePartition(t *testing.T) { + const nservers = 5 + cfg := make_config(t, "partition", nservers, false, -1) + defer cfg.cleanup() + ck := cfg.makeClient(cfg.All()) + + ck.Put("1", "13") + + fmt.Printf("Test: Progress in majority ...\n") + + p1, p2 := cfg.make_partition() + cfg.partition(p1, p2) + + ckp1 := cfg.makeClient(p1) // connect ckp1 to p1 + ckp2a := cfg.makeClient(p2) // connect ckp2a to p2 + ckp2b := cfg.makeClient(p2) // connect ckp2b to p2 + + ckp1.Put("1", "14") + check(t, ckp1, "1", "14") + + fmt.Printf(" ... Passed\n") + + done0 := make(chan bool) + done1 := make(chan bool) + + fmt.Printf("Test: No progress in minority ...\n") + go func() { + ckp2a.Put("1", "15") + done0 <- true + }() + go func() { + ckp2b.Get("1") // different clerk in p2 + done1 <- true + }() + + select { + case <-done0: + t.Fatalf("Put in minority completed") + case <-done1: + t.Fatalf("Get in minority completed") + case <-time.After(time.Second): + } + + check(t, ckp1, "1", "14") + ckp1.Put("1", "16") + check(t, ckp1, "1", "16") + + fmt.Printf(" ... Passed\n") + + fmt.Printf("Test: Completion after heal ...\n") + + cfg.ConnectAll() + cfg.ConnectClient(ckp2a, cfg.All()) + cfg.ConnectClient(ckp2b, cfg.All()) + + time.Sleep(electionTimeout) + + select { + case <-done0: + case <-time.After(30 * 100 * time.Millisecond): + t.Fatalf("Put did not complete") + } + + select { + case <-done1: + case <-time.After(30 * 100 * time.Millisecond): + t.Fatalf("Get did not complete") + default: + } + + check(t, ck, "1", "15") + + fmt.Printf(" ... Passed\n") +} + +func TestManyPartitionsOneClient(t *testing.T) { + fmt.Printf("Test: many partitions ...\n") + GenericTest(t, "manypartitions", 1, false, false, true, -1) +} + +func TestManyPartitionsManyClients(t *testing.T) { + fmt.Printf("Test: many partitions, many clients ...\n") + GenericTest(t, "manypartitionsclnts", 5, false, false, true, -1) +} + +func TestPersistOneClient(t *testing.T) { + fmt.Printf("Test: persistence with one client ...\n") + GenericTest(t, "persistone", 1, false, true, false, -1) +} + +func TestPersistConcurrent(t *testing.T) { + fmt.Printf("Test: persistence with concurrent clients ...\n") + GenericTest(t, "persistconcur", 5, false, true, false, -1) +} + +func TestPersistConcurrentUnreliable(t *testing.T) { + fmt.Printf("Test: persistence with concurrent clients, unreliable ...\n") + GenericTest(t, "persistconcurunreliable", 5, true, true, false, -1) +} + +func TestPersistPartition(t *testing.T) { + fmt.Printf("Test: persistence with concurrent clients and repartitioning servers...\n") + GenericTest(t, "persistpart", 5, false, true, true, -1) +} + +func TestPersistPartitionUnreliable(t *testing.T) { + fmt.Printf("Test: persistence with concurrent clients and repartitioning servers, unreliable...\n") + GenericTest(t, "persistpartunreliable", 5, true, true, true, -1) +} + + diff --git a/src/labrpc/labrpc.go b/src/labrpc/labrpc.go new file mode 100644 index 0000000..0fa1783 --- /dev/null +++ b/src/labrpc/labrpc.go @@ -0,0 +1,458 @@ +package labrpc + +// +// channel-based RPC, for 824 labs. +// allows tests to disconnect RPC connections. +// +// we will use the original labrpc.go to test your code for grading. +// so, while you can modify this code to help you debug, please +// test against the original before submitting. +// +// adapted from Go net/rpc/server.go. +// +// sends gob-encoded values to ensure that RPCs +// don't include references to program objects. +// +// net := MakeNetwork() -- holds network, clients, servers. +// end := net.MakeEnd(endname) -- create a client end-point, to talk to one server. +// net.AddServer(servername, server) -- adds a named server to network. +// net.DeleteServer(servername) -- eliminate the named server. +// net.Connect(endname, servername) -- connect a client to a server. +// net.Enable(endname, enabled) -- enable/disable a client. +// net.Reliable(bool) -- false means drop/delay messages +// +// end.Call("Raft.AppendEntries", &args, &reply) -- send an RPC, wait for reply. +// the "Raft" is the name of the server struct to be called. +// the "AppendEntries" is the name of the method to be called. +// Call() returns true to indicate that the server executed the request +// and the reply is valid. +// Call() returns false if the network lost the request or reply +// or the server is down. +// It is OK to have multiple Call()s in progress at the same time on the +// same ClientEnd. +// Concurrent calls to Call() may be delivered to the server out of order, +// since the network may re-order messages. +// Call() is guaranteed to return (perhaps after a delay) *except* if the +// handler function on the server side does not return. That is, there +// is no need to implement your own timeouts around Call(). +// the server RPC handler function must declare its args and reply arguments +// as pointers, so that their types exactly match the types of the arguments +// to Call(). +// +// srv := MakeServer() +// srv.AddService(svc) -- a server can have multiple services, e.g. Raft and k/v +// pass srv to net.AddServer() +// +// svc := MakeService(receiverObject) -- obj's methods will handle RPCs +// much like Go's rpcs.Register() +// pass svc to srv.AddService() +// + +import "encoding/gob" +import "bytes" +import "reflect" +import "sync" +import "log" +import "strings" +import "math/rand" +import "time" + +type reqMsg struct { + endname interface{} // name of sending ClientEnd + svcMeth string // e.g. "Raft.AppendEntries" + argsType reflect.Type + args []byte + replyCh chan replyMsg +} + +type replyMsg struct { + ok bool + reply []byte +} + +type ClientEnd struct { + endname interface{} // this end-point's name + ch chan reqMsg // copy of Network.endCh +} + +// send an RPC, wait for the reply. +// the return value indicates success; false means the +// server couldn't be contacted. +func (e *ClientEnd) Call(svcMeth string, args interface{}, reply interface{}) bool { + req := reqMsg{} + req.endname = e.endname + req.svcMeth = svcMeth + req.argsType = reflect.TypeOf(args) + req.replyCh = make(chan replyMsg) + + qb := new(bytes.Buffer) + qe := gob.NewEncoder(qb) + qe.Encode(args) + req.args = qb.Bytes() + + e.ch <- req + + rep := <-req.replyCh + if rep.ok { + rb := bytes.NewBuffer(rep.reply) + rd := gob.NewDecoder(rb) + if err := rd.Decode(reply); err != nil { + log.Fatalf("ClientEnd.Call(): decode reply: %v\n", err) + } + return true + } else { + return false + } +} + +type Network struct { + mu sync.Mutex + reliable bool + longDelays bool // pause a long time on send on disabled connection + longReordering bool // sometimes delay replies a long time + ends map[interface{}]*ClientEnd // ends, by name + enabled map[interface{}]bool // by end name + servers map[interface{}]*Server // servers, by name + connections map[interface{}]interface{} // endname -> servername + endCh chan reqMsg +} + +func MakeNetwork() *Network { + rn := &Network{} + rn.reliable = true + rn.ends = map[interface{}]*ClientEnd{} + rn.enabled = map[interface{}]bool{} + rn.servers = map[interface{}]*Server{} + rn.connections = map[interface{}](interface{}){} + rn.endCh = make(chan reqMsg) + + // single goroutine to handle all ClientEnd.Call()s + go func() { + for xreq := range rn.endCh { + go rn.ProcessReq(xreq) + } + }() + + return rn +} + +func (rn *Network) Reliable(yes bool) { + rn.mu.Lock() + defer rn.mu.Unlock() + + rn.reliable = yes +} + +func (rn *Network) LongReordering(yes bool) { + rn.mu.Lock() + defer rn.mu.Unlock() + + rn.longReordering = yes +} + +func (rn *Network) LongDelays(yes bool) { + rn.mu.Lock() + defer rn.mu.Unlock() + + rn.longDelays = yes +} + +func (rn *Network) ReadEndnameInfo(endname interface{}) (enabled bool, + servername interface{}, server *Server, reliable bool, longreordering bool, +) { + rn.mu.Lock() + defer rn.mu.Unlock() + + enabled = rn.enabled[endname] + servername = rn.connections[endname] + if servername != nil { + server = rn.servers[servername] + } + reliable = rn.reliable + longreordering = rn.longReordering + return +} + +func (rn *Network) IsServerDead(endname interface{}, servername interface{}, server *Server) bool { + rn.mu.Lock() + defer rn.mu.Unlock() + + if rn.enabled[endname] == false || rn.servers[servername] != server { + return true + } + return false +} + +func (rn *Network) ProcessReq(req reqMsg) { + enabled, servername, server, reliable, longreordering := rn.ReadEndnameInfo(req.endname) + + if enabled && servername != nil && server != nil { + if reliable == false { + // short delay + ms := (rand.Int() % 27) + time.Sleep(time.Duration(ms) * time.Millisecond) + } + + if reliable == false && (rand.Int()%1000) < 100 { + // drop the request, return as if timeout + req.replyCh <- replyMsg{false, nil} + return + } + + // execute the request (call the RPC handler). + // in a separate thread so that we can periodically check + // if the server has been killed and the RPC should get a + // failure reply. + ech := make(chan replyMsg) + go func() { + r := server.dispatch(req) + ech <- r + }() + + // wait for handler to return, + // but stop waiting if DeleteServer() has been called, + // and return an error. + var reply replyMsg + replyOK := false + serverDead := false + for replyOK == false && serverDead == false { + select { + case reply = <-ech: + replyOK = true + case <-time.After(100 * time.Millisecond): + serverDead = rn.IsServerDead(req.endname, servername, server) + } + } + + // do not reply if DeleteServer() has been called, i.e. + // the server has been killed. this is needed to avoid + // situation in which a client gets a positive reply + // to an Append, but the server persisted the update + // into the old Persister. config.go is careful to call + // DeleteServer() before superseding the Persister. + serverDead = rn.IsServerDead(req.endname, servername, server) + + if replyOK == false || serverDead == true { + // server was killed while we were waiting; return error. + req.replyCh <- replyMsg{false, nil} + } else if reliable == false && (rand.Int()%1000) < 100 { + // drop the reply, return as if timeout + req.replyCh <- replyMsg{false, nil} + } else if longreordering == true && rand.Intn(900) < 600 { + // delay the response for a while + ms := 200 + rand.Intn(1+rand.Intn(2000)) + time.Sleep(time.Duration(ms) * time.Millisecond) + req.replyCh <- reply + } else { + req.replyCh <- reply + } + } else { + // simulate no reply and eventual timeout. + ms := 0 + if rn.longDelays { + // let Raft tests check that leader doesn't send + // RPCs synchronously. + ms = (rand.Int() % 7000) + } else { + // many kv tests require the client to try each + // server in fairly rapid succession. + ms = (rand.Int() % 100) + } + time.Sleep(time.Duration(ms) * time.Millisecond) + req.replyCh <- replyMsg{false, nil} + } + +} + +// create a client end-point. +// start the thread that listens and delivers. +func (rn *Network) MakeEnd(endname interface{}) *ClientEnd { + rn.mu.Lock() + defer rn.mu.Unlock() + + if _, ok := rn.ends[endname]; ok { + log.Fatalf("MakeEnd: %v already exists\n", endname) + } + + e := &ClientEnd{} + e.endname = endname + e.ch = rn.endCh + rn.ends[endname] = e + rn.enabled[endname] = false + rn.connections[endname] = nil + + return e +} + +func (rn *Network) AddServer(servername interface{}, rs *Server) { + rn.mu.Lock() + defer rn.mu.Unlock() + + rn.servers[servername] = rs +} + +func (rn *Network) DeleteServer(servername interface{}) { + rn.mu.Lock() + defer rn.mu.Unlock() + + rn.servers[servername] = nil +} + +// connect a ClientEnd to a server. +// a ClientEnd can only be connected once in its lifetime. +func (rn *Network) Connect(endname interface{}, servername interface{}) { + rn.mu.Lock() + defer rn.mu.Unlock() + + rn.connections[endname] = servername +} + +// enable/disable a ClientEnd. +func (rn *Network) Enable(endname interface{}, enabled bool) { + rn.mu.Lock() + defer rn.mu.Unlock() + + rn.enabled[endname] = enabled +} + +// get a server's count of incoming RPCs. +func (rn *Network) GetCount(servername interface{}) int { + rn.mu.Lock() + defer rn.mu.Unlock() + + svr := rn.servers[servername] + return svr.GetCount() +} + +// +// a server is a collection of services, all sharing +// the same rpc dispatcher. so that e.g. both a Raft +// and a k/v server can listen to the same rpc endpoint. +// +type Server struct { + mu sync.Mutex + services map[string]*Service + count int // incoming RPCs +} + +func MakeServer() *Server { + rs := &Server{} + rs.services = map[string]*Service{} + return rs +} + +func (rs *Server) AddService(svc *Service) { + rs.mu.Lock() + defer rs.mu.Unlock() + rs.services[svc.name] = svc +} + +func (rs *Server) dispatch(req reqMsg) replyMsg { + rs.mu.Lock() + + rs.count += 1 + + // split Raft.AppendEntries into service and method + dot := strings.LastIndex(req.svcMeth, ".") + serviceName := req.svcMeth[:dot] + methodName := req.svcMeth[dot+1:] + + service, ok := rs.services[serviceName] + + rs.mu.Unlock() + + if ok { + return service.dispatch(methodName, req) + } else { + choices := []string{} + for k, _ := range rs.services { + choices = append(choices, k) + } + log.Fatalf("labrpc.Server.dispatch(): unknown service %v in %v.%v; expecting one of %v\n", + serviceName, serviceName, methodName, choices) + return replyMsg{false, nil} + } +} + +func (rs *Server) GetCount() int { + rs.mu.Lock() + defer rs.mu.Unlock() + return rs.count +} + +// an object with methods that can be called via RPC. +// a single server may have more than one Service. +type Service struct { + name string + rcvr reflect.Value + typ reflect.Type + methods map[string]reflect.Method +} + +func MakeService(rcvr interface{}) *Service { + svc := &Service{} + svc.typ = reflect.TypeOf(rcvr) + svc.rcvr = reflect.ValueOf(rcvr) + svc.name = reflect.Indirect(svc.rcvr).Type().Name() + svc.methods = map[string]reflect.Method{} + + for m := 0; m < svc.typ.NumMethod(); m++ { + method := svc.typ.Method(m) + mtype := method.Type + mname := method.Name + + //fmt.Printf("%v pp %v ni %v 1k %v 2k %v no %v\n", + // mname, method.PkgPath, mtype.NumIn(), mtype.In(1).Kind(), mtype.In(2).Kind(), mtype.NumOut()) + + if method.PkgPath != "" || // capitalized? + mtype.NumIn() != 3 || + //mtype.In(1).Kind() != reflect.Ptr || + mtype.In(2).Kind() != reflect.Ptr || + mtype.NumOut() != 0 { + // the method is not suitable for a handler + //fmt.Printf("bad method: %v\n", mname) + } else { + // the method looks like a handler + svc.methods[mname] = method + } + } + + return svc +} + +func (svc *Service) dispatch(methname string, req reqMsg) replyMsg { + if method, ok := svc.methods[methname]; ok { + // prepare space into which to read the argument. + // the Value's type will be a pointer to req.argsType. + args := reflect.New(req.argsType) + + // decode the argument. + ab := bytes.NewBuffer(req.args) + ad := gob.NewDecoder(ab) + ad.Decode(args.Interface()) + + // allocate space for the reply. + replyType := method.Type.In(2) + replyType = replyType.Elem() + replyv := reflect.New(replyType) + + // call the method. + function := method.Func + function.Call([]reflect.Value{svc.rcvr, args.Elem(), replyv}) + + // encode the reply. + rb := new(bytes.Buffer) + re := gob.NewEncoder(rb) + re.EncodeValue(replyv) + + return replyMsg{true, rb.Bytes()} + } else { + choices := []string{} + for k, _ := range svc.methods { + choices = append(choices, k) + } + log.Fatalf("labrpc.Service.dispatch(): unknown method %v in %v; expecting one of %v\n", + methname, req.svcMeth, choices) + return replyMsg{false, nil} + } +} diff --git a/src/labrpc/test_test.go b/src/labrpc/test_test.go new file mode 100644 index 0000000..9e5c591 --- /dev/null +++ b/src/labrpc/test_test.go @@ -0,0 +1,518 @@ +package labrpc + +import "testing" +import "strconv" +import "sync" +import "runtime" +import "time" +import "fmt" + +type JunkArgs struct { + X int +} +type JunkReply struct { + X string +} + +type JunkServer struct { + mu sync.Mutex + log1 []string + log2 []int +} + +func (js *JunkServer) Handler1(args string, reply *int) { + js.mu.Lock() + defer js.mu.Unlock() + js.log1 = append(js.log1, args) + *reply, _ = strconv.Atoi(args) +} + +func (js *JunkServer) Handler2(args int, reply *string) { + js.mu.Lock() + defer js.mu.Unlock() + js.log2 = append(js.log2, args) + *reply = "handler2-" + strconv.Itoa(args) +} + +func (js *JunkServer) Handler3(args int, reply *int) { + js.mu.Lock() + defer js.mu.Unlock() + time.Sleep(20 * time.Second) + *reply = -args +} + +// args is a pointer +func (js *JunkServer) Handler4(args *JunkArgs, reply *JunkReply) { + reply.X = "pointer" +} + +// args is a not pointer +func (js *JunkServer) Handler5(args JunkArgs, reply *JunkReply) { + reply.X = "no pointer" +} + +func TestBasic(t *testing.T) { + runtime.GOMAXPROCS(4) + + rn := MakeNetwork() + + e := rn.MakeEnd("end1-99") + + js := &JunkServer{} + svc := MakeService(js) + + rs := MakeServer() + rs.AddService(svc) + rn.AddServer("server99", rs) + + rn.Connect("end1-99", "server99") + rn.Enable("end1-99", true) + + { + reply := "" + e.Call("JunkServer.Handler2", 111, &reply) + if reply != "handler2-111" { + t.Fatalf("wrong reply from Handler2") + } + } + + { + reply := 0 + e.Call("JunkServer.Handler1", "9099", &reply) + if reply != 9099 { + t.Fatalf("wrong reply from Handler1") + } + } +} + +func TestTypes(t *testing.T) { + runtime.GOMAXPROCS(4) + + rn := MakeNetwork() + + e := rn.MakeEnd("end1-99") + + js := &JunkServer{} + svc := MakeService(js) + + rs := MakeServer() + rs.AddService(svc) + rn.AddServer("server99", rs) + + rn.Connect("end1-99", "server99") + rn.Enable("end1-99", true) + + { + var args JunkArgs + var reply JunkReply + // args must match type (pointer or not) of handler. + e.Call("JunkServer.Handler4", &args, &reply) + if reply.X != "pointer" { + t.Fatalf("wrong reply from Handler4") + } + } + + { + var args JunkArgs + var reply JunkReply + // args must match type (pointer or not) of handler. + e.Call("JunkServer.Handler5", args, &reply) + if reply.X != "no pointer" { + t.Fatalf("wrong reply from Handler5") + } + } +} + +// +// does net.Enable(endname, false) really disconnect a client? +// +func TestDisconnect(t *testing.T) { + runtime.GOMAXPROCS(4) + + rn := MakeNetwork() + + e := rn.MakeEnd("end1-99") + + js := &JunkServer{} + svc := MakeService(js) + + rs := MakeServer() + rs.AddService(svc) + rn.AddServer("server99", rs) + + rn.Connect("end1-99", "server99") + + { + reply := "" + e.Call("JunkServer.Handler2", 111, &reply) + if reply != "" { + t.Fatalf("unexpected reply from Handler2") + } + } + + rn.Enable("end1-99", true) + + { + reply := 0 + e.Call("JunkServer.Handler1", "9099", &reply) + if reply != 9099 { + t.Fatalf("wrong reply from Handler1") + } + } +} + +// +// test net.GetCount() +// +func TestCounts(t *testing.T) { + runtime.GOMAXPROCS(4) + + rn := MakeNetwork() + + e := rn.MakeEnd("end1-99") + + js := &JunkServer{} + svc := MakeService(js) + + rs := MakeServer() + rs.AddService(svc) + rn.AddServer(99, rs) + + rn.Connect("end1-99", 99) + rn.Enable("end1-99", true) + + for i := 0; i < 17; i++ { + reply := "" + e.Call("JunkServer.Handler2", i, &reply) + wanted := "handler2-" + strconv.Itoa(i) + if reply != wanted { + t.Fatalf("wrong reply %v from Handler1, expecting %v", reply, wanted) + } + } + + n := rn.GetCount(99) + if n != 17 { + t.Fatalf("wrong GetCount() %v, expected 17\n", n) + } +} + +// +// test RPCs from concurrent ClientEnds +// +func TestConcurrentMany(t *testing.T) { + runtime.GOMAXPROCS(4) + + rn := MakeNetwork() + + js := &JunkServer{} + svc := MakeService(js) + + rs := MakeServer() + rs.AddService(svc) + rn.AddServer(1000, rs) + + ch := make(chan int) + + nclients := 20 + nrpcs := 10 + for ii := 0; ii < nclients; ii++ { + go func(i int) { + n := 0 + defer func() { ch <- n }() + + e := rn.MakeEnd(i) + rn.Connect(i, 1000) + rn.Enable(i, true) + + for j := 0; j < nrpcs; j++ { + arg := i*100 + j + reply := "" + e.Call("JunkServer.Handler2", arg, &reply) + wanted := "handler2-" + strconv.Itoa(arg) + if reply != wanted { + t.Fatalf("wrong reply %v from Handler1, expecting %v", reply, wanted) + } + n += 1 + } + }(ii) + } + + total := 0 + for ii := 0; ii < nclients; ii++ { + x := <-ch + total += x + } + + if total != nclients*nrpcs { + t.Fatalf("wrong number of RPCs completed, got %v, expected %v", total, nclients*nrpcs) + } + + n := rn.GetCount(1000) + if n != total { + t.Fatalf("wrong GetCount() %v, expected %v\n", n, total) + } +} + +// +// test unreliable +// +func TestUnreliable(t *testing.T) { + runtime.GOMAXPROCS(4) + + rn := MakeNetwork() + rn.Reliable(false) + + js := &JunkServer{} + svc := MakeService(js) + + rs := MakeServer() + rs.AddService(svc) + rn.AddServer(1000, rs) + + ch := make(chan int) + + nclients := 300 + for ii := 0; ii < nclients; ii++ { + go func(i int) { + n := 0 + defer func() { ch <- n }() + + e := rn.MakeEnd(i) + rn.Connect(i, 1000) + rn.Enable(i, true) + + arg := i * 100 + reply := "" + ok := e.Call("JunkServer.Handler2", arg, &reply) + if ok { + wanted := "handler2-" + strconv.Itoa(arg) + if reply != wanted { + t.Fatalf("wrong reply %v from Handler1, expecting %v", reply, wanted) + } + n += 1 + } + }(ii) + } + + total := 0 + for ii := 0; ii < nclients; ii++ { + x := <-ch + total += x + } + + if total == nclients || total == 0 { + t.Fatalf("all RPCs succeeded despite unreliable") + } +} + +// +// test concurrent RPCs from a single ClientEnd +// +func TestConcurrentOne(t *testing.T) { + runtime.GOMAXPROCS(4) + + rn := MakeNetwork() + + js := &JunkServer{} + svc := MakeService(js) + + rs := MakeServer() + rs.AddService(svc) + rn.AddServer(1000, rs) + + e := rn.MakeEnd("c") + rn.Connect("c", 1000) + rn.Enable("c", true) + + ch := make(chan int) + + nrpcs := 20 + for ii := 0; ii < nrpcs; ii++ { + go func(i int) { + n := 0 + defer func() { ch <- n }() + + arg := 100 + i + reply := "" + e.Call("JunkServer.Handler2", arg, &reply) + wanted := "handler2-" + strconv.Itoa(arg) + if reply != wanted { + t.Fatalf("wrong reply %v from Handler2, expecting %v", reply, wanted) + } + n += 1 + }(ii) + } + + total := 0 + for ii := 0; ii < nrpcs; ii++ { + x := <-ch + total += x + } + + if total != nrpcs { + t.Fatalf("wrong number of RPCs completed, got %v, expected %v", total, nrpcs) + } + + js.mu.Lock() + defer js.mu.Unlock() + if len(js.log2) != nrpcs { + t.Fatalf("wrong number of RPCs delivered") + } + + n := rn.GetCount(1000) + if n != total { + t.Fatalf("wrong GetCount() %v, expected %v\n", n, total) + } +} + +// +// regression: an RPC that's delayed during Enabled=false +// should not delay subsequent RPCs (e.g. after Enabled=true). +// +func TestRegression1(t *testing.T) { + runtime.GOMAXPROCS(4) + + rn := MakeNetwork() + + js := &JunkServer{} + svc := MakeService(js) + + rs := MakeServer() + rs.AddService(svc) + rn.AddServer(1000, rs) + + e := rn.MakeEnd("c") + rn.Connect("c", 1000) + + // start some RPCs while the ClientEnd is disabled. + // they'll be delayed. + rn.Enable("c", false) + ch := make(chan bool) + nrpcs := 20 + for ii := 0; ii < nrpcs; ii++ { + go func(i int) { + ok := false + defer func() { ch <- ok }() + + arg := 100 + i + reply := "" + // this call ought to return false. + e.Call("JunkServer.Handler2", arg, &reply) + ok = true + }(ii) + } + + time.Sleep(100 * time.Millisecond) + + // now enable the ClientEnd and check that an RPC completes quickly. + t0 := time.Now() + rn.Enable("c", true) + { + arg := 99 + reply := "" + e.Call("JunkServer.Handler2", arg, &reply) + wanted := "handler2-" + strconv.Itoa(arg) + if reply != wanted { + t.Fatalf("wrong reply %v from Handler2, expecting %v", reply, wanted) + } + } + dur := time.Since(t0).Seconds() + + if dur > 0.03 { + t.Fatalf("RPC took too long (%v) after Enable", dur) + } + + for ii := 0; ii < nrpcs; ii++ { + <-ch + } + + js.mu.Lock() + defer js.mu.Unlock() + if len(js.log2) != 1 { + t.Fatalf("wrong number (%v) of RPCs delivered, expected 1", len(js.log2)) + } + + n := rn.GetCount(1000) + if n != 1 { + t.Fatalf("wrong GetCount() %v, expected %v\n", n, 1) + } +} + +// +// if an RPC is stuck in a server, and the server +// is killed with DeleteServer(), does the RPC +// get un-stuck? +// +func TestKilled(t *testing.T) { + runtime.GOMAXPROCS(4) + + rn := MakeNetwork() + + e := rn.MakeEnd("end1-99") + + js := &JunkServer{} + svc := MakeService(js) + + rs := MakeServer() + rs.AddService(svc) + rn.AddServer("server99", rs) + + rn.Connect("end1-99", "server99") + rn.Enable("end1-99", true) + + doneCh := make(chan bool) + go func() { + reply := 0 + ok := e.Call("JunkServer.Handler3", 99, &reply) + doneCh <- ok + }() + + time.Sleep(1000 * time.Millisecond) + + select { + case <-doneCh: + t.Fatalf("Handler3 should not have returned yet") + case <-time.After(100 * time.Millisecond): + } + + rn.DeleteServer("server99") + + select { + case x := <-doneCh: + if x != false { + t.Fatalf("Handler3 returned successfully despite DeleteServer()") + } + case <-time.After(100 * time.Millisecond): + t.Fatalf("Handler3 should return after DeleteServer()") + } +} + +func TestBenchmark(t *testing.T) { + runtime.GOMAXPROCS(4) + + rn := MakeNetwork() + + e := rn.MakeEnd("end1-99") + + js := &JunkServer{} + svc := MakeService(js) + + rs := MakeServer() + rs.AddService(svc) + rn.AddServer("server99", rs) + + rn.Connect("end1-99", "server99") + rn.Enable("end1-99", true) + + t0 := time.Now() + n := 100000 + for iters := 0; iters < n; iters++ { + reply := "" + e.Call("JunkServer.Handler2", 111, &reply) + if reply != "handler2-111" { + t.Fatalf("wrong reply from Handler2") + } + } + fmt.Printf("%v for %v\n", time.Since(t0), n) + // march 2016, rtm laptop, 22 microseconds per RPC +} diff --git a/src/lockservice/client.go b/src/lockservice/client.go new file mode 100644 index 0000000..300ac9a --- /dev/null +++ b/src/lockservice/client.go @@ -0,0 +1,93 @@ +package lockservice + +import "net/rpc" +import "fmt" + + +// +// the lockservice Clerk lives in the client +// and maintains a little state. +// +type Clerk struct { + servers [2]string // primary port, backup port + // Your definitions here. +} + + +func MakeClerk(primary string, backup string) *Clerk { + ck := new(Clerk) + ck.servers[0] = primary + ck.servers[1] = backup + // Your initialization code here. + return ck +} + +// +// call() sends an RPC to the rpcname handler on server srv +// with arguments args, waits for the reply, and leaves the +// reply in reply. the reply argument should be the address +// of a reply structure. +// +// call() returns true if the server responded, and false +// if call() was not able to contact the server. in particular, +// reply's contents are valid if and only if call() returned true. +// +// you should assume that call() will return an +// error after a while if the server is dead. +// don't provide your own time-out mechanism. +// +// please use call() to send all RPCs, in client.go and server.go. +// please don't change this function. +// +func call(srv string, rpcname string, + args interface{}, reply interface{}) bool { + c, errx := rpc.Dial("unix", srv) + if errx != nil { + return false + } + defer c.Close() + + err := c.Call(rpcname, args, reply) + if err == nil { + return true + } + + fmt.Println(err) + return false +} + +// +// ask the lock service for a lock. +// returns true if the lock service +// granted the lock, false otherwise. +// +// you will have to modify this function. +// +func (ck *Clerk) Lock(lockname string) bool { + // prepare the arguments. + args := &LockArgs{} + args.Lockname = lockname + var reply LockReply + + // send an RPC request, wait for the reply. + ok := call(ck.servers[0], "LockServer.Lock", args, &reply) + if ok == false { + return false + } + + return reply.OK +} + + +// +// ask the lock service to unlock a lock. +// returns true if the lock was previously held, +// false otherwise. +// + +func (ck *Clerk) Unlock(lockname string) bool { + + // Your code here. + + return false +} diff --git a/src/lockservice/common.go b/src/lockservice/common.go new file mode 100644 index 0000000..ff90992 --- /dev/null +++ b/src/lockservice/common.go @@ -0,0 +1,33 @@ +package lockservice + +// +// RPC definitions for a simple lock service. +// +// You will need to modify this file. +// + +// +// Lock(lockname) returns OK=true if the lock is not held. +// If it is held, it returns OK=false immediately. +// +type LockArgs struct { + // Go's net/rpc requires that these field + // names start with upper case letters! + Lockname string // lock name +} + +type LockReply struct { + OK bool +} + +// +// Unlock(lockname) returns OK=true if the lock was held. +// It returns OK=false if the lock was not held. +// +type UnlockArgs struct { + Lockname string +} + +type UnlockReply struct { + OK bool +} diff --git a/src/lockservice/server.go b/src/lockservice/server.go new file mode 100644 index 0000000..de9a9cc --- /dev/null +++ b/src/lockservice/server.go @@ -0,0 +1,159 @@ +package lockservice + +import "net" +import "net/rpc" +import "log" +import "sync" +import "fmt" +import "os" +import "io" +import "time" + +type LockServer struct { + mu sync.Mutex + l net.Listener + dead bool // for test_test.go + dying bool // for test_test.go + + am_primary bool // am I the primary? + backup string // backup's port + + // for each lock name, is it locked? + locks map[string]bool +} + + +// +// server Lock RPC handler. +// +// you will have to modify this function +// +func (ls *LockServer) Lock(args *LockArgs, reply *LockReply) error { + ls.mu.Lock() + defer ls.mu.Unlock() + + + locked, _ := ls.locks[args.Lockname] + + if locked { + reply.OK = false + } else { + reply.OK = true + ls.locks[args.Lockname] = true + } + + return nil +} + +// +// server Unlock RPC handler. +// +func (ls *LockServer) Unlock(args *UnlockArgs, reply *UnlockReply) error { + + // Your code here. + + return nil +} + +// +// tell the server to shut itself down. +// for testing. +// please don't change this. +// +func (ls *LockServer) kill() { + ls.dead = true + ls.l.Close() +} + +// +// hack to allow test_test.go to have primary process +// an RPC but not send a reply. can't use the shutdown() +// trick b/c that causes client to immediately get an +// error and send to backup before primary does. +// please don't change anything to do with DeafConn. +// +type DeafConn struct { + c io.ReadWriteCloser +} + +func (dc DeafConn) Write(p []byte) (n int, err error) { + return len(p), nil +} +func (dc DeafConn) Close() error { + return dc.c.Close() +} +func (dc DeafConn) Read(p []byte) (n int, err error) { + return dc.c.Read(p) +} + +func StartServer(primary string, backup string, am_primary bool) *LockServer { + ls := new(LockServer) + ls.backup = backup + ls.am_primary = am_primary + ls.locks = map[string]bool{} + + // Your initialization code here. + + + me := "" + if am_primary { + me = primary + } else { + me = backup + } + + // tell net/rpc about our RPC server and handlers. + rpcs := rpc.NewServer() + rpcs.Register(ls) + + // prepare to receive connections from clients. + // change "unix" to "tcp" to use over a network. + os.Remove(me) // only needed for "unix" + l, e := net.Listen("unix", me) + if e != nil { + log.Fatal("listen error: ", e) + } + ls.l = l + + // please don't change any of the following code, + // or do anything to subvert it. + + // create a thread to accept RPC connections from clients. + go func() { + for ls.dead == false { + conn, err := ls.l.Accept() + if err == nil && ls.dead == false { + if ls.dying { + // process the request but force discard of reply. + + // without this the connection is never closed, + // b/c ServeConn() is waiting for more requests. + // test_test.go depends on this two seconds. + go func() { + time.Sleep(2 * time.Second) + conn.Close() + }() + ls.l.Close() + + // this object has the type ServeConn expects, + // but discards writes (i.e. discards the RPC reply). + deaf_conn := DeafConn{c: conn} + + rpcs.ServeConn(deaf_conn) + + ls.dead = true + } else { + go rpcs.ServeConn(conn) + } + } else if err == nil { + conn.Close() + } + if err != nil && ls.dead == false { + fmt.Printf("LockServer(%v) accept: %v\n", me, err.Error()) + ls.kill() + } + } + }() + + return ls +} diff --git a/src/lockservice/test_test.go b/src/lockservice/test_test.go new file mode 100644 index 0000000..b127f10 --- /dev/null +++ b/src/lockservice/test_test.go @@ -0,0 +1,478 @@ +package lockservice + +import "testing" +import "runtime" +import "math/rand" +import "os" +import "strconv" +import "time" +import "fmt" + +func tl(t *testing.T, ck *Clerk, lockname string, expected bool) { + x := ck.Lock(lockname) + if x != expected { + t.Fatalf("Lock(%v) returned %v; expected %v", lockname, x, expected) + } +} + +func tu(t *testing.T, ck *Clerk, lockname string, expected bool) { + x := ck.Unlock(lockname) + if x != expected { + t.Fatalf("Unlock(%v) returned %v; expected %v", lockname, x, expected) + } +} + +// +// cook up a unique-ish UNIX-domain socket name +// in /var/tmp. can't use current directory since +// AFS doesn't support UNIX-domain sockets. +// +func port(suffix string) string { + s := "/var/tmp/824-" + s += strconv.Itoa(os.Getuid()) + "/" + os.Mkdir(s, 0777) + s += strconv.Itoa(os.Getpid()) + "-" + s += suffix + return s +} + +func TestBasic(t *testing.T) { + fmt.Printf("Test: Basic lock/unlock ...\n") + + runtime.GOMAXPROCS(4) + + phost := port("p") + bhost := port("b") + p := StartServer(phost, bhost, true) // primary + b := StartServer(phost, bhost, false) // backup + + ck := MakeClerk(phost, bhost) + + tl(t, ck, "a", true) + tu(t, ck, "a", true) + + tl(t, ck, "a", true) + tl(t, ck, "b", true) + tu(t, ck, "a", true) + tu(t, ck, "b", true) + + tl(t, ck, "a", true) + tl(t, ck, "a", false) + tu(t, ck, "a", true) + tu(t, ck, "a", false) + + p.kill() + b.kill() + + fmt.Printf(" ... Passed\n") +} + +func TestPrimaryFail1(t *testing.T) { + fmt.Printf("Test: Primary failure ...\n") + runtime.GOMAXPROCS(4) + + phost := port("p") + bhost := port("b") + p := StartServer(phost, bhost, true) // primary + b := StartServer(phost, bhost, false) // backup + + ck := MakeClerk(phost, bhost) + + tl(t, ck, "a", true) + + tl(t, ck, "b", true) + tu(t, ck, "b", true) + + tl(t, ck, "c", true) + tl(t, ck, "c", false) + + tl(t, ck, "d", true) + tu(t, ck, "d", true) + tl(t, ck, "d", true) + + p.kill() + + tl(t, ck, "a", false) + tu(t, ck, "a", true) + + tu(t, ck, "b", false) + tl(t, ck, "b", true) + + tu(t, ck, "c", true) + + tu(t, ck, "d", true) + + b.kill() + fmt.Printf(" ... Passed\n") +} + +func TestPrimaryFail2(t *testing.T) { + fmt.Printf("Test: Primary failure just before reply #1 ...\n") + runtime.GOMAXPROCS(4) + + phost := port("p") + bhost := port("b") + p := StartServer(phost, bhost, true) // primary + b := StartServer(phost, bhost, false) // backup + + ck1 := MakeClerk(phost, bhost) + ck2 := MakeClerk(phost, bhost) + + tl(t, ck1, "a", true) + tl(t, ck1, "b", true) + + p.dying = true + + tl(t, ck2, "c", true) + tl(t, ck1, "c", false) + tu(t, ck2, "c", true) + tl(t, ck1, "c", true) + + b.kill() + fmt.Printf(" ... Passed\n") +} + +func TestPrimaryFail3(t *testing.T) { + fmt.Printf("Test: Primary failure just before reply #2 ...\n") + runtime.GOMAXPROCS(4) + + phost := port("p") + bhost := port("b") + p := StartServer(phost, bhost, true) // primary + b := StartServer(phost, bhost, false) // backup + + ck1 := MakeClerk(phost, bhost) + + tl(t, ck1, "a", true) + tl(t, ck1, "b", true) + + p.dying = true + + tl(t, ck1, "b", false) + + b.kill() + fmt.Printf(" ... Passed\n") +} + +func TestPrimaryFail4(t *testing.T) { + fmt.Printf("Test: Primary failure just before reply #3 ...\n") + runtime.GOMAXPROCS(4) + + phost := port("p") + bhost := port("b") + p := StartServer(phost, bhost, true) // primary + b := StartServer(phost, bhost, false) // backup + + ck1 := MakeClerk(phost, bhost) + ck2 := MakeClerk(phost, bhost) + + tl(t, ck1, "a", true) + tl(t, ck1, "b", true) + + p.dying = true + + tl(t, ck2, "b", false) + + b.kill() + fmt.Printf(" ... Passed\n") +} + +func TestPrimaryFail5(t *testing.T) { + fmt.Printf("Test: Primary failure just before reply #4 ...\n") + runtime.GOMAXPROCS(4) + + phost := port("p") + bhost := port("b") + p := StartServer(phost, bhost, true) // primary + b := StartServer(phost, bhost, false) // backup + + ck1 := MakeClerk(phost, bhost) + ck2 := MakeClerk(phost, bhost) + + tl(t, ck1, "a", true) + tl(t, ck1, "b", true) + tu(t, ck1, "b", true) + + p.dying = true + + tu(t, ck1, "b", false) + tl(t, ck2, "b", true) + + b.kill() + fmt.Printf(" ... Passed\n") +} + +func TestPrimaryFail6(t *testing.T) { + fmt.Printf("Test: Primary failure just before reply #5 ...\n") + runtime.GOMAXPROCS(4) + + phost := port("p") + bhost := port("b") + p := StartServer(phost, bhost, true) // primary + b := StartServer(phost, bhost, false) // backup + + ck1 := MakeClerk(phost, bhost) + ck2 := MakeClerk(phost, bhost) + + tl(t, ck1, "a", true) + tu(t, ck1, "a", true) + tu(t, ck2, "a", false) + tl(t, ck1, "b", true) + + p.dying = true + + tu(t, ck2, "b", true) + tl(t, ck1, "b", true) + + b.kill() + fmt.Printf(" ... Passed\n") +} + +func TestPrimaryFail7(t *testing.T) { + fmt.Printf("Test: Primary failure just before reply #6 ...\n") + runtime.GOMAXPROCS(4) + + phost := port("p") + bhost := port("b") + p := StartServer(phost, bhost, true) // primary + b := StartServer(phost, bhost, false) // backup + + ck1 := MakeClerk(phost, bhost) + ck2 := MakeClerk(phost, bhost) + + tl(t, ck1, "a", true) + tu(t, ck1, "a", true) + tu(t, ck2, "a", false) + tl(t, ck1, "b", true) + + p.dying = true + + ch := make(chan bool) + go func() { + ok := false + defer func() { ch <- ok }() + tu(t, ck2, "b", true) // 2 second delay until retry + ok = true + }() + time.Sleep(1 * time.Second) + tl(t, ck1, "b", true) + + ok := <-ch + if ok == false { + t.Fatalf("re-sent Unlock did not return true") + } + + tu(t, ck1, "b", true) + + b.kill() + fmt.Printf(" ... Passed\n") +} + +func TestPrimaryFail8(t *testing.T) { + fmt.Printf("Test: Primary failure just before reply #7 ...\n") + runtime.GOMAXPROCS(4) + + phost := port("p") + bhost := port("b") + p := StartServer(phost, bhost, true) // primary + b := StartServer(phost, bhost, false) // backup + + ck1 := MakeClerk(phost, bhost) + ck2 := MakeClerk(phost, bhost) + + tl(t, ck1, "a", true) + tu(t, ck1, "a", true) + + p.dying = true + + ch := make(chan bool) + go func() { + ok := false + defer func() { ch <- ok }() + tu(t, ck2, "a", false) // 2 second delay until retry + ok = true + }() + time.Sleep(1 * time.Second) + tl(t, ck1, "a", true) + + ok := <-ch + if ok == false { + t.Fatalf("re-sent Unlock did not return false") + } + + tu(t, ck1, "a", true) + + b.kill() + fmt.Printf(" ... Passed\n") +} + +func TestBackupFail(t *testing.T) { + fmt.Printf("Test: Backup failure ...\n") + runtime.GOMAXPROCS(4) + + phost := port("p") + bhost := port("b") + p := StartServer(phost, bhost, true) // primary + b := StartServer(phost, bhost, false) // backup + + ck := MakeClerk(phost, bhost) + + tl(t, ck, "a", true) + + tl(t, ck, "b", true) + tu(t, ck, "b", true) + + tl(t, ck, "c", true) + tl(t, ck, "c", false) + + tl(t, ck, "d", true) + tu(t, ck, "d", true) + tl(t, ck, "d", true) + + b.kill() + + tl(t, ck, "a", false) + tu(t, ck, "a", true) + + tu(t, ck, "b", false) + tl(t, ck, "b", true) + + tu(t, ck, "c", true) + + tu(t, ck, "d", true) + + p.kill() + fmt.Printf(" ... Passed\n") +} + +func TestMany(t *testing.T) { + fmt.Printf("Test: Multiple clients with primary failure ...\n") + runtime.GOMAXPROCS(4) + + phost := port("p") + bhost := port("b") + p := StartServer(phost, bhost, true) // primary + b := StartServer(phost, bhost, false) // backup + + const nclients = 2 + const nlocks = 10 + done := false + var state [nclients][nlocks]bool + var acks [nclients]bool + + for xi := 0; xi < nclients; xi++ { + go func(i int) { + ck := MakeClerk(phost, bhost) + rr := rand.New(rand.NewSource(int64(os.Getpid() + i))) + for done == false { + locknum := (rr.Int() % nlocks) + lockname := strconv.Itoa(locknum + (i * 1000)) + what := rr.Int() % 2 + if what == 0 { + ck.Lock(lockname) + state[i][locknum] = true + } else { + ck.Unlock(lockname) + state[i][locknum] = false + } + } + acks[i] = true + }(xi) + } + + time.Sleep(2 * time.Second) + p.kill() + time.Sleep(2 * time.Second) + done = true + time.Sleep(time.Second) + ck := MakeClerk(phost, bhost) + for xi := 0; xi < nclients; xi++ { + if acks[xi] == false { + t.Fatal("one client didn't complete") + } + for locknum := 0; locknum < nlocks; locknum++ { + lockname := strconv.Itoa(locknum + (xi * 1000)) + locked := !ck.Lock(lockname) + if locked != state[xi][locknum] { + t.Fatal("bad final state") + } + } + } + + b.kill() + fmt.Printf(" ... Passed\n") +} + +func TestConcurrentCounts(t *testing.T) { + fmt.Printf("Test: Multiple clients, single lock, primary failure ...\n") + runtime.GOMAXPROCS(4) + + phost := port("p") + bhost := port("b") + p := StartServer(phost, bhost, true) // primary + b := StartServer(phost, bhost, false) // backup + + const nclients = 2 + const nlocks = 1 + done := false + var acks [nclients]bool + var locks [nclients][nlocks]int + var unlocks [nclients][nlocks]int + + for xi := 0; xi < nclients; xi++ { + go func(i int) { + ck := MakeClerk(phost, bhost) + rr := rand.New(rand.NewSource(int64(os.Getpid() + i))) + for done == false { + locknum := rr.Int() % nlocks + lockname := strconv.Itoa(locknum) + what := rr.Int() % 2 + if what == 0 { + if ck.Lock(lockname) { + locks[i][locknum]++ + } + } else { + if ck.Unlock(lockname) { + unlocks[i][locknum]++ + } + } + } + acks[i] = true + }(xi) + } + + time.Sleep(2 * time.Second) + p.kill() + time.Sleep(2 * time.Second) + done = true + time.Sleep(time.Second) + for xi := 0; xi < nclients; xi++ { + if acks[xi] == false { + t.Fatal("one client didn't complete") + } + } + ck := MakeClerk(phost, bhost) + for locknum := 0; locknum < nlocks; locknum++ { + nl := 0 + nu := 0 + for xi := 0; xi < nclients; xi++ { + nl += locks[xi][locknum] + nu += unlocks[xi][locknum] + } + locked := ck.Unlock(strconv.Itoa(locknum)) + // fmt.Printf("lock=%d nl=%d nu=%d locked=%v\n", + // locknum, nl, nu, locked) + if nl < nu || nl > nu+1 { + t.Fatal("lock race 1") + } + if nl == nu && locked != false { + t.Fatal("lock race 2") + } + if nl != nu && locked != true { + t.Fatal("lock race 3") + } + } + + b.kill() + fmt.Printf(" ... Passed\n") +} diff --git a/src/main/diskvd b/src/main/diskvd new file mode 100644 index 0000000000000000000000000000000000000000..82c17176367c7f497abf1ba1c091f8f8c383a16c GIT binary patch literal 9970464 zcmeFadwf*Y)i*v#KnDR&6faR34HzZd69G+>=pdjcFlZFiaI+|g;i5%J5EXP_5?~w# zsZxs-Yig@vMWxCUsoI(lAY8nFR7I$YQtcTAP_bGBCGYpU_C9CMOcJDhpXc}f{&@I& z$T??U*Is+w_S$RjxqooriuANJkNq#*bE$`4nI8_8B)`s>mabp$@Ouh8C*be7o_3z& z@ZCz%RK6eS{AWM&(&f`*KRuc1I|C2a`@5mO|8Dr@#eQ~F$sYS@L&!S(ze3krq3hYt z0$tC3vMm3xertKN|M>NbdTwcRfqdIf8&1}fHZoPdC-Y8KPe0Avi{#sWy6X`)9{(g& z-v4a!bDtVfb{7qy#tYFU^#jh73b&IE4)BKiF?0PNbA8R^?&;Jh0nSNDO`wGyYzhK6@#8 z&C<0`)K43JJAFz@{cK%7Ti3Vc4C}Lx)cW_Jeq&?f&+Y!J^Hl%Ud8+?QQ~I~d+0Xf? zf5cUPm#)7{*Dula+o$xelRX8fPdQ?@=g(LD`}0-*%XGoi@!Pz4KI&8UrT*Kc>py~g z_rH`+&sbgG?myT^^&jk``rnpPA?4F^9TM821H1mXeyaYseyYBuGdOr1V~AG^N&44^W3*QxKwH&x%3YpMO){C8>WYb$#(tS zgL_v41;_ndzDn;+?lBeq`%o%1jTINqnJ)DkDi!inHRo??{~eH!n#RHhbp2eXrg~|vY)X;;{rq1H{4WOn z7X$y}7@%aQeB$#;sH+RdPrT`ZTQ11E;DQS$=G}D5g?(i!QwAf}0C3=zGD$ 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z;Zk#;iX`VVI&oPb9M|Ygpo*B}pyRk_ldZ%$qslT>zf1Dexzffqcb~Y6<<8`@?XE zGePvWW{0^LOkXGtap8(UFb;DKm?9jlqGrFOT-SuJKlOy^l$r(W#YH>_ZFqCxol~DU3F<~Q)wd4YZB2Da I^CYSDfAQ()jsO4v literal 0 HcmV?d00001 diff --git a/src/main/diskvd.go b/src/main/diskvd.go new file mode 100644 index 0000000..031292f --- /dev/null +++ b/src/main/diskvd.go @@ -0,0 +1,74 @@ +package main + +// +// start a diskvd server. it's a member of some replica +// group, which has other members, and it needs to know +// how to talk to the members of the shardmaster service. +// used by ../diskv/test_test.go +// +// arguments: +// -g groupid +// -m masterport1 -m masterport2 ... +// -s replicaport1 -s replicaport2 ... +// -i my-index-in-server-port-list +// -u unreliable +// -d directory +// -r restart + +import "time" +import "diskv" +import "os" +import "fmt" +import "strconv" +import "runtime" + +func usage() { + fmt.Printf("Usage: diskvd -g gid -m master... -s server... -i my-index -d dir\n") + os.Exit(1) +} + +func main() { + var gid int64 = -1 // my replica group ID + masters := []string{} // ports of shardmasters + replicas := []string{} // ports of servers in my replica group + me := -1 // my index in replicas[] + unreliable := false + dir := "" // store persistent data here + restart := false + + for i := 1; i+1 < len(os.Args); i += 2 { + a0 := os.Args[i] + a1 := os.Args[i+1] + if a0 == "-g" { + gid, _ = strconv.ParseInt(a1, 10, 64) + } else if a0 == "-m" { + masters = append(masters, a1) + } else if a0 == "-s" { + replicas = append(replicas, a1) + } else if a0 == "-i" { + me, _ = strconv.Atoi(a1) + } else if a0 == "-u" { + unreliable, _ = strconv.ParseBool(a1) + } else if a0 == "-d" { + dir = a1 + } else if a0 == "-r" { + restart, _ = strconv.ParseBool(a1) + } else { + usage() + } + } + + if gid < 0 || me < 0 || len(masters) < 1 || me >= len(replicas) || dir == "" { + usage() + } + + runtime.GOMAXPROCS(4) + + srv := diskv.StartServer(gid, masters, replicas, me, dir, restart) + srv.Setunreliable(unreliable) + + // for safety, force quit after 10 minutes. + time.Sleep(10 * 60 * time.Second) + mep, _ := os.FindProcess(os.Getpid()) + mep.Kill() +} diff --git a/src/main/ii.go b/src/main/ii.go new file mode 100644 index 0000000..c049a7c --- /dev/null +++ b/src/main/ii.go @@ -0,0 +1,40 @@ +package main + +import "os" +import "fmt" +import "mapreduce" + +// The mapping function is called once for each piece of the input. +// In this framework, the key is the name of the file that is being processed, +// and the value is the file's contents. The return value should be a slice of +// key/value pairs, each represented by a mapreduce.KeyValue. +func mapF(document string, value string) (res []mapreduce.KeyValue) { + // TODO: you should complete this to do the inverted index challenge +} + +// The reduce function is called once for each key generated by Map, with a +// list of that key's string value (merged across all inputs). The return value +// should be a single output value for that key. +func reduceF(key string, values []string) string { + // TODO: you should complete this to do the inverted index challenge +} + +// Can be run in 3 ways: +// 1) Sequential (e.g., go run wc.go master sequential x1.txt .. xN.txt) +// 2) Master (e.g., go run wc.go master localhost:7777 x1.txt .. xN.txt) +// 3) Worker (e.g., go run wc.go worker localhost:7777 localhost:7778 &) +func main() { + if len(os.Args) < 4 { + fmt.Printf("%s: see usage comments in file\n", os.Args[0]) + } else if os.Args[1] == "master" { + var mr *mapreduce.Master + if os.Args[2] == "sequential" { + mr = mapreduce.Sequential("iiseq", os.Args[3:], 3, mapF, reduceF) + } else { + mr = mapreduce.Distributed("iiseq", os.Args[3:], 3, os.Args[2]) + } + mr.Wait() + } else { + mapreduce.RunWorker(os.Args[2], os.Args[3], mapF, reduceF, 100) + } +} diff --git a/src/main/lockc.go b/src/main/lockc.go new file mode 100644 index 0000000..927d828 --- /dev/null +++ b/src/main/lockc.go @@ -0,0 +1,31 @@ +package main + +// +// see comments in lockd.go +// + +import "lockservice" +import "os" +import "fmt" + +func usage() { + fmt.Printf("Usage: lockc -l|-u primaryport backupport lockname\n") + os.Exit(1) +} + +func main() { + if len(os.Args) == 5 { + ck := lockservice.MakeClerk(os.Args[2], os.Args[3]) + var ok bool + if os.Args[1] == "-l" { + ok = ck.Lock(os.Args[4]) + } else if os.Args[1] == "-u" { + ok = ck.Unlock(os.Args[4]) + } else { + usage() + } + fmt.Printf("reply: %v\n", ok) + } else { + usage() + } +} diff --git a/src/main/lockd.go b/src/main/lockd.go new file mode 100644 index 0000000..fe36e4f --- /dev/null +++ b/src/main/lockd.go @@ -0,0 +1,31 @@ +package main + +// export GOPATH=~/6.824 +// go build lockd.go +// go build lockc.go +// ./lockd -p a b & +// ./lockd -b a b & +// ./lockc -l a b lx +// ./lockc -u a b lx +// +// on Athena, use /tmp/myname-a and /tmp/myname-b +// instead of a and b. + +import "time" +import "lockservice" +import "os" +import "fmt" + +func main() { + if len(os.Args) == 4 && os.Args[1] == "-p" { + lockservice.StartServer(os.Args[2], os.Args[3], true) + } else if len(os.Args) == 4 && os.Args[1] == "-b" { + lockservice.StartServer(os.Args[2], os.Args[3], false) + } else { + fmt.Printf("Usage: lockd -p|-b primaryport backupport\n") + os.Exit(1) + } + for { + time.Sleep(100 * time.Second) + } +} diff --git a/src/main/mr-challenge.txt b/src/main/mr-challenge.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6eac988 --- /dev/null +++ b/src/main/mr-challenge.txt @@ -0,0 +1,10 @@ +women: 15 pg-being_ernest.txt,pg-dorian_gray.txt,pg-dracula.txt,pg-emma.txt,pg-frankenstein.txt,pg-great_expectations.txt,pg-huckleberry_finn.txt,pg-les_miserables.txt,pg-metamorphosis.txt,pg-moby_dick.txt,pg-sherlock_holmes.txt,pg-tale_of_two_cities.txt,pg-tom_sawyer.txt,pg-ulysses.txt,pg-war_and_peace.txt +won: 15 pg-being_ernest.txt,pg-dorian_gray.txt,pg-dracula.txt,pg-frankenstein.txt,pg-great_expectations.txt,pg-grimm.txt,pg-huckleberry_finn.txt,pg-les_miserables.txt,pg-metamorphosis.txt,pg-moby_dick.txt,pg-sherlock_holmes.txt,pg-tale_of_two_cities.txt,pg-tom_sawyer.txt,pg-ulysses.txt,pg-war_and_peace.txt +wonderful: 15 pg-being_ernest.txt,pg-dorian_gray.txt,pg-dracula.txt,pg-emma.txt,pg-frankenstein.txt,pg-great_expectations.txt,pg-grimm.txt,pg-huckleberry_finn.txt,pg-les_miserables.txt,pg-moby_dick.txt,pg-sherlock_holmes.txt,pg-tale_of_two_cities.txt,pg-tom_sawyer.txt,pg-ulysses.txt,pg-war_and_peace.txt +words: 15 pg-dorian_gray.txt,pg-dracula.txt,pg-emma.txt,pg-frankenstein.txt,pg-great_expectations.txt,pg-grimm.txt,pg-huckleberry_finn.txt,pg-les_miserables.txt,pg-metamorphosis.txt,pg-moby_dick.txt,pg-sherlock_holmes.txt,pg-tale_of_two_cities.txt,pg-tom_sawyer.txt,pg-ulysses.txt,pg-war_and_peace.txt +worked: 15 pg-dorian_gray.txt,pg-dracula.txt,pg-emma.txt,pg-frankenstein.txt,pg-great_expectations.txt,pg-grimm.txt,pg-huckleberry_finn.txt,pg-les_miserables.txt,pg-metamorphosis.txt,pg-moby_dick.txt,pg-sherlock_holmes.txt,pg-tale_of_two_cities.txt,pg-tom_sawyer.txt,pg-ulysses.txt,pg-war_and_peace.txt +worse: 15 pg-being_ernest.txt,pg-dorian_gray.txt,pg-dracula.txt,pg-emma.txt,pg-frankenstein.txt,pg-great_expectations.txt,pg-grimm.txt,pg-huckleberry_finn.txt,pg-les_miserables.txt,pg-moby_dick.txt,pg-sherlock_holmes.txt,pg-tale_of_two_cities.txt,pg-tom_sawyer.txt,pg-ulysses.txt,pg-war_and_peace.txt +wounded: 15 pg-being_ernest.txt,pg-dorian_gray.txt,pg-dracula.txt,pg-emma.txt,pg-frankenstein.txt,pg-great_expectations.txt,pg-grimm.txt,pg-huckleberry_finn.txt,pg-les_miserables.txt,pg-moby_dick.txt,pg-sherlock_holmes.txt,pg-tale_of_two_cities.txt,pg-tom_sawyer.txt,pg-ulysses.txt,pg-war_and_peace.txt +yes: 15 pg-being_ernest.txt,pg-dorian_gray.txt,pg-dracula.txt,pg-emma.txt,pg-great_expectations.txt,pg-grimm.txt,pg-huckleberry_finn.txt,pg-les_miserables.txt,pg-metamorphosis.txt,pg-moby_dick.txt,pg-sherlock_holmes.txt,pg-tale_of_two_cities.txt,pg-tom_sawyer.txt,pg-ulysses.txt,pg-war_and_peace.txt +younger: 15 pg-being_ernest.txt,pg-dorian_gray.txt,pg-dracula.txt,pg-emma.txt,pg-frankenstein.txt,pg-great_expectations.txt,pg-grimm.txt,pg-huckleberry_finn.txt,pg-les_miserables.txt,pg-moby_dick.txt,pg-sherlock_holmes.txt,pg-tale_of_two_cities.txt,pg-tom_sawyer.txt,pg-ulysses.txt,pg-war_and_peace.txt +yours: 15 pg-being_ernest.txt,pg-dorian_gray.txt,pg-dracula.txt,pg-emma.txt,pg-frankenstein.txt,pg-great_expectations.txt,pg-grimm.txt,pg-huckleberry_finn.txt,pg-les_miserables.txt,pg-moby_dick.txt,pg-sherlock_holmes.txt,pg-tale_of_two_cities.txt,pg-tom_sawyer.txt,pg-ulysses.txt,pg-war_and_peace.txt diff --git a/src/main/mr-testout.txt b/src/main/mr-testout.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..1405ce0 --- /dev/null +++ b/src/main/mr-testout.txt @@ -0,0 +1,10 @@ +he: 34077 +was: 37044 +that: 37495 +I: 44502 +in: 46092 +a: 60558 +to: 74357 +of: 79727 +and: 93990 +the: 154024 diff --git a/src/main/pbc.go b/src/main/pbc.go new file mode 100644 index 0000000..aea3966 --- /dev/null +++ b/src/main/pbc.go @@ -0,0 +1,44 @@ +package main + +// +// pbservice client application +// +// export GOPATH=~/6.824 +// go build viewd.go +// go build pbd.go +// go build pbc.go +// ./viewd /tmp/rtm-v & +// ./pbd /tmp/rtm-v /tmp/rtm-1 & +// ./pbd /tmp/rtm-v /tmp/rtm-2 & +// ./pbc /tmp/rtm-v key1 value1 +// ./pbc /tmp/rtm-v key1 +// +// change "rtm" to your user name. +// start the pbd programs in separate windows and kill +// and restart them to exercise fault tolerance. +// + +import "pbservice" +import "os" +import "fmt" + +func usage() { + fmt.Printf("Usage: pbc viewport key\n") + fmt.Printf(" pbc viewport key value\n") + os.Exit(1) +} + +func main() { + if len(os.Args) == 3 { + // get + ck := pbservice.MakeClerk(os.Args[1], "") + v := ck.Get(os.Args[2]) + fmt.Printf("%v\n", v) + } else if len(os.Args) == 4 { + // put + ck := pbservice.MakeClerk(os.Args[1], "") + ck.Put(os.Args[2], os.Args[3]) + } else { + usage() + } +} diff --git a/src/main/pbd.go b/src/main/pbd.go new file mode 100644 index 0000000..ad2b0da --- /dev/null +++ b/src/main/pbd.go @@ -0,0 +1,23 @@ +package main + +// +// see directions in pbc.go +// + +import "time" +import "pbservice" +import "os" +import "fmt" + +func main() { + if len(os.Args) != 3 { + fmt.Printf("Usage: pbd viewport myport\n") + os.Exit(1) + } + + pbservice.StartServer(os.Args[1], os.Args[2]) + + for { + time.Sleep(100 * time.Second) + } +} diff --git a/src/main/pg-being_ernest.txt b/src/main/pg-being_ernest.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..da6dffb --- /dev/null +++ b/src/main/pg-being_ernest.txt @@ -0,0 +1,3495 @@ +The Project Gutenberg eBook, The Importance of Being Earnest, by Oscar +Wilde + + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + + + + +Title: The Importance of Being Earnest + A Trivial Comedy for Serious People + + +Author: Oscar Wilde + + + +Release Date: August 29, 2006 [eBook #844] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII) + + +***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE IMPORTANCE OF BEING EARNEST*** + + + + + + +Transcribed from the 1915 Methuen & Co. Ltd. edition by David Price, +email ccx074@pglaf.org + + + + + +The Importance of Being Earnest +A Trivial Comedy for Serious People + + +THE PERSONS IN THE PLAY + + +John Worthing, J.P. +Algernon Moncrieff +Rev. Canon Chasuble, D.D. +Merriman, Butler +Lane, Manservant +Lady Bracknell +Hon. Gwendolen Fairfax +Cecily Cardew +Miss Prism, Governess + + + + +THE SCENES OF THE PLAY + + +ACT I. Algernon Moncrieff's Flat in Half-Moon Street, W. + +ACT II. The Garden at the Manor House, Woolton. + +ACT III. Drawing-Room at the Manor House, Woolton. + +TIME: The Present. + + + + +LONDON: ST. JAMES'S THEATRE + + +Lessee and Manager: Mr. George Alexander + +February 14th, 1895 + +* * * * * + +John Worthing, J.P.: Mr. George Alexander. +Algernon Moncrieff: Mr. Allen Aynesworth. +Rev. Canon Chasuble, D.D.: Mr. H. H. Vincent. +Merriman: Mr. Frank Dyall. +Lane: Mr. F. Kinsey Peile. +Lady Bracknell: Miss Rose Leclercq. +Hon. Gwendolen Fairfax: Miss Irene Vanbrugh. +Cecily Cardew: Miss Evelyn Millard. +Miss Prism: Mrs. George Canninge. + + + + +FIRST ACT + + +SCENE + + +Morning-room in Algernon's flat in Half-Moon Street. The room is +luxuriously and artistically furnished. The sound of a piano is heard in +the adjoining room. + +[Lane is arranging afternoon tea on the table, and after the music has +ceased, Algernon enters.] + +Algernon. Did you hear what I was playing, Lane? + +Lane. I didn't think it polite to listen, sir. + +Algernon. I'm sorry for that, for your sake. I don't play +accurately--any one can play accurately--but I play with wonderful +expression. As far as the piano is concerned, sentiment is my forte. I +keep science for Life. + +Lane. Yes, sir. + +Algernon. And, speaking of the science of Life, have you got the +cucumber sandwiches cut for Lady Bracknell? + +Lane. Yes, sir. [Hands them on a salver.] + +Algernon. [Inspects them, takes two, and sits down on the sofa.] Oh! . . . +by the way, Lane, I see from your book that on Thursday night, when +Lord Shoreman and Mr. Worthing were dining with me, eight bottles of +champagne are entered as having been consumed. + +Lane. Yes, sir; eight bottles and a pint. + +Algernon. Why is it that at a bachelor's establishment the servants +invariably drink the champagne? I ask merely for information. + +Lane. I attribute it to the superior quality of the wine, sir. I have +often observed that in married households the champagne is rarely of a +first-rate brand. + +Algernon. Good heavens! Is marriage so demoralising as that? + +Lane. I believe it _is_ a very pleasant state, sir. I have had very +little experience of it myself up to the present. I have only been +married once. That was in consequence of a misunderstanding between +myself and a young person. + +Algernon. [Languidly_._] I don't know that I am much interested in your +family life, Lane. + +Lane. No, sir; it is not a very interesting subject. I never think of +it myself. + +Algernon. Very natural, I am sure. That will do, Lane, thank you. + +Lane. Thank you, sir. [Lane goes out.] + +Algernon. Lane's views on marriage seem somewhat lax. Really, if the +lower orders don't set us a good example, what on earth is the use of +them? They seem, as a class, to have absolutely no sense of moral +responsibility. + +[Enter Lane.] + +Lane. Mr. Ernest Worthing. + +[Enter Jack.] + +[Lane goes out_._] + +Algernon. How are you, my dear Ernest? What brings you up to town? + +Jack. Oh, pleasure, pleasure! What else should bring one anywhere? +Eating as usual, I see, Algy! + +Algernon. [Stiffly_._] I believe it is customary in good society to +take some slight refreshment at five o'clock. Where have you been since +last Thursday? + +Jack. [Sitting down on the sofa.] In the country. + +Algernon. What on earth do you do there? + +Jack. [Pulling off his gloves_._] When one is in town one amuses +oneself. When one is in the country one amuses other people. It is +excessively boring. + +Algernon. And who are the people you amuse? + +Jack. [Airily_._] Oh, neighbours, neighbours. + +Algernon. Got nice neighbours in your part of Shropshire? + +Jack. Perfectly horrid! Never speak to one of them. + +Algernon. How immensely you must amuse them! [Goes over and takes +sandwich.] By the way, Shropshire is your county, is it not? + +Jack. Eh? Shropshire? Yes, of course. Hallo! Why all these cups? Why +cucumber sandwiches? Why such reckless extravagance in one so young? Who +is coming to tea? + +Algernon. Oh! merely Aunt Augusta and Gwendolen. + +Jack. How perfectly delightful! + +Algernon. Yes, that is all very well; but I am afraid Aunt Augusta won't +quite approve of your being here. + +Jack. May I ask why? + +Algernon. My dear fellow, the way you flirt with Gwendolen is perfectly +disgraceful. It is almost as bad as the way Gwendolen flirts with you. + +Jack. I am in love with Gwendolen. I have come up to town expressly to +propose to her. + +Algernon. I thought you had come up for pleasure? . . . I call that +business. + +Jack. How utterly unromantic you are! + +Algernon. I really don't see anything romantic in proposing. It is very +romantic to be in love. But there is nothing romantic about a definite +proposal. Why, one may be accepted. One usually is, I believe. Then +the excitement is all over. The very essence of romance is uncertainty. +If ever I get married, I'll certainly try to forget the fact. + +Jack. I have no doubt about that, dear Algy. The Divorce Court was +specially invented for people whose memories are so curiously +constituted. + +Algernon. Oh! there is no use speculating on that subject. Divorces are +made in Heaven--[Jack puts out his hand to take a sandwich. Algernon at +once interferes.] Please don't touch the cucumber sandwiches. They are +ordered specially for Aunt Augusta. [Takes one and eats it.] + +Jack. Well, you have been eating them all the time. + +Algernon. That is quite a different matter. She is my aunt. [Takes +plate from below.] Have some bread and butter. The bread and butter is +for Gwendolen. Gwendolen is devoted to bread and butter. + +Jack. [Advancing to table and helping himself.] And very good bread and +butter it is too. + +Algernon. Well, my dear fellow, you need not eat as if you were going to +eat it all. You behave as if you were married to her already. You are +not married to her already, and I don't think you ever will be. + +Jack. Why on earth do you say that? + +Algernon. Well, in the first place girls never marry the men they flirt +with. Girls don't think it right. + +Jack. Oh, that is nonsense! + +Algernon. It isn't. It is a great truth. It accounts for the +extraordinary number of bachelors that one sees all over the place. In +the second place, I don't give my consent. + +Jack. Your consent! + +Algernon. My dear fellow, Gwendolen is my first cousin. And before I +allow you to marry her, you will have to clear up the whole question of +Cecily. [Rings bell.] + +Jack. Cecily! What on earth do you mean? What do you mean, Algy, by +Cecily! I don't know any one of the name of Cecily. + +[Enter Lane.] + +Algernon. Bring me that cigarette case Mr. Worthing left in the smoking- +room the last time he dined here. + +Lane. Yes, sir. [Lane goes out.] + +Jack. Do you mean to say you have had my cigarette case all this time? I +wish to goodness you had let me know. I have been writing frantic +letters to Scotland Yard about it. I was very nearly offering a large +reward. + +Algernon. Well, I wish you would offer one. I happen to be more than +usually hard up. + +Jack. There is no good offering a large reward now that the thing is +found. + +[Enter Lane with the cigarette case on a salver. Algernon takes it at +once. Lane goes out.] + +Algernon. I think that is rather mean of you, Ernest, I must say. [Opens +case and examines it.] However, it makes no matter, for, now that I look +at the inscription inside, I find that the thing isn't yours after all. + +Jack. Of course it's mine. [Moving to him.] You have seen me with it a +hundred times, and you have no right whatsoever to read what is written +inside. It is a very ungentlemanly thing to read a private cigarette +case. + +Algernon. Oh! it is absurd to have a hard and fast rule about what one +should read and what one shouldn't. More than half of modern culture +depends on what one shouldn't read. + +Jack. I am quite aware of the fact, and I don't propose to discuss +modern culture. It isn't the sort of thing one should talk of in +private. I simply want my cigarette case back. + +Algernon. Yes; but this isn't your cigarette case. This cigarette case +is a present from some one of the name of Cecily, and you said you didn't +know any one of that name. + +Jack. Well, if you want to know, Cecily happens to be my aunt. + +Algernon. Your aunt! + +Jack. Yes. Charming old lady she is, too. Lives at Tunbridge Wells. +Just give it back to me, Algy. + +Algernon. [Retreating to back of sofa.] But why does she call herself +little Cecily if she is your aunt and lives at Tunbridge Wells? +[Reading.] 'From little Cecily with her fondest love.' + +Jack. [Moving to sofa and kneeling upon it.] My dear fellow, what on +earth is there in that? Some aunts are tall, some aunts are not tall. +That is a matter that surely an aunt may be allowed to decide for +herself. You seem to think that every aunt should be exactly like your +aunt! That is absurd! For Heaven's sake give me back my cigarette case. +[Follows Algernon round the room.] + +Algernon. Yes. But why does your aunt call you her uncle? 'From little +Cecily, with her fondest love to her dear Uncle Jack.' There is no +objection, I admit, to an aunt being a small aunt, but why an aunt, no +matter what her size may be, should call her own nephew her uncle, I +can't quite make out. Besides, your name isn't Jack at all; it is +Ernest. + +Jack. It isn't Ernest; it's Jack. + +Algernon. You have always told me it was Ernest. I have introduced you +to every one as Ernest. You answer to the name of Ernest. You look as +if your name was Ernest. You are the most earnest-looking person I ever +saw in my life. It is perfectly absurd your saying that your name isn't +Ernest. It's on your cards. Here is one of them. [Taking it from +case.] 'Mr. Ernest Worthing, B. 4, The Albany.' I'll keep this as a +proof that your name is Ernest if ever you attempt to deny it to me, or +to Gwendolen, or to any one else. [Puts the card in his pocket.] + +Jack. Well, my name is Ernest in town and Jack in the country, and the +cigarette case was given to me in the country. + +Algernon. Yes, but that does not account for the fact that your small +Aunt Cecily, who lives at Tunbridge Wells, calls you her dear uncle. +Come, old boy, you had much better have the thing out at once. + +Jack. My dear Algy, you talk exactly as if you were a dentist. It is +very vulgar to talk like a dentist when one isn't a dentist. It produces +a false impression. + +Algernon. Well, that is exactly what dentists always do. Now, go on! +Tell me the whole thing. I may mention that I have always suspected you +of being a confirmed and secret Bunburyist; and I am quite sure of it +now. + +Jack. Bunburyist? What on earth do you mean by a Bunburyist? + +Algernon. I'll reveal to you the meaning of that incomparable expression +as soon as you are kind enough to inform me why you are Ernest in town +and Jack in the country. + +Jack. Well, produce my cigarette case first. + +Algernon. Here it is. [Hands cigarette case.] Now produce your +explanation, and pray make it improbable. [Sits on sofa.] + +Jack. My dear fellow, there is nothing improbable about my explanation +at all. In fact it's perfectly ordinary. Old Mr. Thomas Cardew, who +adopted me when I was a little boy, made me in his will guardian to his +grand-daughter, Miss Cecily Cardew. Cecily, who addresses me as her +uncle from motives of respect that you could not possibly appreciate, +lives at my place in the country under the charge of her admirable +governess, Miss Prism. + +Algernon. Where is that place in the country, by the way? + +Jack. That is nothing to you, dear boy. You are not going to be invited +. . . I may tell you candidly that the place is not in Shropshire. + +Algernon. I suspected that, my dear fellow! I have Bunburyed all over +Shropshire on two separate occasions. Now, go on. Why are you Ernest in +town and Jack in the country? + +Jack. My dear Algy, I don't know whether you will be able to understand +my real motives. You are hardly serious enough. When one is placed in +the position of guardian, one has to adopt a very high moral tone on all +subjects. It's one's duty to do so. And as a high moral tone can hardly +be said to conduce very much to either one's health or one's happiness, +in order to get up to town I have always pretended to have a younger +brother of the name of Ernest, who lives in the Albany, and gets into the +most dreadful scrapes. That, my dear Algy, is the whole truth pure and +simple. + +Algernon. The truth is rarely pure and never simple. Modern life would +be very tedious if it were either, and modern literature a complete +impossibility! + +Jack. That wouldn't be at all a bad thing. + +Algernon. Literary criticism is not your forte, my dear fellow. Don't +try it. You should leave that to people who haven't been at a +University. They do it so well in the daily papers. What you really are +is a Bunburyist. I was quite right in saying you were a Bunburyist. You +are one of the most advanced Bunburyists I know. + +Jack. What on earth do you mean? + +Algernon. You have invented a very useful younger brother called Ernest, +in order that you may be able to come up to town as often as you like. I +have invented an invaluable permanent invalid called Bunbury, in order +that I may be able to go down into the country whenever I choose. Bunbury +is perfectly invaluable. If it wasn't for Bunbury's extraordinary bad +health, for instance, I wouldn't be able to dine with you at Willis's to- +night, for I have been really engaged to Aunt Augusta for more than a +week. + +Jack. I haven't asked you to dine with me anywhere to-night. + +Algernon. I know. You are absurdly careless about sending out +invitations. It is very foolish of you. Nothing annoys people so much +as not receiving invitations. + +Jack. You had much better dine with your Aunt Augusta. + +Algernon. I haven't the smallest intention of doing anything of the +kind. To begin with, I dined there on Monday, and once a week is quite +enough to dine with one's own relations. In the second place, whenever I +do dine there I am always treated as a member of the family, and sent +down with either no woman at all, or two. In the third place, I know +perfectly well whom she will place me next to, to-night. She will place +me next Mary Farquhar, who always flirts with her own husband across the +dinner-table. That is not very pleasant. Indeed, it is not even decent +. . . and that sort of thing is enormously on the increase. The amount +of women in London who flirt with their own husbands is perfectly +scandalous. It looks so bad. It is simply washing one's clean linen in +public. Besides, now that I know you to be a confirmed Bunburyist I +naturally want to talk to you about Bunburying. I want to tell you the +rules. + +Jack. I'm not a Bunburyist at all. If Gwendolen accepts me, I am going +to kill my brother, indeed I think I'll kill him in any case. Cecily is +a little too much interested in him. It is rather a bore. So I am going +to get rid of Ernest. And I strongly advise you to do the same with Mr. +. . . with your invalid friend who has the absurd name. + +Algernon. Nothing will induce me to part with Bunbury, and if you ever +get married, which seems to me extremely problematic, you will be very +glad to know Bunbury. A man who marries without knowing Bunbury has a +very tedious time of it. + +Jack. That is nonsense. If I marry a charming girl like Gwendolen, and +she is the only girl I ever saw in my life that I would marry, I +certainly won't want to know Bunbury. + +Algernon. Then your wife will. You don't seem to realise, that in +married life three is company and two is none. + +Jack. [Sententiously.] That, my dear young friend, is the theory that +the corrupt French Drama has been propounding for the last fifty years. + +Algernon. Yes; and that the happy English home has proved in half the +time. + +Jack. For heaven's sake, don't try to be cynical. It's perfectly easy +to be cynical. + +Algernon. My dear fellow, it isn't easy to be anything nowadays. There's +such a lot of beastly competition about. [The sound of an electric bell +is heard.] Ah! that must be Aunt Augusta. Only relatives, or creditors, +ever ring in that Wagnerian manner. Now, if I get her out of the way for +ten minutes, so that you can have an opportunity for proposing to +Gwendolen, may I dine with you to-night at Willis's? + +Jack. I suppose so, if you want to. + +Algernon. Yes, but you must be serious about it. I hate people who are +not serious about meals. It is so shallow of them. + +[Enter Lane.] + +Lane. Lady Bracknell and Miss Fairfax. + +[Algernon goes forward to meet them. Enter Lady Bracknell and +Gwendolen.] + +Lady Bracknell. Good afternoon, dear Algernon, I hope you are behaving +very well. + +Algernon. I'm feeling very well, Aunt Augusta. + +Lady Bracknell. That's not quite the same thing. In fact the two things +rarely go together. [Sees Jack and bows to him with icy coldness.] + +Algernon. [To Gwendolen.] Dear me, you are smart! + +Gwendolen. I am always smart! Am I not, Mr. Worthing? + +Jack. You're quite perfect, Miss Fairfax. + +Gwendolen. Oh! I hope I am not that. It would leave no room for +developments, and I intend to develop in many directions. [Gwendolen and +Jack sit down together in the corner.] + +Lady Bracknell. I'm sorry if we are a little late, Algernon, but I was +obliged to call on dear Lady Harbury. I hadn't been there since her poor +husband's death. I never saw a woman so altered; she looks quite twenty +years younger. And now I'll have a cup of tea, and one of those nice +cucumber sandwiches you promised me. + +Algernon. Certainly, Aunt Augusta. [Goes over to tea-table.] + +Lady Bracknell. Won't you come and sit here, Gwendolen? + +Gwendolen. Thanks, mamma, I'm quite comfortable where I am. + +Algernon. [Picking up empty plate in horror.] Good heavens! Lane! Why +are there no cucumber sandwiches? I ordered them specially. + +Lane. [Gravely.] There were no cucumbers in the market this morning, +sir. I went down twice. + +Algernon. No cucumbers! + +Lane. No, sir. Not even for ready money. + +Algernon. That will do, Lane, thank you. + +Lane. Thank you, sir. [Goes out.] + +Algernon. I am greatly distressed, Aunt Augusta, about there being no +cucumbers, not even for ready money. + +Lady Bracknell. It really makes no matter, Algernon. I had some +crumpets with Lady Harbury, who seems to me to be living entirely for +pleasure now. + +Algernon. I hear her hair has turned quite gold from grief. + +Lady Bracknell. It certainly has changed its colour. From what cause I, +of course, cannot say. [Algernon crosses and hands tea.] Thank you. +I've quite a treat for you to-night, Algernon. I am going to send you +down with Mary Farquhar. She is such a nice woman, and so attentive to +her husband. It's delightful to watch them. + +Algernon. I am afraid, Aunt Augusta, I shall have to give up the +pleasure of dining with you to-night after all. + +Lady Bracknell. [Frowning.] I hope not, Algernon. It would put my +table completely out. Your uncle would have to dine upstairs. +Fortunately he is accustomed to that. + +Algernon. It is a great bore, and, I need hardly say, a terrible +disappointment to me, but the fact is I have just had a telegram to say +that my poor friend Bunbury is very ill again. [Exchanges glances with +Jack.] They seem to think I should be with him. + +Lady Bracknell. It is very strange. This Mr. Bunbury seems to suffer +from curiously bad health. + +Algernon. Yes; poor Bunbury is a dreadful invalid. + +Lady Bracknell. Well, I must say, Algernon, that I think it is high time +that Mr. Bunbury made up his mind whether he was going to live or to die. +This shilly-shallying with the question is absurd. Nor do I in any way +approve of the modern sympathy with invalids. I consider it morbid. +Illness of any kind is hardly a thing to be encouraged in others. Health +is the primary duty of life. I am always telling that to your poor +uncle, but he never seems to take much notice . . . as far as any +improvement in his ailment goes. I should be much obliged if you would +ask Mr. Bunbury, from me, to be kind enough not to have a relapse on +Saturday, for I rely on you to arrange my music for me. It is my last +reception, and one wants something that will encourage conversation, +particularly at the end of the season when every one has practically said +whatever they had to say, which, in most cases, was probably not much. + +Algernon. I'll speak to Bunbury, Aunt Augusta, if he is still conscious, +and I think I can promise you he'll be all right by Saturday. Of course +the music is a great difficulty. You see, if one plays good music, +people don't listen, and if one plays bad music people don't talk. But +I'll run over the programme I've drawn out, if you will kindly come into +the next room for a moment. + +Lady Bracknell. Thank you, Algernon. It is very thoughtful of you. +[Rising, and following Algernon.] I'm sure the programme will be +delightful, after a few expurgations. French songs I cannot possibly +allow. People always seem to think that they are improper, and either +look shocked, which is vulgar, or laugh, which is worse. But German +sounds a thoroughly respectable language, and indeed, I believe is so. +Gwendolen, you will accompany me. + +Gwendolen. Certainly, mamma. + +[Lady Bracknell and Algernon go into the music-room, Gwendolen remains +behind.] + +Jack. Charming day it has been, Miss Fairfax. + +Gwendolen. Pray don't talk to me about the weather, Mr. Worthing. +Whenever people talk to me about the weather, I always feel quite certain +that they mean something else. And that makes me so nervous. + +Jack. I do mean something else. + +Gwendolen. I thought so. In fact, I am never wrong. + +Jack. And I would like to be allowed to take advantage of Lady +Bracknell's temporary absence . . . + +Gwendolen. I would certainly advise you to do so. Mamma has a way of +coming back suddenly into a room that I have often had to speak to her +about. + +Jack. [Nervously.] Miss Fairfax, ever since I met you I have admired +you more than any girl . . . I have ever met since . . . I met you. + +Gwendolen. Yes, I am quite well aware of the fact. And I often wish +that in public, at any rate, you had been more demonstrative. For me you +have always had an irresistible fascination. Even before I met you I was +far from indifferent to you. [Jack looks at her in amazement.] We live, +as I hope you know, Mr. Worthing, in an age of ideals. The fact is +constantly mentioned in the more expensive monthly magazines, and has +reached the provincial pulpits, I am told; and my ideal has always been +to love some one of the name of Ernest. There is something in that name +that inspires absolute confidence. The moment Algernon first mentioned +to me that he had a friend called Ernest, I knew I was destined to love +you. + +Jack. You really love me, Gwendolen? + +Gwendolen. Passionately! + +Jack. Darling! You don't know how happy you've made me. + +Gwendolen. My own Ernest! + +Jack. But you don't really mean to say that you couldn't love me if my +name wasn't Ernest? + +Gwendolen. But your name is Ernest. + +Jack. Yes, I know it is. But supposing it was something else? Do you +mean to say you couldn't love me then? + +Gwendolen. [Glibly.] Ah! that is clearly a metaphysical speculation, +and like most metaphysical speculations has very little reference at all +to the actual facts of real life, as we know them. + +Jack. Personally, darling, to speak quite candidly, I don't much care +about the name of Ernest . . . I don't think the name suits me at all. + +Gwendolen. It suits you perfectly. It is a divine name. It has a music +of its own. It produces vibrations. + +Jack. Well, really, Gwendolen, I must say that I think there are lots of +other much nicer names. I think Jack, for instance, a charming name. + +Gwendolen. Jack? . . . No, there is very little music in the name Jack, +if any at all, indeed. It does not thrill. It produces absolutely no +vibrations . . . I have known several Jacks, and they all, without +exception, were more than usually plain. Besides, Jack is a notorious +domesticity for John! And I pity any woman who is married to a man +called John. She would probably never be allowed to know the entrancing +pleasure of a single moment's solitude. The only really safe name is +Ernest. + +Jack. Gwendolen, I must get christened at once--I mean we must get +married at once. There is no time to be lost. + +Gwendolen. Married, Mr. Worthing? + +Jack. [Astounded.] Well . . . surely. You know that I love you, and +you led me to believe, Miss Fairfax, that you were not absolutely +indifferent to me. + +Gwendolen. I adore you. But you haven't proposed to me yet. Nothing +has been said at all about marriage. The subject has not even been +touched on. + +Jack. Well . . . may I propose to you now? + +Gwendolen. I think it would be an admirable opportunity. And to spare +you any possible disappointment, Mr. Worthing, I think it only fair to +tell you quite frankly before-hand that I am fully determined to accept +you. + +Jack. Gwendolen! + +Gwendolen. Yes, Mr. Worthing, what have you got to say to me? + +Jack. You know what I have got to say to you. + +Gwendolen. Yes, but you don't say it. + +Jack. Gwendolen, will you marry me? [Goes on his knees.] + +Gwendolen. Of course I will, darling. How long you have been about it! +I am afraid you have had very little experience in how to propose. + +Jack. My own one, I have never loved any one in the world but you. + +Gwendolen. Yes, but men often propose for practice. I know my brother +Gerald does. All my girl-friends tell me so. What wonderfully blue eyes +you have, Ernest! They are quite, quite, blue. I hope you will always +look at me just like that, especially when there are other people +present. [Enter Lady Bracknell.] + +Lady Bracknell. Mr. Worthing! Rise, sir, from this semi-recumbent +posture. It is most indecorous. + +Gwendolen. Mamma! [He tries to rise; she restrains him.] I must beg +you to retire. This is no place for you. Besides, Mr. Worthing has not +quite finished yet. + +Lady Bracknell. Finished what, may I ask? + +Gwendolen. I am engaged to Mr. Worthing, mamma. [They rise together.] + +Lady Bracknell. Pardon me, you are not engaged to any one. When you do +become engaged to some one, I, or your father, should his health permit +him, will inform you of the fact. An engagement should come on a young +girl as a surprise, pleasant or unpleasant, as the case may be. It is +hardly a matter that she could be allowed to arrange for herself . . . +And now I have a few questions to put to you, Mr. Worthing. While I am +making these inquiries, you, Gwendolen, will wait for me below in the +carriage. + +Gwendolen. [Reproachfully.] Mamma! + +Lady Bracknell. In the carriage, Gwendolen! [Gwendolen goes to the +door. She and Jack blow kisses to each other behind Lady Bracknell's +back. Lady Bracknell looks vaguely about as if she could not understand +what the noise was. Finally turns round.] Gwendolen, the carriage! + +Gwendolen. Yes, mamma. [Goes out, looking back at Jack.] + +Lady Bracknell. [Sitting down.] You can take a seat, Mr. Worthing. + +[Looks in her pocket for note-book and pencil.] + +Jack. Thank you, Lady Bracknell, I prefer standing. + +Lady Bracknell. [Pencil and note-book in hand.] I feel bound to tell +you that you are not down on my list of eligible young men, although I +have the same list as the dear Duchess of Bolton has. We work together, +in fact. However, I am quite ready to enter your name, should your +answers be what a really affectionate mother requires. Do you smoke? + +Jack. Well, yes, I must admit I smoke. + +Lady Bracknell. I am glad to hear it. A man should always have an +occupation of some kind. There are far too many idle men in London as it +is. How old are you? + +Jack. Twenty-nine. + +Lady Bracknell. A very good age to be married at. I have always been of +opinion that a man who desires to get married should know either +everything or nothing. Which do you know? + +Jack. [After some hesitation.] I know nothing, Lady Bracknell. + +Lady Bracknell. I am pleased to hear it. I do not approve of anything +that tampers with natural ignorance. Ignorance is like a delicate exotic +fruit; touch it and the bloom is gone. The whole theory of modern +education is radically unsound. Fortunately in England, at any rate, +education produces no effect whatsoever. If it did, it would prove a +serious danger to the upper classes, and probably lead to acts of +violence in Grosvenor Square. What is your income? + +Jack. Between seven and eight thousand a year. + +Lady Bracknell. [Makes a note in her book.] In land, or in investments? + +Jack. In investments, chiefly. + +Lady Bracknell. That is satisfactory. What between the duties expected +of one during one's lifetime, and the duties exacted from one after one's +death, land has ceased to be either a profit or a pleasure. It gives one +position, and prevents one from keeping it up. That's all that can be +said about land. + +Jack. I have a country house with some land, of course, attached to it, +about fifteen hundred acres, I believe; but I don't depend on that for my +real income. In fact, as far as I can make out, the poachers are the +only people who make anything out of it. + +Lady Bracknell. A country house! How many bedrooms? Well, that point +can be cleared up afterwards. You have a town house, I hope? A girl +with a simple, unspoiled nature, like Gwendolen, could hardly be expected +to reside in the country. + +Jack. Well, I own a house in Belgrave Square, but it is let by the year +to Lady Bloxham. Of course, I can get it back whenever I like, at six +months' notice. + +Lady Bracknell. Lady Bloxham? I don't know her. + +Jack. Oh, she goes about very little. She is a lady considerably +advanced in years. + +Lady Bracknell. Ah, nowadays that is no guarantee of respectability of +character. What number in Belgrave Square? + +Jack. 149. + +Lady Bracknell. [Shaking her head.] The unfashionable side. I thought +there was something. However, that could easily be altered. + +Jack. Do you mean the fashion, or the side? + +Lady Bracknell. [Sternly.] Both, if necessary, I presume. What are +your politics? + +Jack. Well, I am afraid I really have none. I am a Liberal Unionist. + +Lady Bracknell. Oh, they count as Tories. They dine with us. Or come +in the evening, at any rate. Now to minor matters. Are your parents +living? + +Jack. I have lost both my parents. + +Lady Bracknell. To lose one parent, Mr. Worthing, may be regarded as a +misfortune; to lose both looks like carelessness. Who was your father? +He was evidently a man of some wealth. Was he born in what the Radical +papers call the purple of commerce, or did he rise from the ranks of the +aristocracy? + +Jack. I am afraid I really don't know. The fact is, Lady Bracknell, I +said I had lost my parents. It would be nearer the truth to say that my +parents seem to have lost me . . . I don't actually know who I am by +birth. I was . . . well, I was found. + +Lady Bracknell. Found! + +Jack. The late Mr. Thomas Cardew, an old gentleman of a very charitable +and kindly disposition, found me, and gave me the name of Worthing, +because he happened to have a first-class ticket for Worthing in his +pocket at the time. Worthing is a place in Sussex. It is a seaside +resort. + +Lady Bracknell. Where did the charitable gentleman who had a first-class +ticket for this seaside resort find you? + +Jack. [Gravely.] In a hand-bag. + +Lady Bracknell. A hand-bag? + +Jack. [Very seriously.] Yes, Lady Bracknell. I was in a hand-bag--a +somewhat large, black leather hand-bag, with handles to it--an ordinary +hand-bag in fact. + +Lady Bracknell. In what locality did this Mr. James, or Thomas, Cardew +come across this ordinary hand-bag? + +Jack. In the cloak-room at Victoria Station. It was given to him in +mistake for his own. + +Lady Bracknell. The cloak-room at Victoria Station? + +Jack. Yes. The Brighton line. + +Lady Bracknell. The line is immaterial. Mr. Worthing, I confess I feel +somewhat bewildered by what you have just told me. To be born, or at any +rate bred, in a hand-bag, whether it had handles or not, seems to me to +display a contempt for the ordinary decencies of family life that reminds +one of the worst excesses of the French Revolution. And I presume you +know what that unfortunate movement led to? As for the particular +locality in which the hand-bag was found, a cloak-room at a railway +station might serve to conceal a social indiscretion--has probably, +indeed, been used for that purpose before now--but it could hardly be +regarded as an assured basis for a recognised position in good society. + +Jack. May I ask you then what you would advise me to do? I need hardly +say I would do anything in the world to ensure Gwendolen's happiness. + +Lady Bracknell. I would strongly advise you, Mr. Worthing, to try and +acquire some relations as soon as possible, and to make a definite effort +to produce at any rate one parent, of either sex, before the season is +quite over. + +Jack. Well, I don't see how I could possibly manage to do that. I can +produce the hand-bag at any moment. It is in my dressing-room at home. I +really think that should satisfy you, Lady Bracknell. + +Lady Bracknell. Me, sir! What has it to do with me? You can hardly +imagine that I and Lord Bracknell would dream of allowing our only +daughter--a girl brought up with the utmost care--to marry into a cloak- +room, and form an alliance with a parcel? Good morning, Mr. Worthing! + +[Lady Bracknell sweeps out in majestic indignation.] + +Jack. Good morning! [Algernon, from the other room, strikes up the +Wedding March. Jack looks perfectly furious, and goes to the door.] For +goodness' sake don't play that ghastly tune, Algy. How idiotic you are! + +[The music stops and Algernon enters cheerily.] + +Algernon. Didn't it go off all right, old boy? You don't mean to say +Gwendolen refused you? I know it is a way she has. She is always +refusing people. I think it is most ill-natured of her. + +Jack. Oh, Gwendolen is as right as a trivet. As far as she is +concerned, we are engaged. Her mother is perfectly unbearable. Never +met such a Gorgon . . . I don't really know what a Gorgon is like, but I +am quite sure that Lady Bracknell is one. In any case, she is a monster, +without being a myth, which is rather unfair . . . I beg your pardon, +Algy, I suppose I shouldn't talk about your own aunt in that way before +you. + +Algernon. My dear boy, I love hearing my relations abused. It is the +only thing that makes me put up with them at all. Relations are simply a +tedious pack of people, who haven't got the remotest knowledge of how to +live, nor the smallest instinct about when to die. + +Jack. Oh, that is nonsense! + +Algernon. It isn't! + +Jack. Well, I won't argue about the matter. You always want to argue +about things. + +Algernon. That is exactly what things were originally made for. + +Jack. Upon my word, if I thought that, I'd shoot myself . . . [A pause.] +You don't think there is any chance of Gwendolen becoming like her mother +in about a hundred and fifty years, do you, Algy? + +Algernon. All women become like their mothers. That is their tragedy. +No man does. That's his. + +Jack. Is that clever? + +Algernon. It is perfectly phrased! and quite as true as any observation +in civilised life should be. + +Jack. I am sick to death of cleverness. Everybody is clever nowadays. +You can't go anywhere without meeting clever people. The thing has +become an absolute public nuisance. I wish to goodness we had a few +fools left. + +Algernon. We have. + +Jack. I should extremely like to meet them. What do they talk about? + +Algernon. The fools? Oh! about the clever people, of course. + +Jack. What fools! + +Algernon. By the way, did you tell Gwendolen the truth about your being +Ernest in town, and Jack in the country? + +Jack. [In a very patronising manner.] My dear fellow, the truth isn't +quite the sort of thing one tells to a nice, sweet, refined girl. What +extraordinary ideas you have about the way to behave to a woman! + +Algernon. The only way to behave to a woman is to make love to her, if +she is pretty, and to some one else, if she is plain. + +Jack. Oh, that is nonsense. + +Algernon. What about your brother? What about the profligate Ernest? + +Jack. Oh, before the end of the week I shall have got rid of him. I'll +say he died in Paris of apoplexy. Lots of people die of apoplexy, quite +suddenly, don't they? + +Algernon. Yes, but it's hereditary, my dear fellow. It's a sort of +thing that runs in families. You had much better say a severe chill. + +Jack. You are sure a severe chill isn't hereditary, or anything of that +kind? + +Algernon. Of course it isn't! + +Jack. Very well, then. My poor brother Ernest to carried off suddenly, +in Paris, by a severe chill. That gets rid of him. + +Algernon. But I thought you said that . . . Miss Cardew was a little too +much interested in your poor brother Ernest? Won't she feel his loss a +good deal? + +Jack. Oh, that is all right. Cecily is not a silly romantic girl, I am +glad to say. She has got a capital appetite, goes long walks, and pays +no attention at all to her lessons. + +Algernon. I would rather like to see Cecily. + +Jack. I will take very good care you never do. She is excessively +pretty, and she is only just eighteen. + +Algernon. Have you told Gwendolen yet that you have an excessively +pretty ward who is only just eighteen? + +Jack. Oh! one doesn't blurt these things out to people. Cecily and +Gwendolen are perfectly certain to be extremely great friends. I'll bet +you anything you like that half an hour after they have met, they will be +calling each other sister. + +Algernon. Women only do that when they have called each other a lot of +other things first. Now, my dear boy, if we want to get a good table at +Willis's, we really must go and dress. Do you know it is nearly seven? + +Jack. [Irritably.] Oh! It always is nearly seven. + +Algernon. Well, I'm hungry. + +Jack. I never knew you when you weren't . . . + +Algernon. What shall we do after dinner? Go to a theatre? + +Jack. Oh no! I loathe listening. + +Algernon. Well, let us go to the Club? + +Jack. Oh, no! I hate talking. + +Algernon. Well, we might trot round to the Empire at ten? + +Jack. Oh, no! I can't bear looking at things. It is so silly. + +Algernon. Well, what shall we do? + +Jack. Nothing! + +Algernon. It is awfully hard work doing nothing. However, I don't mind +hard work where there is no definite object of any kind. + +[Enter Lane.] + +Lane. Miss Fairfax. + +[Enter Gwendolen. Lane goes out.] + +Algernon. Gwendolen, upon my word! + +Gwendolen. Algy, kindly turn your back. I have something very +particular to say to Mr. Worthing. + +Algernon. Really, Gwendolen, I don't think I can allow this at all. + +Gwendolen. Algy, you always adopt a strictly immoral attitude towards +life. You are not quite old enough to do that. [Algernon retires to the +fireplace.] + +Jack. My own darling! + +Gwendolen. Ernest, we may never be married. From the expression on +mamma's face I fear we never shall. Few parents nowadays pay any regard +to what their children say to them. The old-fashioned respect for the +young is fast dying out. Whatever influence I ever had over mamma, I +lost at the age of three. But although she may prevent us from becoming +man and wife, and I may marry some one else, and marry often, nothing +that she can possibly do can alter my eternal devotion to you. + +Jack. Dear Gwendolen! + +Gwendolen. The story of your romantic origin, as related to me by mamma, +with unpleasing comments, has naturally stirred the deeper fibres of my +nature. Your Christian name has an irresistible fascination. The +simplicity of your character makes you exquisitely incomprehensible to +me. Your town address at the Albany I have. What is your address in the +country? + +Jack. The Manor House, Woolton, Hertfordshire. + +[Algernon, who has been carefully listening, smiles to himself, and +writes the address on his shirt-cuff. Then picks up the Railway Guide.] + +Gwendolen. There is a good postal service, I suppose? It may be +necessary to do something desperate. That of course will require serious +consideration. I will communicate with you daily. + +Jack. My own one! + +Gwendolen. How long do you remain in town? + +Jack. Till Monday. + +Gwendolen. Good! Algy, you may turn round now. + +Algernon. Thanks, I've turned round already. + +Gwendolen. You may also ring the bell. + +Jack. You will let me see you to your carriage, my own darling? + +Gwendolen. Certainly. + +Jack. [To Lane, who now enters.] I will see Miss Fairfax out. + +Lane. Yes, sir. [Jack and Gwendolen go off.] + +[Lane presents several letters on a salver to Algernon. It is to be +surmised that they are bills, as Algernon, after looking at the +envelopes, tears them up.] + +Algernon. A glass of sherry, Lane. + +Lane. Yes, sir. + +Algernon. To-morrow, Lane, I'm going Bunburying. + +Lane. Yes, sir. + +Algernon. I shall probably not be back till Monday. You can put up my +dress clothes, my smoking jacket, and all the Bunbury suits . . . + +Lane. Yes, sir. [Handing sherry.] + +Algernon. I hope to-morrow will be a fine day, Lane. + +Lane. It never is, sir. + +Algernon. Lane, you're a perfect pessimist. + +Lane. I do my best to give satisfaction, sir. + +[Enter Jack. Lane goes off.] + +Jack. There's a sensible, intellectual girl! the only girl I ever cared +for in my life. [Algernon is laughing immoderately.] What on earth are +you so amused at? + +Algernon. Oh, I'm a little anxious about poor Bunbury, that is all. + +Jack. If you don't take care, your friend Bunbury will get you into a +serious scrape some day. + +Algernon. I love scrapes. They are the only things that are never +serious. + +Jack. Oh, that's nonsense, Algy. You never talk anything but nonsense. + +Algernon. Nobody ever does. + +[Jack looks indignantly at him, and leaves the room. Algernon lights a +cigarette, reads his shirt-cuff, and smiles.] + +ACT DROP + + + + +SECOND ACT + + +SCENE + + +Garden at the Manor House. A flight of grey stone steps leads up to the +house. The garden, an old-fashioned one, full of roses. Time of year, +July. Basket chairs, and a table covered with books, are set under a +large yew-tree. + +[Miss Prism discovered seated at the table. Cecily is at the back +watering flowers.] + +Miss Prism. [Calling.] Cecily, Cecily! Surely such a utilitarian +occupation as the watering of flowers is rather Moulton's duty than +yours? Especially at a moment when intellectual pleasures await you. +Your German grammar is on the table. Pray open it at page fifteen. We +will repeat yesterday's lesson. + +Cecily. [Coming over very slowly.] But I don't like German. It isn't +at all a becoming language. I know perfectly well that I look quite +plain after my German lesson. + +Miss Prism. Child, you know how anxious your guardian is that you should +improve yourself in every way. He laid particular stress on your German, +as he was leaving for town yesterday. Indeed, he always lays stress on +your German when he is leaving for town. + +Cecily. Dear Uncle Jack is so very serious! Sometimes he is so serious +that I think he cannot be quite well. + +Miss Prism. [Drawing herself up.] Your guardian enjoys the best of +health, and his gravity of demeanour is especially to be commended in one +so comparatively young as he is. I know no one who has a higher sense of +duty and responsibility. + +Cecily. I suppose that is why he often looks a little bored when we +three are together. + +Miss Prism. Cecily! I am surprised at you. Mr. Worthing has many +troubles in his life. Idle merriment and triviality would be out of +place in his conversation. You must remember his constant anxiety about +that unfortunate young man his brother. + +Cecily. I wish Uncle Jack would allow that unfortunate young man, his +brother, to come down here sometimes. We might have a good influence +over him, Miss Prism. I am sure you certainly would. You know German, +and geology, and things of that kind influence a man very much. [Cecily +begins to write in her diary.] + +Miss Prism. [Shaking her head.] I do not think that even I could +produce any effect on a character that according to his own brother's +admission is irretrievably weak and vacillating. Indeed I am not sure +that I would desire to reclaim him. I am not in favour of this modern +mania for turning bad people into good people at a moment's notice. As a +man sows so let him reap. You must put away your diary, Cecily. I +really don't see why you should keep a diary at all. + +Cecily. I keep a diary in order to enter the wonderful secrets of my +life. If I didn't write them down, I should probably forget all about +them. + +Miss Prism. Memory, my dear Cecily, is the diary that we all carry about +with us. + +Cecily. Yes, but it usually chronicles the things that have never +happened, and couldn't possibly have happened. I believe that Memory is +responsible for nearly all the three-volume novels that Mudie sends us. + +Miss Prism. Do not speak slightingly of the three-volume novel, Cecily. +I wrote one myself in earlier days. + +Cecily. Did you really, Miss Prism? How wonderfully clever you are! I +hope it did not end happily? I don't like novels that end happily. They +depress me so much. + +Miss Prism. The good ended happily, and the bad unhappily. That is what +Fiction means. + +Cecily. I suppose so. But it seems very unfair. And was your novel +ever published? + +Miss Prism. Alas! no. The manuscript unfortunately was abandoned. +[Cecily starts.] I use the word in the sense of lost or mislaid. To +your work, child, these speculations are profitless. + +Cecily. [Smiling.] But I see dear Dr. Chasuble coming up through the +garden. + +Miss Prism. [Rising and advancing.] Dr. Chasuble! This is indeed a +pleasure. + +[Enter Canon Chasuble.] + +Chasuble. And how are we this morning? Miss Prism, you are, I trust, +well? + +Cecily. Miss Prism has just been complaining of a slight headache. I +think it would do her so much good to have a short stroll with you in the +Park, Dr. Chasuble. + +Miss Prism. Cecily, I have not mentioned anything about a headache. + +Cecily. No, dear Miss Prism, I know that, but I felt instinctively that +you had a headache. Indeed I was thinking about that, and not about my +German lesson, when the Rector came in. + +Chasuble. I hope, Cecily, you are not inattentive. + +Cecily. Oh, I am afraid I am. + +Chasuble. That is strange. Were I fortunate enough to be Miss Prism's +pupil, I would hang upon her lips. [Miss Prism glares.] I spoke +metaphorically.--My metaphor was drawn from bees. Ahem! Mr. Worthing, I +suppose, has not returned from town yet? + +Miss Prism. We do not expect him till Monday afternoon. + +Chasuble. Ah yes, he usually likes to spend his Sunday in London. He is +not one of those whose sole aim is enjoyment, as, by all accounts, that +unfortunate young man his brother seems to be. But I must not disturb +Egeria and her pupil any longer. + +Miss Prism. Egeria? My name is Laetitia, Doctor. + +Chasuble. [Bowing.] A classical allusion merely, drawn from the Pagan +authors. I shall see you both no doubt at Evensong? + +Miss Prism. I think, dear Doctor, I will have a stroll with you. I find +I have a headache after all, and a walk might do it good. + +Chasuble. With pleasure, Miss Prism, with pleasure. We might go as far +as the schools and back. + +Miss Prism. That would be delightful. Cecily, you will read your +Political Economy in my absence. The chapter on the Fall of the Rupee +you may omit. It is somewhat too sensational. Even these metallic +problems have their melodramatic side. + +[Goes down the garden with Dr. Chasuble.] + +Cecily. [Picks up books and throws them back on table.] Horrid +Political Economy! Horrid Geography! Horrid, horrid German! + +[Enter Merriman with a card on a salver.] + +Merriman. Mr. Ernest Worthing has just driven over from the station. He +has brought his luggage with him. + +Cecily. [Takes the card and reads it.] 'Mr. Ernest Worthing, B. 4, The +Albany, W.' Uncle Jack's brother! Did you tell him Mr. Worthing was in +town? + +Merriman. Yes, Miss. He seemed very much disappointed. I mentioned +that you and Miss Prism were in the garden. He said he was anxious to +speak to you privately for a moment. + +Cecily. Ask Mr. Ernest Worthing to come here. I suppose you had better +talk to the housekeeper about a room for him. + +Merriman. Yes, Miss. + +[Merriman goes off.] + +Cecily. I have never met any really wicked person before. I feel rather +frightened. I am so afraid he will look just like every one else. + +[Enter Algernon, very gay and debonnair.] He does! + +Algernon. [Raising his hat.] You are my little cousin Cecily, I'm sure. + +Cecily. You are under some strange mistake. I am not little. In fact, +I believe I am more than usually tall for my age. [Algernon is rather +taken aback.] But I am your cousin Cecily. You, I see from your card, +are Uncle Jack's brother, my cousin Ernest, my wicked cousin Ernest. + +Algernon. Oh! I am not really wicked at all, cousin Cecily. You mustn't +think that I am wicked. + +Cecily. If you are not, then you have certainly been deceiving us all in +a very inexcusable manner. I hope you have not been leading a double +life, pretending to be wicked and being really good all the time. That +would be hypocrisy. + +Algernon. [Looks at her in amazement.] Oh! Of course I have been +rather reckless. + +Cecily. I am glad to hear it. + +Algernon. In fact, now you mention the subject, I have been very bad in +my own small way. + +Cecily. I don't think you should be so proud of that, though I am sure +it must have been very pleasant. + +Algernon. It is much pleasanter being here with you. + +Cecily. I can't understand how you are here at all. Uncle Jack won't be +back till Monday afternoon. + +Algernon. That is a great disappointment. I am obliged to go up by the +first train on Monday morning. I have a business appointment that I am +anxious . . . to miss? + +Cecily. Couldn't you miss it anywhere but in London? + +Algernon. No: the appointment is in London. + +Cecily. Well, I know, of course, how important it is not to keep a +business engagement, if one wants to retain any sense of the beauty of +life, but still I think you had better wait till Uncle Jack arrives. I +know he wants to speak to you about your emigrating. + +Algernon. About my what? + +Cecily. Your emigrating. He has gone up to buy your outfit. + +Algernon. I certainly wouldn't let Jack buy my outfit. He has no taste +in neckties at all. + +Cecily. I don't think you will require neckties. Uncle Jack is sending +you to Australia. + +Algernon. Australia! I'd sooner die. + +Cecily. Well, he said at dinner on Wednesday night, that you would have +to choose between this world, the next world, and Australia. + +Algernon. Oh, well! The accounts I have received of Australia and the +next world, are not particularly encouraging. This world is good enough +for me, cousin Cecily. + +Cecily. Yes, but are you good enough for it? + +Algernon. I'm afraid I'm not that. That is why I want you to reform me. +You might make that your mission, if you don't mind, cousin Cecily. + +Cecily. I'm afraid I've no time, this afternoon. + +Algernon. Well, would you mind my reforming myself this afternoon? + +Cecily. It is rather Quixotic of you. But I think you should try. + +Algernon. I will. I feel better already. + +Cecily. You are looking a little worse. + +Algernon. That is because I am hungry. + +Cecily. How thoughtless of me. I should have remembered that when one +is going to lead an entirely new life, one requires regular and wholesome +meals. Won't you come in? + +Algernon. Thank you. Might I have a buttonhole first? I never have any +appetite unless I have a buttonhole first. + +Cecily. A Marechal Niel? [Picks up scissors.] + +Algernon. No, I'd sooner have a pink rose. + +Cecily. Why? [Cuts a flower.] + +Algernon. Because you are like a pink rose, Cousin Cecily. + +Cecily. I don't think it can be right for you to talk to me like that. +Miss Prism never says such things to me. + +Algernon. Then Miss Prism is a short-sighted old lady. [Cecily puts the +rose in his buttonhole.] You are the prettiest girl I ever saw. + +Cecily. Miss Prism says that all good looks are a snare. + +Algernon. They are a snare that every sensible man would like to be +caught in. + +Cecily. Oh, I don't think I would care to catch a sensible man. I +shouldn't know what to talk to him about. + +[They pass into the house. Miss Prism and Dr. Chasuble return.] + +Miss Prism. You are too much alone, dear Dr. Chasuble. You should get +married. A misanthrope I can understand--a womanthrope, never! + +Chasuble. [With a scholar's shudder.] Believe me, I do not deserve so +neologistic a phrase. The precept as well as the practice of the +Primitive Church was distinctly against matrimony. + +Miss Prism. [Sententiously.] That is obviously the reason why the +Primitive Church has not lasted up to the present day. And you do not +seem to realise, dear Doctor, that by persistently remaining single, a +man converts himself into a permanent public temptation. Men should be +more careful; this very celibacy leads weaker vessels astray. + +Chasuble. But is a man not equally attractive when married? + +Miss Prism. No married man is ever attractive except to his wife. + +Chasuble. And often, I've been told, not even to her. + +Miss Prism. That depends on the intellectual sympathies of the woman. +Maturity can always be depended on. Ripeness can be trusted. Young +women are green. [Dr. Chasuble starts.] I spoke horticulturally. My +metaphor was drawn from fruits. But where is Cecily? + +Chasuble. Perhaps she followed us to the schools. + +[Enter Jack slowly from the back of the garden. He is dressed in the +deepest mourning, with crape hatband and black gloves.] + +Miss Prism. Mr. Worthing! + +Chasuble. Mr. Worthing? + +Miss Prism. This is indeed a surprise. We did not look for you till +Monday afternoon. + +Jack. [Shakes Miss Prism's hand in a tragic manner.] I have returned +sooner than I expected. Dr. Chasuble, I hope you are well? + +Chasuble. Dear Mr. Worthing, I trust this garb of woe does not betoken +some terrible calamity? + +Jack. My brother. + +Miss Prism. More shameful debts and extravagance? + +Chasuble. Still leading his life of pleasure? + +Jack. [Shaking his head.] Dead! + +Chasuble. Your brother Ernest dead? + +Jack. Quite dead. + +Miss Prism. What a lesson for him! I trust he will profit by it. + +Chasuble. Mr. Worthing, I offer you my sincere condolence. You have at +least the consolation of knowing that you were always the most generous +and forgiving of brothers. + +Jack. Poor Ernest! He had many faults, but it is a sad, sad blow. + +Chasuble. Very sad indeed. Were you with him at the end? + +Jack. No. He died abroad; in Paris, in fact. I had a telegram last +night from the manager of the Grand Hotel. + +Chasuble. Was the cause of death mentioned? + +Jack. A severe chill, it seems. + +Miss Prism. As a man sows, so shall he reap. + +Chasuble. [Raising his hand.] Charity, dear Miss Prism, charity! None +of us are perfect. I myself am peculiarly susceptible to draughts. Will +the interment take place here? + +Jack. No. He seems to have expressed a desire to be buried in Paris. + +Chasuble. In Paris! [Shakes his head.] I fear that hardly points to +any very serious state of mind at the last. You would no doubt wish me +to make some slight allusion to this tragic domestic affliction next +Sunday. [Jack presses his hand convulsively.] My sermon on the meaning +of the manna in the wilderness can be adapted to almost any occasion, +joyful, or, as in the present case, distressing. [All sigh.] I have +preached it at harvest celebrations, christenings, confirmations, on days +of humiliation and festal days. The last time I delivered it was in the +Cathedral, as a charity sermon on behalf of the Society for the +Prevention of Discontent among the Upper Orders. The Bishop, who was +present, was much struck by some of the analogies I drew. + +Jack. Ah! that reminds me, you mentioned christenings I think, Dr. +Chasuble? I suppose you know how to christen all right? [Dr. Chasuble +looks astounded.] I mean, of course, you are continually christening, +aren't you? + +Miss Prism. It is, I regret to say, one of the Rector's most constant +duties in this parish. I have often spoken to the poorer classes on the +subject. But they don't seem to know what thrift is. + +Chasuble. But is there any particular infant in whom you are interested, +Mr. Worthing? Your brother was, I believe, unmarried, was he not? + +Jack. Oh yes. + +Miss Prism. [Bitterly.] People who live entirely for pleasure usually +are. + +Jack. But it is not for any child, dear Doctor. I am very fond of +children. No! the fact is, I would like to be christened myself, this +afternoon, if you have nothing better to do. + +Chasuble. But surely, Mr. Worthing, you have been christened already? + +Jack. I don't remember anything about it. + +Chasuble. But have you any grave doubts on the subject? + +Jack. I certainly intend to have. Of course I don't know if the thing +would bother you in any way, or if you think I am a little too old now. + +Chasuble. Not at all. The sprinkling, and, indeed, the immersion of +adults is a perfectly canonical practice. + +Jack. Immersion! + +Chasuble. You need have no apprehensions. Sprinkling is all that is +necessary, or indeed I think advisable. Our weather is so changeable. At +what hour would you wish the ceremony performed? + +Jack. Oh, I might trot round about five if that would suit you. + +Chasuble. Perfectly, perfectly! In fact I have two similar ceremonies +to perform at that time. A case of twins that occurred recently in one +of the outlying cottages on your own estate. Poor Jenkins the carter, a +most hard-working man. + +Jack. Oh! I don't see much fun in being christened along with other +babies. It would be childish. Would half-past five do? + +Chasuble. Admirably! Admirably! [Takes out watch.] And now, dear Mr. +Worthing, I will not intrude any longer into a house of sorrow. I would +merely beg you not to be too much bowed down by grief. What seem to us +bitter trials are often blessings in disguise. + +Miss Prism. This seems to me a blessing of an extremely obvious kind. + +[Enter Cecily from the house.] + +Cecily. Uncle Jack! Oh, I am pleased to see you back. But what horrid +clothes you have got on! Do go and change them. + +Miss Prism. Cecily! + +Chasuble. My child! my child! [Cecily goes towards Jack; he kisses her +brow in a melancholy manner.] + +Cecily. What is the matter, Uncle Jack? Do look happy! You look as if +you had toothache, and I have got such a surprise for you. Who do you +think is in the dining-room? Your brother! + +Jack. Who? + +Cecily. Your brother Ernest. He arrived about half an hour ago. + +Jack. What nonsense! I haven't got a brother. + +Cecily. Oh, don't say that. However badly he may have behaved to you in +the past he is still your brother. You couldn't be so heartless as to +disown him. I'll tell him to come out. And you will shake hands with +him, won't you, Uncle Jack? [Runs back into the house.] + +Chasuble. These are very joyful tidings. + +Miss Prism. After we had all been resigned to his loss, his sudden +return seems to me peculiarly distressing. + +Jack. My brother is in the dining-room? I don't know what it all means. +I think it is perfectly absurd. + +[Enter Algernon and Cecily hand in hand. They come slowly up to Jack.] + +Jack. Good heavens! [Motions Algernon away.] + +Algernon. Brother John, I have come down from town to tell you that I am +very sorry for all the trouble I have given you, and that I intend to +lead a better life in the future. [Jack glares at him and does not take +his hand.] + +Cecily. Uncle Jack, you are not going to refuse your own brother's hand? + +Jack. Nothing will induce me to take his hand. I think his coming down +here disgraceful. He knows perfectly well why. + +Cecily. Uncle Jack, do be nice. There is some good in every one. Ernest +has just been telling me about his poor invalid friend Mr. Bunbury whom +he goes to visit so often. And surely there must be much good in one who +is kind to an invalid, and leaves the pleasures of London to sit by a bed +of pain. + +Jack. Oh! he has been talking about Bunbury, has he? + +Cecily. Yes, he has told me all about poor Mr. Bunbury, and his terrible +state of health. + +Jack. Bunbury! Well, I won't have him talk to you about Bunbury or +about anything else. It is enough to drive one perfectly frantic. + +Algernon. Of course I admit that the faults were all on my side. But I +must say that I think that Brother John's coldness to me is peculiarly +painful. I expected a more enthusiastic welcome, especially considering +it is the first time I have come here. + +Cecily. Uncle Jack, if you don't shake hands with Ernest I will never +forgive you. + +Jack. Never forgive me? + +Cecily. Never, never, never! + +Jack. Well, this is the last time I shall ever do it. [Shakes with +Algernon and glares.] + +Chasuble. It's pleasant, is it not, to see so perfect a reconciliation? +I think we might leave the two brothers together. + +Miss Prism. Cecily, you will come with us. + +Cecily. Certainly, Miss Prism. My little task of reconciliation is +over. + +Chasuble. You have done a beautiful action to-day, dear child. + +Miss Prism. We must not be premature in our judgments. + +Cecily. I feel very happy. [They all go off except Jack and Algernon.] + +Jack. You young scoundrel, Algy, you must get out of this place as soon +as possible. I don't allow any Bunburying here. + +[Enter Merriman.] + +Merriman. I have put Mr. Ernest's things in the room next to yours, sir. +I suppose that is all right? + +Jack. What? + +Merriman. Mr. Ernest's luggage, sir. I have unpacked it and put it in +the room next to your own. + +Jack. His luggage? + +Merriman. Yes, sir. Three portmanteaus, a dressing-case, two hat-boxes, +and a large luncheon-basket. + +Algernon. I am afraid I can't stay more than a week this time. + +Jack. Merriman, order the dog-cart at once. Mr. Ernest has been +suddenly called back to town. + +Merriman. Yes, sir. [Goes back into the house.] + +Algernon. What a fearful liar you are, Jack. I have not been called +back to town at all. + +Jack. Yes, you have. + +Algernon. I haven't heard any one call me. + +Jack. Your duty as a gentleman calls you back. + +Algernon. My duty as a gentleman has never interfered with my pleasures +in the smallest degree. + +Jack. I can quite understand that. + +Algernon. Well, Cecily is a darling. + +Jack. You are not to talk of Miss Cardew like that. I don't like it. + +Algernon. Well, I don't like your clothes. You look perfectly +ridiculous in them. Why on earth don't you go up and change? It is +perfectly childish to be in deep mourning for a man who is actually +staying for a whole week with you in your house as a guest. I call it +grotesque. + +Jack. You are certainly not staying with me for a whole week as a guest +or anything else. You have got to leave . . . by the four-five train. + +Algernon. I certainly won't leave you so long as you are in mourning. It +would be most unfriendly. If I were in mourning you would stay with me, +I suppose. I should think it very unkind if you didn't. + +Jack. Well, will you go if I change my clothes? + +Algernon. Yes, if you are not too long. I never saw anybody take so +long to dress, and with such little result. + +Jack. Well, at any rate, that is better than being always over-dressed +as you are. + +Algernon. If I am occasionally a little over-dressed, I make up for it +by being always immensely over-educated. + +Jack. Your vanity is ridiculous, your conduct an outrage, and your +presence in my garden utterly absurd. However, you have got to catch the +four-five, and I hope you will have a pleasant journey back to town. This +Bunburying, as you call it, has not been a great success for you. + +[Goes into the house.] + +Algernon. I think it has been a great success. I'm in love with Cecily, +and that is everything. + +[Enter Cecily at the back of the garden. She picks up the can and begins +to water the flowers.] But I must see her before I go, and make +arrangements for another Bunbury. Ah, there she is. + +Cecily. Oh, I merely came back to water the roses. I thought you were +with Uncle Jack. + +Algernon. He's gone to order the dog-cart for me. + +Cecily. Oh, is he going to take you for a nice drive? + +Algernon. He's going to send me away. + +Cecily. Then have we got to part? + +Algernon. I am afraid so. It's a very painful parting. + +Cecily. It is always painful to part from people whom one has known for +a very brief space of time. The absence of old friends one can endure +with equanimity. But even a momentary separation from anyone to whom one +has just been introduced is almost unbearable. + +Algernon. Thank you. + +[Enter Merriman.] + +Merriman. The dog-cart is at the door, sir. [Algernon looks appealingly +at Cecily.] + +Cecily. It can wait, Merriman for . . . five minutes. + +Merriman. Yes, Miss. [Exit Merriman.] + +Algernon. I hope, Cecily, I shall not offend you if I state quite +frankly and openly that you seem to me to be in every way the visible +personification of absolute perfection. + +Cecily. I think your frankness does you great credit, Ernest. If you +will allow me, I will copy your remarks into my diary. [Goes over to +table and begins writing in diary.] + +Algernon. Do you really keep a diary? I'd give anything to look at it. +May I? + +Cecily. Oh no. [Puts her hand over it.] You see, it is simply a very +young girl's record of her own thoughts and impressions, and consequently +meant for publication. When it appears in volume form I hope you will +order a copy. But pray, Ernest, don't stop. I delight in taking down +from dictation. I have reached 'absolute perfection'. You can go on. I +am quite ready for more. + +Algernon. [Somewhat taken aback.] Ahem! Ahem! + +Cecily. Oh, don't cough, Ernest. When one is dictating one should speak +fluently and not cough. Besides, I don't know how to spell a cough. +[Writes as Algernon speaks.] + +Algernon. [Speaking very rapidly.] Cecily, ever since I first looked +upon your wonderful and incomparable beauty, I have dared to love you +wildly, passionately, devotedly, hopelessly. + +Cecily. I don't think that you should tell me that you love me wildly, +passionately, devotedly, hopelessly. Hopelessly doesn't seem to make +much sense, does it? + +Algernon. Cecily! + +[Enter Merriman.] + +Merriman. The dog-cart is waiting, sir. + +Algernon. Tell it to come round next week, at the same hour. + +Merriman. [Looks at Cecily, who makes no sign.] Yes, sir. + +[Merriman retires.] + +Cecily. Uncle Jack would be very much annoyed if he knew you were +staying on till next week, at the same hour. + +Algernon. Oh, I don't care about Jack. I don't care for anybody in the +whole world but you. I love you, Cecily. You will marry me, won't you? + +Cecily. You silly boy! Of course. Why, we have been engaged for the +last three months. + +Algernon. For the last three months? + +Cecily. Yes, it will be exactly three months on Thursday. + +Algernon. But how did we become engaged? + +Cecily. Well, ever since dear Uncle Jack first confessed to us that he +had a younger brother who was very wicked and bad, you of course have +formed the chief topic of conversation between myself and Miss Prism. And +of course a man who is much talked about is always very attractive. One +feels there must be something in him, after all. I daresay it was +foolish of me, but I fell in love with you, Ernest. + +Algernon. Darling! And when was the engagement actually settled? + +Cecily. On the 14th of February last. Worn out by your entire ignorance +of my existence, I determined to end the matter one way or the other, and +after a long struggle with myself I accepted you under this dear old tree +here. The next day I bought this little ring in your name, and this is +the little bangle with the true lover's knot I promised you always to +wear. + +Algernon. Did I give you this? It's very pretty, isn't it? + +Cecily. Yes, you've wonderfully good taste, Ernest. It's the excuse +I've always given for your leading such a bad life. And this is the box +in which I keep all your dear letters. [Kneels at table, opens box, and +produces letters tied up with blue ribbon.] + +Algernon. My letters! But, my own sweet Cecily, I have never written +you any letters. + +Cecily. You need hardly remind me of that, Ernest. I remember only too +well that I was forced to write your letters for you. I wrote always +three times a week, and sometimes oftener. + +Algernon. Oh, do let me read them, Cecily? + +Cecily. Oh, I couldn't possibly. They would make you far too conceited. +[Replaces box.] The three you wrote me after I had broken off the +engagement are so beautiful, and so badly spelled, that even now I can +hardly read them without crying a little. + +Algernon. But was our engagement ever broken off? + +Cecily. Of course it was. On the 22nd of last March. You can see the +entry if you like. [Shows diary.] 'To-day I broke off my engagement with +Ernest. I feel it is better to do so. The weather still continues +charming.' + +Algernon. But why on earth did you break it off? What had I done? I +had done nothing at all. Cecily, I am very much hurt indeed to hear you +broke it off. Particularly when the weather was so charming. + +Cecily. It would hardly have been a really serious engagement if it +hadn't been broken off at least once. But I forgave you before the week +was out. + +Algernon. [Crossing to her, and kneeling.] What a perfect angel you +are, Cecily. + +Cecily. You dear romantic boy. [He kisses her, she puts her fingers +through his hair.] I hope your hair curls naturally, does it? + +Algernon. Yes, darling, with a little help from others. + +Cecily. I am so glad. + +Algernon. You'll never break off our engagement again, Cecily? + +Cecily. I don't think I could break it off now that I have actually met +you. Besides, of course, there is the question of your name. + +Algernon. Yes, of course. [Nervously.] + +Cecily. You must not laugh at me, darling, but it had always been a +girlish dream of mine to love some one whose name was Ernest. [Algernon +rises, Cecily also.] There is something in that name that seems to +inspire absolute confidence. I pity any poor married woman whose husband +is not called Ernest. + +Algernon. But, my dear child, do you mean to say you could not love me +if I had some other name? + +Cecily. But what name? + +Algernon. Oh, any name you like--Algernon--for instance . . . + +Cecily. But I don't like the name of Algernon. + +Algernon. Well, my own dear, sweet, loving little darling, I really +can't see why you should object to the name of Algernon. It is not at +all a bad name. In fact, it is rather an aristocratic name. Half of the +chaps who get into the Bankruptcy Court are called Algernon. But +seriously, Cecily . . . [Moving to her] . . . if my name was Algy, +couldn't you love me? + +Cecily. [Rising.] I might respect you, Ernest, I might admire your +character, but I fear that I should not be able to give you my undivided +attention. + +Algernon. Ahem! Cecily! [Picking up hat.] Your Rector here is, I +suppose, thoroughly experienced in the practice of all the rites and +ceremonials of the Church? + +Cecily. Oh, yes. Dr. Chasuble is a most learned man. He has never +written a single book, so you can imagine how much he knows. + +Algernon. I must see him at once on a most important christening--I mean +on most important business. + +Cecily. Oh! + +Algernon. I shan't be away more than half an hour. + +Cecily. Considering that we have been engaged since February the 14th, +and that I only met you to-day for the first time, I think it is rather +hard that you should leave me for so long a period as half an hour. +Couldn't you make it twenty minutes? + +Algernon. I'll be back in no time. + +[Kisses her and rushes down the garden.] + +Cecily. What an impetuous boy he is! I like his hair so much. I must +enter his proposal in my diary. + +[Enter Merriman.] + +Merriman. A Miss Fairfax has just called to see Mr. Worthing. On very +important business, Miss Fairfax states. + +Cecily. Isn't Mr. Worthing in his library? + +Merriman. Mr. Worthing went over in the direction of the Rectory some +time ago. + +Cecily. Pray ask the lady to come out here; Mr. Worthing is sure to be +back soon. And you can bring tea. + +Merriman. Yes, Miss. [Goes out.] + +Cecily. Miss Fairfax! I suppose one of the many good elderly women who +are associated with Uncle Jack in some of his philanthropic work in +London. I don't quite like women who are interested in philanthropic +work. I think it is so forward of them. + +[Enter Merriman.] + +Merriman. Miss Fairfax. + +[Enter Gwendolen.] + +[Exit Merriman.] + +Cecily. [Advancing to meet her.] Pray let me introduce myself to you. +My name is Cecily Cardew. + +Gwendolen. Cecily Cardew? [Moving to her and shaking hands.] What a +very sweet name! Something tells me that we are going to be great +friends. I like you already more than I can say. My first impressions +of people are never wrong. + +Cecily. How nice of you to like me so much after we have known each +other such a comparatively short time. Pray sit down. + +Gwendolen. [Still standing up.] I may call you Cecily, may I not? + +Cecily. With pleasure! + +Gwendolen. And you will always call me Gwendolen, won't you? + +Cecily. If you wish. + +Gwendolen. Then that is all quite settled, is it not? + +Cecily. I hope so. [A pause. They both sit down together.] + +Gwendolen. Perhaps this might be a favourable opportunity for my +mentioning who I am. My father is Lord Bracknell. You have never heard +of papa, I suppose? + +Cecily. I don't think so. + +Gwendolen. Outside the family circle, papa, I am glad to say, is +entirely unknown. I think that is quite as it should be. The home seems +to me to be the proper sphere for the man. And certainly once a man +begins to neglect his domestic duties he becomes painfully effeminate, +does he not? And I don't like that. It makes men so very attractive. +Cecily, mamma, whose views on education are remarkably strict, has +brought me up to be extremely short-sighted; it is part of her system; so +do you mind my looking at you through my glasses? + +Cecily. Oh! not at all, Gwendolen. I am very fond of being looked at. + +Gwendolen. [After examining Cecily carefully through a lorgnette.] You +are here on a short visit, I suppose. + +Cecily. Oh no! I live here. + +Gwendolen. [Severely.] Really? Your mother, no doubt, or some female +relative of advanced years, resides here also? + +Cecily. Oh no! I have no mother, nor, in fact, any relations. + +Gwendolen. Indeed? + +Cecily. My dear guardian, with the assistance of Miss Prism, has the +arduous task of looking after me. + +Gwendolen. Your guardian? + +Cecily. Yes, I am Mr. Worthing's ward. + +Gwendolen. Oh! It is strange he never mentioned to me that he had a +ward. How secretive of him! He grows more interesting hourly. I am not +sure, however, that the news inspires me with feelings of unmixed +delight. [Rising and going to her.] I am very fond of you, Cecily; I +have liked you ever since I met you! But I am bound to state that now +that I know that you are Mr. Worthing's ward, I cannot help expressing a +wish you were--well, just a little older than you seem to be--and not +quite so very alluring in appearance. In fact, if I may speak candidly-- + +Cecily. Pray do! I think that whenever one has anything unpleasant to +say, one should always be quite candid. + +Gwendolen. Well, to speak with perfect candour, Cecily, I wish that you +were fully forty-two, and more than usually plain for your age. Ernest +has a strong upright nature. He is the very soul of truth and honour. +Disloyalty would be as impossible to him as deception. But even men of +the noblest possible moral character are extremely susceptible to the +influence of the physical charms of others. Modern, no less than Ancient +History, supplies us with many most painful examples of what I refer to. +If it were not so, indeed, History would be quite unreadable. + +Cecily. I beg your pardon, Gwendolen, did you say Ernest? + +Gwendolen. Yes. + +Cecily. Oh, but it is not Mr. Ernest Worthing who is my guardian. It is +his brother--his elder brother. + +Gwendolen. [Sitting down again.] Ernest never mentioned to me that he +had a brother. + +Cecily. I am sorry to say they have not been on good terms for a long +time. + +Gwendolen. Ah! that accounts for it. And now that I think of it I have +never heard any man mention his brother. The subject seems distasteful +to most men. Cecily, you have lifted a load from my mind. I was growing +almost anxious. It would have been terrible if any cloud had come across +a friendship like ours, would it not? Of course you are quite, quite +sure that it is not Mr. Ernest Worthing who is your guardian? + +Cecily. Quite sure. [A pause.] In fact, I am going to be his. + +Gwendolen. [Inquiringly.] I beg your pardon? + +Cecily. [Rather shy and confidingly.] Dearest Gwendolen, there is no +reason why I should make a secret of it to you. Our little county +newspaper is sure to chronicle the fact next week. Mr. Ernest Worthing +and I are engaged to be married. + +Gwendolen. [Quite politely, rising.] My darling Cecily, I think there +must be some slight error. Mr. Ernest Worthing is engaged to me. The +announcement will appear in the _Morning Post_ on Saturday at the latest. + +Cecily. [Very politely, rising.] I am afraid you must be under some +misconception. Ernest proposed to me exactly ten minutes ago. [Shows +diary.] + +Gwendolen. [Examines diary through her lorgnettte carefully.] It is +certainly very curious, for he asked me to be his wife yesterday +afternoon at 5.30. If you would care to verify the incident, pray do so. +[Produces diary of her own.] I never travel without my diary. One +should always have something sensational to read in the train. I am so +sorry, dear Cecily, if it is any disappointment to you, but I am afraid I +have the prior claim. + +Cecily. It would distress me more than I can tell you, dear Gwendolen, +if it caused you any mental or physical anguish, but I feel bound to +point out that since Ernest proposed to you he clearly has changed his +mind. + +Gwendolen. [Meditatively.] If the poor fellow has been entrapped into +any foolish promise I shall consider it my duty to rescue him at once, +and with a firm hand. + +Cecily. [Thoughtfully and sadly.] Whatever unfortunate entanglement my +dear boy may have got into, I will never reproach him with it after we +are married. + +Gwendolen. Do you allude to me, Miss Cardew, as an entanglement? You +are presumptuous. On an occasion of this kind it becomes more than a +moral duty to speak one's mind. It becomes a pleasure. + +Cecily. Do you suggest, Miss Fairfax, that I entrapped Ernest into an +engagement? How dare you? This is no time for wearing the shallow mask +of manners. When I see a spade I call it a spade. + +Gwendolen. [Satirically.] I am glad to say that I have never seen a +spade. It is obvious that our social spheres have been widely different. + +[Enter Merriman, followed by the footman. He carries a salver, table +cloth, and plate stand. Cecily is about to retort. The presence of the +servants exercises a restraining influence, under which both girls +chafe.] + +Merriman. Shall I lay tea here as usual, Miss? + +Cecily. [Sternly, in a calm voice.] Yes, as usual. [Merriman begins to +clear table and lay cloth. A long pause. Cecily and Gwendolen glare at +each other.] + +Gwendolen. Are there many interesting walks in the vicinity, Miss +Cardew? + +Cecily. Oh! yes! a great many. From the top of one of the hills quite +close one can see five counties. + +Gwendolen. Five counties! I don't think I should like that; I hate +crowds. + +Cecily. [Sweetly.] I suppose that is why you live in town? [Gwendolen +bites her lip, and beats her foot nervously with her parasol.] + +Gwendolen. [Looking round.] Quite a well-kept garden this is, Miss +Cardew. + +Cecily. So glad you like it, Miss Fairfax. + +Gwendolen. I had no idea there were any flowers in the country. + +Cecily. Oh, flowers are as common here, Miss Fairfax, as people are in +London. + +Gwendolen. Personally I cannot understand how anybody manages to exist +in the country, if anybody who is anybody does. The country always bores +me to death. + +Cecily. Ah! This is what the newspapers call agricultural depression, +is it not? I believe the aristocracy are suffering very much from it +just at present. It is almost an epidemic amongst them, I have been +told. May I offer you some tea, Miss Fairfax? + +Gwendolen. [With elaborate politeness.] Thank you. [Aside.] Detestable +girl! But I require tea! + +Cecily. [Sweetly.] Sugar? + +Gwendolen. [Superciliously.] No, thank you. Sugar is not fashionable +any more. [Cecily looks angrily at her, takes up the tongs and puts four +lumps of sugar into the cup.] + +Cecily. [Severely.] Cake or bread and butter? + +Gwendolen. [In a bored manner.] Bread and butter, please. Cake is +rarely seen at the best houses nowadays. + +Cecily. [Cuts a very large slice of cake, and puts it on the tray.] Hand +that to Miss Fairfax. + +[Merriman does so, and goes out with footman. Gwendolen drinks the tea +and makes a grimace. Puts down cup at once, reaches out her hand to the +bread and butter, looks at it, and finds it is cake. Rises in +indignation.] + +Gwendolen. You have filled my tea with lumps of sugar, and though I +asked most distinctly for bread and butter, you have given me cake. I am +known for the gentleness of my disposition, and the extraordinary +sweetness of my nature, but I warn you, Miss Cardew, you may go too far. + +Cecily. [Rising.] To save my poor, innocent, trusting boy from the +machinations of any other girl there are no lengths to which I would not +go. + +Gwendolen. From the moment I saw you I distrusted you. I felt that you +were false and deceitful. I am never deceived in such matters. My first +impressions of people are invariably right. + +Cecily. It seems to me, Miss Fairfax, that I am trespassing on your +valuable time. No doubt you have many other calls of a similar character +to make in the neighbourhood. + +[Enter Jack.] + +Gwendolen. [Catching sight of him.] Ernest! My own Ernest! + +Jack. Gwendolen! Darling! [Offers to kiss her.] + +Gwendolen. [Draws back.] A moment! May I ask if you are engaged to be +married to this young lady? [Points to Cecily.] + +Jack. [Laughing.] To dear little Cecily! Of course not! What could +have put such an idea into your pretty little head? + +Gwendolen. Thank you. You may! [Offers her cheek.] + +Cecily. [Very sweetly.] I knew there must be some misunderstanding, +Miss Fairfax. The gentleman whose arm is at present round your waist is +my guardian, Mr. John Worthing. + +Gwendolen. I beg your pardon? + +Cecily. This is Uncle Jack. + +Gwendolen. [Receding.] Jack! Oh! + +[Enter Algernon.] + +Cecily. Here is Ernest. + +Algernon. [Goes straight over to Cecily without noticing any one else.] +My own love! [Offers to kiss her.] + +Cecily. [Drawing back.] A moment, Ernest! May I ask you--are you +engaged to be married to this young lady? + +Algernon. [Looking round.] To what young lady? Good heavens! +Gwendolen! + +Cecily. Yes! to good heavens, Gwendolen, I mean to Gwendolen. + +Algernon. [Laughing.] Of course not! What could have put such an idea +into your pretty little head? + +Cecily. Thank you. [Presenting her cheek to be kissed.] You may. +[Algernon kisses her.] + +Gwendolen. I felt there was some slight error, Miss Cardew. The +gentleman who is now embracing you is my cousin, Mr. Algernon Moncrieff. + +Cecily. [Breaking away from Algernon.] Algernon Moncrieff! Oh! [The +two girls move towards each other and put their arms round each other's +waists as if for protection.] + +Cecily. Are you called Algernon? + +Algernon. I cannot deny it. + +Cecily. Oh! + +Gwendolen. Is your name really John? + +Jack. [Standing rather proudly.] I could deny it if I liked. I could +deny anything if I liked. But my name certainly is John. It has been +John for years. + +Cecily. [To Gwendolen.] A gross deception has been practised on both of +us. + +Gwendolen. My poor wounded Cecily! + +Cecily. My sweet wronged Gwendolen! + +Gwendolen. [Slowly and seriously.] You will call me sister, will you +not? [They embrace. Jack and Algernon groan and walk up and down.] + +Cecily. [Rather brightly.] There is just one question I would like to +be allowed to ask my guardian. + +Gwendolen. An admirable idea! Mr. Worthing, there is just one question +I would like to be permitted to put to you. Where is your brother +Ernest? We are both engaged to be married to your brother Ernest, so it +is a matter of some importance to us to know where your brother Ernest is +at present. + +Jack. [Slowly and hesitatingly.] Gwendolen--Cecily--it is very painful +for me to be forced to speak the truth. It is the first time in my life +that I have ever been reduced to such a painful position, and I am really +quite inexperienced in doing anything of the kind. However, I will tell +you quite frankly that I have no brother Ernest. I have no brother at +all. I never had a brother in my life, and I certainly have not the +smallest intention of ever having one in the future. + +Cecily. [Surprised.] No brother at all? + +Jack. [Cheerily.] None! + +Gwendolen. [Severely.] Had you never a brother of any kind? + +Jack. [Pleasantly.] Never. Not even of any kind. + +Gwendolen. I am afraid it is quite clear, Cecily, that neither of us is +engaged to be married to any one. + +Cecily. It is not a very pleasant position for a young girl suddenly to +find herself in. Is it? + +Gwendolen. Let us go into the house. They will hardly venture to come +after us there. + +Cecily. No, men are so cowardly, aren't they? + +[They retire into the house with scornful looks.] + +Jack. This ghastly state of things is what you call Bunburying, I +suppose? + +Algernon. Yes, and a perfectly wonderful Bunbury it is. The most +wonderful Bunbury I have ever had in my life. + +Jack. Well, you've no right whatsoever to Bunbury here. + +Algernon. That is absurd. One has a right to Bunbury anywhere one +chooses. Every serious Bunburyist knows that. + +Jack. Serious Bunburyist! Good heavens! + +Algernon. Well, one must be serious about something, if one wants to +have any amusement in life. I happen to be serious about Bunburying. +What on earth you are serious about I haven't got the remotest idea. +About everything, I should fancy. You have such an absolutely trivial +nature. + +Jack. Well, the only small satisfaction I have in the whole of this +wretched business is that your friend Bunbury is quite exploded. You +won't be able to run down to the country quite so often as you used to +do, dear Algy. And a very good thing too. + +Algernon. Your brother is a little off colour, isn't he, dear Jack? You +won't be able to disappear to London quite so frequently as your wicked +custom was. And not a bad thing either. + +Jack. As for your conduct towards Miss Cardew, I must say that your +taking in a sweet, simple, innocent girl like that is quite inexcusable. +To say nothing of the fact that she is my ward. + +Algernon. I can see no possible defence at all for your deceiving a +brilliant, clever, thoroughly experienced young lady like Miss Fairfax. +To say nothing of the fact that she is my cousin. + +Jack. I wanted to be engaged to Gwendolen, that is all. I love her. + +Algernon. Well, I simply wanted to be engaged to Cecily. I adore her. + +Jack. There is certainly no chance of your marrying Miss Cardew. + +Algernon. I don't think there is much likelihood, Jack, of you and Miss +Fairfax being united. + +Jack. Well, that is no business of yours. + +Algernon. If it was my business, I wouldn't talk about it. [Begins to +eat muffins.] It is very vulgar to talk about one's business. Only +people like stock-brokers do that, and then merely at dinner parties. + +Jack. How can you sit there, calmly eating muffins when we are in this +horrible trouble, I can't make out. You seem to me to be perfectly +heartless. + +Algernon. Well, I can't eat muffins in an agitated manner. The butter +would probably get on my cuffs. One should always eat muffins quite +calmly. It is the only way to eat them. + +Jack. I say it's perfectly heartless your eating muffins at all, under +the circumstances. + +Algernon. When I am in trouble, eating is the only thing that consoles +me. Indeed, when I am in really great trouble, as any one who knows me +intimately will tell you, I refuse everything except food and drink. At +the present moment I am eating muffins because I am unhappy. Besides, I +am particularly fond of muffins. [Rising.] + +Jack. [Rising.] Well, that is no reason why you should eat them all in +that greedy way. [Takes muffins from Algernon.] + +Algernon. [Offering tea-cake.] I wish you would have tea-cake instead. +I don't like tea-cake. + +Jack. Good heavens! I suppose a man may eat his own muffins in his own +garden. + +Algernon. But you have just said it was perfectly heartless to eat +muffins. + +Jack. I said it was perfectly heartless of you, under the circumstances. +That is a very different thing. + +Algernon. That may be. But the muffins are the same. [He seizes the +muffin-dish from Jack.] + +Jack. Algy, I wish to goodness you would go. + +Algernon. You can't possibly ask me to go without having some dinner. +It's absurd. I never go without my dinner. No one ever does, except +vegetarians and people like that. Besides I have just made arrangements +with Dr. Chasuble to be christened at a quarter to six under the name of +Ernest. + +Jack. My dear fellow, the sooner you give up that nonsense the better. I +made arrangements this morning with Dr. Chasuble to be christened myself +at 5.30, and I naturally will take the name of Ernest. Gwendolen would +wish it. We can't both be christened Ernest. It's absurd. Besides, I +have a perfect right to be christened if I like. There is no evidence at +all that I have ever been christened by anybody. I should think it +extremely probable I never was, and so does Dr. Chasuble. It is entirely +different in your case. You have been christened already. + +Algernon. Yes, but I have not been christened for years. + +Jack. Yes, but you have been christened. That is the important thing. + +Algernon. Quite so. So I know my constitution can stand it. If you are +not quite sure about your ever having been christened, I must say I think +it rather dangerous your venturing on it now. It might make you very +unwell. You can hardly have forgotten that some one very closely +connected with you was very nearly carried off this week in Paris by a +severe chill. + +Jack. Yes, but you said yourself that a severe chill was not hereditary. + +Algernon. It usen't to be, I know--but I daresay it is now. Science is +always making wonderful improvements in things. + +Jack. [Picking up the muffin-dish.] Oh, that is nonsense; you are +always talking nonsense. + +Algernon. Jack, you are at the muffins again! I wish you wouldn't. +There are only two left. [Takes them.] I told you I was particularly +fond of muffins. + +Jack. But I hate tea-cake. + +Algernon. Why on earth then do you allow tea-cake to be served up for +your guests? What ideas you have of hospitality! + +Jack. Algernon! I have already told you to go. I don't want you here. +Why don't you go! + +Algernon. I haven't quite finished my tea yet! and there is still one +muffin left. [Jack groans, and sinks into a chair. Algernon still +continues eating.] + +ACT DROP + + + + +THIRD ACT + + +SCENE + + +Morning-room at the Manor House. + +[Gwendolen and Cecily are at the window, looking out into the garden.] + +Gwendolen. The fact that they did not follow us at once into the house, +as any one else would have done, seems to me to show that they have some +sense of shame left. + +Cecily. They have been eating muffins. That looks like repentance. + +Gwendolen. [After a pause.] They don't seem to notice us at all. +Couldn't you cough? + +Cecily. But I haven't got a cough. + +Gwendolen. They're looking at us. What effrontery! + +Cecily. They're approaching. That's very forward of them. + +Gwendolen. Let us preserve a dignified silence. + +Cecily. Certainly. It's the only thing to do now. [Enter Jack followed +by Algernon. They whistle some dreadful popular air from a British +Opera.] + +Gwendolen. This dignified silence seems to produce an unpleasant effect. + +Cecily. A most distasteful one. + +Gwendolen. But we will not be the first to speak. + +Cecily. Certainly not. + +Gwendolen. Mr. Worthing, I have something very particular to ask you. +Much depends on your reply. + +Cecily. Gwendolen, your common sense is invaluable. Mr. Moncrieff, +kindly answer me the following question. Why did you pretend to be my +guardian's brother? + +Algernon. In order that I might have an opportunity of meeting you. + +Cecily. [To Gwendolen.] That certainly seems a satisfactory +explanation, does it not? + +Gwendolen. Yes, dear, if you can believe him. + +Cecily. I don't. But that does not affect the wonderful beauty of his +answer. + +Gwendolen. True. In matters of grave importance, style, not sincerity +is the vital thing. Mr. Worthing, what explanation can you offer to me +for pretending to have a brother? Was it in order that you might have an +opportunity of coming up to town to see me as often as possible? + +Jack. Can you doubt it, Miss Fairfax? + +Gwendolen. I have the gravest doubts upon the subject. But I intend to +crush them. This is not the moment for German scepticism. [Moving to +Cecily.] Their explanations appear to be quite satisfactory, especially +Mr. Worthing's. That seems to me to have the stamp of truth upon it. + +Cecily. I am more than content with what Mr. Moncrieff said. His voice +alone inspires one with absolute credulity. + +Gwendolen. Then you think we should forgive them? + +Cecily. Yes. I mean no. + +Gwendolen. True! I had forgotten. There are principles at stake that +one cannot surrender. Which of us should tell them? The task is not a +pleasant one. + +Cecily. Could we not both speak at the same time? + +Gwendolen. An excellent idea! I nearly always speak at the same time as +other people. Will you take the time from me? + +Cecily. Certainly. [Gwendolen beats time with uplifted finger.] + +Gwendolen and Cecily [Speaking together.] Your Christian names are still +an insuperable barrier. That is all! + +Jack and Algernon [Speaking together.] Our Christian names! Is that +all? But we are going to be christened this afternoon. + +Gwendolen. [To Jack.] For my sake you are prepared to do this terrible +thing? + +Jack. I am. + +Cecily. [To Algernon.] To please me you are ready to face this fearful +ordeal? + +Algernon. I am! + +Gwendolen. How absurd to talk of the equality of the sexes! Where +questions of self-sacrifice are concerned, men are infinitely beyond us. + +Jack. We are. [Clasps hands with Algernon.] + +Cecily. They have moments of physical courage of which we women know +absolutely nothing. + +Gwendolen. [To Jack.] Darling! + +Algernon. [To Cecily.] Darling! [They fall into each other's arms.] + +[Enter Merriman. When he enters he coughs loudly, seeing the situation.] + +Merriman. Ahem! Ahem! Lady Bracknell! + +Jack. Good heavens! + +[Enter Lady Bracknell. The couples separate in alarm. Exit Merriman.] + +Lady Bracknell. Gwendolen! What does this mean? + +Gwendolen. Merely that I am engaged to be married to Mr. Worthing, +mamma. + +Lady Bracknell. Come here. Sit down. Sit down immediately. Hesitation +of any kind is a sign of mental decay in the young, of physical weakness +in the old. [Turns to Jack.] Apprised, sir, of my daughter's sudden +flight by her trusty maid, whose confidence I purchased by means of a +small coin, I followed her at once by a luggage train. Her unhappy +father is, I am glad to say, under the impression that she is attending a +more than usually lengthy lecture by the University Extension Scheme on +the Influence of a permanent income on Thought. I do not propose to +undeceive him. Indeed I have never undeceived him on any question. I +would consider it wrong. But of course, you will clearly understand that +all communication between yourself and my daughter must cease immediately +from this moment. On this point, as indeed on all points, I am firm. + +Jack. I am engaged to be married to Gwendolen Lady Bracknell! + +Lady Bracknell. You are nothing of the kind, sir. And now, as regards +Algernon! . . . Algernon! + +Algernon. Yes, Aunt Augusta. + +Lady Bracknell. May I ask if it is in this house that your invalid +friend Mr. Bunbury resides? + +Algernon. [Stammering.] Oh! No! Bunbury doesn't live here. Bunbury +is somewhere else at present. In fact, Bunbury is dead. + +Lady Bracknell. Dead! When did Mr. Bunbury die? His death must have +been extremely sudden. + +Algernon. [Airily.] Oh! I killed Bunbury this afternoon. I mean poor +Bunbury died this afternoon. + +Lady Bracknell. What did he die of? + +Algernon. Bunbury? Oh, he was quite exploded. + +Lady Bracknell. Exploded! Was he the victim of a revolutionary outrage? +I was not aware that Mr. Bunbury was interested in social legislation. If +so, he is well punished for his morbidity. + +Algernon. My dear Aunt Augusta, I mean he was found out! The doctors +found out that Bunbury could not live, that is what I mean--so Bunbury +died. + +Lady Bracknell. He seems to have had great confidence in the opinion of +his physicians. I am glad, however, that he made up his mind at the last +to some definite course of action, and acted under proper medical advice. +And now that we have finally got rid of this Mr. Bunbury, may I ask, Mr. +Worthing, who is that young person whose hand my nephew Algernon is now +holding in what seems to me a peculiarly unnecessary manner? + +Jack. That lady is Miss Cecily Cardew, my ward. [Lady Bracknell bows +coldly to Cecily.] + +Algernon. I am engaged to be married to Cecily, Aunt Augusta. + +Lady Bracknell. I beg your pardon? + +Cecily. Mr. Moncrieff and I are engaged to be married, Lady Bracknell. + +Lady Bracknell. [With a shiver, crossing to the sofa and sitting down.] +I do not know whether there is anything peculiarly exciting in the air of +this particular part of Hertfordshire, but the number of engagements that +go on seems to me considerably above the proper average that statistics +have laid down for our guidance. I think some preliminary inquiry on my +part would not be out of place. Mr. Worthing, is Miss Cardew at all +connected with any of the larger railway stations in London? I merely +desire information. Until yesterday I had no idea that there were any +families or persons whose origin was a Terminus. [Jack looks perfectly +furious, but restrains himself.] + +Jack. [In a clear, cold voice.] Miss Cardew is the grand-daughter of +the late Mr. Thomas Cardew of 149 Belgrave Square, S.W.; Gervase Park, +Dorking, Surrey; and the Sporran, Fifeshire, N.B. + +Lady Bracknell. That sounds not unsatisfactory. Three addresses always +inspire confidence, even in tradesmen. But what proof have I of their +authenticity? + +Jack. I have carefully preserved the Court Guides of the period. They +are open to your inspection, Lady Bracknell. + +Lady Bracknell. [Grimly.] I have known strange errors in that +publication. + +Jack. Miss Cardew's family solicitors are Messrs. Markby, Markby, and +Markby. + +Lady Bracknell. Markby, Markby, and Markby? A firm of the very highest +position in their profession. Indeed I am told that one of the Mr. +Markby's is occasionally to be seen at dinner parties. So far I am +satisfied. + +Jack. [Very irritably.] How extremely kind of you, Lady Bracknell! I +have also in my possession, you will be pleased to hear, certificates of +Miss Cardew's birth, baptism, whooping cough, registration, vaccination, +confirmation, and the measles; both the German and the English variety. + +Lady Bracknell. Ah! A life crowded with incident, I see; though perhaps +somewhat too exciting for a young girl. I am not myself in favour of +premature experiences. [Rises, looks at her watch.] Gwendolen! the time +approaches for our departure. We have not a moment to lose. As a matter +of form, Mr. Worthing, I had better ask you if Miss Cardew has any little +fortune? + +Jack. Oh! about a hundred and thirty thousand pounds in the Funds. That +is all. Goodbye, Lady Bracknell. So pleased to have seen you. + +Lady Bracknell. [Sitting down again.] A moment, Mr. Worthing. A +hundred and thirty thousand pounds! And in the Funds! Miss Cardew seems +to me a most attractive young lady, now that I look at her. Few girls of +the present day have any really solid qualities, any of the qualities +that last, and improve with time. We live, I regret to say, in an age of +surfaces. [To Cecily.] Come over here, dear. [Cecily goes across.] +Pretty child! your dress is sadly simple, and your hair seems almost as +Nature might have left it. But we can soon alter all that. A thoroughly +experienced French maid produces a really marvellous result in a very +brief space of time. I remember recommending one to young Lady Lancing, +and after three months her own husband did not know her. + +Jack. And after six months nobody knew her. + +Lady Bracknell. [Glares at Jack for a few moments. Then bends, with a +practised smile, to Cecily.] Kindly turn round, sweet child. [Cecily +turns completely round.] No, the side view is what I want. [Cecily +presents her profile.] Yes, quite as I expected. There are distinct +social possibilities in your profile. The two weak points in our age are +its want of principle and its want of profile. The chin a little higher, +dear. Style largely depends on the way the chin is worn. They are worn +very high, just at present. Algernon! + +Algernon. Yes, Aunt Augusta! + +Lady Bracknell. There are distinct social possibilities in Miss Cardew's +profile. + +Algernon. Cecily is the sweetest, dearest, prettiest girl in the whole +world. And I don't care twopence about social possibilities. + +Lady Bracknell. Never speak disrespectfully of Society, Algernon. Only +people who can't get into it do that. [To Cecily.] Dear child, of +course you know that Algernon has nothing but his debts to depend upon. +But I do not approve of mercenary marriages. When I married Lord +Bracknell I had no fortune of any kind. But I never dreamed for a moment +of allowing that to stand in my way. Well, I suppose I must give my +consent. + +Algernon. Thank you, Aunt Augusta. + +Lady Bracknell. Cecily, you may kiss me! + +Cecily. [Kisses her.] Thank you, Lady Bracknell. + +Lady Bracknell. You may also address me as Aunt Augusta for the future. + +Cecily. Thank you, Aunt Augusta. + +Lady Bracknell. The marriage, I think, had better take place quite soon. + +Algernon. Thank you, Aunt Augusta. + +Cecily. Thank you, Aunt Augusta. + +Lady Bracknell. To speak frankly, I am not in favour of long +engagements. They give people the opportunity of finding out each +other's character before marriage, which I think is never advisable. + +Jack. I beg your pardon for interrupting you, Lady Bracknell, but this +engagement is quite out of the question. I am Miss Cardew's guardian, +and she cannot marry without my consent until she comes of age. That +consent I absolutely decline to give. + +Lady Bracknell. Upon what grounds may I ask? Algernon is an extremely, +I may almost say an ostentatiously, eligible young man. He has nothing, +but he looks everything. What more can one desire? + +Jack. It pains me very much to have to speak frankly to you, Lady +Bracknell, about your nephew, but the fact is that I do not approve at +all of his moral character. I suspect him of being untruthful. [Algernon +and Cecily look at him in indignant amazement.] + +Lady Bracknell. Untruthful! My nephew Algernon? Impossible! He is an +Oxonian. + +Jack. I fear there can be no possible doubt about the matter. This +afternoon during my temporary absence in London on an important question +of romance, he obtained admission to my house by means of the false +pretence of being my brother. Under an assumed name he drank, I've just +been informed by my butler, an entire pint bottle of my Perrier-Jouet, +Brut, '89; wine I was specially reserving for myself. Continuing his +disgraceful deception, he succeeded in the course of the afternoon in +alienating the affections of my only ward. He subsequently stayed to +tea, and devoured every single muffin. And what makes his conduct all +the more heartless is, that he was perfectly well aware from the first +that I have no brother, that I never had a brother, and that I don't +intend to have a brother, not even of any kind. I distinctly told him so +myself yesterday afternoon. + +Lady Bracknell. Ahem! Mr. Worthing, after careful consideration I have +decided entirely to overlook my nephew's conduct to you. + +Jack. That is very generous of you, Lady Bracknell. My own decision, +however, is unalterable. I decline to give my consent. + +Lady Bracknell. [To Cecily.] Come here, sweet child. [Cecily goes +over.] How old are you, dear? + +Cecily. Well, I am really only eighteen, but I always admit to twenty +when I go to evening parties. + +Lady Bracknell. You are perfectly right in making some slight +alteration. Indeed, no woman should ever be quite accurate about her +age. It looks so calculating . . . [In a meditative manner.] Eighteen, +but admitting to twenty at evening parties. Well, it will not be very +long before you are of age and free from the restraints of tutelage. So +I don't think your guardian's consent is, after all, a matter of any +importance. + +Jack. Pray excuse me, Lady Bracknell, for interrupting you again, but it +is only fair to tell you that according to the terms of her grandfather's +will Miss Cardew does not come legally of age till she is thirty-five. + +Lady Bracknell. That does not seem to me to be a grave objection. Thirty- +five is a very attractive age. London society is full of women of the +very highest birth who have, of their own free choice, remained thirty- +five for years. Lady Dumbleton is an instance in point. To my own +knowledge she has been thirty-five ever since she arrived at the age of +forty, which was many years ago now. I see no reason why our dear Cecily +should not be even still more attractive at the age you mention than she +is at present. There will be a large accumulation of property. + +Cecily. Algy, could you wait for me till I was thirty-five? + +Algernon. Of course I could, Cecily. You know I could. + +Cecily. Yes, I felt it instinctively, but I couldn't wait all that time. +I hate waiting even five minutes for anybody. It always makes me rather +cross. I am not punctual myself, I know, but I do like punctuality in +others, and waiting, even to be married, is quite out of the question. + +Algernon. Then what is to be done, Cecily? + +Cecily. I don't know, Mr. Moncrieff. + +Lady Bracknell. My dear Mr. Worthing, as Miss Cardew states positively +that she cannot wait till she is thirty-five--a remark which I am bound +to say seems to me to show a somewhat impatient nature--I would beg of +you to reconsider your decision. + +Jack. But my dear Lady Bracknell, the matter is entirely in your own +hands. The moment you consent to my marriage with Gwendolen, I will most +gladly allow your nephew to form an alliance with my ward. + +Lady Bracknell. [Rising and drawing herself up.] You must be quite +aware that what you propose is out of the question. + +Jack. Then a passionate celibacy is all that any of us can look forward +to. + +Lady Bracknell. That is not the destiny I propose for Gwendolen. +Algernon, of course, can choose for himself. [Pulls out her watch.] +Come, dear, [Gwendolen rises] we have already missed five, if not six, +trains. To miss any more might expose us to comment on the platform. + +[Enter Dr. Chasuble.] + +Chasuble. Everything is quite ready for the christenings. + +Lady Bracknell. The christenings, sir! Is not that somewhat premature? + +Chasuble. [Looking rather puzzled, and pointing to Jack and Algernon.] +Both these gentlemen have expressed a desire for immediate baptism. + +Lady Bracknell. At their age? The idea is grotesque and irreligious! +Algernon, I forbid you to be baptized. I will not hear of such excesses. +Lord Bracknell would be highly displeased if he learned that that was the +way in which you wasted your time and money. + +Chasuble. Am I to understand then that there are to be no christenings +at all this afternoon? + +Jack. I don't think that, as things are now, it would be of much +practical value to either of us, Dr. Chasuble. + +Chasuble. I am grieved to hear such sentiments from you, Mr. Worthing. +They savour of the heretical views of the Anabaptists, views that I have +completely refuted in four of my unpublished sermons. However, as your +present mood seems to be one peculiarly secular, I will return to the +church at once. Indeed, I have just been informed by the pew-opener that +for the last hour and a half Miss Prism has been waiting for me in the +vestry. + +Lady Bracknell. [Starting.] Miss Prism! Did I hear you mention a Miss +Prism? + +Chasuble. Yes, Lady Bracknell. I am on my way to join her. + +Lady Bracknell. Pray allow me to detain you for a moment. This matter +may prove to be one of vital importance to Lord Bracknell and myself. Is +this Miss Prism a female of repellent aspect, remotely connected with +education? + +Chasuble. [Somewhat indignantly.] She is the most cultivated of ladies, +and the very picture of respectability. + +Lady Bracknell. It is obviously the same person. May I ask what +position she holds in your household? + +Chasuble. [Severely.] I am a celibate, madam. + +Jack. [Interposing.] Miss Prism, Lady Bracknell, has been for the last +three years Miss Cardew's esteemed governess and valued companion. + +Lady Bracknell. In spite of what I hear of her, I must see her at once. +Let her be sent for. + +Chasuble. [Looking off.] She approaches; she is nigh. + +[Enter Miss Prism hurriedly.] + +Miss Prism. I was told you expected me in the vestry, dear Canon. I +have been waiting for you there for an hour and three-quarters. [Catches +sight of Lady Bracknell, who has fixed her with a stony glare. Miss +Prism grows pale and quails. She looks anxiously round as if desirous to +escape.] + +Lady Bracknell. [In a severe, judicial voice.] Prism! [Miss Prism bows +her head in shame.] Come here, Prism! [Miss Prism approaches in a +humble manner.] Prism! Where is that baby? [General consternation. The +Canon starts back in horror. Algernon and Jack pretend to be anxious to +shield Cecily and Gwendolen from hearing the details of a terrible public +scandal.] Twenty-eight years ago, Prism, you left Lord Bracknell's +house, Number 104, Upper Grosvenor Street, in charge of a perambulator +that contained a baby of the male sex. You never returned. A few weeks +later, through the elaborate investigations of the Metropolitan police, +the perambulator was discovered at midnight, standing by itself in a +remote corner of Bayswater. It contained the manuscript of a +three-volume novel of more than usually revolting sentimentality. [Miss +Prism starts in involuntary indignation.] But the baby was not there! +[Every one looks at Miss Prism.] Prism! Where is that baby? [A pause.] + +Miss Prism. Lady Bracknell, I admit with shame that I do not know. I +only wish I did. The plain facts of the case are these. On the morning +of the day you mention, a day that is for ever branded on my memory, I +prepared as usual to take the baby out in its perambulator. I had also +with me a somewhat old, but capacious hand-bag in which I had intended to +place the manuscript of a work of fiction that I had written during my +few unoccupied hours. In a moment of mental abstraction, for which I +never can forgive myself, I deposited the manuscript in the basinette, +and placed the baby in the hand-bag. + +Jack. [Who has been listening attentively.] But where did you deposit +the hand-bag? + +Miss Prism. Do not ask me, Mr. Worthing. + +Jack. Miss Prism, this is a matter of no small importance to me. I +insist on knowing where you deposited the hand-bag that contained that +infant. + +Miss Prism. I left it in the cloak-room of one of the larger railway +stations in London. + +Jack. What railway station? + +Miss Prism. [Quite crushed.] Victoria. The Brighton line. [Sinks into +a chair.] + +Jack. I must retire to my room for a moment. Gwendolen, wait here for +me. + +Gwendolen. If you are not too long, I will wait here for you all my +life. [Exit Jack in great excitement.] + +Chasuble. What do you think this means, Lady Bracknell? + +Lady Bracknell. I dare not even suspect, Dr. Chasuble. I need hardly +tell you that in families of high position strange coincidences are not +supposed to occur. They are hardly considered the thing. + +[Noises heard overhead as if some one was throwing trunks about. Every +one looks up.] + +Cecily. Uncle Jack seems strangely agitated. + +Chasuble. Your guardian has a very emotional nature. + +Lady Bracknell. This noise is extremely unpleasant. It sounds as if he +was having an argument. I dislike arguments of any kind. They are +always vulgar, and often convincing. + +Chasuble. [Looking up.] It has stopped now. [The noise is redoubled.] + +Lady Bracknell. I wish he would arrive at some conclusion. + +Gwendolen. This suspense is terrible. I hope it will last. [Enter Jack +with a hand-bag of black leather in his hand.] + +Jack. [Rushing over to Miss Prism.] Is this the hand-bag, Miss Prism? +Examine it carefully before you speak. The happiness of more than one +life depends on your answer. + +Miss Prism. [Calmly.] It seems to be mine. Yes, here is the injury it +received through the upsetting of a Gower Street omnibus in younger and +happier days. Here is the stain on the lining caused by the explosion of +a temperance beverage, an incident that occurred at Leamington. And +here, on the lock, are my initials. I had forgotten that in an +extravagant mood I had had them placed there. The bag is undoubtedly +mine. I am delighted to have it so unexpectedly restored to me. It has +been a great inconvenience being without it all these years. + +Jack. [In a pathetic voice.] Miss Prism, more is restored to you than +this hand-bag. I was the baby you placed in it. + +Miss Prism. [Amazed.] You? + +Jack. [Embracing her.] Yes . . . mother! + +Miss Prism. [Recoiling in indignant astonishment.] Mr. Worthing! I am +unmarried! + +Jack. Unmarried! I do not deny that is a serious blow. But after all, +who has the right to cast a stone against one who has suffered? Cannot +repentance wipe out an act of folly? Why should there be one law for +men, and another for women? Mother, I forgive you. [Tries to embrace +her again.] + +Miss Prism. [Still more indignant.] Mr. Worthing, there is some error. +[Pointing to Lady Bracknell.] There is the lady who can tell you who you +really are. + +Jack. [After a pause.] Lady Bracknell, I hate to seem inquisitive, but +would you kindly inform me who I am? + +Lady Bracknell. I am afraid that the news I have to give you will not +altogether please you. You are the son of my poor sister, Mrs. +Moncrieff, and consequently Algernon's elder brother. + +Jack. Algy's elder brother! Then I have a brother after all. I knew I +had a brother! I always said I had a brother! Cecily,--how could you +have ever doubted that I had a brother? [Seizes hold of Algernon.] Dr. +Chasuble, my unfortunate brother. Miss Prism, my unfortunate brother. +Gwendolen, my unfortunate brother. Algy, you young scoundrel, you will +have to treat me with more respect in the future. You have never behaved +to me like a brother in all your life. + +Algernon. Well, not till to-day, old boy, I admit. I did my best, +however, though I was out of practice. + +[Shakes hands.] + +Gwendolen. [To Jack.] My own! But what own are you? What is your +Christian name, now that you have become some one else? + +Jack. Good heavens! . . . I had quite forgotten that point. Your +decision on the subject of my name is irrevocable, I suppose? + +Gwendolen. I never change, except in my affections. + +Cecily. What a noble nature you have, Gwendolen! + +Jack. Then the question had better be cleared up at once. Aunt Augusta, +a moment. At the time when Miss Prism left me in the hand-bag, had I +been christened already? + +Lady Bracknell. Every luxury that money could buy, including +christening, had been lavished on you by your fond and doting parents. + +Jack. Then I was christened! That is settled. Now, what name was I +given? Let me know the worst. + +Lady Bracknell. Being the eldest son you were naturally christened after +your father. + +Jack. [Irritably.] Yes, but what was my father's Christian name? + +Lady Bracknell. [Meditatively.] I cannot at the present moment recall +what the General's Christian name was. But I have no doubt he had one. +He was eccentric, I admit. But only in later years. And that was the +result of the Indian climate, and marriage, and indigestion, and other +things of that kind. + +Jack. Algy! Can't you recollect what our father's Christian name was? + +Algernon. My dear boy, we were never even on speaking terms. He died +before I was a year old. + +Jack. His name would appear in the Army Lists of the period, I suppose, +Aunt Augusta? + +Lady Bracknell. The General was essentially a man of peace, except in +his domestic life. But I have no doubt his name would appear in any +military directory. + +Jack. The Army Lists of the last forty years are here. These delightful +records should have been my constant study. [Rushes to bookcase and +tears the books out.] M. Generals . . . Mallam, Maxbohm, Magley, what +ghastly names they have--Markby, Migsby, Mobbs, Moncrieff! Lieutenant +1840, Captain, Lieutenant-Colonel, Colonel, General 1869, Christian +names, Ernest John. [Puts book very quietly down and speaks quite +calmly.] I always told you, Gwendolen, my name was Ernest, didn't I? +Well, it is Ernest after all. I mean it naturally is Ernest. + +Lady Bracknell. Yes, I remember now that the General was called Ernest, +I knew I had some particular reason for disliking the name. + +Gwendolen. Ernest! My own Ernest! I felt from the first that you could +have no other name! + +Jack. Gwendolen, it is a terrible thing for a man to find out suddenly +that all his life he has been speaking nothing but the truth. Can you +forgive me? + +Gwendolen. I can. For I feel that you are sure to change. + +Jack. My own one! + +Chasuble. [To Miss Prism.] Laetitia! [Embraces her] + +Miss Prism. [Enthusiastically.] Frederick! At last! + +Algernon. Cecily! [Embraces her.] At last! + +Jack. Gwendolen! [Embraces her.] At last! + +Lady Bracknell. My nephew, you seem to be displaying signs of +triviality. + +Jack. On the contrary, Aunt Augusta, I've now realised for the first +time in my life the vital Importance of Being Earnest. + +TABLEAU + + + +***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE IMPORTANCE OF BEING EARNEST*** + + +******* This file should be named 844.txt or 844.zip ******* + + +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: +http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/8/4/844 + + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. Special rules, +set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to +copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to +protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark. 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Thus, we do not necessarily +keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition. + +Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility: + + http://www.gutenberg.org + +This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm, +including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary +Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to +subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks. diff --git a/src/main/pg-dorian_gray.txt b/src/main/pg-dorian_gray.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..1c5880c --- /dev/null +++ b/src/main/pg-dorian_gray.txt @@ -0,0 +1,8904 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Picture of Dorian Gray, by Oscar Wilde + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.net + + +Title: The Picture of Dorian Gray + +Author: Oscar Wilde + +Release Date: June 9, 2008 [EBook #174] +[This file last updated on July 2, 2011] +[This file last updated on July 23, 2014] + + +Language: English + + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE PICTURE OF DORIAN GRAY *** + + + + +Produced by Judith Boss. HTML version by Al Haines. + + + + + + + + + + +The Picture of Dorian Gray + +by + +Oscar Wilde + + + + +THE PREFACE + +The artist is the creator of beautiful things. To reveal art and +conceal the artist is art's aim. The critic is he who can translate +into another manner or a new material his impression of beautiful +things. + +The highest as the lowest form of criticism is a mode of autobiography. +Those who find ugly meanings in beautiful things are corrupt without +being charming. This is a fault. + +Those who find beautiful meanings in beautiful things are the +cultivated. For these there is hope. They are the elect to whom +beautiful things mean only beauty. + +There is no such thing as a moral or an immoral book. Books are well +written, or badly written. That is all. + +The nineteenth century dislike of realism is the rage of Caliban seeing +his own face in a glass. + +The nineteenth century dislike of romanticism is the rage of Caliban +not seeing his own face in a glass. The moral life of man forms part +of the subject-matter of the artist, but the morality of art consists +in the perfect use of an imperfect medium. No artist desires to prove +anything. Even things that are true can be proved. No artist has +ethical sympathies. An ethical sympathy in an artist is an +unpardonable mannerism of style. No artist is ever morbid. The artist +can express everything. Thought and language are to the artist +instruments of an art. Vice and virtue are to the artist materials for +an art. From the point of view of form, the type of all the arts is +the art of the musician. From the point of view of feeling, the +actor's craft is the type. All art is at once surface and symbol. +Those who go beneath the surface do so at their peril. Those who read +the symbol do so at their peril. It is the spectator, and not life, +that art really mirrors. Diversity of opinion about a work of art +shows that the work is new, complex, and vital. When critics disagree, +the artist is in accord with himself. We can forgive a man for making +a useful thing as long as he does not admire it. The only excuse for +making a useless thing is that one admires it intensely. + + All art is quite useless. + + OSCAR WILDE + + + + +CHAPTER 1 + +The studio was filled with the rich odour of roses, and when the light +summer wind stirred amidst the trees of the garden, there came through +the open door the heavy scent of the lilac, or the more delicate +perfume of the pink-flowering thorn. + +From the corner of the divan of Persian saddle-bags on which he was +lying, smoking, as was his custom, innumerable cigarettes, Lord Henry +Wotton could just catch the gleam of the honey-sweet and honey-coloured +blossoms of a laburnum, whose tremulous branches seemed hardly able to +bear the burden of a beauty so flamelike as theirs; and now and then +the fantastic shadows of birds in flight flitted across the long +tussore-silk curtains that were stretched in front of the huge window, +producing a kind of momentary Japanese effect, and making him think of +those pallid, jade-faced painters of Tokyo who, through the medium of +an art that is necessarily immobile, seek to convey the sense of +swiftness and motion. The sullen murmur of the bees shouldering their +way through the long unmown grass, or circling with monotonous +insistence round the dusty gilt horns of the straggling woodbine, +seemed to make the stillness more oppressive. The dim roar of London +was like the bourdon note of a distant organ. + +In the centre of the room, clamped to an upright easel, stood the +full-length portrait of a young man of extraordinary personal beauty, +and in front of it, some little distance away, was sitting the artist +himself, Basil Hallward, whose sudden disappearance some years ago +caused, at the time, such public excitement and gave rise to so many +strange conjectures. + +As the painter looked at the gracious and comely form he had so +skilfully mirrored in his art, a smile of pleasure passed across his +face, and seemed about to linger there. But he suddenly started up, +and closing his eyes, placed his fingers upon the lids, as though he +sought to imprison within his brain some curious dream from which he +feared he might awake. + +"It is your best work, Basil, the best thing you have ever done," said +Lord Henry languidly. "You must certainly send it next year to the +Grosvenor. The Academy is too large and too vulgar. Whenever I have +gone there, there have been either so many people that I have not been +able to see the pictures, which was dreadful, or so many pictures that +I have not been able to see the people, which was worse. The Grosvenor +is really the only place." + +"I don't think I shall send it anywhere," he answered, tossing his head +back in that odd way that used to make his friends laugh at him at +Oxford. "No, I won't send it anywhere." + +Lord Henry elevated his eyebrows and looked at him in amazement through +the thin blue wreaths of smoke that curled up in such fanciful whorls +from his heavy, opium-tainted cigarette. "Not send it anywhere? My +dear fellow, why? Have you any reason? What odd chaps you painters +are! You do anything in the world to gain a reputation. As soon as +you have one, you seem to want to throw it away. It is silly of you, +for there is only one thing in the world worse than being talked about, +and that is not being talked about. A portrait like this would set you +far above all the young men in England, and make the old men quite +jealous, if old men are ever capable of any emotion." + +"I know you will laugh at me," he replied, "but I really can't exhibit +it. I have put too much of myself into it." + +Lord Henry stretched himself out on the divan and laughed. + +"Yes, I knew you would; but it is quite true, all the same." + +"Too much of yourself in it! Upon my word, Basil, I didn't know you +were so vain; and I really can't see any resemblance between you, with +your rugged strong face and your coal-black hair, and this young +Adonis, who looks as if he was made out of ivory and rose-leaves. Why, +my dear Basil, he is a Narcissus, and you--well, of course you have an +intellectual expression and all that. But beauty, real beauty, ends +where an intellectual expression begins. Intellect is in itself a mode +of exaggeration, and destroys the harmony of any face. The moment one +sits down to think, one becomes all nose, or all forehead, or something +horrid. Look at the successful men in any of the learned professions. +How perfectly hideous they are! Except, of course, in the Church. But +then in the Church they don't think. A bishop keeps on saying at the +age of eighty what he was told to say when he was a boy of eighteen, +and as a natural consequence he always looks absolutely delightful. +Your mysterious young friend, whose name you have never told me, but +whose picture really fascinates me, never thinks. I feel quite sure of +that. He is some brainless beautiful creature who should be always +here in winter when we have no flowers to look at, and always here in +summer when we want something to chill our intelligence. Don't flatter +yourself, Basil: you are not in the least like him." + +"You don't understand me, Harry," answered the artist. "Of course I am +not like him. I know that perfectly well. Indeed, I should be sorry +to look like him. You shrug your shoulders? I am telling you the +truth. There is a fatality about all physical and intellectual +distinction, the sort of fatality that seems to dog through history the +faltering steps of kings. It is better not to be different from one's +fellows. The ugly and the stupid have the best of it in this world. +They can sit at their ease and gape at the play. If they know nothing +of victory, they are at least spared the knowledge of defeat. They +live as we all should live--undisturbed, indifferent, and without +disquiet. They neither bring ruin upon others, nor ever receive it +from alien hands. Your rank and wealth, Harry; my brains, such as they +are--my art, whatever it may be worth; Dorian Gray's good looks--we +shall all suffer for what the gods have given us, suffer terribly." + +"Dorian Gray? Is that his name?" asked Lord Henry, walking across the +studio towards Basil Hallward. + +"Yes, that is his name. I didn't intend to tell it to you." + +"But why not?" + +"Oh, I can't explain. When I like people immensely, I never tell their +names to any one. It is like surrendering a part of them. I have +grown to love secrecy. It seems to be the one thing that can make +modern life mysterious or marvellous to us. The commonest thing is +delightful if one only hides it. When I leave town now I never tell my +people where I am going. If I did, I would lose all my pleasure. It +is a silly habit, I dare say, but somehow it seems to bring a great +deal of romance into one's life. I suppose you think me awfully +foolish about it?" + +"Not at all," answered Lord Henry, "not at all, my dear Basil. You +seem to forget that I am married, and the one charm of marriage is that +it makes a life of deception absolutely necessary for both parties. I +never know where my wife is, and my wife never knows what I am doing. +When we meet--we do meet occasionally, when we dine out together, or go +down to the Duke's--we tell each other the most absurd stories with the +most serious faces. My wife is very good at it--much better, in fact, +than I am. She never gets confused over her dates, and I always do. +But when she does find me out, she makes no row at all. I sometimes +wish she would; but she merely laughs at me." + +"I hate the way you talk about your married life, Harry," said Basil +Hallward, strolling towards the door that led into the garden. "I +believe that you are really a very good husband, but that you are +thoroughly ashamed of your own virtues. You are an extraordinary +fellow. You never say a moral thing, and you never do a wrong thing. +Your cynicism is simply a pose." + +"Being natural is simply a pose, and the most irritating pose I know," +cried Lord Henry, laughing; and the two young men went out into the +garden together and ensconced themselves on a long bamboo seat that +stood in the shade of a tall laurel bush. The sunlight slipped over +the polished leaves. In the grass, white daisies were tremulous. + +After a pause, Lord Henry pulled out his watch. "I am afraid I must be +going, Basil," he murmured, "and before I go, I insist on your +answering a question I put to you some time ago." + +"What is that?" said the painter, keeping his eyes fixed on the ground. + +"You know quite well." + +"I do not, Harry." + +"Well, I will tell you what it is. I want you to explain to me why you +won't exhibit Dorian Gray's picture. I want the real reason." + +"I told you the real reason." + +"No, you did not. You said it was because there was too much of +yourself in it. Now, that is childish." + +"Harry," said Basil Hallward, looking him straight in the face, "every +portrait that is painted with feeling is a portrait of the artist, not +of the sitter. The sitter is merely the accident, the occasion. It is +not he who is revealed by the painter; it is rather the painter who, on +the coloured canvas, reveals himself. The reason I will not exhibit +this picture is that I am afraid that I have shown in it the secret of +my own soul." + +Lord Henry laughed. "And what is that?" he asked. + +"I will tell you," said Hallward; but an expression of perplexity came +over his face. + +"I am all expectation, Basil," continued his companion, glancing at him. + +"Oh, there is really very little to tell, Harry," answered the painter; +"and I am afraid you will hardly understand it. Perhaps you will +hardly believe it." + +Lord Henry smiled, and leaning down, plucked a pink-petalled daisy from +the grass and examined it. "I am quite sure I shall understand it," he +replied, gazing intently at the little golden, white-feathered disk, +"and as for believing things, I can believe anything, provided that it +is quite incredible." + +The wind shook some blossoms from the trees, and the heavy +lilac-blooms, with their clustering stars, moved to and fro in the +languid air. A grasshopper began to chirrup by the wall, and like a +blue thread a long thin dragon-fly floated past on its brown gauze +wings. Lord Henry felt as if he could hear Basil Hallward's heart +beating, and wondered what was coming. + +"The story is simply this," said the painter after some time. "Two +months ago I went to a crush at Lady Brandon's. You know we poor +artists have to show ourselves in society from time to time, just to +remind the public that we are not savages. With an evening coat and a +white tie, as you told me once, anybody, even a stock-broker, can gain +a reputation for being civilized. Well, after I had been in the room +about ten minutes, talking to huge overdressed dowagers and tedious +academicians, I suddenly became conscious that some one was looking at +me. I turned half-way round and saw Dorian Gray for the first time. +When our eyes met, I felt that I was growing pale. A curious sensation +of terror came over me. I knew that I had come face to face with some +one whose mere personality was so fascinating that, if I allowed it to +do so, it would absorb my whole nature, my whole soul, my very art +itself. I did not want any external influence in my life. You know +yourself, Harry, how independent I am by nature. I have always been my +own master; had at least always been so, till I met Dorian Gray. +Then--but I don't know how to explain it to you. Something seemed to +tell me that I was on the verge of a terrible crisis in my life. I had +a strange feeling that fate had in store for me exquisite joys and +exquisite sorrows. I grew afraid and turned to quit the room. It was +not conscience that made me do so: it was a sort of cowardice. I take +no credit to myself for trying to escape." + +"Conscience and cowardice are really the same things, Basil. +Conscience is the trade-name of the firm. That is all." + +"I don't believe that, Harry, and I don't believe you do either. +However, whatever was my motive--and it may have been pride, for I used +to be very proud--I certainly struggled to the door. There, of course, +I stumbled against Lady Brandon. 'You are not going to run away so +soon, Mr. Hallward?' she screamed out. You know her curiously shrill +voice?" + +"Yes; she is a peacock in everything but beauty," said Lord Henry, +pulling the daisy to bits with his long nervous fingers. + +"I could not get rid of her. She brought me up to royalties, and +people with stars and garters, and elderly ladies with gigantic tiaras +and parrot noses. She spoke of me as her dearest friend. I had only +met her once before, but she took it into her head to lionize me. I +believe some picture of mine had made a great success at the time, at +least had been chattered about in the penny newspapers, which is the +nineteenth-century standard of immortality. Suddenly I found myself +face to face with the young man whose personality had so strangely +stirred me. We were quite close, almost touching. Our eyes met again. +It was reckless of me, but I asked Lady Brandon to introduce me to him. +Perhaps it was not so reckless, after all. It was simply inevitable. +We would have spoken to each other without any introduction. I am sure +of that. Dorian told me so afterwards. He, too, felt that we were +destined to know each other." + +"And how did Lady Brandon describe this wonderful young man?" asked his +companion. "I know she goes in for giving a rapid _precis_ of all her +guests. I remember her bringing me up to a truculent and red-faced old +gentleman covered all over with orders and ribbons, and hissing into my +ear, in a tragic whisper which must have been perfectly audible to +everybody in the room, the most astounding details. I simply fled. I +like to find out people for myself. But Lady Brandon treats her guests +exactly as an auctioneer treats his goods. She either explains them +entirely away, or tells one everything about them except what one wants +to know." + +"Poor Lady Brandon! You are hard on her, Harry!" said Hallward +listlessly. + +"My dear fellow, she tried to found a _salon_, and only succeeded in +opening a restaurant. How could I admire her? But tell me, what did +she say about Mr. Dorian Gray?" + +"Oh, something like, 'Charming boy--poor dear mother and I absolutely +inseparable. Quite forget what he does--afraid he--doesn't do +anything--oh, yes, plays the piano--or is it the violin, dear Mr. +Gray?' Neither of us could help laughing, and we became friends at +once." + +"Laughter is not at all a bad beginning for a friendship, and it is far +the best ending for one," said the young lord, plucking another daisy. + +Hallward shook his head. "You don't understand what friendship is, +Harry," he murmured--"or what enmity is, for that matter. You like +every one; that is to say, you are indifferent to every one." + +"How horribly unjust of you!" cried Lord Henry, tilting his hat back +and looking up at the little clouds that, like ravelled skeins of +glossy white silk, were drifting across the hollowed turquoise of the +summer sky. "Yes; horribly unjust of you. I make a great difference +between people. I choose my friends for their good looks, my +acquaintances for their good characters, and my enemies for their good +intellects. A man cannot be too careful in the choice of his enemies. +I have not got one who is a fool. They are all men of some +intellectual power, and consequently they all appreciate me. Is that +very vain of me? I think it is rather vain." + +"I should think it was, Harry. But according to your category I must +be merely an acquaintance." + +"My dear old Basil, you are much more than an acquaintance." + +"And much less than a friend. A sort of brother, I suppose?" + +"Oh, brothers! I don't care for brothers. My elder brother won't die, +and my younger brothers seem never to do anything else." + +"Harry!" exclaimed Hallward, frowning. + +"My dear fellow, I am not quite serious. But I can't help detesting my +relations. I suppose it comes from the fact that none of us can stand +other people having the same faults as ourselves. I quite sympathize +with the rage of the English democracy against what they call the vices +of the upper orders. The masses feel that drunkenness, stupidity, and +immorality should be their own special property, and that if any one of +us makes an ass of himself, he is poaching on their preserves. When +poor Southwark got into the divorce court, their indignation was quite +magnificent. And yet I don't suppose that ten per cent of the +proletariat live correctly." + +"I don't agree with a single word that you have said, and, what is +more, Harry, I feel sure you don't either." + +Lord Henry stroked his pointed brown beard and tapped the toe of his +patent-leather boot with a tasselled ebony cane. "How English you are +Basil! That is the second time you have made that observation. If one +puts forward an idea to a true Englishman--always a rash thing to +do--he never dreams of considering whether the idea is right or wrong. +The only thing he considers of any importance is whether one believes +it oneself. Now, the value of an idea has nothing whatsoever to do +with the sincerity of the man who expresses it. Indeed, the +probabilities are that the more insincere the man is, the more purely +intellectual will the idea be, as in that case it will not be coloured +by either his wants, his desires, or his prejudices. However, I don't +propose to discuss politics, sociology, or metaphysics with you. I +like persons better than principles, and I like persons with no +principles better than anything else in the world. Tell me more about +Mr. Dorian Gray. How often do you see him?" + +"Every day. I couldn't be happy if I didn't see him every day. He is +absolutely necessary to me." + +"How extraordinary! I thought you would never care for anything but +your art." + +"He is all my art to me now," said the painter gravely. "I sometimes +think, Harry, that there are only two eras of any importance in the +world's history. The first is the appearance of a new medium for art, +and the second is the appearance of a new personality for art also. +What the invention of oil-painting was to the Venetians, the face of +Antinous was to late Greek sculpture, and the face of Dorian Gray will +some day be to me. It is not merely that I paint from him, draw from +him, sketch from him. Of course, I have done all that. But he is much +more to me than a model or a sitter. I won't tell you that I am +dissatisfied with what I have done of him, or that his beauty is such +that art cannot express it. There is nothing that art cannot express, +and I know that the work I have done, since I met Dorian Gray, is good +work, is the best work of my life. But in some curious way--I wonder +will you understand me?--his personality has suggested to me an +entirely new manner in art, an entirely new mode of style. I see +things differently, I think of them differently. I can now recreate +life in a way that was hidden from me before. 'A dream of form in days +of thought'--who is it who says that? I forget; but it is what Dorian +Gray has been to me. The merely visible presence of this lad--for he +seems to me little more than a lad, though he is really over +twenty--his merely visible presence--ah! I wonder can you realize all +that that means? Unconsciously he defines for me the lines of a fresh +school, a school that is to have in it all the passion of the romantic +spirit, all the perfection of the spirit that is Greek. The harmony of +soul and body--how much that is! We in our madness have separated the +two, and have invented a realism that is vulgar, an ideality that is +void. Harry! if you only knew what Dorian Gray is to me! You remember +that landscape of mine, for which Agnew offered me such a huge price +but which I would not part with? It is one of the best things I have +ever done. And why is it so? Because, while I was painting it, Dorian +Gray sat beside me. Some subtle influence passed from him to me, and +for the first time in my life I saw in the plain woodland the wonder I +had always looked for and always missed." + +"Basil, this is extraordinary! I must see Dorian Gray." + +Hallward got up from the seat and walked up and down the garden. After +some time he came back. "Harry," he said, "Dorian Gray is to me simply +a motive in art. You might see nothing in him. I see everything in +him. He is never more present in my work than when no image of him is +there. He is a suggestion, as I have said, of a new manner. I find +him in the curves of certain lines, in the loveliness and subtleties of +certain colours. That is all." + +"Then why won't you exhibit his portrait?" asked Lord Henry. + +"Because, without intending it, I have put into it some expression of +all this curious artistic idolatry, of which, of course, I have never +cared to speak to him. He knows nothing about it. He shall never know +anything about it. But the world might guess it, and I will not bare +my soul to their shallow prying eyes. My heart shall never be put +under their microscope. There is too much of myself in the thing, +Harry--too much of myself!" + +"Poets are not so scrupulous as you are. They know how useful passion +is for publication. Nowadays a broken heart will run to many editions." + +"I hate them for it," cried Hallward. "An artist should create +beautiful things, but should put nothing of his own life into them. We +live in an age when men treat art as if it were meant to be a form of +autobiography. We have lost the abstract sense of beauty. Some day I +will show the world what it is; and for that reason the world shall +never see my portrait of Dorian Gray." + +"I think you are wrong, Basil, but I won't argue with you. It is only +the intellectually lost who ever argue. Tell me, is Dorian Gray very +fond of you?" + +The painter considered for a few moments. "He likes me," he answered +after a pause; "I know he likes me. Of course I flatter him +dreadfully. I find a strange pleasure in saying things to him that I +know I shall be sorry for having said. As a rule, he is charming to +me, and we sit in the studio and talk of a thousand things. Now and +then, however, he is horribly thoughtless, and seems to take a real +delight in giving me pain. Then I feel, Harry, that I have given away +my whole soul to some one who treats it as if it were a flower to put +in his coat, a bit of decoration to charm his vanity, an ornament for a +summer's day." + +"Days in summer, Basil, are apt to linger," murmured Lord Henry. +"Perhaps you will tire sooner than he will. It is a sad thing to think +of, but there is no doubt that genius lasts longer than beauty. That +accounts for the fact that we all take such pains to over-educate +ourselves. In the wild struggle for existence, we want to have +something that endures, and so we fill our minds with rubbish and +facts, in the silly hope of keeping our place. The thoroughly +well-informed man--that is the modern ideal. And the mind of the +thoroughly well-informed man is a dreadful thing. It is like a +_bric-a-brac_ shop, all monsters and dust, with everything priced above +its proper value. I think you will tire first, all the same. Some day +you will look at your friend, and he will seem to you to be a little +out of drawing, or you won't like his tone of colour, or something. +You will bitterly reproach him in your own heart, and seriously think +that he has behaved very badly to you. The next time he calls, you +will be perfectly cold and indifferent. It will be a great pity, for +it will alter you. What you have told me is quite a romance, a romance +of art one might call it, and the worst of having a romance of any kind +is that it leaves one so unromantic." + +"Harry, don't talk like that. As long as I live, the personality of +Dorian Gray will dominate me. You can't feel what I feel. You change +too often." + +"Ah, my dear Basil, that is exactly why I can feel it. Those who are +faithful know only the trivial side of love: it is the faithless who +know love's tragedies." And Lord Henry struck a light on a dainty +silver case and began to smoke a cigarette with a self-conscious and +satisfied air, as if he had summed up the world in a phrase. There was +a rustle of chirruping sparrows in the green lacquer leaves of the ivy, +and the blue cloud-shadows chased themselves across the grass like +swallows. How pleasant it was in the garden! And how delightful other +people's emotions were!--much more delightful than their ideas, it +seemed to him. One's own soul, and the passions of one's +friends--those were the fascinating things in life. He pictured to +himself with silent amusement the tedious luncheon that he had missed +by staying so long with Basil Hallward. Had he gone to his aunt's, he +would have been sure to have met Lord Goodbody there, and the whole +conversation would have been about the feeding of the poor and the +necessity for model lodging-houses. Each class would have preached the +importance of those virtues, for whose exercise there was no necessity +in their own lives. The rich would have spoken on the value of thrift, +and the idle grown eloquent over the dignity of labour. It was +charming to have escaped all that! As he thought of his aunt, an idea +seemed to strike him. He turned to Hallward and said, "My dear fellow, +I have just remembered." + +"Remembered what, Harry?" + +"Where I heard the name of Dorian Gray." + +"Where was it?" asked Hallward, with a slight frown. + +"Don't look so angry, Basil. It was at my aunt, Lady Agatha's. She +told me she had discovered a wonderful young man who was going to help +her in the East End, and that his name was Dorian Gray. I am bound to +state that she never told me he was good-looking. Women have no +appreciation of good looks; at least, good women have not. She said +that he was very earnest and had a beautiful nature. I at once +pictured to myself a creature with spectacles and lank hair, horribly +freckled, and tramping about on huge feet. I wish I had known it was +your friend." + +"I am very glad you didn't, Harry." + +"Why?" + +"I don't want you to meet him." + +"You don't want me to meet him?" + +"No." + +"Mr. Dorian Gray is in the studio, sir," said the butler, coming into +the garden. + +"You must introduce me now," cried Lord Henry, laughing. + +The painter turned to his servant, who stood blinking in the sunlight. +"Ask Mr. Gray to wait, Parker: I shall be in in a few moments." The +man bowed and went up the walk. + +Then he looked at Lord Henry. "Dorian Gray is my dearest friend," he +said. "He has a simple and a beautiful nature. Your aunt was quite +right in what she said of him. Don't spoil him. Don't try to +influence him. Your influence would be bad. The world is wide, and +has many marvellous people in it. Don't take away from me the one +person who gives to my art whatever charm it possesses: my life as an +artist depends on him. Mind, Harry, I trust you." He spoke very +slowly, and the words seemed wrung out of him almost against his will. + +"What nonsense you talk!" said Lord Henry, smiling, and taking Hallward +by the arm, he almost led him into the house. + + + +CHAPTER 2 + +As they entered they saw Dorian Gray. He was seated at the piano, with +his back to them, turning over the pages of a volume of Schumann's +"Forest Scenes." "You must lend me these, Basil," he cried. "I want +to learn them. They are perfectly charming." + +"That entirely depends on how you sit to-day, Dorian." + +"Oh, I am tired of sitting, and I don't want a life-sized portrait of +myself," answered the lad, swinging round on the music-stool in a +wilful, petulant manner. When he caught sight of Lord Henry, a faint +blush coloured his cheeks for a moment, and he started up. "I beg your +pardon, Basil, but I didn't know you had any one with you." + +"This is Lord Henry Wotton, Dorian, an old Oxford friend of mine. I +have just been telling him what a capital sitter you were, and now you +have spoiled everything." + +"You have not spoiled my pleasure in meeting you, Mr. Gray," said Lord +Henry, stepping forward and extending his hand. "My aunt has often +spoken to me about you. You are one of her favourites, and, I am +afraid, one of her victims also." + +"I am in Lady Agatha's black books at present," answered Dorian with a +funny look of penitence. "I promised to go to a club in Whitechapel +with her last Tuesday, and I really forgot all about it. We were to +have played a duet together--three duets, I believe. I don't know what +she will say to me. I am far too frightened to call." + +"Oh, I will make your peace with my aunt. She is quite devoted to you. +And I don't think it really matters about your not being there. The +audience probably thought it was a duet. When Aunt Agatha sits down to +the piano, she makes quite enough noise for two people." + +"That is very horrid to her, and not very nice to me," answered Dorian, +laughing. + +Lord Henry looked at him. Yes, he was certainly wonderfully handsome, +with his finely curved scarlet lips, his frank blue eyes, his crisp +gold hair. There was something in his face that made one trust him at +once. All the candour of youth was there, as well as all youth's +passionate purity. One felt that he had kept himself unspotted from +the world. No wonder Basil Hallward worshipped him. + +"You are too charming to go in for philanthropy, Mr. Gray--far too +charming." And Lord Henry flung himself down on the divan and opened +his cigarette-case. + +The painter had been busy mixing his colours and getting his brushes +ready. He was looking worried, and when he heard Lord Henry's last +remark, he glanced at him, hesitated for a moment, and then said, +"Harry, I want to finish this picture to-day. Would you think it +awfully rude of me if I asked you to go away?" + +Lord Henry smiled and looked at Dorian Gray. "Am I to go, Mr. Gray?" +he asked. + +"Oh, please don't, Lord Henry. I see that Basil is in one of his sulky +moods, and I can't bear him when he sulks. Besides, I want you to tell +me why I should not go in for philanthropy." + +"I don't know that I shall tell you that, Mr. Gray. It is so tedious a +subject that one would have to talk seriously about it. But I +certainly shall not run away, now that you have asked me to stop. You +don't really mind, Basil, do you? You have often told me that you +liked your sitters to have some one to chat to." + +Hallward bit his lip. "If Dorian wishes it, of course you must stay. +Dorian's whims are laws to everybody, except himself." + +Lord Henry took up his hat and gloves. "You are very pressing, Basil, +but I am afraid I must go. I have promised to meet a man at the +Orleans. Good-bye, Mr. Gray. Come and see me some afternoon in Curzon +Street. I am nearly always at home at five o'clock. Write to me when +you are coming. I should be sorry to miss you." + +"Basil," cried Dorian Gray, "if Lord Henry Wotton goes, I shall go, +too. You never open your lips while you are painting, and it is +horribly dull standing on a platform and trying to look pleasant. Ask +him to stay. I insist upon it." + +"Stay, Harry, to oblige Dorian, and to oblige me," said Hallward, +gazing intently at his picture. "It is quite true, I never talk when I +am working, and never listen either, and it must be dreadfully tedious +for my unfortunate sitters. I beg you to stay." + +"But what about my man at the Orleans?" + +The painter laughed. "I don't think there will be any difficulty about +that. Sit down again, Harry. And now, Dorian, get up on the platform, +and don't move about too much, or pay any attention to what Lord Henry +says. He has a very bad influence over all his friends, with the +single exception of myself." + +Dorian Gray stepped up on the dais with the air of a young Greek +martyr, and made a little _moue_ of discontent to Lord Henry, to whom he +had rather taken a fancy. He was so unlike Basil. They made a +delightful contrast. And he had such a beautiful voice. After a few +moments he said to him, "Have you really a very bad influence, Lord +Henry? As bad as Basil says?" + +"There is no such thing as a good influence, Mr. Gray. All influence +is immoral--immoral from the scientific point of view." + +"Why?" + +"Because to influence a person is to give him one's own soul. He does +not think his natural thoughts, or burn with his natural passions. His +virtues are not real to him. His sins, if there are such things as +sins, are borrowed. He becomes an echo of some one else's music, an +actor of a part that has not been written for him. The aim of life is +self-development. To realize one's nature perfectly--that is what each +of us is here for. People are afraid of themselves, nowadays. They +have forgotten the highest of all duties, the duty that one owes to +one's self. Of course, they are charitable. They feed the hungry and +clothe the beggar. But their own souls starve, and are naked. Courage +has gone out of our race. Perhaps we never really had it. The terror +of society, which is the basis of morals, the terror of God, which is +the secret of religion--these are the two things that govern us. And +yet--" + +"Just turn your head a little more to the right, Dorian, like a good +boy," said the painter, deep in his work and conscious only that a look +had come into the lad's face that he had never seen there before. + +"And yet," continued Lord Henry, in his low, musical voice, and with +that graceful wave of the hand that was always so characteristic of +him, and that he had even in his Eton days, "I believe that if one man +were to live out his life fully and completely, were to give form to +every feeling, expression to every thought, reality to every dream--I +believe that the world would gain such a fresh impulse of joy that we +would forget all the maladies of mediaevalism, and return to the +Hellenic ideal--to something finer, richer than the Hellenic ideal, it +may be. But the bravest man amongst us is afraid of himself. The +mutilation of the savage has its tragic survival in the self-denial +that mars our lives. We are punished for our refusals. Every impulse +that we strive to strangle broods in the mind and poisons us. The body +sins once, and has done with its sin, for action is a mode of +purification. Nothing remains then but the recollection of a pleasure, +or the luxury of a regret. The only way to get rid of a temptation is +to yield to it. Resist it, and your soul grows sick with longing for +the things it has forbidden to itself, with desire for what its +monstrous laws have made monstrous and unlawful. It has been said that +the great events of the world take place in the brain. It is in the +brain, and the brain only, that the great sins of the world take place +also. You, Mr. Gray, you yourself, with your rose-red youth and your +rose-white boyhood, you have had passions that have made you afraid, +thoughts that have filled you with terror, day-dreams and sleeping +dreams whose mere memory might stain your cheek with shame--" + +"Stop!" faltered Dorian Gray, "stop! you bewilder me. I don't know +what to say. There is some answer to you, but I cannot find it. Don't +speak. Let me think. Or, rather, let me try not to think." + +For nearly ten minutes he stood there, motionless, with parted lips and +eyes strangely bright. He was dimly conscious that entirely fresh +influences were at work within him. Yet they seemed to him to have +come really from himself. The few words that Basil's friend had said +to him--words spoken by chance, no doubt, and with wilful paradox in +them--had touched some secret chord that had never been touched before, +but that he felt was now vibrating and throbbing to curious pulses. + +Music had stirred him like that. Music had troubled him many times. +But music was not articulate. It was not a new world, but rather +another chaos, that it created in us. Words! Mere words! How +terrible they were! How clear, and vivid, and cruel! One could not +escape from them. And yet what a subtle magic there was in them! They +seemed to be able to give a plastic form to formless things, and to +have a music of their own as sweet as that of viol or of lute. Mere +words! Was there anything so real as words? + +Yes; there had been things in his boyhood that he had not understood. +He understood them now. Life suddenly became fiery-coloured to him. +It seemed to him that he had been walking in fire. Why had he not +known it? + +With his subtle smile, Lord Henry watched him. He knew the precise +psychological moment when to say nothing. He felt intensely +interested. He was amazed at the sudden impression that his words had +produced, and, remembering a book that he had read when he was sixteen, +a book which had revealed to him much that he had not known before, he +wondered whether Dorian Gray was passing through a similar experience. +He had merely shot an arrow into the air. Had it hit the mark? How +fascinating the lad was! + +Hallward painted away with that marvellous bold touch of his, that had +the true refinement and perfect delicacy that in art, at any rate comes +only from strength. He was unconscious of the silence. + +"Basil, I am tired of standing," cried Dorian Gray suddenly. "I must +go out and sit in the garden. The air is stifling here." + +"My dear fellow, I am so sorry. When I am painting, I can't think of +anything else. But you never sat better. You were perfectly still. +And I have caught the effect I wanted--the half-parted lips and the +bright look in the eyes. I don't know what Harry has been saying to +you, but he has certainly made you have the most wonderful expression. +I suppose he has been paying you compliments. You mustn't believe a +word that he says." + +"He has certainly not been paying me compliments. Perhaps that is the +reason that I don't believe anything he has told me." + +"You know you believe it all," said Lord Henry, looking at him with his +dreamy languorous eyes. "I will go out to the garden with you. It is +horribly hot in the studio. Basil, let us have something iced to +drink, something with strawberries in it." + +"Certainly, Harry. Just touch the bell, and when Parker comes I will +tell him what you want. I have got to work up this background, so I +will join you later on. Don't keep Dorian too long. I have never been +in better form for painting than I am to-day. This is going to be my +masterpiece. It is my masterpiece as it stands." + +Lord Henry went out to the garden and found Dorian Gray burying his +face in the great cool lilac-blossoms, feverishly drinking in their +perfume as if it had been wine. He came close to him and put his hand +upon his shoulder. "You are quite right to do that," he murmured. +"Nothing can cure the soul but the senses, just as nothing can cure the +senses but the soul." + +The lad started and drew back. He was bareheaded, and the leaves had +tossed his rebellious curls and tangled all their gilded threads. +There was a look of fear in his eyes, such as people have when they are +suddenly awakened. His finely chiselled nostrils quivered, and some +hidden nerve shook the scarlet of his lips and left them trembling. + +"Yes," continued Lord Henry, "that is one of the great secrets of +life--to cure the soul by means of the senses, and the senses by means +of the soul. You are a wonderful creation. You know more than you +think you know, just as you know less than you want to know." + +Dorian Gray frowned and turned his head away. He could not help liking +the tall, graceful young man who was standing by him. His romantic, +olive-coloured face and worn expression interested him. There was +something in his low languid voice that was absolutely fascinating. +His cool, white, flowerlike hands, even, had a curious charm. They +moved, as he spoke, like music, and seemed to have a language of their +own. But he felt afraid of him, and ashamed of being afraid. Why had +it been left for a stranger to reveal him to himself? He had known +Basil Hallward for months, but the friendship between them had never +altered him. Suddenly there had come some one across his life who +seemed to have disclosed to him life's mystery. And, yet, what was +there to be afraid of? He was not a schoolboy or a girl. It was +absurd to be frightened. + +"Let us go and sit in the shade," said Lord Henry. "Parker has brought +out the drinks, and if you stay any longer in this glare, you will be +quite spoiled, and Basil will never paint you again. You really must +not allow yourself to become sunburnt. It would be unbecoming." + +"What can it matter?" cried Dorian Gray, laughing, as he sat down on +the seat at the end of the garden. + +"It should matter everything to you, Mr. Gray." + +"Why?" + +"Because you have the most marvellous youth, and youth is the one thing +worth having." + +"I don't feel that, Lord Henry." + +"No, you don't feel it now. Some day, when you are old and wrinkled +and ugly, when thought has seared your forehead with its lines, and +passion branded your lips with its hideous fires, you will feel it, you +will feel it terribly. Now, wherever you go, you charm the world. +Will it always be so? ... You have a wonderfully beautiful face, Mr. +Gray. Don't frown. You have. And beauty is a form of genius--is +higher, indeed, than genius, as it needs no explanation. It is of the +great facts of the world, like sunlight, or spring-time, or the +reflection in dark waters of that silver shell we call the moon. It +cannot be questioned. It has its divine right of sovereignty. It +makes princes of those who have it. You smile? Ah! when you have lost +it you won't smile.... People say sometimes that beauty is only +superficial. That may be so, but at least it is not so superficial as +thought is. To me, beauty is the wonder of wonders. It is only +shallow people who do not judge by appearances. The true mystery of +the world is the visible, not the invisible.... Yes, Mr. Gray, the +gods have been good to you. But what the gods give they quickly take +away. You have only a few years in which to live really, perfectly, +and fully. When your youth goes, your beauty will go with it, and then +you will suddenly discover that there are no triumphs left for you, or +have to content yourself with those mean triumphs that the memory of +your past will make more bitter than defeats. Every month as it wanes +brings you nearer to something dreadful. Time is jealous of you, and +wars against your lilies and your roses. You will become sallow, and +hollow-cheeked, and dull-eyed. You will suffer horribly.... Ah! +realize your youth while you have it. Don't squander the gold of your +days, listening to the tedious, trying to improve the hopeless failure, +or giving away your life to the ignorant, the common, and the vulgar. +These are the sickly aims, the false ideals, of our age. Live! Live +the wonderful life that is in you! Let nothing be lost upon you. Be +always searching for new sensations. Be afraid of nothing.... A new +Hedonism--that is what our century wants. You might be its visible +symbol. With your personality there is nothing you could not do. The +world belongs to you for a season.... The moment I met you I saw that +you were quite unconscious of what you really are, of what you really +might be. There was so much in you that charmed me that I felt I must +tell you something about yourself. I thought how tragic it would be if +you were wasted. For there is such a little time that your youth will +last--such a little time. The common hill-flowers wither, but they +blossom again. The laburnum will be as yellow next June as it is now. +In a month there will be purple stars on the clematis, and year after +year the green night of its leaves will hold its purple stars. But we +never get back our youth. The pulse of joy that beats in us at twenty +becomes sluggish. Our limbs fail, our senses rot. We degenerate into +hideous puppets, haunted by the memory of the passions of which we were +too much afraid, and the exquisite temptations that we had not the +courage to yield to. Youth! Youth! There is absolutely nothing in +the world but youth!" + +Dorian Gray listened, open-eyed and wondering. The spray of lilac fell +from his hand upon the gravel. A furry bee came and buzzed round it +for a moment. Then it began to scramble all over the oval stellated +globe of the tiny blossoms. He watched it with that strange interest +in trivial things that we try to develop when things of high import +make us afraid, or when we are stirred by some new emotion for which we +cannot find expression, or when some thought that terrifies us lays +sudden siege to the brain and calls on us to yield. After a time the +bee flew away. He saw it creeping into the stained trumpet of a Tyrian +convolvulus. The flower seemed to quiver, and then swayed gently to +and fro. + +Suddenly the painter appeared at the door of the studio and made +staccato signs for them to come in. They turned to each other and +smiled. + +"I am waiting," he cried. "Do come in. The light is quite perfect, +and you can bring your drinks." + +They rose up and sauntered down the walk together. Two green-and-white +butterflies fluttered past them, and in the pear-tree at the corner of +the garden a thrush began to sing. + +"You are glad you have met me, Mr. Gray," said Lord Henry, looking at +him. + +"Yes, I am glad now. I wonder shall I always be glad?" + +"Always! That is a dreadful word. It makes me shudder when I hear it. +Women are so fond of using it. They spoil every romance by trying to +make it last for ever. It is a meaningless word, too. The only +difference between a caprice and a lifelong passion is that the caprice +lasts a little longer." + +As they entered the studio, Dorian Gray put his hand upon Lord Henry's +arm. "In that case, let our friendship be a caprice," he murmured, +flushing at his own boldness, then stepped up on the platform and +resumed his pose. + +Lord Henry flung himself into a large wicker arm-chair and watched him. +The sweep and dash of the brush on the canvas made the only sound that +broke the stillness, except when, now and then, Hallward stepped back +to look at his work from a distance. In the slanting beams that +streamed through the open doorway the dust danced and was golden. The +heavy scent of the roses seemed to brood over everything. + +After about a quarter of an hour Hallward stopped painting, looked for +a long time at Dorian Gray, and then for a long time at the picture, +biting the end of one of his huge brushes and frowning. "It is quite +finished," he cried at last, and stooping down he wrote his name in +long vermilion letters on the left-hand corner of the canvas. + +Lord Henry came over and examined the picture. It was certainly a +wonderful work of art, and a wonderful likeness as well. + +"My dear fellow, I congratulate you most warmly," he said. "It is the +finest portrait of modern times. Mr. Gray, come over and look at +yourself." + +The lad started, as if awakened from some dream. + +"Is it really finished?" he murmured, stepping down from the platform. + +"Quite finished," said the painter. "And you have sat splendidly +to-day. I am awfully obliged to you." + +"That is entirely due to me," broke in Lord Henry. "Isn't it, Mr. +Gray?" + +Dorian made no answer, but passed listlessly in front of his picture +and turned towards it. When he saw it he drew back, and his cheeks +flushed for a moment with pleasure. A look of joy came into his eyes, +as if he had recognized himself for the first time. He stood there +motionless and in wonder, dimly conscious that Hallward was speaking to +him, but not catching the meaning of his words. The sense of his own +beauty came on him like a revelation. He had never felt it before. +Basil Hallward's compliments had seemed to him to be merely the +charming exaggeration of friendship. He had listened to them, laughed +at them, forgotten them. They had not influenced his nature. Then had +come Lord Henry Wotton with his strange panegyric on youth, his +terrible warning of its brevity. That had stirred him at the time, and +now, as he stood gazing at the shadow of his own loveliness, the full +reality of the description flashed across him. Yes, there would be a +day when his face would be wrinkled and wizen, his eyes dim and +colourless, the grace of his figure broken and deformed. The scarlet +would pass away from his lips and the gold steal from his hair. The +life that was to make his soul would mar his body. He would become +dreadful, hideous, and uncouth. + +As he thought of it, a sharp pang of pain struck through him like a +knife and made each delicate fibre of his nature quiver. His eyes +deepened into amethyst, and across them came a mist of tears. He felt +as if a hand of ice had been laid upon his heart. + +"Don't you like it?" cried Hallward at last, stung a little by the +lad's silence, not understanding what it meant. + +"Of course he likes it," said Lord Henry. "Who wouldn't like it? It +is one of the greatest things in modern art. I will give you anything +you like to ask for it. I must have it." + +"It is not my property, Harry." + +"Whose property is it?" + +"Dorian's, of course," answered the painter. + +"He is a very lucky fellow." + +"How sad it is!" murmured Dorian Gray with his eyes still fixed upon +his own portrait. "How sad it is! I shall grow old, and horrible, and +dreadful. But this picture will remain always young. It will never be +older than this particular day of June.... If it were only the other +way! If it were I who was to be always young, and the picture that was +to grow old! For that--for that--I would give everything! Yes, there +is nothing in the whole world I would not give! I would give my soul +for that!" + +"You would hardly care for such an arrangement, Basil," cried Lord +Henry, laughing. "It would be rather hard lines on your work." + +"I should object very strongly, Harry," said Hallward. + +Dorian Gray turned and looked at him. "I believe you would, Basil. +You like your art better than your friends. I am no more to you than a +green bronze figure. Hardly as much, I dare say." + +The painter stared in amazement. It was so unlike Dorian to speak like +that. What had happened? He seemed quite angry. His face was flushed +and his cheeks burning. + +"Yes," he continued, "I am less to you than your ivory Hermes or your +silver Faun. You will like them always. How long will you like me? +Till I have my first wrinkle, I suppose. I know, now, that when one +loses one's good looks, whatever they may be, one loses everything. +Your picture has taught me that. Lord Henry Wotton is perfectly right. +Youth is the only thing worth having. When I find that I am growing +old, I shall kill myself." + +Hallward turned pale and caught his hand. "Dorian! Dorian!" he cried, +"don't talk like that. I have never had such a friend as you, and I +shall never have such another. You are not jealous of material things, +are you?--you who are finer than any of them!" + +"I am jealous of everything whose beauty does not die. I am jealous of +the portrait you have painted of me. Why should it keep what I must +lose? Every moment that passes takes something from me and gives +something to it. Oh, if it were only the other way! If the picture +could change, and I could be always what I am now! Why did you paint +it? It will mock me some day--mock me horribly!" The hot tears welled +into his eyes; he tore his hand away and, flinging himself on the +divan, he buried his face in the cushions, as though he was praying. + +"This is your doing, Harry," said the painter bitterly. + +Lord Henry shrugged his shoulders. "It is the real Dorian Gray--that +is all." + +"It is not." + +"If it is not, what have I to do with it?" + +"You should have gone away when I asked you," he muttered. + +"I stayed when you asked me," was Lord Henry's answer. + +"Harry, I can't quarrel with my two best friends at once, but between +you both you have made me hate the finest piece of work I have ever +done, and I will destroy it. What is it but canvas and colour? I will +not let it come across our three lives and mar them." + +Dorian Gray lifted his golden head from the pillow, and with pallid +face and tear-stained eyes, looked at him as he walked over to the deal +painting-table that was set beneath the high curtained window. What +was he doing there? His fingers were straying about among the litter +of tin tubes and dry brushes, seeking for something. Yes, it was for +the long palette-knife, with its thin blade of lithe steel. He had +found it at last. He was going to rip up the canvas. + +With a stifled sob the lad leaped from the couch, and, rushing over to +Hallward, tore the knife out of his hand, and flung it to the end of +the studio. "Don't, Basil, don't!" he cried. "It would be murder!" + +"I am glad you appreciate my work at last, Dorian," said the painter +coldly when he had recovered from his surprise. "I never thought you +would." + +"Appreciate it? I am in love with it, Basil. It is part of myself. I +feel that." + +"Well, as soon as you are dry, you shall be varnished, and framed, and +sent home. Then you can do what you like with yourself." And he walked +across the room and rang the bell for tea. "You will have tea, of +course, Dorian? And so will you, Harry? Or do you object to such +simple pleasures?" + +"I adore simple pleasures," said Lord Henry. "They are the last refuge +of the complex. But I don't like scenes, except on the stage. What +absurd fellows you are, both of you! I wonder who it was defined man +as a rational animal. It was the most premature definition ever given. +Man is many things, but he is not rational. I am glad he is not, after +all--though I wish you chaps would not squabble over the picture. You +had much better let me have it, Basil. This silly boy doesn't really +want it, and I really do." + +"If you let any one have it but me, Basil, I shall never forgive you!" +cried Dorian Gray; "and I don't allow people to call me a silly boy." + +"You know the picture is yours, Dorian. I gave it to you before it +existed." + +"And you know you have been a little silly, Mr. Gray, and that you +don't really object to being reminded that you are extremely young." + +"I should have objected very strongly this morning, Lord Henry." + +"Ah! this morning! You have lived since then." + +There came a knock at the door, and the butler entered with a laden +tea-tray and set it down upon a small Japanese table. There was a +rattle of cups and saucers and the hissing of a fluted Georgian urn. +Two globe-shaped china dishes were brought in by a page. Dorian Gray +went over and poured out the tea. The two men sauntered languidly to +the table and examined what was under the covers. + +"Let us go to the theatre to-night," said Lord Henry. "There is sure +to be something on, somewhere. I have promised to dine at White's, but +it is only with an old friend, so I can send him a wire to say that I +am ill, or that I am prevented from coming in consequence of a +subsequent engagement. I think that would be a rather nice excuse: it +would have all the surprise of candour." + +"It is such a bore putting on one's dress-clothes," muttered Hallward. +"And, when one has them on, they are so horrid." + +"Yes," answered Lord Henry dreamily, "the costume of the nineteenth +century is detestable. It is so sombre, so depressing. Sin is the +only real colour-element left in modern life." + +"You really must not say things like that before Dorian, Harry." + +"Before which Dorian? The one who is pouring out tea for us, or the +one in the picture?" + +"Before either." + +"I should like to come to the theatre with you, Lord Henry," said the +lad. + +"Then you shall come; and you will come, too, Basil, won't you?" + +"I can't, really. I would sooner not. I have a lot of work to do." + +"Well, then, you and I will go alone, Mr. Gray." + +"I should like that awfully." + +The painter bit his lip and walked over, cup in hand, to the picture. +"I shall stay with the real Dorian," he said, sadly. + +"Is it the real Dorian?" cried the original of the portrait, strolling +across to him. "Am I really like that?" + +"Yes; you are just like that." + +"How wonderful, Basil!" + +"At least you are like it in appearance. But it will never alter," +sighed Hallward. "That is something." + +"What a fuss people make about fidelity!" exclaimed Lord Henry. "Why, +even in love it is purely a question for physiology. It has nothing to +do with our own will. Young men want to be faithful, and are not; old +men want to be faithless, and cannot: that is all one can say." + +"Don't go to the theatre to-night, Dorian," said Hallward. "Stop and +dine with me." + +"I can't, Basil." + +"Why?" + +"Because I have promised Lord Henry Wotton to go with him." + +"He won't like you the better for keeping your promises. He always +breaks his own. I beg you not to go." + +Dorian Gray laughed and shook his head. + +"I entreat you." + +The lad hesitated, and looked over at Lord Henry, who was watching them +from the tea-table with an amused smile. + +"I must go, Basil," he answered. + +"Very well," said Hallward, and he went over and laid down his cup on +the tray. "It is rather late, and, as you have to dress, you had +better lose no time. Good-bye, Harry. Good-bye, Dorian. Come and see +me soon. Come to-morrow." + +"Certainly." + +"You won't forget?" + +"No, of course not," cried Dorian. + +"And ... Harry!" + +"Yes, Basil?" + +"Remember what I asked you, when we were in the garden this morning." + +"I have forgotten it." + +"I trust you." + +"I wish I could trust myself," said Lord Henry, laughing. "Come, Mr. +Gray, my hansom is outside, and I can drop you at your own place. +Good-bye, Basil. It has been a most interesting afternoon." + +As the door closed behind them, the painter flung himself down on a +sofa, and a look of pain came into his face. + + + +CHAPTER 3 + +At half-past twelve next day Lord Henry Wotton strolled from Curzon +Street over to the Albany to call on his uncle, Lord Fermor, a genial +if somewhat rough-mannered old bachelor, whom the outside world called +selfish because it derived no particular benefit from him, but who was +considered generous by Society as he fed the people who amused him. +His father had been our ambassador at Madrid when Isabella was young +and Prim unthought of, but had retired from the diplomatic service in a +capricious moment of annoyance on not being offered the Embassy at +Paris, a post to which he considered that he was fully entitled by +reason of his birth, his indolence, the good English of his dispatches, +and his inordinate passion for pleasure. The son, who had been his +father's secretary, had resigned along with his chief, somewhat +foolishly as was thought at the time, and on succeeding some months +later to the title, had set himself to the serious study of the great +aristocratic art of doing absolutely nothing. He had two large town +houses, but preferred to live in chambers as it was less trouble, and +took most of his meals at his club. He paid some attention to the +management of his collieries in the Midland counties, excusing himself +for this taint of industry on the ground that the one advantage of +having coal was that it enabled a gentleman to afford the decency of +burning wood on his own hearth. In politics he was a Tory, except when +the Tories were in office, during which period he roundly abused them +for being a pack of Radicals. He was a hero to his valet, who bullied +him, and a terror to most of his relations, whom he bullied in turn. +Only England could have produced him, and he always said that the +country was going to the dogs. His principles were out of date, but +there was a good deal to be said for his prejudices. + +When Lord Henry entered the room, he found his uncle sitting in a rough +shooting-coat, smoking a cheroot and grumbling over _The Times_. "Well, +Harry," said the old gentleman, "what brings you out so early? I +thought you dandies never got up till two, and were not visible till +five." + +"Pure family affection, I assure you, Uncle George. I want to get +something out of you." + +"Money, I suppose," said Lord Fermor, making a wry face. "Well, sit +down and tell me all about it. Young people, nowadays, imagine that +money is everything." + +"Yes," murmured Lord Henry, settling his button-hole in his coat; "and +when they grow older they know it. But I don't want money. It is only +people who pay their bills who want that, Uncle George, and I never pay +mine. Credit is the capital of a younger son, and one lives charmingly +upon it. Besides, I always deal with Dartmoor's tradesmen, and +consequently they never bother me. What I want is information: not +useful information, of course; useless information." + +"Well, I can tell you anything that is in an English Blue Book, Harry, +although those fellows nowadays write a lot of nonsense. When I was in +the Diplomatic, things were much better. But I hear they let them in +now by examination. What can you expect? Examinations, sir, are pure +humbug from beginning to end. If a man is a gentleman, he knows quite +enough, and if he is not a gentleman, whatever he knows is bad for him." + +"Mr. Dorian Gray does not belong to Blue Books, Uncle George," said +Lord Henry languidly. + +"Mr. Dorian Gray? Who is he?" asked Lord Fermor, knitting his bushy +white eyebrows. + +"That is what I have come to learn, Uncle George. Or rather, I know +who he is. He is the last Lord Kelso's grandson. His mother was a +Devereux, Lady Margaret Devereux. I want you to tell me about his +mother. What was she like? Whom did she marry? You have known nearly +everybody in your time, so you might have known her. I am very much +interested in Mr. Gray at present. I have only just met him." + +"Kelso's grandson!" echoed the old gentleman. "Kelso's grandson! ... +Of course.... I knew his mother intimately. I believe I was at her +christening. She was an extraordinarily beautiful girl, Margaret +Devereux, and made all the men frantic by running away with a penniless +young fellow--a mere nobody, sir, a subaltern in a foot regiment, or +something of that kind. Certainly. I remember the whole thing as if +it happened yesterday. The poor chap was killed in a duel at Spa a few +months after the marriage. There was an ugly story about it. They +said Kelso got some rascally adventurer, some Belgian brute, to insult +his son-in-law in public--paid him, sir, to do it, paid him--and that +the fellow spitted his man as if he had been a pigeon. The thing was +hushed up, but, egad, Kelso ate his chop alone at the club for some +time afterwards. He brought his daughter back with him, I was told, +and she never spoke to him again. Oh, yes; it was a bad business. The +girl died, too, died within a year. So she left a son, did she? I had +forgotten that. What sort of boy is he? If he is like his mother, he +must be a good-looking chap." + +"He is very good-looking," assented Lord Henry. + +"I hope he will fall into proper hands," continued the old man. "He +should have a pot of money waiting for him if Kelso did the right thing +by him. His mother had money, too. All the Selby property came to +her, through her grandfather. Her grandfather hated Kelso, thought him +a mean dog. He was, too. Came to Madrid once when I was there. Egad, +I was ashamed of him. The Queen used to ask me about the English noble +who was always quarrelling with the cabmen about their fares. They +made quite a story of it. I didn't dare show my face at Court for a +month. I hope he treated his grandson better than he did the jarvies." + +"I don't know," answered Lord Henry. "I fancy that the boy will be +well off. He is not of age yet. He has Selby, I know. He told me so. +And ... his mother was very beautiful?" + +"Margaret Devereux was one of the loveliest creatures I ever saw, +Harry. What on earth induced her to behave as she did, I never could +understand. She could have married anybody she chose. Carlington was +mad after her. She was romantic, though. All the women of that family +were. The men were a poor lot, but, egad! the women were wonderful. +Carlington went on his knees to her. Told me so himself. She laughed +at him, and there wasn't a girl in London at the time who wasn't after +him. And by the way, Harry, talking about silly marriages, what is +this humbug your father tells me about Dartmoor wanting to marry an +American? Ain't English girls good enough for him?" + +"It is rather fashionable to marry Americans just now, Uncle George." + +"I'll back English women against the world, Harry," said Lord Fermor, +striking the table with his fist. + +"The betting is on the Americans." + +"They don't last, I am told," muttered his uncle. + +"A long engagement exhausts them, but they are capital at a +steeplechase. They take things flying. I don't think Dartmoor has a +chance." + +"Who are her people?" grumbled the old gentleman. "Has she got any?" + +Lord Henry shook his head. "American girls are as clever at concealing +their parents, as English women are at concealing their past," he said, +rising to go. + +"They are pork-packers, I suppose?" + +"I hope so, Uncle George, for Dartmoor's sake. I am told that +pork-packing is the most lucrative profession in America, after +politics." + +"Is she pretty?" + +"She behaves as if she was beautiful. Most American women do. It is +the secret of their charm." + +"Why can't these American women stay in their own country? They are +always telling us that it is the paradise for women." + +"It is. That is the reason why, like Eve, they are so excessively +anxious to get out of it," said Lord Henry. "Good-bye, Uncle George. +I shall be late for lunch, if I stop any longer. Thanks for giving me +the information I wanted. I always like to know everything about my +new friends, and nothing about my old ones." + +"Where are you lunching, Harry?" + +"At Aunt Agatha's. I have asked myself and Mr. Gray. He is her latest +_protege_." + +"Humph! tell your Aunt Agatha, Harry, not to bother me any more with +her charity appeals. I am sick of them. Why, the good woman thinks +that I have nothing to do but to write cheques for her silly fads." + +"All right, Uncle George, I'll tell her, but it won't have any effect. +Philanthropic people lose all sense of humanity. It is their +distinguishing characteristic." + +The old gentleman growled approvingly and rang the bell for his +servant. Lord Henry passed up the low arcade into Burlington Street +and turned his steps in the direction of Berkeley Square. + +So that was the story of Dorian Gray's parentage. Crudely as it had +been told to him, it had yet stirred him by its suggestion of a +strange, almost modern romance. A beautiful woman risking everything +for a mad passion. A few wild weeks of happiness cut short by a +hideous, treacherous crime. Months of voiceless agony, and then a +child born in pain. The mother snatched away by death, the boy left to +solitude and the tyranny of an old and loveless man. Yes; it was an +interesting background. It posed the lad, made him more perfect, as it +were. Behind every exquisite thing that existed, there was something +tragic. Worlds had to be in travail, that the meanest flower might +blow.... And how charming he had been at dinner the night before, as +with startled eyes and lips parted in frightened pleasure he had sat +opposite to him at the club, the red candleshades staining to a richer +rose the wakening wonder of his face. Talking to him was like playing +upon an exquisite violin. He answered to every touch and thrill of the +bow.... There was something terribly enthralling in the exercise of +influence. No other activity was like it. To project one's soul into +some gracious form, and let it tarry there for a moment; to hear one's +own intellectual views echoed back to one with all the added music of +passion and youth; to convey one's temperament into another as though +it were a subtle fluid or a strange perfume: there was a real joy in +that--perhaps the most satisfying joy left to us in an age so limited +and vulgar as our own, an age grossly carnal in its pleasures, and +grossly common in its aims.... He was a marvellous type, too, this lad, +whom by so curious a chance he had met in Basil's studio, or could be +fashioned into a marvellous type, at any rate. Grace was his, and the +white purity of boyhood, and beauty such as old Greek marbles kept for +us. There was nothing that one could not do with him. He could be +made a Titan or a toy. What a pity it was that such beauty was +destined to fade! ... And Basil? From a psychological point of view, +how interesting he was! The new manner in art, the fresh mode of +looking at life, suggested so strangely by the merely visible presence +of one who was unconscious of it all; the silent spirit that dwelt in +dim woodland, and walked unseen in open field, suddenly showing +herself, Dryadlike and not afraid, because in his soul who sought for +her there had been wakened that wonderful vision to which alone are +wonderful things revealed; the mere shapes and patterns of things +becoming, as it were, refined, and gaining a kind of symbolical value, +as though they were themselves patterns of some other and more perfect +form whose shadow they made real: how strange it all was! He +remembered something like it in history. Was it not Plato, that artist +in thought, who had first analyzed it? Was it not Buonarotti who had +carved it in the coloured marbles of a sonnet-sequence? But in our own +century it was strange.... Yes; he would try to be to Dorian Gray +what, without knowing it, the lad was to the painter who had fashioned +the wonderful portrait. He would seek to dominate him--had already, +indeed, half done so. He would make that wonderful spirit his own. +There was something fascinating in this son of love and death. + +Suddenly he stopped and glanced up at the houses. He found that he had +passed his aunt's some distance, and, smiling to himself, turned back. +When he entered the somewhat sombre hall, the butler told him that they +had gone in to lunch. He gave one of the footmen his hat and stick and +passed into the dining-room. + +"Late as usual, Harry," cried his aunt, shaking her head at him. + +He invented a facile excuse, and having taken the vacant seat next to +her, looked round to see who was there. Dorian bowed to him shyly from +the end of the table, a flush of pleasure stealing into his cheek. +Opposite was the Duchess of Harley, a lady of admirable good-nature and +good temper, much liked by every one who knew her, and of those ample +architectural proportions that in women who are not duchesses are +described by contemporary historians as stoutness. Next to her sat, on +her right, Sir Thomas Burdon, a Radical member of Parliament, who +followed his leader in public life and in private life followed the +best cooks, dining with the Tories and thinking with the Liberals, in +accordance with a wise and well-known rule. The post on her left was +occupied by Mr. Erskine of Treadley, an old gentleman of considerable +charm and culture, who had fallen, however, into bad habits of silence, +having, as he explained once to Lady Agatha, said everything that he +had to say before he was thirty. His own neighbour was Mrs. Vandeleur, +one of his aunt's oldest friends, a perfect saint amongst women, but so +dreadfully dowdy that she reminded one of a badly bound hymn-book. +Fortunately for him she had on the other side Lord Faudel, a most +intelligent middle-aged mediocrity, as bald as a ministerial statement +in the House of Commons, with whom she was conversing in that intensely +earnest manner which is the one unpardonable error, as he remarked once +himself, that all really good people fall into, and from which none of +them ever quite escape. + +"We are talking about poor Dartmoor, Lord Henry," cried the duchess, +nodding pleasantly to him across the table. "Do you think he will +really marry this fascinating young person?" + +"I believe she has made up her mind to propose to him, Duchess." + +"How dreadful!" exclaimed Lady Agatha. "Really, some one should +interfere." + +"I am told, on excellent authority, that her father keeps an American +dry-goods store," said Sir Thomas Burdon, looking supercilious. + +"My uncle has already suggested pork-packing, Sir Thomas." + +"Dry-goods! What are American dry-goods?" asked the duchess, raising +her large hands in wonder and accentuating the verb. + +"American novels," answered Lord Henry, helping himself to some quail. + +The duchess looked puzzled. + +"Don't mind him, my dear," whispered Lady Agatha. "He never means +anything that he says." + +"When America was discovered," said the Radical member--and he began to +give some wearisome facts. Like all people who try to exhaust a +subject, he exhausted his listeners. The duchess sighed and exercised +her privilege of interruption. "I wish to goodness it never had been +discovered at all!" she exclaimed. "Really, our girls have no chance +nowadays. It is most unfair." + +"Perhaps, after all, America never has been discovered," said Mr. +Erskine; "I myself would say that it had merely been detected." + +"Oh! but I have seen specimens of the inhabitants," answered the +duchess vaguely. "I must confess that most of them are extremely +pretty. And they dress well, too. They get all their dresses in +Paris. I wish I could afford to do the same." + +"They say that when good Americans die they go to Paris," chuckled Sir +Thomas, who had a large wardrobe of Humour's cast-off clothes. + +"Really! And where do bad Americans go to when they die?" inquired the +duchess. + +"They go to America," murmured Lord Henry. + +Sir Thomas frowned. "I am afraid that your nephew is prejudiced +against that great country," he said to Lady Agatha. "I have travelled +all over it in cars provided by the directors, who, in such matters, +are extremely civil. I assure you that it is an education to visit it." + +"But must we really see Chicago in order to be educated?" asked Mr. +Erskine plaintively. "I don't feel up to the journey." + +Sir Thomas waved his hand. "Mr. Erskine of Treadley has the world on +his shelves. We practical men like to see things, not to read about +them. The Americans are an extremely interesting people. They are +absolutely reasonable. I think that is their distinguishing +characteristic. Yes, Mr. Erskine, an absolutely reasonable people. I +assure you there is no nonsense about the Americans." + +"How dreadful!" cried Lord Henry. "I can stand brute force, but brute +reason is quite unbearable. There is something unfair about its use. +It is hitting below the intellect." + +"I do not understand you," said Sir Thomas, growing rather red. + +"I do, Lord Henry," murmured Mr. Erskine, with a smile. + +"Paradoxes are all very well in their way...." rejoined the baronet. + +"Was that a paradox?" asked Mr. Erskine. "I did not think so. Perhaps +it was. Well, the way of paradoxes is the way of truth. To test +reality we must see it on the tight rope. When the verities become +acrobats, we can judge them." + +"Dear me!" said Lady Agatha, "how you men argue! I am sure I never can +make out what you are talking about. Oh! Harry, I am quite vexed with +you. Why do you try to persuade our nice Mr. Dorian Gray to give up +the East End? I assure you he would be quite invaluable. They would +love his playing." + +"I want him to play to me," cried Lord Henry, smiling, and he looked +down the table and caught a bright answering glance. + +"But they are so unhappy in Whitechapel," continued Lady Agatha. + +"I can sympathize with everything except suffering," said Lord Henry, +shrugging his shoulders. "I cannot sympathize with that. It is too +ugly, too horrible, too distressing. There is something terribly +morbid in the modern sympathy with pain. One should sympathize with +the colour, the beauty, the joy of life. The less said about life's +sores, the better." + +"Still, the East End is a very important problem," remarked Sir Thomas +with a grave shake of the head. + +"Quite so," answered the young lord. "It is the problem of slavery, +and we try to solve it by amusing the slaves." + +The politician looked at him keenly. "What change do you propose, +then?" he asked. + +Lord Henry laughed. "I don't desire to change anything in England +except the weather," he answered. "I am quite content with philosophic +contemplation. But, as the nineteenth century has gone bankrupt +through an over-expenditure of sympathy, I would suggest that we should +appeal to science to put us straight. The advantage of the emotions is +that they lead us astray, and the advantage of science is that it is +not emotional." + +"But we have such grave responsibilities," ventured Mrs. Vandeleur +timidly. + +"Terribly grave," echoed Lady Agatha. + +Lord Henry looked over at Mr. Erskine. "Humanity takes itself too +seriously. It is the world's original sin. If the caveman had known +how to laugh, history would have been different." + +"You are really very comforting," warbled the duchess. "I have always +felt rather guilty when I came to see your dear aunt, for I take no +interest at all in the East End. For the future I shall be able to +look her in the face without a blush." + +"A blush is very becoming, Duchess," remarked Lord Henry. + +"Only when one is young," she answered. "When an old woman like myself +blushes, it is a very bad sign. Ah! Lord Henry, I wish you would tell +me how to become young again." + +He thought for a moment. "Can you remember any great error that you +committed in your early days, Duchess?" he asked, looking at her across +the table. + +"A great many, I fear," she cried. + +"Then commit them over again," he said gravely. "To get back one's +youth, one has merely to repeat one's follies." + +"A delightful theory!" she exclaimed. "I must put it into practice." + +"A dangerous theory!" came from Sir Thomas's tight lips. Lady Agatha +shook her head, but could not help being amused. Mr. Erskine listened. + +"Yes," he continued, "that is one of the great secrets of life. +Nowadays most people die of a sort of creeping common sense, and +discover when it is too late that the only things one never regrets are +one's mistakes." + +A laugh ran round the table. + +He played with the idea and grew wilful; tossed it into the air and +transformed it; let it escape and recaptured it; made it iridescent +with fancy and winged it with paradox. The praise of folly, as he went +on, soared into a philosophy, and philosophy herself became young, and +catching the mad music of pleasure, wearing, one might fancy, her +wine-stained robe and wreath of ivy, danced like a Bacchante over the +hills of life, and mocked the slow Silenus for being sober. Facts fled +before her like frightened forest things. Her white feet trod the huge +press at which wise Omar sits, till the seething grape-juice rose round +her bare limbs in waves of purple bubbles, or crawled in red foam over +the vat's black, dripping, sloping sides. It was an extraordinary +improvisation. He felt that the eyes of Dorian Gray were fixed on him, +and the consciousness that amongst his audience there was one whose +temperament he wished to fascinate seemed to give his wit keenness and +to lend colour to his imagination. He was brilliant, fantastic, +irresponsible. He charmed his listeners out of themselves, and they +followed his pipe, laughing. Dorian Gray never took his gaze off him, +but sat like one under a spell, smiles chasing each other over his lips +and wonder growing grave in his darkening eyes. + +At last, liveried in the costume of the age, reality entered the room +in the shape of a servant to tell the duchess that her carriage was +waiting. She wrung her hands in mock despair. "How annoying!" she +cried. "I must go. I have to call for my husband at the club, to take +him to some absurd meeting at Willis's Rooms, where he is going to be +in the chair. If I am late he is sure to be furious, and I couldn't +have a scene in this bonnet. It is far too fragile. A harsh word +would ruin it. No, I must go, dear Agatha. Good-bye, Lord Henry, you +are quite delightful and dreadfully demoralizing. I am sure I don't +know what to say about your views. You must come and dine with us some +night. Tuesday? Are you disengaged Tuesday?" + +"For you I would throw over anybody, Duchess," said Lord Henry with a +bow. + +"Ah! that is very nice, and very wrong of you," she cried; "so mind you +come"; and she swept out of the room, followed by Lady Agatha and the +other ladies. + +When Lord Henry had sat down again, Mr. Erskine moved round, and taking +a chair close to him, placed his hand upon his arm. + +"You talk books away," he said; "why don't you write one?" + +"I am too fond of reading books to care to write them, Mr. Erskine. I +should like to write a novel certainly, a novel that would be as lovely +as a Persian carpet and as unreal. But there is no literary public in +England for anything except newspapers, primers, and encyclopaedias. +Of all people in the world the English have the least sense of the +beauty of literature." + +"I fear you are right," answered Mr. Erskine. "I myself used to have +literary ambitions, but I gave them up long ago. And now, my dear +young friend, if you will allow me to call you so, may I ask if you +really meant all that you said to us at lunch?" + +"I quite forget what I said," smiled Lord Henry. "Was it all very bad?" + +"Very bad indeed. In fact I consider you extremely dangerous, and if +anything happens to our good duchess, we shall all look on you as being +primarily responsible. But I should like to talk to you about life. +The generation into which I was born was tedious. Some day, when you +are tired of London, come down to Treadley and expound to me your +philosophy of pleasure over some admirable Burgundy I am fortunate +enough to possess." + +"I shall be charmed. A visit to Treadley would be a great privilege. +It has a perfect host, and a perfect library." + +"You will complete it," answered the old gentleman with a courteous +bow. "And now I must bid good-bye to your excellent aunt. I am due at +the Athenaeum. It is the hour when we sleep there." + +"All of you, Mr. Erskine?" + +"Forty of us, in forty arm-chairs. We are practising for an English +Academy of Letters." + +Lord Henry laughed and rose. "I am going to the park," he cried. + +As he was passing out of the door, Dorian Gray touched him on the arm. +"Let me come with you," he murmured. + +"But I thought you had promised Basil Hallward to go and see him," +answered Lord Henry. + +"I would sooner come with you; yes, I feel I must come with you. Do +let me. And you will promise to talk to me all the time? No one talks +so wonderfully as you do." + +"Ah! I have talked quite enough for to-day," said Lord Henry, smiling. +"All I want now is to look at life. You may come and look at it with +me, if you care to." + + + +CHAPTER 4 + +One afternoon, a month later, Dorian Gray was reclining in a luxurious +arm-chair, in the little library of Lord Henry's house in Mayfair. It +was, in its way, a very charming room, with its high panelled +wainscoting of olive-stained oak, its cream-coloured frieze and ceiling +of raised plasterwork, and its brickdust felt carpet strewn with silk, +long-fringed Persian rugs. On a tiny satinwood table stood a statuette +by Clodion, and beside it lay a copy of Les Cent Nouvelles, bound for +Margaret of Valois by Clovis Eve and powdered with the gilt daisies +that Queen had selected for her device. Some large blue china jars and +parrot-tulips were ranged on the mantelshelf, and through the small +leaded panes of the window streamed the apricot-coloured light of a +summer day in London. + +Lord Henry had not yet come in. He was always late on principle, his +principle being that punctuality is the thief of time. So the lad was +looking rather sulky, as with listless fingers he turned over the pages +of an elaborately illustrated edition of Manon Lescaut that he had +found in one of the book-cases. The formal monotonous ticking of the +Louis Quatorze clock annoyed him. Once or twice he thought of going +away. + +At last he heard a step outside, and the door opened. "How late you +are, Harry!" he murmured. + +"I am afraid it is not Harry, Mr. Gray," answered a shrill voice. + +He glanced quickly round and rose to his feet. "I beg your pardon. I +thought--" + +"You thought it was my husband. It is only his wife. You must let me +introduce myself. I know you quite well by your photographs. I think +my husband has got seventeen of them." + +"Not seventeen, Lady Henry?" + +"Well, eighteen, then. And I saw you with him the other night at the +opera." She laughed nervously as she spoke, and watched him with her +vague forget-me-not eyes. She was a curious woman, whose dresses +always looked as if they had been designed in a rage and put on in a +tempest. She was usually in love with somebody, and, as her passion +was never returned, she had kept all her illusions. She tried to look +picturesque, but only succeeded in being untidy. Her name was +Victoria, and she had a perfect mania for going to church. + +"That was at Lohengrin, Lady Henry, I think?" + +"Yes; it was at dear Lohengrin. I like Wagner's music better than +anybody's. It is so loud that one can talk the whole time without other +people hearing what one says. That is a great advantage, don't you +think so, Mr. Gray?" + +The same nervous staccato laugh broke from her thin lips, and her +fingers began to play with a long tortoise-shell paper-knife. + +Dorian smiled and shook his head: "I am afraid I don't think so, Lady +Henry. I never talk during music--at least, during good music. If one +hears bad music, it is one's duty to drown it in conversation." + +"Ah! that is one of Harry's views, isn't it, Mr. Gray? I always hear +Harry's views from his friends. It is the only way I get to know of +them. But you must not think I don't like good music. I adore it, but +I am afraid of it. It makes me too romantic. I have simply worshipped +pianists--two at a time, sometimes, Harry tells me. I don't know what +it is about them. Perhaps it is that they are foreigners. They all +are, ain't they? Even those that are born in England become foreigners +after a time, don't they? It is so clever of them, and such a +compliment to art. Makes it quite cosmopolitan, doesn't it? You have +never been to any of my parties, have you, Mr. Gray? You must come. I +can't afford orchids, but I spare no expense in foreigners. They make +one's rooms look so picturesque. But here is Harry! Harry, I came in +to look for you, to ask you something--I forget what it was--and I +found Mr. Gray here. We have had such a pleasant chat about music. We +have quite the same ideas. No; I think our ideas are quite different. +But he has been most pleasant. I am so glad I've seen him." + +"I am charmed, my love, quite charmed," said Lord Henry, elevating his +dark, crescent-shaped eyebrows and looking at them both with an amused +smile. "So sorry I am late, Dorian. I went to look after a piece of +old brocade in Wardour Street and had to bargain for hours for it. +Nowadays people know the price of everything and the value of nothing." + +"I am afraid I must be going," exclaimed Lady Henry, breaking an +awkward silence with her silly sudden laugh. "I have promised to drive +with the duchess. Good-bye, Mr. Gray. Good-bye, Harry. You are +dining out, I suppose? So am I. Perhaps I shall see you at Lady +Thornbury's." + +"I dare say, my dear," said Lord Henry, shutting the door behind her +as, looking like a bird of paradise that had been out all night in the +rain, she flitted out of the room, leaving a faint odour of +frangipanni. Then he lit a cigarette and flung himself down on the +sofa. + +"Never marry a woman with straw-coloured hair, Dorian," he said after a +few puffs. + +"Why, Harry?" + +"Because they are so sentimental." + +"But I like sentimental people." + +"Never marry at all, Dorian. Men marry because they are tired; women, +because they are curious: both are disappointed." + +"I don't think I am likely to marry, Harry. I am too much in love. +That is one of your aphorisms. I am putting it into practice, as I do +everything that you say." + +"Who are you in love with?" asked Lord Henry after a pause. + +"With an actress," said Dorian Gray, blushing. + +Lord Henry shrugged his shoulders. "That is a rather commonplace +_debut_." + +"You would not say so if you saw her, Harry." + +"Who is she?" + +"Her name is Sibyl Vane." + +"Never heard of her." + +"No one has. People will some day, however. She is a genius." + +"My dear boy, no woman is a genius. Women are a decorative sex. They +never have anything to say, but they say it charmingly. Women +represent the triumph of matter over mind, just as men represent the +triumph of mind over morals." + +"Harry, how can you?" + +"My dear Dorian, it is quite true. I am analysing women at present, so +I ought to know. The subject is not so abstruse as I thought it was. +I find that, ultimately, there are only two kinds of women, the plain +and the coloured. The plain women are very useful. If you want to +gain a reputation for respectability, you have merely to take them down +to supper. The other women are very charming. They commit one +mistake, however. They paint in order to try and look young. Our +grandmothers painted in order to try and talk brilliantly. _Rouge_ and +_esprit_ used to go together. That is all over now. As long as a woman +can look ten years younger than her own daughter, she is perfectly +satisfied. As for conversation, there are only five women in London +worth talking to, and two of these can't be admitted into decent +society. However, tell me about your genius. How long have you known +her?" + +"Ah! Harry, your views terrify me." + +"Never mind that. How long have you known her?" + +"About three weeks." + +"And where did you come across her?" + +"I will tell you, Harry, but you mustn't be unsympathetic about it. +After all, it never would have happened if I had not met you. You +filled me with a wild desire to know everything about life. For days +after I met you, something seemed to throb in my veins. As I lounged +in the park, or strolled down Piccadilly, I used to look at every one +who passed me and wonder, with a mad curiosity, what sort of lives they +led. Some of them fascinated me. Others filled me with terror. There +was an exquisite poison in the air. I had a passion for sensations.... +Well, one evening about seven o'clock, I determined to go out in search +of some adventure. I felt that this grey monstrous London of ours, +with its myriads of people, its sordid sinners, and its splendid sins, +as you once phrased it, must have something in store for me. I fancied +a thousand things. The mere danger gave me a sense of delight. I +remembered what you had said to me on that wonderful evening when we +first dined together, about the search for beauty being the real secret +of life. I don't know what I expected, but I went out and wandered +eastward, soon losing my way in a labyrinth of grimy streets and black +grassless squares. About half-past eight I passed by an absurd little +theatre, with great flaring gas-jets and gaudy play-bills. A hideous +Jew, in the most amazing waistcoat I ever beheld in my life, was +standing at the entrance, smoking a vile cigar. He had greasy +ringlets, and an enormous diamond blazed in the centre of a soiled +shirt. 'Have a box, my Lord?' he said, when he saw me, and he took off +his hat with an air of gorgeous servility. There was something about +him, Harry, that amused me. He was such a monster. You will laugh at +me, I know, but I really went in and paid a whole guinea for the +stage-box. To the present day I can't make out why I did so; and yet if +I hadn't--my dear Harry, if I hadn't--I should have missed the greatest +romance of my life. I see you are laughing. It is horrid of you!" + +"I am not laughing, Dorian; at least I am not laughing at you. But you +should not say the greatest romance of your life. You should say the +first romance of your life. You will always be loved, and you will +always be in love with love. A _grande passion_ is the privilege of +people who have nothing to do. That is the one use of the idle classes +of a country. Don't be afraid. There are exquisite things in store +for you. This is merely the beginning." + +"Do you think my nature so shallow?" cried Dorian Gray angrily. + +"No; I think your nature so deep." + +"How do you mean?" + +"My dear boy, the people who love only once in their lives are really +the shallow people. What they call their loyalty, and their fidelity, +I call either the lethargy of custom or their lack of imagination. +Faithfulness is to the emotional life what consistency is to the life +of the intellect--simply a confession of failure. Faithfulness! I +must analyse it some day. The passion for property is in it. There +are many things that we would throw away if we were not afraid that +others might pick them up. But I don't want to interrupt you. Go on +with your story." + +"Well, I found myself seated in a horrid little private box, with a +vulgar drop-scene staring me in the face. I looked out from behind the +curtain and surveyed the house. It was a tawdry affair, all Cupids and +cornucopias, like a third-rate wedding-cake. The gallery and pit were +fairly full, but the two rows of dingy stalls were quite empty, and +there was hardly a person in what I suppose they called the +dress-circle. Women went about with oranges and ginger-beer, and there +was a terrible consumption of nuts going on." + +"It must have been just like the palmy days of the British drama." + +"Just like, I should fancy, and very depressing. I began to wonder +what on earth I should do when I caught sight of the play-bill. What +do you think the play was, Harry?" + +"I should think 'The Idiot Boy', or 'Dumb but Innocent'. Our fathers +used to like that sort of piece, I believe. The longer I live, Dorian, +the more keenly I feel that whatever was good enough for our fathers is +not good enough for us. In art, as in politics, _les grandperes ont +toujours tort_." + +"This play was good enough for us, Harry. It was Romeo and Juliet. I +must admit that I was rather annoyed at the idea of seeing Shakespeare +done in such a wretched hole of a place. Still, I felt interested, in +a sort of way. At any rate, I determined to wait for the first act. +There was a dreadful orchestra, presided over by a young Hebrew who sat +at a cracked piano, that nearly drove me away, but at last the +drop-scene was drawn up and the play began. Romeo was a stout elderly +gentleman, with corked eyebrows, a husky tragedy voice, and a figure +like a beer-barrel. Mercutio was almost as bad. He was played by the +low-comedian, who had introduced gags of his own and was on most +friendly terms with the pit. They were both as grotesque as the +scenery, and that looked as if it had come out of a country-booth. But +Juliet! Harry, imagine a girl, hardly seventeen years of age, with a +little, flowerlike face, a small Greek head with plaited coils of +dark-brown hair, eyes that were violet wells of passion, lips that were +like the petals of a rose. She was the loveliest thing I had ever seen +in my life. You said to me once that pathos left you unmoved, but that +beauty, mere beauty, could fill your eyes with tears. I tell you, +Harry, I could hardly see this girl for the mist of tears that came +across me. And her voice--I never heard such a voice. It was very low +at first, with deep mellow notes that seemed to fall singly upon one's +ear. Then it became a little louder, and sounded like a flute or a +distant hautboy. In the garden-scene it had all the tremulous ecstasy +that one hears just before dawn when nightingales are singing. There +were moments, later on, when it had the wild passion of violins. You +know how a voice can stir one. Your voice and the voice of Sibyl Vane +are two things that I shall never forget. When I close my eyes, I hear +them, and each of them says something different. I don't know which to +follow. Why should I not love her? Harry, I do love her. She is +everything to me in life. Night after night I go to see her play. One +evening she is Rosalind, and the next evening she is Imogen. I have +seen her die in the gloom of an Italian tomb, sucking the poison from +her lover's lips. I have watched her wandering through the forest of +Arden, disguised as a pretty boy in hose and doublet and dainty cap. +She has been mad, and has come into the presence of a guilty king, and +given him rue to wear and bitter herbs to taste of. She has been +innocent, and the black hands of jealousy have crushed her reedlike +throat. I have seen her in every age and in every costume. Ordinary +women never appeal to one's imagination. They are limited to their +century. No glamour ever transfigures them. One knows their minds as +easily as one knows their bonnets. One can always find them. There is +no mystery in any of them. They ride in the park in the morning and +chatter at tea-parties in the afternoon. They have their stereotyped +smile and their fashionable manner. They are quite obvious. But an +actress! How different an actress is! Harry! why didn't you tell me +that the only thing worth loving is an actress?" + +"Because I have loved so many of them, Dorian." + +"Oh, yes, horrid people with dyed hair and painted faces." + +"Don't run down dyed hair and painted faces. There is an extraordinary +charm in them, sometimes," said Lord Henry. + +"I wish now I had not told you about Sibyl Vane." + +"You could not have helped telling me, Dorian. All through your life +you will tell me everything you do." + +"Yes, Harry, I believe that is true. I cannot help telling you things. +You have a curious influence over me. If I ever did a crime, I would +come and confess it to you. You would understand me." + +"People like you--the wilful sunbeams of life--don't commit crimes, +Dorian. But I am much obliged for the compliment, all the same. And +now tell me--reach me the matches, like a good boy--thanks--what are +your actual relations with Sibyl Vane?" + +Dorian Gray leaped to his feet, with flushed cheeks and burning eyes. +"Harry! Sibyl Vane is sacred!" + +"It is only the sacred things that are worth touching, Dorian," said +Lord Henry, with a strange touch of pathos in his voice. "But why +should you be annoyed? I suppose she will belong to you some day. +When one is in love, one always begins by deceiving one's self, and one +always ends by deceiving others. That is what the world calls a +romance. You know her, at any rate, I suppose?" + +"Of course I know her. On the first night I was at the theatre, the +horrid old Jew came round to the box after the performance was over and +offered to take me behind the scenes and introduce me to her. I was +furious with him, and told him that Juliet had been dead for hundreds +of years and that her body was lying in a marble tomb in Verona. I +think, from his blank look of amazement, that he was under the +impression that I had taken too much champagne, or something." + +"I am not surprised." + +"Then he asked me if I wrote for any of the newspapers. I told him I +never even read them. He seemed terribly disappointed at that, and +confided to me that all the dramatic critics were in a conspiracy +against him, and that they were every one of them to be bought." + +"I should not wonder if he was quite right there. But, on the other +hand, judging from their appearance, most of them cannot be at all +expensive." + +"Well, he seemed to think they were beyond his means," laughed Dorian. +"By this time, however, the lights were being put out in the theatre, +and I had to go. He wanted me to try some cigars that he strongly +recommended. I declined. The next night, of course, I arrived at the +place again. When he saw me, he made me a low bow and assured me that +I was a munificent patron of art. He was a most offensive brute, +though he had an extraordinary passion for Shakespeare. He told me +once, with an air of pride, that his five bankruptcies were entirely +due to 'The Bard,' as he insisted on calling him. He seemed to think +it a distinction." + +"It was a distinction, my dear Dorian--a great distinction. Most +people become bankrupt through having invested too heavily in the prose +of life. To have ruined one's self over poetry is an honour. But when +did you first speak to Miss Sibyl Vane?" + +"The third night. She had been playing Rosalind. I could not help +going round. I had thrown her some flowers, and she had looked at +me--at least I fancied that she had. The old Jew was persistent. He +seemed determined to take me behind, so I consented. It was curious my +not wanting to know her, wasn't it?" + +"No; I don't think so." + +"My dear Harry, why?" + +"I will tell you some other time. Now I want to know about the girl." + +"Sibyl? Oh, she was so shy and so gentle. There is something of a +child about her. Her eyes opened wide in exquisite wonder when I told +her what I thought of her performance, and she seemed quite unconscious +of her power. I think we were both rather nervous. The old Jew stood +grinning at the doorway of the dusty greenroom, making elaborate +speeches about us both, while we stood looking at each other like +children. He would insist on calling me 'My Lord,' so I had to assure +Sibyl that I was not anything of the kind. She said quite simply to +me, 'You look more like a prince. I must call you Prince Charming.'" + +"Upon my word, Dorian, Miss Sibyl knows how to pay compliments." + +"You don't understand her, Harry. She regarded me merely as a person +in a play. She knows nothing of life. She lives with her mother, a +faded tired woman who played Lady Capulet in a sort of magenta +dressing-wrapper on the first night, and looks as if she had seen +better days." + +"I know that look. It depresses me," murmured Lord Henry, examining +his rings. + +"The Jew wanted to tell me her history, but I said it did not interest +me." + +"You were quite right. There is always something infinitely mean about +other people's tragedies." + +"Sibyl is the only thing I care about. What is it to me where she came +from? From her little head to her little feet, she is absolutely and +entirely divine. Every night of my life I go to see her act, and every +night she is more marvellous." + +"That is the reason, I suppose, that you never dine with me now. I +thought you must have some curious romance on hand. You have; but it +is not quite what I expected." + +"My dear Harry, we either lunch or sup together every day, and I have +been to the opera with you several times," said Dorian, opening his +blue eyes in wonder. + +"You always come dreadfully late." + +"Well, I can't help going to see Sibyl play," he cried, "even if it is +only for a single act. I get hungry for her presence; and when I think +of the wonderful soul that is hidden away in that little ivory body, I +am filled with awe." + +"You can dine with me to-night, Dorian, can't you?" + +He shook his head. "To-night she is Imogen," he answered, "and +to-morrow night she will be Juliet." + +"When is she Sibyl Vane?" + +"Never." + +"I congratulate you." + +"How horrid you are! She is all the great heroines of the world in +one. She is more than an individual. You laugh, but I tell you she +has genius. I love her, and I must make her love me. You, who know +all the secrets of life, tell me how to charm Sibyl Vane to love me! I +want to make Romeo jealous. I want the dead lovers of the world to +hear our laughter and grow sad. I want a breath of our passion to stir +their dust into consciousness, to wake their ashes into pain. My God, +Harry, how I worship her!" He was walking up and down the room as he +spoke. Hectic spots of red burned on his cheeks. He was terribly +excited. + +Lord Henry watched him with a subtle sense of pleasure. How different +he was now from the shy frightened boy he had met in Basil Hallward's +studio! His nature had developed like a flower, had borne blossoms of +scarlet flame. Out of its secret hiding-place had crept his soul, and +desire had come to meet it on the way. + +"And what do you propose to do?" said Lord Henry at last. + +"I want you and Basil to come with me some night and see her act. I +have not the slightest fear of the result. You are certain to +acknowledge her genius. Then we must get her out of the Jew's hands. +She is bound to him for three years--at least for two years and eight +months--from the present time. I shall have to pay him something, of +course. When all that is settled, I shall take a West End theatre and +bring her out properly. She will make the world as mad as she has made +me." + +"That would be impossible, my dear boy." + +"Yes, she will. She has not merely art, consummate art-instinct, in +her, but she has personality also; and you have often told me that it +is personalities, not principles, that move the age." + +"Well, what night shall we go?" + +"Let me see. To-day is Tuesday. Let us fix to-morrow. She plays +Juliet to-morrow." + +"All right. The Bristol at eight o'clock; and I will get Basil." + +"Not eight, Harry, please. Half-past six. We must be there before the +curtain rises. You must see her in the first act, where she meets +Romeo." + +"Half-past six! What an hour! It will be like having a meat-tea, or +reading an English novel. It must be seven. No gentleman dines before +seven. Shall you see Basil between this and then? Or shall I write to +him?" + +"Dear Basil! I have not laid eyes on him for a week. It is rather +horrid of me, as he has sent me my portrait in the most wonderful +frame, specially designed by himself, and, though I am a little jealous +of the picture for being a whole month younger than I am, I must admit +that I delight in it. Perhaps you had better write to him. I don't +want to see him alone. He says things that annoy me. He gives me good +advice." + +Lord Henry smiled. "People are very fond of giving away what they need +most themselves. It is what I call the depth of generosity." + +"Oh, Basil is the best of fellows, but he seems to me to be just a bit +of a Philistine. Since I have known you, Harry, I have discovered +that." + +"Basil, my dear boy, puts everything that is charming in him into his +work. The consequence is that he has nothing left for life but his +prejudices, his principles, and his common sense. The only artists I +have ever known who are personally delightful are bad artists. Good +artists exist simply in what they make, and consequently are perfectly +uninteresting in what they are. A great poet, a really great poet, is +the most unpoetical of all creatures. But inferior poets are +absolutely fascinating. The worse their rhymes are, the more +picturesque they look. The mere fact of having published a book of +second-rate sonnets makes a man quite irresistible. He lives the +poetry that he cannot write. The others write the poetry that they +dare not realize." + +"I wonder is that really so, Harry?" said Dorian Gray, putting some +perfume on his handkerchief out of a large, gold-topped bottle that +stood on the table. "It must be, if you say it. And now I am off. +Imogen is waiting for me. Don't forget about to-morrow. Good-bye." + +As he left the room, Lord Henry's heavy eyelids drooped, and he began +to think. Certainly few people had ever interested him so much as +Dorian Gray, and yet the lad's mad adoration of some one else caused +him not the slightest pang of annoyance or jealousy. He was pleased by +it. It made him a more interesting study. He had been always +enthralled by the methods of natural science, but the ordinary +subject-matter of that science had seemed to him trivial and of no +import. And so he had begun by vivisecting himself, as he had ended by +vivisecting others. Human life--that appeared to him the one thing +worth investigating. Compared to it there was nothing else of any +value. It was true that as one watched life in its curious crucible of +pain and pleasure, one could not wear over one's face a mask of glass, +nor keep the sulphurous fumes from troubling the brain and making the +imagination turbid with monstrous fancies and misshapen dreams. There +were poisons so subtle that to know their properties one had to sicken +of them. There were maladies so strange that one had to pass through +them if one sought to understand their nature. And, yet, what a great +reward one received! How wonderful the whole world became to one! To +note the curious hard logic of passion, and the emotional coloured life +of the intellect--to observe where they met, and where they separated, +at what point they were in unison, and at what point they were at +discord--there was a delight in that! What matter what the cost was? +One could never pay too high a price for any sensation. + +He was conscious--and the thought brought a gleam of pleasure into his +brown agate eyes--that it was through certain words of his, musical +words said with musical utterance, that Dorian Gray's soul had turned +to this white girl and bowed in worship before her. To a large extent +the lad was his own creation. He had made him premature. That was +something. Ordinary people waited till life disclosed to them its +secrets, but to the few, to the elect, the mysteries of life were +revealed before the veil was drawn away. Sometimes this was the effect +of art, and chiefly of the art of literature, which dealt immediately +with the passions and the intellect. But now and then a complex +personality took the place and assumed the office of art, was indeed, +in its way, a real work of art, life having its elaborate masterpieces, +just as poetry has, or sculpture, or painting. + +Yes, the lad was premature. He was gathering his harvest while it was +yet spring. The pulse and passion of youth were in him, but he was +becoming self-conscious. It was delightful to watch him. With his +beautiful face, and his beautiful soul, he was a thing to wonder at. +It was no matter how it all ended, or was destined to end. He was like +one of those gracious figures in a pageant or a play, whose joys seem +to be remote from one, but whose sorrows stir one's sense of beauty, +and whose wounds are like red roses. + +Soul and body, body and soul--how mysterious they were! There was +animalism in the soul, and the body had its moments of spirituality. +The senses could refine, and the intellect could degrade. Who could +say where the fleshly impulse ceased, or the psychical impulse began? +How shallow were the arbitrary definitions of ordinary psychologists! +And yet how difficult to decide between the claims of the various +schools! Was the soul a shadow seated in the house of sin? Or was the +body really in the soul, as Giordano Bruno thought? The separation of +spirit from matter was a mystery, and the union of spirit with matter +was a mystery also. + +He began to wonder whether we could ever make psychology so absolute a +science that each little spring of life would be revealed to us. As it +was, we always misunderstood ourselves and rarely understood others. +Experience was of no ethical value. It was merely the name men gave to +their mistakes. Moralists had, as a rule, regarded it as a mode of +warning, had claimed for it a certain ethical efficacy in the formation +of character, had praised it as something that taught us what to follow +and showed us what to avoid. But there was no motive power in +experience. It was as little of an active cause as conscience itself. +All that it really demonstrated was that our future would be the same +as our past, and that the sin we had done once, and with loathing, we +would do many times, and with joy. + +It was clear to him that the experimental method was the only method by +which one could arrive at any scientific analysis of the passions; and +certainly Dorian Gray was a subject made to his hand, and seemed to +promise rich and fruitful results. His sudden mad love for Sibyl Vane +was a psychological phenomenon of no small interest. There was no +doubt that curiosity had much to do with it, curiosity and the desire +for new experiences, yet it was not a simple, but rather a very complex +passion. What there was in it of the purely sensuous instinct of +boyhood had been transformed by the workings of the imagination, +changed into something that seemed to the lad himself to be remote from +sense, and was for that very reason all the more dangerous. It was the +passions about whose origin we deceived ourselves that tyrannized most +strongly over us. Our weakest motives were those of whose nature we +were conscious. It often happened that when we thought we were +experimenting on others we were really experimenting on ourselves. + +While Lord Henry sat dreaming on these things, a knock came to the +door, and his valet entered and reminded him it was time to dress for +dinner. He got up and looked out into the street. The sunset had +smitten into scarlet gold the upper windows of the houses opposite. +The panes glowed like plates of heated metal. The sky above was like a +faded rose. He thought of his friend's young fiery-coloured life and +wondered how it was all going to end. + +When he arrived home, about half-past twelve o'clock, he saw a telegram +lying on the hall table. He opened it and found it was from Dorian +Gray. It was to tell him that he was engaged to be married to Sibyl +Vane. + + + +CHAPTER 5 + +"Mother, Mother, I am so happy!" whispered the girl, burying her face +in the lap of the faded, tired-looking woman who, with back turned to +the shrill intrusive light, was sitting in the one arm-chair that their +dingy sitting-room contained. "I am so happy!" she repeated, "and you +must be happy, too!" + +Mrs. Vane winced and put her thin, bismuth-whitened hands on her +daughter's head. "Happy!" she echoed, "I am only happy, Sibyl, when I +see you act. You must not think of anything but your acting. Mr. +Isaacs has been very good to us, and we owe him money." + +The girl looked up and pouted. "Money, Mother?" she cried, "what does +money matter? Love is more than money." + +"Mr. Isaacs has advanced us fifty pounds to pay off our debts and to +get a proper outfit for James. You must not forget that, Sibyl. Fifty +pounds is a very large sum. Mr. Isaacs has been most considerate." + +"He is not a gentleman, Mother, and I hate the way he talks to me," +said the girl, rising to her feet and going over to the window. + +"I don't know how we could manage without him," answered the elder +woman querulously. + +Sibyl Vane tossed her head and laughed. "We don't want him any more, +Mother. Prince Charming rules life for us now." Then she paused. A +rose shook in her blood and shadowed her cheeks. Quick breath parted +the petals of her lips. They trembled. Some southern wind of passion +swept over her and stirred the dainty folds of her dress. "I love +him," she said simply. + +"Foolish child! foolish child!" was the parrot-phrase flung in answer. +The waving of crooked, false-jewelled fingers gave grotesqueness to the +words. + +The girl laughed again. The joy of a caged bird was in her voice. Her +eyes caught the melody and echoed it in radiance, then closed for a +moment, as though to hide their secret. When they opened, the mist of +a dream had passed across them. + +Thin-lipped wisdom spoke at her from the worn chair, hinted at +prudence, quoted from that book of cowardice whose author apes the name +of common sense. She did not listen. She was free in her prison of +passion. Her prince, Prince Charming, was with her. She had called on +memory to remake him. She had sent her soul to search for him, and it +had brought him back. His kiss burned again upon her mouth. Her +eyelids were warm with his breath. + +Then wisdom altered its method and spoke of espial and discovery. This +young man might be rich. If so, marriage should be thought of. +Against the shell of her ear broke the waves of worldly cunning. The +arrows of craft shot by her. She saw the thin lips moving, and smiled. + +Suddenly she felt the need to speak. The wordy silence troubled her. +"Mother, Mother," she cried, "why does he love me so much? I know why +I love him. I love him because he is like what love himself should be. +But what does he see in me? I am not worthy of him. And yet--why, I +cannot tell--though I feel so much beneath him, I don't feel humble. I +feel proud, terribly proud. Mother, did you love my father as I love +Prince Charming?" + +The elder woman grew pale beneath the coarse powder that daubed her +cheeks, and her dry lips twitched with a spasm of pain. Sybil rushed +to her, flung her arms round her neck, and kissed her. "Forgive me, +Mother. I know it pains you to talk about our father. But it only +pains you because you loved him so much. Don't look so sad. I am as +happy to-day as you were twenty years ago. Ah! let me be happy for +ever!" + +"My child, you are far too young to think of falling in love. Besides, +what do you know of this young man? You don't even know his name. The +whole thing is most inconvenient, and really, when James is going away +to Australia, and I have so much to think of, I must say that you +should have shown more consideration. However, as I said before, if he +is rich ..." + +"Ah! Mother, Mother, let me be happy!" + +Mrs. Vane glanced at her, and with one of those false theatrical +gestures that so often become a mode of second nature to a +stage-player, clasped her in her arms. At this moment, the door opened +and a young lad with rough brown hair came into the room. He was +thick-set of figure, and his hands and feet were large and somewhat +clumsy in movement. He was not so finely bred as his sister. One +would hardly have guessed the close relationship that existed between +them. Mrs. Vane fixed her eyes on him and intensified her smile. She +mentally elevated her son to the dignity of an audience. She felt sure +that the _tableau_ was interesting. + +"You might keep some of your kisses for me, Sibyl, I think," said the +lad with a good-natured grumble. + +"Ah! but you don't like being kissed, Jim," she cried. "You are a +dreadful old bear." And she ran across the room and hugged him. + +James Vane looked into his sister's face with tenderness. "I want you +to come out with me for a walk, Sibyl. I don't suppose I shall ever +see this horrid London again. I am sure I don't want to." + +"My son, don't say such dreadful things," murmured Mrs. Vane, taking up +a tawdry theatrical dress, with a sigh, and beginning to patch it. She +felt a little disappointed that he had not joined the group. It would +have increased the theatrical picturesqueness of the situation. + +"Why not, Mother? I mean it." + +"You pain me, my son. I trust you will return from Australia in a +position of affluence. I believe there is no society of any kind in +the Colonies--nothing that I would call society--so when you have made +your fortune, you must come back and assert yourself in London." + +"Society!" muttered the lad. "I don't want to know anything about +that. I should like to make some money to take you and Sibyl off the +stage. I hate it." + +"Oh, Jim!" said Sibyl, laughing, "how unkind of you! But are you +really going for a walk with me? That will be nice! I was afraid you +were going to say good-bye to some of your friends--to Tom Hardy, who +gave you that hideous pipe, or Ned Langton, who makes fun of you for +smoking it. It is very sweet of you to let me have your last +afternoon. Where shall we go? Let us go to the park." + +"I am too shabby," he answered, frowning. "Only swell people go to the +park." + +"Nonsense, Jim," she whispered, stroking the sleeve of his coat. + +He hesitated for a moment. "Very well," he said at last, "but don't be +too long dressing." She danced out of the door. One could hear her +singing as she ran upstairs. Her little feet pattered overhead. + +He walked up and down the room two or three times. Then he turned to +the still figure in the chair. "Mother, are my things ready?" he asked. + +"Quite ready, James," she answered, keeping her eyes on her work. For +some months past she had felt ill at ease when she was alone with this +rough stern son of hers. Her shallow secret nature was troubled when +their eyes met. She used to wonder if he suspected anything. The +silence, for he made no other observation, became intolerable to her. +She began to complain. Women defend themselves by attacking, just as +they attack by sudden and strange surrenders. "I hope you will be +contented, James, with your sea-faring life," she said. "You must +remember that it is your own choice. You might have entered a +solicitor's office. Solicitors are a very respectable class, and in +the country often dine with the best families." + +"I hate offices, and I hate clerks," he replied. "But you are quite +right. I have chosen my own life. All I say is, watch over Sibyl. +Don't let her come to any harm. Mother, you must watch over her." + +"James, you really talk very strangely. Of course I watch over Sibyl." + +"I hear a gentleman comes every night to the theatre and goes behind to +talk to her. Is that right? What about that?" + +"You are speaking about things you don't understand, James. In the +profession we are accustomed to receive a great deal of most gratifying +attention. I myself used to receive many bouquets at one time. That +was when acting was really understood. As for Sibyl, I do not know at +present whether her attachment is serious or not. But there is no +doubt that the young man in question is a perfect gentleman. He is +always most polite to me. Besides, he has the appearance of being +rich, and the flowers he sends are lovely." + +"You don't know his name, though," said the lad harshly. + +"No," answered his mother with a placid expression in her face. "He +has not yet revealed his real name. I think it is quite romantic of +him. He is probably a member of the aristocracy." + +James Vane bit his lip. "Watch over Sibyl, Mother," he cried, "watch +over her." + +"My son, you distress me very much. Sibyl is always under my special +care. Of course, if this gentleman is wealthy, there is no reason why +she should not contract an alliance with him. I trust he is one of the +aristocracy. He has all the appearance of it, I must say. It might be +a most brilliant marriage for Sibyl. They would make a charming +couple. His good looks are really quite remarkable; everybody notices +them." + +The lad muttered something to himself and drummed on the window-pane +with his coarse fingers. He had just turned round to say something +when the door opened and Sibyl ran in. + +"How serious you both are!" she cried. "What is the matter?" + +"Nothing," he answered. "I suppose one must be serious sometimes. +Good-bye, Mother; I will have my dinner at five o'clock. Everything is +packed, except my shirts, so you need not trouble." + +"Good-bye, my son," she answered with a bow of strained stateliness. + +She was extremely annoyed at the tone he had adopted with her, and +there was something in his look that had made her feel afraid. + +"Kiss me, Mother," said the girl. Her flowerlike lips touched the +withered cheek and warmed its frost. + +"My child! my child!" cried Mrs. Vane, looking up to the ceiling in +search of an imaginary gallery. + +"Come, Sibyl," said her brother impatiently. He hated his mother's +affectations. + +They went out into the flickering, wind-blown sunlight and strolled +down the dreary Euston Road. The passersby glanced in wonder at the +sullen heavy youth who, in coarse, ill-fitting clothes, was in the +company of such a graceful, refined-looking girl. He was like a common +gardener walking with a rose. + +Jim frowned from time to time when he caught the inquisitive glance of +some stranger. He had that dislike of being stared at, which comes on +geniuses late in life and never leaves the commonplace. Sibyl, +however, was quite unconscious of the effect she was producing. Her +love was trembling in laughter on her lips. She was thinking of Prince +Charming, and, that she might think of him all the more, she did not +talk of him, but prattled on about the ship in which Jim was going to +sail, about the gold he was certain to find, about the wonderful +heiress whose life he was to save from the wicked, red-shirted +bushrangers. For he was not to remain a sailor, or a supercargo, or +whatever he was going to be. Oh, no! A sailor's existence was +dreadful. Fancy being cooped up in a horrid ship, with the hoarse, +hump-backed waves trying to get in, and a black wind blowing the masts +down and tearing the sails into long screaming ribands! He was to +leave the vessel at Melbourne, bid a polite good-bye to the captain, +and go off at once to the gold-fields. Before a week was over he was to +come across a large nugget of pure gold, the largest nugget that had +ever been discovered, and bring it down to the coast in a waggon +guarded by six mounted policemen. The bushrangers were to attack them +three times, and be defeated with immense slaughter. Or, no. He was +not to go to the gold-fields at all. They were horrid places, where +men got intoxicated, and shot each other in bar-rooms, and used bad +language. He was to be a nice sheep-farmer, and one evening, as he was +riding home, he was to see the beautiful heiress being carried off by a +robber on a black horse, and give chase, and rescue her. Of course, +she would fall in love with him, and he with her, and they would get +married, and come home, and live in an immense house in London. Yes, +there were delightful things in store for him. But he must be very +good, and not lose his temper, or spend his money foolishly. She was +only a year older than he was, but she knew so much more of life. He +must be sure, also, to write to her by every mail, and to say his +prayers each night before he went to sleep. God was very good, and +would watch over him. She would pray for him, too, and in a few years +he would come back quite rich and happy. + +The lad listened sulkily to her and made no answer. He was heart-sick +at leaving home. + +Yet it was not this alone that made him gloomy and morose. +Inexperienced though he was, he had still a strong sense of the danger +of Sibyl's position. This young dandy who was making love to her could +mean her no good. He was a gentleman, and he hated him for that, hated +him through some curious race-instinct for which he could not account, +and which for that reason was all the more dominant within him. He was +conscious also of the shallowness and vanity of his mother's nature, +and in that saw infinite peril for Sibyl and Sibyl's happiness. +Children begin by loving their parents; as they grow older they judge +them; sometimes they forgive them. + +His mother! He had something on his mind to ask of her, something that +he had brooded on for many months of silence. A chance phrase that he +had heard at the theatre, a whispered sneer that had reached his ears +one night as he waited at the stage-door, had set loose a train of +horrible thoughts. He remembered it as if it had been the lash of a +hunting-crop across his face. His brows knit together into a wedge-like +furrow, and with a twitch of pain he bit his underlip. + +"You are not listening to a word I am saying, Jim," cried Sibyl, "and I +am making the most delightful plans for your future. Do say something." + +"What do you want me to say?" + +"Oh! that you will be a good boy and not forget us," she answered, +smiling at him. + +He shrugged his shoulders. "You are more likely to forget me than I am +to forget you, Sibyl." + +She flushed. "What do you mean, Jim?" she asked. + +"You have a new friend, I hear. Who is he? Why have you not told me +about him? He means you no good." + +"Stop, Jim!" she exclaimed. "You must not say anything against him. I +love him." + +"Why, you don't even know his name," answered the lad. "Who is he? I +have a right to know." + +"He is called Prince Charming. Don't you like the name. Oh! you silly +boy! you should never forget it. If you only saw him, you would think +him the most wonderful person in the world. Some day you will meet +him--when you come back from Australia. You will like him so much. +Everybody likes him, and I ... love him. I wish you could come to the +theatre to-night. He is going to be there, and I am to play Juliet. +Oh! how I shall play it! Fancy, Jim, to be in love and play Juliet! +To have him sitting there! To play for his delight! I am afraid I may +frighten the company, frighten or enthrall them. To be in love is to +surpass one's self. Poor dreadful Mr. Isaacs will be shouting 'genius' +to his loafers at the bar. He has preached me as a dogma; to-night he +will announce me as a revelation. I feel it. And it is all his, his +only, Prince Charming, my wonderful lover, my god of graces. But I am +poor beside him. Poor? What does that matter? When poverty creeps in +at the door, love flies in through the window. Our proverbs want +rewriting. They were made in winter, and it is summer now; spring-time +for me, I think, a very dance of blossoms in blue skies." + +"He is a gentleman," said the lad sullenly. + +"A prince!" she cried musically. "What more do you want?" + +"He wants to enslave you." + +"I shudder at the thought of being free." + +"I want you to beware of him." + +"To see him is to worship him; to know him is to trust him." + +"Sibyl, you are mad about him." + +She laughed and took his arm. "You dear old Jim, you talk as if you +were a hundred. Some day you will be in love yourself. Then you will +know what it is. Don't look so sulky. Surely you should be glad to +think that, though you are going away, you leave me happier than I have +ever been before. Life has been hard for us both, terribly hard and +difficult. But it will be different now. You are going to a new +world, and I have found one. Here are two chairs; let us sit down and +see the smart people go by." + +They took their seats amidst a crowd of watchers. The tulip-beds +across the road flamed like throbbing rings of fire. A white +dust--tremulous cloud of orris-root it seemed--hung in the panting air. +The brightly coloured parasols danced and dipped like monstrous +butterflies. + +She made her brother talk of himself, his hopes, his prospects. He +spoke slowly and with effort. They passed words to each other as +players at a game pass counters. Sibyl felt oppressed. She could not +communicate her joy. A faint smile curving that sullen mouth was all +the echo she could win. After some time she became silent. Suddenly +she caught a glimpse of golden hair and laughing lips, and in an open +carriage with two ladies Dorian Gray drove past. + +She started to her feet. "There he is!" she cried. + +"Who?" said Jim Vane. + +"Prince Charming," she answered, looking after the victoria. + +He jumped up and seized her roughly by the arm. "Show him to me. +Which is he? Point him out. I must see him!" he exclaimed; but at +that moment the Duke of Berwick's four-in-hand came between, and when +it had left the space clear, the carriage had swept out of the park. + +"He is gone," murmured Sibyl sadly. "I wish you had seen him." + +"I wish I had, for as sure as there is a God in heaven, if he ever does +you any wrong, I shall kill him." + +She looked at him in horror. He repeated his words. They cut the air +like a dagger. The people round began to gape. A lady standing close +to her tittered. + +"Come away, Jim; come away," she whispered. He followed her doggedly +as she passed through the crowd. He felt glad at what he had said. + +When they reached the Achilles Statue, she turned round. There was +pity in her eyes that became laughter on her lips. She shook her head +at him. "You are foolish, Jim, utterly foolish; a bad-tempered boy, +that is all. How can you say such horrible things? You don't know +what you are talking about. You are simply jealous and unkind. Ah! I +wish you would fall in love. Love makes people good, and what you said +was wicked." + +"I am sixteen," he answered, "and I know what I am about. Mother is no +help to you. She doesn't understand how to look after you. I wish now +that I was not going to Australia at all. I have a great mind to chuck +the whole thing up. I would, if my articles hadn't been signed." + +"Oh, don't be so serious, Jim. You are like one of the heroes of those +silly melodramas Mother used to be so fond of acting in. I am not +going to quarrel with you. I have seen him, and oh! to see him is +perfect happiness. We won't quarrel. I know you would never harm any +one I love, would you?" + +"Not as long as you love him, I suppose," was the sullen answer. + +"I shall love him for ever!" she cried. + +"And he?" + +"For ever, too!" + +"He had better." + +She shrank from him. Then she laughed and put her hand on his arm. He +was merely a boy. + +At the Marble Arch they hailed an omnibus, which left them close to +their shabby home in the Euston Road. It was after five o'clock, and +Sibyl had to lie down for a couple of hours before acting. Jim +insisted that she should do so. He said that he would sooner part with +her when their mother was not present. She would be sure to make a +scene, and he detested scenes of every kind. + +In Sybil's own room they parted. There was jealousy in the lad's +heart, and a fierce murderous hatred of the stranger who, as it seemed +to him, had come between them. Yet, when her arms were flung round his +neck, and her fingers strayed through his hair, he softened and kissed +her with real affection. There were tears in his eyes as he went +downstairs. + +His mother was waiting for him below. She grumbled at his +unpunctuality, as he entered. He made no answer, but sat down to his +meagre meal. The flies buzzed round the table and crawled over the +stained cloth. Through the rumble of omnibuses, and the clatter of +street-cabs, he could hear the droning voice devouring each minute that +was left to him. + +After some time, he thrust away his plate and put his head in his +hands. He felt that he had a right to know. It should have been told +to him before, if it was as he suspected. Leaden with fear, his mother +watched him. Words dropped mechanically from her lips. A tattered +lace handkerchief twitched in her fingers. When the clock struck six, +he got up and went to the door. Then he turned back and looked at her. +Their eyes met. In hers he saw a wild appeal for mercy. It enraged +him. + +"Mother, I have something to ask you," he said. Her eyes wandered +vaguely about the room. She made no answer. "Tell me the truth. I +have a right to know. Were you married to my father?" + +She heaved a deep sigh. It was a sigh of relief. The terrible moment, +the moment that night and day, for weeks and months, she had dreaded, +had come at last, and yet she felt no terror. Indeed, in some measure +it was a disappointment to her. The vulgar directness of the question +called for a direct answer. The situation had not been gradually led +up to. It was crude. It reminded her of a bad rehearsal. + +"No," she answered, wondering at the harsh simplicity of life. + +"My father was a scoundrel then!" cried the lad, clenching his fists. + +She shook her head. "I knew he was not free. We loved each other very +much. If he had lived, he would have made provision for us. Don't +speak against him, my son. He was your father, and a gentleman. +Indeed, he was highly connected." + +An oath broke from his lips. "I don't care for myself," he exclaimed, +"but don't let Sibyl.... It is a gentleman, isn't it, who is in love +with her, or says he is? Highly connected, too, I suppose." + +For a moment a hideous sense of humiliation came over the woman. Her +head drooped. She wiped her eyes with shaking hands. "Sibyl has a +mother," she murmured; "I had none." + +The lad was touched. He went towards her, and stooping down, he kissed +her. "I am sorry if I have pained you by asking about my father," he +said, "but I could not help it. I must go now. Good-bye. Don't forget +that you will have only one child now to look after, and believe me +that if this man wrongs my sister, I will find out who he is, track him +down, and kill him like a dog. I swear it." + +The exaggerated folly of the threat, the passionate gesture that +accompanied it, the mad melodramatic words, made life seem more vivid +to her. She was familiar with the atmosphere. She breathed more +freely, and for the first time for many months she really admired her +son. She would have liked to have continued the scene on the same +emotional scale, but he cut her short. Trunks had to be carried down +and mufflers looked for. The lodging-house drudge bustled in and out. +There was the bargaining with the cabman. The moment was lost in +vulgar details. It was with a renewed feeling of disappointment that +she waved the tattered lace handkerchief from the window, as her son +drove away. She was conscious that a great opportunity had been +wasted. She consoled herself by telling Sibyl how desolate she felt +her life would be, now that she had only one child to look after. She +remembered the phrase. It had pleased her. Of the threat she said +nothing. It was vividly and dramatically expressed. She felt that +they would all laugh at it some day. + + + +CHAPTER 6 + +"I suppose you have heard the news, Basil?" said Lord Henry that +evening as Hallward was shown into a little private room at the Bristol +where dinner had been laid for three. + +"No, Harry," answered the artist, giving his hat and coat to the bowing +waiter. "What is it? Nothing about politics, I hope! They don't +interest me. There is hardly a single person in the House of Commons +worth painting, though many of them would be the better for a little +whitewashing." + +"Dorian Gray is engaged to be married," said Lord Henry, watching him +as he spoke. + +Hallward started and then frowned. "Dorian engaged to be married!" he +cried. "Impossible!" + +"It is perfectly true." + +"To whom?" + +"To some little actress or other." + +"I can't believe it. Dorian is far too sensible." + +"Dorian is far too wise not to do foolish things now and then, my dear +Basil." + +"Marriage is hardly a thing that one can do now and then, Harry." + +"Except in America," rejoined Lord Henry languidly. "But I didn't say +he was married. I said he was engaged to be married. There is a great +difference. I have a distinct remembrance of being married, but I have +no recollection at all of being engaged. I am inclined to think that I +never was engaged." + +"But think of Dorian's birth, and position, and wealth. It would be +absurd for him to marry so much beneath him." + +"If you want to make him marry this girl, tell him that, Basil. He is +sure to do it, then. Whenever a man does a thoroughly stupid thing, it +is always from the noblest motives." + +"I hope the girl is good, Harry. I don't want to see Dorian tied to +some vile creature, who might degrade his nature and ruin his +intellect." + +"Oh, she is better than good--she is beautiful," murmured Lord Henry, +sipping a glass of vermouth and orange-bitters. "Dorian says she is +beautiful, and he is not often wrong about things of that kind. Your +portrait of him has quickened his appreciation of the personal +appearance of other people. It has had that excellent effect, amongst +others. We are to see her to-night, if that boy doesn't forget his +appointment." + +"Are you serious?" + +"Quite serious, Basil. I should be miserable if I thought I should +ever be more serious than I am at the present moment." + +"But do you approve of it, Harry?" asked the painter, walking up and +down the room and biting his lip. "You can't approve of it, possibly. +It is some silly infatuation." + +"I never approve, or disapprove, of anything now. It is an absurd +attitude to take towards life. We are not sent into the world to air +our moral prejudices. I never take any notice of what common people +say, and I never interfere with what charming people do. If a +personality fascinates me, whatever mode of expression that personality +selects is absolutely delightful to me. Dorian Gray falls in love with +a beautiful girl who acts Juliet, and proposes to marry her. Why not? +If he wedded Messalina, he would be none the less interesting. You +know I am not a champion of marriage. The real drawback to marriage is +that it makes one unselfish. And unselfish people are colourless. +They lack individuality. Still, there are certain temperaments that +marriage makes more complex. They retain their egotism, and add to it +many other egos. They are forced to have more than one life. They +become more highly organized, and to be highly organized is, I should +fancy, the object of man's existence. Besides, every experience is of +value, and whatever one may say against marriage, it is certainly an +experience. I hope that Dorian Gray will make this girl his wife, +passionately adore her for six months, and then suddenly become +fascinated by some one else. He would be a wonderful study." + +"You don't mean a single word of all that, Harry; you know you don't. +If Dorian Gray's life were spoiled, no one would be sorrier than +yourself. You are much better than you pretend to be." + +Lord Henry laughed. "The reason we all like to think so well of others +is that we are all afraid for ourselves. The basis of optimism is +sheer terror. We think that we are generous because we credit our +neighbour with the possession of those virtues that are likely to be a +benefit to us. We praise the banker that we may overdraw our account, +and find good qualities in the highwayman in the hope that he may spare +our pockets. I mean everything that I have said. I have the greatest +contempt for optimism. As for a spoiled life, no life is spoiled but +one whose growth is arrested. If you want to mar a nature, you have +merely to reform it. As for marriage, of course that would be silly, +but there are other and more interesting bonds between men and women. +I will certainly encourage them. They have the charm of being +fashionable. But here is Dorian himself. He will tell you more than I +can." + +"My dear Harry, my dear Basil, you must both congratulate me!" said the +lad, throwing off his evening cape with its satin-lined wings and +shaking each of his friends by the hand in turn. "I have never been so +happy. Of course, it is sudden--all really delightful things are. And +yet it seems to me to be the one thing I have been looking for all my +life." He was flushed with excitement and pleasure, and looked +extraordinarily handsome. + +"I hope you will always be very happy, Dorian," said Hallward, "but I +don't quite forgive you for not having let me know of your engagement. +You let Harry know." + +"And I don't forgive you for being late for dinner," broke in Lord +Henry, putting his hand on the lad's shoulder and smiling as he spoke. +"Come, let us sit down and try what the new _chef_ here is like, and then +you will tell us how it all came about." + +"There is really not much to tell," cried Dorian as they took their +seats at the small round table. "What happened was simply this. After +I left you yesterday evening, Harry, I dressed, had some dinner at that +little Italian restaurant in Rupert Street you introduced me to, and +went down at eight o'clock to the theatre. Sibyl was playing Rosalind. +Of course, the scenery was dreadful and the Orlando absurd. But Sibyl! +You should have seen her! When she came on in her boy's clothes, she +was perfectly wonderful. She wore a moss-coloured velvet jerkin with +cinnamon sleeves, slim, brown, cross-gartered hose, a dainty little +green cap with a hawk's feather caught in a jewel, and a hooded cloak +lined with dull red. She had never seemed to me more exquisite. She +had all the delicate grace of that Tanagra figurine that you have in +your studio, Basil. Her hair clustered round her face like dark leaves +round a pale rose. As for her acting--well, you shall see her +to-night. She is simply a born artist. I sat in the dingy box +absolutely enthralled. I forgot that I was in London and in the +nineteenth century. I was away with my love in a forest that no man +had ever seen. After the performance was over, I went behind and spoke +to her. As we were sitting together, suddenly there came into her eyes +a look that I had never seen there before. My lips moved towards hers. +We kissed each other. I can't describe to you what I felt at that +moment. It seemed to me that all my life had been narrowed to one +perfect point of rose-coloured joy. She trembled all over and shook +like a white narcissus. Then she flung herself on her knees and kissed +my hands. I feel that I should not tell you all this, but I can't help +it. Of course, our engagement is a dead secret. She has not even told +her own mother. I don't know what my guardians will say. Lord Radley +is sure to be furious. I don't care. I shall be of age in less than a +year, and then I can do what I like. I have been right, Basil, haven't +I, to take my love out of poetry and to find my wife in Shakespeare's +plays? Lips that Shakespeare taught to speak have whispered their +secret in my ear. I have had the arms of Rosalind around me, and +kissed Juliet on the mouth." + +"Yes, Dorian, I suppose you were right," said Hallward slowly. + +"Have you seen her to-day?" asked Lord Henry. + +Dorian Gray shook his head. "I left her in the forest of Arden; I +shall find her in an orchard in Verona." + +Lord Henry sipped his champagne in a meditative manner. "At what +particular point did you mention the word marriage, Dorian? And what +did she say in answer? Perhaps you forgot all about it." + +"My dear Harry, I did not treat it as a business transaction, and I did +not make any formal proposal. I told her that I loved her, and she +said she was not worthy to be my wife. Not worthy! Why, the whole +world is nothing to me compared with her." + +"Women are wonderfully practical," murmured Lord Henry, "much more +practical than we are. In situations of that kind we often forget to +say anything about marriage, and they always remind us." + +Hallward laid his hand upon his arm. "Don't, Harry. You have annoyed +Dorian. He is not like other men. He would never bring misery upon +any one. His nature is too fine for that." + +Lord Henry looked across the table. "Dorian is never annoyed with me," +he answered. "I asked the question for the best reason possible, for +the only reason, indeed, that excuses one for asking any +question--simple curiosity. I have a theory that it is always the +women who propose to us, and not we who propose to the women. Except, +of course, in middle-class life. But then the middle classes are not +modern." + +Dorian Gray laughed, and tossed his head. "You are quite incorrigible, +Harry; but I don't mind. It is impossible to be angry with you. When +you see Sibyl Vane, you will feel that the man who could wrong her +would be a beast, a beast without a heart. I cannot understand how any +one can wish to shame the thing he loves. I love Sibyl Vane. I want +to place her on a pedestal of gold and to see the world worship the +woman who is mine. What is marriage? An irrevocable vow. You mock at +it for that. Ah! don't mock. It is an irrevocable vow that I want to +take. Her trust makes me faithful, her belief makes me good. When I +am with her, I regret all that you have taught me. I become different +from what you have known me to be. I am changed, and the mere touch of +Sibyl Vane's hand makes me forget you and all your wrong, fascinating, +poisonous, delightful theories." + +"And those are ...?" asked Lord Henry, helping himself to some salad. + +"Oh, your theories about life, your theories about love, your theories +about pleasure. All your theories, in fact, Harry." + +"Pleasure is the only thing worth having a theory about," he answered +in his slow melodious voice. "But I am afraid I cannot claim my theory +as my own. It belongs to Nature, not to me. Pleasure is Nature's +test, her sign of approval. When we are happy, we are always good, but +when we are good, we are not always happy." + +"Ah! but what do you mean by good?" cried Basil Hallward. + +"Yes," echoed Dorian, leaning back in his chair and looking at Lord +Henry over the heavy clusters of purple-lipped irises that stood in the +centre of the table, "what do you mean by good, Harry?" + +"To be good is to be in harmony with one's self," he replied, touching +the thin stem of his glass with his pale, fine-pointed fingers. +"Discord is to be forced to be in harmony with others. One's own +life--that is the important thing. As for the lives of one's +neighbours, if one wishes to be a prig or a Puritan, one can flaunt +one's moral views about them, but they are not one's concern. Besides, +individualism has really the higher aim. Modern morality consists in +accepting the standard of one's age. I consider that for any man of +culture to accept the standard of his age is a form of the grossest +immorality." + +"But, surely, if one lives merely for one's self, Harry, one pays a +terrible price for doing so?" suggested the painter. + +"Yes, we are overcharged for everything nowadays. I should fancy that +the real tragedy of the poor is that they can afford nothing but +self-denial. Beautiful sins, like beautiful things, are the privilege +of the rich." + +"One has to pay in other ways but money." + +"What sort of ways, Basil?" + +"Oh! I should fancy in remorse, in suffering, in ... well, in the +consciousness of degradation." + +Lord Henry shrugged his shoulders. "My dear fellow, mediaeval art is +charming, but mediaeval emotions are out of date. One can use them in +fiction, of course. But then the only things that one can use in +fiction are the things that one has ceased to use in fact. Believe me, +no civilized man ever regrets a pleasure, and no uncivilized man ever +knows what a pleasure is." + +"I know what pleasure is," cried Dorian Gray. "It is to adore some +one." + +"That is certainly better than being adored," he answered, toying with +some fruits. "Being adored is a nuisance. Women treat us just as +humanity treats its gods. They worship us, and are always bothering us +to do something for them." + +"I should have said that whatever they ask for they had first given to +us," murmured the lad gravely. "They create love in our natures. They +have a right to demand it back." + +"That is quite true, Dorian," cried Hallward. + +"Nothing is ever quite true," said Lord Henry. + +"This is," interrupted Dorian. "You must admit, Harry, that women give +to men the very gold of their lives." + +"Possibly," he sighed, "but they invariably want it back in such very +small change. That is the worry. Women, as some witty Frenchman once +put it, inspire us with the desire to do masterpieces and always +prevent us from carrying them out." + +"Harry, you are dreadful! I don't know why I like you so much." + +"You will always like me, Dorian," he replied. "Will you have some +coffee, you fellows? Waiter, bring coffee, and _fine-champagne_, and +some cigarettes. No, don't mind the cigarettes--I have some. Basil, I +can't allow you to smoke cigars. You must have a cigarette. A +cigarette is the perfect type of a perfect pleasure. It is exquisite, +and it leaves one unsatisfied. What more can one want? Yes, Dorian, +you will always be fond of me. I represent to you all the sins you +have never had the courage to commit." + +"What nonsense you talk, Harry!" cried the lad, taking a light from a +fire-breathing silver dragon that the waiter had placed on the table. +"Let us go down to the theatre. When Sibyl comes on the stage you will +have a new ideal of life. She will represent something to you that you +have never known." + +"I have known everything," said Lord Henry, with a tired look in his +eyes, "but I am always ready for a new emotion. I am afraid, however, +that, for me at any rate, there is no such thing. Still, your +wonderful girl may thrill me. I love acting. It is so much more real +than life. Let us go. Dorian, you will come with me. I am so sorry, +Basil, but there is only room for two in the brougham. You must follow +us in a hansom." + +They got up and put on their coats, sipping their coffee standing. The +painter was silent and preoccupied. There was a gloom over him. He +could not bear this marriage, and yet it seemed to him to be better +than many other things that might have happened. After a few minutes, +they all passed downstairs. He drove off by himself, as had been +arranged, and watched the flashing lights of the little brougham in +front of him. A strange sense of loss came over him. He felt that +Dorian Gray would never again be to him all that he had been in the +past. Life had come between them.... His eyes darkened, and the +crowded flaring streets became blurred to his eyes. When the cab drew +up at the theatre, it seemed to him that he had grown years older. + + + +CHAPTER 7 + +For some reason or other, the house was crowded that night, and the fat +Jew manager who met them at the door was beaming from ear to ear with +an oily tremulous smile. He escorted them to their box with a sort of +pompous humility, waving his fat jewelled hands and talking at the top +of his voice. Dorian Gray loathed him more than ever. He felt as if +he had come to look for Miranda and had been met by Caliban. Lord +Henry, upon the other hand, rather liked him. At least he declared he +did, and insisted on shaking him by the hand and assuring him that he +was proud to meet a man who had discovered a real genius and gone +bankrupt over a poet. Hallward amused himself with watching the faces +in the pit. The heat was terribly oppressive, and the huge sunlight +flamed like a monstrous dahlia with petals of yellow fire. The youths +in the gallery had taken off their coats and waistcoats and hung them +over the side. They talked to each other across the theatre and shared +their oranges with the tawdry girls who sat beside them. Some women +were laughing in the pit. Their voices were horribly shrill and +discordant. The sound of the popping of corks came from the bar. + +"What a place to find one's divinity in!" said Lord Henry. + +"Yes!" answered Dorian Gray. "It was here I found her, and she is +divine beyond all living things. When she acts, you will forget +everything. These common rough people, with their coarse faces and +brutal gestures, become quite different when she is on the stage. They +sit silently and watch her. They weep and laugh as she wills them to +do. She makes them as responsive as a violin. She spiritualizes them, +and one feels that they are of the same flesh and blood as one's self." + +"The same flesh and blood as one's self! Oh, I hope not!" exclaimed +Lord Henry, who was scanning the occupants of the gallery through his +opera-glass. + +"Don't pay any attention to him, Dorian," said the painter. "I +understand what you mean, and I believe in this girl. Any one you love +must be marvellous, and any girl who has the effect you describe must +be fine and noble. To spiritualize one's age--that is something worth +doing. If this girl can give a soul to those who have lived without +one, if she can create the sense of beauty in people whose lives have +been sordid and ugly, if she can strip them of their selfishness and +lend them tears for sorrows that are not their own, she is worthy of +all your adoration, worthy of the adoration of the world. This +marriage is quite right. I did not think so at first, but I admit it +now. The gods made Sibyl Vane for you. Without her you would have +been incomplete." + +"Thanks, Basil," answered Dorian Gray, pressing his hand. "I knew that +you would understand me. Harry is so cynical, he terrifies me. But +here is the orchestra. It is quite dreadful, but it only lasts for +about five minutes. Then the curtain rises, and you will see the girl +to whom I am going to give all my life, to whom I have given everything +that is good in me." + +A quarter of an hour afterwards, amidst an extraordinary turmoil of +applause, Sibyl Vane stepped on to the stage. Yes, she was certainly +lovely to look at--one of the loveliest creatures, Lord Henry thought, +that he had ever seen. There was something of the fawn in her shy +grace and startled eyes. A faint blush, like the shadow of a rose in a +mirror of silver, came to her cheeks as she glanced at the crowded +enthusiastic house. She stepped back a few paces and her lips seemed +to tremble. Basil Hallward leaped to his feet and began to applaud. +Motionless, and as one in a dream, sat Dorian Gray, gazing at her. +Lord Henry peered through his glasses, murmuring, "Charming! charming!" + +The scene was the hall of Capulet's house, and Romeo in his pilgrim's +dress had entered with Mercutio and his other friends. The band, such +as it was, struck up a few bars of music, and the dance began. Through +the crowd of ungainly, shabbily dressed actors, Sibyl Vane moved like a +creature from a finer world. Her body swayed, while she danced, as a +plant sways in the water. The curves of her throat were the curves of +a white lily. Her hands seemed to be made of cool ivory. + +Yet she was curiously listless. She showed no sign of joy when her +eyes rested on Romeo. The few words she had to speak-- + + Good pilgrim, you do wrong your hand too much, + Which mannerly devotion shows in this; + For saints have hands that pilgrims' hands do touch, + And palm to palm is holy palmers' kiss-- + +with the brief dialogue that follows, were spoken in a thoroughly +artificial manner. The voice was exquisite, but from the point of view +of tone it was absolutely false. It was wrong in colour. It took away +all the life from the verse. It made the passion unreal. + +Dorian Gray grew pale as he watched her. He was puzzled and anxious. +Neither of his friends dared to say anything to him. She seemed to +them to be absolutely incompetent. They were horribly disappointed. + +Yet they felt that the true test of any Juliet is the balcony scene of +the second act. They waited for that. If she failed there, there was +nothing in her. + +She looked charming as she came out in the moonlight. That could not +be denied. But the staginess of her acting was unbearable, and grew +worse as she went on. Her gestures became absurdly artificial. She +overemphasized everything that she had to say. The beautiful passage-- + + Thou knowest the mask of night is on my face, + Else would a maiden blush bepaint my cheek + For that which thou hast heard me speak to-night-- + +was declaimed with the painful precision of a schoolgirl who has been +taught to recite by some second-rate professor of elocution. When she +leaned over the balcony and came to those wonderful lines-- + + Although I joy in thee, + I have no joy of this contract to-night: + It is too rash, too unadvised, too sudden; + Too like the lightning, which doth cease to be + Ere one can say, "It lightens." Sweet, good-night! + This bud of love by summer's ripening breath + May prove a beauteous flower when next we meet-- + +she spoke the words as though they conveyed no meaning to her. It was +not nervousness. Indeed, so far from being nervous, she was absolutely +self-contained. It was simply bad art. She was a complete failure. + +Even the common uneducated audience of the pit and gallery lost their +interest in the play. They got restless, and began to talk loudly and +to whistle. The Jew manager, who was standing at the back of the +dress-circle, stamped and swore with rage. The only person unmoved was +the girl herself. + +When the second act was over, there came a storm of hisses, and Lord +Henry got up from his chair and put on his coat. "She is quite +beautiful, Dorian," he said, "but she can't act. Let us go." + +"I am going to see the play through," answered the lad, in a hard +bitter voice. "I am awfully sorry that I have made you waste an +evening, Harry. I apologize to you both." + +"My dear Dorian, I should think Miss Vane was ill," interrupted +Hallward. "We will come some other night." + +"I wish she were ill," he rejoined. "But she seems to me to be simply +callous and cold. She has entirely altered. Last night she was a +great artist. This evening she is merely a commonplace mediocre +actress." + +"Don't talk like that about any one you love, Dorian. Love is a more +wonderful thing than art." + +"They are both simply forms of imitation," remarked Lord Henry. "But +do let us go. Dorian, you must not stay here any longer. It is not +good for one's morals to see bad acting. Besides, I don't suppose you +will want your wife to act, so what does it matter if she plays Juliet +like a wooden doll? She is very lovely, and if she knows as little +about life as she does about acting, she will be a delightful +experience. There are only two kinds of people who are really +fascinating--people who know absolutely everything, and people who know +absolutely nothing. Good heavens, my dear boy, don't look so tragic! +The secret of remaining young is never to have an emotion that is +unbecoming. Come to the club with Basil and myself. We will smoke +cigarettes and drink to the beauty of Sibyl Vane. She is beautiful. +What more can you want?" + +"Go away, Harry," cried the lad. "I want to be alone. Basil, you must +go. Ah! can't you see that my heart is breaking?" The hot tears came +to his eyes. His lips trembled, and rushing to the back of the box, he +leaned up against the wall, hiding his face in his hands. + +"Let us go, Basil," said Lord Henry with a strange tenderness in his +voice, and the two young men passed out together. + +A few moments afterwards the footlights flared up and the curtain rose +on the third act. Dorian Gray went back to his seat. He looked pale, +and proud, and indifferent. The play dragged on, and seemed +interminable. Half of the audience went out, tramping in heavy boots +and laughing. The whole thing was a _fiasco_. The last act was played +to almost empty benches. The curtain went down on a titter and some +groans. + +As soon as it was over, Dorian Gray rushed behind the scenes into the +greenroom. The girl was standing there alone, with a look of triumph +on her face. Her eyes were lit with an exquisite fire. There was a +radiance about her. Her parted lips were smiling over some secret of +their own. + +When he entered, she looked at him, and an expression of infinite joy +came over her. "How badly I acted to-night, Dorian!" she cried. + +"Horribly!" he answered, gazing at her in amazement. "Horribly! It +was dreadful. Are you ill? You have no idea what it was. You have no +idea what I suffered." + +The girl smiled. "Dorian," she answered, lingering over his name with +long-drawn music in her voice, as though it were sweeter than honey to +the red petals of her mouth. "Dorian, you should have understood. But +you understand now, don't you?" + +"Understand what?" he asked, angrily. + +"Why I was so bad to-night. Why I shall always be bad. Why I shall +never act well again." + +He shrugged his shoulders. "You are ill, I suppose. When you are ill +you shouldn't act. You make yourself ridiculous. My friends were +bored. I was bored." + +She seemed not to listen to him. She was transfigured with joy. An +ecstasy of happiness dominated her. + +"Dorian, Dorian," she cried, "before I knew you, acting was the one +reality of my life. It was only in the theatre that I lived. I +thought that it was all true. I was Rosalind one night and Portia the +other. The joy of Beatrice was my joy, and the sorrows of Cordelia +were mine also. I believed in everything. The common people who acted +with me seemed to me to be godlike. The painted scenes were my world. +I knew nothing but shadows, and I thought them real. You came--oh, my +beautiful love!--and you freed my soul from prison. You taught me what +reality really is. To-night, for the first time in my life, I saw +through the hollowness, the sham, the silliness of the empty pageant in +which I had always played. To-night, for the first time, I became +conscious that the Romeo was hideous, and old, and painted, that the +moonlight in the orchard was false, that the scenery was vulgar, and +that the words I had to speak were unreal, were not my words, were not +what I wanted to say. You had brought me something higher, something +of which all art is but a reflection. You had made me understand what +love really is. My love! My love! Prince Charming! Prince of life! +I have grown sick of shadows. You are more to me than all art can ever +be. What have I to do with the puppets of a play? When I came on +to-night, I could not understand how it was that everything had gone +from me. I thought that I was going to be wonderful. I found that I +could do nothing. Suddenly it dawned on my soul what it all meant. +The knowledge was exquisite to me. I heard them hissing, and I smiled. +What could they know of love such as ours? Take me away, Dorian--take +me away with you, where we can be quite alone. I hate the stage. I +might mimic a passion that I do not feel, but I cannot mimic one that +burns me like fire. Oh, Dorian, Dorian, you understand now what it +signifies? Even if I could do it, it would be profanation for me to +play at being in love. You have made me see that." + +He flung himself down on the sofa and turned away his face. "You have +killed my love," he muttered. + +She looked at him in wonder and laughed. He made no answer. She came +across to him, and with her little fingers stroked his hair. She knelt +down and pressed his hands to her lips. He drew them away, and a +shudder ran through him. + +Then he leaped up and went to the door. "Yes," he cried, "you have +killed my love. You used to stir my imagination. Now you don't even +stir my curiosity. You simply produce no effect. I loved you because +you were marvellous, because you had genius and intellect, because you +realized the dreams of great poets and gave shape and substance to the +shadows of art. You have thrown it all away. You are shallow and +stupid. My God! how mad I was to love you! What a fool I have been! +You are nothing to me now. I will never see you again. I will never +think of you. I will never mention your name. You don't know what you +were to me, once. Why, once ... Oh, I can't bear to think of it! I +wish I had never laid eyes upon you! You have spoiled the romance of +my life. How little you can know of love, if you say it mars your art! +Without your art, you are nothing. I would have made you famous, +splendid, magnificent. The world would have worshipped you, and you +would have borne my name. What are you now? A third-rate actress with +a pretty face." + +The girl grew white, and trembled. She clenched her hands together, +and her voice seemed to catch in her throat. "You are not serious, +Dorian?" she murmured. "You are acting." + +"Acting! I leave that to you. You do it so well," he answered +bitterly. + +She rose from her knees and, with a piteous expression of pain in her +face, came across the room to him. She put her hand upon his arm and +looked into his eyes. He thrust her back. "Don't touch me!" he cried. + +A low moan broke from her, and she flung herself at his feet and lay +there like a trampled flower. "Dorian, Dorian, don't leave me!" she +whispered. "I am so sorry I didn't act well. I was thinking of you +all the time. But I will try--indeed, I will try. It came so suddenly +across me, my love for you. I think I should never have known it if +you had not kissed me--if we had not kissed each other. Kiss me again, +my love. Don't go away from me. I couldn't bear it. Oh! don't go +away from me. My brother ... No; never mind. He didn't mean it. He +was in jest.... But you, oh! can't you forgive me for to-night? I will +work so hard and try to improve. Don't be cruel to me, because I love +you better than anything in the world. After all, it is only once that +I have not pleased you. But you are quite right, Dorian. I should +have shown myself more of an artist. It was foolish of me, and yet I +couldn't help it. Oh, don't leave me, don't leave me." A fit of +passionate sobbing choked her. She crouched on the floor like a +wounded thing, and Dorian Gray, with his beautiful eyes, looked down at +her, and his chiselled lips curled in exquisite disdain. There is +always something ridiculous about the emotions of people whom one has +ceased to love. Sibyl Vane seemed to him to be absurdly melodramatic. +Her tears and sobs annoyed him. + +"I am going," he said at last in his calm clear voice. "I don't wish +to be unkind, but I can't see you again. You have disappointed me." + +She wept silently, and made no answer, but crept nearer. Her little +hands stretched blindly out, and appeared to be seeking for him. He +turned on his heel and left the room. In a few moments he was out of +the theatre. + +Where he went to he hardly knew. He remembered wandering through dimly +lit streets, past gaunt, black-shadowed archways and evil-looking +houses. Women with hoarse voices and harsh laughter had called after +him. Drunkards had reeled by, cursing and chattering to themselves +like monstrous apes. He had seen grotesque children huddled upon +door-steps, and heard shrieks and oaths from gloomy courts. + +As the dawn was just breaking, he found himself close to Covent Garden. +The darkness lifted, and, flushed with faint fires, the sky hollowed +itself into a perfect pearl. Huge carts filled with nodding lilies +rumbled slowly down the polished empty street. The air was heavy with +the perfume of the flowers, and their beauty seemed to bring him an +anodyne for his pain. He followed into the market and watched the men +unloading their waggons. A white-smocked carter offered him some +cherries. He thanked him, wondered why he refused to accept any money +for them, and began to eat them listlessly. They had been plucked at +midnight, and the coldness of the moon had entered into them. A long +line of boys carrying crates of striped tulips, and of yellow and red +roses, defiled in front of him, threading their way through the huge, +jade-green piles of vegetables. Under the portico, with its grey, +sun-bleached pillars, loitered a troop of draggled bareheaded girls, +waiting for the auction to be over. Others crowded round the swinging +doors of the coffee-house in the piazza. The heavy cart-horses slipped +and stamped upon the rough stones, shaking their bells and trappings. +Some of the drivers were lying asleep on a pile of sacks. Iris-necked +and pink-footed, the pigeons ran about picking up seeds. + +After a little while, he hailed a hansom and drove home. For a few +moments he loitered upon the doorstep, looking round at the silent +square, with its blank, close-shuttered windows and its staring blinds. +The sky was pure opal now, and the roofs of the houses glistened like +silver against it. From some chimney opposite a thin wreath of smoke +was rising. It curled, a violet riband, through the nacre-coloured air. + +In the huge gilt Venetian lantern, spoil of some Doge's barge, that +hung from the ceiling of the great, oak-panelled hall of entrance, +lights were still burning from three flickering jets: thin blue petals +of flame they seemed, rimmed with white fire. He turned them out and, +having thrown his hat and cape on the table, passed through the library +towards the door of his bedroom, a large octagonal chamber on the +ground floor that, in his new-born feeling for luxury, he had just had +decorated for himself and hung with some curious Renaissance tapestries +that had been discovered stored in a disused attic at Selby Royal. As +he was turning the handle of the door, his eye fell upon the portrait +Basil Hallward had painted of him. He started back as if in surprise. +Then he went on into his own room, looking somewhat puzzled. After he +had taken the button-hole out of his coat, he seemed to hesitate. +Finally, he came back, went over to the picture, and examined it. In +the dim arrested light that struggled through the cream-coloured silk +blinds, the face appeared to him to be a little changed. The +expression looked different. One would have said that there was a +touch of cruelty in the mouth. It was certainly strange. + +He turned round and, walking to the window, drew up the blind. The +bright dawn flooded the room and swept the fantastic shadows into dusky +corners, where they lay shuddering. But the strange expression that he +had noticed in the face of the portrait seemed to linger there, to be +more intensified even. The quivering ardent sunlight showed him the +lines of cruelty round the mouth as clearly as if he had been looking +into a mirror after he had done some dreadful thing. + +He winced and, taking up from the table an oval glass framed in ivory +Cupids, one of Lord Henry's many presents to him, glanced hurriedly +into its polished depths. No line like that warped his red lips. What +did it mean? + +He rubbed his eyes, and came close to the picture, and examined it +again. There were no signs of any change when he looked into the +actual painting, and yet there was no doubt that the whole expression +had altered. It was not a mere fancy of his own. The thing was +horribly apparent. + +He threw himself into a chair and began to think. Suddenly there +flashed across his mind what he had said in Basil Hallward's studio the +day the picture had been finished. Yes, he remembered it perfectly. +He had uttered a mad wish that he himself might remain young, and the +portrait grow old; that his own beauty might be untarnished, and the +face on the canvas bear the burden of his passions and his sins; that +the painted image might be seared with the lines of suffering and +thought, and that he might keep all the delicate bloom and loveliness +of his then just conscious boyhood. Surely his wish had not been +fulfilled? Such things were impossible. It seemed monstrous even to +think of them. And, yet, there was the picture before him, with the +touch of cruelty in the mouth. + +Cruelty! Had he been cruel? It was the girl's fault, not his. He had +dreamed of her as a great artist, had given his love to her because he +had thought her great. Then she had disappointed him. She had been +shallow and unworthy. And, yet, a feeling of infinite regret came over +him, as he thought of her lying at his feet sobbing like a little +child. He remembered with what callousness he had watched her. Why +had he been made like that? Why had such a soul been given to him? +But he had suffered also. During the three terrible hours that the +play had lasted, he had lived centuries of pain, aeon upon aeon of +torture. His life was well worth hers. She had marred him for a +moment, if he had wounded her for an age. Besides, women were better +suited to bear sorrow than men. They lived on their emotions. They +only thought of their emotions. When they took lovers, it was merely +to have some one with whom they could have scenes. Lord Henry had told +him that, and Lord Henry knew what women were. Why should he trouble +about Sibyl Vane? She was nothing to him now. + +But the picture? What was he to say of that? It held the secret of +his life, and told his story. It had taught him to love his own +beauty. Would it teach him to loathe his own soul? Would he ever look +at it again? + +No; it was merely an illusion wrought on the troubled senses. The +horrible night that he had passed had left phantoms behind it. +Suddenly there had fallen upon his brain that tiny scarlet speck that +makes men mad. The picture had not changed. It was folly to think so. + +Yet it was watching him, with its beautiful marred face and its cruel +smile. Its bright hair gleamed in the early sunlight. Its blue eyes +met his own. A sense of infinite pity, not for himself, but for the +painted image of himself, came over him. It had altered already, and +would alter more. Its gold would wither into grey. Its red and white +roses would die. For every sin that he committed, a stain would fleck +and wreck its fairness. But he would not sin. The picture, changed or +unchanged, would be to him the visible emblem of conscience. He would +resist temptation. He would not see Lord Henry any more--would not, at +any rate, listen to those subtle poisonous theories that in Basil +Hallward's garden had first stirred within him the passion for +impossible things. He would go back to Sibyl Vane, make her amends, +marry her, try to love her again. Yes, it was his duty to do so. She +must have suffered more than he had. Poor child! He had been selfish +and cruel to her. The fascination that she had exercised over him +would return. They would be happy together. His life with her would +be beautiful and pure. + +He got up from his chair and drew a large screen right in front of the +portrait, shuddering as he glanced at it. "How horrible!" he murmured +to himself, and he walked across to the window and opened it. When he +stepped out on to the grass, he drew a deep breath. The fresh morning +air seemed to drive away all his sombre passions. He thought only of +Sibyl. A faint echo of his love came back to him. He repeated her +name over and over again. The birds that were singing in the +dew-drenched garden seemed to be telling the flowers about her. + + + +CHAPTER 8 + +It was long past noon when he awoke. His valet had crept several times +on tiptoe into the room to see if he was stirring, and had wondered +what made his young master sleep so late. Finally his bell sounded, +and Victor came in softly with a cup of tea, and a pile of letters, on +a small tray of old Sevres china, and drew back the olive-satin +curtains, with their shimmering blue lining, that hung in front of the +three tall windows. + +"Monsieur has well slept this morning," he said, smiling. + +"What o'clock is it, Victor?" asked Dorian Gray drowsily. + +"One hour and a quarter, Monsieur." + +How late it was! He sat up, and having sipped some tea, turned over +his letters. One of them was from Lord Henry, and had been brought by +hand that morning. He hesitated for a moment, and then put it aside. +The others he opened listlessly. They contained the usual collection +of cards, invitations to dinner, tickets for private views, programmes +of charity concerts, and the like that are showered on fashionable +young men every morning during the season. There was a rather heavy +bill for a chased silver Louis-Quinze toilet-set that he had not yet +had the courage to send on to his guardians, who were extremely +old-fashioned people and did not realize that we live in an age when +unnecessary things are our only necessities; and there were several +very courteously worded communications from Jermyn Street money-lenders +offering to advance any sum of money at a moment's notice and at the +most reasonable rates of interest. + +After about ten minutes he got up, and throwing on an elaborate +dressing-gown of silk-embroidered cashmere wool, passed into the +onyx-paved bathroom. The cool water refreshed him after his long +sleep. He seemed to have forgotten all that he had gone through. A +dim sense of having taken part in some strange tragedy came to him once +or twice, but there was the unreality of a dream about it. + +As soon as he was dressed, he went into the library and sat down to a +light French breakfast that had been laid out for him on a small round +table close to the open window. It was an exquisite day. The warm air +seemed laden with spices. A bee flew in and buzzed round the +blue-dragon bowl that, filled with sulphur-yellow roses, stood before +him. He felt perfectly happy. + +Suddenly his eye fell on the screen that he had placed in front of the +portrait, and he started. + +"Too cold for Monsieur?" asked his valet, putting an omelette on the +table. "I shut the window?" + +Dorian shook his head. "I am not cold," he murmured. + +Was it all true? Had the portrait really changed? Or had it been +simply his own imagination that had made him see a look of evil where +there had been a look of joy? Surely a painted canvas could not alter? +The thing was absurd. It would serve as a tale to tell Basil some day. +It would make him smile. + +And, yet, how vivid was his recollection of the whole thing! First in +the dim twilight, and then in the bright dawn, he had seen the touch of +cruelty round the warped lips. He almost dreaded his valet leaving the +room. He knew that when he was alone he would have to examine the +portrait. He was afraid of certainty. When the coffee and cigarettes +had been brought and the man turned to go, he felt a wild desire to +tell him to remain. As the door was closing behind him, he called him +back. The man stood waiting for his orders. Dorian looked at him for +a moment. "I am not at home to any one, Victor," he said with a sigh. +The man bowed and retired. + +Then he rose from the table, lit a cigarette, and flung himself down on +a luxuriously cushioned couch that stood facing the screen. The screen +was an old one, of gilt Spanish leather, stamped and wrought with a +rather florid Louis-Quatorze pattern. He scanned it curiously, +wondering if ever before it had concealed the secret of a man's life. + +Should he move it aside, after all? Why not let it stay there? What +was the use of knowing? If the thing was true, it was terrible. If it +was not true, why trouble about it? But what if, by some fate or +deadlier chance, eyes other than his spied behind and saw the horrible +change? What should he do if Basil Hallward came and asked to look at +his own picture? Basil would be sure to do that. No; the thing had to +be examined, and at once. Anything would be better than this dreadful +state of doubt. + +He got up and locked both doors. At least he would be alone when he +looked upon the mask of his shame. Then he drew the screen aside and +saw himself face to face. It was perfectly true. The portrait had +altered. + +As he often remembered afterwards, and always with no small wonder, he +found himself at first gazing at the portrait with a feeling of almost +scientific interest. That such a change should have taken place was +incredible to him. And yet it was a fact. Was there some subtle +affinity between the chemical atoms that shaped themselves into form +and colour on the canvas and the soul that was within him? Could it be +that what that soul thought, they realized?--that what it dreamed, they +made true? Or was there some other, more terrible reason? He +shuddered, and felt afraid, and, going back to the couch, lay there, +gazing at the picture in sickened horror. + +One thing, however, he felt that it had done for him. It had made him +conscious how unjust, how cruel, he had been to Sibyl Vane. It was not +too late to make reparation for that. She could still be his wife. +His unreal and selfish love would yield to some higher influence, would +be transformed into some nobler passion, and the portrait that Basil +Hallward had painted of him would be a guide to him through life, would +be to him what holiness is to some, and conscience to others, and the +fear of God to us all. There were opiates for remorse, drugs that +could lull the moral sense to sleep. But here was a visible symbol of +the degradation of sin. Here was an ever-present sign of the ruin men +brought upon their souls. + +Three o'clock struck, and four, and the half-hour rang its double +chime, but Dorian Gray did not stir. He was trying to gather up the +scarlet threads of life and to weave them into a pattern; to find his +way through the sanguine labyrinth of passion through which he was +wandering. He did not know what to do, or what to think. Finally, he +went over to the table and wrote a passionate letter to the girl he had +loved, imploring her forgiveness and accusing himself of madness. He +covered page after page with wild words of sorrow and wilder words of +pain. There is a luxury in self-reproach. When we blame ourselves, we +feel that no one else has a right to blame us. It is the confession, +not the priest, that gives us absolution. When Dorian had finished the +letter, he felt that he had been forgiven. + +Suddenly there came a knock to the door, and he heard Lord Henry's +voice outside. "My dear boy, I must see you. Let me in at once. I +can't bear your shutting yourself up like this." + +He made no answer at first, but remained quite still. The knocking +still continued and grew louder. Yes, it was better to let Lord Henry +in, and to explain to him the new life he was going to lead, to quarrel +with him if it became necessary to quarrel, to part if parting was +inevitable. He jumped up, drew the screen hastily across the picture, +and unlocked the door. + +"I am so sorry for it all, Dorian," said Lord Henry as he entered. +"But you must not think too much about it." + +"Do you mean about Sibyl Vane?" asked the lad. + +"Yes, of course," answered Lord Henry, sinking into a chair and slowly +pulling off his yellow gloves. "It is dreadful, from one point of +view, but it was not your fault. Tell me, did you go behind and see +her, after the play was over?" + +"Yes." + +"I felt sure you had. Did you make a scene with her?" + +"I was brutal, Harry--perfectly brutal. But it is all right now. I am +not sorry for anything that has happened. It has taught me to know +myself better." + +"Ah, Dorian, I am so glad you take it in that way! I was afraid I +would find you plunged in remorse and tearing that nice curly hair of +yours." + +"I have got through all that," said Dorian, shaking his head and +smiling. "I am perfectly happy now. I know what conscience is, to +begin with. It is not what you told me it was. It is the divinest +thing in us. Don't sneer at it, Harry, any more--at least not before +me. I want to be good. I can't bear the idea of my soul being +hideous." + +"A very charming artistic basis for ethics, Dorian! I congratulate you +on it. But how are you going to begin?" + +"By marrying Sibyl Vane." + +"Marrying Sibyl Vane!" cried Lord Henry, standing up and looking at him +in perplexed amazement. "But, my dear Dorian--" + +"Yes, Harry, I know what you are going to say. Something dreadful +about marriage. Don't say it. Don't ever say things of that kind to +me again. Two days ago I asked Sibyl to marry me. I am not going to +break my word to her. She is to be my wife." + +"Your wife! Dorian! ... Didn't you get my letter? I wrote to you this +morning, and sent the note down by my own man." + +"Your letter? Oh, yes, I remember. I have not read it yet, Harry. I +was afraid there might be something in it that I wouldn't like. You +cut life to pieces with your epigrams." + +"You know nothing then?" + +"What do you mean?" + +Lord Henry walked across the room, and sitting down by Dorian Gray, +took both his hands in his own and held them tightly. "Dorian," he +said, "my letter--don't be frightened--was to tell you that Sibyl Vane +is dead." + +A cry of pain broke from the lad's lips, and he leaped to his feet, +tearing his hands away from Lord Henry's grasp. "Dead! Sibyl dead! +It is not true! It is a horrible lie! How dare you say it?" + +"It is quite true, Dorian," said Lord Henry, gravely. "It is in all +the morning papers. I wrote down to you to ask you not to see any one +till I came. There will have to be an inquest, of course, and you must +not be mixed up in it. Things like that make a man fashionable in +Paris. But in London people are so prejudiced. Here, one should never +make one's _debut_ with a scandal. One should reserve that to give an +interest to one's old age. I suppose they don't know your name at the +theatre? If they don't, it is all right. Did any one see you going +round to her room? That is an important point." + +Dorian did not answer for a few moments. He was dazed with horror. +Finally he stammered, in a stifled voice, "Harry, did you say an +inquest? What did you mean by that? Did Sibyl--? Oh, Harry, I can't +bear it! But be quick. Tell me everything at once." + +"I have no doubt it was not an accident, Dorian, though it must be put +in that way to the public. It seems that as she was leaving the +theatre with her mother, about half-past twelve or so, she said she had +forgotten something upstairs. They waited some time for her, but she +did not come down again. They ultimately found her lying dead on the +floor of her dressing-room. She had swallowed something by mistake, +some dreadful thing they use at theatres. I don't know what it was, +but it had either prussic acid or white lead in it. I should fancy it +was prussic acid, as she seems to have died instantaneously." + +"Harry, Harry, it is terrible!" cried the lad. + +"Yes; it is very tragic, of course, but you must not get yourself mixed +up in it. I see by _The Standard_ that she was seventeen. I should have +thought she was almost younger than that. She looked such a child, and +seemed to know so little about acting. Dorian, you mustn't let this +thing get on your nerves. You must come and dine with me, and +afterwards we will look in at the opera. It is a Patti night, and +everybody will be there. You can come to my sister's box. She has got +some smart women with her." + +"So I have murdered Sibyl Vane," said Dorian Gray, half to himself, +"murdered her as surely as if I had cut her little throat with a knife. +Yet the roses are not less lovely for all that. The birds sing just as +happily in my garden. And to-night I am to dine with you, and then go +on to the opera, and sup somewhere, I suppose, afterwards. How +extraordinarily dramatic life is! If I had read all this in a book, +Harry, I think I would have wept over it. Somehow, now that it has +happened actually, and to me, it seems far too wonderful for tears. +Here is the first passionate love-letter I have ever written in my +life. Strange, that my first passionate love-letter should have been +addressed to a dead girl. Can they feel, I wonder, those white silent +people we call the dead? Sibyl! Can she feel, or know, or listen? +Oh, Harry, how I loved her once! It seems years ago to me now. She +was everything to me. Then came that dreadful night--was it really +only last night?--when she played so badly, and my heart almost broke. +She explained it all to me. It was terribly pathetic. But I was not +moved a bit. I thought her shallow. Suddenly something happened that +made me afraid. I can't tell you what it was, but it was terrible. I +said I would go back to her. I felt I had done wrong. And now she is +dead. My God! My God! Harry, what shall I do? You don't know the +danger I am in, and there is nothing to keep me straight. She would +have done that for me. She had no right to kill herself. It was +selfish of her." + +"My dear Dorian," answered Lord Henry, taking a cigarette from his case +and producing a gold-latten matchbox, "the only way a woman can ever +reform a man is by boring him so completely that he loses all possible +interest in life. If you had married this girl, you would have been +wretched. Of course, you would have treated her kindly. One can +always be kind to people about whom one cares nothing. But she would +have soon found out that you were absolutely indifferent to her. And +when a woman finds that out about her husband, she either becomes +dreadfully dowdy, or wears very smart bonnets that some other woman's +husband has to pay for. I say nothing about the social mistake, which +would have been abject--which, of course, I would not have allowed--but +I assure you that in any case the whole thing would have been an +absolute failure." + +"I suppose it would," muttered the lad, walking up and down the room +and looking horribly pale. "But I thought it was my duty. It is not +my fault that this terrible tragedy has prevented my doing what was +right. I remember your saying once that there is a fatality about good +resolutions--that they are always made too late. Mine certainly were." + +"Good resolutions are useless attempts to interfere with scientific +laws. Their origin is pure vanity. Their result is absolutely _nil_. +They give us, now and then, some of those luxurious sterile emotions +that have a certain charm for the weak. That is all that can be said +for them. They are simply cheques that men draw on a bank where they +have no account." + +"Harry," cried Dorian Gray, coming over and sitting down beside him, +"why is it that I cannot feel this tragedy as much as I want to? I +don't think I am heartless. Do you?" + +"You have done too many foolish things during the last fortnight to be +entitled to give yourself that name, Dorian," answered Lord Henry with +his sweet melancholy smile. + +The lad frowned. "I don't like that explanation, Harry," he rejoined, +"but I am glad you don't think I am heartless. I am nothing of the +kind. I know I am not. And yet I must admit that this thing that has +happened does not affect me as it should. It seems to me to be simply +like a wonderful ending to a wonderful play. It has all the terrible +beauty of a Greek tragedy, a tragedy in which I took a great part, but +by which I have not been wounded." + +"It is an interesting question," said Lord Henry, who found an +exquisite pleasure in playing on the lad's unconscious egotism, "an +extremely interesting question. I fancy that the true explanation is +this: It often happens that the real tragedies of life occur in such +an inartistic manner that they hurt us by their crude violence, their +absolute incoherence, their absurd want of meaning, their entire lack +of style. They affect us just as vulgarity affects us. They give us +an impression of sheer brute force, and we revolt against that. +Sometimes, however, a tragedy that possesses artistic elements of +beauty crosses our lives. If these elements of beauty are real, the +whole thing simply appeals to our sense of dramatic effect. Suddenly +we find that we are no longer the actors, but the spectators of the +play. Or rather we are both. We watch ourselves, and the mere wonder +of the spectacle enthralls us. In the present case, what is it that +has really happened? Some one has killed herself for love of you. I +wish that I had ever had such an experience. It would have made me in +love with love for the rest of my life. The people who have adored +me--there have not been very many, but there have been some--have +always insisted on living on, long after I had ceased to care for them, +or they to care for me. They have become stout and tedious, and when I +meet them, they go in at once for reminiscences. That awful memory of +woman! What a fearful thing it is! And what an utter intellectual +stagnation it reveals! One should absorb the colour of life, but one +should never remember its details. Details are always vulgar." + +"I must sow poppies in my garden," sighed Dorian. + +"There is no necessity," rejoined his companion. "Life has always +poppies in her hands. Of course, now and then things linger. I once +wore nothing but violets all through one season, as a form of artistic +mourning for a romance that would not die. Ultimately, however, it did +die. I forget what killed it. I think it was her proposing to +sacrifice the whole world for me. That is always a dreadful moment. +It fills one with the terror of eternity. Well--would you believe +it?--a week ago, at Lady Hampshire's, I found myself seated at dinner +next the lady in question, and she insisted on going over the whole +thing again, and digging up the past, and raking up the future. I had +buried my romance in a bed of asphodel. She dragged it out again and +assured me that I had spoiled her life. I am bound to state that she +ate an enormous dinner, so I did not feel any anxiety. But what a lack +of taste she showed! The one charm of the past is that it is the past. +But women never know when the curtain has fallen. They always want a +sixth act, and as soon as the interest of the play is entirely over, +they propose to continue it. If they were allowed their own way, every +comedy would have a tragic ending, and every tragedy would culminate in +a farce. They are charmingly artificial, but they have no sense of +art. You are more fortunate than I am. I assure you, Dorian, that not +one of the women I have known would have done for me what Sibyl Vane +did for you. Ordinary women always console themselves. Some of them +do it by going in for sentimental colours. Never trust a woman who +wears mauve, whatever her age may be, or a woman over thirty-five who +is fond of pink ribbons. It always means that they have a history. +Others find a great consolation in suddenly discovering the good +qualities of their husbands. They flaunt their conjugal felicity in +one's face, as if it were the most fascinating of sins. Religion +consoles some. Its mysteries have all the charm of a flirtation, a +woman once told me, and I can quite understand it. Besides, nothing +makes one so vain as being told that one is a sinner. Conscience makes +egotists of us all. Yes; there is really no end to the consolations +that women find in modern life. Indeed, I have not mentioned the most +important one." + +"What is that, Harry?" said the lad listlessly. + +"Oh, the obvious consolation. Taking some one else's admirer when one +loses one's own. In good society that always whitewashes a woman. But +really, Dorian, how different Sibyl Vane must have been from all the +women one meets! There is something to me quite beautiful about her +death. I am glad I am living in a century when such wonders happen. +They make one believe in the reality of the things we all play with, +such as romance, passion, and love." + +"I was terribly cruel to her. You forget that." + +"I am afraid that women appreciate cruelty, downright cruelty, more +than anything else. They have wonderfully primitive instincts. We +have emancipated them, but they remain slaves looking for their +masters, all the same. They love being dominated. I am sure you were +splendid. I have never seen you really and absolutely angry, but I can +fancy how delightful you looked. And, after all, you said something to +me the day before yesterday that seemed to me at the time to be merely +fanciful, but that I see now was absolutely true, and it holds the key +to everything." + +"What was that, Harry?" + +"You said to me that Sibyl Vane represented to you all the heroines of +romance--that she was Desdemona one night, and Ophelia the other; that +if she died as Juliet, she came to life as Imogen." + +"She will never come to life again now," muttered the lad, burying his +face in his hands. + +"No, she will never come to life. She has played her last part. But +you must think of that lonely death in the tawdry dressing-room simply +as a strange lurid fragment from some Jacobean tragedy, as a wonderful +scene from Webster, or Ford, or Cyril Tourneur. The girl never really +lived, and so she has never really died. To you at least she was +always a dream, a phantom that flitted through Shakespeare's plays and +left them lovelier for its presence, a reed through which Shakespeare's +music sounded richer and more full of joy. The moment she touched +actual life, she marred it, and it marred her, and so she passed away. +Mourn for Ophelia, if you like. Put ashes on your head because +Cordelia was strangled. Cry out against Heaven because the daughter of +Brabantio died. But don't waste your tears over Sibyl Vane. She was +less real than they are." + +There was a silence. The evening darkened in the room. Noiselessly, +and with silver feet, the shadows crept in from the garden. The +colours faded wearily out of things. + +After some time Dorian Gray looked up. "You have explained me to +myself, Harry," he murmured with something of a sigh of relief. "I +felt all that you have said, but somehow I was afraid of it, and I +could not express it to myself. How well you know me! But we will not +talk again of what has happened. It has been a marvellous experience. +That is all. I wonder if life has still in store for me anything as +marvellous." + +"Life has everything in store for you, Dorian. There is nothing that +you, with your extraordinary good looks, will not be able to do." + +"But suppose, Harry, I became haggard, and old, and wrinkled? What +then?" + +"Ah, then," said Lord Henry, rising to go, "then, my dear Dorian, you +would have to fight for your victories. As it is, they are brought to +you. No, you must keep your good looks. We live in an age that reads +too much to be wise, and that thinks too much to be beautiful. We +cannot spare you. And now you had better dress and drive down to the +club. We are rather late, as it is." + +"I think I shall join you at the opera, Harry. I feel too tired to eat +anything. What is the number of your sister's box?" + +"Twenty-seven, I believe. It is on the grand tier. You will see her +name on the door. But I am sorry you won't come and dine." + +"I don't feel up to it," said Dorian listlessly. "But I am awfully +obliged to you for all that you have said to me. You are certainly my +best friend. No one has ever understood me as you have." + +"We are only at the beginning of our friendship, Dorian," answered Lord +Henry, shaking him by the hand. "Good-bye. I shall see you before +nine-thirty, I hope. Remember, Patti is singing." + +As he closed the door behind him, Dorian Gray touched the bell, and in +a few minutes Victor appeared with the lamps and drew the blinds down. +He waited impatiently for him to go. The man seemed to take an +interminable time over everything. + +As soon as he had left, he rushed to the screen and drew it back. No; +there was no further change in the picture. It had received the news +of Sibyl Vane's death before he had known of it himself. It was +conscious of the events of life as they occurred. The vicious cruelty +that marred the fine lines of the mouth had, no doubt, appeared at the +very moment that the girl had drunk the poison, whatever it was. Or +was it indifferent to results? Did it merely take cognizance of what +passed within the soul? He wondered, and hoped that some day he would +see the change taking place before his very eyes, shuddering as he +hoped it. + +Poor Sibyl! What a romance it had all been! She had often mimicked +death on the stage. Then Death himself had touched her and taken her +with him. How had she played that dreadful last scene? Had she cursed +him, as she died? No; she had died for love of him, and love would +always be a sacrament to him now. She had atoned for everything by the +sacrifice she had made of her life. He would not think any more of +what she had made him go through, on that horrible night at the +theatre. When he thought of her, it would be as a wonderful tragic +figure sent on to the world's stage to show the supreme reality of +love. A wonderful tragic figure? Tears came to his eyes as he +remembered her childlike look, and winsome fanciful ways, and shy +tremulous grace. He brushed them away hastily and looked again at the +picture. + +He felt that the time had really come for making his choice. Or had +his choice already been made? Yes, life had decided that for +him--life, and his own infinite curiosity about life. Eternal youth, +infinite passion, pleasures subtle and secret, wild joys and wilder +sins--he was to have all these things. The portrait was to bear the +burden of his shame: that was all. + +A feeling of pain crept over him as he thought of the desecration that +was in store for the fair face on the canvas. Once, in boyish mockery +of Narcissus, he had kissed, or feigned to kiss, those painted lips +that now smiled so cruelly at him. Morning after morning he had sat +before the portrait wondering at its beauty, almost enamoured of it, as +it seemed to him at times. Was it to alter now with every mood to +which he yielded? Was it to become a monstrous and loathsome thing, to +be hidden away in a locked room, to be shut out from the sunlight that +had so often touched to brighter gold the waving wonder of its hair? +The pity of it! the pity of it! + +For a moment, he thought of praying that the horrible sympathy that +existed between him and the picture might cease. It had changed in +answer to a prayer; perhaps in answer to a prayer it might remain +unchanged. And yet, who, that knew anything about life, would +surrender the chance of remaining always young, however fantastic that +chance might be, or with what fateful consequences it might be fraught? +Besides, was it really under his control? Had it indeed been prayer +that had produced the substitution? Might there not be some curious +scientific reason for it all? If thought could exercise its influence +upon a living organism, might not thought exercise an influence upon +dead and inorganic things? Nay, without thought or conscious desire, +might not things external to ourselves vibrate in unison with our moods +and passions, atom calling to atom in secret love or strange affinity? +But the reason was of no importance. He would never again tempt by a +prayer any terrible power. If the picture was to alter, it was to +alter. That was all. Why inquire too closely into it? + +For there would be a real pleasure in watching it. He would be able to +follow his mind into its secret places. This portrait would be to him +the most magical of mirrors. As it had revealed to him his own body, +so it would reveal to him his own soul. And when winter came upon it, +he would still be standing where spring trembles on the verge of +summer. When the blood crept from its face, and left behind a pallid +mask of chalk with leaden eyes, he would keep the glamour of boyhood. +Not one blossom of his loveliness would ever fade. Not one pulse of +his life would ever weaken. Like the gods of the Greeks, he would be +strong, and fleet, and joyous. What did it matter what happened to the +coloured image on the canvas? He would be safe. That was everything. + +He drew the screen back into its former place in front of the picture, +smiling as he did so, and passed into his bedroom, where his valet was +already waiting for him. An hour later he was at the opera, and Lord +Henry was leaning over his chair. + + + +CHAPTER 9 + +As he was sitting at breakfast next morning, Basil Hallward was shown +into the room. + +"I am so glad I have found you, Dorian," he said gravely. "I called +last night, and they told me you were at the opera. Of course, I knew +that was impossible. But I wish you had left word where you had really +gone to. I passed a dreadful evening, half afraid that one tragedy +might be followed by another. I think you might have telegraphed for +me when you heard of it first. I read of it quite by chance in a late +edition of _The Globe_ that I picked up at the club. I came here at once +and was miserable at not finding you. I can't tell you how +heart-broken I am about the whole thing. I know what you must suffer. +But where were you? Did you go down and see the girl's mother? For a +moment I thought of following you there. They gave the address in the +paper. Somewhere in the Euston Road, isn't it? But I was afraid of +intruding upon a sorrow that I could not lighten. Poor woman! What a +state she must be in! And her only child, too! What did she say about +it all?" + +"My dear Basil, how do I know?" murmured Dorian Gray, sipping some +pale-yellow wine from a delicate, gold-beaded bubble of Venetian glass +and looking dreadfully bored. "I was at the opera. You should have +come on there. I met Lady Gwendolen, Harry's sister, for the first +time. We were in her box. She is perfectly charming; and Patti sang +divinely. Don't talk about horrid subjects. If one doesn't talk about +a thing, it has never happened. It is simply expression, as Harry +says, that gives reality to things. I may mention that she was not the +woman's only child. There is a son, a charming fellow, I believe. But +he is not on the stage. He is a sailor, or something. And now, tell +me about yourself and what you are painting." + +"You went to the opera?" said Hallward, speaking very slowly and with a +strained touch of pain in his voice. "You went to the opera while +Sibyl Vane was lying dead in some sordid lodging? You can talk to me +of other women being charming, and of Patti singing divinely, before +the girl you loved has even the quiet of a grave to sleep in? Why, +man, there are horrors in store for that little white body of hers!" + +"Stop, Basil! I won't hear it!" cried Dorian, leaping to his feet. +"You must not tell me about things. What is done is done. What is +past is past." + +"You call yesterday the past?" + +"What has the actual lapse of time got to do with it? It is only +shallow people who require years to get rid of an emotion. A man who +is master of himself can end a sorrow as easily as he can invent a +pleasure. I don't want to be at the mercy of my emotions. I want to +use them, to enjoy them, and to dominate them." + +"Dorian, this is horrible! Something has changed you completely. You +look exactly the same wonderful boy who, day after day, used to come +down to my studio to sit for his picture. But you were simple, +natural, and affectionate then. You were the most unspoiled creature +in the whole world. Now, I don't know what has come over you. You +talk as if you had no heart, no pity in you. It is all Harry's +influence. I see that." + +The lad flushed up and, going to the window, looked out for a few +moments on the green, flickering, sun-lashed garden. "I owe a great +deal to Harry, Basil," he said at last, "more than I owe to you. You +only taught me to be vain." + +"Well, I am punished for that, Dorian--or shall be some day." + +"I don't know what you mean, Basil," he exclaimed, turning round. "I +don't know what you want. What do you want?" + +"I want the Dorian Gray I used to paint," said the artist sadly. + +"Basil," said the lad, going over to him and putting his hand on his +shoulder, "you have come too late. Yesterday, when I heard that Sibyl +Vane had killed herself--" + +"Killed herself! Good heavens! is there no doubt about that?" cried +Hallward, looking up at him with an expression of horror. + +"My dear Basil! Surely you don't think it was a vulgar accident? Of +course she killed herself." + +The elder man buried his face in his hands. "How fearful," he +muttered, and a shudder ran through him. + +"No," said Dorian Gray, "there is nothing fearful about it. It is one +of the great romantic tragedies of the age. As a rule, people who act +lead the most commonplace lives. They are good husbands, or faithful +wives, or something tedious. You know what I mean--middle-class virtue +and all that kind of thing. How different Sibyl was! She lived her +finest tragedy. She was always a heroine. The last night she +played--the night you saw her--she acted badly because she had known +the reality of love. When she knew its unreality, she died, as Juliet +might have died. She passed again into the sphere of art. There is +something of the martyr about her. Her death has all the pathetic +uselessness of martyrdom, all its wasted beauty. But, as I was saying, +you must not think I have not suffered. If you had come in yesterday +at a particular moment--about half-past five, perhaps, or a quarter to +six--you would have found me in tears. Even Harry, who was here, who +brought me the news, in fact, had no idea what I was going through. I +suffered immensely. Then it passed away. I cannot repeat an emotion. +No one can, except sentimentalists. And you are awfully unjust, Basil. +You come down here to console me. That is charming of you. You find +me consoled, and you are furious. How like a sympathetic person! You +remind me of a story Harry told me about a certain philanthropist who +spent twenty years of his life in trying to get some grievance +redressed, or some unjust law altered--I forget exactly what it was. +Finally he succeeded, and nothing could exceed his disappointment. He +had absolutely nothing to do, almost died of _ennui_, and became a +confirmed misanthrope. And besides, my dear old Basil, if you really +want to console me, teach me rather to forget what has happened, or to +see it from a proper artistic point of view. Was it not Gautier who +used to write about _la consolation des arts_? I remember picking up a +little vellum-covered book in your studio one day and chancing on that +delightful phrase. Well, I am not like that young man you told me of +when we were down at Marlow together, the young man who used to say +that yellow satin could console one for all the miseries of life. I +love beautiful things that one can touch and handle. Old brocades, +green bronzes, lacquer-work, carved ivories, exquisite surroundings, +luxury, pomp--there is much to be got from all these. But the artistic +temperament that they create, or at any rate reveal, is still more to +me. To become the spectator of one's own life, as Harry says, is to +escape the suffering of life. I know you are surprised at my talking +to you like this. You have not realized how I have developed. I was a +schoolboy when you knew me. I am a man now. I have new passions, new +thoughts, new ideas. I am different, but you must not like me less. I +am changed, but you must always be my friend. Of course, I am very +fond of Harry. But I know that you are better than he is. You are not +stronger--you are too much afraid of life--but you are better. And how +happy we used to be together! Don't leave me, Basil, and don't quarrel +with me. I am what I am. There is nothing more to be said." + +The painter felt strangely moved. The lad was infinitely dear to him, +and his personality had been the great turning point in his art. He +could not bear the idea of reproaching him any more. After all, his +indifference was probably merely a mood that would pass away. There +was so much in him that was good, so much in him that was noble. + +"Well, Dorian," he said at length, with a sad smile, "I won't speak to +you again about this horrible thing, after to-day. I only trust your +name won't be mentioned in connection with it. The inquest is to take +place this afternoon. Have they summoned you?" + +Dorian shook his head, and a look of annoyance passed over his face at +the mention of the word "inquest." There was something so crude and +vulgar about everything of the kind. "They don't know my name," he +answered. + +"But surely she did?" + +"Only my Christian name, and that I am quite sure she never mentioned +to any one. She told me once that they were all rather curious to +learn who I was, and that she invariably told them my name was Prince +Charming. It was pretty of her. You must do me a drawing of Sibyl, +Basil. I should like to have something more of her than the memory of +a few kisses and some broken pathetic words." + +"I will try and do something, Dorian, if it would please you. But you +must come and sit to me yourself again. I can't get on without you." + +"I can never sit to you again, Basil. It is impossible!" he exclaimed, +starting back. + +The painter stared at him. "My dear boy, what nonsense!" he cried. +"Do you mean to say you don't like what I did of you? Where is it? +Why have you pulled the screen in front of it? Let me look at it. It +is the best thing I have ever done. Do take the screen away, Dorian. +It is simply disgraceful of your servant hiding my work like that. I +felt the room looked different as I came in." + +"My servant has nothing to do with it, Basil. You don't imagine I let +him arrange my room for me? He settles my flowers for me +sometimes--that is all. No; I did it myself. The light was too strong +on the portrait." + +"Too strong! Surely not, my dear fellow? It is an admirable place for +it. Let me see it." And Hallward walked towards the corner of the +room. + +A cry of terror broke from Dorian Gray's lips, and he rushed between +the painter and the screen. "Basil," he said, looking very pale, "you +must not look at it. I don't wish you to." + +"Not look at my own work! You are not serious. Why shouldn't I look +at it?" exclaimed Hallward, laughing. + +"If you try to look at it, Basil, on my word of honour I will never +speak to you again as long as I live. I am quite serious. I don't +offer any explanation, and you are not to ask for any. But, remember, +if you touch this screen, everything is over between us." + +Hallward was thunderstruck. He looked at Dorian Gray in absolute +amazement. He had never seen him like this before. The lad was +actually pallid with rage. His hands were clenched, and the pupils of +his eyes were like disks of blue fire. He was trembling all over. + +"Dorian!" + +"Don't speak!" + +"But what is the matter? Of course I won't look at it if you don't +want me to," he said, rather coldly, turning on his heel and going over +towards the window. "But, really, it seems rather absurd that I +shouldn't see my own work, especially as I am going to exhibit it in +Paris in the autumn. I shall probably have to give it another coat of +varnish before that, so I must see it some day, and why not to-day?" + +"To exhibit it! You want to exhibit it?" exclaimed Dorian Gray, a +strange sense of terror creeping over him. Was the world going to be +shown his secret? Were people to gape at the mystery of his life? +That was impossible. Something--he did not know what--had to be done +at once. + +"Yes; I don't suppose you will object to that. Georges Petit is going +to collect all my best pictures for a special exhibition in the Rue de +Seze, which will open the first week in October. The portrait will +only be away a month. I should think you could easily spare it for +that time. In fact, you are sure to be out of town. And if you keep +it always behind a screen, you can't care much about it." + +Dorian Gray passed his hand over his forehead. There were beads of +perspiration there. He felt that he was on the brink of a horrible +danger. "You told me a month ago that you would never exhibit it," he +cried. "Why have you changed your mind? You people who go in for +being consistent have just as many moods as others have. The only +difference is that your moods are rather meaningless. You can't have +forgotten that you assured me most solemnly that nothing in the world +would induce you to send it to any exhibition. You told Harry exactly +the same thing." He stopped suddenly, and a gleam of light came into +his eyes. He remembered that Lord Henry had said to him once, half +seriously and half in jest, "If you want to have a strange quarter of +an hour, get Basil to tell you why he won't exhibit your picture. He +told me why he wouldn't, and it was a revelation to me." Yes, perhaps +Basil, too, had his secret. He would ask him and try. + +"Basil," he said, coming over quite close and looking him straight in +the face, "we have each of us a secret. Let me know yours, and I shall +tell you mine. What was your reason for refusing to exhibit my +picture?" + +The painter shuddered in spite of himself. "Dorian, if I told you, you +might like me less than you do, and you would certainly laugh at me. I +could not bear your doing either of those two things. If you wish me +never to look at your picture again, I am content. I have always you +to look at. If you wish the best work I have ever done to be hidden +from the world, I am satisfied. Your friendship is dearer to me than +any fame or reputation." + +"No, Basil, you must tell me," insisted Dorian Gray. "I think I have a +right to know." His feeling of terror had passed away, and curiosity +had taken its place. He was determined to find out Basil Hallward's +mystery. + +"Let us sit down, Dorian," said the painter, looking troubled. "Let us +sit down. And just answer me one question. Have you noticed in the +picture something curious?--something that probably at first did not +strike you, but that revealed itself to you suddenly?" + +"Basil!" cried the lad, clutching the arms of his chair with trembling +hands and gazing at him with wild startled eyes. + +"I see you did. Don't speak. Wait till you hear what I have to say. +Dorian, from the moment I met you, your personality had the most +extraordinary influence over me. I was dominated, soul, brain, and +power, by you. You became to me the visible incarnation of that unseen +ideal whose memory haunts us artists like an exquisite dream. I +worshipped you. I grew jealous of every one to whom you spoke. I +wanted to have you all to myself. I was only happy when I was with +you. When you were away from me, you were still present in my art.... +Of course, I never let you know anything about this. It would have +been impossible. You would not have understood it. I hardly +understood it myself. I only knew that I had seen perfection face to +face, and that the world had become wonderful to my eyes--too +wonderful, perhaps, for in such mad worships there is peril, the peril +of losing them, no less than the peril of keeping them.... Weeks and +weeks went on, and I grew more and more absorbed in you. Then came a +new development. I had drawn you as Paris in dainty armour, and as +Adonis with huntsman's cloak and polished boar-spear. Crowned with +heavy lotus-blossoms you had sat on the prow of Adrian's barge, gazing +across the green turbid Nile. You had leaned over the still pool of +some Greek woodland and seen in the water's silent silver the marvel of +your own face. And it had all been what art should be--unconscious, +ideal, and remote. One day, a fatal day I sometimes think, I +determined to paint a wonderful portrait of you as you actually are, +not in the costume of dead ages, but in your own dress and in your own +time. Whether it was the realism of the method, or the mere wonder of +your own personality, thus directly presented to me without mist or +veil, I cannot tell. But I know that as I worked at it, every flake +and film of colour seemed to me to reveal my secret. I grew afraid +that others would know of my idolatry. I felt, Dorian, that I had told +too much, that I had put too much of myself into it. Then it was that +I resolved never to allow the picture to be exhibited. You were a +little annoyed; but then you did not realize all that it meant to me. +Harry, to whom I talked about it, laughed at me. But I did not mind +that. When the picture was finished, and I sat alone with it, I felt +that I was right.... Well, after a few days the thing left my studio, +and as soon as I had got rid of the intolerable fascination of its +presence, it seemed to me that I had been foolish in imagining that I +had seen anything in it, more than that you were extremely good-looking +and that I could paint. Even now I cannot help feeling that it is a +mistake to think that the passion one feels in creation is ever really +shown in the work one creates. Art is always more abstract than we +fancy. Form and colour tell us of form and colour--that is all. It +often seems to me that art conceals the artist far more completely than +it ever reveals him. And so when I got this offer from Paris, I +determined to make your portrait the principal thing in my exhibition. +It never occurred to me that you would refuse. I see now that you were +right. The picture cannot be shown. You must not be angry with me, +Dorian, for what I have told you. As I said to Harry, once, you are +made to be worshipped." + +Dorian Gray drew a long breath. The colour came back to his cheeks, +and a smile played about his lips. The peril was over. He was safe +for the time. Yet he could not help feeling infinite pity for the +painter who had just made this strange confession to him, and wondered +if he himself would ever be so dominated by the personality of a +friend. Lord Henry had the charm of being very dangerous. But that +was all. He was too clever and too cynical to be really fond of. +Would there ever be some one who would fill him with a strange +idolatry? Was that one of the things that life had in store? + +"It is extraordinary to me, Dorian," said Hallward, "that you should +have seen this in the portrait. Did you really see it?" + +"I saw something in it," he answered, "something that seemed to me very +curious." + +"Well, you don't mind my looking at the thing now?" + +Dorian shook his head. "You must not ask me that, Basil. I could not +possibly let you stand in front of that picture." + +"You will some day, surely?" + +"Never." + +"Well, perhaps you are right. And now good-bye, Dorian. You have been +the one person in my life who has really influenced my art. Whatever I +have done that is good, I owe to you. Ah! you don't know what it cost +me to tell you all that I have told you." + +"My dear Basil," said Dorian, "what have you told me? Simply that you +felt that you admired me too much. That is not even a compliment." + +"It was not intended as a compliment. It was a confession. Now that I +have made it, something seems to have gone out of me. Perhaps one +should never put one's worship into words." + +"It was a very disappointing confession." + +"Why, what did you expect, Dorian? You didn't see anything else in the +picture, did you? There was nothing else to see?" + +"No; there was nothing else to see. Why do you ask? But you mustn't +talk about worship. It is foolish. You and I are friends, Basil, and +we must always remain so." + +"You have got Harry," said the painter sadly. + +"Oh, Harry!" cried the lad, with a ripple of laughter. "Harry spends +his days in saying what is incredible and his evenings in doing what is +improbable. Just the sort of life I would like to lead. But still I +don't think I would go to Harry if I were in trouble. I would sooner +go to you, Basil." + +"You will sit to me again?" + +"Impossible!" + +"You spoil my life as an artist by refusing, Dorian. No man comes +across two ideal things. Few come across one." + +"I can't explain it to you, Basil, but I must never sit to you again. +There is something fatal about a portrait. It has a life of its own. +I will come and have tea with you. That will be just as pleasant." + +"Pleasanter for you, I am afraid," murmured Hallward regretfully. "And +now good-bye. I am sorry you won't let me look at the picture once +again. But that can't be helped. I quite understand what you feel +about it." + +As he left the room, Dorian Gray smiled to himself. Poor Basil! How +little he knew of the true reason! And how strange it was that, +instead of having been forced to reveal his own secret, he had +succeeded, almost by chance, in wresting a secret from his friend! How +much that strange confession explained to him! The painter's absurd +fits of jealousy, his wild devotion, his extravagant panegyrics, his +curious reticences--he understood them all now, and he felt sorry. +There seemed to him to be something tragic in a friendship so coloured +by romance. + +He sighed and touched the bell. The portrait must be hidden away at +all costs. He could not run such a risk of discovery again. It had +been mad of him to have allowed the thing to remain, even for an hour, +in a room to which any of his friends had access. + + + +CHAPTER 10 + +When his servant entered, he looked at him steadfastly and wondered if +he had thought of peering behind the screen. The man was quite +impassive and waited for his orders. Dorian lit a cigarette and walked +over to the glass and glanced into it. He could see the reflection of +Victor's face perfectly. It was like a placid mask of servility. +There was nothing to be afraid of, there. Yet he thought it best to be +on his guard. + +Speaking very slowly, he told him to tell the house-keeper that he +wanted to see her, and then to go to the frame-maker and ask him to +send two of his men round at once. It seemed to him that as the man +left the room his eyes wandered in the direction of the screen. Or was +that merely his own fancy? + +After a few moments, in her black silk dress, with old-fashioned thread +mittens on her wrinkled hands, Mrs. Leaf bustled into the library. He +asked her for the key of the schoolroom. + +"The old schoolroom, Mr. Dorian?" she exclaimed. "Why, it is full of +dust. I must get it arranged and put straight before you go into it. +It is not fit for you to see, sir. It is not, indeed." + +"I don't want it put straight, Leaf. I only want the key." + +"Well, sir, you'll be covered with cobwebs if you go into it. Why, it +hasn't been opened for nearly five years--not since his lordship died." + +He winced at the mention of his grandfather. He had hateful memories +of him. "That does not matter," he answered. "I simply want to see +the place--that is all. Give me the key." + +"And here is the key, sir," said the old lady, going over the contents +of her bunch with tremulously uncertain hands. "Here is the key. I'll +have it off the bunch in a moment. But you don't think of living up +there, sir, and you so comfortable here?" + +"No, no," he cried petulantly. "Thank you, Leaf. That will do." + +She lingered for a few moments, and was garrulous over some detail of +the household. He sighed and told her to manage things as she thought +best. She left the room, wreathed in smiles. + +As the door closed, Dorian put the key in his pocket and looked round +the room. His eye fell on a large, purple satin coverlet heavily +embroidered with gold, a splendid piece of late seventeenth-century +Venetian work that his grandfather had found in a convent near Bologna. +Yes, that would serve to wrap the dreadful thing in. It had perhaps +served often as a pall for the dead. Now it was to hide something that +had a corruption of its own, worse than the corruption of death +itself--something that would breed horrors and yet would never die. +What the worm was to the corpse, his sins would be to the painted image +on the canvas. They would mar its beauty and eat away its grace. They +would defile it and make it shameful. And yet the thing would still +live on. It would be always alive. + +He shuddered, and for a moment he regretted that he had not told Basil +the true reason why he had wished to hide the picture away. Basil +would have helped him to resist Lord Henry's influence, and the still +more poisonous influences that came from his own temperament. The love +that he bore him--for it was really love--had nothing in it that was +not noble and intellectual. It was not that mere physical admiration +of beauty that is born of the senses and that dies when the senses +tire. It was such love as Michelangelo had known, and Montaigne, and +Winckelmann, and Shakespeare himself. Yes, Basil could have saved him. +But it was too late now. The past could always be annihilated. +Regret, denial, or forgetfulness could do that. But the future was +inevitable. There were passions in him that would find their terrible +outlet, dreams that would make the shadow of their evil real. + +He took up from the couch the great purple-and-gold texture that +covered it, and, holding it in his hands, passed behind the screen. +Was the face on the canvas viler than before? It seemed to him that it +was unchanged, and yet his loathing of it was intensified. Gold hair, +blue eyes, and rose-red lips--they all were there. It was simply the +expression that had altered. That was horrible in its cruelty. +Compared to what he saw in it of censure or rebuke, how shallow Basil's +reproaches about Sibyl Vane had been!--how shallow, and of what little +account! His own soul was looking out at him from the canvas and +calling him to judgement. A look of pain came across him, and he flung +the rich pall over the picture. As he did so, a knock came to the +door. He passed out as his servant entered. + +"The persons are here, Monsieur." + +He felt that the man must be got rid of at once. He must not be +allowed to know where the picture was being taken to. There was +something sly about him, and he had thoughtful, treacherous eyes. +Sitting down at the writing-table he scribbled a note to Lord Henry, +asking him to send him round something to read and reminding him that +they were to meet at eight-fifteen that evening. + +"Wait for an answer," he said, handing it to him, "and show the men in +here." + +In two or three minutes there was another knock, and Mr. Hubbard +himself, the celebrated frame-maker of South Audley Street, came in +with a somewhat rough-looking young assistant. Mr. Hubbard was a +florid, red-whiskered little man, whose admiration for art was +considerably tempered by the inveterate impecuniosity of most of the +artists who dealt with him. As a rule, he never left his shop. He +waited for people to come to him. But he always made an exception in +favour of Dorian Gray. There was something about Dorian that charmed +everybody. It was a pleasure even to see him. + +"What can I do for you, Mr. Gray?" he said, rubbing his fat freckled +hands. "I thought I would do myself the honour of coming round in +person. I have just got a beauty of a frame, sir. Picked it up at a +sale. Old Florentine. Came from Fonthill, I believe. Admirably +suited for a religious subject, Mr. Gray." + +"I am so sorry you have given yourself the trouble of coming round, Mr. +Hubbard. I shall certainly drop in and look at the frame--though I +don't go in much at present for religious art--but to-day I only want a +picture carried to the top of the house for me. It is rather heavy, so +I thought I would ask you to lend me a couple of your men." + +"No trouble at all, Mr. Gray. I am delighted to be of any service to +you. Which is the work of art, sir?" + +"This," replied Dorian, moving the screen back. "Can you move it, +covering and all, just as it is? I don't want it to get scratched +going upstairs." + +"There will be no difficulty, sir," said the genial frame-maker, +beginning, with the aid of his assistant, to unhook the picture from +the long brass chains by which it was suspended. "And, now, where +shall we carry it to, Mr. Gray?" + +"I will show you the way, Mr. Hubbard, if you will kindly follow me. +Or perhaps you had better go in front. I am afraid it is right at the +top of the house. We will go up by the front staircase, as it is +wider." + +He held the door open for them, and they passed out into the hall and +began the ascent. The elaborate character of the frame had made the +picture extremely bulky, and now and then, in spite of the obsequious +protests of Mr. Hubbard, who had the true tradesman's spirited dislike +of seeing a gentleman doing anything useful, Dorian put his hand to it +so as to help them. + +"Something of a load to carry, sir," gasped the little man when they +reached the top landing. And he wiped his shiny forehead. + +"I am afraid it is rather heavy," murmured Dorian as he unlocked the +door that opened into the room that was to keep for him the curious +secret of his life and hide his soul from the eyes of men. + +He had not entered the place for more than four years--not, indeed, +since he had used it first as a play-room when he was a child, and then +as a study when he grew somewhat older. It was a large, +well-proportioned room, which had been specially built by the last Lord +Kelso for the use of the little grandson whom, for his strange likeness +to his mother, and also for other reasons, he had always hated and +desired to keep at a distance. It appeared to Dorian to have but +little changed. There was the huge Italian _cassone_, with its +fantastically painted panels and its tarnished gilt mouldings, in which +he had so often hidden himself as a boy. There the satinwood book-case +filled with his dog-eared schoolbooks. On the wall behind it was +hanging the same ragged Flemish tapestry where a faded king and queen +were playing chess in a garden, while a company of hawkers rode by, +carrying hooded birds on their gauntleted wrists. How well he +remembered it all! Every moment of his lonely childhood came back to +him as he looked round. He recalled the stainless purity of his boyish +life, and it seemed horrible to him that it was here the fatal portrait +was to be hidden away. How little he had thought, in those dead days, +of all that was in store for him! + +But there was no other place in the house so secure from prying eyes as +this. He had the key, and no one else could enter it. Beneath its +purple pall, the face painted on the canvas could grow bestial, sodden, +and unclean. What did it matter? No one could see it. He himself +would not see it. Why should he watch the hideous corruption of his +soul? He kept his youth--that was enough. And, besides, might not +his nature grow finer, after all? There was no reason that the future +should be so full of shame. Some love might come across his life, and +purify him, and shield him from those sins that seemed to be already +stirring in spirit and in flesh--those curious unpictured sins whose +very mystery lent them their subtlety and their charm. Perhaps, some +day, the cruel look would have passed away from the scarlet sensitive +mouth, and he might show to the world Basil Hallward's masterpiece. + +No; that was impossible. Hour by hour, and week by week, the thing +upon the canvas was growing old. It might escape the hideousness of +sin, but the hideousness of age was in store for it. The cheeks would +become hollow or flaccid. Yellow crow's feet would creep round the +fading eyes and make them horrible. The hair would lose its +brightness, the mouth would gape or droop, would be foolish or gross, +as the mouths of old men are. There would be the wrinkled throat, the +cold, blue-veined hands, the twisted body, that he remembered in the +grandfather who had been so stern to him in his boyhood. The picture +had to be concealed. There was no help for it. + +"Bring it in, Mr. Hubbard, please," he said, wearily, turning round. +"I am sorry I kept you so long. I was thinking of something else." + +"Always glad to have a rest, Mr. Gray," answered the frame-maker, who +was still gasping for breath. "Where shall we put it, sir?" + +"Oh, anywhere. Here: this will do. I don't want to have it hung up. +Just lean it against the wall. Thanks." + +"Might one look at the work of art, sir?" + +Dorian started. "It would not interest you, Mr. Hubbard," he said, +keeping his eye on the man. He felt ready to leap upon him and fling +him to the ground if he dared to lift the gorgeous hanging that +concealed the secret of his life. "I shan't trouble you any more now. +I am much obliged for your kindness in coming round." + +"Not at all, not at all, Mr. Gray. Ever ready to do anything for you, +sir." And Mr. Hubbard tramped downstairs, followed by the assistant, +who glanced back at Dorian with a look of shy wonder in his rough +uncomely face. He had never seen any one so marvellous. + +When the sound of their footsteps had died away, Dorian locked the door +and put the key in his pocket. He felt safe now. No one would ever +look upon the horrible thing. No eye but his would ever see his shame. + +On reaching the library, he found that it was just after five o'clock +and that the tea had been already brought up. On a little table of +dark perfumed wood thickly incrusted with nacre, a present from Lady +Radley, his guardian's wife, a pretty professional invalid who had +spent the preceding winter in Cairo, was lying a note from Lord Henry, +and beside it was a book bound in yellow paper, the cover slightly torn +and the edges soiled. A copy of the third edition of _The St. James's +Gazette_ had been placed on the tea-tray. It was evident that Victor had +returned. He wondered if he had met the men in the hall as they were +leaving the house and had wormed out of them what they had been doing. +He would be sure to miss the picture--had no doubt missed it already, +while he had been laying the tea-things. The screen had not been set +back, and a blank space was visible on the wall. Perhaps some night he +might find him creeping upstairs and trying to force the door of the +room. It was a horrible thing to have a spy in one's house. He had +heard of rich men who had been blackmailed all their lives by some +servant who had read a letter, or overheard a conversation, or picked +up a card with an address, or found beneath a pillow a withered flower +or a shred of crumpled lace. + +He sighed, and having poured himself out some tea, opened Lord Henry's +note. It was simply to say that he sent him round the evening paper, +and a book that might interest him, and that he would be at the club at +eight-fifteen. He opened _The St. James's_ languidly, and looked through +it. A red pencil-mark on the fifth page caught his eye. It drew +attention to the following paragraph: + + +INQUEST ON AN ACTRESS.--An inquest was held this morning at the Bell +Tavern, Hoxton Road, by Mr. Danby, the District Coroner, on the body of +Sibyl Vane, a young actress recently engaged at the Royal Theatre, +Holborn. A verdict of death by misadventure was returned. +Considerable sympathy was expressed for the mother of the deceased, who +was greatly affected during the giving of her own evidence, and that of +Dr. Birrell, who had made the post-mortem examination of the deceased. + + +He frowned, and tearing the paper in two, went across the room and +flung the pieces away. How ugly it all was! And how horribly real +ugliness made things! He felt a little annoyed with Lord Henry for +having sent him the report. And it was certainly stupid of him to have +marked it with red pencil. Victor might have read it. The man knew +more than enough English for that. + +Perhaps he had read it and had begun to suspect something. And, yet, +what did it matter? What had Dorian Gray to do with Sibyl Vane's +death? There was nothing to fear. Dorian Gray had not killed her. + +His eye fell on the yellow book that Lord Henry had sent him. What was +it, he wondered. He went towards the little, pearl-coloured octagonal +stand that had always looked to him like the work of some strange +Egyptian bees that wrought in silver, and taking up the volume, flung +himself into an arm-chair and began to turn over the leaves. After a +few minutes he became absorbed. It was the strangest book that he had +ever read. It seemed to him that in exquisite raiment, and to the +delicate sound of flutes, the sins of the world were passing in dumb +show before him. Things that he had dimly dreamed of were suddenly +made real to him. Things of which he had never dreamed were gradually +revealed. + +It was a novel without a plot and with only one character, being, +indeed, simply a psychological study of a certain young Parisian who +spent his life trying to realize in the nineteenth century all the +passions and modes of thought that belonged to every century except his +own, and to sum up, as it were, in himself the various moods through +which the world-spirit had ever passed, loving for their mere +artificiality those renunciations that men have unwisely called virtue, +as much as those natural rebellions that wise men still call sin. The +style in which it was written was that curious jewelled style, vivid +and obscure at once, full of _argot_ and of archaisms, of technical +expressions and of elaborate paraphrases, that characterizes the work +of some of the finest artists of the French school of _Symbolistes_. +There were in it metaphors as monstrous as orchids and as subtle in +colour. The life of the senses was described in the terms of mystical +philosophy. One hardly knew at times whether one was reading the +spiritual ecstasies of some mediaeval saint or the morbid confessions +of a modern sinner. It was a poisonous book. The heavy odour of +incense seemed to cling about its pages and to trouble the brain. The +mere cadence of the sentences, the subtle monotony of their music, so +full as it was of complex refrains and movements elaborately repeated, +produced in the mind of the lad, as he passed from chapter to chapter, +a form of reverie, a malady of dreaming, that made him unconscious of +the falling day and creeping shadows. + +Cloudless, and pierced by one solitary star, a copper-green sky gleamed +through the windows. He read on by its wan light till he could read no +more. Then, after his valet had reminded him several times of the +lateness of the hour, he got up, and going into the next room, placed +the book on the little Florentine table that always stood at his +bedside and began to dress for dinner. + +It was almost nine o'clock before he reached the club, where he found +Lord Henry sitting alone, in the morning-room, looking very much bored. + +"I am so sorry, Harry," he cried, "but really it is entirely your +fault. That book you sent me so fascinated me that I forgot how the +time was going." + +"Yes, I thought you would like it," replied his host, rising from his +chair. + +"I didn't say I liked it, Harry. I said it fascinated me. There is a +great difference." + +"Ah, you have discovered that?" murmured Lord Henry. And they passed +into the dining-room. + + + +CHAPTER 11 + +For years, Dorian Gray could not free himself from the influence of +this book. Or perhaps it would be more accurate to say that he never +sought to free himself from it. He procured from Paris no less than +nine large-paper copies of the first edition, and had them bound in +different colours, so that they might suit his various moods and the +changing fancies of a nature over which he seemed, at times, to have +almost entirely lost control. The hero, the wonderful young Parisian +in whom the romantic and the scientific temperaments were so strangely +blended, became to him a kind of prefiguring type of himself. And, +indeed, the whole book seemed to him to contain the story of his own +life, written before he had lived it. + +In one point he was more fortunate than the novel's fantastic hero. He +never knew--never, indeed, had any cause to know--that somewhat +grotesque dread of mirrors, and polished metal surfaces, and still +water which came upon the young Parisian so early in his life, and was +occasioned by the sudden decay of a beau that had once, apparently, +been so remarkable. It was with an almost cruel joy--and perhaps in +nearly every joy, as certainly in every pleasure, cruelty has its +place--that he used to read the latter part of the book, with its +really tragic, if somewhat overemphasized, account of the sorrow and +despair of one who had himself lost what in others, and the world, he +had most dearly valued. + +For the wonderful beauty that had so fascinated Basil Hallward, and +many others besides him, seemed never to leave him. Even those who had +heard the most evil things against him--and from time to time strange +rumours about his mode of life crept through London and became the +chatter of the clubs--could not believe anything to his dishonour when +they saw him. He had always the look of one who had kept himself +unspotted from the world. Men who talked grossly became silent when +Dorian Gray entered the room. There was something in the purity of his +face that rebuked them. His mere presence seemed to recall to them the +memory of the innocence that they had tarnished. They wondered how one +so charming and graceful as he was could have escaped the stain of an +age that was at once sordid and sensual. + +Often, on returning home from one of those mysterious and prolonged +absences that gave rise to such strange conjecture among those who were +his friends, or thought that they were so, he himself would creep +upstairs to the locked room, open the door with the key that never left +him now, and stand, with a mirror, in front of the portrait that Basil +Hallward had painted of him, looking now at the evil and aging face on +the canvas, and now at the fair young face that laughed back at him +from the polished glass. The very sharpness of the contrast used to +quicken his sense of pleasure. He grew more and more enamoured of his +own beauty, more and more interested in the corruption of his own soul. +He would examine with minute care, and sometimes with a monstrous and +terrible delight, the hideous lines that seared the wrinkling forehead +or crawled around the heavy sensual mouth, wondering sometimes which +were the more horrible, the signs of sin or the signs of age. He would +place his white hands beside the coarse bloated hands of the picture, +and smile. He mocked the misshapen body and the failing limbs. + +There were moments, indeed, at night, when, lying sleepless in his own +delicately scented chamber, or in the sordid room of the little +ill-famed tavern near the docks which, under an assumed name and in +disguise, it was his habit to frequent, he would think of the ruin he +had brought upon his soul with a pity that was all the more poignant +because it was purely selfish. But moments such as these were rare. +That curiosity about life which Lord Henry had first stirred in him, as +they sat together in the garden of their friend, seemed to increase +with gratification. The more he knew, the more he desired to know. He +had mad hungers that grew more ravenous as he fed them. + +Yet he was not really reckless, at any rate in his relations to +society. Once or twice every month during the winter, and on each +Wednesday evening while the season lasted, he would throw open to the +world his beautiful house and have the most celebrated musicians of the +day to charm his guests with the wonders of their art. His little +dinners, in the settling of which Lord Henry always assisted him, were +noted as much for the careful selection and placing of those invited, +as for the exquisite taste shown in the decoration of the table, with +its subtle symphonic arrangements of exotic flowers, and embroidered +cloths, and antique plate of gold and silver. Indeed, there were many, +especially among the very young men, who saw, or fancied that they saw, +in Dorian Gray the true realization of a type of which they had often +dreamed in Eton or Oxford days, a type that was to combine something of +the real culture of the scholar with all the grace and distinction and +perfect manner of a citizen of the world. To them he seemed to be of +the company of those whom Dante describes as having sought to "make +themselves perfect by the worship of beauty." Like Gautier, he was one +for whom "the visible world existed." + +And, certainly, to him life itself was the first, the greatest, of the +arts, and for it all the other arts seemed to be but a preparation. +Fashion, by which what is really fantastic becomes for a moment +universal, and dandyism, which, in its own way, is an attempt to assert +the absolute modernity of beauty, had, of course, their fascination for +him. His mode of dressing, and the particular styles that from time to +time he affected, had their marked influence on the young exquisites of +the Mayfair balls and Pall Mall club windows, who copied him in +everything that he did, and tried to reproduce the accidental charm of +his graceful, though to him only half-serious, fopperies. + +For, while he was but too ready to accept the position that was almost +immediately offered to him on his coming of age, and found, indeed, a +subtle pleasure in the thought that he might really become to the +London of his own day what to imperial Neronian Rome the author of the +Satyricon once had been, yet in his inmost heart he desired to be +something more than a mere _arbiter elegantiarum_, to be consulted on the +wearing of a jewel, or the knotting of a necktie, or the conduct of a +cane. He sought to elaborate some new scheme of life that would have +its reasoned philosophy and its ordered principles, and find in the +spiritualizing of the senses its highest realization. + +The worship of the senses has often, and with much justice, been +decried, men feeling a natural instinct of terror about passions and +sensations that seem stronger than themselves, and that they are +conscious of sharing with the less highly organized forms of existence. +But it appeared to Dorian Gray that the true nature of the senses had +never been understood, and that they had remained savage and animal +merely because the world had sought to starve them into submission or +to kill them by pain, instead of aiming at making them elements of a +new spirituality, of which a fine instinct for beauty was to be the +dominant characteristic. As he looked back upon man moving through +history, he was haunted by a feeling of loss. So much had been +surrendered! and to such little purpose! There had been mad wilful +rejections, monstrous forms of self-torture and self-denial, whose +origin was fear and whose result was a degradation infinitely more +terrible than that fancied degradation from which, in their ignorance, +they had sought to escape; Nature, in her wonderful irony, driving out +the anchorite to feed with the wild animals of the desert and giving to +the hermit the beasts of the field as his companions. + +Yes: there was to be, as Lord Henry had prophesied, a new Hedonism +that was to recreate life and to save it from that harsh uncomely +puritanism that is having, in our own day, its curious revival. It was +to have its service of the intellect, certainly, yet it was never to +accept any theory or system that would involve the sacrifice of any +mode of passionate experience. Its aim, indeed, was to be experience +itself, and not the fruits of experience, sweet or bitter as they might +be. Of the asceticism that deadens the senses, as of the vulgar +profligacy that dulls them, it was to know nothing. But it was to +teach man to concentrate himself upon the moments of a life that is +itself but a moment. + +There are few of us who have not sometimes wakened before dawn, either +after one of those dreamless nights that make us almost enamoured of +death, or one of those nights of horror and misshapen joy, when through +the chambers of the brain sweep phantoms more terrible than reality +itself, and instinct with that vivid life that lurks in all grotesques, +and that lends to Gothic art its enduring vitality, this art being, one +might fancy, especially the art of those whose minds have been troubled +with the malady of reverie. Gradually white fingers creep through the +curtains, and they appear to tremble. In black fantastic shapes, dumb +shadows crawl into the corners of the room and crouch there. Outside, +there is the stirring of birds among the leaves, or the sound of men +going forth to their work, or the sigh and sob of the wind coming down +from the hills and wandering round the silent house, as though it +feared to wake the sleepers and yet must needs call forth sleep from +her purple cave. Veil after veil of thin dusky gauze is lifted, and by +degrees the forms and colours of things are restored to them, and we +watch the dawn remaking the world in its antique pattern. The wan +mirrors get back their mimic life. The flameless tapers stand where we +had left them, and beside them lies the half-cut book that we had been +studying, or the wired flower that we had worn at the ball, or the +letter that we had been afraid to read, or that we had read too often. +Nothing seems to us changed. Out of the unreal shadows of the night +comes back the real life that we had known. We have to resume it where +we had left off, and there steals over us a terrible sense of the +necessity for the continuance of energy in the same wearisome round of +stereotyped habits, or a wild longing, it may be, that our eyelids +might open some morning upon a world that had been refashioned anew in +the darkness for our pleasure, a world in which things would have fresh +shapes and colours, and be changed, or have other secrets, a world in +which the past would have little or no place, or survive, at any rate, +in no conscious form of obligation or regret, the remembrance even of +joy having its bitterness and the memories of pleasure their pain. + +It was the creation of such worlds as these that seemed to Dorian Gray +to be the true object, or amongst the true objects, of life; and in his +search for sensations that would be at once new and delightful, and +possess that element of strangeness that is so essential to romance, he +would often adopt certain modes of thought that he knew to be really +alien to his nature, abandon himself to their subtle influences, and +then, having, as it were, caught their colour and satisfied his +intellectual curiosity, leave them with that curious indifference that +is not incompatible with a real ardour of temperament, and that, +indeed, according to certain modern psychologists, is often a condition +of it. + +It was rumoured of him once that he was about to join the Roman +Catholic communion, and certainly the Roman ritual had always a great +attraction for him. The daily sacrifice, more awful really than all +the sacrifices of the antique world, stirred him as much by its superb +rejection of the evidence of the senses as by the primitive simplicity +of its elements and the eternal pathos of the human tragedy that it +sought to symbolize. He loved to kneel down on the cold marble +pavement and watch the priest, in his stiff flowered dalmatic, slowly +and with white hands moving aside the veil of the tabernacle, or +raising aloft the jewelled, lantern-shaped monstrance with that pallid +wafer that at times, one would fain think, is indeed the "_panis +caelestis_," the bread of angels, or, robed in the garments of the +Passion of Christ, breaking the Host into the chalice and smiting his +breast for his sins. The fuming censers that the grave boys, in their +lace and scarlet, tossed into the air like great gilt flowers had their +subtle fascination for him. As he passed out, he used to look with +wonder at the black confessionals and long to sit in the dim shadow of +one of them and listen to men and women whispering through the worn +grating the true story of their lives. + +But he never fell into the error of arresting his intellectual +development by any formal acceptance of creed or system, or of +mistaking, for a house in which to live, an inn that is but suitable +for the sojourn of a night, or for a few hours of a night in which +there are no stars and the moon is in travail. Mysticism, with its +marvellous power of making common things strange to us, and the subtle +antinomianism that always seems to accompany it, moved him for a +season; and for a season he inclined to the materialistic doctrines of +the _Darwinismus_ movement in Germany, and found a curious pleasure in +tracing the thoughts and passions of men to some pearly cell in the +brain, or some white nerve in the body, delighting in the conception of +the absolute dependence of the spirit on certain physical conditions, +morbid or healthy, normal or diseased. Yet, as has been said of him +before, no theory of life seemed to him to be of any importance +compared with life itself. He felt keenly conscious of how barren all +intellectual speculation is when separated from action and experiment. +He knew that the senses, no less than the soul, have their spiritual +mysteries to reveal. + +And so he would now study perfumes and the secrets of their +manufacture, distilling heavily scented oils and burning odorous gums +from the East. He saw that there was no mood of the mind that had not +its counterpart in the sensuous life, and set himself to discover their +true relations, wondering what there was in frankincense that made one +mystical, and in ambergris that stirred one's passions, and in violets +that woke the memory of dead romances, and in musk that troubled the +brain, and in champak that stained the imagination; and seeking often +to elaborate a real psychology of perfumes, and to estimate the several +influences of sweet-smelling roots and scented, pollen-laden flowers; +of aromatic balms and of dark and fragrant woods; of spikenard, that +sickens; of hovenia, that makes men mad; and of aloes, that are said to +be able to expel melancholy from the soul. + +At another time he devoted himself entirely to music, and in a long +latticed room, with a vermilion-and-gold ceiling and walls of +olive-green lacquer, he used to give curious concerts in which mad +gipsies tore wild music from little zithers, or grave, yellow-shawled +Tunisians plucked at the strained strings of monstrous lutes, while +grinning Negroes beat monotonously upon copper drums and, crouching +upon scarlet mats, slim turbaned Indians blew through long pipes of +reed or brass and charmed--or feigned to charm--great hooded snakes and +horrible horned adders. The harsh intervals and shrill discords of +barbaric music stirred him at times when Schubert's grace, and Chopin's +beautiful sorrows, and the mighty harmonies of Beethoven himself, fell +unheeded on his ear. He collected together from all parts of the world +the strangest instruments that could be found, either in the tombs of +dead nations or among the few savage tribes that have survived contact +with Western civilizations, and loved to touch and try them. He had +the mysterious _juruparis_ of the Rio Negro Indians, that women are not +allowed to look at and that even youths may not see till they have been +subjected to fasting and scourging, and the earthen jars of the +Peruvians that have the shrill cries of birds, and flutes of human +bones such as Alfonso de Ovalle heard in Chile, and the sonorous green +jaspers that are found near Cuzco and give forth a note of singular +sweetness. He had painted gourds filled with pebbles that rattled when +they were shaken; the long _clarin_ of the Mexicans, into which the +performer does not blow, but through which he inhales the air; the +harsh _ture_ of the Amazon tribes, that is sounded by the sentinels who +sit all day long in high trees, and can be heard, it is said, at a +distance of three leagues; the _teponaztli_, that has two vibrating +tongues of wood and is beaten with sticks that are smeared with an +elastic gum obtained from the milky juice of plants; the _yotl_-bells of +the Aztecs, that are hung in clusters like grapes; and a huge +cylindrical drum, covered with the skins of great serpents, like the +one that Bernal Diaz saw when he went with Cortes into the Mexican +temple, and of whose doleful sound he has left us so vivid a +description. The fantastic character of these instruments fascinated +him, and he felt a curious delight in the thought that art, like +Nature, has her monsters, things of bestial shape and with hideous +voices. Yet, after some time, he wearied of them, and would sit in his +box at the opera, either alone or with Lord Henry, listening in rapt +pleasure to "Tannhauser" and seeing in the prelude to that great work +of art a presentation of the tragedy of his own soul. + +On one occasion he took up the study of jewels, and appeared at a +costume ball as Anne de Joyeuse, Admiral of France, in a dress covered +with five hundred and sixty pearls. This taste enthralled him for +years, and, indeed, may be said never to have left him. He would often +spend a whole day settling and resettling in their cases the various +stones that he had collected, such as the olive-green chrysoberyl that +turns red by lamplight, the cymophane with its wirelike line of silver, +the pistachio-coloured peridot, rose-pink and wine-yellow topazes, +carbuncles of fiery scarlet with tremulous, four-rayed stars, flame-red +cinnamon-stones, orange and violet spinels, and amethysts with their +alternate layers of ruby and sapphire. He loved the red gold of the +sunstone, and the moonstone's pearly whiteness, and the broken rainbow +of the milky opal. He procured from Amsterdam three emeralds of +extraordinary size and richness of colour, and had a turquoise _de la +vieille roche_ that was the envy of all the connoisseurs. + +He discovered wonderful stories, also, about jewels. In Alphonso's +Clericalis Disciplina a serpent was mentioned with eyes of real +jacinth, and in the romantic history of Alexander, the Conqueror of +Emathia was said to have found in the vale of Jordan snakes "with +collars of real emeralds growing on their backs." There was a gem in +the brain of the dragon, Philostratus told us, and "by the exhibition +of golden letters and a scarlet robe" the monster could be thrown into +a magical sleep and slain. According to the great alchemist, Pierre de +Boniface, the diamond rendered a man invisible, and the agate of India +made him eloquent. The cornelian appeased anger, and the hyacinth +provoked sleep, and the amethyst drove away the fumes of wine. The +garnet cast out demons, and the hydropicus deprived the moon of her +colour. The selenite waxed and waned with the moon, and the meloceus, +that discovers thieves, could be affected only by the blood of kids. +Leonardus Camillus had seen a white stone taken from the brain of a +newly killed toad, that was a certain antidote against poison. The +bezoar, that was found in the heart of the Arabian deer, was a charm +that could cure the plague. In the nests of Arabian birds was the +aspilates, that, according to Democritus, kept the wearer from any +danger by fire. + +The King of Ceilan rode through his city with a large ruby in his hand, +as the ceremony of his coronation. The gates of the palace of John the +Priest were "made of sardius, with the horn of the horned snake +inwrought, so that no man might bring poison within." Over the gable +were "two golden apples, in which were two carbuncles," so that the +gold might shine by day and the carbuncles by night. In Lodge's +strange romance 'A Margarite of America', it was stated that in the +chamber of the queen one could behold "all the chaste ladies of the +world, inchased out of silver, looking through fair mirrours of +chrysolites, carbuncles, sapphires, and greene emeraults." Marco Polo +had seen the inhabitants of Zipangu place rose-coloured pearls in the +mouths of the dead. A sea-monster had been enamoured of the pearl that +the diver brought to King Perozes, and had slain the thief, and mourned +for seven moons over its loss. When the Huns lured the king into the +great pit, he flung it away--Procopius tells the story--nor was it ever +found again, though the Emperor Anastasius offered five hundred-weight +of gold pieces for it. The King of Malabar had shown to a certain +Venetian a rosary of three hundred and four pearls, one for every god +that he worshipped. + +When the Duke de Valentinois, son of Alexander VI, visited Louis XII of +France, his horse was loaded with gold leaves, according to Brantome, +and his cap had double rows of rubies that threw out a great light. +Charles of England had ridden in stirrups hung with four hundred and +twenty-one diamonds. Richard II had a coat, valued at thirty thousand +marks, which was covered with balas rubies. Hall described Henry VIII, +on his way to the Tower previous to his coronation, as wearing "a +jacket of raised gold, the placard embroidered with diamonds and other +rich stones, and a great bauderike about his neck of large balasses." +The favourites of James I wore ear-rings of emeralds set in gold +filigrane. Edward II gave to Piers Gaveston a suit of red-gold armour +studded with jacinths, a collar of gold roses set with +turquoise-stones, and a skull-cap _parseme_ with pearls. Henry II wore +jewelled gloves reaching to the elbow, and had a hawk-glove sewn with +twelve rubies and fifty-two great orients. The ducal hat of Charles +the Rash, the last Duke of Burgundy of his race, was hung with +pear-shaped pearls and studded with sapphires. + +How exquisite life had once been! How gorgeous in its pomp and +decoration! Even to read of the luxury of the dead was wonderful. + +Then he turned his attention to embroideries and to the tapestries that +performed the office of frescoes in the chill rooms of the northern +nations of Europe. As he investigated the subject--and he always had +an extraordinary faculty of becoming absolutely absorbed for the moment +in whatever he took up--he was almost saddened by the reflection of the +ruin that time brought on beautiful and wonderful things. He, at any +rate, had escaped that. Summer followed summer, and the yellow +jonquils bloomed and died many times, and nights of horror repeated the +story of their shame, but he was unchanged. No winter marred his face +or stained his flowerlike bloom. How different it was with material +things! Where had they passed to? Where was the great crocus-coloured +robe, on which the gods fought against the giants, that had been worked +by brown girls for the pleasure of Athena? Where the huge velarium +that Nero had stretched across the Colosseum at Rome, that Titan sail +of purple on which was represented the starry sky, and Apollo driving a +chariot drawn by white, gilt-reined steeds? He longed to see the +curious table-napkins wrought for the Priest of the Sun, on which were +displayed all the dainties and viands that could be wanted for a feast; +the mortuary cloth of King Chilperic, with its three hundred golden +bees; the fantastic robes that excited the indignation of the Bishop of +Pontus and were figured with "lions, panthers, bears, dogs, forests, +rocks, hunters--all, in fact, that a painter can copy from nature"; and +the coat that Charles of Orleans once wore, on the sleeves of which +were embroidered the verses of a song beginning "_Madame, je suis tout +joyeux_," the musical accompaniment of the words being wrought in gold +thread, and each note, of square shape in those days, formed with four +pearls. He read of the room that was prepared at the palace at Rheims +for the use of Queen Joan of Burgundy and was decorated with "thirteen +hundred and twenty-one parrots, made in broidery, and blazoned with the +king's arms, and five hundred and sixty-one butterflies, whose wings +were similarly ornamented with the arms of the queen, the whole worked +in gold." Catherine de Medicis had a mourning-bed made for her of +black velvet powdered with crescents and suns. Its curtains were of +damask, with leafy wreaths and garlands, figured upon a gold and silver +ground, and fringed along the edges with broideries of pearls, and it +stood in a room hung with rows of the queen's devices in cut black +velvet upon cloth of silver. Louis XIV had gold embroidered caryatides +fifteen feet high in his apartment. The state bed of Sobieski, King of +Poland, was made of Smyrna gold brocade embroidered in turquoises with +verses from the Koran. Its supports were of silver gilt, beautifully +chased, and profusely set with enamelled and jewelled medallions. It +had been taken from the Turkish camp before Vienna, and the standard of +Mohammed had stood beneath the tremulous gilt of its canopy. + +And so, for a whole year, he sought to accumulate the most exquisite +specimens that he could find of textile and embroidered work, getting +the dainty Delhi muslins, finely wrought with gold-thread palmates and +stitched over with iridescent beetles' wings; the Dacca gauzes, that +from their transparency are known in the East as "woven air," and +"running water," and "evening dew"; strange figured cloths from Java; +elaborate yellow Chinese hangings; books bound in tawny satins or fair +blue silks and wrought with _fleurs-de-lis_, birds and images; veils of +_lacis_ worked in Hungary point; Sicilian brocades and stiff Spanish +velvets; Georgian work, with its gilt coins, and Japanese _Foukousas_, +with their green-toned golds and their marvellously plumaged birds. + +He had a special passion, also, for ecclesiastical vestments, as indeed +he had for everything connected with the service of the Church. In the +long cedar chests that lined the west gallery of his house, he had +stored away many rare and beautiful specimens of what is really the +raiment of the Bride of Christ, who must wear purple and jewels and +fine linen that she may hide the pallid macerated body that is worn by +the suffering that she seeks for and wounded by self-inflicted pain. +He possessed a gorgeous cope of crimson silk and gold-thread damask, +figured with a repeating pattern of golden pomegranates set in +six-petalled formal blossoms, beyond which on either side was the +pine-apple device wrought in seed-pearls. The orphreys were divided +into panels representing scenes from the life of the Virgin, and the +coronation of the Virgin was figured in coloured silks upon the hood. +This was Italian work of the fifteenth century. Another cope was of +green velvet, embroidered with heart-shaped groups of acanthus-leaves, +from which spread long-stemmed white blossoms, the details of which +were picked out with silver thread and coloured crystals. The morse +bore a seraph's head in gold-thread raised work. The orphreys were +woven in a diaper of red and gold silk, and were starred with +medallions of many saints and martyrs, among whom was St. Sebastian. +He had chasubles, also, of amber-coloured silk, and blue silk and gold +brocade, and yellow silk damask and cloth of gold, figured with +representations of the Passion and Crucifixion of Christ, and +embroidered with lions and peacocks and other emblems; dalmatics of +white satin and pink silk damask, decorated with tulips and dolphins +and _fleurs-de-lis_; altar frontals of crimson velvet and blue linen; and +many corporals, chalice-veils, and sudaria. In the mystic offices to +which such things were put, there was something that quickened his +imagination. + +For these treasures, and everything that he collected in his lovely +house, were to be to him means of forgetfulness, modes by which he +could escape, for a season, from the fear that seemed to him at times +to be almost too great to be borne. Upon the walls of the lonely +locked room where he had spent so much of his boyhood, he had hung with +his own hands the terrible portrait whose changing features showed him +the real degradation of his life, and in front of it had draped the +purple-and-gold pall as a curtain. For weeks he would not go there, +would forget the hideous painted thing, and get back his light heart, +his wonderful joyousness, his passionate absorption in mere existence. +Then, suddenly, some night he would creep out of the house, go down to +dreadful places near Blue Gate Fields, and stay there, day after day, +until he was driven away. On his return he would sit in front of the +picture, sometimes loathing it and himself, but filled, at other +times, with that pride of individualism that is half the +fascination of sin, and smiling with secret pleasure at the misshapen +shadow that had to bear the burden that should have been his own. + +After a few years he could not endure to be long out of England, and +gave up the villa that he had shared at Trouville with Lord Henry, as +well as the little white walled-in house at Algiers where they had more +than once spent the winter. He hated to be separated from the picture +that was such a part of his life, and was also afraid that during his +absence some one might gain access to the room, in spite of the +elaborate bars that he had caused to be placed upon the door. + +He was quite conscious that this would tell them nothing. It was true +that the portrait still preserved, under all the foulness and ugliness +of the face, its marked likeness to himself; but what could they learn +from that? He would laugh at any one who tried to taunt him. He had +not painted it. What was it to him how vile and full of shame it +looked? Even if he told them, would they believe it? + +Yet he was afraid. Sometimes when he was down at his great house in +Nottinghamshire, entertaining the fashionable young men of his own rank +who were his chief companions, and astounding the county by the wanton +luxury and gorgeous splendour of his mode of life, he would suddenly +leave his guests and rush back to town to see that the door had not +been tampered with and that the picture was still there. What if it +should be stolen? The mere thought made him cold with horror. Surely +the world would know his secret then. Perhaps the world already +suspected it. + +For, while he fascinated many, there were not a few who distrusted him. +He was very nearly blackballed at a West End club of which his birth +and social position fully entitled him to become a member, and it was +said that on one occasion, when he was brought by a friend into the +smoking-room of the Churchill, the Duke of Berwick and another +gentleman got up in a marked manner and went out. Curious stories +became current about him after he had passed his twenty-fifth year. It +was rumoured that he had been seen brawling with foreign sailors in a +low den in the distant parts of Whitechapel, and that he consorted with +thieves and coiners and knew the mysteries of their trade. His +extraordinary absences became notorious, and, when he used to reappear +again in society, men would whisper to each other in corners, or pass +him with a sneer, or look at him with cold searching eyes, as though +they were determined to discover his secret. + +Of such insolences and attempted slights he, of course, took no notice, +and in the opinion of most people his frank debonair manner, his +charming boyish smile, and the infinite grace of that wonderful youth +that seemed never to leave him, were in themselves a sufficient answer +to the calumnies, for so they termed them, that were circulated about +him. It was remarked, however, that some of those who had been most +intimate with him appeared, after a time, to shun him. Women who had +wildly adored him, and for his sake had braved all social censure and +set convention at defiance, were seen to grow pallid with shame or +horror if Dorian Gray entered the room. + +Yet these whispered scandals only increased in the eyes of many his +strange and dangerous charm. His great wealth was a certain element of +security. Society--civilized society, at least--is never very ready to +believe anything to the detriment of those who are both rich and +fascinating. It feels instinctively that manners are of more +importance than morals, and, in its opinion, the highest respectability +is of much less value than the possession of a good _chef_. And, after +all, it is a very poor consolation to be told that the man who has +given one a bad dinner, or poor wine, is irreproachable in his private +life. Even the cardinal virtues cannot atone for half-cold _entrees_, as +Lord Henry remarked once, in a discussion on the subject, and there is +possibly a good deal to be said for his view. For the canons of good +society are, or should be, the same as the canons of art. Form is +absolutely essential to it. It should have the dignity of a ceremony, +as well as its unreality, and should combine the insincere character of +a romantic play with the wit and beauty that make such plays delightful +to us. Is insincerity such a terrible thing? I think not. It is +merely a method by which we can multiply our personalities. + +Such, at any rate, was Dorian Gray's opinion. He used to wonder at the +shallow psychology of those who conceive the ego in man as a thing +simple, permanent, reliable, and of one essence. To him, man was a +being with myriad lives and myriad sensations, a complex multiform +creature that bore within itself strange legacies of thought and +passion, and whose very flesh was tainted with the monstrous maladies +of the dead. He loved to stroll through the gaunt cold picture-gallery +of his country house and look at the various portraits of those whose +blood flowed in his veins. Here was Philip Herbert, described by +Francis Osborne, in his Memoires on the Reigns of Queen Elizabeth and +King James, as one who was "caressed by the Court for his handsome +face, which kept him not long company." Was it young Herbert's life +that he sometimes led? Had some strange poisonous germ crept from body +to body till it had reached his own? Was it some dim sense of that +ruined grace that had made him so suddenly, and almost without cause, +give utterance, in Basil Hallward's studio, to the mad prayer that had +so changed his life? Here, in gold-embroidered red doublet, jewelled +surcoat, and gilt-edged ruff and wristbands, stood Sir Anthony Sherard, +with his silver-and-black armour piled at his feet. What had this +man's legacy been? Had the lover of Giovanna of Naples bequeathed him +some inheritance of sin and shame? Were his own actions merely the +dreams that the dead man had not dared to realize? Here, from the +fading canvas, smiled Lady Elizabeth Devereux, in her gauze hood, pearl +stomacher, and pink slashed sleeves. A flower was in her right hand, +and her left clasped an enamelled collar of white and damask roses. On +a table by her side lay a mandolin and an apple. There were large +green rosettes upon her little pointed shoes. He knew her life, and +the strange stories that were told about her lovers. Had he something +of her temperament in him? These oval, heavy-lidded eyes seemed to +look curiously at him. What of George Willoughby, with his powdered +hair and fantastic patches? How evil he looked! The face was +saturnine and swarthy, and the sensual lips seemed to be twisted with +disdain. Delicate lace ruffles fell over the lean yellow hands that +were so overladen with rings. He had been a macaroni of the eighteenth +century, and the friend, in his youth, of Lord Ferrars. What of the +second Lord Beckenham, the companion of the Prince Regent in his +wildest days, and one of the witnesses at the secret marriage with Mrs. +Fitzherbert? How proud and handsome he was, with his chestnut curls +and insolent pose! What passions had he bequeathed? The world had +looked upon him as infamous. He had led the orgies at Carlton House. +The star of the Garter glittered upon his breast. Beside him hung the +portrait of his wife, a pallid, thin-lipped woman in black. Her blood, +also, stirred within him. How curious it all seemed! And his mother +with her Lady Hamilton face and her moist, wine-dashed lips--he knew +what he had got from her. He had got from her his beauty, and his +passion for the beauty of others. She laughed at him in her loose +Bacchante dress. There were vine leaves in her hair. The purple +spilled from the cup she was holding. The carnations of the painting +had withered, but the eyes were still wonderful in their depth and +brilliancy of colour. They seemed to follow him wherever he went. + +Yet one had ancestors in literature as well as in one's own race, +nearer perhaps in type and temperament, many of them, and certainly +with an influence of which one was more absolutely conscious. There +were times when it appeared to Dorian Gray that the whole of history +was merely the record of his own life, not as he had lived it in act +and circumstance, but as his imagination had created it for him, as it +had been in his brain and in his passions. He felt that he had known +them all, those strange terrible figures that had passed across the +stage of the world and made sin so marvellous and evil so full of +subtlety. It seemed to him that in some mysterious way their lives had +been his own. + +The hero of the wonderful novel that had so influenced his life had +himself known this curious fancy. In the seventh chapter he tells how, +crowned with laurel, lest lightning might strike him, he had sat, as +Tiberius, in a garden at Capri, reading the shameful books of +Elephantis, while dwarfs and peacocks strutted round him and the +flute-player mocked the swinger of the censer; and, as Caligula, had +caroused with the green-shirted jockeys in their stables and supped in +an ivory manger with a jewel-frontleted horse; and, as Domitian, had +wandered through a corridor lined with marble mirrors, looking round +with haggard eyes for the reflection of the dagger that was to end his +days, and sick with that ennui, that terrible _taedium vitae_, that comes +on those to whom life denies nothing; and had peered through a clear +emerald at the red shambles of the circus and then, in a litter of +pearl and purple drawn by silver-shod mules, been carried through the +Street of Pomegranates to a House of Gold and heard men cry on Nero +Caesar as he passed by; and, as Elagabalus, had painted his face with +colours, and plied the distaff among the women, and brought the Moon +from Carthage and given her in mystic marriage to the Sun. + +Over and over again Dorian used to read this fantastic chapter, and the +two chapters immediately following, in which, as in some curious +tapestries or cunningly wrought enamels, were pictured the awful and +beautiful forms of those whom vice and blood and weariness had made +monstrous or mad: Filippo, Duke of Milan, who slew his wife and +painted her lips with a scarlet poison that her lover might suck death +from the dead thing he fondled; Pietro Barbi, the Venetian, known as +Paul the Second, who sought in his vanity to assume the title of +Formosus, and whose tiara, valued at two hundred thousand florins, was +bought at the price of a terrible sin; Gian Maria Visconti, who used +hounds to chase living men and whose murdered body was covered with +roses by a harlot who had loved him; the Borgia on his white horse, +with Fratricide riding beside him and his mantle stained with the blood +of Perotto; Pietro Riario, the young Cardinal Archbishop of Florence, +child and minion of Sixtus IV, whose beauty was equalled only by his +debauchery, and who received Leonora of Aragon in a pavilion of white +and crimson silk, filled with nymphs and centaurs, and gilded a boy +that he might serve at the feast as Ganymede or Hylas; Ezzelin, whose +melancholy could be cured only by the spectacle of death, and who had a +passion for red blood, as other men have for red wine--the son of the +Fiend, as was reported, and one who had cheated his father at dice when +gambling with him for his own soul; Giambattista Cibo, who in mockery +took the name of Innocent and into whose torpid veins the blood of +three lads was infused by a Jewish doctor; Sigismondo Malatesta, the +lover of Isotta and the lord of Rimini, whose effigy was burned at Rome +as the enemy of God and man, who strangled Polyssena with a napkin, and +gave poison to Ginevra d'Este in a cup of emerald, and in honour of a +shameful passion built a pagan church for Christian worship; Charles +VI, who had so wildly adored his brother's wife that a leper had warned +him of the insanity that was coming on him, and who, when his brain had +sickened and grown strange, could only be soothed by Saracen cards +painted with the images of love and death and madness; and, in his +trimmed jerkin and jewelled cap and acanthuslike curls, Grifonetto +Baglioni, who slew Astorre with his bride, and Simonetto with his page, +and whose comeliness was such that, as he lay dying in the yellow +piazza of Perugia, those who had hated him could not choose but weep, +and Atalanta, who had cursed him, blessed him. + +There was a horrible fascination in them all. He saw them at night, +and they troubled his imagination in the day. The Renaissance knew of +strange manners of poisoning--poisoning by a helmet and a lighted +torch, by an embroidered glove and a jewelled fan, by a gilded pomander +and by an amber chain. Dorian Gray had been poisoned by a book. There +were moments when he looked on evil simply as a mode through which he +could realize his conception of the beautiful. + + + +CHAPTER 12 + +It was on the ninth of November, the eve of his own thirty-eighth +birthday, as he often remembered afterwards. + +He was walking home about eleven o'clock from Lord Henry's, where he +had been dining, and was wrapped in heavy furs, as the night was cold +and foggy. At the corner of Grosvenor Square and South Audley Street, +a man passed him in the mist, walking very fast and with the collar of +his grey ulster turned up. He had a bag in his hand. Dorian +recognized him. It was Basil Hallward. A strange sense of fear, for +which he could not account, came over him. He made no sign of +recognition and went on quickly in the direction of his own house. + +But Hallward had seen him. Dorian heard him first stopping on the +pavement and then hurrying after him. In a few moments, his hand was +on his arm. + +"Dorian! What an extraordinary piece of luck! I have been waiting for +you in your library ever since nine o'clock. Finally I took pity on +your tired servant and told him to go to bed, as he let me out. I am +off to Paris by the midnight train, and I particularly wanted to see +you before I left. I thought it was you, or rather your fur coat, as +you passed me. But I wasn't quite sure. Didn't you recognize me?" + +"In this fog, my dear Basil? Why, I can't even recognize Grosvenor +Square. I believe my house is somewhere about here, but I don't feel +at all certain about it. I am sorry you are going away, as I have not +seen you for ages. But I suppose you will be back soon?" + +"No: I am going to be out of England for six months. I intend to take +a studio in Paris and shut myself up till I have finished a great +picture I have in my head. However, it wasn't about myself I wanted to +talk. Here we are at your door. Let me come in for a moment. I have +something to say to you." + +"I shall be charmed. But won't you miss your train?" said Dorian Gray +languidly as he passed up the steps and opened the door with his +latch-key. + +The lamplight struggled out through the fog, and Hallward looked at his +watch. "I have heaps of time," he answered. "The train doesn't go +till twelve-fifteen, and it is only just eleven. In fact, I was on my +way to the club to look for you, when I met you. You see, I shan't +have any delay about luggage, as I have sent on my heavy things. All I +have with me is in this bag, and I can easily get to Victoria in twenty +minutes." + +Dorian looked at him and smiled. "What a way for a fashionable painter +to travel! A Gladstone bag and an ulster! Come in, or the fog will +get into the house. And mind you don't talk about anything serious. +Nothing is serious nowadays. At least nothing should be." + +Hallward shook his head, as he entered, and followed Dorian into the +library. There was a bright wood fire blazing in the large open +hearth. The lamps were lit, and an open Dutch silver spirit-case +stood, with some siphons of soda-water and large cut-glass tumblers, on +a little marqueterie table. + +"You see your servant made me quite at home, Dorian. He gave me +everything I wanted, including your best gold-tipped cigarettes. He is +a most hospitable creature. I like him much better than the Frenchman +you used to have. What has become of the Frenchman, by the bye?" + +Dorian shrugged his shoulders. "I believe he married Lady Radley's +maid, and has established her in Paris as an English dressmaker. +Anglomania is very fashionable over there now, I hear. It seems silly +of the French, doesn't it? But--do you know?--he was not at all a bad +servant. I never liked him, but I had nothing to complain about. One +often imagines things that are quite absurd. He was really very +devoted to me and seemed quite sorry when he went away. Have another +brandy-and-soda? Or would you like hock-and-seltzer? I always take +hock-and-seltzer myself. There is sure to be some in the next room." + +"Thanks, I won't have anything more," said the painter, taking his cap +and coat off and throwing them on the bag that he had placed in the +corner. "And now, my dear fellow, I want to speak to you seriously. +Don't frown like that. You make it so much more difficult for me." + +"What is it all about?" cried Dorian in his petulant way, flinging +himself down on the sofa. "I hope it is not about myself. I am tired +of myself to-night. I should like to be somebody else." + +"It is about yourself," answered Hallward in his grave deep voice, "and +I must say it to you. I shall only keep you half an hour." + +Dorian sighed and lit a cigarette. "Half an hour!" he murmured. + +"It is not much to ask of you, Dorian, and it is entirely for your own +sake that I am speaking. I think it right that you should know that +the most dreadful things are being said against you in London." + +"I don't wish to know anything about them. I love scandals about other +people, but scandals about myself don't interest me. They have not got +the charm of novelty." + +"They must interest you, Dorian. Every gentleman is interested in his +good name. You don't want people to talk of you as something vile and +degraded. Of course, you have your position, and your wealth, and all +that kind of thing. But position and wealth are not everything. Mind +you, I don't believe these rumours at all. At least, I can't believe +them when I see you. Sin is a thing that writes itself across a man's +face. It cannot be concealed. People talk sometimes of secret vices. +There are no such things. If a wretched man has a vice, it shows +itself in the lines of his mouth, the droop of his eyelids, the +moulding of his hands even. Somebody--I won't mention his name, but +you know him--came to me last year to have his portrait done. I had +never seen him before, and had never heard anything about him at the +time, though I have heard a good deal since. He offered an extravagant +price. I refused him. There was something in the shape of his fingers +that I hated. I know now that I was quite right in what I fancied +about him. His life is dreadful. But you, Dorian, with your pure, +bright, innocent face, and your marvellous untroubled youth--I can't +believe anything against you. And yet I see you very seldom, and you +never come down to the studio now, and when I am away from you, and I +hear all these hideous things that people are whispering about you, I +don't know what to say. Why is it, Dorian, that a man like the Duke of +Berwick leaves the room of a club when you enter it? Why is it that so +many gentlemen in London will neither go to your house or invite you to +theirs? You used to be a friend of Lord Staveley. I met him at dinner +last week. Your name happened to come up in conversation, in +connection with the miniatures you have lent to the exhibition at the +Dudley. Staveley curled his lip and said that you might have the most +artistic tastes, but that you were a man whom no pure-minded girl +should be allowed to know, and whom no chaste woman should sit in the +same room with. I reminded him that I was a friend of yours, and asked +him what he meant. He told me. He told me right out before everybody. +It was horrible! Why is your friendship so fatal to young men? There +was that wretched boy in the Guards who committed suicide. You were +his great friend. There was Sir Henry Ashton, who had to leave England +with a tarnished name. You and he were inseparable. What about Adrian +Singleton and his dreadful end? What about Lord Kent's only son and +his career? I met his father yesterday in St. James's Street. He +seemed broken with shame and sorrow. What about the young Duke of +Perth? What sort of life has he got now? What gentleman would +associate with him?" + +"Stop, Basil. You are talking about things of which you know nothing," +said Dorian Gray, biting his lip, and with a note of infinite contempt +in his voice. "You ask me why Berwick leaves a room when I enter it. +It is because I know everything about his life, not because he knows +anything about mine. With such blood as he has in his veins, how could +his record be clean? You ask me about Henry Ashton and young Perth. +Did I teach the one his vices, and the other his debauchery? If Kent's +silly son takes his wife from the streets, what is that to me? If +Adrian Singleton writes his friend's name across a bill, am I his +keeper? I know how people chatter in England. The middle classes air +their moral prejudices over their gross dinner-tables, and whisper +about what they call the profligacies of their betters in order to try +and pretend that they are in smart society and on intimate terms with +the people they slander. In this country, it is enough for a man to +have distinction and brains for every common tongue to wag against him. +And what sort of lives do these people, who pose as being moral, lead +themselves? My dear fellow, you forget that we are in the native land +of the hypocrite." + +"Dorian," cried Hallward, "that is not the question. England is bad +enough I know, and English society is all wrong. That is the reason +why I want you to be fine. You have not been fine. One has a right to +judge of a man by the effect he has over his friends. Yours seem to +lose all sense of honour, of goodness, of purity. You have filled them +with a madness for pleasure. They have gone down into the depths. You +led them there. Yes: you led them there, and yet you can smile, as +you are smiling now. And there is worse behind. I know you and Harry +are inseparable. Surely for that reason, if for none other, you should +not have made his sister's name a by-word." + +"Take care, Basil. You go too far." + +"I must speak, and you must listen. You shall listen. When you met +Lady Gwendolen, not a breath of scandal had ever touched her. Is there +a single decent woman in London now who would drive with her in the +park? Why, even her children are not allowed to live with her. Then +there are other stories--stories that you have been seen creeping at +dawn out of dreadful houses and slinking in disguise into the foulest +dens in London. Are they true? Can they be true? When I first heard +them, I laughed. I hear them now, and they make me shudder. What +about your country-house and the life that is led there? Dorian, you +don't know what is said about you. I won't tell you that I don't want +to preach to you. I remember Harry saying once that every man who +turned himself into an amateur curate for the moment always began by +saying that, and then proceeded to break his word. I do want to preach +to you. I want you to lead such a life as will make the world respect +you. I want you to have a clean name and a fair record. I want you to +get rid of the dreadful people you associate with. Don't shrug your +shoulders like that. Don't be so indifferent. You have a wonderful +influence. Let it be for good, not for evil. They say that you +corrupt every one with whom you become intimate, and that it is quite +sufficient for you to enter a house for shame of some kind to follow +after. I don't know whether it is so or not. How should I know? But +it is said of you. I am told things that it seems impossible to doubt. +Lord Gloucester was one of my greatest friends at Oxford. He showed me +a letter that his wife had written to him when she was dying alone in +her villa at Mentone. Your name was implicated in the most terrible +confession I ever read. I told him that it was absurd--that I knew you +thoroughly and that you were incapable of anything of the kind. Know +you? I wonder do I know you? Before I could answer that, I should +have to see your soul." + +"To see my soul!" muttered Dorian Gray, starting up from the sofa and +turning almost white from fear. + +"Yes," answered Hallward gravely, and with deep-toned sorrow in his +voice, "to see your soul. But only God can do that." + +A bitter laugh of mockery broke from the lips of the younger man. "You +shall see it yourself, to-night!" he cried, seizing a lamp from the +table. "Come: it is your own handiwork. Why shouldn't you look at +it? You can tell the world all about it afterwards, if you choose. +Nobody would believe you. If they did believe you, they would like me +all the better for it. I know the age better than you do, though you +will prate about it so tediously. Come, I tell you. You have +chattered enough about corruption. Now you shall look on it face to +face." + +There was the madness of pride in every word he uttered. He stamped +his foot upon the ground in his boyish insolent manner. He felt a +terrible joy at the thought that some one else was to share his secret, +and that the man who had painted the portrait that was the origin of +all his shame was to be burdened for the rest of his life with the +hideous memory of what he had done. + +"Yes," he continued, coming closer to him and looking steadfastly into +his stern eyes, "I shall show you my soul. You shall see the thing +that you fancy only God can see." + +Hallward started back. "This is blasphemy, Dorian!" he cried. "You +must not say things like that. They are horrible, and they don't mean +anything." + +"You think so?" He laughed again. + +"I know so. As for what I said to you to-night, I said it for your +good. You know I have been always a stanch friend to you." + +"Don't touch me. Finish what you have to say." + +A twisted flash of pain shot across the painter's face. He paused for +a moment, and a wild feeling of pity came over him. After all, what +right had he to pry into the life of Dorian Gray? If he had done a +tithe of what was rumoured about him, how much he must have suffered! +Then he straightened himself up, and walked over to the fire-place, and +stood there, looking at the burning logs with their frostlike ashes and +their throbbing cores of flame. + +"I am waiting, Basil," said the young man in a hard clear voice. + +He turned round. "What I have to say is this," he cried. "You must +give me some answer to these horrible charges that are made against +you. If you tell me that they are absolutely untrue from beginning to +end, I shall believe you. Deny them, Dorian, deny them! Can't you see +what I am going through? My God! don't tell me that you are bad, and +corrupt, and shameful." + +Dorian Gray smiled. There was a curl of contempt in his lips. "Come +upstairs, Basil," he said quietly. "I keep a diary of my life from day +to day, and it never leaves the room in which it is written. I shall +show it to you if you come with me." + +"I shall come with you, Dorian, if you wish it. I see I have missed my +train. That makes no matter. I can go to-morrow. But don't ask me to +read anything to-night. All I want is a plain answer to my question." + +"That shall be given to you upstairs. I could not give it here. You +will not have to read long." + + + +CHAPTER 13 + +He passed out of the room and began the ascent, Basil Hallward +following close behind. They walked softly, as men do instinctively at +night. The lamp cast fantastic shadows on the wall and staircase. A +rising wind made some of the windows rattle. + +When they reached the top landing, Dorian set the lamp down on the +floor, and taking out the key, turned it in the lock. "You insist on +knowing, Basil?" he asked in a low voice. + +"Yes." + +"I am delighted," he answered, smiling. Then he added, somewhat +harshly, "You are the one man in the world who is entitled to know +everything about me. You have had more to do with my life than you +think"; and, taking up the lamp, he opened the door and went in. A +cold current of air passed them, and the light shot up for a moment in +a flame of murky orange. He shuddered. "Shut the door behind you," he +whispered, as he placed the lamp on the table. + +Hallward glanced round him with a puzzled expression. The room looked +as if it had not been lived in for years. A faded Flemish tapestry, a +curtained picture, an old Italian _cassone_, and an almost empty +book-case--that was all that it seemed to contain, besides a chair and +a table. As Dorian Gray was lighting a half-burned candle that was +standing on the mantelshelf, he saw that the whole place was covered +with dust and that the carpet was in holes. A mouse ran scuffling +behind the wainscoting. There was a damp odour of mildew. + +"So you think that it is only God who sees the soul, Basil? Draw that +curtain back, and you will see mine." + +The voice that spoke was cold and cruel. "You are mad, Dorian, or +playing a part," muttered Hallward, frowning. + +"You won't? Then I must do it myself," said the young man, and he tore +the curtain from its rod and flung it on the ground. + +An exclamation of horror broke from the painter's lips as he saw in the +dim light the hideous face on the canvas grinning at him. There was +something in its expression that filled him with disgust and loathing. +Good heavens! it was Dorian Gray's own face that he was looking at! +The horror, whatever it was, had not yet entirely spoiled that +marvellous beauty. There was still some gold in the thinning hair and +some scarlet on the sensual mouth. The sodden eyes had kept something +of the loveliness of their blue, the noble curves had not yet +completely passed away from chiselled nostrils and from plastic throat. +Yes, it was Dorian himself. But who had done it? He seemed to +recognize his own brushwork, and the frame was his own design. The +idea was monstrous, yet he felt afraid. He seized the lighted candle, +and held it to the picture. In the left-hand corner was his own name, +traced in long letters of bright vermilion. + +It was some foul parody, some infamous ignoble satire. He had never +done that. Still, it was his own picture. He knew it, and he felt as +if his blood had changed in a moment from fire to sluggish ice. His +own picture! What did it mean? Why had it altered? He turned and +looked at Dorian Gray with the eyes of a sick man. His mouth twitched, +and his parched tongue seemed unable to articulate. He passed his hand +across his forehead. It was dank with clammy sweat. + +The young man was leaning against the mantelshelf, watching him with +that strange expression that one sees on the faces of those who are +absorbed in a play when some great artist is acting. There was neither +real sorrow in it nor real joy. There was simply the passion of the +spectator, with perhaps a flicker of triumph in his eyes. He had taken +the flower out of his coat, and was smelling it, or pretending to do so. + +"What does this mean?" cried Hallward, at last. His own voice sounded +shrill and curious in his ears. + +"Years ago, when I was a boy," said Dorian Gray, crushing the flower in +his hand, "you met me, flattered me, and taught me to be vain of my +good looks. One day you introduced me to a friend of yours, who +explained to me the wonder of youth, and you finished a portrait of me +that revealed to me the wonder of beauty. In a mad moment that, even +now, I don't know whether I regret or not, I made a wish, perhaps you +would call it a prayer...." + +"I remember it! Oh, how well I remember it! No! the thing is +impossible. The room is damp. Mildew has got into the canvas. The +paints I used had some wretched mineral poison in them. I tell you the +thing is impossible." + +"Ah, what is impossible?" murmured the young man, going over to the +window and leaning his forehead against the cold, mist-stained glass. + +"You told me you had destroyed it." + +"I was wrong. It has destroyed me." + +"I don't believe it is my picture." + +"Can't you see your ideal in it?" said Dorian bitterly. + +"My ideal, as you call it..." + +"As you called it." + +"There was nothing evil in it, nothing shameful. You were to me such +an ideal as I shall never meet again. This is the face of a satyr." + +"It is the face of my soul." + +"Christ! what a thing I must have worshipped! It has the eyes of a +devil." + +"Each of us has heaven and hell in him, Basil," cried Dorian with a +wild gesture of despair. + +Hallward turned again to the portrait and gazed at it. "My God! If it +is true," he exclaimed, "and this is what you have done with your life, +why, you must be worse even than those who talk against you fancy you +to be!" He held the light up again to the canvas and examined it. The +surface seemed to be quite undisturbed and as he had left it. It was +from within, apparently, that the foulness and horror had come. +Through some strange quickening of inner life the leprosies of sin were +slowly eating the thing away. The rotting of a corpse in a watery +grave was not so fearful. + +His hand shook, and the candle fell from its socket on the floor and +lay there sputtering. He placed his foot on it and put it out. Then +he flung himself into the rickety chair that was standing by the table +and buried his face in his hands. + +"Good God, Dorian, what a lesson! What an awful lesson!" There was no +answer, but he could hear the young man sobbing at the window. "Pray, +Dorian, pray," he murmured. "What is it that one was taught to say in +one's boyhood? 'Lead us not into temptation. Forgive us our sins. +Wash away our iniquities.' Let us say that together. The prayer of +your pride has been answered. The prayer of your repentance will be +answered also. I worshipped you too much. I am punished for it. You +worshipped yourself too much. We are both punished." + +Dorian Gray turned slowly around and looked at him with tear-dimmed +eyes. "It is too late, Basil," he faltered. + +"It is never too late, Dorian. Let us kneel down and try if we cannot +remember a prayer. Isn't there a verse somewhere, 'Though your sins be +as scarlet, yet I will make them as white as snow'?" + +"Those words mean nothing to me now." + +"Hush! Don't say that. You have done enough evil in your life. My +God! Don't you see that accursed thing leering at us?" + +Dorian Gray glanced at the picture, and suddenly an uncontrollable +feeling of hatred for Basil Hallward came over him, as though it had +been suggested to him by the image on the canvas, whispered into his +ear by those grinning lips. The mad passions of a hunted animal +stirred within him, and he loathed the man who was seated at the table, +more than in his whole life he had ever loathed anything. He glanced +wildly around. Something glimmered on the top of the painted chest +that faced him. His eye fell on it. He knew what it was. It was a +knife that he had brought up, some days before, to cut a piece of cord, +and had forgotten to take away with him. He moved slowly towards it, +passing Hallward as he did so. As soon as he got behind him, he seized +it and turned round. Hallward stirred in his chair as if he was going +to rise. He rushed at him and dug the knife into the great vein that +is behind the ear, crushing the man's head down on the table and +stabbing again and again. + +There was a stifled groan and the horrible sound of some one choking +with blood. Three times the outstretched arms shot up convulsively, +waving grotesque, stiff-fingered hands in the air. He stabbed him +twice more, but the man did not move. Something began to trickle on +the floor. He waited for a moment, still pressing the head down. Then +he threw the knife on the table, and listened. + +He could hear nothing, but the drip, drip on the threadbare carpet. He +opened the door and went out on the landing. The house was absolutely +quiet. No one was about. For a few seconds he stood bending over the +balustrade and peering down into the black seething well of darkness. +Then he took out the key and returned to the room, locking himself in +as he did so. + +The thing was still seated in the chair, straining over the table with +bowed head, and humped back, and long fantastic arms. Had it not been +for the red jagged tear in the neck and the clotted black pool that was +slowly widening on the table, one would have said that the man was +simply asleep. + +How quickly it had all been done! He felt strangely calm, and walking +over to the window, opened it and stepped out on the balcony. The wind +had blown the fog away, and the sky was like a monstrous peacock's +tail, starred with myriads of golden eyes. He looked down and saw the +policeman going his rounds and flashing the long beam of his lantern on +the doors of the silent houses. The crimson spot of a prowling hansom +gleamed at the corner and then vanished. A woman in a fluttering shawl +was creeping slowly by the railings, staggering as she went. Now and +then she stopped and peered back. Once, she began to sing in a hoarse +voice. The policeman strolled over and said something to her. She +stumbled away, laughing. A bitter blast swept across the square. The +gas-lamps flickered and became blue, and the leafless trees shook their +black iron branches to and fro. He shivered and went back, closing the +window behind him. + +Having reached the door, he turned the key and opened it. He did not +even glance at the murdered man. He felt that the secret of the whole +thing was not to realize the situation. The friend who had painted the +fatal portrait to which all his misery had been due had gone out of his +life. That was enough. + +Then he remembered the lamp. It was a rather curious one of Moorish +workmanship, made of dull silver inlaid with arabesques of burnished +steel, and studded with coarse turquoises. Perhaps it might be missed +by his servant, and questions would be asked. He hesitated for a +moment, then he turned back and took it from the table. He could not +help seeing the dead thing. How still it was! How horribly white the +long hands looked! It was like a dreadful wax image. + +Having locked the door behind him, he crept quietly downstairs. The +woodwork creaked and seemed to cry out as if in pain. He stopped +several times and waited. No: everything was still. It was merely +the sound of his own footsteps. + +When he reached the library, he saw the bag and coat in the corner. +They must be hidden away somewhere. He unlocked a secret press that +was in the wainscoting, a press in which he kept his own curious +disguises, and put them into it. He could easily burn them afterwards. +Then he pulled out his watch. It was twenty minutes to two. + +He sat down and began to think. Every year--every month, almost--men +were strangled in England for what he had done. There had been a +madness of murder in the air. Some red star had come too close to the +earth.... And yet, what evidence was there against him? Basil Hallward +had left the house at eleven. No one had seen him come in again. Most +of the servants were at Selby Royal. His valet had gone to bed.... +Paris! Yes. It was to Paris that Basil had gone, and by the midnight +train, as he had intended. With his curious reserved habits, it would +be months before any suspicions would be roused. Months! Everything +could be destroyed long before then. + +A sudden thought struck him. He put on his fur coat and hat and went +out into the hall. There he paused, hearing the slow heavy tread of +the policeman on the pavement outside and seeing the flash of the +bull's-eye reflected in the window. He waited and held his breath. + +After a few moments he drew back the latch and slipped out, shutting +the door very gently behind him. Then he began ringing the bell. In +about five minutes his valet appeared, half-dressed and looking very +drowsy. + +"I am sorry to have had to wake you up, Francis," he said, stepping in; +"but I had forgotten my latch-key. What time is it?" + +"Ten minutes past two, sir," answered the man, looking at the clock and +blinking. + +"Ten minutes past two? How horribly late! You must wake me at nine +to-morrow. I have some work to do." + +"All right, sir." + +"Did any one call this evening?" + +"Mr. Hallward, sir. He stayed here till eleven, and then he went away +to catch his train." + +"Oh! I am sorry I didn't see him. Did he leave any message?" + +"No, sir, except that he would write to you from Paris, if he did not +find you at the club." + +"That will do, Francis. Don't forget to call me at nine to-morrow." + +"No, sir." + +The man shambled down the passage in his slippers. + +Dorian Gray threw his hat and coat upon the table and passed into the +library. For a quarter of an hour he walked up and down the room, +biting his lip and thinking. Then he took down the Blue Book from one +of the shelves and began to turn over the leaves. "Alan Campbell, 152, +Hertford Street, Mayfair." Yes; that was the man he wanted. + + + +CHAPTER 14 + +At nine o'clock the next morning his servant came in with a cup of +chocolate on a tray and opened the shutters. Dorian was sleeping quite +peacefully, lying on his right side, with one hand underneath his +cheek. He looked like a boy who had been tired out with play, or study. + +The man had to touch him twice on the shoulder before he woke, and as +he opened his eyes a faint smile passed across his lips, as though he +had been lost in some delightful dream. Yet he had not dreamed at all. +His night had been untroubled by any images of pleasure or of pain. +But youth smiles without any reason. It is one of its chiefest charms. + +He turned round, and leaning upon his elbow, began to sip his +chocolate. The mellow November sun came streaming into the room. The +sky was bright, and there was a genial warmth in the air. It was +almost like a morning in May. + +Gradually the events of the preceding night crept with silent, +blood-stained feet into his brain and reconstructed themselves there +with terrible distinctness. He winced at the memory of all that he had +suffered, and for a moment the same curious feeling of loathing for +Basil Hallward that had made him kill him as he sat in the chair came +back to him, and he grew cold with passion. The dead man was still +sitting there, too, and in the sunlight now. How horrible that was! +Such hideous things were for the darkness, not for the day. + +He felt that if he brooded on what he had gone through he would sicken +or grow mad. There were sins whose fascination was more in the memory +than in the doing of them, strange triumphs that gratified the pride +more than the passions, and gave to the intellect a quickened sense of +joy, greater than any joy they brought, or could ever bring, to the +senses. But this was not one of them. It was a thing to be driven out +of the mind, to be drugged with poppies, to be strangled lest it might +strangle one itself. + +When the half-hour struck, he passed his hand across his forehead, and +then got up hastily and dressed himself with even more than his usual +care, giving a good deal of attention to the choice of his necktie and +scarf-pin and changing his rings more than once. He spent a long time +also over breakfast, tasting the various dishes, talking to his valet +about some new liveries that he was thinking of getting made for the +servants at Selby, and going through his correspondence. At some of +the letters, he smiled. Three of them bored him. One he read several +times over and then tore up with a slight look of annoyance in his +face. "That awful thing, a woman's memory!" as Lord Henry had once +said. + +After he had drunk his cup of black coffee, he wiped his lips slowly +with a napkin, motioned to his servant to wait, and going over to the +table, sat down and wrote two letters. One he put in his pocket, the +other he handed to the valet. + +"Take this round to 152, Hertford Street, Francis, and if Mr. Campbell +is out of town, get his address." + +As soon as he was alone, he lit a cigarette and began sketching upon a +piece of paper, drawing first flowers and bits of architecture, and +then human faces. Suddenly he remarked that every face that he drew +seemed to have a fantastic likeness to Basil Hallward. He frowned, and +getting up, went over to the book-case and took out a volume at hazard. +He was determined that he would not think about what had happened until +it became absolutely necessary that he should do so. + +When he had stretched himself on the sofa, he looked at the title-page +of the book. It was Gautier's Emaux et Camees, Charpentier's +Japanese-paper edition, with the Jacquemart etching. The binding was +of citron-green leather, with a design of gilt trellis-work and dotted +pomegranates. It had been given to him by Adrian Singleton. As he +turned over the pages, his eye fell on the poem about the hand of +Lacenaire, the cold yellow hand "_du supplice encore mal lavee_," with +its downy red hairs and its "_doigts de faune_." He glanced at his own +white taper fingers, shuddering slightly in spite of himself, and +passed on, till he came to those lovely stanzas upon Venice: + + Sur une gamme chromatique, + Le sein de peries ruisselant, + La Venus de l'Adriatique + Sort de l'eau son corps rose et blanc. + + Les domes, sur l'azur des ondes + Suivant la phrase au pur contour, + S'enflent comme des gorges rondes + Que souleve un soupir d'amour. + + L'esquif aborde et me depose, + Jetant son amarre au pilier, + Devant une facade rose, + Sur le marbre d'un escalier. + + +How exquisite they were! As one read them, one seemed to be floating +down the green water-ways of the pink and pearl city, seated in a black +gondola with silver prow and trailing curtains. The mere lines looked +to him like those straight lines of turquoise-blue that follow one as +one pushes out to the Lido. The sudden flashes of colour reminded him +of the gleam of the opal-and-iris-throated birds that flutter round the +tall honeycombed Campanile, or stalk, with such stately grace, through +the dim, dust-stained arcades. Leaning back with half-closed eyes, he +kept saying over and over to himself: + + "Devant une facade rose, + Sur le marbre d'un escalier." + +The whole of Venice was in those two lines. He remembered the autumn +that he had passed there, and a wonderful love that had stirred him to +mad delightful follies. There was romance in every place. But Venice, +like Oxford, had kept the background for romance, and, to the true +romantic, background was everything, or almost everything. Basil had +been with him part of the time, and had gone wild over Tintoret. Poor +Basil! What a horrible way for a man to die! + +He sighed, and took up the volume again, and tried to forget. He read +of the swallows that fly in and out of the little _cafe_ at Smyrna where +the Hadjis sit counting their amber beads and the turbaned merchants +smoke their long tasselled pipes and talk gravely to each other; he +read of the Obelisk in the Place de la Concorde that weeps tears of +granite in its lonely sunless exile and longs to be back by the hot, +lotus-covered Nile, where there are Sphinxes, and rose-red ibises, and +white vultures with gilded claws, and crocodiles with small beryl eyes +that crawl over the green steaming mud; he began to brood over those +verses which, drawing music from kiss-stained marble, tell of that +curious statue that Gautier compares to a contralto voice, the "_monstre +charmant_" that couches in the porphyry-room of the Louvre. But after a +time the book fell from his hand. He grew nervous, and a horrible fit +of terror came over him. What if Alan Campbell should be out of +England? Days would elapse before he could come back. Perhaps he +might refuse to come. What could he do then? Every moment was of +vital importance. + +They had been great friends once, five years before--almost +inseparable, indeed. Then the intimacy had come suddenly to an end. +When they met in society now, it was only Dorian Gray who smiled: Alan +Campbell never did. + +He was an extremely clever young man, though he had no real +appreciation of the visible arts, and whatever little sense of the +beauty of poetry he possessed he had gained entirely from Dorian. His +dominant intellectual passion was for science. At Cambridge he had +spent a great deal of his time working in the laboratory, and had taken +a good class in the Natural Science Tripos of his year. Indeed, he was +still devoted to the study of chemistry, and had a laboratory of his +own in which he used to shut himself up all day long, greatly to the +annoyance of his mother, who had set her heart on his standing for +Parliament and had a vague idea that a chemist was a person who made up +prescriptions. He was an excellent musician, however, as well, and +played both the violin and the piano better than most amateurs. In +fact, it was music that had first brought him and Dorian Gray +together--music and that indefinable attraction that Dorian seemed to +be able to exercise whenever he wished--and, indeed, exercised often +without being conscious of it. They had met at Lady Berkshire's the +night that Rubinstein played there, and after that used to be always +seen together at the opera and wherever good music was going on. For +eighteen months their intimacy lasted. Campbell was always either at +Selby Royal or in Grosvenor Square. To him, as to many others, Dorian +Gray was the type of everything that is wonderful and fascinating in +life. Whether or not a quarrel had taken place between them no one +ever knew. But suddenly people remarked that they scarcely spoke when +they met and that Campbell seemed always to go away early from any +party at which Dorian Gray was present. He had changed, too--was +strangely melancholy at times, appeared almost to dislike hearing +music, and would never himself play, giving as his excuse, when he was +called upon, that he was so absorbed in science that he had no time +left in which to practise. And this was certainly true. Every day he +seemed to become more interested in biology, and his name appeared once +or twice in some of the scientific reviews in connection with certain +curious experiments. + +This was the man Dorian Gray was waiting for. Every second he kept +glancing at the clock. As the minutes went by he became horribly +agitated. At last he got up and began to pace up and down the room, +looking like a beautiful caged thing. He took long stealthy strides. +His hands were curiously cold. + +The suspense became unbearable. Time seemed to him to be crawling with +feet of lead, while he by monstrous winds was being swept towards the +jagged edge of some black cleft of precipice. He knew what was waiting +for him there; saw it, indeed, and, shuddering, crushed with dank hands +his burning lids as though he would have robbed the very brain of sight +and driven the eyeballs back into their cave. It was useless. The +brain had its own food on which it battened, and the imagination, made +grotesque by terror, twisted and distorted as a living thing by pain, +danced like some foul puppet on a stand and grinned through moving +masks. Then, suddenly, time stopped for him. Yes: that blind, +slow-breathing thing crawled no more, and horrible thoughts, time being +dead, raced nimbly on in front, and dragged a hideous future from its +grave, and showed it to him. He stared at it. Its very horror made +him stone. + +At last the door opened and his servant entered. He turned glazed eyes +upon him. + +"Mr. Campbell, sir," said the man. + +A sigh of relief broke from his parched lips, and the colour came back +to his cheeks. + +"Ask him to come in at once, Francis." He felt that he was himself +again. His mood of cowardice had passed away. + +The man bowed and retired. In a few moments, Alan Campbell walked in, +looking very stern and rather pale, his pallor being intensified by his +coal-black hair and dark eyebrows. + +"Alan! This is kind of you. I thank you for coming." + +"I had intended never to enter your house again, Gray. But you said it +was a matter of life and death." His voice was hard and cold. He +spoke with slow deliberation. There was a look of contempt in the +steady searching gaze that he turned on Dorian. He kept his hands in +the pockets of his Astrakhan coat, and seemed not to have noticed the +gesture with which he had been greeted. + +"Yes: it is a matter of life and death, Alan, and to more than one +person. Sit down." + +Campbell took a chair by the table, and Dorian sat opposite to him. +The two men's eyes met. In Dorian's there was infinite pity. He knew +that what he was going to do was dreadful. + +After a strained moment of silence, he leaned across and said, very +quietly, but watching the effect of each word upon the face of him he +had sent for, "Alan, in a locked room at the top of this house, a room +to which nobody but myself has access, a dead man is seated at a table. +He has been dead ten hours now. Don't stir, and don't look at me like +that. Who the man is, why he died, how he died, are matters that do +not concern you. What you have to do is this--" + +"Stop, Gray. I don't want to know anything further. Whether what you +have told me is true or not true doesn't concern me. I entirely +decline to be mixed up in your life. Keep your horrible secrets to +yourself. They don't interest me any more." + +"Alan, they will have to interest you. This one will have to interest +you. I am awfully sorry for you, Alan. But I can't help myself. You +are the one man who is able to save me. I am forced to bring you into +the matter. I have no option. Alan, you are scientific. You know +about chemistry and things of that kind. You have made experiments. +What you have got to do is to destroy the thing that is upstairs--to +destroy it so that not a vestige of it will be left. Nobody saw this +person come into the house. Indeed, at the present moment he is +supposed to be in Paris. He will not be missed for months. When he is +missed, there must be no trace of him found here. You, Alan, you must +change him, and everything that belongs to him, into a handful of ashes +that I may scatter in the air." + +"You are mad, Dorian." + +"Ah! I was waiting for you to call me Dorian." + +"You are mad, I tell you--mad to imagine that I would raise a finger to +help you, mad to make this monstrous confession. I will have nothing +to do with this matter, whatever it is. Do you think I am going to +peril my reputation for you? What is it to me what devil's work you +are up to?" + +"It was suicide, Alan." + +"I am glad of that. But who drove him to it? You, I should fancy." + +"Do you still refuse to do this for me?" + +"Of course I refuse. I will have absolutely nothing to do with it. I +don't care what shame comes on you. You deserve it all. I should not +be sorry to see you disgraced, publicly disgraced. How dare you ask +me, of all men in the world, to mix myself up in this horror? I should +have thought you knew more about people's characters. Your friend Lord +Henry Wotton can't have taught you much about psychology, whatever else +he has taught you. Nothing will induce me to stir a step to help you. +You have come to the wrong man. Go to some of your friends. Don't +come to me." + +"Alan, it was murder. I killed him. You don't know what he had made +me suffer. Whatever my life is, he had more to do with the making or +the marring of it than poor Harry has had. He may not have intended +it, the result was the same." + +"Murder! Good God, Dorian, is that what you have come to? I shall not +inform upon you. It is not my business. Besides, without my stirring +in the matter, you are certain to be arrested. Nobody ever commits a +crime without doing something stupid. But I will have nothing to do +with it." + +"You must have something to do with it. Wait, wait a moment; listen to +me. Only listen, Alan. All I ask of you is to perform a certain +scientific experiment. You go to hospitals and dead-houses, and the +horrors that you do there don't affect you. If in some hideous +dissecting-room or fetid laboratory you found this man lying on a +leaden table with red gutters scooped out in it for the blood to flow +through, you would simply look upon him as an admirable subject. You +would not turn a hair. You would not believe that you were doing +anything wrong. On the contrary, you would probably feel that you were +benefiting the human race, or increasing the sum of knowledge in the +world, or gratifying intellectual curiosity, or something of that kind. +What I want you to do is merely what you have often done before. +Indeed, to destroy a body must be far less horrible than what you are +accustomed to work at. And, remember, it is the only piece of evidence +against me. If it is discovered, I am lost; and it is sure to be +discovered unless you help me." + +"I have no desire to help you. You forget that. I am simply +indifferent to the whole thing. It has nothing to do with me." + +"Alan, I entreat you. Think of the position I am in. Just before you +came I almost fainted with terror. You may know terror yourself some +day. No! don't think of that. Look at the matter purely from the +scientific point of view. You don't inquire where the dead things on +which you experiment come from. Don't inquire now. I have told you +too much as it is. But I beg of you to do this. We were friends once, +Alan." + +"Don't speak about those days, Dorian--they are dead." + +"The dead linger sometimes. The man upstairs will not go away. He is +sitting at the table with bowed head and outstretched arms. Alan! +Alan! If you don't come to my assistance, I am ruined. Why, they will +hang me, Alan! Don't you understand? They will hang me for what I +have done." + +"There is no good in prolonging this scene. I absolutely refuse to do +anything in the matter. It is insane of you to ask me." + +"You refuse?" + +"Yes." + +"I entreat you, Alan." + +"It is useless." + +The same look of pity came into Dorian Gray's eyes. Then he stretched +out his hand, took a piece of paper, and wrote something on it. He +read it over twice, folded it carefully, and pushed it across the +table. Having done this, he got up and went over to the window. + +Campbell looked at him in surprise, and then took up the paper, and +opened it. As he read it, his face became ghastly pale and he fell +back in his chair. A horrible sense of sickness came over him. He +felt as if his heart was beating itself to death in some empty hollow. + +After two or three minutes of terrible silence, Dorian turned round and +came and stood behind him, putting his hand upon his shoulder. + +"I am so sorry for you, Alan," he murmured, "but you leave me no +alternative. I have a letter written already. Here it is. You see +the address. If you don't help me, I must send it. If you don't help +me, I will send it. You know what the result will be. But you are +going to help me. It is impossible for you to refuse now. I tried to +spare you. You will do me the justice to admit that. You were stern, +harsh, offensive. You treated me as no man has ever dared to treat +me--no living man, at any rate. I bore it all. Now it is for me to +dictate terms." + +Campbell buried his face in his hands, and a shudder passed through him. + +"Yes, it is my turn to dictate terms, Alan. You know what they are. +The thing is quite simple. Come, don't work yourself into this fever. +The thing has to be done. Face it, and do it." + +A groan broke from Campbell's lips and he shivered all over. The +ticking of the clock on the mantelpiece seemed to him to be dividing +time into separate atoms of agony, each of which was too terrible to be +borne. He felt as if an iron ring was being slowly tightened round his +forehead, as if the disgrace with which he was threatened had already +come upon him. The hand upon his shoulder weighed like a hand of lead. +It was intolerable. It seemed to crush him. + +"Come, Alan, you must decide at once." + +"I cannot do it," he said, mechanically, as though words could alter +things. + +"You must. You have no choice. Don't delay." + +He hesitated a moment. "Is there a fire in the room upstairs?" + +"Yes, there is a gas-fire with asbestos." + +"I shall have to go home and get some things from the laboratory." + +"No, Alan, you must not leave the house. Write out on a sheet of +notepaper what you want and my servant will take a cab and bring the +things back to you." + +Campbell scrawled a few lines, blotted them, and addressed an envelope +to his assistant. Dorian took the note up and read it carefully. Then +he rang the bell and gave it to his valet, with orders to return as +soon as possible and to bring the things with him. + +As the hall door shut, Campbell started nervously, and having got up +from the chair, went over to the chimney-piece. He was shivering with a +kind of ague. For nearly twenty minutes, neither of the men spoke. A +fly buzzed noisily about the room, and the ticking of the clock was +like the beat of a hammer. + +As the chime struck one, Campbell turned round, and looking at Dorian +Gray, saw that his eyes were filled with tears. There was something in +the purity and refinement of that sad face that seemed to enrage him. +"You are infamous, absolutely infamous!" he muttered. + +"Hush, Alan. You have saved my life," said Dorian. + +"Your life? Good heavens! what a life that is! You have gone from +corruption to corruption, and now you have culminated in crime. In +doing what I am going to do--what you force me to do--it is not of your +life that I am thinking." + +"Ah, Alan," murmured Dorian with a sigh, "I wish you had a thousandth +part of the pity for me that I have for you." He turned away as he +spoke and stood looking out at the garden. Campbell made no answer. + +After about ten minutes a knock came to the door, and the servant +entered, carrying a large mahogany chest of chemicals, with a long coil +of steel and platinum wire and two rather curiously shaped iron clamps. + +"Shall I leave the things here, sir?" he asked Campbell. + +"Yes," said Dorian. "And I am afraid, Francis, that I have another +errand for you. What is the name of the man at Richmond who supplies +Selby with orchids?" + +"Harden, sir." + +"Yes--Harden. You must go down to Richmond at once, see Harden +personally, and tell him to send twice as many orchids as I ordered, +and to have as few white ones as possible. In fact, I don't want any +white ones. It is a lovely day, Francis, and Richmond is a very pretty +place--otherwise I wouldn't bother you about it." + +"No trouble, sir. At what time shall I be back?" + +Dorian looked at Campbell. "How long will your experiment take, Alan?" +he said in a calm indifferent voice. The presence of a third person in +the room seemed to give him extraordinary courage. + +Campbell frowned and bit his lip. "It will take about five hours," he +answered. + +"It will be time enough, then, if you are back at half-past seven, +Francis. Or stay: just leave my things out for dressing. You can +have the evening to yourself. I am not dining at home, so I shall not +want you." + +"Thank you, sir," said the man, leaving the room. + +"Now, Alan, there is not a moment to be lost. How heavy this chest is! +I'll take it for you. You bring the other things." He spoke rapidly +and in an authoritative manner. Campbell felt dominated by him. They +left the room together. + +When they reached the top landing, Dorian took out the key and turned +it in the lock. Then he stopped, and a troubled look came into his +eyes. He shuddered. "I don't think I can go in, Alan," he murmured. + +"It is nothing to me. I don't require you," said Campbell coldly. + +Dorian half opened the door. As he did so, he saw the face of his +portrait leering in the sunlight. On the floor in front of it the torn +curtain was lying. He remembered that the night before he had +forgotten, for the first time in his life, to hide the fatal canvas, +and was about to rush forward, when he drew back with a shudder. + +What was that loathsome red dew that gleamed, wet and glistening, on +one of the hands, as though the canvas had sweated blood? How horrible +it was!--more horrible, it seemed to him for the moment, than the +silent thing that he knew was stretched across the table, the thing +whose grotesque misshapen shadow on the spotted carpet showed him that +it had not stirred, but was still there, as he had left it. + +He heaved a deep breath, opened the door a little wider, and with +half-closed eyes and averted head, walked quickly in, determined that +he would not look even once upon the dead man. Then, stooping down and +taking up the gold-and-purple hanging, he flung it right over the +picture. + +There he stopped, feeling afraid to turn round, and his eyes fixed +themselves on the intricacies of the pattern before him. He heard +Campbell bringing in the heavy chest, and the irons, and the other +things that he had required for his dreadful work. He began to wonder +if he and Basil Hallward had ever met, and, if so, what they had +thought of each other. + +"Leave me now," said a stern voice behind him. + +He turned and hurried out, just conscious that the dead man had been +thrust back into the chair and that Campbell was gazing into a +glistening yellow face. As he was going downstairs, he heard the key +being turned in the lock. + +It was long after seven when Campbell came back into the library. He +was pale, but absolutely calm. "I have done what you asked me to do," +he muttered. "And now, good-bye. Let us never see each other again." + +"You have saved me from ruin, Alan. I cannot forget that," said Dorian +simply. + +As soon as Campbell had left, he went upstairs. There was a horrible +smell of nitric acid in the room. But the thing that had been sitting +at the table was gone. + + + +CHAPTER 15 + +That evening, at eight-thirty, exquisitely dressed and wearing a large +button-hole of Parma violets, Dorian Gray was ushered into Lady +Narborough's drawing-room by bowing servants. His forehead was +throbbing with maddened nerves, and he felt wildly excited, but his +manner as he bent over his hostess's hand was as easy and graceful as +ever. Perhaps one never seems so much at one's ease as when one has to +play a part. Certainly no one looking at Dorian Gray that night could +have believed that he had passed through a tragedy as horrible as any +tragedy of our age. Those finely shaped fingers could never have +clutched a knife for sin, nor those smiling lips have cried out on God +and goodness. He himself could not help wondering at the calm of his +demeanour, and for a moment felt keenly the terrible pleasure of a +double life. + +It was a small party, got up rather in a hurry by Lady Narborough, who +was a very clever woman with what Lord Henry used to describe as the +remains of really remarkable ugliness. She had proved an excellent +wife to one of our most tedious ambassadors, and having buried her +husband properly in a marble mausoleum, which she had herself designed, +and married off her daughters to some rich, rather elderly men, she +devoted herself now to the pleasures of French fiction, French cookery, +and French _esprit_ when she could get it. + +Dorian was one of her especial favourites, and she always told him that +she was extremely glad she had not met him in early life. "I know, my +dear, I should have fallen madly in love with you," she used to say, +"and thrown my bonnet right over the mills for your sake. It is most +fortunate that you were not thought of at the time. As it was, our +bonnets were so unbecoming, and the mills were so occupied in trying to +raise the wind, that I never had even a flirtation with anybody. +However, that was all Narborough's fault. He was dreadfully +short-sighted, and there is no pleasure in taking in a husband who +never sees anything." + +Her guests this evening were rather tedious. The fact was, as she +explained to Dorian, behind a very shabby fan, one of her married +daughters had come up quite suddenly to stay with her, and, to make +matters worse, had actually brought her husband with her. "I think it +is most unkind of her, my dear," she whispered. "Of course I go and +stay with them every summer after I come from Homburg, but then an old +woman like me must have fresh air sometimes, and besides, I really wake +them up. You don't know what an existence they lead down there. It is +pure unadulterated country life. They get up early, because they have +so much to do, and go to bed early, because they have so little to +think about. There has not been a scandal in the neighbourhood since +the time of Queen Elizabeth, and consequently they all fall asleep +after dinner. You shan't sit next either of them. You shall sit by me +and amuse me." + +Dorian murmured a graceful compliment and looked round the room. Yes: +it was certainly a tedious party. Two of the people he had never seen +before, and the others consisted of Ernest Harrowden, one of those +middle-aged mediocrities so common in London clubs who have no enemies, +but are thoroughly disliked by their friends; Lady Ruxton, an +overdressed woman of forty-seven, with a hooked nose, who was always +trying to get herself compromised, but was so peculiarly plain that to +her great disappointment no one would ever believe anything against +her; Mrs. Erlynne, a pushing nobody, with a delightful lisp and +Venetian-red hair; Lady Alice Chapman, his hostess's daughter, a dowdy +dull girl, with one of those characteristic British faces that, once +seen, are never remembered; and her husband, a red-cheeked, +white-whiskered creature who, like so many of his class, was under the +impression that inordinate joviality can atone for an entire lack of +ideas. + +He was rather sorry he had come, till Lady Narborough, looking at the +great ormolu gilt clock that sprawled in gaudy curves on the +mauve-draped mantelshelf, exclaimed: "How horrid of Henry Wotton to be +so late! I sent round to him this morning on chance and he promised +faithfully not to disappoint me." + +It was some consolation that Harry was to be there, and when the door +opened and he heard his slow musical voice lending charm to some +insincere apology, he ceased to feel bored. + +But at dinner he could not eat anything. Plate after plate went away +untasted. Lady Narborough kept scolding him for what she called "an +insult to poor Adolphe, who invented the _menu_ specially for you," and +now and then Lord Henry looked across at him, wondering at his silence +and abstracted manner. From time to time the butler filled his glass +with champagne. He drank eagerly, and his thirst seemed to increase. + +"Dorian," said Lord Henry at last, as the _chaud-froid_ was being handed +round, "what is the matter with you to-night? You are quite out of +sorts." + +"I believe he is in love," cried Lady Narborough, "and that he is +afraid to tell me for fear I should be jealous. He is quite right. I +certainly should." + +"Dear Lady Narborough," murmured Dorian, smiling, "I have not been in +love for a whole week--not, in fact, since Madame de Ferrol left town." + +"How you men can fall in love with that woman!" exclaimed the old lady. +"I really cannot understand it." + +"It is simply because she remembers you when you were a little girl, +Lady Narborough," said Lord Henry. "She is the one link between us and +your short frocks." + +"She does not remember my short frocks at all, Lord Henry. But I +remember her very well at Vienna thirty years ago, and how _decolletee_ +she was then." + +"She is still _decolletee_," he answered, taking an olive in his long +fingers; "and when she is in a very smart gown she looks like an +_edition de luxe_ of a bad French novel. She is really wonderful, and +full of surprises. Her capacity for family affection is extraordinary. +When her third husband died, her hair turned quite gold from grief." + +"How can you, Harry!" cried Dorian. + +"It is a most romantic explanation," laughed the hostess. "But her +third husband, Lord Henry! You don't mean to say Ferrol is the fourth?" + +"Certainly, Lady Narborough." + +"I don't believe a word of it." + +"Well, ask Mr. Gray. He is one of her most intimate friends." + +"Is it true, Mr. Gray?" + +"She assures me so, Lady Narborough," said Dorian. "I asked her +whether, like Marguerite de Navarre, she had their hearts embalmed and +hung at her girdle. She told me she didn't, because none of them had +had any hearts at all." + +"Four husbands! Upon my word that is _trop de zele_." + +"_Trop d'audace_, I tell her," said Dorian. + +"Oh! she is audacious enough for anything, my dear. And what is Ferrol +like? I don't know him." + +"The husbands of very beautiful women belong to the criminal classes," +said Lord Henry, sipping his wine. + +Lady Narborough hit him with her fan. "Lord Henry, I am not at all +surprised that the world says that you are extremely wicked." + +"But what world says that?" asked Lord Henry, elevating his eyebrows. +"It can only be the next world. This world and I are on excellent +terms." + +"Everybody I know says you are very wicked," cried the old lady, +shaking her head. + +Lord Henry looked serious for some moments. "It is perfectly +monstrous," he said, at last, "the way people go about nowadays saying +things against one behind one's back that are absolutely and entirely +true." + +"Isn't he incorrigible?" cried Dorian, leaning forward in his chair. + +"I hope so," said his hostess, laughing. "But really, if you all +worship Madame de Ferrol in this ridiculous way, I shall have to marry +again so as to be in the fashion." + +"You will never marry again, Lady Narborough," broke in Lord Henry. +"You were far too happy. When a woman marries again, it is because she +detested her first husband. When a man marries again, it is because he +adored his first wife. Women try their luck; men risk theirs." + +"Narborough wasn't perfect," cried the old lady. + +"If he had been, you would not have loved him, my dear lady," was the +rejoinder. "Women love us for our defects. If we have enough of them, +they will forgive us everything, even our intellects. You will never +ask me to dinner again after saying this, I am afraid, Lady Narborough, +but it is quite true." + +"Of course it is true, Lord Henry. If we women did not love you for +your defects, where would you all be? Not one of you would ever be +married. You would be a set of unfortunate bachelors. Not, however, +that that would alter you much. Nowadays all the married men live like +bachelors, and all the bachelors like married men." + +"_Fin de siecle_," murmured Lord Henry. + +"_Fin du globe_," answered his hostess. + +"I wish it were _fin du globe_," said Dorian with a sigh. "Life is a +great disappointment." + +"Ah, my dear," cried Lady Narborough, putting on her gloves, "don't +tell me that you have exhausted life. When a man says that one knows +that life has exhausted him. Lord Henry is very wicked, and I +sometimes wish that I had been; but you are made to be good--you look +so good. I must find you a nice wife. Lord Henry, don't you think +that Mr. Gray should get married?" + +"I am always telling him so, Lady Narborough," said Lord Henry with a +bow. + +"Well, we must look out for a suitable match for him. I shall go +through Debrett carefully to-night and draw out a list of all the +eligible young ladies." + +"With their ages, Lady Narborough?" asked Dorian. + +"Of course, with their ages, slightly edited. But nothing must be done +in a hurry. I want it to be what _The Morning Post_ calls a suitable +alliance, and I want you both to be happy." + +"What nonsense people talk about happy marriages!" exclaimed Lord +Henry. "A man can be happy with any woman, as long as he does not love +her." + +"Ah! what a cynic you are!" cried the old lady, pushing back her chair +and nodding to Lady Ruxton. "You must come and dine with me soon +again. You are really an admirable tonic, much better than what Sir +Andrew prescribes for me. You must tell me what people you would like +to meet, though. I want it to be a delightful gathering." + +"I like men who have a future and women who have a past," he answered. +"Or do you think that would make it a petticoat party?" + +"I fear so," she said, laughing, as she stood up. "A thousand pardons, +my dear Lady Ruxton," she added, "I didn't see you hadn't finished your +cigarette." + +"Never mind, Lady Narborough. I smoke a great deal too much. I am +going to limit myself, for the future." + +"Pray don't, Lady Ruxton," said Lord Henry. "Moderation is a fatal +thing. Enough is as bad as a meal. More than enough is as good as a +feast." + +Lady Ruxton glanced at him curiously. "You must come and explain that +to me some afternoon, Lord Henry. It sounds a fascinating theory," she +murmured, as she swept out of the room. + +"Now, mind you don't stay too long over your politics and scandal," +cried Lady Narborough from the door. "If you do, we are sure to +squabble upstairs." + +The men laughed, and Mr. Chapman got up solemnly from the foot of the +table and came up to the top. Dorian Gray changed his seat and went +and sat by Lord Henry. Mr. Chapman began to talk in a loud voice about +the situation in the House of Commons. He guffawed at his adversaries. +The word _doctrinaire_--word full of terror to the British +mind--reappeared from time to time between his explosions. An +alliterative prefix served as an ornament of oratory. He hoisted the +Union Jack on the pinnacles of thought. The inherited stupidity of the +race--sound English common sense he jovially termed it--was shown to be +the proper bulwark for society. + +A smile curved Lord Henry's lips, and he turned round and looked at +Dorian. + +"Are you better, my dear fellow?" he asked. "You seemed rather out of +sorts at dinner." + +"I am quite well, Harry. I am tired. That is all." + +"You were charming last night. The little duchess is quite devoted to +you. She tells me she is going down to Selby." + +"She has promised to come on the twentieth." + +"Is Monmouth to be there, too?" + +"Oh, yes, Harry." + +"He bores me dreadfully, almost as much as he bores her. She is very +clever, too clever for a woman. She lacks the indefinable charm of +weakness. It is the feet of clay that make the gold of the image +precious. Her feet are very pretty, but they are not feet of clay. +White porcelain feet, if you like. They have been through the fire, +and what fire does not destroy, it hardens. She has had experiences." + +"How long has she been married?" asked Dorian. + +"An eternity, she tells me. I believe, according to the peerage, it is +ten years, but ten years with Monmouth must have been like eternity, +with time thrown in. Who else is coming?" + +"Oh, the Willoughbys, Lord Rugby and his wife, our hostess, Geoffrey +Clouston, the usual set. I have asked Lord Grotrian." + +"I like him," said Lord Henry. "A great many people don't, but I find +him charming. He atones for being occasionally somewhat overdressed by +being always absolutely over-educated. He is a very modern type." + +"I don't know if he will be able to come, Harry. He may have to go to +Monte Carlo with his father." + +"Ah! what a nuisance people's people are! Try and make him come. By +the way, Dorian, you ran off very early last night. You left before +eleven. What did you do afterwards? Did you go straight home?" + +Dorian glanced at him hurriedly and frowned. + +"No, Harry," he said at last, "I did not get home till nearly three." + +"Did you go to the club?" + +"Yes," he answered. Then he bit his lip. "No, I don't mean that. I +didn't go to the club. I walked about. I forget what I did.... How +inquisitive you are, Harry! You always want to know what one has been +doing. I always want to forget what I have been doing. I came in at +half-past two, if you wish to know the exact time. I had left my +latch-key at home, and my servant had to let me in. If you want any +corroborative evidence on the subject, you can ask him." + +Lord Henry shrugged his shoulders. "My dear fellow, as if I cared! +Let us go up to the drawing-room. No sherry, thank you, Mr. Chapman. +Something has happened to you, Dorian. Tell me what it is. You are +not yourself to-night." + +"Don't mind me, Harry. I am irritable, and out of temper. I shall +come round and see you to-morrow, or next day. Make my excuses to Lady +Narborough. I shan't go upstairs. I shall go home. I must go home." + +"All right, Dorian. I dare say I shall see you to-morrow at tea-time. +The duchess is coming." + +"I will try to be there, Harry," he said, leaving the room. As he +drove back to his own house, he was conscious that the sense of terror +he thought he had strangled had come back to him. Lord Henry's casual +questioning had made him lose his nerve for the moment, and he wanted +his nerve still. Things that were dangerous had to be destroyed. He +winced. He hated the idea of even touching them. + +Yet it had to be done. He realized that, and when he had locked the +door of his library, he opened the secret press into which he had +thrust Basil Hallward's coat and bag. A huge fire was blazing. He +piled another log on it. The smell of the singeing clothes and burning +leather was horrible. It took him three-quarters of an hour to consume +everything. At the end he felt faint and sick, and having lit some +Algerian pastilles in a pierced copper brazier, he bathed his hands and +forehead with a cool musk-scented vinegar. + +Suddenly he started. His eyes grew strangely bright, and he gnawed +nervously at his underlip. Between two of the windows stood a large +Florentine cabinet, made out of ebony and inlaid with ivory and blue +lapis. He watched it as though it were a thing that could fascinate +and make afraid, as though it held something that he longed for and yet +almost loathed. His breath quickened. A mad craving came over him. +He lit a cigarette and then threw it away. His eyelids drooped till +the long fringed lashes almost touched his cheek. But he still watched +the cabinet. At last he got up from the sofa on which he had been +lying, went over to it, and having unlocked it, touched some hidden +spring. A triangular drawer passed slowly out. His fingers moved +instinctively towards it, dipped in, and closed on something. It was a +small Chinese box of black and gold-dust lacquer, elaborately wrought, +the sides patterned with curved waves, and the silken cords hung with +round crystals and tasselled in plaited metal threads. He opened it. +Inside was a green paste, waxy in lustre, the odour curiously heavy and +persistent. + +He hesitated for some moments, with a strangely immobile smile upon his +face. Then shivering, though the atmosphere of the room was terribly +hot, he drew himself up and glanced at the clock. It was twenty +minutes to twelve. He put the box back, shutting the cabinet doors as +he did so, and went into his bedroom. + +As midnight was striking bronze blows upon the dusky air, Dorian Gray, +dressed commonly, and with a muffler wrapped round his throat, crept +quietly out of his house. In Bond Street he found a hansom with a good +horse. He hailed it and in a low voice gave the driver an address. + +The man shook his head. "It is too far for me," he muttered. + +"Here is a sovereign for you," said Dorian. "You shall have another if +you drive fast." + +"All right, sir," answered the man, "you will be there in an hour," and +after his fare had got in he turned his horse round and drove rapidly +towards the river. + + + +CHAPTER 16 + +A cold rain began to fall, and the blurred street-lamps looked ghastly +in the dripping mist. The public-houses were just closing, and dim men +and women were clustering in broken groups round their doors. From +some of the bars came the sound of horrible laughter. In others, +drunkards brawled and screamed. + +Lying back in the hansom, with his hat pulled over his forehead, Dorian +Gray watched with listless eyes the sordid shame of the great city, and +now and then he repeated to himself the words that Lord Henry had said +to him on the first day they had met, "To cure the soul by means of the +senses, and the senses by means of the soul." Yes, that was the +secret. He had often tried it, and would try it again now. There were +opium dens where one could buy oblivion, dens of horror where the +memory of old sins could be destroyed by the madness of sins that were +new. + +The moon hung low in the sky like a yellow skull. From time to time a +huge misshapen cloud stretched a long arm across and hid it. The +gas-lamps grew fewer, and the streets more narrow and gloomy. Once the +man lost his way and had to drive back half a mile. A steam rose from +the horse as it splashed up the puddles. The sidewindows of the hansom +were clogged with a grey-flannel mist. + +"To cure the soul by means of the senses, and the senses by means of +the soul!" How the words rang in his ears! His soul, certainly, was +sick to death. Was it true that the senses could cure it? Innocent +blood had been spilled. What could atone for that? Ah! for that there +was no atonement; but though forgiveness was impossible, forgetfulness +was possible still, and he was determined to forget, to stamp the thing +out, to crush it as one would crush the adder that had stung one. +Indeed, what right had Basil to have spoken to him as he had done? Who +had made him a judge over others? He had said things that were +dreadful, horrible, not to be endured. + +On and on plodded the hansom, going slower, it seemed to him, at each +step. He thrust up the trap and called to the man to drive faster. +The hideous hunger for opium began to gnaw at him. His throat burned +and his delicate hands twitched nervously together. He struck at the +horse madly with his stick. The driver laughed and whipped up. He +laughed in answer, and the man was silent. + +The way seemed interminable, and the streets like the black web of some +sprawling spider. The monotony became unbearable, and as the mist +thickened, he felt afraid. + +Then they passed by lonely brickfields. The fog was lighter here, and +he could see the strange, bottle-shaped kilns with their orange, +fanlike tongues of fire. A dog barked as they went by, and far away in +the darkness some wandering sea-gull screamed. The horse stumbled in a +rut, then swerved aside and broke into a gallop. + +After some time they left the clay road and rattled again over +rough-paven streets. Most of the windows were dark, but now and then +fantastic shadows were silhouetted against some lamplit blind. He +watched them curiously. They moved like monstrous marionettes and made +gestures like live things. He hated them. A dull rage was in his +heart. As they turned a corner, a woman yelled something at them from +an open door, and two men ran after the hansom for about a hundred +yards. The driver beat at them with his whip. + +It is said that passion makes one think in a circle. Certainly with +hideous iteration the bitten lips of Dorian Gray shaped and reshaped +those subtle words that dealt with soul and sense, till he had found in +them the full expression, as it were, of his mood, and justified, by +intellectual approval, passions that without such justification would +still have dominated his temper. From cell to cell of his brain crept +the one thought; and the wild desire to live, most terrible of all +man's appetites, quickened into force each trembling nerve and fibre. +Ugliness that had once been hateful to him because it made things real, +became dear to him now for that very reason. Ugliness was the one +reality. The coarse brawl, the loathsome den, the crude violence of +disordered life, the very vileness of thief and outcast, were more +vivid, in their intense actuality of impression, than all the gracious +shapes of art, the dreamy shadows of song. They were what he needed +for forgetfulness. In three days he would be free. + +Suddenly the man drew up with a jerk at the top of a dark lane. Over +the low roofs and jagged chimney-stacks of the houses rose the black +masts of ships. Wreaths of white mist clung like ghostly sails to the +yards. + +"Somewhere about here, sir, ain't it?" he asked huskily through the +trap. + +Dorian started and peered round. "This will do," he answered, and +having got out hastily and given the driver the extra fare he had +promised him, he walked quickly in the direction of the quay. Here and +there a lantern gleamed at the stern of some huge merchantman. The +light shook and splintered in the puddles. A red glare came from an +outward-bound steamer that was coaling. The slimy pavement looked like +a wet mackintosh. + +He hurried on towards the left, glancing back now and then to see if he +was being followed. In about seven or eight minutes he reached a small +shabby house that was wedged in between two gaunt factories. In one of +the top-windows stood a lamp. He stopped and gave a peculiar knock. + +After a little time he heard steps in the passage and the chain being +unhooked. The door opened quietly, and he went in without saying a +word to the squat misshapen figure that flattened itself into the +shadow as he passed. At the end of the hall hung a tattered green +curtain that swayed and shook in the gusty wind which had followed him +in from the street. He dragged it aside and entered a long low room +which looked as if it had once been a third-rate dancing-saloon. Shrill +flaring gas-jets, dulled and distorted in the fly-blown mirrors that +faced them, were ranged round the walls. Greasy reflectors of ribbed +tin backed them, making quivering disks of light. The floor was +covered with ochre-coloured sawdust, trampled here and there into mud, +and stained with dark rings of spilled liquor. Some Malays were +crouching by a little charcoal stove, playing with bone counters and +showing their white teeth as they chattered. In one corner, with his +head buried in his arms, a sailor sprawled over a table, and by the +tawdrily painted bar that ran across one complete side stood two +haggard women, mocking an old man who was brushing the sleeves of his +coat with an expression of disgust. "He thinks he's got red ants on +him," laughed one of them, as Dorian passed by. The man looked at her +in terror and began to whimper. + +At the end of the room there was a little staircase, leading to a +darkened chamber. As Dorian hurried up its three rickety steps, the +heavy odour of opium met him. He heaved a deep breath, and his +nostrils quivered with pleasure. When he entered, a young man with +smooth yellow hair, who was bending over a lamp lighting a long thin +pipe, looked up at him and nodded in a hesitating manner. + +"You here, Adrian?" muttered Dorian. + +"Where else should I be?" he answered, listlessly. "None of the chaps +will speak to me now." + +"I thought you had left England." + +"Darlington is not going to do anything. My brother paid the bill at +last. George doesn't speak to me either.... I don't care," he added +with a sigh. "As long as one has this stuff, one doesn't want friends. +I think I have had too many friends." + +Dorian winced and looked round at the grotesque things that lay in such +fantastic postures on the ragged mattresses. The twisted limbs, the +gaping mouths, the staring lustreless eyes, fascinated him. He knew in +what strange heavens they were suffering, and what dull hells were +teaching them the secret of some new joy. They were better off than he +was. He was prisoned in thought. Memory, like a horrible malady, was +eating his soul away. From time to time he seemed to see the eyes of +Basil Hallward looking at him. Yet he felt he could not stay. The +presence of Adrian Singleton troubled him. He wanted to be where no +one would know who he was. He wanted to escape from himself. + +"I am going on to the other place," he said after a pause. + +"On the wharf?" + +"Yes." + +"That mad-cat is sure to be there. They won't have her in this place +now." + +Dorian shrugged his shoulders. "I am sick of women who love one. +Women who hate one are much more interesting. Besides, the stuff is +better." + +"Much the same." + +"I like it better. Come and have something to drink. I must have +something." + +"I don't want anything," murmured the young man. + +"Never mind." + +Adrian Singleton rose up wearily and followed Dorian to the bar. A +half-caste, in a ragged turban and a shabby ulster, grinned a hideous +greeting as he thrust a bottle of brandy and two tumblers in front of +them. The women sidled up and began to chatter. Dorian turned his +back on them and said something in a low voice to Adrian Singleton. + +A crooked smile, like a Malay crease, writhed across the face of one of +the women. "We are very proud to-night," she sneered. + +"For God's sake don't talk to me," cried Dorian, stamping his foot on +the ground. "What do you want? Money? Here it is. Don't ever talk +to me again." + +Two red sparks flashed for a moment in the woman's sodden eyes, then +flickered out and left them dull and glazed. She tossed her head and +raked the coins off the counter with greedy fingers. Her companion +watched her enviously. + +"It's no use," sighed Adrian Singleton. "I don't care to go back. +What does it matter? I am quite happy here." + +"You will write to me if you want anything, won't you?" said Dorian, +after a pause. + +"Perhaps." + +"Good night, then." + +"Good night," answered the young man, passing up the steps and wiping +his parched mouth with a handkerchief. + +Dorian walked to the door with a look of pain in his face. As he drew +the curtain aside, a hideous laugh broke from the painted lips of the +woman who had taken his money. "There goes the devil's bargain!" she +hiccoughed, in a hoarse voice. + +"Curse you!" he answered, "don't call me that." + +She snapped her fingers. "Prince Charming is what you like to be +called, ain't it?" she yelled after him. + +The drowsy sailor leaped to his feet as she spoke, and looked wildly +round. The sound of the shutting of the hall door fell on his ear. He +rushed out as if in pursuit. + +Dorian Gray hurried along the quay through the drizzling rain. His +meeting with Adrian Singleton had strangely moved him, and he wondered +if the ruin of that young life was really to be laid at his door, as +Basil Hallward had said to him with such infamy of insult. He bit his +lip, and for a few seconds his eyes grew sad. Yet, after all, what did +it matter to him? One's days were too brief to take the burden of +another's errors on one's shoulders. Each man lived his own life and +paid his own price for living it. The only pity was one had to pay so +often for a single fault. One had to pay over and over again, indeed. +In her dealings with man, destiny never closed her accounts. + +There are moments, psychologists tell us, when the passion for sin, or +for what the world calls sin, so dominates a nature that every fibre of +the body, as every cell of the brain, seems to be instinct with fearful +impulses. Men and women at such moments lose the freedom of their +will. They move to their terrible end as automatons move. Choice is +taken from them, and conscience is either killed, or, if it lives at +all, lives but to give rebellion its fascination and disobedience its +charm. For all sins, as theologians weary not of reminding us, are +sins of disobedience. When that high spirit, that morning star of +evil, fell from heaven, it was as a rebel that he fell. + +Callous, concentrated on evil, with stained mind, and soul hungry for +rebellion, Dorian Gray hastened on, quickening his step as he went, but +as he darted aside into a dim archway, that had served him often as a +short cut to the ill-famed place where he was going, he felt himself +suddenly seized from behind, and before he had time to defend himself, +he was thrust back against the wall, with a brutal hand round his +throat. + +He struggled madly for life, and by a terrible effort wrenched the +tightening fingers away. In a second he heard the click of a revolver, +and saw the gleam of a polished barrel, pointing straight at his head, +and the dusky form of a short, thick-set man facing him. + +"What do you want?" he gasped. + +"Keep quiet," said the man. "If you stir, I shoot you." + +"You are mad. What have I done to you?" + +"You wrecked the life of Sibyl Vane," was the answer, "and Sibyl Vane +was my sister. She killed herself. I know it. Her death is at your +door. I swore I would kill you in return. For years I have sought +you. I had no clue, no trace. The two people who could have described +you were dead. I knew nothing of you but the pet name she used to call +you. I heard it to-night by chance. Make your peace with God, for +to-night you are going to die." + +Dorian Gray grew sick with fear. "I never knew her," he stammered. "I +never heard of her. You are mad." + +"You had better confess your sin, for as sure as I am James Vane, you +are going to die." There was a horrible moment. Dorian did not know +what to say or do. "Down on your knees!" growled the man. "I give you +one minute to make your peace--no more. I go on board to-night for +India, and I must do my job first. One minute. That's all." + +Dorian's arms fell to his side. Paralysed with terror, he did not know +what to do. Suddenly a wild hope flashed across his brain. "Stop," he +cried. "How long ago is it since your sister died? Quick, tell me!" + +"Eighteen years," said the man. "Why do you ask me? What do years +matter?" + +"Eighteen years," laughed Dorian Gray, with a touch of triumph in his +voice. "Eighteen years! Set me under the lamp and look at my face!" + +James Vane hesitated for a moment, not understanding what was meant. +Then he seized Dorian Gray and dragged him from the archway. + +Dim and wavering as was the wind-blown light, yet it served to show him +the hideous error, as it seemed, into which he had fallen, for the face +of the man he had sought to kill had all the bloom of boyhood, all the +unstained purity of youth. He seemed little more than a lad of twenty +summers, hardly older, if older indeed at all, than his sister had been +when they had parted so many years ago. It was obvious that this was +not the man who had destroyed her life. + +He loosened his hold and reeled back. "My God! my God!" he cried, "and +I would have murdered you!" + +Dorian Gray drew a long breath. "You have been on the brink of +committing a terrible crime, my man," he said, looking at him sternly. +"Let this be a warning to you not to take vengeance into your own +hands." + +"Forgive me, sir," muttered James Vane. "I was deceived. A chance +word I heard in that damned den set me on the wrong track." + +"You had better go home and put that pistol away, or you may get into +trouble," said Dorian, turning on his heel and going slowly down the +street. + +James Vane stood on the pavement in horror. He was trembling from head +to foot. After a little while, a black shadow that had been creeping +along the dripping wall moved out into the light and came close to him +with stealthy footsteps. He felt a hand laid on his arm and looked +round with a start. It was one of the women who had been drinking at +the bar. + +"Why didn't you kill him?" she hissed out, putting haggard face quite +close to his. "I knew you were following him when you rushed out from +Daly's. You fool! You should have killed him. He has lots of money, +and he's as bad as bad." + +"He is not the man I am looking for," he answered, "and I want no man's +money. I want a man's life. The man whose life I want must be nearly +forty now. This one is little more than a boy. Thank God, I have not +got his blood upon my hands." + +The woman gave a bitter laugh. "Little more than a boy!" she sneered. +"Why, man, it's nigh on eighteen years since Prince Charming made me +what I am." + +"You lie!" cried James Vane. + +She raised her hand up to heaven. "Before God I am telling the truth," +she cried. + +"Before God?" + +"Strike me dumb if it ain't so. He is the worst one that comes here. +They say he has sold himself to the devil for a pretty face. It's nigh +on eighteen years since I met him. He hasn't changed much since then. +I have, though," she added, with a sickly leer. + +"You swear this?" + +"I swear it," came in hoarse echo from her flat mouth. "But don't give +me away to him," she whined; "I am afraid of him. Let me have some +money for my night's lodging." + +He broke from her with an oath and rushed to the corner of the street, +but Dorian Gray had disappeared. When he looked back, the woman had +vanished also. + + + +CHAPTER 17 + +A week later Dorian Gray was sitting in the conservatory at Selby +Royal, talking to the pretty Duchess of Monmouth, who with her husband, +a jaded-looking man of sixty, was amongst his guests. It was tea-time, +and the mellow light of the huge, lace-covered lamp that stood on the +table lit up the delicate china and hammered silver of the service at +which the duchess was presiding. Her white hands were moving daintily +among the cups, and her full red lips were smiling at something that +Dorian had whispered to her. Lord Henry was lying back in a +silk-draped wicker chair, looking at them. On a peach-coloured divan +sat Lady Narborough, pretending to listen to the duke's description of +the last Brazilian beetle that he had added to his collection. Three +young men in elaborate smoking-suits were handing tea-cakes to some of +the women. The house-party consisted of twelve people, and there were +more expected to arrive on the next day. + +"What are you two talking about?" said Lord Henry, strolling over to +the table and putting his cup down. "I hope Dorian has told you about +my plan for rechristening everything, Gladys. It is a delightful idea." + +"But I don't want to be rechristened, Harry," rejoined the duchess, +looking up at him with her wonderful eyes. "I am quite satisfied with +my own name, and I am sure Mr. Gray should be satisfied with his." + +"My dear Gladys, I would not alter either name for the world. They are +both perfect. I was thinking chiefly of flowers. Yesterday I cut an +orchid, for my button-hole. It was a marvellous spotted thing, as +effective as the seven deadly sins. In a thoughtless moment I asked +one of the gardeners what it was called. He told me it was a fine +specimen of _Robinsoniana_, or something dreadful of that kind. It is a +sad truth, but we have lost the faculty of giving lovely names to +things. Names are everything. I never quarrel with actions. My one +quarrel is with words. That is the reason I hate vulgar realism in +literature. The man who could call a spade a spade should be compelled +to use one. It is the only thing he is fit for." + +"Then what should we call you, Harry?" she asked. + +"His name is Prince Paradox," said Dorian. + +"I recognize him in a flash," exclaimed the duchess. + +"I won't hear of it," laughed Lord Henry, sinking into a chair. "From +a label there is no escape! I refuse the title." + +"Royalties may not abdicate," fell as a warning from pretty lips. + +"You wish me to defend my throne, then?" + +"Yes." + +"I give the truths of to-morrow." + +"I prefer the mistakes of to-day," she answered. + +"You disarm me, Gladys," he cried, catching the wilfulness of her mood. + +"Of your shield, Harry, not of your spear." + +"I never tilt against beauty," he said, with a wave of his hand. + +"That is your error, Harry, believe me. You value beauty far too much." + +"How can you say that? I admit that I think that it is better to be +beautiful than to be good. But on the other hand, no one is more ready +than I am to acknowledge that it is better to be good than to be ugly." + +"Ugliness is one of the seven deadly sins, then?" cried the duchess. +"What becomes of your simile about the orchid?" + +"Ugliness is one of the seven deadly virtues, Gladys. You, as a good +Tory, must not underrate them. Beer, the Bible, and the seven deadly +virtues have made our England what she is." + +"You don't like your country, then?" she asked. + +"I live in it." + +"That you may censure it the better." + +"Would you have me take the verdict of Europe on it?" he inquired. + +"What do they say of us?" + +"That Tartuffe has emigrated to England and opened a shop." + +"Is that yours, Harry?" + +"I give it to you." + +"I could not use it. It is too true." + +"You need not be afraid. Our countrymen never recognize a description." + +"They are practical." + +"They are more cunning than practical. When they make up their ledger, +they balance stupidity by wealth, and vice by hypocrisy." + +"Still, we have done great things." + +"Great things have been thrust on us, Gladys." + +"We have carried their burden." + +"Only as far as the Stock Exchange." + +She shook her head. "I believe in the race," she cried. + +"It represents the survival of the pushing." + +"It has development." + +"Decay fascinates me more." + +"What of art?" she asked. + +"It is a malady." + +"Love?" + +"An illusion." + +"Religion?" + +"The fashionable substitute for belief." + +"You are a sceptic." + +"Never! Scepticism is the beginning of faith." + +"What are you?" + +"To define is to limit." + +"Give me a clue." + +"Threads snap. You would lose your way in the labyrinth." + +"You bewilder me. Let us talk of some one else." + +"Our host is a delightful topic. Years ago he was christened Prince +Charming." + +"Ah! don't remind me of that," cried Dorian Gray. + +"Our host is rather horrid this evening," answered the duchess, +colouring. "I believe he thinks that Monmouth married me on purely +scientific principles as the best specimen he could find of a modern +butterfly." + +"Well, I hope he won't stick pins into you, Duchess," laughed Dorian. + +"Oh! my maid does that already, Mr. Gray, when she is annoyed with me." + +"And what does she get annoyed with you about, Duchess?" + +"For the most trivial things, Mr. Gray, I assure you. Usually because +I come in at ten minutes to nine and tell her that I must be dressed by +half-past eight." + +"How unreasonable of her! You should give her warning." + +"I daren't, Mr. Gray. Why, she invents hats for me. You remember the +one I wore at Lady Hilstone's garden-party? You don't, but it is nice +of you to pretend that you do. Well, she made it out of nothing. All +good hats are made out of nothing." + +"Like all good reputations, Gladys," interrupted Lord Henry. "Every +effect that one produces gives one an enemy. To be popular one must be +a mediocrity." + +"Not with women," said the duchess, shaking her head; "and women rule +the world. I assure you we can't bear mediocrities. We women, as some +one says, love with our ears, just as you men love with your eyes, if +you ever love at all." + +"It seems to me that we never do anything else," murmured Dorian. + +"Ah! then, you never really love, Mr. Gray," answered the duchess with +mock sadness. + +"My dear Gladys!" cried Lord Henry. "How can you say that? Romance +lives by repetition, and repetition converts an appetite into an art. +Besides, each time that one loves is the only time one has ever loved. +Difference of object does not alter singleness of passion. It merely +intensifies it. We can have in life but one great experience at best, +and the secret of life is to reproduce that experience as often as +possible." + +"Even when one has been wounded by it, Harry?" asked the duchess after +a pause. + +"Especially when one has been wounded by it," answered Lord Henry. + +The duchess turned and looked at Dorian Gray with a curious expression +in her eyes. "What do you say to that, Mr. Gray?" she inquired. + +Dorian hesitated for a moment. Then he threw his head back and +laughed. "I always agree with Harry, Duchess." + +"Even when he is wrong?" + +"Harry is never wrong, Duchess." + +"And does his philosophy make you happy?" + +"I have never searched for happiness. Who wants happiness? I have +searched for pleasure." + +"And found it, Mr. Gray?" + +"Often. Too often." + +The duchess sighed. "I am searching for peace," she said, "and if I +don't go and dress, I shall have none this evening." + +"Let me get you some orchids, Duchess," cried Dorian, starting to his +feet and walking down the conservatory. + +"You are flirting disgracefully with him," said Lord Henry to his +cousin. "You had better take care. He is very fascinating." + +"If he were not, there would be no battle." + +"Greek meets Greek, then?" + +"I am on the side of the Trojans. They fought for a woman." + +"They were defeated." + +"There are worse things than capture," she answered. + +"You gallop with a loose rein." + +"Pace gives life," was the _riposte_. + +"I shall write it in my diary to-night." + +"What?" + +"That a burnt child loves the fire." + +"I am not even singed. My wings are untouched." + +"You use them for everything, except flight." + +"Courage has passed from men to women. It is a new experience for us." + +"You have a rival." + +"Who?" + +He laughed. "Lady Narborough," he whispered. "She perfectly adores +him." + +"You fill me with apprehension. The appeal to antiquity is fatal to us +who are romanticists." + +"Romanticists! You have all the methods of science." + +"Men have educated us." + +"But not explained you." + +"Describe us as a sex," was her challenge. + +"Sphinxes without secrets." + +She looked at him, smiling. "How long Mr. Gray is!" she said. "Let us +go and help him. I have not yet told him the colour of my frock." + +"Ah! you must suit your frock to his flowers, Gladys." + +"That would be a premature surrender." + +"Romantic art begins with its climax." + +"I must keep an opportunity for retreat." + +"In the Parthian manner?" + +"They found safety in the desert. I could not do that." + +"Women are not always allowed a choice," he answered, but hardly had he +finished the sentence before from the far end of the conservatory came +a stifled groan, followed by the dull sound of a heavy fall. Everybody +started up. The duchess stood motionless in horror. And with fear in +his eyes, Lord Henry rushed through the flapping palms to find Dorian +Gray lying face downwards on the tiled floor in a deathlike swoon. + +He was carried at once into the blue drawing-room and laid upon one of +the sofas. After a short time, he came to himself and looked round +with a dazed expression. + +"What has happened?" he asked. "Oh! I remember. Am I safe here, +Harry?" He began to tremble. + +"My dear Dorian," answered Lord Henry, "you merely fainted. That was +all. You must have overtired yourself. You had better not come down +to dinner. I will take your place." + +"No, I will come down," he said, struggling to his feet. "I would +rather come down. I must not be alone." + +He went to his room and dressed. There was a wild recklessness of +gaiety in his manner as he sat at table, but now and then a thrill of +terror ran through him when he remembered that, pressed against the +window of the conservatory, like a white handkerchief, he had seen the +face of James Vane watching him. + + + +CHAPTER 18 + +The next day he did not leave the house, and, indeed, spent most of the +time in his own room, sick with a wild terror of dying, and yet +indifferent to life itself. The consciousness of being hunted, snared, +tracked down, had begun to dominate him. If the tapestry did but +tremble in the wind, he shook. The dead leaves that were blown against +the leaded panes seemed to him like his own wasted resolutions and wild +regrets. When he closed his eyes, he saw again the sailor's face +peering through the mist-stained glass, and horror seemed once more to +lay its hand upon his heart. + +But perhaps it had been only his fancy that had called vengeance out of +the night and set the hideous shapes of punishment before him. Actual +life was chaos, but there was something terribly logical in the +imagination. It was the imagination that set remorse to dog the feet +of sin. It was the imagination that made each crime bear its misshapen +brood. In the common world of fact the wicked were not punished, nor +the good rewarded. Success was given to the strong, failure thrust +upon the weak. That was all. Besides, had any stranger been prowling +round the house, he would have been seen by the servants or the +keepers. Had any foot-marks been found on the flower-beds, the +gardeners would have reported it. Yes, it had been merely fancy. +Sibyl Vane's brother had not come back to kill him. He had sailed away +in his ship to founder in some winter sea. From him, at any rate, he +was safe. Why, the man did not know who he was, could not know who he +was. The mask of youth had saved him. + +And yet if it had been merely an illusion, how terrible it was to think +that conscience could raise such fearful phantoms, and give them +visible form, and make them move before one! What sort of life would +his be if, day and night, shadows of his crime were to peer at him from +silent corners, to mock him from secret places, to whisper in his ear +as he sat at the feast, to wake him with icy fingers as he lay asleep! +As the thought crept through his brain, he grew pale with terror, and +the air seemed to him to have become suddenly colder. Oh! in what a +wild hour of madness he had killed his friend! How ghastly the mere +memory of the scene! He saw it all again. Each hideous detail came +back to him with added horror. Out of the black cave of time, terrible +and swathed in scarlet, rose the image of his sin. When Lord Henry +came in at six o'clock, he found him crying as one whose heart will +break. + +It was not till the third day that he ventured to go out. There was +something in the clear, pine-scented air of that winter morning that +seemed to bring him back his joyousness and his ardour for life. But +it was not merely the physical conditions of environment that had +caused the change. His own nature had revolted against the excess of +anguish that had sought to maim and mar the perfection of its calm. +With subtle and finely wrought temperaments it is always so. Their +strong passions must either bruise or bend. They either slay the man, +or themselves die. Shallow sorrows and shallow loves live on. The +loves and sorrows that are great are destroyed by their own plenitude. +Besides, he had convinced himself that he had been the victim of a +terror-stricken imagination, and looked back now on his fears with +something of pity and not a little of contempt. + +After breakfast, he walked with the duchess for an hour in the garden +and then drove across the park to join the shooting-party. The crisp +frost lay like salt upon the grass. The sky was an inverted cup of +blue metal. A thin film of ice bordered the flat, reed-grown lake. + +At the corner of the pine-wood he caught sight of Sir Geoffrey +Clouston, the duchess's brother, jerking two spent cartridges out of +his gun. He jumped from the cart, and having told the groom to take +the mare home, made his way towards his guest through the withered +bracken and rough undergrowth. + +"Have you had good sport, Geoffrey?" he asked. + +"Not very good, Dorian. I think most of the birds have gone to the +open. I dare say it will be better after lunch, when we get to new +ground." + +Dorian strolled along by his side. The keen aromatic air, the brown +and red lights that glimmered in the wood, the hoarse cries of the +beaters ringing out from time to time, and the sharp snaps of the guns +that followed, fascinated him and filled him with a sense of delightful +freedom. He was dominated by the carelessness of happiness, by the +high indifference of joy. + +Suddenly from a lumpy tussock of old grass some twenty yards in front +of them, with black-tipped ears erect and long hinder limbs throwing it +forward, started a hare. It bolted for a thicket of alders. Sir +Geoffrey put his gun to his shoulder, but there was something in the +animal's grace of movement that strangely charmed Dorian Gray, and he +cried out at once, "Don't shoot it, Geoffrey. Let it live." + +"What nonsense, Dorian!" laughed his companion, and as the hare bounded +into the thicket, he fired. There were two cries heard, the cry of a +hare in pain, which is dreadful, the cry of a man in agony, which is +worse. + +"Good heavens! I have hit a beater!" exclaimed Sir Geoffrey. "What an +ass the man was to get in front of the guns! Stop shooting there!" he +called out at the top of his voice. "A man is hurt." + +The head-keeper came running up with a stick in his hand. + +"Where, sir? Where is he?" he shouted. At the same time, the firing +ceased along the line. + +"Here," answered Sir Geoffrey angrily, hurrying towards the thicket. +"Why on earth don't you keep your men back? Spoiled my shooting for +the day." + +Dorian watched them as they plunged into the alder-clump, brushing the +lithe swinging branches aside. In a few moments they emerged, dragging +a body after them into the sunlight. He turned away in horror. It +seemed to him that misfortune followed wherever he went. He heard Sir +Geoffrey ask if the man was really dead, and the affirmative answer of +the keeper. The wood seemed to him to have become suddenly alive with +faces. There was the trampling of myriad feet and the low buzz of +voices. A great copper-breasted pheasant came beating through the +boughs overhead. + +After a few moments--that were to him, in his perturbed state, like +endless hours of pain--he felt a hand laid on his shoulder. He started +and looked round. + +"Dorian," said Lord Henry, "I had better tell them that the shooting is +stopped for to-day. It would not look well to go on." + +"I wish it were stopped for ever, Harry," he answered bitterly. "The +whole thing is hideous and cruel. Is the man ...?" + +He could not finish the sentence. + +"I am afraid so," rejoined Lord Henry. "He got the whole charge of +shot in his chest. He must have died almost instantaneously. Come; +let us go home." + +They walked side by side in the direction of the avenue for nearly +fifty yards without speaking. Then Dorian looked at Lord Henry and +said, with a heavy sigh, "It is a bad omen, Harry, a very bad omen." + +"What is?" asked Lord Henry. "Oh! this accident, I suppose. My dear +fellow, it can't be helped. It was the man's own fault. Why did he +get in front of the guns? Besides, it is nothing to us. It is rather +awkward for Geoffrey, of course. It does not do to pepper beaters. It +makes people think that one is a wild shot. And Geoffrey is not; he +shoots very straight. But there is no use talking about the matter." + +Dorian shook his head. "It is a bad omen, Harry. I feel as if +something horrible were going to happen to some of us. To myself, +perhaps," he added, passing his hand over his eyes, with a gesture of +pain. + +The elder man laughed. "The only horrible thing in the world is _ennui_, +Dorian. That is the one sin for which there is no forgiveness. But we +are not likely to suffer from it unless these fellows keep chattering +about this thing at dinner. I must tell them that the subject is to be +tabooed. As for omens, there is no such thing as an omen. Destiny +does not send us heralds. She is too wise or too cruel for that. +Besides, what on earth could happen to you, Dorian? You have +everything in the world that a man can want. There is no one who would +not be delighted to change places with you." + +"There is no one with whom I would not change places, Harry. Don't +laugh like that. I am telling you the truth. The wretched peasant who +has just died is better off than I am. I have no terror of death. It +is the coming of death that terrifies me. Its monstrous wings seem to +wheel in the leaden air around me. Good heavens! don't you see a man +moving behind the trees there, watching me, waiting for me?" + +Lord Henry looked in the direction in which the trembling gloved hand +was pointing. "Yes," he said, smiling, "I see the gardener waiting for +you. I suppose he wants to ask you what flowers you wish to have on +the table to-night. How absurdly nervous you are, my dear fellow! You +must come and see my doctor, when we get back to town." + +Dorian heaved a sigh of relief as he saw the gardener approaching. The +man touched his hat, glanced for a moment at Lord Henry in a hesitating +manner, and then produced a letter, which he handed to his master. +"Her Grace told me to wait for an answer," he murmured. + +Dorian put the letter into his pocket. "Tell her Grace that I am +coming in," he said, coldly. The man turned round and went rapidly in +the direction of the house. + +"How fond women are of doing dangerous things!" laughed Lord Henry. +"It is one of the qualities in them that I admire most. A woman will +flirt with anybody in the world as long as other people are looking on." + +"How fond you are of saying dangerous things, Harry! In the present +instance, you are quite astray. I like the duchess very much, but I +don't love her." + +"And the duchess loves you very much, but she likes you less, so you +are excellently matched." + +"You are talking scandal, Harry, and there is never any basis for +scandal." + +"The basis of every scandal is an immoral certainty," said Lord Henry, +lighting a cigarette. + +"You would sacrifice anybody, Harry, for the sake of an epigram." + +"The world goes to the altar of its own accord," was the answer. + +"I wish I could love," cried Dorian Gray with a deep note of pathos in +his voice. "But I seem to have lost the passion and forgotten the +desire. I am too much concentrated on myself. My own personality has +become a burden to me. I want to escape, to go away, to forget. It +was silly of me to come down here at all. I think I shall send a wire +to Harvey to have the yacht got ready. On a yacht one is safe." + +"Safe from what, Dorian? You are in some trouble. Why not tell me +what it is? You know I would help you." + +"I can't tell you, Harry," he answered sadly. "And I dare say it is +only a fancy of mine. This unfortunate accident has upset me. I have +a horrible presentiment that something of the kind may happen to me." + +"What nonsense!" + +"I hope it is, but I can't help feeling it. Ah! here is the duchess, +looking like Artemis in a tailor-made gown. You see we have come back, +Duchess." + +"I have heard all about it, Mr. Gray," she answered. "Poor Geoffrey is +terribly upset. And it seems that you asked him not to shoot the hare. +How curious!" + +"Yes, it was very curious. I don't know what made me say it. Some +whim, I suppose. It looked the loveliest of little live things. But I +am sorry they told you about the man. It is a hideous subject." + +"It is an annoying subject," broke in Lord Henry. "It has no +psychological value at all. Now if Geoffrey had done the thing on +purpose, how interesting he would be! I should like to know some one +who had committed a real murder." + +"How horrid of you, Harry!" cried the duchess. "Isn't it, Mr. Gray? +Harry, Mr. Gray is ill again. He is going to faint." + +Dorian drew himself up with an effort and smiled. "It is nothing, +Duchess," he murmured; "my nerves are dreadfully out of order. That is +all. I am afraid I walked too far this morning. I didn't hear what +Harry said. Was it very bad? You must tell me some other time. I +think I must go and lie down. You will excuse me, won't you?" + +They had reached the great flight of steps that led from the +conservatory on to the terrace. As the glass door closed behind +Dorian, Lord Henry turned and looked at the duchess with his slumberous +eyes. "Are you very much in love with him?" he asked. + +She did not answer for some time, but stood gazing at the landscape. +"I wish I knew," she said at last. + +He shook his head. "Knowledge would be fatal. It is the uncertainty +that charms one. A mist makes things wonderful." + +"One may lose one's way." + +"All ways end at the same point, my dear Gladys." + +"What is that?" + +"Disillusion." + +"It was my _debut_ in life," she sighed. + +"It came to you crowned." + +"I am tired of strawberry leaves." + +"They become you." + +"Only in public." + +"You would miss them," said Lord Henry. + +"I will not part with a petal." + +"Monmouth has ears." + +"Old age is dull of hearing." + +"Has he never been jealous?" + +"I wish he had been." + +He glanced about as if in search of something. "What are you looking +for?" she inquired. + +"The button from your foil," he answered. "You have dropped it." + +She laughed. "I have still the mask." + +"It makes your eyes lovelier," was his reply. + +She laughed again. Her teeth showed like white seeds in a scarlet +fruit. + +Upstairs, in his own room, Dorian Gray was lying on a sofa, with terror +in every tingling fibre of his body. Life had suddenly become too +hideous a burden for him to bear. The dreadful death of the unlucky +beater, shot in the thicket like a wild animal, had seemed to him to +pre-figure death for himself also. He had nearly swooned at what Lord +Henry had said in a chance mood of cynical jesting. + +At five o'clock he rang his bell for his servant and gave him orders to +pack his things for the night-express to town, and to have the brougham +at the door by eight-thirty. He was determined not to sleep another +night at Selby Royal. It was an ill-omened place. Death walked there +in the sunlight. The grass of the forest had been spotted with blood. + +Then he wrote a note to Lord Henry, telling him that he was going up to +town to consult his doctor and asking him to entertain his guests in +his absence. As he was putting it into the envelope, a knock came to +the door, and his valet informed him that the head-keeper wished to see +him. He frowned and bit his lip. "Send him in," he muttered, after +some moments' hesitation. + +As soon as the man entered, Dorian pulled his chequebook out of a +drawer and spread it out before him. + +"I suppose you have come about the unfortunate accident of this +morning, Thornton?" he said, taking up a pen. + +"Yes, sir," answered the gamekeeper. + +"Was the poor fellow married? Had he any people dependent on him?" +asked Dorian, looking bored. "If so, I should not like them to be left +in want, and will send them any sum of money you may think necessary." + +"We don't know who he is, sir. That is what I took the liberty of +coming to you about." + +"Don't know who he is?" said Dorian, listlessly. "What do you mean? +Wasn't he one of your men?" + +"No, sir. Never saw him before. Seems like a sailor, sir." + +The pen dropped from Dorian Gray's hand, and he felt as if his heart +had suddenly stopped beating. "A sailor?" he cried out. "Did you say +a sailor?" + +"Yes, sir. He looks as if he had been a sort of sailor; tattooed on +both arms, and that kind of thing." + +"Was there anything found on him?" said Dorian, leaning forward and +looking at the man with startled eyes. "Anything that would tell his +name?" + +"Some money, sir--not much, and a six-shooter. There was no name of any +kind. A decent-looking man, sir, but rough-like. A sort of sailor we +think." + +Dorian started to his feet. A terrible hope fluttered past him. He +clutched at it madly. "Where is the body?" he exclaimed. "Quick! I +must see it at once." + +"It is in an empty stable in the Home Farm, sir. The folk don't like +to have that sort of thing in their houses. They say a corpse brings +bad luck." + +"The Home Farm! Go there at once and meet me. Tell one of the grooms +to bring my horse round. No. Never mind. I'll go to the stables +myself. It will save time." + +In less than a quarter of an hour, Dorian Gray was galloping down the +long avenue as hard as he could go. The trees seemed to sweep past him +in spectral procession, and wild shadows to fling themselves across his +path. Once the mare swerved at a white gate-post and nearly threw him. +He lashed her across the neck with his crop. She cleft the dusky air +like an arrow. The stones flew from her hoofs. + +At last he reached the Home Farm. Two men were loitering in the yard. +He leaped from the saddle and threw the reins to one of them. In the +farthest stable a light was glimmering. Something seemed to tell him +that the body was there, and he hurried to the door and put his hand +upon the latch. + +There he paused for a moment, feeling that he was on the brink of a +discovery that would either make or mar his life. Then he thrust the +door open and entered. + +On a heap of sacking in the far corner was lying the dead body of a man +dressed in a coarse shirt and a pair of blue trousers. A spotted +handkerchief had been placed over the face. A coarse candle, stuck in +a bottle, sputtered beside it. + +Dorian Gray shuddered. He felt that his could not be the hand to take +the handkerchief away, and called out to one of the farm-servants to +come to him. + +"Take that thing off the face. I wish to see it," he said, clutching +at the door-post for support. + +When the farm-servant had done so, he stepped forward. A cry of joy +broke from his lips. The man who had been shot in the thicket was +James Vane. + +He stood there for some minutes looking at the dead body. As he rode +home, his eyes were full of tears, for he knew he was safe. + + + +CHAPTER 19 + +"There is no use your telling me that you are going to be good," cried +Lord Henry, dipping his white fingers into a red copper bowl filled +with rose-water. "You are quite perfect. Pray, don't change." + +Dorian Gray shook his head. "No, Harry, I have done too many dreadful +things in my life. I am not going to do any more. I began my good +actions yesterday." + +"Where were you yesterday?" + +"In the country, Harry. I was staying at a little inn by myself." + +"My dear boy," said Lord Henry, smiling, "anybody can be good in the +country. There are no temptations there. That is the reason why +people who live out of town are so absolutely uncivilized. +Civilization is not by any means an easy thing to attain to. There are +only two ways by which man can reach it. One is by being cultured, the +other by being corrupt. Country people have no opportunity of being +either, so they stagnate." + +"Culture and corruption," echoed Dorian. "I have known something of +both. It seems terrible to me now that they should ever be found +together. For I have a new ideal, Harry. I am going to alter. I +think I have altered." + +"You have not yet told me what your good action was. Or did you say +you had done more than one?" asked his companion as he spilled into his +plate a little crimson pyramid of seeded strawberries and, through a +perforated, shell-shaped spoon, snowed white sugar upon them. + +"I can tell you, Harry. It is not a story I could tell to any one +else. I spared somebody. It sounds vain, but you understand what I +mean. She was quite beautiful and wonderfully like Sibyl Vane. I +think it was that which first attracted me to her. You remember Sibyl, +don't you? How long ago that seems! Well, Hetty was not one of our +own class, of course. She was simply a girl in a village. But I +really loved her. I am quite sure that I loved her. All during this +wonderful May that we have been having, I used to run down and see her +two or three times a week. Yesterday she met me in a little orchard. +The apple-blossoms kept tumbling down on her hair, and she was +laughing. We were to have gone away together this morning at dawn. +Suddenly I determined to leave her as flowerlike as I had found her." + +"I should think the novelty of the emotion must have given you a thrill +of real pleasure, Dorian," interrupted Lord Henry. "But I can finish +your idyll for you. You gave her good advice and broke her heart. +That was the beginning of your reformation." + +"Harry, you are horrible! You mustn't say these dreadful things. +Hetty's heart is not broken. Of course, she cried and all that. But +there is no disgrace upon her. She can live, like Perdita, in her +garden of mint and marigold." + +"And weep over a faithless Florizel," said Lord Henry, laughing, as he +leaned back in his chair. "My dear Dorian, you have the most curiously +boyish moods. Do you think this girl will ever be really content now +with any one of her own rank? I suppose she will be married some day +to a rough carter or a grinning ploughman. Well, the fact of having +met you, and loved you, will teach her to despise her husband, and she +will be wretched. From a moral point of view, I cannot say that I +think much of your great renunciation. Even as a beginning, it is +poor. Besides, how do you know that Hetty isn't floating at the +present moment in some starlit mill-pond, with lovely water-lilies +round her, like Ophelia?" + +"I can't bear this, Harry! You mock at everything, and then suggest +the most serious tragedies. I am sorry I told you now. I don't care +what you say to me. I know I was right in acting as I did. Poor +Hetty! As I rode past the farm this morning, I saw her white face at +the window, like a spray of jasmine. Don't let us talk about it any +more, and don't try to persuade me that the first good action I have +done for years, the first little bit of self-sacrifice I have ever +known, is really a sort of sin. I want to be better. I am going to be +better. Tell me something about yourself. What is going on in town? +I have not been to the club for days." + +"The people are still discussing poor Basil's disappearance." + +"I should have thought they had got tired of that by this time," said +Dorian, pouring himself out some wine and frowning slightly. + +"My dear boy, they have only been talking about it for six weeks, and +the British public are really not equal to the mental strain of having +more than one topic every three months. They have been very fortunate +lately, however. They have had my own divorce-case and Alan Campbell's +suicide. Now they have got the mysterious disappearance of an artist. +Scotland Yard still insists that the man in the grey ulster who left +for Paris by the midnight train on the ninth of November was poor +Basil, and the French police declare that Basil never arrived in Paris +at all. I suppose in about a fortnight we shall be told that he has +been seen in San Francisco. It is an odd thing, but every one who +disappears is said to be seen at San Francisco. It must be a +delightful city, and possess all the attractions of the next world." + +"What do you think has happened to Basil?" asked Dorian, holding up his +Burgundy against the light and wondering how it was that he could +discuss the matter so calmly. + +"I have not the slightest idea. If Basil chooses to hide himself, it +is no business of mine. If he is dead, I don't want to think about +him. Death is the only thing that ever terrifies me. I hate it." + +"Why?" said the younger man wearily. + +"Because," said Lord Henry, passing beneath his nostrils the gilt +trellis of an open vinaigrette box, "one can survive everything +nowadays except that. Death and vulgarity are the only two facts in +the nineteenth century that one cannot explain away. Let us have our +coffee in the music-room, Dorian. You must play Chopin to me. The man +with whom my wife ran away played Chopin exquisitely. Poor Victoria! +I was very fond of her. The house is rather lonely without her. Of +course, married life is merely a habit, a bad habit. But then one +regrets the loss even of one's worst habits. Perhaps one regrets them +the most. They are such an essential part of one's personality." + +Dorian said nothing, but rose from the table, and passing into the next +room, sat down to the piano and let his fingers stray across the white +and black ivory of the keys. After the coffee had been brought in, he +stopped, and looking over at Lord Henry, said, "Harry, did it ever +occur to you that Basil was murdered?" + +Lord Henry yawned. "Basil was very popular, and always wore a +Waterbury watch. Why should he have been murdered? He was not clever +enough to have enemies. Of course, he had a wonderful genius for +painting. But a man can paint like Velasquez and yet be as dull as +possible. Basil was really rather dull. He only interested me once, +and that was when he told me, years ago, that he had a wild adoration +for you and that you were the dominant motive of his art." + +"I was very fond of Basil," said Dorian with a note of sadness in his +voice. "But don't people say that he was murdered?" + +"Oh, some of the papers do. It does not seem to me to be at all +probable. I know there are dreadful places in Paris, but Basil was not +the sort of man to have gone to them. He had no curiosity. It was his +chief defect." + +"What would you say, Harry, if I told you that I had murdered Basil?" +said the younger man. He watched him intently after he had spoken. + +"I would say, my dear fellow, that you were posing for a character that +doesn't suit you. All crime is vulgar, just as all vulgarity is crime. +It is not in you, Dorian, to commit a murder. I am sorry if I hurt +your vanity by saying so, but I assure you it is true. Crime belongs +exclusively to the lower orders. I don't blame them in the smallest +degree. I should fancy that crime was to them what art is to us, +simply a method of procuring extraordinary sensations." + +"A method of procuring sensations? Do you think, then, that a man who +has once committed a murder could possibly do the same crime again? +Don't tell me that." + +"Oh! anything becomes a pleasure if one does it too often," cried Lord +Henry, laughing. "That is one of the most important secrets of life. +I should fancy, however, that murder is always a mistake. One should +never do anything that one cannot talk about after dinner. But let us +pass from poor Basil. I wish I could believe that he had come to such +a really romantic end as you suggest, but I can't. I dare say he fell +into the Seine off an omnibus and that the conductor hushed up the +scandal. Yes: I should fancy that was his end. I see him lying now +on his back under those dull-green waters, with the heavy barges +floating over him and long weeds catching in his hair. Do you know, I +don't think he would have done much more good work. During the last +ten years his painting had gone off very much." + +Dorian heaved a sigh, and Lord Henry strolled across the room and began +to stroke the head of a curious Java parrot, a large, grey-plumaged +bird with pink crest and tail, that was balancing itself upon a bamboo +perch. As his pointed fingers touched it, it dropped the white scurf +of crinkled lids over black, glasslike eyes and began to sway backwards +and forwards. + +"Yes," he continued, turning round and taking his handkerchief out of +his pocket; "his painting had quite gone off. It seemed to me to have +lost something. It had lost an ideal. When you and he ceased to be +great friends, he ceased to be a great artist. What was it separated +you? I suppose he bored you. If so, he never forgave you. It's a +habit bores have. By the way, what has become of that wonderful +portrait he did of you? I don't think I have ever seen it since he +finished it. Oh! I remember your telling me years ago that you had +sent it down to Selby, and that it had got mislaid or stolen on the +way. You never got it back? What a pity! it was really a +masterpiece. I remember I wanted to buy it. I wish I had now. It +belonged to Basil's best period. Since then, his work was that curious +mixture of bad painting and good intentions that always entitles a man +to be called a representative British artist. Did you advertise for +it? You should." + +"I forget," said Dorian. "I suppose I did. But I never really liked +it. I am sorry I sat for it. The memory of the thing is hateful to +me. Why do you talk of it? It used to remind me of those curious +lines in some play--Hamlet, I think--how do they run?-- + + "Like the painting of a sorrow, + A face without a heart." + +Yes: that is what it was like." + +Lord Henry laughed. "If a man treats life artistically, his brain is +his heart," he answered, sinking into an arm-chair. + +Dorian Gray shook his head and struck some soft chords on the piano. +"'Like the painting of a sorrow,'" he repeated, "'a face without a +heart.'" + +The elder man lay back and looked at him with half-closed eyes. "By +the way, Dorian," he said after a pause, "'what does it profit a man if +he gain the whole world and lose--how does the quotation run?--his own +soul'?" + +The music jarred, and Dorian Gray started and stared at his friend. +"Why do you ask me that, Harry?" + +"My dear fellow," said Lord Henry, elevating his eyebrows in surprise, +"I asked you because I thought you might be able to give me an answer. +That is all. I was going through the park last Sunday, and close by +the Marble Arch there stood a little crowd of shabby-looking people +listening to some vulgar street-preacher. As I passed by, I heard the +man yelling out that question to his audience. It struck me as being +rather dramatic. London is very rich in curious effects of that kind. +A wet Sunday, an uncouth Christian in a mackintosh, a ring of sickly +white faces under a broken roof of dripping umbrellas, and a wonderful +phrase flung into the air by shrill hysterical lips--it was really very +good in its way, quite a suggestion. I thought of telling the prophet +that art had a soul, but that man had not. I am afraid, however, he +would not have understood me." + +"Don't, Harry. The soul is a terrible reality. It can be bought, and +sold, and bartered away. It can be poisoned, or made perfect. There +is a soul in each one of us. I know it." + +"Do you feel quite sure of that, Dorian?" + +"Quite sure." + +"Ah! then it must be an illusion. The things one feels absolutely +certain about are never true. That is the fatality of faith, and the +lesson of romance. How grave you are! Don't be so serious. What have +you or I to do with the superstitions of our age? No: we have given +up our belief in the soul. Play me something. Play me a nocturne, +Dorian, and, as you play, tell me, in a low voice, how you have kept +your youth. You must have some secret. I am only ten years older than +you are, and I am wrinkled, and worn, and yellow. You are really +wonderful, Dorian. You have never looked more charming than you do +to-night. You remind me of the day I saw you first. You were rather +cheeky, very shy, and absolutely extraordinary. You have changed, of +course, but not in appearance. I wish you would tell me your secret. +To get back my youth I would do anything in the world, except take +exercise, get up early, or be respectable. Youth! There is nothing +like it. It's absurd to talk of the ignorance of youth. The only +people to whose opinions I listen now with any respect are people much +younger than myself. They seem in front of me. Life has revealed to +them her latest wonder. As for the aged, I always contradict the aged. +I do it on principle. If you ask them their opinion on something that +happened yesterday, they solemnly give you the opinions current in +1820, when people wore high stocks, believed in everything, and knew +absolutely nothing. How lovely that thing you are playing is! I +wonder, did Chopin write it at Majorca, with the sea weeping round the +villa and the salt spray dashing against the panes? It is marvellously +romantic. What a blessing it is that there is one art left to us that +is not imitative! Don't stop. I want music to-night. It seems to me +that you are the young Apollo and that I am Marsyas listening to you. +I have sorrows, Dorian, of my own, that even you know nothing of. The +tragedy of old age is not that one is old, but that one is young. I am +amazed sometimes at my own sincerity. Ah, Dorian, how happy you are! +What an exquisite life you have had! You have drunk deeply of +everything. You have crushed the grapes against your palate. Nothing +has been hidden from you. And it has all been to you no more than the +sound of music. It has not marred you. You are still the same." + +"I am not the same, Harry." + +"Yes, you are the same. I wonder what the rest of your life will be. +Don't spoil it by renunciations. At present you are a perfect type. +Don't make yourself incomplete. You are quite flawless now. You need +not shake your head: you know you are. Besides, Dorian, don't deceive +yourself. Life is not governed by will or intention. Life is a +question of nerves, and fibres, and slowly built-up cells in which +thought hides itself and passion has its dreams. You may fancy +yourself safe and think yourself strong. But a chance tone of colour +in a room or a morning sky, a particular perfume that you had once +loved and that brings subtle memories with it, a line from a forgotten +poem that you had come across again, a cadence from a piece of music +that you had ceased to play--I tell you, Dorian, that it is on things +like these that our lives depend. Browning writes about that +somewhere; but our own senses will imagine them for us. There are +moments when the odour of _lilas blanc_ passes suddenly across me, and I +have to live the strangest month of my life over again. I wish I could +change places with you, Dorian. The world has cried out against us +both, but it has always worshipped you. It always will worship you. +You are the type of what the age is searching for, and what it is +afraid it has found. I am so glad that you have never done anything, +never carved a statue, or painted a picture, or produced anything +outside of yourself! Life has been your art. You have set yourself to +music. Your days are your sonnets." + +Dorian rose up from the piano and passed his hand through his hair. +"Yes, life has been exquisite," he murmured, "but I am not going to +have the same life, Harry. And you must not say these extravagant +things to me. You don't know everything about me. I think that if you +did, even you would turn from me. You laugh. Don't laugh." + +"Why have you stopped playing, Dorian? Go back and give me the +nocturne over again. Look at that great, honey-coloured moon that +hangs in the dusky air. She is waiting for you to charm her, and if +you play she will come closer to the earth. You won't? Let us go to +the club, then. It has been a charming evening, and we must end it +charmingly. There is some one at White's who wants immensely to know +you--young Lord Poole, Bournemouth's eldest son. He has already copied +your neckties, and has begged me to introduce him to you. He is quite +delightful and rather reminds me of you." + +"I hope not," said Dorian with a sad look in his eyes. "But I am tired +to-night, Harry. I shan't go to the club. It is nearly eleven, and I +want to go to bed early." + +"Do stay. You have never played so well as to-night. There was +something in your touch that was wonderful. It had more expression +than I had ever heard from it before." + +"It is because I am going to be good," he answered, smiling. "I am a +little changed already." + +"You cannot change to me, Dorian," said Lord Henry. "You and I will +always be friends." + +"Yet you poisoned me with a book once. I should not forgive that. +Harry, promise me that you will never lend that book to any one. It +does harm." + +"My dear boy, you are really beginning to moralize. You will soon be +going about like the converted, and the revivalist, warning people +against all the sins of which you have grown tired. You are much too +delightful to do that. Besides, it is no use. You and I are what we +are, and will be what we will be. As for being poisoned by a book, +there is no such thing as that. Art has no influence upon action. It +annihilates the desire to act. It is superbly sterile. The books that +the world calls immoral are books that show the world its own shame. +That is all. But we won't discuss literature. Come round to-morrow. I +am going to ride at eleven. We might go together, and I will take you +to lunch afterwards with Lady Branksome. She is a charming woman, and +wants to consult you about some tapestries she is thinking of buying. +Mind you come. Or shall we lunch with our little duchess? She says +she never sees you now. Perhaps you are tired of Gladys? I thought +you would be. Her clever tongue gets on one's nerves. Well, in any +case, be here at eleven." + +"Must I really come, Harry?" + +"Certainly. The park is quite lovely now. I don't think there have +been such lilacs since the year I met you." + +"Very well. I shall be here at eleven," said Dorian. "Good night, +Harry." As he reached the door, he hesitated for a moment, as if he +had something more to say. Then he sighed and went out. + + + +CHAPTER 20 + +It was a lovely night, so warm that he threw his coat over his arm and +did not even put his silk scarf round his throat. As he strolled home, +smoking his cigarette, two young men in evening dress passed him. He +heard one of them whisper to the other, "That is Dorian Gray." He +remembered how pleased he used to be when he was pointed out, or stared +at, or talked about. He was tired of hearing his own name now. Half +the charm of the little village where he had been so often lately was +that no one knew who he was. He had often told the girl whom he had +lured to love him that he was poor, and she had believed him. He had +told her once that he was wicked, and she had laughed at him and +answered that wicked people were always very old and very ugly. What a +laugh she had!--just like a thrush singing. And how pretty she had +been in her cotton dresses and her large hats! She knew nothing, but +she had everything that he had lost. + +When he reached home, he found his servant waiting up for him. He sent +him to bed, and threw himself down on the sofa in the library, and +began to think over some of the things that Lord Henry had said to him. + +Was it really true that one could never change? He felt a wild longing +for the unstained purity of his boyhood--his rose-white boyhood, as +Lord Henry had once called it. He knew that he had tarnished himself, +filled his mind with corruption and given horror to his fancy; that he +had been an evil influence to others, and had experienced a terrible +joy in being so; and that of the lives that had crossed his own, it had +been the fairest and the most full of promise that he had brought to +shame. But was it all irretrievable? Was there no hope for him? + +Ah! in what a monstrous moment of pride and passion he had prayed that +the portrait should bear the burden of his days, and he keep the +unsullied splendour of eternal youth! All his failure had been due to +that. Better for him that each sin of his life had brought its sure +swift penalty along with it. There was purification in punishment. +Not "Forgive us our sins" but "Smite us for our iniquities" should be +the prayer of man to a most just God. + +The curiously carved mirror that Lord Henry had given to him, so many +years ago now, was standing on the table, and the white-limbed Cupids +laughed round it as of old. He took it up, as he had done on that +night of horror when he had first noted the change in the fatal +picture, and with wild, tear-dimmed eyes looked into its polished +shield. Once, some one who had terribly loved him had written to him a +mad letter, ending with these idolatrous words: "The world is changed +because you are made of ivory and gold. The curves of your lips +rewrite history." The phrases came back to his memory, and he repeated +them over and over to himself. Then he loathed his own beauty, and +flinging the mirror on the floor, crushed it into silver splinters +beneath his heel. It was his beauty that had ruined him, his beauty +and the youth that he had prayed for. But for those two things, his +life might have been free from stain. His beauty had been to him but a +mask, his youth but a mockery. What was youth at best? A green, an +unripe time, a time of shallow moods, and sickly thoughts. Why had he +worn its livery? Youth had spoiled him. + +It was better not to think of the past. Nothing could alter that. It +was of himself, and of his own future, that he had to think. James +Vane was hidden in a nameless grave in Selby churchyard. Alan Campbell +had shot himself one night in his laboratory, but had not revealed the +secret that he had been forced to know. The excitement, such as it +was, over Basil Hallward's disappearance would soon pass away. It was +already waning. He was perfectly safe there. Nor, indeed, was it the +death of Basil Hallward that weighed most upon his mind. It was the +living death of his own soul that troubled him. Basil had painted the +portrait that had marred his life. He could not forgive him that. It +was the portrait that had done everything. Basil had said things to +him that were unbearable, and that he had yet borne with patience. The +murder had been simply the madness of a moment. As for Alan Campbell, +his suicide had been his own act. He had chosen to do it. It was +nothing to him. + +A new life! That was what he wanted. That was what he was waiting +for. Surely he had begun it already. He had spared one innocent +thing, at any rate. He would never again tempt innocence. He would be +good. + +As he thought of Hetty Merton, he began to wonder if the portrait in +the locked room had changed. Surely it was not still so horrible as it +had been? Perhaps if his life became pure, he would be able to expel +every sign of evil passion from the face. Perhaps the signs of evil +had already gone away. He would go and look. + +He took the lamp from the table and crept upstairs. As he unbarred the +door, a smile of joy flitted across his strangely young-looking face +and lingered for a moment about his lips. Yes, he would be good, and +the hideous thing that he had hidden away would no longer be a terror +to him. He felt as if the load had been lifted from him already. + +He went in quietly, locking the door behind him, as was his custom, and +dragged the purple hanging from the portrait. A cry of pain and +indignation broke from him. He could see no change, save that in the +eyes there was a look of cunning and in the mouth the curved wrinkle of +the hypocrite. The thing was still loathsome--more loathsome, if +possible, than before--and the scarlet dew that spotted the hand seemed +brighter, and more like blood newly spilled. Then he trembled. Had it +been merely vanity that had made him do his one good deed? Or the +desire for a new sensation, as Lord Henry had hinted, with his mocking +laugh? Or that passion to act a part that sometimes makes us do things +finer than we are ourselves? Or, perhaps, all these? And why was the +red stain larger than it had been? It seemed to have crept like a +horrible disease over the wrinkled fingers. There was blood on the +painted feet, as though the thing had dripped--blood even on the hand +that had not held the knife. Confess? Did it mean that he was to +confess? To give himself up and be put to death? He laughed. He felt +that the idea was monstrous. Besides, even if he did confess, who +would believe him? There was no trace of the murdered man anywhere. +Everything belonging to him had been destroyed. He himself had burned +what had been below-stairs. The world would simply say that he was mad. +They would shut him up if he persisted in his story.... Yet it was +his duty to confess, to suffer public shame, and to make public +atonement. There was a God who called upon men to tell their sins to +earth as well as to heaven. Nothing that he could do would cleanse him +till he had told his own sin. His sin? He shrugged his shoulders. +The death of Basil Hallward seemed very little to him. He was thinking +of Hetty Merton. For it was an unjust mirror, this mirror of his soul +that he was looking at. Vanity? Curiosity? Hypocrisy? Had there +been nothing more in his renunciation than that? There had been +something more. At least he thought so. But who could tell? ... No. +There had been nothing more. Through vanity he had spared her. In +hypocrisy he had worn the mask of goodness. For curiosity's sake he +had tried the denial of self. He recognized that now. + +But this murder--was it to dog him all his life? Was he always to be +burdened by his past? Was he really to confess? Never. There was +only one bit of evidence left against him. The picture itself--that +was evidence. He would destroy it. Why had he kept it so long? Once +it had given him pleasure to watch it changing and growing old. Of +late he had felt no such pleasure. It had kept him awake at night. +When he had been away, he had been filled with terror lest other eyes +should look upon it. It had brought melancholy across his passions. +Its mere memory had marred many moments of joy. It had been like +conscience to him. Yes, it had been conscience. He would destroy it. + +He looked round and saw the knife that had stabbed Basil Hallward. He +had cleaned it many times, till there was no stain left upon it. It +was bright, and glistened. As it had killed the painter, so it would +kill the painter's work, and all that that meant. It would kill the +past, and when that was dead, he would be free. It would kill this +monstrous soul-life, and without its hideous warnings, he would be at +peace. He seized the thing, and stabbed the picture with it. + +There was a cry heard, and a crash. The cry was so horrible in its +agony that the frightened servants woke and crept out of their rooms. +Two gentlemen, who were passing in the square below, stopped and looked +up at the great house. They walked on till they met a policeman and +brought him back. The man rang the bell several times, but there was +no answer. Except for a light in one of the top windows, the house was +all dark. After a time, he went away and stood in an adjoining portico +and watched. + +"Whose house is that, Constable?" asked the elder of the two gentlemen. + +"Mr. Dorian Gray's, sir," answered the policeman. + +They looked at each other, as they walked away, and sneered. One of +them was Sir Henry Ashton's uncle. + +Inside, in the servants' part of the house, the half-clad domestics +were talking in low whispers to each other. Old Mrs. Leaf was crying +and wringing her hands. Francis was as pale as death. + +After about a quarter of an hour, he got the coachman and one of the +footmen and crept upstairs. They knocked, but there was no reply. +They called out. Everything was still. Finally, after vainly trying +to force the door, they got on the roof and dropped down on to the +balcony. The windows yielded easily--their bolts were old. + +When they entered, they found hanging upon the wall a splendid portrait +of their master as they had last seen him, in all the wonder of his +exquisite youth and beauty. Lying on the floor was a dead man, in +evening dress, with a knife in his heart. He was withered, wrinkled, +and loathsome of visage. It was not till they had examined the rings +that they recognized who it was. + + + + + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's The Picture of Dorian Gray, by Oscar Wilde + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE PICTURE OF DORIAN GRAY *** + +***** This file should be named 174.txt or 174.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/1/7/174/ + +Produced by Judith Boss. HTML version by Al Haines. + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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Thus, we do not necessarily +keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition. + + +Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility: + + http://www.gutenberg.net + +This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm, +including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary +Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to +subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks. diff --git a/src/main/pg-dracula.txt b/src/main/pg-dracula.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..b5e4917 --- /dev/null +++ b/src/main/pg-dracula.txt @@ -0,0 +1,15973 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Dracula, by Bram Stoker + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org/license + + +Title: Dracula + +Author: Bram Stoker + +Release Date: August 16, 2013 [EBook #345] + +Language: English + + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK DRACULA *** + + + + +Produced by Chuck Greif and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was +produced from images generously made available by The +Internet Archive) + + + + + + + + DRACULA + + + + + + DRACULA + + _by_ + + Bram Stoker + + [Illustration: colophon] + + NEW YORK + + GROSSET & DUNLAP + + _Publishers_ + + Copyright, 1897, in the United States of America, according + to Act of Congress, by Bram Stoker + + [_All rights reserved._] + + PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES + AT + THE COUNTRY LIFE PRESS, GARDEN CITY, N.Y. + + + + + TO + + MY DEAR FRIEND + + HOMMY-BEG + + + + +CONTENTS + + +CHAPTER I + Page + +Jonathan Harker's Journal 1 + +CHAPTER II + +Jonathan Harker's Journal 14 + +CHAPTER III + +Jonathan Harker's Journal 26 + +CHAPTER IV + +Jonathan Harker's Journal 38 + +CHAPTER V + +Letters--Lucy and Mina 51 + +CHAPTER VI + +Mina Murray's Journal 59 + +CHAPTER VII + +Cutting from "The Dailygraph," 8 August 71 + +CHAPTER VIII + +Mina Murray's Journal 84 + +CHAPTER IX + +Mina Murray's Journal 98 + +CHAPTER X + +Mina Murray's Journal 111 + +CHAPTER XI + +Lucy Westenra's Diary 124 + +CHAPTER XII + +Dr. Seward's Diary 136 + +CHAPTER XIII + +Dr. Seward's Diary 152 + +CHAPTER XIV + +Mina Harker's Journal 167 + +CHAPTER XV + +Dr. Seward's Diary 181 + +CHAPTER XVI + +Dr. Seward's Diary 194 + +CHAPTER XVII + +Dr. Seward's Diary 204 + +CHAPTER XVIII + +Dr. Seward's Diary 216 + +CHAPTER XIX + +Jonathan Harker's Journal 231 + +CHAPTER XX + +Jonathan Harker's Journal 243 + +CHAPTER XXI + +Dr. Seward's Diary 256 + +CHAPTER XXII + +Jonathan Harker's Journal 269 + +CHAPTER XXIII + +Dr. Seward's Diary 281 + +CHAPTER XXIV + +Dr. Seward's Phonograph Diary, spoken by Van Helsing 294 + +CHAPTER XXV + +Dr. Seward's Diary 308 + +CHAPTER XXVI + +Dr. Seward's Diary 322 + +CHAPTER XXVII + +Mina Harker's Journal 338 + + + + +DRACULA + + + + +CHAPTER I + +JONATHAN HARKER'S JOURNAL + +(_Kept in shorthand._) + + +_3 May. Bistritz._--Left Munich at 8:35 P. M., on 1st May, arriving at +Vienna early next morning; should have arrived at 6:46, but train was an +hour late. Buda-Pesth seems a wonderful place, from the glimpse which I +got of it from the train and the little I could walk through the +streets. I feared to go very far from the station, as we had arrived +late and would start as near the correct time as possible. The +impression I had was that we were leaving the West and entering the +East; the most western of splendid bridges over the Danube, which is +here of noble width and depth, took us among the traditions of Turkish +rule. + +We left in pretty good time, and came after nightfall to Klausenburgh. +Here I stopped for the night at the Hotel Royale. I had for dinner, or +rather supper, a chicken done up some way with red pepper, which was +very good but thirsty. (_Mem._, get recipe for Mina.) I asked the +waiter, and he said it was called "paprika hendl," and that, as it was a +national dish, I should be able to get it anywhere along the +Carpathians. I found my smattering of German very useful here; indeed, I +don't know how I should be able to get on without it. + +Having had some time at my disposal when in London, I had visited the +British Museum, and made search among the books and maps in the library +regarding Transylvania; it had struck me that some foreknowledge of the +country could hardly fail to have some importance in dealing with a +nobleman of that country. I find that the district he named is in the +extreme east of the country, just on the borders of three states, +Transylvania, Moldavia and Bukovina, in the midst of the Carpathian +mountains; one of the wildest and least known portions of Europe. I was +not able to light on any map or work giving the exact locality of the +Castle Dracula, as there are no maps of this country as yet to compare +with our own Ordnance Survey maps; but I found that Bistritz, the post +town named by Count Dracula, is a fairly well-known place. I shall enter +here some of my notes, as they may refresh my memory when I talk over my +travels with Mina. + +In the population of Transylvania there are four distinct nationalities: +Saxons in the South, and mixed with them the Wallachs, who are the +descendants of the Dacians; Magyars in the West, and Szekelys in the +East and North. I am going among the latter, who claim to be descended +from Attila and the Huns. This may be so, for when the Magyars conquered +the country in the eleventh century they found the Huns settled in it. I +read that every known superstition in the world is gathered into the +horseshoe of the Carpathians, as if it were the centre of some sort of +imaginative whirlpool; if so my stay may be very interesting. (_Mem._, I +must ask the Count all about them.) + +I did not sleep well, though my bed was comfortable enough, for I had +all sorts of queer dreams. There was a dog howling all night under my +window, which may have had something to do with it; or it may have been +the paprika, for I had to drink up all the water in my carafe, and was +still thirsty. Towards morning I slept and was wakened by the continuous +knocking at my door, so I guess I must have been sleeping soundly then. +I had for breakfast more paprika, and a sort of porridge of maize flour +which they said was "mamaliga," and egg-plant stuffed with forcemeat, a +very excellent dish, which they call "impletata." (_Mem._, get recipe +for this also.) I had to hurry breakfast, for the train started a little +before eight, or rather it ought to have done so, for after rushing to +the station at 7:30 I had to sit in the carriage for more than an hour +before we began to move. It seems to me that the further east you go the +more unpunctual are the trains. What ought they to be in China? + +All day long we seemed to dawdle through a country which was full of +beauty of every kind. Sometimes we saw little towns or castles on the +top of steep hills such as we see in old missals; sometimes we ran by +rivers and streams which seemed from the wide stony margin on each side +of them to be subject to great floods. It takes a lot of water, and +running strong, to sweep the outside edge of a river clear. At every +station there were groups of people, sometimes crowds, and in all sorts +of attire. Some of them were just like the peasants at home or those I +saw coming through France and Germany, with short jackets and round hats +and home-made trousers; but others were very picturesque. The women +looked pretty, except when you got near them, but they were very clumsy +about the waist. They had all full white sleeves of some kind or other, +and most of them had big belts with a lot of strips of something +fluttering from them like the dresses in a ballet, but of course there +were petticoats under them. The strangest figures we saw were the +Slovaks, who were more barbarian than the rest, with their big cow-boy +hats, great baggy dirty-white trousers, white linen shirts, and enormous +heavy leather belts, nearly a foot wide, all studded over with brass +nails. They wore high boots, with their trousers tucked into them, and +had long black hair and heavy black moustaches. They are very +picturesque, but do not look prepossessing. On the stage they would be +set down at once as some old Oriental band of brigands. They are, +however, I am told, very harmless and rather wanting in natural +self-assertion. + +It was on the dark side of twilight when we got to Bistritz, which is a +very interesting old place. Being practically on the frontier--for the +Borgo Pass leads from it into Bukovina--it has had a very stormy +existence, and it certainly shows marks of it. Fifty years ago a series +of great fires took place, which made terrible havoc on five separate +occasions. At the very beginning of the seventeenth century it underwent +a siege of three weeks and lost 13,000 people, the casualties of war +proper being assisted by famine and disease. + +Count Dracula had directed me to go to the Golden Krone Hotel, which I +found, to my great delight, to be thoroughly old-fashioned, for of +course I wanted to see all I could of the ways of the country. I was +evidently expected, for when I got near the door I faced a +cheery-looking elderly woman in the usual peasant dress--white +undergarment with long double apron, front, and back, of coloured stuff +fitting almost too tight for modesty. When I came close she bowed and +said, "The Herr Englishman?" "Yes," I said, "Jonathan Harker." She +smiled, and gave some message to an elderly man in white shirt-sleeves, +who had followed her to the door. He went, but immediately returned with +a letter:-- + + "My Friend.--Welcome to the Carpathians. I am anxiously expecting + you. Sleep well to-night. At three to-morrow the diligence will + start for Bukovina; a place on it is kept for you. At the Borgo + Pass my carriage will await you and will bring you to me. I trust + that your journey from London has been a happy one, and that you + will enjoy your stay in my beautiful land. + +"Your friend, + +"DRACULA." + + +_4 May._--I found that my landlord had got a letter from the Count, +directing him to secure the best place on the coach for me; but on +making inquiries as to details he seemed somewhat reticent, and +pretended that he could not understand my German. This could not be +true, because up to then he had understood it perfectly; at least, he +answered my questions exactly as if he did. He and his wife, the old +lady who had received me, looked at each other in a frightened sort of +way. He mumbled out that the money had been sent in a letter, and that +was all he knew. When I asked him if he knew Count Dracula, and could +tell me anything of his castle, both he and his wife crossed themselves, +and, saying that they knew nothing at all, simply refused to speak +further. It was so near the time of starting that I had no time to ask +any one else, for it was all very mysterious and not by any means +comforting. + +Just before I was leaving, the old lady came up to my room and said in a +very hysterical way: + +"Must you go? Oh! young Herr, must you go?" She was in such an excited +state that she seemed to have lost her grip of what German she knew, and +mixed it all up with some other language which I did not know at all. I +was just able to follow her by asking many questions. When I told her +that I must go at once, and that I was engaged on important business, +she asked again: + +"Do you know what day it is?" I answered that it was the fourth of May. +She shook her head as she said again: + +"Oh, yes! I know that! I know that, but do you know what day it is?" On +my saying that I did not understand, she went on: + +"It is the eve of St. George's Day. Do you not know that to-night, when +the clock strikes midnight, all the evil things in the world will have +full sway? Do you know where you are going, and what you are going to?" +She was in such evident distress that I tried to comfort her, but +without effect. Finally she went down on her knees and implored me not +to go; at least to wait a day or two before starting. It was all very +ridiculous but I did not feel comfortable. However, there was business +to be done, and I could allow nothing to interfere with it. I therefore +tried to raise her up, and said, as gravely as I could, that I thanked +her, but my duty was imperative, and that I must go. She then rose and +dried her eyes, and taking a crucifix from her neck offered it to me. I +did not know what to do, for, as an English Churchman, I have been +taught to regard such things as in some measure idolatrous, and yet it +seemed so ungracious to refuse an old lady meaning so well and in such a +state of mind. She saw, I suppose, the doubt in my face, for she put the +rosary round my neck, and said, "For your mother's sake," and went out +of the room. I am writing up this part of the diary whilst I am waiting +for the coach, which is, of course, late; and the crucifix is still +round my neck. Whether it is the old lady's fear, or the many ghostly +traditions of this place, or the crucifix itself, I do not know, but I +am not feeling nearly as easy in my mind as usual. If this book should +ever reach Mina before I do, let it bring my good-bye. Here comes the +coach! + + * * * * * + +_5 May. The Castle._--The grey of the morning has passed, and the sun is +high over the distant horizon, which seems jagged, whether with trees or +hills I know not, for it is so far off that big things and little are +mixed. I am not sleepy, and, as I am not to be called till I awake, +naturally I write till sleep comes. There are many odd things to put +down, and, lest who reads them may fancy that I dined too well before I +left Bistritz, let me put down my dinner exactly. I dined on what they +called "robber steak"--bits of bacon, onion, and beef, seasoned with red +pepper, and strung on sticks and roasted over the fire, in the simple +style of the London cat's meat! The wine was Golden Mediasch, which +produces a queer sting on the tongue, which is, however, not +disagreeable. I had only a couple of glasses of this, and nothing else. + +When I got on the coach the driver had not taken his seat, and I saw him +talking with the landlady. They were evidently talking of me, for every +now and then they looked at me, and some of the people who were sitting +on the bench outside the door--which they call by a name meaning +"word-bearer"--came and listened, and then looked at me, most of them +pityingly. I could hear a lot of words often repeated, queer words, for +there were many nationalities in the crowd; so I quietly got my polyglot +dictionary from my bag and looked them out. I must say they were not +cheering to me, for amongst them were "Ordog"--Satan, "pokol"--hell, +"stregoica"--witch, "vrolok" and "vlkoslak"--both of which mean the same +thing, one being Slovak and the other Servian for something that is +either were-wolf or vampire. (_Mem._, I must ask the Count about these +superstitions) + +When we started, the crowd round the inn door, which had by this time +swelled to a considerable size, all made the sign of the cross and +pointed two fingers towards me. With some difficulty I got a +fellow-passenger to tell me what they meant; he would not answer at +first, but on learning that I was English, he explained that it was a +charm or guard against the evil eye. This was not very pleasant for me, +just starting for an unknown place to meet an unknown man; but every one +seemed so kind-hearted, and so sorrowful, and so sympathetic that I +could not but be touched. I shall never forget the last glimpse which I +had of the inn-yard and its crowd of picturesque figures, all crossing +themselves, as they stood round the wide archway, with its background of +rich foliage of oleander and orange trees in green tubs clustered in the +centre of the yard. Then our driver, whose wide linen drawers covered +the whole front of the box-seat--"gotza" they call them--cracked his big +whip over his four small horses, which ran abreast, and we set off on +our journey. + +I soon lost sight and recollection of ghostly fears in the beauty of the +scene as we drove along, although had I known the language, or rather +languages, which my fellow-passengers were speaking, I might not have +been able to throw them off so easily. Before us lay a green sloping +land full of forests and woods, with here and there steep hills, crowned +with clumps of trees or with farmhouses, the blank gable end to the +road. There was everywhere a bewildering mass of fruit blossom--apple, +plum, pear, cherry; and as we drove by I could see the green grass under +the trees spangled with the fallen petals. In and out amongst these +green hills of what they call here the "Mittel Land" ran the road, +losing itself as it swept round the grassy curve, or was shut out by the +straggling ends of pine woods, which here and there ran down the +hillsides like tongues of flame. The road was rugged, but still we +seemed to fly over it with a feverish haste. I could not understand then +what the haste meant, but the driver was evidently bent on losing no +time in reaching Borgo Prund. I was told that this road is in summertime +excellent, but that it had not yet been put in order after the winter +snows. In this respect it is different from the general run of roads in +the Carpathians, for it is an old tradition that they are not to be kept +in too good order. Of old the Hospadars would not repair them, lest the +Turk should think that they were preparing to bring in foreign troops, +and so hasten the war which was always really at loading point. + +Beyond the green swelling hills of the Mittel Land rose mighty slopes +of forest up to the lofty steeps of the Carpathians themselves. Right +and left of us they towered, with the afternoon sun falling full upon +them and bringing out all the glorious colours of this beautiful range, +deep blue and purple in the shadows of the peaks, green and brown where +grass and rock mingled, and an endless perspective of jagged rock and +pointed crags, till these were themselves lost in the distance, where +the snowy peaks rose grandly. Here and there seemed mighty rifts in the +mountains, through which, as the sun began to sink, we saw now and again +the white gleam of falling water. One of my companions touched my arm as +we swept round the base of a hill and opened up the lofty, snow-covered +peak of a mountain, which seemed, as we wound on our serpentine way, to +be right before us:-- + +"Look! Isten szek!"--"God's seat!"--and he crossed himself reverently. + +As we wound on our endless way, and the sun sank lower and lower behind +us, the shadows of the evening began to creep round us. This was +emphasised by the fact that the snowy mountain-top still held the +sunset, and seemed to glow out with a delicate cool pink. Here and there +we passed Cszeks and Slovaks, all in picturesque attire, but I noticed +that goitre was painfully prevalent. By the roadside were many crosses, +and as we swept by, my companions all crossed themselves. Here and there +was a peasant man or woman kneeling before a shrine, who did not even +turn round as we approached, but seemed in the self-surrender of +devotion to have neither eyes nor ears for the outer world. There were +many things new to me: for instance, hay-ricks in the trees, and here +and there very beautiful masses of weeping birch, their white stems +shining like silver through the delicate green of the leaves. Now and +again we passed a leiter-wagon--the ordinary peasant's cart--with its +long, snake-like vertebra, calculated to suit the inequalities of the +road. On this were sure to be seated quite a group of home-coming +peasants, the Cszeks with their white, and the Slovaks with their +coloured, sheepskins, the latter carrying lance-fashion their long +staves, with axe at end. As the evening fell it began to get very cold, +and the growing twilight seemed to merge into one dark mistiness the +gloom of the trees, oak, beech, and pine, though in the valleys which +ran deep between the spurs of the hills, as we ascended through the +Pass, the dark firs stood out here and there against the background of +late-lying snow. Sometimes, as the road was cut through the pine woods +that seemed in the darkness to be closing down upon us, great masses of +greyness, which here and there bestrewed the trees, produced a +peculiarly weird and solemn effect, which carried on the thoughts and +grim fancies engendered earlier in the evening, when the falling sunset +threw into strange relief the ghost-like clouds which amongst the +Carpathians seem to wind ceaselessly through the valleys. Sometimes the +hills were so steep that, despite our driver's haste, the horses could +only go slowly. I wished to get down and walk up them, as we do at home, +but the driver would not hear of it. "No, no," he said; "you must not +walk here; the dogs are too fierce"; and then he added, with what he +evidently meant for grim pleasantry--for he looked round to catch the +approving smile of the rest--"and you may have enough of such matters +before you go to sleep." The only stop he would make was a moment's +pause to light his lamps. + +When it grew dark there seemed to be some excitement amongst the +passengers, and they kept speaking to him, one after the other, as +though urging him to further speed. He lashed the horses unmercifully +with his long whip, and with wild cries of encouragement urged them on +to further exertions. Then through the darkness I could see a sort of +patch of grey light ahead of us, as though there were a cleft in the +hills. The excitement of the passengers grew greater; the crazy coach +rocked on its great leather springs, and swayed like a boat tossed on a +stormy sea. I had to hold on. The road grew more level, and we appeared +to fly along. Then the mountains seemed to come nearer to us on each +side and to frown down upon us; we were entering on the Borgo Pass. One +by one several of the passengers offered me gifts, which they pressed +upon me with an earnestness which would take no denial; these were +certainly of an odd and varied kind, but each was given in simple good +faith, with a kindly word, and a blessing, and that strange mixture of +fear-meaning movements which I had seen outside the hotel at +Bistritz--the sign of the cross and the guard against the evil eye. +Then, as we flew along, the driver leaned forward, and on each side the +passengers, craning over the edge of the coach, peered eagerly into the +darkness. It was evident that something very exciting was either +happening or expected, but though I asked each passenger, no one would +give me the slightest explanation. This state of excitement kept on for +some little time; and at last we saw before us the Pass opening out on +the eastern side. There were dark, rolling clouds overhead, and in the +air the heavy, oppressive sense of thunder. It seemed as though the +mountain range had separated two atmospheres, and that now we had got +into the thunderous one. I was now myself looking out for the conveyance +which was to take me to the Count. Each moment I expected to see the +glare of lamps through the blackness; but all was dark. The only light +was the flickering rays of our own lamps, in which the steam from our +hard-driven horses rose in a white cloud. We could see now the sandy +road lying white before us, but there was on it no sign of a vehicle. +The passengers drew back with a sigh of gladness, which seemed to mock +my own disappointment. I was already thinking what I had best do, when +the driver, looking at his watch, said to the others something which I +could hardly hear, it was spoken so quietly and in so low a tone; I +thought it was "An hour less than the time." Then turning to me, he said +in German worse than my own:-- + +"There is no carriage here. The Herr is not expected after all. He will +now come on to Bukovina, and return to-morrow or the next day; better +the next day." Whilst he was speaking the horses began to neigh and +snort and plunge wildly, so that the driver had to hold them up. Then, +amongst a chorus of screams from the peasants and a universal crossing +of themselves, a caleche, with four horses, drove up behind us, overtook +us, and drew up beside the coach. I could see from the flash of our +lamps, as the rays fell on them, that the horses were coal-black and +splendid animals. They were driven by a tall man, with a long brown +beard and a great black hat, which seemed to hide his face from us. I +could only see the gleam of a pair of very bright eyes, which seemed red +in the lamplight, as he turned to us. He said to the driver:-- + +"You are early to-night, my friend." The man stammered in reply:-- + +"The English Herr was in a hurry," to which the stranger replied:-- + +"That is why, I suppose, you wished him to go on to Bukovina. You cannot +deceive me, my friend; I know too much, and my horses are swift." As he +spoke he smiled, and the lamplight fell on a hard-looking mouth, with +very red lips and sharp-looking teeth, as white as ivory. One of my +companions whispered to another the line from Burger's "Lenore":-- + + "Denn die Todten reiten schnell"-- + ("For the dead travel fast.") + +The strange driver evidently heard the words, for he looked up with a +gleaming smile. The passenger turned his face away, at the same time +putting out his two fingers and crossing himself. "Give me the Herr's +luggage," said the driver; and with exceeding alacrity my bags were +handed out and put in the caleche. Then I descended from the side of the +coach, as the caleche was close alongside, the driver helping me with a +hand which caught my arm in a grip of steel; his strength must have been +prodigious. Without a word he shook his reins, the horses turned, and we +swept into the darkness of the Pass. As I looked back I saw the steam +from the horses of the coach by the light of the lamps, and projected +against it the figures of my late companions crossing themselves. Then +the driver cracked his whip and called to his horses, and off they swept +on their way to Bukovina. As they sank into the darkness I felt a +strange chill, and a lonely feeling came over me; but a cloak was thrown +over my shoulders, and a rug across my knees, and the driver said in +excellent German:-- + +"The night is chill, mein Herr, and my master the Count bade me take all +care of you. There is a flask of slivovitz (the plum brandy of the +country) underneath the seat, if you should require it." I did not take +any, but it was a comfort to know it was there all the same. I felt a +little strangely, and not a little frightened. I think had there been +any alternative I should have taken it, instead of prosecuting that +unknown night journey. The carriage went at a hard pace straight along, +then we made a complete turn and went along another straight road. It +seemed to me that we were simply going over and over the same ground +again; and so I took note of some salient point, and found that this was +so. I would have liked to have asked the driver what this all meant, but +I really feared to do so, for I thought that, placed as I was, any +protest would have had no effect in case there had been an intention to +delay. By-and-by, however, as I was curious to know how time was +passing, I struck a match, and by its flame looked at my watch; it was +within a few minutes of midnight. This gave me a sort of shock, for I +suppose the general superstition about midnight was increased by my +recent experiences. I waited with a sick feeling of suspense. + +Then a dog began to howl somewhere in a farmhouse far down the road--a +long, agonised wailing, as if from fear. The sound was taken up by +another dog, and then another and another, till, borne on the wind which +now sighed softly through the Pass, a wild howling began, which seemed +to come from all over the country, as far as the imagination could grasp +it through the gloom of the night. At the first howl the horses began to +strain and rear, but the driver spoke to them soothingly, and they +quieted down, but shivered and sweated as though after a runaway from +sudden fright. Then, far off in the distance, from the mountains on each +side of us began a louder and a sharper howling--that of wolves--which +affected both the horses and myself in the same way--for I was minded to +jump from the caleche and run, whilst they reared again and plunged +madly, so that the driver had to use all his great strength to keep them +from bolting. In a few minutes, however, my own ears got accustomed to +the sound, and the horses so far became quiet that the driver was able +to descend and to stand before them. He petted and soothed them, and +whispered something in their ears, as I have heard of horse-tamers +doing, and with extraordinary effect, for under his caresses they became +quite manageable again, though they still trembled. The driver again +took his seat, and shaking his reins, started off at a great pace. This +time, after going to the far side of the Pass, he suddenly turned down a +narrow roadway which ran sharply to the right. + +Soon we were hemmed in with trees, which in places arched right over the +roadway till we passed as through a tunnel; and again great frowning +rocks guarded us boldly on either side. Though we were in shelter, we +could hear the rising wind, for it moaned and whistled through the +rocks, and the branches of the trees crashed together as we swept along. +It grew colder and colder still, and fine, powdery snow began to fall, +so that soon we and all around us were covered with a white blanket. The +keen wind still carried the howling of the dogs, though this grew +fainter as we went on our way. The baying of the wolves sounded nearer +and nearer, as though they were closing round on us from every side. I +grew dreadfully afraid, and the horses shared my fear. The driver, +however, was not in the least disturbed; he kept turning his head to +left and right, but I could not see anything through the darkness. + +Suddenly, away on our left, I saw a faint flickering blue flame. The +driver saw it at the same moment; he at once checked the horses, and, +jumping to the ground, disappeared into the darkness. I did not know +what to do, the less as the howling of the wolves grew closer; but while +I wondered the driver suddenly appeared again, and without a word took +his seat, and we resumed our journey. I think I must have fallen asleep +and kept dreaming of the incident, for it seemed to be repeated +endlessly, and now looking back, it is like a sort of awful nightmare. +Once the flame appeared so near the road, that even in the darkness +around us I could watch the driver's motions. He went rapidly to where +the blue flame arose--it must have been very faint, for it did not seem +to illumine the place around it at all--and gathering a few stones, +formed them into some device. Once there appeared a strange optical +effect: when he stood between me and the flame he did not obstruct it, +for I could see its ghostly flicker all the same. This startled me, but +as the effect was only momentary, I took it that my eyes deceived me +straining through the darkness. Then for a time there were no blue +flames, and we sped onwards through the gloom, with the howling of the +wolves around us, as though they were following in a moving circle. + +At last there came a time when the driver went further afield than he +had yet gone, and during his absence, the horses began to tremble worse +than ever and to snort and scream with fright. I could not see any cause +for it, for the howling of the wolves had ceased altogether; but just +then the moon, sailing through the black clouds, appeared behind the +jagged crest of a beetling, pine-clad rock, and by its light I saw +around us a ring of wolves, with white teeth and lolling red tongues, +with long, sinewy limbs and shaggy hair. They were a hundred times more +terrible in the grim silence which held them than even when they howled. +For myself, I felt a sort of paralysis of fear. It is only when a man +feels himself face to face with such horrors that he can understand +their true import. + +All at once the wolves began to howl as though the moonlight had had +some peculiar effect on them. The horses jumped about and reared, and +looked helplessly round with eyes that rolled in a way painful to see; +but the living ring of terror encompassed them on every side; and they +had perforce to remain within it. I called to the coachman to come, for +it seemed to me that our only chance was to try to break out through the +ring and to aid his approach. I shouted and beat the side of the +caleche, hoping by the noise to scare the wolves from that side, so as +to give him a chance of reaching the trap. How he came there, I know +not, but I heard his voice raised in a tone of imperious command, and +looking towards the sound, saw him stand in the roadway. As he swept his +long arms, as though brushing aside some impalpable obstacle, the wolves +fell back and back further still. Just then a heavy cloud passed across +the face of the moon, so that we were again in darkness. + +When I could see again the driver was climbing into the caleche, and the +wolves had disappeared. This was all so strange and uncanny that a +dreadful fear came upon me, and I was afraid to speak or move. The time +seemed interminable as we swept on our way, now in almost complete +darkness, for the rolling clouds obscured the moon. We kept on +ascending, with occasional periods of quick descent, but in the main +always ascending. Suddenly, I became conscious of the fact that the +driver was in the act of pulling up the horses in the courtyard of a +vast ruined castle, from whose tall black windows came no ray of light, +and whose broken battlements showed a jagged line against the moonlit +sky. + + + + +CHAPTER II + +JONATHAN HARKER'S JOURNAL--_continued_ + + +_5 May._--I must have been asleep, for certainly if I had been fully +awake I must have noticed the approach of such a remarkable place. In +the gloom the courtyard looked of considerable size, and as several dark +ways led from it under great round arches, it perhaps seemed bigger than +it really is. I have not yet been able to see it by daylight. + +When the caleche stopped, the driver jumped down and held out his hand +to assist me to alight. Again I could not but notice his prodigious +strength. His hand actually seemed like a steel vice that could have +crushed mine if he had chosen. Then he took out my traps, and placed +them on the ground beside me as I stood close to a great door, old and +studded with large iron nails, and set in a projecting doorway of +massive stone. I could see even in the dim light that the stone was +massively carved, but that the carving had been much worn by time and +weather. As I stood, the driver jumped again into his seat and shook the +reins; the horses started forward, and trap and all disappeared down one +of the dark openings. + +I stood in silence where I was, for I did not know what to do. Of bell +or knocker there was no sign; through these frowning walls and dark +window openings it was not likely that my voice could penetrate. The +time I waited seemed endless, and I felt doubts and fears crowding upon +me. What sort of place had I come to, and among what kind of people? +What sort of grim adventure was it on which I had embarked? Was this a +customary incident in the life of a solicitor's clerk sent out to +explain the purchase of a London estate to a foreigner? Solicitor's +clerk! Mina would not like that. Solicitor--for just before leaving +London I got word that my examination was successful; and I am now a +full-blown solicitor! I began to rub my eyes and pinch myself to see if +I were awake. It all seemed like a horrible nightmare to me, and I +expected that I should suddenly awake, and find myself at home, with +the dawn struggling in through the windows, as I had now and again felt +in the morning after a day of overwork. But my flesh answered the +pinching test, and my eyes were not to be deceived. I was indeed awake +and among the Carpathians. All I could do now was to be patient, and to +wait the coming of the morning. + +Just as I had come to this conclusion I heard a heavy step approaching +behind the great door, and saw through the chinks the gleam of a coming +light. Then there was the sound of rattling chains and the clanking of +massive bolts drawn back. A key was turned with the loud grating noise +of long disuse, and the great door swung back. + +Within, stood a tall old man, clean shaven save for a long white +moustache, and clad in black from head to foot, without a single speck +of colour about him anywhere. He held in his hand an antique silver +lamp, in which the flame burned without chimney or globe of any kind, +throwing long quivering shadows as it flickered in the draught of the +open door. The old man motioned me in with his right hand with a courtly +gesture, saying in excellent English, but with a strange intonation:-- + +"Welcome to my house! Enter freely and of your own will!" He made no +motion of stepping to meet me, but stood like a statue, as though his +gesture of welcome had fixed him into stone. The instant, however, that +I had stepped over the threshold, he moved impulsively forward, and +holding out his hand grasped mine with a strength which made me wince, +an effect which was not lessened by the fact that it seemed as cold as +ice--more like the hand of a dead than a living man. Again he said:-- + +"Welcome to my house. Come freely. Go safely; and leave something of the +happiness you bring!" The strength of the handshake was so much akin to +that which I had noticed in the driver, whose face I had not seen, that +for a moment I doubted if it were not the same person to whom I was +speaking; so to make sure, I said interrogatively:-- + +"Count Dracula?" He bowed in a courtly way as he replied:-- + +"I am Dracula; and I bid you welcome, Mr. Harker, to my house. Come in; +the night air is chill, and you must need to eat and rest." As he was +speaking, he put the lamp on a bracket on the wall, and stepping out, +took my luggage; he had carried it in before I could forestall him. I +protested but he insisted:-- + +"Nay, sir, you are my guest. It is late, and my people are not +available. Let me see to your comfort myself." He insisted on carrying +my traps along the passage, and then up a great winding stair, and +along another great passage, on whose stone floor our steps rang +heavily. At the end of this he threw open a heavy door, and I rejoiced +to see within a well-lit room in which a table was spread for supper, +and on whose mighty hearth a great fire of logs, freshly replenished, +flamed and flared. + +The Count halted, putting down my bags, closed the door, and crossing +the room, opened another door, which led into a small octagonal room lit +by a single lamp, and seemingly without a window of any sort. Passing +through this, he opened another door, and motioned me to enter. It was a +welcome sight; for here was a great bedroom well lighted and warmed with +another log fire,--also added to but lately, for the top logs were +fresh--which sent a hollow roar up the wide chimney. The Count himself +left my luggage inside and withdrew, saying, before he closed the +door:-- + +"You will need, after your journey, to refresh yourself by making your +toilet. I trust you will find all you wish. When you are ready, come +into the other room, where you will find your supper prepared." + +The light and warmth and the Count's courteous welcome seemed to have +dissipated all my doubts and fears. Having then reached my normal state, +I discovered that I was half famished with hunger; so making a hasty +toilet, I went into the other room. + +I found supper already laid out. My host, who stood on one side of the +great fireplace, leaning against the stonework, made a graceful wave of +his hand to the table, and said:-- + +"I pray you, be seated and sup how you please. You will, I trust, excuse +me that I do not join you; but I have dined already, and I do not sup." + +I handed to him the sealed letter which Mr. Hawkins had entrusted to me. +He opened it and read it gravely; then, with a charming smile, he handed +it to me to read. One passage of it, at least, gave me a thrill of +pleasure. + +"I must regret that an attack of gout, from which malady I am a constant +sufferer, forbids absolutely any travelling on my part for some time to +come; but I am happy to say I can send a sufficient substitute, one in +whom I have every possible confidence. He is a young man, full of energy +and talent in his own way, and of a very faithful disposition. He is +discreet and silent, and has grown into manhood in my service. He shall +be ready to attend on you when you will during his stay, and shall take +your instructions in all matters." + +The Count himself came forward and took off the cover of a dish, and I +fell to at once on an excellent roast chicken. This, with some cheese +and a salad and a bottle of old Tokay, of which I had two glasses, was +my supper. During the time I was eating it the Count asked me many +questions as to my journey, and I told him by degrees all I had +experienced. + +By this time I had finished my supper, and by my host's desire had drawn +up a chair by the fire and begun to smoke a cigar which he offered me, +at the same time excusing himself that he did not smoke. I had now an +opportunity of observing him, and found him of a very marked +physiognomy. + +His face was a strong--a very strong--aquiline, with high bridge of the +thin nose and peculiarly arched nostrils; with lofty domed forehead, and +hair growing scantily round the temples but profusely elsewhere. His +eyebrows were very massive, almost meeting over the nose, and with bushy +hair that seemed to curl in its own profusion. The mouth, so far as I +could see it under the heavy moustache, was fixed and rather +cruel-looking, with peculiarly sharp white teeth; these protruded over +the lips, whose remarkable ruddiness showed astonishing vitality in a +man of his years. For the rest, his ears were pale, and at the tops +extremely pointed; the chin was broad and strong, and the cheeks firm +though thin. The general effect was one of extraordinary pallor. + +Hitherto I had noticed the backs of his hands as they lay on his knees +in the firelight, and they had seemed rather white and fine; but seeing +them now close to me, I could not but notice that they were rather +coarse--broad, with squat fingers. Strange to say, there were hairs in +the centre of the palm. The nails were long and fine, and cut to a sharp +point. As the Count leaned over me and his hands touched me, I could not +repress a shudder. It may have been that his breath was rank, but a +horrible feeling of nausea came over me, which, do what I would, I could +not conceal. The Count, evidently noticing it, drew back; and with a +grim sort of smile, which showed more than he had yet done his +protuberant teeth, sat himself down again on his own side of the +fireplace. We were both silent for a while; and as I looked towards the +window I saw the first dim streak of the coming dawn. There seemed a +strange stillness over everything; but as I listened I heard as if from +down below in the valley the howling of many wolves. The Count's eyes +gleamed, and he said:-- + +"Listen to them--the children of the night. What music they make!" +Seeing, I suppose, some expression in my face strange to him, he +added:-- + +"Ah, sir, you dwellers in the city cannot enter into the feelings of the +hunter." Then he rose and said:-- + +"But you must be tired. Your bedroom is all ready, and to-morrow you +shall sleep as late as you will. I have to be away till the afternoon; +so sleep well and dream well!" With a courteous bow, he opened for me +himself the door to the octagonal room, and I entered my bedroom.... + +I am all in a sea of wonders. I doubt; I fear; I think strange things, +which I dare not confess to my own soul. God keep me, if only for the +sake of those dear to me! + + * * * * * + +_7 May._--It is again early morning, but I have rested and enjoyed the +last twenty-four hours. I slept till late in the day, and awoke of my +own accord. When I had dressed myself I went into the room where we had +supped, and found a cold breakfast laid out, with coffee kept hot by the +pot being placed on the hearth. There was a card on the table, on which +was written:-- + +"I have to be absent for a while. Do not wait for me.--D." I set to and +enjoyed a hearty meal. When I had done, I looked for a bell, so that I +might let the servants know I had finished; but I could not find one. +There are certainly odd deficiencies in the house, considering the +extraordinary evidences of wealth which are round me. The table service +is of gold, and so beautifully wrought that it must be of immense value. +The curtains and upholstery of the chairs and sofas and the hangings of +my bed are of the costliest and most beautiful fabrics, and must have +been of fabulous value when they were made, for they are centuries old, +though in excellent order. I saw something like them in Hampton Court, +but there they were worn and frayed and moth-eaten. But still in none of +the rooms is there a mirror. There is not even a toilet glass on my +table, and I had to get the little shaving glass from my bag before I +could either shave or brush my hair. I have not yet seen a servant +anywhere, or heard a sound near the castle except the howling of wolves. +Some time after I had finished my meal--I do not know whether to call it +breakfast or dinner, for it was between five and six o'clock when I had +it--I looked about for something to read, for I did not like to go about +the castle until I had asked the Count's permission. There was +absolutely nothing in the room, book, newspaper, or even writing +materials; so I opened another door in the room and found a sort of +library. The door opposite mine I tried, but found it locked. + +In the library I found, to my great delight, a vast number of English +books, whole shelves full of them, and bound volumes of magazines and +newspapers. A table in the centre was littered with English magazines +and newspapers, though none of them were of very recent date. The books +were of the most varied kind--history, geography, politics, political +economy, botany, geology, law--all relating to England and English life +and customs and manners. There were even such books of reference as the +London Directory, the "Red" and "Blue" books, Whitaker's Almanac, the +Army and Navy Lists, and--it somehow gladdened my heart to see it--the +Law List. + +Whilst I was looking at the books, the door opened, and the Count +entered. He saluted me in a hearty way, and hoped that I had had a good +night's rest. Then he went on:-- + +"I am glad you found your way in here, for I am sure there is much that +will interest you. These companions"--and he laid his hand on some of +the books--"have been good friends to me, and for some years past, ever +since I had the idea of going to London, have given me many, many hours +of pleasure. Through them I have come to know your great England; and to +know her is to love her. I long to go through the crowded streets of +your mighty London, to be in the midst of the whirl and rush of +humanity, to share its life, its change, its death, and all that makes +it what it is. But alas! as yet I only know your tongue through books. +To you, my friend, I look that I know it to speak." + +"But, Count," I said, "you know and speak English thoroughly!" He bowed +gravely. + +"I thank you, my friend, for your all too-flattering estimate, but yet I +fear that I am but a little way on the road I would travel. True, I know +the grammar and the words, but yet I know not how to speak them." + +"Indeed," I said, "you speak excellently." + +"Not so," he answered. "Well, I know that, did I move and speak in your +London, none there are who would not know me for a stranger. That is not +enough for me. Here I am noble; I am _boyar_; the common people know me, +and I am master. But a stranger in a strange land, he is no one; men +know him not--and to know not is to care not for. I am content if I am +like the rest, so that no man stops if he see me, or pause in his +speaking if he hear my words, 'Ha, ha! a stranger!' I have been so long +master that I would be master still--or at least that none other should +be master of me. You come to me not alone as agent of my friend Peter +Hawkins, of Exeter, to tell me all about my new estate in London. You +shall, I trust, rest here with me awhile, so that by our talking I may +learn the English intonation; and I would that you tell me when I make +error, even of the smallest, in my speaking. I am sorry that I had to be +away so long to-day; but you will, I know, forgive one who has so many +important affairs in hand." + +Of course I said all I could about being willing, and asked if I might +come into that room when I chose. He answered: "Yes, certainly," and +added:-- + +"You may go anywhere you wish in the castle, except where the doors are +locked, where of course you will not wish to go. There is reason that +all things are as they are, and did you see with my eyes and know with +my knowledge, you would perhaps better understand." I said I was sure of +this, and then he went on:-- + +"We are in Transylvania; and Transylvania is not England. Our ways are +not your ways, and there shall be to you many strange things. Nay, from +what you have told me of your experiences already, you know something of +what strange things there may be." + +This led to much conversation; and as it was evident that he wanted to +talk, if only for talking's sake, I asked him many questions regarding +things that had already happened to me or come within my notice. +Sometimes he sheered off the subject, or turned the conversation by +pretending not to understand; but generally he answered all I asked most +frankly. Then as time went on, and I had got somewhat bolder, I asked +him of some of the strange things of the preceding night, as, for +instance, why the coachman went to the places where he had seen the blue +flames. He then explained to me that it was commonly believed that on a +certain night of the year--last night, in fact, when all evil spirits +are supposed to have unchecked sway--a blue flame is seen over any place +where treasure has been concealed. "That treasure has been hidden," he +went on, "in the region through which you came last night, there can be +but little doubt; for it was the ground fought over for centuries by the +Wallachian, the Saxon, and the Turk. Why, there is hardly a foot of soil +in all this region that has not been enriched by the blood of men, +patriots or invaders. In old days there were stirring times, when the +Austrian and the Hungarian came up in hordes, and the patriots went out +to meet them--men and women, the aged and the children too--and waited +their coming on the rocks above the passes, that they might sweep +destruction on them with their artificial avalanches. When the invader +was triumphant he found but little, for whatever there was had been +sheltered in the friendly soil." + +"But how," said I, "can it have remained so long undiscovered, when +there is a sure index to it if men will but take the trouble to look?" +The Count smiled, and as his lips ran back over his gums, the long, +sharp, canine teeth showed out strangely; he answered:-- + +"Because your peasant is at heart a coward and a fool! Those flames only +appear on one night; and on that night no man of this land will, if he +can help it, stir without his doors. And, dear sir, even if he did he +would not know what to do. Why, even the peasant that you tell me of who +marked the place of the flame would not know where to look in daylight +even for his own work. Even you would not, I dare be sworn, be able to +find these places again?" + +"There you are right," I said. "I know no more than the dead where even +to look for them." Then we drifted into other matters. + +"Come," he said at last, "tell me of London and of the house which you +have procured for me." With an apology for my remissness, I went into my +own room to get the papers from my bag. Whilst I was placing them in +order I heard a rattling of china and silver in the next room, and as I +passed through, noticed that the table had been cleared and the lamp +lit, for it was by this time deep into the dark. The lamps were also lit +in the study or library, and I found the Count lying on the sofa, +reading, of all things in the world, an English Bradshaw's Guide. When I +came in he cleared the books and papers from the table; and with him I +went into plans and deeds and figures of all sorts. He was interested in +everything, and asked me a myriad questions about the place and its +surroundings. He clearly had studied beforehand all he could get on the +subject of the neighbourhood, for he evidently at the end knew very much +more than I did. When I remarked this, he answered:-- + +"Well, but, my friend, is it not needful that I should? When I go there +I shall be all alone, and my friend Harker Jonathan--nay, pardon me, I +fall into my country's habit of putting your patronymic first--my friend +Jonathan Harker will not be by my side to correct and aid me. He will be +in Exeter, miles away, probably working at papers of the law with my +other friend, Peter Hawkins. So!" + +We went thoroughly into the business of the purchase of the estate at +Purfleet. When I had told him the facts and got his signature to the +necessary papers, and had written a letter with them ready to post to +Mr. Hawkins, he began to ask me how I had come across so suitable a +place. I read to him the notes which I had made at the time, and which I +inscribe here:-- + +"At Purfleet, on a by-road, I came across just such a place as seemed to +be required, and where was displayed a dilapidated notice that the place +was for sale. It is surrounded by a high wall, of ancient structure, +built of heavy stones, and has not been repaired for a large number of +years. The closed gates are of heavy old oak and iron, all eaten with +rust. + +"The estate is called Carfax, no doubt a corruption of the old _Quatre +Face_, as the house is four-sided, agreeing with the cardinal points of +the compass. It contains in all some twenty acres, quite surrounded by +the solid stone wall above mentioned. There are many trees on it, which +make it in places gloomy, and there is a deep, dark-looking pond or +small lake, evidently fed by some springs, as the water is clear and +flows away in a fair-sized stream. The house is very large and of all +periods back, I should say, to mediaeval times, for one part is of stone +immensely thick, with only a few windows high up and heavily barred with +iron. It looks like part of a keep, and is close to an old chapel or +church. I could not enter it, as I had not the key of the door leading +to it from the house, but I have taken with my kodak views of it from +various points. The house has been added to, but in a very straggling +way, and I can only guess at the amount of ground it covers, which must +be very great. There are but few houses close at hand, one being a very +large house only recently added to and formed into a private lunatic +asylum. It is not, however, visible from the grounds." + +When I had finished, he said:-- + +"I am glad that it is old and big. I myself am of an old family, and to +live in a new house would kill me. A house cannot be made habitable in a +day; and, after all, how few days go to make up a century. I rejoice +also that there is a chapel of old times. We Transylvanian nobles love +not to think that our bones may lie amongst the common dead. I seek not +gaiety nor mirth, not the bright voluptuousness of much sunshine and +sparkling waters which please the young and gay. I am no longer young; +and my heart, through weary years of mourning over the dead, is not +attuned to mirth. Moreover, the walls of my castle are broken; the +shadows are many, and the wind breathes cold through the broken +battlements and casements. I love the shade and the shadow, and would +be alone with my thoughts when I may." Somehow his words and his look +did not seem to accord, or else it was that his cast of face made his +smile look malignant and saturnine. + +Presently, with an excuse, he left me, asking me to put all my papers +together. He was some little time away, and I began to look at some of +the books around me. One was an atlas, which I found opened naturally at +England, as if that map had been much used. On looking at it I found in +certain places little rings marked, and on examining these I noticed +that one was near London on the east side, manifestly where his new +estate was situated; the other two were Exeter, and Whitby on the +Yorkshire coast. + +It was the better part of an hour when the Count returned. "Aha!" he +said; "still at your books? Good! But you must not work always. Come; I +am informed that your supper is ready." He took my arm, and we went into +the next room, where I found an excellent supper ready on the table. The +Count again excused himself, as he had dined out on his being away from +home. But he sat as on the previous night, and chatted whilst I ate. +After supper I smoked, as on the last evening, and the Count stayed with +me, chatting and asking questions on every conceivable subject, hour +after hour. I felt that it was getting very late indeed, but I did not +say anything, for I felt under obligation to meet my host's wishes in +every way. I was not sleepy, as the long sleep yesterday had fortified +me; but I could not help experiencing that chill which comes over one at +the coming of the dawn, which is like, in its way, the turn of the tide. +They say that people who are near death die generally at the change to +the dawn or at the turn of the tide; any one who has when tired, and +tied as it were to his post, experienced this change in the atmosphere +can well believe it. All at once we heard the crow of a cock coming up +with preternatural shrillness through the clear morning air; Count +Dracula, jumping to his feet, said:-- + +"Why, there is the morning again! How remiss I am to let you stay up so +long. You must make your conversation regarding my dear new country of +England less interesting, so that I may not forget how time flies by +us," and, with a courtly bow, he quickly left me. + +I went into my own room and drew the curtains, but there was little to +notice; my window opened into the courtyard, all I could see was the +warm grey of quickening sky. So I pulled the curtains again, and have +written of this day. + + * * * * * + +_8 May._--I began to fear as I wrote in this book that I was getting too +diffuse; but now I am glad that I went into detail from the first, for +there is something so strange about this place and all in it that I +cannot but feel uneasy. I wish I were safe out of it, or that I had +never come. It may be that this strange night-existence is telling on +me; but would that that were all! If there were any one to talk to I +could bear it, but there is no one. I have only the Count to speak with, +and he!--I fear I am myself the only living soul within the place. Let +me be prosaic so far as facts can be; it will help me to bear up, and +imagination must not run riot with me. If it does I am lost. Let me say +at once how I stand--or seem to. + +I only slept a few hours when I went to bed, and feeling that I could +not sleep any more, got up. I had hung my shaving glass by the window, +and was just beginning to shave. Suddenly I felt a hand on my shoulder, +and heard the Count's voice saying to me, "Good-morning." I started, for +it amazed me that I had not seen him, since the reflection of the glass +covered the whole room behind me. In starting I had cut myself slightly, +but did not notice it at the moment. Having answered the Count's +salutation, I turned to the glass again to see how I had been mistaken. +This time there could be no error, for the man was close to me, and I +could see him over my shoulder. But there was no reflection of him in +the mirror! The whole room behind me was displayed; but there was no +sign of a man in it, except myself. This was startling, and, coming on +the top of so many strange things, was beginning to increase that vague +feeling of uneasiness which I always have when the Count is near; but at +the instant I saw that the cut had bled a little, and the blood was +trickling over my chin. I laid down the razor, turning as I did so half +round to look for some sticking plaster. When the Count saw my face, his +eyes blazed with a sort of demoniac fury, and he suddenly made a grab at +my throat. I drew away, and his hand touched the string of beads which +held the crucifix. It made an instant change in him, for the fury passed +so quickly that I could hardly believe that it was ever there. + +"Take care," he said, "take care how you cut yourself. It is more +dangerous than you think in this country." Then seizing the shaving +glass, he went on: "And this is the wretched thing that has done the +mischief. It is a foul bauble of man's vanity. Away with it!" and +opening the heavy window with one wrench of his terrible hand, he flung +out the glass, which was shattered into a thousand pieces on the stones +of the courtyard far below. Then he withdrew without a word. It is very +annoying, for I do not see how I am to shave, unless in my watch-case or +the bottom of the shaving-pot, which is fortunately of metal. + +When I went into the dining-room, breakfast was prepared; but I could +not find the Count anywhere. So I breakfasted alone. It is strange that +as yet I have not seen the Count eat or drink. He must be a very +peculiar man! After breakfast I did a little exploring in the castle. I +went out on the stairs, and found a room looking towards the South. The +view was magnificent, and from where I stood there was every opportunity +of seeing it. The castle is on the very edge of a terrible precipice. A +stone falling from the window would fall a thousand feet without +touching anything! As far as the eye can reach is a sea of green tree +tops, with occasionally a deep rift where there is a chasm. Here and +there are silver threads where the rivers wind in deep gorges through +the forests. + +But I am not in heart to describe beauty, for when I had seen the view I +explored further; doors, doors, doors everywhere, and all locked and +bolted. In no place save from the windows in the castle walls is there +an available exit. + +The castle is a veritable prison, and I am a prisoner! + + + + +CHAPTER III + +JONATHAN HARKER'S JOURNAL--_continued_ + + +When I found that I was a prisoner a sort of wild feeling came over me. +I rushed up and down the stairs, trying every door and peering out of +every window I could find; but after a little the conviction of my +helplessness overpowered all other feelings. When I look back after a +few hours I think I must have been mad for the time, for I behaved much +as a rat does in a trap. When, however, the conviction had come to me +that I was helpless I sat down quietly--as quietly as I have ever done +anything in my life--and began to think over what was best to be done. I +am thinking still, and as yet have come to no definite conclusion. Of +one thing only am I certain; that it is no use making my ideas known to +the Count. He knows well that I am imprisoned; and as he has done it +himself, and has doubtless his own motives for it, he would only deceive +me if I trusted him fully with the facts. So far as I can see, my only +plan will be to keep my knowledge and my fears to myself, and my eyes +open. I am, I know, either being deceived, like a baby, by my own fears, +or else I am in desperate straits; and if the latter be so, I need, and +shall need, all my brains to get through. + +I had hardly come to this conclusion when I heard the great door below +shut, and knew that the Count had returned. He did not come at once into +the library, so I went cautiously to my own room and found him making +the bed. This was odd, but only confirmed what I had all along +thought--that there were no servants in the house. When later I saw him +through the chink of the hinges of the door laying the table in the +dining-room, I was assured of it; for if he does himself all these +menial offices, surely it is proof that there is no one else to do them. +This gave me a fright, for if there is no one else in the castle, it +must have been the Count himself who was the driver of the coach that +brought me here. This is a terrible thought; for if so, what does it +mean that he could control the wolves, as he did, by only holding up his +hand in silence. How was it that all the people at Bistritz and on the +coach had some terrible fear for me? What meant the giving of the +crucifix, of the garlic, of the wild rose, of the mountain ash? Bless +that good, good woman who hung the crucifix round my neck! for it is a +comfort and a strength to me whenever I touch it. It is odd that a thing +which I have been taught to regard with disfavour and as idolatrous +should in a time of loneliness and trouble be of help. Is it that there +is something in the essence of the thing itself, or that it is a medium, +a tangible help, in conveying memories of sympathy and comfort? Some +time, if it may be, I must examine this matter and try to make up my +mind about it. In the meantime I must find out all I can about Count +Dracula, as it may help me to understand. To-night he may talk of +himself, if I turn the conversation that way. I must be very careful, +however, not to awake his suspicion. + + * * * * * + +_Midnight._--I have had a long talk with the Count. I asked him a few +questions on Transylvania history, and he warmed up to the subject +wonderfully. In his speaking of things and people, and especially of +battles, he spoke as if he had been present at them all. This he +afterwards explained by saying that to a _boyar_ the pride of his house +and name is his own pride, that their glory is his glory, that their +fate is his fate. Whenever he spoke of his house he always said "we," +and spoke almost in the plural, like a king speaking. I wish I could put +down all he said exactly as he said it, for to me it was most +fascinating. It seemed to have in it a whole history of the country. He +grew excited as he spoke, and walked about the room pulling his great +white moustache and grasping anything on which he laid his hands as +though he would crush it by main strength. One thing he said which I +shall put down as nearly as I can; for it tells in its way the story of +his race:-- + +"We Szekelys have a right to be proud, for in our veins flows the blood +of many brave races who fought as the lion fights, for lordship. Here, +in the whirlpool of European races, the Ugric tribe bore down from +Iceland the fighting spirit which Thor and Wodin gave them, which their +Berserkers displayed to such fell intent on the seaboards of Europe, ay, +and of Asia and Africa too, till the peoples thought that the +were-wolves themselves had come. Here, too, when they came, they found +the Huns, whose warlike fury had swept the earth like a living flame, +till the dying peoples held that in their veins ran the blood of those +old witches, who, expelled from Scythia had mated with the devils in the +desert. Fools, fools! What devil or what witch was ever so great as +Attila, whose blood is in these veins?" He held up his arms. "Is it a +wonder that we were a conquering race; that we were proud; that when the +Magyar, the Lombard, the Avar, the Bulgar, or the Turk poured his +thousands on our frontiers, we drove them back? Is it strange that when +Arpad and his legions swept through the Hungarian fatherland he found us +here when he reached the frontier; that the Honfoglalas was completed +there? And when the Hungarian flood swept eastward, the Szekelys were +claimed as kindred by the victorious Magyars, and to us for centuries +was trusted the guarding of the frontier of Turkey-land; ay, and more +than that, endless duty of the frontier guard, for, as the Turks say, +'water sleeps, and enemy is sleepless.' Who more gladly than we +throughout the Four Nations received the 'bloody sword,' or at its +warlike call flocked quicker to the standard of the King? When was +redeemed that great shame of my nation, the shame of Cassova, when the +flags of the Wallach and the Magyar went down beneath the Crescent? Who +was it but one of my own race who as Voivode crossed the Danube and beat +the Turk on his own ground? This was a Dracula indeed! Woe was it that +his own unworthy brother, when he had fallen, sold his people to the +Turk and brought the shame of slavery on them! Was it not this Dracula, +indeed, who inspired that other of his race who in a later age again and +again brought his forces over the great river into Turkey-land; who, +when he was beaten back, came again, and again, and again, though he had +to come alone from the bloody field where his troops were being +slaughtered, since he knew that he alone could ultimately triumph! They +said that he thought only of himself. Bah! what good are peasants +without a leader? Where ends the war without a brain and heart to +conduct it? Again, when, after the battle of Mohacs, we threw off the +Hungarian yoke, we of the Dracula blood were amongst their leaders, for +our spirit would not brook that we were not free. Ah, young sir, the +Szekelys--and the Dracula as their heart's blood, their brains, and +their swords--can boast a record that mushroom growths like the +Hapsburgs and the Romanoffs can never reach. The warlike days are over. +Blood is too precious a thing in these days of dishonourable peace; and +the glories of the great races are as a tale that is told." + +It was by this time close on morning, and we went to bed. (_Mem._, this +diary seems horribly like the beginning of the "Arabian Nights," for +everything has to break off at cockcrow--or like the ghost of Hamlet's +father.) + + * * * * * + +_12 May._--Let me begin with facts--bare, meagre facts, verified by +books and figures, and of which there can be no doubt. I must not +confuse them with experiences which will have to rest on my own +observation, or my memory of them. Last evening when the Count came from +his room he began by asking me questions on legal matters and on the +doing of certain kinds of business. I had spent the day wearily over +books, and, simply to keep my mind occupied, went over some of the +matters I had been examined in at Lincoln's Inn. There was a certain +method in the Count's inquiries, so I shall try to put them down in +sequence; the knowledge may somehow or some time be useful to me. + +First, he asked if a man in England might have two solicitors or more. I +told him he might have a dozen if he wished, but that it would not be +wise to have more than one solicitor engaged in one transaction, as only +one could act at a time, and that to change would be certain to militate +against his interest. He seemed thoroughly to understand, and went on to +ask if there would be any practical difficulty in having one man to +attend, say, to banking, and another to look after shipping, in case +local help were needed in a place far from the home of the banking +solicitor. I asked him to explain more fully, so that I might not by any +chance mislead him, so he said:-- + +"I shall illustrate. Your friend and mine, Mr. Peter Hawkins, from under +the shadow of your beautiful cathedral at Exeter, which is far from +London, buys for me through your good self my place at London. Good! Now +here let me say frankly, lest you should think it strange that I have +sought the services of one so far off from London instead of some one +resident there, that my motive was that no local interest might be +served save my wish only; and as one of London residence might, perhaps, +have some purpose of himself or friend to serve, I went thus afield to +seek my agent, whose labours should be only to my interest. Now, suppose +I, who have much of affairs, wish to ship goods, say, to Newcastle, or +Durham, or Harwich, or Dover, might it not be that it could with more +ease be done by consigning to one in these ports?" I answered that +certainly it would be most easy, but that we solicitors had a system of +agency one for the other, so that local work could be done locally on +instruction from any solicitor, so that the client, simply placing +himself in the hands of one man, could have his wishes carried out by +him without further trouble. + +"But," said he, "I could be at liberty to direct myself. Is it not so?" + +"Of course," I replied; and "such is often done by men of business, who +do not like the whole of their affairs to be known by any one person." + +"Good!" he said, and then went on to ask about the means of making +consignments and the forms to be gone through, and of all sorts of +difficulties which might arise, but by forethought could be guarded +against. I explained all these things to him to the best of my ability, +and he certainly left me under the impression that he would have made a +wonderful solicitor, for there was nothing that he did not think of or +foresee. For a man who was never in the country, and who did not +evidently do much in the way of business, his knowledge and acumen were +wonderful. When he had satisfied himself on these points of which he had +spoken, and I had verified all as well as I could by the books +available, he suddenly stood up and said:-- + +"Have you written since your first letter to our friend Mr. Peter +Hawkins, or to any other?" It was with some bitterness in my heart that +I answered that I had not, that as yet I had not seen any opportunity of +sending letters to anybody. + +"Then write now, my young friend," he said, laying a heavy hand on my +shoulder: "write to our friend and to any other; and say, if it will +please you, that you shall stay with me until a month from now." + +"Do you wish me to stay so long?" I asked, for my heart grew cold at the +thought. + +"I desire it much; nay, I will take no refusal. When your master, +employer, what you will, engaged that someone should come on his behalf, +it was understood that my needs only were to be consulted. I have not +stinted. Is it not so?" + +What could I do but bow acceptance? It was Mr. Hawkins's interest, not +mine, and I had to think of him, not myself; and besides, while Count +Dracula was speaking, there was that in his eyes and in his bearing +which made me remember that I was a prisoner, and that if I wished it I +could have no choice. The Count saw his victory in my bow, and his +mastery in the trouble of my face, for he began at once to use them, but +in his own smooth, resistless way:-- + +"I pray you, my good young friend, that you will not discourse of things +other than business in your letters. It will doubtless please your +friends to know that you are well, and that you look forward to getting +home to them. Is it not so?" As he spoke he handed me three sheets of +note-paper and three envelopes. They were all of the thinnest foreign +post, and looking at them, then at him, and noticing his quiet smile, +with the sharp, canine teeth lying over the red underlip, I understood +as well as if he had spoken that I should be careful what I wrote, for +he would be able to read it. So I determined to write only formal notes +now, but to write fully to Mr. Hawkins in secret, and also to Mina, for +to her I could write in shorthand, which would puzzle the Count, if he +did see it. When I had written my two letters I sat quiet, reading a +book whilst the Count wrote several notes, referring as he wrote them to +some books on his table. Then he took up my two and placed them with his +own, and put by his writing materials, after which, the instant the door +had closed behind him, I leaned over and looked at the letters, which +were face down on the table. I felt no compunction in doing so, for +under the circumstances I felt that I should protect myself in every way +I could. + +One of the letters was directed to Samuel F. Billington, No. 7, The +Crescent, Whitby, another to Herr Leutner, Varna; the third was to +Coutts & Co., London, and the fourth to Herren Klopstock & Billreuth, +bankers, Buda-Pesth. The second and fourth were unsealed. I was just +about to look at them when I saw the door-handle move. I sank back in my +seat, having just had time to replace the letters as they had been and +to resume my book before the Count, holding still another letter in his +hand, entered the room. He took up the letters on the table and stamped +them carefully, and then turning to me, said:-- + +"I trust you will forgive me, but I have much work to do in private this +evening. You will, I hope, find all things as you wish." At the door he +turned, and after a moment's pause said:-- + +"Let me advise you, my dear young friend--nay, let me warn you with all +seriousness, that should you leave these rooms you will not by any +chance go to sleep in any other part of the castle. It is old, and has +many memories, and there are bad dreams for those who sleep unwisely. Be +warned! Should sleep now or ever overcome you, or be like to do, then +haste to your own chamber or to these rooms, for your rest will then be +safe. But if you be not careful in this respect, then"--He finished his +speech in a gruesome way, for he motioned with his hands as if he were +washing them. I quite understood; my only doubt was as to whether any +dream could be more terrible than the unnatural, horrible net of gloom +and mystery which seemed closing around me. + + * * * * * + +_Later._--I endorse the last words written, but this time there is no +doubt in question. I shall not fear to sleep in any place where he is +not. I have placed the crucifix over the head of my bed--I imagine that +my rest is thus freer from dreams; and there it shall remain. + +When he left me I went to my room. After a little while, not hearing any +sound, I came out and went up the stone stair to where I could look out +towards the South. There was some sense of freedom in the vast expanse, +inaccessible though it was to me, as compared with the narrow darkness +of the courtyard. Looking out on this, I felt that I was indeed in +prison, and I seemed to want a breath of fresh air, though it were of +the night. I am beginning to feel this nocturnal existence tell on me. +It is destroying my nerve. I start at my own shadow, and am full of all +sorts of horrible imaginings. God knows that there is ground for my +terrible fear in this accursed place! I looked out over the beautiful +expanse, bathed in soft yellow moonlight till it was almost as light as +day. In the soft light the distant hills became melted, and the shadows +in the valleys and gorges of velvety blackness. The mere beauty seemed +to cheer me; there was peace and comfort in every breath I drew. As I +leaned from the window my eye was caught by something moving a storey +below me, and somewhat to my left, where I imagined, from the order of +the rooms, that the windows of the Count's own room would look out. The +window at which I stood was tall and deep, stone-mullioned, and though +weatherworn, was still complete; but it was evidently many a day since +the case had been there. I drew back behind the stonework, and looked +carefully out. + +What I saw was the Count's head coming out from the window. I did not +see the face, but I knew the man by the neck and the movement of his +back and arms. In any case I could not mistake the hands which I had had +so many opportunities of studying. I was at first interested and +somewhat amused, for it is wonderful how small a matter will interest +and amuse a man when he is a prisoner. But my very feelings changed to +repulsion and terror when I saw the whole man slowly emerge from the +window and begin to crawl down the castle wall over that dreadful abyss, +_face down_ with his cloak spreading out around him like great wings. At +first I could not believe my eyes. I thought it was some trick of the +moonlight, some weird effect of shadow; but I kept looking, and it could +be no delusion. I saw the fingers and toes grasp the corners of the +stones, worn clear of the mortar by the stress of years, and by thus +using every projection and inequality move downwards with considerable +speed, just as a lizard moves along a wall. + +What manner of man is this, or what manner of creature is it in the +semblance of man? I feel the dread of this horrible place overpowering +me; I am in fear--in awful fear--and there is no escape for me; I am +encompassed about with terrors that I dare not think of.... + + * * * * * + +_15 May._--Once more have I seen the Count go out in his lizard fashion. +He moved downwards in a sidelong way, some hundred feet down, and a good +deal to the left. He vanished into some hole or window. When his head +had disappeared, I leaned out to try and see more, but without +avail--the distance was too great to allow a proper angle of sight. I +knew he had left the castle now, and thought to use the opportunity to +explore more than I had dared to do as yet. I went back to the room, and +taking a lamp, tried all the doors. They were all locked, as I had +expected, and the locks were comparatively new; but I went down the +stone stairs to the hall where I had entered originally. I found I could +pull back the bolts easily enough and unhook the great chains; but the +door was locked, and the key was gone! That key must be in the Count's +room; I must watch should his door be unlocked, so that I may get it and +escape. I went on to make a thorough examination of the various stairs +and passages, and to try the doors that opened from them. One or two +small rooms near the hall were open, but there was nothing to see in +them except old furniture, dusty with age and moth-eaten. At last, +however, I found one door at the top of the stairway which, though it +seemed to be locked, gave a little under pressure. I tried it harder, +and found that it was not really locked, but that the resistance came +from the fact that the hinges had fallen somewhat, and the heavy door +rested on the floor. Here was an opportunity which I might not have +again, so I exerted myself, and with many efforts forced it back so that +I could enter. I was now in a wing of the castle further to the right +than the rooms I knew and a storey lower down. From the windows I could +see that the suite of rooms lay along to the south of the castle, the +windows of the end room looking out both west and south. On the latter +side, as well as to the former, there was a great precipice. The castle +was built on the corner of a great rock, so that on three sides it was +quite impregnable, and great windows were placed here where sling, or +bow, or culverin could not reach, and consequently light and comfort, +impossible to a position which had to be guarded, were secured. To the +west was a great valley, and then, rising far away, great jagged +mountain fastnesses, rising peak on peak, the sheer rock studded with +mountain ash and thorn, whose roots clung in cracks and crevices and +crannies of the stone. This was evidently the portion of the castle +occupied by the ladies in bygone days, for the furniture had more air of +comfort than any I had seen. The windows were curtainless, and the +yellow moonlight, flooding in through the diamond panes, enabled one to +see even colours, whilst it softened the wealth of dust which lay over +all and disguised in some measure the ravages of time and the moth. My +lamp seemed to be of little effect in the brilliant moonlight, but I was +glad to have it with me, for there was a dread loneliness in the place +which chilled my heart and made my nerves tremble. Still, it was better +than living alone in the rooms which I had come to hate from the +presence of the Count, and after trying a little to school my nerves, I +found a soft quietude come over me. Here I am, sitting at a little oak +table where in old times possibly some fair lady sat to pen, with much +thought and many blushes, her ill-spelt love-letter, and writing in my +diary in shorthand all that has happened since I closed it last. It is +nineteenth century up-to-date with a vengeance. And yet, unless my +senses deceive me, the old centuries had, and have, powers of their own +which mere "modernity" cannot kill. + + * * * * * + +_Later: the Morning of 16 May._--God preserve my sanity, for to this I +am reduced. Safety and the assurance of safety are things of the past. +Whilst I live on here there is but one thing to hope for, that I may not +go mad, if, indeed, I be not mad already. If I be sane, then surely it +is maddening to think that of all the foul things that lurk in this +hateful place the Count is the least dreadful to me; that to him alone I +can look for safety, even though this be only whilst I can serve his +purpose. Great God! merciful God! Let me be calm, for out of that way +lies madness indeed. I begin to get new lights on certain things which +have puzzled me. Up to now I never quite knew what Shakespeare meant +when he made Hamlet say:-- + + "My tablets! quick, my tablets! + 'Tis meet that I put it down," etc., + +for now, feeling as though my own brain were unhinged or as if the shock +had come which must end in its undoing, I turn to my diary for repose. +The habit of entering accurately must help to soothe me. + +The Count's mysterious warning frightened me at the time; it frightens +me more now when I think of it, for in future he has a fearful hold upon +me. I shall fear to doubt what he may say! + +When I had written in my diary and had fortunately replaced the book and +pen in my pocket I felt sleepy. The Count's warning came into my mind, +but I took a pleasure in disobeying it. The sense of sleep was upon me, +and with it the obstinacy which sleep brings as outrider. The soft +moonlight soothed, and the wide expanse without gave a sense of freedom +which refreshed me. I determined not to return to-night to the +gloom-haunted rooms, but to sleep here, where, of old, ladies had sat +and sung and lived sweet lives whilst their gentle breasts were sad for +their menfolk away in the midst of remorseless wars. I drew a great +couch out of its place near the corner, so that as I lay, I could look +at the lovely view to east and south, and unthinking of and uncaring for +the dust, composed myself for sleep. I suppose I must have fallen +asleep; I hope so, but I fear, for all that followed was startlingly +real--so real that now sitting here in the broad, full sunlight of the +morning, I cannot in the least believe that it was all sleep. + +I was not alone. The room was the same, unchanged in any way since I +came into it; I could see along the floor, in the brilliant moonlight, +my own footsteps marked where I had disturbed the long accumulation of +dust. In the moonlight opposite me were three young women, ladies by +their dress and manner. I thought at the time that I must be dreaming +when I saw them, for, though the moonlight was behind them, they threw +no shadow on the floor. They came close to me, and looked at me for some +time, and then whispered together. Two were dark, and had high aquiline +noses, like the Count, and great dark, piercing eyes that seemed to be +almost red when contrasted with the pale yellow moon. The other was +fair, as fair as can be, with great wavy masses of golden hair and eyes +like pale sapphires. I seemed somehow to know her face, and to know it +in connection with some dreamy fear, but I could not recollect at the +moment how or where. All three had brilliant white teeth that shone like +pearls against the ruby of their voluptuous lips. There was something +about them that made me uneasy, some longing and at the same time some +deadly fear. I felt in my heart a wicked, burning desire that they would +kiss me with those red lips. It is not good to note this down, lest some +day it should meet Mina's eyes and cause her pain; but it is the truth. +They whispered together, and then they all three laughed--such a +silvery, musical laugh, but as hard as though the sound never could have +come through the softness of human lips. It was like the intolerable, +tingling sweetness of water-glasses when played on by a cunning hand. +The fair girl shook her head coquettishly, and the other two urged her +on. One said:-- + +"Go on! You are first, and we shall follow; yours is the right to +begin." The other added:-- + +"He is young and strong; there are kisses for us all." I lay quiet, +looking out under my eyelashes in an agony of delightful anticipation. +The fair girl advanced and bent over me till I could feel the movement +of her breath upon me. Sweet it was in one sense, honey-sweet, and sent +the same tingling through the nerves as her voice, but with a bitter +underlying the sweet, a bitter offensiveness, as one smells in blood. + +I was afraid to raise my eyelids, but looked out and saw perfectly under +the lashes. The girl went on her knees, and bent over me, simply +gloating. There was a deliberate voluptuousness which was both thrilling +and repulsive, and as she arched her neck she actually licked her lips +like an animal, till I could see in the moonlight the moisture shining +on the scarlet lips and on the red tongue as it lapped the white sharp +teeth. Lower and lower went her head as the lips went below the range of +my mouth and chin and seemed about to fasten on my throat. Then she +paused, and I could hear the churning sound of her tongue as it licked +her teeth and lips, and could feel the hot breath on my neck. Then the +skin of my throat began to tingle as one's flesh does when the hand that +is to tickle it approaches nearer--nearer. I could feel the soft, +shivering touch of the lips on the super-sensitive skin of my throat, +and the hard dents of two sharp teeth, just touching and pausing there. +I closed my eyes in a languorous ecstasy and waited--waited with beating +heart. + +But at that instant, another sensation swept through me as quick as +lightning. I was conscious of the presence of the Count, and of his +being as if lapped in a storm of fury. As my eyes opened involuntarily I +saw his strong hand grasp the slender neck of the fair woman and with +giant's power draw it back, the blue eyes transformed with fury, the +white teeth champing with rage, and the fair cheeks blazing red with +passion. But the Count! Never did I imagine such wrath and fury, even to +the demons of the pit. His eyes were positively blazing. The red light +in them was lurid, as if the flames of hell-fire blazed behind them. His +face was deathly pale, and the lines of it were hard like drawn wires; +the thick eyebrows that met over the nose now seemed like a heaving bar +of white-hot metal. With a fierce sweep of his arm, he hurled the woman +from him, and then motioned to the others, as though he were beating +them back; it was the same imperious gesture that I had seen used to the +wolves. In a voice which, though low and almost in a whisper seemed to +cut through the air and then ring round the room he said:-- + +"How dare you touch him, any of you? How dare you cast eyes on him when +I had forbidden it? Back, I tell you all! This man belongs to me! Beware +how you meddle with him, or you'll have to deal with me." The fair girl, +with a laugh of ribald coquetry, turned to answer him:-- + +"You yourself never loved; you never love!" On this the other women +joined, and such a mirthless, hard, soulless laughter rang through the +room that it almost made me faint to hear; it seemed like the pleasure +of fiends. Then the Count turned, after looking at my face attentively, +and said in a soft whisper:-- + +"Yes, I too can love; you yourselves can tell it from the past. Is it +not so? Well, now I promise you that when I am done with him you shall +kiss him at your will. Now go! go! I must awaken him, for there is work +to be done." + +"Are we to have nothing to-night?" said one of them, with a low laugh, +as she pointed to the bag which he had thrown upon the floor, and which +moved as though there were some living thing within it. For answer he +nodded his head. One of the women jumped forward and opened it. If my +ears did not deceive me there was a gasp and a low wail, as of a +half-smothered child. The women closed round, whilst I was aghast with +horror; but as I looked they disappeared, and with them the dreadful +bag. There was no door near them, and they could not have passed me +without my noticing. They simply seemed to fade into the rays of the +moonlight and pass out through the window, for I could see outside the +dim, shadowy forms for a moment before they entirely faded away. + +Then the horror overcame me, and I sank down unconscious. + + + + +CHAPTER IV + +JONATHAN HARKER'S JOURNAL--_continued_ + + +I awoke in my own bed. If it be that I had not dreamt, the Count must +have carried me here. I tried to satisfy myself on the subject, but +could not arrive at any unquestionable result. To be sure, there were +certain small evidences, such as that my clothes were folded and laid by +in a manner which was not my habit. My watch was still unwound, and I am +rigorously accustomed to wind it the last thing before going to bed, and +many such details. But these things are no proof, for they may have been +evidences that my mind was not as usual, and, from some cause or +another, I had certainly been much upset. I must watch for proof. Of one +thing I am glad: if it was that the Count carried me here and undressed +me, he must have been hurried in his task, for my pockets are intact. I +am sure this diary would have been a mystery to him which he would not +have brooked. He would have taken or destroyed it. As I look round this +room, although it has been to me so full of fear, it is now a sort of +sanctuary, for nothing can be more dreadful than those awful women, who +were--who _are_--waiting to suck my blood. + + * * * * * + +_18 May._--I have been down to look at that room again in daylight, for +I _must_ know the truth. When I got to the doorway at the top of the +stairs I found it closed. It had been so forcibly driven against the +jamb that part of the woodwork was splintered. I could see that the bolt +of the lock had not been shot, but the door is fastened from the inside. +I fear it was no dream, and must act on this surmise. + + * * * * * + +_19 May._--I am surely in the toils. Last night the Count asked me in +the suavest tones to write three letters, one saying that my work here +was nearly done, and that I should start for home within a few days, +another that I was starting on the next morning from the time of the +letter, and the third that I had left the castle and arrived at +Bistritz. I would fain have rebelled, but felt that in the present state +of things it would be madness to quarrel openly with the Count whilst I +am so absolutely in his power; and to refuse would be to excite his +suspicion and to arouse his anger. He knows that I know too much, and +that I must not live, lest I be dangerous to him; my only chance is to +prolong my opportunities. Something may occur which will give me a +chance to escape. I saw in his eyes something of that gathering wrath +which was manifest when he hurled that fair woman from him. He explained +to me that posts were few and uncertain, and that my writing now would +ensure ease of mind to my friends; and he assured me with so much +impressiveness that he would countermand the later letters, which would +be held over at Bistritz until due time in case chance would admit of my +prolonging my stay, that to oppose him would have been to create new +suspicion. I therefore pretended to fall in with his views, and asked +him what dates I should put on the letters. He calculated a minute, and +then said:-- + +"The first should be June 12, the second June 19, and the third June +29." + +I know now the span of my life. God help me! + + * * * * * + +_28 May._--There is a chance of escape, or at any rate of being able to +send word home. A band of Szgany have come to the castle, and are +encamped in the courtyard. These Szgany are gipsies; I have notes of +them in my book. They are peculiar to this part of the world, though +allied to the ordinary gipsies all the world over. There are thousands +of them in Hungary and Transylvania, who are almost outside all law. +They attach themselves as a rule to some great noble or _boyar_, and +call themselves by his name. They are fearless and without religion, +save superstition, and they talk only their own varieties of the Romany +tongue. + +I shall write some letters home, and shall try to get them to have them +posted. I have already spoken them through my window to begin +acquaintanceship. They took their hats off and made obeisance and many +signs, which, however, I could not understand any more than I could +their spoken language.... + + * * * * * + +I have written the letters. Mina's is in shorthand, and I simply ask Mr. +Hawkins to communicate with her. To her I have explained my situation, +but without the horrors which I may only surmise. It would shock and +frighten her to death were I to expose my heart to her. Should the +letters not carry, then the Count shall not yet know my secret or the +extent of my knowledge.... + + * * * * * + +I have given the letters; I threw them through the bars of my window +with a gold piece, and made what signs I could to have them posted. The +man who took them pressed them to his heart and bowed, and then put them +in his cap. I could do no more. I stole back to the study, and began to +read. As the Count did not come in, I have written here.... + + * * * * * + +The Count has come. He sat down beside me, and said in his smoothest +voice as he opened two letters:-- + +"The Szgany has given me these, of which, though I know not whence they +come, I shall, of course, take care. See!"--he must have looked at +it--"one is from you, and to my friend Peter Hawkins; the other"--here +he caught sight of the strange symbols as he opened the envelope, and +the dark look came into his face, and his eyes blazed wickedly--"the +other is a vile thing, an outrage upon friendship and hospitality! It is +not signed. Well! so it cannot matter to us." And he calmly held letter +and envelope in the flame of the lamp till they were consumed. Then he +went on:-- + +"The letter to Hawkins--that I shall, of course, send on, since it is +yours. Your letters are sacred to me. Your pardon, my friend, that +unknowingly I did break the seal. Will you not cover it again?" He held +out the letter to me, and with a courteous bow handed me a clean +envelope. I could only redirect it and hand it to him in silence. When +he went out of the room I could hear the key turn softly. A minute later +I went over and tried it, and the door was locked. + +When, an hour or two after, the Count came quietly into the room, his +coming awakened me, for I had gone to sleep on the sofa. He was very +courteous and very cheery in his manner, and seeing that I had been +sleeping, he said:-- + +"So, my friend, you are tired? Get to bed. There is the surest rest. I +may not have the pleasure to talk to-night, since there are many labours +to me; but you will sleep, I pray." I passed to my room and went to bed, +and, strange to say, slept without dreaming. Despair has its own calms. + + * * * * * + +_31 May._--This morning when I woke I thought I would provide myself +with some paper and envelopes from my bag and keep them in my pocket, so +that I might write in case I should get an opportunity, but again a +surprise, again a shock! + +Every scrap of paper was gone, and with it all my notes, my memoranda, +relating to railways and travel, my letter of credit, in fact all that +might be useful to me were I once outside the castle. I sat and pondered +awhile, and then some thought occurred to me, and I made search of my +portmanteau and in the wardrobe where I had placed my clothes. + +The suit in which I had travelled was gone, and also my overcoat and +rug; I could find no trace of them anywhere. This looked like some new +scheme of villainy.... + + * * * * * + +_17 June._--This morning, as I was sitting on the edge of my bed +cudgelling my brains, I heard without a cracking of whips and pounding +and scraping of horses' feet up the rocky path beyond the courtyard. +With joy I hurried to the window, and saw drive into the yard two great +leiter-wagons, each drawn by eight sturdy horses, and at the head of +each pair a Slovak, with his wide hat, great nail-studded belt, dirty +sheepskin, and high boots. They had also their long staves in hand. I +ran to the door, intending to descend and try and join them through the +main hall, as I thought that way might be opened for them. Again a +shock: my door was fastened on the outside. + +Then I ran to the window and cried to them. They looked up at me +stupidly and pointed, but just then the "hetman" of the Szgany came out, +and seeing them pointing to my window, said something, at which they +laughed. Henceforth no effort of mine, no piteous cry or agonised +entreaty, would make them even look at me. They resolutely turned away. +The leiter-wagons contained great, square boxes, with handles of thick +rope; these were evidently empty by the ease with which the Slovaks +handled them, and by their resonance as they were roughly moved. When +they were all unloaded and packed in a great heap in one corner of the +yard, the Slovaks were given some money by the Szgany, and spitting on +it for luck, lazily went each to his horse's head. Shortly afterwards, I +heard the cracking of their whips die away in the distance. + + * * * * * + +_24 June, before morning._--Last night the Count left me early, and +locked himself into his own room. As soon as I dared I ran up the +winding stair, and looked out of the window, which opened south. I +thought I would watch for the Count, for there is something going on. +The Szgany are quartered somewhere in the castle and are doing work of +some kind. I know it, for now and then I hear a far-away muffled sound +as of mattock and spade, and, whatever it is, it must be the end of some +ruthless villainy. + +I had been at the window somewhat less than half an hour, when I saw +something coming out of the Count's window. I drew back and watched +carefully, and saw the whole man emerge. It was a new shock to me to +find that he had on the suit of clothes which I had worn whilst +travelling here, and slung over his shoulder the terrible bag which I +had seen the women take away. There could be no doubt as to his quest, +and in my garb, too! This, then, is his new scheme of evil: that he will +allow others to see me, as they think, so that he may both leave +evidence that I have been seen in the towns or villages posting my own +letters, and that any wickedness which he may do shall by the local +people be attributed to me. + +It makes me rage to think that this can go on, and whilst I am shut up +here, a veritable prisoner, but without that protection of the law which +is even a criminal's right and consolation. + +I thought I would watch for the Count's return, and for a long time sat +doggedly at the window. Then I began to notice that there were some +quaint little specks floating in the rays of the moonlight. They were +like the tiniest grains of dust, and they whirled round and gathered in +clusters in a nebulous sort of way. I watched them with a sense of +soothing, and a sort of calm stole over me. I leaned back in the +embrasure in a more comfortable position, so that I could enjoy more +fully the aerial gambolling. + +Something made me start up, a low, piteous howling of dogs somewhere far +below in the valley, which was hidden from my sight. Louder it seemed to +ring in my ears, and the floating motes of dust to take new shapes to +the sound as they danced in the moonlight. I felt myself struggling to +awake to some call of my instincts; nay, my very soul was struggling, +and my half-remembered sensibilities were striving to answer the call. I +was becoming hypnotised! Quicker and quicker danced the dust; the +moonbeams seemed to quiver as they went by me into the mass of gloom +beyond. More and more they gathered till they seemed to take dim phantom +shapes. And then I started, broad awake and in full possession of my +senses, and ran screaming from the place. The phantom shapes, which were +becoming gradually materialised from the moonbeams, were those of the +three ghostly women to whom I was doomed. I fled, and felt somewhat +safer in my own room, where there was no moonlight and where the lamp +was burning brightly. + +When a couple of hours had passed I heard something stirring in the +Count's room, something like a sharp wail quickly suppressed; and then +there was silence, deep, awful silence, which chilled me. With a +beating heart, I tried the door; but I was locked in my prison, and +could do nothing. I sat down and simply cried. + +As I sat I heard a sound in the courtyard without--the agonised cry of a +woman. I rushed to the window, and throwing it up, peered out between +the bars. There, indeed, was a woman with dishevelled hair, holding her +hands over her heart as one distressed with running. She was leaning +against a corner of the gateway. When she saw my face at the window she +threw herself forward, and shouted in a voice laden with menace:-- + +"Monster, give me my child!" + +She threw herself on her knees, and raising up her hands, cried the same +words in tones which wrung my heart. Then she tore her hair and beat her +breast, and abandoned herself to all the violences of extravagant +emotion. Finally, she threw herself forward, and, though I could not see +her, I could hear the beating of her naked hands against the door. + +Somewhere high overhead, probably on the tower, I heard the voice of the +Count calling in his harsh, metallic whisper. His call seemed to be +answered from far and wide by the howling of wolves. Before many minutes +had passed a pack of them poured, like a pent-up dam when liberated, +through the wide entrance into the courtyard. + +There was no cry from the woman, and the howling of the wolves was but +short. Before long they streamed away singly, licking their lips. + +I could not pity her, for I knew now what had become of her child, and +she was better dead. + +What shall I do? what can I do? How can I escape from this dreadful +thing of night and gloom and fear? + + * * * * * + +_25 June, morning._--No man knows till he has suffered from the night +how sweet and how dear to his heart and eye the morning can be. When the +sun grew so high this morning that it struck the top of the great +gateway opposite my window, the high spot which it touched seemed to me +as if the dove from the ark had lighted there. My fear fell from me as +if it had been a vaporous garment which dissolved in the warmth. I must +take action of some sort whilst the courage of the day is upon me. Last +night one of my post-dated letters went to post, the first of that fatal +series which is to blot out the very traces of my existence from the +earth. + +Let me not think of it. Action! + +It has always been at night-time that I have been molested or +threatened, or in some way in danger or in fear. I have not yet seen the +Count in the daylight. Can it be that he sleeps when others wake, that +he may be awake whilst they sleep? If I could only get into his room! +But there is no possible way. The door is always locked, no way for me. + +Yes, there is a way, if one dares to take it. Where his body has gone +why may not another body go? I have seen him myself crawl from his +window. Why should not I imitate him, and go in by his window? The +chances are desperate, but my need is more desperate still. I shall risk +it. At the worst it can only be death; and a man's death is not a +calf's, and the dreaded Hereafter may still be open to me. God help me +in my task! Good-bye, Mina, if I fail; good-bye, my faithful friend and +second father; good-bye, all, and last of all Mina! + + * * * * * + +_Same day, later._--I have made the effort, and God, helping me, have +come safely back to this room. I must put down every detail in order. I +went whilst my courage was fresh straight to the window on the south +side, and at once got outside on the narrow ledge of stone which runs +around the building on this side. The stones are big and roughly cut, +and the mortar has by process of time been washed away between them. I +took off my boots, and ventured out on the desperate way. I looked down +once, so as to make sure that a sudden glimpse of the awful depth would +not overcome me, but after that kept my eyes away from it. I knew pretty +well the direction and distance of the Count's window, and made for it +as well as I could, having regard to the opportunities available. I did +not feel dizzy--I suppose I was too excited--and the time seemed +ridiculously short till I found myself standing on the window-sill and +trying to raise up the sash. I was filled with agitation, however, when +I bent down and slid feet foremost in through the window. Then I looked +around for the Count, but, with surprise and gladness, made a discovery. +The room was empty! It was barely furnished with odd things, which +seemed to have never been used; the furniture was something the same +style as that in the south rooms, and was covered with dust. I looked +for the key, but it was not in the lock, and I could not find it +anywhere. The only thing I found was a great heap of gold in one +corner--gold of all kinds, Roman, and British, and Austrian, and +Hungarian, and Greek and Turkish money, covered with a film of dust, as +though it had lain long in the ground. None of it that I noticed was +less than three hundred years old. There were also chains and ornaments, +some jewelled, but all of them old and stained. + +At one corner of the room was a heavy door. I tried it, for, since I +could not find the key of the room or the key of the outer door, which +was the main object of my search, I must make further examination, or +all my efforts would be in vain. It was open, and led through a stone +passage to a circular stairway, which went steeply down. I descended, +minding carefully where I went, for the stairs were dark, being only lit +by loopholes in the heavy masonry. At the bottom there was a dark, +tunnel-like passage, through which came a deathly, sickly odour, the +odour of old earth newly turned. As I went through the passage the smell +grew closer and heavier. At last I pulled open a heavy door which stood +ajar, and found myself in an old, ruined chapel, which had evidently +been used as a graveyard. The roof was broken, and in two places were +steps leading to vaults, but the ground had recently been dug over, and +the earth placed in great wooden boxes, manifestly those which had been +brought by the Slovaks. There was nobody about, and I made search for +any further outlet, but there was none. Then I went over every inch of +the ground, so as not to lose a chance. I went down even into the +vaults, where the dim light struggled, although to do so was a dread to +my very soul. Into two of these I went, but saw nothing except fragments +of old coffins and piles of dust; in the third, however, I made a +discovery. + +There, in one of the great boxes, of which there were fifty in all, on a +pile of newly dug earth, lay the Count! He was either dead or asleep, I +could not say which--for the eyes were open and stony, but without the +glassiness of death--and the cheeks had the warmth of life through all +their pallor; the lips were as red as ever. But there was no sign of +movement, no pulse, no breath, no beating of the heart. I bent over him, +and tried to find any sign of life, but in vain. He could not have lain +there long, for the earthy smell would have passed away in a few hours. +By the side of the box was its cover, pierced with holes here and there. +I thought he might have the keys on him, but when I went to search I saw +the dead eyes, and in them, dead though they were, such a look of hate, +though unconscious of me or my presence, that I fled from the place, and +leaving the Count's room by the window, crawled again up the castle +wall. Regaining my room, I threw myself panting upon the bed and tried +to think.... + + * * * * * + +_29 June._--To-day is the date of my last letter, and the Count has +taken steps to prove that it was genuine, for again I saw him leave the +castle by the same window, and in my clothes. As he went down the wall, +lizard fashion, I wished I had a gun or some lethal weapon, that I might +destroy him; but I fear that no weapon wrought alone by man's hand would +have any effect on him. I dared not wait to see him return, for I feared +to see those weird sisters. I came back to the library, and read there +till I fell asleep. + +I was awakened by the Count, who looked at me as grimly as a man can +look as he said:-- + +"To-morrow, my friend, we must part. You return to your beautiful +England, I to some work which may have such an end that we may never +meet. Your letter home has been despatched; to-morrow I shall not be +here, but all shall be ready for your journey. In the morning come the +Szgany, who have some labours of their own here, and also come some +Slovaks. When they have gone, my carriage shall come for you, and shall +bear you to the Borgo Pass to meet the diligence from Bukovina to +Bistritz. But I am in hopes that I shall see more of you at Castle +Dracula." I suspected him, and determined to test his sincerity. +Sincerity! It seems like a profanation of the word to write it in +connection with such a monster, so asked him point-blank:-- + +"Why may I not go to-night?" + +"Because, dear sir, my coachman and horses are away on a mission." + +"But I would walk with pleasure. I want to get away at once." He smiled, +such a soft, smooth, diabolical smile that I knew there was some trick +behind his smoothness. He said:-- + +"And your baggage?" + +"I do not care about it. I can send for it some other time." + +The Count stood up, and said, with a sweet courtesy which made me rub my +eyes, it seemed so real:-- + +"You English have a saying which is close to my heart, for its spirit is +that which rules our _boyars_: 'Welcome the coming; speed the parting +guest.' Come with me, my dear young friend. Not an hour shall you wait +in my house against your will, though sad am I at your going, and that +you so suddenly desire it. Come!" With a stately gravity, he, with the +lamp, preceded me down the stairs and along the hall. Suddenly he +stopped. + +"Hark!" + +Close at hand came the howling of many wolves. It was almost as if the +sound sprang up at the rising of his hand, just as the music of a great +orchestra seems to leap under the baton of the conductor. After a pause +of a moment, he proceeded, in his stately way, to the door, drew back +the ponderous bolts, unhooked the heavy chains, and began to draw it +open. + +To my intense astonishment I saw that it was unlocked. Suspiciously, I +looked all round, but could see no key of any kind. + +As the door began to open, the howling of the wolves without grew louder +and angrier; their red jaws, with champing teeth, and their blunt-clawed +feet as they leaped, came in through the opening door. I knew then that +to struggle at the moment against the Count was useless. With such +allies as these at his command, I could do nothing. But still the door +continued slowly to open, and only the Count's body stood in the gap. +Suddenly it struck me that this might be the moment and means of my +doom; I was to be given to the wolves, and at my own instigation. There +was a diabolical wickedness in the idea great enough for the Count, and +as a last chance I cried out:-- + +"Shut the door; I shall wait till morning!" and covered my face with my +hands to hide my tears of bitter disappointment. With one sweep of his +powerful arm, the Count threw the door shut, and the great bolts clanged +and echoed through the hall as they shot back into their places. + +In silence we returned to the library, and after a minute or two I went +to my own room. The last I saw of Count Dracula was his kissing his hand +to me; with a red light of triumph in his eyes, and with a smile that +Judas in hell might be proud of. + +When I was in my room and about to lie down, I thought I heard a +whispering at my door. I went to it softly and listened. Unless my ears +deceived me, I heard the voice of the Count:-- + +"Back, back, to your own place! Your time is not yet come. Wait! Have +patience! To-night is mine. To-morrow night is yours!" There was a low, +sweet ripple of laughter, and in a rage I threw open the door, and saw +without the three terrible women licking their lips. As I appeared they +all joined in a horrible laugh, and ran away. + +I came back to my room and threw myself on my knees. It is then so near +the end? To-morrow! to-morrow! Lord, help me, and those to whom I am +dear! + + * * * * * + +_30 June, morning._--These may be the last words I ever write in this +diary. I slept till just before the dawn, and when I woke threw myself +on my knees, for I determined that if Death came he should find me +ready. + +At last I felt that subtle change in the air, and knew that the morning +had come. Then came the welcome cock-crow, and I felt that I was safe. +With a glad heart, I opened my door and ran down to the hall. I had seen +that the door was unlocked, and now escape was before me. With hands +that trembled with eagerness, I unhooked the chains and drew back the +massive bolts. + +But the door would not move. Despair seized me. I pulled, and pulled, at +the door, and shook it till, massive as it was, it rattled in its +casement. I could see the bolt shot. It had been locked after I left the +Count. + +Then a wild desire took me to obtain that key at any risk, and I +determined then and there to scale the wall again and gain the Count's +room. He might kill me, but death now seemed the happier choice of +evils. Without a pause I rushed up to the east window, and scrambled +down the wall, as before, into the Count's room. It was empty, but that +was as I expected. I could not see a key anywhere, but the heap of gold +remained. I went through the door in the corner and down the winding +stair and along the dark passage to the old chapel. I knew now well +enough where to find the monster I sought. + +The great box was in the same place, close against the wall, but the lid +was laid on it, not fastened down, but with the nails ready in their +places to be hammered home. I knew I must reach the body for the key, so +I raised the lid, and laid it back against the wall; and then I saw +something which filled my very soul with horror. There lay the Count, +but looking as if his youth had been half renewed, for the white hair +and moustache were changed to dark iron-grey; the cheeks were fuller, +and the white skin seemed ruby-red underneath; the mouth was redder than +ever, for on the lips were gouts of fresh blood, which trickled from the +corners of the mouth and ran over the chin and neck. Even the deep, +burning eyes seemed set amongst swollen flesh, for the lids and pouches +underneath were bloated. It seemed as if the whole awful creature were +simply gorged with blood. He lay like a filthy leech, exhausted with his +repletion. I shuddered as I bent over to touch him, and every sense in +me revolted at the contact; but I had to search, or I was lost. The +coming night might see my own body a banquet in a similar way to those +horrid three. I felt all over the body, but no sign could I find of the +key. Then I stopped and looked at the Count. There was a mocking smile +on the bloated face which seemed to drive me mad. This was the being I +was helping to transfer to London, where, perhaps, for centuries to come +he might, amongst its teeming millions, satiate his lust for blood, and +create a new and ever-widening circle of semi-demons to batten on the +helpless. The very thought drove me mad. A terrible desire came upon me +to rid the world of such a monster. There was no lethal weapon at hand, +but I seized a shovel which the workmen had been using to fill the +cases, and lifting it high, struck, with the edge downward, at the +hateful face. But as I did so the head turned, and the eyes fell full +upon me, with all their blaze of basilisk horror. The sight seemed to +paralyse me, and the shovel turned in my hand and glanced from the face, +merely making a deep gash above the forehead. The shovel fell from my +hand across the box, and as I pulled it away the flange of the blade +caught the edge of the lid which fell over again, and hid the horrid +thing from my sight. The last glimpse I had was of the bloated face, +blood-stained and fixed with a grin of malice which would have held its +own in the nethermost hell. + +I thought and thought what should be my next move, but my brain seemed +on fire, and I waited with a despairing feeling growing over me. As I +waited I heard in the distance a gipsy song sung by merry voices coming +closer, and through their song the rolling of heavy wheels and the +cracking of whips; the Szgany and the Slovaks of whom the Count had +spoken were coming. With a last look around and at the box which +contained the vile body, I ran from the place and gained the Count's +room, determined to rush out at the moment the door should be opened. +With strained ears, I listened, and heard downstairs the grinding of the +key in the great lock and the falling back of the heavy door. There must +have been some other means of entry, or some one had a key for one of +the locked doors. Then there came the sound of many feet tramping and +dying away in some passage which sent up a clanging echo. I turned to +run down again towards the vault, where I might find the new entrance; +but at the moment there seemed to come a violent puff of wind, and the +door to the winding stair blew to with a shock that set the dust from +the lintels flying. When I ran to push it open, I found that it was +hopelessly fast. I was again a prisoner, and the net of doom was closing +round me more closely. + +As I write there is in the passage below a sound of many tramping feet +and the crash of weights being set down heavily, doubtless the boxes, +with their freight of earth. There is a sound of hammering; it is the +box being nailed down. Now I can hear the heavy feet tramping again +along the hall, with many other idle feet coming behind them. + +The door is shut, and the chains rattle; there is a grinding of the key +in the lock; I can hear the key withdraw: then another door opens and +shuts; I hear the creaking of lock and bolt. + +Hark! in the courtyard and down the rocky way the roll of heavy wheels, +the crack of whips, and the chorus of the Szgany as they pass into the +distance. + +I am alone in the castle with those awful women. Faugh! Mina is a woman, +and there is nought in common. They are devils of the Pit! + +I shall not remain alone with them; I shall try to scale the castle wall +farther than I have yet attempted. I shall take some of the gold with +me, lest I want it later. I may find a way from this dreadful place. + +And then away for home! away to the quickest and nearest train! away +from this cursed spot, from this cursed land, where the devil and his +children still walk with earthly feet! + +At least God's mercy is better than that of these monsters, and the +precipice is steep and high. At its foot a man may sleep--as a man. +Good-bye, all! Mina! + + + + +CHAPTER V + +_Letter from Miss Mina Murray to Miss Lucy Westenra._ + + +"_9 May._ + +"My dearest Lucy,-- + +"Forgive my long delay in writing, but I have been simply overwhelmed +with work. The life of an assistant schoolmistress is sometimes trying. +I am longing to be with you, and by the sea, where we can talk together +freely and build our castles in the air. I have been working very hard +lately, because I want to keep up with Jonathan's studies, and I have +been practising shorthand very assiduously. When we are married I shall +be able to be useful to Jonathan, and if I can stenograph well enough I +can take down what he wants to say in this way and write it out for +him on the typewriter, at which also I am practising very hard. He +and I sometimes write letters in shorthand, and he is keeping a +stenographic journal of his travels abroad. When I am with you I +shall keep a diary in the same way. I don't mean one of those +two-pages-to-the-week-with-Sunday-squeezed-in-a-corner diaries, but a +sort of journal which I can write in whenever I feel inclined. I do not +suppose there will be much of interest to other people; but it is not +intended for them. I may show it to Jonathan some day if there is in it +anything worth sharing, but it is really an exercise book. I shall try +to do what I see lady journalists do: interviewing and writing +descriptions and trying to remember conversations. I am told that, with +a little practice, one can remember all that goes on or that one hears +said during a day. However, we shall see. I will tell you of my little +plans when we meet. I have just had a few hurried lines from Jonathan +from Transylvania. He is well, and will be returning in about a week. I +am longing to hear all his news. It must be so nice to see strange +countries. I wonder if we--I mean Jonathan and I--shall ever see them +together. There is the ten o'clock bell ringing. Good-bye. + +"Your loving + +"MINA. + +"Tell me all the news when you write. You have not told me anything for +a long time. I hear rumours, and especially of a tall, handsome, +curly-haired man???" + + +_Letter, Lucy Westenra to Mina Murray_. + +"_17, Chatham Street_, + +"_Wednesday_. + +"My dearest Mina,-- + +"I must say you tax me _very_ unfairly with being a bad correspondent. I +wrote to you _twice_ since we parted, and your last letter was only your +_second_. Besides, I have nothing to tell you. There is really nothing +to interest you. Town is very pleasant just now, and we go a good deal +to picture-galleries and for walks and rides in the park. As to the +tall, curly-haired man, I suppose it was the one who was with me at the +last Pop. Some one has evidently been telling tales. That was Mr. +Holmwood. He often comes to see us, and he and mamma get on very well +together; they have so many things to talk about in common. We met some +time ago a man that would just _do for you_, if you were not already +engaged to Jonathan. He is an excellent _parti_, being handsome, well +off, and of good birth. He is a doctor and really clever. Just fancy! He +is only nine-and-twenty, and he has an immense lunatic asylum all under +his own care. Mr. Holmwood introduced him to me, and he called here to +see us, and often comes now. I think he is one of the most resolute men +I ever saw, and yet the most calm. He seems absolutely imperturbable. I +can fancy what a wonderful power he must have over his patients. He has +a curious habit of looking one straight in the face, as if trying to +read one's thoughts. He tries this on very much with me, but I flatter +myself he has got a tough nut to crack. I know that from my glass. Do +you ever try to read your own face? _I do_, and I can tell you it is not +a bad study, and gives you more trouble than you can well fancy if you +have never tried it. He says that I afford him a curious psychological +study, and I humbly think I do. I do not, as you know, take sufficient +interest in dress to be able to describe the new fashions. Dress is a +bore. That is slang again, but never mind; Arthur says that every day. +There, it is all out. Mina, we have told all our secrets to each other +since we were _children_; we have slept together and eaten together, and +laughed and cried together; and now, though I have spoken, I would like +to speak more. Oh, Mina, couldn't you guess? I love him. I am blushing +as I write, for although I _think_ he loves me, he has not told me so in +words. But oh, Mina, I love him; I love him; I love him! There, that +does me good. I wish I were with you, dear, sitting by the fire +undressing, as we used to sit; and I would try to tell you what I feel. +I do not know how I am writing this even to you. I am afraid to stop, +or I should tear up the letter, and I don't want to stop, for I _do_ so +want to tell you all. Let me hear from you _at once_, and tell me all +that you think about it. Mina, I must stop. Good-night. Bless me in your +prayers; and, Mina, pray for my happiness. + +"LUCY. + +"P.S.--I need not tell you this is a secret. Good-night again. + +"L." + +_Letter, Lucy Westenra to Mina Murray_. + +"_24 May_. + +"My dearest Mina,-- + +"Thanks, and thanks, and thanks again for your sweet letter. It was so +nice to be able to tell you and to have your sympathy. + +"My dear, it never rains but it pours. How true the old proverbs are. +Here am I, who shall be twenty in September, and yet I never had a +proposal till to-day, not a real proposal, and to-day I have had three. +Just fancy! THREE proposals in one day! Isn't it awful! I feel sorry, +really and truly sorry, for two of the poor fellows. Oh, Mina, I am so +happy that I don't know what to do with myself. And three proposals! +But, for goodness' sake, don't tell any of the girls, or they would be +getting all sorts of extravagant ideas and imagining themselves injured +and slighted if in their very first day at home they did not get six at +least. Some girls are so vain! You and I, Mina dear, who are engaged and +are going to settle down soon soberly into old married women, can +despise vanity. Well, I must tell you about the three, but you must keep +it a secret, dear, from _every one_, except, of course, Jonathan. You +will tell him, because I would, if I were in your place, certainly tell +Arthur. A woman ought to tell her husband everything--don't you think +so, dear?--and I must be fair. Men like women, certainly their wives, to +be quite as fair as they are; and women, I am afraid, are not always +quite as fair as they should be. Well, my dear, number One came just +before lunch. I told you of him, Dr. John Seward, the lunatic-asylum +man, with the strong jaw and the good forehead. He was very cool +outwardly, but was nervous all the same. He had evidently been schooling +himself as to all sorts of little things, and remembered them; but he +almost managed to sit down on his silk hat, which men don't generally do +when they are cool, and then when he wanted to appear at ease he kept +playing with a lancet in a way that made me nearly scream. He spoke to +me, Mina, very straightforwardly. He told me how dear I was to him, +though he had known me so little, and what his life would be with me to +help and cheer him. He was going to tell me how unhappy he would be if I +did not care for him, but when he saw me cry he said that he was a brute +and would not add to my present trouble. Then he broke off and asked if +I could love him in time; and when I shook my head his hands trembled, +and then with some hesitation he asked me if I cared already for any one +else. He put it very nicely, saying that he did not want to wring my +confidence from me, but only to know, because if a woman's heart was +free a man might have hope. And then, Mina, I felt a sort of duty to +tell him that there was some one. I only told him that much, and then he +stood up, and he looked very strong and very grave as he took both my +hands in his and said he hoped I would be happy, and that if I ever +wanted a friend I must count him one of my best. Oh, Mina dear, I can't +help crying: and you must excuse this letter being all blotted. Being +proposed to is all very nice and all that sort of thing, but it isn't at +all a happy thing when you have to see a poor fellow, whom you know +loves you honestly, going away and looking all broken-hearted, and to +know that, no matter what he may say at the moment, you are passing +quite out of his life. My dear, I must stop here at present, I feel so +miserable, though I am so happy. + +"_Evening._ + +"Arthur has just gone, and I feel in better spirits than when I left +off, so I can go on telling you about the day. Well, my dear, number Two +came after lunch. He is such a nice fellow, an American from Texas, and +he looks so young and so fresh that it seems almost impossible that he +has been to so many places and has had such adventures. I sympathise +with poor Desdemona when she had such a dangerous stream poured in her +ear, even by a black man. I suppose that we women are such cowards that +we think a man will save us from fears, and we marry him. I know now +what I would do if I were a man and wanted to make a girl love me. No, I +don't, for there was Mr. Morris telling us his stories, and Arthur never +told any, and yet---- My dear, I am somewhat previous. Mr. Quincey P. +Morris found me alone. It seems that a man always does find a girl +alone. No, he doesn't, for Arthur tried twice to _make_ a chance, and I +helping him all I could; I am not ashamed to say it now. I must tell you +beforehand that Mr. Morris doesn't always speak slang--that is to say, +he never does so to strangers or before them, for he is really well +educated and has exquisite manners--but he found out that it amused me +to hear him talk American slang, and whenever I was present, and there +was no one to be shocked, he said such funny things. I am afraid, my +dear, he has to invent it all, for it fits exactly into whatever else he +has to say. But this is a way slang has. I do not know myself if I shall +ever speak slang; I do not know if Arthur likes it, as I have never +heard him use any as yet. Well, Mr. Morris sat down beside me and looked +as happy and jolly as he could, but I could see all the same that he was +very nervous. He took my hand in his, and said ever so sweetly:-- + +"'Miss Lucy, I know I ain't good enough to regulate the fixin's of your +little shoes, but I guess if you wait till you find a man that is you +will go join them seven young women with the lamps when you quit. Won't +you just hitch up alongside of me and let us go down the long road +together, driving in double harness?' + +"Well, he did look so good-humoured and so jolly that it didn't seem +half so hard to refuse him as it did poor Dr. Seward; so I said, as +lightly as I could, that I did not know anything of hitching, and that I +wasn't broken to harness at all yet. Then he said that he had spoken in +a light manner, and he hoped that if he had made a mistake in doing so +on so grave, so momentous, an occasion for him, I would forgive him. He +really did look serious when he was saying it, and I couldn't help +feeling a bit serious too--I know, Mina, you will think me a horrid +flirt--though I couldn't help feeling a sort of exultation that he was +number two in one day. And then, my dear, before I could say a word he +began pouring out a perfect torrent of love-making, laying his very +heart and soul at my feet. He looked so earnest over it that I shall +never again think that a man must be playful always, and never earnest, +because he is merry at times. I suppose he saw something in my face +which checked him, for he suddenly stopped, and said with a sort of +manly fervour that I could have loved him for if I had been free:-- + +"'Lucy, you are an honest-hearted girl, I know. I should not be here +speaking to you as I am now if I did not believe you clean grit, right +through to the very depths of your soul. Tell me, like one good fellow +to another, is there any one else that you care for? And if there is +I'll never trouble you a hair's breadth again, but will be, if you will +let me, a very faithful friend.' + +"My dear Mina, why are men so noble when we women are so little worthy +of them? Here was I almost making fun of this great-hearted, true +gentleman. I burst into tears--I am afraid, my dear, you will think +this a very sloppy letter in more ways than one--and I really felt very +badly. Why can't they let a girl marry three men, or as many as want +her, and save all this trouble? But this is heresy, and I must not say +it. I am glad to say that, though I was crying, I was able to look into +Mr. Morris's brave eyes, and I told him out straight:-- + +"'Yes, there is some one I love, though he has not told me yet that he +even loves me.' I was right to speak to him so frankly, for quite a +light came into his face, and he put out both his hands and took mine--I +think I put them into his--and said in a hearty way:-- + +"'That's my brave girl. It's better worth being late for a chance of +winning you than being in time for any other girl in the world. Don't +cry, my dear. If it's for me, I'm a hard nut to crack; and I take it +standing up. If that other fellow doesn't know his happiness, well, he'd +better look for it soon, or he'll have to deal with me. Little girl, +your honesty and pluck have made me a friend, and that's rarer than a +lover; it's more unselfish anyhow. My dear, I'm going to have a pretty +lonely walk between this and Kingdom Come. Won't you give me one kiss? +It'll be something to keep off the darkness now and then. You can, you +know, if you like, for that other good fellow--he must be a good fellow, +my dear, and a fine fellow, or you could not love him--hasn't spoken +yet.' That quite won me, Mina, for it _was_ brave and sweet of him, and +noble, too, to a rival--wasn't it?--and he so sad; so I leant over and +kissed him. He stood up with my two hands in his, and as he looked down +into my face--I am afraid I was blushing very much--he said:-- + +"'Little girl, I hold your hand, and you've kissed me, and if these +things don't make us friends nothing ever will. Thank you for your sweet +honesty to me, and good-bye.' He wrung my hand, and taking up his hat, +went straight out of the room without looking back, without a tear or a +quiver or a pause; and I am crying like a baby. Oh, why must a man like +that be made unhappy when there are lots of girls about who would +worship the very ground he trod on? I know I would if I were free--only +I don't want to be free. My dear, this quite upset me, and I feel I +cannot write of happiness just at once, after telling you of it; and I +don't wish to tell of the number three until it can be all happy. + +"Ever your loving + +"LUCY. + +"P.S.--Oh, about number Three--I needn't tell you of number Three, need +I? Besides, it was all so confused; it seemed only a moment from his +coming into the room till both his arms were round me, and he was +kissing me. I am very, very happy, and I don't know what I have done to +deserve it. I must only try in the future to show that I am not +ungrateful to God for all His goodness to me in sending to me such a +lover, such a husband, and such a friend. + +"Good-bye." + + +_Dr. Seward's Diary._ + +(Kept in phonograph) + +_25 May._--Ebb tide in appetite to-day. Cannot eat, cannot rest, so +diary instead. Since my rebuff of yesterday I have a sort of empty +feeling; nothing in the world seems of sufficient importance to be worth +the doing.... As I knew that the only cure for this sort of thing was +work, I went down amongst the patients. I picked out one who has +afforded me a study of much interest. He is so quaint that I am +determined to understand him as well as I can. To-day I seemed to get +nearer than ever before to the heart of his mystery. + +I questioned him more fully than I had ever done, with a view to making +myself master of the facts of his hallucination. In my manner of doing +it there was, I now see, something of cruelty. I seemed to wish to keep +him to the point of his madness--a thing which I avoid with the patients +as I would the mouth of hell. + +(_Mem._, under what circumstances would I _not_ avoid the pit of hell?) +_Omnia Romae venalia sunt._ Hell has its price! _verb. sap._ If there be +anything behind this instinct it will be valuable to trace it afterwards +_accurately_, so I had better commence to do so, therefore-- + +R. M. Renfield, aetat 59.--Sanguine temperament; great physical strength; +morbidly excitable; periods of gloom, ending in some fixed idea which I +cannot make out. I presume that the sanguine temperament itself and the +disturbing influence end in a mentally-accomplished finish; a possibly +dangerous man, probably dangerous if unselfish. In selfish men caution +is as secure an armour for their foes as for themselves. What I think of +on this point is, when self is the fixed point the centripetal force is +balanced with the centrifugal; when duty, a cause, etc., is the fixed +point, the latter force is paramount, and only accident or a series of +accidents can balance it. + + +_Letter, Quincey P. Morris to Hon. Arthur Holmwood._ + +"_25 May._ + +"My dear Art,-- + +"We've told yarns by the camp-fire in the prairies; and dressed one +another's wounds after trying a landing at the Marquesas; and drunk +healths on the shore of Titicaca. There are more yarns to be told, and +other wounds to be healed, and another health to be drunk. Won't you let +this be at my camp-fire to-morrow night? I have no hesitation in asking +you, as I know a certain lady is engaged to a certain dinner-party, and +that you are free. There will only be one other, our old pal at the +Korea, Jack Seward. He's coming, too, and we both want to mingle our +weeps over the wine-cup, and to drink a health with all our hearts to +the happiest man in all the wide world, who has won the noblest heart +that God has made and the best worth winning. We promise you a hearty +welcome, and a loving greeting, and a health as true as your own right +hand. We shall both swear to leave you at home if you drink too deep to +a certain pair of eyes. Come! + +"Yours, as ever and always, + +"QUINCEY P. MORRIS." + + +_Telegram from Arthur Holmwood to Quincey P. Morris._ + +"_26 May._ + +"Count me in every time. I bear messages which will make both your ears +tingle. + +"ART." + + + + +CHAPTER VI + +MINA MURRAY'S JOURNAL + + +_24 July. Whitby._--Lucy met me at the station, looking sweeter and +lovelier than ever, and we drove up to the house at the Crescent in +which they have rooms. This is a lovely place. The little river, the +Esk, runs through a deep valley, which broadens out as it comes near the +harbour. A great viaduct runs across, with high piers, through which the +view seems somehow further away than it really is. The valley is +beautifully green, and it is so steep that when you are on the high land +on either side you look right across it, unless you are near enough to +see down. The houses of the old town--the side away from us--are all +red-roofed, and seem piled up one over the other anyhow, like the +pictures we see of Nuremberg. Right over the town is the ruin of Whitby +Abbey, which was sacked by the Danes, and which is the scene of part of +"Marmion," where the girl was built up in the wall. It is a most noble +ruin, of immense size, and full of beautiful and romantic bits; there is +a legend that a white lady is seen in one of the windows. Between it and +the town there is another church, the parish one, round which is a big +graveyard, all full of tombstones. This is to my mind the nicest spot in +Whitby, for it lies right over the town, and has a full view of the +harbour and all up the bay to where the headland called Kettleness +stretches out into the sea. It descends so steeply over the harbour that +part of the bank has fallen away, and some of the graves have been +destroyed. In one place part of the stonework of the graves stretches +out over the sandy pathway far below. There are walks, with seats beside +them, through the churchyard; and people go and sit there all day long +looking at the beautiful view and enjoying the breeze. I shall come and +sit here very often myself and work. Indeed, I am writing now, with my +book on my knee, and listening to the talk of three old men who are +sitting beside me. They seem to do nothing all day but sit up here and +talk. + +The harbour lies below me, with, on the far side, one long granite wall +stretching out into the sea, with a curve outwards at the end of it, in +the middle of which is a lighthouse. A heavy sea-wall runs along outside +of it. On the near side, the sea-wall makes an elbow crooked inversely, +and its end too has a lighthouse. Between the two piers there is a +narrow opening into the harbour, which then suddenly widens. + +It is nice at high water; but when the tide is out it shoals away to +nothing, and there is merely the stream of the Esk, running between +banks of sand, with rocks here and there. Outside the harbour on this +side there rises for about half a mile a great reef, the sharp edge of +which runs straight out from behind the south lighthouse. At the end of +it is a buoy with a bell, which swings in bad weather, and sends in a +mournful sound on the wind. They have a legend here that when a ship is +lost bells are heard out at sea. I must ask the old man about this; he +is coming this way.... + +He is a funny old man. He must be awfully old, for his face is all +gnarled and twisted like the bark of a tree. He tells me that he is +nearly a hundred, and that he was a sailor in the Greenland fishing +fleet when Waterloo was fought. He is, I am afraid, a very sceptical +person, for when I asked him about the bells at sea and the White Lady +at the abbey he said very brusquely:-- + +"I wouldn't fash masel' about them, miss. Them things be all wore out. +Mind, I don't say that they never was, but I do say that they wasn't in +my time. They be all very well for comers and trippers, an' the like, +but not for a nice young lady like you. Them feet-folks from York and +Leeds that be always eatin' cured herrin's an' drinkin' tea an' lookin' +out to buy cheap jet would creed aught. I wonder masel' who'd be +bothered tellin' lies to them--even the newspapers, which is full of +fool-talk." I thought he would be a good person to learn interesting +things from, so I asked him if he would mind telling me something about +the whale-fishing in the old days. He was just settling himself to begin +when the clock struck six, whereupon he laboured to get up, and said:-- + +"I must gang ageeanwards home now, miss. My grand-daughter doesn't like +to be kept waitin' when the tea is ready, for it takes me time to +crammle aboon the grees, for there be a many of 'em; an', miss, I lack +belly-timber sairly by the clock." + +He hobbled away, and I could see him hurrying, as well as he could, down +the steps. The steps are a great feature on the place. They lead from +the town up to the church, there are hundreds of them--I do not know how +many--and they wind up in a delicate curve; the slope is so gentle that +a horse could easily walk up and down them. I think they must originally +have had something to do with the abbey. I shall go home too. Lucy went +out visiting with her mother, and as they were only duty calls, I did +not go. They will be home by this. + + * * * * * + +_1 August._--I came up here an hour ago with Lucy, and we had a most +interesting talk with my old friend and the two others who always come +and join him. He is evidently the Sir Oracle of them, and I should think +must have been in his time a most dictatorial person. He will not admit +anything, and downfaces everybody. If he can't out-argue them he bullies +them, and then takes their silence for agreement with his views. Lucy +was looking sweetly pretty in her white lawn frock; she has got a +beautiful colour since she has been here. I noticed that the old men did +not lose any time in coming up and sitting near her when we sat down. +She is so sweet with old people; I think they all fell in love with her +on the spot. Even my old man succumbed and did not contradict her, but +gave me double share instead. I got him on the subject of the legends, +and he went off at once into a sort of sermon. I must try to remember it +and put it down:-- + +"It be all fool-talk, lock, stock, and barrel; that's what it be, an' +nowt else. These bans an' wafts an' boh-ghosts an' barguests an' bogles +an' all anent them is only fit to set bairns an' dizzy women +a-belderin'. They be nowt but air-blebs. They, an' all grims an' signs +an' warnin's, be all invented by parsons an' illsome beuk-bodies an' +railway touters to skeer an' scunner hafflin's, an' to get folks to do +somethin' that they don't other incline to. It makes me ireful to think +o' them. Why, it's them that, not content with printin' lies on paper +an' preachin' them out of pulpits, does want to be cuttin' them on the +tombstones. Look here all around you in what airt ye will; all them +steans, holdin' up their heads as well as they can out of their pride, +is acant--simply tumblin' down with the weight o' the lies wrote on +them, 'Here lies the body' or 'Sacred to the memory' wrote on all of +them, an' yet in nigh half of them there bean't no bodies at all; an' +the memories of them bean't cared a pinch of snuff about, much less +sacred. Lies all of them, nothin' but lies of one kind or another! My +gog, but it'll be a quare scowderment at the Day of Judgment when they +come tumblin' up in their death-sarks, all jouped together an' tryin' to +drag their tombsteans with them to prove how good they was; some of them +trimmlin' and ditherin', with their hands that dozzened an' slippy from +lyin' in the sea that they can't even keep their grup o' them." + +I could see from the old fellow's self-satisfied air and the way in +which he looked round for the approval of his cronies that he was +"showing off," so I put in a word to keep him going:-- + +"Oh, Mr. Swales, you can't be serious. Surely these tombstones are not +all wrong?" + +"Yabblins! There may be a poorish few not wrong, savin' where they make +out the people too good; for there be folk that do think a balm-bowl be +like the sea, if only it be their own. The whole thing be only lies. Now +look you here; you come here a stranger, an' you see this kirk-garth." I +nodded, for I thought it better to assent, though I did not quite +understand his dialect. I knew it had something to do with the church. +He went on: "And you consate that all these steans be aboon folk that be +happed here, snod an' snog?" I assented again. "Then that be just where +the lie comes in. Why, there be scores of these lay-beds that be toom as +old Dun's 'bacca-box on Friday night." He nudged one of his companions, +and they all laughed. "And my gog! how could they be otherwise? Look at +that one, the aftest abaft the bier-bank: read it!" I went over and +read:-- + +"Edward Spencelagh, master mariner, murdered by pirates off the coast of +Andres, April, 1854, aet. 30." When I came back Mr. Swales went on:-- + +"Who brought him home, I wonder, to hap him here? Murdered off the coast +of Andres! an' you consated his body lay under! Why, I could name ye a +dozen whose bones lie in the Greenland seas above"--he pointed +northwards--"or where the currents may have drifted them. There be the +steans around ye. Ye can, with your young eyes, read the small-print of +the lies from here. This Braithwaite Lowrey--I knew his father, lost in +the _Lively_ off Greenland in '20; or Andrew Woodhouse, drowned in the +same seas in 1777; or John Paxton, drowned off Cape Farewell a year +later; or old John Rawlings, whose grandfather sailed with me, drowned +in the Gulf of Finland in '50. Do ye think that all these men will have +to make a rush to Whitby when the trumpet sounds? I have me antherums +aboot it! I tell ye that when they got here they'd be jommlin' an' +jostlin' one another that way that it 'ud be like a fight up on the ice +in the old days, when we'd be at one another from daylight to dark, an' +tryin' to tie up our cuts by the light of the aurora borealis." This was +evidently local pleasantry, for the old man cackled over it, and his +cronies joined in with gusto. + +"But," I said, "surely you are not quite correct, for you start on the +assumption that all the poor people, or their spirits, will have to +take their tombstones with them on the Day of Judgment. Do you think +that will be really necessary?" + +"Well, what else be they tombstones for? Answer me that, miss!" + +"To please their relatives, I suppose." + +"To please their relatives, you suppose!" This he said with intense +scorn. "How will it pleasure their relatives to know that lies is wrote +over them, and that everybody in the place knows that they be lies?" He +pointed to a stone at our feet which had been laid down as a slab, on +which the seat was rested, close to the edge of the cliff. "Read the +lies on that thruff-stean," he said. The letters were upside down to me +from where I sat, but Lucy was more opposite to them, so she leant over +and read:-- + +"Sacred to the memory of George Canon, who died, in the hope of a +glorious resurrection, on July, 29, 1873, falling from the rocks at +Kettleness. This tomb was erected by his sorrowing mother to her dearly +beloved son. 'He was the only son of his mother, and she was a widow.' +Really, Mr. Swales, I don't see anything very funny in that!" She spoke +her comment very gravely and somewhat severely. + +"Ye don't see aught funny! Ha! ha! But that's because ye don't gawm the +sorrowin' mother was a hell-cat that hated him because he was +acrewk'd--a regular lamiter he was--an' he hated her so that he +committed suicide in order that she mightn't get an insurance she put on +his life. He blew nigh the top of his head off with an old musket that +they had for scarin' the crows with. 'Twarn't for crows then, for it +brought the clegs and the dowps to him. That's the way he fell off the +rocks. And, as to hopes of a glorious resurrection, I've often heard him +say masel' that he hoped he'd go to hell, for his mother was so pious +that she'd be sure to go to heaven, an' he didn't want to addle where +she was. Now isn't that stean at any rate"--he hammered it with his +stick as he spoke--"a pack of lies? and won't it make Gabriel keckle +when Geordie comes pantin' up the grees with the tombstean balanced on +his hump, and asks it to be took as evidence!" + +I did not know what to say, but Lucy turned the conversation as she +said, rising up:-- + +"Oh, why did you tell us of this? It is my favourite seat, and I cannot +leave it; and now I find I must go on sitting over the grave of a +suicide." + +"That won't harm ye, my pretty; an' it may make poor Geordie gladsome to +have so trim a lass sittin' on his lap. That won't hurt ye. Why, I've +sat here off an' on for nigh twenty years past, an' it hasn't done me +no harm. Don't ye fash about them as lies under ye, or that doesn' lie +there either! It'll be time for ye to be getting scart when ye see the +tombsteans all run away with, and the place as bare as a stubble-field. +There's the clock, an' I must gang. My service to ye, ladies!" And off +he hobbled. + +Lucy and I sat awhile, and it was all so beautiful before us that we +took hands as we sat; and she told me all over again about Arthur and +their coming marriage. That made me just a little heart-sick, for I +haven't heard from Jonathan for a whole month. + + * * * * * + +_The same day._ I came up here alone, for I am very sad. There was no +letter for me. I hope there cannot be anything the matter with Jonathan. +The clock has just struck nine. I see the lights scattered all over the +town, sometimes in rows where the streets are, and sometimes singly; +they run right up the Esk and die away in the curve of the valley. To my +left the view is cut off by a black line of roof of the old house next +the abbey. The sheep and lambs are bleating in the fields away behind +me, and there is a clatter of a donkey's hoofs up the paved road below. +The band on the pier is playing a harsh waltz in good time, and further +along the quay there is a Salvation Army meeting in a back street. +Neither of the bands hears the other, but up here I hear and see them +both. I wonder where Jonathan is and if he is thinking of me! I wish he +were here. + + +_Dr. Seward's Diary._ + +_5 June._--The case of Renfield grows more interesting the more I get to +understand the man. He has certain qualities very largely developed; +selfishness, secrecy, and purpose. I wish I could get at what is the +object of the latter. He seems to have some settled scheme of his own, +but what it is I do not yet know. His redeeming quality is a love of +animals, though, indeed, he has such curious turns in it that I +sometimes imagine he is only abnormally cruel. His pets are of odd +sorts. Just now his hobby is catching flies. He has at present such a +quantity that I have had myself to expostulate. To my astonishment, he +did not break out into a fury, as I expected, but took the matter in +simple seriousness. He thought for a moment, and then said: "May I have +three days? I shall clear them away." Of course, I said that would do. I +must watch him. + + * * * * * + +_18 June._--He has turned his mind now to spiders, and has got several +very big fellows in a box. He keeps feeding them with his flies, and +the number of the latter is becoming sensibly diminished, although he +has used half his food in attracting more flies from outside to his +room. + + * * * * * + +_1 July._--His spiders are now becoming as great a nuisance as his +flies, and to-day I told him that he must get rid of them. He looked +very sad at this, so I said that he must clear out some of them, at all +events. He cheerfully acquiesced in this, and I gave him the same time +as before for reduction. He disgusted me much while with him, for when a +horrid blow-fly, bloated with some carrion food, buzzed into the room, +he caught it, held it exultantly for a few moments between his finger +and thumb, and, before I knew what he was going to do, put it in his +mouth and ate it. I scolded him for it, but he argued quietly that it +was very good and very wholesome; that it was life, strong life, and +gave life to him. This gave me an idea, or the rudiment of one. I must +watch how he gets rid of his spiders. He has evidently some deep problem +in his mind, for he keeps a little note-book in which he is always +jotting down something. Whole pages of it are filled with masses of +figures, generally single numbers added up in batches, and then the +totals added in batches again, as though he were "focussing" some +account, as the auditors put it. + + * * * * * + +_8 July._--There is a method in his madness, and the rudimentary idea in +my mind is growing. It will be a whole idea soon, and then, oh, +unconscious cerebration! you will have to give the wall to your +conscious brother. I kept away from my friend for a few days, so that I +might notice if there were any change. Things remain as they were except +that he has parted with some of his pets and got a new one. He has +managed to get a sparrow, and has already partially tamed it. His means +of taming is simple, for already the spiders have diminished. Those that +do remain, however, are well fed, for he still brings in the flies by +tempting them with his food. + + * * * * * + +_19 July._--We are progressing. My friend has now a whole colony of +sparrows, and his flies and spiders are almost obliterated. When I came +in he ran to me and said he wanted to ask me a great favour--a very, +very great favour; and as he spoke he fawned on me like a dog. I asked +him what it was, and he said, with a sort of rapture in his voice and +bearing:-- + +"A kitten, a nice little, sleek playful kitten, that I can play with, +and teach, and feed--and feed--and feed!" I was not unprepared for this +request, for I had noticed how his pets went on increasing in size and +vivacity, but I did not care that his pretty family of tame sparrows +should be wiped out in the same manner as the flies and the spiders; so +I said I would see about it, and asked him if he would not rather have a +cat than a kitten. His eagerness betrayed him as he answered:-- + +"Oh, yes, I would like a cat! I only asked for a kitten lest you should +refuse me a cat. No one would refuse me a kitten, would they?" I shook +my head, and said that at present I feared it would not be possible, but +that I would see about it. His face fell, and I could see a warning of +danger in it, for there was a sudden fierce, sidelong look which meant +killing. The man is an undeveloped homicidal maniac. I shall test him +with his present craving and see how it will work out; then I shall know +more. + + * * * * * + +_10 p. m._--I have visited him again and found him sitting in a corner +brooding. When I came in he threw himself on his knees before me and +implored me to let him have a cat; that his salvation depended upon it. +I was firm, however, and told him that he could not have it, whereupon +he went without a word, and sat down, gnawing his fingers, in the corner +where I had found him. I shall see him in the morning early. + + * * * * * + +_20 July._--Visited Renfield very early, before the attendant went his +rounds. Found him up and humming a tune. He was spreading out his sugar, +which he had saved, in the window, and was manifestly beginning his +fly-catching again; and beginning it cheerfully and with a good grace. I +looked around for his birds, and not seeing them, asked him where they +were. He replied, without turning round, that they had all flown away. +There were a few feathers about the room and on his pillow a drop of +blood. I said nothing, but went and told the keeper to report to me if +there were anything odd about him during the day. + + * * * * * + +_11 a. m._--The attendant has just been to me to say that Renfield has +been very sick and has disgorged a whole lot of feathers. "My belief is, +doctor," he said, "that he has eaten his birds, and that he just took +and ate them raw!" + + * * * * * + +_11 p. m._--I gave Renfield a strong opiate to-night, enough to make +even him sleep, and took away his pocket-book to look at it. The thought +that has been buzzing about my brain lately is complete, and the theory +proved. My homicidal maniac is of a peculiar kind. I shall have to +invent a new classification for him, and call him a zoophagous +(life-eating) maniac; what he desires is to absorb as many lives as he +can, and he has laid himself out to achieve it in a cumulative way. He +gave many flies to one spider and many spiders to one bird, and then +wanted a cat to eat the many birds. What would have been his later +steps? It would almost be worth while to complete the experiment. It +might be done if there were only a sufficient cause. Men sneered at +vivisection, and yet look at its results to-day! Why not advance science +in its most difficult and vital aspect--the knowledge of the brain? Had +I even the secret of one such mind--did I hold the key to the fancy of +even one lunatic--I might advance my own branch of science to a pitch +compared with which Burdon-Sanderson's physiology or Ferrier's +brain-knowledge would be as nothing. If only there were a sufficient +cause! I must not think too much of this, or I may be tempted; a good +cause might turn the scale with me, for may not I too be of an +exceptional brain, congenitally? + +How well the man reasoned; lunatics always do within their own scope. I +wonder at how many lives he values a man, or if at only one. He has +closed the account most accurately, and to-day begun a new record. How +many of us begin a new record with each day of our lives? + +To me it seems only yesterday that my whole life ended with my new hope, +and that truly I began a new record. So it will be until the Great +Recorder sums me up and closes my ledger account with a balance to +profit or loss. Oh, Lucy, Lucy, I cannot be angry with you, nor can I be +angry with my friend whose happiness is yours; but I must only wait on +hopeless and work. Work! work! + +If I only could have as strong a cause as my poor mad friend there--a +good, unselfish cause to make me work--that would be indeed happiness. + + +_Mina Murray's Journal._ + +_26 July._--I am anxious, and it soothes me to express myself here; it +is like whispering to one's self and listening at the same time. And +there is also something about the shorthand symbols that makes it +different from writing. I am unhappy about Lucy and about Jonathan. I +had not heard from Jonathan for some time, and was very concerned; but +yesterday dear Mr. Hawkins, who is always so kind, sent me a letter from +him. I had written asking him if he had heard, and he said the enclosed +had just been received. It is only a line dated from Castle Dracula, +and says that he is just starting for home. That is not like Jonathan; +I do not understand it, and it makes me uneasy. Then, too, Lucy, +although she is so well, has lately taken to her old habit of walking in +her sleep. Her mother has spoken to me about it, and we have decided +that I am to lock the door of our room every night. Mrs. Westenra has +got an idea that sleep-walkers always go out on roofs of houses and +along the edges of cliffs and then get suddenly wakened and fall over +with a despairing cry that echoes all over the place. Poor dear, she is +naturally anxious about Lucy, and she tells me that her husband, Lucy's +father, had the same habit; that he would get up in the night and dress +himself and go out, if he were not stopped. Lucy is to be married in the +autumn, and she is already planning out her dresses and how her house is +to be arranged. I sympathise with her, for I do the same, only Jonathan +and I will start in life in a very simple way, and shall have to try to +make both ends meet. Mr. Holmwood--he is the Hon. Arthur Holmwood, only +son of Lord Godalming--is coming up here very shortly--as soon as he can +leave town, for his father is not very well, and I think dear Lucy is +counting the moments till he comes. She wants to take him up to the seat +on the churchyard cliff and show him the beauty of Whitby. I daresay it +is the waiting which disturbs her; she will be all right when he +arrives. + + * * * * * + +_27 July._--No news from Jonathan. I am getting quite uneasy about him, +though why I should I do not know; but I do wish that he would write, if +it were only a single line. Lucy walks more than ever, and each night I +am awakened by her moving about the room. Fortunately, the weather is so +hot that she cannot get cold; but still the anxiety and the perpetually +being wakened is beginning to tell on me, and I am getting nervous and +wakeful myself. Thank God, Lucy's health keeps up. Mr. Holmwood has been +suddenly called to Ring to see his father, who has been taken seriously +ill. Lucy frets at the postponement of seeing him, but it does not touch +her looks; she is a trifle stouter, and her cheeks are a lovely +rose-pink. She has lost that anaemic look which she had. I pray it will +all last. + + * * * * * + +_3 August._--Another week gone, and no news from Jonathan, not even to +Mr. Hawkins, from whom I have heard. Oh, I do hope he is not ill. He +surely would have written. I look at that last letter of his, but +somehow it does not satisfy me. It does not read like him, and yet it is +his writing. There is no mistake of that. Lucy has not walked much in +her sleep the last week, but there is an odd concentration about her +which I do not understand; even in her sleep she seems to be watching +me. She tries the door, and finding it locked, goes about the room +searching for the key. + +_6 August._--Another three days, and no news. This suspense is getting +dreadful. If I only knew where to write to or where to go to, I should +feel easier; but no one has heard a word of Jonathan since that last +letter. I must only pray to God for patience. Lucy is more excitable +than ever, but is otherwise well. Last night was very threatening, and +the fishermen say that we are in for a storm. I must try to watch it and +learn the weather signs. To-day is a grey day, and the sun as I write is +hidden in thick clouds, high over Kettleness. Everything is grey--except +the green grass, which seems like emerald amongst it; grey earthy rock; +grey clouds, tinged with the sunburst at the far edge, hang over the +grey sea, into which the sand-points stretch like grey fingers. The sea +is tumbling in over the shallows and the sandy flats with a roar, +muffled in the sea-mists drifting inland. The horizon is lost in a grey +mist. All is vastness; the clouds are piled up like giant rocks, and +there is a "brool" over the sea that sounds like some presage of doom. +Dark figures are on the beach here and there, sometimes half shrouded in +the mist, and seem "men like trees walking." The fishing-boats are +racing for home, and rise and dip in the ground swell as they sweep into +the harbour, bending to the scuppers. Here comes old Mr. Swales. He is +making straight for me, and I can see, by the way he lifts his hat, that +he wants to talk.... + +I have been quite touched by the change in the poor old man. When he sat +down beside me, he said in a very gentle way:-- + +"I want to say something to you, miss." I could see he was not at ease, +so I took his poor old wrinkled hand in mine and asked him to speak +fully; so he said, leaving his hand in mine:-- + +"I'm afraid, my deary, that I must have shocked you by all the wicked +things I've been sayin' about the dead, and such like, for weeks past; +but I didn't mean them, and I want ye to remember that when I'm gone. We +aud folks that be daffled, and with one foot abaft the krok-hooal, don't +altogether like to think of it, and we don't want to feel scart of it; +an' that's why I've took to makin' light of it, so that I'd cheer up my +own heart a bit. But, Lord love ye, miss, I ain't afraid of dyin', not a +bit; only I don't want to die if I can help it. My time must be nigh at +hand now, for I be aud, and a hundred years is too much for any man to +expect; and I'm so nigh it that the Aud Man is already whettin' his +scythe. Ye see, I can't get out o' the habit of caffin' about it all at +once; the chafts will wag as they be used to. Some day soon the Angel of +Death will sound his trumpet for me. But don't ye dooal an' greet, my +deary!"--for he saw that I was crying--"if he should come this very +night I'd not refuse to answer his call. For life be, after all, only a +waitin' for somethin' else than what we're doin'; and death be all that +we can rightly depend on. But I'm content, for it's comin' to me, my +deary, and comin' quick. It may be comin' while we be lookin' and +wonderin'. Maybe it's in that wind out over the sea that's bringin' with +it loss and wreck, and sore distress, and sad hearts. Look! look!" he +cried suddenly. "There's something in that wind and in the hoast beyont +that sounds, and looks, and tastes, and smells like death. It's in the +air; I feel it comin'. Lord, make me answer cheerful when my call +comes!" He held up his arms devoutly, and raised his hat. His mouth +moved as though he were praying. After a few minutes' silence, he got +up, shook hands with me, and blessed me, and said good-bye, and hobbled +off. It all touched me, and upset me very much. + +I was glad when the coastguard came along, with his spy-glass under his +arm. He stopped to talk with me, as he always does, but all the time +kept looking at a strange ship. + +"I can't make her out," he said; "she's a Russian, by the look of her; +but she's knocking about in the queerest way. She doesn't know her mind +a bit; she seems to see the storm coming, but can't decide whether to +run up north in the open, or to put in here. Look there again! She is +steered mighty strangely, for she doesn't mind the hand on the wheel; +changes about with every puff of wind. We'll hear more of her before +this time to-morrow." + + + + +CHAPTER VII + +CUTTING FROM "THE DAILYGRAPH," 8 AUGUST + + +(_Pasted in Mina Murray's Journal._) + +From a Correspondent. + +_Whitby_. + +One of the greatest and suddenest storms on record has just been +experienced here, with results both strange and unique. The weather had +been somewhat sultry, but not to any degree uncommon in the month of +August. Saturday evening was as fine as was ever known, and the great +body of holiday-makers laid out yesterday for visits to Mulgrave Woods, +Robin Hood's Bay, Rig Mill, Runswick, Staithes, and the various trips in +the neighbourhood of Whitby. The steamers _Emma_ and _Scarborough_ made +trips up and down the coast, and there was an unusual amount of +"tripping" both to and from Whitby. The day was unusually fine till the +afternoon, when some of the gossips who frequent the East Cliff +churchyard, and from that commanding eminence watch the wide sweep of +sea visible to the north and east, called attention to a sudden show of +"mares'-tails" high in the sky to the north-west. The wind was then +blowing from the south-west in the mild degree which in barometrical +language is ranked "No. 2: light breeze." The coastguard on duty at once +made report, and one old fisherman, who for more than half a century has +kept watch on weather signs from the East Cliff, foretold in an emphatic +manner the coming of a sudden storm. The approach of sunset was so very +beautiful, so grand in its masses of splendidly-coloured clouds, that +there was quite an assemblage on the walk along the cliff in the old +churchyard to enjoy the beauty. Before the sun dipped below the black +mass of Kettleness, standing boldly athwart the western sky, its +downward way was marked by myriad clouds of every sunset-colour--flame, +purple, pink, green, violet, and all the tints of gold; with here and +there masses not large, but of seemingly absolute blackness, in all +sorts of shapes, as well outlined as colossal silhouettes. The +experience was not lost on the painters, and doubtless some of the +sketches of the "Prelude to the Great Storm" will grace the R. A. and R. +I. walls in May next. More than one captain made up his mind then and +there that his "cobble" or his "mule," as they term the different +classes of boats, would remain in the harbour till the storm had passed. +The wind fell away entirely during the evening, and at midnight there +was a dead calm, a sultry heat, and that prevailing intensity which, on +the approach of thunder, affects persons of a sensitive nature. There +were but few lights in sight at sea, for even the coasting steamers, +which usually "hug" the shore so closely, kept well to seaward, and but +few fishing-boats were in sight. The only sail noticeable was a foreign +schooner with all sails set, which was seemingly going westwards. The +foolhardiness or ignorance of her officers was a prolific theme for +comment whilst she remained in sight, and efforts were made to signal +her to reduce sail in face of her danger. Before the night shut down she +was seen with sails idly flapping as she gently rolled on the undulating +swell of the sea, + + "As idle as a painted ship upon a painted ocean." + +Shortly before ten o'clock the stillness of the air grew quite +oppressive, and the silence was so marked that the bleating of a sheep +inland or the barking of a dog in the town was distinctly heard, and the +band on the pier, with its lively French air, was like a discord in the +great harmony of nature's silence. A little after midnight came a +strange sound from over the sea, and high overhead the air began to +carry a strange, faint, hollow booming. + +Then without warning the tempest broke. With a rapidity which, at the +time, seemed incredible, and even afterwards is impossible to realize, +the whole aspect of nature at once became convulsed. The waves rose in +growing fury, each overtopping its fellow, till in a very few minutes +the lately glassy sea was like a roaring and devouring monster. +White-crested waves beat madly on the level sands and rushed up the +shelving cliffs; others broke over the piers, and with their spume swept +the lanthorns of the lighthouses which rise from the end of either pier +of Whitby Harbour. The wind roared like thunder, and blew with such +force that it was with difficulty that even strong men kept their feet, +or clung with grim clasp to the iron stanchions. It was found necessary +to clear the entire piers from the mass of onlookers, or else the +fatalities of the night would have been increased manifold. To add to +the difficulties and dangers of the time, masses of sea-fog came +drifting inland--white, wet clouds, which swept by in ghostly fashion, +so dank and damp and cold that it needed but little effort of +imagination to think that the spirits of those lost at sea were +touching their living brethren with the clammy hands of death, and many +a one shuddered as the wreaths of sea-mist swept by. At times the mist +cleared, and the sea for some distance could be seen in the glare of the +lightning, which now came thick and fast, followed by such sudden peals +of thunder that the whole sky overhead seemed trembling under the shock +of the footsteps of the storm. + +Some of the scenes thus revealed were of immeasurable grandeur and of +absorbing interest--the sea, running mountains high, threw skywards with +each wave mighty masses of white foam, which the tempest seemed to +snatch at and whirl away into space; here and there a fishing-boat, with +a rag of sail, running madly for shelter before the blast; now and again +the white wings of a storm-tossed sea-bird. On the summit of the East +Cliff the new searchlight was ready for experiment, but had not yet been +tried. The officers in charge of it got it into working order, and in +the pauses of the inrushing mist swept with it the surface of the sea. +Once or twice its service was most effective, as when a fishing-boat, +with gunwale under water, rushed into the harbour, able, by the guidance +of the sheltering light, to avoid the danger of dashing against the +piers. As each boat achieved the safety of the port there was a shout of +joy from the mass of people on shore, a shout which for a moment seemed +to cleave the gale and was then swept away in its rush. + +Before long the searchlight discovered some distance away a schooner +with all sails set, apparently the same vessel which had been noticed +earlier in the evening. The wind had by this time backed to the east, +and there was a shudder amongst the watchers on the cliff as they +realized the terrible danger in which she now was. Between her and the +port lay the great flat reef on which so many good ships have from time +to time suffered, and, with the wind blowing from its present quarter, +it would be quite impossible that she should fetch the entrance of the +harbour. It was now nearly the hour of high tide, but the waves were so +great that in their troughs the shallows of the shore were almost +visible, and the schooner, with all sails set, was rushing with such +speed that, in the words of one old salt, "she must fetch up somewhere, +if it was only in hell." Then came another rush of sea-fog, greater than +any hitherto--a mass of dank mist, which seemed to close on all things +like a grey pall, and left available to men only the organ of hearing, +for the roar of the tempest, and the crash of the thunder, and the +booming of the mighty billows came through the damp oblivion even louder +than before. The rays of the searchlight were kept fixed on the harbour +mouth across the East Pier, where the shock was expected, and men waited +breathless. The wind suddenly shifted to the north-east, and the remnant +of the sea-fog melted in the blast; and then, _mirabile dictu_, between +the piers, leaping from wave to wave as it rushed at headlong speed, +swept the strange schooner before the blast, with all sail set, and +gained the safety of the harbour. The searchlight followed her, and a +shudder ran through all who saw her, for lashed to the helm was a +corpse, with drooping head, which swung horribly to and fro at each +motion of the ship. No other form could be seen on deck at all. A great +awe came on all as they realised that the ship, as if by a miracle, had +found the harbour, unsteered save by the hand of a dead man! However, +all took place more quickly than it takes to write these words. The +schooner paused not, but rushing across the harbour, pitched herself on +that accumulation of sand and gravel washed by many tides and many +storms into the south-east corner of the pier jutting under the East +Cliff, known locally as Tate Hill Pier. + +There was of course a considerable concussion as the vessel drove up on +the sand heap. Every spar, rope, and stay was strained, and some of the +"top-hammer" came crashing down. But, strangest of all, the very instant +the shore was touched, an immense dog sprang up on deck from below, as +if shot up by the concussion, and running forward, jumped from the bow +on the sand. Making straight for the steep cliff, where the churchyard +hangs over the laneway to the East Pier so steeply that some of the flat +tombstones--"thruff-steans" or "through-stones," as they call them in +the Whitby vernacular--actually project over where the sustaining cliff +has fallen away, it disappeared in the darkness, which seemed +intensified just beyond the focus of the searchlight. + +It so happened that there was no one at the moment on Tate Hill Pier, as +all those whose houses are in close proximity were either in bed or were +out on the heights above. Thus the coastguard on duty on the eastern +side of the harbour, who at once ran down to the little pier, was the +first to climb on board. The men working the searchlight, after scouring +the entrance of the harbour without seeing anything, then turned the +light on the derelict and kept it there. The coastguard ran aft, and +when he came beside the wheel, bent over to examine it, and recoiled at +once as though under some sudden emotion. This seemed to pique general +curiosity, and quite a number of people began to run. It is a good way +round from the West Cliff by the Drawbridge to Tate Hill Pier, but your +correspondent is a fairly good runner, and came well ahead of the crowd. +When I arrived, however, I found already assembled on the pier a crowd, +whom the coastguard and police refused to allow to come on board. By the +courtesy of the chief boatman, I was, as your correspondent, permitted +to climb on deck, and was one of a small group who saw the dead seaman +whilst actually lashed to the wheel. + +It was no wonder that the coastguard was surprised, or even awed, for +not often can such a sight have been seen. The man was simply fastened +by his hands, tied one over the other, to a spoke of the wheel. Between +the inner hand and the wood was a crucifix, the set of beads on which it +was fastened being around both wrists and wheel, and all kept fast by +the binding cords. The poor fellow may have been seated at one time, but +the flapping and buffeting of the sails had worked through the rudder of +the wheel and dragged him to and fro, so that the cords with which he +was tied had cut the flesh to the bone. Accurate note was made of the +state of things, and a doctor--Surgeon J. M. Caffyn, of 33, East Elliot +Place--who came immediately after me, declared, after making +examination, that the man must have been dead for quite two days. In his +pocket was a bottle, carefully corked, empty save for a little roll of +paper, which proved to be the addendum to the log. The coastguard said +the man must have tied up his own hands, fastening the knots with his +teeth. The fact that a coastguard was the first on board may save some +complications, later on, in the Admiralty Court; for coastguards cannot +claim the salvage which is the right of the first civilian entering on a +derelict. Already, however, the legal tongues are wagging, and one young +law student is loudly asserting that the rights of the owner are already +completely sacrificed, his property being held in contravention of the +statutes of mortmain, since the tiller, as emblemship, if not proof, of +delegated possession, is held in a _dead hand_. It is needless to say +that the dead steersman has been reverently removed from the place where +he held his honourable watch and ward till death--a steadfastness as +noble as that of the young Casabianca--and placed in the mortuary to +await inquest. + +Already the sudden storm is passing, and its fierceness is abating; +crowds are scattering homeward, and the sky is beginning to redden over +the Yorkshire wolds. I shall send, in time for your next issue, further +details of the derelict ship which found her way so miraculously into +harbour in the storm. + +_Whitby_ + +_9 August._--The sequel to the strange arrival of the derelict in the +storm last night is almost more startling than the thing itself. It +turns out that the schooner is a Russian from Varna, and is called the +_Demeter_. She is almost entirely in ballast of silver sand, with only a +small amount of cargo--a number of great wooden boxes filled with mould. +This cargo was consigned to a Whitby solicitor, Mr. S. F. Billington, of +7, The Crescent, who this morning went aboard and formally took +possession of the goods consigned to him. The Russian consul, too, +acting for the charter-party, took formal possession of the ship, and +paid all harbour dues, etc. Nothing is talked about here to-day except +the strange coincidence; the officials of the Board of Trade have been +most exacting in seeing that every compliance has been made with +existing regulations. As the matter is to be a "nine days' wonder," they +are evidently determined that there shall be no cause of after +complaint. A good deal of interest was abroad concerning the dog which +landed when the ship struck, and more than a few of the members of the +S. P. C. A., which is very strong in Whitby, have tried to befriend the +animal. To the general disappointment, however, it was not to be found; +it seems to have disappeared entirely from the town. It may be that it +was frightened and made its way on to the moors, where it is still +hiding in terror. There are some who look with dread on such a +possibility, lest later on it should in itself become a danger, for it +is evidently a fierce brute. Early this morning a large dog, a half-bred +mastiff belonging to a coal merchant close to Tate Hill Pier, was found +dead in the roadway opposite to its master's yard. It had been fighting, +and manifestly had had a savage opponent, for its throat was torn away, +and its belly was slit open as if with a savage claw. + + * * * * * + +_Later._--By the kindness of the Board of Trade inspector, I have been +permitted to look over the log-book of the _Demeter_, which was in order +up to within three days, but contained nothing of special interest +except as to facts of missing men. The greatest interest, however, is +with regard to the paper found in the bottle, which was to-day produced +at the inquest; and a more strange narrative than the two between them +unfold it has not been my lot to come across. As there is no motive for +concealment, I am permitted to use them, and accordingly send you a +rescript, simply omitting technical details of seamanship and +supercargo. It almost seems as though the captain had been seized with +some kind of mania before he had got well into blue water, and that +this had developed persistently throughout the voyage. Of course my +statement must be taken _cum grano_, since I am writing from the +dictation of a clerk of the Russian consul, who kindly translated for +me, time being short. + + LOG OF THE "DEMETER." + + +_Varna to Whitby._ + +_Written 18 July, things so strange happening, that I shall keep +accurate note henceforth till we land._ + + * * * * * + +On 6 July we finished taking in cargo, silver sand and boxes of earth. +At noon set sail. East wind, fresh. Crew, five hands ... two mates, +cook, and myself (captain). + + * * * * * + +On 11 July at dawn entered Bosphorus. Boarded by Turkish Customs +officers. Backsheesh. All correct. Under way at 4 p. m. + + * * * * * + +On 12 July through Dardanelles. More Customs officers and flagboat of +guarding squadron. Backsheesh again. Work of officers thorough, but +quick. Want us off soon. At dark passed into Archipelago. + + * * * * * + +On 13 July passed Cape Matapan. Crew dissatisfied about something. +Seemed scared, but would not speak out. + + * * * * * + +On 14 July was somewhat anxious about crew. Men all steady fellows, who +sailed with me before. Mate could not make out what was wrong; they only +told him there was _something_, and crossed themselves. Mate lost temper +with one of them that day and struck him. Expected fierce quarrel, but +all was quiet. + + * * * * * + +On 16 July mate reported in the morning that one of crew, Petrofsky, was +missing. Could not account for it. Took larboard watch eight bells last +night; was relieved by Abramoff, but did not go to bunk. Men more +downcast than ever. All said they expected something of the kind, but +would not say more than there was _something_ aboard. Mate getting very +impatient with them; feared some trouble ahead. + + * * * * * + +On 17 July, yesterday, one of the men, Olgaren, came to my cabin, and in +an awestruck way confided to me that he thought there was a strange man +aboard the ship. He said that in his watch he had been sheltering +behind the deck-house, as there was a rain-storm, when he saw a tall, +thin man, who was not like any of the crew, come up the companion-way, +and go along the deck forward, and disappear. He followed cautiously, +but when he got to bows found no one, and the hatchways were all closed. +He was in a panic of superstitious fear, and I am afraid the panic may +spread. To allay it, I shall to-day search entire ship carefully from +stem to stern. + + * * * * * + +Later in the day I got together the whole crew, and told them, as they +evidently thought there was some one in the ship, we would search from +stem to stern. First mate angry; said it was folly, and to yield to such +foolish ideas would demoralise the men; said he would engage to keep +them out of trouble with a handspike. I let him take the helm, while the +rest began thorough search, all keeping abreast, with lanterns: we left +no corner unsearched. As there were only the big wooden boxes, there +were no odd corners where a man could hide. Men much relieved when +search over, and went back to work cheerfully. First mate scowled, but +said nothing. + + * * * * * + +_22 July_.--Rough weather last three days, and all hands busy with +sails--no time to be frightened. Men seem to have forgotten their dread. +Mate cheerful again, and all on good terms. Praised men for work in bad +weather. Passed Gibralter and out through Straits. All well. + + * * * * * + +_24 July_.--There seems some doom over this ship. Already a hand short, +and entering on the Bay of Biscay with wild weather ahead, and yet last +night another man lost--disappeared. Like the first, he came off his +watch and was not seen again. Men all in a panic of fear; sent a round +robin, asking to have double watch, as they fear to be alone. Mate +angry. Fear there will be some trouble, as either he or the men will do +some violence. + + * * * * * + +_28 July_.--Four days in hell, knocking about in a sort of maelstrom, +and the wind a tempest. No sleep for any one. Men all worn out. Hardly +know how to set a watch, since no one fit to go on. Second mate +volunteered to steer and watch, and let men snatch a few hours' sleep. +Wind abating; seas still terrific, but feel them less, as ship is +steadier. + + * * * * * + +_29 July_.--Another tragedy. Had single watch to-night, as crew too +tired to double. When morning watch came on deck could find no one +except steersman. Raised outcry, and all came on deck. Thorough search, +but no one found. Are now without second mate, and crew in a panic. Mate +and I agreed to go armed henceforth and wait for any sign of cause. + + * * * * * + +_30 July_.--Last night. Rejoiced we are nearing England. Weather fine, +all sails set. Retired worn out; slept soundly; awaked by mate telling +me that both man of watch and steersman missing. Only self and mate and +two hands left to work ship. + + * * * * * + +_1 August_.--Two days of fog, and not a sail sighted. Had hoped when in +the English Channel to be able to signal for help or get in somewhere. +Not having power to work sails, have to run before wind. Dare not lower, +as could not raise them again. We seem to be drifting to some terrible +doom. Mate now more demoralised than either of men. His stronger nature +seems to have worked inwardly against himself. Men are beyond fear, +working stolidly and patiently, with minds made up to worst. They are +Russian, he Roumanian. + + * * * * * + +_2 August, midnight_.--Woke up from few minutes' sleep by hearing a cry, +seemingly outside my port. Could see nothing in fog. Rushed on deck, and +ran against mate. Tells me heard cry and ran, but no sign of man on +watch. One more gone. Lord, help us! Mate says we must be past Straits +of Dover, as in a moment of fog lifting he saw North Foreland, just as +he heard the man cry out. If so we are now off in the North Sea, and +only God can guide us in the fog, which seems to move with us; and God +seems to have deserted us. + + * * * * * + +_3 August_.--At midnight I went to relieve the man at the wheel, and +when I got to it found no one there. The wind was steady, and as we ran +before it there was no yawing. I dared not leave it, so shouted for the +mate. After a few seconds he rushed up on deck in his flannels. He +looked wild-eyed and haggard, and I greatly fear his reason has given +way. He came close to me and whispered hoarsely, with his mouth to my +ear, as though fearing the very air might hear: "_It_ is here; I know +it, now. On the watch last night I saw It, like a man, tall and thin, +and ghastly pale. It was in the bows, and looking out. I crept behind +It, and gave It my knife; but the knife went through It, empty as the +air." And as he spoke he took his knife and drove it savagely into +space. Then he went on: "But It is here, and I'll find It. It is in the +hold, perhaps in one of those boxes. I'll unscrew them one by one and +see. You work the helm." And, with a warning look and his finger on his +lip, he went below. There was springing up a choppy wind, and I could +not leave the helm. I saw him come out on deck again with a tool-chest +and a lantern, and go down the forward hatchway. He is mad, stark, +raving mad, and it's no use my trying to stop him. He can't hurt those +big boxes: they are invoiced as "clay," and to pull them about is as +harmless a thing as he can do. So here I stay, and mind the helm, and +write these notes. I can only trust in God and wait till the fog clears. +Then, if I can't steer to any harbour with the wind that is, I shall cut +down sails and lie by, and signal for help.... + + * * * * * + +It is nearly all over now. Just as I was beginning to hope that the mate +would come out calmer--for I heard him knocking away at something in the +hold, and work is good for him--there came up the hatchway a sudden, +startled scream, which made my blood run cold, and up on the deck he +came as if shot from a gun--a raging madman, with his eyes rolling and +his face convulsed with fear. "Save me! save me!" he cried, and then +looked round on the blanket of fog. His horror turned to despair, and in +a steady voice he said: "You had better come too, captain, before it is +too late. _He_ is there. I know the secret now. The sea will save me +from Him, and it is all that is left!" Before I could say a word, or +move forward to seize him, he sprang on the bulwark and deliberately +threw himself into the sea. I suppose I know the secret too, now. It was +this madman who had got rid of the men one by one, and now he has +followed them himself. God help me! How am I to account for all these +horrors when I get to port? _When_ I get to port! Will that ever be? + + * * * * * + +_4 August._--Still fog, which the sunrise cannot pierce. I know there is +sunrise because I am a sailor, why else I know not. I dared not go +below, I dared not leave the helm; so here all night I stayed, and in +the dimness of the night I saw It--Him! God forgive me, but the mate was +right to jump overboard. It was better to die like a man; to die like a +sailor in blue water no man can object. But I am captain, and I must not +leave my ship. But I shall baffle this fiend or monster, for I shall tie +my hands to the wheel when my strength begins to fail, and along with +them I shall tie that which He--It!--dare not touch; and then, come good +wind or foul, I shall save my soul, and my honour as a captain. I am +growing weaker, and the night is coming on. If He can look me in the +face again, I may not have time to act.... If we are wrecked, mayhap +this bottle may be found, and those who find it may understand; if not, +... well, then all men shall know that I have been true to my trust. God +and the Blessed Virgin and the saints help a poor ignorant soul trying +to do his duty.... + + * * * * * + +Of course the verdict was an open one. There is no evidence to adduce; +and whether or not the man himself committed the murders there is now +none to say. The folk here hold almost universally that the captain is +simply a hero, and he is to be given a public funeral. Already it is +arranged that his body is to be taken with a train of boats up the Esk +for a piece and then brought back to Tate Hill Pier and up the abbey +steps; for he is to be buried in the churchyard on the cliff. The owners +of more than a hundred boats have already given in their names as +wishing to follow him to the grave. + +No trace has ever been found of the great dog; at which there is much +mourning, for, with public opinion in its present state, he would, I +believe, be adopted by the town. To-morrow will see the funeral; and so +will end this one more "mystery of the sea." + + +_Mina Murray's Journal._ + +_8 August._--Lucy was very restless all night, and I, too, could not +sleep. The storm was fearful, and as it boomed loudly among the +chimney-pots, it made me shudder. When a sharp puff came it seemed to be +like a distant gun. Strangely enough, Lucy did not wake; but she got up +twice and dressed herself. Fortunately, each time I awoke in time and +managed to undress her without waking her, and got her back to bed. It +is a very strange thing, this sleep-walking, for as soon as her will is +thwarted in any physical way, her intention, if there be any, +disappears, and she yields herself almost exactly to the routine of her +life. + +Early in the morning we both got up and went down to the harbour to see +if anything had happened in the night. There were very few people about, +and though the sun was bright, and the air clear and fresh, the big, +grim-looking waves, that seemed dark themselves because the foam that +topped them was like snow, forced themselves in through the narrow mouth +of the harbour--like a bullying man going through a crowd. Somehow I +felt glad that Jonathan was not on the sea last night, but on land. But, +oh, is he on land or sea? Where is he, and how? I am getting fearfully +anxious about him. If I only knew what to do, and could do anything! + + * * * * * + +_10 August._--The funeral of the poor sea-captain to-day was most +touching. Every boat in the harbour seemed to be there, and the coffin +was carried by captains all the way from Tate Hill Pier up to the +churchyard. Lucy came with me, and we went early to our old seat, whilst +the cortege of boats went up the river to the Viaduct and came down +again. We had a lovely view, and saw the procession nearly all the way. +The poor fellow was laid to rest quite near our seat so that we stood on +it when the time came and saw everything. Poor Lucy seemed much upset. +She was restless and uneasy all the time, and I cannot but think that +her dreaming at night is telling on her. She is quite odd in one thing: +she will not admit to me that there is any cause for restlessness; or if +there be, she does not understand it herself. There is an additional +cause in that poor old Mr. Swales was found dead this morning on our +seat, his neck being broken. He had evidently, as the doctor said, +fallen back in the seat in some sort of fright, for there was a look of +fear and horror on his face that the men said made them shudder. Poor +dear old man! Perhaps he had seen Death with his dying eyes! Lucy is so +sweet and sensitive that she feels influences more acutely than other +people do. Just now she was quite upset by a little thing which I did +not much heed, though I am myself very fond of animals. One of the men +who came up here often to look for the boats was followed by his dog. +The dog is always with him. They are both quiet persons, and I never saw +the man angry, nor heard the dog bark. During the service the dog would +not come to its master, who was on the seat with us, but kept a few +yards off, barking and howling. Its master spoke to it gently, and then +harshly, and then angrily; but it would neither come nor cease to make a +noise. It was in a sort of fury, with its eyes savage, and all its hairs +bristling out like a cat's tail when puss is on the war-path. Finally +the man, too, got angry, and jumped down and kicked the dog, and then +took it by the scruff of the neck and half dragged and half threw it on +the tombstone on which the seat is fixed. The moment it touched the +stone the poor thing became quiet and fell all into a tremble. It did +not try to get away, but crouched down, quivering and cowering, and was +in such a pitiable state of terror that I tried, though without effect, +to comfort it. Lucy was full of pity, too, but she did not attempt to +touch the dog, but looked at it in an agonised sort of way. I greatly +fear that she is of too super-sensitive a nature to go through the world +without trouble. She will be dreaming of this to-night, I am sure. The +whole agglomeration of things--the ship steered into port by a dead +man; his attitude, tied to the wheel with a crucifix and beads; the +touching funeral; the dog, now furious and now in terror--will all +afford material for her dreams. + +I think it will be best for her to go to bed tired out physically, so I +shall take her for a long walk by the cliffs to Robin Hood's Bay and +back. She ought not to have much inclination for sleep-walking then. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII + +MINA MURRAY'S JOURNAL + + +_Same day, 11 o'clock p. m._--Oh, but I am tired! If it were not that I +had made my diary a duty I should not open it to-night. We had a lovely +walk. Lucy, after a while, was in gay spirits, owing, I think, to some +dear cows who came nosing towards us in a field close to the lighthouse, +and frightened the wits out of us. I believe we forgot everything +except, of course, personal fear, and it seemed to wipe the slate clean +and give us a fresh start. We had a capital "severe tea" at Robin Hood's +Bay in a sweet little old-fashioned inn, with a bow-window right over +the seaweed-covered rocks of the strand. I believe we should have +shocked the "New Woman" with our appetites. Men are more tolerant, bless +them! Then we walked home with some, or rather many, stoppages to rest, +and with our hearts full of a constant dread of wild bulls. Lucy was +really tired, and we intended to creep off to bed as soon as we could. +The young curate came in, however, and Mrs. Westenra asked him to stay +for supper. Lucy and I had both a fight for it with the dusty miller; I +know it was a hard fight on my part, and I am quite heroic. I think that +some day the bishops must get together and see about breeding up a new +class of curates, who don't take supper, no matter how they may be +pressed to, and who will know when girls are tired. Lucy is asleep and +breathing softly. She has more colour in her cheeks than usual, and +looks, oh, so sweet. If Mr. Holmwood fell in love with her seeing her +only in the drawing-room, I wonder what he would say if he saw her now. +Some of the "New Women" writers will some day start an idea that men and +women should be allowed to see each other asleep before proposing or +accepting. But I suppose the New Woman won't condescend in future to +accept; she will do the proposing herself. And a nice job she will make +of it, too! There's some consolation in that. I am so happy to-night, +because dear Lucy seems better. I really believe she has turned the +corner, and that we are over her troubles with dreaming. I should be +quite happy if I only knew if Jonathan.... God bless and keep him. + + * * * * * + +_11 August, 3 a. m._--Diary again. No sleep now, so I may as well write. +I am too agitated to sleep. We have had such an adventure, such an +agonising experience. I fell asleep as soon as I had closed my diary.... +Suddenly I became broad awake, and sat up, with a horrible sense of fear +upon me, and of some feeling of emptiness around me. The room was dark, +so I could not see Lucy's bed; I stole across and felt for her. The bed +was empty. I lit a match and found that she was not in the room. The +door was shut, but not locked, as I had left it. I feared to wake her +mother, who has been more than usually ill lately, so threw on some +clothes and got ready to look for her. As I was leaving the room it +struck me that the clothes she wore might give me some clue to her +dreaming intention. Dressing-gown would mean house; dress, outside. +Dressing-gown and dress were both in their places. "Thank God," I said +to myself, "she cannot be far, as she is only in her nightdress." I ran +downstairs and looked in the sitting-room. Not there! Then I looked in +all the other open rooms of the house, with an ever-growing fear +chilling my heart. Finally I came to the hall door and found it open. It +was not wide open, but the catch of the lock had not caught. The people +of the house are careful to lock the door every night, so I feared that +Lucy must have gone out as she was. There was no time to think of what +might happen; a vague, overmastering fear obscured all details. I took a +big, heavy shawl and ran out. The clock was striking one as I was in the +Crescent, and there was not a soul in sight. I ran along the North +Terrace, but could see no sign of the white figure which I expected. At +the edge of the West Cliff above the pier I looked across the harbour to +the East Cliff, in the hope or fear--I don't know which--of seeing Lucy +in our favourite seat. There was a bright full moon, with heavy black, +driving clouds, which threw the whole scene into a fleeting diorama of +light and shade as they sailed across. For a moment or two I could see +nothing, as the shadow of a cloud obscured St. Mary's Church and all +around it. Then as the cloud passed I could see the ruins of the abbey +coming into view; and as the edge of a narrow band of light as sharp as +a sword-cut moved along, the church and the churchyard became gradually +visible. Whatever my expectation was, it was not disappointed, for +there, on our favourite seat, the silver light of the moon struck a +half-reclining figure, snowy white. The coming of the cloud was too +quick for me to see much, for shadow shut down on light almost +immediately; but it seemed to me as though something dark stood behind +the seat where the white figure shone, and bent over it. What it was, +whether man or beast, I could not tell; I did not wait to catch another +glance, but flew down the steep steps to the pier and along by the +fish-market to the bridge, which was the only way to reach the East +Cliff. The town seemed as dead, for not a soul did I see; I rejoiced +that it was so, for I wanted no witness of poor Lucy's condition. The +time and distance seemed endless, and my knees trembled and my breath +came laboured as I toiled up the endless steps to the abbey. I must have +gone fast, and yet it seemed to me as if my feet were weighted with +lead, and as though every joint in my body were rusty. When I got almost +to the top I could see the seat and the white figure, for I was now +close enough to distinguish it even through the spells of shadow. There +was undoubtedly something, long and black, bending over the +half-reclining white figure. I called in fright, "Lucy! Lucy!" and +something raised a head, and from where I was I could see a white face +and red, gleaming eyes. Lucy did not answer, and I ran on to the +entrance of the churchyard. As I entered, the church was between me and +the seat, and for a minute or so I lost sight of her. When I came in +view again the cloud had passed, and the moonlight struck so brilliantly +that I could see Lucy half reclining with her head lying over the back +of the seat. She was quite alone, and there was not a sign of any living +thing about. + +When I bent over her I could see that she was still asleep. Her lips +were parted, and she was breathing--not softly as usual with her, but in +long, heavy gasps, as though striving to get her lungs full at every +breath. As I came close, she put up her hand in her sleep and pulled the +collar of her nightdress close around her throat. Whilst she did so +there came a little shudder through her, as though she felt the cold. I +flung the warm shawl over her, and drew the edges tight round her neck, +for I dreaded lest she should get some deadly chill from the night air, +unclad as she was. I feared to wake her all at once, so, in order to +have my hands free that I might help her, I fastened the shawl at her +throat with a big safety-pin; but I must have been clumsy in my anxiety +and pinched or pricked her with it, for by-and-by, when her breathing +became quieter, she put her hand to her throat again and moaned. When I +had her carefully wrapped up I put my shoes on her feet and then began +very gently to wake her. At first she did not respond; but gradually she +became more and more uneasy in her sleep, moaning and sighing +occasionally. At last, as time was passing fast, and, for many other +reasons, I wished to get her home at once, I shook her more forcibly, +till finally she opened her eyes and awoke. She did not seem surprised +to see me, as, of course, she did not realise all at once where she was. +Lucy always wakes prettily, and even at such a time, when her body must +have been chilled with cold, and her mind somewhat appalled at waking +unclad in a churchyard at night, she did not lose her grace. She +trembled a little, and clung to me; when I told her to come at once with +me home she rose without a word, with the obedience of a child. As we +passed along, the gravel hurt my feet, and Lucy noticed me wince. She +stopped and wanted to insist upon my taking my shoes; but I would not. +However, when we got to the pathway outside the churchyard, where there +was a puddle of water, remaining from the storm, I daubed my feet with +mud, using each foot in turn on the other, so that as we went home, no +one, in case we should meet any one, should notice my bare feet. + +Fortune favoured us, and we got home without meeting a soul. Once we saw +a man, who seemed not quite sober, passing along a street in front of +us; but we hid in a door till he had disappeared up an opening such as +there are here, steep little closes, or "wynds," as they call them in +Scotland. My heart beat so loud all the time that sometimes I thought I +should faint. I was filled with anxiety about Lucy, not only for her +health, lest she should suffer from the exposure, but for her reputation +in case the story should get wind. When we got in, and had washed our +feet, and had said a prayer of thankfulness together, I tucked her into +bed. Before falling asleep she asked--even implored--me not to say a +word to any one, even her mother, about her sleep-walking adventure. I +hesitated at first to promise; but on thinking of the state of her +mother's health, and how the knowledge of such a thing would fret her, +and thinking, too, of how such a story might become distorted--nay, +infallibly would--in case it should leak out, I thought it wiser to do +so. I hope I did right. I have locked the door, and the key is tied to +my wrist, so perhaps I shall not be again disturbed. Lucy is sleeping +soundly; the reflex of the dawn is high and far over the sea.... + + * * * * * + +_Same day, noon._--All goes well. Lucy slept till I woke her and seemed +not to have even changed her side. The adventure of the night does not +seem to have harmed her; on the contrary, it has benefited her, for she +looks better this morning than she has done for weeks. I was sorry to +notice that my clumsiness with the safety-pin hurt her. Indeed, it might +have been serious, for the skin of her throat was pierced. I must have +pinched up a piece of loose skin and have transfixed it, for there are +two little red points like pin-pricks, and on the band of her nightdress +was a drop of blood. When I apologised and was concerned about it, she +laughed and petted me, and said she did not even feel it. Fortunately it +cannot leave a scar, as it is so tiny. + + * * * * * + +_Same day, night._--We passed a happy day. The air was clear, and the +sun bright, and there was a cool breeze. We took our lunch to Mulgrave +Woods, Mrs. Westenra driving by the road and Lucy and I walking by the +cliff-path and joining her at the gate. I felt a little sad myself, for +I could not but feel how _absolutely_ happy it would have been had +Jonathan been with me. But there! I must only be patient. In the evening +we strolled in the Casino Terrace, and heard some good music by Spohr +and Mackenzie, and went to bed early. Lucy seems more restful than she +has been for some time, and fell asleep at once. I shall lock the door +and secure the key the same as before, though I do not expect any +trouble to-night. + + * * * * * + +_12 August._--My expectations were wrong, for twice during the night I +was wakened by Lucy trying to get out. She seemed, even in her sleep, to +be a little impatient at finding the door shut, and went back to bed +under a sort of protest. I woke with the dawn, and heard the birds +chirping outside of the window. Lucy woke, too, and, I was glad to see, +was even better than on the previous morning. All her old gaiety of +manner seemed to have come back, and she came and snuggled in beside me +and told me all about Arthur. I told her how anxious I was about +Jonathan, and then she tried to comfort me. Well, she succeeded +somewhat, for, though sympathy can't alter facts, it can help to make +them more bearable. + + * * * * * + +_13 August._--Another quiet day, and to bed with the key on my wrist as +before. Again I awoke in the night, and found Lucy sitting up in bed, +still asleep, pointing to the window. I got up quietly, and pulling +aside the blind, looked out. It was brilliant moonlight, and the soft +effect of the light over the sea and sky--merged together in one great, +silent mystery--was beautiful beyond words. Between me and the moonlight +flitted a great bat, coming and going in great whirling circles. Once or +twice it came quite close, but was, I suppose, frightened at seeing me, +and flitted away across the harbour towards the abbey. When I came back +from the window Lucy had lain down again, and was sleeping peacefully. +She did not stir again all night. + + * * * * * + +_14 August._--On the East Cliff, reading and writing all day. Lucy seems +to have become as much in love with the spot as I am, and it is hard to +get her away from it when it is time to come home for lunch or tea or +dinner. This afternoon she made a funny remark. We were coming home for +dinner, and had come to the top of the steps up from the West Pier and +stopped to look at the view, as we generally do. The setting sun, low +down in the sky, was just dropping behind Kettleness; the red light was +thrown over on the East Cliff and the old abbey, and seemed to bathe +everything in a beautiful rosy glow. We were silent for a while, and +suddenly Lucy murmured as if to herself:-- + +"His red eyes again! They are just the same." It was such an odd +expression, coming _apropos_ of nothing, that it quite startled me. I +slewed round a little, so as to see Lucy well without seeming to stare +at her, and saw that she was in a half-dreamy state, with an odd look on +her face that I could not quite make out; so I said nothing, but +followed her eyes. She appeared to be looking over at our own seat, +whereon was a dark figure seated alone. I was a little startled myself, +for it seemed for an instant as if the stranger had great eyes like +burning flames; but a second look dispelled the illusion. The red +sunlight was shining on the windows of St. Mary's Church behind our +seat, and as the sun dipped there was just sufficient change in the +refraction and reflection to make it appear as if the light moved. I +called Lucy's attention to the peculiar effect, and she became herself +with a start, but she looked sad all the same; it may have been that she +was thinking of that terrible night up there. We never refer to it; so I +said nothing, and we went home to dinner. Lucy had a headache and went +early to bed. I saw her asleep, and went out for a little stroll myself; +I walked along the cliffs to the westward, and was full of sweet +sadness, for I was thinking of Jonathan. When coming home--it was then +bright moonlight, so bright that, though the front of our part of the +Crescent was in shadow, everything could be well seen--I threw a glance +up at our window, and saw Lucy's head leaning out. I thought that +perhaps she was looking out for me, so I opened my handkerchief and +waved it. She did not notice or make any movement whatever. Just then, +the moonlight crept round an angle of the building, and the light fell +on the window. There distinctly was Lucy with her head lying up against +the side of the window-sill and her eyes shut. She was fast asleep, and +by her, seated on the window-sill, was something that looked like a +good-sized bird. I was afraid she might get a chill, so I ran upstairs, +but as I came into the room she was moving back to her bed, fast +asleep, and breathing heavily; she was holding her hand to her throat, +as though to protect it from cold. + +I did not wake her, but tucked her up warmly; I have taken care that the +door is locked and the window securely fastened. + +She looks so sweet as she sleeps; but she is paler than is her wont, and +there is a drawn, haggard look under her eyes which I do not like. I +fear she is fretting about something. I wish I could find out what it +is. + + * * * * * + +_15 August._--Rose later than usual. Lucy was languid and tired, and +slept on after we had been called. We had a happy surprise at breakfast. +Arthur's father is better, and wants the marriage to come off soon. Lucy +is full of quiet joy, and her mother is glad and sorry at once. Later on +in the day she told me the cause. She is grieved to lose Lucy as her +very own, but she is rejoiced that she is soon to have some one to +protect her. Poor dear, sweet lady! She confided to me that she has got +her death-warrant. She has not told Lucy, and made me promise secrecy; +her doctor told her that within a few months, at most, she must die, for +her heart is weakening. At any time, even now, a sudden shock would be +almost sure to kill her. Ah, we were wise to keep from her the affair of +the dreadful night of Lucy's sleep-walking. + + * * * * * + +_17 August._--No diary for two whole days. I have not had the heart to +write. Some sort of shadowy pall seems to be coming over our happiness. +No news from Jonathan, and Lucy seems to be growing weaker, whilst her +mother's hours are numbering to a close. I do not understand Lucy's +fading away as she is doing. She eats well and sleeps well, and enjoys +the fresh air; but all the time the roses in her cheeks are fading, and +she gets weaker and more languid day by day; at night I hear her gasping +as if for air. I keep the key of our door always fastened to my wrist at +night, but she gets up and walks about the room, and sits at the open +window. Last night I found her leaning out when I woke up, and when I +tried to wake her I could not; she was in a faint. When I managed to +restore her she was as weak as water, and cried silently between long, +painful struggles for breath. When I asked her how she came to be at the +window she shook her head and turned away. I trust her feeling ill may +not be from that unlucky prick of the safety-pin. I looked at her throat +just now as she lay asleep, and the tiny wounds seem not to have healed. +They are still open, and, if anything, larger than before, and the +edges of them are faintly white. They are like little white dots with +red centres. Unless they heal within a day or two, I shall insist on the +doctor seeing about them. + + +_Letter, Samuel F. Billington & Son, Solicitors, Whitby, to Messrs. +Carter, Paterson & Co., London._ + +"_17 August._ + +"Dear Sirs,-- + +"Herewith please receive invoice of goods sent by Great Northern +Railway. Same are to be delivered at Carfax, near Purfleet, immediately +on receipt at goods station King's Cross. The house is at present empty, +but enclosed please find keys, all of which are labelled. + +"You will please deposit the boxes, fifty in number, which form the +consignment, in the partially ruined building forming part of the house +and marked 'A' on rough diagram enclosed. Your agent will easily +recognise the locality, as it is the ancient chapel of the mansion. The +goods leave by the train at 9:30 to-night, and will be due at King's +Cross at 4:30 to-morrow afternoon. As our client wishes the delivery +made as soon as possible, we shall be obliged by your having teams ready +at King's Cross at the time named and forthwith conveying the goods to +destination. In order to obviate any delays possible through any routine +requirements as to payment in your departments, we enclose cheque +herewith for ten pounds (?10), receipt of which please acknowledge. +Should the charge be less than this amount, you can return balance; if +greater, we shall at once send cheque for difference on hearing from +you. You are to leave the keys on coming away in the main hall of the +house, where the proprietor may get them on his entering the house by +means of his duplicate key. + +"Pray do not take us as exceeding the bounds of business courtesy in +pressing you in all ways to use the utmost expedition. + +_"We are, dear Sirs, + +"Faithfully yours, + +"SAMUEL F. BILLINGTON & SON."_ + + +_Letter, Messrs. Carter, Paterson & Co., London, to Messrs. Billington & +Son, Whitby._ + +"_21 August._ + +"Dear Sirs,-- + +"We beg to acknowledge ?10 received and to return cheque ?1 17s. 9d, +amount of overplus, as shown in receipted account herewith. Goods are +delivered in exact accordance with instructions, and keys left in parcel +in main hall, as directed. + +"We are, dear Sirs, + +"Yours respectfully. + +"_Pro_ CARTER, PATERSON & CO." + + +_Mina Murray's Journal._ + +_18 August._--I am happy to-day, and write sitting on the seat in the +churchyard. Lucy is ever so much better. Last night she slept well all +night, and did not disturb me once. The roses seem coming back already +to her cheeks, though she is still sadly pale and wan-looking. If she +were in any way anaemic I could understand it, but she is not. She is in +gay spirits and full of life and cheerfulness. All the morbid reticence +seems to have passed from her, and she has just reminded me, as if I +needed any reminding, of _that_ night, and that it was here, on this +very seat, I found her asleep. As she told me she tapped playfully with +the heel of her boot on the stone slab and said:-- + +"My poor little feet didn't make much noise then! I daresay poor old Mr. +Swales would have told me that it was because I didn't want to wake up +Geordie." As she was in such a communicative humour, I asked her if she +had dreamed at all that night. Before she answered, that sweet, puckered +look came into her forehead, which Arthur--I call him Arthur from her +habit--says he loves; and, indeed, I don't wonder that he does. Then she +went on in a half-dreaming kind of way, as if trying to recall it to +herself:-- + +"I didn't quite dream; but it all seemed to be real. I only wanted to be +here in this spot--I don't know why, for I was afraid of something--I +don't know what. I remember, though I suppose I was asleep, passing +through the streets and over the bridge. A fish leaped as I went by, and +I leaned over to look at it, and I heard a lot of dogs howling--the +whole town seemed as if it must be full of dogs all howling at once--as +I went up the steps. Then I had a vague memory of something long and +dark with red eyes, just as we saw in the sunset, and something very +sweet and very bitter all around me at once; and then I seemed sinking +into deep green water, and there was a singing in my ears, as I have +heard there is to drowning men; and then everything seemed passing away +from me; my soul seemed to go out from my body and float about the air. +I seem to remember that once the West Lighthouse was right under me, +and then there was a sort of agonising feeling, as if I were in an +earthquake, and I came back and found you shaking my body. I saw you do +it before I felt you." + +Then she began to laugh. It seemed a little uncanny to me, and I +listened to her breathlessly. I did not quite like it, and thought it +better not to keep her mind on the subject, so we drifted on to other +subjects, and Lucy was like her old self again. When we got home the +fresh breeze had braced her up, and her pale cheeks were really more +rosy. Her mother rejoiced when she saw her, and we all spent a very +happy evening together. + + * * * * * + +_19 August._--Joy, joy, joy! although not all joy. At last, news of +Jonathan. The dear fellow has been ill; that is why he did not write. I +am not afraid to think it or say it, now that I know. Mr. Hawkins sent +me on the letter, and wrote himself, oh, so kindly. I am to leave in the +morning and go over to Jonathan, and to help to nurse him if necessary, +and to bring him home. Mr. Hawkins says it would not be a bad thing if +we were to be married out there. I have cried over the good Sister's +letter till I can feel it wet against my bosom, where it lies. It is of +Jonathan, and must be next my heart, for he is _in_ my heart. My journey +is all mapped out, and my luggage ready. I am only taking one change of +dress; Lucy will bring my trunk to London and keep it till I send for +it, for it may be that ... I must write no more; I must keep it to say +to Jonathan, my husband. The letter that he has seen and touched must +comfort me till we meet. + + +_Letter, Sister Agatha, Hospital of St. Joseph and Ste. Mary, +Buda-Pesth, to Miss Wilhelmina Murray._ + +"_12 August._ + +"Dear Madam,-- + +"I write by desire of Mr. Jonathan Harker, who is himself not strong +enough to write, though progressing well, thanks to God and St. Joseph +and Ste. Mary. He has been under our care for nearly six weeks, +suffering from a violent brain fever. He wishes me to convey his love, +and to say that by this post I write for him to Mr. Peter Hawkins, +Exeter, to say, with his dutiful respects, that he is sorry for his +delay, and that all of his work is completed. He will require some few +weeks' rest in our sanatorium in the hills, but will then return. He +wishes me to say that he has not sufficient money with him, and that he +would like to pay for his staying here, so that others who need shall +not be wanting for help. + +"Believe me, + +"Yours, with sympathy and all blessings, + +"SISTER AGATHA. + +"P. S.--My patient being asleep, I open this to let you know something +more. He has told me all about you, and that you are shortly to be his +wife. All blessings to you both! He has had some fearful shock--so says +our doctor--and in his delirium his ravings have been dreadful; of +wolves and poison and blood; of ghosts and demons; and I fear to say of +what. Be careful with him always that there may be nothing to excite him +of this kind for a long time to come; the traces of such an illness as +his do not lightly die away. We should have written long ago, but we +knew nothing of his friends, and there was on him nothing that any one +could understand. He came in the train from Klausenburg, and the guard +was told by the station-master there that he rushed into the station +shouting for a ticket for home. Seeing from his violent demeanour that +he was English, they gave him a ticket for the furthest station on the +way thither that the train reached. + +"Be assured that he is well cared for. He has won all hearts by his +sweetness and gentleness. He is truly getting on well, and I have no +doubt will in a few weeks be all himself. But be careful of him for +safety's sake. There are, I pray God and St. Joseph and Ste. Mary, many, +many, happy years for you both." + + +_Dr. Seward's Diary._ + +_19 August._--Strange and sudden change in Renfield last night. About +eight o'clock he began to get excited and sniff about as a dog does when +setting. The attendant was struck by his manner, and knowing my interest +in him, encouraged him to talk. He is usually respectful to the +attendant and at times servile; but to-night, the man tells me, he was +quite haughty. Would not condescend to talk with him at all. All he +would say was:-- + + "I don't want to talk to you: you don't count now; the Master is at + hand." + +The attendant thinks it is some sudden form of religious mania which has +seized him. If so, we must look out for squalls, for a strong man with +homicidal and religious mania at once might be dangerous. The +combination is a dreadful one. At nine o'clock I visited him myself. His +attitude to me was the same as that to the attendant; in his sublime +self-feeling the difference between myself and attendant seemed to him +as nothing. It looks like religious mania, and he will soon think that +he himself is God. These infinitesimal distinctions between man and man +are too paltry for an Omnipotent Being. How these madmen give themselves +away! The real God taketh heed lest a sparrow fall; but the God created +from human vanity sees no difference between an eagle and a sparrow. Oh, +if men only knew! + +For half an hour or more Renfield kept getting excited in greater and +greater degree. I did not pretend to be watching him, but I kept strict +observation all the same. All at once that shifty look came into his +eyes which we always see when a madman has seized an idea, and with it +the shifty movement of the head and back which asylum attendants come to +know so well. He became quite quiet, and went and sat on the edge of his +bed resignedly, and looked into space with lack-lustre eyes. I thought I +would find out if his apathy were real or only assumed, and tried to +lead him to talk of his pets, a theme which had never failed to excite +his attention. At first he made no reply, but at length said testily:-- + +"Bother them all! I don't care a pin about them." + +"What?" I said. "You don't mean to tell me you don't care about +spiders?" (Spiders at present are his hobby and the note-book is filling +up with columns of small figures.) To this he answered enigmatically:-- + +"The bride-maidens rejoice the eyes that wait the coming of the bride; +but when the bride draweth nigh, then the maidens shine not to the eyes +that are filled." + +He would not explain himself, but remained obstinately seated on his bed +all the time I remained with him. + +I am weary to-night and low in spirits. I cannot but think of Lucy, and +how different things might have been. If I don't sleep at once, chloral, +the modern Morpheus--C_{2}HCl_{3}O. H_{2}O! I must be careful not to let +it grow into a habit. No, I shall take none to-night! I have thought of +Lucy, and I shall not dishonour her by mixing the two. If need be, +to-night shall be sleepless.... + + * * * * * + +_Later._--Glad I made the resolution; gladder that I kept to it. I had +lain tossing about, and had heard the clock strike only twice, when the +night-watchman came to me, sent up from the ward, to say that Renfield +had escaped. I threw on my clothes and ran down at once; my patient is +too dangerous a person to be roaming about. Those ideas of his might +work out dangerously with strangers. The attendant was waiting for me. +He said he had seen him not ten minutes before, seemingly asleep in his +bed, when he had looked through the observation-trap in the door. His +attention was called by the sound of the window being wrenched out. He +ran back and saw his feet disappear through the window, and had at once +sent up for me. He was only in his night-gear, and cannot be far off. +The attendant thought it would be more useful to watch where he should +go than to follow him, as he might lose sight of him whilst getting out +of the building by the door. He is a bulky man, and couldn't get through +the window. I am thin, so, with his aid, I got out, but feet foremost, +and, as we were only a few feet above ground, landed unhurt. The +attendant told me the patient had gone to the left, and had taken a +straight line, so I ran as quickly as I could. As I got through the belt +of trees I saw a white figure scale the high wall which separates our +grounds from those of the deserted house. + +I ran back at once, told the watchman to get three or four men +immediately and follow me into the grounds of Carfax, in case our friend +might be dangerous. I got a ladder myself, and crossing the wall, +dropped down on the other side. I could see Renfield's figure just +disappearing behind the angle of the house, so I ran after him. On the +far side of the house I found him pressed close against the old +ironbound oak door of the chapel. He was talking, apparently to some +one, but I was afraid to go near enough to hear what he was saying, lest +I might frighten him, and he should run off. Chasing an errant swarm of +bees is nothing to following a naked lunatic, when the fit of escaping +is upon him! After a few minutes, however, I could see that he did not +take note of anything around him, and so ventured to draw nearer to +him--the more so as my men had now crossed the wall and were closing him +in. I heard him say:-- + +"I am here to do Your bidding, Master. I am Your slave, and You will +reward me, for I shall be faithful. I have worshipped You long and afar +off. Now that You are near, I await Your commands, and You will not pass +me by, will You, dear Master, in Your distribution of good things?" + +He _is_ a selfish old beggar anyhow. He thinks of the loaves and fishes +even when he believes he is in a Real Presence. His manias make a +startling combination. When we closed in on him he fought like a tiger. +He is immensely strong, for he was more like a wild beast than a man. I +never saw a lunatic in such a paroxysm of rage before; and I hope I +shall not again. It is a mercy that we have found out his strength and +his danger in good time. With strength and determination like his, he +might have done wild work before he was caged. He is safe now at any +rate. Jack Sheppard himself couldn't get free from the strait-waistcoat +that keeps him restrained, and he's chained to the wall in the padded +room. His cries are at times awful, but the silences that follow are +more deadly still, for he means murder in every turn and movement. + +Just now he spoke coherent words for the first time:-- + +"I shall be patient, Master. It is coming--coming--coming!" + +So I took the hint, and came too. I was too excited to sleep, but this +diary has quieted me, and I feel I shall get some sleep to-night. + + + + +CHAPTER IX + + +_Letter, Mina Harker to Lucy Westenra._ + +"_Buda-Pesth, 24 August._ + +"My dearest Lucy,-- + +"I know you will be anxious to hear all that has happened since we +parted at the railway station at Whitby. Well, my dear, I got to Hull +all right, and caught the boat to Hamburg, and then the train on here. I +feel that I can hardly recall anything of the journey, except that I +knew I was coming to Jonathan, and, that as I should have to do some +nursing, I had better get all the sleep I could.... I found my dear one, +oh, so thin and pale and weak-looking. All the resolution has gone out +of his dear eyes, and that quiet dignity which I told you was in his +face has vanished. He is only a wreck of himself, and he does not +remember anything that has happened to him for a long time past. At +least, he wants me to believe so, and I shall never ask. He has had some +terrible shock, and I fear it might tax his poor brain if he were to try +to recall it. Sister Agatha, who is a good creature and a born nurse, +tells me that he raved of dreadful things whilst he was off his head. I +wanted her to tell me what they were; but she would only cross herself, +and say she would never tell; that the ravings of the sick were the +secrets of God, and that if a nurse through her vocation should hear +them, she should respect her trust. She is a sweet, good soul, and the +next day, when she saw I was troubled, she opened up the subject again, +and after saying that she could never mention what my poor dear raved +about, added: 'I can tell you this much, my dear: that it was not about +anything which he has done wrong himself; and you, as his wife to be, +have no cause to be concerned. He has not forgotten you or what he owes +to you. His fear was of great and terrible things, which no mortal can +treat of.' I do believe the dear soul thought I might be jealous lest my +poor dear should have fallen in love with any other girl. The idea of +_my_ being jealous about Jonathan! And yet, my dear, let me whisper, I +felt a thrill of joy through me when I _knew_ that no other woman was a +cause of trouble. I am now sitting by his bedside, where I can see his +face while he sleeps. He is waking!... + +"When he woke he asked me for his coat, as he wanted to get something +from the pocket; I asked Sister Agatha, and she brought all his things. +I saw that amongst them was his note-book, and was going to ask him to +let me look at it--for I knew then that I might find some clue to his +trouble--but I suppose he must have seen my wish in my eyes, for he sent +me over to the window, saying he wanted to be quite alone for a moment. +Then he called me back, and when I came he had his hand over the +note-book, and he said to me very solemnly:-- + +"'Wilhelmina'--I knew then that he was in deadly earnest, for he has +never called me by that name since he asked me to marry him--'you know, +dear, my ideas of the trust between husband and wife: there should be no +secret, no concealment. I have had a great shock, and when I try to +think of what it is I feel my head spin round, and I do not know if it +was all real or the dreaming of a madman. You know I have had brain +fever, and that is to be mad. The secret is here, and I do not want to +know it. I want to take up my life here, with our marriage.' For, my +dear, we had decided to be married as soon as the formalities are +complete. 'Are you willing, Wilhelmina, to share my ignorance? Here is +the book. Take it and keep it, read it if you will, but never let me +know; unless, indeed, some solemn duty should come upon me to go back to +the bitter hours, asleep or awake, sane or mad, recorded here.' He fell +back exhausted, and I put the book under his pillow, and kissed him. I +have asked Sister Agatha to beg the Superior to let our wedding be this +afternoon, and am waiting her reply.... + + * * * * * + +"She has come and told me that the chaplain of the English mission +church has been sent for. We are to be married in an hour, or as soon +after as Jonathan awakes.... + + * * * * * + +"Lucy, the time has come and gone. I feel very solemn, but very, very +happy. Jonathan woke a little after the hour, and all was ready, and he +sat up in bed, propped up with pillows. He answered his 'I will' firmly +and strongly. I could hardly speak; my heart was so full that even those +words seemed to choke me. The dear sisters were so kind. Please God, I +shall never, never forget them, nor the grave and sweet responsibilities +I have taken upon me. I must tell you of my wedding present. When the +chaplain and the sisters had left me alone with my husband--oh, Lucy, it +is the first time I have written the words 'my husband'--left me alone +with my husband, I took the book from under his pillow, and wrapped it +up in white paper, and tied it with a little bit of pale blue ribbon +which was round my neck, and sealed it over the knot with sealing-wax, +and for my seal I used my wedding ring. Then I kissed it and showed it +to my husband, and told him that I would keep it so, and then it would +be an outward and visible sign for us all our lives that we trusted each +other; that I would never open it unless it were for his own dear sake +or for the sake of some stern duty. Then he took my hand in his, and oh, +Lucy, it was the first time he took _his wife's_ hand, and said that it +was the dearest thing in all the wide world, and that he would go +through all the past again to win it, if need be. The poor dear meant to +have said a part of the past, but he cannot think of time yet, and I +shall not wonder if at first he mixes up not only the month, but the +year. + +"Well, my dear, what could I say? I could only tell him that I was the +happiest woman in all the wide world, and that I had nothing to give him +except myself, my life, and my trust, and that with these went my love +and duty for all the days of my life. And, my dear, when he kissed me, +and drew me to him with his poor weak hands, it was like a very solemn +pledge between us.... + +"Lucy dear, do you know why I tell you all this? It is not only because +it is all sweet to me, but because you have been, and are, very dear to +me. It was my privilege to be your friend and guide when you came from +the schoolroom to prepare for the world of life. I want you to see now, +and with the eyes of a very happy wife, whither duty has led me; so that +in your own married life you too may be all happy as I am. My dear, +please Almighty God, your life may be all it promises: a long day of +sunshine, with no harsh wind, no forgetting duty, no distrust. I must +not wish you no pain, for that can never be; but I do hope you will be +_always_ as happy as I am _now_. Good-bye, my dear. I shall post this at +once, and, perhaps, write you very soon again. I must stop, for Jonathan +is waking--I must attend to my husband! + +"Your ever-loving + +"MINA HARKER." + + +_Letter, Lucy Westenra to Mina Harker._ + +"_Whitby, 30 August._ + +"My dearest Mina,-- + +"Oceans of love and millions of kisses, and may you soon be in your own +home with your husband. I wish you could be coming home soon enough to +stay with us here. The strong air would soon restore Jonathan; it has +quite restored me. I have an appetite like a cormorant, am full of +life, and sleep well. You will be glad to know that I have quite given +up walking in my sleep. I think I have not stirred out of my bed for a +week, that is when I once got into it at night. Arthur says I am getting +fat. By the way, I forgot to tell you that Arthur is here. We have such +walks and drives, and rides, and rowing, and tennis, and fishing +together; and I love him more than ever. He _tells_ me that he loves me +more, but I doubt that, for at first he told me that he couldn't love me +more than he did then. But this is nonsense. There he is, calling to me. +So no more just at present from your loving + +"LUCY. + +"P. S.--Mother sends her love. She seems better, poor dear. "P. P. +S.--We are to be married on 28 September." + + +_Dr. Seward's Diary._ + +_20 August._--The case of Renfield grows even more interesting. He has +now so far quieted that there are spells of cessation from his passion. +For the first week after his attack he was perpetually violent. Then one +night, just as the moon rose, he grew quiet, and kept murmuring to +himself: "Now I can wait; now I can wait." The attendant came to tell +me, so I ran down at once to have a look at him. He was still in the +strait-waistcoat and in the padded room, but the suffused look had gone +from his face, and his eyes had something of their old pleading--I might +almost say, "cringing"--softness. I was satisfied with his present +condition, and directed him to be relieved. The attendants hesitated, +but finally carried out my wishes without protest. It was a strange +thing that the patient had humour enough to see their distrust, for, +coming close to me, he said in a whisper, all the while looking +furtively at them:-- + +"They think I could hurt you! Fancy _me_ hurting _you_! The fools!" + +It was soothing, somehow, to the feelings to find myself dissociated +even in the mind of this poor madman from the others; but all the same I +do not follow his thought. Am I to take it that I have anything in +common with him, so that we are, as it were, to stand together; or has +he to gain from me some good so stupendous that my well-being is needful +to him? I must find out later on. To-night he will not speak. Even the +offer of a kitten or even a full-grown cat will not tempt him. He will +only say: "I don't take any stock in cats. I have more to think of now, +and I can wait; I can wait." + +After a while I left him. The attendant tells me that he was quiet +until just before dawn, and that then he began to get uneasy, and at +length violent, until at last he fell into a paroxysm which exhausted +him so that he swooned into a sort of coma. + + * * * * * + +... Three nights has the same thing happened--violent all day then quiet +from moonrise to sunrise. I wish I could get some clue to the cause. It +would almost seem as if there was some influence which came and went. +Happy thought! We shall to-night play sane wits against mad ones. He +escaped before without our help; to-night he shall escape with it. We +shall give him a chance, and have the men ready to follow in case they +are required.... + + * * * * * + +_23 August._--"The unexpected always happens." How well Disraeli knew +life. Our bird when he found the cage open would not fly, so all our +subtle arrangements were for nought. At any rate, we have proved one +thing; that the spells of quietness last a reasonable time. We shall in +future be able to ease his bonds for a few hours each day. I have given +orders to the night attendant merely to shut him in the padded room, +when once he is quiet, until an hour before sunrise. The poor soul's +body will enjoy the relief even if his mind cannot appreciate it. Hark! +The unexpected again! I am called; the patient has once more escaped. + + * * * * * + +_Later._--Another night adventure. Renfield artfully waited until the +attendant was entering the room to inspect. Then he dashed out past him +and flew down the passage. I sent word for the attendants to follow. +Again he went into the grounds of the deserted house, and we found him +in the same place, pressed against the old chapel door. When he saw me +he became furious, and had not the attendants seized him in time, he +would have tried to kill me. As we were holding him a strange thing +happened. He suddenly redoubled his efforts, and then as suddenly grew +calm. I looked round instinctively, but could see nothing. Then I caught +the patient's eye and followed it, but could trace nothing as it looked +into the moonlit sky except a big bat, which was flapping its silent and +ghostly way to the west. Bats usually wheel and flit about, but this one +seemed to go straight on, as if it knew where it was bound for or had +some intention of its own. The patient grew calmer every instant, and +presently said:-- + +"You needn't tie me; I shall go quietly!" Without trouble we came back +to the house. I feel there is something ominous in his calm, and shall +not forget this night.... + + +_Lucy Westenra's Diary_ + +_Hillingham, 24 August._--I must imitate Mina, and keep writing things +down. Then we can have long talks when we do meet. I wonder when it will +be. I wish she were with me again, for I feel so unhappy. Last night I +seemed to be dreaming again just as I was at Whitby. Perhaps it is the +change of air, or getting home again. It is all dark and horrid to me, +for I can remember nothing; but I am full of vague fear, and I feel so +weak and worn out. When Arthur came to lunch he looked quite grieved +when he saw me, and I hadn't the spirit to try to be cheerful. I wonder +if I could sleep in mother's room to-night. I shall make an excuse and +try. + + * * * * * + +_25 August._--Another bad night. Mother did not seem to take to my +proposal. She seems not too well herself, and doubtless she fears to +worry me. I tried to keep awake, and succeeded for a while; but when the +clock struck twelve it waked me from a doze, so I must have been falling +asleep. There was a sort of scratching or flapping at the window, but I +did not mind it, and as I remember no more, I suppose I must then have +fallen asleep. More bad dreams. I wish I could remember them. This +morning I am horribly weak. My face is ghastly pale, and my throat pains +me. It must be something wrong with my lungs, for I don't seem ever to +get air enough. I shall try to cheer up when Arthur comes, or else I +know he will be miserable to see me so. + + +_Letter, Arthur Holmwood to Dr. Seward._ + +"_Albemarle Hotel, 31 August._ + +"My dear Jack,-- + +"I want you to do me a favour. Lucy is ill; that is, she has no special +disease, but she looks awful, and is getting worse every day. I have +asked her if there is any cause; I do not dare to ask her mother, for to +disturb the poor lady's mind about her daughter in her present state of +health would be fatal. Mrs. Westenra has confided to me that her doom is +spoken--disease of the heart--though poor Lucy does not know it yet. I +am sure that there is something preying on my dear girl's mind. I am +almost distracted when I think of her; to look at her gives me a pang. I +told her I should ask you to see her, and though she demurred at +first--I know why, old fellow--she finally consented. It will be a +painful task for you, I know, old friend, but it is for _her_ sake, and +I must not hesitate to ask, or you to act. You are to come to lunch at +Hillingham to-morrow, two o'clock, so as not to arouse any suspicion in +Mrs. Westenra, and after lunch Lucy will take an opportunity of being +alone with you. I shall come in for tea, and we can go away together; I +am filled with anxiety, and want to consult with you alone as soon as I +can after you have seen her. Do not fail! + +"ARTHUR." + + +_Telegram, Arthur Holmwood to Seward._ + +"_1 September._ + +"Am summoned to see my father, who is worse. Am writing. Write me fully +by to-night's post to Ring. Wire me if necessary." + + +_Letter from Dr. Seward to Arthur Holmwood._ + +"_2 September._ + +"My dear old fellow,-- + +"With regard to Miss Westenra's health I hasten to let you know at once +that in my opinion there is not any functional disturbance or any malady +that I know of. At the same time, I am not by any means satisfied with +her appearance; she is woefully different from what she was when I saw +her last. Of course you must bear in mind that I did not have full +opportunity of examination such as I should wish; our very friendship +makes a little difficulty which not even medical science or custom can +bridge over. I had better tell you exactly what happened, leaving you to +draw, in a measure, your own conclusions. I shall then say what I have +done and propose doing. + +"I found Miss Westenra in seemingly gay spirits. Her mother was present, +and in a few seconds I made up my mind that she was trying all she knew +to mislead her mother and prevent her from being anxious. I have no +doubt she guesses, if she does not know, what need of caution there is. +We lunched alone, and as we all exerted ourselves to be cheerful, we +got, as some kind of reward for our labours, some real cheerfulness +amongst us. Then Mrs. Westenra went to lie down, and Lucy was left with +me. We went into her boudoir, and till we got there her gaiety remained, +for the servants were coming and going. As soon as the door was closed, +however, the mask fell from her face, and she sank down into a chair +with a great sigh, and hid her eyes with her hand. When I saw that her +high spirits had failed, I at once took advantage of her reaction to +make a diagnosis. She said to me very sweetly:-- + +"'I cannot tell you how I loathe talking about myself.' I reminded her +that a doctor's confidence was sacred, but that you were grievously +anxious about her. She caught on to my meaning at once, and settled that +matter in a word. 'Tell Arthur everything you choose. I do not care for +myself, but all for him!' So I am quite free. + +"I could easily see that she is somewhat bloodless, but I could not see +the usual anaemic signs, and by a chance I was actually able to test the +quality of her blood, for in opening a window which was stiff a cord +gave way, and she cut her hand slightly with broken glass. It was a +slight matter in itself, but it gave me an evident chance, and I secured +a few drops of the blood and have analysed them. The qualitative +analysis gives a quite normal condition, and shows, I should infer, in +itself a vigorous state of health. In other physical matters I was quite +satisfied that there is no need for anxiety; but as there must be a +cause somewhere, I have come to the conclusion that it must be something +mental. She complains of difficulty in breathing satisfactorily at +times, and of heavy, lethargic sleep, with dreams that frighten her, but +regarding which she can remember nothing. She says that as a child she +used to walk in her sleep, and that when in Whitby the habit came back, +and that once she walked out in the night and went to East Cliff, where +Miss Murray found her; but she assures me that of late the habit has not +returned. I am in doubt, and so have done the best thing I know of; I +have written to my old friend and master, Professor Van Helsing, of +Amsterdam, who knows as much about obscure diseases as any one in the +world. I have asked him to come over, and as you told me that all things +were to be at your charge, I have mentioned to him who you are and your +relations to Miss Westenra. This, my dear fellow, is in obedience to +your wishes, for I am only too proud and happy to do anything I can for +her. Van Helsing would, I know, do anything for me for a personal +reason, so, no matter on what ground he comes, we must accept his +wishes. He is a seemingly arbitrary man, but this is because he knows +what he is talking about better than any one else. He is a philosopher +and a metaphysician, and one of the most advanced scientists of his day; +and he has, I believe, an absolutely open mind. This, with an iron +nerve, a temper of the ice-brook, an indomitable resolution, +self-command, and toleration exalted from virtues to blessings, and the +kindliest and truest heart that beats--these form his equipment for the +noble work that he is doing for mankind--work both in theory and +practice, for his views are as wide as his all-embracing sympathy. I +tell you these facts that you may know why I have such confidence in +him. I have asked him to come at once. I shall see Miss Westenra +to-morrow again. She is to meet me at the Stores, so that I may not +alarm her mother by too early a repetition of my call. + +"Yours always, + +"JOHN SEWARD." + + +_Letter, Abraham Van Helsing, M. D., D. Ph., D. Lit., etc., etc., to Dr. +Seward._ + +"_2 September._ + +"My good Friend,-- + +"When I have received your letter I am already coming to you. By good +fortune I can leave just at once, without wrong to any of those who have +trusted me. Were fortune other, then it were bad for those who have +trusted, for I come to my friend when he call me to aid those he holds +dear. Tell your friend that when that time you suck from my wound so +swiftly the poison of the gangrene from that knife that our other +friend, too nervous, let slip, you did more for him when he wants my +aids and you call for them than all his great fortune could do. But it +is pleasure added to do for him, your friend; it is to you that I come. +Have then rooms for me at the Great Eastern Hotel, so that I may be near +to hand, and please it so arrange that we may see the young lady not too +late on to-morrow, for it is likely that I may have to return here that +night. But if need be I shall come again in three days, and stay longer +if it must. Till then good-bye, my friend John. + + "VAN HELSING." + + +_Letter, Dr. Seward to Hon. Arthur Holmwood._ + +"_3 September._ + +"My dear Art,-- + +"Van Helsing has come and gone. He came on with me to Hillingham, and +found that, by Lucy's discretion, her mother was lunching out, so that +we were alone with her. Van Helsing made a very careful examination of +the patient. He is to report to me, and I shall advise you, for of +course I was not present all the time. He is, I fear, much concerned, +but says he must think. When I told him of our friendship and how you +trust to me in the matter, he said: 'You must tell him all you think. +Tell him what I think, if you can guess it, if you will. Nay, I am not +jesting. This is no jest, but life and death, perhaps more.' I asked +what he meant by that, for he was very serious. This was when we had +come back to town, and he was having a cup of tea before starting on his +return to Amsterdam. He would not give me any further clue. You must not +be angry with me, Art, because his very reticence means that all his +brains are working for her good. He will speak plainly enough when the +time comes, be sure. So I told him I would simply write an account of +our visit, just as if I were doing a descriptive special article for +_The Daily Telegraph_. He seemed not to notice, but remarked that the +smuts in London were not quite so bad as they used to be when he was a +student here. I am to get his report to-morrow if he can possibly make +it. In any case I am to have a letter. + +"Well, as to the visit. Lucy was more cheerful than on the day I first +saw her, and certainly looked better. She had lost something of the +ghastly look that so upset you, and her breathing was normal. She was +very sweet to the professor (as she always is), and tried to make him +feel at ease; though I could see that the poor girl was making a hard +struggle for it. I believe Van Helsing saw it, too, for I saw the quick +look under his bushy brows that I knew of old. Then he began to chat of +all things except ourselves and diseases and with such an infinite +geniality that I could see poor Lucy's pretense of animation merge into +reality. Then, without any seeming change, he brought the conversation +gently round to his visit, and suavely said:-- + +"'My dear young miss, I have the so great pleasure because you are so +much beloved. That is much, my dear, ever were there that which I do not +see. They told me you were down in the spirit, and that you were of a +ghastly pale. To them I say: "Pouf!"' And he snapped his fingers at me +and went on: 'But you and I shall show them how wrong they are. How can +he'--and he pointed at me with the same look and gesture as that with +which once he pointed me out to his class, on, or rather after, a +particular occasion which he never fails to remind me of--'know anything +of a young ladies? He has his madams to play with, and to bring them +back to happiness, and to those that love them. It is much to do, and, +oh, but there are rewards, in that we can bestow such happiness. But the +young ladies! He has no wife nor daughter, and the young do not tell +themselves to the young, but to the old, like me, who have known so many +sorrows and the causes of them. So, my dear, we will send him away to +smoke the cigarette in the garden, whiles you and I have little talk all +to ourselves.' I took the hint, and strolled about, and presently the +professor came to the window and called me in. He looked grave, but +said: 'I have made careful examination, but there is no functional +cause. With you I agree that there has been much blood lost; it has +been, but is not. But the conditions of her are in no way anaemic. I have +asked her to send me her maid, that I may ask just one or two question, +that so I may not chance to miss nothing. I know well what she will say. +And yet there is cause; there is always cause for everything. I must go +back home and think. You must send to me the telegram every day; and if +there be cause I shall come again. The disease--for not to be all well +is a disease--interest me, and the sweet young dear, she interest me +too. She charm me, and for her, if not for you or disease, I come.' + +"As I tell you, he would not say a word more, even when we were alone. +And so now, Art, you know all I know. I shall keep stern watch. I trust +your poor father is rallying. It must be a terrible thing to you, my +dear old fellow, to be placed in such a position between two people who +are both so dear to you. I know your idea of duty to your father, and +you are right to stick to it; but, if need be, I shall send you word to +come at once to Lucy; so do not be over-anxious unless you hear from +me." + + +_Dr. Seward's Diary._ + +_4 September._--Zoophagous patient still keeps up our interest in him. +He had only one outburst and that was yesterday at an unusual time. Just +before the stroke of noon he began to grow restless. The attendant knew +the symptoms, and at once summoned aid. Fortunately the men came at a +run, and were just in time, for at the stroke of noon he became so +violent that it took all their strength to hold him. In about five +minutes, however, he began to get more and more quiet, and finally sank +into a sort of melancholy, in which state he has remained up to now. The +attendant tells me that his screams whilst in the paroxysm were really +appalling; I found my hands full when I got in, attending to some of the +other patients who were frightened by him. Indeed, I can quite +understand the effect, for the sounds disturbed even me, though I was +some distance away. It is now after the dinner-hour of the asylum, and +as yet my patient sits in a corner brooding, with a dull, sullen, +woe-begone look in his face, which seems rather to indicate than to show +something directly. I cannot quite understand it. + + * * * * * + +_Later._--Another change in my patient. At five o'clock I looked in on +him, and found him seemingly as happy and contented as he used to be. He +was catching flies and eating them, and was keeping note of his capture +by making nail-marks on the edge of the door between the ridges of +padding. When he saw me, he came over and apologised for his bad +conduct, and asked me in a very humble, cringing way to be led back to +his own room and to have his note-book again. I thought it well to +humour him: so he is back in his room with the window open. He has the +sugar of his tea spread out on the window-sill, and is reaping quite a +harvest of flies. He is not now eating them, but putting them into a +box, as of old, and is already examining the corners of his room to find +a spider. I tried to get him to talk about the past few days, for any +clue to his thoughts would be of immense help to me; but he would not +rise. For a moment or two he looked very sad, and said in a sort of +far-away voice, as though saying it rather to himself than to me:-- + +"All over! all over! He has deserted me. No hope for me now unless I do +it for myself!" Then suddenly turning to me in a resolute way, he said: +"Doctor, won't you be very good to me and let me have a little more +sugar? I think it would be good for me." + +"And the flies?" I said. + +"Yes! The flies like it, too, and I like the flies; therefore I like +it." And there are people who know so little as to think that madmen do +not argue. I procured him a double supply, and left him as happy a man +as, I suppose, any in the world. I wish I could fathom his mind. + + * * * * * + +_Midnight._--Another change in him. I had been to see Miss Westenra, +whom I found much better, and had just returned, and was standing at our +own gate looking at the sunset, when once more I heard him yelling. As +his room is on this side of the house, I could hear it better than in +the morning. It was a shock to me to turn from the wonderful smoky +beauty of a sunset over London, with its lurid lights and inky shadows +and all the marvellous tints that come on foul clouds even as on foul +water, and to realise all the grim sternness of my own cold stone +building, with its wealth of breathing misery, and my own desolate heart +to endure it all. I reached him just as the sun was going down, and from +his window saw the red disc sink. As it sank he became less and less +frenzied; and just as it dipped he slid from the hands that held him, an +inert mass, on the floor. It is wonderful, however, what intellectual +recuperative power lunatics have, for within a few minutes he stood up +quite calmly and looked around him. I signalled to the attendants not to +hold him, for I was anxious to see what he would do. He went straight +over to the window and brushed out the crumbs of sugar; then he took his +fly-box, and emptied it outside, and threw away the box; then he shut +the window, and crossing over, sat down on his bed. All this surprised +me, so I asked him: "Are you not going to keep flies any more?" + +"No," said he; "I am sick of all that rubbish!" He certainly is a +wonderfully interesting study. I wish I could get some glimpse of his +mind or of the cause of his sudden passion. Stop; there may be a clue +after all, if we can find why to-day his paroxysms came on at high noon +and at sunset. Can it be that there is a malign influence of the sun at +periods which affects certain natures--as at times the moon does others? +We shall see. + + +_Telegram, Seward, London, to Van Helsing, Amsterdam._ + +"_4 September._--Patient still better to-day." + + +_Telegram, Seward, London, to Van Helsing, Amsterdam._ + +"_5 September._--Patient greatly improved. Good appetite; sleeps +naturally; good spirits; colour coming back." + + +_Telegram, Seward, London, to Van Helsing, Amsterdam._ + +"_6 September._--Terrible change for the worse. Come at once; do not +lose an hour. I hold over telegram to Holmwood till have seen you." + + + + +CHAPTER X + + +_Letter, Dr. Seward to Hon. Arthur Holmwood._ + +"_6 September._ + +"My dear Art,-- + +"My news to-day is not so good. Lucy this morning had gone back a bit. +There is, however, one good thing which has arisen from it; Mrs. +Westenra was naturally anxious concerning Lucy, and has consulted me +professionally about her. I took advantage of the opportunity, and told +her that my old master, Van Helsing, the great specialist, was coming to +stay with me, and that I would put her in his charge conjointly with +myself; so now we can come and go without alarming her unduly, for a +shock to her would mean sudden death, and this, in Lucy's weak +condition, might be disastrous to her. We are hedged in with +difficulties, all of us, my poor old fellow; but, please God, we shall +come through them all right. If any need I shall write, so that, if you +do not hear from me, take it for granted that I am simply waiting for +news. In haste + +Yours ever, + +"JOHN SEWARD." + + +_Dr. Seward's Diary._ + +_7 September._--The first thing Van Helsing said to me when we met at +Liverpool Street was:-- + +"Have you said anything to our young friend the lover of her?" + +"No," I said. "I waited till I had seen you, as I said in my telegram. I +wrote him a letter simply telling him that you were coming, as Miss +Westenra was not so well, and that I should let him know if need be." + +"Right, my friend," he said, "quite right! Better he not know as yet; +perhaps he shall never know. I pray so; but if it be needed, then he +shall know all. And, my good friend John, let me caution you. You deal +with the madmen. All men are mad in some way or the other; and inasmuch +as you deal discreetly with your madmen, so deal with God's madmen, +too--the rest of the world. You tell not your madmen what you do nor why +you do it; you tell them not what you think. So you shall keep knowledge +in its place, where it may rest--where it may gather its kind around it +and breed. You and I shall keep as yet what we know here, and here." He +touched me on the heart and on the forehead, and then touched himself +the same way. "I have for myself thoughts at the present. Later I shall +unfold to you." + +"Why not now?" I asked. "It may do some good; we may arrive at some +decision." He stopped and looked at me, and said:-- + +"My friend John, when the corn is grown, even before it has +ripened--while the milk of its mother-earth is in him, and the sunshine +has not yet begun to paint him with his gold, the husbandman he pull the +ear and rub him between his rough hands, and blow away the green chaff, +and say to you: 'Look! he's good corn; he will make good crop when the +time comes.'" I did not see the application, and told him so. For reply +he reached over and took my ear in his hand and pulled it playfully, as +he used long ago to do at lectures, and said: "The good husbandman tell +you so then because he knows, but not till then. But you do not find the +good husbandman dig up his planted corn to see if he grow; that is for +the children who play at husbandry, and not for those who take it as of +the work of their life. See you now, friend John? I have sown my corn, +and Nature has her work to do in making it sprout; if he sprout at all, +there's some promise; and I wait till the ear begins to swell." He broke +off, for he evidently saw that I understood. Then he went on, and very +gravely:-- + +"You were always a careful student, and your case-book was ever more +full than the rest. You were only student then; now you are master, and +I trust that good habit have not fail. Remember, my friend, that +knowledge is stronger than memory, and we should not trust the weaker. +Even if you have not kept the good practise, let me tell you that this +case of our dear miss is one that may be--mind, I say _may be_--of such +interest to us and others that all the rest may not make him kick the +beam, as your peoples say. Take then good note of it. Nothing is too +small. I counsel you, put down in record even your doubts and surmises. +Hereafter it may be of interest to you to see how true you guess. We +learn from failure, not from success!" + +When I described Lucy's symptoms--the same as before, but infinitely +more marked--he looked very grave, but said nothing. He took with him a +bag in which were many instruments and drugs, "the ghastly paraphernalia +of our beneficial trade," as he once called, in one of his lectures, the +equipment of a professor of the healing craft. When we were shown in, +Mrs. Westenra met us. She was alarmed, but not nearly so much as I +expected to find her. Nature in one of her beneficent moods has ordained +that even death has some antidote to its own terrors. Here, in a case +where any shock may prove fatal, matters are so ordered that, from some +cause or other, the things not personal--even the terrible change in her +daughter to whom she is so attached--do not seem to reach her. It is +something like the way Dame Nature gathers round a foreign body an +envelope of some insensitive tissue which can protect from evil that +which it would otherwise harm by contact. If this be an ordered +selfishness, then we should pause before we condemn any one for the vice +of egoism, for there may be deeper root for its causes than we have +knowledge of. + +I used my knowledge of this phase of spiritual pathology, and laid down +a rule that she should not be present with Lucy or think of her illness +more than was absolutely required. She assented readily, so readily that +I saw again the hand of Nature fighting for life. Van Helsing and I were +shown up to Lucy's room. If I was shocked when I saw her yesterday, I +was horrified when I saw her to-day. She was ghastly, chalkily pale; the +red seemed to have gone even from her lips and gums, and the bones of +her face stood out prominently; her breathing was painful to see or +hear. Van Helsing's face grew set as marble, and his eyebrows converged +till they almost touched over his nose. Lucy lay motionless, and did not +seem to have strength to speak, so for a while we were all silent. Then +Van Helsing beckoned to me, and we went gently out of the room. The +instant we had closed the door he stepped quickly along the passage to +the next door, which was open. Then he pulled me quickly in with him and +closed the door. "My God!" he said; "this is dreadful. There is no time +to be lost. She will die for sheer want of blood to keep the heart's +action as it should be. There must be transfusion of blood at once. Is +it you or me?" + +"I am younger and stronger, Professor. It must be me." + +"Then get ready at once. I will bring up my bag. I am prepared." + +I went downstairs with him, and as we were going there was a knock at +the hall-door. When we reached the hall the maid had just opened the +door, and Arthur was stepping quickly in. He rushed up to me, saying in +an eager whisper:-- + +"Jack, I was so anxious. I read between the lines of your letter, and +have been in an agony. The dad was better, so I ran down here to see for +myself. Is not that gentleman Dr. Van Helsing? I am so thankful to you, +sir, for coming." When first the Professor's eye had lit upon him he had +been angry at his interruption at such a time; but now, as he took in +his stalwart proportions and recognised the strong young manhood which +seemed to emanate from him, his eyes gleamed. Without a pause he said to +him gravely as he held out his hand:-- + +"Sir, you have come in time. You are the lover of our dear miss. She is +bad, very, very bad. Nay, my child, do not go like that." For he +suddenly grew pale and sat down in a chair almost fainting. "You are to +help her. You can do more than any that live, and your courage is your +best help." + +"What can I do?" asked Arthur hoarsely. "Tell me, and I shall do it. My +life is hers, and I would give the last drop of blood in my body for +her." The Professor has a strongly humorous side, and I could from old +knowledge detect a trace of its origin in his answer:-- + +"My young sir, I do not ask so much as that--not the last!" + +"What shall I do?" There was fire in his eyes, and his open nostril +quivered with intent. Van Helsing slapped him on the shoulder. "Come!" +he said. "You are a man, and it is a man we want. You are better than +me, better than my friend John." Arthur looked bewildered, and the +Professor went on by explaining in a kindly way:-- + +"Young miss is bad, very bad. She wants blood, and blood she must have +or die. My friend John and I have consulted; and we are about to perform +what we call transfusion of blood--to transfer from full veins of one to +the empty veins which pine for him. John was to give his blood, as he is +the more young and strong than me"--here Arthur took my hand and wrung +it hard in silence--"but, now you are here, you are more good than us, +old or young, who toil much in the world of thought. Our nerves are not +so calm and our blood not so bright than yours!" Arthur turned to him +and said:-- + +"If you only knew how gladly I would die for her you would +understand----" + +He stopped, with a sort of choke in his voice. + +"Good boy!" said Van Helsing. "In the not-so-far-off you will be happy +that you have done all for her you love. Come now and be silent. You +shall kiss her once before it is done, but then you must go; and you +must leave at my sign. Say no word to Madame; you know how it is with +her! There must be no shock; any knowledge of this would be one. Come!" + +We all went up to Lucy's room. Arthur by direction remained outside. +Lucy turned her head and looked at us, but said nothing. She was not +asleep, but she was simply too weak to make the effort. Her eyes spoke +to us; that was all. Van Helsing took some things from his bag and laid +them on a little table out of sight. Then he mixed a narcotic, and +coming over to the bed, said cheerily:-- + +"Now, little miss, here is your medicine. Drink it off, like a good +child. See, I lift you so that to swallow is easy. Yes." She had made +the effort with success. + +It astonished me how long the drug took to act. This, in fact, marked +the extent of her weakness. The time seemed endless until sleep began to +flicker in her eyelids. At last, however, the narcotic began to manifest +its potency; and she fell into a deep sleep. When the Professor was +satisfied he called Arthur into the room, and bade him strip off his +coat. Then he added: "You may take that one little kiss whiles I bring +over the table. Friend John, help to me!" So neither of us looked whilst +he bent over her. + +Van Helsing turning to me, said: + +"He is so young and strong and of blood so pure that we need not +defibrinate it." + +Then with swiftness, but with absolute method, Van Helsing performed the +operation. As the transfusion went on something like life seemed to come +back to poor Lucy's cheeks, and through Arthur's growing pallor the joy +of his face seemed absolutely to shine. After a bit I began to grow +anxious, for the loss of blood was telling on Arthur, strong man as he +was. It gave me an idea of what a terrible strain Lucy's system must +have undergone that what weakened Arthur only partially restored her. +But the Professor's face was set, and he stood watch in hand and with +his eyes fixed now on the patient and now on Arthur. I could hear my own +heart beat. Presently he said in a soft voice: "Do not stir an instant. +It is enough. You attend him; I will look to her." When all was over I +could see how much Arthur was weakened. I dressed the wound and took his +arm to bring him away, when Van Helsing spoke without turning round--the +man seems to have eyes in the back of his head:-- + +"The brave lover, I think, deserve another kiss, which he shall have +presently." And as he had now finished his operation, he adjusted the +pillow to the patient's head. As he did so the narrow black velvet band +which she seems always to wear round her throat, buckled with an old +diamond buckle which her lover had given her, was dragged a little up, +and showed a red mark on her throat. Arthur did not notice it, but I +could hear the deep hiss of indrawn breath which is one of Van Helsing's +ways of betraying emotion. He said nothing at the moment, but turned to +me, saying: "Now take down our brave young lover, give him of the port +wine, and let him lie down a while. He must then go home and rest, sleep +much and eat much, that he may be recruited of what he has so given to +his love. He must not stay here. Hold! a moment. I may take it, sir, +that you are anxious of result. Then bring it with you that in all ways +the operation is successful. You have saved her life this time, and you +can go home and rest easy in mind that all that can be is. I shall tell +her all when she is well; she shall love you none the less for what you +have done. Good-bye." + +When Arthur had gone I went back to the room. Lucy was sleeping gently, +but her breathing was stronger; I could see the counterpane move as her +breast heaved. By the bedside sat Van Helsing, looking at her intently. +The velvet band again covered the red mark. I asked the Professor in a +whisper:-- + +"What do you make of that mark on her throat?" + +"What do you make of it?" + +"I have not examined it yet," I answered, and then and there proceeded +to loose the band. Just over the external jugular vein there were two +punctures, not large, but not wholesome-looking. There was no sign of +disease, but the edges were white and worn-looking, as if by some +trituration. It at once occurred to me that this wound, or whatever it +was, might be the means of that manifest loss of blood; but I abandoned +the idea as soon as formed, for such a thing could not be. The whole bed +would have been drenched to a scarlet with the blood which the girl must +have lost to leave such a pallor as she had before the transfusion. + +"Well?" said Van Helsing. + +"Well," said I, "I can make nothing of it." The Professor stood up. "I +must go back to Amsterdam to-night," he said. "There are books and +things there which I want. You must remain here all the night, and you +must not let your sight pass from her." + +"Shall I have a nurse?" I asked. + +"We are the best nurses, you and I. You keep watch all night; see that +she is well fed, and that nothing disturbs her. You must not sleep all +the night. Later on we can sleep, you and I. I shall be back as soon as +possible. And then we may begin." + +"May begin?" I said. "What on earth do you mean?" + +"We shall see!" he answered, as he hurried out. He came back a moment +later and put his head inside the door and said with warning finger held +up:-- + +"Remember, she is your charge. If you leave her, and harm befall, you +shall not sleep easy hereafter!" + + +_Dr. Seward's Diary--continued._ + +_8 September._--I sat up all night with Lucy. The opiate worked itself +off towards dusk, and she waked naturally; she looked a different being +from what she had been before the operation. Her spirits even were good, +and she was full of a happy vivacity, but I could see evidences of the +absolute prostration which she had undergone. When I told Mrs. Westenra +that Dr. Van Helsing had directed that I should sit up with her she +almost pooh-poohed the idea, pointing out her daughter's renewed +strength and excellent spirits. I was firm, however, and made +preparations for my long vigil. When her maid had prepared her for the +night I came in, having in the meantime had supper, and took a seat by +the bedside. She did not in any way make objection, but looked at me +gratefully whenever I caught her eye. After a long spell she seemed +sinking off to sleep, but with an effort seemed to pull herself together +and shook it off. This was repeated several times, with greater effort +and with shorter pauses as the time moved on. It was apparent that she +did not want to sleep, so I tackled the subject at once:-- + +"You do not want to go to sleep?" + +"No; I am afraid." + +"Afraid to go to sleep! Why so? It is the boon we all crave for." + +"Ah, not if you were like me--if sleep was to you a presage of horror!" + +"A presage of horror! What on earth do you mean?" + +"I don't know; oh, I don't know. And that is what is so terrible. All +this weakness comes to me in sleep; until I dread the very thought." + +"But, my dear girl, you may sleep to-night. I am here watching you, and +I can promise that nothing will happen." + +"Ah, I can trust you!" I seized the opportunity, and said: "I promise +you that if I see any evidence of bad dreams I will wake you at once." + +"You will? Oh, will you really? How good you are to me. Then I will +sleep!" And almost at the word she gave a deep sigh of relief, and sank +back, asleep. + +All night long I watched by her. She never stirred, but slept on and on +in a deep, tranquil, life-giving, health-giving sleep. Her lips were +slightly parted, and her breast rose and fell with the regularity of a +pendulum. There was a smile on her face, and it was evident that no bad +dreams had come to disturb her peace of mind. + +In the early morning her maid came, and I left her in her care and took +myself back home, for I was anxious about many things. I sent a short +wire to Van Helsing and to Arthur, telling them of the excellent result +of the operation. My own work, with its manifold arrears, took me all +day to clear off; it was dark when I was able to inquire about my +zoophagous patient. The report was good; he had been quite quiet for the +past day and night. A telegram came from Van Helsing at Amsterdam whilst +I was at dinner, suggesting that I should be at Hillingham to-night, as +it might be well to be at hand, and stating that he was leaving by the +night mail and would join me early in the morning. + + * * * * * + +_9 September_.--I was pretty tired and worn out when I got to +Hillingham. For two nights I had hardly had a wink of sleep, and my +brain was beginning to feel that numbness which marks cerebral +exhaustion. Lucy was up and in cheerful spirits. When she shook hands +with me she looked sharply in my face and said:-- + +"No sitting up to-night for you. You are worn out. I am quite well +again; indeed, I am; and if there is to be any sitting up, it is I who +will sit up with you." I would not argue the point, but went and had my +supper. Lucy came with me, and, enlivened by her charming presence, I +made an excellent meal, and had a couple of glasses of the more than +excellent port. Then Lucy took me upstairs, and showed me a room next +her own, where a cozy fire was burning. "Now," she said, "you must stay +here. I shall leave this door open and my door too. You can lie on the +sofa for I know that nothing would induce any of you doctors to go to +bed whilst there is a patient above the horizon. If I want anything I +shall call out, and you can come to me at once." I could not but +acquiesce, for I was "dog-tired," and could not have sat up had I tried. +So, on her renewing her promise to call me if she should want anything, +I lay on the sofa, and forgot all about everything. + + +_Lucy Westenra's Diary._ + +_9 September._--I feel so happy to-night. I have been so miserably weak, +that to be able to think and move about is like feeling sunshine after +a long spell of east wind out of a steel sky. Somehow Arthur feels very, +very close to me. I seem to feel his presence warm about me. I suppose +it is that sickness and weakness are selfish things and turn our inner +eyes and sympathy on ourselves, whilst health and strength give Love +rein, and in thought and feeling he can wander where he wills. I know +where my thoughts are. If Arthur only knew! My dear, my dear, your ears +must tingle as you sleep, as mine do waking. Oh, the blissful rest of +last night! How I slept, with that dear, good Dr. Seward watching me. +And to-night I shall not fear to sleep, since he is close at hand and +within call. Thank everybody for being so good to me! Thank God! +Good-night, Arthur. + + +_Dr. Seward's Diary._ + +_10 September._--I was conscious of the Professor's hand on my head, and +started awake all in a second. That is one of the things that we learn +in an asylum, at any rate. + +"And how is our patient?" + +"Well, when I left her, or rather when she left me," I answered. + +"Come, let us see," he said. And together we went into the room. + +The blind was down, and I went over to raise it gently, whilst Van +Helsing stepped, with his soft, cat-like tread, over to the bed. + +As I raised the blind, and the morning sunlight flooded the room, I +heard the Professor's low hiss of inspiration, and knowing its rarity, a +deadly fear shot through my heart. As I passed over he moved back, and +his exclamation of horror, "Gott in Himmel!" needed no enforcement from +his agonised face. He raised his hand and pointed to the bed, and his +iron face was drawn and ashen white. I felt my knees begin to tremble. + +There on the bed, seemingly in a swoon, lay poor Lucy, more horribly +white and wan-looking than ever. Even the lips were white, and the gums +seemed to have shrunken back from the teeth, as we sometimes see in a +corpse after a prolonged illness. Van Helsing raised his foot to stamp +in anger, but the instinct of his life and all the long years of habit +stood to him, and he put it down again softly. "Quick!" he said. "Bring +the brandy." I flew to the dining-room, and returned with the decanter. +He wetted the poor white lips with it, and together we rubbed palm and +wrist and heart. He felt her heart, and after a few moments of agonising +suspense said:-- + +"It is not too late. It beats, though but feebly. All our work is +undone; we must begin again. There is no young Arthur here now; I have +to call on you yourself this time, friend John." As he spoke, he was +dipping into his bag and producing the instruments for transfusion; I +had taken off my coat and rolled up my shirt-sleeve. There was no +possibility of an opiate just at present, and no need of one; and so, +without a moment's delay, we began the operation. After a time--it did +not seem a short time either, for the draining away of one's blood, no +matter how willingly it be given, is a terrible feeling--Van Helsing +held up a warning finger. "Do not stir," he said, "but I fear that with +growing strength she may wake; and that would make danger, oh, so much +danger. But I shall precaution take. I shall give hypodermic injection +of morphia." He proceeded then, swiftly and deftly, to carry out his +intent. The effect on Lucy was not bad, for the faint seemed to merge +subtly into the narcotic sleep. It was with a feeling of personal pride +that I could see a faint tinge of colour steal back into the pallid +cheeks and lips. No man knows, till he experiences it, what it is to +feel his own life-blood drawn away into the veins of the woman he loves. + +The Professor watched me critically. "That will do," he said. "Already?" +I remonstrated. "You took a great deal more from Art." To which he +smiled a sad sort of smile as he replied:-- + +"He is her lover, her _fiance_. You have work, much work, to do for her +and for others; and the present will suffice." + +When we stopped the operation, he attended to Lucy, whilst I applied +digital pressure to my own incision. I laid down, whilst I waited his +leisure to attend to me, for I felt faint and a little sick. By-and-by +he bound up my wound, and sent me downstairs to get a glass of wine for +myself. As I was leaving the room, he came after me, and half +whispered:-- + +"Mind, nothing must be said of this. If our young lover should turn up +unexpected, as before, no word to him. It would at once frighten him and +enjealous him, too. There must be none. So!" + +When I came back he looked at me carefully, and then said:-- + +"You are not much the worse. Go into the room, and lie on your sofa, and +rest awhile; then have much breakfast, and come here to me." + +I followed out his orders, for I knew how right and wise they were. I +had done my part, and now my next duty was to keep up my strength. I +felt very weak, and in the weakness lost something of the amazement at +what had occurred. I fell asleep on the sofa, however, wondering over +and over again how Lucy had made such a retrograde movement, and how +she could have been drained of so much blood with no sign anywhere to +show for it. I think I must have continued my wonder in my dreams, for, +sleeping and waking, my thoughts always came back to the little +punctures in her throat and the ragged, exhausted appearance of their +edges--tiny though they were. + +Lucy slept well into the day, and when she woke she was fairly well and +strong, though not nearly so much so as the day before. When Van Helsing +had seen her, he went out for a walk, leaving me in charge, with strict +injunctions that I was not to leave her for a moment. I could hear his +voice in the hall, asking the way to the nearest telegraph office. + +Lucy chatted with me freely, and seemed quite unconscious that anything +had happened. I tried to keep her amused and interested. When her mother +came up to see her, she did not seem to notice any change whatever, but +said to me gratefully:-- + +"We owe you so much, Dr. Seward, for all you have done, but you really +must now take care not to overwork yourself. You are looking pale +yourself. You want a wife to nurse and look after you a bit; that you +do!" As she spoke, Lucy turned crimson, though it was only momentarily, +for her poor wasted veins could not stand for long such an unwonted +drain to the head. The reaction came in excessive pallor as she turned +imploring eyes on me. I smiled and nodded, and laid my finger on my +lips; with a sigh, she sank back amid her pillows. + +Van Helsing returned in a couple of hours, and presently said to me: +"Now you go home, and eat much and drink enough. Make yourself strong. I +stay here to-night, and I shall sit up with little miss myself. You and +I must watch the case, and we must have none other to know. I have grave +reasons. No, do not ask them; think what you will. Do not fear to think +even the most not-probable. Good-night." + +In the hall two of the maids came to me, and asked if they or either of +them might not sit up with Miss Lucy. They implored me to let them; and +when I said it was Dr. Van Helsing's wish that either he or I should sit +up, they asked me quite piteously to intercede with the "foreign +gentleman." I was much touched by their kindness. Perhaps it is because +I am weak at present, and perhaps because it was on Lucy's account, that +their devotion was manifested; for over and over again have I seen +similar instances of woman's kindness. I got back here in time for a +late dinner; went my rounds--all well; and set this down whilst waiting +for sleep. It is coming. + + * * * * * + +_11 September._--This afternoon I went over to Hillingham. Found Van +Helsing in excellent spirits, and Lucy much better. Shortly after I had +arrived, a big parcel from abroad came for the Professor. He opened it +with much impressment--assumed, of course--and showed a great bundle of +white flowers. + +"These are for you, Miss Lucy," he said. + +"For me? Oh, Dr. Van Helsing!" + +"Yes, my dear, but not for you to play with. These are medicines." Here +Lucy made a wry face. "Nay, but they are not to take in a decoction or +in nauseous form, so you need not snub that so charming nose, or I shall +point out to my friend Arthur what woes he may have to endure in seeing +so much beauty that he so loves so much distort. Aha, my pretty miss, +that bring the so nice nose all straight again. This is medicinal, but +you do not know how. I put him in your window, I make pretty wreath, and +hang him round your neck, so that you sleep well. Oh yes! they, like the +lotus flower, make your trouble forgotten. It smell so like the waters +of Lethe, and of that fountain of youth that the Conquistadores sought +for in the Floridas, and find him all too late." + +Whilst he was speaking, Lucy had been examining the flowers and smelling +them. Now she threw them down, saying, with half-laughter, and +half-disgust:-- + +"Oh, Professor, I believe you are only putting up a joke on me. Why, +these flowers are only common garlic." + +To my surprise, Van Helsing rose up and said with all his sternness, his +iron jaw set and his bushy eyebrows meeting:-- + +"No trifling with me! I never jest! There is grim purpose in all I do; +and I warn you that you do not thwart me. Take care, for the sake of +others if not for your own." Then seeing poor Lucy scared, as she might +well be, he went on more gently: "Oh, little miss, my dear, do not fear +me. I only do for your good; but there is much virtue to you in those so +common flowers. See, I place them myself in your room. I make myself the +wreath that you are to wear. But hush! no telling to others that make so +inquisitive questions. We must obey, and silence is a part of obedience; +and obedience is to bring you strong and well into loving arms that wait +for you. Now sit still awhile. Come with me, friend John, and you shall +help me deck the room with my garlic, which is all the way from Haarlem, +where my friend Vanderpool raise herb in his glass-houses all the year. +I had to telegraph yesterday, or they would not have been here." + +We went into the room, taking the flowers with us. The Professor's +actions were certainly odd and not to be found in any pharmacopoeia +that I ever heard of. First he fastened up the windows and latched them +securely; next, taking a handful of the flowers, he rubbed them all over +the sashes, as though to ensure that every whiff of air that might get +in would be laden with the garlic smell. Then with the wisp he rubbed +all over the jamb of the door, above, below, and at each side, and round +the fireplace in the same way. It all seemed grotesque to me, and +presently I said:-- + +"Well, Professor, I know you always have a reason for what you do, but +this certainly puzzles me. It is well we have no sceptic here, or he +would say that you were working some spell to keep out an evil spirit." + +"Perhaps I am!" he answered quietly as he began to make the wreath which +Lucy was to wear round her neck. + +We then waited whilst Lucy made her toilet for the night, and when she +was in bed he came and himself fixed the wreath of garlic round her +neck. The last words he said to her were:-- + +"Take care you do not disturb it; and even if the room feel close, do +not to-night open the window or the door." + +"I promise," said Lucy, "and thank you both a thousand times for all +your kindness to me! Oh, what have I done to be blessed with such +friends?" + +As we left the house in my fly, which was waiting, Van Helsing said:-- + +"To-night I can sleep in peace, and sleep I want--two nights of travel, +much reading in the day between, and much anxiety on the day to follow, +and a night to sit up, without to wink. To-morrow in the morning early +you call for me, and we come together to see our pretty miss, so much +more strong for my 'spell' which I have work. Ho! ho!" + +He seemed so confident that I, remembering my own confidence two nights +before and with the baneful result, felt awe and vague terror. It must +have been my weakness that made me hesitate to tell it to my friend, but +I felt it all the more, like unshed tears. + + + + +CHAPTER XI + +_Lucy Westenra's Diary._ + + +_12 September._--How good they all are to me. I quite love that dear Dr. +Van Helsing. I wonder why he was so anxious about these flowers. He +positively frightened me, he was so fierce. And yet he must have been +right, for I feel comfort from them already. Somehow, I do not dread +being alone to-night, and I can go to sleep without fear. I shall not +mind any flapping outside the window. Oh, the terrible struggle that I +have had against sleep so often of late; the pain of the sleeplessness, +or the pain of the fear of sleep, with such unknown horrors as it has +for me! How blessed are some people, whose lives have no fears, no +dreads; to whom sleep is a blessing that comes nightly, and brings +nothing but sweet dreams. Well, here I am to-night, hoping for sleep, +and lying like Ophelia in the play, with "virgin crants and maiden +strewments." I never liked garlic before, but to-night it is delightful! +There is peace in its smell; I feel sleep coming already. Good-night, +everybody. + + +_Dr. Seward's Diary._ + +_13 September._--Called at the Berkeley and found Van Helsing, as usual, +up to time. The carriage ordered from the hotel was waiting. The +Professor took his bag, which he always brings with him now. + +Let all be put down exactly. Van Helsing and I arrived at Hillingham at +eight o'clock. It was a lovely morning; the bright sunshine and all the +fresh feeling of early autumn seemed like the completion of nature's +annual work. The leaves were turning to all kinds of beautiful colours, +but had not yet begun to drop from the trees. When we entered we met +Mrs. Westenra coming out of the morning room. She is always an early +riser. She greeted us warmly and said:-- + +"You will be glad to know that Lucy is better. The dear child is still +asleep. I looked into her room and saw her, but did not go in, lest I +should disturb her." The Professor smiled, and looked quite jubilant. He +rubbed his hands together, and said:-- + +"Aha! I thought I had diagnosed the case. My treatment is working," to +which she answered:-- + +"You must not take all the credit to yourself, doctor. Lucy's state this +morning is due in part to me." + +"How you do mean, ma'am?" asked the Professor. + +"Well, I was anxious about the dear child in the night, and went into +her room. She was sleeping soundly--so soundly that even my coming did +not wake her. But the room was awfully stuffy. There were a lot of those +horrible, strong-smelling flowers about everywhere, and she had actually +a bunch of them round her neck. I feared that the heavy odour would be +too much for the dear child in her weak state, so I took them all away +and opened a bit of the window to let in a little fresh air. You will be +pleased with her, I am sure." + +She moved off into her boudoir, where she usually breakfasted early. As +she had spoken, I watched the Professor's face, and saw it turn ashen +grey. He had been able to retain his self-command whilst the poor lady +was present, for he knew her state and how mischievous a shock would be; +he actually smiled on her as he held open the door for her to pass into +her room. But the instant she had disappeared he pulled me, suddenly and +forcibly, into the dining-room and closed the door. + +Then, for the first time in my life, I saw Van Helsing break down. He +raised his hands over his head in a sort of mute despair, and then beat +his palms together in a helpless way; finally he sat down on a chair, +and putting his hands before his face, began to sob, with loud, dry sobs +that seemed to come from the very racking of his heart. Then he raised +his arms again, as though appealing to the whole universe. "God! God! +God!" he said. "What have we done, what has this poor thing done, that +we are so sore beset? Is there fate amongst us still, sent down from the +pagan world of old, that such things must be, and in such way? This poor +mother, all unknowing, and all for the best as she think, does such +thing as lose her daughter body and soul; and we must not tell her, we +must not even warn her, or she die, and then both die. Oh, how we are +beset! How are all the powers of the devils against us!" Suddenly he +jumped to his feet. "Come," he said, "come, we must see and act. Devils +or no devils, or all the devils at once, it matters not; we fight him +all the same." He went to the hall-door for his bag; and together we +went up to Lucy's room. + +Once again I drew up the blind, whilst Van Helsing went towards the bed. +This time he did not start as he looked on the poor face with the same +awful, waxen pallor as before. He wore a look of stern sadness and +infinite pity. + +"As I expected," he murmured, with that hissing inspiration of his which +meant so much. Without a word he went and locked the door, and then +began to set out on the little table the instruments for yet another +operation of transfusion of blood. I had long ago recognised the +necessity, and begun to take off my coat, but he stopped me with a +warning hand. "No!" he said. "To-day you must operate. I shall provide. +You are weakened already." As he spoke he took off his coat and rolled +up his shirt-sleeve. + +Again the operation; again the narcotic; again some return of colour to +the ashy cheeks, and the regular breathing of healthy sleep. This time I +watched whilst Van Helsing recruited himself and rested. + +Presently he took an opportunity of telling Mrs. Westenra that she must +not remove anything from Lucy's room without consulting him; that the +flowers were of medicinal value, and that the breathing of their odour +was a part of the system of cure. Then he took over the care of the case +himself, saying that he would watch this night and the next and would +send me word when to come. + +After another hour Lucy waked from her sleep, fresh and bright and +seemingly not much the worse for her terrible ordeal. + +What does it all mean? I am beginning to wonder if my long habit of life +amongst the insane is beginning to tell upon my own brain. + + +_Lucy Westenra's Diary._ + +_17 September._--Four days and nights of peace. I am getting so strong +again that I hardly know myself. It is as if I had passed through some +long nightmare, and had just awakened to see the beautiful sunshine and +feel the fresh air of the morning around me. I have a dim +half-remembrance of long, anxious times of waiting and fearing; darkness +in which there was not even the pain of hope to make present distress +more poignant: and then long spells of oblivion, and the rising back to +life as a diver coming up through a great press of water. Since, +however, Dr. Van Helsing has been with me, all this bad dreaming seems +to have passed away; the noises that used to frighten me out of my +wits--the flapping against the windows, the distant voices which seemed +so close to me, the harsh sounds that came from I know not where and +commanded me to do I know not what--have all ceased. I go to bed now +without any fear of sleep. I do not even try to keep awake. I have grown +quite fond of the garlic, and a boxful arrives for me every day from +Haarlem. To-night Dr. Van Helsing is going away, as he has to be for a +day in Amsterdam. But I need not be watched; I am well enough to be left +alone. Thank God for mother's sake, and dear Arthur's, and for all our +friends who have been so kind! I shall not even feel the change, for +last night Dr. Van Helsing slept in his chair a lot of the time. I found +him asleep twice when I awoke; but I did not fear to go to sleep again, +although the boughs or bats or something napped almost angrily against +the window-panes. + + +_"The Pall Mall Gazette," 18 September._ + + THE ESCAPED WOLF. + + PERILOUS ADVENTURE OF OUR INTERVIEWER. + + _Interview with the Keeper in the Zoological Gardens._ + +After many inquiries and almost as many refusals, and perpetually using +the words "Pall Mall Gazette" as a sort of talisman, I managed to find +the keeper of the section of the Zoological Gardens in which the wolf +department is included. Thomas Bilder lives in one of the cottages in +the enclosure behind the elephant-house, and was just sitting down to +his tea when I found him. Thomas and his wife are hospitable folk, +elderly, and without children, and if the specimen I enjoyed of their +hospitality be of the average kind, their lives must be pretty +comfortable. The keeper would not enter on what he called "business" +until the supper was over, and we were all satisfied. Then when the +table was cleared, and he had lit his pipe, he said:-- + +"Now, sir, you can go on and arsk me what you want. You'll excoose me +refoosin' to talk of perfeshunal subjects afore meals. I gives the +wolves and the jackals and the hyenas in all our section their tea afore +I begins to arsk them questions." + +"How do you mean, ask them questions?" I queried, wishful to get him +into a talkative humour. + +"'Ittin' of them over the 'ead with a pole is one way; scratchin' of +their hears is another, when gents as is flush wants a bit of a show-orf +to their gals. I don't so much mind the fust--the 'ittin' with a pole +afore I chucks in their dinner; but I waits till they've 'ad their +sherry and kawffee, so to speak, afore I tries on with the +ear-scratchin'. Mind you," he added philosophically, "there's a deal of +the same nature in us as in them theer animiles. Here's you a-comin' and +arskin' of me questions about my business, and I that grumpy-like that +only for your bloomin' 'arf-quid I'd 'a' seen you blowed fust 'fore I'd +answer. Not even when you arsked me sarcastic-like if I'd like you to +arsk the Superintendent if you might arsk me questions. Without offence +did I tell yer to go to 'ell?" + +"You did." + +"An' when you said you'd report me for usin' of obscene language that +was 'ittin' me over the 'ead; but the 'arf-quid made that all right. I +weren't a-goin' to fight, so I waited for the food, and did with my 'owl +as the wolves, and lions, and tigers does. But, Lor' love yer 'art, now +that the old 'ooman has stuck a chunk of her tea-cake in me, an' rinsed +me out with her bloomin' old teapot, and I've lit hup, you may scratch +my ears for all you're worth, and won't git even a growl out of me. +Drive along with your questions. I know what yer a-comin' at, that 'ere +escaped wolf." + +"Exactly. I want you to give me your view of it. Just tell me how it +happened; and when I know the facts I'll get you to say what you +consider was the cause of it, and how you think the whole affair will +end." + +"All right, guv'nor. This 'ere is about the 'ole story. That 'ere wolf +what we called Bersicker was one of three grey ones that came from +Norway to Jamrach's, which we bought off him four years ago. He was a +nice well-behaved wolf, that never gave no trouble to talk of. I'm more +surprised at 'im for wantin' to get out nor any other animile in the +place. But, there, you can't trust wolves no more nor women." + +"Don't you mind him, sir!" broke in Mrs. Tom, with a cheery laugh. "'E's +got mindin' the animiles so long that blest if he ain't like a old wolf +'isself! But there ain't no 'arm in 'im." + +"Well, sir, it was about two hours after feedin' yesterday when I first +hear my disturbance. I was makin' up a litter in the monkey-house for a +young puma which is ill; but when I heard the yelpin' and 'owlin' I kem +away straight. There was Bersicker a-tearin' like a mad thing at the +bars as if he wanted to get out. There wasn't much people about that +day, and close at hand was only one man, a tall, thin chap, with a 'ook +nose and a pointed beard, with a few white hairs runnin' through it. He +had a 'ard, cold look and red eyes, and I took a sort of mislike to him, +for it seemed as if it was 'im as they was hirritated at. He 'ad white +kid gloves on 'is 'ands, and he pointed out the animiles to me and says: +'Keeper, these wolves seem upset at something.' + +"'Maybe it's you,' says I, for I did not like the airs as he give +'isself. He didn't git angry, as I 'oped he would, but he smiled a kind +of insolent smile, with a mouth full of white, sharp teeth. 'Oh no, they +wouldn't like me,' 'e says. + +"'Ow yes, they would,' says I, a-imitatin' of him. 'They always likes a +bone or two to clean their teeth on about tea-time, which you 'as a +bagful.' + +"Well, it was a odd thing, but when the animiles see us a-talkin' they +lay down, and when I went over to Bersicker he let me stroke his ears +same as ever. That there man kem over, and blessed but if he didn't put +in his hand and stroke the old wolf's ears too! + +"'Tyke care,' says I. 'Bersicker is quick.' + +"'Never mind,' he says. 'I'm used to 'em!' + +"'Are you in the business yourself?' I says, tyking off my 'at, for a +man what trades in wolves, anceterer, is a good friend to keepers. + +"'No' says he, 'not exactly in the business, but I 'ave made pets of +several.' And with that he lifts his 'at as perlite as a lord, and walks +away. Old Bersicker kep' a-lookin' arter 'im till 'e was out of sight, +and then went and lay down in a corner and wouldn't come hout the 'ole +hevening. Well, larst night, so soon as the moon was hup, the wolves +here all began a-'owling. There warn't nothing for them to 'owl at. +There warn't no one near, except some one that was evidently a-callin' a +dog somewheres out back of the gardings in the Park road. Once or twice +I went out to see that all was right, and it was, and then the 'owling +stopped. Just before twelve o'clock I just took a look round afore +turnin' in, an', bust me, but when I kem opposite to old Bersicker's +cage I see the rails broken and twisted about and the cage empty. And +that's all I know for certing." + +"Did any one else see anything?" + +"One of our gard'ners was a-comin' 'ome about that time from a 'armony, +when he sees a big grey dog comin' out through the garding 'edges. At +least, so he says, but I don't give much for it myself, for if he did 'e +never said a word about it to his missis when 'e got 'ome, and it was +only after the escape of the wolf was made known, and we had been up all +night-a-huntin' of the Park for Bersicker, that he remembered seein' +anything. My own belief was that the 'armony 'ad got into his 'ead." + +"Now, Mr. Bilder, can you account in any way for the escape of the +wolf?" + +"Well, sir," he said, with a suspicious sort of modesty, "I think I can; +but I don't know as 'ow you'd be satisfied with the theory." + +"Certainly I shall. If a man like you, who knows the animals from +experience, can't hazard a good guess at any rate, who is even to try?" + +"Well then, sir, I accounts for it this way; it seems to me that 'ere +wolf escaped--simply because he wanted to get out." + +From the hearty way that both Thomas and his wife laughed at the joke I +could see that it had done service before, and that the whole +explanation was simply an elaborate sell. I couldn't cope in badinage +with the worthy Thomas, but I thought I knew a surer way to his heart, +so I said:-- + +"Now, Mr. Bilder, we'll consider that first half-sovereign worked off, +and this brother of his is waiting to be claimed when you've told me +what you think will happen." + +"Right y'are, sir," he said briskly. "Ye'll excoose me, I know, for +a-chaffin' of ye, but the old woman here winked at me, which was as much +as telling me to go on." + +"Well, I never!" said the old lady. + +"My opinion is this: that 'ere wolf is a-'idin' of, somewheres. The +gard'ner wot didn't remember said he was a-gallopin' northward faster +than a horse could go; but I don't believe him, for, yer see, sir, +wolves don't gallop no more nor dogs does, they not bein' built that +way. Wolves is fine things in a storybook, and I dessay when they gets +in packs and does be chivyin' somethin' that's more afeared than they is +they can make a devil of a noise and chop it up, whatever it is. But, +Lor' bless you, in real life a wolf is only a low creature, not half so +clever or bold as a good dog; and not half a quarter so much fight in +'im. This one ain't been used to fightin' or even to providin' for +hisself, and more like he's somewhere round the Park a-'idin' an' +a-shiverin' of, and, if he thinks at all, wonderin' where he is to get +his breakfast from; or maybe he's got down some area and is in a +coal-cellar. My eye, won't some cook get a rum start when she sees his +green eyes a-shining at her out of the dark! If he can't get food he's +bound to look for it, and mayhap he may chance to light on a butcher's +shop in time. If he doesn't, and some nursemaid goes a-walkin' orf with +a soldier, leavin' of the hinfant in the perambulator--well, then I +shouldn't be surprised if the census is one babby the less. That's +all." + +I was handing him the half-sovereign, when something came bobbing up +against the window, and Mr. Bilder's face doubled its natural length +with surprise. + +"God bless me!" he said. "If there ain't old Bersicker come back by +'isself!" + +He went to the door and opened it; a most unnecessary proceeding it +seemed to me. I have always thought that a wild animal never looks so +well as when some obstacle of pronounced durability is between us; a +personal experience has intensified rather than diminished that idea. + +After all, however, there is nothing like custom, for neither Bilder nor +his wife thought any more of the wolf than I should of a dog. The animal +itself was as peaceful and well-behaved as that father of all +picture-wolves--Red Riding Hood's quondam friend, whilst moving her +confidence in masquerade. + +The whole scene was an unutterable mixture of comedy and pathos. The +wicked wolf that for half a day had paralysed London and set all the +children in the town shivering in their shoes, was there in a sort of +penitent mood, and was received and petted like a sort of vulpine +prodigal son. Old Bilder examined him all over with most tender +solicitude, and when he had finished with his penitent said:-- + +"There, I knew the poor old chap would get into some kind of trouble; +didn't I say it all along? Here's his head all cut and full of broken +glass. 'E's been a-gettin' over some bloomin' wall or other. It's a +shyme that people are allowed to top their walls with broken bottles. +This 'ere's what comes of it. Come along, Bersicker." + +He took the wolf and locked him up in a cage, with a piece of meat that +satisfied, in quantity at any rate, the elementary conditions of the +fatted calf, and went off to report. + +I came off, too, to report the only exclusive information that is given +to-day regarding the strange escapade at the Zoo. + + +_Dr. Seward's Diary._ + +_17 September._--I was engaged after dinner in my study posting up my +books, which, through press of other work and the many visits to Lucy, +had fallen sadly into arrear. Suddenly the door was burst open, and in +rushed my patient, with his face distorted with passion. I was +thunderstruck, for such a thing as a patient getting of his own accord +into the Superintendent's study is almost unknown. Without an instant's +pause he made straight at me. He had a dinner-knife in his hand, and, +as I saw he was dangerous, I tried to keep the table between us. He was +too quick and too strong for me, however; for before I could get my +balance he had struck at me and cut my left wrist rather severely. +Before he could strike again, however, I got in my right and he was +sprawling on his back on the floor. My wrist bled freely, and quite a +little pool trickled on to the carpet. I saw that my friend was not +intent on further effort, and occupied myself binding up my wrist, +keeping a wary eye on the prostrate figure all the time. When the +attendants rushed in, and we turned our attention to him, his employment +positively sickened me. He was lying on his belly on the floor licking +up, like a dog, the blood which had fallen from my wounded wrist. He was +easily secured, and, to my surprise, went with the attendants quite +placidly, simply repeating over and over again: "The blood is the life! +The blood is the life!" + +I cannot afford to lose blood just at present; I have lost too much of +late for my physical good, and then the prolonged strain of Lucy's +illness and its horrible phases is telling on me. I am over-excited and +weary, and I need rest, rest, rest. Happily Van Helsing has not summoned +me, so I need not forego my sleep; to-night I could not well do without +it. + + +_Telegram, Van Helsing, Antwerp, to Seward, Carfax._ + +(Sent to Carfax, Sussex, as no county given; delivered late by +twenty-two hours.) + +"_17 September._--Do not fail to be at Hillingham to-night. If not +watching all the time frequently, visit and see that flowers are as +placed; very important; do not fail. Shall be with you as soon as +possible after arrival." + + +_Dr. Seward's Diary._ + +_18 September._--Just off for train to London. The arrival of Van +Helsing's telegram filled me with dismay. A whole night lost, and I know +by bitter experience what may happen in a night. Of course it is +possible that all may be well, but what _may_ have happened? Surely +there is some horrible doom hanging over us that every possible accident +should thwart us in all we try to do. I shall take this cylinder with +me, and then I can complete my entry on Lucy's phonograph. + + +_Memorandum left by Lucy Westenra._ + +_17 September. Night._--I write this and leave it to be seen, so that no +one may by any chance get into trouble through me. This is an exact +record of what took place to-night. I feel I am dying of weakness, and +have barely strength to write, but it must be done if I die in the +doing. + +I went to bed as usual, taking care that the flowers were placed as Dr. +Van Helsing directed, and soon fell asleep. + +I was waked by the flapping at the window, which had begun after that +sleep-walking on the cliff at Whitby when Mina saved me, and which now I +know so well. I was not afraid, but I did wish that Dr. Seward was in +the next room--as Dr. Van Helsing said he would be--so that I might have +called him. I tried to go to sleep, but could not. Then there came to me +the old fear of sleep, and I determined to keep awake. Perversely sleep +would try to come then when I did not want it; so, as I feared to be +alone, I opened my door and called out: "Is there anybody there?" There +was no answer. I was afraid to wake mother, and so closed my door again. +Then outside in the shrubbery I heard a sort of howl like a dog's, but +more fierce and deeper. I went to the window and looked out, but could +see nothing, except a big bat, which had evidently been buffeting its +wings against the window. So I went back to bed again, but determined +not to go to sleep. Presently the door opened, and mother looked in; +seeing by my moving that I was not asleep, came in, and sat by me. She +said to me even more sweetly and softly than her wont:-- + +"I was uneasy about you, darling, and came in to see that you were all +right." + +I feared she might catch cold sitting there, and asked her to come in +and sleep with me, so she came into bed, and lay down beside me; she did +not take off her dressing gown, for she said she would only stay a while +and then go back to her own bed. As she lay there in my arms, and I in +hers, the flapping and buffeting came to the window again. She was +startled and a little frightened, and cried out: "What is that?" I tried +to pacify her, and at last succeeded, and she lay quiet; but I could +hear her poor dear heart still beating terribly. After a while there was +the low howl again out in the shrubbery, and shortly after there was a +crash at the window, and a lot of broken glass was hurled on the floor. +The window blind blew back with the wind that rushed in, and in the +aperture of the broken panes there was the head of a great, gaunt grey +wolf. Mother cried out in a fright, and struggled up into a sitting +posture, and clutched wildly at anything that would help her. Amongst +other things, she clutched the wreath of flowers that Dr. Van Helsing +insisted on my wearing round my neck, and tore it away from me. For a +second or two she sat up, pointing at the wolf, and there was a strange +and horrible gurgling in her throat; then she fell over--as if struck +with lightning, and her head hit my forehead and made me dizzy for a +moment or two. The room and all round seemed to spin round. I kept my +eyes fixed on the window, but the wolf drew his head back, and a whole +myriad of little specks seemed to come blowing in through the broken +window, and wheeling and circling round like the pillar of dust that +travellers describe when there is a simoon in the desert. I tried to +stir, but there was some spell upon me, and dear mother's poor body, +which seemed to grow cold already--for her dear heart had ceased to +beat--weighed me down; and I remembered no more for a while. + +The time did not seem long, but very, very awful, till I recovered +consciousness again. Somewhere near, a passing bell was tolling; the +dogs all round the neighbourhood were howling; and in our shrubbery, +seemingly just outside, a nightingale was singing. I was dazed and +stupid with pain and terror and weakness, but the sound of the +nightingale seemed like the voice of my dead mother come back to comfort +me. The sounds seemed to have awakened the maids, too, for I could hear +their bare feet pattering outside my door. I called to them, and they +came in, and when they saw what had happened, and what it was that lay +over me on the bed, they screamed out. The wind rushed in through the +broken window, and the door slammed to. They lifted off the body of my +dear mother, and laid her, covered up with a sheet, on the bed after I +had got up. They were all so frightened and nervous that I directed them +to go to the dining-room and have each a glass of wine. The door flew +open for an instant and closed again. The maids shrieked, and then went +in a body to the dining-room; and I laid what flowers I had on my dear +mother's breast. When they were there I remembered what Dr. Van Helsing +had told me, but I didn't like to remove them, and, besides, I would +have some of the servants to sit up with me now. I was surprised that +the maids did not come back. I called them, but got no answer, so I went +to the dining-room to look for them. + +My heart sank when I saw what had happened. They all four lay helpless +on the floor, breathing heavily. The decanter of sherry was on the table +half full, but there was a queer, acrid smell about. I was suspicious, +and examined the decanter. It smelt of laudanum, and looking on the +sideboard, I found that the bottle which mother's doctor uses for +her--oh! did use--was empty. What am I to do? what am I to do? I am back +in the room with mother. I cannot leave her, and I am alone, save for +the sleeping servants, whom some one has drugged. Alone with the dead! I +dare not go out, for I can hear the low howl of the wolf through the +broken window. + +The air seems full of specks, floating and circling in the draught from +the window, and the lights burn blue and dim. What am I to do? God +shield me from harm this night! I shall hide this paper in my breast, +where they shall find it when they come to lay me out. My dear mother +gone! It is time that I go too. Good-bye, dear Arthur, if I should not +survive this night. God keep you, dear, and God help me! + + + + +CHAPTER XII + +DR. SEWARD'S DIARY + + +_18 September._--I drove at once to Hillingham and arrived early. +Keeping my cab at the gate, I went up the avenue alone. I knocked gently +and rang as quietly as possible, for I feared to disturb Lucy or her +mother, and hoped to only bring a servant to the door. After a while, +finding no response, I knocked and rang again; still no answer. I cursed +the laziness of the servants that they should lie abed at such an +hour--for it was now ten o'clock--and so rang and knocked again, but +more impatiently, but still without response. Hitherto I had blamed only +the servants, but now a terrible fear began to assail me. Was this +desolation but another link in the chain of doom which seemed drawing +tight around us? Was it indeed a house of death to which I had come, too +late? I knew that minutes, even seconds of delay, might mean hours of +danger to Lucy, if she had had again one of those frightful relapses; +and I went round the house to try if I could find by chance an entry +anywhere. + +I could find no means of ingress. Every window and door was fastened and +locked, and I returned baffled to the porch. As I did so, I heard the +rapid pit-pat of a swiftly driven horse's feet. They stopped at the +gate, and a few seconds later I met Van Helsing running up the avenue. +When he saw me, he gasped out:-- + +"Then it was you, and just arrived. How is she? Are we too late? Did you +not get my telegram?" + +I answered as quickly and coherently as I could that I had only got his +telegram early in the morning, and had not lost a minute in coming here, +and that I could not make any one in the house hear me. He paused and +raised his hat as he said solemnly:-- + +"Then I fear we are too late. God's will be done!" With his usual +recuperative energy, he went on: "Come. If there be no way open to get +in, we must make one. Time is all in all to us now." + +We went round to the back of the house, where there was a kitchen +window. The Professor took a small surgical saw from his case, and +handing it to me, pointed to the iron bars which guarded the window. I +attacked them at once and had very soon cut through three of them. Then +with a long, thin knife we pushed back the fastening of the sashes and +opened the window. I helped the Professor in, and followed him. There +was no one in the kitchen or in the servants' rooms, which were close at +hand. We tried all the rooms as we went along, and in the dining-room, +dimly lit by rays of light through the shutters, found four +servant-women lying on the floor. There was no need to think them dead, +for their stertorous breathing and the acrid smell of laudanum in the +room left no doubt as to their condition. Van Helsing and I looked at +each other, and as we moved away he said: "We can attend to them later." +Then we ascended to Lucy's room. For an instant or two we paused at the +door to listen, but there was no sound that we could hear. With white +faces and trembling hands, we opened the door gently, and entered the +room. + +How shall I describe what we saw? On the bed lay two women, Lucy and her +mother. The latter lay farthest in, and she was covered with a white +sheet, the edge of which had been blown back by the draught through the +broken window, showing the drawn, white face, with a look of terror +fixed upon it. By her side lay Lucy, with face white and still more +drawn. The flowers which had been round her neck we found upon her +mother's bosom, and her throat was bare, showing the two little wounds +which we had noticed before, but looking horribly white and mangled. +Without a word the Professor bent over the bed, his head almost touching +poor Lucy's breast; then he gave a quick turn of his head, as of one who +listens, and leaping to his feet, he cried out to me:-- + +"It is not yet too late! Quick! quick! Bring the brandy!" + +I flew downstairs and returned with it, taking care to smell and taste +it, lest it, too, were drugged like the decanter of sherry which I found +on the table. The maids were still breathing, but more restlessly, and I +fancied that the narcotic was wearing off. I did not stay to make sure, +but returned to Van Helsing. He rubbed the brandy, as on another +occasion, on her lips and gums and on her wrists and the palms of her +hands. He said to me:-- + +"I can do this, all that can be at the present. You go wake those maids. +Flick them in the face with a wet towel, and flick them hard. Make them +get heat and fire and a warm bath. This poor soul is nearly as cold as +that beside her. She will need be heated before we can do anything +more." + +I went at once, and found little difficulty in waking three of the +women. The fourth was only a young girl, and the drug had evidently +affected her more strongly, so I lifted her on the sofa and let her +sleep. The others were dazed at first, but as remembrance came back to +them they cried and sobbed in a hysterical manner. I was stern with +them, however, and would not let them talk. I told them that one life +was bad enough to lose, and that if they delayed they would sacrifice +Miss Lucy. So, sobbing and crying, they went about their way, half clad +as they were, and prepared fire and water. Fortunately, the kitchen and +boiler fires were still alive, and there was no lack of hot water. We +got a bath and carried Lucy out as she was and placed her in it. Whilst +we were busy chafing her limbs there was a knock at the hall door. One +of the maids ran off, hurried on some more clothes, and opened it. Then +she returned and whispered to us that there was a gentleman who had come +with a message from Mr. Holmwood. I bade her simply tell him that he +must wait, for we could see no one now. She went away with the message, +and, engrossed with our work, I clean forgot all about him. + +I never saw in all my experience the Professor work in such deadly +earnest. I knew--as he knew--that it was a stand-up fight with death, +and in a pause told him so. He answered me in a way that I did not +understand, but with the sternest look that his face could wear:-- + +"If that were all, I would stop here where we are now, and let her fade +away into peace, for I see no light in life over her horizon." He went +on with his work with, if possible, renewed and more frenzied vigour. + +Presently we both began to be conscious that the heat was beginning to +be of some effect. Lucy's heart beat a trifle more audibly to the +stethoscope, and her lungs had a perceptible movement. Van Helsing's +face almost beamed, and as we lifted her from the bath and rolled her in +a hot sheet to dry her he said to me:-- + +"The first gain is ours! Check to the King!" + +We took Lucy into another room, which had by now been prepared, and laid +her in bed and forced a few drops of brandy down her throat. I noticed +that Van Helsing tied a soft silk handkerchief round her throat. She was +still unconscious, and was quite as bad as, if not worse than, we had +ever seen her. + +Van Helsing called in one of the women, and told her to stay with her +and not to take her eyes off her till we returned, and then beckoned me +out of the room. + +"We must consult as to what is to be done," he said as we descended the +stairs. In the hall he opened the dining-room door, and we passed in, he +closing the door carefully behind him. The shutters had been opened, but +the blinds were already down, with that obedience to the etiquette of +death which the British woman of the lower classes always rigidly +observes. The room was, therefore, dimly dark. It was, however, light +enough for our purposes. Van Helsing's sternness was somewhat relieved +by a look of perplexity. He was evidently torturing his mind about +something, so I waited for an instant, and he spoke:-- + +"What are we to do now? Where are we to turn for help? We must have +another transfusion of blood, and that soon, or that poor girl's life +won't be worth an hour's purchase. You are exhausted already; I am +exhausted too. I fear to trust those women, even if they would have +courage to submit. What are we to do for some one who will open his +veins for her?" + +"What's the matter with me, anyhow?" + +The voice came from the sofa across the room, and its tones brought +relief and joy to my heart, for they were those of Quincey Morris. Van +Helsing started angrily at the first sound, but his face softened and a +glad look came into his eyes as I cried out: "Quincey Morris!" and +rushed towards him with outstretched hands. + +"What brought you here?" I cried as our hands met. + +"I guess Art is the cause." + +He handed me a telegram:-- + +"Have not heard from Seward for three days, and am terribly anxious. +Cannot leave. Father still in same condition. Send me word how Lucy is. +Do not delay.--HOLMWOOD." + +"I think I came just in the nick of time. You know you have only to tell +me what to do." + +Van Helsing strode forward, and took his hand, looking him straight in +the eyes as he said:-- + +"A brave man's blood is the best thing on this earth when a woman is in +trouble. You're a man and no mistake. Well, the devil may work against +us for all he's worth, but God sends us men when we want them." + +Once again we went through that ghastly operation. I have not the heart +to go through with the details. Lucy had got a terrible shock and it +told on her more than before, for though plenty of blood went into her +veins, her body did not respond to the treatment as well as on the other +occasions. Her struggle back into life was something frightful to see +and hear. However, the action of both heart and lungs improved, and Van +Helsing made a subcutaneous injection of morphia, as before, and with +good effect. Her faint became a profound slumber. The Professor watched +whilst I went downstairs with Quincey Morris, and sent one of the maids +to pay off one of the cabmen who were waiting. I left Quincey lying down +after having a glass of wine, and told the cook to get ready a good +breakfast. Then a thought struck me, and I went back to the room where +Lucy now was. When I came softly in, I found Van Helsing with a sheet or +two of note-paper in his hand. He had evidently read it, and was +thinking it over as he sat with his hand to his brow. There was a look +of grim satisfaction in his face, as of one who has had a doubt solved. +He handed me the paper saying only: "It dropped from Lucy's breast when +we carried her to the bath." + +When I had read it, I stood looking at the Professor, and after a pause +asked him: "In God's name, what does it all mean? Was she, or is she, +mad; or what sort of horrible danger is it?" I was so bewildered that I +did not know what to say more. Van Helsing put out his hand and took the +paper, saying:-- + +"Do not trouble about it now. Forget it for the present. You shall know +and understand it all in good time; but it will be later. And now what +is it that you came to me to say?" This brought me back to fact, and I +was all myself again. + +"I came to speak about the certificate of death. If we do not act +properly and wisely, there may be an inquest, and that paper would have +to be produced. I am in hopes that we need have no inquest, for if we +had it would surely kill poor Lucy, if nothing else did. I know, and you +know, and the other doctor who attended her knows, that Mrs. Westenra +had disease of the heart, and we can certify that she died of it. Let us +fill up the certificate at once, and I shall take it myself to the +registrar and go on to the undertaker." + +"Good, oh my friend John! Well thought of! Truly Miss Lucy, if she be +sad in the foes that beset her, is at least happy in the friends that +love her. One, two, three, all open their veins for her, besides one old +man. Ah yes, I know, friend John; I am not blind! I love you all the +more for it! Now go." + +In the hall I met Quincey Morris, with a telegram for Arthur telling him +that Mrs. Westenra was dead; that Lucy also had been ill, but was now +going on better; and that Van Helsing and I were with her. I told him +where I was going, and he hurried me out, but as I was going said:-- + +"When you come back, Jack, may I have two words with you all to +ourselves?" I nodded in reply and went out. I found no difficulty about +the registration, and arranged with the local undertaker to come up in +the evening to measure for the coffin and to make arrangements. + +When I got back Quincey was waiting for me. I told him I would see him +as soon as I knew about Lucy, and went up to her room. She was still +sleeping, and the Professor seemingly had not moved from his seat at her +side. From his putting his finger to his lips, I gathered that he +expected her to wake before long and was afraid of forestalling nature. +So I went down to Quincey and took him into the breakfast-room, where +the blinds were not drawn down, and which was a little more cheerful, or +rather less cheerless, than the other rooms. When we were alone, he said +to me:-- + +"Jack Seward, I don't want to shove myself in anywhere where I've no +right to be; but this is no ordinary case. You know I loved that girl +and wanted to marry her; but, although that's all past and gone, I can't +help feeling anxious about her all the same. What is it that's wrong +with her? The Dutchman--and a fine old fellow he is; I can see +that--said, that time you two came into the room, that you must have +_another_ transfusion of blood, and that both you and he were exhausted. +Now I know well that you medical men speak _in camera_, and that a man +must not expect to know what they consult about in private. But this is +no common matter, and, whatever it is, I have done my part. Is not that +so?" + +"That's so," I said, and he went on:-- + +"I take it that both you and Van Helsing had done already what I did +to-day. Is not that so?" + +"That's so." + +"And I guess Art was in it too. When I saw him four days ago down at his +own place he looked queer. I have not seen anything pulled down so quick +since I was on the Pampas and had a mare that I was fond of go to grass +all in a night. One of those big bats that they call vampires had got at +her in the night, and what with his gorge and the vein left open, there +wasn't enough blood in her to let her stand up, and I had to put a +bullet through her as she lay. Jack, if you may tell me without +betraying confidence, Arthur was the first, is not that so?" As he spoke +the poor fellow looked terribly anxious. He was in a torture of suspense +regarding the woman he loved, and his utter ignorance of the terrible +mystery which seemed to surround her intensified his pain. His very +heart was bleeding, and it took all the manhood of him--and there was a +royal lot of it, too--to keep him from breaking down. I paused before +answering, for I felt that I must not betray anything which the +Professor wished kept secret; but already he knew so much, and guessed +so much, that there could be no reason for not answering, so I answered +in the same phrase: "That's so." + +"And how long has this been going on?" + +"About ten days." + +"Ten days! Then I guess, Jack Seward, that that poor pretty creature +that we all love has had put into her veins within that time the blood +of four strong men. Man alive, her whole body wouldn't hold it." Then, +coming close to me, he spoke in a fierce half-whisper: "What took it +out?" + +I shook my head. "That," I said, "is the crux. Van Helsing is simply +frantic about it, and I am at my wits' end. I can't even hazard a guess. +There has been a series of little circumstances which have thrown out +all our calculations as to Lucy being properly watched. But these shall +not occur again. Here we stay until all be well--or ill." Quincey held +out his hand. "Count me in," he said. "You and the Dutchman will tell me +what to do, and I'll do it." + +When she woke late in the afternoon, Lucy's first movement was to feel +in her breast, and, to my surprise, produced the paper which Van Helsing +had given me to read. The careful Professor had replaced it where it had +come from, lest on waking she should be alarmed. Her eye then lit on Van +Helsing and on me too, and gladdened. Then she looked around the room, +and seeing where she was, shuddered; she gave a loud cry, and put her +poor thin hands before her pale face. We both understood what that +meant--that she had realised to the full her mother's death; so we tried +what we could to comfort her. Doubtless sympathy eased her somewhat, but +she was very low in thought and spirit, and wept silently and weakly for +a long time. We told her that either or both of us would now remain with +her all the time, and that seemed to comfort her. Towards dusk she fell +into a doze. Here a very odd thing occurred. Whilst still asleep she +took the paper from her breast and tore it in two. Van Helsing stepped +over and took the pieces from her. All the same, however, she went on +with the action of tearing, as though the material were still in her +hands; finally she lifted her hands and opened them as though scattering +the fragments. Van Helsing seemed surprised, and his brows gathered as +if in thought, but he said nothing. + + * * * * * + +_19 September._--All last night she slept fitfully, being always afraid +to sleep, and something weaker when she woke from it. The Professor and +I took it in turns to watch, and we never left her for a moment +unattended. Quincey Morris said nothing about his intention, but I knew +that all night long he patrolled round and round the house. + +When the day came, its searching light showed the ravages in poor Lucy's +strength. She was hardly able to turn her head, and the little +nourishment which she could take seemed to do her no good. At times she +slept, and both Van Helsing and I noticed the difference in her, between +sleeping and waking. Whilst asleep she looked stronger, although more +haggard, and her breathing was softer; her open mouth showed the pale +gums drawn back from the teeth, which thus looked positively longer and +sharper than usual; when she woke the softness of her eyes evidently +changed the expression, for she looked her own self, although a dying +one. In the afternoon she asked for Arthur, and we telegraphed for him. +Quincey went off to meet him at the station. + +When he arrived it was nearly six o'clock, and the sun was setting full +and warm, and the red light streamed in through the window and gave more +colour to the pale cheeks. When he saw her, Arthur was simply choking +with emotion, and none of us could speak. In the hours that had passed, +the fits of sleep, or the comatose condition that passed for it, had +grown more frequent, so that the pauses when conversation was possible +were shortened. Arthur's presence, however, seemed to act as a +stimulant; she rallied a little, and spoke to him more brightly than she +had done since we arrived. He too pulled himself together, and spoke as +cheerily as he could, so that the best was made of everything. + +It was now nearly one o'clock, and he and Van Helsing are sitting with +her. I am to relieve them in a quarter of an hour, and I am entering +this on Lucy's phonograph. Until six o'clock they are to try to rest. I +fear that to-morrow will end our watching, for the shock has been too +great; the poor child cannot rally. God help us all. + + +_Letter, Mina Harker to Lucy Westenra._ + +(Unopened by her.) + +"_17 September._ + +"My dearest Lucy,-- + +"It seems _an age_ since I heard from you, or indeed since I wrote. You +will pardon me, I know, for all my faults when you have read all my +budget of news. Well, I got my husband back all right; when we arrived +at Exeter there was a carriage waiting for us, and in it, though he had +an attack of gout, Mr. Hawkins. He took us to his house, where there +were rooms for us all nice and comfortable, and we dined together. After +dinner Mr. Hawkins said:-- + +"'My dears, I want to drink your health and prosperity; and may every +blessing attend you both. I know you both from children, and have, with +love and pride, seen you grow up. Now I want you to make your home here +with me. I have left to me neither chick nor child; all are gone, and in +my will I have left you everything.' I cried, Lucy dear, as Jonathan and +the old man clasped hands. Our evening was a very, very happy one. + +"So here we are, installed in this beautiful old house, and from both my +bedroom and the drawing-room I can see the great elms of the cathedral +close, with their great black stems standing out against the old yellow +stone of the cathedral and I can hear the rooks overhead cawing and +cawing and chattering and gossiping all day, after the manner of +rooks--and humans. I am busy, I need not tell you, arranging things and +housekeeping. Jonathan and Mr. Hawkins are busy all day; for, now that +Jonathan is a partner, Mr. Hawkins wants to tell him all about the +clients. + +"How is your dear mother getting on? I wish I could run up to town for a +day or two to see you, dear, but I dare not go yet, with so much on my +shoulders; and Jonathan wants looking after still. He is beginning to +put some flesh on his bones again, but he was terribly weakened by the +long illness; even now he sometimes starts out of his sleep in a sudden +way and awakes all trembling until I can coax him back to his usual +placidity. However, thank God, these occasions grow less frequent as the +days go on, and they will in time pass away altogether, I trust. And now +I have told you my news, let me ask yours. When are you to be married, +and where, and who is to perform the ceremony, and what are you to wear, +and is it to be a public or a private wedding? Tell me all about it, +dear; tell me all about everything, for there is nothing which interests +you which will not be dear to me. Jonathan asks me to send his +'respectful duty,' but I do not think that is good enough from the +junior partner of the important firm Hawkins & Harker; and so, as you +love me, and he loves me, and I love you with all the moods and tenses +of the verb, I send you simply his 'love' instead. Good-bye, my dearest +Lucy, and all blessings on you. + +"Yours, + +"MINA HARKER." + + +_Report from Patrick Hennessey, M. D., M. R. C. S. L. K. Q. C. P. I., +etc., etc., to John Seward, M. D._ + +"_20 September._ + +"My dear Sir,-- + +"In accordance with your wishes, I enclose report of the conditions of +everything left in my charge.... With regard to patient, Renfield, there +is more to say. He has had another outbreak, which might have had a +dreadful ending, but which, as it fortunately happened, was unattended +with any unhappy results. This afternoon a carrier's cart with two men +made a call at the empty house whose grounds abut on ours--the house to +which, you will remember, the patient twice ran away. The men stopped at +our gate to ask the porter their way, as they were strangers. I was +myself looking out of the study window, having a smoke after dinner, and +saw one of them come up to the house. As he passed the window of +Renfield's room, the patient began to rate him from within, and called +him all the foul names he could lay his tongue to. The man, who seemed a +decent fellow enough, contented himself by telling him to "shut up for a +foul-mouthed beggar," whereon our man accused him of robbing him and +wanting to murder him and said that he would hinder him if he were to +swing for it. I opened the window and signed to the man not to notice, +so he contented himself after looking the place over and making up his +mind as to what kind of a place he had got to by saying: 'Lor' bless +yer, sir, I wouldn't mind what was said to me in a bloomin' madhouse. I +pity ye and the guv'nor for havin' to live in the house with a wild +beast like that.' Then he asked his way civilly enough, and I told him +where the gate of the empty house was; he went away, followed by threats +and curses and revilings from our man. I went down to see if I could +make out any cause for his anger, since he is usually such a +well-behaved man, and except his violent fits nothing of the kind had +ever occurred. I found him, to my astonishment, quite composed and most +genial in his manner. I tried to get him to talk of the incident, but he +blandly asked me questions as to what I meant, and led me to believe +that he was completely oblivious of the affair. It was, I am sorry to +say, however, only another instance of his cunning, for within half an +hour I heard of him again. This time he had broken out through the +window of his room, and was running down the avenue. I called to the +attendants to follow me, and ran after him, for I feared he was intent +on some mischief. My fear was justified when I saw the same cart which +had passed before coming down the road, having on it some great wooden +boxes. The men were wiping their foreheads, and were flushed in the +face, as if with violent exercise. Before I could get up to him the +patient rushed at them, and pulling one of them off the cart, began to +knock his head against the ground. If I had not seized him just at the +moment I believe he would have killed the man there and then. The other +fellow jumped down and struck him over the head with the butt-end of his +heavy whip. It was a terrible blow; but he did not seem to mind it, but +seized him also, and struggled with the three of us, pulling us to and +fro as if we were kittens. You know I am no light weight, and the others +were both burly men. At first he was silent in his fighting; but as we +began to master him, and the attendants were putting a strait-waistcoat +on him, he began to shout: 'I'll frustrate them! They shan't rob me! +they shan't murder me by inches! I'll fight for my Lord and Master!' and +all sorts of similar incoherent ravings. It was with very considerable +difficulty that they got him back to the house and put him in the padded +room. One of the attendants, Hardy, had a finger broken. However, I set +it all right; and he is going on well. + +"The two carriers were at first loud in their threats of actions for +damages, and promised to rain all the penalties of the law on us. Their +threats were, however, mingled with some sort of indirect apology for +the defeat of the two of them by a feeble madman. They said that if it +had not been for the way their strength had been spent in carrying and +raising the heavy boxes to the cart they would have made short work of +him. They gave as another reason for their defeat the extraordinary +state of drouth to which they had been reduced by the dusty nature of +their occupation and the reprehensible distance from the scene of their +labours of any place of public entertainment. I quite understood their +drift, and after a stiff glass of grog, or rather more of the same, and +with each a sovereign in hand, they made light of the attack, and swore +that they would encounter a worse madman any day for the pleasure of +meeting so 'bloomin' good a bloke' as your correspondent. I took their +names and addresses, in case they might be needed. They are as +follows:--Jack Smollet, of Dudding's Rents, King George's Road, Great +Walworth, and Thomas Snelling, Peter Farley's Row, Guide Court, Bethnal +Green. They are both in the employment of Harris & Sons, Moving and +Shipment Company, Orange Master's Yard, Soho. + +"I shall report to you any matter of interest occurring here, and shall +wire you at once if there is anything of importance. + +"Believe me, dear Sir, + +"Yours faithfully, + +"PATRICK HENNESSEY." + + +_Letter, Mina Harker to Lucy Westenra_. + +(Unopened by her.) + +"_18 September._ + +"My dearest Lucy,-- + +"Such a sad blow has befallen us. Mr. Hawkins has died very suddenly. +Some may not think it so sad for us, but we had both come to so love him +that it really seems as though we had lost a father. I never knew either +father or mother, so that the dear old man's death is a real blow to me. +Jonathan is greatly distressed. It is not only that he feels sorrow, +deep sorrow, for the dear, good man who has befriended him all his life, +and now at the end has treated him like his own son and left him a +fortune which to people of our modest bringing up is wealth beyond the +dream of avarice, but Jonathan feels it on another account. He says the +amount of responsibility which it puts upon him makes him nervous. He +begins to doubt himself. I try to cheer him up, and _my_ belief in _him_ +helps him to have a belief in himself. But it is here that the grave +shock that he experienced tells upon him the most. Oh, it is too hard +that a sweet, simple, noble, strong nature such as his--a nature which +enabled him by our dear, good friend's aid to rise from clerk to master +in a few years--should be so injured that the very essence of its +strength is gone. Forgive me, dear, if I worry you with my troubles in +the midst of your own happiness; but, Lucy dear, I must tell some one, +for the strain of keeping up a brave and cheerful appearance to Jonathan +tries me, and I have no one here that I can confide in. I dread coming +up to London, as we must do the day after to-morrow; for poor Mr. +Hawkins left in his will that he was to be buried in the grave with his +father. As there are no relations at all, Jonathan will have to be chief +mourner. I shall try to run over to see you, dearest, if only for a few +minutes. Forgive me for troubling you. With all blessings, + +"Your loving + +"MINA HARKER." + + +_Dr. Seward's Diary._ + +_20 September._--Only resolution and habit can let me make an entry +to-night. I am too miserable, too low-spirited, too sick of the world +and all in it, including life itself, that I would not care if I heard +this moment the flapping of the wings of the angel of death. And he has +been flapping those grim wings to some purpose of late--Lucy's mother +and Arthur's father, and now.... Let me get on with my work. + +I duly relieved Van Helsing in his watch over Lucy. We wanted Arthur to +go to rest also, but he refused at first. It was only when I told him +that we should want him to help us during the day, and that we must not +all break down for want of rest, lest Lucy should suffer, that he agreed +to go. Van Helsing was very kind to him. "Come, my child," he said; +"come with me. You are sick and weak, and have had much sorrow and much +mental pain, as well as that tax on your strength that we know of. You +must not be alone; for to be alone is to be full of fears and alarms. +Come to the drawing-room, where there is a big fire, and there are two +sofas. You shall lie on one, and I on the other, and our sympathy will +be comfort to each other, even though we do not speak, and even if we +sleep." Arthur went off with him, casting back a longing look on Lucy's +face, which lay in her pillow, almost whiter than the lawn. She lay +quite still, and I looked round the room to see that all was as it +should be. I could see that the Professor had carried out in this room, +as in the other, his purpose of using the garlic; the whole of the +window-sashes reeked with it, and round Lucy's neck, over the silk +handkerchief which Van Helsing made her keep on, was a rough chaplet of +the same odorous flowers. Lucy was breathing somewhat stertorously, and +her face was at its worst, for the open mouth showed the pale gums. Her +teeth, in the dim, uncertain light, seemed longer and sharper than they +had been in the morning. In particular, by some trick of the light, the +canine teeth looked longer and sharper than the rest. I sat down by her, +and presently she moved uneasily. At the same moment there came a sort +of dull flapping or buffeting at the window. I went over to it softly, +and peeped out by the corner of the blind. There was a full moonlight, +and I could see that the noise was made by a great bat, which wheeled +round--doubtless attracted by the light, although so dim--and every now +and again struck the window with its wings. When I came back to my seat, +I found that Lucy had moved slightly, and had torn away the garlic +flowers from her throat. I replaced them as well as I could, and sat +watching her. + +Presently she woke, and I gave her food, as Van Helsing had prescribed. +She took but a little, and that languidly. There did not seem to be with +her now the unconscious struggle for life and strength that had hitherto +so marked her illness. It struck me as curious that the moment she +became conscious she pressed the garlic flowers close to her. It was +certainly odd that whenever she got into that lethargic state, with the +stertorous breathing, she put the flowers from her; but that when she +waked she clutched them close. There was no possibility of making any +mistake about this, for in the long hours that followed, she had many +spells of sleeping and waking and repeated both actions many times. + +At six o'clock Van Helsing came to relieve me. Arthur had then fallen +into a doze, and he mercifully let him sleep on. When he saw Lucy's face +I could hear the sissing indraw of his breath, and he said to me in a +sharp whisper: "Draw up the blind; I want light!" Then he bent down, +and, with his face almost touching Lucy's, examined her carefully. He +removed the flowers and lifted the silk handkerchief from her throat. As +he did so he started back, and I could hear his ejaculation, "Mein +Gott!" as it was smothered in his throat. I bent over and looked, too, +and as I noticed some queer chill came over me. + +The wounds on the throat had absolutely disappeared. + +For fully five minutes Van Helsing stood looking at her, with his face +at its sternest. Then he turned to me and said calmly:-- + +"She is dying. It will not be long now. It will be much difference, mark +me, whether she dies conscious or in her sleep. Wake that poor boy, and +let him come and see the last; he trusts us, and we have promised him." + +I went to the dining-room and waked him. He was dazed for a moment, but +when he saw the sunlight streaming in through the edges of the shutters +he thought he was late, and expressed his fear. I assured him that Lucy +was still asleep, but told him as gently as I could that both Van +Helsing and I feared that the end was near. He covered his face with his +hands, and slid down on his knees by the sofa, where he remained, +perhaps a minute, with his head buried, praying, whilst his shoulders +shook with grief. I took him by the hand and raised him up. "Come," I +said, "my dear old fellow, summon all your fortitude: it will be best +and easiest for her." + +When we came into Lucy's room I could see that Van Helsing had, with +his usual forethought, been putting matters straight and making +everything look as pleasing as possible. He had even brushed Lucy's +hair, so that it lay on the pillow in its usual sunny ripples. When we +came into the room she opened her eyes, and seeing him, whispered +softly:-- + +"Arthur! Oh, my love, I am so glad you have come!" He was stooping to +kiss her, when Van Helsing motioned him back. "No," he whispered, "not +yet! Hold her hand; it will comfort her more." + +So Arthur took her hand and knelt beside her, and she looked her best, +with all the soft lines matching the angelic beauty of her eyes. Then +gradually her eyes closed, and she sank to sleep. For a little bit her +breast heaved softly, and her breath came and went like a tired child's. + +And then insensibly there came the strange change which I had noticed in +the night. Her breathing grew stertorous, the mouth opened, and the pale +gums, drawn back, made the teeth look longer and sharper than ever. In a +sort of sleep-waking, vague, unconscious way she opened her eyes, which +were now dull and hard at once, and said in a soft, voluptuous voice, +such as I had never heard from her lips:-- + +"Arthur! Oh, my love, I am so glad you have come! Kiss me!" Arthur bent +eagerly over to kiss her; but at that instant Van Helsing, who, like me, +had been startled by her voice, swooped upon him, and catching him by +the neck with both hands, dragged him back with a fury of strength which +I never thought he could have possessed, and actually hurled him almost +across the room. + +"Not for your life!" he said; "not for your living soul and hers!" And +he stood between them like a lion at bay. + +Arthur was so taken aback that he did not for a moment know what to do +or say; and before any impulse of violence could seize him he realised +the place and the occasion, and stood silent, waiting. + +I kept my eyes fixed on Lucy, as did Van Helsing, and we saw a spasm as +of rage flit like a shadow over her face; the sharp teeth champed +together. Then her eyes closed, and she breathed heavily. + +Very shortly after she opened her eyes in all their softness, and +putting out her poor, pale, thin hand, took Van Helsing's great brown +one; drawing it to her, she kissed it. "My true friend," she said, in a +faint voice, but with untellable pathos, "My true friend, and his! Oh, +guard him, and give me peace!" + +"I swear it!" he said solemnly, kneeling beside her and holding up his +hand, as one who registers an oath. Then he turned to Arthur, and said +to him: "Come, my child, take her hand in yours, and kiss her on the +forehead, and only once." + +Their eyes met instead of their lips; and so they parted. + +Lucy's eyes closed; and Van Helsing, who had been watching closely, took +Arthur's arm, and drew him away. + +And then Lucy's breathing became stertorous again, and all at once it +ceased. + +"It is all over," said Van Helsing. "She is dead!" + +I took Arthur by the arm, and led him away to the drawing-room, where he +sat down, and covered his face with his hands, sobbing in a way that +nearly broke me down to see. + +I went back to the room, and found Van Helsing looking at poor Lucy, and +his face was sterner than ever. Some change had come over her body. +Death had given back part of her beauty, for her brow and cheeks had +recovered some of their flowing lines; even the lips had lost their +deadly pallor. It was as if the blood, no longer needed for the working +of the heart, had gone to make the harshness of death as little rude as +might be. + + "We thought her dying whilst she slept, + And sleeping when she died." + +I stood beside Van Helsing, and said:-- + +"Ah, well, poor girl, there is peace for her at last. It is the end!" + +He turned to me, and said with grave solemnity:-- + +"Not so; alas! not so. It is only the beginning!" + +When I asked him what he meant, he only shook his head and answered:-- + +"We can do nothing as yet. Wait and see." + + + + +CHAPTER XIII + +DR. SEWARD'S DIARY--_continued_. + + +The funeral was arranged for the next succeeding day, so that Lucy and +her mother might be buried together. I attended to all the ghastly +formalities, and the urbane undertaker proved that his staff were +afflicted--or blessed--with something of his own obsequious suavity. +Even the woman who performed the last offices for the dead remarked to +me, in a confidential, brother-professional way, when she had come out +from the death-chamber:-- + +"She makes a very beautiful corpse, sir. It's quite a privilege to +attend on her. It's not too much to say that she will do credit to our +establishment!" + +I noticed that Van Helsing never kept far away. This was possible from +the disordered state of things in the household. There were no relatives +at hand; and as Arthur had to be back the next day to attend at his +father's funeral, we were unable to notify any one who should have been +bidden. Under the circumstances, Van Helsing and I took it upon +ourselves to examine papers, etc. He insisted upon looking over Lucy's +papers himself. I asked him why, for I feared that he, being a +foreigner, might not be quite aware of English legal requirements, and +so might in ignorance make some unnecessary trouble. He answered me:-- + +"I know; I know. You forget that I am a lawyer as well as a doctor. But +this is not altogether for the law. You knew that, when you avoided the +coroner. I have more than him to avoid. There may be papers more--such +as this." + +As he spoke he took from his pocket-book the memorandum which had been +in Lucy's breast, and which she had torn in her sleep. + +"When you find anything of the solicitor who is for the late Mrs. +Westenra, seal all her papers, and write him to-night. For me, I watch +here in the room and in Miss Lucy's old room all night, and I myself +search for what may be. It is not well that her very thoughts go into +the hands of strangers." + +I went on with my part of the work, and in another half hour had found +the name and address of Mrs. Westenra's solicitor and had written to +him. All the poor lady's papers were in order; explicit directions +regarding the place of burial were given. I had hardly sealed the +letter, when, to my surprise, Van Helsing walked into the room, +saying:-- + +"Can I help you, friend John? I am free, and if I may, my service is to +you." + +"Have you got what you looked for?" I asked, to which he replied:-- + +"I did not look for any specific thing. I only hoped to find, and find I +have, all that there was--only some letters and a few memoranda, and a +diary new begun. But I have them here, and we shall for the present say +nothing of them. I shall see that poor lad to-morrow evening, and, with +his sanction, I shall use some." + +When we had finished the work in hand, he said to me:-- + +"And now, friend John, I think we may to bed. We want sleep, both you +and I, and rest to recuperate. To-morrow we shall have much to do, but +for the to-night there is no need of us. Alas!" + +Before turning in we went to look at poor Lucy. The undertaker had +certainly done his work well, for the room was turned into a small +_chapelle ardente_. There was a wilderness of beautiful white flowers, +and death was made as little repulsive as might be. The end of the +winding-sheet was laid over the face; when the Professor bent over and +turned it gently back, we both started at the beauty before us, the tall +wax candles showing a sufficient light to note it well. All Lucy's +loveliness had come back to her in death, and the hours that had passed, +instead of leaving traces of "decay's effacing fingers," had but +restored the beauty of life, till positively I could not believe my eyes +that I was looking at a corpse. + +The Professor looked sternly grave. He had not loved her as I had, and +there was no need for tears in his eyes. He said to me: "Remain till I +return," and left the room. He came back with a handful of wild garlic +from the box waiting in the hall, but which had not been opened, and +placed the flowers amongst the others on and around the bed. Then he +took from his neck, inside his collar, a little gold crucifix, and +placed it over the mouth. He restored the sheet to its place, and we +came away. + +I was undressing in my own room, when, with a premonitory tap at the +door, he entered, and at once began to speak:-- + +"To-morrow I want you to bring me, before night, a set of post-mortem +knives." + +"Must we make an autopsy?" I asked. + +"Yes and no. I want to operate, but not as you think. Let me tell you +now, but not a word to another. I want to cut off her head and take out +her heart. Ah! you a surgeon, and so shocked! You, whom I have seen with +no tremble of hand or heart, do operations of life and death that make +the rest shudder. Oh, but I must not forget, my dear friend John, that +you loved her; and I have not forgotten it, for it is I that shall +operate, and you must only help. I would like to do it to-night, but for +Arthur I must not; he will be free after his father's funeral to-morrow, +and he will want to see her--to see _it_. Then, when she is coffined +ready for the next day, you and I shall come when all sleep. We shall +unscrew the coffin-lid, and shall do our operation: and then replace +all, so that none know, save we alone." + +"But why do it at all? The girl is dead. Why mutilate her poor body +without need? And if there is no necessity for a post-mortem and nothing +to gain by it--no good to her, to us, to science, to human +knowledge--why do it? Without such it is monstrous." + +For answer he put his hand on my shoulder, and said, with infinite +tenderness:-- + +"Friend John, I pity your poor bleeding heart; and I love you the more +because it does so bleed. If I could, I would take on myself the burden +that you do bear. But there are things that you know not, but that you +shall know, and bless me for knowing, though they are not pleasant +things. John, my child, you have been my friend now many years, and yet +did you ever know me to do any without good cause? I may err--I am but +man; but I believe in all I do. Was it not for these causes that you +send for me when the great trouble came? Yes! Were you not amazed, nay +horrified, when I would not let Arthur kiss his love--though she was +dying--and snatched him away by all my strength? Yes! And yet you saw +how she thanked me, with her so beautiful dying eyes, her voice, too, so +weak, and she kiss my rough old hand and bless me? Yes! And did you not +hear me swear promise to her, that so she closed her eyes grateful? Yes! + +"Well, I have good reason now for all I want to do. You have for many +years trust me; you have believe me weeks past, when there be things so +strange that you might have well doubt. Believe me yet a little, friend +John. If you trust me not, then I must tell what I think; and that is +not perhaps well. And if I work--as work I shall, no matter trust or no +trust--without my friend trust in me, I work with heavy heart and feel, +oh! so lonely when I want all help and courage that may be!" He paused a +moment and went on solemnly: "Friend John, there are strange and +terrible days before us. Let us not be two, but one, that so we work to +a good end. Will you not have faith in me?" + +I took his hand, and promised him. I held my door open as he went away, +and watched him go into his room and close the door. As I stood without +moving, I saw one of the maids pass silently along the passage--she had +her back towards me, so did not see me--and go into the room where Lucy +lay. The sight touched me. Devotion is so rare, and we are so grateful +to those who show it unasked to those we love. Here was a poor girl +putting aside the terrors which she naturally had of death to go watch +alone by the bier of the mistress whom she loved, so that the poor clay +might not be lonely till laid to eternal rest.... + + * * * * * + +I must have slept long and soundly, for it was broad daylight when Van +Helsing waked me by coming into my room. He came over to my bedside and +said:-- + +"You need not trouble about the knives; we shall not do it." + +"Why not?" I asked. For his solemnity of the night before had greatly +impressed me. + +"Because," he said sternly, "it is too late--or too early. See!" Here he +held up the little golden crucifix. "This was stolen in the night." + +"How, stolen," I asked in wonder, "since you have it now?" + +"Because I get it back from the worthless wretch who stole it, from the +woman who robbed the dead and the living. Her punishment will surely +come, but not through me; she knew not altogether what she did and thus +unknowing, she only stole. Now we must wait." + +He went away on the word, leaving me with a new mystery to think of, a +new puzzle to grapple with. + +The forenoon was a dreary time, but at noon the solicitor came: Mr. +Marquand, of Wholeman, Sons, Marquand & Lidderdale. He was very genial +and very appreciative of what we had done, and took off our hands all +cares as to details. During lunch he told us that Mrs. Westenra had for +some time expected sudden death from her heart, and had put her affairs +in absolute order; he informed us that, with the exception of a certain +entailed property of Lucy's father's which now, in default of direct +issue, went back to a distant branch of the family, the whole estate, +real and personal, was left absolutely to Arthur Holmwood. When he had +told us so much he went on:-- + +"Frankly we did our best to prevent such a testamentary disposition, and +pointed out certain contingencies that might leave her daughter either +penniless or not so free as she should be to act regarding a matrimonial +alliance. Indeed, we pressed the matter so far that we almost came into +collision, for she asked us if we were or were not prepared to carry out +her wishes. Of course, we had then no alternative but to accept. We were +right in principle, and ninety-nine times out of a hundred we should +have proved, by the logic of events, the accuracy of our judgment. +Frankly, however, I must admit that in this case any other form of +disposition would have rendered impossible the carrying out of her +wishes. For by her predeceasing her daughter the latter would have come +into possession of the property, and, even had she only survived her +mother by five minutes, her property would, in case there were no +will--and a will was a practical impossibility in such a case--have been +treated at her decease as under intestacy. In which case Lord Godalming, +though so dear a friend, would have had no claim in the world; and the +inheritors, being remote, would not be likely to abandon their just +rights, for sentimental reasons regarding an entire stranger. I assure +you, my dear sirs, I am rejoiced at the result, perfectly rejoiced." + +He was a good fellow, but his rejoicing at the one little part--in which +he was officially interested--of so great a tragedy, was an +object-lesson in the limitations of sympathetic understanding. + +He did not remain long, but said he would look in later in the day and +see Lord Godalming. His coming, however, had been a certain comfort to +us, since it assured us that we should not have to dread hostile +criticism as to any of our acts. Arthur was expected at five o'clock, so +a little before that time we visited the death-chamber. It was so in +very truth, for now both mother and daughter lay in it. The undertaker, +true to his craft, had made the best display he could of his goods, and +there was a mortuary air about the place that lowered our spirits at +once. Van Helsing ordered the former arrangement to be adhered to, +explaining that, as Lord Godalming was coming very soon, it would be +less harrowing to his feelings to see all that was left of his _fiancee_ +quite alone. The undertaker seemed shocked at his own stupidity and +exerted himself to restore things to the condition in which we left them +the night before, so that when Arthur came such shocks to his feelings +as we could avoid were saved. + +Poor fellow! He looked desperately sad and broken; even his stalwart +manhood seemed to have shrunk somewhat under the strain of his +much-tried emotions. He had, I knew, been very genuinely and devotedly +attached to his father; and to lose him, and at such a time, was a +bitter blow to him. With me he was warm as ever, and to Van Helsing he +was sweetly courteous; but I could not help seeing that there was some +constraint with him. The Professor noticed it, too, and motioned me to +bring him upstairs. I did so, and left him at the door of the room, as I +felt he would like to be quite alone with her, but he took my arm and +led me in, saying huskily:-- + +"You loved her too, old fellow; she told me all about it, and there was +no friend had a closer place in her heart than you. I don't know how to +thank you for all you have done for her. I can't think yet...." + +Here he suddenly broke down, and threw his arms round my shoulders and +laid his head on my breast, crying:-- + +"Oh, Jack! Jack! What shall I do! The whole of life seems gone from me +all at once, and there is nothing in the wide world for me to live for." + +I comforted him as well as I could. In such cases men do not need much +expression. A grip of the hand, the tightening of an arm over the +shoulder, a sob in unison, are expressions of sympathy dear to a man's +heart. I stood still and silent till his sobs died away, and then I said +softly to him:-- + +"Come and look at her." + +Together we moved over to the bed, and I lifted the lawn from her face. +God! how beautiful she was. Every hour seemed to be enhancing her +loveliness. It frightened and amazed me somewhat; and as for Arthur, he +fell a-trembling, and finally was shaken with doubt as with an ague. At +last, after a long pause, he said to me in a faint whisper:-- + +"Jack, is she really dead?" + +I assured him sadly that it was so, and went on to suggest--for I felt +that such a horrible doubt should not have life for a moment longer than +I could help--that it often happened that after death faces became +softened and even resolved into their youthful beauty; that this was +especially so when death had been preceded by any acute or prolonged +suffering. It seemed to quite do away with any doubt, and, after +kneeling beside the couch for a while and looking at her lovingly and +long, he turned aside. I told him that that must be good-bye, as the +coffin had to be prepared; so he went back and took her dead hand in his +and kissed it, and bent over and kissed her forehead. He came away, +fondly looking back over his shoulder at her as he came. + +I left him in the drawing-room, and told Van Helsing that he had said +good-bye; so the latter went to the kitchen to tell the undertaker's men +to proceed with the preparations and to screw up the coffin. When he +came out of the room again I told him of Arthur's question, and he +replied:-- + +"I am not surprised. Just now I doubted for a moment myself!" + +We all dined together, and I could see that poor Art was trying to make +the best of things. Van Helsing had been silent all dinner-time; but +when we had lit our cigars he said-- + +"Lord----"; but Arthur interrupted him:-- + +"No, no, not that, for God's sake! not yet at any rate. Forgive me, sir: +I did not mean to speak offensively; it is only because my loss is so +recent." + +The Professor answered very sweetly:-- + +"I only used that name because I was in doubt. I must not call you +'Mr.,' and I have grown to love you--yes, my dear boy, to love you--as +Arthur." + +Arthur held out his hand, and took the old man's warmly. + +"Call me what you will," he said. "I hope I may always have the title of +a friend. And let me say that I am at a loss for words to thank you for +your goodness to my poor dear." He paused a moment, and went on: "I know +that she understood your goodness even better than I do; and if I was +rude or in any way wanting at that time you acted so--you remember"--the +Professor nodded--"you must forgive me." + +He answered with a grave kindness:-- + +"I know it was hard for you to quite trust me then, for to trust such +violence needs to understand; and I take it that you do not--that you +cannot--trust me now, for you do not yet understand. And there may be +more times when I shall want you to trust when you cannot--and may +not--and must not yet understand. But the time will come when your trust +shall be whole and complete in me, and when you shall understand as +though the sunlight himself shone through. Then you shall bless me from +first to last for your own sake, and for the sake of others and for her +dear sake to whom I swore to protect." + +"And, indeed, indeed, sir," said Arthur warmly, "I shall in all ways +trust you. I know and believe you have a very noble heart, and you are +Jack's friend, and you were hers. You shall do what you like." + +The Professor cleared his throat a couple of times, as though about to +speak, and finally said:-- + +"May I ask you something now?" + +"Certainly." + +"You know that Mrs. Westenra left you all her property?" + +"No, poor dear; I never thought of it." + +"And as it is all yours, you have a right to deal with it as you will. I +want you to give me permission to read all Miss Lucy's papers and +letters. Believe me, it is no idle curiosity. I have a motive of which, +be sure, she would have approved. I have them all here. I took them +before we knew that all was yours, so that no strange hand might touch +them--no strange eye look through words into her soul. I shall keep +them, if I may; even you may not see them yet, but I shall keep them +safe. No word shall be lost; and in the good time I shall give them back +to you. It's a hard thing I ask, but you will do it, will you not, for +Lucy's sake?" + +Arthur spoke out heartily, like his old self:-- + +"Dr. Van Helsing, you may do what you will. I feel that in saying this I +am doing what my dear one would have approved. I shall not trouble you +with questions till the time comes." + +The old Professor stood up as he said solemnly:-- + +"And you are right. There will be pain for us all; but it will not be +all pain, nor will this pain be the last. We and you too--you most of +all, my dear boy--will have to pass through the bitter water before we +reach the sweet. But we must be brave of heart and unselfish, and do our +duty, and all will be well!" + +I slept on a sofa in Arthur's room that night. Van Helsing did not go to +bed at all. He went to and fro, as if patrolling the house, and was +never out of sight of the room where Lucy lay in her coffin, strewn with +the wild garlic flowers, which sent, through the odour of lily and rose, +a heavy, overpowering smell into the night. + + +_Mina Harker's Journal._ + +_22 September._--In the train to Exeter. Jonathan sleeping. + +It seems only yesterday that the last entry was made, and yet how much +between then, in Whitby and all the world before me, Jonathan away and +no news of him; and now, married to Jonathan, Jonathan a solicitor, a +partner, rich, master of his business, Mr. Hawkins dead and buried, and +Jonathan with another attack that may harm him. Some day he may ask me +about it. Down it all goes. I am rusty in my shorthand--see what +unexpected prosperity does for us--so it may be as well to freshen it up +again with an exercise anyhow.... + +The service was very simple and very solemn. There were only ourselves +and the servants there, one or two old friends of his from Exeter, his +London agent, and a gentleman representing Sir John Paxton, the +President of the Incorporated Law Society. Jonathan and I stood hand in +hand, and we felt that our best and dearest friend was gone from us.... + +We came back to town quietly, taking a 'bus to Hyde Park Corner. +Jonathan thought it would interest me to go into the Row for a while, so +we sat down; but there were very few people there, and it was +sad-looking and desolate to see so many empty chairs. It made us think +of the empty chair at home; so we got up and walked down Piccadilly. +Jonathan was holding me by the arm, the way he used to in old days +before I went to school. I felt it very improper, for you can't go on +for some years teaching etiquette and decorum to other girls without the +pedantry of it biting into yourself a bit; but it was Jonathan, and he +was my husband, and we didn't know anybody who saw us--and we didn't +care if they did--so on we walked. I was looking at a very beautiful +girl, in a big cart-wheel hat, sitting in a victoria outside Guiliano's, +when I felt Jonathan clutch my arm so tight that he hurt me, and he said +under his breath: "My God!" I am always anxious about Jonathan, for I +fear that some nervous fit may upset him again; so I turned to him +quickly, and asked him what it was that disturbed him. + +He was very pale, and his eyes seemed bulging out as, half in terror and +half in amazement, he gazed at a tall, thin man, with a beaky nose and +black moustache and pointed beard, who was also observing the pretty +girl. He was looking at her so hard that he did not see either of us, +and so I had a good view of him. His face was not a good face; it was +hard, and cruel, and sensual, and his big white teeth, that looked all +the whiter because his lips were so red, were pointed like an animal's. +Jonathan kept staring at him, till I was afraid he would notice. I +feared he might take it ill, he looked so fierce and nasty. I asked +Jonathan why he was disturbed, and he answered, evidently thinking that +I knew as much about it as he did: "Do you see who it is?" + +"No, dear," I said; "I don't know him; who is it?" His answer seemed to +shock and thrill me, for it was said as if he did not know that it was +to me, Mina, to whom he was speaking:-- + +"It is the man himself!" + +The poor dear was evidently terrified at something--very greatly +terrified; I do believe that if he had not had me to lean on and to +support him he would have sunk down. He kept staring; a man came out of +the shop with a small parcel, and gave it to the lady, who then drove +off. The dark man kept his eyes fixed on her, and when the carriage +moved up Piccadilly he followed in the same direction, and hailed a +hansom. Jonathan kept looking after him, and said, as if to himself:-- + +"I believe it is the Count, but he has grown young. My God, if this be +so! Oh, my God! my God! If I only knew! if I only knew!" He was +distressing himself so much that I feared to keep his mind on the +subject by asking him any questions, so I remained silent. I drew him +away quietly, and he, holding my arm, came easily. We walked a little +further, and then went in and sat for a while in the Green Park. It was +a hot day for autumn, and there was a comfortable seat in a shady place. +After a few minutes' staring at nothing, Jonathan's eyes closed, and he +went quietly into a sleep, with his head on my shoulder. I thought it +was the best thing for him, so did not disturb him. In about twenty +minutes he woke up, and said to me quite cheerfully:-- + +"Why, Mina, have I been asleep! Oh, do forgive me for being so rude. +Come, and we'll have a cup of tea somewhere." He had evidently forgotten +all about the dark stranger, as in his illness he had forgotten all that +this episode had reminded him of. I don't like this lapsing into +forgetfulness; it may make or continue some injury to the brain. I must +not ask him, for fear I shall do more harm than good; but I must somehow +learn the facts of his journey abroad. The time is come, I fear, when I +must open that parcel, and know what is written. Oh, Jonathan, you will, +I know, forgive me if I do wrong, but it is for your own dear sake. + + * * * * * + +_Later._--A sad home-coming in every way--the house empty of the dear +soul who was so good to us; Jonathan still pale and dizzy under a slight +relapse of his malady; and now a telegram from Van Helsing, whoever he +may be:-- + +"You will be grieved to hear that Mrs. Westenra died five days ago, and +that Lucy died the day before yesterday. They were both buried to-day." + +Oh, what a wealth of sorrow in a few words! Poor Mrs. Westenra! poor +Lucy! Gone, gone, never to return to us! And poor, poor Arthur, to have +lost such sweetness out of his life! God help us all to bear our +troubles. + + +_Dr. Seward's Diary._ + +_22 September._--It is all over. Arthur has gone back to Ring, and has +taken Quincey Morris with him. What a fine fellow is Quincey! I believe +in my heart of hearts that he suffered as much about Lucy's death as any +of us; but he bore himself through it like a moral Viking. If America +can go on breeding men like that, she will be a power in the world +indeed. Van Helsing is lying down, having a rest preparatory to his +journey. He goes over to Amsterdam to-night, but says he returns +to-morrow night; that he only wants to make some arrangements which can +only be made personally. He is to stop with me then, if he can; he says +he has work to do in London which may take him some time. Poor old +fellow! I fear that the strain of the past week has broken down even his +iron strength. All the time of the burial he was, I could see, putting +some terrible restraint on himself. When it was all over, we were +standing beside Arthur, who, poor fellow, was speaking of his part in +the operation where his blood had been transfused to his Lucy's veins; I +could see Van Helsing's face grow white and purple by turns. Arthur was +saying that he felt since then as if they two had been really married +and that she was his wife in the sight of God. None of us said a word of +the other operations, and none of us ever shall. Arthur and Quincey went +away together to the station, and Van Helsing and I came on here. The +moment we were alone in the carriage he gave way to a regular fit of +hysterics. He has denied to me since that it was hysterics, and insisted +that it was only his sense of humour asserting itself under very +terrible conditions. He laughed till he cried, and I had to draw down +the blinds lest any one should see us and misjudge; and then he cried, +till he laughed again; and laughed and cried together, just as a woman +does. I tried to be stern with him, as one is to a woman under the +circumstances; but it had no effect. Men and women are so different in +manifestations of nervous strength or weakness! Then when his face grew +grave and stern again I asked him why his mirth, and why at such a time. +His reply was in a way characteristic of him, for it was logical and +forceful and mysterious. He said:-- + +"Ah, you don't comprehend, friend John. Do not think that I am not sad, +though I laugh. See, I have cried even when the laugh did choke me. But +no more think that I am all sorry when I cry, for the laugh he come +just the same. Keep it always with you that laughter who knock at your +door and say, 'May I come in?' is not the true laughter. No! he is a +king, and he come when and how he like. He ask no person; he choose no +time of suitability. He say, 'I am here.' Behold, in example I grieve my +heart out for that so sweet young girl; I give my blood for her, though +I am old and worn; I give my time, my skill, my sleep; I let my other +sufferers want that so she may have all. And yet I can laugh at her very +grave--laugh when the clay from the spade of the sexton drop upon her +coffin and say 'Thud! thud!' to my heart, till it send back the blood +from my cheek. My heart bleed for that poor boy--that dear boy, so of +the age of mine own boy had I been so blessed that he live, and with his +hair and eyes the same. There, you know now why I love him so. And yet +when he say things that touch my husband-heart to the quick, and make my +father-heart yearn to him as to no other man--not even to you, friend +John, for we are more level in experiences than father and son--yet even +at such moment King Laugh he come to me and shout and bellow in my ear, +'Here I am! here I am!' till the blood come dance back and bring some of +the sunshine that he carry with him to my cheek. Oh, friend John, it is +a strange world, a sad world, a world full of miseries, and woes, and +troubles; and yet when King Laugh come he make them all dance to the +tune he play. Bleeding hearts, and dry bones of the churchyard, and +tears that burn as they fall--all dance together to the music that he +make with that smileless mouth of him. And believe me, friend John, that +he is good to come, and kind. Ah, we men and women are like ropes drawn +tight with strain that pull us different ways. Then tears come; and, +like the rain on the ropes, they brace us up, until perhaps the strain +become too great, and we break. But King Laugh he come like the +sunshine, and he ease off the strain again; and we bear to go on with +our labour, what it may be." + +I did not like to wound him by pretending not to see his idea; but, as I +did not yet understand the cause of his laughter, I asked him. As he +answered me his face grew stern, and he said in quite a different +tone:-- + +"Oh, it was the grim irony of it all--this so lovely lady garlanded with +flowers, that looked so fair as life, till one by one we wondered if she +were truly dead; she laid in that so fine marble house in that lonely +churchyard, where rest so many of her kin, laid there with the mother +who loved her, and whom she loved; and that sacred bell going 'Toll! +toll! toll!' so sad and slow; and those holy men, with the white +garments of the angel, pretending to read books, and yet all the time +their eyes never on the page; and all of us with the bowed head. And all +for what? She is dead; so! Is it not?" + +"Well, for the life of me, Professor," I said, "I can't see anything to +laugh at in all that. Why, your explanation makes it a harder puzzle +than before. But even if the burial service was comic, what about poor +Art and his trouble? Why, his heart was simply breaking." + +"Just so. Said he not that the transfusion of his blood to her veins had +made her truly his bride?" + +"Yes, and it was a sweet and comforting idea for him." + +"Quite so. But there was a difficulty, friend John. If so that, then +what about the others? Ho, ho! Then this so sweet maid is a polyandrist, +and me, with my poor wife dead to me, but alive by Church's law, though +no wits, all gone--even I, who am faithful husband to this now-no-wife, +am bigamist." + +"I don't see where the joke comes in there either!" I said; and I did +not feel particularly pleased with him for saying such things. He laid +his hand on my arm, and said:-- + +"Friend John, forgive me if I pain. I showed not my feeling to others +when it would wound, but only to you, my old friend, whom I can trust. +If you could have looked into my very heart then when I want to laugh; +if you could have done so when the laugh arrived; if you could do so +now, when King Laugh have pack up his crown, and all that is to him--for +he go far, far away from me, and for a long, long time--maybe you would +perhaps pity me the most of all." + +I was touched by the tenderness of his tone, and asked why. + +"Because I know!" + +And now we are all scattered; and for many a long day loneliness will +sit over our roofs with brooding wings. Lucy lies in the tomb of her +kin, a lordly death-house in a lonely churchyard, away from teeming +London; where the air is fresh, and the sun rises over Hampstead Hill, +and where wild flowers grow of their own accord. + +So I can finish this diary; and God only knows if I shall ever begin +another. If I do, or if I even open this again, it will be to deal with +different people and different themes; for here at the end, where the +romance of my life is told, ere I go back to take up the thread of my +life-work, I say sadly and without hope, + + "FINIS." + + +_"The Westminster Gazette," 25 September._ + + A HAMPSTEAD MYSTERY. + + +The neighbourhood of Hampstead is just at present exercised with a +series of events which seem to run on lines parallel to those of what +was known to the writers of headlines as "The Kensington Horror," or +"The Stabbing Woman," or "The Woman in Black." During the past two or +three days several cases have occurred of young children straying from +home or neglecting to return from their playing on the Heath. In all +these cases the children were too young to give any properly +intelligible account of themselves, but the consensus of their excuses +is that they had been with a "bloofer lady." It has always been late in +the evening when they have been missed, and on two occasions the +children have not been found until early in the following morning. It is +generally supposed in the neighbourhood that, as the first child missed +gave as his reason for being away that a "bloofer lady" had asked him to +come for a walk, the others had picked up the phrase and used it as +occasion served. This is the more natural as the favourite game of the +little ones at present is luring each other away by wiles. A +correspondent writes us that to see some of the tiny tots pretending to +be the "bloofer lady" is supremely funny. Some of our caricaturists +might, he says, take a lesson in the irony of grotesque by comparing the +reality and the picture. It is only in accordance with general +principles of human nature that the "bloofer lady" should be the popular +role at these _al fresco_ performances. Our correspondent naively says +that even Ellen Terry could not be so winningly attractive as some of +these grubby-faced little children pretend--and even imagine +themselves--to be. + +There is, however, possibly a serious side to the question, for some of +the children, indeed all who have been missed at night, have been +slightly torn or wounded in the throat. The wounds seem such as might be +made by a rat or a small dog, and although of not much importance +individually, would tend to show that whatever animal inflicts them has +a system or method of its own. The police of the division have been +instructed to keep a sharp look-out for straying children, especially +when very young, in and around Hampstead Heath, and for any stray dog +which may be about. + + + _"The Westminster Gazette," 25 September._ + + _Extra Special._ + + THE HAMPSTEAD HORROR. + + ANOTHER CHILD INJURED. + + _The "Bloofer Lady."_ + +We have just received intelligence that another child, missed last +night, was only discovered late in the morning under a furze bush at the +Shooter's Hill side of Hampstead Heath, which is, perhaps, less +frequented than the other parts. It has the same tiny wound in the +throat as has been noticed in other cases. It was terribly weak, and +looked quite emaciated. It too, when partially restored, had the common +story to tell of being lured away by the "bloofer lady." + + + + +CHAPTER XIV + +MINA HARKER'S JOURNAL + + +_23 September_.--Jonathan is better after a bad night. I am so glad that +he has plenty of work to do, for that keeps his mind off the terrible +things; and oh, I am rejoiced that he is not now weighed down with the +responsibility of his new position. I knew he would be true to himself, +and now how proud I am to see my Jonathan rising to the height of his +advancement and keeping pace in all ways with the duties that come upon +him. He will be away all day till late, for he said he could not lunch +at home. My household work is done, so I shall take his foreign journal, +and lock myself up in my room and read it.... + + +_24 September_.--I hadn't the heart to write last night; that terrible +record of Jonathan's upset me so. Poor dear! How he must have suffered, +whether it be true or only imagination. I wonder if there is any truth +in it at all. Did he get his brain fever, and then write all those +terrible things, or had he some cause for it all? I suppose I shall +never know, for I dare not open the subject to him.... And yet that man +we saw yesterday! He seemed quite certain of him.... Poor fellow! I +suppose it was the funeral upset him and sent his mind back on some +train of thought.... He believes it all himself. I remember how on our +wedding-day he said: "Unless some solemn duty come upon me to go back to +the bitter hours, asleep or awake, mad or sane." There seems to be +through it all some thread of continuity.... That fearful Count was +coming to London.... If it should be, and he came to London, with his +teeming millions.... There may be a solemn duty; and if it come we must +not shrink from it.... I shall be prepared. I shall get my typewriter +this very hour and begin transcribing. Then we shall be ready for other +eyes if required. And if it be wanted; then, perhaps, if I am ready, +poor Jonathan may not be upset, for I can speak for him and never let +him be troubled or worried with it at all. If ever Jonathan quite gets +over the nervousness he may want to tell me of it all, and I can ask him +questions and find out things, and see how I may comfort him. + + +_Letter, Van Helsing to Mrs. Harker._ + +"_24 September._ + +(_Confidence_) + +"Dear Madam,-- + +"I pray you to pardon my writing, in that I am so far friend as that I +sent to you sad news of Miss Lucy Westenra's death. By the kindness of +Lord Godalming, I am empowered to read her letters and papers, for I am +deeply concerned about certain matters vitally important. In them I find +some letters from you, which show how great friends you were and how you +love her. Oh, Madam Mina, by that love, I implore you, help me. It is +for others' good that I ask--to redress great wrong, and to lift much +and terrible troubles--that may be more great than you can know. May it +be that I see you? You can trust me. I am friend of Dr. John Seward and +of Lord Godalming (that was Arthur of Miss Lucy). I must keep it private +for the present from all. I should come to Exeter to see you at once if +you tell me I am privilege to come, and where and when. I implore your +pardon, madam. I have read your letters to poor Lucy, and know how good +you are and how your husband suffer; so I pray you, if it may be, +enlighten him not, lest it may harm. Again your pardon, and forgive me. + +"VAN HELSING." + + +_Telegram, Mrs. Harker to Van Helsing._ + +"_25 September._--Come to-day by quarter-past ten train if you can catch +it. Can see you any time you call. + +"WILHELMINA HARKER." + +MINA HARKER'S JOURNAL. + +_25 September._--I cannot help feeling terribly excited as the time +draws near for the visit of Dr. Van Helsing, for somehow I expect that +it will throw some light upon Jonathan's sad experience; and as he +attended poor dear Lucy in her last illness, he can tell me all about +her. That is the reason of his coming; it is concerning Lucy and her +sleep-walking, and not about Jonathan. Then I shall never know the real +truth now! How silly I am. That awful journal gets hold of my +imagination and tinges everything with something of its own colour. Of +course it is about Lucy. That habit came back to the poor dear, and that +awful night on the cliff must have made her ill. I had almost forgotten +in my own affairs how ill she was afterwards. She must have told him +of her sleep-walking adventure on the cliff, and that I knew all about +it; and now he wants me to tell him what she knows, so that he may +understand. I hope I did right in not saying anything of it to Mrs. +Westenra; I should never forgive myself if any act of mine, were it even +a negative one, brought harm on poor dear Lucy. I hope, too, Dr. Van +Helsing will not blame me; I have had so much trouble and anxiety of +late that I feel I cannot bear more just at present. + +I suppose a cry does us all good at times--clears the air as other rain +does. Perhaps it was reading the journal yesterday that upset me, and +then Jonathan went away this morning to stay away from me a whole day +and night, the first time we have been parted since our marriage. I do +hope the dear fellow will take care of himself, and that nothing will +occur to upset him. It is two o'clock, and the doctor will be here soon +now. I shall say nothing of Jonathan's journal unless he asks me. I am +so glad I have type-written out my own journal, so that, in case he asks +about Lucy, I can hand it to him; it will save much questioning. + + * * * * * + +_Later._--He has come and gone. Oh, what a strange meeting, and how it +all makes my head whirl round! I feel like one in a dream. Can it be all +possible, or even a part of it? If I had not read Jonathan's journal +first, I should never have accepted even a possibility. Poor, poor, dear +Jonathan! How he must have suffered. Please the good God, all this may +not upset him again. I shall try to save him from it; but it may be even +a consolation and a help to him--terrible though it be and awful in its +consequences--to know for certain that his eyes and ears and brain did +not deceive him, and that it is all true. It may be that it is the doubt +which haunts him; that when the doubt is removed, no matter +which--waking or dreaming--may prove the truth, he will be more +satisfied and better able to bear the shock. Dr. Van Helsing must be a +good man as well as a clever one if he is Arthur's friend and Dr. +Seward's, and if they brought him all the way from Holland to look after +Lucy. I feel from having seen him that he _is_ good and kind and of a +noble nature. When he comes to-morrow I shall ask him about Jonathan; +and then, please God, all this sorrow and anxiety may lead to a good +end. I used to think I would like to practise interviewing; Jonathan's +friend on "The Exeter News" told him that memory was everything in such +work--that you must be able to put down exactly almost every word +spoken, even if you had to refine some of it afterwards. Here was a rare +interview; I shall try to record it _verbatim_. + +It was half-past two o'clock when the knock came. I took my courage _a +deux mains_ and waited. In a few minutes Mary opened the door, and +announced "Dr. Van Helsing." + +I rose and bowed, and he came towards me; a man of medium weight, +strongly built, with his shoulders set back over a broad, deep chest and +a neck well balanced on the trunk as the head is on the neck. The poise +of the head strikes one at once as indicative of thought and power; the +head is noble, well-sized, broad, and large behind the ears. The face, +clean-shaven, shows a hard, square chin, a large, resolute, mobile +mouth, a good-sized nose, rather straight, but with quick, sensitive +nostrils, that seem to broaden as the big, bushy brows come down and the +mouth tightens. The forehead is broad and fine, rising at first almost +straight and then sloping back above two bumps or ridges wide apart; +such a forehead that the reddish hair cannot possibly tumble over it, +but falls naturally back and to the sides. Big, dark blue eyes are set +widely apart, and are quick and tender or stern with the man's moods. He +said to me:-- + +"Mrs. Harker, is it not?" I bowed assent. + +"That was Miss Mina Murray?" Again I assented. + +"It is Mina Murray that I came to see that was friend of that poor dear +child Lucy Westenra. Madam Mina, it is on account of the dead I come." + +"Sir," I said, "you could have no better claim on me than that you were +a friend and helper of Lucy Westenra." And I held out my hand. He took +it and said tenderly:-- + +"Oh, Madam Mina, I knew that the friend of that poor lily girl must be +good, but I had yet to learn----" He finished his speech with a courtly +bow. I asked him what it was that he wanted to see me about, so he at +once began:-- + +"I have read your letters to Miss Lucy. Forgive me, but I had to begin +to inquire somewhere, and there was none to ask. I know that you were +with her at Whitby. She sometimes kept a diary--you need not look +surprised, Madam Mina; it was begun after you had left, and was in +imitation of you--and in that diary she traces by inference certain +things to a sleep-walking in which she puts down that you saved her. In +great perplexity then I come to you, and ask you out of your so much +kindness to tell me all of it that you can remember." + +"I can tell you, I think, Dr. Van Helsing, all about it." + +"Ah, then you have good memory for facts, for details? It is not always +so with young ladies." + +"No, doctor, but I wrote it all down at the time. I can show it to you +if you like." + +"Oh, Madam Mina, I will be grateful; you will do me much favour." I +could not resist the temptation of mystifying him a bit--I suppose it is +some of the taste of the original apple that remains still in our +mouths--so I handed him the shorthand diary. He took it with a grateful +bow, and said:-- + +"May I read it?" + +"If you wish," I answered as demurely as I could. He opened it, and for +an instant his face fell. Then he stood up and bowed. + +"Oh, you so clever woman!" he said. "I knew long that Mr. Jonathan was a +man of much thankfulness; but see, his wife have all the good things. +And will you not so much honour me and so help me as to read it for me? +Alas! I know not the shorthand." By this time my little joke was over, +and I was almost ashamed; so I took the typewritten copy from my +workbasket and handed it to him. + +"Forgive me," I said: "I could not help it; but I had been thinking that +it was of dear Lucy that you wished to ask, and so that you might not +have time to wait--not on my account, but because I know your time must +be precious--I have written it out on the typewriter for you." + +He took it and his eyes glistened. "You are so good," he said. "And may +I read it now? I may want to ask you some things when I have read." + +"By all means," I said, "read it over whilst I order lunch; and then you +can ask me questions whilst we eat." He bowed and settled himself in a +chair with his back to the light, and became absorbed in the papers, +whilst I went to see after lunch chiefly in order that he might not be +disturbed. When I came back, I found him walking hurriedly up and down +the room, his face all ablaze with excitement. He rushed up to me and +took me by both hands. + +"Oh, Madam Mina," he said, "how can I say what I owe to you? This paper +is as sunshine. It opens the gate to me. I am daze, I am dazzle, with so +much light, and yet clouds roll in behind the light every time. But that +you do not, cannot, comprehend. Oh, but I am grateful to you, you so +clever woman. Madam"--he said this very solemnly--"if ever Abraham Van +Helsing can do anything for you or yours, I trust you will let me know. +It will be pleasure and delight if I may serve you as a friend; as a +friend, but all I have ever learned, all I can ever do, shall be for you +and those you love. There are darknesses in life, and there are lights; +you are one of the lights. You will have happy life and good life, and +your husband will be blessed in you." + +"But, doctor, you praise me too much, and--and you do not know me." + +"Not know you--I, who am old, and who have studied all my life men and +women; I, who have made my specialty the brain and all that belongs to +him and all that follow from him! And I have read your diary that you +have so goodly written for me, and which breathes out truth in every +line. I, who have read your so sweet letter to poor Lucy of your +marriage and your trust, not know you! Oh, Madam Mina, good women tell +all their lives, and by day and by hour and by minute, such things that +angels can read; and we men who wish to know have in us something of +angels' eyes. Your husband is noble nature, and you are noble too, for +you trust, and trust cannot be where there is mean nature. And your +husband--tell me of him. Is he quite well? Is all that fever gone, and +is he strong and hearty?" I saw here an opening to ask him about +Jonathan, so I said:-- + +"He was almost recovered, but he has been greatly upset by Mr. Hawkins's +death." He interrupted:-- + +"Oh, yes, I know, I know. I have read your last two letters." I went +on:-- + +"I suppose this upset him, for when we were in town on Thursday last he +had a sort of shock." + +"A shock, and after brain fever so soon! That was not good. What kind of +a shock was it?" + +"He thought he saw some one who recalled something terrible, something +which led to his brain fever." And here the whole thing seemed to +overwhelm me in a rush. The pity for Jonathan, the horror which he +experienced, the whole fearful mystery of his diary, and the fear that +has been brooding over me ever since, all came in a tumult. I suppose I +was hysterical, for I threw myself on my knees and held up my hands to +him, and implored him to make my husband well again. He took my hands +and raised me up, and made me sit on the sofa, and sat by me; he held my +hand in his, and said to me with, oh, such infinite sweetness:-- + +"My life is a barren and lonely one, and so full of work that I have not +had much time for friendships; but since I have been summoned to here by +my friend John Seward I have known so many good people and seen such +nobility that I feel more than ever--and it has grown with my advancing +years--the loneliness of my life. Believe, me, then, that I come here +full of respect for you, and you have given me hope--hope, not in what I +am seeking of, but that there are good women still left to make life +happy--good women, whose lives and whose truths may make good lesson for +the children that are to be. I am glad, glad, that I may here be of some +use to you; for if your husband suffer, he suffer within the range of my +study and experience. I promise you that I will gladly do _all_ for him +that I can--all to make his life strong and manly, and your life a happy +one. Now you must eat. You are overwrought and perhaps over-anxious. +Husband Jonathan would not like to see you so pale; and what he like not +where he love, is not to his good. Therefore for his sake you must eat +and smile. You have told me all about Lucy, and so now we shall not +speak of it, lest it distress. I shall stay in Exeter to-night, for I +want to think much over what you have told me, and when I have thought I +will ask you questions, if I may. And then, too, you will tell me of +husband Jonathan's trouble so far as you can, but not yet. You must eat +now; afterwards you shall tell me all." + +After lunch, when we went back to the drawing-room, he said to me:-- + +"And now tell me all about him." When it came to speaking to this great +learned man, I began to fear that he would think me a weak fool, and +Jonathan a madman--that journal is all so strange--and I hesitated to go +on. But he was so sweet and kind, and he had promised to help, and I +trusted him, so I said:-- + +"Dr. Van Helsing, what I have to tell you is so queer that you must not +laugh at me or at my husband. I have been since yesterday in a sort of +fever of doubt; you must be kind to me, and not think me foolish that I +have even half believed some very strange things." He reassured me by +his manner as well as his words when he said:-- + +"Oh, my dear, if you only know how strange is the matter regarding which +I am here, it is you who would laugh. I have learned not to think little +of any one's belief, no matter how strange it be. I have tried to keep +an open mind; and it is not the ordinary things of life that could close +it, but the strange things, the extraordinary things, the things that +make one doubt if they be mad or sane." + +"Thank you, thank you, a thousand times! You have taken a weight off my +mind. If you will let me, I shall give you a paper to read. It is long, +but I have typewritten it out. It will tell you my trouble and +Jonathan's. It is the copy of his journal when abroad, and all that +happened. I dare not say anything of it; you will read for yourself and +judge. And then when I see you, perhaps, you will be very kind and tell +me what you think." + +"I promise," he said as I gave him the papers; "I shall in the morning, +so soon as I can, come to see you and your husband, if I may." + +"Jonathan will be here at half-past eleven, and you must come to lunch +with us and see him then; you could catch the quick 3:34 train, which +will leave you at Paddington before eight." He was surprised at my +knowledge of the trains off-hand, but he does not know that I have made +up all the trains to and from Exeter, so that I may help Jonathan in +case he is in a hurry. + +So he took the papers with him and went away, and I sit here +thinking--thinking I don't know what. + + * * * * * + +_Letter (by hand), Van Helsing to Mrs. Harker._ + +"_25 September, 6 o'clock._ + +"Dear Madam Mina,-- + +"I have read your husband's so wonderful diary. You may sleep without +doubt. Strange and terrible as it is, it is _true_! I will pledge my +life on it. It may be worse for others; but for him and you there is no +dread. He is a noble fellow; and let me tell you from experience of men, +that one who would do as he did in going down that wall and to that +room--ay, and going a second time--is not one to be injured in +permanence by a shock. His brain and his heart are all right; this I +swear, before I have even seen him; so be at rest. I shall have much to +ask him of other things. I am blessed that to-day I come to see you, for +I have learn all at once so much that again I am dazzle--dazzle more +than ever, and I must think. + +"Yours the most faithful, + +"ABRAHAM VAN HELSING." + + +_Letter, Mrs. Harker to Van Helsing._ + +"_25 September, 6:30 p. m._ + +"My dear Dr. Van Helsing,-- + +"A thousand thanks for your kind letter, which has taken a great weight +off my mind. And yet, if it be true, what terrible things there are in +the world, and what an awful thing if that man, that monster, be really +in London! I fear to think. I have this moment, whilst writing, had a +wire from Jonathan, saying that he leaves by the 6:25 to-night from +Launceston and will be here at 10:18, so that I shall have no fear +to-night. Will you, therefore, instead of lunching with us, please come +to breakfast at eight o'clock, if this be not too early for you? You can +get away, if you are in a hurry, by the 10:30 train, which will bring +you to Paddington by 2:35. Do not answer this, as I shall take it that, +if I do not hear, you will come to breakfast. + +"Believe me, + +"Your faithful and grateful friend, + +"MINA HARKER." + + +_Jonathan Harker's Journal._ + +_26 September._--I thought never to write in this diary again, but the +time has come. When I got home last night Mina had supper ready, and +when we had supped she told me of Van Helsing's visit, and of her having +given him the two diaries copied out, and of how anxious she has been +about me. She showed me in the doctor's letter that all I wrote down was +true. It seems to have made a new man of me. It was the doubt as to the +reality of the whole thing that knocked me over. I felt impotent, and in +the dark, and distrustful. But, now that I _know_, I am not afraid, even +of the Count. He has succeeded after all, then, in his design in getting +to London, and it was he I saw. He has got younger, and how? Van Helsing +is the man to unmask him and hunt him out, if he is anything like what +Mina says. We sat late, and talked it all over. Mina is dressing, and I +shall call at the hotel in a few minutes and bring him over.... + +He was, I think, surprised to see me. When I came into the room where he +was, and introduced myself, he took me by the shoulder, and turned my +face round to the light, and said, after a sharp scrutiny:-- + +"But Madam Mina told me you were ill, that you had had a shock." It was +so funny to hear my wife called "Madam Mina" by this kindly, +strong-faced old man. I smiled, and said:-- + +"I _was_ ill, I _have_ had a shock; but you have cured me already." + +"And how?" + +"By your letter to Mina last night. I was in doubt, and then everything +took a hue of unreality, and I did not know what to trust, even the +evidence of my own senses. Not knowing what to trust, I did not know +what to do; and so had only to keep on working in what had hitherto been +the groove of my life. The groove ceased to avail me, and I mistrusted +myself. Doctor, you don't know what it is to doubt everything, even +yourself. No, you don't; you couldn't with eyebrows like yours." He +seemed pleased, and laughed as he said:-- + +"So! You are physiognomist. I learn more here with each hour. I am with +so much pleasure coming to you to breakfast; and, oh, sir, you will +pardon praise from an old man, but you are blessed in your wife." I +would listen to him go on praising Mina for a day, so I simply nodded +and stood silent. + +"She is one of God's women, fashioned by His own hand to show us men and +other women that there is a heaven where we can enter, and that its +light can be here on earth. So true, so sweet, so noble, so little an +egoist--and that, let me tell you, is much in this age, so sceptical and +selfish. And you, sir--I have read all the letters to poor Miss Lucy, +and some of them speak of you, so I know you since some days from the +knowing of others; but I have seen your true self since last night. You +will give me your hand, will you not? And let us be friends for all our +lives." + +We shook hands, and he was so earnest and so kind that it made me quite +choky. + +"And now," he said, "may I ask you for some more help? I have a great +task to do, and at the beginning it is to know. You can help me here. +Can you tell me what went before your going to Transylvania? Later on I +may ask more help, and of a different kind; but at first this will do." + +"Look here, sir," I said, "does what you have to do concern the Count?" + +"It does," he said solemnly. + +"Then I am with you heart and soul. As you go by the 10:30 train, you +will not have time to read them; but I shall get the bundle of papers. +You can take them with you and read them in the train." + +After breakfast I saw him to the station. When we were parting he +said:-- + +"Perhaps you will come to town if I send to you, and take Madam Mina +too." + +"We shall both come when you will," I said. + +I had got him the morning papers and the London papers of the previous +night, and while we were talking at the carriage window, waiting for the +train to start, he was turning them over. His eyes suddenly seemed to +catch something in one of them, "The Westminster Gazette"--I knew it by +the colour--and he grew quite white. He read something intently, +groaning to himself: "Mein Gott! Mein Gott! So soon! so soon!" I do not +think he remembered me at the moment. Just then the whistle blew, and +the train moved off. This recalled him to himself, and he leaned out of +the window and waved his hand, calling out: "Love to Madam Mina; I shall +write so soon as ever I can." + + +_Dr. Seward's Diary._ + +_26 September._--Truly there is no such thing as finality. Not a week +since I said "Finis," and yet here I am starting fresh again, or rather +going on with the same record. Until this afternoon I had no cause to +think of what is done. Renfield had become, to all intents, as sane as +he ever was. He was already well ahead with his fly business; and he had +just started in the spider line also; so he had not been of any trouble +to me. I had a letter from Arthur, written on Sunday, and from it I +gather that he is bearing up wonderfully well. Quincey Morris is with +him, and that is much of a help, for he himself is a bubbling well of +good spirits. Quincey wrote me a line too, and from him I hear that +Arthur is beginning to recover something of his old buoyancy; so as to +them all my mind is at rest. As for myself, I was settling down to my +work with the enthusiasm which I used to have for it, so that I might +fairly have said that the wound which poor Lucy left on me was becoming +cicatrised. Everything is, however, now reopened; and what is to be the +end God only knows. I have an idea that Van Helsing thinks he knows, +too, but he will only let out enough at a time to whet curiosity. He +went to Exeter yesterday, and stayed there all night. To-day he came +back, and almost bounded into the room at about half-past five o'clock, +and thrust last night's "Westminster Gazette" into my hand. + +"What do you think of that?" he asked as he stood back and folded his +arms. + +I looked over the paper, for I really did not know what he meant; but he +took it from me and pointed out a paragraph about children being decoyed +away at Hampstead. It did not convey much to me, until I reached a +passage where it described small punctured wounds on their throats. An +idea struck me, and I looked up. "Well?" he said. + +"It is like poor Lucy's." + +"And what do you make of it?" + +"Simply that there is some cause in common. Whatever it was that injured +her has injured them." I did not quite understand his answer:-- + +"That is true indirectly, but not directly." + +"How do you mean, Professor?" I asked. I was a little inclined to take +his seriousness lightly--for, after all, four days of rest and freedom +from burning, harrowing anxiety does help to restore one's spirits--but +when I saw his face, it sobered me. Never, even in the midst of our +despair about poor Lucy, had he looked more stern. + +"Tell me!" I said. "I can hazard no opinion. I do not know what to +think, and I have no data on which to found a conjecture." + +"Do you mean to tell me, friend John, that you have no suspicion as to +what poor Lucy died of; not after all the hints given, not only by +events, but by me?" + +"Of nervous prostration following on great loss or waste of blood." + +"And how the blood lost or waste?" I shook my head. He stepped over and +sat down beside me, and went on:-- + +"You are clever man, friend John; you reason well, and your wit is bold; +but you are too prejudiced. You do not let your eyes see nor your ears +hear, and that which is outside your daily life is not of account to +you. Do you not think that there are things which you cannot understand, +and yet which are; that some people see things that others cannot? But +there are things old and new which must not be contemplate by men's +eyes, because they know--or think they know--some things which other men +have told them. Ah, it is the fault of our science that it wants to +explain all; and if it explain not, then it says there is nothing to +explain. But yet we see around us every day the growth of new beliefs, +which think themselves new; and which are yet but the old, which pretend +to be young--like the fine ladies at the opera. I suppose now you do not +believe in corporeal transference. No? Nor in materialisation. No? Nor +in astral bodies. No? Nor in the reading of thought. No? Nor in +hypnotism----" + +"Yes," I said. "Charcot has proved that pretty well." He smiled as he +went on: "Then you are satisfied as to it. Yes? And of course then you +understand how it act, and can follow the mind of the great +Charcot--alas that he is no more!--into the very soul of the patient +that he influence. No? Then, friend John, am I to take it that you +simply accept fact, and are satisfied to let from premise to conclusion +be a blank? No? Then tell me--for I am student of the brain--how you +accept the hypnotism and reject the thought reading. Let me tell you, my +friend, that there are things done to-day in electrical science which +would have been deemed unholy by the very men who discovered +electricity--who would themselves not so long before have been burned +as wizards. There are always mysteries in life. Why was it that +Methuselah lived nine hundred years, and 'Old Parr' one hundred and +sixty-nine, and yet that poor Lucy, with four men's blood in her poor +veins, could not live even one day? For, had she live one more day, we +could have save her. Do you know all the mystery of life and death? Do +you know the altogether of comparative anatomy and can say wherefore the +qualities of brutes are in some men, and not in others? Can you tell me +why, when other spiders die small and soon, that one great spider lived +for centuries in the tower of the old Spanish church and grew and grew, +till, on descending, he could drink the oil of all the church lamps? Can +you tell me why in the Pampas, ay and elsewhere, there are bats that +come at night and open the veins of cattle and horses and suck dry their +veins; how in some islands of the Western seas there are bats which hang +on the trees all day, and those who have seen describe as like giant +nuts or pods, and that when the sailors sleep on the deck, because that +it is hot, flit down on them, and then--and then in the morning are +found dead men, white as even Miss Lucy was?" + +"Good God, Professor!" I said, starting up. "Do you mean to tell me that +Lucy was bitten by such a bat; and that such a thing is here in London +in the nineteenth century?" He waved his hand for silence, and went +on:-- + +"Can you tell me why the tortoise lives more long than generations of +men; why the elephant goes on and on till he have seen dynasties; and +why the parrot never die only of bite of cat or dog or other complaint? +Can you tell me why men believe in all ages and places that there are +some few who live on always if they be permit; that there are men and +women who cannot die? We all know--because science has vouched for the +fact--that there have been toads shut up in rocks for thousands of +years, shut in one so small hole that only hold him since the youth of +the world. Can you tell me how the Indian fakir can make himself to die +and have been buried, and his grave sealed and corn sowed on it, and the +corn reaped and be cut and sown and reaped and cut again, and then men +come and take away the unbroken seal and that there lie the Indian +fakir, not dead, but that rise up and walk amongst them as before?" Here +I interrupted him. I was getting bewildered; he so crowded on my mind +his list of nature's eccentricities and possible impossibilities that my +imagination was getting fired. I had a dim idea that he was teaching me +some lesson, as long ago he used to do in his study at Amsterdam; but +he used then to tell me the thing, so that I could have the object of +thought in mind all the time. But now I was without this help, yet I +wanted to follow him, so I said:-- + +"Professor, let me be your pet student again. Tell me the thesis, so +that I may apply your knowledge as you go on. At present I am going in +my mind from point to point as a mad man, and not a sane one, follows an +idea. I feel like a novice lumbering through a bog in a mist, jumping +from one tussock to another in the mere blind effort to move on without +knowing where I am going." + +"That is good image," he said. "Well, I shall tell you. My thesis is +this: I want you to believe." + +"To believe what?" + +"To believe in things that you cannot. Let me illustrate. I heard once +of an American who so defined faith: 'that faculty which enables us to +believe things which we know to be untrue.' For one, I follow that man. +He meant that we shall have an open mind, and not let a little bit of +truth check the rush of a big truth, like a small rock does a railway +truck. We get the small truth first. Good! We keep him, and we value +him; but all the same we must not let him think himself all the truth in +the universe." + +"Then you want me not to let some previous conviction injure the +receptivity of my mind with regard to some strange matter. Do I read +your lesson aright?" + +"Ah, you are my favourite pupil still. It is worth to teach you. Now +that you are willing to understand, you have taken the first step to +understand. You think then that those so small holes in the children's +throats were made by the same that made the hole in Miss Lucy?" + +"I suppose so." He stood up and said solemnly:-- + +"Then you are wrong. Oh, would it were so! but alas! no. It is worse, +far, far worse." + +"In God's name, Professor Van Helsing, what do you mean?" I cried. + +He threw himself with a despairing gesture into a chair, and placed his +elbows on the table, covering his face with his hands as he spoke:-- + +"They were made by Miss Lucy!" + + + + +CHAPTER XV + +DR. SEWARD'S DIARY--_continued_. + + +For a while sheer anger mastered me; it was as if he had during her life +struck Lucy on the face. I smote the table hard and rose up as I said to +him:-- + +"Dr. Van Helsing, are you mad?" He raised his head and looked at me, and +somehow the tenderness of his face calmed me at once. "Would I were!" he +said. "Madness were easy to bear compared with truth like this. Oh, my +friend, why, think you, did I go so far round, why take so long to tell +you so simple a thing? Was it because I hate you and have hated you all +my life? Was it because I wished to give you pain? Was it that I wanted, +now so late, revenge for that time when you saved my life, and from a +fearful death? Ah no!" + +"Forgive me," said I. He went on:-- + +"My friend, it was because I wished to be gentle in the breaking to you, +for I know you have loved that so sweet lady. But even yet I do not +expect you to believe. It is so hard to accept at once any abstract +truth, that we may doubt such to be possible when we have always +believed the 'no' of it; it is more hard still to accept so sad a +concrete truth, and of such a one as Miss Lucy. To-night I go to prove +it. Dare you come with me?" + +This staggered me. A man does not like to prove such a truth; Byron +excepted from the category, jealousy. + + "And prove the very truth he most abhorred." + +He saw my hesitation, and spoke:-- + +"The logic is simple, no madman's logic this time, jumping from tussock +to tussock in a misty bog. If it be not true, then proof will be relief; +at worst it will not harm. If it be true! Ah, there is the dread; yet +very dread should help my cause, for in it is some need of belief. Come, +I tell you what I propose: first, that we go off now and see that child +in the hospital. Dr. Vincent, of the North Hospital, where the papers +say the child is, is friend of mine, and I think of yours since you were +in class at Amsterdam. He will let two scientists see his case, if he +will not let two friends. We shall tell him nothing, but only that we +wish to learn. And then----" + +"And then?" He took a key from his pocket and held it up. "And then we +spend the night, you and I, in the churchyard where Lucy lies. This is +the key that lock the tomb. I had it from the coffin-man to give to +Arthur." My heart sank within me, for I felt that there was some fearful +ordeal before us. I could do nothing, however, so I plucked up what +heart I could and said that we had better hasten, as the afternoon was +passing.... + +We found the child awake. It had had a sleep and taken some food, and +altogether was going on well. Dr. Vincent took the bandage from its +throat, and showed us the punctures. There was no mistaking the +similarity to those which had been on Lucy's throat. They were smaller, +and the edges looked fresher; that was all. We asked Vincent to what he +attributed them, and he replied that it must have been a bite of some +animal, perhaps a rat; but, for his own part, he was inclined to think +that it was one of the bats which are so numerous on the northern +heights of London. "Out of so many harmless ones," he said, "there may +be some wild specimen from the South of a more malignant species. Some +sailor may have brought one home, and it managed to escape; or even from +the Zoological Gardens a young one may have got loose, or one be bred +there from a vampire. These things do occur, you know. Only ten days ago +a wolf got out, and was, I believe, traced up in this direction. For a +week after, the children were playing nothing but Red Riding Hood on the +Heath and in every alley in the place until this 'bloofer lady' scare +came along, since when it has been quite a gala-time with them. Even +this poor little mite, when he woke up to-day, asked the nurse if he +might go away. When she asked him why he wanted to go, he said he wanted +to play with the 'bloofer lady.'" + +"I hope," said Van Helsing, "that when you are sending the child home +you will caution its parents to keep strict watch over it. These fancies +to stray are most dangerous; and if the child were to remain out another +night, it would probably be fatal. But in any case I suppose you will +not let it away for some days?" + +"Certainly not, not for a week at least; longer if the wound is not +healed." + +Our visit to the hospital took more time than we had reckoned on, and +the sun had dipped before we came out. When Van Helsing saw how dark it +was, he said:-- + +"There is no hurry. It is more late than I thought. Come, let us seek +somewhere that we may eat, and then we shall go on our way." + +We dined at "Jack Straw's Castle" along with a little crowd of +bicyclists and others who were genially noisy. About ten o'clock we +started from the inn. It was then very dark, and the scattered lamps +made the darkness greater when we were once outside their individual +radius. The Professor had evidently noted the road we were to go, for he +went on unhesitatingly; but, as for me, I was in quite a mixup as to +locality. As we went further, we met fewer and fewer people, till at +last we were somewhat surprised when we met even the patrol of horse +police going their usual suburban round. At last we reached the wall of +the churchyard, which we climbed over. With some little difficulty--for +it was very dark, and the whole place seemed so strange to us--we found +the Westenra tomb. The Professor took the key, opened the creaky door, +and standing back, politely, but quite unconsciously, motioned me to +precede him. There was a delicious irony in the offer, in the +courtliness of giving preference on such a ghastly occasion. My +companion followed me quickly, and cautiously drew the door to, after +carefully ascertaining that the lock was a falling, and not a spring, +one. In the latter case we should have been in a bad plight. Then he +fumbled in his bag, and taking out a matchbox and a piece of candle, +proceeded to make a light. The tomb in the day-time, and when wreathed +with fresh flowers, had looked grim and gruesome enough; but now, some +days afterwards, when the flowers hung lank and dead, their whites +turning to rust and their greens to browns; when the spider and the +beetle had resumed their accustomed dominance; when time-discoloured +stone, and dust-encrusted mortar, and rusty, dank iron, and tarnished +brass, and clouded silver-plating gave back the feeble glimmer of a +candle, the effect was more miserable and sordid than could have been +imagined. It conveyed irresistibly the idea that life--animal life--was +not the only thing which could pass away. + +Van Helsing went about his work systematically. Holding his candle so +that he could read the coffin plates, and so holding it that the sperm +dropped in white patches which congealed as they touched the metal, he +made assurance of Lucy's coffin. Another search in his bag, and he took +out a turnscrew. + +"What are you going to do?" I asked. + +"To open the coffin. You shall yet be convinced." Straightway he began +taking out the screws, and finally lifted off the lid, showing the +casing of lead beneath. The sight was almost too much for me. It seemed +to be as much an affront to the dead as it would have been to have +stripped off her clothing in her sleep whilst living; I actually took +hold of his hand to stop him. He only said: "You shall see," and again +fumbling in his bag, took out a tiny fret-saw. Striking the turnscrew +through the lead with a swift downward stab, which made me wince, he +made a small hole, which was, however, big enough to admit the point of +the saw. I had expected a rush of gas from the week-old corpse. We +doctors, who have had to study our dangers, have to become accustomed to +such things, and I drew back towards the door. But the Professor never +stopped for a moment; he sawed down a couple of feet along one side of +the lead coffin, and then across, and down the other side. Taking the +edge of the loose flange, he bent it back towards the foot of the +coffin, and holding up the candle into the aperture, motioned to me to +look. + +I drew near and looked. The coffin was empty. + +It was certainly a surprise to me, and gave me a considerable shock, but +Van Helsing was unmoved. He was now more sure than ever of his ground, +and so emboldened to proceed in his task. "Are you satisfied now, friend +John?" he asked. + +I felt all the dogged argumentativeness of my nature awake within me as +I answered him:-- + +"I am satisfied that Lucy's body is not in that coffin; but that only +proves one thing." + +"And what is that, friend John?" + +"That it is not there." + +"That is good logic," he said, "so far as it goes. But how do you--how +can you--account for it not being there?" + +"Perhaps a body-snatcher," I suggested. "Some of the undertaker's people +may have stolen it." I felt that I was speaking folly, and yet it was +the only real cause which I could suggest. The Professor sighed. "Ah +well!" he said, "we must have more proof. Come with me." + +He put on the coffin-lid again, gathered up all his things and placed +them in the bag, blew out the light, and placed the candle also in the +bag. We opened the door, and went out. Behind us he closed the door and +locked it. He handed me the key, saying: "Will you keep it? You had +better be assured." I laughed--it was not a very cheerful laugh, I am +bound to say--as I motioned him to keep it. "A key is nothing," I said; +"there may be duplicates; and anyhow it is not difficult to pick a lock +of that kind." He said nothing, but put the key in his pocket. Then he +told me to watch at one side of the churchyard whilst he would watch at +the other. I took up my place behind a yew-tree, and I saw his dark +figure move until the intervening headstones and trees hid it from my +sight. + +It was a lonely vigil. Just after I had taken my place I heard a distant +clock strike twelve, and in time came one and two. I was chilled and +unnerved, and angry with the Professor for taking me on such an errand +and with myself for coming. I was too cold and too sleepy to be keenly +observant, and not sleepy enough to betray my trust so altogether I had +a dreary, miserable time. + +Suddenly, as I turned round, I thought I saw something like a white +streak, moving between two dark yew-trees at the side of the churchyard +farthest from the tomb; at the same time a dark mass moved from the +Professor's side of the ground, and hurriedly went towards it. Then I +too moved; but I had to go round headstones and railed-off tombs, and I +stumbled over graves. The sky was overcast, and somewhere far off an +early cock crew. A little way off, beyond a line of scattered +juniper-trees, which marked the pathway to the church, a white, dim +figure flitted in the direction of the tomb. The tomb itself was hidden +by trees, and I could not see where the figure disappeared. I heard the +rustle of actual movement where I had first seen the white figure, and +coming over, found the Professor holding in his arms a tiny child. When +he saw me he held it out to me, and said:-- + +"Are you satisfied now?" + +"No," I said, in a way that I felt was aggressive. + +"Do you not see the child?" + +"Yes, it is a child, but who brought it here? And is it wounded?" I +asked. + +"We shall see," said the Professor, and with one impulse we took our way +out of the churchyard, he carrying the sleeping child. + +When we had got some little distance away, we went into a clump of +trees, and struck a match, and looked at the child's throat. It was +without a scratch or scar of any kind. + +"Was I right?" I asked triumphantly. + +"We were just in time," said the Professor thankfully. + +We had now to decide what we were to do with the child, and so consulted +about it. If we were to take it to a police-station we should have to +give some account of our movements during the night; at least, we should +have had to make some statement as to how we had come to find the child. +So finally we decided that we would take it to the Heath, and when we +heard a policeman coming, would leave it where he could not fail to find +it; we would then seek our way home as quickly as we could. All fell out +well. At the edge of Hampstead Heath we heard a policeman's heavy +tramp, and laying the child on the pathway, we waited and watched until +he saw it as he flashed his lantern to and fro. We heard his exclamation +of astonishment, and then we went away silently. By good chance we got a +cab near the "Spaniards," and drove to town. + +I cannot sleep, so I make this entry. But I must try to get a few hours' +sleep, as Van Helsing is to call for me at noon. He insists that I shall +go with him on another expedition. + + * * * * * + +_27 September._--It was two o'clock before we found a suitable +opportunity for our attempt. The funeral held at noon was all completed, +and the last stragglers of the mourners had taken themselves lazily +away, when, looking carefully from behind a clump of alder-trees, we saw +the sexton lock the gate after him. We knew then that we were safe till +morning did we desire it; but the Professor told me that we should not +want more than an hour at most. Again I felt that horrid sense of the +reality of things, in which any effort of imagination seemed out of +place; and I realised distinctly the perils of the law which we were +incurring in our unhallowed work. Besides, I felt it was all so useless. +Outrageous as it was to open a leaden coffin, to see if a woman dead +nearly a week were really dead, it now seemed the height of folly to +open the tomb again, when we knew, from the evidence of our own +eyesight, that the coffin was empty. I shrugged my shoulders, however, +and rested silent, for Van Helsing had a way of going on his own road, +no matter who remonstrated. He took the key, opened the vault, and again +courteously motioned me to precede. The place was not so gruesome as +last night, but oh, how unutterably mean-looking when the sunshine +streamed in. Van Helsing walked over to Lucy's coffin, and I followed. +He bent over and again forced back the leaden flange; and then a shock +of surprise and dismay shot through me. + +There lay Lucy, seemingly just as we had seen her the night before her +funeral. She was, if possible, more radiantly beautiful than ever; and I +could not believe that she was dead. The lips were red, nay redder than +before; and on the cheeks was a delicate bloom. + +"Is this a juggle?" I said to him. + +"Are you convinced now?" said the Professor in response, and as he spoke +he put over his hand, and in a way that made me shudder, pulled back the +dead lips and showed the white teeth. + +"See," he went on, "see, they are even sharper than before. With this +and this"--and he touched one of the canine teeth and that below +it--"the little children can be bitten. Are you of belief now, friend +John?" Once more, argumentative hostility woke within me. I _could_ not +accept such an overwhelming idea as he suggested; so, with an attempt to +argue of which I was even at the moment ashamed, I said:-- + +"She may have been placed here since last night." + +"Indeed? That is so, and by whom?" + +"I do not know. Some one has done it." + +"And yet she has been dead one week. Most peoples in that time would not +look so." I had no answer for this, so was silent. Van Helsing did not +seem to notice my silence; at any rate, he showed neither chagrin nor +triumph. He was looking intently at the face of the dead woman, raising +the eyelids and looking at the eyes, and once more opening the lips and +examining the teeth. Then he turned to me and said:-- + +"Here, there is one thing which is different from all recorded; here is +some dual life that is not as the common. She was bitten by the vampire +when she was in a trance, sleep-walking--oh, you start; you do not know +that, friend John, but you shall know it all later--and in trance could +he best come to take more blood. In trance she died, and in trance she +is Un-Dead, too. So it is that she differ from all other. Usually when +the Un-Dead sleep at home"--as he spoke he made a comprehensive sweep of +his arm to designate what to a vampire was "home"--"their face show what +they are, but this so sweet that was when she not Un-Dead she go back to +the nothings of the common dead. There is no malign there, see, and so +it make hard that I must kill her in her sleep." This turned my blood +cold, and it began to dawn upon me that I was accepting Van Helsing's +theories; but if she were really dead, what was there of terror in the +idea of killing her? He looked up at me, and evidently saw the change in +my face, for he said almost joyously:-- + +"Ah, you believe now?" + +I answered: "Do not press me too hard all at once. I am willing to +accept. How will you do this bloody work?" + +"I shall cut off her head and fill her mouth with garlic, and I shall +drive a stake through her body." It made me shudder to think of so +mutilating the body of the woman whom I had loved. And yet the feeling +was not so strong as I had expected. I was, in fact, beginning to +shudder at the presence of this being, this Un-Dead, as Van Helsing +called it, and to loathe it. Is it possible that love is all subjective, +or all objective? + +I waited a considerable time for Van Helsing to begin, but he stood as +if wrapped in thought. Presently he closed the catch of his bag with a +snap, and said:-- + +"I have been thinking, and have made up my mind as to what is best. If I +did simply follow my inclining I would do now, at this moment, what is +to be done; but there are other things to follow, and things that are +thousand times more difficult in that them we do not know. This is +simple. She have yet no life taken, though that is of time; and to act +now would be to take danger from her for ever. But then we may have to +want Arthur, and how shall we tell him of this? If you, who saw the +wounds on Lucy's throat, and saw the wounds so similar on the child's at +the hospital; if you, who saw the coffin empty last night and full +to-day with a woman who have not change only to be more rose and more +beautiful in a whole week, after she die--if you know of this and know +of the white figure last night that brought the child to the churchyard, +and yet of your own senses you did not believe, how, then, can I expect +Arthur, who know none of those things, to believe? He doubted me when I +took him from her kiss when she was dying. I know he has forgiven me +because in some mistaken idea I have done things that prevent him say +good-bye as he ought; and he may think that in some more mistaken idea +this woman was buried alive; and that in most mistake of all we have +killed her. He will then argue back that it is we, mistaken ones, that +have killed her by our ideas; and so he will be much unhappy always. Yet +he never can be sure; and that is the worst of all. And he will +sometimes think that she he loved was buried alive, and that will paint +his dreams with horrors of what she must have suffered; and again, he +will think that we may be right, and that his so beloved was, after all, +an Un-Dead. No! I told him once, and since then I learn much. Now, since +I know it is all true, a hundred thousand times more do I know that he +must pass through the bitter waters to reach the sweet. He, poor fellow, +must have one hour that will make the very face of heaven grow black to +him; then we can act for good all round and send him peace. My mind is +made up. Let us go. You return home for to-night to your asylum, and see +that all be well. As for me, I shall spend the night here in this +churchyard in my own way. To-morrow night you will come to me to the +Berkeley Hotel at ten of the clock. I shall send for Arthur to come too, +and also that so fine young man of America that gave his blood. Later we +shall all have work to do. I come with you so far as Piccadilly and +there dine, for I must be back here before the sun set." + +So we locked the tomb and came away, and got over the wall of the +churchyard, which was not much of a task, and drove back to Piccadilly. + + +_Note left by Van Helsing in his portmanteau, Berkeley Hotel directed to +John Seward, M. D._ + +(Not delivered.) + +"_27 September._ + +"Friend John,-- + +"I write this in case anything should happen. I go alone to watch in +that churchyard. It pleases me that the Un-Dead, Miss Lucy, shall not +leave to-night, that so on the morrow night she may be more eager. +Therefore I shall fix some things she like not--garlic and a +crucifix--and so seal up the door of the tomb. She is young as Un-Dead, +and will heed. Moreover, these are only to prevent her coming out; they +may not prevail on her wanting to get in; for then the Un-Dead is +desperate, and must find the line of least resistance, whatsoever it may +be. I shall be at hand all the night from sunset till after the sunrise, +and if there be aught that may be learned I shall learn it. For Miss +Lucy or from her, I have no fear; but that other to whom is there that +she is Un-Dead, he have now the power to seek her tomb and find shelter. +He is cunning, as I know from Mr. Jonathan and from the way that all +along he have fooled us when he played with us for Miss Lucy's life, and +we lost; and in many ways the Un-Dead are strong. He have always the +strength in his hand of twenty men; even we four who gave our strength +to Miss Lucy it also is all to him. Besides, he can summon his wolf and +I know not what. So if it be that he come thither on this night he shall +find me; but none other shall--until it be too late. But it may be that +he will not attempt the place. There is no reason why he should; his +hunting ground is more full of game than the churchyard where the +Un-Dead woman sleep, and the one old man watch. + +"Therefore I write this in case.... Take the papers that are with this, +the diaries of Harker and the rest, and read them, and then find this +great Un-Dead, and cut off his head and burn his heart or drive a stake +through it, so that the world may rest from him. + +"If it be so, farewell. + +"VAN HELSING." + + + +_Dr. Seward's Diary._ + +_28 September._--It is wonderful what a good night's sleep will do for +one. Yesterday I was almost willing to accept Van Helsing's monstrous +ideas; but now they seem to start out lurid before me as outrages on +common sense. I have no doubt that he believes it all. I wonder if his +mind can have become in any way unhinged. Surely there must be _some_ +rational explanation of all these mysterious things. Is it possible that +the Professor can have done it himself? He is so abnormally clever that +if he went off his head he would carry out his intent with regard to +some fixed idea in a wonderful way. I am loath to think it, and indeed +it would be almost as great a marvel as the other to find that Van +Helsing was mad; but anyhow I shall watch him carefully. I may get some +light on the mystery. + + * * * * * + +_29 September, morning._.... Last night, at a little before ten o'clock, +Arthur and Quincey came into Van Helsing's room; he told us all that he +wanted us to do, but especially addressing himself to Arthur, as if all +our wills were centred in his. He began by saying that he hoped we would +all come with him too, "for," he said, "there is a grave duty to be done +there. You were doubtless surprised at my letter?" This query was +directly addressed to Lord Godalming. + +"I was. It rather upset me for a bit. There has been so much trouble +around my house of late that I could do without any more. I have been +curious, too, as to what you mean. Quincey and I talked it over; but the +more we talked, the more puzzled we got, till now I can say for myself +that I'm about up a tree as to any meaning about anything." + +"Me too," said Quincey Morris laconically. + +"Oh," said the Professor, "then you are nearer the beginning, both of +you, than friend John here, who has to go a long way back before he can +even get so far as to begin." + +It was evident that he recognised my return to my old doubting frame of +mind without my saying a word. Then, turning to the other two, he said +with intense gravity:-- + +"I want your permission to do what I think good this night. It is, I +know, much to ask; and when you know what it is I propose to do you will +know, and only then, how much. Therefore may I ask that you promise me +in the dark, so that afterwards, though you may be angry with me for a +time--I must not disguise from myself the possibility that such may +be--you shall not blame yourselves for anything." + +"That's frank anyhow," broke in Quincey. "I'll answer for the Professor. +I don't quite see his drift, but I swear he's honest; and that's good +enough for me." + +"I thank you, sir," said Van Helsing proudly. "I have done myself the +honour of counting you one trusting friend, and such endorsement is dear +to me." He held out a hand, which Quincey took. + +Then Arthur spoke out:-- + +"Dr. Van Helsing, I don't quite like to 'buy a pig in a poke,' as they +say in Scotland, and if it be anything in which my honour as a gentleman +or my faith as a Christian is concerned, I cannot make such a promise. +If you can assure me that what you intend does not violate either of +these two, then I give my consent at once; though for the life of me, I +cannot understand what you are driving at." + +"I accept your limitation," said Van Helsing, "and all I ask of you is +that if you feel it necessary to condemn any act of mine, you will first +consider it well and be satisfied that it does not violate your +reservations." + +"Agreed!" said Arthur; "that is only fair. And now that the +_pourparlers_ are over, may I ask what it is we are to do?" + +"I want you to come with me, and to come in secret, to the churchyard at +Kingstead." + +Arthur's face fell as he said in an amazed sort of way:-- + +"Where poor Lucy is buried?" The Professor bowed. Arthur went on: "And +when there?" + +"To enter the tomb!" Arthur stood up. + +"Professor, are you in earnest; or it is some monstrous joke? Pardon me, +I see that you are in earnest." He sat down again, but I could see that +he sat firmly and proudly, as one who is on his dignity. There was +silence until he asked again:-- + +"And when in the tomb?" + +"To open the coffin." + +"This is too much!" he said, angrily rising again. "I am willing to be +patient in all things that are reasonable; but in this--this desecration +of the grave--of one who----" He fairly choked with indignation. The +Professor looked pityingly at him. + +"If I could spare you one pang, my poor friend," he said, "God knows I +would. But this night our feet must tread in thorny paths; or later, and +for ever, the feet you love must walk in paths of flame!" + +Arthur looked up with set white face and said:-- + +"Take care, sir, take care!" + +"Would it not be well to hear what I have to say?" said Van Helsing. +"And then you will at least know the limit of my purpose. Shall I go +on?" + +"That's fair enough," broke in Morris. + +After a pause Van Helsing went on, evidently with an effort:-- + +"Miss Lucy is dead; is it not so? Yes! Then there can be no wrong to +her. But if she be not dead----" + +Arthur jumped to his feet. + +"Good God!" he cried. "What do you mean? Has there been any mistake; has +she been buried alive?" He groaned in anguish that not even hope could +soften. + +"I did not say she was alive, my child; I did not think it. I go no +further than to say that she might be Un-Dead." + +"Un-Dead! Not alive! What do you mean? Is this all a nightmare, or what +is it?" + +"There are mysteries which men can only guess at, which age by age they +may solve only in part. Believe me, we are now on the verge of one. But +I have not done. May I cut off the head of dead Miss Lucy?" + +"Heavens and earth, no!" cried Arthur in a storm of passion. "Not for +the wide world will I consent to any mutilation of her dead body. Dr. +Van Helsing, you try me too far. What have I done to you that you should +torture me so? What did that poor, sweet girl do that you should want to +cast such dishonour on her grave? Are you mad that speak such things, or +am I mad to listen to them? Don't dare to think more of such a +desecration; I shall not give my consent to anything you do. I have a +duty to do in protecting her grave from outrage; and, by God, I shall do +it!" + +Van Helsing rose up from where he had all the time been seated, and +said, gravely and sternly:-- + +"My Lord Godalming, I, too, have a duty to do, a duty to others, a duty +to you, a duty to the dead; and, by God, I shall do it! All I ask you +now is that you come with me, that you look and listen; and if when +later I make the same request you do not be more eager for its +fulfilment even than I am, then--then I shall do my duty, whatever it +may seem to me. And then, to follow of your Lordship's wishes I shall +hold myself at your disposal to render an account to you, when and where +you will." His voice broke a little, and he went on with a voice full of +pity:-- + +"But, I beseech you, do not go forth in anger with me. In a long life of +acts which were often not pleasant to do, and which sometimes did wring +my heart, I have never had so heavy a task as now. Believe me that if +the time comes for you to change your mind towards me, one look from +you will wipe away all this so sad hour, for I would do what a man can +to save you from sorrow. Just think. For why should I give myself so +much of labour and so much of sorrow? I have come here from my own land +to do what I can of good; at the first to please my friend John, and +then to help a sweet young lady, whom, too, I came to love. For her--I +am ashamed to say so much, but I say it in kindness--I gave what you +gave; the blood of my veins; I gave it, I, who was not, like you, her +lover, but only her physician and her friend. I gave to her my nights +and days--before death, after death; and if my death can do her good +even now, when she is the dead Un-Dead, she shall have it freely." He +said this with a very grave, sweet pride, and Arthur was much affected +by it. He took the old man's hand and said in a broken voice:-- + +"Oh, it is hard to think of it, and I cannot understand; but at least I +shall go with you and wait." + + + + +CHAPTER XVI + +DR. SEWARD'S DIARY--_continued_ + + +It was just a quarter before twelve o'clock when we got into the +churchyard over the low wall. The night was dark with occasional gleams +of moonlight between the rents of the heavy clouds that scudded across +the sky. We all kept somehow close together, with Van Helsing slightly +in front as he led the way. When we had come close to the tomb I looked +well at Arthur, for I feared that the proximity to a place laden with so +sorrowful a memory would upset him; but he bore himself well. I took it +that the very mystery of the proceeding was in some way a counteractant +to his grief. The Professor unlocked the door, and seeing a natural +hesitation amongst us for various reasons, solved the difficulty by +entering first himself. The rest of us followed, and he closed the door. +He then lit a dark lantern and pointed to the coffin. Arthur stepped +forward hesitatingly; Van Helsing said to me:-- + +"You were with me here yesterday. Was the body of Miss Lucy in that +coffin?" + +"It was." The Professor turned to the rest saying:-- + +"You hear; and yet there is no one who does not believe with me." He +took his screwdriver and again took off the lid of the coffin. Arthur +looked on, very pale but silent; when the lid was removed he stepped +forward. He evidently did not know that there was a leaden coffin, or, +at any rate, had not thought of it. When he saw the rent in the lead, +the blood rushed to his face for an instant, but as quickly fell away +again, so that he remained of a ghastly whiteness; he was still silent. +Van Helsing forced back the leaden flange, and we all looked in and +recoiled. + +The coffin was empty! + +For several minutes no one spoke a word. The silence was broken by +Quincey Morris:-- + +"Professor, I answered for you. Your word is all I want. I wouldn't ask +such a thing ordinarily--I wouldn't so dishonour you as to imply a +doubt; but this is a mystery that goes beyond any honour or dishonour. +Is this your doing?" + +"I swear to you by all that I hold sacred that I have not removed nor +touched her. What happened was this: Two nights ago my friend Seward and +I came here--with good purpose, believe me. I opened that coffin, which +was then sealed up, and we found it, as now, empty. We then waited, and +saw something white come through the trees. The next day we came here in +day-time, and she lay there. Did she not, friend John?" + +"Yes." + +"That night we were just in time. One more so small child was missing, +and we find it, thank God, unharmed amongst the graves. Yesterday I came +here before sundown, for at sundown the Un-Dead can move. I waited here +all the night till the sun rose, but I saw nothing. It was most probable +that it was because I had laid over the clamps of those doors garlic, +which the Un-Dead cannot bear, and other things which they shun. Last +night there was no exodus, so to-night before the sundown I took away my +garlic and other things. And so it is we find this coffin empty. But +bear with me. So far there is much that is strange. Wait you with me +outside, unseen and unheard, and things much stranger are yet to be. +So"--here he shut the dark slide of his lantern--"now to the outside." +He opened the door, and we filed out, he coming last and locking the +door behind him. + +Oh! but it seemed fresh and pure in the night air after the terror of +that vault. How sweet it was to see the clouds race by, and the passing +gleams of the moonlight between the scudding clouds crossing and +passing--like the gladness and sorrow of a man's life; how sweet it was +to breathe the fresh air, that had no taint of death and decay; how +humanising to see the red lighting of the sky beyond the hill, and to +hear far away the muffled roar that marks the life of a great city. Each +in his own way was solemn and overcome. Arthur was silent, and was, I +could see, striving to grasp the purpose and the inner meaning of the +mystery. I was myself tolerably patient, and half inclined again to +throw aside doubt and to accept Van Helsing's conclusions. Quincey +Morris was phlegmatic in the way of a man who accepts all things, and +accepts them in the spirit of cool bravery, with hazard of all he has to +stake. Not being able to smoke, he cut himself a good-sized plug of +tobacco and began to chew. As to Van Helsing, he was employed in a +definite way. First he took from his bag a mass of what looked like +thin, wafer-like biscuit, which was carefully rolled up in a white +napkin; next he took out a double-handful of some whitish stuff, like +dough or putty. He crumbled the wafer up fine and worked it into the +mass between his hands. This he then took, and rolling it into thin +strips, began to lay them into the crevices between the door and its +setting in the tomb. I was somewhat puzzled at this, and being close, +asked him what it was that he was doing. Arthur and Quincey drew near +also, as they too were curious. He answered:-- + +"I am closing the tomb, so that the Un-Dead may not enter." + +"And is that stuff you have put there going to do it?" asked Quincey. +"Great Scott! Is this a game?" + +"It is." + +"What is that which you are using?" This time the question was by +Arthur. Van Helsing reverently lifted his hat as he answered:-- + +"The Host. I brought it from Amsterdam. I have an Indulgence." It was an +answer that appalled the most sceptical of us, and we felt individually +that in the presence of such earnest purpose as the Professor's, a +purpose which could thus use the to him most sacred of things, it was +impossible to distrust. In respectful silence we took the places +assigned to us close round the tomb, but hidden from the sight of any +one approaching. I pitied the others, especially Arthur. I had myself +been apprenticed by my former visits to this watching horror; and yet I, +who had up to an hour ago repudiated the proofs, felt my heart sink +within me. Never did tombs look so ghastly white; never did cypress, or +yew, or juniper so seem the embodiment of funereal gloom; never did tree +or grass wave or rustle so ominously; never did bough creak so +mysteriously; and never did the far-away howling of dogs send such a +woeful presage through the night. + +There was a long spell of silence, a big, aching void, and then from the +Professor a keen "S-s-s-s!" He pointed; and far down the avenue of yews +we saw a white figure advance--a dim white figure, which held something +dark at its breast. The figure stopped, and at the moment a ray of +moonlight fell upon the masses of driving clouds and showed in startling +prominence a dark-haired woman, dressed in the cerements of the grave. +We could not see the face, for it was bent down over what we saw to be a +fair-haired child. There was a pause and a sharp little cry, such as a +child gives in sleep, or a dog as it lies before the fire and dreams. We +were starting forward, but the Professor's warning hand, seen by us as +he stood behind a yew-tree, kept us back; and then as we looked the +white figure moved forwards again. It was now near enough for us to see +clearly, and the moonlight still held. My own heart grew cold as ice, +and I could hear the gasp of Arthur, as we recognised the features of +Lucy Westenra. Lucy Westenra, but yet how changed. The sweetness was +turned to adamantine, heartless cruelty, and the purity to voluptuous +wantonness. Van Helsing stepped out, and, obedient to his gesture, we +all advanced too; the four of us ranged in a line before the door of the +tomb. Van Helsing raised his lantern and drew the slide; by the +concentrated light that fell on Lucy's face we could see that the lips +were crimson with fresh blood, and that the stream had trickled over her +chin and stained the purity of her lawn death-robe. + +We shuddered with horror. I could see by the tremulous light that even +Van Helsing's iron nerve had failed. Arthur was next to me, and if I had +not seized his arm and held him up, he would have fallen. + +When Lucy--I call the thing that was before us Lucy because it bore her +shape--saw us she drew back with an angry snarl, such as a cat gives +when taken unawares; then her eyes ranged over us. Lucy's eyes in form +and colour; but Lucy's eyes unclean and full of hell-fire, instead of +the pure, gentle orbs we knew. At that moment the remnant of my love +passed into hate and loathing; had she then to be killed, I could have +done it with savage delight. As she looked, her eyes blazed with unholy +light, and the face became wreathed with a voluptuous smile. Oh, God, +how it made me shudder to see it! With a careless motion, she flung to +the ground, callous as a devil, the child that up to now she had +clutched strenuously to her breast, growling over it as a dog growls +over a bone. The child gave a sharp cry, and lay there moaning. There +was a cold-bloodedness in the act which wrung a groan from Arthur; when +she advanced to him with outstretched arms and a wanton smile he fell +back and hid his face in his hands. + +She still advanced, however, and with a languorous, voluptuous grace, +said:-- + +"Come to me, Arthur. Leave these others and come to me. My arms are +hungry for you. Come, and we can rest together. Come, my husband, come!" + +There was something diabolically sweet in her tones--something of the +tingling of glass when struck--which rang through the brains even of us +who heard the words addressed to another. As for Arthur, he seemed under +a spell; moving his hands from his face, he opened wide his arms. She +was leaping for them, when Van Helsing sprang forward and held between +them his little golden crucifix. She recoiled from it, and, with a +suddenly distorted face, full of rage, dashed past him as if to enter +the tomb. + +When within a foot or two of the door, however, she stopped, as if +arrested by some irresistible force. Then she turned, and her face was +shown in the clear burst of moonlight and by the lamp, which had now no +quiver from Van Helsing's iron nerves. Never did I see such baffled +malice on a face; and never, I trust, shall such ever be seen again by +mortal eyes. The beautiful colour became livid, the eyes seemed to throw +out sparks of hell-fire, the brows were wrinkled as though the folds of +the flesh were the coils of Medusa's snakes, and the lovely, +blood-stained mouth grew to an open square, as in the passion masks of +the Greeks and Japanese. If ever a face meant death--if looks could +kill--we saw it at that moment. + +And so for full half a minute, which seemed an eternity, she remained +between the lifted crucifix and the sacred closing of her means of +entry. Van Helsing broke the silence by asking Arthur:-- + +"Answer me, oh my friend! Am I to proceed in my work?" + +Arthur threw himself on his knees, and hid his face in his hands, as he +answered:-- + +"Do as you will, friend; do as you will. There can be no horror like +this ever any more;" and he groaned in spirit. Quincey and I +simultaneously moved towards him, and took his arms. We could hear the +click of the closing lantern as Van Helsing held it down; coming close +to the tomb, he began to remove from the chinks some of the sacred +emblem which he had placed there. We all looked on in horrified +amazement as we saw, when he stood back, the woman, with a corporeal +body as real at that moment as our own, pass in through the interstice +where scarce a knife-blade could have gone. We all felt a glad sense of +relief when we saw the Professor calmly restoring the strings of putty +to the edges of the door. + +When this was done, he lifted the child and said: + +"Come now, my friends; we can do no more till to-morrow. There is a +funeral at noon, so here we shall all come before long after that. The +friends of the dead will all be gone by two, and when the sexton lock +the gate we shall remain. Then there is more to do; but not like this of +to-night. As for this little one, he is not much harm, and by to-morrow +night he shall be well. We shall leave him where the police will find +him, as on the other night; and then to home." Coming close to Arthur, +he said:-- + +"My friend Arthur, you have had a sore trial; but after, when you look +back, you will see how it was necessary. You are now in the bitter +waters, my child. By this time to-morrow you will, please God, have +passed them, and have drunk of the sweet waters; so do not mourn +overmuch. Till then I shall not ask you to forgive me." + +Arthur and Quincey came home with me, and we tried to cheer each other +on the way. We had left the child in safety, and were tired; so we all +slept with more or less reality of sleep. + + * * * * * + +_29 September, night._--A little before twelve o'clock we three--Arthur, +Quincey Morris, and myself--called for the Professor. It was odd to +notice that by common consent we had all put on black clothes. Of +course, Arthur wore black, for he was in deep mourning, but the rest of +us wore it by instinct. We got to the churchyard by half-past one, and +strolled about, keeping out of official observation, so that when the +gravediggers had completed their task and the sexton under the belief +that every one had gone, had locked the gate, we had the place all to +ourselves. Van Helsing, instead of his little black bag, had with him a +long leather one, something like a cricketing bag; it was manifestly of +fair weight. + +When we were alone and had heard the last of the footsteps die out up +the road, we silently, and as if by ordered intention, followed the +Professor to the tomb. He unlocked the door, and we entered, closing it +behind us. Then he took from his bag the lantern, which he lit, and also +two wax candles, which, when lighted, he stuck, by melting their own +ends, on other coffins, so that they might give light sufficient to work +by. When he again lifted the lid off Lucy's coffin we all looked--Arthur +trembling like an aspen--and saw that the body lay there in all its +death-beauty. But there was no love in my own heart, nothing but +loathing for the foul Thing which had taken Lucy's shape without her +soul. I could see even Arthur's face grow hard as he looked. Presently +he said to Van Helsing:-- + +"Is this really Lucy's body, or only a demon in her shape?" + +"It is her body, and yet not it. But wait a while, and you all see her +as she was, and is." + +She seemed like a nightmare of Lucy as she lay there; the pointed teeth, +the bloodstained, voluptuous mouth--which it made one shudder to +see--the whole carnal and unspiritual appearance, seeming like a +devilish mockery of Lucy's sweet purity. Van Helsing, with his usual +methodicalness, began taking the various contents from his bag and +placing them ready for use. First he took out a soldering iron and some +plumbing solder, and then a small oil-lamp, which gave out, when lit in +a corner of the tomb, gas which burned at fierce heat with a blue +flame; then his operating knives, which he placed to hand; and last a +round wooden stake, some two and a half or three inches thick and about +three feet long. One end of it was hardened by charring in the fire, and +was sharpened to a fine point. With this stake came a heavy hammer, such +as in households is used in the coal-cellar for breaking the lumps. To +me, a doctor's preparations for work of any kind are stimulating and +bracing, but the effect of these things on both Arthur and Quincey was +to cause them a sort of consternation. They both, however, kept their +courage, and remained silent and quiet. + +When all was ready, Van Helsing said:-- + +"Before we do anything, let me tell you this; it is out of the lore and +experience of the ancients and of all those who have studied the powers +of the Un-Dead. When they become such, there comes with the change the +curse of immortality; they cannot die, but must go on age after age +adding new victims and multiplying the evils of the world; for all that +die from the preying of the Un-Dead becomes themselves Un-Dead, and prey +on their kind. And so the circle goes on ever widening, like as the +ripples from a stone thrown in the water. Friend Arthur, if you had met +that kiss which you know of before poor Lucy die; or again, last night +when you open your arms to her, you would in time, when you had died, +have become _nosferatu_, as they call it in Eastern Europe, and would +all time make more of those Un-Deads that so have fill us with horror. +The career of this so unhappy dear lady is but just begun. Those +children whose blood she suck are not as yet so much the worse; but if +she live on, Un-Dead, more and more they lose their blood and by her +power over them they come to her; and so she draw their blood with that +so wicked mouth. But if she die in truth, then all cease; the tiny +wounds of the throats disappear, and they go back to their plays +unknowing ever of what has been. But of the most blessed of all, when +this now Un-Dead be made to rest as true dead, then the soul of the poor +lady whom we love shall again be free. Instead of working wickedness by +night and growing more debased in the assimilating of it by day, she +shall take her place with the other Angels. So that, my friend, it will +be a blessed hand for her that shall strike the blow that sets her free. +To this I am willing; but is there none amongst us who has a better +right? Will it be no joy to think of hereafter in the silence of the +night when sleep is not: 'It was my hand that sent her to the stars; it +was the hand of him that loved her best; the hand that of all she would +herself have chosen, had it been to her to choose?' Tell me if there be +such a one amongst us?" + +We all looked at Arthur. He saw, too, what we all did, the infinite +kindness which suggested that his should be the hand which would restore +Lucy to us as a holy, and not an unholy, memory; he stepped forward and +said bravely, though his hand trembled, and his face was as pale as +snow:-- + +"My true friend, from the bottom of my broken heart I thank you. Tell me +what I am to do, and I shall not falter!" Van Helsing laid a hand on his +shoulder, and said:-- + +"Brave lad! A moment's courage, and it is done. This stake must be +driven through her. It will be a fearful ordeal--be not deceived in +that--but it will be only a short time, and you will then rejoice more +than your pain was great; from this grim tomb you will emerge as though +you tread on air. But you must not falter when once you have begun. Only +think that we, your true friends, are round you, and that we pray for +you all the time." + +"Go on," said Arthur hoarsely. "Tell me what I am to do." + +"Take this stake in your left hand, ready to place the point over the +heart, and the hammer in your right. Then when we begin our prayer for +the dead--I shall read him, I have here the book, and the others shall +follow--strike in God's name, that so all may be well with the dead that +we love and that the Un-Dead pass away." + +Arthur took the stake and the hammer, and when once his mind was set on +action his hands never trembled nor even quivered. Van Helsing opened +his missal and began to read, and Quincey and I followed as well as we +could. Arthur placed the point over the heart, and as I looked I could +see its dint in the white flesh. Then he struck with all his might. + +The Thing in the coffin writhed; and a hideous, blood-curdling screech +came from the opened red lips. The body shook and quivered and twisted +in wild contortions; the sharp white teeth champed together till the +lips were cut, and the mouth was smeared with a crimson foam. But Arthur +never faltered. He looked like a figure of Thor as his untrembling arm +rose and fell, driving deeper and deeper the mercy-bearing stake, whilst +the blood from the pierced heart welled and spurted up around it. His +face was set, and high duty seemed to shine through it; the sight of it +gave us courage so that our voices seemed to ring through the little +vault. + +And then the writhing and quivering of the body became less, and the +teeth seemed to champ, and the face to quiver. Finally it lay still. The +terrible task was over. + +The hammer fell from Arthur's hand. He reeled and would have fallen had +we not caught him. The great drops of sweat sprang from his forehead, +and his breath came in broken gasps. It had indeed been an awful strain +on him; and had he not been forced to his task by more than human +considerations he could never have gone through with it. For a few +minutes we were so taken up with him that we did not look towards the +coffin. When we did, however, a murmur of startled surprise ran from one +to the other of us. We gazed so eagerly that Arthur rose, for he had +been seated on the ground, and came and looked too; and then a glad, +strange light broke over his face and dispelled altogether the gloom of +horror that lay upon it. + +There, in the coffin lay no longer the foul Thing that we had so dreaded +and grown to hate that the work of her destruction was yielded as a +privilege to the one best entitled to it, but Lucy as we had seen her in +her life, with her face of unequalled sweetness and purity. True that +there were there, as we had seen them in life, the traces of care and +pain and waste; but these were all dear to us, for they marked her truth +to what we knew. One and all we felt that the holy calm that lay like +sunshine over the wasted face and form was only an earthly token and +symbol of the calm that was to reign for ever. + +Van Helsing came and laid his hand on Arthur's shoulder, and said to +him:-- + +"And now, Arthur my friend, dear lad, am I not forgiven?" + +The reaction of the terrible strain came as he took the old man's hand +in his, and raising it to his lips, pressed it, and said:-- + +"Forgiven! God bless you that you have given my dear one her soul again, +and me peace." He put his hands on the Professor's shoulder, and laying +his head on his breast, cried for a while silently, whilst we stood +unmoving. When he raised his head Van Helsing said to him:-- + +"And now, my child, you may kiss her. Kiss her dead lips if you will, as +she would have you to, if for her to choose. For she is not a grinning +devil now--not any more a foul Thing for all eternity. No longer she is +the devil's Un-Dead. She is God's true dead, whose soul is with Him!" + +Arthur bent and kissed her, and then we sent him and Quincey out of the +tomb; the Professor and I sawed the top off the stake, leaving the point +of it in the body. Then we cut off the head and filled the mouth with +garlic. We soldered up the leaden coffin, screwed on the coffin-lid, +and gathering up our belongings, came away. When the Professor locked +the door he gave the key to Arthur. + +Outside the air was sweet, the sun shone, and the birds sang, and it +seemed as if all nature were tuned to a different pitch. There was +gladness and mirth and peace everywhere, for we were at rest ourselves +on one account, and we were glad, though it was with a tempered joy. + +Before we moved away Van Helsing said:-- + +"Now, my friends, one step of our work is done, one the most harrowing +to ourselves. But there remains a greater task: to find out the author +of all this our sorrow and to stamp him out. I have clues which we can +follow; but it is a long task, and a difficult, and there is danger in +it, and pain. Shall you not all help me? We have learned to believe, all +of us--is it not so? And since so, do we not see our duty? Yes! And do +we not promise to go on to the bitter end?" + +Each in turn, we took his hand, and the promise was made. Then said the +Professor as we moved off:-- + +"Two nights hence you shall meet with me and dine together at seven of +the clock with friend John. I shall entreat two others, two that you +know not as yet; and I shall be ready to all our work show and our plans +unfold. Friend John, you come with me home, for I have much to consult +about, and you can help me. To-night I leave for Amsterdam, but shall +return to-morrow night. And then begins our great quest. But first I +shall have much to say, so that you may know what is to do and to dread. +Then our promise shall be made to each other anew; for there is a +terrible task before us, and once our feet are on the ploughshare we +must not draw back." + + + + +CHAPTER XVII + +DR. SEWARD'S DIARY--_continued_ + + +When we arrived at the Berkeley Hotel, Van Helsing found a telegram +waiting for him:-- + + "Am coming up by train. Jonathan at Whitby. Important news.--MINA + HARKER." + +The Professor was delighted. "Ah, that wonderful Madam Mina," he said, +"pearl among women! She arrive, but I cannot stay. She must go to your +house, friend John. You must meet her at the station. Telegraph her _en +route_, so that she may be prepared." + +When the wire was despatched he had a cup of tea; over it he told me of +a diary kept by Jonathan Harker when abroad, and gave me a typewritten +copy of it, as also of Mrs. Harker's diary at Whitby. "Take these," he +said, "and study them well. When I have returned you will be master of +all the facts, and we can then better enter on our inquisition. Keep +them safe, for there is in them much of treasure. You will need all your +faith, even you who have had such an experience as that of to-day. What +is here told," he laid his hand heavily and gravely on the packet of +papers as he spoke, "may be the beginning of the end to you and me and +many another; or it may sound the knell of the Un-Dead who walk the +earth. Read all, I pray you, with the open mind; and if you can add in +any way to the story here told do so, for it is all-important. You have +kept diary of all these so strange things; is it not so? Yes! Then we +shall go through all these together when we meet." He then made ready +for his departure, and shortly after drove off to Liverpool Street. I +took my way to Paddington, where I arrived about fifteen minutes before +the train came in. + +The crowd melted away, after the bustling fashion common to arrival +platforms; and I was beginning to feel uneasy, lest I might miss my +guest, when a sweet-faced, dainty-looking girl stepped up to me, and, +after a quick glance, said: "Dr. Seward, is it not?" + +"And you are Mrs. Harker!" I answered at once; whereupon she held out +her hand. + +"I knew you from the description of poor dear Lucy; but----" She stopped +suddenly, and a quick blush overspread her face. + +The blush that rose to my own cheeks somehow set us both at ease, for it +was a tacit answer to her own. I got her luggage, which included a +typewriter, and we took the Underground to Fenchurch Street, after I had +sent a wire to my housekeeper to have a sitting-room and bedroom +prepared at once for Mrs. Harker. + +In due time we arrived. She knew, of course, that the place was a +lunatic asylum, but I could see that she was unable to repress a shudder +when we entered. + +She told me that, if she might, she would come presently to my study, as +she had much to say. So here I am finishing my entry in my phonograph +diary whilst I await her. As yet I have not had the chance of looking at +the papers which Van Helsing left with me, though they lie open before +me. I must get her interested in something, so that I may have an +opportunity of reading them. She does not know how precious time is, or +what a task we have in hand. I must be careful not to frighten her. Here +she is! + + +_Mina Harker's Journal._ + +_29 September._--After I had tidied myself, I went down to Dr. Seward's +study. At the door I paused a moment, for I thought I heard him talking +with some one. As, however, he had pressed me to be quick, I knocked at +the door, and on his calling out, "Come in," I entered. + +To my intense surprise, there was no one with him. He was quite alone, +and on the table opposite him was what I knew at once from the +description to be a phonograph. I had never seen one, and was much +interested. + +"I hope I did not keep you waiting," I said; "but I stayed at the door +as I heard you talking, and thought there was some one with you." + +"Oh," he replied with a smile, "I was only entering my diary." + +"Your diary?" I asked him in surprise. + +"Yes," he answered. "I keep it in this." As he spoke he laid his hand on +the phonograph. I felt quite excited over it, and blurted out:-- + +"Why, this beats even shorthand! May I hear it say something?" + +"Certainly," he replied with alacrity, and stood up to put it in train +for speaking. Then he paused, and a troubled look overspread his face. + +"The fact is," he began awkwardly, "I only keep my diary in it; and as +it is entirely--almost entirely--about my cases, it may be awkward--that +is, I mean----" He stopped, and I tried to help him out of his +embarrassment:-- + +"You helped to attend dear Lucy at the end. Let me hear how she died; +for all that I know of her, I shall be very grateful. She was very, very +dear to me." + +To my surprise, he answered, with a horrorstruck look in his face:-- + +"Tell you of her death? Not for the wide world!" + +"Why not?" I asked, for some grave, terrible feeling was coming over me. +Again he paused, and I could see that he was trying to invent an excuse. +At length he stammered out:-- + +"You see, I do not know how to pick out any particular part of the +diary." Even while he was speaking an idea dawned upon him, and he said +with unconscious simplicity, in a different voice, and with the naivete +of a child: "That's quite true, upon my honour. Honest Indian!" I could +not but smile, at which he grimaced. "I gave myself away that time!" he +said. "But do you know that, although I have kept the diary for months +past, it never once struck me how I was going to find any particular +part of it in case I wanted to look it up?" By this time my mind was +made up that the diary of a doctor who attended Lucy might have +something to add to the sum of our knowledge of that terrible Being, and +I said boldly:-- + +"Then, Dr. Seward, you had better let me copy it out for you on my +typewriter." He grew to a positively deathly pallor as he said:-- + +"No! no! no! For all the world, I wouldn't let you know that terrible +story!" + +Then it was terrible; my intuition was right! For a moment I thought, +and as my eyes ranged the room, unconsciously looking for something or +some opportunity to aid me, they lit on a great batch of typewriting on +the table. His eyes caught the look in mine, and, without his thinking, +followed their direction. As they saw the parcel he realised my meaning. + +"You do not know me," I said. "When you have read those papers--my own +diary and my husband's also, which I have typed--you will know me +better. I have not faltered in giving every thought of my own heart in +this cause; but, of course, you do not know me--yet; and I must not +expect you to trust me so far." + +He is certainly a man of noble nature; poor dear Lucy was right about +him. He stood up and opened a large drawer, in which were arranged in +order a number of hollow cylinders of metal covered with dark wax, and +said:-- + +"You are quite right. I did not trust you because I did not know you. +But I know you now; and let me say that I should have known you long +ago. I know that Lucy told you of me; she told me of you too. May I make +the only atonement in my power? Take the cylinders and hear them--the +first half-dozen of them are personal to me, and they will not horrify +you; then you will know me better. Dinner will by then be ready. In the +meantime I shall read over some of these documents, and shall be better +able to understand certain things." He carried the phonograph himself up +to my sitting-room and adjusted it for me. Now I shall learn something +pleasant, I am sure; for it will tell me the other side of a true love +episode of which I know one side already.... + + +_Dr. Seward's Diary._ + +_29 September._--I was so absorbed in that wonderful diary of Jonathan +Harker and that other of his wife that I let the time run on without +thinking. Mrs. Harker was not down when the maid came to announce +dinner, so I said: "She is possibly tired; let dinner wait an hour," and +I went on with my work. I had just finished Mrs. Harker's diary, when +she came in. She looked sweetly pretty, but very sad, and her eyes were +flushed with crying. This somehow moved me much. Of late I have had +cause for tears, God knows! but the relief of them was denied me; and +now the sight of those sweet eyes, brightened with recent tears, went +straight to my heart. So I said as gently as I could:-- + +"I greatly fear I have distressed you." + +"Oh, no, not distressed me," she replied, "but I have been more touched +than I can say by your grief. That is a wonderful machine, but it is +cruelly true. It told me, in its very tones, the anguish of your heart. +It was like a soul crying out to Almighty God. No one must hear them +spoken ever again! See, I have tried to be useful. I have copied out the +words on my typewriter, and none other need now hear your heart beat, as +I did." + +"No one need ever know, shall ever know," I said in a low voice. She +laid her hand on mine and said very gravely:-- + +"Ah, but they must!" + +"Must! But why?" I asked. + +"Because it is a part of the terrible story, a part of poor dear Lucy's +death and all that led to it; because in the struggle which we have +before us to rid the earth of this terrible monster we must have all +the knowledge and all the help which we can get. I think that the +cylinders which you gave me contained more than you intended me to know; +but I can see that there are in your record many lights to this dark +mystery. You will let me help, will you not? I know all up to a certain +point; and I see already, though your diary only took me to 7 September, +how poor Lucy was beset, and how her terrible doom was being wrought +out. Jonathan and I have been working day and night since Professor Van +Helsing saw us. He is gone to Whitby to get more information, and he +will be here to-morrow to help us. We need have no secrets amongst us; +working together and with absolute trust, we can surely be stronger than +if some of us were in the dark." She looked at me so appealingly, and at +the same time manifested such courage and resolution in her bearing, +that I gave in at once to her wishes. "You shall," I said, "do as you +like in the matter. God forgive me if I do wrong! There are terrible +things yet to learn of; but if you have so far travelled on the road to +poor Lucy's death, you will not be content, I know, to remain in the +dark. Nay, the end--the very end--may give you a gleam of peace. Come, +there is dinner. We must keep one another strong for what is before us; +we have a cruel and dreadful task. When you have eaten you shall learn +the rest, and I shall answer any questions you ask--if there be anything +which you do not understand, though it was apparent to us who were +present." + + +_Mina Harker's Journal._ + +_29 September._--After dinner I came with Dr. Seward to his study. He +brought back the phonograph from my room, and I took my typewriter. He +placed me in a comfortable chair, and arranged the phonograph so that I +could touch it without getting up, and showed me how to stop it in case +I should want to pause. Then he very thoughtfully took a chair, with his +back to me, so that I might be as free as possible, and began to read. I +put the forked metal to my ears and listened. + +When the terrible story of Lucy's death, and--and all that followed, was +done, I lay back in my chair powerless. Fortunately I am not of a +fainting disposition. When Dr. Seward saw me he jumped up with a +horrified exclamation, and hurriedly taking a case-bottle from a +cupboard, gave me some brandy, which in a few minutes somewhat restored +me. My brain was all in a whirl, and only that there came through all +the multitude of horrors, the holy ray of light that my dear, dear Lucy +was at last at peace, I do not think I could have borne it without +making a scene. It is all so wild, and mysterious, and strange that if I +had not known Jonathan's experience in Transylvania I could not have +believed. As it was, I didn't know what to believe, and so got out of my +difficulty by attending to something else. I took the cover off my +typewriter, and said to Dr. Seward:-- + +"Let me write this all out now. We must be ready for Dr. Van Helsing +when he comes. I have sent a telegram to Jonathan to come on here when +he arrives in London from Whitby. In this matter dates are everything, +and I think that if we get all our material ready, and have every item +put in chronological order, we shall have done much. You tell me that +Lord Godalming and Mr. Morris are coming too. Let us be able to tell him +when they come." He accordingly set the phonograph at a slow pace, and I +began to typewrite from the beginning of the seventh cylinder. I used +manifold, and so took three copies of the diary, just as I had done with +all the rest. It was late when I got through, but Dr. Seward went about +his work of going his round of the patients; when he had finished he +came back and sat near me, reading, so that I did not feel too lonely +whilst I worked. How good and thoughtful he is; the world seems full of +good men--even if there _are_ monsters in it. Before I left him I +remembered what Jonathan put in his diary of the Professor's +perturbation at reading something in an evening paper at the station at +Exeter; so, seeing that Dr. Seward keeps his newspapers, I borrowed the +files of "The Westminster Gazette" and "The Pall Mall Gazette," and took +them to my room. I remember how much "The Dailygraph" and "The Whitby +Gazette," of which I had made cuttings, helped us to understand the +terrible events at Whitby when Count Dracula landed, so I shall look +through the evening papers since then, and perhaps I shall get some new +light. I am not sleepy, and the work will help to keep me quiet. + + +_Dr. Seward's Diary._ + +_30 September._--Mr. Harker arrived at nine o'clock. He had got his +wife's wire just before starting. He is uncommonly clever, if one can +judge from his face, and full of energy. If this journal be true--and +judging by one's own wonderful experiences, it must be--he is also a man +of great nerve. That going down to the vault a second time was a +remarkable piece of daring. After reading his account of it I was +prepared to meet a good specimen of manhood, but hardly the quiet, +business-like gentleman who came here to-day. + + * * * * * + +_Later._--After lunch Harker and his wife went back to their own room, +and as I passed a while ago I heard the click of the typewriter. They +are hard at it. Mrs. Harker says that they are knitting together in +chronological order every scrap of evidence they have. Harker has got +the letters between the consignee of the boxes at Whitby and the +carriers in London who took charge of them. He is now reading his wife's +typescript of my diary. I wonder what they make out of it. Here it +is.... + + Strange that it never struck me that the very next house might be + the Count's hiding-place! Goodness knows that we had enough clues + from the conduct of the patient Renfield! The bundle of letters + relating to the purchase of the house were with the typescript. Oh, + if we had only had them earlier we might have saved poor Lucy! + Stop; that way madness lies! Harker has gone back, and is again + collating his material. He says that by dinner-time they will be + able to show a whole connected narrative. He thinks that in the + meantime I should see Renfield, as hitherto he has been a sort of + index to the coming and going of the Count. I hardly see this yet, + but when I get at the dates I suppose I shall. What a good thing + that Mrs. Harker put my cylinders into type! We never could have + found the dates otherwise.... + + I found Renfield sitting placidly in his room with his hands + folded, smiling benignly. At the moment he seemed as sane as any + one I ever saw. I sat down and talked with him on a lot of + subjects, all of which he treated naturally. He then, of his own + accord, spoke of going home, a subject he has never mentioned to my + knowledge during his sojourn here. In fact, he spoke quite + confidently of getting his discharge at once. I believe that, had I + not had the chat with Harker and read the letters and the dates of + his outbursts, I should have been prepared to sign for him after a + brief time of observation. As it is, I am darkly suspicious. All + those outbreaks were in some way linked with the proximity of the + Count. What then does this absolute content mean? Can it be that + his instinct is satisfied as to the vampire's ultimate triumph? + Stay; he is himself zoophagous, and in his wild ravings outside the + chapel door of the deserted house he always spoke of "master." This + all seems confirmation of our idea. However, after a while I came + away; my friend is just a little too sane at present to make it + safe to probe him too deep with questions. He might begin to think, + and then--! So I came away. I mistrust these quiet moods of his; so + I have given the attendant a hint to look closely after him, and to + have a strait-waistcoat ready in case of need. + + +_Jonathan Harker's Journal._ + +_29 September, in train to London._--When I received Mr. Billington's +courteous message that he would give me any information in his power I +thought it best to go down to Whitby and make, on the spot, such +inquiries as I wanted. It was now my object to trace that horrid cargo +of the Count's to its place in London. Later, we may be able to deal +with it. Billington junior, a nice lad, met me at the station, and +brought me to his father's house, where they had decided that I must +stay the night. They are hospitable, with true Yorkshire hospitality: +give a guest everything, and leave him free to do as he likes. They all +knew that I was busy, and that my stay was short, and Mr. Billington had +ready in his office all the papers concerning the consignment of boxes. +It gave me almost a turn to see again one of the letters which I had +seen on the Count's table before I knew of his diabolical plans. +Everything had been carefully thought out, and done systematically and +with precision. He seemed to have been prepared for every obstacle which +might be placed by accident in the way of his intentions being carried +out. To use an Americanism, he had "taken no chances," and the absolute +accuracy with which his instructions were fulfilled, was simply the +logical result of his care. I saw the invoice, and took note of it: +"Fifty cases of common earth, to be used for experimental purposes." +Also the copy of letter to Carter Paterson, and their reply; of both of +these I got copies. This was all the information Mr. Billington could +give me, so I went down to the port and saw the coastguards, the Customs +officers and the harbour-master. They had all something to say of the +strange entry of the ship, which is already taking its place in local +tradition; but no one could add to the simple description "Fifty cases +of common earth." I then saw the station-master, who kindly put me in +communication with the men who had actually received the boxes. Their +tally was exact with the list, and they had nothing to add except that +the boxes were "main and mortal heavy," and that shifting them was dry +work. One of them added that it was hard lines that there wasn't any +gentleman "such-like as yourself, squire," to show some sort of +appreciation of their efforts in a liquid form; another put in a rider +that the thirst then generated was such that even the time which had +elapsed had not completely allayed it. Needless to add, I took care +before leaving to lift, for ever and adequately, this source of +reproach. + + * * * * * + +_30 September._--The station-master was good enough to give me a line to +his old companion the station-master at King's Cross, so that when I +arrived there in the morning I was able to ask him about the arrival of +the boxes. He, too, put me at once in communication with the proper +officials, and I saw that their tally was correct with the original +invoice. The opportunities of acquiring an abnormal thirst had been here +limited; a noble use of them had, however, been made, and again I was +compelled to deal with the result in an _ex post facto_ manner. + +From thence I went on to Carter Paterson's central office, where I met +with the utmost courtesy. They looked up the transaction in their +day-book and letter-book, and at once telephoned to their King's Cross +office for more details. By good fortune, the men who did the teaming +were waiting for work, and the official at once sent them over, sending +also by one of them the way-bill and all the papers connected with the +delivery of the boxes at Carfax. Here again I found the tally agreeing +exactly; the carriers' men were able to supplement the paucity of the +written words with a few details. These were, I shortly found, connected +almost solely with the dusty nature of the job, and of the consequent +thirst engendered in the operators. On my affording an opportunity, +through the medium of the currency of the realm, of the allaying, at a +later period, this beneficial evil, one of the men remarked:-- + +"That 'ere 'ouse, guv'nor, is the rummiest I ever was in. Blyme! but it +ain't been touched sence a hundred years. There was dust that thick in +the place that you might have slep' on it without 'urtin' of yer bones; +an' the place was that neglected that yer might 'ave smelled ole +Jerusalem in it. But the ole chapel--that took the cike, that did! Me +and my mate, we thort we wouldn't never git out quick enough. Lor', I +wouldn't take less nor a quid a moment to stay there arter dark." + +Having been in the house, I could well believe him; but if he knew what +I know, he would, I think, have raised his terms. + +Of one thing I am now satisfied: that _all_ the boxes which arrived at +Whitby from Varna in the _Demeter_ were safely deposited in the old +chapel at Carfax. There should be fifty of them there, unless any have +since been removed--as from Dr. Seward's diary I fear. + +I shall try to see the carter who took away the boxes from Carfax when +Renfield attacked them. By following up this clue we may learn a good +deal. + + * * * * * + +_Later._--Mina and I have worked all day, and we have put all the papers +into order. + + +_Mina Harker's Journal_ + +_30 September._--I am so glad that I hardly know how to contain myself. +It is, I suppose, the reaction from the haunting fear which I have had: +that this terrible affair and the reopening of his old wound might act +detrimentally on Jonathan. I saw him leave for Whitby with as brave a +face as I could, but I was sick with apprehension. The effort has, +however, done him good. He was never so resolute, never so strong, never +so full of volcanic energy, as at present. It is just as that dear, good +Professor Van Helsing said: he is true grit, and he improves under +strain that would kill a weaker nature. He came back full of life and +hope and determination; we have got everything in order for to-night. I +feel myself quite wild with excitement. I suppose one ought to pity any +thing so hunted as is the Count. That is just it: this Thing is not +human--not even beast. To read Dr. Seward's account of poor Lucy's +death, and what followed, is enough to dry up the springs of pity in +one's heart. + + * * * * * + +_Later._--Lord Godalming and Mr. Morris arrived earlier than we +expected. Dr. Seward was out on business, and had taken Jonathan with +him, so I had to see them. It was to me a painful meeting, for it +brought back all poor dear Lucy's hopes of only a few months ago. Of +course they had heard Lucy speak of me, and it seemed that Dr. Van +Helsing, too, has been quite "blowing my trumpet," as Mr. Morris +expressed it. Poor fellows, neither of them is aware that I know all +about the proposals they made to Lucy. They did not quite know what to +say or do, as they were ignorant of the amount of my knowledge; so they +had to keep on neutral subjects. However, I thought the matter over, and +came to the conclusion that the best thing I could do would be to post +them in affairs right up to date. I knew from Dr. Seward's diary that +they had been at Lucy's death--her real death--and that I need not fear +to betray any secret before the time. So I told them, as well as I +could, that I had read all the papers and diaries, and that my husband +and I, having typewritten them, had just finished putting them in order. +I gave them each a copy to read in the library. When Lord Godalming got +his and turned it over--it does make a pretty good pile--he said:-- + +"Did you write all this, Mrs. Harker?" + +I nodded, and he went on:-- + +"I don't quite see the drift of it; but you people are all so good and +kind, and have been working so earnestly and so energetically, that all +I can do is to accept your ideas blindfold and try to help you. I have +had one lesson already in accepting facts that should make a man humble +to the last hour of his life. Besides, I know you loved my poor Lucy--" +Here he turned away and covered his face with his hands. I could hear +the tears in his voice. Mr. Morris, with instinctive delicacy, just laid +a hand for a moment on his shoulder, and then walked quietly out of the +room. I suppose there is something in woman's nature that makes a man +free to break down before her and express his feelings on the tender or +emotional side without feeling it derogatory to his manhood; for when +Lord Godalming found himself alone with me he sat down on the sofa and +gave way utterly and openly. I sat down beside him and took his hand. I +hope he didn't think it forward of me, and that if he ever thinks of it +afterwards he never will have such a thought. There I wrong him; I +_know_ he never will--he is too true a gentleman. I said to him, for I +could see that his heart was breaking:-- + +"I loved dear Lucy, and I know what she was to you, and what you were to +her. She and I were like sisters; and now she is gone, will you not let +me be like a sister to you in your trouble? I know what sorrows you have +had, though I cannot measure the depth of them. If sympathy and pity can +help in your affliction, won't you let me be of some little service--for +Lucy's sake?" + +In an instant the poor dear fellow was overwhelmed with grief. It seemed +to me that all that he had of late been suffering in silence found a +vent at once. He grew quite hysterical, and raising his open hands, beat +his palms together in a perfect agony of grief. He stood up and then sat +down again, and the tears rained down his cheeks. I felt an infinite +pity for him, and opened my arms unthinkingly. With a sob he laid his +head on my shoulder and cried like a wearied child, whilst he shook with +emotion. + +We women have something of the mother in us that makes us rise above +smaller matters when the mother-spirit is invoked; I felt this big +sorrowing man's head resting on me, as though it were that of the baby +that some day may lie on my bosom, and I stroked his hair as though he +were my own child. I never thought at the time how strange it all was. + +After a little bit his sobs ceased, and he raised himself with an +apology, though he made no disguise of his emotion. He told me that for +days and nights past--weary days and sleepless nights--he had been +unable to speak with any one, as a man must speak in his time of +sorrow. There was no woman whose sympathy could be given to him, or with +whom, owing to the terrible circumstance with which his sorrow was +surrounded, he could speak freely. "I know now how I suffered," he said, +as he dried his eyes, "but I do not know even yet--and none other can +ever know--how much your sweet sympathy has been to me to-day. I shall +know better in time; and believe me that, though I am not ungrateful +now, my gratitude will grow with my understanding. You will let me be +like a brother, will you not, for all our lives--for dear Lucy's sake?" + +"For dear Lucy's sake," I said as we clasped hands. "Ay, and for your +own sake," he added, "for if a man's esteem and gratitude are ever worth +the winning, you have won mine to-day. If ever the future should bring +to you a time when you need a man's help, believe me, you will not call +in vain. God grant that no such time may ever come to you to break the +sunshine of your life; but if it should ever come, promise me that you +will let me know." He was so earnest, and his sorrow was so fresh, that +I felt it would comfort him, so I said:-- + +"I promise." + +As I came along the corridor I saw Mr. Morris looking out of a window. +He turned as he heard my footsteps. "How is Art?" he said. Then noticing +my red eyes, he went on: "Ah, I see you have been comforting him. Poor +old fellow! he needs it. No one but a woman can help a man when he is in +trouble of the heart; and he had no one to comfort him." + +He bore his own trouble so bravely that my heart bled for him. I saw the +manuscript in his hand, and I knew that when he read it he would realise +how much I knew; so I said to him:-- + +"I wish I could comfort all who suffer from the heart. Will you let me +be your friend, and will you come to me for comfort if you need it? You +will know, later on, why I speak." He saw that I was in earnest, and +stooping, took my hand, and raising it to his lips, kissed it. It seemed +but poor comfort to so brave and unselfish a soul, and impulsively I +bent over and kissed him. The tears rose in his eyes, and there was a +momentary choking in his throat; he said quite calmly:-- + +"Little girl, you will never regret that true-hearted kindness, so long +as ever you live!" Then he went into the study to his friend. + +"Little girl!"--the very words he had used to Lucy, and oh, but he +proved himself a friend! + + + + +CHAPTER XVIII + +DR. SEWARD'S DIARY + + +_30 September._--I got home at five o'clock, and found that Godalming +and Morris had not only arrived, but had already studied the transcript +of the various diaries and letters which Harker and his wonderful wife +had made and arranged. Harker had not yet returned from his visit to the +carriers' men, of whom Dr. Hennessey had written to me. Mrs. Harker gave +us a cup of tea, and I can honestly say that, for the first time since I +have lived in it, this old house seemed like _home_. When we had +finished, Mrs. Harker said:-- + +"Dr. Seward, may I ask a favour? I want to see your patient, Mr. +Renfield. Do let me see him. What you have said of him in your diary +interests me so much!" She looked so appealing and so pretty that I +could not refuse her, and there was no possible reason why I should; so +I took her with me. When I went into the room, I told the man that a +lady would like to see him; to which he simply answered: "Why?" + +"She is going through the house, and wants to see every one in it," I +answered. "Oh, very well," he said; "let her come in, by all means; but +just wait a minute till I tidy up the place." His method of tidying was +peculiar: he simply swallowed all the flies and spiders in the boxes +before I could stop him. It was quite evident that he feared, or was +jealous of, some interference. When he had got through his disgusting +task, he said cheerfully: "Let the lady come in," and sat down on the +edge of his bed with his head down, but with his eyelids raised so that +he could see her as she entered. For a moment I thought that he might +have some homicidal intent; I remembered how quiet he had been just +before he attacked me in my own study, and I took care to stand where I +could seize him at once if he attempted to make a spring at her. She +came into the room with an easy gracefulness which would at once command +the respect of any lunatic--for easiness is one of the qualities mad +people most respect. She walked over to him, smiling pleasantly, and +held out her hand. + +"Good-evening, Mr. Renfield," said she. "You see, I know you, for Dr. +Seward has told me of you." He made no immediate reply, but eyed her all +over intently with a set frown on his face. This look gave way to one +of wonder, which merged in doubt; then, to my intense astonishment, he +said:-- + +"You're not the girl the doctor wanted to marry, are you? You can't be, +you know, for she's dead." Mrs. Harker smiled sweetly as she replied:-- + +"Oh no! I have a husband of my own, to whom I was married before I ever +saw Dr. Seward, or he me. I am Mrs. Harker." + +"Then what are you doing here?" + +"My husband and I are staying on a visit with Dr. Seward." + +"Then don't stay." + +"But why not?" I thought that this style of conversation might not be +pleasant to Mrs. Harker, any more than it was to me, so I joined in:-- + +"How did you know I wanted to marry any one?" His reply was simply +contemptuous, given in a pause in which he turned his eyes from Mrs. +Harker to me, instantly turning them back again:-- + +"What an asinine question!" + +"I don't see that at all, Mr. Renfield," said Mrs. Harker, at once +championing me. He replied to her with as much courtesy and respect as +he had shown contempt to me:-- + +"You will, of course, understand, Mrs. Harker, that when a man is so +loved and honoured as our host is, everything regarding him is of +interest in our little community. Dr. Seward is loved not only by his +household and his friends, but even by his patients, who, being some of +them hardly in mental equilibrium, are apt to distort causes and +effects. Since I myself have been an inmate of a lunatic asylum, I +cannot but notice that the sophistic tendencies of some of its inmates +lean towards the errors of _non causa_ and _ignoratio elenchi_." I +positively opened my eyes at this new development. Here was my own pet +lunatic--the most pronounced of his type that I had ever met +with--talking elemental philosophy, and with the manner of a polished +gentleman. I wonder if it was Mrs. Harker's presence which had touched +some chord in his memory. If this new phase was spontaneous, or in any +way due to her unconscious influence, she must have some rare gift or +power. + +We continued to talk for some time; and, seeing that he was seemingly +quite reasonable, she ventured, looking at me questioningly as she +began, to lead him to his favourite topic. I was again astonished, for +he addressed himself to the question with the impartiality of the +completest sanity; he even took himself as an example when he mentioned +certain things. + +"Why, I myself am an instance of a man who had a strange belief. Indeed, +it was no wonder that my friends were alarmed, and insisted on my being +put under control. I used to fancy that life was a positive and +perpetual entity, and that by consuming a multitude of live things, no +matter how low in the scale of creation, one might indefinitely prolong +life. At times I held the belief so strongly that I actually tried to +take human life. The doctor here will bear me out that on one occasion I +tried to kill him for the purpose of strengthening my vital powers by +the assimilation with my own body of his life through the medium of his +blood--relying, of course, upon the Scriptural phrase, 'For the blood is +the life.' Though, indeed, the vendor of a certain nostrum has +vulgarised the truism to the very point of contempt. Isn't that true, +doctor?" I nodded assent, for I was so amazed that I hardly knew what to +either think or say; it was hard to imagine that I had seen him eat up +his spiders and flies not five minutes before. Looking at my watch, I +saw that I should go to the station to meet Van Helsing, so I told Mrs. +Harker that it was time to leave. She came at once, after saying +pleasantly to Mr. Renfield: "Good-bye, and I hope I may see you often, +under auspices pleasanter to yourself," to which, to my astonishment, he +replied:-- + +"Good-bye, my dear. I pray God I may never see your sweet face again. +May He bless and keep you!" + +When I went to the station to meet Van Helsing I left the boys behind +me. Poor Art seemed more cheerful than he has been since Lucy first took +ill, and Quincey is more like his own bright self than he has been for +many a long day. + +Van Helsing stepped from the carriage with the eager nimbleness of a +boy. He saw me at once, and rushed up to me, saying:-- + +"Ah, friend John, how goes all? Well? So! I have been busy, for I come +here to stay if need be. All affairs are settled with me, and I have +much to tell. Madam Mina is with you? Yes. And her so fine husband? And +Arthur and my friend Quincey, they are with you, too? Good!" + +As I drove to the house I told him of what had passed, and of how my own +diary had come to be of some use through Mrs. Harker's suggestion; at +which the Professor interrupted me:-- + +"Ah, that wonderful Madam Mina! She has man's brain--a brain that a man +should have were he much gifted--and a woman's heart. The good God +fashioned her for a purpose, believe me, when He made that so good +combination. Friend John, up to now fortune has made that woman of help +to us; after to-night she must not have to do with this so terrible +affair. It is not good that she run a risk so great. We men are +determined--nay, are we not pledged?--to destroy this monster; but it is +no part for a woman. Even if she be not harmed, her heart may fail her +in so much and so many horrors; and hereafter she may suffer--both in +waking, from her nerves, and in sleep, from her dreams. And, besides, +she is young woman and not so long married; there may be other things to +think of some time, if not now. You tell me she has wrote all, then she +must consult with us; but to-morrow she say good-bye to this work, and +we go alone." I agreed heartily with him, and then I told him what we +had found in his absence: that the house which Dracula had bought was +the very next one to my own. He was amazed, and a great concern seemed +to come on him. "Oh that we had known it before!" he said, "for then we +might have reached him in time to save poor Lucy. However, 'the milk +that is spilt cries not out afterwards,' as you say. We shall not think +of that, but go on our way to the end." Then he fell into a silence that +lasted till we entered my own gateway. Before we went to prepare for +dinner he said to Mrs. Harker:-- + +"I am told, Madam Mina, by my friend John that you and your husband have +put up in exact order all things that have been, up to this moment." + +"Not up to this moment, Professor," she said impulsively, "but up to +this morning." + +"But why not up to now? We have seen hitherto how good light all the +little things have made. We have told our secrets, and yet no one who +has told is the worse for it." + +Mrs. Harker began to blush, and taking a paper from her pockets, she +said:-- + +"Dr. Van Helsing, will you read this, and tell me if it must go in. It +is my record of to-day. I too have seen the need of putting down at +present everything, however trivial; but there is little in this except +what is personal. Must it go in?" The Professor read it over gravely, +and handed it back, saying:-- + +"It need not go in if you do not wish it; but I pray that it may. It can +but make your husband love you the more, and all us, your friends, more +honour you--as well as more esteem and love." She took it back with +another blush and a bright smile. + +And so now, up to this very hour, all the records we have are complete +and in order. The Professor took away one copy to study after dinner, +and before our meeting, which is fixed for nine o'clock. The rest of us +have already read everything; so when we meet in the study we shall all +be informed as to facts, and can arrange our plan of battle with this +terrible and mysterious enemy. + + +_Mina Harker's Journal._ + +_30 September._--When we met in Dr. Seward's study two hours after +dinner, which had been at six o'clock, we unconsciously formed a sort of +board or committee. Professor Van Helsing took the head of the table, to +which Dr. Seward motioned him as he came into the room. He made me sit +next to him on his right, and asked me to act as secretary; Jonathan sat +next to me. Opposite us were Lord Godalming, Dr. Seward, and Mr. +Morris--Lord Godalming being next the Professor, and Dr. Seward in the +centre. The Professor said:-- + +"I may, I suppose, take it that we are all acquainted with the facts +that are in these papers." We all expressed assent, and he went on:-- + +"Then it were, I think good that I tell you something of the kind of +enemy with which we have to deal. I shall then make known to you +something of the history of this man, which has been ascertained for me. +So we then can discuss how we shall act, and can take our measure +according. + +"There are such beings as vampires; some of us have evidence that they +exist. Even had we not the proof of our own unhappy experience, the +teachings and the records of the past give proof enough for sane +peoples. I admit that at the first I was sceptic. Were it not that +through long years I have train myself to keep an open mind, I could not +have believe until such time as that fact thunder on my ear. 'See! see! +I prove; I prove.' Alas! Had I known at the first what now I know--nay, +had I even guess at him--one so precious life had been spared to many of +us who did love her. But that is gone; and we must so work, that other +poor souls perish not, whilst we can save. The _nosferatu_ do not die +like the bee when he sting once. He is only stronger; and being +stronger, have yet more power to work evil. This vampire which is +amongst us is of himself so strong in person as twenty men; he is of +cunning more than mortal, for his cunning be the growth of ages; he have +still the aids of necromancy, which is, as his etymology imply, the +divination by the dead, and all the dead that he can come nigh to are +for him at command; he is brute, and more than brute; he is devil in +callous, and the heart of him is not; he can, within limitations, appear +at will when, and where, and in any of the forms that are to him; he +can, within his range, direct the elements; the storm, the fog, the +thunder; he can command all the meaner things: the rat, and the owl, and +the bat--the moth, and the fox, and the wolf; he can grow and become +small; and he can at times vanish and come unknown. How then are we to +begin our strike to destroy him? How shall we find his where; and having +found it, how can we destroy? My friends, this is much; it is a terrible +task that we undertake, and there may be consequence to make the brave +shudder. For if we fail in this our fight he must surely win; and then +where end we? Life is nothings; I heed him not. But to fail here, is not +mere life or death. It is that we become as him; that we henceforward +become foul things of the night like him--without heart or conscience, +preying on the bodies and the souls of those we love best. To us for +ever are the gates of heaven shut; for who shall open them to us again? +We go on for all time abhorred by all; a blot on the face of God's +sunshine; an arrow in the side of Him who died for man. But we are face +to face with duty; and in such case must we shrink? For me, I say, no; +but then I am old, and life, with his sunshine, his fair places, his +song of birds, his music and his love, lie far behind. You others are +young. Some have seen sorrow; but there are fair days yet in store. What +say you?" + +Whilst he was speaking, Jonathan had taken my hand. I feared, oh so +much, that the appalling nature of our danger was overcoming him when I +saw his hand stretch out; but it was life to me to feel its touch--so +strong, so self-reliant, so resolute. A brave man's hand can speak for +itself; it does not even need a woman's love to hear its music. + +When the Professor had done speaking my husband looked in my eyes, and I +in his; there was no need for speaking between us. + +"I answer for Mina and myself," he said. + +"Count me in, Professor," said Mr. Quincey Morris, laconically as usual. + +"I am with you," said Lord Godalming, "for Lucy's sake, if for no other +reason." + +Dr. Seward simply nodded. The Professor stood up and, after laying his +golden crucifix on the table, held out his hand on either side. I took +his right hand, and Lord Godalming his left; Jonathan held my right with +his left and stretched across to Mr. Morris. So as we all took hands our +solemn compact was made. I felt my heart icy cold, but it did not even +occur to me to draw back. We resumed our places, and Dr. Van Helsing +went on with a sort of cheerfulness which showed that the serious work +had begun. It was to be taken as gravely, and in as businesslike a way, +as any other transaction of life:-- + +"Well, you know what we have to contend against; but we, too, are not +without strength. We have on our side power of combination--a power +denied to the vampire kind; we have sources of science; we are free to +act and think; and the hours of the day and the night are ours equally. +In fact, so far as our powers extend, they are unfettered, and we are +free to use them. We have self-devotion in a cause, and an end to +achieve which is not a selfish one. These things are much. + +"Now let us see how far the general powers arrayed against us are +restrict, and how the individual cannot. In fine, let us consider the +limitations of the vampire in general, and of this one in particular. + +"All we have to go upon are traditions and superstitions. These do not +at the first appear much, when the matter is one of life and death--nay +of more than either life or death. Yet must we be satisfied; in the +first place because we have to be--no other means is at our control--and +secondly, because, after all, these things--tradition and +superstition--are everything. Does not the belief in vampires rest for +others--though not, alas! for us--on them? A year ago which of us would +have received such a possibility, in the midst of our scientific, +sceptical, matter-of-fact nineteenth century? We even scouted a belief +that we saw justified under our very eyes. Take it, then, that the +vampire, and the belief in his limitations and his cure, rest for the +moment on the same base. For, let me tell you, he is known everywhere +that men have been. In old Greece, in old Rome; he flourish in Germany +all over, in France, in India, even in the Chernosese; and in China, so +far from us in all ways, there even is he, and the peoples fear him at +this day. He have follow the wake of the berserker Icelander, the +devil-begotten Hun, the Slav, the Saxon, the Magyar. So far, then, we +have all we may act upon; and let me tell you that very much of the +beliefs are justified by what we have seen in our own so unhappy +experience. The vampire live on, and cannot die by mere passing of the +time; he can flourish when that he can fatten on the blood of the +living. Even more, we have seen amongst us that he can even grow +younger; that his vital faculties grow strenuous, and seem as though +they refresh themselves when his special pabulum is plenty. But he +cannot flourish without this diet; he eat not as others. Even friend +Jonathan, who lived with him for weeks, did never see him to eat, never! +He throws no shadow; he make in the mirror no reflect, as again +Jonathan observe. He has the strength of many of his hand--witness again +Jonathan when he shut the door against the wolfs, and when he help him +from the diligence too. He can transform himself to wolf, as we gather +from the ship arrival in Whitby, when he tear open the dog; he can be as +bat, as Madam Mina saw him on the window at Whitby, and as friend John +saw him fly from this so near house, and as my friend Quincey saw him at +the window of Miss Lucy. He can come in mist which he create--that noble +ship's captain proved him of this; but, from what we know, the distance +he can make this mist is limited, and it can only be round himself. He +come on moonlight rays as elemental dust--as again Jonathan saw those +sisters in the castle of Dracula. He become so small--we ourselves saw +Miss Lucy, ere she was at peace, slip through a hairbreadth space at the +tomb door. He can, when once he find his way, come out from anything or +into anything, no matter how close it be bound or even fused up with +fire--solder you call it. He can see in the dark--no small power this, +in a world which is one half shut from the light. Ah, but hear me +through. He can do all these things, yet he is not free. Nay; he is even +more prisoner than the slave of the galley, than the madman in his cell. +He cannot go where he lists; he who is not of nature has yet to obey +some of nature's laws--why we know not. He may not enter anywhere at the +first, unless there be some one of the household who bid him to come; +though afterwards he can come as he please. His power ceases, as does +that of all evil things, at the coming of the day. Only at certain times +can he have limited freedom. If he be not at the place whither he is +bound, he can only change himself at noon or at exact sunrise or sunset. +These things are we told, and in this record of ours we have proof by +inference. Thus, whereas he can do as he will within his limit, when he +have his earth-home, his coffin-home, his hell-home, the place +unhallowed, as we saw when he went to the grave of the suicide at +Whitby; still at other time he can only change when the time come. It is +said, too, that he can only pass running water at the slack or the flood +of the tide. Then there are things which so afflict him that he has no +power, as the garlic that we know of; and as for things sacred, as this +symbol, my crucifix, that was amongst us even now when we resolve, to +them he is nothing, but in their presence he take his place far off and +silent with respect. There are others, too, which I shall tell you of, +lest in our seeking we may need them. The branch of wild rose on his +coffin keep him that he move not from it; a sacred bullet fired into the +coffin kill him so that he be true dead; and as for the stake through +him, we know already of its peace; or the cut-off head that giveth rest. +We have seen it with our eyes. + +"Thus when we find the habitation of this man-that-was, we can confine +him to his coffin and destroy him, if we obey what we know. But he is +clever. I have asked my friend Arminius, of Buda-Pesth University, to +make his record; and, from all the means that are, he tell me of what he +has been. He must, indeed, have been that Voivode Dracula who won his +name against the Turk, over the great river on the very frontier of +Turkey-land. If it be so, then was he no common man; for in that time, +and for centuries after, he was spoken of as the cleverest and the most +cunning, as well as the bravest of the sons of the 'land beyond the +forest.' That mighty brain and that iron resolution went with him to his +grave, and are even now arrayed against us. The Draculas were, says +Arminius, a great and noble race, though now and again were scions who +were held by their coevals to have had dealings with the Evil One. They +learned his secrets in the Scholomance, amongst the mountains over Lake +Hermanstadt, where the devil claims the tenth scholar as his due. In the +records are such words as 'stregoica'--witch, 'ordog,' and +'pokol'--Satan and hell; and in one manuscript this very Dracula is +spoken of as 'wampyr,' which we all understand too well. There have been +from the loins of this very one great men and good women, and their +graves make sacred the earth where alone this foulness can dwell. For it +is not the least of its terrors that this evil thing is rooted deep in +all good; in soil barren of holy memories it cannot rest." + +Whilst they were talking Mr. Morris was looking steadily at the window, +and he now got up quietly, and went out of the room. There was a little +pause, and then the Professor went on:-- + +"And now we must settle what we do. We have here much data, and we must +proceed to lay out our campaign. We know from the inquiry of Jonathan +that from the castle to Whitby came fifty boxes of earth, all of which +were delivered at Carfax; we also know that at least some of these boxes +have been removed. It seems to me, that our first step should be to +ascertain whether all the rest remain in the house beyond that wall +where we look to-day; or whether any more have been removed. If the +latter, we must trace----" + +Here we were interrupted in a very startling way. Outside the house came +the sound of a pistol-shot; the glass of the window was shattered with a +bullet, which, ricochetting from the top of the embrasure, struck the +far wall of the room. I am afraid I am at heart a coward, for I shrieked +out. The men all jumped to their feet; Lord Godalming flew over to the +window and threw up the sash. As he did so we heard Mr. Morris's voice +without:-- + +"Sorry! I fear I have alarmed you. I shall come in and tell you about +it." A minute later he came in and said:-- + +"It was an idiotic thing of me to do, and I ask your pardon, Mrs. +Harker, most sincerely; I fear I must have frightened you terribly. But +the fact is that whilst the Professor was talking there came a big bat +and sat on the window-sill. I have got such a horror of the damned +brutes from recent events that I cannot stand them, and I went out to +have a shot, as I have been doing of late of evenings, whenever I have +seen one. You used to laugh at me for it then, Art." + +"Did you hit it?" asked Dr. Van Helsing. + +"I don't know; I fancy not, for it flew away into the wood." Without +saying any more he took his seat, and the Professor began to resume his +statement:-- + +"We must trace each of these boxes; and when we are ready, we must +either capture or kill this monster in his lair; or we must, so to +speak, sterilise the earth, so that no more he can seek safety in it. +Thus in the end we may find him in his form of man between the hours of +noon and sunset, and so engage with him when he is at his most weak. + +"And now for you, Madam Mina, this night is the end until all be well. +You are too precious to us to have such risk. When we part to-night, you +no more must question. We shall tell you all in good time. We are men +and are able to bear; but you must be our star and our hope, and we +shall act all the more free that you are not in the danger, such as we +are." + +All the men, even Jonathan, seemed relieved; but it did not seem to me +good that they should brave danger and, perhaps, lessen their +safety--strength being the best safety--through care of me; but their +minds were made up, and, though it was a bitter pill for me to swallow, +I could say nothing, save to accept their chivalrous care of me. + +Mr. Morris resumed the discussion:-- + +"As there is no time to lose, I vote we have a look at his house right +now. Time is everything with him; and swift action on our part may save +another victim." + +I own that my heart began to fail me when the time for action came so +close, but I did not say anything, for I had a greater fear that if I +appeared as a drag or a hindrance to their work, they might even leave +me out of their counsels altogether. They have now gone off to Carfax, +with means to get into the house. + +Manlike, they had told me to go to bed and sleep; as if a woman can +sleep when those she loves are in danger! I shall lie down and pretend +to sleep, lest Jonathan have added anxiety about me when he returns. + + +_Dr. Seward's Diary._ + +_1 October, 4 a. m._--Just as we were about to leave the house, an +urgent message was brought to me from Renfield to know if I would see +him at once, as he had something of the utmost importance to say to me. +I told the messenger to say that I would attend to his wishes in the +morning; I was busy just at the moment. The attendant added:-- + +"He seems very importunate, sir. I have never seen him so eager. I don't +know but what, if you don't see him soon, he will have one of his +violent fits." I knew the man would not have said this without some +cause, so I said: "All right; I'll go now"; and I asked the others to +wait a few minutes for me, as I had to go and see my "patient." + +"Take me with you, friend John," said the Professor. "His case in your +diary interest me much, and it had bearing, too, now and again on _our_ +case. I should much like to see him, and especial when his mind is +disturbed." + +"May I come also?" asked Lord Godalming. + +"Me too?" said Quincey Morris. "May I come?" said Harker. I nodded, and +we all went down the passage together. + +We found him in a state of considerable excitement, but far more +rational in his speech and manner than I had ever seen him. There was an +unusual understanding of himself, which was unlike anything I had ever +met with in a lunatic; and he took it for granted that his reasons would +prevail with others entirely sane. We all four went into the room, but +none of the others at first said anything. His request was that I would +at once release him from the asylum and send him home. This he backed up +with arguments regarding his complete recovery, and adduced his own +existing sanity. "I appeal to your friends," he said, "they will, +perhaps, not mind sitting in judgment on my case. By the way, you have +not introduced me." I was so much astonished, that the oddness of +introducing a madman in an asylum did not strike me at the moment; and, +besides, there was a certain dignity in the man's manner, so much of +the habit of equality, that I at once made the introduction: "Lord +Godalming; Professor Van Helsing; Mr. Quincey Morris, of Texas; Mr. +Renfield." He shook hands with each of them, saying in turn:-- + +"Lord Godalming, I had the honour of seconding your father at the +Windham; I grieve to know, by your holding the title, that he is no +more. He was a man loved and honoured by all who knew him; and in his +youth was, I have heard, the inventor of a burnt rum punch, much +patronised on Derby night. Mr. Morris, you should be proud of your great +state. Its reception into the Union was a precedent which may have +far-reaching effects hereafter, when the Pole and the Tropics may hold +alliance to the Stars and Stripes. The power of Treaty may yet prove a +vast engine of enlargement, when the Monroe doctrine takes its true +place as a political fable. What shall any man say of his pleasure at +meeting Van Helsing? Sir, I make no apology for dropping all forms of +conventional prefix. When an individual has revolutionised therapeutics +by his discovery of the continuous evolution of brain-matter, +conventional forms are unfitting, since they would seem to limit him to +one of a class. You, gentlemen, who by nationality, by heredity, or by +the possession of natural gifts, are fitted to hold your respective +places in the moving world, I take to witness that I am as sane as at +least the majority of men who are in full possession of their liberties. +And I am sure that you, Dr. Seward, humanitarian and medico-jurist as +well as scientist, will deem it a moral duty to deal with me as one to +be considered as under exceptional circumstances." He made this last +appeal with a courtly air of conviction which was not without its own +charm. + +I think we were all staggered. For my own part, I was under the +conviction, despite my knowledge of the man's character and history, +that his reason had been restored; and I felt under a strong impulse to +tell him that I was satisfied as to his sanity, and would see about the +necessary formalities for his release in the morning. I thought it +better to wait, however, before making so grave a statement, for of old +I knew the sudden changes to which this particular patient was liable. +So I contented myself with making a general statement that he appeared +to be improving very rapidly; that I would have a longer chat with him +in the morning, and would then see what I could do in the direction of +meeting his wishes. This did not at all satisfy him, for he said +quickly:-- + +"But I fear, Dr. Seward, that you hardly apprehend my wish. I desire to +go at once--here--now--this very hour--this very moment, if I may. Time +presses, and in our implied agreement with the old scytheman it is of +the essence of the contract. I am sure it is only necessary to put +before so admirable a practitioner as Dr. Seward so simple, yet so +momentous a wish, to ensure its fulfilment." He looked at me keenly, and +seeing the negative in my face, turned to the others, and scrutinised +them closely. Not meeting any sufficient response, he went on:-- + +"Is it possible that I have erred in my supposition?" + +"You have," I said frankly, but at the same time, as I felt, brutally. +There was a considerable pause, and then he said slowly:-- + +"Then I suppose I must only shift my ground of request. Let me ask for +this concession--boon, privilege, what you will. I am content to implore +in such a case, not on personal grounds, but for the sake of others. I +am not at liberty to give you the whole of my reasons; but you may, I +assure you, take it from me that they are good ones, sound and +unselfish, and spring from the highest sense of duty. Could you look, +sir, into my heart, you would approve to the full the sentiments which +animate me. Nay, more, you would count me amongst the best and truest of +your friends." Again he looked at us all keenly. I had a growing +conviction that this sudden change of his entire intellectual method was +but yet another form or phase of his madness, and so determined to let +him go on a little longer, knowing from experience that he would, like +all lunatics, give himself away in the end. Van Helsing was gazing at +him with a look of utmost intensity, his bushy eyebrows almost meeting +with the fixed concentration of his look. He said to Renfield in a tone +which did not surprise me at the time, but only when I thought of it +afterwards--for it was as of one addressing an equal:-- + +"Can you not tell frankly your real reason for wishing to be free +to-night? I will undertake that if you will satisfy even me--a stranger, +without prejudice, and with the habit of keeping an open mind--Dr. +Seward will give you, at his own risk and on his own responsibility, the +privilege you seek." He shook his head sadly, and with a look of +poignant regret on his face. The Professor went on:-- + +"Come, sir, bethink yourself. You claim the privilege of reason in the +highest degree, since you seek to impress us with your complete +reasonableness. You do this, whose sanity we have reason to doubt, since +you are not yet released from medical treatment for this very defect. If +you will not help us in our effort to choose the wisest course, how can +we perform the duty which you yourself put upon us? Be wise, and help +us; and if we can we shall aid you to achieve your wish." He still shook +his head as he said:-- + +"Dr. Van Helsing, I have nothing to say. Your argument is complete, and +if I were free to speak I should not hesitate a moment; but I am not my +own master in the matter. I can only ask you to trust me. If I am +refused, the responsibility does not rest with me." I thought it was now +time to end the scene, which was becoming too comically grave, so I went +towards the door, simply saying:-- + +"Come, my friends, we have work to do. Good-night." + +As, however, I got near the door, a new change came over the patient. He +moved towards me so quickly that for the moment I feared that he was +about to make another homicidal attack. My fears, however, were +groundless, for he held up his two hands imploringly, and made his +petition in a moving manner. As he saw that the very excess of his +emotion was militating against him, by restoring us more to our old +relations, he became still more demonstrative. I glanced at Van Helsing, +and saw my conviction reflected in his eyes; so I became a little more +fixed in my manner, if not more stern, and motioned to him that his +efforts were unavailing. I had previously seen something of the same +constantly growing excitement in him when he had to make some request of +which at the time he had thought much, such, for instance, as when he +wanted a cat; and I was prepared to see the collapse into the same +sullen acquiescence on this occasion. My expectation was not realised, +for, when he found that his appeal would not be successful, he got into +quite a frantic condition. He threw himself on his knees, and held up +his hands, wringing them in plaintive supplication, and poured forth a +torrent of entreaty, with the tears rolling down his cheeks, and his +whole face and form expressive of the deepest emotion:-- + +"Let me entreat you, Dr. Seward, oh, let me implore you, to let me out +of this house at once. Send me away how you will and where you will; +send keepers with me with whips and chains; let them take me in a +strait-waistcoat, manacled and leg-ironed, even to a gaol; but let me go +out of this. You don't know what you do by keeping me here. I am +speaking from the depths of my heart--of my very soul. You don't know +whom you wrong, or how; and I may not tell. Woe is me! I may not tell. +By all you hold sacred--by all you hold dear--by your love that is +lost--by your hope that lives--for the sake of the Almighty, take me out +of this and save my soul from guilt! Can't you hear me, man? Can't you +understand? Will you never learn? Don't you know that I am sane and +earnest now; that I am no lunatic in a mad fit, but a sane man fighting +for his soul? Oh, hear me! hear me! Let me go! let me go! let me go!" + +I thought that the longer this went on the wilder he would get, and so +would bring on a fit; so I took him by the hand and raised him up. + +"Come," I said sternly, "no more of this; we have had quite enough +already. Get to your bed and try to behave more discreetly." + +He suddenly stopped and looked at me intently for several moments. Then, +without a word, he rose and moving over, sat down on the side of the +bed. The collapse had come, as on former occasion, just as I had +expected. + +When I was leaving the room, last of our party, he said to me in a +quiet, well-bred voice:-- + +"You will, I trust, Dr. Seward, do me the justice to bear in mind, later +on, that I did what I could to convince you to-night." + + + + +CHAPTER XIX + +JONATHAN HARKER'S JOURNAL + + +_1 October, 5 a. m._--I went with the party to the search with an easy +mind, for I think I never saw Mina so absolutely strong and well. I am +so glad that she consented to hold back and let us men do the work. +Somehow, it was a dread to me that she was in this fearful business at +all; but now that her work is done, and that it is due to her energy and +brains and foresight that the whole story is put together in such a way +that every point tells, she may well feel that her part is finished, and +that she can henceforth leave the rest to us. We were, I think, all a +little upset by the scene with Mr. Renfield. When we came away from his +room we were silent till we got back to the study. Then Mr. Morris said +to Dr. Seward:-- + +"Say, Jack, if that man wasn't attempting a bluff, he is about the +sanest lunatic I ever saw. I'm not sure, but I believe that he had some +serious purpose, and if he had, it was pretty rough on him not to get a +chance." Lord Godalming and I were silent, but Dr. Van Helsing added:-- + +"Friend John, you know more of lunatics than I do, and I'm glad of it, +for I fear that if it had been to me to decide I would before that last +hysterical outburst have given him free. But we live and learn, and in +our present task we must take no chance, as my friend Quincey would say. +All is best as they are." Dr. Seward seemed to answer them both in a +dreamy kind of way:-- + +"I don't know but that I agree with you. If that man had been an +ordinary lunatic I would have taken my chance of trusting him; but he +seems so mixed up with the Count in an indexy kind of way that I am +afraid of doing anything wrong by helping his fads. I can't forget how +he prayed with almost equal fervour for a cat, and then tried to tear my +throat out with his teeth. Besides, he called the Count 'lord and +master,' and he may want to get out to help him in some diabolical way. +That horrid thing has the wolves and the rats and his own kind to help +him, so I suppose he isn't above trying to use a respectable lunatic. He +certainly did seem earnest, though. I only hope we have done what is +best. These things, in conjunction with the wild work we have in hand, +help to unnerve a man." The Professor stepped over, and laying his hand +on his shoulder, said in his grave, kindly way:-- + +"Friend John, have no fear. We are trying to do our duty in a very sad +and terrible case; we can only do as we deem best. What else have we to +hope for, except the pity of the good God?" Lord Godalming had slipped +away for a few minutes, but now he returned. He held up a little silver +whistle, as he remarked:-- + +"That old place may be full of rats, and if so, I've got an antidote on +call." Having passed the wall, we took our way to the house, taking care +to keep in the shadows of the trees on the lawn when the moonlight shone +out. When we got to the porch the Professor opened his bag and took out +a lot of things, which he laid on the step, sorting them into four +little groups, evidently one for each. Then he spoke:-- + +"My friends, we are going into a terrible danger, and we need arms of +many kinds. Our enemy is not merely spiritual. Remember that he has the +strength of twenty men, and that, though our necks or our windpipes are +of the common kind--and therefore breakable or crushable--his are not +amenable to mere strength. A stronger man, or a body of men more strong +in all than him, can at certain times hold him; but they cannot hurt him +as we can be hurt by him. We must, therefore, guard ourselves from his +touch. Keep this near your heart"--as he spoke he lifted a little silver +crucifix and held it out to me, I being nearest to him--"put these +flowers round your neck"--here he handed to me a wreath of withered +garlic blossoms--"for other enemies more mundane, this revolver and this +knife; and for aid in all, these so small electric lamps, which you can +fasten to your breast; and for all, and above all at the last, this, +which we must not desecrate needless." This was a portion of Sacred +Wafer, which he put in an envelope and handed to me. Each of the others +was similarly equipped. "Now," he said, "friend John, where are the +skeleton keys? If so that we can open the door, we need not break house +by the window, as before at Miss Lucy's." + +Dr. Seward tried one or two skeleton keys, his mechanical dexterity as a +surgeon standing him in good stead. Presently he got one to suit; after +a little play back and forward the bolt yielded, and, with a rusty +clang, shot back. We pressed on the door, the rusty hinges creaked, and +it slowly opened. It was startlingly like the image conveyed to me in +Dr. Seward's diary of the opening of Miss Westenra's tomb; I fancy that +the same idea seemed to strike the others, for with one accord they +shrank back. The Professor was the first to move forward, and stepped +into the open door. + +"_In manus tuas, Domine!_" he said, crossing himself as he passed over +the threshold. We closed the door behind us, lest when we should have +lit our lamps we should possibly attract attention from the road. The +Professor carefully tried the lock, lest we might not be able to open it +from within should we be in a hurry making our exit. Then we all lit our +lamps and proceeded on our search. + +The light from the tiny lamps fell in all sorts of odd forms, as the +rays crossed each other, or the opacity of our bodies threw great +shadows. I could not for my life get away from the feeling that there +was some one else amongst us. I suppose it was the recollection, so +powerfully brought home to me by the grim surroundings, of that terrible +experience in Transylvania. I think the feeling was common to us all, +for I noticed that the others kept looking over their shoulders at every +sound and every new shadow, just as I felt myself doing. + +The whole place was thick with dust. The floor was seemingly inches +deep, except where there were recent footsteps, in which on holding down +my lamp I could see marks of hobnails where the dust was cracked. The +walls were fluffy and heavy with dust, and in the corners were masses of +spider's webs, whereon the dust had gathered till they looked like old +tattered rags as the weight had torn them partly down. On a table in the +hall was a great bunch of keys, with a time-yellowed label on each. They +had been used several times, for on the table were several similar rents +in the blanket of dust, similar to that exposed when the Professor +lifted them. He turned to me and said:-- + +"You know this place, Jonathan. You have copied maps of it, and you know +it at least more than we do. Which is the way to the chapel?" I had an +idea of its direction, though on my former visit I had not been able to +get admission to it; so I led the way, and after a few wrong turnings +found myself opposite a low, arched oaken door, ribbed with iron bands. +"This is the spot," said the Professor as he turned his lamp on a small +map of the house, copied from the file of my original correspondence +regarding the purchase. With a little trouble we found the key on the +bunch and opened the door. We were prepared for some unpleasantness, for +as we were opening the door a faint, malodorous air seemed to exhale +through the gaps, but none of us ever expected such an odour as we +encountered. None of the others had met the Count at all at close +quarters, and when I had seen him he was either in the fasting stage of +his existence in his rooms or, when he was gloated with fresh blood, in +a ruined building open to the air; but here the place was small and +close, and the long disuse had made the air stagnant and foul. There was +an earthy smell, as of some dry miasma, which came through the fouler +air. But as to the odour itself, how shall I describe it? It was not +alone that it was composed of all the ills of mortality and with the +pungent, acrid smell of blood, but it seemed as though corruption had +become itself corrupt. Faugh! it sickens me to think of it. Every breath +exhaled by that monster seemed to have clung to the place and +intensified its loathsomeness. + +Under ordinary circumstances such a stench would have brought our +enterprise to an end; but this was no ordinary case, and the high and +terrible purpose in which we were involved gave us a strength which rose +above merely physical considerations. After the involuntary shrinking +consequent on the first nauseous whiff, we one and all set about our +work as though that loathsome place were a garden of roses. + +We made an accurate examination of the place, the Professor saying as we +began:-- + +"The first thing is to see how many of the boxes are left; we must then +examine every hole and corner and cranny and see if we cannot get some +clue as to what has become of the rest." A glance was sufficient to show +how many remained, for the great earth chests were bulky, and there was +no mistaking them. + +There were only twenty-nine left out of the fifty! Once I got a fright, +for, seeing Lord Godalming suddenly turn and look out of the vaulted +door into the dark passage beyond, I looked too, and for an instant my +heart stood still. Somewhere, looking out from the shadow, I seemed to +see the high lights of the Count's evil face, the ridge of the nose, the +red eyes, the red lips, the awful pallor. It was only for a moment, for, +as Lord Godalming said, "I thought I saw a face, but it was only the +shadows," and resumed his inquiry, I turned my lamp in the direction, +and stepped into the passage. There was no sign of any one; and as there +were no corners, no doors, no aperture of any kind, but only the solid +walls of the passage, there could be no hiding-place even for _him_. I +took it that fear had helped imagination, and said nothing. + +A few minutes later I saw Morris step suddenly back from a corner, which +he was examining. We all followed his movements with our eyes, for +undoubtedly some nervousness was growing on us, and we saw a whole mass +of phosphorescence, which twinkled like stars. We all instinctively drew +back. The whole place was becoming alive with rats. + +For a moment or two we stood appalled, all save Lord Godalming, who was +seemingly prepared for such an emergency. Rushing over to the great +iron-bound oaken door, which Dr. Seward had described from the outside, +and which I had seen myself, he turned the key in the lock, drew the +huge bolts, and swung the door open. Then, taking his little silver +whistle from his pocket, he blew a low, shrill call. It was answered +from behind Dr. Seward's house by the yelping of dogs, and after about a +minute three terriers came dashing round the corner of the house. +Unconsciously we had all moved towards the door, and as we moved I +noticed that the dust had been much disturbed: the boxes which had been +taken out had been brought this way. But even in the minute that had +elapsed the number of the rats had vastly increased. They seemed to +swarm over the place all at once, till the lamplight, shining on their +moving dark bodies and glittering, baleful eyes, made the place look +like a bank of earth set with fireflies. The dogs dashed on, but at the +threshold suddenly stopped and snarled, and then, simultaneously lifting +their noses, began to howl in most lugubrious fashion. The rats were +multiplying in thousands, and we moved out. + +Lord Godalming lifted one of the dogs, and carrying him in, placed him +on the floor. The instant his feet touched the ground he seemed to +recover his courage, and rushed at his natural enemies. They fled before +him so fast that before he had shaken the life out of a score, the other +dogs, who had by now been lifted in the same manner, had but small prey +ere the whole mass had vanished. + +With their going it seemed as if some evil presence had departed, for +the dogs frisked about and barked merrily as they made sudden darts at +their prostrate foes, and turned them over and over and tossed them in +the air with vicious shakes. We all seemed to find our spirits rise. +Whether it was the purifying of the deadly atmosphere by the opening of +the chapel door, or the relief which we experienced by finding ourselves +in the open I know not; but most certainly the shadow of dread seemed to +slip from us like a robe, and the occasion of our coming lost something +of its grim significance, though we did not slacken a whit in our +resolution. We closed the outer door and barred and locked it, and +bringing the dogs with us, began our search of the house. We found +nothing throughout except dust in extraordinary proportions, and all +untouched save for my own footsteps when I had made my first visit. +Never once did the dogs exhibit any symptom of uneasiness, and even when +we returned to the chapel they frisked about as though they had been +rabbit-hunting in a summer wood. + +The morning was quickening in the east when we emerged from the front. +Dr. Van Helsing had taken the key of the hall-door from the bunch, and +locked the door in orthodox fashion, putting the key into his pocket +when he had done. + +"So far," he said, "our night has been eminently successful. No harm has +come to us such as I feared might be and yet we have ascertained how +many boxes are missing. More than all do I rejoice that this, our +first--and perhaps our most difficult and dangerous--step has been +accomplished without the bringing thereinto our most sweet Madam Mina or +troubling her waking or sleeping thoughts with sights and sounds and +smells of horror which she might never forget. One lesson, too, we have +learned, if it be allowable to argue _a particulari_: that the brute +beasts which are to the Count's command are yet themselves not amenable +to his spiritual power; for look, these rats that would come to his +call, just as from his castle top he summon the wolves to your going and +to that poor mother's cry, though they come to him, they run pell-mell +from the so little dogs of my friend Arthur. We have other matters +before us, other dangers, other fears; and that monster--he has not used +his power over the brute world for the only or the last time to-night. +So be it that he has gone elsewhere. Good! It has given us opportunity +to cry 'check' in some ways in this chess game, which we play for the +stake of human souls. And now let us go home. The dawn is close at hand, +and we have reason to be content with our first night's work. It may be +ordained that we have many nights and days to follow, if full of peril; +but we must go on, and from no danger shall we shrink." + +The house was silent when we got back, save for some poor creature who +was screaming away in one of the distant wards, and a low, moaning sound +from Renfield's room. The poor wretch was doubtless torturing himself, +after the manner of the insane, with needless thoughts of pain. + +I came tiptoe into our own room, and found Mina asleep, breathing so +softly that I had to put my ear down to hear it. She looks paler than +usual. I hope the meeting to-night has not upset her. I am truly +thankful that she is to be left out of our future work, and even of our +deliberations. It is too great a strain for a woman to bear. I did not +think so at first, but I know better now. Therefore I am glad that it is +settled. There may be things which would frighten her to hear; and yet +to conceal them from her might be worse than to tell her if once she +suspected that there was any concealment. Henceforth our work is to be a +sealed book to her, till at least such time as we can tell her that all +is finished, and the earth free from a monster of the nether world. I +daresay it will be difficult to begin to keep silence after such +confidence as ours; but I must be resolute, and to-morrow I shall keep +dark over to-night's doings, and shall refuse to speak of anything that +has happened. I rest on the sofa, so as not to disturb her. + + * * * * * + +_1 October, later._--I suppose it was natural that we should have all +overslept ourselves, for the day was a busy one, and the night had no +rest at all. Even Mina must have felt its exhaustion, for though I slept +till the sun was high, I was awake before her, and had to call two or +three times before she awoke. Indeed, she was so sound asleep that for a +few seconds she did not recognize me, but looked at me with a sort of +blank terror, as one looks who has been waked out of a bad dream. She +complained a little of being tired, and I let her rest till later in the +day. We now know of twenty-one boxes having been removed, and if it be +that several were taken in any of these removals we may be able to trace +them all. Such will, of course, immensely simplify our labour, and the +sooner the matter is attended to the better. I shall look up Thomas +Snelling to-day. + + +_Dr. Seward's Diary._ + +_1 October._--It was towards noon when I was awakened by the Professor +walking into my room. He was more jolly and cheerful than usual, and it +is quite evident that last night's work has helped to take some of the +brooding weight off his mind. After going over the adventure of the +night he suddenly said:-- + +"Your patient interests me much. May it be that with you I visit him +this morning? Or if that you are too occupy, I can go alone if it may +be. It is a new experience to me to find a lunatic who talk philosophy, +and reason so sound." I had some work to do which pressed, so I told him +that if he would go alone I would be glad, as then I should not have to +keep him waiting; so I called an attendant and gave him the necessary +instructions. Before the Professor left the room I cautioned him against +getting any false impression from my patient. "But," he answered, "I +want him to talk of himself and of his delusion as to consuming live +things. He said to Madam Mina, as I see in your diary of yesterday, that +he had once had such a belief. Why do you smile, friend John?" + +"Excuse me," I said, "but the answer is here." I laid my hand on the +type-written matter. "When our sane and learned lunatic made that very +statement of how he _used_ to consume life, his mouth was actually +nauseous with the flies and spiders which he had eaten just before Mrs. +Harker entered the room." Van Helsing smiled in turn. "Good!" he said. +"Your memory is true, friend John. I should have remembered. And yet it +is this very obliquity of thought and memory which makes mental disease +such a fascinating study. Perhaps I may gain more knowledge out of the +folly of this madman than I shall from the teaching of the most wise. +Who knows?" I went on with my work, and before long was through that in +hand. It seemed that the time had been very short indeed, but there was +Van Helsing back in the study. "Do I interrupt?" he asked politely as he +stood at the door. + +"Not at all," I answered. "Come in. My work is finished, and I am free. +I can go with you now, if you like. + +"It is needless; I have seen him!" + +"Well?" + +"I fear that he does not appraise me at much. Our interview was short. +When I entered his room he was sitting on a stool in the centre, with +his elbows on his knees, and his face was the picture of sullen +discontent. I spoke to him as cheerfully as I could, and with such a +measure of respect as I could assume. He made no reply whatever. "Don't +you know me?" I asked. His answer was not reassuring: "I know you well +enough; you are the old fool Van Helsing. I wish you would take yourself +and your idiotic brain theories somewhere else. Damn all thick-headed +Dutchmen!" Not a word more would he say, but sat in his implacable +sullenness as indifferent to me as though I had not been in the room at +all. Thus departed for this time my chance of much learning from this so +clever lunatic; so I shall go, if I may, and cheer myself with a few +happy words with that sweet soul Madam Mina. Friend John, it does +rejoice me unspeakable that she is no more to be pained, no more to be +worried with our terrible things. Though we shall much miss her help, it +is better so." + +"I agree with you with all my heart," I answered earnestly, for I did +not want him to weaken in this matter. "Mrs. Harker is better out of it. +Things are quite bad enough for us, all men of the world, and who have +been in many tight places in our time; but it is no place for a woman, +and if she had remained in touch with the affair, it would in time +infallibly have wrecked her." + +So Van Helsing has gone to confer with Mrs. Harker and Harker; Quincey +and Art are all out following up the clues as to the earth-boxes. I +shall finish my round of work and we shall meet to-night. + + +_Mina Harker's Journal._ + +_1 October._--It is strange to me to be kept in the dark as I am to-day; +after Jonathan's full confidence for so many years, to see him +manifestly avoid certain matters, and those the most vital of all. This +morning I slept late after the fatigues of yesterday, and though +Jonathan was late too, he was the earlier. He spoke to me before he went +out, never more sweetly or tenderly, but he never mentioned a word of +what had happened in the visit to the Count's house. And yet he must +have known how terribly anxious I was. Poor dear fellow! I suppose it +must have distressed him even more than it did me. They all agreed that +it was best that I should not be drawn further into this awful work, and +I acquiesced. But to think that he keeps anything from me! And now I am +crying like a silly fool, when I _know_ it comes from my husband's great +love and from the good, good wishes of those other strong men. + +That has done me good. Well, some day Jonathan will tell me all; and +lest it should ever be that he should think for a moment that I kept +anything from him, I still keep my journal as usual. Then if he has +feared of my trust I shall show it to him, with every thought of my +heart put down for his dear eyes to read. I feel strangely sad and +low-spirited to-day. I suppose it is the reaction from the terrible +excitement. + +Last night I went to bed when the men had gone, simply because they told +me to. I didn't feel sleepy, and I did feel full of devouring anxiety. I +kept thinking over everything that has been ever since Jonathan came to +see me in London, and it all seems like a horrible tragedy, with fate +pressing on relentlessly to some destined end. Everything that one does +seems, no matter how right it may be, to bring on the very thing which +is most to be deplored. If I hadn't gone to Whitby, perhaps poor dear +Lucy would be with us now. She hadn't taken to visiting the churchyard +till I came, and if she hadn't come there in the day-time with me she +wouldn't have walked there in her sleep; and if she hadn't gone there at +night and asleep, that monster couldn't have destroyed her as he did. +Oh, why did I ever go to Whitby? There now, crying again! I wonder what +has come over me to-day. I must hide it from Jonathan, for if he knew +that I had been crying twice in one morning--I, who never cried on my +own account, and whom he has never caused to shed a tear--the dear +fellow would fret his heart out. I shall put a bold face on, and if I do +feel weepy, he shall never see it. I suppose it is one of the lessons +that we poor women have to learn.... + +I can't quite remember how I fell asleep last night. I remember hearing +the sudden barking of the dogs and a lot of queer sounds, like praying +on a very tumultuous scale, from Mr. Renfield's room, which is somewhere +under this. And then there was silence over everything, silence so +profound that it startled me, and I got up and looked out of the window. +All was dark and silent, the black shadows thrown by the moonlight +seeming full of a silent mystery of their own. Not a thing seemed to be +stirring, but all to be grim and fixed as death or fate; so that a thin +streak of white mist, that crept with almost imperceptible slowness +across the grass towards the house, seemed to have a sentience and a +vitality of its own. I think that the digression of my thoughts must +have done me good, for when I got back to bed I found a lethargy +creeping over me. I lay a while, but could not quite sleep, so I got out +and looked out of the window again. The mist was spreading, and was now +close up to the house, so that I could see it lying thick against the +wall, as though it were stealing up to the windows. The poor man was +more loud than ever, and though I could not distinguish a word he said, +I could in some way recognise in his tones some passionate entreaty on +his part. Then there was the sound of a struggle, and I knew that the +attendants were dealing with him. I was so frightened that I crept into +bed, and pulled the clothes over my head, putting my fingers in my ears. +I was not then a bit sleepy, at least so I thought; but I must have +fallen asleep, for, except dreams, I do not remember anything until the +morning, when Jonathan woke me. I think that it took me an effort and a +little time to realise where I was, and that it was Jonathan who was +bending over me. My dream was very peculiar, and was almost typical of +the way that waking thoughts become merged in, or continued in, dreams. + +I thought that I was asleep, and waiting for Jonathan to come back. I +was very anxious about him, and I was powerless to act; my feet, and my +hands, and my brain were weighted, so that nothing could proceed at the +usual pace. And so I slept uneasily and thought. Then it began to dawn +upon me that the air was heavy, and dank, and cold. I put back the +clothes from my face, and found, to my surprise, that all was dim +around. The gaslight which I had left lit for Jonathan, but turned down, +came only like a tiny red spark through the fog, which had evidently +grown thicker and poured into the room. Then it occurred to me that I +had shut the window before I had come to bed. I would have got out to +make certain on the point, but some leaden lethargy seemed to chain my +limbs and even my will. I lay still and endured; that was all. I closed +my eyes, but could still see through my eyelids. (It is wonderful what +tricks our dreams play us, and how conveniently we can imagine.) The +mist grew thicker and thicker and I could see now how it came in, for I +could see it like smoke--or with the white energy of boiling +water--pouring in, not through the window, but through the joinings of +the door. It got thicker and thicker, till it seemed as if it became +concentrated into a sort of pillar of cloud in the room, through the top +of which I could see the light of the gas shining like a red eye. Things +began to whirl through my brain just as the cloudy column was now +whirling in the room, and through it all came the scriptural words "a +pillar of cloud by day and of fire by night." Was it indeed some such +spiritual guidance that was coming to me in my sleep? But the pillar was +composed of both the day and the night-guiding, for the fire was in the +red eye, which at the thought got a new fascination for me; till, as I +looked, the fire divided, and seemed to shine on me through the fog like +two red eyes, such as Lucy told me of in her momentary mental wandering +when, on the cliff, the dying sunlight struck the windows of St. Mary's +Church. Suddenly the horror burst upon me that it was thus that Jonathan +had seen those awful women growing into reality through the whirling mist +in the moonlight, and in my dream I must have fainted, for all became +black darkness. The last conscious effort which imagination made was to +show me a livid white face bending over me out of the mist. I must be +careful of such dreams, for they would unseat one's reason if there were +too much of them. I would get Dr. Van Helsing or Dr. Seward to prescribe +something for me which would make me sleep, only that I fear to alarm +them. Such a dream at the present time would become woven into their +fears for me. To-night I shall strive hard to sleep naturally. If I do +not, I shall to-morrow night get them to give me a dose of chloral; that +cannot hurt me for once, and it will give me a good night's sleep. Last +night tired me more than if I had not slept at all. + + * * * * * + +_2 October 10 p. m._--Last night I slept, but did not dream. I must have +slept soundly, for I was not waked by Jonathan coming to bed; but the +sleep has not refreshed me, for to-day I feel terribly weak and +spiritless. I spent all yesterday trying to read, or lying down dozing. +In the afternoon Mr. Renfield asked if he might see me. Poor man, he was +very gentle, and when I came away he kissed my hand and bade God bless +me. Some way it affected me much; I am crying when I think of him. This +is a new weakness, of which I must be careful. Jonathan would be +miserable if he knew I had been crying. He and the others were out till +dinner-time, and they all came in tired. I did what I could to brighten +them up, and I suppose that the effort did me good, for I forgot how +tired I was. After dinner they sent me to bed, and all went off to smoke +together, as they said, but I knew that they wanted to tell each other +of what had occurred to each during the day; I could see from Jonathan's +manner that he had something important to communicate. I was not so +sleepy as I should have been; so before they went I asked Dr. Seward to +give me a little opiate of some kind, as I had not slept well the night +before. He very kindly made me up a sleeping draught, which he gave to +me, telling me that it would do me no harm, as it was very mild.... I +have taken it, and am waiting for sleep, which still keeps aloof. I hope +I have not done wrong, for as sleep begins to flirt with me, a new fear +comes: that I may have been foolish in thus depriving myself of the +power of waking. I might want it. Here comes sleep. Good-night. + + + + +CHAPTER XX + +JONATHAN HARKER'S JOURNAL + + +_1 October, evening._--I found Thomas Snelling in his house at Bethnal +Green, but unhappily he was not in a condition to remember anything. The +very prospect of beer which my expected coming had opened to him had +proved too much, and he had begun too early on his expected debauch. I +learned, however, from his wife, who seemed a decent, poor soul, that he +was only the assistant to Smollet, who of the two mates was the +responsible person. So off I drove to Walworth, and found Mr. Joseph +Smollet at home and in his shirtsleeves, taking a late tea out of a +saucer. He is a decent, intelligent fellow, distinctly a good, reliable +type of workman, and with a headpiece of his own. He remembered all +about the incident of the boxes, and from a wonderful dog's-eared +notebook, which he produced from some mysterious receptacle about the +seat of his trousers, and which had hieroglyphical entries in thick, +half-obliterated pencil, he gave me the destinations of the boxes. There +were, he said, six in the cartload which he took from Carfax and left at +197, Chicksand Street, Mile End New Town, and another six which he +deposited at Jamaica Lane, Bermondsey. If then the Count meant to +scatter these ghastly refuges of his over London, these places were +chosen as the first of delivery, so that later he might distribute more +fully. The systematic manner in which this was done made me think that +he could not mean to confine himself to two sides of London. He was now +fixed on the far east of the northern shore, on the east of the southern +shore, and on the south. The north and west were surely never meant to +be left out of his diabolical scheme--let alone the City itself and the +very heart of fashionable London in the south-west and west. I went back +to Smollet, and asked him if he could tell us if any other boxes had +been taken from Carfax. + +He replied:-- + +"Well, guv'nor, you've treated me wery 'an'some"--I had given him half a +sovereign--"an' I'll tell yer all I know. I heard a man by the name of +Bloxam say four nights ago in the 'Are an' 'Ounds, in Pincher's Alley, +as 'ow he an' his mate 'ad 'ad a rare dusty job in a old 'ouse at +Purfect. There ain't a-many such jobs as this 'ere, an' I'm thinkin' +that maybe Sam Bloxam could tell ye summut." I asked if he could tell me +where to find him. I told him that if he could get me the address it +would be worth another half-sovereign to him. So he gulped down the rest +of his tea and stood up, saying that he was going to begin the search +then and there. At the door he stopped, and said:-- + +"Look 'ere, guv'nor, there ain't no sense in me a-keepin' you 'ere. I +may find Sam soon, or I mayn't; but anyhow he ain't like to be in a way +to tell ye much to-night. Sam is a rare one when he starts on the booze. +If you can give me a envelope with a stamp on it, and put yer address on +it, I'll find out where Sam is to be found and post it ye to-night. But +ye'd better be up arter 'im soon in the mornin', or maybe ye won't ketch +'im; for Sam gets off main early, never mind the booze the night afore." + +This was all practical, so one of the children went off with a penny to +buy an envelope and a sheet of paper, and to keep the change. When she +came back, I addressed the envelope and stamped it, and when Smollet had +again faithfully promised to post the address when found, I took my way +to home. We're on the track anyhow. I am tired to-night, and want sleep. +Mina is fast asleep, and looks a little too pale; her eyes look as +though she had been crying. Poor dear, I've no doubt it frets her to be +kept in the dark, and it may make her doubly anxious about me and the +others. But it is best as it is. It is better to be disappointed and +worried in such a way now than to have her nerve broken. The doctors +were quite right to insist on her being kept out of this dreadful +business. I must be firm, for on me this particular burden of silence +must rest. I shall not ever enter on the subject with her under any +circumstances. Indeed, it may not be a hard task, after all, for she +herself has become reticent on the subject, and has not spoken of the +Count or his doings ever since we told her of our decision. + + * * * * * + +_2 October, evening._--A long and trying and exciting day. By the first +post I got my directed envelope with a dirty scrap of paper enclosed, on +which was written with a carpenter's pencil in a sprawling hand:-- + +"Sam Bloxam, Korkrans, 4, Poters Cort, Bartel Street, Walworth. Arsk for +the depite." + +I got the letter in bed, and rose without waking Mina. She looked heavy +and sleepy and pale, and far from well. I determined not to wake her, +but that, when I should return from this new search, I would arrange for +her going back to Exeter. I think she would be happier in our own home, +with her daily tasks to interest her, than in being here amongst us and +in ignorance. I only saw Dr. Seward for a moment, and told him where I +was off to, promising to come back and tell the rest so soon as I should +have found out anything. I drove to Walworth and found, with some +difficulty, Potter's Court. Mr. Smollet's spelling misled me, as I asked +for Poter's Court instead of Potter's Court. However, when I had found +the court, I had no difficulty in discovering Corcoran's lodging-house. +When I asked the man who came to the door for the "depite," he shook his +head, and said: "I dunno 'im. There ain't no such a person 'ere; I never +'eard of 'im in all my bloomin' days. Don't believe there ain't nobody +of that kind livin' ere or anywheres." I took out Smollet's letter, and +as I read it it seemed to me that the lesson of the spelling of the name +of the court might guide me. "What are you?" I asked. + +"I'm the depity," he answered. I saw at once that I was on the right +track; phonetic spelling had again misled me. A half-crown tip put the +deputy's knowledge at my disposal, and I learned that Mr. Bloxam, who +had slept off the remains of his beer on the previous night at +Corcoran's, had left for his work at Poplar at five o'clock that +morning. He could not tell me where the place of work was situated, but +he had a vague idea that it was some kind of a "new-fangled ware'us"; +and with this slender clue I had to start for Poplar. It was twelve +o'clock before I got any satisfactory hint of such a building, and this +I got at a coffee-shop, where some workmen were having their dinner. One +of these suggested that there was being erected at Cross Angel Street a +new "cold storage" building; and as this suited the condition of a +"new-fangled ware'us," I at once drove to it. An interview with a surly +gatekeeper and a surlier foreman, both of whom were appeased with the +coin of the realm, put me on the track of Bloxam; he was sent for on my +suggesting that I was willing to pay his day's wages to his foreman for +the privilege of asking him a few questions on a private matter. He was +a smart enough fellow, though rough of speech and bearing. When I had +promised to pay for his information and given him an earnest, he told me +that he had made two journeys between Carfax and a house in Piccadilly, +and had taken from this house to the latter nine great boxes--"main +heavy ones"--with a horse and cart hired by him for this purpose. I +asked him if he could tell me the number of the house in Piccadilly, to +which he replied:-- + +"Well, guv'nor, I forgits the number, but it was only a few doors from a +big white church or somethink of the kind, not long built. It was a +dusty old 'ouse, too, though nothin' to the dustiness of the 'ouse we +tooked the bloomin' boxes from." + +"How did you get into the houses if they were both empty?" + +"There was the old party what engaged me a-waitin' in the 'ouse at +Purfleet. He 'elped me to lift the boxes and put them in the dray. Curse +me, but he was the strongest chap I ever struck, an' him a old feller, +with a white moustache, one that thin you would think he couldn't throw +a shadder." + +How this phrase thrilled through me! + +"Why, 'e took up 'is end o' the boxes like they was pounds of tea, and +me a-puffin' an' a-blowin' afore I could up-end mine anyhow--an' I'm no +chicken, neither." + +"How did you get into the house in Piccadilly?" I asked. + +"He was there too. He must 'a' started off and got there afore me, for +when I rung of the bell he kem an' opened the door 'isself an' 'elped me +to carry the boxes into the 'all." + +"The whole nine?" I asked. + +"Yus; there was five in the first load an' four in the second. It was +main dry work, an' I don't so well remember 'ow I got 'ome." I +interrupted him:-- + +"Were the boxes left in the hall?" + +"Yus; it was a big 'all, an' there was nothin' else in it." I made one +more attempt to further matters:-- + +"You didn't have any key?" + +"Never used no key nor nothink. The old gent, he opened the door 'isself +an' shut it again when I druv off. I don't remember the last time--but +that was the beer." + +"And you can't remember the number of the house?" + +"No, sir. But ye needn't have no difficulty about that. It's a 'igh 'un +with a stone front with a bow on it, an' 'igh steps up to the door. I +know them steps, 'avin' 'ad to carry the boxes up with three loafers +what come round to earn a copper. The old gent give them shillin's, an' +they seein' they got so much, they wanted more; but 'e took one of them +by the shoulder and was like to throw 'im down the steps, till the lot +of them went away cussin'." I thought that with this description I could +find the house, so, having paid my friend for his information, I started +off for Piccadilly. I had gained a new painful experience; the Count +could, it was evident, handle the earth-boxes himself. If so, time was +precious; for, now that he had achieved a certain amount of +distribution, he could, by choosing his own time, complete the task +unobserved. At Piccadilly Circus I discharged my cab, and walked +westward; beyond the Junior Constitutional I came across the house +described, and was satisfied that this was the next of the lairs +arranged by Dracula. The house looked as though it had been long +untenanted. The windows were encrusted with dust, and the shutters were +up. All the framework was black with time, and from the iron the paint +had mostly scaled away. It was evident that up to lately there had been +a large notice-board in front of the balcony; it had, however, been +roughly torn away, the uprights which had supported it still remaining. +Behind the rails of the balcony I saw there were some loose boards, +whose raw edges looked white. I would have given a good deal to have +been able to see the notice-board intact, as it would, perhaps, have +given some clue to the ownership of the house. I remembered my +experience of the investigation and purchase of Carfax, and I could not +but feel that if I could find the former owner there might be some means +discovered of gaining access to the house. + +There was at present nothing to be learned from the Piccadilly side, and +nothing could be done; so I went round to the back to see if anything +could be gathered from this quarter. The mews were active, the +Piccadilly houses being mostly in occupation. I asked one or two of the +grooms and helpers whom I saw around if they could tell me anything +about the empty house. One of them said that he heard it had lately been +taken, but he couldn't say from whom. He told me, however, that up to +very lately there had been a notice-board of "For Sale" up, and that +perhaps Mitchell, Sons, & Candy, the house agents, could tell me +something, as he thought he remembered seeing the name of that firm on +the board. I did not wish to seem too eager, or to let my informant know +or guess too much, so, thanking him in the usual manner, I strolled +away. It was now growing dusk, and the autumn night was closing in, so I +did not lose any time. Having learned the address of Mitchell, Sons, & +Candy from a directory at the Berkeley, I was soon at their office in +Sackville Street. + +The gentleman who saw me was particularly suave in manner, but +uncommunicative in equal proportion. Having once told me that the +Piccadilly house--which throughout our interview he called a +"mansion"--was sold, he considered my business as concluded. When I +asked who had purchased it, he opened his eyes a thought wider, and +paused a few seconds before replying:-- + +"It is sold, sir." + +"Pardon me," I said, with equal politeness, "but I have a special reason +for wishing to know who purchased it." + +Again he paused longer, and raised his eyebrows still more. "It is sold, +sir," was again his laconic reply. + +"Surely," I said, "you do not mind letting me know so much." + +"But I do mind," he answered. "The affairs of their clients are +absolutely safe in the hands of Mitchell, Sons, & Candy." This was +manifestly a prig of the first water, and there was no use arguing with +him. I thought I had best meet him on his own ground, so I said:-- + +"Your clients, sir, are happy in having so resolute a guardian of their +confidence. I am myself a professional man." Here I handed him my card. +"In this instance I am not prompted by curiosity; I act on the part of +Lord Godalming, who wishes to know something of the property which was, +he understood, lately for sale." These words put a different complexion +on affairs. He said:-- + +"I would like to oblige you if I could, Mr. Harker, and especially would +I like to oblige his lordship. We once carried out a small matter of +renting some chambers for him when he was the Honourable Arthur +Holmwood. If you will let me have his lordship's address I will consult +the House on the subject, and will, in any case, communicate with his +lordship by to-night's post. It will be a pleasure if we can so far +deviate from our rules as to give the required information to his +lordship." + +I wanted to secure a friend, and not to make an enemy, so I thanked him, +gave the address at Dr. Seward's and came away. It was now dark, and I +was tired and hungry. I got a cup of tea at the Aerated Bread Company +and came down to Purfleet by the next train. + +I found all the others at home. Mina was looking tired and pale, but she +made a gallant effort to be bright and cheerful, it wrung my heart to +think that I had had to keep anything from her and so caused her +inquietude. Thank God, this will be the last night of her looking on at +our conferences, and feeling the sting of our not showing our +confidence. It took all my courage to hold to the wise resolution of +keeping her out of our grim task. She seems somehow more reconciled; or +else the very subject seems to have become repugnant to her, for when +any accidental allusion is made she actually shudders. I am glad we +made our resolution in time, as with such a feeling as this, our growing +knowledge would be torture to her. + +I could not tell the others of the day's discovery till we were alone; +so after dinner--followed by a little music to save appearances even +amongst ourselves--I took Mina to her room and left her to go to bed. +The dear girl was more affectionate with me than ever, and clung to me +as though she would detain me; but there was much to be talked of and I +came away. Thank God, the ceasing of telling things has made no +difference between us. + +When I came down again I found the others all gathered round the fire in +the study. In the train I had written my diary so far, and simply read +it off to them as the best means of letting them get abreast of my own +information; when I had finished Van Helsing said:-- + +"This has been a great day's work, friend Jonathan. Doubtless we are on +the track of the missing boxes. If we find them all in that house, then +our work is near the end. But if there be some missing, we must search +until we find them. Then shall we make our final _coup_, and hunt the +wretch to his real death." We all sat silent awhile and all at once Mr. +Morris spoke:-- + +"Say! how are we going to get into that house?" + +"We got into the other," answered Lord Godalming quickly. + +"But, Art, this is different. We broke house at Carfax, but we had night +and a walled park to protect us. It will be a mighty different thing to +commit burglary in Piccadilly, either by day or night. I confess I don't +see how we are going to get in unless that agency duck can find us a key +of some sort; perhaps we shall know when you get his letter in the +morning." Lord Godalming's brows contracted, and he stood up and walked +about the room. By-and-by he stopped and said, turning from one to +another of us:-- + +"Quincey's head is level. This burglary business is getting serious; we +got off once all right; but we have now a rare job on hand--unless we +can find the Count's key basket." + +As nothing could well be done before morning, and as it would be at +least advisable to wait till Lord Godalming should hear from Mitchell's, +we decided not to take any active step before breakfast time. For a good +while we sat and smoked, discussing the matter in its various lights and +bearings; I took the opportunity of bringing this diary right up to the +moment. I am very sleepy and shall go to bed.... + +Just a line. Mina sleeps soundly and her breathing is regular. Her +forehead is puckered up into little wrinkles, as though she thinks even +in her sleep. She is still too pale, but does not look so haggard as she +did this morning. To-morrow will, I hope, mend all this; she will be +herself at home in Exeter. Oh, but I am sleepy! + + +_Dr. Seward's Diary._ + +_1 October._--I am puzzled afresh about Renfield. His moods change so +rapidly that I find it difficult to keep touch of them, and as they +always mean something more than his own well-being, they form a more +than interesting study. This morning, when I went to see him after his +repulse of Van Helsing, his manner was that of a man commanding destiny. +He was, in fact, commanding destiny--subjectively. He did not really +care for any of the things of mere earth; he was in the clouds and +looked down on all the weaknesses and wants of us poor mortals. I +thought I would improve the occasion and learn something, so I asked +him:-- + +"What about the flies these times?" He smiled on me in quite a superior +sort of way--such a smile as would have become the face of Malvolio--as +he answered me:-- + +"The fly, my dear sir, has one striking feature; its wings are typical +of the aerial powers of the psychic faculties. The ancients did well +when they typified the soul as a butterfly!" + +I thought I would push his analogy to its utmost logically, so I said +quickly:-- + +"Oh, it is a soul you are after now, is it?" His madness foiled his +reason, and a puzzled look spread over his face as, shaking his head +with a decision which I had but seldom seen in him, he said:-- + +"Oh, no, oh no! I want no souls. Life is all I want." Here he brightened +up; "I am pretty indifferent about it at present. Life is all right; I +have all I want. You must get a new patient, doctor, if you wish to +study zoophagy!" + +This puzzled me a little, so I drew him on:-- + +"Then you command life; you are a god, I suppose?" He smiled with an +ineffably benign superiority. + +"Oh no! Far be it from me to arrogate to myself the attributes of the +Deity. I am not even concerned in His especially spiritual doings. If I +may state my intellectual position I am, so far as concerns things +purely terrestrial, somewhat in the position which Enoch occupied +spiritually!" This was a poser to me. I could not at the moment recall +Enoch's appositeness; so I had to ask a simple question, though I felt +that by so doing I was lowering myself in the eyes of the lunatic:-- + +"And why with Enoch?" + +"Because he walked with God." I could not see the analogy, but did not +like to admit it; so I harked back to what he had denied:-- + +"So you don't care about life and you don't want souls. Why not?" I put +my question quickly and somewhat sternly, on purpose to disconcert him. +The effort succeeded; for an instant he unconsciously relapsed into his +old servile manner, bent low before me, and actually fawned upon me as +he replied:-- + +"I don't want any souls, indeed, indeed! I don't. I couldn't use them if +I had them; they would be no manner of use to me. I couldn't eat them +or----" He suddenly stopped and the old cunning look spread over his +face, like a wind-sweep on the surface of the water. "And doctor, as to +life, what is it after all? When you've got all you require, and you +know that you will never want, that is all. I have friends--good +friends--like you, Dr. Seward"; this was said with a leer of +inexpressible cunning. "I know that I shall never lack the means of +life!" + +I think that through the cloudiness of his insanity he saw some +antagonism in me, for he at once fell back on the last refuge of such as +he--a dogged silence. After a short time I saw that for the present it +was useless to speak to him. He was sulky, and so I came away. + +Later in the day he sent for me. Ordinarily I would not have come +without special reason, but just at present I am so interested in him +that I would gladly make an effort. Besides, I am glad to have anything +to help to pass the time. Harker is out, following up clues; and so are +Lord Godalming and Quincey. Van Helsing sits in my study poring over the +record prepared by the Harkers; he seems to think that by accurate +knowledge of all details he will light upon some clue. He does not wish +to be disturbed in the work, without cause. I would have taken him with +me to see the patient, only I thought that after his last repulse he +might not care to go again. There was also another reason: Renfield +might not speak so freely before a third person as when he and I were +alone. + +I found him sitting out in the middle of the floor on his stool, a pose +which is generally indicative of some mental energy on his part. When I +came in, he said at once, as though the question had been waiting on his +lips:-- + +"What about souls?" It was evident then that my surmise had been +correct. Unconscious cerebration was doing its work, even with the +lunatic. I determined to have the matter out. "What about them +yourself?" I asked. He did not reply for a moment but looked all round +him, and up and down, as though he expected to find some inspiration for +an answer. + +"I don't want any souls!" he said in a feeble, apologetic way. The +matter seemed preying on his mind, and so I determined to use it--to "be +cruel only to be kind." So I said:-- + +"You like life, and you want life?" + +"Oh yes! but that is all right; you needn't worry about that!" + +"But," I asked, "how are we to get the life without getting the soul +also?" This seemed to puzzle him, so I followed it up:-- + +"A nice time you'll have some time when you're flying out there, with +the souls of thousands of flies and spiders and birds and cats buzzing +and twittering and miauing all round you. You've got their lives, you +know, and you must put up with their souls!" Something seemed to affect +his imagination, for he put his fingers to his ears and shut his eyes, +screwing them up tightly just as a small boy does when his face is being +soaped. There was something pathetic in it that touched me; it also gave +me a lesson, for it seemed that before me was a child--only a child, +though the features were worn, and the stubble on the jaws was white. It +was evident that he was undergoing some process of mental disturbance, +and, knowing how his past moods had interpreted things seemingly foreign +to himself, I thought I would enter into his mind as well as I could and +go with him. The first step was to restore confidence, so I asked him, +speaking pretty loud so that he would hear me through his closed ears:-- + +"Would you like some sugar to get your flies round again?" He seemed to +wake up all at once, and shook his head. With a laugh he replied:-- + +"Not much! flies are poor things, after all!" After a pause he added, +"But I don't want their souls buzzing round me, all the same." + +"Or spiders?" I went on. + +"Blow spiders! What's the use of spiders? There isn't anything in them +to eat or"--he stopped suddenly, as though reminded of a forbidden +topic. + +"So, so!" I thought to myself, "this is the second time he has suddenly +stopped at the word 'drink'; what does it mean?" Renfield seemed himself +aware of having made a lapse, for he hurried on, as though to distract +my attention from it:-- + +"I don't take any stock at all in such matters. 'Rats and mice and such +small deer,' as Shakespeare has it, 'chicken-feed of the larder' they +might be called. I'm past all that sort of nonsense. You might as well +ask a man to eat molecules with a pair of chop-sticks, as to try to +interest me about the lesser carnivora, when I know of what is before +me." + +"I see," I said. "You want big things that you can make your teeth meet +in? How would you like to breakfast on elephant?" + +"What ridiculous nonsense you are talking!" He was getting too wide +awake, so I thought I would press him hard. "I wonder," I said +reflectively, "what an elephant's soul is like!" + +The effect I desired was obtained, for he at once fell from his +high-horse and became a child again. + +"I don't want an elephant's soul, or any soul at all!" he said. For a +few moments he sat despondently. Suddenly he jumped to his feet, with +his eyes blazing and all the signs of intense cerebral excitement. "To +hell with you and your souls!" he shouted. "Why do you plague me about +souls? Haven't I got enough to worry, and pain, and distract me already, +without thinking of souls!" He looked so hostile that I thought he was +in for another homicidal fit, so I blew my whistle. The instant, +however, that I did so he became calm, and said apologetically:-- + +"Forgive me, Doctor; I forgot myself. You do not need any help. I am so +worried in my mind that I am apt to be irritable. If you only knew the +problem I have to face, and that I am working out, you would pity, and +tolerate, and pardon me. Pray do not put me in a strait-waistcoat. I +want to think and I cannot think freely when my body is confined. I am +sure you will understand!" He had evidently self-control; so when the +attendants came I told them not to mind, and they withdrew. Renfield +watched them go; when the door was closed he said, with considerable +dignity and sweetness:-- + +"Dr. Seward, you have been very considerate towards me. Believe me that +I am very, very grateful to you!" I thought it well to leave him in this +mood, and so I came away. There is certainly something to ponder over in +this man's state. Several points seem to make what the American +interviewer calls "a story," if one could only get them in proper order. +Here they are:-- + +Will not mention "drinking." + +Fears the thought of being burdened with the "soul" of anything. + +Has no dread of wanting "life" in the future. + +Despises the meaner forms of life altogether, though he dreads being +haunted by their souls. + +Logically all these things point one way! he has assurance of some kind +that he will acquire some higher life. He dreads the consequence--the +burden of a soul. Then it is a human life he looks to! + +And the assurance--? + +Merciful God! the Count has been to him, and there is some new scheme of +terror afoot! + + * * * * * + +_Later._--I went after my round to Van Helsing and told him my +suspicion. He grew very grave; and, after thinking the matter over for a +while asked me to take him to Renfield. I did so. As we came to the door +we heard the lunatic within singing gaily, as he used to do in the time +which now seems so long ago. When we entered we saw with amazement that +he had spread out his sugar as of old; the flies, lethargic with the +autumn, were beginning to buzz into the room. We tried to make him talk +of the subject of our previous conversation, but he would not attend. He +went on with his singing, just as though we had not been present. He had +got a scrap of paper and was folding it into a note-book. We had to come +away as ignorant as we went in. + +His is a curious case indeed; we must watch him to-night. + + +_Letter, Mitchell, Sons and Candy to Lord Godalming._ + +_"1 October._ + +"My Lord, + +"We are at all times only too happy to meet your wishes. We beg, with +regard to the desire of your Lordship, expressed by Mr. Harker on your +behalf, to supply the following information concerning the sale and +purchase of No. 347, Piccadilly. The original vendors are the executors +of the late Mr. Archibald Winter-Suffield. The purchaser is a foreign +nobleman, Count de Ville, who effected the purchase himself paying the +purchase money in notes 'over the counter,' if your Lordship will pardon +us using so vulgar an expression. Beyond this we know nothing whatever +of him. + +"We are, my Lord, + +"Your Lordship's humble servants, + +"MITCHELL, SONS & CANDY." + + +_Dr. Seward's Diary._ + +_2 October._--I placed a man in the corridor last night, and told him to +make an accurate note of any sound he might hear from Renfield's room, +and gave him instructions that if there should be anything strange he +was to call me. After dinner, when we had all gathered round the fire +in the study--Mrs. Harker having gone to bed--we discussed the attempts +and discoveries of the day. Harker was the only one who had any result, +and we are in great hopes that his clue may be an important one. + +Before going to bed I went round to the patient's room and looked in +through the observation trap. He was sleeping soundly, and his heart +rose and fell with regular respiration. + +This morning the man on duty reported to me that a little after midnight +he was restless and kept saying his prayers somewhat loudly. I asked him +if that was all; he replied that it was all he heard. There was +something about his manner so suspicious that I asked him point blank if +he had been asleep. He denied sleep, but admitted to having "dozed" for +a while. It is too bad that men cannot be trusted unless they are +watched. + +To-day Harker is out following up his clue, and Art and Quincey are +looking after horses. Godalming thinks that it will be well to have +horses always in readiness, for when we get the information which we +seek there will be no time to lose. We must sterilise all the imported +earth between sunrise and sunset; we shall thus catch the Count at his +weakest, and without a refuge to fly to. Van Helsing is off to the +British Museum looking up some authorities on ancient medicine. The old +physicians took account of things which their followers do not accept, +and the Professor is searching for witch and demon cures which may be +useful to us later. + +I sometimes think we must be all mad and that we shall wake to sanity in +strait-waistcoats. + + * * * * * + +_Later._--We have met again. We seem at last to be on the track, and our +work of to-morrow may be the beginning of the end. I wonder if +Renfield's quiet has anything to do with this. His moods have so +followed the doings of the Count, that the coming destruction of the +monster may be carried to him in some subtle way. If we could only get +some hint as to what passed in his mind, between the time of my argument +with him to-day and his resumption of fly-catching, it might afford us a +valuable clue. He is now seemingly quiet for a spell.... Is he?---- That +wild yell seemed to come from his room.... + + * * * * * + +The attendant came bursting into my room and told me that Renfield had +somehow met with some accident. He had heard him yell; and when he went +to him found him lying on his face on the floor, all covered with blood. +I must go at once.... + + + + +CHAPTER XXI + +DR. SEWARD'S DIARY + + +_3 October._--Let me put down with exactness all that happened, as well +as I can remember it, since last I made an entry. Not a detail that I +can recall must be forgotten; in all calmness I must proceed. + +When I came to Renfield's room I found him lying on the floor on his +left side in a glittering pool of blood. When I went to move him, it +became at once apparent that he had received some terrible injuries; +there seemed none of that unity of purpose between the parts of the body +which marks even lethargic sanity. As the face was exposed I could see +that it was horribly bruised, as though it had been beaten against the +floor--indeed it was from the face wounds that the pool of blood +originated. The attendant who was kneeling beside the body said to me as +we turned him over:-- + +"I think, sir, his back is broken. See, both his right arm and leg and +the whole side of his face are paralysed." How such a thing could have +happened puzzled the attendant beyond measure. He seemed quite +bewildered, and his brows were gathered in as he said:-- + +"I can't understand the two things. He could mark his face like that by +beating his own head on the floor. I saw a young woman do it once at the +Eversfield Asylum before anyone could lay hands on her. And I suppose he +might have broke his neck by falling out of bed, if he got in an awkward +kink. But for the life of me I can't imagine how the two things +occurred. If his back was broke, he couldn't beat his head; and if his +face was like that before the fall out of bed, there would be marks of +it." I said to him:-- + +"Go to Dr. Van Helsing, and ask him to kindly come here at once. I want +him without an instant's delay." The man ran off, and within a few +minutes the Professor, in his dressing gown and slippers, appeared. When +he saw Renfield on the ground, he looked keenly at him a moment, and +then turned to me. I think he recognised my thought in my eyes, for he +said very quietly, manifestly for the ears of the attendant:-- + +"Ah, a sad accident! He will need very careful watching, and much +attention. I shall stay with you myself; but I shall first dress myself. +If you will remain I shall in a few minutes join you." + +The patient was now breathing stertorously and it was easy to see that +he had suffered some terrible injury. Van Helsing returned with +extraordinary celerity, bearing with him a surgical case. He had +evidently been thinking and had his mind made up; for, almost before he +looked at the patient, he whispered to me:-- + +"Send the attendant away. We must be alone with him when he becomes +conscious, after the operation." So I said:-- + +"I think that will do now, Simmons. We have done all that we can at +present. You had better go your round, and Dr. Van Helsing will operate. +Let me know instantly if there be anything unusual anywhere." + +The man withdrew, and we went into a strict examination of the patient. +The wounds of the face was superficial; the real injury was a depressed +fracture of the skull, extending right up through the motor area. The +Professor thought a moment and said:-- + +"We must reduce the pressure and get back to normal conditions, as far +as can be; the rapidity of the suffusion shows the terrible nature of +his injury. The whole motor area seems affected. The suffusion of the +brain will increase quickly, so we must trephine at once or it may be +too late." As he was speaking there was a soft tapping at the door. I +went over and opened it and found in the corridor without, Arthur and +Quincey in pajamas and slippers: the former spoke:-- + +"I heard your man call up Dr. Van Helsing and tell him of an accident. +So I woke Quincey or rather called for him as he was not asleep. Things +are moving too quickly and too strangely for sound sleep for any of us +these times. I've been thinking that to-morrow night will not see things +as they have been. We'll have to look back--and forward a little more +than we have done. May we come in?" I nodded, and held the door open +till they had entered; then I closed it again. When Quincey saw the +attitude and state of the patient, and noted the horrible pool on the +floor, he said softly:-- + +"My God! what has happened to him? Poor, poor devil!" I told him +briefly, and added that we expected he would recover consciousness after +the operation--for a short time, at all events. He went at once and sat +down on the edge of the bed, with Godalming beside him; we all watched +in patience. + +"We shall wait," said Van Helsing, "just long enough to fix the best +spot for trephining, so that we may most quickly and perfectly remove +the blood clot; for it is evident that the haemorrhage is increasing." + +The minutes during which we waited passed with fearful slowness. I had a +horrible sinking in my heart, and from Van Helsing's face I gathered +that he felt some fear or apprehension as to what was to come. I dreaded +the words that Renfield might speak. I was positively afraid to think; +but the conviction of what was coming was on me, as I have read of men +who have heard the death-watch. The poor man's breathing came in +uncertain gasps. Each instant he seemed as though he would open his eyes +and speak; but then would follow a prolonged stertorous breath, and he +would relapse into a more fixed insensibility. Inured as I was to sick +beds and death, this suspense grew, and grew upon me. I could almost +hear the beating of my own heart; and the blood surging through my +temples sounded like blows from a hammer. The silence finally became +agonising. I looked at my companions, one after another, and saw from +their flushed faces and damp brows that they were enduring equal +torture. There was a nervous suspense over us all, as though overhead +some dread bell would peal out powerfully when we should least expect +it. + +At last there came a time when it was evident that the patient was +sinking fast; he might die at any moment. I looked up at the Professor +and caught his eyes fixed on mine. His face was sternly set as he +spoke:-- + +"There is no time to lose. His words may be worth many lives; I have +been thinking so, as I stood here. It may be there is a soul at stake! +We shall operate just above the ear." + +Without another word he made the operation. For a few moments the +breathing continued to be stertorous. Then there came a breath so +prolonged that it seemed as though it would tear open his chest. +Suddenly his eyes opened, and became fixed in a wild, helpless stare. +This was continued for a few moments; then it softened into a glad +surprise, and from the lips came a sigh of relief. He moved +convulsively, and as he did so, said:-- + +"I'll be quiet, Doctor. Tell them to take off the strait-waistcoat. I +have had a terrible dream, and it has left me so weak that I cannot +move. What's wrong with my face? it feels all swollen, and it smarts +dreadfully." He tried to turn his head; but even with the effort his +eyes seemed to grow glassy again so I gently put it back. Then Van +Helsing said in a quiet grave tone:-- + +"Tell us your dream, Mr. Renfield." As he heard the voice his face +brightened, through its mutilation, and he said:-- + +"That is Dr. Van Helsing. How good it is of you to be here. Give me some +water, my lips are dry; and I shall try to tell you. I dreamed"--he +stopped and seemed fainting, I called quietly to Quincey--"The +brandy--it is in my study--quick!" He flew and returned with a glass, +the decanter of brandy and a carafe of water. We moistened the parched +lips, and the patient quickly revived. It seemed, however, that his poor +injured brain had been working in the interval, for, when he was quite +conscious, he looked at me piercingly with an agonised confusion which I +shall never forget, and said:-- + +"I must not deceive myself; it was no dream, but all a grim reality." +Then his eyes roved round the room; as they caught sight of the two +figures sitting patiently on the edge of the bed he went on:-- + +"If I were not sure already, I would know from them." For an instant his +eyes closed--not with pain or sleep but voluntarily, as though he were +bringing all his faculties to bear; when he opened them he said, +hurriedly, and with more energy than he had yet displayed:-- + +"Quick, Doctor, quick. I am dying! I feel that I have but a few minutes; +and then I must go back to death--or worse! Wet my lips with brandy +again. I have something that I must say before I die; or before my poor +crushed brain dies anyhow. Thank you! It was that night after you left +me, when I implored you to let me go away. I couldn't speak then, for I +felt my tongue was tied; but I was as sane then, except in that way, as +I am now. I was in an agony of despair for a long time after you left +me; it seemed hours. Then there came a sudden peace to me. My brain +seemed to become cool again, and I realised where I was. I heard the +dogs bark behind our house, but not where He was!" As he spoke, Van +Helsing's eyes never blinked, but his hand came out and met mine and +gripped it hard. He did not, however, betray himself; he nodded slightly +and said: "Go on," in a low voice. Renfield proceeded:-- + +"He came up to the window in the mist, as I had seen him often before; +but he was solid then--not a ghost, and his eyes were fierce like a +man's when angry. He was laughing with his red mouth; the sharp white +teeth glinted in the moonlight when he turned to look back over the belt +of trees, to where the dogs were barking. I wouldn't ask him to come in +at first, though I knew he wanted to--just as he had wanted all along. +Then he began promising me things--not in words but by doing them." He +was interrupted by a word from the Professor:-- + +"How?" + +"By making them happen; just as he used to send in the flies when the +sun was shining. Great big fat ones with steel and sapphire on their +wings; and big moths, in the night, with skull and cross-bones on their +backs." Van Helsing nodded to him as he whispered to me unconsciously:-- + +"The _Acherontia Aitetropos of the Sphinges_--what you call the +'Death's-head Moth'?" The patient went on without stopping. + +"Then he began to whisper: 'Rats, rats, rats! Hundreds, thousands, +millions of them, and every one a life; and dogs to eat them, and cats +too. All lives! all red blood, with years of life in it; and not merely +buzzing flies!' I laughed at him, for I wanted to see what he could do. +Then the dogs howled, away beyond the dark trees in His house. He +beckoned me to the window. I got up and looked out, and He raised his +hands, and seemed to call out without using any words. A dark mass +spread over the grass, coming on like the shape of a flame of fire; and +then He moved the mist to the right and left, and I could see that there +were thousands of rats with their eyes blazing red--like His, only +smaller. He held up his hand, and they all stopped; and I thought he +seemed to be saying: 'All these lives will I give you, ay, and many more +and greater, through countless ages, if you will fall down and worship +me!' And then a red cloud, like the colour of blood, seemed to close +over my eyes; and before I knew what I was doing, I found myself opening +the sash and saying to Him: 'Come in, Lord and Master!' The rats were +all gone, but He slid into the room through the sash, though it was only +open an inch wide--just as the Moon herself has often come in through +the tiniest crack and has stood before me in all her size and +splendour." + +His voice was weaker, so I moistened his lips with the brandy again, and +he continued; but it seemed as though his memory had gone on working in +the interval for his story was further advanced. I was about to call him +back to the point, but Van Helsing whispered to me: "Let him go on. Do +not interrupt him; he cannot go back, and maybe could not proceed at all +if once he lost the thread of his thought." He proceeded:-- + +"All day I waited to hear from him, but he did not send me anything, not +even a blow-fly, and when the moon got up I was pretty angry with him. +When he slid in through the window, though it was shut, and did not even +knock, I got mad with him. He sneered at me, and his white face looked +out of the mist with his red eyes gleaming, and he went on as though he +owned the whole place, and I was no one. He didn't even smell the same +as he went by me. I couldn't hold him. I thought that, somehow, Mrs. +Harker had come into the room." + +The two men sitting on the bed stood up and came over, standing behind +him so that he could not see them, but where they could hear better. +They were both silent, but the Professor started and quivered; his face, +however, grew grimmer and sterner still. Renfield went on without +noticing:-- + +"When Mrs. Harker came in to see me this afternoon she wasn't the same; +it was like tea after the teapot had been watered." Here we all moved, +but no one said a word; he went on:-- + +"I didn't know that she was here till she spoke; and she didn't look the +same. I don't care for the pale people; I like them with lots of blood +in them, and hers had all seemed to have run out. I didn't think of it +at the time; but when she went away I began to think, and it made me mad +to know that He had been taking the life out of her." I could feel that +the rest quivered, as I did, but we remained otherwise still. "So when +He came to-night I was ready for Him. I saw the mist stealing in, and I +grabbed it tight. I had heard that madmen have unnatural strength; and +as I knew I was a madman--at times anyhow--I resolved to use my power. +Ay, and He felt it too, for He had to come out of the mist to struggle +with me. I held tight; and I thought I was going to win, for I didn't +mean Him to take any more of her life, till I saw His eyes. They burned +into me, and my strength became like water. He slipped through it, and +when I tried to cling to Him, He raised me up and flung me down. There +was a red cloud before me, and a noise like thunder, and the mist seemed +to steal away under the door." His voice was becoming fainter and his +breath more stertorous. Van Helsing stood up instinctively. + +"We know the worst now," he said. "He is here, and we know his purpose. +It may not be too late. Let us be armed--the same as we were the other +night, but lose no time; there is not an instant to spare." There was no +need to put our fear, nay our conviction, into words--we shared them in +common. We all hurried and took from our rooms the same things that we +had when we entered the Count's house. The Professor had his ready, and +as we met in the corridor he pointed to them significantly as he said:-- + +"They never leave me; and they shall not till this unhappy business is +over. Be wise also, my friends. It is no common enemy that we deal with. +Alas! alas! that that dear Madam Mina should suffer!" He stopped; his +voice was breaking, and I do not know if rage or terror predominated in +my own heart. + +Outside the Harkers' door we paused. Art and Quincey held back, and the +latter said:-- + +"Should we disturb her?" + +"We must," said Van Helsing grimly. "If the door be locked, I shall +break it in." + +"May it not frighten her terribly? It is unusual to break into a lady's +room!" + +Van Helsing said solemnly, "You are always right; but this is life and +death. All chambers are alike to the doctor; and even were they not they +are all as one to me to-night. Friend John, when I turn the handle, if +the door does not open, do you put your shoulder down and shove; and you +too, my friends. Now!" + +He turned the handle as he spoke, but the door did not yield. We threw +ourselves against it; with a crash it burst open, and we almost fell +headlong into the room. The Professor did actually fall, and I saw +across him as he gathered himself up from hands and knees. What I saw +appalled me. I felt my hair rise like bristles on the back of my neck, +and my heart seemed to stand still. + +The moonlight was so bright that through the thick yellow blind the room +was light enough to see. On the bed beside the window lay Jonathan +Harker, his face flushed and breathing heavily as though in a stupor. +Kneeling on the near edge of the bed facing outwards was the white-clad +figure of his wife. By her side stood a tall, thin man, clad in black. +His face was turned from us, but the instant we saw we all recognised +the Count--in every way, even to the scar on his forehead. With his left +hand he held both Mrs. Harker's hands, keeping them away with her arms +at full tension; his right hand gripped her by the back of the neck, +forcing her face down on his bosom. Her white nightdress was smeared +with blood, and a thin stream trickled down the man's bare breast which +was shown by his torn-open dress. The attitude of the two had a terrible +resemblance to a child forcing a kitten's nose into a saucer of milk to +compel it to drink. As we burst into the room, the Count turned his +face, and the hellish look that I had heard described seemed to leap +into it. His eyes flamed red with devilish passion; the great nostrils +of the white aquiline nose opened wide and quivered at the edge; and the +white sharp teeth, behind the full lips of the blood-dripping mouth, +champed together like those of a wild beast. With a wrench, which threw +his victim back upon the bed as though hurled from a height, he turned +and sprang at us. But by this time the Professor had gained his feet, +and was holding towards him the envelope which contained the Sacred +Wafer. The Count suddenly stopped, just as poor Lucy had done outside +the tomb, and cowered back. Further and further back he cowered, as we, +lifting our crucifixes, advanced. The moonlight suddenly failed, as a +great black cloud sailed across the sky; and when the gaslight sprang up +under Quincey's match, we saw nothing but a faint vapour. This, as we +looked, trailed under the door, which with the recoil from its bursting +open, had swung back to its old position. Van Helsing, Art, and I moved +forward to Mrs. Harker, who by this time had drawn her breath and with +it had given a scream so wild, so ear-piercing, so despairing that it +seems to me now that it will ring in my ears till my dying day. For a +few seconds she lay in her helpless attitude and disarray. Her face was +ghastly, with a pallor which was accentuated by the blood which smeared +her lips and cheeks and chin; from her throat trickled a thin stream of +blood; her eyes were mad with terror. Then she put before her face her +poor crushed hands, which bore on their whiteness the red mark of the +Count's terrible grip, and from behind them came a low desolate wail +which made the terrible scream seem only the quick expression of an +endless grief. Van Helsing stepped forward and drew the coverlet gently +over her body, whilst Art, after looking at her face for an instant +despairingly, ran out of the room. Van Helsing whispered to me:-- + +"Jonathan is in a stupor such as we know the Vampire can produce. We can +do nothing with poor Madam Mina for a few moments till she recovers +herself; I must wake him!" He dipped the end of a towel in cold water +and with it began to flick him on the face, his wife all the while +holding her face between her hands and sobbing in a way that was +heart-breaking to hear. I raised the blind, and looked out of the +window. There was much moonshine; and as I looked I could see Quincey +Morris run across the lawn and hide himself in the shadow of a great +yew-tree. It puzzled me to think why he was doing this; but at the +instant I heard Harker's quick exclamation as he woke to partial +consciousness, and turned to the bed. On his face, as there might well +be, was a look of wild amazement. He seemed dazed for a few seconds, and +then full consciousness seemed to burst upon him all at once, and he +started up. His wife was aroused by the quick movement, and turned to +him with her arms stretched out, as though to embrace him; instantly, +however, she drew them in again, and putting her elbows together, held +her hands before her face, and shuddered till the bed beneath her shook. + +"In God's name what does this mean?" Harker cried out. "Dr. Seward, Dr. +Van Helsing, what is it? What has happened? What is wrong? Mina, dear, +what is it? What does that blood mean? My God, my God! has it come to +this!" and, raising himself to his knees, he beat his hands wildly +together. "Good God help us! help her! oh, help her!" With a quick +movement he jumped from bed, and began to pull on his clothes,--all the +man in him awake at the need for instant exertion. "What has happened? +Tell me all about it!" he cried without pausing. "Dr. Van Helsing, you +love Mina, I know. Oh, do something to save her. It cannot have gone too +far yet. Guard her while I look for _him_!" His wife, through her terror +and horror and distress, saw some sure danger to him: instantly +forgetting her own grief, she seized hold of him and cried out:-- + +"No! no! Jonathan, you must not leave me. I have suffered enough +to-night, God knows, without the dread of his harming you. You must stay +with me. Stay with these friends who will watch over you!" Her +expression became frantic as she spoke; and, he yielding to her, she +pulled him down sitting on the bed side, and clung to him fiercely. + +Van Helsing and I tried to calm them both. The Professor held up his +little golden crucifix, and said with wonderful calmness:-- + +"Do not fear, my dear. We are here; and whilst this is close to you no +foul thing can approach. You are safe for to-night; and we must be calm +and take counsel together." She shuddered and was silent, holding down +her head on her husband's breast. When she raised it, his white +night-robe was stained with blood where her lips had touched, and where +the thin open wound in her neck had sent forth drops. The instant she +saw it she drew back, with a low wail, and whispered, amidst choking +sobs:-- + +"Unclean, unclean! I must touch him or kiss him no more. Oh, that it +should be that it is I who am now his worst enemy, and whom he may have +most cause to fear." To this he spoke out resolutely:-- + +"Nonsense, Mina. It is a shame to me to hear such a word. I would not +hear it of you; and I shall not hear it from you. May God judge me by my +deserts, and punish me with more bitter suffering than even this hour, +if by any act or will of mine anything ever come between us!" He put out +his arms and folded her to his breast; and for a while she lay there +sobbing. He looked at us over her bowed head, with eyes that blinked +damply above his quivering nostrils; his mouth was set as steel. After a +while her sobs became less frequent and more faint, and then he said to +me, speaking with a studied calmness which I felt tried his nervous +power to the utmost:-- + +"And now, Dr. Seward, tell me all about it. Too well I know the broad +fact; tell me all that has been." I told him exactly what had happened, +and he listened with seeming impassiveness; but his nostrils twitched +and his eyes blazed as I told how the ruthless hands of the Count had +held his wife in that terrible and horrid position, with her mouth to +the open wound in his breast. It interested me, even at that moment, to +see, that, whilst the face of white set passion worked convulsively over +the bowed head, the hands tenderly and lovingly stroked the ruffled +hair. Just as I had finished, Quincey and Godalming knocked at the door. +They entered in obedience to our summons. Van Helsing looked at me +questioningly. I understood him to mean if we were to take advantage of +their coming to divert if possible the thoughts of the unhappy husband +and wife from each other and from themselves; so on nodding acquiescence +to him he asked them what they had seen or done. To which Lord Godalming +answered:-- + +"I could not see him anywhere in the passage, or in any of our rooms. I +looked in the study but, though he had been there, he had gone. He had, +however----" He stopped suddenly, looking at the poor drooping figure on +the bed. Van Helsing said gravely:-- + +"Go on, friend Arthur. We want here no more concealments. Our hope now +is in knowing all. Tell freely!" So Art went on:-- + +"He had been there, and though it could only have been for a few +seconds, he made rare hay of the place. All the manuscript had been +burned, and the blue flames were flickering amongst the white ashes; the +cylinders of your phonograph too were thrown on the fire, and the wax +had helped the flames." Here I interrupted. "Thank God there is the +other copy in the safe!" His face lit for a moment, but fell again as he +went on: "I ran downstairs then, but could see no sign of him. I looked +into Renfield's room; but there was no trace there except----!" Again he +paused. "Go on," said Harker hoarsely; so he bowed his head and +moistening his lips with his tongue, added: "except that the poor fellow +is dead." Mrs. Harker raised her head, looking from one to the other of +us she said solemnly:-- + +"God's will be done!" I could not but feel that Art was keeping back +something; but, as I took it that it was with a purpose, I said nothing. +Van Helsing turned to Morris and asked:-- + +"And you, friend Quincey, have you any to tell?" + +"A little," he answered. "It may be much eventually, but at present I +can't say. I thought it well to know if possible where the Count would +go when he left the house. I did not see him; but I saw a bat rise from +Renfield's window, and flap westward. I expected to see him in some +shape go back to Carfax; but he evidently sought some other lair. He +will not be back to-night; for the sky is reddening in the east, and the +dawn is close. We must work to-morrow!" + +He said the latter words through his shut teeth. For a space of perhaps +a couple of minutes there was silence, and I could fancy that I could +hear the sound of our hearts beating; then Van Helsing said, placing his +hand very tenderly on Mrs. Harker's head:-- + +"And now, Madam Mina--poor, dear, dear Madam Mina--tell us exactly what +happened. God knows that I do not want that you be pained; but it is +need that we know all. For now more than ever has all work to be done +quick and sharp, and in deadly earnest. The day is close to us that must +end all, if it may be so; and now is the chance that we may live and +learn." + +The poor, dear lady shivered, and I could see the tension of her nerves +as she clasped her husband closer to her and bent her head lower and +lower still on his breast. Then she raised her head proudly, and held +out one hand to Van Helsing who took it in his, and, after stooping and +kissing it reverently, held it fast. The other hand was locked in that +of her husband, who held his other arm thrown round her protectingly. +After a pause in which she was evidently ordering her thoughts, she +began:-- + +"I took the sleeping draught which you had so kindly given me, but for a +long time it did not act. I seemed to become more wakeful, and myriads +of horrible fancies began to crowd in upon my mind--all of them +connected with death, and vampires; with blood, and pain, and trouble." +Her husband involuntarily groaned as she turned to him and said +lovingly: "Do not fret, dear. You must be brave and strong, and help me +through the horrible task. If you only knew what an effort it is to me +to tell of this fearful thing at all, you would understand how much I +need your help. Well, I saw I must try to help the medicine to its work +with my will, if it was to do me any good, so I resolutely set myself to +sleep. Sure enough sleep must soon have come to me, for I remember no +more. Jonathan coming in had not waked me, for he lay by my side when +next I remember. There was in the room the same thin white mist that I +had before noticed. But I forget now if you know of this; you will find +it in my diary which I shall show you later. I felt the same vague +terror which had come to me before and the same sense of some presence. +I turned to wake Jonathan, but found that he slept so soundly that it +seemed as if it was he who had taken the sleeping draught, and not I. I +tried, but I could not wake him. This caused me a great fear, and I +looked around terrified. Then indeed, my heart sank within me: beside +the bed, as if he had stepped out of the mist--or rather as if the mist +had turned into his figure, for it had entirely disappeared--stood a +tall, thin man, all in black. I knew him at once from the description of +the others. The waxen face; the high aquiline nose, on which the light +fell in a thin white line; the parted red lips, with the sharp white +teeth showing between; and the red eyes that I had seemed to see in the +sunset on the windows of St. Mary's Church at Whitby. I knew, too, the +red scar on his forehead where Jonathan had struck him. For an instant +my heart stood still, and I would have screamed out, only that I was +paralysed. In the pause he spoke in a sort of keen, cutting whisper, +pointing as he spoke to Jonathan:-- + +"'Silence! If you make a sound I shall take him and dash his brains out +before your very eyes.' I was appalled and was too bewildered to do or +say anything. With a mocking smile, he placed one hand upon my shoulder +and, holding me tight, bared my throat with the other, saying as he did +so, 'First, a little refreshment to reward my exertions. You may as well +be quiet; it is not the first time, or the second, that your veins have +appeased my thirst!' I was bewildered, and, strangely enough, I did not +want to hinder him. I suppose it is a part of the horrible curse that +such is, when his touch is on his victim. And oh, my God, my God, pity +me! He placed his reeking lips upon my throat!" Her husband groaned +again. She clasped his hand harder, and looked at him pityingly, as if +he were the injured one, and went on:-- + +"I felt my strength fading away, and I was in a half swoon. How long +this horrible thing lasted I know not; but it seemed that a long time +must have passed before he took his foul, awful, sneering mouth away. I +saw it drip with the fresh blood!" The remembrance seemed for a while to +overpower her, and she drooped and would have sunk down but for her +husband's sustaining arm. With a great effort she recovered herself and +went on:-- + +"Then he spoke to me mockingly, 'And so you, like the others, would play +your brains against mine. You would help these men to hunt me and +frustrate me in my designs! You know now, and they know in part already, +and will know in full before long, what it is to cross my path. They +should have kept their energies for use closer to home. Whilst they +played wits against me--against me who commanded nations, and intrigued +for them, and fought for them, hundreds of years before they were +born--I was countermining them. And you, their best beloved one, are now +to me, flesh of my flesh; blood of my blood; kin of my kin; my bountiful +wine-press for a while; and shall be later on my companion and my +helper. You shall be avenged in turn; for not one of them but shall +minister to your needs. But as yet you are to be punished for what you +have done. You have aided in thwarting me; now you shall come to my +call. When my brain says "Come!" to you, you shall cross land or sea to +do my bidding; and to that end this!' With that he pulled open his +shirt, and with his long sharp nails opened a vein in his breast. When +the blood began to spurt out, he took my hands in one of his, holding +them tight, and with the other seized my neck and pressed my mouth to +the wound, so that I must either suffocate or swallow some of the---- Oh +my God! my God! what have I done? What have I done to deserve such a +fate, I who have tried to walk in meekness and righteousness all my +days. God pity me! Look down on a poor soul in worse than mortal peril; +and in mercy pity those to whom she is dear!" Then she began to rub her +lips as though to cleanse them from pollution. + +As she was telling her terrible story, the eastern sky began to quicken, +and everything became more and more clear. Harker was still and quiet; +but over his face, as the awful narrative went on, came a grey look +which deepened and deepened in the morning light, till when the first +red streak of the coming dawn shot up, the flesh stood darkly out +against the whitening hair. + +We have arranged that one of us is to stay within call of the unhappy +pair till we can meet together and arrange about taking action. + +Of this I am sure: the sun rises to-day on no more miserable house in +all the great round of its daily course. + + + + +CHAPTER XXII + +JONATHAN HARKER'S JOURNAL + + +_3 October._--As I must do something or go mad, I write this diary. It +is now six o'clock, and we are to meet in the study in half an hour and +take something to eat; for Dr. Van Helsing and Dr. Seward are agreed +that if we do not eat we cannot work our best. Our best will be, God +knows, required to-day. I must keep writing at every chance, for I dare +not stop to think. All, big and little, must go down; perhaps at the end +the little things may teach us most. The teaching, big or little, could +not have landed Mina or me anywhere worse than we are to-day. However, +we must trust and hope. Poor Mina told me just now, with the tears +running down her dear cheeks, that it is in trouble and trial that our +faith is tested--that we must keep on trusting; and that God will aid us +up to the end. The end! oh my God! what end?... To work! To work! + +When Dr. Van Helsing and Dr. Seward had come back from seeing poor +Renfield, we went gravely into what was to be done. First, Dr. Seward +told us that when he and Dr. Van Helsing had gone down to the room below +they had found Renfield lying on the floor, all in a heap. His face was +all bruised and crushed in, and the bones of the neck were broken. + +Dr. Seward asked the attendant who was on duty in the passage if he had +heard anything. He said that he had been sitting down--he confessed to +half dozing--when he heard loud voices in the room, and then Renfield +had called out loudly several times, "God! God! God!" after that there +was a sound of falling, and when he entered the room he found him lying +on the floor, face down, just as the doctors had seen him. Van Helsing +asked if he had heard "voices" or "a voice," and he said he could not +say; that at first it had seemed to him as if there were two, but as +there was no one in the room it could have been only one. He could swear +to it, if required, that the word "God" was spoken by the patient. Dr. +Seward said to us, when we were alone, that he did not wish to go into +the matter; the question of an inquest had to be considered, and it +would never do to put forward the truth, as no one would believe it. As +it was, he thought that on the attendant's evidence he could give a +certificate of death by misadventure in falling from bed. In case the +coroner should demand it, there would be a formal inquest, necessarily +to the same result. + +When the question began to be discussed as to what should be our next +step, the very first thing we decided was that Mina should be in full +confidence; that nothing of any sort--no matter how painful--should be +kept from her. She herself agreed as to its wisdom, and it was pitiful +to see her so brave and yet so sorrowful, and in such a depth of +despair. "There must be no concealment," she said, "Alas! we have had +too much already. And besides there is nothing in all the world that can +give me more pain than I have already endured--than I suffer now! +Whatever may happen, it must be of new hope or of new courage to me!" +Van Helsing was looking at her fixedly as she spoke, and said, suddenly +but quietly:-- + +"But dear Madam Mina, are you not afraid; not for yourself, but for +others from yourself, after what has happened?" Her face grew set in its +lines, but her eyes shone with the devotion of a martyr as she +answered:-- + +"Ah no! for my mind is made up!" + +"To what?" he asked gently, whilst we were all very still; for each in +our own way we had a sort of vague idea of what she meant. Her answer +came with direct simplicity, as though she were simply stating a fact:-- + +"Because if I find in myself--and I shall watch keenly for it--a sign of +harm to any that I love, I shall die!" + +"You would not kill yourself?" he asked, hoarsely. + +"I would; if there were no friend who loved me, who would save me such a +pain, and so desperate an effort!" She looked at him meaningly as she +spoke. He was sitting down; but now he rose and came close to her and +put his hand on her head as he said solemnly: + +"My child, there is such an one if it were for your good. For myself I +could hold it in my account with God to find such an euthanasia for you, +even at this moment if it were best. Nay, were it safe! But my +child----" For a moment he seemed choked, and a great sob rose in his +throat; he gulped it down and went on:-- + +"There are here some who would stand between you and death. You must not +die. You must not die by any hand; but least of all by your own. Until +the other, who has fouled your sweet life, is true dead you must not +die; for if he is still with the quick Un-Dead, your death would make +you even as he is. No, you must live! You must struggle and strive to +live, though death would seem a boon unspeakable. You must fight Death +himself, though he come to you in pain or in joy; by the day, or the +night; in safety or in peril! On your living soul I charge you that you +do not die--nay, nor think of death--till this great evil be past." The +poor dear grew white as death, and shock and shivered, as I have seen a +quicksand shake and shiver at the incoming of the tide. We were all +silent; we could do nothing. At length she grew more calm and turning to +him said, sweetly, but oh! so sorrowfully, as she held out her hand:-- + +"I promise you, my dear friend, that if God will let me live, I shall +strive to do so; till, if it may be in His good time, this horror may +have passed away from me." She was so good and brave that we all felt +that our hearts were strengthened to work and endure for her, and we +began to discuss what we were to do. I told her that she was to have all +the papers in the safe, and all the papers or diaries and phonographs we +might hereafter use; and was to keep the record as she had done before. +She was pleased with the prospect of anything to do--if "pleased" could +be used in connection with so grim an interest. + +As usual Van Helsing had thought ahead of everyone else, and was +prepared with an exact ordering of our work. + +"It is perhaps well," he said, "that at our meeting after our visit to +Carfax we decided not to do anything with the earth-boxes that lay +there. Had we done so, the Count must have guessed our purpose, and +would doubtless have taken measures in advance to frustrate such an +effort with regard to the others; but now he does not know our +intentions. Nay, more, in all probability, he does not know that such a +power exists to us as can sterilise his lairs, so that he cannot use +them as of old. We are now so much further advanced in our knowledge as +to their disposition that, when we have examined the house in +Piccadilly, we may track the very last of them. To-day, then, is ours; +and in it rests our hope. The sun that rose on our sorrow this morning +guards us in its course. Until it sets to-night, that monster must +retain whatever form he now has. He is confined within the limitations +of his earthly envelope. He cannot melt into thin air nor disappear +through cracks or chinks or crannies. If he go through a doorway, he +must open the door like a mortal. And so we have this day to hunt out +all his lairs and sterilise them. So we shall, if we have not yet catch +him and destroy him, drive him to bay in some place where the catching +and the destroying shall be, in time, sure." Here I started up for I +could not contain myself at the thought that the minutes and seconds so +preciously laden with Mina's life and happiness were flying from us, +since whilst we talked action was impossible. But Van Helsing held up +his hand warningly. "Nay, friend Jonathan," he said, "in this, the +quickest way home is the longest way, so your proverb say. We shall all +act and act with desperate quick, when the time has come. But think, in +all probable the key of the situation is in that house in Piccadilly. +The Count may have many houses which he has bought. Of them he will have +deeds of purchase, keys and other things. He will have paper that he +write on; he will have his book of cheques. There are many belongings +that he must have somewhere; why not in this place so central, so quiet, +where he come and go by the front or the back at all hour, when in the +very vast of the traffic there is none to notice. We shall go there and +search that house; and when we learn what it holds, then we do what our +friend Arthur call, in his phrases of hunt 'stop the earths' and so we +run down our old fox--so? is it not?" + +"Then let us come at once," I cried, "we are wasting the precious, +precious time!" The Professor did not move, but simply said:-- + +"And how are we to get into that house in Piccadilly?" + +"Any way!" I cried. "We shall break in if need be." + +"And your police; where will they be, and what will they say?" + +I was staggered; but I knew that if he wished to delay he had a good +reason for it. So I said, as quietly as I could:-- + +"Don't wait more than need be; you know, I am sure, what torture I am +in." + +"Ah, my child, that I do; and indeed there is no wish of me to add to +your anguish. But just think, what can we do, until all the world be at +movement. Then will come our time. I have thought and thought, and it +seems to me that the simplest way is the best of all. Now we wish to get +into the house, but we have no key; is it not so?" I nodded. + +"Now suppose that you were, in truth, the owner of that house, and could +not still get it; and think there was to you no conscience of the +housebreaker, what would you do?" + +"I should get a respectable locksmith, and set him to work to pick the +lock for me." + +"And your police, they would interfere, would they not?" + +"Oh, no! not if they knew the man was properly employed." + +"Then," he looked at me as keenly as he spoke, "all that is in doubt is +the conscience of the employer, and the belief of your policemen as to +whether or no that employer has a good conscience or a bad one. Your +police must indeed be zealous men and clever--oh, so clever!--in reading +the heart, that they trouble themselves in such matter. No, no, my +friend Jonathan, you go take the lock off a hundred empty house in this +your London, or of any city in the world; and if you do it as such +things are rightly done, and at the time such things are rightly done, +no one will interfere. I have read of a gentleman who owned a so fine +house in London, and when he went for months of summer to Switzerland +and lock up his house, some burglar came and broke window at back and +got in. Then he went and made open the shutters in front and walk out +and in through the door, before the very eyes of the police. Then he +have an auction in that house, and advertise it, and put up big notice; +and when the day come he sell off by a great auctioneer all the goods of +that other man who own them. Then he go to a builder, and he sell him +that house, making an agreement that he pull it down and take all away +within a certain time. And your police and other authority help him all +they can. And when that owner come back from his holiday in Switzerland +he find only an empty hole where his house had been. This was all done +_en regle_; and in our work we shall be _en regle_ too. We shall not go +so early that the policemen who have then little to think of, shall deem +it strange; but we shall go after ten o'clock, when there are many +about, and such things would be done were we indeed owners of the +house." + +I could not but see how right he was and the terrible despair of Mina's +face became relaxed a thought; there was hope in such good counsel. Van +Helsing went on:-- + +"When once within that house we may find more clues; at any rate some of +us can remain there whilst the rest find the other places where there be +more earth-boxes--at Bermondsey and Mile End." + +Lord Godalming stood up. "I can be of some use here," he said. "I shall +wire to my people to have horses and carriages where they will be most +convenient." + +"Look here, old fellow," said Morris, "it is a capital idea to have all +ready in case we want to go horsebacking; but don't you think that one +of your snappy carriages with its heraldic adornments in a byway of +Walworth or Mile End would attract too much attention for our purposes? +It seems to me that we ought to take cabs when we go south or east; and +even leave them somewhere near the neighbourhood we are going to." + +"Friend Quincey is right!" said the Professor. "His head is what you +call in plane with the horizon. It is a difficult thing that we go to +do, and we do not want no peoples to watch us if so it may." + +Mina took a growing interest in everything and I was rejoiced to see +that the exigency of affairs was helping her to forget for a time the +terrible experience of the night. She was very, very pale--almost +ghastly, and so thin that her lips were drawn away, showing her teeth in +somewhat of prominence. I did not mention this last, lest it should give +her needless pain; but it made my blood run cold in my veins to think of +what had occurred with poor Lucy when the Count had sucked her blood. As +yet there was no sign of the teeth growing sharper; but the time as yet +was short, and there was time for fear. + +When we came to the discussion of the sequence of our efforts and of the +disposition of our forces, there were new sources of doubt. It was +finally agreed that before starting for Piccadilly we should destroy the +Count's lair close at hand. In case he should find it out too soon, we +should thus be still ahead of him in our work of destruction; and his +presence in his purely material shape, and at his weakest, might give us +some new clue. + +As to the disposal of forces, it was suggested by the Professor that, +after our visit to Carfax, we should all enter the house in Piccadilly; +that the two doctors and I should remain there, whilst Lord Godalming +and Quincey found the lairs at Walworth and Mile End and destroyed them. +It was possible, if not likely, the Professor urged, that the Count +might appear in Piccadilly during the day, and that if so we might be +able to cope with him then and there. At any rate, we might be able to +follow him in force. To this plan I strenuously objected, and so far as +my going was concerned, for I said that I intended to stay and protect +Mina, I thought that my mind was made up on the subject; but Mina would +not listen to my objection. She said that there might be some law matter +in which I could be useful; that amongst the Count's papers might be +some clue which I could understand out of my experience in Transylvania; +and that, as it was, all the strength we could muster was required to +cope with the Count's extraordinary power. I had to give in, for Mina's +resolution was fixed; she said that it was the last hope for _her_ that +we should all work together. "As for me," she said, "I have no fear. +Things have been as bad as they can be; and whatever may happen must +have in it some element of hope or comfort. Go, my husband! God can, if +He wishes it, guard me as well alone as with any one present." So I +started up crying out: "Then in God's name let us come at once, for we +are losing time. The Count may come to Piccadilly earlier than we +think." + +"Not so!" said Van Helsing, holding up his hand. + +"But why?" I asked. + +"Do you forget," he said, with actually a smile, "that last night he +banqueted heavily, and will sleep late?" + +Did I forget! shall I ever--can I ever! Can any of us ever forget that +terrible scene! Mina struggled hard to keep her brave countenance; but +the pain overmastered her and she put her hands before her face, and +shuddered whilst she moaned. Van Helsing had not intended to recall her +frightful experience. He had simply lost sight of her and her part in +the affair in his intellectual effort. When it struck him what he said, +he was horrified at his thoughtlessness and tried to comfort her. "Oh, +Madam Mina," he said, "dear, dear Madam Mina, alas! that I of all who so +reverence you should have said anything so forgetful. These stupid old +lips of mine and this stupid old head do not deserve so; but you will +forget it, will you not?" He bent low beside her as he spoke; she took +his hand, and looking at him through her tears, said hoarsely:-- + +"No, I shall not forget, for it is well that I remember; and with it I +have so much in memory of you that is sweet, that I take it all +together. Now, you must all be going soon. Breakfast is ready, and we +must all eat that we may be strong." + +Breakfast was a strange meal to us all. We tried to be cheerful and +encourage each other, and Mina was the brightest and most cheerful of +us. When it was over, Van Helsing stood up and said:-- + +"Now, my dear friends, we go forth to our terrible enterprise. Are we +all armed, as we were on that night when first we visited our enemy's +lair; armed against ghostly as well as carnal attack?" We all assured +him. "Then it is well. Now, Madam Mina, you are in any case _quite_ safe +here until the sunset; and before then we shall return--if---- We shall +return! But before we go let me see you armed against personal attack. I +have myself, since you came down, prepared your chamber by the placing +of things of which we know, so that He may not enter. Now let me guard +yourself. On your forehead I touch this piece of Sacred Wafer in the +name of the Father, the Son, and----" + +There was a fearful scream which almost froze our hearts to hear. As he +had placed the Wafer on Mina's forehead, it had seared it--had burned +into the flesh as though it had been a piece of white-hot metal. My poor +darling's brain had told her the significance of the fact as quickly as +her nerves received the pain of it; and the two so overwhelmed her that +her overwrought nature had its voice in that dreadful scream. But the +words to her thought came quickly; the echo of the scream had not ceased +to ring on the air when there came the reaction, and she sank on her +knees on the floor in an agony of abasement. Pulling her beautiful hair +over her face, as the leper of old his mantle, she wailed out:-- + +"Unclean! Unclean! Even the Almighty shuns my polluted flesh! I must +bear this mark of shame upon my forehead until the Judgment Day." They +all paused. I had thrown myself beside her in an agony of helpless +grief, and putting my arms around held her tight. For a few minutes our +sorrowful hearts beat together, whilst the friends around us turned away +their eyes that ran tears silently. Then Van Helsing turned and said +gravely; so gravely that I could not help feeling that he was in some +way inspired, and was stating things outside himself:-- + +"It may be that you may have to bear that mark till God himself see fit, +as He most surely shall, on the Judgment Day, to redress all wrongs of +the earth and of His children that He has placed thereon. And oh, Madam +Mina, my dear, my dear, may we who love you be there to see, when that +red scar, the sign of God's knowledge of what has been, shall pass away, +and leave your forehead as pure as the heart we know. For so surely as +we live, that scar shall pass away when God sees right to lift the +burden that is hard upon us. Till then we bear our Cross, as His Son did +in obedience to His Will. It may be that we are chosen instruments of +His good pleasure, and that we ascend to His bidding as that other +through stripes and shame; through tears and blood; through doubts and +fears, and all that makes the difference between God and man." + +There was hope in his words, and comfort; and they made for resignation. +Mina and I both felt so, and simultaneously we each took one of the old +man's hands and bent over and kissed it. Then without a word we all +knelt down together, and, all holding hands, swore to be true to each +other. We men pledged ourselves to raise the veil of sorrow from the +head of her whom, each in his own way, we loved; and we prayed for help +and guidance in the terrible task which lay before us. + +It was then time to start. So I said farewell to Mina, a parting which +neither of us shall forget to our dying day; and we set out. + +To one thing I have made up my mind: if we find out that Mina must be a +vampire in the end, then she shall not go into that unknown and terrible +land alone. I suppose it is thus that in old times one vampire meant +many; just as their hideous bodies could only rest in sacred earth, so +the holiest love was the recruiting sergeant for their ghastly ranks. + +We entered Carfax without trouble and found all things the same as on +the first occasion. It was hard to believe that amongst so prosaic +surroundings of neglect and dust and decay there was any ground for such +fear as already we knew. Had not our minds been made up, and had there +not been terrible memories to spur us on, we could hardly have proceeded +with our task. We found no papers, or any sign of use in the house; and +in the old chapel the great boxes looked just as we had seen them last. +Dr. Van Helsing said to us solemnly as we stood before them:-- + +"And now, my friends, we have a duty here to do. We must sterilise this +earth, so sacred of holy memories, that he has brought from a far +distant land for such fell use. He has chosen this earth because it has +been holy. Thus we defeat him with his own weapon, for we make it more +holy still. It was sanctified to such use of man, now we sanctify it to +God." As he spoke he took from his bag a screwdriver and a wrench, and +very soon the top of one of the cases was thrown open. The earth smelled +musty and close; but we did not somehow seem to mind, for our attention +was concentrated on the Professor. Taking from his box a piece of the +Sacred Wafer he laid it reverently on the earth, and then shutting down +the lid began to screw it home, we aiding him as he worked. + +One by one we treated in the same way each of the great boxes, and left +them as we had found them to all appearance; but in each was a portion +of the Host. + +When we closed the door behind us, the Professor said solemnly:-- + +"So much is already done. If it may be that with all the others we can +be so successful, then the sunset of this evening may shine on Madam +Mina's forehead all white as ivory and with no stain!" + +As we passed across the lawn on our way to the station to catch our +train we could see the front of the asylum. I looked eagerly, and in the +window of my own room saw Mina. I waved my hand to her, and nodded to +tell that our work there was successfully accomplished. She nodded in +reply to show that she understood. The last I saw, she was waving her +hand in farewell. It was with a heavy heart that we sought the station +and just caught the train, which was steaming in as we reached the +platform. + +I have written this in the train. + + * * * * * + +_Piccadilly, 12:30 o'clock._--Just before we reached Fenchurch Street +Lord Godalming said to me:-- + +"Quincey and I will find a locksmith. You had better not come with us in +case there should be any difficulty; for under the circumstances it +wouldn't seem so bad for us to break into an empty house. But you are a +solicitor and the Incorporated Law Society might tell you that you +should have known better." I demurred as to my not sharing any danger +even of odium, but he went on: "Besides, it will attract less attention +if there are not too many of us. My title will make it all right with +the locksmith, and with any policeman that may come along. You had +better go with Jack and the Professor and stay in the Green Park, +somewhere in sight of the house; and when you see the door opened and +the smith has gone away, do you all come across. We shall be on the +lookout for you, and shall let you in." + +"The advice is good!" said Van Helsing, so we said no more. Godalming +and Morris hurried off in a cab, we following in another. At the corner +of Arlington Street our contingent got out and strolled into the Green +Park. My heart beat as I saw the house on which so much of our hope was +centred, looming up grim and silent in its deserted condition amongst +its more lively and spruce-looking neighbours. We sat down on a bench +within good view, and began to smoke cigars so as to attract as little +attention as possible. The minutes seemed to pass with leaden feet as we +waited for the coming of the others. + +At length we saw a four-wheeler drive up. Out of it, in leisurely +fashion, got Lord Godalming and Morris; and down from the box descended +a thick-set working man with his rush-woven basket of tools. Morris paid +the cabman, who touched his hat and drove away. Together the two +ascended the steps, and Lord Godalming pointed out what he wanted done. +The workman took off his coat leisurely and hung it on one of the spikes +of the rail, saying something to a policeman who just then sauntered +along. The policeman nodded acquiescence, and the man kneeling down +placed his bag beside him. After searching through it, he took out a +selection of tools which he produced to lay beside him in orderly +fashion. Then he stood up, looked into the keyhole, blew into it, and +turning to his employers, made some remark. Lord Godalming smiled, and +the man lifted a good-sized bunch of keys; selecting one of them, he +began to probe the lock, as if feeling his way with it. After fumbling +about for a bit he tried a second, and then a third. All at once the +door opened under a slight push from him, and he and the two others +entered the hall. We sat still; my own cigar burnt furiously, but Van +Helsing's went cold altogether. We waited patiently as we saw the +workman come out and bring in his bag. Then he held the door partly +open, steadying it with his knees, whilst he fitted a key to the lock. +This he finally handed to Lord Godalming, who took out his purse and +gave him something. The man touched his hat, took his bag, put on his +coat and departed; not a soul took the slightest notice of the whole +transaction. + +When the man had fairly gone, we three crossed the street and knocked at +the door. It was immediately opened by Quincey Morris, beside whom stood +Lord Godalming lighting a cigar. + +"The place smells so vilely," said the latter as we came in. It did +indeed smell vilely--like the old chapel at Carfax--and with our +previous experience it was plain to us that the Count had been using the +place pretty freely. We moved to explore the house, all keeping together +in case of attack; for we knew we had a strong and wily enemy to deal +with, and as yet we did not know whether the Count might not be in the +house. In the dining-room, which lay at the back of the hall, we found +eight boxes of earth. Eight boxes only out of the nine, which we sought! +Our work was not over, and would never be until we should have found the +missing box. First we opened the shutters of the window which looked out +across a narrow stone-flagged yard at the blank face of a stable, +pointed to look like the front of a miniature house. There were no +windows in it, so we were not afraid of being over-looked. We did not +lose any time in examining the chests. With the tools which we had +brought with us we opened them, one by one, and treated them as we had +treated those others in the old chapel. It was evident to us that the +Count was not at present in the house, and we proceeded to search for +any of his effects. + +After a cursory glance at the rest of the rooms, from basement to attic, +we came to the conclusion that the dining-room contained any effects +which might belong to the Count; and so we proceeded to minutely examine +them. They lay in a sort of orderly disorder on the great dining-room +table. There were title deeds of the Piccadilly house in a great bundle; +deeds of the purchase of the houses at Mile End and Bermondsey; +note-paper, envelopes, and pens and ink. All were covered up in thin +wrapping paper to keep them from the dust. There were also a clothes +brush, a brush and comb, and a jug and basin--the latter containing +dirty water which was reddened as if with blood. Last of all was a +little heap of keys of all sorts and sizes, probably those belonging to +the other houses. When we had examined this last find, Lord Godalming +and Quincey Morris taking accurate notes of the various addresses of the +houses in the East and the South, took with them the keys in a great +bunch, and set out to destroy the boxes in these places. The rest of us +are, with what patience we can, waiting their return--or the coming of +the Count. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIII + +DR. SEWARD'S DIARY + + +_3 October._--The time seemed terrible long whilst we were waiting for +the coming of Godalming and Quincey Morris. The Professor tried to keep +our minds active by using them all the time. I could see his beneficent +purpose, by the side glances which he threw from time to time at Harker. +The poor fellow is overwhelmed in a misery that is appalling to see. +Last night he was a frank, happy-looking man, with strong, youthful +face, full of energy, and with dark brown hair. To-day he is a drawn, +haggard old man, whose white hair matches well with the hollow burning +eyes and grief-written lines of his face. His energy is still intact; in +fact, he is like a living flame. This may yet be his salvation, for, if +all go well, it will tide him over the despairing period; he will then, +in a kind of way, wake again to the realities of life. Poor fellow, I +thought my own trouble was bad enough, but his----! The Professor knows +this well enough, and is doing his best to keep his mind active. What he +has been saying was, under the circumstances, of absorbing interest. So +well as I can remember, here it is:-- + +"I have studied, over and over again since they came into my hands, all +the papers relating to this monster; and the more I have studied, the +greater seems the necessity to utterly stamp him out. All through there +are signs of his advance; not only of his power, but of his knowledge of +it. As I learned from the researches of my friend Arminus of Buda-Pesth, +he was in life a most wonderful man. Soldier, statesman, and +alchemist--which latter was the highest development of the +science-knowledge of his time. He had a mighty brain, a learning beyond +compare, and a heart that knew no fear and no remorse. He dared even to +attend the Scholomance, and there was no branch of knowledge of his time +that he did not essay. Well, in him the brain powers survived the +physical death; though it would seem that memory was not all complete. +In some faculties of mind he has been, and is, only a child; but he is +growing, and some things that were childish at the first are now of +man's stature. He is experimenting, and doing it well; and if it had not +been that we have crossed his path he would be yet--he may be yet if we +fail--the father or furtherer of a new order of beings, whose road must +lead through Death, not Life." + +Harker groaned and said, "And this is all arrayed against my darling! +But how is he experimenting? The knowledge may help us to defeat him!" + +"He has all along, since his coming, been trying his power, slowly but +surely; that big child-brain of his is working. Well for us, it is, as +yet, a child-brain; for had he dared, at the first, to attempt certain +things he would long ago have been beyond our power. However, he means +to succeed, and a man who has centuries before him can afford to wait +and to go slow. _Festina lente_ may well be his motto." + +"I fail to understand," said Harker wearily. "Oh, do be more plain to +me! Perhaps grief and trouble are dulling my brain." + +The Professor laid his hand tenderly on his shoulder as he spoke:-- + +"Ah, my child, I will be plain. Do you not see how, of late, this +monster has been creeping into knowledge experimentally. How he has been +making use of the zoophagous patient to effect his entry into friend +John's home; for your Vampire, though in all afterwards he can come when +and how he will, must at the first make entry only when asked thereto by +an inmate. But these are not his most important experiments. Do we not +see how at the first all these so great boxes were moved by others. He +knew not then but that must be so. But all the time that so great +child-brain of his was growing, and he began to consider whether he +might not himself move the box. So he began to help; and then, when he +found that this be all-right, he try to move them all alone. And so he +progress, and he scatter these graves of him; and none but he know where +they are hidden. He may have intend to bury them deep in the ground. So +that he only use them in the night, or at such time as he can change his +form, they do him equal well; and none may know these are his +hiding-place! But, my child, do not despair; this knowledge come to him +just too late! Already all of his lairs but one be sterilise as for him; +and before the sunset this shall be so. Then he have no place where he +can move and hide. I delayed this morning that so we might be sure. Is +there not more at stake for us than for him? Then why we not be even +more careful than him? By my clock it is one hour and already, if all be +well, friend Arthur and Quincey are on their way to us. To-day is our +day, and we must go sure, if slow, and lose no chance. See! there are +five of us when those absent ones return." + +Whilst he was speaking we were startled by a knock at the hall door, the +double postman's knock of the telegraph boy. We all moved out to the +hall with one impulse, and Van Helsing, holding up his hand to us to +keep silence, stepped to the door and opened it. The boy handed in a +despatch. The Professor closed the door again, and, after looking at the +direction, opened it and read aloud. + +"Look out for D. He has just now, 12:45, come from Carfax hurriedly and +hastened towards the South. He seems to be going the round and may want +to see you: Mina." + +There was a pause, broken by Jonathan Harker's voice:-- + +"Now, God be thanked, we shall soon meet!" Van Helsing turned to him +quickly and said:-- + +"God will act in His own way and time. Do not fear, and do not rejoice +as yet; for what we wish for at the moment may be our undoings." + +"I care for nothing now," he answered hotly, "except to wipe out this +brute from the face of creation. I would sell my soul to do it!" + +"Oh, hush, hush, my child!" said Van Helsing. "God does not purchase +souls in this wise; and the Devil, though he may purchase, does not keep +faith. But God is merciful and just, and knows your pain and your +devotion to that dear Madam Mina. Think you, how her pain would be +doubled, did she but hear your wild words. Do not fear any of us, we are +all devoted to this cause, and to-day shall see the end. The time is +coming for action; to-day this Vampire is limit to the powers of man, +and till sunset he may not change. It will take him time to arrive +here--see, it is twenty minutes past one--and there are yet some times +before he can hither come, be he never so quick. What we must hope for +is that my Lord Arthur and Quincey arrive first." + +About half an hour after we had received Mrs. Harker's telegram, there +came a quiet, resolute knock at the hall door. It was just an ordinary +knock, such as is given hourly by thousands of gentlemen, but it made +the Professor's heart and mine beat loudly. We looked at each other, and +together moved out into the hall; we each held ready to use our various +armaments--the spiritual in the left hand, the mortal in the right. Van +Helsing pulled back the latch, and, holding the door half open, stood +back, having both hands ready for action. The gladness of our hearts +must have shown upon our faces when on the step, close to the door, we +saw Lord Godalming and Quincey Morris. They came quickly in and closed +the door behind them, the former saying, as they moved along the +hall:-- + +"It is all right. We found both places; six boxes in each and we +destroyed them all!" + +"Destroyed?" asked the Professor. + +"For him!" We were silent for a minute, and then Quincey said:-- + +"There's nothing to do but to wait here. If, however, he doesn't turn up +by five o'clock, we must start off; for it won't do to leave Mrs. Harker +alone after sunset." + +"He will be here before long now," said Van Helsing, who had been +consulting his pocket-book. "_Nota bene_, in Madam's telegram he went +south from Carfax, that means he went to cross the river, and he could +only do so at slack of tide, which should be something before one +o'clock. That he went south has a meaning for us. He is as yet only +suspicious; and he went from Carfax first to the place where he would +suspect interference least. You must have been at Bermondsey only a +short time before him. That he is not here already shows that he went to +Mile End next. This took him some time; for he would then have to be +carried over the river in some way. Believe me, my friends, we shall not +have long to wait now. We should have ready some plan of attack, so that +we may throw away no chance. Hush, there is no time now. Have all your +arms! Be ready!" He held up a warning hand as he spoke, for we all could +hear a key softly inserted in the lock of the hall door. + +I could not but admire, even at such a moment, the way in which a +dominant spirit asserted itself. In all our hunting parties and +adventures in different parts of the world, Quincey Morris had always +been the one to arrange the plan of action, and Arthur and I had been +accustomed to obey him implicitly. Now, the old habit seemed to be +renewed instinctively. With a swift glance around the room, he at once +laid out our plan of attack, and, without speaking a word, with a +gesture, placed us each in position. Van Helsing, Harker, and I were +just behind the door, so that when it was opened the Professor could +guard it whilst we two stepped between the incomer and the door. +Godalming behind and Quincey in front stood just out of sight ready to +move in front of the window. We waited in a suspense that made the +seconds pass with nightmare slowness. The slow, careful steps came along +the hall; the Count was evidently prepared for some surprise--at least +he feared it. + +Suddenly with a single bound he leaped into the room, winning a way past +us before any of us could raise a hand to stay him. There was something +so panther-like in the movement--something so unhuman, that it seemed +to sober us all from the shock of his coming. The first to act was +Harker, who, with a quick movement, threw himself before the door +leading into the room in the front of the house. As the Count saw us, a +horrible sort of snarl passed over his face, showing the eye-teeth long +and pointed; but the evil smile as quickly passed into a cold stare of +lion-like disdain. His expression again changed as, with a single +impulse, we all advanced upon him. It was a pity that we had not some +better organised plan of attack, for even at the moment I wondered what +we were to do. I did not myself know whether our lethal weapons would +avail us anything. Harker evidently meant to try the matter, for he had +ready his great Kukri knife and made a fierce and sudden cut at him. The +blow was a powerful one; only the diabolical quickness of the Count's +leap back saved him. A second less and the trenchant blade had shorne +through his heart. As it was, the point just cut the cloth of his coat, +making a wide gap whence a bundle of bank-notes and a stream of gold +fell out. The expression of the Count's face was so hellish, that for a +moment I feared for Harker, though I saw him throw the terrible knife +aloft again for another stroke. Instinctively I moved forward with a +protective impulse, holding the Crucifix and Wafer in my left hand. I +felt a mighty power fly along my arm; and it was without surprise that I +saw the monster cower back before a similar movement made spontaneously +by each one of us. It would be impossible to describe the expression of +hate and baffled malignity--of anger and hellish rage--which came over +the Count's face. His waxen hue became greenish-yellow by the contrast +of his burning eyes, and the red scar on the forehead showed on the +pallid skin like a palpitating wound. The next instant, with a sinuous +dive he swept under Harker's arm, ere his blow could fall, and, grasping +a handful of the money from the floor, dashed across the room, threw +himself at the window. Amid the crash and glitter of the falling glass, +he tumbled into the flagged area below. Through the sound of the +shivering glass I could hear the "ting" of the gold, as some of the +sovereigns fell on the flagging. + +We ran over and saw him spring unhurt from the ground. He, rushing up +the steps, crossed the flagged yard, and pushed open the stable door. +There he turned and spoke to us:-- + +"You think to baffle me, you--with your pale faces all in a row, like +sheep in a butcher's. You shall be sorry yet, each one of you! You think +you have left me without a place to rest; but I have more. My revenge is +just begun! I spread it over centuries, and time is on my side. Your +girls that you all love are mine already; and through them you and +others shall yet be mine--my creatures, to do my bidding and to be my +jackals when I want to feed. Bah!" With a contemptuous sneer, he passed +quickly through the door, and we heard the rusty bolt creak as he +fastened it behind him. A door beyond opened and shut. The first of us +to speak was the Professor, as, realising the difficulty of following +him through the stable, we moved toward the hall. + +"We have learnt something--much! Notwithstanding his brave words, he +fears us; he fear time, he fear want! For if not, why he hurry so? His +very tone betray him, or my ears deceive. Why take that money? You +follow quick. You are hunters of wild beast, and understand it so. For +me, I make sure that nothing here may be of use to him, if so that he +return." As he spoke he put the money remaining into his pocket; took +the title-deeds in the bundle as Harker had left them, and swept the +remaining things into the open fireplace, where he set fire to them with +a match. + +Godalming and Morris had rushed out into the yard, and Harker had +lowered himself from the window to follow the Count. He had, however, +bolted the stable door; and by the time they had forced it open there +was no sign of him. Van Helsing and I tried to make inquiry at the back +of the house; but the mews was deserted and no one had seen him depart. + +It was now late in the afternoon, and sunset was not far off. We had to +recognise that our game was up; with heavy hearts we agreed with the +Professor when he said:-- + +"Let us go back to Madam Mina--poor, poor dear Madam Mina. All we can do +just now is done; and we can there, at least, protect her. But we need +not despair. There is but one more earth-box, and we must try to find +it; when that is done all may yet be well." I could see that he spoke as +bravely as he could to comfort Harker. The poor fellow was quite broken +down; now and again he gave a low groan which he could not suppress--he +was thinking of his wife. + +With sad hearts we came back to my house, where we found Mrs. Harker +waiting us, with an appearance of cheerfulness which did honour to her +bravery and unselfishness. When she saw our faces, her own became as +pale as death: for a second or two her eyes were closed as if she were +in secret prayer; and then she said cheerfully:-- + +"I can never thank you all enough. Oh, my poor darling!" As she spoke, +she took her husband's grey head in her hands and kissed it--"Lay your +poor head here and rest it. All will yet be well, dear! God will protect +us if He so will it in His good intent." The poor fellow groaned. There +was no place for words in his sublime misery. + +We had a sort of perfunctory supper together, and I think it cheered us +all up somewhat. It was, perhaps, the mere animal heat of food to hungry +people--for none of us had eaten anything since breakfast--or the sense +of companionship may have helped us; but anyhow we were all less +miserable, and saw the morrow as not altogether without hope. True to +our promise, we told Mrs. Harker everything which had passed; and +although she grew snowy white at times when danger had seemed to +threaten her husband, and red at others when his devotion to her was +manifested, she listened bravely and with calmness. When we came to the +part where Harker had rushed at the Count so recklessly, she clung to +her husband's arm, and held it tight as though her clinging could +protect him from any harm that might come. She said nothing, however, +till the narration was all done, and matters had been brought right up +to the present time. Then without letting go her husband's hand she +stood up amongst us and spoke. Oh, that I could give any idea of the +scene; of that sweet, sweet, good, good woman in all the radiant beauty +of her youth and animation, with the red scar on her forehead, of which +she was conscious, and which we saw with grinding of our +teeth--remembering whence and how it came; her loving kindness against +our grim hate; her tender faith against all our fears and doubting; and +we, knowing that so far as symbols went, she with all her goodness and +purity and faith, was outcast from God. + +"Jonathan," she said, and the word sounded like music on her lips it was +so full of love and tenderness, "Jonathan dear, and you all my true, +true friends, I want you to bear something in mind through all this +dreadful time. I know that you must fight--that you must destroy even as +you destroyed the false Lucy so that the true Lucy might live hereafter; +but it is not a work of hate. That poor soul who has wrought all this +misery is the saddest case of all. Just think what will be his joy when +he, too, is destroyed in his worser part that his better part may have +spiritual immortality. You must be pitiful to him, too, though it may +not hold your hands from his destruction." + +As she spoke I could see her husband's face darken and draw together, as +though the passion in him were shrivelling his being to its core. +Instinctively the clasp on his wife's hand grew closer, till his +knuckles looked white. She did not flinch from the pain which I knew she +must have suffered, but looked at him with eyes that were more appealing +than ever. As she stopped speaking he leaped to his feet, almost tearing +his hand from hers as he spoke:-- + +"May God give him into my hand just for long enough to destroy that +earthly life of him which we are aiming at. If beyond it I could send +his soul for ever and ever to burning hell I would do it!" + +"Oh, hush! oh, hush! in the name of the good God. Don't say such things, +Jonathan, my husband; or you will crush me with fear and horror. Just +think, my dear--I have been thinking all this long, long day of it--that +... perhaps ... some day ... I, too, may need such pity; and that some +other like you--and with equal cause for anger--may deny it to me! Oh, +my husband! my husband, indeed I would have spared you such a thought +had there been another way; but I pray that God may not have treasured +your wild words, except as the heart-broken wail of a very loving and +sorely stricken man. Oh, God, let these poor white hairs go in evidence +of what he has suffered, who all his life has done no wrong, and on whom +so many sorrows have come." + +We men were all in tears now. There was no resisting them, and we wept +openly. She wept, too, to see that her sweeter counsels had prevailed. +Her husband flung himself on his knees beside her, and putting his arms +round her, hid his face in the folds of her dress. Van Helsing beckoned +to us and we stole out of the room, leaving the two loving hearts alone +with their God. + +Before they retired the Professor fixed up the room against any coming +of the Vampire, and assured Mrs. Harker that she might rest in peace. +She tried to school herself to the belief, and, manifestly for her +husband's sake, tried to seem content. It was a brave struggle; and was, +I think and believe, not without its reward. Van Helsing had placed at +hand a bell which either of them was to sound in case of any emergency. +When they had retired, Quincey, Godalming, and I arranged that we should +sit up, dividing the night between us, and watch over the safety of the +poor stricken lady. The first watch falls to Quincey, so the rest of us +shall be off to bed as soon as we can. Godalming has already turned in, +for his is the second watch. Now that my work is done I, too, shall go +to bed. + + +_Jonathan Harker's Journal._ + +_3-4 October, close to midnight._--I thought yesterday would never end. +There was over me a yearning for sleep, in some sort of blind belief +that to wake would be to find things changed, and that any change must +now be for the better. Before we parted, we discussed what our next step +was to be, but we could arrive at no result. All we knew was that one +earth-box remained, and that the Count alone knew where it was. If he +chooses to lie hidden, he may baffle us for years; and in the +meantime!--the thought is too horrible, I dare not think of it even now. +This I know: that if ever there was a woman who was all perfection, that +one is my poor wronged darling. I love her a thousand times more for her +sweet pity of last night, a pity that made my own hate of the monster +seem despicable. Surely God will not permit the world to be the poorer +by the loss of such a creature. This is hope to me. We are all drifting +reefwards now, and faith is our only anchor. Thank God! Mina is +sleeping, and sleeping without dreams. I fear what her dreams might be +like, with such terrible memories to ground them in. She has not been so +calm, within my seeing, since the sunset. Then, for a while, there came +over her face a repose which was like spring after the blasts of March. +I thought at the time that it was the softness of the red sunset on her +face, but somehow now I think it has a deeper meaning. I am not sleepy +myself, though I am weary--weary to death. However, I must try to sleep; +for there is to-morrow to think of, and there is no rest for me +until.... + + * * * * * + +_Later._--I must have fallen asleep, for I was awaked by Mina, who was +sitting up in bed, with a startled look on her face. I could see easily, +for we did not leave the room in darkness; she had placed a warning hand +over my mouth, and now she whispered in my ear:-- + +"Hush! there is someone in the corridor!" I got up softly, and crossing +the room, gently opened the door. + +Just outside, stretched on a mattress, lay Mr. Morris, wide awake. He +raised a warning hand for silence as he whispered to me:-- + +"Hush! go back to bed; it is all right. One of us will be here all +night. We don't mean to take any chances!" + +His look and gesture forbade discussion, so I came back and told Mina. +She sighed and positively a shadow of a smile stole over her poor, pale +face as she put her arms round me and said softly:-- + +"Oh, thank God for good brave men!" With a sigh she sank back again to +sleep. I write this now as I am not sleepy, though I must try again. + + * * * * * + +_4 October, morning._--Once again during the night I was wakened by +Mina. This time we had all had a good sleep, for the grey of the coming +dawn was making the windows into sharp oblongs, and the gas flame was +like a speck rather than a disc of light. She said to me hurriedly:-- + +"Go, call the Professor. I want to see him at once." + +"Why?" I asked. + +"I have an idea. I suppose it must have come in the night, and matured +without my knowing it. He must hypnotise me before the dawn, and then I +shall be able to speak. Go quick, dearest; the time is getting close." I +went to the door. Dr. Seward was resting on the mattress, and, seeing +me, he sprang to his feet. + +"Is anything wrong?" he asked, in alarm. + +"No," I replied; "but Mina wants to see Dr. Van Helsing at once." + +"I will go," he said, and hurried into the Professor's room. + +In two or three minutes later Van Helsing was in the room in his +dressing-gown, and Mr. Morris and Lord Godalming were with Dr. Seward at +the door asking questions. When the Professor saw Mina a smile--a +positive smile ousted the anxiety of his face; he rubbed his hands as he +said:-- + +"Oh, my dear Madam Mina, this is indeed a change. See! friend Jonathan, +we have got our dear Madam Mina, as of old, back to us to-day!" Then +turning to her, he said, cheerfully: "And what am I do for you? For at +this hour you do not want me for nothings." + +"I want you to hypnotise me!" she said. "Do it before the dawn, for I +feel that then I can speak, and speak freely. Be quick, for the time is +short!" Without a word he motioned her to sit up in bed. + +Looking fixedly at her, he commenced to make passes in front of her, +from over the top of her head downward, with each hand in turn. Mina +gazed at him fixedly for a few minutes, during which my own heart beat +like a trip hammer, for I felt that some crisis was at hand. Gradually +her eyes closed, and she sat, stock still; only by the gentle heaving of +her bosom could one know that she was alive. The Professor made a few +more passes and then stopped, and I could see that his forehead was +covered with great beads of perspiration. Mina opened her eyes; but she +did not seem the same woman. There was a far-away look in her eyes, and +her voice had a sad dreaminess which was new to me. Raising his hand to +impose silence, the Professor motioned to me to bring the others in. +They came on tip-toe, closing the door behind them, and stood at the +foot of the bed, looking on. Mina appeared not to see them. The +stillness was broken by Van Helsing's voice speaking in a low level tone +which would not break the current of her thoughts:-- + +"Where are you?" The answer came in a neutral way:-- + +"I do not know. Sleep has no place it can call its own." For several +minutes there was silence. Mina sat rigid, and the Professor stood +staring at her fixedly; the rest of us hardly dared to breathe. The room +was growing lighter; without taking his eyes from Mina's face, Dr. Van +Helsing motioned me to pull up the blind. I did so, and the day seemed +just upon us. A red streak shot up, and a rosy light seemed to diffuse +itself through the room. On the instant the Professor spoke again:-- + +"Where are you now?" The answer came dreamily, but with intention; it +were as though she were interpreting something. I have heard her use the +same tone when reading her shorthand notes. + +"I do not know. It is all strange to me!" + +"What do you see?" + +"I can see nothing; it is all dark." + +"What do you hear?" I could detect the strain in the Professor's patient +voice. + +"The lapping of water. It is gurgling by, and little waves leap. I can +hear them on the outside." + +"Then you are on a ship?" We all looked at each other, trying to glean +something each from the other. We were afraid to think. The answer came +quick:-- + +"Oh, yes!" + +"What else do you hear?" + +"The sound of men stamping overhead as they run about. There is the +creaking of a chain, and the loud tinkle as the check of the capstan +falls into the rachet." + +"What are you doing?" + +"I am still--oh, so still. It is like death!" The voice faded away into +a deep breath as of one sleeping, and the open eyes closed again. + +By this time the sun had risen, and we were all in the full light of +day. Dr. Van Helsing placed his hands on Mina's shoulders, and laid her +head down softly on her pillow. She lay like a sleeping child for a few +moments, and then, with a long sigh, awoke and stared in wonder to see +us all around her. "Have I been talking in my sleep?" was all she said. +She seemed, however, to know the situation without telling, though she +was eager to know what she had told. The Professor repeated the +conversation, and she said:-- + +"Then there is not a moment to lose: it may not be yet too late!" Mr. +Morris and Lord Godalming started for the door but the Professor's calm +voice called them back:-- + +"Stay, my friends. That ship, wherever it was, was weighing anchor +whilst she spoke. There are many ships weighing anchor at the moment in +your so great Port of London. Which of them is it that you seek? God be +thanked that we have once again a clue, though whither it may lead us we +know not. We have been blind somewhat; blind after the manner of men, +since when we can look back we see what we might have seen looking +forward if we had been able to see what we might have seen! Alas, but +that sentence is a puddle; is it not? We can know now what was in the +Count's mind, when he seize that money, though Jonathan's so fierce +knife put him in the danger that even he dread. He meant escape. Hear +me, ESCAPE! He saw that with but one earth-box left, and a pack of men +following like dogs after a fox, this London was no place for him. He +have take his last earth-box on board a ship, and he leave the land. He +think to escape, but no! we follow him. Tally Ho! as friend Arthur would +say when he put on his red frock! Our old fox is wily; oh! so wily, and +we must follow with wile. I, too, am wily and I think his mind in a +little while. In meantime we may rest and in peace, for there are waters +between us which he do not want to pass, and which he could not if he +would--unless the ship were to touch the land, and then only at full or +slack tide. See, and the sun is just rose, and all day to sunset is to +us. Let us take bath, and dress, and have breakfast which we all need, +and which we can eat comfortably since he be not in the same land with +us." Mina looked at him appealingly as she asked:-- + +"But why need we seek him further, when he is gone away from us?" He +took her hand and patted it as he replied:-- + +"Ask me nothings as yet. When we have breakfast, then I answer all +questions." He would say no more, and we separated to dress. + +After breakfast Mina repeated her question. He looked at her gravely for +a minute and then said sorrowfully:-- + +"Because my dear, dear Madam Mina, now more than ever must we find him +even if we have to follow him to the jaws of Hell!" She grew paler as +she asked faintly:-- + +"Why?" + +"Because," he answered solemnly, "he can live for centuries, and you are +but mortal woman. Time is now to be dreaded--since once he put that mark +upon your throat." + +I was just in time to catch her as she fell forward in a faint. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIV + +DR. SEWARD'S PHONOGRAPH DIARY, SPOKEN BY VAN HELSING + + +This to Jonathan Harker. + +You are to stay with your dear Madam Mina. We shall go to make our +search--if I can call it so, for it is not search but knowing, and we +seek confirmation only. But do you stay and take care of her to-day. +This is your best and most holiest office. This day nothing can find him +here. Let me tell you that so you will know what we four know already, +for I have tell them. He, our enemy, have gone away; he have gone back +to his Castle in Transylvania. I know it so well, as if a great hand of +fire wrote it on the wall. He have prepare for this in some way, and +that last earth-box was ready to ship somewheres. For this he took the +money; for this he hurry at the last, lest we catch him before the sun +go down. It was his last hope, save that he might hide in the tomb that +he think poor Miss Lucy, being as he thought like him, keep open to him. +But there was not of time. When that fail he make straight for his last +resource--his last earth-work I might say did I wish _double entente_. +He is clever, oh, so clever! he know that his game here was finish; and +so he decide he go back home. He find ship going by the route he came, +and he go in it. We go off now to find what ship, and whither bound; +when we have discover that, we come back and tell you all. Then we will +comfort you and poor dear Madam Mina with new hope. For it will be hope +when you think it over: that all is not lost. This very creature that we +pursue, he take hundreds of years to get so far as London; and yet in +one day, when we know of the disposal of him we drive him out. He is +finite, though he is powerful to do much harm and suffers not as we do. +But we are strong, each in our purpose; and we are all more strong +together. Take heart afresh, dear husband of Madam Mina. This battle is +but begun, and in the end we shall win--so sure as that God sits on high +to watch over His children. Therefore be of much comfort till we return. + +VAN HELSING. + + +_Jonathan Harker's Journal._ + +_4 October._--When I read to Mina, Van Helsing's message in the +phonograph, the poor girl brightened up considerably. Already the +certainty that the Count is out of the country has given her comfort; +and comfort is strength to her. For my own part, now that his horrible +danger is not face to face with us, it seems almost impossible to +believe in it. Even my own terrible experiences in Castle Dracula seem +like a long-forgotten dream. Here in the crisp autumn air in the bright +sunlight---- + +Alas! how can I disbelieve! In the midst of my thought my eye fell on +the red scar on my poor darling's white forehead. Whilst that lasts, +there can be no disbelief. And afterwards the very memory of it will +keep faith crystal clear. Mina and I fear to be idle, so we have been +over all the diaries again and again. Somehow, although the reality +seems greater each time, the pain and the fear seem less. There is +something of a guiding purpose manifest throughout, which is comforting. +Mina says that perhaps we are the instruments of ultimate good. It may +be! I shall try to think as she does. We have never spoken to each other +yet of the future. It is better to wait till we see the Professor and +the others after their investigations. + +The day is running by more quickly than I ever thought a day could run +for me again. It is now three o'clock. + + +_Mina Harker's Journal._ + +_5 October, 5 p. m._--Our meeting for report. Present: Professor Van +Helsing, Lord Godalming, Dr. Seward, Mr. Quincey Morris, Jonathan +Harker, Mina Harker. + +Dr. Van Helsing described what steps were taken during the day to +discover on what boat and whither bound Count Dracula made his escape:-- + +"As I knew that he wanted to get back to Transylvania, I felt sure that +he must go by the Danube mouth; or by somewhere in the Black Sea, since +by that way he come. It was a dreary blank that was before us. _Omne +ignotum pro magnifico_; and so with heavy hearts we start to find what +ships leave for the Black Sea last night. He was in sailing ship, since +Madam Mina tell of sails being set. These not so important as to go in +your list of the shipping in the _Times_, and so we go, by suggestion of +Lord Godalming, to your Lloyd's, where are note of all ships that sail, +however so small. There we find that only one Black-Sea-bound ship go +out with the tide. She is the _Czarina Catherine_, and she sail from +Doolittle's Wharf for Varna, and thence on to other parts and up the +Danube. 'Soh!' said I, 'this is the ship whereon is the Count.' So off +we go to Doolittle's Wharf, and there we find a man in an office of wood +so small that the man look bigger than the office. From him we inquire +of the goings of the _Czarina Catherine_. He swear much, and he red face +and loud of voice, but he good fellow all the same; and when Quincey +give him something from his pocket which crackle as he roll it up, and +put it in a so small bag which he have hid deep in his clothing, he +still better fellow and humble servant to us. He come with us, and ask +many men who are rough and hot; these be better fellows too when they +have been no more thirsty. They say much of blood and bloom, and of +others which I comprehend not, though I guess what they mean; but +nevertheless they tell us all things which we want to know. + +"They make known to us among them, how last afternoon at about five +o'clock comes a man so hurry. A tall man, thin and pale, with high nose +and teeth so white, and eyes that seem to be burning. That he be all in +black, except that he have a hat of straw which suit not him or the +time. That he scatter his money in making quick inquiry as to what ship +sails for the Black Sea and for where. Some took him to the office and +then to the ship, where he will not go aboard but halt at shore end of +gang-plank, and ask that the captain come to him. The captain come, when +told that he will be pay well; and though he swear much at the first he +agree to term. Then the thin man go and some one tell him where horse +and cart can be hired. He go there and soon he come again, himself +driving cart on which a great box; this he himself lift down, though it +take several to put it on truck for the ship. He give much talk to +captain as to how and where his box is to be place; but the captain like +it not and swear at him in many tongues, and tell him that if he like he +can come and see where it shall be. But he say 'no'; that he come not +yet, for that he have much to do. Whereupon the captain tell him that he +had better be quick--with blood--for that his ship will leave the +place--of blood--before the turn of the tide--with blood. Then the thin +man smile and say that of course he must go when he think fit; but he +will be surprise if he go quite so soon. The captain swear again, +polyglot, and the thin man make him bow, and thank him, and say that he +will so far intrude on his kindness as to come aboard before the +sailing. Final the captain, more red than ever, and in more tongues tell +him that he doesn't want no Frenchmen--with bloom upon them and also +with blood--in his ship--with blood on her also. And so, after asking +where there might be close at hand a ship where he might purchase ship +forms, he departed. + +"No one knew where he went 'or bloomin' well cared,' as they said, for +they had something else to think of--well with blood again; for it soon +became apparent to all that the _Czarina Catherine_ would not sail as +was expected. A thin mist began to creep up from the river, and it grew, +and grew; till soon a dense fog enveloped the ship and all around her. +The captain swore polyglot--very polyglot--polyglot with bloom and +blood; but he could do nothing. The water rose and rose; and he began to +fear that he would lose the tide altogether. He was in no friendly mood, +when just at full tide, the thin man came up the gang-plank again and +asked to see where his box had been stowed. Then the captain replied +that he wished that he and his box--old and with much bloom and +blood--were in hell. But the thin man did not be offend, and went down +with the mate and saw where it was place, and came up and stood awhile +on deck in fog. He must have come off by himself, for none notice him. +Indeed they thought not of him; for soon the fog begin to melt away, and +all was clear again. My friends of the thirst and the language that was +of bloom and blood laughed, as they told how the captain's swears +exceeded even his usual polyglot, and was more than ever full of +picturesque, when on questioning other mariners who were on movement up +and down on the river that hour, he found that few of them had seen any +of fog at all, except where it lay round the wharf. However, the ship +went out on the ebb tide; and was doubtless by morning far down the +river mouth. She was by then, when they told us, well out to sea. + +"And so, my dear Madam Mina, it is that we have to rest for a time, for +our enemy is on the sea, with the fog at his command, on his way to the +Danube mouth. To sail a ship takes time, go she never so quick; and when +we start we go on land more quick, and we meet him there. Our best hope +is to come on him when in the box between sunrise and sunset; for then +he can make no struggle, and we may deal with him as we should. There +are days for us, in which we can make ready our plan. We know all about +where he go; for we have seen the owner of the ship, who have shown us +invoices and all papers that can be. The box we seek is to be landed in +Varna, and to be given to an agent, one Ristics who will there present +his credentials; and so our merchant friend will have done his part. +When he ask if there be any wrong, for that so, he can telegraph and +have inquiry made at Varna, we say 'no'; for what is to be done is not +for police or of the customs. It must be done by us alone and in our own +way." + +When Dr. Van Helsing had done speaking, I asked him if he were certain +that the Count had remained on board the ship. He replied: "We have the +best proof of that: your own evidence, when in the hypnotic trance this +morning." I asked him again if it were really necessary that they should +pursue the Count, for oh! I dread Jonathan leaving me, and I know that +he would surely go if the others went. He answered in growing passion, +at first quietly. As he went on, however, he grew more angry and more +forceful, till in the end we could not but see wherein was at least some +of that personal dominance which made him so long a master amongst +men:-- + +"Yes, it is necessary--necessary--necessary! For your sake in the first, +and then for the sake of humanity. This monster has done much harm +already, in the narrow scope where he find himself, and in the short +time when as yet he was only as a body groping his so small measure in +darkness and not knowing. All this have I told these others; you, my +dear Madam Mina, will learn it in the phonograph of my friend John, or +in that of your husband. I have told them how the measure of leaving his +own barren land--barren of peoples--and coming to a new land where life +of man teems till they are like the multitude of standing corn, was the +work of centuries. Were another of the Un-Dead, like him, to try to do +what he has done, perhaps not all the centuries of the world that have +been, or that will be, could aid him. With this one, all the forces of +nature that are occult and deep and strong must have worked together in +some wondrous way. The very place, where he have been alive, Un-Dead for +all these centuries, is full of strangeness of the geologic and chemical +world. There are deep caverns and fissures that reach none know whither. +There have been volcanoes, some of whose openings still send out waters +of strange properties, and gases that kill or make to vivify. Doubtless, +there is something magnetic or electric in some of these combinations of +occult forces which work for physical life in strange way; and in +himself were from the first some great qualities. In a hard and warlike +time he was celebrate that he have more iron nerve, more subtle brain, +more braver heart, than any man. In him some vital principle have in +strange way found their utmost; and as his body keep strong and grow and +thrive, so his brain grow too. All this without that diabolic aid which +is surely to him; for it have to yield to the powers that come from, +and are, symbolic of good. And now this is what he is to us. He have +infect you--oh, forgive me, my dear, that I must say such; but it is for +good of you that I speak. He infect you in such wise, that even if he do +no more, you have only to live--to live in your own old, sweet way; and +so in time, death, which is of man's common lot and with God's sanction, +shall make you like to him. This must not be! We have sworn together +that it must not. Thus are we ministers of God's own wish: that the +world, and men for whom His Son die, will not be given over to monsters, +whose very existence would defame Him. He have allowed us to redeem one +soul already, and we go out as the old knights of the Cross to redeem +more. Like them we shall travel towards the sunrise; and like them, if +we fall, we fall in good cause." He paused and I said:-- + +"But will not the Count take his rebuff wisely? Since he has been driven +from England, will he not avoid it, as a tiger does the village from +which he has been hunted?" + +"Aha!" he said, "your simile of the tiger good, for me, and I shall +adopt him. Your man-eater, as they of India call the tiger who has once +tasted blood of the human, care no more for the other prey, but prowl +unceasing till he get him. This that we hunt from our village is a +tiger, too, a man-eater, and he never cease to prowl. Nay, in himself he +is not one to retire and stay afar. In his life, his living life, he go +over the Turkey frontier and attack his enemy on his own ground; he be +beaten back, but did he stay? No! He come again, and again, and again. +Look at his persistence and endurance. With the child-brain that was to +him he have long since conceive the idea of coming to a great city. What +does he do? He find out the place of all the world most of promise for +him. Then he deliberately set himself down to prepare for the task. He +find in patience just how is his strength, and what are his powers. He +study new tongues. He learn new social life; new environment of old +ways, the politic, the law, the finance, the science, the habit of a new +land and a new people who have come to be since he was. His glimpse that +he have had, whet his appetite only and enkeen his desire. Nay, it help +him to grow as to his brain; for it all prove to him how right he was at +the first in his surmises. He have done this alone; all alone! from a +ruin tomb in a forgotten land. What more may he not do when the greater +world of thought is open to him. He that can smile at death, as we know +him; who can flourish in the midst of diseases that kill off whole +peoples. Oh, if such an one was to come from God, and not the Devil, +what a force for good might he not be in this old world of ours. But we +are pledged to set the world free. Our toil must be in silence, and our +efforts all in secret; for in this enlightened age, when men believe not +even what they see, the doubting of wise men would be his greatest +strength. It would be at once his sheath and his armour, and his weapons +to destroy us, his enemies, who are willing to peril even our own souls +for the safety of one we love--for the good of mankind, and for the +honour and glory of God." + +After a general discussion it was determined that for to-night nothing +be definitely settled; that we should all sleep on the facts, and try to +think out the proper conclusions. To-morrow, at breakfast, we are to +meet again, and, after making our conclusions known to one another, we +shall decide on some definite cause of action. + + * * * * * + +I feel a wonderful peace and rest to-night. It is as if some haunting +presence were removed from me. Perhaps ... + +My surmise was not finished, could not be; for I caught sight in the +mirror of the red mark upon my forehead; and I knew that I was still +unclean. + + +_Dr. Seward's Diary._ + +_5 October._--We all rose early, and I think that sleep did much for +each and all of us. When we met at early breakfast there was more +general cheerfulness than any of us had ever expected to experience +again. + +It is really wonderful how much resilience there is in human nature. Let +any obstructing cause, no matter what, be removed in any way--even by +death--and we fly back to first principles of hope and enjoyment. More +than once as we sat around the table, my eyes opened in wonder whether +the whole of the past days had not been a dream. It was only when I +caught sight of the red blotch on Mrs. Harker's forehead that I was +brought back to reality. Even now, when I am gravely revolving the +matter, it is almost impossible to realise that the cause of all our +trouble is still existent. Even Mrs. Harker seems to lose sight of her +trouble for whole spells; it is only now and again, when something +recalls it to her mind, that she thinks of her terrible scar. We are to +meet here in my study in half an hour and decide on our course of +action. I see only one immediate difficulty, I know it by instinct +rather than reason: we shall all have to speak frankly; and yet I fear +that in some mysterious way poor Mrs. Harker's tongue is tied. I _know_ +that she forms conclusions of her own, and from all that has been I can +guess how brilliant and how true they must be; but she will not, or +cannot, give them utterance. I have mentioned this to Van Helsing, and +he and I are to talk it over when we are alone. I suppose it is some of +that horrid poison which has got into her veins beginning to work. The +Count had his own purposes when he gave her what Van Helsing called "the +Vampire's baptism of blood." Well, there may be a poison that distils +itself out of good things; in an age when the existence of ptomaines is +a mystery we should not wonder at anything! One thing I know: that if my +instinct be true regarding poor Mrs. Harker's silences, then there is a +terrible difficulty--an unknown danger--in the work before us. The same +power that compels her silence may compel her speech. I dare not think +further; for so I should in my thoughts dishonour a noble woman! + +Van Helsing is coming to my study a little before the others. I shall +try to open the subject with him. + + * * * * * + +_Later._--When the Professor came in, we talked over the state of +things. I could see that he had something on his mind which he wanted to +say, but felt some hesitancy about broaching the subject. After beating +about the bush a little, he said suddenly:-- + +"Friend John, there is something that you and I must talk of alone, just +at the first at any rate. Later, we may have to take the others into our +confidence"; then he stopped, so I waited; he went on:-- + +"Madam Mina, our poor, dear Madam Mina is changing." A cold shiver ran +through me to find my worst fears thus endorsed. Van Helsing +continued:-- + +"With the sad experience of Miss Lucy, we must this time be warned +before things go too far. Our task is now in reality more difficult than +ever, and this new trouble makes every hour of the direst importance. I +can see the characteristics of the vampire coming in her face. It is now +but very, very slight; but it is to be seen if we have eyes to notice +without to prejudge. Her teeth are some sharper, and at times her eyes +are more hard. But these are not all, there is to her the silence now +often; as so it was with Miss Lucy. She did not speak, even when she +wrote that which she wished to be known later. Now my fear is this. If +it be that she can, by our hypnotic trance, tell what the Count see and +hear, is it not more true that he who have hypnotise her first, and who +have drink of her very blood and make her drink of his, should, if he +will, compel her mind to disclose to him that which she know?" I nodded +acquiescence; he went on:-- + +"Then, what we must do is to prevent this; we must keep her ignorant of +our intent, and so she cannot tell what she know not. This is a painful +task! Oh, so painful that it heart-break me to think of; but it must be. +When to-day we meet, I must tell her that for reason which we will not +to speak she must not more be of our council, but be simply guarded by +us." He wiped his forehead, which had broken out in profuse perspiration +at the thought of the pain which he might have to inflict upon the poor +soul already so tortured. I knew that it would be some sort of comfort +to him if I told him that I also had come to the same conclusion; for at +any rate it would take away the pain of doubt. I told him, and the +effect was as I expected. + +It is now close to the time of our general gathering. Van Helsing has +gone away to prepare for the meeting, and his painful part of it. I +really believe his purpose is to be able to pray alone. + + * * * * * + +_Later._--At the very outset of our meeting a great personal relief was +experienced by both Van Helsing and myself. Mrs. Harker had sent a +message by her husband to say that she would not join us at present, as +she thought it better that we should be free to discuss our movements +without her presence to embarrass us. The Professor and I looked at each +other for an instant, and somehow we both seemed relieved. For my own +part, I thought that if Mrs. Harker realised the danger herself, it was +much pain as well as much danger averted. Under the circumstances we +agreed, by a questioning look and answer, with finger on lip, to +preserve silence in our suspicions, until we should have been able to +confer alone again. We went at once into our Plan of Campaign. Van +Helsing roughly put the facts before us first:-- + +"The _Czarina Catherine_ left the Thames yesterday morning. It will take +her at the quickest speed she has ever made at least three weeks to +reach Varna; but we can travel overland to the same place in three days. +Now, if we allow for two days less for the ship's voyage, owing to such +weather influences as we know that the Count can bring to bear; and if +we allow a whole day and night for any delays which may occur to us, +then we have a margin of nearly two weeks. Thus, in order to be quite +safe, we must leave here on 17th at latest. Then we shall at any rate +be in Varna a day before the ship arrives, and able to make such +preparations as may be necessary. Of course we shall all go armed--armed +against evil things, spiritual as well as physical." Here Quincey Morris +added:-- + +"I understand that the Count comes from a wolf country, and it may be +that he shall get there before us. I propose that we add Winchesters to +our armament. I have a kind of belief in a Winchester when there is any +trouble of that sort around. Do you remember, Art, when we had the pack +after us at Tobolsk? What wouldn't we have given then for a repeater +apiece!" + +"Good!" said Van Helsing, "Winchesters it shall be. Quincey's head is +level at all times, but most so when there is to hunt, metaphor be more +dishonour to science than wolves be of danger to man. In the meantime we +can do nothing here; and as I think that Varna is not familiar to any of +us, why not go there more soon? It is as long to wait here as there. +To-night and to-morrow we can get ready, and then, if all be well, we +four can set out on our journey." + +"We four?" said Harker interrogatively, looking from one to another of +us. + +"Of course!" answered the Professor quickly, "you must remain to take +care of your so sweet wife!" Harker was silent for awhile and then said +in a hollow voice:-- + +"Let us talk of that part of it in the morning. I want to consult with +Mina." I thought that now was the time for Van Helsing to warn him not +to disclose our plans to her; but he took no notice. I looked at him +significantly and coughed. For answer he put his finger on his lips and +turned away. + + +_Jonathan Harker's Journal._ + +_5 October, afternoon._--For some time after our meeting this morning I +could not think. The new phases of things leave my mind in a state of +wonder which allows no room for active thought. Mina's determination not +to take any part in the discussion set me thinking; and as I could not +argue the matter with her, I could only guess. I am as far as ever from +a solution now. The way the others received it, too, puzzled me; the +last time we talked of the subject we agreed that there was to be no +more concealment of anything amongst us. Mina is sleeping now, calmly +and sweetly like a little child. Her lips are curved and her face beams +with happiness. Thank God, there are such moments still for her. + + * * * * * + +_Later._--How strange it all is. I sat watching Mina's happy sleep, and +came as near to being happy myself as I suppose I shall ever be. As the +evening drew on, and the earth took its shadows from the sun sinking +lower, the silence of the room grew more and more solemn to me. All at +once Mina opened her eyes, and looking at me tenderly, said:-- + +"Jonathan, I want you to promise me something on your word of honour. A +promise made to me, but made holily in God's hearing, and not to be +broken though I should go down on my knees and implore you with bitter +tears. Quick, you must make it to me at once." + +"Mina," I said, "a promise like that, I cannot make at once. I may have +no right to make it." + +"But, dear one," she said, with such spiritual intensity that her eyes +were like pole stars, "it is I who wish it; and it is not for myself. +You can ask Dr. Van Helsing if I am not right; if he disagrees you may +do as you will. Nay, more, if you all agree, later, you are absolved +from the promise." + +"I promise!" I said, and for a moment she looked supremely happy; though +to me all happiness for her was denied by the red scar on her forehead. +She said:-- + +"Promise me that you will not tell me anything of the plans formed for +the campaign against the Count. Not by word, or inference, or +implication; not at any time whilst this remains to me!" and she +solemnly pointed to the scar. I saw that she was in earnest, and said +solemnly:-- + +"I promise!" and as I said it I felt that from that instant a door had +been shut between us. + + * * * * * + +_Later, midnight._--Mina has been bright and cheerful all the evening. +So much so that all the rest seemed to take courage, as if infected +somewhat with her gaiety; as a result even I myself felt as if the pall +of gloom which weighs us down were somewhat lifted. We all retired +early. Mina is now sleeping like a little child; it is a wonderful thing +that her faculty of sleep remains to her in the midst of her terrible +trouble. Thank God for it, for then at least she can forget her care. +Perhaps her example may affect me as her gaiety did to-night. I shall +try it. Oh! for a dreamless sleep. + + * * * * * + +_6 October, morning._--Another surprise. Mina woke me early, about the +same time as yesterday, and asked me to bring Dr. Van Helsing. I thought +that it was another occasion for hypnotism, and without question went +for the Professor. He had evidently expected some such call, for I found +him dressed in his room. His door was ajar, so that he could hear the +opening of the door of our room. He came at once; as he passed into the +room, he asked Mina if the others might come, too. + +"No," she said quite simply, "it will not be necessary. You can tell +them just as well. I must go with you on your journey." + +Dr. Van Helsing was as startled as I was. After a moment's pause he +asked:-- + +"But why?" + +"You must take me with you. I am safer with you, and you shall be safer, +too." + +"But why, dear Madam Mina? You know that your safety is our solemnest +duty. We go into danger, to which you are, or may be, more liable than +any of us from--from circumstances--things that have been." He paused, +embarrassed. + +As she replied, she raised her finger and pointed to her forehead:-- + +"I know. That is why I must go. I can tell you now, whilst the sun is +coming up; I may not be able again. I know that when the Count wills me +I must go. I know that if he tells me to come in secret, I must come by +wile; by any device to hoodwink--even Jonathan." God saw the look that +she turned on me as she spoke, and if there be indeed a Recording Angel +that look is noted to her everlasting honour. I could only clasp her +hand. I could not speak; my emotion was too great for even the relief of +tears. She went on:-- + +"You men are brave and strong. You are strong in your numbers, for you +can defy that which would break down the human endurance of one who had +to guard alone. Besides, I may be of service, since you can hypnotise me +and so learn that which even I myself do not know." Dr. Van Helsing said +very gravely:-- + +"Madam Mina, you are, as always, most wise. You shall with us come; and +together we shall do that which we go forth to achieve." When he had +spoken, Mina's long spell of silence made me look at her. She had fallen +back on her pillow asleep; she did not even wake when I had pulled up +the blind and let in the sunlight which flooded the room. Van Helsing +motioned to me to come with him quietly. We went to his room, and within +a minute Lord Godalming, Dr. Seward, and Mr. Morris were with us also. +He told them what Mina had said, and went on:-- + +"In the morning we shall leave for Varna. We have now to deal with a +new factor: Madam Mina. Oh, but her soul is true. It is to her an agony +to tell us so much as she has done; but it is most right, and we are +warned in time. There must be no chance lost, and in Varna we must be +ready to act the instant when that ship arrives." + +"What shall we do exactly?" asked Mr. Morris laconically. The Professor +paused before replying:-- + +"We shall at the first board that ship; then, when we have identified +the box, we shall place a branch of the wild rose on it. This we shall +fasten, for when it is there none can emerge; so at least says the +superstition. And to superstition must we trust at the first; it was +man's faith in the early, and it have its root in faith still. Then, +when we get the opportunity that we seek, when none are near to see, we +shall open the box, and--and all will be well." + +"I shall not wait for any opportunity," said Morris. "When I see the box +I shall open it and destroy the monster, though there were a thousand +men looking on, and if I am to be wiped out for it the next moment!" I +grasped his hand instinctively and found it as firm as a piece of steel. +I think he understood my look; I hope he did. + +"Good boy," said Dr. Van Helsing. "Brave boy. Quincey is all man. God +bless him for it. My child, believe me none of us shall lag behind or +pause from any fear. I do but say what we may do--what we must do. But, +indeed, indeed we cannot say what we shall do. There are so many things +which may happen, and their ways and their ends are so various that +until the moment we may not say. We shall all be armed, in all ways; and +when the time for the end has come, our effort shall not be lack. Now +let us to-day put all our affairs in order. Let all things which touch +on others dear to us, and who on us depend, be complete; for none of us +can tell what, or when, or how, the end may be. As for me, my own +affairs are regulate; and as I have nothing else to do, I shall go make +arrangements for the travel. I shall have all tickets and so forth for +our journey." + +There was nothing further to be said, and we parted. I shall now settle +up all my affairs of earth, and be ready for whatever may come.... + + * * * * * + +_Later._--It is all done; my will is made, and all complete. Mina if she +survive is my sole heir. If it should not be so, then the others who +have been so good to us shall have remainder. + +It is now drawing towards the sunset; Mina's uneasiness calls my +attention to it. I am sure that there is something on her mind which the +time of exact sunset will reveal. These occasions are becoming harrowing +times for us all, for each sunrise and sunset opens up some new +danger--some new pain, which, however, may in God's will be means to a +good end. I write all these things in the diary since my darling must +not hear them now; but if it may be that she can see them again, they +shall be ready. + +She is calling to me. + + + + +CHAPTER XXV + +DR. SEWARD'S DIARY + + +_11 October, Evening._--Jonathan Harker has asked me to note this, as he +says he is hardly equal to the task, and he wants an exact record kept. + +I think that none of us were surprised when we were asked to see Mrs. +Harker a little before the time of sunset. We have of late come to +understand that sunrise and sunset are to her times of peculiar freedom; +when her old self can be manifest without any controlling force subduing +or restraining her, or inciting her to action. This mood or condition +begins some half hour or more before actual sunrise or sunset, and lasts +till either the sun is high, or whilst the clouds are still aglow with +the rays streaming above the horizon. At first there is a sort of +negative condition, as if some tie were loosened, and then the absolute +freedom quickly follows; when, however, the freedom ceases the +change-back or relapse comes quickly, preceded only by a spell of +warning silence. + +To-night, when we met, she was somewhat constrained, and bore all the +signs of an internal struggle. I put it down myself to her making a +violent effort at the earliest instant she could do so. A very few +minutes, however, gave her complete control of herself; then, motioning +her husband to sit beside her on the sofa where she was half reclining, +she made the rest of us bring chairs up close. Taking her husband's hand +in hers began:-- + +"We are all here together in freedom, for perhaps the last time! I know, +dear; I know that you will always be with me to the end." This was to +her husband whose hand had, as we could see, tightened upon hers. "In +the morning we go out upon our task, and God alone knows what may be in +store for any of us. You are going to be so good to me as to take me +with you. I know that all that brave earnest men can do for a poor weak +woman, whose soul perhaps is lost--no, no, not yet, but is at any rate +at stake--you will do. But you must remember that I am not as you are. +There is a poison in my blood, in my soul, which may destroy me; which +must destroy me, unless some relief comes to us. Oh, my friends, you +know as well as I do, that my soul is at stake; and though I know there +is one way out for me, you must not and I must not take it!" She looked +appealingly to us all in turn, beginning and ending with her husband. + +"What is that way?" asked Van Helsing in a hoarse voice. "What is that +way, which we must not--may not--take?" + +"That I may die now, either by my own hand or that of another, before +the greater evil is entirely wrought. I know, and you know, that were I +once dead you could and would set free my immortal spirit, even as you +did my poor Lucy's. Were death, or the fear of death, the only thing +that stood in the way I would not shrink to die here, now, amidst the +friends who love me. But death is not all. I cannot believe that to die +in such a case, when there is hope before us and a bitter task to be +done, is God's will. Therefore, I, on my part, give up here the +certainty of eternal rest, and go out into the dark where may be the +blackest things that the world or the nether world holds!" We were all +silent, for we knew instinctively that this was only a prelude. The +faces of the others were set and Harker's grew ashen grey; perhaps he +guessed better than any of us what was coming. She continued:-- + +"This is what I can give into the hotch-pot." I could not but note the +quaint legal phrase which she used in such a place, and with all +seriousness. "What will each of you give? Your lives I know," she went +on quickly, "that is easy for brave men. Your lives are God's, and you +can give them back to Him; but what will you give to me?" She looked +again questioningly, but this time avoided her husband's face. Quincey +seemed to understand; he nodded, and her face lit up. "Then I shall tell +you plainly what I want, for there must be no doubtful matter in this +connection between us now. You must promise me, one and all--even you, +my beloved husband--that, should the time come, you will kill me." + +"What is that time?" The voice was Quincey's, but it was low and +strained. + +"When you shall be convinced that I am so changed that it is better that +I die that I may live. When I am thus dead in the flesh, then you will, +without a moment's delay, drive a stake through me and cut off my head; +or do whatever else may be wanting to give me rest!" + +Quincey was the first to rise after the pause. He knelt down before her +and taking her hand in his said solemnly:-- + +"I'm only a rough fellow, who hasn't, perhaps, lived as a man should to +win such a distinction, but I swear to you by all that I hold sacred and +dear that, should the time ever come, I shall not flinch from the duty +that you have set us. And I promise you, too, that I shall make all +certain, for if I am only doubtful I shall take it that the time has +come!" + +"My true friend!" was all she could say amid her fast-falling tears, as, +bending over, she kissed his hand. + +"I swear the same, my dear Madam Mina!" said Van Helsing. + +"And I!" said Lord Godalming, each of them in turn kneeling to her to +take the oath. I followed, myself. Then her husband turned to her +wan-eyed and with a greenish pallor which subdued the snowy whiteness of +his hair, and asked:-- + +"And must I, too, make such a promise, oh, my wife?" + +"You too, my dearest," she said, with infinite yearning of pity in her +voice and eyes. "You must not shrink. You are nearest and dearest and +all the world to me; our souls are knit into one, for all life and all +time. Think, dear, that there have been times when brave men have killed +their wives and their womenkind, to keep them from falling into the +hands of the enemy. Their hands did not falter any the more because +those that they loved implored them to slay them. It is men's duty +towards those whom they love, in such times of sore trial! And oh, my +dear, if it is to be that I must meet death at any hand, let it be at +the hand of him that loves me best. Dr. Van Helsing, I have not +forgotten your mercy in poor Lucy's case to him who loved"--she stopped +with a flying blush, and changed her phrase--"to him who had best right +to give her peace. If that time shall come again, I look to you to make +it a happy memory of my husband's life that it was his loving hand which +set me free from the awful thrall upon me." + +"Again I swear!" came the Professor's resonant voice. Mrs. Harker +smiled, positively smiled, as with a sigh of relief she leaned back and +said:-- + +"And now one word of warning, a warning which you must never forget: +this time, if it ever come, may come quickly and unexpectedly, and in +such case you must lose no time in using your opportunity. At such a +time I myself might be--nay! if the time ever comes, _shall be_--leagued +with your enemy against you." + +"One more request;" she became very solemn as she said this, "it is not +vital and necessary like the other, but I want you to do one thing for +me, if you will." We all acquiesced, but no one spoke; there was no need +to speak:-- + +"I want you to read the Burial Service." She was interrupted by a deep +groan from her husband; taking his hand in hers, she held it over her +heart, and continued: "You must read it over me some day. Whatever may +be the issue of all this fearful state of things, it will be a sweet +thought to all or some of us. You, my dearest, will I hope read it, for +then it will be in your voice in my memory for ever--come what may!" + +"But oh, my dear one," he pleaded, "death is afar off from you." + +"Nay," she said, holding up a warning hand. "I am deeper in death at +this moment than if the weight of an earthly grave lay heavy upon me!" + +"Oh, my wife, must I read it?" he said, before he began. + +"It would comfort me, my husband!" was all she said; and he began to +read when she had got the book ready. + +"How can I--how could any one--tell of that strange scene, its +solemnity, its gloom, its sadness, its horror; and, withal, its +sweetness. Even a sceptic, who can see nothing but a travesty of bitter +truth in anything holy or emotional, would have been melted to the heart +had he seen that little group of loving and devoted friends kneeling +round that stricken and sorrowing lady; or heard the tender passion of +her husband's voice, as in tones so broken with emotion that often he +had to pause, he read the simple and beautiful service from the Burial +of the Dead. I--I cannot go on--words--and--v-voice--f-fail m-me!" + + * * * * * + +She was right in her instinct. Strange as it all was, bizarre as it may +hereafter seem even to us who felt its potent influence at the time, it +comforted us much; and the silence, which showed Mrs. Harker's coming +relapse from her freedom of soul, did not seem so full of despair to any +of us as we had dreaded. + + +_Jonathan Harker's Journal._ + +_15 October, Varna._--We left Charing Cross on the morning of the 12th, +got to Paris the same night, and took the places secured for us in the +Orient Express. We travelled night and day, arriving here at about five +o'clock. Lord Godalming went to the Consulate to see if any telegram had +arrived for him, whilst the rest of us came on to this hotel--"the +Odessus." The journey may have had incidents; I was, however, too eager +to get on, to care for them. Until the _Czarina Catherine_ comes into +port there will be no interest for me in anything in the wide world. +Thank God! Mina is well, and looks to be getting stronger; her colour is +coming back. She sleeps a great deal; throughout the journey she slept +nearly all the time. Before sunrise and sunset, however, she is very +wakeful and alert; and it has become a habit for Van Helsing to +hypnotise her at such times. At first, some effort was needed, and he +had to make many passes; but now, she seems to yield at once, as if by +habit, and scarcely any action is needed. He seems to have power at +these particular moments to simply will, and her thoughts obey him. He +always asks her what she can see and hear. She answers to the first:-- + +"Nothing; all is dark." And to the second:-- + +"I can hear the waves lapping against the ship, and the water rushing +by. Canvas and cordage strain and masts and yards creak. The wind is +high--I can hear it in the shrouds, and the bow throws back the foam." +It is evident that the _Czarina Catherine_ is still at sea, hastening on +her way to Varna. Lord Godalming has just returned. He had four +telegrams, one each day since we started, and all to the same effect: +that the _Czarina Catherine_ had not been reported to Lloyd's from +anywhere. He had arranged before leaving London that his agent should +send him every day a telegram saying if the ship had been reported. He +was to have a message even if she were not reported, so that he might be +sure that there was a watch being kept at the other end of the wire. + +We had dinner and went to bed early. To-morrow we are to see the +Vice-Consul, and to arrange, if we can, about getting on board the ship +as soon as she arrives. Van Helsing says that our chance will be to get +on the boat between sunrise and sunset. The Count, even if he takes the +form of a bat, cannot cross the running water of his own volition, and +so cannot leave the ship. As he dare not change to man's form without +suspicion--which he evidently wishes to avoid--he must remain in the +box. If, then, we can come on board after sunrise, he is at our mercy; +for we can open the box and make sure of him, as we did of poor Lucy, +before he wakes. What mercy he shall get from us will not count for +much. We think that we shall not have much trouble with officials or the +seamen. Thank God! this is the country where bribery can do anything, +and we are well supplied with money. We have only to make sure that the +ship cannot come into port between sunset and sunrise without our being +warned, and we shall be safe. Judge Moneybag will settle this case, I +think! + + * * * * * + +_16 October._--Mina's report still the same: lapping waves and rushing +water, darkness and favouring winds. We are evidently in good time, and +when we hear of the _Czarina Catherine_ we shall be ready. As she must +pass the Dardanelles we are sure to have some report. + + * * * * * + +_17 October._--Everything is pretty well fixed now, I think, to welcome +the Count on his return from his tour. Godalming told the shippers that +he fancied that the box sent aboard might contain something stolen from +a friend of his, and got a half consent that he might open it at his own +risk. The owner gave him a paper telling the Captain to give him every +facility in doing whatever he chose on board the ship, and also a +similar authorisation to his agent at Varna. We have seen the agent, who +was much impressed with Godalming's kindly manner to him, and we are all +satisfied that whatever he can do to aid our wishes will be done. We +have already arranged what to do in case we get the box open. If the +Count is there, Van Helsing and Seward will cut off his head at once and +drive a stake through his heart. Morris and Godalming and I shall +prevent interference, even if we have to use the arms which we shall +have ready. The Professor says that if we can so treat the Count's body, +it will soon after fall into dust. In such case there would be no +evidence against us, in case any suspicion of murder were aroused. But +even if it were not, we should stand or fall by our act, and perhaps +some day this very script may be evidence to come between some of us and +a rope. For myself, I should take the chance only too thankfully if it +were to come. We mean to leave no stone unturned to carry out our +intent. We have arranged with certain officials that the instant the +_Czarina Catherine_ is seen, we are to be informed by a special +messenger. + + * * * * * + +_24 October._--A whole week of waiting. Daily telegrams to Godalming, +but only the same story: "Not yet reported." Mina's morning and evening +hypnotic answer is unvaried: lapping waves, rushing water, and creaking +masts. + +_Telegram, October 24th._ + +_Rufus Smith, Lloyd's, London, to Lord Godalming, care of H. B. M. +Vice-Consul, Varna._ + +"_Czarina Catherine_ reported this morning from Dardanelles." + + +_Dr. Seward's Diary._ + +_25 October._--How I miss my phonograph! To write diary with a pen is +irksome to me; but Van Helsing says I must. We were all wild with +excitement yesterday when Godalming got his telegram from Lloyd's. I +know now what men feel in battle when the call to action is heard. Mrs. +Harker, alone of our party, did not show any signs of emotion. After +all, it is not strange that she did not; for we took special care not to +let her know anything about it, and we all tried not to show any +excitement when we were in her presence. In old days she would, I am +sure, have noticed, no matter how we might have tried to conceal it; but +in this way she is greatly changed during the past three weeks. The +lethargy grows upon her, and though she seems strong and well, and is +getting back some of her colour, Van Helsing and I are not satisfied. We +talk of her often; we have not, however, said a word to the others. It +would break poor Harker's heart--certainly his nerve--if he knew that we +had even a suspicion on the subject. Van Helsing examines, he tells me, +her teeth very carefully, whilst she is in the hypnotic condition, for +he says that so long as they do not begin to sharpen there is no active +danger of a change in her. If this change should come, it would be +necessary to take steps!... We both know what those steps would have to +be, though we do not mention our thoughts to each other. We should +neither of us shrink from the task--awful though it be to contemplate. +"Euthanasia" is an excellent and a comforting word! I am grateful to +whoever invented it. + +It is only about 24 hours' sail from the Dardanelles to here, at the +rate the _Czarina Catherine_ has come from London. She should therefore +arrive some time in the morning; but as she cannot possibly get in +before then, we are all about to retire early. We shall get up at one +o'clock, so as to be ready. + + * * * * * + +_25 October, Noon_.--No news yet of the ship's arrival. Mrs. Harker's +hypnotic report this morning was the same as usual, so it is possible +that we may get news at any moment. We men are all in a fever of +excitement, except Harker, who is calm; his hands are cold as ice, and +an hour ago I found him whetting the edge of the great Ghoorka knife +which he now always carries with him. It will be a bad lookout for the +Count if the edge of that "Kukri" ever touches his throat, driven by +that stern, ice-cold hand! + +Van Helsing and I were a little alarmed about Mrs. Harker to-day. About +noon she got into a sort of lethargy which we did not like; although we +kept silence to the others, we were neither of us happy about it. She +had been restless all the morning, so that we were at first glad to know +that she was sleeping. When, however, her husband mentioned casually +that she was sleeping so soundly that he could not wake her, we went to +her room to see for ourselves. She was breathing naturally and looked so +well and peaceful that we agreed that the sleep was better for her than +anything else. Poor girl, she has so much to forget that it is no wonder +that sleep, if it brings oblivion to her, does her good. + + * * * * * + +_Later._--Our opinion was justified, for when after a refreshing sleep +of some hours she woke up, she seemed brighter and better than she had +been for days. At sunset she made the usual hypnotic report. Wherever he +may be in the Black Sea, the Count is hurrying to his destination. To +his doom, I trust! + + * * * * * + +_26 October._--Another day and no tidings of the _Czarina Catherine_. +She ought to be here by now. That she is still journeying _somewhere_ is +apparent, for Mrs. Harker's hypnotic report at sunrise was still the +same. It is possible that the vessel may be lying by, at times, for fog; +some of the steamers which came in last evening reported patches of fog +both to north and south of the port. We must continue our watching, as +the ship may now be signalled any moment. + + * * * * * + +_27 October, Noon._--Most strange; no news yet of the ship we wait for. +Mrs. Harker reported last night and this morning as usual: "lapping +waves and rushing water," though she added that "the waves were very +faint." The telegrams from London have been the same: "no further +report." Van Helsing is terribly anxious, and told me just now that he +fears the Count is escaping us. He added significantly:-- + +"I did not like that lethargy of Madam Mina's. Souls and memories can do +strange things during trance." I was about to ask him more, but Harker +just then came in, and he held up a warning hand. We must try to-night +at sunset to make her speak more fully when in her hypnotic state. + + * * * * * + + _28 October._--Telegram. _Rufus Smith, London, to Lord Godalming, + care H. B. M. Vice Consul, Varna._ + + "_Czarina Catherine_ reported entering Galatz at one o'clock + to-day." + + +_Dr. Seward's Diary._ + +_28 October._--When the telegram came announcing the arrival in Galatz I +do not think it was such a shock to any of us as might have been +expected. True, we did not know whence, or how, or when, the bolt would +come; but I think we all expected that something strange would happen. +The delay of arrival at Varna made us individually satisfied that things +would not be just as we had expected; we only waited to learn where the +change would occur. None the less, however, was it a surprise. I suppose +that nature works on such a hopeful basis that we believe against +ourselves that things will be as they ought to be, not as we should know +that they will be. Transcendentalism is a beacon to the angels, even if +it be a will-o'-the-wisp to man. It was an odd experience and we all +took it differently. Van Helsing raised his hand over his head for a +moment, as though in remonstrance with the Almighty; but he said not a +word, and in a few seconds stood up with his face sternly set. Lord +Godalming grew very pale, and sat breathing heavily. I was myself half +stunned and looked in wonder at one after another. Quincey Morris +tightened his belt with that quick movement which I knew so well; in our +old wandering days it meant "action." Mrs. Harker grew ghastly white, so +that the scar on her forehead seemed to burn, but she folded her hands +meekly and looked up in prayer. Harker smiled--actually smiled--the +dark, bitter smile of one who is without hope; but at the same time his +action belied his words, for his hands instinctively sought the hilt of +the great Kukri knife and rested there. "When does the next train start +for Galatz?" said Van Helsing to us generally. + +"At 6:30 to-morrow morning!" We all started, for the answer came from +Mrs. Harker. + +"How on earth do you know?" said Art. + +"You forget--or perhaps you do not know, though Jonathan does and so +does Dr. Van Helsing--that I am the train fiend. At home in Exeter I +always used to make up the time-tables, so as to be helpful to my +husband. I found it so useful sometimes, that I always make a study of +the time-tables now. I knew that if anything were to take us to Castle +Dracula we should go by Galatz, or at any rate through Bucharest, so I +learned the times very carefully. Unhappily there are not many to learn, +as the only train to-morrow leaves as I say." + +"Wonderful woman!" murmured the Professor. + +"Can't we get a special?" asked Lord Godalming. Van Helsing shook his +head: "I fear not. This land is very different from yours or mine; even +if we did have a special, it would probably not arrive as soon as our +regular train. Moreover, we have something to prepare. We must think. +Now let us organize. You, friend Arthur, go to the train and get the +tickets and arrange that all be ready for us to go in the morning. Do +you, friend Jonathan, go to the agent of the ship and get from him +letters to the agent in Galatz, with authority to make search the ship +just as it was here. Morris Quincey, you see the Vice-Consul, and get +his aid with his fellow in Galatz and all he can do to make our way +smooth, so that no times be lost when over the Danube. John will stay +with Madam Mina and me, and we shall consult. For so if time be long you +may be delayed; and it will not matter when the sun set, since I am here +with Madam to make report." + +"And I," said Mrs. Harker brightly, and more like her old self than she +had been for many a long day, "shall try to be of use in all ways, and +shall think and write for you as I used to do. Something is shifting +from me in some strange way, and I feel freer than I have been of late!" +The three younger men looked happier at the moment as they seemed to +realise the significance of her words; but Van Helsing and I, turning to +each other, met each a grave and troubled glance. We said nothing at the +time, however. + +When the three men had gone out to their tasks Van Helsing asked Mrs. +Harker to look up the copy of the diaries and find him the part of +Harker's journal at the Castle. She went away to get it; when the door +was shut upon her he said to me:-- + +"We mean the same! speak out!" + +"There is some change. It is a hope that makes me sick, for it may +deceive us." + +"Quite so. Do you know why I asked her to get the manuscript?" + +"No!" said I, "unless it was to get an opportunity of seeing me alone." + +"You are in part right, friend John, but only in part. I want to tell +you something. And oh, my friend, I am taking a great--a terrible--risk; +but I believe it is right. In the moment when Madam Mina said those +words that arrest both our understanding, an inspiration came to me. In +the trance of three days ago the Count sent her his spirit to read her +mind; or more like he took her to see him in his earth-box in the ship +with water rushing, just as it go free at rise and set of sun. He learn +then that we are here; for she have more to tell in her open life with +eyes to see and ears to hear than he, shut, as he is, in his coffin-box. +Now he make his most effort to escape us. At present he want her not. + +"He is sure with his so great knowledge that she will come at his call; +but he cut her off--take her, as he can do, out of his own power, that +so she come not to him. Ah! there I have hope that our man-brains that +have been of man so long and that have not lost the grace of God, will +come higher than his child-brain that lie in his tomb for centuries, +that grow not yet to our stature, and that do only work selfish and +therefore small. Here comes Madam Mina; not a word to her of her trance! +She know it not; and it would overwhelm her and make despair just when +we want all her hope, all her courage; when most we want all her great +brain which is trained like man's brain, but is of sweet woman and have +a special power which the Count give her, and which he may not take away +altogether--though he think not so. Hush! let me speak, and you shall +learn. Oh, John, my friend, we are in awful straits. I fear, as I never +feared before. We can only trust the good God. Silence! here she comes!" + +I thought that the Professor was going to break down and have hysterics, +just as he had when Lucy died, but with a great effort he controlled +himself and was at perfect nervous poise when Mrs. Harker tripped into +the room, bright and happy-looking and, in the doing of work, seemingly +forgetful of her misery. As she came in, she handed a number of sheets +of typewriting to Van Helsing. He looked over them gravely, his face +brightening up as he read. Then holding the pages between his finger and +thumb he said:-- + +"Friend John, to you with so much of experience already--and you, too, +dear Madam Mina, that are young--here is a lesson: do not fear ever to +think. A half-thought has been buzzing often in my brain, but I fear to +let him loose his wings. Here now, with more knowledge, I go back to +where that half-thought come from and I find that he be no half-thought +at all; that be a whole thought, though so young that he is not yet +strong to use his little wings. Nay, like the "Ugly Duck" of my friend +Hans Andersen, he be no duck-thought at all, but a big swan-thought that +sail nobly on big wings, when the time come for him to try them. See I +read here what Jonathan have written:-- + +"That other of his race who, in a later age, again and again, brought +his forces over The Great River into Turkey Land; who, when he was +beaten back, came again, and again, and again, though he had to come +alone from the bloody field where his troops were being slaughtered, +since he knew that he alone could ultimately triumph." + +"What does this tell us? Not much? no! The Count's child-thought see +nothing; therefore he speak so free. Your man-thought see nothing; my +man-thought see nothing, till just now. No! But there comes another word +from some one who speak without thought because she, too, know not what +it mean--what it _might_ mean. Just as there are elements which rest, +yet when in nature's course they move on their way and they touch--then +pouf! and there comes a flash of light, heaven wide, that blind and kill +and destroy some; but that show up all earth below for leagues and +leagues. Is it not so? Well, I shall explain. To begin, have you ever +study the philosophy of crime? 'Yes' and 'No.' You, John, yes; for it is +a study of insanity. You, no, Madam Mina; for crime touch you not--not +but once. Still, your mind works true, and argues not _a particulari ad +universale_. There is this peculiarity in criminals. It is so constant, +in all countries and at all times, that even police, who know not much +from philosophy, come to know it empirically, that _it is_. That is to +be empiric. The criminal always work at one crime--that is the true +criminal who seems predestinate to crime, and who will of none other. +This criminal has not full man-brain. He is clever and cunning and +resourceful; but he be not of man-stature as to brain. He be of +child-brain in much. Now this criminal of ours is predestinate to crime +also; he, too, have child-brain, and it is of the child to do what he +have done. The little bird, the little fish, the little animal learn not +by principle, but empirically; and when he learn to do, then there is to +him the ground to start from to do more. '_Dos pou sto_,' said +Archimedes. 'Give me a fulcrum, and I shall move the world!' To do once, +is the fulcrum whereby child-brain become man-brain; and until he have +the purpose to do more, he continue to do the same again every time, +just as he have done before! Oh, my dear, I see that your eyes are +opened, and that to you the lightning flash show all the leagues," for +Mrs. Harker began to clap her hands and her eyes sparkled. He went on:-- + +"Now you shall speak. Tell us two dry men of science what you see with +those so bright eyes." He took her hand and held it whilst she spoke. +His finger and thumb closed on her pulse, as I thought instinctively and +unconsciously, as she spoke:-- + +"The Count is a criminal and of criminal type. Nordau and Lombroso would +so classify him, and _qua_ criminal he is of imperfectly formed mind. +Thus, in a difficulty he has to seek resource in habit. His past is a +clue, and the one page of it that we know--and that from his own +lips--tells that once before, when in what Mr. Morris would call a +'tight place,' he went back to his own country from the land he had +tried to invade, and thence, without losing purpose, prepared himself +for a new effort. He came again better equipped for his work; and won. +So he came to London to invade a new land. He was beaten, and when all +hope of success was lost, and his existence in danger, he fled back over +the sea to his home; just as formerly he had fled back over the Danube +from Turkey Land." + +"Good, good! oh, you so clever lady!" said Van Helsing, +enthusiastically, as he stooped and kissed her hand. A moment later he +said to me, as calmly as though we had been having a sick-room +consultation:-- + +"Seventy-two only; and in all this excitement. I have hope." Turning to +her again, he said with keen expectation:-- + +"But go on. Go on! there is more to tell if you will. Be not afraid; +John and I know. I do in any case, and shall tell you if you are right. +Speak, without fear!" + +"I will try to; but you will forgive me if I seem egotistical." + +"Nay! fear not, you must be egotist, for it is of you that we think." + +"Then, as he is criminal he is selfish; and as his intellect is small +and his action is based on selfishness, he confines himself to one +purpose. That purpose is remorseless. As he fled back over the Danube, +leaving his forces to be cut to pieces, so now he is intent on being +safe, careless of all. So his own selfishness frees my soul somewhat +from the terrible power which he acquired over me on that dreadful +night. I felt it! Oh, I felt it! Thank God, for His great mercy! My soul +is freer than it has been since that awful hour; and all that haunts me +is a fear lest in some trance or dream he may have used my knowledge for +his ends." The Professor stood up:-- + +"He has so used your mind; and by it he has left us here in Varna, +whilst the ship that carried him rushed through enveloping fog up to +Galatz, where, doubtless, he had made preparation for escaping from us. +But his child-mind only saw so far; and it may be that, as ever is in +God's Providence, the very thing that the evil-doer most reckoned on for +his selfish good, turns out to be his chiefest harm. The hunter is taken +in his own snare, as the great Psalmist says. For now that he think he +is free from every trace of us all, and that he has escaped us with so +many hours to him, then his selfish child-brain will whisper him to +sleep. He think, too, that as he cut himself off from knowing your mind, +there can be no knowledge of him to you; there is where he fail! That +terrible baptism of blood which he give you makes you free to go to him +in spirit, as you have as yet done in your times of freedom, when the +sun rise and set. At such times you go by my volition and not by his; +and this power to good of you and others, as you have won from your +suffering at his hands. This is now all the more precious that he know +it not, and to guard himself have even cut himself off from his +knowledge of our where. We, however, are not selfish, and we believe +that God is with us through all this blackness, and these many dark +hours. We shall follow him; and we shall not flinch; even if we peril +ourselves that we become like him. Friend John, this has been a great +hour; and it have done much to advance us on our way. You must be scribe +and write him all down, so that when the others return from their work +you can give it to them; then they shall know as we do." + +And so I have written it whilst we wait their return, and Mrs. Harker +has written with her typewriter all since she brought the MS. to us. + + + + +CHAPTER XXVI + +DR. SEWARD'S DIARY + + +_29 October._--This is written in the train from Varna to Galatz. Last +night we all assembled a little before the time of sunset. Each of us +had done his work as well as he could; so far as thought, and endeavour, +and opportunity go, we are prepared for the whole of our journey, and +for our work when we get to Galatz. When the usual time came round Mrs. +Harker prepared herself for her hypnotic effort; and after a longer and +more serious effort on the part of Van Helsing than has been usually +necessary, she sank into the trance. Usually she speaks on a hint; but +this time the Professor had to ask her questions, and to ask them pretty +resolutely, before we could learn anything; at last her answer came:-- + +"I can see nothing; we are still; there are no waves lapping, but only a +steady swirl of water softly running against the hawser. I can hear +men's voices calling, near and far, and the roll and creak of oars in +the rowlocks. A gun is fired somewhere; the echo of it seems far away. +There is tramping of feet overhead, and ropes and chains are dragged +along. What is this? There is a gleam of light; I can feel the air +blowing upon me." + +Here she stopped. She had risen, as if impulsively, from where she lay +on the sofa, and raised both her hands, palms upwards, as if lifting a +weight. Van Helsing and I looked at each other with understanding. +Quincey raised his eyebrows slightly and looked at her intently, whilst +Harker's hand instinctively closed round the hilt of his Kukri. There +was a long pause. We all knew that the time when she could speak was +passing; but we felt that it was useless to say anything. Suddenly she +sat up, and, as she opened her eyes, said sweetly:-- + +"Would none of you like a cup of tea? You must all be so tired!" We +could only make her happy, and so acquiesced. She bustled off to get +tea; when she had gone Van Helsing said:-- + +"You see, my friends. _He_ is close to land: he has left his +earth-chest. But he has yet to get on shore. In the night he may lie +hidden somewhere; but if he be not carried on shore, or if the ship do +not touch it, he cannot achieve the land. In such case he can, if it be +in the night, change his form and can jump or fly on shore, as he did +at Whitby. But if the day come before he get on shore, then, unless he +be carried he cannot escape. And if he be carried, then the customs men +may discover what the box contain. Thus, in fine, if he escape not on +shore to-night, or before dawn, there will be the whole day lost to him. +We may then arrive in time; for if he escape not at night we shall come +on him in daytime, boxed up and at our mercy; for he dare not be his +true self, awake and visible, lest he be discovered." + +There was no more to be said, so we waited in patience until the dawn; +at which time we might learn more from Mrs. Harker. + +Early this morning we listened, with breathless anxiety, for her +response in her trance. The hypnotic stage was even longer in coming +than before; and when it came the time remaining until full sunrise was +so short that we began to despair. Van Helsing seemed to throw his whole +soul into the effort; at last, in obedience to his will she made +reply:-- + +"All is dark. I hear lapping water, level with me, and some creaking as +of wood on wood." She paused, and the red sun shot up. We must wait till +to-night. + +And so it is that we are travelling towards Galatz in an agony of +expectation. We are due to arrive between two and three in the morning; +but already, at Bucharest, we are three hours late, so we cannot +possibly get in till well after sun-up. Thus we shall have two more +hypnotic messages from Mrs. Harker; either or both may possibly throw +more light on what is happening. + + * * * * * + +_Later._--Sunset has come and gone. Fortunately it came at a time when +there was no distraction; for had it occurred whilst we were at a +station, we might not have secured the necessary calm and isolation. +Mrs. Harker yielded to the hypnotic influence even less readily than +this morning. I am in fear that her power of reading the Count's +sensations may die away, just when we want it most. It seems to me that +her imagination is beginning to work. Whilst she has been in the trance +hitherto she has confined herself to the simplest of facts. If this goes +on it may ultimately mislead us. If I thought that the Count's power +over her would die away equally with her power of knowledge it would be +a happy thought; but I am afraid that it may not be so. When she did +speak, her words were enigmatical:-- + +"Something is going out; I can feel it pass me like a cold wind. I can +hear, far off, confused sounds--as of men talking in strange tongues, +fierce-falling water, and the howling of wolves." She stopped and a +shudder ran through her, increasing in intensity for a few seconds, +till, at the end, she shook as though in a palsy. She said no more, even +in answer to the Professor's imperative questioning. When she woke from +the trance, she was cold, and exhausted, and languid; but her mind was +all alert. She could not remember anything, but asked what she had said; +when she was told, she pondered over it deeply for a long time and in +silence. + + * * * * * + +_30 October, 7 a. m._--We are near Galatz now, and I may not have time +to write later. Sunrise this morning was anxiously looked for by us all. +Knowing of the increasing difficulty of procuring the hypnotic trance, +Van Helsing began his passes earlier than usual. They produced no +effect, however, until the regular time, when she yielded with a still +greater difficulty, only a minute before the sun rose. The Professor +lost no time in his questioning; her answer came with equal quickness:-- + +"All is dark. I hear water swirling by, level with my ears, and the +creaking of wood on wood. Cattle low far off. There is another sound, a +queer one like----" She stopped and grew white, and whiter still. + +"Go on; go on! Speak, I command you!" said Van Helsing in an agonised +voice. At the same time there was despair in his eyes, for the risen sun +was reddening even Mrs. Harker's pale face. She opened her eyes, and we +all started as she said, sweetly and seemingly with the utmost +unconcern:-- + +"Oh, Professor, why ask me to do what you know I can't? I don't remember +anything." Then, seeing the look of amazement on our faces, she said, +turning from one to the other with a troubled look:-- + +"What have I said? What have I done? I know nothing, only that I was +lying here, half asleep, and heard you say go on! speak, I command you!' +It seemed so funny to hear you order me about, as if I were a bad +child!" + +"Oh, Madam Mina," he said, sadly, "it is proof, if proof be needed, of +how I love and honour you, when a word for your good, spoken more +earnest than ever, can seem so strange because it is to order her whom I +am proud to obey!" + +The whistles are sounding; we are nearing Galatz. We are on fire with +anxiety and eagerness. + + +_Mina Harker's Journal._ + +_30 October._--Mr. Morris took me to the hotel where our rooms had been +ordered by telegraph, he being the one who could best be spared, since +he does not speak any foreign language. The forces were distributed +much as they had been at Varna, except that Lord Godalming went to the +Vice-Consul, as his rank might serve as an immediate guarantee of some +sort to the official, we being in extreme hurry. Jonathan and the two +doctors went to the shipping agent to learn particulars of the arrival +of the _Czarina Catherine_. + + * * * * * + +_Later._--Lord Godalming has returned. The Consul is away, and the +Vice-Consul sick; so the routine work has been attended to by a clerk. +He was very obliging, and offered to do anything in his power. + + +_Jonathan Harker's Journal._ + +_30 October._--At nine o'clock Dr. Van Helsing, Dr. Seward, and I called +on Messrs. Mackenzie & Steinkoff, the agents of the London firm of +Hapgood. They had received a wire from London, in answer to Lord +Godalming's telegraphed request, asking us to show them any civility in +their power. They were more than kind and courteous, and took us at once +on board the _Czarina Catherine_, which lay at anchor out in the river +harbour. There we saw the Captain, Donelson by name, who told us of his +voyage. He said that in all his life he had never had so favourable a +run. + +"Man!" he said, "but it made us afeard, for we expeckit that we should +have to pay for it wi' some rare piece o' ill luck, so as to keep up the +average. It's no canny to run frae London to the Black Sea wi' a wind +ahint ye, as though the Deil himself were blawin' on yer sail for his +ain purpose. An' a' the time we could no speer a thing. Gin we were nigh +a ship, or a port, or a headland, a fog fell on us and travelled wi' us, +till when after it had lifted and we looked out, the deil a thing could +we see. We ran by Gibraltar wi'oot bein' able to signal; an' till we +came to the Dardanelles and had to wait to get our permit to pass, we +never were within hail o' aught. At first I inclined to slack off sail +and beat about till the fog was lifted; but whiles, I thocht that if the +Deil was minded to get us into the Black Sea quick, he was like to do it +whether we would or no. If we had a quick voyage it would be no to our +miscredit wi' the owners, or no hurt to our traffic; an' the Old Mon who +had served his ain purpose wad be decently grateful to us for no +hinderin' him." This mixture of simplicity and cunning, of superstition +and commercial reasoning, aroused Van Helsing, who said:-- + +"Mine friend, that Devil is more clever than he is thought by some; and +he know when he meet his match!" The skipper was not displeased with the +compliment, and went on:-- + +"When we got past the Bosphorus the men began to grumble; some o' them, +the Roumanians, came and asked me to heave overboard a big box which had +been put on board by a queer lookin' old man just before we had started +frae London. I had seen them speer at the fellow, and put out their twa +fingers when they saw him, to guard against the evil eye. Man! but the +supersteetion of foreigners is pairfectly rideeculous! I sent them aboot +their business pretty quick; but as just after a fog closed in on us I +felt a wee bit as they did anent something, though I wouldn't say it was +agin the big box. Well, on we went, and as the fog didn't let up for +five days I joost let the wind carry us; for if the Deil wanted to get +somewheres--well, he would fetch it up a'reet. An' if he didn't, well, +we'd keep a sharp lookout anyhow. Sure eneuch, we had a fair way and +deep water all the time; and two days ago, when the mornin' sun came +through the fog, we found ourselves just in the river opposite Galatz. +The Roumanians were wild, and wanted me right or wrong to take out the +box and fling it in the river. I had to argy wi' them aboot it wi' a +handspike; an' when the last o' them rose off the deck wi' his head in +his hand, I had convinced them that, evil eye or no evil eye, the +property and the trust of my owners were better in my hands than in the +river Danube. They had, mind ye, taken the box on the deck ready to +fling in, and as it was marked Galatz _via_ Varna, I thocht I'd let it +lie till we discharged in the port an' get rid o't althegither. We +didn't do much clearin' that day, an' had to remain the nicht at anchor; +but in the mornin', braw an' airly, an hour before sun-up, a man came +aboard wi' an order, written to him from England, to receive a box +marked for one Count Dracula. Sure eneuch the matter was one ready to +his hand. He had his papers a' reet, an' glad I was to be rid o' the +dam' thing, for I was beginnin' masel' to feel uneasy at it. If the Deil +did have any luggage aboord the ship, I'm thinkin' it was nane ither +than that same!" + +"What was the name of the man who took it?" asked Dr. Van Helsing with +restrained eagerness. + +"I'll be tellin' ye quick!" he answered, and, stepping down to his +cabin, produced a receipt signed "Immanuel Hildesheim." Burgen-strasse +16 was the address. We found out that this was all the Captain knew; so +with thanks we came away. + +We found Hildesheim in his office, a Hebrew of rather the Adelphi +Theatre type, with a nose like a sheep, and a fez. His arguments were +pointed with specie--we doing the punctuation--and with a little +bargaining he told us what he knew. This turned out to be simple but +important. He had received a letter from Mr. de Ville of London, telling +him to receive, if possible before sunrise so as to avoid customs, a box +which would arrive at Galatz in the _Czarina Catherine_. This he was to +give in charge to a certain Petrof Skinsky, who dealt with the Slovaks +who traded down the river to the port. He had been paid for his work by +an English bank note, which had been duly cashed for gold at the Danube +International Bank. When Skinsky had come to him, he had taken him to +the ship and handed over the box, so as to save porterage. That was all +he knew. + +We then sought for Skinsky, but were unable to find him. One of his +neighbours, who did not seem to bear him any affection, said that he had +gone away two days before, no one knew whither. This was corroborated by +his landlord, who had received by messenger the key of the house +together with the rent due, in English money. This had been between ten +and eleven o'clock last night. We were at a standstill again. + +Whilst we were talking one came running and breathlessly gasped out that +the body of Skinsky had been found inside the wall of the churchyard of +St. Peter, and that the throat had been torn open as if by some wild +animal. Those we had been speaking with ran off to see the horror, the +women crying out "This is the work of a Slovak!" We hurried away lest we +should have been in some way drawn into the affair, and so detained. + +As we came home we could arrive at no definite conclusion. We were all +convinced that the box was on its way, by water, to somewhere; but where +that might be we would have to discover. With heavy hearts we came home +to the hotel to Mina. + +When we met together, the first thing was to consult as to taking Mina +again into our confidence. Things are getting desperate, and it is at +least a chance, though a hazardous one. As a preliminary step, I was +released from my promise to her. + + +_Mina Harker's Journal._ + +_30 October, evening._--They were so tired and worn out and dispirited +that there was nothing to be done till they had some rest; so I asked +them all to lie down for half an hour whilst I should enter everything +up to the moment. I feel so grateful to the man who invented the +"Traveller's" typewriter, and to Mr. Morris for getting this one for +me. I should have felt quite; astray doing the work if I had to write +with a pen.... + +It is all done; poor dear, dear Jonathan, what he must have suffered, +what must he be suffering now. He lies on the sofa hardly seeming to +breathe, and his whole body appears in collapse. His brows are knit; his +face is drawn with pain. Poor fellow, maybe he is thinking, and I can +see his face all wrinkled up with the concentration of his thoughts. Oh! +if I could only help at all.... I shall do what I can. + +I have asked Dr. Van Helsing, and he has got me all the papers that I +have not yet seen.... Whilst they are resting, I shall go over all +carefully, and perhaps I may arrive at some conclusion. I shall try to +follow the Professor's example, and think without prejudice on the facts +before me.... + + * * * * * + +I do believe that under God's providence I have made a discovery. I +shall get the maps and look over them.... + + * * * * * + +I am more than ever sure that I am right. My new conclusion is ready, so +I shall get our party together and read it. They can judge it; it is +well to be accurate, and every minute is precious. + + +_Mina Harker's Memorandum._ + +(Entered in her Journal.) + +_Ground of inquiry._--Count Dracula's problem is to get back to his own +place. + +(_a_) He must be _brought back_ by some one. This is evident; for had he +power to move himself as he wished he could go either as man, or wolf, +or bat, or in some other way. He evidently fears discovery or +interference, in the state of helplessness in which he must be--confined +as he is between dawn and sunset in his wooden box. + +(_b_) _How is he to be taken?_--Here a process of exclusions may help +us. By road, by rail, by water? + +1. _By Road._--There are endless difficulties, especially in leaving the +city. + +(_x_) There are people; and people are curious, and investigate. A hint, +a surmise, a doubt as to what might be in the box, would destroy him. + +(_y_) There are, or there may be, customs and octroi officers to pass. + +(_z_) His pursuers might follow. This is his highest fear; and in order +to prevent his being betrayed he has repelled, so far as he can, even +his victim--me! + +2. _By Rail._--There is no one in charge of the box. It would have to +take its chance of being delayed; and delay would be fatal, with enemies +on the track. True, he might escape at night; but what would he be, if +left in a strange place with no refuge that he could fly to? This is not +what he intends; and he does not mean to risk it. + +3. _By Water._--Here is the safest way, in one respect, but with most +danger in another. On the water he is powerless except at night; even +then he can only summon fog and storm and snow and his wolves. But were +he wrecked, the living water would engulf him, helpless; and he would +indeed be lost. He could have the vessel drive to land; but if it were +unfriendly land, wherein he was not free to move, his position would +still be desperate. + +We know from the record that he was on the water; so what we have to do +is to ascertain _what_ water. + +The first thing is to realise exactly what he has done as yet; we may, +then, get a light on what his later task is to be. + +_Firstly._--We must differentiate between what he did in London as part +of his general plan of action, when he was pressed for moments and had +to arrange as best he could. + +_Secondly_ we must see, as well as we can surmise it from the facts we +know of, what he has done here. + +As to the first, he evidently intended to arrive at Galatz, and sent +invoice to Varna to deceive us lest we should ascertain his means of +exit from England; his immediate and sole purpose then was to escape. +The proof of this, is the letter of instructions sent to Immanuel +Hildesheim to clear and take away the box _before sunrise_. There is +also the instruction to Petrof Skinsky. These we must only guess at; but +there must have been some letter or message, since Skinsky came to +Hildesheim. + +That, so far, his plans were successful we know. The _Czarina Catherine_ +made a phenomenally quick journey--so much so that Captain Donelson's +suspicions were aroused; but his superstition united with his canniness +played the Count's game for him, and he ran with his favouring wind +through fogs and all till he brought up blindfold at Galatz. That the +Count's arrangements were well made, has been proved. Hildesheim cleared +the box, took it off, and gave it to Skinsky. Skinsky took it--and here +we lose the trail. We only know that the box is somewhere on the water, +moving along. The customs and the octroi, if there be any, have been +avoided. + +Now we come to what the Count must have done after his arrival--_on +land_, at Galatz. + +The box was given to Skinsky before sunrise. At sunrise the Count could +appear in his own form. Here, we ask why Skinsky was chosen at all to +aid in the work? In my husband's diary, Skinsky is mentioned as dealing +with the Slovaks who trade down the river to the port; and the man's +remark, that the murder was the work of a Slovak, showed the general +feeling against his class. The Count wanted isolation. + +My surmise is, this: that in London the Count decided to get back to his +castle by water, as the most safe and secret way. He was brought from +the castle by Szgany, and probably they delivered their cargo to Slovaks +who took the boxes to Varna, for there they were shipped for London. +Thus the Count had knowledge of the persons who could arrange this +service. When the box was on land, before sunrise or after sunset, he +came out from his box, met Skinsky and instructed him what to do as to +arranging the carriage of the box up some river. When this was done, and +he knew that all was in train, he blotted out his traces, as he thought, +by murdering his agent. + +I have examined the map and find that the river most suitable for the +Slovaks to have ascended is either the Pruth or the Sereth. I read in +the typescript that in my trance I heard cows low and water swirling +level with my ears and the creaking of wood. The Count in his box, then, +was on a river in an open boat--propelled probably either by oars or +poles, for the banks are near and it is working against stream. There +would be no such sound if floating down stream. + +Of course it may not be either the Sereth or the Pruth, but we may +possibly investigate further. Now of these two, the Pruth is the more +easily navigated, but the Sereth is, at Fundu, joined by the Bistritza +which runs up round the Borgo Pass. The loop it makes is manifestly as +close to Dracula's castle as can be got by water. + + +_Mina Harker's Journal--continued._ + +When I had done reading, Jonathan took me in his arms and kissed me. The +others kept shaking me by both hands, and Dr. Van Helsing said:-- + +"Our dear Madam Mina is once more our teacher. Her eyes have been where +we were blinded. Now we are on the track once again, and this time we +may succeed. Our enemy is at his most helpless; and if we can come on +him by day, on the water, our task will be over. He has a start, but he +is powerless to hasten, as he may not leave his box lest those who carry +him may suspect; for them to suspect would be to prompt them to throw +him in the stream where he perish. This he knows, and will not. Now men, +to our Council of War; for, here and now, we must plan what each and all +shall do." + +"I shall get a steam launch and follow him," said Lord Godalming. + +"And I, horses to follow on the bank lest by chance he land," said Mr. +Morris. + +"Good!" said the Professor, "both good. But neither must go alone. There +must be force to overcome force if need be; the Slovak is strong and +rough, and he carries rude arms." All the men smiled, for amongst them +they carried a small arsenal. Said Mr. Morris:-- + +"I have brought some Winchesters; they are pretty handy in a crowd, and +there may be wolves. The Count, if you remember, took some other +precautions; he made some requisitions on others that Mrs. Harker could +not quite hear or understand. We must be ready at all points." Dr. +Seward said:-- + +"I think I had better go with Quincey. We have been accustomed to hunt +together, and we two, well armed, will be a match for whatever may come +along. You must not be alone, Art. It may be necessary to fight the +Slovaks, and a chance thrust--for I don't suppose these fellows carry +guns--would undo all our plans. There must be no chances, this time; we +shall, not rest until the Count's head and body have been separated, and +we are sure that he cannot re-incarnate." He looked at Jonathan as he +spoke, and Jonathan looked at me. I could see that the poor dear was +torn about in his mind. Of course he wanted to be with me; but then the +boat service would, most likely, be the one which would destroy the ... +the ... the ... Vampire. (Why did I hesitate to write the word?) He was +silent awhile, and during his silence Dr. Van Helsing spoke:-- + +"Friend Jonathan, this is to you for twice reasons. First, because you +are young and brave and can fight, and all energies may be needed at the +last; and again that it is your right to destroy him--that--which has +wrought such woe to you and yours. Be not afraid for Madam Mina; she +will be my care, if I may. I am old. My legs are not so quick to run as +once; and I am not used to ride so long or to pursue as need be, or to +fight with lethal weapons. But I can be of other service; I can fight in +other way. And I can die, if need be, as well as younger men. Now let +me say that what I would is this: while you, my Lord Godalming and +friend Jonathan go in your so swift little steamboat up the river, and +whilst John and Quincey guard the bank where perchance he might be +landed, I will take Madam Mina right into the heart of the enemy's +country. Whilst the old fox is tied in his box, floating on the running +stream whence he cannot escape to land--where he dares not raise the lid +of his coffin-box lest his Slovak carriers should in fear leave him to +perish--we shall go in the track where Jonathan went,--from Bistritz +over the Borgo, and find our way to the Castle of Dracula. Here, Madam +Mina's hypnotic power will surely help, and we shall find our way--all +dark and unknown otherwise--after the first sunrise when we are near +that fateful place. There is much to be done, and other places to be +made sanctify, so that that nest of vipers be obliterated." Here +Jonathan interrupted him hotly:-- + +"Do you mean to say, Professor Van Helsing, that you would bring Mina, +in her sad case and tainted as she is with that devil's illness, right +into the jaws of his death-trap? Not for the world! Not for Heaven or +Hell!" He became almost speechless for a minute, and then went on:-- + +"Do you know what the place is? Have you seen that awful den of hellish +infamy--with the very moonlight alive with grisly shapes, and every +speck of dust that whirls in the wind a devouring monster in embryo? +Have you felt the Vampire's lips upon your throat?" Here he turned to +me, and as his eyes lit on my forehead he threw up his arms with a cry: +"Oh, my God, what have we done to have this terror upon us!" and he sank +down on the sofa in a collapse of misery. The Professor's voice, as he +spoke in clear, sweet tones, which seemed to vibrate in the air, calmed +us all:-- + +"Oh, my friend, it is because I would save Madam Mina from that awful +place that I would go. God forbid that I should take her into that +place. There is work--wild work--to be done there, that her eyes may not +see. We men here, all save Jonathan, have seen with their own eyes what +is to be done before that place can be purify. Remember that we are in +terrible straits. If the Count escape us this time--and he is strong and +subtle and cunning--he may choose to sleep him for a century, and then +in time our dear one"--he took my hand--"would come to him to keep him +company, and would be as those others that you, Jonathan, saw. You have +told us of their gloating lips; you heard their ribald laugh as they +clutched the moving bag that the Count threw to them. You shudder; and +well may it be. Forgive me that I make you so much pain, but it is +necessary. My friend, is it not a dire need for the which I am giving, +possibly my life? If it were that any one went into that place to stay, +it is I who would have to go to keep them company." + +"Do as you will," said Jonathan, with a sob that shook him all over, "we +are in the hands of God!" + + * * * * * + +_Later._--Oh, it did me good to see the way that these brave men worked. +How can women help loving men when they are so earnest, and so true, and +so brave! And, too, it made me think of the wonderful power of money! +What can it not do when it is properly applied; and what might it do +when basely used. I felt so thankful that Lord Godalming is rich, and +that both he and Mr. Morris, who also has plenty of money, are willing +to spend it so freely. For if they did not, our little expedition could +not start, either so promptly or so well equipped, as it will within +another hour. It is not three hours since it was arranged what part each +of us was to do; and now Lord Godalming and Jonathan have a lovely steam +launch, with steam up ready to start at a moment's notice. Dr. Seward +and Mr. Morris have half a dozen good horses, well appointed. We have +all the maps and appliances of various kinds that can be had. Professor +Van Helsing and I are to leave by the 11:40 train to-night for Veresti, +where we are to get a carriage to drive to the Borgo Pass. We are +bringing a good deal of ready money, as we are to buy a carriage and +horses. We shall drive ourselves, for we have no one whom we can trust +in the matter. The Professor knows something of a great many languages, +so we shall get on all right. We have all got arms, even for me a +large-bore revolver; Jonathan would not be happy unless I was armed like +the rest. Alas! I cannot carry one arm that the rest do; the scar on my +forehead forbids that. Dear Dr. Van Helsing comforts me by telling me +that I am fully armed as there may be wolves; the weather is getting +colder every hour, and there are snow-flurries which come and go as +warnings. + + * * * * * + +_Later._--It took all my courage to say good-bye to my darling. We may +never meet again. Courage, Mina! the Professor is looking at you keenly; +his look is a warning. There must be no tears now--unless it may be that +God will let them fall in gladness. + + +_Jonathan Harker's Journal._ + +_October 30. Night._--I am writing this in the light from the furnace +door of the steam launch: Lord Godalming is firing up. He is an +experienced hand at the work, as he has had for years a launch of his +own on the Thames, and another on the Norfolk Broads. Regarding our +plans, we finally decided that Mina's guess was correct, and that if any +waterway was chosen for the Count's escape back to his Castle, the +Sereth and then the Bistritza at its junction, would be the one. We took +it, that somewhere about the 47th degree, north latitude, would be the +place chosen for the crossing the country between the river and the +Carpathians. We have no fear in running at good speed up the river at +night; there is plenty of water, and the banks are wide enough apart to +make steaming, even in the dark, easy enough. Lord Godalming tells me to +sleep for a while, as it is enough for the present for one to be on +watch. But I cannot sleep--how can I with the terrible danger hanging +over my darling, and her going out into that awful place.... My only +comfort is that we are in the hands of God. Only for that faith it would +be easier to die than to live, and so be quit of all the trouble. Mr. +Morris and Dr. Seward were off on their long ride before we started; +they are to keep up the right bank, far enough off to get on higher +lands where they can see a good stretch of river and avoid the following +of its curves. They have, for the first stages, two men to ride and lead +their spare horses--four in all, so as not to excite curiosity. When +they dismiss the men, which shall be shortly, they shall themselves look +after the horses. It may be necessary for us to join forces; if so they +can mount our whole party. One of the saddles has a movable horn, and +can be easily adapted for Mina, if required. + +It is a wild adventure we are on. Here, as we are rushing along through +the darkness, with the cold from the river seeming to rise up and strike +us; with all the mysterious voices of the night around us, it all comes +home. We seem to be drifting into unknown places and unknown ways; into +a whole world of dark and dreadful things. Godalming is shutting the +furnace door.... + + * * * * * + +_31 October._--Still hurrying along. The day has come, and Godalming is +sleeping. I am on watch. The morning is bitterly cold; the furnace heat +is grateful, though we have heavy fur coats. As yet we have passed only +a few open boats, but none of them had on board any box or package of +anything like the size of the one we seek. The men were scared every +time we turned our electric lamp on them, and fell on their knees and +prayed. + + * * * * * + +_1 November, evening._--No news all day; we have found nothing of the +kind we seek. We have now passed into the Bistritza; and if we are wrong +in our surmise our chance is gone. We have over-hauled every boat, big +and little. Early this morning, one crew took us for a Government boat, +and treated us accordingly. We saw in this a way of smoothing matters, +so at Fundu, where the Bistritza runs into the Sereth, we got a +Roumanian flag which we now fly conspicuously. With every boat which we +have over-hauled since then this trick has succeeded; we have had every +deference shown to us, and not once any objection to whatever we chose +to ask or do. Some of the Slovaks tell us that a big boat passed them, +going at more than usual speed as she had a double crew on board. This +was before they came to Fundu, so they could not tell us whether the +boat turned into the Bistritza or continued on up the Sereth. At Fundu +we could not hear of any such boat, so she must have passed there in the +night. I am feeling very sleepy; the cold is perhaps beginning to tell +upon me, and nature must have rest some time. Godalming insists that he +shall keep the first watch. God bless him for all his goodness to poor +dear Mina and me. + + * * * * * + +_2 November, morning._--It is broad daylight. That good fellow would not +wake me. He says it would have been a sin to, for I slept peacefully and +was forgetting my trouble. It seems brutally selfish to me to have slept +so long, and let him watch all night; but he was quite right. I am a new +man this morning; and, as I sit here and watch him sleeping, I can do +all that is necessary both as to minding the engine, steering, and +keeping watch. I can feel that my strength and energy are coming back to +me. I wonder where Mina is now, and Van Helsing. They should have got to +Veresti about noon on Wednesday. It would take them some time to get the +carriage and horses; so if they had started and travelled hard, they +would be about now at the Borgo Pass. God guide and help them! I am +afraid to think what may happen. If we could only go faster! but we +cannot; the engines are throbbing and doing their utmost. I wonder how +Dr. Seward and Mr. Morris are getting on. There seem to be endless +streams running down the mountains into this river, but as none of them +are very large--at present, at all events, though they are terrible +doubtless in winter and when the snow melts--the horsemen may not have +met much obstruction. I hope that before we get to Strasba we may see +them; for if by that time we have not overtaken the Count, it may be +necessary to take counsel together what to do next. + + +_Dr. Seward's Diary._ + +_2 November._--Three days on the road. No news, and no time to write it +if there had been, for every moment is precious. We have had only the +rest needful for the horses; but we are both bearing it wonderfully. +Those adventurous days of ours are turning up useful. We must push on; +we shall never feel happy till we get the launch in sight again. + + * * * * * + +_3 November._--We heard at Fundu that the launch had gone up the +Bistritza. I wish it wasn't so cold. There are signs of snow coming; and +if it falls heavy it will stop us. In such case we must get a sledge and +go on, Russian fashion. + + * * * * * + +_4 November._--To-day we heard of the launch having been detained by an +accident when trying to force a way up the rapids. The Slovak boats get +up all right, by aid of a rope and steering with knowledge. Some went up +only a few hours before. Godalming is an amateur fitter himself, and +evidently it was he who put the launch in trim again. Finally, they got +up the rapids all right, with local help, and are off on the chase +afresh. I fear that the boat is not any better for the accident; the +peasantry tell us that after she got upon smooth water again, she kept +stopping every now and again so long as she was in sight. We must push +on harder than ever; our help may be wanted soon. + + +_Mina Harker's Journal._ + +_31 October._--Arrived at Veresti at noon. The Professor tells me that +this morning at dawn he could hardly hypnotise me at all, and that all I +could say was: "dark and quiet." He is off now buying a carriage and +horses. He says that he will later on try to buy additional horses, so +that we may be able to change them on the way. We have something more +than 70 miles before us. The country is lovely, and most interesting; if +only we were under different conditions, how delightful it would be to +see it all. If Jonathan and I were driving through it alone what a +pleasure it would be. To stop and see people, and learn something of +their life, and to fill our minds and memories with all the colour and +picturesqueness of the whole wild, beautiful country and the quaint +people! But, alas!-- + + * * * * * + +_Later._--Dr. Van Helsing has returned. He has got the carriage and +horses; we are to have some dinner, and to start in an hour. The +landlady is putting us up a huge basket of provisions; it seems enough +for a company of soldiers. The Professor encourages her, and whispers to +me that it may be a week before we can get any good food again. He has +been shopping too, and has sent home such a wonderful lot of fur coats +and wraps, and all sorts of warm things. There will not be any chance of +our being cold. + + * * * * * + +We shall soon be off. I am afraid to think what may happen to us. We are +truly in the hands of God. He alone knows what may be, and I pray Him, +with all the strength of my sad and humble soul, that He will watch over +my beloved husband; that whatever may happen, Jonathan may know that I +loved him and honoured him more than I can say, and that my latest and +truest thought will be always for him. + + + + +CHAPTER XXVII + +MINA HARKER'S JOURNAL + + +_1 November._--All day long we have travelled, and at a good speed. The +horses seem to know that they are being kindly treated, for they go +willingly their full stage at best speed. We have now had so many +changes and find the same thing so constantly that we are encouraged to +think that the journey will be an easy one. Dr. Van Helsing is laconic; +he tells the farmers that he is hurrying to Bistritz, and pays them well +to make the exchange of horses. We get hot soup, or coffee, or tea; and +off we go. It is a lovely country; full of beauties of all imaginable +kinds, and the people are brave, and strong, and simple, and seem full +of nice qualities. They are _very, very_ superstitious. In the first +house where we stopped, when the woman who served us saw the scar on my +forehead, she crossed herself and put out two fingers towards me, to +keep off the evil eye. I believe they went to the trouble of putting an +extra amount of garlic into our food; and I can't abide garlic. Ever +since then I have taken care not to take off my hat or veil, and so have +escaped their suspicions. We are travelling fast, and as we have no +driver with us to carry tales, we go ahead of scandal; but I daresay +that fear of the evil eye will follow hard behind us all the way. The +Professor seems tireless; all day he would not take any rest, though he +made me sleep for a long spell. At sunset time he hypnotised me, and he +says that I answered as usual "darkness, lapping water and creaking +wood"; so our enemy is still on the river. I am afraid to think of +Jonathan, but somehow I have now no fear for him, or for myself. I write +this whilst we wait in a farmhouse for the horses to be got ready. Dr. +Van Helsing is sleeping, Poor dear, he looks very tired and old and +grey, but his mouth is set as firmly as a conqueror's; even in his sleep +he is instinct with resolution. When we have well started I must make +him rest whilst I drive. I shall tell him that we have days before us, +and we must not break down when most of all his strength will be +needed.... All is ready; we are off shortly. + + * * * * * + +_2 November, morning._--I was successful, and we took turns driving all +night; now the day is on us, bright though cold. There is a strange +heaviness in the air--I say heaviness for want of a better word; I mean +that it oppresses us both. It is very cold, and only our warm furs keep +us comfortable. At dawn Van Helsing hypnotised me; he says I answered +"darkness, creaking wood and roaring water," so the river is changing as +they ascend. I do hope that my darling will not run any chance of +danger--more than need be; but we are in God's hands. + + * * * * * + +_2 November, night._--All day long driving. The country gets wilder as +we go, and the great spurs of the Carpathians, which at Veresti seemed +so far from us and so low on the horizon, now seem to gather round us +and tower in front. We both seem in good spirits; I think we make an +effort each to cheer the other; in the doing so we cheer ourselves. Dr. +Van Helsing says that by morning we shall reach the Borgo Pass. The +houses are very few here now, and the Professor says that the last horse +we got will have to go on with us, as we may not be able to change. He +got two in addition to the two we changed, so that now we have a rude +four-in-hand. The dear horses are patient and good, and they give us no +trouble. We are not worried with other travellers, and so even I can +drive. We shall get to the Pass in daylight; we do not want to arrive +before. So we take it easy, and have each a long rest in turn. Oh, what +will to-morrow bring to us? We go to seek the place where my poor +darling suffered so much. God grant that we may be guided aright, and +that He will deign to watch over my husband and those dear to us both, +and who are in such deadly peril. As for me, I am not worthy in His +sight. Alas! I am unclean to His eyes, and shall be until He may deign +to let me stand forth in His sight as one of those who have not incurred +His wrath. + + +_Memorandum by Abraham Van Helsing._ + +_4 November._--This to my old and true friend John Seward, M.D., of +Purfleet, London, in case I may not see him. It may explain. It is +morning, and I write by a fire which all the night I have kept +alive--Madam Mina aiding me. It is cold, cold; so cold that the grey +heavy sky is full of snow, which when it falls will settle for all +winter as the ground is hardening to receive it. It seems to have +affected Madam Mina; she has been so heavy of head all day that she was +not like herself. She sleeps, and sleeps, and sleeps! She who is usual +so alert, have done literally nothing all the day; she even have lost +her appetite. She make no entry into her little diary, she who write so +faithful at every pause. Something whisper to me that all is not well. +However, to-night she is more _vif_. Her long sleep all day have refresh +and restore her, for now she is all sweet and bright as ever. At sunset +I try to hypnotise her, but alas! with no effect; the power has grown +less and less with each day, and to-night it fail me altogether. Well, +God's will be done--whatever it may be, and whithersoever it may lead! + +Now to the historical, for as Madam Mina write not in her stenography, I +must, in my cumbrous old fashion, that so each day of us may not go +unrecorded. + +We got to the Borgo Pass just after sunrise yesterday morning. When I +saw the signs of the dawn I got ready for the hypnotism. We stopped our +carriage, and got down so that there might be no disturbance. I made a +couch with furs, and Madam Mina, lying down, yield herself as usual, but +more slow and more short time than ever, to the hypnotic sleep. As +before, came the answer: "darkness and the swirling of water." Then she +woke, bright and radiant and we go on our way and soon reach the Pass. +At this time and place, she become all on fire with zeal; some new +guiding power be in her manifested, for she point to a road and say:-- + +"This is the way." + +"How know you it?" I ask. + +"Of course I know it," she answer, and with a pause, add: "Have not my +Jonathan travelled it and wrote of his travel?" + +At first I think somewhat strange, but soon I see that there be only one +such by-road. It is used but little, and very different from the coach +road from the Bukovina to Bistritz, which is more wide and hard, and +more of use. + +So we came down this road; when we meet other ways--not always were we +sure that they were roads at all, for they be neglect and light snow +have fallen--the horses know and they only. I give rein to them, and +they go on so patient. By-and-by we find all the things which Jonathan +have note in that wonderful diary of him. Then we go on for long, long +hours and hours. At the first, I tell Madam Mina to sleep; she try, and +she succeed. She sleep all the time; till at the last, I feel myself to +suspicious grow, and attempt to wake her. But she sleep on, and I may +not wake her though I try. I do not wish to try too hard lest I harm +her; for I know that she have suffer much, and sleep at times be +all-in-all to her. I think I drowse myself, for all of sudden I feel +guilt, as though I have done something; I find myself bolt up, with the +reins in my hand, and the good horses go along jog, jog, just as ever. I +look down and find Madam Mina still sleep. It is now not far off sunset +time, and over the snow the light of the sun flow in big yellow flood, +so that we throw great long shadow on where the mountain rise so steep. +For we are going up, and up; and all is oh! so wild and rocky, as though +it were the end of the world. + +Then I arouse Madam Mina. This time she wake with not much trouble, and +then I try to put her to hypnotic sleep. But she sleep not, being as +though I were not. Still I try and try, till all at once I find her and +myself in dark; so I look round, and find that the sun have gone down. +Madam Mina laugh, and I turn and look at her. She is now quite awake, +and look so well as I never saw her since that night at Carfax when we +first enter the Count's house. I am amaze, and not at ease then; but she +is so bright and tender and thoughtful for me that I forget all fear. I +light a fire, for we have brought supply of wood with us, and she +prepare food while I undo the horses and set them, tethered in shelter, +to feed. Then when I return to the fire she have my supper ready. I go +to help her; but she smile, and tell me that she have eat already--that +she was so hungry that she would not wait. I like it not, and I have +grave doubts; but I fear to affright her, and so I am silent of it. She +help me and I eat alone; and then we wrap in fur and lie beside the +fire, and I tell her to sleep while I watch. But presently I forget all +of watching; and when I sudden remember that I watch, I find her lying +quiet, but awake, and looking at me with so bright eyes. Once, twice +more the same occur, and I get much sleep till before morning. When I +wake I try to hypnotise her; but alas! though she shut her eyes +obedient, she may not sleep. The sun rise up, and up, and up; and then +sleep come to her too late, but so heavy that she will not wake. I have +to lift her up, and place her sleeping in the carriage when I have +harnessed the horses and made all ready. Madam still sleep, and she look +in her sleep more healthy and more redder than before. And I like it +not. And I am afraid, afraid, afraid!--I am afraid of all things--even +to think but I must go on my way. The stake we play for is life and +death, or more than these, and we must not flinch. + + * * * * * + +_5 November, morning._--Let me be accurate in everything, for though you +and I have seen some strange things together, you may at the first think +that I, Van Helsing, am mad--that the many horrors and the so long +strain on nerves has at the last turn my brain. + +All yesterday we travel, ever getting closer to the mountains, and +moving into a more and more wild and desert land. There are great, +frowning precipices and much falling water, and Nature seem to have held +sometime her carnival. Madam Mina still sleep and sleep; and though I +did have hunger and appeased it, I could not waken her--even for food. I +began to fear that the fatal spell of the place was upon her, tainted as +she is with that Vampire baptism. "Well," said I to myself, "if it be +that she sleep all the day, it shall also be that I do not sleep at +night." As we travel on the rough road, for a road of an ancient and +imperfect kind there was, I held down my head and slept. Again I waked +with a sense of guilt and of time passed, and found Madam Mina still +sleeping, and the sun low down. But all was indeed changed; the frowning +mountains seemed further away, and we were near the top of a +steep-rising hill, on summit of which was such a castle as Jonathan tell +of in his diary. At once I exulted and feared; for now, for good or ill, +the end was near. + +I woke Madam Mina, and again tried to hypnotise her; but alas! +unavailing till too late. Then, ere the great dark came upon us--for +even after down-sun the heavens reflected the gone sun on the snow, and +all was for a time in a great twilight--I took out the horses and fed +them in what shelter I could. Then I make a fire; and near it I make +Madam Mina, now awake and more charming than ever, sit comfortable amid +her rugs. I got ready food: but she would not eat, simply saying that +she had not hunger. I did not press her, knowing her unavailingness. But +I myself eat, for I must needs now be strong for all. Then, with the +fear on me of what might be, I drew a ring so big for her comfort, round +where Madam Mina sat; and over the ring I passed some of the wafer, and +I broke it fine so that all was well guarded. She sat still all the +time--so still as one dead; and she grew whiter and ever whiter till the +snow was not more pale; and no word she said. But when I drew near, she +clung to me, and I could know that the poor soul shook her from head to +feet with a tremor that was pain to feel. I said to her presently, when +she had grown more quiet:-- + +"Will you not come over to the fire?" for I wished to make a test of +what she could. She rose obedient, but when she have made a step she +stopped, and stood as one stricken. + +"Why not go on?" I asked. She shook her head, and, coming back, sat +down in her place. Then, looking at me with open eyes, as of one waked +from sleep, she said simply:-- + +"I cannot!" and remained silent. I rejoiced, for I knew that what she +could not, none of those that we dreaded could. Though there might be +danger to her body, yet her soul was safe! + +Presently the horses began to scream, and tore at their tethers till I +came to them and quieted them. When they did feel my hands on them, they +whinnied low as in joy, and licked at my hands and were quiet for a +time. Many times through the night did I come to them, till it arrive to +the cold hour when all nature is at lowest; and every time my coming was +with quiet of them. In the cold hour the fire began to die, and I was +about stepping forth to replenish it, for now the snow came in flying +sweeps and with it a chill mist. Even in the dark there was a light of +some kind, as there ever is over snow; and it seemed as though the +snow-flurries and the wreaths of mist took shape as of women with +trailing garments. All was in dead, grim silence only that the horses +whinnied and cowered, as if in terror of the worst. I began to +fear--horrible fears; but then came to me the sense of safety in that +ring wherein I stood. I began, too, to think that my imaginings were of +the night, and the gloom, and the unrest that I have gone through, and +all the terrible anxiety. It was as though my memories of all Jonathan's +horrid experience were befooling me; for the snow flakes and the mist +began to wheel and circle round, till I could get as though a shadowy +glimpse of those women that would have kissed him. And then the horses +cowered lower and lower, and moaned in terror as men do in pain. Even +the madness of fright was not to them, so that they could break away. I +feared for my dear Madam Mina when these weird figures drew near and +circled round. I looked at her, but she sat calm, and smiled at me; when +I would have stepped to the fire to replenish it, she caught me and held +me back, and whispered, like a voice that one hears in a dream, so low +it was:-- + +"No! No! Do not go without. Here you are safe!" I turned to her, and +looking in her eyes, said:-- + +"But you? It is for you that I fear!" whereat she laughed--a laugh, low +and unreal, and said:-- + +"Fear for _me_! Why fear for me? None safer in all the world from them +than I am," and as I wondered at the meaning of her words, a puff of +wind made the flame leap up, and I see the red scar on her forehead. +Then, alas! I knew. Did I not, I would soon have learned, for the +wheeling figures of mist and snow came closer, but keeping ever without +the Holy circle. Then they began to materialise till--if God have not +take away my reason, for I saw it through my eyes--there were before me +in actual flesh the same three women that Jonathan saw in the room, when +they would have kissed his throat. I knew the swaying round forms, the +bright hard eyes, the white teeth, the ruddy colour, the voluptuous +lips. They smiled ever at poor dear Madam Mina; and as their laugh came +through the silence of the night, they twined their arms and pointed to +her, and said in those so sweet tingling tones that Jonathan said were +of the intolerable sweetness of the water-glasses:-- + +"Come, sister. Come to us. Come! Come!" In fear I turned to my poor +Madam Mina, and my heart with gladness leapt like flame; for oh! the +terror in her sweet eyes, the repulsion, the horror, told a story to my +heart that was all of hope. God be thanked she was not, yet, of them. I +seized some of the firewood which was by me, and holding out some of the +Wafer, advanced on them towards the fire. They drew back before me, and +laughed their low horrid laugh. I fed the fire, and feared them not; for +I knew that we were safe within our protections. They could not +approach, me, whilst so armed, nor Madam Mina whilst she remained within +the ring, which she could not leave no more than they could enter. The +horses had ceased to moan, and lay still on the ground; the snow fell on +them softly, and they grew whiter. I knew that there was for the poor +beasts no more of terror. + +And so we remained till the red of the dawn to fall through the +snow-gloom. I was desolate and afraid, and full of woe and terror; but +when that beautiful sun began to climb the horizon life was to me again. +At the first coming of the dawn the horrid figures melted in the +whirling mist and snow; the wreaths of transparent gloom moved away +towards the castle, and were lost. + +Instinctively, with the dawn coming, I turned to Madam Mina, intending +to hypnotise her; but she lay in a deep and sudden sleep, from which I +could not wake her. I tried to hypnotise through her sleep, but she made +no response, none at all; and the day broke. I fear yet to stir. I have +made my fire and have seen the horses, they are all dead. To-day I have +much to do here, and I keep waiting till the sun is up high; for there +may be places where I must go, where that sunlight, though snow and mist +obscure it, will be to me a safety. + +I will strengthen me with breakfast, and then I will to my terrible +work. Madam Mina still sleeps; and, God be thanked! she is calm in her +sleep.... + + +_Jonathan Harker's Journal._ + +_4 November, evening._--The accident to the launch has been a terrible +thing for us. Only for it we should have overtaken the boat long ago; +and by now my dear Mina would have been free. I fear to think of her, +off on the wolds near that horrid place. We have got horses, and we +follow on the track. I note this whilst Godalming is getting ready. We +have our arms. The Szgany must look out if they mean fight. Oh, if only +Morris and Seward were with us. We must only hope! If I write no more +Good-bye, Mina! God bless and keep you. + + +_Dr. Seward's Diary._ + +_5 November._--With the dawn we saw the body of Szgany before us dashing +away from the river with their leiter-wagon. They surrounded it in a +cluster, and hurried along as though beset. The snow is falling lightly +and there is a strange excitement in the air. It may be our own +feelings, but the depression is strange. Far off I hear the howling of +wolves; the snow brings them down from the mountains, and there are +dangers to all of us, and from all sides. The horses are nearly ready, +and we are soon off. We ride to death of some one. God alone knows who, +or where, or what, or when, or how it may be.... + + +_Dr. Van Helsing's Memorandum._ + +_5 November, afternoon._--I am at least sane. Thank God for that mercy +at all events, though the proving it has been dreadful. When I left +Madam Mina sleeping within the Holy circle, I took my way to the castle. +The blacksmith hammer which I took in the carriage from Veresti was +useful; though the doors were all open I broke them off the rusty +hinges, lest some ill-intent or ill-chance should close them, so that +being entered I might not get out. Jonathan's bitter experience served +me here. By memory of his diary I found my way to the old chapel, for I +knew that here my work lay. The air was oppressive; it seemed as if +there was some sulphurous fume, which at times made me dizzy. Either +there was a roaring in my ears or I heard afar off the howl of wolves. +Then I bethought me of my dear Madam Mina, and I was in terrible plight. +The dilemma had me between his horns. + +Her, I had not dare to take into this place, but left safe from the +Vampire in that Holy circle; and yet even there would be the wolf! I +resolve me that my work lay here, and that as to the wolves we must +submit, if it were God's will. At any rate it was only death and +freedom beyond. So did I choose for her. Had it but been for myself the +choice had been easy, the maw of the wolf were better to rest in than +the grave of the Vampire! So I make my choice to go on with my work. + +I knew that there were at least three graves to find--graves that are +inhabit; so I search, and search, and I find one of them. She lay in her +Vampire sleep, so full of life and voluptuous beauty that I shudder as +though I have come to do murder. Ah, I doubt not that in old time, when +such things were, many a man who set forth to do such a task as mine, +found at the last his heart fail him, and then his nerve. So he delay, +and delay, and delay, till the mere beauty and the fascination of the +wanton Un-Dead have hypnotise him; and he remain on and on, till sunset +come, and the Vampire sleep be over. Then the beautiful eyes of the fair +woman open and look love, and the voluptuous mouth present to a +kiss--and man is weak. And there remain one more victim in the Vampire +fold; one more to swell the grim and grisly ranks of the Un-Dead!... + +There is some fascination, surely, when I am moved by the mere presence +of such an one, even lying as she lay in a tomb fretted with age and +heavy with the dust of centuries, though there be that horrid odour such +as the lairs of the Count have had. Yes, I was moved--I, Van Helsing, +with all my purpose and with my motive for hate--I was moved to a +yearning for delay which seemed to paralyse my faculties and to clog my +very soul. It may have been that the need of natural sleep, and the +strange oppression of the air were beginning to overcome me. Certain it +was that I was lapsing into sleep, the open-eyed sleep of one who yields +to a sweet fascination, when there came through the snow-stilled air a +long, low wail, so full of woe and pity that it woke me like the sound +of a clarion. For it was the voice of my dear Madam Mina that I heard. + +Then I braced myself again to my horrid task, and found by wrenching +away tomb-tops one other of the sisters, the other dark one. I dared not +pause to look on her as I had on her sister, lest once more I should +begin to be enthrall; but I go on searching until, presently, I find in +a high great tomb as if made to one much beloved that other fair sister +which, like Jonathan I had seen to gather herself out of the atoms of +the mist. She was so fair to look on, so radiantly beautiful, so +exquisitely voluptuous, that the very instinct of man in me, which calls +some of my sex to love and to protect one of hers, made my head whirl +with new emotion. But God be thanked, that soul-wail of my dear Madam +Mina had not died out of my ears; and, before the spell could be wrought +further upon me, I had nerved myself to my wild work. By this time I had +searched all the tombs in the chapel, so far as I could tell; and as +there had been only three of these Un-Dead phantoms around us in the +night, I took it that there were no more of active Un-Dead existent. +There was one great tomb more lordly than all the rest; huge it was, and +nobly proportioned. On it was but one word + + DRACULA. + +This then was the Un-Dead home of the King-Vampire, to whom so many more +were due. Its emptiness spoke eloquent to make certain what I knew. +Before I began to restore these women to their dead selves through my +awful work, I laid in Dracula's tomb some of the Wafer, and so banished +him from it, Un-Dead, for ever. + +Then began my terrible task, and I dreaded it. Had it been but one, it +had been easy, comparative. But three! To begin twice more after I had +been through a deed of horror; for if it was terrible with the sweet +Miss Lucy, what would it not be with these strange ones who had survived +through centuries, and who had been strengthened by the passing of the +years; who would, if they could, have fought for their foul lives.... + +Oh, my friend John, but it was butcher work; had I not been nerved by +thoughts of other dead, and of the living over whom hung such a pall of +fear, I could not have gone on. I tremble and tremble even yet, though +till all was over, God be thanked, my nerve did stand. Had I not seen +the repose in the first place, and the gladness that stole over it just +ere the final dissolution came, as realisation that the soul had been +won, I could not have gone further with my butchery. I could not have +endured the horrid screeching as the stake drove home; the plunging of +writhing form, and lips of bloody foam. I should have fled in terror and +left my work undone. But it is over! And the poor souls, I can pity them +now and weep, as I think of them placid each in her full sleep of death +for a short moment ere fading. For, friend John, hardly had my knife +severed the head of each, before the whole body began to melt away and +crumble in to its native dust, as though the death that should have come +centuries agone had at last assert himself and say at once and loud "I +am here!" + +Before I left the castle I so fixed its entrances that never more can +the Count enter there Un-Dead. + +When I stepped into the circle where Madam Mina slept, she woke from her +sleep, and, seeing, me, cried out in pain that I had endured too much. + +"Come!" she said, "come away from this awful place! Let us go to meet my +husband who is, I know, coming towards us." She was looking thin and +pale and weak; but her eyes were pure and glowed with fervour. I was +glad to see her paleness and her illness, for my mind was full of the +fresh horror of that ruddy vampire sleep. + +And so with trust and hope, and yet full of fear, we go eastward to meet +our friends--and _him_--whom Madam Mina tell me that she _know_ are +coming to meet us. + + +_Mina Harker's Journal._ + +_6 November._--It was late in the afternoon when the Professor and I +took our way towards the east whence I knew Jonathan was coming. We did +not go fast, though the way was steeply downhill, for we had to take +heavy rugs and wraps with us; we dared not face the possibility of being +left without warmth in the cold and the snow. We had to take some of our +provisions, too, for we were in a perfect desolation, and, so far as we +could see through the snowfall, there was not even the sign of +habitation. When we had gone about a mile, I was tired with the heavy +walking and sat down to rest. Then we looked back and saw where the +clear line of Dracula's castle cut the sky; for we were so deep under +the hill whereon it was set that the angle of perspective of the +Carpathian mountains was far below it. We saw it in all its grandeur, +perched a thousand feet on the summit of a sheer precipice, and with +seemingly a great gap between it and the steep of the adjacent mountain +on any side. There was something wild and uncanny about the place. We +could hear the distant howling of wolves. They were far off, but the +sound, even though coming muffled through the deadening snowfall, was +full of terror. I knew from the way Dr. Van Helsing was searching about +that he was trying to seek some strategic point, where we would be less +exposed in case of attack. The rough roadway still led downwards; we +could trace it through the drifted snow. + +In a little while the Professor signalled to me, so I got up and joined +him. He had found a wonderful spot, a sort of natural hollow in a rock, +with an entrance like a doorway between two boulders. He took me by the +hand and drew me in: "See!" he said, "here you will be in shelter; and +if the wolves do come I can meet them one by one." He brought in our +furs, and made a snug nest for me, and got out some provisions and +forced them upon me. But I could not eat; to even try to do so was +repulsive to me, and, much as I would have liked to please him, I could +not bring myself to the attempt. He looked very sad, but did not +reproach me. Taking his field-glasses from the case, he stood on the top +of the rock, and began to search the horizon. Suddenly he called out:-- + +"Look! Madam Mina, look! look!" I sprang up and stood beside him on the +rock; he handed me his glasses and pointed. The snow was now falling +more heavily, and swirled about fiercely, for a high wind was beginning +to blow. However, there were times when there were pauses between the +snow flurries and I could see a long way round. From the height where we +were it was possible to see a great distance; and far off, beyond the +white waste of snow, I could see the river lying like a black ribbon in +kinks and curls as it wound its way. Straight in front of us and not far +off--in fact, so near that I wondered we had not noticed before--came a +group of mounted men hurrying along. In the midst of them was a cart, a +long leiter-wagon which swept from side to side, like a dog's tail +wagging, with each stern inequality of the road. Outlined against the +snow as they were, I could see from the men's clothes that they were +peasants or gypsies of some kind. + +On the cart was a great square chest. My heart leaped as I saw it, for I +felt that the end was coming. The evening was now drawing close, and +well I knew that at sunset the Thing, which was till then imprisoned +there, would take new freedom and could in any of many forms elude all +pursuit. In fear I turned to the Professor; to my consternation, +however, he was not there. An instant later, I saw him below me. Round +the rock he had drawn a circle, such as we had found shelter in last +night. When he had completed it he stood beside me again, saying:-- + +"At least you shall be safe here from _him_!" He took the glasses from +me, and at the next lull of the snow swept the whole space below us. +"See," he said, "they come quickly; they are flogging the horses, and +galloping as hard as they can." He paused and went on in a hollow +voice:-- + +"They are racing for the sunset. We may be too late. God's will be +done!" Down came another blinding rush of driving snow, and the whole +landscape was blotted out. It soon passed, however, and once more his +glasses were fixed on the plain. Then came a sudden cry:-- + +"Look! Look! Look! See, two horsemen follow fast, coming up from the +south. It must be Quincey and John. Take the glass. Look before the snow +blots it all out!" I took it and looked. The two men might be Dr. Seward +and Mr. Morris. I knew at all events that neither of them was Jonathan. +At the same time I _knew_ that Jonathan was not far off; looking around +I saw on the north side of the coming party two other men, riding at +break-neck speed. One of them I knew was Jonathan, and the other I took, +of course, to be Lord Godalming. They, too, were pursuing the party with +the cart. When I told the Professor he shouted in glee like a schoolboy, +and, after looking intently till a snow fall made sight impossible, he +laid his Winchester rifle ready for use against the boulder at the +opening of our shelter. "They are all converging," he said. "When the +time comes we shall have gypsies on all sides." I got out my revolver +ready to hand, for whilst we were speaking the howling of wolves came +louder and closer. When the snow storm abated a moment we looked again. +It was strange to see the snow falling in such heavy flakes close to us, +and beyond, the sun shining more and more brightly as it sank down +towards the far mountain tops. Sweeping the glass all around us I could +see here and there dots moving singly and in twos and threes and larger +numbers--the wolves were gathering for their prey. + +Every instant seemed an age whilst we waited. The wind came now in +fierce bursts, and the snow was driven with fury as it swept upon us in +circling eddies. At times we could not see an arm's length before us; +but at others, as the hollow-sounding wind swept by us, it seemed to +clear the air-space around us so that we could see afar off. We had of +late been so accustomed to watch for sunrise and sunset, that we knew +with fair accuracy when it would be; and we knew that before long the +sun would set. It was hard to believe that by our watches it was less +than an hour that we waited in that rocky shelter before the various +bodies began to converge close upon us. The wind came now with fiercer +and more bitter sweeps, and more steadily from the north. It seemingly +had driven the snow clouds from us, for, with only occasional bursts, +the snow fell. We could distinguish clearly the individuals of each +party, the pursued and the pursuers. Strangely enough those pursued did +not seem to realise, or at least to care, that they were pursued; they +seemed, however, to hasten with redoubled speed as the sun dropped lower +and lower on the mountain tops. + +Closer and closer they drew. The Professor and I crouched down behind +our rock, and held our weapons ready; I could see that he was determined +that they should not pass. One and all were quite unaware of our +presence. + +All at once two voices shouted out to: "Halt!" One was my Jonathan's, +raised in a high key of passion; the other Mr. Morris' strong resolute +tone of quiet command. The gypsies may not have known the language, but +there was no mistaking the tone, in whatever tongue the words were +spoken. Instinctively they reined in, and at the instant Lord Godalming +and Jonathan dashed up at one side and Dr. Seward and Mr. Morris on the +other. The leader of the gypsies, a splendid-looking fellow who sat his +horse like a centaur, waved them back, and in a fierce voice gave to his +companions some word to proceed. They lashed the horses which sprang +forward; but the four men raised their Winchester rifles, and in an +unmistakable way commanded them to stop. At the same moment Dr. Van +Helsing and I rose behind the rock and pointed our weapons at them. +Seeing that they were surrounded the men tightened their reins and drew +up. The leader turned to them and gave a word at which every man of the +gypsy party drew what weapon he carried, knife or pistol, and held +himself in readiness to attack. Issue was joined in an instant. + +The leader, with a quick movement of his rein, threw his horse out in +front, and pointing first to the sun--now close down on the hill +tops--and then to the castle, said something which I did not understand. +For answer, all four men of our party threw themselves from their horses +and dashed towards the cart. I should have felt terrible fear at seeing +Jonathan in such danger, but that the ardour of battle must have been +upon me as well as the rest of them; I felt no fear, but only a wild, +surging desire to do something. Seeing the quick movement of our +parties, the leader of the gypsies gave a command; his men instantly +formed round the cart in a sort of undisciplined endeavour, each one +shouldering and pushing the other in his eagerness to carry out the +order. + +In the midst of this I could see that Jonathan on one side of the ring +of men, and Quincey on the other, were forcing a way to the cart; it was +evident that they were bent on finishing their task before the sun +should set. Nothing seemed to stop or even to hinder them. Neither the +levelled weapons nor the flashing knives of the gypsies in front, nor +the howling of the wolves behind, appeared to even attract their +attention. Jonathan's impetuosity, and the manifest singleness of his +purpose, seemed to overawe those in front of him; instinctively they +cowered, aside and let him pass. In an instant he had jumped upon the +cart, and, with a strength which seemed incredible, raised the great +box, and flung it over the wheel to the ground. In the meantime, Mr. +Morris had had to use force to pass through his side of the ring of +Szgany. All the time I had been breathlessly watching Jonathan I had, +with the tail of my eye, seen him pressing desperately forward, and had +seen the knives of the gypsies flash as he won a way through them, and +they cut at him. He had parried with his great bowie knife, and at first +I thought that he too had come through in safety; but as he sprang +beside Jonathan, who had by now jumped from the cart, I could see that +with his left hand he was clutching at his side, and that the blood was +spurting through his fingers. He did not delay notwithstanding this, for +as Jonathan, with desperate energy, attacked one end of the chest, +attempting to prize off the lid with his great Kukri knife, he attacked +the other frantically with his bowie. Under the efforts of both men the +lid began to yield; the nails drew with a quick screeching sound, and +the top of the box was thrown back. + +By this time the gypsies, seeing themselves covered by the Winchesters, +and at the mercy of Lord Godalming and Dr. Seward, had given in and made +no resistance. The sun was almost down on the mountain tops, and the +shadows of the whole group fell long upon the snow. I saw the Count +lying within the box upon the earth, some of which the rude falling from +the cart had scattered over him. He was deathly pale, just like a waxen +image, and the red eyes glared with the horrible vindictive look which I +knew too well. + +As I looked, the eyes saw the sinking sun, and the look of hate in them +turned to triumph. + +But, on the instant, came the sweep and flash of Jonathan's great knife. +I shrieked as I saw it shear through the throat; whilst at the same +moment Mr. Morris's bowie knife plunged into the heart. + +It was like a miracle; but before our very eyes, and almost in the +drawing of a breath, the whole body crumble into dust and passed from +our sight. + +I shall be glad as long as I live that even in that moment of final +dissolution, there was in the face a look of peace, such as I never +could have imagined might have rested there. + +The Castle of Dracula now stood out against the red sky, and every stone +of its broken battlements was articulated against the light of the +setting sun. + +The gypsies, taking us as in some way the cause of the extraordinary +disappearance of the dead man, turned, without a word, and rode away as +if for their lives. Those who were unmounted jumped upon the +leiter-wagon and shouted to the horsemen not to desert them. The wolves, +which had withdrawn to a safe distance, followed in their wake, leaving +us alone. + +Mr. Morris, who had sunk to the ground, leaned on his elbow, holding his +hand pressed to his side; the blood still gushed through his fingers. I +flew to him, for the Holy circle did not now keep me back; so did the +two doctors. Jonathan knelt behind him and the wounded man laid back his +head on his shoulder. With a sigh he took, with a feeble effort, my hand +in that of his own which was unstained. He must have seen the anguish of +my heart in my face, for he smiled at me and said:-- + +"I am only too happy to have been of any service! Oh, God!" he cried +suddenly, struggling up to a sitting posture and pointing to me, "It was +worth for this to die! Look! look!" + +The sun was now right down upon the mountain top, and the red gleams +fell upon my face, so that it was bathed in rosy light. With one impulse +the men sank on their knees and a deep and earnest "Amen" broke from all +as their eyes followed the pointing of his finger. The dying man +spoke:-- + +"Now God be thanked that all has not been in vain! See! the snow is not +more stainless than her forehead! The curse has passed away!" + +And, to our bitter grief, with a smile and in silence, he died, a +gallant gentleman. + + + + + NOTE + + +Seven years ago we all went through the flames; and the happiness of +some of us since then is, we think, well worth the pain we endured. It +is an added joy to Mina and to me that our boy's birthday is the same +day as that on which Quincey Morris died. His mother holds, I know, the +secret belief that some of our brave friend's spirit has passed into +him. His bundle of names links all our little band of men together; but +we call him Quincey. + +In the summer of this year we made a journey to Transylvania, and went +over the old ground which was, and is, to us so full of vivid and +terrible memories. It was almost impossible to believe that the things +which we had seen with our own eyes and heard with our own ears were +living truths. Every trace of all that had been was blotted out. The +castle stood as before, reared high above a waste of desolation. + +When we got home we were talking of the old time--which we could all +look back on without despair, for Godalming and Seward are both happily +married. I took the papers from the safe where they had been ever since +our return so long ago. We were struck with the fact, that in all the +mass of material of which the record is composed, there is hardly one +authentic document; nothing but a mass of typewriting, except the later +note-books of Mina and Seward and myself, and Van Helsing's memorandum. +We could hardly ask any one, even did we wish to, to accept these as +proofs of so wild a story. Van Helsing summed it all up as he said, with +our boy on his knee:-- + +"We want no proofs; we ask none to believe us! This boy will some day +know what a brave and gallant woman his mother is. Already he knows her +sweetness and loving care; later on he will understand how some men so +loved her, that they did dare much for her sake." + +JONATHAN HARKER. + + THE END + + * * * * * + + _There's More to Follow!_ + + More stories of the sort you like; more, probably, by the author of + this one; more than 500 titles all told by writers of world-wide + reputation, in the Authors' Alphabetical List which you will find + on the _reverse side_ of the wrapper of this book. Look it over + before you lay it aside. There are books here you are sure to + want--some, possibly, that you have _always_ wanted. + + It is a _selected_ list; every book in it has achieved a certain + measure of _success_. + + The Grosset & Dunlap list is not only the greatest Index of Good + Fiction available, it represents in addition a generally accepted + Standard of Value. It will pay you to + + _Look on the Other Side of the Wrapper!_ + + _In case the wrapper is lost write to the publishers for a complete + catalog_ + + * * * * * + +DETECTIVE STORIES BY J. S. FLETCHER + +May be had wherever books are sold. Ask for Grosset & Dunlap's list + + +THE SECRET OF THE BARBICAN + +THE ANNEXATION SOCIETY + +THE WOLVES AND THE LAMB + +GREEN INK + +THE KING versus WARGRAVE + +THE LOST MR. LINTHWAITE + +THE MILL OF MANY WINDOWS + +THE HEAVEN-KISSED HILL + +THE MIDDLE TEMPLE MURDER + +RAVENSDENE COURT + +THE RAYNER-SLADE AMALGAMATION + +THE SAFETY PIN + +THE SECRET WAY + +THE VALLEY OF HEADSTRONG MEN + +_Ask for Complete free list of G. & D. Popular Copyrighted Fiction_ + +GROSSET & DUNLAP, _Publishers_, NEW YORK + + * * * * * + +Typographical errors corrected by the etext transcriber: + +in a very simply way=> in a very simple way {pg 68} + +"The Westminister Gazette," 25 September.=> "The Westminster Gazette," +25 September. {pg 165} + +It have told him=> She must have told him {pg 169} + +from md sight=> from my sight {pg}184 + +Goldaming=> Godalming {pg 226} + +I I did not want to hinder him=> I did not want to hinder him {pg 267} + +They lay in a sort of or-orderly=> They lay in a sort of orderly {pg +279} + +Translyvania=> Transylvania {pg 294} + +this mrrning from Dardanelles=> this morning from Dardanelles {pg 313} + + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Dracula, by Bram Stoker + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK DRACULA *** + +***** This file should be named 345-8.txt or 345-8.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/3/4/345/ + +Produced by Chuck Greif and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was +produced from images generously made available by The +Internet Archive) + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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Thus, we do not necessarily +keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition. + + +Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility: + + http://www.gutenberg.org + +This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm, +including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary +Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to +subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks. diff --git a/src/main/pg-emma.txt b/src/main/pg-emma.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..dd1bca1 --- /dev/null +++ b/src/main/pg-emma.txt @@ -0,0 +1,16631 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Emma, by Jane Austen + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Emma + +Author: Jane Austen + +Release Date: August, 1994 [Etext #158] +Posting Date: January 21, 2010 + +Language: English + + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK EMMA *** + + + + +Produced by An Anonymous Volunteer + + + + + +EMMA + +By Jane Austen + + + + +VOLUME I + + + +CHAPTER I + + +Emma Woodhouse, handsome, clever, and rich, with a comfortable home +and happy disposition, seemed to unite some of the best blessings of +existence; and had lived nearly twenty-one years in the world with very +little to distress or vex her. + +She was the youngest of the two daughters of a most affectionate, +indulgent father; and had, in consequence of her sister's marriage, been +mistress of his house from a very early period. Her mother had died +too long ago for her to have more than an indistinct remembrance of +her caresses; and her place had been supplied by an excellent woman as +governess, who had fallen little short of a mother in affection. + +Sixteen years had Miss Taylor been in Mr. Woodhouse's family, less as a +governess than a friend, very fond of both daughters, but particularly +of Emma. Between _them_ it was more the intimacy of sisters. Even before +Miss Taylor had ceased to hold the nominal office of governess, the +mildness of her temper had hardly allowed her to impose any restraint; +and the shadow of authority being now long passed away, they had been +living together as friend and friend very mutually attached, and Emma +doing just what she liked; highly esteeming Miss Taylor's judgment, but +directed chiefly by her own. + +The real evils, indeed, of Emma's situation were the power of having +rather too much her own way, and a disposition to think a little too +well of herself; these were the disadvantages which threatened alloy to +her many enjoyments. The danger, however, was at present so unperceived, +that they did not by any means rank as misfortunes with her. + +Sorrow came--a gentle sorrow--but not at all in the shape of any +disagreeable consciousness.--Miss Taylor married. It was Miss Taylor's +loss which first brought grief. It was on the wedding-day of this +beloved friend that Emma first sat in mournful thought of any +continuance. The wedding over, and the bride-people gone, her father and +herself were left to dine together, with no prospect of a third to cheer +a long evening. Her father composed himself to sleep after dinner, as +usual, and she had then only to sit and think of what she had lost. + +The event had every promise of happiness for her friend. Mr. Weston +was a man of unexceptionable character, easy fortune, suitable age, and +pleasant manners; and there was some satisfaction in considering +with what self-denying, generous friendship she had always wished and +promoted the match; but it was a black morning's work for her. The want +of Miss Taylor would be felt every hour of every day. She recalled her +past kindness--the kindness, the affection of sixteen years--how she had +taught and how she had played with her from five years old--how she had +devoted all her powers to attach and amuse her in health--and how +nursed her through the various illnesses of childhood. A large debt of +gratitude was owing here; but the intercourse of the last seven +years, the equal footing and perfect unreserve which had soon followed +Isabella's marriage, on their being left to each other, was yet a +dearer, tenderer recollection. She had been a friend and companion such +as few possessed: intelligent, well-informed, useful, gentle, knowing +all the ways of the family, interested in all its concerns, and +peculiarly interested in herself, in every pleasure, every scheme of +hers--one to whom she could speak every thought as it arose, and who had +such an affection for her as could never find fault. + +How was she to bear the change?--It was true that her friend was going +only half a mile from them; but Emma was aware that great must be the +difference between a Mrs. Weston, only half a mile from them, and a Miss +Taylor in the house; and with all her advantages, natural and domestic, +she was now in great danger of suffering from intellectual solitude. She +dearly loved her father, but he was no companion for her. He could not +meet her in conversation, rational or playful. + +The evil of the actual disparity in their ages (and Mr. Woodhouse had +not married early) was much increased by his constitution and habits; +for having been a valetudinarian all his life, without activity of +mind or body, he was a much older man in ways than in years; and though +everywhere beloved for the friendliness of his heart and his amiable +temper, his talents could not have recommended him at any time. + +Her sister, though comparatively but little removed by matrimony, being +settled in London, only sixteen miles off, was much beyond her daily +reach; and many a long October and November evening must be struggled +through at Hartfield, before Christmas brought the next visit from +Isabella and her husband, and their little children, to fill the house, +and give her pleasant society again. + +Highbury, the large and populous village, almost amounting to a town, +to which Hartfield, in spite of its separate lawn, and shrubberies, and +name, did really belong, afforded her no equals. The Woodhouses +were first in consequence there. All looked up to them. She had many +acquaintance in the place, for her father was universally civil, but +not one among them who could be accepted in lieu of Miss Taylor for even +half a day. It was a melancholy change; and Emma could not but sigh over +it, and wish for impossible things, till her father awoke, and made it +necessary to be cheerful. His spirits required support. He was a nervous +man, easily depressed; fond of every body that he was used to, and +hating to part with them; hating change of every kind. Matrimony, as the +origin of change, was always disagreeable; and he was by no means yet +reconciled to his own daughter's marrying, nor could ever speak of her +but with compassion, though it had been entirely a match of affection, +when he was now obliged to part with Miss Taylor too; and from his +habits of gentle selfishness, and of being never able to suppose that +other people could feel differently from himself, he was very much +disposed to think Miss Taylor had done as sad a thing for herself as for +them, and would have been a great deal happier if she had spent all the +rest of her life at Hartfield. Emma smiled and chatted as cheerfully +as she could, to keep him from such thoughts; but when tea came, it was +impossible for him not to say exactly as he had said at dinner, + +"Poor Miss Taylor!--I wish she were here again. What a pity it is that +Mr. Weston ever thought of her!" + +"I cannot agree with you, papa; you know I cannot. Mr. Weston is such +a good-humoured, pleasant, excellent man, that he thoroughly deserves +a good wife;--and you would not have had Miss Taylor live with us for +ever, and bear all my odd humours, when she might have a house of her +own?" + +"A house of her own!--But where is the advantage of a house of her own? +This is three times as large.--And you have never any odd humours, my +dear." + +"How often we shall be going to see them, and they coming to see us!--We +shall be always meeting! _We_ must begin; we must go and pay wedding +visit very soon." + +"My dear, how am I to get so far? Randalls is such a distance. I could +not walk half so far." + +"No, papa, nobody thought of your walking. We must go in the carriage, +to be sure." + +"The carriage! But James will not like to put the horses to for such a +little way;--and where are the poor horses to be while we are paying our +visit?" + +"They are to be put into Mr. Weston's stable, papa. You know we have +settled all that already. We talked it all over with Mr. Weston last +night. And as for James, you may be very sure he will always like going +to Randalls, because of his daughter's being housemaid there. I only +doubt whether he will ever take us anywhere else. That was your doing, +papa. You got Hannah that good place. Nobody thought of Hannah till you +mentioned her--James is so obliged to you!" + +"I am very glad I did think of her. It was very lucky, for I would not +have had poor James think himself slighted upon any account; and I am +sure she will make a very good servant: she is a civil, pretty-spoken +girl; I have a great opinion of her. Whenever I see her, she always +curtseys and asks me how I do, in a very pretty manner; and when you +have had her here to do needlework, I observe she always turns the lock +of the door the right way and never bangs it. I am sure she will be an +excellent servant; and it will be a great comfort to poor Miss Taylor +to have somebody about her that she is used to see. Whenever James goes +over to see his daughter, you know, she will be hearing of us. He will +be able to tell her how we all are." + +Emma spared no exertions to maintain this happier flow of ideas, and +hoped, by the help of backgammon, to get her father tolerably +through the evening, and be attacked by no regrets but her own. The +backgammon-table was placed; but a visitor immediately afterwards walked +in and made it unnecessary. + +Mr. Knightley, a sensible man about seven or eight-and-thirty, was not +only a very old and intimate friend of the family, but particularly +connected with it, as the elder brother of Isabella's husband. He lived +about a mile from Highbury, was a frequent visitor, and always welcome, +and at this time more welcome than usual, as coming directly from their +mutual connexions in London. He had returned to a late dinner, after +some days' absence, and now walked up to Hartfield to say that all were +well in Brunswick Square. It was a happy circumstance, and animated +Mr. Woodhouse for some time. Mr. Knightley had a cheerful manner, which +always did him good; and his many inquiries after "poor Isabella" and +her children were answered most satisfactorily. When this was over, Mr. +Woodhouse gratefully observed, "It is very kind of you, Mr. Knightley, +to come out at this late hour to call upon us. I am afraid you must have +had a shocking walk." + +"Not at all, sir. It is a beautiful moonlight night; and so mild that I +must draw back from your great fire." + +"But you must have found it very damp and dirty. I wish you may not +catch cold." + +"Dirty, sir! Look at my shoes. Not a speck on them." + +"Well! that is quite surprising, for we have had a vast deal of rain +here. It rained dreadfully hard for half an hour while we were at +breakfast. I wanted them to put off the wedding." + +"By the bye--I have not wished you joy. Being pretty well aware of what +sort of joy you must both be feeling, I have been in no hurry with my +congratulations; but I hope it all went off tolerably well. How did you +all behave? Who cried most?" + +"Ah! poor Miss Taylor! 'Tis a sad business." + +"Poor Mr. and Miss Woodhouse, if you please; but I cannot possibly say +'poor Miss Taylor.' I have a great regard for you and Emma; but when it +comes to the question of dependence or independence!--At any rate, it +must be better to have only one to please than two." + +"Especially when _one_ of those two is such a fanciful, troublesome +creature!" said Emma playfully. "That is what you have in your head, I +know--and what you would certainly say if my father were not by." + +"I believe it is very true, my dear, indeed," said Mr. Woodhouse, with a +sigh. "I am afraid I am sometimes very fanciful and troublesome." + +"My dearest papa! You do not think I could mean _you_, or suppose Mr. +Knightley to mean _you_. What a horrible idea! Oh no! I meant only +myself. Mr. Knightley loves to find fault with me, you know--in a +joke--it is all a joke. We always say what we like to one another." + +Mr. Knightley, in fact, was one of the few people who could see faults +in Emma Woodhouse, and the only one who ever told her of them: and +though this was not particularly agreeable to Emma herself, she knew +it would be so much less so to her father, that she would not have him +really suspect such a circumstance as her not being thought perfect by +every body. + +"Emma knows I never flatter her," said Mr. Knightley, "but I meant no +reflection on any body. Miss Taylor has been used to have two persons +to please; she will now have but one. The chances are that she must be a +gainer." + +"Well," said Emma, willing to let it pass--"you want to hear about +the wedding; and I shall be happy to tell you, for we all behaved +charmingly. Every body was punctual, every body in their best looks: not +a tear, and hardly a long face to be seen. Oh no; we all felt that we +were going to be only half a mile apart, and were sure of meeting every +day." + +"Dear Emma bears every thing so well," said her father. "But, Mr. +Knightley, she is really very sorry to lose poor Miss Taylor, and I am +sure she _will_ miss her more than she thinks for." + +Emma turned away her head, divided between tears and smiles. "It +is impossible that Emma should not miss such a companion," said Mr. +Knightley. "We should not like her so well as we do, sir, if we could +suppose it; but she knows how much the marriage is to Miss Taylor's +advantage; she knows how very acceptable it must be, at Miss Taylor's +time of life, to be settled in a home of her own, and how important to +her to be secure of a comfortable provision, and therefore cannot allow +herself to feel so much pain as pleasure. Every friend of Miss Taylor +must be glad to have her so happily married." + +"And you have forgotten one matter of joy to me," said Emma, "and a very +considerable one--that I made the match myself. I made the match, you +know, four years ago; and to have it take place, and be proved in the +right, when so many people said Mr. Weston would never marry again, may +comfort me for any thing." + +Mr. Knightley shook his head at her. Her father fondly replied, "Ah! +my dear, I wish you would not make matches and foretell things, for +whatever you say always comes to pass. Pray do not make any more +matches." + +"I promise you to make none for myself, papa; but I must, indeed, for +other people. It is the greatest amusement in the world! And after such +success, you know!--Every body said that Mr. Weston would never marry +again. Oh dear, no! Mr. Weston, who had been a widower so long, and who +seemed so perfectly comfortable without a wife, so constantly occupied +either in his business in town or among his friends here, always +acceptable wherever he went, always cheerful--Mr. Weston need not spend +a single evening in the year alone if he did not like it. Oh no! Mr. +Weston certainly would never marry again. Some people even talked of a +promise to his wife on her deathbed, and others of the son and the +uncle not letting him. All manner of solemn nonsense was talked on the +subject, but I believed none of it. + +"Ever since the day--about four years ago--that Miss Taylor and I met +with him in Broadway Lane, when, because it began to drizzle, he darted +away with so much gallantry, and borrowed two umbrellas for us from +Farmer Mitchell's, I made up my mind on the subject. I planned the match +from that hour; and when such success has blessed me in this instance, +dear papa, you cannot think that I shall leave off match-making." + +"I do not understand what you mean by 'success,'" said Mr. Knightley. +"Success supposes endeavour. Your time has been properly and delicately +spent, if you have been endeavouring for the last four years to bring +about this marriage. A worthy employment for a young lady's mind! But +if, which I rather imagine, your making the match, as you call it, means +only your planning it, your saying to yourself one idle day, 'I think it +would be a very good thing for Miss Taylor if Mr. Weston were to marry +her,' and saying it again to yourself every now and then afterwards, why +do you talk of success? Where is your merit? What are you proud of? You +made a lucky guess; and _that_ is all that can be said." + +"And have you never known the pleasure and triumph of a lucky guess?--I +pity you.--I thought you cleverer--for, depend upon it a lucky guess is +never merely luck. There is always some talent in it. And as to my +poor word 'success,' which you quarrel with, I do not know that I am so +entirely without any claim to it. You have drawn two pretty pictures; +but I think there may be a third--a something between the do-nothing and +the do-all. If I had not promoted Mr. Weston's visits here, and given +many little encouragements, and smoothed many little matters, it might +not have come to any thing after all. I think you must know Hartfield +enough to comprehend that." + +"A straightforward, open-hearted man like Weston, and a rational, +unaffected woman like Miss Taylor, may be safely left to manage their +own concerns. You are more likely to have done harm to yourself, than +good to them, by interference." + +"Emma never thinks of herself, if she can do good to others," rejoined +Mr. Woodhouse, understanding but in part. "But, my dear, pray do not +make any more matches; they are silly things, and break up one's family +circle grievously." + +"Only one more, papa; only for Mr. Elton. Poor Mr. Elton! You like Mr. +Elton, papa,--I must look about for a wife for him. There is nobody in +Highbury who deserves him--and he has been here a whole year, and has +fitted up his house so comfortably, that it would be a shame to have him +single any longer--and I thought when he was joining their hands to-day, +he looked so very much as if he would like to have the same kind office +done for him! I think very well of Mr. Elton, and this is the only way I +have of doing him a service." + +"Mr. Elton is a very pretty young man, to be sure, and a very good young +man, and I have a great regard for him. But if you want to shew him any +attention, my dear, ask him to come and dine with us some day. That will +be a much better thing. I dare say Mr. Knightley will be so kind as to +meet him." + +"With a great deal of pleasure, sir, at any time," said Mr. Knightley, +laughing, "and I agree with you entirely, that it will be a much better +thing. Invite him to dinner, Emma, and help him to the best of the fish +and the chicken, but leave him to chuse his own wife. Depend upon it, a +man of six or seven-and-twenty can take care of himself." + + + +CHAPTER II + + +Mr. Weston was a native of Highbury, and born of a respectable family, +which for the last two or three generations had been rising into +gentility and property. He had received a good education, but, on +succeeding early in life to a small independence, had become indisposed +for any of the more homely pursuits in which his brothers were engaged, +and had satisfied an active, cheerful mind and social temper by entering +into the militia of his county, then embodied. + +Captain Weston was a general favourite; and when the chances of his +military life had introduced him to Miss Churchill, of a great Yorkshire +family, and Miss Churchill fell in love with him, nobody was surprized, +except her brother and his wife, who had never seen him, and who were +full of pride and importance, which the connexion would offend. + +Miss Churchill, however, being of age, and with the full command of her +fortune--though her fortune bore no proportion to the family-estate--was +not to be dissuaded from the marriage, and it took place, to the +infinite mortification of Mr. and Mrs. Churchill, who threw her off with +due decorum. It was an unsuitable connexion, and did not produce much +happiness. Mrs. Weston ought to have found more in it, for she had a +husband whose warm heart and sweet temper made him think every thing due +to her in return for the great goodness of being in love with him; +but though she had one sort of spirit, she had not the best. She had +resolution enough to pursue her own will in spite of her brother, +but not enough to refrain from unreasonable regrets at that brother's +unreasonable anger, nor from missing the luxuries of her former home. +They lived beyond their income, but still it was nothing in comparison +of Enscombe: she did not cease to love her husband, but she wanted at +once to be the wife of Captain Weston, and Miss Churchill of Enscombe. + +Captain Weston, who had been considered, especially by the Churchills, +as making such an amazing match, was proved to have much the worst of +the bargain; for when his wife died, after a three years' marriage, he +was rather a poorer man than at first, and with a child to maintain. +From the expense of the child, however, he was soon relieved. The boy +had, with the additional softening claim of a lingering illness of his +mother's, been the means of a sort of reconciliation; and Mr. and Mrs. +Churchill, having no children of their own, nor any other young creature +of equal kindred to care for, offered to take the whole charge of the +little Frank soon after her decease. Some scruples and some reluctance +the widower-father may be supposed to have felt; but as they were +overcome by other considerations, the child was given up to the care and +the wealth of the Churchills, and he had only his own comfort to seek, +and his own situation to improve as he could. + +A complete change of life became desirable. He quitted the militia and +engaged in trade, having brothers already established in a good way in +London, which afforded him a favourable opening. It was a concern which +brought just employment enough. He had still a small house in Highbury, +where most of his leisure days were spent; and between useful occupation +and the pleasures of society, the next eighteen or twenty years of his +life passed cheerfully away. He had, by that time, realised an easy +competence--enough to secure the purchase of a little estate adjoining +Highbury, which he had always longed for--enough to marry a woman as +portionless even as Miss Taylor, and to live according to the wishes of +his own friendly and social disposition. + +It was now some time since Miss Taylor had begun to influence his +schemes; but as it was not the tyrannic influence of youth on youth, +it had not shaken his determination of never settling till he could +purchase Randalls, and the sale of Randalls was long looked forward to; +but he had gone steadily on, with these objects in view, till they were +accomplished. He had made his fortune, bought his house, and obtained +his wife; and was beginning a new period of existence, with every +probability of greater happiness than in any yet passed through. He had +never been an unhappy man; his own temper had secured him from that, +even in his first marriage; but his second must shew him how delightful +a well-judging and truly amiable woman could be, and must give him the +pleasantest proof of its being a great deal better to choose than to be +chosen, to excite gratitude than to feel it. + +He had only himself to please in his choice: his fortune was his own; +for as to Frank, it was more than being tacitly brought up as his +uncle's heir, it had become so avowed an adoption as to have him assume +the name of Churchill on coming of age. It was most unlikely, therefore, +that he should ever want his father's assistance. His father had no +apprehension of it. The aunt was a capricious woman, and governed her +husband entirely; but it was not in Mr. Weston's nature to imagine that +any caprice could be strong enough to affect one so dear, and, as he +believed, so deservedly dear. He saw his son every year in London, and +was proud of him; and his fond report of him as a very fine young man +had made Highbury feel a sort of pride in him too. He was looked on as +sufficiently belonging to the place to make his merits and prospects a +kind of common concern. + +Mr. Frank Churchill was one of the boasts of Highbury, and a lively +curiosity to see him prevailed, though the compliment was so little +returned that he had never been there in his life. His coming to visit +his father had been often talked of but never achieved. + +Now, upon his father's marriage, it was very generally proposed, as a +most proper attention, that the visit should take place. There was not a +dissentient voice on the subject, either when Mrs. Perry drank tea with +Mrs. and Miss Bates, or when Mrs. and Miss Bates returned the visit. Now +was the time for Mr. Frank Churchill to come among them; and the hope +strengthened when it was understood that he had written to his new +mother on the occasion. For a few days, every morning visit in Highbury +included some mention of the handsome letter Mrs. Weston had received. +"I suppose you have heard of the handsome letter Mr. Frank Churchill +has written to Mrs. Weston? I understand it was a very handsome letter, +indeed. Mr. Woodhouse told me of it. Mr. Woodhouse saw the letter, and +he says he never saw such a handsome letter in his life." + +It was, indeed, a highly prized letter. Mrs. Weston had, of course, +formed a very favourable idea of the young man; and such a pleasing +attention was an irresistible proof of his great good sense, and a most +welcome addition to every source and every expression of congratulation +which her marriage had already secured. She felt herself a most +fortunate woman; and she had lived long enough to know how fortunate +she might well be thought, where the only regret was for a partial +separation from friends whose friendship for her had never cooled, and +who could ill bear to part with her. + +She knew that at times she must be missed; and could not think, without +pain, of Emma's losing a single pleasure, or suffering an hour's ennui, +from the want of her companionableness: but dear Emma was of no feeble +character; she was more equal to her situation than most girls would +have been, and had sense, and energy, and spirits that might be hoped +would bear her well and happily through its little difficulties and +privations. And then there was such comfort in the very easy distance of +Randalls from Hartfield, so convenient for even solitary female walking, +and in Mr. Weston's disposition and circumstances, which would make the +approaching season no hindrance to their spending half the evenings in +the week together. + +Her situation was altogether the subject of hours of gratitude to Mrs. +Weston, and of moments only of regret; and her satisfaction--her more +than satisfaction--her cheerful enjoyment, was so just and so apparent, +that Emma, well as she knew her father, was sometimes taken by surprize +at his being still able to pity 'poor Miss Taylor,' when they left her +at Randalls in the centre of every domestic comfort, or saw her go away +in the evening attended by her pleasant husband to a carriage of her +own. But never did she go without Mr. Woodhouse's giving a gentle sigh, +and saying, "Ah, poor Miss Taylor! She would be very glad to stay." + +There was no recovering Miss Taylor--nor much likelihood of ceasing to +pity her; but a few weeks brought some alleviation to Mr. Woodhouse. +The compliments of his neighbours were over; he was no longer teased by +being wished joy of so sorrowful an event; and the wedding-cake, which +had been a great distress to him, was all eat up. His own stomach +could bear nothing rich, and he could never believe other people to be +different from himself. What was unwholesome to him he regarded as unfit +for any body; and he had, therefore, earnestly tried to dissuade them +from having any wedding-cake at all, and when that proved vain, as +earnestly tried to prevent any body's eating it. He had been at the +pains of consulting Mr. Perry, the apothecary, on the subject. Mr. Perry +was an intelligent, gentlemanlike man, whose frequent visits were one +of the comforts of Mr. Woodhouse's life; and upon being applied to, he +could not but acknowledge (though it seemed rather against the bias +of inclination) that wedding-cake might certainly disagree with +many--perhaps with most people, unless taken moderately. With such an +opinion, in confirmation of his own, Mr. Woodhouse hoped to influence +every visitor of the newly married pair; but still the cake was eaten; +and there was no rest for his benevolent nerves till it was all gone. + +There was a strange rumour in Highbury of all the little Perrys being +seen with a slice of Mrs. Weston's wedding-cake in their hands: but Mr. +Woodhouse would never believe it. + + + +CHAPTER III + + +Mr. Woodhouse was fond of society in his own way. He liked very much to +have his friends come and see him; and from various united causes, from +his long residence at Hartfield, and his good nature, from his fortune, +his house, and his daughter, he could command the visits of his +own little circle, in a great measure, as he liked. He had not much +intercourse with any families beyond that circle; his horror of late +hours, and large dinner-parties, made him unfit for any acquaintance but +such as would visit him on his own terms. Fortunately for him, Highbury, +including Randalls in the same parish, and Donwell Abbey in the parish +adjoining, the seat of Mr. Knightley, comprehended many such. Not +unfrequently, through Emma's persuasion, he had some of the chosen and +the best to dine with him: but evening parties were what he preferred; +and, unless he fancied himself at any time unequal to company, there +was scarcely an evening in the week in which Emma could not make up a +card-table for him. + +Real, long-standing regard brought the Westons and Mr. Knightley; and by +Mr. Elton, a young man living alone without liking it, the privilege +of exchanging any vacant evening of his own blank solitude for the +elegancies and society of Mr. Woodhouse's drawing-room, and the smiles +of his lovely daughter, was in no danger of being thrown away. + +After these came a second set; among the most come-at-able of whom were +Mrs. and Miss Bates, and Mrs. Goddard, three ladies almost always at +the service of an invitation from Hartfield, and who were fetched and +carried home so often, that Mr. Woodhouse thought it no hardship for +either James or the horses. Had it taken place only once a year, it +would have been a grievance. + +Mrs. Bates, the widow of a former vicar of Highbury, was a very old +lady, almost past every thing but tea and quadrille. She lived with her +single daughter in a very small way, and was considered with all the +regard and respect which a harmless old lady, under such untoward +circumstances, can excite. Her daughter enjoyed a most uncommon degree +of popularity for a woman neither young, handsome, rich, nor married. +Miss Bates stood in the very worst predicament in the world for having +much of the public favour; and she had no intellectual superiority to +make atonement to herself, or frighten those who might hate her into +outward respect. She had never boasted either beauty or cleverness. Her +youth had passed without distinction, and her middle of life was devoted +to the care of a failing mother, and the endeavour to make a small +income go as far as possible. And yet she was a happy woman, and a woman +whom no one named without good-will. It was her own universal good-will +and contented temper which worked such wonders. She loved every body, +was interested in every body's happiness, quicksighted to every body's +merits; thought herself a most fortunate creature, and surrounded with +blessings in such an excellent mother, and so many good neighbours +and friends, and a home that wanted for nothing. The simplicity and +cheerfulness of her nature, her contented and grateful spirit, were a +recommendation to every body, and a mine of felicity to herself. She was +a great talker upon little matters, which exactly suited Mr. Woodhouse, +full of trivial communications and harmless gossip. + +Mrs. Goddard was the mistress of a School--not of a seminary, or an +establishment, or any thing which professed, in long sentences of +refined nonsense, to combine liberal acquirements with elegant morality, +upon new principles and new systems--and where young ladies for enormous +pay might be screwed out of health and into vanity--but a real, +honest, old-fashioned Boarding-school, where a reasonable quantity of +accomplishments were sold at a reasonable price, and where girls might +be sent to be out of the way, and scramble themselves into a little +education, without any danger of coming back prodigies. Mrs. Goddard's +school was in high repute--and very deservedly; for Highbury was +reckoned a particularly healthy spot: she had an ample house and garden, +gave the children plenty of wholesome food, let them run about a great +deal in the summer, and in winter dressed their chilblains with her own +hands. It was no wonder that a train of twenty young couple now walked +after her to church. She was a plain, motherly kind of woman, who +had worked hard in her youth, and now thought herself entitled to the +occasional holiday of a tea-visit; and having formerly owed much to Mr. +Woodhouse's kindness, felt his particular claim on her to leave her neat +parlour, hung round with fancy-work, whenever she could, and win or lose +a few sixpences by his fireside. + +These were the ladies whom Emma found herself very frequently able to +collect; and happy was she, for her father's sake, in the power; though, +as far as she was herself concerned, it was no remedy for the absence of +Mrs. Weston. She was delighted to see her father look comfortable, and +very much pleased with herself for contriving things so well; but the +quiet prosings of three such women made her feel that every evening so +spent was indeed one of the long evenings she had fearfully anticipated. + +As she sat one morning, looking forward to exactly such a close of the +present day, a note was brought from Mrs. Goddard, requesting, in most +respectful terms, to be allowed to bring Miss Smith with her; a most +welcome request: for Miss Smith was a girl of seventeen, whom Emma knew +very well by sight, and had long felt an interest in, on account of +her beauty. A very gracious invitation was returned, and the evening no +longer dreaded by the fair mistress of the mansion. + +Harriet Smith was the natural daughter of somebody. Somebody had placed +her, several years back, at Mrs. Goddard's school, and somebody +had lately raised her from the condition of scholar to that of +parlour-boarder. This was all that was generally known of her history. +She had no visible friends but what had been acquired at Highbury, and +was now just returned from a long visit in the country to some young +ladies who had been at school there with her. + +She was a very pretty girl, and her beauty happened to be of a sort +which Emma particularly admired. She was short, plump, and fair, with a +fine bloom, blue eyes, light hair, regular features, and a look of great +sweetness, and, before the end of the evening, Emma was as much pleased +with her manners as her person, and quite determined to continue the +acquaintance. + +She was not struck by any thing remarkably clever in Miss Smith's +conversation, but she found her altogether very engaging--not +inconveniently shy, not unwilling to talk--and yet so far from pushing, +shewing so proper and becoming a deference, seeming so pleasantly +grateful for being admitted to Hartfield, and so artlessly impressed +by the appearance of every thing in so superior a style to what she had +been used to, that she must have good sense, and deserve encouragement. +Encouragement should be given. Those soft blue eyes, and all those +natural graces, should not be wasted on the inferior society of Highbury +and its connexions. The acquaintance she had already formed were +unworthy of her. The friends from whom she had just parted, though very +good sort of people, must be doing her harm. They were a family of the +name of Martin, whom Emma well knew by character, as renting a large +farm of Mr. Knightley, and residing in the parish of Donwell--very +creditably, she believed--she knew Mr. Knightley thought highly of +them--but they must be coarse and unpolished, and very unfit to be the +intimates of a girl who wanted only a little more knowledge and elegance +to be quite perfect. _She_ would notice her; she would improve her; she +would detach her from her bad acquaintance, and introduce her into good +society; she would form her opinions and her manners. It would be an +interesting, and certainly a very kind undertaking; highly becoming her +own situation in life, her leisure, and powers. + +She was so busy in admiring those soft blue eyes, in talking and +listening, and forming all these schemes in the in-betweens, that the +evening flew away at a very unusual rate; and the supper-table, which +always closed such parties, and for which she had been used to sit and +watch the due time, was all set out and ready, and moved forwards to the +fire, before she was aware. With an alacrity beyond the common impulse +of a spirit which yet was never indifferent to the credit of doing every +thing well and attentively, with the real good-will of a mind delighted +with its own ideas, did she then do all the honours of the meal, and +help and recommend the minced chicken and scalloped oysters, with an +urgency which she knew would be acceptable to the early hours and civil +scruples of their guests. + +Upon such occasions poor Mr. Woodhouse's feelings were in sad warfare. +He loved to have the cloth laid, because it had been the fashion of his +youth, but his conviction of suppers being very unwholesome made him +rather sorry to see any thing put on it; and while his hospitality would +have welcomed his visitors to every thing, his care for their health +made him grieve that they would eat. + +Such another small basin of thin gruel as his own was all that he could, +with thorough self-approbation, recommend; though he might constrain +himself, while the ladies were comfortably clearing the nicer things, to +say: + +"Mrs. Bates, let me propose your venturing on one of these eggs. An egg +boiled very soft is not unwholesome. Serle understands boiling an egg +better than any body. I would not recommend an egg boiled by any body +else; but you need not be afraid, they are very small, you see--one of +our small eggs will not hurt you. Miss Bates, let Emma help you to a +_little_ bit of tart--a _very_ little bit. Ours are all apple-tarts. You +need not be afraid of unwholesome preserves here. I do not advise the +custard. Mrs. Goddard, what say you to _half_ a glass of wine? A +_small_ half-glass, put into a tumbler of water? I do not think it could +disagree with you." + +Emma allowed her father to talk--but supplied her visitors in a much +more satisfactory style, and on the present evening had particular +pleasure in sending them away happy. The happiness of Miss Smith was +quite equal to her intentions. Miss Woodhouse was so great a personage +in Highbury, that the prospect of the introduction had given as much +panic as pleasure; but the humble, grateful little girl went off with +highly gratified feelings, delighted with the affability with which Miss +Woodhouse had treated her all the evening, and actually shaken hands +with her at last! + + + +CHAPTER IV + + +Harriet Smith's intimacy at Hartfield was soon a settled thing. Quick +and decided in her ways, Emma lost no time in inviting, encouraging, and +telling her to come very often; and as their acquaintance increased, so +did their satisfaction in each other. As a walking companion, Emma had +very early foreseen how useful she might find her. In that respect +Mrs. Weston's loss had been important. Her father never went beyond the +shrubbery, where two divisions of the ground sufficed him for his long +walk, or his short, as the year varied; and since Mrs. Weston's marriage +her exercise had been too much confined. She had ventured once alone to +Randalls, but it was not pleasant; and a Harriet Smith, therefore, +one whom she could summon at any time to a walk, would be a valuable +addition to her privileges. But in every respect, as she saw more of +her, she approved her, and was confirmed in all her kind designs. + +Harriet certainly was not clever, but she had a sweet, docile, grateful +disposition, was totally free from conceit, and only desiring to be +guided by any one she looked up to. Her early attachment to herself +was very amiable; and her inclination for good company, and power of +appreciating what was elegant and clever, shewed that there was no +want of taste, though strength of understanding must not be expected. +Altogether she was quite convinced of Harriet Smith's being exactly the +young friend she wanted--exactly the something which her home required. +Such a friend as Mrs. Weston was out of the question. Two such could +never be granted. Two such she did not want. It was quite a different +sort of thing, a sentiment distinct and independent. Mrs. Weston was the +object of a regard which had its basis in gratitude and esteem. Harriet +would be loved as one to whom she could be useful. For Mrs. Weston there +was nothing to be done; for Harriet every thing. + +Her first attempts at usefulness were in an endeavour to find out who +were the parents, but Harriet could not tell. She was ready to tell +every thing in her power, but on this subject questions were vain. Emma +was obliged to fancy what she liked--but she could never believe that in +the same situation _she_ should not have discovered the truth. Harriet +had no penetration. She had been satisfied to hear and believe just what +Mrs. Goddard chose to tell her; and looked no farther. + +Mrs. Goddard, and the teachers, and the girls and the affairs of +the school in general, formed naturally a great part of the +conversation--and but for her acquaintance with the Martins of +Abbey-Mill Farm, it must have been the whole. But the Martins occupied +her thoughts a good deal; she had spent two very happy months with them, +and now loved to talk of the pleasures of her visit, and describe +the many comforts and wonders of the place. Emma encouraged her +talkativeness--amused by such a picture of another set of beings, +and enjoying the youthful simplicity which could speak with so much +exultation of Mrs. Martin's having "_two_ parlours, two very good +parlours, indeed; one of them quite as large as Mrs. Goddard's +drawing-room; and of her having an upper maid who had lived +five-and-twenty years with her; and of their having eight cows, two of +them Alderneys, and one a little Welch cow, a very pretty little Welch +cow indeed; and of Mrs. Martin's saying as she was so fond of it, +it should be called _her_ cow; and of their having a very handsome +summer-house in their garden, where some day next year they were all to +drink tea:--a very handsome summer-house, large enough to hold a dozen +people." + +For some time she was amused, without thinking beyond the immediate +cause; but as she came to understand the family better, other feelings +arose. She had taken up a wrong idea, fancying it was a mother and +daughter, a son and son's wife, who all lived together; but when it +appeared that the Mr. Martin, who bore a part in the narrative, and was +always mentioned with approbation for his great good-nature in doing +something or other, was a single man; that there was no young Mrs. +Martin, no wife in the case; she did suspect danger to her poor little +friend from all this hospitality and kindness, and that, if she were not +taken care of, she might be required to sink herself forever. + +With this inspiriting notion, her questions increased in number and +meaning; and she particularly led Harriet to talk more of Mr. Martin, +and there was evidently no dislike to it. Harriet was very ready to +speak of the share he had had in their moonlight walks and merry evening +games; and dwelt a good deal upon his being so very good-humoured and +obliging. He had gone three miles round one day in order to bring her +some walnuts, because she had said how fond she was of them, and in +every thing else he was so very obliging. He had his shepherd's son into +the parlour one night on purpose to sing to her. She was very fond +of singing. He could sing a little himself. She believed he was very +clever, and understood every thing. He had a very fine flock, and, while +she was with them, he had been bid more for his wool than any body in +the country. She believed every body spoke well of him. His mother and +sisters were very fond of him. Mrs. Martin had told her one day (and +there was a blush as she said it,) that it was impossible for any body +to be a better son, and therefore she was sure, whenever he married, he +would make a good husband. Not that she _wanted_ him to marry. She was +in no hurry at all. + +"Well done, Mrs. Martin!" thought Emma. "You know what you are about." + +"And when she had come away, Mrs. Martin was so very kind as to send +Mrs. Goddard a beautiful goose--the finest goose Mrs. Goddard had ever +seen. Mrs. Goddard had dressed it on a Sunday, and asked all the three +teachers, Miss Nash, and Miss Prince, and Miss Richardson, to sup with +her." + +"Mr. Martin, I suppose, is not a man of information beyond the line of +his own business? He does not read?" + +"Oh yes!--that is, no--I do not know--but I believe he has read a +good deal--but not what you would think any thing of. He reads the +Agricultural Reports, and some other books that lay in one of the window +seats--but he reads all _them_ to himself. But sometimes of an evening, +before we went to cards, he would read something aloud out of the +Elegant Extracts, very entertaining. And I know he has read the Vicar of +Wakefield. He never read the Romance of the Forest, nor The Children of +the Abbey. He had never heard of such books before I mentioned them, but +he is determined to get them now as soon as ever he can." + +The next question was-- + +"What sort of looking man is Mr. Martin?" + +"Oh! not handsome--not at all handsome. I thought him very plain at +first, but I do not think him so plain now. One does not, you know, +after a time. But did you never see him? He is in Highbury every now and +then, and he is sure to ride through every week in his way to Kingston. +He has passed you very often." + +"That may be, and I may have seen him fifty times, but without having +any idea of his name. A young farmer, whether on horseback or on foot, +is the very last sort of person to raise my curiosity. The yeomanry are +precisely the order of people with whom I feel I can have nothing to do. +A degree or two lower, and a creditable appearance might interest me; +I might hope to be useful to their families in some way or other. But +a farmer can need none of my help, and is, therefore, in one sense, as +much above my notice as in every other he is below it." + +"To be sure. Oh yes! It is not likely you should ever have observed him; +but he knows you very well indeed--I mean by sight." + +"I have no doubt of his being a very respectable young man. I know, +indeed, that he is so, and, as such, wish him well. What do you imagine +his age to be?" + +"He was four-and-twenty the 8th of last June, and my birthday is the +23rd just a fortnight and a day's difference--which is very odd." + +"Only four-and-twenty. That is too young to settle. His mother is +perfectly right not to be in a hurry. They seem very comfortable as they +are, and if she were to take any pains to marry him, she would probably +repent it. Six years hence, if he could meet with a good sort of young +woman in the same rank as his own, with a little money, it might be very +desirable." + +"Six years hence! Dear Miss Woodhouse, he would be thirty years old!" + +"Well, and that is as early as most men can afford to marry, who are not +born to an independence. Mr. Martin, I imagine, has his fortune entirely +to make--cannot be at all beforehand with the world. Whatever money he +might come into when his father died, whatever his share of the family +property, it is, I dare say, all afloat, all employed in his stock, and +so forth; and though, with diligence and good luck, he may be rich in +time, it is next to impossible that he should have realised any thing +yet." + +"To be sure, so it is. But they live very comfortably. They have no +indoors man, else they do not want for any thing; and Mrs. Martin talks +of taking a boy another year." + +"I wish you may not get into a scrape, Harriet, whenever he does +marry;--I mean, as to being acquainted with his wife--for though his +sisters, from a superior education, are not to be altogether objected +to, it does not follow that he might marry any body at all fit for you +to notice. The misfortune of your birth ought to make you particularly +careful as to your associates. There can be no doubt of your being a +gentleman's daughter, and you must support your claim to that station by +every thing within your own power, or there will be plenty of people who +would take pleasure in degrading you." + +"Yes, to be sure, I suppose there are. But while I visit at Hartfield, +and you are so kind to me, Miss Woodhouse, I am not afraid of what any +body can do." + +"You understand the force of influence pretty well, Harriet; but I would +have you so firmly established in good society, as to be independent +even of Hartfield and Miss Woodhouse. I want to see you permanently +well connected, and to that end it will be advisable to have as few odd +acquaintance as may be; and, therefore, I say that if you should still +be in this country when Mr. Martin marries, I wish you may not be drawn +in by your intimacy with the sisters, to be acquainted with the wife, +who will probably be some mere farmer's daughter, without education." + +"To be sure. Yes. Not that I think Mr. Martin would ever marry any body +but what had had some education--and been very well brought up. However, +I do not mean to set up my opinion against yours--and I am sure I shall +not wish for the acquaintance of his wife. I shall always have a great +regard for the Miss Martins, especially Elizabeth, and should be very +sorry to give them up, for they are quite as well educated as me. But +if he marries a very ignorant, vulgar woman, certainly I had better not +visit her, if I can help it." + +Emma watched her through the fluctuations of this speech, and saw no +alarming symptoms of love. The young man had been the first admirer, but +she trusted there was no other hold, and that there would be no serious +difficulty, on Harriet's side, to oppose any friendly arrangement of her +own. + +They met Mr. Martin the very next day, as they were walking on the +Donwell road. He was on foot, and after looking very respectfully at +her, looked with most unfeigned satisfaction at her companion. Emma was +not sorry to have such an opportunity of survey; and walking a few +yards forward, while they talked together, soon made her quick eye +sufficiently acquainted with Mr. Robert Martin. His appearance was very +neat, and he looked like a sensible young man, but his person had no +other advantage; and when he came to be contrasted with gentlemen, +she thought he must lose all the ground he had gained in Harriet's +inclination. Harriet was not insensible of manner; she had voluntarily +noticed her father's gentleness with admiration as well as wonder. Mr. +Martin looked as if he did not know what manner was. + +They remained but a few minutes together, as Miss Woodhouse must not be +kept waiting; and Harriet then came running to her with a smiling face, +and in a flutter of spirits, which Miss Woodhouse hoped very soon to +compose. + +"Only think of our happening to meet him!--How very odd! It was quite +a chance, he said, that he had not gone round by Randalls. He did not +think we ever walked this road. He thought we walked towards Randalls +most days. He has not been able to get the Romance of the Forest yet. +He was so busy the last time he was at Kingston that he quite forgot it, +but he goes again to-morrow. So very odd we should happen to meet! Well, +Miss Woodhouse, is he like what you expected? What do you think of him? +Do you think him so very plain?" + +"He is very plain, undoubtedly--remarkably plain:--but that is nothing +compared with his entire want of gentility. I had no right to expect +much, and I did not expect much; but I had no idea that he could be so +very clownish, so totally without air. I had imagined him, I confess, a +degree or two nearer gentility." + +"To be sure," said Harriet, in a mortified voice, "he is not so genteel +as real gentlemen." + +"I think, Harriet, since your acquaintance with us, you have been +repeatedly in the company of some such very real gentlemen, that you +must yourself be struck with the difference in Mr. Martin. At Hartfield, +you have had very good specimens of well educated, well bred men. I +should be surprized if, after seeing them, you could be in company +with Mr. Martin again without perceiving him to be a very inferior +creature--and rather wondering at yourself for having ever thought him +at all agreeable before. Do not you begin to feel that now? Were not +you struck? I am sure you must have been struck by his awkward look and +abrupt manner, and the uncouthness of a voice which I heard to be wholly +unmodulated as I stood here." + +"Certainly, he is not like Mr. Knightley. He has not such a fine air and +way of walking as Mr. Knightley. I see the difference plain enough. But +Mr. Knightley is so very fine a man!" + +"Mr. Knightley's air is so remarkably good that it is not fair to +compare Mr. Martin with _him_. You might not see one in a hundred with +_gentleman_ so plainly written as in Mr. Knightley. But he is not the +only gentleman you have been lately used to. What say you to Mr. Weston +and Mr. Elton? Compare Mr. Martin with either of _them_. Compare their +manner of carrying themselves; of walking; of speaking; of being silent. +You must see the difference." + +"Oh yes!--there is a great difference. But Mr. Weston is almost an old +man. Mr. Weston must be between forty and fifty." + +"Which makes his good manners the more valuable. The older a person +grows, Harriet, the more important it is that their manners should not +be bad; the more glaring and disgusting any loudness, or coarseness, or +awkwardness becomes. What is passable in youth is detestable in later +age. Mr. Martin is now awkward and abrupt; what will he be at Mr. +Weston's time of life?" + +"There is no saying, indeed," replied Harriet rather solemnly. + +"But there may be pretty good guessing. He will be a completely gross, +vulgar farmer, totally inattentive to appearances, and thinking of +nothing but profit and loss." + +"Will he, indeed? That will be very bad." + +"How much his business engrosses him already is very plain from the +circumstance of his forgetting to inquire for the book you recommended. +He was a great deal too full of the market to think of any thing +else--which is just as it should be, for a thriving man. What has he to +do with books? And I have no doubt that he _will_ thrive, and be a very +rich man in time--and his being illiterate and coarse need not disturb +_us_." + +"I wonder he did not remember the book"--was all Harriet's answer, and +spoken with a degree of grave displeasure which Emma thought might be +safely left to itself. She, therefore, said no more for some time. Her +next beginning was, + +"In one respect, perhaps, Mr. Elton's manners are superior to Mr. +Knightley's or Mr. Weston's. They have more gentleness. They might be +more safely held up as a pattern. There is an openness, a quickness, +almost a bluntness in Mr. Weston, which every body likes in _him_, +because there is so much good-humour with it--but that would not do to +be copied. Neither would Mr. Knightley's downright, decided, commanding +sort of manner, though it suits _him_ very well; his figure, and look, +and situation in life seem to allow it; but if any young man were to set +about copying him, he would not be sufferable. On the contrary, I think +a young man might be very safely recommended to take Mr. Elton as a +model. Mr. Elton is good-humoured, cheerful, obliging, and gentle. +He seems to me to be grown particularly gentle of late. I do not know +whether he has any design of ingratiating himself with either of us, +Harriet, by additional softness, but it strikes me that his manners are +softer than they used to be. If he means any thing, it must be to please +you. Did not I tell you what he said of you the other day?" + +She then repeated some warm personal praise which she had drawn from Mr. +Elton, and now did full justice to; and Harriet blushed and smiled, and +said she had always thought Mr. Elton very agreeable. + +Mr. Elton was the very person fixed on by Emma for driving the young +farmer out of Harriet's head. She thought it would be an excellent +match; and only too palpably desirable, natural, and probable, for her +to have much merit in planning it. She feared it was what every body +else must think of and predict. It was not likely, however, that any +body should have equalled her in the date of the plan, as it had +entered her brain during the very first evening of Harriet's coming to +Hartfield. The longer she considered it, the greater was her sense +of its expediency. Mr. Elton's situation was most suitable, quite the +gentleman himself, and without low connexions; at the same time, not of +any family that could fairly object to the doubtful birth of Harriet. +He had a comfortable home for her, and Emma imagined a very sufficient +income; for though the vicarage of Highbury was not large, he was known +to have some independent property; and she thought very highly of him +as a good-humoured, well-meaning, respectable young man, without any +deficiency of useful understanding or knowledge of the world. + +She had already satisfied herself that he thought Harriet a beautiful +girl, which she trusted, with such frequent meetings at Hartfield, was +foundation enough on his side; and on Harriet's there could be little +doubt that the idea of being preferred by him would have all the usual +weight and efficacy. And he was really a very pleasing young man, a +young man whom any woman not fastidious might like. He was reckoned very +handsome; his person much admired in general, though not by her, +there being a want of elegance of feature which she could not dispense +with:--but the girl who could be gratified by a Robert Martin's riding +about the country to get walnuts for her might very well be conquered by +Mr. Elton's admiration. + + + +CHAPTER V + + +"I do not know what your opinion may be, Mrs. Weston," said Mr. +Knightley, "of this great intimacy between Emma and Harriet Smith, but I +think it a bad thing." + +"A bad thing! Do you really think it a bad thing?--why so?" + +"I think they will neither of them do the other any good." + +"You surprize me! Emma must do Harriet good: and by supplying her with a +new object of interest, Harriet may be said to do Emma good. I have been +seeing their intimacy with the greatest pleasure. How very differently +we feel!--Not think they will do each other any good! This will +certainly be the beginning of one of our quarrels about Emma, Mr. +Knightley." + +"Perhaps you think I am come on purpose to quarrel with you, knowing +Weston to be out, and that you must still fight your own battle." + +"Mr. Weston would undoubtedly support me, if he were here, for he thinks +exactly as I do on the subject. We were speaking of it only yesterday, +and agreeing how fortunate it was for Emma, that there should be such a +girl in Highbury for her to associate with. Mr. Knightley, I shall not +allow you to be a fair judge in this case. You are so much used to live +alone, that you do not know the value of a companion; and, perhaps no +man can be a good judge of the comfort a woman feels in the society of +one of her own sex, after being used to it all her life. I can imagine +your objection to Harriet Smith. She is not the superior young woman +which Emma's friend ought to be. But on the other hand, as Emma wants +to see her better informed, it will be an inducement to her to read more +herself. They will read together. She means it, I know." + +"Emma has been meaning to read more ever since she was twelve years old. +I have seen a great many lists of her drawing-up at various times of +books that she meant to read regularly through--and very good lists +they were--very well chosen, and very neatly arranged--sometimes +alphabetically, and sometimes by some other rule. The list she drew +up when only fourteen--I remember thinking it did her judgment so much +credit, that I preserved it some time; and I dare say she may have made +out a very good list now. But I have done with expecting any course of +steady reading from Emma. She will never submit to any thing +requiring industry and patience, and a subjection of the fancy to the +understanding. Where Miss Taylor failed to stimulate, I may safely +affirm that Harriet Smith will do nothing.--You never could persuade her +to read half so much as you wished.--You know you could not." + +"I dare say," replied Mrs. Weston, smiling, "that I thought so +_then_;--but since we have parted, I can never remember Emma's omitting +to do any thing I wished." + +"There is hardly any desiring to refresh such a memory as _that_,"--said +Mr. Knightley, feelingly; and for a moment or two he had done. "But I," +he soon added, "who have had no such charm thrown over my senses, must +still see, hear, and remember. Emma is spoiled by being the cleverest +of her family. At ten years old, she had the misfortune of being able to +answer questions which puzzled her sister at seventeen. She was always +quick and assured: Isabella slow and diffident. And ever since she +was twelve, Emma has been mistress of the house and of you all. In her +mother she lost the only person able to cope with her. She inherits her +mother's talents, and must have been under subjection to her." + +"I should have been sorry, Mr. Knightley, to be dependent on _your_ +recommendation, had I quitted Mr. Woodhouse's family and wanted another +situation; I do not think you would have spoken a good word for me to +any body. I am sure you always thought me unfit for the office I held." + +"Yes," said he, smiling. "You are better placed _here_; very fit for a +wife, but not at all for a governess. But you were preparing yourself to +be an excellent wife all the time you were at Hartfield. You might +not give Emma such a complete education as your powers would seem to +promise; but you were receiving a very good education from _her_, on the +very material matrimonial point of submitting your own will, and doing +as you were bid; and if Weston had asked me to recommend him a wife, I +should certainly have named Miss Taylor." + +"Thank you. There will be very little merit in making a good wife to +such a man as Mr. Weston." + +"Why, to own the truth, I am afraid you are rather thrown away, and that +with every disposition to bear, there will be nothing to be borne. We +will not despair, however. Weston may grow cross from the wantonness of +comfort, or his son may plague him." + +"I hope not _that_.--It is not likely. No, Mr. Knightley, do not +foretell vexation from that quarter." + +"Not I, indeed. I only name possibilities. I do not pretend to Emma's +genius for foretelling and guessing. I hope, with all my heart, the +young man may be a Weston in merit, and a Churchill in fortune.--But +Harriet Smith--I have not half done about Harriet Smith. I think her the +very worst sort of companion that Emma could possibly have. She knows +nothing herself, and looks upon Emma as knowing every thing. She is a +flatterer in all her ways; and so much the worse, because undesigned. +Her ignorance is hourly flattery. How can Emma imagine she has any +thing to learn herself, while Harriet is presenting such a delightful +inferiority? And as for Harriet, I will venture to say that _she_ cannot +gain by the acquaintance. Hartfield will only put her out of conceit +with all the other places she belongs to. She will grow just refined +enough to be uncomfortable with those among whom birth and circumstances +have placed her home. I am much mistaken if Emma's doctrines give any +strength of mind, or tend at all to make a girl adapt herself rationally +to the varieties of her situation in life.--They only give a little +polish." + +"I either depend more upon Emma's good sense than you do, or am more +anxious for her present comfort; for I cannot lament the acquaintance. +How well she looked last night!" + +"Oh! you would rather talk of her person than her mind, would you? Very +well; I shall not attempt to deny Emma's being pretty." + +"Pretty! say beautiful rather. Can you imagine any thing nearer perfect +beauty than Emma altogether--face and figure?" + +"I do not know what I could imagine, but I confess that I have seldom +seen a face or figure more pleasing to me than hers. But I am a partial +old friend." + +"Such an eye!--the true hazle eye--and so brilliant! regular features, +open countenance, with a complexion! oh! what a bloom of full health, +and such a pretty height and size; such a firm and upright figure! +There is health, not merely in her bloom, but in her air, her head, her +glance. One hears sometimes of a child being 'the picture of health;' +now, Emma always gives me the idea of being the complete picture of +grown-up health. She is loveliness itself. Mr. Knightley, is not she?" + +"I have not a fault to find with her person," he replied. "I think her +all you describe. I love to look at her; and I will add this praise, +that I do not think her personally vain. Considering how very handsome +she is, she appears to be little occupied with it; her vanity lies +another way. Mrs. Weston, I am not to be talked out of my dislike of +Harriet Smith, or my dread of its doing them both harm." + +"And I, Mr. Knightley, am equally stout in my confidence of its not +doing them any harm. With all dear Emma's little faults, she is an +excellent creature. Where shall we see a better daughter, or a kinder +sister, or a truer friend? No, no; she has qualities which may be +trusted; she will never lead any one really wrong; she will make no +lasting blunder; where Emma errs once, she is in the right a hundred +times." + +"Very well; I will not plague you any more. Emma shall be an angel, and +I will keep my spleen to myself till Christmas brings John and Isabella. +John loves Emma with a reasonable and therefore not a blind affection, +and Isabella always thinks as he does; except when he is not quite +frightened enough about the children. I am sure of having their opinions +with me." + +"I know that you all love her really too well to be unjust or unkind; +but excuse me, Mr. Knightley, if I take the liberty (I consider myself, +you know, as having somewhat of the privilege of speech that Emma's +mother might have had) the liberty of hinting that I do not think any +possible good can arise from Harriet Smith's intimacy being made a +matter of much discussion among you. Pray excuse me; but supposing any +little inconvenience may be apprehended from the intimacy, it cannot be +expected that Emma, accountable to nobody but her father, who perfectly +approves the acquaintance, should put an end to it, so long as it is a +source of pleasure to herself. It has been so many years my province to +give advice, that you cannot be surprized, Mr. Knightley, at this little +remains of office." + +"Not at all," cried he; "I am much obliged to you for it. It is very +good advice, and it shall have a better fate than your advice has often +found; for it shall be attended to." + +"Mrs. John Knightley is easily alarmed, and might be made unhappy about +her sister." + +"Be satisfied," said he, "I will not raise any outcry. I will keep my +ill-humour to myself. I have a very sincere interest in Emma. Isabella +does not seem more my sister; has never excited a greater interest; +perhaps hardly so great. There is an anxiety, a curiosity in what one +feels for Emma. I wonder what will become of her!" + +"So do I," said Mrs. Weston gently, "very much." + +"She always declares she will never marry, which, of course, means just +nothing at all. But I have no idea that she has yet ever seen a man she +cared for. It would not be a bad thing for her to be very much in love +with a proper object. I should like to see Emma in love, and in some +doubt of a return; it would do her good. But there is nobody hereabouts +to attach her; and she goes so seldom from home." + +"There does, indeed, seem as little to tempt her to break her resolution +at present," said Mrs. Weston, "as can well be; and while she is so +happy at Hartfield, I cannot wish her to be forming any attachment which +would be creating such difficulties on poor Mr. Woodhouse's account. I +do not recommend matrimony at present to Emma, though I mean no slight +to the state, I assure you." + +Part of her meaning was to conceal some favourite thoughts of her own +and Mr. Weston's on the subject, as much as possible. There were wishes +at Randalls respecting Emma's destiny, but it was not desirable to +have them suspected; and the quiet transition which Mr. Knightley soon +afterwards made to "What does Weston think of the weather; shall we have +rain?" convinced her that he had nothing more to say or surmise about +Hartfield. + + + +CHAPTER VI + + +Emma could not feel a doubt of having given Harriet's fancy a proper +direction and raised the gratitude of her young vanity to a very good +purpose, for she found her decidedly more sensible than before of Mr. +Elton's being a remarkably handsome man, with most agreeable manners; +and as she had no hesitation in following up the assurance of his +admiration by agreeable hints, she was soon pretty confident of creating +as much liking on Harriet's side, as there could be any occasion for. +She was quite convinced of Mr. Elton's being in the fairest way of +falling in love, if not in love already. She had no scruple with regard +to him. He talked of Harriet, and praised her so warmly, that she could +not suppose any thing wanting which a little time would not add. His +perception of the striking improvement of Harriet's manner, since her +introduction at Hartfield, was not one of the least agreeable proofs of +his growing attachment. + +"You have given Miss Smith all that she required," said he; "you have +made her graceful and easy. She was a beautiful creature when she +came to you, but, in my opinion, the attractions you have added are +infinitely superior to what she received from nature." + +"I am glad you think I have been useful to her; but Harriet only wanted +drawing out, and receiving a few, very few hints. She had all the +natural grace of sweetness of temper and artlessness in herself. I have +done very little." + +"If it were admissible to contradict a lady," said the gallant Mr. +Elton-- + +"I have perhaps given her a little more decision of character, have +taught her to think on points which had not fallen in her way before." + +"Exactly so; that is what principally strikes me. So much superadded +decision of character! Skilful has been the hand!" + +"Great has been the pleasure, I am sure. I never met with a disposition +more truly amiable." + +"I have no doubt of it." And it was spoken with a sort of sighing +animation, which had a vast deal of the lover. She was not less pleased +another day with the manner in which he seconded a sudden wish of hers, +to have Harriet's picture. + +"Did you ever have your likeness taken, Harriet?" said she: "did you +ever sit for your picture?" + +Harriet was on the point of leaving the room, and only stopt to say, +with a very interesting naivete, + +"Oh! dear, no, never." + +No sooner was she out of sight, than Emma exclaimed, + +"What an exquisite possession a good picture of her would be! I would +give any money for it. I almost long to attempt her likeness myself. +You do not know it I dare say, but two or three years ago I had a great +passion for taking likenesses, and attempted several of my friends, and +was thought to have a tolerable eye in general. But from one cause or +another, I gave it up in disgust. But really, I could almost venture, +if Harriet would sit to me. It would be such a delight to have her +picture!" + +"Let me entreat you," cried Mr. Elton; "it would indeed be a delight! +Let me entreat you, Miss Woodhouse, to exercise so charming a talent +in favour of your friend. I know what your drawings are. How could +you suppose me ignorant? Is not this room rich in specimens of your +landscapes and flowers; and has not Mrs. Weston some inimitable +figure-pieces in her drawing-room, at Randalls?" + +Yes, good man!--thought Emma--but what has all that to do with taking +likenesses? You know nothing of drawing. Don't pretend to be in raptures +about mine. Keep your raptures for Harriet's face. "Well, if you give me +such kind encouragement, Mr. Elton, I believe I shall try what I can do. +Harriet's features are very delicate, which makes a likeness difficult; +and yet there is a peculiarity in the shape of the eye and the lines +about the mouth which one ought to catch." + +"Exactly so--The shape of the eye and the lines about the mouth--I have +not a doubt of your success. Pray, pray attempt it. As you will do it, +it will indeed, to use your own words, be an exquisite possession." + +"But I am afraid, Mr. Elton, Harriet will not like to sit. She thinks +so little of her own beauty. Did not you observe her manner of answering +me? How completely it meant, 'why should my picture be drawn?'" + +"Oh! yes, I observed it, I assure you. It was not lost on me. But still +I cannot imagine she would not be persuaded." + +Harriet was soon back again, and the proposal almost immediately made; +and she had no scruples which could stand many minutes against the +earnest pressing of both the others. Emma wished to go to work directly, +and therefore produced the portfolio containing her various attempts at +portraits, for not one of them had ever been finished, that they might +decide together on the best size for Harriet. Her many beginnings were +displayed. Miniatures, half-lengths, whole-lengths, pencil, crayon, and +water-colours had been all tried in turn. She had always wanted to do +every thing, and had made more progress both in drawing and music than +many might have done with so little labour as she would ever submit to. +She played and sang;--and drew in almost every style; but steadiness +had always been wanting; and in nothing had she approached the degree of +excellence which she would have been glad to command, and ought not to +have failed of. She was not much deceived as to her own skill either +as an artist or a musician, but she was not unwilling to have others +deceived, or sorry to know her reputation for accomplishment often +higher than it deserved. + +There was merit in every drawing--in the least finished, perhaps the +most; her style was spirited; but had there been much less, or had there +been ten times more, the delight and admiration of her two companions +would have been the same. They were both in ecstasies. A likeness +pleases every body; and Miss Woodhouse's performances must be capital. + +"No great variety of faces for you," said Emma. "I had only my own +family to study from. There is my father--another of my father--but the +idea of sitting for his picture made him so nervous, that I could only +take him by stealth; neither of them very like therefore. Mrs. Weston +again, and again, and again, you see. Dear Mrs. Weston! always my +kindest friend on every occasion. She would sit whenever I asked her. +There is my sister; and really quite her own little elegant figure!--and +the face not unlike. I should have made a good likeness of her, if she +would have sat longer, but she was in such a hurry to have me draw +her four children that she would not be quiet. Then, here come all my +attempts at three of those four children;--there they are, Henry and +John and Bella, from one end of the sheet to the other, and any one of +them might do for any one of the rest. She was so eager to have them +drawn that I could not refuse; but there is no making children of three +or four years old stand still you know; nor can it be very easy to take +any likeness of them, beyond the air and complexion, unless they are +coarser featured than any of mama's children ever were. Here is my +sketch of the fourth, who was a baby. I took him as he was sleeping on +the sofa, and it is as strong a likeness of his cockade as you would +wish to see. He had nestled down his head most conveniently. That's very +like. I am rather proud of little George. The corner of the sofa is very +good. Then here is my last,"--unclosing a pretty sketch of a gentleman +in small size, whole-length--"my last and my best--my brother, Mr. John +Knightley.--This did not want much of being finished, when I put it away +in a pet, and vowed I would never take another likeness. I could not +help being provoked; for after all my pains, and when I had really made +a very good likeness of it--(Mrs. Weston and I were quite agreed in +thinking it _very_ like)--only too handsome--too flattering--but +that was a fault on the right side"--after all this, came poor dear +Isabella's cold approbation of--"Yes, it was a little like--but to be +sure it did not do him justice. We had had a great deal of trouble +in persuading him to sit at all. It was made a great favour of; and +altogether it was more than I could bear; and so I never would finish +it, to have it apologised over as an unfavourable likeness, to every +morning visitor in Brunswick Square;--and, as I said, I did then +forswear ever drawing any body again. But for Harriet's sake, or rather +for my own, and as there are no husbands and wives in the case _at_ +_present_, I will break my resolution now." + +Mr. Elton seemed very properly struck and delighted by the idea, and was +repeating, "No husbands and wives in the case at present indeed, as +you observe. Exactly so. No husbands and wives," with so interesting a +consciousness, that Emma began to consider whether she had not better +leave them together at once. But as she wanted to be drawing, the +declaration must wait a little longer. + +She had soon fixed on the size and sort of portrait. It was to be +a whole-length in water-colours, like Mr. John Knightley's, and was +destined, if she could please herself, to hold a very honourable station +over the mantelpiece. + +The sitting began; and Harriet, smiling and blushing, and afraid of not +keeping her attitude and countenance, presented a very sweet mixture of +youthful expression to the steady eyes of the artist. But there was no +doing any thing, with Mr. Elton fidgeting behind her and watching every +touch. She gave him credit for stationing himself where he might gaze +and gaze again without offence; but was really obliged to put an end to +it, and request him to place himself elsewhere. It then occurred to her +to employ him in reading. + +"If he would be so good as to read to them, it would be a kindness +indeed! It would amuse away the difficulties of her part, and lessen the +irksomeness of Miss Smith's." + +Mr. Elton was only too happy. Harriet listened, and Emma drew in peace. +She must allow him to be still frequently coming to look; any thing less +would certainly have been too little in a lover; and he was ready at the +smallest intermission of the pencil, to jump up and see the progress, +and be charmed.--There was no being displeased with such an encourager, +for his admiration made him discern a likeness almost before it +was possible. She could not respect his eye, but his love and his +complaisance were unexceptionable. + +The sitting was altogether very satisfactory; she was quite enough +pleased with the first day's sketch to wish to go on. There was no want +of likeness, she had been fortunate in the attitude, and as she meant +to throw in a little improvement to the figure, to give a little more +height, and considerably more elegance, she had great confidence of +its being in every way a pretty drawing at last, and of its filling +its destined place with credit to them both--a standing memorial of the +beauty of one, the skill of the other, and the friendship of both; +with as many other agreeable associations as Mr. Elton's very promising +attachment was likely to add. + +Harriet was to sit again the next day; and Mr. Elton, just as he ought, +entreated for the permission of attending and reading to them again. + +"By all means. We shall be most happy to consider you as one of the +party." + +The same civilities and courtesies, the same success and satisfaction, +took place on the morrow, and accompanied the whole progress of the +picture, which was rapid and happy. Every body who saw it was pleased, +but Mr. Elton was in continual raptures, and defended it through every +criticism. + +"Miss Woodhouse has given her friend the only beauty she +wanted,"--observed Mrs. Weston to him--not in the least suspecting that +she was addressing a lover.--"The expression of the eye is most correct, +but Miss Smith has not those eyebrows and eyelashes. It is the fault of +her face that she has them not." + +"Do you think so?" replied he. "I cannot agree with you. It appears +to me a most perfect resemblance in every feature. I never saw such a +likeness in my life. We must allow for the effect of shade, you know." + +"You have made her too tall, Emma," said Mr. Knightley. + +Emma knew that she had, but would not own it; and Mr. Elton warmly +added, + +"Oh no! certainly not too tall; not in the least too tall. Consider, she +is sitting down--which naturally presents a different--which in short +gives exactly the idea--and the proportions must be preserved, you know. +Proportions, fore-shortening.--Oh no! it gives one exactly the idea of +such a height as Miss Smith's. Exactly so indeed!" + +"It is very pretty," said Mr. Woodhouse. "So prettily done! Just as your +drawings always are, my dear. I do not know any body who draws so well +as you do. The only thing I do not thoroughly like is, that she seems +to be sitting out of doors, with only a little shawl over her +shoulders--and it makes one think she must catch cold." + +"But, my dear papa, it is supposed to be summer; a warm day in summer. +Look at the tree." + +"But it is never safe to sit out of doors, my dear." + +"You, sir, may say any thing," cried Mr. Elton, "but I must confess that +I regard it as a most happy thought, the placing of Miss Smith out of +doors; and the tree is touched with such inimitable spirit! Any other +situation would have been much less in character. The naivete of Miss +Smith's manners--and altogether--Oh, it is most admirable! I cannot keep +my eyes from it. I never saw such a likeness." + +The next thing wanted was to get the picture framed; and here were a few +difficulties. It must be done directly; it must be done in London; the +order must go through the hands of some intelligent person whose taste +could be depended on; and Isabella, the usual doer of all commissions, +must not be applied to, because it was December, and Mr. Woodhouse +could not bear the idea of her stirring out of her house in the fogs of +December. But no sooner was the distress known to Mr. Elton, than it +was removed. His gallantry was always on the alert. "Might he be trusted +with the commission, what infinite pleasure should he have in executing +it! he could ride to London at any time. It was impossible to say how +much he should be gratified by being employed on such an errand." + +"He was too good!--she could not endure the thought!--she would not give +him such a troublesome office for the world,"--brought on the desired +repetition of entreaties and assurances,--and a very few minutes settled +the business. + +Mr. Elton was to take the drawing to London, chuse the frame, and give +the directions; and Emma thought she could so pack it as to ensure its +safety without much incommoding him, while he seemed mostly fearful of +not being incommoded enough. + +"What a precious deposit!" said he with a tender sigh, as he received +it. + +"This man is almost too gallant to be in love," thought Emma. "I should +say so, but that I suppose there may be a hundred different ways of +being in love. He is an excellent young man, and will suit Harriet +exactly; it will be an 'Exactly so,' as he says himself; but he does +sigh and languish, and study for compliments rather more than I could +endure as a principal. I come in for a pretty good share as a second. +But it is his gratitude on Harriet's account." + + + +CHAPTER VII + + +The very day of Mr. Elton's going to London produced a fresh occasion +for Emma's services towards her friend. Harriet had been at Hartfield, +as usual, soon after breakfast; and, after a time, had gone home to +return again to dinner: she returned, and sooner than had been +talked of, and with an agitated, hurried look, announcing something +extraordinary to have happened which she was longing to tell. Half a +minute brought it all out. She had heard, as soon as she got back to +Mrs. Goddard's, that Mr. Martin had been there an hour before, and +finding she was not at home, nor particularly expected, had left a +little parcel for her from one of his sisters, and gone away; and on +opening this parcel, she had actually found, besides the two songs which +she had lent Elizabeth to copy, a letter to herself; and this letter was +from him, from Mr. Martin, and contained a direct proposal of marriage. +"Who could have thought it? She was so surprized she did not know what +to do. Yes, quite a proposal of marriage; and a very good letter, +at least she thought so. And he wrote as if he really loved her very +much--but she did not know--and so, she was come as fast as she could to +ask Miss Woodhouse what she should do.--" Emma was half-ashamed of her +friend for seeming so pleased and so doubtful. + +"Upon my word," she cried, "the young man is determined not to lose any +thing for want of asking. He will connect himself well if he can." + +"Will you read the letter?" cried Harriet. "Pray do. I'd rather you +would." + +Emma was not sorry to be pressed. She read, and was surprized. The style +of the letter was much above her expectation. There were not merely no +grammatical errors, but as a composition it would not have disgraced a +gentleman; the language, though plain, was strong and unaffected, and +the sentiments it conveyed very much to the credit of the writer. It was +short, but expressed good sense, warm attachment, liberality, propriety, +even delicacy of feeling. She paused over it, while Harriet stood +anxiously watching for her opinion, with a "Well, well," and was at last +forced to add, "Is it a good letter? or is it too short?" + +"Yes, indeed, a very good letter," replied Emma rather slowly--"so +good a letter, Harriet, that every thing considered, I think one of his +sisters must have helped him. I can hardly imagine the young man whom +I saw talking with you the other day could express himself so well, if +left quite to his own powers, and yet it is not the style of a woman; +no, certainly, it is too strong and concise; not diffuse enough for a +woman. No doubt he is a sensible man, and I suppose may have a natural +talent for--thinks strongly and clearly--and when he takes a pen in +hand, his thoughts naturally find proper words. It is so with some men. +Yes, I understand the sort of mind. Vigorous, decided, with sentiments +to a certain point, not coarse. A better written letter, Harriet +(returning it,) than I had expected." + +"Well," said the still waiting Harriet;--"well--and--and what shall I +do?" + +"What shall you do! In what respect? Do you mean with regard to this +letter?" + +"Yes." + +"But what are you in doubt of? You must answer it of course--and +speedily." + +"Yes. But what shall I say? Dear Miss Woodhouse, do advise me." + +"Oh no, no! the letter had much better be all your own. You will express +yourself very properly, I am sure. There is no danger of your not +being intelligible, which is the first thing. Your meaning must be +unequivocal; no doubts or demurs: and such expressions of gratitude +and concern for the pain you are inflicting as propriety requires, will +present themselves unbidden to _your_ mind, I am persuaded. You need +not be prompted to write with the appearance of sorrow for his +disappointment." + +"You think I ought to refuse him then," said Harriet, looking down. + +"Ought to refuse him! My dear Harriet, what do you mean? Are you in any +doubt as to that? I thought--but I beg your pardon, perhaps I have been +under a mistake. I certainly have been misunderstanding you, if you feel +in doubt as to the _purport_ of your answer. I had imagined you were +consulting me only as to the wording of it." + +Harriet was silent. With a little reserve of manner, Emma continued: + +"You mean to return a favourable answer, I collect." + +"No, I do not; that is, I do not mean--What shall I do? What would you +advise me to do? Pray, dear Miss Woodhouse, tell me what I ought to do." + +"I shall not give you any advice, Harriet. I will have nothing to do +with it. This is a point which you must settle with your feelings." + +"I had no notion that he liked me so very much," said Harriet, +contemplating the letter. For a little while Emma persevered in her +silence; but beginning to apprehend the bewitching flattery of that +letter might be too powerful, she thought it best to say, + +"I lay it down as a general rule, Harriet, that if a woman _doubts_ as +to whether she should accept a man or not, she certainly ought to refuse +him. If she can hesitate as to 'Yes,' she ought to say 'No' directly. +It is not a state to be safely entered into with doubtful feelings, with +half a heart. I thought it my duty as a friend, and older than yourself, +to say thus much to you. But do not imagine that I want to influence +you." + +"Oh! no, I am sure you are a great deal too kind to--but if you would +just advise me what I had best do--No, no, I do not mean that--As +you say, one's mind ought to be quite made up--One should not be +hesitating--It is a very serious thing.--It will be safer to say 'No,' +perhaps.--Do you think I had better say 'No?'" + +"Not for the world," said Emma, smiling graciously, "would I advise you +either way. You must be the best judge of your own happiness. If you +prefer Mr. Martin to every other person; if you think him the most +agreeable man you have ever been in company with, why should you +hesitate? You blush, Harriet.--Does any body else occur to you at +this moment under such a definition? Harriet, Harriet, do not deceive +yourself; do not be run away with by gratitude and compassion. At this +moment whom are you thinking of?" + +The symptoms were favourable.--Instead of answering, Harriet turned away +confused, and stood thoughtfully by the fire; and though the letter was +still in her hand, it was now mechanically twisted about without regard. +Emma waited the result with impatience, but not without strong hopes. At +last, with some hesitation, Harriet said-- + +"Miss Woodhouse, as you will not give me your opinion, I must do as well +as I can by myself; and I have now quite determined, and really almost +made up my mind--to refuse Mr. Martin. Do you think I am right?" + +"Perfectly, perfectly right, my dearest Harriet; you are doing just +what you ought. While you were at all in suspense I kept my feelings to +myself, but now that you are so completely decided I have no hesitation +in approving. Dear Harriet, I give myself joy of this. It would +have grieved me to lose your acquaintance, which must have been the +consequence of your marrying Mr. Martin. While you were in the smallest +degree wavering, I said nothing about it, because I would not influence; +but it would have been the loss of a friend to me. I could not have +visited Mrs. Robert Martin, of Abbey-Mill Farm. Now I am secure of you +for ever." + +Harriet had not surmised her own danger, but the idea of it struck her +forcibly. + +"You could not have visited me!" she cried, looking aghast. "No, to be +sure you could not; but I never thought of that before. That would have +been too dreadful!--What an escape!--Dear Miss Woodhouse, I would not +give up the pleasure and honour of being intimate with you for any thing +in the world." + +"Indeed, Harriet, it would have been a severe pang to lose you; but it +must have been. You would have thrown yourself out of all good society. +I must have given you up." + +"Dear me!--How should I ever have borne it! It would have killed me +never to come to Hartfield any more!" + +"Dear affectionate creature!--_You_ banished to Abbey-Mill Farm!--_You_ +confined to the society of the illiterate and vulgar all your life! I +wonder how the young man could have the assurance to ask it. He must +have a pretty good opinion of himself." + +"I do not think he is conceited either, in general," said Harriet, her +conscience opposing such censure; "at least, he is very good natured, +and I shall always feel much obliged to him, and have a great regard +for--but that is quite a different thing from--and you know, though +he may like me, it does not follow that I should--and certainly I must +confess that since my visiting here I have seen people--and if one comes +to compare them, person and manners, there is no comparison at all, +_one_ is so very handsome and agreeable. However, I do really think Mr. +Martin a very amiable young man, and have a great opinion of him; and +his being so much attached to me--and his writing such a letter--but as +to leaving you, it is what I would not do upon any consideration." + +"Thank you, thank you, my own sweet little friend. We will not be +parted. A woman is not to marry a man merely because she is asked, or +because he is attached to her, and can write a tolerable letter." + +"Oh no;--and it is but a short letter too." + +Emma felt the bad taste of her friend, but let it pass with a "very +true; and it would be a small consolation to her, for the clownish +manner which might be offending her every hour of the day, to know that +her husband could write a good letter." + +"Oh! yes, very. Nobody cares for a letter; the thing is, to be always +happy with pleasant companions. I am quite determined to refuse him. But +how shall I do? What shall I say?" + +Emma assured her there would be no difficulty in the answer, and advised +its being written directly, which was agreed to, in the hope of her +assistance; and though Emma continued to protest against any assistance +being wanted, it was in fact given in the formation of every sentence. +The looking over his letter again, in replying to it, had such a +softening tendency, that it was particularly necessary to brace her up +with a few decisive expressions; and she was so very much concerned at +the idea of making him unhappy, and thought so much of what his mother +and sisters would think and say, and was so anxious that they should not +fancy her ungrateful, that Emma believed if the young man had come in +her way at that moment, he would have been accepted after all. + +This letter, however, was written, and sealed, and sent. The business +was finished, and Harriet safe. She was rather low all the evening, but +Emma could allow for her amiable regrets, and sometimes relieved them by +speaking of her own affection, sometimes by bringing forward the idea of +Mr. Elton. + +"I shall never be invited to Abbey-Mill again," was said in rather a +sorrowful tone. + +"Nor, if you were, could I ever bear to part with you, my Harriet. You +are a great deal too necessary at Hartfield to be spared to Abbey-Mill." + +"And I am sure I should never want to go there; for I am never happy but +at Hartfield." + +Some time afterwards it was, "I think Mrs. Goddard would be very much +surprized if she knew what had happened. I am sure Miss Nash would--for +Miss Nash thinks her own sister very well married, and it is only a +linen-draper." + +"One should be sorry to see greater pride or refinement in the teacher +of a school, Harriet. I dare say Miss Nash would envy you such an +opportunity as this of being married. Even this conquest would appear +valuable in her eyes. As to any thing superior for you, I suppose she +is quite in the dark. The attentions of a certain person can hardly be +among the tittle-tattle of Highbury yet. Hitherto I fancy you and I +are the only people to whom his looks and manners have explained +themselves." + +Harriet blushed and smiled, and said something about wondering that +people should like her so much. The idea of Mr. Elton was certainly +cheering; but still, after a time, she was tender-hearted again towards +the rejected Mr. Martin. + +"Now he has got my letter," said she softly. "I wonder what they are all +doing--whether his sisters know--if he is unhappy, they will be unhappy +too. I hope he will not mind it so very much." + +"Let us think of those among our absent friends who are more cheerfully +employed," cried Emma. "At this moment, perhaps, Mr. Elton is shewing +your picture to his mother and sisters, telling how much more beautiful +is the original, and after being asked for it five or six times, +allowing them to hear your name, your own dear name." + +"My picture!--But he has left my picture in Bond-street." + +"Has he so!--Then I know nothing of Mr. Elton. No, my dear little modest +Harriet, depend upon it the picture will not be in Bond-street till +just before he mounts his horse to-morrow. It is his companion all this +evening, his solace, his delight. It opens his designs to his family, +it introduces you among them, it diffuses through the party those +pleasantest feelings of our nature, eager curiosity and warm +prepossession. How cheerful, how animated, how suspicious, how busy +their imaginations all are!" + +Harriet smiled again, and her smiles grew stronger. + + + +CHAPTER VIII + + +Harriet slept at Hartfield that night. For some weeks past she had been +spending more than half her time there, and gradually getting to have +a bed-room appropriated to herself; and Emma judged it best in every +respect, safest and kindest, to keep her with them as much as possible +just at present. She was obliged to go the next morning for an hour or +two to Mrs. Goddard's, but it was then to be settled that she should +return to Hartfield, to make a regular visit of some days. + +While she was gone, Mr. Knightley called, and sat some time with Mr. +Woodhouse and Emma, till Mr. Woodhouse, who had previously made up his +mind to walk out, was persuaded by his daughter not to defer it, and was +induced by the entreaties of both, though against the scruples of his +own civility, to leave Mr. Knightley for that purpose. Mr. Knightley, +who had nothing of ceremony about him, was offering by his short, +decided answers, an amusing contrast to the protracted apologies and +civil hesitations of the other. + +"Well, I believe, if you will excuse me, Mr. Knightley, if you will not +consider me as doing a very rude thing, I shall take Emma's advice and +go out for a quarter of an hour. As the sun is out, I believe I had +better take my three turns while I can. I treat you without ceremony, +Mr. Knightley. We invalids think we are privileged people." + +"My dear sir, do not make a stranger of me." + +"I leave an excellent substitute in my daughter. Emma will be happy to +entertain you. And therefore I think I will beg your excuse and take my +three turns--my winter walk." + +"You cannot do better, sir." + +"I would ask for the pleasure of your company, Mr. Knightley, but I am a +very slow walker, and my pace would be tedious to you; and, besides, you +have another long walk before you, to Donwell Abbey." + +"Thank you, sir, thank you; I am going this moment myself; and I think +the sooner _you_ go the better. I will fetch your greatcoat and open the +garden door for you." + +Mr. Woodhouse at last was off; but Mr. Knightley, instead of being +immediately off likewise, sat down again, seemingly inclined for more +chat. He began speaking of Harriet, and speaking of her with more +voluntary praise than Emma had ever heard before. + +"I cannot rate her beauty as you do," said he; "but she is a +pretty little creature, and I am inclined to think very well of her +disposition. Her character depends upon those she is with; but in good +hands she will turn out a valuable woman." + +"I am glad you think so; and the good hands, I hope, may not be +wanting." + +"Come," said he, "you are anxious for a compliment, so I will tell you +that you have improved her. You have cured her of her school-girl's +giggle; she really does you credit." + +"Thank you. I should be mortified indeed if I did not believe I had been +of some use; but it is not every body who will bestow praise where they +may. _You_ do not often overpower me with it." + +"You are expecting her again, you say, this morning?" + +"Almost every moment. She has been gone longer already than she +intended." + +"Something has happened to delay her; some visitors perhaps." + +"Highbury gossips!--Tiresome wretches!" + +"Harriet may not consider every body tiresome that you would." + +Emma knew this was too true for contradiction, and therefore said +nothing. He presently added, with a smile, + +"I do not pretend to fix on times or places, but I must tell you that +I have good reason to believe your little friend will soon hear of +something to her advantage." + +"Indeed! how so? of what sort?" + +"A very serious sort, I assure you;" still smiling. + +"Very serious! I can think of but one thing--Who is in love with her? +Who makes you their confidant?" + +Emma was more than half in hopes of Mr. Elton's having dropt a hint. +Mr. Knightley was a sort of general friend and adviser, and she knew Mr. +Elton looked up to him. + +"I have reason to think," he replied, "that Harriet Smith will soon have +an offer of marriage, and from a most unexceptionable quarter:--Robert +Martin is the man. Her visit to Abbey-Mill, this summer, seems to have +done his business. He is desperately in love and means to marry her." + +"He is very obliging," said Emma; "but is he sure that Harriet means to +marry him?" + +"Well, well, means to make her an offer then. Will that do? He came to +the Abbey two evenings ago, on purpose to consult me about it. He knows +I have a thorough regard for him and all his family, and, I believe, +considers me as one of his best friends. He came to ask me whether +I thought it would be imprudent in him to settle so early; whether +I thought her too young: in short, whether I approved his choice +altogether; having some apprehension perhaps of her being considered +(especially since _your_ making so much of her) as in a line of society +above him. I was very much pleased with all that he said. I never hear +better sense from any one than Robert Martin. He always speaks to the +purpose; open, straightforward, and very well judging. He told me every +thing; his circumstances and plans, and what they all proposed doing in +the event of his marriage. He is an excellent young man, both as son and +brother. I had no hesitation in advising him to marry. He proved to me +that he could afford it; and that being the case, I was convinced he +could not do better. I praised the fair lady too, and altogether sent +him away very happy. If he had never esteemed my opinion before, he +would have thought highly of me then; and, I dare say, left the house +thinking me the best friend and counsellor man ever had. This happened +the night before last. Now, as we may fairly suppose, he would not allow +much time to pass before he spoke to the lady, and as he does not appear +to have spoken yesterday, it is not unlikely that he should be at Mrs. +Goddard's to-day; and she may be detained by a visitor, without thinking +him at all a tiresome wretch." + +"Pray, Mr. Knightley," said Emma, who had been smiling to herself +through a great part of this speech, "how do you know that Mr. Martin +did not speak yesterday?" + +"Certainly," replied he, surprized, "I do not absolutely know it; but it +may be inferred. Was not she the whole day with you?" + +"Come," said she, "I will tell you something, in return for what +you have told me. He did speak yesterday--that is, he wrote, and was +refused." + +This was obliged to be repeated before it could be believed; and Mr. +Knightley actually looked red with surprize and displeasure, as he stood +up, in tall indignation, and said, + +"Then she is a greater simpleton than I ever believed her. What is the +foolish girl about?" + +"Oh! to be sure," cried Emma, "it is always incomprehensible to a man +that a woman should ever refuse an offer of marriage. A man always +imagines a woman to be ready for any body who asks her." + +"Nonsense! a man does not imagine any such thing. But what is the +meaning of this? Harriet Smith refuse Robert Martin? madness, if it is +so; but I hope you are mistaken." + +"I saw her answer!--nothing could be clearer." + +"You saw her answer!--you wrote her answer too. Emma, this is your +doing. You persuaded her to refuse him." + +"And if I did, (which, however, I am far from allowing) I should not +feel that I had done wrong. Mr. Martin is a very respectable young man, +but I cannot admit him to be Harriet's equal; and am rather surprized +indeed that he should have ventured to address her. By your account, he +does seem to have had some scruples. It is a pity that they were ever +got over." + +"Not Harriet's equal!" exclaimed Mr. Knightley loudly and warmly; and +with calmer asperity, added, a few moments afterwards, "No, he is +not her equal indeed, for he is as much her superior in sense as in +situation. Emma, your infatuation about that girl blinds you. What are +Harriet Smith's claims, either of birth, nature or education, to any +connexion higher than Robert Martin? She is the natural daughter of +nobody knows whom, with probably no settled provision at all, and +certainly no respectable relations. She is known only as parlour-boarder +at a common school. She is not a sensible girl, nor a girl of any +information. She has been taught nothing useful, and is too young and +too simple to have acquired any thing herself. At her age she can have +no experience, and with her little wit, is not very likely ever to have +any that can avail her. She is pretty, and she is good tempered, and +that is all. My only scruple in advising the match was on his account, +as being beneath his deserts, and a bad connexion for him. I felt that, +as to fortune, in all probability he might do much better; and that as +to a rational companion or useful helpmate, he could not do worse. But I +could not reason so to a man in love, and was willing to trust to there +being no harm in her, to her having that sort of disposition, which, in +good hands, like his, might be easily led aright and turn out very well. +The advantage of the match I felt to be all on her side; and had not the +smallest doubt (nor have I now) that there would be a general cry-out +upon her extreme good luck. Even _your_ satisfaction I made sure of. +It crossed my mind immediately that you would not regret your friend's +leaving Highbury, for the sake of her being settled so well. I remember +saying to myself, 'Even Emma, with all her partiality for Harriet, will +think this a good match.'" + +"I cannot help wondering at your knowing so little of Emma as to say any +such thing. What! think a farmer, (and with all his sense and all his +merit Mr. Martin is nothing more,) a good match for my intimate friend! +Not regret her leaving Highbury for the sake of marrying a man whom +I could never admit as an acquaintance of my own! I wonder you should +think it possible for me to have such feelings. I assure you mine are +very different. I must think your statement by no means fair. You are +not just to Harriet's claims. They would be estimated very differently +by others as well as myself; Mr. Martin may be the richest of the two, +but he is undoubtedly her inferior as to rank in society.--The sphere in +which she moves is much above his.--It would be a degradation." + +"A degradation to illegitimacy and ignorance, to be married to a +respectable, intelligent gentleman-farmer!" + +"As to the circumstances of her birth, though in a legal sense she may +be called Nobody, it will not hold in common sense. She is not to pay +for the offence of others, by being held below the level of those with +whom she is brought up.--There can scarcely be a doubt that her father +is a gentleman--and a gentleman of fortune.--Her allowance is +very liberal; nothing has ever been grudged for her improvement or +comfort.--That she is a gentleman's daughter, is indubitable to me; that +she associates with gentlemen's daughters, no one, I apprehend, will +deny.--She is superior to Mr. Robert Martin." + +"Whoever might be her parents," said Mr. Knightley, "whoever may have +had the charge of her, it does not appear to have been any part of +their plan to introduce her into what you would call good society. After +receiving a very indifferent education she is left in Mrs. Goddard's +hands to shift as she can;--to move, in short, in Mrs. Goddard's line, +to have Mrs. Goddard's acquaintance. Her friends evidently thought +this good enough for her; and it _was_ good enough. She desired nothing +better herself. Till you chose to turn her into a friend, her mind had +no distaste for her own set, nor any ambition beyond it. She was as +happy as possible with the Martins in the summer. She had no sense of +superiority then. If she has it now, you have given it. You have been no +friend to Harriet Smith, Emma. Robert Martin would never have proceeded +so far, if he had not felt persuaded of her not being disinclined to +him. I know him well. He has too much real feeling to address any +woman on the haphazard of selfish passion. And as to conceit, he is +the farthest from it of any man I know. Depend upon it he had +encouragement." + +It was most convenient to Emma not to make a direct reply to this +assertion; she chose rather to take up her own line of the subject +again. + +"You are a very warm friend to Mr. Martin; but, as I said before, +are unjust to Harriet. Harriet's claims to marry well are not so +contemptible as you represent them. She is not a clever girl, but she +has better sense than you are aware of, and does not deserve to have her +understanding spoken of so slightingly. Waiving that point, however, and +supposing her to be, as you describe her, only pretty and good-natured, +let me tell you, that in the degree she possesses them, they are not +trivial recommendations to the world in general, for she is, in fact, a +beautiful girl, and must be thought so by ninety-nine people out of an +hundred; and till it appears that men are much more philosophic on the +subject of beauty than they are generally supposed; till they do fall +in love with well-informed minds instead of handsome faces, a girl, with +such loveliness as Harriet, has a certainty of being admired and sought +after, of having the power of chusing from among many, consequently a +claim to be nice. Her good-nature, too, is not so very slight a claim, +comprehending, as it does, real, thorough sweetness of temper and +manner, a very humble opinion of herself, and a great readiness to +be pleased with other people. I am very much mistaken if your sex in +general would not think such beauty, and such temper, the highest claims +a woman could possess." + +"Upon my word, Emma, to hear you abusing the reason you have, is almost +enough to make me think so too. Better be without sense, than misapply +it as you do." + +"To be sure!" cried she playfully. "I know _that_ is the feeling of +you all. I know that such a girl as Harriet is exactly what every +man delights in--what at once bewitches his senses and satisfies his +judgment. Oh! Harriet may pick and chuse. Were you, yourself, ever to +marry, she is the very woman for you. And is she, at seventeen, just +entering into life, just beginning to be known, to be wondered at +because she does not accept the first offer she receives? No--pray let +her have time to look about her." + +"I have always thought it a very foolish intimacy," said Mr. Knightley +presently, "though I have kept my thoughts to myself; but I now perceive +that it will be a very unfortunate one for Harriet. You will puff her up +with such ideas of her own beauty, and of what she has a claim to, that, +in a little while, nobody within her reach will be good enough for her. +Vanity working on a weak head, produces every sort of mischief. Nothing +so easy as for a young lady to raise her expectations too high. Miss +Harriet Smith may not find offers of marriage flow in so fast, though +she is a very pretty girl. Men of sense, whatever you may chuse to +say, do not want silly wives. Men of family would not be very fond of +connecting themselves with a girl of such obscurity--and most prudent +men would be afraid of the inconvenience and disgrace they might be +involved in, when the mystery of her parentage came to be revealed. Let +her marry Robert Martin, and she is safe, respectable, and happy for +ever; but if you encourage her to expect to marry greatly, and teach her +to be satisfied with nothing less than a man of consequence and large +fortune, she may be a parlour-boarder at Mrs. Goddard's all the rest +of her life--or, at least, (for Harriet Smith is a girl who will marry +somebody or other,) till she grow desperate, and is glad to catch at the +old writing-master's son." + +"We think so very differently on this point, Mr. Knightley, that there +can be no use in canvassing it. We shall only be making each other more +angry. But as to my _letting_ her marry Robert Martin, it is impossible; +she has refused him, and so decidedly, I think, as must prevent any +second application. She must abide by the evil of having refused him, +whatever it may be; and as to the refusal itself, I will not pretend to +say that I might not influence her a little; but I assure you there +was very little for me or for any body to do. His appearance is so much +against him, and his manner so bad, that if she ever were disposed to +favour him, she is not now. I can imagine, that before she had seen +any body superior, she might tolerate him. He was the brother of her +friends, and he took pains to please her; and altogether, having seen +nobody better (that must have been his great assistant) she might not, +while she was at Abbey-Mill, find him disagreeable. But the case +is altered now. She knows now what gentlemen are; and nothing but a +gentleman in education and manner has any chance with Harriet." + +"Nonsense, errant nonsense, as ever was talked!" cried Mr. +Knightley.--"Robert Martin's manners have sense, sincerity, and +good-humour to recommend them; and his mind has more true gentility than +Harriet Smith could understand." + +Emma made no answer, and tried to look cheerfully unconcerned, but was +really feeling uncomfortable and wanting him very much to be gone. She +did not repent what she had done; she still thought herself a better +judge of such a point of female right and refinement than he could be; +but yet she had a sort of habitual respect for his judgment in general, +which made her dislike having it so loudly against her; and to have him +sitting just opposite to her in angry state, was very disagreeable. +Some minutes passed in this unpleasant silence, with only one attempt +on Emma's side to talk of the weather, but he made no answer. He was +thinking. The result of his thoughts appeared at last in these words. + +"Robert Martin has no great loss--if he can but think so; and I hope it +will not be long before he does. Your views for Harriet are best known +to yourself; but as you make no secret of your love of match-making, it +is fair to suppose that views, and plans, and projects you have;--and as +a friend I shall just hint to you that if Elton is the man, I think it +will be all labour in vain." + +Emma laughed and disclaimed. He continued, + +"Depend upon it, Elton will not do. Elton is a very good sort of man, +and a very respectable vicar of Highbury, but not at all likely to make +an imprudent match. He knows the value of a good income as well as any +body. Elton may talk sentimentally, but he will act rationally. He is +as well acquainted with his own claims, as you can be with Harriet's. +He knows that he is a very handsome young man, and a great favourite +wherever he goes; and from his general way of talking in unreserved +moments, when there are only men present, I am convinced that he does +not mean to throw himself away. I have heard him speak with great +animation of a large family of young ladies that his sisters are +intimate with, who have all twenty thousand pounds apiece." + +"I am very much obliged to you," said Emma, laughing again. "If I had +set my heart on Mr. Elton's marrying Harriet, it would have been very +kind to open my eyes; but at present I only want to keep Harriet to +myself. I have done with match-making indeed. I could never hope to +equal my own doings at Randalls. I shall leave off while I am well." + +"Good morning to you,"--said he, rising and walking off abruptly. He was +very much vexed. He felt the disappointment of the young man, and was +mortified to have been the means of promoting it, by the sanction he had +given; and the part which he was persuaded Emma had taken in the affair, +was provoking him exceedingly. + +Emma remained in a state of vexation too; but there was more +indistinctness in the causes of her's, than in his. She did not always +feel so absolutely satisfied with herself, so entirely convinced that +her opinions were right and her adversary's wrong, as Mr. Knightley. He +walked off in more complete self-approbation than he left for her. She +was not so materially cast down, however, but that a little time and +the return of Harriet were very adequate restoratives. Harriet's staying +away so long was beginning to make her uneasy. The possibility of the +young man's coming to Mrs. Goddard's that morning, and meeting with +Harriet and pleading his own cause, gave alarming ideas. The dread +of such a failure after all became the prominent uneasiness; and when +Harriet appeared, and in very good spirits, and without having any +such reason to give for her long absence, she felt a satisfaction which +settled her with her own mind, and convinced her, that let Mr. +Knightley think or say what he would, she had done nothing which woman's +friendship and woman's feelings would not justify. + +He had frightened her a little about Mr. Elton; but when she considered +that Mr. Knightley could not have observed him as she had done, neither +with the interest, nor (she must be allowed to tell herself, in spite of +Mr. Knightley's pretensions) with the skill of such an observer on such +a question as herself, that he had spoken it hastily and in anger, she +was able to believe, that he had rather said what he wished resentfully +to be true, than what he knew any thing about. He certainly might have +heard Mr. Elton speak with more unreserve than she had ever done, and +Mr. Elton might not be of an imprudent, inconsiderate disposition as to +money matters; he might naturally be rather attentive than otherwise +to them; but then, Mr. Knightley did not make due allowance for the +influence of a strong passion at war with all interested motives. Mr. +Knightley saw no such passion, and of course thought nothing of its +effects; but she saw too much of it to feel a doubt of its overcoming +any hesitations that a reasonable prudence might originally suggest; and +more than a reasonable, becoming degree of prudence, she was very sure +did not belong to Mr. Elton. + +Harriet's cheerful look and manner established hers: she came back, not +to think of Mr. Martin, but to talk of Mr. Elton. Miss Nash had been +telling her something, which she repeated immediately with great +delight. Mr. Perry had been to Mrs. Goddard's to attend a sick child, +and Miss Nash had seen him, and he had told Miss Nash, that as he was +coming back yesterday from Clayton Park, he had met Mr. Elton, and +found to his great surprize, that Mr. Elton was actually on his road +to London, and not meaning to return till the morrow, though it was the +whist-club night, which he had been never known to miss before; and Mr. +Perry had remonstrated with him about it, and told him how shabby it +was in him, their best player, to absent himself, and tried very much to +persuade him to put off his journey only one day; but it would not +do; Mr. Elton had been determined to go on, and had said in a _very_ +_particular_ way indeed, that he was going on business which he would +not put off for any inducement in the world; and something about a +very enviable commission, and being the bearer of something exceedingly +precious. Mr. Perry could not quite understand him, but he was very sure +there must be a _lady_ in the case, and he told him so; and Mr. Elton +only looked very conscious and smiling, and rode off in great spirits. +Miss Nash had told her all this, and had talked a great deal more about +Mr. Elton; and said, looking so very significantly at her, "that she did +not pretend to understand what his business might be, but she only +knew that any woman whom Mr. Elton could prefer, she should think the +luckiest woman in the world; for, beyond a doubt, Mr. Elton had not his +equal for beauty or agreeableness." + + + +CHAPTER IX + + +Mr. Knightley might quarrel with her, but Emma could not quarrel with +herself. He was so much displeased, that it was longer than usual before +he came to Hartfield again; and when they did meet, his grave looks +shewed that she was not forgiven. She was sorry, but could not repent. +On the contrary, her plans and proceedings were more and more justified +and endeared to her by the general appearances of the next few days. + +The Picture, elegantly framed, came safely to hand soon after Mr. +Elton's return, and being hung over the mantelpiece of the common +sitting-room, he got up to look at it, and sighed out his half sentences +of admiration just as he ought; and as for Harriet's feelings, they were +visibly forming themselves into as strong and steady an attachment as +her youth and sort of mind admitted. Emma was soon perfectly satisfied +of Mr. Martin's being no otherwise remembered, than as he furnished a +contrast with Mr. Elton, of the utmost advantage to the latter. + +Her views of improving her little friend's mind, by a great deal of +useful reading and conversation, had never yet led to more than a few +first chapters, and the intention of going on to-morrow. It was much +easier to chat than to study; much pleasanter to let her imagination +range and work at Harriet's fortune, than to be labouring to enlarge +her comprehension or exercise it on sober facts; and the only literary +pursuit which engaged Harriet at present, the only mental provision she +was making for the evening of life, was the collecting and transcribing +all the riddles of every sort that she could meet with, into a thin +quarto of hot-pressed paper, made up by her friend, and ornamented with +ciphers and trophies. + +In this age of literature, such collections on a very grand scale are +not uncommon. Miss Nash, head-teacher at Mrs. Goddard's, had written out +at least three hundred; and Harriet, who had taken the first hint of it +from her, hoped, with Miss Woodhouse's help, to get a great many more. +Emma assisted with her invention, memory and taste; and as Harriet wrote +a very pretty hand, it was likely to be an arrangement of the first +order, in form as well as quantity. + +Mr. Woodhouse was almost as much interested in the business as the +girls, and tried very often to recollect something worth their putting +in. "So many clever riddles as there used to be when he was young--he +wondered he could not remember them! but he hoped he should in time." +And it always ended in "Kitty, a fair but frozen maid." + +His good friend Perry, too, whom he had spoken to on the subject, +did not at present recollect any thing of the riddle kind; but he +had desired Perry to be upon the watch, and as he went about so much, +something, he thought, might come from that quarter. + +It was by no means his daughter's wish that the intellects of Highbury +in general should be put under requisition. Mr. Elton was the only one +whose assistance she asked. He was invited to contribute any really good +enigmas, charades, or conundrums that he might recollect; and she had +the pleasure of seeing him most intently at work with his recollections; +and at the same time, as she could perceive, most earnestly careful that +nothing ungallant, nothing that did not breathe a compliment to the +sex should pass his lips. They owed to him their two or three politest +puzzles; and the joy and exultation with which at last he recalled, and +rather sentimentally recited, that well-known charade, + + My first doth affliction denote, + Which my second is destin'd to feel + And my whole is the best antidote + That affliction to soften and heal.-- + +made her quite sorry to acknowledge that they had transcribed it some +pages ago already. + +"Why will not you write one yourself for us, Mr. Elton?" said she; "that +is the only security for its freshness; and nothing could be easier to +you." + +"Oh no! he had never written, hardly ever, any thing of the kind in his +life. The stupidest fellow! He was afraid not even Miss Woodhouse"--he +stopt a moment--"or Miss Smith could inspire him." + +The very next day however produced some proof of inspiration. He +called for a few moments, just to leave a piece of paper on the table +containing, as he said, a charade, which a friend of his had addressed +to a young lady, the object of his admiration, but which, from his +manner, Emma was immediately convinced must be his own. + +"I do not offer it for Miss Smith's collection," said he. "Being my +friend's, I have no right to expose it in any degree to the public eye, +but perhaps you may not dislike looking at it." + +The speech was more to Emma than to Harriet, which Emma could +understand. There was deep consciousness about him, and he found +it easier to meet her eye than her friend's. He was gone the next +moment:--after another moment's pause, + +"Take it," said Emma, smiling, and pushing the paper towards +Harriet--"it is for you. Take your own." + +But Harriet was in a tremor, and could not touch it; and Emma, never +loth to be first, was obliged to examine it herself. + + To Miss-- + + CHARADE. + + My first displays the wealth and pomp of kings, + Lords of the earth! their luxury and ease. + Another view of man, my second brings, + Behold him there, the monarch of the seas! + + But ah! united, what reverse we have! + Man's boasted power and freedom, all are flown; + Lord of the earth and sea, he bends a slave, + And woman, lovely woman, reigns alone. + + Thy ready wit the word will soon supply, + May its approval beam in that soft eye! + +She cast her eye over it, pondered, caught the meaning, read it through +again to be quite certain, and quite mistress of the lines, and then +passing it to Harriet, sat happily smiling, and saying to herself, while +Harriet was puzzling over the paper in all the confusion of hope and +dulness, "Very well, Mr. Elton, very well indeed. I have read worse +charades. _Courtship_--a very good hint. I give you credit for it. This +is feeling your way. This is saying very plainly--'Pray, Miss Smith, +give me leave to pay my addresses to you. Approve my charade and my +intentions in the same glance.' + + May its approval beam in that soft eye! + +Harriet exactly. Soft is the very word for her eye--of all epithets, the +justest that could be given. + + Thy ready wit the word will soon supply. + +Humph--Harriet's ready wit! All the better. A man must be very much in +love, indeed, to describe her so. Ah! Mr. Knightley, I wish you had the +benefit of this; I think this would convince you. For once in your life +you would be obliged to own yourself mistaken. An excellent charade +indeed! and very much to the purpose. Things must come to a crisis soon +now." + +She was obliged to break off from these very pleasant observations, +which were otherwise of a sort to run into great length, by the +eagerness of Harriet's wondering questions. + +"What can it be, Miss Woodhouse?--what can it be? I have not an idea--I +cannot guess it in the least. What can it possibly be? Do try to find +it out, Miss Woodhouse. Do help me. I never saw any thing so hard. Is it +kingdom? I wonder who the friend was--and who could be the young lady. +Do you think it is a good one? Can it be woman? + + And woman, lovely woman, reigns alone. + +Can it be Neptune? + + Behold him there, the monarch of the seas! + +Or a trident? or a mermaid? or a shark? Oh, no! shark is only one +syllable. It must be very clever, or he would not have brought it. Oh! +Miss Woodhouse, do you think we shall ever find it out?" + +"Mermaids and sharks! Nonsense! My dear Harriet, what are you thinking +of? Where would be the use of his bringing us a charade made by a friend +upon a mermaid or a shark? Give me the paper and listen. + +For Miss ------, read Miss Smith. + + My first displays the wealth and pomp of kings, + Lords of the earth! their luxury and ease. + +That is _court_. + + Another view of man, my second brings; + Behold him there, the monarch of the seas! + +That is _ship_;--plain as it can be.--Now for the cream. + + But ah! united, (_courtship_, you know,) what reverse we have! + Man's boasted power and freedom, all are flown. + Lord of the earth and sea, he bends a slave, + And woman, lovely woman, reigns alone. + +A very proper compliment!--and then follows the application, which +I think, my dear Harriet, you cannot find much difficulty in +comprehending. Read it in comfort to yourself. There can be no doubt of +its being written for you and to you." + +Harriet could not long resist so delightful a persuasion. She read +the concluding lines, and was all flutter and happiness. She could not +speak. But she was not wanted to speak. It was enough for her to feel. +Emma spoke for her. + +"There is so pointed, and so particular a meaning in this compliment," +said she, "that I cannot have a doubt as to Mr. Elton's intentions. You +are his object--and you will soon receive the completest proof of it. I +thought it must be so. I thought I could not be so deceived; but now, it +is clear; the state of his mind is as clear and decided, as my wishes on +the subject have been ever since I knew you. Yes, Harriet, just so long +have I been wanting the very circumstance to happen that has happened. +I could never tell whether an attachment between you and Mr. Elton were +most desirable or most natural. Its probability and its eligibility have +really so equalled each other! I am very happy. I congratulate you, my +dear Harriet, with all my heart. This is an attachment which a woman may +well feel pride in creating. This is a connexion which offers nothing +but good. It will give you every thing that you want--consideration, +independence, a proper home--it will fix you in the centre of all your +real friends, close to Hartfield and to me, and confirm our intimacy +for ever. This, Harriet, is an alliance which can never raise a blush in +either of us." + +"Dear Miss Woodhouse!"--and "Dear Miss Woodhouse," was all that Harriet, +with many tender embraces could articulate at first; but when they did +arrive at something more like conversation, it was sufficiently clear to +her friend that she saw, felt, anticipated, and remembered just as she +ought. Mr. Elton's superiority had very ample acknowledgment. + +"Whatever you say is always right," cried Harriet, "and therefore I +suppose, and believe, and hope it must be so; but otherwise I could not +have imagined it. It is so much beyond any thing I deserve. Mr. Elton, +who might marry any body! There cannot be two opinions about _him_. He +is so very superior. Only think of those sweet verses--'To Miss ------.' +Dear me, how clever!--Could it really be meant for me?" + +"I cannot make a question, or listen to a question about that. It is a +certainty. Receive it on my judgment. It is a sort of prologue to +the play, a motto to the chapter; and will be soon followed by +matter-of-fact prose." + +"It is a sort of thing which nobody could have expected. I am sure, +a month ago, I had no more idea myself!--The strangest things do take +place!" + +"When Miss Smiths and Mr. Eltons get acquainted--they do indeed--and +really it is strange; it is out of the common course that what is so +evidently, so palpably desirable--what courts the pre-arrangement of +other people, should so immediately shape itself into the proper form. +You and Mr. Elton are by situation called together; you belong to one +another by every circumstance of your respective homes. Your marrying +will be equal to the match at Randalls. There does seem to be a +something in the air of Hartfield which gives love exactly the right +direction, and sends it into the very channel where it ought to flow. + + The course of true love never did run smooth-- + +A Hartfield edition of Shakespeare would have a long note on that +passage." + +"That Mr. Elton should really be in love with me,--me, of all people, +who did not know him, to speak to him, at Michaelmas! And he, the very +handsomest man that ever was, and a man that every body looks up to, +quite like Mr. Knightley! His company so sought after, that every body +says he need not eat a single meal by himself if he does not chuse it; +that he has more invitations than there are days in the week. And so +excellent in the Church! Miss Nash has put down all the texts he has +ever preached from since he came to Highbury. Dear me! When I look back +to the first time I saw him! How little did I think!--The two Abbots and +I ran into the front room and peeped through the blind when we heard he +was going by, and Miss Nash came and scolded us away, and staid to look +through herself; however, she called me back presently, and let me +look too, which was very good-natured. And how beautiful we thought he +looked! He was arm-in-arm with Mr. Cole." + +"This is an alliance which, whoever--whatever your friends may be, must +be agreeable to them, provided at least they have common sense; and we +are not to be addressing our conduct to fools. If they are anxious to +see you _happily_ married, here is a man whose amiable character gives +every assurance of it;--if they wish to have you settled in the same +country and circle which they have chosen to place you in, here it will +be accomplished; and if their only object is that you should, in the +common phrase, be _well_ married, here is the comfortable fortune, the +respectable establishment, the rise in the world which must satisfy +them." + +"Yes, very true. How nicely you talk; I love to hear you. You understand +every thing. You and Mr. Elton are one as clever as the other. This +charade!--If I had studied a twelvemonth, I could never have made any +thing like it." + +"I thought he meant to try his skill, by his manner of declining it +yesterday." + +"I do think it is, without exception, the best charade I ever read." + +"I never read one more to the purpose, certainly." + +"It is as long again as almost all we have had before." + +"I do not consider its length as particularly in its favour. Such things +in general cannot be too short." + +Harriet was too intent on the lines to hear. The most satisfactory +comparisons were rising in her mind. + +"It is one thing," said she, presently--her cheeks in a glow--"to have +very good sense in a common way, like every body else, and if there is +any thing to say, to sit down and write a letter, and say just what you +must, in a short way; and another, to write verses and charades like +this." + +Emma could not have desired a more spirited rejection of Mr. Martin's +prose. + +"Such sweet lines!" continued Harriet--"these two last!--But how shall I +ever be able to return the paper, or say I have found it out?--Oh! Miss +Woodhouse, what can we do about that?" + +"Leave it to me. You do nothing. He will be here this evening, I dare +say, and then I will give it him back, and some nonsense or other will +pass between us, and you shall not be committed.--Your soft eyes shall +chuse their own time for beaming. Trust to me." + +"Oh! Miss Woodhouse, what a pity that I must not write this beautiful +charade into my book! I am sure I have not got one half so good." + +"Leave out the two last lines, and there is no reason why you should not +write it into your book." + +"Oh! but those two lines are"-- + +--"The best of all. Granted;--for private enjoyment; and for private +enjoyment keep them. They are not at all the less written you know, +because you divide them. The couplet does not cease to be, nor does its +meaning change. But take it away, and all _appropriation_ ceases, and a +very pretty gallant charade remains, fit for any collection. Depend upon +it, he would not like to have his charade slighted, much better than his +passion. A poet in love must be encouraged in both capacities, or +neither. Give me the book, I will write it down, and then there can be +no possible reflection on you." + +Harriet submitted, though her mind could hardly separate the parts, +so as to feel quite sure that her friend were not writing down a +declaration of love. It seemed too precious an offering for any degree +of publicity. + +"I shall never let that book go out of my own hands," said she. + +"Very well," replied Emma; "a most natural feeling; and the longer it +lasts, the better I shall be pleased. But here is my father coming: you +will not object to my reading the charade to him. It will be giving him +so much pleasure! He loves any thing of the sort, and especially any +thing that pays woman a compliment. He has the tenderest spirit of +gallantry towards us all!--You must let me read it to him." + +Harriet looked grave. + +"My dear Harriet, you must not refine too much upon this charade.--You +will betray your feelings improperly, if you are too conscious and too +quick, and appear to affix more meaning, or even quite all the meaning +which may be affixed to it. Do not be overpowered by such a little +tribute of admiration. If he had been anxious for secrecy, he would not +have left the paper while I was by; but he rather pushed it towards me +than towards you. Do not let us be too solemn on the business. He has +encouragement enough to proceed, without our sighing out our souls over +this charade." + +"Oh! no--I hope I shall not be ridiculous about it. Do as you please." + +Mr. Woodhouse came in, and very soon led to the subject again, by the +recurrence of his very frequent inquiry of "Well, my dears, how does +your book go on?--Have you got any thing fresh?" + +"Yes, papa; we have something to read you, something quite fresh. A +piece of paper was found on the table this morning--(dropt, we suppose, +by a fairy)--containing a very pretty charade, and we have just copied +it in." + +She read it to him, just as he liked to have any thing read, slowly and +distinctly, and two or three times over, with explanations of every +part as she proceeded--and he was very much pleased, and, as she had +foreseen, especially struck with the complimentary conclusion. + +"Aye, that's very just, indeed, that's very properly said. Very true. +'Woman, lovely woman.' It is such a pretty charade, my dear, that I +can easily guess what fairy brought it.--Nobody could have written so +prettily, but you, Emma." + +Emma only nodded, and smiled.--After a little thinking, and a very +tender sigh, he added, + +"Ah! it is no difficulty to see who you take after! Your dear mother +was so clever at all those things! If I had but her memory! But I can +remember nothing;--not even that particular riddle which you have +heard me mention; I can only recollect the first stanza; and there are +several. + + Kitty, a fair but frozen maid, + Kindled a flame I yet deplore, + The hood-wink'd boy I called to aid, + Though of his near approach afraid, + So fatal to my suit before. + +And that is all that I can recollect of it--but it is very clever all +the way through. But I think, my dear, you said you had got it." + +"Yes, papa, it is written out in our second page. We copied it from the +Elegant Extracts. It was Garrick's, you know." + +"Aye, very true.--I wish I could recollect more of it. + + Kitty, a fair but frozen maid. + +The name makes me think of poor Isabella; for she was very near being +christened Catherine after her grandmama. I hope we shall have her here +next week. Have you thought, my dear, where you shall put her--and what +room there will be for the children?" + +"Oh! yes--she will have her own room, of course; the room she always +has;--and there is the nursery for the children,--just as usual, you +know. Why should there be any change?" + +"I do not know, my dear--but it is so long since she was here!--not +since last Easter, and then only for a few days.--Mr. John Knightley's +being a lawyer is very inconvenient.--Poor Isabella!--she is sadly taken +away from us all!--and how sorry she will be when she comes, not to see +Miss Taylor here!" + +"She will not be surprized, papa, at least." + +"I do not know, my dear. I am sure I was very much surprized when I +first heard she was going to be married." + +"We must ask Mr. and Mrs. Weston to dine with us, while Isabella is +here." + +"Yes, my dear, if there is time.--But--(in a very depressed tone)--she +is coming for only one week. There will not be time for any thing." + +"It is unfortunate that they cannot stay longer--but it seems a case of +necessity. Mr. John Knightley must be in town again on the 28th, and we +ought to be thankful, papa, that we are to have the whole of the time +they can give to the country, that two or three days are not to be taken +out for the Abbey. Mr. Knightley promises to give up his claim this +Christmas--though you know it is longer since they were with him, than +with us." + +"It would be very hard, indeed, my dear, if poor Isabella were to be +anywhere but at Hartfield." + +Mr. Woodhouse could never allow for Mr. Knightley's claims on his +brother, or any body's claims on Isabella, except his own. He sat musing +a little while, and then said, + +"But I do not see why poor Isabella should be obliged to go back so +soon, though he does. I think, Emma, I shall try and persuade her to +stay longer with us. She and the children might stay very well." + +"Ah! papa--that is what you never have been able to accomplish, and I +do not think you ever will. Isabella cannot bear to stay behind her +husband." + +This was too true for contradiction. Unwelcome as it was, Mr. Woodhouse +could only give a submissive sigh; and as Emma saw his spirits affected +by the idea of his daughter's attachment to her husband, she immediately +led to such a branch of the subject as must raise them. + +"Harriet must give us as much of her company as she can while my brother +and sister are here. I am sure she will be pleased with the children. +We are very proud of the children, are not we, papa? I wonder which she +will think the handsomest, Henry or John?" + +"Aye, I wonder which she will. Poor little dears, how glad they will be +to come. They are very fond of being at Hartfield, Harriet." + +"I dare say they are, sir. I am sure I do not know who is not." + +"Henry is a fine boy, but John is very like his mama. Henry is the +eldest, he was named after me, not after his father. John, the second, +is named after his father. Some people are surprized, I believe, that +the eldest was not, but Isabella would have him called Henry, which I +thought very pretty of her. And he is a very clever boy, indeed. They +are all remarkably clever; and they have so many pretty ways. They will +come and stand by my chair, and say, 'Grandpapa, can you give me a bit +of string?' and once Henry asked me for a knife, but I told him knives +were only made for grandpapas. I think their father is too rough with +them very often." + +"He appears rough to you," said Emma, "because you are so very gentle +yourself; but if you could compare him with other papas, you would not +think him rough. He wishes his boys to be active and hardy; and if +they misbehave, can give them a sharp word now and then; but he is an +affectionate father--certainly Mr. John Knightley is an affectionate +father. The children are all fond of him." + +"And then their uncle comes in, and tosses them up to the ceiling in a +very frightful way!" + +"But they like it, papa; there is nothing they like so much. It is such +enjoyment to them, that if their uncle did not lay down the rule of +their taking turns, whichever began would never give way to the other." + +"Well, I cannot understand it." + +"That is the case with us all, papa. One half of the world cannot +understand the pleasures of the other." + +Later in the morning, and just as the girls were going to separate +in preparation for the regular four o'clock dinner, the hero of this +inimitable charade walked in again. Harriet turned away; but Emma could +receive him with the usual smile, and her quick eye soon discerned in +his the consciousness of having made a push--of having thrown a die; +and she imagined he was come to see how it might turn up. His ostensible +reason, however, was to ask whether Mr. Woodhouse's party could be made +up in the evening without him, or whether he should be in the smallest +degree necessary at Hartfield. If he were, every thing else must give +way; but otherwise his friend Cole had been saying so much about his +dining with him--had made such a point of it, that he had promised him +conditionally to come. + +Emma thanked him, but could not allow of his disappointing his friend +on their account; her father was sure of his rubber. He re-urged--she +re-declined; and he seemed then about to make his bow, when taking the +paper from the table, she returned it-- + +"Oh! here is the charade you were so obliging as to leave with us; thank +you for the sight of it. We admired it so much, that I have ventured +to write it into Miss Smith's collection. Your friend will not take it +amiss I hope. Of course I have not transcribed beyond the first eight +lines." + +Mr. Elton certainly did not very well know what to say. He looked rather +doubtingly--rather confused; said something about "honour,"--glanced at +Emma and at Harriet, and then seeing the book open on the table, took +it up, and examined it very attentively. With the view of passing off an +awkward moment, Emma smilingly said, + +"You must make my apologies to your friend; but so good a charade +must not be confined to one or two. He may be sure of every woman's +approbation while he writes with such gallantry." + +"I have no hesitation in saying," replied Mr. Elton, though hesitating +a good deal while he spoke; "I have no hesitation in saying--at least +if my friend feels at all as _I_ do--I have not the smallest doubt that, +could he see his little effusion honoured as _I_ see it, (looking at the +book again, and replacing it on the table), he would consider it as the +proudest moment of his life." + +After this speech he was gone as soon as possible. Emma could not think +it too soon; for with all his good and agreeable qualities, there was +a sort of parade in his speeches which was very apt to incline her to +laugh. She ran away to indulge the inclination, leaving the tender and +the sublime of pleasure to Harriet's share. + + + +CHAPTER X + + +Though now the middle of December, there had yet been no weather to +prevent the young ladies from tolerably regular exercise; and on the +morrow, Emma had a charitable visit to pay to a poor sick family, who +lived a little way out of Highbury. + +Their road to this detached cottage was down Vicarage Lane, a lane +leading at right angles from the broad, though irregular, main street of +the place; and, as may be inferred, containing the blessed abode of Mr. +Elton. A few inferior dwellings were first to be passed, and then, about +a quarter of a mile down the lane rose the Vicarage, an old and not +very good house, almost as close to the road as it could be. It had +no advantage of situation; but had been very much smartened up by the +present proprietor; and, such as it was, there could be no possibility +of the two friends passing it without a slackened pace and observing +eyes.--Emma's remark was-- + +"There it is. There go you and your riddle-book one of these +days."--Harriet's was-- + +"Oh, what a sweet house!--How very beautiful!--There are the yellow +curtains that Miss Nash admires so much." + +"I do not often walk this way _now_," said Emma, as they proceeded, "but +_then_ there will be an inducement, and I shall gradually get intimately +acquainted with all the hedges, gates, pools and pollards of this part +of Highbury." + +Harriet, she found, had never in her life been inside the Vicarage, +and her curiosity to see it was so extreme, that, considering exteriors +and probabilities, Emma could only class it, as a proof of love, with +Mr. Elton's seeing ready wit in her. + +"I wish we could contrive it," said she; "but I cannot think of any +tolerable pretence for going in;--no servant that I want to inquire +about of his housekeeper--no message from my father." + +She pondered, but could think of nothing. After a mutual silence of some +minutes, Harriet thus began again-- + +"I do so wonder, Miss Woodhouse, that you should not be married, or +going to be married! so charming as you are!"-- + +Emma laughed, and replied, + +"My being charming, Harriet, is not quite enough to induce me to marry; +I must find other people charming--one other person at least. And I +am not only, not going to be married, at present, but have very little +intention of ever marrying at all." + +"Ah!--so you say; but I cannot believe it." + +"I must see somebody very superior to any one I have seen yet, to be +tempted; Mr. Elton, you know, (recollecting herself,) is out of the +question: and I do _not_ wish to see any such person. I would rather not +be tempted. I cannot really change for the better. If I were to marry, I +must expect to repent it." + +"Dear me!--it is so odd to hear a woman talk so!"-- + +"I have none of the usual inducements of women to marry. Were I to fall +in love, indeed, it would be a different thing! but I never have been in +love; it is not my way, or my nature; and I do not think I ever shall. +And, without love, I am sure I should be a fool to change such a +situation as mine. Fortune I do not want; employment I do not want; +consequence I do not want: I believe few married women are half as much +mistress of their husband's house as I am of Hartfield; and never, never +could I expect to be so truly beloved and important; so always first and +always right in any man's eyes as I am in my father's." + +"But then, to be an old maid at last, like Miss Bates!" + +"That is as formidable an image as you could present, Harriet; and if +I thought I should ever be like Miss Bates! so silly--so satisfied--so +smiling--so prosing--so undistinguishing and unfastidious--and so apt +to tell every thing relative to every body about me, I would marry +to-morrow. But between _us_, I am convinced there never can be any +likeness, except in being unmarried." + +"But still, you will be an old maid! and that's so dreadful!" + +"Never mind, Harriet, I shall not be a poor old maid; and it is poverty +only which makes celibacy contemptible to a generous public! A single +woman, with a very narrow income, must be a ridiculous, disagreeable old +maid! the proper sport of boys and girls, but a single woman, of good +fortune, is always respectable, and may be as sensible and pleasant +as any body else. And the distinction is not quite so much against the +candour and common sense of the world as appears at first; for a very +narrow income has a tendency to contract the mind, and sour the temper. +Those who can barely live, and who live perforce in a very small, and +generally very inferior, society, may well be illiberal and cross. This +does not apply, however, to Miss Bates; she is only too good natured and +too silly to suit me; but, in general, she is very much to the taste +of every body, though single and though poor. Poverty certainly has not +contracted her mind: I really believe, if she had only a shilling in the +world, she would be very likely to give away sixpence of it; and nobody +is afraid of her: that is a great charm." + +"Dear me! but what shall you do? how shall you employ yourself when you +grow old?" + +"If I know myself, Harriet, mine is an active, busy mind, with a great +many independent resources; and I do not perceive why I should be more +in want of employment at forty or fifty than one-and-twenty. Woman's +usual occupations of hand and mind will be as open to me then as they +are now; or with no important variation. If I draw less, I shall read +more; if I give up music, I shall take to carpet-work. And as for +objects of interest, objects for the affections, which is in truth the +great point of inferiority, the want of which is really the great evil +to be avoided in _not_ marrying, I shall be very well off, with all the +children of a sister I love so much, to care about. There will be enough +of them, in all probability, to supply every sort of sensation that +declining life can need. There will be enough for every hope and every +fear; and though my attachment to none can equal that of a parent, it +suits my ideas of comfort better than what is warmer and blinder. My +nephews and nieces!--I shall often have a niece with me." + +"Do you know Miss Bates's niece? That is, I know you must have seen her +a hundred times--but are you acquainted?" + +"Oh! yes; we are always forced to be acquainted whenever she comes to +Highbury. By the bye, _that_ is almost enough to put one out of conceit +with a niece. Heaven forbid! at least, that I should ever bore people +half so much about all the Knightleys together, as she does about Jane +Fairfax. One is sick of the very name of Jane Fairfax. Every letter from +her is read forty times over; her compliments to all friends go round +and round again; and if she does but send her aunt the pattern of a +stomacher, or knit a pair of garters for her grandmother, one hears of +nothing else for a month. I wish Jane Fairfax very well; but she tires +me to death." + +They were now approaching the cottage, and all idle topics were +superseded. Emma was very compassionate; and the distresses of the poor +were as sure of relief from her personal attention and kindness, her +counsel and her patience, as from her purse. She understood their ways, +could allow for their ignorance and their temptations, had no romantic +expectations of extraordinary virtue from those for whom education had +done so little; entered into their troubles with ready sympathy, and +always gave her assistance with as much intelligence as good-will. In +the present instance, it was sickness and poverty together which she +came to visit; and after remaining there as long as she could give +comfort or advice, she quitted the cottage with such an impression of +the scene as made her say to Harriet, as they walked away, + +"These are the sights, Harriet, to do one good. How trifling they make +every thing else appear!--I feel now as if I could think of nothing but +these poor creatures all the rest of the day; and yet, who can say how +soon it may all vanish from my mind?" + +"Very true," said Harriet. "Poor creatures! one can think of nothing +else." + +"And really, I do not think the impression will soon be over," said +Emma, as she crossed the low hedge, and tottering footstep which ended +the narrow, slippery path through the cottage garden, and brought them +into the lane again. "I do not think it will," stopping to look once +more at all the outward wretchedness of the place, and recall the still +greater within. + +"Oh! dear, no," said her companion. + +They walked on. The lane made a slight bend; and when that bend was +passed, Mr. Elton was immediately in sight; and so near as to give Emma +time only to say farther, + +"Ah! Harriet, here comes a very sudden trial of our stability in good +thoughts. Well, (smiling,) I hope it may be allowed that if compassion +has produced exertion and relief to the sufferers, it has done all that +is truly important. If we feel for the wretched, enough to do all we can +for them, the rest is empty sympathy, only distressing to ourselves." + +Harriet could just answer, "Oh! dear, yes," before the gentleman joined +them. The wants and sufferings of the poor family, however, were the +first subject on meeting. He had been going to call on them. His visit +he would now defer; but they had a very interesting parley about +what could be done and should be done. Mr. Elton then turned back to +accompany them. + +"To fall in with each other on such an errand as this," thought Emma; +"to meet in a charitable scheme; this will bring a great increase +of love on each side. I should not wonder if it were to bring on the +declaration. It must, if I were not here. I wish I were anywhere else." + +Anxious to separate herself from them as far as she could, she soon +afterwards took possession of a narrow footpath, a little raised on one +side of the lane, leaving them together in the main road. But she had +not been there two minutes when she found that Harriet's habits of +dependence and imitation were bringing her up too, and that, in short, +they would both be soon after her. This would not do; she immediately +stopped, under pretence of having some alteration to make in the lacing +of her half-boot, and stooping down in complete occupation of the +footpath, begged them to have the goodness to walk on, and she would +follow in half a minute. They did as they were desired; and by the time +she judged it reasonable to have done with her boot, she had the comfort +of farther delay in her power, being overtaken by a child from the +cottage, setting out, according to orders, with her pitcher, to fetch +broth from Hartfield. To walk by the side of this child, and talk to +and question her, was the most natural thing in the world, or would have +been the most natural, had she been acting just then without design; +and by this means the others were still able to keep ahead, without +any obligation of waiting for her. She gained on them, however, +involuntarily: the child's pace was quick, and theirs rather slow; +and she was the more concerned at it, from their being evidently in +a conversation which interested them. Mr. Elton was speaking with +animation, Harriet listening with a very pleased attention; and Emma, +having sent the child on, was beginning to think how she might draw back +a little more, when they both looked around, and she was obliged to join +them. + +Mr. Elton was still talking, still engaged in some interesting detail; +and Emma experienced some disappointment when she found that he was only +giving his fair companion an account of the yesterday's party at his +friend Cole's, and that she was come in herself for the Stilton cheese, +the north Wiltshire, the butter, the celery, the beet-root, and all the +dessert. + +"This would soon have led to something better, of course," was her +consoling reflection; "any thing interests between those who love; and +any thing will serve as introduction to what is near the heart. If I +could but have kept longer away!" + +They now walked on together quietly, till within view of the vicarage +pales, when a sudden resolution, of at least getting Harriet into the +house, made her again find something very much amiss about her boot, and +fall behind to arrange it once more. She then broke the lace off short, +and dexterously throwing it into a ditch, was presently obliged to +entreat them to stop, and acknowledged her inability to put herself to +rights so as to be able to walk home in tolerable comfort. + +"Part of my lace is gone," said she, "and I do not know how I am to +contrive. I really am a most troublesome companion to you both, but I +hope I am not often so ill-equipped. Mr. Elton, I must beg leave to stop +at your house, and ask your housekeeper for a bit of ribband or string, +or any thing just to keep my boot on." + +Mr. Elton looked all happiness at this proposition; and nothing could +exceed his alertness and attention in conducting them into his house and +endeavouring to make every thing appear to advantage. The room they were +taken into was the one he chiefly occupied, and looking forwards; behind +it was another with which it immediately communicated; the door between +them was open, and Emma passed into it with the housekeeper to receive +her assistance in the most comfortable manner. She was obliged to leave +the door ajar as she found it; but she fully intended that Mr. Elton +should close it. It was not closed, however, it still remained ajar; but +by engaging the housekeeper in incessant conversation, she hoped to make +it practicable for him to chuse his own subject in the adjoining +room. For ten minutes she could hear nothing but herself. It could be +protracted no longer. She was then obliged to be finished, and make her +appearance. + +The lovers were standing together at one of the windows. It had a most +favourable aspect; and, for half a minute, Emma felt the glory of having +schemed successfully. But it would not do; he had not come to the point. +He had been most agreeable, most delightful; he had told Harriet that +he had seen them go by, and had purposely followed them; other little +gallantries and allusions had been dropt, but nothing serious. + +"Cautious, very cautious," thought Emma; "he advances inch by inch, and +will hazard nothing till he believes himself secure." + +Still, however, though every thing had not been accomplished by her +ingenious device, she could not but flatter herself that it had been +the occasion of much present enjoyment to both, and must be leading them +forward to the great event. + + + +CHAPTER XI + + +Mr. Elton must now be left to himself. It was no longer in Emma's power +to superintend his happiness or quicken his measures. The coming of her +sister's family was so very near at hand, that first in anticipation, +and then in reality, it became henceforth her prime object of interest; +and during the ten days of their stay at Hartfield it was not to be +expected--she did not herself expect--that any thing beyond occasional, +fortuitous assistance could be afforded by her to the lovers. They might +advance rapidly if they would, however; they must advance somehow or +other whether they would or no. She hardly wished to have more leisure +for them. There are people, who the more you do for them, the less they +will do for themselves. + +Mr. and Mrs. John Knightley, from having been longer than usual absent +from Surry, were exciting of course rather more than the usual interest. +Till this year, every long vacation since their marriage had been +divided between Hartfield and Donwell Abbey; but all the holidays of +this autumn had been given to sea-bathing for the children, and it was +therefore many months since they had been seen in a regular way by their +Surry connexions, or seen at all by Mr. Woodhouse, who could not be +induced to get so far as London, even for poor Isabella's sake; and +who consequently was now most nervously and apprehensively happy in +forestalling this too short visit. + +He thought much of the evils of the journey for her, and not a little +of the fatigues of his own horses and coachman who were to bring some +of the party the last half of the way; but his alarms were needless; +the sixteen miles being happily accomplished, and Mr. and Mrs. John +Knightley, their five children, and a competent number of nursery-maids, +all reaching Hartfield in safety. The bustle and joy of such an arrival, +the many to be talked to, welcomed, encouraged, and variously dispersed +and disposed of, produced a noise and confusion which his nerves could +not have borne under any other cause, nor have endured much longer even +for this; but the ways of Hartfield and the feelings of her father +were so respected by Mrs. John Knightley, that in spite of maternal +solicitude for the immediate enjoyment of her little ones, and for their +having instantly all the liberty and attendance, all the eating and +drinking, and sleeping and playing, which they could possibly wish for, +without the smallest delay, the children were never allowed to be long +a disturbance to him, either in themselves or in any restless attendance +on them. + +Mrs. John Knightley was a pretty, elegant little woman, of gentle, quiet +manners, and a disposition remarkably amiable and affectionate; wrapt +up in her family; a devoted wife, a doating mother, and so tenderly +attached to her father and sister that, but for these higher ties, a +warmer love might have seemed impossible. She could never see a fault +in any of them. She was not a woman of strong understanding or any +quickness; and with this resemblance of her father, she inherited also +much of his constitution; was delicate in her own health, over-careful +of that of her children, had many fears and many nerves, and was as fond +of her own Mr. Wingfield in town as her father could be of Mr. Perry. +They were alike too, in a general benevolence of temper, and a strong +habit of regard for every old acquaintance. + +Mr. John Knightley was a tall, gentleman-like, and very clever man; +rising in his profession, domestic, and respectable in his private +character; but with reserved manners which prevented his being generally +pleasing; and capable of being sometimes out of humour. He was not an +ill-tempered man, not so often unreasonably cross as to deserve such a +reproach; but his temper was not his great perfection; and, indeed, with +such a worshipping wife, it was hardly possible that any natural defects +in it should not be increased. The extreme sweetness of her temper +must hurt his. He had all the clearness and quickness of mind which she +wanted, and he could sometimes act an ungracious, or say a severe thing. + +He was not a great favourite with his fair sister-in-law. Nothing wrong +in him escaped her. She was quick in feeling the little injuries to +Isabella, which Isabella never felt herself. Perhaps she might have +passed over more had his manners been flattering to Isabella's sister, +but they were only those of a calmly kind brother and friend, without +praise and without blindness; but hardly any degree of personal +compliment could have made her regardless of that greatest fault of +all in her eyes which he sometimes fell into, the want of respectful +forbearance towards her father. There he had not always the patience +that could have been wished. Mr. Woodhouse's peculiarities and +fidgetiness were sometimes provoking him to a rational remonstrance or +sharp retort equally ill-bestowed. It did not often happen; for Mr. John +Knightley had really a great regard for his father-in-law, and generally +a strong sense of what was due to him; but it was too often for Emma's +charity, especially as there was all the pain of apprehension frequently +to be endured, though the offence came not. The beginning, however, of +every visit displayed none but the properest feelings, and this being of +necessity so short might be hoped to pass away in unsullied cordiality. +They had not been long seated and composed when Mr. Woodhouse, with a +melancholy shake of the head and a sigh, called his daughter's attention +to the sad change at Hartfield since she had been there last. + +"Ah, my dear," said he, "poor Miss Taylor--It is a grievous business." + +"Oh yes, sir," cried she with ready sympathy, "how you must miss her! +And dear Emma, too!--What a dreadful loss to you both!--I have been so +grieved for you.--I could not imagine how you could possibly do without +her.--It is a sad change indeed.--But I hope she is pretty well, sir." + +"Pretty well, my dear--I hope--pretty well.--I do not know but that the +place agrees with her tolerably." + +Mr. John Knightley here asked Emma quietly whether there were any doubts +of the air of Randalls. + +"Oh! no--none in the least. I never saw Mrs. Weston better in my +life--never looking so well. Papa is only speaking his own regret." + +"Very much to the honour of both," was the handsome reply. + +"And do you see her, sir, tolerably often?" asked Isabella in the +plaintive tone which just suited her father. + +Mr. Woodhouse hesitated.--"Not near so often, my dear, as I could wish." + +"Oh! papa, we have missed seeing them but one entire day since they +married. Either in the morning or evening of every day, excepting one, +have we seen either Mr. Weston or Mrs. Weston, and generally both, +either at Randalls or here--and as you may suppose, Isabella, most +frequently here. They are very, very kind in their visits. Mr. Weston +is really as kind as herself. Papa, if you speak in that melancholy way, +you will be giving Isabella a false idea of us all. Every body must be +aware that Miss Taylor must be missed, but every body ought also to be +assured that Mr. and Mrs. Weston do really prevent our missing her by +any means to the extent we ourselves anticipated--which is the exact +truth." + +"Just as it should be," said Mr. John Knightley, "and just as I hoped +it was from your letters. Her wish of shewing you attention could not be +doubted, and his being a disengaged and social man makes it all easy. I +have been always telling you, my love, that I had no idea of the change +being so very material to Hartfield as you apprehended; and now you have +Emma's account, I hope you will be satisfied." + +"Why, to be sure," said Mr. Woodhouse--"yes, certainly--I cannot +deny that Mrs. Weston, poor Mrs. Weston, does come and see us pretty +often--but then--she is always obliged to go away again." + +"It would be very hard upon Mr. Weston if she did not, papa.--You quite +forget poor Mr. Weston." + +"I think, indeed," said John Knightley pleasantly, "that Mr. Weston has +some little claim. You and I, Emma, will venture to take the part of the +poor husband. I, being a husband, and you not being a wife, the claims +of the man may very likely strike us with equal force. As for Isabella, +she has been married long enough to see the convenience of putting all +the Mr. Westons aside as much as she can." + +"Me, my love," cried his wife, hearing and understanding only in part.-- +"Are you talking about me?--I am sure nobody ought to be, or can be, a +greater advocate for matrimony than I am; and if it had not been for +the misery of her leaving Hartfield, I should never have thought of Miss +Taylor but as the most fortunate woman in the world; and as to slighting +Mr. Weston, that excellent Mr. Weston, I think there is nothing he does +not deserve. I believe he is one of the very best-tempered men that ever +existed. Excepting yourself and your brother, I do not know his equal +for temper. I shall never forget his flying Henry's kite for him that +very windy day last Easter--and ever since his particular kindness last +September twelvemonth in writing that note, at twelve o'clock at night, +on purpose to assure me that there was no scarlet fever at Cobham, I +have been convinced there could not be a more feeling heart nor a better +man in existence.--If any body can deserve him, it must be Miss Taylor." + +"Where is the young man?" said John Knightley. "Has he been here on this +occasion--or has he not?" + +"He has not been here yet," replied Emma. "There was a strong +expectation of his coming soon after the marriage, but it ended in +nothing; and I have not heard him mentioned lately." + +"But you should tell them of the letter, my dear," said her father. +"He wrote a letter to poor Mrs. Weston, to congratulate her, and a very +proper, handsome letter it was. She shewed it to me. I thought it very +well done of him indeed. Whether it was his own idea you know, one +cannot tell. He is but young, and his uncle, perhaps--" + +"My dear papa, he is three-and-twenty. You forget how time passes." + +"Three-and-twenty!--is he indeed?--Well, I could not have thought +it--and he was but two years old when he lost his poor mother! Well, +time does fly indeed!--and my memory is very bad. However, it was an +exceeding good, pretty letter, and gave Mr. and Mrs. Weston a great deal +of pleasure. I remember it was written from Weymouth, and dated Sept. +28th--and began, 'My dear Madam,' but I forget how it went on; and it +was signed 'F. C. Weston Churchill.'--I remember that perfectly." + +"How very pleasing and proper of him!" cried the good-hearted Mrs. John +Knightley. "I have no doubt of his being a most amiable young man. But +how sad it is that he should not live at home with his father! There is +something so shocking in a child's being taken away from his parents and +natural home! I never could comprehend how Mr. Weston could part with +him. To give up one's child! I really never could think well of any body +who proposed such a thing to any body else." + +"Nobody ever did think well of the Churchills, I fancy," observed Mr. +John Knightley coolly. "But you need not imagine Mr. Weston to have felt +what you would feel in giving up Henry or John. Mr. Weston is rather +an easy, cheerful-tempered man, than a man of strong feelings; he takes +things as he finds them, and makes enjoyment of them somehow or other, +depending, I suspect, much more upon what is called society for his +comforts, that is, upon the power of eating and drinking, and playing +whist with his neighbours five times a week, than upon family affection, +or any thing that home affords." + +Emma could not like what bordered on a reflection on Mr. Weston, and had +half a mind to take it up; but she struggled, and let it pass. She +would keep the peace if possible; and there was something honourable and +valuable in the strong domestic habits, the all-sufficiency of home to +himself, whence resulted her brother's disposition to look down on +the common rate of social intercourse, and those to whom it was +important.--It had a high claim to forbearance. + + + +CHAPTER XII + + +Mr. Knightley was to dine with them--rather against the inclination of +Mr. Woodhouse, who did not like that any one should share with him in +Isabella's first day. Emma's sense of right however had decided it; +and besides the consideration of what was due to each brother, she had +particular pleasure, from the circumstance of the late disagreement +between Mr. Knightley and herself, in procuring him the proper +invitation. + +She hoped they might now become friends again. She thought it was time +to make up. Making-up indeed would not do. _She_ certainly had not been +in the wrong, and _he_ would never own that he had. Concession must be +out of the question; but it was time to appear to forget that they had +ever quarrelled; and she hoped it might rather assist the restoration of +friendship, that when he came into the room she had one of the children +with her--the youngest, a nice little girl about eight months old, who +was now making her first visit to Hartfield, and very happy to be danced +about in her aunt's arms. It did assist; for though he began with grave +looks and short questions, he was soon led on to talk of them all in +the usual way, and to take the child out of her arms with all the +unceremoniousness of perfect amity. Emma felt they were friends again; +and the conviction giving her at first great satisfaction, and then +a little sauciness, she could not help saying, as he was admiring the +baby, + +"What a comfort it is, that we think alike about our nephews and nieces. +As to men and women, our opinions are sometimes very different; but with +regard to these children, I observe we never disagree." + +"If you were as much guided by nature in your estimate of men and women, +and as little under the power of fancy and whim in your dealings with +them, as you are where these children are concerned, we might always +think alike." + +"To be sure--our discordancies must always arise from my being in the +wrong." + +"Yes," said he, smiling--"and reason good. I was sixteen years old when +you were born." + +"A material difference then," she replied--"and no doubt you were much +my superior in judgment at that period of our lives; but does not the +lapse of one-and-twenty years bring our understandings a good deal +nearer?" + +"Yes--a good deal _nearer_." + +"But still, not near enough to give me a chance of being right, if we +think differently." + +"I have still the advantage of you by sixteen years' experience, and by +not being a pretty young woman and a spoiled child. Come, my dear Emma, +let us be friends, and say no more about it. Tell your aunt, little +Emma, that she ought to set you a better example than to be renewing old +grievances, and that if she were not wrong before, she is now." + +"That's true," she cried--"very true. Little Emma, grow up a better +woman than your aunt. Be infinitely cleverer and not half so conceited. +Now, Mr. Knightley, a word or two more, and I have done. As far as good +intentions went, we were _both_ right, and I must say that no effects on +my side of the argument have yet proved wrong. I only want to know that +Mr. Martin is not very, very bitterly disappointed." + +"A man cannot be more so," was his short, full answer. + +"Ah!--Indeed I am very sorry.--Come, shake hands with me." + +This had just taken place and with great cordiality, when John Knightley +made his appearance, and "How d'ye do, George?" and "John, how are +you?" succeeded in the true English style, burying under a calmness that +seemed all but indifference, the real attachment which would have led +either of them, if requisite, to do every thing for the good of the +other. + +The evening was quiet and conversable, as Mr. Woodhouse declined cards +entirely for the sake of comfortable talk with his dear Isabella, and +the little party made two natural divisions; on one side he and his +daughter; on the other the two Mr. Knightleys; their subjects totally +distinct, or very rarely mixing--and Emma only occasionally joining in +one or the other. + +The brothers talked of their own concerns and pursuits, but principally +of those of the elder, whose temper was by much the most communicative, +and who was always the greater talker. As a magistrate, he had generally +some point of law to consult John about, or, at least, some curious +anecdote to give; and as a farmer, as keeping in hand the home-farm at +Donwell, he had to tell what every field was to bear next year, and to +give all such local information as could not fail of being interesting +to a brother whose home it had equally been the longest part of his +life, and whose attachments were strong. The plan of a drain, the change +of a fence, the felling of a tree, and the destination of every acre for +wheat, turnips, or spring corn, was entered into with as much equality +of interest by John, as his cooler manners rendered possible; and if his +willing brother ever left him any thing to inquire about, his inquiries +even approached a tone of eagerness. + +While they were thus comfortably occupied, Mr. Woodhouse was enjoying a +full flow of happy regrets and fearful affection with his daughter. + +"My poor dear Isabella," said he, fondly taking her hand, and +interrupting, for a few moments, her busy labours for some one of her +five children--"How long it is, how terribly long since you were here! +And how tired you must be after your journey! You must go to bed early, +my dear--and I recommend a little gruel to you before you go.--You and +I will have a nice basin of gruel together. My dear Emma, suppose we all +have a little gruel." + +Emma could not suppose any such thing, knowing as she did, that both the +Mr. Knightleys were as unpersuadable on that article as herself;--and +two basins only were ordered. After a little more discourse in praise of +gruel, with some wondering at its not being taken every evening by every +body, he proceeded to say, with an air of grave reflection, + +"It was an awkward business, my dear, your spending the autumn at South +End instead of coming here. I never had much opinion of the sea air." + +"Mr. Wingfield most strenuously recommended it, sir--or we should not +have gone. He recommended it for all the children, but particularly for +the weakness in little Bella's throat,--both sea air and bathing." + +"Ah! my dear, but Perry had many doubts about the sea doing her any +good; and as to myself, I have been long perfectly convinced, though +perhaps I never told you so before, that the sea is very rarely of use +to any body. I am sure it almost killed me once." + +"Come, come," cried Emma, feeling this to be an unsafe subject, "I must +beg you not to talk of the sea. It makes me envious and miserable;--I +who have never seen it! South End is prohibited, if you please. My dear +Isabella, I have not heard you make one inquiry about Mr. Perry yet; and +he never forgets you." + +"Oh! good Mr. Perry--how is he, sir?" + +"Why, pretty well; but not quite well. Poor Perry is bilious, and he has +not time to take care of himself--he tells me he has not time to take +care of himself--which is very sad--but he is always wanted all round +the country. I suppose there is not a man in such practice anywhere. But +then there is not so clever a man any where." + +"And Mrs. Perry and the children, how are they? do the children grow? +I have a great regard for Mr. Perry. I hope he will be calling soon. He +will be so pleased to see my little ones." + +"I hope he will be here to-morrow, for I have a question or two to ask +him about myself of some consequence. And, my dear, whenever he comes, +you had better let him look at little Bella's throat." + +"Oh! my dear sir, her throat is so much better that I have hardly any +uneasiness about it. Either bathing has been of the greatest service to +her, or else it is to be attributed to an excellent embrocation of Mr. +Wingfield's, which we have been applying at times ever since August." + +"It is not very likely, my dear, that bathing should have been of use +to her--and if I had known you were wanting an embrocation, I would have +spoken to-- + +"You seem to me to have forgotten Mrs. and Miss Bates," said Emma, "I +have not heard one inquiry after them." + +"Oh! the good Bateses--I am quite ashamed of myself--but you mention +them in most of your letters. I hope they are quite well. Good old Mrs. +Bates--I will call upon her to-morrow, and take my children.--They +are always so pleased to see my children.--And that excellent Miss +Bates!--such thorough worthy people!--How are they, sir?" + +"Why, pretty well, my dear, upon the whole. But poor Mrs. Bates had a +bad cold about a month ago." + +"How sorry I am! But colds were never so prevalent as they have been +this autumn. Mr. Wingfield told me that he has never known them more +general or heavy--except when it has been quite an influenza." + +"That has been a good deal the case, my dear; but not to the degree you +mention. Perry says that colds have been very general, but not so heavy +as he has very often known them in November. Perry does not call it +altogether a sickly season." + +"No, I do not know that Mr. Wingfield considers it _very_ sickly +except-- + +"Ah! my poor dear child, the truth is, that in London it is always +a sickly season. Nobody is healthy in London, nobody can be. It is a +dreadful thing to have you forced to live there! so far off!--and the +air so bad!" + +"No, indeed--_we_ are not at all in a bad air. Our part of London is +very superior to most others!--You must not confound us with London +in general, my dear sir. The neighbourhood of Brunswick Square is very +different from almost all the rest. We are so very airy! I should be +unwilling, I own, to live in any other part of the town;--there is +hardly any other that I could be satisfied to have my children in: +but _we_ are so remarkably airy!--Mr. Wingfield thinks the vicinity of +Brunswick Square decidedly the most favourable as to air." + +"Ah! my dear, it is not like Hartfield. You make the best of it--but +after you have been a week at Hartfield, you are all of you different +creatures; you do not look like the same. Now I cannot say, that I think +you are any of you looking well at present." + +"I am sorry to hear you say so, sir; but I assure you, excepting those +little nervous head-aches and palpitations which I am never entirely +free from anywhere, I am quite well myself; and if the children were +rather pale before they went to bed, it was only because they were a +little more tired than usual, from their journey and the happiness of +coming. I hope you will think better of their looks to-morrow; for I +assure you Mr. Wingfield told me, that he did not believe he had ever +sent us off altogether, in such good case. I trust, at least, that +you do not think Mr. Knightley looking ill," turning her eyes with +affectionate anxiety towards her husband. + +"Middling, my dear; I cannot compliment you. I think Mr. John Knightley +very far from looking well." + +"What is the matter, sir?--Did you speak to me?" cried Mr. John +Knightley, hearing his own name. + +"I am sorry to find, my love, that my father does not think you looking +well--but I hope it is only from being a little fatigued. I could have +wished, however, as you know, that you had seen Mr. Wingfield before you +left home." + +"My dear Isabella,"--exclaimed he hastily--"pray do not concern yourself +about my looks. Be satisfied with doctoring and coddling yourself and +the children, and let me look as I chuse." + +"I did not thoroughly understand what you were telling your brother," +cried Emma, "about your friend Mr. Graham's intending to have a bailiff +from Scotland, to look after his new estate. What will it answer? Will +not the old prejudice be too strong?" + +And she talked in this way so long and successfully that, when forced to +give her attention again to her father and sister, she had nothing +worse to hear than Isabella's kind inquiry after Jane Fairfax; and Jane +Fairfax, though no great favourite with her in general, she was at that +moment very happy to assist in praising. + +"That sweet, amiable Jane Fairfax!" said Mrs. John Knightley.--"It +is so long since I have seen her, except now and then for a moment +accidentally in town! What happiness it must be to her good old +grandmother and excellent aunt, when she comes to visit them! I always +regret excessively on dear Emma's account that she cannot be more at +Highbury; but now their daughter is married, I suppose Colonel and Mrs. +Campbell will not be able to part with her at all. She would be such a +delightful companion for Emma." + +Mr. Woodhouse agreed to it all, but added, + +"Our little friend Harriet Smith, however, is just such another pretty +kind of young person. You will like Harriet. Emma could not have a +better companion than Harriet." + +"I am most happy to hear it--but only Jane Fairfax one knows to be so +very accomplished and superior!--and exactly Emma's age." + +This topic was discussed very happily, and others succeeded of similar +moment, and passed away with similar harmony; but the evening did not +close without a little return of agitation. The gruel came and supplied +a great deal to be said--much praise and many comments--undoubting +decision of its wholesomeness for every constitution, and pretty +severe Philippics upon the many houses where it was never met with +tolerably;--but, unfortunately, among the failures which the daughter +had to instance, the most recent, and therefore most prominent, was in +her own cook at South End, a young woman hired for the time, who never +had been able to understand what she meant by a basin of nice smooth +gruel, thin, but not too thin. Often as she had wished for and ordered +it, she had never been able to get any thing tolerable. Here was a +dangerous opening. + +"Ah!" said Mr. Woodhouse, shaking his head and fixing his eyes on her +with tender concern.--The ejaculation in Emma's ear expressed, "Ah! +there is no end of the sad consequences of your going to South End. It +does not bear talking of." And for a little while she hoped he would not +talk of it, and that a silent rumination might suffice to restore him to +the relish of his own smooth gruel. After an interval of some minutes, +however, he began with, + +"I shall always be very sorry that you went to the sea this autumn, +instead of coming here." + +"But why should you be sorry, sir?--I assure you, it did the children a +great deal of good." + +"And, moreover, if you must go to the sea, it had better not have been +to South End. South End is an unhealthy place. Perry was surprized to +hear you had fixed upon South End." + +"I know there is such an idea with many people, but indeed it is quite +a mistake, sir.--We all had our health perfectly well there, never +found the least inconvenience from the mud; and Mr. Wingfield says it is +entirely a mistake to suppose the place unhealthy; and I am sure he may +be depended on, for he thoroughly understands the nature of the air, and +his own brother and family have been there repeatedly." + +"You should have gone to Cromer, my dear, if you went anywhere.--Perry +was a week at Cromer once, and he holds it to be the best of all the +sea-bathing places. A fine open sea, he says, and very pure air. And, by +what I understand, you might have had lodgings there quite away from +the sea--a quarter of a mile off--very comfortable. You should have +consulted Perry." + +"But, my dear sir, the difference of the journey;--only consider how +great it would have been.--An hundred miles, perhaps, instead of forty." + +"Ah! my dear, as Perry says, where health is at stake, nothing else +should be considered; and if one is to travel, there is not much to +chuse between forty miles and an hundred.--Better not move at all, +better stay in London altogether than travel forty miles to get into +a worse air. This is just what Perry said. It seemed to him a very +ill-judged measure." + +Emma's attempts to stop her father had been vain; and when he +had reached such a point as this, she could not wonder at her +brother-in-law's breaking out. + +"Mr. Perry," said he, in a voice of very strong displeasure, "would do +as well to keep his opinion till it is asked for. Why does he make it +any business of his, to wonder at what I do?--at my taking my family to +one part of the coast or another?--I may be allowed, I hope, the use of +my judgment as well as Mr. Perry.--I want his directions no more than +his drugs." He paused--and growing cooler in a moment, added, with only +sarcastic dryness, "If Mr. Perry can tell me how to convey a wife and +five children a distance of an hundred and thirty miles with no greater +expense or inconvenience than a distance of forty, I should be as +willing to prefer Cromer to South End as he could himself." + +"True, true," cried Mr. Knightley, with most ready interposition--"very +true. That's a consideration indeed.--But John, as to what I was telling +you of my idea of moving the path to Langham, of turning it more to the +right that it may not cut through the home meadows, I cannot conceive +any difficulty. I should not attempt it, if it were to be the means of +inconvenience to the Highbury people, but if you call to mind exactly +the present line of the path.... The only way of proving it, however, +will be to turn to our maps. I shall see you at the Abbey to-morrow +morning I hope, and then we will look them over, and you shall give me +your opinion." + +Mr. Woodhouse was rather agitated by such harsh reflections on his +friend Perry, to whom he had, in fact, though unconsciously, been +attributing many of his own feelings and expressions;--but the soothing +attentions of his daughters gradually removed the present evil, and +the immediate alertness of one brother, and better recollections of the +other, prevented any renewal of it. + + + +CHAPTER XIII + + +There could hardly be a happier creature in the world than Mrs. John +Knightley, in this short visit to Hartfield, going about every morning +among her old acquaintance with her five children, and talking over what +she had done every evening with her father and sister. She had nothing +to wish otherwise, but that the days did not pass so swiftly. It was a +delightful visit;--perfect, in being much too short. + +In general their evenings were less engaged with friends than their +mornings; but one complete dinner engagement, and out of the house too, +there was no avoiding, though at Christmas. Mr. Weston would take no +denial; they must all dine at Randalls one day;--even Mr. Woodhouse was +persuaded to think it a possible thing in preference to a division of +the party. + +How they were all to be conveyed, he would have made a difficulty if he +could, but as his son and daughter's carriage and horses were actually +at Hartfield, he was not able to make more than a simple question on +that head; it hardly amounted to a doubt; nor did it occupy Emma long +to convince him that they might in one of the carriages find room for +Harriet also. + +Harriet, Mr. Elton, and Mr. Knightley, their own especial set, were the +only persons invited to meet them;--the hours were to be early, as +well as the numbers few; Mr. Woodhouse's habits and inclination being +consulted in every thing. + +The evening before this great event (for it was a very great event that +Mr. Woodhouse should dine out, on the 24th of December) had been spent +by Harriet at Hartfield, and she had gone home so much indisposed with +a cold, that, but for her own earnest wish of being nursed by Mrs. +Goddard, Emma could not have allowed her to leave the house. Emma called +on her the next day, and found her doom already signed with regard to +Randalls. She was very feverish and had a bad sore throat: Mrs. Goddard +was full of care and affection, Mr. Perry was talked of, and Harriet +herself was too ill and low to resist the authority which excluded her +from this delightful engagement, though she could not speak of her loss +without many tears. + +Emma sat with her as long as she could, to attend her in Mrs. Goddard's +unavoidable absences, and raise her spirits by representing how much Mr. +Elton's would be depressed when he knew her state; and left her at last +tolerably comfortable, in the sweet dependence of his having a most +comfortless visit, and of their all missing her very much. She had not +advanced many yards from Mrs. Goddard's door, when she was met by Mr. +Elton himself, evidently coming towards it, and as they walked on slowly +together in conversation about the invalid--of whom he, on the rumour +of considerable illness, had been going to inquire, that he might +carry some report of her to Hartfield--they were overtaken by Mr. John +Knightley returning from the daily visit to Donwell, with his two eldest +boys, whose healthy, glowing faces shewed all the benefit of a country +run, and seemed to ensure a quick despatch of the roast mutton and rice +pudding they were hastening home for. They joined company and +proceeded together. Emma was just describing the nature of her friend's +complaint;--"a throat very much inflamed, with a great deal of heat +about her, a quick, low pulse, &c. and she was sorry to find from Mrs. +Goddard that Harriet was liable to very bad sore-throats, and had often +alarmed her with them." Mr. Elton looked all alarm on the occasion, as +he exclaimed, + +"A sore-throat!--I hope not infectious. I hope not of a putrid +infectious sort. Has Perry seen her? Indeed you should take care of +yourself as well as of your friend. Let me entreat you to run no risks. +Why does not Perry see her?" + +Emma, who was not really at all frightened herself, tranquillised this +excess of apprehension by assurances of Mrs. Goddard's experience and +care; but as there must still remain a degree of uneasiness which she +could not wish to reason away, which she would rather feed and assist +than not, she added soon afterwards--as if quite another subject, + +"It is so cold, so very cold--and looks and feels so very much like +snow, that if it were to any other place or with any other party, I +should really try not to go out to-day--and dissuade my father from +venturing; but as he has made up his mind, and does not seem to feel the +cold himself, I do not like to interfere, as I know it would be so great +a disappointment to Mr. and Mrs. Weston. But, upon my word, Mr. Elton, +in your case, I should certainly excuse myself. You appear to me a +little hoarse already, and when you consider what demand of voice and +what fatigues to-morrow will bring, I think it would be no more than +common prudence to stay at home and take care of yourself to-night." + +Mr. Elton looked as if he did not very well know what answer to make; +which was exactly the case; for though very much gratified by the kind +care of such a fair lady, and not liking to resist any advice of her's, +he had not really the least inclination to give up the visit;--but Emma, +too eager and busy in her own previous conceptions and views to hear him +impartially, or see him with clear vision, was very well satisfied with +his muttering acknowledgment of its being "very cold, certainly very +cold," and walked on, rejoicing in having extricated him from Randalls, +and secured him the power of sending to inquire after Harriet every hour +of the evening. + +"You do quite right," said she;--"we will make your apologies to Mr. and +Mrs. Weston." + +But hardly had she so spoken, when she found her brother was civilly +offering a seat in his carriage, if the weather were Mr. Elton's only +objection, and Mr. Elton actually accepting the offer with much prompt +satisfaction. It was a done thing; Mr. Elton was to go, and never had +his broad handsome face expressed more pleasure than at this moment; +never had his smile been stronger, nor his eyes more exulting than when +he next looked at her. + +"Well," said she to herself, "this is most strange!--After I had got +him off so well, to chuse to go into company, and leave Harriet ill +behind!--Most strange indeed!--But there is, I believe, in many men, +especially single men, such an inclination--such a passion for dining +out--a dinner engagement is so high in the class of their pleasures, +their employments, their dignities, almost their duties, that any +thing gives way to it--and this must be the case with Mr. Elton; a most +valuable, amiable, pleasing young man undoubtedly, and very much in love +with Harriet; but still, he cannot refuse an invitation, he must dine +out wherever he is asked. What a strange thing love is! he can see ready +wit in Harriet, but will not dine alone for her." + +Soon afterwards Mr. Elton quitted them, and she could not but do him +the justice of feeling that there was a great deal of sentiment in his +manner of naming Harriet at parting; in the tone of his voice while +assuring her that he should call at Mrs. Goddard's for news of her fair +friend, the last thing before he prepared for the happiness of meeting +her again, when he hoped to be able to give a better report; and +he sighed and smiled himself off in a way that left the balance of +approbation much in his favour. + +After a few minutes of entire silence between them, John Knightley began +with-- + +"I never in my life saw a man more intent on being agreeable than Mr. +Elton. It is downright labour to him where ladies are concerned. With +men he can be rational and unaffected, but when he has ladies to please, +every feature works." + +"Mr. Elton's manners are not perfect," replied Emma; "but where there is +a wish to please, one ought to overlook, and one does overlook a great +deal. Where a man does his best with only moderate powers, he will +have the advantage over negligent superiority. There is such perfect +good-temper and good-will in Mr. Elton as one cannot but value." + +"Yes," said Mr. John Knightley presently, with some slyness, "he seems +to have a great deal of good-will towards you." + +"Me!" she replied with a smile of astonishment, "are you imagining me to +be Mr. Elton's object?" + +"Such an imagination has crossed me, I own, Emma; and if it never +occurred to you before, you may as well take it into consideration now." + +"Mr. Elton in love with me!--What an idea!" + +"I do not say it is so; but you will do well to consider whether it +is so or not, and to regulate your behaviour accordingly. I think your +manners to him encouraging. I speak as a friend, Emma. You had better +look about you, and ascertain what you do, and what you mean to do." + +"I thank you; but I assure you you are quite mistaken. Mr. Elton and +I are very good friends, and nothing more;" and she walked on, amusing +herself in the consideration of the blunders which often arise from a +partial knowledge of circumstances, of the mistakes which people of high +pretensions to judgment are for ever falling into; and not very well +pleased with her brother for imagining her blind and ignorant, and in +want of counsel. He said no more. + +Mr. Woodhouse had so completely made up his mind to the visit, that in +spite of the increasing coldness, he seemed to have no idea of shrinking +from it, and set forward at last most punctually with his eldest +daughter in his own carriage, with less apparent consciousness of the +weather than either of the others; too full of the wonder of his own +going, and the pleasure it was to afford at Randalls to see that it was +cold, and too well wrapt up to feel it. The cold, however, was severe; +and by the time the second carriage was in motion, a few flakes of snow +were finding their way down, and the sky had the appearance of being so +overcharged as to want only a milder air to produce a very white world +in a very short time. + +Emma soon saw that her companion was not in the happiest humour. The +preparing and the going abroad in such weather, with the sacrifice of +his children after dinner, were evils, were disagreeables at least, +which Mr. John Knightley did not by any means like; he anticipated +nothing in the visit that could be at all worth the purchase; and the +whole of their drive to the vicarage was spent by him in expressing his +discontent. + +"A man," said he, "must have a very good opinion of himself when he asks +people to leave their own fireside, and encounter such a day as +this, for the sake of coming to see him. He must think himself a most +agreeable fellow; I could not do such a thing. It is the greatest +absurdity--Actually snowing at this moment!--The folly of not allowing +people to be comfortable at home--and the folly of people's not staying +comfortably at home when they can! If we were obliged to go out such +an evening as this, by any call of duty or business, what a hardship we +should deem it;--and here are we, probably with rather thinner clothing +than usual, setting forward voluntarily, without excuse, in defiance of +the voice of nature, which tells man, in every thing given to his view +or his feelings, to stay at home himself, and keep all under shelter +that he can;--here are we setting forward to spend five dull hours in +another man's house, with nothing to say or to hear that was not said +and heard yesterday, and may not be said and heard again to-morrow. +Going in dismal weather, to return probably in worse;--four horses and +four servants taken out for nothing but to convey five idle, shivering +creatures into colder rooms and worse company than they might have had +at home." + +Emma did not find herself equal to give the pleased assent, which no +doubt he was in the habit of receiving, to emulate the "Very true, +my love," which must have been usually administered by his travelling +companion; but she had resolution enough to refrain from making +any answer at all. She could not be complying, she dreaded being +quarrelsome; her heroism reached only to silence. She allowed him to +talk, and arranged the glasses, and wrapped herself up, without opening +her lips. + +They arrived, the carriage turned, the step was let down, and Mr. Elton, +spruce, black, and smiling, was with them instantly. Emma thought with +pleasure of some change of subject. Mr. Elton was all obligation and +cheerfulness; he was so very cheerful in his civilities indeed, that she +began to think he must have received a different account of Harriet from +what had reached her. She had sent while dressing, and the answer had +been, "Much the same--not better." + +"_My_ report from Mrs. Goddard's," said she presently, "was not so +pleasant as I had hoped--'Not better' was _my_ answer." + +His face lengthened immediately; and his voice was the voice of +sentiment as he answered. + +"Oh! no--I am grieved to find--I was on the point of telling you that +when I called at Mrs. Goddard's door, which I did the very last thing +before I returned to dress, I was told that Miss Smith was not better, +by no means better, rather worse. Very much grieved and concerned--I +had flattered myself that she must be better after such a cordial as I +knew had been given her in the morning." + +Emma smiled and answered--"My visit was of use to the nervous part of +her complaint, I hope; but not even I can charm away a sore throat; +it is a most severe cold indeed. Mr. Perry has been with her, as you +probably heard." + +"Yes--I imagined--that is--I did not--" + +"He has been used to her in these complaints, and I hope to-morrow +morning will bring us both a more comfortable report. But it is +impossible not to feel uneasiness. Such a sad loss to our party to-day!" + +"Dreadful!--Exactly so, indeed.--She will be missed every moment." + +This was very proper; the sigh which accompanied it was really +estimable; but it should have lasted longer. Emma was rather in dismay +when only half a minute afterwards he began to speak of other things, +and in a voice of the greatest alacrity and enjoyment. + +"What an excellent device," said he, "the use of a sheepskin for +carriages. How very comfortable they make it;--impossible to feel cold +with such precautions. The contrivances of modern days indeed have +rendered a gentleman's carriage perfectly complete. One is so fenced +and guarded from the weather, that not a breath of air can find its way +unpermitted. Weather becomes absolutely of no consequence. It is a very +cold afternoon--but in this carriage we know nothing of the matter.--Ha! +snows a little I see." + +"Yes," said John Knightley, "and I think we shall have a good deal of +it." + +"Christmas weather," observed Mr. Elton. "Quite seasonable; and +extremely fortunate we may think ourselves that it did not begin +yesterday, and prevent this day's party, which it might very possibly +have done, for Mr. Woodhouse would hardly have ventured had there been +much snow on the ground; but now it is of no consequence. This is quite +the season indeed for friendly meetings. At Christmas every body invites +their friends about them, and people think little of even the worst +weather. I was snowed up at a friend's house once for a week. Nothing +could be pleasanter. I went for only one night, and could not get away +till that very day se'nnight." + +Mr. John Knightley looked as if he did not comprehend the pleasure, but +said only, coolly, + +"I cannot wish to be snowed up a week at Randalls." + +At another time Emma might have been amused, but she was too much +astonished now at Mr. Elton's spirits for other feelings. Harriet seemed +quite forgotten in the expectation of a pleasant party. + +"We are sure of excellent fires," continued he, "and every thing in the +greatest comfort. Charming people, Mr. and Mrs. Weston;--Mrs. Weston +indeed is much beyond praise, and he is exactly what one values, so +hospitable, and so fond of society;--it will be a small party, but where +small parties are select, they are perhaps the most agreeable of any. +Mr. Weston's dining-room does not accommodate more than ten comfortably; +and for my part, I would rather, under such circumstances, fall short by +two than exceed by two. I think you will agree with me, (turning with +a soft air to Emma,) I think I shall certainly have your approbation, +though Mr. Knightley perhaps, from being used to the large parties of +London, may not quite enter into our feelings." + +"I know nothing of the large parties of London, sir--I never dine with +any body." + +"Indeed! (in a tone of wonder and pity,) I had no idea that the law had +been so great a slavery. Well, sir, the time must come when you will +be paid for all this, when you will have little labour and great +enjoyment." + +"My first enjoyment," replied John Knightley, as they passed through the +sweep-gate, "will be to find myself safe at Hartfield again." + + + +CHAPTER XIV + + +Some change of countenance was necessary for each gentleman as they +walked into Mrs. Weston's drawing-room;--Mr. Elton must compose his +joyous looks, and Mr. John Knightley disperse his ill-humour. Mr. +Elton must smile less, and Mr. John Knightley more, to fit them for the +place.--Emma only might be as nature prompted, and shew herself just as +happy as she was. To her it was real enjoyment to be with the Westons. +Mr. Weston was a great favourite, and there was not a creature in the +world to whom she spoke with such unreserve, as to his wife; not any +one, to whom she related with such conviction of being listened to and +understood, of being always interesting and always intelligible, the +little affairs, arrangements, perplexities, and pleasures of her father +and herself. She could tell nothing of Hartfield, in which Mrs. Weston +had not a lively concern; and half an hour's uninterrupted communication +of all those little matters on which the daily happiness of private life +depends, was one of the first gratifications of each. + +This was a pleasure which perhaps the whole day's visit might not +afford, which certainly did not belong to the present half-hour; but the +very sight of Mrs. Weston, her smile, her touch, her voice was grateful +to Emma, and she determined to think as little as possible of Mr. +Elton's oddities, or of any thing else unpleasant, and enjoy all that +was enjoyable to the utmost. + +The misfortune of Harriet's cold had been pretty well gone through +before her arrival. Mr. Woodhouse had been safely seated long enough +to give the history of it, besides all the history of his own and +Isabella's coming, and of Emma's being to follow, and had indeed just +got to the end of his satisfaction that James should come and see his +daughter, when the others appeared, and Mrs. Weston, who had been almost +wholly engrossed by her attentions to him, was able to turn away and +welcome her dear Emma. + +Emma's project of forgetting Mr. Elton for a while made her rather sorry +to find, when they had all taken their places, that he was close to her. +The difficulty was great of driving his strange insensibility towards +Harriet, from her mind, while he not only sat at her elbow, but +was continually obtruding his happy countenance on her notice, and +solicitously addressing her upon every occasion. Instead of forgetting +him, his behaviour was such that she could not avoid the internal +suggestion of "Can it really be as my brother imagined? can it be +possible for this man to be beginning to transfer his affections from +Harriet to me?--Absurd and insufferable!"--Yet he would be so anxious +for her being perfectly warm, would be so interested about her father, +and so delighted with Mrs. Weston; and at last would begin admiring her +drawings with so much zeal and so little knowledge as seemed terribly +like a would-be lover, and made it some effort with her to preserve her +good manners. For her own sake she could not be rude; and for Harriet's, +in the hope that all would yet turn out right, she was even positively +civil; but it was an effort; especially as something was going on +amongst the others, in the most overpowering period of Mr. Elton's +nonsense, which she particularly wished to listen to. She heard enough +to know that Mr. Weston was giving some information about his son; she +heard the words "my son," and "Frank," and "my son," repeated several +times over; and, from a few other half-syllables very much suspected +that he was announcing an early visit from his son; but before she could +quiet Mr. Elton, the subject was so completely past that any reviving +question from her would have been awkward. + +Now, it so happened that in spite of Emma's resolution of never +marrying, there was something in the name, in the idea of Mr. +Frank Churchill, which always interested her. She had frequently +thought--especially since his father's marriage with Miss Taylor--that +if she _were_ to marry, he was the very person to suit her in age, +character and condition. He seemed by this connexion between the +families, quite to belong to her. She could not but suppose it to be +a match that every body who knew them must think of. That Mr. and Mrs. +Weston did think of it, she was very strongly persuaded; and though +not meaning to be induced by him, or by any body else, to give up a +situation which she believed more replete with good than any she could +change it for, she had a great curiosity to see him, a decided intention +of finding him pleasant, of being liked by him to a certain degree, and +a sort of pleasure in the idea of their being coupled in their friends' +imaginations. + +With such sensations, Mr. Elton's civilities were dreadfully ill-timed; +but she had the comfort of appearing very polite, while feeling very +cross--and of thinking that the rest of the visit could not possibly +pass without bringing forward the same information again, or the +substance of it, from the open-hearted Mr. Weston.--So it proved;--for +when happily released from Mr. Elton, and seated by Mr. Weston, +at dinner, he made use of the very first interval in the cares of +hospitality, the very first leisure from the saddle of mutton, to say to +her, + +"We want only two more to be just the right number. I should like to see +two more here,--your pretty little friend, Miss Smith, and my son--and +then I should say we were quite complete. I believe you did not hear me +telling the others in the drawing-room that we are expecting Frank. +I had a letter from him this morning, and he will be with us within a +fortnight." + +Emma spoke with a very proper degree of pleasure; and fully assented to +his proposition of Mr. Frank Churchill and Miss Smith making their party +quite complete. + +"He has been wanting to come to us," continued Mr. Weston, "ever since +September: every letter has been full of it; but he cannot command his +own time. He has those to please who must be pleased, and who (between +ourselves) are sometimes to be pleased only by a good many sacrifices. +But now I have no doubt of seeing him here about the second week in +January." + +"What a very great pleasure it will be to you! and Mrs. Weston is so +anxious to be acquainted with him, that she must be almost as happy as +yourself." + +"Yes, she would be, but that she thinks there will be another put-off. +She does not depend upon his coming so much as I do: but she does not +know the parties so well as I do. The case, you see, is--(but this is +quite between ourselves: I did not mention a syllable of it in the other +room. There are secrets in all families, you know)--The case is, that a +party of friends are invited to pay a visit at Enscombe in January; and +that Frank's coming depends upon their being put off. If they are not +put off, he cannot stir. But I know they will, because it is a family +that a certain lady, of some consequence, at Enscombe, has a particular +dislike to: and though it is thought necessary to invite them once in +two or three years, they always are put off when it comes to the point. +I have not the smallest doubt of the issue. I am as confident of seeing +Frank here before the middle of January, as I am of being here myself: +but your good friend there (nodding towards the upper end of the table) +has so few vagaries herself, and has been so little used to them at +Hartfield, that she cannot calculate on their effects, as I have been +long in the practice of doing." + +"I am sorry there should be any thing like doubt in the case," replied +Emma; "but am disposed to side with you, Mr. Weston. If you think he +will come, I shall think so too; for you know Enscombe." + +"Yes--I have some right to that knowledge; though I have never been at +the place in my life.--She is an odd woman!--But I never allow myself +to speak ill of her, on Frank's account; for I do believe her to be very +fond of him. I used to think she was not capable of being fond of +any body, except herself: but she has always been kind to him (in her +way--allowing for little whims and caprices, and expecting every thing +to be as she likes). And it is no small credit, in my opinion, to him, +that he should excite such an affection; for, though I would not say +it to any body else, she has no more heart than a stone to people in +general; and the devil of a temper." + +Emma liked the subject so well, that she began upon it, to Mrs. Weston, +very soon after their moving into the drawing-room: wishing her joy--yet +observing, that she knew the first meeting must be rather alarming.-- +Mrs. Weston agreed to it; but added, that she should be very glad to be +secure of undergoing the anxiety of a first meeting at the time talked +of: "for I cannot depend upon his coming. I cannot be so sanguine as +Mr. Weston. I am very much afraid that it will all end in nothing. Mr. +Weston, I dare say, has been telling you exactly how the matter stands?" + +"Yes--it seems to depend upon nothing but the ill-humour of Mrs. +Churchill, which I imagine to be the most certain thing in the world." + +"My Emma!" replied Mrs. Weston, smiling, "what is the certainty +of caprice?" Then turning to Isabella, who had not been attending +before--"You must know, my dear Mrs. Knightley, that we are by no means +so sure of seeing Mr. Frank Churchill, in my opinion, as his father +thinks. It depends entirely upon his aunt's spirits and pleasure; in +short, upon her temper. To you--to my two daughters--I may venture on +the truth. Mrs. Churchill rules at Enscombe, and is a very odd-tempered +woman; and his coming now, depends upon her being willing to spare him." + +"Oh, Mrs. Churchill; every body knows Mrs. Churchill," replied Isabella: +"and I am sure I never think of that poor young man without the greatest +compassion. To be constantly living with an ill-tempered person, must +be dreadful. It is what we happily have never known any thing of; but +it must be a life of misery. What a blessing, that she never had any +children! Poor little creatures, how unhappy she would have made them!" + +Emma wished she had been alone with Mrs. Weston. She should then have +heard more: Mrs. Weston would speak to her, with a degree of unreserve +which she would not hazard with Isabella; and, she really believed, +would scarcely try to conceal any thing relative to the Churchills +from her, excepting those views on the young man, of which her own +imagination had already given her such instinctive knowledge. But at +present there was nothing more to be said. Mr. Woodhouse very soon +followed them into the drawing-room. To be sitting long after +dinner, was a confinement that he could not endure. Neither wine nor +conversation was any thing to him; and gladly did he move to those with +whom he was always comfortable. + +While he talked to Isabella, however, Emma found an opportunity of +saying, + +"And so you do not consider this visit from your son as by any means +certain. I am sorry for it. The introduction must be unpleasant, +whenever it takes place; and the sooner it could be over, the better." + +"Yes; and every delay makes one more apprehensive of other delays. Even +if this family, the Braithwaites, are put off, I am still afraid that +some excuse may be found for disappointing us. I cannot bear to imagine +any reluctance on his side; but I am sure there is a great wish on +the Churchills' to keep him to themselves. There is jealousy. They +are jealous even of his regard for his father. In short, I can feel no +dependence on his coming, and I wish Mr. Weston were less sanguine." + +"He ought to come," said Emma. "If he could stay only a couple of days, +he ought to come; and one can hardly conceive a young man's not having +it in his power to do as much as that. A young _woman_, if she fall into +bad hands, may be teased, and kept at a distance from those she wants +to be with; but one cannot comprehend a young _man_'s being under such +restraint, as not to be able to spend a week with his father, if he +likes it." + +"One ought to be at Enscombe, and know the ways of the family, before +one decides upon what he can do," replied Mrs. Weston. "One ought to +use the same caution, perhaps, in judging of the conduct of any one +individual of any one family; but Enscombe, I believe, certainly must +not be judged by general rules: _she_ is so very unreasonable; and every +thing gives way to her." + +"But she is so fond of the nephew: he is so very great a favourite. Now, +according to my idea of Mrs. Churchill, it would be most natural, that +while she makes no sacrifice for the comfort of the husband, to whom she +owes every thing, while she exercises incessant caprice towards _him_, +she should frequently be governed by the nephew, to whom she owes +nothing at all." + +"My dearest Emma, do not pretend, with your sweet temper, to understand +a bad one, or to lay down rules for it: you must let it go its own way. +I have no doubt of his having, at times, considerable influence; but it +may be perfectly impossible for him to know beforehand _when_ it will +be." + +Emma listened, and then coolly said, "I shall not be satisfied, unless +he comes." + +"He may have a great deal of influence on some points," continued Mrs. +Weston, "and on others, very little: and among those, on which she is +beyond his reach, it is but too likely, may be this very circumstance of +his coming away from them to visit us." + + + +CHAPTER XV + + +Mr. Woodhouse was soon ready for his tea; and when he had drank his +tea he was quite ready to go home; and it was as much as his three +companions could do, to entertain away his notice of the lateness of +the hour, before the other gentlemen appeared. Mr. Weston was chatty and +convivial, and no friend to early separations of any sort; but at last +the drawing-room party did receive an augmentation. Mr. Elton, in very +good spirits, was one of the first to walk in. Mrs. Weston and Emma +were sitting together on a sofa. He joined them immediately, and, with +scarcely an invitation, seated himself between them. + +Emma, in good spirits too, from the amusement afforded her mind by +the expectation of Mr. Frank Churchill, was willing to forget his late +improprieties, and be as well satisfied with him as before, and on his +making Harriet his very first subject, was ready to listen with most +friendly smiles. + +He professed himself extremely anxious about her fair friend--her fair, +lovely, amiable friend. "Did she know?--had she heard any thing about +her, since their being at Randalls?--he felt much anxiety--he must +confess that the nature of her complaint alarmed him considerably." +And in this style he talked on for some time very properly, not much +attending to any answer, but altogether sufficiently awake to the terror +of a bad sore throat; and Emma was quite in charity with him. + +But at last there seemed a perverse turn; it seemed all at once as if he +were more afraid of its being a bad sore throat on her account, than on +Harriet's--more anxious that she should escape the infection, than +that there should be no infection in the complaint. He began with great +earnestness to entreat her to refrain from visiting the sick-chamber +again, for the present--to entreat her to _promise_ _him_ not to venture +into such hazard till he had seen Mr. Perry and learnt his opinion; and +though she tried to laugh it off and bring the subject back into its +proper course, there was no putting an end to his extreme solicitude +about her. She was vexed. It did appear--there was no concealing +it--exactly like the pretence of being in love with her, instead of +Harriet; an inconstancy, if real, the most contemptible and abominable! +and she had difficulty in behaving with temper. He turned to Mrs. Weston +to implore her assistance, "Would not she give him her support?--would +not she add her persuasions to his, to induce Miss Woodhouse not to go +to Mrs. Goddard's till it were certain that Miss Smith's disorder had +no infection? He could not be satisfied without a promise--would not she +give him her influence in procuring it?" + +"So scrupulous for others," he continued, "and yet so careless for +herself! She wanted me to nurse my cold by staying at home to-day, and +yet will not promise to avoid the danger of catching an ulcerated sore +throat herself. Is this fair, Mrs. Weston?--Judge between us. Have not I +some right to complain? I am sure of your kind support and aid." + +Emma saw Mrs. Weston's surprize, and felt that it must be great, at an +address which, in words and manner, was assuming to himself the right of +first interest in her; and as for herself, she was too much provoked and +offended to have the power of directly saying any thing to the purpose. +She could only give him a look; but it was such a look as she thought +must restore him to his senses, and then left the sofa, removing to a +seat by her sister, and giving her all her attention. + +She had not time to know how Mr. Elton took the reproof, so rapidly did +another subject succeed; for Mr. John Knightley now came into the room +from examining the weather, and opened on them all with the information +of the ground being covered with snow, and of its still snowing +fast, with a strong drifting wind; concluding with these words to Mr. +Woodhouse: + +"This will prove a spirited beginning of your winter engagements, +sir. Something new for your coachman and horses to be making their way +through a storm of snow." + +Poor Mr. Woodhouse was silent from consternation; but every body else +had something to say; every body was either surprized or not surprized, +and had some question to ask, or some comfort to offer. Mrs. Weston +and Emma tried earnestly to cheer him and turn his attention from his +son-in-law, who was pursuing his triumph rather unfeelingly. + +"I admired your resolution very much, sir," said he, "in venturing out +in such weather, for of course you saw there would be snow very soon. +Every body must have seen the snow coming on. I admired your spirit; and +I dare say we shall get home very well. Another hour or two's snow can +hardly make the road impassable; and we are two carriages; if one is +blown over in the bleak part of the common field there will be the other +at hand. I dare say we shall be all safe at Hartfield before midnight." + +Mr. Weston, with triumph of a different sort, was confessing that he +had known it to be snowing some time, but had not said a word, lest +it should make Mr. Woodhouse uncomfortable, and be an excuse for his +hurrying away. As to there being any quantity of snow fallen or likely +to fall to impede their return, that was a mere joke; he was afraid they +would find no difficulty. He wished the road might be impassable, that +he might be able to keep them all at Randalls; and with the utmost +good-will was sure that accommodation might be found for every body, +calling on his wife to agree with him, that with a little contrivance, +every body might be lodged, which she hardly knew how to do, from the +consciousness of there being but two spare rooms in the house. + +"What is to be done, my dear Emma?--what is to be done?" was Mr. +Woodhouse's first exclamation, and all that he could say for some +time. To her he looked for comfort; and her assurances of safety, her +representation of the excellence of the horses, and of James, and of +their having so many friends about them, revived him a little. + +His eldest daughter's alarm was equal to his own. The horror of being +blocked up at Randalls, while her children were at Hartfield, was full +in her imagination; and fancying the road to be now just passable for +adventurous people, but in a state that admitted no delay, she was eager +to have it settled, that her father and Emma should remain at Randalls, +while she and her husband set forward instantly through all the possible +accumulations of drifted snow that might impede them. + +"You had better order the carriage directly, my love," said she; "I dare +say we shall be able to get along, if we set off directly; and if we +do come to any thing very bad, I can get out and walk. I am not at all +afraid. I should not mind walking half the way. I could change my shoes, +you know, the moment I got home; and it is not the sort of thing that +gives me cold." + +"Indeed!" replied he. "Then, my dear Isabella, it is the most +extraordinary sort of thing in the world, for in general every thing +does give you cold. Walk home!--you are prettily shod for walking home, +I dare say. It will be bad enough for the horses." + +Isabella turned to Mrs. Weston for her approbation of the plan. Mrs. +Weston could only approve. Isabella then went to Emma; but Emma could +not so entirely give up the hope of their being all able to get away; +and they were still discussing the point, when Mr. Knightley, who had +left the room immediately after his brother's first report of the snow, +came back again, and told them that he had been out of doors to examine, +and could answer for there not being the smallest difficulty in their +getting home, whenever they liked it, either now or an hour hence. He +had gone beyond the sweep--some way along the Highbury road--the snow +was nowhere above half an inch deep--in many places hardly enough to +whiten the ground; a very few flakes were falling at present, but the +clouds were parting, and there was every appearance of its being soon +over. He had seen the coachmen, and they both agreed with him in there +being nothing to apprehend. + +To Isabella, the relief of such tidings was very great, and they were +scarcely less acceptable to Emma on her father's account, who +was immediately set as much at ease on the subject as his nervous +constitution allowed; but the alarm that had been raised could not be +appeased so as to admit of any comfort for him while he continued at +Randalls. He was satisfied of there being no present danger in returning +home, but no assurances could convince him that it was safe to stay; and +while the others were variously urging and recommending, Mr. Knightley +and Emma settled it in a few brief sentences: thus-- + +"Your father will not be easy; why do not you go?" + +"I am ready, if the others are." + +"Shall I ring the bell?" + +"Yes, do." + +And the bell was rung, and the carriages spoken for. A few minutes more, +and Emma hoped to see one troublesome companion deposited in his own +house, to get sober and cool, and the other recover his temper and +happiness when this visit of hardship were over. + +The carriage came: and Mr. Woodhouse, always the first object on such +occasions, was carefully attended to his own by Mr. Knightley and Mr. +Weston; but not all that either could say could prevent some renewal +of alarm at the sight of the snow which had actually fallen, and the +discovery of a much darker night than he had been prepared for. "He was +afraid they should have a very bad drive. He was afraid poor Isabella +would not like it. And there would be poor Emma in the carriage behind. +He did not know what they had best do. They must keep as much together +as they could;" and James was talked to, and given a charge to go very +slow and wait for the other carriage. + +Isabella stept in after her father; John Knightley, forgetting that he +did not belong to their party, stept in after his wife very naturally; +so that Emma found, on being escorted and followed into the second +carriage by Mr. Elton, that the door was to be lawfully shut on them, +and that they were to have a tete-a-tete drive. It would not have been +the awkwardness of a moment, it would have been rather a pleasure, +previous to the suspicions of this very day; she could have talked to +him of Harriet, and the three-quarters of a mile would have seemed but +one. But now, she would rather it had not happened. She believed he had +been drinking too much of Mr. Weston's good wine, and felt sure that he +would want to be talking nonsense. + +To restrain him as much as might be, by her own manners, she was +immediately preparing to speak with exquisite calmness and gravity of +the weather and the night; but scarcely had she begun, scarcely had they +passed the sweep-gate and joined the other carriage, than she found her +subject cut up--her hand seized--her attention demanded, and Mr. Elton +actually making violent love to her: availing himself of the precious +opportunity, declaring sentiments which must be already well known, +hoping--fearing--adoring--ready to die if she refused him; but +flattering himself that his ardent attachment and unequalled love and +unexampled passion could not fail of having some effect, and in short, +very much resolved on being seriously accepted as soon as possible. It +really was so. Without scruple--without apology--without much apparent +diffidence, Mr. Elton, the lover of Harriet, was professing himself +_her_ lover. She tried to stop him; but vainly; he would go on, and say +it all. Angry as she was, the thought of the moment made her resolve to +restrain herself when she did speak. She felt that half this folly must +be drunkenness, and therefore could hope that it might belong only to +the passing hour. Accordingly, with a mixture of the serious and the +playful, which she hoped would best suit his half and half state, she +replied, + +"I am very much astonished, Mr. Elton. This to _me_! you forget +yourself--you take me for my friend--any message to Miss Smith I shall +be happy to deliver; but no more of this to _me_, if you please." + +"Miss Smith!--message to Miss Smith!--What could she possibly +mean!"--And he repeated her words with such assurance of accent, such +boastful pretence of amazement, that she could not help replying with +quickness, + +"Mr. Elton, this is the most extraordinary conduct! and I can account +for it only in one way; you are not yourself, or you could not speak +either to me, or of Harriet, in such a manner. Command yourself enough +to say no more, and I will endeavour to forget it." + +But Mr. Elton had only drunk wine enough to elevate his spirits, not at +all to confuse his intellects. He perfectly knew his own meaning; and +having warmly protested against her suspicion as most injurious, and +slightly touched upon his respect for Miss Smith as her friend,--but +acknowledging his wonder that Miss Smith should be mentioned at all,--he +resumed the subject of his own passion, and was very urgent for a +favourable answer. + +As she thought less of his inebriety, she thought more of his +inconstancy and presumption; and with fewer struggles for politeness, +replied, + +"It is impossible for me to doubt any longer. You have made yourself +too clear. Mr. Elton, my astonishment is much beyond any thing I can +express. After such behaviour, as I have witnessed during the last +month, to Miss Smith--such attentions as I have been in the daily +habit of observing--to be addressing me in this manner--this is an +unsteadiness of character, indeed, which I had not supposed possible! +Believe me, sir, I am far, very far, from gratified in being the object +of such professions." + +"Good Heaven!" cried Mr. Elton, "what can be the meaning of this?--Miss +Smith!--I never thought of Miss Smith in the whole course of my +existence--never paid her any attentions, but as your friend: never +cared whether she were dead or alive, but as your friend. If she +has fancied otherwise, her own wishes have misled her, and I am very +sorry--extremely sorry--But, Miss Smith, indeed!--Oh! Miss Woodhouse! +who can think of Miss Smith, when Miss Woodhouse is near! No, upon my +honour, there is no unsteadiness of character. I have thought only of +you. I protest against having paid the smallest attention to any one +else. Every thing that I have said or done, for many weeks past, has +been with the sole view of marking my adoration of yourself. You +cannot really, seriously, doubt it. No!--(in an accent meant to be +insinuating)--I am sure you have seen and understood me." + +It would be impossible to say what Emma felt, on hearing this--which +of all her unpleasant sensations was uppermost. She was too completely +overpowered to be immediately able to reply: and two moments of silence +being ample encouragement for Mr. Elton's sanguine state of mind, he +tried to take her hand again, as he joyously exclaimed-- + +"Charming Miss Woodhouse! allow me to interpret this interesting +silence. It confesses that you have long understood me." + +"No, sir," cried Emma, "it confesses no such thing. So far from having +long understood you, I have been in a most complete error with respect +to your views, till this moment. As to myself, I am very sorry that you +should have been giving way to any feelings--Nothing could be farther +from my wishes--your attachment to my friend Harriet--your pursuit of +her, (pursuit, it appeared,) gave me great pleasure, and I have been +very earnestly wishing you success: but had I supposed that she were not +your attraction to Hartfield, I should certainly have thought you judged +ill in making your visits so frequent. Am I to believe that you have +never sought to recommend yourself particularly to Miss Smith?--that you +have never thought seriously of her?" + +"Never, madam," cried he, affronted in his turn: "never, I assure you. +_I_ think seriously of Miss Smith!--Miss Smith is a very good sort of +girl; and I should be happy to see her respectably settled. I wish +her extremely well: and, no doubt, there are men who might not object +to--Every body has their level: but as for myself, I am not, I think, +quite so much at a loss. I need not so totally despair of an equal +alliance, as to be addressing myself to Miss Smith!--No, madam, my +visits to Hartfield have been for yourself only; and the encouragement I +received--" + +"Encouragement!--I give you encouragement!--Sir, you have been entirely +mistaken in supposing it. I have seen you only as the admirer of my +friend. In no other light could you have been more to me than a common +acquaintance. I am exceedingly sorry: but it is well that the mistake +ends where it does. Had the same behaviour continued, Miss Smith might +have been led into a misconception of your views; not being aware, +probably, any more than myself, of the very great inequality which you +are so sensible of. But, as it is, the disappointment is single, and, I +trust, will not be lasting. I have no thoughts of matrimony at present." + +He was too angry to say another word; her manner too decided to invite +supplication; and in this state of swelling resentment, and mutually +deep mortification, they had to continue together a few minutes longer, +for the fears of Mr. Woodhouse had confined them to a foot-pace. If +there had not been so much anger, there would have been desperate +awkwardness; but their straightforward emotions left no room for the +little zigzags of embarrassment. Without knowing when the carriage +turned into Vicarage Lane, or when it stopped, they found themselves, +all at once, at the door of his house; and he was out before another +syllable passed.--Emma then felt it indispensable to wish him a good +night. The compliment was just returned, coldly and proudly; and, under +indescribable irritation of spirits, she was then conveyed to Hartfield. + +There she was welcomed, with the utmost delight, by her father, who +had been trembling for the dangers of a solitary drive from Vicarage +Lane--turning a corner which he could never bear to think of--and in +strange hands--a mere common coachman--no James; and there it seemed as +if her return only were wanted to make every thing go well: for Mr. +John Knightley, ashamed of his ill-humour, was now all kindness and +attention; and so particularly solicitous for the comfort of her +father, as to seem--if not quite ready to join him in a basin of +gruel--perfectly sensible of its being exceedingly wholesome; and the +day was concluding in peace and comfort to all their little party, +except herself.--But her mind had never been in such perturbation; and +it needed a very strong effort to appear attentive and cheerful till the +usual hour of separating allowed her the relief of quiet reflection. + + + +CHAPTER XVI + + +The hair was curled, and the maid sent away, and Emma sat down to think +and be miserable.--It was a wretched business indeed!--Such an overthrow +of every thing she had been wishing for!--Such a development of every +thing most unwelcome!--Such a blow for Harriet!--that was the worst +of all. Every part of it brought pain and humiliation, of some sort or +other; but, compared with the evil to Harriet, all was light; and +she would gladly have submitted to feel yet more mistaken--more in +error--more disgraced by mis-judgment, than she actually was, could the +effects of her blunders have been confined to herself. + +"If I had not persuaded Harriet into liking the man, I could have +borne any thing. He might have doubled his presumption to me--but poor +Harriet!" + +How she could have been so deceived!--He protested that he had never +thought seriously of Harriet--never! She looked back as well as +she could; but it was all confusion. She had taken up the idea, she +supposed, and made every thing bend to it. His manners, however, must +have been unmarked, wavering, dubious, or she could not have been so +misled. + +The picture!--How eager he had been about the picture!--and the +charade!--and an hundred other circumstances;--how clearly they had +seemed to point at Harriet. To be sure, the charade, with its "ready +wit"--but then the "soft eyes"--in fact it suited neither; it was +a jumble without taste or truth. Who could have seen through such +thick-headed nonsense? + +Certainly she had often, especially of late, thought his manners to +herself unnecessarily gallant; but it had passed as his way, as a mere +error of judgment, of knowledge, of taste, as one proof among others +that he had not always lived in the best society, that with all the +gentleness of his address, true elegance was sometimes wanting; but, +till this very day, she had never, for an instant, suspected it to mean +any thing but grateful respect to her as Harriet's friend. + +To Mr. John Knightley was she indebted for her first idea on the +subject, for the first start of its possibility. There was no denying +that those brothers had penetration. She remembered what Mr. Knightley +had once said to her about Mr. Elton, the caution he had given, +the conviction he had professed that Mr. Elton would never marry +indiscreetly; and blushed to think how much truer a knowledge of his +character had been there shewn than any she had reached herself. It +was dreadfully mortifying; but Mr. Elton was proving himself, in many +respects, the very reverse of what she had meant and believed him; +proud, assuming, conceited; very full of his own claims, and little +concerned about the feelings of others. + +Contrary to the usual course of things, Mr. Elton's wanting to pay his +addresses to her had sunk him in her opinion. His professions and his +proposals did him no service. She thought nothing of his attachment, +and was insulted by his hopes. He wanted to marry well, and having the +arrogance to raise his eyes to her, pretended to be in love; but she was +perfectly easy as to his not suffering any disappointment that need be +cared for. There had been no real affection either in his language or +manners. Sighs and fine words had been given in abundance; but she could +hardly devise any set of expressions, or fancy any tone of voice, less +allied with real love. She need not trouble herself to pity him. He +only wanted to aggrandise and enrich himself; and if Miss Woodhouse +of Hartfield, the heiress of thirty thousand pounds, were not quite so +easily obtained as he had fancied, he would soon try for Miss Somebody +else with twenty, or with ten. + +But--that he should talk of encouragement, should consider her as aware +of his views, accepting his attentions, meaning (in short), to marry +him!--should suppose himself her equal in connexion or mind!--look down +upon her friend, so well understanding the gradations of rank below +him, and be so blind to what rose above, as to fancy himself shewing no +presumption in addressing her!--It was most provoking. + +Perhaps it was not fair to expect him to feel how very much he was her +inferior in talent, and all the elegancies of mind. The very want of +such equality might prevent his perception of it; but he must know that +in fortune and consequence she was greatly his superior. He must +know that the Woodhouses had been settled for several generations at +Hartfield, the younger branch of a very ancient family--and that the +Eltons were nobody. The landed property of Hartfield certainly was +inconsiderable, being but a sort of notch in the Donwell Abbey estate, +to which all the rest of Highbury belonged; but their fortune, from +other sources, was such as to make them scarcely secondary to Donwell +Abbey itself, in every other kind of consequence; and the Woodhouses had +long held a high place in the consideration of the neighbourhood which +Mr. Elton had first entered not two years ago, to make his way as he +could, without any alliances but in trade, or any thing to recommend him +to notice but his situation and his civility.--But he had fancied her +in love with him; that evidently must have been his dependence; and +after raving a little about the seeming incongruity of gentle manners +and a conceited head, Emma was obliged in common honesty to stop +and admit that her own behaviour to him had been so complaisant and +obliging, so full of courtesy and attention, as (supposing her real +motive unperceived) might warrant a man of ordinary observation and +delicacy, like Mr. Elton, in fancying himself a very decided favourite. +If _she_ had so misinterpreted his feelings, she had little right to +wonder that _he_, with self-interest to blind him, should have mistaken +hers. + +The first error and the worst lay at her door. It was foolish, it was +wrong, to take so active a part in bringing any two people together. It +was adventuring too far, assuming too much, making light of what +ought to be serious, a trick of what ought to be simple. She was quite +concerned and ashamed, and resolved to do such things no more. + +"Here have I," said she, "actually talked poor Harriet into being very +much attached to this man. She might never have thought of him but for +me; and certainly never would have thought of him with hope, if I had +not assured her of his attachment, for she is as modest and humble as I +used to think him. Oh! that I had been satisfied with persuading her not +to accept young Martin. There I was quite right. That was well done +of me; but there I should have stopped, and left the rest to time and +chance. I was introducing her into good company, and giving her the +opportunity of pleasing some one worth having; I ought not to have +attempted more. But now, poor girl, her peace is cut up for some time. +I have been but half a friend to her; and if she were _not_ to feel this +disappointment so very much, I am sure I have not an idea of any body +else who would be at all desirable for her;--William Coxe--Oh! no, I +could not endure William Coxe--a pert young lawyer." + +She stopt to blush and laugh at her own relapse, and then resumed a more +serious, more dispiriting cogitation upon what had been, and might be, +and must be. The distressing explanation she had to make to Harriet, and +all that poor Harriet would be suffering, with the awkwardness of +future meetings, the difficulties of continuing or discontinuing the +acquaintance, of subduing feelings, concealing resentment, and avoiding +eclat, were enough to occupy her in most unmirthful reflections some +time longer, and she went to bed at last with nothing settled but the +conviction of her having blundered most dreadfully. + +To youth and natural cheerfulness like Emma's, though under temporary +gloom at night, the return of day will hardly fail to bring return of +spirits. The youth and cheerfulness of morning are in happy analogy, +and of powerful operation; and if the distress be not poignant enough +to keep the eyes unclosed, they will be sure to open to sensations of +softened pain and brighter hope. + +Emma got up on the morrow more disposed for comfort than she had gone +to bed, more ready to see alleviations of the evil before her, and to +depend on getting tolerably out of it. + +It was a great consolation that Mr. Elton should not be really in +love with her, or so particularly amiable as to make it shocking to +disappoint him--that Harriet's nature should not be of that superior +sort in which the feelings are most acute and retentive--and that there +could be no necessity for any body's knowing what had passed except the +three principals, and especially for her father's being given a moment's +uneasiness about it. + +These were very cheering thoughts; and the sight of a great deal of snow +on the ground did her further service, for any thing was welcome that +might justify their all three being quite asunder at present. + +The weather was most favourable for her; though Christmas Day, she +could not go to church. Mr. Woodhouse would have been miserable had his +daughter attempted it, and she was therefore safe from either exciting +or receiving unpleasant and most unsuitable ideas. The ground covered +with snow, and the atmosphere in that unsettled state between frost and +thaw, which is of all others the most unfriendly for exercise, every +morning beginning in rain or snow, and every evening setting in to +freeze, she was for many days a most honourable prisoner. No intercourse +with Harriet possible but by note; no church for her on Sunday any +more than on Christmas Day; and no need to find excuses for Mr. Elton's +absenting himself. + +It was weather which might fairly confine every body at home; and though +she hoped and believed him to be really taking comfort in some society +or other, it was very pleasant to have her father so well satisfied with +his being all alone in his own house, too wise to stir out; and to +hear him say to Mr. Knightley, whom no weather could keep entirely from +them,-- + +"Ah! Mr. Knightley, why do not you stay at home like poor Mr. Elton?" + +These days of confinement would have been, but for her private +perplexities, remarkably comfortable, as such seclusion exactly suited +her brother, whose feelings must always be of great importance to +his companions; and he had, besides, so thoroughly cleared off his +ill-humour at Randalls, that his amiableness never failed him during the +rest of his stay at Hartfield. He was always agreeable and obliging, +and speaking pleasantly of every body. But with all the hopes of +cheerfulness, and all the present comfort of delay, there was still such +an evil hanging over her in the hour of explanation with Harriet, as +made it impossible for Emma to be ever perfectly at ease. + + + +CHAPTER XVII + + +Mr. and Mrs. John Knightley were not detained long at Hartfield. The +weather soon improved enough for those to move who must move; and Mr. +Woodhouse having, as usual, tried to persuade his daughter to stay +behind with all her children, was obliged to see the whole party +set off, and return to his lamentations over the destiny of poor +Isabella;--which poor Isabella, passing her life with those she doated +on, full of their merits, blind to their faults, and always innocently +busy, might have been a model of right feminine happiness. + +The evening of the very day on which they went brought a note from Mr. +Elton to Mr. Woodhouse, a long, civil, ceremonious note, to say, with +Mr. Elton's best compliments, "that he was proposing to leave Highbury +the following morning in his way to Bath; where, in compliance with +the pressing entreaties of some friends, he had engaged to spend a few +weeks, and very much regretted the impossibility he was under, from +various circumstances of weather and business, of taking a personal +leave of Mr. Woodhouse, of whose friendly civilities he should ever +retain a grateful sense--and had Mr. Woodhouse any commands, should be +happy to attend to them." + +Emma was most agreeably surprized.--Mr. Elton's absence just at this +time was the very thing to be desired. She admired him for contriving +it, though not able to give him much credit for the manner in which it +was announced. Resentment could not have been more plainly spoken than +in a civility to her father, from which she was so pointedly excluded. +She had not even a share in his opening compliments.--Her name was not +mentioned;--and there was so striking a change in all this, and such an +ill-judged solemnity of leave-taking in his graceful acknowledgments, as +she thought, at first, could not escape her father's suspicion. + +It did, however.--Her father was quite taken up with the surprize of so +sudden a journey, and his fears that Mr. Elton might never get safely to +the end of it, and saw nothing extraordinary in his language. It was a +very useful note, for it supplied them with fresh matter for thought +and conversation during the rest of their lonely evening. Mr. Woodhouse +talked over his alarms, and Emma was in spirits to persuade them away +with all her usual promptitude. + +She now resolved to keep Harriet no longer in the dark. She had reason +to believe her nearly recovered from her cold, and it was desirable that +she should have as much time as possible for getting the better of +her other complaint before the gentleman's return. She went to Mrs. +Goddard's accordingly the very next day, to undergo the necessary +penance of communication; and a severe one it was.--She had to destroy +all the hopes which she had been so industriously feeding--to appear in +the ungracious character of the one preferred--and acknowledge herself +grossly mistaken and mis-judging in all her ideas on one subject, all +her observations, all her convictions, all her prophecies for the last +six weeks. + +The confession completely renewed her first shame--and the sight of +Harriet's tears made her think that she should never be in charity with +herself again. + +Harriet bore the intelligence very well--blaming nobody--and in every +thing testifying such an ingenuousness of disposition and lowly opinion +of herself, as must appear with particular advantage at that moment to +her friend. + +Emma was in the humour to value simplicity and modesty to the utmost; +and all that was amiable, all that ought to be attaching, seemed on +Harriet's side, not her own. Harriet did not consider herself as having +any thing to complain of. The affection of such a man as Mr. Elton +would have been too great a distinction.--She never could have deserved +him--and nobody but so partial and kind a friend as Miss Woodhouse would +have thought it possible. + +Her tears fell abundantly--but her grief was so truly artless, that +no dignity could have made it more respectable in Emma's eyes--and +she listened to her and tried to console her with all her heart and +understanding--really for the time convinced that Harriet was the +superior creature of the two--and that to resemble her would be more for +her own welfare and happiness than all that genius or intelligence could +do. + +It was rather too late in the day to set about being simple-minded and +ignorant; but she left her with every previous resolution confirmed of +being humble and discreet, and repressing imagination all the rest of +her life. Her second duty now, inferior only to her father's claims, was +to promote Harriet's comfort, and endeavour to prove her own affection +in some better method than by match-making. She got her to Hartfield, +and shewed her the most unvarying kindness, striving to occupy and +amuse her, and by books and conversation, to drive Mr. Elton from her +thoughts. + +Time, she knew, must be allowed for this being thoroughly done; and +she could suppose herself but an indifferent judge of such matters in +general, and very inadequate to sympathise in an attachment to Mr. Elton +in particular; but it seemed to her reasonable that at Harriet's age, +and with the entire extinction of all hope, such a progress might be +made towards a state of composure by the time of Mr. Elton's return, as +to allow them all to meet again in the common routine of acquaintance, +without any danger of betraying sentiments or increasing them. + +Harriet did think him all perfection, and maintained the non-existence +of any body equal to him in person or goodness--and did, in truth, +prove herself more resolutely in love than Emma had foreseen; but yet +it appeared to her so natural, so inevitable to strive against an +inclination of that sort _unrequited_, that she could not comprehend its +continuing very long in equal force. + +If Mr. Elton, on his return, made his own indifference as evident and +indubitable as she could not doubt he would anxiously do, she could not +imagine Harriet's persisting to place her happiness in the sight or the +recollection of him. + +Their being fixed, so absolutely fixed, in the same place, was bad for +each, for all three. Not one of them had the power of removal, or of +effecting any material change of society. They must encounter each +other, and make the best of it. + +Harriet was farther unfortunate in the tone of her companions at Mrs. +Goddard's; Mr. Elton being the adoration of all the teachers and great +girls in the school; and it must be at Hartfield only that she could +have any chance of hearing him spoken of with cooling moderation or +repellent truth. Where the wound had been given, there must the cure be +found if anywhere; and Emma felt that, till she saw her in the way of +cure, there could be no true peace for herself. + + + +CHAPTER XVIII + + +Mr. Frank Churchill did not come. When the time proposed drew near, Mrs. +Weston's fears were justified in the arrival of a letter of excuse. For +the present, he could not be spared, to his "very great mortification +and regret; but still he looked forward with the hope of coming to +Randalls at no distant period." + +Mrs. Weston was exceedingly disappointed--much more disappointed, in +fact, than her husband, though her dependence on seeing the young man +had been so much more sober: but a sanguine temper, though for ever +expecting more good than occurs, does not always pay for its hopes by +any proportionate depression. It soon flies over the present failure, +and begins to hope again. For half an hour Mr. Weston was surprized and +sorry; but then he began to perceive that Frank's coming two or three +months later would be a much better plan; better time of year; +better weather; and that he would be able, without any doubt, to stay +considerably longer with them than if he had come sooner. + +These feelings rapidly restored his comfort, while Mrs. Weston, of +a more apprehensive disposition, foresaw nothing but a repetition of +excuses and delays; and after all her concern for what her husband was +to suffer, suffered a great deal more herself. + +Emma was not at this time in a state of spirits to care really about Mr. +Frank Churchill's not coming, except as a disappointment at Randalls. +The acquaintance at present had no charm for her. She wanted, rather, to +be quiet, and out of temptation; but still, as it was desirable that she +should appear, in general, like her usual self, she took care to express +as much interest in the circumstance, and enter as warmly into Mr. +and Mrs. Weston's disappointment, as might naturally belong to their +friendship. + +She was the first to announce it to Mr. Knightley; and exclaimed quite +as much as was necessary, (or, being acting a part, perhaps rather +more,) at the conduct of the Churchills, in keeping him away. She then +proceeded to say a good deal more than she felt, of the advantage of +such an addition to their confined society in Surry; the pleasure of +looking at somebody new; the gala-day to Highbury entire, which the +sight of him would have made; and ending with reflections on the +Churchills again, found herself directly involved in a disagreement +with Mr. Knightley; and, to her great amusement, perceived that she was +taking the other side of the question from her real opinion, and making +use of Mrs. Weston's arguments against herself. + +"The Churchills are very likely in fault," said Mr. Knightley, coolly; +"but I dare say he might come if he would." + +"I do not know why you should say so. He wishes exceedingly to come; but +his uncle and aunt will not spare him." + +"I cannot believe that he has not the power of coming, if he made a +point of it. It is too unlikely, for me to believe it without proof." + +"How odd you are! What has Mr. Frank Churchill done, to make you suppose +him such an unnatural creature?" + +"I am not supposing him at all an unnatural creature, in suspecting that +he may have learnt to be above his connexions, and to care very little +for any thing but his own pleasure, from living with those who have +always set him the example of it. It is a great deal more natural than +one could wish, that a young man, brought up by those who are proud, +luxurious, and selfish, should be proud, luxurious, and selfish too. If +Frank Churchill had wanted to see his father, he would have contrived it +between September and January. A man at his age--what is he?--three or +four-and-twenty--cannot be without the means of doing as much as that. +It is impossible." + +"That's easily said, and easily felt by you, who have always been your +own master. You are the worst judge in the world, Mr. Knightley, of the +difficulties of dependence. You do not know what it is to have tempers +to manage." + +"It is not to be conceived that a man of three or four-and-twenty +should not have liberty of mind or limb to that amount. He cannot want +money--he cannot want leisure. We know, on the contrary, that he has so +much of both, that he is glad to get rid of them at the idlest haunts in +the kingdom. We hear of him for ever at some watering-place or other. A +little while ago, he was at Weymouth. This proves that he can leave the +Churchills." + +"Yes, sometimes he can." + +"And those times are whenever he thinks it worth his while; whenever +there is any temptation of pleasure." + +"It is very unfair to judge of any body's conduct, without an intimate +knowledge of their situation. Nobody, who has not been in the interior +of a family, can say what the difficulties of any individual of that +family may be. We ought to be acquainted with Enscombe, and with Mrs. +Churchill's temper, before we pretend to decide upon what her nephew +can do. He may, at times, be able to do a great deal more than he can at +others." + +"There is one thing, Emma, which a man can always do, if he chuses, and +that is, his duty; not by manoeuvring and finessing, but by vigour and +resolution. It is Frank Churchill's duty to pay this attention to his +father. He knows it to be so, by his promises and messages; but if he +wished to do it, it might be done. A man who felt rightly would say at +once, simply and resolutely, to Mrs. Churchill--'Every sacrifice of +mere pleasure you will always find me ready to make to your convenience; +but I must go and see my father immediately. I know he would be hurt by +my failing in such a mark of respect to him on the present occasion. +I shall, therefore, set off to-morrow.'--If he would say so to her +at once, in the tone of decision becoming a man, there would be no +opposition made to his going." + +"No," said Emma, laughing; "but perhaps there might be some made to his +coming back again. Such language for a young man entirely dependent, to +use!--Nobody but you, Mr. Knightley, would imagine it possible. But you +have not an idea of what is requisite in situations directly opposite to +your own. Mr. Frank Churchill to be making such a speech as that to +the uncle and aunt, who have brought him up, and are to provide for +him!--Standing up in the middle of the room, I suppose, and speaking as +loud as he could!--How can you imagine such conduct practicable?" + +"Depend upon it, Emma, a sensible man would find no difficulty in it. He +would feel himself in the right; and the declaration--made, of course, +as a man of sense would make it, in a proper manner--would do him more +good, raise him higher, fix his interest stronger with the people he +depended on, than all that a line of shifts and expedients can ever do. +Respect would be added to affection. They would feel that they could +trust him; that the nephew who had done rightly by his father, would do +rightly by them; for they know, as well as he does, as well as all the +world must know, that he ought to pay this visit to his father; and +while meanly exerting their power to delay it, are in their hearts not +thinking the better of him for submitting to their whims. Respect for +right conduct is felt by every body. If he would act in this sort of +manner, on principle, consistently, regularly, their little minds would +bend to his." + +"I rather doubt that. You are very fond of bending little minds; but +where little minds belong to rich people in authority, I think they have +a knack of swelling out, till they are quite as unmanageable as great +ones. I can imagine, that if you, as you are, Mr. Knightley, were to be +transported and placed all at once in Mr. Frank Churchill's situation, +you would be able to say and do just what you have been recommending for +him; and it might have a very good effect. The Churchills might not have +a word to say in return; but then, you would have no habits of early +obedience and long observance to break through. To him who has, it might +not be so easy to burst forth at once into perfect independence, and set +all their claims on his gratitude and regard at nought. He may have as +strong a sense of what would be right, as you can have, without being so +equal, under particular circumstances, to act up to it." + +"Then it would not be so strong a sense. If it failed to produce equal +exertion, it could not be an equal conviction." + +"Oh, the difference of situation and habit! I wish you would try to +understand what an amiable young man may be likely to feel in directly +opposing those, whom as child and boy he has been looking up to all his +life." + +"Our amiable young man is a very weak young man, if this be the first +occasion of his carrying through a resolution to do right against the +will of others. It ought to have been a habit with him by this time, of +following his duty, instead of consulting expediency. I can allow for +the fears of the child, but not of the man. As he became rational, he +ought to have roused himself and shaken off all that was unworthy in +their authority. He ought to have opposed the first attempt on their +side to make him slight his father. Had he begun as he ought, there +would have been no difficulty now." + +"We shall never agree about him," cried Emma; "but that is nothing +extraordinary. I have not the least idea of his being a weak young man: +I feel sure that he is not. Mr. Weston would not be blind to folly, +though in his own son; but he is very likely to have a more yielding, +complying, mild disposition than would suit your notions of man's +perfection. I dare say he has; and though it may cut him off from some +advantages, it will secure him many others." + +"Yes; all the advantages of sitting still when he ought to move, and +of leading a life of mere idle pleasure, and fancying himself extremely +expert in finding excuses for it. He can sit down and write a fine +flourishing letter, full of professions and falsehoods, and persuade +himself that he has hit upon the very best method in the world of +preserving peace at home and preventing his father's having any right to +complain. His letters disgust me." + +"Your feelings are singular. They seem to satisfy every body else." + +"I suspect they do not satisfy Mrs. Weston. They hardly can satisfy +a woman of her good sense and quick feelings: standing in a mother's +place, but without a mother's affection to blind her. It is on her +account that attention to Randalls is doubly due, and she must doubly +feel the omission. Had she been a person of consequence herself, he +would have come I dare say; and it would not have signified whether +he did or no. Can you think your friend behindhand in these sort of +considerations? Do you suppose she does not often say all this to +herself? No, Emma, your amiable young man can be amiable only in French, +not in English. He may be very 'amiable,' have very good manners, and be +very agreeable; but he can have no English delicacy towards the feelings +of other people: nothing really amiable about him." + +"You seem determined to think ill of him." + +"Me!--not at all," replied Mr. Knightley, rather displeased; "I do not +want to think ill of him. I should be as ready to acknowledge his merits +as any other man; but I hear of none, except what are merely personal; +that he is well-grown and good-looking, with smooth, plausible manners." + +"Well, if he have nothing else to recommend him, he will be a treasure +at Highbury. We do not often look upon fine young men, well-bred and +agreeable. We must not be nice and ask for all the virtues into the +bargain. Cannot you imagine, Mr. Knightley, what a _sensation_ his +coming will produce? There will be but one subject throughout the +parishes of Donwell and Highbury; but one interest--one object of +curiosity; it will be all Mr. Frank Churchill; we shall think and speak +of nobody else." + +"You will excuse my being so much over-powered. If I find him +conversable, I shall be glad of his acquaintance; but if he is only a +chattering coxcomb, he will not occupy much of my time or thoughts." + +"My idea of him is, that he can adapt his conversation to the taste of +every body, and has the power as well as the wish of being universally +agreeable. To you, he will talk of farming; to me, of drawing or music; +and so on to every body, having that general information on all subjects +which will enable him to follow the lead, or take the lead, just as +propriety may require, and to speak extremely well on each; that is my +idea of him." + +"And mine," said Mr. Knightley warmly, "is, that if he turn out any +thing like it, he will be the most insufferable fellow breathing! What! +at three-and-twenty to be the king of his company--the great man--the +practised politician, who is to read every body's character, and make +every body's talents conduce to the display of his own superiority; to +be dispensing his flatteries around, that he may make all appear like +fools compared with himself! My dear Emma, your own good sense could not +endure such a puppy when it came to the point." + +"I will say no more about him," cried Emma, "you turn every thing to +evil. We are both prejudiced; you against, I for him; and we have no +chance of agreeing till he is really here." + +"Prejudiced! I am not prejudiced." + +"But I am very much, and without being at all ashamed of it. My love for +Mr. and Mrs. Weston gives me a decided prejudice in his favour." + +"He is a person I never think of from one month's end to another," said +Mr. Knightley, with a degree of vexation, which made Emma immediately +talk of something else, though she could not comprehend why he should be +angry. + +To take a dislike to a young man, only because he appeared to be of a +different disposition from himself, was unworthy the real liberality of +mind which she was always used to acknowledge in him; for with all the +high opinion of himself, which she had often laid to his charge, she had +never before for a moment supposed it could make him unjust to the merit +of another. + + + + +VOLUME II + + + +CHAPTER I + + +Emma and Harriet had been walking together one morning, and, in Emma's +opinion, had been talking enough of Mr. Elton for that day. She could +not think that Harriet's solace or her own sins required more; and +she was therefore industriously getting rid of the subject as they +returned;--but it burst out again when she thought she had succeeded, +and after speaking some time of what the poor must suffer in winter, and +receiving no other answer than a very plaintive--"Mr. Elton is so good +to the poor!" she found something else must be done. + +They were just approaching the house where lived Mrs. and Miss Bates. +She determined to call upon them and seek safety in numbers. There was +always sufficient reason for such an attention; Mrs. and Miss Bates +loved to be called on, and she knew she was considered by the very few +who presumed ever to see imperfection in her, as rather negligent in +that respect, and as not contributing what she ought to the stock of +their scanty comforts. + +She had had many a hint from Mr. Knightley and some from her own heart, +as to her deficiency--but none were equal to counteract the persuasion +of its being very disagreeable,--a waste of time--tiresome women--and +all the horror of being in danger of falling in with the second-rate and +third-rate of Highbury, who were calling on them for ever, and therefore +she seldom went near them. But now she made the sudden resolution of not +passing their door without going in--observing, as she proposed it to +Harriet, that, as well as she could calculate, they were just now quite +safe from any letter from Jane Fairfax. + +The house belonged to people in business. Mrs. and Miss Bates occupied +the drawing-room floor; and there, in the very moderate-sized apartment, +which was every thing to them, the visitors were most cordially and even +gratefully welcomed; the quiet neat old lady, who with her knitting was +seated in the warmest corner, wanting even to give up her place to +Miss Woodhouse, and her more active, talking daughter, almost ready +to overpower them with care and kindness, thanks for their visit, +solicitude for their shoes, anxious inquiries after Mr. Woodhouse's +health, cheerful communications about her mother's, and sweet-cake from +the beaufet--"Mrs. Cole had just been there, just called in for ten +minutes, and had been so good as to sit an hour with them, and _she_ had +taken a piece of cake and been so kind as to say she liked it very much; +and, therefore, she hoped Miss Woodhouse and Miss Smith would do them +the favour to eat a piece too." + +The mention of the Coles was sure to be followed by that of Mr. Elton. +There was intimacy between them, and Mr. Cole had heard from Mr. Elton +since his going away. Emma knew what was coming; they must have the +letter over again, and settle how long he had been gone, and how much +he was engaged in company, and what a favourite he was wherever he went, +and how full the Master of the Ceremonies' ball had been; and she went +through it very well, with all the interest and all the commendation +that could be requisite, and always putting forward to prevent Harriet's +being obliged to say a word. + +This she had been prepared for when she entered the house; but meant, +having once talked him handsomely over, to be no farther incommoded by +any troublesome topic, and to wander at large amongst all the Mistresses +and Misses of Highbury, and their card-parties. She had not been +prepared to have Jane Fairfax succeed Mr. Elton; but he was actually +hurried off by Miss Bates, she jumped away from him at last abruptly to +the Coles, to usher in a letter from her niece. + +"Oh! yes--Mr. Elton, I understand--certainly as to dancing--Mrs. Cole +was telling me that dancing at the rooms at Bath was--Mrs. Cole was so +kind as to sit some time with us, talking of Jane; for as soon as +she came in, she began inquiring after her, Jane is so very great a +favourite there. Whenever she is with us, Mrs. Cole does not know how to +shew her kindness enough; and I must say that Jane deserves it as much +as any body can. And so she began inquiring after her directly, saying, +'I know you cannot have heard from Jane lately, because it is not her +time for writing;' and when I immediately said, 'But indeed we have, we +had a letter this very morning,' I do not know that I ever saw any body +more surprized. 'Have you, upon your honour?' said she; 'well, that is +quite unexpected. Do let me hear what she says.'" + +Emma's politeness was at hand directly, to say, with smiling interest-- + +"Have you heard from Miss Fairfax so lately? I am extremely happy. I +hope she is well?" + +"Thank you. You are so kind!" replied the happily deceived aunt, while +eagerly hunting for the letter.--"Oh! here it is. I was sure it could +not be far off; but I had put my huswife upon it, you see, without being +aware, and so it was quite hid, but I had it in my hand so very lately +that I was almost sure it must be on the table. I was reading it to Mrs. +Cole, and since she went away, I was reading it again to my mother, for +it is such a pleasure to her--a letter from Jane--that she can never +hear it often enough; so I knew it could not be far off, and here it is, +only just under my huswife--and since you are so kind as to wish to hear +what she says;--but, first of all, I really must, in justice to +Jane, apologise for her writing so short a letter--only two pages you +see--hardly two--and in general she fills the whole paper and crosses +half. My mother often wonders that I can make it out so well. She often +says, when the letter is first opened, 'Well, Hetty, now I think +you will be put to it to make out all that checker-work'--don't you, +ma'am?--And then I tell her, I am sure she would contrive to make it out +herself, if she had nobody to do it for her--every word of it--I am sure +she would pore over it till she had made out every word. And, indeed, +though my mother's eyes are not so good as they were, she can see +amazingly well still, thank God! with the help of spectacles. It is such +a blessing! My mother's are really very good indeed. Jane often says, +when she is here, 'I am sure, grandmama, you must have had very strong +eyes to see as you do--and so much fine work as you have done too!--I +only wish my eyes may last me as well.'" + +All this spoken extremely fast obliged Miss Bates to stop for breath; +and Emma said something very civil about the excellence of Miss +Fairfax's handwriting. + +"You are extremely kind," replied Miss Bates, highly gratified; "you who +are such a judge, and write so beautifully yourself. I am sure there is +nobody's praise that could give us so much pleasure as Miss Woodhouse's. +My mother does not hear; she is a little deaf you know. Ma'am," +addressing her, "do you hear what Miss Woodhouse is so obliging to say +about Jane's handwriting?" + +And Emma had the advantage of hearing her own silly compliment repeated +twice over before the good old lady could comprehend it. She was +pondering, in the meanwhile, upon the possibility, without seeming very +rude, of making her escape from Jane Fairfax's letter, and had almost +resolved on hurrying away directly under some slight excuse, when Miss +Bates turned to her again and seized her attention. + +"My mother's deafness is very trifling you see--just nothing at all. By +only raising my voice, and saying any thing two or three times over, +she is sure to hear; but then she is used to my voice. But it is very +remarkable that she should always hear Jane better than she does me. +Jane speaks so distinct! However, she will not find her grandmama at all +deafer than she was two years ago; which is saying a great deal at my +mother's time of life--and it really is full two years, you know, since +she was here. We never were so long without seeing her before, and as +I was telling Mrs. Cole, we shall hardly know how to make enough of her +now." + +"Are you expecting Miss Fairfax here soon?" + +"Oh yes; next week." + +"Indeed!--that must be a very great pleasure." + +"Thank you. You are very kind. Yes, next week. Every body is so +surprized; and every body says the same obliging things. I am sure she +will be as happy to see her friends at Highbury, as they can be to see +her. Yes, Friday or Saturday; she cannot say which, because Colonel +Campbell will be wanting the carriage himself one of those days. So very +good of them to send her the whole way! But they always do, you know. Oh +yes, Friday or Saturday next. That is what she writes about. That is +the reason of her writing out of rule, as we call it; for, in the +common course, we should not have heard from her before next Tuesday or +Wednesday." + +"Yes, so I imagined. I was afraid there could be little chance of my +hearing any thing of Miss Fairfax to-day." + +"So obliging of you! No, we should not have heard, if it had not been +for this particular circumstance, of her being to come here so soon. My +mother is so delighted!--for she is to be three months with us at +least. Three months, she says so, positively, as I am going to have the +pleasure of reading to you. The case is, you see, that the Campbells are +going to Ireland. Mrs. Dixon has persuaded her father and mother to come +over and see her directly. They had not intended to go over till the +summer, but she is so impatient to see them again--for till she married, +last October, she was never away from them so much as a week, which must +make it very strange to be in different kingdoms, I was going to say, +but however different countries, and so she wrote a very urgent letter +to her mother--or her father, I declare I do not know which it was, but +we shall see presently in Jane's letter--wrote in Mr. Dixon's name as +well as her own, to press their coming over directly, and they would +give them the meeting in Dublin, and take them back to their country +seat, Baly-craig, a beautiful place, I fancy. Jane has heard a great +deal of its beauty; from Mr. Dixon, I mean--I do not know that she ever +heard about it from any body else; but it was very natural, you know, +that he should like to speak of his own place while he was paying his +addresses--and as Jane used to be very often walking out with them--for +Colonel and Mrs. Campbell were very particular about their daughter's +not walking out often with only Mr. Dixon, for which I do not at all +blame them; of course she heard every thing he might be telling Miss +Campbell about his own home in Ireland; and I think she wrote us word +that he had shewn them some drawings of the place, views that he had +taken himself. He is a most amiable, charming young man, I believe. Jane +was quite longing to go to Ireland, from his account of things." + +At this moment, an ingenious and animating suspicion entering Emma's +brain with regard to Jane Fairfax, this charming Mr. Dixon, and the +not going to Ireland, she said, with the insidious design of farther +discovery, + +"You must feel it very fortunate that Miss Fairfax should be allowed to +come to you at such a time. Considering the very particular friendship +between her and Mrs. Dixon, you could hardly have expected her to be +excused from accompanying Colonel and Mrs. Campbell." + +"Very true, very true, indeed. The very thing that we have always been +rather afraid of; for we should not have liked to have her at such a +distance from us, for months together--not able to come if any thing was +to happen. But you see, every thing turns out for the best. They want +her (Mr. and Mrs. Dixon) excessively to come over with Colonel and Mrs. +Campbell; quite depend upon it; nothing can be more kind or pressing +than their _joint_ invitation, Jane says, as you will hear presently; +Mr. Dixon does not seem in the least backward in any attention. He is +a most charming young man. Ever since the service he rendered Jane at +Weymouth, when they were out in that party on the water, and she, by the +sudden whirling round of something or other among the sails, would have +been dashed into the sea at once, and actually was all but gone, if he +had not, with the greatest presence of mind, caught hold of her habit-- +(I can never think of it without trembling!)--But ever since we had the +history of that day, I have been so fond of Mr. Dixon!" + +"But, in spite of all her friends' urgency, and her own wish of seeing +Ireland, Miss Fairfax prefers devoting the time to you and Mrs. Bates?" + +"Yes--entirely her own doing, entirely her own choice; and Colonel +and Mrs. Campbell think she does quite right, just what they should +recommend; and indeed they particularly _wish_ her to try her native +air, as she has not been quite so well as usual lately." + +"I am concerned to hear of it. I think they judge wisely. But Mrs. +Dixon must be very much disappointed. Mrs. Dixon, I understand, has +no remarkable degree of personal beauty; is not, by any means, to be +compared with Miss Fairfax." + +"Oh! no. You are very obliging to say such things--but certainly not. +There is no comparison between them. Miss Campbell always was absolutely +plain--but extremely elegant and amiable." + +"Yes, that of course." + +"Jane caught a bad cold, poor thing! so long ago as the 7th of November, +(as I am going to read to you,) and has never been well since. A long +time, is not it, for a cold to hang upon her? She never mentioned +it before, because she would not alarm us. Just like her! so +considerate!--But however, she is so far from well, that her kind +friends the Campbells think she had better come home, and try an air +that always agrees with her; and they have no doubt that three or four +months at Highbury will entirely cure her--and it is certainly a great +deal better that she should come here, than go to Ireland, if she is +unwell. Nobody could nurse her, as we should do." + +"It appears to me the most desirable arrangement in the world." + +"And so she is to come to us next Friday or Saturday, and the Campbells +leave town in their way to Holyhead the Monday following--as you will +find from Jane's letter. So sudden!--You may guess, dear Miss Woodhouse, +what a flurry it has thrown me in! If it was not for the drawback of +her illness--but I am afraid we must expect to see her grown thin, and +looking very poorly. I must tell you what an unlucky thing happened to +me, as to that. I always make a point of reading Jane's letters through +to myself first, before I read them aloud to my mother, you know, for +fear of there being any thing in them to distress her. Jane desired me +to do it, so I always do: and so I began to-day with my usual caution; +but no sooner did I come to the mention of her being unwell, than I +burst out, quite frightened, with 'Bless me! poor Jane is ill!'--which +my mother, being on the watch, heard distinctly, and was sadly alarmed +at. However, when I read on, I found it was not near so bad as I had +fancied at first; and I make so light of it now to her, that she does +not think much about it. But I cannot imagine how I could be so off my +guard. If Jane does not get well soon, we will call in Mr. Perry. The +expense shall not be thought of; and though he is so liberal, and so +fond of Jane that I dare say he would not mean to charge any thing for +attendance, we could not suffer it to be so, you know. He has a wife and +family to maintain, and is not to be giving away his time. Well, now I +have just given you a hint of what Jane writes about, we will turn to +her letter, and I am sure she tells her own story a great deal better +than I can tell it for her." + +"I am afraid we must be running away," said Emma, glancing at Harriet, +and beginning to rise--"My father will be expecting us. I had no +intention, I thought I had no power of staying more than five minutes, +when I first entered the house. I merely called, because I would not +pass the door without inquiring after Mrs. Bates; but I have been so +pleasantly detained! Now, however, we must wish you and Mrs. Bates good +morning." + +And not all that could be urged to detain her succeeded. She regained +the street--happy in this, that though much had been forced on her +against her will, though she had in fact heard the whole substance of +Jane Fairfax's letter, she had been able to escape the letter itself. + + + +CHAPTER II + + +Jane Fairfax was an orphan, the only child of Mrs. Bates's youngest +daughter. + +The marriage of Lieut. Fairfax of the ----regiment of infantry, +and Miss Jane Bates, had had its day of fame and pleasure, hope +and interest; but nothing now remained of it, save the melancholy +remembrance of him dying in action abroad--of his widow sinking under +consumption and grief soon afterwards--and this girl. + +By birth she belonged to Highbury: and when at three years old, on +losing her mother, she became the property, the charge, the consolation, +the foundling of her grandmother and aunt, there had seemed every +probability of her being permanently fixed there; of her being taught +only what very limited means could command, and growing up with no +advantages of connexion or improvement, to be engrafted on what +nature had given her in a pleasing person, good understanding, and +warm-hearted, well-meaning relations. + +But the compassionate feelings of a friend of her father gave a change +to her destiny. This was Colonel Campbell, who had very highly regarded +Fairfax, as an excellent officer and most deserving young man; and +farther, had been indebted to him for such attentions, during a severe +camp-fever, as he believed had saved his life. These were claims which +he did not learn to overlook, though some years passed away from the +death of poor Fairfax, before his own return to England put any thing in +his power. When he did return, he sought out the child and took notice +of her. He was a married man, with only one living child, a girl, about +Jane's age: and Jane became their guest, paying them long visits and +growing a favourite with all; and before she was nine years old, his +daughter's great fondness for her, and his own wish of being a real +friend, united to produce an offer from Colonel Campbell of undertaking +the whole charge of her education. It was accepted; and from that period +Jane had belonged to Colonel Campbell's family, and had lived with them +entirely, only visiting her grandmother from time to time. + +The plan was that she should be brought up for educating others; the +very few hundred pounds which she inherited from her father making +independence impossible. To provide for her otherwise was out of Colonel +Campbell's power; for though his income, by pay and appointments, was +handsome, his fortune was moderate and must be all his daughter's; +but, by giving her an education, he hoped to be supplying the means of +respectable subsistence hereafter. + +Such was Jane Fairfax's history. She had fallen into good hands, known +nothing but kindness from the Campbells, and been given an excellent +education. Living constantly with right-minded and well-informed people, +her heart and understanding had received every advantage of discipline +and culture; and Colonel Campbell's residence being in London, every +lighter talent had been done full justice to, by the attendance of +first-rate masters. Her disposition and abilities were equally worthy +of all that friendship could do; and at eighteen or nineteen she was, +as far as such an early age can be qualified for the care of children, +fully competent to the office of instruction herself; but she was too +much beloved to be parted with. Neither father nor mother could promote, +and the daughter could not endure it. The evil day was put off. It was +easy to decide that she was still too young; and Jane remained with +them, sharing, as another daughter, in all the rational pleasures of +an elegant society, and a judicious mixture of home and amusement, with +only the drawback of the future, the sobering suggestions of her own +good understanding to remind her that all this might soon be over. + +The affection of the whole family, the warm attachment of Miss +Campbell in particular, was the more honourable to each party from +the circumstance of Jane's decided superiority both in beauty and +acquirements. That nature had given it in feature could not be unseen +by the young woman, nor could her higher powers of mind be unfelt by the +parents. They continued together with unabated regard however, till the +marriage of Miss Campbell, who by that chance, that luck which so often +defies anticipation in matrimonial affairs, giving attraction to what is +moderate rather than to what is superior, engaged the affections of +Mr. Dixon, a young man, rich and agreeable, almost as soon as they were +acquainted; and was eligibly and happily settled, while Jane Fairfax had +yet her bread to earn. + +This event had very lately taken place; too lately for any thing to be +yet attempted by her less fortunate friend towards entering on her path +of duty; though she had now reached the age which her own judgment had +fixed on for beginning. She had long resolved that one-and-twenty +should be the period. With the fortitude of a devoted novitiate, she had +resolved at one-and-twenty to complete the sacrifice, and retire from +all the pleasures of life, of rational intercourse, equal society, peace +and hope, to penance and mortification for ever. + +The good sense of Colonel and Mrs. Campbell could not oppose such +a resolution, though their feelings did. As long as they lived, no +exertions would be necessary, their home might be hers for ever; and for +their own comfort they would have retained her wholly; but this would +be selfishness:--what must be at last, had better be soon. Perhaps they +began to feel it might have been kinder and wiser to have resisted the +temptation of any delay, and spared her from a taste of such enjoyments +of ease and leisure as must now be relinquished. Still, however, +affection was glad to catch at any reasonable excuse for not hurrying +on the wretched moment. She had never been quite well since the time of +their daughter's marriage; and till she should have completely recovered +her usual strength, they must forbid her engaging in duties, which, so +far from being compatible with a weakened frame and varying spirits, +seemed, under the most favourable circumstances, to require something +more than human perfection of body and mind to be discharged with +tolerable comfort. + +With regard to her not accompanying them to Ireland, her account to her +aunt contained nothing but truth, though there might be some truths +not told. It was her own choice to give the time of their absence to +Highbury; to spend, perhaps, her last months of perfect liberty with +those kind relations to whom she was so very dear: and the Campbells, +whatever might be their motive or motives, whether single, or double, or +treble, gave the arrangement their ready sanction, and said, that they +depended more on a few months spent in her native air, for the recovery +of her health, than on any thing else. Certain it was that she was to +come; and that Highbury, instead of welcoming that perfect novelty which +had been so long promised it--Mr. Frank Churchill--must put up for the +present with Jane Fairfax, who could bring only the freshness of a two +years' absence. + +Emma was sorry;--to have to pay civilities to a person she did not like +through three long months!--to be always doing more than she wished, +and less than she ought! Why she did not like Jane Fairfax might be a +difficult question to answer; Mr. Knightley had once told her it was +because she saw in her the really accomplished young woman, which she +wanted to be thought herself; and though the accusation had been eagerly +refuted at the time, there were moments of self-examination in which +her conscience could not quite acquit her. But "she could never get +acquainted with her: she did not know how it was, but there was such +coldness and reserve--such apparent indifference whether she pleased or +not--and then, her aunt was such an eternal talker!--and she was made +such a fuss with by every body!--and it had been always imagined that +they were to be so intimate--because their ages were the same, every +body had supposed they must be so fond of each other." These were her +reasons--she had no better. + +It was a dislike so little just--every imputed fault was so magnified +by fancy, that she never saw Jane Fairfax the first time after any +considerable absence, without feeling that she had injured her; and +now, when the due visit was paid, on her arrival, after a two years' +interval, she was particularly struck with the very appearance and +manners, which for those two whole years she had been depreciating. Jane +Fairfax was very elegant, remarkably elegant; and she had herself the +highest value for elegance. Her height was pretty, just such as almost +every body would think tall, and nobody could think very tall; her +figure particularly graceful; her size a most becoming medium, between +fat and thin, though a slight appearance of ill-health seemed to point +out the likeliest evil of the two. Emma could not but feel all this; and +then, her face--her features--there was more beauty in them altogether +than she had remembered; it was not regular, but it was very pleasing +beauty. Her eyes, a deep grey, with dark eye-lashes and eyebrows, had +never been denied their praise; but the skin, which she had been used to +cavil at, as wanting colour, had a clearness and delicacy which really +needed no fuller bloom. It was a style of beauty, of which elegance was +the reigning character, and as such, she must, in honour, by all her +principles, admire it:--elegance, which, whether of person or of mind, +she saw so little in Highbury. There, not to be vulgar, was distinction, +and merit. + +In short, she sat, during the first visit, looking at Jane Fairfax with +twofold complacency; the sense of pleasure and the sense of rendering +justice, and was determining that she would dislike her no longer. When +she took in her history, indeed, her situation, as well as her beauty; +when she considered what all this elegance was destined to, what she was +going to sink from, how she was going to live, it seemed impossible +to feel any thing but compassion and respect; especially, if to every +well-known particular entitling her to interest, were added the highly +probable circumstance of an attachment to Mr. Dixon, which she had +so naturally started to herself. In that case, nothing could be more +pitiable or more honourable than the sacrifices she had resolved on. +Emma was very willing now to acquit her of having seduced Mr. Dixon's +actions from his wife, or of any thing mischievous which her imagination +had suggested at first. If it were love, it might be simple, single, +successless love on her side alone. She might have been unconsciously +sucking in the sad poison, while a sharer of his conversation with her +friend; and from the best, the purest of motives, might now be +denying herself this visit to Ireland, and resolving to divide herself +effectually from him and his connexions by soon beginning her career of +laborious duty. + +Upon the whole, Emma left her with such softened, charitable feelings, +as made her look around in walking home, and lament that Highbury +afforded no young man worthy of giving her independence; nobody that she +could wish to scheme about for her. + +These were charming feelings--but not lasting. Before she had committed +herself by any public profession of eternal friendship for Jane Fairfax, +or done more towards a recantation of past prejudices and errors, than +saying to Mr. Knightley, "She certainly is handsome; she is better than +handsome!" Jane had spent an evening at Hartfield with her grandmother +and aunt, and every thing was relapsing much into its usual state. +Former provocations reappeared. The aunt was as tiresome as ever; more +tiresome, because anxiety for her health was now added to admiration +of her powers; and they had to listen to the description of exactly how +little bread and butter she ate for breakfast, and how small a slice +of mutton for dinner, as well as to see exhibitions of new caps and new +workbags for her mother and herself; and Jane's offences rose again. +They had music; Emma was obliged to play; and the thanks and praise +which necessarily followed appeared to her an affectation of candour, an +air of greatness, meaning only to shew off in higher style her own very +superior performance. She was, besides, which was the worst of all, so +cold, so cautious! There was no getting at her real opinion. Wrapt up in +a cloak of politeness, she seemed determined to hazard nothing. She was +disgustingly, was suspiciously reserved. + +If any thing could be more, where all was most, she was more reserved on +the subject of Weymouth and the Dixons than any thing. She seemed bent +on giving no real insight into Mr. Dixon's character, or her own value +for his company, or opinion of the suitableness of the match. It was all +general approbation and smoothness; nothing delineated or distinguished. +It did her no service however. Her caution was thrown away. Emma saw +its artifice, and returned to her first surmises. There probably _was_ +something more to conceal than her own preference; Mr. Dixon, perhaps, +had been very near changing one friend for the other, or been fixed only +to Miss Campbell, for the sake of the future twelve thousand pounds. + +The like reserve prevailed on other topics. She and Mr. Frank Churchill +had been at Weymouth at the same time. It was known that they were a +little acquainted; but not a syllable of real information could Emma +procure as to what he truly was. "Was he handsome?"--"She believed +he was reckoned a very fine young man." "Was he agreeable?"--"He was +generally thought so." "Did he appear a sensible young man; a young +man of information?"--"At a watering-place, or in a common London +acquaintance, it was difficult to decide on such points. Manners were +all that could be safely judged of, under a much longer knowledge than +they had yet had of Mr. Churchill. She believed every body found his +manners pleasing." Emma could not forgive her. + + + +CHAPTER III + + +Emma could not forgive her;--but as neither provocation nor resentment +were discerned by Mr. Knightley, who had been of the party, and had +seen only proper attention and pleasing behaviour on each side, he was +expressing the next morning, being at Hartfield again on business with +Mr. Woodhouse, his approbation of the whole; not so openly as he might +have done had her father been out of the room, but speaking plain enough +to be very intelligible to Emma. He had been used to think her unjust to +Jane, and had now great pleasure in marking an improvement. + +"A very pleasant evening," he began, as soon as Mr. Woodhouse had been +talked into what was necessary, told that he understood, and the papers +swept away;--"particularly pleasant. You and Miss Fairfax gave us some +very good music. I do not know a more luxurious state, sir, than sitting +at one's ease to be entertained a whole evening by two such young women; +sometimes with music and sometimes with conversation. I am sure Miss +Fairfax must have found the evening pleasant, Emma. You left nothing +undone. I was glad you made her play so much, for having no instrument +at her grandmother's, it must have been a real indulgence." + +"I am happy you approved," said Emma, smiling; "but I hope I am not +often deficient in what is due to guests at Hartfield." + +"No, my dear," said her father instantly; "_that_ I am sure you are not. +There is nobody half so attentive and civil as you are. If any thing, +you are too attentive. The muffin last night--if it had been handed +round once, I think it would have been enough." + +"No," said Mr. Knightley, nearly at the same time; "you are not often +deficient; not often deficient either in manner or comprehension. I +think you understand me, therefore." + +An arch look expressed--"I understand you well enough;" but she said +only, "Miss Fairfax is reserved." + +"I always told you she was--a little; but you will soon overcome all +that part of her reserve which ought to be overcome, all that has its +foundation in diffidence. What arises from discretion must be honoured." + +"You think her diffident. I do not see it." + +"My dear Emma," said he, moving from his chair into one close by her, +"you are not going to tell me, I hope, that you had not a pleasant +evening." + +"Oh! no; I was pleased with my own perseverance in asking questions; and +amused to think how little information I obtained." + +"I am disappointed," was his only answer. + +"I hope every body had a pleasant evening," said Mr. Woodhouse, in his +quiet way. "I had. Once, I felt the fire rather too much; but then I +moved back my chair a little, a very little, and it did not disturb me. +Miss Bates was very chatty and good-humoured, as she always is, though +she speaks rather too quick. However, she is very agreeable, and Mrs. +Bates too, in a different way. I like old friends; and Miss Jane +Fairfax is a very pretty sort of young lady, a very pretty and a +very well-behaved young lady indeed. She must have found the evening +agreeable, Mr. Knightley, because she had Emma." + +"True, sir; and Emma, because she had Miss Fairfax." + +Emma saw his anxiety, and wishing to appease it, at least for the +present, said, and with a sincerity which no one could question-- + +"She is a sort of elegant creature that one cannot keep one's eyes from. +I am always watching her to admire; and I do pity her from my heart." + +Mr. Knightley looked as if he were more gratified than he cared to +express; and before he could make any reply, Mr. Woodhouse, whose +thoughts were on the Bates's, said-- + +"It is a great pity that their circumstances should be so confined! a +great pity indeed! and I have often wished--but it is so little one can +venture to do--small, trifling presents, of any thing uncommon--Now we +have killed a porker, and Emma thinks of sending them a loin or a leg; +it is very small and delicate--Hartfield pork is not like any other +pork--but still it is pork--and, my dear Emma, unless one could be sure +of their making it into steaks, nicely fried, as ours are fried, without +the smallest grease, and not roast it, for no stomach can bear roast +pork--I think we had better send the leg--do not you think so, my dear?" + +"My dear papa, I sent the whole hind-quarter. I knew you would wish it. +There will be the leg to be salted, you know, which is so very nice, and +the loin to be dressed directly in any manner they like." + +"That's right, my dear, very right. I had not thought of it before, but +that is the best way. They must not over-salt the leg; and then, if it +is not over-salted, and if it is very thoroughly boiled, just as Serle +boils ours, and eaten very moderately of, with a boiled turnip, and a +little carrot or parsnip, I do not consider it unwholesome." + +"Emma," said Mr. Knightley presently, "I have a piece of news for you. +You like news--and I heard an article in my way hither that I think will +interest you." + +"News! Oh! yes, I always like news. What is it?--why do you smile +so?--where did you hear it?--at Randalls?" + +He had time only to say, + +"No, not at Randalls; I have not been near Randalls," when the door was +thrown open, and Miss Bates and Miss Fairfax walked into the room. Full +of thanks, and full of news, Miss Bates knew not which to give quickest. +Mr. Knightley soon saw that he had lost his moment, and that not another +syllable of communication could rest with him. + +"Oh! my dear sir, how are you this morning? My dear Miss Woodhouse--I +come quite over-powered. Such a beautiful hind-quarter of pork! You +are too bountiful! Have you heard the news? Mr. Elton is going to be +married." + +Emma had not had time even to think of Mr. Elton, and she was so +completely surprized that she could not avoid a little start, and a +little blush, at the sound. + +"There is my news:--I thought it would interest you," said Mr. +Knightley, with a smile which implied a conviction of some part of what +had passed between them. + +"But where could _you_ hear it?" cried Miss Bates. "Where could you +possibly hear it, Mr. Knightley? For it is not five minutes since I +received Mrs. Cole's note--no, it cannot be more than five--or at least +ten--for I had got my bonnet and spencer on, just ready to come out--I +was only gone down to speak to Patty again about the pork--Jane was +standing in the passage--were not you, Jane?--for my mother was so +afraid that we had not any salting-pan large enough. So I said I would +go down and see, and Jane said, 'Shall I go down instead? for I think +you have a little cold, and Patty has been washing the kitchen.'--'Oh! +my dear,' said I--well, and just then came the note. A Miss +Hawkins--that's all I know. A Miss Hawkins of Bath. But, Mr. Knightley, +how could you possibly have heard it? for the very moment Mr. Cole told +Mrs. Cole of it, she sat down and wrote to me. A Miss Hawkins--" + +"I was with Mr. Cole on business an hour and a half ago. He had just +read Elton's letter as I was shewn in, and handed it to me directly." + +"Well! that is quite--I suppose there never was a piece of news more +generally interesting. My dear sir, you really are too bountiful. My +mother desires her very best compliments and regards, and a thousand +thanks, and says you really quite oppress her." + +"We consider our Hartfield pork," replied Mr. Woodhouse--"indeed it +certainly is, so very superior to all other pork, that Emma and I cannot +have a greater pleasure than--" + +"Oh! my dear sir, as my mother says, our friends are only too good +to us. If ever there were people who, without having great wealth +themselves, had every thing they could wish for, I am sure it is us. +We may well say that 'our lot is cast in a goodly heritage.' Well, Mr. +Knightley, and so you actually saw the letter; well--" + +"It was short--merely to announce--but cheerful, exulting, of course."-- +Here was a sly glance at Emma. "He had been so fortunate as to--I forget +the precise words--one has no business to remember them. The information +was, as you state, that he was going to be married to a Miss Hawkins. By +his style, I should imagine it just settled." + +"Mr. Elton going to be married!" said Emma, as soon as she could speak. +"He will have every body's wishes for his happiness." + +"He is very young to settle," was Mr. Woodhouse's observation. "He had +better not be in a hurry. He seemed to me very well off as he was. We +were always glad to see him at Hartfield." + +"A new neighbour for us all, Miss Woodhouse!" said Miss Bates, joyfully; +"my mother is so pleased!--she says she cannot bear to have the poor old +Vicarage without a mistress. This is great news, indeed. Jane, you have +never seen Mr. Elton!--no wonder that you have such a curiosity to see +him." + +Jane's curiosity did not appear of that absorbing nature as wholly to +occupy her. + +"No--I have never seen Mr. Elton," she replied, starting on this appeal; +"is he--is he a tall man?" + +"Who shall answer that question?" cried Emma. "My father would say +'yes,' Mr. Knightley 'no;' and Miss Bates and I that he is just the +happy medium. When you have been here a little longer, Miss Fairfax, +you will understand that Mr. Elton is the standard of perfection in +Highbury, both in person and mind." + +"Very true, Miss Woodhouse, so she will. He is the very best young +man--But, my dear Jane, if you remember, I told you yesterday he +was precisely the height of Mr. Perry. Miss Hawkins,--I dare say, an +excellent young woman. His extreme attention to my mother--wanting +her to sit in the vicarage pew, that she might hear the better, for my +mother is a little deaf, you know--it is not much, but she does not +hear quite quick. Jane says that Colonel Campbell is a little deaf. He +fancied bathing might be good for it--the warm bath--but she says it did +him no lasting benefit. Colonel Campbell, you know, is quite our angel. +And Mr. Dixon seems a very charming young man, quite worthy of him. It +is such a happiness when good people get together--and they always do. +Now, here will be Mr. Elton and Miss Hawkins; and there are the Coles, +such very good people; and the Perrys--I suppose there never was a +happier or a better couple than Mr. and Mrs. Perry. I say, sir," turning +to Mr. Woodhouse, "I think there are few places with such society as +Highbury. I always say, we are quite blessed in our neighbours.--My dear +sir, if there is one thing my mother loves better than another, it is +pork--a roast loin of pork--" + +"As to who, or what Miss Hawkins is, or how long he has been acquainted +with her," said Emma, "nothing I suppose can be known. One feels that it +cannot be a very long acquaintance. He has been gone only four weeks." + +Nobody had any information to give; and, after a few more wonderings, +Emma said, + +"You are silent, Miss Fairfax--but I hope you mean to take an interest +in this news. You, who have been hearing and seeing so much of late +on these subjects, who must have been so deep in the business on Miss +Campbell's account--we shall not excuse your being indifferent about Mr. +Elton and Miss Hawkins." + +"When I have seen Mr. Elton," replied Jane, "I dare say I shall be +interested--but I believe it requires _that_ with me. And as it is some +months since Miss Campbell married, the impression may be a little worn +off." + +"Yes, he has been gone just four weeks, as you observe, Miss Woodhouse," +said Miss Bates, "four weeks yesterday.--A Miss Hawkins!--Well, I had +always rather fancied it would be some young lady hereabouts; not that +I ever--Mrs. Cole once whispered to me--but I immediately said, 'No, Mr. +Elton is a most worthy young man--but'--In short, I do not think I am +particularly quick at those sort of discoveries. I do not pretend to it. +What is before me, I see. At the same time, nobody could wonder if +Mr. Elton should have aspired--Miss Woodhouse lets me chatter on, so +good-humouredly. She knows I would not offend for the world. How does +Miss Smith do? She seems quite recovered now. Have you heard from Mrs. +John Knightley lately? Oh! those dear little children. Jane, do you +know I always fancy Mr. Dixon like Mr. John Knightley. I mean in +person--tall, and with that sort of look--and not very talkative." + +"Quite wrong, my dear aunt; there is no likeness at all." + +"Very odd! but one never does form a just idea of any body beforehand. +One takes up a notion, and runs away with it. Mr. Dixon, you say, is +not, strictly speaking, handsome?" + +"Handsome! Oh! no--far from it--certainly plain. I told you he was +plain." + +"My dear, you said that Miss Campbell would not allow him to be plain, +and that you yourself--" + +"Oh! as for me, my judgment is worth nothing. Where I have a regard, +I always think a person well-looking. But I gave what I believed the +general opinion, when I called him plain." + +"Well, my dear Jane, I believe we must be running away. The weather does +not look well, and grandmama will be uneasy. You are too obliging, my +dear Miss Woodhouse; but we really must take leave. This has been a most +agreeable piece of news indeed. I shall just go round by Mrs. Cole's; +but I shall not stop three minutes: and, Jane, you had better go home +directly--I would not have you out in a shower!--We think she is the +better for Highbury already. Thank you, we do indeed. I shall not +attempt calling on Mrs. Goddard, for I really do not think she cares for +any thing but _boiled_ pork: when we dress the leg it will be another +thing. Good morning to you, my dear sir. Oh! Mr. Knightley is coming +too. Well, that is so very!--I am sure if Jane is tired, you will be +so kind as to give her your arm.--Mr. Elton, and Miss Hawkins!--Good +morning to you." + +Emma, alone with her father, had half her attention wanted by him while +he lamented that young people would be in such a hurry to marry--and to +marry strangers too--and the other half she could give to her own view +of the subject. It was to herself an amusing and a very welcome piece +of news, as proving that Mr. Elton could not have suffered long; but she +was sorry for Harriet: Harriet must feel it--and all that she could hope +was, by giving the first information herself, to save her from hearing +it abruptly from others. It was now about the time that she was likely +to call. If she were to meet Miss Bates in her way!--and upon its +beginning to rain, Emma was obliged to expect that the weather would +be detaining her at Mrs. Goddard's, and that the intelligence would +undoubtedly rush upon her without preparation. + +The shower was heavy, but short; and it had not been over five minutes, +when in came Harriet, with just the heated, agitated look which +hurrying thither with a full heart was likely to give; and the "Oh! Miss +Woodhouse, what do you think has happened!" which instantly burst forth, +had all the evidence of corresponding perturbation. As the blow was +given, Emma felt that she could not now shew greater kindness than in +listening; and Harriet, unchecked, ran eagerly through what she had to +tell. "She had set out from Mrs. Goddard's half an hour ago--she had +been afraid it would rain--she had been afraid it would pour down +every moment--but she thought she might get to Hartfield first--she +had hurried on as fast as possible; but then, as she was passing by the +house where a young woman was making up a gown for her, she thought she +would just step in and see how it went on; and though she did not seem +to stay half a moment there, soon after she came out it began to rain, +and she did not know what to do; so she ran on directly, as fast as +she could, and took shelter at Ford's."--Ford's was the principal +woollen-draper, linen-draper, and haberdasher's shop united; the shop +first in size and fashion in the place.--"And so, there she had +set, without an idea of any thing in the world, full ten minutes, +perhaps--when, all of a sudden, who should come in--to be sure it was +so very odd!--but they always dealt at Ford's--who should come in, but +Elizabeth Martin and her brother!--Dear Miss Woodhouse! only think. I +thought I should have fainted. I did not know what to do. I was sitting +near the door--Elizabeth saw me directly; but he did not; he was busy +with the umbrella. I am sure she saw me, but she looked away directly, +and took no notice; and they both went to quite the farther end of the +shop; and I kept sitting near the door!--Oh! dear; I was so miserable! +I am sure I must have been as white as my gown. I could not go away +you know, because of the rain; but I did so wish myself anywhere in the +world but there.--Oh! dear, Miss Woodhouse--well, at last, I fancy, he +looked round and saw me; for instead of going on with her buyings, they +began whispering to one another. I am sure they were talking of me; and +I could not help thinking that he was persuading her to speak to me--(do +you think he was, Miss Woodhouse?)--for presently she came forward--came +quite up to me, and asked me how I did, and seemed ready to shake hands, +if I would. She did not do any of it in the same way that she used; I +could see she was altered; but, however, she seemed to _try_ to be very +friendly, and we shook hands, and stood talking some time; but I know no +more what I said--I was in such a tremble!--I remember she said she +was sorry we never met now; which I thought almost too kind! Dear, Miss +Woodhouse, I was absolutely miserable! By that time, it was beginning to +hold up, and I was determined that nothing should stop me from getting +away--and then--only think!--I found he was coming up towards me +too--slowly you know, and as if he did not quite know what to do; and +so he came and spoke, and I answered--and I stood for a minute, feeling +dreadfully, you know, one can't tell how; and then I took courage, and +said it did not rain, and I must go; and so off I set; and I had not got +three yards from the door, when he came after me, only to say, if I was +going to Hartfield, he thought I had much better go round by Mr. Cole's +stables, for I should find the near way quite floated by this rain. Oh! +dear, I thought it would have been the death of me! So I said, I was +very much obliged to him: you know I could not do less; and then he went +back to Elizabeth, and I came round by the stables--I believe I did--but +I hardly knew where I was, or any thing about it. Oh! Miss Woodhouse, +I would rather done any thing than have it happen: and yet, you know, +there was a sort of satisfaction in seeing him behave so pleasantly and +so kindly. And Elizabeth, too. Oh! Miss Woodhouse, do talk to me and +make me comfortable again." + +Very sincerely did Emma wish to do so; but it was not immediately in +her power. She was obliged to stop and think. She was not thoroughly +comfortable herself. The young man's conduct, and his sister's, seemed +the result of real feeling, and she could not but pity them. As Harriet +described it, there had been an interesting mixture of wounded affection +and genuine delicacy in their behaviour. But she had believed them to be +well-meaning, worthy people before; and what difference did this make +in the evils of the connexion? It was folly to be disturbed by it. Of +course, he must be sorry to lose her--they must be all sorry. Ambition, +as well as love, had probably been mortified. They might all have hoped +to rise by Harriet's acquaintance: and besides, what was the value of +Harriet's description?--So easily pleased--so little discerning;--what +signified her praise? + +She exerted herself, and did try to make her comfortable, by considering +all that had passed as a mere trifle, and quite unworthy of being dwelt +on, + +"It might be distressing, for the moment," said she; "but you seem to +have behaved extremely well; and it is over--and may never--can never, +as a first meeting, occur again, and therefore you need not think about +it." + +Harriet said, "very true," and she "would not think about it;" but still +she talked of it--still she could talk of nothing else; and Emma, at +last, in order to put the Martins out of her head, was obliged to hurry +on the news, which she had meant to give with so much tender caution; +hardly knowing herself whether to rejoice or be angry, ashamed or only +amused, at such a state of mind in poor Harriet--such a conclusion of +Mr. Elton's importance with her! + +Mr. Elton's rights, however, gradually revived. Though she did not feel +the first intelligence as she might have done the day before, or an hour +before, its interest soon increased; and before their first conversation +was over, she had talked herself into all the sensations of curiosity, +wonder and regret, pain and pleasure, as to this fortunate Miss Hawkins, +which could conduce to place the Martins under proper subordination in +her fancy. + +Emma learned to be rather glad that there had been such a meeting. It +had been serviceable in deadening the first shock, without retaining any +influence to alarm. As Harriet now lived, the Martins could not get +at her, without seeking her, where hitherto they had wanted either the +courage or the condescension to seek her; for since her refusal of the +brother, the sisters never had been at Mrs. Goddard's; and a twelvemonth +might pass without their being thrown together again, with any +necessity, or even any power of speech. + + + +CHAPTER IV + + +Human nature is so well disposed towards those who are in interesting +situations, that a young person, who either marries or dies, is sure of +being kindly spoken of. + +A week had not passed since Miss Hawkins's name was first mentioned in +Highbury, before she was, by some means or other, discovered to have +every recommendation of person and mind; to be handsome, elegant, highly +accomplished, and perfectly amiable: and when Mr. Elton himself arrived +to triumph in his happy prospects, and circulate the fame of her merits, +there was very little more for him to do, than to tell her Christian +name, and say whose music she principally played. + +Mr. Elton returned, a very happy man. He had gone away rejected and +mortified--disappointed in a very sanguine hope, after a series of what +appeared to him strong encouragement; and not only losing the right +lady, but finding himself debased to the level of a very wrong one. He +had gone away deeply offended--he came back engaged to another--and +to another as superior, of course, to the first, as under such +circumstances what is gained always is to what is lost. He came back gay +and self-satisfied, eager and busy, caring nothing for Miss Woodhouse, +and defying Miss Smith. + +The charming Augusta Hawkins, in addition to all the usual advantages of +perfect beauty and merit, was in possession of an independent fortune, +of so many thousands as would always be called ten; a point of some +dignity, as well as some convenience: the story told well; he had not +thrown himself away--he had gained a woman of 10,000 l. or thereabouts; +and he had gained her with such delightful rapidity--the first hour of +introduction had been so very soon followed by distinguishing notice; +the history which he had to give Mrs. Cole of the rise and progress +of the affair was so glorious--the steps so quick, from the accidental +rencontre, to the dinner at Mr. Green's, and the party at Mrs. +Brown's--smiles and blushes rising in importance--with consciousness and +agitation richly scattered--the lady had been so easily impressed--so +sweetly disposed--had in short, to use a most intelligible phrase, +been so very ready to have him, that vanity and prudence were equally +contented. + +He had caught both substance and shadow--both fortune and affection, and +was just the happy man he ought to be; talking only of himself and +his own concerns--expecting to be congratulated--ready to be laughed +at--and, with cordial, fearless smiles, now addressing all the young +ladies of the place, to whom, a few weeks ago, he would have been more +cautiously gallant. + +The wedding was no distant event, as the parties had only themselves to +please, and nothing but the necessary preparations to wait for; and +when he set out for Bath again, there was a general expectation, which +a certain glance of Mrs. Cole's did not seem to contradict, that when he +next entered Highbury he would bring his bride. + +During his present short stay, Emma had barely seen him; but just enough +to feel that the first meeting was over, and to give her the impression +of his not being improved by the mixture of pique and pretension, now +spread over his air. She was, in fact, beginning very much to wonder +that she had ever thought him pleasing at all; and his sight was so +inseparably connected with some very disagreeable feelings, that, +except in a moral light, as a penance, a lesson, a source of profitable +humiliation to her own mind, she would have been thankful to be assured +of never seeing him again. She wished him very well; but he gave +her pain, and his welfare twenty miles off would administer most +satisfaction. + +The pain of his continued residence in Highbury, however, must +certainly be lessened by his marriage. Many vain solicitudes would be +prevented--many awkwardnesses smoothed by it. A _Mrs._ _Elton_ would +be an excuse for any change of intercourse; former intimacy might sink +without remark. It would be almost beginning their life of civility +again. + +Of the lady, individually, Emma thought very little. She was good enough +for Mr. Elton, no doubt; accomplished enough for Highbury--handsome +enough--to look plain, probably, by Harriet's side. As to connexion, +there Emma was perfectly easy; persuaded, that after all his own vaunted +claims and disdain of Harriet, he had done nothing. On that article, +truth seemed attainable. _What_ she was, must be uncertain; but _who_ +she was, might be found out; and setting aside the 10,000 l., it did not +appear that she was at all Harriet's superior. She brought no name, no +blood, no alliance. Miss Hawkins was the youngest of the two daughters +of a Bristol--merchant, of course, he must be called; but, as the whole +of the profits of his mercantile life appeared so very moderate, it +was not unfair to guess the dignity of his line of trade had been very +moderate also. Part of every winter she had been used to spend in Bath; +but Bristol was her home, the very heart of Bristol; for though the +father and mother had died some years ago, an uncle remained--in the law +line--nothing more distinctly honourable was hazarded of him, than +that he was in the law line; and with him the daughter had lived. Emma +guessed him to be the drudge of some attorney, and too stupid to rise. +And all the grandeur of the connexion seemed dependent on the elder +sister, who was _very_ _well_ _married_, to a gentleman in a _great_ +_way_, near Bristol, who kept two carriages! That was the wind-up of the +history; that was the glory of Miss Hawkins. + +Could she but have given Harriet her feelings about it all! She had +talked her into love; but, alas! she was not so easily to be talked out +of it. The charm of an object to occupy the many vacancies of Harriet's +mind was not to be talked away. He might be superseded by another; he +certainly would indeed; nothing could be clearer; even a Robert Martin +would have been sufficient; but nothing else, she feared, would cure +her. Harriet was one of those, who, having once begun, would be always +in love. And now, poor girl! she was considerably worse from this +reappearance of Mr. Elton. She was always having a glimpse of him +somewhere or other. Emma saw him only once; but two or three times every +day Harriet was sure _just_ to meet with him, or _just_ to miss him, +_just_ to hear his voice, or see his shoulder, _just_ to have something +occur to preserve him in her fancy, in all the favouring warmth of +surprize and conjecture. She was, moreover, perpetually hearing about +him; for, excepting when at Hartfield, she was always among those who +saw no fault in Mr. Elton, and found nothing so interesting as +the discussion of his concerns; and every report, therefore, every +guess--all that had already occurred, all that might occur in the +arrangement of his affairs, comprehending income, servants, and +furniture, was continually in agitation around her. Her regard was +receiving strength by invariable praise of him, and her regrets kept +alive, and feelings irritated by ceaseless repetitions of Miss +Hawkins's happiness, and continual observation of, how much he seemed +attached!--his air as he walked by the house--the very sitting of his +hat, being all in proof of how much he was in love! + +Had it been allowable entertainment, had there been no pain to her +friend, or reproach to herself, in the waverings of Harriet's mind, +Emma would have been amused by its variations. Sometimes Mr. Elton +predominated, sometimes the Martins; and each was occasionally useful +as a check to the other. Mr. Elton's engagement had been the cure of +the agitation of meeting Mr. Martin. The unhappiness produced by the +knowledge of that engagement had been a little put aside by Elizabeth +Martin's calling at Mrs. Goddard's a few days afterwards. Harriet had +not been at home; but a note had been prepared and left for her, written +in the very style to touch; a small mixture of reproach, with a great +deal of kindness; and till Mr. Elton himself appeared, she had been much +occupied by it, continually pondering over what could be done in return, +and wishing to do more than she dared to confess. But Mr. Elton, in +person, had driven away all such cares. While he staid, the Martins were +forgotten; and on the very morning of his setting off for Bath again, +Emma, to dissipate some of the distress it occasioned, judged it best +for her to return Elizabeth Martin's visit. + +How that visit was to be acknowledged--what would be necessary--and +what might be safest, had been a point of some doubtful consideration. +Absolute neglect of the mother and sisters, when invited to come, would +be ingratitude. It must not be: and yet the danger of a renewal of the +acquaintance--! + +After much thinking, she could determine on nothing better, than +Harriet's returning the visit; but in a way that, if they had +understanding, should convince them that it was to be only a formal +acquaintance. She meant to take her in the carriage, leave her at the +Abbey Mill, while she drove a little farther, and call for her again +so soon, as to allow no time for insidious applications or dangerous +recurrences to the past, and give the most decided proof of what degree +of intimacy was chosen for the future. + +She could think of nothing better: and though there was something in it +which her own heart could not approve--something of ingratitude, merely +glossed over--it must be done, or what would become of Harriet? + + + +CHAPTER V + + +Small heart had Harriet for visiting. Only half an hour before her +friend called for her at Mrs. Goddard's, her evil stars had led her +to the very spot where, at that moment, a trunk, directed to _The Rev. +Philip Elton, White-Hart, Bath_, was to be seen under the operation of +being lifted into the butcher's cart, which was to convey it to where +the coaches past; and every thing in this world, excepting that trunk +and the direction, was consequently a blank. + +She went, however; and when they reached the farm, and she was to be +put down, at the end of the broad, neat gravel walk, which led between +espalier apple-trees to the front door, the sight of every thing which +had given her so much pleasure the autumn before, was beginning to +revive a little local agitation; and when they parted, Emma observed her +to be looking around with a sort of fearful curiosity, which determined +her not to allow the visit to exceed the proposed quarter of an hour. +She went on herself, to give that portion of time to an old servant who +was married, and settled in Donwell. + +The quarter of an hour brought her punctually to the white gate again; +and Miss Smith receiving her summons, was with her without delay, and +unattended by any alarming young man. She came solitarily down the +gravel walk--a Miss Martin just appearing at the door, and parting with +her seemingly with ceremonious civility. + +Harriet could not very soon give an intelligible account. She was +feeling too much; but at last Emma collected from her enough to +understand the sort of meeting, and the sort of pain it was creating. +She had seen only Mrs. Martin and the two girls. They had received her +doubtingly, if not coolly; and nothing beyond the merest commonplace had +been talked almost all the time--till just at last, when Mrs. Martin's +saying, all of a sudden, that she thought Miss Smith was grown, had +brought on a more interesting subject, and a warmer manner. In that very +room she had been measured last September, with her two friends. There +were the pencilled marks and memorandums on the wainscot by the window. +_He_ had done it. They all seemed to remember the day, the hour, +the party, the occasion--to feel the same consciousness, the same +regrets--to be ready to return to the same good understanding; and they +were just growing again like themselves, (Harriet, as Emma must suspect, +as ready as the best of them to be cordial and happy,) when the carriage +reappeared, and all was over. The style of the visit, and the shortness +of it, were then felt to be decisive. Fourteen minutes to be given +to those with whom she had thankfully passed six weeks not six months +ago!--Emma could not but picture it all, and feel how justly they might +resent, how naturally Harriet must suffer. It was a bad business. She +would have given a great deal, or endured a great deal, to have had +the Martins in a higher rank of life. They were so deserving, that a +_little_ higher should have been enough: but as it was, how could she +have done otherwise?--Impossible!--She could not repent. They must be +separated; but there was a great deal of pain in the process--so much +to herself at this time, that she soon felt the necessity of a little +consolation, and resolved on going home by way of Randalls to +procure it. Her mind was quite sick of Mr. Elton and the Martins. The +refreshment of Randalls was absolutely necessary. + +It was a good scheme; but on driving to the door they heard that neither +"master nor mistress was at home;" they had both been out some time; the +man believed they were gone to Hartfield. + +"This is too bad," cried Emma, as they turned away. "And now we shall +just miss them; too provoking!--I do not know when I have been so +disappointed." And she leaned back in the corner, to indulge her +murmurs, or to reason them away; probably a little of both--such being +the commonest process of a not ill-disposed mind. Presently the carriage +stopt; she looked up; it was stopt by Mr. and Mrs. Weston, who were +standing to speak to her. There was instant pleasure in the sight of +them, and still greater pleasure was conveyed in sound--for Mr. Weston +immediately accosted her with, + +"How d'ye do?--how d'ye do?--We have been sitting with your father--glad +to see him so well. Frank comes to-morrow--I had a letter this +morning--we see him to-morrow by dinner-time to a certainty--he is at +Oxford to-day, and he comes for a whole fortnight; I knew it would be +so. If he had come at Christmas he could not have staid three days; I +was always glad he did not come at Christmas; now we are going to have +just the right weather for him, fine, dry, settled weather. We shall +enjoy him completely; every thing has turned out exactly as we could +wish." + +There was no resisting such news, no possibility of avoiding the +influence of such a happy face as Mr. Weston's, confirmed as it all was +by the words and the countenance of his wife, fewer and quieter, but not +less to the purpose. To know that _she_ thought his coming certain was +enough to make Emma consider it so, and sincerely did she rejoice in +their joy. It was a most delightful reanimation of exhausted spirits. +The worn-out past was sunk in the freshness of what was coming; and in +the rapidity of half a moment's thought, she hoped Mr. Elton would now +be talked of no more. + +Mr. Weston gave her the history of the engagements at Enscombe, which +allowed his son to answer for having an entire fortnight at his command, +as well as the route and the method of his journey; and she listened, +and smiled, and congratulated. + +"I shall soon bring him over to Hartfield," said he, at the conclusion. + +Emma could imagine she saw a touch of the arm at this speech, from his +wife. + +"We had better move on, Mr. Weston," said she, "we are detaining the +girls." + +"Well, well, I am ready;"--and turning again to Emma, "but you must +not be expecting such a _very_ fine young man; you have only +had _my_ account you know; I dare say he is really nothing +extraordinary:"--though his own sparkling eyes at the moment were +speaking a very different conviction. + +Emma could look perfectly unconscious and innocent, and answer in a +manner that appropriated nothing. + +"Think of me to-morrow, my dear Emma, about four o'clock," was Mrs. +Weston's parting injunction; spoken with some anxiety, and meant only +for her. + +"Four o'clock!--depend upon it he will be here by three," was Mr. +Weston's quick amendment; and so ended a most satisfactory meeting. +Emma's spirits were mounted quite up to happiness; every thing wore +a different air; James and his horses seemed not half so sluggish as +before. When she looked at the hedges, she thought the elder at least +must soon be coming out; and when she turned round to Harriet, she saw +something like a look of spring, a tender smile even there. + +"Will Mr. Frank Churchill pass through Bath as well as Oxford?"--was a +question, however, which did not augur much. + +But neither geography nor tranquillity could come all at once, and Emma +was now in a humour to resolve that they should both come in time. + +The morning of the interesting day arrived, and Mrs. Weston's faithful +pupil did not forget either at ten, or eleven, or twelve o'clock, that +she was to think of her at four. + +"My dear, dear anxious friend,"--said she, in mental soliloquy, while +walking downstairs from her own room, "always overcareful for every +body's comfort but your own; I see you now in all your little fidgets, +going again and again into his room, to be sure that all is right." +The clock struck twelve as she passed through the hall. "'Tis twelve; +I shall not forget to think of you four hours hence; and by this +time to-morrow, perhaps, or a little later, I may be thinking of the +possibility of their all calling here. I am sure they will bring him +soon." + +She opened the parlour door, and saw two gentlemen sitting with her +father--Mr. Weston and his son. They had been arrived only a few +minutes, and Mr. Weston had scarcely finished his explanation of Frank's +being a day before his time, and her father was yet in the midst of his +very civil welcome and congratulations, when she appeared, to have her +share of surprize, introduction, and pleasure. + +The Frank Churchill so long talked of, so high in interest, was actually +before her--he was presented to her, and she did not think too much had +been said in his praise; he was a _very_ good looking young man; height, +air, address, all were unexceptionable, and his countenance had a great +deal of the spirit and liveliness of his father's; he looked quick and +sensible. She felt immediately that she should like him; and there was +a well-bred ease of manner, and a readiness to talk, which convinced her +that he came intending to be acquainted with her, and that acquainted +they soon must be. + +He had reached Randalls the evening before. She was pleased with the +eagerness to arrive which had made him alter his plan, and travel +earlier, later, and quicker, that he might gain half a day. + +"I told you yesterday," cried Mr. Weston with exultation, "I told you +all that he would be here before the time named. I remembered what I +used to do myself. One cannot creep upon a journey; one cannot help +getting on faster than one has planned; and the pleasure of coming in +upon one's friends before the look-out begins, is worth a great deal +more than any little exertion it needs." + +"It is a great pleasure where one can indulge in it," said the young +man, "though there are not many houses that I should presume on so far; +but in coming _home_ I felt I might do any thing." + +The word _home_ made his father look on him with fresh complacency. +Emma was directly sure that he knew how to make himself agreeable; the +conviction was strengthened by what followed. He was very much pleased +with Randalls, thought it a most admirably arranged house, would hardly +allow it even to be very small, admired the situation, the walk to +Highbury, Highbury itself, Hartfield still more, and professed himself +to have always felt the sort of interest in the country which none but +one's _own_ country gives, and the greatest curiosity to visit it. That +he should never have been able to indulge so amiable a feeling before, +passed suspiciously through Emma's brain; but still, if it were a +falsehood, it was a pleasant one, and pleasantly handled. His manner had +no air of study or exaggeration. He did really look and speak as if in a +state of no common enjoyment. + +Their subjects in general were such as belong to an opening +acquaintance. On his side were the inquiries,--"Was she a +horsewoman?--Pleasant rides?--Pleasant walks?--Had they a large +neighbourhood?--Highbury, perhaps, afforded society enough?--There were +several very pretty houses in and about it.--Balls--had they balls?--Was +it a musical society?" + +But when satisfied on all these points, and their acquaintance +proportionably advanced, he contrived to find an opportunity, while +their two fathers were engaged with each other, of introducing his +mother-in-law, and speaking of her with so much handsome praise, so much +warm admiration, so much gratitude for the happiness she secured to his +father, and her very kind reception of himself, as was an additional +proof of his knowing how to please--and of his certainly thinking it +worth while to try to please her. He did not advance a word of praise +beyond what she knew to be thoroughly deserved by Mrs. Weston; but, +undoubtedly he could know very little of the matter. He understood +what would be welcome; he could be sure of little else. "His father's +marriage," he said, "had been the wisest measure, every friend must +rejoice in it; and the family from whom he had received such a blessing +must be ever considered as having conferred the highest obligation on +him." + +He got as near as he could to thanking her for Miss Taylor's merits, +without seeming quite to forget that in the common course of things it +was to be rather supposed that Miss Taylor had formed Miss Woodhouse's +character, than Miss Woodhouse Miss Taylor's. And at last, as if +resolved to qualify his opinion completely for travelling round to its +object, he wound it all up with astonishment at the youth and beauty of +her person. + +"Elegant, agreeable manners, I was prepared for," said he; "but I +confess that, considering every thing, I had not expected more than a +very tolerably well-looking woman of a certain age; I did not know that +I was to find a pretty young woman in Mrs. Weston." + +"You cannot see too much perfection in Mrs. Weston for my feelings," +said Emma; "were you to guess her to be _eighteen_, I should listen with +pleasure; but _she_ would be ready to quarrel with you for using such +words. Don't let her imagine that you have spoken of her as a pretty +young woman." + +"I hope I should know better," he replied; "no, depend upon it, (with a +gallant bow,) that in addressing Mrs. Weston I should understand whom +I might praise without any danger of being thought extravagant in my +terms." + +Emma wondered whether the same suspicion of what might be expected from +their knowing each other, which had taken strong possession of her mind, +had ever crossed his; and whether his compliments were to be considered +as marks of acquiescence, or proofs of defiance. She must see more +of him to understand his ways; at present she only felt they were +agreeable. + +She had no doubt of what Mr. Weston was often thinking about. His quick +eye she detected again and again glancing towards them with a happy +expression; and even, when he might have determined not to look, she was +confident that he was often listening. + +Her own father's perfect exemption from any thought of the kind, the +entire deficiency in him of all such sort of penetration or suspicion, +was a most comfortable circumstance. Happily he was not farther from +approving matrimony than from foreseeing it.--Though always objecting +to every marriage that was arranged, he never suffered beforehand from +the apprehension of any; it seemed as if he could not think so ill of +any two persons' understanding as to suppose they meant to marry till it +were proved against them. She blessed the favouring blindness. He could +now, without the drawback of a single unpleasant surmise, without a +glance forward at any possible treachery in his guest, give way to all +his natural kind-hearted civility in solicitous inquiries after Mr. +Frank Churchill's accommodation on his journey, through the sad evils +of sleeping two nights on the road, and express very genuine unmixed +anxiety to know that he had certainly escaped catching cold--which, +however, he could not allow him to feel quite assured of himself till +after another night. + +A reasonable visit paid, Mr. Weston began to move.--"He must be going. +He had business at the Crown about his hay, and a great many errands for +Mrs. Weston at Ford's, but he need not hurry any body else." His son, +too well bred to hear the hint, rose immediately also, saying, + +"As you are going farther on business, sir, I will take the opportunity +of paying a visit, which must be paid some day or other, and therefore +may as well be paid now. I have the honour of being acquainted with +a neighbour of yours, (turning to Emma,) a lady residing in or near +Highbury; a family of the name of Fairfax. I shall have no difficulty, +I suppose, in finding the house; though Fairfax, I believe, is not +the proper name--I should rather say Barnes, or Bates. Do you know any +family of that name?" + +"To be sure we do," cried his father; "Mrs. Bates--we passed her +house--I saw Miss Bates at the window. True, true, you are acquainted +with Miss Fairfax; I remember you knew her at Weymouth, and a fine girl +she is. Call upon her, by all means." + +"There is no necessity for my calling this morning," said the young man; +"another day would do as well; but there was that degree of acquaintance +at Weymouth which--" + +"Oh! go to-day, go to-day. Do not defer it. What is right to be done +cannot be done too soon. And, besides, I must give you a hint, Frank; +any want of attention to her _here_ should be carefully avoided. You saw +her with the Campbells, when she was the equal of every body she mixed +with, but here she is with a poor old grandmother, who has barely enough +to live on. If you do not call early it will be a slight." + +The son looked convinced. + +"I have heard her speak of the acquaintance," said Emma; "she is a very +elegant young woman." + +He agreed to it, but with so quiet a "Yes," as inclined her almost to +doubt his real concurrence; and yet there must be a very distinct sort +of elegance for the fashionable world, if Jane Fairfax could be thought +only ordinarily gifted with it. + +"If you were never particularly struck by her manners before," said she, +"I think you will to-day. You will see her to advantage; see her and +hear her--no, I am afraid you will not hear her at all, for she has an +aunt who never holds her tongue." + +"You are acquainted with Miss Jane Fairfax, sir, are you?" said Mr. +Woodhouse, always the last to make his way in conversation; "then give +me leave to assure you that you will find her a very agreeable young +lady. She is staying here on a visit to her grandmama and aunt, very +worthy people; I have known them all my life. They will be extremely +glad to see you, I am sure; and one of my servants shall go with you to +shew you the way." + +"My dear sir, upon no account in the world; my father can direct me." + +"But your father is not going so far; he is only going to the Crown, +quite on the other side of the street, and there are a great many +houses; you might be very much at a loss, and it is a very dirty walk, +unless you keep on the footpath; but my coachman can tell you where you +had best cross the street." + +Mr. Frank Churchill still declined it, looking as serious as he could, +and his father gave his hearty support by calling out, "My good friend, +this is quite unnecessary; Frank knows a puddle of water when he sees +it, and as to Mrs. Bates's, he may get there from the Crown in a hop, +step, and jump." + +They were permitted to go alone; and with a cordial nod from one, and a +graceful bow from the other, the two gentlemen took leave. Emma remained +very well pleased with this beginning of the acquaintance, and could now +engage to think of them all at Randalls any hour of the day, with full +confidence in their comfort. + + + +CHAPTER VI + + +The next morning brought Mr. Frank Churchill again. He came with Mrs. +Weston, to whom and to Highbury he seemed to take very cordially. He had +been sitting with her, it appeared, most companionably at home, till +her usual hour of exercise; and on being desired to chuse their walk, +immediately fixed on Highbury.--"He did not doubt there being very +pleasant walks in every direction, but if left to him, he should always +chuse the same. Highbury, that airy, cheerful, happy-looking Highbury, +would be his constant attraction."--Highbury, with Mrs. Weston, stood +for Hartfield; and she trusted to its bearing the same construction with +him. They walked thither directly. + +Emma had hardly expected them: for Mr. Weston, who had called in for +half a minute, in order to hear that his son was very handsome, knew +nothing of their plans; and it was an agreeable surprize to her, +therefore, to perceive them walking up to the house together, arm in +arm. She was wanting to see him again, and especially to see him in +company with Mrs. Weston, upon his behaviour to whom her opinion of him +was to depend. If he were deficient there, nothing should make amends +for it. But on seeing them together, she became perfectly satisfied. It +was not merely in fine words or hyperbolical compliment that he paid his +duty; nothing could be more proper or pleasing than his whole manner to +her--nothing could more agreeably denote his wish of considering her as +a friend and securing her affection. And there was time enough for Emma +to form a reasonable judgment, as their visit included all the rest of +the morning. They were all three walking about together for an hour +or two--first round the shrubberies of Hartfield, and afterwards +in Highbury. He was delighted with every thing; admired Hartfield +sufficiently for Mr. Woodhouse's ear; and when their going farther was +resolved on, confessed his wish to be made acquainted with the whole +village, and found matter of commendation and interest much oftener than +Emma could have supposed. + +Some of the objects of his curiosity spoke very amiable feelings. He +begged to be shewn the house which his father had lived in so long, and +which had been the home of his father's father; and on recollecting that +an old woman who had nursed him was still living, walked in quest of +her cottage from one end of the street to the other; and though in +some points of pursuit or observation there was no positive merit, they +shewed, altogether, a good-will towards Highbury in general, which must +be very like a merit to those he was with. + +Emma watched and decided, that with such feelings as were now shewn, it +could not be fairly supposed that he had been ever voluntarily absenting +himself; that he had not been acting a part, or making a parade of +insincere professions; and that Mr. Knightley certainly had not done him +justice. + +Their first pause was at the Crown Inn, an inconsiderable house, though +the principal one of the sort, where a couple of pair of post-horses +were kept, more for the convenience of the neighbourhood than from any +run on the road; and his companions had not expected to be detained by +any interest excited there; but in passing it they gave the history of +the large room visibly added; it had been built many years ago for +a ball-room, and while the neighbourhood had been in a particularly +populous, dancing state, had been occasionally used as such;--but such +brilliant days had long passed away, and now the highest purpose for +which it was ever wanted was to accommodate a whist club established +among the gentlemen and half-gentlemen of the place. He was immediately +interested. Its character as a ball-room caught him; and instead of +passing on, he stopt for several minutes at the two superior sashed +windows which were open, to look in and contemplate its capabilities, +and lament that its original purpose should have ceased. He saw no fault +in the room, he would acknowledge none which they suggested. No, it +was long enough, broad enough, handsome enough. It would hold the +very number for comfort. They ought to have balls there at least every +fortnight through the winter. Why had not Miss Woodhouse revived +the former good old days of the room?--She who could do any thing in +Highbury! The want of proper families in the place, and the conviction +that none beyond the place and its immediate environs could be tempted +to attend, were mentioned; but he was not satisfied. He could not be +persuaded that so many good-looking houses as he saw around him, could +not furnish numbers enough for such a meeting; and even when particulars +were given and families described, he was still unwilling to admit that +the inconvenience of such a mixture would be any thing, or that there +would be the smallest difficulty in every body's returning into their +proper place the next morning. He argued like a young man very much bent +on dancing; and Emma was rather surprized to see the constitution of +the Weston prevail so decidedly against the habits of the Churchills. +He seemed to have all the life and spirit, cheerful feelings, and social +inclinations of his father, and nothing of the pride or reserve of +Enscombe. Of pride, indeed, there was, perhaps, scarcely enough; his +indifference to a confusion of rank, bordered too much on inelegance of +mind. He could be no judge, however, of the evil he was holding cheap. +It was but an effusion of lively spirits. + +At last he was persuaded to move on from the front of the Crown; +and being now almost facing the house where the Bateses lodged, Emma +recollected his intended visit the day before, and asked him if he had +paid it. + +"Yes, oh! yes"--he replied; "I was just going to mention it. A very +successful visit:--I saw all the three ladies; and felt very much +obliged to you for your preparatory hint. If the talking aunt had taken +me quite by surprize, it must have been the death of me. As it was, I +was only betrayed into paying a most unreasonable visit. Ten minutes +would have been all that was necessary, perhaps all that was proper; and +I had told my father I should certainly be at home before him--but there +was no getting away, no pause; and, to my utter astonishment, I found, +when he (finding me nowhere else) joined me there at last, that I had +been actually sitting with them very nearly three-quarters of an hour. +The good lady had not given me the possibility of escape before." + +"And how did you think Miss Fairfax looking?" + +"Ill, very ill--that is, if a young lady can ever be allowed to look +ill. But the expression is hardly admissible, Mrs. Weston, is it? Ladies +can never look ill. And, seriously, Miss Fairfax is naturally so +pale, as almost always to give the appearance of ill health.--A most +deplorable want of complexion." + +Emma would not agree to this, and began a warm defence of Miss Fairfax's +complexion. "It was certainly never brilliant, but she would not +allow it to have a sickly hue in general; and there was a softness and +delicacy in her skin which gave peculiar elegance to the character of +her face." He listened with all due deference; acknowledged that he had +heard many people say the same--but yet he must confess, that to him +nothing could make amends for the want of the fine glow of health. Where +features were indifferent, a fine complexion gave beauty to them all; +and where they were good, the effect was--fortunately he need not +attempt to describe what the effect was. + +"Well," said Emma, "there is no disputing about taste.--At least you +admire her except her complexion." + +He shook his head and laughed.--"I cannot separate Miss Fairfax and her +complexion." + +"Did you see her often at Weymouth? Were you often in the same society?" + +At this moment they were approaching Ford's, and he hastily exclaimed, +"Ha! this must be the very shop that every body attends every day of +their lives, as my father informs me. He comes to Highbury himself, he +says, six days out of the seven, and has always business at Ford's. +If it be not inconvenient to you, pray let us go in, that I may prove +myself to belong to the place, to be a true citizen of Highbury. I must +buy something at Ford's. It will be taking out my freedom.--I dare say +they sell gloves." + +"Oh! yes, gloves and every thing. I do admire your patriotism. You will +be adored in Highbury. You were very popular before you came, because +you were Mr. Weston's son--but lay out half a guinea at Ford's, and your +popularity will stand upon your own virtues." + +They went in; and while the sleek, well-tied parcels of "Men's Beavers" +and "York Tan" were bringing down and displaying on the counter, he +said--"But I beg your pardon, Miss Woodhouse, you were speaking to me, +you were saying something at the very moment of this burst of my _amor_ +_patriae_. Do not let me lose it. I assure you the utmost stretch of +public fame would not make me amends for the loss of any happiness in +private life." + +"I merely asked, whether you had known much of Miss Fairfax and her +party at Weymouth." + +"And now that I understand your question, I must pronounce it to be a +very unfair one. It is always the lady's right to decide on the degree +of acquaintance. Miss Fairfax must already have given her account.--I +shall not commit myself by claiming more than she may chuse to allow." + +"Upon my word! you answer as discreetly as she could do herself. But +her account of every thing leaves so much to be guessed, she is so very +reserved, so very unwilling to give the least information about any +body, that I really think you may say what you like of your acquaintance +with her." + +"May I, indeed?--Then I will speak the truth, and nothing suits me so +well. I met her frequently at Weymouth. I had known the Campbells a +little in town; and at Weymouth we were very much in the same set. +Colonel Campbell is a very agreeable man, and Mrs. Campbell a friendly, +warm-hearted woman. I like them all." + +"You know Miss Fairfax's situation in life, I conclude; what she is +destined to be?" + +"Yes--(rather hesitatingly)--I believe I do." + +"You get upon delicate subjects, Emma," said Mrs. Weston smiling; +"remember that I am here.--Mr. Frank Churchill hardly knows what to say +when you speak of Miss Fairfax's situation in life. I will move a little +farther off." + +"I certainly do forget to think of _her_," said Emma, "as having ever +been any thing but my friend and my dearest friend." + +He looked as if he fully understood and honoured such a sentiment. + +When the gloves were bought, and they had quitted the shop again, "Did +you ever hear the young lady we were speaking of, play?" said Frank +Churchill. + +"Ever hear her!" repeated Emma. "You forget how much she belongs to +Highbury. I have heard her every year of our lives since we both began. +She plays charmingly." + +"You think so, do you?--I wanted the opinion of some one who +could really judge. She appeared to me to play well, that is, with +considerable taste, but I know nothing of the matter myself.--I am +excessively fond of music, but without the smallest skill or right +of judging of any body's performance.--I have been used to hear her's +admired; and I remember one proof of her being thought to play well:--a +man, a very musical man, and in love with another woman--engaged to +her--on the point of marriage--would yet never ask that other woman +to sit down to the instrument, if the lady in question could sit down +instead--never seemed to like to hear one if he could hear the other. +That, I thought, in a man of known musical talent, was some proof." + +"Proof indeed!" said Emma, highly amused.--"Mr. Dixon is very musical, +is he? We shall know more about them all, in half an hour, from you, +than Miss Fairfax would have vouchsafed in half a year." + +"Yes, Mr. Dixon and Miss Campbell were the persons; and I thought it a +very strong proof." + +"Certainly--very strong it was; to own the truth, a great deal stronger +than, if _I_ had been Miss Campbell, would have been at all agreeable +to me. I could not excuse a man's having more music than love--more ear +than eye--a more acute sensibility to fine sounds than to my feelings. +How did Miss Campbell appear to like it?" + +"It was her very particular friend, you know." + +"Poor comfort!" said Emma, laughing. "One would rather have a stranger +preferred than one's very particular friend--with a stranger it might +not recur again--but the misery of having a very particular friend +always at hand, to do every thing better than one does oneself!--Poor +Mrs. Dixon! Well, I am glad she is gone to settle in Ireland." + +"You are right. It was not very flattering to Miss Campbell; but she +really did not seem to feel it." + +"So much the better--or so much the worse:--I do not know which. But +be it sweetness or be it stupidity in her--quickness of friendship, or +dulness of feeling--there was one person, I think, who must have felt +it: Miss Fairfax herself. She must have felt the improper and dangerous +distinction." + +"As to that--I do not--" + +"Oh! do not imagine that I expect an account of Miss Fairfax's +sensations from you, or from any body else. They are known to no human +being, I guess, but herself. But if she continued to play whenever she +was asked by Mr. Dixon, one may guess what one chuses." + +"There appeared such a perfectly good understanding among them all--" +he began rather quickly, but checking himself, added, "however, it is +impossible for me to say on what terms they really were--how it might +all be behind the scenes. I can only say that there was smoothness +outwardly. But you, who have known Miss Fairfax from a child, must be +a better judge of her character, and of how she is likely to conduct +herself in critical situations, than I can be." + +"I have known her from a child, undoubtedly; we have been children +and women together; and it is natural to suppose that we should be +intimate,--that we should have taken to each other whenever she visited +her friends. But we never did. I hardly know how it has happened; a +little, perhaps, from that wickedness on my side which was prone to take +disgust towards a girl so idolized and so cried up as she always was, +by her aunt and grandmother, and all their set. And then, her reserve--I +never could attach myself to any one so completely reserved." + +"It is a most repulsive quality, indeed," said he. "Oftentimes very +convenient, no doubt, but never pleasing. There is safety in reserve, +but no attraction. One cannot love a reserved person." + +"Not till the reserve ceases towards oneself; and then the attraction +may be the greater. But I must be more in want of a friend, or an +agreeable companion, than I have yet been, to take the trouble of +conquering any body's reserve to procure one. Intimacy between Miss +Fairfax and me is quite out of the question. I have no reason to think +ill of her--not the least--except that such extreme and perpetual +cautiousness of word and manner, such a dread of giving a distinct idea +about any body, is apt to suggest suspicions of there being something to +conceal." + +He perfectly agreed with her: and after walking together so long, and +thinking so much alike, Emma felt herself so well acquainted with him, +that she could hardly believe it to be only their second meeting. He was +not exactly what she had expected; less of the man of the world in some +of his notions, less of the spoiled child of fortune, therefore better +than she had expected. His ideas seemed more moderate--his feelings +warmer. She was particularly struck by his manner of considering Mr. +Elton's house, which, as well as the church, he would go and look at, +and would not join them in finding much fault with. No, he could not +believe it a bad house; not such a house as a man was to be pitied for +having. If it were to be shared with the woman he loved, he could not +think any man to be pitied for having that house. There must be ample +room in it for every real comfort. The man must be a blockhead who +wanted more. + +Mrs. Weston laughed, and said he did not know what he was talking about. +Used only to a large house himself, and without ever thinking how many +advantages and accommodations were attached to its size, he could be no +judge of the privations inevitably belonging to a small one. But Emma, +in her own mind, determined that he _did_ know what he was talking +about, and that he shewed a very amiable inclination to settle early in +life, and to marry, from worthy motives. He might not be aware of the +inroads on domestic peace to be occasioned by no housekeeper's room, or +a bad butler's pantry, but no doubt he did perfectly feel that Enscombe +could not make him happy, and that whenever he were attached, he would +willingly give up much of wealth to be allowed an early establishment. + + + +CHAPTER VII + + +Emma's very good opinion of Frank Churchill was a little shaken the +following day, by hearing that he was gone off to London, merely to have +his hair cut. A sudden freak seemed to have seized him at breakfast, and +he had sent for a chaise and set off, intending to return to dinner, +but with no more important view that appeared than having his hair cut. +There was certainly no harm in his travelling sixteen miles twice over +on such an errand; but there was an air of foppery and nonsense in it +which she could not approve. It did not accord with the rationality of +plan, the moderation in expense, or even the unselfish warmth of heart, +which she had believed herself to discern in him yesterday. Vanity, +extravagance, love of change, restlessness of temper, which must be +doing something, good or bad; heedlessness as to the pleasure of his +father and Mrs. Weston, indifferent as to how his conduct might appear +in general; he became liable to all these charges. His father only +called him a coxcomb, and thought it a very good story; but that Mrs. +Weston did not like it, was clear enough, by her passing it over as +quickly as possible, and making no other comment than that "all young +people would have their little whims." + +With the exception of this little blot, Emma found that his visit +hitherto had given her friend only good ideas of him. Mrs. Weston +was very ready to say how attentive and pleasant a companion he made +himself--how much she saw to like in his disposition altogether. He +appeared to have a very open temper--certainly a very cheerful and +lively one; she could observe nothing wrong in his notions, a great deal +decidedly right; he spoke of his uncle with warm regard, was fond of +talking of him--said he would be the best man in the world if he were +left to himself; and though there was no being attached to the aunt, he +acknowledged her kindness with gratitude, and seemed to mean always to +speak of her with respect. This was all very promising; and, but for +such an unfortunate fancy for having his hair cut, there was nothing to +denote him unworthy of the distinguished honour which her imagination +had given him; the honour, if not of being really in love with her, +of being at least very near it, and saved only by her own +indifference--(for still her resolution held of never marrying)--the +honour, in short, of being marked out for her by all their joint +acquaintance. + +Mr. Weston, on his side, added a virtue to the account which must +have some weight. He gave her to understand that Frank admired her +extremely--thought her very beautiful and very charming; and with so +much to be said for him altogether, she found she must not judge him +harshly. As Mrs. Weston observed, "all young people would have their +little whims." + +There was one person among his new acquaintance in Surry, not so +leniently disposed. In general he was judged, throughout the parishes of +Donwell and Highbury, with great candour; liberal allowances were made +for the little excesses of such a handsome young man--one who smiled so +often and bowed so well; but there was one spirit among them not to be +softened, from its power of censure, by bows or smiles--Mr. Knightley. +The circumstance was told him at Hartfield; for the moment, he was +silent; but Emma heard him almost immediately afterwards say to himself, +over a newspaper he held in his hand, "Hum! just the trifling, silly +fellow I took him for." She had half a mind to resent; but an instant's +observation convinced her that it was really said only to relieve his +own feelings, and not meant to provoke; and therefore she let it pass. + +Although in one instance the bearers of not good tidings, Mr. and +Mrs. Weston's visit this morning was in another respect particularly +opportune. Something occurred while they were at Hartfield, to make Emma +want their advice; and, which was still more lucky, she wanted exactly +the advice they gave. + +This was the occurrence:--The Coles had been settled some years in +Highbury, and were very good sort of people--friendly, liberal, and +unpretending; but, on the other hand, they were of low origin, in trade, +and only moderately genteel. On their first coming into the country, +they had lived in proportion to their income, quietly, keeping little +company, and that little unexpensively; but the last year or two had +brought them a considerable increase of means--the house in town had +yielded greater profits, and fortune in general had smiled on them. With +their wealth, their views increased; their want of a larger house, their +inclination for more company. They added to their house, to their number +of servants, to their expenses of every sort; and by this time were, +in fortune and style of living, second only to the family at Hartfield. +Their love of society, and their new dining-room, prepared every body +for their keeping dinner-company; and a few parties, chiefly among the +single men, had already taken place. The regular and best families Emma +could hardly suppose they would presume to invite--neither Donwell, nor +Hartfield, nor Randalls. Nothing should tempt _her_ to go, if they did; +and she regretted that her father's known habits would be giving +her refusal less meaning than she could wish. The Coles were very +respectable in their way, but they ought to be taught that it was not +for them to arrange the terms on which the superior families would visit +them. This lesson, she very much feared, they would receive only from +herself; she had little hope of Mr. Knightley, none of Mr. Weston. + +But she had made up her mind how to meet this presumption so many weeks +before it appeared, that when the insult came at last, it found her +very differently affected. Donwell and Randalls had received their +invitation, and none had come for her father and herself; and Mrs. +Weston's accounting for it with "I suppose they will not take the +liberty with you; they know you do not dine out," was not quite +sufficient. She felt that she should like to have had the power of +refusal; and afterwards, as the idea of the party to be assembled there, +consisting precisely of those whose society was dearest to her, occurred +again and again, she did not know that she might not have been tempted +to accept. Harriet was to be there in the evening, and the Bateses. They +had been speaking of it as they walked about Highbury the day before, +and Frank Churchill had most earnestly lamented her absence. Might +not the evening end in a dance? had been a question of his. The bare +possibility of it acted as a farther irritation on her spirits; and +her being left in solitary grandeur, even supposing the omission to be +intended as a compliment, was but poor comfort. + +It was the arrival of this very invitation while the Westons were at +Hartfield, which made their presence so acceptable; for though her first +remark, on reading it, was that "of course it must be declined," she so +very soon proceeded to ask them what they advised her to do, that their +advice for her going was most prompt and successful. + +She owned that, considering every thing, she was not absolutely +without inclination for the party. The Coles expressed themselves so +properly--there was so much real attention in the manner of it--so much +consideration for her father. "They would have solicited the honour +earlier, but had been waiting the arrival of a folding-screen from +London, which they hoped might keep Mr. Woodhouse from any draught of +air, and therefore induce him the more readily to give them the honour +of his company." Upon the whole, she was very persuadable; and it being +briefly settled among themselves how it might be done without neglecting +his comfort--how certainly Mrs. Goddard, if not Mrs. Bates, might be +depended on for bearing him company--Mr. Woodhouse was to be talked +into an acquiescence of his daughter's going out to dinner on a day now +near at hand, and spending the whole evening away from him. As for _his_ +going, Emma did not wish him to think it possible, the hours would be +too late, and the party too numerous. He was soon pretty well resigned. + +"I am not fond of dinner-visiting," said he--"I never was. No more is +Emma. Late hours do not agree with us. I am sorry Mr. and Mrs. Cole +should have done it. I think it would be much better if they would come +in one afternoon next summer, and take their tea with us--take us +in their afternoon walk; which they might do, as our hours are so +reasonable, and yet get home without being out in the damp of the +evening. The dews of a summer evening are what I would not expose any +body to. However, as they are so very desirous to have dear Emma dine +with them, and as you will both be there, and Mr. Knightley too, to take +care of her, I cannot wish to prevent it, provided the weather be what +it ought, neither damp, nor cold, nor windy." Then turning to Mrs. +Weston, with a look of gentle reproach--"Ah! Miss Taylor, if you had not +married, you would have staid at home with me." + +"Well, sir," cried Mr. Weston, "as I took Miss Taylor away, it is +incumbent on me to supply her place, if I can; and I will step to Mrs. +Goddard in a moment, if you wish it." + +But the idea of any thing to be done in a _moment_, was increasing, +not lessening, Mr. Woodhouse's agitation. The ladies knew better how +to allay it. Mr. Weston must be quiet, and every thing deliberately +arranged. + +With this treatment, Mr. Woodhouse was soon composed enough for talking +as usual. "He should be happy to see Mrs. Goddard. He had a great regard +for Mrs. Goddard; and Emma should write a line, and invite her. James +could take the note. But first of all, there must be an answer written +to Mrs. Cole." + +"You will make my excuses, my dear, as civilly as possible. You will say +that I am quite an invalid, and go no where, and therefore must decline +their obliging invitation; beginning with my _compliments_, of course. +But you will do every thing right. I need not tell you what is to be +done. We must remember to let James know that the carriage will be +wanted on Tuesday. I shall have no fears for you with him. We have never +been there above once since the new approach was made; but still I have +no doubt that James will take you very safely. And when you get there, +you must tell him at what time you would have him come for you again; +and you had better name an early hour. You will not like staying late. +You will get very tired when tea is over." + +"But you would not wish me to come away before I am tired, papa?" + +"Oh! no, my love; but you will soon be tired. There will be a great many +people talking at once. You will not like the noise." + +"But, my dear sir," cried Mr. Weston, "if Emma comes away early, it will +be breaking up the party." + +"And no great harm if it does," said Mr. Woodhouse. "The sooner every +party breaks up, the better." + +"But you do not consider how it may appear to the Coles. Emma's going +away directly after tea might be giving offence. They are good-natured +people, and think little of their own claims; but still they must +feel that any body's hurrying away is no great compliment; and Miss +Woodhouse's doing it would be more thought of than any other person's in +the room. You would not wish to disappoint and mortify the Coles, I am +sure, sir; friendly, good sort of people as ever lived, and who have +been your neighbours these _ten_ years." + +"No, upon no account in the world, Mr. Weston; I am much obliged to +you for reminding me. I should be extremely sorry to be giving them any +pain. I know what worthy people they are. Perry tells me that Mr. Cole +never touches malt liquor. You would not think it to look at him, but +he is bilious--Mr. Cole is very bilious. No, I would not be the means +of giving them any pain. My dear Emma, we must consider this. I am sure, +rather than run the risk of hurting Mr. and Mrs. Cole, you would stay a +little longer than you might wish. You will not regard being tired. You +will be perfectly safe, you know, among your friends." + +"Oh yes, papa. I have no fears at all for myself; and I should have no +scruples of staying as late as Mrs. Weston, but on your account. I am +only afraid of your sitting up for me. I am not afraid of your not being +exceedingly comfortable with Mrs. Goddard. She loves piquet, you +know; but when she is gone home, I am afraid you will be sitting up by +yourself, instead of going to bed at your usual time--and the idea of +that would entirely destroy my comfort. You must promise me not to sit +up." + +He did, on the condition of some promises on her side: such as that, +if she came home cold, she would be sure to warm herself thoroughly; if +hungry, that she would take something to eat; that her own maid should +sit up for her; and that Serle and the butler should see that every +thing were safe in the house, as usual. + + + +CHAPTER VIII + + +Frank Churchill came back again; and if he kept his father's dinner +waiting, it was not known at Hartfield; for Mrs. Weston was too anxious +for his being a favourite with Mr. Woodhouse, to betray any imperfection +which could be concealed. + +He came back, had had his hair cut, and laughed at himself with a very +good grace, but without seeming really at all ashamed of what he had +done. He had no reason to wish his hair longer, to conceal any confusion +of face; no reason to wish the money unspent, to improve his spirits. +He was quite as undaunted and as lively as ever; and, after seeing him, +Emma thus moralised to herself:-- + +"I do not know whether it ought to be so, but certainly silly things +do cease to be silly if they are done by sensible people in an impudent +way. Wickedness is always wickedness, but folly is not always folly.--It +depends upon the character of those who handle it. Mr. Knightley, he is +_not_ a trifling, silly young man. If he were, he would have done this +differently. He would either have gloried in the achievement, or +been ashamed of it. There would have been either the ostentation of +a coxcomb, or the evasions of a mind too weak to defend its own +vanities.--No, I am perfectly sure that he is not trifling or silly." + +With Tuesday came the agreeable prospect of seeing him again, and for +a longer time than hitherto; of judging of his general manners, and by +inference, of the meaning of his manners towards herself; of guessing +how soon it might be necessary for her to throw coldness into her air; +and of fancying what the observations of all those might be, who were +now seeing them together for the first time. + +She meant to be very happy, in spite of the scene being laid at Mr. +Cole's; and without being able to forget that among the failings of Mr. +Elton, even in the days of his favour, none had disturbed her more than +his propensity to dine with Mr. Cole. + +Her father's comfort was amply secured, Mrs. Bates as well as Mrs. +Goddard being able to come; and her last pleasing duty, before she left +the house, was to pay her respects to them as they sat together after +dinner; and while her father was fondly noticing the beauty of her +dress, to make the two ladies all the amends in her power, by helping +them to large slices of cake and full glasses of wine, for whatever +unwilling self-denial his care of their constitution might have obliged +them to practise during the meal.--She had provided a plentiful dinner +for them; she wished she could know that they had been allowed to eat +it. + +She followed another carriage to Mr. Cole's door; and was pleased to see +that it was Mr. Knightley's; for Mr. Knightley keeping no horses, +having little spare money and a great deal of health, activity, and +independence, was too apt, in Emma's opinion, to get about as he could, +and not use his carriage so often as became the owner of Donwell Abbey. +She had an opportunity now of speaking her approbation while warm from +her heart, for he stopped to hand her out. + +"This is coming as you should do," said she; "like a gentleman.--I am +quite glad to see you." + +He thanked her, observing, "How lucky that we should arrive at the same +moment! for, if we had met first in the drawing-room, I doubt whether +you would have discerned me to be more of a gentleman than usual.--You +might not have distinguished how I came, by my look or manner." + +"Yes I should, I am sure I should. There is always a look of +consciousness or bustle when people come in a way which they know to be +beneath them. You think you carry it off very well, I dare say, but +with you it is a sort of bravado, an air of affected unconcern; I always +observe it whenever I meet you under those circumstances. _Now_ you have +nothing to try for. You are not afraid of being supposed ashamed. You +are not striving to look taller than any body else. _Now_ I shall really +be very happy to walk into the same room with you." + +"Nonsensical girl!" was his reply, but not at all in anger. + +Emma had as much reason to be satisfied with the rest of the party as +with Mr. Knightley. She was received with a cordial respect which could +not but please, and given all the consequence she could wish for. +When the Westons arrived, the kindest looks of love, the strongest of +admiration were for her, from both husband and wife; the son approached +her with a cheerful eagerness which marked her as his peculiar object, +and at dinner she found him seated by her--and, as she firmly believed, +not without some dexterity on his side. + +The party was rather large, as it included one other family, a proper +unobjectionable country family, whom the Coles had the advantage of +naming among their acquaintance, and the male part of Mr. Cox's family, +the lawyer of Highbury. The less worthy females were to come in the +evening, with Miss Bates, Miss Fairfax, and Miss Smith; but already, +at dinner, they were too numerous for any subject of conversation to be +general; and, while politics and Mr. Elton were talked over, Emma could +fairly surrender all her attention to the pleasantness of her neighbour. +The first remote sound to which she felt herself obliged to attend, was +the name of Jane Fairfax. Mrs. Cole seemed to be relating something of +her that was expected to be very interesting. She listened, and found +it well worth listening to. That very dear part of Emma, her fancy, +received an amusing supply. Mrs. Cole was telling that she had been +calling on Miss Bates, and as soon as she entered the room had +been struck by the sight of a pianoforte--a very elegant looking +instrument--not a grand, but a large-sized square pianoforte; and the +substance of the story, the end of all the dialogue which ensued of +surprize, and inquiry, and congratulations on her side, and explanations +on Miss Bates's, was, that this pianoforte had arrived from +Broadwood's the day before, to the great astonishment of both aunt and +niece--entirely unexpected; that at first, by Miss Bates's account, +Jane herself was quite at a loss, quite bewildered to think who could +possibly have ordered it--but now, they were both perfectly satisfied +that it could be from only one quarter;--of course it must be from +Colonel Campbell. + +"One can suppose nothing else," added Mrs. Cole, "and I was only +surprized that there could ever have been a doubt. But Jane, it seems, +had a letter from them very lately, and not a word was said about it. +She knows their ways best; but I should not consider their silence as +any reason for their not meaning to make the present. They might chuse +to surprize her." + +Mrs. Cole had many to agree with her; every body who spoke on the +subject was equally convinced that it must come from Colonel Campbell, +and equally rejoiced that such a present had been made; and there were +enough ready to speak to allow Emma to think her own way, and still +listen to Mrs. Cole. + +"I declare, I do not know when I have heard any thing that has given me +more satisfaction!--It always has quite hurt me that Jane Fairfax, who +plays so delightfully, should not have an instrument. It seemed quite +a shame, especially considering how many houses there are where fine +instruments are absolutely thrown away. This is like giving ourselves +a slap, to be sure! and it was but yesterday I was telling Mr. Cole, +I really was ashamed to look at our new grand pianoforte in the +drawing-room, while I do not know one note from another, and our little +girls, who are but just beginning, perhaps may never make any thing of +it; and there is poor Jane Fairfax, who is mistress of music, has not +any thing of the nature of an instrument, not even the pitifullest old +spinet in the world, to amuse herself with.--I was saying this to +Mr. Cole but yesterday, and he quite agreed with me; only he is so +particularly fond of music that he could not help indulging himself +in the purchase, hoping that some of our good neighbours might be so +obliging occasionally to put it to a better use than we can; and that +really is the reason why the instrument was bought--or else I am sure +we ought to be ashamed of it.--We are in great hopes that Miss Woodhouse +may be prevailed with to try it this evening." + +Miss Woodhouse made the proper acquiescence; and finding that nothing +more was to be entrapped from any communication of Mrs. Cole's, turned +to Frank Churchill. + +"Why do you smile?" said she. + +"Nay, why do you?" + +"Me!--I suppose I smile for pleasure at Colonel Campbell's being so rich +and so liberal.--It is a handsome present." + +"Very." + +"I rather wonder that it was never made before." + +"Perhaps Miss Fairfax has never been staying here so long before." + +"Or that he did not give her the use of their own instrument--which must +now be shut up in London, untouched by any body." + +"That is a grand pianoforte, and he might think it too large for Mrs. +Bates's house." + +"You may _say_ what you chuse--but your countenance testifies that your +_thoughts_ on this subject are very much like mine." + +"I do not know. I rather believe you are giving me more credit for +acuteness than I deserve. I smile because you smile, and shall probably +suspect whatever I find you suspect; but at present I do not see what +there is to question. If Colonel Campbell is not the person, who can +be?" + +"What do you say to Mrs. Dixon?" + +"Mrs. Dixon! very true indeed. I had not thought of Mrs. Dixon. She must +know as well as her father, how acceptable an instrument would be; and +perhaps the mode of it, the mystery, the surprize, is more like a young +woman's scheme than an elderly man's. It is Mrs. Dixon, I dare say. I +told you that your suspicions would guide mine." + +"If so, you must extend your suspicions and comprehend _Mr_. Dixon in +them." + +"Mr. Dixon.--Very well. Yes, I immediately perceive that it must be the +joint present of Mr. and Mrs. Dixon. We were speaking the other day, you +know, of his being so warm an admirer of her performance." + +"Yes, and what you told me on that head, confirmed an idea which I had +entertained before.--I do not mean to reflect upon the good intentions +of either Mr. Dixon or Miss Fairfax, but I cannot help suspecting either +that, after making his proposals to her friend, he had the misfortune +to fall in love with _her_, or that he became conscious of a little +attachment on her side. One might guess twenty things without guessing +exactly the right; but I am sure there must be a particular cause for +her chusing to come to Highbury instead of going with the Campbells +to Ireland. Here, she must be leading a life of privation and penance; +there it would have been all enjoyment. As to the pretence of trying her +native air, I look upon that as a mere excuse.--In the summer it might +have passed; but what can any body's native air do for them in the +months of January, February, and March? Good fires and carriages would +be much more to the purpose in most cases of delicate health, and I dare +say in her's. I do not require you to adopt all my suspicions, though +you make so noble a profession of doing it, but I honestly tell you what +they are." + +"And, upon my word, they have an air of great probability. Mr. Dixon's +preference of her music to her friend's, I can answer for being very +decided." + +"And then, he saved her life. Did you ever hear of that?--A water +party; and by some accident she was falling overboard. He caught her." + +"He did. I was there--one of the party." + +"Were you really?--Well!--But you observed nothing of course, for it +seems to be a new idea to you.--If I had been there, I think I should +have made some discoveries." + +"I dare say you would; but I, simple I, saw nothing but the fact, that +Miss Fairfax was nearly dashed from the vessel and that Mr. Dixon caught +her.--It was the work of a moment. And though the consequent shock and +alarm was very great and much more durable--indeed I believe it was +half an hour before any of us were comfortable again--yet that was too +general a sensation for any thing of peculiar anxiety to be +observable. I do not mean to say, however, that you might not have made +discoveries." + +The conversation was here interrupted. They were called on to share +in the awkwardness of a rather long interval between the courses, and +obliged to be as formal and as orderly as the others; but when the table +was again safely covered, when every corner dish was placed exactly +right, and occupation and ease were generally restored, Emma said, + +"The arrival of this pianoforte is decisive with me. I wanted to know +a little more, and this tells me quite enough. Depend upon it, we shall +soon hear that it is a present from Mr. and Mrs. Dixon." + +"And if the Dixons should absolutely deny all knowledge of it we must +conclude it to come from the Campbells." + +"No, I am sure it is not from the Campbells. Miss Fairfax knows it is +not from the Campbells, or they would have been guessed at first. She +would not have been puzzled, had she dared fix on them. I may not have +convinced you perhaps, but I am perfectly convinced myself that Mr. +Dixon is a principal in the business." + +"Indeed you injure me if you suppose me unconvinced. Your reasonings +carry my judgment along with them entirely. At first, while I supposed +you satisfied that Colonel Campbell was the giver, I saw it only as +paternal kindness, and thought it the most natural thing in the world. +But when you mentioned Mrs. Dixon, I felt how much more probable that it +should be the tribute of warm female friendship. And now I can see it in +no other light than as an offering of love." + +There was no occasion to press the matter farther. The conviction seemed +real; he looked as if he felt it. She said no more, other subjects +took their turn; and the rest of the dinner passed away; the dessert +succeeded, the children came in, and were talked to and admired amid the +usual rate of conversation; a few clever things said, a few downright +silly, but by much the larger proportion neither the one nor the +other--nothing worse than everyday remarks, dull repetitions, old news, +and heavy jokes. + +The ladies had not been long in the drawing-room, before the other +ladies, in their different divisions, arrived. Emma watched the entree +of her own particular little friend; and if she could not exult in her +dignity and grace, she could not only love the blooming sweetness and +the artless manner, but could most heartily rejoice in that light, +cheerful, unsentimental disposition which allowed her so many +alleviations of pleasure, in the midst of the pangs of disappointed +affection. There she sat--and who would have guessed how many tears she +had been lately shedding? To be in company, nicely dressed herself and +seeing others nicely dressed, to sit and smile and look pretty, and say +nothing, was enough for the happiness of the present hour. Jane Fairfax +did look and move superior; but Emma suspected she might have been +glad to change feelings with Harriet, very glad to have purchased the +mortification of having loved--yes, of having loved even Mr. Elton in +vain--by the surrender of all the dangerous pleasure of knowing herself +beloved by the husband of her friend. + +In so large a party it was not necessary that Emma should approach her. +She did not wish to speak of the pianoforte, she felt too much in the +secret herself, to think the appearance of curiosity or interest fair, +and therefore purposely kept at a distance; but by the others, the +subject was almost immediately introduced, and she saw the blush of +consciousness with which congratulations were received, the blush +of guilt which accompanied the name of "my excellent friend Colonel +Campbell." + +Mrs. Weston, kind-hearted and musical, was particularly interested +by the circumstance, and Emma could not help being amused at her +perseverance in dwelling on the subject; and having so much to ask and +to say as to tone, touch, and pedal, totally unsuspicious of that wish +of saying as little about it as possible, which she plainly read in the +fair heroine's countenance. + +They were soon joined by some of the gentlemen; and the very first +of the early was Frank Churchill. In he walked, the first and the +handsomest; and after paying his compliments en passant to Miss Bates +and her niece, made his way directly to the opposite side of the circle, +where sat Miss Woodhouse; and till he could find a seat by her, would +not sit at all. Emma divined what every body present must be thinking. +She was his object, and every body must perceive it. She introduced him +to her friend, Miss Smith, and, at convenient moments afterwards, heard +what each thought of the other. "He had never seen so lovely a face, and +was delighted with her naivete." And she, "Only to be sure it was paying +him too great a compliment, but she did think there were some looks a +little like Mr. Elton." Emma restrained her indignation, and only turned +from her in silence. + +Smiles of intelligence passed between her and the gentleman on first +glancing towards Miss Fairfax; but it was most prudent to avoid speech. +He told her that he had been impatient to leave the dining-room--hated +sitting long--was always the first to move when he could--that his +father, Mr. Knightley, Mr. Cox, and Mr. Cole, were left very busy over +parish business--that as long as he had staid, however, it had been +pleasant enough, as he had found them in general a set of gentlemanlike, +sensible men; and spoke so handsomely of Highbury altogether--thought it +so abundant in agreeable families--that Emma began to feel she had been +used to despise the place rather too much. She questioned him as to the +society in Yorkshire--the extent of the neighbourhood about Enscombe, +and the sort; and could make out from his answers that, as far as +Enscombe was concerned, there was very little going on, that their +visitings were among a range of great families, none very near; and +that even when days were fixed, and invitations accepted, it was an even +chance that Mrs. Churchill were not in health and spirits for going; +that they made a point of visiting no fresh person; and that, though +he had his separate engagements, it was not without difficulty, without +considerable address _at_ _times_, that he could get away, or introduce +an acquaintance for a night. + +She saw that Enscombe could not satisfy, and that Highbury, taken at +its best, might reasonably please a young man who had more retirement at +home than he liked. His importance at Enscombe was very evident. He did +not boast, but it naturally betrayed itself, that he had persuaded his +aunt where his uncle could do nothing, and on her laughing and noticing +it, he owned that he believed (excepting one or two points) he could +_with_ _time_ persuade her to any thing. One of those points on which +his influence failed, he then mentioned. He had wanted very much to +go abroad--had been very eager indeed to be allowed to travel--but she +would not hear of it. This had happened the year before. _Now_, he said, +he was beginning to have no longer the same wish. + +The unpersuadable point, which he did not mention, Emma guessed to be +good behaviour to his father. + +"I have made a most wretched discovery," said he, after a short pause.-- +"I have been here a week to-morrow--half my time. I never knew days fly +so fast. A week to-morrow!--And I have hardly begun to enjoy myself. +But just got acquainted with Mrs. Weston, and others!--I hate the +recollection." + +"Perhaps you may now begin to regret that you spent one whole day, out +of so few, in having your hair cut." + +"No," said he, smiling, "that is no subject of regret at all. I have +no pleasure in seeing my friends, unless I can believe myself fit to be +seen." + +The rest of the gentlemen being now in the room, Emma found herself +obliged to turn from him for a few minutes, and listen to Mr. Cole. When +Mr. Cole had moved away, and her attention could be restored as before, +she saw Frank Churchill looking intently across the room at Miss +Fairfax, who was sitting exactly opposite. + +"What is the matter?" said she. + +He started. "Thank you for rousing me," he replied. "I believe I have +been very rude; but really Miss Fairfax has done her hair in so odd a +way--so very odd a way--that I cannot keep my eyes from her. I never saw +any thing so outree!--Those curls!--This must be a fancy of her own. I +see nobody else looking like her!--I must go and ask her whether it +is an Irish fashion. Shall I?--Yes, I will--I declare I will--and you +shall see how she takes it;--whether she colours." + +He was gone immediately; and Emma soon saw him standing before Miss +Fairfax, and talking to her; but as to its effect on the young lady, +as he had improvidently placed himself exactly between them, exactly in +front of Miss Fairfax, she could absolutely distinguish nothing. + +Before he could return to his chair, it was taken by Mrs. Weston. + +"This is the luxury of a large party," said she:--"one can get near +every body, and say every thing. My dear Emma, I am longing to talk +to you. I have been making discoveries and forming plans, just like +yourself, and I must tell them while the idea is fresh. Do you know how +Miss Bates and her niece came here?" + +"How?--They were invited, were not they?" + +"Oh! yes--but how they were conveyed hither?--the manner of their +coming?" + +"They walked, I conclude. How else could they come?" + +"Very true.--Well, a little while ago it occurred to me how very sad +it would be to have Jane Fairfax walking home again, late at night, and +cold as the nights are now. And as I looked at her, though I never saw +her appear to more advantage, it struck me that she was heated, and +would therefore be particularly liable to take cold. Poor girl! I could +not bear the idea of it; so, as soon as Mr. Weston came into the room, +and I could get at him, I spoke to him about the carriage. You may guess +how readily he came into my wishes; and having his approbation, I made +my way directly to Miss Bates, to assure her that the carriage would be +at her service before it took us home; for I thought it would be making +her comfortable at once. Good soul! she was as grateful as possible, you +may be sure. 'Nobody was ever so fortunate as herself!'--but with many, +many thanks--'there was no occasion to trouble us, for Mr. Knightley's +carriage had brought, and was to take them home again.' I was quite +surprized;--very glad, I am sure; but really quite surprized. Such a +very kind attention--and so thoughtful an attention!--the sort of thing +that so few men would think of. And, in short, from knowing his +usual ways, I am very much inclined to think that it was for their +accommodation the carriage was used at all. I do suspect he would not +have had a pair of horses for himself, and that it was only as an excuse +for assisting them." + +"Very likely," said Emma--"nothing more likely. I know no man more +likely than Mr. Knightley to do the sort of thing--to do any thing +really good-natured, useful, considerate, or benevolent. He is not a +gallant man, but he is a very humane one; and this, considering Jane +Fairfax's ill-health, would appear a case of humanity to him;--and for +an act of unostentatious kindness, there is nobody whom I would fix on +more than on Mr. Knightley. I know he had horses to-day--for we arrived +together; and I laughed at him about it, but he said not a word that +could betray." + +"Well," said Mrs. Weston, smiling, "you give him credit for more simple, +disinterested benevolence in this instance than I do; for while Miss +Bates was speaking, a suspicion darted into my head, and I have never +been able to get it out again. The more I think of it, the more probable +it appears. In short, I have made a match between Mr. Knightley and Jane +Fairfax. See the consequence of keeping you company!--What do you say to +it?" + +"Mr. Knightley and Jane Fairfax!" exclaimed Emma. "Dear Mrs. Weston, how +could you think of such a thing?--Mr. Knightley!--Mr. Knightley must not +marry!--You would not have little Henry cut out from Donwell?--Oh! no, +no, Henry must have Donwell. I cannot at all consent to Mr. Knightley's +marrying; and I am sure it is not at all likely. I am amazed that you +should think of such a thing." + +"My dear Emma, I have told you what led me to think of it. I do not want +the match--I do not want to injure dear little Henry--but the idea has +been given me by circumstances; and if Mr. Knightley really wished to +marry, you would not have him refrain on Henry's account, a boy of six +years old, who knows nothing of the matter?" + +"Yes, I would. I could not bear to have Henry supplanted.--Mr. +Knightley marry!--No, I have never had such an idea, and I cannot adopt +it now. And Jane Fairfax, too, of all women!" + +"Nay, she has always been a first favourite with him, as you very well +know." + +"But the imprudence of such a match!" + +"I am not speaking of its prudence; merely its probability." + +"I see no probability in it, unless you have any better foundation than +what you mention. His good-nature, his humanity, as I tell you, would +be quite enough to account for the horses. He has a great regard for the +Bateses, you know, independent of Jane Fairfax--and is always glad to +shew them attention. My dear Mrs. Weston, do not take to match-making. +You do it very ill. Jane Fairfax mistress of the Abbey!--Oh! no, +no;--every feeling revolts. For his own sake, I would not have him do so +mad a thing." + +"Imprudent, if you please--but not mad. Excepting inequality of fortune, +and perhaps a little disparity of age, I can see nothing unsuitable." + +"But Mr. Knightley does not want to marry. I am sure he has not the +least idea of it. Do not put it into his head. Why should he marry?--He +is as happy as possible by himself; with his farm, and his sheep, and +his library, and all the parish to manage; and he is extremely fond of +his brother's children. He has no occasion to marry, either to fill up +his time or his heart." + +"My dear Emma, as long as he thinks so, it is so; but if he really loves +Jane Fairfax--" + +"Nonsense! He does not care about Jane Fairfax. In the way of love, I am +sure he does not. He would do any good to her, or her family; but--" + +"Well," said Mrs. Weston, laughing, "perhaps the greatest good he could +do them, would be to give Jane such a respectable home." + +"If it would be good to her, I am sure it would be evil to himself; a +very shameful and degrading connexion. How would he bear to have Miss +Bates belonging to him?--To have her haunting the Abbey, and thanking +him all day long for his great kindness in marrying Jane?--'So very +kind and obliging!--But he always had been such a very kind neighbour!' +And then fly off, through half a sentence, to her mother's old +petticoat. 'Not that it was such a very old petticoat either--for still +it would last a great while--and, indeed, she must thankfully say that +their petticoats were all very strong.'" + +"For shame, Emma! Do not mimic her. You divert me against my conscience. +And, upon my word, I do not think Mr. Knightley would be much disturbed +by Miss Bates. Little things do not irritate him. She might talk on; and +if he wanted to say any thing himself, he would only talk louder, and +drown her voice. But the question is not, whether it would be a bad +connexion for him, but whether he wishes it; and I think he does. I have +heard him speak, and so must you, so very highly of Jane Fairfax! The +interest he takes in her--his anxiety about her health--his concern that +she should have no happier prospect! I have heard him express himself +so warmly on those points!--Such an admirer of her performance on the +pianoforte, and of her voice! I have heard him say that he could listen +to her for ever. Oh! and I had almost forgotten one idea that occurred +to me--this pianoforte that has been sent here by somebody--though +we have all been so well satisfied to consider it a present from the +Campbells, may it not be from Mr. Knightley? I cannot help suspecting +him. I think he is just the person to do it, even without being in +love." + +"Then it can be no argument to prove that he is in love. But I do not +think it is at all a likely thing for him to do. Mr. Knightley does +nothing mysteriously." + +"I have heard him lamenting her having no instrument repeatedly; oftener +than I should suppose such a circumstance would, in the common course of +things, occur to him." + +"Very well; and if he had intended to give her one, he would have told +her so." + +"There might be scruples of delicacy, my dear Emma. I have a very strong +notion that it comes from him. I am sure he was particularly silent when +Mrs. Cole told us of it at dinner." + +"You take up an idea, Mrs. Weston, and run away with it; as you have +many a time reproached me with doing. I see no sign of attachment--I +believe nothing of the pianoforte--and proof only shall convince me that +Mr. Knightley has any thought of marrying Jane Fairfax." + +They combated the point some time longer in the same way; Emma rather +gaining ground over the mind of her friend; for Mrs. Weston was the most +used of the two to yield; till a little bustle in the room shewed them +that tea was over, and the instrument in preparation;--and at the same +moment Mr. Cole approaching to entreat Miss Woodhouse would do them the +honour of trying it. Frank Churchill, of whom, in the eagerness of her +conversation with Mrs. Weston, she had been seeing nothing, except that +he had found a seat by Miss Fairfax, followed Mr. Cole, to add his very +pressing entreaties; and as, in every respect, it suited Emma best to +lead, she gave a very proper compliance. + +She knew the limitations of her own powers too well to attempt more than +she could perform with credit; she wanted neither taste nor spirit in +the little things which are generally acceptable, and could accompany +her own voice well. One accompaniment to her song took her agreeably by +surprize--a second, slightly but correctly taken by Frank Churchill. Her +pardon was duly begged at the close of the song, and every thing usual +followed. He was accused of having a delightful voice, and a perfect +knowledge of music; which was properly denied; and that he knew nothing +of the matter, and had no voice at all, roundly asserted. They sang +together once more; and Emma would then resign her place to Miss +Fairfax, whose performance, both vocal and instrumental, she never could +attempt to conceal from herself, was infinitely superior to her own. + +With mixed feelings, she seated herself at a little distance from the +numbers round the instrument, to listen. Frank Churchill sang again. +They had sung together once or twice, it appeared, at Weymouth. But the +sight of Mr. Knightley among the most attentive, soon drew away half +Emma's mind; and she fell into a train of thinking on the subject of +Mrs. Weston's suspicions, to which the sweet sounds of the united voices +gave only momentary interruptions. Her objections to Mr. Knightley's +marrying did not in the least subside. She could see nothing but evil +in it. It would be a great disappointment to Mr. John Knightley; +consequently to Isabella. A real injury to the children--a most +mortifying change, and material loss to them all;--a very great +deduction from her father's daily comfort--and, as to herself, she could +not at all endure the idea of Jane Fairfax at Donwell Abbey. A Mrs. +Knightley for them all to give way to!--No--Mr. Knightley must never +marry. Little Henry must remain the heir of Donwell. + +Presently Mr. Knightley looked back, and came and sat down by her. They +talked at first only of the performance. His admiration was certainly +very warm; yet she thought, but for Mrs. Weston, it would not have +struck her. As a sort of touchstone, however, she began to speak of his +kindness in conveying the aunt and niece; and though his answer was in +the spirit of cutting the matter short, she believed it to indicate only +his disinclination to dwell on any kindness of his own. + +"I often feel concern," said she, "that I dare not make our carriage +more useful on such occasions. It is not that I am without the wish; but +you know how impossible my father would deem it that James should put-to +for such a purpose." + +"Quite out of the question, quite out of the question," he +replied;--"but you must often wish it, I am sure." And he smiled with +such seeming pleasure at the conviction, that she must proceed another +step. + +"This present from the Campbells," said she--"this pianoforte is very +kindly given." + +"Yes," he replied, and without the smallest apparent +embarrassment.--"But they would have done better had they given +her notice of it. Surprizes are foolish things. The pleasure is not +enhanced, and the inconvenience is often considerable. I should have +expected better judgment in Colonel Campbell." + +From that moment, Emma could have taken her oath that Mr. Knightley had +had no concern in giving the instrument. But whether he were +entirely free from peculiar attachment--whether there were no actual +preference--remained a little longer doubtful. Towards the end of Jane's +second song, her voice grew thick. + +"That will do," said he, when it was finished, thinking aloud--"you have +sung quite enough for one evening--now be quiet." + +Another song, however, was soon begged for. "One more;--they would not +fatigue Miss Fairfax on any account, and would only ask for one more." +And Frank Churchill was heard to say, "I think you could manage this +without effort; the first part is so very trifling. The strength of the +song falls on the second." + +Mr. Knightley grew angry. + +"That fellow," said he, indignantly, "thinks of nothing but shewing off +his own voice. This must not be." And touching Miss Bates, who at that +moment passed near--"Miss Bates, are you mad, to let your niece sing +herself hoarse in this manner? Go, and interfere. They have no mercy on +her." + +Miss Bates, in her real anxiety for Jane, could hardly stay even to +be grateful, before she stept forward and put an end to all farther +singing. Here ceased the concert part of the evening, for Miss Woodhouse +and Miss Fairfax were the only young lady performers; but soon (within +five minutes) the proposal of dancing--originating nobody exactly knew +where--was so effectually promoted by Mr. and Mrs. Cole, that every +thing was rapidly clearing away, to give proper space. Mrs. Weston, +capital in her country-dances, was seated, and beginning an irresistible +waltz; and Frank Churchill, coming up with most becoming gallantry to +Emma, had secured her hand, and led her up to the top. + +While waiting till the other young people could pair themselves off, +Emma found time, in spite of the compliments she was receiving on +her voice and her taste, to look about, and see what became of Mr. +Knightley. This would be a trial. He was no dancer in general. If he +were to be very alert in engaging Jane Fairfax now, it might augur +something. There was no immediate appearance. No; he was talking to Mrs. +Cole--he was looking on unconcerned; Jane was asked by somebody else, +and he was still talking to Mrs. Cole. + +Emma had no longer an alarm for Henry; his interest was yet safe; and +she led off the dance with genuine spirit and enjoyment. Not more than +five couple could be mustered; but the rarity and the suddenness of +it made it very delightful, and she found herself well matched in a +partner. They were a couple worth looking at. + +Two dances, unfortunately, were all that could be allowed. It was +growing late, and Miss Bates became anxious to get home, on her mother's +account. After some attempts, therefore, to be permitted to begin again, +they were obliged to thank Mrs. Weston, look sorrowful, and have done. + +"Perhaps it is as well," said Frank Churchill, as he attended Emma to +her carriage. "I must have asked Miss Fairfax, and her languid dancing +would not have agreed with me, after yours." + + + +CHAPTER IX + + +Emma did not repent her condescension in going to the Coles. The visit +afforded her many pleasant recollections the next day; and all that she +might be supposed to have lost on the side of dignified seclusion, must +be amply repaid in the splendour of popularity. She must have delighted +the Coles--worthy people, who deserved to be made happy!--And left a +name behind her that would not soon die away. + +Perfect happiness, even in memory, is not common; and there were two +points on which she was not quite easy. She doubted whether she had not +transgressed the duty of woman by woman, in betraying her suspicions of +Jane Fairfax's feelings to Frank Churchill. It was hardly right; but it +had been so strong an idea, that it would escape her, and his submission +to all that she told, was a compliment to her penetration, which made +it difficult for her to be quite certain that she ought to have held her +tongue. + +The other circumstance of regret related also to Jane Fairfax; and +there she had no doubt. She did unfeignedly and unequivocally regret the +inferiority of her own playing and singing. She did most heartily +grieve over the idleness of her childhood--and sat down and practised +vigorously an hour and a half. + +She was then interrupted by Harriet's coming in; and if Harriet's praise +could have satisfied her, she might soon have been comforted. + +"Oh! if I could but play as well as you and Miss Fairfax!" + +"Don't class us together, Harriet. My playing is no more like her's, +than a lamp is like sunshine." + +"Oh! dear--I think you play the best of the two. I think you play quite +as well as she does. I am sure I had much rather hear you. Every body +last night said how well you played." + +"Those who knew any thing about it, must have felt the difference. The +truth is, Harriet, that my playing is just good enough to be praised, +but Jane Fairfax's is much beyond it." + +"Well, I always shall think that you play quite as well as she does, or +that if there is any difference nobody would ever find it out. Mr. Cole +said how much taste you had; and Mr. Frank Churchill talked a great deal +about your taste, and that he valued taste much more than execution." + +"Ah! but Jane Fairfax has them both, Harriet." + +"Are you sure? I saw she had execution, but I did not know she had any +taste. Nobody talked about it. And I hate Italian singing.--There is no +understanding a word of it. Besides, if she does play so very well, you +know, it is no more than she is obliged to do, because she will have to +teach. The Coxes were wondering last night whether she would get into +any great family. How did you think the Coxes looked?" + +"Just as they always do--very vulgar." + +"They told me something," said Harriet rather hesitatingly; "but it is +nothing of any consequence." + +Emma was obliged to ask what they had told her, though fearful of its +producing Mr. Elton. + +"They told me--that Mr. Martin dined with them last Saturday." + +"Oh!" + +"He came to their father upon some business, and he asked him to stay to +dinner." + +"Oh!" + +"They talked a great deal about him, especially Anne Cox. I do not know +what she meant, but she asked me if I thought I should go and stay there +again next summer." + +"She meant to be impertinently curious, just as such an Anne Cox should +be." + +"She said he was very agreeable the day he dined there. He sat by her at +dinner. Miss Nash thinks either of the Coxes would be very glad to marry +him." + +"Very likely.--I think they are, without exception, the most vulgar +girls in Highbury." + +Harriet had business at Ford's.--Emma thought it most prudent to go with +her. Another accidental meeting with the Martins was possible, and in +her present state, would be dangerous. + +Harriet, tempted by every thing and swayed by half a word, was always +very long at a purchase; and while she was still hanging over muslins +and changing her mind, Emma went to the door for amusement.--Much could +not be hoped from the traffic of even the busiest part of Highbury;--Mr. +Perry walking hastily by, Mr. William Cox letting himself in at the +office-door, Mr. Cole's carriage-horses returning from exercise, or a +stray letter-boy on an obstinate mule, were the liveliest objects she +could presume to expect; and when her eyes fell only on the butcher with +his tray, a tidy old woman travelling homewards from shop with her full +basket, two curs quarrelling over a dirty bone, and a string of dawdling +children round the baker's little bow-window eyeing the gingerbread, she +knew she had no reason to complain, and was amused enough; quite enough +still to stand at the door. A mind lively and at ease, can do with +seeing nothing, and can see nothing that does not answer. + +She looked down the Randalls road. The scene enlarged; two persons +appeared; Mrs. Weston and her son-in-law; they were walking into +Highbury;--to Hartfield of course. They were stopping, however, in the +first place at Mrs. Bates's; whose house was a little nearer +Randalls than Ford's; and had all but knocked, when Emma caught their +eye.--Immediately they crossed the road and came forward to her; and the +agreeableness of yesterday's engagement seemed to give fresh pleasure to +the present meeting. Mrs. Weston informed her that she was going to call +on the Bateses, in order to hear the new instrument. + +"For my companion tells me," said she, "that I absolutely promised Miss +Bates last night, that I would come this morning. I was not aware of it +myself. I did not know that I had fixed a day, but as he says I did, I +am going now." + +"And while Mrs. Weston pays her visit, I may be allowed, I hope," said +Frank Churchill, "to join your party and wait for her at Hartfield--if +you are going home." + +Mrs. Weston was disappointed. + +"I thought you meant to go with me. They would be very much pleased." + +"Me! I should be quite in the way. But, perhaps--I may be equally in the +way here. Miss Woodhouse looks as if she did not want me. My aunt always +sends me off when she is shopping. She says I fidget her to death; and +Miss Woodhouse looks as if she could almost say the same. What am I to +do?" + +"I am here on no business of my own," said Emma; "I am only waiting for +my friend. She will probably have soon done, and then we shall go home. +But you had better go with Mrs. Weston and hear the instrument." + +"Well--if you advise it.--But (with a smile) if Colonel Campbell should +have employed a careless friend, and if it should prove to have an +indifferent tone--what shall I say? I shall be no support to Mrs. +Weston. She might do very well by herself. A disagreeable truth would be +palatable through her lips, but I am the wretchedest being in the world +at a civil falsehood." + +"I do not believe any such thing," replied Emma.--"I am persuaded that +you can be as insincere as your neighbours, when it is necessary; but +there is no reason to suppose the instrument is indifferent. Quite +otherwise indeed, if I understood Miss Fairfax's opinion last night." + +"Do come with me," said Mrs. Weston, "if it be not very disagreeable to +you. It need not detain us long. We will go to Hartfield afterwards. +We will follow them to Hartfield. I really wish you to call with me. It +will be felt so great an attention! and I always thought you meant it." + +He could say no more; and with the hope of Hartfield to reward him, +returned with Mrs. Weston to Mrs. Bates's door. Emma watched them in, +and then joined Harriet at the interesting counter,--trying, with all +the force of her own mind, to convince her that if she wanted plain +muslin it was of no use to look at figured; and that a blue ribbon, be +it ever so beautiful, would still never match her yellow pattern. At +last it was all settled, even to the destination of the parcel. + +"Should I send it to Mrs. Goddard's, ma'am?" asked Mrs. +Ford.--"Yes--no--yes, to Mrs. Goddard's. Only my pattern gown is at +Hartfield. No, you shall send it to Hartfield, if you please. But then, +Mrs. Goddard will want to see it.--And I could take the pattern gown +home any day. But I shall want the ribbon directly--so it had better go +to Hartfield--at least the ribbon. You could make it into two parcels, +Mrs. Ford, could not you?" + +"It is not worth while, Harriet, to give Mrs. Ford the trouble of two +parcels." + +"No more it is." + +"No trouble in the world, ma'am," said the obliging Mrs. Ford. + +"Oh! but indeed I would much rather have it only in one. Then, if you +please, you shall send it all to Mrs. Goddard's--I do not know--No, I +think, Miss Woodhouse, I may just as well have it sent to Hartfield, and +take it home with me at night. What do you advise?" + +"That you do not give another half-second to the subject. To Hartfield, +if you please, Mrs. Ford." + +"Aye, that will be much best," said Harriet, quite satisfied, "I should +not at all like to have it sent to Mrs. Goddard's." + +Voices approached the shop--or rather one voice and two ladies: Mrs. +Weston and Miss Bates met them at the door. + +"My dear Miss Woodhouse," said the latter, "I am just run across to +entreat the favour of you to come and sit down with us a little while, +and give us your opinion of our new instrument; you and Miss Smith. How +do you do, Miss Smith?--Very well I thank you.--And I begged Mrs. Weston +to come with me, that I might be sure of succeeding." + +"I hope Mrs. Bates and Miss Fairfax are--" + +"Very well, I am much obliged to you. My mother is delightfully well; +and Jane caught no cold last night. How is Mr. Woodhouse?--I am so glad +to hear such a good account. Mrs. Weston told me you were here.--Oh! +then, said I, I must run across, I am sure Miss Woodhouse will allow me +just to run across and entreat her to come in; my mother will be so +very happy to see her--and now we are such a nice party, she cannot +refuse.--'Aye, pray do,' said Mr. Frank Churchill, 'Miss Woodhouse's +opinion of the instrument will be worth having.'--But, said I, I shall +be more sure of succeeding if one of you will go with me.--'Oh,' said +he, 'wait half a minute, till I have finished my job;'--For, would you +believe it, Miss Woodhouse, there he is, in the most obliging manner in +the world, fastening in the rivet of my mother's spectacles.--The rivet +came out, you know, this morning.--So very obliging!--For my mother had +no use of her spectacles--could not put them on. And, by the bye, every +body ought to have two pair of spectacles; they should indeed. Jane said +so. I meant to take them over to John Saunders the first thing I did, +but something or other hindered me all the morning; first one thing, +then another, there is no saying what, you know. At one time Patty came +to say she thought the kitchen chimney wanted sweeping. Oh, said I, +Patty do not come with your bad news to me. Here is the rivet of your +mistress's spectacles out. Then the baked apples came home, Mrs. Wallis +sent them by her boy; they are extremely civil and obliging to us, the +Wallises, always--I have heard some people say that Mrs. Wallis can be +uncivil and give a very rude answer, but we have never known any thing +but the greatest attention from them. And it cannot be for the value +of our custom now, for what is our consumption of bread, you know? +Only three of us.--besides dear Jane at present--and she really eats +nothing--makes such a shocking breakfast, you would be quite frightened +if you saw it. I dare not let my mother know how little she eats--so I +say one thing and then I say another, and it passes off. But about the +middle of the day she gets hungry, and there is nothing she likes so +well as these baked apples, and they are extremely wholesome, for I took +the opportunity the other day of asking Mr. Perry; I happened to meet +him in the street. Not that I had any doubt before--I have so often +heard Mr. Woodhouse recommend a baked apple. I believe it is the only +way that Mr. Woodhouse thinks the fruit thoroughly wholesome. We +have apple-dumplings, however, very often. Patty makes an excellent +apple-dumpling. Well, Mrs. Weston, you have prevailed, I hope, and these +ladies will oblige us." + +Emma would be "very happy to wait on Mrs. Bates, &c.," and they did at +last move out of the shop, with no farther delay from Miss Bates than, + +"How do you do, Mrs. Ford? I beg your pardon. I did not see you before. +I hear you have a charming collection of new ribbons from town. Jane +came back delighted yesterday. Thank ye, the gloves do very well--only a +little too large about the wrist; but Jane is taking them in." + +"What was I talking of?" said she, beginning again when they were all in +the street. + +Emma wondered on what, of all the medley, she would fix. + +"I declare I cannot recollect what I was talking of.--Oh! my mother's +spectacles. So very obliging of Mr. Frank Churchill! 'Oh!' said he, +'I do think I can fasten the rivet; I like a job of this kind +excessively.'--Which you know shewed him to be so very.... Indeed I must +say that, much as I had heard of him before and much as I had expected, +he very far exceeds any thing.... I do congratulate you, Mrs. Weston, +most warmly. He seems every thing the fondest parent could.... +'Oh!' said he, 'I can fasten the rivet. I like a job of that sort +excessively.' I never shall forget his manner. And when I brought out +the baked apples from the closet, and hoped our friends would be so very +obliging as to take some, 'Oh!' said he directly, 'there is nothing +in the way of fruit half so good, and these are the finest-looking +home-baked apples I ever saw in my life.' That, you know, was so +very.... And I am sure, by his manner, it was no compliment. Indeed they +are very delightful apples, and Mrs. Wallis does them full justice--only +we do not have them baked more than twice, and Mr. Woodhouse made us +promise to have them done three times--but Miss Woodhouse will be so +good as not to mention it. The apples themselves are the very finest +sort for baking, beyond a doubt; all from Donwell--some of Mr. +Knightley's most liberal supply. He sends us a sack every year; and +certainly there never was such a keeping apple anywhere as one of his +trees--I believe there is two of them. My mother says the orchard was +always famous in her younger days. But I was really quite shocked the +other day--for Mr. Knightley called one morning, and Jane was eating +these apples, and we talked about them and said how much she enjoyed +them, and he asked whether we were not got to the end of our stock. 'I +am sure you must be,' said he, 'and I will send you another supply; for +I have a great many more than I can ever use. William Larkins let me +keep a larger quantity than usual this year. I will send you some more, +before they get good for nothing.' So I begged he would not--for really +as to ours being gone, I could not absolutely say that we had a great +many left--it was but half a dozen indeed; but they should be all kept +for Jane; and I could not at all bear that he should be sending us more, +so liberal as he had been already; and Jane said the same. And when +he was gone, she almost quarrelled with me--No, I should not say +quarrelled, for we never had a quarrel in our lives; but she was quite +distressed that I had owned the apples were so nearly gone; she wished +I had made him believe we had a great many left. Oh, said I, my dear, +I did say as much as I could. However, the very same evening William +Larkins came over with a large basket of apples, the same sort of +apples, a bushel at least, and I was very much obliged, and went down +and spoke to William Larkins and said every thing, as you may suppose. +William Larkins is such an old acquaintance! I am always glad to see +him. But, however, I found afterwards from Patty, that William said it +was all the apples of _that_ sort his master had; he had brought them +all--and now his master had not one left to bake or boil. William did +not seem to mind it himself, he was so pleased to think his master had +sold so many; for William, you know, thinks more of his master's profit +than any thing; but Mrs. Hodges, he said, was quite displeased at their +being all sent away. She could not bear that her master should not be +able to have another apple-tart this spring. He told Patty this, but bid +her not mind it, and be sure not to say any thing to us about it, for +Mrs. Hodges _would_ be cross sometimes, and as long as so many sacks +were sold, it did not signify who ate the remainder. And so Patty told +me, and I was excessively shocked indeed! I would not have Mr. Knightley +know any thing about it for the world! He would be so very.... I wanted +to keep it from Jane's knowledge; but, unluckily, I had mentioned it +before I was aware." + +Miss Bates had just done as Patty opened the door; and her visitors +walked upstairs without having any regular narration to attend to, +pursued only by the sounds of her desultory good-will. + +"Pray take care, Mrs. Weston, there is a step at the turning. Pray take +care, Miss Woodhouse, ours is rather a dark staircase--rather darker +and narrower than one could wish. Miss Smith, pray take care. Miss +Woodhouse, I am quite concerned, I am sure you hit your foot. Miss +Smith, the step at the turning." + + + +CHAPTER X + + +The appearance of the little sitting-room as they entered, was +tranquillity itself; Mrs. Bates, deprived of her usual employment, +slumbering on one side of the fire, Frank Churchill, at a table near +her, most deedily occupied about her spectacles, and Jane Fairfax, +standing with her back to them, intent on her pianoforte. + +Busy as he was, however, the young man was yet able to shew a most happy +countenance on seeing Emma again. + +"This is a pleasure," said he, in rather a low voice, "coming at least +ten minutes earlier than I had calculated. You find me trying to be +useful; tell me if you think I shall succeed." + +"What!" said Mrs. Weston, "have not you finished it yet? you would not +earn a very good livelihood as a working silversmith at this rate." + +"I have not been working uninterruptedly," he replied, "I have been +assisting Miss Fairfax in trying to make her instrument stand steadily, +it was not quite firm; an unevenness in the floor, I believe. You see +we have been wedging one leg with paper. This was very kind of you to be +persuaded to come. I was almost afraid you would be hurrying home." + +He contrived that she should be seated by him; and was sufficiently +employed in looking out the best baked apple for her, and trying to make +her help or advise him in his work, till Jane Fairfax was quite ready +to sit down to the pianoforte again. That she was not immediately ready, +Emma did suspect to arise from the state of her nerves; she had not yet +possessed the instrument long enough to touch it without emotion; she +must reason herself into the power of performance; and Emma could not +but pity such feelings, whatever their origin, and could not but resolve +never to expose them to her neighbour again. + +At last Jane began, and though the first bars were feebly given, the +powers of the instrument were gradually done full justice to. Mrs. +Weston had been delighted before, and was delighted again; Emma +joined her in all her praise; and the pianoforte, with every proper +discrimination, was pronounced to be altogether of the highest promise. + +"Whoever Colonel Campbell might employ," said Frank Churchill, with a +smile at Emma, "the person has not chosen ill. I heard a good deal of +Colonel Campbell's taste at Weymouth; and the softness of the upper +notes I am sure is exactly what he and _all_ _that_ _party_ would +particularly prize. I dare say, Miss Fairfax, that he either gave his +friend very minute directions, or wrote to Broadwood himself. Do not you +think so?" + +Jane did not look round. She was not obliged to hear. Mrs. Weston had +been speaking to her at the same moment. + +"It is not fair," said Emma, in a whisper; "mine was a random guess. Do +not distress her." + +He shook his head with a smile, and looked as if he had very little +doubt and very little mercy. Soon afterwards he began again, + +"How much your friends in Ireland must be enjoying your pleasure on this +occasion, Miss Fairfax. I dare say they often think of you, and wonder +which will be the day, the precise day of the instrument's coming to +hand. Do you imagine Colonel Campbell knows the business to be going +forward just at this time?--Do you imagine it to be the consequence +of an immediate commission from him, or that he may have sent only +a general direction, an order indefinite as to time, to depend upon +contingencies and conveniences?" + +He paused. She could not but hear; she could not avoid answering, + +"Till I have a letter from Colonel Campbell," said she, in a voice of +forced calmness, "I can imagine nothing with any confidence. It must be +all conjecture." + +"Conjecture--aye, sometimes one conjectures right, and sometimes one +conjectures wrong. I wish I could conjecture how soon I shall make this +rivet quite firm. What nonsense one talks, Miss Woodhouse, when hard +at work, if one talks at all;--your real workmen, I suppose, hold their +tongues; but we gentlemen labourers if we get hold of a word--Miss +Fairfax said something about conjecturing. There, it is done. I have the +pleasure, madam, (to Mrs. Bates,) of restoring your spectacles, healed +for the present." + +He was very warmly thanked both by mother and daughter; to escape a +little from the latter, he went to the pianoforte, and begged Miss +Fairfax, who was still sitting at it, to play something more. + +"If you are very kind," said he, "it will be one of the waltzes we +danced last night;--let me live them over again. You did not enjoy them +as I did; you appeared tired the whole time. I believe you were glad we +danced no longer; but I would have given worlds--all the worlds one ever +has to give--for another half-hour." + +She played. + +"What felicity it is to hear a tune again which _has_ made one +happy!--If I mistake not that was danced at Weymouth." + +She looked up at him for a moment, coloured deeply, and played something +else. He took some music from a chair near the pianoforte, and turning +to Emma, said, + +"Here is something quite new to me. Do you know it?--Cramer.--And here +are a new set of Irish melodies. That, from such a quarter, one might +expect. This was all sent with the instrument. Very thoughtful of +Colonel Campbell, was not it?--He knew Miss Fairfax could have no music +here. I honour that part of the attention particularly; it shews it to +have been so thoroughly from the heart. Nothing hastily done; nothing +incomplete. True affection only could have prompted it." + +Emma wished he would be less pointed, yet could not help being amused; +and when on glancing her eye towards Jane Fairfax she caught the remains +of a smile, when she saw that with all the deep blush of consciousness, +there had been a smile of secret delight, she had less scruple in the +amusement, and much less compunction with respect to her.--This +amiable, upright, perfect Jane Fairfax was apparently cherishing very +reprehensible feelings. + +He brought all the music to her, and they looked it over together.--Emma +took the opportunity of whispering, + +"You speak too plain. She must understand you." + +"I hope she does. I would have her understand me. I am not in the least +ashamed of my meaning." + +"But really, I am half ashamed, and wish I had never taken up the idea." + +"I am very glad you did, and that you communicated it to me. I have now +a key to all her odd looks and ways. Leave shame to her. If she does +wrong, she ought to feel it." + +"She is not entirely without it, I think." + +"I do not see much sign of it. She is playing _Robin_ _Adair_ at this +moment--_his_ favourite." + +Shortly afterwards Miss Bates, passing near the window, descried Mr. +Knightley on horse-back not far off. + +"Mr. Knightley I declare!--I must speak to him if possible, just to +thank him. I will not open the window here; it would give you all cold; +but I can go into my mother's room you know. I dare say he will come +in when he knows who is here. Quite delightful to have you all meet +so!--Our little room so honoured!" + +She was in the adjoining chamber while she still spoke, and opening the +casement there, immediately called Mr. Knightley's attention, and every +syllable of their conversation was as distinctly heard by the others, as +if it had passed within the same apartment. + +"How d' ye do?--how d'ye do?--Very well, I thank you. So obliged to you +for the carriage last night. We were just in time; my mother just ready +for us. Pray come in; do come in. You will find some friends here." + +So began Miss Bates; and Mr. Knightley seemed determined to be heard in +his turn, for most resolutely and commandingly did he say, + +"How is your niece, Miss Bates?--I want to inquire after you all, but +particularly your niece. How is Miss Fairfax?--I hope she caught no cold +last night. How is she to-day? Tell me how Miss Fairfax is." + +And Miss Bates was obliged to give a direct answer before he would hear +her in any thing else. The listeners were amused; and Mrs. Weston gave +Emma a look of particular meaning. But Emma still shook her head in +steady scepticism. + +"So obliged to you!--so very much obliged to you for the carriage," +resumed Miss Bates. + +He cut her short with, + +"I am going to Kingston. Can I do any thing for you?" + +"Oh! dear, Kingston--are you?--Mrs. Cole was saying the other day she +wanted something from Kingston." + +"Mrs. Cole has servants to send. Can I do any thing for _you_?" + +"No, I thank you. But do come in. Who do you think is here?--Miss +Woodhouse and Miss Smith; so kind as to call to hear the new pianoforte. +Do put up your horse at the Crown, and come in." + +"Well," said he, in a deliberating manner, "for five minutes, perhaps." + +"And here is Mrs. Weston and Mr. Frank Churchill too!--Quite delightful; +so many friends!" + +"No, not now, I thank you. I could not stay two minutes. I must get on +to Kingston as fast as I can." + +"Oh! do come in. They will be so very happy to see you." + +"No, no; your room is full enough. I will call another day, and hear the +pianoforte." + +"Well, I am so sorry!--Oh! Mr. Knightley, what a delightful party last +night; how extremely pleasant.--Did you ever see such dancing?--Was not +it delightful?--Miss Woodhouse and Mr. Frank Churchill; I never saw any +thing equal to it." + +"Oh! very delightful indeed; I can say nothing less, for I suppose Miss +Woodhouse and Mr. Frank Churchill are hearing every thing that passes. +And (raising his voice still more) I do not see why Miss Fairfax should +not be mentioned too. I think Miss Fairfax dances very well; and Mrs. +Weston is the very best country-dance player, without exception, +in England. Now, if your friends have any gratitude, they will say +something pretty loud about you and me in return; but I cannot stay to +hear it." + +"Oh! Mr. Knightley, one moment more; something of consequence--so +shocked!--Jane and I are both so shocked about the apples!" + +"What is the matter now?" + +"To think of your sending us all your store apples. You said you had +a great many, and now you have not one left. We really are so shocked! +Mrs. Hodges may well be angry. William Larkins mentioned it here. You +should not have done it, indeed you should not. Ah! he is off. He never +can bear to be thanked. But I thought he would have staid now, and it +would have been a pity not to have mentioned.... Well, (returning to the +room,) I have not been able to succeed. Mr. Knightley cannot stop. He is +going to Kingston. He asked me if he could do any thing...." + +"Yes," said Jane, "we heard his kind offers, we heard every thing." + +"Oh! yes, my dear, I dare say you might, because you know, the door was +open, and the window was open, and Mr. Knightley spoke loud. You must +have heard every thing to be sure. 'Can I do any thing for you at +Kingston?' said he; so I just mentioned.... Oh! Miss Woodhouse, must you +be going?--You seem but just come--so very obliging of you." + +Emma found it really time to be at home; the visit had already lasted +long; and on examining watches, so much of the morning was perceived +to be gone, that Mrs. Weston and her companion taking leave also, could +allow themselves only to walk with the two young ladies to Hartfield +gates, before they set off for Randalls. + + + +CHAPTER XI + + +It may be possible to do without dancing entirely. Instances have been +known of young people passing many, many months successively, without +being at any ball of any description, and no material injury accrue +either to body or mind;--but when a beginning is made--when the +felicities of rapid motion have once been, though slightly, felt--it +must be a very heavy set that does not ask for more. + +Frank Churchill had danced once at Highbury, and longed to dance again; +and the last half-hour of an evening which Mr. Woodhouse was persuaded +to spend with his daughter at Randalls, was passed by the two young +people in schemes on the subject. Frank's was the first idea; and his +the greatest zeal in pursuing it; for the lady was the best judge of the +difficulties, and the most solicitous for accommodation and appearance. +But still she had inclination enough for shewing people again how +delightfully Mr. Frank Churchill and Miss Woodhouse danced--for +doing that in which she need not blush to compare herself with Jane +Fairfax--and even for simple dancing itself, without any of the wicked +aids of vanity--to assist him first in pacing out the room they were in +to see what it could be made to hold--and then in taking the dimensions +of the other parlour, in the hope of discovering, in spite of all that +Mr. Weston could say of their exactly equal size, that it was a little +the largest. + +His first proposition and request, that the dance begun at Mr. Cole's +should be finished there--that the same party should be collected, +and the same musician engaged, met with the readiest acquiescence. Mr. +Weston entered into the idea with thorough enjoyment, and Mrs. Weston +most willingly undertook to play as long as they could wish to dance; +and the interesting employment had followed, of reckoning up exactly who +there would be, and portioning out the indispensable division of space +to every couple. + +"You and Miss Smith, and Miss Fairfax, will be three, and the two Miss +Coxes five," had been repeated many times over. "And there will be the +two Gilberts, young Cox, my father, and myself, besides Mr. Knightley. +Yes, that will be quite enough for pleasure. You and Miss Smith, and +Miss Fairfax, will be three, and the two Miss Coxes five; and for five +couple there will be plenty of room." + +But soon it came to be on one side, + +"But will there be good room for five couple?--I really do not think +there will." + +On another, + +"And after all, five couple are not enough to make it worth while to +stand up. Five couple are nothing, when one thinks seriously about it. +It will not do to _invite_ five couple. It can be allowable only as the +thought of the moment." + +Somebody said that _Miss_ Gilbert was expected at her brother's, and +must be invited with the rest. Somebody else believed _Mrs_. Gilbert +would have danced the other evening, if she had been asked. A word was +put in for a second young Cox; and at last, Mr. Weston naming one family +of cousins who must be included, and another of very old acquaintance +who could not be left out, it became a certainty that the five couple +would be at least ten, and a very interesting speculation in what +possible manner they could be disposed of. + +The doors of the two rooms were just opposite each other. "Might not +they use both rooms, and dance across the passage?" It seemed the +best scheme; and yet it was not so good but that many of them wanted a +better. Emma said it would be awkward; Mrs. Weston was in distress about +the supper; and Mr. Woodhouse opposed it earnestly, on the score of +health. It made him so very unhappy, indeed, that it could not be +persevered in. + +"Oh! no," said he; "it would be the extreme of imprudence. I could not +bear it for Emma!--Emma is not strong. She would catch a dreadful cold. +So would poor little Harriet. So you would all. Mrs. Weston, you would +be quite laid up; do not let them talk of such a wild thing. Pray do +not let them talk of it. That young man (speaking lower) is very +thoughtless. Do not tell his father, but that young man is not quite +the thing. He has been opening the doors very often this evening, +and keeping them open very inconsiderately. He does not think of the +draught. I do not mean to set you against him, but indeed he is not +quite the thing!" + +Mrs. Weston was sorry for such a charge. She knew the importance of +it, and said every thing in her power to do it away. Every door was now +closed, the passage plan given up, and the first scheme of dancing only +in the room they were in resorted to again; and with such good-will on +Frank Churchill's part, that the space which a quarter of an hour before +had been deemed barely sufficient for five couple, was now endeavoured +to be made out quite enough for ten. + +"We were too magnificent," said he. "We allowed unnecessary room. Ten +couple may stand here very well." + +Emma demurred. "It would be a crowd--a sad crowd; and what could be +worse than dancing without space to turn in?" + +"Very true," he gravely replied; "it was very bad." But still he went on +measuring, and still he ended with, + +"I think there will be very tolerable room for ten couple." + +"No, no," said she, "you are quite unreasonable. It would be dreadful +to be standing so close! Nothing can be farther from pleasure than to be +dancing in a crowd--and a crowd in a little room!" + +"There is no denying it," he replied. "I agree with you exactly. A crowd +in a little room--Miss Woodhouse, you have the art of giving pictures +in a few words. Exquisite, quite exquisite!--Still, however, having +proceeded so far, one is unwilling to give the matter up. It would be +a disappointment to my father--and altogether--I do not know that--I am +rather of opinion that ten couple might stand here very well." + +Emma perceived that the nature of his gallantry was a little +self-willed, and that he would rather oppose than lose the pleasure of +dancing with her; but she took the compliment, and forgave the rest. +Had she intended ever to _marry_ him, it might have been worth while to +pause and consider, and try to understand the value of his preference, +and the character of his temper; but for all the purposes of their +acquaintance, he was quite amiable enough. + +Before the middle of the next day, he was at Hartfield; and he entered +the room with such an agreeable smile as certified the continuance of +the scheme. It soon appeared that he came to announce an improvement. + +"Well, Miss Woodhouse," he almost immediately began, "your inclination +for dancing has not been quite frightened away, I hope, by the terrors +of my father's little rooms. I bring a new proposal on the subject:--a +thought of my father's, which waits only your approbation to be acted +upon. May I hope for the honour of your hand for the two first dances +of this little projected ball, to be given, not at Randalls, but at the +Crown Inn?" + +"The Crown!" + +"Yes; if you and Mr. Woodhouse see no objection, and I trust you cannot, +my father hopes his friends will be so kind as to visit him there. +Better accommodations, he can promise them, and not a less grateful +welcome than at Randalls. It is his own idea. Mrs. Weston sees no +objection to it, provided you are satisfied. This is what we all feel. +Oh! you were perfectly right! Ten couple, in either of the Randalls +rooms, would have been insufferable!--Dreadful!--I felt how right you +were the whole time, but was too anxious for securing _any_ _thing_ +to like to yield. Is not it a good exchange?--You consent--I hope you +consent?" + +"It appears to me a plan that nobody can object to, if Mr. and Mrs. +Weston do not. I think it admirable; and, as far as I can answer for +myself, shall be most happy--It seems the only improvement that could +be. Papa, do you not think it an excellent improvement?" + +She was obliged to repeat and explain it, before it was fully +comprehended; and then, being quite new, farther representations were +necessary to make it acceptable. + +"No; he thought it very far from an improvement--a very bad plan--much +worse than the other. A room at an inn was always damp and dangerous; +never properly aired, or fit to be inhabited. If they must dance, they +had better dance at Randalls. He had never been in the room at the Crown +in his life--did not know the people who kept it by sight.--Oh! no--a +very bad plan. They would catch worse colds at the Crown than anywhere." + +"I was going to observe, sir," said Frank Churchill, "that one of the +great recommendations of this change would be the very little danger +of any body's catching cold--so much less danger at the Crown than at +Randalls! Mr. Perry might have reason to regret the alteration, but +nobody else could." + +"Sir," said Mr. Woodhouse, rather warmly, "you are very much mistaken +if you suppose Mr. Perry to be that sort of character. Mr. Perry is +extremely concerned when any of us are ill. But I do not understand how +the room at the Crown can be safer for you than your father's house." + +"From the very circumstance of its being larger, sir. We shall have no +occasion to open the windows at all--not once the whole evening; and it +is that dreadful habit of opening the windows, letting in cold air upon +heated bodies, which (as you well know, sir) does the mischief." + +"Open the windows!--but surely, Mr. Churchill, nobody would think of +opening the windows at Randalls. Nobody could be so imprudent! I never +heard of such a thing. Dancing with open windows!--I am sure, neither +your father nor Mrs. Weston (poor Miss Taylor that was) would suffer +it." + +"Ah! sir--but a thoughtless young person will sometimes step behind a +window-curtain, and throw up a sash, without its being suspected. I have +often known it done myself." + +"Have you indeed, sir?--Bless me! I never could have supposed it. But I +live out of the world, and am often astonished at what I hear. However, +this does make a difference; and, perhaps, when we come to talk it +over--but these sort of things require a good deal of consideration. One +cannot resolve upon them in a hurry. If Mr. and Mrs. Weston will be so +obliging as to call here one morning, we may talk it over, and see what +can be done." + +"But, unfortunately, sir, my time is so limited--" + +"Oh!" interrupted Emma, "there will be plenty of time for talking every +thing over. There is no hurry at all. If it can be contrived to be at +the Crown, papa, it will be very convenient for the horses. They will be +so near their own stable." + +"So they will, my dear. That is a great thing. Not that James ever +complains; but it is right to spare our horses when we can. If I could +be sure of the rooms being thoroughly aired--but is Mrs. Stokes to be +trusted? I doubt it. I do not know her, even by sight." + +"I can answer for every thing of that nature, sir, because it will be +under Mrs. Weston's care. Mrs. Weston undertakes to direct the whole." + +"There, papa!--Now you must be satisfied--Our own dear Mrs. Weston, who +is carefulness itself. Do not you remember what Mr. Perry said, so many +years ago, when I had the measles? 'If _Miss_ _Taylor_ undertakes to +wrap Miss Emma up, you need not have any fears, sir.' How often have I +heard you speak of it as such a compliment to her!" + +"Aye, very true. Mr. Perry did say so. I shall never forget it. Poor +little Emma! You were very bad with the measles; that is, you would have +been very bad, but for Perry's great attention. He came four times a day +for a week. He said, from the first, it was a very good sort--which +was our great comfort; but the measles are a dreadful complaint. I hope +whenever poor Isabella's little ones have the measles, she will send for +Perry." + +"My father and Mrs. Weston are at the Crown at this moment," said Frank +Churchill, "examining the capabilities of the house. I left them there +and came on to Hartfield, impatient for your opinion, and hoping you +might be persuaded to join them and give your advice on the spot. I was +desired to say so from both. It would be the greatest pleasure to +them, if you could allow me to attend you there. They can do nothing +satisfactorily without you." + +Emma was most happy to be called to such a council; and her father, +engaging to think it all over while she was gone, the two young people +set off together without delay for the Crown. There were Mr. and Mrs. +Weston; delighted to see her and receive her approbation, very busy and +very happy in their different way; she, in some little distress; and he, +finding every thing perfect. + +"Emma," said she, "this paper is worse than I expected. Look! in places +you see it is dreadfully dirty; and the wainscot is more yellow and +forlorn than any thing I could have imagined." + +"My dear, you are too particular," said her husband. "What does all that +signify? You will see nothing of it by candlelight. It will be as +clean as Randalls by candlelight. We never see any thing of it on our +club-nights." + +The ladies here probably exchanged looks which meant, "Men never know +when things are dirty or not;" and the gentlemen perhaps thought each to +himself, "Women will have their little nonsenses and needless cares." + +One perplexity, however, arose, which the gentlemen did not disdain. +It regarded a supper-room. At the time of the ballroom's being built, +suppers had not been in question; and a small card-room adjoining, was +the only addition. What was to be done? This card-room would be wanted +as a card-room now; or, if cards were conveniently voted unnecessary +by their four selves, still was it not too small for any comfortable +supper? Another room of much better size might be secured for the +purpose; but it was at the other end of the house, and a long awkward +passage must be gone through to get at it. This made a difficulty. Mrs. +Weston was afraid of draughts for the young people in that passage; +and neither Emma nor the gentlemen could tolerate the prospect of being +miserably crowded at supper. + +Mrs. Weston proposed having no regular supper; merely sandwiches, +&c., set out in the little room; but that was scouted as a wretched +suggestion. A private dance, without sitting down to supper, was +pronounced an infamous fraud upon the rights of men and women; and +Mrs. Weston must not speak of it again. She then took another line of +expediency, and looking into the doubtful room, observed, + +"I do not think it _is_ so very small. We shall not be many, you know." + +And Mr. Weston at the same time, walking briskly with long steps through +the passage, was calling out, + +"You talk a great deal of the length of this passage, my dear. It is a +mere nothing after all; and not the least draught from the stairs." + +"I wish," said Mrs. Weston, "one could know which arrangement our guests +in general would like best. To do what would be most generally pleasing +must be our object--if one could but tell what that would be." + +"Yes, very true," cried Frank, "very true. You want your neighbours' +opinions. I do not wonder at you. If one could ascertain what the chief +of them--the Coles, for instance. They are not far off. Shall I call +upon them? Or Miss Bates? She is still nearer.--And I do not know +whether Miss Bates is not as likely to understand the inclinations of +the rest of the people as any body. I think we do want a larger council. +Suppose I go and invite Miss Bates to join us?" + +"Well--if you please," said Mrs. Weston rather hesitating, "if you think +she will be of any use." + +"You will get nothing to the purpose from Miss Bates," said Emma. "She +will be all delight and gratitude, but she will tell you nothing. She +will not even listen to your questions. I see no advantage in consulting +Miss Bates." + +"But she is so amusing, so extremely amusing! I am very fond of hearing +Miss Bates talk. And I need not bring the whole family, you know." + +Here Mr. Weston joined them, and on hearing what was proposed, gave it +his decided approbation. + +"Aye, do, Frank.--Go and fetch Miss Bates, and let us end the matter at +once. She will enjoy the scheme, I am sure; and I do not know a properer +person for shewing us how to do away difficulties. Fetch Miss Bates. +We are growing a little too nice. She is a standing lesson of how to be +happy. But fetch them both. Invite them both." + +"Both sir! Can the old lady?"... + +"The old lady! No, the young lady, to be sure. I shall think you a great +blockhead, Frank, if you bring the aunt without the niece." + +"Oh! I beg your pardon, sir. I did not immediately recollect. +Undoubtedly if you wish it, I will endeavour to persuade them both." And +away he ran. + +Long before he reappeared, attending the short, neat, brisk-moving aunt, +and her elegant niece,--Mrs. Weston, like a sweet-tempered woman and +a good wife, had examined the passage again, and found the evils of it +much less than she had supposed before--indeed very trifling; and here +ended the difficulties of decision. All the rest, in speculation at +least, was perfectly smooth. All the minor arrangements of table and +chair, lights and music, tea and supper, made themselves; or were left +as mere trifles to be settled at any time between Mrs. Weston and Mrs. +Stokes.--Every body invited, was certainly to come; Frank had already +written to Enscombe to propose staying a few days beyond his fortnight, +which could not possibly be refused. And a delightful dance it was to +be. + +Most cordially, when Miss Bates arrived, did she agree that it must. +As a counsellor she was not wanted; but as an approver, (a much safer +character,) she was truly welcome. Her approbation, at once general +and minute, warm and incessant, could not but please; and for another +half-hour they were all walking to and fro, between the different rooms, +some suggesting, some attending, and all in happy enjoyment of the +future. The party did not break up without Emma's being positively +secured for the two first dances by the hero of the evening, nor without +her overhearing Mr. Weston whisper to his wife, "He has asked her, my +dear. That's right. I knew he would!" + + + +CHAPTER XII + + +One thing only was wanting to make the prospect of the ball completely +satisfactory to Emma--its being fixed for a day within the granted +term of Frank Churchill's stay in Surry; for, in spite of Mr. Weston's +confidence, she could not think it so very impossible that the +Churchills might not allow their nephew to remain a day beyond his +fortnight. But this was not judged feasible. The preparations must take +their time, nothing could be properly ready till the third week were +entered on, and for a few days they must be planning, proceeding and +hoping in uncertainty--at the risk--in her opinion, the great risk, of +its being all in vain. + +Enscombe however was gracious, gracious in fact, if not in word. His +wish of staying longer evidently did not please; but it was not opposed. +All was safe and prosperous; and as the removal of one solicitude +generally makes way for another, Emma, being now certain of her +ball, began to adopt as the next vexation Mr. Knightley's provoking +indifference about it. Either because he did not dance himself, or +because the plan had been formed without his being consulted, he +seemed resolved that it should not interest him, determined against its +exciting any present curiosity, or affording him any future amusement. +To her voluntary communications Emma could get no more approving reply, +than, + +"Very well. If the Westons think it worth while to be at all this +trouble for a few hours of noisy entertainment, I have nothing to say +against it, but that they shall not chuse pleasures for me.--Oh! yes, +I must be there; I could not refuse; and I will keep as much awake as +I can; but I would rather be at home, looking over William Larkins's +week's account; much rather, I confess.--Pleasure in seeing +dancing!--not I, indeed--I never look at it--I do not know who +does.--Fine dancing, I believe, like virtue, must be its own reward. +Those who are standing by are usually thinking of something very +different." + +This Emma felt was aimed at her; and it made her quite angry. It was not +in compliment to Jane Fairfax however that he was so indifferent, or so +indignant; he was not guided by _her_ feelings in reprobating the ball, +for _she_ enjoyed the thought of it to an extraordinary degree. It made +her animated--open hearted--she voluntarily said;-- + +"Oh! Miss Woodhouse, I hope nothing may happen to prevent the ball. +What a disappointment it would be! I do look forward to it, I own, with +_very_ great pleasure." + +It was not to oblige Jane Fairfax therefore that he would have preferred +the society of William Larkins. No!--she was more and more convinced +that Mrs. Weston was quite mistaken in that surmise. There was a great +deal of friendly and of compassionate attachment on his side--but no +love. + +Alas! there was soon no leisure for quarrelling with Mr. Knightley. Two +days of joyful security were immediately followed by the over-throw of +every thing. A letter arrived from Mr. Churchill to urge his nephew's +instant return. Mrs. Churchill was unwell--far too unwell to do without +him; she had been in a very suffering state (so said her husband) +when writing to her nephew two days before, though from her usual +unwillingness to give pain, and constant habit of never thinking of +herself, she had not mentioned it; but now she was too ill to trifle, +and must entreat him to set off for Enscombe without delay. + +The substance of this letter was forwarded to Emma, in a note from Mrs. +Weston, instantly. As to his going, it was inevitable. He must be gone +within a few hours, though without feeling any real alarm for his aunt, +to lessen his repugnance. He knew her illnesses; they never occurred but +for her own convenience. + +Mrs. Weston added, "that he could only allow himself time to hurry to +Highbury, after breakfast, and take leave of the few friends there +whom he could suppose to feel any interest in him; and that he might be +expected at Hartfield very soon." + +This wretched note was the finale of Emma's breakfast. When once it had +been read, there was no doing any thing, but lament and exclaim. The +loss of the ball--the loss of the young man--and all that the young man +might be feeling!--It was too wretched!--Such a delightful evening as +it would have been!--Every body so happy! and she and her partner the +happiest!--"I said it would be so," was the only consolation. + +Her father's feelings were quite distinct. He thought principally of +Mrs. Churchill's illness, and wanted to know how she was treated; and as +for the ball, it was shocking to have dear Emma disappointed; but they +would all be safer at home. + +Emma was ready for her visitor some time before he appeared; but if this +reflected at all upon his impatience, his sorrowful look and total want +of spirits when he did come might redeem him. He felt the going away +almost too much to speak of it. His dejection was most evident. He +sat really lost in thought for the first few minutes; and when rousing +himself, it was only to say, + +"Of all horrid things, leave-taking is the worst." + +"But you will come again," said Emma. "This will not be your only visit +to Randalls." + +"Ah!--(shaking his head)--the uncertainty of when I may be able to +return!--I shall try for it with a zeal!--It will be the object of +all my thoughts and cares!--and if my uncle and aunt go to town this +spring--but I am afraid--they did not stir last spring--I am afraid it +is a custom gone for ever." + +"Our poor ball must be quite given up." + +"Ah! that ball!--why did we wait for any thing?--why not seize the +pleasure at once?--How often is happiness destroyed by preparation, +foolish preparation!--You told us it would be so.--Oh! Miss Woodhouse, +why are you always so right?" + +"Indeed, I am very sorry to be right in this instance. I would much +rather have been merry than wise." + +"If I can come again, we are still to have our ball. My father depends +on it. Do not forget your engagement." + +Emma looked graciously. + +"Such a fortnight as it has been!" he continued; "every day more +precious and more delightful than the day before!--every day making +me less fit to bear any other place. Happy those, who can remain at +Highbury!" + +"As you do us such ample justice now," said Emma, laughing, "I will +venture to ask, whether you did not come a little doubtfully at first? +Do not we rather surpass your expectations? I am sure we do. I am sure +you did not much expect to like us. You would not have been so long in +coming, if you had had a pleasant idea of Highbury." + +He laughed rather consciously; and though denying the sentiment, Emma +was convinced that it had been so. + +"And you must be off this very morning?" + +"Yes; my father is to join me here: we shall walk back together, and I +must be off immediately. I am almost afraid that every moment will bring +him." + +"Not five minutes to spare even for your friends Miss Fairfax and Miss +Bates? How unlucky! Miss Bates's powerful, argumentative mind might have +strengthened yours." + +"Yes--I _have_ called there; passing the door, I thought it better. It +was a right thing to do. I went in for three minutes, and was detained +by Miss Bates's being absent. She was out; and I felt it impossible not +to wait till she came in. She is a woman that one may, that one _must_ +laugh at; but that one would not wish to slight. It was better to pay my +visit, then"-- + +He hesitated, got up, walked to a window. + +"In short," said he, "perhaps, Miss Woodhouse--I think you can hardly be +quite without suspicion"-- + +He looked at her, as if wanting to read her thoughts. She hardly knew +what to say. It seemed like the forerunner of something absolutely +serious, which she did not wish. Forcing herself to speak, therefore, in +the hope of putting it by, she calmly said, + +"You are quite in the right; it was most natural to pay your visit, +then"-- + +He was silent. She believed he was looking at her; probably reflecting +on what she had said, and trying to understand the manner. She heard +him sigh. It was natural for him to feel that he had _cause_ to sigh. +He could not believe her to be encouraging him. A few awkward moments +passed, and he sat down again; and in a more determined manner said, + +"It was something to feel that all the rest of my time might be given to +Hartfield. My regard for Hartfield is most warm"-- + +He stopt again, rose again, and seemed quite embarrassed.--He was more +in love with her than Emma had supposed; and who can say how it might +have ended, if his father had not made his appearance? Mr. Woodhouse +soon followed; and the necessity of exertion made him composed. + +A very few minutes more, however, completed the present trial. Mr. +Weston, always alert when business was to be done, and as incapable of +procrastinating any evil that was inevitable, as of foreseeing any that +was doubtful, said, "It was time to go;" and the young man, though he +might and did sigh, could not but agree, to take leave. + +"I shall hear about you all," said he; "that is my chief consolation. +I shall hear of every thing that is going on among you. I have engaged +Mrs. Weston to correspond with me. She has been so kind as to promise +it. Oh! the blessing of a female correspondent, when one is really +interested in the absent!--she will tell me every thing. In her letters +I shall be at dear Highbury again." + +A very friendly shake of the hand, a very earnest "Good-bye," closed the +speech, and the door had soon shut out Frank Churchill. Short had been +the notice--short their meeting; he was gone; and Emma felt so sorry +to part, and foresaw so great a loss to their little society from his +absence as to begin to be afraid of being too sorry, and feeling it too +much. + +It was a sad change. They had been meeting almost every day since his +arrival. Certainly his being at Randalls had given great spirit to +the last two weeks--indescribable spirit; the idea, the expectation +of seeing him which every morning had brought, the assurance of his +attentions, his liveliness, his manners! It had been a very happy +fortnight, and forlorn must be the sinking from it into the common +course of Hartfield days. To complete every other recommendation, he had +_almost_ told her that he loved her. What strength, or what constancy of +affection he might be subject to, was another point; but at present +she could not doubt his having a decidedly warm admiration, a conscious +preference of herself; and this persuasion, joined to all the rest, +made her think that she _must_ be a little in love with him, in spite of +every previous determination against it. + +"I certainly must," said she. "This sensation of listlessness, +weariness, stupidity, this disinclination to sit down and employ myself, +this feeling of every thing's being dull and insipid about the house!-- +I must be in love; I should be the oddest creature in the world if I +were not--for a few weeks at least. Well! evil to some is always good to +others. I shall have many fellow-mourners for the ball, if not for Frank +Churchill; but Mr. Knightley will be happy. He may spend the evening +with his dear William Larkins now if he likes." + +Mr. Knightley, however, shewed no triumphant happiness. He could not say +that he was sorry on his own account; his very cheerful look would have +contradicted him if he had; but he said, and very steadily, that he +was sorry for the disappointment of the others, and with considerable +kindness added, + +"You, Emma, who have so few opportunities of dancing, you are really out +of luck; you are very much out of luck!" + +It was some days before she saw Jane Fairfax, to judge of her honest +regret in this woeful change; but when they did meet, her composure +was odious. She had been particularly unwell, however, suffering from +headache to a degree, which made her aunt declare, that had the ball +taken place, she did not think Jane could have attended it; and it was +charity to impute some of her unbecoming indifference to the languor of +ill-health. + + + +CHAPTER XIII + + +Emma continued to entertain no doubt of her being in love. Her ideas +only varied as to the how much. At first, she thought it was a good +deal; and afterwards, but little. She had great pleasure in hearing +Frank Churchill talked of; and, for his sake, greater pleasure than ever +in seeing Mr. and Mrs. Weston; she was very often thinking of him, and +quite impatient for a letter, that she might know how he was, how were +his spirits, how was his aunt, and what was the chance of his coming to +Randalls again this spring. But, on the other hand, she could not admit +herself to be unhappy, nor, after the first morning, to be less disposed +for employment than usual; she was still busy and cheerful; and, +pleasing as he was, she could yet imagine him to have faults; and +farther, though thinking of him so much, and, as she sat drawing or +working, forming a thousand amusing schemes for the progress and close +of their attachment, fancying interesting dialogues, and inventing +elegant letters; the conclusion of every imaginary declaration on his +side was that she _refused_ _him_. Their affection was always to subside +into friendship. Every thing tender and charming was to mark their +parting; but still they were to part. When she became sensible of this, +it struck her that she could not be very much in love; for in spite of +her previous and fixed determination never to quit her father, never +to marry, a strong attachment certainly must produce more of a struggle +than she could foresee in her own feelings. + +"I do not find myself making any use of the word _sacrifice_," said +she.--"In not one of all my clever replies, my delicate negatives, is +there any allusion to making a sacrifice. I do suspect that he is not +really necessary to my happiness. So much the better. I certainly will +not persuade myself to feel more than I do. I am quite enough in love. I +should be sorry to be more." + +Upon the whole, she was equally contented with her view of his feelings. + +"_He_ is undoubtedly very much in love--every thing denotes it--very +much in love indeed!--and when he comes again, if his affection +continue, I must be on my guard not to encourage it.--It would be most +inexcusable to do otherwise, as my own mind is quite made up. Not that I +imagine he can think I have been encouraging him hitherto. No, if he +had believed me at all to share his feelings, he would not have been +so wretched. Could he have thought himself encouraged, his looks and +language at parting would have been different.--Still, however, I must +be on my guard. This is in the supposition of his attachment continuing +what it now is; but I do not know that I expect it will; I do not look +upon him to be quite the sort of man--I do not altogether build upon +his steadiness or constancy.--His feelings are warm, but I can imagine +them rather changeable.--Every consideration of the subject, in short, +makes me thankful that my happiness is not more deeply involved.--I +shall do very well again after a little while--and then, it will be a +good thing over; for they say every body is in love once in their lives, +and I shall have been let off easily." + +When his letter to Mrs. Weston arrived, Emma had the perusal of it; and +she read it with a degree of pleasure and admiration which made her +at first shake her head over her own sensations, and think she had +undervalued their strength. It was a long, well-written letter, giving +the particulars of his journey and of his feelings, expressing all the +affection, gratitude, and respect which was natural and honourable, +and describing every thing exterior and local that could be supposed +attractive, with spirit and precision. No suspicious flourishes now of +apology or concern; it was the language of real feeling towards Mrs. +Weston; and the transition from Highbury to Enscombe, the contrast +between the places in some of the first blessings of social life was +just enough touched on to shew how keenly it was felt, and how much more +might have been said but for the restraints of propriety.--The charm +of her own name was not wanting. _Miss_ _Woodhouse_ appeared more than +once, and never without a something of pleasing connexion, either a +compliment to her taste, or a remembrance of what she had said; and in +the very last time of its meeting her eye, unadorned as it was by any +such broad wreath of gallantry, she yet could discern the effect of +her influence and acknowledge the greatest compliment perhaps of all +conveyed. Compressed into the very lowest vacant corner were these +words--"I had not a spare moment on Tuesday, as you know, for Miss +Woodhouse's beautiful little friend. Pray make my excuses and adieus +to her." This, Emma could not doubt, was all for herself. Harriet was +remembered only from being _her_ friend. His information and prospects +as to Enscombe were neither worse nor better than had been anticipated; +Mrs. Churchill was recovering, and he dared not yet, even in his own +imagination, fix a time for coming to Randalls again. + +Gratifying, however, and stimulative as was the letter in the material +part, its sentiments, she yet found, when it was folded up and returned +to Mrs. Weston, that it had not added any lasting warmth, that she could +still do without the writer, and that he must learn to do without her. +Her intentions were unchanged. Her resolution of refusal only grew more +interesting by the addition of a scheme for his subsequent consolation +and happiness. His recollection of Harriet, and the words which +clothed it, the "beautiful little friend," suggested to her the +idea of Harriet's succeeding her in his affections. Was it +impossible?--No.--Harriet undoubtedly was greatly his inferior in +understanding; but he had been very much struck with the loveliness +of her face and the warm simplicity of her manner; and all the +probabilities of circumstance and connexion were in her favour.--For +Harriet, it would be advantageous and delightful indeed. + +"I must not dwell upon it," said she.--"I must not think of it. I know +the danger of indulging such speculations. But stranger things have +happened; and when we cease to care for each other as we do now, it +will be the means of confirming us in that sort of true disinterested +friendship which I can already look forward to with pleasure." + +It was well to have a comfort in store on Harriet's behalf, though it +might be wise to let the fancy touch it seldom; for evil in that quarter +was at hand. As Frank Churchill's arrival had succeeded Mr. Elton's +engagement in the conversation of Highbury, as the latest interest +had entirely borne down the first, so now upon Frank Churchill's +disappearance, Mr. Elton's concerns were assuming the most irresistible +form.--His wedding-day was named. He would soon be among them again; Mr. +Elton and his bride. There was hardly time to talk over the first letter +from Enscombe before "Mr. Elton and his bride" was in every body's +mouth, and Frank Churchill was forgotten. Emma grew sick at the sound. +She had had three weeks of happy exemption from Mr. Elton; and Harriet's +mind, she had been willing to hope, had been lately gaining strength. +With Mr. Weston's ball in view at least, there had been a great deal of +insensibility to other things; but it was now too evident that she had +not attained such a state of composure as could stand against the actual +approach--new carriage, bell-ringing, and all. + +Poor Harriet was in a flutter of spirits which required all the +reasonings and soothings and attentions of every kind that Emma could +give. Emma felt that she could not do too much for her, that Harriet had +a right to all her ingenuity and all her patience; but it was heavy work +to be for ever convincing without producing any effect, for ever agreed +to, without being able to make their opinions the same. Harriet listened +submissively, and said "it was very true--it was just as Miss Woodhouse +described--it was not worth while to think about them--and she would not +think about them any longer" but no change of subject could avail, and +the next half-hour saw her as anxious and restless about the Eltons as +before. At last Emma attacked her on another ground. + +"Your allowing yourself to be so occupied and so unhappy about Mr. +Elton's marrying, Harriet, is the strongest reproach you can make _me_. +You could not give me a greater reproof for the mistake I fell into. +It was all my doing, I know. I have not forgotten it, I assure +you.--Deceived myself, I did very miserably deceive you--and it will +be a painful reflection to me for ever. Do not imagine me in danger of +forgetting it." + +Harriet felt this too much to utter more than a few words of eager +exclamation. Emma continued, + +"I have not said, exert yourself Harriet for my sake; think less, talk +less of Mr. Elton for my sake; because for your own sake rather, I +would wish it to be done, for the sake of what is more important than my +comfort, a habit of self-command in you, a consideration of what is your +duty, an attention to propriety, an endeavour to avoid the suspicions of +others, to save your health and credit, and restore your tranquillity. +These are the motives which I have been pressing on you. They are very +important--and sorry I am that you cannot feel them sufficiently to act +upon them. My being saved from pain is a very secondary consideration. +I want you to save yourself from greater pain. Perhaps I may sometimes +have felt that Harriet would not forget what was due--or rather what +would be kind by me." + +This appeal to her affections did more than all the rest. The idea of +wanting gratitude and consideration for Miss Woodhouse, whom she really +loved extremely, made her wretched for a while, and when the violence +of grief was comforted away, still remained powerful enough to prompt to +what was right and support her in it very tolerably. + +"You, who have been the best friend I ever had in my life--Want +gratitude to you!--Nobody is equal to you!--I care for nobody as I do +for you!--Oh! Miss Woodhouse, how ungrateful I have been!" + +Such expressions, assisted as they were by every thing that look and +manner could do, made Emma feel that she had never loved Harriet so +well, nor valued her affection so highly before. + +"There is no charm equal to tenderness of heart," said she afterwards to +herself. "There is nothing to be compared to it. Warmth and tenderness +of heart, with an affectionate, open manner, will beat all the +clearness of head in the world, for attraction, I am sure it will. It +is tenderness of heart which makes my dear father so generally +beloved--which gives Isabella all her popularity.--I have it not--but +I know how to prize and respect it.--Harriet is my superior in all the +charm and all the felicity it gives. Dear Harriet!--I would not change +you for the clearest-headed, longest-sighted, best-judging female +breathing. Oh! the coldness of a Jane Fairfax!--Harriet is worth a +hundred such--And for a wife--a sensible man's wife--it is invaluable. I +mention no names; but happy the man who changes Emma for Harriet!" + + + +CHAPTER XIV + + +Mrs. Elton was first seen at church: but though devotion might be +interrupted, curiosity could not be satisfied by a bride in a pew, and +it must be left for the visits in form which were then to be paid, to +settle whether she were very pretty indeed, or only rather pretty, or +not pretty at all. + +Emma had feelings, less of curiosity than of pride or propriety, to make +her resolve on not being the last to pay her respects; and she made a +point of Harriet's going with her, that the worst of the business might +be gone through as soon as possible. + +She could not enter the house again, could not be in the same room to +which she had with such vain artifice retreated three months ago, to +lace up her boot, without _recollecting_. A thousand vexatious thoughts +would recur. Compliments, charades, and horrible blunders; and it was +not to be supposed that poor Harriet should not be recollecting too; but +she behaved very well, and was only rather pale and silent. The visit +was of course short; and there was so much embarrassment and occupation +of mind to shorten it, that Emma would not allow herself entirely to +form an opinion of the lady, and on no account to give one, beyond the +nothing-meaning terms of being "elegantly dressed, and very pleasing." + +She did not really like her. She would not be in a hurry to find fault, +but she suspected that there was no elegance;--ease, but not elegance.-- +She was almost sure that for a young woman, a stranger, a bride, there +was too much ease. Her person was rather good; her face not unpretty; +but neither feature, nor air, nor voice, nor manner, were elegant. Emma +thought at least it would turn out so. + +As for Mr. Elton, his manners did not appear--but no, she would not +permit a hasty or a witty word from herself about his manners. It was an +awkward ceremony at any time to be receiving wedding visits, and a man +had need be all grace to acquit himself well through it. The woman +was better off; she might have the assistance of fine clothes, and the +privilege of bashfulness, but the man had only his own good sense to +depend on; and when she considered how peculiarly unlucky poor Mr. +Elton was in being in the same room at once with the woman he had just +married, the woman he had wanted to marry, and the woman whom he had +been expected to marry, she must allow him to have the right to look as +little wise, and to be as much affectedly, and as little really easy as +could be. + +"Well, Miss Woodhouse," said Harriet, when they had quitted the +house, and after waiting in vain for her friend to begin; "Well, Miss +Woodhouse, (with a gentle sigh,) what do you think of her?--Is not she +very charming?" + +There was a little hesitation in Emma's answer. + +"Oh! yes--very--a very pleasing young woman." + +"I think her beautiful, quite beautiful." + +"Very nicely dressed, indeed; a remarkably elegant gown." + +"I am not at all surprized that he should have fallen in love." + +"Oh! no--there is nothing to surprize one at all.--A pretty fortune; and +she came in his way." + +"I dare say," returned Harriet, sighing again, "I dare say she was very +much attached to him." + +"Perhaps she might; but it is not every man's fate to marry the woman +who loves him best. Miss Hawkins perhaps wanted a home, and thought this +the best offer she was likely to have." + +"Yes," said Harriet earnestly, "and well she might, nobody could ever +have a better. Well, I wish them happy with all my heart. And now, Miss +Woodhouse, I do not think I shall mind seeing them again. He is just as +superior as ever;--but being married, you know, it is quite a different +thing. No, indeed, Miss Woodhouse, you need not be afraid; I can sit and +admire him now without any great misery. To know that he has not thrown +himself away, is such a comfort!--She does seem a charming young woman, +just what he deserves. Happy creature! He called her 'Augusta.' How +delightful!" + +When the visit was returned, Emma made up her mind. She could then see +more and judge better. From Harriet's happening not to be at Hartfield, +and her father's being present to engage Mr. Elton, she had a quarter +of an hour of the lady's conversation to herself, and could composedly +attend to her; and the quarter of an hour quite convinced her that +Mrs. Elton was a vain woman, extremely well satisfied with herself, and +thinking much of her own importance; that she meant to shine and be very +superior, but with manners which had been formed in a bad school, pert +and familiar; that all her notions were drawn from one set of people, +and one style of living; that if not foolish she was ignorant, and that +her society would certainly do Mr. Elton no good. + +Harriet would have been a better match. If not wise or refined herself, +she would have connected him with those who were; but Miss Hawkins, it +might be fairly supposed from her easy conceit, had been the best of +her own set. The rich brother-in-law near Bristol was the pride of the +alliance, and his place and his carriages were the pride of him. + +The very first subject after being seated was Maple Grove, "My brother +Mr. Suckling's seat;"--a comparison of Hartfield to Maple Grove. The +grounds of Hartfield were small, but neat and pretty; and the house was +modern and well-built. Mrs. Elton seemed most favourably impressed +by the size of the room, the entrance, and all that she could see or +imagine. "Very like Maple Grove indeed!--She was quite struck by the +likeness!--That room was the very shape and size of the morning-room +at Maple Grove; her sister's favourite room."--Mr. Elton was appealed +to.--"Was not it astonishingly like?--She could really almost fancy +herself at Maple Grove." + +"And the staircase--You know, as I came in, I observed how very like the +staircase was; placed exactly in the same part of the house. I really +could not help exclaiming! I assure you, Miss Woodhouse, it is very +delightful to me, to be reminded of a place I am so extremely partial to +as Maple Grove. I have spent so many happy months there! (with a little +sigh of sentiment). A charming place, undoubtedly. Every body who +sees it is struck by its beauty; but to me, it has been quite a home. +Whenever you are transplanted, like me, Miss Woodhouse, you will +understand how very delightful it is to meet with any thing at all like +what one has left behind. I always say this is quite one of the evils of +matrimony." + +Emma made as slight a reply as she could; but it was fully sufficient +for Mrs. Elton, who only wanted to be talking herself. + +"So extremely like Maple Grove! And it is not merely the house--the +grounds, I assure you, as far as I could observe, are strikingly like. +The laurels at Maple Grove are in the same profusion as here, and stand +very much in the same way--just across the lawn; and I had a glimpse +of a fine large tree, with a bench round it, which put me so exactly in +mind! My brother and sister will be enchanted with this place. People +who have extensive grounds themselves are always pleased with any thing +in the same style." + +Emma doubted the truth of this sentiment. She had a great idea that +people who had extensive grounds themselves cared very little for the +extensive grounds of any body else; but it was not worth while to attack +an error so double-dyed, and therefore only said in reply, + +"When you have seen more of this country, I am afraid you will think you +have overrated Hartfield. Surry is full of beauties." + +"Oh! yes, I am quite aware of that. It is the garden of England, you +know. Surry is the garden of England." + +"Yes; but we must not rest our claims on that distinction. Many +counties, I believe, are called the garden of England, as well as +Surry." + +"No, I fancy not," replied Mrs. Elton, with a most satisfied smile. +"I never heard any county but Surry called so." + +Emma was silenced. + +"My brother and sister have promised us a visit in the spring, or summer +at farthest," continued Mrs. Elton; "and that will be our time for +exploring. While they are with us, we shall explore a great deal, I dare +say. They will have their barouche-landau, of course, which holds four +perfectly; and therefore, without saying any thing of _our_ carriage, +we should be able to explore the different beauties extremely well. They +would hardly come in their chaise, I think, at that season of the +year. Indeed, when the time draws on, I shall decidedly recommend their +bringing the barouche-landau; it will be so very much preferable. +When people come into a beautiful country of this sort, you know, Miss +Woodhouse, one naturally wishes them to see as much as possible; and Mr. +Suckling is extremely fond of exploring. We explored to King's-Weston +twice last summer, in that way, most delightfully, just after their +first having the barouche-landau. You have many parties of that kind +here, I suppose, Miss Woodhouse, every summer?" + +"No; not immediately here. We are rather out of distance of the very +striking beauties which attract the sort of parties you speak of; and we +are a very quiet set of people, I believe; more disposed to stay at home +than engage in schemes of pleasure." + +"Ah! there is nothing like staying at home for real comfort. Nobody can +be more devoted to home than I am. I was quite a proverb for it at Maple +Grove. Many a time has Selina said, when she has been going to Bristol, +'I really cannot get this girl to move from the house. I absolutely must +go in by myself, though I hate being stuck up in the barouche-landau +without a companion; but Augusta, I believe, with her own good-will, +would never stir beyond the park paling.' Many a time has she said so; +and yet I am no advocate for entire seclusion. I think, on the contrary, +when people shut themselves up entirely from society, it is a very +bad thing; and that it is much more advisable to mix in the world in +a proper degree, without living in it either too much or too little. I +perfectly understand your situation, however, Miss Woodhouse--(looking +towards Mr. Woodhouse), Your father's state of health must be a great +drawback. Why does not he try Bath?--Indeed he should. Let me recommend +Bath to you. I assure you I have no doubt of its doing Mr. Woodhouse +good." + +"My father tried it more than once, formerly; but without receiving any +benefit; and Mr. Perry, whose name, I dare say, is not unknown to you, +does not conceive it would be at all more likely to be useful now." + +"Ah! that's a great pity; for I assure you, Miss Woodhouse, where the +waters do agree, it is quite wonderful the relief they give. In my Bath +life, I have seen such instances of it! And it is so cheerful a place, +that it could not fail of being of use to Mr. Woodhouse's spirits, +which, I understand, are sometimes much depressed. And as to its +recommendations to _you_, I fancy I need not take much pains to dwell +on them. The advantages of Bath to the young are pretty generally +understood. It would be a charming introduction for you, who have lived +so secluded a life; and I could immediately secure you some of the best +society in the place. A line from me would bring you a little host of +acquaintance; and my particular friend, Mrs. Partridge, the lady I have +always resided with when in Bath, would be most happy to shew you any +attentions, and would be the very person for you to go into public +with." + +It was as much as Emma could bear, without being impolite. The idea +of her being indebted to Mrs. Elton for what was called an +_introduction_--of her going into public under the auspices of a friend +of Mrs. Elton's--probably some vulgar, dashing widow, who, with the +help of a boarder, just made a shift to live!--The dignity of Miss +Woodhouse, of Hartfield, was sunk indeed! + +She restrained herself, however, from any of the reproofs she could have +given, and only thanked Mrs. Elton coolly; "but their going to Bath was +quite out of the question; and she was not perfectly convinced that +the place might suit her better than her father." And then, to prevent +farther outrage and indignation, changed the subject directly. + +"I do not ask whether you are musical, Mrs. Elton. Upon these occasions, +a lady's character generally precedes her; and Highbury has long known +that you are a superior performer." + +"Oh! no, indeed; I must protest against any such idea. A superior +performer!--very far from it, I assure you. Consider from how partial +a quarter your information came. I am doatingly fond of +music--passionately fond;--and my friends say I am not entirely devoid +of taste; but as to any thing else, upon my honour my performance is +_mediocre_ to the last degree. You, Miss Woodhouse, I well know, play +delightfully. I assure you it has been the greatest satisfaction, +comfort, and delight to me, to hear what a musical society I am got +into. I absolutely cannot do without music. It is a necessary of life to +me; and having always been used to a very musical society, both at +Maple Grove and in Bath, it would have been a most serious sacrifice. I +honestly said as much to Mr. E. when he was speaking of my future +home, and expressing his fears lest the retirement of it should be +disagreeable; and the inferiority of the house too--knowing what I had +been accustomed to--of course he was not wholly without apprehension. +When he was speaking of it in that way, I honestly said that _the_ +_world_ I could give up--parties, balls, plays--for I had no fear of +retirement. Blessed with so many resources within myself, the world was +not necessary to _me_. I could do very well without it. To those who had +no resources it was a different thing; but my resources made me quite +independent. And as to smaller-sized rooms than I had been used to, I +really could not give it a thought. I hoped I was perfectly equal to any +sacrifice of that description. Certainly I had been accustomed to every +luxury at Maple Grove; but I did assure him that two carriages were not +necessary to my happiness, nor were spacious apartments. 'But,' said I, +'to be quite honest, I do not think I can live without something of a +musical society. I condition for nothing else; but without music, life +would be a blank to me.'" + +"We cannot suppose," said Emma, smiling, "that Mr. Elton would hesitate +to assure you of there being a _very_ musical society in Highbury; and +I hope you will not find he has outstepped the truth more than may be +pardoned, in consideration of the motive." + +"No, indeed, I have no doubts at all on that head. I am delighted to +find myself in such a circle. I hope we shall have many sweet little +concerts together. I think, Miss Woodhouse, you and I must establish a +musical club, and have regular weekly meetings at your house, or ours. +Will not it be a good plan? If _we_ exert ourselves, I think we shall +not be long in want of allies. Something of that nature would be +particularly desirable for _me_, as an inducement to keep me in +practice; for married women, you know--there is a sad story against +them, in general. They are but too apt to give up music." + +"But you, who are so extremely fond of it--there can be no danger, +surely?" + +"I should hope not; but really when I look around among my acquaintance, +I tremble. Selina has entirely given up music--never touches the +instrument--though she played sweetly. And the same may be said of Mrs. +Jeffereys--Clara Partridge, that was--and of the two Milmans, now Mrs. +Bird and Mrs. James Cooper; and of more than I can enumerate. Upon my +word it is enough to put one in a fright. I used to be quite angry with +Selina; but really I begin now to comprehend that a married woman has +many things to call her attention. I believe I was half an hour this +morning shut up with my housekeeper." + +"But every thing of that kind," said Emma, "will soon be in so regular a +train--" + +"Well," said Mrs. Elton, laughing, "we shall see." + +Emma, finding her so determined upon neglecting her music, had nothing +more to say; and, after a moment's pause, Mrs. Elton chose another +subject. + +"We have been calling at Randalls," said she, "and found them both at +home; and very pleasant people they seem to be. I like them extremely. +Mr. Weston seems an excellent creature--quite a first-rate favourite +with me already, I assure you. And _she_ appears so truly good--there is +something so motherly and kind-hearted about her, that it wins upon one +directly. She was your governess, I think?" + +Emma was almost too much astonished to answer; but Mrs. Elton hardly +waited for the affirmative before she went on. + +"Having understood as much, I was rather astonished to find her so very +lady-like! But she is really quite the gentlewoman." + +"Mrs. Weston's manners," said Emma, "were always particularly good. +Their propriety, simplicity, and elegance, would make them the safest +model for any young woman." + +"And who do you think came in while we were there?" + +Emma was quite at a loss. The tone implied some old acquaintance--and +how could she possibly guess? + +"Knightley!" continued Mrs. Elton; "Knightley himself!--Was not it +lucky?--for, not being within when he called the other day, I had never +seen him before; and of course, as so particular a friend of Mr. E.'s, +I had a great curiosity. 'My friend Knightley' had been so often +mentioned, that I was really impatient to see him; and I must do my +caro sposo the justice to say that he need not be ashamed of his friend. +Knightley is quite the gentleman. I like him very much. Decidedly, I +think, a very gentleman-like man." + +Happily, it was now time to be gone. They were off; and Emma could +breathe. + +"Insufferable woman!" was her immediate exclamation. "Worse than I had +supposed. Absolutely insufferable! Knightley!--I could not have +believed it. Knightley!--never seen him in her life before, and call +him Knightley!--and discover that he is a gentleman! A little upstart, +vulgar being, with her Mr. E., and her _caro_ _sposo_, and her +resources, and all her airs of pert pretension and underbred finery. +Actually to discover that Mr. Knightley is a gentleman! I doubt whether +he will return the compliment, and discover her to be a lady. I could +not have believed it! And to propose that she and I should unite to +form a musical club! One would fancy we were bosom friends! And Mrs. +Weston!--Astonished that the person who had brought me up should be a +gentlewoman! Worse and worse. I never met with her equal. Much beyond +my hopes. Harriet is disgraced by any comparison. Oh! what would Frank +Churchill say to her, if he were here? How angry and how diverted he +would be! Ah! there I am--thinking of him directly. Always the first +person to be thought of! How I catch myself out! Frank Churchill comes +as regularly into my mind!"-- + +All this ran so glibly through her thoughts, that by the time her father +had arranged himself, after the bustle of the Eltons' departure, and was +ready to speak, she was very tolerably capable of attending. + +"Well, my dear," he deliberately began, "considering we never saw her +before, she seems a very pretty sort of young lady; and I dare say she +was very much pleased with you. She speaks a little too quick. A little +quickness of voice there is which rather hurts the ear. But I believe +I am nice; I do not like strange voices; and nobody speaks like you and +poor Miss Taylor. However, she seems a very obliging, pretty-behaved +young lady, and no doubt will make him a very good wife. Though I think +he had better not have married. I made the best excuses I could for not +having been able to wait on him and Mrs. Elton on this happy occasion; I +said that I hoped I _should_ in the course of the summer. But I ought to +have gone before. Not to wait upon a bride is very remiss. Ah! it shews +what a sad invalid I am! But I do not like the corner into Vicarage +Lane." + +"I dare say your apologies were accepted, sir. Mr. Elton knows you." + +"Yes: but a young lady--a bride--I ought to have paid my respects to her +if possible. It was being very deficient." + +"But, my dear papa, you are no friend to matrimony; and therefore why +should you be so anxious to pay your respects to a _bride_? It ought to +be no recommendation to _you_. It is encouraging people to marry if you +make so much of them." + +"No, my dear, I never encouraged any body to marry, but I would always +wish to pay every proper attention to a lady--and a bride, especially, +is never to be neglected. More is avowedly due to _her_. A bride, you +know, my dear, is always the first in company, let the others be who +they may." + +"Well, papa, if this is not encouragement to marry, I do not know what +is. And I should never have expected you to be lending your sanction to +such vanity-baits for poor young ladies." + +"My dear, you do not understand me. This is a matter of mere +common politeness and good-breeding, and has nothing to do with any +encouragement to people to marry." + +Emma had done. Her father was growing nervous, and could not understand +_her_. Her mind returned to Mrs. Elton's offences, and long, very long, +did they occupy her. + + + +CHAPTER XV + + +Emma was not required, by any subsequent discovery, to retract her ill +opinion of Mrs. Elton. Her observation had been pretty correct. Such as +Mrs. Elton appeared to her on this second interview, such she appeared +whenever they met again,--self-important, presuming, familiar, ignorant, +and ill-bred. She had a little beauty and a little accomplishment, +but so little judgment that she thought herself coming with superior +knowledge of the world, to enliven and improve a country neighbourhood; +and conceived Miss Hawkins to have held such a place in society as Mrs. +Elton's consequence only could surpass. + +There was no reason to suppose Mr. Elton thought at all differently from +his wife. He seemed not merely happy with her, but proud. He had the air +of congratulating himself on having brought such a woman to Highbury, +as not even Miss Woodhouse could equal; and the greater part of her +new acquaintance, disposed to commend, or not in the habit of judging, +following the lead of Miss Bates's good-will, or taking it for granted +that the bride must be as clever and as agreeable as she professed +herself, were very well satisfied; so that Mrs. Elton's praise +passed from one mouth to another as it ought to do, unimpeded by Miss +Woodhouse, who readily continued her first contribution and talked with +a good grace of her being "very pleasant and very elegantly dressed." + +In one respect Mrs. Elton grew even worse than she had appeared at +first. Her feelings altered towards Emma.--Offended, probably, by the +little encouragement which her proposals of intimacy met with, she drew +back in her turn and gradually became much more cold and distant; and +though the effect was agreeable, the ill-will which produced it was +necessarily increasing Emma's dislike. Her manners, too--and Mr. +Elton's, were unpleasant towards Harriet. They were sneering and +negligent. Emma hoped it must rapidly work Harriet's cure; but the +sensations which could prompt such behaviour sunk them both very +much.--It was not to be doubted that poor Harriet's attachment had been +an offering to conjugal unreserve, and her own share in the story, under +a colouring the least favourable to her and the most soothing to him, +had in all likelihood been given also. She was, of course, the object +of their joint dislike.--When they had nothing else to say, it must be +always easy to begin abusing Miss Woodhouse; and the enmity which +they dared not shew in open disrespect to her, found a broader vent in +contemptuous treatment of Harriet. + +Mrs. Elton took a great fancy to Jane Fairfax; and from the first. Not +merely when a state of warfare with one young lady might be supposed to +recommend the other, but from the very first; and she was not satisfied +with expressing a natural and reasonable admiration--but without +solicitation, or plea, or privilege, she must be wanting to assist and +befriend her.--Before Emma had forfeited her confidence, and about the +third time of their meeting, she heard all Mrs. Elton's knight-errantry +on the subject.-- + +"Jane Fairfax is absolutely charming, Miss Woodhouse.--I quite rave +about Jane Fairfax.--A sweet, interesting creature. So mild and +ladylike--and with such talents!--I assure you I think she has very +extraordinary talents. I do not scruple to say that she plays extremely +well. I know enough of music to speak decidedly on that point. Oh! she +is absolutely charming! You will laugh at my warmth--but, upon my word, +I talk of nothing but Jane Fairfax.--And her situation is so calculated +to affect one!--Miss Woodhouse, we must exert ourselves and endeavour +to do something for her. We must bring her forward. Such talent as hers +must not be suffered to remain unknown.--I dare say you have heard those +charming lines of the poet, + + 'Full many a flower is born to blush unseen, + 'And waste its fragrance on the desert air.' + +We must not allow them to be verified in sweet Jane Fairfax." + +"I cannot think there is any danger of it," was Emma's calm answer--"and +when you are better acquainted with Miss Fairfax's situation and +understand what her home has been, with Colonel and Mrs. Campbell, I +have no idea that you will suppose her talents can be unknown." + +"Oh! but dear Miss Woodhouse, she is now in such retirement, such +obscurity, so thrown away.--Whatever advantages she may have enjoyed +with the Campbells are so palpably at an end! And I think she feels it. +I am sure she does. She is very timid and silent. One can see that she +feels the want of encouragement. I like her the better for it. I +must confess it is a recommendation to me. I am a great advocate for +timidity--and I am sure one does not often meet with it.--But in those +who are at all inferior, it is extremely prepossessing. Oh! I assure +you, Jane Fairfax is a very delightful character, and interests me more +than I can express." + +"You appear to feel a great deal--but I am not aware how you or any of +Miss Fairfax's acquaintance here, any of those who have known her longer +than yourself, can shew her any other attention than"-- + +"My dear Miss Woodhouse, a vast deal may be done by those who dare to +act. You and I need not be afraid. If _we_ set the example, many will +follow it as far as they can; though all have not our situations. _We_ +have carriages to fetch and convey her home, and _we_ live in a style +which could not make the addition of Jane Fairfax, at any time, the +least inconvenient.--I should be extremely displeased if Wright were to +send us up such a dinner, as could make me regret having asked _more_ +than Jane Fairfax to partake of it. I have no idea of that sort of +thing. It is not likely that I _should_, considering what I have been +used to. My greatest danger, perhaps, in housekeeping, may be quite the +other way, in doing too much, and being too careless of expense. Maple +Grove will probably be my model more than it ought to be--for we do not +at all affect to equal my brother, Mr. Suckling, in income.--However, my +resolution is taken as to noticing Jane Fairfax.--I shall certainly have +her very often at my house, shall introduce her wherever I can, shall +have musical parties to draw out her talents, and shall be constantly +on the watch for an eligible situation. My acquaintance is so very +extensive, that I have little doubt of hearing of something to suit +her shortly.--I shall introduce her, of course, very particularly to my +brother and sister when they come to us. I am sure they will like her +extremely; and when she gets a little acquainted with them, her fears +will completely wear off, for there really is nothing in the manners +of either but what is highly conciliating.--I shall have her very often +indeed while they are with me, and I dare say we shall sometimes find a +seat for her in the barouche-landau in some of our exploring parties." + +"Poor Jane Fairfax!"--thought Emma.--"You have not deserved this. You +may have done wrong with regard to Mr. Dixon, but this is a punishment +beyond what you can have merited!--The kindness and protection of Mrs. +Elton!--'Jane Fairfax and Jane Fairfax.' Heavens! Let me not suppose +that she dares go about, Emma Woodhouse-ing me!--But upon my honour, +there seems no limits to the licentiousness of that woman's tongue!" + +Emma had not to listen to such paradings again--to any so exclusively +addressed to herself--so disgustingly decorated with a "dear Miss +Woodhouse." The change on Mrs. Elton's side soon afterwards appeared, +and she was left in peace--neither forced to be the very particular +friend of Mrs. Elton, nor, under Mrs. Elton's guidance, the very active +patroness of Jane Fairfax, and only sharing with others in a general +way, in knowing what was felt, what was meditated, what was done. + +She looked on with some amusement.--Miss Bates's gratitude for +Mrs. Elton's attentions to Jane was in the first style of guileless +simplicity and warmth. She was quite one of her worthies--the +most amiable, affable, delightful woman--just as accomplished and +condescending as Mrs. Elton meant to be considered. Emma's only surprize +was that Jane Fairfax should accept those attentions and tolerate Mrs. +Elton as she seemed to do. She heard of her walking with the Eltons, +sitting with the Eltons, spending a day with the Eltons! This was +astonishing!--She could not have believed it possible that the taste or +the pride of Miss Fairfax could endure such society and friendship as +the Vicarage had to offer. + +"She is a riddle, quite a riddle!" said she.--"To chuse to remain here +month after month, under privations of every sort! And now to chuse the +mortification of Mrs. Elton's notice and the penury of her conversation, +rather than return to the superior companions who have always loved her +with such real, generous affection." + +Jane had come to Highbury professedly for three months; the Campbells +were gone to Ireland for three months; but now the Campbells had +promised their daughter to stay at least till Midsummer, and fresh +invitations had arrived for her to join them there. According to Miss +Bates--it all came from her--Mrs. Dixon had written most pressingly. +Would Jane but go, means were to be found, servants sent, friends +contrived--no travelling difficulty allowed to exist; but still she had +declined it! + +"She must have some motive, more powerful than appears, for refusing +this invitation," was Emma's conclusion. "She must be under some sort +of penance, inflicted either by the Campbells or herself. There is great +fear, great caution, great resolution somewhere.--She is _not_ to be +with the _Dixons_. The decree is issued by somebody. But why must she +consent to be with the Eltons?--Here is quite a separate puzzle." + +Upon her speaking her wonder aloud on that part of the subject, before +the few who knew her opinion of Mrs. Elton, Mrs. Weston ventured this +apology for Jane. + +"We cannot suppose that she has any great enjoyment at the Vicarage, +my dear Emma--but it is better than being always at home. Her aunt is a +good creature, but, as a constant companion, must be very tiresome. We +must consider what Miss Fairfax quits, before we condemn her taste for +what she goes to." + +"You are right, Mrs. Weston," said Mr. Knightley warmly, "Miss Fairfax +is as capable as any of us of forming a just opinion of Mrs. Elton. +Could she have chosen with whom to associate, she would not have chosen +her. But (with a reproachful smile at Emma) she receives attentions from +Mrs. Elton, which nobody else pays her." + +Emma felt that Mrs. Weston was giving her a momentary glance; and she +was herself struck by his warmth. With a faint blush, she presently +replied, + +"Such attentions as Mrs. Elton's, I should have imagined, would rather +disgust than gratify Miss Fairfax. Mrs. Elton's invitations I should +have imagined any thing but inviting." + +"I should not wonder," said Mrs. Weston, "if Miss Fairfax were to have +been drawn on beyond her own inclination, by her aunt's eagerness in +accepting Mrs. Elton's civilities for her. Poor Miss Bates may +very likely have committed her niece and hurried her into a greater +appearance of intimacy than her own good sense would have dictated, in +spite of the very natural wish of a little change." + +Both felt rather anxious to hear him speak again; and after a few +minutes silence, he said, + +"Another thing must be taken into consideration too--Mrs. Elton does +not talk _to_ Miss Fairfax as she speaks _of_ her. We all know the +difference between the pronouns he or she and thou, the plainest spoken +amongst us; we all feel the influence of a something beyond common +civility in our personal intercourse with each other--a something more +early implanted. We cannot give any body the disagreeable hints that we +may have been very full of the hour before. We feel things differently. +And besides the operation of this, as a general principle, you may be +sure that Miss Fairfax awes Mrs. Elton by her superiority both of mind +and manner; and that, face to face, Mrs. Elton treats her with all the +respect which she has a claim to. Such a woman as Jane Fairfax probably +never fell in Mrs. Elton's way before--and no degree of vanity can +prevent her acknowledging her own comparative littleness in action, if +not in consciousness." + +"I know how highly you think of Jane Fairfax," said Emma. Little Henry +was in her thoughts, and a mixture of alarm and delicacy made her +irresolute what else to say. + +"Yes," he replied, "any body may know how highly I think of her." + +"And yet," said Emma, beginning hastily and with an arch look, but soon +stopping--it was better, however, to know the worst at once--she hurried +on--"And yet, perhaps, you may hardly be aware yourself how highly it +is. The extent of your admiration may take you by surprize some day or +other." + +Mr. Knightley was hard at work upon the lower buttons of his thick +leather gaiters, and either the exertion of getting them together, or +some other cause, brought the colour into his face, as he answered, + +"Oh! are you there?--But you are miserably behindhand. Mr. Cole gave me +a hint of it six weeks ago." + +He stopped.--Emma felt her foot pressed by Mrs. Weston, and did not +herself know what to think. In a moment he went on-- + +"That will never be, however, I can assure you. Miss Fairfax, I dare +say, would not have me if I were to ask her--and I am very sure I shall +never ask her." + +Emma returned her friend's pressure with interest; and was pleased +enough to exclaim, + +"You are not vain, Mr. Knightley. I will say that for you." + +He seemed hardly to hear her; he was thoughtful--and in a manner which +shewed him not pleased, soon afterwards said, + +"So you have been settling that I should marry Jane Fairfax?" + +"No indeed I have not. You have scolded me too much for match-making, +for me to presume to take such a liberty with you. What I said just now, +meant nothing. One says those sort of things, of course, without any +idea of a serious meaning. Oh! no, upon my word I have not the smallest +wish for your marrying Jane Fairfax or Jane any body. You would not come +in and sit with us in this comfortable way, if you were married." + +Mr. Knightley was thoughtful again. The result of his reverie was, "No, +Emma, I do not think the extent of my admiration for her will ever take +me by surprize.--I never had a thought of her in that way, I assure +you." And soon afterwards, "Jane Fairfax is a very charming young +woman--but not even Jane Fairfax is perfect. She has a fault. She has +not the open temper which a man would wish for in a wife." + +Emma could not but rejoice to hear that she had a fault. "Well," said +she, "and you soon silenced Mr. Cole, I suppose?" + +"Yes, very soon. He gave me a quiet hint; I told him he was mistaken; +he asked my pardon and said no more. Cole does not want to be wiser or +wittier than his neighbours." + +"In that respect how unlike dear Mrs. Elton, who wants to be wiser and +wittier than all the world! I wonder how she speaks of the Coles--what +she calls them! How can she find any appellation for them, deep enough +in familiar vulgarity? She calls you, Knightley--what can she do for +Mr. Cole? And so I am not to be surprized that Jane Fairfax accepts +her civilities and consents to be with her. Mrs. Weston, your argument +weighs most with me. I can much more readily enter into the temptation +of getting away from Miss Bates, than I can believe in the triumph of +Miss Fairfax's mind over Mrs. Elton. I have no faith in Mrs. Elton's +acknowledging herself the inferior in thought, word, or deed; or in her +being under any restraint beyond her own scanty rule of good-breeding. +I cannot imagine that she will not be continually insulting her visitor +with praise, encouragement, and offers of service; that she will not be +continually detailing her magnificent intentions, from the procuring her +a permanent situation to the including her in those delightful exploring +parties which are to take place in the barouche-landau." + +"Jane Fairfax has feeling," said Mr. Knightley--"I do not accuse her +of want of feeling. Her sensibilities, I suspect, are strong--and her +temper excellent in its power of forbearance, patience, self-control; +but it wants openness. She is reserved, more reserved, I think, than +she used to be--And I love an open temper. No--till Cole alluded to my +supposed attachment, it had never entered my head. I saw Jane Fairfax +and conversed with her, with admiration and pleasure always--but with no +thought beyond." + +"Well, Mrs. Weston," said Emma triumphantly when he left them, "what do +you say now to Mr. Knightley's marrying Jane Fairfax?" + +"Why, really, dear Emma, I say that he is so very much occupied by the +idea of _not_ being in love with her, that I should not wonder if it +were to end in his being so at last. Do not beat me." + + + +CHAPTER XVI + + +Every body in and about Highbury who had ever visited Mr. Elton, was +disposed to pay him attention on his marriage. Dinner-parties and +evening-parties were made for him and his lady; and invitations flowed +in so fast that she had soon the pleasure of apprehending they were +never to have a disengaged day. + +"I see how it is," said she. "I see what a life I am to lead among you. +Upon my word we shall be absolutely dissipated. We really seem quite +the fashion. If this is living in the country, it is nothing very +formidable. From Monday next to Saturday, I assure you we have not a +disengaged day!--A woman with fewer resources than I have, need not have +been at a loss." + +No invitation came amiss to her. Her Bath habits made evening-parties +perfectly natural to her, and Maple Grove had given her a taste for +dinners. She was a little shocked at the want of two drawing rooms, at +the poor attempt at rout-cakes, and there being no ice in the Highbury +card-parties. Mrs. Bates, Mrs. Perry, Mrs. Goddard and others, were a +good deal behind-hand in knowledge of the world, but she would soon shew +them how every thing ought to be arranged. In the course of the spring +she must return their civilities by one very superior party--in which +her card-tables should be set out with their separate candles and +unbroken packs in the true style--and more waiters engaged for the +evening than their own establishment could furnish, to carry round the +refreshments at exactly the proper hour, and in the proper order. + +Emma, in the meanwhile, could not be satisfied without a dinner at +Hartfield for the Eltons. They must not do less than others, or she +should be exposed to odious suspicions, and imagined capable of pitiful +resentment. A dinner there must be. After Emma had talked about it for +ten minutes, Mr. Woodhouse felt no unwillingness, and only made the +usual stipulation of not sitting at the bottom of the table himself, +with the usual regular difficulty of deciding who should do it for him. + +The persons to be invited, required little thought. Besides the +Eltons, it must be the Westons and Mr. Knightley; so far it was all of +course--and it was hardly less inevitable that poor little Harriet must +be asked to make the eighth:--but this invitation was not given with +equal satisfaction, and on many accounts Emma was particularly pleased +by Harriet's begging to be allowed to decline it. "She would rather not +be in his company more than she could help. She was not yet quite +able to see him and his charming happy wife together, without feeling +uncomfortable. If Miss Woodhouse would not be displeased, she would +rather stay at home." It was precisely what Emma would have wished, had +she deemed it possible enough for wishing. She was delighted with the +fortitude of her little friend--for fortitude she knew it was in her to +give up being in company and stay at home; and she could now invite the +very person whom she really wanted to make the eighth, Jane Fairfax.-- +Since her last conversation with Mrs. Weston and Mr. Knightley, she +was more conscience-stricken about Jane Fairfax than she had often +been.--Mr. Knightley's words dwelt with her. He had said that Jane +Fairfax received attentions from Mrs. Elton which nobody else paid her. + +"This is very true," said she, "at least as far as relates to me, which +was all that was meant--and it is very shameful.--Of the same age--and +always knowing her--I ought to have been more her friend.--She will +never like me now. I have neglected her too long. But I will shew her +greater attention than I have done." + +Every invitation was successful. They were all disengaged and all +happy.--The preparatory interest of this dinner, however, was not yet +over. A circumstance rather unlucky occurred. The two eldest little +Knightleys were engaged to pay their grandpapa and aunt a visit of some +weeks in the spring, and their papa now proposed bringing them, and +staying one whole day at Hartfield--which one day would be the very day +of this party.--His professional engagements did not allow of his being +put off, but both father and daughter were disturbed by its happening +so. Mr. Woodhouse considered eight persons at dinner together as the +utmost that his nerves could bear--and here would be a ninth--and Emma +apprehended that it would be a ninth very much out of humour at not +being able to come even to Hartfield for forty-eight hours without +falling in with a dinner-party. + +She comforted her father better than she could comfort herself, by +representing that though he certainly would make them nine, yet +he always said so little, that the increase of noise would be very +immaterial. She thought it in reality a sad exchange for herself, to +have him with his grave looks and reluctant conversation opposed to her +instead of his brother. + +The event was more favourable to Mr. Woodhouse than to Emma. John +Knightley came; but Mr. Weston was unexpectedly summoned to town and +must be absent on the very day. He might be able to join them in the +evening, but certainly not to dinner. Mr. Woodhouse was quite at ease; +and the seeing him so, with the arrival of the little boys and the +philosophic composure of her brother on hearing his fate, removed the +chief of even Emma's vexation. + +The day came, the party were punctually assembled, and Mr. John +Knightley seemed early to devote himself to the business of being +agreeable. Instead of drawing his brother off to a window while they +waited for dinner, he was talking to Miss Fairfax. Mrs. Elton, +as elegant as lace and pearls could make her, he looked at in +silence--wanting only to observe enough for Isabella's information--but +Miss Fairfax was an old acquaintance and a quiet girl, and he could talk +to her. He had met her before breakfast as he was returning from a walk +with his little boys, when it had been just beginning to rain. It was +natural to have some civil hopes on the subject, and he said, + +"I hope you did not venture far, Miss Fairfax, this morning, or I am +sure you must have been wet.--We scarcely got home in time. I hope you +turned directly." + +"I went only to the post-office," said she, "and reached home before the +rain was much. It is my daily errand. I always fetch the letters when +I am here. It saves trouble, and is a something to get me out. A walk +before breakfast does me good." + +"Not a walk in the rain, I should imagine." + +"No, but it did not absolutely rain when I set out." + +Mr. John Knightley smiled, and replied, + +"That is to say, you chose to have your walk, for you were not six yards +from your own door when I had the pleasure of meeting you; and Henry +and John had seen more drops than they could count long before. The +post-office has a great charm at one period of our lives. When you have +lived to my age, you will begin to think letters are never worth going +through the rain for." + +There was a little blush, and then this answer, + +"I must not hope to be ever situated as you are, in the midst of every +dearest connexion, and therefore I cannot expect that simply growing +older should make me indifferent about letters." + +"Indifferent! Oh! no--I never conceived you could become indifferent. +Letters are no matter of indifference; they are generally a very +positive curse." + +"You are speaking of letters of business; mine are letters of +friendship." + +"I have often thought them the worst of the two," replied he coolly. +"Business, you know, may bring money, but friendship hardly ever does." + +"Ah! you are not serious now. I know Mr. John Knightley too well--I am +very sure he understands the value of friendship as well as any body. I +can easily believe that letters are very little to you, much less than +to me, but it is not your being ten years older than myself which +makes the difference, it is not age, but situation. You have every +body dearest to you always at hand, I, probably, never shall again; +and therefore till I have outlived all my affections, a post-office, +I think, must always have power to draw me out, in worse weather than +to-day." + +"When I talked of your being altered by time, by the progress of years," +said John Knightley, "I meant to imply the change of situation which +time usually brings. I consider one as including the other. Time will +generally lessen the interest of every attachment not within the daily +circle--but that is not the change I had in view for you. As an old +friend, you will allow me to hope, Miss Fairfax, that ten years hence +you may have as many concentrated objects as I have." + +It was kindly said, and very far from giving offence. A pleasant "thank +you" seemed meant to laugh it off, but a blush, a quivering lip, a tear +in the eye, shewed that it was felt beyond a laugh. Her attention was +now claimed by Mr. Woodhouse, who being, according to his custom on such +occasions, making the circle of his guests, and paying his particular +compliments to the ladies, was ending with her--and with all his mildest +urbanity, said, + +"I am very sorry to hear, Miss Fairfax, of your being out this morning +in the rain. Young ladies should take care of themselves.--Young ladies +are delicate plants. They should take care of their health and their +complexion. My dear, did you change your stockings?" + +"Yes, sir, I did indeed; and I am very much obliged by your kind +solicitude about me." + +"My dear Miss Fairfax, young ladies are very sure to be cared for.--I +hope your good grand-mama and aunt are well. They are some of my very +old friends. I wish my health allowed me to be a better neighbour. You +do us a great deal of honour to-day, I am sure. My daughter and I +are both highly sensible of your goodness, and have the greatest +satisfaction in seeing you at Hartfield." + +The kind-hearted, polite old man might then sit down and feel that he +had done his duty, and made every fair lady welcome and easy. + +By this time, the walk in the rain had reached Mrs. Elton, and her +remonstrances now opened upon Jane. + +"My dear Jane, what is this I hear?--Going to the post-office in the +rain!--This must not be, I assure you.--You sad girl, how could you do +such a thing?--It is a sign I was not there to take care of you." + +Jane very patiently assured her that she had not caught any cold. + +"Oh! do not tell _me_. You really are a very sad girl, and do not know +how to take care of yourself.--To the post-office indeed! Mrs. Weston, +did you ever hear the like? You and I must positively exert our +authority." + +"My advice," said Mrs. Weston kindly and persuasively, "I certainly do +feel tempted to give. Miss Fairfax, you must not run such risks.--Liable +as you have been to severe colds, indeed you ought to be particularly +careful, especially at this time of year. The spring I always think +requires more than common care. Better wait an hour or two, or even +half a day for your letters, than run the risk of bringing on your cough +again. Now do not you feel that you had? Yes, I am sure you are much too +reasonable. You look as if you would not do such a thing again." + +"Oh! she _shall_ _not_ do such a thing again," eagerly rejoined Mrs. +Elton. "We will not allow her to do such a thing again:"--and nodding +significantly--"there must be some arrangement made, there must indeed. +I shall speak to Mr. E. The man who fetches our letters every morning +(one of our men, I forget his name) shall inquire for yours too and +bring them to you. That will obviate all difficulties you know; and from +_us_ I really think, my dear Jane, you can have no scruple to accept +such an accommodation." + +"You are extremely kind," said Jane; "but I cannot give up my early +walk. I am advised to be out of doors as much as I can, I must walk +somewhere, and the post-office is an object; and upon my word, I have +scarcely ever had a bad morning before." + +"My dear Jane, say no more about it. The thing is determined, that is +(laughing affectedly) as far as I can presume to determine any thing +without the concurrence of my lord and master. You know, Mrs. Weston, +you and I must be cautious how we express ourselves. But I do flatter +myself, my dear Jane, that my influence is not entirely worn out. If I +meet with no insuperable difficulties therefore, consider that point as +settled." + +"Excuse me," said Jane earnestly, "I cannot by any means consent to such +an arrangement, so needlessly troublesome to your servant. If the errand +were not a pleasure to me, it could be done, as it always is when I am +not here, by my grandmama's." + +"Oh! my dear; but so much as Patty has to do!--And it is a kindness to +employ our men." + +Jane looked as if she did not mean to be conquered; but instead of +answering, she began speaking again to Mr. John Knightley. + +"The post-office is a wonderful establishment!" said she.--"The +regularity and despatch of it! If one thinks of all that it has to do, +and all that it does so well, it is really astonishing!" + +"It is certainly very well regulated." + +"So seldom that any negligence or blunder appears! So seldom that +a letter, among the thousands that are constantly passing about the +kingdom, is even carried wrong--and not one in a million, I suppose, +actually lost! And when one considers the variety of hands, and of bad +hands too, that are to be deciphered, it increases the wonder." + +"The clerks grow expert from habit.--They must begin with some quickness +of sight and hand, and exercise improves them. If you want any farther +explanation," continued he, smiling, "they are paid for it. That is +the key to a great deal of capacity. The public pays and must be served +well." + +The varieties of handwriting were farther talked of, and the usual +observations made. + +"I have heard it asserted," said John Knightley, "that the same sort +of handwriting often prevails in a family; and where the same master +teaches, it is natural enough. But for that reason, I should imagine +the likeness must be chiefly confined to the females, for boys have very +little teaching after an early age, and scramble into any hand they can +get. Isabella and Emma, I think, do write very much alike. I have not +always known their writing apart." + +"Yes," said his brother hesitatingly, "there is a likeness. I know what +you mean--but Emma's hand is the strongest." + +"Isabella and Emma both write beautifully," said Mr. Woodhouse; "and +always did. And so does poor Mrs. Weston"--with half a sigh and half a +smile at her. + +"I never saw any gentleman's handwriting"--Emma began, looking also at +Mrs. Weston; but stopped, on perceiving that Mrs. Weston was attending +to some one else--and the pause gave her time to reflect, "Now, how am +I going to introduce him?--Am I unequal to speaking his name at once +before all these people? Is it necessary for me to use any roundabout +phrase?--Your Yorkshire friend--your correspondent in Yorkshire;--that +would be the way, I suppose, if I were very bad.--No, I can pronounce +his name without the smallest distress. I certainly get better and +better.--Now for it." + +Mrs. Weston was disengaged and Emma began again--"Mr. Frank Churchill +writes one of the best gentleman's hands I ever saw." + +"I do not admire it," said Mr. Knightley. "It is too small--wants +strength. It is like a woman's writing." + +This was not submitted to by either lady. They vindicated him against +the base aspersion. "No, it by no means wanted strength--it was not a +large hand, but very clear and certainly strong. Had not Mrs. Weston any +letter about her to produce?" No, she had heard from him very lately, +but having answered the letter, had put it away. + +"If we were in the other room," said Emma, "if I had my writing-desk, I +am sure I could produce a specimen. I have a note of his.--Do not you +remember, Mrs. Weston, employing him to write for you one day?" + +"He chose to say he was employed"-- + +"Well, well, I have that note; and can shew it after dinner to convince +Mr. Knightley." + +"Oh! when a gallant young man, like Mr. Frank Churchill," said Mr. +Knightley dryly, "writes to a fair lady like Miss Woodhouse, he will, of +course, put forth his best." + +Dinner was on table.--Mrs. Elton, before she could be spoken to, was +ready; and before Mr. Woodhouse had reached her with his request to be +allowed to hand her into the dining-parlour, was saying-- + +"Must I go first? I really am ashamed of always leading the way." + +Jane's solicitude about fetching her own letters had not escaped Emma. +She had heard and seen it all; and felt some curiosity to know whether +the wet walk of this morning had produced any. She suspected that it +_had_; that it would not have been so resolutely encountered but in full +expectation of hearing from some one very dear, and that it had not been +in vain. She thought there was an air of greater happiness than usual--a +glow both of complexion and spirits. + +She could have made an inquiry or two, as to the expedition and the +expense of the Irish mails;--it was at her tongue's end--but she +abstained. She was quite determined not to utter a word that should hurt +Jane Fairfax's feelings; and they followed the other ladies out of the +room, arm in arm, with an appearance of good-will highly becoming to the +beauty and grace of each. + + + +CHAPTER XVII + + +When the ladies returned to the drawing-room after dinner, Emma found it +hardly possible to prevent their making two distinct parties;--with so +much perseverance in judging and behaving ill did Mrs. Elton engross +Jane Fairfax and slight herself. She and Mrs. Weston were obliged to +be almost always either talking together or silent together. Mrs. Elton +left them no choice. If Jane repressed her for a little time, she +soon began again; and though much that passed between them was in a +half-whisper, especially on Mrs. Elton's side, there was no avoiding +a knowledge of their principal subjects: The post-office--catching +cold--fetching letters--and friendship, were long under discussion; +and to them succeeded one, which must be at least equally unpleasant +to Jane--inquiries whether she had yet heard of any situation likely to +suit her, and professions of Mrs. Elton's meditated activity. + +"Here is April come!" said she, "I get quite anxious about you. June +will soon be here." + +"But I have never fixed on June or any other month--merely looked +forward to the summer in general." + +"But have you really heard of nothing?" + +"I have not even made any inquiry; I do not wish to make any yet." + +"Oh! my dear, we cannot begin too early; you are not aware of the +difficulty of procuring exactly the desirable thing." + +"I not aware!" said Jane, shaking her head; "dear Mrs. Elton, who can +have thought of it as I have done?" + +"But you have not seen so much of the world as I have. You do not know +how many candidates there always are for the _first_ situations. I saw +a vast deal of that in the neighbourhood round Maple Grove. A cousin of +Mr. Suckling, Mrs. Bragge, had such an infinity of applications; every +body was anxious to be in her family, for she moves in the first circle. +Wax-candles in the schoolroom! You may imagine how desirable! Of all +houses in the kingdom Mrs. Bragge's is the one I would most wish to see +you in." + +"Colonel and Mrs. Campbell are to be in town again by midsummer," +said Jane. "I must spend some time with them; I am sure they will want +it;--afterwards I may probably be glad to dispose of myself. But I would +not wish you to take the trouble of making any inquiries at present." + +"Trouble! aye, I know your scruples. You are afraid of giving me +trouble; but I assure you, my dear Jane, the Campbells can hardly be +more interested about you than I am. I shall write to Mrs. Partridge in +a day or two, and shall give her a strict charge to be on the look-out +for any thing eligible." + +"Thank you, but I would rather you did not mention the subject to +her; till the time draws nearer, I do not wish to be giving any body +trouble." + +"But, my dear child, the time is drawing near; here is April, and June, +or say even July, is very near, with such business to accomplish before +us. Your inexperience really amuses me! A situation such as you deserve, +and your friends would require for you, is no everyday occurrence, +is not obtained at a moment's notice; indeed, indeed, we must begin +inquiring directly." + +"Excuse me, ma'am, but this is by no means my intention; I make no +inquiry myself, and should be sorry to have any made by my friends. When +I am quite determined as to the time, I am not at all afraid of being +long unemployed. There are places in town, offices, where inquiry +would soon produce something--Offices for the sale--not quite of human +flesh--but of human intellect." + +"Oh! my dear, human flesh! You quite shock me; if you mean a fling at +the slave-trade, I assure you Mr. Suckling was always rather a friend to +the abolition." + +"I did not mean, I was not thinking of the slave-trade," replied Jane; +"governess-trade, I assure you, was all that I had in view; widely +different certainly as to the guilt of those who carry it on; but as to +the greater misery of the victims, I do not know where it lies. But +I only mean to say that there are advertising offices, and that by +applying to them I should have no doubt of very soon meeting with +something that would do." + +"Something that would do!" repeated Mrs. Elton. "Aye, _that_ may suit +your humble ideas of yourself;--I know what a modest creature you are; +but it will not satisfy your friends to have you taking up with any +thing that may offer, any inferior, commonplace situation, in a family +not moving in a certain circle, or able to command the elegancies of +life." + +"You are very obliging; but as to all that, I am very indifferent; +it would be no object to me to be with the rich; my mortifications, I +think, would only be the greater; I should suffer more from comparison. +A gentleman's family is all that I should condition for." + +"I know you, I know you; you would take up with any thing; but I shall +be a little more nice, and I am sure the good Campbells will be quite +on my side; with your superior talents, you have a right to move in the +first circle. Your musical knowledge alone would entitle you to name +your own terms, have as many rooms as you like, and mix in the family +as much as you chose;--that is--I do not know--if you knew the harp, you +might do all that, I am very sure; but you sing as well as play;--yes, I +really believe you might, even without the harp, stipulate for what +you chose;--and you must and shall be delightfully, honourably and +comfortably settled before the Campbells or I have any rest." + +"You may well class the delight, the honour, and the comfort of such +a situation together," said Jane, "they are pretty sure to be equal; +however, I am very serious in not wishing any thing to be attempted +at present for me. I am exceedingly obliged to you, Mrs. Elton, I am +obliged to any body who feels for me, but I am quite serious in wishing +nothing to be done till the summer. For two or three months longer I +shall remain where I am, and as I am." + +"And I am quite serious too, I assure you," replied Mrs. Elton gaily, +"in resolving to be always on the watch, and employing my friends to +watch also, that nothing really unexceptionable may pass us." + +In this style she ran on; never thoroughly stopped by any thing till Mr. +Woodhouse came into the room; her vanity had then a change of object, +and Emma heard her saying in the same half-whisper to Jane, + +"Here comes this dear old beau of mine, I protest!--Only think of his +gallantry in coming away before the other men!--what a dear creature +he is;--I assure you I like him excessively. I admire all that quaint, +old-fashioned politeness; it is much more to my taste than modern ease; +modern ease often disgusts me. But this good old Mr. Woodhouse, I wish +you had heard his gallant speeches to me at dinner. Oh! I assure you I +began to think my caro sposo would be absolutely jealous. I fancy I +am rather a favourite; he took notice of my gown. How do you like +it?--Selina's choice--handsome, I think, but I do not know whether it +is not over-trimmed; I have the greatest dislike to the idea of being +over-trimmed--quite a horror of finery. I must put on a few ornaments +now, because it is expected of me. A bride, you know, must appear like +a bride, but my natural taste is all for simplicity; a simple style +of dress is so infinitely preferable to finery. But I am quite in the +minority, I believe; few people seem to value simplicity of dress,--show +and finery are every thing. I have some notion of putting such a +trimming as this to my white and silver poplin. Do you think it will +look well?" + +The whole party were but just reassembled in the drawing-room when Mr. +Weston made his appearance among them. He had returned to a late dinner, +and walked to Hartfield as soon as it was over. He had been too much +expected by the best judges, for surprize--but there was great joy. Mr. +Woodhouse was almost as glad to see him now, as he would have been sorry +to see him before. John Knightley only was in mute astonishment.--That +a man who might have spent his evening quietly at home after a day +of business in London, should set off again, and walk half a mile +to another man's house, for the sake of being in mixed company till +bed-time, of finishing his day in the efforts of civility and the noise +of numbers, was a circumstance to strike him deeply. A man who had been +in motion since eight o'clock in the morning, and might now have been +still, who had been long talking, and might have been silent, who had +been in more than one crowd, and might have been alone!--Such a man, to +quit the tranquillity and independence of his own fireside, and on the +evening of a cold sleety April day rush out again into the world!--Could +he by a touch of his finger have instantly taken back his wife, there +would have been a motive; but his coming would probably prolong rather +than break up the party. John Knightley looked at him with amazement, +then shrugged his shoulders, and said, "I could not have believed it +even of _him_." + +Mr. Weston meanwhile, perfectly unsuspicious of the indignation he was +exciting, happy and cheerful as usual, and with all the right of being +principal talker, which a day spent anywhere from home confers, was +making himself agreeable among the rest; and having satisfied the +inquiries of his wife as to his dinner, convincing her that none of all +her careful directions to the servants had been forgotten, and spread +abroad what public news he had heard, was proceeding to a family +communication, which, though principally addressed to Mrs. Weston, he +had not the smallest doubt of being highly interesting to every body in +the room. He gave her a letter, it was from Frank, and to herself; he +had met with it in his way, and had taken the liberty of opening it. + +"Read it, read it," said he, "it will give you pleasure; only a few +lines--will not take you long; read it to Emma." + +The two ladies looked over it together; and he sat smiling and talking +to them the whole time, in a voice a little subdued, but very audible to +every body. + +"Well, he is coming, you see; good news, I think. Well, what do you say +to it?--I always told you he would be here again soon, did not I?--Anne, +my dear, did not I always tell you so, and you would not believe me?--In +town next week, you see--at the latest, I dare say; for _she_ is as +impatient as the black gentleman when any thing is to be done; most +likely they will be there to-morrow or Saturday. As to her illness, all +nothing of course. But it is an excellent thing to have Frank among us +again, so near as town. They will stay a good while when they do come, +and he will be half his time with us. This is precisely what I wanted. +Well, pretty good news, is not it? Have you finished it? Has Emma read +it all? Put it up, put it up; we will have a good talk about it some +other time, but it will not do now. I shall only just mention the +circumstance to the others in a common way." + +Mrs. Weston was most comfortably pleased on the occasion. Her looks +and words had nothing to restrain them. She was happy, she knew she was +happy, and knew she ought to be happy. Her congratulations were warm and +open; but Emma could not speak so fluently. _She_ was a little occupied +in weighing her own feelings, and trying to understand the degree of her +agitation, which she rather thought was considerable. + +Mr. Weston, however, too eager to be very observant, too communicative +to want others to talk, was very well satisfied with what she did say, +and soon moved away to make the rest of his friends happy by a partial +communication of what the whole room must have overheard already. + +It was well that he took every body's joy for granted, or he might +not have thought either Mr. Woodhouse or Mr. Knightley particularly +delighted. They were the first entitled, after Mrs. Weston and Emma, to +be made happy;--from them he would have proceeded to Miss Fairfax, but +she was so deep in conversation with John Knightley, that it would have +been too positive an interruption; and finding himself close to Mrs. +Elton, and her attention disengaged, he necessarily began on the subject +with her. + + + +CHAPTER XVIII + + +"I hope I shall soon have the pleasure of introducing my son to you," +said Mr. Weston. + +Mrs. Elton, very willing to suppose a particular compliment intended her +by such a hope, smiled most graciously. + +"You have heard of a certain Frank Churchill, I presume," he +continued--"and know him to be my son, though he does not bear my name." + +"Oh! yes, and I shall be very happy in his acquaintance. I am sure Mr. +Elton will lose no time in calling on him; and we shall both have great +pleasure in seeing him at the Vicarage." + +"You are very obliging.--Frank will be extremely happy, I am sure.-- +He is to be in town next week, if not sooner. We have notice of it in a +letter to-day. I met the letters in my way this morning, and seeing my +son's hand, presumed to open it--though it was not directed to me--it +was to Mrs. Weston. She is his principal correspondent, I assure you. I +hardly ever get a letter." + +"And so you absolutely opened what was directed to her! Oh! Mr. +Weston--(laughing affectedly) I must protest against that.--A most +dangerous precedent indeed!--I beg you will not let your neighbours +follow your example.--Upon my word, if this is what I am to expect, we +married women must begin to exert ourselves!--Oh! Mr. Weston, I could +not have believed it of you!" + +"Aye, we men are sad fellows. You must take care of yourself, Mrs. +Elton.--This letter tells us--it is a short letter--written in a hurry, +merely to give us notice--it tells us that they are all coming up to +town directly, on Mrs. Churchill's account--she has not been well the +whole winter, and thinks Enscombe too cold for her--so they are all to +move southward without loss of time." + +"Indeed!--from Yorkshire, I think. Enscombe is in Yorkshire?" + +"Yes, they are about one hundred and ninety miles from London, a +considerable journey." + +"Yes, upon my word, very considerable. Sixty-five miles farther than +from Maple Grove to London. But what is distance, Mr. Weston, to people +of large fortune?--You would be amazed to hear how my brother, Mr. +Suckling, sometimes flies about. You will hardly believe me--but twice +in one week he and Mr. Bragge went to London and back again with four +horses." + +"The evil of the distance from Enscombe," said Mr. Weston, "is, that +Mrs. Churchill, _as_ _we_ _understand_, has not been able to leave the +sofa for a week together. In Frank's last letter she complained, he +said, of being too weak to get into her conservatory without having +both his arm and his uncle's! This, you know, speaks a great degree of +weakness--but now she is so impatient to be in town, that she means to +sleep only two nights on the road.--So Frank writes word. Certainly, +delicate ladies have very extraordinary constitutions, Mrs. Elton. You +must grant me that." + +"No, indeed, I shall grant you nothing. I always take the part of my +own sex. I do indeed. I give you notice--You will find me a formidable +antagonist on that point. I always stand up for women--and I assure you, +if you knew how Selina feels with respect to sleeping at an inn, you +would not wonder at Mrs. Churchill's making incredible exertions to +avoid it. Selina says it is quite horror to her--and I believe I have +caught a little of her nicety. She always travels with her own sheets; +an excellent precaution. Does Mrs. Churchill do the same?" + +"Depend upon it, Mrs. Churchill does every thing that any other fine +lady ever did. Mrs. Churchill will not be second to any lady in the land +for"-- + +Mrs. Elton eagerly interposed with, + +"Oh! Mr. Weston, do not mistake me. Selina is no fine lady, I assure +you. Do not run away with such an idea." + +"Is not she? Then she is no rule for Mrs. Churchill, who is as thorough +a fine lady as any body ever beheld." + +Mrs. Elton began to think she had been wrong in disclaiming so warmly. +It was by no means her object to have it believed that her sister was +_not_ a fine lady; perhaps there was want of spirit in the pretence of +it;--and she was considering in what way she had best retract, when Mr. +Weston went on. + +"Mrs. Churchill is not much in my good graces, as you may suspect--but +this is quite between ourselves. She is very fond of Frank, and +therefore I would not speak ill of her. Besides, she is out of health +now; but _that_ indeed, by her own account, she has always been. I would +not say so to every body, Mrs. Elton, but I have not much faith in Mrs. +Churchill's illness." + +"If she is really ill, why not go to Bath, Mr. Weston?--To Bath, or to +Clifton?" "She has taken it into her head that Enscombe is too cold for +her. The fact is, I suppose, that she is tired of Enscombe. She has now +been a longer time stationary there, than she ever was before, and she +begins to want change. It is a retired place. A fine place, but very +retired." + +"Aye--like Maple Grove, I dare say. Nothing can stand more retired from +the road than Maple Grove. Such an immense plantation all round it! You +seem shut out from every thing--in the most complete retirement.--And +Mrs. Churchill probably has not health or spirits like Selina to enjoy +that sort of seclusion. Or, perhaps she may not have resources enough in +herself to be qualified for a country life. I always say a woman cannot +have too many resources--and I feel very thankful that I have so many +myself as to be quite independent of society." + +"Frank was here in February for a fortnight." + +"So I remember to have heard. He will find an _addition_ to the society +of Highbury when he comes again; that is, if I may presume to call +myself an addition. But perhaps he may never have heard of there being +such a creature in the world." + +This was too loud a call for a compliment to be passed by, and Mr. +Weston, with a very good grace, immediately exclaimed, + +"My dear madam! Nobody but yourself could imagine such a thing possible. +Not heard of you!--I believe Mrs. Weston's letters lately have been full +of very little else than Mrs. Elton." + +He had done his duty and could return to his son. + +"When Frank left us," continued he, "it was quite uncertain when we +might see him again, which makes this day's news doubly welcome. It has +been completely unexpected. That is, _I_ always had a strong persuasion +he would be here again soon, I was sure something favourable would turn +up--but nobody believed me. He and Mrs. Weston were both dreadfully +desponding. 'How could he contrive to come? And how could it be supposed +that his uncle and aunt would spare him again?' and so forth--I always +felt that something would happen in our favour; and so it has, you see. +I have observed, Mrs. Elton, in the course of my life, that if things +are going untowardly one month, they are sure to mend the next." + +"Very true, Mr. Weston, perfectly true. It is just what I used to say to +a certain gentleman in company in the days of courtship, when, because +things did not go quite right, did not proceed with all the rapidity +which suited his feelings, he was apt to be in despair, and exclaim that +he was sure at this rate it would be _May_ before Hymen's saffron robe +would be put on for us. Oh! the pains I have been at to dispel those +gloomy ideas and give him cheerfuller views! The carriage--we had +disappointments about the carriage;--one morning, I remember, he came to +me quite in despair." + +She was stopped by a slight fit of coughing, and Mr. Weston instantly +seized the opportunity of going on. + +"You were mentioning May. May is the very month which Mrs. Churchill +is ordered, or has ordered herself, to spend in some warmer place than +Enscombe--in short, to spend in London; so that we have the agreeable +prospect of frequent visits from Frank the whole spring--precisely the +season of the year which one should have chosen for it: days almost at +the longest; weather genial and pleasant, always inviting one out, and +never too hot for exercise. When he was here before, we made the best +of it; but there was a good deal of wet, damp, cheerless weather; +there always is in February, you know, and we could not do half that we +intended. Now will be the time. This will be complete enjoyment; and I +do not know, Mrs. Elton, whether the uncertainty of our meetings, the +sort of constant expectation there will be of his coming in to-day or +to-morrow, and at any hour, may not be more friendly to happiness than +having him actually in the house. I think it is so. I think it is the +state of mind which gives most spirit and delight. I hope you will be +pleased with my son; but you must not expect a prodigy. He is generally +thought a fine young man, but do not expect a prodigy. Mrs. Weston's +partiality for him is very great, and, as you may suppose, most +gratifying to me. She thinks nobody equal to him." + +"And I assure you, Mr. Weston, I have very little doubt that my opinion +will be decidedly in his favour. I have heard so much in praise of Mr. +Frank Churchill.--At the same time it is fair to observe, that I am one +of those who always judge for themselves, and are by no means implicitly +guided by others. I give you notice that as I find your son, so I shall +judge of him.--I am no flatterer." + +Mr. Weston was musing. + +"I hope," said he presently, "I have not been severe upon poor Mrs. +Churchill. If she is ill I should be sorry to do her injustice; but +there are some traits in her character which make it difficult for me to +speak of her with the forbearance I could wish. You cannot be ignorant, +Mrs. Elton, of my connexion with the family, nor of the treatment I have +met with; and, between ourselves, the whole blame of it is to be laid +to her. She was the instigator. Frank's mother would never have been +slighted as she was but for her. Mr. Churchill has pride; but his pride +is nothing to his wife's: his is a quiet, indolent, gentlemanlike sort +of pride that would harm nobody, and only make himself a little helpless +and tiresome; but her pride is arrogance and insolence! And what +inclines one less to bear, she has no fair pretence of family or blood. +She was nobody when he married her, barely the daughter of a gentleman; +but ever since her being turned into a Churchill she has out-Churchill'd +them all in high and mighty claims: but in herself, I assure you, she is +an upstart." + +"Only think! well, that must be infinitely provoking! I have quite +a horror of upstarts. Maple Grove has given me a thorough disgust to +people of that sort; for there is a family in that neighbourhood who +are such an annoyance to my brother and sister from the airs they give +themselves! Your description of Mrs. Churchill made me think of them +directly. People of the name of Tupman, very lately settled there, and +encumbered with many low connexions, but giving themselves immense airs, +and expecting to be on a footing with the old established families. +A year and a half is the very utmost that they can have lived at West +Hall; and how they got their fortune nobody knows. They came from +Birmingham, which is not a place to promise much, you know, Mr. Weston. +One has not great hopes from Birmingham. I always say there is something +direful in the sound: but nothing more is positively known of the +Tupmans, though a good many things I assure you are suspected; and +yet by their manners they evidently think themselves equal even to +my brother, Mr. Suckling, who happens to be one of their nearest +neighbours. It is infinitely too bad. Mr. Suckling, who has been eleven +years a resident at Maple Grove, and whose father had it before him--I +believe, at least--I am almost sure that old Mr. Suckling had completed +the purchase before his death." + +They were interrupted. Tea was carrying round, and Mr. Weston, having +said all that he wanted, soon took the opportunity of walking away. + +After tea, Mr. and Mrs. Weston, and Mr. Elton sat down with Mr. +Woodhouse to cards. The remaining five were left to their own powers, +and Emma doubted their getting on very well; for Mr. Knightley seemed +little disposed for conversation; Mrs. Elton was wanting notice, which +nobody had inclination to pay, and she was herself in a worry of spirits +which would have made her prefer being silent. + +Mr. John Knightley proved more talkative than his brother. He was to +leave them early the next day; and he soon began with-- + +"Well, Emma, I do not believe I have any thing more to say about the +boys; but you have your sister's letter, and every thing is down at full +length there we may be sure. My charge would be much more concise than +her's, and probably not much in the same spirit; all that I have to +recommend being comprised in, do not spoil them, and do not physic +them." + +"I rather hope to satisfy you both," said Emma, "for I shall do all +in my power to make them happy, which will be enough for Isabella; and +happiness must preclude false indulgence and physic." + +"And if you find them troublesome, you must send them home again." + +"That is very likely. You think so, do not you?" + +"I hope I am aware that they may be too noisy for your father--or even +may be some encumbrance to you, if your visiting engagements continue to +increase as much as they have done lately." + +"Increase!" + +"Certainly; you must be sensible that the last half-year has made a +great difference in your way of life." + +"Difference! No indeed I am not." + +"There can be no doubt of your being much more engaged with company than +you used to be. Witness this very time. Here am I come down for only +one day, and you are engaged with a dinner-party!--When did it happen +before, or any thing like it? Your neighbourhood is increasing, and you +mix more with it. A little while ago, every letter to Isabella brought +an account of fresh gaieties; dinners at Mr. Cole's, or balls at the +Crown. The difference which Randalls, Randalls alone makes in your +goings-on, is very great." + +"Yes," said his brother quickly, "it is Randalls that does it all." + +"Very well--and as Randalls, I suppose, is not likely to have less +influence than heretofore, it strikes me as a possible thing, Emma, that +Henry and John may be sometimes in the way. And if they are, I only beg +you to send them home." + +"No," cried Mr. Knightley, "that need not be the consequence. Let them +be sent to Donwell. I shall certainly be at leisure." + +"Upon my word," exclaimed Emma, "you amuse me! I should like to know how +many of all my numerous engagements take place without your being of +the party; and why I am to be supposed in danger of wanting leisure to +attend to the little boys. These amazing engagements of mine--what have +they been? Dining once with the Coles--and having a ball talked of, +which never took place. I can understand you--(nodding at Mr. John +Knightley)--your good fortune in meeting with so many of your friends at +once here, delights you too much to pass unnoticed. But you, (turning to +Mr. Knightley,) who know how very, very seldom I am ever two hours from +Hartfield, why you should foresee such a series of dissipation for me, I +cannot imagine. And as to my dear little boys, I must say, that if Aunt +Emma has not time for them, I do not think they would fare much better +with Uncle Knightley, who is absent from home about five hours where she +is absent one--and who, when he is at home, is either reading to himself +or settling his accounts." + +Mr. Knightley seemed to be trying not to smile; and succeeded without +difficulty, upon Mrs. Elton's beginning to talk to him. + + + + +VOLUME III + + + +CHAPTER I + + +A very little quiet reflection was enough to satisfy Emma as to the +nature of her agitation on hearing this news of Frank Churchill. She +was soon convinced that it was not for herself she was feeling at all +apprehensive or embarrassed; it was for him. Her own attachment had +really subsided into a mere nothing; it was not worth thinking of;--but +if he, who had undoubtedly been always so much the most in love of the +two, were to be returning with the same warmth of sentiment which he had +taken away, it would be very distressing. If a separation of two +months should not have cooled him, there were dangers and evils before +her:--caution for him and for herself would be necessary. She did +not mean to have her own affections entangled again, and it would be +incumbent on her to avoid any encouragement of his. + +She wished she might be able to keep him from an absolute declaration. +That would be so very painful a conclusion of their present +acquaintance! and yet, she could not help rather anticipating something +decisive. She felt as if the spring would not pass without bringing a +crisis, an event, a something to alter her present composed and tranquil +state. + +It was not very long, though rather longer than Mr. Weston had foreseen, +before she had the power of forming some opinion of Frank Churchill's +feelings. The Enscombe family were not in town quite so soon as had been +imagined, but he was at Highbury very soon afterwards. He rode down +for a couple of hours; he could not yet do more; but as he came from +Randalls immediately to Hartfield, she could then exercise all her quick +observation, and speedily determine how he was influenced, and how she +must act. They met with the utmost friendliness. There could be no doubt +of his great pleasure in seeing her. But she had an almost instant doubt +of his caring for her as he had done, of his feeling the same tenderness +in the same degree. She watched him well. It was a clear thing he was +less in love than he had been. Absence, with the conviction probably +of her indifference, had produced this very natural and very desirable +effect. + +He was in high spirits; as ready to talk and laugh as ever, and seemed +delighted to speak of his former visit, and recur to old stories: and he +was not without agitation. It was not in his calmness that she read +his comparative difference. He was not calm; his spirits were evidently +fluttered; there was restlessness about him. Lively as he was, it seemed +a liveliness that did not satisfy himself; but what decided her belief +on the subject, was his staying only a quarter of an hour, and hurrying +away to make other calls in Highbury. "He had seen a group of old +acquaintance in the street as he passed--he had not stopped, he would +not stop for more than a word--but he had the vanity to think they would +be disappointed if he did not call, and much as he wished to stay longer +at Hartfield, he must hurry off." She had no doubt as to his being less +in love--but neither his agitated spirits, nor his hurrying away, seemed +like a perfect cure; and she was rather inclined to think it implied a +dread of her returning power, and a discreet resolution of not trusting +himself with her long. + +This was the only visit from Frank Churchill in the course of ten days. +He was often hoping, intending to come--but was always prevented. His +aunt could not bear to have him leave her. Such was his own account at +Randall's. If he were quite sincere, if he really tried to come, it was +to be inferred that Mrs. Churchill's removal to London had been of no +service to the wilful or nervous part of her disorder. That she was +really ill was very certain; he had declared himself convinced of it, at +Randalls. Though much might be fancy, he could not doubt, when he looked +back, that she was in a weaker state of health than she had been half a +year ago. He did not believe it to proceed from any thing that care +and medicine might not remove, or at least that she might not have many +years of existence before her; but he could not be prevailed on, by all +his father's doubts, to say that her complaints were merely imaginary, +or that she was as strong as ever. + +It soon appeared that London was not the place for her. She could +not endure its noise. Her nerves were under continual irritation and +suffering; and by the ten days' end, her nephew's letter to Randalls +communicated a change of plan. They were going to remove immediately to +Richmond. Mrs. Churchill had been recommended to the medical skill of +an eminent person there, and had otherwise a fancy for the place. A +ready-furnished house in a favourite spot was engaged, and much benefit +expected from the change. + +Emma heard that Frank wrote in the highest spirits of this arrangement, +and seemed most fully to appreciate the blessing of having two months +before him of such near neighbourhood to many dear friends--for the +house was taken for May and June. She was told that now he wrote with +the greatest confidence of being often with them, almost as often as he +could even wish. + +Emma saw how Mr. Weston understood these joyous prospects. He was +considering her as the source of all the happiness they offered. She +hoped it was not so. Two months must bring it to the proof. + +Mr. Weston's own happiness was indisputable. He was quite delighted. +It was the very circumstance he could have wished for. Now, it would be +really having Frank in their neighbourhood. What were nine miles to +a young man?--An hour's ride. He would be always coming over. The +difference in that respect of Richmond and London was enough to make +the whole difference of seeing him always and seeing him never. Sixteen +miles--nay, eighteen--it must be full eighteen to Manchester-street--was +a serious obstacle. Were he ever able to get away, the day would be +spent in coming and returning. There was no comfort in having him in +London; he might as well be at Enscombe; but Richmond was the very +distance for easy intercourse. Better than nearer! + +One good thing was immediately brought to a certainty by this +removal,--the ball at the Crown. It had not been forgotten before, +but it had been soon acknowledged vain to attempt to fix a day. Now, +however, it was absolutely to be; every preparation was resumed, and +very soon after the Churchills had removed to Richmond, a few lines from +Frank, to say that his aunt felt already much better for the change, and +that he had no doubt of being able to join them for twenty-four hours at +any given time, induced them to name as early a day as possible. + +Mr. Weston's ball was to be a real thing. A very few to-morrows stood +between the young people of Highbury and happiness. + +Mr. Woodhouse was resigned. The time of year lightened the evil to him. +May was better for every thing than February. Mrs. Bates was engaged to +spend the evening at Hartfield, James had due notice, and he sanguinely +hoped that neither dear little Henry nor dear little John would have any +thing the matter with them, while dear Emma were gone. + + + +CHAPTER II + + +No misfortune occurred, again to prevent the ball. The day approached, +the day arrived; and after a morning of some anxious watching, Frank +Churchill, in all the certainty of his own self, reached Randalls before +dinner, and every thing was safe. + +No second meeting had there yet been between him and Emma. The room +at the Crown was to witness it;--but it would be better than a +common meeting in a crowd. Mr. Weston had been so very earnest in his +entreaties for her arriving there as soon as possible after themselves, +for the purpose of taking her opinion as to the propriety and comfort of +the rooms before any other persons came, that she could not refuse him, +and must therefore spend some quiet interval in the young man's company. +She was to convey Harriet, and they drove to the Crown in good time, the +Randalls party just sufficiently before them. + +Frank Churchill seemed to have been on the watch; and though he did not +say much, his eyes declared that he meant to have a delightful evening. +They all walked about together, to see that every thing was as it should +be; and within a few minutes were joined by the contents of another +carriage, which Emma could not hear the sound of at first, without great +surprize. "So unreasonably early!" she was going to exclaim; but she +presently found that it was a family of old friends, who were coming, +like herself, by particular desire, to help Mr. Weston's judgment; and +they were so very closely followed by another carriage of cousins, +who had been entreated to come early with the same distinguishing +earnestness, on the same errand, that it seemed as if half the company +might soon be collected together for the purpose of preparatory +inspection. + +Emma perceived that her taste was not the only taste on which Mr. Weston +depended, and felt, that to be the favourite and intimate of a man +who had so many intimates and confidantes, was not the very first +distinction in the scale of vanity. She liked his open manners, but +a little less of open-heartedness would have made him a higher +character.--General benevolence, but not general friendship, made a +man what he ought to be.--She could fancy such a man. The whole party +walked about, and looked, and praised again; and then, having nothing +else to do, formed a sort of half-circle round the fire, to observe +in their various modes, till other subjects were started, that, though +_May_, a fire in the evening was still very pleasant. + +Emma found that it was not Mr. Weston's fault that the number of privy +councillors was not yet larger. They had stopped at Mrs. Bates's door +to offer the use of their carriage, but the aunt and niece were to be +brought by the Eltons. + +Frank was standing by her, but not steadily; there was a restlessness, +which shewed a mind not at ease. He was looking about, he was going to +the door, he was watching for the sound of other carriages,--impatient +to begin, or afraid of being always near her. + +Mrs. Elton was spoken of. "I think she must be here soon," said he. "I +have a great curiosity to see Mrs. Elton, I have heard so much of her. +It cannot be long, I think, before she comes." + +A carriage was heard. He was on the move immediately; but coming back, +said, + +"I am forgetting that I am not acquainted with her. I have never seen +either Mr. or Mrs. Elton. I have no business to put myself forward." + +Mr. and Mrs. Elton appeared; and all the smiles and the proprieties +passed. + +"But Miss Bates and Miss Fairfax!" said Mr. Weston, looking about. "We +thought you were to bring them." + +The mistake had been slight. The carriage was sent for them now. Emma +longed to know what Frank's first opinion of Mrs. Elton might be; how +he was affected by the studied elegance of her dress, and her smiles of +graciousness. He was immediately qualifying himself to form an opinion, +by giving her very proper attention, after the introduction had passed. + +In a few minutes the carriage returned.--Somebody talked of rain.--"I +will see that there are umbrellas, sir," said Frank to his father: +"Miss Bates must not be forgotten:" and away he went. Mr. Weston was +following; but Mrs. Elton detained him, to gratify him by her opinion +of his son; and so briskly did she begin, that the young man himself, +though by no means moving slowly, could hardly be out of hearing. + +"A very fine young man indeed, Mr. Weston. You know I candidly told you +I should form my own opinion; and I am happy to say that I am extremely +pleased with him.--You may believe me. I never compliment. I think him +a very handsome young man, and his manners are precisely what I like and +approve--so truly the gentleman, without the least conceit or puppyism. +You must know I have a vast dislike to puppies--quite a horror of them. +They were never tolerated at Maple Grove. Neither Mr. Suckling nor +me had ever any patience with them; and we used sometimes to say very +cutting things! Selina, who is mild almost to a fault, bore with them +much better." + +While she talked of his son, Mr. Weston's attention was chained; but +when she got to Maple Grove, he could recollect that there were ladies +just arriving to be attended to, and with happy smiles must hurry away. + +Mrs. Elton turned to Mrs. Weston. "I have no doubt of its being our +carriage with Miss Bates and Jane. Our coachman and horses are so +extremely expeditious!--I believe we drive faster than any body.--What +a pleasure it is to send one's carriage for a friend!--I understand you +were so kind as to offer, but another time it will be quite unnecessary. +You may be very sure I shall always take care of _them_." + +Miss Bates and Miss Fairfax, escorted by the two gentlemen, walked into +the room; and Mrs. Elton seemed to think it as much her duty as Mrs. +Weston's to receive them. Her gestures and movements might be understood +by any one who looked on like Emma; but her words, every body's words, +were soon lost under the incessant flow of Miss Bates, who came in +talking, and had not finished her speech under many minutes after her +being admitted into the circle at the fire. As the door opened she was +heard, + +"So very obliging of you!--No rain at all. Nothing to signify. I do not +care for myself. Quite thick shoes. And Jane declares--Well!--(as soon +as she was within the door) Well! This is brilliant indeed!--This is +admirable!--Excellently contrived, upon my word. Nothing wanting. Could +not have imagined it.--So well lighted up!--Jane, Jane, look!--did you +ever see any thing? Oh! Mr. Weston, you must really have had Aladdin's +lamp. Good Mrs. Stokes would not know her own room again. I saw her as +I came in; she was standing in the entrance. 'Oh! Mrs. Stokes,' said +I--but I had not time for more." She was now met by Mrs. Weston.--"Very +well, I thank you, ma'am. I hope you are quite well. Very happy to hear +it. So afraid you might have a headache!--seeing you pass by so often, +and knowing how much trouble you must have. Delighted to hear it indeed. +Ah! dear Mrs. Elton, so obliged to you for the carriage!--excellent +time. Jane and I quite ready. Did not keep the horses a moment. Most +comfortable carriage.--Oh! and I am sure our thanks are due to you, +Mrs. Weston, on that score. Mrs. Elton had most kindly sent Jane a note, +or we should have been.--But two such offers in one day!--Never were +such neighbours. I said to my mother, 'Upon my word, ma'am--.' Thank +you, my mother is remarkably well. Gone to Mr. Woodhouse's. I made her +take her shawl--for the evenings are not warm--her large new shawl-- +Mrs. Dixon's wedding-present.--So kind of her to think of my mother! +Bought at Weymouth, you know--Mr. Dixon's choice. There were three +others, Jane says, which they hesitated about some time. Colonel +Campbell rather preferred an olive. My dear Jane, are you sure you did +not wet your feet?--It was but a drop or two, but I am so afraid:--but +Mr. Frank Churchill was so extremely--and there was a mat to step +upon--I shall never forget his extreme politeness.--Oh! Mr. Frank +Churchill, I must tell you my mother's spectacles have never been in +fault since; the rivet never came out again. My mother often talks of +your good-nature. Does not she, Jane?--Do not we often talk of Mr. Frank +Churchill?--Ah! here's Miss Woodhouse.--Dear Miss Woodhouse, how do +you do?--Very well I thank you, quite well. This is meeting quite +in fairy-land!--Such a transformation!--Must not compliment, I know +(eyeing Emma most complacently)--that would be rude--but upon my word, +Miss Woodhouse, you do look--how do you like Jane's hair?--You are +a judge.--She did it all herself. Quite wonderful how she does her +hair!--No hairdresser from London I think could.--Ah! Dr. Hughes I +declare--and Mrs. Hughes. Must go and speak to Dr. and Mrs. Hughes for a +moment.--How do you do? How do you do?--Very well, I thank you. This +is delightful, is not it?--Where's dear Mr. Richard?--Oh! there he is. +Don't disturb him. Much better employed talking to the young ladies. How +do you do, Mr. Richard?--I saw you the other day as you rode through +the town--Mrs. Otway, I protest!--and good Mr. Otway, and Miss Otway +and Miss Caroline.--Such a host of friends!--and Mr. George and Mr. +Arthur!--How do you do? How do you all do?--Quite well, I am much +obliged to you. Never better.--Don't I hear another carriage?--Who can +this be?--very likely the worthy Coles.--Upon my word, this is charming +to be standing about among such friends! And such a noble fire!--I am +quite roasted. No coffee, I thank you, for me--never take coffee.--A +little tea if you please, sir, by and bye,--no hurry--Oh! here it comes. +Every thing so good!" + +Frank Churchill returned to his station by Emma; and as soon as Miss +Bates was quiet, she found herself necessarily overhearing the discourse +of Mrs. Elton and Miss Fairfax, who were standing a little way behind +her.--He was thoughtful. Whether he were overhearing too, she could not +determine. After a good many compliments to Jane on her dress and look, +compliments very quietly and properly taken, Mrs. Elton was evidently +wanting to be complimented herself--and it was, "How do you like +my gown?--How do you like my trimming?--How has Wright done my +hair?"--with many other relative questions, all answered with patient +politeness. Mrs. Elton then said, "Nobody can think less of dress in +general than I do--but upon such an occasion as this, when every body's +eyes are so much upon me, and in compliment to the Westons--who I have +no doubt are giving this ball chiefly to do me honour--I would not wish +to be inferior to others. And I see very few pearls in the room except +mine.--So Frank Churchill is a capital dancer, I understand.--We shall +see if our styles suit.--A fine young man certainly is Frank Churchill. +I like him very well." + +At this moment Frank began talking so vigorously, that Emma could not +but imagine he had overheard his own praises, and did not want to hear +more;--and the voices of the ladies were drowned for a while, till +another suspension brought Mrs. Elton's tones again distinctly +forward.--Mr. Elton had just joined them, and his wife was exclaiming, + +"Oh! you have found us out at last, have you, in our seclusion?--I was +this moment telling Jane, I thought you would begin to be impatient for +tidings of us." + +"Jane!"--repeated Frank Churchill, with a look of surprize and +displeasure.--"That is easy--but Miss Fairfax does not disapprove it, I +suppose." + +"How do you like Mrs. Elton?" said Emma in a whisper. + +"Not at all." + +"You are ungrateful." + +"Ungrateful!--What do you mean?" Then changing from a frown to a +smile--"No, do not tell me--I do not want to know what you mean.--Where +is my father?--When are we to begin dancing?" + +Emma could hardly understand him; he seemed in an odd humour. He walked +off to find his father, but was quickly back again with both Mr. and +Mrs. Weston. He had met with them in a little perplexity, which must be +laid before Emma. It had just occurred to Mrs. Weston that Mrs. Elton +must be asked to begin the ball; that she would expect it; which +interfered with all their wishes of giving Emma that distinction.--Emma +heard the sad truth with fortitude. + +"And what are we to do for a proper partner for her?" said Mr. Weston. +"She will think Frank ought to ask her." + +Frank turned instantly to Emma, to claim her former promise; and +boasted himself an engaged man, which his father looked his most perfect +approbation of--and it then appeared that Mrs. Weston was wanting _him_ +to dance with Mrs. Elton himself, and that their business was to help to +persuade him into it, which was done pretty soon.--Mr. Weston and Mrs. +Elton led the way, Mr. Frank Churchill and Miss Woodhouse followed. +Emma must submit to stand second to Mrs. Elton, though she had always +considered the ball as peculiarly for her. It was almost enough to make +her think of marrying. Mrs. Elton had undoubtedly the advantage, at this +time, in vanity completely gratified; for though she had intended to +begin with Frank Churchill, she could not lose by the change. Mr. Weston +might be his son's superior.--In spite of this little rub, however, +Emma was smiling with enjoyment, delighted to see the respectable length +of the set as it was forming, and to feel that she had so many hours +of unusual festivity before her.--She was more disturbed by Mr. +Knightley's not dancing than by any thing else.--There he was, among +the standers-by, where he ought not to be; he ought to be dancing,--not +classing himself with the husbands, and fathers, and whist-players, who +were pretending to feel an interest in the dance till their rubbers were +made up,--so young as he looked!--He could not have appeared to greater +advantage perhaps anywhere, than where he had placed himself. His tall, +firm, upright figure, among the bulky forms and stooping shoulders of +the elderly men, was such as Emma felt must draw every body's eyes; +and, excepting her own partner, there was not one among the whole row of +young men who could be compared with him.--He moved a few steps nearer, +and those few steps were enough to prove in how gentlemanlike a manner, +with what natural grace, he must have danced, would he but take the +trouble.--Whenever she caught his eye, she forced him to smile; but +in general he was looking grave. She wished he could love a ballroom +better, and could like Frank Churchill better.--He seemed often +observing her. She must not flatter herself that he thought of her +dancing, but if he were criticising her behaviour, she did not feel +afraid. There was nothing like flirtation between her and her partner. +They seemed more like cheerful, easy friends, than lovers. That Frank +Churchill thought less of her than he had done, was indubitable. + +The ball proceeded pleasantly. The anxious cares, the incessant +attentions of Mrs. Weston, were not thrown away. Every body seemed +happy; and the praise of being a delightful ball, which is seldom +bestowed till after a ball has ceased to be, was repeatedly given in +the very beginning of the existence of this. Of very important, very +recordable events, it was not more productive than such meetings usually +are. There was one, however, which Emma thought something of.--The two +last dances before supper were begun, and Harriet had no partner;--the +only young lady sitting down;--and so equal had been hitherto the +number of dancers, that how there could be any one disengaged was the +wonder!--But Emma's wonder lessened soon afterwards, on seeing Mr. Elton +sauntering about. He would not ask Harriet to dance if it were possible +to be avoided: she was sure he would not--and she was expecting him +every moment to escape into the card-room. + +Escape, however, was not his plan. He came to the part of the room where +the sitters-by were collected, spoke to some, and walked about in front +of them, as if to shew his liberty, and his resolution of maintaining +it. He did not omit being sometimes directly before Miss Smith, or +speaking to those who were close to her.--Emma saw it. She was not yet +dancing; she was working her way up from the bottom, and had therefore +leisure to look around, and by only turning her head a little she saw +it all. When she was half-way up the set, the whole group were exactly +behind her, and she would no longer allow her eyes to watch; but Mr. +Elton was so near, that she heard every syllable of a dialogue which +just then took place between him and Mrs. Weston; and she perceived that +his wife, who was standing immediately above her, was not only +listening also, but even encouraging him by significant glances.--The +kind-hearted, gentle Mrs. Weston had left her seat to join him and say, +"Do not you dance, Mr. Elton?" to which his prompt reply was, "Most +readily, Mrs. Weston, if you will dance with me." + +"Me!--oh! no--I would get you a better partner than myself. I am no +dancer." + +"If Mrs. Gilbert wishes to dance," said he, "I shall have great +pleasure, I am sure--for, though beginning to feel myself rather an old +married man, and that my dancing days are over, it would give me very +great pleasure at any time to stand up with an old friend like Mrs. +Gilbert." + +"Mrs. Gilbert does not mean to dance, but there is a young lady +disengaged whom I should be very glad to see dancing--Miss Smith." "Miss +Smith!--oh!--I had not observed.--You are extremely obliging--and if I +were not an old married man.--But my dancing days are over, Mrs. Weston. +You will excuse me. Any thing else I should be most happy to do, at your +command--but my dancing days are over." + +Mrs. Weston said no more; and Emma could imagine with what surprize and +mortification she must be returning to her seat. This was Mr. Elton! the +amiable, obliging, gentle Mr. Elton.--She looked round for a moment; he +had joined Mr. Knightley at a little distance, and was arranging himself +for settled conversation, while smiles of high glee passed between him +and his wife. + +She would not look again. Her heart was in a glow, and she feared her +face might be as hot. + +In another moment a happier sight caught her;--Mr. Knightley leading +Harriet to the set!--Never had she been more surprized, seldom more +delighted, than at that instant. She was all pleasure and gratitude, +both for Harriet and herself, and longed to be thanking him; and though +too distant for speech, her countenance said much, as soon as she could +catch his eye again. + +His dancing proved to be just what she had believed it, extremely good; +and Harriet would have seemed almost too lucky, if it had not been for +the cruel state of things before, and for the very complete enjoyment +and very high sense of the distinction which her happy features +announced. It was not thrown away on her, she bounded higher than ever, +flew farther down the middle, and was in a continual course of smiles. + +Mr. Elton had retreated into the card-room, looking (Emma trusted) very +foolish. She did not think he was quite so hardened as his wife, though +growing very like her;--_she_ spoke some of her feelings, by observing +audibly to her partner, + +"Knightley has taken pity on poor little Miss Smith!--Very good-natured, +I declare." + +Supper was announced. The move began; and Miss Bates might be heard from +that moment, without interruption, till her being seated at table and +taking up her spoon. + +"Jane, Jane, my dear Jane, where are you?--Here is your tippet. Mrs. +Weston begs you to put on your tippet. She says she is afraid there will +be draughts in the passage, though every thing has been done--One door +nailed up--Quantities of matting--My dear Jane, indeed you must. +Mr. Churchill, oh! you are too obliging! How well you put it on!--so +gratified! Excellent dancing indeed!--Yes, my dear, I ran home, as I +said I should, to help grandmama to bed, and got back again, and +nobody missed me.--I set off without saying a word, just as I told you. +Grandmama was quite well, had a charming evening with Mr. Woodhouse, a +vast deal of chat, and backgammon.--Tea was made downstairs, biscuits +and baked apples and wine before she came away: amazing luck in some +of her throws: and she inquired a great deal about you, how you were +amused, and who were your partners. 'Oh!' said I, 'I shall not forestall +Jane; I left her dancing with Mr. George Otway; she will love to tell +you all about it herself to-morrow: her first partner was Mr. Elton, +I do not know who will ask her next, perhaps Mr. William Cox.' My dear +sir, you are too obliging.--Is there nobody you would not rather?--I am +not helpless. Sir, you are most kind. Upon my word, Jane on one arm, and +me on the other!--Stop, stop, let us stand a little back, Mrs. Elton is +going; dear Mrs. Elton, how elegant she looks!--Beautiful lace!--Now we +all follow in her train. Quite the queen of the evening!--Well, here we +are at the passage. Two steps, Jane, take care of the two steps. Oh! no, +there is but one. Well, I was persuaded there were two. How very odd! +I was convinced there were two, and there is but one. I never saw any +thing equal to the comfort and style--Candles everywhere.--I was telling +you of your grandmama, Jane,--There was a little disappointment.--The +baked apples and biscuits, excellent in their way, you know; but there +was a delicate fricassee of sweetbread and some asparagus brought in at +first, and good Mr. Woodhouse, not thinking the asparagus quite boiled +enough, sent it all out again. Now there is nothing grandmama loves +better than sweetbread and asparagus--so she was rather disappointed, +but we agreed we would not speak of it to any body, for fear of +its getting round to dear Miss Woodhouse, who would be so very much +concerned!--Well, this is brilliant! I am all amazement! could not have +supposed any thing!--Such elegance and profusion!--I have seen nothing +like it since--Well, where shall we sit? where shall we sit? Anywhere, +so that Jane is not in a draught. Where _I_ sit is of no consequence. +Oh! do you recommend this side?--Well, I am sure, Mr. Churchill--only +it seems too good--but just as you please. What you direct in this house +cannot be wrong. Dear Jane, how shall we ever recollect half the dishes +for grandmama? Soup too! Bless me! I should not be helped so soon, but +it smells most excellent, and I cannot help beginning." + +Emma had no opportunity of speaking to Mr. Knightley till after supper; +but, when they were all in the ballroom again, her eyes invited +him irresistibly to come to her and be thanked. He was warm in his +reprobation of Mr. Elton's conduct; it had been unpardonable rudeness; +and Mrs. Elton's looks also received the due share of censure. + +"They aimed at wounding more than Harriet," said he. "Emma, why is it +that they are your enemies?" + +He looked with smiling penetration; and, on receiving no answer, added, +"_She_ ought not to be angry with you, I suspect, whatever he may +be.--To that surmise, you say nothing, of course; but confess, Emma, +that you did want him to marry Harriet." + +"I did," replied Emma, "and they cannot forgive me." + +He shook his head; but there was a smile of indulgence with it, and he +only said, + +"I shall not scold you. I leave you to your own reflections." + +"Can you trust me with such flatterers?--Does my vain spirit ever tell +me I am wrong?" + +"Not your vain spirit, but your serious spirit.--If one leads you wrong, +I am sure the other tells you of it." + +"I do own myself to have been completely mistaken in Mr. Elton. There is +a littleness about him which you discovered, and which I did not: and I +was fully convinced of his being in love with Harriet. It was through a +series of strange blunders!" + +"And, in return for your acknowledging so much, I will do you the +justice to say, that you would have chosen for him better than he has +chosen for himself.--Harriet Smith has some first-rate qualities, which +Mrs. Elton is totally without. An unpretending, single-minded, artless +girl--infinitely to be preferred by any man of sense and taste to such a +woman as Mrs. Elton. I found Harriet more conversable than I expected." + +Emma was extremely gratified.--They were interrupted by the bustle of +Mr. Weston calling on every body to begin dancing again. + +"Come Miss Woodhouse, Miss Otway, Miss Fairfax, what are you all +doing?--Come Emma, set your companions the example. Every body is lazy! +Every body is asleep!" + +"I am ready," said Emma, "whenever I am wanted." + +"Whom are you going to dance with?" asked Mr. Knightley. + +She hesitated a moment, and then replied, "With you, if you will ask +me." + +"Will you?" said he, offering his hand. + +"Indeed I will. You have shewn that you can dance, and you know we are +not really so much brother and sister as to make it at all improper." + +"Brother and sister! no, indeed." + + + +CHAPTER III + + +This little explanation with Mr. Knightley gave Emma considerable +pleasure. It was one of the agreeable recollections of the ball, which +she walked about the lawn the next morning to enjoy.--She was extremely +glad that they had come to so good an understanding respecting the +Eltons, and that their opinions of both husband and wife were so much +alike; and his praise of Harriet, his concession in her favour, was +peculiarly gratifying. The impertinence of the Eltons, which for a few +minutes had threatened to ruin the rest of her evening, had been the +occasion of some of its highest satisfactions; and she looked forward +to another happy result--the cure of Harriet's infatuation.--From +Harriet's manner of speaking of the circumstance before they quitted the +ballroom, she had strong hopes. It seemed as if her eyes were suddenly +opened, and she were enabled to see that Mr. Elton was not the superior +creature she had believed him. The fever was over, and Emma could +harbour little fear of the pulse being quickened again by injurious +courtesy. She depended on the evil feelings of the Eltons for +supplying all the discipline of pointed neglect that could be farther +requisite.--Harriet rational, Frank Churchill not too much in love, and +Mr. Knightley not wanting to quarrel with her, how very happy a summer +must be before her! + +She was not to see Frank Churchill this morning. He had told her that he +could not allow himself the pleasure of stopping at Hartfield, as he was +to be at home by the middle of the day. She did not regret it. + +Having arranged all these matters, looked them through, and put them all +to rights, she was just turning to the house with spirits freshened up +for the demands of the two little boys, as well as of their grandpapa, +when the great iron sweep-gate opened, and two persons entered whom she +had never less expected to see together--Frank Churchill, with Harriet +leaning on his arm--actually Harriet!--A moment sufficed to convince +her that something extraordinary had happened. Harriet looked white +and frightened, and he was trying to cheer her.--The iron gates and the +front-door were not twenty yards asunder;--they were all three soon in +the hall, and Harriet immediately sinking into a chair fainted away. + +A young lady who faints, must be recovered; questions must be answered, +and surprizes be explained. Such events are very interesting, but the +suspense of them cannot last long. A few minutes made Emma acquainted +with the whole. + +Miss Smith, and Miss Bickerton, another parlour boarder at Mrs. +Goddard's, who had been also at the ball, had walked out together, and +taken a road, the Richmond road, which, though apparently public enough +for safety, had led them into alarm.--About half a mile beyond Highbury, +making a sudden turn, and deeply shaded by elms on each side, it became +for a considerable stretch very retired; and when the young ladies +had advanced some way into it, they had suddenly perceived at a small +distance before them, on a broader patch of greensward by the side, a +party of gipsies. A child on the watch, came towards them to beg; and +Miss Bickerton, excessively frightened, gave a great scream, and calling +on Harriet to follow her, ran up a steep bank, cleared a slight hedge at +the top, and made the best of her way by a short cut back to Highbury. +But poor Harriet could not follow. She had suffered very much from cramp +after dancing, and her first attempt to mount the bank brought on such +a return of it as made her absolutely powerless--and in this state, and +exceedingly terrified, she had been obliged to remain. + +How the trampers might have behaved, had the young ladies been more +courageous, must be doubtful; but such an invitation for attack could +not be resisted; and Harriet was soon assailed by half a dozen children, +headed by a stout woman and a great boy, all clamorous, and impertinent +in look, though not absolutely in word.--More and more frightened, she +immediately promised them money, and taking out her purse, gave them a +shilling, and begged them not to want more, or to use her ill.--She +was then able to walk, though but slowly, and was moving away--but her +terror and her purse were too tempting, and she was followed, or rather +surrounded, by the whole gang, demanding more. + +In this state Frank Churchill had found her, she trembling and +conditioning, they loud and insolent. By a most fortunate chance his +leaving Highbury had been delayed so as to bring him to her assistance +at this critical moment. The pleasantness of the morning had induced +him to walk forward, and leave his horses to meet him by another road, +a mile or two beyond Highbury--and happening to have borrowed a pair +of scissors the night before of Miss Bates, and to have forgotten to +restore them, he had been obliged to stop at her door, and go in for a +few minutes: he was therefore later than he had intended; and being +on foot, was unseen by the whole party till almost close to them. The +terror which the woman and boy had been creating in Harriet was then +their own portion. He had left them completely frightened; and Harriet +eagerly clinging to him, and hardly able to speak, had just strength +enough to reach Hartfield, before her spirits were quite overcome. +It was his idea to bring her to Hartfield: he had thought of no other +place. + +This was the amount of the whole story,--of his communication and of +Harriet's as soon as she had recovered her senses and speech.--He dared +not stay longer than to see her well; these several delays left him +not another minute to lose; and Emma engaging to give assurance of her +safety to Mrs. Goddard, and notice of there being such a set of people +in the neighbourhood to Mr. Knightley, he set off, with all the grateful +blessings that she could utter for her friend and herself. + +Such an adventure as this,--a fine young man and a lovely young woman +thrown together in such a way, could hardly fail of suggesting certain +ideas to the coldest heart and the steadiest brain. So Emma thought, at +least. Could a linguist, could a grammarian, could even a mathematician +have seen what she did, have witnessed their appearance together, and +heard their history of it, without feeling that circumstances had been +at work to make them peculiarly interesting to each other?--How much +more must an imaginist, like herself, be on fire with speculation and +foresight!--especially with such a groundwork of anticipation as her +mind had already made. + +It was a very extraordinary thing! Nothing of the sort had ever +occurred before to any young ladies in the place, within her memory; no +rencontre, no alarm of the kind;--and now it had happened to the very +person, and at the very hour, when the other very person was chancing +to pass by to rescue her!--It certainly was very extraordinary!--And +knowing, as she did, the favourable state of mind of each at this +period, it struck her the more. He was wishing to get the better of his +attachment to herself, she just recovering from her mania for Mr. Elton. +It seemed as if every thing united to promise the most interesting +consequences. It was not possible that the occurrence should not be +strongly recommending each to the other. + +In the few minutes' conversation which she had yet had with him, while +Harriet had been partially insensible, he had spoken of her terror, +her naivete, her fervour as she seized and clung to his arm, with a +sensibility amused and delighted; and just at last, after Harriet's +own account had been given, he had expressed his indignation at the +abominable folly of Miss Bickerton in the warmest terms. Every thing was +to take its natural course, however, neither impelled nor assisted. +She would not stir a step, nor drop a hint. No, she had had enough of +interference. There could be no harm in a scheme, a mere passive scheme. +It was no more than a wish. Beyond it she would on no account proceed. + +Emma's first resolution was to keep her father from the knowledge of +what had passed,--aware of the anxiety and alarm it would occasion: but +she soon felt that concealment must be impossible. Within half an hour +it was known all over Highbury. It was the very event to engage those +who talk most, the young and the low; and all the youth and servants in +the place were soon in the happiness of frightful news. The last night's +ball seemed lost in the gipsies. Poor Mr. Woodhouse trembled as he sat, +and, as Emma had foreseen, would scarcely be satisfied without their +promising never to go beyond the shrubbery again. It was some comfort +to him that many inquiries after himself and Miss Woodhouse (for his +neighbours knew that he loved to be inquired after), as well as Miss +Smith, were coming in during the rest of the day; and he had +the pleasure of returning for answer, that they were all very +indifferent--which, though not exactly true, for she was perfectly well, +and Harriet not much otherwise, Emma would not interfere with. She had +an unhappy state of health in general for the child of such a man, +for she hardly knew what indisposition was; and if he did not invent +illnesses for her, she could make no figure in a message. + +The gipsies did not wait for the operations of justice; they took +themselves off in a hurry. The young ladies of Highbury might have +walked again in safety before their panic began, and the whole history +dwindled soon into a matter of little importance but to Emma and her +nephews:--in her imagination it maintained its ground, and Henry and +John were still asking every day for the story of Harriet and the +gipsies, and still tenaciously setting her right if she varied in the +slightest particular from the original recital. + + + +CHAPTER IV + + +A very few days had passed after this adventure, when Harriet came one +morning to Emma with a small parcel in her hand, and after sitting down +and hesitating, thus began: + +"Miss Woodhouse--if you are at leisure--I have something that I should +like to tell you--a sort of confession to make--and then, you know, it +will be over." + +Emma was a good deal surprized; but begged her to speak. There was a +seriousness in Harriet's manner which prepared her, quite as much as her +words, for something more than ordinary. + +"It is my duty, and I am sure it is my wish," she continued, "to have +no reserves with you on this subject. As I am happily quite an altered +creature in _one_ _respect_, it is very fit that you should have +the satisfaction of knowing it. I do not want to say more than is +necessary--I am too much ashamed of having given way as I have done, and +I dare say you understand me." + +"Yes," said Emma, "I hope I do." + +"How I could so long a time be fancying myself!..." cried Harriet, +warmly. "It seems like madness! I can see nothing at all extraordinary +in him now.--I do not care whether I meet him or not--except that of the +two I had rather not see him--and indeed I would go any distance round +to avoid him--but I do not envy his wife in the least; I neither admire +her nor envy her, as I have done: she is very charming, I dare say, and +all that, but I think her very ill-tempered and disagreeable--I shall +never forget her look the other night!--However, I assure you, Miss +Woodhouse, I wish her no evil.--No, let them be ever so happy together, +it will not give me another moment's pang: and to convince you that I +have been speaking truth, I am now going to destroy--what I ought to +have destroyed long ago--what I ought never to have kept--I know that +very well (blushing as she spoke).--However, now I will destroy it +all--and it is my particular wish to do it in your presence, that you +may see how rational I am grown. Cannot you guess what this parcel +holds?" said she, with a conscious look. + +"Not the least in the world.--Did he ever give you any thing?" + +"No--I cannot call them gifts; but they are things that I have valued +very much." + +She held the parcel towards her, and Emma read the words _Most_ +_precious_ _treasures_ on the top. Her curiosity was greatly excited. +Harriet unfolded the parcel, and she looked on with impatience. Within +abundance of silver paper was a pretty little Tunbridge-ware box, +which Harriet opened: it was well lined with the softest cotton; but, +excepting the cotton, Emma saw only a small piece of court-plaister. + +"Now," said Harriet, "you _must_ recollect." + +"No, indeed I do not." + +"Dear me! I should not have thought it possible you could forget what +passed in this very room about court-plaister, one of the very last +times we ever met in it!--It was but a very few days before I had my +sore throat--just before Mr. and Mrs. John Knightley came--I think the +very evening.--Do not you remember his cutting his finger with your new +penknife, and your recommending court-plaister?--But, as you had none +about you, and knew I had, you desired me to supply him; and so I took +mine out and cut him a piece; but it was a great deal too large, and he +cut it smaller, and kept playing some time with what was left, before he +gave it back to me. And so then, in my nonsense, I could not help making +a treasure of it--so I put it by never to be used, and looked at it now +and then as a great treat." + +"My dearest Harriet!" cried Emma, putting her hand before her face, +and jumping up, "you make me more ashamed of myself than I can bear. +Remember it? Aye, I remember it all now; all, except your saving this +relic--I knew nothing of that till this moment--but the cutting the +finger, and my recommending court-plaister, and saying I had none +about me!--Oh! my sins, my sins!--And I had plenty all the while in my +pocket!--One of my senseless tricks!--I deserve to be under a continual +blush all the rest of my life.--Well--(sitting down again)--go on--what +else?" + +"And had you really some at hand yourself? I am sure I never suspected +it, you did it so naturally." + +"And so you actually put this piece of court-plaister by for his sake!" +said Emma, recovering from her state of shame and feeling divided +between wonder and amusement. And secretly she added to herself, "Lord +bless me! when should I ever have thought of putting by in cotton a +piece of court-plaister that Frank Churchill had been pulling about! I +never was equal to this." + +"Here," resumed Harriet, turning to her box again, "here is something +still more valuable, I mean that _has_ _been_ more valuable, because +this is what did really once belong to him, which the court-plaister +never did." + +Emma was quite eager to see this superior treasure. It was the end of an +old pencil,--the part without any lead. + +"This was really his," said Harriet.--"Do not you remember one +morning?--no, I dare say you do not. But one morning--I forget exactly +the day--but perhaps it was the Tuesday or Wednesday before _that_ +_evening_, he wanted to make a memorandum in his pocket-book; it was +about spruce-beer. Mr. Knightley had been telling him something about +brewing spruce-beer, and he wanted to put it down; but when he took out +his pencil, there was so little lead that he soon cut it all away, and +it would not do, so you lent him another, and this was left upon the +table as good for nothing. But I kept my eye on it; and, as soon as I +dared, caught it up, and never parted with it again from that moment." + +"I do remember it," cried Emma; "I perfectly remember it.--Talking +about spruce-beer.--Oh! yes--Mr. Knightley and I both saying we +liked it, and Mr. Elton's seeming resolved to learn to like it too. I +perfectly remember it.--Stop; Mr. Knightley was standing just here, was +not he? I have an idea he was standing just here." + +"Ah! I do not know. I cannot recollect.--It is very odd, but I cannot +recollect.--Mr. Elton was sitting here, I remember, much about where I +am now."-- + +"Well, go on." + +"Oh! that's all. I have nothing more to shew you, or to say--except that +I am now going to throw them both behind the fire, and I wish you to see +me do it." + +"My poor dear Harriet! and have you actually found happiness in +treasuring up these things?" + +"Yes, simpleton as I was!--but I am quite ashamed of it now, and wish I +could forget as easily as I can burn them. It was very wrong of me, you +know, to keep any remembrances, after he was married. I knew it was--but +had not resolution enough to part with them." + +"But, Harriet, is it necessary to burn the court-plaister?--I have not +a word to say for the bit of old pencil, but the court-plaister might be +useful." + +"I shall be happier to burn it," replied Harriet. "It has a disagreeable +look to me. I must get rid of every thing.--There it goes, and there is +an end, thank Heaven! of Mr. Elton." + +"And when," thought Emma, "will there be a beginning of Mr. Churchill?" + +She had soon afterwards reason to believe that the beginning was already +made, and could not but hope that the gipsy, though she had _told_ no +fortune, might be proved to have made Harriet's.--About a fortnight +after the alarm, they came to a sufficient explanation, and quite +undesignedly. Emma was not thinking of it at the moment, which made the +information she received more valuable. She merely said, in the course +of some trivial chat, "Well, Harriet, whenever you marry I would advise +you to do so and so"--and thought no more of it, till after a minute's +silence she heard Harriet say in a very serious tone, "I shall never +marry." + +Emma then looked up, and immediately saw how it was; and after a +moment's debate, as to whether it should pass unnoticed or not, replied, + +"Never marry!--This is a new resolution." + +"It is one that I shall never change, however." + +After another short hesitation, "I hope it does not proceed from--I hope +it is not in compliment to Mr. Elton?" + +"Mr. Elton indeed!" cried Harriet indignantly.--"Oh! no"--and Emma could +just catch the words, "so superior to Mr. Elton!" + +She then took a longer time for consideration. Should she proceed no +farther?--should she let it pass, and seem to suspect nothing?--Perhaps +Harriet might think her cold or angry if she did; or perhaps if she were +totally silent, it might only drive Harriet into asking her to hear too +much; and against any thing like such an unreserve as had been, such +an open and frequent discussion of hopes and chances, she was perfectly +resolved.--She believed it would be wiser for her to say and know at +once, all that she meant to say and know. Plain dealing was always +best. She had previously determined how far she would proceed, on any +application of the sort; and it would be safer for both, to have the +judicious law of her own brain laid down with speed.--She was decided, +and thus spoke-- + +"Harriet, I will not affect to be in doubt of your meaning. Your +resolution, or rather your expectation of never marrying, results from +an idea that the person whom you might prefer, would be too greatly your +superior in situation to think of you. Is not it so?" + +"Oh! Miss Woodhouse, believe me I have not the presumption to suppose-- +Indeed I am not so mad.--But it is a pleasure to me to admire him at a +distance--and to think of his infinite superiority to all the rest of +the world, with the gratitude, wonder, and veneration, which are so +proper, in me especially." + +"I am not at all surprized at you, Harriet. The service he rendered you +was enough to warm your heart." + +"Service! oh! it was such an inexpressible obligation!--The very +recollection of it, and all that I felt at the time--when I saw him +coming--his noble look--and my wretchedness before. Such a change! In +one moment such a change! From perfect misery to perfect happiness!" + +"It is very natural. It is natural, and it is honourable.--Yes, +honourable, I think, to chuse so well and so gratefully.--But that +it will be a fortunate preference is more than I can promise. I do not +advise you to give way to it, Harriet. I do not by any means engage +for its being returned. Consider what you are about. Perhaps it will be +wisest in you to check your feelings while you can: at any rate do not +let them carry you far, unless you are persuaded of his liking you. Be +observant of him. Let his behaviour be the guide of your sensations. I +give you this caution now, because I shall never speak to you again on +the subject. I am determined against all interference. Henceforward I +know nothing of the matter. Let no name ever pass our lips. We were very +wrong before; we will be cautious now.--He is your superior, no doubt, +and there do seem objections and obstacles of a very serious nature; but +yet, Harriet, more wonderful things have taken place, there have been +matches of greater disparity. But take care of yourself. I would not +have you too sanguine; though, however it may end, be assured your +raising your thoughts to _him_, is a mark of good taste which I shall +always know how to value." + +Harriet kissed her hand in silent and submissive gratitude. Emma was +very decided in thinking such an attachment no bad thing for her friend. +Its tendency would be to raise and refine her mind--and it must be +saving her from the danger of degradation. + + + +CHAPTER V + + +In this state of schemes, and hopes, and connivance, June opened upon +Hartfield. To Highbury in general it brought no material change. The +Eltons were still talking of a visit from the Sucklings, and of the use +to be made of their barouche-landau; and Jane Fairfax was still at her +grandmother's; and as the return of the Campbells from Ireland was again +delayed, and August, instead of Midsummer, fixed for it, she was likely +to remain there full two months longer, provided at least she were able +to defeat Mrs. Elton's activity in her service, and save herself from +being hurried into a delightful situation against her will. + +Mr. Knightley, who, for some reason best known to himself, had certainly +taken an early dislike to Frank Churchill, was only growing to dislike +him more. He began to suspect him of some double dealing in his pursuit +of Emma. That Emma was his object appeared indisputable. Every thing +declared it; his own attentions, his father's hints, his mother-in-law's +guarded silence; it was all in unison; words, conduct, discretion, and +indiscretion, told the same story. But while so many were devoting him +to Emma, and Emma herself making him over to Harriet, Mr. Knightley +began to suspect him of some inclination to trifle with Jane Fairfax. He +could not understand it; but there were symptoms of intelligence between +them--he thought so at least--symptoms of admiration on his side, which, +having once observed, he could not persuade himself to think entirely +void of meaning, however he might wish to escape any of Emma's errors +of imagination. _She_ was not present when the suspicion first arose. +He was dining with the Randalls family, and Jane, at the Eltons'; and he +had seen a look, more than a single look, at Miss Fairfax, which, from +the admirer of Miss Woodhouse, seemed somewhat out of place. When he was +again in their company, he could not help remembering what he had seen; +nor could he avoid observations which, unless it were like Cowper and +his fire at twilight, + +"Myself creating what I saw," + +brought him yet stronger suspicion of there being a something of private +liking, of private understanding even, between Frank Churchill and Jane. + +He had walked up one day after dinner, as he very often did, to spend +his evening at Hartfield. Emma and Harriet were going to walk; he joined +them; and, on returning, they fell in with a larger party, who, like +themselves, judged it wisest to take their exercise early, as the +weather threatened rain; Mr. and Mrs. Weston and their son, Miss Bates +and her niece, who had accidentally met. They all united; and, on +reaching Hartfield gates, Emma, who knew it was exactly the sort of +visiting that would be welcome to her father, pressed them all to go in +and drink tea with him. The Randalls party agreed to it immediately; and +after a pretty long speech from Miss Bates, which few persons listened +to, she also found it possible to accept dear Miss Woodhouse's most +obliging invitation. + +As they were turning into the grounds, Mr. Perry passed by on horseback. +The gentlemen spoke of his horse. + +"By the bye," said Frank Churchill to Mrs. Weston presently, "what +became of Mr. Perry's plan of setting up his carriage?" + +Mrs. Weston looked surprized, and said, "I did not know that he ever had +any such plan." + +"Nay, I had it from you. You wrote me word of it three months ago." + +"Me! impossible!" + +"Indeed you did. I remember it perfectly. You mentioned it as what +was certainly to be very soon. Mrs. Perry had told somebody, and was +extremely happy about it. It was owing to _her_ persuasion, as she +thought his being out in bad weather did him a great deal of harm. You +must remember it now?" + +"Upon my word I never heard of it till this moment." + +"Never! really, never!--Bless me! how could it be?--Then I must have +dreamt it--but I was completely persuaded--Miss Smith, you walk as if +you were tired. You will not be sorry to find yourself at home." + +"What is this?--What is this?" cried Mr. Weston, "about Perry and a +carriage? Is Perry going to set up his carriage, Frank? I am glad he can +afford it. You had it from himself, had you?" + +"No, sir," replied his son, laughing, "I seem to have had it from +nobody.--Very odd!--I really was persuaded of Mrs. Weston's having +mentioned it in one of her letters to Enscombe, many weeks ago, with all +these particulars--but as she declares she never heard a syllable of +it before, of course it must have been a dream. I am a great dreamer. +I dream of every body at Highbury when I am away--and when I have gone +through my particular friends, then I begin dreaming of Mr. and Mrs. +Perry." + +"It is odd though," observed his father, "that you should have had such +a regular connected dream about people whom it was not very likely you +should be thinking of at Enscombe. Perry's setting up his carriage! and +his wife's persuading him to it, out of care for his health--just +what will happen, I have no doubt, some time or other; only a little +premature. What an air of probability sometimes runs through a dream! +And at others, what a heap of absurdities it is! Well, Frank, your dream +certainly shews that Highbury is in your thoughts when you are absent. +Emma, you are a great dreamer, I think?" + +Emma was out of hearing. She had hurried on before her guests to +prepare her father for their appearance, and was beyond the reach of Mr. +Weston's hint. + +"Why, to own the truth," cried Miss Bates, who had been trying in vain +to be heard the last two minutes, "if I must speak on this subject, +there is no denying that Mr. Frank Churchill might have--I do not mean +to say that he did not dream it--I am sure I have sometimes the oddest +dreams in the world--but if I am questioned about it, I must acknowledge +that there was such an idea last spring; for Mrs. Perry herself +mentioned it to my mother, and the Coles knew of it as well as +ourselves--but it was quite a secret, known to nobody else, and only +thought of about three days. Mrs. Perry was very anxious that he should +have a carriage, and came to my mother in great spirits one morning +because she thought she had prevailed. Jane, don't you remember +grandmama's telling us of it when we got home? I forget where we +had been walking to--very likely to Randalls; yes, I think it was to +Randalls. Mrs. Perry was always particularly fond of my mother--indeed +I do not know who is not--and she had mentioned it to her in confidence; +she had no objection to her telling us, of course, but it was not to go +beyond: and, from that day to this, I never mentioned it to a soul that +I know of. At the same time, I will not positively answer for my having +never dropt a hint, because I know I do sometimes pop out a thing before +I am aware. I am a talker, you know; I am rather a talker; and now and +then I have let a thing escape me which I should not. I am not like +Jane; I wish I were. I will answer for it _she_ never betrayed the least +thing in the world. Where is she?--Oh! just behind. Perfectly remember +Mrs. Perry's coming.--Extraordinary dream, indeed!" + +They were entering the hall. Mr. Knightley's eyes had preceded Miss +Bates's in a glance at Jane. From Frank Churchill's face, where +he thought he saw confusion suppressed or laughed away, he had +involuntarily turned to hers; but she was indeed behind, and too busy +with her shawl. Mr. Weston had walked in. The two other gentlemen waited +at the door to let her pass. Mr. Knightley suspected in Frank +Churchill the determination of catching her eye--he seemed watching her +intently--in vain, however, if it were so--Jane passed between them +into the hall, and looked at neither. + +There was no time for farther remark or explanation. The dream must be +borne with, and Mr. Knightley must take his seat with the rest round the +large modern circular table which Emma had introduced at Hartfield, and +which none but Emma could have had power to place there and persuade her +father to use, instead of the small-sized Pembroke, on which two of his +daily meals had, for forty years been crowded. Tea passed pleasantly, +and nobody seemed in a hurry to move. + +"Miss Woodhouse," said Frank Churchill, after examining a table behind +him, which he could reach as he sat, "have your nephews taken away their +alphabets--their box of letters? It used to stand here. Where is it? +This is a sort of dull-looking evening, that ought to be treated rather +as winter than summer. We had great amusement with those letters one +morning. I want to puzzle you again." + +Emma was pleased with the thought; and producing the box, the table +was quickly scattered over with alphabets, which no one seemed so much +disposed to employ as their two selves. They were rapidly forming words +for each other, or for any body else who would be puzzled. The quietness +of the game made it particularly eligible for Mr. Woodhouse, who had +often been distressed by the more animated sort, which Mr. Weston had +occasionally introduced, and who now sat happily occupied in lamenting, +with tender melancholy, over the departure of the "poor little boys," +or in fondly pointing out, as he took up any stray letter near him, how +beautifully Emma had written it. + +Frank Churchill placed a word before Miss Fairfax. She gave a slight +glance round the table, and applied herself to it. Frank was next to +Emma, Jane opposite to them--and Mr. Knightley so placed as to see them +all; and it was his object to see as much as he could, with as little +apparent observation. The word was discovered, and with a faint smile +pushed away. If meant to be immediately mixed with the others, and +buried from sight, she should have looked on the table instead of +looking just across, for it was not mixed; and Harriet, eager after +every fresh word, and finding out none, directly took it up, and fell to +work. She was sitting by Mr. Knightley, and turned to him for help. The +word was _blunder_; and as Harriet exultingly proclaimed it, there was a +blush on Jane's cheek which gave it a meaning not otherwise ostensible. +Mr. Knightley connected it with the dream; but how it could all be, +was beyond his comprehension. How the delicacy, the discretion of his +favourite could have been so lain asleep! He feared there must be some +decided involvement. Disingenuousness and double dealing seemed to meet +him at every turn. These letters were but the vehicle for gallantry and +trick. It was a child's play, chosen to conceal a deeper game on Frank +Churchill's part. + +With great indignation did he continue to observe him; with great alarm +and distrust, to observe also his two blinded companions. He saw a short +word prepared for Emma, and given to her with a look sly and demure. He +saw that Emma had soon made it out, and found it highly entertaining, +though it was something which she judged it proper to appear to censure; +for she said, "Nonsense! for shame!" He heard Frank Churchill next say, +with a glance towards Jane, "I will give it to her--shall I?"--and as +clearly heard Emma opposing it with eager laughing warmth. "No, no, you +must not; you shall not, indeed." + +It was done however. This gallant young man, who seemed to love without +feeling, and to recommend himself without complaisance, directly handed +over the word to Miss Fairfax, and with a particular degree of sedate +civility entreated her to study it. Mr. Knightley's excessive curiosity +to know what this word might be, made him seize every possible moment +for darting his eye towards it, and it was not long before he saw it +to be _Dixon_. Jane Fairfax's perception seemed to accompany his; +her comprehension was certainly more equal to the covert meaning, +the superior intelligence, of those five letters so arranged. She was +evidently displeased; looked up, and seeing herself watched, blushed +more deeply than he had ever perceived her, and saying only, "I did not +know that proper names were allowed," pushed away the letters with even +an angry spirit, and looked resolved to be engaged by no other word +that could be offered. Her face was averted from those who had made the +attack, and turned towards her aunt. + +"Aye, very true, my dear," cried the latter, though Jane had not spoken +a word--"I was just going to say the same thing. It is time for us to be +going indeed. The evening is closing in, and grandmama will be looking +for us. My dear sir, you are too obliging. We really must wish you good +night." + +Jane's alertness in moving, proved her as ready as her aunt had +preconceived. She was immediately up, and wanting to quit the table; but +so many were also moving, that she could not get away; and Mr. Knightley +thought he saw another collection of letters anxiously pushed towards +her, and resolutely swept away by her unexamined. She was afterwards +looking for her shawl--Frank Churchill was looking also--it was growing +dusk, and the room was in confusion; and how they parted, Mr. Knightley +could not tell. + +He remained at Hartfield after all the rest, his thoughts full of +what he had seen; so full, that when the candles came to assist his +observations, he must--yes, he certainly must, as a friend--an anxious +friend--give Emma some hint, ask her some question. He could not see her +in a situation of such danger, without trying to preserve her. It was +his duty. + +"Pray, Emma," said he, "may I ask in what lay the great amusement, the +poignant sting of the last word given to you and Miss Fairfax? I saw the +word, and am curious to know how it could be so very entertaining to the +one, and so very distressing to the other." + +Emma was extremely confused. She could not endure to give him the true +explanation; for though her suspicions were by no means removed, she was +really ashamed of having ever imparted them. + +"Oh!" she cried in evident embarrassment, "it all meant nothing; a mere +joke among ourselves." + +"The joke," he replied gravely, "seemed confined to you and Mr. +Churchill." + +He had hoped she would speak again, but she did not. She would rather +busy herself about any thing than speak. He sat a little while in +doubt. A variety of evils crossed his mind. Interference--fruitless +interference. Emma's confusion, and the acknowledged intimacy, seemed to +declare her affection engaged. Yet he would speak. He owed it to her, +to risk any thing that might be involved in an unwelcome interference, +rather than her welfare; to encounter any thing, rather than the +remembrance of neglect in such a cause. + +"My dear Emma," said he at last, with earnest kindness, "do you +think you perfectly understand the degree of acquaintance between the +gentleman and lady we have been speaking of?" + +"Between Mr. Frank Churchill and Miss Fairfax? Oh! yes, perfectly.--Why +do you make a doubt of it?" + +"Have you never at any time had reason to think that he admired her, or +that she admired him?" + +"Never, never!" she cried with a most open eagerness--"Never, for the +twentieth part of a moment, did such an idea occur to me. And how could +it possibly come into your head?" + +"I have lately imagined that I saw symptoms of attachment between +them--certain expressive looks, which I did not believe meant to be +public." + +"Oh! you amuse me excessively. I am delighted to find that you can +vouchsafe to let your imagination wander--but it will not do--very sorry +to check you in your first essay--but indeed it will not do. There is no +admiration between them, I do assure you; and the appearances which +have caught you, have arisen from some peculiar circumstances--feelings +rather of a totally different nature--it is impossible exactly to +explain:--there is a good deal of nonsense in it--but the part which is +capable of being communicated, which is sense, is, that they are as far +from any attachment or admiration for one another, as any two beings in +the world can be. That is, I _presume_ it to be so on her side, and I +can _answer_ for its being so on his. I will answer for the gentleman's +indifference." + +She spoke with a confidence which staggered, with a satisfaction +which silenced, Mr. Knightley. She was in gay spirits, and would have +prolonged the conversation, wanting to hear the particulars of his +suspicions, every look described, and all the wheres and hows of a +circumstance which highly entertained her: but his gaiety did not meet +hers. He found he could not be useful, and his feelings were too much +irritated for talking. That he might not be irritated into an absolute +fever, by the fire which Mr. Woodhouse's tender habits required almost +every evening throughout the year, he soon afterwards took a hasty +leave, and walked home to the coolness and solitude of Donwell Abbey. + + + +CHAPTER VI + + +After being long fed with hopes of a speedy visit from Mr. and Mrs. +Suckling, the Highbury world were obliged to endure the mortification +of hearing that they could not possibly come till the autumn. No such +importation of novelties could enrich their intellectual stores at +present. In the daily interchange of news, they must be again restricted +to the other topics with which for a while the Sucklings' coming had +been united, such as the last accounts of Mrs. Churchill, whose health +seemed every day to supply a different report, and the situation of Mrs. +Weston, whose happiness it was to be hoped might eventually be as much +increased by the arrival of a child, as that of all her neighbours was +by the approach of it. + +Mrs. Elton was very much disappointed. It was the delay of a great deal +of pleasure and parade. Her introductions and recommendations must all +wait, and every projected party be still only talked of. So she thought +at first;--but a little consideration convinced her that every thing +need not be put off. Why should not they explore to Box Hill though +the Sucklings did not come? They could go there again with them in the +autumn. It was settled that they should go to Box Hill. That there was +to be such a party had been long generally known: it had even given the +idea of another. Emma had never been to Box Hill; she wished to see what +every body found so well worth seeing, and she and Mr. Weston had agreed +to chuse some fine morning and drive thither. Two or three more of the +chosen only were to be admitted to join them, and it was to be done in a +quiet, unpretending, elegant way, infinitely superior to the bustle and +preparation, the regular eating and drinking, and picnic parade of the +Eltons and the Sucklings. + +This was so very well understood between them, that Emma could not but +feel some surprise, and a little displeasure, on hearing from Mr. Weston +that he had been proposing to Mrs. Elton, as her brother and sister had +failed her, that the two parties should unite, and go together; and that +as Mrs. Elton had very readily acceded to it, so it was to be, if she +had no objection. Now, as her objection was nothing but her very great +dislike of Mrs. Elton, of which Mr. Weston must already be perfectly +aware, it was not worth bringing forward again:--it could not be done +without a reproof to him, which would be giving pain to his wife; and +she found herself therefore obliged to consent to an arrangement which +she would have done a great deal to avoid; an arrangement which would +probably expose her even to the degradation of being said to be of Mrs. +Elton's party! Every feeling was offended; and the forbearance of her +outward submission left a heavy arrear due of secret severity in her +reflections on the unmanageable goodwill of Mr. Weston's temper. + +"I am glad you approve of what I have done," said he very comfortably. +"But I thought you would. Such schemes as these are nothing without +numbers. One cannot have too large a party. A large party secures its +own amusement. And she is a good-natured woman after all. One could not +leave her out." + +Emma denied none of it aloud, and agreed to none of it in private. + +It was now the middle of June, and the weather fine; and Mrs. Elton +was growing impatient to name the day, and settle with Mr. Weston as to +pigeon-pies and cold lamb, when a lame carriage-horse threw every thing +into sad uncertainty. It might be weeks, it might be only a few days, +before the horse were useable; but no preparations could be ventured +on, and it was all melancholy stagnation. Mrs. Elton's resources were +inadequate to such an attack. + +"Is not this most vexatious, Knightley?" she cried.--"And such weather +for exploring!--These delays and disappointments are quite odious. What +are we to do?--The year will wear away at this rate, and nothing +done. Before this time last year I assure you we had had a delightful +exploring party from Maple Grove to Kings Weston." + +"You had better explore to Donwell," replied Mr. Knightley. "That may +be done without horses. Come, and eat my strawberries. They are ripening +fast." + +If Mr. Knightley did not begin seriously, he was obliged to proceed so, +for his proposal was caught at with delight; and the "Oh! I should like +it of all things," was not plainer in words than manner. Donwell was +famous for its strawberry-beds, which seemed a plea for the invitation: +but no plea was necessary; cabbage-beds would have been enough to tempt +the lady, who only wanted to be going somewhere. She promised him again +and again to come--much oftener than he doubted--and was extremely +gratified by such a proof of intimacy, such a distinguishing compliment +as she chose to consider it. + +"You may depend upon me," said she. "I certainly will come. Name your +day, and I will come. You will allow me to bring Jane Fairfax?" + +"I cannot name a day," said he, "till I have spoken to some others whom +I would wish to meet you." + +"Oh! leave all that to me. Only give me a carte-blanche.--I am Lady +Patroness, you know. It is my party. I will bring friends with me." + +"I hope you will bring Elton," said he: "but I will not trouble you to +give any other invitations." + +"Oh! now you are looking very sly. But consider--you need not be afraid +of delegating power to _me_. I am no young lady on her preferment. +Married women, you know, may be safely authorised. It is my party. Leave +it all to me. I will invite your guests." + +"No,"--he calmly replied,--"there is but one married woman in the world +whom I can ever allow to invite what guests she pleases to Donwell, and +that one is--" + +"--Mrs. Weston, I suppose," interrupted Mrs. Elton, rather mortified. + +"No--Mrs. Knightley;--and till she is in being, I will manage such +matters myself." + +"Ah! you are an odd creature!" she cried, satisfied to have no one +preferred to herself.--"You are a humourist, and may say what you +like. Quite a humourist. Well, I shall bring Jane with me--Jane and her +aunt.--The rest I leave to you. I have no objections at all to meeting +the Hartfield family. Don't scruple. I know you are attached to them." + +"You certainly will meet them if I can prevail; and I shall call on Miss +Bates in my way home." + +"That's quite unnecessary; I see Jane every day:--but as you like. It +is to be a morning scheme, you know, Knightley; quite a simple thing. I +shall wear a large bonnet, and bring one of my little baskets hanging +on my arm. Here,--probably this basket with pink ribbon. Nothing can be +more simple, you see. And Jane will have such another. There is to be +no form or parade--a sort of gipsy party. We are to walk about +your gardens, and gather the strawberries ourselves, and sit under +trees;--and whatever else you may like to provide, it is to be all out +of doors--a table spread in the shade, you know. Every thing as natural +and simple as possible. Is not that your idea?" + +"Not quite. My idea of the simple and the natural will be to have +the table spread in the dining-room. The nature and the simplicity of +gentlemen and ladies, with their servants and furniture, I think is +best observed by meals within doors. When you are tired of eating +strawberries in the garden, there shall be cold meat in the house." + +"Well--as you please; only don't have a great set out. And, by the bye, +can I or my housekeeper be of any use to you with our opinion?--Pray be +sincere, Knightley. If you wish me to talk to Mrs. Hodges, or to inspect +anything--" + +"I have not the least wish for it, I thank you." + +"Well--but if any difficulties should arise, my housekeeper is extremely +clever." + +"I will answer for it, that mine thinks herself full as clever, and +would spurn any body's assistance." + +"I wish we had a donkey. The thing would be for us all to come on +donkeys, Jane, Miss Bates, and me--and my caro sposo walking by. I +really must talk to him about purchasing a donkey. In a country life +I conceive it to be a sort of necessary; for, let a woman have ever +so many resources, it is not possible for her to be always shut up at +home;--and very long walks, you know--in summer there is dust, and in +winter there is dirt." + +"You will not find either, between Donwell and Highbury. Donwell Lane is +never dusty, and now it is perfectly dry. Come on a donkey, however, if +you prefer it. You can borrow Mrs. Cole's. I would wish every thing to +be as much to your taste as possible." + +"That I am sure you would. Indeed I do you justice, my good friend. +Under that peculiar sort of dry, blunt manner, I know you have the +warmest heart. As I tell Mr. E., you are a thorough humourist.--Yes, +believe me, Knightley, I am fully sensible of your attention to me in +the whole of this scheme. You have hit upon the very thing to please +me." + +Mr. Knightley had another reason for avoiding a table in the shade. He +wished to persuade Mr. Woodhouse, as well as Emma, to join the party; +and he knew that to have any of them sitting down out of doors to +eat would inevitably make him ill. Mr. Woodhouse must not, under the +specious pretence of a morning drive, and an hour or two spent at +Donwell, be tempted away to his misery. + +He was invited on good faith. No lurking horrors were to upbraid him for +his easy credulity. He did consent. He had not been at Donwell for two +years. "Some very fine morning, he, and Emma, and Harriet, could go +very well; and he could sit still with Mrs. Weston, while the dear girls +walked about the gardens. He did not suppose they could be damp now, +in the middle of the day. He should like to see the old house again +exceedingly, and should be very happy to meet Mr. and Mrs. Elton, and +any other of his neighbours.--He could not see any objection at all to +his, and Emma's, and Harriet's going there some very fine morning. He +thought it very well done of Mr. Knightley to invite them--very kind +and sensible--much cleverer than dining out.--He was not fond of dining +out." + +Mr. Knightley was fortunate in every body's most ready concurrence. The +invitation was everywhere so well received, that it seemed as if, like +Mrs. Elton, they were all taking the scheme as a particular compliment +to themselves.--Emma and Harriet professed very high expectations of +pleasure from it; and Mr. Weston, unasked, promised to get Frank over to +join them, if possible; a proof of approbation and gratitude which could +have been dispensed with.--Mr. Knightley was then obliged to say that +he should be glad to see him; and Mr. Weston engaged to lose no time in +writing, and spare no arguments to induce him to come. + +In the meanwhile the lame horse recovered so fast, that the party to +Box Hill was again under happy consideration; and at last Donwell was +settled for one day, and Box Hill for the next,--the weather appearing +exactly right. + +Under a bright mid-day sun, at almost Midsummer, Mr. Woodhouse was +safely conveyed in his carriage, with one window down, to partake of +this al-fresco party; and in one of the most comfortable rooms in the +Abbey, especially prepared for him by a fire all the morning, he was +happily placed, quite at his ease, ready to talk with pleasure of what +had been achieved, and advise every body to come and sit down, and not +to heat themselves.--Mrs. Weston, who seemed to have walked there on +purpose to be tired, and sit all the time with him, remained, when +all the others were invited or persuaded out, his patient listener and +sympathiser. + +It was so long since Emma had been at the Abbey, that as soon as she was +satisfied of her father's comfort, she was glad to leave him, and look +around her; eager to refresh and correct her memory with more particular +observation, more exact understanding of a house and grounds which must +ever be so interesting to her and all her family. + +She felt all the honest pride and complacency which her alliance with +the present and future proprietor could fairly warrant, as she viewed +the respectable size and style of the building, its suitable, becoming, +characteristic situation, low and sheltered--its ample gardens +stretching down to meadows washed by a stream, of which the Abbey, with +all the old neglect of prospect, had scarcely a sight--and its abundance +of timber in rows and avenues, which neither fashion nor extravagance +had rooted up.--The house was larger than Hartfield, and totally unlike +it, covering a good deal of ground, rambling and irregular, with many +comfortable, and one or two handsome rooms.--It was just what it ought +to be, and it looked what it was--and Emma felt an increasing respect +for it, as the residence of a family of such true gentility, untainted +in blood and understanding.--Some faults of temper John Knightley had; +but Isabella had connected herself unexceptionably. She had given them +neither men, nor names, nor places, that could raise a blush. These were +pleasant feelings, and she walked about and indulged them till it +was necessary to do as the others did, and collect round the +strawberry-beds.--The whole party were assembled, excepting Frank +Churchill, who was expected every moment from Richmond; and Mrs. Elton, +in all her apparatus of happiness, her large bonnet and her basket, +was very ready to lead the way in gathering, accepting, or +talking--strawberries, and only strawberries, could now be thought or +spoken of.--"The best fruit in England--every body's favourite--always +wholesome.--These the finest beds and finest sorts.--Delightful to +gather for one's self--the only way of really enjoying them.--Morning +decidedly the best time--never tired--every sort good--hautboy +infinitely superior--no comparison--the others hardly eatable--hautboys +very scarce--Chili preferred--white wood finest flavour of all--price +of strawberries in London--abundance about Bristol--Maple +Grove--cultivation--beds when to be renewed--gardeners thinking exactly +different--no general rule--gardeners never to be put out of their +way--delicious fruit--only too rich to be eaten much of--inferior +to cherries--currants more refreshing--only objection to gathering +strawberries the stooping--glaring sun--tired to death--could bear it no +longer--must go and sit in the shade." + +Such, for half an hour, was the conversation--interrupted only once by +Mrs. Weston, who came out, in her solicitude after her son-in-law, to +inquire if he were come--and she was a little uneasy.--She had some +fears of his horse. + +Seats tolerably in the shade were found; and now Emma was obliged +to overhear what Mrs. Elton and Jane Fairfax were talking of.--A +situation, a most desirable situation, was in question. Mrs. Elton had +received notice of it that morning, and was in raptures. It was not +with Mrs. Suckling, it was not with Mrs. Bragge, but in felicity and +splendour it fell short only of them: it was with a cousin of Mrs. +Bragge, an acquaintance of Mrs. Suckling, a lady known at Maple Grove. +Delightful, charming, superior, first circles, spheres, lines, ranks, +every thing--and Mrs. Elton was wild to have the offer closed with +immediately.--On her side, all was warmth, energy, and triumph--and she +positively refused to take her friend's negative, though Miss Fairfax +continued to assure her that she would not at present engage in any +thing, repeating the same motives which she had been heard to urge +before.--Still Mrs. Elton insisted on being authorised to write an +acquiescence by the morrow's post.--How Jane could bear it at all, was +astonishing to Emma.--She did look vexed, she did speak pointedly--and +at last, with a decision of action unusual to her, proposed a +removal.--"Should not they walk? Would not Mr. Knightley shew them the +gardens--all the gardens?--She wished to see the whole extent."--The +pertinacity of her friend seemed more than she could bear. + +It was hot; and after walking some time over the gardens in a scattered, +dispersed way, scarcely any three together, they insensibly followed one +another to the delicious shade of a broad short avenue of limes, which +stretching beyond the garden at an equal distance from the river, seemed +the finish of the pleasure grounds.--It led to nothing; nothing but a +view at the end over a low stone wall with high pillars, which seemed +intended, in their erection, to give the appearance of an approach to +the house, which never had been there. Disputable, however, as might be +the taste of such a termination, it was in itself a charming walk, and +the view which closed it extremely pretty.--The considerable slope, at +nearly the foot of which the Abbey stood, gradually acquired a steeper +form beyond its grounds; and at half a mile distant was a bank of +considerable abruptness and grandeur, well clothed with wood;--and at +the bottom of this bank, favourably placed and sheltered, rose the +Abbey Mill Farm, with meadows in front, and the river making a close and +handsome curve around it. + +It was a sweet view--sweet to the eye and the mind. English verdure, +English culture, English comfort, seen under a sun bright, without being +oppressive. + +In this walk Emma and Mr. Weston found all the others assembled; and +towards this view she immediately perceived Mr. Knightley and Harriet +distinct from the rest, quietly leading the way. Mr. Knightley and +Harriet!--It was an odd tete-a-tete; but she was glad to see it.--There +had been a time when he would have scorned her as a companion, and +turned from her with little ceremony. Now they seemed in pleasant +conversation. There had been a time also when Emma would have been sorry +to see Harriet in a spot so favourable for the Abbey Mill Farm; but now +she feared it not. It might be safely viewed with all its appendages of +prosperity and beauty, its rich pastures, spreading flocks, orchard in +blossom, and light column of smoke ascending.--She joined them at the +wall, and found them more engaged in talking than in looking around. He +was giving Harriet information as to modes of agriculture, etc. and Emma +received a smile which seemed to say, "These are my own concerns. I have +a right to talk on such subjects, without being suspected of +introducing Robert Martin."--She did not suspect him. It was too old +a story.--Robert Martin had probably ceased to think of Harriet.--They +took a few turns together along the walk.--The shade was most +refreshing, and Emma found it the pleasantest part of the day. + +The next remove was to the house; they must all go in and eat;--and they +were all seated and busy, and still Frank Churchill did not come. Mrs. +Weston looked, and looked in vain. His father would not own himself +uneasy, and laughed at her fears; but she could not be cured of wishing +that he would part with his black mare. He had expressed himself as to +coming, with more than common certainty. "His aunt was so much better, +that he had not a doubt of getting over to them."--Mrs. Churchill's +state, however, as many were ready to remind her, was liable to such +sudden variation as might disappoint her nephew in the most reasonable +dependence--and Mrs. Weston was at last persuaded to believe, or to say, +that it must be by some attack of Mrs. Churchill that he was +prevented coming.--Emma looked at Harriet while the point was under +consideration; she behaved very well, and betrayed no emotion. + +The cold repast was over, and the party were to go out once more to see +what had not yet been seen, the old Abbey fish-ponds; perhaps get as far +as the clover, which was to be begun cutting on the morrow, or, at +any rate, have the pleasure of being hot, and growing cool again.--Mr. +Woodhouse, who had already taken his little round in the highest part +of the gardens, where no damps from the river were imagined even by him, +stirred no more; and his daughter resolved to remain with him, that +Mrs. Weston might be persuaded away by her husband to the exercise and +variety which her spirits seemed to need. + +Mr. Knightley had done all in his power for Mr. Woodhouse's +entertainment. Books of engravings, drawers of medals, cameos, corals, +shells, and every other family collection within his cabinets, had been +prepared for his old friend, to while away the morning; and the kindness +had perfectly answered. Mr. Woodhouse had been exceedingly well amused. +Mrs. Weston had been shewing them all to him, and now he would shew them +all to Emma;--fortunate in having no other resemblance to a child, than +in a total want of taste for what he saw, for he was slow, constant, and +methodical.--Before this second looking over was begun, however, Emma +walked into the hall for the sake of a few moments' free observation of +the entrance and ground-plot of the house--and was hardly there, when +Jane Fairfax appeared, coming quickly in from the garden, and with a +look of escape.--Little expecting to meet Miss Woodhouse so soon, there +was a start at first; but Miss Woodhouse was the very person she was in +quest of. + +"Will you be so kind," said she, "when I am missed, as to say that I am +gone home?--I am going this moment.--My aunt is not aware how late it +is, nor how long we have been absent--but I am sure we shall be wanted, +and I am determined to go directly.--I have said nothing about it to any +body. It would only be giving trouble and distress. Some are gone to the +ponds, and some to the lime walk. Till they all come in I shall not be +missed; and when they do, will you have the goodness to say that I am +gone?" + +"Certainly, if you wish it;--but you are not going to walk to Highbury +alone?" + +"Yes--what should hurt me?--I walk fast. I shall be at home in twenty +minutes." + +"But it is too far, indeed it is, to be walking quite alone. Let my +father's servant go with you.--Let me order the carriage. It can be +round in five minutes." + +"Thank you, thank you--but on no account.--I would rather walk.--And +for _me_ to be afraid of walking alone!--I, who may so soon have to +guard others!" + +She spoke with great agitation; and Emma very feelingly replied, "That +can be no reason for your being exposed to danger now. I must order the +carriage. The heat even would be danger.--You are fatigued already." + +"I am,"--she answered--"I am fatigued; but it is not the sort of +fatigue--quick walking will refresh me.--Miss Woodhouse, we all know +at times what it is to be wearied in spirits. Mine, I confess, are +exhausted. The greatest kindness you can shew me, will be to let me have +my own way, and only say that I am gone when it is necessary." + +Emma had not another word to oppose. She saw it all; and entering into +her feelings, promoted her quitting the house immediately, and +watched her safely off with the zeal of a friend. Her parting look was +grateful--and her parting words, "Oh! Miss Woodhouse, the comfort of +being sometimes alone!"--seemed to burst from an overcharged heart, and +to describe somewhat of the continual endurance to be practised by her, +even towards some of those who loved her best. + +"Such a home, indeed! such an aunt!" said Emma, as she turned back into +the hall again. "I do pity you. And the more sensibility you betray of +their just horrors, the more I shall like you." + +Jane had not been gone a quarter of an hour, and they had only +accomplished some views of St. Mark's Place, Venice, when Frank +Churchill entered the room. Emma had not been thinking of him, she had +forgotten to think of him--but she was very glad to see him. Mrs. Weston +would be at ease. The black mare was blameless; _they_ were right +who had named Mrs. Churchill as the cause. He had been detained by +a temporary increase of illness in her; a nervous seizure, which had +lasted some hours--and he had quite given up every thought of coming, +till very late;--and had he known how hot a ride he should have, and +how late, with all his hurry, he must be, he believed he should not have +come at all. The heat was excessive; he had never suffered any thing +like it--almost wished he had staid at home--nothing killed him +like heat--he could bear any degree of cold, etc., but heat was +intolerable--and he sat down, at the greatest possible distance from the +slight remains of Mr. Woodhouse's fire, looking very deplorable. + +"You will soon be cooler, if you sit still," said Emma. + +"As soon as I am cooler I shall go back again. I could very ill be +spared--but such a point had been made of my coming! You will all be +going soon I suppose; the whole party breaking up. I met _one_ as I +came--Madness in such weather!--absolute madness!" + +Emma listened, and looked, and soon perceived that Frank Churchill's +state might be best defined by the expressive phrase of being out of +humour. Some people were always cross when they were hot. Such might be +his constitution; and as she knew that eating and drinking were often +the cure of such incidental complaints, she recommended his taking +some refreshment; he would find abundance of every thing in the +dining-room--and she humanely pointed out the door. + +"No--he should not eat. He was not hungry; it would only make him +hotter." In two minutes, however, he relented in his own favour; and +muttering something about spruce-beer, walked off. Emma returned all her +attention to her father, saying in secret-- + +"I am glad I have done being in love with him. I should not like a man +who is so soon discomposed by a hot morning. Harriet's sweet easy temper +will not mind it." + +He was gone long enough to have had a very comfortable meal, and came +back all the better--grown quite cool--and, with good manners, like +himself--able to draw a chair close to them, take an interest in their +employment; and regret, in a reasonable way, that he should be so late. +He was not in his best spirits, but seemed trying to improve them; and, +at last, made himself talk nonsense very agreeably. They were looking +over views in Swisserland. + +"As soon as my aunt gets well, I shall go abroad," said he. "I shall +never be easy till I have seen some of these places. You will have my +sketches, some time or other, to look at--or my tour to read--or my +poem. I shall do something to expose myself." + +"That may be--but not by sketches in Swisserland. You will never go to +Swisserland. Your uncle and aunt will never allow you to leave England." + +"They may be induced to go too. A warm climate may be prescribed for +her. I have more than half an expectation of our all going abroad. I +assure you I have. I feel a strong persuasion, this morning, that I +shall soon be abroad. I ought to travel. I am tired of doing nothing. I +want a change. I am serious, Miss Woodhouse, whatever your penetrating +eyes may fancy--I am sick of England--and would leave it to-morrow, if +I could." + +"You are sick of prosperity and indulgence. Cannot you invent a few +hardships for yourself, and be contented to stay?" + +"_I_ sick of prosperity and indulgence! You are quite mistaken. I do +not look upon myself as either prosperous or indulged. I am thwarted +in every thing material. I do not consider myself at all a fortunate +person." + +"You are not quite so miserable, though, as when you first came. Go and +eat and drink a little more, and you will do very well. Another slice of +cold meat, another draught of Madeira and water, will make you nearly on +a par with the rest of us." + +"No--I shall not stir. I shall sit by you. You are my best cure." + +"We are going to Box Hill to-morrow;--you will join us. It is not +Swisserland, but it will be something for a young man so much in want of +a change. You will stay, and go with us?" + +"No, certainly not; I shall go home in the cool of the evening." + +"But you may come again in the cool of to-morrow morning." + +"No--It will not be worth while. If I come, I shall be cross." + +"Then pray stay at Richmond." + +"But if I do, I shall be crosser still. I can never bear to think of you +all there without me." + +"These are difficulties which you must settle for yourself. Chuse your +own degree of crossness. I shall press you no more." + +The rest of the party were now returning, and all were soon collected. +With some there was great joy at the sight of Frank Churchill; others +took it very composedly; but there was a very general distress and +disturbance on Miss Fairfax's disappearance being explained. That it was +time for every body to go, concluded the subject; and with a short final +arrangement for the next day's scheme, they parted. Frank Churchill's +little inclination to exclude himself increased so much, that his last +words to Emma were, + +"Well;--if _you_ wish me to stay and join the party, I will." + +She smiled her acceptance; and nothing less than a summons from Richmond +was to take him back before the following evening. + + + +CHAPTER VII + + +They had a very fine day for Box Hill; and all the other outward +circumstances of arrangement, accommodation, and punctuality, were in +favour of a pleasant party. Mr. Weston directed the whole, officiating +safely between Hartfield and the Vicarage, and every body was in good +time. Emma and Harriet went together; Miss Bates and her niece, with +the Eltons; the gentlemen on horseback. Mrs. Weston remained with Mr. +Woodhouse. Nothing was wanting but to be happy when they got there. +Seven miles were travelled in expectation of enjoyment, and every body +had a burst of admiration on first arriving; but in the general amount +of the day there was deficiency. There was a languor, a want of spirits, +a want of union, which could not be got over. They separated too much +into parties. The Eltons walked together; Mr. Knightley took charge of +Miss Bates and Jane; and Emma and Harriet belonged to Frank Churchill. +And Mr. Weston tried, in vain, to make them harmonise better. It seemed +at first an accidental division, but it never materially varied. Mr. and +Mrs. Elton, indeed, shewed no unwillingness to mix, and be as agreeable +as they could; but during the two whole hours that were spent on the +hill, there seemed a principle of separation, between the other parties, +too strong for any fine prospects, or any cold collation, or any +cheerful Mr. Weston, to remove. + +At first it was downright dulness to Emma. She had never seen Frank +Churchill so silent and stupid. He said nothing worth hearing--looked +without seeing--admired without intelligence--listened without knowing +what she said. While he was so dull, it was no wonder that Harriet +should be dull likewise; and they were both insufferable. + +When they all sat down it was better; to her taste a great deal better, +for Frank Churchill grew talkative and gay, making her his first object. +Every distinguishing attention that could be paid, was paid to her. +To amuse her, and be agreeable in her eyes, seemed all that he cared +for--and Emma, glad to be enlivened, not sorry to be flattered, was gay +and easy too, and gave him all the friendly encouragement, the admission +to be gallant, which she had ever given in the first and most animating +period of their acquaintance; but which now, in her own estimation, +meant nothing, though in the judgment of most people looking on it must +have had such an appearance as no English word but flirtation could very +well describe. "Mr. Frank Churchill and Miss Woodhouse flirted together +excessively." They were laying themselves open to that very phrase--and +to having it sent off in a letter to Maple Grove by one lady, to +Ireland by another. Not that Emma was gay and thoughtless from any +real felicity; it was rather because she felt less happy than she had +expected. She laughed because she was disappointed; and though she liked +him for his attentions, and thought them all, whether in friendship, +admiration, or playfulness, extremely judicious, they were not winning +back her heart. She still intended him for her friend. + +"How much I am obliged to you," said he, "for telling me to come +to-day!--If it had not been for you, I should certainly have lost all +the happiness of this party. I had quite determined to go away again." + +"Yes, you were very cross; and I do not know what about, except that you +were too late for the best strawberries. I was a kinder friend than you +deserved. But you were humble. You begged hard to be commanded to come." + +"Don't say I was cross. I was fatigued. The heat overcame me." + +"It is hotter to-day." + +"Not to my feelings. I am perfectly comfortable to-day." + +"You are comfortable because you are under command." + +"Your command?--Yes." + +"Perhaps I intended you to say so, but I meant self-command. You had, +somehow or other, broken bounds yesterday, and run away from your own +management; but to-day you are got back again--and as I cannot be always +with you, it is best to believe your temper under your own command +rather than mine." + +"It comes to the same thing. I can have no self-command without a +motive. You order me, whether you speak or not. And you can be always +with me. You are always with me." + +"Dating from three o'clock yesterday. My perpetual influence could not +begin earlier, or you would not have been so much out of humour before." + +"Three o'clock yesterday! That is your date. I thought I had seen you +first in February." + +"Your gallantry is really unanswerable. But (lowering her voice)--nobody +speaks except ourselves, and it is rather too much to be talking +nonsense for the entertainment of seven silent people." + +"I say nothing of which I am ashamed," replied he, with lively +impudence. "I saw you first in February. Let every body on the Hill +hear me if they can. Let my accents swell to Mickleham on one side, +and Dorking on the other. I saw you first in February." And then +whispering--"Our companions are excessively stupid. What shall we do +to rouse them? Any nonsense will serve. They _shall_ talk. Ladies +and gentlemen, I am ordered by Miss Woodhouse (who, wherever she is, +presides) to say, that she desires to know what you are all thinking +of?" + +Some laughed, and answered good-humouredly. Miss Bates said a great +deal; Mrs. Elton swelled at the idea of Miss Woodhouse's presiding; Mr. +Knightley's answer was the most distinct. + +"Is Miss Woodhouse sure that she would like to hear what we are all +thinking of?" + +"Oh! no, no"--cried Emma, laughing as carelessly as she could--"Upon no +account in the world. It is the very last thing I would stand the brunt +of just now. Let me hear any thing rather than what you are all thinking +of. I will not say quite all. There are one or two, perhaps, (glancing +at Mr. Weston and Harriet,) whose thoughts I might not be afraid of +knowing." + +"It is a sort of thing," cried Mrs. Elton emphatically, "which _I_ +should not have thought myself privileged to inquire into. Though, +perhaps, as the _Chaperon_ of the party--_I_ never was in any +circle--exploring parties--young ladies--married women--" + +Her mutterings were chiefly to her husband; and he murmured, in reply, + +"Very true, my love, very true. Exactly so, indeed--quite unheard +of--but some ladies say any thing. Better pass it off as a joke. Every +body knows what is due to _you_." + +"It will not do," whispered Frank to Emma; "they are most of them +affronted. I will attack them with more address. Ladies and gentlemen--I +am ordered by Miss Woodhouse to say, that she waives her right of +knowing exactly what you may all be thinking of, and only requires +something very entertaining from each of you, in a general way. Here +are seven of you, besides myself, (who, she is pleased to say, am very +entertaining already,) and she only demands from each of you either one +thing very clever, be it prose or verse, original or repeated--or two +things moderately clever--or three things very dull indeed, and she +engages to laugh heartily at them all." + +"Oh! very well," exclaimed Miss Bates, "then I need not be uneasy. +'Three things very dull indeed.' That will just do for me, you know. I +shall be sure to say three dull things as soon as ever I open my mouth, +shan't I? (looking round with the most good-humoured dependence on every +body's assent)--Do not you all think I shall?" + +Emma could not resist. + +"Ah! ma'am, but there may be a difficulty. Pardon me--but you will be +limited as to number--only three at once." + +Miss Bates, deceived by the mock ceremony of her manner, did not +immediately catch her meaning; but, when it burst on her, it could not +anger, though a slight blush shewed that it could pain her. + +"Ah!--well--to be sure. Yes, I see what she means, (turning to Mr. +Knightley,) and I will try to hold my tongue. I must make myself very +disagreeable, or she would not have said such a thing to an old friend." + +"I like your plan," cried Mr. Weston. "Agreed, agreed. I will do my +best. I am making a conundrum. How will a conundrum reckon?" + +"Low, I am afraid, sir, very low," answered his son;--"but we shall be +indulgent--especially to any one who leads the way." + +"No, no," said Emma, "it will not reckon low. A conundrum of Mr. +Weston's shall clear him and his next neighbour. Come, sir, pray let me +hear it." + +"I doubt its being very clever myself," said Mr. Weston. "It is too much +a matter of fact, but here it is.--What two letters of the alphabet are +there, that express perfection?" + +"What two letters!--express perfection! I am sure I do not know." + +"Ah! you will never guess. You, (to Emma), I am certain, will never +guess.--I will tell you.--M. and A.--Em-ma.--Do you understand?" + +Understanding and gratification came together. It might be a very +indifferent piece of wit, but Emma found a great deal to laugh at and +enjoy in it--and so did Frank and Harriet.--It did not seem to touch +the rest of the party equally; some looked very stupid about it, and Mr. +Knightley gravely said, + +"This explains the sort of clever thing that is wanted, and Mr. Weston +has done very well for himself; but he must have knocked up every body +else. _Perfection_ should not have come quite so soon." + +"Oh! for myself, I protest I must be excused," said Mrs. Elton; "_I_ +really cannot attempt--I am not at all fond of the sort of thing. I had +an acrostic once sent to me upon my own name, which I was not at all +pleased with. I knew who it came from. An abominable puppy!--You know +who I mean (nodding to her husband). These kind of things are very +well at Christmas, when one is sitting round the fire; but quite out of +place, in my opinion, when one is exploring about the country in summer. +Miss Woodhouse must excuse me. I am not one of those who have witty +things at every body's service. I do not pretend to be a wit. I have a +great deal of vivacity in my own way, but I really must be allowed to +judge when to speak and when to hold my tongue. Pass us, if you please, +Mr. Churchill. Pass Mr. E., Knightley, Jane, and myself. We have nothing +clever to say--not one of us. + +"Yes, yes, pray pass _me_," added her husband, with a sort of sneering +consciousness; "_I_ have nothing to say that can entertain Miss +Woodhouse, or any other young lady. An old married man--quite good for +nothing. Shall we walk, Augusta?" + +"With all my heart. I am really tired of exploring so long on one spot. +Come, Jane, take my other arm." + +Jane declined it, however, and the husband and wife walked off. +"Happy couple!" said Frank Churchill, as soon as they were out of +hearing:--"How well they suit one another!--Very lucky--marrying as they +did, upon an acquaintance formed only in a public place!--They only knew +each other, I think, a few weeks in Bath! Peculiarly lucky!--for as to +any real knowledge of a person's disposition that Bath, or any public +place, can give--it is all nothing; there can be no knowledge. It is +only by seeing women in their own homes, among their own set, just as +they always are, that you can form any just judgment. Short of that, it +is all guess and luck--and will generally be ill-luck. How many a man +has committed himself on a short acquaintance, and rued it all the rest +of his life!" + +Miss Fairfax, who had seldom spoken before, except among her own +confederates, spoke now. + +"Such things do occur, undoubtedly."--She was stopped by a cough. Frank +Churchill turned towards her to listen. + +"You were speaking," said he, gravely. She recovered her voice. + +"I was only going to observe, that though such unfortunate circumstances +do sometimes occur both to men and women, I cannot imagine them to be +very frequent. A hasty and imprudent attachment may arise--but there is +generally time to recover from it afterwards. I would be understood to +mean, that it can be only weak, irresolute characters, (whose happiness +must be always at the mercy of chance,) who will suffer an unfortunate +acquaintance to be an inconvenience, an oppression for ever." + +He made no answer; merely looked, and bowed in submission; and soon +afterwards said, in a lively tone, + +"Well, I have so little confidence in my own judgment, that whenever I +marry, I hope some body will chuse my wife for me. Will you? (turning to +Emma.) Will you chuse a wife for me?--I am sure I should like any body +fixed on by you. You provide for the family, you know, (with a smile at +his father). Find some body for me. I am in no hurry. Adopt her, educate +her." + +"And make her like myself." + +"By all means, if you can." + +"Very well. I undertake the commission. You shall have a charming wife." + +"She must be very lively, and have hazle eyes. I care for nothing else. +I shall go abroad for a couple of years--and when I return, I shall come +to you for my wife. Remember." + +Emma was in no danger of forgetting. It was a commission to touch every +favourite feeling. Would not Harriet be the very creature described? +Hazle eyes excepted, two years more might make her all that he wished. +He might even have Harriet in his thoughts at the moment; who could say? +Referring the education to her seemed to imply it. + +"Now, ma'am," said Jane to her aunt, "shall we join Mrs. Elton?" + +"If you please, my dear. With all my heart. I am quite ready. I was +ready to have gone with her, but this will do just as well. We shall +soon overtake her. There she is--no, that's somebody else. That's one +of the ladies in the Irish car party, not at all like her.--Well, I +declare--" + +They walked off, followed in half a minute by Mr. Knightley. Mr. Weston, +his son, Emma, and Harriet, only remained; and the young man's spirits +now rose to a pitch almost unpleasant. Even Emma grew tired at last of +flattery and merriment, and wished herself rather walking quietly about +with any of the others, or sitting almost alone, and quite unattended +to, in tranquil observation of the beautiful views beneath her. The +appearance of the servants looking out for them to give notice of the +carriages was a joyful sight; and even the bustle of collecting and +preparing to depart, and the solicitude of Mrs. Elton to have _her_ +carriage first, were gladly endured, in the prospect of the quiet drive +home which was to close the very questionable enjoyments of this day of +pleasure. Such another scheme, composed of so many ill-assorted people, +she hoped never to be betrayed into again. + +While waiting for the carriage, she found Mr. Knightley by her side. He +looked around, as if to see that no one were near, and then said, + +"Emma, I must once more speak to you as I have been used to do: a +privilege rather endured than allowed, perhaps, but I must still use it. +I cannot see you acting wrong, without a remonstrance. How could you be +so unfeeling to Miss Bates? How could you be so insolent in your wit to +a woman of her character, age, and situation?--Emma, I had not thought +it possible." + +Emma recollected, blushed, was sorry, but tried to laugh it off. + +"Nay, how could I help saying what I did?--Nobody could have helped it. +It was not so very bad. I dare say she did not understand me." + +"I assure you she did. She felt your full meaning. She has talked of +it since. I wish you could have heard how she talked of it--with what +candour and generosity. I wish you could have heard her honouring your +forbearance, in being able to pay her such attentions, as she was for +ever receiving from yourself and your father, when her society must be +so irksome." + +"Oh!" cried Emma, "I know there is not a better creature in the world: +but you must allow, that what is good and what is ridiculous are most +unfortunately blended in her." + +"They are blended," said he, "I acknowledge; and, were she prosperous, +I could allow much for the occasional prevalence of the ridiculous over +the good. Were she a woman of fortune, I would leave every harmless +absurdity to take its chance, I would not quarrel with you for any +liberties of manner. Were she your equal in situation--but, Emma, +consider how far this is from being the case. She is poor; she has sunk +from the comforts she was born to; and, if she live to old age, must +probably sink more. Her situation should secure your compassion. It was +badly done, indeed! You, whom she had known from an infant, whom she had +seen grow up from a period when her notice was an honour, to have you +now, in thoughtless spirits, and the pride of the moment, laugh at her, +humble her--and before her niece, too--and before others, many of whom +(certainly _some_,) would be entirely guided by _your_ treatment +of her.--This is not pleasant to you, Emma--and it is very far from +pleasant to me; but I must, I will,--I will tell you truths while I can; +satisfied with proving myself your friend by very faithful counsel, and +trusting that you will some time or other do me greater justice than you +can do now." + +While they talked, they were advancing towards the carriage; it was +ready; and, before she could speak again, he had handed her in. He had +misinterpreted the feelings which had kept her face averted, and her +tongue motionless. They were combined only of anger against herself, +mortification, and deep concern. She had not been able to speak; and, on +entering the carriage, sunk back for a moment overcome--then reproaching +herself for having taken no leave, making no acknowledgment, parting in +apparent sullenness, she looked out with voice and hand eager to shew a +difference; but it was just too late. He had turned away, and the horses +were in motion. She continued to look back, but in vain; and soon, with +what appeared unusual speed, they were half way down the hill, and +every thing left far behind. She was vexed beyond what could have been +expressed--almost beyond what she could conceal. Never had she felt so +agitated, mortified, grieved, at any circumstance in her life. She was +most forcibly struck. The truth of this representation there was no +denying. She felt it at her heart. How could she have been so brutal, +so cruel to Miss Bates! How could she have exposed herself to such ill +opinion in any one she valued! And how suffer him to leave her without +saying one word of gratitude, of concurrence, of common kindness! + +Time did not compose her. As she reflected more, she seemed but to feel +it more. She never had been so depressed. Happily it was not necessary +to speak. There was only Harriet, who seemed not in spirits herself, +fagged, and very willing to be silent; and Emma felt the tears running +down her cheeks almost all the way home, without being at any trouble to +check them, extraordinary as they were. + + + +CHAPTER VIII + + +The wretchedness of a scheme to Box Hill was in Emma's thoughts all the +evening. How it might be considered by the rest of the party, she could +not tell. They, in their different homes, and their different ways, +might be looking back on it with pleasure; but in her view it was +a morning more completely misspent, more totally bare of rational +satisfaction at the time, and more to be abhorred in recollection, than +any she had ever passed. A whole evening of back-gammon with her father, +was felicity to it. _There_, indeed, lay real pleasure, for there she +was giving up the sweetest hours of the twenty-four to his comfort; and +feeling that, unmerited as might be the degree of his fond affection and +confiding esteem, she could not, in her general conduct, be open to any +severe reproach. As a daughter, she hoped she was not without a heart. +She hoped no one could have said to her, "How could you be so unfeeling +to your father?--I must, I will tell you truths while I can." Miss +Bates should never again--no, never! If attention, in future, could do +away the past, she might hope to be forgiven. She had been often remiss, +her conscience told her so; remiss, perhaps, more in thought than fact; +scornful, ungracious. But it should be so no more. In the warmth of true +contrition, she would call upon her the very next morning, and it should +be the beginning, on her side, of a regular, equal, kindly intercourse. + +She was just as determined when the morrow came, and went early, that +nothing might prevent her. It was not unlikely, she thought, that she +might see Mr. Knightley in her way; or, perhaps, he might come in +while she were paying her visit. She had no objection. She would not be +ashamed of the appearance of the penitence, so justly and truly hers. +Her eyes were towards Donwell as she walked, but she saw him not. + +"The ladies were all at home." She had never rejoiced at the sound +before, nor ever before entered the passage, nor walked up the stairs, +with any wish of giving pleasure, but in conferring obligation, or of +deriving it, except in subsequent ridicule. + +There was a bustle on her approach; a good deal of moving and talking. +She heard Miss Bates's voice, something was to be done in a hurry; the +maid looked frightened and awkward; hoped she would be pleased to wait a +moment, and then ushered her in too soon. The aunt and niece seemed both +escaping into the adjoining room. Jane she had a distinct glimpse of, +looking extremely ill; and, before the door had shut them out, she heard +Miss Bates saying, "Well, my dear, I shall _say_ you are laid down upon +the bed, and I am sure you are ill enough." + +Poor old Mrs. Bates, civil and humble as usual, looked as if she did not +quite understand what was going on. + +"I am afraid Jane is not very well," said she, "but I do not know; they +_tell_ me she is well. I dare say my daughter will be here presently, +Miss Woodhouse. I hope you find a chair. I wish Hetty had not gone. I am +very little able--Have you a chair, ma'am? Do you sit where you like? I +am sure she will be here presently." + +Emma seriously hoped she would. She had a moment's fear of Miss Bates +keeping away from her. But Miss Bates soon came--"Very happy and +obliged"--but Emma's conscience told her that there was not the same +cheerful volubility as before--less ease of look and manner. A very +friendly inquiry after Miss Fairfax, she hoped, might lead the way to a +return of old feelings. The touch seemed immediate. + +"Ah! Miss Woodhouse, how kind you are!--I suppose you have heard--and +are come to give us joy. This does not seem much like joy, indeed, in +me--(twinkling away a tear or two)--but it will be very trying for us +to part with her, after having had her so long, and she has a dreadful +headache just now, writing all the morning:--such long letters, you +know, to be written to Colonel Campbell, and Mrs. Dixon. 'My dear,' said +I, 'you will blind yourself'--for tears were in her eyes perpetually. +One cannot wonder, one cannot wonder. It is a great change; and though +she is amazingly fortunate--such a situation, I suppose, as no +young woman before ever met with on first going out--do not think us +ungrateful, Miss Woodhouse, for such surprising good fortune--(again +dispersing her tears)--but, poor dear soul! if you were to see what a +headache she has. When one is in great pain, you know one cannot feel +any blessing quite as it may deserve. She is as low as possible. To +look at her, nobody would think how delighted and happy she is to have +secured such a situation. You will excuse her not coming to you--she is +not able--she is gone into her own room--I want her to lie down upon the +bed. 'My dear,' said I, 'I shall say you are laid down upon the bed:' +but, however, she is not; she is walking about the room. But, now that +she has written her letters, she says she shall soon be well. She will +be extremely sorry to miss seeing you, Miss Woodhouse, but your +kindness will excuse her. You were kept waiting at the door--I was quite +ashamed--but somehow there was a little bustle--for it so happened that +we had not heard the knock, and till you were on the stairs, we did not +know any body was coming. 'It is only Mrs. Cole,' said I, 'depend upon +it. Nobody else would come so early.' 'Well,' said she, 'it must be +borne some time or other, and it may as well be now.' But then Patty +came in, and said it was you. 'Oh!' said I, 'it is Miss Woodhouse: I am +sure you will like to see her.'--'I can see nobody,' said she; and +up she got, and would go away; and that was what made us keep you +waiting--and extremely sorry and ashamed we were. 'If you must go, my +dear,' said I, 'you must, and I will say you are laid down upon the +bed.'" + +Emma was most sincerely interested. Her heart had been long growing +kinder towards Jane; and this picture of her present sufferings acted +as a cure of every former ungenerous suspicion, and left her nothing but +pity; and the remembrance of the less just and less gentle sensations of +the past, obliged her to admit that Jane might very naturally resolve on +seeing Mrs. Cole or any other steady friend, when she might not bear +to see herself. She spoke as she felt, with earnest regret and +solicitude--sincerely wishing that the circumstances which she collected +from Miss Bates to be now actually determined on, might be as much for +Miss Fairfax's advantage and comfort as possible. "It must be a severe +trial to them all. She had understood it was to be delayed till Colonel +Campbell's return." + +"So very kind!" replied Miss Bates. "But you are always kind." + +There was no bearing such an "always;" and to break through her dreadful +gratitude, Emma made the direct inquiry of-- + +"Where--may I ask?--is Miss Fairfax going?" + +"To a Mrs. Smallridge--charming woman--most superior--to have the charge +of her three little girls--delightful children. Impossible that any +situation could be more replete with comfort; if we except, perhaps, +Mrs. Suckling's own family, and Mrs. Bragge's; but Mrs. Smallridge is +intimate with both, and in the very same neighbourhood:--lives only four +miles from Maple Grove. Jane will be only four miles from Maple Grove." + +"Mrs. Elton, I suppose, has been the person to whom Miss Fairfax owes--" + +"Yes, our good Mrs. Elton. The most indefatigable, true friend. She +would not take a denial. She would not let Jane say, 'No;' for when Jane +first heard of it, (it was the day before yesterday, the very morning +we were at Donwell,) when Jane first heard of it, she was quite decided +against accepting the offer, and for the reasons you mention; exactly +as you say, she had made up her mind to close with nothing till Colonel +Campbell's return, and nothing should induce her to enter into any +engagement at present--and so she told Mrs. Elton over and over +again--and I am sure I had no more idea that she would change her +mind!--but that good Mrs. Elton, whose judgment never fails her, saw +farther than I did. It is not every body that would have stood out in +such a kind way as she did, and refuse to take Jane's answer; but she +positively declared she would _not_ write any such denial yesterday, as +Jane wished her; she would wait--and, sure enough, yesterday evening it +was all settled that Jane should go. Quite a surprize to me! I had not +the least idea!--Jane took Mrs. Elton aside, and told her at once, that +upon thinking over the advantages of Mrs. Smallridge's situation, she +had come to the resolution of accepting it.--I did not know a word of it +till it was all settled." + +"You spent the evening with Mrs. Elton?" + +"Yes, all of us; Mrs. Elton would have us come. It was settled so, upon +the hill, while we were walking about with Mr. Knightley. 'You _must_ +_all_ spend your evening with us,' said she--'I positively must have you +_all_ come.'" + +"Mr. Knightley was there too, was he?" + +"No, not Mr. Knightley; he declined it from the first; and though I +thought he would come, because Mrs. Elton declared she would not let him +off, he did not;--but my mother, and Jane, and I, were all there, and +a very agreeable evening we had. Such kind friends, you know, Miss +Woodhouse, one must always find agreeable, though every body seemed +rather fagged after the morning's party. Even pleasure, you know, is +fatiguing--and I cannot say that any of them seemed very much to have +enjoyed it. However, _I_ shall always think it a very pleasant party, +and feel extremely obliged to the kind friends who included me in it." + +"Miss Fairfax, I suppose, though you were not aware of it, had been +making up her mind the whole day?" + +"I dare say she had." + +"Whenever the time may come, it must be unwelcome to her and all her +friends--but I hope her engagement will have every alleviation that is +possible--I mean, as to the character and manners of the family." + +"Thank you, dear Miss Woodhouse. Yes, indeed, there is every thing +in the world that can make her happy in it. Except the Sucklings and +Bragges, there is not such another nursery establishment, so liberal +and elegant, in all Mrs. Elton's acquaintance. Mrs. Smallridge, a most +delightful woman!--A style of living almost equal to Maple Grove--and as +to the children, except the little Sucklings and little Bragges, there +are not such elegant sweet children anywhere. Jane will be treated with +such regard and kindness!--It will be nothing but pleasure, a life of +pleasure.--And her salary!--I really cannot venture to name her salary +to you, Miss Woodhouse. Even you, used as you are to great sums, would +hardly believe that so much could be given to a young person like Jane." + +"Ah! madam," cried Emma, "if other children are at all like what I +remember to have been myself, I should think five times the amount of +what I have ever yet heard named as a salary on such occasions, dearly +earned." + +"You are so noble in your ideas!" + +"And when is Miss Fairfax to leave you?" + +"Very soon, very soon, indeed; that's the worst of it. Within a +fortnight. Mrs. Smallridge is in a great hurry. My poor mother does not +know how to bear it. So then, I try to put it out of her thoughts, and +say, Come ma'am, do not let us think about it any more." + +"Her friends must all be sorry to lose her; and will not Colonel and +Mrs. Campbell be sorry to find that she has engaged herself before their +return?" + +"Yes; Jane says she is sure they will; but yet, this is such a situation +as she cannot feel herself justified in declining. I was so astonished +when she first told me what she had been saying to Mrs. Elton, and when +Mrs. Elton at the same moment came congratulating me upon it! It was +before tea--stay--no, it could not be before tea, because we were +just going to cards--and yet it was before tea, because I remember +thinking--Oh! no, now I recollect, now I have it; something happened +before tea, but not that. Mr. Elton was called out of the room before +tea, old John Abdy's son wanted to speak with him. Poor old John, I +have a great regard for him; he was clerk to my poor father twenty-seven +years; and now, poor old man, he is bed-ridden, and very poorly with the +rheumatic gout in his joints--I must go and see him to-day; and so will +Jane, I am sure, if she gets out at all. And poor John's son came to +talk to Mr. Elton about relief from the parish; he is very well to do +himself, you know, being head man at the Crown, ostler, and every thing +of that sort, but still he cannot keep his father without some help; +and so, when Mr. Elton came back, he told us what John ostler had been +telling him, and then it came out about the chaise having been sent to +Randalls to take Mr. Frank Churchill to Richmond. That was what happened +before tea. It was after tea that Jane spoke to Mrs. Elton." + +Miss Bates would hardly give Emma time to say how perfectly new this +circumstance was to her; but as without supposing it possible that she +could be ignorant of any of the particulars of Mr. Frank Churchill's +going, she proceeded to give them all, it was of no consequence. + +What Mr. Elton had learned from the ostler on the subject, being the +accumulation of the ostler's own knowledge, and the knowledge of the +servants at Randalls, was, that a messenger had come over from Richmond +soon after the return of the party from Box Hill--which messenger, +however, had been no more than was expected; and that Mr. Churchill had +sent his nephew a few lines, containing, upon the whole, a tolerable +account of Mrs. Churchill, and only wishing him not to delay coming +back beyond the next morning early; but that Mr. Frank Churchill having +resolved to go home directly, without waiting at all, and his horse +seeming to have got a cold, Tom had been sent off immediately for the +Crown chaise, and the ostler had stood out and seen it pass by, the boy +going a good pace, and driving very steady. + +There was nothing in all this either to astonish or interest, and it +caught Emma's attention only as it united with the subject which already +engaged her mind. The contrast between Mrs. Churchill's importance in +the world, and Jane Fairfax's, struck her; one was every thing, the +other nothing--and she sat musing on the difference of woman's destiny, +and quite unconscious on what her eyes were fixed, till roused by Miss +Bates's saying, + +"Aye, I see what you are thinking of, the pianoforte. What is to become +of that?--Very true. Poor dear Jane was talking of it just now.--'You +must go,' said she. 'You and I must part. You will have no business +here.--Let it stay, however,' said she; 'give it houseroom till Colonel +Campbell comes back. I shall talk about it to him; he will settle for +me; he will help me out of all my difficulties.'--And to this day, I do +believe, she knows not whether it was his present or his daughter's." + +Now Emma was obliged to think of the pianoforte; and the remembrance of +all her former fanciful and unfair conjectures was so little pleasing, +that she soon allowed herself to believe her visit had been long enough; +and, with a repetition of every thing that she could venture to say of +the good wishes which she really felt, took leave. + + + +CHAPTER IX + + +Emma's pensive meditations, as she walked home, were not interrupted; +but on entering the parlour, she found those who must rouse her. Mr. +Knightley and Harriet had arrived during her absence, and were sitting +with her father.--Mr. Knightley immediately got up, and in a manner +decidedly graver than usual, said, + +"I would not go away without seeing you, but I have no time to spare, +and therefore must now be gone directly. I am going to London, to spend +a few days with John and Isabella. Have you any thing to send or say, +besides the 'love,' which nobody carries?" + +"Nothing at all. But is not this a sudden scheme?" + +"Yes--rather--I have been thinking of it some little time." + +Emma was sure he had not forgiven her; he looked unlike himself. Time, +however, she thought, would tell him that they ought to be friends +again. While he stood, as if meaning to go, but not going--her father +began his inquiries. + +"Well, my dear, and did you get there safely?--And how did you find my +worthy old friend and her daughter?--I dare say they must have been very +much obliged to you for coming. Dear Emma has been to call on Mrs. +and Miss Bates, Mr. Knightley, as I told you before. She is always so +attentive to them!" + +Emma's colour was heightened by this unjust praise; and with a +smile, and shake of the head, which spoke much, she looked at Mr. +Knightley.--It seemed as if there were an instantaneous impression in +her favour, as if his eyes received the truth from hers, and all that +had passed of good in her feelings were at once caught and honoured.-- +He looked at her with a glow of regard. She was warmly gratified--and in +another moment still more so, by a little movement of more than common +friendliness on his part.--He took her hand;--whether she had not +herself made the first motion, she could not say--she might, perhaps, +have rather offered it--but he took her hand, pressed it, and certainly +was on the point of carrying it to his lips--when, from some fancy or +other, he suddenly let it go.--Why he should feel such a scruple, why +he should change his mind when it was all but done, she could not +perceive.--He would have judged better, she thought, if he had not +stopped.--The intention, however, was indubitable; and whether it was +that his manners had in general so little gallantry, or however else it +happened, but she thought nothing became him more.--It was with him, +of so simple, yet so dignified a nature.--She could not but recall the +attempt with great satisfaction. It spoke such perfect amity.--He left +them immediately afterwards--gone in a moment. He always moved with the +alertness of a mind which could neither be undecided nor dilatory, but +now he seemed more sudden than usual in his disappearance. + +Emma could not regret her having gone to Miss Bates, but she wished she +had left her ten minutes earlier;--it would have been a great pleasure +to talk over Jane Fairfax's situation with Mr. Knightley.--Neither +would she regret that he should be going to Brunswick Square, for she +knew how much his visit would be enjoyed--but it might have happened +at a better time--and to have had longer notice of it, would have been +pleasanter.--They parted thorough friends, however; she could not +be deceived as to the meaning of his countenance, and his unfinished +gallantry;--it was all done to assure her that she had fully recovered +his good opinion.--He had been sitting with them half an hour, she +found. It was a pity that she had not come back earlier! + +In the hope of diverting her father's thoughts from the disagreeableness +of Mr. Knightley's going to London; and going so suddenly; and going on +horseback, which she knew would be all very bad; Emma communicated her +news of Jane Fairfax, and her dependence on the effect was justified; +it supplied a very useful check,--interested, without disturbing him. He +had long made up his mind to Jane Fairfax's going out as governess, and +could talk of it cheerfully, but Mr. Knightley's going to London had +been an unexpected blow. + +"I am very glad, indeed, my dear, to hear she is to be so comfortably +settled. Mrs. Elton is very good-natured and agreeable, and I dare say +her acquaintance are just what they ought to be. I hope it is a dry +situation, and that her health will be taken good care of. It ought to +be a first object, as I am sure poor Miss Taylor's always was with me. +You know, my dear, she is going to be to this new lady what Miss Taylor +was to us. And I hope she will be better off in one respect, and not be +induced to go away after it has been her home so long." + +The following day brought news from Richmond to throw every thing else +into the background. An express arrived at Randalls to announce the +death of Mrs. Churchill! Though her nephew had had no particular reason +to hasten back on her account, she had not lived above six-and-thirty +hours after his return. A sudden seizure of a different nature from any +thing foreboded by her general state, had carried her off after a short +struggle. The great Mrs. Churchill was no more. + +It was felt as such things must be felt. Every body had a degree of +gravity and sorrow; tenderness towards the departed, solicitude for the +surviving friends; and, in a reasonable time, curiosity to know where +she would be buried. Goldsmith tells us, that when lovely woman stoops +to folly, she has nothing to do but to die; and when she stoops to be +disagreeable, it is equally to be recommended as a clearer of ill-fame. +Mrs. Churchill, after being disliked at least twenty-five years, was +now spoken of with compassionate allowances. In one point she was fully +justified. She had never been admitted before to be seriously ill. The +event acquitted her of all the fancifulness, and all the selfishness of +imaginary complaints. + +"Poor Mrs. Churchill! no doubt she had been suffering a great deal: +more than any body had ever supposed--and continual pain would try the +temper. It was a sad event--a great shock--with all her faults, what +would Mr. Churchill do without her? Mr. Churchill's loss would be +dreadful indeed. Mr. Churchill would never get over it."--Even Mr. +Weston shook his head, and looked solemn, and said, "Ah! poor woman, +who would have thought it!" and resolved, that his mourning should be as +handsome as possible; and his wife sat sighing and moralising over her +broad hems with a commiseration and good sense, true and steady. How it +would affect Frank was among the earliest thoughts of both. It was also +a very early speculation with Emma. The character of Mrs. Churchill, +the grief of her husband--her mind glanced over them both with awe and +compassion--and then rested with lightened feelings on how Frank might +be affected by the event, how benefited, how freed. She saw in a moment +all the possible good. Now, an attachment to Harriet Smith would have +nothing to encounter. Mr. Churchill, independent of his wife, was feared +by nobody; an easy, guidable man, to be persuaded into any thing by his +nephew. All that remained to be wished was, that the nephew should form +the attachment, as, with all her goodwill in the cause, Emma could feel +no certainty of its being already formed. + +Harriet behaved extremely well on the occasion, with great self-command. +What ever she might feel of brighter hope, she betrayed nothing. Emma +was gratified, to observe such a proof in her of strengthened character, +and refrained from any allusion that might endanger its maintenance. +They spoke, therefore, of Mrs. Churchill's death with mutual +forbearance. + +Short letters from Frank were received at Randalls, communicating all +that was immediately important of their state and plans. Mr. Churchill +was better than could be expected; and their first removal, on the +departure of the funeral for Yorkshire, was to be to the house of a very +old friend in Windsor, to whom Mr. Churchill had been promising a +visit the last ten years. At present, there was nothing to be done for +Harriet; good wishes for the future were all that could yet be possible +on Emma's side. + +It was a more pressing concern to shew attention to Jane Fairfax, whose +prospects were closing, while Harriet's opened, and whose engagements +now allowed of no delay in any one at Highbury, who wished to shew her +kindness--and with Emma it was grown into a first wish. She had scarcely +a stronger regret than for her past coldness; and the person, whom she +had been so many months neglecting, was now the very one on whom she +would have lavished every distinction of regard or sympathy. She wanted +to be of use to her; wanted to shew a value for her society, and testify +respect and consideration. She resolved to prevail on her to spend a day +at Hartfield. A note was written to urge it. The invitation was refused, +and by a verbal message. "Miss Fairfax was not well enough to write;" +and when Mr. Perry called at Hartfield, the same morning, it appeared +that she was so much indisposed as to have been visited, though against +her own consent, by himself, and that she was suffering under severe +headaches, and a nervous fever to a degree, which made him doubt the +possibility of her going to Mrs. Smallridge's at the time proposed. +Her health seemed for the moment completely deranged--appetite quite +gone--and though there were no absolutely alarming symptoms, nothing +touching the pulmonary complaint, which was the standing apprehension +of the family, Mr. Perry was uneasy about her. He thought she had +undertaken more than she was equal to, and that she felt it so herself, +though she would not own it. Her spirits seemed overcome. Her +present home, he could not but observe, was unfavourable to a nervous +disorder:--confined always to one room;--he could have wished it +otherwise--and her good aunt, though his very old friend, he must +acknowledge to be not the best companion for an invalid of that +description. Her care and attention could not be questioned; they were, +in fact, only too great. He very much feared that Miss Fairfax derived +more evil than good from them. Emma listened with the warmest concern; +grieved for her more and more, and looked around eager to discover some +way of being useful. To take her--be it only an hour or two--from +her aunt, to give her change of air and scene, and quiet rational +conversation, even for an hour or two, might do her good; and the +following morning she wrote again to say, in the most feeling language +she could command, that she would call for her in the carriage at any +hour that Jane would name--mentioning that she had Mr. Perry's decided +opinion, in favour of such exercise for his patient. The answer was only +in this short note: + +"Miss Fairfax's compliments and thanks, but is quite unequal to any +exercise." + +Emma felt that her own note had deserved something better; but it was +impossible to quarrel with words, whose tremulous inequality shewed +indisposition so plainly, and she thought only of how she might best +counteract this unwillingness to be seen or assisted. In spite of the +answer, therefore, she ordered the carriage, and drove to Mrs. Bates's, +in the hope that Jane would be induced to join her--but it would not +do;--Miss Bates came to the carriage door, all gratitude, and agreeing +with her most earnestly in thinking an airing might be of the greatest +service--and every thing that message could do was tried--but all in +vain. Miss Bates was obliged to return without success; Jane was +quite unpersuadable; the mere proposal of going out seemed to make her +worse.--Emma wished she could have seen her, and tried her own powers; +but, almost before she could hint the wish, Miss Bates made it appear +that she had promised her niece on no account to let Miss Woodhouse in. +"Indeed, the truth was, that poor dear Jane could not bear to see any +body--any body at all--Mrs. Elton, indeed, could not be denied--and +Mrs. Cole had made such a point--and Mrs. Perry had said so much--but, +except them, Jane would really see nobody." + +Emma did not want to be classed with the Mrs. Eltons, the Mrs. Perrys, +and the Mrs. Coles, who would force themselves anywhere; neither could +she feel any right of preference herself--she submitted, therefore, and +only questioned Miss Bates farther as to her niece's appetite and diet, +which she longed to be able to assist. On that subject poor Miss Bates +was very unhappy, and very communicative; Jane would hardly eat any +thing:--Mr. Perry recommended nourishing food; but every thing +they could command (and never had any body such good neighbours) was +distasteful. + +Emma, on reaching home, called the housekeeper directly, to an +examination of her stores; and some arrowroot of very superior quality +was speedily despatched to Miss Bates with a most friendly note. In half +an hour the arrowroot was returned, with a thousand thanks from Miss +Bates, but "dear Jane would not be satisfied without its being sent +back; it was a thing she could not take--and, moreover, she insisted on +her saying, that she was not at all in want of any thing." + +When Emma afterwards heard that Jane Fairfax had been seen wandering +about the meadows, at some distance from Highbury, on the afternoon of +the very day on which she had, under the plea of being unequal to any +exercise, so peremptorily refused to go out with her in the carriage, +she could have no doubt--putting every thing together--that Jane was +resolved to receive no kindness from _her_. She was sorry, very sorry. +Her heart was grieved for a state which seemed but the more pitiable +from this sort of irritation of spirits, inconsistency of action, and +inequality of powers; and it mortified her that she was given so little +credit for proper feeling, or esteemed so little worthy as a friend: but +she had the consolation of knowing that her intentions were good, and of +being able to say to herself, that could Mr. Knightley have been privy +to all her attempts of assisting Jane Fairfax, could he even have seen +into her heart, he would not, on this occasion, have found any thing to +reprove. + + + +CHAPTER X + + +One morning, about ten days after Mrs. Churchill's decease, Emma was +called downstairs to Mr. Weston, who "could not stay five minutes, +and wanted particularly to speak with her."--He met her at the +parlour-door, and hardly asking her how she did, in the natural key of +his voice, sunk it immediately, to say, unheard by her father, + +"Can you come to Randalls at any time this morning?--Do, if it be +possible. Mrs. Weston wants to see you. She must see you." + +"Is she unwell?" + +"No, no, not at all--only a little agitated. She would have ordered the +carriage, and come to you, but she must see you _alone_, and that you +know--(nodding towards her father)--Humph!--Can you come?" + +"Certainly. This moment, if you please. It is impossible to refuse what +you ask in such a way. But what can be the matter?--Is she really not +ill?" + +"Depend upon me--but ask no more questions. You will know it all in +time. The most unaccountable business! But hush, hush!" + +To guess what all this meant, was impossible even for Emma. Something +really important seemed announced by his looks; but, as her friend was +well, she endeavoured not to be uneasy, and settling it with her father, +that she would take her walk now, she and Mr. Weston were soon out of +the house together and on their way at a quick pace for Randalls. + +"Now,"--said Emma, when they were fairly beyond the sweep gates,--"now +Mr. Weston, do let me know what has happened." + +"No, no,"--he gravely replied.--"Don't ask me. I promised my wife to +leave it all to her. She will break it to you better than I can. Do not +be impatient, Emma; it will all come out too soon." + +"Break it to me," cried Emma, standing still with terror.--"Good +God!--Mr. Weston, tell me at once.--Something has happened in Brunswick +Square. I know it has. Tell me, I charge you tell me this moment what it +is." + +"No, indeed you are mistaken."-- + +"Mr. Weston do not trifle with me.--Consider how many of my dearest +friends are now in Brunswick Square. Which of them is it?--I charge you +by all that is sacred, not to attempt concealment." + +"Upon my word, Emma."-- + +"Your word!--why not your honour!--why not say upon your honour, that +it has nothing to do with any of them? Good Heavens!--What can be to be +_broke_ to me, that does not relate to one of that family?" + +"Upon my honour," said he very seriously, "it does not. It is not in +the smallest degree connected with any human being of the name of +Knightley." + +Emma's courage returned, and she walked on. + +"I was wrong," he continued, "in talking of its being _broke_ to you. +I should not have used the expression. In fact, it does not concern +you--it concerns only myself,--that is, we hope.--Humph!--In short, my +dear Emma, there is no occasion to be so uneasy about it. I don't +say that it is not a disagreeable business--but things might be much +worse.--If we walk fast, we shall soon be at Randalls." + +Emma found that she must wait; and now it required little effort. She +asked no more questions therefore, merely employed her own fancy, and +that soon pointed out to her the probability of its being some money +concern--something just come to light, of a disagreeable nature in the +circumstances of the family,--something which the late event at Richmond +had brought forward. Her fancy was very active. Half a dozen natural +children, perhaps--and poor Frank cut off!--This, though very +undesirable, would be no matter of agony to her. It inspired little more +than an animating curiosity. + +"Who is that gentleman on horseback?" said she, as they +proceeded--speaking more to assist Mr. Weston in keeping his secret, +than with any other view. + +"I do not know.--One of the Otways.--Not Frank;--it is not Frank, I +assure you. You will not see him. He is half way to Windsor by this +time." + +"Has your son been with you, then?" + +"Oh! yes--did not you know?--Well, well, never mind." + +For a moment he was silent; and then added, in a tone much more guarded +and demure, + +"Yes, Frank came over this morning, just to ask us how we did." + +They hurried on, and were speedily at Randalls.--"Well, my dear," said +he, as they entered the room--"I have brought her, and now I hope you +will soon be better. I shall leave you together. There is no use in +delay. I shall not be far off, if you want me."--And Emma distinctly +heard him add, in a lower tone, before he quitted the room,--"I have +been as good as my word. She has not the least idea." + +Mrs. Weston was looking so ill, and had an air of so much perturbation, +that Emma's uneasiness increased; and the moment they were alone, she +eagerly said, + +"What is it my dear friend? Something of a very unpleasant nature, I +find, has occurred;--do let me know directly what it is. I have been +walking all this way in complete suspense. We both abhor suspense. +Do not let mine continue longer. It will do you good to speak of your +distress, whatever it may be." + +"Have you indeed no idea?" said Mrs. Weston in a trembling voice. +"Cannot you, my dear Emma--cannot you form a guess as to what you are to +hear?" + +"So far as that it relates to Mr. Frank Churchill, I do guess." + +"You are right. It does relate to him, and I will tell you directly;" +(resuming her work, and seeming resolved against looking up.) "He has +been here this very morning, on a most extraordinary errand. It is +impossible to express our surprize. He came to speak to his father on a +subject,--to announce an attachment--" + +She stopped to breathe. Emma thought first of herself, and then of +Harriet. + +"More than an attachment, indeed," resumed Mrs. Weston; "an +engagement--a positive engagement.--What will you say, Emma--what will +any body say, when it is known that Frank Churchill and Miss Fairfax are +engaged;--nay, that they have been long engaged!" + +Emma even jumped with surprize;--and, horror-struck, exclaimed, + +"Jane Fairfax!--Good God! You are not serious? You do not mean it?" + +"You may well be amazed," returned Mrs. Weston, still averting her eyes, +and talking on with eagerness, that Emma might have time to recover-- +"You may well be amazed. But it is even so. There has been a solemn +engagement between them ever since October--formed at Weymouth, and +kept a secret from every body. Not a creature knowing it but +themselves--neither the Campbells, nor her family, nor his.--It is so +wonderful, that though perfectly convinced of the fact, it is yet almost +incredible to myself. I can hardly believe it.--I thought I knew him." + +Emma scarcely heard what was said.--Her mind was divided between two +ideas--her own former conversations with him about Miss Fairfax; and +poor Harriet;--and for some time she could only exclaim, and require +confirmation, repeated confirmation. + +"Well," said she at last, trying to recover herself; "this is a +circumstance which I must think of at least half a day, before I can at +all comprehend it. What!--engaged to her all the winter--before either +of them came to Highbury?" + +"Engaged since October,--secretly engaged.--It has hurt me, Emma, very +much. It has hurt his father equally. _Some_ _part_ of his conduct we +cannot excuse." + +Emma pondered a moment, and then replied, "I will not pretend _not_ to +understand you; and to give you all the relief in my power, be assured +that no such effect has followed his attentions to me, as you are +apprehensive of." + +Mrs. Weston looked up, afraid to believe; but Emma's countenance was as +steady as her words. + +"That you may have less difficulty in believing this boast, of my +present perfect indifference," she continued, "I will farther tell you, +that there was a period in the early part of our acquaintance, when I +did like him, when I was very much disposed to be attached to him--nay, +was attached--and how it came to cease, is perhaps the wonder. +Fortunately, however, it did cease. I have really for some time past, +for at least these three months, cared nothing about him. You may +believe me, Mrs. Weston. This is the simple truth." + +Mrs. Weston kissed her with tears of joy; and when she could find +utterance, assured her, that this protestation had done her more good +than any thing else in the world could do. + +"Mr. Weston will be almost as much relieved as myself," said she. "On +this point we have been wretched. It was our darling wish that you +might be attached to each other--and we were persuaded that it was so.-- +Imagine what we have been feeling on your account." + +"I have escaped; and that I should escape, may be a matter of grateful +wonder to you and myself. But this does not acquit _him_, Mrs. Weston; +and I must say, that I think him greatly to blame. What right had he +to come among us with affection and faith engaged, and with manners +so _very_ disengaged? What right had he to endeavour to please, as +he certainly did--to distinguish any one young woman with persevering +attention, as he certainly did--while he really belonged to +another?--How could he tell what mischief he might be doing?--How could +he tell that he might not be making me in love with him?--very wrong, +very wrong indeed." + +"From something that he said, my dear Emma, I rather imagine--" + +"And how could _she_ bear such behaviour! Composure with a witness! +to look on, while repeated attentions were offering to another woman, +before her face, and not resent it.--That is a degree of placidity, +which I can neither comprehend nor respect." + +"There were misunderstandings between them, Emma; he said so expressly. +He had not time to enter into much explanation. He was here only a +quarter of an hour, and in a state of agitation which did not allow +the full use even of the time he could stay--but that there had been +misunderstandings he decidedly said. The present crisis, indeed, +seemed to be brought on by them; and those misunderstandings might very +possibly arise from the impropriety of his conduct." + +"Impropriety! Oh! Mrs. Weston--it is too calm a censure. Much, much +beyond impropriety!--It has sunk him, I cannot say how it has sunk him +in my opinion. So unlike what a man should be!--None of that upright +integrity, that strict adherence to truth and principle, that disdain of +trick and littleness, which a man should display in every transaction of +his life." + +"Nay, dear Emma, now I must take his part; for though he has been wrong +in this instance, I have known him long enough to answer for his having +many, very many, good qualities; and--" + +"Good God!" cried Emma, not attending to her.--"Mrs. Smallridge, too! +Jane actually on the point of going as governess! What could he mean by +such horrible indelicacy? To suffer her to engage herself--to suffer her +even to think of such a measure!" + +"He knew nothing about it, Emma. On this article I can fully acquit +him. It was a private resolution of hers, not communicated to him--or at +least not communicated in a way to carry conviction.--Till yesterday, I +know he said he was in the dark as to her plans. They burst on him, I do +not know how, but by some letter or message--and it was the discovery of +what she was doing, of this very project of hers, which determined him +to come forward at once, own it all to his uncle, throw himself on +his kindness, and, in short, put an end to the miserable state of +concealment that had been carrying on so long." + +Emma began to listen better. + +"I am to hear from him soon," continued Mrs. Weston. "He told me at +parting, that he should soon write; and he spoke in a manner which +seemed to promise me many particulars that could not be given now. Let +us wait, therefore, for this letter. It may bring many extenuations. It +may make many things intelligible and excusable which now are not to +be understood. Don't let us be severe, don't let us be in a hurry to +condemn him. Let us have patience. I must love him; and now that I am +satisfied on one point, the one material point, I am sincerely anxious +for its all turning out well, and ready to hope that it may. They must +both have suffered a great deal under such a system of secresy and +concealment." + +"_His_ sufferings," replied Emma dryly, "do not appear to have done him +much harm. Well, and how did Mr. Churchill take it?" + +"Most favourably for his nephew--gave his consent with scarcely a +difficulty. Conceive what the events of a week have done in that family! +While poor Mrs. Churchill lived, I suppose there could not have been a +hope, a chance, a possibility;--but scarcely are her remains at rest in +the family vault, than her husband is persuaded to act exactly opposite +to what she would have required. What a blessing it is, when undue +influence does not survive the grave!--He gave his consent with very +little persuasion." + +"Ah!" thought Emma, "he would have done as much for Harriet." + +"This was settled last night, and Frank was off with the light this +morning. He stopped at Highbury, at the Bates's, I fancy, some time--and +then came on hither; but was in such a hurry to get back to his uncle, +to whom he is just now more necessary than ever, that, as I tell you, +he could stay with us but a quarter of an hour.--He was very much +agitated--very much, indeed--to a degree that made him appear quite +a different creature from any thing I had ever seen him before.--In +addition to all the rest, there had been the shock of finding her so +very unwell, which he had had no previous suspicion of--and there was +every appearance of his having been feeling a great deal." + +"And do you really believe the affair to have been carrying on with such +perfect secresy?--The Campbells, the Dixons, did none of them know of +the engagement?" + +Emma could not speak the name of Dixon without a little blush. + +"None; not one. He positively said that it had been known to no being in +the world but their two selves." + +"Well," said Emma, "I suppose we shall gradually grow reconciled to the +idea, and I wish them very happy. But I shall always think it a +very abominable sort of proceeding. What has it been but a system of +hypocrisy and deceit,--espionage, and treachery?--To come among us with +professions of openness and simplicity; and such a league in secret +to judge us all!--Here have we been, the whole winter and spring, +completely duped, fancying ourselves all on an equal footing of truth +and honour, with two people in the midst of us who may have been +carrying round, comparing and sitting in judgment on sentiments and +words that were never meant for both to hear.--They must take the +consequence, if they have heard each other spoken of in a way not +perfectly agreeable!" + +"I am quite easy on that head," replied Mrs. Weston. "I am very sure +that I never said any thing of either to the other, which both might not +have heard." + +"You are in luck.--Your only blunder was confined to my ear, when you +imagined a certain friend of ours in love with the lady." + +"True. But as I have always had a thoroughly good opinion of Miss +Fairfax, I never could, under any blunder, have spoken ill of her; and +as to speaking ill of him, there I must have been safe." + +At this moment Mr. Weston appeared at a little distance from the window, +evidently on the watch. His wife gave him a look which invited him +in; and, while he was coming round, added, "Now, dearest Emma, let me +intreat you to say and look every thing that may set his heart at ease, +and incline him to be satisfied with the match. Let us make the best of +it--and, indeed, almost every thing may be fairly said in her favour. It +is not a connexion to gratify; but if Mr. Churchill does not feel that, +why should we? and it may be a very fortunate circumstance for him, for +Frank, I mean, that he should have attached himself to a girl of such +steadiness of character and good judgment as I have always given her +credit for--and still am disposed to give her credit for, in spite of +this one great deviation from the strict rule of right. And how much may +be said in her situation for even that error!" + +"Much, indeed!" cried Emma feelingly. "If a woman can ever be +excused for thinking only of herself, it is in a situation like Jane +Fairfax's.--Of such, one may almost say, that 'the world is not their's, +nor the world's law.'" + +She met Mr. Weston on his entrance, with a smiling countenance, +exclaiming, + +"A very pretty trick you have been playing me, upon my word! This was a +device, I suppose, to sport with my curiosity, and exercise my talent of +guessing. But you really frightened me. I thought you had lost half +your property, at least. And here, instead of its being a matter of +condolence, it turns out to be one of congratulation.--I congratulate +you, Mr. Weston, with all my heart, on the prospect of having one of the +most lovely and accomplished young women in England for your daughter." + +A glance or two between him and his wife, convinced him that all was as +right as this speech proclaimed; and its happy effect on his spirits was +immediate. His air and voice recovered their usual briskness: he shook +her heartily and gratefully by the hand, and entered on the subject in +a manner to prove, that he now only wanted time and persuasion to think +the engagement no very bad thing. His companions suggested only what +could palliate imprudence, or smooth objections; and by the time they +had talked it all over together, and he had talked it all over again +with Emma, in their walk back to Hartfield, he was become perfectly +reconciled, and not far from thinking it the very best thing that Frank +could possibly have done. + + + +CHAPTER XI + + +"Harriet, poor Harriet!"--Those were the words; in them lay the +tormenting ideas which Emma could not get rid of, and which constituted +the real misery of the business to her. Frank Churchill had behaved very +ill by herself--very ill in many ways,--but it was not so much _his_ +behaviour as her _own_, which made her so angry with him. It was the +scrape which he had drawn her into on Harriet's account, that gave the +deepest hue to his offence.--Poor Harriet! to be a second time the +dupe of her misconceptions and flattery. Mr. Knightley had spoken +prophetically, when he once said, "Emma, you have been no friend +to Harriet Smith."--She was afraid she had done her nothing but +disservice.--It was true that she had not to charge herself, in this +instance as in the former, with being the sole and original author of +the mischief; with having suggested such feelings as might otherwise +never have entered Harriet's imagination; for Harriet had acknowledged +her admiration and preference of Frank Churchill before she had ever +given her a hint on the subject; but she felt completely guilty +of having encouraged what she might have repressed. She might have +prevented the indulgence and increase of such sentiments. Her influence +would have been enough. And now she was very conscious that she ought +to have prevented them.--She felt that she had been risking her friend's +happiness on most insufficient grounds. Common sense would have directed +her to tell Harriet, that she must not allow herself to think of him, +and that there were five hundred chances to one against his ever caring +for her.--"But, with common sense," she added, "I am afraid I have had +little to do." + +She was extremely angry with herself. If she could not have been angry +with Frank Churchill too, it would have been dreadful.--As for Jane +Fairfax, she might at least relieve her feelings from any present +solicitude on her account. Harriet would be anxiety enough; she need +no longer be unhappy about Jane, whose troubles and whose ill-health +having, of course, the same origin, must be equally under cure.--Her +days of insignificance and evil were over.--She would soon be well, and +happy, and prosperous.--Emma could now imagine why her own attentions +had been slighted. This discovery laid many smaller matters open. No +doubt it had been from jealousy.--In Jane's eyes she had been a rival; +and well might any thing she could offer of assistance or regard be +repulsed. An airing in the Hartfield carriage would have been the rack, +and arrowroot from the Hartfield storeroom must have been poison. She +understood it all; and as far as her mind could disengage itself from +the injustice and selfishness of angry feelings, she acknowledged that +Jane Fairfax would have neither elevation nor happiness beyond her +desert. But poor Harriet was such an engrossing charge! There was little +sympathy to be spared for any body else. Emma was sadly fearful +that this second disappointment would be more severe than the first. +Considering the very superior claims of the object, it ought; and +judging by its apparently stronger effect on Harriet's mind, producing +reserve and self-command, it would.--She must communicate the painful +truth, however, and as soon as possible. An injunction of secresy had +been among Mr. Weston's parting words. "For the present, the whole +affair was to be completely a secret. Mr. Churchill had made a point of +it, as a token of respect to the wife he had so very recently lost; +and every body admitted it to be no more than due decorum."--Emma had +promised; but still Harriet must be excepted. It was her superior duty. + +In spite of her vexation, she could not help feeling it almost +ridiculous, that she should have the very same distressing and delicate +office to perform by Harriet, which Mrs. Weston had just gone through by +herself. The intelligence, which had been so anxiously announced to her, +she was now to be anxiously announcing to another. Her heart beat quick +on hearing Harriet's footstep and voice; so, she supposed, had poor Mrs. +Weston felt when _she_ was approaching Randalls. Could the event of +the disclosure bear an equal resemblance!--But of that, unfortunately, +there could be no chance. + +"Well, Miss Woodhouse!" cried Harriet, coming eagerly into the room--"is +not this the oddest news that ever was?" + +"What news do you mean?" replied Emma, unable to guess, by look or +voice, whether Harriet could indeed have received any hint. + +"About Jane Fairfax. Did you ever hear any thing so strange? Oh!--you +need not be afraid of owning it to me, for Mr. Weston has told me +himself. I met him just now. He told me it was to be a great secret; +and, therefore, I should not think of mentioning it to any body but you, +but he said you knew it." + +"What did Mr. Weston tell you?"--said Emma, still perplexed. + +"Oh! he told me all about it; that Jane Fairfax and Mr. Frank Churchill +are to be married, and that they have been privately engaged to one +another this long while. How very odd!" + +It was, indeed, so odd; Harriet's behaviour was so extremely odd, +that Emma did not know how to understand it. Her character appeared +absolutely changed. She seemed to propose shewing no agitation, or +disappointment, or peculiar concern in the discovery. Emma looked at +her, quite unable to speak. + +"Had you any idea," cried Harriet, "of his being in love with her?--You, +perhaps, might.--You (blushing as she spoke) who can see into every +body's heart; but nobody else--" + +"Upon my word," said Emma, "I begin to doubt my having any such talent. +Can you seriously ask me, Harriet, whether I imagined him attached +to another woman at the very time that I was--tacitly, if not +openly--encouraging you to give way to your own feelings?--I never +had the slightest suspicion, till within the last hour, of Mr. Frank +Churchill's having the least regard for Jane Fairfax. You may be very +sure that if I had, I should have cautioned you accordingly." + +"Me!" cried Harriet, colouring, and astonished. "Why should you caution +me?--You do not think I care about Mr. Frank Churchill." + +"I am delighted to hear you speak so stoutly on the subject," replied +Emma, smiling; "but you do not mean to deny that there was a time--and +not very distant either--when you gave me reason to understand that you +did care about him?" + +"Him!--never, never. Dear Miss Woodhouse, how could you so mistake me?" +turning away distressed. + +"Harriet!" cried Emma, after a moment's pause--"What do you mean?--Good +Heaven! what do you mean?--Mistake you!--Am I to suppose then?--" + +She could not speak another word.--Her voice was lost; and she sat down, +waiting in great terror till Harriet should answer. + +Harriet, who was standing at some distance, and with face turned from +her, did not immediately say any thing; and when she did speak, it was +in a voice nearly as agitated as Emma's. + +"I should not have thought it possible," she began, "that you could have +misunderstood me! I know we agreed never to name him--but considering +how infinitely superior he is to every body else, I should not have +thought it possible that I could be supposed to mean any other person. +Mr. Frank Churchill, indeed! I do not know who would ever look at him in +the company of the other. I hope I have a better taste than to think of +Mr. Frank Churchill, who is like nobody by his side. And that you should +have been so mistaken, is amazing!--I am sure, but for believing that +you entirely approved and meant to encourage me in my attachment, I +should have considered it at first too great a presumption almost, +to dare to think of him. At first, if you had not told me that more +wonderful things had happened; that there had been matches of greater +disparity (those were your very words);--I should not have dared to +give way to--I should not have thought it possible--But if _you_, who +had been always acquainted with him--" + +"Harriet!" cried Emma, collecting herself resolutely--"Let us understand +each other now, without the possibility of farther mistake. Are you +speaking of--Mr. Knightley?" + +"To be sure I am. I never could have an idea of any body else--and so +I thought you knew. When we talked about him, it was as clear as +possible." + +"Not quite," returned Emma, with forced calmness, "for all that you then +said, appeared to me to relate to a different person. I could almost +assert that you had _named_ Mr. Frank Churchill. I am sure the service +Mr. Frank Churchill had rendered you, in protecting you from the +gipsies, was spoken of." + +"Oh! Miss Woodhouse, how you do forget!" + +"My dear Harriet, I perfectly remember the substance of what I said on +the occasion. I told you that I did not wonder at your attachment; +that considering the service he had rendered you, it was extremely +natural:--and you agreed to it, expressing yourself very warmly as to +your sense of that service, and mentioning even what your sensations had +been in seeing him come forward to your rescue.--The impression of it is +strong on my memory." + +"Oh, dear," cried Harriet, "now I recollect what you mean; but I +was thinking of something very different at the time. It was not the +gipsies--it was not Mr. Frank Churchill that I meant. No! (with some +elevation) I was thinking of a much more precious circumstance--of Mr. +Knightley's coming and asking me to dance, when Mr. Elton would not +stand up with me; and when there was no other partner in the room. That +was the kind action; that was the noble benevolence and generosity; that +was the service which made me begin to feel how superior he was to every +other being upon earth." + +"Good God!" cried Emma, "this has been a most unfortunate--most +deplorable mistake!--What is to be done?" + +"You would not have encouraged me, then, if you had understood me? At +least, however, I cannot be worse off than I should have been, if the +other had been the person; and now--it _is_ possible--" + +She paused a few moments. Emma could not speak. + +"I do not wonder, Miss Woodhouse," she resumed, "that you should feel a +great difference between the two, as to me or as to any body. You must +think one five hundred million times more above me than the other. But +I hope, Miss Woodhouse, that supposing--that if--strange as it may +appear--. But you know they were your own words, that _more_ wonderful +things had happened, matches of _greater_ disparity had taken place than +between Mr. Frank Churchill and me; and, therefore, it seems as if such +a thing even as this, may have occurred before--and if I should be so +fortunate, beyond expression, as to--if Mr. Knightley should really--if +_he_ does not mind the disparity, I hope, dear Miss Woodhouse, you will +not set yourself against it, and try to put difficulties in the way. But +you are too good for that, I am sure." + +Harriet was standing at one of the windows. Emma turned round to look at +her in consternation, and hastily said, + +"Have you any idea of Mr. Knightley's returning your affection?" + +"Yes," replied Harriet modestly, but not fearfully--"I must say that I +have." + +Emma's eyes were instantly withdrawn; and she sat silently meditating, +in a fixed attitude, for a few minutes. A few minutes were sufficient +for making her acquainted with her own heart. A mind like hers, +once opening to suspicion, made rapid progress. She touched--she +admitted--she acknowledged the whole truth. Why was it so much worse +that Harriet should be in love with Mr. Knightley, than with Frank +Churchill? Why was the evil so dreadfully increased by Harriet's having +some hope of a return? It darted through her, with the speed of an +arrow, that Mr. Knightley must marry no one but herself! + +Her own conduct, as well as her own heart, was before her in the same +few minutes. She saw it all with a clearness which had never blessed +her before. How improperly had she been acting by Harriet! How +inconsiderate, how indelicate, how irrational, how unfeeling had been +her conduct! What blindness, what madness, had led her on! It struck her +with dreadful force, and she was ready to give it every bad name in the +world. Some portion of respect for herself, however, in spite of all +these demerits--some concern for her own appearance, and a strong sense +of justice by Harriet--(there would be no need of _compassion_ to the +girl who believed herself loved by Mr. Knightley--but justice required +that she should not be made unhappy by any coldness now,) gave Emma the +resolution to sit and endure farther with calmness, with even apparent +kindness.--For her own advantage indeed, it was fit that the utmost +extent of Harriet's hopes should be enquired into; and Harriet had done +nothing to forfeit the regard and interest which had been so voluntarily +formed and maintained--or to deserve to be slighted by the person, whose +counsels had never led her right.--Rousing from reflection, therefore, +and subduing her emotion, she turned to Harriet again, and, in a more +inviting accent, renewed the conversation; for as to the subject which +had first introduced it, the wonderful story of Jane Fairfax, that was +quite sunk and lost.--Neither of them thought but of Mr. Knightley and +themselves. + +Harriet, who had been standing in no unhappy reverie, was yet very glad +to be called from it, by the now encouraging manner of such a judge, and +such a friend as Miss Woodhouse, and only wanted invitation, to give +the history of her hopes with great, though trembling delight.--Emma's +tremblings as she asked, and as she listened, were better concealed than +Harriet's, but they were not less. Her voice was not unsteady; but her +mind was in all the perturbation that such a development of self, such +a burst of threatening evil, such a confusion of sudden and perplexing +emotions, must create.--She listened with much inward suffering, but +with great outward patience, to Harriet's detail.--Methodical, or well +arranged, or very well delivered, it could not be expected to be; but it +contained, when separated from all the feebleness and tautology of +the narration, a substance to sink her spirit--especially with the +corroborating circumstances, which her own memory brought in favour of +Mr. Knightley's most improved opinion of Harriet. + +Harriet had been conscious of a difference in his behaviour ever since +those two decisive dances.--Emma knew that he had, on that occasion, +found her much superior to his expectation. From that evening, or at +least from the time of Miss Woodhouse's encouraging her to think of him, +Harriet had begun to be sensible of his talking to her much more than he +had been used to do, and of his having indeed quite a different manner +towards her; a manner of kindness and sweetness!--Latterly she had been +more and more aware of it. When they had been all walking together, +he had so often come and walked by her, and talked so very +delightfully!--He seemed to want to be acquainted with her. Emma knew it +to have been very much the case. She had often observed the change, to +almost the same extent.--Harriet repeated expressions of approbation +and praise from him--and Emma felt them to be in the closest agreement +with what she had known of his opinion of Harriet. He praised her for +being without art or affectation, for having simple, honest, generous, +feelings.--She knew that he saw such recommendations in Harriet; he +had dwelt on them to her more than once.--Much that lived in Harriet's +memory, many little particulars of the notice she had received from +him, a look, a speech, a removal from one chair to another, a compliment +implied, a preference inferred, had been unnoticed, because unsuspected, +by Emma. Circumstances that might swell to half an hour's relation, +and contained multiplied proofs to her who had seen them, had passed +undiscerned by her who now heard them; but the two latest occurrences to +be mentioned, the two of strongest promise to Harriet, were not without +some degree of witness from Emma herself.--The first, was his walking +with her apart from the others, in the lime-walk at Donwell, where they +had been walking some time before Emma came, and he had taken pains (as +she was convinced) to draw her from the rest to himself--and at first, +he had talked to her in a more particular way than he had ever done +before, in a very particular way indeed!--(Harriet could not recall +it without a blush.) He seemed to be almost asking her, whether her +affections were engaged.--But as soon as she (Miss Woodhouse) appeared +likely to join them, he changed the subject, and began talking about +farming:--The second, was his having sat talking with her nearly half +an hour before Emma came back from her visit, the very last morning of +his being at Hartfield--though, when he first came in, he had said that +he could not stay five minutes--and his having told her, during their +conversation, that though he must go to London, it was very much against +his inclination that he left home at all, which was much more (as +Emma felt) than he had acknowledged to _her_. The superior degree of +confidence towards Harriet, which this one article marked, gave her +severe pain. + +On the subject of the first of the two circumstances, she did, after a +little reflection, venture the following question. "Might he not?--Is +not it possible, that when enquiring, as you thought, into the state of +your affections, he might be alluding to Mr. Martin--he might have +Mr. Martin's interest in view? But Harriet rejected the suspicion with +spirit. + +"Mr. Martin! No indeed!--There was not a hint of Mr. Martin. I hope I +know better now, than to care for Mr. Martin, or to be suspected of it." + +When Harriet had closed her evidence, she appealed to her dear Miss +Woodhouse, to say whether she had not good ground for hope. + +"I never should have presumed to think of it at first," said she, "but +for you. You told me to observe him carefully, and let his behaviour +be the rule of mine--and so I have. But now I seem to feel that I may +deserve him; and that if he does chuse me, it will not be any thing so +very wonderful." + +The bitter feelings occasioned by this speech, the many bitter feelings, +made the utmost exertion necessary on Emma's side, to enable her to say +on reply, + +"Harriet, I will only venture to declare, that Mr. Knightley is the last +man in the world, who would intentionally give any woman the idea of his +feeling for her more than he really does." + +Harriet seemed ready to worship her friend for a sentence so +satisfactory; and Emma was only saved from raptures and fondness, which +at that moment would have been dreadful penance, by the sound of her +father's footsteps. He was coming through the hall. Harriet was too +much agitated to encounter him. "She could not compose herself-- +Mr. Woodhouse would be alarmed--she had better go;"--with most ready +encouragement from her friend, therefore, she passed off through another +door--and the moment she was gone, this was the spontaneous burst of +Emma's feelings: "Oh God! that I had never seen her!" + +The rest of the day, the following night, were hardly enough for her +thoughts.--She was bewildered amidst the confusion of all that had +rushed on her within the last few hours. Every moment had brought a +fresh surprize; and every surprize must be matter of humiliation to +her.--How to understand it all! How to understand the deceptions she had +been thus practising on herself, and living under!--The blunders, the +blindness of her own head and heart!--she sat still, she walked about, +she tried her own room, she tried the shrubbery--in every place, every +posture, she perceived that she had acted most weakly; that she had +been imposed on by others in a most mortifying degree; that she had +been imposing on herself in a degree yet more mortifying; that she +was wretched, and should probably find this day but the beginning of +wretchedness. + +To understand, thoroughly understand her own heart, was the first +endeavour. To that point went every leisure moment which her father's +claims on her allowed, and every moment of involuntary absence of mind. + +How long had Mr. Knightley been so dear to her, as every feeling +declared him now to be? When had his influence, such influence begun?-- +When had he succeeded to that place in her affection, which Frank +Churchill had once, for a short period, occupied?--She looked back; +she compared the two--compared them, as they had always stood in her +estimation, from the time of the latter's becoming known to her--and as +they must at any time have been compared by her, had it--oh! had it, by +any blessed felicity, occurred to her, to institute the comparison.--She +saw that there never had been a time when she did not consider Mr. +Knightley as infinitely the superior, or when his regard for her had not +been infinitely the most dear. She saw, that in persuading herself, +in fancying, in acting to the contrary, she had been entirely under a +delusion, totally ignorant of her own heart--and, in short, that she had +never really cared for Frank Churchill at all! + +This was the conclusion of the first series of reflection. This was +the knowledge of herself, on the first question of inquiry, which +she reached; and without being long in reaching it.--She was most +sorrowfully indignant; ashamed of every sensation but the one revealed +to her--her affection for Mr. Knightley.--Every other part of her mind +was disgusting. + +With insufferable vanity had she believed herself in the secret of every +body's feelings; with unpardonable arrogance proposed to arrange every +body's destiny. She was proved to have been universally mistaken; and +she had not quite done nothing--for she had done mischief. She had +brought evil on Harriet, on herself, and she too much feared, on Mr. +Knightley.--Were this most unequal of all connexions to take place, on +her must rest all the reproach of having given it a beginning; for his +attachment, she must believe to be produced only by a consciousness of +Harriet's;--and even were this not the case, he would never have known +Harriet at all but for her folly. + +Mr. Knightley and Harriet Smith!--It was a union to distance every +wonder of the kind.--The attachment of Frank Churchill and Jane Fairfax +became commonplace, threadbare, stale in the comparison, exciting no +surprize, presenting no disparity, affording nothing to be said or +thought.--Mr. Knightley and Harriet Smith!--Such an elevation on her +side! Such a debasement on his! It was horrible to Emma to think how it +must sink him in the general opinion, to foresee the smiles, the sneers, +the merriment it would prompt at his expense; the mortification and +disdain of his brother, the thousand inconveniences to himself.--Could +it be?--No; it was impossible. And yet it was far, very far, from +impossible.--Was it a new circumstance for a man of first-rate abilities +to be captivated by very inferior powers? Was it new for one, perhaps +too busy to seek, to be the prize of a girl who would seek him?--Was +it new for any thing in this world to be unequal, inconsistent, +incongruous--or for chance and circumstance (as second causes) to direct +the human fate? + +Oh! had she never brought Harriet forward! Had she left her where she +ought, and where he had told her she ought!--Had she not, with a +folly which no tongue could express, prevented her marrying the +unexceptionable young man who would have made her happy and respectable +in the line of life to which she ought to belong--all would have been +safe; none of this dreadful sequel would have been. + +How Harriet could ever have had the presumption to raise her thoughts to +Mr. Knightley!--How she could dare to fancy herself the chosen of such +a man till actually assured of it!--But Harriet was less humble, had +fewer scruples than formerly.--Her inferiority, whether of mind or +situation, seemed little felt.--She had seemed more sensible of Mr. +Elton's being to stoop in marrying her, than she now seemed of Mr. +Knightley's.--Alas! was not that her own doing too? Who had been at +pains to give Harriet notions of self-consequence but herself?--Who but +herself had taught her, that she was to elevate herself if possible, +and that her claims were great to a high worldly establishment?--If +Harriet, from being humble, were grown vain, it was her doing too. + + + +CHAPTER XII + + +Till now that she was threatened with its loss, Emma had never known +how much of her happiness depended on being _first_ with Mr. Knightley, +first in interest and affection.--Satisfied that it was so, and feeling +it her due, she had enjoyed it without reflection; and only in the +dread of being supplanted, found how inexpressibly important it had +been.--Long, very long, she felt she had been first; for, having no +female connexions of his own, there had been only Isabella whose claims +could be compared with hers, and she had always known exactly how far +he loved and esteemed Isabella. She had herself been first with him for +many years past. She had not deserved it; she had often been negligent +or perverse, slighting his advice, or even wilfully opposing him, +insensible of half his merits, and quarrelling with him because he would +not acknowledge her false and insolent estimate of her own--but still, +from family attachment and habit, and thorough excellence of mind, he +had loved her, and watched over her from a girl, with an endeavour to +improve her, and an anxiety for her doing right, which no other creature +had at all shared. In spite of all her faults, she knew she was dear +to him; might she not say, very dear?--When the suggestions of hope, +however, which must follow here, presented themselves, she could not +presume to indulge them. Harriet Smith might think herself not unworthy +of being peculiarly, exclusively, passionately loved by Mr. Knightley. +_She_ could not. She could not flatter herself with any idea of +blindness in his attachment to _her_. She had received a very recent +proof of its impartiality.--How shocked had he been by her behaviour to +Miss Bates! How directly, how strongly had he expressed himself to her +on the subject!--Not too strongly for the offence--but far, far too +strongly to issue from any feeling softer than upright justice and +clear-sighted goodwill.--She had no hope, nothing to deserve the name +of hope, that he could have that sort of affection for herself which was +now in question; but there was a hope (at times a slight one, at +times much stronger,) that Harriet might have deceived herself, and be +overrating his regard for _her_.--Wish it she must, for his sake--be the +consequence nothing to herself, but his remaining single all his life. +Could she be secure of that, indeed, of his never marrying at all, she +believed she should be perfectly satisfied.--Let him but continue the +same Mr. Knightley to her and her father, the same Mr. Knightley to +all the world; let Donwell and Hartfield lose none of their precious +intercourse of friendship and confidence, and her peace would be +fully secured.--Marriage, in fact, would not do for her. It would be +incompatible with what she owed to her father, and with what she felt +for him. Nothing should separate her from her father. She would not +marry, even if she were asked by Mr. Knightley. + +It must be her ardent wish that Harriet might be disappointed; and she +hoped, that when able to see them together again, she might at least +be able to ascertain what the chances for it were.--She should see them +henceforward with the closest observance; and wretchedly as she had +hitherto misunderstood even those she was watching, she did not know how +to admit that she could be blinded here.--He was expected back every +day. The power of observation would be soon given--frightfully soon it +appeared when her thoughts were in one course. In the meanwhile, she +resolved against seeing Harriet.--It would do neither of them good, +it would do the subject no good, to be talking of it farther.--She was +resolved not to be convinced, as long as she could doubt, and yet had +no authority for opposing Harriet's confidence. To talk would be only to +irritate.--She wrote to her, therefore, kindly, but decisively, to beg +that she would not, at present, come to Hartfield; acknowledging it to +be her conviction, that all farther confidential discussion of _one_ +topic had better be avoided; and hoping, that if a few days were allowed +to pass before they met again, except in the company of others--she +objected only to a tete-a-tete--they might be able to act as if they +had forgotten the conversation of yesterday.--Harriet submitted, and +approved, and was grateful. + +This point was just arranged, when a visitor arrived to tear Emma's +thoughts a little from the one subject which had engrossed them, +sleeping or waking, the last twenty-four hours--Mrs. Weston, who had +been calling on her daughter-in-law elect, and took Hartfield in her +way home, almost as much in duty to Emma as in pleasure to herself, to +relate all the particulars of so interesting an interview. + +Mr. Weston had accompanied her to Mrs. Bates's, and gone through his +share of this essential attention most handsomely; but she having then +induced Miss Fairfax to join her in an airing, was now returned with +much more to say, and much more to say with satisfaction, than a quarter +of an hour spent in Mrs. Bates's parlour, with all the encumbrance of +awkward feelings, could have afforded. + +A little curiosity Emma had; and she made the most of it while her +friend related. Mrs. Weston had set off to pay the visit in a good deal +of agitation herself; and in the first place had wished not to go at all +at present, to be allowed merely to write to Miss Fairfax instead, and +to defer this ceremonious call till a little time had passed, and Mr. +Churchill could be reconciled to the engagement's becoming known; as, +considering every thing, she thought such a visit could not be paid +without leading to reports:--but Mr. Weston had thought differently; he +was extremely anxious to shew his approbation to Miss Fairfax and her +family, and did not conceive that any suspicion could be excited by it; +or if it were, that it would be of any consequence; for "such things," +he observed, "always got about." Emma smiled, and felt that Mr. Weston +had very good reason for saying so. They had gone, in short--and very +great had been the evident distress and confusion of the lady. She had +hardly been able to speak a word, and every look and action had shewn +how deeply she was suffering from consciousness. The quiet, heart-felt +satisfaction of the old lady, and the rapturous delight of her +daughter--who proved even too joyous to talk as usual, had been a +gratifying, yet almost an affecting, scene. They were both so truly +respectable in their happiness, so disinterested in every sensation; +thought so much of Jane; so much of every body, and so little of +themselves, that every kindly feeling was at work for them. Miss +Fairfax's recent illness had offered a fair plea for Mrs. Weston to +invite her to an airing; she had drawn back and declined at first, but, +on being pressed had yielded; and, in the course of their drive, +Mrs. Weston had, by gentle encouragement, overcome so much of her +embarrassment, as to bring her to converse on the important subject. +Apologies for her seemingly ungracious silence in their first reception, +and the warmest expressions of the gratitude she was always feeling +towards herself and Mr. Weston, must necessarily open the cause; but +when these effusions were put by, they had talked a good deal of the +present and of the future state of the engagement. Mrs. Weston was +convinced that such conversation must be the greatest relief to her +companion, pent up within her own mind as every thing had so long been, +and was very much pleased with all that she had said on the subject. + +"On the misery of what she had suffered, during the concealment of so +many months," continued Mrs. Weston, "she was energetic. This was one +of her expressions. 'I will not say, that since I entered into the +engagement I have not had some happy moments; but I can say, that I have +never known the blessing of one tranquil hour:'--and the quivering lip, +Emma, which uttered it, was an attestation that I felt at my heart." + +"Poor girl!" said Emma. "She thinks herself wrong, then, for having +consented to a private engagement?" + +"Wrong! No one, I believe, can blame her more than she is disposed +to blame herself. 'The consequence,' said she, 'has been a state of +perpetual suffering to me; and so it ought. But after all the punishment +that misconduct can bring, it is still not less misconduct. Pain is no +expiation. I never can be blameless. I have been acting contrary to all +my sense of right; and the fortunate turn that every thing has taken, +and the kindness I am now receiving, is what my conscience tells me +ought not to be.' 'Do not imagine, madam,' she continued, 'that I was +taught wrong. Do not let any reflection fall on the principles or the +care of the friends who brought me up. The error has been all my own; +and I do assure you that, with all the excuse that present circumstances +may appear to give, I shall yet dread making the story known to Colonel +Campbell.'" + +"Poor girl!" said Emma again. "She loves him then excessively, I +suppose. It must have been from attachment only, that she could be +led to form the engagement. Her affection must have overpowered her +judgment." + +"Yes, I have no doubt of her being extremely attached to him." + +"I am afraid," returned Emma, sighing, "that I must often have +contributed to make her unhappy." + +"On your side, my love, it was very innocently done. But she +probably had something of that in her thoughts, when alluding to the +misunderstandings which he had given us hints of before. One natural +consequence of the evil she had involved herself in," she said, "was +that of making her _unreasonable_. The consciousness of having done +amiss, had exposed her to a thousand inquietudes, and made her captious +and irritable to a degree that must have been--that had been--hard for +him to bear. 'I did not make the allowances,' said she, 'which I ought +to have done, for his temper and spirits--his delightful spirits, and +that gaiety, that playfulness of disposition, which, under any other +circumstances, would, I am sure, have been as constantly bewitching to +me, as they were at first.' She then began to speak of you, and of the +great kindness you had shewn her during her illness; and with a blush +which shewed me how it was all connected, desired me, whenever I had +an opportunity, to thank you--I could not thank you too much--for every +wish and every endeavour to do her good. She was sensible that you had +never received any proper acknowledgment from herself." + +"If I did not know her to be happy now," said Emma, seriously, "which, +in spite of every little drawback from her scrupulous conscience, she +must be, I could not bear these thanks;--for, oh! Mrs. Weston, if there +were an account drawn up of the evil and the good I have done Miss +Fairfax!--Well (checking herself, and trying to be more lively), this +is all to be forgotten. You are very kind to bring me these interesting +particulars. They shew her to the greatest advantage. I am sure she is +very good--I hope she will be very happy. It is fit that the fortune +should be on his side, for I think the merit will be all on hers." + +Such a conclusion could not pass unanswered by Mrs. Weston. She thought +well of Frank in almost every respect; and, what was more, she loved him +very much, and her defence was, therefore, earnest. She talked with a +great deal of reason, and at least equal affection--but she had too much +to urge for Emma's attention; it was soon gone to Brunswick Square or +to Donwell; she forgot to attempt to listen; and when Mrs. Weston ended +with, "We have not yet had the letter we are so anxious for, you know, +but I hope it will soon come," she was obliged to pause before she +answered, and at last obliged to answer at random, before she could at +all recollect what letter it was which they were so anxious for. + +"Are you well, my Emma?" was Mrs. Weston's parting question. + +"Oh! perfectly. I am always well, you know. Be sure to give me +intelligence of the letter as soon as possible." + +Mrs. Weston's communications furnished Emma with more food for +unpleasant reflection, by increasing her esteem and compassion, and her +sense of past injustice towards Miss Fairfax. She bitterly regretted +not having sought a closer acquaintance with her, and blushed for the +envious feelings which had certainly been, in some measure, the cause. +Had she followed Mr. Knightley's known wishes, in paying that attention +to Miss Fairfax, which was every way her due; had she tried to know her +better; had she done her part towards intimacy; had she endeavoured +to find a friend there instead of in Harriet Smith; she must, in all +probability, have been spared from every pain which pressed on her +now.--Birth, abilities, and education, had been equally marking one as +an associate for her, to be received with gratitude; and the other--what +was she?--Supposing even that they had never become intimate friends; +that she had never been admitted into Miss Fairfax's confidence on this +important matter--which was most probable--still, in knowing her as +she ought, and as she might, she must have been preserved from the +abominable suspicions of an improper attachment to Mr. Dixon, which she +had not only so foolishly fashioned and harboured herself, but had so +unpardonably imparted; an idea which she greatly feared had been made a +subject of material distress to the delicacy of Jane's feelings, by the +levity or carelessness of Frank Churchill's. Of all the sources of evil +surrounding the former, since her coming to Highbury, she was persuaded +that she must herself have been the worst. She must have been a +perpetual enemy. They never could have been all three together, without +her having stabbed Jane Fairfax's peace in a thousand instances; and on +Box Hill, perhaps, it had been the agony of a mind that would bear no +more. + +The evening of this day was very long, and melancholy, at Hartfield. +The weather added what it could of gloom. A cold stormy rain set in, and +nothing of July appeared but in the trees and shrubs, which the wind was +despoiling, and the length of the day, which only made such cruel sights +the longer visible. + +The weather affected Mr. Woodhouse, and he could only be kept tolerably +comfortable by almost ceaseless attention on his daughter's side, and by +exertions which had never cost her half so much before. It reminded +her of their first forlorn tete-a-tete, on the evening of Mrs. Weston's +wedding-day; but Mr. Knightley had walked in then, soon after tea, +and dissipated every melancholy fancy. Alas! such delightful proofs of +Hartfield's attraction, as those sort of visits conveyed, might shortly +be over. The picture which she had then drawn of the privations of the +approaching winter, had proved erroneous; no friends had deserted them, +no pleasures had been lost.--But her present forebodings she feared +would experience no similar contradiction. The prospect before her now, +was threatening to a degree that could not be entirely dispelled--that +might not be even partially brightened. If all took place that +might take place among the circle of her friends, Hartfield must be +comparatively deserted; and she left to cheer her father with the +spirits only of ruined happiness. + +The child to be born at Randalls must be a tie there even dearer than +herself; and Mrs. Weston's heart and time would be occupied by it. +They should lose her; and, probably, in great measure, her husband +also.--Frank Churchill would return among them no more; and Miss +Fairfax, it was reasonable to suppose, would soon cease to belong to +Highbury. They would be married, and settled either at or near Enscombe. +All that were good would be withdrawn; and if to these losses, the +loss of Donwell were to be added, what would remain of cheerful or +of rational society within their reach? Mr. Knightley to be no longer +coming there for his evening comfort!--No longer walking in at all +hours, as if ever willing to change his own home for their's!--How was +it to be endured? And if he were to be lost to them for Harriet's sake; +if he were to be thought of hereafter, as finding in Harriet's society +all that he wanted; if Harriet were to be the chosen, the first, +the dearest, the friend, the wife to whom he looked for all the best +blessings of existence; what could be increasing Emma's wretchedness but +the reflection never far distant from her mind, that it had been all her +own work? + +When it came to such a pitch as this, she was not able to refrain from +a start, or a heavy sigh, or even from walking about the room for a +few seconds--and the only source whence any thing like consolation +or composure could be drawn, was in the resolution of her own better +conduct, and the hope that, however inferior in spirit and gaiety might +be the following and every future winter of her life to the past, it +would yet find her more rational, more acquainted with herself, and +leave her less to regret when it were gone. + + + +CHAPTER XIII + + +The weather continued much the same all the following morning; and +the same loneliness, and the same melancholy, seemed to reign at +Hartfield--but in the afternoon it cleared; the wind changed into a +softer quarter; the clouds were carried off; the sun appeared; it was +summer again. With all the eagerness which such a transition gives, Emma +resolved to be out of doors as soon as possible. Never had the exquisite +sight, smell, sensation of nature, tranquil, warm, and brilliant after +a storm, been more attractive to her. She longed for the serenity they +might gradually introduce; and on Mr. Perry's coming in soon after +dinner, with a disengaged hour to give her father, she lost no time +in hurrying into the shrubbery.--There, with spirits freshened, and +thoughts a little relieved, she had taken a few turns, when she saw Mr. +Knightley passing through the garden door, and coming towards her.--It +was the first intimation of his being returned from London. She had +been thinking of him the moment before, as unquestionably sixteen miles +distant.--There was time only for the quickest arrangement of mind. She +must be collected and calm. In half a minute they were together. The +"How d'ye do's" were quiet and constrained on each side. She asked after +their mutual friends; they were all well.--When had he left them?--Only +that morning. He must have had a wet ride.--Yes.--He meant to walk with +her, she found. "He had just looked into the dining-room, and as he was +not wanted there, preferred being out of doors."--She thought he neither +looked nor spoke cheerfully; and the first possible cause for it, +suggested by her fears, was, that he had perhaps been communicating his +plans to his brother, and was pained by the manner in which they had +been received. + +They walked together. He was silent. She thought he was often looking +at her, and trying for a fuller view of her face than it suited her to +give. And this belief produced another dread. Perhaps he wanted to +speak to her, of his attachment to Harriet; he might be watching for +encouragement to begin.--She did not, could not, feel equal to lead the +way to any such subject. He must do it all himself. Yet she could +not bear this silence. With him it was most unnatural. She +considered--resolved--and, trying to smile, began-- + +"You have some news to hear, now you are come back, that will rather +surprize you." + +"Have I?" said he quietly, and looking at her; "of what nature?" + +"Oh! the best nature in the world--a wedding." + +After waiting a moment, as if to be sure she intended to say no more, he +replied, + +"If you mean Miss Fairfax and Frank Churchill, I have heard that +already." + +"How is it possible?" cried Emma, turning her glowing cheeks towards +him; for, while she spoke, it occurred to her that he might have called +at Mrs. Goddard's in his way. + +"I had a few lines on parish business from Mr. Weston this morning, and +at the end of them he gave me a brief account of what had happened." + +Emma was quite relieved, and could presently say, with a little more +composure, + +"_You_ probably have been less surprized than any of us, for you have +had your suspicions.--I have not forgotten that you once tried to give +me a caution.--I wish I had attended to it--but--(with a sinking voice +and a heavy sigh) I seem to have been doomed to blindness." + +For a moment or two nothing was said, and she was unsuspicious of having +excited any particular interest, till she found her arm drawn within +his, and pressed against his heart, and heard him thus saying, in a tone +of great sensibility, speaking low, + +"Time, my dearest Emma, time will heal the wound.--Your own excellent +sense--your exertions for your father's sake--I know you will not allow +yourself--." Her arm was pressed again, as he added, in a more +broken and subdued accent, "The feelings of the warmest +friendship--Indignation--Abominable scoundrel!"--And in a louder, +steadier tone, he concluded with, "He will soon be gone. They will soon +be in Yorkshire. I am sorry for _her_. She deserves a better fate." + +Emma understood him; and as soon as she could recover from the flutter +of pleasure, excited by such tender consideration, replied, + +"You are very kind--but you are mistaken--and I must set you right.-- +I am not in want of that sort of compassion. My blindness to what was +going on, led me to act by them in a way that I must always be ashamed +of, and I was very foolishly tempted to say and do many things which may +well lay me open to unpleasant conjectures, but I have no other reason +to regret that I was not in the secret earlier." + +"Emma!" cried he, looking eagerly at her, "are you, indeed?"--but +checking himself--"No, no, I understand you--forgive me--I am pleased +that you can say even so much.--He is no object of regret, indeed! and +it will not be very long, I hope, before that becomes the acknowledgment +of more than your reason.--Fortunate that your affections were not +farther entangled!--I could never, I confess, from your manners, assure +myself as to the degree of what you felt--I could only be certain that +there was a preference--and a preference which I never believed him to +deserve.--He is a disgrace to the name of man.--And is he to be rewarded +with that sweet young woman?--Jane, Jane, you will be a miserable +creature." + +"Mr. Knightley," said Emma, trying to be lively, but really confused--"I +am in a very extraordinary situation. I cannot let you continue in your +error; and yet, perhaps, since my manners gave such an impression, I +have as much reason to be ashamed of confessing that I never have been +at all attached to the person we are speaking of, as it might be natural +for a woman to feel in confessing exactly the reverse.--But I never +have." + +He listened in perfect silence. She wished him to speak, but he would +not. She supposed she must say more before she were entitled to his +clemency; but it was a hard case to be obliged still to lower herself in +his opinion. She went on, however. + +"I have very little to say for my own conduct.--I was tempted by his +attentions, and allowed myself to appear pleased.--An old story, +probably--a common case--and no more than has happened to hundreds of my +sex before; and yet it may not be the more excusable in one who sets up +as I do for Understanding. Many circumstances assisted the temptation. +He was the son of Mr. Weston--he was continually here--I always found +him very pleasant--and, in short, for (with a sigh) let me swell out the +causes ever so ingeniously, they all centre in this at last--my vanity +was flattered, and I allowed his attentions. Latterly, however--for some +time, indeed--I have had no idea of their meaning any thing.--I thought +them a habit, a trick, nothing that called for seriousness on my side. +He has imposed on me, but he has not injured me. I have never been +attached to him. And now I can tolerably comprehend his behaviour. He +never wished to attach me. It was merely a blind to conceal his real +situation with another.--It was his object to blind all about him; and +no one, I am sure, could be more effectually blinded than myself--except +that I was _not_ blinded--that it was my good fortune--that, in short, I +was somehow or other safe from him." + +She had hoped for an answer here--for a few words to say that her +conduct was at least intelligible; but he was silent; and, as far as she +could judge, deep in thought. At last, and tolerably in his usual tone, +he said, + +"I have never had a high opinion of Frank Churchill.--I can suppose, +however, that I may have underrated him. My acquaintance with him has +been but trifling.--And even if I have not underrated him hitherto, he +may yet turn out well.--With such a woman he has a chance.--I have no +motive for wishing him ill--and for her sake, whose happiness will be +involved in his good character and conduct, I shall certainly wish him +well." + +"I have no doubt of their being happy together," said Emma; "I believe +them to be very mutually and very sincerely attached." + +"He is a most fortunate man!" returned Mr. Knightley, with energy. "So +early in life--at three-and-twenty--a period when, if a man chuses a +wife, he generally chuses ill. At three-and-twenty to have drawn such +a prize! What years of felicity that man, in all human calculation, +has before him!--Assured of the love of such a woman--the disinterested +love, for Jane Fairfax's character vouches for her disinterestedness; +every thing in his favour,--equality of situation--I mean, as far as +regards society, and all the habits and manners that are important; +equality in every point but one--and that one, since the purity of her +heart is not to be doubted, such as must increase his felicity, for it +will be his to bestow the only advantages she wants.--A man would always +wish to give a woman a better home than the one he takes her from; +and he who can do it, where there is no doubt of _her_ regard, must, +I think, be the happiest of mortals.--Frank Churchill is, indeed, the +favourite of fortune. Every thing turns out for his good.--He meets +with a young woman at a watering-place, gains her affection, cannot even +weary her by negligent treatment--and had he and all his family sought +round the world for a perfect wife for him, they could not have found +her superior.--His aunt is in the way.--His aunt dies.--He has only to +speak.--His friends are eager to promote his happiness.--He had used +every body ill--and they are all delighted to forgive him.--He is a +fortunate man indeed!" + +"You speak as if you envied him." + +"And I do envy him, Emma. In one respect he is the object of my envy." + +Emma could say no more. They seemed to be within half a sentence +of Harriet, and her immediate feeling was to avert the subject, if +possible. She made her plan; she would speak of something totally +different--the children in Brunswick Square; and she only waited for +breath to begin, when Mr. Knightley startled her, by saying, + +"You will not ask me what is the point of envy.--You are determined, I +see, to have no curiosity.--You are wise--but _I_ cannot be wise. Emma, +I must tell you what you will not ask, though I may wish it unsaid the +next moment." + +"Oh! then, don't speak it, don't speak it," she eagerly cried. "Take a +little time, consider, do not commit yourself." + +"Thank you," said he, in an accent of deep mortification, and not +another syllable followed. + +Emma could not bear to give him pain. He was wishing to confide in +her--perhaps to consult her;--cost her what it would, she would listen. +She might assist his resolution, or reconcile him to it; she might give +just praise to Harriet, or, by representing to him his own independence, +relieve him from that state of indecision, which must be more +intolerable than any alternative to such a mind as his.--They had +reached the house. + +"You are going in, I suppose?" said he. + +"No,"--replied Emma--quite confirmed by the depressed manner in which +he still spoke--"I should like to take another turn. Mr. Perry is not +gone." And, after proceeding a few steps, she added--"I stopped you +ungraciously, just now, Mr. Knightley, and, I am afraid, gave you +pain.--But if you have any wish to speak openly to me as a friend, or +to ask my opinion of any thing that you may have in contemplation--as +a friend, indeed, you may command me.--I will hear whatever you like. I +will tell you exactly what I think." + +"As a friend!"--repeated Mr. Knightley.--"Emma, that I fear is a +word--No, I have no wish--Stay, yes, why should I hesitate?--I +have gone too far already for concealment.--Emma, I accept your +offer--Extraordinary as it may seem, I accept it, and refer myself to +you as a friend.--Tell me, then, have I no chance of ever succeeding?" + +He stopped in his earnestness to look the question, and the expression +of his eyes overpowered her. + +"My dearest Emma," said he, "for dearest you will always be, whatever +the event of this hour's conversation, my dearest, most beloved +Emma--tell me at once. Say 'No,' if it is to be said."--She could +really say nothing.--"You are silent," he cried, with great animation; +"absolutely silent! at present I ask no more." + +Emma was almost ready to sink under the agitation of this moment. The +dread of being awakened from the happiest dream, was perhaps the most +prominent feeling. + +"I cannot make speeches, Emma:" he soon resumed; and in a tone of +such sincere, decided, intelligible tenderness as was tolerably +convincing.--"If I loved you less, I might be able to talk about it +more. But you know what I am.--You hear nothing but truth from me.--I +have blamed you, and lectured you, and you have borne it as no other +woman in England would have borne it.--Bear with the truths I would +tell you now, dearest Emma, as well as you have borne with them. The +manner, perhaps, may have as little to recommend them. God knows, I have +been a very indifferent lover.--But you understand me.--Yes, you see, +you understand my feelings--and will return them if you can. At present, +I ask only to hear, once to hear your voice." + +While he spoke, Emma's mind was most busy, and, with all the wonderful +velocity of thought, had been able--and yet without losing a word--to +catch and comprehend the exact truth of the whole; to see that Harriet's +hopes had been entirely groundless, a mistake, a delusion, as complete a +delusion as any of her own--that Harriet was nothing; that she was every +thing herself; that what she had been saying relative to Harriet +had been all taken as the language of her own feelings; and that her +agitation, her doubts, her reluctance, her discouragement, had been all +received as discouragement from herself.--And not only was there time +for these convictions, with all their glow of attendant happiness; there +was time also to rejoice that Harriet's secret had not escaped her, and +to resolve that it need not, and should not.--It was all the service +she could now render her poor friend; for as to any of that heroism of +sentiment which might have prompted her to entreat him to transfer his +affection from herself to Harriet, as infinitely the most worthy of the +two--or even the more simple sublimity of resolving to refuse him at +once and for ever, without vouchsafing any motive, because he could not +marry them both, Emma had it not. She felt for Harriet, with pain and +with contrition; but no flight of generosity run mad, opposing all that +could be probable or reasonable, entered her brain. She had led her +friend astray, and it would be a reproach to her for ever; but her +judgment was as strong as her feelings, and as strong as it had ever +been before, in reprobating any such alliance for him, as most unequal +and degrading. Her way was clear, though not quite smooth.--She spoke +then, on being so entreated.--What did she say?--Just what she ought, +of course. A lady always does.--She said enough to shew there need not +be despair--and to invite him to say more himself. He _had_ despaired at +one period; he had received such an injunction to caution and silence, +as for the time crushed every hope;--she had begun by refusing to hear +him.--The change had perhaps been somewhat sudden;--her proposal of +taking another turn, her renewing the conversation which she had +just put an end to, might be a little extraordinary!--She felt its +inconsistency; but Mr. Knightley was so obliging as to put up with it, +and seek no farther explanation. + +Seldom, very seldom, does complete truth belong to any human disclosure; +seldom can it happen that something is not a little disguised, or a +little mistaken; but where, as in this case, though the conduct is +mistaken, the feelings are not, it may not be very material.--Mr. +Knightley could not impute to Emma a more relenting heart than she +possessed, or a heart more disposed to accept of his. + +He had, in fact, been wholly unsuspicious of his own influence. He had +followed her into the shrubbery with no idea of trying it. He had come, +in his anxiety to see how she bore Frank Churchill's engagement, with no +selfish view, no view at all, but of endeavouring, if she allowed him an +opening, to soothe or to counsel her.--The rest had been the work of +the moment, the immediate effect of what he heard, on his feelings. The +delightful assurance of her total indifference towards Frank Churchill, +of her having a heart completely disengaged from him, had given birth +to the hope, that, in time, he might gain her affection himself;--but +it had been no present hope--he had only, in the momentary conquest of +eagerness over judgment, aspired to be told that she did not forbid his +attempt to attach her.--The superior hopes which gradually opened were +so much the more enchanting.--The affection, which he had been asking +to be allowed to create, if he could, was already his!--Within half +an hour, he had passed from a thoroughly distressed state of mind, to +something so like perfect happiness, that it could bear no other name. + +_Her_ change was equal.--This one half-hour had given to each the same +precious certainty of being beloved, had cleared from each the same +degree of ignorance, jealousy, or distrust.--On his side, there had been +a long-standing jealousy, old as the arrival, or even the expectation, +of Frank Churchill.--He had been in love with Emma, and jealous of Frank +Churchill, from about the same period, one sentiment having probably +enlightened him as to the other. It was his jealousy of Frank Churchill +that had taken him from the country.--The Box Hill party had decided +him on going away. He would save himself from witnessing again +such permitted, encouraged attentions.--He had gone to learn to be +indifferent.--But he had gone to a wrong place. There was too much +domestic happiness in his brother's house; woman wore too amiable a form +in it; Isabella was too much like Emma--differing only in those striking +inferiorities, which always brought the other in brilliancy before +him, for much to have been done, even had his time been longer.--He had +stayed on, however, vigorously, day after day--till this very morning's +post had conveyed the history of Jane Fairfax.--Then, with the gladness +which must be felt, nay, which he did not scruple to feel, having never +believed Frank Churchill to be at all deserving Emma, was there so much +fond solicitude, so much keen anxiety for her, that he could stay no +longer. He had ridden home through the rain; and had walked up directly +after dinner, to see how this sweetest and best of all creatures, +faultless in spite of all her faults, bore the discovery. + +He had found her agitated and low.--Frank Churchill was a villain.-- +He heard her declare that she had never loved him. Frank Churchill's +character was not desperate.--She was his own Emma, by hand and word, +when they returned into the house; and if he could have thought of Frank +Churchill then, he might have deemed him a very good sort of fellow. + + + +CHAPTER XIV + + +What totally different feelings did Emma take back into the house from +what she had brought out!--she had then been only daring to hope for +a little respite of suffering;--she was now in an exquisite flutter of +happiness, and such happiness moreover as she believed must still be +greater when the flutter should have passed away. + +They sat down to tea--the same party round the same table--how often +it had been collected!--and how often had her eyes fallen on the same +shrubs in the lawn, and observed the same beautiful effect of the +western sun!--But never in such a state of spirits, never in any thing +like it; and it was with difficulty that she could summon enough of her +usual self to be the attentive lady of the house, or even the attentive +daughter. + +Poor Mr. Woodhouse little suspected what was plotting against him in the +breast of that man whom he was so cordially welcoming, and so anxiously +hoping might not have taken cold from his ride.--Could he have seen the +heart, he would have cared very little for the lungs; but without the +most distant imagination of the impending evil, without the slightest +perception of any thing extraordinary in the looks or ways of either, +he repeated to them very comfortably all the articles of news he had +received from Mr. Perry, and talked on with much self-contentment, +totally unsuspicious of what they could have told him in return. + +As long as Mr. Knightley remained with them, Emma's fever continued; +but when he was gone, she began to be a little tranquillised and +subdued--and in the course of the sleepless night, which was the tax +for such an evening, she found one or two such very serious points +to consider, as made her feel, that even her happiness must have some +alloy. Her father--and Harriet. She could not be alone without feeling +the full weight of their separate claims; and how to guard the comfort +of both to the utmost, was the question. With respect to her father, +it was a question soon answered. She hardly knew yet what Mr. Knightley +would ask; but a very short parley with her own heart produced the most +solemn resolution of never quitting her father.--She even wept over +the idea of it, as a sin of thought. While he lived, it must be only an +engagement; but she flattered herself, that if divested of the danger of +drawing her away, it might become an increase of comfort to him.--How +to do her best by Harriet, was of more difficult decision;--how to spare +her from any unnecessary pain; how to make her any possible atonement; +how to appear least her enemy?--On these subjects, her perplexity +and distress were very great--and her mind had to pass again and +again through every bitter reproach and sorrowful regret that had ever +surrounded it.--She could only resolve at last, that she would still +avoid a meeting with her, and communicate all that need be told by +letter; that it would be inexpressibly desirable to have her removed +just now for a time from Highbury, and--indulging in one scheme +more--nearly resolve, that it might be practicable to get an invitation +for her to Brunswick Square.--Isabella had been pleased with Harriet; +and a few weeks spent in London must give her some amusement.--She did +not think it in Harriet's nature to escape being benefited by novelty +and variety, by the streets, the shops, and the children.--At any rate, +it would be a proof of attention and kindness in herself, from whom +every thing was due; a separation for the present; an averting of the +evil day, when they must all be together again. + +She rose early, and wrote her letter to Harriet; an employment which +left her so very serious, so nearly sad, that Mr. Knightley, in walking +up to Hartfield to breakfast, did not arrive at all too soon; and half +an hour stolen afterwards to go over the same ground again with him, +literally and figuratively, was quite necessary to reinstate her in a +proper share of the happiness of the evening before. + +He had not left her long, by no means long enough for her to have the +slightest inclination for thinking of any body else, when a letter was +brought her from Randalls--a very thick letter;--she guessed what it +must contain, and deprecated the necessity of reading it.--She was now +in perfect charity with Frank Churchill; she wanted no explanations, she +wanted only to have her thoughts to herself--and as for understanding +any thing he wrote, she was sure she was incapable of it.--It must be +waded through, however. She opened the packet; it was too surely so;--a +note from Mrs. Weston to herself, ushered in the letter from Frank to +Mrs. Weston. + +"I have the greatest pleasure, my dear Emma, in forwarding to you the +enclosed. I know what thorough justice you will do it, and have scarcely +a doubt of its happy effect.--I think we shall never materially disagree +about the writer again; but I will not delay you by a long preface.--We +are quite well.--This letter has been the cure of all the little +nervousness I have been feeling lately.--I did not quite like your looks +on Tuesday, but it was an ungenial morning; and though you will never +own being affected by weather, I think every body feels a north-east +wind.--I felt for your dear father very much in the storm of Tuesday +afternoon and yesterday morning, but had the comfort of hearing last +night, by Mr. Perry, that it had not made him ill. + + "Yours ever, + "A. W." + + [To Mrs. Weston.] + + + WINDSOR-JULY. +MY DEAR MADAM, + +"If I made myself intelligible yesterday, this letter will be +expected; but expected or not, I know it will be read with candour and +indulgence.--You are all goodness, and I believe there will be need of +even all your goodness to allow for some parts of my past conduct.--But +I have been forgiven by one who had still more to resent. My courage +rises while I write. It is very difficult for the prosperous to be +humble. I have already met with such success in two applications for +pardon, that I may be in danger of thinking myself too sure of yours, +and of those among your friends who have had any ground of offence.--You +must all endeavour to comprehend the exact nature of my situation when I +first arrived at Randalls; you must consider me as having a secret which +was to be kept at all hazards. This was the fact. My right to place +myself in a situation requiring such concealment, is another question. +I shall not discuss it here. For my temptation to _think_ it a right, +I refer every caviller to a brick house, sashed windows below, and +casements above, in Highbury. I dared not address her openly; my +difficulties in the then state of Enscombe must be too well known to +require definition; and I was fortunate enough to prevail, before we +parted at Weymouth, and to induce the most upright female mind in the +creation to stoop in charity to a secret engagement.--Had she refused, I +should have gone mad.--But you will be ready to say, what was your +hope in doing this?--What did you look forward to?--To any thing, every +thing--to time, chance, circumstance, slow effects, sudden bursts, +perseverance and weariness, health and sickness. Every possibility of +good was before me, and the first of blessings secured, in obtaining her +promises of faith and correspondence. If you need farther explanation, +I have the honour, my dear madam, of being your husband's son, and +the advantage of inheriting a disposition to hope for good, which no +inheritance of houses or lands can ever equal the value of.--See +me, then, under these circumstances, arriving on my first visit to +Randalls;--and here I am conscious of wrong, for that visit might have +been sooner paid. You will look back and see that I did not come till +Miss Fairfax was in Highbury; and as _you_ were the person slighted, you +will forgive me instantly; but I must work on my father's compassion, by +reminding him, that so long as I absented myself from his house, so long +I lost the blessing of knowing you. My behaviour, during the very +happy fortnight which I spent with you, did not, I hope, lay me open to +reprehension, excepting on one point. And now I come to the principal, +the only important part of my conduct while belonging to you, which +excites my own anxiety, or requires very solicitous explanation. With +the greatest respect, and the warmest friendship, do I mention Miss +Woodhouse; my father perhaps will think I ought to add, with the deepest +humiliation.--A few words which dropped from him yesterday spoke his +opinion, and some censure I acknowledge myself liable to.--My behaviour +to Miss Woodhouse indicated, I believe, more than it ought.--In order to +assist a concealment so essential to me, I was led on to make more than +an allowable use of the sort of intimacy into which we were immediately +thrown.--I cannot deny that Miss Woodhouse was my ostensible object--but +I am sure you will believe the declaration, that had I not been +convinced of her indifference, I would not have been induced by any +selfish views to go on.--Amiable and delightful as Miss Woodhouse is, +she never gave me the idea of a young woman likely to be attached; and +that she was perfectly free from any tendency to being attached to me, +was as much my conviction as my wish.--She received my attentions with +an easy, friendly, goodhumoured playfulness, which exactly suited me. +We seemed to understand each other. From our relative situation, those +attentions were her due, and were felt to be so.--Whether Miss Woodhouse +began really to understand me before the expiration of that fortnight, +I cannot say;--when I called to take leave of her, I remember that I was +within a moment of confessing the truth, and I then fancied she was not +without suspicion; but I have no doubt of her having since detected me, +at least in some degree.--She may not have surmised the whole, but her +quickness must have penetrated a part. I cannot doubt it. You will find, +whenever the subject becomes freed from its present restraints, that it +did not take her wholly by surprize. She frequently gave me hints of it. +I remember her telling me at the ball, that I owed Mrs. Elton gratitude +for her attentions to Miss Fairfax.--I hope this history of my conduct +towards her will be admitted by you and my father as great extenuation +of what you saw amiss. While you considered me as having sinned against +Emma Woodhouse, I could deserve nothing from either. Acquit me here, and +procure for me, when it is allowable, the acquittal and good wishes +of that said Emma Woodhouse, whom I regard with so much brotherly +affection, as to long to have her as deeply and as happily in love as +myself.--Whatever strange things I said or did during that fortnight, +you have now a key to. My heart was in Highbury, and my business was to +get my body thither as often as might be, and with the least suspicion. +If you remember any queernesses, set them all to the right account.--Of +the pianoforte so much talked of, I feel it only necessary to say, that +its being ordered was absolutely unknown to Miss F--, who would never +have allowed me to send it, had any choice been given her.--The +delicacy of her mind throughout the whole engagement, my dear madam, +is much beyond my power of doing justice to. You will soon, I earnestly +hope, know her thoroughly yourself.--No description can describe her. +She must tell you herself what she is--yet not by word, for never +was there a human creature who would so designedly suppress her own +merit.--Since I began this letter, which will be longer than I foresaw, +I have heard from her.--She gives a good account of her own health; but +as she never complains, I dare not depend. I want to have your opinion +of her looks. I know you will soon call on her; she is living in dread +of the visit. Perhaps it is paid already. Let me hear from you without +delay; I am impatient for a thousand particulars. Remember how few +minutes I was at Randalls, and in how bewildered, how mad a state: and +I am not much better yet; still insane either from happiness or +misery. When I think of the kindness and favour I have met with, of her +excellence and patience, and my uncle's generosity, I am mad with joy: +but when I recollect all the uneasiness I occasioned her, and how little +I deserve to be forgiven, I am mad with anger. If I could but see her +again!--But I must not propose it yet. My uncle has been too good for me +to encroach.--I must still add to this long letter. You have not heard +all that you ought to hear. I could not give any connected detail +yesterday; but the suddenness, and, in one light, the unseasonableness +with which the affair burst out, needs explanation; for though the event +of the 26th ult., as you will conclude, immediately opened to me the +happiest prospects, I should not have presumed on such early measures, +but from the very particular circumstances, which left me not an hour to +lose. I should myself have shrunk from any thing so hasty, and she +would have felt every scruple of mine with multiplied strength and +refinement.--But I had no choice. The hasty engagement she had entered +into with that woman--Here, my dear madam, I was obliged to leave off +abruptly, to recollect and compose myself.--I have been walking over +the country, and am now, I hope, rational enough to make the rest of +my letter what it ought to be.--It is, in fact, a most mortifying +retrospect for me. I behaved shamefully. And here I can admit, that +my manners to Miss W., in being unpleasant to Miss F., were highly +blameable. _She_ disapproved them, which ought to have been enough.--My +plea of concealing the truth she did not think sufficient.--She was +displeased; I thought unreasonably so: I thought her, on a thousand +occasions, unnecessarily scrupulous and cautious: I thought her even +cold. But she was always right. If I had followed her judgment, and +subdued my spirits to the level of what she deemed proper, I should have +escaped the greatest unhappiness I have ever known.--We quarrelled.-- +Do you remember the morning spent at Donwell?--_There_ every little +dissatisfaction that had occurred before came to a crisis. I was late; +I met her walking home by herself, and wanted to walk with her, but she +would not suffer it. She absolutely refused to allow me, which I then +thought most unreasonable. Now, however, I see nothing in it but a very +natural and consistent degree of discretion. While I, to blind the +world to our engagement, was behaving one hour with objectionable +particularity to another woman, was she to be consenting the next to a +proposal which might have made every previous caution useless?--Had we +been met walking together between Donwell and Highbury, the truth must +have been suspected.--I was mad enough, however, to resent.--I doubted +her affection. I doubted it more the next day on Box Hill; when, +provoked by such conduct on my side, such shameful, insolent neglect +of her, and such apparent devotion to Miss W., as it would have been +impossible for any woman of sense to endure, she spoke her resentment in +a form of words perfectly intelligible to me.--In short, my dear +madam, it was a quarrel blameless on her side, abominable on mine; and +I returned the same evening to Richmond, though I might have staid with +you till the next morning, merely because I would be as angry with +her as possible. Even then, I was not such a fool as not to mean to +be reconciled in time; but I was the injured person, injured by her +coldness, and I went away determined that she should make the first +advances.--I shall always congratulate myself that you were not of +the Box Hill party. Had you witnessed my behaviour there, I can hardly +suppose you would ever have thought well of me again. Its effect upon +her appears in the immediate resolution it produced: as soon as she +found I was really gone from Randalls, she closed with the offer of that +officious Mrs. Elton; the whole system of whose treatment of her, by the +bye, has ever filled me with indignation and hatred. I must not quarrel +with a spirit of forbearance which has been so richly extended towards +myself; but, otherwise, I should loudly protest against the share of it +which that woman has known.--'Jane,' indeed!--You will observe that I +have not yet indulged myself in calling her by that name, even to you. +Think, then, what I must have endured in hearing it bandied between +the Eltons with all the vulgarity of needless repetition, and all the +insolence of imaginary superiority. Have patience with me, I shall soon +have done.--She closed with this offer, resolving to break with me +entirely, and wrote the next day to tell me that we never were to meet +again.--_She_ _felt_ _the_ _engagement_ _to_ _be_ _a_ _source_ _of_ +_repentance_ _and_ _misery_ _to_ _each_: _she_ _dissolved_ _it_.--This +letter reached me on the very morning of my poor aunt's death. I +answered it within an hour; but from the confusion of my mind, and the +multiplicity of business falling on me at once, my answer, instead of +being sent with all the many other letters of that day, was locked up in +my writing-desk; and I, trusting that I had written enough, though but +a few lines, to satisfy her, remained without any uneasiness.--I was +rather disappointed that I did not hear from her again speedily; but I +made excuses for her, and was too busy, and--may I add?--too cheerful +in my views to be captious.--We removed to Windsor; and two +days afterwards I received a parcel from her, my own letters all +returned!--and a few lines at the same time by the post, stating her +extreme surprize at not having had the smallest reply to her last; and +adding, that as silence on such a point could not be misconstrued, +and as it must be equally desirable to both to have every subordinate +arrangement concluded as soon as possible, she now sent me, by a safe +conveyance, all my letters, and requested, that if I could not directly +command hers, so as to send them to Highbury within a week, I would +forward them after that period to her at--: in short, the full direction +to Mr. Smallridge's, near Bristol, stared me in the face. I knew the +name, the place, I knew all about it, and instantly saw what she had +been doing. It was perfectly accordant with that resolution of character +which I knew her to possess; and the secrecy she had maintained, as to +any such design in her former letter, was equally descriptive of its +anxious delicacy. For the world would not she have seemed to threaten +me.--Imagine the shock; imagine how, till I had actually detected my +own blunder, I raved at the blunders of the post.--What was to be +done?--One thing only.--I must speak to my uncle. Without his sanction I +could not hope to be listened to again.--I spoke; circumstances were +in my favour; the late event had softened away his pride, and he was, +earlier than I could have anticipated, wholly reconciled and complying; +and could say at last, poor man! with a deep sigh, that he wished I +might find as much happiness in the marriage state as he had done.--I +felt that it would be of a different sort.--Are you disposed to pity +me for what I must have suffered in opening the cause to him, for my +suspense while all was at stake?--No; do not pity me till I reached +Highbury, and saw how ill I had made her. Do not pity me till I saw her +wan, sick looks.--I reached Highbury at the time of day when, from my +knowledge of their late breakfast hour, I was certain of a good chance +of finding her alone.--I was not disappointed; and at last I was not +disappointed either in the object of my journey. A great deal of very +reasonable, very just displeasure I had to persuade away. But it is +done; we are reconciled, dearer, much dearer, than ever, and no moment's +uneasiness can ever occur between us again. Now, my dear madam, I will +release you; but I could not conclude before. A thousand and a thousand +thanks for all the kindness you have ever shewn me, and ten thousand for +the attentions your heart will dictate towards her.--If you think me in +a way to be happier than I deserve, I am quite of your opinion.--Miss +W. calls me the child of good fortune. I hope she is right.--In one +respect, my good fortune is undoubted, that of being able to subscribe +myself, + + Your obliged and affectionate Son, + + F. C. WESTON CHURCHILL. + + + +CHAPTER XV + + +This letter must make its way to Emma's feelings. She was obliged, in +spite of her previous determination to the contrary, to do it all the +justice that Mrs. Weston foretold. As soon as she came to her own name, +it was irresistible; every line relating to herself was interesting, +and almost every line agreeable; and when this charm ceased, the subject +could still maintain itself, by the natural return of her former regard +for the writer, and the very strong attraction which any picture of +love must have for her at that moment. She never stopt till she had gone +through the whole; and though it was impossible not to feel that he had +been wrong, yet he had been less wrong than she had supposed--and he had +suffered, and was very sorry--and he was so grateful to Mrs. Weston, and +so much in love with Miss Fairfax, and she was so happy herself, that +there was no being severe; and could he have entered the room, she must +have shaken hands with him as heartily as ever. + +She thought so well of the letter, that when Mr. Knightley came again, +she desired him to read it. She was sure of Mrs. Weston's wishing it to +be communicated; especially to one, who, like Mr. Knightley, had seen so +much to blame in his conduct. + +"I shall be very glad to look it over," said he; "but it seems long. I +will take it home with me at night." + +But that would not do. Mr. Weston was to call in the evening, and she +must return it by him. + +"I would rather be talking to you," he replied; "but as it seems a +matter of justice, it shall be done." + +He began--stopping, however, almost directly to say, "Had I been offered +the sight of one of this gentleman's letters to his mother-in-law a few +months ago, Emma, it would not have been taken with such indifference." + +He proceeded a little farther, reading to himself; and then, with a +smile, observed, "Humph! a fine complimentary opening: But it is his +way. One man's style must not be the rule of another's. We will not be +severe." + +"It will be natural for me," he added shortly afterwards, "to speak my +opinion aloud as I read. By doing it, I shall feel that I am near you. +It will not be so great a loss of time: but if you dislike it--" + +"Not at all. I should wish it." + +Mr. Knightley returned to his reading with greater alacrity. + +"He trifles here," said he, "as to the temptation. He knows he is wrong, +and has nothing rational to urge.--Bad.--He ought not to have formed the +engagement.--'His father's disposition:'--he is unjust, however, to his +father. Mr. Weston's sanguine temper was a blessing on all his upright +and honourable exertions; but Mr. Weston earned every present comfort +before he endeavoured to gain it.--Very true; he did not come till Miss +Fairfax was here." + +"And I have not forgotten," said Emma, "how sure you were that he might +have come sooner if he would. You pass it over very handsomely--but you +were perfectly right." + +"I was not quite impartial in my judgment, Emma:--but yet, I think--had +_you_ not been in the case--I should still have distrusted him." + +When he came to Miss Woodhouse, he was obliged to read the whole of it +aloud--all that related to her, with a smile; a look; a shake of the +head; a word or two of assent, or disapprobation; or merely of love, as +the subject required; concluding, however, seriously, and, after steady +reflection, thus-- + +"Very bad--though it might have been worse.--Playing a most dangerous +game. Too much indebted to the event for his acquittal.--No judge of +his own manners by you.--Always deceived in fact by his own wishes, and +regardless of little besides his own convenience.--Fancying you to have +fathomed his secret. Natural enough!--his own mind full of intrigue, +that he should suspect it in others.--Mystery; Finesse--how they pervert +the understanding! My Emma, does not every thing serve to prove more +and more the beauty of truth and sincerity in all our dealings with each +other?" + +Emma agreed to it, and with a blush of sensibility on Harriet's account, +which she could not give any sincere explanation of. + +"You had better go on," said she. + +He did so, but very soon stopt again to say, "the pianoforte! Ah! That +was the act of a very, very young man, one too young to consider whether +the inconvenience of it might not very much exceed the pleasure. A +boyish scheme, indeed!--I cannot comprehend a man's wishing to give a +woman any proof of affection which he knows she would rather dispense +with; and he did know that she would have prevented the instrument's +coming if she could." + +After this, he made some progress without any pause. Frank Churchill's +confession of having behaved shamefully was the first thing to call for +more than a word in passing. + +"I perfectly agree with you, sir,"--was then his remark. "You did behave +very shamefully. You never wrote a truer line." And having gone through +what immediately followed of the basis of their disagreement, and his +persisting to act in direct opposition to Jane Fairfax's sense of right, +he made a fuller pause to say, "This is very bad.--He had induced her +to place herself, for his sake, in a situation of extreme difficulty and +uneasiness, and it should have been his first object to prevent her from +suffering unnecessarily.--She must have had much more to contend +with, in carrying on the correspondence, than he could. He should have +respected even unreasonable scruples, had there been such; but hers were +all reasonable. We must look to her one fault, and remember that she +had done a wrong thing in consenting to the engagement, to bear that she +should have been in such a state of punishment." + +Emma knew that he was now getting to the Box Hill party, and grew +uncomfortable. Her own behaviour had been so very improper! She was +deeply ashamed, and a little afraid of his next look. It was all read, +however, steadily, attentively, and without the smallest remark; and, +excepting one momentary glance at her, instantly withdrawn, in the fear +of giving pain--no remembrance of Box Hill seemed to exist. + +"There is no saying much for the delicacy of our good friends, the +Eltons," was his next observation.--"His feelings are natural.--What! +actually resolve to break with him entirely!--She felt the engagement to +be a source of repentance and misery to each--she dissolved it.--What a +view this gives of her sense of his behaviour!--Well, he must be a most +extraordinary--" + +"Nay, nay, read on.--You will find how very much he suffers." + +"I hope he does," replied Mr. Knightley coolly, and resuming the letter. +"'Smallridge!'--What does this mean? What is all this?" + +"She had engaged to go as governess to Mrs. Smallridge's children--a +dear friend of Mrs. Elton's--a neighbour of Maple Grove; and, by the +bye, I wonder how Mrs. Elton bears the disappointment?" + +"Say nothing, my dear Emma, while you oblige me to read--not even of +Mrs. Elton. Only one page more. I shall soon have done. What a letter +the man writes!" + +"I wish you would read it with a kinder spirit towards him." + +"Well, there _is_ feeling here.--He does seem to have suffered in +finding her ill.--Certainly, I can have no doubt of his being fond of +her. 'Dearer, much dearer than ever.' I hope he may long continue to +feel all the value of such a reconciliation.--He is a very liberal +thanker, with his thousands and tens of thousands.--'Happier than I +deserve.' Come, he knows himself there. 'Miss Woodhouse calls me the +child of good fortune.'--Those were Miss Woodhouse's words, were they?-- +And a fine ending--and there is the letter. The child of good fortune! +That was your name for him, was it?" + +"You do not appear so well satisfied with his letter as I am; but still +you must, at least I hope you must, think the better of him for it. I +hope it does him some service with you." + +"Yes, certainly it does. He has had great faults, faults of +inconsideration and thoughtlessness; and I am very much of his opinion +in thinking him likely to be happier than he deserves: but still as he +is, beyond a doubt, really attached to Miss Fairfax, and will soon, it +may be hoped, have the advantage of being constantly with her, I am very +ready to believe his character will improve, and acquire from hers the +steadiness and delicacy of principle that it wants. And now, let me talk +to you of something else. I have another person's interest at present +so much at heart, that I cannot think any longer about Frank Churchill. +Ever since I left you this morning, Emma, my mind has been hard at work +on one subject." + +The subject followed; it was in plain, unaffected, gentlemanlike +English, such as Mr. Knightley used even to the woman he was in love +with, how to be able to ask her to marry him, without attacking the +happiness of her father. Emma's answer was ready at the first word. +"While her dear father lived, any change of condition must be impossible +for her. She could never quit him." Part only of this answer, however, +was admitted. The impossibility of her quitting her father, Mr. +Knightley felt as strongly as herself; but the inadmissibility of any +other change, he could not agree to. He had been thinking it over most +deeply, most intently; he had at first hoped to induce Mr. Woodhouse to +remove with her to Donwell; he had wanted to believe it feasible, but +his knowledge of Mr. Woodhouse would not suffer him to deceive himself +long; and now he confessed his persuasion, that such a transplantation +would be a risk of her father's comfort, perhaps even of his life, which +must not be hazarded. Mr. Woodhouse taken from Hartfield!--No, he felt +that it ought not to be attempted. But the plan which had arisen on the +sacrifice of this, he trusted his dearest Emma would not find in any +respect objectionable; it was, that he should be received at Hartfield; +that so long as her father's happiness--in other words, his life--required +Hartfield to continue her home, it should be his likewise. + +Of their all removing to Donwell, Emma had already had her own passing +thoughts. Like him, she had tried the scheme and rejected it; but such +an alternative as this had not occurred to her. She was sensible of all +the affection it evinced. She felt that, in quitting Donwell, he must +be sacrificing a great deal of independence of hours and habits; that +in living constantly with her father, and in no house of his own, there +would be much, very much, to be borne with. She promised to think of it, +and advised him to think of it more; but he was fully convinced, that no +reflection could alter his wishes or his opinion on the subject. He had +given it, he could assure her, very long and calm consideration; he had +been walking away from William Larkins the whole morning, to have his +thoughts to himself. + +"Ah! there is one difficulty unprovided for," cried Emma. "I am sure +William Larkins will not like it. You must get his consent before you +ask mine." + +She promised, however, to think of it; and pretty nearly promised, +moreover, to think of it, with the intention of finding it a very good +scheme. + +It is remarkable, that Emma, in the many, very many, points of view in +which she was now beginning to consider Donwell Abbey, was never +struck with any sense of injury to her nephew Henry, whose rights as +heir-expectant had formerly been so tenaciously regarded. Think she must +of the possible difference to the poor little boy; and yet she only +gave herself a saucy conscious smile about it, and found amusement in +detecting the real cause of that violent dislike of Mr. Knightley's +marrying Jane Fairfax, or any body else, which at the time she had +wholly imputed to the amiable solicitude of the sister and the aunt. + +This proposal of his, this plan of marrying and continuing at +Hartfield--the more she contemplated it, the more pleasing it became. +His evils seemed to lessen, her own advantages to increase, their mutual +good to outweigh every drawback. Such a companion for herself in the +periods of anxiety and cheerlessness before her!--Such a partner in +all those duties and cares to which time must be giving increase of +melancholy! + +She would have been too happy but for poor Harriet; but every blessing +of her own seemed to involve and advance the sufferings of her friend, +who must now be even excluded from Hartfield. The delightful family +party which Emma was securing for herself, poor Harriet must, in mere +charitable caution, be kept at a distance from. She would be a loser in +every way. Emma could not deplore her future absence as any deduction +from her own enjoyment. In such a party, Harriet would be rather a +dead weight than otherwise; but for the poor girl herself, it seemed a +peculiarly cruel necessity that was to be placing her in such a state of +unmerited punishment. + +In time, of course, Mr. Knightley would be forgotten, that is, +supplanted; but this could not be expected to happen very early. Mr. +Knightley himself would be doing nothing to assist the cure;--not +like Mr. Elton. Mr. Knightley, always so kind, so feeling, so truly +considerate for every body, would never deserve to be less worshipped +than now; and it really was too much to hope even of Harriet, that she +could be in love with more than _three_ men in one year. + + + +CHAPTER XVI + + +It was a very great relief to Emma to find Harriet as desirous as +herself to avoid a meeting. Their intercourse was painful enough by +letter. How much worse, had they been obliged to meet! + +Harriet expressed herself very much as might be supposed, without +reproaches, or apparent sense of ill-usage; and yet Emma fancied there +was a something of resentment, a something bordering on it in her style, +which increased the desirableness of their being separate.--It might be +only her own consciousness; but it seemed as if an angel only could have +been quite without resentment under such a stroke. + +She had no difficulty in procuring Isabella's invitation; and she was +fortunate in having a sufficient reason for asking it, without resorting +to invention.--There was a tooth amiss. Harriet really wished, and +had wished some time, to consult a dentist. Mrs. John Knightley was +delighted to be of use; any thing of ill health was a recommendation to +her--and though not so fond of a dentist as of a Mr. Wingfield, she was +quite eager to have Harriet under her care.--When it was thus settled +on her sister's side, Emma proposed it to her friend, and found her +very persuadable.--Harriet was to go; she was invited for at least a +fortnight; she was to be conveyed in Mr. Woodhouse's carriage.--It was +all arranged, it was all completed, and Harriet was safe in Brunswick +Square. + +Now Emma could, indeed, enjoy Mr. Knightley's visits; now she could +talk, and she could listen with true happiness, unchecked by that sense +of injustice, of guilt, of something most painful, which had haunted her +when remembering how disappointed a heart was near her, how much might +at that moment, and at a little distance, be enduring by the feelings +which she had led astray herself. + +The difference of Harriet at Mrs. Goddard's, or in London, made perhaps +an unreasonable difference in Emma's sensations; but she could not think +of her in London without objects of curiosity and employment, which must +be averting the past, and carrying her out of herself. + +She would not allow any other anxiety to succeed directly to the place +in her mind which Harriet had occupied. There was a communication before +her, one which _she_ only could be competent to make--the confession of +her engagement to her father; but she would have nothing to do with it +at present.--She had resolved to defer the disclosure till Mrs. Weston +were safe and well. No additional agitation should be thrown at this +period among those she loved--and the evil should not act on herself +by anticipation before the appointed time.--A fortnight, at least, of +leisure and peace of mind, to crown every warmer, but more agitating, +delight, should be hers. + +She soon resolved, equally as a duty and a pleasure, to employ half an +hour of this holiday of spirits in calling on Miss Fairfax.--She ought +to go--and she was longing to see her; the resemblance of their present +situations increasing every other motive of goodwill. It would be a +_secret_ satisfaction; but the consciousness of a similarity of prospect +would certainly add to the interest with which she should attend to any +thing Jane might communicate. + +She went--she had driven once unsuccessfully to the door, but had not +been into the house since the morning after Box Hill, when poor Jane had +been in such distress as had filled her with compassion, though all the +worst of her sufferings had been unsuspected.--The fear of being still +unwelcome, determined her, though assured of their being at home, to +wait in the passage, and send up her name.--She heard Patty announcing +it; but no such bustle succeeded as poor Miss Bates had before made so +happily intelligible.--No; she heard nothing but the instant reply of, +"Beg her to walk up;"--and a moment afterwards she was met on the stairs +by Jane herself, coming eagerly forward, as if no other reception of her +were felt sufficient.--Emma had never seen her look so well, so lovely, +so engaging. There was consciousness, animation, and warmth; there was +every thing which her countenance or manner could ever have wanted.-- +She came forward with an offered hand; and said, in a low, but very +feeling tone, + +"This is most kind, indeed!--Miss Woodhouse, it is impossible for me +to express--I hope you will believe--Excuse me for being so entirely +without words." + +Emma was gratified, and would soon have shewn no want of words, if the +sound of Mrs. Elton's voice from the sitting-room had not checked +her, and made it expedient to compress all her friendly and all her +congratulatory sensations into a very, very earnest shake of the hand. + +Mrs. Bates and Mrs. Elton were together. Miss Bates was out, which +accounted for the previous tranquillity. Emma could have wished Mrs. +Elton elsewhere; but she was in a humour to have patience with every +body; and as Mrs. Elton met her with unusual graciousness, she hoped the +rencontre would do them no harm. + +She soon believed herself to penetrate Mrs. Elton's thoughts, and +understand why she was, like herself, in happy spirits; it was being in +Miss Fairfax's confidence, and fancying herself acquainted with what was +still a secret to other people. Emma saw symptoms of it immediately in +the expression of her face; and while paying her own compliments to Mrs. +Bates, and appearing to attend to the good old lady's replies, she saw +her with a sort of anxious parade of mystery fold up a letter which she +had apparently been reading aloud to Miss Fairfax, and return it into +the purple and gold reticule by her side, saying, with significant nods, + +"We can finish this some other time, you know. You and I shall not want +opportunities. And, in fact, you have heard all the essential already. I +only wanted to prove to you that Mrs. S. admits our apology, and is +not offended. You see how delightfully she writes. Oh! she is a sweet +creature! You would have doated on her, had you gone.--But not a word +more. Let us be discreet--quite on our good behaviour.--Hush!--You +remember those lines--I forget the poem at this moment: + + "For when a lady's in the case, + "You know all other things give place." + +Now I say, my dear, in _our_ case, for _lady_, read----mum! a word to +the wise.--I am in a fine flow of spirits, an't I? But I want to set +your heart at ease as to Mrs. S.--_My_ representation, you see, has +quite appeased her." + +And again, on Emma's merely turning her head to look at Mrs. Bates's +knitting, she added, in a half whisper, + +"I mentioned no _names_, you will observe.--Oh! no; cautious as a +minister of state. I managed it extremely well." + +Emma could not doubt. It was a palpable display, repeated on every +possible occasion. When they had all talked a little while in harmony of +the weather and Mrs. Weston, she found herself abruptly addressed with, + +"Do not you think, Miss Woodhouse, our saucy little friend here is +charmingly recovered?--Do not you think her cure does Perry the highest +credit?--(here was a side-glance of great meaning at Jane.) Upon my +word, Perry has restored her in a wonderful short time!--Oh! if you had +seen her, as I did, when she was at the worst!"--And when Mrs. Bates +was saying something to Emma, whispered farther, "We do not say a word +of any _assistance_ that Perry might have; not a word of a certain young +physician from Windsor.--Oh! no; Perry shall have all the credit." + +"I have scarce had the pleasure of seeing you, Miss Woodhouse," she +shortly afterwards began, "since the party to Box Hill. Very pleasant +party. But yet I think there was something wanting. Things did not +seem--that is, there seemed a little cloud upon the spirits of some.--So +it appeared to me at least, but I might be mistaken. However, I think +it answered so far as to tempt one to go again. What say you both to our +collecting the same party, and exploring to Box Hill again, while the +fine weather lasts?--It must be the same party, you know, quite the +same party, not _one_ exception." + +Soon after this Miss Bates came in, and Emma could not help being +diverted by the perplexity of her first answer to herself, resulting, +she supposed, from doubt of what might be said, and impatience to say +every thing. + +"Thank you, dear Miss Woodhouse, you are all kindness.--It is impossible +to say--Yes, indeed, I quite understand--dearest Jane's prospects--that +is, I do not mean.--But she is charmingly recovered.--How is Mr. +Woodhouse?--I am so glad.--Quite out of my power.--Such a happy little +circle as you find us here.--Yes, indeed.--Charming young man!--that +is--so very friendly; I mean good Mr. Perry!--such attention to +Jane!"--And from her great, her more than commonly thankful delight +towards Mrs. Elton for being there, Emma guessed that there had been a +little show of resentment towards Jane, from the vicarage quarter, +which was now graciously overcome.--After a few whispers, indeed, which +placed it beyond a guess, Mrs. Elton, speaking louder, said, + +"Yes, here I am, my good friend; and here I have been so long, that +anywhere else I should think it necessary to apologise; but, the truth +is, that I am waiting for my lord and master. He promised to join me +here, and pay his respects to you." + +"What! are we to have the pleasure of a call from Mr. Elton?--That will +be a favour indeed! for I know gentlemen do not like morning visits, and +Mr. Elton's time is so engaged." + +"Upon my word it is, Miss Bates.--He really is engaged from morning to +night.--There is no end of people's coming to him, on some pretence or +other.--The magistrates, and overseers, and churchwardens, are always +wanting his opinion. They seem not able to do any thing without +him.--'Upon my word, Mr. E.,' I often say, 'rather you than I.--I do +not know what would become of my crayons and my instrument, if I had +half so many applicants.'--Bad enough as it is, for I absolutely neglect +them both to an unpardonable degree.--I believe I have not played a bar +this fortnight.--However, he is coming, I assure you: yes, indeed, on +purpose to wait on you all." And putting up her hand to screen her +words from Emma--"A congratulatory visit, you know.--Oh! yes, quite +indispensable." + +Miss Bates looked about her, so happily--! + +"He promised to come to me as soon as he could disengage himself +from Knightley; but he and Knightley are shut up together in deep +consultation.--Mr. E. is Knightley's right hand." + +Emma would not have smiled for the world, and only said, "Is Mr. Elton +gone on foot to Donwell?--He will have a hot walk." + +"Oh! no, it is a meeting at the Crown, a regular meeting. Weston and +Cole will be there too; but one is apt to speak only of those who +lead.--I fancy Mr. E. and Knightley have every thing their own way." + +"Have not you mistaken the day?" said Emma. "I am almost certain that +the meeting at the Crown is not till to-morrow.--Mr. Knightley was at +Hartfield yesterday, and spoke of it as for Saturday." + +"Oh! no, the meeting is certainly to-day," was the abrupt answer, which +denoted the impossibility of any blunder on Mrs. Elton's side.--"I do +believe," she continued, "this is the most troublesome parish that ever +was. We never heard of such things at Maple Grove." + +"Your parish there was small," said Jane. + +"Upon my word, my dear, I do not know, for I never heard the subject +talked of." + +"But it is proved by the smallness of the school, which I have heard +you speak of, as under the patronage of your sister and Mrs. Bragge; the +only school, and not more than five-and-twenty children." + +"Ah! you clever creature, that's very true. What a thinking brain you +have! I say, Jane, what a perfect character you and I should make, if we +could be shaken together. My liveliness and your solidity would produce +perfection.--Not that I presume to insinuate, however, that _some_ +people may not think _you_ perfection already.--But hush!--not a word, +if you please." + +It seemed an unnecessary caution; Jane was wanting to give her words, +not to Mrs. Elton, but to Miss Woodhouse, as the latter plainly saw. +The wish of distinguishing her, as far as civility permitted, was very +evident, though it could not often proceed beyond a look. + +Mr. Elton made his appearance. His lady greeted him with some of her +sparkling vivacity. + +"Very pretty, sir, upon my word; to send me on here, to be an +encumbrance to my friends, so long before you vouchsafe to come!--But +you knew what a dutiful creature you had to deal with. You knew I should +not stir till my lord and master appeared.--Here have I been sitting +this hour, giving these young ladies a sample of true conjugal +obedience--for who can say, you know, how soon it may be wanted?" + +Mr. Elton was so hot and tired, that all this wit seemed thrown away. +His civilities to the other ladies must be paid; but his subsequent +object was to lament over himself for the heat he was suffering, and the +walk he had had for nothing. + +"When I got to Donwell," said he, "Knightley could not be found. Very +odd! very unaccountable! after the note I sent him this morning, and the +message he returned, that he should certainly be at home till one." + +"Donwell!" cried his wife.--"My dear Mr. E., you have not been to +Donwell!--You mean the Crown; you come from the meeting at the Crown." + +"No, no, that's to-morrow; and I particularly wanted to see Knightley +to-day on that very account.--Such a dreadful broiling morning!--I went +over the fields too--(speaking in a tone of great ill-usage,) which made +it so much the worse. And then not to find him at home! I assure you +I am not at all pleased. And no apology left, no message for me. The +housekeeper declared she knew nothing of my being expected.--Very +extraordinary!--And nobody knew at all which way he was gone. Perhaps +to Hartfield, perhaps to the Abbey Mill, perhaps into his woods.--Miss +Woodhouse, this is not like our friend Knightley!--Can you explain it?" + +Emma amused herself by protesting that it was very extraordinary, +indeed, and that she had not a syllable to say for him. + +"I cannot imagine," said Mrs. Elton, (feeling the indignity as a wife +ought to do,) "I cannot imagine how he could do such a thing by you, of +all people in the world! The very last person whom one should expect to +be forgotten!--My dear Mr. E., he must have left a message for you, I am +sure he must.--Not even Knightley could be so very eccentric;--and his +servants forgot it. Depend upon it, that was the case: and very likely +to happen with the Donwell servants, who are all, I have often observed, +extremely awkward and remiss.--I am sure I would not have such a +creature as his Harry stand at our sideboard for any consideration. And +as for Mrs. Hodges, Wright holds her very cheap indeed.--She promised +Wright a receipt, and never sent it." + +"I met William Larkins," continued Mr. Elton, "as I got near the house, +and he told me I should not find his master at home, but I did not +believe him.--William seemed rather out of humour. He did not know what +was come to his master lately, he said, but he could hardly ever get the +speech of him. I have nothing to do with William's wants, but it really +is of very great importance that _I_ should see Knightley to-day; and it +becomes a matter, therefore, of very serious inconvenience that I should +have had this hot walk to no purpose." + +Emma felt that she could not do better than go home directly. In +all probability she was at this very time waited for there; and Mr. +Knightley might be preserved from sinking deeper in aggression towards +Mr. Elton, if not towards William Larkins. + +She was pleased, on taking leave, to find Miss Fairfax determined to +attend her out of the room, to go with her even downstairs; it gave her +an opportunity which she immediately made use of, to say, + +"It is as well, perhaps, that I have not had the possibility. Had you +not been surrounded by other friends, I might have been tempted to +introduce a subject, to ask questions, to speak more openly than might +have been strictly correct.--I feel that I should certainly have been +impertinent." + +"Oh!" cried Jane, with a blush and an hesitation which Emma thought +infinitely more becoming to her than all the elegance of all her usual +composure--"there would have been no danger. The danger would have +been of my wearying you. You could not have gratified me more than +by expressing an interest--. Indeed, Miss Woodhouse, (speaking more +collectedly,) with the consciousness which I have of misconduct, very +great misconduct, it is particularly consoling to me to know that those +of my friends, whose good opinion is most worth preserving, are not +disgusted to such a degree as to--I have not time for half that I could +wish to say. I long to make apologies, excuses, to urge something for +myself. I feel it so very due. But, unfortunately--in short, if your +compassion does not stand my friend--" + +"Oh! you are too scrupulous, indeed you are," cried Emma warmly, and +taking her hand. "You owe me no apologies; and every body to whom you +might be supposed to owe them, is so perfectly satisfied, so delighted +even--" + +"You are very kind, but I know what my manners were to you.--So +cold and artificial!--I had always a part to act.--It was a life of +deceit!--I know that I must have disgusted you." + +"Pray say no more. I feel that all the apologies should be on my side. +Let us forgive each other at once. We must do whatever is to be done +quickest, and I think our feelings will lose no time there. I hope you +have pleasant accounts from Windsor?" + +"Very." + +"And the next news, I suppose, will be, that we are to lose you--just as +I begin to know you." + +"Oh! as to all that, of course nothing can be thought of yet. I am here +till claimed by Colonel and Mrs. Campbell." + +"Nothing can be actually settled yet, perhaps," replied Emma, +smiling--"but, excuse me, it must be thought of." + +The smile was returned as Jane answered, + +"You are very right; it has been thought of. And I will own to you, (I +am sure it will be safe), that so far as our living with Mr. Churchill +at Enscombe, it is settled. There must be three months, at least, of +deep mourning; but when they are over, I imagine there will be nothing +more to wait for." + +"Thank you, thank you.--This is just what I wanted to be assured +of.--Oh! if you knew how much I love every thing that is decided and +open!--Good-bye, good-bye." + + + +CHAPTER XVII + + +Mrs. Weston's friends were all made happy by her safety; and if the +satisfaction of her well-doing could be increased to Emma, it was by +knowing her to be the mother of a little girl. She had been decided in +wishing for a Miss Weston. She would not acknowledge that it was with +any view of making a match for her, hereafter, with either of Isabella's +sons; but she was convinced that a daughter would suit both father +and mother best. It would be a great comfort to Mr. Weston, as he grew +older--and even Mr. Weston might be growing older ten years hence--to +have his fireside enlivened by the sports and the nonsense, the freaks +and the fancies of a child never banished from home; and Mrs. Weston--no +one could doubt that a daughter would be most to her; and it would be +quite a pity that any one who so well knew how to teach, should not have +their powers in exercise again. + +"She has had the advantage, you know, of practising on me," she +continued--"like La Baronne d'Almane on La Comtesse d'Ostalis, in Madame +de Genlis' Adelaide and Theodore, and we shall now see her own little +Adelaide educated on a more perfect plan." + +"That is," replied Mr. Knightley, "she will indulge her even more than +she did you, and believe that she does not indulge her at all. It will +be the only difference." + +"Poor child!" cried Emma; "at that rate, what will become of her?" + +"Nothing very bad.--The fate of thousands. She will be disagreeable +in infancy, and correct herself as she grows older. I am losing all my +bitterness against spoilt children, my dearest Emma. I, who am owing all +my happiness to _you_, would not it be horrible ingratitude in me to be +severe on them?" + +Emma laughed, and replied: "But I had the assistance of all your +endeavours to counteract the indulgence of other people. I doubt whether +my own sense would have corrected me without it." + +"Do you?--I have no doubt. Nature gave you understanding:--Miss Taylor +gave you principles. You must have done well. My interference was quite +as likely to do harm as good. It was very natural for you to say, what +right has he to lecture me?--and I am afraid very natural for you to +feel that it was done in a disagreeable manner. I do not believe I did +you any good. The good was all to myself, by making you an object of the +tenderest affection to me. I could not think about you so much without +doating on you, faults and all; and by dint of fancying so many errors, +have been in love with you ever since you were thirteen at least." + +"I am sure you were of use to me," cried Emma. "I was very often +influenced rightly by you--oftener than I would own at the time. I +am very sure you did me good. And if poor little Anna Weston is to be +spoiled, it will be the greatest humanity in you to do as much for her +as you have done for me, except falling in love with her when she is +thirteen." + +"How often, when you were a girl, have you said to me, with one of your +saucy looks--'Mr. Knightley, I am going to do so-and-so; papa says I +may, or I have Miss Taylor's leave'--something which, you knew, I +did not approve. In such cases my interference was giving you two bad +feelings instead of one." + +"What an amiable creature I was!--No wonder you should hold my speeches +in such affectionate remembrance." + +"'Mr. Knightley.'--You always called me, 'Mr. Knightley;' and, from +habit, it has not so very formal a sound.--And yet it is formal. I want +you to call me something else, but I do not know what." + +"I remember once calling you 'George,' in one of my amiable fits, about +ten years ago. I did it because I thought it would offend you; but, as +you made no objection, I never did it again." + +"And cannot you call me 'George' now?" + +"Impossible!--I never can call you any thing but 'Mr. Knightley.' I +will not promise even to equal the elegant terseness of Mrs. Elton, by +calling you Mr. K.--But I will promise," she added presently, laughing +and blushing--"I will promise to call you once by your Christian name. +I do not say when, but perhaps you may guess where;--in the building in +which N. takes M. for better, for worse." + +Emma grieved that she could not be more openly just to one important +service which his better sense would have rendered her, to the +advice which would have saved her from the worst of all her womanly +follies--her wilful intimacy with Harriet Smith; but it was too tender a +subject.--She could not enter on it.--Harriet was very seldom mentioned +between them. This, on his side, might merely proceed from her not being +thought of; but Emma was rather inclined to attribute it to delicacy, +and a suspicion, from some appearances, that their friendship were +declining. She was aware herself, that, parting under any other +circumstances, they certainly should have corresponded more, and that +her intelligence would not have rested, as it now almost wholly did, on +Isabella's letters. He might observe that it was so. The pain of being +obliged to practise concealment towards him, was very little inferior to +the pain of having made Harriet unhappy. + +Isabella sent quite as good an account of her visitor as could be +expected; on her first arrival she had thought her out of spirits, which +appeared perfectly natural, as there was a dentist to be consulted; but, +since that business had been over, she did not appear to find Harriet +different from what she had known her before.--Isabella, to be sure, +was no very quick observer; yet if Harriet had not been equal to playing +with the children, it would not have escaped her. Emma's comforts and +hopes were most agreeably carried on, by Harriet's being to stay longer; +her fortnight was likely to be a month at least. Mr. and Mrs. John +Knightley were to come down in August, and she was invited to remain +till they could bring her back. + +"John does not even mention your friend," said Mr. Knightley. "Here is +his answer, if you like to see it." + +It was the answer to the communication of his intended marriage. Emma +accepted it with a very eager hand, with an impatience all alive to know +what he would say about it, and not at all checked by hearing that her +friend was unmentioned. + +"John enters like a brother into my happiness," continued Mr. Knightley, +"but he is no complimenter; and though I well know him to have, +likewise, a most brotherly affection for you, he is so far from making +flourishes, that any other young woman might think him rather cool in +her praise. But I am not afraid of your seeing what he writes." + +"He writes like a sensible man," replied Emma, when she had read the +letter. "I honour his sincerity. It is very plain that he considers the +good fortune of the engagement as all on my side, but that he is not +without hope of my growing, in time, as worthy of your affection, as +you think me already. Had he said any thing to bear a different +construction, I should not have believed him." + +"My Emma, he means no such thing. He only means--" + +"He and I should differ very little in our estimation of the two," +interrupted she, with a sort of serious smile--"much less, perhaps, than +he is aware of, if we could enter without ceremony or reserve on the +subject." + +"Emma, my dear Emma--" + +"Oh!" she cried with more thorough gaiety, "if you fancy your brother +does not do me justice, only wait till my dear father is in the secret, +and hear his opinion. Depend upon it, he will be much farther from doing +_you_ justice. He will think all the happiness, all the advantage, on +your side of the question; all the merit on mine. I wish I may not +sink into 'poor Emma' with him at once.--His tender compassion towards +oppressed worth can go no farther." + +"Ah!" he cried, "I wish your father might be half as easily convinced as +John will be, of our having every right that equal worth can give, to be +happy together. I am amused by one part of John's letter--did you notice +it?--where he says, that my information did not take him wholly by +surprize, that he was rather in expectation of hearing something of the +kind." + +"If I understand your brother, he only means so far as your having +some thoughts of marrying. He had no idea of me. He seems perfectly +unprepared for that." + +"Yes, yes--but I am amused that he should have seen so far into my +feelings. What has he been judging by?--I am not conscious of any +difference in my spirits or conversation that could prepare him at +this time for my marrying any more than at another.--But it was so, I +suppose. I dare say there was a difference when I was staying with them +the other day. I believe I did not play with the children quite so much +as usual. I remember one evening the poor boys saying, 'Uncle seems +always tired now.'" + +The time was coming when the news must spread farther, and other +persons' reception of it tried. As soon as Mrs. Weston was sufficiently +recovered to admit Mr. Woodhouse's visits, Emma having it in view that +her gentle reasonings should be employed in the cause, resolved first to +announce it at home, and then at Randalls.--But how to break it to her +father at last!--She had bound herself to do it, in such an hour of Mr. +Knightley's absence, or when it came to the point her heart would have +failed her, and she must have put it off; but Mr. Knightley was to come +at such a time, and follow up the beginning she was to make.--She was +forced to speak, and to speak cheerfully too. She must not make it a +more decided subject of misery to him, by a melancholy tone herself. +She must not appear to think it a misfortune.--With all the spirits she +could command, she prepared him first for something strange, and then, +in a few words, said, that if his consent and approbation could be +obtained--which, she trusted, would be attended with no difficulty, +since it was a plan to promote the happiness of all--she and Mr. +Knightley meant to marry; by which means Hartfield would receive the +constant addition of that person's company whom she knew he loved, next +to his daughters and Mrs. Weston, best in the world. + +Poor man!--it was at first a considerable shock to him, and he tried +earnestly to dissuade her from it. She was reminded, more than once, of +having always said she would never marry, and assured that it would be +a great deal better for her to remain single; and told of poor Isabella, +and poor Miss Taylor.--But it would not do. Emma hung about him +affectionately, and smiled, and said it must be so; and that he must +not class her with Isabella and Mrs. Weston, whose marriages taking them +from Hartfield, had, indeed, made a melancholy change: but she was not +going from Hartfield; she should be always there; she was introducing +no change in their numbers or their comforts but for the better; and she +was very sure that he would be a great deal the happier for having Mr. +Knightley always at hand, when he were once got used to the idea.--Did +he not love Mr. Knightley very much?--He would not deny that he did, +she was sure.--Whom did he ever want to consult on business but Mr. +Knightley?--Who was so useful to him, who so ready to write his letters, +who so glad to assist him?--Who so cheerful, so attentive, so attached +to him?--Would not he like to have him always on the spot?--Yes. That +was all very true. Mr. Knightley could not be there too often; he should +be glad to see him every day;--but they did see him every day as it +was.--Why could not they go on as they had done? + +Mr. Woodhouse could not be soon reconciled; but the worst was overcome, +the idea was given; time and continual repetition must do the rest.--To +Emma's entreaties and assurances succeeded Mr. Knightley's, whose fond +praise of her gave the subject even a kind of welcome; and he was soon +used to be talked to by each, on every fair occasion.--They had all +the assistance which Isabella could give, by letters of the strongest +approbation; and Mrs. Weston was ready, on the first meeting, to +consider the subject in the most serviceable light--first, as a settled, +and, secondly, as a good one--well aware of the nearly equal importance +of the two recommendations to Mr. Woodhouse's mind.--It was agreed +upon, as what was to be; and every body by whom he was used to be +guided assuring him that it would be for his happiness; and having some +feelings himself which almost admitted it, he began to think that some +time or other--in another year or two, perhaps--it might not be so very +bad if the marriage did take place. + +Mrs. Weston was acting no part, feigning no feelings in all that she +said to him in favour of the event.--She had been extremely surprized, +never more so, than when Emma first opened the affair to her; but she +saw in it only increase of happiness to all, and had no scruple in +urging him to the utmost.--She had such a regard for Mr. Knightley, as +to think he deserved even her dearest Emma; and it was in every respect +so proper, suitable, and unexceptionable a connexion, and in one +respect, one point of the highest importance, so peculiarly eligible, +so singularly fortunate, that now it seemed as if Emma could not safely +have attached herself to any other creature, and that she had herself +been the stupidest of beings in not having thought of it, and wished it +long ago.--How very few of those men in a rank of life to address Emma +would have renounced their own home for Hartfield! And who but Mr. +Knightley could know and bear with Mr. Woodhouse, so as to make such +an arrangement desirable!--The difficulty of disposing of poor Mr. +Woodhouse had been always felt in her husband's plans and her own, for +a marriage between Frank and Emma. How to settle the claims of Enscombe +and Hartfield had been a continual impediment--less acknowledged by Mr. +Weston than by herself--but even he had never been able to finish +the subject better than by saying--"Those matters will take care of +themselves; the young people will find a way." But here there was +nothing to be shifted off in a wild speculation on the future. It was +all right, all open, all equal. No sacrifice on any side worth the name. +It was a union of the highest promise of felicity in itself, and without +one real, rational difficulty to oppose or delay it. + +Mrs. Weston, with her baby on her knee, indulging in such reflections +as these, was one of the happiest women in the world. If any thing could +increase her delight, it was perceiving that the baby would soon have +outgrown its first set of caps. + +The news was universally a surprize wherever it spread; and Mr. Weston +had his five minutes share of it; but five minutes were enough to +familiarise the idea to his quickness of mind.--He saw the advantages +of the match, and rejoiced in them with all the constancy of his wife; +but the wonder of it was very soon nothing; and by the end of an hour he +was not far from believing that he had always foreseen it. + +"It is to be a secret, I conclude," said he. "These matters are always a +secret, till it is found out that every body knows them. Only let me be +told when I may speak out.--I wonder whether Jane has any suspicion." + +He went to Highbury the next morning, and satisfied himself on that +point. He told her the news. Was not she like a daughter, his eldest +daughter?--he must tell her; and Miss Bates being present, it passed, +of course, to Mrs. Cole, Mrs. Perry, and Mrs. Elton, immediately +afterwards. It was no more than the principals were prepared for; they +had calculated from the time of its being known at Randalls, how soon it +would be over Highbury; and were thinking of themselves, as the evening +wonder in many a family circle, with great sagacity. + +In general, it was a very well approved match. Some might think him, and +others might think her, the most in luck. One set might recommend their +all removing to Donwell, and leaving Hartfield for the John Knightleys; +and another might predict disagreements among their servants; but yet, +upon the whole, there was no serious objection raised, except in one +habitation, the Vicarage.--There, the surprize was not softened by any +satisfaction. Mr. Elton cared little about it, compared with his wife; +he only hoped "the young lady's pride would now be contented;" and +supposed "she had always meant to catch Knightley if she could;" and, +on the point of living at Hartfield, could daringly exclaim, "Rather +he than I!"--But Mrs. Elton was very much discomposed indeed.--"Poor +Knightley! poor fellow!--sad business for him."--She was extremely +concerned; for, though very eccentric, he had a thousand good +qualities.--How could he be so taken in?--Did not think him at all in +love--not in the least.--Poor Knightley!--There would be an end of all +pleasant intercourse with him.--How happy he had been to come and dine +with them whenever they asked him! But that would be all over now.--Poor +fellow!--No more exploring parties to Donwell made for _her_. Oh! +no; there would be a Mrs. Knightley to throw cold water on every +thing.--Extremely disagreeable! But she was not at all sorry that +she had abused the housekeeper the other day.--Shocking plan, living +together. It would never do. She knew a family near Maple Grove who +had tried it, and been obliged to separate before the end of the first +quarter. + + + +CHAPTER XVIII + + +Time passed on. A few more to-morrows, and the party from London would +be arriving. It was an alarming change; and Emma was thinking of it one +morning, as what must bring a great deal to agitate and grieve her, when +Mr. Knightley came in, and distressing thoughts were put by. After the +first chat of pleasure he was silent; and then, in a graver tone, began +with, + +"I have something to tell you, Emma; some news." + +"Good or bad?" said she, quickly, looking up in his face. + +"I do not know which it ought to be called." + +"Oh! good I am sure.--I see it in your countenance. You are trying not +to smile." + +"I am afraid," said he, composing his features, "I am very much afraid, +my dear Emma, that you will not smile when you hear it." + +"Indeed! but why so?--I can hardly imagine that any thing which pleases +or amuses you, should not please and amuse me too." + +"There is one subject," he replied, "I hope but one, on which we do not +think alike." He paused a moment, again smiling, with his eyes fixed on +her face. "Does nothing occur to you?--Do not you recollect?--Harriet +Smith." + +Her cheeks flushed at the name, and she felt afraid of something, though +she knew not what. + +"Have you heard from her yourself this morning?" cried he. "You have, I +believe, and know the whole." + +"No, I have not; I know nothing; pray tell me." + +"You are prepared for the worst, I see--and very bad it is. Harriet +Smith marries Robert Martin." + +Emma gave a start, which did not seem like being prepared--and her eyes, +in eager gaze, said, "No, this is impossible!" but her lips were closed. + +"It is so, indeed," continued Mr. Knightley; "I have it from Robert +Martin himself. He left me not half an hour ago." + +She was still looking at him with the most speaking amazement. + +"You like it, my Emma, as little as I feared.--I wish our opinions were +the same. But in time they will. Time, you may be sure, will make one +or the other of us think differently; and, in the meanwhile, we need not +talk much on the subject." + +"You mistake me, you quite mistake me," she replied, exerting herself. +"It is not that such a circumstance would now make me unhappy, but I +cannot believe it. It seems an impossibility!--You cannot mean to say, +that Harriet Smith has accepted Robert Martin. You cannot mean that he +has even proposed to her again--yet. You only mean, that he intends it." + +"I mean that he has done it," answered Mr. Knightley, with smiling but +determined decision, "and been accepted." + +"Good God!" she cried.--"Well!"--Then having recourse to her workbasket, +in excuse for leaning down her face, and concealing all the exquisite +feelings of delight and entertainment which she knew she must be +expressing, she added, "Well, now tell me every thing; make this +intelligible to me. How, where, when?--Let me know it all. I never was +more surprized--but it does not make me unhappy, I assure you.--How--how +has it been possible?" + +"It is a very simple story. He went to town on business three days ago, +and I got him to take charge of some papers which I was wanting to send +to John.--He delivered these papers to John, at his chambers, and was +asked by him to join their party the same evening to Astley's. They were +going to take the two eldest boys to Astley's. The party was to be our +brother and sister, Henry, John--and Miss Smith. My friend Robert could +not resist. They called for him in their way; were all extremely amused; +and my brother asked him to dine with them the next day--which he +did--and in the course of that visit (as I understand) he found an +opportunity of speaking to Harriet; and certainly did not speak +in vain.--She made him, by her acceptance, as happy even as he is +deserving. He came down by yesterday's coach, and was with me this +morning immediately after breakfast, to report his proceedings, first +on my affairs, and then on his own. This is all that I can relate of +the how, where, and when. Your friend Harriet will make a much +longer history when you see her.--She will give you all the minute +particulars, which only woman's language can make interesting.--In our +communications we deal only in the great.--However, I must say, that +Robert Martin's heart seemed for _him_, and to _me_, very overflowing; +and that he did mention, without its being much to the purpose, that +on quitting their box at Astley's, my brother took charge of Mrs. John +Knightley and little John, and he followed with Miss Smith and Henry; +and that at one time they were in such a crowd, as to make Miss Smith +rather uneasy." + +He stopped.--Emma dared not attempt any immediate reply. To speak, she +was sure would be to betray a most unreasonable degree of happiness. +She must wait a moment, or he would think her mad. Her silence disturbed +him; and after observing her a little while, he added, + +"Emma, my love, you said that this circumstance would not now make you +unhappy; but I am afraid it gives you more pain than you expected. His +situation is an evil--but you must consider it as what satisfies your +friend; and I will answer for your thinking better and better of him +as you know him more. His good sense and good principles would delight +you.--As far as the man is concerned, you could not wish your friend +in better hands. His rank in society I would alter if I could, which is +saying a great deal I assure you, Emma.--You laugh at me about William +Larkins; but I could quite as ill spare Robert Martin." + +He wanted her to look up and smile; and having now brought herself not +to smile too broadly--she did--cheerfully answering, + +"You need not be at any pains to reconcile me to the match. I think +Harriet is doing extremely well. _Her_ connexions may be worse than +_his_. In respectability of character, there can be no doubt that they +are. I have been silent from surprize merely, excessive surprize. You +cannot imagine how suddenly it has come on me! how peculiarly unprepared +I was!--for I had reason to believe her very lately more determined +against him, much more, than she was before." + +"You ought to know your friend best," replied Mr. Knightley; "but I +should say she was a good-tempered, soft-hearted girl, not likely to be +very, very determined against any young man who told her he loved her." + +Emma could not help laughing as she answered, "Upon my word, I believe +you know her quite as well as I do.--But, Mr. Knightley, are you +perfectly sure that she has absolutely and downright _accepted_ him. +I could suppose she might in time--but can she already?--Did not you +misunderstand him?--You were both talking of other things; of business, +shows of cattle, or new drills--and might not you, in the confusion of +so many subjects, mistake him?--It was not Harriet's hand that he was +certain of--it was the dimensions of some famous ox." + +The contrast between the countenance and air of Mr. Knightley and Robert +Martin was, at this moment, so strong to Emma's feelings, and so strong +was the recollection of all that had so recently passed on Harriet's +side, so fresh the sound of those words, spoken with such emphasis, +"No, I hope I know better than to think of Robert Martin," that she was +really expecting the intelligence to prove, in some measure, premature. +It could not be otherwise. + +"Do you dare say this?" cried Mr. Knightley. "Do you dare to suppose me +so great a blockhead, as not to know what a man is talking of?--What do +you deserve?" + +"Oh! I always deserve the best treatment, because I never put up with +any other; and, therefore, you must give me a plain, direct answer. Are +you quite sure that you understand the terms on which Mr. Martin and +Harriet now are?" + +"I am quite sure," he replied, speaking very distinctly, "that he +told me she had accepted him; and that there was no obscurity, nothing +doubtful, in the words he used; and I think I can give you a proof that +it must be so. He asked my opinion as to what he was now to do. He knew +of no one but Mrs. Goddard to whom he could apply for information of +her relations or friends. Could I mention any thing more fit to be done, +than to go to Mrs. Goddard? I assured him that I could not. Then, he +said, he would endeavour to see her in the course of this day." + +"I am perfectly satisfied," replied Emma, with the brightest smiles, +"and most sincerely wish them happy." + +"You are materially changed since we talked on this subject before." + +"I hope so--for at that time I was a fool." + +"And I am changed also; for I am now very willing to grant you all +Harriet's good qualities. I have taken some pains for your sake, and for +Robert Martin's sake, (whom I have always had reason to believe as much +in love with her as ever,) to get acquainted with her. I have often +talked to her a good deal. You must have seen that I did. Sometimes, +indeed, I have thought you were half suspecting me of pleading poor +Martin's cause, which was never the case; but, from all my observations, +I am convinced of her being an artless, amiable girl, with very good +notions, very seriously good principles, and placing her happiness in +the affections and utility of domestic life.--Much of this, I have no +doubt, she may thank you for." + +"Me!" cried Emma, shaking her head.--"Ah! poor Harriet!" + +She checked herself, however, and submitted quietly to a little more +praise than she deserved. + +Their conversation was soon afterwards closed by the entrance of her +father. She was not sorry. She wanted to be alone. Her mind was in a +state of flutter and wonder, which made it impossible for her to be +collected. She was in dancing, singing, exclaiming spirits; and till she +had moved about, and talked to herself, and laughed and reflected, she +could be fit for nothing rational. + +Her father's business was to announce James's being gone out to put the +horses to, preparatory to their now daily drive to Randalls; and she +had, therefore, an immediate excuse for disappearing. + +The joy, the gratitude, the exquisite delight of her sensations may be +imagined. The sole grievance and alloy thus removed in the prospect of +Harriet's welfare, she was really in danger of becoming too happy for +security.--What had she to wish for? Nothing, but to grow more worthy of +him, whose intentions and judgment had been ever so superior to her own. +Nothing, but that the lessons of her past folly might teach her humility +and circumspection in future. + +Serious she was, very serious in her thankfulness, and in her +resolutions; and yet there was no preventing a laugh, sometimes in the +very midst of them. She must laugh at such a close! Such an end of the +doleful disappointment of five weeks back! Such a heart--such a Harriet! + +Now there would be pleasure in her returning--Every thing would be a +pleasure. It would be a great pleasure to know Robert Martin. + +High in the rank of her most serious and heartfelt felicities, was the +reflection that all necessity of concealment from Mr. Knightley would +soon be over. The disguise, equivocation, mystery, so hateful to her to +practise, might soon be over. She could now look forward to giving him +that full and perfect confidence which her disposition was most ready to +welcome as a duty. + +In the gayest and happiest spirits she set forward with her father; not +always listening, but always agreeing to what he said; and, whether in +speech or silence, conniving at the comfortable persuasion of his +being obliged to go to Randalls every day, or poor Mrs. Weston would be +disappointed. + +They arrived.--Mrs. Weston was alone in the drawing-room:--but hardly +had they been told of the baby, and Mr. Woodhouse received the thanks +for coming, which he asked for, when a glimpse was caught through the +blind, of two figures passing near the window. + +"It is Frank and Miss Fairfax," said Mrs. Weston. "I was just going to +tell you of our agreeable surprize in seeing him arrive this morning. He +stays till to-morrow, and Miss Fairfax has been persuaded to spend the +day with us.--They are coming in, I hope." + +In half a minute they were in the room. Emma was extremely glad to +see him--but there was a degree of confusion--a number of embarrassing +recollections on each side. They met readily and smiling, but with a +consciousness which at first allowed little to be said; and having all +sat down again, there was for some time such a blank in the circle, that +Emma began to doubt whether the wish now indulged, which she had long +felt, of seeing Frank Churchill once more, and of seeing him with Jane, +would yield its proportion of pleasure. When Mr. Weston joined the +party, however, and when the baby was fetched, there was no longer a +want of subject or animation--or of courage and opportunity for Frank +Churchill to draw near her and say, + +"I have to thank you, Miss Woodhouse, for a very kind forgiving message +in one of Mrs. Weston's letters. I hope time has not made you less +willing to pardon. I hope you do not retract what you then said." + +"No, indeed," cried Emma, most happy to begin, "not in the least. I am +particularly glad to see and shake hands with you--and to give you joy +in person." + +He thanked her with all his heart, and continued some time to speak with +serious feeling of his gratitude and happiness. + +"Is not she looking well?" said he, turning his eyes towards Jane. +"Better than she ever used to do?--You see how my father and Mrs. Weston +doat upon her." + +But his spirits were soon rising again, and with laughing eyes, after +mentioning the expected return of the Campbells, he named the name of +Dixon.--Emma blushed, and forbade its being pronounced in her hearing. + +"I can never think of it," she cried, "without extreme shame." + +"The shame," he answered, "is all mine, or ought to be. But is it +possible that you had no suspicion?--I mean of late. Early, I know, you +had none." + +"I never had the smallest, I assure you." + +"That appears quite wonderful. I was once very near--and I wish I +had--it would have been better. But though I was always doing wrong +things, they were very bad wrong things, and such as did me no +service.--It would have been a much better transgression had I broken +the bond of secrecy and told you every thing." + +"It is not now worth a regret," said Emma. + +"I have some hope," resumed he, "of my uncle's being persuaded to pay a +visit at Randalls; he wants to be introduced to her. When the Campbells +are returned, we shall meet them in London, and continue there, I trust, +till we may carry her northward.--But now, I am at such a distance from +her--is not it hard, Miss Woodhouse?--Till this morning, we have not +once met since the day of reconciliation. Do not you pity me?" + +Emma spoke her pity so very kindly, that with a sudden accession of gay +thought, he cried, + +"Ah! by the bye," then sinking his voice, and looking demure for the +moment--"I hope Mr. Knightley is well?" He paused.--She coloured and +laughed.--"I know you saw my letter, and think you may remember my wish +in your favour. Let me return your congratulations.--I assure you that +I have heard the news with the warmest interest and satisfaction.--He is +a man whom I cannot presume to praise." + +Emma was delighted, and only wanted him to go on in the same style; but +his mind was the next moment in his own concerns and with his own Jane, +and his next words were, + +"Did you ever see such a skin?--such smoothness! such delicacy!--and +yet without being actually fair.--One cannot call her fair. It is a +most uncommon complexion, with her dark eye-lashes and hair--a most +distinguishing complexion! So peculiarly the lady in it.--Just colour +enough for beauty." + +"I have always admired her complexion," replied Emma, archly; "but +do not I remember the time when you found fault with her for being so +pale?--When we first began to talk of her.--Have you quite forgotten?" + +"Oh! no--what an impudent dog I was!--How could I dare--" + +But he laughed so heartily at the recollection, that Emma could not help +saying, + +"I do suspect that in the midst of your perplexities at that time, you +had very great amusement in tricking us all.--I am sure you had.--I am +sure it was a consolation to you." + +"Oh! no, no, no--how can you suspect me of such a thing? I was the most +miserable wretch!" + +"Not quite so miserable as to be insensible to mirth. I am sure it was a +source of high entertainment to you, to feel that you were taking us +all in.--Perhaps I am the readier to suspect, because, to tell you the +truth, I think it might have been some amusement to myself in the same +situation. I think there is a little likeness between us." + +He bowed. + +"If not in our dispositions," she presently added, with a look of true +sensibility, "there is a likeness in our destiny; the destiny which bids +fair to connect us with two characters so much superior to our own." + +"True, true," he answered, warmly. "No, not true on your side. You can +have no superior, but most true on mine.--She is a complete angel. Look +at her. Is not she an angel in every gesture? Observe the turn of her +throat. Observe her eyes, as she is looking up at my father.--You will +be glad to hear (inclining his head, and whispering seriously) that my +uncle means to give her all my aunt's jewels. They are to be new set. +I am resolved to have some in an ornament for the head. Will not it be +beautiful in her dark hair?" + +"Very beautiful, indeed," replied Emma; and she spoke so kindly, that he +gratefully burst out, + +"How delighted I am to see you again! and to see you in such excellent +looks!--I would not have missed this meeting for the world. I should +certainly have called at Hartfield, had you failed to come." + +The others had been talking of the child, Mrs. Weston giving an account +of a little alarm she had been under, the evening before, from the +infant's appearing not quite well. She believed she had been foolish, +but it had alarmed her, and she had been within half a minute of sending +for Mr. Perry. Perhaps she ought to be ashamed, but Mr. Weston had been +almost as uneasy as herself.--In ten minutes, however, the child had +been perfectly well again. This was her history; and particularly +interesting it was to Mr. Woodhouse, who commended her very much for +thinking of sending for Perry, and only regretted that she had not done +it. "She should always send for Perry, if the child appeared in the +slightest degree disordered, were it only for a moment. She could not be +too soon alarmed, nor send for Perry too often. It was a pity, perhaps, +that he had not come last night; for, though the child seemed well now, +very well considering, it would probably have been better if Perry had +seen it." + +Frank Churchill caught the name. + +"Perry!" said he to Emma, and trying, as he spoke, to catch Miss +Fairfax's eye. "My friend Mr. Perry! What are they saying about Mr. +Perry?--Has he been here this morning?--And how does he travel now?--Has +he set up his carriage?" + +Emma soon recollected, and understood him; and while she joined in the +laugh, it was evident from Jane's countenance that she too was really +hearing him, though trying to seem deaf. + +"Such an extraordinary dream of mine!" he cried. "I can never think of +it without laughing.--She hears us, she hears us, Miss Woodhouse. I see +it in her cheek, her smile, her vain attempt to frown. Look at her. Do +not you see that, at this instant, the very passage of her own letter, +which sent me the report, is passing under her eye--that the whole +blunder is spread before her--that she can attend to nothing else, +though pretending to listen to the others?" + +Jane was forced to smile completely, for a moment; and the smile partly +remained as she turned towards him, and said in a conscious, low, yet +steady voice, + +"How you can bear such recollections, is astonishing to me!--They +_will_ sometimes obtrude--but how you can court them!" + +He had a great deal to say in return, and very entertainingly; but +Emma's feelings were chiefly with Jane, in the argument; and on leaving +Randalls, and falling naturally into a comparison of the two men, she +felt, that pleased as she had been to see Frank Churchill, and really +regarding him as she did with friendship, she had never been more +sensible of Mr. Knightley's high superiority of character. The happiness +of this most happy day, received its completion, in the animated +contemplation of his worth which this comparison produced. + + + +CHAPTER XIX + + +If Emma had still, at intervals, an anxious feeling for Harriet, a +momentary doubt of its being possible for her to be really cured of her +attachment to Mr. Knightley, and really able to accept another man from +unbiased inclination, it was not long that she had to suffer from the +recurrence of any such uncertainty. A very few days brought the party +from London, and she had no sooner an opportunity of being one hour +alone with Harriet, than she became perfectly satisfied--unaccountable +as it was!--that Robert Martin had thoroughly supplanted Mr. Knightley, +and was now forming all her views of happiness. + +Harriet was a little distressed--did look a little foolish at first: +but having once owned that she had been presumptuous and silly, and +self-deceived, before, her pain and confusion seemed to die away with +the words, and leave her without a care for the past, and with the +fullest exultation in the present and future; for, as to her friend's +approbation, Emma had instantly removed every fear of that nature, by +meeting her with the most unqualified congratulations.--Harriet was +most happy to give every particular of the evening at Astley's, and the +dinner the next day; she could dwell on it all with the utmost delight. +But what did such particulars explain?--The fact was, as Emma could now +acknowledge, that Harriet had always liked Robert Martin; and that his +continuing to love her had been irresistible.--Beyond this, it must ever +be unintelligible to Emma. + +The event, however, was most joyful; and every day was giving her fresh +reason for thinking so.--Harriet's parentage became known. She proved +to be the daughter of a tradesman, rich enough to afford her the +comfortable maintenance which had ever been hers, and decent enough to +have always wished for concealment.--Such was the blood of gentility +which Emma had formerly been so ready to vouch for!--It was likely to +be as untainted, perhaps, as the blood of many a gentleman: but what +a connexion had she been preparing for Mr. Knightley--or for the +Churchills--or even for Mr. Elton!--The stain of illegitimacy, +unbleached by nobility or wealth, would have been a stain indeed. + +No objection was raised on the father's side; the young man was treated +liberally; it was all as it should be: and as Emma became acquainted +with Robert Martin, who was now introduced at Hartfield, she fully +acknowledged in him all the appearance of sense and worth which could +bid fairest for her little friend. She had no doubt of Harriet's +happiness with any good-tempered man; but with him, and in the home he +offered, there would be the hope of more, of security, stability, and +improvement. She would be placed in the midst of those who loved her, +and who had better sense than herself; retired enough for safety, +and occupied enough for cheerfulness. She would be never led into +temptation, nor left for it to find her out. She would be respectable +and happy; and Emma admitted her to be the luckiest creature in the +world, to have created so steady and persevering an affection in such a +man;--or, if not quite the luckiest, to yield only to herself. + +Harriet, necessarily drawn away by her engagements with the Martins, +was less and less at Hartfield; which was not to be regretted.--The +intimacy between her and Emma must sink; their friendship must change +into a calmer sort of goodwill; and, fortunately, what ought to be, +and must be, seemed already beginning, and in the most gradual, natural +manner. + +Before the end of September, Emma attended Harriet to church, and saw +her hand bestowed on Robert Martin with so complete a satisfaction, as +no remembrances, even connected with Mr. Elton as he stood before them, +could impair.--Perhaps, indeed, at that time she scarcely saw Mr. Elton, +but as the clergyman whose blessing at the altar might next fall on +herself.--Robert Martin and Harriet Smith, the latest couple engaged of +the three, were the first to be married. + +Jane Fairfax had already quitted Highbury, and was restored to the +comforts of her beloved home with the Campbells.--The Mr. Churchills +were also in town; and they were only waiting for November. + +The intermediate month was the one fixed on, as far as they dared, by +Emma and Mr. Knightley.--They had determined that their marriage ought +to be concluded while John and Isabella were still at Hartfield, to +allow them the fortnight's absence in a tour to the seaside, which was +the plan.--John and Isabella, and every other friend, were agreed in +approving it. But Mr. Woodhouse--how was Mr. Woodhouse to be induced +to consent?--he, who had never yet alluded to their marriage but as a +distant event. + +When first sounded on the subject, he was so miserable, that they were +almost hopeless.--A second allusion, indeed, gave less pain.--He +began to think it was to be, and that he could not prevent it--a very +promising step of the mind on its way to resignation. Still, however, he +was not happy. Nay, he appeared so much otherwise, that his daughter's +courage failed. She could not bear to see him suffering, to know +him fancying himself neglected; and though her understanding almost +acquiesced in the assurance of both the Mr. Knightleys, that when +once the event were over, his distress would be soon over too, she +hesitated--she could not proceed. + +In this state of suspense they were befriended, not by any sudden +illumination of Mr. Woodhouse's mind, or any wonderful change of his +nervous system, but by the operation of the same system in another +way.--Mrs. Weston's poultry-house was robbed one night of all her +turkeys--evidently by the ingenuity of man. Other poultry-yards in +the neighbourhood also suffered.--Pilfering was _housebreaking_ to Mr. +Woodhouse's fears.--He was very uneasy; and but for the sense of his +son-in-law's protection, would have been under wretched alarm every +night of his life. The strength, resolution, and presence of mind of the +Mr. Knightleys, commanded his fullest dependence. While either of them +protected him and his, Hartfield was safe.--But Mr. John Knightley must +be in London again by the end of the first week in November. + +The result of this distress was, that, with a much more voluntary, +cheerful consent than his daughter had ever presumed to hope for at the +moment, she was able to fix her wedding-day--and Mr. Elton was called +on, within a month from the marriage of Mr. and Mrs. Robert Martin, to +join the hands of Mr. Knightley and Miss Woodhouse. + +The wedding was very much like other weddings, where the parties have +no taste for finery or parade; and Mrs. Elton, from the particulars +detailed by her husband, thought it all extremely shabby, and very +inferior to her own.--"Very little white satin, very few lace veils; a +most pitiful business!--Selina would stare when she heard of it."--But, +in spite of these deficiencies, the wishes, the hopes, the confidence, +the predictions of the small band of true friends who witnessed the +ceremony, were fully answered in the perfect happiness of the union. + + + +FINIS + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Emma, by Jane Austen + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK EMMA *** + +***** This file should be named 158.txt or 158.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/1/5/158/ + +Produced by An Anonymous Volunteer + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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Thus, we do not necessarily +keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition. + + +Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility: + + http://www.gutenberg.org + +This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm, +including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary +Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to +subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks. diff --git a/src/main/pg-frankenstein.txt b/src/main/pg-frankenstein.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6f5f2c9 --- /dev/null +++ b/src/main/pg-frankenstein.txt @@ -0,0 +1,7653 @@ +Project Gutenberg's Frankenstein, by Mary Wollstonecraft (Godwin) Shelley + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.net + + +Title: Frankenstein + or The Modern Prometheus + +Author: Mary Wollstonecraft (Godwin) Shelley + +Release Date: June 17, 2008 [EBook #84] + +Language: English + + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK FRANKENSTEIN *** + + + + +Produced by Judith Boss, Christy Phillips, Lynn Hanninen, +and David Meltzer. HTML version by Al Haines. + + + + + + + + + + +Frankenstein, + +or the Modern Prometheus + + +by + +Mary Wollstonecraft (Godwin) Shelley + + + + +Letter 1 + + +St. Petersburgh, Dec. 11th, 17-- + +TO Mrs. Saville, England + +You will rejoice to hear that no disaster has accompanied the +commencement of an enterprise which you have regarded with such evil +forebodings. I arrived here yesterday, and my first task is to assure +my dear sister of my welfare and increasing confidence in the success +of my undertaking. + +I am already far north of London, and as I walk in the streets of +Petersburgh, I feel a cold northern breeze play upon my cheeks, which +braces my nerves and fills me with delight. Do you understand this +feeling? This breeze, which has travelled from the regions towards +which I am advancing, gives me a foretaste of those icy climes. +Inspirited by this wind of promise, my daydreams become more fervent +and vivid. I try in vain to be persuaded that the pole is the seat of +frost and desolation; it ever presents itself to my imagination as the +region of beauty and delight. There, Margaret, the sun is forever +visible, its broad disk just skirting the horizon and diffusing a +perpetual splendour. There--for with your leave, my sister, I will put +some trust in preceding navigators--there snow and frost are banished; +and, sailing over a calm sea, we may be wafted to a land surpassing in +wonders and in beauty every region hitherto discovered on the habitable +globe. Its productions and features may be without example, as the +phenomena of the heavenly bodies undoubtedly are in those undiscovered +solitudes. What may not be expected in a country of eternal light? I +may there discover the wondrous power which attracts the needle and may +regulate a thousand celestial observations that require only this +voyage to render their seeming eccentricities consistent forever. I +shall satiate my ardent curiosity with the sight of a part of the world +never before visited, and may tread a land never before imprinted by +the foot of man. These are my enticements, and they are sufficient to +conquer all fear of danger or death and to induce me to commence this +laborious voyage with the joy a child feels when he embarks in a little +boat, with his holiday mates, on an expedition of discovery up his +native river. But supposing all these conjectures to be false, you +cannot contest the inestimable benefit which I shall confer on all +mankind, to the last generation, by discovering a passage near the pole +to those countries, to reach which at present so many months are +requisite; or by ascertaining the secret of the magnet, which, if at +all possible, can only be effected by an undertaking such as mine. + +These reflections have dispelled the agitation with which I began my +letter, and I feel my heart glow with an enthusiasm which elevates me +to heaven, for nothing contributes so much to tranquillize the mind as +a steady purpose--a point on which the soul may fix its intellectual +eye. This expedition has been the favourite dream of my early years. I +have read with ardour the accounts of the various voyages which have +been made in the prospect of arriving at the North Pacific Ocean +through the seas which surround the pole. You may remember that a +history of all the voyages made for purposes of discovery composed the +whole of our good Uncle Thomas' library. My education was neglected, +yet I was passionately fond of reading. These volumes were my study +day and night, and my familiarity with them increased that regret which +I had felt, as a child, on learning that my father's dying injunction +had forbidden my uncle to allow me to embark in a seafaring life. + +These visions faded when I perused, for the first time, those poets +whose effusions entranced my soul and lifted it to heaven. I also +became a poet and for one year lived in a paradise of my own creation; +I imagined that I also might obtain a niche in the temple where the +names of Homer and Shakespeare are consecrated. You are well +acquainted with my failure and how heavily I bore the disappointment. +But just at that time I inherited the fortune of my cousin, and my +thoughts were turned into the channel of their earlier bent. + +Six years have passed since I resolved on my present undertaking. I +can, even now, remember the hour from which I dedicated myself to this +great enterprise. I commenced by inuring my body to hardship. I +accompanied the whale-fishers on several expeditions to the North Sea; +I voluntarily endured cold, famine, thirst, and want of sleep; I often +worked harder than the common sailors during the day and devoted my +nights to the study of mathematics, the theory of medicine, and those +branches of physical science from which a naval adventurer might derive +the greatest practical advantage. Twice I actually hired myself as an +under-mate in a Greenland whaler, and acquitted myself to admiration. I +must own I felt a little proud when my captain offered me the second +dignity in the vessel and entreated me to remain with the greatest +earnestness, so valuable did he consider my services. And now, dear +Margaret, do I not deserve to accomplish some great purpose? My life +might have been passed in ease and luxury, but I preferred glory to +every enticement that wealth placed in my path. Oh, that some +encouraging voice would answer in the affirmative! My courage and my +resolution is firm; but my hopes fluctuate, and my spirits are often +depressed. I am about to proceed on a long and difficult voyage, the +emergencies of which will demand all my fortitude: I am required not +only to raise the spirits of others, but sometimes to sustain my own, +when theirs are failing. + +This is the most favourable period for travelling in Russia. They fly +quickly over the snow in their sledges; the motion is pleasant, and, in +my opinion, far more agreeable than that of an English stagecoach. The +cold is not excessive, if you are wrapped in furs--a dress which I have +already adopted, for there is a great difference between walking the +deck and remaining seated motionless for hours, when no exercise +prevents the blood from actually freezing in your veins. I have no +ambition to lose my life on the post-road between St. Petersburgh and +Archangel. I shall depart for the latter town in a fortnight or three +weeks; and my intention is to hire a ship there, which can easily be +done by paying the insurance for the owner, and to engage as many +sailors as I think necessary among those who are accustomed to the +whale-fishing. I do not intend to sail until the month of June; and +when shall I return? Ah, dear sister, how can I answer this question? +If I succeed, many, many months, perhaps years, will pass before you +and I may meet. If I fail, you will see me again soon, or never. +Farewell, my dear, excellent Margaret. Heaven shower down blessings on +you, and save me, that I may again and again testify my gratitude for +all your love and kindness. + +Your affectionate brother, + R. Walton + + + +Letter 2 + + +Archangel, 28th March, 17-- + +To Mrs. Saville, England + +How slowly the time passes here, encompassed as I am by frost and snow! +Yet a second step is taken towards my enterprise. I have hired a +vessel and am occupied in collecting my sailors; those whom I have +already engaged appear to be men on whom I can depend and are certainly +possessed of dauntless courage. + +But I have one want which I have never yet been able to satisfy, and +the absence of the object of which I now feel as a most severe evil, I +have no friend, Margaret: when I am glowing with the enthusiasm of +success, there will be none to participate my joy; if I am assailed by +disappointment, no one will endeavour to sustain me in dejection. I +shall commit my thoughts to paper, it is true; but that is a poor +medium for the communication of feeling. I desire the company of a man +who could sympathize with me, whose eyes would reply to mine. You may +deem me romantic, my dear sister, but I bitterly feel the want of a +friend. I have no one near me, gentle yet courageous, possessed of a +cultivated as well as of a capacious mind, whose tastes are like my +own, to approve or amend my plans. How would such a friend repair the +faults of your poor brother! I am too ardent in execution and too +impatient of difficulties. But it is a still greater evil to me that I +am self-educated: for the first fourteen years of my life I ran wild +on a common and read nothing but our Uncle Thomas' books of voyages. At +that age I became acquainted with the celebrated poets of our own +country; but it was only when it had ceased to be in my power to derive +its most important benefits from such a conviction that I perceived the +necessity of becoming acquainted with more languages than that of my +native country. Now I am twenty-eight and am in reality more +illiterate than many schoolboys of fifteen. It is true that I have +thought more and that my daydreams are more extended and magnificent, +but they want (as the painters call it) KEEPING; and I greatly need a +friend who would have sense enough not to despise me as romantic, and +affection enough for me to endeavour to regulate my mind. Well, these +are useless complaints; I shall certainly find no friend on the wide +ocean, nor even here in Archangel, among merchants and seamen. Yet +some feelings, unallied to the dross of human nature, beat even in +these rugged bosoms. My lieutenant, for instance, is a man of +wonderful courage and enterprise; he is madly desirous of glory, or +rather, to word my phrase more characteristically, of advancement in +his profession. He is an Englishman, and in the midst of national and +professional prejudices, unsoftened by cultivation, retains some of the +noblest endowments of humanity. I first became acquainted with him on +board a whale vessel; finding that he was unemployed in this city, I +easily engaged him to assist in my enterprise. The master is a person +of an excellent disposition and is remarkable in the ship for his +gentleness and the mildness of his discipline. This circumstance, +added to his well-known integrity and dauntless courage, made me very +desirous to engage him. A youth passed in solitude, my best years +spent under your gentle and feminine fosterage, has so refined the +groundwork of my character that I cannot overcome an intense distaste +to the usual brutality exercised on board ship: I have never believed +it to be necessary, and when I heard of a mariner equally noted for his +kindliness of heart and the respect and obedience paid to him by his +crew, I felt myself peculiarly fortunate in being able to secure his +services. I heard of him first in rather a romantic manner, from a +lady who owes to him the happiness of her life. This, briefly, is his +story. Some years ago he loved a young Russian lady of moderate +fortune, and having amassed a considerable sum in prize-money, the +father of the girl consented to the match. He saw his mistress once +before the destined ceremony; but she was bathed in tears, and throwing +herself at his feet, entreated him to spare her, confessing at the same +time that she loved another, but that he was poor, and that her father +would never consent to the union. My generous friend reassured the +suppliant, and on being informed of the name of her lover, instantly +abandoned his pursuit. He had already bought a farm with his money, on +which he had designed to pass the remainder of his life; but he +bestowed the whole on his rival, together with the remains of his +prize-money to purchase stock, and then himself solicited the young +woman's father to consent to her marriage with her lover. But the old +man decidedly refused, thinking himself bound in honour to my friend, +who, when he found the father inexorable, quitted his country, nor +returned until he heard that his former mistress was married according +to her inclinations. "What a noble fellow!" you will exclaim. He is +so; but then he is wholly uneducated: he is as silent as a Turk, and a +kind of ignorant carelessness attends him, which, while it renders his +conduct the more astonishing, detracts from the interest and sympathy +which otherwise he would command. + +Yet do not suppose, because I complain a little or because I can +conceive a consolation for my toils which I may never know, that I am +wavering in my resolutions. Those are as fixed as fate, and my voyage +is only now delayed until the weather shall permit my embarkation. The +winter has been dreadfully severe, but the spring promises well, and it +is considered as a remarkably early season, so that perhaps I may sail +sooner than I expected. I shall do nothing rashly: you know me +sufficiently to confide in my prudence and considerateness whenever the +safety of others is committed to my care. + +I cannot describe to you my sensations on the near prospect of my +undertaking. It is impossible to communicate to you a conception of +the trembling sensation, half pleasurable and half fearful, with which +I am preparing to depart. I am going to unexplored regions, to "the +land of mist and snow," but I shall kill no albatross; therefore do not +be alarmed for my safety or if I should come back to you as worn and +woeful as the "Ancient Mariner." You will smile at my allusion, but I +will disclose a secret. I have often attributed my attachment to, my +passionate enthusiasm for, the dangerous mysteries of ocean to that +production of the most imaginative of modern poets. There is something +at work in my soul which I do not understand. I am practically +industrious--painstaking, a workman to execute with perseverance and +labour--but besides this there is a love for the marvellous, a belief +in the marvellous, intertwined in all my projects, which hurries me out +of the common pathways of men, even to the wild sea and unvisited +regions I am about to explore. But to return to dearer considerations. +Shall I meet you again, after having traversed immense seas, and +returned by the most southern cape of Africa or America? I dare not +expect such success, yet I cannot bear to look on the reverse of the +picture. Continue for the present to write to me by every opportunity: +I may receive your letters on some occasions when I need them most to +support my spirits. I love you very tenderly. Remember me with +affection, should you never hear from me again. + +Your affectionate brother, + Robert Walton + + + +Letter 3 + + + +July 7th, 17-- + +To Mrs. Saville, England + +My dear Sister, + +I write a few lines in haste to say that I am safe--and well advanced +on my voyage. This letter will reach England by a merchantman now on +its homeward voyage from Archangel; more fortunate than I, who may not +see my native land, perhaps, for many years. I am, however, in good +spirits: my men are bold and apparently firm of purpose, nor do the +floating sheets of ice that continually pass us, indicating the dangers +of the region towards which we are advancing, appear to dismay them. We +have already reached a very high latitude; but it is the height of +summer, and although not so warm as in England, the southern gales, +which blow us speedily towards those shores which I so ardently desire +to attain, breathe a degree of renovating warmth which I had not +expected. + +No incidents have hitherto befallen us that would make a figure in a +letter. One or two stiff gales and the springing of a leak are +accidents which experienced navigators scarcely remember to record, and +I shall be well content if nothing worse happen to us during our voyage. + +Adieu, my dear Margaret. Be assured that for my own sake, as well as +yours, I will not rashly encounter danger. I will be cool, +persevering, and prudent. + +But success SHALL crown my endeavours. Wherefore not? Thus far I have +gone, tracing a secure way over the pathless seas, the very stars +themselves being witnesses and testimonies of my triumph. Why not +still proceed over the untamed yet obedient element? What can stop the +determined heart and resolved will of man? + +My swelling heart involuntarily pours itself out thus. But I must +finish. Heaven bless my beloved sister! + +R.W. + + + +Letter 4 + + + +August 5th, 17-- + +To Mrs. Saville, England + +So strange an accident has happened to us that I cannot forbear +recording it, although it is very probable that you will see me before +these papers can come into your possession. + +Last Monday (July 31st) we were nearly surrounded by ice, which closed +in the ship on all sides, scarcely leaving her the sea-room in which +she floated. Our situation was somewhat dangerous, especially as we +were compassed round by a very thick fog. We accordingly lay to, +hoping that some change would take place in the atmosphere and weather. + +About two o'clock the mist cleared away, and we beheld, stretched out +in every direction, vast and irregular plains of ice, which seemed to +have no end. Some of my comrades groaned, and my own mind began to +grow watchful with anxious thoughts, when a strange sight suddenly +attracted our attention and diverted our solicitude from our own +situation. We perceived a low carriage, fixed on a sledge and drawn by +dogs, pass on towards the north, at the distance of half a mile; a +being which had the shape of a man, but apparently of gigantic stature, +sat in the sledge and guided the dogs. We watched the rapid progress +of the traveller with our telescopes until he was lost among the +distant inequalities of the ice. This appearance excited our +unqualified wonder. We were, as we believed, many hundred miles from +any land; but this apparition seemed to denote that it was not, in +reality, so distant as we had supposed. Shut in, however, by ice, it +was impossible to follow his track, which we had observed with the +greatest attention. About two hours after this occurrence we heard the +ground sea, and before night the ice broke and freed our ship. We, +however, lay to until the morning, fearing to encounter in the dark +those large loose masses which float about after the breaking up of the +ice. I profited of this time to rest for a few hours. + +In the morning, however, as soon as it was light, I went upon deck and +found all the sailors busy on one side of the vessel, apparently +talking to someone in the sea. It was, in fact, a sledge, like that we +had seen before, which had drifted towards us in the night on a large +fragment of ice. Only one dog remained alive; but there was a human +being within it whom the sailors were persuading to enter the vessel. +He was not, as the other traveller seemed to be, a savage inhabitant of +some undiscovered island, but a European. When I appeared on deck the +master said, "Here is our captain, and he will not allow you to perish +on the open sea." + +On perceiving me, the stranger addressed me in English, although with a +foreign accent. "Before I come on board your vessel," said he, "will +you have the kindness to inform me whither you are bound?" + +You may conceive my astonishment on hearing such a question addressed +to me from a man on the brink of destruction and to whom I should have +supposed that my vessel would have been a resource which he would not +have exchanged for the most precious wealth the earth can afford. I +replied, however, that we were on a voyage of discovery towards the +northern pole. + +Upon hearing this he appeared satisfied and consented to come on board. +Good God! Margaret, if you had seen the man who thus capitulated for +his safety, your surprise would have been boundless. His limbs were +nearly frozen, and his body dreadfully emaciated by fatigue and +suffering. I never saw a man in so wretched a condition. We attempted +to carry him into the cabin, but as soon as he had quitted the fresh +air he fainted. We accordingly brought him back to the deck and +restored him to animation by rubbing him with brandy and forcing him to +swallow a small quantity. As soon as he showed signs of life we +wrapped him up in blankets and placed him near the chimney of the +kitchen stove. By slow degrees he recovered and ate a little soup, +which restored him wonderfully. + +Two days passed in this manner before he was able to speak, and I often +feared that his sufferings had deprived him of understanding. When he +had in some measure recovered, I removed him to my own cabin and +attended on him as much as my duty would permit. I never saw a more +interesting creature: his eyes have generally an expression of +wildness, and even madness, but there are moments when, if anyone +performs an act of kindness towards him or does him any the most +trifling service, his whole countenance is lighted up, as it were, with +a beam of benevolence and sweetness that I never saw equalled. But he +is generally melancholy and despairing, and sometimes he gnashes his +teeth, as if impatient of the weight of woes that oppresses him. + +When my guest was a little recovered I had great trouble to keep off +the men, who wished to ask him a thousand questions; but I would not +allow him to be tormented by their idle curiosity, in a state of body +and mind whose restoration evidently depended upon entire repose. +Once, however, the lieutenant asked why he had come so far upon the ice +in so strange a vehicle. + +His countenance instantly assumed an aspect of the deepest gloom, and +he replied, "To seek one who fled from me." + +"And did the man whom you pursued travel in the same fashion?" + +"Yes." + +"Then I fancy we have seen him, for the day before we picked you up we +saw some dogs drawing a sledge, with a man in it, across the ice." + +This aroused the stranger's attention, and he asked a multitude of +questions concerning the route which the demon, as he called him, had +pursued. Soon after, when he was alone with me, he said, "I have, +doubtless, excited your curiosity, as well as that of these good +people; but you are too considerate to make inquiries." + +"Certainly; it would indeed be very impertinent and inhuman in me to +trouble you with any inquisitiveness of mine." + +"And yet you rescued me from a strange and perilous situation; you have +benevolently restored me to life." + +Soon after this he inquired if I thought that the breaking up of the +ice had destroyed the other sledge. I replied that I could not answer +with any degree of certainty, for the ice had not broken until near +midnight, and the traveller might have arrived at a place of safety +before that time; but of this I could not judge. From this time a new +spirit of life animated the decaying frame of the stranger. He +manifested the greatest eagerness to be upon deck to watch for the +sledge which had before appeared; but I have persuaded him to remain in +the cabin, for he is far too weak to sustain the rawness of the +atmosphere. I have promised that someone should watch for him and give +him instant notice if any new object should appear in sight. + +Such is my journal of what relates to this strange occurrence up to the +present day. The stranger has gradually improved in health but is very +silent and appears uneasy when anyone except myself enters his cabin. +Yet his manners are so conciliating and gentle that the sailors are all +interested in him, although they have had very little communication +with him. For my own part, I begin to love him as a brother, and his +constant and deep grief fills me with sympathy and compassion. He must +have been a noble creature in his better days, being even now in wreck +so attractive and amiable. I said in one of my letters, my dear +Margaret, that I should find no friend on the wide ocean; yet I have +found a man who, before his spirit had been broken by misery, I should +have been happy to have possessed as the brother of my heart. + +I shall continue my journal concerning the stranger at intervals, +should I have any fresh incidents to record. + + +August 13th, 17-- + +My affection for my guest increases every day. He excites at once my +admiration and my pity to an astonishing degree. How can I see so +noble a creature destroyed by misery without feeling the most poignant +grief? He is so gentle, yet so wise; his mind is so cultivated, and +when he speaks, although his words are culled with the choicest art, +yet they flow with rapidity and unparalleled eloquence. He is now much +recovered from his illness and is continually on the deck, apparently +watching for the sledge that preceded his own. Yet, although unhappy, +he is not so utterly occupied by his own misery but that he interests +himself deeply in the projects of others. He has frequently conversed +with me on mine, which I have communicated to him without disguise. He +entered attentively into all my arguments in favour of my eventual +success and into every minute detail of the measures I had taken to +secure it. I was easily led by the sympathy which he evinced to use +the language of my heart, to give utterance to the burning ardour of my +soul and to say, with all the fervour that warmed me, how gladly I +would sacrifice my fortune, my existence, my every hope, to the +furtherance of my enterprise. One man's life or death were but a small +price to pay for the acquirement of the knowledge which I sought, for +the dominion I should acquire and transmit over the elemental foes of +our race. As I spoke, a dark gloom spread over my listener's +countenance. At first I perceived that he tried to suppress his +emotion; he placed his hands before his eyes, and my voice quivered and +failed me as I beheld tears trickle fast from between his fingers; a +groan burst from his heaving breast. I paused; at length he spoke, in +broken accents: "Unhappy man! Do you share my madness? Have you +drunk also of the intoxicating draught? Hear me; let me reveal my +tale, and you will dash the cup from your lips!" + +Such words, you may imagine, strongly excited my curiosity; but the +paroxysm of grief that had seized the stranger overcame his weakened +powers, and many hours of repose and tranquil conversation were +necessary to restore his composure. Having conquered the violence of +his feelings, he appeared to despise himself for being the slave of +passion; and quelling the dark tyranny of despair, he led me again to +converse concerning myself personally. He asked me the history of my +earlier years. The tale was quickly told, but it awakened various +trains of reflection. I spoke of my desire of finding a friend, of my +thirst for a more intimate sympathy with a fellow mind than had ever +fallen to my lot, and expressed my conviction that a man could boast of +little happiness who did not enjoy this blessing. "I agree with you," +replied the stranger; "we are unfashioned creatures, but half made up, +if one wiser, better, dearer than ourselves--such a friend ought to +be--do not lend his aid to perfectionate our weak and faulty natures. I +once had a friend, the most noble of human creatures, and am entitled, +therefore, to judge respecting friendship. You have hope, and the +world before you, and have no cause for despair. But I--I have lost +everything and cannot begin life anew." + +As he said this his countenance became expressive of a calm, settled +grief that touched me to the heart. But he was silent and presently +retired to his cabin. + +Even broken in spirit as he is, no one can feel more deeply than he +does the beauties of nature. The starry sky, the sea, and every sight +afforded by these wonderful regions seem still to have the power of +elevating his soul from earth. Such a man has a double existence: he +may suffer misery and be overwhelmed by disappointments, yet when he +has retired into himself, he will be like a celestial spirit that has a +halo around him, within whose circle no grief or folly ventures. + +Will you smile at the enthusiasm I express concerning this divine +wanderer? You would not if you saw him. You have been tutored and +refined by books and retirement from the world, and you are therefore +somewhat fastidious; but this only renders you the more fit to +appreciate the extraordinary merits of this wonderful man. Sometimes I +have endeavoured to discover what quality it is which he possesses that +elevates him so immeasurably above any other person I ever knew. I +believe it to be an intuitive discernment, a quick but never-failing +power of judgment, a penetration into the causes of things, unequalled +for clearness and precision; add to this a facility of expression and a +voice whose varied intonations are soul-subduing music. + + +August 19, 17-- + +Yesterday the stranger said to me, "You may easily perceive, Captain +Walton, that I have suffered great and unparalleled misfortunes. I had +determined at one time that the memory of these evils should die with +me, but you have won me to alter my determination. You seek for +knowledge and wisdom, as I once did; and I ardently hope that the +gratification of your wishes may not be a serpent to sting you, as mine +has been. I do not know that the relation of my disasters will be +useful to you; yet, when I reflect that you are pursuing the same +course, exposing yourself to the same dangers which have rendered me +what I am, I imagine that you may deduce an apt moral from my tale, one +that may direct you if you succeed in your undertaking and console you +in case of failure. Prepare to hear of occurrences which are usually +deemed marvellous. Were we among the tamer scenes of nature I might +fear to encounter your unbelief, perhaps your ridicule; but many things +will appear possible in these wild and mysterious regions which would +provoke the laughter of those unacquainted with the ever-varied powers +of nature; nor can I doubt but that my tale conveys in its series +internal evidence of the truth of the events of which it is composed." + +You may easily imagine that I was much gratified by the offered +communication, yet I could not endure that he should renew his grief by +a recital of his misfortunes. I felt the greatest eagerness to hear +the promised narrative, partly from curiosity and partly from a strong +desire to ameliorate his fate if it were in my power. I expressed +these feelings in my answer. + +"I thank you," he replied, "for your sympathy, but it is useless; my +fate is nearly fulfilled. I wait but for one event, and then I shall +repose in peace. I understand your feeling," continued he, perceiving +that I wished to interrupt him; "but you are mistaken, my friend, if +thus you will allow me to name you; nothing can alter my destiny; +listen to my history, and you will perceive how irrevocably it is +determined." + +He then told me that he would commence his narrative the next day when +I should be at leisure. This promise drew from me the warmest thanks. +I have resolved every night, when I am not imperatively occupied by my +duties, to record, as nearly as possible in his own words, what he has +related during the day. If I should be engaged, I will at least make +notes. This manuscript will doubtless afford you the greatest +pleasure; but to me, who know him, and who hear it from his own +lips--with what interest and sympathy shall I read it in some future +day! Even now, as I commence my task, his full-toned voice swells in +my ears; his lustrous eyes dwell on me with all their melancholy +sweetness; I see his thin hand raised in animation, while the +lineaments of his face are irradiated by the soul within. + +Strange and harrowing must be his story, frightful the storm which +embraced the gallant vessel on its course and wrecked it--thus! + + + +Chapter 1 + +I am by birth a Genevese, and my family is one of the most +distinguished of that republic. My ancestors had been for many years +counsellors and syndics, and my father had filled several public +situations with honour and reputation. He was respected by all who +knew him for his integrity and indefatigable attention to public +business. He passed his younger days perpetually occupied by the +affairs of his country; a variety of circumstances had prevented his +marrying early, nor was it until the decline of life that he became a +husband and the father of a family. + +As the circumstances of his marriage illustrate his character, I cannot +refrain from relating them. One of his most intimate friends was a +merchant who, from a flourishing state, fell, through numerous +mischances, into poverty. This man, whose name was Beaufort, was of a +proud and unbending disposition and could not bear to live in poverty +and oblivion in the same country where he had formerly been +distinguished for his rank and magnificence. Having paid his debts, +therefore, in the most honourable manner, he retreated with his +daughter to the town of Lucerne, where he lived unknown and in +wretchedness. My father loved Beaufort with the truest friendship and +was deeply grieved by his retreat in these unfortunate circumstances. +He bitterly deplored the false pride which led his friend to a conduct +so little worthy of the affection that united them. He lost no time in +endeavouring to seek him out, with the hope of persuading him to begin +the world again through his credit and assistance. + +Beaufort had taken effectual measures to conceal himself, and it was ten +months before my father discovered his abode. Overjoyed at this +discovery, he hastened to the house, which was situated in a mean street +near the Reuss. But when he entered, misery and despair alone welcomed +him. Beaufort had saved but a very small sum of money from the wreck of +his fortunes, but it was sufficient to provide him with sustenance for +some months, and in the meantime he hoped to procure some respectable +employment in a merchant's house. The interval was, consequently, spent +in inaction; his grief only became more deep and rankling when he had +leisure for reflection, and at length it took so fast hold of his mind +that at the end of three months he lay on a bed of sickness, incapable +of any exertion. + +His daughter attended him with the greatest tenderness, but she saw +with despair that their little fund was rapidly decreasing and that +there was no other prospect of support. But Caroline Beaufort +possessed a mind of an uncommon mould, and her courage rose to support +her in her adversity. She procured plain work; she plaited straw and +by various means contrived to earn a pittance scarcely sufficient to +support life. + +Several months passed in this manner. Her father grew worse; her time +was more entirely occupied in attending him; her means of subsistence +decreased; and in the tenth month her father died in her arms, leaving +her an orphan and a beggar. This last blow overcame her, and she knelt +by Beaufort's coffin weeping bitterly, when my father entered the +chamber. He came like a protecting spirit to the poor girl, who +committed herself to his care; and after the interment of his friend he +conducted her to Geneva and placed her under the protection of a +relation. Two years after this event Caroline became his wife. + +There was a considerable difference between the ages of my parents, but +this circumstance seemed to unite them only closer in bonds of devoted +affection. There was a sense of justice in my father's upright mind +which rendered it necessary that he should approve highly to love +strongly. Perhaps during former years he had suffered from the +late-discovered unworthiness of one beloved and so was disposed to set +a greater value on tried worth. There was a show of gratitude and +worship in his attachment to my mother, differing wholly from the +doting fondness of age, for it was inspired by reverence for her +virtues and a desire to be the means of, in some degree, recompensing +her for the sorrows she had endured, but which gave inexpressible grace +to his behaviour to her. Everything was made to yield to her wishes +and her convenience. He strove to shelter her, as a fair exotic is +sheltered by the gardener, from every rougher wind and to surround her +with all that could tend to excite pleasurable emotion in her soft and +benevolent mind. Her health, and even the tranquillity of her hitherto +constant spirit, had been shaken by what she had gone through. During +the two years that had elapsed previous to their marriage my father had +gradually relinquished all his public functions; and immediately after +their union they sought the pleasant climate of Italy, and the change +of scene and interest attendant on a tour through that land of wonders, +as a restorative for her weakened frame. + +From Italy they visited Germany and France. I, their eldest child, was +born at Naples, and as an infant accompanied them in their rambles. I +remained for several years their only child. Much as they were +attached to each other, they seemed to draw inexhaustible stores of +affection from a very mine of love to bestow them upon me. My mother's +tender caresses and my father's smile of benevolent pleasure while +regarding me are my first recollections. I was their plaything and +their idol, and something better--their child, the innocent and +helpless creature bestowed on them by heaven, whom to bring up to good, +and whose future lot it was in their hands to direct to happiness or +misery, according as they fulfilled their duties towards me. With this +deep consciousness of what they owed towards the being to which they +had given life, added to the active spirit of tenderness that animated +both, it may be imagined that while during every hour of my infant life +I received a lesson of patience, of charity, and of self-control, I was +so guided by a silken cord that all seemed but one train of enjoyment +to me. For a long time I was their only care. My mother had much +desired to have a daughter, but I continued their single offspring. +When I was about five years old, while making an excursion beyond the +frontiers of Italy, they passed a week on the shores of the Lake of +Como. Their benevolent disposition often made them enter the cottages +of the poor. This, to my mother, was more than a duty; it was a +necessity, a passion--remembering what she had suffered, and how she +had been relieved--for her to act in her turn the guardian angel to the +afflicted. During one of their walks a poor cot in the foldings of a +vale attracted their notice as being singularly disconsolate, while the +number of half-clothed children gathered about it spoke of penury in +its worst shape. One day, when my father had gone by himself to Milan, +my mother, accompanied by me, visited this abode. She found a peasant +and his wife, hard working, bent down by care and labour, distributing +a scanty meal to five hungry babes. Among these there was one which +attracted my mother far above all the rest. She appeared of a +different stock. The four others were dark-eyed, hardy little +vagrants; this child was thin and very fair. Her hair was the +brightest living gold, and despite the poverty of her clothing, seemed +to set a crown of distinction on her head. Her brow was clear and +ample, her blue eyes cloudless, and her lips and the moulding of her +face so expressive of sensibility and sweetness that none could behold +her without looking on her as of a distinct species, a being +heaven-sent, and bearing a celestial stamp in all her features. The +peasant woman, perceiving that my mother fixed eyes of wonder and +admiration on this lovely girl, eagerly communicated her history. She +was not her child, but the daughter of a Milanese nobleman. Her mother +was a German and had died on giving her birth. The infant had been +placed with these good people to nurse: they were better off then. +They had not been long married, and their eldest child was but just +born. The father of their charge was one of those Italians nursed in +the memory of the antique glory of Italy--one among the schiavi ognor +frementi, who exerted himself to obtain the liberty of his country. He +became the victim of its weakness. Whether he had died or still +lingered in the dungeons of Austria was not known. His property was +confiscated; his child became an orphan and a beggar. She continued +with her foster parents and bloomed in their rude abode, fairer than a +garden rose among dark-leaved brambles. When my father returned from +Milan, he found playing with me in the hall of our villa a child fairer +than pictured cherub--a creature who seemed to shed radiance from her +looks and whose form and motions were lighter than the chamois of the +hills. The apparition was soon explained. With his permission my +mother prevailed on her rustic guardians to yield their charge to her. +They were fond of the sweet orphan. Her presence had seemed a blessing +to them, but it would be unfair to her to keep her in poverty and want +when Providence afforded her such powerful protection. They consulted +their village priest, and the result was that Elizabeth Lavenza became +the inmate of my parents' house--my more than sister--the beautiful and +adored companion of all my occupations and my pleasures. + +Everyone loved Elizabeth. The passionate and almost reverential +attachment with which all regarded her became, while I shared it, my +pride and my delight. On the evening previous to her being brought to +my home, my mother had said playfully, "I have a pretty present for my +Victor--tomorrow he shall have it." And when, on the morrow, she +presented Elizabeth to me as her promised gift, I, with childish +seriousness, interpreted her words literally and looked upon Elizabeth +as mine--mine to protect, love, and cherish. All praises bestowed on +her I received as made to a possession of my own. We called each other +familiarly by the name of cousin. No word, no expression could body +forth the kind of relation in which she stood to me--my more than +sister, since till death she was to be mine only. + + + +Chapter 2 + +We were brought up together; there was not quite a year difference in +our ages. I need not say that we were strangers to any species of +disunion or dispute. Harmony was the soul of our companionship, and +the diversity and contrast that subsisted in our characters drew us +nearer together. Elizabeth was of a calmer and more concentrated +disposition; but, with all my ardour, I was capable of a more intense +application and was more deeply smitten with the thirst for knowledge. +She busied herself with following the aerial creations of the poets; +and in the majestic and wondrous scenes which surrounded our Swiss home +--the sublime shapes of the mountains, the changes of the seasons, +tempest and calm, the silence of winter, and the life and turbulence of +our Alpine summers--she found ample scope for admiration and delight. +While my companion contemplated with a serious and satisfied spirit the +magnificent appearances of things, I delighted in investigating their +causes. The world was to me a secret which I desired to divine. +Curiosity, earnest research to learn the hidden laws of nature, +gladness akin to rapture, as they were unfolded to me, are among the +earliest sensations I can remember. + +On the birth of a second son, my junior by seven years, my parents gave +up entirely their wandering life and fixed themselves in their native +country. We possessed a house in Geneva, and a campagne on Belrive, +the eastern shore of the lake, at the distance of rather more than a +league from the city. We resided principally in the latter, and the +lives of my parents were passed in considerable seclusion. It was my +temper to avoid a crowd and to attach myself fervently to a few. I was +indifferent, therefore, to my school-fellows in general; but I united +myself in the bonds of the closest friendship to one among them. Henry +Clerval was the son of a merchant of Geneva. He was a boy of singular +talent and fancy. He loved enterprise, hardship, and even danger for +its own sake. He was deeply read in books of chivalry and romance. He +composed heroic songs and began to write many a tale of enchantment and +knightly adventure. He tried to make us act plays and to enter into +masquerades, in which the characters were drawn from the heroes of +Roncesvalles, of the Round Table of King Arthur, and the chivalrous +train who shed their blood to redeem the holy sepulchre from the hands +of the infidels. + +No human being could have passed a happier childhood than myself. My +parents were possessed by the very spirit of kindness and indulgence. +We felt that they were not the tyrants to rule our lot according to +their caprice, but the agents and creators of all the many delights +which we enjoyed. When I mingled with other families I distinctly +discerned how peculiarly fortunate my lot was, and gratitude assisted +the development of filial love. + +My temper was sometimes violent, and my passions vehement; but by some +law in my temperature they were turned not towards childish pursuits +but to an eager desire to learn, and not to learn all things +indiscriminately. I confess that neither the structure of languages, +nor the code of governments, nor the politics of various states +possessed attractions for me. It was the secrets of heaven and earth +that I desired to learn; and whether it was the outward substance of +things or the inner spirit of nature and the mysterious soul of man +that occupied me, still my inquiries were directed to the metaphysical, +or in its highest sense, the physical secrets of the world. + +Meanwhile Clerval occupied himself, so to speak, with the moral +relations of things. The busy stage of life, the virtues of heroes, +and the actions of men were his theme; and his hope and his dream was +to become one among those whose names are recorded in story as the +gallant and adventurous benefactors of our species. The saintly soul +of Elizabeth shone like a shrine-dedicated lamp in our peaceful home. +Her sympathy was ours; her smile, her soft voice, the sweet glance of +her celestial eyes, were ever there to bless and animate us. She was +the living spirit of love to soften and attract; I might have become +sullen in my study, rough through the ardour of my nature, but that +she was there to subdue me to a semblance of her own gentleness. And +Clerval--could aught ill entrench on the noble spirit of Clerval? Yet +he might not have been so perfectly humane, so thoughtful in his +generosity, so full of kindness and tenderness amidst his passion for +adventurous exploit, had she not unfolded to him the real loveliness of +beneficence and made the doing good the end and aim of his soaring +ambition. + +I feel exquisite pleasure in dwelling on the recollections of +childhood, before misfortune had tainted my mind and changed its bright +visions of extensive usefulness into gloomy and narrow reflections upon +self. Besides, in drawing the picture of my early days, I also record +those events which led, by insensible steps, to my after tale of +misery, for when I would account to myself for the birth of that +passion which afterwards ruled my destiny I find it arise, like a +mountain river, from ignoble and almost forgotten sources; but, +swelling as it proceeded, it became the torrent which, in its course, +has swept away all my hopes and joys. Natural philosophy is the genius +that has regulated my fate; I desire, therefore, in this narration, to +state those facts which led to my predilection for that science. When +I was thirteen years of age we all went on a party of pleasure to the +baths near Thonon; the inclemency of the weather obliged us to remain a +day confined to the inn. In this house I chanced to find a volume of +the works of Cornelius Agrippa. I opened it with apathy; the theory +which he attempts to demonstrate and the wonderful facts which he +relates soon changed this feeling into enthusiasm. A new light seemed +to dawn upon my mind, and bounding with joy, I communicated my +discovery to my father. My father looked carelessly at the title page +of my book and said, "Ah! Cornelius Agrippa! My dear Victor, do not +waste your time upon this; it is sad trash." + +If, instead of this remark, my father had taken the pains to explain to +me that the principles of Agrippa had been entirely exploded and that a +modern system of science had been introduced which possessed much +greater powers than the ancient, because the powers of the latter were +chimerical, while those of the former were real and practical, under +such circumstances I should certainly have thrown Agrippa aside and +have contented my imagination, warmed as it was, by returning with +greater ardour to my former studies. It is even possible that the +train of my ideas would never have received the fatal impulse that led +to my ruin. But the cursory glance my father had taken of my volume by +no means assured me that he was acquainted with its contents, and I +continued to read with the greatest avidity. When I returned home my +first care was to procure the whole works of this author, and +afterwards of Paracelsus and Albertus Magnus. I read and studied the +wild fancies of these writers with delight; they appeared to me +treasures known to few besides myself. I have described myself as +always having been imbued with a fervent longing to penetrate the +secrets of nature. In spite of the intense labour and wonderful +discoveries of modern philosophers, I always came from my studies +discontented and unsatisfied. Sir Isaac Newton is said to have avowed +that he felt like a child picking up shells beside the great and +unexplored ocean of truth. Those of his successors in each branch of +natural philosophy with whom I was acquainted appeared even to my boy's +apprehensions as tyros engaged in the same pursuit. + +The untaught peasant beheld the elements around him and was acquainted +with their practical uses. The most learned philosopher knew little +more. He had partially unveiled the face of Nature, but her immortal +lineaments were still a wonder and a mystery. He might dissect, +anatomize, and give names; but, not to speak of a final cause, causes +in their secondary and tertiary grades were utterly unknown to him. I +had gazed upon the fortifications and impediments that seemed to keep +human beings from entering the citadel of nature, and rashly and +ignorantly I had repined. + +But here were books, and here were men who had penetrated deeper and +knew more. I took their word for all that they averred, and I became +their disciple. It may appear strange that such should arise in the +eighteenth century; but while I followed the routine of education in +the schools of Geneva, I was, to a great degree, self-taught with +regard to my favourite studies. My father was not scientific, and I +was left to struggle with a child's blindness, added to a student's +thirst for knowledge. Under the guidance of my new preceptors I +entered with the greatest diligence into the search of the +philosopher's stone and the elixir of life; but the latter soon +obtained my undivided attention. Wealth was an inferior object, but +what glory would attend the discovery if I could banish disease from +the human frame and render man invulnerable to any but a violent death! +Nor were these my only visions. The raising of ghosts or devils was a +promise liberally accorded by my favourite authors, the fulfilment of +which I most eagerly sought; and if my incantations were always +unsuccessful, I attributed the failure rather to my own inexperience +and mistake than to a want of skill or fidelity in my instructors. And +thus for a time I was occupied by exploded systems, mingling, like an +unadept, a thousand contradictory theories and floundering desperately +in a very slough of multifarious knowledge, guided by an ardent +imagination and childish reasoning, till an accident again changed the +current of my ideas. When I was about fifteen years old we had retired +to our house near Belrive, when we witnessed a most violent and +terrible thunderstorm. It advanced from behind the mountains of Jura, +and the thunder burst at once with frightful loudness from various +quarters of the heavens. I remained, while the storm lasted, watching +its progress with curiosity and delight. As I stood at the door, on a +sudden I beheld a stream of fire issue from an old and beautiful oak +which stood about twenty yards from our house; and so soon as the +dazzling light vanished, the oak had disappeared, and nothing remained +but a blasted stump. When we visited it the next morning, we found the +tree shattered in a singular manner. It was not splintered by the +shock, but entirely reduced to thin ribbons of wood. I never beheld +anything so utterly destroyed. + +Before this I was not unacquainted with the more obvious laws of +electricity. On this occasion a man of great research in natural +philosophy was with us, and excited by this catastrophe, he entered on +the explanation of a theory which he had formed on the subject of +electricity and galvanism, which was at once new and astonishing to me. +All that he said threw greatly into the shade Cornelius Agrippa, +Albertus Magnus, and Paracelsus, the lords of my imagination; but by +some fatality the overthrow of these men disinclined me to pursue my +accustomed studies. It seemed to me as if nothing would or could ever +be known. All that had so long engaged my attention suddenly grew +despicable. By one of those caprices of the mind which we are perhaps +most subject to in early youth, I at once gave up my former +occupations, set down natural history and all its progeny as a deformed +and abortive creation, and entertained the greatest disdain for a +would-be science which could never even step within the threshold of +real knowledge. In this mood of mind I betook myself to the +mathematics and the branches of study appertaining to that science as +being built upon secure foundations, and so worthy of my consideration. + +Thus strangely are our souls constructed, and by such slight ligaments +are we bound to prosperity or ruin. When I look back, it seems to me +as if this almost miraculous change of inclination and will was the +immediate suggestion of the guardian angel of my life--the last effort +made by the spirit of preservation to avert the storm that was even +then hanging in the stars and ready to envelop me. Her victory was +announced by an unusual tranquillity and gladness of soul which +followed the relinquishing of my ancient and latterly tormenting +studies. It was thus that I was to be taught to associate evil with +their prosecution, happiness with their disregard. + +It was a strong effort of the spirit of good, but it was ineffectual. +Destiny was too potent, and her immutable laws had decreed my utter and +terrible destruction. + + + +Chapter 3 + +When I had attained the age of seventeen my parents resolved that I +should become a student at the university of Ingolstadt. I had +hitherto attended the schools of Geneva, but my father thought it +necessary for the completion of my education that I should be made +acquainted with other customs than those of my native country. My +departure was therefore fixed at an early date, but before the day +resolved upon could arrive, the first misfortune of my life +occurred--an omen, as it were, of my future misery. Elizabeth had +caught the scarlet fever; her illness was severe, and she was in the +greatest danger. During her illness many arguments had been urged to +persuade my mother to refrain from attending upon her. She had at +first yielded to our entreaties, but when she heard that the life of +her favourite was menaced, she could no longer control her anxiety. She +attended her sickbed; her watchful attentions triumphed over the +malignity of the distemper--Elizabeth was saved, but the consequences +of this imprudence were fatal to her preserver. On the third day my +mother sickened; her fever was accompanied by the most alarming +symptoms, and the looks of her medical attendants prognosticated the +worst event. On her deathbed the fortitude and benignity of this best +of women did not desert her. She joined the hands of Elizabeth and +myself. "My children," she said, "my firmest hopes of future happiness +were placed on the prospect of your union. This expectation will now +be the consolation of your father. Elizabeth, my love, you must supply +my place to my younger children. Alas! I regret that I am taken from +you; and, happy and beloved as I have been, is it not hard to quit you +all? But these are not thoughts befitting me; I will endeavour to +resign myself cheerfully to death and will indulge a hope of meeting +you in another world." + +She died calmly, and her countenance expressed affection even in death. +I need not describe the feelings of those whose dearest ties are rent +by that most irreparable evil, the void that presents itself to the +soul, and the despair that is exhibited on the countenance. It is so +long before the mind can persuade itself that she whom we saw every day +and whose very existence appeared a part of our own can have departed +forever--that the brightness of a beloved eye can have been +extinguished and the sound of a voice so familiar and dear to the ear +can be hushed, never more to be heard. These are the reflections of +the first days; but when the lapse of time proves the reality of the +evil, then the actual bitterness of grief commences. Yet from whom has +not that rude hand rent away some dear connection? And why should I +describe a sorrow which all have felt, and must feel? The time at +length arrives when grief is rather an indulgence than a necessity; and +the smile that plays upon the lips, although it may be deemed a +sacrilege, is not banished. My mother was dead, but we had still +duties which we ought to perform; we must continue our course with the +rest and learn to think ourselves fortunate whilst one remains whom the +spoiler has not seized. + +My departure for Ingolstadt, which had been deferred by these events, +was now again determined upon. I obtained from my father a respite of +some weeks. It appeared to me sacrilege so soon to leave the repose, +akin to death, of the house of mourning and to rush into the thick of +life. I was new to sorrow, but it did not the less alarm me. I was +unwilling to quit the sight of those that remained to me, and above +all, I desired to see my sweet Elizabeth in some degree consoled. + +She indeed veiled her grief and strove to act the comforter to us all. +She looked steadily on life and assumed its duties with courage and +zeal. She devoted herself to those whom she had been taught to call +her uncle and cousins. Never was she so enchanting as at this time, +when she recalled the sunshine of her smiles and spent them upon us. +She forgot even her own regret in her endeavours to make us forget. + +The day of my departure at length arrived. Clerval spent the last +evening with us. He had endeavoured to persuade his father to permit +him to accompany me and to become my fellow student, but in vain. His +father was a narrow-minded trader and saw idleness and ruin in the +aspirations and ambition of his son. Henry deeply felt the misfortune +of being debarred from a liberal education. He said little, but when +he spoke I read in his kindling eye and in his animated glance a +restrained but firm resolve not to be chained to the miserable details +of commerce. + +We sat late. We could not tear ourselves away from each other nor +persuade ourselves to say the word "Farewell!" It was said, and we +retired under the pretence of seeking repose, each fancying that the +other was deceived; but when at morning's dawn I descended to the +carriage which was to convey me away, they were all there--my father +again to bless me, Clerval to press my hand once more, my Elizabeth to +renew her entreaties that I would write often and to bestow the last +feminine attentions on her playmate and friend. + +I threw myself into the chaise that was to convey me away and indulged +in the most melancholy reflections. I, who had ever been surrounded by +amiable companions, continually engaged in endeavouring to bestow +mutual pleasure--I was now alone. In the university whither I was +going I must form my own friends and be my own protector. My life had +hitherto been remarkably secluded and domestic, and this had given me +invincible repugnance to new countenances. I loved my brothers, +Elizabeth, and Clerval; these were "old familiar faces," but I believed +myself totally unfitted for the company of strangers. Such were my +reflections as I commenced my journey; but as I proceeded, my spirits +and hopes rose. I ardently desired the acquisition of knowledge. I +had often, when at home, thought it hard to remain during my youth +cooped up in one place and had longed to enter the world and take my +station among other human beings. Now my desires were complied with, +and it would, indeed, have been folly to repent. + +I had sufficient leisure for these and many other reflections during my +journey to Ingolstadt, which was long and fatiguing. At length the +high white steeple of the town met my eyes. I alighted and was +conducted to my solitary apartment to spend the evening as I pleased. + +The next morning I delivered my letters of introduction and paid a +visit to some of the principal professors. Chance--or rather the evil +influence, the Angel of Destruction, which asserted omnipotent sway +over me from the moment I turned my reluctant steps from my father's +door--led me first to M. Krempe, professor of natural philosophy. He +was an uncouth man, but deeply imbued in the secrets of his science. He +asked me several questions concerning my progress in the different +branches of science appertaining to natural philosophy. I replied +carelessly, and partly in contempt, mentioned the names of my +alchemists as the principal authors I had studied. The professor +stared. "Have you," he said, "really spent your time in studying such +nonsense?" + +I replied in the affirmative. "Every minute," continued M. Krempe with +warmth, "every instant that you have wasted on those books is utterly +and entirely lost. You have burdened your memory with exploded systems +and useless names. Good God! In what desert land have you lived, +where no one was kind enough to inform you that these fancies which you +have so greedily imbibed are a thousand years old and as musty as they +are ancient? I little expected, in this enlightened and scientific +age, to find a disciple of Albertus Magnus and Paracelsus. My dear +sir, you must begin your studies entirely anew." + +So saying, he stepped aside and wrote down a list of several books +treating of natural philosophy which he desired me to procure, and +dismissed me after mentioning that in the beginning of the following +week he intended to commence a course of lectures upon natural +philosophy in its general relations, and that M. Waldman, a fellow +professor, would lecture upon chemistry the alternate days that he +omitted. + +I returned home not disappointed, for I have said that I had long +considered those authors useless whom the professor reprobated; but I +returned not at all the more inclined to recur to these studies in any +shape. M. Krempe was a little squat man with a gruff voice and a +repulsive countenance; the teacher, therefore, did not prepossess me in +favour of his pursuits. In rather a too philosophical and connected a +strain, perhaps, I have given an account of the conclusions I had come +to concerning them in my early years. As a child I had not been +content with the results promised by the modern professors of natural +science. With a confusion of ideas only to be accounted for by my +extreme youth and my want of a guide on such matters, I had retrod the +steps of knowledge along the paths of time and exchanged the +discoveries of recent inquirers for the dreams of forgotten alchemists. +Besides, I had a contempt for the uses of modern natural philosophy. +It was very different when the masters of the science sought +immortality and power; such views, although futile, were grand; but now +the scene was changed. The ambition of the inquirer seemed to limit +itself to the annihilation of those visions on which my interest in +science was chiefly founded. I was required to exchange chimeras of +boundless grandeur for realities of little worth. + +Such were my reflections during the first two or three days of my +residence at Ingolstadt, which were chiefly spent in becoming +acquainted with the localities and the principal residents in my new +abode. But as the ensuing week commenced, I thought of the information +which M. Krempe had given me concerning the lectures. And although I +could not consent to go and hear that little conceited fellow deliver +sentences out of a pulpit, I recollected what he had said of M. +Waldman, whom I had never seen, as he had hitherto been out of town. + +Partly from curiosity and partly from idleness, I went into the +lecturing room, which M. Waldman entered shortly after. This professor +was very unlike his colleague. He appeared about fifty years of age, +but with an aspect expressive of the greatest benevolence; a few grey +hairs covered his temples, but those at the back of his head were +nearly black. His person was short but remarkably erect and his voice +the sweetest I had ever heard. He began his lecture by a +recapitulation of the history of chemistry and the various improvements +made by different men of learning, pronouncing with fervour the names +of the most distinguished discoverers. He then took a cursory view of +the present state of the science and explained many of its elementary +terms. After having made a few preparatory experiments, he concluded +with a panegyric upon modern chemistry, the terms of which I shall +never forget: "The ancient teachers of this science," said he, +"promised impossibilities and performed nothing. The modern masters +promise very little; they know that metals cannot be transmuted and +that the elixir of life is a chimera but these philosophers, whose +hands seem only made to dabble in dirt, and their eyes to pore over the +microscope or crucible, have indeed performed miracles. They penetrate +into the recesses of nature and show how she works in her +hiding-places. They ascend into the heavens; they have discovered how +the blood circulates, and the nature of the air we breathe. They have +acquired new and almost unlimited powers; they can command the thunders +of heaven, mimic the earthquake, and even mock the invisible world with +its own shadows." + +Such were the professor's words--rather let me say such the words of +the fate--enounced to destroy me. As he went on I felt as if my soul +were grappling with a palpable enemy; one by one the various keys were +touched which formed the mechanism of my being; chord after chord was +sounded, and soon my mind was filled with one thought, one conception, +one purpose. So much has been done, exclaimed the soul of +Frankenstein--more, far more, will I achieve; treading in the steps +already marked, I will pioneer a new way, explore unknown powers, and +unfold to the world the deepest mysteries of creation. + +I closed not my eyes that night. My internal being was in a state of +insurrection and turmoil; I felt that order would thence arise, but I +had no power to produce it. By degrees, after the morning's dawn, +sleep came. I awoke, and my yesternight's thoughts were as a dream. +There only remained a resolution to return to my ancient studies and to +devote myself to a science for which I believed myself to possess a +natural talent. On the same day I paid M. Waldman a visit. His +manners in private were even more mild and attractive than in public, +for there was a certain dignity in his mien during his lecture which in +his own house was replaced by the greatest affability and kindness. I +gave him pretty nearly the same account of my former pursuits as I had +given to his fellow professor. He heard with attention the little +narration concerning my studies and smiled at the names of Cornelius +Agrippa and Paracelsus, but without the contempt that M. Krempe had +exhibited. He said that "These were men to whose indefatigable zeal +modern philosophers were indebted for most of the foundations of their +knowledge. They had left to us, as an easier task, to give new names +and arrange in connected classifications the facts which they in a +great degree had been the instruments of bringing to light. The +labours of men of genius, however erroneously directed, scarcely ever +fail in ultimately turning to the solid advantage of mankind." I +listened to his statement, which was delivered without any presumption +or affectation, and then added that his lecture had removed my +prejudices against modern chemists; I expressed myself in measured +terms, with the modesty and deference due from a youth to his +instructor, without letting escape (inexperience in life would have +made me ashamed) any of the enthusiasm which stimulated my intended +labours. I requested his advice concerning the books I ought to +procure. + +"I am happy," said M. Waldman, "to have gained a disciple; and if your +application equals your ability, I have no doubt of your success. +Chemistry is that branch of natural philosophy in which the greatest +improvements have been and may be made; it is on that account that I +have made it my peculiar study; but at the same time, I have not +neglected the other branches of science. A man would make but a very +sorry chemist if he attended to that department of human knowledge +alone. If your wish is to become really a man of science and not +merely a petty experimentalist, I should advise you to apply to every +branch of natural philosophy, including mathematics." He then took me +into his laboratory and explained to me the uses of his various +machines, instructing me as to what I ought to procure and promising me +the use of his own when I should have advanced far enough in the +science not to derange their mechanism. He also gave me the list of +books which I had requested, and I took my leave. + +Thus ended a day memorable to me; it decided my future destiny. + + + +Chapter 4 + +From this day natural philosophy, and particularly chemistry, in the +most comprehensive sense of the term, became nearly my sole occupation. +I read with ardour those works, so full of genius and discrimination, +which modern inquirers have written on these subjects. I attended the +lectures and cultivated the acquaintance of the men of science of the +university, and I found even in M. Krempe a great deal of sound sense +and real information, combined, it is true, with a repulsive +physiognomy and manners, but not on that account the less valuable. In +M. Waldman I found a true friend. His gentleness was never tinged by +dogmatism, and his instructions were given with an air of frankness and +good nature that banished every idea of pedantry. In a thousand ways +he smoothed for me the path of knowledge and made the most abstruse +inquiries clear and facile to my apprehension. My application was at +first fluctuating and uncertain; it gained strength as I proceeded and +soon became so ardent and eager that the stars often disappeared in the +light of morning whilst I was yet engaged in my laboratory. + +As I applied so closely, it may be easily conceived that my progress +was rapid. My ardour was indeed the astonishment of the students, and +my proficiency that of the masters. Professor Krempe often asked me, +with a sly smile, how Cornelius Agrippa went on, whilst M. Waldman +expressed the most heartfelt exultation in my progress. Two years +passed in this manner, during which I paid no visit to Geneva, but was +engaged, heart and soul, in the pursuit of some discoveries which I +hoped to make. None but those who have experienced them can conceive +of the enticements of science. In other studies you go as far as +others have gone before you, and there is nothing more to know; but in +a scientific pursuit there is continual food for discovery and wonder. +A mind of moderate capacity which closely pursues one study must +infallibly arrive at great proficiency in that study; and I, who +continually sought the attainment of one object of pursuit and was +solely wrapped up in this, improved so rapidly that at the end of two +years I made some discoveries in the improvement of some chemical +instruments, which procured me great esteem and admiration at the +university. When I had arrived at this point and had become as well +acquainted with the theory and practice of natural philosophy as +depended on the lessons of any of the professors at Ingolstadt, my +residence there being no longer conducive to my improvements, I thought +of returning to my friends and my native town, when an incident +happened that protracted my stay. + +One of the phenomena which had peculiarly attracted my attention was +the structure of the human frame, and, indeed, any animal endued with +life. Whence, I often asked myself, did the principle of life proceed? +It was a bold question, and one which has ever been considered as a +mystery; yet with how many things are we upon the brink of becoming +acquainted, if cowardice or carelessness did not restrain our +inquiries. I revolved these circumstances in my mind and determined +thenceforth to apply myself more particularly to those branches of +natural philosophy which relate to physiology. Unless I had been +animated by an almost supernatural enthusiasm, my application to this +study would have been irksome and almost intolerable. To examine the +causes of life, we must first have recourse to death. I became +acquainted with the science of anatomy, but this was not sufficient; I +must also observe the natural decay and corruption of the human body. +In my education my father had taken the greatest precautions that my +mind should be impressed with no supernatural horrors. I do not ever +remember to have trembled at a tale of superstition or to have feared +the apparition of a spirit. Darkness had no effect upon my fancy, and +a churchyard was to me merely the receptacle of bodies deprived of +life, which, from being the seat of beauty and strength, had become +food for the worm. Now I was led to examine the cause and progress of +this decay and forced to spend days and nights in vaults and +charnel-houses. My attention was fixed upon every object the most +insupportable to the delicacy of the human feelings. I saw how the +fine form of man was degraded and wasted; I beheld the corruption of +death succeed to the blooming cheek of life; I saw how the worm +inherited the wonders of the eye and brain. I paused, examining and +analysing all the minutiae of causation, as exemplified in the change +from life to death, and death to life, until from the midst of this +darkness a sudden light broke in upon me--a light so brilliant and +wondrous, yet so simple, that while I became dizzy with the immensity +of the prospect which it illustrated, I was surprised that among so +many men of genius who had directed their inquiries towards the same +science, that I alone should be reserved to discover so astonishing a +secret. + +Remember, I am not recording the vision of a madman. The sun does not +more certainly shine in the heavens than that which I now affirm is +true. Some miracle might have produced it, yet the stages of the +discovery were distinct and probable. After days and nights of +incredible labour and fatigue, I succeeded in discovering the cause of +generation and life; nay, more, I became myself capable of bestowing +animation upon lifeless matter. + +The astonishment which I had at first experienced on this discovery +soon gave place to delight and rapture. After so much time spent in +painful labour, to arrive at once at the summit of my desires was the +most gratifying consummation of my toils. But this discovery was so +great and overwhelming that all the steps by which I had been +progressively led to it were obliterated, and I beheld only the result. +What had been the study and desire of the wisest men since the creation +of the world was now within my grasp. Not that, like a magic scene, it +all opened upon me at once: the information I had obtained was of a +nature rather to direct my endeavours so soon as I should point them +towards the object of my search than to exhibit that object already +accomplished. I was like the Arabian who had been buried with the dead +and found a passage to life, aided only by one glimmering and seemingly +ineffectual light. + +I see by your eagerness and the wonder and hope which your eyes +express, my friend, that you expect to be informed of the secret with +which I am acquainted; that cannot be; listen patiently until the end +of my story, and you will easily perceive why I am reserved upon that +subject. I will not lead you on, unguarded and ardent as I then was, +to your destruction and infallible misery. Learn from me, if not by my +precepts, at least by my example, how dangerous is the acquirement of +knowledge and how much happier that man is who believes his native town +to be the world, than he who aspires to become greater than his nature +will allow. + +When I found so astonishing a power placed within my hands, I hesitated +a long time concerning the manner in which I should employ it. +Although I possessed the capacity of bestowing animation, yet to +prepare a frame for the reception of it, with all its intricacies of +fibres, muscles, and veins, still remained a work of inconceivable +difficulty and labour. I doubted at first whether I should attempt the +creation of a being like myself, or one of simpler organization; but my +imagination was too much exalted by my first success to permit me to +doubt of my ability to give life to an animal as complex and wonderful +as man. The materials at present within my command hardly appeared +adequate to so arduous an undertaking, but I doubted not that I should +ultimately succeed. I prepared myself for a multitude of reverses; my +operations might be incessantly baffled, and at last my work be +imperfect, yet when I considered the improvement which every day takes +place in science and mechanics, I was encouraged to hope my present +attempts would at least lay the foundations of future success. Nor +could I consider the magnitude and complexity of my plan as any +argument of its impracticability. It was with these feelings that I +began the creation of a human being. As the minuteness of the parts +formed a great hindrance to my speed, I resolved, contrary to my first +intention, to make the being of a gigantic stature, that is to say, +about eight feet in height, and proportionably large. After having +formed this determination and having spent some months in successfully +collecting and arranging my materials, I began. + +No one can conceive the variety of feelings which bore me onwards, like +a hurricane, in the first enthusiasm of success. Life and death +appeared to me ideal bounds, which I should first break through, and +pour a torrent of light into our dark world. A new species would bless +me as its creator and source; many happy and excellent natures would +owe their being to me. No father could claim the gratitude of his +child so completely as I should deserve theirs. Pursuing these +reflections, I thought that if I could bestow animation upon lifeless +matter, I might in process of time (although I now found it impossible) +renew life where death had apparently devoted the body to corruption. + +These thoughts supported my spirits, while I pursued my undertaking +with unremitting ardour. My cheek had grown pale with study, and my +person had become emaciated with confinement. Sometimes, on the very +brink of certainty, I failed; yet still I clung to the hope which the +next day or the next hour might realize. One secret which I alone +possessed was the hope to which I had dedicated myself; and the moon +gazed on my midnight labours, while, with unrelaxed and breathless +eagerness, I pursued nature to her hiding-places. Who shall conceive +the horrors of my secret toil as I dabbled among the unhallowed damps +of the grave or tortured the living animal to animate the lifeless +clay? My limbs now tremble, and my eyes swim with the remembrance; but +then a resistless and almost frantic impulse urged me forward; I seemed +to have lost all soul or sensation but for this one pursuit. It was +indeed but a passing trance, that only made me feel with renewed +acuteness so soon as, the unnatural stimulus ceasing to operate, I had +returned to my old habits. I collected bones from charnel-houses and +disturbed, with profane fingers, the tremendous secrets of the human +frame. In a solitary chamber, or rather cell, at the top of the house, +and separated from all the other apartments by a gallery and staircase, +I kept my workshop of filthy creation; my eyeballs were starting from +their sockets in attending to the details of my employment. The +dissecting room and the slaughter-house furnished many of my materials; +and often did my human nature turn with loathing from my occupation, +whilst, still urged on by an eagerness which perpetually increased, I +brought my work near to a conclusion. + +The summer months passed while I was thus engaged, heart and soul, in +one pursuit. It was a most beautiful season; never did the fields +bestow a more plentiful harvest or the vines yield a more luxuriant +vintage, but my eyes were insensible to the charms of nature. And the +same feelings which made me neglect the scenes around me caused me also +to forget those friends who were so many miles absent, and whom I had +not seen for so long a time. I knew my silence disquieted them, and I +well remembered the words of my father: "I know that while you are +pleased with yourself you will think of us with affection, and we shall +hear regularly from you. You must pardon me if I regard any +interruption in your correspondence as a proof that your other duties +are equally neglected." + +I knew well therefore what would be my father's feelings, but I could +not tear my thoughts from my employment, loathsome in itself, but which +had taken an irresistible hold of my imagination. I wished, as it +were, to procrastinate all that related to my feelings of affection +until the great object, which swallowed up every habit of my nature, +should be completed. + +I then thought that my father would be unjust if he ascribed my neglect +to vice or faultiness on my part, but I am now convinced that he was +justified in conceiving that I should not be altogether free from +blame. A human being in perfection ought always to preserve a calm and +peaceful mind and never to allow passion or a transitory desire to +disturb his tranquillity. I do not think that the pursuit of knowledge +is an exception to this rule. If the study to which you apply yourself +has a tendency to weaken your affections and to destroy your taste for +those simple pleasures in which no alloy can possibly mix, then that +study is certainly unlawful, that is to say, not befitting the human +mind. If this rule were always observed; if no man allowed any pursuit +whatsoever to interfere with the tranquillity of his domestic +affections, Greece had not been enslaved, Caesar would have spared his +country, America would have been discovered more gradually, and the +empires of Mexico and Peru had not been destroyed. + +But I forget that I am moralizing in the most interesting part of my +tale, and your looks remind me to proceed. My father made no reproach +in his letters and only took notice of my silence by inquiring into my +occupations more particularly than before. Winter, spring, and summer +passed away during my labours; but I did not watch the blossom or the +expanding leaves--sights which before always yielded me supreme +delight--so deeply was I engrossed in my occupation. The leaves of +that year had withered before my work drew near to a close, and now +every day showed me more plainly how well I had succeeded. But my +enthusiasm was checked by my anxiety, and I appeared rather like one +doomed by slavery to toil in the mines, or any other unwholesome trade +than an artist occupied by his favourite employment. Every night I was +oppressed by a slow fever, and I became nervous to a most painful +degree; the fall of a leaf startled me, and I shunned my fellow +creatures as if I had been guilty of a crime. Sometimes I grew alarmed +at the wreck I perceived that I had become; the energy of my purpose +alone sustained me: my labours would soon end, and I believed that +exercise and amusement would then drive away incipient disease; and I +promised myself both of these when my creation should be complete. + + + +Chapter 5 + +It was on a dreary night of November that I beheld the accomplishment +of my toils. With an anxiety that almost amounted to agony, I +collected the instruments of life around me, that I might infuse a +spark of being into the lifeless thing that lay at my feet. It was +already one in the morning; the rain pattered dismally against the +panes, and my candle was nearly burnt out, when, by the glimmer of the +half-extinguished light, I saw the dull yellow eye of the creature +open; it breathed hard, and a convulsive motion agitated its limbs. + +How can I describe my emotions at this catastrophe, or how delineate +the wretch whom with such infinite pains and care I had endeavoured to +form? His limbs were in proportion, and I had selected his features as +beautiful. Beautiful! Great God! His yellow skin scarcely covered +the work of muscles and arteries beneath; his hair was of a lustrous +black, and flowing; his teeth of a pearly whiteness; but these +luxuriances only formed a more horrid contrast with his watery eyes, +that seemed almost of the same colour as the dun-white sockets in which +they were set, his shrivelled complexion and straight black lips. + +The different accidents of life are not so changeable as the feelings +of human nature. I had worked hard for nearly two years, for the sole +purpose of infusing life into an inanimate body. For this I had +deprived myself of rest and health. I had desired it with an ardour +that far exceeded moderation; but now that I had finished, the beauty +of the dream vanished, and breathless horror and disgust filled my +heart. Unable to endure the aspect of the being I had created, I +rushed out of the room and continued a long time traversing my +bed-chamber, unable to compose my mind to sleep. At length lassitude +succeeded to the tumult I had before endured, and I threw myself on the +bed in my clothes, endeavouring to seek a few moments of forgetfulness. +But it was in vain; I slept, indeed, but I was disturbed by the wildest +dreams. I thought I saw Elizabeth, in the bloom of health, walking in +the streets of Ingolstadt. Delighted and surprised, I embraced her, +but as I imprinted the first kiss on her lips, they became livid with +the hue of death; her features appeared to change, and I thought that I +held the corpse of my dead mother in my arms; a shroud enveloped her +form, and I saw the grave-worms crawling in the folds of the flannel. +I started from my sleep with horror; a cold dew covered my forehead, my +teeth chattered, and every limb became convulsed; when, by the dim and +yellow light of the moon, as it forced its way through the window +shutters, I beheld the wretch--the miserable monster whom I had +created. He held up the curtain of the bed; and his eyes, if eyes they +may be called, were fixed on me. His jaws opened, and he muttered some +inarticulate sounds, while a grin wrinkled his cheeks. He might have +spoken, but I did not hear; one hand was stretched out, seemingly to +detain me, but I escaped and rushed downstairs. I took refuge in the +courtyard belonging to the house which I inhabited, where I remained +during the rest of the night, walking up and down in the greatest +agitation, listening attentively, catching and fearing each sound as if +it were to announce the approach of the demoniacal corpse to which I +had so miserably given life. + +Oh! No mortal could support the horror of that countenance. A mummy +again endued with animation could not be so hideous as that wretch. I +had gazed on him while unfinished; he was ugly then, but when those +muscles and joints were rendered capable of motion, it became a thing +such as even Dante could not have conceived. + +I passed the night wretchedly. Sometimes my pulse beat so quickly and +hardly that I felt the palpitation of every artery; at others, I nearly +sank to the ground through languor and extreme weakness. Mingled with +this horror, I felt the bitterness of disappointment; dreams that had +been my food and pleasant rest for so long a space were now become a +hell to me; and the change was so rapid, the overthrow so complete! + +Morning, dismal and wet, at length dawned and discovered to my +sleepless and aching eyes the church of Ingolstadt, its white steeple +and clock, which indicated the sixth hour. The porter opened the gates +of the court, which had that night been my asylum, and I issued into +the streets, pacing them with quick steps, as if I sought to avoid the +wretch whom I feared every turning of the street would present to my +view. I did not dare return to the apartment which I inhabited, but +felt impelled to hurry on, although drenched by the rain which poured +from a black and comfortless sky. + +I continued walking in this manner for some time, endeavouring by +bodily exercise to ease the load that weighed upon my mind. I +traversed the streets without any clear conception of where I was or +what I was doing. My heart palpitated in the sickness of fear, and I +hurried on with irregular steps, not daring to look about me: + + + Like one who, on a lonely road, + Doth walk in fear and dread, + And, having once turned round, walks on, + And turns no more his head; + Because he knows a frightful fiend + Doth close behind him tread. + + [Coleridge's "Ancient Mariner."] + + +Continuing thus, I came at length opposite to the inn at which the +various diligences and carriages usually stopped. Here I paused, I +knew not why; but I remained some minutes with my eyes fixed on a coach +that was coming towards me from the other end of the street. As it +drew nearer I observed that it was the Swiss diligence; it stopped just +where I was standing, and on the door being opened, I perceived Henry +Clerval, who, on seeing me, instantly sprung out. "My dear +Frankenstein," exclaimed he, "how glad I am to see you! How fortunate +that you should be here at the very moment of my alighting!" + +Nothing could equal my delight on seeing Clerval; his presence brought +back to my thoughts my father, Elizabeth, and all those scenes of home +so dear to my recollection. I grasped his hand, and in a moment forgot +my horror and misfortune; I felt suddenly, and for the first time +during many months, calm and serene joy. I welcomed my friend, +therefore, in the most cordial manner, and we walked towards my +college. Clerval continued talking for some time about our mutual +friends and his own good fortune in being permitted to come to +Ingolstadt. "You may easily believe," said he, "how great was the +difficulty to persuade my father that all necessary knowledge was not +comprised in the noble art of book-keeping; and, indeed, I believe I +left him incredulous to the last, for his constant answer to my +unwearied entreaties was the same as that of the Dutch schoolmaster in +The Vicar of Wakefield: 'I have ten thousand florins a year without +Greek, I eat heartily without Greek.' But his affection for me at +length overcame his dislike of learning, and he has permitted me to +undertake a voyage of discovery to the land of knowledge." + +"It gives me the greatest delight to see you; but tell me how you left +my father, brothers, and Elizabeth." + +"Very well, and very happy, only a little uneasy that they hear from +you so seldom. By the by, I mean to lecture you a little upon their +account myself. But, my dear Frankenstein," continued he, stopping +short and gazing full in my face, "I did not before remark how very ill +you appear; so thin and pale; you look as if you had been watching for +several nights." + +"You have guessed right; I have lately been so deeply engaged in one +occupation that I have not allowed myself sufficient rest, as you see; +but I hope, I sincerely hope, that all these employments are now at an +end and that I am at length free." + +I trembled excessively; I could not endure to think of, and far less to +allude to, the occurrences of the preceding night. I walked with a +quick pace, and we soon arrived at my college. I then reflected, and +the thought made me shiver, that the creature whom I had left in my +apartment might still be there, alive and walking about. I dreaded to +behold this monster, but I feared still more that Henry should see him. +Entreating him, therefore, to remain a few minutes at the bottom of the +stairs, I darted up towards my own room. My hand was already on the +lock of the door before I recollected myself. I then paused, and a +cold shivering came over me. I threw the door forcibly open, as +children are accustomed to do when they expect a spectre to stand in +waiting for them on the other side; but nothing appeared. I stepped +fearfully in: the apartment was empty, and my bedroom was also freed +from its hideous guest. I could hardly believe that so great a good +fortune could have befallen me, but when I became assured that my enemy +had indeed fled, I clapped my hands for joy and ran down to Clerval. + +We ascended into my room, and the servant presently brought breakfast; +but I was unable to contain myself. It was not joy only that possessed +me; I felt my flesh tingle with excess of sensitiveness, and my pulse +beat rapidly. I was unable to remain for a single instant in the same +place; I jumped over the chairs, clapped my hands, and laughed aloud. +Clerval at first attributed my unusual spirits to joy on his arrival, +but when he observed me more attentively, he saw a wildness in my eyes +for which he could not account, and my loud, unrestrained, heartless +laughter frightened and astonished him. + +"My dear Victor," cried he, "what, for God's sake, is the matter? Do +not laugh in that manner. How ill you are! What is the cause of all +this?" + +"Do not ask me," cried I, putting my hands before my eyes, for I +thought I saw the dreaded spectre glide into the room; "HE can tell. +Oh, save me! Save me!" I imagined that the monster seized me; I +struggled furiously and fell down in a fit. + +Poor Clerval! What must have been his feelings? A meeting, which he +anticipated with such joy, so strangely turned to bitterness. But I +was not the witness of his grief, for I was lifeless and did not +recover my senses for a long, long time. + +This was the commencement of a nervous fever which confined me for +several months. During all that time Henry was my only nurse. I +afterwards learned that, knowing my father's advanced age and unfitness +for so long a journey, and how wretched my sickness would make +Elizabeth, he spared them this grief by concealing the extent of my +disorder. He knew that I could not have a more kind and attentive +nurse than himself; and, firm in the hope he felt of my recovery, he +did not doubt that, instead of doing harm, he performed the kindest +action that he could towards them. + +But I was in reality very ill, and surely nothing but the unbounded and +unremitting attentions of my friend could have restored me to life. +The form of the monster on whom I had bestowed existence was forever +before my eyes, and I raved incessantly concerning him. Doubtless my +words surprised Henry; he at first believed them to be the wanderings +of my disturbed imagination, but the pertinacity with which I +continually recurred to the same subject persuaded him that my disorder +indeed owed its origin to some uncommon and terrible event. + +By very slow degrees, and with frequent relapses that alarmed and +grieved my friend, I recovered. I remember the first time I became +capable of observing outward objects with any kind of pleasure, I +perceived that the fallen leaves had disappeared and that the young +buds were shooting forth from the trees that shaded my window. It was +a divine spring, and the season contributed greatly to my +convalescence. I felt also sentiments of joy and affection revive in +my bosom; my gloom disappeared, and in a short time I became as +cheerful as before I was attacked by the fatal passion. + +"Dearest Clerval," exclaimed I, "how kind, how very good you are to me. +This whole winter, instead of being spent in study, as you promised +yourself, has been consumed in my sick room. How shall I ever repay +you? I feel the greatest remorse for the disappointment of which I +have been the occasion, but you will forgive me." + +"You will repay me entirely if you do not discompose yourself, but get +well as fast as you can; and since you appear in such good spirits, I +may speak to you on one subject, may I not?" + +I trembled. One subject! What could it be? Could he allude to an +object on whom I dared not even think? "Compose yourself," said +Clerval, who observed my change of colour, "I will not mention it if it +agitates you; but your father and cousin would be very happy if they +received a letter from you in your own handwriting. They hardly know +how ill you have been and are uneasy at your long silence." + +"Is that all, my dear Henry? How could you suppose that my first +thought would not fly towards those dear, dear friends whom I love and +who are so deserving of my love?" + +"If this is your present temper, my friend, you will perhaps be glad to +see a letter that has been lying here some days for you; it is from +your cousin, I believe." + + + +Chapter 6 + +Clerval then put the following letter into my hands. It was from my +own Elizabeth: + +"My dearest Cousin, + +"You have been ill, very ill, and even the constant letters of dear +kind Henry are not sufficient to reassure me on your account. You are +forbidden to write--to hold a pen; yet one word from you, dear Victor, +is necessary to calm our apprehensions. For a long time I have thought +that each post would bring this line, and my persuasions have +restrained my uncle from undertaking a journey to Ingolstadt. I have +prevented his encountering the inconveniences and perhaps dangers of so +long a journey, yet how often have I regretted not being able to +perform it myself! I figure to myself that the task of attending on +your sickbed has devolved on some mercenary old nurse, who could never +guess your wishes nor minister to them with the care and affection of +your poor cousin. Yet that is over now: Clerval writes that indeed +you are getting better. I eagerly hope that you will confirm this +intelligence soon in your own handwriting. + +"Get well--and return to us. You will find a happy, cheerful home and +friends who love you dearly. Your father's health is vigorous, and he +asks but to see you, but to be assured that you are well; and not a +care will ever cloud his benevolent countenance. How pleased you would +be to remark the improvement of our Ernest! He is now sixteen and full +of activity and spirit. He is desirous to be a true Swiss and to enter +into foreign service, but we cannot part with him, at least until his +elder brother returns to us. My uncle is not pleased with the idea of +a military career in a distant country, but Ernest never had your +powers of application. He looks upon study as an odious fetter; his +time is spent in the open air, climbing the hills or rowing on the +lake. I fear that he will become an idler unless we yield the point +and permit him to enter on the profession which he has selected. + +"Little alteration, except the growth of our dear children, has taken +place since you left us. The blue lake and snow-clad mountains--they +never change; and I think our placid home and our contented hearts are +regulated by the same immutable laws. My trifling occupations take up +my time and amuse me, and I am rewarded for any exertions by seeing +none but happy, kind faces around me. Since you left us, but one +change has taken place in our little household. Do you remember on +what occasion Justine Moritz entered our family? Probably you do not; +I will relate her history, therefore in a few words. Madame Moritz, +her mother, was a widow with four children, of whom Justine was the +third. This girl had always been the favourite of her father, but +through a strange perversity, her mother could not endure her, and +after the death of M. Moritz, treated her very ill. My aunt observed +this, and when Justine was twelve years of age, prevailed on her mother +to allow her to live at our house. The republican institutions of our +country have produced simpler and happier manners than those which +prevail in the great monarchies that surround it. Hence there is less +distinction between the several classes of its inhabitants; and the +lower orders, being neither so poor nor so despised, their manners are +more refined and moral. A servant in Geneva does not mean the same +thing as a servant in France and England. Justine, thus received in +our family, learned the duties of a servant, a condition which, in our +fortunate country, does not include the idea of ignorance and a +sacrifice of the dignity of a human being. + +"Justine, you may remember, was a great favourite of yours; and I +recollect you once remarked that if you were in an ill humour, one +glance from Justine could dissipate it, for the same reason that +Ariosto gives concerning the beauty of Angelica--she looked so +frank-hearted and happy. My aunt conceived a great attachment for her, +by which she was induced to give her an education superior to that +which she had at first intended. This benefit was fully repaid; +Justine was the most grateful little creature in the world: I do not +mean that she made any professions I never heard one pass her lips, but +you could see by her eyes that she almost adored her protectress. +Although her disposition was gay and in many respects inconsiderate, +yet she paid the greatest attention to every gesture of my aunt. She +thought her the model of all excellence and endeavoured to imitate her +phraseology and manners, so that even now she often reminds me of her. + +"When my dearest aunt died every one was too much occupied in their own +grief to notice poor Justine, who had attended her during her illness +with the most anxious affection. Poor Justine was very ill; but other +trials were reserved for her. + +"One by one, her brothers and sister died; and her mother, with the +exception of her neglected daughter, was left childless. The +conscience of the woman was troubled; she began to think that the +deaths of her favourites was a judgement from heaven to chastise her +partiality. She was a Roman Catholic; and I believe her confessor +confirmed the idea which she had conceived. Accordingly, a few months +after your departure for Ingolstadt, Justine was called home by her +repentant mother. Poor girl! She wept when she quitted our house; she +was much altered since the death of my aunt; grief had given softness +and a winning mildness to her manners, which had before been remarkable +for vivacity. Nor was her residence at her mother's house of a nature +to restore her gaiety. The poor woman was very vacillating in her +repentance. She sometimes begged Justine to forgive her unkindness, +but much oftener accused her of having caused the deaths of her +brothers and sister. Perpetual fretting at length threw Madame Moritz +into a decline, which at first increased her irritability, but she is +now at peace for ever. She died on the first approach of cold weather, +at the beginning of this last winter. Justine has just returned to us; +and I assure you I love her tenderly. She is very clever and gentle, +and extremely pretty; as I mentioned before, her mien and her +expression continually remind me of my dear aunt. + +"I must say also a few words to you, my dear cousin, of little darling +William. I wish you could see him; he is very tall of his age, with +sweet laughing blue eyes, dark eyelashes, and curling hair. When he +smiles, two little dimples appear on each cheek, which are rosy with +health. He has already had one or two little WIVES, but Louisa Biron +is his favourite, a pretty little girl of five years of age. + +"Now, dear Victor, I dare say you wish to be indulged in a little +gossip concerning the good people of Geneva. The pretty Miss Mansfield +has already received the congratulatory visits on her approaching +marriage with a young Englishman, John Melbourne, Esq. Her ugly +sister, Manon, married M. Duvillard, the rich banker, last autumn. Your +favourite schoolfellow, Louis Manoir, has suffered several misfortunes +since the departure of Clerval from Geneva. But he has already +recovered his spirits, and is reported to be on the point of marrying a +lively pretty Frenchwoman, Madame Tavernier. She is a widow, and much +older than Manoir; but she is very much admired, and a favourite with +everybody. + +"I have written myself into better spirits, dear cousin; but my anxiety +returns upon me as I conclude. Write, dearest Victor,--one line--one +word will be a blessing to us. Ten thousand thanks to Henry for his +kindness, his affection, and his many letters; we are sincerely +grateful. Adieu! my cousin; take care of your self; and, I entreat +you, write! + +"Elizabeth Lavenza. + +"Geneva, March 18, 17--." + + +"Dear, dear Elizabeth!" I exclaimed, when I had read her letter: "I +will write instantly and relieve them from the anxiety they must feel." +I wrote, and this exertion greatly fatigued me; but my convalescence +had commenced, and proceeded regularly. In another fortnight I was +able to leave my chamber. + +One of my first duties on my recovery was to introduce Clerval to the +several professors of the university. In doing this, I underwent a +kind of rough usage, ill befitting the wounds that my mind had +sustained. Ever since the fatal night, the end of my labours, and the +beginning of my misfortunes, I had conceived a violent antipathy even +to the name of natural philosophy. When I was otherwise quite restored +to health, the sight of a chemical instrument would renew all the agony +of my nervous symptoms. Henry saw this, and had removed all my +apparatus from my view. He had also changed my apartment; for he +perceived that I had acquired a dislike for the room which had +previously been my laboratory. But these cares of Clerval were made of +no avail when I visited the professors. M. Waldman inflicted torture +when he praised, with kindness and warmth, the astonishing progress I +had made in the sciences. He soon perceived that I disliked the +subject; but not guessing the real cause, he attributed my feelings to +modesty, and changed the subject from my improvement, to the science +itself, with a desire, as I evidently saw, of drawing me out. What +could I do? He meant to please, and he tormented me. I felt as if he +had placed carefully, one by one, in my view those instruments which +were to be afterwards used in putting me to a slow and cruel death. I +writhed under his words, yet dared not exhibit the pain I felt. +Clerval, whose eyes and feelings were always quick in discerning the +sensations of others, declined the subject, alleging, in excuse, his +total ignorance; and the conversation took a more general turn. I +thanked my friend from my heart, but I did not speak. I saw plainly +that he was surprised, but he never attempted to draw my secret from +me; and although I loved him with a mixture of affection and reverence +that knew no bounds, yet I could never persuade myself to confide in +him that event which was so often present to my recollection, but which +I feared the detail to another would only impress more deeply. + +M. Krempe was not equally docile; and in my condition at that time, of +almost insupportable sensitiveness, his harsh blunt encomiums gave me +even more pain than the benevolent approbation of M. Waldman. "D--n +the fellow!" cried he; "why, M. Clerval, I assure you he has outstript +us all. Ay, stare if you please; but it is nevertheless true. A +youngster who, but a few years ago, believed in Cornelius Agrippa as +firmly as in the gospel, has now set himself at the head of the +university; and if he is not soon pulled down, we shall all be out of +countenance.--Ay, ay," continued he, observing my face expressive of +suffering, "M. Frankenstein is modest; an excellent quality in a young +man. Young men should be diffident of themselves, you know, M. +Clerval: I was myself when young; but that wears out in a very short +time." + +M. Krempe had now commenced an eulogy on himself, which happily turned +the conversation from a subject that was so annoying to me. + +Clerval had never sympathized in my tastes for natural science; and his +literary pursuits differed wholly from those which had occupied me. He +came to the university with the design of making himself complete +master of the oriental languages, and thus he should open a field for +the plan of life he had marked out for himself. Resolved to pursue no +inglorious career, he turned his eyes toward the East, as affording +scope for his spirit of enterprise. The Persian, Arabic, and Sanskrit +languages engaged his attention, and I was easily induced to enter on +the same studies. Idleness had ever been irksome to me, and now that I +wished to fly from reflection, and hated my former studies, I felt +great relief in being the fellow-pupil with my friend, and found not +only instruction but consolation in the works of the orientalists. I +did not, like him, attempt a critical knowledge of their dialects, for +I did not contemplate making any other use of them than temporary +amusement. I read merely to understand their meaning, and they well +repaid my labours. Their melancholy is soothing, and their joy +elevating, to a degree I never experienced in studying the authors of +any other country. When you read their writings, life appears to +consist in a warm sun and a garden of roses,--in the smiles and frowns +of a fair enemy, and the fire that consumes your own heart. How +different from the manly and heroical poetry of Greece and Rome! + +Summer passed away in these occupations, and my return to Geneva was +fixed for the latter end of autumn; but being delayed by several +accidents, winter and snow arrived, the roads were deemed impassable, +and my journey was retarded until the ensuing spring. I felt this +delay very bitterly; for I longed to see my native town and my beloved +friends. My return had only been delayed so long, from an +unwillingness to leave Clerval in a strange place, before he had become +acquainted with any of its inhabitants. The winter, however, was spent +cheerfully; and although the spring was uncommonly late, when it came +its beauty compensated for its dilatoriness. + +The month of May had already commenced, and I expected the letter daily +which was to fix the date of my departure, when Henry proposed a +pedestrian tour in the environs of Ingolstadt, that I might bid a +personal farewell to the country I had so long inhabited. I acceded +with pleasure to this proposition: I was fond of exercise, and Clerval +had always been my favourite companion in the ramble of this nature +that I had taken among the scenes of my native country. + +We passed a fortnight in these perambulations: my health and spirits +had long been restored, and they gained additional strength from the +salubrious air I breathed, the natural incidents of our progress, and +the conversation of my friend. Study had before secluded me from the +intercourse of my fellow-creatures, and rendered me unsocial; but +Clerval called forth the better feelings of my heart; he again taught +me to love the aspect of nature, and the cheerful faces of children. +Excellent friend! how sincerely you did love me, and endeavour to +elevate my mind until it was on a level with your own. A selfish +pursuit had cramped and narrowed me, until your gentleness and +affection warmed and opened my senses; I became the same happy creature +who, a few years ago, loved and beloved by all, had no sorrow or care. +When happy, inanimate nature had the power of bestowing on me the most +delightful sensations. A serene sky and verdant fields filled me with +ecstasy. The present season was indeed divine; the flowers of spring +bloomed in the hedges, while those of summer were already in bud. I +was undisturbed by thoughts which during the preceding year had pressed +upon me, notwithstanding my endeavours to throw them off, with an +invincible burden. + +Henry rejoiced in my gaiety, and sincerely sympathised in my feelings: +he exerted himself to amuse me, while he expressed the sensations that +filled his soul. The resources of his mind on this occasion were truly +astonishing: his conversation was full of imagination; and very often, +in imitation of the Persian and Arabic writers, he invented tales of +wonderful fancy and passion. At other times he repeated my favourite +poems, or drew me out into arguments, which he supported with great +ingenuity. We returned to our college on a Sunday afternoon: the +peasants were dancing, and every one we met appeared gay and happy. My +own spirits were high, and I bounded along with feelings of unbridled +joy and hilarity. + + + +Chapter 7 + +On my return, I found the following letter from my father:-- + + +"My dear Victor, + +"You have probably waited impatiently for a letter to fix the date of +your return to us; and I was at first tempted to write only a few +lines, merely mentioning the day on which I should expect you. But +that would be a cruel kindness, and I dare not do it. What would be +your surprise, my son, when you expected a happy and glad welcome, to +behold, on the contrary, tears and wretchedness? And how, Victor, can +I relate our misfortune? Absence cannot have rendered you callous to +our joys and griefs; and how shall I inflict pain on my long absent +son? I wish to prepare you for the woeful news, but I know it is +impossible; even now your eye skims over the page to seek the words +which are to convey to you the horrible tidings. + +"William is dead!--that sweet child, whose smiles delighted and warmed +my heart, who was so gentle, yet so gay! Victor, he is murdered! + +"I will not attempt to console you; but will simply relate the +circumstances of the transaction. + +"Last Thursday (May 7th), I, my niece, and your two brothers, went to +walk in Plainpalais. The evening was warm and serene, and we prolonged +our walk farther than usual. It was already dusk before we thought of +returning; and then we discovered that William and Ernest, who had gone +on before, were not to be found. We accordingly rested on a seat until +they should return. Presently Ernest came, and enquired if we had seen +his brother; he said, that he had been playing with him, that William +had run away to hide himself, and that he vainly sought for him, and +afterwards waited for a long time, but that he did not return. + +"This account rather alarmed us, and we continued to search for him +until night fell, when Elizabeth conjectured that he might have +returned to the house. He was not there. We returned again, with +torches; for I could not rest, when I thought that my sweet boy had +lost himself, and was exposed to all the damps and dews of night; +Elizabeth also suffered extreme anguish. About five in the morning I +discovered my lovely boy, whom the night before I had seen blooming and +active in health, stretched on the grass livid and motionless; the +print of the murder's finger was on his neck. + +"He was conveyed home, and the anguish that was visible in my +countenance betrayed the secret to Elizabeth. She was very earnest to +see the corpse. At first I attempted to prevent her but she persisted, +and entering the room where it lay, hastily examined the neck of the +victim, and clasping her hands exclaimed, 'O God! I have murdered my +darling child!' + +"She fainted, and was restored with extreme difficulty. When she again +lived, it was only to weep and sigh. She told me, that that same +evening William had teased her to let him wear a very valuable +miniature that she possessed of your mother. This picture is gone, and +was doubtless the temptation which urged the murderer to the deed. We +have no trace of him at present, although our exertions to discover him +are unremitted; but they will not restore my beloved William! + +"Come, dearest Victor; you alone can console Elizabeth. She weeps +continually, and accuses herself unjustly as the cause of his death; +her words pierce my heart. We are all unhappy; but will not that be an +additional motive for you, my son, to return and be our comforter? +Your dear mother! Alas, Victor! I now say, Thank God she did not live +to witness the cruel, miserable death of her youngest darling! + +"Come, Victor; not brooding thoughts of vengeance against the assassin, +but with feelings of peace and gentleness, that will heal, instead of +festering, the wounds of our minds. Enter the house of mourning, my +friend, but with kindness and affection for those who love you, and not +with hatred for your enemies. + + "Your affectionate and afflicted father, + "Alphonse Frankenstein. + + + +"Geneva, May 12th, 17--." + +Clerval, who had watched my countenance as I read this letter, was +surprised to observe the despair that succeeded the joy I at first +expressed on receiving new from my friends. I threw the letter on the +table, and covered my face with my hands. + +"My dear Frankenstein," exclaimed Henry, when he perceived me weep with +bitterness, "are you always to be unhappy? My dear friend, what has +happened?" + +I motioned him to take up the letter, while I walked up and down the +room in the extremest agitation. Tears also gushed from the eyes of +Clerval, as he read the account of my misfortune. + +"I can offer you no consolation, my friend," said he; "your disaster is +irreparable. What do you intend to do?" + +"To go instantly to Geneva: come with me, Henry, to order the horses." + +During our walk, Clerval endeavoured to say a few words of consolation; +he could only express his heartfelt sympathy. "Poor William!" said he, +"dear lovely child, he now sleeps with his angel mother! Who that had +seen him bright and joyous in his young beauty, but must weep over his +untimely loss! To die so miserably; to feel the murderer's grasp! How +much more a murdered that could destroy radiant innocence! Poor little +fellow! one only consolation have we; his friends mourn and weep, but +he is at rest. The pang is over, his sufferings are at an end for ever. +A sod covers his gentle form, and he knows no pain. He can no longer +be a subject for pity; we must reserve that for his miserable +survivors." + +Clerval spoke thus as we hurried through the streets; the words +impressed themselves on my mind and I remembered them afterwards in +solitude. But now, as soon as the horses arrived, I hurried into a +cabriolet, and bade farewell to my friend. + +My journey was very melancholy. At first I wished to hurry on, for I +longed to console and sympathise with my loved and sorrowing friends; +but when I drew near my native town, I slackened my progress. I could +hardly sustain the multitude of feelings that crowded into my mind. I +passed through scenes familiar to my youth, but which I had not seen +for nearly six years. How altered every thing might be during that +time! One sudden and desolating change had taken place; but a thousand +little circumstances might have by degrees worked other alterations, +which, although they were done more tranquilly, might not be the less +decisive. Fear overcame me; I dared no advance, dreading a thousand +nameless evils that made me tremble, although I was unable to define +them. I remained two days at Lausanne, in this painful state of mind. +I contemplated the lake: the waters were placid; all around was calm; +and the snowy mountains, 'the palaces of nature,' were not changed. By +degrees the calm and heavenly scene restored me, and I continued my +journey towards Geneva. + +The road ran by the side of the lake, which became narrower as I +approached my native town. I discovered more distinctly the black +sides of Jura, and the bright summit of Mont Blanc. I wept like a +child. "Dear mountains! my own beautiful lake! how do you welcome your +wanderer? Your summits are clear; the sky and lake are blue and +placid. Is this to prognosticate peace, or to mock at my unhappiness?" + +I fear, my friend, that I shall render myself tedious by dwelling on +these preliminary circumstances; but they were days of comparative +happiness, and I think of them with pleasure. My country, my beloved +country! who but a native can tell the delight I took in again +beholding thy streams, thy mountains, and, more than all, thy lovely +lake! + +Yet, as I drew nearer home, grief and fear again overcame me. Night +also closed around; and when I could hardly see the dark mountains, I +felt still more gloomily. The picture appeared a vast and dim scene of +evil, and I foresaw obscurely that I was destined to become the most +wretched of human beings. Alas! I prophesied truly, and failed only +in one single circumstance, that in all the misery I imagined and +dreaded, I did not conceive the hundredth part of the anguish I was +destined to endure. It was completely dark when I arrived in the +environs of Geneva; the gates of the town were already shut; and I was +obliged to pass the night at Secheron, a village at the distance of +half a league from the city. The sky was serene; and, as I was unable +to rest, I resolved to visit the spot where my poor William had been +murdered. As I could not pass through the town, I was obliged to cross +the lake in a boat to arrive at Plainpalais. During this short voyage +I saw the lightning playing on the summit of Mont Blanc in the most +beautiful figures. The storm appeared to approach rapidly, and, on +landing, I ascended a low hill, that I might observe its progress. It +advanced; the heavens were clouded, and I soon felt the rain coming +slowly in large drops, but its violence quickly increased. + +I quitted my seat, and walked on, although the darkness and storm +increased every minute, and the thunder burst with a terrific crash +over my head. It was echoed from Saleve, the Juras, and the Alps of +Savoy; vivid flashes of lightning dazzled my eyes, illuminating the +lake, making it appear like a vast sheet of fire; then for an instant +every thing seemed of a pitchy darkness, until the eye recovered itself +from the preceding flash. The storm, as is often the case in +Switzerland, appeared at once in various parts of the heavens. The +most violent storm hung exactly north of the town, over the part of the +lake which lies between the promontory of Belrive and the village of +Copet. Another storm enlightened Jura with faint flashes; and another +darkened and sometimes disclosed the Mole, a peaked mountain to the +east of the lake. + +While I watched the tempest, so beautiful yet terrific, I wandered on +with a hasty step. This noble war in the sky elevated my spirits; I +clasped my hands, and exclaimed aloud, "William, dear angel! this is +thy funeral, this thy dirge!" As I said these words, I perceived in the +gloom a figure which stole from behind a clump of trees near me; I +stood fixed, gazing intently: I could not be mistaken. A flash of +lightning illuminated the object, and discovered its shape plainly to +me; its gigantic stature, and the deformity of its aspect more hideous +than belongs to humanity, instantly informed me that it was the wretch, +the filthy daemon, to whom I had given life. What did he there? Could +he be (I shuddered at the conception) the murderer of my brother? No +sooner did that idea cross my imagination, than I became convinced of +its truth; my teeth chattered, and I was forced to lean against a tree +for support. The figure passed me quickly, and I lost it in the gloom. + +Nothing in human shape could have destroyed the fair child. HE was the +murderer! I could not doubt it. The mere presence of the idea was an +irresistible proof of the fact. I thought of pursuing the devil; but +it would have been in vain, for another flash discovered him to me +hanging among the rocks of the nearly perpendicular ascent of Mont +Saleve, a hill that bounds Plainpalais on the south. He soon reached +the summit, and disappeared. + +I remained motionless. The thunder ceased; but the rain still +continued, and the scene was enveloped in an impenetrable darkness. I +revolved in my mind the events which I had until now sought to forget: +the whole train of my progress toward the creation; the appearance of +the works of my own hands at my bedside; its departure. Two years had +now nearly elapsed since the night on which he first received life; and +was this his first crime? Alas! I had turned loose into the world a +depraved wretch, whose delight was in carnage and misery; had he not +murdered my brother? + +No one can conceive the anguish I suffered during the remainder of the +night, which I spent, cold and wet, in the open air. But I did not +feel the inconvenience of the weather; my imagination was busy in +scenes of evil and despair. I considered the being whom I had cast +among mankind, and endowed with the will and power to effect purposes +of horror, such as the deed which he had now done, nearly in the light +of my own vampire, my own spirit let loose from the grave, and forced +to destroy all that was dear to me. + +Day dawned; and I directed my steps towards the town. The gates were +open, and I hastened to my father's house. My first thought was to +discover what I knew of the murderer, and cause instant pursuit to be +made. But I paused when I reflected on the story that I had to tell. A +being whom I myself had formed, and endued with life, had met me at +midnight among the precipices of an inaccessible mountain. I +remembered also the nervous fever with which I had been seized just at +the time that I dated my creation, and which would give an air of +delirium to a tale otherwise so utterly improbable. I well knew that +if any other had communicated such a relation to me, I should have +looked upon it as the ravings of insanity. Besides, the strange nature +of the animal would elude all pursuit, even if I were so far credited +as to persuade my relatives to commence it. And then of what use would +be pursuit? Who could arrest a creature capable of scaling the +overhanging sides of Mont Saleve? These reflections determined me, and +I resolved to remain silent. + +It was about five in the morning when I entered my father's house. I +told the servants not to disturb the family, and went into the library +to attend their usual hour of rising. + +Six years had elapsed, passed in a dream but for one indelible trace, +and I stood in the same place where I had last embraced my father +before my departure for Ingolstadt. Beloved and venerable parent! He +still remained to me. I gazed on the picture of my mother, which stood +over the mantel-piece. It was an historical subject, painted at my +father's desire, and represented Caroline Beaufort in an agony of +despair, kneeling by the coffin of her dead father. Her garb was +rustic, and her cheek pale; but there was an air of dignity and beauty, +that hardly permitted the sentiment of pity. Below this picture was a +miniature of William; and my tears flowed when I looked upon it. While +I was thus engaged, Ernest entered: he had heard me arrive, and +hastened to welcome me: "Welcome, my dearest Victor," said he. "Ah! I +wish you had come three months ago, and then you would have found us +all joyous and delighted. You come to us now to share a misery which +nothing can alleviate; yet your presence will, I hope, revive our +father, who seems sinking under his misfortune; and your persuasions +will induce poor Elizabeth to cease her vain and tormenting +self-accusations.--Poor William! he was our darling and our pride!" + +Tears, unrestrained, fell from my brother's eyes; a sense of mortal +agony crept over my frame. Before, I had only imagined the +wretchedness of my desolated home; the reality came on me as a new, and +a not less terrible, disaster. I tried to calm Ernest; I enquired more +minutely concerning my father, and here I named my cousin. + +"She most of all," said Ernest, "requires consolation; she accused +herself of having caused the death of my brother, and that made her +very wretched. But since the murderer has been discovered--" + +"The murderer discovered! Good God! how can that be? who could attempt +to pursue him? It is impossible; one might as well try to overtake the +winds, or confine a mountain-stream with a straw. I saw him too; he +was free last night!" + +"I do not know what you mean," replied my brother, in accents of +wonder, "but to us the discovery we have made completes our misery. No +one would believe it at first; and even now Elizabeth will not be +convinced, notwithstanding all the evidence. Indeed, who would credit +that Justine Moritz, who was so amiable, and fond of all the family, +could suddenly become so capable of so frightful, so appalling a crime?" + +"Justine Moritz! Poor, poor girl, is she the accused? But it is +wrongfully; every one knows that; no one believes it, surely, Ernest?" + +"No one did at first; but several circumstances came out, that have +almost forced conviction upon us; and her own behaviour has been so +confused, as to add to the evidence of facts a weight that, I fear, +leaves no hope for doubt. But she will be tried today, and you will +then hear all." + +He then related that, the morning on which the murder of poor William +had been discovered, Justine had been taken ill, and confined to her +bed for several days. During this interval, one of the servants, +happening to examine the apparel she had worn on the night of the +murder, had discovered in her pocket the picture of my mother, which +had been judged to be the temptation of the murderer. The servant +instantly showed it to one of the others, who, without saying a word to +any of the family, went to a magistrate; and, upon their deposition, +Justine was apprehended. On being charged with the fact, the poor girl +confirmed the suspicion in a great measure by her extreme confusion of +manner. + +This was a strange tale, but it did not shake my faith; and I replied +earnestly, "You are all mistaken; I know the murderer. Justine, poor, +good Justine, is innocent." + +At that instant my father entered. I saw unhappiness deeply impressed +on his countenance, but he endeavoured to welcome me cheerfully; and, +after we had exchanged our mournful greeting, would have introduced +some other topic than that of our disaster, had not Ernest exclaimed, +"Good God, papa! Victor says that he knows who was the murderer of +poor William." + +"We do also, unfortunately," replied my father, "for indeed I had +rather have been for ever ignorant than have discovered so much +depravity and ungratitude in one I valued so highly." + +"My dear father, you are mistaken; Justine is innocent." + +"If she is, God forbid that she should suffer as guilty. She is to be +tried today, and I hope, I sincerely hope, that she will be acquitted." + +This speech calmed me. I was firmly convinced in my own mind that +Justine, and indeed every human being, was guiltless of this murder. I +had no fear, therefore, that any circumstantial evidence could be +brought forward strong enough to convict her. My tale was not one to +announce publicly; its astounding horror would be looked upon as +madness by the vulgar. Did any one indeed exist, except I, the +creator, who would believe, unless his senses convinced him, in the +existence of the living monument of presumption and rash ignorance +which I had let loose upon the world? + +We were soon joined by Elizabeth. Time had altered her since I last +beheld her; it had endowed her with loveliness surpassing the beauty of +her childish years. There was the same candour, the same vivacity, but +it was allied to an expression more full of sensibility and intellect. +She welcomed me with the greatest affection. "Your arrival, my dear +cousin," said she, "fills me with hope. You perhaps will find some +means to justify my poor guiltless Justine. Alas! who is safe, if she +be convicted of crime? I rely on her innocence as certainly as I do +upon my own. Our misfortune is doubly hard to us; we have not only +lost that lovely darling boy, but this poor girl, whom I sincerely +love, is to be torn away by even a worse fate. If she is condemned, I +never shall know joy more. But she will not, I am sure she will not; +and then I shall be happy again, even after the sad death of my little +William." + +"She is innocent, my Elizabeth," said I, "and that shall be proved; +fear nothing, but let your spirits be cheered by the assurance of her +acquittal." + +"How kind and generous you are! every one else believes in her guilt, +and that made me wretched, for I knew that it was impossible: and to +see every one else prejudiced in so deadly a manner rendered me +hopeless and despairing." She wept. + +"Dearest niece," said my father, "dry your tears. If she is, as you +believe, innocent, rely on the justice of our laws, and the activity +with which I shall prevent the slightest shadow of partiality." + + + +Chapter 8 + +We passed a few sad hours until eleven o'clock, when the trial was to +commence. My father and the rest of the family being obliged to attend +as witnesses, I accompanied them to the court. During the whole of +this wretched mockery of justice I suffered living torture. It was to +be decided whether the result of my curiosity and lawless devices would +cause the death of two of my fellow beings: one a smiling babe full of +innocence and joy, the other far more dreadfully murdered, with every +aggravation of infamy that could make the murder memorable in horror. +Justine also was a girl of merit and possessed qualities which promised +to render her life happy; now all was to be obliterated in an +ignominious grave, and I the cause! A thousand times rather would I +have confessed myself guilty of the crime ascribed to Justine, but I +was absent when it was committed, and such a declaration would have +been considered as the ravings of a madman and would not have +exculpated her who suffered through me. + +The appearance of Justine was calm. She was dressed in mourning, and +her countenance, always engaging, was rendered, by the solemnity of her +feelings, exquisitely beautiful. Yet she appeared confident in +innocence and did not tremble, although gazed on and execrated by +thousands, for all the kindness which her beauty might otherwise have +excited was obliterated in the minds of the spectators by the +imagination of the enormity she was supposed to have committed. She +was tranquil, yet her tranquillity was evidently constrained; and as +her confusion had before been adduced as a proof of her guilt, she +worked up her mind to an appearance of courage. When she entered the +court she threw her eyes round it and quickly discovered where we were +seated. A tear seemed to dim her eye when she saw us, but she quickly +recovered herself, and a look of sorrowful affection seemed to attest +her utter guiltlessness. + +The trial began, and after the advocate against her had stated the +charge, several witnesses were called. Several strange facts combined +against her, which might have staggered anyone who had not such proof +of her innocence as I had. She had been out the whole of the night on +which the murder had been committed and towards morning had been +perceived by a market-woman not far from the spot where the body of the +murdered child had been afterwards found. The woman asked her what she +did there, but she looked very strangely and only returned a confused +and unintelligible answer. She returned to the house about eight +o'clock, and when one inquired where she had passed the night, she +replied that she had been looking for the child and demanded earnestly +if anything had been heard concerning him. When shown the body, she +fell into violent hysterics and kept her bed for several days. The +picture was then produced which the servant had found in her pocket; +and when Elizabeth, in a faltering voice, proved that it was the same +which, an hour before the child had been missed, she had placed round +his neck, a murmur of horror and indignation filled the court. + +Justine was called on for her defence. As the trial had proceeded, her +countenance had altered. Surprise, horror, and misery were strongly +expressed. Sometimes she struggled with her tears, but when she was +desired to plead, she collected her powers and spoke in an audible +although variable voice. + +"God knows," she said, "how entirely I am innocent. But I do not +pretend that my protestations should acquit me; I rest my innocence on +a plain and simple explanation of the facts which have been adduced +against me, and I hope the character I have always borne will incline +my judges to a favourable interpretation where any circumstance appears +doubtful or suspicious." + +She then related that, by the permission of Elizabeth, she had passed +the evening of the night on which the murder had been committed at the +house of an aunt at Chene, a village situated at about a league from +Geneva. On her return, at about nine o'clock, she met a man who asked +her if she had seen anything of the child who was lost. She was +alarmed by this account and passed several hours in looking for him, +when the gates of Geneva were shut, and she was forced to remain +several hours of the night in a barn belonging to a cottage, being +unwilling to call up the inhabitants, to whom she was well known. Most +of the night she spent here watching; towards morning she believed that +she slept for a few minutes; some steps disturbed her, and she awoke. +It was dawn, and she quitted her asylum, that she might again endeavour +to find my brother. If she had gone near the spot where his body lay, +it was without her knowledge. That she had been bewildered when +questioned by the market-woman was not surprising, since she had passed +a sleepless night and the fate of poor William was yet uncertain. +Concerning the picture she could give no account. + +"I know," continued the unhappy victim, "how heavily and fatally this +one circumstance weighs against me, but I have no power of explaining +it; and when I have expressed my utter ignorance, I am only left to +conjecture concerning the probabilities by which it might have been +placed in my pocket. But here also I am checked. I believe that I +have no enemy on earth, and none surely would have been so wicked as to +destroy me wantonly. Did the murderer place it there? I know of no +opportunity afforded him for so doing; or, if I had, why should he have +stolen the jewel, to part with it again so soon? + +"I commit my cause to the justice of my judges, yet I see no room for +hope. I beg permission to have a few witnesses examined concerning my +character, and if their testimony shall not overweigh my supposed +guilt, I must be condemned, although I would pledge my salvation on my +innocence." + +Several witnesses were called who had known her for many years, and +they spoke well of her; but fear and hatred of the crime of which they +supposed her guilty rendered them timorous and unwilling to come +forward. Elizabeth saw even this last resource, her excellent +dispositions and irreproachable conduct, about to fail the accused, +when, although violently agitated, she desired permission to address +the court. + +"I am," said she, "the cousin of the unhappy child who was murdered, or +rather his sister, for I was educated by and have lived with his +parents ever since and even long before his birth. It may therefore be +judged indecent in me to come forward on this occasion, but when I see +a fellow creature about to perish through the cowardice of her +pretended friends, I wish to be allowed to speak, that I may say what I +know of her character. I am well acquainted with the accused. I have +lived in the same house with her, at one time for five and at another +for nearly two years. During all that period she appeared to me the +most amiable and benevolent of human creatures. She nursed Madame +Frankenstein, my aunt, in her last illness, with the greatest affection +and care and afterwards attended her own mother during a tedious +illness, in a manner that excited the admiration of all who knew her, +after which she again lived in my uncle's house, where she was beloved +by all the family. She was warmly attached to the child who is now +dead and acted towards him like a most affectionate mother. For my own +part, I do not hesitate to say that, notwithstanding all the evidence +produced against her, I believe and rely on her perfect innocence. She +had no temptation for such an action; as to the bauble on which the +chief proof rests, if she had earnestly desired it, I should have +willingly given it to her, so much do I esteem and value her." + +A murmur of approbation followed Elizabeth's simple and powerful +appeal, but it was excited by her generous interference, and not in +favour of poor Justine, on whom the public indignation was turned with +renewed violence, charging her with the blackest ingratitude. She +herself wept as Elizabeth spoke, but she did not answer. My own +agitation and anguish was extreme during the whole trial. I believed +in her innocence; I knew it. Could the demon who had (I did not for a +minute doubt) murdered my brother also in his hellish sport have +betrayed the innocent to death and ignominy? I could not sustain the +horror of my situation, and when I perceived that the popular voice and +the countenances of the judges had already condemned my unhappy victim, +I rushed out of the court in agony. The tortures of the accused did +not equal mine; she was sustained by innocence, but the fangs of +remorse tore my bosom and would not forgo their hold. + +I passed a night of unmingled wretchedness. In the morning I went to +the court; my lips and throat were parched. I dared not ask the fatal +question, but I was known, and the officer guessed the cause of my +visit. The ballots had been thrown; they were all black, and Justine +was condemned. + +I cannot pretend to describe what I then felt. I had before +experienced sensations of horror, and I have endeavoured to bestow upon +them adequate expressions, but words cannot convey an idea of the +heart-sickening despair that I then endured. The person to whom I +addressed myself added that Justine had already confessed her guilt. +"That evidence," he observed, "was hardly required in so glaring a +case, but I am glad of it, and, indeed, none of our judges like to +condemn a criminal upon circumstantial evidence, be it ever so +decisive." + +This was strange and unexpected intelligence; what could it mean? Had +my eyes deceived me? And was I really as mad as the whole world would +believe me to be if I disclosed the object of my suspicions? I +hastened to return home, and Elizabeth eagerly demanded the result. + +"My cousin," replied I, "it is decided as you may have expected; all +judges had rather that ten innocent should suffer than that one guilty +should escape. But she has confessed." + +This was a dire blow to poor Elizabeth, who had relied with firmness +upon Justine's innocence. "Alas!" said she. "How shall I ever again +believe in human goodness? Justine, whom I loved and esteemed as my +sister, how could she put on those smiles of innocence only to betray? +Her mild eyes seemed incapable of any severity or guile, and yet she +has committed a murder." + +Soon after we heard that the poor victim had expressed a desire to see +my cousin. My father wished her not to go but said that he left it to +her own judgment and feelings to decide. "Yes," said Elizabeth, "I +will go, although she is guilty; and you, Victor, shall accompany me; I +cannot go alone." The idea of this visit was torture to me, yet I +could not refuse. We entered the gloomy prison chamber and beheld +Justine sitting on some straw at the farther end; her hands were +manacled, and her head rested on her knees. She rose on seeing us +enter, and when we were left alone with her, she threw herself at the +feet of Elizabeth, weeping bitterly. My cousin wept also. + +"Oh, Justine!" said she. "Why did you rob me of my last consolation? +I relied on your innocence, and although I was then very wretched, I +was not so miserable as I am now." + +"And do you also believe that I am so very, very wicked? Do you also +join with my enemies to crush me, to condemn me as a murderer?" Her +voice was suffocated with sobs. + +"Rise, my poor girl," said Elizabeth; "why do you kneel, if you are +innocent? I am not one of your enemies, I believed you guiltless, +notwithstanding every evidence, until I heard that you had yourself +declared your guilt. That report, you say, is false; and be assured, +dear Justine, that nothing can shake my confidence in you for a moment, +but your own confession." + +"I did confess, but I confessed a lie. I confessed, that I might +obtain absolution; but now that falsehood lies heavier at my heart than +all my other sins. The God of heaven forgive me! Ever since I was +condemned, my confessor has besieged me; he threatened and menaced, +until I almost began to think that I was the monster that he said I +was. He threatened excommunication and hell fire in my last moments if +I continued obdurate. Dear lady, I had none to support me; all looked +on me as a wretch doomed to ignominy and perdition. What could I do? +In an evil hour I subscribed to a lie; and now only am I truly +miserable." + +She paused, weeping, and then continued, "I thought with horror, my +sweet lady, that you should believe your Justine, whom your blessed +aunt had so highly honoured, and whom you loved, was a creature capable +of a crime which none but the devil himself could have perpetrated. +Dear William! dearest blessed child! I soon shall see you again in +heaven, where we shall all be happy; and that consoles me, going as I +am to suffer ignominy and death." + +"Oh, Justine! Forgive me for having for one moment distrusted you. +Why did you confess? But do not mourn, dear girl. Do not fear. I +will proclaim, I will prove your innocence. I will melt the stony +hearts of your enemies by my tears and prayers. You shall not die! +You, my playfellow, my companion, my sister, perish on the scaffold! +No! No! I never could survive so horrible a misfortune." + +Justine shook her head mournfully. "I do not fear to die," she said; +"that pang is past. God raises my weakness and gives me courage to +endure the worst. I leave a sad and bitter world; and if you remember +me and think of me as of one unjustly condemned, I am resigned to the +fate awaiting me. Learn from me, dear lady, to submit in patience to +the will of heaven!" + +During this conversation I had retired to a corner of the prison room, +where I could conceal the horrid anguish that possessed me. Despair! +Who dared talk of that? The poor victim, who on the morrow was to pass +the awful boundary between life and death, felt not, as I did, such +deep and bitter agony. I gnashed my teeth and ground them together, +uttering a groan that came from my inmost soul. Justine started. When +she saw who it was, she approached me and said, "Dear sir, you are very +kind to visit me; you, I hope, do not believe that I am guilty?" + +I could not answer. "No, Justine," said Elizabeth; "he is more +convinced of your innocence than I was, for even when he heard that you +had confessed, he did not credit it." + +"I truly thank him. In these last moments I feel the sincerest +gratitude towards those who think of me with kindness. How sweet is +the affection of others to such a wretch as I am! It removes more than +half my misfortune, and I feel as if I could die in peace now that my +innocence is acknowledged by you, dear lady, and your cousin." + +Thus the poor sufferer tried to comfort others and herself. She indeed +gained the resignation she desired. But I, the true murderer, felt the +never-dying worm alive in my bosom, which allowed of no hope or +consolation. Elizabeth also wept and was unhappy, but hers also was +the misery of innocence, which, like a cloud that passes over the fair +moon, for a while hides but cannot tarnish its brightness. Anguish and +despair had penetrated into the core of my heart; I bore a hell within +me which nothing could extinguish. We stayed several hours with +Justine, and it was with great difficulty that Elizabeth could tear +herself away. "I wish," cried she, "that I were to die with you; I +cannot live in this world of misery." + +Justine assumed an air of cheerfulness, while she with difficulty +repressed her bitter tears. She embraced Elizabeth and said in a voice +of half-suppressed emotion, "Farewell, sweet lady, dearest Elizabeth, +my beloved and only friend; may heaven, in its bounty, bless and +preserve you; may this be the last misfortune that you will ever +suffer! Live, and be happy, and make others so." + +And on the morrow Justine died. Elizabeth's heart-rending eloquence +failed to move the judges from their settled conviction in the +criminality of the saintly sufferer. My passionate and indignant +appeals were lost upon them. And when I received their cold answers +and heard the harsh, unfeeling reasoning of these men, my purposed +avowal died away on my lips. Thus I might proclaim myself a madman, +but not revoke the sentence passed upon my wretched victim. She +perished on the scaffold as a murderess! + +From the tortures of my own heart, I turned to contemplate the deep and +voiceless grief of my Elizabeth. This also was my doing! And my +father's woe, and the desolation of that late so smiling home all was +the work of my thrice-accursed hands! Ye weep, unhappy ones, but these +are not your last tears! Again shall you raise the funeral wail, and +the sound of your lamentations shall again and again be heard! +Frankenstein, your son, your kinsman, your early, much-loved friend; he +who would spend each vital drop of blood for your sakes, who has no +thought nor sense of joy except as it is mirrored also in your dear +countenances, who would fill the air with blessings and spend his life +in serving you--he bids you weep, to shed countless tears; happy beyond +his hopes, if thus inexorable fate be satisfied, and if the destruction +pause before the peace of the grave have succeeded to your sad torments! + +Thus spoke my prophetic soul, as, torn by remorse, horror, and despair, +I beheld those I loved spend vain sorrow upon the graves of William and +Justine, the first hapless victims to my unhallowed arts. + + + +Chapter 9 + +Nothing is more painful to the human mind than, after the feelings have +been worked up by a quick succession of events, the dead calmness of +inaction and certainty which follows and deprives the soul both of hope +and fear. Justine died, she rested, and I was alive. The blood flowed +freely in my veins, but a weight of despair and remorse pressed on my +heart which nothing could remove. Sleep fled from my eyes; I wandered +like an evil spirit, for I had committed deeds of mischief beyond +description horrible, and more, much more (I persuaded myself) was yet +behind. Yet my heart overflowed with kindness and the love of virtue. +I had begun life with benevolent intentions and thirsted for the moment +when I should put them in practice and make myself useful to my fellow +beings. Now all was blasted; instead of that serenity of conscience +which allowed me to look back upon the past with self-satisfaction, and +from thence to gather promise of new hopes, I was seized by remorse and +the sense of guilt, which hurried me away to a hell of intense tortures +such as no language can describe. + +This state of mind preyed upon my health, which had perhaps never +entirely recovered from the first shock it had sustained. I shunned +the face of man; all sound of joy or complacency was torture to me; +solitude was my only consolation--deep, dark, deathlike solitude. + +My father observed with pain the alteration perceptible in my +disposition and habits and endeavoured by arguments deduced from the +feelings of his serene conscience and guiltless life to inspire me with +fortitude and awaken in me the courage to dispel the dark cloud which +brooded over me. "Do you think, Victor," said he, "that I do not +suffer also? No one could love a child more than I loved your +brother"--tears came into his eyes as he spoke--"but is it not a duty +to the survivors that we should refrain from augmenting their +unhappiness by an appearance of immoderate grief? It is also a duty +owed to yourself, for excessive sorrow prevents improvement or +enjoyment, or even the discharge of daily usefulness, without which no +man is fit for society." + +This advice, although good, was totally inapplicable to my case; I +should have been the first to hide my grief and console my friends if +remorse had not mingled its bitterness, and terror its alarm, with my +other sensations. Now I could only answer my father with a look of +despair and endeavour to hide myself from his view. + +About this time we retired to our house at Belrive. This change was +particularly agreeable to me. The shutting of the gates regularly at +ten o'clock and the impossibility of remaining on the lake after that +hour had rendered our residence within the walls of Geneva very irksome +to me. I was now free. Often, after the rest of the family had +retired for the night, I took the boat and passed many hours upon the +water. Sometimes, with my sails set, I was carried by the wind; and +sometimes, after rowing into the middle of the lake, I left the boat to +pursue its own course and gave way to my own miserable reflections. I +was often tempted, when all was at peace around me, and I the only +unquiet thing that wandered restless in a scene so beautiful and +heavenly--if I except some bat, or the frogs, whose harsh and +interrupted croaking was heard only when I approached the shore--often, +I say, I was tempted to plunge into the silent lake, that the waters +might close over me and my calamities forever. But I was restrained, +when I thought of the heroic and suffering Elizabeth, whom I tenderly +loved, and whose existence was bound up in mine. I thought also of my +father and surviving brother; should I by my base desertion leave them +exposed and unprotected to the malice of the fiend whom I had let loose +among them? + +At these moments I wept bitterly and wished that peace would revisit my +mind only that I might afford them consolation and happiness. But that +could not be. Remorse extinguished every hope. I had been the author +of unalterable evils, and I lived in daily fear lest the monster whom I +had created should perpetrate some new wickedness. I had an obscure +feeling that all was not over and that he would still commit some +signal crime, which by its enormity should almost efface the +recollection of the past. There was always scope for fear so long as +anything I loved remained behind. My abhorrence of this fiend cannot +be conceived. When I thought of him I gnashed my teeth, my eyes became +inflamed, and I ardently wished to extinguish that life which I had so +thoughtlessly bestowed. When I reflected on his crimes and malice, my +hatred and revenge burst all bounds of moderation. I would have made a +pilgrimage to the highest peak of the Andes, could I when there have +precipitated him to their base. I wished to see him again, that I +might wreak the utmost extent of abhorrence on his head and avenge the +deaths of William and Justine. Our house was the house of mourning. My +father's health was deeply shaken by the horror of the recent events. +Elizabeth was sad and desponding; she no longer took delight in her +ordinary occupations; all pleasure seemed to her sacrilege toward the +dead; eternal woe and tears she then thought was the just tribute she +should pay to innocence so blasted and destroyed. She was no longer +that happy creature who in earlier youth wandered with me on the banks +of the lake and talked with ecstasy of our future prospects. The first +of those sorrows which are sent to wean us from the earth had visited +her, and its dimming influence quenched her dearest smiles. + +"When I reflect, my dear cousin," said she, "on the miserable death of +Justine Moritz, I no longer see the world and its works as they before +appeared to me. Before, I looked upon the accounts of vice and +injustice that I read in books or heard from others as tales of ancient +days or imaginary evils; at least they were remote and more familiar to +reason than to the imagination; but now misery has come home, and men +appear to me as monsters thirsting for each other's blood. Yet I am +certainly unjust. Everybody believed that poor girl to be guilty; and +if she could have committed the crime for which she suffered, assuredly +she would have been the most depraved of human creatures. For the sake +of a few jewels, to have murdered the son of her benefactor and friend, +a child whom she had nursed from its birth, and appeared to love as if +it had been her own! I could not consent to the death of any human +being, but certainly I should have thought such a creature unfit to +remain in the society of men. But she was innocent. I know, I feel +she was innocent; you are of the same opinion, and that confirms me. +Alas! Victor, when falsehood can look so like the truth, who can +assure themselves of certain happiness? I feel as if I were walking on +the edge of a precipice, towards which thousands are crowding and +endeavouring to plunge me into the abyss. William and Justine were +assassinated, and the murderer escapes; he walks about the world free, +and perhaps respected. But even if I were condemned to suffer on the +scaffold for the same crimes, I would not change places with such a +wretch." + +I listened to this discourse with the extremest agony. I, not in deed, +but in effect, was the true murderer. Elizabeth read my anguish in my +countenance, and kindly taking my hand, said, "My dearest friend, you +must calm yourself. These events have affected me, God knows how +deeply; but I am not so wretched as you are. There is an expression of +despair, and sometimes of revenge, in your countenance that makes me +tremble. Dear Victor, banish these dark passions. Remember the +friends around you, who centre all their hopes in you. Have we lost +the power of rendering you happy? Ah! While we love, while we are +true to each other, here in this land of peace and beauty, your native +country, we may reap every tranquil blessing--what can disturb our +peace?" + +And could not such words from her whom I fondly prized before every +other gift of fortune suffice to chase away the fiend that lurked in my +heart? Even as she spoke I drew near to her, as if in terror, lest at +that very moment the destroyer had been near to rob me of her. + +Thus not the tenderness of friendship, nor the beauty of earth, nor of +heaven, could redeem my soul from woe; the very accents of love were +ineffectual. I was encompassed by a cloud which no beneficial +influence could penetrate. The wounded deer dragging its fainting +limbs to some untrodden brake, there to gaze upon the arrow which had +pierced it, and to die, was but a type of me. + +Sometimes I could cope with the sullen despair that overwhelmed me, but +sometimes the whirlwind passions of my soul drove me to seek, by bodily +exercise and by change of place, some relief from my intolerable +sensations. It was during an access of this kind that I suddenly left +my home, and bending my steps towards the near Alpine valleys, sought +in the magnificence, the eternity of such scenes, to forget myself and +my ephemeral, because human, sorrows. My wanderings were directed +towards the valley of Chamounix. I had visited it frequently during my +boyhood. Six years had passed since then: _I_ was a wreck, but nought +had changed in those savage and enduring scenes. + +I performed the first part of my journey on horseback. I afterwards +hired a mule, as the more sure-footed and least liable to receive +injury on these rugged roads. The weather was fine; it was about the +middle of the month of August, nearly two months after the death of +Justine, that miserable epoch from which I dated all my woe. The +weight upon my spirit was sensibly lightened as I plunged yet deeper in +the ravine of Arve. The immense mountains and precipices that overhung +me on every side, the sound of the river raging among the rocks, and +the dashing of the waterfalls around spoke of a power mighty as +Omnipotence--and I ceased to fear or to bend before any being less +almighty than that which had created and ruled the elements, here +displayed in their most terrific guise. Still, as I ascended higher, +the valley assumed a more magnificent and astonishing character. +Ruined castles hanging on the precipices of piny mountains, the +impetuous Arve, and cottages every here and there peeping forth from +among the trees formed a scene of singular beauty. But it was +augmented and rendered sublime by the mighty Alps, whose white and +shining pyramids and domes towered above all, as belonging to another +earth, the habitations of another race of beings. + +I passed the bridge of Pelissier, where the ravine, which the river +forms, opened before me, and I began to ascend the mountain that +overhangs it. Soon after, I entered the valley of Chamounix. This +valley is more wonderful and sublime, but not so beautiful and +picturesque as that of Servox, through which I had just passed. The +high and snowy mountains were its immediate boundaries, but I saw no +more ruined castles and fertile fields. Immense glaciers approached +the road; I heard the rumbling thunder of the falling avalanche and +marked the smoke of its passage. Mont Blanc, the supreme and +magnificent Mont Blanc, raised itself from the surrounding aiguilles, +and its tremendous dome overlooked the valley. + +A tingling long-lost sense of pleasure often came across me during this +journey. Some turn in the road, some new object suddenly perceived and +recognized, reminded me of days gone by, and were associated with the +lighthearted gaiety of boyhood. The very winds whispered in soothing +accents, and maternal Nature bade me weep no more. Then again the +kindly influence ceased to act--I found myself fettered again to grief +and indulging in all the misery of reflection. Then I spurred on my +animal, striving so to forget the world, my fears, and more than all, +myself--or, in a more desperate fashion, I alighted and threw myself on +the grass, weighed down by horror and despair. + +At length I arrived at the village of Chamounix. Exhaustion succeeded +to the extreme fatigue both of body and of mind which I had endured. +For a short space of time I remained at the window watching the pallid +lightnings that played above Mont Blanc and listening to the rushing of +the Arve, which pursued its noisy way beneath. The same lulling sounds +acted as a lullaby to my too keen sensations; when I placed my head +upon my pillow, sleep crept over me; I felt it as it came and blessed +the giver of oblivion. + + + +Chapter 10 + +I spent the following day roaming through the valley. I stood beside +the sources of the Arveiron, which take their rise in a glacier, that +with slow pace is advancing down from the summit of the hills to +barricade the valley. The abrupt sides of vast mountains were before +me; the icy wall of the glacier overhung me; a few shattered pines were +scattered around; and the solemn silence of this glorious +presence-chamber of imperial nature was broken only by the brawling +waves or the fall of some vast fragment, the thunder sound of the +avalanche or the cracking, reverberated along the mountains, of the +accumulated ice, which, through the silent working of immutable laws, +was ever and anon rent and torn, as if it had been but a plaything in +their hands. These sublime and magnificent scenes afforded me the +greatest consolation that I was capable of receiving. They elevated me +from all littleness of feeling, and although they did not remove my +grief, they subdued and tranquillized it. In some degree, also, they +diverted my mind from the thoughts over which it had brooded for the +last month. I retired to rest at night; my slumbers, as it were, +waited on and ministered to by the assemblance of grand shapes which I +had contemplated during the day. They congregated round me; the +unstained snowy mountain-top, the glittering pinnacle, the pine woods, +and ragged bare ravine, the eagle, soaring amidst the clouds--they all +gathered round me and bade me be at peace. + +Where had they fled when the next morning I awoke? All of +soul-inspiriting fled with sleep, and dark melancholy clouded every +thought. The rain was pouring in torrents, and thick mists hid the +summits of the mountains, so that I even saw not the faces of those +mighty friends. Still I would penetrate their misty veil and seek them +in their cloudy retreats. What were rain and storm to me? My mule was +brought to the door, and I resolved to ascend to the summit of +Montanvert. I remembered the effect that the view of the tremendous +and ever-moving glacier had produced upon my mind when I first saw it. +It had then filled me with a sublime ecstasy that gave wings to the +soul and allowed it to soar from the obscure world to light and joy. +The sight of the awful and majestic in nature had indeed always the +effect of solemnizing my mind and causing me to forget the passing +cares of life. I determined to go without a guide, for I was well +acquainted with the path, and the presence of another would destroy the +solitary grandeur of the scene. + +The ascent is precipitous, but the path is cut into continual and short +windings, which enable you to surmount the perpendicularity of the +mountain. It is a scene terrifically desolate. In a thousand spots +the traces of the winter avalanche may be perceived, where trees lie +broken and strewed on the ground, some entirely destroyed, others bent, +leaning upon the jutting rocks of the mountain or transversely upon +other trees. The path, as you ascend higher, is intersected by ravines +of snow, down which stones continually roll from above; one of them is +particularly dangerous, as the slightest sound, such as even speaking +in a loud voice, produces a concussion of air sufficient to draw +destruction upon the head of the speaker. The pines are not tall or +luxuriant, but they are sombre and add an air of severity to the scene. +I looked on the valley beneath; vast mists were rising from the rivers +which ran through it and curling in thick wreaths around the opposite +mountains, whose summits were hid in the uniform clouds, while rain +poured from the dark sky and added to the melancholy impression I +received from the objects around me. Alas! Why does man boast of +sensibilities superior to those apparent in the brute; it only renders +them more necessary beings. If our impulses were confined to hunger, +thirst, and desire, we might be nearly free; but now we are moved by +every wind that blows and a chance word or scene that that word may +convey to us. + + + We rest; a dream has power to poison sleep. + We rise; one wand'ring thought pollutes the day. + We feel, conceive, or reason; laugh or weep, + Embrace fond woe, or cast our cares away; + It is the same: for, be it joy or sorrow, + The path of its departure still is free. + Man's yesterday may ne'er be like his morrow; + Nought may endure but mutability! + + +It was nearly noon when I arrived at the top of the ascent. For some +time I sat upon the rock that overlooks the sea of ice. A mist covered +both that and the surrounding mountains. Presently a breeze dissipated +the cloud, and I descended upon the glacier. The surface is very +uneven, rising like the waves of a troubled sea, descending low, and +interspersed by rifts that sink deep. The field of ice is almost a +league in width, but I spent nearly two hours in crossing it. The +opposite mountain is a bare perpendicular rock. From the side where I +now stood Montanvert was exactly opposite, at the distance of a league; +and above it rose Mont Blanc, in awful majesty. I remained in a recess +of the rock, gazing on this wonderful and stupendous scene. The sea, +or rather the vast river of ice, wound among its dependent mountains, +whose aerial summits hung over its recesses. Their icy and glittering +peaks shone in the sunlight over the clouds. My heart, which was +before sorrowful, now swelled with something like joy; I exclaimed, +"Wandering spirits, if indeed ye wander, and do not rest in your narrow +beds, allow me this faint happiness, or take me, as your companion, +away from the joys of life." + +As I said this I suddenly beheld the figure of a man, at some distance, +advancing towards me with superhuman speed. He bounded over the +crevices in the ice, among which I had walked with caution; his +stature, also, as he approached, seemed to exceed that of man. I was +troubled; a mist came over my eyes, and I felt a faintness seize me, +but I was quickly restored by the cold gale of the mountains. I +perceived, as the shape came nearer (sight tremendous and abhorred!) +that it was the wretch whom I had created. I trembled with rage and +horror, resolving to wait his approach and then close with him in +mortal combat. He approached; his countenance bespoke bitter anguish, +combined with disdain and malignity, while its unearthly ugliness +rendered it almost too horrible for human eyes. But I scarcely +observed this; rage and hatred had at first deprived me of utterance, +and I recovered only to overwhelm him with words expressive of furious +detestation and contempt. + +"Devil," I exclaimed, "do you dare approach me? And do not you fear +the fierce vengeance of my arm wreaked on your miserable head? Begone, +vile insect! Or rather, stay, that I may trample you to dust! And, +oh! That I could, with the extinction of your miserable existence, +restore those victims whom you have so diabolically murdered!" + +"I expected this reception," said the daemon. "All men hate the +wretched; how, then, must I be hated, who am miserable beyond all +living things! Yet you, my creator, detest and spurn me, thy creature, +to whom thou art bound by ties only dissoluble by the annihilation of +one of us. You purpose to kill me. How dare you sport thus with life? +Do your duty towards me, and I will do mine towards you and the rest of +mankind. If you will comply with my conditions, I will leave them and +you at peace; but if you refuse, I will glut the maw of death, until it +be satiated with the blood of your remaining friends." + +"Abhorred monster! Fiend that thou art! The tortures of hell are too +mild a vengeance for thy crimes. Wretched devil! You reproach me with +your creation, come on, then, that I may extinguish the spark which I +so negligently bestowed." + +My rage was without bounds; I sprang on him, impelled by all the +feelings which can arm one being against the existence of another. + +He easily eluded me and said, + +"Be calm! I entreat you to hear me before you give vent to your hatred +on my devoted head. Have I not suffered enough, that you seek to +increase my misery? Life, although it may only be an accumulation of +anguish, is dear to me, and I will defend it. Remember, thou hast made +me more powerful than thyself; my height is superior to thine, my +joints more supple. But I will not be tempted to set myself in +opposition to thee. I am thy creature, and I will be even mild and +docile to my natural lord and king if thou wilt also perform thy part, +the which thou owest me. Oh, Frankenstein, be not equitable to every +other and trample upon me alone, to whom thy justice, and even thy +clemency and affection, is most due. Remember that I am thy creature; +I ought to be thy Adam, but I am rather the fallen angel, whom thou +drivest from joy for no misdeed. Everywhere I see bliss, from which I +alone am irrevocably excluded. I was benevolent and good; misery made +me a fiend. Make me happy, and I shall again be virtuous." + +"Begone! I will not hear you. There can be no community between you +and me; we are enemies. Begone, or let us try our strength in a fight, +in which one must fall." + +"How can I move thee? Will no entreaties cause thee to turn a +favourable eye upon thy creature, who implores thy goodness and +compassion? Believe me, Frankenstein, I was benevolent; my soul glowed +with love and humanity; but am I not alone, miserably alone? You, my +creator, abhor me; what hope can I gather from your fellow creatures, +who owe me nothing? They spurn and hate me. The desert mountains and +dreary glaciers are my refuge. I have wandered here many days; the +caves of ice, which I only do not fear, are a dwelling to me, and the +only one which man does not grudge. These bleak skies I hail, for they +are kinder to me than your fellow beings. If the multitude of mankind +knew of my existence, they would do as you do, and arm themselves for +my destruction. Shall I not then hate them who abhor me? I will keep +no terms with my enemies. I am miserable, and they shall share my +wretchedness. Yet it is in your power to recompense me, and deliver +them from an evil which it only remains for you to make so great, that +not only you and your family, but thousands of others, shall be +swallowed up in the whirlwinds of its rage. Let your compassion be +moved, and do not disdain me. Listen to my tale; when you have heard +that, abandon or commiserate me, as you shall judge that I deserve. +But hear me. The guilty are allowed, by human laws, bloody as they +are, to speak in their own defence before they are condemned. Listen +to me, Frankenstein. You accuse me of murder, and yet you would, with +a satisfied conscience, destroy your own creature. Oh, praise the +eternal justice of man! Yet I ask you not to spare me; listen to me, +and then, if you can, and if you will, destroy the work of your hands." + +"Why do you call to my remembrance," I rejoined, "circumstances of +which I shudder to reflect, that I have been the miserable origin and +author? Cursed be the day, abhorred devil, in which you first saw +light! Cursed (although I curse myself) be the hands that formed you! +You have made me wretched beyond expression. You have left me no power +to consider whether I am just to you or not. Begone! Relieve me from +the sight of your detested form." + +"Thus I relieve thee, my creator," he said, and placed his hated hands +before my eyes, which I flung from me with violence; "thus I take from +thee a sight which you abhor. Still thou canst listen to me and grant +me thy compassion. By the virtues that I once possessed, I demand this +from you. Hear my tale; it is long and strange, and the temperature of +this place is not fitting to your fine sensations; come to the hut upon +the mountain. The sun is yet high in the heavens; before it descends +to hide itself behind your snowy precipices and illuminate another +world, you will have heard my story and can decide. On you it rests, +whether I quit forever the neighbourhood of man and lead a harmless +life, or become the scourge of your fellow creatures and the author of +your own speedy ruin." + +As he said this he led the way across the ice; I followed. My heart +was full, and I did not answer him, but as I proceeded, I weighed the +various arguments that he had used and determined at least to listen to +his tale. I was partly urged by curiosity, and compassion confirmed my +resolution. I had hitherto supposed him to be the murderer of my +brother, and I eagerly sought a confirmation or denial of this opinion. +For the first time, also, I felt what the duties of a creator towards +his creature were, and that I ought to render him happy before I +complained of his wickedness. These motives urged me to comply with +his demand. We crossed the ice, therefore, and ascended the opposite +rock. The air was cold, and the rain again began to descend; we +entered the hut, the fiend with an air of exultation, I with a heavy +heart and depressed spirits. But I consented to listen, and seating +myself by the fire which my odious companion had lighted, he thus began +his tale. + + + +Chapter 11 + +"It is with considerable difficulty that I remember the original era of +my being; all the events of that period appear confused and indistinct. +A strange multiplicity of sensations seized me, and I saw, felt, heard, +and smelt at the same time; and it was, indeed, a long time before I +learned to distinguish between the operations of my various senses. By +degrees, I remember, a stronger light pressed upon my nerves, so that I +was obliged to shut my eyes. Darkness then came over me and troubled +me, but hardly had I felt this when, by opening my eyes, as I now +suppose, the light poured in upon me again. I walked and, I believe, +descended, but I presently found a great alteration in my sensations. +Before, dark and opaque bodies had surrounded me, impervious to my +touch or sight; but I now found that I could wander on at liberty, with +no obstacles which I could not either surmount or avoid. The light +became more and more oppressive to me, and the heat wearying me as I +walked, I sought a place where I could receive shade. This was the +forest near Ingolstadt; and here I lay by the side of a brook resting +from my fatigue, until I felt tormented by hunger and thirst. This +roused me from my nearly dormant state, and I ate some berries which I +found hanging on the trees or lying on the ground. I slaked my thirst +at the brook, and then lying down, was overcome by sleep. + +"It was dark when I awoke; I felt cold also, and half frightened, as it +were, instinctively, finding myself so desolate. Before I had quitted +your apartment, on a sensation of cold, I had covered myself with some +clothes, but these were insufficient to secure me from the dews of +night. I was a poor, helpless, miserable wretch; I knew, and could +distinguish, nothing; but feeling pain invade me on all sides, I sat +down and wept. + +"Soon a gentle light stole over the heavens and gave me a sensation of +pleasure. I started up and beheld a radiant form rise from among the +trees. [The moon] I gazed with a kind of wonder. It moved slowly, +but it enlightened my path, and I again went out in search of berries. +I was still cold when under one of the trees I found a huge cloak, with +which I covered myself, and sat down upon the ground. No distinct +ideas occupied my mind; all was confused. I felt light, and hunger, +and thirst, and darkness; innumerable sounds rang in my ears, and on +all sides various scents saluted me; the only object that I could +distinguish was the bright moon, and I fixed my eyes on that with +pleasure. + +"Several changes of day and night passed, and the orb of night had +greatly lessened, when I began to distinguish my sensations from each +other. I gradually saw plainly the clear stream that supplied me with +drink and the trees that shaded me with their foliage. I was delighted +when I first discovered that a pleasant sound, which often saluted my +ears, proceeded from the throats of the little winged animals who had +often intercepted the light from my eyes. I began also to observe, +with greater accuracy, the forms that surrounded me and to perceive the +boundaries of the radiant roof of light which canopied me. Sometimes I +tried to imitate the pleasant songs of the birds but was unable. +Sometimes I wished to express my sensations in my own mode, but the +uncouth and inarticulate sounds which broke from me frightened me into +silence again. + +"The moon had disappeared from the night, and again, with a lessened +form, showed itself, while I still remained in the forest. My +sensations had by this time become distinct, and my mind received every +day additional ideas. My eyes became accustomed to the light and to +perceive objects in their right forms; I distinguished the insect from +the herb, and by degrees, one herb from another. I found that the +sparrow uttered none but harsh notes, whilst those of the blackbird and +thrush were sweet and enticing. + +"One day, when I was oppressed by cold, I found a fire which had been +left by some wandering beggars, and was overcome with delight at the +warmth I experienced from it. In my joy I thrust my hand into the live +embers, but quickly drew it out again with a cry of pain. How strange, +I thought, that the same cause should produce such opposite effects! I +examined the materials of the fire, and to my joy found it to be +composed of wood. I quickly collected some branches, but they were wet +and would not burn. I was pained at this and sat still watching the +operation of the fire. The wet wood which I had placed near the heat +dried and itself became inflamed. I reflected on this, and by touching +the various branches, I discovered the cause and busied myself in +collecting a great quantity of wood, that I might dry it and have a +plentiful supply of fire. When night came on and brought sleep with +it, I was in the greatest fear lest my fire should be extinguished. I +covered it carefully with dry wood and leaves and placed wet branches +upon it; and then, spreading my cloak, I lay on the ground and sank +into sleep. + +"It was morning when I awoke, and my first care was to visit the fire. +I uncovered it, and a gentle breeze quickly fanned it into a flame. I +observed this also and contrived a fan of branches, which roused the +embers when they were nearly extinguished. When night came again I +found, with pleasure, that the fire gave light as well as heat and that +the discovery of this element was useful to me in my food, for I found +some of the offals that the travellers had left had been roasted, and +tasted much more savoury than the berries I gathered from the trees. I +tried, therefore, to dress my food in the same manner, placing it on +the live embers. I found that the berries were spoiled by this +operation, and the nuts and roots much improved. + +"Food, however, became scarce, and I often spent the whole day +searching in vain for a few acorns to assuage the pangs of hunger. When +I found this, I resolved to quit the place that I had hitherto +inhabited, to seek for one where the few wants I experienced would be +more easily satisfied. In this emigration I exceedingly lamented the +loss of the fire which I had obtained through accident and knew not how +to reproduce it. I gave several hours to the serious consideration of +this difficulty, but I was obliged to relinquish all attempt to supply +it, and wrapping myself up in my cloak, I struck across the wood +towards the setting sun. I passed three days in these rambles and at +length discovered the open country. A great fall of snow had taken +place the night before, and the fields were of one uniform white; the +appearance was disconsolate, and I found my feet chilled by the cold +damp substance that covered the ground. + +"It was about seven in the morning, and I longed to obtain food and +shelter; at length I perceived a small hut, on a rising ground, which +had doubtless been built for the convenience of some shepherd. This +was a new sight to me, and I examined the structure with great +curiosity. Finding the door open, I entered. An old man sat in it, +near a fire, over which he was preparing his breakfast. He turned on +hearing a noise, and perceiving me, shrieked loudly, and quitting the +hut, ran across the fields with a speed of which his debilitated form +hardly appeared capable. His appearance, different from any I had ever +before seen, and his flight somewhat surprised me. But I was enchanted +by the appearance of the hut; here the snow and rain could not +penetrate; the ground was dry; and it presented to me then as exquisite +and divine a retreat as Pandemonium appeared to the demons of hell +after their sufferings in the lake of fire. I greedily devoured the +remnants of the shepherd's breakfast, which consisted of bread, cheese, +milk, and wine; the latter, however, I did not like. Then, overcome by +fatigue, I lay down among some straw and fell asleep. + +"It was noon when I awoke, and allured by the warmth of the sun, which +shone brightly on the white ground, I determined to recommence my +travels; and, depositing the remains of the peasant's breakfast in a +wallet I found, I proceeded across the fields for several hours, until +at sunset I arrived at a village. How miraculous did this appear! The +huts, the neater cottages, and stately houses engaged my admiration by +turns. The vegetables in the gardens, the milk and cheese that I saw +placed at the windows of some of the cottages, allured my appetite. One +of the best of these I entered, but I had hardly placed my foot within +the door before the children shrieked, and one of the women fainted. +The whole village was roused; some fled, some attacked me, until, +grievously bruised by stones and many other kinds of missile weapons, I +escaped to the open country and fearfully took refuge in a low hovel, +quite bare, and making a wretched appearance after the palaces I had +beheld in the village. This hovel however, joined a cottage of a neat +and pleasant appearance, but after my late dearly bought experience, I +dared not enter it. My place of refuge was constructed of wood, but so +low that I could with difficulty sit upright in it. No wood, however, +was placed on the earth, which formed the floor, but it was dry; and +although the wind entered it by innumerable chinks, I found it an +agreeable asylum from the snow and rain. + +"Here, then, I retreated and lay down happy to have found a shelter, +however miserable, from the inclemency of the season, and still more +from the barbarity of man. As soon as morning dawned I crept from my +kennel, that I might view the adjacent cottage and discover if I could +remain in the habitation I had found. It was situated against the back +of the cottage and surrounded on the sides which were exposed by a pig +sty and a clear pool of water. One part was open, and by that I had +crept in; but now I covered every crevice by which I might be perceived +with stones and wood, yet in such a manner that I might move them on +occasion to pass out; all the light I enjoyed came through the sty, and +that was sufficient for me. + +"Having thus arranged my dwelling and carpeted it with clean straw, I +retired, for I saw the figure of a man at a distance, and I remembered +too well my treatment the night before to trust myself in his power. I +had first, however, provided for my sustenance for that day by a loaf +of coarse bread, which I purloined, and a cup with which I could drink +more conveniently than from my hand of the pure water which flowed by +my retreat. The floor was a little raised, so that it was kept +perfectly dry, and by its vicinity to the chimney of the cottage it was +tolerably warm. + +"Being thus provided, I resolved to reside in this hovel until +something should occur which might alter my determination. It was +indeed a paradise compared to the bleak forest, my former residence, +the rain-dropping branches, and dank earth. I ate my breakfast with +pleasure and was about to remove a plank to procure myself a little +water when I heard a step, and looking through a small chink, I beheld +a young creature, with a pail on her head, passing before my hovel. The +girl was young and of gentle demeanour, unlike what I have since found +cottagers and farmhouse servants to be. Yet she was meanly dressed, a +coarse blue petticoat and a linen jacket being her only garb; her fair +hair was plaited but not adorned: she looked patient yet sad. I lost +sight of her, and in about a quarter of an hour she returned bearing +the pail, which was now partly filled with milk. As she walked along, +seemingly incommoded by the burden, a young man met her, whose +countenance expressed a deeper despondence. Uttering a few sounds with +an air of melancholy, he took the pail from her head and bore it to the +cottage himself. She followed, and they disappeared. Presently I saw +the young man again, with some tools in his hand, cross the field +behind the cottage; and the girl was also busied, sometimes in the +house and sometimes in the yard. + +"On examining my dwelling, I found that one of the windows of the +cottage had formerly occupied a part of it, but the panes had been +filled up with wood. In one of these was a small and almost +imperceptible chink through which the eye could just penetrate. +Through this crevice a small room was visible, whitewashed and clean +but very bare of furniture. In one corner, near a small fire, sat an +old man, leaning his head on his hands in a disconsolate attitude. The +young girl was occupied in arranging the cottage; but presently she +took something out of a drawer, which employed her hands, and she sat +down beside the old man, who, taking up an instrument, began to play +and to produce sounds sweeter than the voice of the thrush or the +nightingale. It was a lovely sight, even to me, poor wretch who had +never beheld aught beautiful before. The silver hair and benevolent +countenance of the aged cottager won my reverence, while the gentle +manners of the girl enticed my love. He played a sweet mournful air +which I perceived drew tears from the eyes of his amiable companion, of +which the old man took no notice, until she sobbed audibly; he then +pronounced a few sounds, and the fair creature, leaving her work, knelt +at his feet. He raised her and smiled with such kindness and affection +that I felt sensations of a peculiar and overpowering nature; they were +a mixture of pain and pleasure, such as I had never before experienced, +either from hunger or cold, warmth or food; and I withdrew from the +window, unable to bear these emotions. + +"Soon after this the young man returned, bearing on his shoulders a +load of wood. The girl met him at the door, helped to relieve him of +his burden, and taking some of the fuel into the cottage, placed it on +the fire; then she and the youth went apart into a nook of the cottage, +and he showed her a large loaf and a piece of cheese. She seemed +pleased and went into the garden for some roots and plants, which she +placed in water, and then upon the fire. She afterwards continued her +work, whilst the young man went into the garden and appeared busily +employed in digging and pulling up roots. After he had been employed +thus about an hour, the young woman joined him and they entered the +cottage together. + +"The old man had, in the meantime, been pensive, but on the appearance +of his companions he assumed a more cheerful air, and they sat down to +eat. The meal was quickly dispatched. The young woman was again +occupied in arranging the cottage, the old man walked before the +cottage in the sun for a few minutes, leaning on the arm of the youth. +Nothing could exceed in beauty the contrast between these two excellent +creatures. One was old, with silver hairs and a countenance beaming +with benevolence and love; the younger was slight and graceful in his +figure, and his features were moulded with the finest symmetry, yet his +eyes and attitude expressed the utmost sadness and despondency. The +old man returned to the cottage, and the youth, with tools different +from those he had used in the morning, directed his steps across the +fields. + +"Night quickly shut in, but to my extreme wonder, I found that the +cottagers had a means of prolonging light by the use of tapers, and was +delighted to find that the setting of the sun did not put an end to the +pleasure I experienced in watching my human neighbours. In the evening +the young girl and her companion were employed in various occupations +which I did not understand; and the old man again took up the +instrument which produced the divine sounds that had enchanted me in +the morning. So soon as he had finished, the youth began, not to play, +but to utter sounds that were monotonous, and neither resembling the +harmony of the old man's instrument nor the songs of the birds; I since +found that he read aloud, but at that time I knew nothing of the +science of words or letters. + +"The family, after having been thus occupied for a short time, +extinguished their lights and retired, as I conjectured, to rest." + + + +Chapter 12 + +"I lay on my straw, but I could not sleep. I thought of the +occurrences of the day. What chiefly struck me was the gentle manners +of these people, and I longed to join them, but dared not. I +remembered too well the treatment I had suffered the night before from +the barbarous villagers, and resolved, whatever course of conduct I +might hereafter think it right to pursue, that for the present I would +remain quietly in my hovel, watching and endeavouring to discover the +motives which influenced their actions. + +"The cottagers arose the next morning before the sun. The young woman +arranged the cottage and prepared the food, and the youth departed +after the first meal. + +"This day was passed in the same routine as that which preceded it. +The young man was constantly employed out of doors, and the girl in +various laborious occupations within. The old man, whom I soon +perceived to be blind, employed his leisure hours on his instrument or +in contemplation. Nothing could exceed the love and respect which the +younger cottagers exhibited towards their venerable companion. They +performed towards him every little office of affection and duty with +gentleness, and he rewarded them by his benevolent smiles. + +"They were not entirely happy. The young man and his companion often +went apart and appeared to weep. I saw no cause for their unhappiness, +but I was deeply affected by it. If such lovely creatures were +miserable, it was less strange that I, an imperfect and solitary being, +should be wretched. Yet why were these gentle beings unhappy? They +possessed a delightful house (for such it was in my eyes) and every +luxury; they had a fire to warm them when chill and delicious viands +when hungry; they were dressed in excellent clothes; and, still more, +they enjoyed one another's company and speech, interchanging each day +looks of affection and kindness. What did their tears imply? Did they +really express pain? I was at first unable to solve these questions, +but perpetual attention and time explained to me many appearances which +were at first enigmatic. + +"A considerable period elapsed before I discovered one of the causes of +the uneasiness of this amiable family: it was poverty, and they +suffered that evil in a very distressing degree. Their nourishment +consisted entirely of the vegetables of their garden and the milk of +one cow, which gave very little during the winter, when its masters +could scarcely procure food to support it. They often, I believe, +suffered the pangs of hunger very poignantly, especially the two +younger cottagers, for several times they placed food before the old +man when they reserved none for themselves. + +"This trait of kindness moved me sensibly. I had been accustomed, +during the night, to steal a part of their store for my own +consumption, but when I found that in doing this I inflicted pain on +the cottagers, I abstained and satisfied myself with berries, nuts, and +roots which I gathered from a neighbouring wood. + +"I discovered also another means through which I was enabled to assist +their labours. I found that the youth spent a great part of each day +in collecting wood for the family fire, and during the night I often +took his tools, the use of which I quickly discovered, and brought home +firing sufficient for the consumption of several days. + +"I remember, the first time that I did this, the young woman, when she +opened the door in the morning, appeared greatly astonished on seeing a +great pile of wood on the outside. She uttered some words in a loud +voice, and the youth joined her, who also expressed surprise. I +observed, with pleasure, that he did not go to the forest that day, but +spent it in repairing the cottage and cultivating the garden. + +"By degrees I made a discovery of still greater moment. I found that +these people possessed a method of communicating their experience and +feelings to one another by articulate sounds. I perceived that the +words they spoke sometimes produced pleasure or pain, smiles or +sadness, in the minds and countenances of the hearers. This was indeed +a godlike science, and I ardently desired to become acquainted with it. +But I was baffled in every attempt I made for this purpose. Their +pronunciation was quick, and the words they uttered, not having any +apparent connection with visible objects, I was unable to discover any +clue by which I could unravel the mystery of their reference. By great +application, however, and after having remained during the space of +several revolutions of the moon in my hovel, I discovered the names +that were given to some of the most familiar objects of discourse; I +learned and applied the words, 'fire,' 'milk,' 'bread,' and 'wood.' I +learned also the names of the cottagers themselves. The youth and his +companion had each of them several names, but the old man had only one, +which was 'father.' The girl was called 'sister' or 'Agatha,' and the +youth 'Felix,' 'brother,' or 'son.' I cannot describe the delight I +felt when I learned the ideas appropriated to each of these sounds and +was able to pronounce them. I distinguished several other words +without being able as yet to understand or apply them, such as 'good,' +'dearest,' 'unhappy.' + +"I spent the winter in this manner. The gentle manners and beauty of +the cottagers greatly endeared them to me; when they were unhappy, I +felt depressed; when they rejoiced, I sympathized in their joys. I saw +few human beings besides them, and if any other happened to enter the +cottage, their harsh manners and rude gait only enhanced to me the +superior accomplishments of my friends. The old man, I could perceive, +often endeavoured to encourage his children, as sometimes I found that +he called them, to cast off their melancholy. He would talk in a +cheerful accent, with an expression of goodness that bestowed pleasure +even upon me. Agatha listened with respect, her eyes sometimes filled +with tears, which she endeavoured to wipe away unperceived; but I +generally found that her countenance and tone were more cheerful after +having listened to the exhortations of her father. It was not thus +with Felix. He was always the saddest of the group, and even to my +unpractised senses, he appeared to have suffered more deeply than his +friends. But if his countenance was more sorrowful, his voice was more +cheerful than that of his sister, especially when he addressed the old +man. + +"I could mention innumerable instances which, although slight, marked +the dispositions of these amiable cottagers. In the midst of poverty +and want, Felix carried with pleasure to his sister the first little +white flower that peeped out from beneath the snowy ground. Early in +the morning, before she had risen, he cleared away the snow that +obstructed her path to the milk-house, drew water from the well, and +brought the wood from the outhouse, where, to his perpetual +astonishment, he found his store always replenished by an invisible +hand. In the day, I believe, he worked sometimes for a neighbouring +farmer, because he often went forth and did not return until dinner, +yet brought no wood with him. At other times he worked in the garden, +but as there was little to do in the frosty season, he read to the old +man and Agatha. + +"This reading had puzzled me extremely at first, but by degrees I +discovered that he uttered many of the same sounds when he read as when +he talked. I conjectured, therefore, that he found on the paper signs +for speech which he understood, and I ardently longed to comprehend +these also; but how was that possible when I did not even understand +the sounds for which they stood as signs? I improved, however, +sensibly in this science, but not sufficiently to follow up any kind of +conversation, although I applied my whole mind to the endeavour, for I +easily perceived that, although I eagerly longed to discover myself to +the cottagers, I ought not to make the attempt until I had first become +master of their language, which knowledge might enable me to make them +overlook the deformity of my figure, for with this also the contrast +perpetually presented to my eyes had made me acquainted. + +"I had admired the perfect forms of my cottagers--their grace, beauty, +and delicate complexions; but how was I terrified when I viewed myself +in a transparent pool! At first I started back, unable to believe that +it was indeed I who was reflected in the mirror; and when I became +fully convinced that I was in reality the monster that I am, I was +filled with the bitterest sensations of despondence and mortification. +Alas! I did not yet entirely know the fatal effects of this miserable +deformity. + +"As the sun became warmer and the light of day longer, the snow +vanished, and I beheld the bare trees and the black earth. From this +time Felix was more employed, and the heart-moving indications of +impending famine disappeared. Their food, as I afterwards found, was +coarse, but it was wholesome; and they procured a sufficiency of it. +Several new kinds of plants sprang up in the garden, which they +dressed; and these signs of comfort increased daily as the season +advanced. + +"The old man, leaning on his son, walked each day at noon, when it did +not rain, as I found it was called when the heavens poured forth its +waters. This frequently took place, but a high wind quickly dried the +earth, and the season became far more pleasant than it had been. + +"My mode of life in my hovel was uniform. During the morning I +attended the motions of the cottagers, and when they were dispersed in +various occupations, I slept; the remainder of the day was spent in +observing my friends. When they had retired to rest, if there was any +moon or the night was star-light, I went into the woods and collected +my own food and fuel for the cottage. When I returned, as often as it +was necessary, I cleared their path from the snow and performed those +offices that I had seen done by Felix. I afterwards found that these +labours, performed by an invisible hand, greatly astonished them; and +once or twice I heard them, on these occasions, utter the words 'good +spirit,' 'wonderful'; but I did not then understand the signification +of these terms. + +"My thoughts now became more active, and I longed to discover the +motives and feelings of these lovely creatures; I was inquisitive to +know why Felix appeared so miserable and Agatha so sad. I thought +(foolish wretch!) that it might be in my power to restore happiness to +these deserving people. When I slept or was absent, the forms of the +venerable blind father, the gentle Agatha, and the excellent Felix +flitted before me. I looked upon them as superior beings who would be +the arbiters of my future destiny. I formed in my imagination a +thousand pictures of presenting myself to them, and their reception of +me. I imagined that they would be disgusted, until, by my gentle +demeanour and conciliating words, I should first win their favour and +afterwards their love. + +"These thoughts exhilarated me and led me to apply with fresh ardour to +the acquiring the art of language. My organs were indeed harsh, but +supple; and although my voice was very unlike the soft music of their +tones, yet I pronounced such words as I understood with tolerable ease. +It was as the ass and the lap-dog; yet surely the gentle ass whose +intentions were affectionate, although his manners were rude, deserved +better treatment than blows and execration. + +"The pleasant showers and genial warmth of spring greatly altered the +aspect of the earth. Men who before this change seemed to have been +hid in caves dispersed themselves and were employed in various arts of +cultivation. The birds sang in more cheerful notes, and the leaves +began to bud forth on the trees. Happy, happy earth! Fit habitation +for gods, which, so short a time before, was bleak, damp, and +unwholesome. My spirits were elevated by the enchanting appearance of +nature; the past was blotted from my memory, the present was tranquil, +and the future gilded by bright rays of hope and anticipations of joy." + + + +Chapter 13 + +"I now hasten to the more moving part of my story. I shall relate +events that impressed me with feelings which, from what I had been, +have made me what I am. + +"Spring advanced rapidly; the weather became fine and the skies +cloudless. It surprised me that what before was desert and gloomy +should now bloom with the most beautiful flowers and verdure. My +senses were gratified and refreshed by a thousand scents of delight and +a thousand sights of beauty. + +"It was on one of these days, when my cottagers periodically rested +from labour--the old man played on his guitar, and the children +listened to him--that I observed the countenance of Felix was +melancholy beyond expression; he sighed frequently, and once his father +paused in his music, and I conjectured by his manner that he inquired +the cause of his son's sorrow. Felix replied in a cheerful accent, and +the old man was recommencing his music when someone tapped at the door. + +"It was a lady on horseback, accompanied by a country-man as a guide. +The lady was dressed in a dark suit and covered with a thick black +veil. Agatha asked a question, to which the stranger only replied by +pronouncing, in a sweet accent, the name of Felix. Her voice was +musical but unlike that of either of my friends. On hearing this word, +Felix came up hastily to the lady, who, when she saw him, threw up her +veil, and I beheld a countenance of angelic beauty and expression. Her +hair of a shining raven black, and curiously braided; her eyes were +dark, but gentle, although animated; her features of a regular +proportion, and her complexion wondrously fair, each cheek tinged with +a lovely pink. + +"Felix seemed ravished with delight when he saw her, every trait of +sorrow vanished from his face, and it instantly expressed a degree of +ecstatic joy, of which I could hardly have believed it capable; his +eyes sparkled, as his cheek flushed with pleasure; and at that moment I +thought him as beautiful as the stranger. She appeared affected by +different feelings; wiping a few tears from her lovely eyes, she held +out her hand to Felix, who kissed it rapturously and called her, as +well as I could distinguish, his sweet Arabian. She did not appear to +understand him, but smiled. He assisted her to dismount, and +dismissing her guide, conducted her into the cottage. Some +conversation took place between him and his father, and the young +stranger knelt at the old man's feet and would have kissed his hand, +but he raised her and embraced her affectionately. + +"I soon perceived that although the stranger uttered articulate sounds +and appeared to have a language of her own, she was neither understood +by nor herself understood the cottagers. They made many signs which I +did not comprehend, but I saw that her presence diffused gladness +through the cottage, dispelling their sorrow as the sun dissipates the +morning mists. Felix seemed peculiarly happy and with smiles of +delight welcomed his Arabian. Agatha, the ever-gentle Agatha, kissed +the hands of the lovely stranger, and pointing to her brother, made +signs which appeared to me to mean that he had been sorrowful until she +came. Some hours passed thus, while they, by their countenances, +expressed joy, the cause of which I did not comprehend. Presently I +found, by the frequent recurrence of some sound which the stranger +repeated after them, that she was endeavouring to learn their language; +and the idea instantly occurred to me that I should make use of the +same instructions to the same end. The stranger learned about twenty +words at the first lesson; most of them, indeed, were those which I had +before understood, but I profited by the others. + +"As night came on, Agatha and the Arabian retired early. When they +separated Felix kissed the hand of the stranger and said, 'Good night +sweet Safie.' He sat up much longer, conversing with his father, and +by the frequent repetition of her name I conjectured that their lovely +guest was the subject of their conversation. I ardently desired to +understand them, and bent every faculty towards that purpose, but found +it utterly impossible. + +"The next morning Felix went out to his work, and after the usual +occupations of Agatha were finished, the Arabian sat at the feet of the +old man, and taking his guitar, played some airs so entrancingly +beautiful that they at once drew tears of sorrow and delight from my +eyes. She sang, and her voice flowed in a rich cadence, swelling or +dying away like a nightingale of the woods. + +"When she had finished, she gave the guitar to Agatha, who at first +declined it. She played a simple air, and her voice accompanied it in +sweet accents, but unlike the wondrous strain of the stranger. The old +man appeared enraptured and said some words which Agatha endeavoured to +explain to Safie, and by which he appeared to wish to express that she +bestowed on him the greatest delight by her music. + +"The days now passed as peaceably as before, with the sole alteration +that joy had taken place of sadness in the countenances of my friends. +Safie was always gay and happy; she and I improved rapidly in the +knowledge of language, so that in two months I began to comprehend most +of the words uttered by my protectors. + +"In the meanwhile also the black ground was covered with herbage, and +the green banks interspersed with innumerable flowers, sweet to the +scent and the eyes, stars of pale radiance among the moonlight woods; +the sun became warmer, the nights clear and balmy; and my nocturnal +rambles were an extreme pleasure to me, although they were considerably +shortened by the late setting and early rising of the sun, for I never +ventured abroad during daylight, fearful of meeting with the same +treatment I had formerly endured in the first village which I entered. + +"My days were spent in close attention, that I might more speedily +master the language; and I may boast that I improved more rapidly than +the Arabian, who understood very little and conversed in broken +accents, whilst I comprehended and could imitate almost every word that +was spoken. + +"While I improved in speech, I also learned the science of letters as +it was taught to the stranger, and this opened before me a wide field +for wonder and delight. + +"The book from which Felix instructed Safie was Volney's Ruins of +Empires. I should not have understood the purport of this book had not +Felix, in reading it, given very minute explanations. He had chosen +this work, he said, because the declamatory style was framed in +imitation of the Eastern authors. Through this work I obtained a +cursory knowledge of history and a view of the several empires at +present existing in the world; it gave me an insight into the manners, +governments, and religions of the different nations of the earth. I +heard of the slothful Asiatics, of the stupendous genius and mental +activity of the Grecians, of the wars and wonderful virtue of the early +Romans--of their subsequent degenerating--of the decline of that mighty +empire, of chivalry, Christianity, and kings. I heard of the discovery +of the American hemisphere and wept with Safie over the hapless fate of +its original inhabitants. + +"These wonderful narrations inspired me with strange feelings. Was +man, indeed, at once so powerful, so virtuous and magnificent, yet so +vicious and base? He appeared at one time a mere scion of the evil +principle and at another as all that can be conceived of noble and +godlike. To be a great and virtuous man appeared the highest honour +that can befall a sensitive being; to be base and vicious, as many on +record have been, appeared the lowest degradation, a condition more +abject than that of the blind mole or harmless worm. For a long time I +could not conceive how one man could go forth to murder his fellow, or +even why there were laws and governments; but when I heard details of +vice and bloodshed, my wonder ceased and I turned away with disgust and +loathing. + +"Every conversation of the cottagers now opened new wonders to me. +While I listened to the instructions which Felix bestowed upon the +Arabian, the strange system of human society was explained to me. I +heard of the division of property, of immense wealth and squalid +poverty, of rank, descent, and noble blood. + +"The words induced me to turn towards myself. I learned that the +possessions most esteemed by your fellow creatures were high and +unsullied descent united with riches. A man might be respected with +only one of these advantages, but without either he was considered, +except in very rare instances, as a vagabond and a slave, doomed to +waste his powers for the profits of the chosen few! And what was I? Of +my creation and creator I was absolutely ignorant, but I knew that I +possessed no money, no friends, no kind of property. I was, besides, +endued with a figure hideously deformed and loathsome; I was not even +of the same nature as man. I was more agile than they and could +subsist upon coarser diet; I bore the extremes of heat and cold with +less injury to my frame; my stature far exceeded theirs. When I looked +around I saw and heard of none like me. Was I, then, a monster, a blot +upon the earth, from which all men fled and whom all men disowned? + +"I cannot describe to you the agony that these reflections inflicted +upon me; I tried to dispel them, but sorrow only increased with +knowledge. Oh, that I had forever remained in my native wood, nor +known nor felt beyond the sensations of hunger, thirst, and heat! + +"Of what a strange nature is knowledge! It clings to the mind when it +has once seized on it like a lichen on the rock. I wished sometimes to +shake off all thought and feeling, but I learned that there was but one +means to overcome the sensation of pain, and that was death--a state +which I feared yet did not understand. I admired virtue and good +feelings and loved the gentle manners and amiable qualities of my +cottagers, but I was shut out from intercourse with them, except +through means which I obtained by stealth, when I was unseen and +unknown, and which rather increased than satisfied the desire I had of +becoming one among my fellows. The gentle words of Agatha and the +animated smiles of the charming Arabian were not for me. The mild +exhortations of the old man and the lively conversation of the loved +Felix were not for me. Miserable, unhappy wretch! + +"Other lessons were impressed upon me even more deeply. I heard of the +difference of sexes, and the birth and growth of children, how the +father doted on the smiles of the infant, and the lively sallies of the +older child, how all the life and cares of the mother were wrapped up +in the precious charge, how the mind of youth expanded and gained +knowledge, of brother, sister, and all the various relationships which +bind one human being to another in mutual bonds. + +"But where were my friends and relations? No father had watched my +infant days, no mother had blessed me with smiles and caresses; or if +they had, all my past life was now a blot, a blind vacancy in which I +distinguished nothing. From my earliest remembrance I had been as I +then was in height and proportion. I had never yet seen a being +resembling me or who claimed any intercourse with me. What was I? The +question again recurred, to be answered only with groans. + +"I will soon explain to what these feelings tended, but allow me now to +return to the cottagers, whose story excited in me such various +feelings of indignation, delight, and wonder, but which all terminated +in additional love and reverence for my protectors (for so I loved, in +an innocent, half-painful self-deceit, to call them)." + + + +Chapter 14 + +"Some time elapsed before I learned the history of my friends. It was +one which could not fail to impress itself deeply on my mind, unfolding +as it did a number of circumstances, each interesting and wonderful to +one so utterly inexperienced as I was. + +"The name of the old man was De Lacey. He was descended from a good +family in France, where he had lived for many years in affluence, +respected by his superiors and beloved by his equals. His son was bred +in the service of his country, and Agatha had ranked with ladies of the +highest distinction. A few months before my arrival they had lived in +a large and luxurious city called Paris, surrounded by friends and +possessed of every enjoyment which virtue, refinement of intellect, or +taste, accompanied by a moderate fortune, could afford. + +"The father of Safie had been the cause of their ruin. He was a +Turkish merchant and had inhabited Paris for many years, when, for some +reason which I could not learn, he became obnoxious to the government. +He was seized and cast into prison the very day that Safie arrived from +Constantinople to join him. He was tried and condemned to death. The +injustice of his sentence was very flagrant; all Paris was indignant; +and it was judged that his religion and wealth rather than the crime +alleged against him had been the cause of his condemnation. + +"Felix had accidentally been present at the trial; his horror and +indignation were uncontrollable when he heard the decision of the +court. He made, at that moment, a solemn vow to deliver him and then +looked around for the means. After many fruitless attempts to gain +admittance to the prison, he found a strongly grated window in an +unguarded part of the building, which lighted the dungeon of the +unfortunate Muhammadan, who, loaded with chains, waited in despair the +execution of the barbarous sentence. Felix visited the grate at night +and made known to the prisoner his intentions in his favour. The Turk, +amazed and delighted, endeavoured to kindle the zeal of his deliverer +by promises of reward and wealth. Felix rejected his offers with +contempt, yet when he saw the lovely Safie, who was allowed to visit +her father and who by her gestures expressed her lively gratitude, the +youth could not help owning to his own mind that the captive possessed +a treasure which would fully reward his toil and hazard. + +"The Turk quickly perceived the impression that his daughter had made +on the heart of Felix and endeavoured to secure him more entirely in +his interests by the promise of her hand in marriage so soon as he +should be conveyed to a place of safety. Felix was too delicate to +accept this offer, yet he looked forward to the probability of the +event as to the consummation of his happiness. + +"During the ensuing days, while the preparations were going forward for +the escape of the merchant, the zeal of Felix was warmed by several +letters that he received from this lovely girl, who found means to +express her thoughts in the language of her lover by the aid of an old +man, a servant of her father who understood French. She thanked him in +the most ardent terms for his intended services towards her parent, and +at the same time she gently deplored her own fate. + +"I have copies of these letters, for I found means, during my residence +in the hovel, to procure the implements of writing; and the letters +were often in the hands of Felix or Agatha. Before I depart I will +give them to you; they will prove the truth of my tale; but at present, +as the sun is already far declined, I shall only have time to repeat +the substance of them to you. + +"Safie related that her mother was a Christian Arab, seized and made a +slave by the Turks; recommended by her beauty, she had won the heart of +the father of Safie, who married her. The young girl spoke in high and +enthusiastic terms of her mother, who, born in freedom, spurned the +bondage to which she was now reduced. She instructed her daughter in +the tenets of her religion and taught her to aspire to higher powers of +intellect and an independence of spirit forbidden to the female +followers of Muhammad. This lady died, but her lessons were indelibly +impressed on the mind of Safie, who sickened at the prospect of again +returning to Asia and being immured within the walls of a harem, +allowed only to occupy herself with infantile amusements, ill-suited to +the temper of her soul, now accustomed to grand ideas and a noble +emulation for virtue. The prospect of marrying a Christian and +remaining in a country where women were allowed to take a rank in +society was enchanting to her. + +"The day for the execution of the Turk was fixed, but on the night +previous to it he quitted his prison and before morning was distant +many leagues from Paris. Felix had procured passports in the name of +his father, sister, and himself. He had previously communicated his +plan to the former, who aided the deceit by quitting his house, under +the pretence of a journey and concealed himself, with his daughter, in +an obscure part of Paris. + +"Felix conducted the fugitives through France to Lyons and across Mont +Cenis to Leghorn, where the merchant had decided to wait a favourable +opportunity of passing into some part of the Turkish dominions. + +"Safie resolved to remain with her father until the moment of his +departure, before which time the Turk renewed his promise that she +should be united to his deliverer; and Felix remained with them in +expectation of that event; and in the meantime he enjoyed the society +of the Arabian, who exhibited towards him the simplest and tenderest +affection. They conversed with one another through the means of an +interpreter, and sometimes with the interpretation of looks; and Safie +sang to him the divine airs of her native country. + +"The Turk allowed this intimacy to take place and encouraged the hopes +of the youthful lovers, while in his heart he had formed far other +plans. He loathed the idea that his daughter should be united to a +Christian, but he feared the resentment of Felix if he should appear +lukewarm, for he knew that he was still in the power of his deliverer +if he should choose to betray him to the Italian state which they +inhabited. He revolved a thousand plans by which he should be enabled +to prolong the deceit until it might be no longer necessary, and +secretly to take his daughter with him when he departed. His plans +were facilitated by the news which arrived from Paris. + +"The government of France were greatly enraged at the escape of their +victim and spared no pains to detect and punish his deliverer. The +plot of Felix was quickly discovered, and De Lacey and Agatha were +thrown into prison. The news reached Felix and roused him from his +dream of pleasure. His blind and aged father and his gentle sister lay +in a noisome dungeon while he enjoyed the free air and the society of +her whom he loved. This idea was torture to him. He quickly arranged +with the Turk that if the latter should find a favourable opportunity +for escape before Felix could return to Italy, Safie should remain as a +boarder at a convent at Leghorn; and then, quitting the lovely Arabian, +he hastened to Paris and delivered himself up to the vengeance of the +law, hoping to free De Lacey and Agatha by this proceeding. + +"He did not succeed. They remained confined for five months before the +trial took place, the result of which deprived them of their fortune +and condemned them to a perpetual exile from their native country. + +"They found a miserable asylum in the cottage in Germany, where I +discovered them. Felix soon learned that the treacherous Turk, for +whom he and his family endured such unheard-of oppression, on +discovering that his deliverer was thus reduced to poverty and ruin, +became a traitor to good feeling and honour and had quitted Italy with +his daughter, insultingly sending Felix a pittance of money to aid him, +as he said, in some plan of future maintenance. + +"Such were the events that preyed on the heart of Felix and rendered +him, when I first saw him, the most miserable of his family. He could +have endured poverty, and while this distress had been the meed of his +virtue, he gloried in it; but the ingratitude of the Turk and the loss +of his beloved Safie were misfortunes more bitter and irreparable. The +arrival of the Arabian now infused new life into his soul. + +"When the news reached Leghorn that Felix was deprived of his wealth +and rank, the merchant commanded his daughter to think no more of her +lover, but to prepare to return to her native country. The generous +nature of Safie was outraged by this command; she attempted to +expostulate with her father, but he left her angrily, reiterating his +tyrannical mandate. + +"A few days after, the Turk entered his daughter's apartment and told +her hastily that he had reason to believe that his residence at Leghorn +had been divulged and that he should speedily be delivered up to the +French government; he had consequently hired a vessel to convey him to +Constantinople, for which city he should sail in a few hours. He +intended to leave his daughter under the care of a confidential +servant, to follow at her leisure with the greater part of his +property, which had not yet arrived at Leghorn. + +"When alone, Safie resolved in her own mind the plan of conduct that it +would become her to pursue in this emergency. A residence in Turkey +was abhorrent to her; her religion and her feelings were alike averse +to it. By some papers of her father which fell into her hands she +heard of the exile of her lover and learnt the name of the spot where +he then resided. She hesitated some time, but at length she formed her +determination. Taking with her some jewels that belonged to her and a +sum of money, she quitted Italy with an attendant, a native of Leghorn, +but who understood the common language of Turkey, and departed for +Germany. + +"She arrived in safety at a town about twenty leagues from the cottage +of De Lacey, when her attendant fell dangerously ill. Safie nursed her +with the most devoted affection, but the poor girl died, and the +Arabian was left alone, unacquainted with the language of the country +and utterly ignorant of the customs of the world. She fell, however, +into good hands. The Italian had mentioned the name of the spot for +which they were bound, and after her death the woman of the house in +which they had lived took care that Safie should arrive in safety at +the cottage of her lover." + + + +Chapter 15 + +"Such was the history of my beloved cottagers. It impressed me deeply. +I learned, from the views of social life which it developed, to admire +their virtues and to deprecate the vices of mankind. + +"As yet I looked upon crime as a distant evil, benevolence and +generosity were ever present before me, inciting within me a desire to +become an actor in the busy scene where so many admirable qualities +were called forth and displayed. But in giving an account of the +progress of my intellect, I must not omit a circumstance which occurred +in the beginning of the month of August of the same year. + +"One night during my accustomed visit to the neighbouring wood where I +collected my own food and brought home firing for my protectors, I +found on the ground a leathern portmanteau containing several articles +of dress and some books. I eagerly seized the prize and returned with +it to my hovel. Fortunately the books were written in the language, +the elements of which I had acquired at the cottage; they consisted of +Paradise Lost, a volume of Plutarch's Lives, and the Sorrows of Werter. +The possession of these treasures gave me extreme delight; I now +continually studied and exercised my mind upon these histories, whilst +my friends were employed in their ordinary occupations. + +"I can hardly describe to you the effect of these books. They produced +in me an infinity of new images and feelings, that sometimes raised me +to ecstasy, but more frequently sunk me into the lowest dejection. In +the Sorrows of Werter, besides the interest of its simple and affecting +story, so many opinions are canvassed and so many lights thrown upon +what had hitherto been to me obscure subjects that I found in it a +never-ending source of speculation and astonishment. The gentle and +domestic manners it described, combined with lofty sentiments and +feelings, which had for their object something out of self, accorded +well with my experience among my protectors and with the wants which +were forever alive in my own bosom. But I thought Werter himself a +more divine being than I had ever beheld or imagined; his character +contained no pretension, but it sank deep. The disquisitions upon +death and suicide were calculated to fill me with wonder. I did not +pretend to enter into the merits of the case, yet I inclined towards +the opinions of the hero, whose extinction I wept, without precisely +understanding it. + +"As I read, however, I applied much personally to my own feelings and +condition. I found myself similar yet at the same time strangely +unlike to the beings concerning whom I read and to whose conversation I +was a listener. I sympathized with and partly understood them, but I +was unformed in mind; I was dependent on none and related to none. +'The path of my departure was free,' and there was none to lament my +annihilation. My person was hideous and my stature gigantic. What did +this mean? Who was I? What was I? Whence did I come? What was my +destination? These questions continually recurred, but I was unable to +solve them. + +"The volume of Plutarch's Lives which I possessed contained the +histories of the first founders of the ancient republics. This book +had a far different effect upon me from the Sorrows of Werter. I +learned from Werter's imaginations despondency and gloom, but Plutarch +taught me high thoughts; he elevated me above the wretched sphere of my +own reflections, to admire and love the heroes of past ages. Many +things I read surpassed my understanding and experience. I had a very +confused knowledge of kingdoms, wide extents of country, mighty rivers, +and boundless seas. But I was perfectly unacquainted with towns and +large assemblages of men. The cottage of my protectors had been the +only school in which I had studied human nature, but this book +developed new and mightier scenes of action. I read of men concerned +in public affairs, governing or massacring their species. I felt the +greatest ardour for virtue rise within me, and abhorrence for vice, as +far as I understood the signification of those terms, relative as they +were, as I applied them, to pleasure and pain alone. Induced by these +feelings, I was of course led to admire peaceable lawgivers, Numa, +Solon, and Lycurgus, in preference to Romulus and Theseus. The +patriarchal lives of my protectors caused these impressions to take a +firm hold on my mind; perhaps, if my first introduction to humanity had +been made by a young soldier, burning for glory and slaughter, I should +have been imbued with different sensations. + +"But Paradise Lost excited different and far deeper emotions. I read +it, as I had read the other volumes which had fallen into my hands, as +a true history. It moved every feeling of wonder and awe that the +picture of an omnipotent God warring with his creatures was capable of +exciting. I often referred the several situations, as their similarity +struck me, to my own. Like Adam, I was apparently united by no link to +any other being in existence; but his state was far different from mine +in every other respect. He had come forth from the hands of God a +perfect creature, happy and prosperous, guarded by the especial care of +his Creator; he was allowed to converse with and acquire knowledge from +beings of a superior nature, but I was wretched, helpless, and alone. +Many times I considered Satan as the fitter emblem of my condition, for +often, like him, when I viewed the bliss of my protectors, the bitter +gall of envy rose within me. + +"Another circumstance strengthened and confirmed these feelings. Soon +after my arrival in the hovel I discovered some papers in the pocket of +the dress which I had taken from your laboratory. At first I had +neglected them, but now that I was able to decipher the characters in +which they were written, I began to study them with diligence. It was +your journal of the four months that preceded my creation. You +minutely described in these papers every step you took in the progress +of your work; this history was mingled with accounts of domestic +occurrences. You doubtless recollect these papers. Here they are. +Everything is related in them which bears reference to my accursed +origin; the whole detail of that series of disgusting circumstances +which produced it is set in view; the minutest description of my odious +and loathsome person is given, in language which painted your own +horrors and rendered mine indelible. I sickened as I read. 'Hateful +day when I received life!' I exclaimed in agony. 'Accursed creator! +Why did you form a monster so hideous that even YOU turned from me in +disgust? God, in pity, made man beautiful and alluring, after his own +image; but my form is a filthy type of yours, more horrid even from the +very resemblance. Satan had his companions, fellow devils, to admire +and encourage him, but I am solitary and abhorred.' + +"These were the reflections of my hours of despondency and solitude; +but when I contemplated the virtues of the cottagers, their amiable and +benevolent dispositions, I persuaded myself that when they should +become acquainted with my admiration of their virtues they would +compassionate me and overlook my personal deformity. Could they turn +from their door one, however monstrous, who solicited their compassion +and friendship? I resolved, at least, not to despair, but in every way +to fit myself for an interview with them which would decide my fate. I +postponed this attempt for some months longer, for the importance +attached to its success inspired me with a dread lest I should fail. +Besides, I found that my understanding improved so much with every +day's experience that I was unwilling to commence this undertaking +until a few more months should have added to my sagacity. + +"Several changes, in the meantime, took place in the cottage. The +presence of Safie diffused happiness among its inhabitants, and I also +found that a greater degree of plenty reigned there. Felix and Agatha +spent more time in amusement and conversation, and were assisted in +their labours by servants. They did not appear rich, but they were +contented and happy; their feelings were serene and peaceful, while +mine became every day more tumultuous. Increase of knowledge only +discovered to me more clearly what a wretched outcast I was. I +cherished hope, it is true, but it vanished when I beheld my person +reflected in water or my shadow in the moonshine, even as that frail +image and that inconstant shade. + +"I endeavoured to crush these fears and to fortify myself for the trial +which in a few months I resolved to undergo; and sometimes I allowed my +thoughts, unchecked by reason, to ramble in the fields of Paradise, and +dared to fancy amiable and lovely creatures sympathizing with my +feelings and cheering my gloom; their angelic countenances breathed +smiles of consolation. But it was all a dream; no Eve soothed my +sorrows nor shared my thoughts; I was alone. I remembered Adam's +supplication to his Creator. But where was mine? He had abandoned me, +and in the bitterness of my heart I cursed him. + +"Autumn passed thus. I saw, with surprise and grief, the leaves decay +and fall, and nature again assume the barren and bleak appearance it +had worn when I first beheld the woods and the lovely moon. Yet I did +not heed the bleakness of the weather; I was better fitted by my +conformation for the endurance of cold than heat. But my chief +delights were the sight of the flowers, the birds, and all the gay +apparel of summer; when those deserted me, I turned with more attention +towards the cottagers. Their happiness was not decreased by the +absence of summer. They loved and sympathized with one another; and +their joys, depending on each other, were not interrupted by the +casualties that took place around them. The more I saw of them, the +greater became my desire to claim their protection and kindness; my +heart yearned to be known and loved by these amiable creatures; to see +their sweet looks directed towards me with affection was the utmost +limit of my ambition. I dared not think that they would turn them from +me with disdain and horror. The poor that stopped at their door were +never driven away. I asked, it is true, for greater treasures than a +little food or rest: I required kindness and sympathy; but I did not +believe myself utterly unworthy of it. + +"The winter advanced, and an entire revolution of the seasons had taken +place since I awoke into life. My attention at this time was solely +directed towards my plan of introducing myself into the cottage of my +protectors. I revolved many projects, but that on which I finally +fixed was to enter the dwelling when the blind old man should be alone. +I had sagacity enough to discover that the unnatural hideousness of my +person was the chief object of horror with those who had formerly +beheld me. My voice, although harsh, had nothing terrible in it; I +thought, therefore, that if in the absence of his children I could gain +the good will and mediation of the old De Lacey, I might by his means +be tolerated by my younger protectors. + +"One day, when the sun shone on the red leaves that strewed the ground +and diffused cheerfulness, although it denied warmth, Safie, Agatha, +and Felix departed on a long country walk, and the old man, at his own +desire, was left alone in the cottage. When his children had departed, +he took up his guitar and played several mournful but sweet airs, more +sweet and mournful than I had ever heard him play before. At first his +countenance was illuminated with pleasure, but as he continued, +thoughtfulness and sadness succeeded; at length, laying aside the +instrument, he sat absorbed in reflection. + +"My heart beat quick; this was the hour and moment of trial, which +would decide my hopes or realize my fears. The servants were gone to a +neighbouring fair. All was silent in and around the cottage; it was an +excellent opportunity; yet, when I proceeded to execute my plan, my +limbs failed me and I sank to the ground. Again I rose, and exerting +all the firmness of which I was master, removed the planks which I had +placed before my hovel to conceal my retreat. The fresh air revived +me, and with renewed determination I approached the door of their +cottage. + +"I knocked. 'Who is there?' said the old man. 'Come in.' + +"I entered. 'Pardon this intrusion,' said I; 'I am a traveller in want +of a little rest; you would greatly oblige me if you would allow me to +remain a few minutes before the fire.' + +"'Enter,' said De Lacey, 'and I will try in what manner I can to +relieve your wants; but, unfortunately, my children are from home, and +as I am blind, I am afraid I shall find it difficult to procure food +for you.' + +"'Do not trouble yourself, my kind host; I have food; it is warmth and +rest only that I need.' + +"I sat down, and a silence ensued. I knew that every minute was +precious to me, yet I remained irresolute in what manner to commence +the interview, when the old man addressed me. 'By your language, +stranger, I suppose you are my countryman; are you French?' + +"'No; but I was educated by a French family and understand that +language only. I am now going to claim the protection of some friends, +whom I sincerely love, and of whose favour I have some hopes.' + +"'Are they Germans?' + +"'No, they are French. But let us change the subject. I am an +unfortunate and deserted creature, I look around and I have no relation +or friend upon earth. These amiable people to whom I go have never +seen me and know little of me. I am full of fears, for if I fail +there, I am an outcast in the world forever.' + +"'Do not despair. To be friendless is indeed to be unfortunate, but +the hearts of men, when unprejudiced by any obvious self-interest, are +full of brotherly love and charity. Rely, therefore, on your hopes; +and if these friends are good and amiable, do not despair.' + +"'They are kind--they are the most excellent creatures in the world; +but, unfortunately, they are prejudiced against me. I have good +dispositions; my life has been hitherto harmless and in some degree +beneficial; but a fatal prejudice clouds their eyes, and where they +ought to see a feeling and kind friend, they behold only a detestable +monster.' + +"'That is indeed unfortunate; but if you are really blameless, cannot +you undeceive them?' + +"'I am about to undertake that task; and it is on that account that I +feel so many overwhelming terrors. I tenderly love these friends; I +have, unknown to them, been for many months in the habits of daily +kindness towards them; but they believe that I wish to injure them, and +it is that prejudice which I wish to overcome.' + +"'Where do these friends reside?' + +"'Near this spot.' + +"The old man paused and then continued, 'If you will unreservedly +confide to me the particulars of your tale, I perhaps may be of use in +undeceiving them. I am blind and cannot judge of your countenance, but +there is something in your words which persuades me that you are +sincere. I am poor and an exile, but it will afford me true pleasure +to be in any way serviceable to a human creature.' + +"'Excellent man! I thank you and accept your generous offer. You +raise me from the dust by this kindness; and I trust that, by your aid, +I shall not be driven from the society and sympathy of your fellow +creatures.' + +"'Heaven forbid! Even if you were really criminal, for that can only +drive you to desperation, and not instigate you to virtue. I also am +unfortunate; I and my family have been condemned, although innocent; +judge, therefore, if I do not feel for your misfortunes.' + +"'How can I thank you, my best and only benefactor? From your lips +first have I heard the voice of kindness directed towards me; I shall +be forever grateful; and your present humanity assures me of success +with those friends whom I am on the point of meeting.' + +"'May I know the names and residence of those friends?' + +"I paused. This, I thought, was the moment of decision, which was to +rob me of or bestow happiness on me forever. I struggled vainly for +firmness sufficient to answer him, but the effort destroyed all my +remaining strength; I sank on the chair and sobbed aloud. At that +moment I heard the steps of my younger protectors. I had not a moment +to lose, but seizing the hand of the old man, I cried, 'Now is the +time! Save and protect me! You and your family are the friends whom I +seek. Do not you desert me in the hour of trial!' + +"'Great God!' exclaimed the old man. 'Who are you?' + +"At that instant the cottage door was opened, and Felix, Safie, and +Agatha entered. Who can describe their horror and consternation on +beholding me? Agatha fainted, and Safie, unable to attend to her +friend, rushed out of the cottage. Felix darted forward, and with +supernatural force tore me from his father, to whose knees I clung, in +a transport of fury, he dashed me to the ground and struck me violently +with a stick. I could have torn him limb from limb, as the lion rends +the antelope. But my heart sank within me as with bitter sickness, and +I refrained. I saw him on the point of repeating his blow, when, +overcome by pain and anguish, I quitted the cottage, and in the general +tumult escaped unperceived to my hovel." + + + +Chapter 16 + +"Cursed, cursed creator! Why did I live? Why, in that instant, did I +not extinguish the spark of existence which you had so wantonly +bestowed? I know not; despair had not yet taken possession of me; my +feelings were those of rage and revenge. I could with pleasure have +destroyed the cottage and its inhabitants and have glutted myself with +their shrieks and misery. + +"When night came I quitted my retreat and wandered in the wood; and +now, no longer restrained by the fear of discovery, I gave vent to my +anguish in fearful howlings. I was like a wild beast that had broken +the toils, destroying the objects that obstructed me and ranging +through the wood with a stag-like swiftness. Oh! What a miserable +night I passed! The cold stars shone in mockery, and the bare trees +waved their branches above me; now and then the sweet voice of a bird +burst forth amidst the universal stillness. All, save I, were at rest +or in enjoyment; I, like the arch-fiend, bore a hell within me, and +finding myself unsympathized with, wished to tear up the trees, spread +havoc and destruction around me, and then to have sat down and enjoyed +the ruin. + +"But this was a luxury of sensation that could not endure; I became +fatigued with excess of bodily exertion and sank on the damp grass in +the sick impotence of despair. There was none among the myriads of men +that existed who would pity or assist me; and should I feel kindness +towards my enemies? No; from that moment I declared everlasting war +against the species, and more than all, against him who had formed me +and sent me forth to this insupportable misery. + +"The sun rose; I heard the voices of men and knew that it was +impossible to return to my retreat during that day. Accordingly I hid +myself in some thick underwood, determining to devote the ensuing hours +to reflection on my situation. + +"The pleasant sunshine and the pure air of day restored me to some +degree of tranquillity; and when I considered what had passed at the +cottage, I could not help believing that I had been too hasty in my +conclusions. I had certainly acted imprudently. It was apparent that +my conversation had interested the father in my behalf, and I was a +fool in having exposed my person to the horror of his children. I +ought to have familiarized the old De Lacey to me, and by degrees to +have discovered myself to the rest of his family, when they should have +been prepared for my approach. But I did not believe my errors to be +irretrievable, and after much consideration I resolved to return to the +cottage, seek the old man, and by my representations win him to my +party. + +"These thoughts calmed me, and in the afternoon I sank into a profound +sleep; but the fever of my blood did not allow me to be visited by +peaceful dreams. The horrible scene of the preceding day was forever +acting before my eyes; the females were flying and the enraged Felix +tearing me from his father's feet. I awoke exhausted, and finding that +it was already night, I crept forth from my hiding-place, and went in +search of food. + +"When my hunger was appeased, I directed my steps towards the +well-known path that conducted to the cottage. All there was at peace. +I crept into my hovel and remained in silent expectation of the +accustomed hour when the family arose. That hour passed, the sun +mounted high in the heavens, but the cottagers did not appear. I +trembled violently, apprehending some dreadful misfortune. The inside +of the cottage was dark, and I heard no motion; I cannot describe the +agony of this suspense. + +"Presently two countrymen passed by, but pausing near the cottage, they +entered into conversation, using violent gesticulations; but I did not +understand what they said, as they spoke the language of the country, +which differed from that of my protectors. Soon after, however, Felix +approached with another man; I was surprised, as I knew that he had not +quitted the cottage that morning, and waited anxiously to discover from +his discourse the meaning of these unusual appearances. + +"'Do you consider,' said his companion to him, 'that you will be +obliged to pay three months' rent and to lose the produce of your +garden? I do not wish to take any unfair advantage, and I beg +therefore that you will take some days to consider of your +determination.' + +"'It is utterly useless,' replied Felix; 'we can never again inhabit +your cottage. The life of my father is in the greatest danger, owing +to the dreadful circumstance that I have related. My wife and my +sister will never recover from their horror. I entreat you not to +reason with me any more. Take possession of your tenement and let me +fly from this place.' + +"Felix trembled violently as he said this. He and his companion +entered the cottage, in which they remained for a few minutes, and then +departed. I never saw any of the family of De Lacey more. + +"I continued for the remainder of the day in my hovel in a state of +utter and stupid despair. My protectors had departed and had broken +the only link that held me to the world. For the first time the +feelings of revenge and hatred filled my bosom, and I did not strive to +control them, but allowing myself to be borne away by the stream, I +bent my mind towards injury and death. When I thought of my friends, +of the mild voice of De Lacey, the gentle eyes of Agatha, and the +exquisite beauty of the Arabian, these thoughts vanished and a gush of +tears somewhat soothed me. But again when I reflected that they had +spurned and deserted me, anger returned, a rage of anger, and unable to +injure anything human, I turned my fury towards inanimate objects. As +night advanced I placed a variety of combustibles around the cottage, +and after having destroyed every vestige of cultivation in the garden, +I waited with forced impatience until the moon had sunk to commence my +operations. + +"As the night advanced, a fierce wind arose from the woods and quickly +dispersed the clouds that had loitered in the heavens; the blast tore +along like a mighty avalanche and produced a kind of insanity in my +spirits that burst all bounds of reason and reflection. I lighted the +dry branch of a tree and danced with fury around the devoted cottage, +my eyes still fixed on the western horizon, the edge of which the moon +nearly touched. A part of its orb was at length hid, and I waved my +brand; it sank, and with a loud scream I fired the straw, and heath, +and bushes, which I had collected. The wind fanned the fire, and the +cottage was quickly enveloped by the flames, which clung to it and +licked it with their forked and destroying tongues. + +"As soon as I was convinced that no assistance could save any part of +the habitation, I quitted the scene and sought for refuge in the woods. + +"And now, with the world before me, whither should I bend my steps? I +resolved to fly far from the scene of my misfortunes; but to me, hated +and despised, every country must be equally horrible. At length the +thought of you crossed my mind. I learned from your papers that you +were my father, my creator; and to whom could I apply with more fitness +than to him who had given me life? Among the lessons that Felix had +bestowed upon Safie, geography had not been omitted; I had learned from +these the relative situations of the different countries of the earth. +You had mentioned Geneva as the name of your native town, and towards +this place I resolved to proceed. + +"But how was I to direct myself? I knew that I must travel in a +southwesterly direction to reach my destination, but the sun was my +only guide. I did not know the names of the towns that I was to pass +through, nor could I ask information from a single human being; but I +did not despair. From you only could I hope for succour, although +towards you I felt no sentiment but that of hatred. Unfeeling, +heartless creator! You had endowed me with perceptions and passions +and then cast me abroad an object for the scorn and horror of mankind. +But on you only had I any claim for pity and redress, and from you I +determined to seek that justice which I vainly attempted to gain from +any other being that wore the human form. + +"My travels were long and the sufferings I endured intense. It was +late in autumn when I quitted the district where I had so long resided. +I travelled only at night, fearful of encountering the visage of a +human being. Nature decayed around me, and the sun became heatless; +rain and snow poured around me; mighty rivers were frozen; the surface +of the earth was hard and chill, and bare, and I found no shelter. Oh, +earth! How often did I imprecate curses on the cause of my being! The +mildness of my nature had fled, and all within me was turned to gall +and bitterness. The nearer I approached to your habitation, the more +deeply did I feel the spirit of revenge enkindled in my heart. Snow +fell, and the waters were hardened, but I rested not. A few incidents +now and then directed me, and I possessed a map of the country; but I +often wandered wide from my path. The agony of my feelings allowed me +no respite; no incident occurred from which my rage and misery could +not extract its food; but a circumstance that happened when I arrived +on the confines of Switzerland, when the sun had recovered its warmth +and the earth again began to look green, confirmed in an especial +manner the bitterness and horror of my feelings. + +"I generally rested during the day and travelled only when I was +secured by night from the view of man. One morning, however, finding +that my path lay through a deep wood, I ventured to continue my journey +after the sun had risen; the day, which was one of the first of spring, +cheered even me by the loveliness of its sunshine and the balminess of +the air. I felt emotions of gentleness and pleasure, that had long +appeared dead, revive within me. Half surprised by the novelty of +these sensations, I allowed myself to be borne away by them, and +forgetting my solitude and deformity, dared to be happy. Soft tears +again bedewed my cheeks, and I even raised my humid eyes with +thankfulness towards the blessed sun, which bestowed such joy upon me. + +"I continued to wind among the paths of the wood, until I came to its +boundary, which was skirted by a deep and rapid river, into which many +of the trees bent their branches, now budding with the fresh spring. +Here I paused, not exactly knowing what path to pursue, when I heard +the sound of voices, that induced me to conceal myself under the shade +of a cypress. I was scarcely hid when a young girl came running +towards the spot where I was concealed, laughing, as if she ran from +someone in sport. She continued her course along the precipitous sides +of the river, when suddenly her foot slipped, and she fell into the +rapid stream. I rushed from my hiding-place and with extreme labour, +from the force of the current, saved her and dragged her to shore. She +was senseless, and I endeavoured by every means in my power to restore +animation, when I was suddenly interrupted by the approach of a rustic, +who was probably the person from whom she had playfully fled. On +seeing me, he darted towards me, and tearing the girl from my arms, +hastened towards the deeper parts of the wood. I followed speedily, I +hardly knew why; but when the man saw me draw near, he aimed a gun, +which he carried, at my body and fired. I sank to the ground, and my +injurer, with increased swiftness, escaped into the wood. + +"This was then the reward of my benevolence! I had saved a human being +from destruction, and as a recompense I now writhed under the miserable +pain of a wound which shattered the flesh and bone. The feelings of +kindness and gentleness which I had entertained but a few moments +before gave place to hellish rage and gnashing of teeth. Inflamed by +pain, I vowed eternal hatred and vengeance to all mankind. But the +agony of my wound overcame me; my pulses paused, and I fainted. + +"For some weeks I led a miserable life in the woods, endeavouring to +cure the wound which I had received. The ball had entered my shoulder, +and I knew not whether it had remained there or passed through; at any +rate I had no means of extracting it. My sufferings were augmented +also by the oppressive sense of the injustice and ingratitude of their +infliction. My daily vows rose for revenge--a deep and deadly revenge, +such as would alone compensate for the outrages and anguish I had +endured. + +"After some weeks my wound healed, and I continued my journey. The +labours I endured were no longer to be alleviated by the bright sun or +gentle breezes of spring; all joy was but a mockery which insulted my +desolate state and made me feel more painfully that I was not made for +the enjoyment of pleasure. + +"But my toils now drew near a close, and in two months from this time I +reached the environs of Geneva. + +"It was evening when I arrived, and I retired to a hiding-place among +the fields that surround it to meditate in what manner I should apply +to you. I was oppressed by fatigue and hunger and far too unhappy to +enjoy the gentle breezes of evening or the prospect of the sun setting +behind the stupendous mountains of Jura. + +"At this time a slight sleep relieved me from the pain of reflection, +which was disturbed by the approach of a beautiful child, who came +running into the recess I had chosen, with all the sportiveness of +infancy. Suddenly, as I gazed on him, an idea seized me that this +little creature was unprejudiced and had lived too short a time to have +imbibed a horror of deformity. If, therefore, I could seize him and +educate him as my companion and friend, I should not be so desolate in +this peopled earth. + +"Urged by this impulse, I seized on the boy as he passed and drew him +towards me. As soon as he beheld my form, he placed his hands before +his eyes and uttered a shrill scream; I drew his hand forcibly from his +face and said, 'Child, what is the meaning of this? I do not intend to +hurt you; listen to me.' + +"He struggled violently. 'Let me go,' he cried; 'monster! Ugly +wretch! You wish to eat me and tear me to pieces. You are an ogre. +Let me go, or I will tell my papa.' + +"'Boy, you will never see your father again; you must come with me.' + +"'Hideous monster! Let me go. My papa is a syndic--he is M. +Frankenstein--he will punish you. You dare not keep me.' + +"'Frankenstein! you belong then to my enemy--to him towards whom I have +sworn eternal revenge; you shall be my first victim.' + +"The child still struggled and loaded me with epithets which carried +despair to my heart; I grasped his throat to silence him, and in a +moment he lay dead at my feet. + +"I gazed on my victim, and my heart swelled with exultation and hellish +triumph; clapping my hands, I exclaimed, 'I too can create desolation; +my enemy is not invulnerable; this death will carry despair to him, and +a thousand other miseries shall torment and destroy him.' + +"As I fixed my eyes on the child, I saw something glittering on his +breast. I took it; it was a portrait of a most lovely woman. In spite +of my malignity, it softened and attracted me. For a few moments I +gazed with delight on her dark eyes, fringed by deep lashes, and her +lovely lips; but presently my rage returned; I remembered that I was +forever deprived of the delights that such beautiful creatures could +bestow and that she whose resemblance I contemplated would, in +regarding me, have changed that air of divine benignity to one +expressive of disgust and affright. + +"Can you wonder that such thoughts transported me with rage? I only +wonder that at that moment, instead of venting my sensations in +exclamations and agony, I did not rush among mankind and perish in the +attempt to destroy them. + +"While I was overcome by these feelings, I left the spot where I had +committed the murder, and seeking a more secluded hiding-place, I +entered a barn which had appeared to me to be empty. A woman was +sleeping on some straw; she was young, not indeed so beautiful as her +whose portrait I held, but of an agreeable aspect and blooming in the +loveliness of youth and health. Here, I thought, is one of those whose +joy-imparting smiles are bestowed on all but me. And then I bent over +her and whispered, 'Awake, fairest, thy lover is near--he who would +give his life but to obtain one look of affection from thine eyes; my +beloved, awake!' + +"The sleeper stirred; a thrill of terror ran through me. Should she +indeed awake, and see me, and curse me, and denounce the murderer? Thus +would she assuredly act if her darkened eyes opened and she beheld me. +The thought was madness; it stirred the fiend within me--not I, but +she, shall suffer; the murder I have committed because I am forever +robbed of all that she could give me, she shall atone. The crime had +its source in her; be hers the punishment! Thanks to the lessons of +Felix and the sanguinary laws of man, I had learned now to work +mischief. I bent over her and placed the portrait securely in one of +the folds of her dress. She moved again, and I fled. + +"For some days I haunted the spot where these scenes had taken place, +sometimes wishing to see you, sometimes resolved to quit the world and +its miseries forever. At length I wandered towards these mountains, +and have ranged through their immense recesses, consumed by a burning +passion which you alone can gratify. We may not part until you have +promised to comply with my requisition. I am alone and miserable; man +will not associate with me; but one as deformed and horrible as myself +would not deny herself to me. My companion must be of the same species +and have the same defects. This being you must create." + + + +Chapter 17 + +The being finished speaking and fixed his looks upon me in the +expectation of a reply. But I was bewildered, perplexed, and unable to +arrange my ideas sufficiently to understand the full extent of his +proposition. He continued, + +"You must create a female for me with whom I can live in the +interchange of those sympathies necessary for my being. This you alone +can do, and I demand it of you as a right which you must not refuse to +concede." + +The latter part of his tale had kindled anew in me the anger that had +died away while he narrated his peaceful life among the cottagers, and +as he said this I could no longer suppress the rage that burned within +me. + +"I do refuse it," I replied; "and no torture shall ever extort a +consent from me. You may render me the most miserable of men, but you +shall never make me base in my own eyes. Shall I create another like +yourself, whose joint wickedness might desolate the world. Begone! I +have answered you; you may torture me, but I will never consent." + +"You are in the wrong," replied the fiend; "and instead of threatening, +I am content to reason with you. I am malicious because I am +miserable. Am I not shunned and hated by all mankind? You, my +creator, would tear me to pieces and triumph; remember that, and tell +me why I should pity man more than he pities me? You would not call it +murder if you could precipitate me into one of those ice-rifts and +destroy my frame, the work of your own hands. Shall I respect man when +he condemns me? Let him live with me in the interchange of kindness, +and instead of injury I would bestow every benefit upon him with tears +of gratitude at his acceptance. But that cannot be; the human senses +are insurmountable barriers to our union. Yet mine shall not be the +submission of abject slavery. I will revenge my injuries; if I cannot +inspire love, I will cause fear, and chiefly towards you my arch-enemy, +because my creator, do I swear inextinguishable hatred. Have a care; I +will work at your destruction, nor finish until I desolate your heart, +so that you shall curse the hour of your birth." + +A fiendish rage animated him as he said this; his face was wrinkled +into contortions too horrible for human eyes to behold; but presently +he calmed himself and proceeded-- + +"I intended to reason. This passion is detrimental to me, for you do +not reflect that YOU are the cause of its excess. If any being felt +emotions of benevolence towards me, I should return them a hundred and +a hundredfold; for that one creature's sake I would make peace with the +whole kind! But I now indulge in dreams of bliss that cannot be +realized. What I ask of you is reasonable and moderate; I demand a +creature of another sex, but as hideous as myself; the gratification is +small, but it is all that I can receive, and it shall content me. It +is true, we shall be monsters, cut off from all the world; but on that +account we shall be more attached to one another. Our lives will not +be happy, but they will be harmless and free from the misery I now +feel. Oh! My creator, make me happy; let me feel gratitude towards +you for one benefit! Let me see that I excite the sympathy of some +existing thing; do not deny me my request!" + +I was moved. I shuddered when I thought of the possible consequences +of my consent, but I felt that there was some justice in his argument. +His tale and the feelings he now expressed proved him to be a creature +of fine sensations, and did I not as his maker owe him all the portion +of happiness that it was in my power to bestow? He saw my change of +feeling and continued, + +"If you consent, neither you nor any other human being shall ever see +us again; I will go to the vast wilds of South America. My food is not +that of man; I do not destroy the lamb and the kid to glut my appetite; +acorns and berries afford me sufficient nourishment. My companion will +be of the same nature as myself and will be content with the same fare. +We shall make our bed of dried leaves; the sun will shine on us as on +man and will ripen our food. The picture I present to you is peaceful +and human, and you must feel that you could deny it only in the +wantonness of power and cruelty. Pitiless as you have been towards me, +I now see compassion in your eyes; let me seize the favourable moment +and persuade you to promise what I so ardently desire." + +"You propose," replied I, "to fly from the habitations of man, to dwell +in those wilds where the beasts of the field will be your only +companions. How can you, who long for the love and sympathy of man, +persevere in this exile? You will return and again seek their +kindness, and you will meet with their detestation; your evil passions +will be renewed, and you will then have a companion to aid you in the +task of destruction. This may not be; cease to argue the point, for I +cannot consent." + +"How inconstant are your feelings! But a moment ago you were moved by +my representations, and why do you again harden yourself to my +complaints? I swear to you, by the earth which I inhabit, and by you +that made me, that with the companion you bestow I will quit the +neighbourhood of man and dwell, as it may chance, in the most savage of +places. My evil passions will have fled, for I shall meet with +sympathy! My life will flow quietly away, and in my dying moments I +shall not curse my maker." + +His words had a strange effect upon me. I compassionated him and +sometimes felt a wish to console him, but when I looked upon him, when +I saw the filthy mass that moved and talked, my heart sickened and my +feelings were altered to those of horror and hatred. I tried to stifle +these sensations; I thought that as I could not sympathize with him, I +had no right to withhold from him the small portion of happiness which +was yet in my power to bestow. + +"You swear," I said, "to be harmless; but have you not already shown a +degree of malice that should reasonably make me distrust you? May not +even this be a feint that will increase your triumph by affording a +wider scope for your revenge?" + +"How is this? I must not be trifled with, and I demand an answer. If +I have no ties and no affections, hatred and vice must be my portion; +the love of another will destroy the cause of my crimes, and I shall +become a thing of whose existence everyone will be ignorant. My vices +are the children of a forced solitude that I abhor, and my virtues will +necessarily arise when I live in communion with an equal. I shall feel +the affections of a sensitive being and become linked to the chain of +existence and events from which I am now excluded." + +I paused some time to reflect on all he had related and the various +arguments which he had employed. I thought of the promise of virtues +which he had displayed on the opening of his existence and the +subsequent blight of all kindly feeling by the loathing and scorn which +his protectors had manifested towards him. His power and threats were +not omitted in my calculations; a creature who could exist in the ice +caves of the glaciers and hide himself from pursuit among the ridges of +inaccessible precipices was a being possessing faculties it would be +vain to cope with. After a long pause of reflection I concluded that +the justice due both to him and my fellow creatures demanded of me that +I should comply with his request. Turning to him, therefore, I said, + +"I consent to your demand, on your solemn oath to quit Europe forever, +and every other place in the neighbourhood of man, as soon as I shall +deliver into your hands a female who will accompany you in your exile." + +"I swear," he cried, "by the sun, and by the blue sky of heaven, and by +the fire of love that burns my heart, that if you grant my prayer, +while they exist you shall never behold me again. Depart to your home +and commence your labours; I shall watch their progress with +unutterable anxiety; and fear not but that when you are ready I shall +appear." + +Saying this, he suddenly quitted me, fearful, perhaps, of any change in +my sentiments. I saw him descend the mountain with greater speed than +the flight of an eagle, and quickly lost among the undulations of the +sea of ice. + +His tale had occupied the whole day, and the sun was upon the verge of +the horizon when he departed. I knew that I ought to hasten my descent +towards the valley, as I should soon be encompassed in darkness; but my +heart was heavy, and my steps slow. The labour of winding among the +little paths of the mountain and fixing my feet firmly as I advanced +perplexed me, occupied as I was by the emotions which the occurrences +of the day had produced. Night was far advanced when I came to the +halfway resting-place and seated myself beside the fountain. The stars +shone at intervals as the clouds passed from over them; the dark pines +rose before me, and every here and there a broken tree lay on the +ground; it was a scene of wonderful solemnity and stirred strange +thoughts within me. I wept bitterly, and clasping my hands in agony, I +exclaimed, "Oh! Stars and clouds and winds, ye are all about to mock +me; if ye really pity me, crush sensation and memory; let me become as +nought; but if not, depart, depart, and leave me in darkness." + +These were wild and miserable thoughts, but I cannot describe to you +how the eternal twinkling of the stars weighed upon me and how I +listened to every blast of wind as if it were a dull ugly siroc on its +way to consume me. + +Morning dawned before I arrived at the village of Chamounix; I took no +rest, but returned immediately to Geneva. Even in my own heart I could +give no expression to my sensations--they weighed on me with a +mountain's weight and their excess destroyed my agony beneath them. +Thus I returned home, and entering the house, presented myself to the +family. My haggard and wild appearance awoke intense alarm, but I +answered no question, scarcely did I speak. I felt as if I were placed +under a ban--as if I had no right to claim their sympathies--as if +never more might I enjoy companionship with them. Yet even thus I +loved them to adoration; and to save them, I resolved to dedicate +myself to my most abhorred task. The prospect of such an occupation +made every other circumstance of existence pass before me like a dream, +and that thought only had to me the reality of life. + + + +Chapter 18 + +Day after day, week after week, passed away on my return to Geneva; and +I could not collect the courage to recommence my work. I feared the +vengeance of the disappointed fiend, yet I was unable to overcome my +repugnance to the task which was enjoined me. I found that I could not +compose a female without again devoting several months to profound +study and laborious disquisition. I had heard of some discoveries +having been made by an English philosopher, the knowledge of which was +material to my success, and I sometimes thought of obtaining my +father's consent to visit England for this purpose; but I clung to +every pretence of delay and shrank from taking the first step in an +undertaking whose immediate necessity began to appear less absolute to +me. A change indeed had taken place in me; my health, which had +hitherto declined, was now much restored; and my spirits, when +unchecked by the memory of my unhappy promise, rose proportionably. My +father saw this change with pleasure, and he turned his thoughts +towards the best method of eradicating the remains of my melancholy, +which every now and then would return by fits, and with a devouring +blackness overcast the approaching sunshine. At these moments I took +refuge in the most perfect solitude. I passed whole days on the lake +alone in a little boat, watching the clouds and listening to the +rippling of the waves, silent and listless. But the fresh air and +bright sun seldom failed to restore me to some degree of composure, and +on my return I met the salutations of my friends with a readier smile +and a more cheerful heart. + +It was after my return from one of these rambles that my father, +calling me aside, thus addressed me, + +"I am happy to remark, my dear son, that you have resumed your former +pleasures and seem to be returning to yourself. And yet you are still +unhappy and still avoid our society. For some time I was lost in +conjecture as to the cause of this, but yesterday an idea struck me, +and if it is well founded, I conjure you to avow it. Reserve on such a +point would be not only useless, but draw down treble misery on us all." + +I trembled violently at his exordium, and my father continued--"I +confess, my son, that I have always looked forward to your marriage +with our dear Elizabeth as the tie of our domestic comfort and the stay +of my declining years. You were attached to each other from your +earliest infancy; you studied together, and appeared, in dispositions +and tastes, entirely suited to one another. But so blind is the +experience of man that what I conceived to be the best assistants to my +plan may have entirely destroyed it. You, perhaps, regard her as your +sister, without any wish that she might become your wife. Nay, you may +have met with another whom you may love; and considering yourself as +bound in honour to Elizabeth, this struggle may occasion the poignant +misery which you appear to feel." + +"My dear father, reassure yourself. I love my cousin tenderly and +sincerely. I never saw any woman who excited, as Elizabeth does, my +warmest admiration and affection. My future hopes and prospects are +entirely bound up in the expectation of our union." + +"The expression of your sentiments of this subject, my dear Victor, +gives me more pleasure than I have for some time experienced. If you +feel thus, we shall assuredly be happy, however present events may cast +a gloom over us. But it is this gloom which appears to have taken so +strong a hold of your mind that I wish to dissipate. Tell me, +therefore, whether you object to an immediate solemnization of the +marriage. We have been unfortunate, and recent events have drawn us +from that everyday tranquillity befitting my years and infirmities. You +are younger; yet I do not suppose, possessed as you are of a competent +fortune, that an early marriage would at all interfere with any future +plans of honour and utility that you may have formed. Do not suppose, +however, that I wish to dictate happiness to you or that a delay on +your part would cause me any serious uneasiness. Interpret my words +with candour and answer me, I conjure you, with confidence and +sincerity." + +I listened to my father in silence and remained for some time incapable +of offering any reply. I revolved rapidly in my mind a multitude of +thoughts and endeavoured to arrive at some conclusion. Alas! To me +the idea of an immediate union with my Elizabeth was one of horror and +dismay. I was bound by a solemn promise which I had not yet fulfilled +and dared not break, or if I did, what manifold miseries might not +impend over me and my devoted family! Could I enter into a festival +with this deadly weight yet hanging round my neck and bowing me to the +ground? I must perform my engagement and let the monster depart with +his mate before I allowed myself to enjoy the delight of a union from +which I expected peace. + +I remembered also the necessity imposed upon me of either journeying to +England or entering into a long correspondence with those philosophers +of that country whose knowledge and discoveries were of indispensable +use to me in my present undertaking. The latter method of obtaining +the desired intelligence was dilatory and unsatisfactory; besides, I +had an insurmountable aversion to the idea of engaging myself in my +loathsome task in my father's house while in habits of familiar +intercourse with those I loved. I knew that a thousand fearful +accidents might occur, the slightest of which would disclose a tale to +thrill all connected with me with horror. I was aware also that I +should often lose all self-command, all capacity of hiding the +harrowing sensations that would possess me during the progress of my +unearthly occupation. I must absent myself from all I loved while thus +employed. Once commenced, it would quickly be achieved, and I might be +restored to my family in peace and happiness. My promise fulfilled, +the monster would depart forever. Or (so my fond fancy imaged) some +accident might meanwhile occur to destroy him and put an end to my +slavery forever. + +These feelings dictated my answer to my father. I expressed a wish to +visit England, but concealing the true reasons of this request, I +clothed my desires under a guise which excited no suspicion, while I +urged my desire with an earnestness that easily induced my father to +comply. After so long a period of an absorbing melancholy that +resembled madness in its intensity and effects, he was glad to find +that I was capable of taking pleasure in the idea of such a journey, +and he hoped that change of scene and varied amusement would, before my +return, have restored me entirely to myself. + +The duration of my absence was left to my own choice; a few months, or +at most a year, was the period contemplated. One paternal kind +precaution he had taken to ensure my having a companion. Without +previously communicating with me, he had, in concert with Elizabeth, +arranged that Clerval should join me at Strasbourg. This interfered +with the solitude I coveted for the prosecution of my task; yet at the +commencement of my journey the presence of my friend could in no way be +an impediment, and truly I rejoiced that thus I should be saved many +hours of lonely, maddening reflection. Nay, Henry might stand between +me and the intrusion of my foe. If I were alone, would he not at times +force his abhorred presence on me to remind me of my task or to +contemplate its progress? + +To England, therefore, I was bound, and it was understood that my union +with Elizabeth should take place immediately on my return. My father's +age rendered him extremely averse to delay. For myself, there was one +reward I promised myself from my detested toils--one consolation for my +unparalleled sufferings; it was the prospect of that day when, +enfranchised from my miserable slavery, I might claim Elizabeth and +forget the past in my union with her. + +I now made arrangements for my journey, but one feeling haunted me +which filled me with fear and agitation. During my absence I should +leave my friends unconscious of the existence of their enemy and +unprotected from his attacks, exasperated as he might be by my +departure. But he had promised to follow me wherever I might go, and +would he not accompany me to England? This imagination was dreadful in +itself, but soothing inasmuch as it supposed the safety of my friends. +I was agonized with the idea of the possibility that the reverse of +this might happen. But through the whole period during which I was the +slave of my creature I allowed myself to be governed by the impulses of +the moment; and my present sensations strongly intimated that the fiend +would follow me and exempt my family from the danger of his +machinations. + +It was in the latter end of September that I again quitted my native +country. My journey had been my own suggestion, and Elizabeth +therefore acquiesced, but she was filled with disquiet at the idea of +my suffering, away from her, the inroads of misery and grief. It had +been her care which provided me a companion in Clerval--and yet a man +is blind to a thousand minute circumstances which call forth a woman's +sedulous attention. She longed to bid me hasten my return; a thousand +conflicting emotions rendered her mute as she bade me a tearful, silent +farewell. + +I threw myself into the carriage that was to convey me away, hardly +knowing whither I was going, and careless of what was passing around. +I remembered only, and it was with a bitter anguish that I reflected on +it, to order that my chemical instruments should be packed to go with +me. Filled with dreary imaginations, I passed through many beautiful +and majestic scenes, but my eyes were fixed and unobserving. I could +only think of the bourne of my travels and the work which was to occupy +me whilst they endured. + +After some days spent in listless indolence, during which I traversed +many leagues, I arrived at Strasbourg, where I waited two days for +Clerval. He came. Alas, how great was the contrast between us! He +was alive to every new scene, joyful when he saw the beauties of the +setting sun, and more happy when he beheld it rise and recommence a new +day. He pointed out to me the shifting colours of the landscape and +the appearances of the sky. "This is what it is to live," he cried; +"how I enjoy existence! But you, my dear Frankenstein, wherefore are +you desponding and sorrowful!" In truth, I was occupied by gloomy +thoughts and neither saw the descent of the evening star nor the golden +sunrise reflected in the Rhine. And you, my friend, would be far more +amused with the journal of Clerval, who observed the scenery with an +eye of feeling and delight, than in listening to my reflections. I, a +miserable wretch, haunted by a curse that shut up every avenue to +enjoyment. + +We had agreed to descend the Rhine in a boat from Strasbourg to +Rotterdam, whence we might take shipping for London. During this +voyage we passed many willowy islands and saw several beautiful towns. +We stayed a day at Mannheim, and on the fifth from our departure from +Strasbourg, arrived at Mainz. The course of the Rhine below Mainz +becomes much more picturesque. The river descends rapidly and winds +between hills, not high, but steep, and of beautiful forms. We saw +many ruined castles standing on the edges of precipices, surrounded by +black woods, high and inaccessible. This part of the Rhine, indeed, +presents a singularly variegated landscape. In one spot you view +rugged hills, ruined castles overlooking tremendous precipices, with +the dark Rhine rushing beneath; and on the sudden turn of a promontory, +flourishing vineyards with green sloping banks and a meandering river +and populous towns occupy the scene. + +We travelled at the time of the vintage and heard the song of the +labourers as we glided down the stream. Even I, depressed in mind, and +my spirits continually agitated by gloomy feelings, even I was pleased. +I lay at the bottom of the boat, and as I gazed on the cloudless blue +sky, I seemed to drink in a tranquillity to which I had long been a +stranger. And if these were my sensations, who can describe those of +Henry? He felt as if he had been transported to fairy-land and enjoyed +a happiness seldom tasted by man. "I have seen," he said, "the most +beautiful scenes of my own country; I have visited the lakes of Lucerne +and Uri, where the snowy mountains descend almost perpendicularly to +the water, casting black and impenetrable shades, which would cause a +gloomy and mournful appearance were it not for the most verdant islands +that believe the eye by their gay appearance; I have seen this lake +agitated by a tempest, when the wind tore up whirlwinds of water and +gave you an idea of what the water-spout must be on the great ocean; +and the waves dash with fury the base of the mountain, where the priest +and his mistress were overwhelmed by an avalanche and where their dying +voices are still said to be heard amid the pauses of the nightly wind; +I have seen the mountains of La Valais, and the Pays de Vaud; but this +country, Victor, pleases me more than all those wonders. The mountains +of Switzerland are more majestic and strange, but there is a charm in +the banks of this divine river that I never before saw equalled. Look +at that castle which overhangs yon precipice; and that also on the +island, almost concealed amongst the foliage of those lovely trees; and +now that group of labourers coming from among their vines; and that +village half hid in the recess of the mountain. Oh, surely the spirit +that inhabits and guards this place has a soul more in harmony with man +than those who pile the glacier or retire to the inaccessible peaks of +the mountains of our own country." Clerval! Beloved friend! Even now +it delights me to record your words and to dwell on the praise of which +you are so eminently deserving. He was a being formed in the "very +poetry of nature." His wild and enthusiastic imagination was chastened +by the sensibility of his heart. His soul overflowed with ardent +affections, and his friendship was of that devoted and wondrous nature +that the world-minded teach us to look for only in the imagination. But +even human sympathies were not sufficient to satisfy his eager mind. +The scenery of external nature, which others regard only with +admiration, he loved with ardour:-- + + + ----The sounding cataract + Haunted him like a passion: the tall rock, + The mountain, and the deep and gloomy wood, + Their colours and their forms, were then to him + An appetite; a feeling, and a love, + That had no need of a remoter charm, + By thought supplied, or any interest + Unborrow'd from the eye. + + [Wordsworth's "Tintern Abbey".] + + +And where does he now exist? Is this gentle and lovely being lost +forever? Has this mind, so replete with ideas, imaginations fanciful +and magnificent, which formed a world, whose existence depended on the +life of its creator;--has this mind perished? Does it now only exist +in my memory? No, it is not thus; your form so divinely wrought, and +beaming with beauty, has decayed, but your spirit still visits and +consoles your unhappy friend. + +Pardon this gush of sorrow; these ineffectual words are but a slight +tribute to the unexampled worth of Henry, but they soothe my heart, +overflowing with the anguish which his remembrance creates. I will +proceed with my tale. + +Beyond Cologne we descended to the plains of Holland; and we resolved +to post the remainder of our way, for the wind was contrary and the +stream of the river was too gentle to aid us. Our journey here lost +the interest arising from beautiful scenery, but we arrived in a few +days at Rotterdam, whence we proceeded by sea to England. It was on a +clear morning, in the latter days of December, that I first saw the +white cliffs of Britain. The banks of the Thames presented a new +scene; they were flat but fertile, and almost every town was marked by +the remembrance of some story. We saw Tilbury Fort and remembered the +Spanish Armada, Gravesend, Woolwich, and Greenwich--places which I had +heard of even in my country. + +At length we saw the numerous steeples of London, St. Paul's towering +above all, and the Tower famed in English history. + + + +Chapter 19 + +London was our present point of rest; we determined to remain several +months in this wonderful and celebrated city. Clerval desired the +intercourse of the men of genius and talent who flourished at this +time, but this was with me a secondary object; I was principally +occupied with the means of obtaining the information necessary for the +completion of my promise and quickly availed myself of the letters of +introduction that I had brought with me, addressed to the most +distinguished natural philosophers. + +If this journey had taken place during my days of study and happiness, +it would have afforded me inexpressible pleasure. But a blight had +come over my existence, and I only visited these people for the sake of +the information they might give me on the subject in which my interest +was so terribly profound. Company was irksome to me; when alone, I +could fill my mind with the sights of heaven and earth; the voice of +Henry soothed me, and I could thus cheat myself into a transitory +peace. But busy, uninteresting, joyous faces brought back despair to +my heart. I saw an insurmountable barrier placed between me and my +fellow men; this barrier was sealed with the blood of William and +Justine, and to reflect on the events connected with those names filled +my soul with anguish. + +But in Clerval I saw the image of my former self; he was inquisitive +and anxious to gain experience and instruction. The difference of +manners which he observed was to him an inexhaustible source of +instruction and amusement. He was also pursuing an object he had long +had in view. His design was to visit India, in the belief that he had +in his knowledge of its various languages, and in the views he had +taken of its society, the means of materially assisting the progress of +European colonization and trade. In Britain only could he further the +execution of his plan. He was forever busy, and the only check to his +enjoyments was my sorrowful and dejected mind. I tried to conceal this +as much as possible, that I might not debar him from the pleasures +natural to one who was entering on a new scene of life, undisturbed by +any care or bitter recollection. I often refused to accompany him, +alleging another engagement, that I might remain alone. I now also +began to collect the materials necessary for my new creation, and this +was to me like the torture of single drops of water continually falling +on the head. Every thought that was devoted to it was an extreme +anguish, and every word that I spoke in allusion to it caused my lips +to quiver, and my heart to palpitate. + +After passing some months in London, we received a letter from a person +in Scotland who had formerly been our visitor at Geneva. He mentioned +the beauties of his native country and asked us if those were not +sufficient allurements to induce us to prolong our journey as far north +as Perth, where he resided. Clerval eagerly desired to accept this +invitation, and I, although I abhorred society, wished to view again +mountains and streams and all the wondrous works with which Nature +adorns her chosen dwelling-places. We had arrived in England at the +beginning of October, and it was now February. We accordingly +determined to commence our journey towards the north at the expiration +of another month. In this expedition we did not intend to follow the +great road to Edinburgh, but to visit Windsor, Oxford, Matlock, and the +Cumberland lakes, resolving to arrive at the completion of this tour +about the end of July. I packed up my chemical instruments and the +materials I had collected, resolving to finish my labours in some +obscure nook in the northern highlands of Scotland. + +We quitted London on the 27th of March and remained a few days at +Windsor, rambling in its beautiful forest. This was a new scene to us +mountaineers; the majestic oaks, the quantity of game, and the herds of +stately deer were all novelties to us. + +From thence we proceeded to Oxford. As we entered this city our minds +were filled with the remembrance of the events that had been transacted +there more than a century and a half before. It was here that Charles +I. had collected his forces. This city had remained faithful to him, +after the whole nation had forsaken his cause to join the standard of +Parliament and liberty. The memory of that unfortunate king and his +companions, the amiable Falkland, the insolent Goring, his queen, and +son, gave a peculiar interest to every part of the city which they +might be supposed to have inhabited. The spirit of elder days found a +dwelling here, and we delighted to trace its footsteps. If these +feelings had not found an imaginary gratification, the appearance of +the city had yet in itself sufficient beauty to obtain our admiration. +The colleges are ancient and picturesque; the streets are almost +magnificent; and the lovely Isis, which flows beside it through meadows +of exquisite verdure, is spread forth into a placid expanse of waters, +which reflects its majestic assemblage of towers, and spires, and +domes, embosomed among aged trees. + +I enjoyed this scene, and yet my enjoyment was embittered both by the +memory of the past and the anticipation of the future. I was formed +for peaceful happiness. During my youthful days discontent never +visited my mind, and if I was ever overcome by ennui, the sight of what +is beautiful in nature or the study of what is excellent and sublime in +the productions of man could always interest my heart and communicate +elasticity to my spirits. But I am a blasted tree; the bolt has +entered my soul; and I felt then that I should survive to exhibit what +I shall soon cease to be--a miserable spectacle of wrecked humanity, +pitiable to others and intolerable to myself. + +We passed a considerable period at Oxford, rambling among its environs +and endeavouring to identify every spot which might relate to the most +animating epoch of English history. Our little voyages of discovery +were often prolonged by the successive objects that presented +themselves. We visited the tomb of the illustrious Hampden and the +field on which that patriot fell. For a moment my soul was elevated +from its debasing and miserable fears to contemplate the divine ideas +of liberty and self sacrifice of which these sights were the monuments +and the remembrancers. For an instant I dared to shake off my chains +and look around me with a free and lofty spirit, but the iron had eaten +into my flesh, and I sank again, trembling and hopeless, into my +miserable self. + +We left Oxford with regret and proceeded to Matlock, which was our next +place of rest. The country in the neighbourhood of this village +resembled, to a greater degree, the scenery of Switzerland; but +everything is on a lower scale, and the green hills want the crown of +distant white Alps which always attend on the piny mountains of my +native country. We visited the wondrous cave and the little cabinets +of natural history, where the curiosities are disposed in the same +manner as in the collections at Servox and Chamounix. The latter name +made me tremble when pronounced by Henry, and I hastened to quit +Matlock, with which that terrible scene was thus associated. + +From Derby, still journeying northwards, we passed two months in +Cumberland and Westmorland. I could now almost fancy myself among the +Swiss mountains. The little patches of snow which yet lingered on the +northern sides of the mountains, the lakes, and the dashing of the +rocky streams were all familiar and dear sights to me. Here also we +made some acquaintances, who almost contrived to cheat me into +happiness. The delight of Clerval was proportionably greater than +mine; his mind expanded in the company of men of talent, and he found +in his own nature greater capacities and resources than he could have +imagined himself to have possessed while he associated with his +inferiors. "I could pass my life here," said he to me; "and among +these mountains I should scarcely regret Switzerland and the Rhine." + +But he found that a traveller's life is one that includes much pain +amidst its enjoyments. His feelings are forever on the stretch; and +when he begins to sink into repose, he finds himself obliged to quit +that on which he rests in pleasure for something new, which again +engages his attention, and which also he forsakes for other novelties. + +We had scarcely visited the various lakes of Cumberland and Westmorland +and conceived an affection for some of the inhabitants when the period +of our appointment with our Scotch friend approached, and we left them +to travel on. For my own part I was not sorry. I had now neglected my +promise for some time, and I feared the effects of the daemon's +disappointment. He might remain in Switzerland and wreak his vengeance +on my relatives. This idea pursued me and tormented me at every moment +from which I might otherwise have snatched repose and peace. I waited +for my letters with feverish impatience; if they were delayed I was +miserable and overcome by a thousand fears; and when they arrived and I +saw the superscription of Elizabeth or my father, I hardly dared to +read and ascertain my fate. Sometimes I thought that the fiend +followed me and might expedite my remissness by murdering my companion. +When these thoughts possessed me, I would not quit Henry for a moment, +but followed him as his shadow, to protect him from the fancied rage of +his destroyer. I felt as if I had committed some great crime, the +consciousness of which haunted me. I was guiltless, but I had indeed +drawn down a horrible curse upon my head, as mortal as that of crime. + +I visited Edinburgh with languid eyes and mind; and yet that city might +have interested the most unfortunate being. Clerval did not like it so +well as Oxford, for the antiquity of the latter city was more pleasing +to him. But the beauty and regularity of the new town of Edinburgh, +its romantic castle and its environs, the most delightful in the world, +Arthur's Seat, St. Bernard's Well, and the Pentland Hills compensated +him for the change and filled him with cheerfulness and admiration. But +I was impatient to arrive at the termination of my journey. + +We left Edinburgh in a week, passing through Coupar, St. Andrew's, and +along the banks of the Tay, to Perth, where our friend expected us. +But I was in no mood to laugh and talk with strangers or enter into +their feelings or plans with the good humour expected from a guest; and +accordingly I told Clerval that I wished to make the tour of Scotland +alone. "Do you," said I, "enjoy yourself, and let this be our +rendezvous. I may be absent a month or two; but do not interfere with +my motions, I entreat you; leave me to peace and solitude for a short +time; and when I return, I hope it will be with a lighter heart, more +congenial to your own temper." + +Henry wished to dissuade me, but seeing me bent on this plan, ceased to +remonstrate. He entreated me to write often. "I had rather be with +you," he said, "in your solitary rambles, than with these Scotch +people, whom I do not know; hasten, then, my dear friend, to return, +that I may again feel myself somewhat at home, which I cannot do in +your absence." + +Having parted from my friend, I determined to visit some remote spot of +Scotland and finish my work in solitude. I did not doubt but that the +monster followed me and would discover himself to me when I should have +finished, that he might receive his companion. With this resolution I +traversed the northern highlands and fixed on one of the remotest of +the Orkneys as the scene of my labours. It was a place fitted for such +a work, being hardly more than a rock whose high sides were continually +beaten upon by the waves. The soil was barren, scarcely affording +pasture for a few miserable cows, and oatmeal for its inhabitants, +which consisted of five persons, whose gaunt and scraggy limbs gave +tokens of their miserable fare. Vegetables and bread, when they +indulged in such luxuries, and even fresh water, was to be procured +from the mainland, which was about five miles distant. + +On the whole island there were but three miserable huts, and one of +these was vacant when I arrived. This I hired. It contained but two +rooms, and these exhibited all the squalidness of the most miserable +penury. The thatch had fallen in, the walls were unplastered, and the +door was off its hinges. I ordered it to be repaired, bought some +furniture, and took possession, an incident which would doubtless have +occasioned some surprise had not all the senses of the cottagers been +benumbed by want and squalid poverty. As it was, I lived ungazed at +and unmolested, hardly thanked for the pittance of food and clothes +which I gave, so much does suffering blunt even the coarsest sensations +of men. + +In this retreat I devoted the morning to labour; but in the evening, +when the weather permitted, I walked on the stony beach of the sea to +listen to the waves as they roared and dashed at my feet. It was a +monotonous yet ever-changing scene. I thought of Switzerland; it was +far different from this desolate and appalling landscape. Its hills +are covered with vines, and its cottages are scattered thickly in the +plains. Its fair lakes reflect a blue and gentle sky, and when +troubled by the winds, their tumult is but as the play of a lively +infant when compared to the roarings of the giant ocean. + +In this manner I distributed my occupations when I first arrived, but +as I proceeded in my labour, it became every day more horrible and +irksome to me. Sometimes I could not prevail on myself to enter my +laboratory for several days, and at other times I toiled day and night +in order to complete my work. It was, indeed, a filthy process in +which I was engaged. During my first experiment, a kind of +enthusiastic frenzy had blinded me to the horror of my employment; my +mind was intently fixed on the consummation of my labour, and my eyes +were shut to the horror of my proceedings. But now I went to it in +cold blood, and my heart often sickened at the work of my hands. + +Thus situated, employed in the most detestable occupation, immersed in +a solitude where nothing could for an instant call my attention from +the actual scene in which I was engaged, my spirits became unequal; I +grew restless and nervous. Every moment I feared to meet my +persecutor. Sometimes I sat with my eyes fixed on the ground, fearing +to raise them lest they should encounter the object which I so much +dreaded to behold. I feared to wander from the sight of my fellow +creatures lest when alone he should come to claim his companion. + +In the mean time I worked on, and my labour was already considerably +advanced. I looked towards its completion with a tremulous and eager +hope, which I dared not trust myself to question but which was +intermixed with obscure forebodings of evil that made my heart sicken +in my bosom. + + + +Chapter 20 + +I sat one evening in my laboratory; the sun had set, and the moon was +just rising from the sea; I had not sufficient light for my employment, +and I remained idle, in a pause of consideration of whether I should +leave my labour for the night or hasten its conclusion by an +unremitting attention to it. As I sat, a train of reflection occurred +to me which led me to consider the effects of what I was now doing. +Three years before, I was engaged in the same manner and had created a +fiend whose unparalleled barbarity had desolated my heart and filled it +forever with the bitterest remorse. I was now about to form another +being of whose dispositions I was alike ignorant; she might become ten +thousand times more malignant than her mate and delight, for its own +sake, in murder and wretchedness. He had sworn to quit the +neighbourhood of man and hide himself in deserts, but she had not; and +she, who in all probability was to become a thinking and reasoning +animal, might refuse to comply with a compact made before her creation. +They might even hate each other; the creature who already lived loathed +his own deformity, and might he not conceive a greater abhorrence for +it when it came before his eyes in the female form? She also might +turn with disgust from him to the superior beauty of man; she might +quit him, and he be again alone, exasperated by the fresh provocation +of being deserted by one of his own species. Even if they were to +leave Europe and inhabit the deserts of the new world, yet one of the +first results of those sympathies for which the daemon thirsted would +be children, and a race of devils would be propagated upon the earth +who might make the very existence of the species of man a condition +precarious and full of terror. Had I right, for my own benefit, to +inflict this curse upon everlasting generations? I had before been +moved by the sophisms of the being I had created; I had been struck +senseless by his fiendish threats; but now, for the first time, the +wickedness of my promise burst upon me; I shuddered to think that +future ages might curse me as their pest, whose selfishness had not +hesitated to buy its own peace at the price, perhaps, of the existence +of the whole human race. + +I trembled and my heart failed within me, when, on looking up, I saw by +the light of the moon the daemon at the casement. A ghastly grin +wrinkled his lips as he gazed on me, where I sat fulfilling the task +which he had allotted to me. Yes, he had followed me in my travels; he +had loitered in forests, hid himself in caves, or taken refuge in wide +and desert heaths; and he now came to mark my progress and claim the +fulfilment of my promise. + +As I looked on him, his countenance expressed the utmost extent of +malice and treachery. I thought with a sensation of madness on my +promise of creating another like to him, and trembling with passion, +tore to pieces the thing on which I was engaged. The wretch saw me +destroy the creature on whose future existence he depended for +happiness, and with a howl of devilish despair and revenge, withdrew. + +I left the room, and locking the door, made a solemn vow in my own +heart never to resume my labours; and then, with trembling steps, I +sought my own apartment. I was alone; none were near me to dissipate +the gloom and relieve me from the sickening oppression of the most +terrible reveries. + +Several hours passed, and I remained near my window gazing on the sea; +it was almost motionless, for the winds were hushed, and all nature +reposed under the eye of the quiet moon. A few fishing vessels alone +specked the water, and now and then the gentle breeze wafted the sound +of voices as the fishermen called to one another. I felt the silence, +although I was hardly conscious of its extreme profundity, until my ear +was suddenly arrested by the paddling of oars near the shore, and a +person landed close to my house. + +In a few minutes after, I heard the creaking of my door, as if some one +endeavoured to open it softly. I trembled from head to foot; I felt a +presentiment of who it was and wished to rouse one of the peasants who +dwelt in a cottage not far from mine; but I was overcome by the +sensation of helplessness, so often felt in frightful dreams, when you +in vain endeavour to fly from an impending danger, and was rooted to +the spot. Presently I heard the sound of footsteps along the passage; +the door opened, and the wretch whom I dreaded appeared. + +Shutting the door, he approached me and said in a smothered voice, "You +have destroyed the work which you began; what is it that you intend? +Do you dare to break your promise? I have endured toil and misery; I +left Switzerland with you; I crept along the shores of the Rhine, among +its willow islands and over the summits of its hills. I have dwelt +many months in the heaths of England and among the deserts of Scotland. +I have endured incalculable fatigue, and cold, and hunger; do you dare +destroy my hopes?" + +"Begone! I do break my promise; never will I create another like +yourself, equal in deformity and wickedness." + +"Slave, I before reasoned with you, but you have proved yourself +unworthy of my condescension. Remember that I have power; you believe +yourself miserable, but I can make you so wretched that the light of +day will be hateful to you. You are my creator, but I am your master; +obey!" + +"The hour of my irresolution is past, and the period of your power is +arrived. Your threats cannot move me to do an act of wickedness; but +they confirm me in a determination of not creating you a companion in +vice. Shall I, in cool blood, set loose upon the earth a daemon whose +delight is in death and wretchedness? Begone! I am firm, and your +words will only exasperate my rage." + +The monster saw my determination in my face and gnashed his teeth in +the impotence of anger. "Shall each man," cried he, "find a wife for +his bosom, and each beast have his mate, and I be alone? I had +feelings of affection, and they were requited by detestation and scorn. +Man! You may hate, but beware! Your hours will pass in dread and +misery, and soon the bolt will fall which must ravish from you your +happiness forever. Are you to be happy while I grovel in the intensity +of my wretchedness? You can blast my other passions, but revenge +remains--revenge, henceforth dearer than light or food! I may die, but +first you, my tyrant and tormentor, shall curse the sun that gazes on +your misery. Beware, for I am fearless and therefore powerful. I will +watch with the wiliness of a snake, that I may sting with its venom. +Man, you shall repent of the injuries you inflict." + +"Devil, cease; and do not poison the air with these sounds of malice. +I have declared my resolution to you, and I am no coward to bend +beneath words. Leave me; I am inexorable." + +"It is well. I go; but remember, I shall be with you on your +wedding-night." + +I started forward and exclaimed, "Villain! Before you sign my +death-warrant, be sure that you are yourself safe." + +I would have seized him, but he eluded me and quitted the house with +precipitation. In a few moments I saw him in his boat, which shot +across the waters with an arrowy swiftness and was soon lost amidst the +waves. + +All was again silent, but his words rang in my ears. I burned with +rage to pursue the murderer of my peace and precipitate him into the +ocean. I walked up and down my room hastily and perturbed, while my +imagination conjured up a thousand images to torment and sting me. Why +had I not followed him and closed with him in mortal strife? But I had +suffered him to depart, and he had directed his course towards the +mainland. I shuddered to think who might be the next victim sacrificed +to his insatiate revenge. And then I thought again of his words--"I +WILL BE WITH YOU ON YOUR WEDDING-NIGHT." That, then, was the period +fixed for the fulfilment of my destiny. In that hour I should die and +at once satisfy and extinguish his malice. The prospect did not move +me to fear; yet when I thought of my beloved Elizabeth, of her tears +and endless sorrow, when she should find her lover so barbarously +snatched from her, tears, the first I had shed for many months, +streamed from my eyes, and I resolved not to fall before my enemy +without a bitter struggle. + +The night passed away, and the sun rose from the ocean; my feelings +became calmer, if it may be called calmness when the violence of rage +sinks into the depths of despair. I left the house, the horrid scene +of the last night's contention, and walked on the beach of the sea, +which I almost regarded as an insuperable barrier between me and my +fellow creatures; nay, a wish that such should prove the fact stole +across me. + +I desired that I might pass my life on that barren rock, wearily, it is +true, but uninterrupted by any sudden shock of misery. If I returned, +it was to be sacrificed or to see those whom I most loved die under the +grasp of a daemon whom I had myself created. + +I walked about the isle like a restless spectre, separated from all it +loved and miserable in the separation. When it became noon, and the +sun rose higher, I lay down on the grass and was overpowered by a deep +sleep. I had been awake the whole of the preceding night, my nerves +were agitated, and my eyes inflamed by watching and misery. The sleep +into which I now sank refreshed me; and when I awoke, I again felt as +if I belonged to a race of human beings like myself, and I began to +reflect upon what had passed with greater composure; yet still the +words of the fiend rang in my ears like a death-knell; they appeared +like a dream, yet distinct and oppressive as a reality. + +The sun had far descended, and I still sat on the shore, satisfying my +appetite, which had become ravenous, with an oaten cake, when I saw a +fishing-boat land close to me, and one of the men brought me a packet; +it contained letters from Geneva, and one from Clerval entreating me to +join him. He said that he was wearing away his time fruitlessly where +he was, that letters from the friends he had formed in London desired +his return to complete the negotiation they had entered into for his +Indian enterprise. He could not any longer delay his departure; but as +his journey to London might be followed, even sooner than he now +conjectured, by his longer voyage, he entreated me to bestow as much of +my society on him as I could spare. He besought me, therefore, to +leave my solitary isle and to meet him at Perth, that we might proceed +southwards together. This letter in a degree recalled me to life, and +I determined to quit my island at the expiration of two days. Yet, +before I departed, there was a task to perform, on which I shuddered to +reflect; I must pack up my chemical instruments, and for that purpose I +must enter the room which had been the scene of my odious work, and I +must handle those utensils the sight of which was sickening to me. The +next morning, at daybreak, I summoned sufficient courage and unlocked +the door of my laboratory. The remains of the half-finished creature, +whom I had destroyed, lay scattered on the floor, and I almost felt as +if I had mangled the living flesh of a human being. I paused to +collect myself and then entered the chamber. With trembling hand I +conveyed the instruments out of the room, but I reflected that I ought +not to leave the relics of my work to excite the horror and suspicion +of the peasants; and I accordingly put them into a basket, with a great +quantity of stones, and laying them up, determined to throw them into +the sea that very night; and in the meantime I sat upon the beach, +employed in cleaning and arranging my chemical apparatus. + +Nothing could be more complete than the alteration that had taken place +in my feelings since the night of the appearance of the daemon. I had +before regarded my promise with a gloomy despair as a thing that, with +whatever consequences, must be fulfilled; but I now felt as if a film +had been taken from before my eyes and that I for the first time saw +clearly. The idea of renewing my labours did not for one instant occur +to me; the threat I had heard weighed on my thoughts, but I did not +reflect that a voluntary act of mine could avert it. I had resolved in +my own mind that to create another like the fiend I had first made +would be an act of the basest and most atrocious selfishness, and I +banished from my mind every thought that could lead to a different +conclusion. + +Between two and three in the morning the moon rose; and I then, putting +my basket aboard a little skiff, sailed out about four miles from the +shore. The scene was perfectly solitary; a few boats were returning +towards land, but I sailed away from them. I felt as if I was about +the commission of a dreadful crime and avoided with shuddering anxiety +any encounter with my fellow creatures. At one time the moon, which +had before been clear, was suddenly overspread by a thick cloud, and I +took advantage of the moment of darkness and cast my basket into the +sea; I listened to the gurgling sound as it sank and then sailed away +from the spot. The sky became clouded, but the air was pure, although +chilled by the northeast breeze that was then rising. But it refreshed +me and filled me with such agreeable sensations that I resolved to +prolong my stay on the water, and fixing the rudder in a direct +position, stretched myself at the bottom of the boat. Clouds hid the +moon, everything was obscure, and I heard only the sound of the boat as +its keel cut through the waves; the murmur lulled me, and in a short +time I slept soundly. I do not know how long I remained in this +situation, but when I awoke I found that the sun had already mounted +considerably. The wind was high, and the waves continually threatened +the safety of my little skiff. I found that the wind was northeast and +must have driven me far from the coast from which I had embarked. I +endeavoured to change my course but quickly found that if I again made +the attempt the boat would be instantly filled with water. Thus +situated, my only resource was to drive before the wind. I confess +that I felt a few sensations of terror. I had no compass with me and +was so slenderly acquainted with the geography of this part of the +world that the sun was of little benefit to me. I might be driven into +the wide Atlantic and feel all the tortures of starvation or be +swallowed up in the immeasurable waters that roared and buffeted around +me. I had already been out many hours and felt the torment of a +burning thirst, a prelude to my other sufferings. I looked on the +heavens, which were covered by clouds that flew before the wind, only +to be replaced by others; I looked upon the sea; it was to be my grave. +"Fiend," I exclaimed, "your task is already fulfilled!" I thought of +Elizabeth, of my father, and of Clerval--all left behind, on whom the +monster might satisfy his sanguinary and merciless passions. This idea +plunged me into a reverie so despairing and frightful that even now, +when the scene is on the point of closing before me forever, I shudder +to reflect on it. + +Some hours passed thus; but by degrees, as the sun declined towards the +horizon, the wind died away into a gentle breeze and the sea became +free from breakers. But these gave place to a heavy swell; I felt sick +and hardly able to hold the rudder, when suddenly I saw a line of high +land towards the south. + +Almost spent, as I was, by fatigue and the dreadful suspense I endured +for several hours, this sudden certainty of life rushed like a flood of +warm joy to my heart, and tears gushed from my eyes. + +How mutable are our feelings, and how strange is that clinging love we +have of life even in the excess of misery! I constructed another sail +with a part of my dress and eagerly steered my course towards the land. +It had a wild and rocky appearance, but as I approached nearer I easily +perceived the traces of cultivation. I saw vessels near the shore and +found myself suddenly transported back to the neighbourhood of +civilized man. I carefully traced the windings of the land and hailed +a steeple which I at length saw issuing from behind a small promontory. +As I was in a state of extreme debility, I resolved to sail directly +towards the town, as a place where I could most easily procure +nourishment. Fortunately I had money with me. + +As I turned the promontory I perceived a small neat town and a good +harbour, which I entered, my heart bounding with joy at my unexpected +escape. + +As I was occupied in fixing the boat and arranging the sails, several +people crowded towards the spot. They seemed much surprised at my +appearance, but instead of offering me any assistance, whispered +together with gestures that at any other time might have produced in me +a slight sensation of alarm. As it was, I merely remarked that they +spoke English, and I therefore addressed them in that language. "My +good friends," said I, "will you be so kind as to tell me the name of +this town and inform me where I am?" + +"You will know that soon enough," replied a man with a hoarse voice. +"Maybe you are come to a place that will not prove much to your taste, +but you will not be consulted as to your quarters, I promise you." + +I was exceedingly surprised on receiving so rude an answer from a +stranger, and I was also disconcerted on perceiving the frowning and +angry countenances of his companions. "Why do you answer me so +roughly?" I replied. "Surely it is not the custom of Englishmen to +receive strangers so inhospitably." + +"I do not know," said the man, "what the custom of the English may be, +but it is the custom of the Irish to hate villains." While this strange +dialogue continued, I perceived the crowd rapidly increase. Their +faces expressed a mixture of curiosity and anger, which annoyed and in +some degree alarmed me. + +I inquired the way to the inn, but no one replied. I then moved +forward, and a murmuring sound arose from the crowd as they followed +and surrounded me, when an ill-looking man approaching tapped me on the +shoulder and said, "Come, sir, you must follow me to Mr. Kirwin's to +give an account of yourself." + +"Who is Mr. Kirwin? Why am I to give an account of myself? Is not +this a free country?" + +"Ay, sir, free enough for honest folks. Mr. Kirwin is a magistrate, +and you are to give an account of the death of a gentleman who was +found murdered here last night." + +This answer startled me, but I presently recovered myself. I was +innocent; that could easily be proved; accordingly I followed my +conductor in silence and was led to one of the best houses in the town. +I was ready to sink from fatigue and hunger, but being surrounded by a +crowd, I thought it politic to rouse all my strength, that no physical +debility might be construed into apprehension or conscious guilt. +Little did I then expect the calamity that was in a few moments to +overwhelm me and extinguish in horror and despair all fear of ignominy +or death. I must pause here, for it requires all my fortitude to recall +the memory of the frightful events which I am about to relate, in +proper detail, to my recollection. + + + +Chapter 21 + +I was soon introduced into the presence of the magistrate, an old +benevolent man with calm and mild manners. He looked upon me, however, +with some degree of severity, and then, turning towards my conductors, +he asked who appeared as witnesses on this occasion. + +About half a dozen men came forward; and, one being selected by the +magistrate, he deposed that he had been out fishing the night before +with his son and brother-in-law, Daniel Nugent, when, about ten +o'clock, they observed a strong northerly blast rising, and they +accordingly put in for port. It was a very dark night, as the moon had +not yet risen; they did not land at the harbour, but, as they had been +accustomed, at a creek about two miles below. He walked on first, +carrying a part of the fishing tackle, and his companions followed him +at some distance. + +As he was proceeding along the sands, he struck his foot against +something and fell at his length on the ground. His companions came up +to assist him, and by the light of their lantern they found that he had +fallen on the body of a man, who was to all appearance dead. Their +first supposition was that it was the corpse of some person who had +been drowned and was thrown on shore by the waves, but on examination +they found that the clothes were not wet and even that the body was not +then cold. They instantly carried it to the cottage of an old woman +near the spot and endeavoured, but in vain, to restore it to life. It +appeared to be a handsome young man, about five and twenty years of +age. He had apparently been strangled, for there was no sign of any +violence except the black mark of fingers on his neck. + +The first part of this deposition did not in the least interest me, but +when the mark of the fingers was mentioned I remembered the murder of +my brother and felt myself extremely agitated; my limbs trembled, and a +mist came over my eyes, which obliged me to lean on a chair for +support. The magistrate observed me with a keen eye and of course drew +an unfavourable augury from my manner. + +The son confirmed his father's account, but when Daniel Nugent was +called he swore positively that just before the fall of his companion, +he saw a boat, with a single man in it, at a short distance from the +shore; and as far as he could judge by the light of a few stars, it was +the same boat in which I had just landed. A woman deposed that she +lived near the beach and was standing at the door of her cottage, +waiting for the return of the fishermen, about an hour before she heard +of the discovery of the body, when she saw a boat with only one man in +it push off from that part of the shore where the corpse was afterwards +found. + +Another woman confirmed the account of the fishermen having brought the +body into her house; it was not cold. They put it into a bed and +rubbed it, and Daniel went to the town for an apothecary, but life was +quite gone. + +Several other men were examined concerning my landing, and they agreed +that, with the strong north wind that had arisen during the night, it +was very probable that I had beaten about for many hours and had been +obliged to return nearly to the same spot from which I had departed. +Besides, they observed that it appeared that I had brought the body +from another place, and it was likely that as I did not appear to know +the shore, I might have put into the harbour ignorant of the distance +of the town of ---- from the place where I had deposited the corpse. + +Mr. Kirwin, on hearing this evidence, desired that I should be taken +into the room where the body lay for interment, that it might be +observed what effect the sight of it would produce upon me. This idea +was probably suggested by the extreme agitation I had exhibited when +the mode of the murder had been described. I was accordingly +conducted, by the magistrate and several other persons, to the inn. I +could not help being struck by the strange coincidences that had taken +place during this eventful night; but, knowing that I had been +conversing with several persons in the island I had inhabited about the +time that the body had been found, I was perfectly tranquil as to the +consequences of the affair. I entered the room where the corpse lay +and was led up to the coffin. How can I describe my sensations on +beholding it? I feel yet parched with horror, nor can I reflect on +that terrible moment without shuddering and agony. The examination, +the presence of the magistrate and witnesses, passed like a dream from +my memory when I saw the lifeless form of Henry Clerval stretched +before me. I gasped for breath, and throwing myself on the body, I +exclaimed, "Have my murderous machinations deprived you also, my +dearest Henry, of life? Two I have already destroyed; other victims +await their destiny; but you, Clerval, my friend, my benefactor--" + +The human frame could no longer support the agonies that I endured, and +I was carried out of the room in strong convulsions. A fever succeeded +to this. I lay for two months on the point of death; my ravings, as I +afterwards heard, were frightful; I called myself the murderer of +William, of Justine, and of Clerval. Sometimes I entreated my +attendants to assist me in the destruction of the fiend by whom I was +tormented; and at others I felt the fingers of the monster already +grasping my neck, and screamed aloud with agony and terror. +Fortunately, as I spoke my native language, Mr. Kirwin alone understood +me; but my gestures and bitter cries were sufficient to affright the +other witnesses. Why did I not die? More miserable than man ever was +before, why did I not sink into forgetfulness and rest? Death snatches +away many blooming children, the only hopes of their doting parents; +how many brides and youthful lovers have been one day in the bloom of +health and hope, and the next a prey for worms and the decay of the +tomb! Of what materials was I made that I could thus resist so many +shocks, which, like the turning of the wheel, continually renewed the +torture? + +But I was doomed to live and in two months found myself as awaking from +a dream, in a prison, stretched on a wretched bed, surrounded by +jailers, turnkeys, bolts, and all the miserable apparatus of a dungeon. +It was morning, I remember, when I thus awoke to understanding; I had +forgotten the particulars of what had happened and only felt as if some +great misfortune had suddenly overwhelmed me; but when I looked around +and saw the barred windows and the squalidness of the room in which I +was, all flashed across my memory and I groaned bitterly. + +This sound disturbed an old woman who was sleeping in a chair beside +me. She was a hired nurse, the wife of one of the turnkeys, and her +countenance expressed all those bad qualities which often characterize +that class. The lines of her face were hard and rude, like that of +persons accustomed to see without sympathizing in sights of misery. Her +tone expressed her entire indifference; she addressed me in English, +and the voice struck me as one that I had heard during my sufferings. +"Are you better now, sir?" said she. + +I replied in the same language, with a feeble voice, "I believe I am; +but if it be all true, if indeed I did not dream, I am sorry that I am +still alive to feel this misery and horror." + +"For that matter," replied the old woman, "if you mean about the +gentleman you murdered, I believe that it were better for you if you +were dead, for I fancy it will go hard with you! However, that's none +of my business; I am sent to nurse you and get you well; I do my duty +with a safe conscience; it were well if everybody did the same." + +I turned with loathing from the woman who could utter so unfeeling a +speech to a person just saved, on the very edge of death; but I felt +languid and unable to reflect on all that had passed. The whole series +of my life appeared to me as a dream; I sometimes doubted if indeed it +were all true, for it never presented itself to my mind with the force +of reality. + +As the images that floated before me became more distinct, I grew +feverish; a darkness pressed around me; no one was near me who soothed +me with the gentle voice of love; no dear hand supported me. The +physician came and prescribed medicines, and the old woman prepared +them for me; but utter carelessness was visible in the first, and the +expression of brutality was strongly marked in the visage of the +second. Who could be interested in the fate of a murderer but the +hangman who would gain his fee? + +These were my first reflections, but I soon learned that Mr. Kirwin had +shown me extreme kindness. He had caused the best room in the prison +to be prepared for me (wretched indeed was the best); and it was he who +had provided a physician and a nurse. It is true, he seldom came to +see me, for although he ardently desired to relieve the sufferings of +every human creature, he did not wish to be present at the agonies and +miserable ravings of a murderer. He came, therefore, sometimes to see +that I was not neglected, but his visits were short and with long +intervals. One day, while I was gradually recovering, I was seated in +a chair, my eyes half open and my cheeks livid like those in death. I +was overcome by gloom and misery and often reflected I had better seek +death than desire to remain in a world which to me was replete with +wretchedness. At one time I considered whether I should not declare +myself guilty and suffer the penalty of the law, less innocent than +poor Justine had been. Such were my thoughts when the door of my +apartment was opened and Mr. Kirwin entered. His countenance expressed +sympathy and compassion; he drew a chair close to mine and addressed me +in French, "I fear that this place is very shocking to you; can I do +anything to make you more comfortable?" + +"I thank you, but all that you mention is nothing to me; on the whole +earth there is no comfort which I am capable of receiving." + +"I know that the sympathy of a stranger can be but of little relief to +one borne down as you are by so strange a misfortune. But you will, I +hope, soon quit this melancholy abode, for doubtless evidence can +easily be brought to free you from the criminal charge." + +"That is my least concern; I am, by a course of strange events, become +the most miserable of mortals. Persecuted and tortured as I am and +have been, can death be any evil to me?" + +"Nothing indeed could be more unfortunate and agonizing than the +strange chances that have lately occurred. You were thrown, by some +surprising accident, on this shore, renowned for its hospitality, +seized immediately, and charged with murder. The first sight that was +presented to your eyes was the body of your friend, murdered in so +unaccountable a manner and placed, as it were, by some fiend across +your path." + +As Mr. Kirwin said this, notwithstanding the agitation I endured on +this retrospect of my sufferings, I also felt considerable surprise at +the knowledge he seemed to possess concerning me. I suppose some +astonishment was exhibited in my countenance, for Mr. Kirwin hastened +to say, "Immediately upon your being taken ill, all the papers that +were on your person were brought me, and I examined them that I might +discover some trace by which I could send to your relations an account +of your misfortune and illness. I found several letters, and, among +others, one which I discovered from its commencement to be from your +father. I instantly wrote to Geneva; nearly two months have elapsed +since the departure of my letter. But you are ill; even now you +tremble; you are unfit for agitation of any kind." + +"This suspense is a thousand times worse than the most horrible event; +tell me what new scene of death has been acted, and whose murder I am +now to lament?" + +"Your family is perfectly well," said Mr. Kirwin with gentleness; "and +someone, a friend, is come to visit you." + +I know not by what chain of thought the idea presented itself, but it +instantly darted into my mind that the murderer had come to mock at my +misery and taunt me with the death of Clerval, as a new incitement for +me to comply with his hellish desires. I put my hand before my eyes, +and cried out in agony, "Oh! Take him away! I cannot see him; for +God's sake, do not let him enter!" + +Mr. Kirwin regarded me with a troubled countenance. He could not help +regarding my exclamation as a presumption of my guilt and said in +rather a severe tone, "I should have thought, young man, that the +presence of your father would have been welcome instead of inspiring +such violent repugnance." + +"My father!" cried I, while every feature and every muscle was relaxed +from anguish to pleasure. "Is my father indeed come? How kind, how +very kind! But where is he, why does he not hasten to me?" + +My change of manner surprised and pleased the magistrate; perhaps he +thought that my former exclamation was a momentary return of delirium, +and now he instantly resumed his former benevolence. He rose and +quitted the room with my nurse, and in a moment my father entered it. + +Nothing, at this moment, could have given me greater pleasure than the +arrival of my father. I stretched out my hand to him and cried, "Are +you, then, safe--and Elizabeth--and Ernest?" My father calmed me with +assurances of their welfare and endeavoured, by dwelling on these +subjects so interesting to my heart, to raise my desponding spirits; +but he soon felt that a prison cannot be the abode of cheerfulness. + +"What a place is this that you inhabit, my son!" said he, looking +mournfully at the barred windows and wretched appearance of the room. +"You travelled to seek happiness, but a fatality seems to pursue you. +And poor Clerval--" + +The name of my unfortunate and murdered friend was an agitation too +great to be endured in my weak state; I shed tears. "Alas! Yes, my +father," replied I; "some destiny of the most horrible kind hangs over +me, and I must live to fulfil it, or surely I should have died on the +coffin of Henry." + +We were not allowed to converse for any length of time, for the +precarious state of my health rendered every precaution necessary that +could ensure tranquillity. Mr. Kirwin came in and insisted that my +strength should not be exhausted by too much exertion. But the +appearance of my father was to me like that of my good angel, and I +gradually recovered my health. + +As my sickness quitted me, I was absorbed by a gloomy and black +melancholy that nothing could dissipate. The image of Clerval was +forever before me, ghastly and murdered. More than once the agitation +into which these reflections threw me made my friends dread a dangerous +relapse. Alas! Why did they preserve so miserable and detested a +life? It was surely that I might fulfil my destiny, which is now +drawing to a close. Soon, oh, very soon, will death extinguish these +throbbings and relieve me from the mighty weight of anguish that bears +me to the dust; and, in executing the award of justice, I shall also +sink to rest. Then the appearance of death was distant, although the +wish was ever present to my thoughts; and I often sat for hours +motionless and speechless, wishing for some mighty revolution that +might bury me and my destroyer in its ruins. + +The season of the assizes approached. I had already been three months +in prison, and although I was still weak and in continual danger of a +relapse, I was obliged to travel nearly a hundred miles to the country +town where the court was held. Mr. Kirwin charged himself with every +care of collecting witnesses and arranging my defence. I was spared +the disgrace of appearing publicly as a criminal, as the case was not +brought before the court that decides on life and death. The grand +jury rejected the bill, on its being proved that I was on the Orkney +Islands at the hour the body of my friend was found; and a fortnight +after my removal I was liberated from prison. + +My father was enraptured on finding me freed from the vexations of a +criminal charge, that I was again allowed to breathe the fresh +atmosphere and permitted to return to my native country. I did not +participate in these feelings, for to me the walls of a dungeon or a +palace were alike hateful. The cup of life was poisoned forever, and +although the sun shone upon me, as upon the happy and gay of heart, I +saw around me nothing but a dense and frightful darkness, penetrated by +no light but the glimmer of two eyes that glared upon me. Sometimes +they were the expressive eyes of Henry, languishing in death, the dark +orbs nearly covered by the lids and the long black lashes that fringed +them; sometimes it was the watery, clouded eyes of the monster, as I +first saw them in my chamber at Ingolstadt. + +My father tried to awaken in me the feelings of affection. He talked +of Geneva, which I should soon visit, of Elizabeth and Ernest; but +these words only drew deep groans from me. Sometimes, indeed, I felt a +wish for happiness and thought with melancholy delight of my beloved +cousin or longed, with a devouring maladie du pays, to see once more +the blue lake and rapid Rhone, that had been so dear to me in early +childhood; but my general state of feeling was a torpor in which a +prison was as welcome a residence as the divinest scene in nature; and +these fits were seldom interrupted but by paroxysms of anguish and +despair. At these moments I often endeavoured to put an end to the +existence I loathed, and it required unceasing attendance and vigilance +to restrain me from committing some dreadful act of violence. + +Yet one duty remained to me, the recollection of which finally +triumphed over my selfish despair. It was necessary that I should +return without delay to Geneva, there to watch over the lives of those +I so fondly loved and to lie in wait for the murderer, that if any +chance led me to the place of his concealment, or if he dared again to +blast me by his presence, I might, with unfailing aim, put an end to +the existence of the monstrous image which I had endued with the +mockery of a soul still more monstrous. My father still desired to +delay our departure, fearful that I could not sustain the fatigues of a +journey, for I was a shattered wreck--the shadow of a human being. My +strength was gone. I was a mere skeleton, and fever night and day +preyed upon my wasted frame. Still, as I urged our leaving Ireland +with such inquietude and impatience, my father thought it best to +yield. We took our passage on board a vessel bound for Havre-de-Grace +and sailed with a fair wind from the Irish shores. It was midnight. I +lay on the deck looking at the stars and listening to the dashing of +the waves. I hailed the darkness that shut Ireland from my sight, and +my pulse beat with a feverish joy when I reflected that I should soon +see Geneva. The past appeared to me in the light of a frightful dream; +yet the vessel in which I was, the wind that blew me from the detested +shore of Ireland, and the sea which surrounded me told me too forcibly +that I was deceived by no vision and that Clerval, my friend and +dearest companion, had fallen a victim to me and the monster of my +creation. I repassed, in my memory, my whole life--my quiet happiness +while residing with my family in Geneva, the death of my mother, and my +departure for Ingolstadt. I remembered, shuddering, the mad enthusiasm +that hurried me on to the creation of my hideous enemy, and I called to +mind the night in which he first lived. I was unable to pursue the +train of thought; a thousand feelings pressed upon me, and I wept +bitterly. Ever since my recovery from the fever I had been in the +custom of taking every night a small quantity of laudanum, for it was +by means of this drug only that I was enabled to gain the rest +necessary for the preservation of life. Oppressed by the recollection +of my various misfortunes, I now swallowed double my usual quantity and +soon slept profoundly. But sleep did not afford me respite from +thought and misery; my dreams presented a thousand objects that scared +me. Towards morning I was possessed by a kind of nightmare; I felt the +fiend's grasp in my neck and could not free myself from it; groans and +cries rang in my ears. My father, who was watching over me, perceiving +my restlessness, awoke me; the dashing waves were around, the cloudy +sky above, the fiend was not here: a sense of security, a feeling that +a truce was established between the present hour and the irresistible, +disastrous future imparted to me a kind of calm forgetfulness, of which +the human mind is by its structure peculiarly susceptible. + + + +Chapter 22 + +The voyage came to an end. We landed, and proceeded to Paris. I soon +found that I had overtaxed my strength and that I must repose before I +could continue my journey. My father's care and attentions were +indefatigable, but he did not know the origin of my sufferings and +sought erroneous methods to remedy the incurable ill. He wished me to +seek amusement in society. I abhorred the face of man. Oh, not +abhorred! They were my brethren, my fellow beings, and I felt +attracted even to the most repulsive among them, as to creatures of an +angelic nature and celestial mechanism. But I felt that I had no right +to share their intercourse. I had unchained an enemy among them whose +joy it was to shed their blood and to revel in their groans. How they +would, each and all, abhor me and hunt me from the world did they know +my unhallowed acts and the crimes which had their source in me! + +My father yielded at length to my desire to avoid society and strove by +various arguments to banish my despair. Sometimes he thought that I +felt deeply the degradation of being obliged to answer a charge of +murder, and he endeavoured to prove to me the futility of pride. + +"Alas! My father," said I, "how little do you know me. Human beings, +their feelings and passions, would indeed be degraded if such a wretch +as I felt pride. Justine, poor unhappy Justine, was as innocent as I, +and she suffered the same charge; she died for it; and I am the cause +of this--I murdered her. William, Justine, and Henry--they all died by +my hands." + +My father had often, during my imprisonment, heard me make the same +assertion; when I thus accused myself, he sometimes seemed to desire an +explanation, and at others he appeared to consider it as the offspring +of delirium, and that, during my illness, some idea of this kind had +presented itself to my imagination, the remembrance of which I +preserved in my convalescence. + +I avoided explanation and maintained a continual silence concerning the +wretch I had created. I had a persuasion that I should be supposed +mad, and this in itself would forever have chained my tongue. But, +besides, I could not bring myself to disclose a secret which would fill +my hearer with consternation and make fear and unnatural horror the +inmates of his breast. I checked, therefore, my impatient thirst for +sympathy and was silent when I would have given the world to have +confided the fatal secret. Yet, still, words like those I have +recorded would burst uncontrollably from me. I could offer no +explanation of them, but their truth in part relieved the burden of my +mysterious woe. Upon this occasion my father said, with an expression +of unbounded wonder, "My dearest Victor, what infatuation is this? My +dear son, I entreat you never to make such an assertion again." + +"I am not mad," I cried energetically; "the sun and the heavens, who +have viewed my operations, can bear witness of my truth. I am the +assassin of those most innocent victims; they died by my machinations. +A thousand times would I have shed my own blood, drop by drop, to have +saved their lives; but I could not, my father, indeed I could not +sacrifice the whole human race." + +The conclusion of this speech convinced my father that my ideas were +deranged, and he instantly changed the subject of our conversation and +endeavoured to alter the course of my thoughts. He wished as much as +possible to obliterate the memory of the scenes that had taken place in +Ireland and never alluded to them or suffered me to speak of my +misfortunes. + +As time passed away I became more calm; misery had her dwelling in my +heart, but I no longer talked in the same incoherent manner of my own +crimes; sufficient for me was the consciousness of them. By the utmost +self-violence I curbed the imperious voice of wretchedness, which +sometimes desired to declare itself to the whole world, and my manners +were calmer and more composed than they had ever been since my journey +to the sea of ice. A few days before we left Paris on our way to +Switzerland, I received the following letter from Elizabeth: + + +"My dear Friend, + +"It gave me the greatest pleasure to receive a letter from my uncle +dated at Paris; you are no longer at a formidable distance, and I may +hope to see you in less than a fortnight. My poor cousin, how much you +must have suffered! I expect to see you looking even more ill than +when you quitted Geneva. This winter has been passed most miserably, +tortured as I have been by anxious suspense; yet I hope to see peace in +your countenance and to find that your heart is not totally void of +comfort and tranquillity. + +"Yet I fear that the same feelings now exist that made you so miserable +a year ago, even perhaps augmented by time. I would not disturb you at +this period, when so many misfortunes weigh upon you, but a +conversation that I had with my uncle previous to his departure renders +some explanation necessary before we meet. Explanation! You may +possibly say, What can Elizabeth have to explain? If you really say +this, my questions are answered and all my doubts satisfied. But you +are distant from me, and it is possible that you may dread and yet be +pleased with this explanation; and in a probability of this being the +case, I dare not any longer postpone writing what, during your absence, +I have often wished to express to you but have never had the courage to +begin. + +"You well know, Victor, that our union had been the favourite plan of +your parents ever since our infancy. We were told this when young, and +taught to look forward to it as an event that would certainly take +place. We were affectionate playfellows during childhood, and, I +believe, dear and valued friends to one another as we grew older. But +as brother and sister often entertain a lively affection towards each +other without desiring a more intimate union, may not such also be our +case? Tell me, dearest Victor. Answer me, I conjure you by our mutual +happiness, with simple truth--Do you not love another? + +"You have travelled; you have spent several years of your life at +Ingolstadt; and I confess to you, my friend, that when I saw you last +autumn so unhappy, flying to solitude from the society of every +creature, I could not help supposing that you might regret our +connection and believe yourself bound in honour to fulfil the wishes of +your parents, although they opposed themselves to your inclinations. +But this is false reasoning. I confess to you, my friend, that I love +you and that in my airy dreams of futurity you have been my constant +friend and companion. But it is your happiness I desire as well as my +own when I declare to you that our marriage would render me eternally +miserable unless it were the dictate of your own free choice. Even now +I weep to think that, borne down as you are by the cruellest +misfortunes, you may stifle, by the word 'honour,' all hope of that +love and happiness which would alone restore you to yourself. I, who +have so disinterested an affection for you, may increase your miseries +tenfold by being an obstacle to your wishes. Ah! Victor, be assured +that your cousin and playmate has too sincere a love for you not to be +made miserable by this supposition. Be happy, my friend; and if you +obey me in this one request, remain satisfied that nothing on earth +will have the power to interrupt my tranquillity. + +"Do not let this letter disturb you; do not answer tomorrow, or the +next day, or even until you come, if it will give you pain. My uncle +will send me news of your health, and if I see but one smile on your +lips when we meet, occasioned by this or any other exertion of mine, I +shall need no other happiness. + + "Elizabeth Lavenza + + + "Geneva, May 18th, 17--" + + +This letter revived in my memory what I had before forgotten, the +threat of the fiend--"I WILL BE WITH YOU ON YOUR WEDDING-NIGHT!" Such +was my sentence, and on that night would the daemon employ every art to +destroy me and tear me from the glimpse of happiness which promised +partly to console my sufferings. On that night he had determined to +consummate his crimes by my death. Well, be it so; a deadly struggle +would then assuredly take place, in which if he were victorious I +should be at peace and his power over me be at an end. If he were +vanquished, I should be a free man. Alas! What freedom? Such as the +peasant enjoys when his family have been massacred before his eyes, his +cottage burnt, his lands laid waste, and he is turned adrift, homeless, +penniless, and alone, but free. Such would be my liberty except that in +my Elizabeth I possessed a treasure, alas, balanced by those horrors of +remorse and guilt which would pursue me until death. + +Sweet and beloved Elizabeth! I read and reread her letter, and some +softened feelings stole into my heart and dared to whisper paradisiacal +dreams of love and joy; but the apple was already eaten, and the +angel's arm bared to drive me from all hope. Yet I would die to make +her happy. If the monster executed his threat, death was inevitable; +yet, again, I considered whether my marriage would hasten my fate. My +destruction might indeed arrive a few months sooner, but if my torturer +should suspect that I postponed it, influenced by his menaces, he would +surely find other and perhaps more dreadful means of revenge. + +He had vowed TO BE WITH ME ON MY WEDDING-NIGHT, yet he did not consider +that threat as binding him to peace in the meantime, for as if to show +me that he was not yet satiated with blood, he had murdered Clerval +immediately after the enunciation of his threats. I resolved, +therefore, that if my immediate union with my cousin would conduce +either to hers or my father's happiness, my adversary's designs against +my life should not retard it a single hour. + +In this state of mind I wrote to Elizabeth. My letter was calm and +affectionate. "I fear, my beloved girl," I said, "little happiness +remains for us on earth; yet all that I may one day enjoy is centred in +you. Chase away your idle fears; to you alone do I consecrate my life +and my endeavours for contentment. I have one secret, Elizabeth, a +dreadful one; when revealed to you, it will chill your frame with +horror, and then, far from being surprised at my misery, you will only +wonder that I survive what I have endured. I will confide this tale of +misery and terror to you the day after our marriage shall take place, +for, my sweet cousin, there must be perfect confidence between us. But +until then, I conjure you, do not mention or allude to it. This I most +earnestly entreat, and I know you will comply." + +In about a week after the arrival of Elizabeth's letter we returned to +Geneva. The sweet girl welcomed me with warm affection, yet tears were +in her eyes as she beheld my emaciated frame and feverish cheeks. I +saw a change in her also. She was thinner and had lost much of that +heavenly vivacity that had before charmed me; but her gentleness and +soft looks of compassion made her a more fit companion for one blasted +and miserable as I was. The tranquillity which I now enjoyed did not +endure. Memory brought madness with it, and when I thought of what had +passed, a real insanity possessed me; sometimes I was furious and burnt +with rage, sometimes low and despondent. I neither spoke nor looked at +anyone, but sat motionless, bewildered by the multitude of miseries +that overcame me. + +Elizabeth alone had the power to draw me from these fits; her gentle +voice would soothe me when transported by passion and inspire me with +human feelings when sunk in torpor. She wept with me and for me. When +reason returned, she would remonstrate and endeavour to inspire me with +resignation. Ah! It is well for the unfortunate to be resigned, but +for the guilty there is no peace. The agonies of remorse poison the +luxury there is otherwise sometimes found in indulging the excess of +grief. Soon after my arrival my father spoke of my immediate marriage +with Elizabeth. I remained silent. + +"Have you, then, some other attachment?" + +"None on earth. I love Elizabeth and look forward to our union with +delight. Let the day therefore be fixed; and on it I will consecrate +myself, in life or death, to the happiness of my cousin." + +"My dear Victor, do not speak thus. Heavy misfortunes have befallen +us, but let us only cling closer to what remains and transfer our love +for those whom we have lost to those who yet live. Our circle will be +small but bound close by the ties of affection and mutual misfortune. +And when time shall have softened your despair, new and dear objects of +care will be born to replace those of whom we have been so cruelly +deprived." + +Such were the lessons of my father. But to me the remembrance of the +threat returned; nor can you wonder that, omnipotent as the fiend had +yet been in his deeds of blood, I should almost regard him as +invincible, and that when he had pronounced the words "I SHALL BE WITH +YOU ON YOUR WEDDING-NIGHT," I should regard the threatened fate as +unavoidable. But death was no evil to me if the loss of Elizabeth were +balanced with it, and I therefore, with a contented and even cheerful +countenance, agreed with my father that if my cousin would consent, the +ceremony should take place in ten days, and thus put, as I imagined, +the seal to my fate. + +Great God! If for one instant I had thought what might be the hellish +intention of my fiendish adversary, I would rather have banished myself +forever from my native country and wandered a friendless outcast over +the earth than have consented to this miserable marriage. But, as if +possessed of magic powers, the monster had blinded me to his real +intentions; and when I thought that I had prepared only my own death, I +hastened that of a far dearer victim. + +As the period fixed for our marriage drew nearer, whether from +cowardice or a prophetic feeling, I felt my heart sink within me. But +I concealed my feelings by an appearance of hilarity that brought +smiles and joy to the countenance of my father, but hardly deceived the +ever-watchful and nicer eye of Elizabeth. She looked forward to our +union with placid contentment, not unmingled with a little fear, which +past misfortunes had impressed, that what now appeared certain and +tangible happiness might soon dissipate into an airy dream and leave no +trace but deep and everlasting regret. Preparations were made for the +event, congratulatory visits were received, and all wore a smiling +appearance. I shut up, as well as I could, in my own heart the anxiety +that preyed there and entered with seeming earnestness into the plans +of my father, although they might only serve as the decorations of my +tragedy. Through my father's exertions a part of the inheritance of +Elizabeth had been restored to her by the Austrian government. A small +possession on the shores of Como belonged to her. It was agreed that, +immediately after our union, we should proceed to Villa Lavenza and +spend our first days of happiness beside the beautiful lake near which +it stood. + +In the meantime I took every precaution to defend my person in case the +fiend should openly attack me. I carried pistols and a dagger +constantly about me and was ever on the watch to prevent artifice, and +by these means gained a greater degree of tranquillity. Indeed, as the +period approached, the threat appeared more as a delusion, not to be +regarded as worthy to disturb my peace, while the happiness I hoped for +in my marriage wore a greater appearance of certainty as the day fixed +for its solemnization drew nearer and I heard it continually spoken of +as an occurrence which no accident could possibly prevent. + +Elizabeth seemed happy; my tranquil demeanour contributed greatly to +calm her mind. But on the day that was to fulfil my wishes and my +destiny, she was melancholy, and a presentiment of evil pervaded her; +and perhaps also she thought of the dreadful secret which I had +promised to reveal to her on the following day. My father was in the +meantime overjoyed and in the bustle of preparation only recognized in +the melancholy of his niece the diffidence of a bride. + +After the ceremony was performed a large party assembled at my +father's, but it was agreed that Elizabeth and I should commence our +journey by water, sleeping that night at Evian and continuing our +voyage on the following day. The day was fair, the wind favourable; +all smiled on our nuptial embarkation. + +Those were the last moments of my life during which I enjoyed the +feeling of happiness. We passed rapidly along; the sun was hot, but we +were sheltered from its rays by a kind of canopy while we enjoyed the +beauty of the scene, sometimes on one side of the lake, where we saw +Mont Saleve, the pleasant banks of Montalegre, and at a distance, +surmounting all, the beautiful Mont Blanc and the assemblage of snowy +mountains that in vain endeavour to emulate her; sometimes coasting the +opposite banks, we saw the mighty Jura opposing its dark side to the +ambition that would quit its native country, and an almost +insurmountable barrier to the invader who should wish to enslave it. + +I took the hand of Elizabeth. "You are sorrowful, my love. Ah! If +you knew what I have suffered and what I may yet endure, you would +endeavour to let me taste the quiet and freedom from despair that this +one day at least permits me to enjoy." + +"Be happy, my dear Victor," replied Elizabeth; "there is, I hope, +nothing to distress you; and be assured that if a lively joy is not +painted in my face, my heart is contented. Something whispers to me +not to depend too much on the prospect that is opened before us, but I +will not listen to such a sinister voice. Observe how fast we move +along and how the clouds, which sometimes obscure and sometimes rise +above the dome of Mont Blanc, render this scene of beauty still more +interesting. Look also at the innumerable fish that are swimming in +the clear waters, where we can distinguish every pebble that lies at +the bottom. What a divine day! How happy and serene all nature +appears!" + +Thus Elizabeth endeavoured to divert her thoughts and mine from all +reflection upon melancholy subjects. But her temper was fluctuating; +joy for a few instants shone in her eyes, but it continually gave place +to distraction and reverie. + +The sun sank lower in the heavens; we passed the river Drance and +observed its path through the chasms of the higher and the glens of the +lower hills. The Alps here come closer to the lake, and we approached +the amphitheatre of mountains which forms its eastern boundary. The +spire of Evian shone under the woods that surrounded it and the range +of mountain above mountain by which it was overhung. + +The wind, which had hitherto carried us along with amazing rapidity, +sank at sunset to a light breeze; the soft air just ruffled the water +and caused a pleasant motion among the trees as we approached the +shore, from which it wafted the most delightful scent of flowers and +hay. The sun sank beneath the horizon as we landed, and as I touched +the shore I felt those cares and fears revive which soon were to clasp +me and cling to me forever. + + + +Chapter 23 + +It was eight o'clock when we landed; we walked for a short time on the +shore, enjoying the transitory light, and then retired to the inn and +contemplated the lovely scene of waters, woods, and mountains, obscured +in darkness, yet still displaying their black outlines. + +The wind, which had fallen in the south, now rose with great violence +in the west. The moon had reached her summit in the heavens and was +beginning to descend; the clouds swept across it swifter than the +flight of the vulture and dimmed her rays, while the lake reflected the +scene of the busy heavens, rendered still busier by the restless waves +that were beginning to rise. Suddenly a heavy storm of rain descended. + +I had been calm during the day, but so soon as night obscured the +shapes of objects, a thousand fears arose in my mind. I was anxious +and watchful, while my right hand grasped a pistol which was hidden in +my bosom; every sound terrified me, but I resolved that I would sell my +life dearly and not shrink from the conflict until my own life or that +of my adversary was extinguished. Elizabeth observed my agitation for +some time in timid and fearful silence, but there was something in my +glance which communicated terror to her, and trembling, she asked, +"What is it that agitates you, my dear Victor? What is it you fear?" + +"Oh! Peace, peace, my love," replied I; "this night, and all will be +safe; but this night is dreadful, very dreadful." + +I passed an hour in this state of mind, when suddenly I reflected how +fearful the combat which I momentarily expected would be to my wife, +and I earnestly entreated her to retire, resolving not to join her +until I had obtained some knowledge as to the situation of my enemy. + +She left me, and I continued some time walking up and down the passages +of the house and inspecting every corner that might afford a retreat to +my adversary. But I discovered no trace of him and was beginning to +conjecture that some fortunate chance had intervened to prevent the +execution of his menaces when suddenly I heard a shrill and dreadful +scream. It came from the room into which Elizabeth had retired. As I +heard it, the whole truth rushed into my mind, my arms dropped, the +motion of every muscle and fibre was suspended; I could feel the blood +trickling in my veins and tingling in the extremities of my limbs. This +state lasted but for an instant; the scream was repeated, and I rushed +into the room. Great God! Why did I not then expire! Why am I here +to relate the destruction of the best hope and the purest creature on +earth? She was there, lifeless and inanimate, thrown across the bed, +her head hanging down and her pale and distorted features half covered +by her hair. Everywhere I turn I see the same figure--her bloodless +arms and relaxed form flung by the murderer on its bridal bier. Could +I behold this and live? Alas! Life is obstinate and clings closest +where it is most hated. For a moment only did I lose recollection; I +fell senseless on the ground. + +When I recovered I found myself surrounded by the people of the inn; +their countenances expressed a breathless terror, but the horror of +others appeared only as a mockery, a shadow of the feelings that +oppressed me. I escaped from them to the room where lay the body of +Elizabeth, my love, my wife, so lately living, so dear, so worthy. She +had been moved from the posture in which I had first beheld her, and +now, as she lay, her head upon her arm and a handkerchief thrown across +her face and neck, I might have supposed her asleep. I rushed towards +her and embraced her with ardour, but the deadly languor and coldness +of the limbs told me that what I now held in my arms had ceased to be +the Elizabeth whom I had loved and cherished. The murderous mark of +the fiend's grasp was on her neck, and the breath had ceased to issue +from her lips. While I still hung over her in the agony of despair, I +happened to look up. The windows of the room had before been darkened, +and I felt a kind of panic on seeing the pale yellow light of the moon +illuminate the chamber. The shutters had been thrown back, and with a +sensation of horror not to be described, I saw at the open window a +figure the most hideous and abhorred. A grin was on the face of the +monster; he seemed to jeer, as with his fiendish finger he pointed +towards the corpse of my wife. I rushed towards the window, and +drawing a pistol from my bosom, fired; but he eluded me, leaped from +his station, and running with the swiftness of lightning, plunged into +the lake. + +The report of the pistol brought a crowd into the room. I pointed to +the spot where he had disappeared, and we followed the track with +boats; nets were cast, but in vain. After passing several hours, we +returned hopeless, most of my companions believing it to have been a +form conjured up by my fancy. After having landed, they proceeded to +search the country, parties going in different directions among the +woods and vines. + +I attempted to accompany them and proceeded a short distance from the +house, but my head whirled round, my steps were like those of a drunken +man, I fell at last in a state of utter exhaustion; a film covered my +eyes, and my skin was parched with the heat of fever. In this state I +was carried back and placed on a bed, hardly conscious of what had +happened; my eyes wandered round the room as if to seek something that +I had lost. + +After an interval I arose, and as if by instinct, crawled into the room +where the corpse of my beloved lay. There were women weeping around; I +hung over it and joined my sad tears to theirs; all this time no +distinct idea presented itself to my mind, but my thoughts rambled to +various subjects, reflecting confusedly on my misfortunes and their +cause. I was bewildered, in a cloud of wonder and horror. The death +of William, the execution of Justine, the murder of Clerval, and lastly +of my wife; even at that moment I knew not that my only remaining +friends were safe from the malignity of the fiend; my father even now +might be writhing under his grasp, and Ernest might be dead at his +feet. This idea made me shudder and recalled me to action. I started +up and resolved to return to Geneva with all possible speed. + +There were no horses to be procured, and I must return by the lake; but +the wind was unfavourable, and the rain fell in torrents. However, it +was hardly morning, and I might reasonably hope to arrive by night. I +hired men to row and took an oar myself, for I had always experienced +relief from mental torment in bodily exercise. But the overflowing +misery I now felt, and the excess of agitation that I endured rendered +me incapable of any exertion. I threw down the oar, and leaning my +head upon my hands, gave way to every gloomy idea that arose. If I +looked up, I saw scenes which were familiar to me in my happier time +and which I had contemplated but the day before in the company of her +who was now but a shadow and a recollection. Tears streamed from my +eyes. The rain had ceased for a moment, and I saw the fish play in the +waters as they had done a few hours before; they had then been observed +by Elizabeth. Nothing is so painful to the human mind as a great and +sudden change. The sun might shine or the clouds might lower, but +nothing could appear to me as it had done the day before. A fiend had +snatched from me every hope of future happiness; no creature had ever +been so miserable as I was; so frightful an event is single in the +history of man. But why should I dwell upon the incidents that followed +this last overwhelming event? Mine has been a tale of horrors; I have +reached their acme, and what I must now relate can but be tedious to +you. Know that, one by one, my friends were snatched away; I was left +desolate. My own strength is exhausted, and I must tell, in a few +words, what remains of my hideous narration. I arrived at Geneva. My +father and Ernest yet lived, but the former sunk under the tidings that +I bore. I see him now, excellent and venerable old man! His eyes +wandered in vacancy, for they had lost their charm and their +delight--his Elizabeth, his more than daughter, whom he doted on with +all that affection which a man feels, who in the decline of life, +having few affections, clings more earnestly to those that remain. +Cursed, cursed be the fiend that brought misery on his grey hairs and +doomed him to waste in wretchedness! He could not live under the +horrors that were accumulated around him; the springs of existence +suddenly gave way; he was unable to rise from his bed, and in a few +days he died in my arms. + +What then became of me? I know not; I lost sensation, and chains and +darkness were the only objects that pressed upon me. Sometimes, +indeed, I dreamt that I wandered in flowery meadows and pleasant vales +with the friends of my youth, but I awoke and found myself in a +dungeon. Melancholy followed, but by degrees I gained a clear +conception of my miseries and situation and was then released from my +prison. For they had called me mad, and during many months, as I +understood, a solitary cell had been my habitation. + +Liberty, however, had been a useless gift to me, had I not, as I +awakened to reason, at the same time awakened to revenge. As the +memory of past misfortunes pressed upon me, I began to reflect on their +cause--the monster whom I had created, the miserable daemon whom I had +sent abroad into the world for my destruction. I was possessed by a +maddening rage when I thought of him, and desired and ardently prayed +that I might have him within my grasp to wreak a great and signal +revenge on his cursed head. + +Nor did my hate long confine itself to useless wishes; I began to +reflect on the best means of securing him; and for this purpose, about +a month after my release, I repaired to a criminal judge in the town +and told him that I had an accusation to make, that I knew the +destroyer of my family, and that I required him to exert his whole +authority for the apprehension of the murderer. The magistrate +listened to me with attention and kindness. + +"Be assured, sir," said he, "no pains or exertions on my part shall be +spared to discover the villain." + +"I thank you," replied I; "listen, therefore, to the deposition that I +have to make. It is indeed a tale so strange that I should fear you +would not credit it were there not something in truth which, however +wonderful, forces conviction. The story is too connected to be +mistaken for a dream, and I have no motive for falsehood." My manner as +I thus addressed him was impressive but calm; I had formed in my own +heart a resolution to pursue my destroyer to death, and this purpose +quieted my agony and for an interval reconciled me to life. I now +related my history briefly but with firmness and precision, marking the +dates with accuracy and never deviating into invective or exclamation. + +The magistrate appeared at first perfectly incredulous, but as I +continued he became more attentive and interested; I saw him sometimes +shudder with horror; at others a lively surprise, unmingled with +disbelief, was painted on his countenance. When I had concluded my +narration I said, "This is the being whom I accuse and for whose +seizure and punishment I call upon you to exert your whole power. It +is your duty as a magistrate, and I believe and hope that your feelings +as a man will not revolt from the execution of those functions on this +occasion." This address caused a considerable change in the +physiognomy of my own auditor. He had heard my story with that half +kind of belief that is given to a tale of spirits and supernatural +events; but when he was called upon to act officially in consequence, +the whole tide of his incredulity returned. He, however, answered +mildly, "I would willingly afford you every aid in your pursuit, but +the creature of whom you speak appears to have powers which would put +all my exertions to defiance. Who can follow an animal which can +traverse the sea of ice and inhabit caves and dens where no man would +venture to intrude? Besides, some months have elapsed since the +commission of his crimes, and no one can conjecture to what place he +has wandered or what region he may now inhabit." + +"I do not doubt that he hovers near the spot which I inhabit, and if he +has indeed taken refuge in the Alps, he may be hunted like the chamois +and destroyed as a beast of prey. But I perceive your thoughts; you do +not credit my narrative and do not intend to pursue my enemy with the +punishment which is his desert." As I spoke, rage sparkled in my eyes; +the magistrate was intimidated. "You are mistaken," said he. "I will +exert myself, and if it is in my power to seize the monster, be assured +that he shall suffer punishment proportionate to his crimes. But I +fear, from what you have yourself described to be his properties, that +this will prove impracticable; and thus, while every proper measure is +pursued, you should make up your mind to disappointment." + +"That cannot be; but all that I can say will be of little avail. My +revenge is of no moment to you; yet, while I allow it to be a vice, I +confess that it is the devouring and only passion of my soul. My rage +is unspeakable when I reflect that the murderer, whom I have turned +loose upon society, still exists. You refuse my just demand; I have +but one resource, and I devote myself, either in my life or death, to +his destruction." + +I trembled with excess of agitation as I said this; there was a frenzy +in my manner, and something, I doubt not, of that haughty fierceness +which the martyrs of old are said to have possessed. But to a Genevan +magistrate, whose mind was occupied by far other ideas than those of +devotion and heroism, this elevation of mind had much the appearance of +madness. He endeavoured to soothe me as a nurse does a child and +reverted to my tale as the effects of delirium. + +"Man," I cried, "how ignorant art thou in thy pride of wisdom! Cease; +you know not what it is you say." + +I broke from the house angry and disturbed and retired to meditate on +some other mode of action. + + + +Chapter 24 + +My present situation was one in which all voluntary thought was +swallowed up and lost. I was hurried away by fury; revenge alone +endowed me with strength and composure; it moulded my feelings and +allowed me to be calculating and calm at periods when otherwise +delirium or death would have been my portion. + +My first resolution was to quit Geneva forever; my country, which, when +I was happy and beloved, was dear to me, now, in my adversity, became +hateful. I provided myself with a sum of money, together with a few +jewels which had belonged to my mother, and departed. And now my +wanderings began which are to cease but with life. I have traversed a +vast portion of the earth and have endured all the hardships which +travellers in deserts and barbarous countries are wont to meet. How I +have lived I hardly know; many times have I stretched my failing limbs +upon the sandy plain and prayed for death. But revenge kept me alive; +I dared not die and leave my adversary in being. + +When I quitted Geneva my first labour was to gain some clue by which I +might trace the steps of my fiendish enemy. But my plan was unsettled, +and I wandered many hours round the confines of the town, uncertain +what path I should pursue. As night approached I found myself at the +entrance of the cemetery where William, Elizabeth, and my father +reposed. I entered it and approached the tomb which marked their +graves. Everything was silent except the leaves of the trees, which +were gently agitated by the wind; the night was nearly dark, and the +scene would have been solemn and affecting even to an uninterested +observer. The spirits of the departed seemed to flit around and to +cast a shadow, which was felt but not seen, around the head of the +mourner. + +The deep grief which this scene had at first excited quickly gave way +to rage and despair. They were dead, and I lived; their murderer also +lived, and to destroy him I must drag out my weary existence. I knelt +on the grass and kissed the earth and with quivering lips exclaimed, +"By the sacred earth on which I kneel, by the shades that wander near +me, by the deep and eternal grief that I feel, I swear; and by thee, O +Night, and the spirits that preside over thee, to pursue the daemon who +caused this misery, until he or I shall perish in mortal conflict. For +this purpose I will preserve my life; to execute this dear revenge will +I again behold the sun and tread the green herbage of earth, which +otherwise should vanish from my eyes forever. And I call on you, +spirits of the dead, and on you, wandering ministers of vengeance, to +aid and conduct me in my work. Let the cursed and hellish monster +drink deep of agony; let him feel the despair that now torments me." I +had begun my adjuration with solemnity and an awe which almost assured +me that the shades of my murdered friends heard and approved my +devotion, but the furies possessed me as I concluded, and rage choked +my utterance. + +I was answered through the stillness of night by a loud and fiendish +laugh. It rang on my ears long and heavily; the mountains re-echoed +it, and I felt as if all hell surrounded me with mockery and laughter. +Surely in that moment I should have been possessed by frenzy and have +destroyed my miserable existence but that my vow was heard and that I +was reserved for vengeance. The laughter died away, when a well-known +and abhorred voice, apparently close to my ear, addressed me in an +audible whisper, "I am satisfied, miserable wretch! You have +determined to live, and I am satisfied." + +I darted towards the spot from which the sound proceeded, but the devil +eluded my grasp. Suddenly the broad disk of the moon arose and shone +full upon his ghastly and distorted shape as he fled with more than +mortal speed. + +I pursued him, and for many months this has been my task. Guided by a +slight clue, I followed the windings of the Rhone, but vainly. The +blue Mediterranean appeared, and by a strange chance, I saw the fiend +enter by night and hide himself in a vessel bound for the Black Sea. I +took my passage in the same ship, but he escaped, I know not how. + +Amidst the wilds of Tartary and Russia, although he still evaded me, I +have ever followed in his track. Sometimes the peasants, scared by +this horrid apparition, informed me of his path; sometimes he himself, +who feared that if I lost all trace of him I should despair and die, +left some mark to guide me. The snows descended on my head, and I saw +the print of his huge step on the white plain. To you first entering +on life, to whom care is new and agony unknown, how can you understand +what I have felt and still feel? Cold, want, and fatigue were the +least pains which I was destined to endure; I was cursed by some devil +and carried about with me my eternal hell; yet still a spirit of good +followed and directed my steps and when I most murmured would suddenly +extricate me from seemingly insurmountable difficulties. Sometimes, +when nature, overcome by hunger, sank under the exhaustion, a repast +was prepared for me in the desert that restored and inspirited me. The +fare was, indeed, coarse, such as the peasants of the country ate, but +I will not doubt that it was set there by the spirits that I had +invoked to aid me. Often, when all was dry, the heavens cloudless, and +I was parched by thirst, a slight cloud would bedim the sky, shed the +few drops that revived me, and vanish. + +I followed, when I could, the courses of the rivers; but the daemon +generally avoided these, as it was here that the population of the +country chiefly collected. In other places human beings were seldom +seen, and I generally subsisted on the wild animals that crossed my +path. I had money with me and gained the friendship of the villagers +by distributing it; or I brought with me some food that I had killed, +which, after taking a small part, I always presented to those who had +provided me with fire and utensils for cooking. + +My life, as it passed thus, was indeed hateful to me, and it was during +sleep alone that I could taste joy. O blessed sleep! Often, when most +miserable, I sank to repose, and my dreams lulled me even to rapture. +The spirits that guarded me had provided these moments, or rather +hours, of happiness that I might retain strength to fulfil my +pilgrimage. Deprived of this respite, I should have sunk under my +hardships. During the day I was sustained and inspirited by the hope +of night, for in sleep I saw my friends, my wife, and my beloved +country; again I saw the benevolent countenance of my father, heard the +silver tones of my Elizabeth's voice, and beheld Clerval enjoying +health and youth. Often, when wearied by a toilsome march, I persuaded +myself that I was dreaming until night should come and that I should +then enjoy reality in the arms of my dearest friends. What agonizing +fondness did I feel for them! How did I cling to their dear forms, as +sometimes they haunted even my waking hours, and persuade myself that +they still lived! At such moments vengeance, that burned within me, +died in my heart, and I pursued my path towards the destruction of the +daemon more as a task enjoined by heaven, as the mechanical impulse of +some power of which I was unconscious, than as the ardent desire of my +soul. What his feelings were whom I pursued I cannot know. Sometimes, +indeed, he left marks in writing on the barks of the trees or cut in +stone that guided me and instigated my fury. "My reign is not yet +over"--these words were legible in one of these inscriptions--"you +live, and my power is complete. Follow me; I seek the everlasting ices +of the north, where you will feel the misery of cold and frost, to +which I am impassive. You will find near this place, if you follow not +too tardily, a dead hare; eat and be refreshed. Come on, my enemy; we +have yet to wrestle for our lives, but many hard and miserable hours +must you endure until that period shall arrive." + +Scoffing devil! Again do I vow vengeance; again do I devote thee, +miserable fiend, to torture and death. Never will I give up my search +until he or I perish; and then with what ecstasy shall I join my +Elizabeth and my departed friends, who even now prepare for me the +reward of my tedious toil and horrible pilgrimage! + +As I still pursued my journey to the northward, the snows thickened and +the cold increased in a degree almost too severe to support. The +peasants were shut up in their hovels, and only a few of the most hardy +ventured forth to seize the animals whom starvation had forced from +their hiding-places to seek for prey. The rivers were covered with +ice, and no fish could be procured; and thus I was cut off from my +chief article of maintenance. The triumph of my enemy increased with +the difficulty of my labours. One inscription that he left was in +these words: "Prepare! Your toils only begin; wrap yourself in furs +and provide food, for we shall soon enter upon a journey where your +sufferings will satisfy my everlasting hatred." + +My courage and perseverance were invigorated by these scoffing words; I +resolved not to fail in my purpose, and calling on heaven to support +me, I continued with unabated fervour to traverse immense deserts, +until the ocean appeared at a distance and formed the utmost boundary +of the horizon. Oh! How unlike it was to the blue seasons of the +south! Covered with ice, it was only to be distinguished from land by +its superior wildness and ruggedness. The Greeks wept for joy when +they beheld the Mediterranean from the hills of Asia, and hailed with +rapture the boundary of their toils. I did not weep, but I knelt down +and with a full heart thanked my guiding spirit for conducting me in +safety to the place where I hoped, notwithstanding my adversary's gibe, +to meet and grapple with him. + +Some weeks before this period I had procured a sledge and dogs and thus +traversed the snows with inconceivable speed. I know not whether the +fiend possessed the same advantages, but I found that, as before I had +daily lost ground in the pursuit, I now gained on him, so much so that +when I first saw the ocean he was but one day's journey in advance, and +I hoped to intercept him before he should reach the beach. With new +courage, therefore, I pressed on, and in two days arrived at a wretched +hamlet on the seashore. I inquired of the inhabitants concerning the +fiend and gained accurate information. A gigantic monster, they said, +had arrived the night before, armed with a gun and many pistols, +putting to flight the inhabitants of a solitary cottage through fear of +his terrific appearance. He had carried off their store of winter +food, and placing it in a sledge, to draw which he had seized on a +numerous drove of trained dogs, he had harnessed them, and the same +night, to the joy of the horror-struck villagers, had pursued his +journey across the sea in a direction that led to no land; and they +conjectured that he must speedily be destroyed by the breaking of the +ice or frozen by the eternal frosts. + +On hearing this information I suffered a temporary access of despair. +He had escaped me, and I must commence a destructive and almost endless +journey across the mountainous ices of the ocean, amidst cold that few +of the inhabitants could long endure and which I, the native of a +genial and sunny climate, could not hope to survive. Yet at the idea +that the fiend should live and be triumphant, my rage and vengeance +returned, and like a mighty tide, overwhelmed every other feeling. +After a slight repose, during which the spirits of the dead hovered +round and instigated me to toil and revenge, I prepared for my journey. +I exchanged my land-sledge for one fashioned for the inequalities of +the frozen ocean, and purchasing a plentiful stock of provisions, I +departed from land. + +I cannot guess how many days have passed since then, but I have endured +misery which nothing but the eternal sentiment of a just retribution +burning within my heart could have enabled me to support. Immense and +rugged mountains of ice often barred up my passage, and I often heard +the thunder of the ground sea, which threatened my destruction. But +again the frost came and made the paths of the sea secure. + +By the quantity of provision which I had consumed, I should guess that +I had passed three weeks in this journey; and the continual protraction +of hope, returning back upon the heart, often wrung bitter drops of +despondency and grief from my eyes. Despair had indeed almost secured +her prey, and I should soon have sunk beneath this misery. Once, after +the poor animals that conveyed me had with incredible toil gained the +summit of a sloping ice mountain, and one, sinking under his fatigue, +died, I viewed the expanse before me with anguish, when suddenly my eye +caught a dark speck upon the dusky plain. I strained my sight to +discover what it could be and uttered a wild cry of ecstasy when I +distinguished a sledge and the distorted proportions of a well-known +form within. Oh! With what a burning gush did hope revisit my heart! +Warm tears filled my eyes, which I hastily wiped away, that they might +not intercept the view I had of the daemon; but still my sight was +dimmed by the burning drops, until, giving way to the emotions that +oppressed me, I wept aloud. + +But this was not the time for delay; I disencumbered the dogs of their +dead companion, gave them a plentiful portion of food, and after an +hour's rest, which was absolutely necessary, and yet which was bitterly +irksome to me, I continued my route. The sledge was still visible, nor +did I again lose sight of it except at the moments when for a short +time some ice-rock concealed it with its intervening crags. I indeed +perceptibly gained on it, and when, after nearly two days' journey, I +beheld my enemy at no more than a mile distant, my heart bounded within +me. + +But now, when I appeared almost within grasp of my foe, my hopes were +suddenly extinguished, and I lost all trace of him more utterly than I +had ever done before. A ground sea was heard; the thunder of its +progress, as the waters rolled and swelled beneath me, became every +moment more ominous and terrific. I pressed on, but in vain. The wind +arose; the sea roared; and, as with the mighty shock of an earthquake, +it split and cracked with a tremendous and overwhelming sound. The +work was soon finished; in a few minutes a tumultuous sea rolled +between me and my enemy, and I was left drifting on a scattered piece +of ice that was continually lessening and thus preparing for me a +hideous death. In this manner many appalling hours passed; several of +my dogs died, and I myself was about to sink under the accumulation of +distress when I saw your vessel riding at anchor and holding forth to +me hopes of succour and life. I had no conception that vessels ever +came so far north and was astounded at the sight. I quickly destroyed +part of my sledge to construct oars, and by these means was enabled, +with infinite fatigue, to move my ice raft in the direction of your +ship. I had determined, if you were going southwards, still to trust +myself to the mercy of the seas rather than abandon my purpose. I +hoped to induce you to grant me a boat with which I could pursue my +enemy. But your direction was northwards. You took me on board when +my vigour was exhausted, and I should soon have sunk under my +multiplied hardships into a death which I still dread, for my task is +unfulfilled. + +Oh! When will my guiding spirit, in conducting me to the daemon, allow +me the rest I so much desire; or must I die, and he yet live? If I do, +swear to me, Walton, that he shall not escape, that you will seek him +and satisfy my vengeance in his death. And do I dare to ask of you to +undertake my pilgrimage, to endure the hardships that I have undergone? +No; I am not so selfish. Yet, when I am dead, if he should appear, if +the ministers of vengeance should conduct him to you, swear that he +shall not live--swear that he shall not triumph over my accumulated +woes and survive to add to the list of his dark crimes. He is eloquent +and persuasive, and once his words had even power over my heart; but +trust him not. His soul is as hellish as his form, full of treachery +and fiend-like malice. Hear him not; call on the names of William, +Justine, Clerval, Elizabeth, my father, and of the wretched Victor, and +thrust your sword into his heart. I will hover near and direct the +steel aright. + + + Walton, in continuation. + + + + August 26th, 17-- + + +You have read this strange and terrific story, Margaret; and do you not +feel your blood congeal with horror, like that which even now curdles +mine? Sometimes, seized with sudden agony, he could not continue his +tale; at others, his voice broken, yet piercing, uttered with +difficulty the words so replete with anguish. His fine and lovely eyes +were now lighted up with indignation, now subdued to downcast sorrow +and quenched in infinite wretchedness. Sometimes he commanded his +countenance and tones and related the most horrible incidents with a +tranquil voice, suppressing every mark of agitation; then, like a +volcano bursting forth, his face would suddenly change to an expression +of the wildest rage as he shrieked out imprecations on his persecutor. + +His tale is connected and told with an appearance of the simplest +truth, yet I own to you that the letters of Felix and Safie, which he +showed me, and the apparition of the monster seen from our ship, +brought to me a greater conviction of the truth of his narrative than +his asseverations, however earnest and connected. Such a monster has, +then, really existence! I cannot doubt it, yet I am lost in surprise +and admiration. Sometimes I endeavoured to gain from Frankenstein the +particulars of his creature's formation, but on this point he was +impenetrable. "Are you mad, my friend?" said he. "Or whither does your +senseless curiosity lead you? Would you also create for yourself and +the world a demoniacal enemy? Peace, peace! Learn my miseries and do +not seek to increase your own." Frankenstein discovered that I made +notes concerning his history; he asked to see them and then himself +corrected and augmented them in many places, but principally in giving +the life and spirit to the conversations he held with his enemy. "Since +you have preserved my narration," said he, "I would not that a +mutilated one should go down to posterity." + +Thus has a week passed away, while I have listened to the strangest +tale that ever imagination formed. My thoughts and every feeling of my +soul have been drunk up by the interest for my guest which this tale +and his own elevated and gentle manners have created. I wish to soothe +him, yet can I counsel one so infinitely miserable, so destitute of +every hope of consolation, to live? Oh, no! The only joy that he can +now know will be when he composes his shattered spirit to peace and +death. Yet he enjoys one comfort, the offspring of solitude and +delirium; he believes that when in dreams he holds converse with his +friends and derives from that communion consolation for his miseries or +excitements to his vengeance, that they are not the creations of his +fancy, but the beings themselves who visit him from the regions of a +remote world. This faith gives a solemnity to his reveries that render +them to me almost as imposing and interesting as truth. + +Our conversations are not always confined to his own history and +misfortunes. On every point of general literature he displays +unbounded knowledge and a quick and piercing apprehension. His +eloquence is forcible and touching; nor can I hear him, when he relates +a pathetic incident or endeavours to move the passions of pity or love, +without tears. What a glorious creature must he have been in the days +of his prosperity, when he is thus noble and godlike in ruin! He seems +to feel his own worth and the greatness of his fall. + +"When younger," said he, "I believed myself destined for some great +enterprise. My feelings are profound, but I possessed a coolness of +judgment that fitted me for illustrious achievements. This sentiment +of the worth of my nature supported me when others would have been +oppressed, for I deemed it criminal to throw away in useless grief +those talents that might be useful to my fellow creatures. When I +reflected on the work I had completed, no less a one than the creation +of a sensitive and rational animal, I could not rank myself with the +herd of common projectors. But this thought, which supported me in the +commencement of my career, now serves only to plunge me lower in the +dust. All my speculations and hopes are as nothing, and like the +archangel who aspired to omnipotence, I am chained in an eternal hell. +My imagination was vivid, yet my powers of analysis and application +were intense; by the union of these qualities I conceived the idea and +executed the creation of a man. Even now I cannot recollect without +passion my reveries while the work was incomplete. I trod heaven in my +thoughts, now exulting in my powers, now burning with the idea of their +effects. From my infancy I was imbued with high hopes and a lofty +ambition; but how am I sunk! Oh! My friend, if you had known me as I +once was, you would not recognize me in this state of degradation. +Despondency rarely visited my heart; a high destiny seemed to bear me +on, until I fell, never, never again to rise." Must I then lose this +admirable being? I have longed for a friend; I have sought one who +would sympathize with and love me. Behold, on these desert seas I have +found such a one, but I fear I have gained him only to know his value +and lose him. I would reconcile him to life, but he repulses the idea. + +"I thank you, Walton," he said, "for your kind intentions towards so +miserable a wretch; but when you speak of new ties and fresh +affections, think you that any can replace those who are gone? Can any +man be to me as Clerval was, or any woman another Elizabeth? Even +where the affections are not strongly moved by any superior excellence, +the companions of our childhood always possess a certain power over our +minds which hardly any later friend can obtain. They know our +infantine dispositions, which, however they may be afterwards modified, +are never eradicated; and they can judge of our actions with more +certain conclusions as to the integrity of our motives. A sister or a +brother can never, unless indeed such symptoms have been shown early, +suspect the other of fraud or false dealing, when another friend, +however strongly he may be attached, may, in spite of himself, be +contemplated with suspicion. But I enjoyed friends, dear not only +through habit and association, but from their own merits; and wherever +I am, the soothing voice of my Elizabeth and the conversation of +Clerval will be ever whispered in my ear. They are dead, and but one +feeling in such a solitude can persuade me to preserve my life. If I +were engaged in any high undertaking or design, fraught with extensive +utility to my fellow creatures, then could I live to fulfil it. But +such is not my destiny; I must pursue and destroy the being to whom I +gave existence; then my lot on earth will be fulfilled and I may die." + + + + +September 2nd + +My beloved Sister, + +I write to you, encompassed by peril and ignorant whether I am ever +doomed to see again dear England and the dearer friends that inhabit +it. I am surrounded by mountains of ice which admit of no escape and +threaten every moment to crush my vessel. The brave fellows whom I +have persuaded to be my companions look towards me for aid, but I have +none to bestow. There is something terribly appalling in our +situation, yet my courage and hopes do not desert me. Yet it is +terrible to reflect that the lives of all these men are endangered +through me. If we are lost, my mad schemes are the cause. + +And what, Margaret, will be the state of your mind? You will not hear +of my destruction, and you will anxiously await my return. Years will +pass, and you will have visitings of despair and yet be tortured by +hope. Oh! My beloved sister, the sickening failing of your heart-felt +expectations is, in prospect, more terrible to me than my own death. + +But you have a husband and lovely children; you may be happy. Heaven +bless you and make you so! + +My unfortunate guest regards me with the tenderest compassion. He +endeavours to fill me with hope and talks as if life were a possession +which he valued. He reminds me how often the same accidents have +happened to other navigators who have attempted this sea, and in spite +of myself, he fills me with cheerful auguries. Even the sailors feel +the power of his eloquence; when he speaks, they no longer despair; he +rouses their energies, and while they hear his voice they believe these +vast mountains of ice are mole-hills which will vanish before the +resolutions of man. These feelings are transitory; each day of +expectation delayed fills them with fear, and I almost dread a mutiny +caused by this despair. + + + +September 5th + + +A scene has just passed of such uncommon interest that, although it is +highly probable that these papers may never reach you, yet I cannot +forbear recording it. + +We are still surrounded by mountains of ice, still in imminent danger +of being crushed in their conflict. The cold is excessive, and many of +my unfortunate comrades have already found a grave amidst this scene of +desolation. Frankenstein has daily declined in health; a feverish fire +still glimmers in his eyes, but he is exhausted, and when suddenly +roused to any exertion, he speedily sinks again into apparent +lifelessness. + +I mentioned in my last letter the fears I entertained of a mutiny. +This morning, as I sat watching the wan countenance of my friend--his +eyes half closed and his limbs hanging listlessly--I was roused by half +a dozen of the sailors, who demanded admission into the cabin. They +entered, and their leader addressed me. He told me that he and his +companions had been chosen by the other sailors to come in deputation +to me to make me a requisition which, in justice, I could not refuse. +We were immured in ice and should probably never escape, but they +feared that if, as was possible, the ice should dissipate and a free +passage be opened, I should be rash enough to continue my voyage and +lead them into fresh dangers, after they might happily have surmounted +this. They insisted, therefore, that I should engage with a solemn +promise that if the vessel should be freed I would instantly direct my +course southwards. + +This speech troubled me. I had not despaired, nor had I yet conceived +the idea of returning if set free. Yet could I, in justice, or even in +possibility, refuse this demand? I hesitated before I answered, when +Frankenstein, who had at first been silent, and indeed appeared hardly +to have force enough to attend, now roused himself; his eyes sparkled, +and his cheeks flushed with momentary vigour. Turning towards the men, +he said, "What do you mean? What do you demand of your captain? Are +you, then, so easily turned from your design? Did you not call this a +glorious expedition? + +"And wherefore was it glorious? Not because the way was smooth and +placid as a southern sea, but because it was full of dangers and +terror, because at every new incident your fortitude was to be called +forth and your courage exhibited, because danger and death surrounded +it, and these you were to brave and overcome. For this was it a +glorious, for this was it an honourable undertaking. You were +hereafter to be hailed as the benefactors of your species, your names +adored as belonging to brave men who encountered death for honour and +the benefit of mankind. And now, behold, with the first imagination of +danger, or, if you will, the first mighty and terrific trial of your +courage, you shrink away and are content to be handed down as men who +had not strength enough to endure cold and peril; and so, poor souls, +they were chilly and returned to their warm firesides. Why, that +requires not this preparation; ye need not have come thus far and +dragged your captain to the shame of a defeat merely to prove +yourselves cowards. Oh! Be men, or be more than men. Be steady to +your purposes and firm as a rock. This ice is not made of such stuff as +your hearts may be; it is mutable and cannot withstand you if you say +that it shall not. Do not return to your families with the stigma of +disgrace marked on your brows. Return as heroes who have fought and +conquered and who know not what it is to turn their backs on the foe." +He spoke this with a voice so modulated to the different feelings +expressed in his speech, with an eye so full of lofty design and +heroism, that can you wonder that these men were moved? They looked at +one another and were unable to reply. I spoke; I told them to retire +and consider of what had been said, that I would not lead them farther +north if they strenuously desired the contrary, but that I hoped that, +with reflection, their courage would return. They retired and I turned +towards my friend, but he was sunk in languor and almost deprived of +life. + +How all this will terminate, I know not, but I had rather die than +return shamefully, my purpose unfulfilled. Yet I fear such will be my +fate; the men, unsupported by ideas of glory and honour, can never +willingly continue to endure their present hardships. + + + +September 7th + + +The die is cast; I have consented to return if we are not destroyed. +Thus are my hopes blasted by cowardice and indecision; I come back +ignorant and disappointed. It requires more philosophy than I possess +to bear this injustice with patience. + + + +September 12th + + +It is past; I am returning to England. I have lost my hopes of utility +and glory; I have lost my friend. But I will endeavour to detail these +bitter circumstances to you, my dear sister; and while I am wafted +towards England and towards you, I will not despond. + +September 9th, the ice began to move, and roarings like thunder were +heard at a distance as the islands split and cracked in every +direction. We were in the most imminent peril, but as we could only +remain passive, my chief attention was occupied by my unfortunate guest +whose illness increased in such a degree that he was entirely confined +to his bed. The ice cracked behind us and was driven with force +towards the north; a breeze sprang from the west, and on the 11th the +passage towards the south became perfectly free. When the sailors saw +this and that their return to their native country was apparently +assured, a shout of tumultuous joy broke from them, loud and +long-continued. Frankenstein, who was dozing, awoke and asked the +cause of the tumult. "They shout," I said, "because they will soon +return to England." + +"Do you, then, really return?" + +"Alas! Yes; I cannot withstand their demands. I cannot lead them +unwillingly to danger, and I must return." + +"Do so, if you will; but I will not. You may give up your purpose, but +mine is assigned to me by heaven, and I dare not. I am weak, but +surely the spirits who assist my vengeance will endow me with +sufficient strength." Saying this, he endeavoured to spring from the +bed, but the exertion was too great for him; he fell back and fainted. + +It was long before he was restored, and I often thought that life was +entirely extinct. At length he opened his eyes; he breathed with +difficulty and was unable to speak. The surgeon gave him a composing +draught and ordered us to leave him undisturbed. In the meantime he +told me that my friend had certainly not many hours to live. + +His sentence was pronounced, and I could only grieve and be patient. I +sat by his bed, watching him; his eyes were closed, and I thought he +slept; but presently he called to me in a feeble voice, and bidding me +come near, said, "Alas! The strength I relied on is gone; I feel that +I shall soon die, and he, my enemy and persecutor, may still be in +being. Think not, Walton, that in the last moments of my existence I +feel that burning hatred and ardent desire of revenge I once expressed; +but I feel myself justified in desiring the death of my adversary. +During these last days I have been occupied in examining my past +conduct; nor do I find it blamable. In a fit of enthusiastic madness I +created a rational creature and was bound towards him to assure, as far +as was in my power, his happiness and well-being. + +"This was my duty, but there was another still paramount to that. My +duties towards the beings of my own species had greater claims to my +attention because they included a greater proportion of happiness or +misery. Urged by this view, I refused, and I did right in refusing, to +create a companion for the first creature. He showed unparalleled +malignity and selfishness in evil; he destroyed my friends; he devoted +to destruction beings who possessed exquisite sensations, happiness, +and wisdom; nor do I know where this thirst for vengeance may end. +Miserable himself that he may render no other wretched, he ought to +die. The task of his destruction was mine, but I have failed. When +actuated by selfish and vicious motives, I asked you to undertake my +unfinished work, and I renew this request now, when I am only induced +by reason and virtue. + +"Yet I cannot ask you to renounce your country and friends to fulfil +this task; and now that you are returning to England, you will have +little chance of meeting with him. But the consideration of these +points, and the well balancing of what you may esteem your duties, I +leave to you; my judgment and ideas are already disturbed by the near +approach of death. I dare not ask you to do what I think right, for I +may still be misled by passion. + +"That he should live to be an instrument of mischief disturbs me; in +other respects, this hour, when I momentarily expect my release, is the +only happy one which I have enjoyed for several years. The forms of +the beloved dead flit before me, and I hasten to their arms. Farewell, +Walton! Seek happiness in tranquillity and avoid ambition, even if it +be only the apparently innocent one of distinguishing yourself in +science and discoveries. Yet why do I say this? I have myself been +blasted in these hopes, yet another may succeed." + +His voice became fainter as he spoke, and at length, exhausted by his +effort, he sank into silence. About half an hour afterwards he +attempted again to speak but was unable; he pressed my hand feebly, and +his eyes closed forever, while the irradiation of a gentle smile passed +away from his lips. + +Margaret, what comment can I make on the untimely extinction of this +glorious spirit? What can I say that will enable you to understand the +depth of my sorrow? All that I should express would be inadequate and +feeble. My tears flow; my mind is overshadowed by a cloud of +disappointment. But I journey towards England, and I may there find +consolation. + +I am interrupted. What do these sounds portend? It is midnight; the +breeze blows fairly, and the watch on deck scarcely stir. Again there +is a sound as of a human voice, but hoarser; it comes from the cabin +where the remains of Frankenstein still lie. I must arise and examine. +Good night, my sister. + +Great God! what a scene has just taken place! I am yet dizzy with the +remembrance of it. I hardly know whether I shall have the power to +detail it; yet the tale which I have recorded would be incomplete +without this final and wonderful catastrophe. I entered the cabin where +lay the remains of my ill-fated and admirable friend. Over him hung a +form which I cannot find words to describe--gigantic in stature, yet +uncouth and distorted in its proportions. As he hung over the coffin, +his face was concealed by long locks of ragged hair; but one vast hand +was extended, in colour and apparent texture like that of a mummy. When +he heard the sound of my approach, he ceased to utter exclamations of +grief and horror and sprung towards the window. Never did I behold a +vision so horrible as his face, of such loathsome yet appalling +hideousness. I shut my eyes involuntarily and endeavoured to recollect +what were my duties with regard to this destroyer. I called on him to +stay. + +He paused, looking on me with wonder, and again turning towards the +lifeless form of his creator, he seemed to forget my presence, and +every feature and gesture seemed instigated by the wildest rage of some +uncontrollable passion. + +"That is also my victim!" he exclaimed. "In his murder my crimes are +consummated; the miserable series of my being is wound to its close! +Oh, Frankenstein! Generous and self-devoted being! What does it avail +that I now ask thee to pardon me? I, who irretrievably destroyed thee +by destroying all thou lovedst. Alas! He is cold, he cannot answer +me." His voice seemed suffocated, and my first impulses, which had +suggested to me the duty of obeying the dying request of my friend in +destroying his enemy, were now suspended by a mixture of curiosity and +compassion. I approached this tremendous being; I dared not again +raise my eyes to his face, there was something so scaring and unearthly +in his ugliness. I attempted to speak, but the words died away on my +lips. The monster continued to utter wild and incoherent +self-reproaches. At length I gathered resolution to address him in a +pause of the tempest of his passion. + +"Your repentance," I said, "is now superfluous. If you had listened to +the voice of conscience and heeded the stings of remorse before you had +urged your diabolical vengeance to this extremity, Frankenstein would +yet have lived." + +"And do you dream?" said the daemon. "Do you think that I was then +dead to agony and remorse? He," he continued, pointing to the corpse, +"he suffered not in the consummation of the deed. Oh! Not the +ten-thousandth portion of the anguish that was mine during the +lingering detail of its execution. A frightful selfishness hurried me +on, while my heart was poisoned with remorse. Think you that the +groans of Clerval were music to my ears? My heart was fashioned to be +susceptible of love and sympathy, and when wrenched by misery to vice +and hatred, it did not endure the violence of the change without +torture such as you cannot even imagine. + +"After the murder of Clerval I returned to Switzerland, heart-broken +and overcome. I pitied Frankenstein; my pity amounted to horror; I +abhorred myself. But when I discovered that he, the author at once of +my existence and of its unspeakable torments, dared to hope for +happiness, that while he accumulated wretchedness and despair upon me +he sought his own enjoyment in feelings and passions from the +indulgence of which I was forever barred, then impotent envy and bitter +indignation filled me with an insatiable thirst for vengeance. I +recollected my threat and resolved that it should be accomplished. I +knew that I was preparing for myself a deadly torture, but I was the +slave, not the master, of an impulse which I detested yet could not +disobey. Yet when she died! Nay, then I was not miserable. I had +cast off all feeling, subdued all anguish, to riot in the excess of my +despair. Evil thenceforth became my good. Urged thus far, I had no +choice but to adapt my nature to an element which I had willingly +chosen. The completion of my demoniacal design became an insatiable +passion. And now it is ended; there is my last victim!" + +I was at first touched by the expressions of his misery; yet, when I +called to mind what Frankenstein had said of his powers of eloquence +and persuasion, and when I again cast my eyes on the lifeless form of +my friend, indignation was rekindled within me. "Wretch!" I said. "It +is well that you come here to whine over the desolation that you have +made. You throw a torch into a pile of buildings, and when they are +consumed, you sit among the ruins and lament the fall. Hypocritical +fiend! If he whom you mourn still lived, still would he be the object, +again would he become the prey, of your accursed vengeance. It is not +pity that you feel; you lament only because the victim of your +malignity is withdrawn from your power." + +"Oh, it is not thus--not thus," interrupted the being. "Yet such must +be the impression conveyed to you by what appears to be the purport of +my actions. Yet I seek not a fellow feeling in my misery. No sympathy +may I ever find. When I first sought it, it was the love of virtue, +the feelings of happiness and affection with which my whole being +overflowed, that I wished to be participated. But now that virtue has +become to me a shadow, and that happiness and affection are turned into +bitter and loathing despair, in what should I seek for sympathy? I am +content to suffer alone while my sufferings shall endure; when I die, I +am well satisfied that abhorrence and opprobrium should load my memory. +Once my fancy was soothed with dreams of virtue, of fame, and of +enjoyment. Once I falsely hoped to meet with beings who, pardoning my +outward form, would love me for the excellent qualities which I was +capable of unfolding. I was nourished with high thoughts of honour and +devotion. But now crime has degraded me beneath the meanest animal. No +guilt, no mischief, no malignity, no misery, can be found comparable to +mine. When I run over the frightful catalogue of my sins, I cannot +believe that I am the same creature whose thoughts were once filled +with sublime and transcendent visions of the beauty and the majesty of +goodness. But it is even so; the fallen angel becomes a malignant +devil. Yet even that enemy of God and man had friends and associates +in his desolation; I am alone. + +"You, who call Frankenstein your friend, seem to have a knowledge of my +crimes and his misfortunes. But in the detail which he gave you of them +he could not sum up the hours and months of misery which I endured +wasting in impotent passions. For while I destroyed his hopes, I did +not satisfy my own desires. They were forever ardent and craving; still +I desired love and fellowship, and I was still spurned. Was there no +injustice in this? Am I to be thought the only criminal, when all +humankind sinned against me? Why do you not hate Felix, who drove his +friend from his door with contumely? Why do you not execrate the rustic +who sought to destroy the saviour of his child? Nay, these are virtuous +and immaculate beings! I, the miserable and the abandoned, am an +abortion, to be spurned at, and kicked, and trampled on. Even now my +blood boils at the recollection of this injustice. + +"But it is true that I am a wretch. I have murdered the lovely and the +helpless; I have strangled the innocent as they slept and grasped to +death his throat who never injured me or any other living thing. I +have devoted my creator, the select specimen of all that is worthy of +love and admiration among men, to misery; I have pursued him even to +that irremediable ruin. + +"There he lies, white and cold in death. You hate me, but your +abhorrence cannot equal that with which I regard myself. I look on the +hands which executed the deed; I think on the heart in which the +imagination of it was conceived and long for the moment when these +hands will meet my eyes, when that imagination will haunt my thoughts +no more. + +"Fear not that I shall be the instrument of future mischief. My work +is nearly complete. Neither yours nor any man's death is needed to +consummate the series of my being and accomplish that which must be +done, but it requires my own. Do not think that I shall be slow to +perform this sacrifice. I shall quit your vessel on the ice raft which +brought me thither and shall seek the most northern extremity of the +globe; I shall collect my funeral pile and consume to ashes this +miserable frame, that its remains may afford no light to any curious +and unhallowed wretch who would create such another as I have been. I +shall die. I shall no longer feel the agonies which now consume me or +be the prey of feelings unsatisfied, yet unquenched. He is dead who +called me into being; and when I shall be no more, the very remembrance +of us both will speedily vanish. I shall no longer see the sun or +stars or feel the winds play on my cheeks. + +"Light, feeling, and sense will pass away; and in this condition must I +find my happiness. Some years ago, when the images which this world +affords first opened upon me, when I felt the cheering warmth of summer +and heard the rustling of the leaves and the warbling of the birds, and +these were all to me, I should have wept to die; now it is my only +consolation. Polluted by crimes and torn by the bitterest remorse, +where can I find rest but in death? + +"Farewell! I leave you, and in you the last of humankind whom these +eyes will ever behold. Farewell, Frankenstein! If thou wert yet alive +and yet cherished a desire of revenge against me, it would be better +satiated in my life than in my destruction. But it was not so; thou +didst seek my extinction, that I might not cause greater wretchedness; +and if yet, in some mode unknown to me, thou hadst not ceased to think +and feel, thou wouldst not desire against me a vengeance greater than +that which I feel. Blasted as thou wert, my agony was still superior to +thine, for the bitter sting of remorse will not cease to rankle in my +wounds until death shall close them forever. + +"But soon," he cried with sad and solemn enthusiasm, "I shall die, and +what I now feel be no longer felt. Soon these burning miseries will be +extinct. I shall ascend my funeral pile triumphantly and exult in the +agony of the torturing flames. The light of that conflagration will +fade away; my ashes will be swept into the sea by the winds. My spirit +will sleep in peace, or if it thinks, it will not surely think thus. +Farewell." + +He sprang from the cabin window as he said this, upon the ice raft +which lay close to the vessel. He was soon borne away by the waves and +lost in darkness and distance. + + + + + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Frankenstein, by +Mary Wollstonecraft (Godwin) Shelley + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK FRANKENSTEIN *** + +***** This file should be named 84.txt or 84.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/8/84/ + +Produced by Judith Boss, Christy Phillips, Lynn Hanninen, +and David Meltzer. HTML version by Al Haines. + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Great Expectations + +Author: Charles Dickens + +Posting Date: August 20, 2008 [EBook #1400] +Release Date: July, 1998 +Last updated: October 17, 2015 + +Language: English + + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK GREAT EXPECTATIONS *** + + + + +Produced by An Anonymous Volunteer + + + + + +GREAT EXPECTATIONS + +[1867 Edition] + +by Charles Dickens + + +[Project Gutenberg Editor's Note: There is also another version of +this work etext98/grexp10.txt scanned from a different edition] + + + + +Chapter I + +My father's family name being Pirrip, and my Christian name Philip, my +infant tongue could make of both names nothing longer or more explicit +than Pip. So, I called myself Pip, and came to be called Pip. + +I give Pirrip as my father's family name, on the authority of his +tombstone and my sister,--Mrs. Joe Gargery, who married the blacksmith. +As I never saw my father or my mother, and never saw any likeness +of either of them (for their days were long before the days of +photographs), my first fancies regarding what they were like were +unreasonably derived from their tombstones. The shape of the letters on +my father's, gave me an odd idea that he was a square, stout, dark man, +with curly black hair. From the character and turn of the inscription, +"Also Georgiana Wife of the Above," I drew a childish conclusion that +my mother was freckled and sickly. To five little stone lozenges, each +about a foot and a half long, which were arranged in a neat row beside +their grave, and were sacred to the memory of five little brothers of +mine,--who gave up trying to get a living, exceedingly early in +that universal struggle,--I am indebted for a belief I religiously +entertained that they had all been born on their backs with their hands +in their trousers-pockets, and had never taken them out in this state of +existence. + +Ours was the marsh country, down by the river, within, as the river +wound, twenty miles of the sea. My first most vivid and broad impression +of the identity of things seems to me to have been gained on a memorable +raw afternoon towards evening. At such a time I found out for certain +that this bleak place overgrown with nettles was the churchyard; and +that Philip Pirrip, late of this parish, and also Georgiana wife of the +above, were dead and buried; and that Alexander, Bartholomew, Abraham, +Tobias, and Roger, infant children of the aforesaid, were also dead +and buried; and that the dark flat wilderness beyond the churchyard, +intersected with dikes and mounds and gates, with scattered cattle +feeding on it, was the marshes; and that the low leaden line beyond +was the river; and that the distant savage lair from which the wind was +rushing was the sea; and that the small bundle of shivers growing afraid +of it all and beginning to cry, was Pip. + +"Hold your noise!" cried a terrible voice, as a man started up from +among the graves at the side of the church porch. "Keep still, you +little devil, or I'll cut your throat!" + +A fearful man, all in coarse gray, with a great iron on his leg. A man +with no hat, and with broken shoes, and with an old rag tied round his +head. A man who had been soaked in water, and smothered in mud, and +lamed by stones, and cut by flints, and stung by nettles, and torn by +briars; who limped, and shivered, and glared, and growled; and whose +teeth chattered in his head as he seized me by the chin. + +"Oh! Don't cut my throat, sir," I pleaded in terror. "Pray don't do it, +sir." + +"Tell us your name!" said the man. "Quick!" + +"Pip, sir." + +"Once more," said the man, staring at me. "Give it mouth!" + +"Pip. Pip, sir." + +"Show us where you live," said the man. "Pint out the place!" + +I pointed to where our village lay, on the flat in-shore among the +alder-trees and pollards, a mile or more from the church. + +The man, after looking at me for a moment, turned me upside down, and +emptied my pockets. There was nothing in them but a piece of bread. When +the church came to itself,--for he was so sudden and strong that he +made it go head over heels before me, and I saw the steeple under my +feet,--when the church came to itself, I say, I was seated on a high +tombstone, trembling while he ate the bread ravenously. + +"You young dog," said the man, licking his lips, "what fat cheeks you +ha' got." + +I believe they were fat, though I was at that time undersized for my +years, and not strong. + +"Darn me if I couldn't eat em," said the man, with a threatening shake +of his head, "and if I han't half a mind to't!" + +I earnestly expressed my hope that he wouldn't, and held tighter to +the tombstone on which he had put me; partly, to keep myself upon it; +partly, to keep myself from crying. + +"Now lookee here!" said the man. "Where's your mother?" + +"There, sir!" said I. + +He started, made a short run, and stopped and looked over his shoulder. + +"There, sir!" I timidly explained. "Also Georgiana. That's my mother." + +"Oh!" said he, coming back. "And is that your father alonger your +mother?" + +"Yes, sir," said I; "him too; late of this parish." + +"Ha!" he muttered then, considering. "Who d'ye live with,--supposin' +you're kindly let to live, which I han't made up my mind about?" + +"My sister, sir,--Mrs. Joe Gargery,--wife of Joe Gargery, the +blacksmith, sir." + +"Blacksmith, eh?" said he. And looked down at his leg. + +After darkly looking at his leg and me several times, he came closer +to my tombstone, took me by both arms, and tilted me back as far as he +could hold me; so that his eyes looked most powerfully down into mine, +and mine looked most helplessly up into his. + +"Now lookee here," he said, "the question being whether you're to be let +to live. You know what a file is?" + +"Yes, sir." + +"And you know what wittles is?" + +"Yes, sir." + +After each question he tilted me over a little more, so as to give me a +greater sense of helplessness and danger. + +"You get me a file." He tilted me again. "And you get me wittles." He +tilted me again. "You bring 'em both to me." He tilted me again. "Or +I'll have your heart and liver out." He tilted me again. + +I was dreadfully frightened, and so giddy that I clung to him with both +hands, and said, "If you would kindly please to let me keep upright, +sir, perhaps I shouldn't be sick, and perhaps I could attend more." + +He gave me a most tremendous dip and roll, so that the church jumped +over its own weathercock. Then, he held me by the arms, in an upright +position on the top of the stone, and went on in these fearful terms:-- + +"You bring me, to-morrow morning early, that file and them wittles. You +bring the lot to me, at that old Battery over yonder. You do it, and you +never dare to say a word or dare to make a sign concerning your having +seen such a person as me, or any person sumever, and you shall be let to +live. You fail, or you go from my words in any partickler, no matter how +small it is, and your heart and your liver shall be tore out, roasted, +and ate. Now, I ain't alone, as you may think I am. There's a young man +hid with me, in comparison with which young man I am a Angel. That young +man hears the words I speak. That young man has a secret way pecooliar +to himself, of getting at a boy, and at his heart, and at his liver. It +is in wain for a boy to attempt to hide himself from that young man. A +boy may lock his door, may be warm in bed, may tuck himself up, may draw +the clothes over his head, may think himself comfortable and safe, but +that young man will softly creep and creep his way to him and tear him +open. I am a keeping that young man from harming of you at the present +moment, with great difficulty. I find it wery hard to hold that young +man off of your inside. Now, what do you say?" + +I said that I would get him the file, and I would get him what broken +bits of food I could, and I would come to him at the Battery, early in +the morning. + +"Say Lord strike you dead if you don't!" said the man. + +I said so, and he took me down. + +"Now," he pursued, "you remember what you've undertook, and you remember +that young man, and you get home!" + +"Goo-good night, sir," I faltered. + +"Much of that!" said he, glancing about him over the cold wet flat. "I +wish I was a frog. Or a eel!" + +At the same time, he hugged his shuddering body in both his +arms,--clasping himself, as if to hold himself together,--and limped +towards the low church wall. As I saw him go, picking his way among the +nettles, and among the brambles that bound the green mounds, he looked +in my young eyes as if he were eluding the hands of the dead people, +stretching up cautiously out of their graves, to get a twist upon his +ankle and pull him in. + +When he came to the low church wall, he got over it, like a man whose +legs were numbed and stiff, and then turned round to look for me. When I +saw him turning, I set my face towards home, and made the best use of +my legs. But presently I looked over my shoulder, and saw him going on +again towards the river, still hugging himself in both arms, and picking +his way with his sore feet among the great stones dropped into the +marshes here and there, for stepping-places when the rains were heavy or +the tide was in. + +The marshes were just a long black horizontal line then, as I stopped +to look after him; and the river was just another horizontal line, not +nearly so broad nor yet so black; and the sky was just a row of long +angry red lines and dense black lines intermixed. On the edge of the +river I could faintly make out the only two black things in all the +prospect that seemed to be standing upright; one of these was the beacon +by which the sailors steered,--like an unhooped cask upon a pole,--an +ugly thing when you were near it; the other, a gibbet, with some chains +hanging to it which had once held a pirate. The man was limping on +towards this latter, as if he were the pirate come to life, and come +down, and going back to hook himself up again. It gave me a terrible +turn when I thought so; and as I saw the cattle lifting their heads to +gaze after him, I wondered whether they thought so too. I looked all +round for the horrible young man, and could see no signs of him. But now +I was frightened again, and ran home without stopping. + + + + +Chapter II + +My sister, Mrs. Joe Gargery, was more than twenty years older than I, +and had established a great reputation with herself and the neighbors +because she had brought me up "by hand." Having at that time to find out +for myself what the expression meant, and knowing her to have a hard and +heavy hand, and to be much in the habit of laying it upon her husband as +well as upon me, I supposed that Joe Gargery and I were both brought up +by hand. + +She was not a good-looking woman, my sister; and I had a general +impression that she must have made Joe Gargery marry her by hand. Joe +was a fair man, with curls of flaxen hair on each side of his smooth +face, and with eyes of such a very undecided blue that they seemed +to have somehow got mixed with their own whites. He was a mild, +good-natured, sweet-tempered, easy-going, foolish, dear fellow,--a sort +of Hercules in strength, and also in weakness. + +My sister, Mrs. Joe, with black hair and eyes, had such a prevailing +redness of skin that I sometimes used to wonder whether it was possible +she washed herself with a nutmeg-grater instead of soap. She was tall +and bony, and almost always wore a coarse apron, fastened over her +figure behind with two loops, and having a square impregnable bib in +front, that was stuck full of pins and needles. She made it a powerful +merit in herself, and a strong reproach against Joe, that she wore this +apron so much. Though I really see no reason why she should have worn it +at all; or why, if she did wear it at all, she should not have taken it +off, every day of her life. + +Joe's forge adjoined our house, which was a wooden house, as many of the +dwellings in our country were,--most of them, at that time. When I ran +home from the churchyard, the forge was shut up, and Joe was sitting +alone in the kitchen. Joe and I being fellow-sufferers, and having +confidences as such, Joe imparted a confidence to me, the moment I +raised the latch of the door and peeped in at him opposite to it, +sitting in the chimney corner. + +"Mrs. Joe has been out a dozen times, looking for you, Pip. And she's +out now, making it a baker's dozen." + +"Is she?" + +"Yes, Pip," said Joe; "and what's worse, she's got Tickler with her." + +At this dismal intelligence, I twisted the only button on my waistcoat +round and round, and looked in great depression at the fire. Tickler +was a wax-ended piece of cane, worn smooth by collision with my tickled +frame. + +"She sot down," said Joe, "and she got up, and she made a grab at +Tickler, and she Ram-paged out. That's what she did," said Joe, slowly +clearing the fire between the lower bars with the poker, and looking at +it; "she Ram-paged out, Pip." + +"Has she been gone long, Joe?" I always treated him as a larger species +of child, and as no more than my equal. + +"Well," said Joe, glancing up at the Dutch clock, "she's been on the +Ram-page, this last spell, about five minutes, Pip. She's a coming! Get +behind the door, old chap, and have the jack-towel betwixt you." + +I took the advice. My sister, Mrs. Joe, throwing the door wide open, +and finding an obstruction behind it, immediately divined the cause, and +applied Tickler to its further investigation. She concluded by throwing +me--I often served as a connubial missile--at Joe, who, glad to get hold +of me on any terms, passed me on into the chimney and quietly fenced me +up there with his great leg. + +"Where have you been, you young monkey?" said Mrs. Joe, stamping her +foot. "Tell me directly what you've been doing to wear me away with fret +and fright and worrit, or I'd have you out of that corner if you was +fifty Pips, and he was five hundred Gargerys." + +"I have only been to the churchyard," said I, from my stool, crying and +rubbing myself. + +"Churchyard!" repeated my sister. "If it warn't for me you'd have been +to the churchyard long ago, and stayed there. Who brought you up by +hand?" + +"You did," said I. + +"And why did I do it, I should like to know?" exclaimed my sister. + +I whimpered, "I don't know." + +"I don't!" said my sister. "I'd never do it again! I know that. I may +truly say I've never had this apron of mine off since born you were. +It's bad enough to be a blacksmith's wife (and him a Gargery) without +being your mother." + +My thoughts strayed from that question as I looked disconsolately at +the fire. For the fugitive out on the marshes with the ironed leg, the +mysterious young man, the file, the food, and the dreadful pledge I was +under to commit a larceny on those sheltering premises, rose before me +in the avenging coals. + +"Hah!" said Mrs. Joe, restoring Tickler to his station. "Churchyard, +indeed! You may well say churchyard, you two." One of us, by the by, had +not said it at all. "You'll drive me to the churchyard betwixt you, one +of these days, and O, a pr-r-recious pair you'd be without me!" + +As she applied herself to set the tea-things, Joe peeped down at me +over his leg, as if he were mentally casting me and himself up, and +calculating what kind of pair we practically should make, under the +grievous circumstances foreshadowed. After that, he sat feeling his +right-side flaxen curls and whisker, and following Mrs. Joe about with +his blue eyes, as his manner always was at squally times. + +My sister had a trenchant way of cutting our bread and butter for us, +that never varied. First, with her left hand she jammed the loaf hard +and fast against her bib,--where it sometimes got a pin into it, and +sometimes a needle, which we afterwards got into our mouths. Then she +took some butter (not too much) on a knife and spread it on the loaf, in +an apothecary kind of way, as if she were making a plaster,--using both +sides of the knife with a slapping dexterity, and trimming and moulding +the butter off round the crust. Then, she gave the knife a final smart +wipe on the edge of the plaster, and then sawed a very thick round off +the loaf: which she finally, before separating from the loaf, hewed into +two halves, of which Joe got one, and I the other. + +On the present occasion, though I was hungry, I dared not eat my +slice. I felt that I must have something in reserve for my dreadful +acquaintance, and his ally the still more dreadful young man. I knew +Mrs. Joe's housekeeping to be of the strictest kind, and that my +larcenous researches might find nothing available in the safe. Therefore +I resolved to put my hunk of bread and butter down the leg of my +trousers. + +The effort of resolution necessary to the achievement of this purpose I +found to be quite awful. It was as if I had to make up my mind to leap +from the top of a high house, or plunge into a great depth of water. +And it was made the more difficult by the unconscious Joe. In +our already-mentioned freemasonry as fellow-sufferers, and in his +good-natured companionship with me, it was our evening habit to compare +the way we bit through our slices, by silently holding them up to each +other's admiration now and then,--which stimulated us to new exertions. +To-night, Joe several times invited me, by the display of his fast +diminishing slice, to enter upon our usual friendly competition; but +he found me, each time, with my yellow mug of tea on one knee, and +my untouched bread and butter on the other. At last, I desperately +considered that the thing I contemplated must be done, and that it +had best be done in the least improbable manner consistent with the +circumstances. I took advantage of a moment when Joe had just looked at +me, and got my bread and butter down my leg. + +Joe was evidently made uncomfortable by what he supposed to be my loss +of appetite, and took a thoughtful bite out of his slice, which he +didn't seem to enjoy. He turned it about in his mouth much longer than +usual, pondering over it a good deal, and after all gulped it down like +a pill. He was about to take another bite, and had just got his head on +one side for a good purchase on it, when his eye fell on me, and he saw +that my bread and butter was gone. + +The wonder and consternation with which Joe stopped on the threshold +of his bite and stared at me, were too evident to escape my sister's +observation. + +"What's the matter now?" said she, smartly, as she put down her cup. + +"I say, you know!" muttered Joe, shaking his head at me in very serious +remonstrance. "Pip, old chap! You'll do yourself a mischief. It'll stick +somewhere. You can't have chawed it, Pip." + +"What's the matter now?" repeated my sister, more sharply than before. + +"If you can cough any trifle on it up, Pip, I'd recommend you to do it," +said Joe, all aghast. "Manners is manners, but still your elth's your +elth." + +By this time, my sister was quite desperate, so she pounced on Joe, +and, taking him by the two whiskers, knocked his head for a little while +against the wall behind him, while I sat in the corner, looking guiltily +on. + +"Now, perhaps you'll mention what's the matter," said my sister, out of +breath, "you staring great stuck pig." + +Joe looked at her in a helpless way, then took a helpless bite, and +looked at me again. + +"You know, Pip," said Joe, solemnly, with his last bite in his cheek, +and speaking in a confidential voice, as if we two were quite alone, +"you and me is always friends, and I'd be the last to tell upon you, +any time. But such a--" he moved his chair and looked about the floor +between us, and then again at me--"such a most oncommon Bolt as that!" + +"Been bolting his food, has he?" cried my sister. + +"You know, old chap," said Joe, looking at me, and not at Mrs. Joe, +with his bite still in his cheek, "I Bolted, myself, when I was your +age--frequent--and as a boy I've been among a many Bolters; but I never +see your Bolting equal yet, Pip, and it's a mercy you ain't Bolted +dead." + +My sister made a dive at me, and fished me up by the hair, saying +nothing more than the awful words, "You come along and be dosed." + +Some medical beast had revived Tar-water in those days as a fine +medicine, and Mrs. Joe always kept a supply of it in the cupboard; +having a belief in its virtues correspondent to its nastiness. At the +best of times, so much of this elixir was administered to me as a choice +restorative, that I was conscious of going about, smelling like a new +fence. On this particular evening the urgency of my case demanded a +pint of this mixture, which was poured down my throat, for my greater +comfort, while Mrs. Joe held my head under her arm, as a boot would +be held in a bootjack. Joe got off with half a pint; but was made to +swallow that (much to his disturbance, as he sat slowly munching and +meditating before the fire), "because he had had a turn." Judging from +myself, I should say he certainly had a turn afterwards, if he had had +none before. + +Conscience is a dreadful thing when it accuses man or boy; but when, in +the case of a boy, that secret burden co-operates with another secret +burden down the leg of his trousers, it is (as I can testify) a great +punishment. The guilty knowledge that I was going to rob Mrs. Joe--I +never thought I was going to rob Joe, for I never thought of any of the +housekeeping property as his--united to the necessity of always keeping +one hand on my bread and butter as I sat, or when I was ordered about +the kitchen on any small errand, almost drove me out of my mind. Then, +as the marsh winds made the fire glow and flare, I thought I heard the +voice outside, of the man with the iron on his leg who had sworn me to +secrecy, declaring that he couldn't and wouldn't starve until to-morrow, +but must be fed now. At other times, I thought, What if the young man +who was with so much difficulty restrained from imbruing his hands in me +should yield to a constitutional impatience, or should mistake the time, +and should think himself accredited to my heart and liver to-night, +instead of to-morrow! If ever anybody's hair stood on end with terror, +mine must have done so then. But, perhaps, nobody's ever did? + +It was Christmas Eve, and I had to stir the pudding for next day, with +a copper-stick, from seven to eight by the Dutch clock. I tried it with +the load upon my leg (and that made me think afresh of the man with the +load on HIS leg), and found the tendency of exercise to bring the bread +and butter out at my ankle, quite unmanageable. Happily I slipped away, +and deposited that part of my conscience in my garret bedroom. + +"Hark!" said I, when I had done my stirring, and was taking a final warm +in the chimney corner before being sent up to bed; "was that great guns, +Joe?" + +"Ah!" said Joe. "There's another conwict off." + +"What does that mean, Joe?" said I. + +Mrs. Joe, who always took explanations upon herself, said, snappishly, +"Escaped. Escaped." Administering the definition like Tar-water. + +While Mrs. Joe sat with her head bending over her needlework, I put my +mouth into the forms of saying to Joe, "What's a convict?" Joe put his +mouth into the forms of returning such a highly elaborate answer, that I +could make out nothing of it but the single word "Pip." + +"There was a conwict off last night," said Joe, aloud, "after +sunset-gun. And they fired warning of him. And now it appears they're +firing warning of another." + +"Who's firing?" said I. + +"Drat that boy," interposed my sister, frowning at me over her work, +"what a questioner he is. Ask no questions, and you'll be told no lies." + +It was not very polite to herself, I thought, to imply that I should be +told lies by her even if I did ask questions. But she never was polite +unless there was company. + +At this point Joe greatly augmented my curiosity by taking the utmost +pains to open his mouth very wide, and to put it into the form of a word +that looked to me like "sulks." Therefore, I naturally pointed to Mrs. +Joe, and put my mouth into the form of saying, "her?" But Joe wouldn't +hear of that, at all, and again opened his mouth very wide, and shook +the form of a most emphatic word out of it. But I could make nothing of +the word. + +"Mrs. Joe," said I, as a last resort, "I should like to know--if you +wouldn't much mind--where the firing comes from?" + +"Lord bless the boy!" exclaimed my sister, as if she didn't quite mean +that but rather the contrary. "From the Hulks!" + +"Oh-h!" said I, looking at Joe. "Hulks!" + +Joe gave a reproachful cough, as much as to say, "Well, I told you so." + +"And please, what's Hulks?" said I. + +"That's the way with this boy!" exclaimed my sister, pointing me out +with her needle and thread, and shaking her head at me. "Answer him one +question, and he'll ask you a dozen directly. Hulks are prison-ships, +right 'cross th' meshes." We always used that name for marshes, in our +country. + +"I wonder who's put into prison-ships, and why they're put there?" said +I, in a general way, and with quiet desperation. + +It was too much for Mrs. Joe, who immediately rose. "I tell you what, +young fellow," said she, "I didn't bring you up by hand to badger +people's lives out. It would be blame to me and not praise, if I had. +People are put in the Hulks because they murder, and because they rob, +and forge, and do all sorts of bad; and they always begin by asking +questions. Now, you get along to bed!" + +I was never allowed a candle to light me to bed, and, as I went upstairs +in the dark, with my head tingling,--from Mrs. Joe's thimble +having played the tambourine upon it, to accompany her last words,--I +felt fearfully sensible of the great convenience that the hulks were +handy for me. I was clearly on my way there. I had begun by asking +questions, and I was going to rob Mrs. Joe. + +Since that time, which is far enough away now, I have often thought +that few people know what secrecy there is in the young under terror. +No matter how unreasonable the terror, so that it be terror. I was in +mortal terror of the young man who wanted my heart and liver; I was +in mortal terror of my interlocutor with the iron leg; I was in mortal +terror of myself, from whom an awful promise had been extracted; I had +no hope of deliverance through my all-powerful sister, who repulsed +me at every turn; I am afraid to think of what I might have done on +requirement, in the secrecy of my terror. + +If I slept at all that night, it was only to imagine myself drifting +down the river on a strong spring-tide, to the Hulks; a ghostly +pirate calling out to me through a speaking-trumpet, as I passed the +gibbet-station, that I had better come ashore and be hanged there at +once, and not put it off. I was afraid to sleep, even if I had been +inclined, for I knew that at the first faint dawn of morning I must rob +the pantry. There was no doing it in the night, for there was no getting +a light by easy friction then; to have got one I must have struck it out +of flint and steel, and have made a noise like the very pirate himself +rattling his chains. + +As soon as the great black velvet pall outside my little window was shot +with gray, I got up and went downstairs; every board upon the way, and +every crack in every board calling after me, "Stop thief!" and "Get up, +Mrs. Joe!" In the pantry, which was far more abundantly supplied than +usual, owing to the season, I was very much alarmed by a hare hanging +up by the heels, whom I rather thought I caught, when my back was half +turned, winking. I had no time for verification, no time for selection, +no time for anything, for I had no time to spare. I stole some bread, +some rind of cheese, about half a jar of mincemeat (which I tied up in +my pocket-handkerchief with my last night's slice), some brandy from a +stone bottle (which I decanted into a glass bottle I had secretly used +for making that intoxicating fluid, Spanish-liquorice-water, up in my +room: diluting the stone bottle from a jug in the kitchen cupboard), +a meat bone with very little on it, and a beautiful round compact pork +pie. I was nearly going away without the pie, but I was tempted to mount +upon a shelf, to look what it was that was put away so carefully in a +covered earthenware dish in a corner, and I found it was the pie, and +I took it in the hope that it was not intended for early use, and would +not be missed for some time. + +There was a door in the kitchen, communicating with the forge; I +unlocked and unbolted that door, and got a file from among Joe's tools. +Then I put the fastenings as I had found them, opened the door at which +I had entered when I ran home last night, shut it, and ran for the misty +marshes. + + + + +Chapter III + +It was a rimy morning, and very damp. I had seen the damp lying on the +outside of my little window, as if some goblin had been crying there all +night, and using the window for a pocket-handkerchief. Now, I saw the +damp lying on the bare hedges and spare grass, like a coarser sort of +spiders' webs; hanging itself from twig to twig and blade to blade. On +every rail and gate, wet lay clammy, and the marsh mist was so thick, +that the wooden finger on the post directing people to our village--a +direction which they never accepted, for they never came there--was +invisible to me until I was quite close under it. Then, as I looked up +at it, while it dripped, it seemed to my oppressed conscience like a +phantom devoting me to the Hulks. + +The mist was heavier yet when I got out upon the marshes, so that +instead of my running at everything, everything seemed to run at me. +This was very disagreeable to a guilty mind. The gates and dikes and +banks came bursting at me through the mist, as if they cried as plainly +as could be, "A boy with somebody else's pork pie! Stop him!" The +cattle came upon me with like suddenness, staring out of their eyes, +and steaming out of their nostrils, "Halloa, young thief!" One black +ox, with a white cravat on,--who even had to my awakened conscience +something of a clerical air,--fixed me so obstinately with his eyes, +and moved his blunt head round in such an accusatory manner as I moved +round, that I blubbered out to him, "I couldn't help it, sir! It wasn't +for myself I took it!" Upon which he put down his head, blew a cloud of +smoke out of his nose, and vanished with a kick-up of his hind-legs and +a flourish of his tail. + +All this time, I was getting on towards the river; but however fast I +went, I couldn't warm my feet, to which the damp cold seemed riveted, as +the iron was riveted to the leg of the man I was running to meet. I knew +my way to the Battery, pretty straight, for I had been down there on a +Sunday with Joe, and Joe, sitting on an old gun, had told me that when +I was 'prentice to him, regularly bound, we would have such Larks there! +However, in the confusion of the mist, I found myself at last too far to +the right, and consequently had to try back along the river-side, on the +bank of loose stones above the mud and the stakes that staked the tide +out. Making my way along here with all despatch, I had just crossed a +ditch which I knew to be very near the Battery, and had just scrambled +up the mound beyond the ditch, when I saw the man sitting before me. +His back was towards me, and he had his arms folded, and was nodding +forward, heavy with sleep. + +I thought he would be more glad if I came upon him with his breakfast, +in that unexpected manner, so I went forward softly and touched him on +the shoulder. He instantly jumped up, and it was not the same man, but +another man! + +And yet this man was dressed in coarse gray, too, and had a great iron +on his leg, and was lame, and hoarse, and cold, and was everything that +the other man was; except that he had not the same face, and had a flat +broad-brimmed low-crowned felt hat on. All this I saw in a moment, for +I had only a moment to see it in: he swore an oath at me, made a hit at +me,--it was a round weak blow that missed me and almost knocked himself +down, for it made him stumble,--and then he ran into the mist, stumbling +twice as he went, and I lost him. + +"It's the young man!" I thought, feeling my heart shoot as I identified +him. I dare say I should have felt a pain in my liver, too, if I had +known where it was. + +I was soon at the Battery after that, and there was the right +man,--hugging himself and limping to and fro, as if he had never all +night left off hugging and limping,--waiting for me. He was awfully +cold, to be sure. I half expected to see him drop down before my face +and die of deadly cold. His eyes looked so awfully hungry too, that when +I handed him the file and he laid it down on the grass, it occurred to +me he would have tried to eat it, if he had not seen my bundle. He did +not turn me upside down this time to get at what I had, but left me +right side upwards while I opened the bundle and emptied my pockets. + +"What's in the bottle, boy?" said he. + +"Brandy," said I. + +He was already handing mincemeat down his throat in the most curious +manner,--more like a man who was putting it away somewhere in a violent +hurry, than a man who was eating it,--but he left off to take some of +the liquor. He shivered all the while so violently, that it was quite +as much as he could do to keep the neck of the bottle between his teeth, +without biting it off. + +"I think you have got the ague," said I. + +"I'm much of your opinion, boy," said he. + +"It's bad about here," I told him. "You've been lying out on the meshes, +and they're dreadful aguish. Rheumatic too." + +"I'll eat my breakfast afore they're the death of me," said he. "I'd do +that, if I was going to be strung up to that there gallows as there is +over there, directly afterwards. I'll beat the shivers so far, I'll bet +you." + +He was gobbling mincemeat, meatbone, bread, cheese, and pork pie, all +at once: staring distrustfully while he did so at the mist all round +us, and often stopping--even stopping his jaws--to listen. Some real or +fancied sound, some clink upon the river or breathing of beast upon the +marsh, now gave him a start, and he said, suddenly,-- + +"You're not a deceiving imp? You brought no one with you?" + +"No, sir! No!" + +"Nor giv' no one the office to follow you?" + +"No!" + +"Well," said he, "I believe you. You'd be but a fierce young hound +indeed, if at your time of life you could help to hunt a wretched +warmint hunted as near death and dunghill as this poor wretched warmint +is!" + +Something clicked in his throat as if he had works in him like a clock, +and was going to strike. And he smeared his ragged rough sleeve over his +eyes. + +Pitying his desolation, and watching him as he gradually settled down +upon the pie, I made bold to say, "I am glad you enjoy it." + +"Did you speak?" + +"I said I was glad you enjoyed it." + +"Thankee, my boy. I do." + +I had often watched a large dog of ours eating his food; and I now +noticed a decided similarity between the dog's way of eating, and the +man's. The man took strong sharp sudden bites, just like the dog. He +swallowed, or rather snapped up, every mouthful, too soon and too fast; +and he looked sideways here and there while he ate, as if he thought +there was danger in every direction of somebody's coming to take the pie +away. He was altogether too unsettled in his mind over it, to appreciate +it comfortably I thought, or to have anybody to dine with him, without +making a chop with his jaws at the visitor. In all of which particulars +he was very like the dog. + +"I am afraid you won't leave any of it for him," said I, timidly; after +a silence during which I had hesitated as to the politeness of making +the remark. "There's no more to be got where that came from." It was the +certainty of this fact that impelled me to offer the hint. + +"Leave any for him? Who's him?" said my friend, stopping in his +crunching of pie-crust. + +"The young man. That you spoke of. That was hid with you." + +"Oh ah!" he returned, with something like a gruff laugh. "Him? Yes, yes! +He don't want no wittles." + +"I thought he looked as if he did," said I. + +The man stopped eating, and regarded me with the keenest scrutiny and +the greatest surprise. + +"Looked? When?" + +"Just now." + +"Where?" + +"Yonder," said I, pointing; "over there, where I found him nodding +asleep, and thought it was you." + +He held me by the collar and stared at me so, that I began to think his +first idea about cutting my throat had revived. + +"Dressed like you, you know, only with a hat," I explained, trembling; +"and--and"--I was very anxious to put this delicately--"and with--the +same reason for wanting to borrow a file. Didn't you hear the cannon +last night?" + +"Then there was firing!" he said to himself. + +"I wonder you shouldn't have been sure of that," I returned, "for +we heard it up at home, and that's farther away, and we were shut in +besides." + +"Why, see now!" said he. "When a man's alone on these flats, with a +light head and a light stomach, perishing of cold and want, he hears +nothin' all night, but guns firing, and voices calling. Hears? He sees +the soldiers, with their red coats lighted up by the torches carried +afore, closing in round him. Hears his number called, hears himself +challenged, hears the rattle of the muskets, hears the orders 'Make +ready! Present! Cover him steady, men!' and is laid hands on--and +there's nothin'! Why, if I see one pursuing party last night--coming up +in order, Damn 'em, with their tramp, tramp--I see a hundred. And as to +firing! Why, I see the mist shake with the cannon, arter it was broad +day,--But this man"; he had said all the rest, as if he had forgotten my +being there; "did you notice anything in him?" + +"He had a badly bruised face," said I, recalling what I hardly knew I +knew. + +"Not here?" exclaimed the man, striking his left cheek mercilessly, with +the flat of his hand. + +"Yes, there!" + +"Where is he?" He crammed what little food was left, into the breast of +his gray jacket. "Show me the way he went. I'll pull him down, like a +bloodhound. Curse this iron on my sore leg! Give us hold of the file, +boy." + +I indicated in what direction the mist had shrouded the other man, +and he looked up at it for an instant. But he was down on the rank wet +grass, filing at his iron like a madman, and not minding me or minding +his own leg, which had an old chafe upon it and was bloody, but which he +handled as roughly as if it had no more feeling in it than the file. I +was very much afraid of him again, now that he had worked himself into +this fierce hurry, and I was likewise very much afraid of keeping away +from home any longer. I told him I must go, but he took no notice, so +I thought the best thing I could do was to slip off. The last I saw +of him, his head was bent over his knee and he was working hard at his +fetter, muttering impatient imprecations at it and at his leg. The last +I heard of him, I stopped in the mist to listen, and the file was still +going. + + + + +Chapter IV + +I fully expected to find a Constable in the kitchen, waiting to take me +up. But not only was there no Constable there, but no discovery had yet +been made of the robbery. Mrs. Joe was prodigiously busy in getting the +house ready for the festivities of the day, and Joe had been put upon +the kitchen doorstep to keep him out of the dust-pan,--an article into +which his destiny always led him, sooner or later, when my sister was +vigorously reaping the floors of her establishment. + +"And where the deuce ha' you been?" was Mrs. Joe's Christmas salutation, +when I and my conscience showed ourselves. + +I said I had been down to hear the Carols. "Ah! well!" observed Mrs. +Joe. "You might ha' done worse." Not a doubt of that I thought. + +"Perhaps if I warn't a blacksmith's wife, and (what's the same thing) a +slave with her apron never off, I should have been to hear the Carols," +said Mrs. Joe. "I'm rather partial to Carols, myself, and that's the +best of reasons for my never hearing any." + +Joe, who had ventured into the kitchen after me as the dustpan had +retired before us, drew the back of his hand across his nose with a +conciliatory air, when Mrs. Joe darted a look at him, and, when her eyes +were withdrawn, secretly crossed his two forefingers, and exhibited them +to me, as our token that Mrs. Joe was in a cross temper. This was so +much her normal state, that Joe and I would often, for weeks together, +be, as to our fingers, like monumental Crusaders as to their legs. + +We were to have a superb dinner, consisting of a leg of pickled pork and +greens, and a pair of roast stuffed fowls. A handsome mince-pie had +been made yesterday morning (which accounted for the mincemeat not +being missed), and the pudding was already on the boil. These extensive +arrangements occasioned us to be cut off unceremoniously in respect of +breakfast; "for I ain't," said Mrs. Joe,--"I ain't a going to have +no formal cramming and busting and washing up now, with what I've got +before me, I promise you!" + +So, we had our slices served out, as if we were two thousand troops on a +forced march instead of a man and boy at home; and we took gulps of milk +and water, with apologetic countenances, from a jug on the dresser. In +the meantime, Mrs. Joe put clean white curtains up, and tacked a new +flowered flounce across the wide chimney to replace the old one, and +uncovered the little state parlor across the passage, which was never +uncovered at any other time, but passed the rest of the year in a cool +haze of silver paper, which even extended to the four little white +crockery poodles on the mantel-shelf, each with a black nose and a +basket of flowers in his mouth, and each the counterpart of the other. +Mrs. Joe was a very clean housekeeper, but had an exquisite art of +making her cleanliness more uncomfortable and unacceptable than dirt +itself. Cleanliness is next to Godliness, and some people do the same by +their religion. + +My sister, having so much to do, was going to church vicariously, that +is to say, Joe and I were going. In his working-clothes, Joe was a +well-knit characteristic-looking blacksmith; in his holiday clothes, +he was more like a scarecrow in good circumstances, than anything else. +Nothing that he wore then fitted him or seemed to belong to him; and +everything that he wore then grazed him. On the present festive occasion +he emerged from his room, when the blithe bells were going, the picture +of misery, in a full suit of Sunday penitentials. As to me, I think my +sister must have had some general idea that I was a young offender whom +an Accoucheur Policeman had taken up (on my birthday) and delivered over +to her, to be dealt with according to the outraged majesty of the law. +I was always treated as if I had insisted on being born in opposition +to the dictates of reason, religion, and morality, and against the +dissuading arguments of my best friends. Even when I was taken to have +a new suit of clothes, the tailor had orders to make them like a kind of +Reformatory, and on no account to let me have the free use of my limbs. + +Joe and I going to church, therefore, must have been a moving spectacle +for compassionate minds. Yet, what I suffered outside was nothing to +what I underwent within. The terrors that had assailed me whenever +Mrs. Joe had gone near the pantry, or out of the room, were only to be +equalled by the remorse with which my mind dwelt on what my hands had +done. Under the weight of my wicked secret, I pondered whether the +Church would be powerful enough to shield me from the vengeance of the +terrible young man, if I divulged to that establishment. I conceived the +idea that the time when the banns were read and when the clergyman said, +"Ye are now to declare it!" would be the time for me to rise and propose +a private conference in the vestry. I am far from being sure that I +might not have astonished our small congregation by resorting to this +extreme measure, but for its being Christmas Day and no Sunday. + +Mr. Wopsle, the clerk at church, was to dine with us; and Mr. Hubble +the wheelwright and Mrs. Hubble; and Uncle Pumblechook (Joe's uncle, +but Mrs. Joe appropriated him), who was a well-to-do cornchandler in +the nearest town, and drove his own chaise-cart. The dinner hour was +half-past one. When Joe and I got home, we found the table laid, and +Mrs. Joe dressed, and the dinner dressing, and the front door unlocked +(it never was at any other time) for the company to enter by, and +everything most splendid. And still, not a word of the robbery. + +The time came, without bringing with it any relief to my feelings, and +the company came. Mr. Wopsle, united to a Roman nose and a large shining +bald forehead, had a deep voice which he was uncommonly proud of; indeed +it was understood among his acquaintance that if you could only give him +his head, he would read the clergyman into fits; he himself confessed +that if the Church was "thrown open," meaning to competition, he would +not despair of making his mark in it. The Church not being "thrown +open," he was, as I have said, our clerk. But he punished the Amens +tremendously; and when he gave out the psalm,--always giving the whole +verse,--he looked all round the congregation first, as much as to say, +"You have heard my friend overhead; oblige me with your opinion of this +style!" + +I opened the door to the company,--making believe that it was a habit +of ours to open that door,--and I opened it first to Mr. Wopsle, next +to Mr. and Mrs. Hubble, and last of all to Uncle Pumblechook. N.B. I was +not allowed to call him uncle, under the severest penalties. + +"Mrs. Joe," said Uncle Pumblechook, a large hard-breathing middle-aged +slow man, with a mouth like a fish, dull staring eyes, and sandy hair +standing upright on his head, so that he looked as if he had just been +all but choked, and had that moment come to, "I have brought you as the +compliments of the season--I have brought you, Mum, a bottle of sherry +wine--and I have brought you, Mum, a bottle of port wine." + +Every Christmas Day he presented himself, as a profound novelty, with +exactly the same words, and carrying the two bottles like dumb-bells. +Every Christmas Day, Mrs. Joe replied, as she now replied, "O, Un--cle +Pum-ble--chook! This is kind!" Every Christmas Day, he retorted, as +he now retorted, "It's no more than your merits. And now are you all +bobbish, and how's Sixpennorth of halfpence?" meaning me. + +We dined on these occasions in the kitchen, and adjourned, for the nuts +and oranges and apples to the parlor; which was a change very like +Joe's change from his working-clothes to his Sunday dress. My sister was +uncommonly lively on the present occasion, and indeed was generally more +gracious in the society of Mrs. Hubble than in other company. I remember +Mrs. Hubble as a little curly sharp-edged person in sky-blue, who held a +conventionally juvenile position, because she had married Mr. Hubble,--I +don't know at what remote period,--when she was much younger than he. I +remember Mr Hubble as a tough, high-shouldered, stooping old man, of a +sawdusty fragrance, with his legs extraordinarily wide apart: so that in +my short days I always saw some miles of open country between them when +I met him coming up the lane. + +Among this good company I should have felt myself, even if I hadn't +robbed the pantry, in a false position. Not because I was squeezed in +at an acute angle of the tablecloth, with the table in my chest, and the +Pumblechookian elbow in my eye, nor because I was not allowed to speak +(I didn't want to speak), nor because I was regaled with the scaly tips +of the drumsticks of the fowls, and with those obscure corners of pork +of which the pig, when living, had had the least reason to be vain. No; +I should not have minded that, if they would only have left me alone. +But they wouldn't leave me alone. They seemed to think the opportunity +lost, if they failed to point the conversation at me, every now and +then, and stick the point into me. I might have been an unfortunate +little bull in a Spanish arena, I got so smartingly touched up by these +moral goads. + +It began the moment we sat down to dinner. Mr. Wopsle said grace with +theatrical declamation,--as it now appears to me, something like a +religious cross of the Ghost in Hamlet with Richard the Third,--and +ended with the very proper aspiration that we might be truly grateful. +Upon which my sister fixed me with her eye, and said, in a low +reproachful voice, "Do you hear that? Be grateful." + +"Especially," said Mr. Pumblechook, "be grateful, boy, to them which +brought you up by hand." + +Mrs. Hubble shook her head, and contemplating me with a mournful +presentiment that I should come to no good, asked, "Why is it that the +young are never grateful?" This moral mystery seemed too much for +the company until Mr. Hubble tersely solved it by saying, "Naterally +wicious." Everybody then murmured "True!" and looked at me in a +particularly unpleasant and personal manner. + +Joe's station and influence were something feebler (if possible) when +there was company than when there was none. But he always aided and +comforted me when he could, in some way of his own, and he always did so +at dinner-time by giving me gravy, if there were any. There being plenty +of gravy to-day, Joe spooned into my plate, at this point, about half a +pint. + +A little later on in the dinner, Mr. Wopsle reviewed the sermon with +some severity, and intimated--in the usual hypothetical case of the +Church being "thrown open"--what kind of sermon he would have given +them. After favoring them with some heads of that discourse, he remarked +that he considered the subject of the day's homily, ill chosen; which +was the less excusable, he added, when there were so many subjects +"going about." + +"True again," said Uncle Pumblechook. "You've hit it, sir! Plenty of +subjects going about, for them that know how to put salt upon their +tails. That's what's wanted. A man needn't go far to find a subject, +if he's ready with his salt-box." Mr. Pumblechook added, after a short +interval of reflection, "Look at Pork alone. There's a subject! If you +want a subject, look at Pork!" + +"True, sir. Many a moral for the young," returned Mr. Wopsle,--and I +knew he was going to lug me in, before he said it; "might be deduced +from that text." + +("You listen to this," said my sister to me, in a severe parenthesis.) + +Joe gave me some more gravy. + +"Swine," pursued Mr. Wopsle, in his deepest voice, and pointing his fork +at my blushes, as if he were mentioning my Christian name,--"swine were +the companions of the prodigal. The gluttony of Swine is put before us, +as an example to the young." (I thought this pretty well in him who +had been praising up the pork for being so plump and juicy.) "What is +detestable in a pig is more detestable in a boy." + +"Or girl," suggested Mr. Hubble. + +"Of course, or girl, Mr. Hubble," assented Mr. Wopsle, rather irritably, +"but there is no girl present." + +"Besides," said Mr. Pumblechook, turning sharp on me, "think what you've +got to be grateful for. If you'd been born a Squeaker--" + +"He was, if ever a child was," said my sister, most emphatically. + +Joe gave me some more gravy. + +"Well, but I mean a four-footed Squeaker," said Mr. Pumblechook. "If you +had been born such, would you have been here now? Not you--" + +"Unless in that form," said Mr. Wopsle, nodding towards the dish. + +"But I don't mean in that form, sir," returned Mr. Pumblechook, who had +an objection to being interrupted; "I mean, enjoying himself with his +elders and betters, and improving himself with their conversation, and +rolling in the lap of luxury. Would he have been doing that? No, he +wouldn't. And what would have been your destination?" turning on me +again. "You would have been disposed of for so many shillings according +to the market price of the article, and Dunstable the butcher would have +come up to you as you lay in your straw, and he would have whipped you +under his left arm, and with his right he would have tucked up his frock +to get a penknife from out of his waistcoat-pocket, and he would have +shed your blood and had your life. No bringing up by hand then. Not a +bit of it!" + +Joe offered me more gravy, which I was afraid to take. + +"He was a world of trouble to you, ma'am," said Mrs. Hubble, +commiserating my sister. + +"Trouble?" echoed my sister; "trouble?" and then entered on a fearful +catalogue of all the illnesses I had been guilty of, and all the acts +of sleeplessness I had committed, and all the high places I had tumbled +from, and all the low places I had tumbled into, and all the injuries I +had done myself, and all the times she had wished me in my grave, and I +had contumaciously refused to go there. + +I think the Romans must have aggravated one another very much, with +their noses. Perhaps, they became the restless people they were, in +consequence. Anyhow, Mr. Wopsle's Roman nose so aggravated me, during +the recital of my misdemeanours, that I should have liked to pull it +until he howled. But, all I had endured up to this time was nothing in +comparison with the awful feelings that took possession of me when the +pause was broken which ensued upon my sister's recital, and in which +pause everybody had looked at me (as I felt painfully conscious) with +indignation and abhorrence. + +"Yet," said Mr. Pumblechook, leading the company gently back to the +theme from which they had strayed, "Pork--regarded as biled--is rich, +too; ain't it?" + +"Have a little brandy, uncle," said my sister. + +O Heavens, it had come at last! He would find it was weak, he would say +it was weak, and I was lost! I held tight to the leg of the table under +the cloth, with both hands, and awaited my fate. + +My sister went for the stone bottle, came back with the stone bottle, +and poured his brandy out: no one else taking any. The wretched man +trifled with his glass,--took it up, looked at it through the light, +put it down,--prolonged my misery. All this time Mrs. Joe and Joe were +briskly clearing the table for the pie and pudding. + +I couldn't keep my eyes off him. Always holding tight by the leg of the +table with my hands and feet, I saw the miserable creature finger his +glass playfully, take it up, smile, throw his head back, and drink +the brandy off. Instantly afterwards, the company were seized with +unspeakable consternation, owing to his springing to his feet, turning +round several times in an appalling spasmodic whooping-cough dance, +and rushing out at the door; he then became visible through the window, +violently plunging and expectorating, making the most hideous faces, and +apparently out of his mind. + +I held on tight, while Mrs. Joe and Joe ran to him. I didn't know how +I had done it, but I had no doubt I had murdered him somehow. In my +dreadful situation, it was a relief when he was brought back, and +surveying the company all round as if they had disagreed with him, sank +down into his chair with the one significant gasp, "Tar!" + +I had filled up the bottle from the tar-water jug. I knew he would be +worse by and by. I moved the table, like a Medium of the present day, by +the vigor of my unseen hold upon it. + +"Tar!" cried my sister, in amazement. "Why, how ever could Tar come +there?" + +But, Uncle Pumblechook, who was omnipotent in that kitchen, wouldn't +hear the word, wouldn't hear of the subject, imperiously waved it all +away with his hand, and asked for hot gin and water. My sister, who had +begun to be alarmingly meditative, had to employ herself actively in +getting the gin, the hot water, the sugar, and the lemon-peel, and mixing +them. For the time being at least, I was saved. I still held on to the +leg of the table, but clutched it now with the fervor of gratitude. + +By degrees, I became calm enough to release my grasp and partake of +pudding. Mr. Pumblechook partook of pudding. All partook of pudding. +The course terminated, and Mr. Pumblechook had begun to beam under the +genial influence of gin and water. I began to think I should get over +the day, when my sister said to Joe, "Clean plates,--cold." + +I clutched the leg of the table again immediately, and pressed it to my +bosom as if it had been the companion of my youth and friend of my soul. +I foresaw what was coming, and I felt that this time I really was gone. + +"You must taste," said my sister, addressing the guests with her best +grace--"you must taste, to finish with, such a delightful and delicious +present of Uncle Pumblechook's!" + +Must they! Let them not hope to taste it! + +"You must know," said my sister, rising, "it's a pie; a savory pork +pie." + +The company murmured their compliments. Uncle Pumblechook, sensible of +having deserved well of his fellow-creatures, said,--quite vivaciously, +all things considered,--"Well, Mrs. Joe, we'll do our best endeavors; +let us have a cut at this same pie." + +My sister went out to get it. I heard her steps proceed to the pantry. I +saw Mr. Pumblechook balance his knife. I saw reawakening appetite in the +Roman nostrils of Mr. Wopsle. I heard Mr. Hubble remark that "a bit of +savory pork pie would lay atop of anything you could mention, and do +no harm," and I heard Joe say, "You shall have some, Pip." I have never +been absolutely certain whether I uttered a shrill yell of terror, +merely in spirit, or in the bodily hearing of the company. I felt that I +could bear no more, and that I must run away. I released the leg of the +table, and ran for my life. + +But I ran no farther than the house door, for there I ran head-foremost +into a party of soldiers with their muskets, one of whom held out a pair +of handcuffs to me, saying, "Here you are, look sharp, come on!" + + + + +Chapter V + +The apparition of a file of soldiers ringing down the but-ends of their +loaded muskets on our door-step, caused the dinner-party to rise +from table in confusion, and caused Mrs. Joe re-entering the kitchen +empty-handed, to stop short and stare, in her wondering lament of +"Gracious goodness gracious me, what's gone--with the--pie!" + +The sergeant and I were in the kitchen when Mrs. Joe stood staring; +at which crisis I partially recovered the use of my senses. It was +the sergeant who had spoken to me, and he was now looking round at the +company, with his handcuffs invitingly extended towards them in his +right hand, and his left on my shoulder. + +"Excuse me, ladies and gentleman," said the sergeant, "but as I have +mentioned at the door to this smart young shaver," (which he hadn't), "I +am on a chase in the name of the king, and I want the blacksmith." + +"And pray what might you want with him?" retorted my sister, quick to +resent his being wanted at all. + +"Missis," returned the gallant sergeant, "speaking for myself, I should +reply, the honor and pleasure of his fine wife's acquaintance; speaking +for the king, I answer, a little job done." + +This was received as rather neat in the sergeant; insomuch that Mr. +Pumblechook cried audibly, "Good again!" + +"You see, blacksmith," said the sergeant, who had by this time picked +out Joe with his eye, "we have had an accident with these, and I find +the lock of one of 'em goes wrong, and the coupling don't act pretty. +As they are wanted for immediate service, will you throw your eye over +them?" + +Joe threw his eye over them, and pronounced that the job would +necessitate the lighting of his forge fire, and would take nearer +two hours than one. "Will it? Then will you set about it at once, +blacksmith?" said the off-hand sergeant, "as it's on his Majesty's +service. And if my men can bear a hand anywhere, they'll make themselves +useful." With that, he called to his men, who came trooping into the +kitchen one after another, and piled their arms in a corner. And then +they stood about, as soldiers do; now, with their hands loosely clasped +before them; now, resting a knee or a shoulder; now, easing a belt or a +pouch; now, opening the door to spit stiffly over their high stocks, out +into the yard. + +All these things I saw without then knowing that I saw them, for I +was in an agony of apprehension. But beginning to perceive that the +handcuffs were not for me, and that the military had so far got the +better of the pie as to put it in the background, I collected a little +more of my scattered wits. + +"Would you give me the time?" said the sergeant, addressing himself to +Mr. Pumblechook, as to a man whose appreciative powers justified the +inference that he was equal to the time. + +"It's just gone half past two." + +"That's not so bad," said the sergeant, reflecting; "even if I was +forced to halt here nigh two hours, that'll do. How far might you call +yourselves from the marshes, hereabouts? Not above a mile, I reckon?" + +"Just a mile," said Mrs. Joe. + +"That'll do. We begin to close in upon 'em about dusk. A little before +dusk, my orders are. That'll do." + +"Convicts, sergeant?" asked Mr. Wopsle, in a matter-of-course way. + +"Ay!" returned the sergeant, "two. They're pretty well known to be out +on the marshes still, and they won't try to get clear of 'em before +dusk. Anybody here seen anything of any such game?" + +Everybody, myself excepted, said no, with confidence. Nobody thought of +me. + +"Well!" said the sergeant, "they'll find themselves trapped in a circle, +I expect, sooner than they count on. Now, blacksmith! If you're ready, +his Majesty the King is." + +Joe had got his coat and waistcoat and cravat off, and his leather apron +on, and passed into the forge. One of the soldiers opened its wooden +windows, another lighted the fire, another turned to at the bellows, the +rest stood round the blaze, which was soon roaring. Then Joe began to +hammer and clink, hammer and clink, and we all looked on. + +The interest of the impending pursuit not only absorbed the general +attention, but even made my sister liberal. She drew a pitcher of beer +from the cask for the soldiers, and invited the sergeant to take a glass +of brandy. But Mr. Pumblechook said, sharply, "Give him wine, Mum. I'll +engage there's no tar in that:" so, the sergeant thanked him and said +that as he preferred his drink without tar, he would take wine, if it +was equally convenient. When it was given him, he drank his Majesty's +health and compliments of the season, and took it all at a mouthful and +smacked his lips. + +"Good stuff, eh, sergeant?" said Mr. Pumblechook. + +"I'll tell you something," returned the sergeant; "I suspect that +stuff's of your providing." + +Mr. Pumblechook, with a fat sort of laugh, said, "Ay, ay? Why?" + +"Because," returned the sergeant, clapping him on the shoulder, "you're +a man that knows what's what." + +"D'ye think so?" said Mr. Pumblechook, with his former laugh. "Have +another glass!" + +"With you. Hob and nob," returned the sergeant. "The top of mine to the +foot of yours,--the foot of yours to the top of mine,--Ring once, ring +twice,--the best tune on the Musical Glasses! Your health. May you live +a thousand years, and never be a worse judge of the right sort than you +are at the present moment of your life!" + +The sergeant tossed off his glass again and seemed quite ready for +another glass. I noticed that Mr. Pumblechook in his hospitality +appeared to forget that he had made a present of the wine, but took the +bottle from Mrs. Joe and had all the credit of handing it about in a +gush of joviality. Even I got some. And he was so very free of the wine +that he even called for the other bottle, and handed that about with the +same liberality, when the first was gone. + +As I watched them while they all stood clustering about the forge, +enjoying themselves so much, I thought what terrible good sauce for +a dinner my fugitive friend on the marshes was. They had not enjoyed +themselves a quarter so much, before the entertainment was brightened +with the excitement he furnished. And now, when they were all in lively +anticipation of "the two villains" being taken, and when the bellows +seemed to roar for the fugitives, the fire to flare for them, the smoke +to hurry away in pursuit of them, Joe to hammer and clink for them, +and all the murky shadows on the wall to shake at them in menace as the +blaze rose and sank, and the red-hot sparks dropped and died, the pale +afternoon outside almost seemed in my pitying young fancy to have turned +pale on their account, poor wretches. + +At last, Joe's job was done, and the ringing and roaring stopped. As Joe +got on his coat, he mustered courage to propose that some of us should +go down with the soldiers and see what came of the hunt. Mr. Pumblechook +and Mr. Hubble declined, on the plea of a pipe and ladies' society; but +Mr. Wopsle said he would go, if Joe would. Joe said he was agreeable, +and would take me, if Mrs. Joe approved. We never should have got leave +to go, I am sure, but for Mrs. Joe's curiosity to know all about it and +how it ended. As it was, she merely stipulated, "If you bring the boy +back with his head blown to bits by a musket, don't look to me to put it +together again." + +The sergeant took a polite leave of the ladies, and parted from Mr. +Pumblechook as from a comrade; though I doubt if he were quite as fully +sensible of that gentleman's merits under arid conditions, as when +something moist was going. His men resumed their muskets and fell in. +Mr. Wopsle, Joe, and I, received strict charge to keep in the rear, and +to speak no word after we reached the marshes. When we were all out in +the raw air and were steadily moving towards our business, I treasonably +whispered to Joe, "I hope, Joe, we shan't find them." and Joe whispered +to me, "I'd give a shilling if they had cut and run, Pip." + +We were joined by no stragglers from the village, for the weather was +cold and threatening, the way dreary, the footing bad, darkness coming +on, and the people had good fires in-doors and were keeping the day. A +few faces hurried to glowing windows and looked after us, but none came +out. We passed the finger-post, and held straight on to the churchyard. +There we were stopped a few minutes by a signal from the sergeant's +hand, while two or three of his men dispersed themselves among the +graves, and also examined the porch. They came in again without finding +anything, and then we struck out on the open marshes, through the gate +at the side of the churchyard. A bitter sleet came rattling against us +here on the east wind, and Joe took me on his back. + +Now that we were out upon the dismal wilderness where they little +thought I had been within eight or nine hours and had seen both men +hiding, I considered for the first time, with great dread, if we should +come upon them, would my particular convict suppose that it was I who +had brought the soldiers there? He had asked me if I was a deceiving +imp, and he had said I should be a fierce young hound if I joined the +hunt against him. Would he believe that I was both imp and hound in +treacherous earnest, and had betrayed him? + +It was of no use asking myself this question now. There I was, on Joe's +back, and there was Joe beneath me, charging at the ditches like a +hunter, and stimulating Mr. Wopsle not to tumble on his Roman nose, and +to keep up with us. The soldiers were in front of us, extending into a +pretty wide line with an interval between man and man. We were taking +the course I had begun with, and from which I had diverged in the mist. +Either the mist was not out again yet, or the wind had dispelled it. +Under the low red glare of sunset, the beacon, and the gibbet, and the +mound of the Battery, and the opposite shore of the river, were plain, +though all of a watery lead color. + +With my heart thumping like a blacksmith at Joe's broad shoulder, I +looked all about for any sign of the convicts. I could see none, I could +hear none. Mr. Wopsle had greatly alarmed me more than once, by his +blowing and hard breathing; but I knew the sounds by this time, and +could dissociate them from the object of pursuit. I got a dreadful +start, when I thought I heard the file still going; but it was only a +sheep-bell. The sheep stopped in their eating and looked timidly at +us; and the cattle, their heads turned from the wind and sleet, stared +angrily as if they held us responsible for both annoyances; but, except +these things, and the shudder of the dying day in every blade of grass, +there was no break in the bleak stillness of the marshes. + +The soldiers were moving on in the direction of the old Battery, and we +were moving on a little way behind them, when, all of a sudden, we all +stopped. For there had reached us on the wings of the wind and rain, a +long shout. It was repeated. It was at a distance towards the east, but +it was long and loud. Nay, there seemed to be two or more shouts raised +together,--if one might judge from a confusion in the sound. + +To this effect the sergeant and the nearest men were speaking under +their breath, when Joe and I came up. After another moment's listening, +Joe (who was a good judge) agreed, and Mr. Wopsle (who was a bad judge) +agreed. The sergeant, a decisive man, ordered that the sound should not +be answered, but that the course should be changed, and that his men +should make towards it "at the double." So we slanted to the right +(where the East was), and Joe pounded away so wonderfully, that I had to +hold on tight to keep my seat. + +It was a run indeed now, and what Joe called, in the only two words he +spoke all the time, "a Winder." Down banks and up banks, and over gates, +and splashing into dikes, and breaking among coarse rushes: no man cared +where he went. As we came nearer to the shouting, it became more and +more apparent that it was made by more than one voice. Sometimes, it +seemed to stop altogether, and then the soldiers stopped. When it broke +out again, the soldiers made for it at a greater rate than ever, and we +after them. After a while, we had so run it down, that we could hear one +voice calling "Murder!" and another voice, "Convicts! Runaways! Guard! +This way for the runaway convicts!" Then both voices would seem to be +stifled in a struggle, and then would break out again. And when it had +come to this, the soldiers ran like deer, and Joe too. + +The sergeant ran in first, when we had run the noise quite down, and two +of his men ran in close upon him. Their pieces were cocked and levelled +when we all ran in. + +"Here are both men!" panted the sergeant, struggling at the bottom of a +ditch. "Surrender, you two! and confound you for two wild beasts! Come +asunder!" + +Water was splashing, and mud was flying, and oaths were being sworn, and +blows were being struck, when some more men went down into the ditch to +help the sergeant, and dragged out, separately, my convict and the other +one. Both were bleeding and panting and execrating and struggling; but +of course I knew them both directly. + +"Mind!" said my convict, wiping blood from his face with his ragged +sleeves, and shaking torn hair from his fingers: "I took him! I give him +up to you! Mind that!" + +"It's not much to be particular about," said the sergeant; "it'll do you +small good, my man, being in the same plight yourself. Handcuffs there!" + +"I don't expect it to do me any good. I don't want it to do me more good +than it does now," said my convict, with a greedy laugh. "I took him. He +knows it. That's enough for me." + +The other convict was livid to look at, and, in addition to the old +bruised left side of his face, seemed to be bruised and torn all over. +He could not so much as get his breath to speak, until they were both +separately handcuffed, but leaned upon a soldier to keep himself from +falling. + +"Take notice, guard,--he tried to murder me," were his first words. + +"Tried to murder him?" said my convict, disdainfully. "Try, and not +do it? I took him, and giv' him up; that's what I done. I not only +prevented him getting off the marshes, but I dragged him here,--dragged +him this far on his way back. He's a gentleman, if you please, this +villain. Now, the Hulks has got its gentleman again, through me. Murder +him? Worth my while, too, to murder him, when I could do worse and drag +him back!" + +The other one still gasped, "He tried--he tried-to--murder me. +Bear--bear witness." + +"Lookee here!" said my convict to the sergeant. "Single-handed I got +clear of the prison-ship; I made a dash and I done it. I could ha' got +clear of these death-cold flats likewise--look at my leg: you won't find +much iron on it--if I hadn't made the discovery that he was here. Let +him go free? Let him profit by the means as I found out? Let him make a +tool of me afresh and again? Once more? No, no, no. If I had died at +the bottom there," and he made an emphatic swing at the ditch with his +manacled hands, "I'd have held to him with that grip, that you should +have been safe to find him in my hold." + +The other fugitive, who was evidently in extreme horror of his +companion, repeated, "He tried to murder me. I should have been a dead +man if you had not come up." + +"He lies!" said my convict, with fierce energy. "He's a liar born, and +he'll die a liar. Look at his face; ain't it written there? Let him turn +those eyes of his on me. I defy him to do it." + +The other, with an effort at a scornful smile, which could not, however, +collect the nervous working of his mouth into any set expression, looked +at the soldiers, and looked about at the marshes and at the sky, but +certainly did not look at the speaker. + +"Do you see him?" pursued my convict. "Do you see what a villain he is? +Do you see those grovelling and wandering eyes? That's how he looked +when we were tried together. He never looked at me." + +The other, always working and working his dry lips and turning his eyes +restlessly about him far and near, did at last turn them for a moment on +the speaker, with the words, "You are not much to look at," and with +a half-taunting glance at the bound hands. At that point, my convict +became so frantically exasperated, that he would have rushed upon him +but for the interposition of the soldiers. "Didn't I tell you," said the +other convict then, "that he would murder me, if he could?" And any one +could see that he shook with fear, and that there broke out upon his +lips curious white flakes, like thin snow. + +"Enough of this parley," said the sergeant. "Light those torches." + +As one of the soldiers, who carried a basket in lieu of a gun, went down +on his knee to open it, my convict looked round him for the first time, +and saw me. I had alighted from Joe's back on the brink of the ditch +when we came up, and had not moved since. I looked at him eagerly when +he looked at me, and slightly moved my hands and shook my head. I had +been waiting for him to see me that I might try to assure him of my +innocence. It was not at all expressed to me that he even comprehended +my intention, for he gave me a look that I did not understand, and it +all passed in a moment. But if he had looked at me for an hour or for +a day, I could not have remembered his face ever afterwards, as having +been more attentive. + +The soldier with the basket soon got a light, and lighted three or four +torches, and took one himself and distributed the others. It had been +almost dark before, but now it seemed quite dark, and soon afterwards +very dark. Before we departed from that spot, four soldiers standing in +a ring, fired twice into the air. Presently we saw other torches kindled +at some distance behind us, and others on the marshes on the opposite +bank of the river. "All right," said the sergeant. "March." + +We had not gone far when three cannon were fired ahead of us with a +sound that seemed to burst something inside my ear. "You are expected +on board," said the sergeant to my convict; "they know you are coming. +Don't straggle, my man. Close up here." + +The two were kept apart, and each walked surrounded by a separate guard. +I had hold of Joe's hand now, and Joe carried one of the torches. Mr. +Wopsle had been for going back, but Joe was resolved to see it out, so +we went on with the party. There was a reasonably good path now, mostly +on the edge of the river, with a divergence here and there where a dike +came, with a miniature windmill on it and a muddy sluice-gate. When +I looked round, I could see the other lights coming in after us. The +torches we carried dropped great blotches of fire upon the track, and +I could see those, too, lying smoking and flaring. I could see nothing +else but black darkness. Our lights warmed the air about us with their +pitchy blaze, and the two prisoners seemed rather to like that, as they +limped along in the midst of the muskets. We could not go fast, because +of their lameness; and they were so spent, that two or three times we +had to halt while they rested. + +After an hour or so of this travelling, we came to a rough wooden hut +and a landing-place. There was a guard in the hut, and they challenged, +and the sergeant answered. Then, we went into the hut, where there was +a smell of tobacco and whitewash, and a bright fire, and a lamp, and +a stand of muskets, and a drum, and a low wooden bedstead, like an +overgrown mangle without the machinery, capable of holding about a dozen +soldiers all at once. Three or four soldiers who lay upon it in their +great-coats were not much interested in us, but just lifted their heads +and took a sleepy stare, and then lay down again. The sergeant made some +kind of report, and some entry in a book, and then the convict whom I +call the other convict was drafted off with his guard, to go on board +first. + +My convict never looked at me, except that once. While we stood in the +hut, he stood before the fire looking thoughtfully at it, or putting up +his feet by turns upon the hob, and looking thoughtfully at them as if +he pitied them for their recent adventures. Suddenly, he turned to the +sergeant, and remarked,-- + +"I wish to say something respecting this escape. It may prevent some +persons laying under suspicion alonger me." + +"You can say what you like," returned the sergeant, standing coolly +looking at him with his arms folded, "but you have no call to say it +here. You'll have opportunity enough to say about it, and hear about it, +before it's done with, you know." + +"I know, but this is another pint, a separate matter. A man can't +starve; at least I can't. I took some wittles, up at the willage over +yonder,--where the church stands a'most out on the marshes." + +"You mean stole," said the sergeant. + +"And I'll tell you where from. From the blacksmith's." + +"Halloa!" said the sergeant, staring at Joe. + +"Halloa, Pip!" said Joe, staring at me. + +"It was some broken wittles--that's what it was--and a dram of liquor, +and a pie." + +"Have you happened to miss such an article as a pie, blacksmith?" asked +the sergeant, confidentially. + +"My wife did, at the very moment when you came in. Don't you know, Pip?" + +"So," said my convict, turning his eyes on Joe in a moody manner, and +without the least glance at me,--"so you're the blacksmith, are you? +Than I'm sorry to say, I've eat your pie." + +"God knows you're welcome to it,--so far as it was ever mine," returned +Joe, with a saving remembrance of Mrs. Joe. "We don't know what you have +done, but we wouldn't have you starved to death for it, poor miserable +fellow-creatur.--Would us, Pip?" + +The something that I had noticed before, clicked in the man's throat +again, and he turned his back. The boat had returned, and his guard were +ready, so we followed him to the landing-place made of rough stakes +and stones, and saw him put into the boat, which was rowed by a crew of +convicts like himself. No one seemed surprised to see him, or interested +in seeing him, or glad to see him, or sorry to see him, or spoke a word, +except that somebody in the boat growled as if to dogs, "Give way, +you!" which was the signal for the dip of the oars. By the light of the +torches, we saw the black Hulk lying out a little way from the mud of +the shore, like a wicked Noah's ark. Cribbed and barred and moored by +massive rusty chains, the prison-ship seemed in my young eyes to be +ironed like the prisoners. We saw the boat go alongside, and we saw +him taken up the side and disappear. Then, the ends of the torches were +flung hissing into the water, and went out, as if it were all over with +him. + + + + +Chapter VI + +My state of mind regarding the pilfering from which I had been so +unexpectedly exonerated did not impel me to frank disclosure; but I hope +it had some dregs of good at the bottom of it. + +I do not recall that I felt any tenderness of conscience in reference +to Mrs. Joe, when the fear of being found out was lifted off me. But +I loved Joe,--perhaps for no better reason in those early days than +because the dear fellow let me love him,--and, as to him, my inner self +was not so easily composed. It was much upon my mind (particularly when +I first saw him looking about for his file) that I ought to tell Joe the +whole truth. Yet I did not, and for the reason that I mistrusted that +if I did, he would think me worse than I was. The fear of losing Joe's +confidence, and of thenceforth sitting in the chimney corner at night +staring drearily at my forever lost companion and friend, tied up my +tongue. I morbidly represented to myself that if Joe knew it, I never +afterwards could see him at the fireside feeling his fair whisker, +without thinking that he was meditating on it. That, if Joe knew it, I +never afterwards could see him glance, however casually, at yesterday's +meat or pudding when it came on to-day's table, without thinking that he +was debating whether I had been in the pantry. That, if Joe knew it, and +at any subsequent period of our joint domestic life remarked that his +beer was flat or thick, the conviction that he suspected tar in it, +would bring a rush of blood to my face. In a word, I was too cowardly +to do what I knew to be right, as I had been too cowardly to avoid doing +what I knew to be wrong. I had had no intercourse with the world at +that time, and I imitated none of its many inhabitants who act in this +manner. Quite an untaught genius, I made the discovery of the line of +action for myself. + +As I was sleepy before we were far away from the prison-ship, Joe took +me on his back again and carried me home. He must have had a tiresome +journey of it, for Mr. Wopsle, being knocked up, was in such a very bad +temper that if the Church had been thrown open, he would probably have +excommunicated the whole expedition, beginning with Joe and myself. In +his lay capacity, he persisted in sitting down in the damp to such +an insane extent, that when his coat was taken off to be dried at the +kitchen fire, the circumstantial evidence on his trousers would have +hanged him, if it had been a capital offence. + +By that time, I was staggering on the kitchen floor like a little +drunkard, through having been newly set upon my feet, and through having +been fast asleep, and through waking in the heat and lights and noise of +tongues. As I came to myself (with the aid of a heavy thump between the +shoulders, and the restorative exclamation "Yah! Was there ever such +a boy as this!" from my sister,) I found Joe telling them about the +convict's confession, and all the visitors suggesting different ways +by which he had got into the pantry. Mr. Pumblechook made out, after +carefully surveying the premises, that he had first got upon the roof of +the forge, and had then got upon the roof of the house, and had then let +himself down the kitchen chimney by a rope made of his bedding cut +into strips; and as Mr. Pumblechook was very positive and drove his +own chaise-cart--over everybody--it was agreed that it must be so. Mr. +Wopsle, indeed, wildly cried out, "No!" with the feeble malice of a +tired man; but, as he had no theory, and no coat on, he was unanimously +set at naught,--not to mention his smoking hard behind, as he stood +with his back to the kitchen fire to draw the damp out: which was not +calculated to inspire confidence. + +This was all I heard that night before my sister clutched me, as a +slumberous offence to the company's eyesight, and assisted me up to bed +with such a strong hand that I seemed to have fifty boots on, and to be +dangling them all against the edges of the stairs. My state of mind, as +I have described it, began before I was up in the morning, and lasted +long after the subject had died out, and had ceased to be mentioned +saving on exceptional occasions. + + + + +Chapter VII + +At the time when I stood in the churchyard reading the family +tombstones, I had just enough learning to be able to spell them out. My +construction even of their simple meaning was not very correct, for I +read "wife of the Above" as a complimentary reference to my father's +exaltation to a better world; and if any one of my deceased relations +had been referred to as "Below," I have no doubt I should have formed +the worst opinions of that member of the family. Neither were my notions +of the theological positions to which my Catechism bound me, at +all accurate; for, I have a lively remembrance that I supposed my +declaration that I was to "walk in the same all the days of my life," +laid me under an obligation always to go through the village from our +house in one particular direction, and never to vary it by turning down +by the wheelwright's or up by the mill. + +When I was old enough, I was to be apprenticed to Joe, and until I could +assume that dignity I was not to be what Mrs. Joe called "Pompeyed," or +(as I render it) pampered. Therefore, I was not only odd-boy about the +forge, but if any neighbor happened to want an extra boy to frighten +birds, or pick up stones, or do any such job, I was favored with the +employment. In order, however, that our superior position might not be +compromised thereby, a money-box was kept on the kitchen mantel-shelf, +into which it was publicly made known that all my earnings were +dropped. I have an impression that they were to be contributed +eventually towards the liquidation of the National Debt, but I know I +had no hope of any personal participation in the treasure. + +Mr. Wopsle's great-aunt kept an evening school in the village; that is +to say, she was a ridiculous old woman of limited means and unlimited +infirmity, who used to go to sleep from six to seven every evening, in +the society of youth who paid two pence per week each, for the improving +opportunity of seeing her do it. She rented a small cottage, and Mr. +Wopsle had the room upstairs, where we students used to overhear him +reading aloud in a most dignified and terrific manner, and occasionally +bumping on the ceiling. There was a fiction that Mr. Wopsle "examined" +the scholars once a quarter. What he did on those occasions was to turn +up his cuffs, stick up his hair, and give us Mark Antony's oration over +the body of Caesar. This was always followed by Collins's Ode on +the Passions, wherein I particularly venerated Mr. Wopsle as Revenge +throwing his blood-stained sword in thunder down, and taking the +War-denouncing trumpet with a withering look. It was not with me then, +as it was in later life, when I fell into the society of the Passions, +and compared them with Collins and Wopsle, rather to the disadvantage of +both gentlemen. + +Mr. Wopsle's great-aunt, besides keeping this Educational Institution, +kept in the same room--a little general shop. She had no idea what stock +she had, or what the price of anything in it was; but there was a little +greasy memorandum-book kept in a drawer, which served as a Catalogue +of Prices, and by this oracle Biddy arranged all the shop transactions. +Biddy was Mr. Wopsle's great-aunt's granddaughter; I confess myself +quite unequal to the working out of the problem, what relation she was +to Mr. Wopsle. She was an orphan like myself; like me, too, had been +brought up by hand. She was most noticeable, I thought, in respect of +her extremities; for, her hair always wanted brushing, her hands always +wanted washing, and her shoes always wanted mending and pulling up at +heel. This description must be received with a week-day limitation. On +Sundays, she went to church elaborated. + +Much of my unassisted self, and more by the help of Biddy than of Mr. +Wopsle's great-aunt, I struggled through the alphabet as if it had been +a bramble-bush; getting considerably worried and scratched by every +letter. After that I fell among those thieves, the nine figures, who +seemed every evening to do something new to disguise themselves and +baffle recognition. But, at last I began, in a purblind groping way, to +read, write, and cipher, on the very smallest scale. + +One night I was sitting in the chimney corner with my slate, expending +great efforts on the production of a letter to Joe. I think it must have +been a full year after our hunt upon the marshes, for it was a long +time after, and it was winter and a hard frost. With an alphabet on the +hearth at my feet for reference, I contrived in an hour or two to print +and smear this epistle:-- + +"MI DEER JO i OPE U R KRWITE WELL i OPE i SHAL SON B HABELL 4 2 TEEDGE +U JO AN THEN WE SHORL B SO GLODD AN WEN i M PRENGTD 2 U JO WOT LARX AN +BLEVE ME INF XN PIP." + +There was no indispensable necessity for my communicating with Joe by +letter, inasmuch as he sat beside me and we were alone. But I delivered +this written communication (slate and all) with my own hand, and Joe +received it as a miracle of erudition. + +"I say, Pip, old chap!" cried Joe, opening his blue eyes wide, "what a +scholar you are! An't you?" + +"I should like to be," said I, glancing at the slate as he held it; with +a misgiving that the writing was rather hilly. + +"Why, here's a J," said Joe, "and a O equal to anythink! Here's a J and +a O, Pip, and a J-O, Joe." + +I had never heard Joe read aloud to any greater extent than this +monosyllable, and I had observed at church last Sunday, when I +accidentally held our Prayer-Book upside down, that it seemed to suit +his convenience quite as well as if it had been all right. Wishing to +embrace the present occasion of finding out whether in teaching Joe, I +should have to begin quite at the beginning, I said, "Ah! But read the +rest, Jo." + +"The rest, eh, Pip?" said Joe, looking at it with a slow, searching eye, +"One, two, three. Why, here's three Js, and three Os, and three J-O, +Joes in it, Pip!" + +I leaned over Joe, and, with the aid of my forefinger read him the whole +letter. + +"Astonishing!" said Joe, when I had finished. "You ARE a scholar." + +"How do you spell Gargery, Joe?" I asked him, with a modest patronage. + +"I don't spell it at all," said Joe. + +"But supposing you did?" + +"It can't be supposed," said Joe. "Tho' I'm uncommon fond of reading, +too." + +"Are you, Joe?" + +"On-common. Give me," said Joe, "a good book, or a good newspaper, and +sit me down afore a good fire, and I ask no better. Lord!" he continued, +after rubbing his knees a little, "when you do come to a J and a O, and +says you, 'Here, at last, is a J-O, Joe,' how interesting reading is!" + +I derived from this, that Joe's education, like Steam, was yet in its +infancy. Pursuing the subject, I inquired,-- + +"Didn't you ever go to school, Joe, when you were as little as me?" + +"No, Pip." + +"Why didn't you ever go to school, Joe, when you were as little as me?" + +"Well, Pip," said Joe, taking up the poker, and settling himself to +his usual occupation when he was thoughtful, of slowly raking the fire +between the lower bars; "I'll tell you. My father, Pip, he were given +to drink, and when he were overtook with drink, he hammered away at +my mother, most onmerciful. It were a'most the only hammering he did, +indeed, 'xcepting at myself. And he hammered at me with a wigor only +to be equalled by the wigor with which he didn't hammer at his +anwil.--You're a listening and understanding, Pip?" + +"Yes, Joe." + +"'Consequence, my mother and me we ran away from my father several +times; and then my mother she'd go out to work, and she'd say, "Joe," +she'd say, "now, please God, you shall have some schooling, child," and +she'd put me to school. But my father were that good in his hart that +he couldn't abear to be without us. So, he'd come with a most tremenjous +crowd and make such a row at the doors of the houses where we was, that +they used to be obligated to have no more to do with us and to give us +up to him. And then he took us home and hammered us. Which, you see, +Pip," said Joe, pausing in his meditative raking of the fire, and +looking at me, "were a drawback on my learning." + +"Certainly, poor Joe!" + +"Though mind you, Pip," said Joe, with a judicial touch or two of the +poker on the top bar, "rendering unto all their doo, and maintaining +equal justice betwixt man and man, my father were that good in his hart, +don't you see?" + +I didn't see; but I didn't say so. + +"Well!" Joe pursued, "somebody must keep the pot a biling, Pip, or the +pot won't bile, don't you know?" + +I saw that, and said so. + +"'Consequence, my father didn't make objections to my going to work; so +I went to work at my present calling, which were his too, if he +would have followed it, and I worked tolerable hard, I assure you, Pip. +In time I were able to keep him, and I kep him till he went off in a +purple leptic fit. And it were my intentions to have had put upon his +tombstone that, Whatsume'er the failings on his part, Remember reader he +were that good in his heart." + +Joe recited this couplet with such manifest pride and careful +perspicuity, that I asked him if he had made it himself. + +"I made it," said Joe, "my own self. I made it in a moment. It was like +striking out a horseshoe complete, in a single blow. I never was so much +surprised in all my life,--couldn't credit my own ed,--to tell you the +truth, hardly believed it were my own ed. As I was saying, Pip, it were +my intentions to have had it cut over him; but poetry costs money, cut +it how you will, small or large, and it were not done. Not to mention +bearers, all the money that could be spared were wanted for my mother. +She were in poor elth, and quite broke. She weren't long of following, +poor soul, and her share of peace come round at last." + +Joe's blue eyes turned a little watery; he rubbed first one of them, and +then the other, in a most uncongenial and uncomfortable manner, with the +round knob on the top of the poker. + +"It were but lonesome then," said Joe, "living here alone, and I got +acquainted with your sister. Now, Pip,"--Joe looked firmly at me as +if he knew I was not going to agree with him;--"your sister is a fine +figure of a woman." + +I could not help looking at the fire, in an obvious state of doubt. + +"Whatever family opinions, or whatever the world's opinions, on that +subject may be, Pip, your sister is," Joe tapped the top bar with the +poker after every word following, "a-fine-figure--of--a--woman!" + +I could think of nothing better to say than "I am glad you think so, +Joe." + +"So am I," returned Joe, catching me up. "I am glad I think so, Pip. A +little redness or a little matter of Bone, here or there, what does it +signify to Me?" + +I sagaciously observed, if it didn't signify to him, to whom did it +signify? + +"Certainly!" assented Joe. "That's it. You're right, old chap! When I +got acquainted with your sister, it were the talk how she was bringing +you up by hand. Very kind of her too, all the folks said, and I said, +along with all the folks. As to you," Joe pursued with a countenance +expressive of seeing something very nasty indeed, "if you could have +been aware how small and flabby and mean you was, dear me, you'd have +formed the most contemptible opinion of yourself!" + +Not exactly relishing this, I said, "Never mind me, Joe." + +"But I did mind you, Pip," he returned with tender simplicity. "When +I offered to your sister to keep company, and to be asked in church at +such times as she was willing and ready to come to the forge, I said to +her, 'And bring the poor little child. God bless the poor little child,' +I said to your sister, 'there's room for him at the forge!'" + +I broke out crying and begging pardon, and hugged Joe round the neck: +who dropped the poker to hug me, and to say, "Ever the best of friends; +an't us, Pip? Don't cry, old chap!" + +When this little interruption was over, Joe resumed:-- + +"Well, you see, Pip, and here we are! That's about where it lights; here +we are! Now, when you take me in hand in my learning, Pip (and I tell +you beforehand I am awful dull, most awful dull), Mrs. Joe mustn't see +too much of what we're up to. It must be done, as I may say, on the sly. +And why on the sly? I'll tell you why, Pip." + +He had taken up the poker again; without which, I doubt if he could have +proceeded in his demonstration. + +"Your sister is given to government." + +"Given to government, Joe?" I was startled, for I had some shadowy idea +(and I am afraid I must add, hope) that Joe had divorced her in a favor +of the Lords of the Admiralty, or Treasury. + +"Given to government," said Joe. "Which I meantersay the government of +you and myself." + +"Oh!" + +"And she an't over partial to having scholars on the premises," Joe +continued, "and in partickler would not be over partial to my being a +scholar, for fear as I might rise. Like a sort of rebel, don't you see?" + +I was going to retort with an inquiry, and had got as far as "Why--" +when Joe stopped me. + +"Stay a bit. I know what you're a going to say, Pip; stay a bit! I don't +deny that your sister comes the Mo-gul over us, now and again. I don't +deny that she do throw us back-falls, and that she do drop down upon us +heavy. At such times as when your sister is on the Ram-page, Pip," Joe +sank his voice to a whisper and glanced at the door, "candor compels fur +to admit that she is a Buster." + +Joe pronounced this word, as if it began with at least twelve capital +Bs. + +"Why don't I rise? That were your observation when I broke it off, Pip?" + +"Yes, Joe." + +"Well," said Joe, passing the poker in to his left hand, that he might +feel his whisker; and I had no hope of him whenever he took to that +placid occupation; "your sister's a master-mind. A master-mind." + +"What's that?" I asked, in some hope of bringing him to a stand. But +Joe was readier with his definition than I had expected, and completely +stopped me by arguing circularly, and answering with a fixed look, +"Her." + +"And I ain't a master-mind," Joe resumed, when he had unfixed his look, +and got back to his whisker. "And last of all, Pip,--and this I want to +say very serious to you, old chap,--I see so much in my poor mother, +of a woman drudging and slaving and breaking her honest hart and never +getting no peace in her mortal days, that I'm dead afeerd of going wrong +in the way of not doing what's right by a woman, and I'd fur rather +of the two go wrong the t'other way, and be a little ill-conwenienced +myself. I wish it was only me that got put out, Pip; I wish there warn't +no Tickler for you, old chap; I wish I could take it all on myself; +but this is the up-and-down-and-straight on it, Pip, and I hope you'll +overlook shortcomings." + +Young as I was, I believe that I dated a new admiration of Joe from that +night. We were equals afterwards, as we had been before; but, afterwards +at quiet times when I sat looking at Joe and thinking about him, I had +a new sensation of feeling conscious that I was looking up to Joe in my +heart. + +"However," said Joe, rising to replenish the fire; "here's the +Dutch-clock a working himself up to being equal to strike Eight of 'em, +and she's not come home yet! I hope Uncle Pumblechook's mare mayn't have +set a forefoot on a piece o' ice, and gone down." + +Mrs. Joe made occasional trips with Uncle Pumblechook on market-days, +to assist him in buying such household stuffs and goods as required a +woman's judgment; Uncle Pumblechook being a bachelor and reposing no +confidences in his domestic servant. This was market-day, and Mrs. Joe +was out on one of these expeditions. + +Joe made the fire and swept the hearth, and then we went to the door to +listen for the chaise-cart. It was a dry cold night, and the wind blew +keenly, and the frost was white and hard. A man would die to-night of +lying out on the marshes, I thought. And then I looked at the stars, and +considered how awful it would be for a man to turn his face up to them +as he froze to death, and see no help or pity in all the glittering +multitude. + +"Here comes the mare," said Joe, "ringing like a peal of bells!" + +The sound of her iron shoes upon the hard road was quite musical, as she +came along at a much brisker trot than usual. We got a chair out, ready +for Mrs. Joe's alighting, and stirred up the fire that they might see a +bright window, and took a final survey of the kitchen that nothing might +be out of its place. When we had completed these preparations, they +drove up, wrapped to the eyes. Mrs. Joe was soon landed, and Uncle +Pumblechook was soon down too, covering the mare with a cloth, and we +were soon all in the kitchen, carrying so much cold air in with us that +it seemed to drive all the heat out of the fire. + +"Now," said Mrs. Joe, unwrapping herself with haste and excitement, and +throwing her bonnet back on her shoulders where it hung by the strings, +"if this boy ain't grateful this night, he never will be!" + +I looked as grateful as any boy possibly could, who was wholly +uninformed why he ought to assume that expression. + +"It's only to be hoped," said my sister, "that he won't be Pompeyed. But +I have my fears." + +"She ain't in that line, Mum," said Mr. Pumblechook. "She knows better." + +She? I looked at Joe, making the motion with my lips and eyebrows, +"She?" Joe looked at me, making the motion with his lips and eyebrows, +"She?" My sister catching him in the act, he drew the back of his hand +across his nose with his usual conciliatory air on such occasions, and +looked at her. + +"Well?" said my sister, in her snappish way. "What are you staring at? +Is the house afire?" + +"--Which some individual," Joe politely hinted, "mentioned--she." + +"And she is a she, I suppose?" said my sister. "Unless you call Miss +Havisham a he. And I doubt if even you'll go so far as that." + +"Miss Havisham, up town?" said Joe. + +"Is there any Miss Havisham down town?" returned my sister. + +"She wants this boy to go and play there. And of course he's going. And +he had better play there," said my sister, shaking her head at me as an +encouragement to be extremely light and sportive, "or I'll work him." + +I had heard of Miss Havisham up town,--everybody for miles round had +heard of Miss Havisham up town,--as an immensely rich and grim lady who +lived in a large and dismal house barricaded against robbers, and who +led a life of seclusion. + +"Well to be sure!" said Joe, astounded. "I wonder how she come to know +Pip!" + +"Noodle!" cried my sister. "Who said she knew him?" + +"--Which some individual," Joe again politely hinted, "mentioned that +she wanted him to go and play there." + +"And couldn't she ask Uncle Pumblechook if he knew of a boy to go and +play there? Isn't it just barely possible that Uncle Pumblechook may be +a tenant of hers, and that he may sometimes--we won't say quarterly +or half-yearly, for that would be requiring too much of you--but +sometimes--go there to pay his rent? And couldn't she then ask Uncle +Pumblechook if he knew of a boy to go and play there? And couldn't Uncle +Pumblechook, being always considerate and thoughtful for us--though you +may not think it, Joseph," in a tone of the deepest reproach, as if +he were the most callous of nephews, "then mention this boy, standing +Prancing here"--which I solemnly declare I was not doing--"that I have +for ever been a willing slave to?" + +"Good again!" cried Uncle Pumblechook. "Well put! Prettily pointed! Good +indeed! Now Joseph, you know the case." + +"No, Joseph," said my sister, still in a reproachful manner, while Joe +apologetically drew the back of his hand across and across his nose, +"you do not yet--though you may not think it--know the case. You may +consider that you do, but you do not, Joseph. For you do not know that +Uncle Pumblechook, being sensible that for anything we can tell, this +boy's fortune may be made by his going to Miss Havisham's, has offered +to take him into town to-night in his own chaise-cart, and to keep +him to-night, and to take him with his own hands to Miss Havisham's +to-morrow morning. And Lor-a-mussy me!" cried my sister, casting off her +bonnet in sudden desperation, "here I stand talking to mere Mooncalfs, +with Uncle Pumblechook waiting, and the mare catching cold at the door, +and the boy grimed with crock and dirt from the hair of his head to the +sole of his foot!" + +With that, she pounced upon me, like an eagle on a lamb, and my face was +squeezed into wooden bowls in sinks, and my head was put under taps of +water-butts, and I was soaped, and kneaded, and towelled, and thumped, +and harrowed, and rasped, until I really was quite beside myself. (I +may here remark that I suppose myself to be better acquainted than +any living authority, with the ridgy effect of a wedding-ring, passing +unsympathetically over the human countenance.) + +When my ablutions were completed, I was put into clean linen of the +stiffest character, like a young penitent into sackcloth, and was +trussed up in my tightest and fearfullest suit. I was then delivered +over to Mr. Pumblechook, who formally received me as if he were the +Sheriff, and who let off upon me the speech that I knew he had been +dying to make all along: "Boy, be forever grateful to all friends, but +especially unto them which brought you up by hand!" + +"Good-bye, Joe!" + +"God bless you, Pip, old chap!" + +I had never parted from him before, and what with my feelings and what +with soapsuds, I could at first see no stars from the chaise-cart. +But they twinkled out one by one, without throwing any light on the +questions why on earth I was going to play at Miss Havisham's, and what +on earth I was expected to play at. + + + + +Chapter VIII + +Mr. Pumblechook's premises in the High Street of the market town, +were of a peppercorny and farinaceous character, as the premises of a +cornchandler and seedsman should be. It appeared to me that he must be a +very happy man indeed, to have so many little drawers in his shop; and +I wondered when I peeped into one or two on the lower tiers, and saw the +tied-up brown paper packets inside, whether the flower-seeds and bulbs +ever wanted of a fine day to break out of those jails, and bloom. + +It was in the early morning after my arrival that I entertained this +speculation. On the previous night, I had been sent straight to bed in +an attic with a sloping roof, which was so low in the corner where the +bedstead was, that I calculated the tiles as being within a foot of my +eyebrows. In the same early morning, I discovered a singular affinity +between seeds and corduroys. Mr. Pumblechook wore corduroys, and so did +his shopman; and somehow, there was a general air and flavor about the +corduroys, so much in the nature of seeds, and a general air and flavor +about the seeds, so much in the nature of corduroys, that I hardly knew +which was which. The same opportunity served me for noticing that Mr. +Pumblechook appeared to conduct his business by looking across the +street at the saddler, who appeared to transact his business by keeping +his eye on the coachmaker, who appeared to get on in life by putting his +hands in his pockets and contemplating the baker, who in his turn folded +his arms and stared at the grocer, who stood at his door and yawned at +the chemist. The watchmaker, always poring over a little desk with +a magnifying-glass at his eye, and always inspected by a group of +smock-frocks poring over him through the glass of his shop-window, +seemed to be about the only person in the High Street whose trade +engaged his attention. + +Mr. Pumblechook and I breakfasted at eight o'clock in the parlor behind +the shop, while the shopman took his mug of tea and hunch of bread +and butter on a sack of peas in the front premises. I considered Mr. +Pumblechook wretched company. Besides being possessed by my sister's +idea that a mortifying and penitential character ought to be imparted +to my diet,--besides giving me as much crumb as possible in combination +with as little butter, and putting such a quantity of warm water into +my milk that it would have been more candid to have left the milk out +altogether,--his conversation consisted of nothing but arithmetic. On +my politely bidding him Good morning, he said, pompously, "Seven times +nine, boy?" And how should I be able to answer, dodged in that way, in +a strange place, on an empty stomach! I was hungry, but before I had +swallowed a morsel, he began a running sum that lasted all through the +breakfast. "Seven?" "And four?" "And eight?" "And six?" "And two?" "And +ten?" And so on. And after each figure was disposed of, it was as much +as I could do to get a bite or a sup, before the next came; while he sat +at his ease guessing nothing, and eating bacon and hot roll, in (if I +may be allowed the expression) a gorging and gormandizing manner. + +For such reasons, I was very glad when ten o'clock came and we started +for Miss Havisham's; though I was not at all at my ease regarding the +manner in which I should acquit myself under that lady's roof. Within +a quarter of an hour we came to Miss Havisham's house, which was of old +brick, and dismal, and had a great many iron bars to it. Some of the +windows had been walled up; of those that remained, all the lower were +rustily barred. There was a courtyard in front, and that was barred; so +we had to wait, after ringing the bell, until some one should come +to open it. While we waited at the gate, I peeped in (even then Mr. +Pumblechook said, "And fourteen?" but I pretended not to hear him), and +saw that at the side of the house there was a large brewery. No brewing +was going on in it, and none seemed to have gone on for a long long +time. + +A window was raised, and a clear voice demanded "What name?" To which my +conductor replied, "Pumblechook." The voice returned, "Quite right," and +the window was shut again, and a young lady came across the court-yard, +with keys in her hand. + +"This," said Mr. Pumblechook, "is Pip." + +"This is Pip, is it?" returned the young lady, who was very pretty and +seemed very proud; "come in, Pip." + +Mr. Pumblechook was coming in also, when she stopped him with the gate. + +"Oh!" she said. "Did you wish to see Miss Havisham?" + +"If Miss Havisham wished to see me," returned Mr. Pumblechook, +discomfited. + +"Ah!" said the girl; "but you see she don't." + +She said it so finally, and in such an undiscussible way, that Mr. +Pumblechook, though in a condition of ruffled dignity, could not +protest. But he eyed me severely,--as if I had done anything to +him!--and departed with the words reproachfully delivered: "Boy! Let +your behavior here be a credit unto them which brought you up by hand!" +I was not free from apprehension that he would come back to propound +through the gate, "And sixteen?" But he didn't. + +My young conductress locked the gate, and we went across the courtyard. +It was paved and clean, but grass was growing in every crevice. The +brewery buildings had a little lane of communication with it, and the +wooden gates of that lane stood open, and all the brewery beyond stood +open, away to the high enclosing wall; and all was empty and disused. +The cold wind seemed to blow colder there than outside the gate; and +it made a shrill noise in howling in and out at the open sides of the +brewery, like the noise of wind in the rigging of a ship at sea. + +She saw me looking at it, and she said, "You could drink without hurt +all the strong beer that's brewed there now, boy." + +"I should think I could, miss," said I, in a shy way. + +"Better not try to brew beer there now, or it would turn out sour, boy; +don't you think so?" + +"It looks like it, miss." + +"Not that anybody means to try," she added, "for that's all done with, +and the place will stand as idle as it is till it falls. As to strong +beer, there's enough of it in the cellars already, to drown the Manor +House." + +"Is that the name of this house, miss?" + +"One of its names, boy." + +"It has more than one, then, miss?" + +"One more. Its other name was Satis; which is Greek, or Latin, or +Hebrew, or all three--or all one to me--for enough." + +"Enough House," said I; "that's a curious name, miss." + +"Yes," she replied; "but it meant more than it said. It meant, when it +was given, that whoever had this house could want nothing else. They +must have been easily satisfied in those days, I should think. But don't +loiter, boy." + +Though she called me "boy" so often, and with a carelessness that was +far from complimentary, she was of about my own age. She seemed much +older than I, of course, being a girl, and beautiful and self-possessed; +and she was as scornful of me as if she had been one-and-twenty, and a +queen. + +We went into the house by a side door, the great front entrance had two +chains across it outside,--and the first thing I noticed was, that the +passages were all dark, and that she had left a candle burning there. +She took it up, and we went through more passages and up a staircase, +and still it was all dark, and only the candle lighted us. + +At last we came to the door of a room, and she said, "Go in." + +I answered, more in shyness than politeness, "After you, miss." + +To this she returned: "Don't be ridiculous, boy; I am not going in." And +scornfully walked away, and--what was worse--took the candle with her. + +This was very uncomfortable, and I was half afraid. However, the only +thing to be done being to knock at the door, I knocked, and was told +from within to enter. I entered, therefore, and found myself in a pretty +large room, well lighted with wax candles. No glimpse of daylight was to +be seen in it. It was a dressing-room, as I supposed from the furniture, +though much of it was of forms and uses then quite unknown to me. But +prominent in it was a draped table with a gilded looking-glass, and that +I made out at first sight to be a fine lady's dressing-table. + +Whether I should have made out this object so soon if there had been no +fine lady sitting at it, I cannot say. In an arm-chair, with an +elbow resting on the table and her head leaning on that hand, sat the +strangest lady I have ever seen, or shall ever see. + +She was dressed in rich materials,--satins, and lace, and silks,--all +of white. Her shoes were white. And she had a long white veil dependent +from her hair, and she had bridal flowers in her hair, but her hair was +white. Some bright jewels sparkled on her neck and on her hands, and +some other jewels lay sparkling on the table. Dresses, less splendid +than the dress she wore, and half-packed trunks, were scattered about. +She had not quite finished dressing, for she had but one shoe on,--the +other was on the table near her hand,--her veil was but half arranged, +her watch and chain were not put on, and some lace for her bosom lay +with those trinkets, and with her handkerchief, and gloves, and +some flowers, and a Prayer-Book all confusedly heaped about the +looking-glass. + +It was not in the first few moments that I saw all these things, though +I saw more of them in the first moments than might be supposed. But I +saw that everything within my view which ought to be white, had been +white long ago, and had lost its lustre and was faded and yellow. I saw +that the bride within the bridal dress had withered like the dress, and +like the flowers, and had no brightness left but the brightness of her +sunken eyes. I saw that the dress had been put upon the rounded figure +of a young woman, and that the figure upon which it now hung loose had +shrunk to skin and bone. Once, I had been taken to see some ghastly +waxwork at the Fair, representing I know not what impossible personage +lying in state. Once, I had been taken to one of our old marsh churches +to see a skeleton in the ashes of a rich dress that had been dug out of +a vault under the church pavement. Now, waxwork and skeleton seemed to +have dark eyes that moved and looked at me. I should have cried out, if +I could. + +"Who is it?" said the lady at the table. + +"Pip, ma'am." + +"Pip?" + +"Mr. Pumblechook's boy, ma'am. Come--to play." + +"Come nearer; let me look at you. Come close." + +It was when I stood before her, avoiding her eyes, that I took note of +the surrounding objects in detail, and saw that her watch had stopped +at twenty minutes to nine, and that a clock in the room had stopped at +twenty minutes to nine. + +"Look at me," said Miss Havisham. "You are not afraid of a woman who has +never seen the sun since you were born?" + +I regret to state that I was not afraid of telling the enormous lie +comprehended in the answer "No." + +"Do you know what I touch here?" she said, laying her hands, one upon +the other, on her left side. + +"Yes, ma'am." (It made me think of the young man.) + +"What do I touch?" + +"Your heart." + +"Broken!" + +She uttered the word with an eager look, and with strong emphasis, and +with a weird smile that had a kind of boast in it. Afterwards she kept +her hands there for a little while, and slowly took them away as if they +were heavy. + +"I am tired," said Miss Havisham. "I want diversion, and I have done +with men and women. Play." + +I think it will be conceded by my most disputatious reader, that she +could hardly have directed an unfortunate boy to do anything in the wide +world more difficult to be done under the circumstances. + +"I sometimes have sick fancies," she went on, "and I have a sick fancy +that I want to see some play. There, there!" with an impatient movement +of the fingers of her right hand; "play, play, play!" + +For a moment, with the fear of my sister's working me before my eyes, I +had a desperate idea of starting round the room in the assumed character +of Mr. Pumblechook's chaise-cart. But I felt myself so unequal to the +performance that I gave it up, and stood looking at Miss Havisham in +what I suppose she took for a dogged manner, inasmuch as she said, when +we had taken a good look at each other,-- + +"Are you sullen and obstinate?" + +"No, ma'am, I am very sorry for you, and very sorry I can't play just +now. If you complain of me I shall get into trouble with my sister, so +I would do it if I could; but it's so new here, and so strange, and so +fine,--and melancholy--." I stopped, fearing I might say too much, or +had already said it, and we took another look at each other. + +Before she spoke again, she turned her eyes from me, and looked at the +dress she wore, and at the dressing-table, and finally at herself in the +looking-glass. + +"So new to him," she muttered, "so old to me; so strange to him, so +familiar to me; so melancholy to both of us! Call Estella." + +As she was still looking at the reflection of herself, I thought she was +still talking to herself, and kept quiet. + +"Call Estella," she repeated, flashing a look at me. "You can do that. +Call Estella. At the door." + +To stand in the dark in a mysterious passage of an unknown house, +bawling Estella to a scornful young lady neither visible nor responsive, +and feeling it a dreadful liberty so to roar out her name, was almost +as bad as playing to order. But she answered at last, and her light came +along the dark passage like a star. + +Miss Havisham beckoned her to come close, and took up a jewel from the +table, and tried its effect upon her fair young bosom and against her +pretty brown hair. "Your own, one day, my dear, and you will use it +well. Let me see you play cards with this boy." + +"With this boy? Why, he is a common laboring boy!" + +I thought I overheard Miss Havisham answer,--only it seemed so +unlikely,--"Well? You can break his heart." + +"What do you play, boy?" asked Estella of myself, with the greatest +disdain. + +"Nothing but beggar my neighbor, miss." + +"Beggar him," said Miss Havisham to Estella. So we sat down to cards. + +It was then I began to understand that everything in the room had +stopped, like the watch and the clock, a long time ago. I noticed that +Miss Havisham put down the jewel exactly on the spot from which she had +taken it up. As Estella dealt the cards, I glanced at the dressing-table +again, and saw that the shoe upon it, once white, now yellow, had never +been worn. I glanced down at the foot from which the shoe was absent, +and saw that the silk stocking on it, once white, now yellow, had been +trodden ragged. Without this arrest of everything, this standing still +of all the pale decayed objects, not even the withered bridal dress on +the collapsed form could have looked so like grave-clothes, or the long +veil so like a shroud. + +So she sat, corpse-like, as we played at cards; the frillings and +trimmings on her bridal dress, looking like earthy paper. I knew nothing +then of the discoveries that are occasionally made of bodies buried in +ancient times, which fall to powder in the moment of being distinctly +seen; but, I have often thought since, that she must have looked as if +the admission of the natural light of day would have struck her to dust. + +"He calls the knaves Jacks, this boy!" said Estella with disdain, before +our first game was out. "And what coarse hands he has! And what thick +boots!" + +I had never thought of being ashamed of my hands before; but I began +to consider them a very indifferent pair. Her contempt for me was so +strong, that it became infectious, and I caught it. + +She won the game, and I dealt. I misdealt, as was only natural, when I +knew she was lying in wait for me to do wrong; and she denounced me for +a stupid, clumsy laboring-boy. + +"You say nothing of her," remarked Miss Havisham to me, as she looked +on. "She says many hard things of you, but you say nothing of her. What +do you think of her?" + +"I don't like to say," I stammered. + +"Tell me in my ear," said Miss Havisham, bending down. + +"I think she is very proud," I replied, in a whisper. + +"Anything else?" + +"I think she is very pretty." + +"Anything else?" + +"I think she is very insulting." (She was looking at me then with a look +of supreme aversion.) + +"Anything else?" + +"I think I should like to go home." + +"And never see her again, though she is so pretty?" + +"I am not sure that I shouldn't like to see her again, but I should like +to go home now." + +"You shall go soon," said Miss Havisham, aloud. "Play the game out." + +Saving for the one weird smile at first, I should have felt almost +sure that Miss Havisham's face could not smile. It had dropped into a +watchful and brooding expression,--most likely when all the things about +her had become transfixed,--and it looked as if nothing could ever lift +it up again. Her chest had dropped, so that she stooped; and her voice +had dropped, so that she spoke low, and with a dead lull upon her; +altogether, she had the appearance of having dropped body and soul, +within and without, under the weight of a crushing blow. + +I played the game to an end with Estella, and she beggared me. She +threw the cards down on the table when she had won them all, as if she +despised them for having been won of me. + +"When shall I have you here again?" said Miss Havisham. "Let me think." + +I was beginning to remind her that to-day was Wednesday, when she +checked me with her former impatient movement of the fingers of her +right hand. + +"There, there! I know nothing of days of the week; I know nothing of +weeks of the year. Come again after six days. You hear?" + +"Yes, ma'am." + +"Estella, take him down. Let him have something to eat, and let him roam +and look about him while he eats. Go, Pip." + +I followed the candle down, as I had followed the candle up, and she +stood it in the place where we had found it. Until she opened the +side entrance, I had fancied, without thinking about it, that it must +necessarily be night-time. The rush of the daylight quite confounded me, +and made me feel as if I had been in the candlelight of the strange room +many hours. + +"You are to wait here, you boy," said Estella; and disappeared and +closed the door. + +I took the opportunity of being alone in the courtyard to look at my +coarse hands and my common boots. My opinion of those accessories was +not favorable. They had never troubled me before, but they troubled +me now, as vulgar appendages. I determined to ask Joe why he had ever +taught me to call those picture-cards Jacks, which ought to be called +knaves. I wished Joe had been rather more genteelly brought up, and then +I should have been so too. + +She came back, with some bread and meat and a little mug of beer. She +put the mug down on the stones of the yard, and gave me the bread +and meat without looking at me, as insolently as if I were a dog in +disgrace. I was so humiliated, hurt, spurned, offended, angry, sorry,--I +cannot hit upon the right name for the smart--God knows what its name +was,--that tears started to my eyes. The moment they sprang there, the +girl looked at me with a quick delight in having been the cause of them. +This gave me power to keep them back and to look at her: so, she gave a +contemptuous toss--but with a sense, I thought, of having made too sure +that I was so wounded--and left me. + +But when she was gone, I looked about me for a place to hide my face +in, and got behind one of the gates in the brewery-lane, and leaned my +sleeve against the wall there, and leaned my forehead on it and cried. +As I cried, I kicked the wall, and took a hard twist at my hair; so +bitter were my feelings, and so sharp was the smart without a name, that +needed counteraction. + +My sister's bringing up had made me sensitive. In the little world in +which children have their existence whosoever brings them up, there is +nothing so finely perceived and so finely felt as injustice. It may be +only small injustice that the child can be exposed to; but the child +is small, and its world is small, and its rocking-horse stands as many +hands high, according to scale, as a big-boned Irish hunter. Within +myself, I had sustained, from my babyhood, a perpetual conflict with +injustice. I had known, from the time when I could speak, that my +sister, in her capricious and violent coercion, was unjust to me. I had +cherished a profound conviction that her bringing me up by hand gave her +no right to bring me up by jerks. Through all my punishments, disgraces, +fasts, and vigils, and other penitential performances, I had nursed +this assurance; and to my communing so much with it, in a solitary and +unprotected way, I in great part refer the fact that I was morally timid +and very sensitive. + +I got rid of my injured feelings for the time by kicking them into the +brewery wall, and twisting them out of my hair, and then I smoothed my +face with my sleeve, and came from behind the gate. The bread and meat +were acceptable, and the beer was warming and tingling, and I was soon +in spirits to look about me. + +To be sure, it was a deserted place, down to the pigeon-house in the +brewery-yard, which had been blown crooked on its pole by some high +wind, and would have made the pigeons think themselves at sea, if there +had been any pigeons there to be rocked by it. But there were no pigeons +in the dove-cot, no horses in the stable, no pigs in the sty, no malt in +the storehouse, no smells of grains and beer in the copper or the vat. +All the uses and scents of the brewery might have evaporated with its +last reek of smoke. In a by-yard, there was a wilderness of empty casks, +which had a certain sour remembrance of better days lingering about +them; but it was too sour to be accepted as a sample of the beer that +was gone,--and in this respect I remember those recluses as being like +most others. + +Behind the furthest end of the brewery, was a rank garden with an old +wall; not so high but that I could struggle up and hold on long enough +to look over it, and see that the rank garden was the garden of the +house, and that it was overgrown with tangled weeds, but that there was +a track upon the green and yellow paths, as if some one sometimes walked +there, and that Estella was walking away from me even then. But she +seemed to be everywhere. For when I yielded to the temptation presented +by the casks, and began to walk on them, I saw her walking on them at +the end of the yard of casks. She had her back towards me, and held her +pretty brown hair spread out in her two hands, and never looked round, +and passed out of my view directly. So, in the brewery itself,--by which +I mean the large paved lofty place in which they used to make the beer, +and where the brewing utensils still were. When I first went into it, +and, rather oppressed by its gloom, stood near the door looking about +me, I saw her pass among the extinguished fires, and ascend some light +iron stairs, and go out by a gallery high overhead, as if she were going +out into the sky. + +It was in this place, and at this moment, that a strange thing happened +to my fancy. I thought it a strange thing then, and I thought it a +stranger thing long afterwards. I turned my eyes--a little dimmed by +looking up at the frosty light--towards a great wooden beam in a low +nook of the building near me on my right hand, and I saw a figure +hanging there by the neck. A figure all in yellow white, with but +one shoe to the feet; and it hung so, that I could see that the faded +trimmings of the dress were like earthy paper, and that the face was +Miss Havisham's, with a movement going over the whole countenance as if +she were trying to call to me. In the terror of seeing the figure, +and in the terror of being certain that it had not been there a moment +before, I at first ran from it, and then ran towards it. And my terror +was greatest of all when I found no figure there. + +Nothing less than the frosty light of the cheerful sky, the sight of +people passing beyond the bars of the court-yard gate, and the reviving +influence of the rest of the bread and meat and beer, would have brought +me round. Even with those aids, I might not have come to myself as soon +as I did, but that I saw Estella approaching with the keys, to let +me out. She would have some fair reason for looking down upon me, I +thought, if she saw me frightened; and she would have no fair reason. + +She gave me a triumphant glance in passing me, as if she rejoiced that +my hands were so coarse and my boots were so thick, and she opened the +gate, and stood holding it. I was passing out without looking at her, +when she touched me with a taunting hand. + +"Why don't you cry?" + +"Because I don't want to." + +"You do," said she. "You have been crying till you are half blind, and +you are near crying again now." + +She laughed contemptuously, pushed me out, and locked the gate upon me. +I went straight to Mr. Pumblechook's, and was immensely relieved to find +him not at home. So, leaving word with the shopman on what day I was +wanted at Miss Havisham's again, I set off on the four-mile walk to +our forge; pondering, as I went along, on all I had seen, and deeply +revolving that I was a common laboring-boy; that my hands were coarse; +that my boots were thick; that I had fallen into a despicable habit +of calling knaves Jacks; that I was much more ignorant than I had +considered myself last night, and generally that I was in a low-lived +bad way. + + + + +Chapter IX + +When I reached home, my sister was very curious to know all about Miss +Havisham's, and asked a number of questions. And I soon found myself +getting heavily bumped from behind in the nape of the neck and the small +of the back, and having my face ignominiously shoved against the kitchen +wall, because I did not answer those questions at sufficient length. + +If a dread of not being understood be hidden in the breasts of other +young people to anything like the extent to which it used to be hidden +in mine,--which I consider probable, as I have no particular reason +to suspect myself of having been a monstrosity,--it is the key to many +reservations. I felt convinced that if I described Miss Havisham's as my +eyes had seen it, I should not be understood. Not only that, but I felt +convinced that Miss Havisham too would not be understood; and although +she was perfectly incomprehensible to me, I entertained an impression +that there would be something coarse and treacherous in my dragging +her as she really was (to say nothing of Miss Estella) before the +contemplation of Mrs. Joe. Consequently, I said as little as I could, +and had my face shoved against the kitchen wall. + +The worst of it was that that bullying old Pumblechook, preyed upon by +a devouring curiosity to be informed of all I had seen and heard, came +gaping over in his chaise-cart at tea-time, to have the details divulged +to him. And the mere sight of the torment, with his fishy eyes and mouth +open, his sandy hair inquisitively on end, and his waistcoat heaving +with windy arithmetic, made me vicious in my reticence. + +"Well, boy," Uncle Pumblechook began, as soon as he was seated in the +chair of honor by the fire. "How did you get on up town?" + +I answered, "Pretty well, sir," and my sister shook her fist at me. + +"Pretty well?" Mr. Pumblechook repeated. "Pretty well is no answer. Tell +us what you mean by pretty well, boy?" + +Whitewash on the forehead hardens the brain into a state of obstinacy +perhaps. Anyhow, with whitewash from the wall on my forehead, my +obstinacy was adamantine. I reflected for some time, and then answered +as if I had discovered a new idea, "I mean pretty well." + +My sister with an exclamation of impatience was going to fly at me,--I +had no shadow of defence, for Joe was busy in the forge,--when Mr. +Pumblechook interposed with "No! Don't lose your temper. Leave this +lad to me, ma'am; leave this lad to me." Mr. Pumblechook then turned me +towards him, as if he were going to cut my hair, and said,-- + +"First (to get our thoughts in order): Forty-three pence?" + +I calculated the consequences of replying "Four Hundred Pound," and +finding them against me, went as near the answer as I could--which was +somewhere about eightpence off. Mr. Pumblechook then put me through my +pence-table from "twelve pence make one shilling," up to "forty pence +make three and fourpence," and then triumphantly demanded, as if he had +done for me, "Now! How much is forty-three pence?" To which I replied, +after a long interval of reflection, "I don't know." And I was so +aggravated that I almost doubt if I did know. + +Mr. Pumblechook worked his head like a screw to screw it out of me, +and said, "Is forty-three pence seven and sixpence three fardens, for +instance?" + +"Yes!" said I. And although my sister instantly boxed my ears, it was +highly gratifying to me to see that the answer spoilt his joke, and +brought him to a dead stop. + +"Boy! What like is Miss Havisham?" Mr. Pumblechook began again when +he had recovered; folding his arms tight on his chest and applying the +screw. + +"Very tall and dark," I told him. + +"Is she, uncle?" asked my sister. + +Mr. Pumblechook winked assent; from which I at once inferred that he had +never seen Miss Havisham, for she was nothing of the kind. + +"Good!" said Mr. Pumblechook conceitedly. ("This is the way to have him! +We are beginning to hold our own, I think, Mum?") + +"I am sure, uncle," returned Mrs. Joe, "I wish you had him always; you +know so well how to deal with him." + +"Now, boy! What was she a doing of, when you went in today?" asked Mr. +Pumblechook. + +"She was sitting," I answered, "in a black velvet coach." + +Mr. Pumblechook and Mrs. Joe stared at one another--as they well +might--and both repeated, "In a black velvet coach?" + +"Yes," said I. "And Miss Estella--that's her niece, I think--handed her +in cake and wine at the coach-window, on a gold plate. And we all had +cake and wine on gold plates. And I got up behind the coach to eat mine, +because she told me to." + +"Was anybody else there?" asked Mr. Pumblechook. + +"Four dogs," said I. + +"Large or small?" + +"Immense," said I. "And they fought for veal-cutlets out of a silver +basket." + +Mr. Pumblechook and Mrs. Joe stared at one another again, in utter +amazement. I was perfectly frantic,--a reckless witness under the +torture,--and would have told them anything. + +"Where was this coach, in the name of gracious?" asked my sister. + +"In Miss Havisham's room." They stared again. "But there weren't any +horses to it." I added this saving clause, in the moment of rejecting +four richly caparisoned coursers which I had had wild thoughts of +harnessing. + +"Can this be possible, uncle?" asked Mrs. Joe. "What can the boy mean?" + +"I'll tell you, Mum," said Mr. Pumblechook. "My opinion is, it's a +sedan-chair. She's flighty, you know,--very flighty,--quite flighty +enough to pass her days in a sedan-chair." + +"Did you ever see her in it, uncle?" asked Mrs. Joe. + +"How could I," he returned, forced to the admission, "when I never see +her in my life? Never clapped eyes upon her!" + +"Goodness, uncle! And yet you have spoken to her?" + +"Why, don't you know," said Mr. Pumblechook, testily, "that when I have +been there, I have been took up to the outside of her door, and the door +has stood ajar, and she has spoke to me that way. Don't say you don't +know that, Mum. Howsever, the boy went there to play. What did you play +at, boy?" + +"We played with flags," I said. (I beg to observe that I think of myself +with amazement, when I recall the lies I told on this occasion.) + +"Flags!" echoed my sister. + +"Yes," said I. "Estella waved a blue flag, and I waved a red one, and +Miss Havisham waved one sprinkled all over with little gold stars, out +at the coach-window. And then we all waved our swords and hurrahed." + +"Swords!" repeated my sister. "Where did you get swords from?" + +"Out of a cupboard," said I. "And I saw pistols in it,--and jam,--and +pills. And there was no daylight in the room, but it was all lighted up +with candles." + +"That's true, Mum," said Mr. Pumblechook, with a grave nod. "That's the +state of the case, for that much I've seen myself." And then they +both stared at me, and I, with an obtrusive show of artlessness on my +countenance, stared at them, and plaited the right leg of my trousers +with my right hand. + +If they had asked me any more questions, I should undoubtedly have +betrayed myself, for I was even then on the point of mentioning that +there was a balloon in the yard, and should have hazarded the statement +but for my invention being divided between that phenomenon and a bear +in the brewery. They were so much occupied, however, in discussing the +marvels I had already presented for their consideration, that I escaped. +The subject still held them when Joe came in from his work to have a cup +of tea. To whom my sister, more for the relief of her own mind than for +the gratification of his, related my pretended experiences. + +Now, when I saw Joe open his blue eyes and roll them all round the +kitchen in helpless amazement, I was overtaken by penitence; but only as +regarded him,--not in the least as regarded the other two. Towards +Joe, and Joe only, I considered myself a young monster, while they sat +debating what results would come to me from Miss Havisham's acquaintance +and favor. They had no doubt that Miss Havisham would "do something" +for me; their doubts related to the form that something would take. +My sister stood out for "property." Mr. Pumblechook was in favor of a +handsome premium for binding me apprentice to some genteel trade,--say, +the corn and seed trade, for instance. Joe fell into the deepest +disgrace with both, for offering the bright suggestion that I might only +be presented with one of the dogs who had fought for the veal-cutlets. +"If a fool's head can't express better opinions than that," said my +sister, "and you have got any work to do, you had better go and do it." +So he went. + +After Mr. Pumblechook had driven off, and when my sister was washing up, +I stole into the forge to Joe, and remained by him until he had done for +the night. Then I said, "Before the fire goes out, Joe, I should like to +tell you something." + +"Should you, Pip?" said Joe, drawing his shoeing-stool near the forge. +"Then tell us. What is it, Pip?" + +"Joe," said I, taking hold of his rolled-up shirt sleeve, and twisting +it between my finger and thumb, "you remember all that about Miss +Havisham's?" + +"Remember?" said Joe. "I believe you! Wonderful!" + +"It's a terrible thing, Joe; it ain't true." + +"What are you telling of, Pip?" cried Joe, falling back in the greatest +amazement. "You don't mean to say it's--" + +"Yes I do; it's lies, Joe." + +"But not all of it? Why sure you don't mean to say, Pip, that there was +no black welwet co--eh?" For, I stood shaking my head. "But at least +there was dogs, Pip? Come, Pip," said Joe, persuasively, "if there +warn't no weal-cutlets, at least there was dogs?" + +"No, Joe." + +"A dog?" said Joe. "A puppy? Come?" + +"No, Joe, there was nothing at all of the kind." + +As I fixed my eyes hopelessly on Joe, Joe contemplated me in dismay. +"Pip, old chap! This won't do, old fellow! I say! Where do you expect to +go to?" + +"It's terrible, Joe; ain't it?" + +"Terrible?" cried Joe. "Awful! What possessed you?" + +"I don't know what possessed me, Joe," I replied, letting his shirt +sleeve go, and sitting down in the ashes at his feet, hanging my head; +"but I wish you hadn't taught me to call Knaves at cards Jacks; and I +wish my boots weren't so thick nor my hands so coarse." + +And then I told Joe that I felt very miserable, and that I hadn't been +able to explain myself to Mrs. Joe and Pumblechook, who were so rude to +me, and that there had been a beautiful young lady at Miss Havisham's +who was dreadfully proud, and that she had said I was common, and that I +knew I was common, and that I wished I was not common, and that the lies +had come of it somehow, though I didn't know how. + +This was a case of metaphysics, at least as difficult for Joe to deal +with as for me. But Joe took the case altogether out of the region of +metaphysics, and by that means vanquished it. + +"There's one thing you may be sure of, Pip," said Joe, after some +rumination, "namely, that lies is lies. Howsever they come, they didn't +ought to come, and they come from the father of lies, and work round to +the same. Don't you tell no more of 'em, Pip. That ain't the way to get +out of being common, old chap. And as to being common, I don't make +it out at all clear. You are oncommon in some things. You're oncommon +small. Likewise you're a oncommon scholar." + +"No, I am ignorant and backward, Joe." + +"Why, see what a letter you wrote last night! Wrote in print even! I've +seen letters--Ah! and from gentlefolks!--that I'll swear weren't wrote +in print," said Joe. + +"I have learnt next to nothing, Joe. You think much of me. It's only +that." + +"Well, Pip," said Joe, "be it so or be it son't, you must be a common +scholar afore you can be a oncommon one, I should hope! The king upon +his throne, with his crown upon his ed, can't sit and write his acts +of Parliament in print, without having begun, when he were a unpromoted +Prince, with the alphabet.--Ah!" added Joe, with a shake of the head +that was full of meaning, "and begun at A too, and worked his way to Z. +And I know what that is to do, though I can't say I've exactly done it." + +There was some hope in this piece of wisdom, and it rather encouraged +me. + +"Whether common ones as to callings and earnings," pursued Joe, +reflectively, "mightn't be the better of continuing for to keep +company with common ones, instead of going out to play with oncommon +ones,--which reminds me to hope that there were a flag, perhaps?" + +"No, Joe." + +"(I'm sorry there weren't a flag, Pip). Whether that might be or +mightn't be, is a thing as can't be looked into now, without putting +your sister on the Rampage; and that's a thing not to be thought of as +being done intentional. Lookee here, Pip, at what is said to you by a +true friend. Which this to you the true friend say. If you can't get to +be oncommon through going straight, you'll never get to do it through +going crooked. So don't tell no more on 'em, Pip, and live well and die +happy." + +"You are not angry with me, Joe?" + +"No, old chap. But bearing in mind that them were which I meantersay +of a stunning and outdacious sort,--alluding to them which bordered on +weal-cutlets and dog-fighting,--a sincere well-wisher would adwise, Pip, +their being dropped into your meditations, when you go upstairs to bed. +That's all, old chap, and don't never do it no more." + +When I got up to my little room and said my prayers, I did not forget +Joe's recommendation, and yet my young mind was in that disturbed and +unthankful state, that I thought long after I laid me down, how common +Estella would consider Joe, a mere blacksmith; how thick his boots, and +how coarse his hands. I thought how Joe and my sister were then sitting +in the kitchen, and how I had come up to bed from the kitchen, and how +Miss Havisham and Estella never sat in a kitchen, but were far above the +level of such common doings. I fell asleep recalling what I "used to +do" when I was at Miss Havisham's; as though I had been there weeks or +months, instead of hours; and as though it were quite an old subject of +remembrance, instead of one that had arisen only that day. + +That was a memorable day to me, for it made great changes in me. But it +is the same with any life. Imagine one selected day struck out of it, +and think how different its course would have been. Pause you who read +this, and think for a moment of the long chain of iron or gold, +of thorns or flowers, that would never have bound you, but for the +formation of the first link on one memorable day. + + + + +Chapter X + +The felicitous idea occurred to me a morning or two later when I woke, +that the best step I could take towards making myself uncommon was to +get out of Biddy everything she knew. In pursuance of this luminous +conception I mentioned to Biddy when I went to Mr. Wopsle's great-aunt's +at night, that I had a particular reason for wishing to get on in life, +and that I should feel very much obliged to her if she would impart +all her learning to me. Biddy, who was the most obliging of girls, +immediately said she would, and indeed began to carry out her promise +within five minutes. + +The Educational scheme or Course established by Mr. Wopsle's great-aunt +may be resolved into the following synopsis. The pupils ate apples +and put straws down one another's backs, until Mr. Wopsle's great-aunt +collected her energies, and made an indiscriminate totter at them with +a birch-rod. After receiving the charge with every mark of derision, the +pupils formed in line and buzzingly passed a ragged book from hand to +hand. The book had an alphabet in it, some figures and tables, and +a little spelling,--that is to say, it had had once. As soon as this +volume began to circulate, Mr. Wopsle's great-aunt fell into a state of +coma, arising either from sleep or a rheumatic paroxysm. The pupils then +entered among themselves upon a competitive examination on the subject +of Boots, with the view of ascertaining who could tread the hardest upon +whose toes. This mental exercise lasted until Biddy made a rush at +them and distributed three defaced Bibles (shaped as if they had been +unskilfully cut off the chump end of something), more illegibly printed +at the best than any curiosities of literature I have since met with, +speckled all over with ironmould, and having various specimens of the +insect world smashed between their leaves. This part of the Course was +usually lightened by several single combats between Biddy and refractory +students. When the fights were over, Biddy gave out the number of a +page, and then we all read aloud what we could,--or what we couldn't--in +a frightful chorus; Biddy leading with a high, shrill, monotonous voice, +and none of us having the least notion of, or reverence for, what we +were reading about. When this horrible din had lasted a certain time, +it mechanically awoke Mr. Wopsle's great-aunt, who staggered at a boy +fortuitously, and pulled his ears. This was understood to terminate +the Course for the evening, and we emerged into the air with shrieks of +intellectual victory. It is fair to remark that there was no prohibition +against any pupil's entertaining himself with a slate or even with the +ink (when there was any), but that it was not easy to pursue that branch +of study in the winter season, on account of the little general shop +in which the classes were holden--and which was also Mr. Wopsle's +great-aunt's sitting-room and bedchamber--being but faintly illuminated +through the agency of one low-spirited dip-candle and no snuffers. + +It appeared to me that it would take time to become uncommon, under +these circumstances: nevertheless, I resolved to try it, and that +very evening Biddy entered on our special agreement, by imparting some +information from her little catalogue of Prices, under the head of moist +sugar, and lending me, to copy at home, a large old English D which she +had imitated from the heading of some newspaper, and which I supposed, +until she told me what it was, to be a design for a buckle. + +Of course there was a public-house in the village, and of course Joe +liked sometimes to smoke his pipe there. I had received strict orders +from my sister to call for him at the Three Jolly Bargemen, that +evening, on my way from school, and bring him home at my peril. To the +Three Jolly Bargemen, therefore, I directed my steps. + +There was a bar at the Jolly Bargemen, with some alarmingly long chalk +scores in it on the wall at the side of the door, which seemed to me to +be never paid off. They had been there ever since I could remember, and +had grown more than I had. But there was a quantity of chalk about our +country, and perhaps the people neglected no opportunity of turning it +to account. + +It being Saturday night, I found the landlord looking rather grimly +at these records; but as my business was with Joe and not with him, I +merely wished him good evening, and passed into the common room at the +end of the passage, where there was a bright large kitchen fire, +and where Joe was smoking his pipe in company with Mr. Wopsle and a +stranger. Joe greeted me as usual with "Halloa, Pip, old chap!" and the +moment he said that, the stranger turned his head and looked at me. + +He was a secret-looking man whom I had never seen before. His head was +all on one side, and one of his eyes was half shut up, as if he were +taking aim at something with an invisible gun. He had a pipe in his +mouth, and he took it out, and, after slowly blowing all his smoke away +and looking hard at me all the time, nodded. So, I nodded, and then he +nodded again, and made room on the settle beside him that I might sit +down there. + +But as I was used to sit beside Joe whenever I entered that place of +resort, I said "No, thank you, sir," and fell into the space Joe made +for me on the opposite settle. The strange man, after glancing at Joe, +and seeing that his attention was otherwise engaged, nodded to me again +when I had taken my seat, and then rubbed his leg--in a very odd way, as +it struck me. + +"You was saying," said the strange man, turning to Joe, "that you was a +blacksmith." + +"Yes. I said it, you know," said Joe. + +"What'll you drink, Mr.--? You didn't mention your name, by the bye." + +Joe mentioned it now, and the strange man called him by it. "What'll you +drink, Mr. Gargery? At my expense? To top up with?" + +"Well," said Joe, "to tell you the truth, I ain't much in the habit of +drinking at anybody's expense but my own." + +"Habit? No," returned the stranger, "but once and away, and on a +Saturday night too. Come! Put a name to it, Mr. Gargery." + +"I wouldn't wish to be stiff company," said Joe. "Rum." + +"Rum," repeated the stranger. "And will the other gentleman originate a +sentiment." + +"Rum," said Mr. Wopsle. + +"Three Rums!" cried the stranger, calling to the landlord. "Glasses +round!" + +"This other gentleman," observed Joe, by way of introducing Mr. Wopsle, +"is a gentleman that you would like to hear give it out. Our clerk at +church." + +"Aha!" said the stranger, quickly, and cocking his eye at me. "The +lonely church, right out on the marshes, with graves round it!" + +"That's it," said Joe. + +The stranger, with a comfortable kind of grunt over his pipe, put +his legs up on the settle that he had to himself. He wore a flapping +broad-brimmed traveller's hat, and under it a handkerchief tied over his +head in the manner of a cap: so that he showed no hair. As he looked +at the fire, I thought I saw a cunning expression, followed by a +half-laugh, come into his face. + +"I am not acquainted with this country, gentlemen, but it seems a +solitary country towards the river." + +"Most marshes is solitary," said Joe. + +"No doubt, no doubt. Do you find any gypsies, now, or tramps, or +vagrants of any sort, out there?" + +"No," said Joe; "none but a runaway convict now and then. And we don't +find them, easy. Eh, Mr. Wopsle?" + +Mr. Wopsle, with a majestic remembrance of old discomfiture, assented; +but not warmly. + +"Seems you have been out after such?" asked the stranger. + +"Once," returned Joe. "Not that we wanted to take them, you understand; +we went out as lookers on; me, and Mr. Wopsle, and Pip. Didn't us, Pip?" + +"Yes, Joe." + +The stranger looked at me again,--still cocking his eye, as if he were +expressly taking aim at me with his invisible gun,--and said, "He's a +likely young parcel of bones that. What is it you call him?" + +"Pip," said Joe. + +"Christened Pip?" + +"No, not christened Pip." + +"Surname Pip?" + +"No," said Joe, "it's a kind of family name what he gave himself when a +infant, and is called by." + +"Son of yours?" + +"Well," said Joe, meditatively, not, of course, that it could be in +anywise necessary to consider about it, but because it was the way at +the Jolly Bargemen to seem to consider deeply about everything that was +discussed over pipes,--"well--no. No, he ain't." + +"Nevvy?" said the strange man. + +"Well," said Joe, with the same appearance of profound cogitation, "he +is not--no, not to deceive you, he is not--my nevvy." + +"What the Blue Blazes is he?" asked the stranger. Which appeared to me +to be an inquiry of unnecessary strength. + +Mr. Wopsle struck in upon that; as one who knew all about relationships, +having professional occasion to bear in mind what female relations a man +might not marry; and expounded the ties between me and Joe. Having +his hand in, Mr. Wopsle finished off with a most terrifically snarling +passage from Richard the Third, and seemed to think he had done quite +enough to account for it when he added, "--as the poet says." + +And here I may remark that when Mr. Wopsle referred to me, he considered +it a necessary part of such reference to rumple my hair and poke it into +my eyes. I cannot conceive why everybody of his standing who visited +at our house should always have put me through the same inflammatory +process under similar circumstances. Yet I do not call to mind that I +was ever in my earlier youth the subject of remark in our social family +circle, but some large-handed person took some such ophthalmic steps to +patronize me. + +All this while, the strange man looked at nobody but me, and looked at +me as if he were determined to have a shot at me at last, and bring me +down. But he said nothing after offering his Blue Blazes observation, +until the glasses of rum and water were brought; and then he made his +shot, and a most extraordinary shot it was. + +It was not a verbal remark, but a proceeding in dumb-show, and was +pointedly addressed to me. He stirred his rum and water pointedly at me, +and he tasted his rum and water pointedly at me. And he stirred it and +he tasted it; not with a spoon that was brought to him, but with a file. + +He did this so that nobody but I saw the file; and when he had done it +he wiped the file and put it in a breast-pocket. I knew it to be +Joe's file, and I knew that he knew my convict, the moment I saw the +instrument. I sat gazing at him, spell-bound. But he now reclined on his +settle, taking very little notice of me, and talking principally about +turnips. + +There was a delicious sense of cleaning-up and making a quiet pause +before going on in life afresh, in our village on Saturday nights, which +stimulated Joe to dare to stay out half an hour longer on Saturdays +than at other times. The half-hour and the rum and water running out +together, Joe got up to go, and took me by the hand. + +"Stop half a moment, Mr. Gargery," said the strange man. "I think I've +got a bright new shilling somewhere in my pocket, and if I have, the boy +shall have it." + +He looked it out from a handful of small change, folded it in some +crumpled paper, and gave it to me. "Yours!" said he. "Mind! Your own." + +I thanked him, staring at him far beyond the bounds of good manners, +and holding tight to Joe. He gave Joe good-night, and he gave Mr. Wopsle +good-night (who went out with us), and he gave me only a look with his +aiming eye,--no, not a look, for he shut it up, but wonders may be done +with an eye by hiding it. + +On the way home, if I had been in a humor for talking, the talk must +have been all on my side, for Mr. Wopsle parted from us at the door of +the Jolly Bargemen, and Joe went all the way home with his mouth wide +open, to rinse the rum out with as much air as possible. But I was in +a manner stupefied by this turning up of my old misdeed and old +acquaintance, and could think of nothing else. + +My sister was not in a very bad temper when we presented ourselves in +the kitchen, and Joe was encouraged by that unusual circumstance to tell +her about the bright shilling. "A bad un, I'll be bound," said Mrs. Joe +triumphantly, "or he wouldn't have given it to the boy! Let's look at +it." + +I took it out of the paper, and it proved to be a good one. "But what's +this?" said Mrs. Joe, throwing down the shilling and catching up the +paper. "Two One-Pound notes?" + +Nothing less than two fat sweltering one-pound notes that seemed to have +been on terms of the warmest intimacy with all the cattle-markets in +the county. Joe caught up his hat again, and ran with them to the Jolly +Bargemen to restore them to their owner. While he was gone, I sat down +on my usual stool and looked vacantly at my sister, feeling pretty sure +that the man would not be there. + +Presently, Joe came back, saying that the man was gone, but that he, +Joe, had left word at the Three Jolly Bargemen concerning the notes. +Then my sister sealed them up in a piece of paper, and put them under +some dried rose-leaves in an ornamental teapot on the top of a press in +the state parlor. There they remained, a nightmare to me, many and many +a night and day. + +I had sadly broken sleep when I got to bed, through thinking of the +strange man taking aim at me with his invisible gun, and of the guiltily +coarse and common thing it was, to be on secret terms of conspiracy with +convicts,--a feature in my low career that I had previously forgotten. +I was haunted by the file too. A dread possessed me that when I least +expected it, the file would reappear. I coaxed myself to sleep by +thinking of Miss Havisham's, next Wednesday; and in my sleep I saw +the file coming at me out of a door, without seeing who held it, and I +screamed myself awake. + + + + +Chapter XI + +At the appointed time I returned to Miss Havisham's, and my hesitating +ring at the gate brought out Estella. She locked it after admitting +me, as she had done before, and again preceded me into the dark passage +where her candle stood. She took no notice of me until she had the +candle in her hand, when she looked over her shoulder, superciliously +saying, "You are to come this way to-day," and took me to quite another +part of the house. + +The passage was a long one, and seemed to pervade the whole square +basement of the Manor House. We traversed but one side of the square, +however, and at the end of it she stopped, and put her candle down and +opened a door. Here, the daylight reappeared, and I found myself in +a small paved courtyard, the opposite side of which was formed by a +detached dwelling-house, that looked as if it had once belonged to the +manager or head clerk of the extinct brewery. There was a clock in the +outer wall of this house. Like the clock in Miss Havisham's room, and +like Miss Havisham's watch, it had stopped at twenty minutes to nine. + +We went in at the door, which stood open, and into a gloomy room with a +low ceiling, on the ground-floor at the back. There was some company in +the room, and Estella said to me as she joined it, "You are to go and +stand there boy, till you are wanted." "There", being the window, I +crossed to it, and stood "there," in a very uncomfortable state of mind, +looking out. + +It opened to the ground, and looked into a most miserable corner of the +neglected garden, upon a rank ruin of cabbage-stalks, and one box-tree +that had been clipped round long ago, like a pudding, and had a new +growth at the top of it, out of shape and of a different color, as if +that part of the pudding had stuck to the saucepan and got burnt. This +was my homely thought, as I contemplated the box-tree. There had been +some light snow, overnight, and it lay nowhere else to my knowledge; +but, it had not quite melted from the cold shadow of this bit of garden, +and the wind caught it up in little eddies and threw it at the window, +as if it pelted me for coming there. + +I divined that my coming had stopped conversation in the room, and that +its other occupants were looking at me. I could see nothing of the room +except the shining of the fire in the window-glass, but I stiffened in +all my joints with the consciousness that I was under close inspection. + +There were three ladies in the room and one gentleman. Before I had been +standing at the window five minutes, they somehow conveyed to me that +they were all toadies and humbugs, but that each of them pretended not +to know that the others were toadies and humbugs: because the admission +that he or she did know it, would have made him or her out to be a toady +and humbug. + +They all had a listless and dreary air of waiting somebody's pleasure, +and the most talkative of the ladies had to speak quite rigidly to +repress a yawn. This lady, whose name was Camilla, very much reminded +me of my sister, with the difference that she was older, and (as I found +when I caught sight of her) of a blunter cast of features. Indeed, when +I knew her better I began to think it was a Mercy she had any features +at all, so very blank and high was the dead wall of her face. + +"Poor dear soul!" said this lady, with an abruptness of manner quite my +sister's. "Nobody's enemy but his own!" + +"It would be much more commendable to be somebody else's enemy," said +the gentleman; "far more natural." + +"Cousin Raymond," observed another lady, "we are to love our neighbor." + +"Sarah Pocket," returned Cousin Raymond, "if a man is not his own +neighbor, who is?" + +Miss Pocket laughed, and Camilla laughed and said (checking a yawn), +"The idea!" But I thought they seemed to think it rather a good +idea too. The other lady, who had not spoken yet, said gravely and +emphatically, "Very true!" + +"Poor soul!" Camilla presently went on (I knew they had all been looking +at me in the mean time), "he is so very strange! Would anyone believe +that when Tom's wife died, he actually could not be induced to see the +importance of the children's having the deepest of trimmings to their +mourning? 'Good Lord!' says he, 'Camilla, what can it signify so long +as the poor bereaved little things are in black?' So like Matthew! The +idea!" + +"Good points in him, good points in him," said Cousin Raymond; "Heaven +forbid I should deny good points in him; but he never had, and he never +will have, any sense of the proprieties." + +"You know I was obliged," said Camilla,--"I was obliged to be firm. I +said, 'It WILL NOT DO, for the credit of the family.' I told him that, +without deep trimmings, the family was disgraced. I cried about it from +breakfast till dinner. I injured my digestion. And at last he flung out +in his violent way, and said, with a D, 'Then do as you like.' Thank +Goodness it will always be a consolation to me to know that I instantly +went out in a pouring rain and bought the things." + +"He paid for them, did he not?" asked Estella. + +"It's not the question, my dear child, who paid for them," returned +Camilla. "I bought them. And I shall often think of that with peace, +when I wake up in the night." + +The ringing of a distant bell, combined with the echoing of some cry or +call along the passage by which I had come, interrupted the conversation +and caused Estella to say to me, "Now, boy!" On my turning round, they +all looked at me with the utmost contempt, and, as I went out, I heard +Sarah Pocket say, "Well I am sure! What next!" and Camilla add, with +indignation, "Was there ever such a fancy! The i-de-a!" + +As we were going with our candle along the dark passage, Estella stopped +all of a sudden, and, facing round, said in her taunting manner, with +her face quite close to mine,-- + +"Well?" + +"Well, miss?" I answered, almost falling over her and checking myself. + +She stood looking at me, and, of course, I stood looking at her. + +"Am I pretty?" + +"Yes; I think you are very pretty." + +"Am I insulting?" + +"Not so much so as you were last time," said I. + +"Not so much so?" + +"No." + +She fired when she asked the last question, and she slapped my face with +such force as she had, when I answered it. + +"Now?" said she. "You little coarse monster, what do you think of me +now?" + +"I shall not tell you." + +"Because you are going to tell upstairs. Is that it?" + +"No," said I, "that's not it." + +"Why don't you cry again, you little wretch?" + +"Because I'll never cry for you again," said I. Which was, I suppose, as +false a declaration as ever was made; for I was inwardly crying for her +then, and I know what I know of the pain she cost me afterwards. + +We went on our way upstairs after this episode; and, as we were going +up, we met a gentleman groping his way down. + +"Whom have we here?" asked the gentleman, stopping and looking at me. + +"A boy," said Estella. + +He was a burly man of an exceedingly dark complexion, with an +exceedingly large head, and a corresponding large hand. He took my chin +in his large hand and turned up my face to have a look at me by the +light of the candle. He was prematurely bald on the top of his head, and +had bushy black eyebrows that wouldn't lie down but stood up bristling. +His eyes were set very deep in his head, and were disagreeably sharp and +suspicious. He had a large watch-chain, and strong black dots where his +beard and whiskers would have been if he had let them. He was nothing +to me, and I could have had no foresight then, that he ever would be +anything to me, but it happened that I had this opportunity of observing +him well. + +"Boy of the neighborhood? Hey?" said he. + +"Yes, sir," said I. + +"How do you come here?" + +"Miss Havisham sent for me, sir," I explained. + +"Well! Behave yourself. I have a pretty large experience of boys, and +you're a bad set of fellows. Now mind!" said he, biting the side of his +great forefinger as he frowned at me, "you behave yourself!" + +With those words, he released me--which I was glad of, for his hand +smelt of scented soap--and went his way downstairs. I wondered whether +he could be a doctor; but no, I thought; he couldn't be a doctor, or he +would have a quieter and more persuasive manner. There was not much time +to consider the subject, for we were soon in Miss Havisham's room, where +she and everything else were just as I had left them. Estella left me +standing near the door, and I stood there until Miss Havisham cast her +eyes upon me from the dressing-table. + +"So!" she said, without being startled or surprised: "the days have worn +away, have they?" + +"Yes, ma'am. To-day is--" + +"There, there, there!" with the impatient movement of her fingers. "I +don't want to know. Are you ready to play?" + +I was obliged to answer in some confusion, "I don't think I am, ma'am." + +"Not at cards again?" she demanded, with a searching look. + +"Yes, ma'am; I could do that, if I was wanted." + +"Since this house strikes you old and grave, boy," said Miss Havisham, +impatiently, "and you are unwilling to play, are you willing to work?" + +I could answer this inquiry with a better heart than I had been able to +find for the other question, and I said I was quite willing. + +"Then go into that opposite room," said she, pointing at the door behind +me with her withered hand, "and wait there till I come." + +I crossed the staircase landing, and entered the room she indicated. +From that room, too, the daylight was completely excluded, and it had an +airless smell that was oppressive. A fire had been lately kindled in +the damp old-fashioned grate, and it was more disposed to go out than +to burn up, and the reluctant smoke which hung in the room seemed colder +than the clearer air,--like our own marsh mist. Certain wintry branches +of candles on the high chimney-piece faintly lighted the chamber; or it +would be more expressive to say, faintly troubled its darkness. It was +spacious, and I dare say had once been handsome, but every discernible +thing in it was covered with dust and mould, and dropping to pieces. The +most prominent object was a long table with a tablecloth spread on it, +as if a feast had been in preparation when the house and the clocks all +stopped together. An epergne or centre-piece of some kind was in the +middle of this cloth; it was so heavily overhung with cobwebs that its +form was quite undistinguishable; and, as I looked along the yellow +expanse out of which I remember its seeming to grow, like a black +fungus, I saw speckle-legged spiders with blotchy bodies running home +to it, and running out from it, as if some circumstances of the greatest +public importance had just transpired in the spider community. + +I heard the mice too, rattling behind the panels, as if the same +occurrence were important to their interests. But the black beetles took +no notice of the agitation, and groped about the hearth in a ponderous +elderly way, as if they were short-sighted and hard of hearing, and not +on terms with one another. + +These crawling things had fascinated my attention, and I was watching +them from a distance, when Miss Havisham laid a hand upon my shoulder. +In her other hand she had a crutch-headed stick on which she leaned, and +she looked like the Witch of the place. + +"This," said she, pointing to the long table with her stick, "is where I +will be laid when I am dead. They shall come and look at me here." + +With some vague misgiving that she might get upon the table then and +there and die at once, the complete realization of the ghastly waxwork +at the Fair, I shrank under her touch. + +"What do you think that is?" she asked me, again pointing with her +stick; "that, where those cobwebs are?" + +"I can't guess what it is, ma'am." + +"It's a great cake. A bride-cake. Mine!" + +She looked all round the room in a glaring manner, and then said, +leaning on me while her hand twitched my shoulder, "Come, come, come! +Walk me, walk me!" + +I made out from this, that the work I had to do, was to walk Miss +Havisham round and round the room. Accordingly, I started at once, and +she leaned upon my shoulder, and we went away at a pace that might have +been an imitation (founded on my first impulse under that roof) of Mr. +Pumblechook's chaise-cart. + +She was not physically strong, and after a little time said, "Slower!" +Still, we went at an impatient fitful speed, and as we went, she +twitched the hand upon my shoulder, and worked her mouth, and led me to +believe that we were going fast because her thoughts went fast. After a +while she said, "Call Estella!" so I went out on the landing and +roared that name as I had done on the previous occasion. When her light +appeared, I returned to Miss Havisham, and we started away again round +and round the room. + +If only Estella had come to be a spectator of our proceedings, I should +have felt sufficiently discontented; but as she brought with her the +three ladies and the gentleman whom I had seen below, I didn't know +what to do. In my politeness, I would have stopped; but Miss +Havisham twitched my shoulder, and we posted on,--with a shame-faced +consciousness on my part that they would think it was all my doing. + +"Dear Miss Havisham," said Miss Sarah Pocket. "How well you look!" + +"I do not," returned Miss Havisham. "I am yellow skin and bone." + +Camilla brightened when Miss Pocket met with this rebuff; and she +murmured, as she plaintively contemplated Miss Havisham, "Poor dear +soul! Certainly not to be expected to look well, poor thing. The idea!" + +"And how are you?" said Miss Havisham to Camilla. As we were close to +Camilla then, I would have stopped as a matter of course, only Miss +Havisham wouldn't stop. We swept on, and I felt that I was highly +obnoxious to Camilla. + +"Thank you, Miss Havisham," she returned, "I am as well as can be +expected." + +"Why, what's the matter with you?" asked Miss Havisham, with exceeding +sharpness. + +"Nothing worth mentioning," replied Camilla. "I don't wish to make a +display of my feelings, but I have habitually thought of you more in the +night than I am quite equal to." + +"Then don't think of me," retorted Miss Havisham. + +"Very easily said!" remarked Camilla, amiably repressing a sob, while a +hitch came into her upper lip, and her tears overflowed. "Raymond is a +witness what ginger and sal volatile I am obliged to take in the night. +Raymond is a witness what nervous jerkings I have in my legs. Chokings +and nervous jerkings, however, are nothing new to me when I think with +anxiety of those I love. If I could be less affectionate and sensitive, +I should have a better digestion and an iron set of nerves. I am sure +I wish it could be so. But as to not thinking of you in the night--The +idea!" Here, a burst of tears. + +The Raymond referred to, I understood to be the gentleman present, and +him I understood to be Mr. Camilla. He came to the rescue at this point, +and said in a consolatory and complimentary voice, "Camilla, my dear, it +is well known that your family feelings are gradually undermining you to +the extent of making one of your legs shorter than the other." + +"I am not aware," observed the grave lady whose voice I had heard but +once, "that to think of any person is to make a great claim upon that +person, my dear." + +Miss Sarah Pocket, whom I now saw to be a little dry, brown, corrugated +old woman, with a small face that might have been made of walnut-shells, +and a large mouth like a cat's without the whiskers, supported this +position by saying, "No, indeed, my dear. Hem!" + +"Thinking is easy enough," said the grave lady. + +"What is easier, you know?" assented Miss Sarah Pocket. + +"Oh, yes, yes!" cried Camilla, whose fermenting feelings appeared to +rise from her legs to her bosom. "It's all very true! It's a weakness +to be so affectionate, but I can't help it. No doubt my health would be +much better if it was otherwise, still I wouldn't change my disposition +if I could. It's the cause of much suffering, but it's a consolation to +know I posses it, when I wake up in the night." Here another burst of +feeling. + +Miss Havisham and I had never stopped all this time, but kept going +round and round the room; now brushing against the skirts of the +visitors, now giving them the whole length of the dismal chamber. + +"There's Matthew!" said Camilla. "Never mixing with any natural ties, +never coming here to see how Miss Havisham is! I have taken to the sofa +with my staylace cut, and have lain there hours insensible, with my head +over the side, and my hair all down, and my feet I don't know where--" + +("Much higher than your head, my love," said Mr. Camilla.) + +"I have gone off into that state, hours and hours, on account of +Matthew's strange and inexplicable conduct, and nobody has thanked me." + +"Really I must say I should think not!" interposed the grave lady. + +"You see, my dear," added Miss Sarah Pocket (a blandly vicious +personage), "the question to put to yourself is, who did you expect to +thank you, my love?" + +"Without expecting any thanks, or anything of the sort," resumed +Camilla, "I have remained in that state, hours and hours, and Raymond +is a witness of the extent to which I have choked, and what the total +inefficacy of ginger has been, and I have been heard at the piano-forte +tuner's across the street, where the poor mistaken children have even +supposed it to be pigeons cooing at a distance,--and now to be told--" +Here Camilla put her hand to her throat, and began to be quite chemical +as to the formation of new combinations there. + +When this same Matthew was mentioned, Miss Havisham stopped me and +herself, and stood looking at the speaker. This change had a great +influence in bringing Camilla's chemistry to a sudden end. + +"Matthew will come and see me at last," said Miss Havisham, sternly, +"when I am laid on that table. That will be his place,--there," striking +the table with her stick, "at my head! And yours will be there! And your +husband's there! And Sarah Pocket's there! And Georgiana's there! Now +you all know where to take your stations when you come to feast upon me. +And now go!" + +At the mention of each name, she had struck the table with her stick in +a new place. She now said, "Walk me, walk me!" and we went on again. + +"I suppose there's nothing to be done," exclaimed Camilla, "but comply +and depart. It's something to have seen the object of one's love and +duty for even so short a time. I shall think of it with a melancholy +satisfaction when I wake up in the night. I wish Matthew could have +that comfort, but he sets it at defiance. I am determined not to make a +display of my feelings, but it's very hard to be told one wants to feast +on one's relations,--as if one was a Giant,--and to be told to go. The +bare idea!" + +Mr. Camilla interposing, as Mrs. Camilla laid her hand upon her heaving +bosom, that lady assumed an unnatural fortitude of manner which I +supposed to be expressive of an intention to drop and choke when out of +view, and kissing her hand to Miss Havisham, was escorted forth. Sarah +Pocket and Georgiana contended who should remain last; but Sarah was +too knowing to be outdone, and ambled round Georgiana with that artful +slipperiness that the latter was obliged to take precedence. Sarah +Pocket then made her separate effect of departing with, "Bless you, Miss +Havisham dear!" and with a smile of forgiving pity on her walnut-shell +countenance for the weaknesses of the rest. + +While Estella was away lighting them down, Miss Havisham still walked +with her hand on my shoulder, but more and more slowly. At last she +stopped before the fire, and said, after muttering and looking at it +some seconds,-- + +"This is my birthday, Pip." + +I was going to wish her many happy returns, when she lifted her stick. + +"I don't suffer it to be spoken of. I don't suffer those who were here +just now, or any one to speak of it. They come here on the day, but they +dare not refer to it." + +Of course I made no further effort to refer to it. + +"On this day of the year, long before you were born, this heap of +decay," stabbing with her crutched stick at the pile of cobwebs on the +table, but not touching it, "was brought here. It and I have worn away +together. The mice have gnawed at it, and sharper teeth than teeth of +mice have gnawed at me." + +She held the head of her stick against her heart as she stood looking +at the table; she in her once white dress, all yellow and withered; the +once white cloth all yellow and withered; everything around in a state +to crumble under a touch. + +"When the ruin is complete," said she, with a ghastly look, "and when +they lay me dead, in my bride's dress on the bride's table,--which shall +be done, and which will be the finished curse upon him,--so much the +better if it is done on this day!" + +She stood looking at the table as if she stood looking at her own figure +lying there. I remained quiet. Estella returned, and she too remained +quiet. It seemed to me that we continued thus for a long time. In +the heavy air of the room, and the heavy darkness that brooded in its +remoter corners, I even had an alarming fancy that Estella and I might +presently begin to decay. + +At length, not coming out of her distraught state by degrees, but in an +instant, Miss Havisham said, "Let me see you two play cards; why have +you not begun?" With that, we returned to her room, and sat down as +before; I was beggared, as before; and again, as before, Miss Havisham +watched us all the time, directed my attention to Estella's beauty, and +made me notice it the more by trying her jewels on Estella's breast and +hair. + +Estella, for her part, likewise treated me as before, except that she +did not condescend to speak. When we had played some half-dozen games, +a day was appointed for my return, and I was taken down into the yard +to be fed in the former dog-like manner. There, too, I was again left to +wander about as I liked. + +It is not much to the purpose whether a gate in that garden wall which +I had scrambled up to peep over on the last occasion was, on that last +occasion, open or shut. Enough that I saw no gate then, and that I +saw one now. As it stood open, and as I knew that Estella had let +the visitors out,--for she had returned with the keys in her hand,--I +strolled into the garden, and strolled all over it. It was quite a +wilderness, and there were old melon-frames and cucumber-frames in it, +which seemed in their decline to have produced a spontaneous growth of +weak attempts at pieces of old hats and boots, with now and then a weedy +offshoot into the likeness of a battered saucepan. + +When I had exhausted the garden and a greenhouse with nothing in it but +a fallen-down grape-vine and some bottles, I found myself in the dismal +corner upon which I had looked out of the window. Never questioning for +a moment that the house was now empty, I looked in at another window, +and found myself, to my great surprise, exchanging a broad stare with a +pale young gentleman with red eyelids and light hair. + +This pale young gentleman quickly disappeared, and reappeared beside me. +He had been at his books when I had found myself staring at him, and I +now saw that he was inky. + +"Halloa!" said he, "young fellow!" + +Halloa being a general observation which I had usually observed to +be best answered by itself, I said, "Halloa!" politely omitting young +fellow. + +"Who let you in?" said he. + +"Miss Estella." + +"Who gave you leave to prowl about?" + +"Miss Estella." + +"Come and fight," said the pale young gentleman. + +What could I do but follow him? I have often asked myself the question +since; but what else could I do? His manner was so final, and I was +so astonished, that I followed where he led, as if I had been under a +spell. + +"Stop a minute, though," he said, wheeling round before we had gone many +paces. "I ought to give you a reason for fighting, too. There it is!" +In a most irritating manner he instantly slapped his hands against one +another, daintily flung one of his legs up behind him, pulled my hair, +slapped his hands again, dipped his head, and butted it into my stomach. + +The bull-like proceeding last mentioned, besides that it was +unquestionably to be regarded in the light of a liberty, was +particularly disagreeable just after bread and meat. I therefore hit out +at him and was going to hit out again, when he said, "Aha! Would you?" +and began dancing backwards and forwards in a manner quite unparalleled +within my limited experience. + +"Laws of the game!" said he. Here, he skipped from his left leg on to +his right. "Regular rules!" Here, he skipped from his right leg on to +his left. "Come to the ground, and go through the preliminaries!" Here, +he dodged backwards and forwards, and did all sorts of things while I +looked helplessly at him. + +I was secretly afraid of him when I saw him so dexterous; but I felt +morally and physically convinced that his light head of hair could have +had no business in the pit of my stomach, and that I had a right to +consider it irrelevant when so obtruded on my attention. Therefore, I +followed him without a word, to a retired nook of the garden, formed by +the junction of two walls and screened by some rubbish. On his asking me +if I was satisfied with the ground, and on my replying Yes, he begged my +leave to absent himself for a moment, and quickly returned with a bottle +of water and a sponge dipped in vinegar. "Available for both," he said, +placing these against the wall. And then fell to pulling off, not +only his jacket and waistcoat, but his shirt too, in a manner at once +light-hearted, business-like, and bloodthirsty. + +Although he did not look very healthy,--having pimples on his face, and +a breaking out at his mouth,--these dreadful preparations quite appalled +me. I judged him to be about my own age, but he was much taller, and he +had a way of spinning himself about that was full of appearance. For +the rest, he was a young gentleman in a gray suit (when not denuded +for battle), with his elbows, knees, wrists, and heels considerably in +advance of the rest of him as to development. + +My heart failed me when I saw him squaring at me with every +demonstration of mechanical nicety, and eyeing my anatomy as if he were +minutely choosing his bone. I never have been so surprised in my life, +as I was when I let out the first blow, and saw him lying on his +back, looking up at me with a bloody nose and his face exceedingly +fore-shortened. + +But, he was on his feet directly, and after sponging himself with +a great show of dexterity began squaring again. The second greatest +surprise I have ever had in my life was seeing him on his back again, +looking up at me out of a black eye. + +His spirit inspired me with great respect. He seemed to have no +strength, and he never once hit me hard, and he was always knocked down; +but he would be up again in a moment, sponging himself or drinking out +of the water-bottle, with the greatest satisfaction in seconding himself +according to form, and then came at me with an air and a show that made +me believe he really was going to do for me at last. He got heavily +bruised, for I am sorry to record that the more I hit him, the harder I +hit him; but he came up again and again and again, until at last he got +a bad fall with the back of his head against the wall. Even after that +crisis in our affairs, he got up and turned round and round confusedly a +few times, not knowing where I was; but finally went on his knees to his +sponge and threw it up: at the same time panting out, "That means you +have won." + +He seemed so brave and innocent, that although I had not proposed the +contest, I felt but a gloomy satisfaction in my victory. Indeed, I go +so far as to hope that I regarded myself while dressing as a species of +savage young wolf or other wild beast. However, I got dressed, darkly +wiping my sanguinary face at intervals, and I said, "Can I help you?" +and he said "No thankee," and I said "Good afternoon," and he said "Same +to you." + +When I got into the courtyard, I found Estella waiting with the keys. +But she neither asked me where I had been, nor why I had kept her +waiting; and there was a bright flush upon her face, as though something +had happened to delight her. Instead of going straight to the gate, too, +she stepped back into the passage, and beckoned me. + +"Come here! You may kiss me, if you like." + +I kissed her cheek as she turned it to me. I think I would have gone +through a great deal to kiss her cheek. But I felt that the kiss was +given to the coarse common boy as a piece of money might have been, and +that it was worth nothing. + +What with the birthday visitors, and what with the cards, and what with +the fight, my stay had lasted so long, that when I neared home the light +on the spit of sand off the point on the marshes was gleaming against +a black night-sky, and Joe's furnace was flinging a path of fire across +the road. + + + + +Chapter XII + +My mind grew very uneasy on the subject of the pale young gentleman. The +more I thought of the fight, and recalled the pale young gentleman on +his back in various stages of puffy and incrimsoned countenance, the +more certain it appeared that something would be done to me. I felt that +the pale young gentleman's blood was on my head, and that the Law would +avenge it. Without having any definite idea of the penalties I had +incurred, it was clear to me that village boys could not go stalking +about the country, ravaging the houses of gentlefolks and pitching into +the studious youth of England, without laying themselves open to severe +punishment. For some days, I even kept close at home, and looked out at +the kitchen door with the greatest caution and trepidation before going +on an errand, lest the officers of the County Jail should pounce upon +me. The pale young gentleman's nose had stained my trousers, and I tried +to wash out that evidence of my guilt in the dead of night. I had cut +my knuckles against the pale young gentleman's teeth, and I twisted my +imagination into a thousand tangles, as I devised incredible ways of +accounting for that damnatory circumstance when I should be haled before +the Judges. + +When the day came round for my return to the scene of the deed of +violence, my terrors reached their height. Whether myrmidons of Justice, +specially sent down from London, would be lying in ambush behind the +gate;--whether Miss Havisham, preferring to take personal vengeance for +an outrage done to her house, might rise in those grave-clothes of hers, +draw a pistol, and shoot me dead:--whether suborned boys--a numerous +band of mercenaries--might be engaged to fall upon me in the brewery, +and cuff me until I was no more;--it was high testimony to my confidence +in the spirit of the pale young gentleman, that I never imagined him +accessory to these retaliations; they always came into my mind as the +acts of injudicious relatives of his, goaded on by the state of his +visage and an indignant sympathy with the family features. + +However, go to Miss Havisham's I must, and go I did. And behold! nothing +came of the late struggle. It was not alluded to in any way, and no pale +young gentleman was to be discovered on the premises. I found the same +gate open, and I explored the garden, and even looked in at the windows +of the detached house; but my view was suddenly stopped by the closed +shutters within, and all was lifeless. Only in the corner where +the combat had taken place could I detect any evidence of the young +gentleman's existence. There were traces of his gore in that spot, and I +covered them with garden-mould from the eye of man. + +On the broad landing between Miss Havisham's own room and that other +room in which the long table was laid out, I saw a garden-chair,--a +light chair on wheels, that you pushed from behind. It had been placed +there since my last visit, and I entered, that same day, on a regular +occupation of pushing Miss Havisham in this chair (when she was tired of +walking with her hand upon my shoulder) round her own room, and across +the landing, and round the other room. Over and over and over again, +we would make these journeys, and sometimes they would last as long as +three hours at a stretch. I insensibly fall into a general mention of +these journeys as numerous, because it was at once settled that I should +return every alternate day at noon for these purposes, and because I am +now going to sum up a period of at least eight or ten months. + +As we began to be more used to one another, Miss Havisham talked more +to me, and asked me such questions as what had I learnt and what was +I going to be? I told her I was going to be apprenticed to Joe, I +believed; and I enlarged upon my knowing nothing and wanting to know +everything, in the hope that she might offer some help towards that +desirable end. But she did not; on the contrary, she seemed to prefer my +being ignorant. Neither did she ever give me any money,--or anything +but my daily dinner,--nor ever stipulate that I should be paid for my +services. + +Estella was always about, and always let me in and out, but never told +me I might kiss her again. Sometimes, she would coldly tolerate me; +sometimes, she would condescend to me; sometimes, she would be quite +familiar with me; sometimes, she would tell me energetically that she +hated me. Miss Havisham would often ask me in a whisper, or when we were +alone, "Does she grow prettier and prettier, Pip?" And when I said yes +(for indeed she did), would seem to enjoy it greedily. Also, when we +played at cards Miss Havisham would look on, with a miserly relish of +Estella's moods, whatever they were. And sometimes, when her moods were +so many and so contradictory of one another that I was puzzled what +to say or do, Miss Havisham would embrace her with lavish fondness, +murmuring something in her ear that sounded like "Break their hearts my +pride and hope, break their hearts and have no mercy!" + +There was a song Joe used to hum fragments of at the forge, of which the +burden was Old Clem. This was not a very ceremonious way of rendering +homage to a patron saint, but I believe Old Clem stood in that relation +towards smiths. It was a song that imitated the measure of beating upon +iron, and was a mere lyrical excuse for the introduction of Old Clem's +respected name. Thus, you were to hammer boys round--Old Clem! With a +thump and a sound--Old Clem! Beat it out, beat it out--Old Clem! With a +clink for the stout--Old Clem! Blow the fire, blow the fire--Old +Clem! Roaring dryer, soaring higher--Old Clem! One day soon after the +appearance of the chair, Miss Havisham suddenly saying to me, with the +impatient movement of her fingers, "There, there, there! Sing!" I was +surprised into crooning this ditty as I pushed her over the floor. It +happened so to catch her fancy that she took it up in a low brooding +voice as if she were singing in her sleep. After that, it became +customary with us to have it as we moved about, and Estella would often +join in; though the whole strain was so subdued, even when there were +three of us, that it made less noise in the grim old house than the +lightest breath of wind. + +What could I become with these surroundings? How could my character fail +to be influenced by them? Is it to be wondered at if my thoughts were +dazed, as my eyes were, when I came out into the natural light from the +misty yellow rooms? + +Perhaps I might have told Joe about the pale young gentleman, if I had +not previously been betrayed into those enormous inventions to which +I had confessed. Under the circumstances, I felt that Joe could hardly +fail to discern in the pale young gentleman, an appropriate passenger +to be put into the black velvet coach; therefore, I said nothing of him. +Besides, that shrinking from having Miss Havisham and Estella discussed, +which had come upon me in the beginning, grew much more potent as time +went on. I reposed complete confidence in no one but Biddy; but I told +poor Biddy everything. Why it came natural to me to do so, and why Biddy +had a deep concern in everything I told her, I did not know then, though +I think I know now. + +Meanwhile, councils went on in the kitchen at home, fraught with +almost insupportable aggravation to my exasperated spirit. That ass, +Pumblechook, used often to come over of a night for the purpose of +discussing my prospects with my sister; and I really do believe (to +this hour with less penitence than I ought to feel), that if these hands +could have taken a linchpin out of his chaise-cart, they would have done +it. The miserable man was a man of that confined stolidity of mind, that +he could not discuss my prospects without having me before him,--as it +were, to operate upon,--and he would drag me up from my stool (usually +by the collar) where I was quiet in a corner, and, putting me before the +fire as if I were going to be cooked, would begin by saying, "Now, Mum, +here is this boy! Here is this boy which you brought up by hand. Hold up +your head, boy, and be forever grateful unto them which so did do. Now, +Mum, with respections to this boy!" And then he would rumple my hair +the wrong way,--which from my earliest remembrance, as already hinted, +I have in my soul denied the right of any fellow-creature to do,--and +would hold me before him by the sleeve,--a spectacle of imbecility only +to be equalled by himself. + +Then, he and my sister would pair off in such nonsensical speculations +about Miss Havisham, and about what she would do with me and for me, +that I used to want--quite painfully--to burst into spiteful tears, fly +at Pumblechook, and pummel him all over. In these dialogues, my sister +spoke to me as if she were morally wrenching one of my teeth out at +every reference; while Pumblechook himself, self-constituted my patron, +would sit supervising me with a depreciatory eye, like the architect of +my fortunes who thought himself engaged on a very unremunerative job. + +In these discussions, Joe bore no part. But he was often talked at, +while they were in progress, by reason of Mrs. Joe's perceiving that +he was not favorable to my being taken from the forge. I was fully old +enough now to be apprenticed to Joe; and when Joe sat with the poker on +his knees thoughtfully raking out the ashes between the lower bars, my +sister would so distinctly construe that innocent action into opposition +on his part, that she would dive at him, take the poker out of his +hands, shake him, and put it away. There was a most irritating end to +every one of these debates. All in a moment, with nothing to lead up to +it, my sister would stop herself in a yawn, and catching sight of me as +it were incidentally, would swoop upon me with, "Come! there's enough of +you! You get along to bed; you've given trouble enough for one night, I +hope!" As if I had besought them as a favor to bother my life out. + +We went on in this way for a long time, and it seemed likely that we +should continue to go on in this way for a long time, when one day Miss +Havisham stopped short as she and I were walking, she leaning on my +shoulder; and said with some displeasure,-- + +"You are growing tall, Pip!" + +I thought it best to hint, through the medium of a meditative look, that +this might be occasioned by circumstances over which I had no control. + +She said no more at the time; but she presently stopped and looked at me +again; and presently again; and after that, looked frowning and moody. +On the next day of my attendance, when our usual exercise was over, and +I had landed her at her dressing-table, she stayed me with a movement of +her impatient fingers:-- + +"Tell me the name again of that blacksmith of yours." + +"Joe Gargery, ma'am." + +"Meaning the master you were to be apprenticed to?" + +"Yes, Miss Havisham." + +"You had better be apprenticed at once. Would Gargery come here with +you, and bring your indentures, do you think?" + +I signified that I had no doubt he would take it as an honor to be +asked. + +"Then let him come." + +"At any particular time, Miss Havisham?" + +"There, there! I know nothing about times. Let him come soon, and come +along with you." + +When I got home at night, and delivered this message for Joe, my sister +"went on the Rampage," in a more alarming degree than at any previous +period. She asked me and Joe whether we supposed she was door-mats under +our feet, and how we dared to use her so, and what company we graciously +thought she was fit for? When she had exhausted a torrent of such +inquiries, she threw a candlestick at Joe, burst into a loud sobbing, +got out the dustpan,--which was always a very bad sign,--put on her +coarse apron, and began cleaning up to a terrible extent. Not satisfied +with a dry cleaning, she took to a pail and scrubbing-brush, and cleaned +us out of house and home, so that we stood shivering in the back-yard. +It was ten o'clock at night before we ventured to creep in again, and +then she asked Joe why he hadn't married a Negress Slave at once? +Joe offered no answer, poor fellow, but stood feeling his whisker and +looking dejectedly at me, as if he thought it really might have been a +better speculation. + + + + +Chapter XIII + +It was a trial to my feelings, on the next day but one, to see +Joe arraying himself in his Sunday clothes to accompany me to Miss +Havisham's. However, as he thought his court-suit necessary to the +occasion, it was not for me to tell him that he looked far better in his +working-dress; the rather, because I knew he made himself so dreadfully +uncomfortable, entirely on my account, and that it was for me he pulled +up his shirt-collar so very high behind, that it made the hair on the +crown of his head stand up like a tuft of feathers. + +At breakfast-time my sister declared her intention of going to town with +us, and being left at Uncle Pumblechook's and called for "when we had +done with our fine ladies"--a way of putting the case, from which Joe +appeared inclined to augur the worst. The forge was shut up for the day, +and Joe inscribed in chalk upon the door (as it was his custom to do on +the very rare occasions when he was not at work) the monosyllable +HOUT, accompanied by a sketch of an arrow supposed to be flying in the +direction he had taken. + +We walked to town, my sister leading the way in a very large beaver +bonnet, and carrying a basket like the Great Seal of England in plaited +Straw, a pair of pattens, a spare shawl, and an umbrella, though it +was a fine bright day. I am not quite clear whether these articles were +carried penitentially or ostentatiously; but I rather think they were +displayed as articles of property,--much as Cleopatra or any other +sovereign lady on the Rampage might exhibit her wealth in a pageant or +procession. + +When we came to Pumblechook's, my sister bounced in and left us. As it +was almost noon, Joe and I held straight on to Miss Havisham's house. +Estella opened the gate as usual, and, the moment she appeared, Joe took +his hat off and stood weighing it by the brim in both his hands; as if +he had some urgent reason in his mind for being particular to half a +quarter of an ounce. + +Estella took no notice of either of us, but led us the way that I knew +so well. I followed next to her, and Joe came last. When I looked back +at Joe in the long passage, he was still weighing his hat with the +greatest care, and was coming after us in long strides on the tips of +his toes. + +Estella told me we were both to go in, so I took Joe by the coat-cuff +and conducted him into Miss Havisham's presence. She was seated at her +dressing-table, and looked round at us immediately. + +"Oh!" said she to Joe. "You are the husband of the sister of this boy?" + +I could hardly have imagined dear old Joe looking so unlike himself or +so like some extraordinary bird; standing as he did speechless, with his +tuft of feathers ruffled, and his mouth open as if he wanted a worm. + +"You are the husband," repeated Miss Havisham, "of the sister of this +boy?" + +It was very aggravating; but, throughout the interview, Joe persisted in +addressing Me instead of Miss Havisham. + +"Which I meantersay, Pip," Joe now observed in a manner that was at +once expressive of forcible argumentation, strict confidence, and great +politeness, "as I hup and married your sister, and I were at the time +what you might call (if you was anyways inclined) a single man." + +"Well!" said Miss Havisham. "And you have reared the boy, with the +intention of taking him for your apprentice; is that so, Mr. Gargery?" + +"You know, Pip," replied Joe, "as you and me were ever friends, and it +were looked for'ard to betwixt us, as being calc'lated to lead to +larks. Not but what, Pip, if you had ever made objections to the +business,--such as its being open to black and sut, or such-like,--not +but what they would have been attended to, don't you see?" + +"Has the boy," said Miss Havisham, "ever made any objection? Does he +like the trade?" + +"Which it is well beknown to yourself, Pip," returned Joe, strengthening +his former mixture of argumentation, confidence, and politeness, "that +it were the wish of your own hart." (I saw the idea suddenly break upon +him that he would adapt his epitaph to the occasion, before he went on +to say) "And there weren't no objection on your part, and Pip it were +the great wish of your hart!" + +It was quite in vain for me to endeavor to make him sensible that he +ought to speak to Miss Havisham. The more I made faces and gestures +to him to do it, the more confidential, argumentative, and polite, he +persisted in being to Me. + +"Have you brought his indentures with you?" asked Miss Havisham. + +"Well, Pip, you know," replied Joe, as if that were a little +unreasonable, "you yourself see me put 'em in my 'at, and therefore you +know as they are here." With which he took them out, and gave them, not +to Miss Havisham, but to me. I am afraid I was ashamed of the dear good +fellow,--I know I was ashamed of him,--when I saw that Estella stood +at the back of Miss Havisham's chair, and that her eyes laughed +mischievously. I took the indentures out of his hand and gave them to +Miss Havisham. + +"You expected," said Miss Havisham, as she looked them over, "no premium +with the boy?" + +"Joe!" I remonstrated, for he made no reply at all. "Why don't you +answer--" + +"Pip," returned Joe, cutting me short as if he were hurt, "which I +meantersay that were not a question requiring a answer betwixt yourself +and me, and which you know the answer to be full well No. You know it to +be No, Pip, and wherefore should I say it?" + +Miss Havisham glanced at him as if she understood what he really was +better than I had thought possible, seeing what he was there; and took +up a little bag from the table beside her. + +"Pip has earned a premium here," she said, "and here it is. There are +five-and-twenty guineas in this bag. Give it to your master, Pip." + +As if he were absolutely out of his mind with the wonder awakened in +him by her strange figure and the strange room, Joe, even at this pass, +persisted in addressing me. + +"This is wery liberal on your part, Pip," said Joe, "and it is as such +received and grateful welcome, though never looked for, far nor near, +nor nowheres. And now, old chap," said Joe, conveying to me a sensation, +first of burning and then of freezing, for I felt as if that familiar +expression were applied to Miss Havisham,--"and now, old chap, may we +do our duty! May you and me do our duty, both on us, by one and another, +and by them which your liberal present--have-conweyed--to be--for the +satisfaction of mind-of--them as never--" here Joe showed that he felt +he had fallen into frightful difficulties, until he triumphantly rescued +himself with the words, "and from myself far be it!" These words had +such a round and convincing sound for him that he said them twice. + +"Good-bye, Pip!" said Miss Havisham. "Let them out, Estella." + +"Am I to come again, Miss Havisham?" I asked. + +"No. Gargery is your master now. Gargery! One word!" + +Thus calling him back as I went out of the door, I heard her say to Joe +in a distinct emphatic voice, "The boy has been a good boy here, and +that is his reward. Of course, as an honest man, you will expect no +other and no more." + +How Joe got out of the room, I have never been able to determine; but +I know that when he did get out he was steadily proceeding upstairs +instead of coming down, and was deaf to all remonstrances until I went +after him and laid hold of him. In another minute we were outside the +gate, and it was locked, and Estella was gone. When we stood in the +daylight alone again, Joe backed up against a wall, and said to me, +"Astonishing!" And there he remained so long saying, "Astonishing" at +intervals, so often, that I began to think his senses were never coming +back. At length he prolonged his remark into "Pip, I do assure you this +is as-TON-ishing!" and so, by degrees, became conversational and able to +walk away. + +I have reason to think that Joe's intellects were brightened by the +encounter they had passed through, and that on our way to Pumblechook's +he invented a subtle and deep design. My reason is to be found in +what took place in Mr. Pumblechook's parlor: where, on our presenting +ourselves, my sister sat in conference with that detested seedsman. + +"Well?" cried my sister, addressing us both at once. "And what's +happened to you? I wonder you condescend to come back to such poor +society as this, I am sure I do!" + +"Miss Havisham," said Joe, with a fixed look at me, like an effort of +remembrance, "made it wery partick'ler that we should give her--were it +compliments or respects, Pip?" + +"Compliments," I said. + +"Which that were my own belief," answered Joe; "her compliments to Mrs. +J. Gargery--" + +"Much good they'll do me!" observed my sister; but rather gratified too. + +"And wishing," pursued Joe, with another fixed look at me, like another +effort of remembrance, "that the state of Miss Havisham's elth were +sitch as would have--allowed, were it, Pip?" + +"Of her having the pleasure," I added. + +"Of ladies' company," said Joe. And drew a long breath. + +"Well!" cried my sister, with a mollified glance at Mr. Pumblechook. +"She might have had the politeness to send that message at first, but +it's better late than never. And what did she give young Rantipole +here?" + +"She giv' him," said Joe, "nothing." + +Mrs. Joe was going to break out, but Joe went on. + +"What she giv'," said Joe, "she giv' to his friends. 'And by his +friends,' were her explanation, 'I mean into the hands of his sister +Mrs. J. Gargery.' Them were her words; 'Mrs. J. Gargery.' She mayn't +have know'd," added Joe, with an appearance of reflection, "whether it +were Joe, or Jorge." + +My sister looked at Pumblechook: who smoothed the elbows of his wooden +arm-chair, and nodded at her and at the fire, as if he had known all +about it beforehand. + +"And how much have you got?" asked my sister, laughing. Positively +laughing! + +"What would present company say to ten pound?" demanded Joe. + +"They'd say," returned my sister, curtly, "pretty well. Not too much, +but pretty well." + +"It's more than that, then," said Joe. + +That fearful Impostor, Pumblechook, immediately nodded, and said, as he +rubbed the arms of his chair, "It's more than that, Mum." + +"Why, you don't mean to say--" began my sister. + +"Yes I do, Mum," said Pumblechook; "but wait a bit. Go on, Joseph. Good +in you! Go on!" + +"What would present company say," proceeded Joe, "to twenty pound?" + +"Handsome would be the word," returned my sister. + +"Well, then," said Joe, "It's more than twenty pound." + +That abject hypocrite, Pumblechook, nodded again, and said, with a +patronizing laugh, "It's more than that, Mum. Good again! Follow her up, +Joseph!" + +"Then to make an end of it," said Joe, delightedly handing the bag to my +sister; "it's five-and-twenty pound." + +"It's five-and-twenty pound, Mum," echoed that basest of swindlers, +Pumblechook, rising to shake hands with her; "and it's no more than your +merits (as I said when my opinion was asked), and I wish you joy of the +money!" + +If the villain had stopped here, his case would have been sufficiently +awful, but he blackened his guilt by proceeding to take me into custody, +with a right of patronage that left all his former criminality far +behind. + +"Now you see, Joseph and wife," said Pumblechook, as he took me by the +arm above the elbow, "I am one of them that always go right through with +what they've begun. This boy must be bound, out of hand. That's my way. +Bound out of hand." + +"Goodness knows, Uncle Pumblechook," said my sister (grasping the +money), "we're deeply beholden to you." + +"Never mind me, Mum," returned that diabolical cornchandler. "A +pleasure's a pleasure all the world over. But this boy, you know; we +must have him bound. I said I'd see to it--to tell you the truth." + +The Justices were sitting in the Town Hall near at hand, and we at +once went over to have me bound apprentice to Joe in the Magisterial +presence. I say we went over, but I was pushed over by Pumblechook, +exactly as if I had that moment picked a pocket or fired a rick; indeed, +it was the general impression in Court that I had been taken red-handed; +for, as Pumblechook shoved me before him through the crowd, I heard some +people say, "What's he done?" and others, "He's a young 'un, too, but +looks bad, don't he?" One person of mild and benevolent aspect even gave +me a tract ornamented with a woodcut of a malevolent young man fitted +up with a perfect sausage-shop of fetters, and entitled TO BE READ IN MY +CELL. + +The Hall was a queer place, I thought, with higher pews in it than a +church,--and with people hanging over the pews looking on,--and with +mighty Justices (one with a powdered head) leaning back in chairs, with +folded arms, or taking snuff, or going to sleep, or writing, or reading +the newspapers,--and with some shining black portraits on the walls, +which my unartistic eye regarded as a composition of hardbake and +sticking-plaster. Here, in a corner my indentures were duly signed and +attested, and I was "bound"; Mr. Pumblechook holding me all the while +as if we had looked in on our way to the scaffold, to have those little +preliminaries disposed of. + +When we had come out again, and had got rid of the boys who had been put +into great spirits by the expectation of seeing me publicly tortured, +and who were much disappointed to find that my friends were merely +rallying round me, we went back to Pumblechook's. And there my sister +became so excited by the twenty-five guineas, that nothing would serve +her but we must have a dinner out of that windfall at the Blue Boar, and +that Pumblechook must go over in his chaise-cart, and bring the Hubbles +and Mr. Wopsle. + +It was agreed to be done; and a most melancholy day I passed. For, +it inscrutably appeared to stand to reason, in the minds of the whole +company, that I was an excrescence on the entertainment. And to make it +worse, they all asked me from time to time,--in short, whenever they +had nothing else to do,--why I didn't enjoy myself? And what could I +possibly do then, but say I was enjoying myself,--when I wasn't! + +However, they were grown up and had their own way, and they made the +most of it. That swindling Pumblechook, exalted into the beneficent +contriver of the whole occasion, actually took the top of the table; +and, when he addressed them on the subject of my being bound, and had +fiendishly congratulated them on my being liable to imprisonment if I +played at cards, drank strong liquors, kept late hours or bad company, +or indulged in other vagaries which the form of my indentures appeared +to contemplate as next to inevitable, he placed me standing on a chair +beside him to illustrate his remarks. + +My only other remembrances of the great festival are, That they wouldn't +let me go to sleep, but whenever they saw me dropping off, woke me up +and told me to enjoy myself. That, rather late in the evening Mr. Wopsle +gave us Collins's ode, and threw his bloodstained sword in thunder +down, with such effect, that a waiter came in and said, "The Commercials +underneath sent up their compliments, and it wasn't the Tumblers' Arms." +That, they were all in excellent spirits on the road home, and sang, O +Lady Fair! Mr. Wopsle taking the bass, and asserting with a tremendously +strong voice (in reply to the inquisitive bore who leads that piece +of music in a most impertinent manner, by wanting to know all about +everybody's private affairs) that he was the man with his white locks +flowing, and that he was upon the whole the weakest pilgrim going. + +Finally, I remember that when I got into my little bedroom, I was truly +wretched, and had a strong conviction on me that I should never like +Joe's trade. I had liked it once, but once was not now. + + + + +Chapter XIV + +It is a most miserable thing to feel ashamed of home. There may be black +ingratitude in the thing, and the punishment may be retributive and well +deserved; but that it is a miserable thing, I can testify. + +Home had never been a very pleasant place to me, because of my sister's +temper. But, Joe had sanctified it, and I had believed in it. I had +believed in the best parlor as a most elegant saloon; I had believed +in the front door, as a mysterious portal of the Temple of State whose +solemn opening was attended with a sacrifice of roast fowls; I had +believed in the kitchen as a chaste though not magnificent apartment; +I had believed in the forge as the glowing road to manhood and +independence. Within a single year all this was changed. Now it was all +coarse and common, and I would not have had Miss Havisham and Estella +see it on any account. + +How much of my ungracious condition of mind may have been my own fault, +how much Miss Havisham's, how much my sister's, is now of no moment to +me or to any one. The change was made in me; the thing was done. Well or +ill done, excusably or inexcusably, it was done. + +Once, it had seemed to me that when I should at last roll up my +shirt-sleeves and go into the forge, Joe's 'prentice, I should be +distinguished and happy. Now the reality was in my hold, I only felt +that I was dusty with the dust of small-coal, and that I had a weight +upon my daily remembrance to which the anvil was a feather. There have +been occasions in my later life (I suppose as in most lives) when I have +felt for a time as if a thick curtain had fallen on all its interest +and romance, to shut me out from anything save dull endurance any more. +Never has that curtain dropped so heavy and blank, as when my way in +life lay stretched out straight before me through the newly entered road +of apprenticeship to Joe. + +I remember that at a later period of my "time," I used to stand about +the churchyard on Sunday evenings when night was falling, comparing my +own perspective with the windy marsh view, and making out some likeness +between them by thinking how flat and low both were, and how on both +there came an unknown way and a dark mist and then the sea. I was quite +as dejected on the first working-day of my apprenticeship as in that +after-time; but I am glad to know that I never breathed a murmur to Joe +while my indentures lasted. It is about the only thing I am glad to know +of myself in that connection. + +For, though it includes what I proceed to add, all the merit of what I +proceed to add was Joe's. It was not because I was faithful, but because +Joe was faithful, that I never ran away and went for a soldier or +a sailor. It was not because I had a strong sense of the virtue of +industry, but because Joe had a strong sense of the virtue of industry, +that I worked with tolerable zeal against the grain. It is not possible +to know how far the influence of any amiable honest-hearted duty-doing +man flies out into the world; but it is very possible to know how it has +touched one's self in going by, and I know right well that any good that +intermixed itself with my apprenticeship came of plain contented Joe, +and not of restlessly aspiring discontented me. + +What I wanted, who can say? How can I say, when I never knew? What +I dreaded was, that in some unlucky hour I, being at my grimiest and +commonest, should lift up my eyes and see Estella looking in at one +of the wooden windows of the forge. I was haunted by the fear that she +would, sooner or later, find me out, with a black face and hands, doing +the coarsest part of my work, and would exult over me and despise me. +Often after dark, when I was pulling the bellows for Joe, and we were +singing Old Clem, and when the thought how we used to sing it at Miss +Havisham's would seem to show me Estella's face in the fire, with her +pretty hair fluttering in the wind and her eyes scorning me,--often at +such a time I would look towards those panels of black night in the wall +which the wooden windows then were, and would fancy that I saw her just +drawing her face away, and would believe that she had come at last. + +After that, when we went into supper, the place and the meal would have +a more homely look than ever, and I would feel more ashamed of home than +ever, in my own ungracious breast. + + + + +Chapter XV + +As I was getting too big for Mr. Wopsle's great-aunt's room, my +education under that preposterous female terminated. Not, however, until +Biddy had imparted to me everything she knew, from the little catalogue +of prices, to a comic song she had once bought for a half-penny. +Although the only coherent part of the latter piece of literature were +the opening lines. + + When I went to Lunnon town sirs, + Too rul loo rul + Too rul loo rul + Wasn't I done very brown sirs? + Too rul loo rul + Too rul loo rul + +--still, in my desire to be wiser, I got this composition by heart with the utmost gravity; nor do I recollect that I questioned its merit, except that I +thought (as I still do) the amount of Too rul somewhat in excess of the +poetry. In my hunger for information, I made proposals to Mr. Wopsle to +bestow some intellectual crumbs upon me, with which he kindly complied. +As it turned out, however, that he only wanted me for a dramatic +lay-figure, to be contradicted and embraced and wept over and bullied +and clutched and stabbed and knocked about in a variety of ways, I soon +declined that course of instruction; though not until Mr. Wopsle in his +poetic fury had severely mauled me. + +Whatever I acquired, I tried to impart to Joe. This statement sounds so +well, that I cannot in my conscience let it pass unexplained. I wanted +to make Joe less ignorant and common, that he might be worthier of my +society and less open to Estella's reproach. + +The old Battery out on the marshes was our place of study, and a broken +slate and a short piece of slate-pencil were our educational implements: +to which Joe always added a pipe of tobacco. I never knew Joe to +remember anything from one Sunday to another, or to acquire, under my +tuition, any piece of information whatever. Yet he would smoke his pipe +at the Battery with a far more sagacious air than anywhere else,--even +with a learned air,--as if he considered himself to be advancing +immensely. Dear fellow, I hope he did. + +It was pleasant and quiet, out there with the sails on the river passing +beyond the earthwork, and sometimes, when the tide was low, looking +as if they belonged to sunken ships that were still sailing on at the +bottom of the water. Whenever I watched the vessels standing out to sea +with their white sails spread, I somehow thought of Miss Havisham and +Estella; and whenever the light struck aslant, afar off, upon a cloud +or sail or green hillside or water-line, it was just the same.--Miss +Havisham and Estella and the strange house and the strange life appeared +to have something to do with everything that was picturesque. + +One Sunday when Joe, greatly enjoying his pipe, had so plumed himself on +being "most awful dull," that I had given him up for the day, I lay on +the earthwork for some time with my chin on my hand, descrying traces of +Miss Havisham and Estella all over the prospect, in the sky and in the +water, until at last I resolved to mention a thought concerning them +that had been much in my head. + +"Joe," said I; "don't you think I ought to make Miss Havisham a visit?" + +"Well, Pip," returned Joe, slowly considering. "What for?" + +"What for, Joe? What is any visit made for?" + +"There is some wisits p'r'aps," said Joe, "as for ever remains open to +the question, Pip. But in regard to wisiting Miss Havisham. She might +think you wanted something,--expected something of her." + +"Don't you think I might say that I did not, Joe?" + +"You might, old chap," said Joe. "And she might credit it. Similarly she +mightn't." + +Joe felt, as I did, that he had made a point there, and he pulled hard +at his pipe to keep himself from weakening it by repetition. + +"You see, Pip," Joe pursued, as soon as he was past that danger, "Miss +Havisham done the handsome thing by you. When Miss Havisham done the +handsome thing by you, she called me back to say to me as that were +all." + +"Yes, Joe. I heard her." + +"ALL," Joe repeated, very emphatically. + +"Yes, Joe. I tell you, I heard her." + +"Which I meantersay, Pip, it might be that her meaning were,--Make a +end on it!--As you was!--Me to the North, and you to the South!--Keep in +sunders!" + +I had thought of that too, and it was very far from comforting to me +to find that he had thought of it; for it seemed to render it more +probable. + +"But, Joe." + +"Yes, old chap." + +"Here am I, getting on in the first year of my time, and, since the day +of my being bound, I have never thanked Miss Havisham, or asked after +her, or shown that I remember her." + +"That's true, Pip; and unless you was to turn her out a set of shoes +all four round,--and which I meantersay as even a set of shoes all +four round might not be acceptable as a present, in a total wacancy of +hoofs--" + +"I don't mean that sort of remembrance, Joe; I don't mean a present." + +But Joe had got the idea of a present in his head and must harp upon it. +"Or even," said he, "if you was helped to knocking her up a new chain +for the front door,--or say a gross or two of shark-headed screws for +general use,--or some light fancy article, such as a toasting-fork +when she took her muffins,--or a gridiron when she took a sprat or such +like--" + +"I don't mean any present at all, Joe," I interposed. + +"Well," said Joe, still harping on it as though I had particularly +pressed it, "if I was yourself, Pip, I wouldn't. No, I would not. For +what's a door-chain when she's got one always up? And shark-headers is +open to misrepresentations. And if it was a toasting-fork, you'd go into +brass and do yourself no credit. And the oncommonest workman can't show +himself oncommon in a gridiron,--for a gridiron IS a gridiron," said +Joe, steadfastly impressing it upon me, as if he were endeavouring to +rouse me from a fixed delusion, "and you may haim at what you like, but +a gridiron it will come out, either by your leave or again your leave, +and you can't help yourself--" + +"My dear Joe," I cried, in desperation, taking hold of his coat, "don't +go on in that way. I never thought of making Miss Havisham any present." + +"No, Pip," Joe assented, as if he had been contending for that, all +along; "and what I say to you is, you are right, Pip." + +"Yes, Joe; but what I wanted to say, was, that as we are rather slack +just now, if you would give me a half-holiday to-morrow, I think I would +go uptown and make a call on Miss Est--Havisham." + +"Which her name," said Joe, gravely, "ain't Estavisham, Pip, unless she +have been rechris'ened." + +"I know, Joe, I know. It was a slip of mine. What do you think of it, +Joe?" + +In brief, Joe thought that if I thought well of it, he thought well of +it. But, he was particular in stipulating that if I were not received +with cordiality, or if I were not encouraged to repeat my visit as a +visit which had no ulterior object but was simply one of gratitude for a +favor received, then this experimental trip should have no successor. By +these conditions I promised to abide. + +Now, Joe kept a journeyman at weekly wages whose name was Orlick. +He pretended that his Christian name was Dolge,--a clear +Impossibility,--but he was a fellow of that obstinate disposition that I +believe him to have been the prey of no delusion in this particular, but +wilfully to have imposed that name upon the village as an affront to its +understanding. He was a broadshouldered loose-limbed swarthy fellow of +great strength, never in a hurry, and always slouching. He never even +seemed to come to his work on purpose, but would slouch in as if by mere +accident; and when he went to the Jolly Bargemen to eat his dinner, or +went away at night, he would slouch out, like Cain or the Wandering Jew, +as if he had no idea where he was going and no intention of ever +coming back. He lodged at a sluice-keeper's out on the marshes, and on +working-days would come slouching from his hermitage, with his hands in +his pockets and his dinner loosely tied in a bundle round his neck +and dangling on his back. On Sundays he mostly lay all day on the +sluice-gates, or stood against ricks and barns. He always slouched, +locomotively, with his eyes on the ground; and, when accosted or +otherwise required to raise them, he looked up in a half-resentful, +half-puzzled way, as though the only thought he ever had was, that it +was rather an odd and injurious fact that he should never be thinking. + +This morose journeyman had no liking for me. When I was very small and +timid, he gave me to understand that the Devil lived in a black corner +of the forge, and that he knew the fiend very well: also that it was +necessary to make up the fire, once in seven years, with a live boy, and +that I might consider myself fuel. When I became Joe's 'prentice, Orlick +was perhaps confirmed in some suspicion that I should displace him; +howbeit, he liked me still less. Not that he ever said anything, or did +anything, openly importing hostility; I only noticed that he always beat +his sparks in my direction, and that whenever I sang Old Clem, he came +in out of time. + +Dolge Orlick was at work and present, next day, when I reminded Joe of +my half-holiday. He said nothing at the moment, for he and Joe had just +got a piece of hot iron between them, and I was at the bellows; but by +and by he said, leaning on his hammer,-- + +"Now, master! Sure you're not a going to favor only one of us. If Young +Pip has a half-holiday, do as much for Old Orlick." I suppose he was +about five-and-twenty, but he usually spoke of himself as an ancient +person. + +"Why, what'll you do with a half-holiday, if you get it?" said Joe. + +"What'll I do with it! What'll he do with it? I'll do as much with it as +him," said Orlick. + +"As to Pip, he's going up town," said Joe. + +"Well then, as to Old Orlick, he's a going up town," retorted that +worthy. "Two can go up town. Tain't only one wot can go up town. + +"Don't lose your temper," said Joe. + +"Shall if I like," growled Orlick. "Some and their uptowning! Now, +master! Come. No favoring in this shop. Be a man!" + +The master refusing to entertain the subject until the journeyman was in +a better temper, Orlick plunged at the furnace, drew out a red-hot +bar, made at me with it as if he were going to run it through my body, +whisked it round my head, laid it on the anvil, hammered it out,--as +if it were I, I thought, and the sparks were my spirting blood,--and +finally said, when he had hammered himself hot and the iron cold, and he +again leaned on his hammer,-- + +"Now, master!" + +"Are you all right now?" demanded Joe. + +"Ah! I am all right," said gruff Old Orlick. + +"Then, as in general you stick to your work as well as most men," said +Joe, "let it be a half-holiday for all." + +My sister had been standing silent in the yard, within hearing,--she was +a most unscrupulous spy and listener,--and she instantly looked in at +one of the windows. + +"Like you, you fool!" said she to Joe, "giving holidays to great idle +hulkers like that. You are a rich man, upon my life, to waste wages in +that way. I wish I was his master!" + +"You'd be everybody's master, if you durst," retorted Orlick, with an +ill-favored grin. + +("Let her alone," said Joe.) + +"I'd be a match for all noodles and all rogues," returned my sister, +beginning to work herself into a mighty rage. "And I couldn't be a +match for the noodles, without being a match for your master, who's the +dunder-headed king of the noodles. And I couldn't be a match for the +rogues, without being a match for you, who are the blackest-looking and +the worst rogue between this and France. Now!" + +"You're a foul shrew, Mother Gargery," growled the journeyman. "If that +makes a judge of rogues, you ought to be a good'un." + +("Let her alone, will you?" said Joe.) + +"What did you say?" cried my sister, beginning to scream. "What did you +say? What did that fellow Orlick say to me, Pip? What did he call me, +with my husband standing by? Oh! oh! oh!" Each of these exclamations was +a shriek; and I must remark of my sister, what is equally true of all +the violent women I have ever seen, that passion was no excuse for +her, because it is undeniable that instead of lapsing into passion, she +consciously and deliberately took extraordinary pains to force herself +into it, and became blindly furious by regular stages; "what was the +name he gave me before the base man who swore to defend me? Oh! Hold me! +Oh!" + +"Ah-h-h!" growled the journeyman, between his teeth, "I'd hold you, if +you was my wife. I'd hold you under the pump, and choke it out of you." + +("I tell you, let her alone," said Joe.) + +"Oh! To hear him!" cried my sister, with a clap of her hands and a +scream together,--which was her next stage. "To hear the names he's +giving me! That Orlick! In my own house! Me, a married woman! With my +husband standing by! Oh! Oh!" Here my sister, after a fit of clappings +and screamings, beat her hands upon her bosom and upon her knees, and +threw her cap off, and pulled her hair down,--which were the last stages +on her road to frenzy. Being by this time a perfect Fury and a complete +success, she made a dash at the door which I had fortunately locked. + +What could the wretched Joe do now, after his disregarded parenthetical +interruptions, but stand up to his journeyman, and ask him what he meant +by interfering betwixt himself and Mrs. Joe; and further whether he was +man enough to come on? Old Orlick felt that the situation admitted of +nothing less than coming on, and was on his defence straightway; so, +without so much as pulling off their singed and burnt aprons, they went +at one another, like two giants. But, if any man in that neighborhood +could stand uplong against Joe, I never saw the man. Orlick, as if he +had been of no more account than the pale young gentleman, was very +soon among the coal-dust, and in no hurry to come out of it. Then Joe +unlocked the door and picked up my sister, who had dropped insensible +at the window (but who had seen the fight first, I think), and who was +carried into the house and laid down, and who was recommended to revive, +and would do nothing but struggle and clench her hands in Joe's hair. +Then, came that singular calm and silence which succeed all uproars; and +then, with the vague sensation which I have always connected with such +a lull,--namely, that it was Sunday, and somebody was dead,--I went upstairs +to dress myself. + +When I came down again, I found Joe and Orlick sweeping up, without any +other traces of discomposure than a slit in one of Orlick's nostrils, +which was neither expressive nor ornamental. A pot of beer had appeared +from the Jolly Bargemen, and they were sharing it by turns in a +peaceable manner. The lull had a sedative and philosophical influence on +Joe, who followed me out into the road to say, as a parting observation +that might do me good, "On the Rampage, Pip, and off the Rampage, +Pip:--such is Life!" + +With what absurd emotions (for we think the feelings that are very +serious in a man quite comical in a boy) I found myself again going to +Miss Havisham's, matters little here. Nor, how I passed and repassed +the gate many times before I could make up my mind to ring. Nor, how +I debated whether I should go away without ringing; nor, how I should +undoubtedly have gone, if my time had been my own, to come back. + +Miss Sarah Pocket came to the gate. No Estella. + +"How, then? You here again?" said Miss Pocket. "What do you want?" + +When I said that I only came to see how Miss Havisham was, Sarah +evidently deliberated whether or no she should send me about my +business. But unwilling to hazard the responsibility, she let me in, and +presently brought the sharp message that I was to "come up." + +Everything was unchanged, and Miss Havisham was alone. + +"Well?" said she, fixing her eyes upon me. "I hope you want nothing? +You'll get nothing." + +"No indeed, Miss Havisham. I only wanted you to know that I am doing +very well in my apprenticeship, and am always much obliged to you." + +"There, there!" with the old restless fingers. "Come now and then; come +on your birthday.--Ay!" she cried suddenly, turning herself and her +chair towards me, "You are looking round for Estella? Hey?" + +I had been looking round,--in fact, for Estella,--and I stammered that I +hoped she was well. + +"Abroad," said Miss Havisham; "educating for a lady; far out of reach; +prettier than ever; admired by all who see her. Do you feel that you +have lost her?" + +There was such a malignant enjoyment in her utterance of the last words, +and she broke into such a disagreeable laugh, that I was at a loss what +to say. She spared me the trouble of considering, by dismissing me. When +the gate was closed upon me by Sarah of the walnut-shell countenance, I +felt more than ever dissatisfied with my home and with my trade and with +everything; and that was all I took by that motion. + +As I was loitering along the High Street, looking in disconsolately at +the shop windows, and thinking what I would buy if I were a gentleman, +who should come out of the bookshop but Mr. Wopsle. Mr. Wopsle had in +his hand the affecting tragedy of George Barnwell, in which he had that +moment invested sixpence, with the view of heaping every word of it on +the head of Pumblechook, with whom he was going to drink tea. No sooner +did he see me, than he appeared to consider that a special Providence +had put a 'prentice in his way to be read at; and he laid hold of me, +and insisted on my accompanying him to the Pumblechookian parlor. As I +knew it would be miserable at home, and as the nights were dark and the +way was dreary, and almost any companionship on the road was better +than none, I made no great resistance; consequently, we turned into +Pumblechook's just as the street and the shops were lighting up. + +As I never assisted at any other representation of George Barnwell, I +don't know how long it may usually take; but I know very well that it +took until half-past nine o' clock that night, and that when Mr. Wopsle +got into Newgate, I thought he never would go to the scaffold, he became +so much slower than at any former period of his disgraceful career. I +thought it a little too much that he should complain of being cut short +in his flower after all, as if he had not been running to seed, leaf +after leaf, ever since his course began. This, however, was a +mere question of length and wearisomeness. What stung me, was the +identification of the whole affair with my unoffending self. When +Barnwell began to go wrong, I declare that I felt positively apologetic, +Pumblechook's indignant stare so taxed me with it. Wopsle, too, took +pains to present me in the worst light. At once ferocious and maudlin, I +was made to murder my uncle with no extenuating circumstances whatever; +Millwood put me down in argument, on every occasion; it became sheer +monomania in my master's daughter to care a button for me; and all I can +say for my gasping and procrastinating conduct on the fatal morning, is, +that it was worthy of the general feebleness of my character. Even after +I was happily hanged and Wopsle had closed the book, Pumblechook sat +staring at me, and shaking his head, and saying, "Take warning, boy, +take warning!" as if it were a well-known fact that I contemplated +murdering a near relation, provided I could only induce one to have the +weakness to become my benefactor. + +It was a very dark night when it was all over, and when I set out with +Mr. Wopsle on the walk home. Beyond town, we found a heavy mist out, and +it fell wet and thick. The turnpike lamp was a blur, quite out of the +lamp's usual place apparently, and its rays looked solid substance on +the fog. We were noticing this, and saying how that the mist rose with a +change of wind from a certain quarter of our marshes, when we came upon +a man, slouching under the lee of the turnpike house. + +"Halloa!" we said, stopping. "Orlick there?" + +"Ah!" he answered, slouching out. "I was standing by a minute, on the +chance of company." + +"You are late," I remarked. + +Orlick not unnaturally answered, "Well? And you're late." + +"We have been," said Mr. Wopsle, exalted with his late performance,--"we +have been indulging, Mr. Orlick, in an intellectual evening." + +Old Orlick growled, as if he had nothing to say about that, and we all +went on together. I asked him presently whether he had been spending his +half-holiday up and down town? + +"Yes," said he, "all of it. I come in behind yourself. I didn't see you, +but I must have been pretty close behind you. By the by, the guns is +going again." + +"At the Hulks?" said I. + +"Ay! There's some of the birds flown from the cages. The guns have been +going since dark, about. You'll hear one presently." + +In effect, we had not walked many yards further, when the +well-remembered boom came towards us, deadened by the mist, and heavily +rolled away along the low grounds by the river, as if it were pursuing +and threatening the fugitives. + +"A good night for cutting off in," said Orlick. "We'd be puzzled how to +bring down a jail-bird on the wing, to-night." + +The subject was a suggestive one to me, and I thought about it in +silence. Mr. Wopsle, as the ill-requited uncle of the evening's tragedy, +fell to meditating aloud in his garden at Camberwell. Orlick, with his +hands in his pockets, slouched heavily at my side. It was very dark, +very wet, very muddy, and so we splashed along. Now and then, the sound +of the signal cannon broke upon us again, and again rolled sulkily along +the course of the river. I kept myself to myself and my thoughts. Mr. +Wopsle died amiably at Camberwell, and exceedingly game on Bosworth +Field, and in the greatest agonies at Glastonbury. Orlick sometimes +growled, "Beat it out, beat it out,--Old Clem! With a clink for the +stout,--Old Clem!" I thought he had been drinking, but he was not drunk. + +Thus, we came to the village. The way by which we approached it took us +past the Three Jolly Bargemen, which we were surprised to find--it being +eleven o'clock--in a state of commotion, with the door wide open, and +unwonted lights that had been hastily caught up and put down scattered +about. Mr. Wopsle dropped into ask what was the matter (surmising that +a convict had been taken), but came running out in a great hurry. + +"There's something wrong," said he, without stopping, "up at your place, +Pip. Run all!" + +"What is it?" I asked, keeping up with him. So did Orlick, at my side. + +"I can't quite understand. The house seems to have been violently +entered when Joe Gargery was out. Supposed by convicts. Somebody has +been attacked and hurt." + +We were running too fast to admit of more being said, and we made no +stop until we got into our kitchen. It was full of people; the whole +village was there, or in the yard; and there was a surgeon, and there +was Joe, and there were a group of women, all on the floor in the midst +of the kitchen. The unemployed bystanders drew back when they saw me, +and so I became aware of my sister,--lying without sense or movement on +the bare boards where she had been knocked down by a tremendous blow +on the back of the head, dealt by some unknown hand when her face was +turned towards the fire,--destined never to be on the Rampage again, +while she was the wife of Joe. + + + + +Chapter XVI + +With my head full of George Barnwell, I was at first disposed to believe +that I must have had some hand in the attack upon my sister, or at +all events that as her near relation, popularly known to be under +obligations to her, I was a more legitimate object of suspicion than +any one else. But when, in the clearer light of next morning, I began to +reconsider the matter and to hear it discussed around me on all sides, I +took another view of the case, which was more reasonable. + +Joe had been at the Three Jolly Bargemen, smoking his pipe, from a +quarter after eight o'clock to a quarter before ten. While he was there, +my sister had been seen standing at the kitchen door, and had exchanged +Good Night with a farm-laborer going home. The man could not be more +particular as to the time at which he saw her (he got into dense +confusion when he tried to be), than that it must have been before nine. +When Joe went home at five minutes before ten, he found her struck down +on the floor, and promptly called in assistance. The fire had not then +burnt unusually low, nor was the snuff of the candle very long; the +candle, however, had been blown out. + +Nothing had been taken away from any part of the house. Neither, beyond +the blowing out of the candle,--which stood on a table between the door +and my sister, and was behind her when she stood facing the fire and was +struck,--was there any disarrangement of the kitchen, excepting such +as she herself had made, in falling and bleeding. But, there was one +remarkable piece of evidence on the spot. She had been struck with +something blunt and heavy, on the head and spine; after the blows were +dealt, something heavy had been thrown down at her with considerable +violence, as she lay on her face. And on the ground beside her, when Joe +picked her up, was a convict's leg-iron which had been filed asunder. + +Now, Joe, examining this iron with a smith's eye, declared it to have +been filed asunder some time ago. The hue and cry going off to the +Hulks, and people coming thence to examine the iron, Joe's opinion +was corroborated. They did not undertake to say when it had left the +prison-ships to which it undoubtedly had once belonged; but they claimed +to know for certain that that particular manacle had not been worn by +either of the two convicts who had escaped last night. Further, one of +those two was already retaken, and had not freed himself of his iron. + +Knowing what I knew, I set up an inference of my own here. I believed +the iron to be my convict's iron,--the iron I had seen and heard him +filing at, on the marshes,--but my mind did not accuse him of having put +it to its latest use. For I believed one of two other persons to have +become possessed of it, and to have turned it to this cruel account. +Either Orlick, or the strange man who had shown me the file. + +Now, as to Orlick; he had gone to town exactly as he told us when we +picked him up at the turnpike, he had been seen about town all the +evening, he had been in divers companies in several public-houses, and +he had come back with myself and Mr. Wopsle. There was nothing against +him, save the quarrel; and my sister had quarrelled with him, and with +everybody else about her, ten thousand times. As to the strange man; if +he had come back for his two bank-notes there could have been no dispute +about them, because my sister was fully prepared to restore them. +Besides, there had been no altercation; the assailant had come in so +silently and suddenly, that she had been felled before she could look +round. + +It was horrible to think that I had provided the weapon, however +undesignedly, but I could hardly think otherwise. I suffered unspeakable +trouble while I considered and reconsidered whether I should at last +dissolve that spell of my childhood and tell Joe all the story. For +months afterwards, I every day settled the question finally in the +negative, and reopened and reargued it next morning. The contention +came, after all, to this;--the secret was such an old one now, had so +grown into me and become a part of myself, that I could not tear it +away. In addition to the dread that, having led up to so much mischief, +it would be now more likely than ever to alienate Joe from me if he +believed it, I had a further restraining dread that he would not believe +it, but would assort it with the fabulous dogs and veal-cutlets as a +monstrous invention. However, I temporized with myself, of course--for, +was I not wavering between right and wrong, when the thing is always +done?--and resolved to make a full disclosure if I should see any +such new occasion as a new chance of helping in the discovery of the +assailant. + +The Constables and the Bow Street men from London--for, this happened in +the days of the extinct red-waistcoated police--were about the house for +a week or two, and did pretty much what I have heard and read of like +authorities doing in other such cases. They took up several obviously +wrong people, and they ran their heads very hard against wrong ideas, +and persisted in trying to fit the circumstances to the ideas, instead +of trying to extract ideas from the circumstances. Also, they stood +about the door of the Jolly Bargemen, with knowing and reserved looks +that filled the whole neighborhood with admiration; and they had a +mysterious manner of taking their drink, that was almost as good as +taking the culprit. But not quite, for they never did it. + +Long after these constitutional powers had dispersed, my sister lay very +ill in bed. Her sight was disturbed, so that she saw objects multiplied, +and grasped at visionary teacups and wineglasses instead of the +realities; her hearing was greatly impaired; her memory also; and her +speech was unintelligible. When, at last, she came round so far as to +be helped downstairs, it was still necessary to keep my slate always by +her, that she might indicate in writing what she could not indicate in +speech. As she was (very bad handwriting apart) a more than indifferent +speller, and as Joe was a more than indifferent reader, extraordinary +complications arose between them which I was always called in to solve. +The administration of mutton instead of medicine, the substitution of +Tea for Joe, and the baker for bacon, were among the mildest of my own +mistakes. + +However, her temper was greatly improved, and she was patient. A +tremulous uncertainty of the action of all her limbs soon became a +part of her regular state, and afterwards, at intervals of two or three +months, she would often put her hands to her head, and would then remain +for about a week at a time in some gloomy aberration of mind. We were +at a loss to find a suitable attendant for her, until a circumstance +happened conveniently to relieve us. Mr. Wopsle's great-aunt conquered a +confirmed habit of living into which she had fallen, and Biddy became a +part of our establishment. + +It may have been about a month after my sister's reappearance in the +kitchen, when Biddy came to us with a small speckled box containing the +whole of her worldly effects, and became a blessing to the household. +Above all, she was a blessing to Joe, for the dear old fellow was sadly +cut up by the constant contemplation of the wreck of his wife, and had +been accustomed, while attending on her of an evening, to turn to me +every now and then and say, with his blue eyes moistened, "Such a fine +figure of a woman as she once were, Pip!" Biddy instantly taking the +cleverest charge of her as though she had studied her from infancy; Joe +became able in some sort to appreciate the greater quiet of his life, +and to get down to the Jolly Bargemen now and then for a change that did +him good. It was characteristic of the police people that they had all +more or less suspected poor Joe (though he never knew it), and that they +had to a man concurred in regarding him as one of the deepest spirits +they had ever encountered. + +Biddy's first triumph in her new office, was to solve a difficulty +that had completely vanquished me. I had tried hard at it, but had made +nothing of it. Thus it was:-- + +Again and again and again, my sister had traced upon the slate, a +character that looked like a curious T, and then with the utmost +eagerness had called our attention to it as something she particularly +wanted. I had in vain tried everything producible that began with a T, +from tar to toast and tub. At length it had come into my head that the +sign looked like a hammer, and on my lustily calling that word in my +sister's ear, she had begun to hammer on the table and had expressed a +qualified assent. Thereupon, I had brought in all our hammers, one after +another, but without avail. Then I bethought me of a crutch, the shape +being much the same, and I borrowed one in the village, and displayed +it to my sister with considerable confidence. But she shook her head to +that extent when she was shown it, that we were terrified lest in her +weak and shattered state she should dislocate her neck. + +When my sister found that Biddy was very quick to understand her, this +mysterious sign reappeared on the slate. Biddy looked thoughtfully +at it, heard my explanation, looked thoughtfully at my sister, looked +thoughtfully at Joe (who was always represented on the slate by his +initial letter), and ran into the forge, followed by Joe and me. + +"Why, of course!" cried Biddy, with an exultant face. "Don't you see? +It's him!" + +Orlick, without a doubt! She had lost his name, and could only signify +him by his hammer. We told him why we wanted him to come into the +kitchen, and he slowly laid down his hammer, wiped his brow with his +arm, took another wipe at it with his apron, and came slouching +out, with a curious loose vagabond bend in the knees that strongly +distinguished him. + +I confess that I expected to see my sister denounce him, and that I +was disappointed by the different result. She manifested the greatest +anxiety to be on good terms with him, was evidently much pleased by his +being at length produced, and motioned that she would have him +given something to drink. She watched his countenance as if she were +particularly wishful to be assured that he took kindly to his reception, +she showed every possible desire to conciliate him, and there was an air +of humble propitiation in all she did, such as I have seen pervade the +bearing of a child towards a hard master. After that day, a day rarely +passed without her drawing the hammer on her slate, and without Orlick's +slouching in and standing doggedly before her, as if he knew no more +than I did what to make of it. + + + + +Chapter XVII + +I now fell into a regular routine of apprenticeship life, which was +varied beyond the limits of the village and the marshes, by no more +remarkable circumstance than the arrival of my birthday and my paying +another visit to Miss Havisham. I found Miss Sarah Pocket still on duty +at the gate; I found Miss Havisham just as I had left her, and she spoke +of Estella in the very same way, if not in the very same words. The +interview lasted but a few minutes, and she gave me a guinea when I was +going, and told me to come again on my next birthday. I may mention at +once that this became an annual custom. I tried to decline taking the +guinea on the first occasion, but with no better effect than causing her +to ask me very angrily, if I expected more? Then, and after that, I took +it. + +So unchanging was the dull old house, the yellow light in the darkened +room, the faded spectre in the chair by the dressing-table glass, that +I felt as if the stopping of the clocks had stopped Time in that +mysterious place, and, while I and everything else outside it grew +older, it stood still. Daylight never entered the house as to my +thoughts and remembrances of it, any more than as to the actual fact. It +bewildered me, and under its influence I continued at heart to hate my +trade and to be ashamed of home. + +Imperceptibly I became conscious of a change in Biddy, however. Her +shoes came up at the heel, her hair grew bright and neat, her hands were +always clean. She was not beautiful,--she was common, and could not be +like Estella,--but she was pleasant and wholesome and sweet-tempered. +She had not been with us more than a year (I remember her being newly +out of mourning at the time it struck me), when I observed to myself one +evening that she had curiously thoughtful and attentive eyes; eyes that +were very pretty and very good. + +It came of my lifting up my own eyes from a task I was poring +at--writing some passages from a book, to improve myself in two ways at +once by a sort of stratagem--and seeing Biddy observant of what I was +about. I laid down my pen, and Biddy stopped in her needlework without +laying it down. + +"Biddy," said I, "how do you manage it? Either I am very stupid, or you +are very clever." + +"What is it that I manage? I don't know," returned Biddy, smiling. + +She managed our whole domestic life, and wonderfully too; but I did not +mean that, though that made what I did mean more surprising. + +"How do you manage, Biddy," said I, "to learn everything that I learn, +and always to keep up with me?" I was beginning to be rather vain of +my knowledge, for I spent my birthday guineas on it, and set aside the +greater part of my pocket-money for similar investment; though I have no +doubt, now, that the little I knew was extremely dear at the price. + +"I might as well ask you," said Biddy, "how you manage?" + +"No; because when I come in from the forge of a night, any one can see +me turning to at it. But you never turn to at it, Biddy." + +"I suppose I must catch it like a cough," said Biddy, quietly; and went +on with her sewing. + +Pursuing my idea as I leaned back in my wooden chair, and looked at +Biddy sewing away with her head on one side, I began to think her rather +an extraordinary girl. For I called to mind now, that she was equally +accomplished in the terms of our trade, and the names of our different +sorts of work, and our various tools. In short, whatever I knew, Biddy +knew. Theoretically, she was already as good a blacksmith as I, or +better. + +"You are one of those, Biddy," said I, "who make the most of every +chance. You never had a chance before you came here, and see how +improved you are!" + +Biddy looked at me for an instant, and went on with her sewing. "I was +your first teacher though; wasn't I?" said she, as she sewed. + +"Biddy!" I exclaimed, in amazement. "Why, you are crying!" + +"No I am not," said Biddy, looking up and laughing. "What put that in +your head?" + +What could have put it in my head but the glistening of a tear as it +dropped on her work? I sat silent, recalling what a drudge she had been +until Mr. Wopsle's great-aunt successfully overcame that bad habit of +living, so highly desirable to be got rid of by some people. I recalled +the hopeless circumstances by which she had been surrounded in the +miserable little shop and the miserable little noisy evening school, +with that miserable old bundle of incompetence always to be dragged and +shouldered. I reflected that even in those untoward times there must +have been latent in Biddy what was now developing, for, in my first +uneasiness and discontent I had turned to her for help, as a matter of +course. Biddy sat quietly sewing, shedding no more tears, and while I +looked at her and thought about it all, it occurred to me that perhaps +I had not been sufficiently grateful to Biddy. I might have been too +reserved, and should have patronized her more (though I did not use that +precise word in my meditations) with my confidence. + +"Yes, Biddy," I observed, when I had done turning it over, "you were my +first teacher, and that at a time when we little thought of ever being +together like this, in this kitchen." + +"Ah, poor thing!" replied Biddy. It was like her self-forgetfulness to +transfer the remark to my sister, and to get up and be busy about her, +making her more comfortable; "that's sadly true!" + +"Well!" said I, "we must talk together a little more, as we used to do. +And I must consult you a little more, as I used to do. Let us have a +quiet walk on the marshes next Sunday, Biddy, and a long chat." + +My sister was never left alone now; but Joe more than readily undertook +the care of her on that Sunday afternoon, and Biddy and I went out +together. It was summer-time, and lovely weather. When we had passed the +village and the church and the churchyard, and were out on the marshes +and began to see the sails of the ships as they sailed on, I began to +combine Miss Havisham and Estella with the prospect, in my usual way. +When we came to the river-side and sat down on the bank, with the water +rippling at our feet, making it all more quiet than it would have been +without that sound, I resolved that it was a good time and place for the +admission of Biddy into my inner confidence. + +"Biddy," said I, after binding her to secrecy, "I want to be a +gentleman." + +"O, I wouldn't, if I was you!" she returned. "I don't think it would +answer." + +"Biddy," said I, with some severity, "I have particular reasons for +wanting to be a gentleman." + +"You know best, Pip; but don't you think you are happier as you are?" + +"Biddy," I exclaimed, impatiently, "I am not at all happy as I am. I +am disgusted with my calling and with my life. I have never taken to +either, since I was bound. Don't be absurd." + +"Was I absurd?" said Biddy, quietly raising her eyebrows; "I am sorry +for that; I didn't mean to be. I only want you to do well, and to be +comfortable." + +"Well, then, understand once for all that I never shall or can be +comfortable--or anything but miserable--there, Biddy!--unless I can lead +a very different sort of life from the life I lead now." + +"That's a pity!" said Biddy, shaking her head with a sorrowful air. + +Now, I too had so often thought it a pity, that, in the singular kind of +quarrel with myself which I was always carrying on, I was half inclined +to shed tears of vexation and distress when Biddy gave utterance to her +sentiment and my own. I told her she was right, and I knew it was much +to be regretted, but still it was not to be helped. + +"If I could have settled down," I said to Biddy, plucking up the short +grass within reach, much as I had once upon a time pulled my feelings +out of my hair and kicked them into the brewery wall,--"if I could have +settled down and been but half as fond of the forge as I was when I was +little, I know it would have been much better for me. You and I and Joe +would have wanted nothing then, and Joe and I would perhaps have gone +partners when I was out of my time, and I might even have grown up to +keep company with you, and we might have sat on this very bank on a fine +Sunday, quite different people. I should have been good enough for you; +shouldn't I, Biddy?" + +Biddy sighed as she looked at the ships sailing on, and returned for +answer, "Yes; I am not over-particular." It scarcely sounded flattering, +but I knew she meant well. + +"Instead of that," said I, plucking up more grass and chewing a blade or +two, "see how I am going on. Dissatisfied, and uncomfortable, and--what +would it signify to me, being coarse and common, if nobody had told me +so!" + +Biddy turned her face suddenly towards mine, and looked far more +attentively at me than she had looked at the sailing ships. + +"It was neither a very true nor a very polite thing to say," she +remarked, directing her eyes to the ships again. "Who said it?" + +I was disconcerted, for I had broken away without quite seeing where +I was going to. It was not to be shuffled off now, however, and I +answered, "The beautiful young lady at Miss Havisham's, and she's more +beautiful than anybody ever was, and I admire her dreadfully, and I want +to be a gentleman on her account." Having made this lunatic confession, +I began to throw my torn-up grass into the river, as if I had some +thoughts of following it. + +"Do you want to be a gentleman, to spite her or to gain her over?" Biddy +quietly asked me, after a pause. + +"I don't know," I moodily answered. + +"Because, if it is to spite her," Biddy pursued, "I should think--but +you know best--that might be better and more independently done by +caring nothing for her words. And if it is to gain her over, I should +think--but you know best--she was not worth gaining over." + +Exactly what I myself had thought, many times. Exactly what was +perfectly manifest to me at the moment. But how could I, a poor dazed +village lad, avoid that wonderful inconsistency into which the best and +wisest of men fall every day? + +"It may be all quite true," said I to Biddy, "but I admire her +dreadfully." + +In short, I turned over on my face when I came to that, and got a good +grasp on the hair on each side of my head, and wrenched it well. All the +while knowing the madness of my heart to be so very mad and misplaced, +that I was quite conscious it would have served my face right, if I +had lifted it up by my hair, and knocked it against the pebbles as a +punishment for belonging to such an idiot. + +Biddy was the wisest of girls, and she tried to reason no more with me. +She put her hand, which was a comfortable hand though roughened by work, +upon my hands, one after another, and gently took them out of my hair. +Then she softly patted my shoulder in a soothing way, while with my face +upon my sleeve I cried a little,--exactly as I had done in the brewery +yard,--and felt vaguely convinced that I was very much ill-used by +somebody, or by everybody; I can't say which. + +"I am glad of one thing," said Biddy, "and that is, that you have felt +you could give me your confidence, Pip. And I am glad of another thing, +and that is, that of course you know you may depend upon my keeping it +and always so far deserving it. If your first teacher (dear! such a poor +one, and so much in need of being taught herself!) had been your teacher +at the present time, she thinks she knows what lesson she would set. But +it would be a hard one to learn, and you have got beyond her, and it's +of no use now." So, with a quiet sigh for me, Biddy rose from the bank, +and said, with a fresh and pleasant change of voice, "Shall we walk a +little farther, or go home?" + +"Biddy," I cried, getting up, putting my arm round her neck, and giving +her a kiss, "I shall always tell you everything." + +"Till you're a gentleman," said Biddy. + +"You know I never shall be, so that's always. Not that I have any +occasion to tell you anything, for you know everything I know,--as I +told you at home the other night." + +"Ah!" said Biddy, quite in a whisper, as she looked away at the ships. +And then repeated, with her former pleasant change, "shall we walk a +little farther, or go home?" + +I said to Biddy we would walk a little farther, and we did so, and the +summer afternoon toned down into the summer evening, and it was very +beautiful. I began to consider whether I was not more naturally and +wholesomely situated, after all, in these circumstances, than playing +beggar my neighbor by candle-light in the room with the stopped clocks, +and being despised by Estella. I thought it would be very good for me if +I could get her out of my head, with all the rest of those remembrances +and fancies, and could go to work determined to relish what I had to do, +and stick to it, and make the best of it. I asked myself the question +whether I did not surely know that if Estella were beside me at that +moment instead of Biddy, she would make me miserable? I was obliged to +admit that I did know it for a certainty, and I said to myself, "Pip, +what a fool you are!" + +We talked a good deal as we walked, and all that Biddy said seemed +right. Biddy was never insulting, or capricious, or Biddy to-day and +somebody else to-morrow; she would have derived only pain, and no +pleasure, from giving me pain; she would far rather have wounded her own +breast than mine. How could it be, then, that I did not like her much +the better of the two? + +"Biddy," said I, when we were walking homeward, "I wish you could put me +right." + +"I wish I could!" said Biddy. + +"If I could only get myself to fall in love with you,--you don't mind my +speaking so openly to such an old acquaintance?" + +"Oh dear, not at all!" said Biddy. "Don't mind me." + +"If I could only get myself to do it, that would be the thing for me." + +"But you never will, you see," said Biddy. + +It did not appear quite so unlikely to me that evening, as it would have +done if we had discussed it a few hours before. I therefore observed +I was not quite sure of that. But Biddy said she was, and she said it +decisively. In my heart I believed her to be right; and yet I took it +rather ill, too, that she should be so positive on the point. + +When we came near the churchyard, we had to cross an embankment, and +get over a stile near a sluice-gate. There started up, from the gate, or +from the rushes, or from the ooze (which was quite in his stagnant way), +Old Orlick. + +"Halloa!" he growled, "where are you two going?" + +"Where should we be going, but home?" + +"Well, then," said he, "I'm jiggered if I don't see you home!" + +This penalty of being jiggered was a favorite supposititious case of +his. He attached no definite meaning to the word that I am aware of, but +used it, like his own pretended Christian name, to affront mankind, and +convey an idea of something savagely damaging. When I was younger, I +had had a general belief that if he had jiggered me personally, he would +have done it with a sharp and twisted hook. + +Biddy was much against his going with us, and said to me in a whisper, +"Don't let him come; I don't like him." As I did not like him either, +I took the liberty of saying that we thanked him, but we didn't want +seeing home. He received that piece of information with a yell of +laughter, and dropped back, but came slouching after us at a little +distance. + +Curious to know whether Biddy suspected him of having had a hand in +that murderous attack of which my sister had never been able to give any +account, I asked her why she did not like him. + +"Oh!" she replied, glancing over her shoulder as he slouched after us, +"because I--I am afraid he likes me." + +"Did he ever tell you he liked you?" I asked indignantly. + +"No," said Biddy, glancing over her shoulder again, "he never told me +so; but he dances at me, whenever he can catch my eye." + +However novel and peculiar this testimony of attachment, I did not +doubt the accuracy of the interpretation. I was very hot indeed upon +Old Orlick's daring to admire her; as hot as if it were an outrage on +myself. + +"But it makes no difference to you, you know," said Biddy, calmly. + +"No, Biddy, it makes no difference to me; only I don't like it; I don't +approve of it." + +"Nor I neither," said Biddy. "Though that makes no difference to you." + +"Exactly," said I; "but I must tell you I should have no opinion of you, +Biddy, if he danced at you with your own consent." + +I kept an eye on Orlick after that night, and, whenever circumstances +were favorable to his dancing at Biddy, got before him to obscure that +demonstration. He had struck root in Joe's establishment, by reason +of my sister's sudden fancy for him, or I should have tried to get him +dismissed. He quite understood and reciprocated my good intentions, as I +had reason to know thereafter. + +And now, because my mind was not confused enough before, I complicated +its confusion fifty thousand-fold, by having states and seasons when I +was clear that Biddy was immeasurably better than Estella, and that the +plain honest working life to which I was born had nothing in it to +be ashamed of, but offered me sufficient means of self-respect +and happiness. At those times, I would decide conclusively that my +disaffection to dear old Joe and the forge was gone, and that I was +growing up in a fair way to be partners with Joe and to keep company +with Biddy,--when all in a moment some confounding remembrance of the +Havisham days would fall upon me like a destructive missile, and scatter +my wits again. Scattered wits take a long time picking up; and often +before I had got them well together, they would be dispersed in all +directions by one stray thought, that perhaps after all Miss Havisham +was going to make my fortune when my time was out. + +If my time had run out, it would have left me still at the height of my +perplexities, I dare say. It never did run out, however, but was brought +to a premature end, as I proceed to relate. + + + + +Chapter XVIII + +It was in the fourth year of my apprenticeship to Joe, and it was a +Saturday night. There was a group assembled round the fire at the Three +Jolly Bargemen, attentive to Mr. Wopsle as he read the newspaper aloud. +Of that group I was one. + +A highly popular murder had been committed, and Mr. Wopsle was imbrued +in blood to the eyebrows. He gloated over every abhorrent adjective +in the description, and identified himself with every witness at the +Inquest. He faintly moaned, "I am done for," as the victim, and he +barbarously bellowed, "I'll serve you out," as the murderer. He gave the +medical testimony, in pointed imitation of our local practitioner; and +he piped and shook, as the aged turnpike-keeper who had heard blows, to +an extent so very paralytic as to suggest a doubt regarding the mental +competency of that witness. The coroner, in Mr. Wopsle's hands, became +Timon of Athens; the beadle, Coriolanus. He enjoyed himself thoroughly, +and we all enjoyed ourselves, and were delightfully comfortable. In this +cosey state of mind we came to the verdict Wilful Murder. + +Then, and not sooner, I became aware of a strange gentleman leaning over +the back of the settle opposite me, looking on. There was an expression +of contempt on his face, and he bit the side of a great forefinger as he +watched the group of faces. + +"Well!" said the stranger to Mr. Wopsle, when the reading was done, "you +have settled it all to your own satisfaction, I have no doubt?" + +Everybody started and looked up, as if it were the murderer. He looked +at everybody coldly and sarcastically. + +"Guilty, of course?" said he. "Out with it. Come!" + +"Sir," returned Mr. Wopsle, "without having the honor of your +acquaintance, I do say Guilty." Upon this we all took courage to unite +in a confirmatory murmur. + +"I know you do," said the stranger; "I knew you would. I told you so. +But now I'll ask you a question. Do you know, or do you not know, +that the law of England supposes every man to be innocent, until he is +proved--proved--to be guilty?" + +"Sir," Mr. Wopsle began to reply, "as an Englishman myself, I--" + +"Come!" said the stranger, biting his forefinger at him. "Don't evade +the question. Either you know it, or you don't know it. Which is it to +be?" + +He stood with his head on one side and himself on one side, in a +bullying, interrogative manner, and he threw his forefinger at Mr. +Wopsle,--as it were to mark him out--before biting it again. + +"Now!" said he. "Do you know it, or don't you know it?" + +"Certainly I know it," replied Mr. Wopsle. + +"Certainly you know it. Then why didn't you say so at first? Now, I'll +ask you another question,"--taking possession of Mr. Wopsle, as if he +had a right to him,--"do you know that none of these witnesses have yet +been cross-examined?" + +Mr. Wopsle was beginning, "I can only say--" when the stranger stopped +him. + +"What? You won't answer the question, yes or no? Now, I'll try you +again." Throwing his finger at him again. "Attend to me. Are you +aware, or are you not aware, that none of these witnesses have yet been +cross-examined? Come, I only want one word from you. Yes, or no?" + +Mr. Wopsle hesitated, and we all began to conceive rather a poor opinion +of him. + +"Come!" said the stranger, "I'll help you. You don't deserve help, but +I'll help you. Look at that paper you hold in your hand. What is it?" + +"What is it?" repeated Mr. Wopsle, eyeing it, much at a loss. + +"Is it," pursued the stranger in his most sarcastic and suspicious +manner, "the printed paper you have just been reading from?" + +"Undoubtedly." + +"Undoubtedly. Now, turn to that paper, and tell me whether it distinctly +states that the prisoner expressly said that his legal advisers +instructed him altogether to reserve his defence?" + +"I read that just now," Mr. Wopsle pleaded. + +"Never mind what you read just now, sir; I don't ask you what you read +just now. You may read the Lord's Prayer backwards, if you like,--and, +perhaps, have done it before to-day. Turn to the paper. No, no, no my +friend; not to the top of the column; you know better than that; to +the bottom, to the bottom." (We all began to think Mr. Wopsle full of +subterfuge.) "Well? Have you found it?" + +"Here it is," said Mr. Wopsle. + +"Now, follow that passage with your eye, and tell me whether it +distinctly states that the prisoner expressly said that he was +instructed by his legal advisers wholly to reserve his defence? Come! Do +you make that of it?" + +Mr. Wopsle answered, "Those are not the exact words." + +"Not the exact words!" repeated the gentleman bitterly. "Is that the +exact substance?" + +"Yes," said Mr. Wopsle. + +"Yes," repeated the stranger, looking round at the rest of the company +with his right hand extended towards the witness, Wopsle. "And now I ask +you what you say to the conscience of that man who, with that passage +before his eyes, can lay his head upon his pillow after having +pronounced a fellow-creature guilty, unheard?" + +We all began to suspect that Mr. Wopsle was not the man we had thought +him, and that he was beginning to be found out. + +"And that same man, remember," pursued the gentleman, throwing his +finger at Mr. Wopsle heavily,--"that same man might be summoned as a +juryman upon this very trial, and, having thus deeply committed himself, +might return to the bosom of his family and lay his head upon his +pillow, after deliberately swearing that he would well and truly try the +issue joined between Our Sovereign Lord the King and the prisoner at the +bar, and would a true verdict give according to the evidence, so help +him God!" + +We were all deeply persuaded that the unfortunate Wopsle had gone too +far, and had better stop in his reckless career while there was yet +time. + +The strange gentleman, with an air of authority not to be disputed, and +with a manner expressive of knowing something secret about every one of +us that would effectually do for each individual if he chose to disclose +it, left the back of the settle, and came into the space between the two +settles, in front of the fire, where he remained standing, his left hand +in his pocket, and he biting the forefinger of his right. + +"From information I have received," said he, looking round at us as we +all quailed before him, "I have reason to believe there is a blacksmith +among you, by name Joseph--or Joe--Gargery. Which is the man?" + +"Here is the man," said Joe. + +The strange gentleman beckoned him out of his place, and Joe went. + +"You have an apprentice," pursued the stranger, "commonly known as Pip? +Is he here?" + +"I am here!" I cried. + +The stranger did not recognize me, but I recognized him as the gentleman +I had met on the stairs, on the occasion of my second visit to Miss +Havisham. I had known him the moment I saw him looking over the settle, +and now that I stood confronting him with his hand upon my shoulder, +I checked off again in detail his large head, his dark complexion, his +deep-set eyes, his bushy black eyebrows, his large watch-chain, his +strong black dots of beard and whisker, and even the smell of scented +soap on his great hand. + +"I wish to have a private conference with you two," said he, when he had +surveyed me at his leisure. "It will take a little time. Perhaps we +had better go to your place of residence. I prefer not to anticipate my +communication here; you will impart as much or as little of it as you +please to your friends afterwards; I have nothing to do with that." + +Amidst a wondering silence, we three walked out of the Jolly Bargemen, +and in a wondering silence walked home. While going along, the strange +gentleman occasionally looked at me, and occasionally bit the side of +his finger. As we neared home, Joe vaguely acknowledging the occasion as +an impressive and ceremonious one, went on ahead to open the front door. +Our conference was held in the state parlor, which was feebly lighted by +one candle. + +It began with the strange gentleman's sitting down at the table, drawing +the candle to him, and looking over some entries in his pocket-book. +He then put up the pocket-book and set the candle a little aside, after +peering round it into the darkness at Joe and me, to ascertain which was +which. + +"My name," he said, "is Jaggers, and I am a lawyer in London. I am +pretty well known. I have unusual business to transact with you, and I +commence by explaining that it is not of my originating. If my advice +had been asked, I should not have been here. It was not asked, and you +see me here. What I have to do as the confidential agent of another, I +do. No less, no more." + +Finding that he could not see us very well from where he sat, he got +up, and threw one leg over the back of a chair and leaned upon it; thus +having one foot on the seat of the chair, and one foot on the ground. + +"Now, Joseph Gargery, I am the bearer of an offer to relieve you of +this young fellow your apprentice. You would not object to cancel his +indentures at his request and for his good? You would want nothing for +so doing?" + +"Lord forbid that I should want anything for not standing in Pip's way," +said Joe, staring. + +"Lord forbidding is pious, but not to the purpose," returned Mr. +Jaggers. "The question is, Would you want anything? Do you want +anything?" + +"The answer is," returned Joe, sternly, "No." + +I thought Mr. Jaggers glanced at Joe, as if he considered him a fool for +his disinterestedness. But I was too much bewildered between breathless +curiosity and surprise, to be sure of it. + +"Very well," said Mr. Jaggers. "Recollect the admission you have made, +and don't try to go from it presently." + +"Who's a going to try?" retorted Joe. + +"I don't say anybody is. Do you keep a dog?" + +"Yes, I do keep a dog." + +"Bear in mind then, that Brag is a good dog, but Holdfast is a better. +Bear that in mind, will you?" repeated Mr. Jaggers, shutting his eyes +and nodding his head at Joe, as if he were forgiving him something. +"Now, I return to this young fellow. And the communication I have got to +make is, that he has great expectations." + +Joe and I gasped, and looked at one another. + +"I am instructed to communicate to him," said Mr. Jaggers, throwing +his finger at me sideways, "that he will come into a handsome property. +Further, that it is the desire of the present possessor of that +property, that he be immediately removed from his present sphere of life +and from this place, and be brought up as a gentleman,--in a word, as a +young fellow of great expectations." + +My dream was out; my wild fancy was surpassed by sober reality; Miss +Havisham was going to make my fortune on a grand scale. + +"Now, Mr. Pip," pursued the lawyer, "I address the rest of what I have +to say, to you. You are to understand, first, that it is the request +of the person from whom I take my instructions that you always bear +the name of Pip. You will have no objection, I dare say, to your great +expectations being encumbered with that easy condition. But if you have +any objection, this is the time to mention it." + +My heart was beating so fast, and there was such a singing in my ears, +that I could scarcely stammer I had no objection. + +"I should think not! Now you are to understand, secondly, Mr. Pip, that +the name of the person who is your liberal benefactor remains a profound +secret, until the person chooses to reveal it. I am empowered to mention +that it is the intention of the person to reveal it at first hand by +word of mouth to yourself. When or where that intention may be carried +out, I cannot say; no one can say. It may be years hence. Now, you are +distinctly to understand that you are most positively prohibited from +making any inquiry on this head, or any allusion or reference, however +distant, to any individual whomsoever as the individual, in all the +communications you may have with me. If you have a suspicion in your own +breast, keep that suspicion in your own breast. It is not the least to +the purpose what the reasons of this prohibition are; they may be the +strongest and gravest reasons, or they may be mere whim. This is not for +you to inquire into. The condition is laid down. Your acceptance of it, +and your observance of it as binding, is the only remaining condition +that I am charged with, by the person from whom I take my instructions, +and for whom I am not otherwise responsible. That person is the person +from whom you derive your expectations, and the secret is solely held by +that person and by me. Again, not a very difficult condition with which +to encumber such a rise in fortune; but if you have any objection to it, +this is the time to mention it. Speak out." + +Once more, I stammered with difficulty that I had no objection. + +"I should think not! Now, Mr. Pip, I have done with stipulations." +Though he called me Mr. Pip, and began rather to make up to me, he still +could not get rid of a certain air of bullying suspicion; and even now +he occasionally shut his eyes and threw his finger at me while he +spoke, as much as to express that he knew all kinds of things to my +disparagement, if he only chose to mention them. "We come next, to mere +details of arrangement. You must know that, although I have used +the term 'expectations' more than once, you are not endowed with +expectations only. There is already lodged in my hands a sum of money +amply sufficient for your suitable education and maintenance. You will +please consider me your guardian. Oh!" for I was going to thank him, "I +tell you at once, I am paid for my services, or I shouldn't render them. +It is considered that you must be better educated, in accordance with +your altered position, and that you will be alive to the importance and +necessity of at once entering on that advantage." + +I said I had always longed for it. + +"Never mind what you have always longed for, Mr. Pip," he retorted; +"keep to the record. If you long for it now, that's enough. Am I +answered that you are ready to be placed at once under some proper +tutor? Is that it?" + +I stammered yes, that was it. + +"Good. Now, your inclinations are to be consulted. I don't think that +wise, mind, but it's my trust. Have you ever heard of any tutor whom you +would prefer to another?" + +I had never heard of any tutor but Biddy and Mr. Wopsle's great-aunt; +so, I replied in the negative. + +"There is a certain tutor, of whom I have some knowledge, who I think +might suit the purpose," said Mr. Jaggers. "I don't recommend him, +observe; because I never recommend anybody. The gentleman I speak of is +one Mr. Matthew Pocket." + +Ah! I caught at the name directly. Miss Havisham's relation. The Matthew +whom Mr. and Mrs. Camilla had spoken of. The Matthew whose place was to +be at Miss Havisham's head, when she lay dead, in her bride's dress on +the bride's table. + +"You know the name?" said Mr. Jaggers, looking shrewdly at me, and then +shutting up his eyes while he waited for my answer. + +My answer was, that I had heard of the name. + +"Oh!" said he. "You have heard of the name. But the question is, what do +you say of it?" + +I said, or tried to say, that I was much obliged to him for his +recommendation-- + +"No, my young friend!" he interrupted, shaking his great head very +slowly. "Recollect yourself!" + +Not recollecting myself, I began again that I was much obliged to him +for his recommendation-- + +"No, my young friend," he interrupted, shaking his head and frowning and +smiling both at once,--"no, no, no; it's very well done, but it won't +do; you are too young to fix me with it. Recommendation is not the word, +Mr. Pip. Try another." + +Correcting myself, I said that I was much obliged to him for his mention +of Mr. Matthew Pocket-- + +"That's more like it!" cried Mr. Jaggers.--And (I added), I would +gladly try that gentleman. + +"Good. You had better try him in his own house. The way shall be +prepared for you, and you can see his son first, who is in London. When +will you come to London?" + +I said (glancing at Joe, who stood looking on, motionless), that I +supposed I could come directly. + +"First," said Mr. Jaggers, "you should have some new clothes to come in, +and they should not be working-clothes. Say this day week. You'll want +some money. Shall I leave you twenty guineas?" + +He produced a long purse, with the greatest coolness, and counted them +out on the table and pushed them over to me. This was the first time he +had taken his leg from the chair. He sat astride of the chair when he +had pushed the money over, and sat swinging his purse and eyeing Joe. + +"Well, Joseph Gargery? You look dumbfoundered?" + +"I am!" said Joe, in a very decided manner. + +"It was understood that you wanted nothing for yourself, remember?" + +"It were understood," said Joe. "And it are understood. And it ever will +be similar according." + +"But what," said Mr. Jaggers, swinging his purse,--"what if it was in my +instructions to make you a present, as compensation?" + +"As compensation what for?" Joe demanded. + +"For the loss of his services." + +Joe laid his hand upon my shoulder with the touch of a woman. I have +often thought him since, like the steam-hammer that can crush a man or +pat an egg-shell, in his combination of strength with gentleness. "Pip +is that hearty welcome," said Joe, "to go free with his services, to +honor and fortun', as no words can tell him. But if you think as Money +can make compensation to me for the loss of the little child--what come +to the forge--and ever the best of friends!--" + +O dear good Joe, whom I was so ready to leave and so unthankful to, I +see you again, with your muscular blacksmith's arm before your eyes, +and your broad chest heaving, and your voice dying away. O dear good +faithful tender Joe, I feel the loving tremble of your hand upon my arm, +as solemnly this day as if it had been the rustle of an angel's wing! + +But I encouraged Joe at the time. I was lost in the mazes of my future +fortunes, and could not retrace the by-paths we had trodden together. I +begged Joe to be comforted, for (as he said) we had ever been the best +of friends, and (as I said) we ever would be so. Joe scooped his eyes +with his disengaged wrist, as if he were bent on gouging himself, but +said not another word. + +Mr. Jaggers had looked on at this, as one who recognized in Joe the +village idiot, and in me his keeper. When it was over, he said, weighing +in his hand the purse he had ceased to swing:-- + +"Now, Joseph Gargery, I warn you this is your last chance. No half +measures with me. If you mean to take a present that I have it in charge +to make you, speak out, and you shall have it. If on the contrary you +mean to say--" Here, to his great amazement, he was stopped by Joe's +suddenly working round him with every demonstration of a fell pugilistic +purpose. + +"Which I meantersay," cried Joe, "that if you come into my place +bull-baiting and badgering me, come out! Which I meantersay as sech if +you're a man, come on! Which I meantersay that what I say, I meantersay +and stand or fall by!" + +I drew Joe away, and he immediately became placable; merely stating to +me, in an obliging manner and as a polite expostulatory notice to any +one whom it might happen to concern, that he were not a going to be +bull-baited and badgered in his own place. Mr. Jaggers had risen when +Joe demonstrated, and had backed near the door. Without evincing +any inclination to come in again, he there delivered his valedictory +remarks. They were these. + +"Well, Mr. Pip, I think the sooner you leave here--as you are to be a +gentleman--the better. Let it stand for this day week, and you shall +receive my printed address in the meantime. You can take a hackney-coach +at the stage-coach office in London, and come straight to me. +Understand, that I express no opinion, one way or other, on the trust +I undertake. I am paid for undertaking it, and I do so. Now, understand +that, finally. Understand that!" + +He was throwing his finger at both of us, and I think would have gone +on, but for his seeming to think Joe dangerous, and going off. + +Something came into my head which induced me to run after him, as he was +going down to the Jolly Bargemen, where he had left a hired carriage. + +"I beg your pardon, Mr. Jaggers." + +"Halloa!" said he, facing round, "what's the matter?" + +"I wish to be quite right, Mr. Jaggers, and to keep to your directions; +so I thought I had better ask. Would there be any objection to my taking +leave of any one I know, about here, before I go away?" + +"No," said he, looking as if he hardly understood me. + +"I don't mean in the village only, but up town?" + +"No," said he. "No objection." + +I thanked him and ran home again, and there I found that Joe had already +locked the front door and vacated the state parlor, and was seated +by the kitchen fire with a hand on each knee, gazing intently at the +burning coals. I too sat down before the fire and gazed at the coals, +and nothing was said for a long time. + +My sister was in her cushioned chair in her corner, and Biddy sat at her +needle-work before the fire, and Joe sat next Biddy, and I sat next Joe +in the corner opposite my sister. The more I looked into the glowing +coals, the more incapable I became of looking at Joe; the longer the +silence lasted, the more unable I felt to speak. + +At length I got out, "Joe, have you told Biddy?" + +"No, Pip," returned Joe, still looking at the fire, and holding his +knees tight, as if he had private information that they intended to make +off somewhere, "which I left it to yourself, Pip." + +"I would rather you told, Joe." + +"Pip's a gentleman of fortun' then," said Joe, "and God bless him in +it!" + +Biddy dropped her work, and looked at me. Joe held his knees and looked +at me. I looked at both of them. After a pause, they both heartily +congratulated me; but there was a certain touch of sadness in their +congratulations that I rather resented. + +I took it upon myself to impress Biddy (and through Biddy, Joe) with the +grave obligation I considered my friends under, to know nothing and say +nothing about the maker of my fortune. It would all come out in good +time, I observed, and in the meanwhile nothing was to be said, save +that I had come into great expectations from a mysterious patron. Biddy +nodded her head thoughtfully at the fire as she took up her work again, +and said she would be very particular; and Joe, still detaining his +knees, said, "Ay, ay, I'll be ekervally partickler, Pip;" and then they +congratulated me again, and went on to express so much wonder at the +notion of my being a gentleman that I didn't half like it. + +Infinite pains were then taken by Biddy to convey to my sister some idea +of what had happened. To the best of my belief, those efforts entirely +failed. She laughed and nodded her head a great many times, and even +repeated after Biddy, the words "Pip" and "Property." But I doubt if +they had more meaning in them than an election cry, and I cannot suggest +a darker picture of her state of mind. + +I never could have believed it without experience, but as Joe and +Biddy became more at their cheerful ease again, I became quite gloomy. +Dissatisfied with my fortune, of course I could not be; but it is +possible that I may have been, without quite knowing it, dissatisfied +with myself. + +Any how, I sat with my elbow on my knee and my face upon my hand, +looking into the fire, as those two talked about my going away, and +about what they should do without me, and all that. And whenever I +caught one of them looking at me, though never so pleasantly (and they +often looked at me,--particularly Biddy), I felt offended: as if they +were expressing some mistrust of me. Though Heaven knows they never did +by word or sign. + +At those times I would get up and look out at the door; for our kitchen +door opened at once upon the night, and stood open on summer evenings to +air the room. The very stars to which I then raised my eyes, I am afraid +I took to be but poor and humble stars for glittering on the rustic +objects among which I had passed my life. + +"Saturday night," said I, when we sat at our supper of bread and cheese +and beer. "Five more days, and then the day before the day! They'll soon +go." + +"Yes, Pip," observed Joe, whose voice sounded hollow in his beer-mug. +"They'll soon go." + +"Soon, soon go," said Biddy. + +"I have been thinking, Joe, that when I go down town on Monday, and +order my new clothes, I shall tell the tailor that I'll come and put +them on there, or that I'll have them sent to Mr. Pumblechook's. It +would be very disagreeable to be stared at by all the people here." + +"Mr. and Mrs. Hubble might like to see you in your new gen-teel figure +too, Pip," said Joe, industriously cutting his bread, with his cheese on +it, in the palm of his left hand, and glancing at my untasted supper +as if he thought of the time when we used to compare slices. "So might +Wopsle. And the Jolly Bargemen might take it as a compliment." + +"That's just what I don't want, Joe. They would make such a business of +it,--such a coarse and common business,--that I couldn't bear myself." + +"Ah, that indeed, Pip!" said Joe. "If you couldn't abear yourself--" + +Biddy asked me here, as she sat holding my sister's plate, "Have you +thought about when you'll show yourself to Mr. Gargery, and your sister +and me? You will show yourself to us; won't you?" + +"Biddy," I returned with some resentment, "you are so exceedingly quick +that it's difficult to keep up with you." + +("She always were quick," observed Joe.) + +"If you had waited another moment, Biddy, you would have heard me say +that I shall bring my clothes here in a bundle one evening,--most likely +on the evening before I go away." + +Biddy said no more. Handsomely forgiving her, I soon exchanged an +affectionate good night with her and Joe, and went up to bed. When I got +into my little room, I sat down and took a long look at it, as a mean +little room that I should soon be parted from and raised above, for +ever. It was furnished with fresh young remembrances too, and even at +the same moment I fell into much the same confused division of mind +between it and the better rooms to which I was going, as I had been in +so often between the forge and Miss Havisham's, and Biddy and Estella. + +The sun had been shining brightly all day on the roof of my attic, and +the room was warm. As I put the window open and stood looking out, I saw +Joe come slowly forth at the dark door, below, and take a turn or two +in the air; and then I saw Biddy come, and bring him a pipe and light +it for him. He never smoked so late, and it seemed to hint to me that he +wanted comforting, for some reason or other. + +He presently stood at the door immediately beneath me, smoking his pipe, +and Biddy stood there too, quietly talking to him, and I knew that they +talked of me, for I heard my name mentioned in an endearing tone by both +of them more than once. I would not have listened for more, if I could +have heard more; so I drew away from the window, and sat down in my one +chair by the bedside, feeling it very sorrowful and strange that this +first night of my bright fortunes should be the loneliest I had ever +known. + +Looking towards the open window, I saw light wreaths from Joe's pipe +floating there, and I fancied it was like a blessing from Joe,--not +obtruded on me or paraded before me, but pervading the air we shared +together. I put my light out, and crept into bed; and it was an uneasy +bed now, and I never slept the old sound sleep in it any more. + + + + +Chapter XIX + +Morning made a considerable difference in my general prospect of Life, +and brightened it so much that it scarcely seemed the same. What lay +heaviest on my mind was, the consideration that six days intervened +between me and the day of departure; for I could not divest myself of +a misgiving that something might happen to London in the meanwhile, and +that, when I got there, it would be either greatly deteriorated or clean +gone. + +Joe and Biddy were very sympathetic and pleasant when I spoke of our +approaching separation; but they only referred to it when I did. After +breakfast, Joe brought out my indentures from the press in the best +parlor, and we put them in the fire, and I felt that I was free. With +all the novelty of my emancipation on me, I went to church with Joe, and +thought perhaps the clergyman wouldn't have read that about the rich man +and the kingdom of Heaven, if he had known all. + +After our early dinner, I strolled out alone, purposing to finish off +the marshes at once, and get them done with. As I passed the church, I +felt (as I had felt during service in the morning) a sublime compassion +for the poor creatures who were destined to go there, Sunday after +Sunday, all their lives through, and to lie obscurely at last among the +low green mounds. I promised myself that I would do something for them +one of these days, and formed a plan in outline for bestowing a +dinner of roast-beef and plum-pudding, a pint of ale, and a gallon of +condescension, upon everybody in the village. + +If I had often thought before, with something allied to shame, of my +companionship with the fugitive whom I had once seen limping among those +graves, what were my thoughts on this Sunday, when the place recalled +the wretch, ragged and shivering, with his felon iron and badge! My +comfort was, that it happened a long time ago, and that he had doubtless +been transported a long way off, and that he was dead to me, and might +be veritably dead into the bargain. + +No more low, wet grounds, no more dikes and sluices, no more of these +grazing cattle,--though they seemed, in their dull manner, to wear a +more respectful air now, and to face round, in order that they +might stare as long as possible at the possessor of such great +expectations,--farewell, monotonous acquaintances of my childhood, +henceforth I was for London and greatness; not for smith's work in +general, and for you! I made my exultant way to the old Battery, and, +lying down there to consider the question whether Miss Havisham intended +me for Estella, fell asleep. + +When I awoke, I was much surprised to find Joe sitting beside me, +smoking his pipe. He greeted me with a cheerful smile on my opening my +eyes, and said,-- + +"As being the last time, Pip, I thought I'd foller." + +"And Joe, I am very glad you did so." + +"Thankee, Pip." + +"You may be sure, dear Joe," I went on, after we had shaken hands, "that +I shall never forget you." + +"No, no, Pip!" said Joe, in a comfortable tone, "I'm sure of that. Ay, +ay, old chap! Bless you, it were only necessary to get it well round in +a man's mind, to be certain on it. But it took a bit of time to get it +well round, the change come so oncommon plump; didn't it?" + +Somehow, I was not best pleased with Joe's being so mightily secure of +me. I should have liked him to have betrayed emotion, or to have said, +"It does you credit, Pip," or something of that sort. Therefore, I made +no remark on Joe's first head; merely saying as to his second, that the +tidings had indeed come suddenly, but that I had always wanted to be a +gentleman, and had often and often speculated on what I would do, if I +were one. + +"Have you though?" said Joe. "Astonishing!" + +"It's a pity now, Joe," said I, "that you did not get on a little more, +when we had our lessons here; isn't it?" + +"Well, I don't know," returned Joe. "I'm so awful dull. I'm only master +of my own trade. It were always a pity as I was so awful dull; but it's +no more of a pity now, than it was--this day twelvemonth--don't you +see?" + +What I had meant was, that when I came into my property and was able to +do something for Joe, it would have been much more agreeable if he +had been better qualified for a rise in station. He was so perfectly +innocent of my meaning, however, that I thought I would mention it to +Biddy in preference. + +So, when we had walked home and had had tea, I took Biddy into our +little garden by the side of the lane, and, after throwing out in a +general way for the elevation of her spirits, that I should never forget +her, said I had a favor to ask of her. + +"And it is, Biddy," said I, "that you will not omit any opportunity of +helping Joe on, a little." + +"How helping him on?" asked Biddy, with a steady sort of glance. + +"Well! Joe is a dear good fellow,--in fact, I think he is the dearest +fellow that ever lived,--but he is rather backward in some things. For +instance, Biddy, in his learning and his manners." + +Although I was looking at Biddy as I spoke, and although she opened her +eyes very wide when I had spoken, she did not look at me. + +"O, his manners! won't his manners do then?" asked Biddy, plucking a +black-currant leaf. + +"My dear Biddy, they do very well here--" + +"O! they do very well here?" interrupted Biddy, looking closely at the +leaf in her hand. + +"Hear me out,--but if I were to remove Joe into a higher sphere, as I +shall hope to remove him when I fully come into my property, they would +hardly do him justice." + +"And don't you think he knows that?" asked Biddy. + +It was such a very provoking question (for it had never in the most +distant manner occurred to me), that I said, snappishly,-- + +"Biddy, what do you mean?" + +Biddy, having rubbed the leaf to pieces between her hands,--and the +smell of a black-currant bush has ever since recalled to me that evening +in the little garden by the side of the lane,--said, "Have you never +considered that he may be proud?" + +"Proud?" I repeated, with disdainful emphasis. + +"O! there are many kinds of pride," said Biddy, looking full at me and +shaking her head; "pride is not all of one kind--" + +"Well? What are you stopping for?" said I. + +"Not all of one kind," resumed Biddy. "He may be too proud to let any +one take him out of a place that he is competent to fill, and fills well +and with respect. To tell you the truth, I think he is; though it sounds +bold in me to say so, for you must know him far better than I do." + +"Now, Biddy," said I, "I am very sorry to see this in you. I did not +expect to see this in you. You are envious, Biddy, and grudging. You +are dissatisfied on account of my rise in fortune, and you can't help +showing it." + +"If you have the heart to think so," returned Biddy, "say so. Say so +over and over again, if you have the heart to think so." + +"If you have the heart to be so, you mean, Biddy," said I, in a virtuous +and superior tone; "don't put it off upon me. I am very sorry to see it, +and it's a--it's a bad side of human nature. I did intend to ask you +to use any little opportunities you might have after I was gone, of +improving dear Joe. But after this I ask you nothing. I am extremely +sorry to see this in you, Biddy," I repeated. "It's a--it's a bad side +of human nature." + +"Whether you scold me or approve of me," returned poor Biddy, "you may +equally depend upon my trying to do all that lies in my power, here, +at all times. And whatever opinion you take away of me, shall make +no difference in my remembrance of you. Yet a gentleman should not be +unjust neither," said Biddy, turning away her head. + +I again warmly repeated that it was a bad side of human nature (in which +sentiment, waiving its application, I have since seen reason to think I +was right), and I walked down the little path away from Biddy, and +Biddy went into the house, and I went out at the garden gate and took a +dejected stroll until supper-time; again feeling it very sorrowful and +strange that this, the second night of my bright fortunes, should be as +lonely and unsatisfactory as the first. + +But, morning once more brightened my view, and I extended my clemency to +Biddy, and we dropped the subject. Putting on the best clothes I had, +I went into town as early as I could hope to find the shops open, +and presented myself before Mr. Trabb, the tailor, who was having his +breakfast in the parlor behind his shop, and who did not think it worth +his while to come out to me, but called me into him. + +"Well!" said Mr. Trabb, in a hail-fellow-well-met kind of way. "How are +you, and what can I do for you?" + +Mr. Trabb had sliced his hot roll into three feather-beds, and was +slipping butter in between the blankets, and covering it up. He was a +prosperous old bachelor, and his open window looked into a prosperous +little garden and orchard, and there was a prosperous iron safe let into +the wall at the side of his fireplace, and I did not doubt that heaps of +his prosperity were put away in it in bags. + +"Mr. Trabb," said I, "it's an unpleasant thing to have to mention, +because it looks like boasting; but I have come into a handsome +property." + +A change passed over Mr. Trabb. He forgot the butter in bed, got up from +the bedside, and wiped his fingers on the tablecloth, exclaiming, "Lord +bless my soul!" + +"I am going up to my guardian in London," said I, casually drawing some +guineas out of my pocket and looking at them; "and I want a fashionable +suit of clothes to go in. I wish to pay for them," I added--otherwise I +thought he might only pretend to make them, "with ready money." + +"My dear sir," said Mr. Trabb, as he respectfully bent his body, opened +his arms, and took the liberty of touching me on the outside of each +elbow, "don't hurt me by mentioning that. May I venture to congratulate +you? Would you do me the favor of stepping into the shop?" + +Mr. Trabb's boy was the most audacious boy in all that country-side. +When I had entered he was sweeping the shop, and he had sweetened his +labors by sweeping over me. He was still sweeping when I came out into +the shop with Mr. Trabb, and he knocked the broom against all possible +corners and obstacles, to express (as I understood it) equality with any +blacksmith, alive or dead. + +"Hold that noise," said Mr. Trabb, with the greatest sternness, "or I'll +knock your head off!--Do me the favor to be seated, sir. Now, this," +said Mr. Trabb, taking down a roll of cloth, and tiding it out in a +flowing manner over the counter, preparatory to getting his hand under +it to show the gloss, "is a very sweet article. I can recommend it for +your purpose, sir, because it really is extra super. But you shall +see some others. Give me Number Four, you!" (To the boy, and with a +dreadfully severe stare; foreseeing the danger of that miscreant's +brushing me with it, or making some other sign of familiarity.) + +Mr. Trabb never removed his stern eye from the boy until he had +deposited number four on the counter and was at a safe distance again. +Then he commanded him to bring number five, and number eight. "And let +me have none of your tricks here," said Mr. Trabb, "or you shall repent +it, you young scoundrel, the longest day you have to live." + +Mr. Trabb then bent over number four, and in a sort of deferential +confidence recommended it to me as a light article for summer wear, an +article much in vogue among the nobility and gentry, an article that +it would ever be an honor to him to reflect upon a distinguished +fellow-townsman's (if he might claim me for a fellow-townsman) having +worn. "Are you bringing numbers five and eight, you vagabond," said Mr. +Trabb to the boy after that, "or shall I kick you out of the shop and +bring them myself?" + +I selected the materials for a suit, with the assistance of Mr. Trabb's +judgment, and re-entered the parlor to be measured. For although Mr. +Trabb had my measure already, and had previously been quite contented +with it, he said apologetically that it "wouldn't do under existing +circumstances, sir,--wouldn't do at all." So, Mr. Trabb measured and +calculated me in the parlor, as if I were an estate and he the finest +species of surveyor, and gave himself such a world of trouble that +I felt that no suit of clothes could possibly remunerate him for his +pains. When he had at last done and had appointed to send the articles +to Mr. Pumblechook's on the Thursday evening, he said, with his hand +upon the parlor lock, "I know, sir, that London gentlemen cannot be +expected to patronize local work, as a rule; but if you would give me a +turn now and then in the quality of a townsman, I should greatly esteem +it. Good morning, sir, much obliged.--Door!" + +The last word was flung at the boy, who had not the least notion what +it meant. But I saw him collapse as his master rubbed me out with his +hands, and my first decided experience of the stupendous power of money +was, that it had morally laid upon his back Trabb's boy. + +After this memorable event, I went to the hatter's, and the bootmaker's, +and the hosier's, and felt rather like Mother Hubbard's dog whose outfit +required the services of so many trades. I also went to the coach-office +and took my place for seven o'clock on Saturday morning. It was +not necessary to explain everywhere that I had come into a handsome +property; but whenever I said anything to that effect, it followed that +the officiating tradesman ceased to have his attention diverted through +the window by the High Street, and concentrated his mind upon me. When +I had ordered everything I wanted, I directed my steps towards +Pumblechook's, and, as I approached that gentleman's place of business, +I saw him standing at his door. + +He was waiting for me with great impatience. He had been out early with +the chaise-cart, and had called at the forge and heard the news. He had +prepared a collation for me in the Barnwell parlor, and he too ordered +his shopman to "come out of the gangway" as my sacred person passed. + +"My dear friend," said Mr. Pumblechook, taking me by both hands, when +he and I and the collation were alone, "I give you joy of your good +fortune. Well deserved, well deserved!" + +This was coming to the point, and I thought it a sensible way of +expressing himself. + +"To think," said Mr. Pumblechook, after snorting admiration at me for +some moments, "that I should have been the humble instrument of leading +up to this, is a proud reward." + +I begged Mr. Pumblechook to remember that nothing was to be ever said or +hinted, on that point. + +"My dear young friend," said Mr. Pumblechook; "if you will allow me to +call you so--" + +I murmured "Certainly," and Mr. Pumblechook took me by both hands again, +and communicated a movement to his waistcoat, which had an emotional +appearance, though it was rather low down, "My dear young friend, rely +upon my doing my little all in your absence, by keeping the fact before +the mind of Joseph.--Joseph!" said Mr. Pumblechook, in the way of a +compassionate adjuration. "Joseph!! Joseph!!!" Thereupon he shook his +head and tapped it, expressing his sense of deficiency in Joseph. + +"But my dear young friend," said Mr. Pumblechook, "you must be hungry, +you must be exhausted. Be seated. Here is a chicken had round from the +Boar, here is a tongue had round from the Boar, here's one or two little +things had round from the Boar, that I hope you may not despise. But do +I," said Mr. Pumblechook, getting up again the moment after he had sat +down, "see afore me, him as I ever sported with in his times of happy +infancy? And may I--may I--?" + +This May I, meant might he shake hands? I consented, and he was fervent, +and then sat down again. + +"Here is wine," said Mr. Pumblechook. "Let us drink, Thanks to Fortune, +and may she ever pick out her favorites with equal judgment! And yet I +cannot," said Mr. Pumblechook, getting up again, "see afore me One--and +likewise drink to One--without again expressing--May I--may I--?" + +I said he might, and he shook hands with me again, and emptied his glass +and turned it upside down. I did the same; and if I had turned myself +upside down before drinking, the wine could not have gone more direct to +my head. + +Mr. Pumblechook helped me to the liver wing, and to the best slice of +tongue (none of those out-of-the-way No Thoroughfares of Pork now), and +took, comparatively speaking, no care of himself at all. "Ah! poultry, +poultry! You little thought," said Mr. Pumblechook, apostrophizing the +fowl in the dish, "when you was a young fledgling, what was in store for +you. You little thought you was to be refreshment beneath this humble +roof for one as--Call it a weakness, if you will," said Mr. Pumblechook, +getting up again, "but may I? may I--?" + +It began to be unnecessary to repeat the form of saying he might, so +he did it at once. How he ever did it so often without wounding himself +with my knife, I don't know. + +"And your sister," he resumed, after a little steady eating, "which had +the honor of bringing you up by hand! It's a sad picter, to reflect that +she's no longer equal to fully understanding the honor. May--" + +I saw he was about to come at me again, and I stopped him. + +"We'll drink her health," said I. + +"Ah!" cried Mr. Pumblechook, leaning back in his chair, quite flaccid +with admiration, "that's the way you know 'em, sir!" (I don't know +who Sir was, but he certainly was not I, and there was no third person +present); "that's the way you know the noble-minded, sir! Ever forgiving +and ever affable. It might," said the servile Pumblechook, putting down +his untasted glass in a hurry and getting up again, "to a common person, +have the appearance of repeating--but may I--?" + +When he had done it, he resumed his seat and drank to my sister. "Let us +never be blind," said Mr. Pumblechook, "to her faults of temper, but it +is to be hoped she meant well." + +At about this time, I began to observe that he was getting flushed in +the face; as to myself, I felt all face, steeped in wine and smarting. + +I mentioned to Mr. Pumblechook that I wished to have my new clothes +sent to his house, and he was ecstatic on my so distinguishing him. I +mentioned my reason for desiring to avoid observation in the village, +and he lauded it to the skies. There was nobody but himself, he +intimated, worthy of my confidence, and--in short, might he? Then he +asked me tenderly if I remembered our boyish games at sums, and how we +had gone together to have me bound apprentice, and, in effect, how he +had ever been my favorite fancy and my chosen friend? If I had taken +ten times as many glasses of wine as I had, I should have known that he +never had stood in that relation towards me, and should in my heart of +hearts have repudiated the idea. Yet for all that, I remember feeling +convinced that I had been much mistaken in him, and that he was a +sensible, practical, good-hearted prime fellow. + +By degrees he fell to reposing such great confidence in me, as to ask my +advice in reference to his own affairs. He mentioned that there was an +opportunity for a great amalgamation and monopoly of the corn and seed +trade on those premises, if enlarged, such as had never occurred +before in that or any other neighborhood. What alone was wanting to the +realization of a vast fortune, he considered to be More Capital. +Those were the two little words, more capital. Now it appeared to him +(Pumblechook) that if that capital were got into the business, through a +sleeping partner, sir,--which sleeping partner would have nothing to +do but walk in, by self or deputy, whenever he pleased, and examine +the books,--and walk in twice a year and take his profits away in his +pocket, to the tune of fifty per cent,--it appeared to him that that +might be an opening for a young gentleman of spirit combined with +property, which would be worthy of his attention. But what did I think? +He had great confidence in my opinion, and what did I think? I gave it +as my opinion. "Wait a bit!" The united vastness and distinctness of +this view so struck him, that he no longer asked if he might shake hands +with me, but said he really must,--and did. + +We drank all the wine, and Mr. Pumblechook pledged himself over and over +again to keep Joseph up to the mark (I don't know what mark), and to +render me efficient and constant service (I don't know what service). He +also made known to me for the first time in my life, and certainly after +having kept his secret wonderfully well, that he had always said of me, +"That boy is no common boy, and mark me, his fortun' will be no common +fortun'." He said with a tearful smile that it was a singular thing to +think of now, and I said so too. Finally, I went out into the air, with +a dim perception that there was something unwonted in the conduct of the +sunshine, and found that I had slumberously got to the turnpike without +having taken any account of the road. + +There, I was roused by Mr. Pumblechook's hailing me. He was a long way +down the sunny street, and was making expressive gestures for me to +stop. I stopped, and he came up breathless. + +"No, my dear friend," said he, when he had recovered wind for speech. +"Not if I can help it. This occasion shall not entirely pass without +that affability on your part.--May I, as an old friend and well-wisher? +May I?" + +We shook hands for the hundredth time at least, and he ordered a young +carter out of my way with the greatest indignation. Then, he blessed +me and stood waving his hand to me until I had passed the crook in the +road; and then I turned into a field and had a long nap under a hedge +before I pursued my way home. + +I had scant luggage to take with me to London, for little of the little +I possessed was adapted to my new station. But I began packing that same +afternoon, and wildly packed up things that I knew I should want next +morning, in a fiction that there was not a moment to be lost. + +So, Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday, passed; and on Friday morning I +went to Mr. Pumblechook's, to put on my new clothes and pay my visit to +Miss Havisham. Mr. Pumblechook's own room was given up to me to dress +in, and was decorated with clean towels expressly for the event. My +clothes were rather a disappointment, of course. Probably every new +and eagerly expected garment ever put on since clothes came in, fell +a trifle short of the wearer's expectation. But after I had had my +new suit on some half an hour, and had gone through an immensity of +posturing with Mr. Pumblechook's very limited dressing-glass, in the +futile endeavor to see my legs, it seemed to fit me better. It being +market morning at a neighboring town some ten miles off, Mr. Pumblechook +was not at home. I had not told him exactly when I meant to leave, and +was not likely to shake hands with him again before departing. This was +all as it should be, and I went out in my new array, fearfully ashamed +of having to pass the shopman, and suspicious after all that I was at a +personal disadvantage, something like Joe's in his Sunday suit. + +I went circuitously to Miss Havisham's by all the back ways, and rang +at the bell constrainedly, on account of the stiff long fingers of my +gloves. Sarah Pocket came to the gate, and positively reeled back when +she saw me so changed; her walnut-shell countenance likewise turned from +brown to green and yellow. + +"You?" said she. "You? Good gracious! What do you want?" + +"I am going to London, Miss Pocket," said I, "and want to say good-bye to +Miss Havisham." + +I was not expected, for she left me locked in the yard, while she went +to ask if I were to be admitted. After a very short delay, she returned +and took me up, staring at me all the way. + +Miss Havisham was taking exercise in the room with the long spread +table, leaning on her crutch stick. The room was lighted as of yore, and +at the sound of our entrance, she stopped and turned. She was then just +abreast of the rotted bride-cake. + +"Don't go, Sarah," she said. "Well, Pip?" + +"I start for London, Miss Havisham, to-morrow," I was exceedingly +careful what I said, "and I thought you would kindly not mind my taking +leave of you." + +"This is a gay figure, Pip," said she, making her crutch stick play +round me, as if she, the fairy godmother who had changed me, were +bestowing the finishing gift. + +"I have come into such good fortune since I saw you last, Miss +Havisham," I murmured. "And I am so grateful for it, Miss Havisham!" + +"Ay, ay!" said she, looking at the discomfited and envious Sarah, with +delight. "I have seen Mr. Jaggers. I have heard about it, Pip. So you go +to-morrow?" + +"Yes, Miss Havisham." + +"And you are adopted by a rich person?" + +"Yes, Miss Havisham." + +"Not named?" + +"No, Miss Havisham." + +"And Mr. Jaggers is made your guardian?" + +"Yes, Miss Havisham." + +She quite gloated on these questions and answers, so keen was her +enjoyment of Sarah Pocket's jealous dismay. "Well!" she went on; "you +have a promising career before you. Be good--deserve it--and abide by +Mr. Jaggers's instructions." She looked at me, and looked at Sarah, and +Sarah's countenance wrung out of her watchful face a cruel smile. "Good-bye, +Pip!--you will always keep the name of Pip, you know." + +"Yes, Miss Havisham." + +"Good-bye, Pip!" + +She stretched out her hand, and I went down on my knee and put it to +my lips. I had not considered how I should take leave of her; it came +naturally to me at the moment to do this. She looked at Sarah Pocket +with triumph in her weird eyes, and so I left my fairy godmother, with +both her hands on her crutch stick, standing in the midst of the dimly +lighted room beside the rotten bride-cake that was hidden in cobwebs. + +Sarah Pocket conducted me down, as if I were a ghost who must be seen +out. She could not get over my appearance, and was in the last degree +confounded. I said "Good-bye, Miss Pocket;" but she merely stared, and +did not seem collected enough to know that I had spoken. Clear of the +house, I made the best of my way back to Pumblechook's, took off my new +clothes, made them into a bundle, and went back home in my older dress, +carrying it--to speak the truth--much more at my ease too, though I had +the bundle to carry. + +And now, those six days which were to have run out so slowly, had +run out fast and were gone, and to-morrow looked me in the face more +steadily than I could look at it. As the six evenings had dwindled +away, to five, to four, to three, to two, I had become more and more +appreciative of the society of Joe and Biddy. On this last evening, I +dressed my self out in my new clothes for their delight, and sat in my +splendor until bedtime. We had a hot supper on the occasion, graced by +the inevitable roast fowl, and we had some flip to finish with. We were +all very low, and none the higher for pretending to be in spirits. + +I was to leave our village at five in the morning, carrying my little +hand-portmanteau, and I had told Joe that I wished to walk away all +alone. I am afraid--sore afraid--that this purpose originated in my +sense of the contrast there would be between me and Joe, if we went to +the coach together. I had pretended with myself that there was nothing +of this taint in the arrangement; but when I went up to my little room +on this last night, I felt compelled to admit that it might be so, and +had an impulse upon me to go down again and entreat Joe to walk with me +in the morning. I did not. + +All night there were coaches in my broken sleep, going to wrong places +instead of to London, and having in the traces, now dogs, now cats, now +pigs, now men,--never horses. Fantastic failures of journeys occupied +me until the day dawned and the birds were singing. Then, I got up and +partly dressed, and sat at the window to take a last look out, and in +taking it fell asleep. + +Biddy was astir so early to get my breakfast, that, although I did not +sleep at the window an hour, I smelt the smoke of the kitchen fire when +I started up with a terrible idea that it must be late in the afternoon. +But long after that, and long after I had heard the clinking of the +teacups and was quite ready, I wanted the resolution to go downstairs. +After all, I remained up there, repeatedly unlocking and unstrapping +my small portmanteau and locking and strapping it up again, until Biddy +called to me that I was late. + +It was a hurried breakfast with no taste in it. I got up from the meal, +saying with a sort of briskness, as if it had only just occurred to me, +"Well! I suppose I must be off!" and then I kissed my sister who was +laughing and nodding and shaking in her usual chair, and kissed +Biddy, and threw my arms around Joe's neck. Then I took up my little +portmanteau and walked out. The last I saw of them was, when I presently +heard a scuffle behind me, and looking back, saw Joe throwing an old +shoe after me and Biddy throwing another old shoe. I stopped then, to +wave my hat, and dear old Joe waved his strong right arm above his head, +crying huskily "Hooroar!" and Biddy put her apron to her face. + +I walked away at a good pace, thinking it was easier to go than I had +supposed it would be, and reflecting that it would never have done to +have had an old shoe thrown after the coach, in sight of all the High +Street. I whistled and made nothing of going. But the village was very +peaceful and quiet, and the light mists were solemnly rising, as if to +show me the world, and I had been so innocent and little there, and all +beyond was so unknown and great, that in a moment with a strong heave +and sob I broke into tears. It was by the finger-post at the end of the +village, and I laid my hand upon it, and said, "Good-bye, O my dear, dear +friend!" + +Heaven knows we need never be ashamed of our tears, for they are rain +upon the blinding dust of earth, overlying our hard hearts. I was +better after I had cried than before,--more sorry, more aware of my own +ingratitude, more gentle. If I had cried before, I should have had Joe +with me then. + +So subdued I was by those tears, and by their breaking out again in the +course of the quiet walk, that when I was on the coach, and it was clear +of the town, I deliberated with an aching heart whether I would not get +down when we changed horses and walk back, and have another evening at +home, and a better parting. We changed, and I had not made up my mind, +and still reflected for my comfort that it would be quite practicable to +get down and walk back, when we changed again. And while I was occupied +with these deliberations, I would fancy an exact resemblance to Joe +in some man coming along the road towards us, and my heart would beat +high.--As if he could possibly be there! + +We changed again, and yet again, and it was now too late and too far to +go back, and I went on. And the mists had all solemnly risen now, and +the world lay spread before me. + +This is the end of the first stage of Pip's expectations. + +Chapter XX + +The journey from our town to the metropolis was a journey of about five +hours. It was a little past midday when the four-horse stage-coach by +which I was a passenger, got into the ravel of traffic frayed out about +the Cross Keys, Wood Street, Cheapside, London. + +We Britons had at that time particularly settled that it was treasonable +to doubt our having and our being the best of everything: otherwise, +while I was scared by the immensity of London, I think I might have had +some faint doubts whether it was not rather ugly, crooked, narrow, and +dirty. + +Mr. Jaggers had duly sent me his address; it was, Little Britain, and he +had written after it on his card, "just out of Smithfield, and close by +the coach-office." Nevertheless, a hackney-coachman, who seemed to have +as many capes to his greasy great-coat as he was years old, packed me +up in his coach and hemmed me in with a folding and jingling barrier of +steps, as if he were going to take me fifty miles. His getting on his +box, which I remember to have been decorated with an old weather-stained +pea-green hammercloth moth-eaten into rags, was quite a work of time. +It was a wonderful equipage, with six great coronets outside, and ragged +things behind for I don't know how many footmen to hold on by, and +a harrow below them, to prevent amateur footmen from yielding to the +temptation. + +I had scarcely had time to enjoy the coach and to think how like a +straw-yard it was, and yet how like a rag-shop, and to wonder why +the horses' nose-bags were kept inside, when I observed the coachman +beginning to get down, as if we were going to stop presently. And stop +we presently did, in a gloomy street, at certain offices with an open +door, whereon was painted MR. JAGGERS. + +"How much?" I asked the coachman. + +The coachman answered, "A shilling--unless you wish to make it more." + +I naturally said I had no wish to make it more. + +"Then it must be a shilling," observed the coachman. "I don't want to +get into trouble. I know him!" He darkly closed an eye at Mr. Jaggers's +name, and shook his head. + +When he had got his shilling, and had in course of time completed the +ascent to his box, and had got away (which appeared to relieve his +mind), I went into the front office with my little portmanteau in my +hand and asked, Was Mr. Jaggers at home? + +"He is not," returned the clerk. "He is in Court at present. Am I +addressing Mr. Pip?" + +I signified that he was addressing Mr. Pip. + +"Mr. Jaggers left word, would you wait in his room. He couldn't say how +long he might be, having a case on. But it stands to reason, his time +being valuable, that he won't be longer than he can help." + +With those words, the clerk opened a door, and ushered me into an inner +chamber at the back. Here, we found a gentleman with one eye, in a +velveteen suit and knee-breeches, who wiped his nose with his sleeve on +being interrupted in the perusal of the newspaper. + +"Go and wait outside, Mike," said the clerk. + +I began to say that I hoped I was not interrupting, when the clerk +shoved this gentleman out with as little ceremony as I ever saw used, +and tossing his fur cap out after him, left me alone. + +Mr. Jaggers's room was lighted by a skylight only, and was a most dismal +place; the skylight, eccentrically pitched like a broken head, and the +distorted adjoining houses looking as if they had twisted themselves to +peep down at me through it. There were not so many papers about, as I +should have expected to see; and there were some odd objects about, that +I should not have expected to see,--such as an old rusty pistol, a +sword in a scabbard, several strange-looking boxes and packages, and +two dreadful casts on a shelf, of faces peculiarly swollen, and twitchy +about the nose. Mr. Jaggers's own high-backed chair was of deadly black +horsehair, with rows of brass nails round it, like a coffin; and I +fancied I could see how he leaned back in it, and bit his forefinger at +the clients. The room was but small, and the clients seemed to have had +a habit of backing up against the wall; the wall, especially opposite to +Mr. Jaggers's chair, being greasy with shoulders. I recalled, too, that +the one-eyed gentleman had shuffled forth against the wall when I was +the innocent cause of his being turned out. + +I sat down in the cliental chair placed over against Mr. Jaggers's +chair, and became fascinated by the dismal atmosphere of the place. I +called to mind that the clerk had the same air of knowing something to +everybody else's disadvantage, as his master had. I wondered how many +other clerks there were upstairs, and whether they all claimed to have +the same detrimental mastery of their fellow-creatures. I wondered what +was the history of all the odd litter about the room, and how it came +there. I wondered whether the two swollen faces were of Mr. Jaggers's +family, and, if he were so unfortunate as to have had a pair of such +ill-looking relations, why he stuck them on that dusty perch for the +blacks and flies to settle on, instead of giving them a place at home. +Of course I had no experience of a London summer day, and my spirits may +have been oppressed by the hot exhausted air, and by the dust and grit +that lay thick on everything. But I sat wondering and waiting in Mr. +Jaggers's close room, until I really could not bear the two casts on the +shelf above Mr. Jaggers's chair, and got up and went out. + +When I told the clerk that I would take a turn in the air while I +waited, he advised me to go round the corner and I should come into +Smithfield. So I came into Smithfield; and the shameful place, being all +asmear with filth and fat and blood and foam, seemed to stick to me. So, +I rubbed it off with all possible speed by turning into a street where +I saw the great black dome of Saint Paul's bulging at me from behind a +grim stone building which a bystander said was Newgate Prison. Following +the wall of the jail, I found the roadway covered with straw to deaden +the noise of passing vehicles; and from this, and from the quantity of +people standing about smelling strongly of spirits and beer, I inferred +that the trials were on. + +While I looked about me here, an exceedingly dirty and partially drunk +minister of justice asked me if I would like to step in and hear a +trial or so: informing me that he could give me a front place for half a +crown, whence I should command a full view of the Lord Chief Justice in +his wig and robes,--mentioning that awful personage like waxwork, and +presently offering him at the reduced price of eighteen-pence. As I +declined the proposal on the plea of an appointment, he was so good as +to take me into a yard and show me where the gallows was kept, and also +where people were publicly whipped, and then he showed me the Debtors' +Door, out of which culprits came to be hanged; heightening the interest +of that dreadful portal by giving me to understand that "four on 'em" +would come out at that door the day after to-morrow at eight in the +morning, to be killed in a row. This was horrible, and gave me a +sickening idea of London; the more so as the Lord Chief Justice's +proprietor wore (from his hat down to his boots and up again to his +pocket-handkerchief inclusive) mildewed clothes which had evidently +not belonged to him originally, and which I took it into my head he had +bought cheap of the executioner. Under these circumstances I thought +myself well rid of him for a shilling. + +I dropped into the office to ask if Mr. Jaggers had come in yet, and I +found he had not, and I strolled out again. This time, I made the tour +of Little Britain, and turned into Bartholomew Close; and now I became +aware that other people were waiting about for Mr. Jaggers, as well +as I. There were two men of secret appearance lounging in Bartholomew +Close, and thoughtfully fitting their feet into the cracks of the +pavement as they talked together, one of whom said to the other when +they first passed me, that "Jaggers would do it if it was to be done." +There was a knot of three men and two women standing at a corner, and +one of the women was crying on her dirty shawl, and the other comforted +her by saying, as she pulled her own shawl over her shoulders, "Jaggers +is for him, 'Melia, and what more could you have?" There was a red-eyed +little Jew who came into the Close while I was loitering there, in +company with a second little Jew whom he sent upon an errand; and +while the messenger was gone, I remarked this Jew, who was of a highly +excitable temperament, performing a jig of anxiety under a lamp-post and +accompanying himself, in a kind of frenzy, with the words, "O Jaggerth, +Jaggerth, Jaggerth! all otherth ith Cag-Maggerth, give me Jaggerth!" +These testimonies to the popularity of my guardian made a deep +impression on me, and I admired and wondered more than ever. + +At length, as I was looking out at the iron gate of Bartholomew Close +into Little Britain, I saw Mr. Jaggers coming across the road towards +me. All the others who were waiting saw him at the same time, and there +was quite a rush at him. Mr. Jaggers, putting a hand on my shoulder +and walking me on at his side without saying anything to me, addressed +himself to his followers. + +First, he took the two secret men. + +"Now, I have nothing to say to you," said Mr. Jaggers, throwing his +finger at them. "I want to know no more than I know. As to the result, +it's a toss-up. I told you from the first it was a toss-up. Have you +paid Wemmick?" + +"We made the money up this morning, sir," said one of the men, +submissively, while the other perused Mr. Jaggers's face. + +"I don't ask you when you made it up, or where, or whether you made it +up at all. Has Wemmick got it?" + +"Yes, sir," said both the men together. + +"Very well; then you may go. Now, I won't have it!" said Mr Jaggers, +waving his hand at them to put them behind him. "If you say a word to +me, I'll throw up the case." + +"We thought, Mr. Jaggers--" one of the men began, pulling off his hat. + +"That's what I told you not to do," said Mr. Jaggers. "You thought! I +think for you; that's enough for you. If I want you, I know where to +find you; I don't want you to find me. Now I won't have it. I won't hear +a word." + +The two men looked at one another as Mr. Jaggers waved them behind +again, and humbly fell back and were heard no more. + +"And now you!" said Mr. Jaggers, suddenly stopping, and turning on +the two women with the shawls, from whom the three men had meekly +separated,--"Oh! Amelia, is it?" + +"Yes, Mr. Jaggers." + +"And do you remember," retorted Mr. Jaggers, "that but for me you +wouldn't be here and couldn't be here?" + +"O yes, sir!" exclaimed both women together. "Lord bless you, sir, well +we knows that!" + +"Then why," said Mr. Jaggers, "do you come here?" + +"My Bill, sir!" the crying woman pleaded. + +"Now, I tell you what!" said Mr. Jaggers. "Once for all. If you don't +know that your Bill's in good hands, I know it. And if you come here +bothering about your Bill, I'll make an example of both your Bill and +you, and let him slip through my fingers. Have you paid Wemmick?" + +"O yes, sir! Every farden." + +"Very well. Then you have done all you have got to do. Say another +word--one single word--and Wemmick shall give you your money back." + +This terrible threat caused the two women to fall off immediately. +No one remained now but the excitable Jew, who had already raised the +skirts of Mr. Jaggers's coat to his lips several times. + +"I don't know this man!" said Mr. Jaggers, in the same devastating +strain: "What does this fellow want?" + +"Ma thear Mithter Jaggerth. Hown brother to Habraham Latharuth?" + +"Who's he?" said Mr. Jaggers. "Let go of my coat." + +The suitor, kissing the hem of the garment again before relinquishing +it, replied, "Habraham Latharuth, on thuthpithion of plate." + +"You're too late," said Mr. Jaggers. "I am over the way." + +"Holy father, Mithter Jaggerth!" cried my excitable acquaintance, +turning white, "don't thay you're again Habraham Latharuth!" + +"I am," said Mr. Jaggers, "and there's an end of it. Get out of the +way." + +"Mithter Jaggerth! Half a moment! My hown cuthen'th gone to Mithter +Wemmick at thith prethent minute, to hoffer him hany termth. Mithter +Jaggerth! Half a quarter of a moment! If you'd have the condethenthun to +be bought off from the t'other thide--at hany thuperior prithe!--money +no object!--Mithter Jaggerth--Mithter--!" + +My guardian threw his supplicant off with supreme indifference, and +left him dancing on the pavement as if it were red hot. Without further +interruption, we reached the front office, where we found the clerk and +the man in velveteen with the fur cap. + +"Here's Mike," said the clerk, getting down from his stool, and +approaching Mr. Jaggers confidentially. + +"Oh!" said Mr. Jaggers, turning to the man, who was pulling a lock of +hair in the middle of his forehead, like the Bull in Cock Robin pulling +at the bell-rope; "your man comes on this afternoon. Well?" + +"Well, Mas'r Jaggers," returned Mike, in the voice of a sufferer from a +constitutional cold; "arter a deal o' trouble, I've found one, sir, as +might do." + +"What is he prepared to swear?" + +"Well, Mas'r Jaggers," said Mike, wiping his nose on his fur cap this +time; "in a general way, anythink." + +Mr. Jaggers suddenly became most irate. "Now, I warned you before," said +he, throwing his forefinger at the terrified client, "that if you ever +presumed to talk in that way here, I'd make an example of you. You +infernal scoundrel, how dare you tell ME that?" + +The client looked scared, but bewildered too, as if he were unconscious +what he had done. + +"Spooney!" said the clerk, in a low voice, giving him a stir with his +elbow. "Soft Head! Need you say it face to face?" + +"Now, I ask you, you blundering booby," said my guardian, very sternly, +"once more and for the last time, what the man you have brought here is +prepared to swear?" + +Mike looked hard at my guardian, as if he were trying to learn a lesson +from his face, and slowly replied, "Ayther to character, or to having +been in his company and never left him all the night in question." + +"Now, be careful. In what station of life is this man?" + +Mike looked at his cap, and looked at the floor, and looked at the +ceiling, and looked at the clerk, and even looked at me, before +beginning to reply in a nervous manner, "We've dressed him up like--" +when my guardian blustered out,-- + +"What? You WILL, will you?" + +("Spooney!" added the clerk again, with another stir.) + +After some helpless casting about, Mike brightened and began again:-- + +"He is dressed like a 'spectable pieman. A sort of a pastry-cook." + +"Is he here?" asked my guardian. + +"I left him," said Mike, "a setting on some doorsteps round the corner." + +"Take him past that window, and let me see him." + +The window indicated was the office window. We all three went to +it, behind the wire blind, and presently saw the client go by in an +accidental manner, with a murderous-looking tall individual, in a short +suit of white linen and a paper cap. This guileless confectioner was not +by any means sober, and had a black eye in the green stage of recovery, +which was painted over. + +"Tell him to take his witness away directly," said my guardian to the +clerk, in extreme disgust, "and ask him what he means by bringing such a +fellow as that." + +My guardian then took me into his own room, and while he lunched, +standing, from a sandwich-box and a pocket-flask of sherry (he seemed to +bully his very sandwich as he ate it), informed me what arrangements he +had made for me. I was to go to "Barnard's Inn," to young Mr. Pocket's +rooms, where a bed had been sent in for my accommodation; I was to +remain with young Mr. Pocket until Monday; on Monday I was to go with +him to his father's house on a visit, that I might try how I liked it. +Also, I was told what my allowance was to be,--it was a very liberal +one,--and had handed to me from one of my guardian's drawers, the cards +of certain tradesmen with whom I was to deal for all kinds of clothes, +and such other things as I could in reason want. "You will find your +credit good, Mr. Pip," said my guardian, whose flask of sherry smelt +like a whole caskful, as he hastily refreshed himself, "but I shall by +this means be able to check your bills, and to pull you up if I find you +outrunning the constable. Of course you'll go wrong somehow, but that's +no fault of mine." + +After I had pondered a little over this encouraging sentiment, I asked +Mr. Jaggers if I could send for a coach? He said it was not worth while, +I was so near my destination; Wemmick should walk round with me, if I +pleased. + +I then found that Wemmick was the clerk in the next room. Another clerk +was rung down from upstairs to take his place while he was out, and I +accompanied him into the street, after shaking hands with my guardian. +We found a new set of people lingering outside, but Wemmick made a way +among them by saying coolly yet decisively, "I tell you it's no use; he +won't have a word to say to one of you;" and we soon got clear of them, +and went on side by side. + + + + +Chapter XXI + +Casting my eyes on Mr. Wemmick as we went along, to see what he was +like in the light of day, I found him to be a dry man, rather short in +stature, with a square wooden face, whose expression seemed to have been +imperfectly chipped out with a dull-edged chisel. There were some marks +in it that might have been dimples, if the material had been softer and +the instrument finer, but which, as it was, were only dints. The chisel +had made three or four of these attempts at embellishment over his nose, +but had given them up without an effort to smooth them off. I judged him +to be a bachelor from the frayed condition of his linen, and he appeared +to have sustained a good many bereavements; for he wore at least four +mourning rings, besides a brooch representing a lady and a weeping +willow at a tomb with an urn on it. I noticed, too, that several rings +and seals hung at his watch-chain, as if he were quite laden with +remembrances of departed friends. He had glittering eyes,--small, keen, +and black,--and thin wide mottled lips. He had had them, to the best of +my belief, from forty to fifty years. + +"So you were never in London before?" said Mr. Wemmick to me. + +"No," said I. + +"I was new here once," said Mr. Wemmick. "Rum to think of now!" + +"You are well acquainted with it now?" + +"Why, yes," said Mr. Wemmick. "I know the moves of it." + +"Is it a very wicked place?" I asked, more for the sake of saying +something than for information. + +"You may get cheated, robbed, and murdered in London. But there are +plenty of people anywhere, who'll do that for you." + +"If there is bad blood between you and them," said I, to soften it off a +little. + +"O! I don't know about bad blood," returned Mr. Wemmick; "there's not +much bad blood about. They'll do it, if there's anything to be got by +it." + +"That makes it worse." + +"You think so?" returned Mr. Wemmick. "Much about the same, I should +say." + +He wore his hat on the back of his head, and looked straight before him: +walking in a self-contained way as if there were nothing in the streets +to claim his attention. His mouth was such a post-office of a mouth +that he had a mechanical appearance of smiling. We had got to the top of +Holborn Hill before I knew that it was merely a mechanical appearance, +and that he was not smiling at all. + +"Do you know where Mr. Matthew Pocket lives?" I asked Mr. Wemmick. + +"Yes," said he, nodding in the direction. "At Hammersmith, west of +London." + +"Is that far?" + +"Well! Say five miles." + +"Do you know him?" + +"Why, you're a regular cross-examiner!" said Mr. Wemmick, looking at me +with an approving air. "Yes, I know him. I know him!" + +There was an air of toleration or depreciation about his utterance of +these words that rather depressed me; and I was still looking sideways +at his block of a face in search of any encouraging note to the text, +when he said here we were at Barnard's Inn. My depression was not +alleviated by the announcement, for, I had supposed that establishment +to be an hotel kept by Mr. Barnard, to which the Blue Boar in our town +was a mere public-house. Whereas I now found Barnard to be a disembodied +spirit, or a fiction, and his inn the dingiest collection of shabby +buildings ever squeezed together in a rank corner as a club for +Tom-cats. + +We entered this haven through a wicket-gate, and were disgorged by an +introductory passage into a melancholy little square that looked to me +like a flat burying-ground. I thought it had the most dismal trees in +it, and the most dismal sparrows, and the most dismal cats, and the most +dismal houses (in number half a dozen or so), that I had ever seen. I +thought the windows of the sets of chambers into which those houses were +divided were in every stage of dilapidated blind and curtain, crippled +flower-pot, cracked glass, dusty decay, and miserable makeshift; while +To Let, To Let, To Let, glared at me from empty rooms, as if no new +wretches ever came there, and the vengeance of the soul of Barnard were +being slowly appeased by the gradual suicide of the present occupants +and their unholy interment under the gravel. A frowzy mourning of soot +and smoke attired this forlorn creation of Barnard, and it had strewn +ashes on its head, and was undergoing penance and humiliation as a mere +dust-hole. Thus far my sense of sight; while dry rot and wet rot and all +the silent rots that rot in neglected roof and cellar,--rot of rat +and mouse and bug and coaching-stables near at hand besides--addressed +themselves faintly to my sense of smell, and moaned, "Try Barnard's +Mixture." + +So imperfect was this realization of the first of my great expectations, +that I looked in dismay at Mr. Wemmick. "Ah!" said he, mistaking me; +"the retirement reminds you of the country. So it does me." + +He led me into a corner and conducted me up a flight of stairs,--which +appeared to me to be slowly collapsing into sawdust, so that one of +those days the upper lodgers would look out at their doors and find +themselves without the means of coming down,--to a set of chambers on +the top floor. MR. POCKET, JUN., was painted on the door, and there was +a label on the letter-box, "Return shortly." + +"He hardly thought you'd come so soon," Mr. Wemmick explained. "You +don't want me any more?" + +"No, thank you," said I. + +"As I keep the cash," Mr. Wemmick observed, "we shall most likely meet +pretty often. Good day." + +"Good day." + +I put out my hand, and Mr. Wemmick at first looked at it as if he +thought I wanted something. Then he looked at me, and said, correcting +himself,-- + +"To be sure! Yes. You're in the habit of shaking hands?" + +I was rather confused, thinking it must be out of the London fashion, +but said yes. + +"I have got so out of it!" said Mr. Wemmick,--"except at last. Very +glad, I'm sure, to make your acquaintance. Good day!" + +When we had shaken hands and he was gone, I opened the staircase window +and had nearly beheaded myself, for, the lines had rotted away, and it +came down like the guillotine. Happily it was so quick that I had not +put my head out. After this escape, I was content to take a foggy view +of the Inn through the window's encrusting dirt, and to stand dolefully +looking out, saying to myself that London was decidedly overrated. + +Mr. Pocket, Junior's, idea of Shortly was not mine, for I had nearly +maddened myself with looking out for half an hour, and had written +my name with my finger several times in the dirt of every pane in the +window, before I heard footsteps on the stairs. Gradually there arose +before me the hat, head, neckcloth, waistcoat, trousers, boots, of a +member of society of about my own standing. He had a paper-bag under +each arm and a pottle of strawberries in one hand, and was out of +breath. + +"Mr. Pip?" said he. + +"Mr. Pocket?" said I. + +"Dear me!" he exclaimed. "I am extremely sorry; but I knew there was a +coach from your part of the country at midday, and I thought you would +come by that one. The fact is, I have been out on your account,--not +that that is any excuse,--for I thought, coming from the country, you +might like a little fruit after dinner, and I went to Covent Garden +Market to get it good." + +For a reason that I had, I felt as if my eyes would start out of my +head. I acknowledged his attention incoherently, and began to think this +was a dream. + +"Dear me!" said Mr. Pocket, Junior. "This door sticks so!" + +As he was fast making jam of his fruit by wrestling with the door while +the paper-bags were under his arms, I begged him to allow me to hold +them. He relinquished them with an agreeable smile, and combated with +the door as if it were a wild beast. It yielded so suddenly at last, +that he staggered back upon me, and I staggered back upon the opposite +door, and we both laughed. But still I felt as if my eyes must start out +of my head, and as if this must be a dream. + +"Pray come in," said Mr. Pocket, Junior. "Allow me to lead the way. I am +rather bare here, but I hope you'll be able to make out tolerably well +till Monday. My father thought you would get on more agreeably through +to-morrow with me than with him, and might like to take a walk about +London. I am sure I shall be very happy to show London to you. As to our +table, you won't find that bad, I hope, for it will be supplied from our +coffee-house here, and (it is only right I should add) at your expense, +such being Mr. Jaggers's directions. As to our lodging, it's not by +any means splendid, because I have my own bread to earn, and my father +hasn't anything to give me, and I shouldn't be willing to take it, if he +had. This is our sitting-room,--just such chairs and tables and carpet +and so forth, you see, as they could spare from home. You mustn't give +me credit for the tablecloth and spoons and castors, because they come +for you from the coffee-house. This is my little bedroom; rather musty, +but Barnard's is musty. This is your bedroom; the furniture's hired for +the occasion, but I trust it will answer the purpose; if you should want +anything, I'll go and fetch it. The chambers are retired, and we shall +be alone together, but we shan't fight, I dare say. But dear me, I beg +your pardon, you're holding the fruit all this time. Pray let me take +these bags from you. I am quite ashamed." + +As I stood opposite to Mr. Pocket, Junior, delivering him the bags, One, +Two, I saw the starting appearance come into his own eyes that I knew to +be in mine, and he said, falling back,-- + +"Lord bless me, you're the prowling boy!" + +"And you," said I, "are the pale young gentleman!" + + + + +Chapter XXII + +The pale young gentleman and I stood contemplating one another in +Barnard's Inn, until we both burst out laughing. "The idea of its +being you!" said he. "The idea of its being you!" said I. And then we +contemplated one another afresh, and laughed again. "Well!" said the +pale young gentleman, reaching out his hand good-humoredly, "it's all +over now, I hope, and it will be magnanimous in you if you'll forgive me +for having knocked you about so." + +I derived from this speech that Mr. Herbert Pocket (for Herbert was the +pale young gentleman's name) still rather confounded his intention with +his execution. But I made a modest reply, and we shook hands warmly. + +"You hadn't come into your good fortune at that time?" said Herbert +Pocket. + +"No," said I. + +"No," he acquiesced: "I heard it had happened very lately. I was rather +on the lookout for good fortune then." + +"Indeed?" + +"Yes. Miss Havisham had sent for me, to see if she could take a fancy to +me. But she couldn't,--at all events, she didn't." + +I thought it polite to remark that I was surprised to hear that. + +"Bad taste," said Herbert, laughing, "but a fact. Yes, she had sent for +me on a trial visit, and if I had come out of it successfully, I +suppose I should have been provided for; perhaps I should have been +what-you-may-called it to Estella." + +"What's that?" I asked, with sudden gravity. + +He was arranging his fruit in plates while we talked, which divided his +attention, and was the cause of his having made this lapse of a word. +"Affianced," he explained, still busy with the fruit. "Betrothed. +Engaged. What's-his-named. Any word of that sort." + +"How did you bear your disappointment?" I asked. + +"Pooh!" said he, "I didn't care much for it. She's a Tartar." + +"Miss Havisham?" + +"I don't say no to that, but I meant Estella. That girl's hard and +haughty and capricious to the last degree, and has been brought up by +Miss Havisham to wreak revenge on all the male sex." + +"What relation is she to Miss Havisham?" + +"None," said he. "Only adopted." + +"Why should she wreak revenge on all the male sex? What revenge?" + +"Lord, Mr. Pip!" said he. "Don't you know?" + +"No," said I. + +"Dear me! It's quite a story, and shall be saved till dinner-time. And +now let me take the liberty of asking you a question. How did you come +there, that day?" + +I told him, and he was attentive until I had finished, and then burst +out laughing again, and asked me if I was sore afterwards? I didn't +ask him if he was, for my conviction on that point was perfectly +established. + +"Mr. Jaggers is your guardian, I understand?" he went on. + +"Yes." + +"You know he is Miss Havisham's man of business and solicitor, and has +her confidence when nobody else has?" + +This was bringing me (I felt) towards dangerous ground. I answered with +a constraint I made no attempt to disguise, that I had seen Mr. Jaggers +in Miss Havisham's house on the very day of our combat, but never at any +other time, and that I believed he had no recollection of having ever +seen me there. + +"He was so obliging as to suggest my father for your tutor, and he +called on my father to propose it. Of course he knew about my father +from his connection with Miss Havisham. My father is Miss Havisham's +cousin; not that that implies familiar intercourse between them, for he +is a bad courtier and will not propitiate her." + +Herbert Pocket had a frank and easy way with him that was very taking. +I had never seen any one then, and I have never seen any one since, +who more strongly expressed to me, in every look and tone, a natural +incapacity to do anything secret and mean. There was something +wonderfully hopeful about his general air, and something that at the +same time whispered to me he would never be very successful or rich. I +don't know how this was. I became imbued with the notion on that first +occasion before we sat down to dinner, but I cannot define by what +means. + +He was still a pale young gentleman, and had a certain conquered languor +about him in the midst of his spirits and briskness, that did not seem +indicative of natural strength. He had not a handsome face, but it was +better than handsome: being extremely amiable and cheerful. His figure +was a little ungainly, as in the days when my knuckles had taken such +liberties with it, but it looked as if it would always be light and +young. Whether Mr. Trabb's local work would have sat more gracefully on +him than on me, may be a question; but I am conscious that he carried +off his rather old clothes much better than I carried off my new suit. + +As he was so communicative, I felt that reserve on my part would be a +bad return unsuited to our years. I therefore told him my small story, +and laid stress on my being forbidden to inquire who my benefactor was. +I further mentioned that as I had been brought up a blacksmith in a +country place, and knew very little of the ways of politeness, I would +take it as a great kindness in him if he would give me a hint whenever +he saw me at a loss or going wrong. + +"With pleasure," said he, "though I venture to prophesy that you'll want +very few hints. I dare say we shall be often together, and I should like +to banish any needless restraint between us. Will you do me the favour +to begin at once to call me by my Christian name, Herbert?" + +I thanked him and said I would. I informed him in exchange that my +Christian name was Philip. + +"I don't take to Philip," said he, smiling, "for it sounds like a moral +boy out of the spelling-book, who was so lazy that he fell into a pond, +or so fat that he couldn't see out of his eyes, or so avaricious that +he locked up his cake till the mice ate it, or so determined to go a +bird's-nesting that he got himself eaten by bears who lived handy in the +neighborhood. I tell you what I should like. We are so harmonious, and +you have been a blacksmith,---would you mind it?" + +"I shouldn't mind anything that you propose," I answered, "but I don't +understand you." + +"Would you mind Handel for a familiar name? There's a charming piece of +music by Handel, called the Harmonious Blacksmith." + +"I should like it very much." + +"Then, my dear Handel," said he, turning round as the door opened, +"here is the dinner, and I must beg of you to take the top of the table, +because the dinner is of your providing." + +This I would not hear of, so he took the top, and I faced him. It was a +nice little dinner,--seemed to me then a very Lord Mayor's Feast,--and +it acquired additional relish from being eaten under those independent +circumstances, with no old people by, and with London all around us. +This again was heightened by a certain gypsy character that set the +banquet off; for while the table was, as Mr. Pumblechook might have +said, the lap of luxury,--being entirely furnished forth from the +coffee-house,--the circumjacent region of sitting-room was of a +comparatively pastureless and shifty character; imposing on the waiter +the wandering habits of putting the covers on the floor (where he +fell over them), the melted butter in the arm-chair, the bread on the +bookshelves, the cheese in the coal-scuttle, and the boiled fowl into my +bed in the next room,--where I found much of its parsley and butter in +a state of congelation when I retired for the night. All this made the +feast delightful, and when the waiter was not there to watch me, my +pleasure was without alloy. + +We had made some progress in the dinner, when I reminded Herbert of his +promise to tell me about Miss Havisham. + +"True," he replied. "I'll redeem it at once. Let me introduce the topic, +Handel, by mentioning that in London it is not the custom to put the +knife in the mouth,--for fear of accidents,--and that while the fork is +reserved for that use, it is not put further in than necessary. It is +scarcely worth mentioning, only it's as well to do as other people do. +Also, the spoon is not generally used over-hand, but under. This has +two advantages. You get at your mouth better (which after all is the +object), and you save a good deal of the attitude of opening oysters, on +the part of the right elbow." + +He offered these friendly suggestions in such a lively way, that we both +laughed and I scarcely blushed. + +"Now," he pursued, "concerning Miss Havisham. Miss Havisham, you must +know, was a spoilt child. Her mother died when she was a baby, and her +father denied her nothing. Her father was a country gentleman down in +your part of the world, and was a brewer. I don't know why it should +be a crack thing to be a brewer; but it is indisputable that while you +cannot possibly be genteel and bake, you may be as genteel as never was +and brew. You see it every day." + +"Yet a gentleman may not keep a public-house; may he?" said I. + +"Not on any account," returned Herbert; "but a public-house may keep a +gentleman. Well! Mr. Havisham was very rich and very proud. So was his +daughter." + +"Miss Havisham was an only child?" I hazarded. + +"Stop a moment, I am coming to that. No, she was not an only child; +she had a half-brother. Her father privately married again--his cook, I +rather think." + +"I thought he was proud," said I. + +"My good Handel, so he was. He married his second wife privately, +because he was proud, and in course of time she died. When she was dead, +I apprehend he first told his daughter what he had done, and then +the son became a part of the family, residing in the house you are +acquainted with. As the son grew a young man, he turned out riotous, +extravagant, undutiful,--altogether bad. At last his father disinherited +him; but he softened when he was dying, and left him well off, though +not nearly so well off as Miss Havisham.--Take another glass of wine, +and excuse my mentioning that society as a body does not expect one +to be so strictly conscientious in emptying one's glass, as to turn it +bottom upwards with the rim on one's nose." + +I had been doing this, in an excess of attention to his recital. I +thanked him, and apologized. He said, "Not at all," and resumed. + +"Miss Havisham was now an heiress, and you may suppose was looked after +as a great match. Her half-brother had now ample means again, but what +with debts and what with new madness wasted them most fearfully again. +There were stronger differences between him and her than there had been +between him and his father, and it is suspected that he cherished a deep +and mortal grudge against her as having influenced the father's anger. +Now, I come to the cruel part of the story,--merely breaking off, my +dear Handel, to remark that a dinner-napkin will not go into a tumbler." + +Why I was trying to pack mine into my tumbler, I am wholly unable to +say. I only know that I found myself, with a perseverance worthy of a +much better cause, making the most strenuous exertions to compress it +within those limits. Again I thanked him and apologized, and again he +said in the cheerfullest manner, "Not at all, I am sure!" and resumed. + +"There appeared upon the scene--say at the races, or the public +balls, or anywhere else you like--a certain man, who made love to Miss +Havisham. I never saw him (for this happened five-and-twenty years ago, +before you and I were, Handel), but I have heard my father mention that +he was a showy man, and the kind of man for the purpose. But that he was +not to be, without ignorance or prejudice, mistaken for a gentleman, my +father most strongly asseverates; because it is a principle of his that +no man who was not a true gentleman at heart ever was, since the world +began, a true gentleman in manner. He says, no varnish can hide the +grain of the wood; and that the more varnish you put on, the more the +grain will express itself. Well! This man pursued Miss Havisham closely, +and professed to be devoted to her. I believe she had not shown much +susceptibility up to that time; but all the susceptibility she possessed +certainly came out then, and she passionately loved him. There is no +doubt that she perfectly idolized him. He practised on her affection in +that systematic way, that he got great sums of money from her, and he +induced her to buy her brother out of a share in the brewery (which had +been weakly left him by his father) at an immense price, on the plea +that when he was her husband he must hold and manage it all. Your +guardian was not at that time in Miss Havisham's counsels, and she was +too haughty and too much in love to be advised by any one. Her relations +were poor and scheming, with the exception of my father; he was poor +enough, but not time-serving or jealous. The only independent one among +them, he warned her that she was doing too much for this man, and +was placing herself too unreservedly in his power. She took the first +opportunity of angrily ordering my father out of the house, in his +presence, and my father has never seen her since." + +I thought of her having said, "Matthew will come and see me at last when +I am laid dead upon that table;" and I asked Herbert whether his father +was so inveterate against her? + +"It's not that," said he, "but she charged him, in the presence of her +intended husband, with being disappointed in the hope of fawning upon +her for his own advancement, and, if he were to go to her now, it would +look true--even to him--and even to her. To return to the man and make +an end of him. The marriage day was fixed, the wedding dresses were +bought, the wedding tour was planned out, the wedding guests were +invited. The day came, but not the bridegroom. He wrote her a letter--" + +"Which she received," I struck in, "when she was dressing for her +marriage? At twenty minutes to nine?" + +"At the hour and minute," said Herbert, nodding, "at which she +afterwards stopped all the clocks. What was in it, further than that +it most heartlessly broke the marriage off, I can't tell you, because I +don't know. When she recovered from a bad illness that she had, she +laid the whole place waste, as you have seen it, and she has never since +looked upon the light of day." + +"Is that all the story?" I asked, after considering it. + +"All I know of it; and indeed I only know so much, through piecing it +out for myself; for my father always avoids it, and, even when Miss +Havisham invited me to go there, told me no more of it than it was +absolutely requisite I should understand. But I have forgotten one +thing. It has been supposed that the man to whom she gave her misplaced +confidence acted throughout in concert with her half-brother; that it +was a conspiracy between them; and that they shared the profits." + +"I wonder he didn't marry her and get all the property," said I. + +"He may have been married already, and her cruel mortification may have +been a part of her half-brother's scheme," said Herbert. "Mind! I don't +know that." + +"What became of the two men?" I asked, after again considering the +subject. + +"They fell into deeper shame and degradation--if there can be +deeper--and ruin." + +"Are they alive now?" + +"I don't know." + +"You said just now that Estella was not related to Miss Havisham, but +adopted. When adopted?" + +Herbert shrugged his shoulders. "There has always been an Estella, since +I have heard of a Miss Havisham. I know no more. And now, Handel," said +he, finally throwing off the story as it were, "there is a perfectly +open understanding between us. All that I know about Miss Havisham, you +know." + +"And all that I know," I retorted, "you know." + +"I fully believe it. So there can be no competition or perplexity +between you and me. And as to the condition on which you hold your +advancement in life,--namely, that you are not to inquire or discuss to +whom you owe it,--you may be very sure that it will never be encroached +upon, or even approached, by me, or by any one belonging to me." + +In truth, he said this with so much delicacy, that I felt the subject +done with, even though I should be under his father's roof for years and +years to come. Yet he said it with so much meaning, too, that I felt +he as perfectly understood Miss Havisham to be my benefactress, as I +understood the fact myself. + +It had not occurred to me before, that he had led up to the theme for +the purpose of clearing it out of our way; but we were so much the +lighter and easier for having broached it, that I now perceived this +to be the case. We were very gay and sociable, and I asked him, in the +course of conversation, what he was? He replied, "A capitalist,--an +Insurer of Ships." I suppose he saw me glancing about the room in search +of some tokens of Shipping, or capital, for he added, "In the City." + +I had grand ideas of the wealth and importance of Insurers of Ships in +the City, and I began to think with awe of having laid a young Insurer +on his back, blackened his enterprising eye, and cut his responsible +head open. But again there came upon me, for my relief, that odd +impression that Herbert Pocket would never be very successful or rich. + +"I shall not rest satisfied with merely employing my capital in insuring +ships. I shall buy up some good Life Assurance shares, and cut into the +Direction. I shall also do a little in the mining way. None of these +things will interfere with my chartering a few thousand tons on my own +account. I think I shall trade," said he, leaning back in his chair, "to +the East Indies, for silks, shawls, spices, dyes, drugs, and precious +woods. It's an interesting trade." + +"And the profits are large?" said I. + +"Tremendous!" said he. + +I wavered again, and began to think here were greater expectations than +my own. + +"I think I shall trade, also," said he, putting his thumbs in his +waist-coat pockets, "to the West Indies, for sugar, tobacco, and rum. +Also to Ceylon, specially for elephants' tusks." + +"You will want a good many ships," said I. + +"A perfect fleet," said he. + +Quite overpowered by the magnificence of these transactions, I asked him +where the ships he insured mostly traded to at present? + +"I haven't begun insuring yet," he replied. "I am looking about me." + +Somehow, that pursuit seemed more in keeping with Barnard's Inn. I said +(in a tone of conviction), "Ah-h!" + +"Yes. I am in a counting-house, and looking about me." + +"Is a counting-house profitable?" I asked. + +"To--do you mean to the young fellow who's in it?" he asked, in reply. + +"Yes; to you." + +"Why, n-no; not to me." He said this with the air of one carefully +reckoning up and striking a balance. "Not directly profitable. That is, +it doesn't pay me anything, and I have to--keep myself." + +This certainly had not a profitable appearance, and I shook my head as +if I would imply that it would be difficult to lay by much accumulative +capital from such a source of income. + +"But the thing is," said Herbert Pocket, "that you look about you. +That's the grand thing. You are in a counting-house, you know, and you +look about you." + +It struck me as a singular implication that you couldn't be out of a +counting-house, you know, and look about you; but I silently deferred to +his experience. + +"Then the time comes," said Herbert, "when you see your opening. And you +go in, and you swoop upon it and you make your capital, and then there +you are! When you have once made your capital, you have nothing to do +but employ it." + +This was very like his way of conducting that encounter in the garden; +very like. His manner of bearing his poverty, too, exactly corresponded +to his manner of bearing that defeat. It seemed to me that he took all +blows and buffets now with just the same air as he had taken mine +then. It was evident that he had nothing around him but the simplest +necessaries, for everything that I remarked upon turned out to have been +sent in on my account from the coffee-house or somewhere else. + +Yet, having already made his fortune in his own mind, he was so +unassuming with it that I felt quite grateful to him for not being +puffed up. It was a pleasant addition to his naturally pleasant ways, +and we got on famously. In the evening we went out for a walk in the +streets, and went half-price to the Theatre; and next day we went to +church at Westminster Abbey, and in the afternoon we walked in the +Parks; and I wondered who shod all the horses there, and wished Joe did. + +On a moderate computation, it was many months, that Sunday, since I had +left Joe and Biddy. The space interposed between myself and them partook +of that expansion, and our marshes were any distance off. That I could +have been at our old church in my old church-going clothes, on the very +last Sunday that ever was, seemed a combination of impossibilities, +geographical and social, solar and lunar. Yet in the London streets so +crowded with people and so brilliantly lighted in the dusk of evening, +there were depressing hints of reproaches for that I had put the poor +old kitchen at home so far away; and in the dead of night, the footsteps +of some incapable impostor of a porter mooning about Barnard's Inn, +under pretence of watching it, fell hollow on my heart. + +On the Monday morning at a quarter before nine, Herbert went to +the counting-house to report himself,--to look about him, too, I +suppose,--and I bore him company. He was to come away in an hour or +two to attend me to Hammersmith, and I was to wait about for him. It +appeared to me that the eggs from which young Insurers were hatched were +incubated in dust and heat, like the eggs of ostriches, judging from the +places to which those incipient giants repaired on a Monday morning. Nor +did the counting-house where Herbert assisted, show in my eyes as at +all a good Observatory; being a back second floor up a yard, of a grimy +presence in all particulars, and with a look into another back second +floor, rather than a look out. + +I waited about until it was noon, and I went upon 'Change, and I saw +fluey men sitting there under the bills about shipping, whom I took to +be great merchants, though I couldn't understand why they should all be +out of spirits. When Herbert came, we went and had lunch at a celebrated +house which I then quite venerated, but now believe to have been the +most abject superstition in Europe, and where I could not help noticing, +even then, that there was much more gravy on the tablecloths and knives +and waiters' clothes, than in the steaks. This collation disposed of at +a moderate price (considering the grease, which was not charged for), we +went back to Barnard's Inn and got my little portmanteau, and then took +coach for Hammersmith. We arrived there at two or three o'clock in +the afternoon, and had very little way to walk to Mr. Pocket's house. +Lifting the latch of a gate, we passed direct into a little garden +overlooking the river, where Mr. Pocket's children were playing +about. And unless I deceive myself on a point where my interests or +prepossessions are certainly not concerned, I saw that Mr. and Mrs. +Pocket's children were not growing up or being brought up, but were +tumbling up. + +Mrs. Pocket was sitting on a garden chair under a tree, reading, with +her legs upon another garden chair; and Mrs. Pocket's two nurse-maids +were looking about them while the children played. "Mamma," said +Herbert, "this is young Mr. Pip." Upon which Mrs. Pocket received me +with an appearance of amiable dignity. + +"Master Alick and Miss Jane," cried one of the nurses to two of the +children, "if you go a bouncing up against them bushes you'll fall over +into the river and be drownded, and what'll your pa say then?" + +At the same time this nurse picked up Mrs. Pocket's handkerchief, and +said, "If that don't make six times you've dropped it, Mum!" Upon which +Mrs. Pocket laughed and said, "Thank you, Flopson," and settling herself +in one chair only, resumed her book. Her countenance immediately assumed +a knitted and intent expression as if she had been reading for a week, +but before she could have read half a dozen lines, she fixed her eyes +upon me, and said, "I hope your mamma is quite well?" This unexpected +inquiry put me into such a difficulty that I began saying in the +absurdest way that if there had been any such person I had no doubt she +would have been quite well and would have been very much obliged and +would have sent her compliments, when the nurse came to my rescue. + +"Well!" she cried, picking up the pocket-handkerchief, "if that don't +make seven times! What ARE you a doing of this afternoon, Mum!" Mrs. +Pocket received her property, at first with a look of unutterable +surprise as if she had never seen it before, and then with a laugh of +recognition, and said, "Thank you, Flopson," and forgot me, and went on +reading. + +I found, now I had leisure to count them, that there were no fewer than +six little Pockets present, in various stages of tumbling up. I had +scarcely arrived at the total when a seventh was heard, as in the region +of air, wailing dolefully. + +"If there ain't Baby!" said Flopson, appearing to think it most +surprising. "Make haste up, Millers." + +Millers, who was the other nurse, retired into the house, and by degrees +the child's wailing was hushed and stopped, as if it were a young +ventriloquist with something in its mouth. Mrs. Pocket read all the +time, and I was curious to know what the book could be. + +We were waiting, I supposed, for Mr. Pocket to come out to us; at any +rate we waited there, and so I had an opportunity of observing the +remarkable family phenomenon that whenever any of the children strayed +near Mrs. Pocket in their play, they always tripped themselves up and +tumbled over her,--always very much to her momentary astonishment, and +their own more enduring lamentation. I was at a loss to account for +this surprising circumstance, and could not help giving my mind to +speculations about it, until by and by Millers came down with the baby, +which baby was handed to Flopson, which Flopson was handing it to Mrs. +Pocket, when she too went fairly head foremost over Mrs. Pocket, baby +and all, and was caught by Herbert and myself. + +"Gracious me, Flopson!" said Mrs. Pocket, looking off her book for a +moment, "everybody's tumbling!" + +"Gracious you, indeed, Mum!" returned Flopson, very red in the face; +"what have you got there?" + +"I got here, Flopson?" asked Mrs. Pocket. + +"Why, if it ain't your footstool!" cried Flopson. "And if you keep it +under your skirts like that, who's to help tumbling? Here! Take the +baby, Mum, and give me your book." + +Mrs. Pocket acted on the advice, and inexpertly danced the infant a +little in her lap, while the other children played about it. This had +lasted but a very short time, when Mrs. Pocket issued summary orders +that they were all to be taken into the house for a nap. Thus I made the +second discovery on that first occasion, that the nurture of the little +Pockets consisted of alternately tumbling up and lying down. + +Under these circumstances, when Flopson and Millers had got the children +into the house, like a little flock of sheep, and Mr. Pocket came out +of it to make my acquaintance, I was not much surprised to find that Mr. +Pocket was a gentleman with a rather perplexed expression of face, and +with his very gray hair disordered on his head, as if he didn't quite +see his way to putting anything straight. + + + + +Chapter XXIII + +Mr. Pocket said he was glad to see me, and he hoped I was not sorry to +see him. "For, I really am not," he added, with his son's smile, +"an alarming personage." He was a young-looking man, in spite of +his perplexities and his very gray hair, and his manner seemed quite +natural. I use the word natural, in the sense of its being unaffected; +there was something comic in his distraught way, as though it would have +been downright ludicrous but for his own perception that it was very +near being so. When he had talked with me a little, he said to Mrs. +Pocket, with a rather anxious contraction of his eyebrows, which were +black and handsome, "Belinda, I hope you have welcomed Mr. Pip?" And she +looked up from her book, and said, "Yes." She then smiled upon me in an +absent state of mind, and asked me if I liked the taste of orange-flower +water? As the question had no bearing, near or remote, on any foregone +or subsequent transaction, I consider it to have been thrown out, like +her previous approaches, in general conversational condescension. + +I found out within a few hours, and may mention at once, that Mrs. +Pocket was the only daughter of a certain quite accidental deceased +Knight, who had invented for himself a conviction that his deceased +father would have been made a Baronet but for somebody's determined +opposition arising out of entirely personal motives,--I forget whose, +if I ever knew,--the Sovereign's, the Prime Minister's, the Lord +Chancellor's, the Archbishop of Canterbury's, anybody's,--and had +tacked himself on to the nobles of the earth in right of this quite +supposititious fact. I believe he had been knighted himself for storming +the English grammar at the point of the pen, in a desperate address +engrossed on vellum, on the occasion of the laying of the first stone of +some building or other, and for handing some Royal Personage either the +trowel or the mortar. Be that as it may, he had directed Mrs. Pocket to +be brought up from her cradle as one who in the nature of things +must marry a title, and who was to be guarded from the acquisition of +plebeian domestic knowledge. + +So successful a watch and ward had been established over the young lady +by this judicious parent, that she had grown up highly ornamental, but +perfectly helpless and useless. With her character thus happily formed, +in the first bloom of her youth she had encountered Mr. Pocket: who was +also in the first bloom of youth, and not quite decided whether to mount +to the Woolsack, or to roof himself in with a mitre. As his doing the +one or the other was a mere question of time, he and Mrs. Pocket had +taken Time by the forelock (when, to judge from its length, it would +seem to have wanted cutting), and had married without the knowledge of +the judicious parent. The judicious parent, having nothing to bestow or +withhold but his blessing, had handsomely settled that dower upon them +after a short struggle, and had informed Mr. Pocket that his wife was "a +treasure for a Prince." Mr. Pocket had invested the Prince's treasure +in the ways of the world ever since, and it was supposed to have brought +him in but indifferent interest. Still, Mrs. Pocket was in general the +object of a queer sort of respectful pity, because she had not married +a title; while Mr. Pocket was the object of a queer sort of forgiving +reproach, because he had never got one. + +Mr. Pocket took me into the house and showed me my room: which was a +pleasant one, and so furnished as that I could use it with comfort for +my own private sitting-room. He then knocked at the doors of two other +similar rooms, and introduced me to their occupants, by name Drummle +and Startop. Drummle, an old-looking young man of a heavy order of +architecture, was whistling. Startop, younger in years and appearance, +was reading and holding his head, as if he thought himself in danger of +exploding it with too strong a charge of knowledge. + +Both Mr. and Mrs. Pocket had such a noticeable air of being in somebody +else's hands, that I wondered who really was in possession of the house +and let them live there, until I found this unknown power to be the +servants. It was a smooth way of going on, perhaps, in respect of saving +trouble; but it had the appearance of being expensive, for the servants +felt it a duty they owed to themselves to be nice in their eating and +drinking, and to keep a deal of company downstairs. They allowed a very +liberal table to Mr. and Mrs. Pocket, yet it always appeared to me that +by far the best part of the house to have boarded in would have been +the kitchen,--always supposing the boarder capable of self-defence, for, +before I had been there a week, a neighboring lady with whom the family +were personally unacquainted, wrote in to say that she had seen Millers +slapping the baby. This greatly distressed Mrs. Pocket, who burst into +tears on receiving the note, and said that it was an extraordinary thing +that the neighbors couldn't mind their own business. + +By degrees I learnt, and chiefly from Herbert, that Mr. Pocket had been +educated at Harrow and at Cambridge, where he had distinguished himself; +but that when he had had the happiness of marrying Mrs. Pocket very +early in life, he had impaired his prospects and taken up the calling +of a Grinder. After grinding a number of dull blades,--of whom it was +remarkable that their fathers, when influential, were always going to +help him to preferment, but always forgot to do it when the blades had +left the Grindstone,--he had wearied of that poor work and had come to +London. Here, after gradually failing in loftier hopes, he had "read" +with divers who had lacked opportunities or neglected them, and had +refurbished divers others for special occasions, and had turned his +acquirements to the account of literary compilation and correction, +and on such means, added to some very moderate private resources, still +maintained the house I saw. + +Mr. and Mrs. Pocket had a toady neighbor; a widow lady of that highly +sympathetic nature that she agreed with everybody, blessed everybody, +and shed smiles and tears on everybody, according to circumstances. This +lady's name was Mrs. Coiler, and I had the honor of taking her down to +dinner on the day of my installation. She gave me to understand on the +stairs, that it was a blow to dear Mrs. Pocket that dear Mr. Pocket +should be under the necessity of receiving gentlemen to read with him. +That did not extend to me, she told me in a gush of love and confidence +(at that time, I had known her something less than five minutes); if +they were all like Me, it would be quite another thing. + +"But dear Mrs. Pocket," said Mrs. Coiler, "after her early +disappointment (not that dear Mr. Pocket was to blame in that), requires +so much luxury and elegance--" + +"Yes, ma'am," I said, to stop her, for I was afraid she was going to +cry. + +"And she is of so aristocratic a disposition--" + +"Yes, ma'am," I said again, with the same object as before. + +"--That it is hard," said Mrs. Coiler, "to have dear Mr. Pocket's time +and attention diverted from dear Mrs. Pocket." + +I could not help thinking that it might be harder if the butcher's time +and attention were diverted from dear Mrs. Pocket; but I said nothing, +and indeed had enough to do in keeping a bashful watch upon my company +manners. + +It came to my knowledge, through what passed between Mrs. Pocket and +Drummle while I was attentive to my knife and fork, spoon, glasses, and +other instruments of self-destruction, that Drummle, whose Christian +name was Bentley, was actually the next heir but one to a baronetcy. +It further appeared that the book I had seen Mrs. Pocket reading in the +garden was all about titles, and that she knew the exact date at which +her grandpapa would have come into the book, if he ever had come at all. +Drummle didn't say much, but in his limited way (he struck me as a sulky +kind of fellow) he spoke as one of the elect, and recognized Mrs. Pocket +as a woman and a sister. No one but themselves and Mrs. Coiler the toady +neighbor showed any interest in this part of the conversation, and it +appeared to me that it was painful to Herbert; but it promised to last +a long time, when the page came in with the announcement of a domestic +affliction. It was, in effect, that the cook had mislaid the beef. To my +unutterable amazement, I now, for the first time, saw Mr. Pocket +relieve his mind by going through a performance that struck me as very +extraordinary, but which made no impression on anybody else, and +with which I soon became as familiar as the rest. He laid down the +carving-knife and fork,--being engaged in carving, at the moment,--put +his two hands into his disturbed hair, and appeared to make an +extraordinary effort to lift himself up by it. When he had done this, +and had not lifted himself up at all, he quietly went on with what he +was about. + +Mrs. Coiler then changed the subject and began to flatter me. I liked +it for a few moments, but she flattered me so very grossly that the +pleasure was soon over. She had a serpentine way of coming close at +me when she pretended to be vitally interested in the friends and +localities I had left, which was altogether snaky and fork-tongued; and +when she made an occasional bounce upon Startop (who said very little to +her), or upon Drummle (who said less), I rather envied them for being on +the opposite side of the table. + +After dinner the children were introduced, and Mrs. Coiler made admiring +comments on their eyes, noses, and legs,--a sagacious way of improving +their minds. There were four little girls, and two little boys, besides +the baby who might have been either, and the baby's next successor who +was as yet neither. They were brought in by Flopson and Millers, much as +though those two non-commissioned officers had been recruiting somewhere +for children and had enlisted these, while Mrs. Pocket looked at the +young Nobles that ought to have been as if she rather thought she had +had the pleasure of inspecting them before, but didn't quite know what +to make of them. + +"Here! Give me your fork, Mum, and take the baby," said Flopson. "Don't +take it that way, or you'll get its head under the table." + +Thus advised, Mrs. Pocket took it the other way, and got its head +upon the table; which was announced to all present by a prodigious +concussion. + +"Dear, dear! Give it me back, Mum," said Flopson; "and Miss Jane, come +and dance to baby, do!" + +One of the little girls, a mere mite who seemed to have prematurely +taken upon herself some charge of the others, stepped out of her place +by me, and danced to and from the baby until it left off crying, and +laughed. Then, all the children laughed, and Mr. Pocket (who in the +meantime had twice endeavored to lift himself up by the hair) laughed, +and we all laughed and were glad. + +Flopson, by dint of doubling the baby at the joints like a Dutch doll, +then got it safely into Mrs. Pocket's lap, and gave it the nut-crackers +to play with; at the same time recommending Mrs. Pocket to take notice +that the handles of that instrument were not likely to agree with its +eyes, and sharply charging Miss Jane to look after the same. Then, the +two nurses left the room, and had a lively scuffle on the staircase with +a dissipated page who had waited at dinner, and who had clearly lost +half his buttons at the gaming-table. + +I was made very uneasy in my mind by Mrs. Pocket's falling into a +discussion with Drummle respecting two baronetcies, while she ate a +sliced orange steeped in sugar and wine, and, forgetting all about the +baby on her lap, who did most appalling things with the nut-crackers. At +length little Jane, perceiving its young brains to be imperilled, softly +left her place, and with many small artifices coaxed the dangerous +weapon away. Mrs. Pocket finishing her orange at about the same time, +and not approving of this, said to Jane,-- + +"You naughty child, how dare you? Go and sit down this instant!" + +"Mamma dear," lisped the little girl, "baby ood have put hith eyeth +out." + +"How dare you tell me so?" retorted Mrs. Pocket. "Go and sit down in +your chair this moment!" + +Mrs. Pocket's dignity was so crushing, that I felt quite abashed, as if +I myself had done something to rouse it. + +"Belinda," remonstrated Mr. Pocket, from the other end of the table, +"how can you be so unreasonable? Jane only interfered for the protection +of baby." + +"I will not allow anybody to interfere," said Mrs. Pocket. "I am +surprised, Matthew, that you should expose me to the affront of +interference." + +"Good God!" cried Mr. Pocket, in an outbreak of desolate desperation. +"Are infants to be nut-crackered into their tombs, and is nobody to save +them?" + +"I will not be interfered with by Jane," said Mrs. Pocket, with a +majestic glance at that innocent little offender. "I hope I know my poor +grandpapa's position. Jane, indeed!" + +Mr. Pocket got his hands in his hair again, and this time really did +lift himself some inches out of his chair. "Hear this!" he helplessly +exclaimed to the elements. "Babies are to be nut-crackered dead, for +people's poor grandpapa's positions!" Then he let himself down again, +and became silent. + +We all looked awkwardly at the tablecloth while this was going on. A +pause succeeded, during which the honest and irrepressible baby made a +series of leaps and crows at little Jane, who appeared to me to be the +only member of the family (irrespective of servants) with whom it had +any decided acquaintance. + +"Mr. Drummle," said Mrs. Pocket, "will you ring for Flopson? Jane, you +undutiful little thing, go and lie down. Now, baby darling, come with +ma!" + +The baby was the soul of honor, and protested with all its might. It +doubled itself up the wrong way over Mrs. Pocket's arm, exhibited a pair +of knitted shoes and dimpled ankles to the company in lieu of its soft +face, and was carried out in the highest state of mutiny. And it gained +its point after all, for I saw it through the window within a few +minutes, being nursed by little Jane. + +It happened that the other five children were left behind at the +dinner-table, through Flopson's having some private engagement, and +their not being anybody else's business. I thus became aware of the +mutual relations between them and Mr. Pocket, which were exemplified in +the following manner. Mr. Pocket, with the normal perplexity of his face +heightened and his hair rumpled, looked at them for some minutes, as if +he couldn't make out how they came to be boarding and lodging in that +establishment, and why they hadn't been billeted by Nature on +somebody else. Then, in a distant Missionary way he asked them certain +questions,--as why little Joe had that hole in his frill, who said, Pa, +Flopson was going to mend it when she had time,--and how little Fanny +came by that whitlow, who said, Pa, Millers was going to poultice it +when she didn't forget. Then, he melted into parental tenderness, and +gave them a shilling apiece and told them to go and play; and then as +they went out, with one very strong effort to lift himself up by the +hair he dismissed the hopeless subject. + +In the evening there was rowing on the river. As Drummle and Startop had +each a boat, I resolved to set up mine, and to cut them both out. I was +pretty good at most exercises in which country boys are adepts, but as +I was conscious of wanting elegance of style for the Thames,--not to say +for other waters,--I at once engaged to place myself under the tuition +of the winner of a prize-wherry who plied at our stairs, and to whom I +was introduced by my new allies. This practical authority confused me +very much by saying I had the arm of a blacksmith. If he could have +known how nearly the compliment lost him his pupil, I doubt if he would +have paid it. + +There was a supper-tray after we got home at night, and I think we +should all have enjoyed ourselves, but for a rather disagreeable +domestic occurrence. Mr. Pocket was in good spirits, when a housemaid +came in, and said, "If you please, sir, I should wish to speak to you." + +"Speak to your master?" said Mrs. Pocket, whose dignity was roused +again. "How can you think of such a thing? Go and speak to Flopson. Or +speak to me--at some other time." + +"Begging your pardon, ma'am," returned the housemaid, "I should wish to +speak at once, and to speak to master." + +Hereupon, Mr. Pocket went out of the room, and we made the best of +ourselves until he came back. + +"This is a pretty thing, Belinda!" said Mr. Pocket, returning with a +countenance expressive of grief and despair. "Here's the cook lying +insensibly drunk on the kitchen floor, with a large bundle of fresh +butter made up in the cupboard ready to sell for grease!" + +Mrs. Pocket instantly showed much amiable emotion, and said, "This is +that odious Sophia's doing!" + +"What do you mean, Belinda?" demanded Mr. Pocket. + +"Sophia has told you," said Mrs. Pocket. "Did I not see her with my own +eyes and hear her with my own ears, come into the room just now and ask +to speak to you?" + +"But has she not taken me downstairs, Belinda," returned Mr. Pocket, +"and shown me the woman, and the bundle too?" + +"And do you defend her, Matthew," said Mrs. Pocket, "for making +mischief?" + +Mr. Pocket uttered a dismal groan. + +"Am I, grandpapa's granddaughter, to be nothing in the house?" said Mrs. +Pocket. "Besides, the cook has always been a very nice respectful woman, +and said in the most natural manner when she came to look after the +situation, that she felt I was born to be a Duchess." + +There was a sofa where Mr. Pocket stood, and he dropped upon it in the +attitude of the Dying Gladiator. Still in that attitude he said, with a +hollow voice, "Good night, Mr. Pip," when I deemed it advisable to go to +bed and leave him. + + + + +Chapter XXIV + +After two or three days, when I had established myself in my room and +had gone backwards and forwards to London several times, and had ordered +all I wanted of my tradesmen, Mr. Pocket and I had a long talk together. +He knew more of my intended career than I knew myself, for he referred +to his having been told by Mr. Jaggers that I was not designed for any +profession, and that I should be well enough educated for my destiny +if I could "hold my own" with the average of young men in prosperous +circumstances. I acquiesced, of course, knowing nothing to the contrary. + +He advised my attending certain places in London, for the acquisition of +such mere rudiments as I wanted, and my investing him with the functions +of explainer and director of all my studies. He hoped that with +intelligent assistance I should meet with little to discourage me, and +should soon be able to dispense with any aid but his. Through his way +of saying this, and much more to similar purpose, he placed himself on +confidential terms with me in an admirable manner; and I may state +at once that he was always so zealous and honorable in fulfilling his +compact with me, that he made me zealous and honorable in fulfilling +mine with him. If he had shown indifference as a master, I have no doubt +I should have returned the compliment as a pupil; he gave me no such +excuse, and each of us did the other justice. Nor did I ever regard +him as having anything ludicrous about him--or anything but what was +serious, honest, and good--in his tutor communication with me. + +When these points were settled, and so far carried out as that I had +begun to work in earnest, it occurred to me that if I could retain my +bedroom in Barnard's Inn, my life would be agreeably varied, while my +manners would be none the worse for Herbert's society. Mr. Pocket did +not object to this arrangement, but urged that before any step could +possibly be taken in it, it must be submitted to my guardian. I felt +that this delicacy arose out of the consideration that the plan would +save Herbert some expense, so I went off to Little Britain and imparted +my wish to Mr. Jaggers. + +"If I could buy the furniture now hired for me," said I, "and one or two +other little things, I should be quite at home there." + +"Go it!" said Mr. Jaggers, with a short laugh. "I told you you'd get on. +Well! How much do you want?" + +I said I didn't know how much. + +"Come!" retorted Mr. Jaggers. "How much? Fifty pounds?" + +"O, not nearly so much." + +"Five pounds?" said Mr. Jaggers. + +This was such a great fall, that I said in discomfiture, "O, more than +that." + +"More than that, eh!" retorted Mr. Jaggers, lying in wait for me, with +his hands in his pockets, his head on one side, and his eyes on the wall +behind me; "how much more?" + +"It is so difficult to fix a sum," said I, hesitating. + +"Come!" said Mr. Jaggers. "Let's get at it. Twice five; will that do? +Three times five; will that do? Four times five; will that do?" + +I said I thought that would do handsomely. + +"Four times five will do handsomely, will it?" said Mr. Jaggers, +knitting his brows. "Now, what do you make of four times five?" + +"What do I make of it?" + +"Ah!" said Mr. Jaggers; "how much?" + +"I suppose you make it twenty pounds," said I, smiling. + +"Never mind what I make it, my friend," observed Mr. Jaggers, with a +knowing and contradictory toss of his head. "I want to know what you +make it." + +"Twenty pounds, of course." + +"Wemmick!" said Mr. Jaggers, opening his office door. "Take Mr. Pip's +written order, and pay him twenty pounds." + +This strongly marked way of doing business made a strongly marked +impression on me, and that not of an agreeable kind. Mr. Jaggers never +laughed; but he wore great bright creaking boots, and, in poising +himself on these boots, with his large head bent down and his eyebrows +joined together, awaiting an answer, he sometimes caused the boots to +creak, as if they laughed in a dry and suspicious way. As he happened +to go out now, and as Wemmick was brisk and talkative, I said to Wemmick +that I hardly knew what to make of Mr. Jaggers's manner. + +"Tell him that, and he'll take it as a compliment," answered Wemmick; +"he don't mean that you should know what to make of it.--Oh!" for +I looked surprised, "it's not personal; it's professional: only +professional." + +Wemmick was at his desk, lunching--and crunching--on a dry hard biscuit; +pieces of which he threw from time to time into his slit of a mouth, as +if he were posting them. + +"Always seems to me," said Wemmick, "as if he had set a man-trap and was +watching it. Suddenly-click--you're caught!" + +Without remarking that man-traps were not among the amenities of life, I +said I supposed he was very skilful? + +"Deep," said Wemmick, "as Australia." Pointing with his pen at the +office floor, to express that Australia was understood, for the purposes +of the figure, to be symmetrically on the opposite spot of the globe. +"If there was anything deeper," added Wemmick, bringing his pen to +paper, "he'd be it." + +Then, I said I supposed he had a fine business, and Wemmick said, +"Ca-pi-tal!" Then I asked if there were many clerks? to which he +replied,-- + +"We don't run much into clerks, because there's only one Jaggers, and +people won't have him at second hand. There are only four of us. Would +you like to see 'em? You are one of us, as I may say." + +I accepted the offer. When Mr. Wemmick had put all the biscuit into the +post, and had paid me my money from a cash-box in a safe, the key +of which safe he kept somewhere down his back and produced from his +coat-collar like an iron-pigtail, we went upstairs. The house was dark +and shabby, and the greasy shoulders that had left their mark in Mr. +Jaggers's room seemed to have been shuffling up and down the staircase +for years. In the front first floor, a clerk who looked something +between a publican and a rat-catcher--a large pale, puffed, swollen +man--was attentively engaged with three or four people of shabby +appearance, whom he treated as unceremoniously as everybody seemed to +be treated who contributed to Mr. Jaggers's coffers. "Getting evidence +together," said Mr. Wemmick, as we came out, "for the Bailey." In the +room over that, a little flabby terrier of a clerk with dangling hair +(his cropping seemed to have been forgotten when he was a puppy) was +similarly engaged with a man with weak eyes, whom Mr. Wemmick presented +to me as a smelter who kept his pot always boiling, and who would melt +me anything I pleased,--and who was in an excessive white-perspiration, +as if he had been trying his art on himself. In a back room, a +high-shouldered man with a face-ache tied up in dirty flannel, who was +dressed in old black clothes that bore the appearance of having been +waxed, was stooping over his work of making fair copies of the notes of +the other two gentlemen, for Mr. Jaggers's own use. + +This was all the establishment. When we went downstairs again, Wemmick +led me into my guardian's room, and said, "This you've seen already." + +"Pray," said I, as the two odious casts with the twitchy leer upon them +caught my sight again, "whose likenesses are those?" + +"These?" said Wemmick, getting upon a chair, and blowing the dust off +the horrible heads before bringing them down. "These are two celebrated +ones. Famous clients of ours that got us a world of credit. This chap +(why you must have come down in the night and been peeping into the +inkstand, to get this blot upon your eyebrow, you old rascal!) murdered +his master, and, considering that he wasn't brought up to evidence, +didn't plan it badly." + +"Is it like him?" I asked, recoiling from the brute, as Wemmick spat +upon his eyebrow and gave it a rub with his sleeve. + +"Like him? It's himself, you know. The cast was made in Newgate, +directly after he was taken down. You had a particular fancy for +me, hadn't you, Old Artful?" said Wemmick. He then explained this +affectionate apostrophe, by touching his brooch representing the lady +and the weeping willow at the tomb with the urn upon it, and saying, +"Had it made for me, express!" + +"Is the lady anybody?" said I. + +"No," returned Wemmick. "Only his game. (You liked your bit of game, +didn't you?) No; deuce a bit of a lady in the case, Mr. Pip, except +one,--and she wasn't of this slender lady-like sort, and you wouldn't +have caught her looking after this urn, unless there was something to +drink in it." Wemmick's attention being thus directed to his brooch, he +put down the cast, and polished the brooch with his pocket-handkerchief. + +"Did that other creature come to the same end?" I asked. "He has the +same look." + +"You're right," said Wemmick; "it's the genuine look. Much as if one +nostril was caught up with a horse-hair and a little fish-hook. Yes, +he came to the same end; quite the natural end here, I assure you. +He forged wills, this blade did, if he didn't also put the supposed +testators to sleep too. You were a gentlemanly Cove, though" (Mr. +Wemmick was again apostrophizing), "and you said you could write Greek. +Yah, Bounceable! What a liar you were! I never met such a liar as you!" +Before putting his late friend on his shelf again, Wemmick touched the +largest of his mourning rings and said, "Sent out to buy it for me, only +the day before." + +While he was putting up the other cast and coming down from the chair, +the thought crossed my mind that all his personal jewelry was derived +from like sources. As he had shown no diffidence on the subject, I +ventured on the liberty of asking him the question, when he stood before +me, dusting his hands. + +"O yes," he returned, "these are all gifts of that kind. One brings +another, you see; that's the way of it. I always take 'em. They're +curiosities. And they're property. They may not be worth much, but, +after all, they're property and portable. It don't signify to you with +your brilliant lookout, but as to myself, my guiding-star always is, +'Get hold of portable property'." + +When I had rendered homage to this light, he went on to say, in a +friendly manner:-- + +"If at any odd time when you have nothing better to do, you wouldn't +mind coming over to see me at Walworth, I could offer you a bed, and I +should consider it an honor. I have not much to show you; but such two +or three curiosities as I have got you might like to look over; and I am +fond of a bit of garden and a summer-house." + +I said I should be delighted to accept his hospitality. + +"Thankee," said he; "then we'll consider that it's to come off, when +convenient to you. Have you dined with Mr. Jaggers yet?" + +"Not yet." + +"Well," said Wemmick, "he'll give you wine, and good wine. I'll give you +punch, and not bad punch. And now I'll tell you something. When you go +to dine with Mr. Jaggers, look at his housekeeper." + +"Shall I see something very uncommon?" + +"Well," said Wemmick, "you'll see a wild beast tamed. Not so very +uncommon, you'll tell me. I reply, that depends on the original wildness +of the beast, and the amount of taming. It won't lower your opinion of +Mr. Jaggers's powers. Keep your eye on it." + +I told him I would do so, with all the interest and curiosity that his +preparation awakened. As I was taking my departure, he asked me if I +would like to devote five minutes to seeing Mr. Jaggers "at it?" + +For several reasons, and not least because I didn't clearly know what +Mr. Jaggers would be found to be "at," I replied in the affirmative. +We dived into the City, and came up in a crowded police-court, where +a blood-relation (in the murderous sense) of the deceased, with the +fanciful taste in brooches, was standing at the bar, uncomfortably +chewing something; while my guardian had a woman under examination or +cross-examination,--I don't know which,--and was striking her, and +the bench, and everybody present, with awe. If anybody, of whatsoever +degree, said a word that he didn't approve of, he instantly required to +have it "taken down." If anybody wouldn't make an admission, he said, +"I'll have it out of you!" and if anybody made an admission, he said, +"Now I have got you!" The magistrates shivered under a single bite of +his finger. Thieves and thief-takers hung in dread rapture on his words, +and shrank when a hair of his eyebrows turned in their direction. Which +side he was on I couldn't make out, for he seemed to me to be grinding +the whole place in a mill; I only know that when I stole out on tiptoe, +he was not on the side of the bench; for, he was making the legs of the +old gentleman who presided, quite convulsive under the table, by his +denunciations of his conduct as the representative of British law and +justice in that chair that day. + + + + +Chapter XXV + +Bentley Drummle, who was so sulky a fellow that he even took up a book +as if its writer had done him an injury, did not take up an +acquaintance in a more agreeable spirit. Heavy in figure, movement, +and comprehension,--in the sluggish complexion of his face, and in +the large, awkward tongue that seemed to loll about in his mouth as +he himself lolled about in a room,--he was idle, proud, niggardly, +reserved, and suspicious. He came of rich people down in Somersetshire, +who had nursed this combination of qualities until they made the +discovery that it was just of age and a blockhead. Thus, Bentley Drummle +had come to Mr. Pocket when he was a head taller than that gentleman, +and half a dozen heads thicker than most gentlemen. + +Startop had been spoilt by a weak mother and kept at home when he +ought to have been at school, but he was devotedly attached to her, and +admired her beyond measure. He had a woman's delicacy of feature, +and was--"as you may see, though you never saw her," said Herbert to +me--"exactly like his mother." It was but natural that I should take to +him much more kindly than to Drummle, and that, even in the earliest +evenings of our boating, he and I should pull homeward abreast of one +another, conversing from boat to boat, while Bentley Drummle came up +in our wake alone, under the overhanging banks and among the rushes. He +would always creep in-shore like some uncomfortable amphibious creature, +even when the tide would have sent him fast upon his way; and I always +think of him as coming after us in the dark or by the back-water, +when our own two boats were breaking the sunset or the moonlight in +mid-stream. + +Herbert was my intimate companion and friend. I presented him with a +half-share in my boat, which was the occasion of his often coming down +to Hammersmith; and my possession of a half-share in his chambers often +took me up to London. We used to walk between the two places at all +hours. I have an affection for the road yet (though it is not so +pleasant a road as it was then), formed in the impressibility of untried +youth and hope. + +When I had been in Mr. Pocket's family a month or two, Mr. and Mrs. +Camilla turned up. Camilla was Mr. Pocket's sister. Georgiana, whom I +had seen at Miss Havisham's on the same occasion, also turned up. She +was a cousin,--an indigestive single woman, who called her rigidity +religion, and her liver love. These people hated me with the hatred of +cupidity and disappointment. As a matter of course, they fawned upon +me in my prosperity with the basest meanness. Towards Mr. Pocket, as +a grown-up infant with no notion of his own interests, they showed the +complacent forbearance I had heard them express. Mrs. Pocket they +held in contempt; but they allowed the poor soul to have been heavily +disappointed in life, because that shed a feeble reflected light upon +themselves. + +These were the surroundings among which I settled down, and applied +myself to my education. I soon contracted expensive habits, and began +to spend an amount of money that within a few short months I should have +thought almost fabulous; but through good and evil I stuck to my books. +There was no other merit in this, than my having sense enough to feel +my deficiencies. Between Mr. Pocket and Herbert I got on fast; and, with +one or the other always at my elbow to give me the start I wanted, and +clear obstructions out of my road, I must have been as great a dolt as +Drummle if I had done less. + +I had not seen Mr. Wemmick for some weeks, when I thought I would write +him a note and propose to go home with him on a certain evening. He +replied that it would give him much pleasure, and that he would expect +me at the office at six o'clock. Thither I went, and there I found him, +putting the key of his safe down his back as the clock struck. + +"Did you think of walking down to Walworth?" said he. + +"Certainly," said I, "if you approve." + +"Very much," was Wemmick's reply, "for I have had my legs under the desk +all day, and shall be glad to stretch them. Now, I'll tell you what I +have got for supper, Mr. Pip. I have got a stewed steak,--which is +of home preparation,--and a cold roast fowl,--which is from the +cook's-shop. I think it's tender, because the master of the shop was a +Juryman in some cases of ours the other day, and we let him down easy. +I reminded him of it when I bought the fowl, and I said, "Pick us out +a good one, old Briton, because if we had chosen to keep you in the box +another day or two, we could easily have done it." He said to that, +"Let me make you a present of the best fowl in the shop." I let him, of +course. As far as it goes, it's property and portable. You don't object +to an aged parent, I hope?" + +I really thought he was still speaking of the fowl, until he added, +"Because I have got an aged parent at my place." I then said what +politeness required. + +"So, you haven't dined with Mr. Jaggers yet?" he pursued, as we walked +along. + +"Not yet." + +"He told me so this afternoon when he heard you were coming. I expect +you'll have an invitation to-morrow. He's going to ask your pals, too. +Three of 'em; ain't there?" + +Although I was not in the habit of counting Drummle as one of my +intimate associates, I answered, "Yes." + +"Well, he's going to ask the whole gang,"--I hardly felt complimented by +the word,--"and whatever he gives you, he'll give you good. Don't look +forward to variety, but you'll have excellence. And there's another rum +thing in his house," proceeded Wemmick, after a moment's pause, as if +the remark followed on the housekeeper understood; "he never lets a door +or window be fastened at night." + +"Is he never robbed?" + +"That's it!" returned Wemmick. "He says, and gives it out publicly, "I +want to see the man who'll rob me." Lord bless you, I have heard him, a +hundred times, if I have heard him once, say to regular cracksmen in our +front office, "You know where I live; now, no bolt is ever drawn there; +why don't you do a stroke of business with me? Come; can't I tempt you?" +Not a man of them, sir, would be bold enough to try it on, for love or +money." + +"They dread him so much?" said I. + +"Dread him," said Wemmick. "I believe you they dread him. Not but what +he's artful, even in his defiance of them. No silver, sir. Britannia +metal, every spoon." + +"So they wouldn't have much," I observed, "even if they--" + +"Ah! But he would have much," said Wemmick, cutting me short, "and they +know it. He'd have their lives, and the lives of scores of 'em. He'd +have all he could get. And it's impossible to say what he couldn't get, +if he gave his mind to it." + +I was falling into meditation on my guardian's greatness, when Wemmick +remarked:-- + +"As to the absence of plate, that's only his natural depth, you know. +A river's its natural depth, and he's his natural depth. Look at his +watch-chain. That's real enough." + +"It's very massive," said I. + +"Massive?" repeated Wemmick. "I think so. And his watch is a gold +repeater, and worth a hundred pound if it's worth a penny. Mr. Pip, +there are about seven hundred thieves in this town who know all about +that watch; there's not a man, a woman, or a child, among them, who +wouldn't identify the smallest link in that chain, and drop it as if it +was red hot, if inveigled into touching it." + +At first with such discourse, and afterwards with conversation of a more +general nature, did Mr. Wemmick and I beguile the time and the road, +until he gave me to understand that we had arrived in the district of +Walworth. + +It appeared to be a collection of back lanes, ditches, and little +gardens, and to present the aspect of a rather dull retirement. +Wemmick's house was a little wooden cottage in the midst of plots of +garden, and the top of it was cut out and painted like a battery mounted +with guns. + +"My own doing," said Wemmick. "Looks pretty; don't it?" + +I highly commended it, I think it was the smallest house I ever saw; +with the queerest gothic windows (by far the greater part of them sham), +and a gothic door almost too small to get in at. + +"That's a real flagstaff, you see," said Wemmick, "and on Sundays I +run up a real flag. Then look here. After I have crossed this bridge, I +hoist it up--so--and cut off the communication." + +The bridge was a plank, and it crossed a chasm about four feet wide +and two deep. But it was very pleasant to see the pride with which he +hoisted it up and made it fast; smiling as he did so, with a relish and +not merely mechanically. + +"At nine o'clock every night, Greenwich time," said Wemmick, "the gun +fires. There he is, you see! And when you hear him go, I think you'll +say he's a Stinger." + +The piece of ordnance referred to, was mounted in a separate fortress, +constructed of lattice-work. It was protected from the weather by an +ingenious little tarpaulin contrivance in the nature of an umbrella. + +"Then, at the back," said Wemmick, "out of sight, so as not to impede +the idea of fortifications,--for it's a principle with me, if you have +an idea, carry it out and keep it up,--I don't know whether that's your +opinion--" + +I said, decidedly. + +"--At the back, there's a pig, and there are fowls and rabbits; then, +I knock together my own little frame, you see, and grow cucumbers; and +you'll judge at supper what sort of a salad I can raise. So, sir," said +Wemmick, smiling again, but seriously too, as he shook his head, "if you +can suppose the little place besieged, it would hold out a devil of a +time in point of provisions." + +Then, he conducted me to a bower about a dozen yards off, but which was +approached by such ingenious twists of path that it took quite a long +time to get at; and in this retreat our glasses were already set forth. +Our punch was cooling in an ornamental lake, on whose margin the bower +was raised. This piece of water (with an island in the middle which +might have been the salad for supper) was of a circular form, and he had +constructed a fountain in it, which, when you set a little mill going +and took a cork out of a pipe, played to that powerful extent that it +made the back of your hand quite wet. + +"I am my own engineer, and my own carpenter, and my own plumber, and +my own gardener, and my own Jack of all Trades," said Wemmick, in +acknowledging my compliments. "Well; it's a good thing, you know. It +brushes the Newgate cobwebs away, and pleases the Aged. You wouldn't +mind being at once introduced to the Aged, would you? It wouldn't put +you out?" + +I expressed the readiness I felt, and we went into the castle. There +we found, sitting by a fire, a very old man in a flannel coat: clean, +cheerful, comfortable, and well cared for, but intensely deaf. + +"Well aged parent," said Wemmick, shaking hands with him in a cordial +and jocose way, "how am you?" + +"All right, John; all right!" replied the old man. + +"Here's Mr. Pip, aged parent," said Wemmick, "and I wish you could hear +his name. Nod away at him, Mr. Pip; that's what he likes. Nod away at +him, if you please, like winking!" + +"This is a fine place of my son's, sir," cried the old man, while I +nodded as hard as I possibly could. "This is a pretty pleasure-ground, +sir. This spot and these beautiful works upon it ought to be kept +together by the Nation, after my son's time, for the people's +enjoyment." + +"You're as proud of it as Punch; ain't you, Aged?" said Wemmick, +contemplating the old man, with his hard face really softened; "there's +a nod for you;" giving him a tremendous one; "there's another for you;" +giving him a still more tremendous one; "you like that, don't you? If +you're not tired, Mr. Pip--though I know it's tiring to strangers--will +you tip him one more? You can't think how it pleases him." + +I tipped him several more, and he was in great spirits. We left him +bestirring himself to feed the fowls, and we sat down to our punch in +the arbor; where Wemmick told me, as he smoked a pipe, that it had taken +him a good many years to bring the property up to its present pitch of +perfection. + +"Is it your own, Mr. Wemmick?" + +"O yes," said Wemmick, "I have got hold of it, a bit at a time. It's a +freehold, by George!" + +"Is it indeed? I hope Mr. Jaggers admires it?" + +"Never seen it," said Wemmick. "Never heard of it. Never seen the Aged. +Never heard of him. No; the office is one thing, and private life is +another. When I go into the office, I leave the Castle behind me, and +when I come into the Castle, I leave the office behind me. If it's not +in any way disagreeable to you, you'll oblige me by doing the same. I +don't wish it professionally spoken about." + +Of course I felt my good faith involved in the observance of his +request. The punch being very nice, we sat there drinking it and +talking, until it was almost nine o'clock. "Getting near gun-fire," said +Wemmick then, as he laid down his pipe; "it's the Aged's treat." + +Proceeding into the Castle again, we found the Aged heating the poker, +with expectant eyes, as a preliminary to the performance of this great +nightly ceremony. Wemmick stood with his watch in his hand until the +moment was come for him to take the red-hot poker from the Aged, and +repair to the battery. He took it, and went out, and presently the +Stinger went off with a Bang that shook the crazy little box of a +cottage as if it must fall to pieces, and made every glass and teacup in +it ring. Upon this, the Aged--who I believe would have been blown out +of his arm-chair but for holding on by the elbows--cried out exultingly, +"He's fired! I heerd him!" and I nodded at the old gentleman until it is +no figure of speech to declare that I absolutely could not see him. + +The interval between that time and supper Wemmick devoted to showing +me his collection of curiosities. They were mostly of a felonious +character; comprising the pen with which a celebrated forgery had been +committed, a distinguished razor or two, some locks of hair, and several +manuscript confessions written under condemnation,--upon which Mr. +Wemmick set particular value as being, to use his own words, "every one +of 'em Lies, sir." These were agreeably dispersed among small specimens +of china and glass, various neat trifles made by the proprietor of the +museum, and some tobacco-stoppers carved by the Aged. They were all +displayed in that chamber of the Castle into which I had been first +inducted, and which served, not only as the general sitting-room but +as the kitchen too, if I might judge from a saucepan on the hob, and +a brazen bijou over the fireplace designed for the suspension of a +roasting-jack. + +There was a neat little girl in attendance, who looked after the Aged in +the day. When she had laid the supper-cloth, the bridge was lowered to +give her means of egress, and she withdrew for the night. The supper was +excellent; and though the Castle was rather subject to dry-rot insomuch +that it tasted like a bad nut, and though the pig might have been +farther off, I was heartily pleased with my whole entertainment. Nor was +there any drawback on my little turret bedroom, beyond there being such +a very thin ceiling between me and the flagstaff, that when I lay down +on my back in bed, it seemed as if I had to balance that pole on my +forehead all night. + +Wemmick was up early in the morning, and I am afraid I heard him +cleaning my boots. After that, he fell to gardening, and I saw him from +my gothic window pretending to employ the Aged, and nodding at him in +a most devoted manner. Our breakfast was as good as the supper, and at +half-past eight precisely we started for Little Britain. By degrees, +Wemmick got dryer and harder as we went along, and his mouth tightened +into a post-office again. At last, when we got to his place of business +and he pulled out his key from his coat-collar, he looked as unconscious +of his Walworth property as if the Castle and the drawbridge and the +arbor and the lake and the fountain and the Aged, had all been blown +into space together by the last discharge of the Stinger. + + + + +Chapter XXVI + +It fell out as Wemmick had told me it would, that I had an early +opportunity of comparing my guardian's establishment with that of his +cashier and clerk. My guardian was in his room, washing his hands with +his scented soap, when I went into the office from Walworth; and he +called me to him, and gave me the invitation for myself and friends +which Wemmick had prepared me to receive. "No ceremony," he stipulated, +"and no dinner dress, and say to-morrow." I asked him where we should +come to (for I had no idea where he lived), and I believe it was in his +general objection to make anything like an admission, that he replied, +"Come here, and I'll take you home with me." I embrace this opportunity +of remarking that he washed his clients off, as if he were a surgeon or +a dentist. He had a closet in his room, fitted up for the purpose, which +smelt of the scented soap like a perfumer's shop. It had an unusually +large jack-towel on a roller inside the door, and he would wash his +hands, and wipe them and dry them all over this towel, whenever he came +in from a police court or dismissed a client from his room. When I and +my friends repaired to him at six o'clock next day, he seemed to have +been engaged on a case of a darker complexion than usual, for we found +him with his head butted into this closet, not only washing his hands, +but laving his face and gargling his throat. And even when he had +done all that, and had gone all round the jack-towel, he took out his +penknife and scraped the case out of his nails before he put his coat +on. + +There were some people slinking about as usual when we passed out into +the street, who were evidently anxious to speak with him; but there was +something so conclusive in the halo of scented soap which encircled +his presence, that they gave it up for that day. As we walked along +westward, he was recognized ever and again by some face in the crowd of +the streets, and whenever that happened he talked louder to me; but +he never otherwise recognized anybody, or took notice that anybody +recognized him. + +He conducted us to Gerrard Street, Soho, to a house on the south side of +that street. Rather a stately house of its kind, but dolefully in want +of painting, and with dirty windows. He took out his key and opened the +door, and we all went into a stone hall, bare, gloomy, and little used. +So, up a dark brown staircase into a series of three dark brown rooms on +the first floor. There were carved garlands on the panelled walls, and +as he stood among them giving us welcome, I know what kind of loops I +thought they looked like. + +Dinner was laid in the best of these rooms; the second was his +dressing-room; the third, his bedroom. He told us that he held the whole +house, but rarely used more of it than we saw. The table was comfortably +laid--no silver in the service, of course--and at the side of his chair +was a capacious dumb-waiter, with a variety of bottles and decanters on +it, and four dishes of fruit for dessert. I noticed throughout, that he +kept everything under his own hand, and distributed everything himself. + +There was a bookcase in the room; I saw from the backs of the books, +that they were about evidence, criminal law, criminal biography, trials, +acts of Parliament, and such things. The furniture was all very solid +and good, like his watch-chain. It had an official look, however, and +there was nothing merely ornamental to be seen. In a corner was a little +table of papers with a shaded lamp: so that he seemed to bring the +office home with him in that respect too, and to wheel it out of an +evening and fall to work. + +As he had scarcely seen my three companions until now,--for he and I had +walked together,--he stood on the hearth-rug, after ringing the bell, +and took a searching look at them. To my surprise, he seemed at once to +be principally if not solely interested in Drummle. + +"Pip," said he, putting his large hand on my shoulder and moving me to +the window, "I don't know one from the other. Who's the Spider?" + +"The spider?" said I. + +"The blotchy, sprawly, sulky fellow." + +"That's Bentley Drummle," I replied; "the one with the delicate face is +Startop." + +Not making the least account of "the one with the delicate face," he +returned, "Bentley Drummle is his name, is it? I like the look of that +fellow." + +He immediately began to talk to Drummle: not at all deterred by his +replying in his heavy reticent way, but apparently led on by it to screw +discourse out of him. I was looking at the two, when there came between +me and them the housekeeper, with the first dish for the table. + +She was a woman of about forty, I supposed,--but I may have thought her +younger than she was. Rather tall, of a lithe nimble figure, extremely +pale, with large faded eyes, and a quantity of streaming hair. I cannot +say whether any diseased affection of the heart caused her lips to be +parted as if she were panting, and her face to bear a curious expression +of suddenness and flutter; but I know that I had been to see Macbeth at +the theatre, a night or two before, and that her face looked to me as if +it were all disturbed by fiery air, like the faces I had seen rise out +of the Witches' caldron. + +She set the dish on, touched my guardian quietly on the arm with a +finger to notify that dinner was ready, and vanished. We took our seats +at the round table, and my guardian kept Drummle on one side of him, +while Startop sat on the other. It was a noble dish of fish that the +housekeeper had put on table, and we had a joint of equally choice +mutton afterwards, and then an equally choice bird. Sauces, wines, all +the accessories we wanted, and all of the best, were given out by our +host from his dumb-waiter; and when they had made the circuit of the +table, he always put them back again. Similarly, he dealt us clean +plates and knives and forks, for each course, and dropped those just +disused into two baskets on the ground by his chair. No other attendant +than the housekeeper appeared. She set on every dish; and I always saw +in her face, a face rising out of the caldron. Years afterwards, I made +a dreadful likeness of that woman, by causing a face that had no other +natural resemblance to it than it derived from flowing hair to pass +behind a bowl of flaming spirits in a dark room. + +Induced to take particular notice of the housekeeper, both by her +own striking appearance and by Wemmick's preparation, I observed +that whenever she was in the room she kept her eyes attentively on my +guardian, and that she would remove her hands from any dish she put +before him, hesitatingly, as if she dreaded his calling her back, and +wanted him to speak when she was nigh, if he had anything to say. I +fancied that I could detect in his manner a consciousness of this, and a +purpose of always holding her in suspense. + +Dinner went off gayly, and although my guardian seemed to follow rather +than originate subjects, I knew that he wrenched the weakest part of +our dispositions out of us. For myself, I found that I was expressing my +tendency to lavish expenditure, and to patronize Herbert, and to boast +of my great prospects, before I quite knew that I had opened my lips. +It was so with all of us, but with no one more than Drummle: the +development of whose inclination to gird in a grudging and suspicious +way at the rest, was screwed out of him before the fish was taken off. + +It was not then, but when we had got to the cheese, that our +conversation turned upon our rowing feats, and that Drummle was rallied +for coming up behind of a night in that slow amphibious way of his. +Drummle upon this, informed our host that he much preferred our room to +our company, and that as to skill he was more than our master, and that +as to strength he could scatter us like chaff. By some invisible agency, +my guardian wound him up to a pitch little short of ferocity about this +trifle; and he fell to baring and spanning his arm to show how muscular +it was, and we all fell to baring and spanning our arms in a ridiculous +manner. + +Now the housekeeper was at that time clearing the table; my guardian, +taking no heed of her, but with the side of his face turned from her, +was leaning back in his chair biting the side of his forefinger and +showing an interest in Drummle, that, to me, was quite inexplicable. +Suddenly, he clapped his large hand on the housekeeper's, like a trap, +as she stretched it across the table. So suddenly and smartly did he do +this, that we all stopped in our foolish contention. + +"If you talk of strength," said Mr. Jaggers, "I'll show you a wrist. +Molly, let them see your wrist." + +Her entrapped hand was on the table, but she had already put her other +hand behind her waist. "Master," she said, in a low voice, with her eyes +attentively and entreatingly fixed upon him. "Don't." + +"I'll show you a wrist," repeated Mr. Jaggers, with an immovable +determination to show it. "Molly, let them see your wrist." + +"Master," she again murmured. "Please!" + +"Molly," said Mr. Jaggers, not looking at her, but obstinately looking +at the opposite side of the room, "let them see both your wrists. Show +them. Come!" + +He took his hand from hers, and turned that wrist up on the table. She +brought her other hand from behind her, and held the two out side by +side. The last wrist was much disfigured,--deeply scarred and scarred +across and across. When she held her hands out she took her eyes from +Mr. Jaggers, and turned them watchfully on every one of the rest of us +in succession. + +"There's power here," said Mr. Jaggers, coolly tracing out the sinews +with his forefinger. "Very few men have the power of wrist that this +woman has. It's remarkable what mere force of grip there is in these +hands. I have had occasion to notice many hands; but I never saw +stronger in that respect, man's or woman's, than these." + +While he said these words in a leisurely, critical style, she continued +to look at every one of us in regular succession as we sat. The moment +he ceased, she looked at him again. "That'll do, Molly," said Mr. +Jaggers, giving her a slight nod; "you have been admired, and can +go." She withdrew her hands and went out of the room, and Mr. Jaggers, +putting the decanters on from his dumb-waiter, filled his glass and +passed round the wine. + +"At half-past nine, gentlemen," said he, "we must break up. Pray make +the best use of your time. I am glad to see you all. Mr. Drummle, I +drink to you." + +If his object in singling out Drummle were to bring him out still more, +it perfectly succeeded. In a sulky triumph, Drummle showed his morose +depreciation of the rest of us, in a more and more offensive degree, +until he became downright intolerable. Through all his stages, Mr. +Jaggers followed him with the same strange interest. He actually seemed +to serve as a zest to Mr. Jaggers's wine. + +In our boyish want of discretion I dare say we took too much to drink, +and I know we talked too much. We became particularly hot upon some +boorish sneer of Drummle's, to the effect that we were too free with our +money. It led to my remarking, with more zeal than discretion, that it +came with a bad grace from him, to whom Startop had lent money in my +presence but a week or so before. + +"Well," retorted Drummle; "he'll be paid." + +"I don't mean to imply that he won't," said I, "but it might make you +hold your tongue about us and our money, I should think." + +"You should think!" retorted Drummle. "Oh Lord!" + +"I dare say," I went on, meaning to be very severe, "that you wouldn't +lend money to any of us if we wanted it." + +"You are right," said Drummle. "I wouldn't lend one of you a sixpence. I +wouldn't lend anybody a sixpence." + +"Rather mean to borrow under those circumstances, I should say." + +"You should say," repeated Drummle. "Oh Lord!" + +This was so very aggravating--the more especially as I found myself +making no way against his surly obtuseness--that I said, disregarding +Herbert's efforts to check me,-- + +"Come, Mr. Drummle, since we are on the subject, I'll tell you what +passed between Herbert here and me, when you borrowed that money." + +"I don't want to know what passed between Herbert there and you," +growled Drummle. And I think he added in a lower growl, that we might +both go to the devil and shake ourselves. + +"I'll tell you, however," said I, "whether you want to know or not. We +said that as you put it in your pocket very glad to get it, you seemed +to be immensely amused at his being so weak as to lend it." + +Drummle laughed outright, and sat laughing in our faces, with his hands +in his pockets and his round shoulders raised; plainly signifying that +it was quite true, and that he despised us as asses all. + +Hereupon Startop took him in hand, though with a much better grace than +I had shown, and exhorted him to be a little more agreeable. Startop, +being a lively, bright young fellow, and Drummle being the exact +opposite, the latter was always disposed to resent him as a direct +personal affront. He now retorted in a coarse, lumpish way, and Startop +tried to turn the discussion aside with some small pleasantry that made +us all laugh. Resenting this little success more than anything, Drummle, +without any threat or warning, pulled his hands out of his pockets, +dropped his round shoulders, swore, took up a large glass, and would +have flung it at his adversary's head, but for our entertainer's +dexterously seizing it at the instant when it was raised for that +purpose. + +"Gentlemen," said Mr. Jaggers, deliberately putting down the glass, and +hauling out his gold repeater by its massive chain, "I am exceedingly +sorry to announce that it's half past nine." + +On this hint we all rose to depart. Before we got to the street door, +Startop was cheerily calling Drummle "old boy," as if nothing had +happened. But the old boy was so far from responding, that he would not +even walk to Hammersmith on the same side of the way; so Herbert and I, +who remained in town, saw them going down the street on opposite sides; +Startop leading, and Drummle lagging behind in the shadow of the houses, +much as he was wont to follow in his boat. + +As the door was not yet shut, I thought I would leave Herbert there for +a moment, and run upstairs again to say a word to my guardian. I found +him in his dressing-room surrounded by his stock of boots, already hard +at it, washing his hands of us. + +I told him I had come up again to say how sorry I was that anything +disagreeable should have occurred, and that I hoped he would not blame +me much. + +"Pooh!" said he, sluicing his face, and speaking through the +water-drops; "it's nothing, Pip. I like that Spider though." + +He had turned towards me now, and was shaking his head, and blowing, and +towelling himself. + +"I am glad you like him, sir," said I--"but I don't." + +"No, no," my guardian assented; "don't have too much to do with him. +Keep as clear of him as you can. But I like the fellow, Pip; he is one +of the true sort. Why, if I was a fortune-teller--" + +Looking out of the towel, he caught my eye. + +"But I am not a fortune-teller," he said, letting his head drop into a +festoon of towel, and towelling away at his two ears. "You know what I +am, don't you? Good night, Pip." + +"Good night, sir." + +In about a month after that, the Spider's time with Mr. Pocket was up +for good, and, to the great relief of all the house but Mrs. Pocket, he +went home to the family hole. + + + + +Chapter XXVII + + +"MY DEAR MR PIP:-- + +"I write this by request of Mr. Gargery, for to let you know that he +is going to London in company with Mr. Wopsle and would be glad if +agreeable to be allowed to see you. He would call at Barnard's Hotel +Tuesday morning at nine o'clock, when if not agreeable please leave +word. Your poor sister is much the same as when you left. We talk of you +in the kitchen every night, and wonder what you are saying and doing. If +now considered in the light of a liberty, excuse it for the love of +poor old days. No more, dear Mr. Pip, from your ever obliged, and +affectionate servant, + +"BIDDY." + +"P.S. He wishes me most particular to write what larks. He says you will +understand. I hope and do not doubt it will be agreeable to see him, +even though a gentleman, for you had ever a good heart, and he is a +worthy, worthy man. I have read him all, excepting only the last little +sentence, and he wishes me most particular to write again what larks." + +I received this letter by the post on Monday morning, and therefore its +appointment was for next day. Let me confess exactly with what feelings +I looked forward to Joe's coming. + +Not with pleasure, though I was bound to him by so many ties; no; +with considerable disturbance, some mortification, and a keen sense of +incongruity. If I could have kept him away by paying money, I certainly +would have paid money. My greatest reassurance was that he was coming +to Barnard's Inn, not to Hammersmith, and consequently would not fall +in Bentley Drummle's way. I had little objection to his being seen by +Herbert or his father, for both of whom I had a respect; but I had the +sharpest sensitiveness as to his being seen by Drummle, whom I held in +contempt. So, throughout life, our worst weaknesses and meannesses are +usually committed for the sake of the people whom we most despise. + +I had begun to be always decorating the chambers in some quite +unnecessary and inappropriate way or other, and very expensive those +wrestles with Barnard proved to be. By this time, the rooms were +vastly different from what I had found them, and I enjoyed the honor +of occupying a few prominent pages in the books of a neighboring +upholsterer. I had got on so fast of late, that I had even started a boy +in boots,--top boots,--in bondage and slavery to whom I might have been +said to pass my days. For, after I had made the monster (out of the +refuse of my washerwoman's family), and had clothed him with a blue +coat, canary waistcoat, white cravat, creamy breeches, and the boots +already mentioned, I had to find him a little to do and a great deal +to eat; and with both of those horrible requirements he haunted my +existence. + +This avenging phantom was ordered to be on duty at eight on Tuesday +morning in the hall, (it was two feet square, as charged for +floorcloth,) and Herbert suggested certain things for breakfast that he +thought Joe would like. While I felt sincerely obliged to him for being +so interested and considerate, I had an odd half-provoked sense of +suspicion upon me, that if Joe had been coming to see him, he wouldn't +have been quite so brisk about it. + +However, I came into town on the Monday night to be ready for Joe, and +I got up early in the morning, and caused the sitting-room and +breakfast-table to assume their most splendid appearance. Unfortunately +the morning was drizzly, and an angel could not have concealed the fact +that Barnard was shedding sooty tears outside the window, like some weak +giant of a Sweep. + +As the time approached I should have liked to run away, but the Avenger +pursuant to orders was in the hall, and presently I heard Joe on +the staircase. I knew it was Joe, by his clumsy manner of coming upstairs, +--his state boots being always too big for him,--and by the time +it took him to read the names on the other floors in the course of +his ascent. When at last he stopped outside our door, I could hear his +finger tracing over the painted letters of my name, and I afterwards +distinctly heard him breathing in at the keyhole. Finally he gave a +faint single rap, and Pepper--such was the compromising name of the +avenging boy--announced "Mr. Gargery!" I thought he never would have +done wiping his feet, and that I must have gone out to lift him off the +mat, but at last he came in. + +"Joe, how are you, Joe?" + +"Pip, how AIR you, Pip?" + +With his good honest face all glowing and shining, and his hat put +down on the floor between us, he caught both my hands and worked them +straight up and down, as if I had been the last-patented Pump. + +"I am glad to see you, Joe. Give me your hat." + +But Joe, taking it up carefully with both hands, like a bird's-nest with +eggs in it, wouldn't hear of parting with that piece of property, and +persisted in standing talking over it in a most uncomfortable way. + +"Which you have that growed," said Joe, "and that swelled, and that +gentle-folked;" Joe considered a little before he discovered this word; +"as to be sure you are a honor to your king and country." + +"And you, Joe, look wonderfully well." + +"Thank God," said Joe, "I'm ekerval to most. And your sister, she's +no worse than she were. And Biddy, she's ever right and ready. And all +friends is no backerder, if not no forarder. 'Ceptin Wopsle; he's had a +drop." + +All this time (still with both hands taking great care of the +bird's-nest), Joe was rolling his eyes round and round the room, and +round and round the flowered pattern of my dressing-gown. + +"Had a drop, Joe?" + +"Why yes," said Joe, lowering his voice, "he's left the Church and went +into the playacting. Which the playacting have likeways brought him +to London along with me. And his wish were," said Joe, getting the +bird's-nest under his left arm for the moment, and groping in it for an +egg with his right; "if no offence, as I would 'and you that." + +I took what Joe gave me, and found it to be the crumpled play-bill of +a small metropolitan theatre, announcing the first appearance, in that +very week, of "the celebrated Provincial Amateur of Roscian renown, +whose unique performance in the highest tragic walk of our National Bard +has lately occasioned so great a sensation in local dramatic circles." + +"Were you at his performance, Joe?" I inquired. + +"I were," said Joe, with emphasis and solemnity. + +"Was there a great sensation?" + +"Why," said Joe, "yes, there certainly were a peck of orange-peel. +Partickler when he see the ghost. Though I put it to yourself, sir, +whether it were calc'lated to keep a man up to his work with a good +hart, to be continiwally cutting in betwixt him and the Ghost with +"Amen!" A man may have had a misfortun' and been in the Church," said +Joe, lowering his voice to an argumentative and feeling tone, "but +that is no reason why you should put him out at such a time. Which I +meantersay, if the ghost of a man's own father cannot be allowed to +claim his attention, what can, Sir? Still more, when his mourning 'at +is unfortunately made so small as that the weight of the black feathers +brings it off, try to keep it on how you may." + +A ghost-seeing effect in Joe's own countenance informed me that Herbert +had entered the room. So, I presented Joe to Herbert, who held out his +hand; but Joe backed from it, and held on by the bird's-nest. + +"Your servant, Sir," said Joe, "which I hope as you and Pip"--here his +eye fell on the Avenger, who was putting some toast on table, and so +plainly denoted an intention to make that young gentleman one of the +family, that I frowned it down and confused him more--"I meantersay, you +two gentlemen,--which I hope as you get your elths in this close spot? +For the present may be a werry good inn, according to London opinions," +said Joe, confidentially, "and I believe its character do stand it; but I +wouldn't keep a pig in it myself,--not in the case that I wished him to +fatten wholesome and to eat with a meller flavor on him." + +Having borne this flattering testimony to the merits of our +dwelling-place, and having incidentally shown this tendency to call me +"sir," Joe, being invited to sit down to table, looked all round the +room for a suitable spot on which to deposit his hat,--as if it were +only on some very few rare substances in nature that it could find a +resting place,--and ultimately stood it on an extreme corner of the +chimney-piece, from which it ever afterwards fell off at intervals. + +"Do you take tea, or coffee, Mr. Gargery?" asked Herbert, who always +presided of a morning. + +"Thankee, Sir," said Joe, stiff from head to foot, "I'll take whichever +is most agreeable to yourself." + +"What do you say to coffee?" + +"Thankee, Sir," returned Joe, evidently dispirited by the proposal, +"since you are so kind as make chice of coffee, I will not run contrairy +to your own opinions. But don't you never find it a little 'eating?" + +"Say tea then," said Herbert, pouring it out. + +Here Joe's hat tumbled off the mantel-piece, and he started out of his +chair and picked it up, and fitted it to the same exact spot. As if it +were an absolute point of good breeding that it should tumble off again +soon. + +"When did you come to town, Mr. Gargery?" + +"Were it yesterday afternoon?" said Joe, after coughing behind his hand, +as if he had had time to catch the whooping-cough since he came. "No +it were not. Yes it were. Yes. It were yesterday afternoon" (with an +appearance of mingled wisdom, relief, and strict impartiality). + +"Have you seen anything of London yet?" + +"Why, yes, Sir," said Joe, "me and Wopsle went off straight to look at +the Blacking Ware'us. But we didn't find that it come up to its likeness +in the red bills at the shop doors; which I meantersay," added Joe, in +an explanatory manner, "as it is there drawd too architectooralooral." + +I really believe Joe would have prolonged this word (mightily expressive +to my mind of some architecture that I know) into a perfect Chorus, but +for his attention being providentially attracted by his hat, which +was toppling. Indeed, it demanded from him a constant attention, and a +quickness of eye and hand, very like that exacted by wicket-keeping. +He made extraordinary play with it, and showed the greatest skill; now, +rushing at it and catching it neatly as it dropped; now, merely stopping +it midway, beating it up, and humoring it in various parts of the room +and against a good deal of the pattern of the paper on the wall, +before he felt it safe to close with it; finally splashing it into the +slop-basin, where I took the liberty of laying hands upon it. + +As to his shirt-collar, and his coat-collar, they were perplexing to +reflect upon,--insoluble mysteries both. Why should a man scrape himself +to that extent, before he could consider himself full dressed? Why +should he suppose it necessary to be purified by suffering for +his holiday clothes? Then he fell into such unaccountable fits of +meditation, with his fork midway between his plate and his mouth; had +his eyes attracted in such strange directions; was afflicted with such +remarkable coughs; sat so far from the table, and dropped so much +more than he ate, and pretended that he hadn't dropped it; that I was +heartily glad when Herbert left us for the City. + +I had neither the good sense nor the good feeling to know that this was +all my fault, and that if I had been easier with Joe, Joe would have +been easier with me. I felt impatient of him and out of temper with him; +in which condition he heaped coals of fire on my head. + +"Us two being now alone, sir,"--began Joe. + +"Joe," I interrupted, pettishly, "how can you call me, sir?" + +Joe looked at me for a single instant with something faintly like +reproach. Utterly preposterous as his cravat was, and as his collars +were, I was conscious of a sort of dignity in the look. + +"Us two being now alone," resumed Joe, "and me having the intentions and +abilities to stay not many minutes more, I will now conclude--leastways +begin--to mention what have led to my having had the present honor. For +was it not," said Joe, with his old air of lucid exposition, "that my +only wish were to be useful to you, I should not have had the honor of +breaking wittles in the company and abode of gentlemen." + +I was so unwilling to see the look again, that I made no remonstrance +against this tone. + +"Well, sir," pursued Joe, "this is how it were. I were at the Bargemen +t'other night, Pip;"--whenever he subsided into affection, he called me +Pip, and whenever he relapsed into politeness he called me sir; "when +there come up in his shay-cart, Pumblechook. Which that same identical," +said Joe, going down a new track, "do comb my 'air the wrong way +sometimes, awful, by giving out up and down town as it were him which +ever had your infant companionation and were looked upon as a playfellow +by yourself." + +"Nonsense. It was you, Joe." + +"Which I fully believed it were, Pip," said Joe, slightly tossing +his head, "though it signify little now, sir. Well, Pip; this same +identical, which his manners is given to blusterous, come to me at +the Bargemen (wot a pipe and a pint of beer do give refreshment to the +workingman, sir, and do not over stimilate), and his word were, 'Joseph, +Miss Havisham she wish to speak to you.'" + +"Miss Havisham, Joe?" + +"'She wish,' were Pumblechook's word, 'to speak to you.'" Joe sat and +rolled his eyes at the ceiling. + +"Yes, Joe? Go on, please." + +"Next day, sir," said Joe, looking at me as if I were a long way off, +"having cleaned myself, I go and I see Miss A." + +"Miss A., Joe? Miss Havisham?" + +"Which I say, sir," replied Joe, with an air of legal formality, as if +he were making his will, "Miss A., or otherways Havisham. Her expression +air then as follering: 'Mr. Gargery. You air in correspondence with Mr. +Pip?' Having had a letter from you, I were able to say 'I am.' (When +I married your sister, sir, I said 'I will;' and when I answered your +friend, Pip, I said 'I am.') 'Would you tell him, then,' said she, 'that +which Estella has come home and would be glad to see him.'" + +I felt my face fire up as I looked at Joe. I hope one remote cause +of its firing may have been my consciousness that if I had known his +errand, I should have given him more encouragement. + +"Biddy," pursued Joe, "when I got home and asked her fur to write the +message to you, a little hung back. Biddy says, 'I know he will be very +glad to have it by word of mouth, it is holiday time, you want to see +him, go!' I have now concluded, sir," said Joe, rising from his chair, +"and, Pip, I wish you ever well and ever prospering to a greater and a +greater height." + +"But you are not going now, Joe?" + +"Yes I am," said Joe. + +"But you are coming back to dinner, Joe?" + +"No I am not," said Joe. + +Our eyes met, and all the "Sir" melted out of that manly heart as he gave +me his hand. + +"Pip, dear old chap, life is made of ever so many partings welded +together, as I may say, and one man's a blacksmith, and one's a +whitesmith, and one's a goldsmith, and one's a coppersmith. Diwisions +among such must come, and must be met as they come. If there's been +any fault at all to-day, it's mine. You and me is not two figures to +be together in London; nor yet anywheres else but what is private, and +beknown, and understood among friends. It ain't that I am proud, but +that I want to be right, as you shall never see me no more in these +clothes. I'm wrong in these clothes. I'm wrong out of the forge, the +kitchen, or off th' meshes. You won't find half so much fault in me if +you think of me in my forge dress, with my hammer in my hand, or even +my pipe. You won't find half so much fault in me if, supposing as you +should ever wish to see me, you come and put your head in at the forge +window and see Joe the blacksmith, there, at the old anvil, in the old +burnt apron, sticking to the old work. I'm awful dull, but I hope I've +beat out something nigh the rights of this at last. And so GOD bless +you, dear old Pip, old chap, GOD bless you!" + +I had not been mistaken in my fancy that there was a simple dignity +in him. The fashion of his dress could no more come in its way when he +spoke these words than it could come in its way in Heaven. He touched me +gently on the forehead, and went out. As soon as I could recover +myself sufficiently, I hurried out after him and looked for him in the +neighboring streets; but he was gone. + + + + +Chapter XXVIII + +It was clear that I must repair to our town next day, and in the first +flow of my repentance, it was equally clear that I must stay at Joe's. +But, when I had secured my box-place by to-morrow's coach, and had been +down to Mr. Pocket's and back, I was not by any means convinced on the +last point, and began to invent reasons and make excuses for putting +up at the Blue Boar. I should be an inconvenience at Joe's; I was not +expected, and my bed would not be ready; I should be too far from +Miss Havisham's, and she was exacting and mightn't like it. All other +swindlers upon earth are nothing to the self-swindlers, and with such +pretences did I cheat myself. Surely a curious thing. That I should +innocently take a bad half-crown of somebody else's manufacture is +reasonable enough; but that I should knowingly reckon the spurious coin +of my own make as good money! An obliging stranger, under pretence of +compactly folding up my bank-notes for security's sake, abstracts the +notes and gives me nutshells; but what is his sleight of hand to mine, +when I fold up my own nutshells and pass them on myself as notes! + +Having settled that I must go to the Blue Boar, my mind was much +disturbed by indecision whether or not to take the Avenger. It was +tempting to think of that expensive Mercenary publicly airing his boots +in the archway of the Blue Boar's posting-yard; it was almost solemn to +imagine him casually produced in the tailor's shop, and confounding +the disrespectful senses of Trabb's boy. On the other hand, Trabb's boy +might worm himself into his intimacy and tell him things; or, reckless +and desperate wretch as I knew he could be, might hoot him in the High +Street. My patroness, too, might hear of him, and not approve. On the +whole, I resolved to leave the Avenger behind. + +It was the afternoon coach by which I had taken my place, and, as winter +had now come round, I should not arrive at my destination until two or +three hours after dark. Our time of starting from the Cross Keys was +two o'clock. I arrived on the ground with a quarter of an hour to spare, +attended by the Avenger,--if I may connect that expression with one who +never attended on me if he could possibly help it. + +At that time it was customary to carry Convicts down to the dock-yards +by stage-coach. As I had often heard of them in the capacity of outside +passengers, and had more than once seen them on the high road dangling +their ironed legs over the coach roof, I had no cause to be surprised +when Herbert, meeting me in the yard, came up and told me there were two +convicts going down with me. But I had a reason that was an old reason +now for constitutionally faltering whenever I heard the word "convict." + +"You don't mind them, Handel?" said Herbert. + +"O no!" + +"I thought you seemed as if you didn't like them?" + +"I can't pretend that I do like them, and I suppose you don't +particularly. But I don't mind them." + +"See! There they are," said Herbert, "coming out of the Tap. What a +degraded and vile sight it is!" + +They had been treating their guard, I suppose, for they had a gaoler +with them, and all three came out wiping their mouths on their hands. +The two convicts were handcuffed together, and had irons on their +legs,--irons of a pattern that I knew well. They wore the dress that I +likewise knew well. Their keeper had a brace of pistols, and carried +a thick-knobbed bludgeon under his arm; but he was on terms of good +understanding with them, and stood with them beside him, looking on at +the putting-to of the horses, rather with an air as if the convicts were +an interesting Exhibition not formally open at the moment, and he the +Curator. One was a taller and stouter man than the other, and appeared +as a matter of course, according to the mysterious ways of the world, +both convict and free, to have had allotted to him the smaller suit of +clothes. His arms and legs were like great pincushions of those shapes, +and his attire disguised him absurdly; but I knew his half-closed eye +at one glance. There stood the man whom I had seen on the settle at the +Three Jolly Bargemen on a Saturday night, and who had brought me down +with his invisible gun! + +It was easy to make sure that as yet he knew me no more than if he had +never seen me in his life. He looked across at me, and his eye appraised +my watch-chain, and then he incidentally spat and said something to the +other convict, and they laughed and slued themselves round with a clink +of their coupling manacle, and looked at something else. The great +numbers on their backs, as if they were street doors; their coarse mangy +ungainly outer surface, as if they were lower animals; their ironed +legs, apologetically garlanded with pocket-handkerchiefs; and the way +in which all present looked at them and kept from them; made them (as +Herbert had said) a most disagreeable and degraded spectacle. + +But this was not the worst of it. It came out that the whole of the back +of the coach had been taken by a family removing from London, and that +there were no places for the two prisoners but on the seat in front +behind the coachman. Hereupon, a choleric gentleman, who had taken the +fourth place on that seat, flew into a most violent passion, and said +that it was a breach of contract to mix him up with such villainous +company, and that it was poisonous, and pernicious, and infamous, and +shameful, and I don't know what else. At this time the coach was ready +and the coachman impatient, and we were all preparing to get up, and +the prisoners had come over with their keeper,--bringing with them that +curious flavor of bread-poultice, baize, rope-yarn, and hearthstone, +which attends the convict presence. + +"Don't take it so much amiss, sir," pleaded the keeper to the angry +passenger; "I'll sit next you myself. I'll put 'em on the outside of +the row. They won't interfere with you, sir. You needn't know they're +there." + +"And don't blame me," growled the convict I had recognized. "I don't +want to go. I am quite ready to stay behind. As fur as I am concerned +any one's welcome to my place." + +"Or mine," said the other, gruffly. "I wouldn't have incommoded none +of you, if I'd had my way." Then they both laughed, and began cracking +nuts, and spitting the shells about.--As I really think I should have +liked to do myself, if I had been in their place and so despised. + +At length, it was voted that there was no help for the angry gentleman, +and that he must either go in his chance company or remain behind. So he +got into his place, still making complaints, and the keeper got into the +place next him, and the convicts hauled themselves up as well as they +could, and the convict I had recognized sat behind me with his breath on +the hair of my head. + +"Good-bye, Handel!" Herbert called out as we started. I thought what a +blessed fortune it was, that he had found another name for me than Pip. + +It is impossible to express with what acuteness I felt the convict's +breathing, not only on the back of my head, but all along my spine. The +sensation was like being touched in the marrow with some pungent and +searching acid, it set my very teeth on edge. He seemed to have more +breathing business to do than another man, and to make more noise in +doing it; and I was conscious of growing high-shouldered on one side, in +my shrinking endeavors to fend him off. + +The weather was miserably raw, and the two cursed the cold. It made us +all lethargic before we had gone far, and when we had left the Half-way +House behind, we habitually dozed and shivered and were silent. I dozed +off, myself, in considering the question whether I ought to restore a +couple of pounds sterling to this creature before losing sight of him, +and how it could best be done. In the act of dipping forward as if I +were going to bathe among the horses, I woke in a fright and took the +question up again. + +But I must have lost it longer than I had thought, since, although +I could recognize nothing in the darkness and the fitful lights and +shadows of our lamps, I traced marsh country in the cold damp wind that +blew at us. Cowering forward for warmth and to make me a screen against +the wind, the convicts were closer to me than before. The very first +words I heard them interchange as I became conscious, were the words of +my own thought, "Two One Pound notes." + +"How did he get 'em?" said the convict I had never seen. + +"How should I know?" returned the other. "He had 'em stowed away +somehows. Giv him by friends, I expect." + +"I wish," said the other, with a bitter curse upon the cold, "that I had +'em here." + +"Two one pound notes, or friends?" + +"Two one pound notes. I'd sell all the friends I ever had for one, and +think it a blessed good bargain. Well? So he says--?" + +"So he says," resumed the convict I had recognized,--"it was all +said and done in half a minute, behind a pile of timber in the +Dock-yard,--'You're a going to be discharged?' Yes, I was. Would I find +out that boy that had fed him and kep his secret, and give him them two +one pound notes? Yes, I would. And I did." + +"More fool you," growled the other. "I'd have spent 'em on a Man, in +wittles and drink. He must have been a green one. Mean to say he knowed +nothing of you?" + +"Not a ha'porth. Different gangs and different ships. He was tried again +for prison breaking, and got made a Lifer." + +"And was that--Honor!--the only time you worked out, in this part of the +country?" + +"The only time." + +"What might have been your opinion of the place?" + +"A most beastly place. Mudbank, mist, swamp, and work; work, swamp, +mist, and mudbank." + +They both execrated the place in very strong language, and gradually +growled themselves out, and had nothing left to say. + +After overhearing this dialogue, I should assuredly have got down and +been left in the solitude and darkness of the highway, but for feeling +certain that the man had no suspicion of my identity. Indeed, I was not +only so changed in the course of nature, but so differently dressed and +so differently circumstanced, that it was not at all likely he could +have known me without accidental help. Still, the coincidence of our +being together on the coach, was sufficiently strange to fill me with a +dread that some other coincidence might at any moment connect me, in his +hearing, with my name. For this reason, I resolved to alight as soon as +we touched the town, and put myself out of his hearing. This device I +executed successfully. My little portmanteau was in the boot under my +feet; I had but to turn a hinge to get it out; I threw it down before +me, got down after it, and was left at the first lamp on the first +stones of the town pavement. As to the convicts, they went their way +with the coach, and I knew at what point they would be spirited off to +the river. In my fancy, I saw the boat with its convict crew waiting for +them at the slime-washed stairs,--again heard the gruff "Give way, you!" +like and order to dogs,--again saw the wicked Noah's Ark lying out on +the black water. + +I could not have said what I was afraid of, for my fear was altogether +undefined and vague, but there was great fear upon me. As I walked on to +the hotel, I felt that a dread, much exceeding the mere apprehension of +a painful or disagreeable recognition, made me tremble. I am confident +that it took no distinctness of shape, and that it was the revival for a +few minutes of the terror of childhood. + +The coffee-room at the Blue Boar was empty, and I had not only ordered +my dinner there, but had sat down to it, before the waiter knew me. As +soon as he had apologized for the remissness of his memory, he asked me +if he should send Boots for Mr. Pumblechook? + +"No," said I, "certainly not." + +The waiter (it was he who had brought up the Great Remonstrance from the +Commercials, on the day when I was bound) appeared surprised, and +took the earliest opportunity of putting a dirty old copy of a local +newspaper so directly in my way, that I took it up and read this +paragraph:-- + +Our readers will learn, not altogether without interest, in reference to +the recent romantic rise in fortune of a young artificer in iron of this +neighborhood (what a theme, by the way, for the magic pen of our as yet +not universally acknowledged townsman TOOBY, the poet of our columns!) +that the youth's earliest patron, companion, and friend, was a highly +respected individual not entirely unconnected with the corn and seed +trade, and whose eminently convenient and commodious business premises +are situate within a hundred miles of the High Street. It is not wholly +irrespective of our personal feelings that we record HIM as the Mentor +of our young Telemachus, for it is good to know that our town produced +the founder of the latter's fortunes. Does the thought-contracted brow +of the local Sage or the lustrous eye of local Beauty inquire whose +fortunes? We believe that Quintin Matsys was the BLACKSMITH of Antwerp. +VERB. SAP. + +I entertain a conviction, based upon large experience, that if in the +days of my prosperity I had gone to the North Pole, I should have met +somebody there, wandering Esquimaux or civilized man, who would have +told me that Pumblechook was my earliest patron and the founder of my +fortunes. + + + + +Chapter XXIX + +Betimes in the morning I was up and out. It was too early yet to go to +Miss Havisham's, so I loitered into the country on Miss Havisham's +side of town,--which was not Joe's side; I could go there +to-morrow,--thinking about my patroness, and painting brilliant pictures +of her plans for me. + +She had adopted Estella, she had as good as adopted me, and it could not +fail to be her intention to bring us together. She reserved it for me to +restore the desolate house, admit the sunshine into the dark rooms, +set the clocks a-going and the cold hearths a-blazing, tear down the +cobwebs, destroy the vermin,--in short, do all the shining deeds of the +young Knight of romance, and marry the Princess. I had stopped to +look at the house as I passed; and its seared red brick walls, blocked +windows, and strong green ivy clasping even the stacks of chimneys with +its twigs and tendons, as if with sinewy old arms, had made up a rich +attractive mystery, of which I was the hero. Estella was the inspiration +of it, and the heart of it, of course. But, though she had taken such +strong possession of me, though my fancy and my hope were so set upon +her, though her influence on my boyish life and character had been +all-powerful, I did not, even that romantic morning, invest her with any +attributes save those she possessed. I mention this in this place, of a +fixed purpose, because it is the clew by which I am to be followed into +my poor labyrinth. According to my experience, the conventional notion +of a lover cannot be always true. The unqualified truth is, that when I +loved Estella with the love of a man, I loved her simply because I found +her irresistible. Once for all; I knew to my sorrow, often and often, +if not always, that I loved her against reason, against promise, against +peace, against hope, against happiness, against all discouragement that +could be. Once for all; I loved her none the less because I knew it, +and it had no more influence in restraining me than if I had devoutly +believed her to be human perfection. + +I so shaped out my walk as to arrive at the gate at my old time. When +I had rung at the bell with an unsteady hand, I turned my back upon the +gate, while I tried to get my breath and keep the beating of my heart +moderately quiet. I heard the side-door open, and steps come across the +courtyard; but I pretended not to hear, even when the gate swung on its +rusty hinges. + +Being at last touched on the shoulder, I started and turned. I started +much more naturally then, to find myself confronted by a man in a sober +gray dress. The last man I should have expected to see in that place of +porter at Miss Havisham's door. + +"Orlick!" + +"Ah, young master, there's more changes than yours. But come in, come +in. It's opposed to my orders to hold the gate open." + +I entered and he swung it, and locked it, and took the key out. "Yes!" +said he, facing round, after doggedly preceding me a few steps towards +the house. "Here I am!" + +"How did you come here?" + +"I come her," he retorted, "on my legs. I had my box brought alongside +me in a barrow." + +"Are you here for good?" + +"I ain't here for harm, young master, I suppose?" + +I was not so sure of that. I had leisure to entertain the retort in my +mind, while he slowly lifted his heavy glance from the pavement, up my +legs and arms, to my face. + +"Then you have left the forge?" I said. + +"Do this look like a forge?" replied Orlick, sending his glance all +round him with an air of injury. "Now, do it look like it?" + +I asked him how long he had left Gargery's forge? + +"One day is so like another here," he replied, "that I don't know +without casting it up. However, I come here some time since you left." + +"I could have told you that, Orlick." + +"Ah!" said he, dryly. "But then you've got to be a scholar." + +By this time we had come to the house, where I found his room to be one +just within the side-door, with a little window in it looking on the +courtyard. In its small proportions, it was not unlike the kind of place +usually assigned to a gate-porter in Paris. Certain keys were hanging on +the wall, to which he now added the gate key; and his patchwork-covered +bed was in a little inner division or recess. The whole had a slovenly, +confined, and sleepy look, like a cage for a human dormouse; while he, +looming dark and heavy in the shadow of a corner by the window, looked +like the human dormouse for whom it was fitted up,--as indeed he was. + +"I never saw this room before," I remarked; "but there used to be no +Porter here." + +"No," said he; "not till it got about that there was no protection on +the premises, and it come to be considered dangerous, with convicts and +Tag and Rag and Bobtail going up and down. And then I was recommended to +the place as a man who could give another man as good as he brought, and +I took it. It's easier than bellowsing and hammering.--That's loaded, +that is." + +My eye had been caught by a gun with a brass-bound stock over the +chimney-piece, and his eye had followed mine. + +"Well," said I, not desirous of more conversation, "shall I go up to +Miss Havisham?" + +"Burn me, if I know!" he retorted, first stretching himself and then +shaking himself; "my orders ends here, young master. I give this here +bell a rap with this here hammer, and you go on along the passage till +you meet somebody." + +"I am expected, I believe?" + +"Burn me twice over, if I can say!" said he. + +Upon that, I turned down the long passage which I had first trodden in +my thick boots, and he made his bell sound. At the end of the passage, +while the bell was still reverberating, I found Sarah Pocket, who +appeared to have now become constitutionally green and yellow by reason +of me. + +"Oh!" said she. "You, is it, Mr. Pip?" + +"It is, Miss Pocket. I am glad to tell you that Mr. Pocket and family +are all well." + +"Are they any wiser?" said Sarah, with a dismal shake of the head; "they +had better be wiser, than well. Ah, Matthew, Matthew! You know your way, +sir?" + +Tolerably, for I had gone up the staircase in the dark, many a time. I +ascended it now, in lighter boots than of yore, and tapped in my old +way at the door of Miss Havisham's room. "Pip's rap," I heard her say, +immediately; "come in, Pip." + +She was in her chair near the old table, in the old dress, with her two +hands crossed on her stick, her chin resting on them, and her eyes on +the fire. Sitting near her, with the white shoe, that had never been +worn, in her hand, and her head bent as she looked at it, was an elegant +lady whom I had never seen. + +"Come in, Pip," Miss Havisham continued to mutter, without looking round +or up; "come in, Pip, how do you do, Pip? so you kiss my hand as if I +were a queen, eh?--Well?" + +She looked up at me suddenly, only moving her eyes, and repeated in a +grimly playful manner,-- + +"Well?" + +"I heard, Miss Havisham," said I, rather at a loss, "that you were so +kind as to wish me to come and see you, and I came directly." + +"Well?" + +The lady whom I had never seen before, lifted up her eyes and looked +archly at me, and then I saw that the eyes were Estella's eyes. But she +was so much changed, was so much more beautiful, so much more womanly, +in all things winning admiration, had made such wonderful advance, +that I seemed to have made none. I fancied, as I looked at her, that +I slipped hopelessly back into the coarse and common boy again. O +the sense of distance and disparity that came upon me, and the +inaccessibility that came about her! + +She gave me her hand. I stammered something about the pleasure I felt in +seeing her again, and about my having looked forward to it, for a long, +long time. + +"Do you find her much changed, Pip?" asked Miss Havisham, with her +greedy look, and striking her stick upon a chair that stood between +them, as a sign to me to sit down there. + +"When I came in, Miss Havisham, I thought there was nothing of Estella +in the face or figure; but now it all settles down so curiously into the +old--" + +"What? You are not going to say into the old Estella?" Miss Havisham +interrupted. "She was proud and insulting, and you wanted to go away +from her. Don't you remember?" + +I said confusedly that that was long ago, and that I knew no better +then, and the like. Estella smiled with perfect composure, and said she +had no doubt of my having been quite right, and of her having been very +disagreeable. + +"Is he changed?" Miss Havisham asked her. + +"Very much," said Estella, looking at me. + +"Less coarse and common?" said Miss Havisham, playing with Estella's +hair. + +Estella laughed, and looked at the shoe in her hand, and laughed again, +and looked at me, and put the shoe down. She treated me as a boy still, +but she lured me on. + +We sat in the dreamy room among the old strange influences which had +so wrought upon me, and I learnt that she had but just come home from +France, and that she was going to London. Proud and wilful as of old, +she had brought those qualities into such subjection to her beauty that +it was impossible and out of nature--or I thought so--to separate them +from her beauty. Truly it was impossible to dissociate her presence +from all those wretched hankerings after money and gentility that had +disturbed my boyhood,--from all those ill-regulated aspirations that had +first made me ashamed of home and Joe,--from all those visions that had +raised her face in the glowing fire, struck it out of the iron on the +anvil, extracted it from the darkness of night to look in at the wooden +window of the forge, and flit away. In a word, it was impossible for me +to separate her, in the past or in the present, from the innermost life +of my life. + +It was settled that I should stay there all the rest of the day, and +return to the hotel at night, and to London to-morrow. When we had +conversed for a while, Miss Havisham sent us two out to walk in the +neglected garden: on our coming in by and by, she said, I should wheel +her about a little, as in times of yore. + +So, Estella and I went out into the garden by the gate through which I +had strayed to my encounter with the pale young gentleman, now Herbert; +I, trembling in spirit and worshipping the very hem of her dress; she, +quite composed and most decidedly not worshipping the hem of mine. As we +drew near to the place of encounter, she stopped and said,-- + +"I must have been a singular little creature to hide and see that fight +that day; but I did, and I enjoyed it very much." + +"You rewarded me very much." + +"Did I?" she replied, in an incidental and forgetful way. "I remember I +entertained a great objection to your adversary, because I took it ill +that he should be brought here to pester me with his company." + +"He and I are great friends now." + +"Are you? I think I recollect though, that you read with his father?" + +"Yes." + +I made the admission with reluctance, for it seemed to have a boyish +look, and she already treated me more than enough like a boy. + +"Since your change of fortune and prospects, you have changed your +companions," said Estella. + +"Naturally," said I. + +"And necessarily," she added, in a haughty tone; "what was fit company +for you once, would be quite unfit company for you now." + +In my conscience, I doubt very much whether I had any lingering +intention left of going to see Joe; but if I had, this observation put +it to flight. + +"You had no idea of your impending good fortune, in those times?" said +Estella, with a slight wave of her hand, signifying in the fighting +times. + +"Not the least." + +The air of completeness and superiority with which she walked at my +side, and the air of youthfulness and submission with which I walked at +hers, made a contrast that I strongly felt. It would have rankled in me +more than it did, if I had not regarded myself as eliciting it by being +so set apart for her and assigned to her. + +The garden was too overgrown and rank for walking in with ease, and +after we had made the round of it twice or thrice, we came out again +into the brewery yard. I showed her to a nicety where I had seen her +walking on the casks, that first old day, and she said, with a cold and +careless look in that direction, "Did I?" I reminded her where she had +come out of the house and given me my meat and drink, and she said, "I +don't remember." "Not remember that you made me cry?" said I. "No," said +she, and shook her head and looked about her. I verily believe that +her not remembering and not minding in the least, made me cry again, +inwardly,--and that is the sharpest crying of all. + +"You must know," said Estella, condescending to me as a brilliant and +beautiful woman might, "that I have no heart,--if that has anything to +do with my memory." + +I got through some jargon to the effect that I took the liberty of +doubting that. That I knew better. That there could be no such beauty +without it. + +"Oh! I have a heart to be stabbed in or shot in, I have no doubt," said +Estella, "and of course if it ceased to beat I should cease +to be. But you know what I mean. I have no softness there, +no--sympathy--sentiment--nonsense." + +What was it that was borne in upon my mind when she stood still and +looked attentively at me? Anything that I had seen in Miss Havisham? No. +In some of her looks and gestures there was that tinge of resemblance +to Miss Havisham which may often be noticed to have been acquired by +children, from grown person with whom they have been much associated and +secluded, and which, when childhood is passed, will produce a remarkable +occasional likeness of expression between faces that are otherwise quite +different. And yet I could not trace this to Miss Havisham. I looked +again, and though she was still looking at me, the suggestion was gone. + +What was it? + +"I am serious," said Estella, not so much with a frown (for her brow was +smooth) as with a darkening of her face; "if we are to be thrown much +together, you had better believe it at once. No!" imperiously stopping +me as I opened my lips. "I have not bestowed my tenderness anywhere. I +have never had any such thing." + +In another moment we were in the brewery, so long disused, and she +pointed to the high gallery where I had seen her going out on that same +first day, and told me she remembered to have been up there, and to have +seen me standing scared below. As my eyes followed her white hand, again +the same dim suggestion that I could not possibly grasp crossed me. My +involuntary start occasioned her to lay her hand upon my arm. Instantly +the ghost passed once more and was gone. + +What was it? + +"What is the matter?" asked Estella. "Are you scared again?" + +"I should be, if I believed what you said just now," I replied, to turn +it off. + +"Then you don't? Very well. It is said, at any rate. Miss Havisham will +soon be expecting you at your old post, though I think that might be +laid aside now, with other old belongings. Let us make one more round +of the garden, and then go in. Come! You shall not shed tears for my +cruelty to-day; you shall be my Page, and give me your shoulder." + +Her handsome dress had trailed upon the ground. She held it in one hand +now, and with the other lightly touched my shoulder as we walked. We +walked round the ruined garden twice or thrice more, and it was all in +bloom for me. If the green and yellow growth of weed in the chinks of +the old wall had been the most precious flowers that ever blew, it could +not have been more cherished in my remembrance. + +There was no discrepancy of years between us to remove her far from me; +we were of nearly the same age, though of course the age told for more +in her case than in mine; but the air of inaccessibility which her +beauty and her manner gave her, tormented me in the midst of my delight, +and at the height of the assurance I felt that our patroness had chosen +us for one another. Wretched boy! + +At last we went back into the house, and there I heard, with surprise, +that my guardian had come down to see Miss Havisham on business, and +would come back to dinner. The old wintry branches of chandeliers in +the room where the mouldering table was spread had been lighted while we +were out, and Miss Havisham was in her chair and waiting for me. + +It was like pushing the chair itself back into the past, when we began +the old slow circuit round about the ashes of the bridal feast. But, +in the funereal room, with that figure of the grave fallen back in the +chair fixing its eyes upon her, Estella looked more bright and beautiful +than before, and I was under stronger enchantment. + +The time so melted away, that our early dinner-hour drew close at hand, +and Estella left us to prepare herself. We had stopped near the centre +of the long table, and Miss Havisham, with one of her withered arms +stretched out of the chair, rested that clenched hand upon the yellow +cloth. As Estella looked back over her shoulder before going out at the +door, Miss Havisham kissed that hand to her, with a ravenous intensity +that was of its kind quite dreadful. + +Then, Estella being gone and we two left alone, she turned to me, and +said in a whisper,-- + +"Is she beautiful, graceful, well-grown? Do you admire her?" + +"Everybody must who sees her, Miss Havisham." + +She drew an arm round my neck, and drew my head close down to hers as +she sat in the chair. "Love her, love her, love her! How does she use +you?" + +Before I could answer (if I could have answered so difficult a question +at all) she repeated, "Love her, love her, love her! If she favors +you, love her. If she wounds you, love her. If she tears your heart to +pieces,--and as it gets older and stronger it will tear deeper,--love +her, love her, love her!" + +Never had I seen such passionate eagerness as was joined to her +utterance of these words. I could feel the muscles of the thin arm round +my neck swell with the vehemence that possessed her. + +"Hear me, Pip! I adopted her, to be loved. I bred her and educated her, +to be loved. I developed her into what she is, that she might be loved. +Love her!" + +She said the word often enough, and there could be no doubt that she +meant to say it; but if the often repeated word had been hate instead of +love--despair--revenge--dire death--it could not have sounded from her +lips more like a curse. + +"I'll tell you," said she, in the same hurried passionate whisper, "what +real love is. It is blind devotion, unquestioning self-humiliation, +utter submission, trust and belief against yourself and against the +whole world, giving up your whole heart and soul to the smiter--as I +did!" + +When she came to that, and to a wild cry that followed that, I caught +her round the waist. For she rose up in the chair, in her shroud of a +dress, and struck at the air as if she would as soon have struck herself +against the wall and fallen dead. + +All this passed in a few seconds. As I drew her down into her chair, I +was conscious of a scent that I knew, and turning, saw my guardian in +the room. + +He always carried (I have not yet mentioned it, I think) a +pocket-handkerchief of rich silk and of imposing proportions, which was +of great value to him in his profession. I have seen him so terrify a +client or a witness by ceremoniously unfolding this pocket-handkerchief +as if he were immediately going to blow his nose, and then pausing, +as if he knew he should not have time to do it before such client +or witness committed himself, that the self-committal has followed +directly, quite as a matter of course. When I saw him in the room he had +this expressive pocket-handkerchief in both hands, and was looking at +us. On meeting my eye, he said plainly, by a momentary and silent pause +in that attitude, "Indeed? Singular!" and then put the handkerchief to +its right use with wonderful effect. + +Miss Havisham had seen him as soon as I, and was (like everybody +else) afraid of him. She made a strong attempt to compose herself, and +stammered that he was as punctual as ever. + +"As punctual as ever," he repeated, coming up to us. "(How do you do, +Pip? Shall I give you a ride, Miss Havisham? Once round?) And so you are +here, Pip?" + +I told him when I had arrived, and how Miss Havisham had wished me to +come and see Estella. To which he replied, "Ah! Very fine young lady!" +Then he pushed Miss Havisham in her chair before him, with one of his +large hands, and put the other in his trousers-pocket as if the pocket +were full of secrets. + +"Well, Pip! How often have you seen Miss Estella before?" said he, when +he came to a stop. + +"How often?" + +"Ah! How many times? Ten thousand times?" + +"Oh! Certainly not so many." + +"Twice?" + +"Jaggers," interposed Miss Havisham, much to my relief, "leave my Pip +alone, and go with him to your dinner." + +He complied, and we groped our way down the dark stairs together. While +we were still on our way to those detached apartments across the paved +yard at the back, he asked me how often I had seen Miss Havisham eat +and drink; offering me a breadth of choice, as usual, between a hundred +times and once. + +I considered, and said, "Never." + +"And never will, Pip," he retorted, with a frowning smile. "She has +never allowed herself to be seen doing either, since she lived this +present life of hers. She wanders about in the night, and then lays +hands on such food as she takes." + +"Pray, sir," said I, "may I ask you a question?" + +"You may," said he, "and I may decline to answer it. Put your question." + +"Estella's name. Is it Havisham or--?" I had nothing to add. + +"Or what?" said he. + +"Is it Havisham?" + +"It is Havisham." + +This brought us to the dinner-table, where she and Sarah Pocket awaited +us. Mr. Jaggers presided, Estella sat opposite to him, I faced my +green and yellow friend. We dined very well, and were waited on by a +maid-servant whom I had never seen in all my comings and goings, but +who, for anything I know, had been in that mysterious house the whole +time. After dinner a bottle of choice old port was placed before my +guardian (he was evidently well acquainted with the vintage), and the +two ladies left us. + +Anything to equal the determined reticence of Mr. Jaggers under that +roof I never saw elsewhere, even in him. He kept his very looks to +himself, and scarcely directed his eyes to Estella's face once during +dinner. When she spoke to him, he listened, and in due course answered, +but never looked at her, that I could see. On the other hand, she often +looked at him, with interest and curiosity, if not distrust, but his +face never showed the least consciousness. Throughout dinner he took +a dry delight in making Sarah Pocket greener and yellower, by often +referring in conversation with me to my expectations; but here, +again, he showed no consciousness, and even made it appear that he +extorted--and even did extort, though I don't know how--those references +out of my innocent self. + +And when he and I were left alone together, he sat with an air upon him +of general lying by in consequence of information he possessed, that +really was too much for me. He cross-examined his very wine when he had +nothing else in hand. He held it between himself and the candle, tasted +the port, rolled it in his mouth, swallowed it, looked at his +glass again, smelt the port, tried it, drank it, filled again, and +cross-examined the glass again, until I was as nervous as if I had known +the wine to be telling him something to my disadvantage. Three or four +times I feebly thought I would start conversation; but whenever he saw +me going to ask him anything, he looked at me with his glass in his +hand, and rolling his wine about in his mouth, as if requesting me to +take notice that it was of no use, for he couldn't answer. + +I think Miss Pocket was conscious that the sight of me involved her +in the danger of being goaded to madness, and perhaps tearing off her +cap,--which was a very hideous one, in the nature of a muslin mop,--and +strewing the ground with her hair,--which assuredly had never grown +on her head. She did not appear when we afterwards went up to Miss +Havisham's room, and we four played at whist. In the interval, Miss +Havisham, in a fantastic way, had put some of the most beautiful jewels +from her dressing-table into Estella's hair, and about her bosom and +arms; and I saw even my guardian look at her from under his thick +eyebrows, and raise them a little, when her loveliness was before him, +with those rich flushes of glitter and color in it. + +Of the manner and extent to which he took our trumps into custody, and +came out with mean little cards at the ends of hands, before which the +glory of our Kings and Queens was utterly abased, I say nothing; nor, of +the feeling that I had, respecting his looking upon us personally in the +light of three very obvious and poor riddles that he had found out long +ago. What I suffered from, was the incompatibility between his cold +presence and my feelings towards Estella. It was not that I knew I could +never bear to speak to him about her, that I knew I could never bear to +hear him creak his boots at her, that I knew I could never bear to see +him wash his hands of her; it was, that my admiration should be within +a foot or two of him,--it was, that my feelings should be in the same +place with him,--that, was the agonizing circumstance. + +We played until nine o'clock, and then it was arranged that when Estella +came to London I should be forewarned of her coming and should meet her +at the coach; and then I took leave of her, and touched her and left +her. + +My guardian lay at the Boar in the next room to mine. Far into the +night, Miss Havisham's words, "Love her, love her, love her!" sounded in +my ears. I adapted them for my own repetition, and said to my pillow, "I +love her, I love her, I love her!" hundreds of times. Then, a burst of +gratitude came upon me, that she should be destined for me, once the +blacksmith's boy. Then I thought if she were, as I feared, by no means +rapturously grateful for that destiny yet, when would she begin to be +interested in me? When should I awaken the heart within her that was +mute and sleeping now? + +Ah me! I thought those were high and great emotions. But I never thought +there was anything low and small in my keeping away from Joe, because +I knew she would be contemptuous of him. It was but a day gone, and Joe +had brought the tears into my eyes; they had soon dried, God forgive me! +soon dried. + + + + +Chapter XXX + +After well considering the matter while I was dressing at the Blue Boar +in the morning, I resolved to tell my guardian that I doubted Orlick's +being the right sort of man to fill a post of trust at Miss Havisham's. +"Why of course he is not the right sort of man, Pip," said my guardian, +comfortably satisfied beforehand on the general head, "because the man +who fills the post of trust never is the right sort of man." It seemed +quite to put him into spirits to find that this particular post was +not exceptionally held by the right sort of man, and he listened in a +satisfied manner while I told him what knowledge I had of Orlick. "Very +good, Pip," he observed, when I had concluded, "I'll go round presently, +and pay our friend off." Rather alarmed by this summary action, I was +for a little delay, and even hinted that our friend himself might be +difficult to deal with. "Oh no he won't," said my guardian, making his +pocket-handkerchief-point, with perfect confidence; "I should like to +see him argue the question with me." + +As we were going back together to London by the midday coach, and as I +breakfasted under such terrors of Pumblechook that I could scarcely hold +my cup, this gave me an opportunity of saying that I wanted a walk, and +that I would go on along the London road while Mr. Jaggers was occupied, +if he would let the coachman know that I would get into my place when +overtaken. I was thus enabled to fly from the Blue Boar immediately +after breakfast. By then making a loop of about a couple of miles into +the open country at the back of Pumblechook's premises, I got round into +the High Street again, a little beyond that pitfall, and felt myself in +comparative security. + +It was interesting to be in the quiet old town once more, and it was not +disagreeable to be here and there suddenly recognized and stared after. +One or two of the tradespeople even darted out of their shops and went +a little way down the street before me, that they might turn, as if they +had forgotten something, and pass me face to face,--on which occasions I +don't know whether they or I made the worse pretence; they of not doing +it, or I of not seeing it. Still my position was a distinguished one, +and I was not at all dissatisfied with it, until Fate threw me in the +way of that unlimited miscreant, Trabb's boy. + +Casting my eyes along the street at a certain point of my progress, I +beheld Trabb's boy approaching, lashing himself with an empty blue bag. +Deeming that a serene and unconscious contemplation of him would best +beseem me, and would be most likely to quell his evil mind, I advanced +with that expression of countenance, and was rather congratulating +myself on my success, when suddenly the knees of Trabb's boy smote +together, his hair uprose, his cap fell off, he trembled violently in +every limb, staggered out into the road, and crying to the populace, +"Hold me! I'm so frightened!" feigned to be in a paroxysm of terror and +contrition, occasioned by the dignity of my appearance. As I passed him, +his teeth loudly chattered in his head, and with every mark of extreme +humiliation, he prostrated himself in the dust. + +This was a hard thing to bear, but this was nothing. I had not advanced +another two hundred yards when, to my inexpressible terror, amazement, +and indignation, I again beheld Trabb's boy approaching. He was coming +round a narrow corner. His blue bag was slung over his shoulder, honest +industry beamed in his eyes, a determination to proceed to Trabb's with +cheerful briskness was indicated in his gait. With a shock he became +aware of me, and was severely visited as before; but this time his +motion was rotatory, and he staggered round and round me with knees +more afflicted, and with uplifted hands as if beseeching for mercy. His +sufferings were hailed with the greatest joy by a knot of spectators, +and I felt utterly confounded. + +I had not got as much further down the street as the post-office, when I +again beheld Trabb's boy shooting round by a back way. This time, he was +entirely changed. He wore the blue bag in the manner of my great-coat, +and was strutting along the pavement towards me on the opposite side of +the street, attended by a company of delighted young friends to whom he +from time to time exclaimed, with a wave of his hand, "Don't know yah!" +Words cannot state the amount of aggravation and injury wreaked upon +me by Trabb's boy, when passing abreast of me, he pulled up his +shirt-collar, twined his side-hair, stuck an arm akimbo, and smirked +extravagantly by, wriggling his elbows and body, and drawling to his +attendants, "Don't know yah, don't know yah, 'pon my soul don't know +yah!" The disgrace attendant on his immediately afterwards taking +to crowing and pursuing me across the bridge with crows, as from an +exceedingly dejected fowl who had known me when I was a blacksmith, +culminated the disgrace with which I left the town, and was, so to +speak, ejected by it into the open country. + +But unless I had taken the life of Trabb's boy on that occasion, I +really do not even now see what I could have done save endure. To +have struggled with him in the street, or to have exacted any lower +recompense from him than his heart's best blood, would have been +futile and degrading. Moreover, he was a boy whom no man could hurt; an +invulnerable and dodging serpent who, when chased into a corner, flew +out again between his captor's legs, scornfully yelping. I wrote, +however, to Mr. Trabb by next day's post, to say that Mr. Pip must +decline to deal further with one who could so far forget what he owed to +the best interests of society, as to employ a boy who excited Loathing +in every respectable mind. + +The coach, with Mr. Jaggers inside, came up in due time, and I took my +box-seat again, and arrived in London safe,--but not sound, for my heart +was gone. As soon as I arrived, I sent a penitential codfish and barrel +of oysters to Joe (as reparation for not having gone myself), and then +went on to Barnard's Inn. + +I found Herbert dining on cold meat, and delighted to welcome me back. +Having despatched The Avenger to the coffee-house for an addition to the +dinner, I felt that I must open my breast that very evening to my friend +and chum. As confidence was out of the question with The Avenger in the +hall, which could merely be regarded in the light of an antechamber to +the keyhole, I sent him to the Play. A better proof of the severity +of my bondage to that taskmaster could scarcely be afforded, than +the degrading shifts to which I was constantly driven to find him +employment. So mean is extremity, that I sometimes sent him to Hyde Park +corner to see what o'clock it was. + +Dinner done and we sitting with our feet upon the fender, I said to +Herbert, "My dear Herbert, I have something very particular to tell +you." + +"My dear Handel," he returned, "I shall esteem and respect your +confidence." + +"It concerns myself, Herbert," said I, "and one other person." + +Herbert crossed his feet, looked at the fire with his head on one side, +and having looked at it in vain for some time, looked at me because I +didn't go on. + +"Herbert," said I, laying my hand upon his knee, "I love--I +adore--Estella." + +Instead of being transfixed, Herbert replied in an easy matter-of-course +way, "Exactly. Well?" + +"Well, Herbert? Is that all you say? Well?" + +"What next, I mean?" said Herbert. "Of course I know that." + +"How do you know it?" said I. + +"How do I know it, Handel? Why, from you." + +"I never told you." + +"Told me! You have never told me when you have got your hair cut, but I +have had senses to perceive it. You have always adored her, ever since +I have known you. You brought your adoration and your portmanteau here +together. Told me! Why, you have always told me all day long. When you +told me your own story, you told me plainly that you began adoring her +the first time you saw her, when you were very young indeed." + +"Very well, then," said I, to whom this was a new and not unwelcome +light, "I have never left off adoring her. And she has come back, a most +beautiful and most elegant creature. And I saw her yesterday. And if I +adored her before, I now doubly adore her." + +"Lucky for you then, Handel," said Herbert, "that you are picked out for +her and allotted to her. Without encroaching on forbidden ground, we +may venture to say that there can be no doubt between ourselves of +that fact. Have you any idea yet, of Estella's views on the adoration +question?" + +I shook my head gloomily. "Oh! She is thousands of miles away, from me," +said I. + +"Patience, my dear Handel: time enough, time enough. But you have +something more to say?" + +"I am ashamed to say it," I returned, "and yet it's no worse to say it +than to think it. You call me a lucky fellow. Of course, I am. I was a +blacksmith's boy but yesterday; I am--what shall I say I am--to-day?" + +"Say a good fellow, if you want a phrase," returned Herbert, smiling, +and clapping his hand on the back of mine--"a good fellow, with +impetuosity and hesitation, boldness and diffidence, action and +dreaming, curiously mixed in him." + +I stopped for a moment to consider whether there really was this mixture +in my character. On the whole, I by no means recognized the analysis, +but thought it not worth disputing. + +"When I ask what I am to call myself to-day, Herbert," I went on, "I +suggest what I have in my thoughts. You say I am lucky. I know I have +done nothing to raise myself in life, and that Fortune alone has raised +me; that is being very lucky. And yet, when I think of Estella--" + +("And when don't you, you know?" Herbert threw in, with his eyes on the +fire; which I thought kind and sympathetic of him.) + +"--Then, my dear Herbert, I cannot tell you how dependent and uncertain +I feel, and how exposed to hundreds of chances. Avoiding forbidden +ground, as you did just now, I may still say that on the constancy of +one person (naming no person) all my expectations depend. And at the +best, how indefinite and unsatisfactory, only to know so vaguely what +they are!" In saying this, I relieved my mind of what had always been +there, more or less, though no doubt most since yesterday. + +"Now, Handel," Herbert replied, in his gay, hopeful way, "it seems to me +that in the despondency of the tender passion, we are looking into our +gift-horse's mouth with a magnifying-glass. Likewise, it seems to me +that, concentrating our attention on the examination, we altogether +overlook one of the best points of the animal. Didn't you tell me that +your guardian, Mr. Jaggers, told you in the beginning, that you were +not endowed with expectations only? And even if he had not told you +so,--though that is a very large If, I grant,--could you believe that of +all men in London, Mr. Jaggers is the man to hold his present relations +towards you unless he were sure of his ground?" + +I said I could not deny that this was a strong point. I said it (people +often do so, in such cases) like a rather reluctant concession to truth +and justice;--as if I wanted to deny it! + +"I should think it was a strong point," said Herbert, "and I should +think you would be puzzled to imagine a stronger; as to the rest, you +must bide your guardian's time, and he must bide his client's time. +You'll be one-and-twenty before you know where you are, and then perhaps +you'll get some further enlightenment. At all events, you'll be nearer +getting it, for it must come at last." + +"What a hopeful disposition you have!" said I, gratefully admiring his +cheery ways. + +"I ought to have," said Herbert, "for I have not much else. I must +acknowledge, by the by, that the good sense of what I have just said is +not my own, but my father's. The only remark I ever heard him make on +your story, was the final one, "The thing is settled and done, or Mr. +Jaggers would not be in it." And now before I say anything more about my +father, or my father's son, and repay confidence with confidence, I want +to make myself seriously disagreeable to you for a moment,--positively +repulsive." + +"You won't succeed," said I. + +"O yes I shall!" said he. "One, two, three, and now I am in for it. +Handel, my good fellow;"--though he spoke in this light tone, he was +very much in earnest,--"I have been thinking since we have been talking +with our feet on this fender, that Estella surely cannot be a condition +of your inheritance, if she was never referred to by your guardian. Am +I right in so understanding what you have told me, as that he never +referred to her, directly or indirectly, in any way? Never even hinted, +for instance, that your patron might have views as to your marriage +ultimately?" + +"Never." + +"Now, Handel, I am quite free from the flavor of sour grapes, upon my +soul and honor! Not being bound to her, can you not detach yourself from +her?--I told you I should be disagreeable." + +I turned my head aside, for, with a rush and a sweep, like the old marsh +winds coming up from the sea, a feeling like that which had subdued +me on the morning when I left the forge, when the mists were solemnly +rising, and when I laid my hand upon the village finger-post, smote upon +my heart again. There was silence between us for a little while. + +"Yes; but my dear Handel," Herbert went on, as if we had been talking, +instead of silent, "its having been so strongly rooted in the breast of +a boy whom nature and circumstances made so romantic, renders it very +serious. Think of her bringing-up, and think of Miss Havisham. Think of +what she is herself (now I am repulsive and you abominate me). This may +lead to miserable things." + +"I know it, Herbert," said I, with my head still turned away, "but I +can't help it." + +"You can't detach yourself?" + +"No. Impossible!" + +"You can't try, Handel?" + +"No. Impossible!" + +"Well!" said Herbert, getting up with a lively shake as if he had +been asleep, and stirring the fire, "now I'll endeavor to make myself +agreeable again!" + +So he went round the room and shook the curtains out, put the chairs +in their places, tidied the books and so forth that were lying about, +looked into the hall, peeped into the letter-box, shut the door, and +came back to his chair by the fire: where he sat down, nursing his left +leg in both arms. + +"I was going to say a word or two, Handel, concerning my father and my +father's son. I am afraid it is scarcely necessary for my father's son +to remark that my father's establishment is not particularly brilliant +in its housekeeping." + +"There is always plenty, Herbert," said I, to say something encouraging. + +"O yes! and so the dustman says, I believe, with the strongest approval, +and so does the marine-store shop in the back street. Gravely, Handel, +for the subject is grave enough, you know how it is as well as I do. I +suppose there was a time once when my father had not given matters up; +but if ever there was, the time is gone. May I ask you if you have ever +had an opportunity of remarking, down in your part of the country, +that the children of not exactly suitable marriages are always most +particularly anxious to be married?" + +This was such a singular question, that I asked him in return, "Is it +so?" + +"I don't know," said Herbert, "that's what I want to know. Because it +is decidedly the case with us. My poor sister Charlotte, who was next me +and died before she was fourteen, was a striking example. Little Jane +is the same. In her desire to be matrimonially established, you +might suppose her to have passed her short existence in the perpetual +contemplation of domestic bliss. Little Alick in a frock has already +made arrangements for his union with a suitable young person at Kew. And +indeed, I think we are all engaged, except the baby." + +"Then you are?" said I. + +"I am," said Herbert; "but it's a secret." + +I assured him of my keeping the secret, and begged to be favored with +further particulars. He had spoken so sensibly and feelingly of my +weakness that I wanted to know something about his strength. + +"May I ask the name?" I said. + +"Name of Clara," said Herbert. + +"Live in London?" + +"Yes, perhaps I ought to mention," said Herbert, who had become +curiously crestfallen and meek, since we entered on the interesting +theme, "that she is rather below my mother's nonsensical family notions. +Her father had to do with the victualling of passenger-ships. I think he +was a species of purser." + +"What is he now?" said I. + +"He's an invalid now," replied Herbert. + +"Living on--?" + +"On the first floor," said Herbert. Which was not at all what I meant, +for I had intended my question to apply to his means. "I have never seen +him, for he has always kept his room overhead, since I have known Clara. +But I have heard him constantly. He makes tremendous rows,--roars, and +pegs at the floor with some frightful instrument." In looking at me and +then laughing heartily, Herbert for the time recovered his usual lively +manner. + +"Don't you expect to see him?" said I. + +"O yes, I constantly expect to see him," returned Herbert, "because +I never hear him, without expecting him to come tumbling through the +ceiling. But I don't know how long the rafters may hold." + +When he had once more laughed heartily, he became meek again, and told +me that the moment he began to realize Capital, it was his intention +to marry this young lady. He added as a self-evident proposition, +engendering low spirits, "But you can't marry, you know, while you're +looking about you." + +As we contemplated the fire, and as I thought what a difficult vision to +realize this same Capital sometimes was, I put my hands in my pockets. +A folded piece of paper in one of them attracting my attention, I opened +it and found it to be the play-bill I had received from Joe, relative +to the celebrated provincial amateur of Roscian renown. "And bless my +heart," I involuntarily added aloud, "it's to-night!" + +This changed the subject in an instant, and made us hurriedly resolve +to go to the play. So, when I had pledged myself to comfort and abet +Herbert in the affair of his heart by all practicable and impracticable +means, and when Herbert had told me that his affianced already knew me +by reputation and that I should be presented to her, and when we had +warmly shaken hands upon our mutual confidence, we blew out our candles, +made up our fire, locked our door, and issued forth in quest of Mr. +Wopsle and Denmark. + + + + +Chapter XXXI + +On our arrival in Denmark, we found the king and queen of that country +elevated in two arm-chairs on a kitchen-table, holding a Court. The +whole of the Danish nobility were in attendance; consisting of a noble +boy in the wash-leather boots of a gigantic ancestor, a venerable Peer +with a dirty face who seemed to have risen from the people late in life, +and the Danish chivalry with a comb in its hair and a pair of white +silk legs, and presenting on the whole a feminine appearance. My gifted +townsman stood gloomily apart, with folded arms, and I could have wished +that his curls and forehead had been more probable. + +Several curious little circumstances transpired as the action proceeded. +The late king of the country not only appeared to have been troubled +with a cough at the time of his decease, but to have taken it with him +to the tomb, and to have brought it back. The royal phantom also carried +a ghostly manuscript round its truncheon, to which it had the appearance +of occasionally referring, and that too, with an air of anxiety and a +tendency to lose the place of reference which were suggestive of a state +of mortality. It was this, I conceive, which led to the Shade's being +advised by the gallery to "turn over!"--a recommendation which it took +extremely ill. It was likewise to be noted of this majestic spirit, that +whereas it always appeared with an air of having been out a long time +and walked an immense distance, it perceptibly came from a closely +contiguous wall. This occasioned its terrors to be received derisively. +The Queen of Denmark, a very buxom lady, though no doubt historically +brazen, was considered by the public to have too much brass about her; +her chin being attached to her diadem by a broad band of that metal (as +if she had a gorgeous toothache), her waist being encircled by another, +and each of her arms by another, so that she was openly mentioned +as "the kettle-drum." The noble boy in the ancestral boots was +inconsistent, representing himself, as it were in one breath, as an able +seaman, a strolling actor, a grave-digger, a clergyman, and a person +of the utmost importance at a Court fencing-match, on the authority +of whose practised eye and nice discrimination the finest strokes were +judged. This gradually led to a want of toleration for him, and even--on +his being detected in holy orders, and declining to perform the funeral +service--to the general indignation taking the form of nuts. Lastly, +Ophelia was a prey to such slow musical madness, that when, in course of +time, she had taken off her white muslin scarf, folded it up, and buried +it, a sulky man who had been long cooling his impatient nose against an +iron bar in the front row of the gallery, growled, "Now the baby's put +to bed let's have supper!" Which, to say the least of it, was out of +keeping. + +Upon my unfortunate townsman all these incidents accumulated with +playful effect. Whenever that undecided Prince had to ask a question or +state a doubt, the public helped him out with it. As for example; on the +question whether 'twas nobler in the mind to suffer, some roared yes, +and some no, and some inclining to both opinions said "Toss up for +it;" and quite a Debating Society arose. When he asked what should such +fellows as he do crawling between earth and heaven, he was encouraged +with loud cries of "Hear, hear!" When he appeared with his stocking +disordered (its disorder expressed, according to usage, by one very neat +fold in the top, which I suppose to be always got up with a flat iron), +a conversation took place in the gallery respecting the paleness of his +leg, and whether it was occasioned by the turn the ghost had given him. +On his taking the recorders,--very like a little black flute that had +just been played in the orchestra and handed out at the door,--he was +called upon unanimously for Rule Britannia. When he recommended the +player not to saw the air thus, the sulky man said, "And don't you do +it, neither; you're a deal worse than him!" And I grieve to add that +peals of laughter greeted Mr. Wopsle on every one of these occasions. + +But his greatest trials were in the churchyard, which had the appearance +of a primeval forest, with a kind of small ecclesiastical wash-house +on one side, and a turnpike gate on the other. Mr. Wopsle in a +comprehensive black cloak, being descried entering at the turnpike, +the gravedigger was admonished in a friendly way, "Look out! Here's the +undertaker a coming, to see how you're a getting on with your work!" +I believe it is well known in a constitutional country that Mr. Wopsle +could not possibly have returned the skull, after moralizing over it, +without dusting his fingers on a white napkin taken from his breast; +but even that innocent and indispensable action did not pass without the +comment, "Wai-ter!" The arrival of the body for interment (in an empty +black box with the lid tumbling open), was the signal for a general +joy, which was much enhanced by the discovery, among the bearers, of +an individual obnoxious to identification. The joy attended Mr. Wopsle +through his struggle with Laertes on the brink of the orchestra and +the grave, and slackened no more until he had tumbled the king off the +kitchen-table, and had died by inches from the ankles upward. + +We had made some pale efforts in the beginning to applaud Mr. Wopsle; +but they were too hopeless to be persisted in. Therefore we had sat, +feeling keenly for him, but laughing, nevertheless, from ear to ear. I +laughed in spite of myself all the time, the whole thing was so droll; +and yet I had a latent impression that there was something decidedly +fine in Mr. Wopsle's elocution,--not for old associations' sake, I am +afraid, but because it was very slow, very dreary, very uphill and +downhill, and very unlike any way in which any man in any natural +circumstances of life or death ever expressed himself about anything. +When the tragedy was over, and he had been called for and hooted, I said +to Herbert, "Let us go at once, or perhaps we shall meet him." + +We made all the haste we could downstairs, but we were not quick enough +either. Standing at the door was a Jewish man with an unnatural heavy +smear of eyebrow, who caught my eyes as we advanced, and said, when we +came up with him,-- + +"Mr. Pip and friend?" + +Identity of Mr. Pip and friend confessed. + +"Mr. Waldengarver," said the man, "would be glad to have the honor." + +"Waldengarver?" I repeated--when Herbert murmured in my ear, "Probably +Wopsle." + +"Oh!" said I. "Yes. Shall we follow you?" + +"A few steps, please." When we were in a side alley, he turned and +asked, "How did you think he looked?--I dressed him." + +I don't know what he had looked like, except a funeral; with the +addition of a large Danish sun or star hanging round his neck by a +blue ribbon, that had given him the appearance of being insured in some +extraordinary Fire Office. But I said he had looked very nice. + +"When he come to the grave," said our conductor, "he showed his cloak +beautiful. But, judging from the wing, it looked to me that when he +see the ghost in the queen's apartment, he might have made more of his +stockings." + +I modestly assented, and we all fell through a little dirty swing door, +into a sort of hot packing-case immediately behind it. Here Mr. Wopsle +was divesting himself of his Danish garments, and here there was just +room for us to look at him over one another's shoulders, by keeping the +packing-case door, or lid, wide open. + +"Gentlemen," said Mr. Wopsle, "I am proud to see you. I hope, Mr. Pip, +you will excuse my sending round. I had the happiness to know you in +former times, and the Drama has ever had a claim which has ever been +acknowledged, on the noble and the affluent." + +Meanwhile, Mr. Waldengarver, in a frightful perspiration, was trying to +get himself out of his princely sables. + +"Skin the stockings off Mr. Waldengarver," said the owner of that +property, "or you'll bust 'em. Bust 'em, and you'll bust five-and-thirty +shillings. Shakspeare never was complimented with a finer pair. Keep +quiet in your chair now, and leave 'em to me." + +With that, he went upon his knees, and began to flay his victim; who, on +the first stocking coming off, would certainly have fallen over backward +with his chair, but for there being no room to fall anyhow. + +I had been afraid until then to say a word about the play. But then, Mr. +Waldengarver looked up at us complacently, and said,-- + +"Gentlemen, how did it seem to you, to go, in front?" + +Herbert said from behind (at the same time poking me), "Capitally." So I +said "Capitally." + +"How did you like my reading of the character, gentlemen?" said Mr. +Waldengarver, almost, if not quite, with patronage. + +Herbert said from behind (again poking me), "Massive and concrete." So I +said boldly, as if I had originated it, and must beg to insist upon it, +"Massive and concrete." + +"I am glad to have your approbation, gentlemen," said Mr. Waldengarver, +with an air of dignity, in spite of his being ground against the wall at +the time, and holding on by the seat of the chair. + +"But I'll tell you one thing, Mr. Waldengarver," said the man who was on +his knees, "in which you're out in your reading. Now mind! I don't care +who says contrairy; I tell you so. You're out in your reading of Hamlet +when you get your legs in profile. The last Hamlet as I dressed, made +the same mistakes in his reading at rehearsal, till I got him to put a +large red wafer on each of his shins, and then at that rehearsal (which +was the last) I went in front, sir, to the back of the pit, and whenever +his reading brought him into profile, I called out "I don't see no +wafers!" And at night his reading was lovely." + +Mr. Waldengarver smiled at me, as much as to say "a faithful +Dependent--I overlook his folly;" and then said aloud, "My view is a +little classic and thoughtful for them here; but they will improve, they +will improve." + +Herbert and I said together, O, no doubt they would improve. + +"Did you observe, gentlemen," said Mr. Waldengarver, "that there was a +man in the gallery who endeavored to cast derision on the service,--I +mean, the representation?" + +We basely replied that we rather thought we had noticed such a man. I +added, "He was drunk, no doubt." + +"O dear no, sir," said Mr. Wopsle, "not drunk. His employer would see to +that, sir. His employer would not allow him to be drunk." + +"You know his employer?" said I. + +Mr. Wopsle shut his eyes, and opened them again; performing both +ceremonies very slowly. "You must have observed, gentlemen," said he, +"an ignorant and a blatant ass, with a rasping throat and a countenance +expressive of low malignity, who went through--I will not say +sustained--the role (if I may use a French expression) of Claudius, King +of Denmark. That is his employer, gentlemen. Such is the profession!" + +Without distinctly knowing whether I should have been more sorry for Mr. +Wopsle if he had been in despair, I was so sorry for him as it was, +that I took the opportunity of his turning round to have his braces +put on,--which jostled us out at the doorway,--to ask Herbert what he +thought of having him home to supper? Herbert said he thought it would +be kind to do so; therefore I invited him, and he went to Barnard's +with us, wrapped up to the eyes, and we did our best for him, and he sat +until two o'clock in the morning, reviewing his success and developing +his plans. I forget in detail what they were, but I have a general +recollection that he was to begin with reviving the Drama, and to end +with crushing it; inasmuch as his decease would leave it utterly bereft +and without a chance or hope. + +Miserably I went to bed after all, and miserably thought of Estella, and +miserably dreamed that my expectations were all cancelled, and that I +had to give my hand in marriage to Herbert's Clara, or play Hamlet to +Miss Havisham's Ghost, before twenty thousand people, without knowing +twenty words of it. + + + + +Chapter XXXII + +One day when I was busy with my books and Mr. Pocket, I received a note +by the post, the mere outside of which threw me into a great flutter; +for, though I had never seen the handwriting in which it was addressed, +I divined whose hand it was. It had no set beginning, as Dear Mr. Pip, +or Dear Pip, or Dear Sir, or Dear Anything, but ran thus:-- + +"I am to come to London the day after to-morrow by the midday coach. I +believe it was settled you should meet me? At all events Miss Havisham +has that impression, and I write in obedience to it. She sends you her +regard. + +"Yours, ESTELLA." + +If there had been time, I should probably have ordered several suits +of clothes for this occasion; but as there was not, I was fain to be +content with those I had. My appetite vanished instantly, and I knew +no peace or rest until the day arrived. Not that its arrival brought +me either; for, then I was worse than ever, and began haunting the +coach-office in Wood Street, Cheapside, before the coach had left the +Blue Boar in our town. For all that I knew this perfectly well, I still +felt as if it were not safe to let the coach-office be out of my sight +longer than five minutes at a time; and in this condition of unreason I +had performed the first half-hour of a watch of four or five hours, when +Wemmick ran against me. + +"Halloa, Mr. Pip," said he; "how do you do? I should hardly have thought +this was your beat." + +I explained that I was waiting to meet somebody who was coming up by +coach, and I inquired after the Castle and the Aged. + +"Both flourishing thankye," said Wemmick, "and particularly the Aged. +He's in wonderful feather. He'll be eighty-two next birthday. I have +a notion of firing eighty-two times, if the neighborhood shouldn't +complain, and that cannon of mine should prove equal to the pressure. +However, this is not London talk. Where do you think I am going to?" + +"To the office?" said I, for he was tending in that direction. + +"Next thing to it," returned Wemmick, "I am going to Newgate. We are in +a banker's-parcel case just at present, and I have been down the road +taking a squint at the scene of action, and thereupon must have a word +or two with our client." + +"Did your client commit the robbery?" I asked. + +"Bless your soul and body, no," answered Wemmick, very drily. "But he +is accused of it. So might you or I be. Either of us might be accused of +it, you know." + +"Only neither of us is," I remarked. + +"Yah!" said Wemmick, touching me on the breast with his forefinger; +"you're a deep one, Mr. Pip! Would you like to have a look at Newgate? +Have you time to spare?" + +I had so much time to spare, that the proposal came as a relief, +notwithstanding its irreconcilability with my latent desire to keep my +eye on the coach-office. Muttering that I would make the inquiry whether +I had time to walk with him, I went into the office, and ascertained +from the clerk with the nicest precision and much to the trying of his +temper, the earliest moment at which the coach could be expected,--which +I knew beforehand, quite as well as he. I then rejoined Mr. Wemmick, and +affecting to consult my watch, and to be surprised by the information I +had received, accepted his offer. + +We were at Newgate in a few minutes, and we passed through the lodge +where some fetters were hanging up on the bare walls among the prison +rules, into the interior of the jail. At that time jails were much +neglected, and the period of exaggerated reaction consequent on +all public wrongdoing--and which is always its heaviest and longest +punishment--was still far off. So, felons were not lodged and fed better +than soldiers (to say nothing of paupers), and seldom set fire to their +prisons with the excusable object of improving the flavor of their soup. +It was visiting time when Wemmick took me in, and a potman was going his +rounds with beer; and the prisoners, behind bars in yards, were buying +beer, and talking to friends; and a frowzy, ugly, disorderly, depressing +scene it was. + +It struck me that Wemmick walked among the prisoners much as a gardener +might walk among his plants. This was first put into my head by his +seeing a shoot that had come up in the night, and saying, "What, Captain +Tom? Are you there? Ah, indeed!" and also, "Is that Black Bill behind +the cistern? Why I didn't look for you these two months; how do you find +yourself?" Equally in his stopping at the bars and attending to +anxious whisperers,--always singly,--Wemmick with his post-office in +an immovable state, looked at them while in conference, as if he were +taking particular notice of the advance they had made, since last +observed, towards coming out in full blow at their trial. + +He was highly popular, and I found that he took the familiar department +of Mr. Jaggers's business; though something of the state of Mr. Jaggers +hung about him too, forbidding approach beyond certain limits. His +personal recognition of each successive client was comprised in a nod, +and in his settling his hat a little easier on his head with both +hands, and then tightening the post-office, and putting his hands in his +pockets. In one or two instances there was a difficulty respecting the +raising of fees, and then Mr. Wemmick, backing as far as possible from +the insufficient money produced, said, "it's no use, my boy. I'm only +a subordinate. I can't take it. Don't go on in that way with a +subordinate. If you are unable to make up your quantum, my boy, you had +better address yourself to a principal; there are plenty of principals +in the profession, you know, and what is not worth the while of one, may +be worth the while of another; that's my recommendation to you, speaking +as a subordinate. Don't try on useless measures. Why should you? Now, +who's next?" + +Thus, we walked through Wemmick's greenhouse, until he turned to me and +said, "Notice the man I shall shake hands with." I should have done so, +without the preparation, as he had shaken hands with no one yet. + +Almost as soon as he had spoken, a portly upright man (whom I can +see now, as I write) in a well-worn olive-colored frock-coat, with a +peculiar pallor overspreading the red in his complexion, and eyes that +went wandering about when he tried to fix them, came up to a corner +of the bars, and put his hand to his hat--which had a greasy and fatty +surface like cold broth--with a half-serious and half-jocose military +salute. + +"Colonel, to you!" said Wemmick; "how are you, Colonel?" + +"All right, Mr. Wemmick." + +"Everything was done that could be done, but the evidence was too strong +for us, Colonel." + +"Yes, it was too strong, sir,--but I don't care." + +"No, no," said Wemmick, coolly, "you don't care." Then, turning to me, +"Served His Majesty this man. Was a soldier in the line and bought his +discharge." + +I said, "Indeed?" and the man's eyes looked at me, and then looked over +my head, and then looked all round me, and then he drew his hand across +his lips and laughed. + +"I think I shall be out of this on Monday, sir," he said to Wemmick. + +"Perhaps," returned my friend, "but there's no knowing." + +"I am glad to have the chance of bidding you good-bye, Mr. Wemmick," said +the man, stretching out his hand between two bars. + +"Thankye," said Wemmick, shaking hands with him. "Same to you, Colonel." + +"If what I had upon me when taken had been real, Mr. Wemmick," said the +man, unwilling to let his hand go, "I should have asked the favor of +your wearing another ring--in acknowledgment of your attentions." + +"I'll accept the will for the deed," said Wemmick. "By the by; you were +quite a pigeon-fancier." The man looked up at the sky. "I am told you +had a remarkable breed of tumblers. Could you commission any friend of +yours to bring me a pair, if you've no further use for 'em?" + +"It shall be done, sir." + +"All right," said Wemmick, "they shall be taken care of. Good afternoon, +Colonel. Good-bye!" They shook hands again, and as we walked away Wemmick +said to me, "A Coiner, a very good workman. The Recorder's report is +made to-day, and he is sure to be executed on Monday. Still you see, as +far as it goes, a pair of pigeons are portable property all the same." +With that, he looked back, and nodded at this dead plant, and then cast +his eyes about him in walking out of the yard, as if he were considering +what other pot would go best in its place. + +As we came out of the prison through the lodge, I found that the great +importance of my guardian was appreciated by the turnkeys, no less +than by those whom they held in charge. "Well, Mr. Wemmick," said the +turnkey, who kept us between the two studded and spiked lodge gates, +and who carefully locked one before he unlocked the other, "what's Mr. +Jaggers going to do with that water-side murder? Is he going to make it +manslaughter, or what's he going to make of it?" + +"Why don't you ask him?" returned Wemmick. + +"O yes, I dare say!" said the turnkey. + +"Now, that's the way with them here, Mr. Pip," remarked Wemmick, turning +to me with his post-office elongated. "They don't mind what they ask of +me, the subordinate; but you'll never catch 'em asking any questions of +my principal." + +"Is this young gentleman one of the 'prentices or articled ones of your +office?" asked the turnkey, with a grin at Mr. Wemmick's humor. + +"There he goes again, you see!" cried Wemmick, "I told you so! Asks +another question of the subordinate before his first is dry! Well, +supposing Mr. Pip is one of them?" + +"Why then," said the turnkey, grinning again, "he knows what Mr. Jaggers +is." + +"Yah!" cried Wemmick, suddenly hitting out at the turnkey in a facetious +way, "you're dumb as one of your own keys when you have to do with my +principal, you know you are. Let us out, you old fox, or I'll get him to +bring an action against you for false imprisonment." + +The turnkey laughed, and gave us good day, and stood laughing at us over +the spikes of the wicket when we descended the steps into the street. + +"Mind you, Mr. Pip," said Wemmick, gravely in my ear, as he took my arm +to be more confidential; "I don't know that Mr. Jaggers does a better +thing than the way in which he keeps himself so high. He's always so +high. His constant height is of a piece with his immense abilities. That +Colonel durst no more take leave of him, than that turnkey durst ask him +his intentions respecting a case. Then, between his height and them, he +slips in his subordinate,--don't you see?--and so he has 'em, soul and +body." + +I was very much impressed, and not for the first time, by my guardian's +subtlety. To confess the truth, I very heartily wished, and not for the +first time, that I had had some other guardian of minor abilities. + +Mr. Wemmick and I parted at the office in Little Britain, where +suppliants for Mr. Jaggers's notice were lingering about as usual, and I +returned to my watch in the street of the coach-office, with some three +hours on hand. I consumed the whole time in thinking how strange it +was that I should be encompassed by all this taint of prison and crime; +that, in my childhood out on our lonely marshes on a winter evening, I +should have first encountered it; that, it should have reappeared on two +occasions, starting out like a stain that was faded but not gone; that, +it should in this new way pervade my fortune and advancement. While my +mind was thus engaged, I thought of the beautiful young Estella, proud +and refined, coming towards me, and I thought with absolute abhorrence +of the contrast between the jail and her. I wished that Wemmick had not +met me, or that I had not yielded to him and gone with him, so that, +of all days in the year on this day, I might not have had Newgate in +my breath and on my clothes. I beat the prison dust off my feet as I +sauntered to and fro, and I shook it out of my dress, and I exhaled +its air from my lungs. So contaminated did I feel, remembering who was +coming, that the coach came quickly after all, and I was not yet free +from the soiling consciousness of Mr. Wemmick's conservatory, when I saw +her face at the coach window and her hand waving to me. + +What was the nameless shadow which again in that one instant had passed? + + + + +Chapter XXXIII + +In her furred travelling-dress, Estella seemed more delicately beautiful +than she had ever seemed yet, even in my eyes. Her manner was more +winning than she had cared to let it be to me before, and I thought I +saw Miss Havisham's influence in the change. + +We stood in the Inn Yard while she pointed out her luggage to me, and +when it was all collected I remembered--having forgotten everything but +herself in the meanwhile--that I knew nothing of her destination. + +"I am going to Richmond," she told me. "Our lesson is, that there are +two Richmonds, one in Surrey and one in Yorkshire, and that mine is the +Surrey Richmond. The distance is ten miles. I am to have a carriage, and +you are to take me. This is my purse, and you are to pay my charges out +of it. O, you must take the purse! We have no choice, you and I, but to +obey our instructions. We are not free to follow our own devices, you +and I." + +As she looked at me in giving me the purse, I hoped there was an +inner meaning in her words. She said them slightingly, but not with +displeasure. + +"A carriage will have to be sent for, Estella. Will you rest here a +little?" + +"Yes, I am to rest here a little, and I am to drink some tea, and you +are to take care of me the while." + +She drew her arm through mine, as if it must be done, and I requested a +waiter who had been staring at the coach like a man who had never seen +such a thing in his life, to show us a private sitting-room. Upon that, +he pulled out a napkin, as if it were a magic clew without which he +couldn't find the way upstairs, and led us to the black hole of the +establishment, fitted up with a diminishing mirror (quite a superfluous +article, considering the hole's proportions), an anchovy sauce-cruet, +and somebody's pattens. On my objecting to this retreat, he took us into +another room with a dinner-table for thirty, and in the grate a scorched +leaf of a copy-book under a bushel of coal-dust. Having looked at this +extinct conflagration and shaken his head, he took my order; which, +proving to be merely, "Some tea for the lady," sent him out of the room +in a very low state of mind. + +I was, and I am, sensible that the air of this chamber, in its strong +combination of stable with soup-stock, might have led one to infer that +the coaching department was not doing well, and that the enterprising +proprietor was boiling down the horses for the refreshment department. +Yet the room was all in all to me, Estella being in it. I thought that +with her I could have been happy there for life. (I was not at all happy +there at the time, observe, and I knew it well.) + +"Where are you going to, at Richmond?" I asked Estella. + +"I am going to live," said she, "at a great expense, with a lady there, +who has the power--or says she has--of taking me about, and introducing +me, and showing people to me and showing me to people." + +"I suppose you will be glad of variety and admiration?" + +"Yes, I suppose so." + +She answered so carelessly, that I said, "You speak of yourself as if +you were some one else." + +"Where did you learn how I speak of others? Come, come," said Estella, +smiling delightfully, "you must not expect me to go to school to you; I +must talk in my own way. How do you thrive with Mr. Pocket?" + +"I live quite pleasantly there; at least--" It appeared to me that I was +losing a chance. + +"At least?" repeated Estella. + +"As pleasantly as I could anywhere, away from you." + +"You silly boy," said Estella, quite composedly, "how can you talk such +nonsense? Your friend Mr. Matthew, I believe, is superior to the rest of +his family?" + +"Very superior indeed. He is nobody's enemy--" + +"Don't add but his own," interposed Estella, "for I hate that class of +man. But he really is disinterested, and above small jealousy and spite, +I have heard?" + +"I am sure I have every reason to say so." + +"You have not every reason to say so of the rest of his people," said +Estella, nodding at me with an expression of face that was at once +grave and rallying, "for they beset Miss Havisham with reports and +insinuations to your disadvantage. They watch you, misrepresent you, +write letters about you (anonymous sometimes), and you are the torment +and the occupation of their lives. You can scarcely realize to yourself +the hatred those people feel for you." + +"They do me no harm, I hope?" + +Instead of answering, Estella burst out laughing. This was very singular +to me, and I looked at her in considerable perplexity. When she left +off--and she had not laughed languidly, but with real enjoyment--I said, +in my diffident way with her,-- + +"I hope I may suppose that you would not be amused if they did me any +harm." + +"No, no you may be sure of that," said Estella. "You may be certain that +I laugh because they fail. O, those people with Miss Havisham, and the +tortures they undergo!" She laughed again, and even now when she had +told me why, her laughter was very singular to me, for I could not +doubt its being genuine, and yet it seemed too much for the occasion. +I thought there must really be something more here than I knew; she saw +the thought in my mind, and answered it. + +"It is not easy for even you." said Estella, "to know what satisfaction +it gives me to see those people thwarted, or what an enjoyable sense of +the ridiculous I have when they are made ridiculous. For you were not +brought up in that strange house from a mere baby. I was. You had not +your little wits sharpened by their intriguing against you, suppressed +and defenceless, under the mask of sympathy and pity and what not that +is soft and soothing. I had. You did not gradually open your round +childish eyes wider and wider to the discovery of that impostor of a +woman who calculates her stores of peace of mind for when she wakes up +in the night. I did." + +It was no laughing matter with Estella now, nor was she summoning these +remembrances from any shallow place. I would not have been the cause of +that look of hers for all my expectations in a heap. + +"Two things I can tell you," said Estella. "First, notwithstanding the +proverb that constant dropping will wear away a stone, you may set +your mind at rest that these people never will--never would, in hundred +years--impair your ground with Miss Havisham, in any particular, great +or small. Second, I am beholden to you as the cause of their being so +busy and so mean in vain, and there is my hand upon it." + +As she gave it to me playfully,--for her darker mood had been but +Momentary,--I held it and put it to my lips. "You ridiculous boy," said +Estella, "will you never take warning? Or do you kiss my hand in the +same spirit in which I once let you kiss my cheek?" + +"What spirit was that?" said I. + +"I must think a moment. A spirit of contempt for the fawners and +plotters." + +"If I say yes, may I kiss the cheek again?" + +"You should have asked before you touched the hand. But, yes, if you +like." + +I leaned down, and her calm face was like a statue's. "Now," said +Estella, gliding away the instant I touched her cheek, "you are to take +care that I have some tea, and you are to take me to Richmond." + +Her reverting to this tone as if our association were forced upon +us, and we were mere puppets, gave me pain; but everything in our +intercourse did give me pain. Whatever her tone with me happened to be, +I could put no trust in it, and build no hope on it; and yet I went on +against trust and against hope. Why repeat it a thousand times? So it +always was. + +I rang for the tea, and the waiter, reappearing with his magic clew, +brought in by degrees some fifty adjuncts to that refreshment, but of +tea not a glimpse. A teaboard, cups and saucers, plates, knives and +forks (including carvers), spoons (various), saltcellars, a meek little +muffin confined with the utmost precaution under a strong iron cover, +Moses in the bulrushes typified by a soft bit of butter in a quantity of +parsley, a pale loaf with a powdered head, two proof impressions of +the bars of the kitchen fireplace on triangular bits of bread, and +ultimately a fat family urn; which the waiter staggered in with, +expressing in his countenance burden and suffering. After a prolonged +absence at this stage of the entertainment, he at length came back with +a casket of precious appearance containing twigs. These I steeped in hot +water, and so from the whole of these appliances extracted one cup of I +don't know what for Estella. + +The bill paid, and the waiter remembered, and the ostler not forgotten, +and the chambermaid taken into consideration,--in a word, the whole +house bribed into a state of contempt and animosity, and Estella's purse +much lightened,--we got into our post-coach and drove away. Turning into +Cheapside and rattling up Newgate Street, we were soon under the walls +of which I was so ashamed. + +"What place is that?" Estella asked me. + +I made a foolish pretence of not at first recognizing it, and then +told her. As she looked at it, and drew in her head again, +murmuring, "Wretches!" I would not have confessed to my visit for any +consideration. + +"Mr. Jaggers," said I, by way of putting it neatly on somebody else, +"has the reputation of being more in the secrets of that dismal place +than any man in London." + +"He is more in the secrets of every place, I think," said Estella, in a +low voice. + +"You have been accustomed to see him often, I suppose?" + +"I have been accustomed to see him at uncertain intervals, ever since +I can remember. But I know him no better now, than I did before I could +speak plainly. What is your own experience of him? Do you advance with +him?" + +"Once habituated to his distrustful manner," said I, "I have done very +well." + +"Are you intimate?" + +"I have dined with him at his private house." + +"I fancy," said Estella, shrinking "that must be a curious place." + +"It is a curious place." + +I should have been chary of discussing my guardian too freely even with +her; but I should have gone on with the subject so far as to describe +the dinner in Gerrard Street, if we had not then come into a sudden +glare of gas. It seemed, while it lasted, to be all alight and alive +with that inexplicable feeling I had had before; and when we were out of +it, I was as much dazed for a few moments as if I had been in lightning. + +So we fell into other talk, and it was principally about the way by +which we were travelling, and about what parts of London lay on this +side of it, and what on that. The great city was almost new to her, she +told me, for she had never left Miss Havisham's neighborhood until she +had gone to France, and she had merely passed through London then in +going and returning. I asked her if my guardian had any charge of her +while she remained here? To that she emphatically said "God forbid!" and +no more. + +It was impossible for me to avoid seeing that she cared to attract me; +that she made herself winning, and would have won me even if the task +had needed pains. Yet this made me none the happier, for even if she had +not taken that tone of our being disposed of by others, I should have +felt that she held my heart in her hand because she wilfully chose to do +it, and not because it would have wrung any tenderness in her to crush +it and throw it away. + +When we passed through Hammersmith, I showed her where Mr. Matthew +Pocket lived, and said it was no great way from Richmond, and that I +hoped I should see her sometimes. + +"O yes, you are to see me; you are to come when you think proper; you +are to be mentioned to the family; indeed you are already mentioned." + +I inquired was it a large household she was going to be a member of? + +"No; there are only two; mother and daughter. The mother is a lady of +some station, though not averse to increasing her income." + +"I wonder Miss Havisham could part with you again so soon." + +"It is a part of Miss Havisham's plans for me, Pip," said Estella, with +a sigh, as if she were tired; "I am to write to her constantly and see +her regularly and report how I go on,--I and the jewels,--for they are +nearly all mine now." + +It was the first time she had ever called me by my name. Of course she +did so purposely, and knew that I should treasure it up. + +We came to Richmond all too soon, and our destination there was a house +by the green,--a staid old house, where hoops and powder and patches, +embroidered coats, rolled stockings, ruffles and swords, had had their +court days many a time. Some ancient trees before the house were still +cut into fashions as formal and unnatural as the hoops and wigs and +stiff skirts; but their own allotted places in the great procession of +the dead were not far off, and they would soon drop into them and go the +silent way of the rest. + +A bell with an old voice--which I dare say in its time had often said +to the house, Here is the green farthingale, Here is the diamond-hilted +sword, Here are the shoes with red heels and the blue solitaire--sounded +gravely in the moonlight, and two cherry-colored maids came fluttering +out to receive Estella. The doorway soon absorbed her boxes, and she +gave me her hand and a smile, and said good night, and was absorbed +likewise. And still I stood looking at the house, thinking how happy I +should be if I lived there with her, and knowing that I never was happy +with her, but always miserable. + +I got into the carriage to be taken back to Hammersmith, and I got in +with a bad heart-ache, and I got out with a worse heart-ache. At our +own door, I found little Jane Pocket coming home from a little party +escorted by her little lover; and I envied her little lover, in spite of +his being subject to Flopson. + +Mr. Pocket was out lecturing; for, he was a most delightful lecturer on +domestic economy, and his treatises on the management of children and +servants were considered the very best text-books on those themes. But +Mrs. Pocket was at home, and was in a little difficulty, on account of +the baby's having been accommodated with a needle-case to keep him quiet +during the unaccountable absence (with a relative in the Foot Guards) +of Millers. And more needles were missing than it could be regarded +as quite wholesome for a patient of such tender years either to apply +externally or to take as a tonic. + +Mr. Pocket being justly celebrated for giving most excellent practical +advice, and for having a clear and sound perception of things and a +highly judicious mind, I had some notion in my heart-ache of begging him +to accept my confidence. But happening to look up at Mrs. Pocket as she +sat reading her book of dignities after prescribing Bed as a sovereign +remedy for baby, I thought--Well--No, I wouldn't. + + + + +Chapter XXXIV + +As I had grown accustomed to my expectations, I had insensibly begun to +notice their effect upon myself and those around me. Their influence on +my own character I disguised from my recognition as much as possible, +but I knew very well that it was not all good. I lived in a state of +chronic uneasiness respecting my behavior to Joe. My conscience was not +by any means comfortable about Biddy. When I woke up in the night,--like +Camilla,--I used to think, with a weariness on my spirits, that I should +have been happier and better if I had never seen Miss Havisham's face, +and had risen to manhood content to be partners with Joe in the honest +old forge. Many a time of an evening, when I sat alone looking at the +fire, I thought, after all there was no fire like the forge fire and the +kitchen fire at home. + +Yet Estella was so inseparable from all my restlessness and disquiet of +mind, that I really fell into confusion as to the limits of my own part +in its production. That is to say, supposing I had had no expectations, +and yet had had Estella to think of, I could not make out to my +satisfaction that I should have done much better. Now, concerning the +influence of my position on others, I was in no such difficulty, and so +I perceived--though dimly enough perhaps--that it was not beneficial +to anybody, and, above all, that it was not beneficial to Herbert. +My lavish habits led his easy nature into expenses that he could not +afford, corrupted the simplicity of his life, and disturbed his peace +with anxieties and regrets. I was not at all remorseful for having +unwittingly set those other branches of the Pocket family to the poor +arts they practised; because such littlenesses were their natural +bent, and would have been evoked by anybody else, if I had left them +slumbering. But Herbert's was a very different case, and it often caused +me a twinge to think that I had done him evil service in crowding his +sparely furnished chambers with incongruous upholstery work, and placing +the Canary-breasted Avenger at his disposal. + +So now, as an infallible way of making little ease great ease, I began +to contract a quantity of debt. I could hardly begin but Herbert +must begin too, so he soon followed. At Startop's suggestion, we put +ourselves down for election into a club called The Finches of the Grove: +the object of which institution I have never divined, if it were not +that the members should dine expensively once a fortnight, to quarrel +among themselves as much as possible after dinner, and to cause six +waiters to get drunk on the stairs. I know that these gratifying social +ends were so invariably accomplished, that Herbert and I understood +nothing else to be referred to in the first standing toast of the +society: which ran "Gentlemen, may the present promotion of good feeling +ever reign predominant among the Finches of the Grove." + +The Finches spent their money foolishly (the Hotel we dined at was +in Covent Garden), and the first Finch I saw when I had the honor of +joining the Grove was Bentley Drummle, at that time floundering about +town in a cab of his own, and doing a great deal of damage to the posts +at the street corners. Occasionally, he shot himself out of his equipage +headforemost over the apron; and I saw him on one occasion deliver +himself at the door of the Grove in this unintentional way--like coals. +But here I anticipate a little, for I was not a Finch, and could not be, +according to the sacred laws of the society, until I came of age. + +In my confidence in my own resources, I would willingly have taken +Herbert's expenses on myself; but Herbert was proud, and I could make +no such proposal to him. So he got into difficulties in every direction, +and continued to look about him. When we gradually fell into keeping +late hours and late company, I noticed that he looked about him with a +desponding eye at breakfast-time; that he began to look about him more +hopefully about mid-day; that he drooped when he came into dinner; +that he seemed to descry Capital in the distance, rather clearly, after +dinner; that he all but realized Capital towards midnight; and that at +about two o'clock in the morning, he became so deeply despondent again +as to talk of buying a rifle and going to America, with a general +purpose of compelling buffaloes to make his fortune. + +I was usually at Hammersmith about half the week, and when I was at +Hammersmith I haunted Richmond, whereof separately by and by. Herbert +would often come to Hammersmith when I was there, and I think at those +seasons his father would occasionally have some passing perception that +the opening he was looking for, had not appeared yet. But in the general +tumbling up of the family, his tumbling out in life somewhere, was +a thing to transact itself somehow. In the meantime Mr. Pocket grew +grayer, and tried oftener to lift himself out of his perplexities by the +hair. While Mrs. Pocket tripped up the family with her footstool, read +her book of dignities, lost her pocket-handkerchief, told us about her +grandpapa, and taught the young idea how to shoot, by shooting it into +bed whenever it attracted her notice. + +As I am now generalizing a period of my life with the object of clearing +my way before me, I can scarcely do so better than by at once completing +the description of our usual manners and customs at Barnard's Inn. + +We spent as much money as we could, and got as little for it as people +could make up their minds to give us. We were always more or less +miserable, and most of our acquaintance were in the same condition. +There was a gay fiction among us that we were constantly enjoying +ourselves, and a skeleton truth that we never did. To the best of my +belief, our case was in the last aspect a rather common one. + +Every morning, with an air ever new, Herbert went into the City to look +about him. I often paid him a visit in the dark back-room in which +he consorted with an ink-jar, a hat-peg, a coal-box, a string-box, an +almanac, a desk and stool, and a ruler; and I do not remember that I +ever saw him do anything else but look about him. If we all did what +we undertake to do, as faithfully as Herbert did, we might live in a +Republic of the Virtues. He had nothing else to do, poor fellow, except +at a certain hour of every afternoon to "go to Lloyd's"--in observance +of a ceremony of seeing his principal, I think. He never did anything +else in connection with Lloyd's that I could find out, except come back +again. When he felt his case unusually serious, and that he positively +must find an opening, he would go on 'Change at a busy time, and walk in +and out, in a kind of gloomy country dance figure, among the assembled +magnates. "For," says Herbert to me, coming home to dinner on one +of those special occasions, "I find the truth to be, Handel, that an +opening won't come to one, but one must go to it,--so I have been." + +If we had been less attached to one another, I think we must have hated +one another regularly every morning. I detested the chambers beyond +expression at that period of repentance, and could not endure the +sight of the Avenger's livery; which had a more expensive and a +less remunerative appearance then than at any other time in the +four-and-twenty hours. As we got more and more into debt, breakfast +became a hollower and hollower form, and, being on one occasion at +breakfast-time threatened (by letter) with legal proceedings, "not +unwholly unconnected," as my local paper might put it, "with jewelery," +I went so far as to seize the Avenger by his blue collar and shake +him off his feet,--so that he was actually in the air, like a booted +Cupid,--for presuming to suppose that we wanted a roll. + +At certain times--meaning at uncertain times, for they depended on our +humor--I would say to Herbert, as if it were a remarkable discovery,-- + +"My dear Herbert, we are getting on badly." + +"My dear Handel," Herbert would say to me, in all sincerity, "if you will +believe me, those very words were on my lips, by a strange coincidence." + +"Then, Herbert," I would respond, "let us look into our affairs." + +We always derived profound satisfaction from making an appointment for +this purpose. I always thought this was business, this was the way to +confront the thing, this was the way to take the foe by the throat. And +I know Herbert thought so too. + +We ordered something rather special for dinner, with a bottle of +something similarly out of the common way, in order that our minds might +be fortified for the occasion, and we might come well up to the mark. +Dinner over, we produced a bundle of pens, a copious supply of ink, and +a goodly show of writing and blotting paper. For there was something +very comfortable in having plenty of stationery. + +I would then take a sheet of paper, and write across the top of it, in a +neat hand, the heading, "Memorandum of Pip's debts"; with Barnard's Inn +and the date very carefully added. Herbert would also take a sheet of +paper, and write across it with similar formalities, "Memorandum of +Herbert's debts." + +Each of us would then refer to a confused heap of papers at his side, +which had been thrown into drawers, worn into holes in pockets, half +burnt in lighting candles, stuck for weeks into the looking-glass, and +otherwise damaged. The sound of our pens going refreshed us exceedingly, +insomuch that I sometimes found it difficult to distinguish between this +edifying business proceeding and actually paying the money. In point of +meritorious character, the two things seemed about equal. + +When we had written a little while, I would ask Herbert how he got on? +Herbert probably would have been scratching his head in a most rueful +manner at the sight of his accumulating figures. + +"They are mounting up, Handel," Herbert would say; "upon my life, they +are mounting up." + +"Be firm, Herbert," I would retort, plying my own pen with great +assiduity. "Look the thing in the face. Look into your affairs. Stare +them out of countenance." + +"So I would, Handel, only they are staring me out of countenance." + +However, my determined manner would have its effect, and Herbert would +fall to work again. After a time he would give up once more, on the plea +that he had not got Cobbs's bill, or Lobbs's, or Nobbs's, as the case +might be. + +"Then, Herbert, estimate; estimate it in round numbers, and put it +down." + +"What a fellow of resource you are!" my friend would reply, with +admiration. "Really your business powers are very remarkable." + +I thought so too. I established with myself, on these occasions, +the reputation of a first-rate man of business,--prompt, decisive, +energetic, clear, cool-headed. When I had got all my responsibilities +down upon my list, I compared each with the bill, and ticked it off. My +self-approval when I ticked an entry was quite a luxurious sensation. +When I had no more ticks to make, I folded all my bills up uniformly, +docketed each on the back, and tied the whole into a symmetrical +bundle. Then I did the same for Herbert (who modestly said he had not my +administrative genius), and felt that I had brought his affairs into a +focus for him. + +My business habits had one other bright feature, which I called "leaving +a Margin." For example; supposing Herbert's debts to be one hundred and +sixty-four pounds four-and-twopence, I would say, "Leave a margin, and +put them down at two hundred." Or, supposing my own to be four times as +much, I would leave a margin, and put them down at seven hundred. I had +the highest opinion of the wisdom of this same Margin, but I am bound +to acknowledge that on looking back, I deem it to have been an expensive +device. For, we always ran into new debt immediately, to the full extent +of the margin, and sometimes, in the sense of freedom and solvency it +imparted, got pretty far on into another margin. + +But there was a calm, a rest, a virtuous hush, consequent on these +examinations of our affairs that gave me, for the time, an admirable +opinion of myself. Soothed by my exertions, my method, and Herbert's +compliments, I would sit with his symmetrical bundle and my own on the +table before me among the stationary, and feel like a Bank of some sort, +rather than a private individual. + +We shut our outer door on these solemn occasions, in order that we might +not be interrupted. I had fallen into my serene state one evening, when +we heard a letter dropped through the slit in the said door, and fall on +the ground. "It's for you, Handel," said Herbert, going out and coming +back with it, "and I hope there is nothing the matter." This was in +allusion to its heavy black seal and border. + +The letter was signed Trabb & Co., and its contents were simply, that +I was an honored sir, and that they begged to inform me that Mrs. J. +Gargery had departed this life on Monday last at twenty minutes past six +in the evening, and that my attendance was requested at the interment on +Monday next at three o'clock in the afternoon. + + + + +Chapter XXXV + +It was the first time that a grave had opened in my road of life, and +the gap it made in the smooth ground was wonderful. The figure of my +sister in her chair by the kitchen fire, haunted me night and day. That +the place could possibly be, without her, was something my mind seemed +unable to compass; and whereas she had seldom or never been in my +thoughts of late, I had now the strangest ideas that she was coming +towards me in the street, or that she would presently knock at the door. +In my rooms too, with which she had never been at all associated, there +was at once the blankness of death and a perpetual suggestion of the +sound of her voice or the turn of her face or figure, as if she were +still alive and had been often there. + +Whatever my fortunes might have been, I could scarcely have recalled my +sister with much tenderness. But I suppose there is a shock of regret +which may exist without much tenderness. Under its influence (and +perhaps to make up for the want of the softer feeling) I was seized with +a violent indignation against the assailant from whom she had suffered +so much; and I felt that on sufficient proof I could have revengefully +pursued Orlick, or any one else, to the last extremity. + +Having written to Joe, to offer him consolation, and to assure him +that I would come to the funeral, I passed the intermediate days in +the curious state of mind I have glanced at. I went down early in the +morning, and alighted at the Blue Boar in good time to walk over to the +forge. + +It was fine summer weather again, and, as I walked along, the times +when I was a little helpless creature, and my sister did not spare me, +vividly returned. But they returned with a gentle tone upon them that +softened even the edge of Tickler. For now, the very breath of the beans +and clover whispered to my heart that the day must come when it would +be well for my memory that others walking in the sunshine should be +softened as they thought of me. + +At last I came within sight of the house, and saw that Trabb and Co. had +put in a funereal execution and taken possession. Two dismally absurd +persons, each ostentatiously exhibiting a crutch done up in a black +bandage,--as if that instrument could possibly communicate any comfort +to anybody,--were posted at the front door; and in one of them I +recognized a postboy discharged from the Boar for turning a young couple +into a sawpit on their bridal morning, in consequence of intoxication +rendering it necessary for him to ride his horse clasped round the neck +with both arms. All the children of the village, and most of the women, +were admiring these sable warders and the closed windows of the house +and forge; and as I came up, one of the two warders (the postboy) +knocked at the door,--implying that I was far too much exhausted by +grief to have strength remaining to knock for myself. + +Another sable warder (a carpenter, who had once eaten two geese for a +wager) opened the door, and showed me into the best parlor. Here, Mr. +Trabb had taken unto himself the best table, and had got all the leaves +up, and was holding a kind of black Bazaar, with the aid of a quantity +of black pins. At the moment of my arrival, he had just finished putting +somebody's hat into black long-clothes, like an African baby; so he held +out his hand for mine. But I, misled by the action, and confused by the +occasion, shook hands with him with every testimony of warm affection. + +Poor dear Joe, entangled in a little black cloak tied in a large bow +under his chin, was seated apart at the upper end of the room; where, +as chief mourner, he had evidently been stationed by Trabb. When I bent +down and said to him, "Dear Joe, how are you?" he said, "Pip, old chap, +you knowed her when she were a fine figure of a--" and clasped my hand +and said no more. + +Biddy, looking very neat and modest in her black dress, went quietly +here and there, and was very helpful. When I had spoken to Biddy, as +I thought it not a time for talking I went and sat down near Joe, and +there began to wonder in what part of the house it--she--my sister--was. +The air of the parlor being faint with the smell of sweet-cake, I looked +about for the table of refreshments; it was scarcely visible until one +had got accustomed to the gloom, but there was a cut-up plum cake upon +it, and there were cut-up oranges, and sandwiches, and biscuits, and two +decanters that I knew very well as ornaments, but had never seen used +in all my life; one full of port, and one of sherry. Standing at this +table, I became conscious of the servile Pumblechook in a black cloak +and several yards of hatband, who was alternately stuffing himself, +and making obsequious movements to catch my attention. The moment he +succeeded, he came over to me (breathing sherry and crumbs), and said +in a subdued voice, "May I, dear sir?" and did. I then descried Mr. and +Mrs. Hubble; the last-named in a decent speechless paroxysm in a corner. +We were all going to "follow," and were all in course of being tied up +separately (by Trabb) into ridiculous bundles. + +"Which I meantersay, Pip," Joe whispered me, as we were being what Mr. +Trabb called "formed" in the parlor, two and two,--and it was dreadfully +like a preparation for some grim kind of dance; "which I meantersay, +sir, as I would in preference have carried her to the church myself, +along with three or four friendly ones wot come to it with willing harts +and arms, but it were considered wot the neighbors would look down on +such and would be of opinions as it were wanting in respect." + +"Pocket-handkerchiefs out, all!" cried Mr. Trabb at this point, in a +depressed business-like voice. "Pocket-handkerchiefs out! We are ready!" + +So we all put our pocket-handkerchiefs to our faces, as if our +noses were bleeding, and filed out two and two; Joe and I; Biddy and +Pumblechook; Mr. and Mrs. Hubble. The remains of my poor sister had been +brought round by the kitchen door, and, it being a point of Undertaking +ceremony that the six bearers must be stifled and blinded under a +horrible black velvet housing with a white border, the whole looked like +a blind monster with twelve human legs, shuffling and blundering along, +under the guidance of two keepers,--the postboy and his comrade. + +The neighborhood, however, highly approved of these arrangements, and we +were much admired as we went through the village; the more youthful and +vigorous part of the community making dashes now and then to cut us off, +and lying in wait to intercept us at points of vantage. At such times +the more exuberant among them called out in an excited manner on our +emergence round some corner of expectancy, "Here they come!" "Here they +are!" and we were all but cheered. In this progress I was much annoyed +by the abject Pumblechook, who, being behind me, persisted all the way +as a delicate attention in arranging my streaming hatband, and smoothing +my cloak. My thoughts were further distracted by the excessive pride of +Mr. and Mrs. Hubble, who were surpassingly conceited and vainglorious in +being members of so distinguished a procession. + +And now the range of marshes lay clear before us, with the sails of the +ships on the river growing out of it; and we went into the churchyard, +close to the graves of my unknown parents, Philip Pirrip, late of this +parish, and Also Georgiana, Wife of the Above. And there, my sister was +laid quietly in the earth, while the larks sang high above it, and the +light wind strewed it with beautiful shadows of clouds and trees. + +Of the conduct of the worldly minded Pumblechook while this was doing, +I desire to say no more than it was all addressed to me; and that even +when those noble passages were read which remind humanity how it brought +nothing into the world and can take nothing out, and how it fleeth like +a shadow and never continueth long in one stay, I heard him cough a +reservation of the case of a young gentleman who came unexpectedly into +large property. When we got back, he had the hardihood to tell me that +he wished my sister could have known I had done her so much honor, and +to hint that she would have considered it reasonably purchased at the +price of her death. After that, he drank all the rest of the sherry, +and Mr. Hubble drank the port, and the two talked (which I have since +observed to be customary in such cases) as if they were of quite another +race from the deceased, and were notoriously immortal. Finally, he went +away with Mr. and Mrs. Hubble,--to make an evening of it, I felt sure, +and to tell the Jolly Bargemen that he was the founder of my fortunes +and my earliest benefactor. + +When they were all gone, and when Trabb and his men--but not his Boy; I +looked for him--had crammed their mummery into bags, and were gone too, +the house felt wholesomer. Soon afterwards, Biddy, Joe, and I, had a +cold dinner together; but we dined in the best parlor, not in the old +kitchen, and Joe was so exceedingly particular what he did with his +knife and fork and the saltcellar and what not, that there was great +restraint upon us. But after dinner, when I made him take his pipe, +and when I had loitered with him about the forge, and when we sat down +together on the great block of stone outside it, we got on better. I +noticed that after the funeral Joe changed his clothes so far, as to +make a compromise between his Sunday dress and working dress; in which +the dear fellow looked natural, and like the Man he was. + +He was very much pleased by my asking if I might sleep in my own little +room, and I was pleased too; for I felt that I had done rather a great +thing in making the request. When the shadows of evening were closing +in, I took an opportunity of getting into the garden with Biddy for a +little talk. + +"Biddy," said I, "I think you might have written to me about these sad +matters." + +"Do you, Mr. Pip?" said Biddy. "I should have written if I had thought +that." + +"Don't suppose that I mean to be unkind, Biddy, when I say I consider +that you ought to have thought that." + +"Do you, Mr. Pip?" + +She was so quiet, and had such an orderly, good, and pretty way with +her, that I did not like the thought of making her cry again. After +looking a little at her downcast eyes as she walked beside me, I gave up +that point. + +"I suppose it will be difficult for you to remain here now, Biddy dear?" + +"Oh! I can't do so, Mr. Pip," said Biddy, in a tone of regret but still +of quiet conviction. "I have been speaking to Mrs. Hubble, and I am +going to her to-morrow. I hope we shall be able to take some care of Mr. +Gargery, together, until he settles down." + +"How are you going to live, Biddy? If you want any mo--" + +"How am I going to live?" repeated Biddy, striking in, with a momentary +flush upon her face. "I'll tell you, Mr. Pip. I am going to try to get +the place of mistress in the new school nearly finished here. I can be +well recommended by all the neighbors, and I hope I can be industrious +and patient, and teach myself while I teach others. You know, Mr. Pip," +pursued Biddy, with a smile, as she raised her eyes to my face, "the new +schools are not like the old, but I learnt a good deal from you after +that time, and have had time since then to improve." + +"I think you would always improve, Biddy, under any circumstances." + +"Ah! Except in my bad side of human nature," murmured Biddy. + +It was not so much a reproach as an irresistible thinking aloud. Well! +I thought I would give up that point too. So, I walked a little further +with Biddy, looking silently at her downcast eyes. + +"I have not heard the particulars of my sister's death, Biddy." + +"They are very slight, poor thing. She had been in one of her bad +states--though they had got better of late, rather than worse--for four +days, when she came out of it in the evening, just at tea-time, and said +quite plainly, 'Joe.' As she had never said any word for a long while, I +ran and fetched in Mr. Gargery from the forge. She made signs to me that +she wanted him to sit down close to her, and wanted me to put her arms +round his neck. So I put them round his neck, and she laid her head down +on his shoulder quite content and satisfied. And so she presently said +'Joe' again, and once 'Pardon,' and once 'Pip.' And so she never lifted +her head up any more, and it was just an hour later when we laid it down +on her own bed, because we found she was gone." + +Biddy cried; the darkening garden, and the lane, and the stars that were +coming out, were blurred in my own sight. + +"Nothing was ever discovered, Biddy?" + +"Nothing." + +"Do you know what is become of Orlick?" + +"I should think from the color of his clothes that he is working in the +quarries." + +"Of course you have seen him then?--Why are you looking at that dark +tree in the lane?" + +"I saw him there, on the night she died." + +"That was not the last time either, Biddy?" + +"No; I have seen him there, since we have been walking here.--It is of +no use," said Biddy, laying her hand upon my arm, as I was for running +out, "you know I would not deceive you; he was not there a minute, and +he is gone." + +It revived my utmost indignation to find that she was still pursued by +this fellow, and I felt inveterate against him. I told her so, and told +her that I would spend any money or take any pains to drive him out of +that country. By degrees she led me into more temperate talk, and she +told me how Joe loved me, and how Joe never complained of anything,--she +didn't say, of me; she had no need; I knew what she meant,--but ever did +his duty in his way of life, with a strong hand, a quiet tongue, and a +gentle heart. + +"Indeed, it would be hard to say too much for him," said I; "and Biddy, +we must often speak of these things, for of course I shall be often down +here now. I am not going to leave poor Joe alone." + +Biddy said never a single word. + +"Biddy, don't you hear me?" + +"Yes, Mr. Pip." + +"Not to mention your calling me Mr. Pip,--which appears to me to be in +bad taste, Biddy,--what do you mean?" + +"What do I mean?" asked Biddy, timidly. + +"Biddy," said I, in a virtuously self-asserting manner, "I must request +to know what you mean by this?" + +"By this?" said Biddy. + +"Now, don't echo," I retorted. "You used not to echo, Biddy." + +"Used not!" said Biddy. "O Mr. Pip! Used!" + +Well! I rather thought I would give up that point too. After another +silent turn in the garden, I fell back on the main position. + +"Biddy," said I, "I made a remark respecting my coming down here often, +to see Joe, which you received with a marked silence. Have the goodness, +Biddy, to tell me why." + +"Are you quite sure, then, that you WILL come to see him often?" asked +Biddy, stopping in the narrow garden walk, and looking at me under the +stars with a clear and honest eye. + +"O dear me!" said I, as if I found myself compelled to give up Biddy in +despair. "This really is a very bad side of human nature! Don't say any +more, if you please, Biddy. This shocks me very much." + +For which cogent reason I kept Biddy at a distance during supper, and +when I went up to my own old little room, took as stately a leave of her +as I could, in my murmuring soul, deem reconcilable with the churchyard +and the event of the day. As often as I was restless in the night, and +that was every quarter of an hour, I reflected what an unkindness, what +an injury, what an injustice, Biddy had done me. + +Early in the morning I was to go. Early in the morning I was out, and +looking in, unseen, at one of the wooden windows of the forge. There +I stood, for minutes, looking at Joe, already at work with a glow of +health and strength upon his face that made it show as if the bright sun +of the life in store for him were shining on it. + +"Good-bye, dear Joe!--No, don't wipe it off--for God's sake, give me your +blackened hand!--I shall be down soon and often." + +"Never too soon, sir," said Joe, "and never too often, Pip!" + +Biddy was waiting for me at the kitchen door, with a mug of new milk and +a crust of bread. "Biddy," said I, when I gave her my hand at parting, +"I am not angry, but I am hurt." + +"No, don't be hurt," she pleaded quite pathetically; "let only me be +hurt, if I have been ungenerous." + +Once more, the mists were rising as I walked away. If they disclosed to +me, as I suspect they did, that I should not come back, and that Biddy +was quite right, all I can say is,--they were quite right too. + + + + +Chapter XXXVI + +Herbert and I went on from bad to worse, in the way of increasing our +debts, looking into our affairs, leaving Margins, and the like exemplary +transactions; and Time went on, whether or no, as he has a way of doing; +and I came of age,--in fulfilment of Herbert's prediction, that I should +do so before I knew where I was. + +Herbert himself had come of age eight months before me. As he had +nothing else than his majority to come into, the event did not make a +profound sensation in Barnard's Inn. But we had looked forward to +my one-and-twentieth birthday, with a crowd of speculations and +anticipations, for we had both considered that my guardian could hardly +help saying something definite on that occasion. + +I had taken care to have it well understood in Little Britain when my +birthday was. On the day before it, I received an official note from +Wemmick, informing me that Mr. Jaggers would be glad if I would call +upon him at five in the afternoon of the auspicious day. This convinced +us that something great was to happen, and threw me into an unusual +flutter when I repaired to my guardian's office, a model of punctuality. + +In the outer office Wemmick offered me his congratulations, and +incidentally rubbed the side of his nose with a folded piece of +tissue-paper that I liked the look of. But he said nothing respecting +it, and motioned me with a nod into my guardian's room. It was November, +and my guardian was standing before his fire leaning his back against +the chimney-piece, with his hands under his coattails. + +"Well, Pip," said he, "I must call you Mr. Pip to-day. Congratulations, +Mr. Pip." + +We shook hands,--he was always a remarkably short shaker,--and I thanked +him. + +"Take a chair, Mr. Pip," said my guardian. + +As I sat down, and he preserved his attitude and bent his brows at his +boots, I felt at a disadvantage, which reminded me of that old time when +I had been put upon a tombstone. The two ghastly casts on the shelf +were not far from him, and their expression was as if they were making a +stupid apoplectic attempt to attend to the conversation. + +"Now my young friend," my guardian began, as if I were a witness in the +box, "I am going to have a word or two with you." + +"If you please, sir." + +"What do you suppose," said Mr. Jaggers, bending forward to look at the +ground, and then throwing his head back to look at the ceiling,--"what +do you suppose you are living at the rate of?" + +"At the rate of, sir?" + +"At," repeated Mr. Jaggers, still looking at the ceiling, +"the--rate--of?" And then looked all round the room, and paused with his +pocket-handkerchief in his hand, half-way to his nose. + +I had looked into my affairs so often, that I had thoroughly destroyed +any slight notion I might ever have had of their bearings. Reluctantly, +I confessed myself quite unable to answer the question. This reply +seemed agreeable to Mr. Jaggers, who said, "I thought so!" and blew his +nose with an air of satisfaction. + +"Now, I have asked you a question, my friend," said Mr. Jaggers. "Have +you anything to ask me?" + +"Of course it would be a great relief to me to ask you several +questions, sir; but I remember your prohibition." + +"Ask one," said Mr. Jaggers. + +"Is my benefactor to be made known to me to-day?" + +"No. Ask another." + +"Is that confidence to be imparted to me soon?" + +"Waive that, a moment," said Mr. Jaggers, "and ask another." + +I looked about me, but there appeared to be now no possible escape from +the inquiry, "Have-I--anything to receive, sir?" On that, Mr. Jaggers +said, triumphantly, "I thought we should come to it!" and called to +Wemmick to give him that piece of paper. Wemmick appeared, handed it in, +and disappeared. + +"Now, Mr. Pip," said Mr. Jaggers, "attend, if you please. You have been +drawing pretty freely here; your name occurs pretty often in Wemmick's +cash-book; but you are in debt, of course?" + +"I am afraid I must say yes, sir." + +"You know you must say yes; don't you?" said Mr. Jaggers. + +"Yes, sir." + +"I don't ask you what you owe, because you don't know; and if you did +know, you wouldn't tell me; you would say less. Yes, yes, my friend," +cried Mr. Jaggers, waving his forefinger to stop me as I made a show +of protesting: "it's likely enough that you think you wouldn't, but +you would. You'll excuse me, but I know better than you. Now, take this +piece of paper in your hand. You have got it? Very good. Now, unfold it +and tell me what it is." + +"This is a bank-note," said I, "for five hundred pounds." + +"That is a bank-note," repeated Mr. Jaggers, "for five hundred pounds. +And a very handsome sum of money too, I think. You consider it so?" + +"How could I do otherwise!" + +"Ah! But answer the question," said Mr. Jaggers. + +"Undoubtedly." + +"You consider it, undoubtedly, a handsome sum of money. Now, that +handsome sum of money, Pip, is your own. It is a present to you on this +day, in earnest of your expectations. And at the rate of that handsome +sum of money per annum, and at no higher rate, you are to live until the +donor of the whole appears. That is to say, you will now take your money +affairs entirely into your own hands, and you will draw from Wemmick +one hundred and twenty-five pounds per quarter, until you are in +communication with the fountain-head, and no longer with the mere +agent. As I have told you before, I am the mere agent. I execute my +instructions, and I am paid for doing so. I think them injudicious, but +I am not paid for giving any opinion on their merits." + +I was beginning to express my gratitude to my benefactor for the great +liberality with which I was treated, when Mr. Jaggers stopped me. "I am +not paid, Pip," said he, coolly, "to carry your words to any one;" and +then gathered up his coat-tails, as he had gathered up the subject, and +stood frowning at his boots as if he suspected them of designs against +him. + +After a pause, I hinted,-- + +"There was a question just now, Mr. Jaggers, which you desired me to +waive for a moment. I hope I am doing nothing wrong in asking it again?" + +"What is it?" said he. + +I might have known that he would never help me out; but it took me aback +to have to shape the question afresh, as if it were quite new. "Is it +likely," I said, after hesitating, "that my patron, the fountain-head +you have spoken of, Mr. Jaggers, will soon--" there I delicately +stopped. + +"Will soon what?" asked Mr. Jaggers. "That's no question as it stands, +you know." + +"Will soon come to London," said I, after casting about for a precise +form of words, "or summon me anywhere else?" + +"Now, here," replied Mr. Jaggers, fixing me for the first time with +his dark deep-set eyes, "we must revert to the evening when we first +encountered one another in your village. What did I tell you then, Pip?" + +"You told me, Mr. Jaggers, that it might be years hence when that person +appeared." + +"Just so," said Mr. Jaggers, "that's my answer." + +As we looked full at one another, I felt my breath come quicker in my +strong desire to get something out of him. And as I felt that it came +quicker, and as I felt that he saw that it came quicker, I felt that I +had less chance than ever of getting anything out of him. + +"Do you suppose it will still be years hence, Mr. Jaggers?" + +Mr. Jaggers shook his head,--not in negativing the question, but in +altogether negativing the notion that he could anyhow be got to answer +it,--and the two horrible casts of the twitched faces looked, when +my eyes strayed up to them, as if they had come to a crisis in their +suspended attention, and were going to sneeze. + +"Come!" said Mr. Jaggers, warming the backs of his legs with the backs +of his warmed hands, "I'll be plain with you, my friend Pip. That's a +question I must not be asked. You'll understand that better, when I tell +you it's a question that might compromise me. Come! I'll go a little +further with you; I'll say something more." + +He bent down so low to frown at his boots, that he was able to rub the +calves of his legs in the pause he made. + +"When that person discloses," said Mr. Jaggers, straightening himself, +"you and that person will settle your own affairs. When that person +discloses, my part in this business will cease and determine. When that +person discloses, it will not be necessary for me to know anything about +it. And that's all I have got to say." + +We looked at one another until I withdrew my eyes, and looked +thoughtfully at the floor. From this last speech I derived the notion +that Miss Havisham, for some reason or no reason, had not taken him +into her confidence as to her designing me for Estella; that he resented +this, and felt a jealousy about it; or that he really did object to +that scheme, and would have nothing to do with it. When I raised my eyes +again, I found that he had been shrewdly looking at me all the time, and +was doing so still. + +"If that is all you have to say, sir," I remarked, "there can be nothing +left for me to say." + +He nodded assent, and pulled out his thief-dreaded watch, and asked me +where I was going to dine? I replied at my own chambers, with Herbert. +As a necessary sequence, I asked him if he would favor us with his +company, and he promptly accepted the invitation. But he insisted on +walking home with me, in order that I might make no extra preparation +for him, and first he had a letter or two to write, and (of course) had +his hands to wash. So I said I would go into the outer office and talk +to Wemmick. + +The fact was, that when the five hundred pounds had come into my pocket, +a thought had come into my head which had been often there before; +and it appeared to me that Wemmick was a good person to advise with +concerning such thought. + +He had already locked up his safe, and made preparations for going home. +He had left his desk, brought out his two greasy office candlesticks and +stood them in line with the snuffers on a slab near the door, ready to +be extinguished; he had raked his fire low, put his hat and great-coat +ready, and was beating himself all over the chest with his safe-key, as +an athletic exercise after business. + +"Mr. Wemmick," said I, "I want to ask your opinion. I am very desirous +to serve a friend." + +Wemmick tightened his post-office and shook his head, as if his opinion +were dead against any fatal weakness of that sort. + +"This friend," I pursued, "is trying to get on in commercial life, +but has no money, and finds it difficult and disheartening to make a +beginning. Now I want somehow to help him to a beginning." + +"With money down?" said Wemmick, in a tone drier than any sawdust. + +"With some money down," I replied, for an uneasy remembrance shot across +me of that symmetrical bundle of papers at home--"with some money down, +and perhaps some anticipation of my expectations." + +"Mr. Pip," said Wemmick, "I should like just to run over with you on my +fingers, if you please, the names of the various bridges up as high +as Chelsea Reach. Let's see; there's London, one; Southwark, two; +Blackfriars, three; Waterloo, four; Westminster, five; Vauxhall, six." +He had checked off each bridge in its turn, with the handle of his +safe-key on the palm of his hand. "There's as many as six, you see, to +choose from." + +"I don't understand you," said I. + +"Choose your bridge, Mr. Pip," returned Wemmick, "and take a walk upon +your bridge, and pitch your money into the Thames over the centre arch +of your bridge, and you know the end of it. Serve a friend with it, and +you may know the end of it too,--but it's a less pleasant and profitable +end." + +I could have posted a newspaper in his mouth, he made it so wide after +saying this. + +"This is very discouraging," said I. + +"Meant to be so," said Wemmick. + +"Then is it your opinion," I inquired, with some little indignation, +"that a man should never--" + +"--Invest portable property in a friend?" said Wemmick. "Certainly +he should not. Unless he wants to get rid of the friend,--and then it +becomes a question how much portable property it may be worth to get rid +of him." + +"And that," said I, "is your deliberate opinion, Mr. Wemmick?" + +"That," he returned, "is my deliberate opinion in this office." + +"Ah!" said I, pressing him, for I thought I saw him near a loophole +here; "but would that be your opinion at Walworth?" + +"Mr. Pip," he replied, with gravity, "Walworth is one place, and this +office is another. Much as the Aged is one person, and Mr. Jaggers is +another. They must not be confounded together. My Walworth sentiments +must be taken at Walworth; none but my official sentiments can be taken +in this office." + +"Very well," said I, much relieved, "then I shall look you up at +Walworth, you may depend upon it." + +"Mr. Pip," he returned, "you will be welcome there, in a private and +personal capacity." + +We had held this conversation in a low voice, well knowing my guardian's +ears to be the sharpest of the sharp. As he now appeared in his doorway, +towelling his hands, Wemmick got on his great-coat and stood by to snuff +out the candles. We all three went into the street together, and from +the door-step Wemmick turned his way, and Mr. Jaggers and I turned ours. + +I could not help wishing more than once that evening, that Mr. Jaggers +had had an Aged in Gerrard Street, or a Stinger, or a Something, or +a Somebody, to unbend his brows a little. It was an uncomfortable +consideration on a twenty-first birthday, that coming of age at all +seemed hardly worth while in such a guarded and suspicious world as he +made of it. He was a thousand times better informed and cleverer than +Wemmick, and yet I would a thousand times rather have had Wemmick to +dinner. And Mr. Jaggers made not me alone intensely melancholy, because, +after he was gone, Herbert said of himself, with his eyes fixed on the +fire, that he thought he must have committed a felony and forgotten the +details of it, he felt so dejected and guilty. + + + + +Chapter XXXVII + +Deeming Sunday the best day for taking Mr. Wemmick's Walworth +sentiments, I devoted the next ensuing Sunday afternoon to a pilgrimage +to the Castle. On arriving before the battlements, I found the Union +Jack flying and the drawbridge up; but undeterred by this show of +defiance and resistance, I rang at the gate, and was admitted in a most +pacific manner by the Aged. + +"My son, sir," said the old man, after securing the drawbridge, "rather +had it in his mind that you might happen to drop in, and he left word +that he would soon be home from his afternoon's walk. He is very regular +in his walks, is my son. Very regular in everything, is my son." + +I nodded at the old gentleman as Wemmick himself might have nodded, and +we went in and sat down by the fireside. + +"You made acquaintance with my son, sir," said the old man, in his +chirping way, while he warmed his hands at the blaze, "at his office, I +expect?" I nodded. "Hah! I have heerd that my son is a wonderful hand at +his business, sir?" I nodded hard. "Yes; so they tell me. His business +is the Law?" I nodded harder. "Which makes it more surprising in my +son," said the old man, "for he was not brought up to the Law, but to +the Wine-Coopering." + +Curious to know how the old gentleman stood informed concerning the +reputation of Mr. Jaggers, I roared that name at him. He threw me into +the greatest confusion by laughing heartily and replying in a very +sprightly manner, "No, to be sure; you're right." And to this hour I +have not the faintest notion what he meant, or what joke he thought I +had made. + +As I could not sit there nodding at him perpetually, without making +some other attempt to interest him, I shouted at inquiry whether his own +calling in life had been "the Wine-Coopering." By dint of straining that +term out of myself several times and tapping the old gentleman on the +chest to associate it with him, I at last succeeded in making my meaning +understood. + +"No," said the old gentleman; "the warehousing, the warehousing. First, +over yonder;" he appeared to mean up the chimney, but I believe he +intended to refer me to Liverpool; "and then in the City of London here. +However, having an infirmity--for I am hard of hearing, sir--" + +I expressed in pantomime the greatest astonishment. + +"--Yes, hard of hearing; having that infirmity coming upon me, my son he +went into the Law, and he took charge of me, and he by little and little +made out this elegant and beautiful property. But returning to what you +said, you know," pursued the old man, again laughing heartily, "what I +say is, No to be sure; you're right." + +I was modestly wondering whether my utmost ingenuity would have enabled +me to say anything that would have amused him half as much as this +imaginary pleasantry, when I was startled by a sudden click in the wall +on one side of the chimney, and the ghostly tumbling open of a little +wooden flap with "JOHN" upon it. The old man, following my eyes, cried +with great triumph, "My son's come home!" and we both went out to the +drawbridge. + +It was worth any money to see Wemmick waving a salute to me from the +other side of the moat, when we might have shaken hands across it with +the greatest ease. The Aged was so delighted to work the drawbridge, +that I made no offer to assist him, but stood quiet until Wemmick had +come across, and had presented me to Miss Skiffins; a lady by whom he +was accompanied. + +Miss Skiffins was of a wooden appearance, and was, like her escort, in +the post-office branch of the service. She might have been some two or +three years younger than Wemmick, and I judged her to stand possessed +of portable property. The cut of her dress from the waist upward, both +before and behind, made her figure very like a boy's kite; and I might +have pronounced her gown a little too decidedly orange, and her gloves a +little too intensely green. But she seemed to be a good sort of fellow, +and showed a high regard for the Aged. I was not long in discovering +that she was a frequent visitor at the Castle; for, on our going in, +and my complimenting Wemmick on his ingenious contrivance for announcing +himself to the Aged, he begged me to give my attention for a moment to +the other side of the chimney, and disappeared. Presently another click +came, and another little door tumbled open with "Miss Skiffins" on it; +then Miss Skiffins shut up and John tumbled open; then Miss Skiffins +and John both tumbled open together, and finally shut up together. On +Wemmick's return from working these mechanical appliances, I expressed +the great admiration with which I regarded them, and he said, "Well, you +know, they're both pleasant and useful to the Aged. And by George, sir, +it's a thing worth mentioning, that of all the people who come to +this gate, the secret of those pulls is only known to the Aged, Miss +Skiffins, and me!" + +"And Mr. Wemmick made them," added Miss Skiffins, "with his own hands +out of his own head." + +While Miss Skiffins was taking off her bonnet (she retained her green +gloves during the evening as an outward and visible sign that there was +company), Wemmick invited me to take a walk with him round the property, +and see how the island looked in wintertime. Thinking that he did this +to give me an opportunity of taking his Walworth sentiments, I seized +the opportunity as soon as we were out of the Castle. + +Having thought of the matter with care, I approached my subject as if I +had never hinted at it before. I informed Wemmick that I was anxious in +behalf of Herbert Pocket, and I told him how we had first met, and how +we had fought. I glanced at Herbert's home, and at his character, and +at his having no means but such as he was dependent on his father for; +those, uncertain and unpunctual. I alluded to the advantages I had +derived in my first rawness and ignorance from his society, and I +confessed that I feared I had but ill repaid them, and that he might +have done better without me and my expectations. Keeping Miss Havisham +in the background at a great distance, I still hinted at the possibility +of my having competed with him in his prospects, and at the certainty of +his possessing a generous soul, and being far above any mean distrusts, +retaliations, or designs. For all these reasons (I told Wemmick), +and because he was my young companion and friend, and I had a great +affection for him, I wished my own good fortune to reflect some rays +upon him, and therefore I sought advice from Wemmick's experience and +knowledge of men and affairs, how I could best try with my resources to +help Herbert to some present income,--say of a hundred a year, to keep +him in good hope and heart,--and gradually to buy him on to some small +partnership. I begged Wemmick, in conclusion, to understand that my help +must always be rendered without Herbert's knowledge or suspicion, and +that there was no one else in the world with whom I could advise. I +wound up by laying my hand upon his shoulder, and saying, "I can't help +confiding in you, though I know it must be troublesome to you; but that +is your fault, in having ever brought me here." + +Wemmick was silent for a little while, and then said with a kind of +start, "Well you know, Mr. Pip, I must tell you one thing. This is +devilish good of you." + +"Say you'll help me to be good then," said I. + +"Ecod," replied Wemmick, shaking his head, "that's not my trade." + +"Nor is this your trading-place," said I. + +"You are right," he returned. "You hit the nail on the head. Mr. Pip, +I'll put on my considering-cap, and I think all you want to do may be +done by degrees. Skiffins (that's her brother) is an accountant and +agent. I'll look him up and go to work for you." + +"I thank you ten thousand times." + +"On the contrary," said he, "I thank you, for though we are strictly in +our private and personal capacity, still it may be mentioned that there +are Newgate cobwebs about, and it brushes them away." + +After a little further conversation to the same effect, we returned into +the Castle where we found Miss Skiffins preparing tea. The responsible +duty of making the toast was delegated to the Aged, and that excellent +old gentleman was so intent upon it that he seemed to me in some danger +of melting his eyes. It was no nominal meal that we were going to make, +but a vigorous reality. The Aged prepared such a hay-stack of buttered +toast, that I could scarcely see him over it as it simmered on an iron +stand hooked on to the top-bar; while Miss Skiffins brewed such a jorum +of tea, that the pig in the back premises became strongly excited, and +repeatedly expressed his desire to participate in the entertainment. + +The flag had been struck, and the gun had been fired, at the right +moment of time, and I felt as snugly cut off from the rest of Walworth +as if the moat were thirty feet wide by as many deep. Nothing disturbed +the tranquillity of the Castle, but the occasional tumbling open of +John and Miss Skiffins: which little doors were a prey to some spasmodic +infirmity that made me sympathetically uncomfortable until I got used +to it. I inferred from the methodical nature of Miss Skiffins's +arrangements that she made tea there every Sunday night; and I rather +suspected that a classic brooch she wore, representing the profile of an +undesirable female with a very straight nose and a very new moon, was a +piece of portable property that had been given her by Wemmick. + +We ate the whole of the toast, and drank tea in proportion, and it was +delightful to see how warm and greasy we all got after it. The Aged +especially, might have passed for some clean old chief of a savage +tribe, just oiled. After a short pause of repose, Miss Skiffins--in the +absence of the little servant who, it seemed, retired to the bosom of +her family on Sunday afternoons--washed up the tea-things, in a trifling +lady-like amateur manner that compromised none of us. Then, she put on +her gloves again, and we drew round the fire, and Wemmick said, "Now, +Aged Parent, tip us the paper." + +Wemmick explained to me while the Aged got his spectacles out, that this +was according to custom, and that it gave the old gentleman infinite +satisfaction to read the news aloud. "I won't offer an apology," said +Wemmick, "for he isn't capable of many pleasures--are you, Aged P.?" + +"All right, John, all right," returned the old man, seeing himself +spoken to. + +"Only tip him a nod every now and then when he looks off his paper," +said Wemmick, "and he'll be as happy as a king. We are all attention, +Aged One." + +"All right, John, all right!" returned the cheerful old man, so busy and +so pleased, that it really was quite charming. + +The Aged's reading reminded me of the classes at Mr. Wopsle's +great-aunt's, with the pleasanter peculiarity that it seemed to come +through a keyhole. As he wanted the candles close to him, and as he was +always on the verge of putting either his head or the newspaper into +them, he required as much watching as a powder-mill. But Wemmick was +equally untiring and gentle in his vigilance, and the Aged read on, +quite unconscious of his many rescues. Whenever he looked at us, we +all expressed the greatest interest and amazement, and nodded until he +resumed again. + +As Wemmick and Miss Skiffins sat side by side, and as I sat in a shadowy +corner, I observed a slow and gradual elongation of Mr. Wemmick's mouth, +powerfully suggestive of his slowly and gradually stealing his arm round +Miss Skiffins's waist. In course of time I saw his hand appear on the +other side of Miss Skiffins; but at that moment Miss Skiffins neatly +stopped him with the green glove, unwound his arm again as if it were +an article of dress, and with the greatest deliberation laid it on the +table before her. Miss Skiffins's composure while she did this was one +of the most remarkable sights I have ever seen, and if I could have +thought the act consistent with abstraction of mind, I should have +deemed that Miss Skiffins performed it mechanically. + +By and by, I noticed Wemmick's arm beginning to disappear again, and +gradually fading out of view. Shortly afterwards, his mouth began to +widen again. After an interval of suspense on my part that was quite +enthralling and almost painful, I saw his hand appear on the other side +of Miss Skiffins. Instantly, Miss Skiffins stopped it with the neatness +of a placid boxer, took off that girdle or cestus as before, and laid +it on the table. Taking the table to represent the path of virtue, I am +justified in stating that during the whole time of the Aged's reading, +Wemmick's arm was straying from the path of virtue and being recalled to +it by Miss Skiffins. + +At last, the Aged read himself into a light slumber. This was the time +for Wemmick to produce a little kettle, a tray of glasses, and a +black bottle with a porcelain-topped cork, representing some clerical +dignitary of a rubicund and social aspect. With the aid of these +appliances we all had something warm to drink, including the Aged, who +was soon awake again. Miss Skiffins mixed, and I observed that she and +Wemmick drank out of one glass. Of course I knew better than to offer to +see Miss Skiffins home, and under the circumstances I thought I had best +go first; which I did, taking a cordial leave of the Aged, and having +passed a pleasant evening. + +Before a week was out, I received a note from Wemmick, dated Walworth, +stating that he hoped he had made some advance in that matter +appertaining to our private and personal capacities, and that he would +be glad if I could come and see him again upon it. So, I went out +to Walworth again, and yet again, and yet again, and I saw him by +appointment in the City several times, but never held any communication +with him on the subject in or near Little Britain. The upshot was, +that we found a worthy young merchant or shipping-broker, not long +established in business, who wanted intelligent help, and who wanted +capital, and who in due course of time and receipt would want a partner. +Between him and me, secret articles were signed of which Herbert was the +subject, and I paid him half of my five hundred pounds down, and engaged +for sundry other payments: some, to fall due at certain dates out of my +income: some, contingent on my coming into my property. Miss Skiffins's +brother conducted the negotiation. Wemmick pervaded it throughout, but +never appeared in it. + +The whole business was so cleverly managed, that Herbert had not the +least suspicion of my hand being in it. I never shall forget the radiant +face with which he came home one afternoon, and told me, as a mighty +piece of news, of his having fallen in with one Clarriker (the young +merchant's name), and of Clarriker's having shown an extraordinary +inclination towards him, and of his belief that the opening had come at +last. Day by day as his hopes grew stronger and his face brighter, he +must have thought me a more and more affectionate friend, for I had the +greatest difficulty in restraining my tears of triumph when I saw him so +happy. At length, the thing being done, and he having that day entered +Clarriker's House, and he having talked to me for a whole evening in a +flush of pleasure and success, I did really cry in good earnest when +I went to bed, to think that my expectations had done some good to +somebody. + +A great event in my life, the turning point of my life, now opens on my +view. But, before I proceed to narrate it, and before I pass on to all +the changes it involved, I must give one chapter to Estella. It is not +much to give to the theme that so long filled my heart. + + + + +Chapter XXXVIII + +If that staid old house near the Green at Richmond should ever come to +be haunted when I am dead, it will be haunted, surely, by my ghost. O +the many, many nights and days through which the unquiet spirit within +me haunted that house when Estella lived there! Let my body be where it +would, my spirit was always wandering, wandering, wandering, about that +house. + +The lady with whom Estella was placed, Mrs. Brandley by name, was a +widow, with one daughter several years older than Estella. The mother +looked young, and the daughter looked old; the mother's complexion was +pink, and the daughter's was yellow; the mother set up for frivolity, +and the daughter for theology. They were in what is called a good +position, and visited, and were visited by, numbers of people. Little, +if any, community of feeling subsisted between them and Estella, but the +understanding was established that they were necessary to her, and +that she was necessary to them. Mrs. Brandley had been a friend of Miss +Havisham's before the time of her seclusion. + +In Mrs. Brandley's house and out of Mrs. Brandley's house, I suffered +every kind and degree of torture that Estella could cause me. The +nature of my relations with her, which placed me on terms of familiarity +without placing me on terms of favor, conduced to my distraction. +She made use of me to tease other admirers, and she turned the very +familiarity between herself and me to the account of putting a constant +slight on my devotion to her. If I had been her secretary, steward, +half-brother, poor relation,--if I had been a younger brother of her +appointed husband,--I could not have seemed to myself further from my +hopes when I was nearest to her. The privilege of calling her by her +name and hearing her call me by mine became, under the circumstances +an aggravation of my trials; and while I think it likely that it almost +maddened her other lovers, I know too certainly that it almost maddened +me. + +She had admirers without end. No doubt my jealousy made an admirer of +every one who went near her; but there were more than enough of them +without that. + +I saw her often at Richmond, I heard of her often in town, and I used +often to take her and the Brandleys on the water; there were picnics, +fete days, plays, operas, concerts, parties, all sorts of pleasures, +through which I pursued her,--and they were all miseries to me. I never +had one hour's happiness in her society, and yet my mind all round the +four-and-twenty hours was harping on the happiness of having her with me +unto death. + +Throughout this part of our intercourse,--and it lasted, as will +presently be seen, for what I then thought a long time,--she habitually +reverted to that tone which expressed that our association was forced +upon us. There were other times when she would come to a sudden check in +this tone and in all her many tones, and would seem to pity me. + +"Pip, Pip," she said one evening, coming to such a check, when we sat +apart at a darkening window of the house in Richmond; "will you never +take warning?" + +"Of what?" + +"Of me." + +"Warning not to be attracted by you, do you mean, Estella?" + +"Do I mean! If you don't know what I mean, you are blind." + +I should have replied that Love was commonly reputed blind, but for the +reason that I always was restrained--and this was not the least of my +miseries--by a feeling that it was ungenerous to press myself upon her, +when she knew that she could not choose but obey Miss Havisham. My +dread always was, that this knowledge on her part laid me under a heavy +disadvantage with her pride, and made me the subject of a rebellious +struggle in her bosom. + +"At any rate," said I, "I have no warning given me just now, for you +wrote to me to come to you, this time." + +"That's true," said Estella, with a cold careless smile that always +chilled me. + +After looking at the twilight without, for a little while, she went on +to say:-- + +"The time has come round when Miss Havisham wishes to have me for a day +at Satis. You are to take me there, and bring me back, if you will. She +would rather I did not travel alone, and objects to receiving my maid, +for she has a sensitive horror of being talked of by such people. Can +you take me?" + +"Can I take you, Estella!" + +"You can then? The day after to-morrow, if you please. You are to pay +all charges out of my purse, You hear the condition of your going?" + +"And must obey," said I. + +This was all the preparation I received for that visit, or for others +like it; Miss Havisham never wrote to me, nor had I ever so much as seen +her handwriting. We went down on the next day but one, and we found her +in the room where I had first beheld her, and it is needless to add that +there was no change in Satis House. + +She was even more dreadfully fond of Estella than she had been when +I last saw them together; I repeat the word advisedly, for there was +something positively dreadful in the energy of her looks and embraces. +She hung upon Estella's beauty, hung upon her words, hung upon her +gestures, and sat mumbling her own trembling fingers while she looked at +her, as though she were devouring the beautiful creature she had reared. + +From Estella she looked at me, with a searching glance that seemed to +pry into my heart and probe its wounds. "How does she use you, Pip; how +does she use you?" she asked me again, with her witch-like eagerness, +even in Estella's hearing. But, when we sat by her flickering fire +at night, she was most weird; for then, keeping Estella's hand drawn +through her arm and clutched in her own hand, she extorted from her, +by dint of referring back to what Estella had told her in her regular +letters, the names and conditions of the men whom she had fascinated; +and as Miss Havisham dwelt upon this roll, with the intensity of a mind +mortally hurt and diseased, she sat with her other hand on her crutch +stick, and her chin on that, and her wan bright eyes glaring at me, a +very spectre. + +I saw in this, wretched though it made me, and bitter the sense of +dependence and even of degradation that it awakened,--I saw in this that +Estella was set to wreak Miss Havisham's revenge on men, and that she +was not to be given to me until she had gratified it for a term. I saw +in this, a reason for her being beforehand assigned to me. Sending her +out to attract and torment and do mischief, Miss Havisham sent her with +the malicious assurance that she was beyond the reach of all admirers, +and that all who staked upon that cast were secured to lose. I saw in +this that I, too, was tormented by a perversion of ingenuity, even while +the prize was reserved for me. I saw in this the reason for my being +staved off so long and the reason for my late guardian's declining to +commit himself to the formal knowledge of such a scheme. In a word, I +saw in this Miss Havisham as I had her then and there before my eyes, +and always had had her before my eyes; and I saw in this, the distinct +shadow of the darkened and unhealthy house in which her life was hidden +from the sun. + +The candles that lighted that room of hers were placed in sconces on +the wall. They were high from the ground, and they burnt with the steady +dulness of artificial light in air that is seldom renewed. As I looked +round at them, and at the pale gloom they made, and at the stopped +clock, and at the withered articles of bridal dress upon the table and +the ground, and at her own awful figure with its ghostly reflection +thrown large by the fire upon the ceiling and the wall, I saw in +everything the construction that my mind had come to, repeated and +thrown back to me. My thoughts passed into the great room across the +landing where the table was spread, and I saw it written, as it were, in +the falls of the cobwebs from the centre-piece, in the crawlings of the +spiders on the cloth, in the tracks of the mice as they betook their +little quickened hearts behind the panels, and in the gropings and +pausings of the beetles on the floor. + +It happened on the occasion of this visit that some sharp words arose +between Estella and Miss Havisham. It was the first time I had ever seen +them opposed. + +We were seated by the fire, as just now described, and Miss Havisham +still had Estella's arm drawn through her own, and still clutched +Estella's hand in hers, when Estella gradually began to detach herself. +She had shown a proud impatience more than once before, and had rather +endured that fierce affection than accepted or returned it. + +"What!" said Miss Havisham, flashing her eyes upon her, "are you tired +of me?" + +"Only a little tired of myself," replied Estella, disengaging her arm, +and moving to the great chimney-piece, where she stood looking down at +the fire. + +"Speak the truth, you ingrate!" cried Miss Havisham, passionately +striking her stick upon the floor; "you are tired of me." + +Estella looked at her with perfect composure, and again looked down +at the fire. Her graceful figure and her beautiful face expressed a +self-possessed indifference to the wild heat of the other, that was +almost cruel. + +"You stock and stone!" exclaimed Miss Havisham. "You cold, cold heart!" + +"What?" said Estella, preserving her attitude of indifference as she +leaned against the great chimney-piece and only moving her eyes; "do you +reproach me for being cold? You?" + +"Are you not?" was the fierce retort. + +"You should know," said Estella. "I am what you have made me. Take +all the praise, take all the blame; take all the success, take all the +failure; in short, take me." + +"O, look at her, look at her!" cried Miss Havisham, bitterly; "Look at +her so hard and thankless, on the hearth where she was reared! Where I +took her into this wretched breast when it was first bleeding from its +stabs, and where I have lavished years of tenderness upon her!" + +"At least I was no party to the compact," said Estella, "for if I could +walk and speak, when it was made, it was as much as I could do. But what +would you have? You have been very good to me, and I owe everything to +you. What would you have?" + +"Love," replied the other. + +"You have it." + +"I have not," said Miss Havisham. + +"Mother by adoption," retorted Estella, never departing from the easy +grace of her attitude, never raising her voice as the other did, never +yielding either to anger or tenderness,--"mother by adoption, I have +said that I owe everything to you. All I possess is freely yours. All +that you have given me, is at your command to have again. Beyond that, I +have nothing. And if you ask me to give you, what you never gave me, my +gratitude and duty cannot do impossibilities." + +"Did I never give her love!" cried Miss Havisham, turning wildly to me. +"Did I never give her a burning love, inseparable from jealousy at all +times, and from sharp pain, while she speaks thus to me! Let her call me +mad, let her call me mad!" + +"Why should I call you mad," returned Estella, "I, of all people? Does +any one live, who knows what set purposes you have, half as well as I +do? Does any one live, who knows what a steady memory you have, half +as well as I do? I who have sat on this same hearth on the little stool +that is even now beside you there, learning your lessons and looking up +into your face, when your face was strange and frightened me!" + +"Soon forgotten!" moaned Miss Havisham. "Times soon forgotten!" + +"No, not forgotten," retorted Estella,--"not forgotten, but treasured up +in my memory. When have you found me false to your teaching? When have +you found me unmindful of your lessons? When have you found me giving +admission here," she touched her bosom with her hand, "to anything that +you excluded? Be just to me." + +"So proud, so proud!" moaned Miss Havisham, pushing away her gray hair +with both her hands. + +"Who taught me to be proud?" returned Estella. "Who praised me when I +learnt my lesson?" + +"So hard, so hard!" moaned Miss Havisham, with her former action. + +"Who taught me to be hard?" returned Estella. "Who praised me when I +learnt my lesson?" + +"But to be proud and hard to me!" Miss Havisham quite shrieked, as she +stretched out her arms. "Estella, Estella, Estella, to be proud and hard +to me!" + +Estella looked at her for a moment with a kind of calm wonder, but was +not otherwise disturbed; when the moment was past, she looked down at +the fire again. + +"I cannot think," said Estella, raising her eyes after a silence "why +you should be so unreasonable when I come to see you after a separation. +I have never forgotten your wrongs and their causes. I have never been +unfaithful to you or your schooling. I have never shown any weakness +that I can charge myself with." + +"Would it be weakness to return my love?" exclaimed Miss Havisham. "But +yes, yes, she would call it so!" + +"I begin to think," said Estella, in a musing way, after another moment +of calm wonder, "that I almost understand how this comes about. If you +had brought up your adopted daughter wholly in the dark confinement of +these rooms, and had never let her know that there was such a thing as +the daylight by which she had never once seen your face,--if you had +done that, and then, for a purpose had wanted her to understand the +daylight and know all about it, you would have been disappointed and +angry?" + +Miss Havisham, with her head in her hands, sat making a low moaning, and +swaying herself on her chair, but gave no answer. + +"Or," said Estella,--"which is a nearer case,--if you had taught her, +from the dawn of her intelligence, with your utmost energy and might, +that there was such a thing as daylight, but that it was made to be her +enemy and destroyer, and she must always turn against it, for it had +blighted you and would else blight her;--if you had done this, and then, +for a purpose, had wanted her to take naturally to the daylight and she +could not do it, you would have been disappointed and angry?" + +Miss Havisham sat listening (or it seemed so, for I could not see her +face), but still made no answer. + +"So," said Estella, "I must be taken as I have been made. The success is +not mine, the failure is not mine, but the two together make me." + +Miss Havisham had settled down, I hardly knew how, upon the floor, among +the faded bridal relics with which it was strewn. I took advantage of +the moment--I had sought one from the first--to leave the room, after +beseeching Estella's attention to her, with a movement of my hand. When +I left, Estella was yet standing by the great chimney-piece, just as she +had stood throughout. Miss Havisham's gray hair was all adrift upon the +ground, among the other bridal wrecks, and was a miserable sight to see. + +It was with a depressed heart that I walked in the starlight for an +hour and more, about the courtyard, and about the brewery, and about +the ruined garden. When I at last took courage to return to the room, I +found Estella sitting at Miss Havisham's knee, taking up some stitches +in one of those old articles of dress that were dropping to pieces, and +of which I have often been reminded since by the faded tatters of old +banners that I have seen hanging up in cathedrals. Afterwards, Estella +and I played at cards, as of yore,--only we were skilful now, and played +French games,--and so the evening wore away, and I went to bed. + +I lay in that separate building across the courtyard. It was the first +time I had ever lain down to rest in Satis House, and sleep refused to +come near me. A thousand Miss Havishams haunted me. She was on this side +of my pillow, on that, at the head of the bed, at the foot, behind the +half-opened door of the dressing-room, in the dressing-room, in the room +overhead, in the room beneath,--everywhere. At last, when the night was +slow to creep on towards two o'clock, I felt that I absolutely could no +longer bear the place as a place to lie down in, and that I must get up. +I therefore got up and put on my clothes, and went out across the yard +into the long stone passage, designing to gain the outer courtyard and +walk there for the relief of my mind. But I was no sooner in the passage +than I extinguished my candle; for I saw Miss Havisham going along it +in a ghostly manner, making a low cry. I followed her at a distance, +and saw her go up the staircase. She carried a bare candle in her hand, +which she had probably taken from one of the sconces in her own room, +and was a most unearthly object by its light. Standing at the bottom +of the staircase, I felt the mildewed air of the feast-chamber, without +seeing her open the door, and I heard her walking there, and so across +into her own room, and so across again into that, never ceasing the low +cry. After a time, I tried in the dark both to get out, and to go back, +but I could do neither until some streaks of day strayed in and showed +me where to lay my hands. During the whole interval, whenever I went to +the bottom of the staircase, I heard her footstep, saw her light pass +above, and heard her ceaseless low cry. + +Before we left next day, there was no revival of the difference between +her and Estella, nor was it ever revived on any similar occasion; and +there were four similar occasions, to the best of my remembrance. Nor, +did Miss Havisham's manner towards Estella in anywise change, except +that I believed it to have something like fear infused among its former +characteristics. + +It is impossible to turn this leaf of my life, without putting Bentley +Drummle's name upon it; or I would, very gladly. + +On a certain occasion when the Finches were assembled in force, and when +good feeling was being promoted in the usual manner by nobody's agreeing +with anybody else, the presiding Finch called the Grove to order, +forasmuch as Mr. Drummle had not yet toasted a lady; which, according +to the solemn constitution of the society, it was the brute's turn to +do that day. I thought I saw him leer in an ugly way at me while the +decanters were going round, but as there was no love lost between us, +that might easily be. What was my indignant surprise when he called upon +the company to pledge him to "Estella!" + +"Estella who?" said I. + +"Never you mind," retorted Drummle. + +"Estella of where?" said I. "You are bound to say of where." Which he +was, as a Finch. + +"Of Richmond, gentlemen," said Drummle, putting me out of the question, +"and a peerless beauty." + +Much he knew about peerless beauties, a mean, miserable idiot! I +whispered Herbert. + +"I know that lady," said Herbert, across the table, when the toast had +been honored. + +"Do you?" said Drummle. + +"And so do I," I added, with a scarlet face. + +"Do you?" said Drummle. "O, Lord!" + +This was the only retort--except glass or crockery--that the heavy +creature was capable of making; but, I became as highly incensed by it +as if it had been barbed with wit, and I immediately rose in my place +and said that I could not but regard it as being like the honorable +Finch's impudence to come down to that Grove,--we always talked +about coming down to that Grove, as a neat Parliamentary turn of +expression,--down to that Grove, proposing a lady of whom he knew +nothing. Mr. Drummle, upon this, starting up, demanded what I meant by +that? Whereupon I made him the extreme reply that I believed he knew +where I was to be found. + +Whether it was possible in a Christian country to get on without blood, +after this, was a question on which the Finches were divided. The debate +upon it grew so lively, indeed, that at least six more honorable members +told six more, during the discussion, that they believed they knew where +they were to be found. However, it was decided at last (the Grove being +a Court of Honor) that if Mr. Drummle would bring never so slight +a certificate from the lady, importing that he had the honor of her +acquaintance, Mr. Pip must express his regret, as a gentleman and a +Finch, for "having been betrayed into a warmth which." Next day was +appointed for the production (lest our honor should take cold from +delay), and next day Drummle appeared with a polite little avowal in +Estella's hand, that she had had the honor of dancing with him several +times. This left me no course but to regret that I had been "betrayed +into a warmth which," and on the whole to repudiate, as untenable, the +idea that I was to be found anywhere. Drummle and I then sat snorting +at one another for an hour, while the Grove engaged in indiscriminate +contradiction, and finally the promotion of good feeling was declared to +have gone ahead at an amazing rate. + +I tell this lightly, but it was no light thing to me. For, I cannot +adequately express what pain it gave me to think that Estella should +show any favor to a contemptible, clumsy, sulky booby, so very far below +the average. To the present moment, I believe it to have been referable +to some pure fire of generosity and disinterestedness in my love for +her, that I could not endure the thought of her stooping to that hound. +No doubt I should have been miserable whomsoever she had favored; but +a worthier object would have caused me a different kind and degree of +distress. + +It was easy for me to find out, and I did soon find out, that Drummle +had begun to follow her closely, and that she allowed him to do it. A +little while, and he was always in pursuit of her, and he and I crossed +one another every day. He held on, in a dull persistent way, and Estella +held him on; now with encouragement, now with discouragement, now almost +flattering him, now openly despising him, now knowing him very well, now +scarcely remembering who he was. + +The Spider, as Mr. Jaggers had called him, was used to lying in wait, +however, and had the patience of his tribe. Added to that, he had a +blockhead confidence in his money and in his family greatness, +which sometimes did him good service,--almost taking the place of +concentration and determined purpose. So, the Spider, doggedly watching +Estella, outwatched many brighter insects, and would often uncoil +himself and drop at the right nick of time. + +At a certain Assembly Ball at Richmond (there used to be Assembly Balls +at most places then), where Estella had outshone all other beauties, +this blundering Drummle so hung about her, and with so much toleration +on her part, that I resolved to speak to her concerning him. I took the +next opportunity; which was when she was waiting for Mrs. Blandley to +take her home, and was sitting apart among some flowers, ready to go. +I was with her, for I almost always accompanied them to and from such +places. + +"Are you tired, Estella?" + +"Rather, Pip." + +"You should be." + +"Say rather, I should not be; for I have my letter to Satis House to +write, before I go to sleep." + +"Recounting to-night's triumph?" said I. "Surely a very poor one, +Estella." + +"What do you mean? I didn't know there had been any." + +"Estella," said I, "do look at that fellow in the corner yonder, who is +looking over here at us." + +"Why should I look at him?" returned Estella, with her eyes on me +instead. "What is there in that fellow in the corner yonder,--to use +your words,--that I need look at?" + +"Indeed, that is the very question I want to ask you," said I. "For he +has been hovering about you all night." + +"Moths, and all sorts of ugly creatures," replied Estella, with a glance +towards him, "hover about a lighted candle. Can the candle help it?" + +"No," I returned; "but cannot the Estella help it?" + +"Well!" said she, laughing, after a moment, "perhaps. Yes. Anything you +like." + +"But, Estella, do hear me speak. It makes me wretched that you should +encourage a man so generally despised as Drummle. You know he is +despised." + +"Well?" said she. + +"You know he is as ungainly within as without. A deficient, +ill-tempered, lowering, stupid fellow." + +"Well?" said she. + +"You know he has nothing to recommend him but money and a ridiculous +roll of addle-headed predecessors; now, don't you?" + +"Well?" said she again; and each time she said it, she opened her lovely +eyes the wider. + +To overcome the difficulty of getting past that monosyllable, I took it +from her, and said, repeating it with emphasis, "Well! Then, that is why +it makes me wretched." + +Now, if I could have believed that she favored Drummle with any idea of +making me-me--wretched, I should have been in better heart about it; +but in that habitual way of hers, she put me so entirely out of the +question, that I could believe nothing of the kind. + +"Pip," said Estella, casting her glance over the room, "don't be foolish +about its effect on you. It may have its effect on others, and may be +meant to have. It's not worth discussing." + +"Yes it is," said I, "because I cannot bear that people should say, 'she +throws away her graces and attractions on a mere boor, the lowest in the +crowd.'" + +"I can bear it," said Estella. + +"Oh! don't be so proud, Estella, and so inflexible." + +"Calls me proud and inflexible in this breath!" said Estella, opening +her hands. "And in his last breath reproached me for stooping to a +boor!" + +"There is no doubt you do," said I, something hurriedly, "for I have +seen you give him looks and smiles this very night, such as you never +give to--me." + +"Do you want me then," said Estella, turning suddenly with a fixed and +serious, if not angry, look, "to deceive and entrap you?" + +"Do you deceive and entrap him, Estella?" + +"Yes, and many others,--all of them but you. Here is Mrs. Brandley. I'll +say no more." + +* * + +And now that I have given the one chapter to the theme that so filled my +heart, and so often made it ache and ache again, I pass on unhindered, +to the event that had impended over me longer yet; the event that had +begun to be prepared for, before I knew that the world held Estella, +and in the days when her baby intelligence was receiving its first +distortions from Miss Havisham's wasting hands. + +In the Eastern story, the heavy slab that was to fall on the bed of +state in the flush of conquest was slowly wrought out of the quarry, the +tunnel for the rope to hold it in its place was slowly carried through +the leagues of rock, the slab was slowly raised and fitted in the roof, +the rope was rove to it and slowly taken through the miles of hollow to +the great iron ring. All being made ready with much labor, and the hour +come, the sultan was aroused in the dead of the night, and the sharpened +axe that was to sever the rope from the great iron ring was put into his +hand, and he struck with it, and the rope parted and rushed away, and +the ceiling fell. So, in my case; all the work, near and afar, that +tended to the end, had been accomplished; and in an instant the blow was +struck, and the roof of my stronghold dropped upon me. + + + + +Chapter XXXIX + +I was three-and-twenty years of age. Not another word had I heard to +enlighten me on the subject of my expectations, and my twenty-third +birthday was a week gone. We had left Barnard's Inn more than a year, +and lived in the Temple. Our chambers were in Garden-court, down by the +river. + +Mr. Pocket and I had for some time parted company as to our original +relations, though we continued on the best terms. Notwithstanding my +inability to settle to anything,--which I hope arose out of the restless +and incomplete tenure on which I held my means,--I had a taste for +reading, and read regularly so many hours a day. That matter of +Herbert's was still progressing, and everything with me was as I have +brought it down to the close of the last preceding chapter. + +Business had taken Herbert on a journey to Marseilles. I was alone, and +had a dull sense of being alone. Dispirited and anxious, long hoping +that to-morrow or next week would clear my way, and long disappointed, I +sadly missed the cheerful face and ready response of my friend. + +It was wretched weather; stormy and wet, stormy and wet; and mud, mud, +mud, deep in all the streets. Day after day, a vast heavy veil had been +driving over London from the East, and it drove still, as if in the East +there were an Eternity of cloud and wind. So furious had been the gusts, +that high buildings in town had had the lead stripped off their roofs; +and in the country, trees had been torn up, and sails of windmills +carried away; and gloomy accounts had come in from the coast, of +shipwreck and death. Violent blasts of rain had accompanied these rages +of wind, and the day just closed as I sat down to read had been the +worst of all. + +Alterations have been made in that part of the Temple since that time, +and it has not now so lonely a character as it had then, nor is it so +exposed to the river. We lived at the top of the last house, and the +wind rushing up the river shook the house that night, like discharges +of cannon, or breakings of a sea. When the rain came with it and dashed +against the windows, I thought, raising my eyes to them as they +rocked, that I might have fancied myself in a storm-beaten lighthouse. +Occasionally, the smoke came rolling down the chimney as though it could +not bear to go out into such a night; and when I set the doors open and +looked down the staircase, the staircase lamps were blown out; and when +I shaded my face with my hands and looked through the black windows +(opening them ever so little was out of the question in the teeth of +such wind and rain), I saw that the lamps in the court were blown out, +and that the lamps on the bridges and the shore were shuddering, and +that the coal-fires in barges on the river were being carried away +before the wind like red-hot splashes in the rain. + +I read with my watch upon the table, purposing to close my book +at eleven o'clock. As I shut it, Saint Paul's, and all the many +church-clocks in the City--some leading, some accompanying, some +following--struck that hour. The sound was curiously flawed by the wind; +and I was listening, and thinking how the wind assailed and tore it, +when I heard a footstep on the stair. + +What nervous folly made me start, and awfully connect it with the +footstep of my dead sister, matters not. It was past in a moment, and I +listened again, and heard the footstep stumble in coming on. +Remembering then, that the staircase-lights were blown out, I took up +my reading-lamp and went out to the stair-head. Whoever was below had +stopped on seeing my lamp, for all was quiet. + +"There is some one down there, is there not?" I called out, looking +down. + +"Yes," said a voice from the darkness beneath. + +"What floor do you want?" + +"The top. Mr. Pip." + +"That is my name.--There is nothing the matter?" + +"Nothing the matter," returned the voice. And the man came on. + +I stood with my lamp held out over the stair-rail, and he came slowly +within its light. It was a shaded lamp, to shine upon a book, and its +circle of light was very contracted; so that he was in it for a mere +instant, and then out of it. In the instant, I had seen a face that was +strange to me, looking up with an incomprehensible air of being touched +and pleased by the sight of me. + +Moving the lamp as the man moved, I made out that he was substantially +dressed, but roughly, like a voyager by sea. That he had long iron-gray +hair. That his age was about sixty. That he was a muscular man, strong +on his legs, and that he was browned and hardened by exposure to +weather. As he ascended the last stair or two, and the light of my lamp +included us both, I saw, with a stupid kind of amazement, that he was +holding out both his hands to me. + +"Pray what is your business?" I asked him. + +"My business?" he repeated, pausing. "Ah! Yes. I will explain my +business, by your leave." + +"Do you wish to come in?" + +"Yes," he replied; "I wish to come in, master." + +I had asked him the question inhospitably enough, for I resented the +sort of bright and gratified recognition that still shone in his face. +I resented it, because it seemed to imply that he expected me to respond +to it. But I took him into the room I had just left, and, having set the +lamp on the table, asked him as civilly as I could to explain himself. + +He looked about him with the strangest air,--an air of wondering +pleasure, as if he had some part in the things he admired,--and he +pulled off a rough outer coat, and his hat. Then, I saw that his head +was furrowed and bald, and that the long iron-gray hair grew only on +its sides. But, I saw nothing that in the least explained him. On the +contrary, I saw him next moment, once more holding out both his hands to +me. + +"What do you mean?" said I, half suspecting him to be mad. + +He stopped in his looking at me, and slowly rubbed his right hand over +his head. "It's disapinting to a man," he said, in a coarse broken +voice, "arter having looked for'ard so distant, and come so fur; but +you're not to blame for that,--neither on us is to blame for that. I'll +speak in half a minute. Give me half a minute, please." + +He sat down on a chair that stood before the fire, and covered his +forehead with his large brown veinous hands. I looked at him attentively +then, and recoiled a little from him; but I did not know him. + +"There's no one nigh," said he, looking over his shoulder; "is there?" + +"Why do you, a stranger coming into my rooms at this time of the night, +ask that question?" said I. + +"You're a game one," he returned, shaking his head at me with a +deliberate affection, at once most unintelligible and most exasperating; +"I'm glad you've grow'd up, a game one! But don't catch hold of me. +You'd be sorry arterwards to have done it." + +I relinquished the intention he had detected, for I knew him! Even yet +I could not recall a single feature, but I knew him! If the wind and +the rain had driven away the intervening years, had scattered all the +intervening objects, had swept us to the churchyard where we first stood +face to face on such different levels, I could not have known my convict +more distinctly than I knew him now as he sat in the chair before the +fire. No need to take a file from his pocket and show it to me; no need +to take the handkerchief from his neck and twist it round his head; no +need to hug himself with both his arms, and take a shivering turn across +the room, looking back at me for recognition. I knew him before he gave +me one of those aids, though, a moment before, I had not been conscious +of remotely suspecting his identity. + +He came back to where I stood, and again held out both his hands. +Not knowing what to do,--for, in my astonishment I had lost my +self-possession,--I reluctantly gave him my hands. He grasped them +heartily, raised them to his lips, kissed them, and still held them. + +"You acted noble, my boy," said he. "Noble, Pip! And I have never forgot +it!" + +At a change in his manner as if he were even going to embrace me, I laid +a hand upon his breast and put him away. + +"Stay!" said I. "Keep off! If you are grateful to me for what I did when +I was a little child, I hope you have shown your gratitude by mending +your way of life. If you have come here to thank me, it was not +necessary. Still, however you have found me out, there must be something +good in the feeling that has brought you here, and I will not repulse +you; but surely you must understand that--I--" + +My attention was so attracted by the singularity of his fixed look at +me, that the words died away on my tongue. + +"You was a saying," he observed, when we had confronted one another +in silence, "that surely I must understand. What, surely must I +understand?" + +"That I cannot wish to renew that chance intercourse with you of long +ago, under these different circumstances. I am glad to believe you have +repented and recovered yourself. I am glad to tell you so. I am glad +that, thinking I deserve to be thanked, you have come to thank me. But +our ways are different ways, none the less. You are wet, and you look +weary. Will you drink something before you go?" + +He had replaced his neckerchief loosely, and had stood, keenly observant +of me, biting a long end of it. "I think," he answered, still with the +end at his mouth and still observant of me, "that I will drink (I thank +you) afore I go." + +There was a tray ready on a side-table. I brought it to the table +near the fire, and asked him what he would have? He touched one of the +bottles without looking at it or speaking, and I made him some hot rum +and water. I tried to keep my hand steady while I did so, but his look +at me as he leaned back in his chair with the long draggled end of his +neckerchief between his teeth--evidently forgotten--made my hand very +difficult to master. When at last I put the glass to him, I saw with +amazement that his eyes were full of tears. + +Up to this time I had remained standing, not to disguise that I wished +him gone. But I was softened by the softened aspect of the man, and felt +a touch of reproach. "I hope," said I, hurriedly putting something into +a glass for myself, and drawing a chair to the table, "that you will not +think I spoke harshly to you just now. I had no intention of doing it, +and I am sorry for it if I did. I wish you well and happy!" + +As I put my glass to my lips, he glanced with surprise at the end of his +neckerchief, dropping from his mouth when he opened it, and stretched +out his hand. I gave him mine, and then he drank, and drew his sleeve +across his eyes and forehead. + +"How are you living?" I asked him. + +"I've been a sheep-farmer, stock-breeder, other trades besides, away in +the new world," said he; "many a thousand mile of stormy water off from +this." + +"I hope you have done well?" + +"I've done wonderfully well. There's others went out alonger me as has +done well too, but no man has done nigh as well as me. I'm famous for +it." + +"I am glad to hear it." + +"I hope to hear you say so, my dear boy." + +Without stopping to try to understand those words or the tone in which +they were spoken, I turned off to a point that had just come into my +mind. + +"Have you ever seen a messenger you once sent to me," I inquired, "since +he undertook that trust?" + +"Never set eyes upon him. I warn't likely to it." + +"He came faithfully, and he brought me the two one-pound notes. I was +a poor boy then, as you know, and to a poor boy they were a little +fortune. But, like you, I have done well since, and you must let me pay +them back. You can put them to some other poor boy's use." I took out my +purse. + +He watched me as I laid my purse upon the table and opened it, and he +watched me as I separated two one-pound notes from its contents. They +were clean and new, and I spread them out and handed them over to +him. Still watching me, he laid them one upon the other, folded them +long-wise, gave them a twist, set fire to them at the lamp, and dropped +the ashes into the tray. + +"May I make so bold," he said then, with a smile that was like a frown, +and with a frown that was like a smile, "as ask you how you have done +well, since you and me was out on them lone shivering marshes?" + +"How?" + +"Ah!" + +He emptied his glass, got up, and stood at the side of the fire, with +his heavy brown hand on the mantel-shelf. He put a foot up to the bars, +to dry and warm it, and the wet boot began to steam; but, he neither +looked at it, nor at the fire, but steadily looked at me. It was only +now that I began to tremble. + +When my lips had parted, and had shaped some words that were +without sound, I forced myself to tell him (though I could not do it +distinctly), that I had been chosen to succeed to some property. + +"Might a mere warmint ask what property?" said he. + +I faltered, "I don't know." + +"Might a mere warmint ask whose property?" said he. + +I faltered again, "I don't know." + +"Could I make a guess, I wonder," said the Convict, "at your income +since you come of age! As to the first figure now. Five?" + +With my heart beating like a heavy hammer of disordered action, I rose +out of my chair, and stood with my hand upon the back of it, looking +wildly at him. + +"Concerning a guardian," he went on. "There ought to have been some +guardian, or such-like, whiles you was a minor. Some lawyer, maybe. As +to the first letter of that lawyer's name now. Would it be J?" + +All the truth of my position came flashing on me; and its +disappointments, dangers, disgraces, consequences of all kinds, rushed +in in such a multitude that I was borne down by them and had to struggle +for every breath I drew. + +"Put it," he resumed, "as the employer of that lawyer whose name begun +with a J, and might be Jaggers,--put it as he had come over sea to +Portsmouth, and had landed there, and had wanted to come on to you. +'However, you have found me out,' you says just now. Well! However, did +I find you out? Why, I wrote from Portsmouth to a person in London, for +particulars of your address. That person's name? Why, Wemmick." + +I could not have spoken one word, though it had been to save my life. +I stood, with a hand on the chair-back and a hand on my breast, where +I seemed to be suffocating,--I stood so, looking wildly at him, until I +grasped at the chair, when the room began to surge and turn. He caught +me, drew me to the sofa, put me up against the cushions, and bent on one +knee before me, bringing the face that I now well remembered, and that I +shuddered at, very near to mine. + +"Yes, Pip, dear boy, I've made a gentleman on you! It's me wot has +done it! I swore that time, sure as ever I earned a guinea, that guinea +should go to you. I swore arterwards, sure as ever I spec'lated and got +rich, you should get rich. I lived rough, that you should live smooth; +I worked hard, that you should be above work. What odds, dear boy? Do I +tell it, fur you to feel a obligation? Not a bit. I tell it, fur you to +know as that there hunted dunghill dog wot you kep life in, got his head +so high that he could make a gentleman,--and, Pip, you're him!" + +The abhorrence in which I held the man, the dread I had of him, the +repugnance with which I shrank from him, could not have been exceeded if +he had been some terrible beast. + +"Look'ee here, Pip. I'm your second father. You're my son,--more to me +nor any son. I've put away money, only for you to spend. When I was a +hired-out shepherd in a solitary hut, not seeing no faces but faces of +sheep till I half forgot wot men's and women's faces wos like, I see +yourn. I drops my knife many a time in that hut when I was a-eating my +dinner or my supper, and I says, 'Here's the boy again, a looking at +me whiles I eats and drinks!' I see you there a many times, as plain as +ever I see you on them misty marshes. 'Lord strike me dead!' I says each +time,--and I goes out in the air to say it under the open heavens,--'but +wot, if I gets liberty and money, I'll make that boy a gentleman!' And +I done it. Why, look at you, dear boy! Look at these here lodgings +o'yourn, fit for a lord! A lord? Ah! You shall show money with lords for +wagers, and beat 'em!" + +In his heat and triumph, and in his knowledge that I had been nearly +fainting, he did not remark on my reception of all this. It was the one +grain of relief I had. + +"Look'ee here!" he went on, taking my watch out of my pocket, and +turning towards him a ring on my finger, while I recoiled from his +touch as if he had been a snake, "a gold 'un and a beauty: that's a +gentleman's, I hope! A diamond all set round with rubies; that's a +gentleman's, I hope! Look at your linen; fine and beautiful! Look at +your clothes; better ain't to be got! And your books too," turning his +eyes round the room, "mounting up, on their shelves, by hundreds! And +you read 'em; don't you? I see you'd been a reading of 'em when I come +in. Ha, ha, ha! You shall read 'em to me, dear boy! And if they're in +foreign languages wot I don't understand, I shall be just as proud as if +I did." + +Again he took both my hands and put them to his lips, while my blood ran +cold within me. + +"Don't you mind talking, Pip," said he, after again drawing his sleeve +over his eyes and forehead, as the click came in his throat which I well +remembered,--and he was all the more horrible to me that he was so much +in earnest; "you can't do better nor keep quiet, dear boy. You ain't +looked slowly forward to this as I have; you wosn't prepared for this as +I wos. But didn't you never think it might be me?" + +"O no, no, no," I returned, "Never, never!" + +"Well, you see it wos me, and single-handed. Never a soul in it but my +own self and Mr. Jaggers." + +"Was there no one else?" I asked. + +"No," said he, with a glance of surprise: "who else should there be? +And, dear boy, how good looking you have growed! There's bright eyes +somewheres--eh? Isn't there bright eyes somewheres, wot you love the +thoughts on?" + +O Estella, Estella! + +"They shall be yourn, dear boy, if money can buy 'em. Not that a +gentleman like you, so well set up as you, can't win 'em off of his own +game; but money shall back you! Let me finish wot I was a telling you, +dear boy. From that there hut and that there hiring-out, I got money +left me by my master (which died, and had been the same as me), and got +my liberty and went for myself. In every single thing I went for, I went +for you. 'Lord strike a blight upon it,' I says, wotever it was I went +for, 'if it ain't for him!' It all prospered wonderful. As I giv' you +to understand just now, I'm famous for it. It was the money left me, and +the gains of the first few year wot I sent home to Mr. Jaggers--all for +you--when he first come arter you, agreeable to my letter." + +O that he had never come! That he had left me at the forge,--far from +contented, yet, by comparison happy! + +"And then, dear boy, it was a recompense to me, look'ee here, to know in +secret that I was making a gentleman. The blood horses of them colonists +might fling up the dust over me as I was walking; what do I say? I says +to myself, 'I'm making a better gentleman nor ever you'll be!' When +one of 'em says to another, 'He was a convict, a few year ago, and is a +ignorant common fellow now, for all he's lucky,' what do I say? I says +to myself, 'If I ain't a gentleman, nor yet ain't got no learning, I'm +the owner of such. All on you owns stock and land; which on you owns a +brought-up London gentleman?' This way I kep myself a going. And this +way I held steady afore my mind that I would for certain come one day +and see my boy, and make myself known to him, on his own ground." + +He laid his hand on my shoulder. I shuddered at the thought that for +anything I knew, his hand might be stained with blood. + +"It warn't easy, Pip, for me to leave them parts, nor yet it warn't +safe. But I held to it, and the harder it was, the stronger I held, for +I was determined, and my mind firm made up. At last I done it. Dear boy, +I done it!" + +I tried to collect my thoughts, but I was stunned. Throughout, I had +seemed to myself to attend more to the wind and the rain than to him; +even now, I could not separate his voice from those voices, though those +were loud and his was silent. + +"Where will you put me?" he asked, presently. "I must be put somewheres, +dear boy." + +"To sleep?" said I. + +"Yes. And to sleep long and sound," he answered; "for I've been +sea-tossed and sea-washed, months and months." + +"My friend and companion," said I, rising from the sofa, "is absent; you +must have his room." + +"He won't come back to-morrow; will he?" + +"No," said I, answering almost mechanically, in spite of my utmost +efforts; "not to-morrow." + +"Because, look'ee here, dear boy," he said, dropping his voice, and +laying a long finger on my breast in an impressive manner, "caution is +necessary." + +"How do you mean? Caution?" + +"By G----, it's Death!" + +"What's death?" + +"I was sent for life. It's death to come back. There's been overmuch +coming back of late years, and I should of a certainty be hanged if +took." + +Nothing was needed but this; the wretched man, after loading wretched me +with his gold and silver chains for years, had risked his life to come +to me, and I held it there in my keeping! If I had loved him instead +of abhorring him; if I had been attracted to him by the strongest +admiration and affection, instead of shrinking from him with the +strongest repugnance; it could have been no worse. On the contrary, it +would have been better, for his preservation would then have naturally +and tenderly addressed my heart. + +My first care was to close the shutters, so that no light might be seen +from without, and then to close and make fast the doors. While I did so, +he stood at the table drinking rum and eating biscuit; and when I saw +him thus engaged, I saw my convict on the marshes at his meal again. It +almost seemed to me as if he must stoop down presently, to file at his +leg. + +When I had gone into Herbert's room, and had shut off any other +communication between it and the staircase than through the room in +which our conversation had been held, I asked him if he would go to bed? +He said yes, but asked me for some of my "gentleman's linen" to put +on in the morning. I brought it out, and laid it ready for him, and my +blood again ran cold when he again took me by both hands to give me good +night. + +I got away from him, without knowing how I did it, and mended the fire +in the room where we had been together, and sat down by it, afraid to go +to bed. For an hour or more, I remained too stunned to think; and it +was not until I began to think, that I began fully to know how wrecked I +was, and how the ship in which I had sailed was gone to pieces. + +Miss Havisham's intentions towards me, all a mere dream; Estella not +designed for me; I only suffered in Satis House as a convenience, a +sting for the greedy relations, a model with a mechanical heart to +practise on when no other practice was at hand; those were the first +smarts I had. But, sharpest and deepest pain of all,--it was for the +convict, guilty of I knew not what crimes, and liable to be taken out +of those rooms where I sat thinking, and hanged at the Old Bailey door, +that I had deserted Joe. + +I would not have gone back to Joe now, I would not have gone back to +Biddy now, for any consideration; simply, I suppose, because my sense of +my own worthless conduct to them was greater than every consideration. +No wisdom on earth could have given me the comfort that I should have +derived from their simplicity and fidelity; but I could never, never, +undo what I had done. + +In every rage of wind and rush of rain, I heard pursuers. Twice, I could +have sworn there was a knocking and whispering at the outer door. With +these fears upon me, I began either to imagine or recall that I had had +mysterious warnings of this man's approach. That, for weeks gone by, I +had passed faces in the streets which I had thought like his. That these +likenesses had grown more numerous, as he, coming over the sea, had +drawn nearer. That his wicked spirit had somehow sent these messengers +to mine, and that now on this stormy night he was as good as his word, +and with me. + +Crowding up with these reflections came the reflection that I had seen +him with my childish eyes to be a desperately violent man; that I had +heard that other convict reiterate that he had tried to murder him; that +I had seen him down in the ditch tearing and fighting like a wild +beast. Out of such remembrances I brought into the light of the fire a +half-formed terror that it might not be safe to be shut up there with +him in the dead of the wild solitary night. This dilated until it filled +the room, and impelled me to take a candle and go in and look at my +dreadful burden. + +He had rolled a handkerchief round his head, and his face was set and +lowering in his sleep. But he was asleep, and quietly too, though he had +a pistol lying on the pillow. Assured of this, I softly removed the key +to the outside of his door, and turned it on him before I again sat down +by the fire. Gradually I slipped from the chair and lay on the floor. +When I awoke without having parted in my sleep with the perception of +my wretchedness, the clocks of the Eastward churches were striking five, +the candles were wasted out, the fire was dead, and the wind and rain +intensified the thick black darkness. + +THIS IS THE END OF THE SECOND STAGE OF PIP'S EXPECTATIONS. + + + + +Chapter XL + +It was fortunate for me that I had to take precautions to ensure (so far +as I could) the safety of my dreaded visitor; for, this thought pressing +on me when I awoke, held other thoughts in a confused concourse at a +distance. + +The impossibility of keeping him concealed in the chambers was +self-evident. It could not be done, and the attempt to do it would +inevitably engender suspicion. True, I had no Avenger in my service now, +but I was looked after by an inflammatory old female, assisted by an +animated rag-bag whom she called her niece, and to keep a room secret +from them would be to invite curiosity and exaggeration. They both had +weak eyes, which I had long attributed to their chronically looking in +at keyholes, and they were always at hand when not wanted; indeed that +was their only reliable quality besides larceny. Not to get up a mystery +with these people, I resolved to announce in the morning that my uncle +had unexpectedly come from the country. + +This course I decided on while I was yet groping about in the darkness +for the means of getting a light. Not stumbling on the means after all, +I was fain to go out to the adjacent Lodge and get the watchman there to +come with his lantern. Now, in groping my way down the black staircase I +fell over something, and that something was a man crouching in a corner. + +As the man made no answer when I asked him what he did there, but eluded +my touch in silence, I ran to the Lodge and urged the watchman to come +quickly; telling him of the incident on the way back. The wind being as +fierce as ever, we did not care to endanger the light in the lantern by +rekindling the extinguished lamps on the staircase, but we examined the +staircase from the bottom to the top and found no one there. It then +occurred to me as possible that the man might have slipped into my +rooms; so, lighting my candle at the watchman's, and leaving him +standing at the door, I examined them carefully, including the room in +which my dreaded guest lay asleep. All was quiet, and assuredly no other +man was in those chambers. + +It troubled me that there should have been a lurker on the stairs, on +that night of all nights in the year, and I asked the watchman, on the +chance of eliciting some hopeful explanation as I handed him a dram +at the door, whether he had admitted at his gate any gentleman who had +perceptibly been dining out? Yes, he said; at different times of the +night, three. One lived in Fountain Court, and the other two lived in +the Lane, and he had seen them all go home. Again, the only other man +who dwelt in the house of which my chambers formed a part had been in +the country for some weeks, and he certainly had not returned in the +night, because we had seen his door with his seal on it as we came +upstairs. + +"The night being so bad, sir," said the watchman, as he gave me back +my glass, "uncommon few have come in at my gate. Besides them three +gentlemen that I have named, I don't call to mind another since about +eleven o'clock, when a stranger asked for you." + +"My uncle," I muttered. "Yes." + +"You saw him, sir?" + +"Yes. Oh yes." + +"Likewise the person with him?" + +"Person with him!" I repeated. + +"I judged the person to be with him," returned the watchman. "The person +stopped, when he stopped to make inquiry of me, and the person took this +way when he took this way." + +"What sort of person?" + +The watchman had not particularly noticed; he should say a working +person; to the best of his belief, he had a dust-colored kind of clothes +on, under a dark coat. The watchman made more light of the matter than I +did, and naturally; not having my reason for attaching weight to it. + +When I had got rid of him, which I thought it well to do without +prolonging explanations, my mind was much troubled by these two +circumstances taken together. Whereas they were easy of innocent +solution apart,--as, for instance, some diner out or diner at home, +who had not gone near this watchman's gate, might have strayed to my +staircase and dropped asleep there,--and my nameless visitor might have +brought some one with him to show him the way,--still, joined, they had +an ugly look to one as prone to distrust and fear as the changes of a +few hours had made me. + +I lighted my fire, which burnt with a raw pale flare at that time of the +morning, and fell into a doze before it. I seemed to have been dozing a +whole night when the clocks struck six. As there was full an hour and +a half between me and daylight, I dozed again; now, waking up uneasily, +with prolix conversations about nothing, in my ears; now, making thunder +of the wind in the chimney; at length, falling off into a profound sleep +from which the daylight woke me with a start. + +All this time I had never been able to consider my own situation, nor +could I do so yet. I had not the power to attend to it. I was greatly +dejected and distressed, but in an incoherent wholesale sort of way. +As to forming any plan for the future, I could as soon have formed an +elephant. When I opened the shutters and looked out at the wet wild +morning, all of a leaden hue; when I walked from room to room; when I +sat down again shivering, before the fire, waiting for my laundress to +appear; I thought how miserable I was, but hardly knew why, or how long +I had been so, or on what day of the week I made the reflection, or even +who I was that made it. + +At last, the old woman and the niece came in,--the latter with a head +not easily distinguishable from her dusty broom,--and testified surprise +at sight of me and the fire. To whom I imparted how my uncle had come in +the night and was then asleep, and how the breakfast preparations were +to be modified accordingly. Then I washed and dressed while they knocked +the furniture about and made a dust; and so, in a sort of dream +or sleep-waking, I found myself sitting by the fire again, waiting +for--Him--to come to breakfast. + +By and by, his door opened and he came out. I could not bring myself to +bear the sight of him, and I thought he had a worse look by daylight. + +"I do not even know," said I, speaking low as he took his seat at the +table, "by what name to call you. I have given out that you are my +uncle." + +"That's it, dear boy! Call me uncle." + +"You assumed some name, I suppose, on board ship?" + +"Yes, dear boy. I took the name of Provis." + +"Do you mean to keep that name?" + +"Why, yes, dear boy, it's as good as another,--unless you'd like +another." + +"What is your real name?" I asked him in a whisper. + +"Magwitch," he answered, in the same tone; "chrisen'd Abel." + +"What were you brought up to be?" + +"A warmint, dear boy." + +He answered quite seriously, and used the word as if it denoted some +profession. + +"When you came into the Temple last night--" said I, pausing to wonder +whether that could really have been last night, which seemed so long +ago. + +"Yes, dear boy?" + +"When you came in at the gate and asked the watchman the way here, had +you any one with you?" + +"With me? No, dear boy." + +"But there was some one there?" + +"I didn't take particular notice," he said, dubiously, "not knowing the +ways of the place. But I think there was a person, too, come in alonger +me." + +"Are you known in London?" + +"I hope not!" said he, giving his neck a jerk with his forefinger that +made me turn hot and sick. + +"Were you known in London, once?" + +"Not over and above, dear boy. I was in the provinces mostly." + +"Were you--tried--in London?" + +"Which time?" said he, with a sharp look. + +"The last time." + +He nodded. "First knowed Mr. Jaggers that way. Jaggers was for me." + +It was on my lips to ask him what he was tried for, but he took up +a knife, gave it a flourish, and with the words, "And what I done is +worked out and paid for!" fell to at his breakfast. + +He ate in a ravenous way that was very disagreeable, and all his actions +were uncouth, noisy, and greedy. Some of his teeth had failed him since +I saw him eat on the marshes, and as he turned his food in his mouth, +and turned his head sideways to bring his strongest fangs to bear upon +it, he looked terribly like a hungry old dog. If I had begun with any +appetite, he would have taken it away, and I should have sat much as +I did,--repelled from him by an insurmountable aversion, and gloomily +looking at the cloth. + +"I'm a heavy grubber, dear boy," he said, as a polite kind of apology +when he made an end of his meal, "but I always was. If it had been in +my constitution to be a lighter grubber, I might ha' got into lighter +trouble. Similarly, I must have my smoke. When I was first hired out as +shepherd t'other side the world, it's my belief I should ha' turned into +a molloncolly-mad sheep myself, if I hadn't a had my smoke." + +As he said so, he got up from table, and putting his hand into the +breast of the pea-coat he wore, brought out a short black pipe, and a +handful of loose tobacco of the kind that is called Negro-head. Having +filled his pipe, he put the surplus tobacco back again, as if his pocket +were a drawer. Then, he took a live coal from the fire with the tongs, +and lighted his pipe at it, and then turned round on the hearth-rug with +his back to the fire, and went through his favorite action of holding +out both his hands for mine. + +"And this," said he, dandling my hands up and down in his, as he puffed +at his pipe,--"and this is the gentleman what I made! The real genuine +One! It does me good fur to look at you, Pip. All I stip'late, is, to +stand by and look at you, dear boy!" + +I released my hands as soon as I could, and found that I was beginning +slowly to settle down to the contemplation of my condition. What I was +chained to, and how heavily, became intelligible to me, as I heard his +hoarse voice, and sat looking up at his furrowed bald head with its iron +gray hair at the sides. + +"I mustn't see my gentleman a footing it in the mire of the streets; +there mustn't be no mud on his boots. My gentleman must have horses, +Pip! Horses to ride, and horses to drive, and horses for his servant +to ride and drive as well. Shall colonists have their horses (and blood +'uns, if you please, good Lord!) and not my London gentleman? No, no. +We'll show 'em another pair of shoes than that, Pip; won't us?" + +He took out of his pocket a great thick pocket-book, bursting with +papers, and tossed it on the table. + +"There's something worth spending in that there book, dear boy. It's +yourn. All I've got ain't mine; it's yourn. Don't you be afeerd on it. +There's more where that come from. I've come to the old country fur +to see my gentleman spend his money like a gentleman. That'll be my +pleasure. My pleasure 'ull be fur to see him do it. And blast you all!" +he wound up, looking round the room and snapping his fingers once with +a loud snap, "blast you every one, from the judge in his wig, to the +colonist a stirring up the dust, I'll show a better gentleman than the +whole kit on you put together!" + +"Stop!" said I, almost in a frenzy of fear and dislike, "I want to speak +to you. I want to know what is to be done. I want to know how you are to +be kept out of danger, how long you are going to stay, what projects you +have." + +"Look'ee here, Pip," said he, laying his hand on my arm in a suddenly +altered and subdued manner; "first of all, look'ee here. I forgot myself +half a minute ago. What I said was low; that's what it was; low. Look'ee +here, Pip. Look over it. I ain't a going to be low." + +"First," I resumed, half groaning, "what precautions can be taken +against your being recognized and seized?" + +"No, dear boy," he said, in the same tone as before, "that don't +go first. Lowness goes first. I ain't took so many year to make a +gentleman, not without knowing what's due to him. Look'ee here, Pip. I +was low; that's what I was; low. Look over it, dear boy." + +Some sense of the grimly-ludicrous moved me to a fretful laugh, as I +replied, "I have looked over it. In Heaven's name, don't harp upon it!" + +"Yes, but look'ee here," he persisted. "Dear boy, I ain't come so fur, +not fur to be low. Now, go on, dear boy. You was a saying--" + +"How are you to be guarded from the danger you have incurred?" + +"Well, dear boy, the danger ain't so great. Without I was informed +agen, the danger ain't so much to signify. There's Jaggers, and there's +Wemmick, and there's you. Who else is there to inform?" + +"Is there no chance person who might identify you in the street?" said +I. + +"Well," he returned, "there ain't many. Nor yet I don't intend to +advertise myself in the newspapers by the name of A.M. come back from +Botany Bay; and years have rolled away, and who's to gain by it? Still, +look'ee here, Pip. If the danger had been fifty times as great, I should +ha' come to see you, mind you, just the same." + +"And how long do you remain?" + +"How long?" said he, taking his black pipe from his mouth, and dropping +his jaw as he stared at me. "I'm not a going back. I've come for good." + +"Where are you to live?" said I. "What is to be done with you? Where +will you be safe?" + +"Dear boy," he returned, "there's disguising wigs can be bought +for money, and there's hair powder, and spectacles, and black +clothes,--shorts and what not. Others has done it safe afore, and what +others has done afore, others can do agen. As to the where and how of +living, dear boy, give me your own opinions on it." + +"You take it smoothly now," said I, "but you were very serious last +night, when you swore it was Death." + +"And so I swear it is Death," said he, putting his pipe back in his +mouth, "and Death by the rope, in the open street not fur from this, and +it's serious that you should fully understand it to be so. What then, +when that's once done? Here I am. To go back now 'ud be as bad as to +stand ground--worse. Besides, Pip, I'm here, because I've meant it by +you, years and years. As to what I dare, I'm a old bird now, as has +dared all manner of traps since first he was fledged, and I'm not afeerd +to perch upon a scarecrow. If there's Death hid inside of it, there is, +and let him come out, and I'll face him, and then I'll believe in him +and not afore. And now let me have a look at my gentleman agen." + +Once more, he took me by both hands and surveyed me with an air of +admiring proprietorship: smoking with great complacency all the while. + +It appeared to me that I could do no better than secure him some +quiet lodging hard by, of which he might take possession when Herbert +returned: whom I expected in two or three days. That the secret must +be confided to Herbert as a matter of unavoidable necessity, even if I +could have put the immense relief I should derive from sharing it with +him out of the question, was plain to me. But it was by no means so +plain to Mr. Provis (I resolved to call him by that name), who reserved +his consent to Herbert's participation until he should have seen him +and formed a favorable judgment of his physiognomy. "And even then, dear +boy," said he, pulling a greasy little clasped black Testament out of +his pocket, "we'll have him on his oath." + +To state that my terrible patron carried this little black book about +the world solely to swear people on in cases of emergency, would be to +state what I never quite established; but this I can say, that I never +knew him put it to any other use. The book itself had the appearance of +having been stolen from some court of justice, and perhaps his knowledge +of its antecedents, combined with his own experience in that wise, gave +him a reliance on its powers as a sort of legal spell or charm. On this +first occasion of his producing it, I recalled how he had made me swear +fidelity in the churchyard long ago, and how he had described himself +last night as always swearing to his resolutions in his solitude. + +As he was at present dressed in a seafaring slop suit, in which he +looked as if he had some parrots and cigars to dispose of, I next +discussed with him what dress he should wear. He cherished an +extraordinary belief in the virtues of "shorts" as a disguise, and had +in his own mind sketched a dress for himself that would have made +him something between a dean and a dentist. It was with considerable +difficulty that I won him over to the assumption of a dress more like a +prosperous farmer's; and we arranged that he should cut his hair close, +and wear a little powder. Lastly, as he had not yet been seen by the +laundress or her niece, he was to keep himself out of their view until +his change of dress was made. + +It would seem a simple matter to decide on these precautions; but in my +dazed, not to say distracted, state, it took so long, that I did not +get out to further them until two or three in the afternoon. He was to +remain shut up in the chambers while I was gone, and was on no account +to open the door. + +There being to my knowledge a respectable lodging-house in Essex Street, +the back of which looked into the Temple, and was almost within hail of +my windows, I first of all repaired to that house, and was so fortunate +as to secure the second floor for my uncle, Mr. Provis. I then went from +shop to shop, making such purchases as were necessary to the change in +his appearance. This business transacted, I turned my face, on my own +account, to Little Britain. Mr. Jaggers was at his desk, but, seeing me +enter, got up immediately and stood before his fire. + +"Now, Pip," said he, "be careful." + +"I will, sir," I returned. For, coming along I had thought well of what +I was going to say. + +"Don't commit yourself," said Mr. Jaggers, "and don't commit any one. +You understand--any one. Don't tell me anything: I don't want to know +anything; I am not curious." + +Of course I saw that he knew the man was come. + +"I merely want, Mr. Jaggers," said I, "to assure myself that what I have +been told is true. I have no hope of its being untrue, but at least I +may verify it." + +Mr. Jaggers nodded. "But did you say 'told' or 'informed'?" he asked +me, with his head on one side, and not looking at me, but looking in +a listening way at the floor. "Told would seem to imply verbal +communication. You can't have verbal communication with a man in New +South Wales, you know." + +"I will say, informed, Mr. Jaggers." + +"Good." + +"I have been informed by a person named Abel Magwitch, that he is the +benefactor so long unknown to me." + +"That is the man," said Mr. Jaggers, "in New South Wales." + +"And only he?" said I. + +"And only he," said Mr. Jaggers. + +"I am not so unreasonable, sir, as to think you at all responsible for +my mistakes and wrong conclusions; but I always supposed it was Miss +Havisham." + +"As you say, Pip," returned Mr. Jaggers, turning his eyes upon +me coolly, and taking a bite at his forefinger, "I am not at all +responsible for that." + +"And yet it looked so like it, sir," I pleaded with a downcast heart. + +"Not a particle of evidence, Pip," said Mr. Jaggers, shaking his head +and gathering up his skirts. "Take nothing on its looks; take everything +on evidence. There's no better rule." + +"I have no more to say," said I, with a sigh, after standing silent for +a little while. "I have verified my information, and there's an end." + +"And Magwitch--in New South Wales--having at last disclosed himself," +said Mr. Jaggers, "you will comprehend, Pip, how rigidly throughout +my communication with you, I have always adhered to the strict line of +fact. There has never been the least departure from the strict line of +fact. You are quite aware of that?" + +"Quite, sir." + +"I communicated to Magwitch--in New South Wales--when he first wrote to +me--from New South Wales--the caution that he must not expect me ever to +deviate from the strict line of fact. I also communicated to him another +caution. He appeared to me to have obscurely hinted in his letter at +some distant idea he had of seeing you in England here. I cautioned +him that I must hear no more of that; that he was not at all likely to +obtain a pardon; that he was expatriated for the term of his natural +life; and that his presenting himself in this country would be an act of +felony, rendering him liable to the extreme penalty of the law. I gave +Magwitch that caution," said Mr. Jaggers, looking hard at me; "I wrote +it to New South Wales. He guided himself by it, no doubt." + +"No doubt," said I. + +"I have been informed by Wemmick," pursued Mr. Jaggers, still looking +hard at me, "that he has received a letter, under date Portsmouth, from +a colonist of the name of Purvis, or--" + +"Or Provis," I suggested. + +"Or Provis--thank you, Pip. Perhaps it is Provis? Perhaps you know it's +Provis?" + +"Yes," said I. + +"You know it's Provis. A letter, under date Portsmouth, from a colonist +of the name of Provis, asking for the particulars of your address, on +behalf of Magwitch. Wemmick sent him the particulars, I understand, by +return of post. Probably it is through Provis that you have received the +explanation of Magwitch--in New South Wales?" + +"It came through Provis," I replied. + +"Good day, Pip," said Mr. Jaggers, offering his hand; "glad to have +seen you. In writing by post to Magwitch--in New South Wales--or in +communicating with him through Provis, have the goodness to mention that +the particulars and vouchers of our long account shall be sent to you, +together with the balance; for there is still a balance remaining. Good +day, Pip!" + +We shook hands, and he looked hard at me as long as he could see me. I +turned at the door, and he was still looking hard at me, while the two +vile casts on the shelf seemed to be trying to get their eyelids open, +and to force out of their swollen throats, "O, what a man he is!" + +Wemmick was out, and though he had been at his desk he could have done +nothing for me. I went straight back to the Temple, where I found +the terrible Provis drinking rum and water and smoking negro-head, in +safety. + +Next day the clothes I had ordered all came home, and he put them on. +Whatever he put on, became him less (it dismally seemed to me) than what +he had worn before. To my thinking, there was something in him that made +it hopeless to attempt to disguise him. The more I dressed him and the +better I dressed him, the more he looked like the slouching fugitive on +the marshes. This effect on my anxious fancy was partly referable, no +doubt, to his old face and manner growing more familiar to me; but I +believe too that he dragged one of his legs as if there were still a +weight of iron on it, and that from head to foot there was Convict in +the very grain of the man. + +The influences of his solitary hut-life were upon him besides, and +gave him a savage air that no dress could tame; added to these were the +influences of his subsequent branded life among men, and, crowning all, +his consciousness that he was dodging and hiding now. In all his ways of +sitting and standing, and eating and drinking,--of brooding about in a +high-shouldered reluctant style,--of taking out his great horn-handled +jackknife and wiping it on his legs and cutting his food,--of +lifting light glasses and cups to his lips, as if they were clumsy +pannikins,--of chopping a wedge off his bread, and soaking up with it +the last fragments of gravy round and round his plate, as if to make the +most of an allowance, and then drying his finger-ends on it, and then +swallowing it,--in these ways and a thousand other small nameless +instances arising every minute in the day, there was Prisoner, Felon, +Bondsman, plain as plain could be. + +It had been his own idea to wear that touch of powder, and I had +conceded the powder after overcoming the shorts. But I can compare the +effect of it, when on, to nothing but the probable effect of rouge upon +the dead; so awful was the manner in which everything in him that it was +most desirable to repress, started through that thin layer of pretence, +and seemed to come blazing out at the crown of his head. It was +abandoned as soon as tried, and he wore his grizzled hair cut short. + +Words cannot tell what a sense I had, at the same time, of the dreadful +mystery that he was to me. When he fell asleep of an evening, with his +knotted hands clenching the sides of the easy-chair, and his bald head +tattooed with deep wrinkles falling forward on his breast, I would sit +and look at him, wondering what he had done, and loading him with all +the crimes in the Calendar, until the impulse was powerful on me to +start up and fly from him. Every hour so increased my abhorrence of +him, that I even think I might have yielded to this impulse in the first +agonies of being so haunted, notwithstanding all he had done for me and +the risk he ran, but for the knowledge that Herbert must soon come back. +Once, I actually did start out of bed in the night, and begin to dress +myself in my worst clothes, hurriedly intending to leave him there with +everything else I possessed, and enlist for India as a private soldier. + +I doubt if a ghost could have been more terrible to me, up in those +lonely rooms in the long evenings and long nights, with the wind and the +rain always rushing by. A ghost could not have been taken and hanged on +my account, and the consideration that he could be, and the dread that +he would be, were no small addition to my horrors. When he was not +asleep, or playing a complicated kind of Patience with a ragged pack of +cards of his own,--a game that I never saw before or since, and in which +he recorded his winnings by sticking his jackknife into the table,--when +he was not engaged in either of these pursuits, he would ask me to +read to him,--"Foreign language, dear boy!" While I complied, he, not +comprehending a single word, would stand before the fire surveying me +with the air of an Exhibitor, and I would see him, between the fingers +of the hand with which I shaded my face, appealing in dumb show to +the furniture to take notice of my proficiency. The imaginary student +pursued by the misshapen creature he had impiously made, was not more +wretched than I, pursued by the creature who had made me, and recoiling +from him with a stronger repulsion, the more he admired me and the +fonder he was of me. + +This is written of, I am sensible, as if it had lasted a year. It lasted +about five days. Expecting Herbert all the time, I dared not go out, +except when I took Provis for an airing after dark. At length, one +evening when dinner was over and I had dropped into a slumber quite +worn out,--for my nights had been agitated and my rest broken by fearful +dreams,--I was roused by the welcome footstep on the staircase. Provis, +who had been asleep too, staggered up at the noise I made, and in an +instant I saw his jackknife shining in his hand. + +"Quiet! It's Herbert!" I said; and Herbert came bursting in, with the +airy freshness of six hundred miles of France upon him. + +"Handel, my dear fellow, how are you, and again how are you, and again +how are you? I seem to have been gone a twelvemonth! Why, so I must have +been, for you have grown quite thin and pale! Handel, my--Halloa! I beg +your pardon." + +He was stopped in his running on and in his shaking hands with me, by +seeing Provis. Provis, regarding him with a fixed attention, was slowly +putting up his jackknife, and groping in another pocket for something +else. + +"Herbert, my dear friend," said I, shutting the double doors, while +Herbert stood staring and wondering, "something very strange has +happened. This is--a visitor of mine." + +"It's all right, dear boy!" said Provis coming forward, with his little +clasped black book, and then addressing himself to Herbert. "Take it in +your right hand. Lord strike you dead on the spot, if ever you split in +any way sumever! Kiss it!" + +"Do so, as he wishes it," I said to Herbert. So, Herbert, looking at +me with a friendly uneasiness and amazement, complied, and Provis +immediately shaking hands with him, said, "Now you're on your oath, you +know. And never believe me on mine, if Pip shan't make a gentleman on +you!" + + + + +Chapter XLI + +In vain should I attempt to describe the astonishment and disquiet +of Herbert, when he and I and Provis sat down before the fire, and I +recounted the whole of the secret. Enough, that I saw my own feelings +reflected in Herbert's face, and not least among them, my repugnance +towards the man who had done so much for me. + +What would alone have set a division between that man and us, if there +had been no other dividing circumstance, was his triumph in my story. +Saving his troublesome sense of having been "low" on one occasion since +his return,--on which point he began to hold forth to Herbert, the +moment my revelation was finished,--he had no perception of the +possibility of my finding any fault with my good fortune. His boast that +he had made me a gentleman, and that he had come to see me support the +character on his ample resources, was made for me quite as much as for +himself. And that it was a highly agreeable boast to both of us, +and that we must both be very proud of it, was a conclusion quite +established in his own mind. + +"Though, look'ee here, Pip's comrade," he said to Herbert, after having +discoursed for some time, "I know very well that once since I come +back--for half a minute--I've been low. I said to Pip, I knowed as I had +been low. But don't you fret yourself on that score. I ain't made Pip a +gentleman, and Pip ain't a going to make you a gentleman, not fur me not +to know what's due to ye both. Dear boy, and Pip's comrade, you two may +count upon me always having a gen-teel muzzle on. Muzzled I have been +since that half a minute when I was betrayed into lowness, muzzled I am +at the present time, muzzled I ever will be." + +Herbert said, "Certainly," but looked as if there were no specific +consolation in this, and remained perplexed and dismayed. We were +anxious for the time when he would go to his lodging and leave us +together, but he was evidently jealous of leaving us together, and sat +late. It was midnight before I took him round to Essex Street, and +saw him safely in at his own dark door. When it closed upon him, I +experienced the first moment of relief I had known since the night of +his arrival. + +Never quite free from an uneasy remembrance of the man on the stairs, +I had always looked about me in taking my guest out after dark, and in +bringing him back; and I looked about me now. Difficult as it is in a +large city to avoid the suspicion of being watched, when the mind is +conscious of danger in that regard, I could not persuade myself that any +of the people within sight cared about my movements. The few who were +passing passed on their several ways, and the street was empty when I +turned back into the Temple. Nobody had come out at the gate with us, +nobody went in at the gate with me. As I crossed by the fountain, I saw +his lighted back windows looking bright and quiet, and, when I stood for +a few moments in the doorway of the building where I lived, before going +up the stairs, Garden Court was as still and lifeless as the staircase +was when I ascended it. + +Herbert received me with open arms, and I had never felt before so +blessedly what it is to have a friend. When he had spoken some sound +words of sympathy and encouragement, we sat down to consider the +question, What was to be done? + +The chair that Provis had occupied still remaining where it had +stood,--for he had a barrack way with him of hanging about one spot, in +one unsettled manner, and going through one round of observances with +his pipe and his negro-head and his jackknife and his pack of cards, +and what not, as if it were all put down for him on a slate,--I say his +chair remaining where it had stood, Herbert unconsciously took it, but +next moment started out of it, pushed it away, and took another. He had +no occasion to say after that that he had conceived an aversion for my +patron, neither had I occasion to confess my own. We interchanged that +confidence without shaping a syllable. + +"What," said I to Herbert, when he was safe in another chair,--"what is +to be done?" + +"My poor dear Handel," he replied, holding his head, "I am too stunned +to think." + +"So was I, Herbert, when the blow first fell. Still, something must be +done. He is intent upon various new expenses,--horses, and carriages, +and lavish appearances of all kinds. He must be stopped somehow." + +"You mean that you can't accept--" + +"How can I?" I interposed, as Herbert paused. "Think of him! Look at +him!" + +An involuntary shudder passed over both of us. + +"Yet I am afraid the dreadful truth is, Herbert, that he is attached to +me, strongly attached to me. Was there ever such a fate!" + +"My poor dear Handel," Herbert repeated. + +"Then," said I, "after all, stopping short here, never taking another +penny from him, think what I owe him already! Then again: I am heavily +in debt,--very heavily for me, who have now no expectations,--and I have +been bred to no calling, and I am fit for nothing." + +"Well, well, well!" Herbert remonstrated. "Don't say fit for nothing." + +"What am I fit for? I know only one thing that I am fit for, and that +is, to go for a soldier. And I might have gone, my dear Herbert, but for +the prospect of taking counsel with your friendship and affection." + +Of course I broke down there: and of course Herbert, beyond seizing a +warm grip of my hand, pretended not to know it. + +"Anyhow, my dear Handel," said he presently, "soldiering won't do. If +you were to renounce this patronage and these favors, I suppose you +would do so with some faint hope of one day repaying what you have +already had. Not very strong, that hope, if you went soldiering! +Besides, it's absurd. You would be infinitely better in Clarriker's +house, small as it is. I am working up towards a partnership, you know." + +Poor fellow! He little suspected with whose money. + +"But there is another question," said Herbert. "This is an ignorant, +determined man, who has long had one fixed idea. More than that, he +seems to me (I may misjudge him) to be a man of a desperate and fierce +character." + +"I know he is," I returned. "Let me tell you what evidence I have seen +of it." And I told him what I had not mentioned in my narrative, of that +encounter with the other convict. + +"See, then," said Herbert; "think of this! He comes here at the peril +of his life, for the realization of his fixed idea. In the moment of +realization, after all his toil and waiting, you cut the ground from +under his feet, destroy his idea, and make his gains worthless to him. +Do you see nothing that he might do, under the disappointment?" + +"I have seen it, Herbert, and dreamed of it, ever since the fatal night +of his arrival. Nothing has been in my thoughts so distinctly as his +putting himself in the way of being taken." + +"Then you may rely upon it," said Herbert, "that there would be great +danger of his doing it. That is his power over you as long as he remains +in England, and that would be his reckless course if you forsook him." + +I was so struck by the horror of this idea, which had weighed upon +me from the first, and the working out of which would make me regard +myself, in some sort, as his murderer, that I could not rest in my +chair, but began pacing to and fro. I said to Herbert, meanwhile, that +even if Provis were recognized and taken, in spite of himself, I should +be wretched as the cause, however innocently. Yes; even though I was so +wretched in having him at large and near me, and even though I would +far rather have worked at the forge all the days of my life than I would +ever have come to this! + +But there was no staving off the question, What was to be done? + +"The first and the main thing to be done," said Herbert, "is to get him +out of England. You will have to go with him, and then he may be induced +to go." + +"But get him where I will, could I prevent his coming back?" + +"My good Handel, is it not obvious that with Newgate in the next street, +there must be far greater hazard in your breaking your mind to him and +making him reckless, here, than elsewhere? If a pretext to get him away +could be made out of that other convict, or out of anything else in his +life, now." + +"There, again!" said I, stopping before Herbert, with my open hands held +out, as if they contained the desperation of the case. "I know nothing +of his life. It has almost made me mad to sit here of a night and see +him before me, so bound up with my fortunes and misfortunes, and yet so +unknown to me, except as the miserable wretch who terrified me two days +in my childhood!" + +Herbert got up, and linked his arm in mine, and we slowly walked to and +fro together, studying the carpet. + +"Handel," said Herbert, stopping, "you feel convinced that you can take +no further benefits from him; do you?" + +"Fully. Surely you would, too, if you were in my place?" + +"And you feel convinced that you must break with him?" + +"Herbert, can you ask me?" + +"And you have, and are bound to have, that tenderness for the life he +has risked on your account, that you must save him, if possible, from +throwing it away. Then you must get him out of England before you stir a +finger to extricate yourself. That done, extricate yourself, in Heaven's +name, and we'll see it out together, dear old boy." + +It was a comfort to shake hands upon it, and walk up and down again, +with only that done. + +"Now, Herbert," said I, "with reference to gaining some knowledge of +his history. There is but one way that I know of. I must ask him point +blank." + +"Yes. Ask him," said Herbert, "when we sit at breakfast in the morning." +For he had said, on taking leave of Herbert, that he would come to +breakfast with us. + +With this project formed, we went to bed. I had the wildest dreams +concerning him, and woke unrefreshed; I woke, too, to recover the fear +which I had lost in the night, of his being found out as a returned +transport. Waking, I never lost that fear. + +He came round at the appointed time, took out his jackknife, and sat +down to his meal. He was full of plans "for his gentleman's coming out +strong, and like a gentleman," and urged me to begin speedily upon +the pocket-book which he had left in my possession. He considered the +chambers and his own lodging as temporary residences, and advised me to +look out at once for a "fashionable crib" near Hyde Park, in which he +could have "a shake-down." When he had made an end of his breakfast, +and was wiping his knife on his leg, I said to him, without a word of +preface,-- + +"After you were gone last night, I told my friend of the struggle that +the soldiers found you engaged in on the marshes, when we came up. You +remember?" + +"Remember!" said he. "I think so!" + +"We want to know something about that man--and about you. It is strange +to know no more about either, and particularly you, than I was able to +tell last night. Is not this as good a time as another for our knowing +more?" + +"Well!" he said, after consideration. "You're on your oath, you know, +Pip's comrade?" + +"Assuredly," replied Herbert. + +"As to anything I say, you know," he insisted. "The oath applies to +all." + +"I understand it to do so." + +"And look'ee here! Wotever I done is worked out and paid for," he +insisted again. + +"So be it." + +He took out his black pipe and was going to fill it with negro-head, +when, looking at the tangle of tobacco in his hand, he seemed to think +it might perplex the thread of his narrative. He put it back again, +stuck his pipe in a button-hole of his coat, spread a hand on each knee, +and after turning an angry eye on the fire for a few silent moments, +looked round at us and said what follows. + + + + +Chapter XLII + +"Dear boy and Pip's comrade. I am not a going fur to tell you my life +like a song, or a story-book. But to give it you short and handy, I'll +put it at once into a mouthful of English. In jail and out of jail, in +jail and out of jail, in jail and out of jail. There, you've got it. +That's my life pretty much, down to such times as I got shipped off, +arter Pip stood my friend. + +"I've been done everything to, pretty well--except hanged. I've been +locked up as much as a silver tea-kittle. I've been carted here and +carted there, and put out of this town, and put out of that town, and +stuck in the stocks, and whipped and worried and drove. I've no more +notion where I was born than you have--if so much. I first become aware +of myself down in Essex, a thieving turnips for my living. Summun had +run away from me--a man--a tinker--and he'd took the fire with him, and +left me wery cold. + +"I know'd my name to be Magwitch, chrisen'd Abel. How did I know +it? Much as I know'd the birds' names in the hedges to be chaffinch, +sparrer, thrush. I might have thought it was all lies together, only as +the birds' names come out true, I supposed mine did. + +"So fur as I could find, there warn't a soul that see young Abel +Magwitch, with us little on him as in him, but wot caught fright at him, +and either drove him off, or took him up. I was took up, took up, took +up, to that extent that I reg'larly grow'd up took up. + +"This is the way it was, that when I was a ragged little creetur as much +to be pitied as ever I see (not that I looked in the glass, for there +warn't many insides of furnished houses known to me), I got the name of +being hardened. 'This is a terrible hardened one,' they says to prison +wisitors, picking out me. 'May be said to live in jails, this boy.' Then +they looked at me, and I looked at them, and they measured my head, some +on 'em,--they had better a measured my stomach,--and others on 'em giv +me tracts what I couldn't read, and made me speeches what I couldn't +understand. They always went on agen me about the Devil. But what +the Devil was I to do? I must put something into my stomach, mustn't +I?--Howsomever, I'm a getting low, and I know what's due. Dear boy and +Pip's comrade, don't you be afeerd of me being low. + +"Tramping, begging, thieving, working sometimes when I could,--though +that warn't as often as you may think, till you put the question whether +you would ha' been over-ready to give me work yourselves,--a bit of a +poacher, a bit of a laborer, a bit of a wagoner, a bit of a haymaker, +a bit of a hawker, a bit of most things that don't pay and lead to +trouble, I got to be a man. A deserting soldier in a Traveller's Rest, +what lay hid up to the chin under a lot of taturs, learnt me to read; +and a travelling Giant what signed his name at a penny a time learnt me +to write. I warn't locked up as often now as formerly, but I wore out my +good share of key-metal still. + +"At Epsom races, a matter of over twenty years ago, I got acquainted wi' +a man whose skull I'd crack wi' this poker, like the claw of a lobster, +if I'd got it on this hob. His right name was Compeyson; and that's the +man, dear boy, what you see me a pounding in the ditch, according to +what you truly told your comrade arter I was gone last night. + +"He set up fur a gentleman, this Compeyson, and he'd been to a public +boarding-school and had learning. He was a smooth one to talk, and was +a dab at the ways of gentlefolks. He was good-looking too. It was the +night afore the great race, when I found him on the heath, in a booth +that I know'd on. Him and some more was a sitting among the tables when +I went in, and the landlord (which had a knowledge of me, and was a +sporting one) called him out, and said, 'I think this is a man that +might suit you,'--meaning I was. + +"Compeyson, he looks at me very noticing, and I look at him. He has a +watch and a chain and a ring and a breast-pin and a handsome suit of +clothes. + +"'To judge from appearances, you're out of luck,' says Compeyson to me. + +"'Yes, master, and I've never been in it much.' (I had come out of +Kingston Jail last on a vagrancy committal. Not but what it might have +been for something else; but it warn't.) + +"'Luck changes,' says Compeyson; 'perhaps yours is going to change.' + +"I says, 'I hope it may be so. There's room.' + +"'What can you do?' says Compeyson. + +"'Eat and drink,' I says; 'if you'll find the materials.' + +"Compeyson laughed, looked at me again very noticing, giv me five +shillings, and appointed me for next night. Same place. + +"I went to Compeyson next night, same place, and Compeyson took me on +to be his man and pardner. And what was Compeyson's business in which we +was to go pardners? Compeyson's business was the swindling, handwriting +forging, stolen bank-note passing, and such-like. All sorts of traps as +Compeyson could set with his head, and keep his own legs out of and get +the profits from and let another man in for, was Compeyson's business. +He'd no more heart than a iron file, he was as cold as death, and he had +the head of the Devil afore mentioned. + +"There was another in with Compeyson, as was called Arthur,--not as +being so chrisen'd, but as a surname. He was in a Decline, and was a +shadow to look at. Him and Compeyson had been in a bad thing with a +rich lady some years afore, and they'd made a pot of money by it; but +Compeyson betted and gamed, and he'd have run through the king's taxes. +So, Arthur was a dying, and a dying poor and with the horrors on him, +and Compeyson's wife (which Compeyson kicked mostly) was a having pity +on him when she could, and Compeyson was a having pity on nothing and +nobody. + +"I might a took warning by Arthur, but I didn't; and I won't pretend I +was partick'ler--for where 'ud be the good on it, dear boy and comrade? +So I begun wi' Compeyson, and a poor tool I was in his hands. Arthur +lived at the top of Compeyson's house (over nigh Brentford it was), and +Compeyson kept a careful account agen him for board and lodging, in case +he should ever get better to work it out. But Arthur soon settled the +account. The second or third time as ever I see him, he come a tearing +down into Compeyson's parlor late at night, in only a flannel gown, with +his hair all in a sweat, and he says to Compeyson's wife, 'Sally, she +really is upstairs alonger me, now, and I can't get rid of her. She's +all in white,' he says, 'wi' white flowers in her hair, and she's awful +mad, and she's got a shroud hanging over her arm, and she says she'll +put it on me at five in the morning.' + +"Says Compeyson: 'Why, you fool, don't you know she's got a living body? +And how should she be up there, without coming through the door, or in +at the window, and up the stairs?' + +"'I don't know how she's there,' says Arthur, shivering dreadful with +the horrors, 'but she's standing in the corner at the foot of the bed, +awful mad. And over where her heart's broke--you broke it!--there's +drops of blood.' + +"Compeyson spoke hardy, but he was always a coward. 'Go up alonger this +drivelling sick man,' he says to his wife, 'and Magwitch, lend her a +hand, will you?' But he never come nigh himself. + +"Compeyson's wife and me took him up to bed agen, and he raved most +dreadful. 'Why look at her!' he cries out. 'She's a shaking the shroud +at me! Don't you see her? Look at her eyes! Ain't it awful to see her so +mad?' Next he cries, 'She'll put it on me, and then I'm done for! Take +it away from her, take it away!' And then he catched hold of us, and kep +on a talking to her, and answering of her, till I half believed I see +her myself. + +"Compeyson's wife, being used to him, giv him some liquor to get the +horrors off, and by and by he quieted. 'O, she's gone! Has her keeper +been for her?' he says. 'Yes,' says Compeyson's wife. 'Did you tell him +to lock her and bar her in?' 'Yes.' 'And to take that ugly thing away +from her?' 'Yes, yes, all right.' 'You're a good creetur,' he says, +'don't leave me, whatever you do, and thank you!' + +"He rested pretty quiet till it might want a few minutes of five, and +then he starts up with a scream, and screams out, 'Here she is! She's +got the shroud again. She's unfolding it. She's coming out of the +corner. She's coming to the bed. Hold me, both on you--one of each +side--don't let her touch me with it. Hah! she missed me that time. +Don't let her throw it over my shoulders. Don't let her lift me up to +get it round me. She's lifting me up. Keep me down!' Then he lifted +himself up hard, and was dead. + +"Compeyson took it easy as a good riddance for both sides. Him and +me was soon busy, and first he swore me (being ever artful) on my own +book,--this here little black book, dear boy, what I swore your comrade +on. + +"Not to go into the things that Compeyson planned, and I done--which 'ud +take a week--I'll simply say to you, dear boy, and Pip's comrade, that +that man got me into such nets as made me his black slave. I was always +in debt to him, always under his thumb, always a working, always a +getting into danger. He was younger than me, but he'd got craft, and +he'd got learning, and he overmatched me five hundred times told and +no mercy. My Missis as I had the hard time wi'--Stop though! I ain't +brought her in--" + +He looked about him in a confused way, as if he had lost his place in +the book of his remembrance; and he turned his face to the fire, and +spread his hands broader on his knees, and lifted them off and put them +on again. + +"There ain't no need to go into it," he said, looking round once more. +"The time wi' Compeyson was a'most as hard a time as ever I had; that +said, all's said. Did I tell you as I was tried, alone, for misdemeanor, +while with Compeyson?" + +I answered, No. + +"Well!" he said, "I was, and got convicted. As to took up on suspicion, +that was twice or three times in the four or five year that it lasted; +but evidence was wanting. At last, me and Compeyson was both committed +for felony,--on a charge of putting stolen notes in circulation,--and +there was other charges behind. Compeyson says to me, 'Separate +defences, no communication,' and that was all. And I was so miserable +poor, that I sold all the clothes I had, except what hung on my back, +afore I could get Jaggers. + +"When we was put in the dock, I noticed first of all what a gentleman +Compeyson looked, wi' his curly hair and his black clothes and his white +pocket-handkercher, and what a common sort of a wretch I looked. When +the prosecution opened and the evidence was put short, aforehand, I +noticed how heavy it all bore on me, and how light on him. When the +evidence was giv in the box, I noticed how it was always me that had +come for'ard, and could be swore to, how it was always me that the money +had been paid to, how it was always me that had seemed to work the thing +and get the profit. But when the defence come on, then I see the plan +plainer; for, says the counsellor for Compeyson, 'My lord and gentlemen, +here you has afore you, side by side, two persons as your eyes can +separate wide; one, the younger, well brought up, who will be spoke to +as such; one, the elder, ill brought up, who will be spoke to as such; +one, the younger, seldom if ever seen in these here transactions, and +only suspected; t'other, the elder, always seen in 'em and always wi' his +guilt brought home. Can you doubt, if there is but one in it, which is +the one, and, if there is two in it, which is much the worst one?' And +such-like. And when it come to character, warn't it Compeyson as had +been to the school, and warn't it his schoolfellows as was in this +position and in that, and warn't it him as had been know'd by witnesses +in such clubs and societies, and nowt to his disadvantage? And warn't it +me as had been tried afore, and as had been know'd up hill and down dale +in Bridewells and Lock-Ups! And when it come to speech-making, warn't it +Compeyson as could speak to 'em wi' his face dropping every now and then +into his white pocket-handkercher,--ah! and wi' verses in his speech, +too,--and warn't it me as could only say, 'Gentlemen, this man at my +side is a most precious rascal'? And when the verdict come, warn't it +Compeyson as was recommended to mercy on account of good character and +bad company, and giving up all the information he could agen me, +and warn't it me as got never a word but Guilty? And when I says to +Compeyson, 'Once out of this court, I'll smash that face of yourn!' +ain't it Compeyson as prays the Judge to be protected, and gets two +turnkeys stood betwixt us? And when we're sentenced, ain't it him as +gets seven year, and me fourteen, and ain't it him as the Judge is +sorry for, because he might a done so well, and ain't it me as the Judge +perceives to be a old offender of wiolent passion, likely to come to +worse?" + +He had worked himself into a state of great excitement, but he checked +it, took two or three short breaths, swallowed as often, and stretching +out his hand towards me said, in a reassuring manner, "I ain't a going +to be low, dear boy!" + +He had so heated himself that he took out his handkerchief and wiped his +face and head and neck and hands, before he could go on. + +"I had said to Compeyson that I'd smash that face of his, and I swore +Lord smash mine! to do it. We was in the same prison-ship, but I +couldn't get at him for long, though I tried. At last I come behind him +and hit him on the cheek to turn him round and get a smashing one at +him, when I was seen and seized. The black-hole of that ship warn't +a strong one, to a judge of black-holes that could swim and dive. I +escaped to the shore, and I was a hiding among the graves there, envying +them as was in 'em and all over, when I first see my boy!" + +He regarded me with a look of affection that made him almost abhorrent +to me again, though I had felt great pity for him. + +"By my boy, I was giv to understand as Compeyson was out on them marshes +too. Upon my soul, I half believe he escaped in his terror, to get quit +of me, not knowing it was me as had got ashore. I hunted him down. I +smashed his face. 'And now,' says I 'as the worst thing I can do, caring +nothing for myself, I'll drag you back.' And I'd have swum off, towing +him by the hair, if it had come to that, and I'd a got him aboard +without the soldiers. + +"Of course he'd much the best of it to the last,--his character was so +good. He had escaped when he was made half wild by me and my murderous +intentions; and his punishment was light. I was put in irons, brought +to trial again, and sent for life. I didn't stop for life, dear boy and +Pip's comrade, being here." + +He wiped himself again, as he had done before, and then slowly took +his tangle of tobacco from his pocket, and plucked his pipe from his +button-hole, and slowly filled it, and began to smoke. + +"Is he dead?" I asked, after a silence. + +"Is who dead, dear boy?" + +"Compeyson." + +"He hopes I am, if he's alive, you may be sure," with a fierce look. "I +never heerd no more of him." + +Herbert had been writing with his pencil in the cover of a book. He +softly pushed the book over to me, as Provis stood smoking with his eyes +on the fire, and I read in it:-- + +"Young Havisham's name was Arthur. Compeyson is the man who professed to +be Miss Havisham's lover." + +I shut the book and nodded slightly to Herbert, and put the book by; but +we neither of us said anything, and both looked at Provis as he stood +smoking by the fire. + + + + +Chapter XLIII + +Why should I pause to ask how much of my shrinking from Provis might be +traced to Estella? Why should I loiter on my road, to compare the state +of mind in which I had tried to rid myself of the stain of the prison +before meeting her at the coach-office, with the state of mind in which +I now reflected on the abyss between Estella in her pride and beauty, +and the returned transport whom I harbored? The road would be none the +smoother for it, the end would be none the better for it, he would not +be helped, nor I extenuated. + +A new fear had been engendered in my mind by his narrative; or rather, +his narrative had given form and purpose to the fear that was already +there. If Compeyson were alive and should discover his return, I could +hardly doubt the consequence. That Compeyson stood in mortal fear of +him, neither of the two could know much better than I; and that any +such man as that man had been described to be would hesitate to release +himself for good from a dreaded enemy by the safe means of becoming an +informer was scarcely to be imagined. + +Never had I breathed, and never would I breathe--or so I resolved--a +word of Estella to Provis. But, I said to Herbert that, before I could +go abroad, I must see both Estella and Miss Havisham. This was when we +were left alone on the night of the day when Provis told us his story. I +resolved to go out to Richmond next day, and I went. + +On my presenting myself at Mrs. Brandley's, Estella's maid was called to +tell that Estella had gone into the country. Where? To Satis House, as +usual. Not as usual, I said, for she had never yet gone there without +me; when was she coming back? There was an air of reservation in the +answer which increased my perplexity, and the answer was, that her maid +believed she was only coming back at all for a little while. I could +make nothing of this, except that it was meant that I should make +nothing of it, and I went home again in complete discomfiture. + +Another night consultation with Herbert after Provis was gone home (I +always took him home, and always looked well about me), led us to the +conclusion that nothing should be said about going abroad until I came +back from Miss Havisham's. In the mean time, Herbert and I were to +consider separately what it would be best to say; whether we should +devise any pretence of being afraid that he was under suspicious +observation; or whether I, who had never yet been abroad, should propose +an expedition. We both knew that I had but to propose anything, and he +would consent. We agreed that his remaining many days in his present +hazard was not to be thought of. + +Next day I had the meanness to feign that I was under a binding promise +to go down to Joe; but I was capable of almost any meanness towards Joe +or his name. Provis was to be strictly careful while I was gone, and +Herbert was to take the charge of him that I had taken. I was to be +absent only one night, and, on my return, the gratification of his +impatience for my starting as a gentleman on a greater scale was to +be begun. It occurred to me then, and as I afterwards found to +Herbert also, that he might be best got away across the water, on that +pretence,--as, to make purchases, or the like. + +Having thus cleared the way for my expedition to Miss Havisham's, I set +off by the early morning coach before it was yet light, and was out +on the open country road when the day came creeping on, halting and +whimpering and shivering, and wrapped in patches of cloud and rags of +mist, like a beggar. When we drove up to the Blue Boar after a drizzly +ride, whom should I see come out under the gateway, toothpick in hand, +to look at the coach, but Bentley Drummle! + +As he pretended not to see me, I pretended not to see him. It was a very +lame pretence on both sides; the lamer, because we both went into the +coffee-room, where he had just finished his breakfast, and where I +ordered mine. It was poisonous to me to see him in the town, for I very +well knew why he had come there. + +Pretending to read a smeary newspaper long out of date, which had +nothing half so legible in its local news, as the foreign matter of +coffee, pickles, fish sauces, gravy, melted butter, and wine with which +it was sprinkled all over, as if it had taken the measles in a highly +irregular form, I sat at my table while he stood before the fire. By +degrees it became an enormous injury to me that he stood before the +fire. And I got up, determined to have my share of it. I had to put my +hand behind his legs for the poker when I went up to the fireplace to +stir the fire, but still pretended not to know him. + +"Is this a cut?" said Mr. Drummle. + +"Oh!" said I, poker in hand; "it's you, is it? How do you do? I was +wondering who it was, who kept the fire off." + +With that, I poked tremendously, and having done so, planted myself side +by side with Mr. Drummle, my shoulders squared and my back to the fire. + +"You have just come down?" said Mr. Drummle, edging me a little away +with his shoulder. + +"Yes," said I, edging him a little away with my shoulder. + +"Beastly place," said Drummle. "Your part of the country, I think?" + +"Yes," I assented. "I am told it's very like your Shropshire." + +"Not in the least like it," said Drummle. + +Here Mr. Drummle looked at his boots and I looked at mine, and then Mr. +Drummle looked at my boots, and I looked at his. + +"Have you been here long?" I asked, determined not to yield an inch of +the fire. + +"Long enough to be tired of it," returned Drummle, pretending to yawn, +but equally determined. + +"Do you stay here long?" + +"Can't say," answered Mr. Drummle. "Do you?" + +"Can't say," said I. + +I felt here, through a tingling in my blood, that if Mr. Drummle's +shoulder had claimed another hair's breadth of room, I should have +jerked him into the window; equally, that if my own shoulder had urged a +similar claim, Mr. Drummle would have jerked me into the nearest box. He +whistled a little. So did I. + +"Large tract of marshes about here, I believe?" said Drummle. + +"Yes. What of that?" said I. + +Mr. Drummle looked at me, and then at my boots, and then said, "Oh!" and +laughed. + +"Are you amused, Mr. Drummle?" + +"No," said he, "not particularly. I am going out for a ride in the +saddle. I mean to explore those marshes for amusement. Out-of-the-way +villages there, they tell me. Curious little public-houses--and +smithies--and that. Waiter!" + +"Yes, sir." + +"Is that horse of mine ready?" + +"Brought round to the door, sir." + +"I say. Look here, you sir. The lady won't ride to-day; the weather +won't do." + +"Very good, sir." + +"And I don't dine, because I'm going to dine at the lady's." + +"Very good, sir." + +Then, Drummle glanced at me, with an insolent triumph on his +great-jowled face that cut me to the heart, dull as he was, and so +exasperated me, that I felt inclined to take him in my arms (as the +robber in the story-book is said to have taken the old lady) and seat +him on the fire. + +One thing was manifest to both of us, and that was, that until relief +came, neither of us could relinquish the fire. There we stood, well +squared up before it, shoulder to shoulder and foot to foot, with our +hands behind us, not budging an inch. The horse was visible outside in +the drizzle at the door, my breakfast was put on the table, Drummle's +was cleared away, the waiter invited me to begin, I nodded, we both +stood our ground. + +"Have you been to the Grove since?" said Drummle. + +"No," said I, "I had quite enough of the Finches the last time I was +there." + +"Was that when we had a difference of opinion?" + +"Yes," I replied, very shortly. + +"Come, come! They let you off easily enough," sneered Drummle. "You +shouldn't have lost your temper." + +"Mr. Drummle," said I, "you are not competent to give advice on that +subject. When I lose my temper (not that I admit having done so on that +occasion), I don't throw glasses." + +"I do," said Drummle. + +After glancing at him once or twice, in an increased state of +smouldering ferocity, I said,-- + +"Mr. Drummle, I did not seek this conversation, and I don't think it an +agreeable one." + +"I am sure it's not," said he, superciliously over his shoulder; "I +don't think anything about it." + +"And therefore," I went on, "with your leave, I will suggest that we +hold no kind of communication in future." + +"Quite my opinion," said Drummle, "and what I should have suggested +myself, or done--more likely--without suggesting. But don't lose your +temper. Haven't you lost enough without that?" + +"What do you mean, sir?" + +"Waiter!" said Drummle, by way of answering me. + +The waiter reappeared. + +"Look here, you sir. You quite understand that the young lady don't ride +to-day, and that I dine at the young lady's?" + +"Quite so, sir!" + +When the waiter had felt my fast-cooling teapot with the palm of his +hand, and had looked imploringly at me, and had gone out, Drummle, +careful not to move the shoulder next me, took a cigar from his pocket +and bit the end off, but showed no sign of stirring. Choking and +boiling as I was, I felt that we could not go a word further, without +introducing Estella's name, which I could not endure to hear him utter; +and therefore I looked stonily at the opposite wall, as if there were +no one present, and forced myself to silence. How long we might have +remained in this ridiculous position it is impossible to say, but +for the incursion of three thriving farmers--laid on by the waiter, I +think--who came into the coffee-room unbuttoning their great-coats and +rubbing their hands, and before whom, as they charged at the fire, we +were obliged to give way. + +I saw him through the window, seizing his horse's mane, and mounting in +his blundering brutal manner, and sidling and backing away. I thought +he was gone, when he came back, calling for a light for the cigar in his +mouth, which he had forgotten. A man in a dust-colored dress appeared +with what was wanted,--I could not have said from where: whether from +the inn yard, or the street, or where not,--and as Drummle leaned down +from the saddle and lighted his cigar and laughed, with a jerk of his +head towards the coffee-room windows, the slouching shoulders and ragged +hair of this man whose back was towards me reminded me of Orlick. + +Too heavily out of sorts to care much at the time whether it were he or +no, or after all to touch the breakfast, I washed the weather and the +journey from my face and hands, and went out to the memorable old house +that it would have been so much the better for me never to have entered, +never to have seen. + + + + +Chapter XLIV + +In the room where the dressing-table stood, and where the wax-candles +burnt on the wall, I found Miss Havisham and Estella; Miss Havisham +seated on a settee near the fire, and Estella on a cushion at her feet. +Estella was knitting, and Miss Havisham was looking on. They both raised +their eyes as I went in, and both saw an alteration in me. I derived +that, from the look they interchanged. + +"And what wind," said Miss Havisham, "blows you here, Pip?" + +Though she looked steadily at me, I saw that she was rather confused. +Estella, pausing a moment in her knitting with her eyes upon me, and +then going on, I fancied that I read in the action of her fingers, as +plainly as if she had told me in the dumb alphabet, that she perceived I +had discovered my real benefactor. + +"Miss Havisham," said I, "I went to Richmond yesterday, to speak to +Estella; and finding that some wind had blown her here, I followed." + +Miss Havisham motioning to me for the third or fourth time to sit down, +I took the chair by the dressing-table, which I had often seen her +occupy. With all that ruin at my feet and about me, it seemed a natural +place for me, that day. + +"What I had to say to Estella, Miss Havisham, I will say before you, +presently--in a few moments. It will not surprise you, it will not +displease you. I am as unhappy as you can ever have meant me to be." + +Miss Havisham continued to look steadily at me. I could see in the +action of Estella's fingers as they worked that she attended to what I +said; but she did not look up. + +"I have found out who my patron is. It is not a fortunate discovery, +and is not likely ever to enrich me in reputation, station, fortune, +anything. There are reasons why I must say no more of that. It is not my +secret, but another's." + +As I was silent for a while, looking at Estella and considering how to +go on, Miss Havisham repeated, "It is not your secret, but another's. +Well?" + +"When you first caused me to be brought here, Miss Havisham, when I +belonged to the village over yonder, that I wish I had never left, +I suppose I did really come here, as any other chance boy might have +come,--as a kind of servant, to gratify a want or a whim, and to be paid +for it?" + +"Ay, Pip," replied Miss Havisham, steadily nodding her head; "you did." + +"And that Mr. Jaggers--" + +"Mr. Jaggers," said Miss Havisham, taking me up in a firm tone, "had +nothing to do with it, and knew nothing of it. His being my lawyer, and +his being the lawyer of your patron is a coincidence. He holds the same +relation towards numbers of people, and it might easily arise. Be that +as it may, it did arise, and was not brought about by any one." + +Any one might have seen in her haggard face that there was no +suppression or evasion so far. + +"But when I fell into the mistake I have so long remained in, at least +you led me on?" said I. + +"Yes," she returned, again nodding steadily, "I let you go on." + +"Was that kind?" + +"Who am I," cried Miss Havisham, striking her stick upon the floor +and flashing into wrath so suddenly that Estella glanced up at her in +surprise,--"who am I, for God's sake, that I should be kind?" + +It was a weak complaint to have made, and I had not meant to make it. I +told her so, as she sat brooding after this outburst. + +"Well, well, well!" she said. "What else?" + +"I was liberally paid for my old attendance here," I said, to soothe +her, "in being apprenticed, and I have asked these questions only for +my own information. What follows has another (and I hope more +disinterested) purpose. In humoring my mistake, Miss Havisham, you +punished--practised on--perhaps you will supply whatever term expresses +your intention, without offence--your self-seeking relations?" + +"I did. Why, they would have it so! So would you. What has been my +history, that I should be at the pains of entreating either them or you +not to have it so! You made your own snares. I never made them." + +Waiting until she was quiet again,--for this, too, flashed out of her in +a wild and sudden way,--I went on. + +"I have been thrown among one family of your relations, Miss Havisham, +and have been constantly among them since I went to London. I know them +to have been as honestly under my delusion as I myself. And I should be +false and base if I did not tell you, whether it is acceptable to you or +no, and whether you are inclined to give credence to it or no, that you +deeply wrong both Mr. Matthew Pocket and his son Herbert, if you suppose +them to be otherwise than generous, upright, open, and incapable of +anything designing or mean." + +"They are your friends," said Miss Havisham. + +"They made themselves my friends," said I, "when they supposed me +to have superseded them; and when Sarah Pocket, Miss Georgiana, and +Mistress Camilla were not my friends, I think." + +This contrasting of them with the rest seemed, I was glad to see, to do +them good with her. She looked at me keenly for a little while, and then +said quietly,-- + +"What do you want for them?" + +"Only," said I, "that you would not confound them with the others. They +may be of the same blood, but, believe me, they are not of the same +nature." + +Still looking at me keenly, Miss Havisham repeated,-- + +"What do you want for them?" + +"I am not so cunning, you see," I said, in answer, conscious that I +reddened a little, "as that I could hide from you, even if I desired, +that I do want something. Miss Havisham, if you would spare the money +to do my friend Herbert a lasting service in life, but which from the +nature of the case must be done without his knowledge, I could show you +how." + +"Why must it be done without his knowledge?" she asked, settling her +hands upon her stick, that she might regard me the more attentively. + +"Because," said I, "I began the service myself, more than two years ago, +without his knowledge, and I don't want to be betrayed. Why I fail in my +ability to finish it, I cannot explain. It is a part of the secret which +is another person's and not mine." + +She gradually withdrew her eyes from me, and turned them on the fire. +After watching it for what appeared in the silence and by the light +of the slowly wasting candles to be a long time, she was roused by +the collapse of some of the red coals, and looked towards me again--at +first, vacantly--then, with a gradually concentrating attention. All +this time Estella knitted on. When Miss Havisham had fixed her +attention on me, she said, speaking as if there had been no lapse in our +dialogue,-- + +"What else?" + +"Estella," said I, turning to her now, and trying to command my +trembling voice, "you know I love you. You know that I have loved you +long and dearly." + +She raised her eyes to my face, on being thus addressed, and her fingers +plied their work, and she looked at me with an unmoved countenance. I +saw that Miss Havisham glanced from me to her, and from her to me. + +"I should have said this sooner, but for my long mistake. It induced me +to hope that Miss Havisham meant us for one another. While I thought you +could not help yourself, as it were, I refrained from saying it. But I +must say it now." + +Preserving her unmoved countenance, and with her fingers still going, +Estella shook her head. + +"I know," said I, in answer to that action,--"I know. I have no hope +that I shall ever call you mine, Estella. I am ignorant what may become +of me very soon, how poor I may be, or where I may go. Still, I love +you. I have loved you ever since I first saw you in this house." + +Looking at me perfectly unmoved and with her fingers busy, she shook her +head again. + +"It would have been cruel in Miss Havisham, horribly cruel, to practise +on the susceptibility of a poor boy, and to torture me through all these +years with a vain hope and an idle pursuit, if she had reflected on the +gravity of what she did. But I think she did not. I think that, in the +endurance of her own trial, she forgot mine, Estella." + +I saw Miss Havisham put her hand to her heart and hold it there, as she +sat looking by turns at Estella and at me. + +"It seems," said Estella, very calmly, "that there are sentiments, +fancies,--I don't know how to call them,--which I am not able to +comprehend. When you say you love me, I know what you mean, as a form +of words; but nothing more. You address nothing in my breast, you touch +nothing there. I don't care for what you say at all. I have tried to +warn you of this; now, have I not?" + +I said in a miserable manner, "Yes." + +"Yes. But you would not be warned, for you thought I did not mean it. +Now, did you not think so?" + +"I thought and hoped you could not mean it. You, so young, untried, and +beautiful, Estella! Surely it is not in Nature." + +"It is in my nature," she returned. And then she added, with a stress +upon the words, "It is in the nature formed within me. I make a great +difference between you and all other people when I say so much. I can do +no more." + +"Is it not true," said I, "that Bentley Drummle is in town here, and +pursuing you?" + +"It is quite true," she replied, referring to him with the indifference +of utter contempt. + +"That you encourage him, and ride out with him, and that he dines with +you this very day?" + +She seemed a little surprised that I should know it, but again replied, +"Quite true." + +"You cannot love him, Estella!" + +Her fingers stopped for the first time, as she retorted rather angrily, +"What have I told you? Do you still think, in spite of it, that I do not +mean what I say?" + +"You would never marry him, Estella?" + +She looked towards Miss Havisham, and considered for a moment with her +work in her hands. Then she said, "Why not tell you the truth? I am +going to be married to him." + +I dropped my face into my hands, but was able to control myself better +than I could have expected, considering what agony it gave me to hear +her say those words. When I raised my face again, there was such a +ghastly look upon Miss Havisham's, that it impressed me, even in my +passionate hurry and grief. + +"Estella, dearest Estella, do not let Miss Havisham lead you into this +fatal step. Put me aside for ever,--you have done so, I well know,--but +bestow yourself on some worthier person than Drummle. Miss Havisham +gives you to him, as the greatest slight and injury that could be done +to the many far better men who admire you, and to the few who truly +love you. Among those few there may be one who loves you even as dearly, +though he has not loved you as long, as I. Take him, and I can bear it +better, for your sake!" + +My earnestness awoke a wonder in her that seemed as if it would have +been touched with compassion, if she could have rendered me at all +intelligible to her own mind. + +"I am going," she said again, in a gentler voice, "to be married to +him. The preparations for my marriage are making, and I shall be +married soon. Why do you injuriously introduce the name of my mother by +adoption? It is my own act." + +"Your own act, Estella, to fling yourself away upon a brute?" + +"On whom should I fling myself away?" she retorted, with a smile. +"Should I fling myself away upon the man who would the soonest feel (if +people do feel such things) that I took nothing to him? There! It is +done. I shall do well enough, and so will my husband. As to leading +me into what you call this fatal step, Miss Havisham would have had me +wait, and not marry yet; but I am tired of the life I have led, which +has very few charms for me, and I am willing enough to change it. Say no +more. We shall never understand each other." + +"Such a mean brute, such a stupid brute!" I urged, in despair. + +"Don't be afraid of my being a blessing to him," said Estella; "I shall +not be that. Come! Here is my hand. Do we part on this, you visionary +boy--or man?" + +"O Estella!" I answered, as my bitter tears fell fast on her hand, do +what I would to restrain them; "even if I remained in England and could +hold my head up with the rest, how could I see you Drummle's wife?" + +"Nonsense," she returned,--"nonsense. This will pass in no time." + +"Never, Estella!" + +"You will get me out of your thoughts in a week." + +"Out of my thoughts! You are part of my existence, part of myself. You +have been in every line I have ever read since I first came here, the +rough common boy whose poor heart you wounded even then. You have been +in every prospect I have ever seen since,--on the river, on the sails of +the ships, on the marshes, in the clouds, in the light, in the darkness, +in the wind, in the woods, in the sea, in the streets. You have been +the embodiment of every graceful fancy that my mind has ever become +acquainted with. The stones of which the strongest London buildings +are made are not more real, or more impossible to be displaced by your +hands, than your presence and influence have been to me, there and +everywhere, and will be. Estella, to the last hour of my life, you +cannot choose but remain part of my character, part of the little good +in me, part of the evil. But, in this separation, I associate you only +with the good; and I will faithfully hold you to that always, for you +must have done me far more good than harm, let me feel now what sharp +distress I may. O God bless you, God forgive you!" + +In what ecstasy of unhappiness I got these broken words out of myself, I +don't know. The rhapsody welled up within me, like blood from an +inward wound, and gushed out. I held her hand to my lips some lingering +moments, and so I left her. But ever afterwards, I remembered,--and soon +afterwards with stronger reason,--that while Estella looked at me merely +with incredulous wonder, the spectral figure of Miss Havisham, her hand +still covering her heart, seemed all resolved into a ghastly stare of +pity and remorse. + +All done, all gone! So much was done and gone, that when I went out at +the gate, the light of the day seemed of a darker color than when I went +in. For a while, I hid myself among some lanes and by-paths, and then +struck off to walk all the way to London. For, I had by that time come +to myself so far as to consider that I could not go back to the inn and +see Drummle there; that I could not bear to sit upon the coach and +be spoken to; that I could do nothing half so good for myself as tire +myself out. + +It was past midnight when I crossed London Bridge. Pursuing the narrow +intricacies of the streets which at that time tended westward near the +Middlesex shore of the river, my readiest access to the Temple was +close by the river-side, through Whitefriars. I was not expected till +to-morrow; but I had my keys, and, if Herbert were gone to bed, could +get to bed myself without disturbing him. + +As it seldom happened that I came in at that Whitefriars gate after the +Temple was closed, and as I was very muddy and weary, I did not take it +ill that the night-porter examined me with much attention as he held the +gate a little way open for me to pass in. To help his memory I mentioned +my name. + +"I was not quite sure, sir, but I thought so. Here's a note, sir. The +messenger that brought it, said would you be so good as read it by my +lantern?" + +Much surprised by the request, I took the note. It was directed to +Philip Pip, Esquire, and on the top of the superscription were the +words, "PLEASE READ THIS, HERE." I opened it, the watchman holding up +his light, and read inside, in Wemmick's writing,-- + +"DON'T GO HOME." + + + + +Chapter XLV + +Turning from the Temple gate as soon as I had read the warning, I made +the best of my way to Fleet Street, and there got a late hackney chariot +and drove to the Hummums in Covent Garden. In those times a bed was +always to be got there at any hour of the night, and the chamberlain, +letting me in at his ready wicket, lighted the candle next in order on +his shelf, and showed me straight into the bedroom next in order on his +list. It was a sort of vault on the ground floor at the back, with a +despotic monster of a four-post bedstead in it, straddling over the +whole place, putting one of his arbitrary legs into the fireplace +and another into the doorway, and squeezing the wretched little +washing-stand in quite a Divinely Righteous manner. + +As I had asked for a night-light, the chamberlain had brought me in, +before he left me, the good old constitutional rushlight of those +virtuous days--an object like the ghost of a walking-cane, which +instantly broke its back if it were touched, which nothing could ever be +lighted at, and which was placed in solitary confinement at the bottom +of a high tin tower, perforated with round holes that made a staringly +wide-awake pattern on the walls. When I had got into bed, and lay there +footsore, weary, and wretched, I found that I could no more close my own +eyes than I could close the eyes of this foolish Argus. And thus, in the +gloom and death of the night, we stared at one another. + +What a doleful night! How anxious, how dismal, how long! There was an +inhospitable smell in the room, of cold soot and hot dust; and, as I +looked up into the corners of the tester over my head, I thought what +a number of blue-bottle flies from the butchers', and earwigs from the +market, and grubs from the country, must be holding on up there, lying +by for next summer. This led me to speculate whether any of them ever +tumbled down, and then I fancied that I felt light falls on my face,--a +disagreeable turn of thought, suggesting other and more objectionable +approaches up my back. When I had lain awake a little while, those +extraordinary voices with which silence teems began to make themselves +audible. The closet whispered, the fireplace sighed, the little +washing-stand ticked, and one guitar-string played occasionally in the +chest of drawers. At about the same time, the eyes on the wall acquired +a new expression, and in every one of those staring rounds I saw +written, DON'T GO HOME. + +Whatever night-fancies and night-noises crowded on me, they never warded +off this DON'T GO HOME. It plaited itself into whatever I thought of, +as a bodily pain would have done. Not long before, I had read in the +newspapers, how a gentleman unknown had come to the Hummums in the +night, and had gone to bed, and had destroyed himself, and had been +found in the morning weltering in blood. It came into my head that he +must have occupied this very vault of mine, and I got out of bed to +assure myself that there were no red marks about; then opened the door +to look out into the passages, and cheer myself with the companionship +of a distant light, near which I knew the chamberlain to be dozing. But +all this time, why I was not to go home, and what had happened at home, +and when I should go home, and whether Provis was safe at home, were +questions occupying my mind so busily, that one might have supposed +there could be no more room in it for any other theme. Even when I +thought of Estella, and how we had parted that day forever, and when +I recalled all the circumstances of our parting, and all her looks and +tones, and the action of her fingers while she knitted,--even then I +was pursuing, here and there and everywhere, the caution, Don't go home. +When at last I dozed, in sheer exhaustion of mind and body, it became +a vast shadowy verb which I had to conjugate. Imperative mood, present +tense: Do not thou go home, let him not go home, let us not go home, do +not ye or you go home, let not them go home. Then potentially: I may not +and I cannot go home; and I might not, could not, would not, and should +not go home; until I felt that I was going distracted, and rolled over +on the pillow, and looked at the staring rounds upon the wall again. + +I had left directions that I was to be called at seven; for it was plain +that I must see Wemmick before seeing any one else, and equally plain +that this was a case in which his Walworth sentiments only could be +taken. It was a relief to get out of the room where the night had been +so miserable, and I needed no second knocking at the door to startle me +from my uneasy bed. + +The Castle battlements arose upon my view at eight o'clock. The little +servant happening to be entering the fortress with two hot rolls, I +passed through the postern and crossed the drawbridge in her company, +and so came without announcement into the presence of Wemmick as he was +making tea for himself and the Aged. An open door afforded a perspective +view of the Aged in bed. + +"Halloa, Mr. Pip!" said Wemmick. "You did come home, then?" + +"Yes," I returned; "but I didn't go home." + +"That's all right," said he, rubbing his hands. "I left a note for you +at each of the Temple gates, on the chance. Which gate did you come to?" + +I told him. + +"I'll go round to the others in the course of the day and destroy the +notes," said Wemmick; "it's a good rule never to leave documentary +evidence if you can help it, because you don't know when it may be put +in. I'm going to take a liberty with you. Would you mind toasting this +sausage for the Aged P.?" + +I said I should be delighted to do it. + +"Then you can go about your work, Mary Anne," said Wemmick to the little +servant; "which leaves us to ourselves, don't you see, Mr. Pip?" he +added, winking, as she disappeared. + +I thanked him for his friendship and caution, and our discourse +proceeded in a low tone, while I toasted the Aged's sausage and he +buttered the crumb of the Aged's roll. + +"Now, Mr. Pip, you know," said Wemmick, "you and I understand one +another. We are in our private and personal capacities, and we have been +engaged in a confidential transaction before to-day. Official sentiments +are one thing. We are extra official." + +I cordially assented. I was so very nervous, that I had already lighted +the Aged's sausage like a torch, and been obliged to blow it out. + +"I accidentally heard, yesterday morning," said Wemmick, "being in a +certain place where I once took you,--even between you and me, it's as +well not to mention names when avoidable--" + +"Much better not," said I. "I understand you." + +"I heard there by chance, yesterday morning," said Wemmick, "that +a certain person not altogether of uncolonial pursuits, and not +unpossessed of portable property,--I don't know who it may really +be,--we won't name this person--" + +"Not necessary," said I. + +"--Had made some little stir in a certain part of the world where a good +many people go, not always in gratification of their own inclinations, +and not quite irrespective of the government expense--" + +In watching his face, I made quite a firework of the Aged's sausage, +and greatly discomposed both my own attention and Wemmick's; for which I +apologized. + +"--By disappearing from such place, and being no more heard of +thereabouts. From which," said Wemmick, "conjectures had been raised and +theories formed. I also heard that you at your chambers in Garden Court, +Temple, had been watched, and might be watched again." + +"By whom?" said I. + +"I wouldn't go into that," said Wemmick, evasively, "it might clash with +official responsibilities. I heard it, as I have in my time heard other +curious things in the same place. I don't tell it you on information +received. I heard it." + +He took the toasting-fork and sausage from me as he spoke, and set forth +the Aged's breakfast neatly on a little tray. Previous to placing it +before him, he went into the Aged's room with a clean white cloth, and +tied the same under the old gentleman's chin, and propped him up, and +put his nightcap on one side, and gave him quite a rakish air. Then he +placed his breakfast before him with great care, and said, "All right, +ain't you, Aged P.?" To which the cheerful Aged replied, "All right, +John, my boy, all right!" As there seemed to be a tacit understanding +that the Aged was not in a presentable state, and was therefore to be +considered invisible, I made a pretence of being in complete ignorance +of these proceedings. + +"This watching of me at my chambers (which I have once had reason to +suspect)," I said to Wemmick when he came back, "is inseparable from the +person to whom you have adverted; is it?" + +Wemmick looked very serious. "I couldn't undertake to say that, of my +own knowledge. I mean, I couldn't undertake to say it was at first. But +it either is, or it will be, or it's in great danger of being." + +As I saw that he was restrained by fealty to Little Britain from saying +as much as he could, and as I knew with thankfulness to him how far out +of his way he went to say what he did, I could not press him. But I told +him, after a little meditation over the fire, that I would like to ask +him a question, subject to his answering or not answering, as he +deemed right, and sure that his course would be right. He paused in his +breakfast, and crossing his arms, and pinching his shirt-sleeves (his +notion of in-door comfort was to sit without any coat), he nodded to me +once, to put my question. + +"You have heard of a man of bad character, whose true name is +Compeyson?" + +He answered with one other nod. + +"Is he living?" + +One other nod. + +"Is he in London?" + +He gave me one other nod, compressed the post-office exceedingly, gave +me one last nod, and went on with his breakfast. + +"Now," said Wemmick, "questioning being over," which he emphasized and +repeated for my guidance, "I come to what I did, after hearing what I +heard. I went to Garden Court to find you; not finding you, I went to +Clarriker's to find Mr. Herbert." + +"And him you found?" said I, with great anxiety. + +"And him I found. Without mentioning any names or going into any +details, I gave him to understand that if he was aware of anybody--Tom, +Jack, or Richard--being about the chambers, or about the immediate +neighborhood, he had better get Tom, Jack, or Richard out of the way +while you were out of the way." + +"He would be greatly puzzled what to do?" + +"He was puzzled what to do; not the less, because I gave him my opinion +that it was not safe to try to get Tom, Jack, or Richard too far out +of the way at present. Mr. Pip, I'll tell you something. Under existing +circumstances, there is no place like a great city when you are once +in it. Don't break cover too soon. Lie close. Wait till things slacken, +before you try the open, even for foreign air." + +I thanked him for his valuable advice, and asked him what Herbert had +done? + +"Mr. Herbert," said Wemmick, "after being all of a heap for half an +hour, struck out a plan. He mentioned to me as a secret, that he is +courting a young lady who has, as no doubt you are aware, a bedridden +Pa. Which Pa, having been in the Purser line of life, lies a-bed in a +bow-window where he can see the ships sail up and down the river. You +are acquainted with the young lady, most probably?" + +"Not personally," said I. + +The truth was, that she had objected to me as an expensive companion +who did Herbert no good, and that, when Herbert had first proposed to +present me to her, she had received the proposal with such very moderate +warmth, that Herbert had felt himself obliged to confide the state of +the case to me, with a view to the lapse of a little time before I made +her acquaintance. When I had begun to advance Herbert's prospects by +stealth, I had been able to bear this with cheerful philosophy: he and +his affianced, for their part, had naturally not been very anxious to +introduce a third person into their interviews; and thus, although I was +assured that I had risen in Clara's esteem, and although the young +lady and I had long regularly interchanged messages and remembrances by +Herbert, I had never seen her. However, I did not trouble Wemmick with +these particulars. + +"The house with the bow-window," said Wemmick, "being by the river-side, +down the Pool there between Limehouse and Greenwich, and being kept, it +seems, by a very respectable widow who has a furnished upper floor to +let, Mr. Herbert put it to me, what did I think of that as a temporary +tenement for Tom, Jack, or Richard? Now, I thought very well of it, for +three reasons I'll give you. That is to say: Firstly. It's altogether +out of all your beats, and is well away from the usual heap of streets +great and small. Secondly. Without going near it yourself, you could +always hear of the safety of Tom, Jack, or Richard, through Mr. Herbert. +Thirdly. After a while and when it might be prudent, if you should want +to slip Tom, Jack, or Richard on board a foreign packet-boat, there he +is--ready." + +Much comforted by these considerations, I thanked Wemmick again and +again, and begged him to proceed. + +"Well, sir! Mr. Herbert threw himself into the business with a will, and +by nine o'clock last night he housed Tom, Jack, or Richard,--whichever +it may be,--you and I don't want to know,--quite successfully. At the +old lodgings it was understood that he was summoned to Dover, and, in +fact, he was taken down the Dover road and cornered out of it. Now, +another great advantage of all this is, that it was done without you, +and when, if any one was concerning himself about your movements, you +must be known to be ever so many miles off and quite otherwise engaged. +This diverts suspicion and confuses it; and for the same reason I +recommended that, even if you came back last night, you should not go +home. It brings in more confusion, and you want confusion." + +Wemmick, having finished his breakfast, here looked at his watch, and +began to get his coat on. + +"And now, Mr. Pip," said he, with his hands still in the sleeves, "I +have probably done the most I can do; but if I can ever do more,--from +a Walworth point of view, and in a strictly private and personal +capacity,--I shall be glad to do it. Here's the address. There can be +no harm in your going here to-night, and seeing for yourself that all is +well with Tom, Jack, or Richard, before you go home,--which is another +reason for your not going home last night. But, after you have gone +home, don't go back here. You are very welcome, I am sure, Mr. Pip"; his +hands were now out of his sleeves, and I was shaking them; "and let me +finally impress one important point upon you." He laid his hands upon +my shoulders, and added in a solemn whisper: "Avail yourself of this +evening to lay hold of his portable property. You don't know what may +happen to him. Don't let anything happen to the portable property." + +Quite despairing of making my mind clear to Wemmick on this point, I +forbore to try. + +"Time's up," said Wemmick, "and I must be off. If you had nothing more +pressing to do than to keep here till dark, that's what I should advise. +You look very much worried, and it would do you good to have a perfectly +quiet day with the Aged,--he'll be up presently,--and a little bit +of--you remember the pig?" + +"Of course," said I. + +"Well; and a little bit of him. That sausage you toasted was his, and +he was in all respects a first-rater. Do try him, if it is only for old +acquaintance sake. Good-bye, Aged Parent!" in a cheery shout. + +"All right, John; all right, my boy!" piped the old man from within. + +I soon fell asleep before Wemmick's fire, and the Aged and I enjoyed one +another's society by falling asleep before it more or less all day. +We had loin of pork for dinner, and greens grown on the estate; and +I nodded at the Aged with a good intention whenever I failed to do it +drowsily. When it was quite dark, I left the Aged preparing the fire for +toast; and I inferred from the number of teacups, as well as from his +glances at the two little doors in the wall, that Miss Skiffins was +expected. + + + + +Chapter XLVI + +Eight o'clock had struck before I got into the air, that was scented, +not disagreeably, by the chips and shavings of the long-shore +boat-builders, and mast, oar, and block makers. All that water-side +region of the upper and lower Pool below Bridge was unknown ground to +me; and when I struck down by the river, I found that the spot I wanted +was not where I had supposed it to be, and was anything but easy to +find. It was called Mill Pond Bank, Chinks's Basin; and I had no other +guide to Chinks's Basin than the Old Green Copper Rope-walk. + +It matters not what stranded ships repairing in dry docks I lost myself +among, what old hulls of ships in course of being knocked to pieces, +what ooze and slime and other dregs of tide, what yards of ship-builders +and ship-breakers, what rusty anchors blindly biting into the ground, +though for years off duty, what mountainous country of accumulated casks +and timber, how many rope-walks that were not the Old Green Copper. After +several times falling short of my destination and as often overshooting +it, I came unexpectedly round a corner, upon Mill Pond Bank. It was a +fresh kind of place, all circumstances considered, where the wind from +the river had room to turn itself round; and there were two or three +trees in it, and there was the stump of a ruined windmill, and there +was the Old Green Copper Rope-walk,--whose long and narrow vista I could +trace in the moonlight, along a series of wooden frames set in the +ground, that looked like superannuated haymaking-rakes which had grown +old and lost most of their teeth. + +Selecting from the few queer houses upon Mill Pond Bank a house with a +wooden front and three stories of bow-window (not bay-window, which is +another thing), I looked at the plate upon the door, and read there, +Mrs. Whimple. That being the name I wanted, I knocked, and an elderly +woman of a pleasant and thriving appearance responded. She was +immediately deposed, however, by Herbert, who silently led me into +the parlor and shut the door. It was an odd sensation to see his very +familiar face established quite at home in that very unfamiliar room +and region; and I found myself looking at him, much as I looked at +the corner-cupboard with the glass and china, the shells upon the +chimney-piece, and the colored engravings on the wall, representing the +death of Captain Cook, a ship-launch, and his Majesty King George the +Third in a state coachman's wig, leather-breeches, and top-boots, on the +terrace at Windsor. + +"All is well, Handel," said Herbert, "and he is quite satisfied, though +eager to see you. My dear girl is with her father; and if you'll wait +till she comes down, I'll make you known to her, and then we'll go upstairs. +That's her father." + +I had become aware of an alarming growling overhead, and had probably +expressed the fact in my countenance. + +"I am afraid he is a sad old rascal," said Herbert, smiling, "but I have +never seen him. Don't you smell rum? He is always at it." + +"At rum?" said I. + +"Yes," returned Herbert, "and you may suppose how mild it makes his +gout. He persists, too, in keeping all the provisions upstairs in his +room, and serving them out. He keeps them on shelves over his head, and +will weigh them all. His room must be like a chandler's shop." + +While he thus spoke, the growling noise became a prolonged roar, and +then died away. + +"What else can be the consequence," said Herbert, in explanation, "if +he will cut the cheese? A man with the gout in his right hand--and +everywhere else--can't expect to get through a Double Gloucester without +hurting himself." + +He seemed to have hurt himself very much, for he gave another furious +roar. + +"To have Provis for an upper lodger is quite a godsend to Mrs. Whimple," +said Herbert, "for of course people in general won't stand that noise. A +curious place, Handel; isn't it?" + +It was a curious place, indeed; but remarkably well kept and clean. + +"Mrs. Whimple," said Herbert, when I told him so, "is the best of +housewives, and I really do not know what my Clara would do without +her motherly help. For, Clara has no mother of her own, Handel, and no +relation in the world but old Gruffandgrim." + +"Surely that's not his name, Herbert?" + +"No, no," said Herbert, "that's my name for him. His name is Mr. Barley. +But what a blessing it is for the son of my father and mother to love a +girl who has no relations, and who can never bother herself or anybody +else about her family!" + +Herbert had told me on former occasions, and now reminded me, that he +first knew Miss Clara Barley when she was completing her education at +an establishment at Hammersmith, and that on her being recalled home +to nurse her father, he and she had confided their affection to the +motherly Mrs. Whimple, by whom it had been fostered and regulated +with equal kindness and discretion, ever since. It was understood that +nothing of a tender nature could possibly be confided to old Barley, by +reason of his being totally unequal to the consideration of any subject +more psychological than Gout, Rum, and Purser's stores. + +As we were thus conversing in a low tone while Old Barley's sustained +growl vibrated in the beam that crossed the ceiling, the room door +opened, and a very pretty, slight, dark-eyed girl of twenty or so came +in with a basket in her hand: whom Herbert tenderly relieved of the +basket, and presented, blushing, as "Clara." She really was a most +charming girl, and might have passed for a captive fairy, whom that +truculent Ogre, Old Barley, had pressed into his service. + +"Look here," said Herbert, showing me the basket, with a compassionate +and tender smile, after we had talked a little; "here's poor Clara's +supper, served out every night. Here's her allowance of bread, and +here's her slice of cheese, and here's her rum,--which I drink. This +is Mr. Barley's breakfast for to-morrow, served out to be cooked. Two +mutton-chops, three potatoes, some split peas, a little flour, two +ounces of butter, a pinch of salt, and all this black pepper. It's +stewed up together, and taken hot, and it's a nice thing for the gout, I +should think!" + +There was something so natural and winning in Clara's resigned way of +looking at these stores in detail, as Herbert pointed them out; and +something so confiding, loving, and innocent in her modest manner of +yielding herself to Herbert's embracing arm; and something so gentle in +her, so much needing protection on Mill Pond Bank, by Chinks's Basin, +and the Old Green Copper Rope-walk, with Old Barley growling in the +beam,--that I would not have undone the engagement between her and +Herbert for all the money in the pocket-book I had never opened. + +I was looking at her with pleasure and admiration, when suddenly the +growl swelled into a roar again, and a frightful bumping noise was heard +above, as if a giant with a wooden leg were trying to bore it through +the ceiling to come at us. Upon this Clara said to Herbert, "Papa wants +me, darling!" and ran away. + +"There is an unconscionable old shark for you!" said Herbert. "What do +you suppose he wants now, Handel?" + +"I don't know," said I. "Something to drink?" + +"That's it!" cried Herbert, as if I had made a guess of extraordinary +merit. "He keeps his grog ready mixed in a little tub on the table. +Wait a moment, and you'll hear Clara lift him up to take some. There +he goes!" Another roar, with a prolonged shake at the end. "Now," said +Herbert, as it was succeeded by silence, "he's drinking. Now," said +Herbert, as the growl resounded in the beam once more, "he's down again +on his back!" + +Clara returned soon afterwards, and Herbert accompanied me upstairs to +see our charge. As we passed Mr. Barley's door, he was heard hoarsely +muttering within, in a strain that rose and fell like wind, the +following Refrain, in which I substitute good wishes for something quite +the reverse:-- + +"Ahoy! Bless your eyes, here's old Bill Barley. Here's old Bill Barley, +bless your eyes. Here's old Bill Barley on the flat of his back, by the +Lord. Lying on the flat of his back like a drifting old dead flounder, +here's your old Bill Barley, bless your eyes. Ahoy! Bless you." + +In this strain of consolation, Herbert informed me the invisible Barley +would commune with himself by the day and night together; Often, while +it was light, having, at the same time, one eye at a telescope which was +fitted on his bed for the convenience of sweeping the river. + +In his two cabin rooms at the top of the house, which were fresh and +airy, and in which Mr. Barley was less audible than below, I found +Provis comfortably settled. He expressed no alarm, and seemed to +feel none that was worth mentioning; but it struck me that he was +softened,--indefinably, for I could not have said how, and could never +afterwards recall how when I tried, but certainly. + +The opportunity that the day's rest had given me for reflection had +resulted in my fully determining to say nothing to him respecting +Compeyson. For anything I knew, his animosity towards the man +might otherwise lead to his seeking him out and rushing on his own +destruction. Therefore, when Herbert and I sat down with him by his +fire, I asked him first of all whether he relied on Wemmick's judgment +and sources of information? + +"Ay, ay, dear boy!" he answered, with a grave nod, "Jaggers knows." + +"Then, I have talked with Wemmick," said I, "and have come to tell you +what caution he gave me and what advice." + +This I did accurately, with the reservation just mentioned; and I told +him how Wemmick had heard, in Newgate prison (whether from officers or +prisoners I could not say), that he was under some suspicion, and that +my chambers had been watched; how Wemmick had recommended his keeping +close for a time, and my keeping away from him; and what Wemmick had +said about getting him abroad. I added, that of course, when the time +came, I should go with him, or should follow close upon him, as might +be safest in Wemmick's judgment. What was to follow that I did not touch +upon; neither, indeed, was I at all clear or comfortable about it in my +own mind, now that I saw him in that softer condition, and in declared +peril for my sake. As to altering my way of living by enlarging my +expenses, I put it to him whether in our present unsettled and difficult +circumstances, it would not be simply ridiculous, if it were no worse? + +He could not deny this, and indeed was very reasonable throughout. His +coming back was a venture, he said, and he had always known it to be a +venture. He would do nothing to make it a desperate venture, and he had +very little fear of his safety with such good help. + +Herbert, who had been looking at the fire and pondering, here said +that something had come into his thoughts arising out of Wemmick's +suggestion, which it might be worth while to pursue. "We are both good +watermen, Handel, and could take him down the river ourselves when the +right time comes. No boat would then be hired for the purpose, and no +boatmen; that would save at least a chance of suspicion, and any chance +is worth saving. Never mind the season; don't you think it might be a +good thing if you began at once to keep a boat at the Temple stairs, and +were in the habit of rowing up and down the river? You fall into that +habit, and then who notices or minds? Do it twenty or fifty times, +and there is nothing special in your doing it the twenty-first or +fifty-first." + +I liked this scheme, and Provis was quite elated by it. We agreed +that it should be carried into execution, and that Provis should never +recognize us if we came below Bridge, and rowed past Mill Pond Bank. But +we further agreed that he should pull down the blind in that part of his +window which gave upon the east, whenever he saw us and all was right. + +Our conference being now ended, and everything arranged, I rose to go; +remarking to Herbert that he and I had better not go home together, and +that I would take half an hour's start of him. "I don't like to leave +you here," I said to Provis, "though I cannot doubt your being safer +here than near me. Good-bye!" + +"Dear boy," he answered, clasping my hands, "I don't know when we may +meet again, and I don't like good-bye. Say good night!" + +"Good night! Herbert will go regularly between us, and when the time +comes you may be certain I shall be ready. Good night, good night!" + +We thought it best that he should stay in his own rooms; and we left him +on the landing outside his door, holding a light over the stair-rail to +light us downstairs. Looking back at him, I thought of the first night +of his return, when our positions were reversed, and when I little +supposed my heart could ever be as heavy and anxious at parting from him +as it was now. + +Old Barley was growling and swearing when we repassed his door, with no +appearance of having ceased or of meaning to cease. When we got to the +foot of the stairs, I asked Herbert whether he had preserved the name of +Provis. He replied, certainly not, and that the lodger was Mr. Campbell. +He also explained that the utmost known of Mr. Campbell there was, +that he (Herbert) had Mr. Campbell consigned to him, and felt a strong +personal interest in his being well cared for, and living a secluded +life. So, when we went into the parlor where Mrs. Whimple and Clara were +seated at work, I said nothing of my own interest in Mr. Campbell, but +kept it to myself. + +When I had taken leave of the pretty, gentle, dark-eyed girl, and of the +motherly woman who had not outlived her honest sympathy with a little +affair of true love, I felt as if the Old Green Copper Rope-walk had +grown quite a different place. Old Barley might be as old as the hills, +and might swear like a whole field of troopers, but there were redeeming +youth and trust and hope enough in Chinks's Basin to fill it to +overflowing. And then I thought of Estella, and of our parting, and went +home very sadly. + +All things were as quiet in the Temple as ever I had seen them. The +windows of the rooms on that side, lately occupied by Provis, were dark +and still, and there was no lounger in Garden Court. I walked past the +fountain twice or thrice before I descended the steps that were between +me and my rooms, but I was quite alone. Herbert, coming to my +bedside when he came in,--for I went straight to bed, dispirited and +fatigued,--made the same report. Opening one of the windows after that, +he looked out into the moonlight, and told me that the pavement was as +solemnly empty as the pavement of any cathedral at that same hour. + +Next day I set myself to get the boat. It was soon done, and the boat +was brought round to the Temple stairs, and lay where I could reach +her within a minute or two. Then, I began to go out as for training and +practice: sometimes alone, sometimes with Herbert. I was often out in +cold, rain, and sleet, but nobody took much note of me after I had been +out a few times. At first, I kept above Blackfriars Bridge; but as the +hours of the tide changed, I took towards London Bridge. It was Old +London Bridge in those days, and at certain states of the tide there +was a race and fall of water there which gave it a bad reputation. But I +knew well enough how to 'shoot' the bridge after seeing it done, and so +began to row about among the shipping in the Pool, and down to Erith. +The first time I passed Mill Pond Bank, Herbert and I were pulling a +pair of oars; and, both in going and returning, we saw the blind towards +the east come down. Herbert was rarely there less frequently than three +times in a week, and he never brought me a single word of intelligence +that was at all alarming. Still, I knew that there was cause for alarm, +and I could not get rid of the notion of being watched. Once received, +it is a haunting idea; how many undesigning persons I suspected of +watching me, it would be hard to calculate. + +In short, I was always full of fears for the rash man who was in hiding. +Herbert had sometimes said to me that he found it pleasant to stand at +one of our windows after dark, when the tide was running down, and to +think that it was flowing, with everything it bore, towards Clara. But +I thought with dread that it was flowing towards Magwitch, and that +any black mark on its surface might be his pursuers, going swiftly, +silently, and surely, to take him. + + + + +Chapter XLVII + +Some weeks passed without bringing any change. We waited for Wemmick, +and he made no sign. If I had never known him out of Little Britain, and +had never enjoyed the privilege of being on a familiar footing at the +Castle, I might have doubted him; not so for a moment, knowing him as I +did. + +My worldly affairs began to wear a gloomy appearance, and I was pressed +for money by more than one creditor. Even I myself began to know the +want of money (I mean of ready money in my own pocket), and to relieve +it by converting some easily spared articles of jewelery into cash. But +I had quite determined that it would be a heartless fraud to take more +money from my patron in the existing state of my uncertain thoughts and +plans. Therefore, I had sent him the unopened pocket-book by Herbert, to +hold in his own keeping, and I felt a kind of satisfaction--whether it +was a false kind or a true, I hardly know--in not having profited by his +generosity since his revelation of himself. + +As the time wore on, an impression settled heavily upon me that Estella +was married. Fearful of having it confirmed, though it was all but a +conviction, I avoided the newspapers, and begged Herbert (to whom I had +confided the circumstances of our last interview) never to speak of her +to me. Why I hoarded up this last wretched little rag of the robe of +hope that was rent and given to the winds, how do I know? Why did you +who read this, commit that not dissimilar inconsistency of your own last +year, last month, last week? + +It was an unhappy life that I lived; and its one dominant anxiety, +towering over all its other anxieties, like a high mountain above a +range of mountains, never disappeared from my view. Still, no new cause +for fear arose. Let me start from my bed as I would, with the terror +fresh upon me that he was discovered; let me sit listening, as I would +with dread, for Herbert's returning step at night, lest it should be +fleeter than ordinary, and winged with evil news,--for all that, and +much more to like purpose, the round of things went on. Condemned to +inaction and a state of constant restlessness and suspense, I rowed +about in my boat, and waited, waited, waited, as I best could. + +There were states of the tide when, having been down the river, I could +not get back through the eddy-chafed arches and starlings of old London +Bridge; then, I left my boat at a wharf near the Custom House, to be +brought up afterwards to the Temple stairs. I was not averse to doing +this, as it served to make me and my boat a commoner incident among the +water-side people there. From this slight occasion sprang two meetings +that I have now to tell of. + +One afternoon, late in the month of February, I came ashore at the wharf +at dusk. I had pulled down as far as Greenwich with the ebb tide, and +had turned with the tide. It had been a fine bright day, but had become +foggy as the sun dropped, and I had had to feel my way back among the +shipping, pretty carefully. Both in going and returning, I had seen the +signal in his window, All well. + +As it was a raw evening, and I was cold, I thought I would comfort +myself with dinner at once; and as I had hours of dejection and solitude +before me if I went home to the Temple, I thought I would afterwards go +to the play. The theatre where Mr. Wopsle had achieved his questionable +triumph was in that water-side neighborhood (it is nowhere now), and +to that theatre I resolved to go. I was aware that Mr. Wopsle had +not succeeded in reviving the Drama, but, on the contrary, had rather +partaken of its decline. He had been ominously heard of, through the +play-bills, as a faithful Black, in connection with a little girl of +noble birth, and a monkey. And Herbert had seen him as a predatory +Tartar of comic propensities, with a face like a red brick, and an +outrageous hat all over bells. + +I dined at what Herbert and I used to call a geographical chop-house, +where there were maps of the world in porter-pot rims on every half-yard +of the tablecloths, and charts of gravy on every one of the knives,--to +this day there is scarcely a single chop-house within the Lord Mayor's +dominions which is not geographical,--and wore out the time in dozing +over crumbs, staring at gas, and baking in a hot blast of dinners. By +and by, I roused myself, and went to the play. + +There, I found a virtuous boatswain in His Majesty's service,--a most +excellent man, though I could have wished his trousers not quite so +tight in some places, and not quite so loose in others,--who knocked all +the little men's hats over their eyes, though he was very generous and +brave, and who wouldn't hear of anybody's paying taxes, though he was +very patriotic. He had a bag of money in his pocket, like a pudding in +the cloth, and on that property married a young person in bed-furniture, +with great rejoicings; the whole population of Portsmouth (nine in +number at the last census) turning out on the beach to rub their own +hands and shake everybody else's, and sing "Fill, fill!" A certain +dark-complexioned Swab, however, who wouldn't fill, or do anything else +that was proposed to him, and whose heart was openly stated (by the +boatswain) to be as black as his figure-head, proposed to two other +Swabs to get all mankind into difficulties; which was so effectually +done (the Swab family having considerable political influence) that it +took half the evening to set things right, and then it was only brought +about through an honest little grocer with a white hat, black gaiters, +and red nose, getting into a clock, with a gridiron, and listening, and +coming out, and knocking everybody down from behind with the gridiron +whom he couldn't confute with what he had overheard. This led to Mr. +Wopsle's (who had never been heard of before) coming in with a star +and garter on, as a plenipotentiary of great power direct from the +Admiralty, to say that the Swabs were all to go to prison on the spot, +and that he had brought the boatswain down the Union Jack, as a slight +acknowledgment of his public services. The boatswain, unmanned for the +first time, respectfully dried his eyes on the Jack, and then cheering +up, and addressing Mr. Wopsle as Your Honor, solicited permission to +take him by the fin. Mr. Wopsle, conceding his fin with a gracious +dignity, was immediately shoved into a dusty corner, while everybody +danced a hornpipe; and from that corner, surveying the public with a +discontented eye, became aware of me. + +The second piece was the last new grand comic Christmas pantomime, in +the first scene of which, it pained me to suspect that I detected +Mr. Wopsle with red worsted legs under a highly magnified phosphoric +countenance and a shock of red curtain-fringe for his hair, engaged +in the manufacture of thunderbolts in a mine, and displaying great +cowardice when his gigantic master came home (very hoarse) to dinner. +But he presently presented himself under worthier circumstances; for, +the Genius of Youthful Love being in want of assistance,--on account of +the parental brutality of an ignorant farmer who opposed the choice +of his daughter's heart, by purposely falling upon the object, in a +flour-sack, out of the first-floor window,--summoned a sententious +Enchanter; and he, coming up from the antipodes rather unsteadily, after +an apparently violent journey, proved to be Mr. Wopsle in a high-crowned +hat, with a necromantic work in one volume under his arm. The business +of this enchanter on earth being principally to be talked at, sung at, +butted at, danced at, and flashed at with fires of various colors, +he had a good deal of time on his hands. And I observed, with great +surprise, that he devoted it to staring in my direction as if he were +lost in amazement. + +There was something so remarkable in the increasing glare of Mr. +Wopsle's eye, and he seemed to be turning so many things over in his +mind and to grow so confused, that I could not make it out. I sat +thinking of it long after he had ascended to the clouds in a large +watch-case, and still I could not make it out. I was still thinking +of it when I came out of the theatre an hour afterwards, and found him +waiting for me near the door. + +"How do you do?" said I, shaking hands with him as we turned down the +street together. "I saw that you saw me." + +"Saw you, Mr. Pip!" he returned. "Yes, of course I saw you. But who else +was there?" + +"Who else?" + +"It is the strangest thing," said Mr. Wopsle, drifting into his lost +look again; "and yet I could swear to him." + +Becoming alarmed, I entreated Mr. Wopsle to explain his meaning. + +"Whether I should have noticed him at first but for your being there," +said Mr. Wopsle, going on in the same lost way, "I can't be positive; +yet I think I should." + +Involuntarily I looked round me, as I was accustomed to look round me +when I went home; for these mysterious words gave me a chill. + +"Oh! He can't be in sight," said Mr. Wopsle. "He went out before I went +off. I saw him go." + +Having the reason that I had for being suspicious, I even suspected +this poor actor. I mistrusted a design to entrap me into some admission. +Therefore I glanced at him as we walked on together, but said nothing. + +"I had a ridiculous fancy that he must be with you, Mr. Pip, till I saw +that you were quite unconscious of him, sitting behind you there like a +ghost." + +My former chill crept over me again, but I was resolved not to speak +yet, for it was quite consistent with his words that he might be set on +to induce me to connect these references with Provis. Of course, I was +perfectly sure and safe that Provis had not been there. + +"I dare say you wonder at me, Mr. Pip; indeed, I see you do. But it is +so very strange! You'll hardly believe what I am going to tell you. I +could hardly believe it myself, if you told me." + +"Indeed?" said I. + +"No, indeed. Mr. Pip, you remember in old times a certain Christmas Day, +when you were quite a child, and I dined at Gargery's, and some soldiers +came to the door to get a pair of handcuffs mended?" + +"I remember it very well." + +"And you remember that there was a chase after two convicts, and that we +joined in it, and that Gargery took you on his back, and that I took the +lead, and you kept up with me as well as you could?" + +"I remember it all very well." Better than he thought,--except the last +clause. + +"And you remember that we came up with the two in a ditch, and that +there was a scuffle between them, and that one of them had been severely +handled and much mauled about the face by the other?" + +"I see it all before me." + +"And that the soldiers lighted torches, and put the two in the centre, +and that we went on to see the last of them, over the black marshes, +with the torchlight shining on their faces,--I am particular about +that,--with the torchlight shining on their faces, when there was an +outer ring of dark night all about us?" + +"Yes," said I. "I remember all that." + +"Then, Mr. Pip, one of those two prisoners sat behind you tonight. I saw +him over your shoulder." + +"Steady!" I thought. I asked him then, "Which of the two do you suppose +you saw?" + +"The one who had been mauled," he answered readily, "and I'll swear I +saw him! The more I think of him, the more certain I am of him." + +"This is very curious!" said I, with the best assumption I could put on +of its being nothing more to me. "Very curious indeed!" + +I cannot exaggerate the enhanced disquiet into which this conversation +threw me, or the special and peculiar terror I felt at Compeyson's +having been behind me "like a ghost." For if he had ever been out of my +thoughts for a few moments together since the hiding had begun, it was +in those very moments when he was closest to me; and to think that I +should be so unconscious and off my guard after all my care was as if +I had shut an avenue of a hundred doors to keep him out, and then had +found him at my elbow. I could not doubt, either, that he was there, +because I was there, and that, however slight an appearance of danger +there might be about us, danger was always near and active. + +I put such questions to Mr. Wopsle as, When did the man come in? He +could not tell me that; he saw me, and over my shoulder he saw the man. +It was not until he had seen him for some time that he began to identify +him; but he had from the first vaguely associated him with me, and +known him as somehow belonging to me in the old village time. How was +he dressed? Prosperously, but not noticeably otherwise; he thought, in +black. Was his face at all disfigured? No, he believed not. I believed +not too, for, although in my brooding state I had taken no especial +notice of the people behind me, I thought it likely that a face at all +disfigured would have attracted my attention. + +When Mr. Wopsle had imparted to me all that he could recall or I +extract, and when I had treated him to a little appropriate refreshment, +after the fatigues of the evening, we parted. It was between twelve and +one o'clock when I reached the Temple, and the gates were shut. No one +was near me when I went in and went home. + +Herbert had come in, and we held a very serious council by the fire. But +there was nothing to be done, saving to communicate to Wemmick what I +had that night found out, and to remind him that we waited for his hint. +As I thought that I might compromise him if I went too often to the +Castle, I made this communication by letter. I wrote it before I went to +bed, and went out and posted it; and again no one was near me. Herbert +and I agreed that we could do nothing else but be very cautious. And +we were very cautious indeed,--more cautious than before, if that were +possible,--and I for my part never went near Chinks's Basin, except +when I rowed by, and then I only looked at Mill Pond Bank as I looked at +anything else. + + + + +Chapter XLVIII + +The second of the two meetings referred to in the last chapter occurred +about a week after the first. I had again left my boat at the wharf +below Bridge; the time was an hour earlier in the afternoon; and, +undecided where to dine, I had strolled up into Cheapside, and was +strolling along it, surely the most unsettled person in all the busy +concourse, when a large hand was laid upon my shoulder by some one +overtaking me. It was Mr. Jaggers's hand, and he passed it through my +arm. + +"As we are going in the same direction, Pip, we may walk together. Where +are you bound for?" + +"For the Temple, I think," said I. + +"Don't you know?" said Mr. Jaggers. + +"Well," I returned, glad for once to get the better of him in +cross-examination, "I do not know, for I have not made up my mind." + +"You are going to dine?" said Mr. Jaggers. "You don't mind admitting +that, I suppose?" + +"No," I returned, "I don't mind admitting that." + +"And are not engaged?" + +"I don't mind admitting also that I am not engaged." + +"Then," said Mr. Jaggers, "come and dine with me." + +I was going to excuse myself, when he added, "Wemmick's coming." So +I changed my excuse into an acceptance,--the few words I had uttered, +serving for the beginning of either,--and we went along Cheapside +and slanted off to Little Britain, while the lights were springing up +brilliantly in the shop windows, and the street lamp-lighters, scarcely +finding ground enough to plant their ladders on in the midst of the +afternoon's bustle, were skipping up and down and running in and out, +opening more red eyes in the gathering fog than my rushlight tower at +the Hummums had opened white eyes in the ghostly wall. + +At the office in Little Britain there was the usual letter-writing, +hand-washing, candle-snuffing, and safe-locking, that closed the +business of the day. As I stood idle by Mr. Jaggers's fire, its rising +and falling flame made the two casts on the shelf look as if they were +playing a diabolical game at bo-peep with me; while the pair of coarse, +fat office candles that dimly lighted Mr. Jaggers as he wrote in a +corner were decorated with dirty winding-sheets, as if in remembrance of +a host of hanged clients. + +We went to Gerrard Street, all three together, in a hackney-coach: And, +as soon as we got there, dinner was served. Although I should not have +thought of making, in that place, the most distant reference by so much +as a look to Wemmick's Walworth sentiments, yet I should have had no +objection to catching his eye now and then in a friendly way. But it +was not to be done. He turned his eyes on Mr. Jaggers whenever he raised +them from the table, and was as dry and distant to me as if there were +twin Wemmicks, and this was the wrong one. + +"Did you send that note of Miss Havisham's to Mr. Pip, Wemmick?" Mr. +Jaggers asked, soon after we began dinner. + +"No, sir," returned Wemmick; "it was going by post, when you brought Mr. +Pip into the office. Here it is." He handed it to his principal instead +of to me. + +"It's a note of two lines, Pip," said Mr. Jaggers, handing it on, "sent +up to me by Miss Havisham on account of her not being sure of your +address. She tells me that she wants to see you on a little matter of +business you mentioned to her. You'll go down?" + +"Yes," said I, casting my eyes over the note, which was exactly in those +terms. + +"When do you think of going down?" + +"I have an impending engagement," said I, glancing at Wemmick, who was +putting fish into the post-office, "that renders me rather uncertain of +my time. At once, I think." + +"If Mr. Pip has the intention of going at once," said Wemmick to Mr. +Jaggers, "he needn't write an answer, you know." + +Receiving this as an intimation that it was best not to delay, I settled +that I would go to-morrow, and said so. Wemmick drank a glass of wine, +and looked with a grimly satisfied air at Mr. Jaggers, but not at me. + +"So, Pip! Our friend the Spider," said Mr. Jaggers, "has played his +cards. He has won the pool." + +It was as much as I could do to assent. + +"Hah! He is a promising fellow--in his way--but he may not have it all +his own way. The stronger will win in the end, but the stronger has to +be found out first. If he should turn to, and beat her--" + +"Surely," I interrupted, with a burning face and heart, "you do not +seriously think that he is scoundrel enough for that, Mr. Jaggers?" + +"I didn't say so, Pip. I am putting a case. If he should turn to and +beat her, he may possibly get the strength on his side; if it should be +a question of intellect, he certainly will not. It would be chance +work to give an opinion how a fellow of that sort will turn out in such +circumstances, because it's a toss-up between two results." + +"May I ask what they are?" + +"A fellow like our friend the Spider," answered Mr. Jaggers, "either +beats or cringes. He may cringe and growl, or cringe and not growl; but +he either beats or cringes. Ask Wemmick his opinion." + +"Either beats or cringes," said Wemmick, not at all addressing himself +to me. + +"So here's to Mrs. Bentley Drummle," said Mr. Jaggers, taking a decanter +of choicer wine from his dumb-waiter, and filling for each of us and +for himself, "and may the question of supremacy be settled to the lady's +satisfaction! To the satisfaction of the lady and the gentleman, +it never will be. Now, Molly, Molly, Molly, Molly, how slow you are +to-day!" + +She was at his elbow when he addressed her, putting a dish upon the +table. As she withdrew her hands from it, she fell back a step or two, +nervously muttering some excuse. And a certain action of her fingers, as +she spoke, arrested my attention. + +"What's the matter?" said Mr. Jaggers. + +"Nothing. Only the subject we were speaking of," said I, "was rather +painful to me." + +The action of her fingers was like the action of knitting. She stood +looking at her master, not understanding whether she was free to go, or +whether he had more to say to her and would call her back if she did go. +Her look was very intent. Surely, I had seen exactly such eyes and such +hands on a memorable occasion very lately! + +He dismissed her, and she glided out of the room. But she remained +before me as plainly as if she were still there. I looked at those +hands, I looked at those eyes, I looked at that flowing hair; and I +compared them with other hands, other eyes, other hair, that I knew of, +and with what those might be after twenty years of a brutal husband +and a stormy life. I looked again at those hands and eyes of the +housekeeper, and thought of the inexplicable feeling that had come over +me when I last walked--not alone--in the ruined garden, and through the +deserted brewery. I thought how the same feeling had come back when I +saw a face looking at me, and a hand waving to me from a stage-coach +window; and how it had come back again and had flashed about me like +lightning, when I had passed in a carriage--not alone--through a sudden +glare of light in a dark street. I thought how one link of association +had helped that identification in the theatre, and how such a link, +wanting before, had been riveted for me now, when I had passed by a +chance swift from Estella's name to the fingers with their knitting +action, and the attentive eyes. And I felt absolutely certain that this +woman was Estella's mother. + +Mr. Jaggers had seen me with Estella, and was not likely to have missed +the sentiments I had been at no pains to conceal. He nodded when I said +the subject was painful to me, clapped me on the back, put round the +wine again, and went on with his dinner. + +Only twice more did the housekeeper reappear, and then her stay in the +room was very short, and Mr. Jaggers was sharp with her. But her hands +were Estella's hands, and her eyes were Estella's eyes, and if she had +reappeared a hundred times I could have been neither more sure nor less +sure that my conviction was the truth. + +It was a dull evening, for Wemmick drew his wine, when it came round, +quite as a matter of business,--just as he might have drawn his salary +when that came round,--and with his eyes on his chief, sat in a state of +perpetual readiness for cross-examination. As to the quantity of wine, +his post-office was as indifferent and ready as any other post-office +for its quantity of letters. From my point of view, he was the wrong +twin all the time, and only externally like the Wemmick of Walworth. + +We took our leave early, and left together. Even when we were groping +among Mr. Jaggers's stock of boots for our hats, I felt that the right +twin was on his way back; and we had not gone half a dozen yards down +Gerrard Street in the Walworth direction, before I found that I was +walking arm in arm with the right twin, and that the wrong twin had +evaporated into the evening air. + +"Well!" said Wemmick, "that's over! He's a wonderful man, without his +living likeness; but I feel that I have to screw myself up when I dine +with him,--and I dine more comfortably unscrewed." + +I felt that this was a good statement of the case, and told him so. + +"Wouldn't say it to anybody but yourself," he answered. "I know that +what is said between you and me goes no further." + +I asked him if he had ever seen Miss Havisham's adopted daughter, Mrs. +Bentley Drummle. He said no. To avoid being too abrupt, I then spoke +of the Aged and of Miss Skiffins. He looked rather sly when I mentioned +Miss Skiffins, and stopped in the street to blow his nose, with a roll +of the head, and a flourish not quite free from latent boastfulness. + +"Wemmick," said I, "do you remember telling me, before I first went to +Mr. Jaggers's private house, to notice that housekeeper?" + +"Did I?" he replied. "Ah, I dare say I did. Deuce take me," he added, +suddenly, "I know I did. I find I am not quite unscrewed yet." + +"A wild beast tamed, you called her." + +"And what do you call her?" + +"The same. How did Mr. Jaggers tame her, Wemmick?" + +"That's his secret. She has been with him many a long year." + +"I wish you would tell me her story. I feel a particular interest in +being acquainted with it. You know that what is said between you and me +goes no further." + +"Well!" Wemmick replied, "I don't know her story,--that is, I don't know +all of it. But what I do know I'll tell you. We are in our private and +personal capacities, of course." + +"Of course." + +"A score or so of years ago, that woman was tried at the Old Bailey for +murder, and was acquitted. She was a very handsome young woman, and I +believe had some gypsy blood in her. Anyhow, it was hot enough when it +was up, as you may suppose." + +"But she was acquitted." + +"Mr. Jaggers was for her," pursued Wemmick, with a look full of meaning, +"and worked the case in a way quite astonishing. It was a desperate +case, and it was comparatively early days with him then, and he worked +it to general admiration; in fact, it may almost be said to have made +him. He worked it himself at the police-office, day after day for many +days, contending against even a committal; and at the trial where he +couldn't work it himself, sat under counsel, and--every one knew--put +in all the salt and pepper. The murdered person was a woman,--a woman a +good ten years older, very much larger, and very much stronger. It was +a case of jealousy. They both led tramping lives, and this woman in +Gerrard Street here had been married very young, over the broomstick (as +we say), to a tramping man, and was a perfect fury in point of jealousy. +The murdered woman,--more a match for the man, certainly, in point of +years--was found dead in a barn near Hounslow Heath. There had been a +violent struggle, perhaps a fight. She was bruised and scratched and +torn, and had been held by the throat, at last, and choked. Now, there +was no reasonable evidence to implicate any person but this woman, and +on the improbabilities of her having been able to do it Mr. Jaggers +principally rested his case. You may be sure," said Wemmick, touching me +on the sleeve, "that he never dwelt upon the strength of her hands then, +though he sometimes does now." + +I had told Wemmick of his showing us her wrists, that day of the dinner +party. + +"Well, sir!" Wemmick went on; "it happened--happened, don't you +see?--that this woman was so very artfully dressed from the time of +her apprehension, that she looked much slighter than she really was; in +particular, her sleeves are always remembered to have been so skilfully +contrived that her arms had quite a delicate look. She had only a bruise +or two about her,--nothing for a tramp,--but the backs of her hands +were lacerated, and the question was, Was it with finger-nails? Now, Mr. +Jaggers showed that she had struggled through a great lot of brambles +which were not as high as her face; but which she could not have got +through and kept her hands out of; and bits of those brambles were +actually found in her skin and put in evidence, as well as the fact that +the brambles in question were found on examination to have been broken +through, and to have little shreds of her dress and little spots of +blood upon them here and there. But the boldest point he made was this: +it was attempted to be set up, in proof of her jealousy, that she was +under strong suspicion of having, at about the time of the murder, +frantically destroyed her child by this man--some three years old--to +revenge herself upon him. Mr. Jaggers worked that in this way: "We say +these are not marks of finger-nails, but marks of brambles, and we show +you the brambles. You say they are marks of finger-nails, and you set +up the hypothesis that she destroyed her child. You must accept all +consequences of that hypothesis. For anything we know, she may have +destroyed her child, and the child in clinging to her may have scratched +her hands. What then? You are not trying her for the murder of her +child; why don't you? As to this case, if you will have scratches, +we say that, for anything we know, you may have accounted for them, +assuming for the sake of argument that you have not invented them?" "To +sum up, sir," said Wemmick, "Mr. Jaggers was altogether too many for the +jury, and they gave in." + +"Has she been in his service ever since?" + +"Yes; but not only that," said Wemmick, "she went into his service +immediately after her acquittal, tamed as she is now. She has since been +taught one thing and another in the way of her duties, but she was tamed +from the beginning." + +"Do you remember the sex of the child?" + +"Said to have been a girl." + +"You have nothing more to say to me to-night?" + +"Nothing. I got your letter and destroyed it. Nothing." + +We exchanged a cordial good-night, and I went home, with new matter for +my thoughts, though with no relief from the old. + + + + +Chapter XLIX + +Putting Miss Havisham's note in my pocket, that it might serve as +my credentials for so soon reappearing at Satis House, in case her +waywardness should lead her to express any surprise at seeing me, I went +down again by the coach next day. But I alighted at the Halfway House, +and breakfasted there, and walked the rest of the distance; for I sought +to get into the town quietly by the unfrequented ways, and to leave it +in the same manner. + +The best light of the day was gone when I passed along the quiet echoing +courts behind the High Street. The nooks of ruin where the old monks had +once had their refectories and gardens, and where the strong walls were +now pressed into the service of humble sheds and stables, were almost +as silent as the old monks in their graves. The cathedral chimes had at +once a sadder and a more remote sound to me, as I hurried on avoiding +observation, than they had ever had before; so, the swell of the old +organ was borne to my ears like funeral music; and the rooks, as they +hovered about the gray tower and swung in the bare high trees of the +priory garden, seemed to call to me that the place was changed, and that +Estella was gone out of it for ever. + +An elderly woman, whom I had seen before as one of the servants who +lived in the supplementary house across the back courtyard, opened the +gate. The lighted candle stood in the dark passage within, as of old, +and I took it up and ascended the staircase alone. Miss Havisham was not +in her own room, but was in the larger room across the landing. Looking +in at the door, after knocking in vain, I saw her sitting on the hearth +in a ragged chair, close before, and lost in the contemplation of, the +ashy fire. + +Doing as I had often done, I went in, and stood touching the old +chimney-piece, where she could see me when she raised her eyes. There +was an air of utter loneliness upon her, that would have moved me to +pity though she had wilfully done me a deeper injury than I could charge +her with. As I stood compassionating her, and thinking how, in the +progress of time, I too had come to be a part of the wrecked fortunes of +that house, her eyes rested on me. She stared, and said in a low voice, +"Is it real?" + +"It is I, Pip. Mr. Jaggers gave me your note yesterday, and I have lost +no time." + +"Thank you. Thank you." + +As I brought another of the ragged chairs to the hearth and sat down, I +remarked a new expression on her face, as if she were afraid of me. + +"I want," she said, "to pursue that subject you mentioned to me when you +were last here, and to show you that I am not all stone. But perhaps you +can never believe, now, that there is anything human in my heart?" + +When I said some reassuring words, she stretched out her tremulous right +hand, as though she was going to touch me; but she recalled it again +before I understood the action, or knew how to receive it. + +"You said, speaking for your friend, that you could tell me how to do +something useful and good. Something that you would like done, is it +not?" + +"Something that I would like done very much." + +"What is it?" + +I began explaining to her that secret history of the partnership. I had +not got far into it, when I judged from her looks that she was thinking +in a discursive way of me, rather than of what I said. It seemed to be +so; for, when I stopped speaking, many moments passed before she showed +that she was conscious of the fact. + +"Do you break off," she asked then, with her former air of being afraid +of me, "because you hate me too much to bear to speak to me?" + +"No, no," I answered, "how can you think so, Miss Havisham! I stopped +because I thought you were not following what I said." + +"Perhaps I was not," she answered, putting a hand to her head. "Begin +again, and let me look at something else. Stay! Now tell me." + +She set her hand upon her stick in the resolute way that sometimes was +habitual to her, and looked at the fire with a strong expression of +forcing herself to attend. I went on with my explanation, and told her +how I had hoped to complete the transaction out of my means, but how +in this I was disappointed. That part of the subject (I reminded her) +involved matters which could form no part of my explanation, for they +were the weighty secrets of another. + +"So!" said she, assenting with her head, but not looking at me. "And how +much money is wanting to complete the purchase?" + +I was rather afraid of stating it, for it sounded a large sum. "Nine +hundred pounds." + +"If I give you the money for this purpose, will you keep my secret as +you have kept your own?" + +"Quite as faithfully." + +"And your mind will be more at rest?" + +"Much more at rest." + +"Are you very unhappy now?" + +She asked this question, still without looking at me, but in an unwonted +tone of sympathy. I could not reply at the moment, for my voice failed +me. She put her left arm across the head of her stick, and softly laid +her forehead on it. + +"I am far from happy, Miss Havisham; but I have other causes of disquiet +than any you know of. They are the secrets I have mentioned." + +After a little while, she raised her head, and looked at the fire again. + +"It is noble in you to tell me that you have other causes of +unhappiness. Is it true?" + +"Too true." + +"Can I only serve you, Pip, by serving your friend? Regarding that as +done, is there nothing I can do for you yourself?" + +"Nothing. I thank you for the question. I thank you even more for the +tone of the question. But there is nothing." + +She presently rose from her seat, and looked about the blighted room +for the means of writing. There were none there, and she took from her +pocket a yellow set of ivory tablets, mounted in tarnished gold, and +wrote upon them with a pencil in a case of tarnished gold that hung from +her neck. + +"You are still on friendly terms with Mr. Jaggers?" + +"Quite. I dined with him yesterday." + +"This is an authority to him to pay you that money, to lay out at your +irresponsible discretion for your friend. I keep no money here; but if +you would rather Mr. Jaggers knew nothing of the matter, I will send it +to you." + +"Thank you, Miss Havisham; I have not the least objection to receiving +it from him." + +She read me what she had written; and it was direct and clear, and +evidently intended to absolve me from any suspicion of profiting by the +receipt of the money. I took the tablets from her hand, and it trembled +again, and it trembled more as she took off the chain to which the +pencil was attached, and put it in mine. All this she did without +looking at me. + +"My name is on the first leaf. If you can ever write under my name, "I +forgive her," though ever so long after my broken heart is dust pray do +it!" + +"O Miss Havisham," said I, "I can do it now. There have been sore +mistakes; and my life has been a blind and thankless one; and I want +forgiveness and direction far too much, to be bitter with you." + +She turned her face to me for the first time since she had averted it, +and, to my amazement, I may even add to my terror, dropped on her knees +at my feet; with her folded hands raised to me in the manner in which, +when her poor heart was young and fresh and whole, they must often have +been raised to heaven from her mother's side. + +To see her with her white hair and her worn face kneeling at my feet +gave me a shock through all my frame. I entreated her to rise, and got +my arms about her to help her up; but she only pressed that hand of mine +which was nearest to her grasp, and hung her head over it and wept. I +had never seen her shed a tear before, and, in the hope that the +relief might do her good, I bent over her without speaking. She was not +kneeling now, but was down upon the ground. + +"O!" she cried, despairingly. "What have I done! What have I done!" + +"If you mean, Miss Havisham, what have you done to injure me, let me +answer. Very little. I should have loved her under any circumstances. Is +she married?" + +"Yes." + +It was a needless question, for a new desolation in the desolate house +had told me so. + +"What have I done! What have I done!" She wrung her hands, and crushed +her white hair, and returned to this cry over and over again. "What have +I done!" + +I knew not how to answer, or how to comfort her. That she had done a +grievous thing in taking an impressionable child to mould into the form +that her wild resentment, spurned affection, and wounded pride found +vengeance in, I knew full well. But that, in shutting out the light +of day, she had shut out infinitely more; that, in seclusion, she had +secluded herself from a thousand natural and healing influences; that, +her mind, brooding solitary, had grown diseased, as all minds do and +must and will that reverse the appointed order of their Maker, I knew +equally well. And could I look upon her without compassion, seeing her +punishment in the ruin she was, in her profound unfitness for this earth +on which she was placed, in the vanity of sorrow which had become a +master mania, like the vanity of penitence, the vanity of remorse, the +vanity of unworthiness, and other monstrous vanities that have been +curses in this world? + +"Until you spoke to her the other day, and until I saw in you a +looking-glass that showed me what I once felt myself, I did not know +what I had done. What have I done! What have I done!" And so again, +twenty, fifty times over, What had she done! + +"Miss Havisham," I said, when her cry had died away, "you may dismiss me +from your mind and conscience. But Estella is a different case, and if +you can ever undo any scrap of what you have done amiss in keeping a +part of her right nature away from her, it will be better to do that +than to bemoan the past through a hundred years." + +"Yes, yes, I know it. But, Pip--my dear!" There was an earnest womanly +compassion for me in her new affection. "My dear! Believe this: when she +first came to me, I meant to save her from misery like my own. At first, +I meant no more." + +"Well, well!" said I. "I hope so." + +"But as she grew, and promised to be very beautiful, I gradually did +worse, and with my praises, and with my jewels, and with my teachings, +and with this figure of myself always before her, a warning to back and +point my lessons, I stole her heart away, and put ice in its place." + +"Better," I could not help saying, "to have left her a natural heart, +even to be bruised or broken." + +With that, Miss Havisham looked distractedly at me for a while, and then +burst out again, What had she done! + +"If you knew all my story," she pleaded, "you would have some compassion +for me and a better understanding of me." + +"Miss Havisham," I answered, as delicately as I could, "I believe I may +say that I do know your story, and have known it ever since I first left +this neighborhood. It has inspired me with great commiseration, and I +hope I understand it and its influences. Does what has passed between us +give me any excuse for asking you a question relative to Estella? Not as +she is, but as she was when she first came here?" + +She was seated on the ground, with her arms on the ragged chair, and +her head leaning on them. She looked full at me when I said this, and +replied, "Go on." + +"Whose child was Estella?" + +She shook her head. + +"You don't know?" + +She shook her head again. + +"But Mr. Jaggers brought her here, or sent her here?" + +"Brought her here." + +"Will you tell me how that came about?" + +She answered in a low whisper and with caution: "I had been shut up in +these rooms a long time (I don't know how long; you know what time the +clocks keep here), when I told him that I wanted a little girl to rear +and love, and save from my fate. I had first seen him when I sent +for him to lay this place waste for me; having read of him in the +newspapers, before I and the world parted. He told me that he would +look about him for such an orphan child. One night he brought her here +asleep, and I called her Estella." + +"Might I ask her age then?" + +"Two or three. She herself knows nothing, but that she was left an +orphan and I adopted her." + +So convinced I was of that woman's being her mother, that I wanted +no evidence to establish the fact in my own mind. But, to any mind, I +thought, the connection here was clear and straight. + +What more could I hope to do by prolonging the interview? I had +succeeded on behalf of Herbert, Miss Havisham had told me all she knew +of Estella, I had said and done what I could to ease her mind. No matter +with what other words we parted; we parted. + +Twilight was closing in when I went downstairs into the natural air. I +called to the woman who had opened the gate when I entered, that I would +not trouble her just yet, but would walk round the place before leaving. +For I had a presentiment that I should never be there again, and I felt +that the dying light was suited to my last view of it. + +By the wilderness of casks that I had walked on long ago, and on which +the rain of years had fallen since, rotting them in many places, and +leaving miniature swamps and pools of water upon those that stood on +end, I made my way to the ruined garden. I went all round it; round by +the corner where Herbert and I had fought our battle; round by the paths +where Estella and I had walked. So cold, so lonely, so dreary all! + +Taking the brewery on my way back, I raised the rusty latch of a little +door at the garden end of it, and walked through. I was going out at the +opposite door,--not easy to open now, for the damp wood had started and +swelled, and the hinges were yielding, and the threshold was encumbered +with a growth of fungus,--when I turned my head to look back. A childish +association revived with wonderful force in the moment of the slight +action, and I fancied that I saw Miss Havisham hanging to the beam. So +strong was the impression, that I stood under the beam shuddering from +head to foot before I knew it was a fancy,--though to be sure I was +there in an instant. + +The mournfulness of the place and time, and the great terror of +this illusion, though it was but momentary, caused me to feel an +indescribable awe as I came out between the open wooden gates where I +had once wrung my hair after Estella had wrung my heart. Passing on into +the front courtyard, I hesitated whether to call the woman to let me out +at the locked gate of which she had the key, or first to go upstairs +and assure myself that Miss Havisham was as safe and well as I had left +her. I took the latter course and went up. + +I looked into the room where I had left her, and I saw her seated in the +ragged chair upon the hearth close to the fire, with her back towards +me. In the moment when I was withdrawing my head to go quietly away, +I saw a great flaming light spring up. In the same moment I saw her +running at me, shrieking, with a whirl of fire blazing all about her, +and soaring at least as many feet above her head as she was high. + +I had a double-caped great-coat on, and over my arm another thick coat. +That I got them off, closed with her, threw her down, and got them over +her; that I dragged the great cloth from the table for the same purpose, +and with it dragged down the heap of rottenness in the midst, and +all the ugly things that sheltered there; that we were on the ground +struggling like desperate enemies, and that the closer I covered her, +the more wildly she shrieked and tried to free herself,--that this +occurred I knew through the result, but not through anything I felt, or +thought, or knew I did. I knew nothing until I knew that we were on the +floor by the great table, and that patches of tinder yet alight were +floating in the smoky air, which, a moment ago, had been her faded +bridal dress. + +Then, I looked round and saw the disturbed beetles and spiders running +away over the floor, and the servants coming in with breathless cries +at the door. I still held her forcibly down with all my strength, like +a prisoner who might escape; and I doubt if I even knew who she was, or +why we had struggled, or that she had been in flames, or that the flames +were out, until I saw the patches of tinder that had been her garments +no longer alight but falling in a black shower around us. + +She was insensible, and I was afraid to have her moved, or even +touched. Assistance was sent for, and I held her until it came, as if +I unreasonably fancied (I think I did) that, if I let her go, the fire +would break out again and consume her. When I got up, on the surgeon's +coming to her with other aid, I was astonished to see that both my hands +were burnt; for, I had no knowledge of it through the sense of feeling. + +On examination it was pronounced that she had received serious hurts, +but that they of themselves were far from hopeless; the danger lay +mainly in the nervous shock. By the surgeon's directions, her bed was +carried into that room and laid upon the great table, which happened to +be well suited to the dressing of her injuries. When I saw her again, an +hour afterwards, she lay, indeed, where I had seen her strike her stick, +and had heard her say that she would lie one day. + +Though every vestige of her dress was burnt, as they told me, she +still had something of her old ghastly bridal appearance; for, they had +covered her to the throat with white cotton-wool, and as she lay with +a white sheet loosely overlying that, the phantom air of something that +had been and was changed was still upon her. + +I found, on questioning the servants, that Estella was in Paris, and I +got a promise from the surgeon that he would write to her by the +next post. Miss Havisham's family I took upon myself; intending to +communicate with Mr. Matthew Pocket only, and leave him to do as he +liked about informing the rest. This I did next day, through Herbert, as +soon as I returned to town. + +There was a stage, that evening, when she spoke collectedly of what had +happened, though with a certain terrible vivacity. Towards midnight she +began to wander in her speech; and after that it gradually set in that +she said innumerable times in a low solemn voice, "What have I done!" +And then, "When she first came, I meant to save her from misery like +mine." And then, "Take the pencil and write under my name, 'I forgive +her!'" She never changed the order of these three sentences, but she +sometimes left out a word in one or other of them; never putting in +another word, but always leaving a blank and going on to the next word. + +As I could do no service there, and as I had, nearer home, that pressing +reason for anxiety and fear which even her wanderings could not drive +out of my mind, I decided, in the course of the night that I would +return by the early morning coach, walking on a mile or so, and being +taken up clear of the town. At about six o'clock of the morning, +therefore, I leaned over her and touched her lips with mine, just as +they said, not stopping for being touched, "Take the pencil and write +under my name, 'I forgive her.'" + + + + +Chapter L + +My hands had been dressed twice or thrice in the night, and again in +the morning. My left arm was a good deal burned to the elbow, and, less +severely, as high as the shoulder; it was very painful, but the flames +had set in that direction, and I felt thankful it was no worse. My right +hand was not so badly burnt but that I could move the fingers. It was +bandaged, of course, but much less inconveniently than my left hand and +arm; those I carried in a sling; and I could only wear my coat like a +cloak, loose over my shoulders and fastened at the neck. My hair had +been caught by the fire, but not my head or face. + +When Herbert had been down to Hammersmith and seen his father, he came +back to me at our chambers, and devoted the day to attending on me. He +was the kindest of nurses, and at stated times took off the bandages, +and steeped them in the cooling liquid that was kept ready, and put them +on again, with a patient tenderness that I was deeply grateful for. + +At first, as I lay quiet on the sofa, I found it painfully difficult, I +might say impossible, to get rid of the impression of the glare of the +flames, their hurry and noise, and the fierce burning smell. If I +dozed for a minute, I was awakened by Miss Havisham's cries, and by her +running at me with all that height of fire above her head. This pain +of the mind was much harder to strive against than any bodily pain I +suffered; and Herbert, seeing that, did his utmost to hold my attention +engaged. + +Neither of us spoke of the boat, but we both thought of it. That +was made apparent by our avoidance of the subject, and by our +agreeing--without agreement--to make my recovery of the use of my hands +a question of so many hours, not of so many weeks. + +My first question when I saw Herbert had been of course, whether all +was well down the river? As he replied in the affirmative, with perfect +confidence and cheerfulness, we did not resume the subject until the day +was wearing away. But then, as Herbert changed the bandages, more by +the light of the fire than by the outer light, he went back to it +spontaneously. + +"I sat with Provis last night, Handel, two good hours." + +"Where was Clara?" + +"Dear little thing!" said Herbert. "She was up and down with +Gruffandgrim all the evening. He was perpetually pegging at the floor +the moment she left his sight. I doubt if he can hold out long, though. +What with rum and pepper,--and pepper and rum,--I should think his +pegging must be nearly over." + +"And then you will be married, Herbert?" + +"How can I take care of the dear child otherwise?--Lay your arm out upon +the back of the sofa, my dear boy, and I'll sit down here, and get the +bandage off so gradually that you shall not know when it comes. I was +speaking of Provis. Do you know, Handel, he improves?" + +"I said to you I thought he was softened when I last saw him." + +"So you did. And so he is. He was very communicative last night, and +told me more of his life. You remember his breaking off here about some +woman that he had had great trouble with.--Did I hurt you?" + +I had started, but not under his touch. His words had given me a start. + +"I had forgotten that, Herbert, but I remember it now you speak of it." + +"Well! He went into that part of his life, and a dark wild part it is. +Shall I tell you? Or would it worry you just now?" + +"Tell me by all means. Every word." + +Herbert bent forward to look at me more nearly, as if my reply had been +rather more hurried or more eager than he could quite account for. "Your +head is cool?" he said, touching it. + +"Quite," said I. "Tell me what Provis said, my dear Herbert." + +"It seems," said Herbert, "--there's a bandage off most charmingly, and +now comes the cool one,--makes you shrink at first, my poor dear fellow, +don't it? but it will be comfortable presently,--it seems that the +woman was a young woman, and a jealous woman, and a revengeful woman; +revengeful, Handel, to the last degree." + +"To what last degree?" + +"Murder.--Does it strike too cold on that sensitive place?" + +"I don't feel it. How did she murder? Whom did she murder?" + +"Why, the deed may not have merited quite so terrible a name," +said Herbert, "but, she was tried for it, and Mr. Jaggers defended +her, and the reputation of that defence first made his name known +to Provis. It was another and a stronger woman who was the victim, +and there had been a struggle--in a barn. Who began it, or how fair +it was, or how unfair, may be doubtful; but how it ended is +certainly not doubtful, for the victim was found throttled." + +"Was the woman brought in guilty?" + +"No; she was acquitted.--My poor Handel, I hurt you!" + +"It is impossible to be gentler, Herbert. Yes? What else?" + +"This acquitted young woman and Provis had a little child; a little +child of whom Provis was exceedingly fond. On the evening of the very +night when the object of her jealousy was strangled as I tell you, the +young woman presented herself before Provis for one moment, and swore +that she would destroy the child (which was in her possession), and he +should never see it again; then she vanished.--There's the worst arm +comfortably in the sling once more, and now there remains but the right +hand, which is a far easier job. I can do it better by this light +than by a stronger, for my hand is steadiest when I don't see the poor +blistered patches too distinctly.--You don't think your breathing is +affected, my dear boy? You seem to breathe quickly." + +"Perhaps I do, Herbert. Did the woman keep her oath?" + +"There comes the darkest part of Provis's life. She did." + +"That is, he says she did." + +"Why, of course, my dear boy," returned Herbert, in a tone of surprise, +and again bending forward to get a nearer look at me. "He says it all. I +have no other information." + +"No, to be sure." + +"Now, whether," pursued Herbert, "he had used the child's mother ill, or +whether he had used the child's mother well, Provis doesn't say; but she +had shared some four or five years of the wretched life he described +to us at this fireside, and he seems to have felt pity for her, and +forbearance towards her. Therefore, fearing he should be called upon to +depose about this destroyed child, and so be the cause of her death, he +hid himself (much as he grieved for the child), kept himself dark, as he +says, out of the way and out of the trial, and was only vaguely talked +of as a certain man called Abel, out of whom the jealousy arose. After +the acquittal she disappeared, and thus he lost the child and the +child's mother." + +"I want to ask--" + +"A moment, my dear boy, and I have done. That evil genius, Compeyson, +the worst of scoundrels among many scoundrels, knowing of his keeping +out of the way at that time and of his reasons for doing so, of course +afterwards held the knowledge over his head as a means of keeping him +poorer and working him harder. It was clear last night that this barbed +the point of Provis's animosity." + +"I want to know," said I, "and particularly, Herbert, whether he told +you when this happened?" + +"Particularly? Let me remember, then, what he said as to that. His +expression was, 'a round score o' year ago, and a'most directly after I +took up wi' Compeyson.' How old were you when you came upon him in the +little churchyard?" + +"I think in my seventh year." + +"Ay. It had happened some three or four years then, he said, and you +brought into his mind the little girl so tragically lost, who would have +been about your age." + +"Herbert," said I, after a short silence, in a hurried way, "can you see +me best by the light of the window, or the light of the fire?" + +"By the firelight," answered Herbert, coming close again. + +"Look at me." + +"I do look at you, my dear boy." + +"Touch me." + +"I do touch you, my dear boy." + +"You are not afraid that I am in any fever, or that my head is much +disordered by the accident of last night?" + +"N-no, my dear boy," said Herbert, after taking time to examine me. "You +are rather excited, but you are quite yourself." + +"I know I am quite myself. And the man we have in hiding down the river, +is Estella's Father." + + + + +Chapter LI + +What purpose I had in view when I was hot on tracing out and proving +Estella's parentage, I cannot say. It will presently be seen that the +question was not before me in a distinct shape until it was put before +me by a wiser head than my own. + +But when Herbert and I had held our momentous conversation, I was seized +with a feverish conviction that I ought to hunt the matter down,--that I +ought not to let it rest, but that I ought to see Mr. Jaggers, and come +at the bare truth. I really do not know whether I felt that I did this +for Estella's sake, or whether I was glad to transfer to the man in +whose preservation I was so much concerned some rays of the romantic +interest that had so long surrounded me. Perhaps the latter possibility +may be the nearer to the truth. + +Any way, I could scarcely be withheld from going out to Gerrard Street +that night. Herbert's representations that, if I did, I should probably +be laid up and stricken useless, when our fugitive's safety would depend +upon me, alone restrained my impatience. On the understanding, again +and again reiterated, that, come what would, I was to go to Mr. Jaggers +to-morrow, I at length submitted to keep quiet, and to have my hurts +looked after, and to stay at home. Early next morning we went out +together, and at the corner of Giltspur Street by Smithfield, I left +Herbert to go his way into the City, and took my way to Little Britain. + +There were periodical occasions when Mr. Jaggers and Wemmick went over +the office accounts, and checked off the vouchers, and put all things +straight. On these occasions, Wemmick took his books and papers into Mr. +Jaggers's room, and one of the upstairs clerks came down into the outer +office. Finding such clerk on Wemmick's post that morning, I knew +what was going on; but I was not sorry to have Mr. Jaggers and Wemmick +together, as Wemmick would then hear for himself that I said nothing to +compromise him. + +My appearance, with my arm bandaged and my coat loose over my shoulders, +favored my object. Although I had sent Mr. Jaggers a brief account of +the accident as soon as I had arrived in town, yet I had to give him all +the details now; and the speciality of the occasion caused our talk +to be less dry and hard, and less strictly regulated by the rules of +evidence, than it had been before. While I described the disaster, Mr. +Jaggers stood, according to his wont, before the fire. Wemmick leaned +back in his chair, staring at me, with his hands in the pockets of his +trousers, and his pen put horizontally into the post. The two brutal +casts, always inseparable in my mind from the official proceedings, +seemed to be congestively considering whether they didn't smell fire at +the present moment. + +My narrative finished, and their questions exhausted, I then produced +Miss Havisham's authority to receive the nine hundred pounds for +Herbert. Mr. Jaggers's eyes retired a little deeper into his head when +I handed him the tablets, but he presently handed them over to Wemmick, +with instructions to draw the check for his signature. While that was +in course of being done, I looked on at Wemmick as he wrote, and Mr. +Jaggers, poising and swaying himself on his well-polished boots, looked +on at me. "I am sorry, Pip," said he, as I put the check in my pocket, +when he had signed it, "that we do nothing for you." + +"Miss Havisham was good enough to ask me," I returned, "whether she +could do nothing for me, and I told her No." + +"Everybody should know his own business," said Mr. Jaggers. And I saw +Wemmick's lips form the words "portable property." + +"I should not have told her No, if I had been you," said Mr Jaggers; +"but every man ought to know his own business best." + +"Every man's business," said Wemmick, rather reproachfully towards me, +"is portable property." + +As I thought the time was now come for pursuing the theme I had at +heart, I said, turning on Mr. Jaggers:-- + +"I did ask something of Miss Havisham, however, sir. I asked her to give +me some information relative to her adopted daughter, and she gave me +all she possessed." + +"Did she?" said Mr. Jaggers, bending forward to look at his boots and +then straightening himself. "Hah! I don't think I should have done so, +if I had been Miss Havisham. But she ought to know her own business +best." + +"I know more of the history of Miss Havisham's adopted child than Miss +Havisham herself does, sir. I know her mother." + +Mr. Jaggers looked at me inquiringly, and repeated "Mother?" + +"I have seen her mother within these three days." + +"Yes?" said Mr. Jaggers. + +"And so have you, sir. And you have seen her still more recently." + +"Yes?" said Mr. Jaggers. + +"Perhaps I know more of Estella's history than even you do," said I. "I +know her father too." + +A certain stop that Mr. Jaggers came to in his manner--he was too +self-possessed to change his manner, but he could not help its being +brought to an indefinably attentive stop--assured me that he did not +know who her father was. This I had strongly suspected from Provis's +account (as Herbert had repeated it) of his having kept himself dark; +which I pieced on to the fact that he himself was not Mr. Jaggers's +client until some four years later, and when he could have no reason for +claiming his identity. But, I could not be sure of this unconsciousness +on Mr. Jaggers's part before, though I was quite sure of it now. + +"So! You know the young lady's father, Pip?" said Mr. Jaggers. + +"Yes," I replied, "and his name is Provis--from New South Wales." + +Even Mr. Jaggers started when I said those words. It was the slightest +start that could escape a man, the most carefully repressed and the +sooner checked, but he did start, though he made it a part of the +action of taking out his pocket-handkerchief. How Wemmick received the +announcement I am unable to say; for I was afraid to look at him just +then, lest Mr. Jaggers's sharpness should detect that there had been +some communication unknown to him between us. + +"And on what evidence, Pip," asked Mr. Jaggers, very coolly, as he +paused with his handkerchief half way to his nose, "does Provis make +this claim?" + +"He does not make it," said I, "and has never made it, and has no +knowledge or belief that his daughter is in existence." + +For once, the powerful pocket-handkerchief failed. My reply was so +unexpected, that Mr. Jaggers put the handkerchief back into his pocket +without completing the usual performance, folded his arms, and looked +with stern attention at me, though with an immovable face. + +Then I told him all I knew, and how I knew it; with the one reservation +that I left him to infer that I knew from Miss Havisham what I in fact +knew from Wemmick. I was very careful indeed as to that. Nor did I look +towards Wemmick until I had finished all I had to tell, and had been for +some time silently meeting Mr. Jaggers's look. When I did at last turn +my eyes in Wemmick's direction, I found that he had unposted his pen, +and was intent upon the table before him. + +"Hah!" said Mr. Jaggers at last, as he moved towards the papers on the +table. "What item was it you were at, Wemmick, when Mr. Pip came in?" + +But I could not submit to be thrown off in that way, and I made a +passionate, almost an indignant appeal, to him to be more frank and +manly with me. I reminded him of the false hopes into which I had +lapsed, the length of time they had lasted, and the discovery I had +made: and I hinted at the danger that weighed upon my spirits. I +represented myself as being surely worthy of some little confidence from +him, in return for the confidence I had just now imparted. I said that +I did not blame him, or suspect him, or mistrust him, but I wanted +assurance of the truth from him. And if he asked me why I wanted it, +and why I thought I had any right to it, I would tell him, little as he +cared for such poor dreams, that I had loved Estella dearly and long, +and that although I had lost her, and must live a bereaved life, +whatever concerned her was still nearer and dearer to me than anything +else in the world. And seeing that Mr. Jaggers stood quite still and +silent, and apparently quite obdurate, under this appeal, I turned to +Wemmick, and said, "Wemmick, I know you to be a man with a gentle +heart. I have seen your pleasant home, and your old father, and all the +innocent, cheerful playful ways with which you refresh your business +life. And I entreat you to say a word for me to Mr. Jaggers, and to +represent to him that, all circumstances considered, he ought to be more +open with me!" + +I have never seen two men look more oddly at one another than Mr. +Jaggers and Wemmick did after this apostrophe. At first, a misgiving +crossed me that Wemmick would be instantly dismissed from his +employment; but it melted as I saw Mr. Jaggers relax into something like +a smile, and Wemmick become bolder. + +"What's all this?" said Mr. Jaggers. "You with an old father, and you +with pleasant and playful ways?" + +"Well!" returned Wemmick. "If I don't bring 'em here, what does it +matter?" + +"Pip," said Mr. Jaggers, laying his hand upon my arm, and smiling +openly, "this man must be the most cunning impostor in all London." + +"Not a bit of it," returned Wemmick, growing bolder and bolder. "I think +you're another." + +Again they exchanged their former odd looks, each apparently still +distrustful that the other was taking him in. + +"You with a pleasant home?" said Mr. Jaggers. + +"Since it don't interfere with business," returned Wemmick, "let it be +so. Now, I look at you, sir, I shouldn't wonder if you might be planning +and contriving to have a pleasant home of your own one of these days, +when you're tired of all this work." + +Mr. Jaggers nodded his head retrospectively two or three times, and +actually drew a sigh. "Pip," said he, "we won't talk about 'poor +dreams;' you know more about such things than I, having much fresher +experience of that kind. But now about this other matter. I'll put a +case to you. Mind! I admit nothing." + +He waited for me to declare that I quite understood that he expressly +said that he admitted nothing. + +"Now, Pip," said Mr. Jaggers, "put this case. Put the case that a +woman, under such circumstances as you have mentioned, held her child +concealed, and was obliged to communicate the fact to her legal adviser, +on his representing to her that he must know, with an eye to the +latitude of his defence, how the fact stood about that child. Put the +case that, at the same time he held a trust to find a child for an +eccentric rich lady to adopt and bring up." + +"I follow you, sir." + +"Put the case that he lived in an atmosphere of evil, and that all he +saw of children was their being generated in great numbers for certain +destruction. Put the case that he often saw children solemnly tried at +a criminal bar, where they were held up to be seen; put the case that +he habitually knew of their being imprisoned, whipped, transported, +neglected, cast out, qualified in all ways for the hangman, and growing +up to be hanged. Put the case that pretty nigh all the children he saw +in his daily business life he had reason to look upon as so much +spawn, to develop into the fish that were to come to his net,--to be +prosecuted, defended, forsworn, made orphans, bedevilled somehow." + +"I follow you, sir." + +"Put the case, Pip, that here was one pretty little child out of the +heap who could be saved; whom the father believed dead, and dared make +no stir about; as to whom, over the mother, the legal adviser had this +power: "I know what you did, and how you did it. You came so and so, you +did such and such things to divert suspicion. I have tracked you through +it all, and I tell it you all. Part with the child, unless it should +be necessary to produce it to clear you, and then it shall be produced. +Give the child into my hands, and I will do my best to bring you off. If +you are saved, your child is saved too; if you are lost, your child is +still saved." Put the case that this was done, and that the woman was +cleared." + +"I understand you perfectly." + +"But that I make no admissions?" + +"That you make no admissions." And Wemmick repeated, "No admissions." + +"Put the case, Pip, that passion and the terror of death had a little +shaken the woman's intellects, and that when she was set at liberty, +she was scared out of the ways of the world, and went to him to be +sheltered. Put the case that he took her in, and that he kept down the +old, wild, violent nature whenever he saw an inkling of its breaking +out, by asserting his power over her in the old way. Do you comprehend +the imaginary case?" + +"Quite." + +"Put the case that the child grew up, and was married for money. That +the mother was still living. That the father was still living. That the +mother and father, unknown to one another, were dwelling within so many +miles, furlongs, yards if you like, of one another. That the secret was +still a secret, except that you had got wind of it. Put that last case +to yourself very carefully." + +"I do." + +"I ask Wemmick to put it to himself very carefully." + +And Wemmick said, "I do." + +"For whose sake would you reveal the secret? For the father's? I think +he would not be much the better for the mother. For the mother's? I +think if she had done such a deed she would be safer where she was. +For the daughter's? I think it would hardly serve her to establish her +parentage for the information of her husband, and to drag her back to +disgrace, after an escape of twenty years, pretty secure to last for +life. But add the case that you had loved her, Pip, and had made her the +subject of those 'poor dreams' which have, at one time or another, been +in the heads of more men than you think likely, then I tell you that you +had better--and would much sooner when you had thought well of it--chop +off that bandaged left hand of yours with your bandaged right hand, and +then pass the chopper on to Wemmick there, to cut that off too." + +I looked at Wemmick, whose face was very grave. He gravely touched his +lips with his forefinger. I did the same. Mr. Jaggers did the same. +"Now, Wemmick," said the latter then, resuming his usual manner, "what +item was it you were at when Mr. Pip came in?" + +Standing by for a little, while they were at work, I observed that the +odd looks they had cast at one another were repeated several times: with +this difference now, that each of them seemed suspicious, not to say +conscious, of having shown himself in a weak and unprofessional light to +the other. For this reason, I suppose, they were now inflexible with one +another; Mr. Jaggers being highly dictatorial, and Wemmick obstinately +justifying himself whenever there was the smallest point in abeyance for +a moment. I had never seen them on such ill terms; for generally they +got on very well indeed together. + +But they were both happily relieved by the opportune appearance of Mike, +the client with the fur cap and the habit of wiping his nose on his +sleeve, whom I had seen on the very first day of my appearance within +those walls. This individual, who, either in his own person or in that +of some member of his family, seemed to be always in trouble (which in +that place meant Newgate), called to announce that his eldest daughter +was taken up on suspicion of shoplifting. As he imparted this melancholy +circumstance to Wemmick, Mr. Jaggers standing magisterially before the +fire and taking no share in the proceedings, Mike's eye happened to +twinkle with a tear. + +"What are you about?" demanded Wemmick, with the utmost indignation. +"What do you come snivelling here for?" + +"I didn't go to do it, Mr. Wemmick." + +"You did," said Wemmick. "How dare you? You're not in a fit state to +come here, if you can't come here without spluttering like a bad pen. +What do you mean by it?" + +"A man can't help his feelings, Mr. Wemmick," pleaded Mike. + +"His what?" demanded Wemmick, quite savagely. "Say that again!" + +"Now look here my man," said Mr. Jaggers, advancing a step, and pointing +to the door. "Get out of this office. I'll have no feelings here. Get +out." + +"It serves you right," said Wemmick, "Get out." + +So, the unfortunate Mike very humbly withdrew, and Mr. Jaggers and +Wemmick appeared to have re-established their good understanding, and +went to work again with an air of refreshment upon them as if they had +just had lunch. + + + + +Chapter LII + + +From Little Britain I went, with my check in my pocket, to Miss +Skiffins's brother, the accountant; and Miss Skiffins's brother, the +accountant, going straight to Clarriker's and bringing Clarriker to me, +I had the great satisfaction of concluding that arrangement. It was the +only good thing I had done, and the only completed thing I had done, +since I was first apprised of my great expectations. + +Clarriker informing me on that occasion that the affairs of the House +were steadily progressing, that he would now be able to establish a +small branch-house in the East which was much wanted for the extension +of the business, and that Herbert in his new partnership capacity would +go out and take charge of it, I found that I must have prepared for +a separation from my friend, even though my own affairs had been more +settled. And now, indeed, I felt as if my last anchor were loosening its +hold, and I should soon be driving with the winds and waves. + +But there was recompense in the joy with which Herbert would come home +of a night and tell me of these changes, little imagining that he told +me no news, and would sketch airy pictures of himself conducting Clara +Barley to the land of the Arabian Nights, and of me going out to join +them (with a caravan of camels, I believe), and of our all going up the +Nile and seeing wonders. Without being sanguine as to my own part in +those bright plans, I felt that Herbert's way was clearing fast, and +that old Bill Barley had but to stick to his pepper and rum, and his +daughter would soon be happily provided for. + +We had now got into the month of March. My left arm, though it presented +no bad symptoms, took, in the natural course, so long to heal that I +was still unable to get a coat on. My right arm was tolerably restored; +disfigured, but fairly serviceable. + +On a Monday morning, when Herbert and I were at breakfast, I received +the following letter from Wemmick by the post. + +"Walworth. Burn this as soon as read. Early in the week, or say +Wednesday, you might do what you know of, if you felt disposed to try +it. Now burn." + +When I had shown this to Herbert and had put it in the fire--but not +before we had both got it by heart--we considered what to do. For, of +course my being disabled could now be no longer kept out of view. + +"I have thought it over again and again," said Herbert, "and I think I +know a better course than taking a Thames waterman. Take Startop. A good +fellow, a skilled hand, fond of us, and enthusiastic and honorable." + +I had thought of him more than once. + +"But how much would you tell him, Herbert?" + +"It is necessary to tell him very little. Let him suppose it a mere +freak, but a secret one, until the morning comes: then let him know that +there is urgent reason for your getting Provis aboard and away. You go +with him?" + +"No doubt." + +"Where?" + +It had seemed to me, in the many anxious considerations I had given the +point, almost indifferent what port we made for,--Hamburg, Rotterdam, +Antwerp,--the place signified little, so that he was out of England. Any +foreign steamer that fell in our way and would take us up would do. +I had always proposed to myself to get him well down the river in the +boat; certainly well beyond Gravesend, which was a critical place for +search or inquiry if suspicion were afoot. As foreign steamers would +leave London at about the time of high-water, our plan would be to get +down the river by a previous ebb-tide, and lie by in some quiet spot +until we could pull off to one. The time when one would be due where we +lay, wherever that might be, could be calculated pretty nearly, if we +made inquiries beforehand. + +Herbert assented to all this, and we went out immediately after +breakfast to pursue our investigations. We found that a steamer for +Hamburg was likely to suit our purpose best, and we directed our +thoughts chiefly to that vessel. But we noted down what other foreign +steamers would leave London with the same tide, and we satisfied +ourselves that we knew the build and color of each. We then separated +for a few hours: I, to get at once such passports as were necessary; +Herbert, to see Startop at his lodgings. We both did what we had to do +without any hindrance, and when we met again at one o'clock reported +it done. I, for my part, was prepared with passports; Herbert had seen +Startop, and he was more than ready to join. + +Those two should pull a pair of oars, we settled, and I would steer; our +charge would be sitter, and keep quiet; as speed was not our object, we +should make way enough. We arranged that Herbert should not come home to +dinner before going to Mill Pond Bank that evening; that he should +not go there at all to-morrow evening, Tuesday; that he should prepare +Provis to come down to some stairs hard by the house, on Wednesday, when +he saw us approach, and not sooner; that all the arrangements with +him should be concluded that Monday night; and that he should be +communicated with no more in any way, until we took him on board. + +These precautions well understood by both of us, I went home. + +On opening the outer door of our chambers with my key, I found a letter +in the box, directed to me; a very dirty letter, though not ill-written. +It had been delivered by hand (of course, since I left home), and its +contents were these:-- + +"If you are not afraid to come to the old marshes to-night or to-morrow +night at nine, and to come to the little sluice-house by the limekiln, +you had better come. If you want information regarding your uncle +Provis, you had much better come and tell no one, and lose no time. You +must come alone. Bring this with you." + +I had had load enough upon my mind before the receipt of this strange +letter. What to do now, I could not tell. And the worst was, that I must +decide quickly, or I should miss the afternoon coach, which would take +me down in time for to-night. To-morrow night I could not think of +going, for it would be too close upon the time of the flight. And again, +for anything I knew, the proffered information might have some important +bearing on the flight itself. + +If I had had ample time for consideration, I believe I should still have +gone. Having hardly any time for consideration,--my watch showing me +that the coach started within half an hour,--I resolved to go. I should +certainly not have gone, but for the reference to my Uncle Provis. That, +coming on Wemmick's letter and the morning's busy preparation, turned +the scale. + +It is so difficult to become clearly possessed of the contents of almost +any letter, in a violent hurry, that I had to read this mysterious +epistle again twice, before its injunction to me to be secret got +mechanically into my mind. Yielding to it in the same mechanical kind of +way, I left a note in pencil for Herbert, telling him that as I should +be so soon going away, I knew not for how long, I had decided to hurry +down and back, to ascertain for myself how Miss Havisham was faring. +I had then barely time to get my great-coat, lock up the chambers, +and make for the coach-office by the short by-ways. If I had taken a +hackney-chariot and gone by the streets, I should have missed my aim; +going as I did, I caught the coach just as it came out of the yard. I +was the only inside passenger, jolting away knee-deep in straw, when I +came to myself. + +For I really had not been myself since the receipt of the letter; it had +so bewildered me, ensuing on the hurry of the morning. The morning hurry +and flutter had been great; for, long and anxiously as I had waited for +Wemmick, his hint had come like a surprise at last. And now I began +to wonder at myself for being in the coach, and to doubt whether I had +sufficient reason for being there, and to consider whether I should +get out presently and go back, and to argue against ever heeding an +anonymous communication, and, in short, to pass through all those phases +of contradiction and indecision to which I suppose very few hurried +people are strangers. Still, the reference to Provis by name mastered +everything. I reasoned as I had reasoned already without knowing it,--if +that be reasoning,--in case any harm should befall him through my not +going, how could I ever forgive myself! + +It was dark before we got down, and the journey seemed long and dreary +to me, who could see little of it inside, and who could not go outside +in my disabled state. Avoiding the Blue Boar, I put up at an inn of +minor reputation down the town, and ordered some dinner. While it was +preparing, I went to Satis House and inquired for Miss Havisham; she was +still very ill, though considered something better. + +My inn had once been a part of an ancient ecclesiastical house, and I +dined in a little octagonal common-room, like a font. As I was not able +to cut my dinner, the old landlord with a shining bald head did it for +me. This bringing us into conversation, he was so good as to entertain +me with my own story,--of course with the popular feature that +Pumblechook was my earliest benefactor and the founder of my fortunes. + +"Do you know the young man?" said I. + +"Know him!" repeated the landlord. "Ever since he was--no height at +all." + +"Does he ever come back to this neighborhood?" + +"Ay, he comes back," said the landlord, "to his great friends, now and +again, and gives the cold shoulder to the man that made him." + +"What man is that?" + +"Him that I speak of," said the landlord. "Mr. Pumblechook." + +"Is he ungrateful to no one else?" + +"No doubt he would be, if he could," returned the landlord, "but he +can't. And why? Because Pumblechook done everything for him." + +"Does Pumblechook say so?" + +"Say so!" replied the landlord. "He han't no call to say so." + +"But does he say so?" + +"It would turn a man's blood to white wine winegar to hear him tell of +it, sir," said the landlord. + +I thought, "Yet Joe, dear Joe, you never tell of it. Long-suffering and +loving Joe, you never complain. Nor you, sweet-tempered Biddy!" + +"Your appetite's been touched like by your accident," said the landlord, +glancing at the bandaged arm under my coat. "Try a tenderer bit." + +"No, thank you," I replied, turning from the table to brood over the +fire. "I can eat no more. Please take it away." + +I had never been struck at so keenly, for my thanklessness to Joe, as +through the brazen impostor Pumblechook. The falser he, the truer Joe; +the meaner he, the nobler Joe. + +My heart was deeply and most deservedly humbled as I mused over the fire +for an hour or more. The striking of the clock aroused me, but not from +my dejection or remorse, and I got up and had my coat fastened round +my neck, and went out. I had previously sought in my pockets for the +letter, that I might refer to it again; but I could not find it, and +was uneasy to think that it must have been dropped in the straw of +the coach. I knew very well, however, that the appointed place was the +little sluice-house by the limekiln on the marshes, and the hour nine. +Towards the marshes I now went straight, having no time to spare. + + + + +Chapter LIII + +It was a dark night, though the full moon rose as I left the enclosed +lands, and passed out upon the marshes. Beyond their dark line there was +a ribbon of clear sky, hardly broad enough to hold the red large moon. +In a few minutes she had ascended out of that clear field, in among the +piled mountains of cloud. + +There was a melancholy wind, and the marshes were very dismal. A +stranger would have found them insupportable, and even to me they were +so oppressive that I hesitated, half inclined to go back. But I knew +them well, and could have found my way on a far darker night, and had +no excuse for returning, being there. So, having come there against my +inclination, I went on against it. + +The direction that I took was not that in which my old home lay, nor +that in which we had pursued the convicts. My back was turned towards +the distant Hulks as I walked on, and, though I could see the old lights +away on the spits of sand, I saw them over my shoulder. I knew the +limekiln as well as I knew the old Battery, but they were miles apart; +so that, if a light had been burning at each point that night, there +would have been a long strip of the blank horizon between the two bright +specks. + +At first, I had to shut some gates after me, and now and then to stand +still while the cattle that were lying in the banked-up pathway arose +and blundered down among the grass and reeds. But after a little while I +seemed to have the whole flats to myself. + +It was another half-hour before I drew near to the kiln. The lime was +burning with a sluggish stifling smell, but the fires were made up and +left, and no workmen were visible. Hard by was a small stone-quarry. It +lay directly in my way, and had been worked that day, as I saw by the +tools and barrows that were lying about. + +Coming up again to the marsh level out of this excavation,--for the rude +path lay through it,--I saw a light in the old sluice-house. I quickened +my pace, and knocked at the door with my hand. Waiting for some reply, +I looked about me, noticing how the sluice was abandoned and broken, and +how the house--of wood with a tiled roof--would not be proof against the +weather much longer, if it were so even now, and how the mud and ooze +were coated with lime, and how the choking vapor of the kiln crept in a +ghostly way towards me. Still there was no answer, and I knocked again. +No answer still, and I tried the latch. + +It rose under my hand, and the door yielded. Looking in, I saw a lighted +candle on a table, a bench, and a mattress on a truckle bedstead. As +there was a loft above, I called, "Is there any one here?" but no voice +answered. Then I looked at my watch, and, finding that it was past nine, +called again, "Is there any one here?" There being still no answer, I +went out at the door, irresolute what to do. + +It was beginning to rain fast. Seeing nothing save what I had seen +already, I turned back into the house, and stood just within the shelter +of the doorway, looking out into the night. While I was considering that +some one must have been there lately and must soon be coming back, or +the candle would not be burning, it came into my head to look if the +wick were long. I turned round to do so, and had taken up the candle in +my hand, when it was extinguished by some violent shock; and the next +thing I comprehended was, that I had been caught in a strong running +noose, thrown over my head from behind. + +"Now," said a suppressed voice with an oath, "I've got you!" + +"What is this?" I cried, struggling. "Who is it? Help, help, help!" + +Not only were my arms pulled close to my sides, but the pressure on +my bad arm caused me exquisite pain. Sometimes, a strong man's hand, +sometimes a strong man's breast, was set against my mouth to deaden +my cries, and with a hot breath always close to me, I struggled +ineffectually in the dark, while I was fastened tight to the wall. "And +now," said the suppressed voice with another oath, "call out again, and +I'll make short work of you!" + +Faint and sick with the pain of my injured arm, bewildered by the +surprise, and yet conscious how easily this threat could be put in +execution, I desisted, and tried to ease my arm were it ever so little. +But, it was bound too tight for that. I felt as if, having been burnt +before, it were now being boiled. + +The sudden exclusion of the night, and the substitution of black +darkness in its place, warned me that the man had closed a shutter. +After groping about for a little, he found the flint and steel he +wanted, and began to strike a light. I strained my sight upon the sparks +that fell among the tinder, and upon which he breathed and breathed, +match in hand, but I could only see his lips, and the blue point of +the match; even those but fitfully. The tinder was damp,--no wonder +there,--and one after another the sparks died out. + +The man was in no hurry, and struck again with the flint and steel. As +the sparks fell thick and bright about him, I could see his hands, and +touches of his face, and could make out that he was seated and bending +over the table; but nothing more. Presently I saw his blue lips again, +breathing on the tinder, and then a flare of light flashed up, and +showed me Orlick. + +Whom I had looked for, I don't know. I had not looked for him. Seeing +him, I felt that I was in a dangerous strait indeed, and I kept my eyes +upon him. + +He lighted the candle from the flaring match with great deliberation, +and dropped the match, and trod it out. Then he put the candle away from +him on the table, so that he could see me, and sat with his arms folded +on the table and looked at me. I made out that I was fastened to a stout +perpendicular ladder a few inches from the wall,--a fixture there,--the +means of ascent to the loft above. + +"Now," said he, when we had surveyed one another for some time, "I've +got you." + +"Unbind me. Let me go!" + +"Ah!" he returned, "I'll let you go. I'll let you go to the moon, I'll +let you go to the stars. All in good time." + +"Why have you lured me here?" + +"Don't you know?" said he, with a deadly look. + +"Why have you set upon me in the dark?" + +"Because I mean to do it all myself. One keeps a secret better than two. +O you enemy, you enemy!" + +His enjoyment of the spectacle I furnished, as he sat with his arms +folded on the table, shaking his head at me and hugging himself, had a +malignity in it that made me tremble. As I watched him in silence, +he put his hand into the corner at his side, and took up a gun with a +brass-bound stock. + +"Do you know this?" said he, making as if he would take aim at me. "Do +you know where you saw it afore? Speak, wolf!" + +"Yes," I answered. + +"You cost me that place. You did. Speak!" + +"What else could I do?" + +"You did that, and that would be enough, without more. How dared you to +come betwixt me and a young woman I liked?" + +"When did I?" + +"When didn't you? It was you as always give Old Orlick a bad name to +her." + +"You gave it to yourself; you gained it for yourself. I could have done +you no harm, if you had done yourself none." + +"You're a liar. And you'll take any pains, and spend any money, to drive +me out of this country, will you?" said he, repeating my words to Biddy +in the last interview I had with her. "Now, I'll tell you a piece of +information. It was never so well worth your while to get me out of this +country as it is to-night. Ah! If it was all your money twenty times +told, to the last brass farden!" As he shook his heavy hand at me, with +his mouth snarling like a tiger's, I felt that it was true. + +"What are you going to do to me?" + +"I'm a going," said he, bringing his fist down upon the table with a +heavy blow, and rising as the blow fell to give it greater force,--"I'm +a going to have your life!" + +He leaned forward staring at me, slowly unclenched his hand and drew it +across his mouth as if his mouth watered for me, and sat down again. + +"You was always in Old Orlick's way since ever you was a child. You goes +out of his way this present night. He'll have no more on you. You're +dead." + +I felt that I had come to the brink of my grave. For a moment I looked +wildly round my trap for any chance of escape; but there was none. + +"More than that," said he, folding his arms on the table again, "I won't +have a rag of you, I won't have a bone of you, left on earth. I'll put +your body in the kiln,--I'd carry two such to it, on my Shoulders,--and, +let people suppose what they may of you, they shall never know nothing." + +My mind, with inconceivable rapidity followed out all the consequences +of such a death. Estella's father would believe I had deserted him, +would be taken, would die accusing me; even Herbert would doubt me, +when he compared the letter I had left for him with the fact that I had +called at Miss Havisham's gate for only a moment; Joe and Biddy would +never know how sorry I had been that night, none would ever know what +I had suffered, how true I had meant to be, what an agony I had passed +through. The death close before me was terrible, but far more terrible +than death was the dread of being misremembered after death. And +so quick were my thoughts, that I saw myself despised by unborn +generations,--Estella's children, and their children,--while the +wretch's words were yet on his lips. + +"Now, wolf," said he, "afore I kill you like any other beast,--which is +wot I mean to do and wot I have tied you up for,--I'll have a good look +at you and a good goad at you. O you enemy!" + +It had passed through my thoughts to cry out for help again; though +few could know better than I, the solitary nature of the spot, and the +hopelessness of aid. But as he sat gloating over me, I was supported by +a scornful detestation of him that sealed my lips. Above all things, I +resolved that I would not entreat him, and that I would die making some +last poor resistance to him. Softened as my thoughts of all the rest of +men were in that dire extremity; humbly beseeching pardon, as I did, of +Heaven; melted at heart, as I was, by the thought that I had taken no +farewell, and never now could take farewell of those who were dear to +me, or could explain myself to them, or ask for their compassion on my +miserable errors,--still, if I could have killed him, even in dying, I +would have done it. + +He had been drinking, and his eyes were red and bloodshot. Around his +neck was slung a tin bottle, as I had often seen his meat and drink +slung about him in other days. He brought the bottle to his lips, and +took a fiery drink from it; and I smelt the strong spirits that I saw +flash into his face. + +"Wolf!" said he, folding his arms again, "Old Orlick's a going to tell +you somethink. It was you as did for your shrew sister." + +Again my mind, with its former inconceivable rapidity, had exhausted the +whole subject of the attack upon my sister, her illness, and her death, +before his slow and hesitating speech had formed these words. + +"It was you, villain," said I. + +"I tell you it was your doing,--I tell you it was done through you," he +retorted, catching up the gun, and making a blow with the stock at the +vacant air between us. "I come upon her from behind, as I come upon you +to-night. I giv' it her! I left her for dead, and if there had been a +limekiln as nigh her as there is now nigh you, she shouldn't have come +to life again. But it warn't Old Orlick as did it; it was you. You was +favored, and he was bullied and beat. Old Orlick bullied and beat, eh? +Now you pays for it. You done it; now you pays for it." + +He drank again, and became more ferocious. I saw by his tilting of +the bottle that there was no great quantity left in it. I distinctly +understood that he was working himself up with its contents to make an +end of me. I knew that every drop it held was a drop of my life. I knew +that when I was changed into a part of the vapor that had crept towards +me but a little while before, like my own warning ghost, he would do +as he had done in my sister's case,--make all haste to the town, and +be seen slouching about there drinking at the alehouses. My rapid mind +pursued him to the town, made a picture of the street with him in it, +and contrasted its lights and life with the lonely marsh and the white +vapor creeping over it, into which I should have dissolved. + +It was not only that I could have summed up years and years and years +while he said a dozen words, but that what he did say presented pictures +to me, and not mere words. In the excited and exalted state of my brain, +I could not think of a place without seeing it, or of persons without +seeing them. It is impossible to overstate the vividness of these +images, and yet I was so intent, all the time, upon him himself,--who +would not be intent on the tiger crouching to spring!--that I knew of +the slightest action of his fingers. + +When he had drunk this second time, he rose from the bench on which +he sat, and pushed the table aside. Then, he took up the candle, and, +shading it with his murderous hand so as to throw its light on me, stood +before me, looking at me and enjoying the sight. + +"Wolf, I'll tell you something more. It was Old Orlick as you tumbled +over on your stairs that night." + +I saw the staircase with its extinguished lamps. I saw the shadows of +the heavy stair-rails, thrown by the watchman's lantern on the wall. +I saw the rooms that I was never to see again; here, a door half open; +there, a door closed; all the articles of furniture around. + +"And why was Old Orlick there? I'll tell you something more, wolf. +You and her have pretty well hunted me out of this country, so far as +getting a easy living in it goes, and I've took up with new companions, +and new masters. Some of 'em writes my letters when I wants 'em +wrote,--do you mind?--writes my letters, wolf! They writes fifty hands; +they're not like sneaking you, as writes but one. I've had a firm mind +and a firm will to have your life, since you was down here at your +sister's burying. I han't seen a way to get you safe, and I've looked +arter you to know your ins and outs. For, says Old Orlick to himself, +'Somehow or another I'll have him!' What! When I looks for you, I finds +your uncle Provis, eh?" + +Mill Pond Bank, and Chinks's Basin, and the Old Green Copper Rope-walk, +all so clear and plain! Provis in his rooms, the signal whose use was +over, pretty Clara, the good motherly woman, old Bill Barley on his +back, all drifting by, as on the swift stream of my life fast running +out to sea! + +"You with a uncle too! Why, I know'd you at Gargery's when you was so +small a wolf that I could have took your weazen betwixt this finger and +thumb and chucked you away dead (as I'd thoughts o' doing, odd times, +when I see you loitering amongst the pollards on a Sunday), and you +hadn't found no uncles then. No, not you! But when Old Orlick come for +to hear that your uncle Provis had most like wore the leg-iron wot Old +Orlick had picked up, filed asunder, on these meshes ever so many year +ago, and wot he kep by him till he dropped your sister with it, like +a bullock, as he means to drop you--hey?--when he come for to hear +that--hey?" + +In his savage taunting, he flared the candle so close at me that I +turned my face aside to save it from the flame. + +"Ah!" he cried, laughing, after doing it again, "the burnt child dreads +the fire! Old Orlick knowed you was burnt, Old Orlick knowed you was +smuggling your uncle Provis away, Old Orlick's a match for you and +know'd you'd come to-night! Now I'll tell you something more, wolf, and +this ends it. There's them that's as good a match for your uncle Provis +as Old Orlick has been for you. Let him 'ware them, when he's lost his +nevvy! Let him 'ware them, when no man can't find a rag of his dear +relation's clothes, nor yet a bone of his body. There's them that can't +and that won't have Magwitch,--yes, I know the name!--alive in the same +land with them, and that's had such sure information of him when he +was alive in another land, as that he couldn't and shouldn't leave it +unbeknown and put them in danger. P'raps it's them that writes fifty +hands, and that's not like sneaking you as writes but one. 'Ware +Compeyson, Magwitch, and the gallows!" + +He flared the candle at me again, smoking my face and hair, and for an +instant blinding me, and turned his powerful back as he replaced the +light on the table. I had thought a prayer, and had been with Joe and +Biddy and Herbert, before he turned towards me again. + +There was a clear space of a few feet between the table and the opposite +wall. Within this space, he now slouched backwards and forwards. His +great strength seemed to sit stronger upon him than ever before, as he +did this with his hands hanging loose and heavy at his sides, and with +his eyes scowling at me. I had no grain of hope left. Wild as my inward +hurry was, and wonderful the force of the pictures that rushed by me +instead of thoughts, I could yet clearly understand that, unless he had +resolved that I was within a few moments of surely perishing out of all +human knowledge, he would never have told me what he had told. + +Of a sudden, he stopped, took the cork out of his bottle, and tossed +it away. Light as it was, I heard it fall like a plummet. He swallowed +slowly, tilting up the bottle by little and little, and now he looked at +me no more. The last few drops of liquor he poured into the palm of his +hand, and licked up. Then, with a sudden hurry of violence and swearing +horribly, he threw the bottle from him, and stooped; and I saw in his +hand a stone-hammer with a long heavy handle. + +The resolution I had made did not desert me, for, without uttering +one vain word of appeal to him, I shouted out with all my might, and +struggled with all my might. It was only my head and my legs that I +could move, but to that extent I struggled with all the force, until +then unknown, that was within me. In the same instant I heard responsive +shouts, saw figures and a gleam of light dash in at the door, heard +voices and tumult, and saw Orlick emerge from a struggle of men, as if +it were tumbling water, clear the table at a leap, and fly out into the +night. + +After a blank, I found that I was lying unbound, on the floor, in the +same place, with my head on some one's knee. My eyes were fixed on the +ladder against the wall, when I came to myself,--had opened on it before +my mind saw it,--and thus as I recovered consciousness, I knew that I +was in the place where I had lost it. + +Too indifferent at first, even to look round and ascertain who supported +me, I was lying looking at the ladder, when there came between me and it +a face. The face of Trabb's boy! + +"I think he's all right!" said Trabb's boy, in a sober voice; "but ain't +he just pale though!" + +At these words, the face of him who supported me looked over into mine, +and I saw my supporter to be-- + +"Herbert! Great Heaven!" + +"Softly," said Herbert. "Gently, Handel. Don't be too eager." + +"And our old comrade, Startop!" I cried, as he too bent over me. + +"Remember what he is going to assist us in," said Herbert, "and be +calm." + +The allusion made me spring up; though I dropped again from the pain +in my arm. "The time has not gone by, Herbert, has it? What night is +to-night? How long have I been here?" For, I had a strange and +strong misgiving that I had been lying there a long time--a day and a +night,--two days and nights,--more. + +"The time has not gone by. It is still Monday night." + +"Thank God!" + +"And you have all to-morrow, Tuesday, to rest in," said Herbert. "But +you can't help groaning, my dear Handel. What hurt have you got? Can you +stand?" + +"Yes, yes," said I, "I can walk. I have no hurt but in this throbbing +arm." + +They laid it bare, and did what they could. It was violently swollen and +inflamed, and I could scarcely endure to have it touched. But, they tore +up their handkerchiefs to make fresh bandages, and carefully replaced +it in the sling, until we could get to the town and obtain some cooling +lotion to put upon it. In a little while we had shut the door of the +dark and empty sluice-house, and were passing through the quarry on our +way back. Trabb's boy--Trabb's overgrown young man now--went before us +with a lantern, which was the light I had seen come in at the door. But, +the moon was a good two hours higher than when I had last seen the sky, +and the night, though rainy, was much lighter. The white vapor of the +kiln was passing from us as we went by, and as I had thought a prayer +before, I thought a thanksgiving now. + +Entreating Herbert to tell me how he had come to my rescue,--which at +first he had flatly refused to do, but had insisted on my remaining +quiet,--I learnt that I had in my hurry dropped the letter, open, in our +chambers, where he, coming home to bring with him Startop whom he had +met in the street on his way to me, found it, very soon after I +was gone. Its tone made him uneasy, and the more so because of the +inconsistency between it and the hasty letter I had left for him. His +uneasiness increasing instead of subsiding, after a quarter of an +hour's consideration, he set off for the coach-office with Startop, who +volunteered his company, to make inquiry when the next coach went +down. Finding that the afternoon coach was gone, and finding that his +uneasiness grew into positive alarm, as obstacles came in his way, he +resolved to follow in a post-chaise. So he and Startop arrived at the +Blue Boar, fully expecting there to find me, or tidings of me; but, +finding neither, went on to Miss Havisham's, where they lost me. +Hereupon they went back to the hotel (doubtless at about the time when +I was hearing the popular local version of my own story) to refresh +themselves and to get some one to guide them out upon the marshes. Among +the loungers under the Boar's archway happened to be Trabb's Boy,--true +to his ancient habit of happening to be everywhere where he had no +business,--and Trabb's boy had seen me passing from Miss Havisham's in +the direction of my dining-place. Thus Trabb's boy became their guide, +and with him they went out to the sluice-house, though by the town way +to the marshes, which I had avoided. Now, as they went along, Herbert +reflected, that I might, after all, have been brought there on some +genuine and serviceable errand tending to Provis's safety, and, +bethinking himself that in that case interruption must be mischievous, +left his guide and Startop on the edge of the quarry, and went on by +himself, and stole round the house two or three times, endeavouring to +ascertain whether all was right within. As he could hear nothing but +indistinct sounds of one deep rough voice (this was while my mind was so +busy), he even at last began to doubt whether I was there, when suddenly +I cried out loudly, and he answered the cries, and rushed in, closely +followed by the other two. + +When I told Herbert what had passed within the house, he was for our +immediately going before a magistrate in the town, late at night as it +was, and getting out a warrant. But, I had already considered that such +a course, by detaining us there, or binding us to come back, might +be fatal to Provis. There was no gainsaying this difficulty, and we +relinquished all thoughts of pursuing Orlick at that time. For the +present, under the circumstances, we deemed it prudent to make rather +light of the matter to Trabb's boy; who, I am convinced, would have been +much affected by disappointment, if he had known that his intervention +saved me from the limekiln. Not that Trabb's boy was of a malignant +nature, but that he had too much spare vivacity, and that it was in his +constitution to want variety and excitement at anybody's expense. When +we parted, I presented him with two guineas (which seemed to meet his +views), and told him that I was sorry ever to have had an ill opinion of +him (which made no impression on him at all). + +Wednesday being so close upon us, we determined to go back to London +that night, three in the post-chaise; the rather, as we should then be +clear away before the night's adventure began to be talked of. Herbert +got a large bottle of stuff for my arm; and by dint of having this stuff +dropped over it all the night through, I was just able to bear its pain +on the journey. It was daylight when we reached the Temple, and I went +at once to bed, and lay in bed all day. + +My terror, as I lay there, of falling ill, and being unfitted for +to-morrow, was so besetting, that I wonder it did not disable me of +itself. It would have done so, pretty surely, in conjunction with the +mental wear and tear I had suffered, but for the unnatural strain upon +me that to-morrow was. So anxiously looked forward to, charged with such +consequences, its results so impenetrably hidden, though so near. + +No precaution could have been more obvious than our refraining +from communication with him that day; yet this again increased my +restlessness. I started at every footstep and every sound, believing +that he was discovered and taken, and this was the messenger to tell +me so. I persuaded myself that I knew he was taken; that there was +something more upon my mind than a fear or a presentiment; that the fact +had occurred, and I had a mysterious knowledge of it. As the days wore +on, and no ill news came, as the day closed in and darkness fell, +my overshadowing dread of being disabled by illness before to-morrow +morning altogether mastered me. My burning arm throbbed, and my burning +head throbbed, and I fancied I was beginning to wander. I counted up to +high numbers, to make sure of myself, and repeated passages that I knew +in prose and verse. It happened sometimes that in the mere escape of a +fatigued mind, I dozed for some moments or forgot; then I would say to +myself with a start, "Now it has come, and I am turning delirious!" + +They kept me very quiet all day, and kept my arm constantly dressed, and +gave me cooling drinks. Whenever I fell asleep, I awoke with the notion +I had had in the sluice-house, that a long time had elapsed and the +opportunity to save him was gone. About midnight I got out of bed +and went to Herbert, with the conviction that I had been asleep for +four-and-twenty hours, and that Wednesday was past. It was the last +self-exhausting effort of my fretfulness, for after that I slept +soundly. + +Wednesday morning was dawning when I looked out of window. The winking +lights upon the bridges were already pale, the coming sun was like a +marsh of fire on the horizon. The river, still dark and mysterious, was +spanned by bridges that were turning coldly gray, with here and there +at top a warm touch from the burning in the sky. As I looked along +the clustered roofs, with church-towers and spires shooting into the +unusually clear air, the sun rose up, and a veil seemed to be drawn from +the river, and millions of sparkles burst out upon its waters. From me +too, a veil seemed to be drawn, and I felt strong and well. + +Herbert lay asleep in his bed, and our old fellow-student lay asleep on +the sofa. I could not dress myself without help; but I made up the fire, +which was still burning, and got some coffee ready for them. In good +time they too started up strong and well, and we admitted the sharp +morning air at the windows, and looked at the tide that was still +flowing towards us. + +"When it turns at nine o'clock," said Herbert, cheerfully, "look out for +us, and stand ready, you over there at Mill Pond Bank!" + + + + +Chapter LIV + +It was one of those March days when the sun shines hot and the wind +blows cold: when it is summer in the light, and winter in the shade. +We had our pea-coats with us, and I took a bag. Of all my worldly +possessions I took no more than the few necessaries that filled the +bag. Where I might go, what I might do, or when I might return, were +questions utterly unknown to me; nor did I vex my mind with them, for +it was wholly set on Provis's safety. I only wondered for the passing +moment, as I stopped at the door and looked back, under what altered +circumstances I should next see those rooms, if ever. + +We loitered down to the Temple stairs, and stood loitering there, as if +we were not quite decided to go upon the water at all. Of course, I had +taken care that the boat should be ready and everything in order. After +a little show of indecision, which there were none to see but the two +or three amphibious creatures belonging to our Temple stairs, we went +on board and cast off; Herbert in the bow, I steering. It was then about +high-water,--half-past eight. + +Our plan was this. The tide, beginning to run down at nine, and being +with us until three, we intended still to creep on after it had turned, +and row against it until dark. We should then be well in those long +reaches below Gravesend, between Kent and Essex, where the river is +broad and solitary, where the water-side inhabitants are very few, and +where lone public-houses are scattered here and there, of which we could +choose one for a resting-place. There, we meant to lie by all night. +The steamer for Hamburg and the steamer for Rotterdam would start from +London at about nine on Thursday morning. We should know at what time +to expect them, according to where we were, and would hail the first; +so that, if by any accident we were not taken abroad, we should have +another chance. We knew the distinguishing marks of each vessel. + +The relief of being at last engaged in the execution of the purpose +was so great to me that I felt it difficult to realize the condition in +which I had been a few hours before. The crisp air, the sunlight, the +movement on the river, and the moving river itself,--the road that ran +with us, seeming to sympathize with us, animate us, and encourage us +on,--freshened me with new hope. I felt mortified to be of so little use +in the boat; but, there were few better oarsmen than my two friends, and +they rowed with a steady stroke that was to last all day. + +At that time, the steam-traffic on the Thames was far below its present +extent, and watermen's boats were far more numerous. Of barges, sailing +colliers, and coasting-traders, there were perhaps, as many as now; +but of steam-ships, great and small, not a tithe or a twentieth part +so many. Early as it was, there were plenty of scullers going here and +there that morning, and plenty of barges dropping down with the tide; +the navigation of the river between bridges, in an open boat, was a much +easier and commoner matter in those days than it is in these; and we +went ahead among many skiffs and wherries briskly. + +Old London Bridge was soon passed, and old Billingsgate Market with its +oyster-boats and Dutchmen, and the White Tower and Traitor's Gate, and +we were in among the tiers of shipping. Here were the Leith, Aberdeen, +and Glasgow steamers, loading and unloading goods, and looking immensely +high out of the water as we passed alongside; here, were colliers by the +score and score, with the coal-whippers plunging off stages on deck, as +counterweights to measures of coal swinging up, which were then rattled +over the side into barges; here, at her moorings was to-morrow's steamer +for Rotterdam, of which we took good notice; and here to-morrow's for +Hamburg, under whose bowsprit we crossed. And now I, sitting in the +stern, could see, with a faster beating heart, Mill Pond Bank and Mill +Pond stairs. + +"Is he there?" said Herbert. + +"Not yet." + +"Right! He was not to come down till he saw us. Can you see his signal?" + +"Not well from here; but I think I see it.--Now I see him! Pull both. +Easy, Herbert. Oars!" + +We touched the stairs lightly for a single moment, and he was on board, +and we were off again. He had a boat-cloak with him, and a black canvas +bag; and he looked as like a river-pilot as my heart could have wished. + +"Dear boy!" he said, putting his arm on my shoulder, as he took his +seat. "Faithful dear boy, well done. Thankye, thankye!" + +Again among the tiers of shipping, in and out, avoiding rusty +chain-cables frayed hempen hawsers and bobbing buoys, sinking for the +moment floating broken baskets, scattering floating chips of wood +and shaving, cleaving floating scum of coal, in and out, under the +figure-head of the John of Sunderland making a speech to the winds (as +is done by many Johns), and the Betsy of Yarmouth with a firm formality +of bosom and her knobby eyes starting two inches out of her head; in +and out, hammers going in ship-builders' yards, saws going at timber, +clashing engines going at things unknown, pumps going in leaky ships, +capstans going, ships going out to sea, and unintelligible sea-creatures +roaring curses over the bulwarks at respondent lightermen, in and +out,--out at last upon the clearer river, where the ships' boys might +take their fenders in, no longer fishing in troubled waters with them +over the side, and where the festooned sails might fly out to the wind. + +At the stairs where we had taken him abroad, and ever since, I had +looked warily for any token of our being suspected. I had seen none. We +certainly had not been, and at that time as certainly we were not either +attended or followed by any boat. If we had been waited on by any boat, +I should have run in to shore, and have obliged her to go on, or to +make her purpose evident. But we held our own without any appearance of +molestation. + +He had his boat-cloak on him, and looked, as I have said, a natural part +of the scene. It was remarkable (but perhaps the wretched life he had +led accounted for it) that he was the least anxious of any of us. He +was not indifferent, for he told me that he hoped to live to see his +gentleman one of the best of gentlemen in a foreign country; he was not +disposed to be passive or resigned, as I understood it; but he had no +notion of meeting danger half way. When it came upon him, he confronted +it, but it must come before he troubled himself. + +"If you knowed, dear boy," he said to me, "what it is to sit here +alonger my dear boy and have my smoke, arter having been day by day +betwixt four walls, you'd envy me. But you don't know what it is." + +"I think I know the delights of freedom," I answered. + +"Ah," said he, shaking his head gravely. "But you don't know it equal to +me. You must have been under lock and key, dear boy, to know it equal to +me,--but I ain't a going to be low." + +It occurred to me as inconsistent, that, for any mastering idea, he +should have endangered his freedom, and even his life. But I reflected +that perhaps freedom without danger was too much apart from all the +habit of his existence to be to him what it would be to another man. I +was not far out, since he said, after smoking a little:-- + +"You see, dear boy, when I was over yonder, t'other side the world, I +was always a looking to this side; and it come flat to be there, for +all I was a growing rich. Everybody knowed Magwitch, and Magwitch could +come, and Magwitch could go, and nobody's head would be troubled about +him. They ain't so easy concerning me here, dear boy,--wouldn't be, +leastwise, if they knowed where I was." + +"If all goes well," said I, "you will be perfectly free and safe again +within a few hours." + +"Well," he returned, drawing a long breath, "I hope so." + +"And think so?" + +He dipped his hand in the water over the boat's gunwale, and said, +smiling with that softened air upon him which was not new to me:-- + +"Ay, I s'pose I think so, dear boy. We'd be puzzled to be more quiet +and easy-going than we are at present. But--it's a flowing so soft +and pleasant through the water, p'raps, as makes me think it--I was +a thinking through my smoke just then, that we can no more see to the +bottom of the next few hours than we can see to the bottom of this river +what I catches hold of. Nor yet we can't no more hold their tide than +I can hold this. And it's run through my fingers and gone, you see!" +holding up his dripping hand. + +"But for your face I should think you were a little despondent," said I. + +"Not a bit on it, dear boy! It comes of flowing on so quiet, and of that +there rippling at the boat's head making a sort of a Sunday tune. Maybe +I'm a growing a trifle old besides." + +He put his pipe back in his mouth with an undisturbed expression of +face, and sat as composed and contented as if we were already out of +England. Yet he was as submissive to a word of advice as if he had been +in constant terror; for, when we ran ashore to get some bottles of beer +into the boat, and he was stepping out, I hinted that I thought he would +be safest where he was, and he said. "Do you, dear boy?" and quietly sat +down again. + +The air felt cold upon the river, but it was a bright day, and the +sunshine was very cheering. The tide ran strong, I took care to lose +none of it, and our steady stroke carried us on thoroughly well. By +imperceptible degrees, as the tide ran out, we lost more and more of the +nearer woods and hills, and dropped lower and lower between the muddy +banks, but the tide was yet with us when we were off Gravesend. As our +charge was wrapped in his cloak, I purposely passed within a boat or +two's length of the floating Custom House, and so out to catch the +stream, alongside of two emigrant ships, and under the bows of a large +transport with troops on the forecastle looking down at us. And soon +the tide began to slacken, and the craft lying at anchor to swing, +and presently they had all swung round, and the ships that were taking +advantage of the new tide to get up to the Pool began to crowd upon us +in a fleet, and we kept under the shore, as much out of the strength of +the tide now as we could, standing carefully off from low shallows and +mudbanks. + +Our oarsmen were so fresh, by dint of having occasionally let her drive +with the tide for a minute or two, that a quarter of an hour's rest +proved full as much as they wanted. We got ashore among some slippery +stones while we ate and drank what we had with us, and looked about. +It was like my own marsh country, flat and monotonous, and with a +dim horizon; while the winding river turned and turned, and the great +floating buoys upon it turned and turned, and everything else seemed +stranded and still. For now the last of the fleet of ships was round +the last low point we had headed; and the last green barge, straw-laden, +with a brown sail, had followed; and some ballast-lighters, shaped like +a child's first rude imitation of a boat, lay low in the mud; and a +little squat shoal-lighthouse on open piles stood crippled in the mud +on stilts and crutches; and slimy stakes stuck out of the mud, and slimy +stones stuck out of the mud, and red landmarks and tidemarks stuck +out of the mud, and an old landing-stage and an old roofless building +slipped into the mud, and all about us was stagnation and mud. + +We pushed off again, and made what way we could. It was much harder work +now, but Herbert and Startop persevered, and rowed and rowed and rowed +until the sun went down. By that time the river had lifted us a little, +so that we could see above the bank. There was the red sun, on the low +level of the shore, in a purple haze, fast deepening into black; and +there was the solitary flat marsh; and far away there were the rising +grounds, between which and us there seemed to be no life, save here and +there in the foreground a melancholy gull. + +As the night was fast falling, and as the moon, being past the full, +would not rise early, we held a little council; a short one, for clearly +our course was to lie by at the first lonely tavern we could find. So, +they plied their oars once more, and I looked out for anything like a +house. Thus we held on, speaking little, for four or five dull miles. It +was very cold, and, a collier coming by us, with her galley-fire smoking +and flaring, looked like a comfortable home. The night was as dark by +this time as it would be until morning; and what light we had, seemed +to come more from the river than the sky, as the oars in their dipping +struck at a few reflected stars. + +At this dismal time we were evidently all possessed by the idea that +we were followed. As the tide made, it flapped heavily at irregular +intervals against the shore; and whenever such a sound came, one or +other of us was sure to start, and look in that direction. Here and +there, the set of the current had worn down the bank into a little +creek, and we were all suspicious of such places, and eyed them +nervously. Sometimes, "What was that ripple?" one of us would say in a +low voice. Or another, "Is that a boat yonder?" And afterwards we would +fall into a dead silence, and I would sit impatiently thinking with what +an unusual amount of noise the oars worked in the thowels. + +At length we descried a light and a roof, and presently afterwards ran +alongside a little causeway made of stones that had been picked up hard +by. Leaving the rest in the boat, I stepped ashore, and found the light +to be in a window of a public-house. It was a dirty place enough, and I +dare say not unknown to smuggling adventurers; but there was a good +fire in the kitchen, and there were eggs and bacon to eat, and various +liquors to drink. Also, there were two double-bedded rooms,--"such as +they were," the landlord said. No other company was in the house than +the landlord, his wife, and a grizzled male creature, the "Jack" of the +little causeway, who was as slimy and smeary as if he had been low-water +mark too. + +With this assistant, I went down to the boat again, and we all came +ashore, and brought out the oars, and rudder and boat-hook, and all +else, and hauled her up for the night. We made a very good meal by the +kitchen fire, and then apportioned the bedrooms: Herbert and Startop +were to occupy one; I and our charge the other. We found the air as +carefully excluded from both, as if air were fatal to life; and there +were more dirty clothes and bandboxes under the beds than I should have +thought the family possessed. But we considered ourselves well off, +notwithstanding, for a more solitary place we could not have found. + +While we were comforting ourselves by the fire after our meal, the +Jack--who was sitting in a corner, and who had a bloated pair of shoes +on, which he had exhibited while we were eating our eggs and bacon, as +interesting relics that he had taken a few days ago from the feet of +a drowned seaman washed ashore--asked me if we had seen a four-oared +galley going up with the tide? When I told him No, he said she must have +gone down then, and yet she "took up too," when she left there. + +"They must ha' thought better on't for some reason or another," said the +Jack, "and gone down." + +"A four-oared galley, did you say?" said I. + +"A four," said the Jack, "and two sitters." + +"Did they come ashore here?" + +"They put in with a stone two-gallon jar for some beer. I'd ha' been +glad to pison the beer myself," said the Jack, "or put some rattling +physic in it." + +"Why?" + +"I know why," said the Jack. He spoke in a slushy voice, as if much mud +had washed into his throat. + +"He thinks," said the landlord, a weakly meditative man with a pale eye, +who seemed to rely greatly on his Jack,--"he thinks they was, what they +wasn't." + +"I knows what I thinks," observed the Jack. + +"You thinks Custum 'Us, Jack?" said the landlord. + +"I do," said the Jack. + +"Then you're wrong, Jack." + +"AM I!" + +In the infinite meaning of his reply and his boundless confidence in +his views, the Jack took one of his bloated shoes off, looked into +it, knocked a few stones out of it on the kitchen floor, and put it on +again. He did this with the air of a Jack who was so right that he could +afford to do anything. + +"Why, what do you make out that they done with their buttons then, +Jack?" asked the landlord, vacillating weakly. + +"Done with their buttons?" returned the Jack. "Chucked 'em overboard. +Swallered 'em. Sowed 'em, to come up small salad. Done with their +buttons!" + +"Don't be cheeky, Jack," remonstrated the landlord, in a melancholy and +pathetic way. + +"A Custum 'Us officer knows what to do with his Buttons," said the Jack, +repeating the obnoxious word with the greatest contempt, "when they +comes betwixt him and his own light. A four and two sitters don't go +hanging and hovering, up with one tide and down with another, and both +with and against another, without there being Custum 'Us at the bottom +of it." Saying which he went out in disdain; and the landlord, having no +one to reply upon, found it impracticable to pursue the subject. + +This dialogue made us all uneasy, and me very uneasy. The dismal wind +was muttering round the house, the tide was flapping at the shore, and +I had a feeling that we were caged and threatened. A four-oared galley +hovering about in so unusual a way as to attract this notice was an ugly +circumstance that I could not get rid of. When I had induced Provis to +go up to bed, I went outside with my two companions (Startop by this +time knew the state of the case), and held another council. Whether we +should remain at the house until near the steamer's time, which would +be about one in the afternoon, or whether we should put off early in the +morning, was the question we discussed. On the whole we deemed it the +better course to lie where we were, until within an hour or so of the +steamer's time, and then to get out in her track, and drift easily with +the tide. Having settled to do this, we returned into the house and went +to bed. + +I lay down with the greater part of my clothes on, and slept well for a +few hours. When I awoke, the wind had risen, and the sign of the house +(the Ship) was creaking and banging about, with noises that startled +me. Rising softly, for my charge lay fast asleep, I looked out of the +window. It commanded the causeway where we had hauled up our boat, and, +as my eyes adapted themselves to the light of the clouded moon, I saw +two men looking into her. They passed by under the window, looking at +nothing else, and they did not go down to the landing-place which I +could discern to be empty, but struck across the marsh in the direction +of the Nore. + +My first impulse was to call up Herbert, and show him the two men going +away. But reflecting, before I got into his room, which was at the back +of the house and adjoined mine, that he and Startop had had a harder day +than I, and were fatigued, I forbore. Going back to my window, I could +see the two men moving over the marsh. In that light, however, I soon +lost them, and, feeling very cold, lay down to think of the matter, and +fell asleep again. + +We were up early. As we walked to and fro, all four together, before +breakfast, I deemed it right to recount what I had seen. Again our +charge was the least anxious of the party. It was very likely that the +men belonged to the Custom House, he said quietly, and that they had no +thought of us. I tried to persuade myself that it was so,--as, indeed, +it might easily be. However, I proposed that he and I should walk away +together to a distant point we could see, and that the boat should take +us aboard there, or as near there as might prove feasible, at about +noon. This being considered a good precaution, soon after breakfast he +and I set forth, without saying anything at the tavern. + +He smoked his pipe as we went along, and sometimes stopped to clap me on +the shoulder. One would have supposed that it was I who was in danger, +not he, and that he was reassuring me. We spoke very little. As we +approached the point, I begged him to remain in a sheltered place, while +I went on to reconnoitre; for it was towards it that the men had passed +in the night. He complied, and I went on alone. There was no boat off +the point, nor any boat drawn up anywhere near it, nor were there any +signs of the men having embarked there. But, to be sure, the tide was +high, and there might have been some footpints under water. + +When he looked out from his shelter in the distance, and saw that I +waved my hat to him to come up, he rejoined me, and there we waited; +sometimes lying on the bank, wrapped in our coats, and sometimes moving +about to warm ourselves, until we saw our boat coming round. We got +aboard easily, and rowed out into the track of the steamer. By that time +it wanted but ten minutes of one o'clock, and we began to look out for +her smoke. + +But, it was half-past one before we saw her smoke, and soon afterwards +we saw behind it the smoke of another steamer. As they were coming on +at full speed, we got the two bags ready, and took that opportunity +of saying good-bye to Herbert and Startop. We had all shaken hands +cordially, and neither Herbert's eyes nor mine were quite dry, when I +saw a four-oared galley shoot out from under the bank but a little way +ahead of us, and row out into the same track. + +A stretch of shore had been as yet between us and the steamer's smoke, +by reason of the bend and wind of the river; but now she was visible, +coming head on. I called to Herbert and Startop to keep before the tide, +that she might see us lying by for her, and I adjured Provis to sit +quite still, wrapped in his cloak. He answered cheerily, "Trust to me, +dear boy," and sat like a statue. Meantime the galley, which was very +skilfully handled, had crossed us, let us come up with her, and fallen +alongside. Leaving just room enough for the play of the oars, she kept +alongside, drifting when we drifted, and pulling a stroke or two when we +pulled. Of the two sitters one held the rudder-lines, and looked at us +attentively,--as did all the rowers; the other sitter was wrapped up, +much as Provis was, and seemed to shrink, and whisper some instruction +to the steerer as he looked at us. Not a word was spoken in either boat. + +Startop could make out, after a few minutes, which steamer was first, +and gave me the word "Hamburg," in a low voice, as we sat face to face. +She was nearing us very fast, and the beating of her peddles grew louder +and louder. I felt as if her shadow were absolutely upon us, when the +galley hailed us. I answered. + +"You have a returned Transport there," said the man who held the lines. +"That's the man, wrapped in the cloak. His name is Abel Magwitch, +otherwise Provis. I apprehend that man, and call upon him to surrender, +and you to assist." + +At the same moment, without giving any audible direction to his crew, +he ran the galley abroad of us. They had pulled one sudden stroke ahead, +had got their oars in, had run athwart us, and were holding on to +our gunwale, before we knew what they were doing. This caused great +confusion on board the steamer, and I heard them calling to us, and +heard the order given to stop the paddles, and heard them stop, but felt +her driving down upon us irresistibly. In the same moment, I saw the +steersman of the galley lay his hand on his prisoner's shoulder, and saw +that both boats were swinging round with the force of the tide, and +saw that all hands on board the steamer were running forward quite +frantically. Still, in the same moment, I saw the prisoner start +up, lean across his captor, and pull the cloak from the neck of the +shrinking sitter in the galley. Still in the same moment, I saw that the +face disclosed, was the face of the other convict of long ago. Still, in +the same moment, I saw the face tilt backward with a white terror on it +that I shall never forget, and heard a great cry on board the steamer, +and a loud splash in the water, and felt the boat sink from under me. + +It was but for an instant that I seemed to struggle with a thousand +mill-weirs and a thousand flashes of light; that instant past, I was +taken on board the galley. Herbert was there, and Startop was there; but +our boat was gone, and the two convicts were gone. + +What with the cries aboard the steamer, and the furious blowing off of +her steam, and her driving on, and our driving on, I could not at first +distinguish sky from water or shore from shore; but the crew of the +galley righted her with great speed, and, pulling certain swift strong +strokes ahead, lay upon their oars, every man looking silently and +eagerly at the water astern. Presently a dark object was seen in it, +bearing towards us on the tide. No man spoke, but the steersman held up +his hand, and all softly backed water, and kept the boat straight and +true before it. As it came nearer, I saw it to be Magwitch, swimming, +but not swimming freely. He was taken on board, and instantly manacled +at the wrists and ankles. + +The galley was kept steady, and the silent, eager look-out at the water +was resumed. But, the Rotterdam steamer now came up, and apparently not +understanding what had happened, came on at speed. By the time she had +been hailed and stopped, both steamers were drifting away from us, and +we were rising and falling in a troubled wake of water. The look-out was +kept, long after all was still again and the two steamers were gone; but +everybody knew that it was hopeless now. + +At length we gave it up, and pulled under the shore towards the tavern +we had lately left, where we were received with no little surprise. Here +I was able to get some comforts for Magwitch,--Provis no longer,--who +had received some very severe injury in the Chest, and a deep cut in the +head. + +He told me that he believed himself to have gone under the keel of the +steamer, and to have been struck on the head in rising. The injury to +his chest (which rendered his breathing extremely painful) he thought +he had received against the side of the galley. He added that he did not +pretend to say what he might or might not have done to Compeyson, but +that, in the moment of his laying his hand on his cloak to identify him, +that villain had staggered up and staggered back, and they had both gone +overboard together, when the sudden wrenching of him (Magwitch) out of +our boat, and the endeavor of his captor to keep him in it, had capsized +us. He told me in a whisper that they had gone down fiercely locked in +each other's arms, and that there had been a struggle under water, and +that he had disengaged himself, struck out, and swum away. + +I never had any reason to doubt the exact truth of what he thus told me. +The officer who steered the galley gave the same account of their going +overboard. + +When I asked this officer's permission to change the prisoner's +wet clothes by purchasing any spare garments I could get at the +public-house, he gave it readily: merely observing that he must take +charge of everything his prisoner had about him. So the pocket-book +which had once been in my hands passed into the officer's. He further +gave me leave to accompany the prisoner to London; but declined to +accord that grace to my two friends. + +The Jack at the Ship was instructed where the drowned man had gone +down, and undertook to search for the body in the places where it was +likeliest to come ashore. His interest in its recovery seemed to me to +be much heightened when he heard that it had stockings on. Probably, it +took about a dozen drowned men to fit him out completely; and that may +have been the reason why the different articles of his dress were in +various stages of decay. + +We remained at the public-house until the tide turned, and then Magwitch +was carried down to the galley and put on board. Herbert and Startop +were to get to London by land, as soon as they could. We had a doleful +parting, and when I took my place by Magwitch's side, I felt that that +was my place henceforth while he lived. + +For now, my repugnance to him had all melted away; and in the hunted, +wounded, shackled creature who held my hand in his, I only saw a man +who had meant to be my benefactor, and who had felt affectionately, +gratefully, and generously, towards me with great constancy through a +series of years. I only saw in him a much better man than I had been to +Joe. + +His breathing became more difficult and painful as the night drew on, +and often he could not repress a groan. I tried to rest him on the arm +I could use, in any easy position; but it was dreadful to think that +I could not be sorry at heart for his being badly hurt, since it was +unquestionably best that he should die. That there were, still living, +people enough who were able and willing to identify him, I could not +doubt. That he would be leniently treated, I could not hope. He who had +been presented in the worst light at his trial, who had since broken +prison and had been tried again, who had returned from transportation +under a life sentence, and who had occasioned the death of the man who +was the cause of his arrest. + +As we returned towards the setting sun we had yesterday left behind us, +and as the stream of our hopes seemed all running back, I told him how +grieved I was to think that he had come home for my sake. + +"Dear boy," he answered, "I'm quite content to take my chance. I've seen +my boy, and he can be a gentleman without me." + +No. I had thought about that, while we had been there side by side. No. +Apart from any inclinations of my own, I understood Wemmick's hint now. +I foresaw that, being convicted, his possessions would be forfeited to +the Crown. + +"Lookee here, dear boy," said he "It's best as a gentleman should not be +knowed to belong to me now. Only come to see me as if you come by chance +alonger Wemmick. Sit where I can see you when I am swore to, for the +last o' many times, and I don't ask no more." + +"I will never stir from your side," said I, "when I am suffered to be +near you. Please God, I will be as true to you as you have been to me!" + +I felt his hand tremble as it held mine, and he turned his face away +as he lay in the bottom of the boat, and I heard that old sound in his +throat,--softened now, like all the rest of him. It was a good thing +that he had touched this point, for it put into my mind what I might not +otherwise have thought of until too late,--that he need never know how +his hopes of enriching me had perished. + + + + +Chapter LV + +He was taken to the Police Court next day, and would have been +immediately committed for trial, but that it was necessary to send down +for an old officer of the prison-ship from which he had once escaped, to +speak to his identity. Nobody doubted it; but Compeyson, who had meant +to depose to it, was tumbling on the tides, dead, and it happened that +there was not at that time any prison officer in London who could give +the required evidence. I had gone direct to Mr. Jaggers at his private +house, on my arrival over night, to retain his assistance, and Mr. +Jaggers on the prisoner's behalf would admit nothing. It was the sole +resource; for he told me that the case must be over in five minutes +when the witness was there, and that no power on earth could prevent its +going against us. + +I imparted to Mr. Jaggers my design of keeping him in ignorance of the +fate of his wealth. Mr. Jaggers was querulous and angry with me for +having "let it slip through my fingers," and said we must memorialize +by and by, and try at all events for some of it. But he did not conceal +from me that, although there might be many cases in which the forfeiture +would not be exacted, there were no circumstances in this case to make +it one of them. I understood that very well. I was not related to the +outlaw, or connected with him by any recognizable tie; he had put his +hand to no writing or settlement in my favor before his apprehension, +and to do so now would be idle. I had no claim, and I finally resolved, +and ever afterwards abided by the resolution, that my heart should never +be sickened with the hopeless task of attempting to establish one. + +There appeared to be reason for supposing that the drowned informer +had hoped for a reward out of this forfeiture, and had obtained some +accurate knowledge of Magwitch's affairs. When his body was found, many +miles from the scene of his death, and so horribly disfigured that he +was only recognizable by the contents of his pockets, notes were still +legible, folded in a case he carried. Among these were the name of a +banking-house in New South Wales, where a sum of money was, and the +designation of certain lands of considerable value. Both these heads of +information were in a list that Magwitch, while in prison, gave to Mr. +Jaggers, of the possessions he supposed I should inherit. His ignorance, +poor fellow, at last served him; he never mistrusted but that my +inheritance was quite safe, with Mr. Jaggers's aid. + +After three days' delay, during which the crown prosecution stood over +for the production of the witness from the prison-ship, the witness +came, and completed the easy case. He was committed to take his trial at +the next Sessions, which would come on in a month. + +It was at this dark time of my life that Herbert returned home one +evening, a good deal cast down, and said,-- + +"My dear Handel, I fear I shall soon have to leave you." + +His partner having prepared me for that, I was less surprised than he +thought. + +"We shall lose a fine opportunity if I put off going to Cairo, and I am +very much afraid I must go, Handel, when you most need me." + +"Herbert, I shall always need you, because I shall always love you; but +my need is no greater now than at another time." + +"You will be so lonely." + +"I have not leisure to think of that," said I. "You know that I am +always with him to the full extent of the time allowed, and that I +should be with him all day long, if I could. And when I come away from +him, you know that my thoughts are with him." + +The dreadful condition to which he was brought, was so appalling to both +of us, that we could not refer to it in plainer words. + +"My dear fellow," said Herbert, "let the near prospect of our +separation--for, it is very near--be my justification for troubling you +about yourself. Have you thought of your future?" + +"No, for I have been afraid to think of any future." + +"But yours cannot be dismissed; indeed, my dear dear Handel, it must not +be dismissed. I wish you would enter on it now, as far as a few friendly +words go, with me." + +"I will," said I. + +"In this branch house of ours, Handel, we must have a--" + +I saw that his delicacy was avoiding the right word, so I said, "A +clerk." + +"A clerk. And I hope it is not at all unlikely that he may expand (as +a clerk of your acquaintance has expanded) into a partner. Now, +Handel,--in short, my dear boy, will you come to me?" + +There was something charmingly cordial and engaging in the manner in +which after saying "Now, Handel," as if it were the grave beginning of +a portentous business exordium, he had suddenly given up that tone, +stretched out his honest hand, and spoken like a schoolboy. + +"Clara and I have talked about it again and again," Herbert pursued, +"and the dear little thing begged me only this evening, with tears in +her eyes, to say to you that, if you will live with us when we come +together, she will do her best to make you happy, and to convince her +husband's friend that he is her friend too. We should get on so well, +Handel!" + +I thanked her heartily, and I thanked him heartily, but said I could not +yet make sure of joining him as he so kindly offered. Firstly, my +mind was too preoccupied to be able to take in the subject clearly. +Secondly,--Yes! Secondly, there was a vague something lingering in my +thoughts that will come out very near the end of this slight narrative. + +"But if you thought, Herbert, that you could, without doing any injury +to your business, leave the question open for a little while--" + +"For any while," cried Herbert. "Six months, a year!" + +"Not so long as that," said I. "Two or three months at most." + +Herbert was highly delighted when we shook hands on this arrangement, +and said he could now take courage to tell me that he believed he must +go away at the end of the week. + +"And Clara?" said I. + +"The dear little thing," returned Herbert, "holds dutifully to her +father as long as he lasts; but he won't last long. Mrs. Whimple +confides to me that he is certainly going." + +"Not to say an unfeeling thing," said I, "he cannot do better than go." + +"I am afraid that must be admitted," said Herbert; "and then I shall +come back for the dear little thing, and the dear little thing and I +will walk quietly into the nearest church. Remember! The blessed darling +comes of no family, my dear Handel, and never looked into the red book, +and hasn't a notion about her grandpapa. What a fortune for the son of +my mother!" + +On the Saturday in that same week, I took my leave of Herbert,--full +of bright hope, but sad and sorry to leave me,--as he sat on one of the +seaport mail coaches. I went into a coffee-house to write a little note +to Clara, telling her he had gone off, sending his love to her over and +over again, and then went to my lonely home,--if it deserved the name; +for it was now no home to me, and I had no home anywhere. + +On the stairs I encountered Wemmick, who was coming down, after an +unsuccessful application of his knuckles to my door. I had not seen him +alone since the disastrous issue of the attempted flight; and he had +come, in his private and personal capacity, to say a few words of +explanation in reference to that failure. + +"The late Compeyson," said Wemmick, "had by little and little got at the +bottom of half of the regular business now transacted; and it was from +the talk of some of his people in trouble (some of his people being +always in trouble) that I heard what I did. I kept my ears open, seeming +to have them shut, until I heard that he was absent, and I thought that +would be the best time for making the attempt. I can only suppose now, +that it was a part of his policy, as a very clever man, habitually to +deceive his own instruments. You don't blame me, I hope, Mr. Pip? I am +sure I tried to serve you, with all my heart." + +"I am as sure of that, Wemmick, as you can be, and I thank you most +earnestly for all your interest and friendship." + +"Thank you, thank you very much. It's a bad job," said Wemmick, +scratching his head, "and I assure you I haven't been so cut up for a +long time. What I look at is the sacrifice of so much portable property. +Dear me!" + +"What I think of, Wemmick, is the poor owner of the property." + +"Yes, to be sure," said Wemmick. "Of course, there can be no objection +to your being sorry for him, and I'd put down a five-pound note myself +to get him out of it. But what I look at is this. The late Compeyson +having been beforehand with him in intelligence of his return, and being +so determined to bring him to book, I do not think he could have been +saved. Whereas, the portable property certainly could have been saved. +That's the difference between the property and the owner, don't you +see?" + +I invited Wemmick to come upstairs, and refresh himself with a glass +of grog before walking to Walworth. He accepted the invitation. While he +was drinking his moderate allowance, he said, with nothing to lead up to +it, and after having appeared rather fidgety,-- + +"What do you think of my meaning to take a holiday on Monday, Mr. Pip?" + +"Why, I suppose you have not done such a thing these twelve months." + +"These twelve years, more likely," said Wemmick. "Yes. I'm going to take +a holiday. More than that; I'm going to take a walk. More than that; I'm +going to ask you to take a walk with me." + +I was about to excuse myself, as being but a bad companion just then, +when Wemmick anticipated me. + +"I know your engagements," said he, "and I know you are out of sorts, +Mr. Pip. But if you could oblige me, I should take it as a kindness. +It ain't a long walk, and it's an early one. Say it might occupy you +(including breakfast on the walk) from eight to twelve. Couldn't you +stretch a point and manage it?" + +He had done so much for me at various times, that this was very little +to do for him. I said I could manage it,--would manage it,--and he was +so very much pleased by my acquiescence, that I was pleased too. At his +particular request, I appointed to call for him at the Castle at half +past eight on Monday morning, and so we parted for the time. + +Punctual to my appointment, I rang at the Castle gate on the Monday +morning, and was received by Wemmick himself, who struck me as looking +tighter than usual, and having a sleeker hat on. Within, there were two +glasses of rum and milk prepared, and two biscuits. The Aged must have +been stirring with the lark, for, glancing into the perspective of his +bedroom, I observed that his bed was empty. + +When we had fortified ourselves with the rum and milk and biscuits, and +were going out for the walk with that training preparation on us, I was +considerably surprised to see Wemmick take up a fishing-rod, and put +it over his shoulder. "Why, we are not going fishing!" said I. "No," +returned Wemmick, "but I like to walk with one." + +I thought this odd; however, I said nothing, and we set off. We went +towards Camberwell Green, and when we were thereabouts, Wemmick said +suddenly,-- + +"Halloa! Here's a church!" + +There was nothing very surprising in that; but again, I was rather +surprised, when he said, as if he were animated by a brilliant idea,-- + +"Let's go in!" + +We went in, Wemmick leaving his fishing-rod in the porch, and looked all +round. In the mean time, Wemmick was diving into his coat-pockets, and +getting something out of paper there. + +"Halloa!" said he. "Here's a couple of pair of gloves! Let's put 'em +on!" + +As the gloves were white kid gloves, and as the post-office was widened +to its utmost extent, I now began to have my strong suspicions. They +were strengthened into certainty when I beheld the Aged enter at a side +door, escorting a lady. + +"Halloa!" said Wemmick. "Here's Miss Skiffins! Let's have a wedding." + +That discreet damsel was attired as usual, except that she was now +engaged in substituting for her green kid gloves a pair of white. The +Aged was likewise occupied in preparing a similar sacrifice for +the altar of Hymen. The old gentleman, however, experienced so much +difficulty in getting his gloves on, that Wemmick found it necessary +to put him with his back against a pillar, and then to get behind the +pillar himself and pull away at them, while I for my part held the old +gentleman round the waist, that he might present an equal and safe +resistance. By dint of this ingenious scheme, his gloves were got on to +perfection. + +The clerk and clergyman then appearing, we were ranged in order at +those fatal rails. True to his notion of seeming to do it all without +preparation, I heard Wemmick say to himself, as he took something out of +his waistcoat-pocket before the service began, "Halloa! Here's a ring!" + +I acted in the capacity of backer, or best-man, to the bridegroom; while +a little limp pew-opener in a soft bonnet like a baby's, made a feint +of being the bosom friend of Miss Skiffins. The responsibility of giving +the lady away devolved upon the Aged, which led to the clergyman's being +unintentionally scandalized, and it happened thus. When he said, "Who +giveth this woman to be married to this man?" the old gentleman, not in +the least knowing what point of the ceremony we had arrived at, stood +most amiably beaming at the ten commandments. Upon which, the clergyman +said again, "WHO giveth this woman to be married to this man?" The old +gentleman being still in a state of most estimable unconsciousness, the +bridegroom cried out in his accustomed voice, "Now Aged P. you know; who +giveth?" To which the Aged replied with great briskness, before saying +that he gave, "All right, John, all right, my boy!" And the clergyman +came to so gloomy a pause upon it, that I had doubts for the moment +whether we should get completely married that day. + +It was completely done, however, and when we were going out of church +Wemmick took the cover off the font, and put his white gloves in it, and +put the cover on again. Mrs. Wemmick, more heedful of the future, put +her white gloves in her pocket and assumed her green. "Now, Mr. Pip," +said Wemmick, triumphantly shouldering the fishing-rod as we came +out, "let me ask you whether anybody would suppose this to be a +wedding-party!" + +Breakfast had been ordered at a pleasant little tavern, a mile or so +away upon the rising ground beyond the green; and there was a bagatelle +board in the room, in case we should desire to unbend our minds after +the solemnity. It was pleasant to observe that Mrs. Wemmick no longer +unwound Wemmick's arm when it adapted itself to her figure, but sat in a +high-backed chair against the wall, like a violoncello in its case, and +submitted to be embraced as that melodious instrument might have done. + +We had an excellent breakfast, and when any one declined anything on +table, Wemmick said, "Provided by contract, you know; don't be afraid of +it!" I drank to the new couple, drank to the Aged, drank to the Castle, +saluted the bride at parting, and made myself as agreeable as I could. + +Wemmick came down to the door with me, and I again shook hands with him, +and wished him joy. + +"Thankee!" said Wemmick, rubbing his hands. "She's such a manager +of fowls, you have no idea. You shall have some eggs, and judge for +yourself. I say, Mr. Pip!" calling me back, and speaking low. "This is +altogether a Walworth sentiment, please." + +"I understand. Not to be mentioned in Little Britain," said I. + +Wemmick nodded. "After what you let out the other day, Mr. Jaggers +may as well not know of it. He might think my brain was softening, or +something of the kind." + + + + +Chapter LVI + +He lay in prison very ill, during the whole interval between his +committal for trial and the coming round of the Sessions. He had broken +two ribs, they had wounded one of his lungs, and he breathed with great +pain and difficulty, which increased daily. It was a consequence of his +hurt that he spoke so low as to be scarcely audible; therefore he spoke +very little. But he was ever ready to listen to me; and it became the +first duty of my life to say to him, and read to him, what I knew he +ought to hear. + +Being far too ill to remain in the common prison, he was removed, after +the first day or so, into the infirmary. This gave me opportunities +of being with him that I could not otherwise have had. And but for +his illness he would have been put in irons, for he was regarded as a +determined prison-breaker, and I know not what else. + +Although I saw him every day, it was for only a short time; hence, the +regularly recurring spaces of our separation were long enough to record +on his face any slight changes that occurred in his physical state. I +do not recollect that I once saw any change in it for the better; he +wasted, and became slowly weaker and worse, day by day, from the day +when the prison door closed upon him. + +The kind of submission or resignation that he showed was that of a man +who was tired out. I sometimes derived an impression, from his manner +or from a whispered word or two which escaped him, that he pondered +over the question whether he might have been a better man under better +circumstances. But he never justified himself by a hint tending that +way, or tried to bend the past out of its eternal shape. + +It happened on two or three occasions in my presence, that his desperate +reputation was alluded to by one or other of the people in attendance on +him. A smile crossed his face then, and he turned his eyes on me with +a trustful look, as if he were confident that I had seen some small +redeeming touch in him, even so long ago as when I was a little child. +As to all the rest, he was humble and contrite, and I never knew him +complain. + +When the Sessions came round, Mr. Jaggers caused an application to be +made for the postponement of his trial until the following Sessions. It +was obviously made with the assurance that he could not live so long, +and was refused. The trial came on at once, and, when he was put to the +bar, he was seated in a chair. No objection was made to my getting +close to the dock, on the outside of it, and holding the hand that he +stretched forth to me. + +The trial was very short and very clear. Such things as could be said +for him were said,--how he had taken to industrious habits, and had +thriven lawfully and reputably. But nothing could unsay the fact that +he had returned, and was there in presence of the Judge and Jury. It was +impossible to try him for that, and do otherwise than find him guilty. + +At that time, it was the custom (as I learnt from my terrible experience +of that Sessions) to devote a concluding day to the passing of +Sentences, and to make a finishing effect with the Sentence of Death. +But for the indelible picture that my remembrance now holds before me, +I could scarcely believe, even as I write these words, that I saw +two-and-thirty men and women put before the Judge to receive that +sentence together. Foremost among the two-and-thirty was he; seated, +that he might get breath enough to keep life in him. + +The whole scene starts out again in the vivid colors of the moment, down +to the drops of April rain on the windows of the court, glittering in +the rays of April sun. Penned in the dock, as I again stood outside it +at the corner with his hand in mine, were the two-and-thirty men +and women; some defiant, some stricken with terror, some sobbing and +weeping, some covering their faces, some staring gloomily about. There +had been shrieks from among the women convicts; but they had been +stilled, and a hush had succeeded. The sheriffs with their great chains +and nosegays, other civic gewgaws and monsters, criers, ushers, a great +gallery full of people,--a large theatrical audience,--looked on, as the +two-and-thirty and the Judge were solemnly confronted. Then the Judge +addressed them. Among the wretched creatures before him whom he must +single out for special address was one who almost from his infancy had +been an offender against the laws; who, after repeated imprisonments and +punishments, had been at length sentenced to exile for a term of years; +and who, under circumstances of great violence and daring, had made his +escape and been re-sentenced to exile for life. That miserable man would +seem for a time to have become convinced of his errors, when far removed +from the scenes of his old offences, and to have lived a peaceable and +honest life. But in a fatal moment, yielding to those propensities and +passions, the indulgence of which had so long rendered him a scourge to +society, he had quitted his haven of rest and repentance, and had +come back to the country where he was proscribed. Being here presently +denounced, he had for a time succeeded in evading the officers of +Justice, but being at length seized while in the act of flight, he had +resisted them, and had--he best knew whether by express design, or in +the blindness of his hardihood--caused the death of his denouncer, to +whom his whole career was known. The appointed punishment for his return +to the land that had cast him out, being Death, and his case being this +aggravated case, he must prepare himself to Die. + +The sun was striking in at the great windows of the court, through the +glittering drops of rain upon the glass, and it made a broad shaft of +light between the two-and-thirty and the Judge, linking both together, +and perhaps reminding some among the audience how both were passing on, +with absolute equality, to the greater Judgment that knoweth all things, +and cannot err. Rising for a moment, a distinct speck of face in this +way of light, the prisoner said, "My Lord, I have received my sentence +of Death from the Almighty, but I bow to yours," and sat down again. +There was some hushing, and the Judge went on with what he had to say +to the rest. Then they were all formally doomed, and some of them were +supported out, and some of them sauntered out with a haggard look of +bravery, and a few nodded to the gallery, and two or three shook hands, +and others went out chewing the fragments of herb they had taken from +the sweet herbs lying about. He went last of all, because of having to +be helped from his chair, and to go very slowly; and he held my hand +while all the others were removed, and while the audience got up +(putting their dresses right, as they might at church or elsewhere), and +pointed down at this criminal or at that, and most of all at him and me. + +I earnestly hoped and prayed that he might die before the Recorder's +Report was made; but, in the dread of his lingering on, I began that +night to write out a petition to the Home Secretary of State, setting +forth my knowledge of him, and how it was that he had come back for my +sake. I wrote it as fervently and pathetically as I could; and when I +had finished it and sent it in, I wrote out other petitions to such men +in authority as I hoped were the most merciful, and drew up one to the +Crown itself. For several days and nights after he was sentenced I took +no rest except when I fell asleep in my chair, but was wholly absorbed +in these appeals. And after I had sent them in, I could not keep away +from the places where they were, but felt as if they were more +hopeful and less desperate when I was near them. In this unreasonable +restlessness and pain of mind I would roam the streets of an evening, +wandering by those offices and houses where I had left the petitions. To +the present hour, the weary western streets of London on a cold, dusty +spring night, with their ranges of stern, shut-up mansions, and their +long rows of lamps, are melancholy to me from this association. + +The daily visits I could make him were shortened now, and he was more +strictly kept. Seeing, or fancying, that I was suspected of an intention +of carrying poison to him, I asked to be searched before I sat down +at his bedside, and told the officer who was always there, that I was +willing to do anything that would assure him of the singleness of my +designs. Nobody was hard with him or with me. There was duty to be +done, and it was done, but not harshly. The officer always gave me the +assurance that he was worse, and some other sick prisoners in the +room, and some other prisoners who attended on them as sick nurses, +(malefactors, but not incapable of kindness, God be thanked!) always +joined in the same report. + +As the days went on, I noticed more and more that he would lie placidly +looking at the white ceiling, with an absence of light in his face +until some word of mine brightened it for an instant, and then it would +subside again. Sometimes he was almost or quite unable to speak, then +he would answer me with slight pressures on my hand, and I grew to +understand his meaning very well. + +The number of the days had risen to ten, when I saw a greater change +in him than I had seen yet. His eyes were turned towards the door, and +lighted up as I entered. + +"Dear boy," he said, as I sat down by his bed: "I thought you was late. +But I knowed you couldn't be that." + +"It is just the time," said I. "I waited for it at the gate." + +"You always waits at the gate; don't you, dear boy?" + +"Yes. Not to lose a moment of the time." + +"Thank'ee dear boy, thank'ee. God bless you! You've never deserted me, +dear boy." + +I pressed his hand in silence, for I could not forget that I had once +meant to desert him. + +"And what's the best of all," he said, "you've been more comfortable +alonger me, since I was under a dark cloud, than when the sun shone. +That's best of all." + +He lay on his back, breathing with great difficulty. Do what he would, +and love me though he did, the light left his face ever and again, and a +film came over the placid look at the white ceiling. + +"Are you in much pain to-day?" + +"I don't complain of none, dear boy." + +"You never do complain." + +He had spoken his last words. He smiled, and I understood his touch to +mean that he wished to lift my hand, and lay it on his breast. I laid it +there, and he smiled again, and put both his hands upon it. + +The allotted time ran out, while we were thus; but, looking round, I +found the governor of the prison standing near me, and he whispered, +"You needn't go yet." I thanked him gratefully, and asked, "Might I +speak to him, if he can hear me?" + +The governor stepped aside, and beckoned the officer away. The change, +though it was made without noise, drew back the film from the placid +look at the white ceiling, and he looked most affectionately at me. + +"Dear Magwitch, I must tell you now, at last. You understand what I +say?" + +A gentle pressure on my hand. + +"You had a child once, whom you loved and lost." + +A stronger pressure on my hand. + +"She lived, and found powerful friends. She is living now. She is a lady +and very beautiful. And I love her!" + +With a last faint effort, which would have been powerless but for my +yielding to it and assisting it, he raised my hand to his lips. Then, +he gently let it sink upon his breast again, with his own hands lying on +it. The placid look at the white ceiling came back, and passed away, and +his head dropped quietly on his breast. + +Mindful, then, of what we had read together, I thought of the two men +who went up into the Temple to pray, and I knew there were no better +words that I could say beside his bed, than "O Lord, be merciful to him +a sinner!" + + + + +Chapter LVII + +Now that I was left wholly to myself, I gave notice of my intention +to quit the chambers in the Temple as soon as my tenancy could legally +determine, and in the meanwhile to underlet them. At once I put bills +up in the windows; for, I was in debt, and had scarcely any money, and +began to be seriously alarmed by the state of my affairs. I ought +rather to write that I should have been alarmed if I had had energy and +concentration enough to help me to the clear perception of any truth +beyond the fact that I was falling very ill. The late stress upon me had +enabled me to put off illness, but not to put it away; I knew that it +was coming on me now, and I knew very little else, and was even careless +as to that. + +For a day or two, I lay on the sofa, or on the floor,--anywhere, +according as I happened to sink down,--with a heavy head and aching +limbs, and no purpose, and no power. Then there came, one night which +appeared of great duration, and which teemed with anxiety and horror; +and when in the morning I tried to sit up in my bed and think of it, I +found I could not do so. + +Whether I really had been down in Garden Court in the dead of the night, +groping about for the boat that I supposed to be there; whether I had +two or three times come to myself on the staircase with great terror, +not knowing how I had got out of bed; whether I had found myself +lighting the lamp, possessed by the idea that he was coming up +the stairs, and that the lights were blown out; whether I had been +inexpressibly harassed by the distracted talking, laughing, and groaning +of some one, and had half suspected those sounds to be of my own making; +whether there had been a closed iron furnace in a dark corner of +the room, and a voice had called out, over and over again, that Miss +Havisham was consuming within it,--these were things that I tried to +settle with myself and get into some order, as I lay that morning on +my bed. But the vapor of a limekiln would come between me and them, +disordering them all, and it was through the vapor at last that I saw +two men looking at me. + +"What do you want?" I asked, starting; "I don't know you." + +"Well, sir," returned one of them, bending down and touching me on the +shoulder, "this is a matter that you'll soon arrange, I dare say, but +you're arrested." + +"What is the debt?" + +"Hundred and twenty-three pound, fifteen, six. Jeweller's account, I +think." + +"What is to be done?" + +"You had better come to my house," said the man. "I keep a very nice +house." + +I made some attempt to get up and dress myself. When I next attended +to them, they were standing a little off from the bed, looking at me. I +still lay there. + +"You see my state," said I. "I would come with you if I could; but +indeed I am quite unable. If you take me from here, I think I shall die +by the way." + +Perhaps they replied, or argued the point, or tried to encourage me to +believe that I was better than I thought. Forasmuch as they hang in +my memory by only this one slender thread, I don't know what they did, +except that they forbore to remove me. + +That I had a fever and was avoided, that I suffered greatly, that +I often lost my reason, that the time seemed interminable, that I +confounded impossible existences with my own identity; that I was a +brick in the house-wall, and yet entreating to be released from the +giddy place where the builders had set me; that I was a steel beam of a +vast engine, clashing and whirling over a gulf, and yet that I implored +in my own person to have the engine stopped, and my part in it hammered +off; that I passed through these phases of disease, I know of my own +remembrance, and did in some sort know at the time. That I sometimes +struggled with real people, in the belief that they were murderers, and +that I would all at once comprehend that they meant to do me good, and +would then sink exhausted in their arms, and suffer them to lay me +down, I also knew at the time. But, above all, I knew that there was a +constant tendency in all these people,--who, when I was very ill, would +present all kinds of extraordinary transformations of the human face, +and would be much dilated in size,--above all, I say, I knew that there +was an extraordinary tendency in all these people, sooner or later, to +settle down into the likeness of Joe. + +After I had turned the worst point of my illness, I began to notice that +while all its other features changed, this one consistent feature did +not change. Whoever came about me, still settled down into Joe. I opened +my eyes in the night, and I saw, in the great chair at the bedside, Joe. +I opened my eyes in the day, and, sitting on the window-seat, smoking +his pipe in the shaded open window, still I saw Joe. I asked for cooling +drink, and the dear hand that gave it me was Joe's. I sank back on +my pillow after drinking, and the face that looked so hopefully and +tenderly upon me was the face of Joe. + +At last, one day, I took courage, and said, "Is it Joe?" + +And the dear old home-voice answered, "Which it air, old chap." + +"O Joe, you break my heart! Look angry at me, Joe. Strike me, Joe. Tell +me of my ingratitude. Don't be so good to me!" + +For Joe had actually laid his head down on the pillow at my side, and +put his arm round my neck, in his joy that I knew him. + +"Which dear old Pip, old chap," said Joe, "you and me was ever friends. +And when you're well enough to go out for a ride--what larks!" + +After which, Joe withdrew to the window, and stood with his back towards +me, wiping his eyes. And as my extreme weakness prevented me from +getting up and going to him, I lay there, penitently whispering, "O God +bless him! O God bless this gentle Christian man!" + +Joe's eyes were red when I next found him beside me; but I was holding +his hand, and we both felt happy. + +"How long, dear Joe?" + +"Which you meantersay, Pip, how long have your illness lasted, dear old +chap?" + +"Yes, Joe." + +"It's the end of May, Pip. To-morrow is the first of June." + +"And have you been here all that time, dear Joe?" + +"Pretty nigh, old chap. For, as I says to Biddy when the news of your +being ill were brought by letter, which it were brought by the post, and +being formerly single he is now married though underpaid for a deal of +walking and shoe-leather, but wealth were not a object on his part, and +marriage were the great wish of his hart--" + +"It is so delightful to hear you, Joe! But I interrupt you in what you +said to Biddy." + +"Which it were," said Joe, "that how you might be amongst strangers, and +that how you and me having been ever friends, a wisit at such a moment +might not prove unacceptabobble. And Biddy, her word were, 'Go to him, +without loss of time.' That," said Joe, summing up with his judicial +air, "were the word of Biddy. 'Go to him,' Biddy say, 'without loss of +time.' In short, I shouldn't greatly deceive you," Joe added, after a +little grave reflection, "if I represented to you that the word of that +young woman were, 'without a minute's loss of time.'" + +There Joe cut himself short, and informed me that I was to be talked +to in great moderation, and that I was to take a little nourishment at +stated frequent times, whether I felt inclined for it or not, and that +I was to submit myself to all his orders. So I kissed his hand, and lay +quiet, while he proceeded to indite a note to Biddy, with my love in it. + +Evidently Biddy had taught Joe to write. As I lay in bed looking at him, +it made me, in my weak state, cry again with pleasure to see the +pride with which he set about his letter. My bedstead, divested of its +curtains, had been removed, with me upon it, into the sitting-room, as +the airiest and largest, and the carpet had been taken away, and +the room kept always fresh and wholesome night and day. At my own +writing-table, pushed into a corner and cumbered with little bottles, +Joe now sat down to his great work, first choosing a pen from the +pen-tray as if it were a chest of large tools, and tucking up his +sleeves as if he were going to wield a crow-bar or sledgehammer. It was +necessary for Joe to hold on heavily to the table with his left elbow, +and to get his right leg well out behind him, before he could begin; and +when he did begin he made every downstroke so slowly that it might +have been six feet long, while at every upstroke I could hear his pen +spluttering extensively. He had a curious idea that the inkstand was +on the side of him where it was not, and constantly dipped his pen into +space, and seemed quite satisfied with the result. Occasionally, he was +tripped up by some orthographical stumbling-block; but on the whole +he got on very well indeed; and when he had signed his name, and had +removed a finishing blot from the paper to the crown of his head with +his two forefingers, he got up and hovered about the table, trying the +effect of his performance from various points of view, as it lay there, +with unbounded satisfaction. + +Not to make Joe uneasy by talking too much, even if I had been able to +talk much, I deferred asking him about Miss Havisham until next day. He +shook his head when I then asked him if she had recovered. + +"Is she dead, Joe?" + +"Why you see, old chap," said Joe, in a tone of remonstrance, and by way +of getting at it by degrees, "I wouldn't go so far as to say that, for +that's a deal to say; but she ain't--" + +"Living, Joe?" + +"That's nigher where it is," said Joe; "she ain't living." + +"Did she linger long, Joe?" + +"Arter you was took ill, pretty much about what you might call (if you +was put to it) a week," said Joe; still determined, on my account, to +come at everything by degrees. + +"Dear Joe, have you heard what becomes of her property?" + +"Well, old chap," said Joe, "it do appear that she had settled the most +of it, which I meantersay tied it up, on Miss Estella. But she had +wrote out a little coddleshell in her own hand a day or two afore the +accident, leaving a cool four thousand to Mr. Matthew Pocket. And why, +do you suppose, above all things, Pip, she left that cool four thousand +unto him? 'Because of Pip's account of him, the said Matthew.' I am told +by Biddy, that air the writing," said Joe, repeating the legal turn as +if it did him infinite good, "'account of him the said Matthew.' And a +cool four thousand, Pip!" + +I never discovered from whom Joe derived the conventional temperature of +the four thousand pounds; but it appeared to make the sum of money more +to him, and he had a manifest relish in insisting on its being cool. + +This account gave me great joy, as it perfected the only good thing I +had done. I asked Joe whether he had heard if any of the other relations +had any legacies? + +"Miss Sarah," said Joe, "she have twenty-five pound perannium fur to +buy pills, on account of being bilious. Miss Georgiana, she have twenty +pound down. Mrs.--what's the name of them wild beasts with humps, old +chap?" + +"Camels?" said I, wondering why he could possibly want to know. + +Joe nodded. "Mrs. Camels," by which I presently understood he meant +Camilla, "she have five pound fur to buy rushlights to put her in +spirits when she wake up in the night." + +The accuracy of these recitals was sufficiently obvious to me, to give +me great confidence in Joe's information. "And now," said Joe, "you +ain't that strong yet, old chap, that you can take in more nor one +additional shovelful to-day. Old Orlick he's been a bustin' open a +dwelling-ouse." + +"Whose?" said I. + +"Not, I grant you, but what his manners is given to blusterous," said +Joe, apologetically; "still, a Englishman's ouse is his Castle, and +castles must not be busted 'cept when done in war time. And wotsume'er +the failings on his part, he were a corn and seedsman in his hart." + +"Is it Pumblechook's house that has been broken into, then?" + +"That's it, Pip," said Joe; "and they took his till, and they took his +cash-box, and they drinked his wine, and they partook of his wittles, +and they slapped his face, and they pulled his nose, and they tied him +up to his bedpust, and they giv' him a dozen, and they stuffed his +mouth full of flowering annuals to prewent his crying out. But he knowed +Orlick, and Orlick's in the county jail." + +By these approaches we arrived at unrestricted conversation. I was slow +to gain strength, but I did slowly and surely become less weak, and Joe +stayed with me, and I fancied I was little Pip again. + +For the tenderness of Joe was so beautifully proportioned to my need, +that I was like a child in his hands. He would sit and talk to me in the +old confidence, and with the old simplicity, and in the old unassertive +protecting way, so that I would half believe that all my life since the +days of the old kitchen was one of the mental troubles of the fever that +was gone. He did everything for me except the household work, for which +he had engaged a very decent woman, after paying off the laundress on +his first arrival. "Which I do assure you, Pip," he would often say, in +explanation of that liberty; "I found her a tapping the spare bed, like +a cask of beer, and drawing off the feathers in a bucket, for sale. +Which she would have tapped yourn next, and draw'd it off with you a +laying on it, and was then a carrying away the coals gradiwally in +the soup-tureen and wegetable-dishes, and the wine and spirits in your +Wellington boots." + +We looked forward to the day when I should go out for a ride, as we had +once looked forward to the day of my apprenticeship. And when the day +came, and an open carriage was got into the Lane, Joe wrapped me up, +took me in his arms, carried me down to it, and put me in, as if I were +still the small helpless creature to whom he had so abundantly given of +the wealth of his great nature. + +And Joe got in beside me, and we drove away together into the country, +where the rich summer growth was already on the trees and on the grass, +and sweet summer scents filled all the air. The day happened to be +Sunday, and when I looked on the loveliness around me, and thought +how it had grown and changed, and how the little wild-flowers had been +forming, and the voices of the birds had been strengthening, by day and +by night, under the sun and under the stars, while poor I lay burning +and tossing on my bed, the mere remembrance of having burned and tossed +there came like a check upon my peace. But when I heard the Sunday +bells, and looked around a little more upon the outspread beauty, I felt +that I was not nearly thankful enough,--that I was too weak yet to be +even that,--and I laid my head on Joe's shoulder, as I had laid it long +ago when he had taken me to the Fair or where not, and it was too much +for my young senses. + +More composure came to me after a while, and we talked as we used +to talk, lying on the grass at the old Battery. There was no change +whatever in Joe. Exactly what he had been in my eyes then, he was in my +eyes still; just as simply faithful, and as simply right. + +When we got back again, and he lifted me out, and carried me--so +easily!--across the court and up the stairs, I thought of that eventful +Christmas Day when he had carried me over the marshes. We had not yet +made any allusion to my change of fortune, nor did I know how much of +my late history he was acquainted with. I was so doubtful of myself now, +and put so much trust in him, that I could not satisfy myself whether I +ought to refer to it when he did not. + +"Have you heard, Joe," I asked him that evening, upon further +consideration, as he smoked his pipe at the window, "who my patron was?" + +"I heerd," returned Joe, "as it were not Miss Havisham, old chap." + +"Did you hear who it was, Joe?" + +"Well! I heerd as it were a person what sent the person what giv' you +the bank-notes at the Jolly Bargemen, Pip." + +"So it was." + +"Astonishing!" said Joe, in the placidest way. + +"Did you hear that he was dead, Joe?" I presently asked, with increasing +diffidence. + +"Which? Him as sent the bank-notes, Pip?" + +"Yes." + +"I think," said Joe, after meditating a long time, and looking rather +evasively at the window-seat, "as I did hear tell that how he were +something or another in a general way in that direction." + +"Did you hear anything of his circumstances, Joe?" + +"Not partickler, Pip." + +"If you would like to hear, Joe--" I was beginning, when Joe got up and +came to my sofa. + +"Lookee here, old chap," said Joe, bending over me. "Ever the best of +friends; ain't us, Pip?" + +I was ashamed to answer him. + +"Wery good, then," said Joe, as if I had answered; "that's all right; +that's agreed upon. Then why go into subjects, old chap, which as +betwixt two sech must be for ever onnecessary? There's subjects enough +as betwixt two sech, without onnecessary ones. Lord! To think of your +poor sister and her Rampages! And don't you remember Tickler?" + +"I do indeed, Joe." + +"Lookee here, old chap," said Joe. "I done what I could to keep you +and Tickler in sunders, but my power were not always fully equal to my +inclinations. For when your poor sister had a mind to drop into you, it +were not so much," said Joe, in his favorite argumentative way, "that +she dropped into me too, if I put myself in opposition to her, but that +she dropped into you always heavier for it. I noticed that. It ain't a +grab at a man's whisker, not yet a shake or two of a man (to which your +sister was quite welcome), that 'ud put a man off from getting a little +child out of punishment. But when that little child is dropped into +heavier for that grab of whisker or shaking, then that man naterally up +and says to himself, 'Where is the good as you are a doing? I grant you +I see the 'arm,' says the man, 'but I don't see the good. I call upon +you, sir, therefore, to pint out the good.'" + +"The man says?" I observed, as Joe waited for me to speak. + +"The man says," Joe assented. "Is he right, that man?" + +"Dear Joe, he is always right." + +"Well, old chap," said Joe, "then abide by your words. If he's always +right (which in general he's more likely wrong), he's right when he says +this: Supposing ever you kep any little matter to yourself, when you +was a little child, you kep it mostly because you know'd as J. Gargery's +power to part you and Tickler in sunders were not fully equal to his +inclinations. Theerfore, think no more of it as betwixt two sech, and do +not let us pass remarks upon onnecessary subjects. Biddy giv' herself a +deal o' trouble with me afore I left (for I am almost awful dull), as I +should view it in this light, and, viewing it in this light, as I should +so put it. Both of which," said Joe, quite charmed with his logical +arrangement, "being done, now this to you a true friend, say. Namely. +You mustn't go a overdoing on it, but you must have your supper and your +wine and water, and you must be put betwixt the sheets." + +The delicacy with which Joe dismissed this theme, and the sweet tact and +kindness with which Biddy--who with her woman's wit had found me out so +soon--had prepared him for it, made a deep impression on my mind. But +whether Joe knew how poor I was, and how my great expectations had +all dissolved, like our own marsh mists before the sun, I could not +understand. + +Another thing in Joe that I could not understand when it first began to +develop itself, but which I soon arrived at a sorrowful comprehension +of, was this: As I became stronger and better, Joe became a little less +easy with me. In my weakness and entire dependence on him, the dear +fellow had fallen into the old tone, and called me by the old names, +the dear "old Pip, old chap," that now were music in my ears. I too had +fallen into the old ways, only happy and thankful that he let me. But, +imperceptibly, though I held by them fast, Joe's hold upon them began +to slacken; and whereas I wondered at this, at first, I soon began to +understand that the cause of it was in me, and that the fault of it was +all mine. + +Ah! Had I given Joe no reason to doubt my constancy, and to think that +in prosperity I should grow cold to him and cast him off? Had I given +Joe's innocent heart no cause to feel instinctively that as I got +stronger, his hold upon me would be weaker, and that he had better +loosen it in time and let me go, before I plucked myself away? + +It was on the third or fourth occasion of my going out walking in the +Temple Gardens leaning on Joe's arm, that I saw this change in him very +plainly. We had been sitting in the bright warm sunlight, looking at the +river, and I chanced to say as we got up,-- + +"See, Joe! I can walk quite strongly. Now, you shall see me walk back by +myself." + +"Which do not overdo it, Pip," said Joe; "but I shall be happy fur to +see you able, sir." + +The last word grated on me; but how could I remonstrate! I walked no +further than the gate of the gardens, and then pretended to be +weaker than I was, and asked Joe for his arm. Joe gave it me, but was +thoughtful. + +I, for my part, was thoughtful too; for, how best to check this growing +change in Joe was a great perplexity to my remorseful thoughts. That I +was ashamed to tell him exactly how I was placed, and what I had come +down to, I do not seek to conceal; but I hope my reluctance was not +quite an unworthy one. He would want to help me out of his little +savings, I knew, and I knew that he ought not to help me, and that I +must not suffer him to do it. + +It was a thoughtful evening with both of us. But, before we went to +bed, I had resolved that I would wait over to-morrow,--to-morrow being +Sunday,--and would begin my new course with the new week. On Monday +morning I would speak to Joe about this change, I would lay aside this +last vestige of reserve, I would tell him what I had in my thoughts +(that Secondly, not yet arrived at), and why I had not decided to go +out to Herbert, and then the change would be conquered for ever. As I +cleared, Joe cleared, and it seemed as though he had sympathetically +arrived at a resolution too. + +We had a quiet day on the Sunday, and we rode out into the country, and +then walked in the fields. + +"I feel thankful that I have been ill, Joe," I said. + +"Dear old Pip, old chap, you're a'most come round, sir." + +"It has been a memorable time for me, Joe." + +"Likeways for myself, sir," Joe returned. + +"We have had a time together, Joe, that I can never forget. There were +days once, I know, that I did for a while forget; but I never shall +forget these." + +"Pip," said Joe, appearing a little hurried and troubled, "there has +been larks. And, dear sir, what have been betwixt us--have been." + +At night, when I had gone to bed, Joe came into my room, as he had done +all through my recovery. He asked me if I felt sure that I was as well +as in the morning? + +"Yes, dear Joe, quite." + +"And are always a getting stronger, old chap?" + +"Yes, dear Joe, steadily." + +Joe patted the coverlet on my shoulder with his great good hand, and +said, in what I thought a husky voice, "Good night!" + +When I got up in the morning, refreshed and stronger yet, I was full of +my resolution to tell Joe all, without delay. I would tell him before +breakfast. I would dress at once and go to his room and surprise him; +for, it was the first day I had been up early. I went to his room, and +he was not there. Not only was he not there, but his box was gone. + +I hurried then to the breakfast-table, and on it found a letter. These +were its brief contents:-- + +"Not wishful to intrude I have departured fur you are well again dear +Pip and will do better without JO. + +"P.S. Ever the best of friends." + +Enclosed in the letter was a receipt for the debt and costs on which I +had been arrested. Down to that moment, I had vainly supposed that my +creditor had withdrawn, or suspended proceedings until I should be quite +recovered. I had never dreamed of Joe's having paid the money; but Joe +had paid it, and the receipt was in his name. + +What remained for me now, but to follow him to the dear old forge, and +there to have out my disclosure to him, and my penitent remonstrance +with him, and there to relieve my mind and heart of that reserved +Secondly, which had begun as a vague something lingering in my thoughts, +and had formed into a settled purpose? + +The purpose was, that I would go to Biddy, that I would show her how +humbled and repentant I came back, that I would tell her how I had lost +all I once hoped for, that I would remind her of our old confidences in +my first unhappy time. Then I would say to her, "Biddy, I think you once +liked me very well, when my errant heart, even while it strayed away +from you, was quieter and better with you than it ever has been since. +If you can like me only half as well once more, if you can take me with +all my faults and disappointments on my head, if you can receive me like +a forgiven child (and indeed I am as sorry, Biddy, and have as much need +of a hushing voice and a soothing hand), I hope I am a little worthier +of you that I was,--not much, but a little. And, Biddy, it shall rest +with you to say whether I shall work at the forge with Joe, or whether I +shall try for any different occupation down in this country, or whether +we shall go away to a distant place where an opportunity awaits me which +I set aside, when it was offered, until I knew your answer. And now, +dear Biddy, if you can tell me that you will go through the world with +me, you will surely make it a better world for me, and me a better man +for it, and I will try hard to make it a better world for you." + +Such was my purpose. After three days more of recovery, I went down to +the old place to put it in execution. And how I sped in it is all I have +left to tell. + + + + +Chapter LVIII + +The tidings of my high fortunes having had a heavy fall had got down +to my native place and its neighborhood before I got there. I found the +Blue Boar in possession of the intelligence, and I found that it made a +great change in the Boar's demeanour. Whereas the Boar had cultivated +my good opinion with warm assiduity when I was coming into property, +the Boar was exceedingly cool on the subject now that I was going out of +property. + +It was evening when I arrived, much fatigued by the journey I had so +often made so easily. The Boar could not put me into my usual bedroom, +which was engaged (probably by some one who had expectations), and +could only assign me a very indifferent chamber among the pigeons and +post-chaises up the yard. But I had as sound a sleep in that lodging as +in the most superior accommodation the Boar could have given me, and the +quality of my dreams was about the same as in the best bedroom. + +Early in the morning, while my breakfast was getting ready, I strolled +round by Satis House. There were printed bills on the gate and on bits +of carpet hanging out of the windows, announcing a sale by auction of +the Household Furniture and Effects, next week. The House itself was to +be sold as old building materials, and pulled down. LOT 1 was marked in +whitewashed knock-knee letters on the brew house; LOT 2 on that part of +the main building which had been so long shut up. Other lots were marked +off on other parts of the structure, and the ivy had been torn down to +make room for the inscriptions, and much of it trailed low in the dust +and was withered already. Stepping in for a moment at the open gate, and +looking around me with the uncomfortable air of a stranger who had no +business there, I saw the auctioneer's clerk walking on the casks and +telling them off for the information of a catalogue-compiler, pen in +hand, who made a temporary desk of the wheeled chair I had so often +pushed along to the tune of Old Clem. + +When I got back to my breakfast in the Boar's coffee-room, I found Mr. +Pumblechook conversing with the landlord. Mr. Pumblechook (not improved +in appearance by his late nocturnal adventure) was waiting for me, and +addressed me in the following terms:-- + +"Young man, I am sorry to see you brought low. But what else could be +expected! what else could be expected!" + +As he extended his hand with a magnificently forgiving air, and as I was +broken by illness and unfit to quarrel, I took it. + +"William," said Mr. Pumblechook to the waiter, "put a muffin on table. +And has it come to this! Has it come to this!" + +I frowningly sat down to my breakfast. Mr. Pumblechook stood over me and +poured out my tea--before I could touch the teapot--with the air of a +benefactor who was resolved to be true to the last. + +"William," said Mr. Pumblechook, mournfully, "put the salt on. In +happier times," addressing me, "I think you took sugar? And did you take +milk? You did. Sugar and milk. William, bring a watercress." + +"Thank you," said I, shortly, "but I don't eat watercresses." + +"You don't eat 'em," returned Mr. Pumblechook, sighing and nodding +his head several times, as if he might have expected that, and as if +abstinence from watercresses were consistent with my downfall. "True. +The simple fruits of the earth. No. You needn't bring any, William." + +I went on with my breakfast, and Mr. Pumblechook continued to stand over +me, staring fishily and breathing noisily, as he always did. + +"Little more than skin and bone!" mused Mr. Pumblechook, aloud. "And yet +when he went from here (I may say with my blessing), and I spread afore +him my humble store, like the Bee, he was as plump as a Peach!" + +This reminded me of the wonderful difference between the servile manner +in which he had offered his hand in my new prosperity, saying, "May I?" +and the ostentatious clemency with which he had just now exhibited the +same fat five fingers. + +"Hah!" he went on, handing me the bread and butter. "And air you a going +to Joseph?" + +"In heaven's name," said I, firing in spite of myself, "what does it +matter to you where I am going? Leave that teapot alone." + +It was the worst course I could have taken, because it gave Pumblechook +the opportunity he wanted. + +"Yes, young man," said he, releasing the handle of the article in +question, retiring a step or two from my table, and speaking for the +behoof of the landlord and waiter at the door, "I will leave that teapot +alone. You are right, young man. For once you are right. I forgit myself +when I take such an interest in your breakfast, as to wish your frame, +exhausted by the debilitating effects of prodigygality, to be stimilated +by the 'olesome nourishment of your forefathers. And yet," said +Pumblechook, turning to the landlord and waiter, and pointing me out at +arm's length, "this is him as I ever sported with in his days of happy +infancy! Tell me not it cannot be; I tell you this is him!" + +A low murmur from the two replied. The waiter appeared to be +particularly affected. + +"This is him," said Pumblechook, "as I have rode in my shay-cart. This +is him as I have seen brought up by hand. This is him untoe the sister +of which I was uncle by marriage, as her name was Georgiana M'ria from +her own mother, let him deny it if he can!" + +The waiter seemed convinced that I could not deny it, and that it gave +the case a black look. + +"Young man," said Pumblechook, screwing his head at me in the old +fashion, "you air a going to Joseph. What does it matter to me, you +ask me, where you air a going? I say to you, Sir, you air a going to +Joseph." + +The waiter coughed, as if he modestly invited me to get over that. + +"Now," said Pumblechook, and all this with a most exasperating air +of saying in the cause of virtue what was perfectly convincing and +conclusive, "I will tell you what to say to Joseph. Here is Squires of +the Boar present, known and respected in this town, and here is William, +which his father's name was Potkins if I do not deceive myself." + +"You do not, sir," said William. + +"In their presence," pursued Pumblechook, "I will tell you, young +man, what to say to Joseph. Says you, "Joseph, I have this day seen +my earliest benefactor and the founder of my fortun's. I will name no +names, Joseph, but so they are pleased to call him up town, and I have +seen that man." + +"I swear I don't see him here," said I. + +"Say that likewise," retorted Pumblechook. "Say you said that, and even +Joseph will probably betray surprise." + +"There you quite mistake him," said I. "I know better." + +"Says you," Pumblechook went on, "'Joseph, I have seen that man, and +that man bears you no malice and bears me no malice. He knows your +character, Joseph, and is well acquainted with your pig-headedness and +ignorance; and he knows my character, Joseph, and he knows my want of +gratitoode. Yes, Joseph,' says you," here Pumblechook shook his head and +hand at me, "'he knows my total deficiency of common human gratitoode. +He knows it, Joseph, as none can. You do not know it, Joseph, having no +call to know it, but that man do.'" + +Windy donkey as he was, it really amazed me that he could have the face +to talk thus to mine. + +"Says you, 'Joseph, he gave me a little message, which I will now +repeat. It was that, in my being brought low, he saw the finger of +Providence. He knowed that finger when he saw Joseph, and he saw it +plain. It pinted out this writing, Joseph. Reward of ingratitoode to his +earliest benefactor, and founder of fortun's. But that man said he did +not repent of what he had done, Joseph. Not at all. It was right to do +it, it was kind to do it, it was benevolent to do it, and he would do it +again.'" + +"It's pity," said I, scornfully, as I finished my interrupted breakfast, +"that the man did not say what he had done and would do again." + +"Squires of the Boar!" Pumblechook was now addressing the landlord, "and +William! I have no objections to your mentioning, either up town or down +town, if such should be your wishes, that it was right to do it, kind to +do it, benevolent to do it, and that I would do it again." + +With those words the Impostor shook them both by the hand, with an air, +and left the house; leaving me much more astonished than delighted by +the virtues of that same indefinite "it." I was not long after him in +leaving the house too, and when I went down the High Street I saw him +holding forth (no doubt to the same effect) at his shop door to a select +group, who honored me with very unfavorable glances as I passed on the +opposite side of the way. + +But, it was only the pleasanter to turn to Biddy and to Joe, whose +great forbearance shone more brightly than before, if that could be, +contrasted with this brazen pretender. I went towards them slowly, for +my limbs were weak, but with a sense of increasing relief as I drew +nearer to them, and a sense of leaving arrogance and untruthfulness +further and further behind. + +The June weather was delicious. The sky was blue, the larks were soaring +high over the green corn, I thought all that countryside more beautiful +and peaceful by far than I had ever known it to be yet. Many pleasant +pictures of the life that I would lead there, and of the change for the +better that would come over my character when I had a guiding spirit at +my side whose simple faith and clear home wisdom I had proved, beguiled +my way. They awakened a tender emotion in me; for my heart was softened +by my return, and such a change had come to pass, that I felt like one +who was toiling home barefoot from distant travel, and whose wanderings +had lasted many years. + +The schoolhouse where Biddy was mistress I had never seen; but, the +little roundabout lane by which I entered the village, for quietness' +sake, took me past it. I was disappointed to find that the day was a +holiday; no children were there, and Biddy's house was closed. Some +hopeful notion of seeing her, busily engaged in her daily duties, before +she saw me, had been in my mind and was defeated. + +But the forge was a very short distance off, and I went towards it under +the sweet green limes, listening for the clink of Joe's hammer. Long +after I ought to have heard it, and long after I had fancied I heard it +and found it but a fancy, all was still. The limes were there, and the +white thorns were there, and the chestnut-trees were there, and their +leaves rustled harmoniously when I stopped to listen; but, the clink of +Joe's hammer was not in the midsummer wind. + +Almost fearing, without knowing why, to come in view of the forge, I saw +it at last, and saw that it was closed. No gleam of fire, no glittering +shower of sparks, no roar of bellows; all shut up, and still. + +But the house was not deserted, and the best parlor seemed to be in use, +for there were white curtains fluttering in its window, and the window +was open and gay with flowers. I went softly towards it, meaning to peep +over the flowers, when Joe and Biddy stood before me, arm in arm. + +At first Biddy gave a cry, as if she thought it was my apparition, but +in another moment she was in my embrace. I wept to see her, and she wept +to see me; I, because she looked so fresh and pleasant; she, because I +looked so worn and white. + +"But dear Biddy, how smart you are!" + +"Yes, dear Pip." + +"And Joe, how smart you are!" + +"Yes, dear old Pip, old chap." + +I looked at both of them, from one to the other, and then-- + +"It's my wedding-day!" cried Biddy, in a burst of happiness, "and I am +married to Joe!" + +They had taken me into the kitchen, and I had laid my head down on +the old deal table. Biddy held one of my hands to her lips, and Joe's +restoring touch was on my shoulder. "Which he warn't strong enough, my +dear, fur to be surprised," said Joe. And Biddy said, "I ought to +have thought of it, dear Joe, but I was too happy." They were both so +overjoyed to see me, so proud to see me, so touched by my coming to +them, so delighted that I should have come by accident to make their day +complete! + +My first thought was one of great thankfulness that I had never breathed +this last baffled hope to Joe. How often, while he was with me in my +illness, had it risen to my lips! How irrevocable would have been his +knowledge of it, if he had remained with me but another hour! + +"Dear Biddy," said I, "you have the best husband in the whole world, +and if you could have seen him by my bed you would have--But no, you +couldn't love him better than you do." + +"No, I couldn't indeed," said Biddy. + +"And, dear Joe, you have the best wife in the whole world, and she will +make you as happy as even you deserve to be, you dear, good, noble Joe!" + +Joe looked at me with a quivering lip, and fairly put his sleeve before +his eyes. + +"And Joe and Biddy both, as you have been to church to-day, and are in +charity and love with all mankind, receive my humble thanks for all you +have done for me, and all I have so ill repaid! And when I say that I am +going away within the hour, for I am soon going abroad, and that I shall +never rest until I have worked for the money with which you have kept me +out of prison, and have sent it to you, don't think, dear Joe and Biddy, +that if I could repay it a thousand times over, I suppose I could cancel +a farthing of the debt I owe you, or that I would do so if I could!" + +They were both melted by these words, and both entreated me to say no +more. + +"But I must say more. Dear Joe, I hope you will have children to love, +and that some little fellow will sit in this chimney-corner of a winter +night, who may remind you of another little fellow gone out of it for +ever. Don't tell him, Joe, that I was thankless; don't tell him, Biddy, +that I was ungenerous and unjust; only tell him that I honored you both, +because you were both so good and true, and that, as your child, I said +it would be natural to him to grow up a much better man than I did." + +"I ain't a going," said Joe, from behind his sleeve, "to tell him +nothink o' that natur, Pip. Nor Biddy ain't. Nor yet no one ain't." + +"And now, though I know you have already done it in your own kind +hearts, pray tell me, both, that you forgive me! Pray let me hear you +say the words, that I may carry the sound of them away with me, and then +I shall be able to believe that you can trust me, and think better of +me, in the time to come!" + +"O dear old Pip, old chap," said Joe. "God knows as I forgive you, if I +have anythink to forgive!" + +"Amen! And God knows I do!" echoed Biddy. + +"Now let me go up and look at my old little room, and rest there a few +minutes by myself. And then, when I have eaten and drunk with you, go +with me as far as the finger-post, dear Joe and Biddy, before we say +good-bye!" + +*** + +I sold all I had, and put aside as much as I could, for a composition +with my creditors,--who gave me ample time to pay them in full,--and I +went out and joined Herbert. Within a month, I had quitted England, +and within two months I was clerk to Clarriker and Co., and within four +months I assumed my first undivided responsibility. For the beam across +the parlor ceiling at Mill Pond Bank had then ceased to tremble under +old Bill Barley's growls and was at peace, and Herbert had gone away to +marry Clara, and I was left in sole charge of the Eastern Branch until +he brought her back. + +Many a year went round before I was a partner in the House; but I lived +happily with Herbert and his wife, and lived frugally, and paid my +debts, and maintained a constant correspondence with Biddy and Joe. It +was not until I became third in the Firm, that Clarriker betrayed me to +Herbert; but he then declared that the secret of Herbert's partnership +had been long enough upon his conscience, and he must tell it. So he +told it, and Herbert was as much moved as amazed, and the dear fellow +and I were not the worse friends for the long concealment. I must not +leave it to be supposed that we were ever a great House, or that we made +mints of money. We were not in a grand way of business, but we had a +good name, and worked for our profits, and did very well. We owed so +much to Herbert's ever cheerful industry and readiness, that I often +wondered how I had conceived that old idea of his inaptitude, until I +was one day enlightened by the reflection, that perhaps the inaptitude +had never been in him at all, but had been in me. + + + + +Chapter LIX + +For eleven years, I had not seen Joe nor Biddy with my bodily +eyes,--though they had both been often before my fancy in the +East,--when, upon an evening in December, an hour or two after dark, I +laid my hand softly on the latch of the old kitchen door. I touched it +so softly that I was not heard, and looked in unseen. There, smoking his +pipe in the old place by the kitchen firelight, as hale and as strong as +ever, though a little gray, sat Joe; and there, fenced into the corner +with Joe's leg, and sitting on my own little stool looking at the fire, +was--I again! + +"We giv' him the name of Pip for your sake, dear old chap," said Joe, +delighted, when I took another stool by the child's side (but I did not +rumple his hair), "and we hoped he might grow a little bit like you, and +we think he do." + +I thought so too, and I took him out for a walk next morning, and we +talked immensely, understanding one another to perfection. And I took +him down to the churchyard, and set him on a certain tombstone there, +and he showed me from that elevation which stone was sacred to the +memory of Philip Pirrip, late of this Parish, and Also Georgiana, Wife +of the Above. + +"Biddy," said I, when I talked with her after dinner, as her little girl +lay sleeping in her lap, "you must give Pip to me one of these days; or +lend him, at all events." + +"No, no," said Biddy, gently. "You must marry." + +"So Herbert and Clara say, but I don't think I shall, Biddy. I have so +settled down in their home, that it's not at all likely. I am already +quite an old bachelor." + +Biddy looked down at her child, and put its little hand to her lips, and +then put the good matronly hand with which she had touched it into mine. +There was something in the action, and in the light pressure of Biddy's +wedding-ring, that had a very pretty eloquence in it. + +"Dear Pip," said Biddy, "you are sure you don't fret for her?" + +"O no,--I think not, Biddy." + +"Tell me as an old, old friend. Have you quite forgotten her? + +"My dear Biddy, I have forgotten nothing in my life that ever had a +foremost place there, and little that ever had any place there. But that +poor dream, as I once used to call it, has all gone by, Biddy,--all gone +by!" + +Nevertheless, I knew, while I said those words, that I secretly intended +to revisit the site of the old house that evening, alone, for her sake. +Yes, even so. For Estella's sake. + +I had heard of her as leading a most unhappy life, and as being +separated from her husband, who had used her with great cruelty, and who +had become quite renowned as a compound of pride, avarice, brutality, +and meanness. And I had heard of the death of her husband, from an +accident consequent on his ill-treatment of a horse. This release had +befallen her some two years before; for anything I knew, she was married +again. + +The early dinner hour at Joe's, left me abundance of time, without +hurrying my talk with Biddy, to walk over to the old spot before dark. +But, what with loitering on the way to look at old objects and to think +of old times, the day had quite declined when I came to the place. + +There was no house now, no brewery, no building whatever left, but the +wall of the old garden. The cleared space had been enclosed with a rough +fence, and looking over it, I saw that some of the old ivy had struck +root anew, and was growing green on low quiet mounds of ruin. A gate in +the fence standing ajar, I pushed it open, and went in. + +A cold silvery mist had veiled the afternoon, and the moon was not yet +up to scatter it. But, the stars were shining beyond the mist, and the +moon was coming, and the evening was not dark. I could trace out where +every part of the old house had been, and where the brewery had been, +and where the gates, and where the casks. I had done so, and was looking +along the desolate garden walk, when I beheld a solitary figure in it. + +The figure showed itself aware of me, as I advanced. It had been moving +towards me, but it stood still. As I drew nearer, I saw it to be the +figure of a woman. As I drew nearer yet, it was about to turn away, when +it stopped, and let me come up with it. Then, it faltered, as if much +surprised, and uttered my name, and I cried out,-- + +"Estella!" + +"I am greatly changed. I wonder you know me." + +The freshness of her beauty was indeed gone, but its indescribable +majesty and its indescribable charm remained. Those attractions in it, +I had seen before; what I had never seen before, was the saddened, +softened light of the once proud eyes; what I had never felt before was +the friendly touch of the once insensible hand. + +We sat down on a bench that was near, and I said, "After so many years, +it is strange that we should thus meet again, Estella, here where our +first meeting was! Do you often come back?" + +"I have never been here since." + +"Nor I." + +The moon began to rise, and I thought of the placid look at the white +ceiling, which had passed away. The moon began to rise, and I thought of +the pressure on my hand when I had spoken the last words he had heard on +earth. + +Estella was the next to break the silence that ensued between us. + +"I have very often hoped and intended to come back, but have been +prevented by many circumstances. Poor, poor old place!" + +The silvery mist was touched with the first rays of the moonlight, and +the same rays touched the tears that dropped from her eyes. Not knowing +that I saw them, and setting herself to get the better of them, she said +quietly,-- + +"Were you wondering, as you walked along, how it came to be left in this +condition?" + +"Yes, Estella." + +"The ground belongs to me. It is the only possession I have not +relinquished. Everything else has gone from me, little by little, but I +have kept this. It was the subject of the only determined resistance I +made in all the wretched years." + +"Is it to be built on?" + +"At last, it is. I came here to take leave of it before its change. And +you," she said, in a voice of touching interest to a wanderer,--"you +live abroad still?" + +"Still." + +"And do well, I am sure?" + +"I work pretty hard for a sufficient living, and therefore--yes, I do +well." + +"I have often thought of you," said Estella. + +"Have you?" + +"Of late, very often. There was a long hard time when I kept far from me +the remembrance of what I had thrown away when I was quite ignorant +of its worth. But since my duty has not been incompatible with the +admission of that remembrance, I have given it a place in my heart." + +"You have always held your place in my heart," I answered. + +And we were silent again until she spoke. + +"I little thought," said Estella, "that I should take leave of you in +taking leave of this spot. I am very glad to do so." + +"Glad to part again, Estella? To me, parting is a painful thing. To me, +the remembrance of our last parting has been ever mournful and painful." + +"But you said to me," returned Estella, very earnestly, "'God bless you, +God forgive you!' And if you could say that to me then, you will not +hesitate to say that to me now,--now, when suffering has been stronger +than all other teaching, and has taught me to understand what your heart +used to be. I have been bent and broken, but--I hope--into a better +shape. Be as considerate and good to me as you were, and tell me we are +friends." + +"We are friends," said I, rising and bending over her, as she rose from +the bench. + +"And will continue friends apart," said Estella. + +I took her hand in mine, and we went out of the ruined place; and, as +the morning mists had risen long ago when I first left the forge, so the +evening mists were rising now, and in all the broad expanse of tranquil +light they showed to me, I saw no shadow of another parting from her. + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Great Expectations, by Charles Dickens + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK GREAT EXPECTATIONS *** + +***** This file should be named 1400-8.txt or 1400-8.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/1/4/0/1400/ + +Produced by An Anonymous Volunteer + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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Thus, we do not necessarily +keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition. + + +Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility: + + http://www.gutenberg.org + +This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm, +including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary +Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to +subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks. diff --git a/src/main/pg-grimm.txt b/src/main/pg-grimm.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..66e5304 --- /dev/null +++ b/src/main/pg-grimm.txt @@ -0,0 +1,9569 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Grimms' Fairy Tales, by The Brothers Grimm + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Grimms' Fairy Tales + +Author: The Brothers Grimm + +Translator: Edgar Taylor and Marian Edwardes + +Posting Date: December 14, 2008 [EBook #2591] +Release Date: April, 2001 + +Language: English + + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK GRIMMS' FAIRY TALES *** + + + + +Produced by Emma Dudding, John Bickers, and Dagny + + + + + +FAIRY TALES + +By The Brothers Grimm + + + +PREPARER'S NOTE + + The text is based on translations from + the Grimms' Kinder und Hausmarchen by + Edgar Taylor and Marian Edwardes. + + + + +CONTENTS: + + THE GOLDEN BIRD + HANS IN LUCK + JORINDA AND JORINDEL + THE TRAVELLING MUSICIANS + OLD SULTAN + THE STRAW, THE COAL, AND THE BEAN + BRIAR ROSE + THE DOG AND THE SPARROW + THE TWELVE DANCING PRINCESSES + THE FISHERMAN AND HIS WIFE + THE WILLOW-WREN AND THE BEAR + THE FROG-PRINCE + CAT AND MOUSE IN PARTNERSHIP + THE GOOSE-GIRL + THE ADVENTURES OF CHANTICLEER AND PARTLET + 1. HOW THEY WENT TO THE MOUNTAINS TO EAT NUTS + 2. HOW CHANTICLEER AND PARTLET WENT TO VISIT MR KORBES + RAPUNZEL + FUNDEVOGEL + THE VALIANT LITTLE TAILOR + HANSEL AND GRETEL + THE MOUSE, THE BIRD, AND THE SAUSAGE + MOTHER HOLLE + LITTLE RED-CAP [LITTLE RED RIDING HOOD] + THE ROBBER BRIDEGROOM + TOM THUMB + RUMPELSTILTSKIN + CLEVER GRETEL + THE OLD MAN AND HIS GRANDSON + THE LITTLE PEASANT + FREDERICK AND CATHERINE + SWEETHEART ROLAND + SNOWDROP + THE PINK + CLEVER ELSIE + THE MISER IN THE BUSH + ASHPUTTEL + THE WHITE SNAKE + THE WOLF AND THE SEVEN LITTLE KIDS + THE QUEEN BEE + THE ELVES AND THE SHOEMAKER + THE JUNIPER-TREE + the juniper-tree. + THE TURNIP + CLEVER HANS + THE THREE LANGUAGES + THE FOX AND THE CAT + THE FOUR CLEVER BROTHERS + LILY AND THE LION + THE FOX AND THE HORSE + THE BLUE LIGHT + THE RAVEN + THE GOLDEN GOOSE + THE WATER OF LIFE + THE TWELVE HUNTSMEN + THE KING OF THE GOLDEN MOUNTAIN + DOCTOR KNOWALL + THE SEVEN RAVENS + THE WEDDING OF MRS FOX + FIRST STORY + SECOND STORY + THE SALAD + THE STORY OF THE YOUTH WHO WENT FORTH TO LEARN WHAT FEAR WAS + KING GRISLY-BEARD + IRON HANS + CAT-SKIN + SNOW-WHITE AND ROSE-RED + + + + +THE BROTHERS GRIMM FAIRY TALES + + + + +THE GOLDEN BIRD + +A certain king had a beautiful garden, and in the garden stood a tree +which bore golden apples. These apples were always counted, and about +the time when they began to grow ripe it was found that every night one +of them was gone. The king became very angry at this, and ordered the +gardener to keep watch all night under the tree. The gardener set his +eldest son to watch; but about twelve o'clock he fell asleep, and in +the morning another of the apples was missing. Then the second son was +ordered to watch; and at midnight he too fell asleep, and in the morning +another apple was gone. Then the third son offered to keep watch; but +the gardener at first would not let him, for fear some harm should come +to him: however, at last he consented, and the young man laid himself +under the tree to watch. As the clock struck twelve he heard a rustling +noise in the air, and a bird came flying that was of pure gold; and as +it was snapping at one of the apples with its beak, the gardener's son +jumped up and shot an arrow at it. But the arrow did the bird no harm; +only it dropped a golden feather from its tail, and then flew away. +The golden feather was brought to the king in the morning, and all the +council was called together. Everyone agreed that it was worth more than +all the wealth of the kingdom: but the king said, 'One feather is of no +use to me, I must have the whole bird.' + +Then the gardener's eldest son set out and thought to find the golden +bird very easily; and when he had gone but a little way, he came to a +wood, and by the side of the wood he saw a fox sitting; so he took his +bow and made ready to shoot at it. Then the fox said, 'Do not shoot me, +for I will give you good counsel; I know what your business is, and +that you want to find the golden bird. You will reach a village in the +evening; and when you get there, you will see two inns opposite to each +other, one of which is very pleasant and beautiful to look at: go not in +there, but rest for the night in the other, though it may appear to you +to be very poor and mean.' But the son thought to himself, 'What can +such a beast as this know about the matter?' So he shot his arrow at +the fox; but he missed it, and it set up its tail above its back and +ran into the wood. Then he went his way, and in the evening came to +the village where the two inns were; and in one of these were people +singing, and dancing, and feasting; but the other looked very dirty, +and poor. 'I should be very silly,' said he, 'if I went to that shabby +house, and left this charming place'; so he went into the smart house, +and ate and drank at his ease, and forgot the bird, and his country too. + +Time passed on; and as the eldest son did not come back, and no tidings +were heard of him, the second son set out, and the same thing happened +to him. He met the fox, who gave him the good advice: but when he came +to the two inns, his eldest brother was standing at the window where +the merrymaking was, and called to him to come in; and he could not +withstand the temptation, but went in, and forgot the golden bird and +his country in the same manner. + +Time passed on again, and the youngest son too wished to set out into +the wide world to seek for the golden bird; but his father would not +listen to it for a long while, for he was very fond of his son, and +was afraid that some ill luck might happen to him also, and prevent his +coming back. However, at last it was agreed he should go, for he would +not rest at home; and as he came to the wood, he met the fox, and heard +the same good counsel. But he was thankful to the fox, and did not +attempt his life as his brothers had done; so the fox said, 'Sit upon my +tail, and you will travel faster.' So he sat down, and the fox began to +run, and away they went over stock and stone so quick that their hair +whistled in the wind. + +When they came to the village, the son followed the fox's counsel, and +without looking about him went to the shabby inn and rested there all +night at his ease. In the morning came the fox again and met him as he +was beginning his journey, and said, 'Go straight forward, till you come +to a castle, before which lie a whole troop of soldiers fast asleep and +snoring: take no notice of them, but go into the castle and pass on and +on till you come to a room, where the golden bird sits in a wooden cage; +close by it stands a beautiful golden cage; but do not try to take the +bird out of the shabby cage and put it into the handsome one, otherwise +you will repent it.' Then the fox stretched out his tail again, and the +young man sat himself down, and away they went over stock and stone till +their hair whistled in the wind. + +Before the castle gate all was as the fox had said: so the son went in +and found the chamber where the golden bird hung in a wooden cage, and +below stood the golden cage, and the three golden apples that had been +lost were lying close by it. Then thought he to himself, 'It will be a +very droll thing to bring away such a fine bird in this shabby cage'; so +he opened the door and took hold of it and put it into the golden cage. +But the bird set up such a loud scream that all the soldiers awoke, and +they took him prisoner and carried him before the king. The next morning +the court sat to judge him; and when all was heard, it sentenced him to +die, unless he should bring the king the golden horse which could run as +swiftly as the wind; and if he did this, he was to have the golden bird +given him for his own. + +So he set out once more on his journey, sighing, and in great despair, +when on a sudden his friend the fox met him, and said, 'You see now +what has happened on account of your not listening to my counsel. I will +still, however, tell you how to find the golden horse, if you will do as +I bid you. You must go straight on till you come to the castle where the +horse stands in his stall: by his side will lie the groom fast asleep +and snoring: take away the horse quietly, but be sure to put the old +leathern saddle upon him, and not the golden one that is close by it.' +Then the son sat down on the fox's tail, and away they went over stock +and stone till their hair whistled in the wind. + +All went right, and the groom lay snoring with his hand upon the golden +saddle. But when the son looked at the horse, he thought it a great pity +to put the leathern saddle upon it. 'I will give him the good one,' +said he; 'I am sure he deserves it.' As he took up the golden saddle the +groom awoke and cried out so loud, that all the guards ran in and took +him prisoner, and in the morning he was again brought before the court +to be judged, and was sentenced to die. But it was agreed, that, if he +could bring thither the beautiful princess, he should live, and have the +bird and the horse given him for his own. + +Then he went his way very sorrowful; but the old fox came and said, 'Why +did not you listen to me? If you had, you would have carried away +both the bird and the horse; yet will I once more give you counsel. Go +straight on, and in the evening you will arrive at a castle. At twelve +o'clock at night the princess goes to the bathing-house: go up to her +and give her a kiss, and she will let you lead her away; but take care +you do not suffer her to go and take leave of her father and mother.' +Then the fox stretched out his tail, and so away they went over stock +and stone till their hair whistled again. + +As they came to the castle, all was as the fox had said, and at twelve +o'clock the young man met the princess going to the bath and gave her the +kiss, and she agreed to run away with him, but begged with many tears +that he would let her take leave of her father. At first he refused, +but she wept still more and more, and fell at his feet, till at last +he consented; but the moment she came to her father's house the guards +awoke and he was taken prisoner again. + +Then he was brought before the king, and the king said, 'You shall never +have my daughter unless in eight days you dig away the hill that stops +the view from my window.' Now this hill was so big that the whole world +could not take it away: and when he had worked for seven days, and had +done very little, the fox came and said. 'Lie down and go to sleep; I +will work for you.' And in the morning he awoke and the hill was gone; +so he went merrily to the king, and told him that now that it was +removed he must give him the princess. + +Then the king was obliged to keep his word, and away went the young man +and the princess; and the fox came and said to him, 'We will have all +three, the princess, the horse, and the bird.' 'Ah!' said the young man, +'that would be a great thing, but how can you contrive it?' + +'If you will only listen,' said the fox, 'it can be done. When you come +to the king, and he asks for the beautiful princess, you must say, "Here +she is!" Then he will be very joyful; and you will mount the golden +horse that they are to give you, and put out your hand to take leave of +them; but shake hands with the princess last. Then lift her quickly on +to the horse behind you; clap your spurs to his side, and gallop away as +fast as you can.' + +All went right: then the fox said, 'When you come to the castle where +the bird is, I will stay with the princess at the door, and you will +ride in and speak to the king; and when he sees that it is the right +horse, he will bring out the bird; but you must sit still, and say that +you want to look at it, to see whether it is the true golden bird; and +when you get it into your hand, ride away.' + +This, too, happened as the fox said; they carried off the bird, the +princess mounted again, and they rode on to a great wood. Then the fox +came, and said, 'Pray kill me, and cut off my head and my feet.' But the +young man refused to do it: so the fox said, 'I will at any rate give +you good counsel: beware of two things; ransom no one from the gallows, +and sit down by the side of no river.' Then away he went. 'Well,' +thought the young man, 'it is no hard matter to keep that advice.' + +He rode on with the princess, till at last he came to the village where +he had left his two brothers. And there he heard a great noise and +uproar; and when he asked what was the matter, the people said, 'Two men +are going to be hanged.' As he came nearer, he saw that the two men were +his brothers, who had turned robbers; so he said, 'Cannot they in any +way be saved?' But the people said 'No,' unless he would bestow all his +money upon the rascals and buy their liberty. Then he did not stay to +think about the matter, but paid what was asked, and his brothers were +given up, and went on with him towards their home. + +And as they came to the wood where the fox first met them, it was so +cool and pleasant that the two brothers said, 'Let us sit down by the +side of the river, and rest a while, to eat and drink.' So he said, +'Yes,' and forgot the fox's counsel, and sat down on the side of the +river; and while he suspected nothing, they came behind, and threw him +down the bank, and took the princess, the horse, and the bird, and went +home to the king their master, and said. 'All this have we won by our +labour.' Then there was great rejoicing made; but the horse would not +eat, the bird would not sing, and the princess wept. + +The youngest son fell to the bottom of the river's bed: luckily it was +nearly dry, but his bones were almost broken, and the bank was so steep +that he could find no way to get out. Then the old fox came once more, +and scolded him for not following his advice; otherwise no evil would +have befallen him: 'Yet,' said he, 'I cannot leave you here, so lay hold +of my tail and hold fast.' Then he pulled him out of the river, and said +to him, as he got upon the bank, 'Your brothers have set watch to kill +you, if they find you in the kingdom.' So he dressed himself as a poor +man, and came secretly to the king's court, and was scarcely within the +doors when the horse began to eat, and the bird to sing, and the princess +left off weeping. Then he went to the king, and told him all his +brothers' roguery; and they were seized and punished, and he had the +princess given to him again; and after the king's death he was heir to +his kingdom. + +A long while after, he went to walk one day in the wood, and the old fox +met him, and besought him with tears in his eyes to kill him, and cut +off his head and feet. And at last he did so, and in a moment the +fox was changed into a man, and turned out to be the brother of the +princess, who had been lost a great many many years. + + + + +HANS IN LUCK + +Some men are born to good luck: all they do or try to do comes +right--all that falls to them is so much gain--all their geese are +swans--all their cards are trumps--toss them which way you will, they +will always, like poor puss, alight upon their legs, and only move on so +much the faster. The world may very likely not always think of them as +they think of themselves, but what care they for the world? what can it +know about the matter? + +One of these lucky beings was neighbour Hans. Seven long years he had +worked hard for his master. At last he said, 'Master, my time is up; I +must go home and see my poor mother once more: so pray pay me my wages +and let me go.' And the master said, 'You have been a faithful and good +servant, Hans, so your pay shall be handsome.' Then he gave him a lump +of silver as big as his head. + +Hans took out his pocket-handkerchief, put the piece of silver into it, +threw it over his shoulder, and jogged off on his road homewards. As he +went lazily on, dragging one foot after another, a man came in sight, +trotting gaily along on a capital horse. 'Ah!' said Hans aloud, 'what a +fine thing it is to ride on horseback! There he sits as easy and happy +as if he was at home, in the chair by his fireside; he trips against no +stones, saves shoe-leather, and gets on he hardly knows how.' Hans did +not speak so softly but the horseman heard it all, and said, 'Well, +friend, why do you go on foot then?' 'Ah!' said he, 'I have this load to +carry: to be sure it is silver, but it is so heavy that I can't hold up +my head, and you must know it hurts my shoulder sadly.' 'What do you say +of making an exchange?' said the horseman. 'I will give you my horse, +and you shall give me the silver; which will save you a great deal of +trouble in carrying such a heavy load about with you.' 'With all my +heart,' said Hans: 'but as you are so kind to me, I must tell you one +thing--you will have a weary task to draw that silver about with you.' +However, the horseman got off, took the silver, helped Hans up, gave him +the bridle into one hand and the whip into the other, and said, 'When +you want to go very fast, smack your lips loudly together, and cry +"Jip!"' + +Hans was delighted as he sat on the horse, drew himself up, squared his +elbows, turned out his toes, cracked his whip, and rode merrily off, one +minute whistling a merry tune, and another singing, + + 'No care and no sorrow, + A fig for the morrow! + We'll laugh and be merry, + Sing neigh down derry!' + +After a time he thought he should like to go a little faster, so he +smacked his lips and cried 'Jip!' Away went the horse full gallop; and +before Hans knew what he was about, he was thrown off, and lay on his +back by the road-side. His horse would have ran off, if a shepherd who +was coming by, driving a cow, had not stopped it. Hans soon came to +himself, and got upon his legs again, sadly vexed, and said to the +shepherd, 'This riding is no joke, when a man has the luck to get upon +a beast like this that stumbles and flings him off as if it would break +his neck. However, I'm off now once for all: I like your cow now a great +deal better than this smart beast that played me this trick, and has +spoiled my best coat, you see, in this puddle; which, by the by, smells +not very like a nosegay. One can walk along at one's leisure behind that +cow--keep good company, and have milk, butter, and cheese, every day, +into the bargain. What would I give to have such a prize!' 'Well,' said +the shepherd, 'if you are so fond of her, I will change my cow for your +horse; I like to do good to my neighbours, even though I lose by it +myself.' 'Done!' said Hans, merrily. 'What a noble heart that good man +has!' thought he. Then the shepherd jumped upon the horse, wished Hans +and the cow good morning, and away he rode. + +Hans brushed his coat, wiped his face and hands, rested a while, and +then drove off his cow quietly, and thought his bargain a very lucky +one. 'If I have only a piece of bread (and I certainly shall always be +able to get that), I can, whenever I like, eat my butter and cheese with +it; and when I am thirsty I can milk my cow and drink the milk: and what +can I wish for more?' When he came to an inn, he halted, ate up all his +bread, and gave away his last penny for a glass of beer. When he had +rested himself he set off again, driving his cow towards his mother's +village. But the heat grew greater as soon as noon came on, till at +last, as he found himself on a wide heath that would take him more than +an hour to cross, he began to be so hot and parched that his tongue +clave to the roof of his mouth. 'I can find a cure for this,' thought +he; 'now I will milk my cow and quench my thirst': so he tied her to the +stump of a tree, and held his leathern cap to milk into; but not a drop +was to be had. Who would have thought that this cow, which was to bring +him milk and butter and cheese, was all that time utterly dry? Hans had +not thought of looking to that. + +While he was trying his luck in milking, and managing the matter very +clumsily, the uneasy beast began to think him very troublesome; and at +last gave him such a kick on the head as knocked him down; and there he +lay a long while senseless. Luckily a butcher soon came by, driving a +pig in a wheelbarrow. 'What is the matter with you, my man?' said the +butcher, as he helped him up. Hans told him what had happened, how he +was dry, and wanted to milk his cow, but found the cow was dry too. Then +the butcher gave him a flask of ale, saying, 'There, drink and refresh +yourself; your cow will give you no milk: don't you see she is an old +beast, good for nothing but the slaughter-house?' 'Alas, alas!' said +Hans, 'who would have thought it? What a shame to take my horse, and +give me only a dry cow! If I kill her, what will she be good for? I hate +cow-beef; it is not tender enough for me. If it were a pig now--like +that fat gentleman you are driving along at his ease--one could do +something with it; it would at any rate make sausages.' 'Well,' said +the butcher, 'I don't like to say no, when one is asked to do a kind, +neighbourly thing. To please you I will change, and give you my fine fat +pig for the cow.' 'Heaven reward you for your kindness and self-denial!' +said Hans, as he gave the butcher the cow; and taking the pig off the +wheel-barrow, drove it away, holding it by the string that was tied to +its leg. + +So on he jogged, and all seemed now to go right with him: he had met +with some misfortunes, to be sure; but he was now well repaid for all. +How could it be otherwise with such a travelling companion as he had at +last got? + +The next man he met was a countryman carrying a fine white goose. The +countryman stopped to ask what was o'clock; this led to further chat; +and Hans told him all his luck, how he had so many good bargains, and +how all the world went gay and smiling with him. The countryman then +began to tell his tale, and said he was going to take the goose to a +christening. 'Feel,' said he, 'how heavy it is, and yet it is only eight +weeks old. Whoever roasts and eats it will find plenty of fat upon it, +it has lived so well!' 'You're right,' said Hans, as he weighed it in +his hand; 'but if you talk of fat, my pig is no trifle.' Meantime the +countryman began to look grave, and shook his head. 'Hark ye!' said he, +'my worthy friend, you seem a good sort of fellow, so I can't help doing +you a kind turn. Your pig may get you into a scrape. In the village I +just came from, the squire has had a pig stolen out of his sty. I was +dreadfully afraid when I saw you that you had got the squire's pig. If +you have, and they catch you, it will be a bad job for you. The least +they will do will be to throw you into the horse-pond. Can you swim?' + +Poor Hans was sadly frightened. 'Good man,' cried he, 'pray get me out +of this scrape. I know nothing of where the pig was either bred or born; +but he may have been the squire's for aught I can tell: you know this +country better than I do, take my pig and give me the goose.' 'I ought +to have something into the bargain,' said the countryman; 'give a fat +goose for a pig, indeed! 'Tis not everyone would do so much for you as +that. However, I will not be hard upon you, as you are in trouble.' Then +he took the string in his hand, and drove off the pig by a side path; +while Hans went on the way homewards free from care. 'After all,' +thought he, 'that chap is pretty well taken in. I don't care whose pig +it is, but wherever it came from it has been a very good friend to me. I +have much the best of the bargain. First there will be a capital roast; +then the fat will find me in goose-grease for six months; and then there +are all the beautiful white feathers. I will put them into my pillow, +and then I am sure I shall sleep soundly without rocking. How happy my +mother will be! Talk of a pig, indeed! Give me a fine fat goose.' + +As he came to the next village, he saw a scissor-grinder with his wheel, +working and singing, + + 'O'er hill and o'er dale + So happy I roam, + Work light and live well, + All the world is my home; + Then who so blythe, so merry as I?' + +Hans stood looking on for a while, and at last said, 'You must be well +off, master grinder! you seem so happy at your work.' 'Yes,' said the +other, 'mine is a golden trade; a good grinder never puts his hand +into his pocket without finding money in it--but where did you get that +beautiful goose?' 'I did not buy it, I gave a pig for it.' 'And where +did you get the pig?' 'I gave a cow for it.' 'And the cow?' 'I gave a +horse for it.' 'And the horse?' 'I gave a lump of silver as big as my +head for it.' 'And the silver?' 'Oh! I worked hard for that seven long +years.' 'You have thriven well in the world hitherto,' said the grinder, +'now if you could find money in your pocket whenever you put your hand +in it, your fortune would be made.' 'Very true: but how is that to be +managed?' 'How? Why, you must turn grinder like myself,' said the other; +'you only want a grindstone; the rest will come of itself. Here is one +that is but little the worse for wear: I would not ask more than the +value of your goose for it--will you buy?' 'How can you ask?' said +Hans; 'I should be the happiest man in the world, if I could have money +whenever I put my hand in my pocket: what could I want more? there's +the goose.' 'Now,' said the grinder, as he gave him a common rough stone +that lay by his side, 'this is a most capital stone; do but work it well +enough, and you can make an old nail cut with it.' + +Hans took the stone, and went his way with a light heart: his eyes +sparkled for joy, and he said to himself, 'Surely I must have been born +in a lucky hour; everything I could want or wish for comes of itself. +People are so kind; they seem really to think I do them a favour in +letting them make me rich, and giving me good bargains.' + +Meantime he began to be tired, and hungry too, for he had given away his +last penny in his joy at getting the cow. + +At last he could go no farther, for the stone tired him sadly: and he +dragged himself to the side of a river, that he might take a drink of +water, and rest a while. So he laid the stone carefully by his side on +the bank: but, as he stooped down to drink, he forgot it, pushed it a +little, and down it rolled, plump into the stream. + +For a while he watched it sinking in the deep clear water; then sprang +up and danced for joy, and again fell upon his knees and thanked Heaven, +with tears in his eyes, for its kindness in taking away his only plague, +the ugly heavy stone. + +'How happy am I!' cried he; 'nobody was ever so lucky as I.' Then up he +got with a light heart, free from all his troubles, and walked on till +he reached his mother's house, and told her how very easy the road to +good luck was. + + + + +JORINDA AND JORINDEL + +There was once an old castle, that stood in the middle of a deep gloomy +wood, and in the castle lived an old fairy. Now this fairy could take +any shape she pleased. All the day long she flew about in the form of +an owl, or crept about the country like a cat; but at night she always +became an old woman again. When any young man came within a hundred +paces of her castle, he became quite fixed, and could not move a step +till she came and set him free; which she would not do till he had given +her his word never to come there again: but when any pretty maiden came +within that space she was changed into a bird, and the fairy put her +into a cage, and hung her up in a chamber in the castle. There were +seven hundred of these cages hanging in the castle, and all with +beautiful birds in them. + +Now there was once a maiden whose name was Jorinda. She was prettier +than all the pretty girls that ever were seen before, and a shepherd +lad, whose name was Jorindel, was very fond of her, and they were soon +to be married. One day they went to walk in the wood, that they might be +alone; and Jorindel said, 'We must take care that we don't go too near +to the fairy's castle.' It was a beautiful evening; the last rays of the +setting sun shone bright through the long stems of the trees upon +the green underwood beneath, and the turtle-doves sang from the tall +birches. + +Jorinda sat down to gaze upon the sun; Jorindel sat by her side; and +both felt sad, they knew not why; but it seemed as if they were to be +parted from one another for ever. They had wandered a long way; and when +they looked to see which way they should go home, they found themselves +at a loss to know what path to take. + +The sun was setting fast, and already half of its circle had sunk behind +the hill: Jorindel on a sudden looked behind him, and saw through the +bushes that they had, without knowing it, sat down close under the old +walls of the castle. Then he shrank for fear, turned pale, and trembled. +Jorinda was just singing, + + 'The ring-dove sang from the willow spray, + Well-a-day! Well-a-day! + He mourn'd for the fate of his darling mate, + Well-a-day!' + +when her song stopped suddenly. Jorindel turned to see the reason, and +beheld his Jorinda changed into a nightingale, so that her song ended +with a mournful _jug, jug_. An owl with fiery eyes flew three times +round them, and three times screamed: + + 'Tu whu! Tu whu! Tu whu!' + +Jorindel could not move; he stood fixed as a stone, and could neither +weep, nor speak, nor stir hand or foot. And now the sun went quite down; +the gloomy night came; the owl flew into a bush; and a moment after the +old fairy came forth pale and meagre, with staring eyes, and a nose and +chin that almost met one another. + +She mumbled something to herself, seized the nightingale, and went away +with it in her hand. Poor Jorindel saw the nightingale was gone--but +what could he do? He could not speak, he could not move from the spot +where he stood. At last the fairy came back and sang with a hoarse +voice: + + 'Till the prisoner is fast, + And her doom is cast, + There stay! Oh, stay! + When the charm is around her, + And the spell has bound her, + Hie away! away!' + +On a sudden Jorindel found himself free. Then he fell on his knees +before the fairy, and prayed her to give him back his dear Jorinda: but +she laughed at him, and said he should never see her again; then she +went her way. + +He prayed, he wept, he sorrowed, but all in vain. 'Alas!' he said, 'what +will become of me?' He could not go back to his own home, so he went to +a strange village, and employed himself in keeping sheep. Many a time +did he walk round and round as near to the hated castle as he dared go, +but all in vain; he heard or saw nothing of Jorinda. + +At last he dreamt one night that he found a beautiful purple flower, +and that in the middle of it lay a costly pearl; and he dreamt that he +plucked the flower, and went with it in his hand into the castle, and +that everything he touched with it was disenchanted, and that there he +found his Jorinda again. + +In the morning when he awoke, he began to search over hill and dale for +this pretty flower; and eight long days he sought for it in vain: but +on the ninth day, early in the morning, he found the beautiful purple +flower; and in the middle of it was a large dewdrop, as big as a costly +pearl. Then he plucked the flower, and set out and travelled day and +night, till he came again to the castle. + +He walked nearer than a hundred paces to it, and yet he did not become +fixed as before, but found that he could go quite close up to the door. +Jorindel was very glad indeed to see this. Then he touched the door with +the flower, and it sprang open; so that he went in through the court, +and listened when he heard so many birds singing. At last he came to the +chamber where the fairy sat, with the seven hundred birds singing in +the seven hundred cages. When she saw Jorindel she was very angry, and +screamed with rage; but she could not come within two yards of him, for +the flower he held in his hand was his safeguard. He looked around at +the birds, but alas! there were many, many nightingales, and how then +should he find out which was his Jorinda? While he was thinking what to +do, he saw the fairy had taken down one of the cages, and was making the +best of her way off through the door. He ran or flew after her, touched +the cage with the flower, and Jorinda stood before him, and threw her +arms round his neck looking as beautiful as ever, as beautiful as when +they walked together in the wood. + +Then he touched all the other birds with the flower, so that they all +took their old forms again; and he took Jorinda home, where they were +married, and lived happily together many years: and so did a good many +other lads, whose maidens had been forced to sing in the old fairy's +cages by themselves, much longer than they liked. + + + + +THE TRAVELLING MUSICIANS + +An honest farmer had once an ass that had been a faithful servant to him +a great many years, but was now growing old and every day more and more +unfit for work. His master therefore was tired of keeping him and +began to think of putting an end to him; but the ass, who saw that some +mischief was in the wind, took himself slyly off, and began his journey +towards the great city, 'For there,' thought he, 'I may turn musician.' + +After he had travelled a little way, he spied a dog lying by the +roadside and panting as if he were tired. 'What makes you pant so, my +friend?' said the ass. 'Alas!' said the dog, 'my master was going to +knock me on the head, because I am old and weak, and can no longer make +myself useful to him in hunting; so I ran away; but what can I do to +earn my livelihood?' 'Hark ye!' said the ass, 'I am going to the great +city to turn musician: suppose you go with me, and try what you can +do in the same way?' The dog said he was willing, and they jogged on +together. + +They had not gone far before they saw a cat sitting in the middle of the +road and making a most rueful face. 'Pray, my good lady,' said the ass, +'what's the matter with you? You look quite out of spirits!' 'Ah, me!' +said the cat, 'how can one be in good spirits when one's life is in +danger? Because I am beginning to grow old, and had rather lie at my +ease by the fire than run about the house after the mice, my mistress +laid hold of me, and was going to drown me; and though I have been lucky +enough to get away from her, I do not know what I am to live upon.' +'Oh,' said the ass, 'by all means go with us to the great city; you are +a good night singer, and may make your fortune as a musician.' The cat +was pleased with the thought, and joined the party. + +Soon afterwards, as they were passing by a farmyard, they saw a cock +perched upon a gate, and screaming out with all his might and main. +'Bravo!' said the ass; 'upon my word, you make a famous noise; pray what +is all this about?' 'Why,' said the cock, 'I was just now saying that +we should have fine weather for our washing-day, and yet my mistress and +the cook don't thank me for my pains, but threaten to cut off my +head tomorrow, and make broth of me for the guests that are coming +on Sunday!' 'Heaven forbid!' said the ass, 'come with us Master +Chanticleer; it will be better, at any rate, than staying here to have +your head cut off! Besides, who knows? If we care to sing in tune, we +may get up some kind of a concert; so come along with us.' 'With all my +heart,' said the cock: so they all four went on jollily together. + +They could not, however, reach the great city the first day; so when +night came on, they went into a wood to sleep. The ass and the dog laid +themselves down under a great tree, and the cat climbed up into the +branches; while the cock, thinking that the higher he sat the safer he +should be, flew up to the very top of the tree, and then, according to +his custom, before he went to sleep, looked out on all sides of him to +see that everything was well. In doing this, he saw afar off something +bright and shining and calling to his companions said, 'There must be a +house no great way off, for I see a light.' 'If that be the case,' said +the ass, 'we had better change our quarters, for our lodging is not the +best in the world!' 'Besides,' added the dog, 'I should not be the +worse for a bone or two, or a bit of meat.' So they walked off together +towards the spot where Chanticleer had seen the light, and as they drew +near it became larger and brighter, till they at last came close to a +house in which a gang of robbers lived. + +The ass, being the tallest of the company, marched up to the window and +peeped in. 'Well, Donkey,' said Chanticleer, 'what do you see?' 'What +do I see?' replied the ass. 'Why, I see a table spread with all kinds of +good things, and robbers sitting round it making merry.' 'That would +be a noble lodging for us,' said the cock. 'Yes,' said the ass, 'if we +could only get in'; so they consulted together how they should contrive +to get the robbers out; and at last they hit upon a plan. The ass placed +himself upright on his hind legs, with his forefeet resting against the +window; the dog got upon his back; the cat scrambled up to the dog's +shoulders, and the cock flew up and sat upon the cat's head. When +all was ready a signal was given, and they began their music. The ass +brayed, the dog barked, the cat mewed, and the cock screamed; and then +they all broke through the window at once, and came tumbling into +the room, amongst the broken glass, with a most hideous clatter! The +robbers, who had been not a little frightened by the opening concert, +had now no doubt that some frightful hobgoblin had broken in upon them, +and scampered away as fast as they could. + +The coast once clear, our travellers soon sat down and dispatched what +the robbers had left, with as much eagerness as if they had not expected +to eat again for a month. As soon as they had satisfied themselves, they +put out the lights, and each once more sought out a resting-place to +his own liking. The donkey laid himself down upon a heap of straw in +the yard, the dog stretched himself upon a mat behind the door, the +cat rolled herself up on the hearth before the warm ashes, and the +cock perched upon a beam on the top of the house; and, as they were all +rather tired with their journey, they soon fell asleep. + +But about midnight, when the robbers saw from afar that the lights were +out and that all seemed quiet, they began to think that they had been in +too great a hurry to run away; and one of them, who was bolder than +the rest, went to see what was going on. Finding everything still, he +marched into the kitchen, and groped about till he found a match in +order to light a candle; and then, espying the glittering fiery eyes of +the cat, he mistook them for live coals, and held the match to them to +light it. But the cat, not understanding this joke, sprang at his face, +and spat, and scratched at him. This frightened him dreadfully, and away +he ran to the back door; but there the dog jumped up and bit him in the +leg; and as he was crossing over the yard the ass kicked him; and the +cock, who had been awakened by the noise, crowed with all his might. At +this the robber ran back as fast as he could to his comrades, and told +the captain how a horrid witch had got into the house, and had spat at +him and scratched his face with her long bony fingers; how a man with a +knife in his hand had hidden himself behind the door, and stabbed him +in the leg; how a black monster stood in the yard and struck him with a +club, and how the devil had sat upon the top of the house and cried out, +'Throw the rascal up here!' After this the robbers never dared to go +back to the house; but the musicians were so pleased with their quarters +that they took up their abode there; and there they are, I dare say, at +this very day. + + + + +OLD SULTAN + +A shepherd had a faithful dog, called Sultan, who was grown very old, +and had lost all his teeth. And one day when the shepherd and his wife +were standing together before the house the shepherd said, 'I will shoot +old Sultan tomorrow morning, for he is of no use now.' But his wife +said, 'Pray let the poor faithful creature live; he has served us well a +great many years, and we ought to give him a livelihood for the rest of +his days.' 'But what can we do with him?' said the shepherd, 'he has not +a tooth in his head, and the thieves don't care for him at all; to +be sure he has served us, but then he did it to earn his livelihood; +tomorrow shall be his last day, depend upon it.' + +Poor Sultan, who was lying close by them, heard all that the shepherd +and his wife said to one another, and was very much frightened to think +tomorrow would be his last day; so in the evening he went to his good +friend the wolf, who lived in the wood, and told him all his sorrows, +and how his master meant to kill him in the morning. 'Make yourself +easy,' said the wolf, 'I will give you some good advice. Your master, +you know, goes out every morning very early with his wife into the +field; and they take their little child with them, and lay it down +behind the hedge in the shade while they are at work. Now do you lie +down close by the child, and pretend to be watching it, and I will come +out of the wood and run away with it; you must run after me as fast as +you can, and I will let it drop; then you may carry it back, and they +will think you have saved their child, and will be so thankful to you +that they will take care of you as long as you live.' The dog liked this +plan very well; and accordingly so it was managed. The wolf ran with the +child a little way; the shepherd and his wife screamed out; but Sultan +soon overtook him, and carried the poor little thing back to his master +and mistress. Then the shepherd patted him on the head, and said, 'Old +Sultan has saved our child from the wolf, and therefore he shall live +and be well taken care of, and have plenty to eat. Wife, go home, and +give him a good dinner, and let him have my old cushion to sleep on +as long as he lives.' So from this time forward Sultan had all that he +could wish for. + +Soon afterwards the wolf came and wished him joy, and said, 'Now, my +good fellow, you must tell no tales, but turn your head the other way +when I want to taste one of the old shepherd's fine fat sheep.' 'No,' +said the Sultan; 'I will be true to my master.' However, the wolf +thought he was in joke, and came one night to get a dainty morsel. But +Sultan had told his master what the wolf meant to do; so he laid wait +for him behind the barn door, and when the wolf was busy looking out for +a good fat sheep, he had a stout cudgel laid about his back, that combed +his locks for him finely. + +Then the wolf was very angry, and called Sultan 'an old rogue,' and +swore he would have his revenge. So the next morning the wolf sent the +boar to challenge Sultan to come into the wood to fight the matter. Now +Sultan had nobody he could ask to be his second but the shepherd's old +three-legged cat; so he took her with him, and as the poor thing limped +along with some trouble, she stuck up her tail straight in the air. + +The wolf and the wild boar were first on the ground; and when they +espied their enemies coming, and saw the cat's long tail standing +straight in the air, they thought she was carrying a sword for Sultan to +fight with; and every time she limped, they thought she was picking up +a stone to throw at them; so they said they should not like this way of +fighting, and the boar lay down behind a bush, and the wolf jumped +up into a tree. Sultan and the cat soon came up, and looked about and +wondered that no one was there. The boar, however, had not quite hidden +himself, for his ears stuck out of the bush; and when he shook one of +them a little, the cat, seeing something move, and thinking it was a +mouse, sprang upon it, and bit and scratched it, so that the boar jumped +up and grunted, and ran away, roaring out, 'Look up in the tree, there +sits the one who is to blame.' So they looked up, and espied the wolf +sitting amongst the branches; and they called him a cowardly rascal, +and would not suffer him to come down till he was heartily ashamed of +himself, and had promised to be good friends again with old Sultan. + + + + +THE STRAW, THE COAL, AND THE BEAN + +In a village dwelt a poor old woman, who had gathered together a dish +of beans and wanted to cook them. So she made a fire on her hearth, and +that it might burn the quicker, she lighted it with a handful of straw. +When she was emptying the beans into the pan, one dropped without her +observing it, and lay on the ground beside a straw, and soon afterwards +a burning coal from the fire leapt down to the two. Then the straw +began and said: 'Dear friends, from whence do you come here?' The coal +replied: 'I fortunately sprang out of the fire, and if I had not escaped +by sheer force, my death would have been certain,--I should have been +burnt to ashes.' The bean said: 'I too have escaped with a whole skin, +but if the old woman had got me into the pan, I should have been made +into broth without any mercy, like my comrades.' 'And would a better +fate have fallen to my lot?' said the straw. 'The old woman has +destroyed all my brethren in fire and smoke; she seized sixty of them at +once, and took their lives. I luckily slipped through her fingers.' + +'But what are we to do now?' said the coal. + +'I think,' answered the bean, 'that as we have so fortunately escaped +death, we should keep together like good companions, and lest a new +mischance should overtake us here, we should go away together, and +repair to a foreign country.' + +The proposition pleased the two others, and they set out on their way +together. Soon, however, they came to a little brook, and as there was +no bridge or foot-plank, they did not know how they were to get over +it. The straw hit on a good idea, and said: 'I will lay myself straight +across, and then you can walk over on me as on a bridge.' The straw +therefore stretched itself from one bank to the other, and the coal, +who was of an impetuous disposition, tripped quite boldly on to the +newly-built bridge. But when she had reached the middle, and heard the +water rushing beneath her, she was after all, afraid, and stood still, +and ventured no farther. The straw, however, began to burn, broke in +two pieces, and fell into the stream. The coal slipped after her, hissed +when she got into the water, and breathed her last. The bean, who had +prudently stayed behind on the shore, could not but laugh at the event, +was unable to stop, and laughed so heartily that she burst. It would +have been all over with her, likewise, if, by good fortune, a tailor who +was travelling in search of work, had not sat down to rest by the brook. +As he had a compassionate heart he pulled out his needle and thread, +and sewed her together. The bean thanked him most prettily, but as the +tailor used black thread, all beans since then have a black seam. + + + + +BRIAR ROSE + +A king and queen once upon a time reigned in a country a great way off, +where there were in those days fairies. Now this king and queen had +plenty of money, and plenty of fine clothes to wear, and plenty of +good things to eat and drink, and a coach to ride out in every day: but +though they had been married many years they had no children, and this +grieved them very much indeed. But one day as the queen was walking +by the side of the river, at the bottom of the garden, she saw a poor +little fish, that had thrown itself out of the water, and lay gasping +and nearly dead on the bank. Then the queen took pity on the little +fish, and threw it back again into the river; and before it swam away +it lifted its head out of the water and said, 'I know what your wish is, +and it shall be fulfilled, in return for your kindness to me--you will +soon have a daughter.' What the little fish had foretold soon came to +pass; and the queen had a little girl, so very beautiful that the king +could not cease looking on it for joy, and said he would hold a great +feast and make merry, and show the child to all the land. So he asked +his kinsmen, and nobles, and friends, and neighbours. But the queen +said, 'I will have the fairies also, that they might be kind and good +to our little daughter.' Now there were thirteen fairies in the kingdom; +but as the king and queen had only twelve golden dishes for them to eat +out of, they were forced to leave one of the fairies without asking her. +So twelve fairies came, each with a high red cap on her head, and red +shoes with high heels on her feet, and a long white wand in her hand: +and after the feast was over they gathered round in a ring and gave all +their best gifts to the little princess. One gave her goodness, another +beauty, another riches, and so on till she had all that was good in the +world. + +Just as eleven of them had done blessing her, a great noise was heard in +the courtyard, and word was brought that the thirteenth fairy was +come, with a black cap on her head, and black shoes on her feet, and a +broomstick in her hand: and presently up she came into the dining-hall. +Now, as she had not been asked to the feast she was very angry, and +scolded the king and queen very much, and set to work to take her +revenge. So she cried out, 'The king's daughter shall, in her fifteenth +year, be wounded by a spindle, and fall down dead.' Then the twelfth of +the friendly fairies, who had not yet given her gift, came forward, and +said that the evil wish must be fulfilled, but that she could soften its +mischief; so her gift was, that the king's daughter, when the spindle +wounded her, should not really die, but should only fall asleep for a +hundred years. + +However, the king hoped still to save his dear child altogether from +the threatened evil; so he ordered that all the spindles in the kingdom +should be bought up and burnt. But all the gifts of the first eleven +fairies were in the meantime fulfilled; for the princess was so +beautiful, and well behaved, and good, and wise, that everyone who knew +her loved her. + +It happened that, on the very day she was fifteen years old, the king +and queen were not at home, and she was left alone in the palace. So she +roved about by herself, and looked at all the rooms and chambers, till +at last she came to an old tower, to which there was a narrow staircase +ending with a little door. In the door there was a golden key, and when +she turned it the door sprang open, and there sat an old lady spinning +away very busily. 'Why, how now, good mother,' said the princess; 'what +are you doing there?' 'Spinning,' said the old lady, and nodded her +head, humming a tune, while buzz! went the wheel. 'How prettily that +little thing turns round!' said the princess, and took the spindle +and began to try and spin. But scarcely had she touched it, before the +fairy's prophecy was fulfilled; the spindle wounded her, and she fell +down lifeless on the ground. + +However, she was not dead, but had only fallen into a deep sleep; and +the king and the queen, who had just come home, and all their court, +fell asleep too; and the horses slept in the stables, and the dogs in +the court, the pigeons on the house-top, and the very flies slept upon +the walls. Even the fire on the hearth left off blazing, and went to +sleep; the jack stopped, and the spit that was turning about with a +goose upon it for the king's dinner stood still; and the cook, who was +at that moment pulling the kitchen-boy by the hair to give him a box +on the ear for something he had done amiss, let him go, and both fell +asleep; the butler, who was slyly tasting the ale, fell asleep with the +jug at his lips: and thus everything stood still, and slept soundly. + +A large hedge of thorns soon grew round the palace, and every year it +became higher and thicker; till at last the old palace was surrounded +and hidden, so that not even the roof or the chimneys could be seen. But +there went a report through all the land of the beautiful sleeping Briar +Rose (for so the king's daughter was called): so that, from time to +time, several kings' sons came, and tried to break through the thicket +into the palace. This, however, none of them could ever do; for the +thorns and bushes laid hold of them, as it were with hands; and there +they stuck fast, and died wretchedly. + +After many, many years there came a king's son into that land: and an +old man told him the story of the thicket of thorns; and how a beautiful +palace stood behind it, and how a wonderful princess, called Briar Rose, +lay in it asleep, with all her court. He told, too, how he had heard +from his grandfather that many, many princes had come, and had tried to +break through the thicket, but that they had all stuck fast in it, and +died. Then the young prince said, 'All this shall not frighten me; I +will go and see this Briar Rose.' The old man tried to hinder him, but +he was bent upon going. + +Now that very day the hundred years were ended; and as the prince came +to the thicket he saw nothing but beautiful flowering shrubs, through +which he went with ease, and they shut in after him as thick as ever. +Then he came at last to the palace, and there in the court lay the dogs +asleep; and the horses were standing in the stables; and on the roof sat +the pigeons fast asleep, with their heads under their wings. And when he +came into the palace, the flies were sleeping on the walls; the spit +was standing still; the butler had the jug of ale at his lips, going +to drink a draught; the maid sat with a fowl in her lap ready to be +plucked; and the cook in the kitchen was still holding up her hand, as +if she was going to beat the boy. + +Then he went on still farther, and all was so still that he could hear +every breath he drew; till at last he came to the old tower, and opened +the door of the little room in which Briar Rose was; and there she lay, +fast asleep on a couch by the window. She looked so beautiful that he +could not take his eyes off her, so he stooped down and gave her a kiss. +But the moment he kissed her she opened her eyes and awoke, and smiled +upon him; and they went out together; and soon the king and queen also +awoke, and all the court, and gazed on each other with great wonder. +And the horses shook themselves, and the dogs jumped up and barked; the +pigeons took their heads from under their wings, and looked about and +flew into the fields; the flies on the walls buzzed again; the fire in +the kitchen blazed up; round went the jack, and round went the spit, +with the goose for the king's dinner upon it; the butler finished his +draught of ale; the maid went on plucking the fowl; and the cook gave +the boy the box on his ear. + +And then the prince and Briar Rose were married, and the wedding feast +was given; and they lived happily together all their lives long. + + + + +THE DOG AND THE SPARROW + +A shepherd's dog had a master who took no care of him, but often let him +suffer the greatest hunger. At last he could bear it no longer; so he +took to his heels, and off he ran in a very sad and sorrowful mood. +On the road he met a sparrow that said to him, 'Why are you so sad, +my friend?' 'Because,' said the dog, 'I am very very hungry, and have +nothing to eat.' 'If that be all,' answered the sparrow, 'come with me +into the next town, and I will soon find you plenty of food.' So on they +went together into the town: and as they passed by a butcher's shop, +the sparrow said to the dog, 'Stand there a little while till I peck you +down a piece of meat.' So the sparrow perched upon the shelf: and having +first looked carefully about her to see if anyone was watching her, she +pecked and scratched at a steak that lay upon the edge of the shelf, +till at last down it fell. Then the dog snapped it up, and scrambled +away with it into a corner, where he soon ate it all up. 'Well,' said +the sparrow, 'you shall have some more if you will; so come with me to +the next shop, and I will peck you down another steak.' When the dog had +eaten this too, the sparrow said to him, 'Well, my good friend, have you +had enough now?' 'I have had plenty of meat,' answered he, 'but I should +like to have a piece of bread to eat after it.' 'Come with me then,' +said the sparrow, 'and you shall soon have that too.' So she took him +to a baker's shop, and pecked at two rolls that lay in the window, till +they fell down: and as the dog still wished for more, she took him to +another shop and pecked down some more for him. When that was eaten, the +sparrow asked him whether he had had enough now. 'Yes,' said he; 'and +now let us take a walk a little way out of the town.' So they both went +out upon the high road; but as the weather was warm, they had not gone +far before the dog said, 'I am very much tired--I should like to take a +nap.' 'Very well,' answered the sparrow, 'do so, and in the meantime +I will perch upon that bush.' So the dog stretched himself out on the +road, and fell fast asleep. Whilst he slept, there came by a carter with +a cart drawn by three horses, and loaded with two casks of wine. The +sparrow, seeing that the carter did not turn out of the way, but would +go on in the track in which the dog lay, so as to drive over him, called +out, 'Stop! stop! Mr Carter, or it shall be the worse for you.' But the +carter, grumbling to himself, 'You make it the worse for me, indeed! +what can you do?' cracked his whip, and drove his cart over the poor +dog, so that the wheels crushed him to death. 'There,' cried the +sparrow, 'thou cruel villain, thou hast killed my friend the dog. Now +mind what I say. This deed of thine shall cost thee all thou art worth.' +'Do your worst, and welcome,' said the brute, 'what harm can you do me?' +and passed on. But the sparrow crept under the tilt of the cart, and +pecked at the bung of one of the casks till she loosened it; and then +all the wine ran out, without the carter seeing it. At last he looked +round, and saw that the cart was dripping, and the cask quite empty. +'What an unlucky wretch I am!' cried he. 'Not wretch enough yet!' said +the sparrow, as she alighted upon the head of one of the horses, and +pecked at him till he reared up and kicked. When the carter saw this, +he drew out his hatchet and aimed a blow at the sparrow, meaning to kill +her; but she flew away, and the blow fell upon the poor horse's head +with such force, that he fell down dead. 'Unlucky wretch that I am!' +cried he. 'Not wretch enough yet!' said the sparrow. And as the carter +went on with the other two horses, she again crept under the tilt of the +cart, and pecked out the bung of the second cask, so that all the wine +ran out. When the carter saw this, he again cried out, 'Miserable wretch +that I am!' But the sparrow answered, 'Not wretch enough yet!' and +perched on the head of the second horse, and pecked at him too. The +carter ran up and struck at her again with his hatchet; but away she +flew, and the blow fell upon the second horse and killed him on the +spot. 'Unlucky wretch that I am!' said he. 'Not wretch enough yet!' said +the sparrow; and perching upon the third horse, she began to peck him +too. The carter was mad with fury; and without looking about him, or +caring what he was about, struck again at the sparrow; but killed his +third horse as he done the other two. 'Alas! miserable wretch that I +am!' cried he. 'Not wretch enough yet!' answered the sparrow as she flew +away; 'now will I plague and punish thee at thy own house.' The +carter was forced at last to leave his cart behind him, and to go home +overflowing with rage and vexation. 'Alas!' said he to his wife, 'what +ill luck has befallen me!--my wine is all spilt, and my horses all three +dead.' 'Alas! husband,' replied she, 'and a wicked bird has come into +the house, and has brought with her all the birds in the world, I am +sure, and they have fallen upon our corn in the loft, and are eating it +up at such a rate!' Away ran the husband upstairs, and saw thousands of +birds sitting upon the floor eating up his corn, with the sparrow in the +midst of them. 'Unlucky wretch that I am!' cried the carter; for he saw +that the corn was almost all gone. 'Not wretch enough yet!' said the +sparrow; 'thy cruelty shall cost thee thy life yet!' and away she flew. + +The carter seeing that he had thus lost all that he had, went down +into his kitchen; and was still not sorry for what he had done, but sat +himself angrily and sulkily in the chimney corner. But the sparrow sat +on the outside of the window, and cried 'Carter! thy cruelty shall cost +thee thy life!' With that he jumped up in a rage, seized his hatchet, +and threw it at the sparrow; but it missed her, and only broke the +window. The sparrow now hopped in, perched upon the window-seat, and +cried, 'Carter! it shall cost thee thy life!' Then he became mad and +blind with rage, and struck the window-seat with such force that he +cleft it in two: and as the sparrow flew from place to place, the carter +and his wife were so furious, that they broke all their furniture, +glasses, chairs, benches, the table, and at last the walls, without +touching the bird at all. In the end, however, they caught her: and the +wife said, 'Shall I kill her at once?' 'No,' cried he, 'that is letting +her off too easily: she shall die a much more cruel death; I will eat +her.' But the sparrow began to flutter about, and stretch out her neck +and cried, 'Carter! it shall cost thee thy life yet!' With that he +could wait no longer: so he gave his wife the hatchet, and cried, 'Wife, +strike at the bird and kill her in my hand.' And the wife struck; but +she missed her aim, and hit her husband on the head so that he fell down +dead, and the sparrow flew quietly home to her nest. + + + + +THE TWELVE DANCING PRINCESSES + +There was a king who had twelve beautiful daughters. They slept in +twelve beds all in one room; and when they went to bed, the doors were +shut and locked up; but every morning their shoes were found to be quite +worn through as if they had been danced in all night; and yet nobody +could find out how it happened, or where they had been. + +Then the king made it known to all the land, that if any person could +discover the secret, and find out where it was that the princesses +danced in the night, he should have the one he liked best for his +wife, and should be king after his death; but whoever tried and did not +succeed, after three days and nights, should be put to death. + +A king's son soon came. He was well entertained, and in the evening was +taken to the chamber next to the one where the princesses lay in their +twelve beds. There he was to sit and watch where they went to dance; +and, in order that nothing might pass without his hearing it, the door +of his chamber was left open. But the king's son soon fell asleep; and +when he awoke in the morning he found that the princesses had all been +dancing, for the soles of their shoes were full of holes. The same thing +happened the second and third night: so the king ordered his head to be +cut off. After him came several others; but they had all the same luck, +and all lost their lives in the same manner. + +Now it chanced that an old soldier, who had been wounded in battle +and could fight no longer, passed through the country where this king +reigned: and as he was travelling through a wood, he met an old woman, +who asked him where he was going. 'I hardly know where I am going, or +what I had better do,' said the soldier; 'but I think I should like very +well to find out where it is that the princesses dance, and then in time +I might be a king.' 'Well,' said the old dame, 'that is no very hard +task: only take care not to drink any of the wine which one of the +princesses will bring to you in the evening; and as soon as she leaves +you pretend to be fast asleep.' + +Then she gave him a cloak, and said, 'As soon as you put that on +you will become invisible, and you will then be able to follow the +princesses wherever they go.' When the soldier heard all this good +counsel, he determined to try his luck: so he went to the king, and said +he was willing to undertake the task. + +He was as well received as the others had been, and the king ordered +fine royal robes to be given him; and when the evening came he was led +to the outer chamber. Just as he was going to lie down, the eldest of +the princesses brought him a cup of wine; but the soldier threw it all +away secretly, taking care not to drink a drop. Then he laid himself +down on his bed, and in a little while began to snore very loud as if +he was fast asleep. When the twelve princesses heard this they laughed +heartily; and the eldest said, 'This fellow too might have done a wiser +thing than lose his life in this way!' Then they rose up and opened +their drawers and boxes, and took out all their fine clothes, and +dressed themselves at the glass, and skipped about as if they were eager +to begin dancing. But the youngest said, 'I don't know how it is, while +you are so happy I feel very uneasy; I am sure some mischance will +befall us.' 'You simpleton,' said the eldest, 'you are always afraid; +have you forgotten how many kings' sons have already watched in vain? +And as for this soldier, even if I had not given him his sleeping +draught, he would have slept soundly enough.' + +When they were all ready, they went and looked at the soldier; but he +snored on, and did not stir hand or foot: so they thought they were +quite safe; and the eldest went up to her own bed and clapped her hands, +and the bed sank into the floor and a trap-door flew open. The soldier +saw them going down through the trap-door one after another, the eldest +leading the way; and thinking he had no time to lose, he jumped up, put +on the cloak which the old woman had given him, and followed them; +but in the middle of the stairs he trod on the gown of the youngest +princess, and she cried out to her sisters, 'All is not right; someone +took hold of my gown.' 'You silly creature!' said the eldest, 'it is +nothing but a nail in the wall.' Then down they all went, and at the +bottom they found themselves in a most delightful grove of trees; and +the leaves were all of silver, and glittered and sparkled beautifully. +The soldier wished to take away some token of the place; so he broke +off a little branch, and there came a loud noise from the tree. Then the +youngest daughter said again, 'I am sure all is not right--did not you +hear that noise? That never happened before.' But the eldest said, 'It +is only our princes, who are shouting for joy at our approach.' + +Then they came to another grove of trees, where all the leaves were of +gold; and afterwards to a third, where the leaves were all glittering +diamonds. And the soldier broke a branch from each; and every time there +was a loud noise, which made the youngest sister tremble with fear; but +the eldest still said, it was only the princes, who were crying for joy. +So they went on till they came to a great lake; and at the side of the +lake there lay twelve little boats with twelve handsome princes in them, +who seemed to be waiting there for the princesses. + +One of the princesses went into each boat, and the soldier stepped into +the same boat with the youngest. As they were rowing over the lake, the +prince who was in the boat with the youngest princess and the soldier +said, 'I do not know why it is, but though I am rowing with all my might +we do not get on so fast as usual, and I am quite tired: the boat +seems very heavy today.' 'It is only the heat of the weather,' said the +princess: 'I feel it very warm too.' + +On the other side of the lake stood a fine illuminated castle, from +which came the merry music of horns and trumpets. There they all landed, +and went into the castle, and each prince danced with his princess; and +the soldier, who was all the time invisible, danced with them too; and +when any of the princesses had a cup of wine set by her, he drank it +all up, so that when she put the cup to her mouth it was empty. At this, +too, the youngest sister was terribly frightened, but the eldest always +silenced her. They danced on till three o'clock in the morning, and then +all their shoes were worn out, so that they were obliged to leave off. +The princes rowed them back again over the lake (but this time the +soldier placed himself in the boat with the eldest princess); and on the +opposite shore they took leave of each other, the princesses promising +to come again the next night. + +When they came to the stairs, the soldier ran on before the princesses, +and laid himself down; and as the twelve sisters slowly came up very +much tired, they heard him snoring in his bed; so they said, 'Now all +is quite safe'; then they undressed themselves, put away their fine +clothes, pulled off their shoes, and went to bed. In the morning the +soldier said nothing about what had happened, but determined to see more +of this strange adventure, and went again the second and third night; +and every thing happened just as before; the princesses danced each time +till their shoes were worn to pieces, and then returned home. However, +on the third night the soldier carried away one of the golden cups as a +token of where he had been. + +As soon as the time came when he was to declare the secret, he was taken +before the king with the three branches and the golden cup; and the +twelve princesses stood listening behind the door to hear what he would +say. And when the king asked him. 'Where do my twelve daughters dance at +night?' he answered, 'With twelve princes in a castle under ground.' And +then he told the king all that had happened, and showed him the three +branches and the golden cup which he had brought with him. Then the king +called for the princesses, and asked them whether what the soldier said +was true: and when they saw that they were discovered, and that it was +of no use to deny what had happened, they confessed it all. And the king +asked the soldier which of them he would choose for his wife; and he +answered, 'I am not very young, so I will have the eldest.'--And they +were married that very day, and the soldier was chosen to be the king's +heir. + + + + +THE FISHERMAN AND HIS WIFE + +There was once a fisherman who lived with his wife in a pigsty, close +by the seaside. The fisherman used to go out all day long a-fishing; and +one day, as he sat on the shore with his rod, looking at the sparkling +waves and watching his line, all on a sudden his float was dragged away +deep into the water: and in drawing it up he pulled out a great fish. +But the fish said, 'Pray let me live! I am not a real fish; I am an +enchanted prince: put me in the water again, and let me go!' 'Oh, ho!' +said the man, 'you need not make so many words about the matter; I will +have nothing to do with a fish that can talk: so swim away, sir, as soon +as you please!' Then he put him back into the water, and the fish darted +straight down to the bottom, and left a long streak of blood behind him +on the wave. + +When the fisherman went home to his wife in the pigsty, he told her how +he had caught a great fish, and how it had told him it was an enchanted +prince, and how, on hearing it speak, he had let it go again. 'Did not +you ask it for anything?' said the wife, 'we live very wretchedly here, +in this nasty dirty pigsty; do go back and tell the fish we want a snug +little cottage.' + +The fisherman did not much like the business: however, he went to the +seashore; and when he came back there the water looked all yellow and +green. And he stood at the water's edge, and said: + + 'O man of the sea! + Hearken to me! + My wife Ilsabill + Will have her own will, + And hath sent me to beg a boon of thee!' + +Then the fish came swimming to him, and said, 'Well, what is her will? +What does your wife want?' 'Ah!' said the fisherman, 'she says that when +I had caught you, I ought to have asked you for something before I let +you go; she does not like living any longer in the pigsty, and wants +a snug little cottage.' 'Go home, then,' said the fish; 'she is in the +cottage already!' So the man went home, and saw his wife standing at the +door of a nice trim little cottage. 'Come in, come in!' said she; 'is +not this much better than the filthy pigsty we had?' And there was a +parlour, and a bedchamber, and a kitchen; and behind the cottage there +was a little garden, planted with all sorts of flowers and fruits; and +there was a courtyard behind, full of ducks and chickens. 'Ah!' said the +fisherman, 'how happily we shall live now!' 'We will try to do so, at +least,' said his wife. + +Everything went right for a week or two, and then Dame Ilsabill said, +'Husband, there is not near room enough for us in this cottage; the +courtyard and the garden are a great deal too small; I should like to +have a large stone castle to live in: go to the fish again and tell him +to give us a castle.' 'Wife,' said the fisherman, 'I don't like to go to +him again, for perhaps he will be angry; we ought to be easy with this +pretty cottage to live in.' 'Nonsense!' said the wife; 'he will do it +very willingly, I know; go along and try!' + +The fisherman went, but his heart was very heavy: and when he came to +the sea, it looked blue and gloomy, though it was very calm; and he went +close to the edge of the waves, and said: + + 'O man of the sea! + Hearken to me! + My wife Ilsabill + Will have her own will, + And hath sent me to beg a boon of thee!' + +'Well, what does she want now?' said the fish. 'Ah!' said the man, +dolefully, 'my wife wants to live in a stone castle.' 'Go home, then,' +said the fish; 'she is standing at the gate of it already.' So away went +the fisherman, and found his wife standing before the gate of a great +castle. 'See,' said she, 'is not this grand?' With that they went into +the castle together, and found a great many servants there, and the +rooms all richly furnished, and full of golden chairs and tables; and +behind the castle was a garden, and around it was a park half a +mile long, full of sheep, and goats, and hares, and deer; and in the +courtyard were stables and cow-houses. 'Well,' said the man, 'now we +will live cheerful and happy in this beautiful castle for the rest of +our lives.' 'Perhaps we may,' said the wife; 'but let us sleep upon it, +before we make up our minds to that.' So they went to bed. + +The next morning when Dame Ilsabill awoke it was broad daylight, and +she jogged the fisherman with her elbow, and said, 'Get up, husband, +and bestir yourself, for we must be king of all the land.' 'Wife, wife,' +said the man, 'why should we wish to be the king? I will not be king.' +'Then I will,' said she. 'But, wife,' said the fisherman, 'how can you +be king--the fish cannot make you a king?' 'Husband,' said she, 'say +no more about it, but go and try! I will be king.' So the man went away +quite sorrowful to think that his wife should want to be king. This time +the sea looked a dark grey colour, and was overspread with curling waves +and the ridges of foam as he cried out: + + 'O man of the sea! + Hearken to me! + My wife Ilsabill + Will have her own will, + And hath sent me to beg a boon of thee!' + +'Well, what would she have now?' said the fish. 'Alas!' said the poor +man, 'my wife wants to be king.' 'Go home,' said the fish; 'she is king +already.' + +Then the fisherman went home; and as he came close to the palace he saw +a troop of soldiers, and heard the sound of drums and trumpets. And when +he went in he saw his wife sitting on a throne of gold and diamonds, +with a golden crown upon her head; and on each side of her stood six +fair maidens, each a head taller than the other. 'Well, wife,' said the +fisherman, 'are you king?' 'Yes,' said she, 'I am king.' And when he had +looked at her for a long time, he said, 'Ah, wife! what a fine thing it +is to be king! Now we shall never have anything more to wish for as long +as we live.' 'I don't know how that may be,' said she; 'never is a long +time. I am king, it is true; but I begin to be tired of that, and I +think I should like to be emperor.' 'Alas, wife! why should you wish to +be emperor?' said the fisherman. 'Husband,' said she, 'go to the fish! +I say I will be emperor.' 'Ah, wife!' replied the fisherman, 'the fish +cannot make an emperor, I am sure, and I should not like to ask him for +such a thing.' 'I am king,' said Ilsabill, 'and you are my slave; so go +at once!' + +So the fisherman was forced to go; and he muttered as he went along, +'This will come to no good, it is too much to ask; the fish will be +tired at last, and then we shall be sorry for what we have done.' He +soon came to the seashore; and the water was quite black and muddy, and +a mighty whirlwind blew over the waves and rolled them about, but he +went as near as he could to the water's brink, and said: + + 'O man of the sea! + Hearken to me! + My wife Ilsabill + Will have her own will, + And hath sent me to beg a boon of thee!' + +'What would she have now?' said the fish. 'Ah!' said the fisherman, +'she wants to be emperor.' 'Go home,' said the fish; 'she is emperor +already.' + +So he went home again; and as he came near he saw his wife Ilsabill +sitting on a very lofty throne made of solid gold, with a great crown on +her head full two yards high; and on each side of her stood her guards +and attendants in a row, each one smaller than the other, from the +tallest giant down to a little dwarf no bigger than my finger. And +before her stood princes, and dukes, and earls: and the fisherman went +up to her and said, 'Wife, are you emperor?' 'Yes,' said she, 'I am +emperor.' 'Ah!' said the man, as he gazed upon her, 'what a fine thing +it is to be emperor!' 'Husband,' said she, 'why should we stop at being +emperor? I will be pope next.' 'O wife, wife!' said he, 'how can you be +pope? there is but one pope at a time in Christendom.' 'Husband,' said +she, 'I will be pope this very day.' 'But,' replied the husband, 'the +fish cannot make you pope.' 'What nonsense!' said she; 'if he can make +an emperor, he can make a pope: go and try him.' + +So the fisherman went. But when he came to the shore the wind was raging +and the sea was tossed up and down in boiling waves, and the ships were +in trouble, and rolled fearfully upon the tops of the billows. In the +middle of the heavens there was a little piece of blue sky, but towards +the south all was red, as if a dreadful storm was rising. At this sight +the fisherman was dreadfully frightened, and he trembled so that his +knees knocked together: but still he went down near to the shore, and +said: + + 'O man of the sea! + Hearken to me! + My wife Ilsabill + Will have her own will, + And hath sent me to beg a boon of thee!' + +'What does she want now?' said the fish. 'Ah!' said the fisherman, 'my +wife wants to be pope.' 'Go home,' said the fish; 'she is pope already.' + +Then the fisherman went home, and found Ilsabill sitting on a throne +that was two miles high. And she had three great crowns on her head, and +around her stood all the pomp and power of the Church. And on each side +of her were two rows of burning lights, of all sizes, the greatest as +large as the highest and biggest tower in the world, and the least no +larger than a small rushlight. 'Wife,' said the fisherman, as he looked +at all this greatness, 'are you pope?' 'Yes,' said she, 'I am pope.' +'Well, wife,' replied he, 'it is a grand thing to be pope; and now +you must be easy, for you can be nothing greater.' 'I will think about +that,' said the wife. Then they went to bed: but Dame Ilsabill could not +sleep all night for thinking what she should be next. At last, as she +was dropping asleep, morning broke, and the sun rose. 'Ha!' thought she, +as she woke up and looked at it through the window, 'after all I cannot +prevent the sun rising.' At this thought she was very angry, and wakened +her husband, and said, 'Husband, go to the fish and tell him I must +be lord of the sun and moon.' The fisherman was half asleep, but the +thought frightened him so much that he started and fell out of bed. +'Alas, wife!' said he, 'cannot you be easy with being pope?' 'No,' +said she, 'I am very uneasy as long as the sun and moon rise without my +leave. Go to the fish at once!' + +Then the man went shivering with fear; and as he was going down to +the shore a dreadful storm arose, so that the trees and the very rocks +shook. And all the heavens became black with stormy clouds, and the +lightnings played, and the thunders rolled; and you might have seen in +the sea great black waves, swelling up like mountains with crowns of +white foam upon their heads. And the fisherman crept towards the sea, +and cried out, as well as he could: + + 'O man of the sea! + Hearken to me! + My wife Ilsabill + Will have her own will, + And hath sent me to beg a boon of thee!' + +'What does she want now?' said the fish. 'Ah!' said he, 'she wants to +be lord of the sun and moon.' 'Go home,' said the fish, 'to your pigsty +again.' + +And there they live to this very day. + + + + +THE WILLOW-WREN AND THE BEAR + +Once in summer-time the bear and the wolf were walking in the forest, +and the bear heard a bird singing so beautifully that he said: 'Brother +wolf, what bird is it that sings so well?' 'That is the King of birds,' +said the wolf, 'before whom we must bow down.' In reality the bird was +the willow-wren. 'IF that's the case,' said the bear, 'I should very +much like to see his royal palace; come, take me thither.' 'That is not +done quite as you seem to think,' said the wolf; 'you must wait until +the Queen comes,' Soon afterwards, the Queen arrived with some food in +her beak, and the lord King came too, and they began to feed their young +ones. The bear would have liked to go at once, but the wolf held him +back by the sleeve, and said: 'No, you must wait until the lord and lady +Queen have gone away again.' So they took stock of the hole where the +nest lay, and trotted away. The bear, however, could not rest until he +had seen the royal palace, and when a short time had passed, went to it +again. The King and Queen had just flown out, so he peeped in and saw +five or six young ones lying there. 'Is that the royal palace?' cried +the bear; 'it is a wretched palace, and you are not King's children, you +are disreputable children!' When the young wrens heard that, they were +frightfully angry, and screamed: 'No, that we are not! Our parents are +honest people! Bear, you will have to pay for that!' + +The bear and the wolf grew uneasy, and turned back and went into their +holes. The young willow-wrens, however, continued to cry and scream, and +when their parents again brought food they said: 'We will not so much as +touch one fly's leg, no, not if we were dying of hunger, until you have +settled whether we are respectable children or not; the bear has been +here and has insulted us!' Then the old King said: 'Be easy, he shall +be punished,' and he at once flew with the Queen to the bear's cave, and +called in: 'Old Growler, why have you insulted my children? You shall +suffer for it--we will punish you by a bloody war.' Thus war was +announced to the Bear, and all four-footed animals were summoned to take +part in it, oxen, asses, cows, deer, and every other animal the earth +contained. And the willow-wren summoned everything which flew in the +air, not only birds, large and small, but midges, and hornets, bees and +flies had to come. + +When the time came for the war to begin, the willow-wren sent out spies +to discover who was the enemy's commander-in-chief. The gnat, who was +the most crafty, flew into the forest where the enemy was assembled, +and hid herself beneath a leaf of the tree where the password was to be +announced. There stood the bear, and he called the fox before him +and said: 'Fox, you are the most cunning of all animals, you shall be +general and lead us.' 'Good,' said the fox, 'but what signal shall we +agree upon?' No one knew that, so the fox said: 'I have a fine long +bushy tail, which almost looks like a plume of red feathers. When I lift +my tail up quite high, all is going well, and you must charge; but if I +let it hang down, run away as fast as you can.' When the gnat had heard +that, she flew away again, and revealed everything, down to the minutest +detail, to the willow-wren. When day broke, and the battle was to begin, +all the four-footed animals came running up with such a noise that the +earth trembled. The willow-wren with his army also came flying through +the air with such a humming, and whirring, and swarming that every one +was uneasy and afraid, and on both sides they advanced against each +other. But the willow-wren sent down the hornet, with orders to settle +beneath the fox's tail, and sting with all his might. When the fox felt +the first string, he started so that he lifted one leg, from pain, but +he bore it, and still kept his tail high in the air; at the second +sting, he was forced to put it down for a moment; at the third, he could +hold out no longer, screamed, and put his tail between his legs. When +the animals saw that, they thought all was lost, and began to flee, each +into his hole, and the birds had won the battle. + +Then the King and Queen flew home to their children and cried: +'Children, rejoice, eat and drink to your heart's content, we have won +the battle!' But the young wrens said: 'We will not eat yet, the bear +must come to the nest, and beg for pardon and say that we are honourable +children, before we will do that.' Then the willow-wren flew to the +bear's hole and cried: 'Growler, you are to come to the nest to my +children, and beg their pardon, or else every rib of your body shall +be broken.' So the bear crept thither in the greatest fear, and begged +their pardon. And now at last the young wrens were satisfied, and sat +down together and ate and drank, and made merry till quite late into the +night. + + + + +THE FROG-PRINCE + +One fine evening a young princess put on her bonnet and clogs, and went +out to take a walk by herself in a wood; and when she came to a cool +spring of water, that rose in the midst of it, she sat herself down +to rest a while. Now she had a golden ball in her hand, which was her +favourite plaything; and she was always tossing it up into the air, and +catching it again as it fell. After a time she threw it up so high that +she missed catching it as it fell; and the ball bounded away, and rolled +along upon the ground, till at last it fell down into the spring. The +princess looked into the spring after her ball, but it was very deep, so +deep that she could not see the bottom of it. Then she began to bewail +her loss, and said, 'Alas! if I could only get my ball again, I would +give all my fine clothes and jewels, and everything that I have in the +world.' + +Whilst she was speaking, a frog put its head out of the water, and said, +'Princess, why do you weep so bitterly?' 'Alas!' said she, 'what can you +do for me, you nasty frog? My golden ball has fallen into the spring.' +The frog said, 'I want not your pearls, and jewels, and fine clothes; +but if you will love me, and let me live with you and eat from off +your golden plate, and sleep upon your bed, I will bring you your ball +again.' 'What nonsense,' thought the princess, 'this silly frog is +talking! He can never even get out of the spring to visit me, though +he may be able to get my ball for me, and therefore I will tell him he +shall have what he asks.' So she said to the frog, 'Well, if you will +bring me my ball, I will do all you ask.' Then the frog put his head +down, and dived deep under the water; and after a little while he came +up again, with the ball in his mouth, and threw it on the edge of the +spring. As soon as the young princess saw her ball, she ran to pick +it up; and she was so overjoyed to have it in her hand again, that she +never thought of the frog, but ran home with it as fast as she could. +The frog called after her, 'Stay, princess, and take me with you as you +said,' But she did not stop to hear a word. + +The next day, just as the princess had sat down to dinner, she heard a +strange noise--tap, tap--plash, plash--as if something was coming up the +marble staircase: and soon afterwards there was a gentle knock at the +door, and a little voice cried out and said: + + 'Open the door, my princess dear, + Open the door to thy true love here! + And mind the words that thou and I said + By the fountain cool, in the greenwood shade.' + +Then the princess ran to the door and opened it, and there she saw +the frog, whom she had quite forgotten. At this sight she was sadly +frightened, and shutting the door as fast as she could came back to her +seat. The king, her father, seeing that something had frightened her, +asked her what was the matter. 'There is a nasty frog,' said she, 'at +the door, that lifted my ball for me out of the spring this morning: I +told him that he should live with me here, thinking that he could never +get out of the spring; but there he is at the door, and he wants to come +in.' + +While she was speaking the frog knocked again at the door, and said: + + 'Open the door, my princess dear, + Open the door to thy true love here! + And mind the words that thou and I said + By the fountain cool, in the greenwood shade.' + +Then the king said to the young princess, 'As you have given your word +you must keep it; so go and let him in.' She did so, and the frog hopped +into the room, and then straight on--tap, tap--plash, plash--from the +bottom of the room to the top, till he came up close to the table where +the princess sat. 'Pray lift me upon chair,' said he to the princess, +'and let me sit next to you.' As soon as she had done this, the frog +said, 'Put your plate nearer to me, that I may eat out of it.' This +she did, and when he had eaten as much as he could, he said, 'Now I am +tired; carry me upstairs, and put me into your bed.' And the princess, +though very unwilling, took him up in her hand, and put him upon the +pillow of her own bed, where he slept all night long. As soon as it was +light he jumped up, hopped downstairs, and went out of the house. +'Now, then,' thought the princess, 'at last he is gone, and I shall be +troubled with him no more.' + +But she was mistaken; for when night came again she heard the same +tapping at the door; and the frog came once more, and said: + + 'Open the door, my princess dear, + Open the door to thy true love here! + And mind the words that thou and I said + By the fountain cool, in the greenwood shade.' + +And when the princess opened the door the frog came in, and slept upon +her pillow as before, till the morning broke. And the third night he did +the same. But when the princess awoke on the following morning she was +astonished to see, instead of the frog, a handsome prince, gazing on her +with the most beautiful eyes she had ever seen, and standing at the head +of her bed. + +He told her that he had been enchanted by a spiteful fairy, who had +changed him into a frog; and that he had been fated so to abide till +some princess should take him out of the spring, and let him eat from +her plate, and sleep upon her bed for three nights. 'You,' said the +prince, 'have broken his cruel charm, and now I have nothing to wish for +but that you should go with me into my father's kingdom, where I will +marry you, and love you as long as you live.' + +The young princess, you may be sure, was not long in saying 'Yes' to +all this; and as they spoke a gay coach drove up, with eight beautiful +horses, decked with plumes of feathers and a golden harness; and behind +the coach rode the prince's servant, faithful Heinrich, who had bewailed +the misfortunes of his dear master during his enchantment so long and so +bitterly, that his heart had well-nigh burst. + +They then took leave of the king, and got into the coach with eight +horses, and all set out, full of joy and merriment, for the prince's +kingdom, which they reached safely; and there they lived happily a great +many years. + + + + +CAT AND MOUSE IN PARTNERSHIP + +A certain cat had made the acquaintance of a mouse, and had said so much +to her about the great love and friendship she felt for her, that at +length the mouse agreed that they should live and keep house together. +'But we must make a provision for winter, or else we shall suffer +from hunger,' said the cat; 'and you, little mouse, cannot venture +everywhere, or you will be caught in a trap some day.' The good advice +was followed, and a pot of fat was bought, but they did not know where +to put it. At length, after much consideration, the cat said: 'I know no +place where it will be better stored up than in the church, for no one +dares take anything away from there. We will set it beneath the altar, +and not touch it until we are really in need of it.' So the pot was +placed in safety, but it was not long before the cat had a great +yearning for it, and said to the mouse: 'I want to tell you something, +little mouse; my cousin has brought a little son into the world, and has +asked me to be godmother; he is white with brown spots, and I am to hold +him over the font at the christening. Let me go out today, and you look +after the house by yourself.' 'Yes, yes,' answered the mouse, 'by all +means go, and if you get anything very good to eat, think of me. I +should like a drop of sweet red christening wine myself.' All this, +however, was untrue; the cat had no cousin, and had not been asked to +be godmother. She went straight to the church, stole to the pot of fat, +began to lick at it, and licked the top of the fat off. Then she took a +walk upon the roofs of the town, looked out for opportunities, and then +stretched herself in the sun, and licked her lips whenever she thought +of the pot of fat, and not until it was evening did she return home. +'Well, here you are again,' said the mouse, 'no doubt you have had a +merry day.' 'All went off well,' answered the cat. 'What name did they +give the child?' 'Top off!' said the cat quite coolly. 'Top off!' cried +the mouse, 'that is a very odd and uncommon name, is it a usual one in +your family?' 'What does that matter,' said the cat, 'it is no worse +than Crumb-stealer, as your godchildren are called.' + +Before long the cat was seized by another fit of yearning. She said to +the mouse: 'You must do me a favour, and once more manage the house for +a day alone. I am again asked to be godmother, and, as the child has a +white ring round its neck, I cannot refuse.' The good mouse consented, +but the cat crept behind the town walls to the church, and devoured +half the pot of fat. 'Nothing ever seems so good as what one keeps to +oneself,' said she, and was quite satisfied with her day's work. When +she went home the mouse inquired: 'And what was the child christened?' +'Half-done,' answered the cat. 'Half-done! What are you saying? I +never heard the name in my life, I'll wager anything it is not in the +calendar!' + +The cat's mouth soon began to water for some more licking. 'All good +things go in threes,' said she, 'I am asked to stand godmother again. +The child is quite black, only it has white paws, but with that +exception, it has not a single white hair on its whole body; this only +happens once every few years, you will let me go, won't you?' 'Top-off! +Half-done!' answered the mouse, 'they are such odd names, they make me +very thoughtful.' 'You sit at home,' said the cat, 'in your dark-grey +fur coat and long tail, and are filled with fancies, that's because +you do not go out in the daytime.' During the cat's absence the mouse +cleaned the house, and put it in order, but the greedy cat entirely +emptied the pot of fat. 'When everything is eaten up one has some +peace,' said she to herself, and well filled and fat she did not return +home till night. The mouse at once asked what name had been given to +the third child. 'It will not please you more than the others,' said the +cat. 'He is called All-gone.' 'All-gone,' cried the mouse 'that is the +most suspicious name of all! I have never seen it in print. All-gone; +what can that mean?' and she shook her head, curled herself up, and lay +down to sleep. + +From this time forth no one invited the cat to be godmother, but +when the winter had come and there was no longer anything to be found +outside, the mouse thought of their provision, and said: 'Come, cat, +we will go to our pot of fat which we have stored up for ourselves--we +shall enjoy that.' 'Yes,' answered the cat, 'you will enjoy it as much +as you would enjoy sticking that dainty tongue of yours out of the +window.' They set out on their way, but when they arrived, the pot of +fat certainly was still in its place, but it was empty. 'Alas!' said the +mouse, 'now I see what has happened, now it comes to light! You are a true +friend! You have devoured all when you were standing godmother. First +top off, then half-done, then--' 'Will you hold your tongue,' cried the +cat, 'one word more, and I will eat you too.' 'All-gone' was already on +the poor mouse's lips; scarcely had she spoken it before the cat sprang +on her, seized her, and swallowed her down. Verily, that is the way of +the world. + + + + +THE GOOSE-GIRL + +The king of a great land died, and left his queen to take care of their +only child. This child was a daughter, who was very beautiful; and her +mother loved her dearly, and was very kind to her. And there was a good +fairy too, who was fond of the princess, and helped her mother to watch +over her. When she grew up, she was betrothed to a prince who lived a +great way off; and as the time drew near for her to be married, she +got ready to set off on her journey to his country. Then the queen her +mother, packed up a great many costly things; jewels, and gold, and +silver; trinkets, fine dresses, and in short everything that became a +royal bride. And she gave her a waiting-maid to ride with her, and give +her into the bridegroom's hands; and each had a horse for the journey. +Now the princess's horse was the fairy's gift, and it was called Falada, +and could speak. + +When the time came for them to set out, the fairy went into her +bed-chamber, and took a little knife, and cut off a lock of her hair, +and gave it to the princess, and said, 'Take care of it, dear child; for +it is a charm that may be of use to you on the road.' Then they all took +a sorrowful leave of the princess; and she put the lock of hair into +her bosom, got upon her horse, and set off on her journey to her +bridegroom's kingdom. + +One day, as they were riding along by a brook, the princess began to +feel very thirsty: and she said to her maid, 'Pray get down, and fetch +me some water in my golden cup out of yonder brook, for I want to +drink.' 'Nay,' said the maid, 'if you are thirsty, get off yourself, and +stoop down by the water and drink; I shall not be your waiting-maid any +longer.' Then she was so thirsty that she got down, and knelt over the +little brook, and drank; for she was frightened, and dared not bring out +her golden cup; and she wept and said, 'Alas! what will become of me?' +And the lock answered her, and said: + + 'Alas! alas! if thy mother knew it, + Sadly, sadly, would she rue it.' + +But the princess was very gentle and meek, so she said nothing to her +maid's ill behaviour, but got upon her horse again. + +Then all rode farther on their journey, till the day grew so warm, and +the sun so scorching, that the bride began to feel very thirsty again; +and at last, when they came to a river, she forgot her maid's rude +speech, and said, 'Pray get down, and fetch me some water to drink in +my golden cup.' But the maid answered her, and even spoke more haughtily +than before: 'Drink if you will, but I shall not be your waiting-maid.' +Then the princess was so thirsty that she got off her horse, and lay +down, and held her head over the running stream, and cried and said, +'What will become of me?' And the lock of hair answered her again: + + 'Alas! alas! if thy mother knew it, + Sadly, sadly, would she rue it.' + +And as she leaned down to drink, the lock of hair fell from her bosom, +and floated away with the water. Now she was so frightened that she did +not see it; but her maid saw it, and was very glad, for she knew the +charm; and she saw that the poor bride would be in her power, now that +she had lost the hair. So when the bride had done drinking, and would +have got upon Falada again, the maid said, 'I shall ride upon Falada, +and you may have my horse instead'; so she was forced to give up her +horse, and soon afterwards to take off her royal clothes and put on her +maid's shabby ones. + +At last, as they drew near the end of their journey, this treacherous +servant threatened to kill her mistress if she ever told anyone what had +happened. But Falada saw it all, and marked it well. + +Then the waiting-maid got upon Falada, and the real bride rode upon the +other horse, and they went on in this way till at last they came to the +royal court. There was great joy at their coming, and the prince flew to +meet them, and lifted the maid from her horse, thinking she was the one +who was to be his wife; and she was led upstairs to the royal chamber; +but the true princess was told to stay in the court below. + +Now the old king happened just then to have nothing else to do; so he +amused himself by sitting at his kitchen window, looking at what was +going on; and he saw her in the courtyard. As she looked very pretty, +and too delicate for a waiting-maid, he went up into the royal chamber +to ask the bride who it was she had brought with her, that was thus left +standing in the court below. 'I brought her with me for the sake of her +company on the road,' said she; 'pray give the girl some work to do, +that she may not be idle.' The old king could not for some time think +of any work for her to do; but at last he said, 'I have a lad who takes +care of my geese; she may go and help him.' Now the name of this lad, +that the real bride was to help in watching the king's geese, was +Curdken. + +But the false bride said to the prince, 'Dear husband, pray do me one +piece of kindness.' 'That I will,' said the prince. 'Then tell one of +your slaughterers to cut off the head of the horse I rode upon, for it +was very unruly, and plagued me sadly on the road'; but the truth was, +she was very much afraid lest Falada should some day or other speak, and +tell all she had done to the princess. She carried her point, and the +faithful Falada was killed; but when the true princess heard of it, she +wept, and begged the man to nail up Falada's head against a large +dark gate of the city, through which she had to pass every morning +and evening, that there she might still see him sometimes. Then the +slaughterer said he would do as she wished; and cut off the head, and +nailed it up under the dark gate. + +Early the next morning, as she and Curdken went out through the gate, +she said sorrowfully: + + 'Falada, Falada, there thou hangest!' + +and the head answered: + + 'Bride, bride, there thou gangest! + Alas! alas! if thy mother knew it, + Sadly, sadly, would she rue it.' + +Then they went out of the city, and drove the geese on. And when she +came to the meadow, she sat down upon a bank there, and let down her +waving locks of hair, which were all of pure silver; and when Curdken +saw it glitter in the sun, he ran up, and would have pulled some of the +locks out, but she cried: + + 'Blow, breezes, blow! + Let Curdken's hat go! + Blow, breezes, blow! + Let him after it go! + O'er hills, dales, and rocks, + Away be it whirl'd + Till the silvery locks + Are all comb'd and curl'd! + +Then there came a wind, so strong that it blew off Curdken's hat; and +away it flew over the hills: and he was forced to turn and run after +it; till, by the time he came back, she had done combing and curling her +hair, and had put it up again safe. Then he was very angry and sulky, +and would not speak to her at all; but they watched the geese until it +grew dark in the evening, and then drove them homewards. + +The next morning, as they were going through the dark gate, the poor +girl looked up at Falada's head, and cried: + + 'Falada, Falada, there thou hangest!' + +and the head answered: + + 'Bride, bride, there thou gangest! + Alas! alas! if thy mother knew it, + Sadly, sadly, would she rue it.' + +Then she drove on the geese, and sat down again in the meadow, and began +to comb out her hair as before; and Curdken ran up to her, and wanted to +take hold of it; but she cried out quickly: + + 'Blow, breezes, blow! + Let Curdken's hat go! + Blow, breezes, blow! + Let him after it go! + O'er hills, dales, and rocks, + Away be it whirl'd + Till the silvery locks + Are all comb'd and curl'd! + +Then the wind came and blew away his hat; and off it flew a great way, +over the hills and far away, so that he had to run after it; and when +he came back she had bound up her hair again, and all was safe. So they +watched the geese till it grew dark. + +In the evening, after they came home, Curdken went to the old king, and +said, 'I cannot have that strange girl to help me to keep the geese any +longer.' 'Why?' said the king. 'Because, instead of doing any good, she +does nothing but tease me all day long.' Then the king made him tell him +what had happened. And Curdken said, 'When we go in the morning through +the dark gate with our flock of geese, she cries and talks with the head +of a horse that hangs upon the wall, and says: + + 'Falada, Falada, there thou hangest!' + +and the head answers: + + 'Bride, bride, there thou gangest! + Alas! alas! if thy mother knew it, + Sadly, sadly, would she rue it.' + +And Curdken went on telling the king what had happened upon the meadow +where the geese fed; how his hat was blown away; and how he was forced +to run after it, and to leave his flock of geese to themselves. But the +old king told the boy to go out again the next day: and when morning +came, he placed himself behind the dark gate, and heard how she spoke +to Falada, and how Falada answered. Then he went into the field, and +hid himself in a bush by the meadow's side; and he soon saw with his own +eyes how they drove the flock of geese; and how, after a little time, +she let down her hair that glittered in the sun. And then he heard her +say: + + 'Blow, breezes, blow! + Let Curdken's hat go! + Blow, breezes, blow! + Let him after it go! + O'er hills, dales, and rocks, + Away be it whirl'd + Till the silvery locks + Are all comb'd and curl'd! + +And soon came a gale of wind, and carried away Curdken's hat, and away +went Curdken after it, while the girl went on combing and curling her +hair. All this the old king saw: so he went home without being seen; and +when the little goose-girl came back in the evening he called her aside, +and asked her why she did so: but she burst into tears, and said, 'That +I must not tell you or any man, or I shall lose my life.' + +But the old king begged so hard, that she had no peace till she had told +him all the tale, from beginning to end, word for word. And it was very +lucky for her that she did so, for when she had done the king ordered +royal clothes to be put upon her, and gazed on her with wonder, she was +so beautiful. Then he called his son and told him that he had only a +false bride; for that she was merely a waiting-maid, while the true +bride stood by. And the young king rejoiced when he saw her beauty, and +heard how meek and patient she had been; and without saying anything to +the false bride, the king ordered a great feast to be got ready for all +his court. The bridegroom sat at the top, with the false princess on one +side, and the true one on the other; but nobody knew her again, for her +beauty was quite dazzling to their eyes; and she did not seem at all +like the little goose-girl, now that she had her brilliant dress on. + +When they had eaten and drank, and were very merry, the old king said +he would tell them a tale. So he began, and told all the story of the +princess, as if it was one that he had once heard; and he asked the +true waiting-maid what she thought ought to be done to anyone who would +behave thus. 'Nothing better,' said this false bride, 'than that she +should be thrown into a cask stuck round with sharp nails, and that +two white horses should be put to it, and should drag it from street to +street till she was dead.' 'Thou art she!' said the old king; 'and as +thou has judged thyself, so shall it be done to thee.' And the young +king was then married to his true wife, and they reigned over the +kingdom in peace and happiness all their lives; and the good fairy came +to see them, and restored the faithful Falada to life again. + + + + +THE ADVENTURES OF CHANTICLEER AND PARTLET + + +1. HOW THEY WENT TO THE MOUNTAINS TO EAT NUTS + +'The nuts are quite ripe now,' said Chanticleer to his wife Partlet, +'suppose we go together to the mountains, and eat as many as we can, +before the squirrel takes them all away.' 'With all my heart,' said +Partlet, 'let us go and make a holiday of it together.' + +So they went to the mountains; and as it was a lovely day, they stayed +there till the evening. Now, whether it was that they had eaten so many +nuts that they could not walk, or whether they were lazy and would not, +I do not know: however, they took it into their heads that it did not +become them to go home on foot. So Chanticleer began to build a little +carriage of nutshells: and when it was finished, Partlet jumped into +it and sat down, and bid Chanticleer harness himself to it and draw her +home. 'That's a good joke!' said Chanticleer; 'no, that will never do; +I had rather by half walk home; I'll sit on the box and be coachman, +if you like, but I'll not draw.' While this was passing, a duck came +quacking up and cried out, 'You thieving vagabonds, what business have +you in my grounds? I'll give it you well for your insolence!' and upon +that she fell upon Chanticleer most lustily. But Chanticleer was no +coward, and returned the duck's blows with his sharp spurs so fiercely +that she soon began to cry out for mercy; which was only granted her +upon condition that she would draw the carriage home for them. This she +agreed to do; and Chanticleer got upon the box, and drove, crying, 'Now, +duck, get on as fast as you can.' And away they went at a pretty good +pace. + +After they had travelled along a little way, they met a needle and a pin +walking together along the road: and the needle cried out, 'Stop, stop!' +and said it was so dark that they could hardly find their way, and such +dirty walking they could not get on at all: he told them that he and his +friend, the pin, had been at a public-house a few miles off, and had sat +drinking till they had forgotten how late it was; he begged therefore +that the travellers would be so kind as to give them a lift in their +carriage. Chanticleer observing that they were but thin fellows, and not +likely to take up much room, told them they might ride, but made them +promise not to dirty the wheels of the carriage in getting in, nor to +tread on Partlet's toes. + +Late at night they arrived at an inn; and as it was bad travelling in +the dark, and the duck seemed much tired, and waddled about a good +deal from one side to the other, they made up their minds to fix their +quarters there: but the landlord at first was unwilling, and said his +house was full, thinking they might not be very respectable company: +however, they spoke civilly to him, and gave him the egg which Partlet +had laid by the way, and said they would give him the duck, who was in +the habit of laying one every day: so at last he let them come in, and +they bespoke a handsome supper, and spent the evening very jollily. + +Early in the morning, before it was quite light, and when nobody was +stirring in the inn, Chanticleer awakened his wife, and, fetching the +egg, they pecked a hole in it, ate it up, and threw the shells into the +fireplace: they then went to the pin and needle, who were fast asleep, +and seizing them by the heads, stuck one into the landlord's easy chair +and the other into his handkerchief; and, having done this, they crept +away as softly as possible. However, the duck, who slept in the open +air in the yard, heard them coming, and jumping into the brook which ran +close by the inn, soon swam out of their reach. + +An hour or two afterwards the landlord got up, and took his handkerchief +to wipe his face, but the pin ran into him and pricked him: then he +walked into the kitchen to light his pipe at the fire, but when he +stirred it up the eggshells flew into his eyes, and almost blinded him. +'Bless me!' said he, 'all the world seems to have a design against my +head this morning': and so saying, he threw himself sulkily into his +easy chair; but, oh dear! the needle ran into him; and this time the +pain was not in his head. He now flew into a very great passion, and, +suspecting the company who had come in the night before, he went to look +after them, but they were all off; so he swore that he never again +would take in such a troop of vagabonds, who ate a great deal, paid no +reckoning, and gave him nothing for his trouble but their apish tricks. + + +2. HOW CHANTICLEER AND PARTLET WENT TO VISIT MR KORBES + +Another day, Chanticleer and Partlet wished to ride out together; +so Chanticleer built a handsome carriage with four red wheels, and +harnessed six mice to it; and then he and Partlet got into the carriage, +and away they drove. Soon afterwards a cat met them, and said, 'Where +are you going?' And Chanticleer replied, + + 'All on our way + A visit to pay + To Mr Korbes, the fox, today.' + +Then the cat said, 'Take me with you,' Chanticleer said, 'With all my +heart: get up behind, and be sure you do not fall off.' + + 'Take care of this handsome coach of mine, + Nor dirty my pretty red wheels so fine! + Now, mice, be ready, + And, wheels, run steady! + For we are going a visit to pay + To Mr Korbes, the fox, today.' + +Soon after came up a millstone, an egg, a duck, and a pin; and +Chanticleer gave them all leave to get into the carriage and go with +them. + +When they arrived at Mr Korbes's house, he was not at home; so the mice +drew the carriage into the coach-house, Chanticleer and Partlet flew +upon a beam, the cat sat down in the fireplace, the duck got into +the washing cistern, the pin stuck himself into the bed pillow, the +millstone laid himself over the house door, and the egg rolled himself +up in the towel. + +When Mr Korbes came home, he went to the fireplace to make a fire; but +the cat threw all the ashes in his eyes: so he ran to the kitchen to +wash himself; but there the duck splashed all the water in his face; and +when he tried to wipe himself, the egg broke to pieces in the towel all +over his face and eyes. Then he was very angry, and went without his +supper to bed; but when he laid his head on the pillow, the pin ran into +his cheek: at this he became quite furious, and, jumping up, would have +run out of the house; but when he came to the door, the millstone fell +down on his head, and killed him on the spot. + + +3. HOW PARTLET DIED AND WAS BURIED, AND HOW CHANTICLEER DIED OF GRIEF + +Another day Chanticleer and Partlet agreed to go again to the mountains +to eat nuts; and it was settled that all the nuts which they found +should be shared equally between them. Now Partlet found a very large +nut; but she said nothing about it to Chanticleer, and kept it all to +herself: however, it was so big that she could not swallow it, and it +stuck in her throat. Then she was in a great fright, and cried out to +Chanticleer, 'Pray run as fast as you can, and fetch me some water, or I +shall be choked.' Chanticleer ran as fast as he could to the river, and +said, 'River, give me some water, for Partlet lies in the mountain, and +will be choked by a great nut.' The river said, 'Run first to the bride, +and ask her for a silken cord to draw up the water.' Chanticleer ran to +the bride, and said, 'Bride, you must give me a silken cord, for then +the river will give me water, and the water I will carry to Partlet, who +lies on the mountain, and will be choked by a great nut.' But the bride +said, 'Run first, and bring me my garland that is hanging on a willow +in the garden.' Then Chanticleer ran to the garden, and took the garland +from the bough where it hung, and brought it to the bride; and then +the bride gave him the silken cord, and he took the silken cord to +the river, and the river gave him water, and he carried the water to +Partlet; but in the meantime she was choked by the great nut, and lay +quite dead, and never moved any more. + +Then Chanticleer was very sorry, and cried bitterly; and all the beasts +came and wept with him over poor Partlet. And six mice built a little +hearse to carry her to her grave; and when it was ready they harnessed +themselves before it, and Chanticleer drove them. On the way they +met the fox. 'Where are you going, Chanticleer?' said he. 'To bury my +Partlet,' said the other. 'May I go with you?' said the fox. 'Yes; but +you must get up behind, or my horses will not be able to draw you.' Then +the fox got up behind; and presently the wolf, the bear, the goat, and +all the beasts of the wood, came and climbed upon the hearse. + +So on they went till they came to a rapid stream. 'How shall we get +over?' said Chanticleer. Then said a straw, 'I will lay myself across, +and you may pass over upon me.' But as the mice were going over, the +straw slipped away and fell into the water, and the six mice all fell in +and were drowned. What was to be done? Then a large log of wood came +and said, 'I am big enough; I will lay myself across the stream, and you +shall pass over upon me.' So he laid himself down; but they managed +so clumsily, that the log of wood fell in and was carried away by the +stream. Then a stone, who saw what had happened, came up and kindly +offered to help poor Chanticleer by laying himself across the stream; +and this time he got safely to the other side with the hearse, and +managed to get Partlet out of it; but the fox and the other mourners, +who were sitting behind, were too heavy, and fell back into the water +and were all carried away by the stream and drowned. + +Thus Chanticleer was left alone with his dead Partlet; and having dug +a grave for her, he laid her in it, and made a little hillock over her. +Then he sat down by the grave, and wept and mourned, till at last he +died too; and so all were dead. + + + + +RAPUNZEL + +There were once a man and a woman who had long in vain wished for a +child. At length the woman hoped that God was about to grant her desire. +These people had a little window at the back of their house from which +a splendid garden could be seen, which was full of the most beautiful +flowers and herbs. It was, however, surrounded by a high wall, and no +one dared to go into it because it belonged to an enchantress, who had +great power and was dreaded by all the world. One day the woman was +standing by this window and looking down into the garden, when she saw a +bed which was planted with the most beautiful rampion (rapunzel), and it +looked so fresh and green that she longed for it, she quite pined away, +and began to look pale and miserable. Then her husband was alarmed, and +asked: 'What ails you, dear wife?' 'Ah,' she replied, 'if I can't eat +some of the rampion, which is in the garden behind our house, I shall +die.' The man, who loved her, thought: 'Sooner than let your wife die, +bring her some of the rampion yourself, let it cost what it will.' +At twilight, he clambered down over the wall into the garden of the +enchantress, hastily clutched a handful of rampion, and took it to his +wife. She at once made herself a salad of it, and ate it greedily. It +tasted so good to her--so very good, that the next day she longed for it +three times as much as before. If he was to have any rest, her husband +must once more descend into the garden. In the gloom of evening +therefore, he let himself down again; but when he had clambered down the +wall he was terribly afraid, for he saw the enchantress standing before +him. 'How can you dare,' said she with angry look, 'descend into my +garden and steal my rampion like a thief? You shall suffer for it!' +'Ah,' answered he, 'let mercy take the place of justice, I only made +up my mind to do it out of necessity. My wife saw your rampion from the +window, and felt such a longing for it that she would have died if she +had not got some to eat.' Then the enchantress allowed her anger to be +softened, and said to him: 'If the case be as you say, I will allow +you to take away with you as much rampion as you will, only I make one +condition, you must give me the child which your wife will bring into +the world; it shall be well treated, and I will care for it like a +mother.' The man in his terror consented to everything, and when the +woman was brought to bed, the enchantress appeared at once, gave the +child the name of Rapunzel, and took it away with her. + +Rapunzel grew into the most beautiful child under the sun. When she was +twelve years old, the enchantress shut her into a tower, which lay in +a forest, and had neither stairs nor door, but quite at the top was a +little window. When the enchantress wanted to go in, she placed herself +beneath it and cried: + + 'Rapunzel, Rapunzel, + Let down your hair to me.' + +Rapunzel had magnificent long hair, fine as spun gold, and when she +heard the voice of the enchantress she unfastened her braided tresses, +wound them round one of the hooks of the window above, and then the hair +fell twenty ells down, and the enchantress climbed up by it. + +After a year or two, it came to pass that the king's son rode through +the forest and passed by the tower. Then he heard a song, which was so +charming that he stood still and listened. This was Rapunzel, who in her +solitude passed her time in letting her sweet voice resound. The king's +son wanted to climb up to her, and looked for the door of the tower, +but none was to be found. He rode home, but the singing had so deeply +touched his heart, that every day he went out into the forest and +listened to it. Once when he was thus standing behind a tree, he saw +that an enchantress came there, and he heard how she cried: + + 'Rapunzel, Rapunzel, + Let down your hair to me.' + +Then Rapunzel let down the braids of her hair, and the enchantress +climbed up to her. 'If that is the ladder by which one mounts, I too +will try my fortune,' said he, and the next day when it began to grow +dark, he went to the tower and cried: + + 'Rapunzel, Rapunzel, + Let down your hair to me.' + +Immediately the hair fell down and the king's son climbed up. + +At first Rapunzel was terribly frightened when a man, such as her eyes +had never yet beheld, came to her; but the king's son began to talk to +her quite like a friend, and told her that his heart had been so stirred +that it had let him have no rest, and he had been forced to see her. +Then Rapunzel lost her fear, and when he asked her if she would take +him for her husband, and she saw that he was young and handsome, she +thought: 'He will love me more than old Dame Gothel does'; and she said +yes, and laid her hand in his. She said: 'I will willingly go away with +you, but I do not know how to get down. Bring with you a skein of silk +every time that you come, and I will weave a ladder with it, and when +that is ready I will descend, and you will take me on your horse.' They +agreed that until that time he should come to her every evening, for the +old woman came by day. The enchantress remarked nothing of this, until +once Rapunzel said to her: 'Tell me, Dame Gothel, how it happens that +you are so much heavier for me to draw up than the young king's son--he +is with me in a moment.' 'Ah! you wicked child,' cried the enchantress. +'What do I hear you say! I thought I had separated you from all +the world, and yet you have deceived me!' In her anger she clutched +Rapunzel's beautiful tresses, wrapped them twice round her left hand, +seized a pair of scissors with the right, and snip, snap, they were cut +off, and the lovely braids lay on the ground. And she was so pitiless +that she took poor Rapunzel into a desert where she had to live in great +grief and misery. + +On the same day that she cast out Rapunzel, however, the enchantress +fastened the braids of hair, which she had cut off, to the hook of the +window, and when the king's son came and cried: + + 'Rapunzel, Rapunzel, + Let down your hair to me.' + +she let the hair down. The king's son ascended, but instead of finding +his dearest Rapunzel, he found the enchantress, who gazed at him with +wicked and venomous looks. 'Aha!' she cried mockingly, 'you would fetch +your dearest, but the beautiful bird sits no longer singing in the nest; +the cat has got it, and will scratch out your eyes as well. Rapunzel is +lost to you; you will never see her again.' The king's son was beside +himself with pain, and in his despair he leapt down from the tower. He +escaped with his life, but the thorns into which he fell pierced his +eyes. Then he wandered quite blind about the forest, ate nothing but +roots and berries, and did naught but lament and weep over the loss of +his dearest wife. Thus he roamed about in misery for some years, and at +length came to the desert where Rapunzel, with the twins to which she +had given birth, a boy and a girl, lived in wretchedness. He heard a +voice, and it seemed so familiar to him that he went towards it, and +when he approached, Rapunzel knew him and fell on his neck and wept. Two +of her tears wetted his eyes and they grew clear again, and he could +see with them as before. He led her to his kingdom where he was +joyfully received, and they lived for a long time afterwards, happy and +contented. + + + + +FUNDEVOGEL + +There was once a forester who went into the forest to hunt, and as +he entered it he heard a sound of screaming as if a little child were +there. He followed the sound, and at last came to a high tree, and at +the top of this a little child was sitting, for the mother had fallen +asleep under the tree with the child, and a bird of prey had seen it in +her arms, had flown down, snatched it away, and set it on the high tree. + +The forester climbed up, brought the child down, and thought to himself: +'You will take him home with you, and bring him up with your Lina.' He +took it home, therefore, and the two children grew up together. And the +one, which he had found on a tree was called Fundevogel, because a bird +had carried it away. Fundevogel and Lina loved each other so dearly that +when they did not see each other they were sad. + +Now the forester had an old cook, who one evening took two pails and +began to fetch water, and did not go once only, but many times, out +to the spring. Lina saw this and said, 'Listen, old Sanna, why are you +fetching so much water?' 'If you will never repeat it to anyone, I will +tell you why.' So Lina said, no, she would never repeat it to anyone, +and then the cook said: 'Early tomorrow morning, when the forester +is out hunting, I will heat the water, and when it is boiling in the +kettle, I will throw in Fundevogel, and will boil him in it.' + +Early next morning the forester got up and went out hunting, and when he +was gone the children were still in bed. Then Lina said to Fundevogel: +'If you will never leave me, I too will never leave you.' Fundevogel +said: 'Neither now, nor ever will I leave you.' Then said Lina: 'Then +will I tell you. Last night, old Sanna carried so many buckets of water +into the house that I asked her why she was doing that, and she said +that if I would promise not to tell anyone, and she said that early +tomorrow morning when father was out hunting, she would set the kettle +full of water, throw you into it and boil you; but we will get up +quickly, dress ourselves, and go away together.' + +The two children therefore got up, dressed themselves quickly, and went +away. When the water in the kettle was boiling, the cook went into the +bedroom to fetch Fundevogel and throw him into it. But when she came in, +and went to the beds, both the children were gone. Then she was terribly +alarmed, and she said to herself: 'What shall I say now when the +forester comes home and sees that the children are gone? They must be +followed instantly to get them back again.' + +Then the cook sent three servants after them, who were to run and +overtake the children. The children, however, were sitting outside the +forest, and when they saw from afar the three servants running, Lina +said to Fundevogel: 'Never leave me, and I will never leave you.' +Fundevogel said: 'Neither now, nor ever.' Then said Lina: 'Do you become +a rose-tree, and I the rose upon it.' When the three servants came to +the forest, nothing was there but a rose-tree and one rose on it, but +the children were nowhere. Then said they: 'There is nothing to be done +here,' and they went home and told the cook that they had seen nothing +in the forest but a little rose-bush with one rose on it. Then the +old cook scolded and said: 'You simpletons, you should have cut the +rose-bush in two, and have broken off the rose and brought it home with +you; go, and do it at once.' They had therefore to go out and look for +the second time. The children, however, saw them coming from a distance. +Then Lina said: 'Fundevogel, never leave me, and I will never leave +you.' Fundevogel said: 'Neither now; nor ever.' Said Lina: 'Then do you +become a church, and I'll be the chandelier in it.' So when the three +servants came, nothing was there but a church, with a chandelier in +it. They said therefore to each other: 'What can we do here, let us go +home.' When they got home, the cook asked if they had not found them; +so they said no, they had found nothing but a church, and there was a +chandelier in it. And the cook scolded them and said: 'You fools! why +did you not pull the church to pieces, and bring the chandelier home +with you?' And now the old cook herself got on her legs, and went with +the three servants in pursuit of the children. The children, however, +saw from afar that the three servants were coming, and the cook waddling +after them. Then said Lina: 'Fundevogel, never leave me, and I will +never leave you.' Then said Fundevogel: 'Neither now, nor ever.' +Said Lina: 'Be a fishpond, and I will be the duck upon it.' The cook, +however, came up to them, and when she saw the pond she lay down by it, +and was about to drink it up. But the duck swam quickly to her, seized +her head in its beak and drew her into the water, and there the old +witch had to drown. Then the children went home together, and were +heartily delighted, and if they have not died, they are living still. + + + + +THE VALIANT LITTLE TAILOR + +One summer's morning a little tailor was sitting on his table by the +window; he was in good spirits, and sewed with all his might. Then came +a peasant woman down the street crying: 'Good jams, cheap! Good jams, +cheap!' This rang pleasantly in the tailor's ears; he stretched his +delicate head out of the window, and called: 'Come up here, dear woman; +here you will get rid of your goods.' The woman came up the three steps +to the tailor with her heavy basket, and he made her unpack all the pots +for him. He inspected each one, lifted it up, put his nose to it, and +at length said: 'The jam seems to me to be good, so weigh me out four +ounces, dear woman, and if it is a quarter of a pound that is of no +consequence.' The woman who had hoped to find a good sale, gave him +what he desired, but went away quite angry and grumbling. 'Now, this jam +shall be blessed by God,' cried the little tailor, 'and give me health +and strength'; so he brought the bread out of the cupboard, cut himself +a piece right across the loaf and spread the jam over it. 'This won't +taste bitter,' said he, 'but I will just finish the jacket before I +take a bite.' He laid the bread near him, sewed on, and in his joy, made +bigger and bigger stitches. In the meantime the smell of the sweet jam +rose to where the flies were sitting in great numbers, and they were +attracted and descended on it in hosts. 'Hi! who invited you?' said the +little tailor, and drove the unbidden guests away. The flies, however, +who understood no German, would not be turned away, but came back +again in ever-increasing companies. The little tailor at last lost all +patience, and drew a piece of cloth from the hole under his work-table, +and saying: 'Wait, and I will give it to you,' struck it mercilessly on +them. When he drew it away and counted, there lay before him no fewer +than seven, dead and with legs stretched out. 'Are you a fellow of that +sort?' said he, and could not help admiring his own bravery. 'The whole +town shall know of this!' And the little tailor hastened to cut himself +a girdle, stitched it, and embroidered on it in large letters: 'Seven at +one stroke!' 'What, the town!' he continued, 'the whole world shall hear +of it!' and his heart wagged with joy like a lamb's tail. The tailor +put on the girdle, and resolved to go forth into the world, because he +thought his workshop was too small for his valour. Before he went away, +he sought about in the house to see if there was anything which he could +take with him; however, he found nothing but an old cheese, and that +he put in his pocket. In front of the door he observed a bird which +had caught itself in the thicket. It had to go into his pocket with the +cheese. Now he took to the road boldly, and as he was light and nimble, +he felt no fatigue. The road led him up a mountain, and when he had +reached the highest point of it, there sat a powerful giant looking +peacefully about him. The little tailor went bravely up, spoke to him, +and said: 'Good day, comrade, so you are sitting there overlooking the +wide-spread world! I am just on my way thither, and want to try my luck. +Have you any inclination to go with me?' The giant looked contemptuously +at the tailor, and said: 'You ragamuffin! You miserable creature!' + +'Oh, indeed?' answered the little tailor, and unbuttoned his coat, and +showed the giant the girdle, 'there may you read what kind of a man I +am!' The giant read: 'Seven at one stroke,' and thought that they had +been men whom the tailor had killed, and began to feel a little respect +for the tiny fellow. Nevertheless, he wished to try him first, and took +a stone in his hand and squeezed it together so that water dropped out +of it. 'Do that likewise,' said the giant, 'if you have strength.' 'Is +that all?' said the tailor, 'that is child's play with us!' and put his +hand into his pocket, brought out the soft cheese, and pressed it until +the liquid ran out of it. 'Faith,' said he, 'that was a little better, +wasn't it?' The giant did not know what to say, and could not believe it +of the little man. Then the giant picked up a stone and threw it so high +that the eye could scarcely follow it. 'Now, little mite of a man, do +that likewise,' 'Well thrown,' said the tailor, 'but after all the stone +came down to earth again; I will throw you one which shall never come +back at all,' and he put his hand into his pocket, took out the bird, +and threw it into the air. The bird, delighted with its liberty, +rose, flew away and did not come back. 'How does that shot please you, +comrade?' asked the tailor. 'You can certainly throw,' said the giant, +'but now we will see if you are able to carry anything properly.' He +took the little tailor to a mighty oak tree which lay there felled on +the ground, and said: 'If you are strong enough, help me to carry the +tree out of the forest.' 'Readily,' answered the little man; 'take you +the trunk on your shoulders, and I will raise up the branches and twigs; +after all, they are the heaviest.' The giant took the trunk on his +shoulder, but the tailor seated himself on a branch, and the giant, who +could not look round, had to carry away the whole tree, and the little +tailor into the bargain: he behind, was quite merry and happy, and +whistled the song: 'Three tailors rode forth from the gate,' as if +carrying the tree were child's play. The giant, after he had dragged the +heavy burden part of the way, could go no further, and cried: 'Hark +you, I shall have to let the tree fall!' The tailor sprang nimbly down, +seized the tree with both arms as if he had been carrying it, and said +to the giant: 'You are such a great fellow, and yet cannot even carry +the tree!' + +They went on together, and as they passed a cherry-tree, the giant laid +hold of the top of the tree where the ripest fruit was hanging, bent it +down, gave it into the tailor's hand, and bade him eat. But the little +tailor was much too weak to hold the tree, and when the giant let it go, +it sprang back again, and the tailor was tossed into the air with it. +When he had fallen down again without injury, the giant said: 'What is +this? Have you not strength enough to hold the weak twig?' 'There is no +lack of strength,' answered the little tailor. 'Do you think that could +be anything to a man who has struck down seven at one blow? I leapt over +the tree because the huntsmen are shooting down there in the thicket. +Jump as I did, if you can do it.' The giant made the attempt but he +could not get over the tree, and remained hanging in the branches, so +that in this also the tailor kept the upper hand. + +The giant said: 'If you are such a valiant fellow, come with me into our +cavern and spend the night with us.' The little tailor was willing, and +followed him. When they went into the cave, other giants were sitting +there by the fire, and each of them had a roasted sheep in his hand and +was eating it. The little tailor looked round and thought: 'It is much +more spacious here than in my workshop.' The giant showed him a bed, and +said he was to lie down in it and sleep. The bed, however, was too +big for the little tailor; he did not lie down in it, but crept into +a corner. When it was midnight, and the giant thought that the little +tailor was lying in a sound sleep, he got up, took a great iron bar, +cut through the bed with one blow, and thought he had finished off the +grasshopper for good. With the earliest dawn the giants went into the +forest, and had quite forgotten the little tailor, when all at once he +walked up to them quite merrily and boldly. The giants were terrified, +they were afraid that he would strike them all dead, and ran away in a +great hurry. + +The little tailor went onwards, always following his own pointed nose. +After he had walked for a long time, he came to the courtyard of a royal +palace, and as he felt weary, he lay down on the grass and fell asleep. +Whilst he lay there, the people came and inspected him on all sides, and +read on his girdle: 'Seven at one stroke.' 'Ah!' said they, 'what does +the great warrior want here in the midst of peace? He must be a mighty +lord.' They went and announced him to the king, and gave it as their +opinion that if war should break out, this would be a weighty and useful +man who ought on no account to be allowed to depart. The counsel pleased +the king, and he sent one of his courtiers to the little tailor to offer +him military service when he awoke. The ambassador remained standing by +the sleeper, waited until he stretched his limbs and opened his eyes, +and then conveyed to him this proposal. 'For this very reason have +I come here,' the tailor replied, 'I am ready to enter the king's +service.' He was therefore honourably received, and a special dwelling +was assigned him. + +The soldiers, however, were set against the little tailor, and wished +him a thousand miles away. 'What is to be the end of this?' they said +among themselves. 'If we quarrel with him, and he strikes about him, +seven of us will fall at every blow; not one of us can stand against +him.' They came therefore to a decision, betook themselves in a body to +the king, and begged for their dismissal. 'We are not prepared,' said +they, 'to stay with a man who kills seven at one stroke.' The king was +sorry that for the sake of one he should lose all his faithful servants, +wished that he had never set eyes on the tailor, and would willingly +have been rid of him again. But he did not venture to give him his +dismissal, for he dreaded lest he should strike him and all his people +dead, and place himself on the royal throne. He thought about it for a +long time, and at last found good counsel. He sent to the little tailor +and caused him to be informed that as he was a great warrior, he had one +request to make to him. In a forest of his country lived two giants, +who caused great mischief with their robbing, murdering, ravaging, +and burning, and no one could approach them without putting himself in +danger of death. If the tailor conquered and killed these two giants, he +would give him his only daughter to wife, and half of his kingdom as a +dowry, likewise one hundred horsemen should go with him to assist him. +'That would indeed be a fine thing for a man like me!' thought the +little tailor. 'One is not offered a beautiful princess and half a +kingdom every day of one's life!' 'Oh, yes,' he replied, 'I will soon +subdue the giants, and do not require the help of the hundred horsemen +to do it; he who can hit seven with one blow has no need to be afraid of +two.' + +The little tailor went forth, and the hundred horsemen followed him. +When he came to the outskirts of the forest, he said to his followers: +'Just stay waiting here, I alone will soon finish off the giants.' Then +he bounded into the forest and looked about right and left. After a +while he perceived both giants. They lay sleeping under a tree, and +snored so that the branches waved up and down. The little tailor, not +idle, gathered two pocketsful of stones, and with these climbed up the +tree. When he was halfway up, he slipped down by a branch, until he sat +just above the sleepers, and then let one stone after another fall on +the breast of one of the giants. For a long time the giant felt nothing, +but at last he awoke, pushed his comrade, and said: 'Why are you +knocking me?' 'You must be dreaming,' said the other, 'I am not knocking +you.' They laid themselves down to sleep again, and then the tailor +threw a stone down on the second. 'What is the meaning of this?' cried +the other 'Why are you pelting me?' 'I am not pelting you,' answered +the first, growling. They disputed about it for a time, but as they were +weary they let the matter rest, and their eyes closed once more. The +little tailor began his game again, picked out the biggest stone, and +threw it with all his might on the breast of the first giant. 'That +is too bad!' cried he, and sprang up like a madman, and pushed his +companion against the tree until it shook. The other paid him back in +the same coin, and they got into such a rage that they tore up trees and +belaboured each other so long, that at last they both fell down dead on +the ground at the same time. Then the little tailor leapt down. 'It is +a lucky thing,' said he, 'that they did not tear up the tree on which +I was sitting, or I should have had to sprint on to another like a +squirrel; but we tailors are nimble.' He drew out his sword and gave +each of them a couple of thrusts in the breast, and then went out to the +horsemen and said: 'The work is done; I have finished both of them +off, but it was hard work! They tore up trees in their sore need, and +defended themselves with them, but all that is to no purpose when a man +like myself comes, who can kill seven at one blow.' 'But are you not +wounded?' asked the horsemen. 'You need not concern yourself about +that,' answered the tailor, 'they have not bent one hair of mine.' The +horsemen would not believe him, and rode into the forest; there they +found the giants swimming in their blood, and all round about lay the +torn-up trees. + +The little tailor demanded of the king the promised reward; he, however, +repented of his promise, and again bethought himself how he could get +rid of the hero. 'Before you receive my daughter, and the half of my +kingdom,' said he to him, 'you must perform one more heroic deed. In +the forest roams a unicorn which does great harm, and you must catch +it first.' 'I fear one unicorn still less than two giants. Seven at one +blow, is my kind of affair.' He took a rope and an axe with him, went +forth into the forest, and again bade those who were sent with him to +wait outside. He had not long to seek. The unicorn soon came towards +him, and rushed directly on the tailor, as if it would gore him with its +horn without more ado. 'Softly, softly; it can't be done as quickly as +that,' said he, and stood still and waited until the animal was quite +close, and then sprang nimbly behind the tree. The unicorn ran against +the tree with all its strength, and stuck its horn so fast in the trunk +that it had not the strength enough to draw it out again, and thus it +was caught. 'Now, I have got the bird,' said the tailor, and came out +from behind the tree and put the rope round its neck, and then with his +axe he hewed the horn out of the tree, and when all was ready he led the +beast away and took it to the king. + +The king still would not give him the promised reward, and made a third +demand. Before the wedding the tailor was to catch him a wild boar that +made great havoc in the forest, and the huntsmen should give him their +help. 'Willingly,' said the tailor, 'that is child's play!' He did not +take the huntsmen with him into the forest, and they were well pleased +that he did not, for the wild boar had several times received them in +such a manner that they had no inclination to lie in wait for him. When +the boar perceived the tailor, it ran on him with foaming mouth and +whetted tusks, and was about to throw him to the ground, but the hero +fled and sprang into a chapel which was near and up to the window at +once, and in one bound out again. The boar ran after him, but the tailor +ran round outside and shut the door behind it, and then the raging +beast, which was much too heavy and awkward to leap out of the window, +was caught. The little tailor called the huntsmen thither that they +might see the prisoner with their own eyes. The hero, however, went to +the king, who was now, whether he liked it or not, obliged to keep his +promise, and gave his daughter and the half of his kingdom. Had he known +that it was no warlike hero, but a little tailor who was standing before +him, it would have gone to his heart still more than it did. The wedding +was held with great magnificence and small joy, and out of a tailor a +king was made. + +After some time the young queen heard her husband say in his dreams at +night: 'Boy, make me the doublet, and patch the pantaloons, or else I +will rap the yard-measure over your ears.' Then she discovered in what +state of life the young lord had been born, and next morning complained +of her wrongs to her father, and begged him to help her to get rid of +her husband, who was nothing else but a tailor. The king comforted her +and said: 'Leave your bedroom door open this night, and my servants +shall stand outside, and when he has fallen asleep shall go in, bind +him, and take him on board a ship which shall carry him into the wide +world.' The woman was satisfied with this; but the king's armour-bearer, +who had heard all, was friendly with the young lord, and informed him of +the whole plot. 'I'll put a screw into that business,' said the little +tailor. At night he went to bed with his wife at the usual time, and +when she thought that he had fallen asleep, she got up, opened the door, +and then lay down again. The little tailor, who was only pretending to +be asleep, began to cry out in a clear voice: 'Boy, make me the doublet +and patch me the pantaloons, or I will rap the yard-measure over your +ears. I smote seven at one blow. I killed two giants, I brought away one +unicorn, and caught a wild boar, and am I to fear those who are standing +outside the room.' When these men heard the tailor speaking thus, they +were overcome by a great dread, and ran as if the wild huntsman were +behind them, and none of them would venture anything further against +him. So the little tailor was and remained a king to the end of his +life. + + + + +HANSEL AND GRETEL + +Hard by a great forest dwelt a poor wood-cutter with his wife and his +two children. The boy was called Hansel and the girl Gretel. He had +little to bite and to break, and once when great dearth fell on the +land, he could no longer procure even daily bread. Now when he thought +over this by night in his bed, and tossed about in his anxiety, he +groaned and said to his wife: 'What is to become of us? How are we +to feed our poor children, when we no longer have anything even for +ourselves?' 'I'll tell you what, husband,' answered the woman, 'early +tomorrow morning we will take the children out into the forest to where +it is the thickest; there we will light a fire for them, and give each +of them one more piece of bread, and then we will go to our work and +leave them alone. They will not find the way home again, and we shall be +rid of them.' 'No, wife,' said the man, 'I will not do that; how can I +bear to leave my children alone in the forest?--the wild animals would +soon come and tear them to pieces.' 'O, you fool!' said she, 'then we +must all four die of hunger, you may as well plane the planks for our +coffins,' and she left him no peace until he consented. 'But I feel very +sorry for the poor children, all the same,' said the man. + +The two children had also not been able to sleep for hunger, and had +heard what their stepmother had said to their father. Gretel wept +bitter tears, and said to Hansel: 'Now all is over with us.' 'Be quiet, +Gretel,' said Hansel, 'do not distress yourself, I will soon find a way +to help us.' And when the old folks had fallen asleep, he got up, put +on his little coat, opened the door below, and crept outside. The moon +shone brightly, and the white pebbles which lay in front of the house +glittered like real silver pennies. Hansel stooped and stuffed the +little pocket of his coat with as many as he could get in. Then he went +back and said to Gretel: 'Be comforted, dear little sister, and sleep in +peace, God will not forsake us,' and he lay down again in his bed. When +day dawned, but before the sun had risen, the woman came and awoke the +two children, saying: 'Get up, you sluggards! we are going into the +forest to fetch wood.' She gave each a little piece of bread, and said: +'There is something for your dinner, but do not eat it up before then, +for you will get nothing else.' Gretel took the bread under her apron, +as Hansel had the pebbles in his pocket. Then they all set out together +on the way to the forest. When they had walked a short time, Hansel +stood still and peeped back at the house, and did so again and again. +His father said: 'Hansel, what are you looking at there and staying +behind for? Pay attention, and do not forget how to use your legs.' 'Ah, +father,' said Hansel, 'I am looking at my little white cat, which is +sitting up on the roof, and wants to say goodbye to me.' The wife said: +'Fool, that is not your little cat, that is the morning sun which is +shining on the chimneys.' Hansel, however, had not been looking back at +the cat, but had been constantly throwing one of the white pebble-stones +out of his pocket on the road. + +When they had reached the middle of the forest, the father said: 'Now, +children, pile up some wood, and I will light a fire that you may not +be cold.' Hansel and Gretel gathered brushwood together, as high as a +little hill. The brushwood was lighted, and when the flames were burning +very high, the woman said: 'Now, children, lay yourselves down by the +fire and rest, we will go into the forest and cut some wood. When we +have done, we will come back and fetch you away.' + +Hansel and Gretel sat by the fire, and when noon came, each ate a little +piece of bread, and as they heard the strokes of the wood-axe they +believed that their father was near. It was not the axe, however, but +a branch which he had fastened to a withered tree which the wind was +blowing backwards and forwards. And as they had been sitting such a long +time, their eyes closed with fatigue, and they fell fast asleep. When +at last they awoke, it was already dark night. Gretel began to cry and +said: 'How are we to get out of the forest now?' But Hansel comforted +her and said: 'Just wait a little, until the moon has risen, and then we +will soon find the way.' And when the full moon had risen, Hansel took +his little sister by the hand, and followed the pebbles which shone like +newly-coined silver pieces, and showed them the way. + +They walked the whole night long, and by break of day came once more +to their father's house. They knocked at the door, and when the woman +opened it and saw that it was Hansel and Gretel, she said: 'You naughty +children, why have you slept so long in the forest?--we thought you were +never coming back at all!' The father, however, rejoiced, for it had cut +him to the heart to leave them behind alone. + +Not long afterwards, there was once more great dearth throughout the +land, and the children heard their mother saying at night to their +father: 'Everything is eaten again, we have one half loaf left, and that +is the end. The children must go, we will take them farther into the +wood, so that they will not find their way out again; there is no other +means of saving ourselves!' The man's heart was heavy, and he thought: +'It would be better for you to share the last mouthful with your +children.' The woman, however, would listen to nothing that he had to +say, but scolded and reproached him. He who says A must say B, likewise, +and as he had yielded the first time, he had to do so a second time +also. + +The children, however, were still awake and had heard the conversation. +When the old folks were asleep, Hansel again got up, and wanted to go +out and pick up pebbles as he had done before, but the woman had locked +the door, and Hansel could not get out. Nevertheless he comforted his +little sister, and said: 'Do not cry, Gretel, go to sleep quietly, the +good God will help us.' + +Early in the morning came the woman, and took the children out of their +beds. Their piece of bread was given to them, but it was still smaller +than the time before. On the way into the forest Hansel crumbled his +in his pocket, and often stood still and threw a morsel on the ground. +'Hansel, why do you stop and look round?' said the father, 'go on.' 'I +am looking back at my little pigeon which is sitting on the roof, and +wants to say goodbye to me,' answered Hansel. 'Fool!' said the woman, +'that is not your little pigeon, that is the morning sun that is shining +on the chimney.' Hansel, however little by little, threw all the crumbs +on the path. + +The woman led the children still deeper into the forest, where they had +never in their lives been before. Then a great fire was again made, and +the mother said: 'Just sit there, you children, and when you are tired +you may sleep a little; we are going into the forest to cut wood, and in +the evening when we are done, we will come and fetch you away.' When +it was noon, Gretel shared her piece of bread with Hansel, who had +scattered his by the way. Then they fell asleep and evening passed, but +no one came to the poor children. They did not awake until it was dark +night, and Hansel comforted his little sister and said: 'Just wait, +Gretel, until the moon rises, and then we shall see the crumbs of bread +which I have strewn about, they will show us our way home again.' When +the moon came they set out, but they found no crumbs, for the many +thousands of birds which fly about in the woods and fields had picked +them all up. Hansel said to Gretel: 'We shall soon find the way,' but +they did not find it. They walked the whole night and all the next day +too from morning till evening, but they did not get out of the forest, +and were very hungry, for they had nothing to eat but two or three +berries, which grew on the ground. And as they were so weary that their +legs would carry them no longer, they lay down beneath a tree and fell +asleep. + +It was now three mornings since they had left their father's house. They +began to walk again, but they always came deeper into the forest, and if +help did not come soon, they must die of hunger and weariness. When it +was mid-day, they saw a beautiful snow-white bird sitting on a bough, +which sang so delightfully that they stood still and listened to it. And +when its song was over, it spread its wings and flew away before them, +and they followed it until they reached a little house, on the roof of +which it alighted; and when they approached the little house they saw +that it was built of bread and covered with cakes, but that the windows +were of clear sugar. 'We will set to work on that,' said Hansel, 'and +have a good meal. I will eat a bit of the roof, and you Gretel, can eat +some of the window, it will taste sweet.' Hansel reached up above, and +broke off a little of the roof to try how it tasted, and Gretel leant +against the window and nibbled at the panes. Then a soft voice cried +from the parlour: + + 'Nibble, nibble, gnaw, + Who is nibbling at my little house?' + +The children answered: + + 'The wind, the wind, + The heaven-born wind,' + +and went on eating without disturbing themselves. Hansel, who liked the +taste of the roof, tore down a great piece of it, and Gretel pushed out +the whole of one round window-pane, sat down, and enjoyed herself with +it. Suddenly the door opened, and a woman as old as the hills, who +supported herself on crutches, came creeping out. Hansel and Gretel were +so terribly frightened that they let fall what they had in their +hands. The old woman, however, nodded her head, and said: 'Oh, you dear +children, who has brought you here? do come in, and stay with me. No +harm shall happen to you.' She took them both by the hand, and led them +into her little house. Then good food was set before them, milk and +pancakes, with sugar, apples, and nuts. Afterwards two pretty little +beds were covered with clean white linen, and Hansel and Gretel lay down +in them, and thought they were in heaven. + +The old woman had only pretended to be so kind; she was in reality +a wicked witch, who lay in wait for children, and had only built the +little house of bread in order to entice them there. When a child fell +into her power, she killed it, cooked and ate it, and that was a feast +day with her. Witches have red eyes, and cannot see far, but they have +a keen scent like the beasts, and are aware when human beings draw near. +When Hansel and Gretel came into her neighbourhood, she laughed with +malice, and said mockingly: 'I have them, they shall not escape me +again!' Early in the morning before the children were awake, she was +already up, and when she saw both of them sleeping and looking so +pretty, with their plump and rosy cheeks she muttered to herself: 'That +will be a dainty mouthful!' Then she seized Hansel with her shrivelled +hand, carried him into a little stable, and locked him in behind a +grated door. Scream as he might, it would not help him. Then she went to +Gretel, shook her till she awoke, and cried: 'Get up, lazy thing, fetch +some water, and cook something good for your brother, he is in the +stable outside, and is to be made fat. When he is fat, I will eat him.' +Gretel began to weep bitterly, but it was all in vain, for she was +forced to do what the wicked witch commanded. + +And now the best food was cooked for poor Hansel, but Gretel got nothing +but crab-shells. Every morning the woman crept to the little stable, and +cried: 'Hansel, stretch out your finger that I may feel if you will soon +be fat.' Hansel, however, stretched out a little bone to her, and +the old woman, who had dim eyes, could not see it, and thought it was +Hansel's finger, and was astonished that there was no way of fattening +him. When four weeks had gone by, and Hansel still remained thin, she +was seized with impatience and would not wait any longer. 'Now, then, +Gretel,' she cried to the girl, 'stir yourself, and bring some water. +Let Hansel be fat or lean, tomorrow I will kill him, and cook him.' Ah, +how the poor little sister did lament when she had to fetch the water, +and how her tears did flow down her cheeks! 'Dear God, do help us,' she +cried. 'If the wild beasts in the forest had but devoured us, we should +at any rate have died together.' 'Just keep your noise to yourself,' +said the old woman, 'it won't help you at all.' + +Early in the morning, Gretel had to go out and hang up the cauldron with +the water, and light the fire. 'We will bake first,' said the old woman, +'I have already heated the oven, and kneaded the dough.' She pushed poor +Gretel out to the oven, from which flames of fire were already darting. +'Creep in,' said the witch, 'and see if it is properly heated, so that +we can put the bread in.' And once Gretel was inside, she intended to +shut the oven and let her bake in it, and then she would eat her, too. +But Gretel saw what she had in mind, and said: 'I do not know how I am +to do it; how do I get in?' 'Silly goose,' said the old woman. 'The door +is big enough; just look, I can get in myself!' and she crept up and +thrust her head into the oven. Then Gretel gave her a push that drove +her far into it, and shut the iron door, and fastened the bolt. Oh! then +she began to howl quite horribly, but Gretel ran away and the godless +witch was miserably burnt to death. + +Gretel, however, ran like lightning to Hansel, opened his little stable, +and cried: 'Hansel, we are saved! The old witch is dead!' Then Hansel +sprang like a bird from its cage when the door is opened. How they did +rejoice and embrace each other, and dance about and kiss each other! And +as they had no longer any need to fear her, they went into the witch's +house, and in every corner there stood chests full of pearls and jewels. +'These are far better than pebbles!' said Hansel, and thrust into his +pockets whatever could be got in, and Gretel said: 'I, too, will take +something home with me,' and filled her pinafore full. 'But now we must +be off,' said Hansel, 'that we may get out of the witch's forest.' + +When they had walked for two hours, they came to a great stretch of +water. 'We cannot cross,' said Hansel, 'I see no foot-plank, and no +bridge.' 'And there is also no ferry,' answered Gretel, 'but a white +duck is swimming there: if I ask her, she will help us over.' Then she +cried: + + 'Little duck, little duck, dost thou see, + Hansel and Gretel are waiting for thee? + There's never a plank, or bridge in sight, + Take us across on thy back so white.' + +The duck came to them, and Hansel seated himself on its back, and told +his sister to sit by him. 'No,' replied Gretel, 'that will be too heavy +for the little duck; she shall take us across, one after the other.' The +good little duck did so, and when they were once safely across and had +walked for a short time, the forest seemed to be more and more familiar +to them, and at length they saw from afar their father's house. Then +they began to run, rushed into the parlour, and threw themselves round +their father's neck. The man had not known one happy hour since he had +left the children in the forest; the woman, however, was dead. Gretel +emptied her pinafore until pearls and precious stones ran about the +room, and Hansel threw one handful after another out of his pocket to +add to them. Then all anxiety was at an end, and they lived together +in perfect happiness. My tale is done, there runs a mouse; whosoever +catches it, may make himself a big fur cap out of it. + + + + +THE MOUSE, THE BIRD, AND THE SAUSAGE + +Once upon a time, a mouse, a bird, and a sausage, entered into +partnership and set up house together. For a long time all went well; +they lived in great comfort, and prospered so far as to be able to add +considerably to their stores. The bird's duty was to fly daily into the +wood and bring in fuel; the mouse fetched the water, and the sausage saw +to the cooking. + +When people are too well off they always begin to long for something +new. And so it came to pass, that the bird, while out one day, met a +fellow bird, to whom he boastfully expatiated on the excellence of his +household arrangements. But the other bird sneered at him for being a +poor simpleton, who did all the hard work, while the other two stayed +at home and had a good time of it. For, when the mouse had made the fire +and fetched in the water, she could retire into her little room and rest +until it was time to set the table. The sausage had only to watch the +pot to see that the food was properly cooked, and when it was near +dinner-time, he just threw himself into the broth, or rolled in and out +among the vegetables three or four times, and there they were, buttered, +and salted, and ready to be served. Then, when the bird came home and +had laid aside his burden, they sat down to table, and when they had +finished their meal, they could sleep their fill till the following +morning: and that was really a very delightful life. + +Influenced by those remarks, the bird next morning refused to bring in +the wood, telling the others that he had been their servant long enough, +and had been a fool into the bargain, and that it was now time to make a +change, and to try some other way of arranging the work. Beg and pray +as the mouse and the sausage might, it was of no use; the bird remained +master of the situation, and the venture had to be made. They therefore +drew lots, and it fell to the sausage to bring in the wood, to the mouse +to cook, and to the bird to fetch the water. + +And now what happened? The sausage started in search of wood, the bird +made the fire, and the mouse put on the pot, and then these two waited +till the sausage returned with the fuel for the following day. But the +sausage remained so long away, that they became uneasy, and the bird +flew out to meet him. He had not flown far, however, when he came across +a dog who, having met the sausage, had regarded him as his legitimate +booty, and so seized and swallowed him. The bird complained to the dog +of this bare-faced robbery, but nothing he said was of any avail, for +the dog answered that he found false credentials on the sausage, and +that was the reason his life had been forfeited. + +He picked up the wood, and flew sadly home, and told the mouse all he +had seen and heard. They were both very unhappy, but agreed to make the +best of things and to remain with one another. + +So now the bird set the table, and the mouse looked after the food and, +wishing to prepare it in the same way as the sausage, by rolling in and +out among the vegetables to salt and butter them, she jumped into the +pot; but she stopped short long before she reached the bottom, having +already parted not only with her skin and hair, but also with life. + +Presently the bird came in and wanted to serve up the dinner, but he +could nowhere see the cook. In his alarm and flurry, he threw the wood +here and there about the floor, called and searched, but no cook was to +be found. Then some of the wood that had been carelessly thrown down, +caught fire and began to blaze. The bird hastened to fetch some water, +but his pail fell into the well, and he after it, and as he was unable +to recover himself, he was drowned. + + + + +MOTHER HOLLE + +Once upon a time there was a widow who had two daughters; one of them +was beautiful and industrious, the other ugly and lazy. The mother, +however, loved the ugly and lazy one best, because she was her own +daughter, and so the other, who was only her stepdaughter, was made +to do all the work of the house, and was quite the Cinderella of the +family. Her stepmother sent her out every day to sit by the well in +the high road, there to spin until she made her fingers bleed. Now it +chanced one day that some blood fell on to the spindle, and as the girl +stopped over the well to wash it off, the spindle suddenly sprang out +of her hand and fell into the well. She ran home crying to tell of her +misfortune, but her stepmother spoke harshly to her, and after giving +her a violent scolding, said unkindly, 'As you have let the spindle fall +into the well you may go yourself and fetch it out.' + +The girl went back to the well not knowing what to do, and at last in +her distress she jumped into the water after the spindle. + +She remembered nothing more until she awoke and found herself in a +beautiful meadow, full of sunshine, and with countless flowers blooming +in every direction. + +She walked over the meadow, and presently she came upon a baker's oven +full of bread, and the loaves cried out to her, 'Take us out, take us +out, or alas! we shall be burnt to a cinder; we were baked through long +ago.' So she took the bread-shovel and drew them all out. + +She went on a little farther, till she came to a tree full of apples. +'Shake me, shake me, I pray,' cried the tree; 'my apples, one and all, +are ripe.' So she shook the tree, and the apples came falling down upon +her like rain; but she continued shaking until there was not a single +apple left upon it. Then she carefully gathered the apples together in a +heap and walked on again. + +The next thing she came to was a little house, and there she saw an old +woman looking out, with such large teeth, that she was terrified, and +turned to run away. But the old woman called after her, 'What are you +afraid of, dear child? Stay with me; if you will do the work of my house +properly for me, I will make you very happy. You must be very careful, +however, to make my bed in the right way, for I wish you always to shake +it thoroughly, so that the feathers fly about; then they say, down there +in the world, that it is snowing; for I am Mother Holle.' The old woman +spoke so kindly, that the girl summoned up courage and agreed to enter +into her service. + +She took care to do everything according to the old woman's bidding and +every time she made the bed she shook it with all her might, so that the +feathers flew about like so many snowflakes. The old woman was as good +as her word: she never spoke angrily to her, and gave her roast and +boiled meats every day. + +So she stayed on with Mother Holle for some time, and then she began +to grow unhappy. She could not at first tell why she felt sad, but she +became conscious at last of great longing to go home; then she knew she +was homesick, although she was a thousand times better off with Mother +Holle than with her mother and sister. After waiting awhile, she went +to Mother Holle and said, 'I am so homesick, that I cannot stay with +you any longer, for although I am so happy here, I must return to my own +people.' + +Then Mother Holle said, 'I am pleased that you should want to go back +to your own people, and as you have served me so well and faithfully, I +will take you home myself.' + +Thereupon she led the girl by the hand up to a broad gateway. The gate +was opened, and as the girl passed through, a shower of gold fell upon +her, and the gold clung to her, so that she was covered with it from +head to foot. + +'That is a reward for your industry,' said Mother Holle, and as she +spoke she handed her the spindle which she had dropped into the well. + +The gate was then closed, and the girl found herself back in the old +world close to her mother's house. As she entered the courtyard, the +cock who was perched on the well, called out: + + 'Cock-a-doodle-doo! + Your golden daughter's come back to you.' + +Then she went in to her mother and sister, and as she was so richly +covered with gold, they gave her a warm welcome. She related to them +all that had happened, and when the mother heard how she had come by her +great riches, she thought she should like her ugly, lazy daughter to go +and try her fortune. So she made the sister go and sit by the well +and spin, and the girl pricked her finger and thrust her hand into a +thorn-bush, so that she might drop some blood on to the spindle; then +she threw it into the well, and jumped in herself. + +Like her sister she awoke in the beautiful meadow, and walked over it +till she came to the oven. 'Take us out, take us out, or alas! we shall +be burnt to a cinder; we were baked through long ago,' cried the loaves +as before. But the lazy girl answered, 'Do you think I am going to dirty +my hands for you?' and walked on. + +Presently she came to the apple-tree. 'Shake me, shake me, I pray; my +apples, one and all, are ripe,' it cried. But she only answered, 'A nice +thing to ask me to do, one of the apples might fall on my head,' and +passed on. + +At last she came to Mother Holle's house, and as she had heard all about +the large teeth from her sister, she was not afraid of them, and engaged +herself without delay to the old woman. + +The first day she was very obedient and industrious, and exerted herself +to please Mother Holle, for she thought of the gold she should get in +return. The next day, however, she began to dawdle over her work, and +the third day she was more idle still; then she began to lie in bed in +the mornings and refused to get up. Worse still, she neglected to +make the old woman's bed properly, and forgot to shake it so that the +feathers might fly about. So Mother Holle very soon got tired of her, +and told her she might go. The lazy girl was delighted at this, and +thought to herself, 'The gold will soon be mine.' Mother Holle led her, +as she had led her sister, to the broad gateway; but as she was passing +through, instead of the shower of gold, a great bucketful of pitch came +pouring over her. + +'That is in return for your services,' said the old woman, and she shut +the gate. + +So the lazy girl had to go home covered with pitch, and the cock on the +well called out as she saw her: + + 'Cock-a-doodle-doo! + Your dirty daughter's come back to you.' + +But, try what she would, she could not get the pitch off and it stuck to +her as long as she lived. + + + + +LITTLE RED-CAP [LITTLE RED RIDING HOOD] + +Once upon a time there was a dear little girl who was loved by everyone +who looked at her, but most of all by her grandmother, and there was +nothing that she would not have given to the child. Once she gave her a +little cap of red velvet, which suited her so well that she would never +wear anything else; so she was always called 'Little Red-Cap.' + +One day her mother said to her: 'Come, Little Red-Cap, here is a piece +of cake and a bottle of wine; take them to your grandmother, she is ill +and weak, and they will do her good. Set out before it gets hot, and +when you are going, walk nicely and quietly and do not run off the path, +or you may fall and break the bottle, and then your grandmother will +get nothing; and when you go into her room, don't forget to say, "Good +morning", and don't peep into every corner before you do it.' + +'I will take great care,' said Little Red-Cap to her mother, and gave +her hand on it. + +The grandmother lived out in the wood, half a league from the village, +and just as Little Red-Cap entered the wood, a wolf met her. Red-Cap +did not know what a wicked creature he was, and was not at all afraid of +him. + +'Good day, Little Red-Cap,' said he. + +'Thank you kindly, wolf.' + +'Whither away so early, Little Red-Cap?' + +'To my grandmother's.' + +'What have you got in your apron?' + +'Cake and wine; yesterday was baking-day, so poor sick grandmother is to +have something good, to make her stronger.' + +'Where does your grandmother live, Little Red-Cap?' + +'A good quarter of a league farther on in the wood; her house stands +under the three large oak-trees, the nut-trees are just below; you +surely must know it,' replied Little Red-Cap. + +The wolf thought to himself: 'What a tender young creature! what a nice +plump mouthful--she will be better to eat than the old woman. I must +act craftily, so as to catch both.' So he walked for a short time by +the side of Little Red-Cap, and then he said: 'See, Little Red-Cap, how +pretty the flowers are about here--why do you not look round? I believe, +too, that you do not hear how sweetly the little birds are singing; you +walk gravely along as if you were going to school, while everything else +out here in the wood is merry.' + +Little Red-Cap raised her eyes, and when she saw the sunbeams dancing +here and there through the trees, and pretty flowers growing everywhere, +she thought: 'Suppose I take grandmother a fresh nosegay; that would +please her too. It is so early in the day that I shall still get there +in good time'; and so she ran from the path into the wood to look for +flowers. And whenever she had picked one, she fancied that she saw a +still prettier one farther on, and ran after it, and so got deeper and +deeper into the wood. + +Meanwhile the wolf ran straight to the grandmother's house and knocked +at the door. + +'Who is there?' + +'Little Red-Cap,' replied the wolf. 'She is bringing cake and wine; open +the door.' + +'Lift the latch,' called out the grandmother, 'I am too weak, and cannot +get up.' + +The wolf lifted the latch, the door sprang open, and without saying a +word he went straight to the grandmother's bed, and devoured her. Then +he put on her clothes, dressed himself in her cap laid himself in bed +and drew the curtains. + +Little Red-Cap, however, had been running about picking flowers, +and when she had gathered so many that she could carry no more, she +remembered her grandmother, and set out on the way to her. + +She was surprised to find the cottage-door standing open, and when she +went into the room, she had such a strange feeling that she said to +herself: 'Oh dear! how uneasy I feel today, and at other times I like +being with grandmother so much.' She called out: 'Good morning,' but +received no answer; so she went to the bed and drew back the curtains. +There lay her grandmother with her cap pulled far over her face, and +looking very strange. + +'Oh! grandmother,' she said, 'what big ears you have!' + +'The better to hear you with, my child,' was the reply. + +'But, grandmother, what big eyes you have!' she said. + +'The better to see you with, my dear.' + +'But, grandmother, what large hands you have!' + +'The better to hug you with.' + +'Oh! but, grandmother, what a terrible big mouth you have!' + +'The better to eat you with!' + +And scarcely had the wolf said this, than with one bound he was out of +bed and swallowed up Red-Cap. + +When the wolf had appeased his appetite, he lay down again in the bed, +fell asleep and began to snore very loud. The huntsman was just passing +the house, and thought to himself: 'How the old woman is snoring! I must +just see if she wants anything.' So he went into the room, and when he +came to the bed, he saw that the wolf was lying in it. 'Do I find you +here, you old sinner!' said he. 'I have long sought you!' Then just as +he was going to fire at him, it occurred to him that the wolf might have +devoured the grandmother, and that she might still be saved, so he did +not fire, but took a pair of scissors, and began to cut open the stomach +of the sleeping wolf. When he had made two snips, he saw the little +Red-Cap shining, and then he made two snips more, and the little girl +sprang out, crying: 'Ah, how frightened I have been! How dark it was +inside the wolf'; and after that the aged grandmother came out alive +also, but scarcely able to breathe. Red-Cap, however, quickly fetched +great stones with which they filled the wolf's belly, and when he awoke, +he wanted to run away, but the stones were so heavy that he collapsed at +once, and fell dead. + +Then all three were delighted. The huntsman drew off the wolf's skin and +went home with it; the grandmother ate the cake and drank the wine which +Red-Cap had brought, and revived, but Red-Cap thought to herself: 'As +long as I live, I will never by myself leave the path, to run into the +wood, when my mother has forbidden me to do so.' + + + + +It also related that once when Red-Cap was again taking cakes to the old +grandmother, another wolf spoke to her, and tried to entice her from the +path. Red-Cap, however, was on her guard, and went straight forward on +her way, and told her grandmother that she had met the wolf, and that he +had said 'good morning' to her, but with such a wicked look in his eyes, +that if they had not been on the public road she was certain he would +have eaten her up. 'Well,' said the grandmother, 'we will shut the door, +that he may not come in.' Soon afterwards the wolf knocked, and cried: +'Open the door, grandmother, I am Little Red-Cap, and am bringing you +some cakes.' But they did not speak, or open the door, so the grey-beard +stole twice or thrice round the house, and at last jumped on the roof, +intending to wait until Red-Cap went home in the evening, and then to +steal after her and devour her in the darkness. But the grandmother +saw what was in his thoughts. In front of the house was a great stone +trough, so she said to the child: 'Take the pail, Red-Cap; I made some +sausages yesterday, so carry the water in which I boiled them to the +trough.' Red-Cap carried until the great trough was quite full. Then the +smell of the sausages reached the wolf, and he sniffed and peeped down, +and at last stretched out his neck so far that he could no longer keep +his footing and began to slip, and slipped down from the roof straight +into the great trough, and was drowned. But Red-Cap went joyously home, +and no one ever did anything to harm her again. + + + + +THE ROBBER BRIDEGROOM + +There was once a miller who had one beautiful daughter, and as she was +grown up, he was anxious that she should be well married and provided +for. He said to himself, 'I will give her to the first suitable man who +comes and asks for her hand.' Not long after a suitor appeared, and as +he appeared to be very rich and the miller could see nothing in him with +which to find fault, he betrothed his daughter to him. But the girl did +not care for the man as a girl ought to care for her betrothed husband. +She did not feel that she could trust him, and she could not look at him +nor think of him without an inward shudder. One day he said to her, 'You +have not yet paid me a visit, although we have been betrothed for some +time.' 'I do not know where your house is,' she answered. 'My house is +out there in the dark forest,' he said. She tried to excuse herself by +saying that she would not be able to find the way thither. Her betrothed +only replied, 'You must come and see me next Sunday; I have already +invited guests for that day, and that you may not mistake the way, I +will strew ashes along the path.' + +When Sunday came, and it was time for the girl to start, a feeling of +dread came over her which she could not explain, and that she might +be able to find her path again, she filled her pockets with peas and +lentils to sprinkle on the ground as she went along. On reaching the +entrance to the forest she found the path strewed with ashes, and these +she followed, throwing down some peas on either side of her at every +step she took. She walked the whole day until she came to the deepest, +darkest part of the forest. There she saw a lonely house, looking so +grim and mysterious, that it did not please her at all. She stepped +inside, but not a soul was to be seen, and a great silence reigned +throughout. Suddenly a voice cried: + + 'Turn back, turn back, young maiden fair, + Linger not in this murderers' lair.' + +The girl looked up and saw that the voice came from a bird hanging in a +cage on the wall. Again it cried: + + 'Turn back, turn back, young maiden fair, + Linger not in this murderers' lair.' + +The girl passed on, going from room to room of the house, but they were +all empty, and still she saw no one. At last she came to the cellar, +and there sat a very, very old woman, who could not keep her head from +shaking. 'Can you tell me,' asked the girl, 'if my betrothed husband +lives here?' + +'Ah, you poor child,' answered the old woman, 'what a place for you to +come to! This is a murderers' den. You think yourself a promised bride, +and that your marriage will soon take place, but it is with death that +you will keep your marriage feast. Look, do you see that large cauldron +of water which I am obliged to keep on the fire! As soon as they have +you in their power they will kill you without mercy, and cook and eat +you, for they are eaters of men. If I did not take pity on you and save +you, you would be lost.' + +Thereupon the old woman led her behind a large cask, which quite hid her +from view. 'Keep as still as a mouse,' she said; 'do not move or speak, +or it will be all over with you. Tonight, when the robbers are +all asleep, we will flee together. I have long been waiting for an +opportunity to escape.' + +The words were hardly out of her mouth when the godless crew returned, +dragging another young girl along with them. They were all drunk, and +paid no heed to her cries and lamentations. They gave her wine to drink, +three glasses full, one of white wine, one of red, and one of yellow, +and with that her heart gave way and she died. Then they tore off her +dainty clothing, laid her on a table, and cut her beautiful body into +pieces, and sprinkled salt upon it. + +The poor betrothed girl crouched trembling and shuddering behind the +cask, for she saw what a terrible fate had been intended for her by +the robbers. One of them now noticed a gold ring still remaining on +the little finger of the murdered girl, and as he could not draw it off +easily, he took a hatchet and cut off the finger; but the finger sprang +into the air, and fell behind the cask into the lap of the girl who was +hiding there. The robber took a light and began looking for it, but he +could not find it. 'Have you looked behind the large cask?' said one of +the others. But the old woman called out, 'Come and eat your suppers, +and let the thing be till tomorrow; the finger won't run away.' + +'The old woman is right,' said the robbers, and they ceased looking for +the finger and sat down. + +The old woman then mixed a sleeping draught with their wine, and before +long they were all lying on the floor of the cellar, fast asleep and +snoring. As soon as the girl was assured of this, she came from behind +the cask. She was obliged to step over the bodies of the sleepers, who +were lying close together, and every moment she was filled with renewed +dread lest she should awaken them. But God helped her, so that she +passed safely over them, and then she and the old woman went upstairs, +opened the door, and hastened as fast as they could from the murderers' +den. They found the ashes scattered by the wind, but the peas and +lentils had sprouted, and grown sufficiently above the ground, to guide +them in the moonlight along the path. All night long they walked, and it +was morning before they reached the mill. Then the girl told her father +all that had happened. + +The day came that had been fixed for the marriage. The bridegroom +arrived and also a large company of guests, for the miller had taken +care to invite all his friends and relations. As they sat at the feast, +each guest in turn was asked to tell a tale; the bride sat still and did +not say a word. + +'And you, my love,' said the bridegroom, turning to her, 'is there no +tale you know? Tell us something.' + +'I will tell you a dream, then,' said the bride. 'I went alone through a +forest and came at last to a house; not a soul could I find within, but +a bird that was hanging in a cage on the wall cried: + + 'Turn back, turn back, young maiden fair, + Linger not in this murderers' lair.' + +and again a second time it said these words.' + +'My darling, this is only a dream.' + +'I went on through the house from room to room, but they were all empty, +and everything was so grim and mysterious. At last I went down to the +cellar, and there sat a very, very old woman, who could not keep her +head still. I asked her if my betrothed lived here, and she answered, +"Ah, you poor child, you are come to a murderers' den; your betrothed +does indeed live here, but he will kill you without mercy and afterwards +cook and eat you."' + +'My darling, this is only a dream.' + +'The old woman hid me behind a large cask, and scarcely had she done +this when the robbers returned home, dragging a young girl along with +them. They gave her three kinds of wine to drink, white, red, and +yellow, and with that she died.' + +'My darling, this is only a dream.' + +'Then they tore off her dainty clothing, and cut her beautiful body into +pieces and sprinkled salt upon it.' + +'My darling, this is only a dream.' + +'And one of the robbers saw that there was a gold ring still left on her +finger, and as it was difficult to draw off, he took a hatchet and cut +off her finger; but the finger sprang into the air and fell behind the +great cask into my lap. And here is the finger with the ring.' And +with these words the bride drew forth the finger and shewed it to the +assembled guests. + +The bridegroom, who during this recital had grown deadly pale, up and +tried to escape, but the guests seized him and held him fast. They +delivered him up to justice, and he and all his murderous band were +condemned to death for their wicked deeds. + + + + +TOM THUMB + +A poor woodman sat in his cottage one night, smoking his pipe by the +fireside, while his wife sat by his side spinning. 'How lonely it is, +wife,' said he, as he puffed out a long curl of smoke, 'for you and me +to sit here by ourselves, without any children to play about and amuse +us while other people seem so happy and merry with their children!' +'What you say is very true,' said the wife, sighing, and turning round +her wheel; 'how happy should I be if I had but one child! If it were +ever so small--nay, if it were no bigger than my thumb--I should be very +happy, and love it dearly.' Now--odd as you may think it--it came to +pass that this good woman's wish was fulfilled, just in the very way she +had wished it; for, not long afterwards, she had a little boy, who was +quite healthy and strong, but was not much bigger than my thumb. So +they said, 'Well, we cannot say we have not got what we wished for, and, +little as he is, we will love him dearly.' And they called him Thomas +Thumb. + +They gave him plenty of food, yet for all they could do he never grew +bigger, but kept just the same size as he had been when he was born. +Still, his eyes were sharp and sparkling, and he soon showed himself to +be a clever little fellow, who always knew well what he was about. + +One day, as the woodman was getting ready to go into the wood to cut +fuel, he said, 'I wish I had someone to bring the cart after me, for I +want to make haste.' 'Oh, father,' cried Tom, 'I will take care of that; +the cart shall be in the wood by the time you want it.' Then the woodman +laughed, and said, 'How can that be? you cannot reach up to the horse's +bridle.' 'Never mind that, father,' said Tom; 'if my mother will only +harness the horse, I will get into his ear and tell him which way to +go.' 'Well,' said the father, 'we will try for once.' + +When the time came the mother harnessed the horse to the cart, and put +Tom into his ear; and as he sat there the little man told the beast how +to go, crying out, 'Go on!' and 'Stop!' as he wanted: and thus the horse +went on just as well as if the woodman had driven it himself into the +wood. It happened that as the horse was going a little too fast, and Tom +was calling out, 'Gently! gently!' two strangers came up. 'What an odd +thing that is!' said one: 'there is a cart going along, and I hear a +carter talking to the horse, but yet I can see no one.' 'That is queer, +indeed,' said the other; 'let us follow the cart, and see where it +goes.' So they went on into the wood, till at last they came to the +place where the woodman was. Then Tom Thumb, seeing his father, cried +out, 'See, father, here I am with the cart, all right and safe! now take +me down!' So his father took hold of the horse with one hand, and with +the other took his son out of the horse's ear, and put him down upon a +straw, where he sat as merry as you please. + +The two strangers were all this time looking on, and did not know what +to say for wonder. At last one took the other aside, and said, 'That +little urchin will make our fortune, if we can get him, and carry him +about from town to town as a show; we must buy him.' So they went up to +the woodman, and asked him what he would take for the little man. 'He +will be better off,' said they, 'with us than with you.' 'I won't sell +him at all,' said the father; 'my own flesh and blood is dearer to me +than all the silver and gold in the world.' But Tom, hearing of the +bargain they wanted to make, crept up his father's coat to his shoulder +and whispered in his ear, 'Take the money, father, and let them have me; +I'll soon come back to you.' + +So the woodman at last said he would sell Tom to the strangers for a +large piece of gold, and they paid the price. 'Where would you like to +sit?' said one of them. 'Oh, put me on the rim of your hat; that will be +a nice gallery for me; I can walk about there and see the country as we +go along.' So they did as he wished; and when Tom had taken leave of his +father they took him away with them. + +They journeyed on till it began to be dusky, and then the little man +said, 'Let me get down, I'm tired.' So the man took off his hat, and +put him down on a clod of earth, in a ploughed field by the side of the +road. But Tom ran about amongst the furrows, and at last slipped into +an old mouse-hole. 'Good night, my masters!' said he, 'I'm off! mind and +look sharp after me the next time.' Then they ran at once to the place, +and poked the ends of their sticks into the mouse-hole, but all in vain; +Tom only crawled farther and farther in; and at last it became quite +dark, so that they were forced to go their way without their prize, as +sulky as could be. + +When Tom found they were gone, he came out of his hiding-place. 'What +dangerous walking it is,' said he, 'in this ploughed field! If I were to +fall from one of these great clods, I should undoubtedly break my neck.' +At last, by good luck, he found a large empty snail-shell. 'This is +lucky,' said he, 'I can sleep here very well'; and in he crept. + +Just as he was falling asleep, he heard two men passing by, chatting +together; and one said to the other, 'How can we rob that rich parson's +house of his silver and gold?' 'I'll tell you!' cried Tom. 'What noise +was that?' said the thief, frightened; 'I'm sure I heard someone speak.' +They stood still listening, and Tom said, 'Take me with you, and I'll +soon show you how to get the parson's money.' 'But where are you?' said +they. 'Look about on the ground,' answered he, 'and listen where the +sound comes from.' At last the thieves found him out, and lifted him +up in their hands. 'You little urchin!' they said, 'what can you do for +us?' 'Why, I can get between the iron window-bars of the parson's house, +and throw you out whatever you want.' 'That's a good thought,' said the +thieves; 'come along, we shall see what you can do.' + +When they came to the parson's house, Tom slipped through the +window-bars into the room, and then called out as loud as he could bawl, +'Will you have all that is here?' At this the thieves were frightened, +and said, 'Softly, softly! Speak low, that you may not awaken anybody.' +But Tom seemed as if he did not understand them, and bawled out again, +'How much will you have? Shall I throw it all out?' Now the cook lay in +the next room; and hearing a noise she raised herself up in her bed and +listened. Meantime the thieves were frightened, and ran off a little +way; but at last they plucked up their hearts, and said, 'The little +urchin is only trying to make fools of us.' So they came back and +whispered softly to him, saying, 'Now let us have no more of your +roguish jokes; but throw us out some of the money.' Then Tom called out +as loud as he could, 'Very well! hold your hands! here it comes.' + +The cook heard this quite plain, so she sprang out of bed, and ran to +open the door. The thieves ran off as if a wolf was at their tails: and +the maid, having groped about and found nothing, went away for a light. +By the time she came back, Tom had slipped off into the barn; and when +she had looked about and searched every hole and corner, and found +nobody, she went to bed, thinking she must have been dreaming with her +eyes open. + +The little man crawled about in the hay-loft, and at last found a snug +place to finish his night's rest in; so he laid himself down, meaning +to sleep till daylight, and then find his way home to his father and +mother. But alas! how woefully he was undone! what crosses and sorrows +happen to us all in this world! The cook got up early, before daybreak, +to feed the cows; and going straight to the hay-loft, carried away +a large bundle of hay, with the little man in the middle of it, fast +asleep. He still, however, slept on, and did not awake till he found +himself in the mouth of the cow; for the cook had put the hay into the +cow's rick, and the cow had taken Tom up in a mouthful of it. 'Good +lack-a-day!' said he, 'how came I to tumble into the mill?' But he soon +found out where he really was; and was forced to have all his wits about +him, that he might not get between the cow's teeth, and so be crushed to +death. At last down he went into her stomach. 'It is rather dark,' said +he; 'they forgot to build windows in this room to let the sun in; a +candle would be no bad thing.' + +Though he made the best of his bad luck, he did not like his quarters at +all; and the worst of it was, that more and more hay was always coming +down, and the space left for him became smaller and smaller. At last he +cried out as loud as he could, 'Don't bring me any more hay! Don't bring +me any more hay!' + +The maid happened to be just then milking the cow; and hearing someone +speak, but seeing nobody, and yet being quite sure it was the same voice +that she had heard in the night, she was so frightened that she fell off +her stool, and overset the milk-pail. As soon as she could pick herself +up out of the dirt, she ran off as fast as she could to her master the +parson, and said, 'Sir, sir, the cow is talking!' But the parson +said, 'Woman, thou art surely mad!' However, he went with her into the +cow-house, to try and see what was the matter. + +Scarcely had they set foot on the threshold, when Tom called out, 'Don't +bring me any more hay!' Then the parson himself was frightened; and +thinking the cow was surely bewitched, told his man to kill her on the +spot. So the cow was killed, and cut up; and the stomach, in which Tom +lay, was thrown out upon a dunghill. + +Tom soon set himself to work to get out, which was not a very easy +task; but at last, just as he had made room to get his head out, fresh +ill-luck befell him. A hungry wolf sprang out, and swallowed up the +whole stomach, with Tom in it, at one gulp, and ran away. + +Tom, however, was still not disheartened; and thinking the wolf would +not dislike having some chat with him as he was going along, he called +out, 'My good friend, I can show you a famous treat.' 'Where's that?' +said the wolf. 'In such and such a house,' said Tom, describing his own +father's house. 'You can crawl through the drain into the kitchen and +then into the pantry, and there you will find cakes, ham, beef, cold +chicken, roast pig, apple-dumplings, and everything that your heart can +wish.' + +The wolf did not want to be asked twice; so that very night he went to +the house and crawled through the drain into the kitchen, and then into +the pantry, and ate and drank there to his heart's content. As soon as +he had had enough he wanted to get away; but he had eaten so much that +he could not go out by the same way he came in. + +This was just what Tom had reckoned upon; and now he began to set up a +great shout, making all the noise he could. 'Will you be easy?' said the +wolf; 'you'll awaken everybody in the house if you make such a clatter.' +'What's that to me?' said the little man; 'you have had your frolic, now +I've a mind to be merry myself'; and he began, singing and shouting as +loud as he could. + +The woodman and his wife, being awakened by the noise, peeped through +a crack in the door; but when they saw a wolf was there, you may well +suppose that they were sadly frightened; and the woodman ran for his +axe, and gave his wife a scythe. 'Do you stay behind,' said the woodman, +'and when I have knocked him on the head you must rip him up with the +scythe.' Tom heard all this, and cried out, 'Father, father! I am here, +the wolf has swallowed me.' And his father said, 'Heaven be praised! we +have found our dear child again'; and he told his wife not to use the +scythe for fear she should hurt him. Then he aimed a great blow, and +struck the wolf on the head, and killed him on the spot! and when he was +dead they cut open his body, and set Tommy free. 'Ah!' said the father, +'what fears we have had for you!' 'Yes, father,' answered he; 'I have +travelled all over the world, I think, in one way or other, since we +parted; and now I am very glad to come home and get fresh air again.' +'Why, where have you been?' said his father. 'I have been in a +mouse-hole--and in a snail-shell--and down a cow's throat--and in the +wolf's belly; and yet here I am again, safe and sound.' + +'Well,' said they, 'you are come back, and we will not sell you again +for all the riches in the world.' + +Then they hugged and kissed their dear little son, and gave him plenty +to eat and drink, for he was very hungry; and then they fetched new +clothes for him, for his old ones had been quite spoiled on his journey. +So Master Thumb stayed at home with his father and mother, in peace; for +though he had been so great a traveller, and had done and seen so many +fine things, and was fond enough of telling the whole story, he always +agreed that, after all, there's no place like HOME! + + + + +RUMPELSTILTSKIN + +By the side of a wood, in a country a long way off, ran a fine stream +of water; and upon the stream there stood a mill. The miller's house was +close by, and the miller, you must know, had a very beautiful daughter. +She was, moreover, very shrewd and clever; and the miller was so proud +of her, that he one day told the king of the land, who used to come and +hunt in the wood, that his daughter could spin gold out of straw. Now +this king was very fond of money; and when he heard the miller's boast +his greediness was raised, and he sent for the girl to be brought before +him. Then he led her to a chamber in his palace where there was a great +heap of straw, and gave her a spinning-wheel, and said, 'All this must +be spun into gold before morning, as you love your life.' It was in vain +that the poor maiden said that it was only a silly boast of her father, +for that she could do no such thing as spin straw into gold: the chamber +door was locked, and she was left alone. + +She sat down in one corner of the room, and began to bewail her hard +fate; when on a sudden the door opened, and a droll-looking little man +hobbled in, and said, 'Good morrow to you, my good lass; what are you +weeping for?' 'Alas!' said she, 'I must spin this straw into gold, and +I know not how.' 'What will you give me,' said the hobgoblin, 'to do it +for you?' 'My necklace,' replied the maiden. He took her at her word, +and sat himself down to the wheel, and whistled and sang: + + 'Round about, round about, + Lo and behold! + Reel away, reel away, + Straw into gold!' + +And round about the wheel went merrily; the work was quickly done, and +the straw was all spun into gold. + +When the king came and saw this, he was greatly astonished and pleased; +but his heart grew still more greedy of gain, and he shut up the poor +miller's daughter again with a fresh task. Then she knew not what to do, +and sat down once more to weep; but the dwarf soon opened the door, and +said, 'What will you give me to do your task?' 'The ring on my finger,' +said she. So her little friend took the ring, and began to work at the +wheel again, and whistled and sang: + + 'Round about, round about, + Lo and behold! + Reel away, reel away, + Straw into gold!' + +till, long before morning, all was done again. + +The king was greatly delighted to see all this glittering treasure; +but still he had not enough: so he took the miller's daughter to a yet +larger heap, and said, 'All this must be spun tonight; and if it is, +you shall be my queen.' As soon as she was alone that dwarf came in, and +said, 'What will you give me to spin gold for you this third time?' +'I have nothing left,' said she. 'Then say you will give me,' said +the little man, 'the first little child that you may have when you are +queen.' 'That may never be,' thought the miller's daughter: and as she +knew no other way to get her task done, she said she would do what he +asked. Round went the wheel again to the old song, and the manikin once +more spun the heap into gold. The king came in the morning, and, finding +all he wanted, was forced to keep his word; so he married the miller's +daughter, and she really became queen. + +At the birth of her first little child she was very glad, and forgot the +dwarf, and what she had said. But one day he came into her room, where +she was sitting playing with her baby, and put her in mind of it. Then +she grieved sorely at her misfortune, and said she would give him all +the wealth of the kingdom if he would let her off, but in vain; till at +last her tears softened him, and he said, 'I will give you three days' +grace, and if during that time you tell me my name, you shall keep your +child.' + +Now the queen lay awake all night, thinking of all the odd names that +she had ever heard; and she sent messengers all over the land to find +out new ones. The next day the little man came, and she began with +TIMOTHY, ICHABOD, BENJAMIN, JEREMIAH, and all the names she could +remember; but to all and each of them he said, 'Madam, that is not my +name.' + +The second day she began with all the comical names she could hear of, +BANDY-LEGS, HUNCHBACK, CROOK-SHANKS, and so on; but the little gentleman +still said to every one of them, 'Madam, that is not my name.' + +The third day one of the messengers came back, and said, 'I have +travelled two days without hearing of any other names; but yesterday, as +I was climbing a high hill, among the trees of the forest where the fox +and the hare bid each other good night, I saw a little hut; and before +the hut burnt a fire; and round about the fire a funny little dwarf was +dancing upon one leg, and singing: + + "Merrily the feast I'll make. + Today I'll brew, tomorrow bake; + Merrily I'll dance and sing, + For next day will a stranger bring. + Little does my lady dream + Rumpelstiltskin is my name!" + +When the queen heard this she jumped for joy, and as soon as her little +friend came she sat down upon her throne, and called all her court round +to enjoy the fun; and the nurse stood by her side with the baby in her +arms, as if it was quite ready to be given up. Then the little man began +to chuckle at the thought of having the poor child, to take home with +him to his hut in the woods; and he cried out, 'Now, lady, what is my +name?' 'Is it JOHN?' asked she. 'No, madam!' 'Is it TOM?' 'No, madam!' +'Is it JEMMY?' 'It is not.' 'Can your name be RUMPELSTILTSKIN?' said the +lady slyly. 'Some witch told you that!--some witch told you that!' cried +the little man, and dashed his right foot in a rage so deep into the +floor, that he was forced to lay hold of it with both hands to pull it +out. + +Then he made the best of his way off, while the nurse laughed and the +baby crowed; and all the court jeered at him for having had so much +trouble for nothing, and said, 'We wish you a very good morning, and a +merry feast, Mr RUMPLESTILTSKIN!' + + + + +CLEVER GRETEL + +There was once a cook named Gretel, who wore shoes with red heels, and +when she walked out with them on, she turned herself this way and that, +was quite happy and thought: 'You certainly are a pretty girl!' And when +she came home she drank, in her gladness of heart, a draught of wine, +and as wine excites a desire to eat, she tasted the best of whatever she +was cooking until she was satisfied, and said: 'The cook must know what +the food is like.' + +It came to pass that the master one day said to her: 'Gretel, there is a +guest coming this evening; prepare me two fowls very daintily.' 'I will +see to it, master,' answered Gretel. She killed two fowls, scalded them, +plucked them, put them on the spit, and towards evening set them before +the fire, that they might roast. The fowls began to turn brown, and were +nearly ready, but the guest had not yet arrived. Then Gretel called out +to her master: 'If the guest does not come, I must take the fowls away +from the fire, but it will be a sin and a shame if they are not eaten +the moment they are at their juiciest.' The master said: 'I will run +myself, and fetch the guest.' When the master had turned his back, +Gretel laid the spit with the fowls on one side, and thought: 'Standing +so long by the fire there, makes one sweat and thirsty; who knows +when they will come? Meanwhile, I will run into the cellar, and take a +drink.' She ran down, set a jug, said: 'God bless it for you, Gretel,' +and took a good drink, and thought that wine should flow on, and should +not be interrupted, and took yet another hearty draught. + +Then she went and put the fowls down again to the fire, basted them, +and drove the spit merrily round. But as the roast meat smelt so good, +Gretel thought: 'Something might be wrong, it ought to be tasted!' +She touched it with her finger, and said: 'Ah! how good fowls are! It +certainly is a sin and a shame that they are not eaten at the right +time!' She ran to the window, to see if the master was not coming with +his guest, but she saw no one, and went back to the fowls and thought: +'One of the wings is burning! I had better take it off and eat it.' +So she cut it off, ate it, and enjoyed it, and when she had done, she +thought: 'The other must go down too, or else master will observe that +something is missing.' When the two wings were eaten, she went and +looked for her master, and did not see him. It suddenly occurred to +her: 'Who knows? They are perhaps not coming at all, and have turned in +somewhere.' Then she said: 'Well, Gretel, enjoy yourself, one fowl has +been cut into, take another drink, and eat it up entirely; when it is +eaten you will have some peace, why should God's good gifts be spoilt?' +So she ran into the cellar again, took an enormous drink and ate up the +one chicken in great glee. When one of the chickens was swallowed down, +and still her master did not come, Gretel looked at the other and said: +'What one is, the other should be likewise, the two go together; what's +right for the one is right for the other; I think if I were to take +another draught it would do me no harm.' So she took another hearty +drink, and let the second chicken follow the first. + +While she was making the most of it, her master came and cried: 'Hurry +up, Gretel, the guest is coming directly after me!' 'Yes, sir, I will +soon serve up,' answered Gretel. Meantime the master looked to see that +the table was properly laid, and took the great knife, wherewith he was +going to carve the chickens, and sharpened it on the steps. Presently +the guest came, and knocked politely and courteously at the house-door. +Gretel ran, and looked to see who was there, and when she saw the guest, +she put her finger to her lips and said: 'Hush! hush! go away as quickly +as you can, if my master catches you it will be the worse for you; he +certainly did ask you to supper, but his intention is to cut off your +two ears. Just listen how he is sharpening the knife for it!' The guest +heard the sharpening, and hurried down the steps again as fast as he +could. Gretel was not idle; she ran screaming to her master, and cried: +'You have invited a fine guest!' 'Why, Gretel? What do you mean by +that?' 'Yes,' said she, 'he has taken the chickens which I was just +going to serve up, off the dish, and has run away with them!' 'That's a +nice trick!' said her master, and lamented the fine chickens. 'If he had +but left me one, so that something remained for me to eat.' He called to +him to stop, but the guest pretended not to hear. Then he ran after him +with the knife still in his hand, crying: 'Just one, just one,' meaning +that the guest should leave him just one chicken, and not take both. The +guest, however, thought no otherwise than that he was to give up one of +his ears, and ran as if fire were burning under him, in order to take +them both with him. + + + + +THE OLD MAN AND HIS GRANDSON + +There was once a very old man, whose eyes had become dim, his ears dull +of hearing, his knees trembled, and when he sat at table he could hardly +hold the spoon, and spilt the broth upon the table-cloth or let it run +out of his mouth. His son and his son's wife were disgusted at this, so +the old grandfather at last had to sit in the corner behind the stove, +and they gave him his food in an earthenware bowl, and not even enough +of it. And he used to look towards the table with his eyes full of +tears. Once, too, his trembling hands could not hold the bowl, and it +fell to the ground and broke. The young wife scolded him, but he said +nothing and only sighed. Then they brought him a wooden bowl for a few +half-pence, out of which he had to eat. + +They were once sitting thus when the little grandson of four years old +began to gather together some bits of wood upon the ground. 'What are +you doing there?' asked the father. 'I am making a little trough,' +answered the child, 'for father and mother to eat out of when I am big.' + +The man and his wife looked at each other for a while, and presently +began to cry. Then they took the old grandfather to the table, and +henceforth always let him eat with them, and likewise said nothing if he +did spill a little of anything. + + + + +THE LITTLE PEASANT + +There was a certain village wherein no one lived but really rich +peasants, and just one poor one, whom they called the little peasant. He +had not even so much as a cow, and still less money to buy one, and +yet he and his wife did so wish to have one. One day he said to her: +'Listen, I have a good idea, there is our gossip the carpenter, he shall +make us a wooden calf, and paint it brown, so that it looks like any +other, and in time it will certainly get big and be a cow.' the woman +also liked the idea, and their gossip the carpenter cut and planed +the calf, and painted it as it ought to be, and made it with its head +hanging down as if it were eating. + +Next morning when the cows were being driven out, the little peasant +called the cow-herd in and said: 'Look, I have a little calf there, +but it is still small and has to be carried.' The cow-herd said: 'All +right,' and took it in his arms and carried it to the pasture, and set +it among the grass. The little calf always remained standing like one +which was eating, and the cow-herd said: 'It will soon run by itself, +just look how it eats already!' At night when he was going to drive the +herd home again, he said to the calf: 'If you can stand there and eat +your fill, you can also go on your four legs; I don't care to drag you +home again in my arms.' But the little peasant stood at his door, and +waited for his little calf, and when the cow-herd drove the cows through +the village, and the calf was missing, he inquired where it was. The +cow-herd answered: 'It is still standing out there eating. It would not +stop and come with us.' But the little peasant said: 'Oh, but I must +have my beast back again.' Then they went back to the meadow together, +but someone had stolen the calf, and it was gone. The cow-herd said: 'It +must have run away.' The peasant, however, said: 'Don't tell me +that,' and led the cow-herd before the mayor, who for his carelessness +condemned him to give the peasant a cow for the calf which had run away. + +And now the little peasant and his wife had the cow for which they had +so long wished, and they were heartily glad, but they had no food for +it, and could give it nothing to eat, so it soon had to be killed. They +salted the flesh, and the peasant went into the town and wanted to sell +the skin there, so that he might buy a new calf with the proceeds. On +the way he passed by a mill, and there sat a raven with broken wings, +and out of pity he took him and wrapped him in the skin. But as the +weather grew so bad and there was a storm of rain and wind, he could +go no farther, and turned back to the mill and begged for shelter. The +miller's wife was alone in the house, and said to the peasant: 'Lay +yourself on the straw there,' and gave him a slice of bread and cheese. +The peasant ate it, and lay down with his skin beside him, and the woman +thought: 'He is tired and has gone to sleep.' In the meantime came the +parson; the miller's wife received him well, and said: 'My husband is +out, so we will have a feast.' The peasant listened, and when he heard +them talk about feasting he was vexed that he had been forced to make +shift with a slice of bread and cheese. Then the woman served up four +different things, roast meat, salad, cakes, and wine. + +Just as they were about to sit down and eat, there was a knocking +outside. The woman said: 'Oh, heavens! It is my husband!' she quickly +hid the roast meat inside the tiled stove, the wine under the pillow, +the salad on the bed, the cakes under it, and the parson in the closet +on the porch. Then she opened the door for her husband, and said: 'Thank +heaven, you are back again! There is such a storm, it looks as if the +world were coming to an end.' The miller saw the peasant lying on the +straw, and asked, 'What is that fellow doing there?' 'Ah,' said the +wife, 'the poor knave came in the storm and rain, and begged for +shelter, so I gave him a bit of bread and cheese, and showed him where +the straw was.' The man said: 'I have no objection, but be quick and get +me something to eat.' The woman said: 'But I have nothing but bread and +cheese.' 'I am contented with anything,' replied the husband, 'so far as +I am concerned, bread and cheese will do,' and looked at the peasant and +said: 'Come and eat some more with me.' The peasant did not require to +be invited twice, but got up and ate. After this the miller saw the skin +in which the raven was, lying on the ground, and asked: 'What have you +there?' The peasant answered: 'I have a soothsayer inside it.' 'Can +he foretell anything to me?' said the miller. 'Why not?' answered +the peasant: 'but he only says four things, and the fifth he keeps to +himself.' The miller was curious, and said: 'Let him foretell something +for once.' Then the peasant pinched the raven's head, so that he croaked +and made a noise like krr, krr. The miller said: 'What did he say?' The +peasant answered: 'In the first place, he says that there is some wine +hidden under the pillow.' 'Bless me!' cried the miller, and went there +and found the wine. 'Now go on,' said he. The peasant made the raven +croak again, and said: 'In the second place, he says that there is some +roast meat in the tiled stove.' 'Upon my word!' cried the miller, and +went thither, and found the roast meat. The peasant made the raven +prophesy still more, and said: 'Thirdly, he says that there is some +salad on the bed.' 'That would be a fine thing!' cried the miller, and +went there and found the salad. At last the peasant pinched the raven +once more till he croaked, and said: 'Fourthly, he says that there +are some cakes under the bed.' 'That would be a fine thing!' cried the +miller, and looked there, and found the cakes. + +And now the two sat down to the table together, but the miller's wife +was frightened to death, and went to bed and took all the keys with +her. The miller would have liked much to know the fifth, but the little +peasant said: 'First, we will quickly eat the four things, for the fifth +is something bad.' So they ate, and after that they bargained how much +the miller was to give for the fifth prophecy, until they agreed on +three hundred talers. Then the peasant once more pinched the raven's +head till he croaked loudly. The miller asked: 'What did he say?' The +peasant replied: 'He says that the Devil is hiding outside there in +the closet on the porch.' The miller said: 'The Devil must go out,' and +opened the house-door; then the woman was forced to give up the keys, +and the peasant unlocked the closet. The parson ran out as fast as he +could, and the miller said: 'It was true; I saw the black rascal with my +own eyes.' The peasant, however, made off next morning by daybreak with +the three hundred talers. + +At home the small peasant gradually launched out; he built a beautiful +house, and the peasants said: 'The small peasant has certainly been to +the place where golden snow falls, and people carry the gold home in +shovels.' Then the small peasant was brought before the mayor, and +bidden to say from whence his wealth came. He answered: 'I sold my cow's +skin in the town, for three hundred talers.' When the peasants heard +that, they too wished to enjoy this great profit, and ran home, killed +all their cows, and stripped off their skins in order to sell them in +the town to the greatest advantage. The mayor, however, said: 'But my +servant must go first.' When she came to the merchant in the town, he +did not give her more than two talers for a skin, and when the others +came, he did not give them so much, and said: 'What can I do with all +these skins?' + +Then the peasants were vexed that the small peasant should have thus +outwitted them, wanted to take vengeance on him, and accused him of this +treachery before the mayor. The innocent little peasant was unanimously +sentenced to death, and was to be rolled into the water, in a barrel +pierced full of holes. He was led forth, and a priest was brought who +was to say a mass for his soul. The others were all obliged to retire to +a distance, and when the peasant looked at the priest, he recognized the +man who had been with the miller's wife. He said to him: 'I set you free +from the closet, set me free from the barrel.' At this same moment up +came, with a flock of sheep, the very shepherd whom the peasant knew had +long been wishing to be mayor, so he cried with all his might: 'No, I +will not do it; if the whole world insists on it, I will not do it!' The +shepherd hearing that, came up to him, and asked: 'What are you about? +What is it that you will not do?' The peasant said: 'They want to make +me mayor, if I will but put myself in the barrel, but I will not do it.' +The shepherd said: 'If nothing more than that is needful in order to be +mayor, I would get into the barrel at once.' The peasant said: 'If you +will get in, you will be mayor.' The shepherd was willing, and got in, +and the peasant shut the top down on him; then he took the shepherd's +flock for himself, and drove it away. The parson went to the crowd, +and declared that the mass had been said. Then they came and rolled the +barrel towards the water. When the barrel began to roll, the shepherd +cried: 'I am quite willing to be mayor.' They believed no otherwise than +that it was the peasant who was saying this, and answered: 'That is +what we intend, but first you shall look about you a little down below +there,' and they rolled the barrel down into the water. + +After that the peasants went home, and as they were entering the +village, the small peasant also came quietly in, driving a flock of +sheep and looking quite contented. Then the peasants were astonished, +and said: 'Peasant, from whence do you come? Have you come out of the +water?' 'Yes, truly,' replied the peasant, 'I sank deep, deep down, +until at last I got to the bottom; I pushed the bottom out of the +barrel, and crept out, and there were pretty meadows on which a number +of lambs were feeding, and from thence I brought this flock away with +me.' Said the peasants: 'Are there any more there?' 'Oh, yes,' said he, +'more than I could want.' Then the peasants made up their minds that +they too would fetch some sheep for themselves, a flock apiece, but the +mayor said: 'I come first.' So they went to the water together, and just +then there were some of the small fleecy clouds in the blue sky, which +are called little lambs, and they were reflected in the water, whereupon +the peasants cried: 'We already see the sheep down below!' The mayor +pressed forward and said: 'I will go down first, and look about me, and +if things promise well I'll call you.' So he jumped in; splash! went +the water; it sounded as if he were calling them, and the whole crowd +plunged in after him as one man. Then the entire village was dead, and +the small peasant, as sole heir, became a rich man. + + + + +FREDERICK AND CATHERINE + +There was once a man called Frederick: he had a wife whose name was +Catherine, and they had not long been married. One day Frederick said. +'Kate! I am going to work in the fields; when I come back I shall be +hungry so let me have something nice cooked, and a good draught of ale.' +'Very well,' said she, 'it shall all be ready.' When dinner-time drew +nigh, Catherine took a nice steak, which was all the meat she had, and +put it on the fire to fry. The steak soon began to look brown, and to +crackle in the pan; and Catherine stood by with a fork and turned it: +then she said to herself, 'The steak is almost ready, I may as well go +to the cellar for the ale.' So she left the pan on the fire and took a +large jug and went into the cellar and tapped the ale cask. The beer ran +into the jug and Catherine stood looking on. At last it popped into her +head, 'The dog is not shut up--he may be running away with the steak; +that's well thought of.' So up she ran from the cellar; and sure enough +the rascally cur had got the steak in his mouth, and was making off with +it. + +Away ran Catherine, and away ran the dog across the field: but he ran +faster than she, and stuck close to the steak. 'It's all gone, and "what +can't be cured must be endured",' said Catherine. So she turned round; +and as she had run a good way and was tired, she walked home leisurely +to cool herself. + +Now all this time the ale was running too, for Catherine had not turned +the cock; and when the jug was full the liquor ran upon the floor till +the cask was empty. When she got to the cellar stairs she saw what had +happened. 'My stars!' said she, 'what shall I do to keep Frederick from +seeing all this slopping about?' So she thought a while; and at last +remembered that there was a sack of fine meal bought at the last fair, +and that if she sprinkled this over the floor it would suck up the ale +nicely. 'What a lucky thing,' said she, 'that we kept that meal! we have +now a good use for it.' So away she went for it: but she managed to set +it down just upon the great jug full of beer, and upset it; and thus +all the ale that had been saved was set swimming on the floor also. 'Ah! +well,' said she, 'when one goes another may as well follow.' Then she +strewed the meal all about the cellar, and was quite pleased with her +cleverness, and said, 'How very neat and clean it looks!' + +At noon Frederick came home. 'Now, wife,' cried he, 'what have you for +dinner?' 'O Frederick!' answered she, 'I was cooking you a steak; but +while I went down to draw the ale, the dog ran away with it; and while +I ran after him, the ale ran out; and when I went to dry up the ale +with the sack of meal that we got at the fair, I upset the jug: but the +cellar is now quite dry, and looks so clean!' 'Kate, Kate,' said he, +'how could you do all this?' Why did you leave the steak to fry, and the +ale to run, and then spoil all the meal?' 'Why, Frederick,' said she, 'I +did not know I was doing wrong; you should have told me before.' + +The husband thought to himself, 'If my wife manages matters thus, I must +look sharp myself.' Now he had a good deal of gold in the house: so he +said to Catherine, 'What pretty yellow buttons these are! I shall put +them into a box and bury them in the garden; but take care that you +never go near or meddle with them.' 'No, Frederick,' said she, 'that +I never will.' As soon as he was gone, there came by some pedlars with +earthenware plates and dishes, and they asked her whether she would buy. +'Oh dear me, I should like to buy very much, but I have no money: if +you had any use for yellow buttons, I might deal with you.' 'Yellow +buttons!' said they: 'let us have a look at them.' 'Go into the garden +and dig where I tell you, and you will find the yellow buttons: I dare +not go myself.' So the rogues went: and when they found what these +yellow buttons were, they took them all away, and left her plenty of +plates and dishes. Then she set them all about the house for a show: +and when Frederick came back, he cried out, 'Kate, what have you been +doing?' 'See,' said she, 'I have bought all these with your yellow +buttons: but I did not touch them myself; the pedlars went themselves +and dug them up.' 'Wife, wife,' said Frederick, 'what a pretty piece of +work you have made! those yellow buttons were all my money: how came you +to do such a thing?' 'Why,' answered she, 'I did not know there was any +harm in it; you should have told me.' + +Catherine stood musing for a while, and at last said to her husband, +'Hark ye, Frederick, we will soon get the gold back: let us run after +the thieves.' 'Well, we will try,' answered he; 'but take some butter +and cheese with you, that we may have something to eat by the way.' +'Very well,' said she; and they set out: and as Frederick walked the +fastest, he left his wife some way behind. 'It does not matter,' thought +she: 'when we turn back, I shall be so much nearer home than he.' + +Presently she came to the top of a hill, down the side of which there +was a road so narrow that the cart wheels always chafed the trees +on each side as they passed. 'Ah, see now,' said she, 'how they have +bruised and wounded those poor trees; they will never get well.' So she +took pity on them, and made use of the butter to grease them all, so +that the wheels might not hurt them so much. While she was doing this +kind office one of her cheeses fell out of the basket, and rolled down +the hill. Catherine looked, but could not see where it had gone; so she +said, 'Well, I suppose the other will go the same way and find you; he +has younger legs than I have.' Then she rolled the other cheese after +it; and away it went, nobody knows where, down the hill. But she said +she supposed that they knew the road, and would follow her, and she +could not stay there all day waiting for them. + +At last she overtook Frederick, who desired her to give him something to +eat. Then she gave him the dry bread. 'Where are the butter and cheese?' +said he. 'Oh!' answered she, 'I used the butter to grease those poor +trees that the wheels chafed so: and one of the cheeses ran away so I +sent the other after it to find it, and I suppose they are both on +the road together somewhere.' 'What a goose you are to do such silly +things!' said the husband. 'How can you say so?' said she; 'I am sure +you never told me not.' + +They ate the dry bread together; and Frederick said, 'Kate, I hope you +locked the door safe when you came away.' 'No,' answered she, 'you did +not tell me.' 'Then go home, and do it now before we go any farther,' +said Frederick, 'and bring with you something to eat.' + +Catherine did as he told her, and thought to herself by the way, +'Frederick wants something to eat; but I don't think he is very fond of +butter and cheese: I'll bring him a bag of fine nuts, and the vinegar, +for I have often seen him take some.' + +When she reached home, she bolted the back door, but the front door she +took off the hinges, and said, 'Frederick told me to lock the door, but +surely it can nowhere be so safe if I take it with me.' So she took +her time by the way; and when she overtook her husband she cried +out, 'There, Frederick, there is the door itself, you may watch it as +carefully as you please.' 'Alas! alas!' said he, 'what a clever wife I +have! I sent you to make the house fast, and you take the door away, so +that everybody may go in and out as they please--however, as you have +brought the door, you shall carry it about with you for your pains.' +'Very well,' answered she, 'I'll carry the door; but I'll not carry the +nuts and vinegar bottle also--that would be too much of a load; so if +you please, I'll fasten them to the door.' + +Frederick of course made no objection to that plan, and they set off +into the wood to look for the thieves; but they could not find them: and +when it grew dark, they climbed up into a tree to spend the night there. +Scarcely were they up, than who should come by but the very rogues they +were looking for. They were in truth great rascals, and belonged to that +class of people who find things before they are lost; they were tired; +so they sat down and made a fire under the very tree where Frederick and +Catherine were. Frederick slipped down on the other side, and picked up +some stones. Then he climbed up again, and tried to hit the thieves on +the head with them: but they only said, 'It must be near morning, for +the wind shakes the fir-apples down.' + +Catherine, who had the door on her shoulder, began to be very tired; +but she thought it was the nuts upon it that were so heavy: so she said +softly, 'Frederick, I must let the nuts go.' 'No,' answered he, 'not +now, they will discover us.' 'I can't help that: they must go.' 'Well, +then, make haste and throw them down, if you will.' Then away rattled +the nuts down among the boughs and one of the thieves cried, 'Bless me, +it is hailing.' + +A little while after, Catherine thought the door was still very heavy: +so she whispered to Frederick, 'I must throw the vinegar down.' 'Pray +don't,' answered he, 'it will discover us.' 'I can't help that,' said +she, 'go it must.' So she poured all the vinegar down; and the thieves +said, 'What a heavy dew there is!' + +At last it popped into Catherine's head that it was the door itself that +was so heavy all the time: so she whispered, 'Frederick, I must throw +the door down soon.' But he begged and prayed her not to do so, for he +was sure it would betray them. 'Here goes, however,' said she: and down +went the door with such a clatter upon the thieves, that they cried +out 'Murder!' and not knowing what was coming, ran away as fast as they +could, and left all the gold. So when Frederick and Catherine came down, +there they found all their money safe and sound. + + + + +SWEETHEART ROLAND + +There was once upon a time a woman who was a real witch and had two +daughters, one ugly and wicked, and this one she loved because she was +her own daughter, and one beautiful and good, and this one she hated, +because she was her stepdaughter. The stepdaughter once had a pretty +apron, which the other fancied so much that she became envious, and +told her mother that she must and would have that apron. 'Be quiet, my +child,' said the old woman, 'and you shall have it. Your stepsister has +long deserved death; tonight when she is asleep I will come and cut her +head off. Only be careful that you are at the far side of the bed, and +push her well to the front.' It would have been all over with the poor +girl if she had not just then been standing in a corner, and heard +everything. All day long she dared not go out of doors, and when bedtime +had come, the witch's daughter got into bed first, so as to lie at the +far side, but when she was asleep, the other pushed her gently to the +front, and took for herself the place at the back, close by the wall. In +the night, the old woman came creeping in, she held an axe in her right +hand, and felt with her left to see if anyone were lying at the outside, +and then she grasped the axe with both hands, and cut her own child's +head off. + +When she had gone away, the girl got up and went to her sweetheart, who +was called Roland, and knocked at his door. When he came out, she said +to him: 'Listen, dearest Roland, we must fly in all haste; my stepmother +wanted to kill me, but has struck her own child. When daylight comes, +and she sees what she has done, we shall be lost.' 'But,' said Roland, +'I counsel you first to take away her magic wand, or we cannot escape +if she pursues us.' The maiden fetched the magic wand, and she took the +dead girl's head and dropped three drops of blood on the ground, one in +front of the bed, one in the kitchen, and one on the stairs. Then she +hurried away with her lover. + +When the old witch got up next morning, she called her daughter, and +wanted to give her the apron, but she did not come. Then the witch +cried: 'Where are you?' 'Here, on the stairs, I am sweeping,' answered +the first drop of blood. The old woman went out, but saw no one on the +stairs, and cried again: 'Where are you?' 'Here in the kitchen, I am +warming myself,' cried the second drop of blood. She went into the +kitchen, but found no one. Then she cried again: 'Where are you?' 'Ah, +here in the bed, I am sleeping,' cried the third drop of blood. She went +into the room to the bed. What did she see there? Her own child, +whose head she had cut off, bathed in her blood. The witch fell into +a passion, sprang to the window, and as she could look forth quite far +into the world, she perceived her stepdaughter hurrying away with her +sweetheart Roland. 'That shall not help you,' cried she, 'even if you +have got a long way off, you shall still not escape me.' She put on her +many-league boots, in which she covered an hour's walk at every step, +and it was not long before she overtook them. The girl, however, when +she saw the old woman striding towards her, changed, with her magic +wand, her sweetheart Roland into a lake, and herself into a duck +swimming in the middle of it. The witch placed herself on the shore, +threw breadcrumbs in, and went to endless trouble to entice the duck; +but the duck did not let herself be enticed, and the old woman had to +go home at night as she had come. At this the girl and her sweetheart +Roland resumed their natural shapes again, and they walked on the whole +night until daybreak. Then the maiden changed herself into a beautiful +flower which stood in the midst of a briar hedge, and her sweetheart +Roland into a fiddler. It was not long before the witch came striding up +towards them, and said to the musician: 'Dear musician, may I pluck that +beautiful flower for myself?' 'Oh, yes,' he replied, 'I will play to +you while you do it.' As she was hastily creeping into the hedge and was +just going to pluck the flower, knowing perfectly well who the flower +was, he began to play, and whether she would or not, she was forced +to dance, for it was a magical dance. The faster he played, the more +violent springs was she forced to make, and the thorns tore her clothes +from her body, and pricked her and wounded her till she bled, and as he +did not stop, she had to dance till she lay dead on the ground. + +As they were now set free, Roland said: 'Now I will go to my father and +arrange for the wedding.' 'Then in the meantime I will stay here and +wait for you,' said the girl, 'and that no one may recognize me, I will +change myself into a red stone landmark.' Then Roland went away, and the +girl stood like a red landmark in the field and waited for her beloved. +But when Roland got home, he fell into the snares of another, who so +fascinated him that he forgot the maiden. The poor girl remained there a +long time, but at length, as he did not return at all, she was sad, and +changed herself into a flower, and thought: 'Someone will surely come +this way, and trample me down.' + +It befell, however, that a shepherd kept his sheep in the field and saw +the flower, and as it was so pretty, plucked it, took it with him, and +laid it away in his chest. From that time forth, strange things happened +in the shepherd's house. When he arose in the morning, all the work was +already done, the room was swept, the table and benches cleaned, the +fire in the hearth was lighted, and the water was fetched, and at noon, +when he came home, the table was laid, and a good dinner served. He +could not conceive how this came to pass, for he never saw a human being +in his house, and no one could have concealed himself in it. He was +certainly pleased with this good attendance, but still at last he was so +afraid that he went to a wise woman and asked for her advice. The wise +woman said: 'There is some enchantment behind it, listen very early some +morning if anything is moving in the room, and if you see anything, no +matter what it is, throw a white cloth over it, and then the magic will +be stopped.' + +The shepherd did as she bade him, and next morning just as day dawned, +he saw the chest open, and the flower come out. Swiftly he +sprang towards it, and threw a white cloth over it. Instantly the +transformation came to an end, and a beautiful girl stood before him, +who admitted to him that she had been the flower, and that up to this +time she had attended to his house-keeping. She told him her story, +and as she pleased him he asked her if she would marry him, but she +answered: 'No,' for she wanted to remain faithful to her sweetheart +Roland, although he had deserted her. Nevertheless, she promised not to +go away, but to continue keeping house for the shepherd. + +And now the time drew near when Roland's wedding was to be celebrated, +and then, according to an old custom in the country, it was announced +that all the girls were to be present at it, and sing in honour of the +bridal pair. When the faithful maiden heard of this, she grew so sad +that she thought her heart would break, and she would not go thither, +but the other girls came and took her. When it came to her turn to sing, +she stepped back, until at last she was the only one left, and then she +could not refuse. But when she began her song, and it reached Roland's +ears, he sprang up and cried: 'I know the voice, that is the true +bride, I will have no other!' Everything he had forgotten, and which had +vanished from his mind, had suddenly come home again to his heart. Then +the faithful maiden held her wedding with her sweetheart Roland, and +grief came to an end and joy began. + + + + +SNOWDROP + +It was the middle of winter, when the broad flakes of snow were falling +around, that the queen of a country many thousand miles off sat working +at her window. The frame of the window was made of fine black ebony, and +as she sat looking out upon the snow, she pricked her finger, and three +drops of blood fell upon it. Then she gazed thoughtfully upon the red +drops that sprinkled the white snow, and said, 'Would that my little +daughter may be as white as that snow, as red as that blood, and as +black as this ebony windowframe!' And so the little girl really did grow +up; her skin was as white as snow, her cheeks as rosy as the blood, and +her hair as black as ebony; and she was called Snowdrop. + +But this queen died; and the king soon married another wife, who became +queen, and was very beautiful, but so vain that she could not bear +to think that anyone could be handsomer than she was. She had a fairy +looking-glass, to which she used to go, and then she would gaze upon +herself in it, and say: + + 'Tell me, glass, tell me true! + Of all the ladies in the land, + Who is fairest, tell me, who?' + +And the glass had always answered: + + 'Thou, queen, art the fairest in all the land.' + +But Snowdrop grew more and more beautiful; and when she was seven years +old she was as bright as the day, and fairer than the queen herself. +Then the glass one day answered the queen, when she went to look in it +as usual: + + 'Thou, queen, art fair, and beauteous to see, + But Snowdrop is lovelier far than thee!' + +When she heard this she turned pale with rage and envy, and called to +one of her servants, and said, 'Take Snowdrop away into the wide wood, +that I may never see her any more.' Then the servant led her away; but +his heart melted when Snowdrop begged him to spare her life, and he +said, 'I will not hurt you, thou pretty child.' So he left her by +herself; and though he thought it most likely that the wild beasts would +tear her in pieces, he felt as if a great weight were taken off his +heart when he had made up his mind not to kill her but to leave her to +her fate, with the chance of someone finding and saving her. + +Then poor Snowdrop wandered along through the wood in great fear; and +the wild beasts roared about her, but none did her any harm. In the +evening she came to a cottage among the hills, and went in to rest, for +her little feet would carry her no further. Everything was spruce and +neat in the cottage: on the table was spread a white cloth, and there +were seven little plates, seven little loaves, and seven little glasses +with wine in them; and seven knives and forks laid in order; and by +the wall stood seven little beds. As she was very hungry, she picked +a little piece of each loaf and drank a very little wine out of each +glass; and after that she thought she would lie down and rest. So she +tried all the little beds; but one was too long, and another was too +short, till at last the seventh suited her: and there she laid herself +down and went to sleep. + +By and by in came the masters of the cottage. Now they were seven little +dwarfs, that lived among the mountains, and dug and searched for gold. +They lighted up their seven lamps, and saw at once that all was not +right. The first said, 'Who has been sitting on my stool?' The second, +'Who has been eating off my plate?' The third, 'Who has been picking my +bread?' The fourth, 'Who has been meddling with my spoon?' The fifth, +'Who has been handling my fork?' The sixth, 'Who has been cutting with +my knife?' The seventh, 'Who has been drinking my wine?' Then the first +looked round and said, 'Who has been lying on my bed?' And the rest came +running to him, and everyone cried out that somebody had been upon his +bed. But the seventh saw Snowdrop, and called all his brethren to come +and see her; and they cried out with wonder and astonishment and brought +their lamps to look at her, and said, 'Good heavens! what a lovely child +she is!' And they were very glad to see her, and took care not to wake +her; and the seventh dwarf slept an hour with each of the other dwarfs +in turn, till the night was gone. + +In the morning Snowdrop told them all her story; and they pitied her, +and said if she would keep all things in order, and cook and wash and +knit and spin for them, she might stay where she was, and they would +take good care of her. Then they went out all day long to their work, +seeking for gold and silver in the mountains: but Snowdrop was left at +home; and they warned her, and said, 'The queen will soon find out where +you are, so take care and let no one in.' + +But the queen, now that she thought Snowdrop was dead, believed that she +must be the handsomest lady in the land; and she went to her glass and +said: + + 'Tell me, glass, tell me true! + Of all the ladies in the land, + Who is fairest, tell me, who?' + +And the glass answered: + + 'Thou, queen, art the fairest in all this land: + But over the hills, in the greenwood shade, + Where the seven dwarfs their dwelling have made, + There Snowdrop is hiding her head; and she + Is lovelier far, O queen! than thee.' + +Then the queen was very much frightened; for she knew that the glass +always spoke the truth, and was sure that the servant had betrayed her. +And she could not bear to think that anyone lived who was more beautiful +than she was; so she dressed herself up as an old pedlar, and went +her way over the hills, to the place where the dwarfs dwelt. Then she +knocked at the door, and cried, 'Fine wares to sell!' Snowdrop looked +out at the window, and said, 'Good day, good woman! what have you to +sell?' 'Good wares, fine wares,' said she; 'laces and bobbins of all +colours.' 'I will let the old lady in; she seems to be a very good +sort of body,' thought Snowdrop, as she ran down and unbolted the door. +'Bless me!' said the old woman, 'how badly your stays are laced! Let me +lace them up with one of my nice new laces.' Snowdrop did not dream of +any mischief; so she stood before the old woman; but she set to work +so nimbly, and pulled the lace so tight, that Snowdrop's breath was +stopped, and she fell down as if she were dead. 'There's an end to all +thy beauty,' said the spiteful queen, and went away home. + +In the evening the seven dwarfs came home; and I need not say how +grieved they were to see their faithful Snowdrop stretched out upon the +ground, as if she was quite dead. However, they lifted her up, and when +they found what ailed her, they cut the lace; and in a little time she +began to breathe, and very soon came to life again. Then they said, 'The +old woman was the queen herself; take care another time, and let no one +in when we are away.' + +When the queen got home, she went straight to her glass, and spoke to it +as before; but to her great grief it still said: + + 'Thou, queen, art the fairest in all this land: + But over the hills, in the greenwood shade, + Where the seven dwarfs their dwelling have made, + There Snowdrop is hiding her head; and she + Is lovelier far, O queen! than thee.' + +Then the blood ran cold in her heart with spite and malice, to see that +Snowdrop still lived; and she dressed herself up again, but in quite +another dress from the one she wore before, and took with her a poisoned +comb. When she reached the dwarfs' cottage, she knocked at the door, and +cried, 'Fine wares to sell!' But Snowdrop said, 'I dare not let anyone +in.' Then the queen said, 'Only look at my beautiful combs!' and gave +her the poisoned one. And it looked so pretty, that she took it up and +put it into her hair to try it; but the moment it touched her head, +the poison was so powerful that she fell down senseless. 'There you may +lie,' said the queen, and went her way. But by good luck the dwarfs +came in very early that evening; and when they saw Snowdrop lying on +the ground, they thought what had happened, and soon found the poisoned +comb. And when they took it away she got well, and told them all that +had passed; and they warned her once more not to open the door to +anyone. + +Meantime the queen went home to her glass, and shook with rage when she +read the very same answer as before; and she said, 'Snowdrop shall die, +if it cost me my life.' So she went by herself into her chamber, and got +ready a poisoned apple: the outside looked very rosy and tempting, but +whoever tasted it was sure to die. Then she dressed herself up as a +peasant's wife, and travelled over the hills to the dwarfs' cottage, +and knocked at the door; but Snowdrop put her head out of the window and +said, 'I dare not let anyone in, for the dwarfs have told me not.' 'Do +as you please,' said the old woman, 'but at any rate take this pretty +apple; I will give it you.' 'No,' said Snowdrop, 'I dare not take it.' +'You silly girl!' answered the other, 'what are you afraid of? Do you +think it is poisoned? Come! do you eat one part, and I will eat the +other.' Now the apple was so made up that one side was good, though the +other side was poisoned. Then Snowdrop was much tempted to taste, for +the apple looked so very nice; and when she saw the old woman eat, she +could wait no longer. But she had scarcely put the piece into her mouth, +when she fell down dead upon the ground. 'This time nothing will save +thee,' said the queen; and she went home to her glass, and at last it +said: + + 'Thou, queen, art the fairest of all the fair.' + +And then her wicked heart was glad, and as happy as such a heart could +be. + +When evening came, and the dwarfs had gone home, they found Snowdrop +lying on the ground: no breath came from her lips, and they were afraid +that she was quite dead. They lifted her up, and combed her hair, and +washed her face with wine and water; but all was in vain, for the little +girl seemed quite dead. So they laid her down upon a bier, and all seven +watched and bewailed her three whole days; and then they thought they +would bury her: but her cheeks were still rosy; and her face looked just +as it did while she was alive; so they said, 'We will never bury her in +the cold ground.' And they made a coffin of glass, so that they might +still look at her, and wrote upon it in golden letters what her name +was, and that she was a king's daughter. And the coffin was set among +the hills, and one of the dwarfs always sat by it and watched. And the +birds of the air came too, and bemoaned Snowdrop; and first of all came +an owl, and then a raven, and at last a dove, and sat by her side. + +And thus Snowdrop lay for a long, long time, and still only looked as +though she was asleep; for she was even now as white as snow, and as red +as blood, and as black as ebony. At last a prince came and called at the +dwarfs' house; and he saw Snowdrop, and read what was written in golden +letters. Then he offered the dwarfs money, and prayed and besought them +to let him take her away; but they said, 'We will not part with her for +all the gold in the world.' At last, however, they had pity on him, and +gave him the coffin; but the moment he lifted it up to carry it home +with him, the piece of apple fell from between her lips, and Snowdrop +awoke, and said, 'Where am I?' And the prince said, 'Thou art quite safe +with me.' + +Then he told her all that had happened, and said, 'I love you far better +than all the world; so come with me to my father's palace, and you shall +be my wife.' And Snowdrop consented, and went home with the prince; +and everything was got ready with great pomp and splendour for their +wedding. + +To the feast was asked, among the rest, Snowdrop's old enemy the queen; +and as she was dressing herself in fine rich clothes, she looked in the +glass and said: + + 'Tell me, glass, tell me true! + Of all the ladies in the land, + Who is fairest, tell me, who?' + +And the glass answered: + + 'Thou, lady, art loveliest here, I ween; + But lovelier far is the new-made queen.' + +When she heard this she started with rage; but her envy and curiosity +were so great, that she could not help setting out to see the bride. And +when she got there, and saw that it was no other than Snowdrop, who, as +she thought, had been dead a long while, she choked with rage, and fell +down and died: but Snowdrop and the prince lived and reigned happily +over that land many, many years; and sometimes they went up into the +mountains, and paid a visit to the little dwarfs, who had been so kind +to Snowdrop in her time of need. + + + + +THE PINK + +There was once upon a time a queen to whom God had given no children. +Every morning she went into the garden and prayed to God in heaven to +bestow on her a son or a daughter. Then an angel from heaven came to her +and said: 'Be at rest, you shall have a son with the power of wishing, +so that whatsoever in the world he wishes for, that shall he have.' Then +she went to the king, and told him the joyful tidings, and when the time +was come she gave birth to a son, and the king was filled with gladness. + +Every morning she went with the child to the garden where the wild +beasts were kept, and washed herself there in a clear stream. It +happened once when the child was a little older, that it was lying in +her arms and she fell asleep. Then came the old cook, who knew that the +child had the power of wishing, and stole it away, and he took a hen, +and cut it in pieces, and dropped some of its blood on the queen's apron +and on her dress. Then he carried the child away to a secret place, +where a nurse was obliged to suckle it, and he ran to the king and +accused the queen of having allowed her child to be taken from her by +the wild beasts. When the king saw the blood on her apron, he believed +this, fell into such a passion that he ordered a high tower to be built, +in which neither sun nor moon could be seen and had his wife put into +it, and walled up. Here she was to stay for seven years without meat +or drink, and die of hunger. But God sent two angels from heaven in the +shape of white doves, which flew to her twice a day, and carried her +food until the seven years were over. + +The cook, however, thought to himself: 'If the child has the power of +wishing, and I am here, he might very easily get me into trouble.' So +he left the palace and went to the boy, who was already big enough to +speak, and said to him: 'Wish for a beautiful palace for yourself with +a garden, and all else that pertains to it.' Scarcely were the words out +of the boy's mouth, when everything was there that he had wished for. +After a while the cook said to him: 'It is not well for you to be so +alone, wish for a pretty girl as a companion.' Then the king's son +wished for one, and she immediately stood before him, and was more +beautiful than any painter could have painted her. The two played +together, and loved each other with all their hearts, and the old cook +went out hunting like a nobleman. The thought occurred to him, however, +that the king's son might some day wish to be with his father, and thus +bring him into great peril. So he went out and took the maiden aside, +and said: 'Tonight when the boy is asleep, go to his bed and plunge this +knife into his heart, and bring me his heart and tongue, and if you do +not do it, you shall lose your life.' Thereupon he went away, and when +he returned next day she had not done it, and said: 'Why should I shed +the blood of an innocent boy who has never harmed anyone?' The cook once +more said: 'If you do not do it, it shall cost you your own life.' When +he had gone away, she had a little hind brought to her, and ordered her +to be killed, and took her heart and tongue, and laid them on a plate, +and when she saw the old man coming, she said to the boy: 'Lie down in +your bed, and draw the clothes over you.' Then the wicked wretch came in +and said: 'Where are the boy's heart and tongue?' The girl reached the +plate to him, but the king's son threw off the quilt, and said: 'You old +sinner, why did you want to kill me? Now will I pronounce thy sentence. +You shall become a black poodle and have a gold collar round your neck, +and shall eat burning coals, till the flames burst forth from your +throat.' And when he had spoken these words, the old man was changed +into a poodle dog, and had a gold collar round his neck, and the cooks +were ordered to bring up some live coals, and these he ate, until the +flames broke forth from his throat. The king's son remained there a +short while longer, and he thought of his mother, and wondered if she +were still alive. At length he said to the maiden: 'I will go home to my +own country; if you will go with me, I will provide for you.' 'Ah,' +she replied, 'the way is so long, and what shall I do in a strange land +where I am unknown?' As she did not seem quite willing, and as they +could not be parted from each other, he wished that she might be changed +into a beautiful pink, and took her with him. Then he went away to his +own country, and the poodle had to run after him. He went to the tower +in which his mother was confined, and as it was so high, he wished for +a ladder which would reach up to the very top. Then he mounted up and +looked inside, and cried: 'Beloved mother, Lady Queen, are you still +alive, or are you dead?' She answered: 'I have just eaten, and am still +satisfied,' for she thought the angels were there. Said he: 'I am your +dear son, whom the wild beasts were said to have torn from your arms; +but I am alive still, and will soon set you free.' Then he descended +again, and went to his father, and caused himself to be announced as a +strange huntsman, and asked if he could offer him service. The king said +yes, if he was skilful and could get game for him, he should come to +him, but that deer had never taken up their quarters in any part of the +district or country. Then the huntsman promised to procure as much game +for him as he could possibly use at the royal table. So he summoned all +the huntsmen together, and bade them go out into the forest with him. +And he went with them and made them form a great circle, open at one end +where he stationed himself, and began to wish. Two hundred deer and more +came running inside the circle at once, and the huntsmen shot them. +Then they were all placed on sixty country carts, and driven home to the +king, and for once he was able to deck his table with game, after having +had none at all for years. + +Now the king felt great joy at this, and commanded that his entire +household should eat with him next day, and made a great feast. When +they were all assembled together, he said to the huntsman: 'As you are +so clever, you shall sit by me.' He replied: 'Lord King, your majesty +must excuse me, I am a poor huntsman.' But the king insisted on it, +and said: 'You shall sit by me,' until he did it. Whilst he was sitting +there, he thought of his dearest mother, and wished that one of the +king's principal servants would begin to speak of her, and would ask how +it was faring with the queen in the tower, and if she were alive still, +or had perished. Hardly had he formed the wish than the marshal began, +and said: 'Your majesty, we live joyously here, but how is the queen +living in the tower? Is she still alive, or has she died?' But the king +replied: 'She let my dear son be torn to pieces by wild beasts; I will +not have her named.' Then the huntsman arose and said: 'Gracious lord +father she is alive still, and I am her son, and I was not carried away +by wild beasts, but by that wretch the old cook, who tore me from her +arms when she was asleep, and sprinkled her apron with the blood of a +chicken.' Thereupon he took the dog with the golden collar, and said: +'That is the wretch!' and caused live coals to be brought, and these the +dog was compelled to devour before the sight of all, until flames burst +forth from its throat. On this the huntsman asked the king if he would +like to see the dog in his true shape, and wished him back into the form +of the cook, in the which he stood immediately, with his white apron, +and his knife by his side. When the king saw him he fell into a passion, +and ordered him to be cast into the deepest dungeon. Then the huntsman +spoke further and said: 'Father, will you see the maiden who brought me +up so tenderly and who was afterwards to murder me, but did not do it, +though her own life depended on it?' The king replied: 'Yes, I would +like to see her.' The son said: 'Most gracious father, I will show her +to you in the form of a beautiful flower,' and he thrust his hand into +his pocket and brought forth the pink, and placed it on the royal table, +and it was so beautiful that the king had never seen one to equal it. +Then the son said: 'Now will I show her to you in her own form,' and +wished that she might become a maiden, and she stood there looking so +beautiful that no painter could have made her look more so. + +And the king sent two waiting-maids and two attendants into the tower, +to fetch the queen and bring her to the royal table. But when she was +led in she ate nothing, and said: 'The gracious and merciful God who has +supported me in the tower, will soon set me free.' She lived three days +more, and then died happily, and when she was buried, the two white +doves which had brought her food to the tower, and were angels of +heaven, followed her body and seated themselves on her grave. The aged +king ordered the cook to be torn in four pieces, but grief consumed the +king's own heart, and he soon died. His son married the beautiful maiden +whom he had brought with him as a flower in his pocket, and whether they +are still alive or not, is known to God. + + + + +CLEVER ELSIE + +There was once a man who had a daughter who was called Clever Elsie. And +when she had grown up her father said: 'We will get her married.' 'Yes,' +said the mother, 'if only someone would come who would have her.' At +length a man came from a distance and wooed her, who was called Hans; +but he stipulated that Clever Elsie should be really smart. 'Oh,' said +the father, 'she has plenty of good sense'; and the mother said: 'Oh, +she can see the wind coming up the street, and hear the flies coughing.' +'Well,' said Hans, 'if she is not really smart, I won't have her.' When +they were sitting at dinner and had eaten, the mother said: 'Elsie, go +into the cellar and fetch some beer.' Then Clever Elsie took the pitcher +from the wall, went into the cellar, and tapped the lid briskly as she +went, so that the time might not appear long. When she was below she +fetched herself a chair, and set it before the barrel so that she had +no need to stoop, and did not hurt her back or do herself any unexpected +injury. Then she placed the can before her, and turned the tap, and +while the beer was running she would not let her eyes be idle, but +looked up at the wall, and after much peering here and there, saw a +pick-axe exactly above her, which the masons had accidentally left +there. + +Then Clever Elsie began to weep and said: 'If I get Hans, and we have +a child, and he grows big, and we send him into the cellar here to draw +beer, then the pick-axe will fall on his head and kill him.' Then she +sat and wept and screamed with all the strength of her body, over the +misfortune which lay before her. Those upstairs waited for the drink, +but Clever Elsie still did not come. Then the woman said to the servant: +'Just go down into the cellar and see where Elsie is.' The maid went and +found her sitting in front of the barrel, screaming loudly. 'Elsie why +do you weep?' asked the maid. 'Ah,' she answered, 'have I not reason to +weep? If I get Hans, and we have a child, and he grows big, and has to +draw beer here, the pick-axe will perhaps fall on his head, and kill +him.' Then said the maid: 'What a clever Elsie we have!' and sat down +beside her and began loudly to weep over the misfortune. After a while, +as the maid did not come back, and those upstairs were thirsty for the +beer, the man said to the boy: 'Just go down into the cellar and see +where Elsie and the girl are.' The boy went down, and there sat Clever +Elsie and the girl both weeping together. Then he asked: 'Why are you +weeping?' 'Ah,' said Elsie, 'have I not reason to weep? If I get Hans, +and we have a child, and he grows big, and has to draw beer here, the +pick-axe will fall on his head and kill him.' Then said the boy: 'What +a clever Elsie we have!' and sat down by her, and likewise began to +howl loudly. Upstairs they waited for the boy, but as he still did not +return, the man said to the woman: 'Just go down into the cellar and see +where Elsie is!' The woman went down, and found all three in the midst +of their lamentations, and inquired what was the cause; then Elsie told +her also that her future child was to be killed by the pick-axe, when it +grew big and had to draw beer, and the pick-axe fell down. Then said the +mother likewise: 'What a clever Elsie we have!' and sat down and wept +with them. The man upstairs waited a short time, but as his wife did not +come back and his thirst grew ever greater, he said: 'I must go into the +cellar myself and see where Elsie is.' But when he got into the cellar, +and they were all sitting together crying, and he heard the reason, and +that Elsie's child was the cause, and the Elsie might perhaps bring one +into the world some day, and that he might be killed by the pick-axe, if +he should happen to be sitting beneath it, drawing beer just at the very +time when it fell down, he cried: 'Oh, what a clever Elsie!' and sat +down, and likewise wept with them. The bridegroom stayed upstairs alone +for a long time; then as no one would come back he thought: 'They must be +waiting for me below: I too must go there and see what they are about.' +When he got down, the five of them were sitting screaming and lamenting +quite piteously, each out-doing the other. 'What misfortune has happened +then?' asked he. 'Ah, dear Hans,' said Elsie, 'if we marry each other +and have a child, and he is big, and we perhaps send him here to draw +something to drink, then the pick-axe which has been left up there might +dash his brains out if it were to fall down, so have we not reason to +weep?' 'Come,' said Hans, 'more understanding than that is not needed +for my household, as you are such a clever Elsie, I will have you,' and +seized her hand, took her upstairs with him, and married her. + +After Hans had had her some time, he said: 'Wife, I am going out to work +and earn some money for us; go into the field and cut the corn that we +may have some bread.' 'Yes, dear Hans, I will do that.' After Hans had +gone away, she cooked herself some good broth and took it into the field +with her. When she came to the field she said to herself: 'What shall I +do; shall I cut first, or shall I eat first? Oh, I will eat first.' Then +she drank her cup of broth and when she was fully satisfied, she once +more said: 'What shall I do? Shall I cut first, or shall I sleep first? +I will sleep first.' Then she lay down among the corn and fell asleep. +Hans had been at home for a long time, but Elsie did not come; then said +he: 'What a clever Elsie I have; she is so industrious that she does not +even come home to eat.' But when evening came and she still stayed away, +Hans went out to see what she had cut, but nothing was cut, and she +was lying among the corn asleep. Then Hans hastened home and brought +a fowler's net with little bells and hung it round about her, and she +still went on sleeping. Then he ran home, shut the house-door, and sat +down in his chair and worked. At length, when it was quite dark, Clever +Elsie awoke and when she got up there was a jingling all round about +her, and the bells rang at each step which she took. Then she was +alarmed, and became uncertain whether she really was Clever Elsie or +not, and said: 'Is it I, or is it not I?' But she knew not what answer +to make to this, and stood for a time in doubt; at length she thought: +'I will go home and ask if it be I, or if it be not I, they will be sure +to know.' She ran to the door of her own house, but it was shut; then +she knocked at the window and cried: 'Hans, is Elsie within?' 'Yes,' +answered Hans, 'she is within.' Hereupon she was terrified, and said: +'Ah, heavens! Then it is not I,' and went to another door; but when the +people heard the jingling of the bells they would not open it, and she +could get in nowhere. Then she ran out of the village, and no one has +seen her since. + + + + +THE MISER IN THE BUSH + +A farmer had a faithful and diligent servant, who had worked hard for +him three years, without having been paid any wages. At last it came +into the man's head that he would not go on thus without pay any longer; +so he went to his master, and said, 'I have worked hard for you a long +time, I will trust to you to give me what I deserve to have for my +trouble.' The farmer was a sad miser, and knew that his man was very +simple-hearted; so he took out threepence, and gave him for every year's +service a penny. The poor fellow thought it was a great deal of money to +have, and said to himself, 'Why should I work hard, and live here on bad +fare any longer? I can now travel into the wide world, and make myself +merry.' With that he put his money into his purse, and set out, roaming +over hill and valley. + +As he jogged along over the fields, singing and dancing, a little dwarf +met him, and asked him what made him so merry. 'Why, what should make +me down-hearted?' said he; 'I am sound in health and rich in purse, what +should I care for? I have saved up my three years' earnings and have it +all safe in my pocket.' 'How much may it come to?' said the little man. +'Full threepence,' replied the countryman. 'I wish you would give them +to me,' said the other; 'I am very poor.' Then the man pitied him, and +gave him all he had; and the little dwarf said in return, 'As you have +such a kind honest heart, I will grant you three wishes--one for every +penny; so choose whatever you like.' Then the countryman rejoiced at +his good luck, and said, 'I like many things better than money: first, I +will have a bow that will bring down everything I shoot at; secondly, +a fiddle that will set everyone dancing that hears me play upon it; and +thirdly, I should like that everyone should grant what I ask.' The dwarf +said he should have his three wishes; so he gave him the bow and fiddle, +and went his way. + +Our honest friend journeyed on his way too; and if he was merry before, +he was now ten times more so. He had not gone far before he met an old +miser: close by them stood a tree, and on the topmost twig sat a thrush +singing away most joyfully. 'Oh, what a pretty bird!' said the miser; 'I +would give a great deal of money to have such a one.' 'If that's all,' +said the countryman, 'I will soon bring it down.' Then he took up his +bow, and down fell the thrush into the bushes at the foot of the tree. +The miser crept into the bush to find it; but directly he had got into +the middle, his companion took up his fiddle and played away, and the +miser began to dance and spring about, capering higher and higher in +the air. The thorns soon began to tear his clothes till they all hung +in rags about him, and he himself was all scratched and wounded, so that +the blood ran down. 'Oh, for heaven's sake!' cried the miser, 'Master! +master! pray let the fiddle alone. What have I done to deserve this?' +'Thou hast shaved many a poor soul close enough,' said the other; 'thou +art only meeting thy reward': so he played up another tune. Then the +miser began to beg and promise, and offered money for his liberty; but +he did not come up to the musician's price for some time, and he danced +him along brisker and brisker, and the miser bid higher and higher, till +at last he offered a round hundred of florins that he had in his purse, +and had just gained by cheating some poor fellow. When the countryman +saw so much money, he said, 'I will agree to your proposal.' So he took +the purse, put up his fiddle, and travelled on very pleased with his +bargain. + +Meanwhile the miser crept out of the bush half-naked and in a piteous +plight, and began to ponder how he should take his revenge, and serve +his late companion some trick. At last he went to the judge, and +complained that a rascal had robbed him of his money, and beaten him +into the bargain; and that the fellow who did it carried a bow at his +back and a fiddle hung round his neck. Then the judge sent out his +officers to bring up the accused wherever they should find him; and he +was soon caught and brought up to be tried. + +The miser began to tell his tale, and said he had been robbed of +his money. 'No, you gave it me for playing a tune to you.' said the +countryman; but the judge told him that was not likely, and cut the +matter short by ordering him off to the gallows. + +So away he was taken; but as he stood on the steps he said, 'My Lord +Judge, grant me one last request.' 'Anything but thy life,' replied the +other. 'No,' said he, 'I do not ask my life; only to let me play upon +my fiddle for the last time.' The miser cried out, 'Oh, no! no! for +heaven's sake don't listen to him! don't listen to him!' But the judge +said, 'It is only this once, he will soon have done.' The fact was, he +could not refuse the request, on account of the dwarf's third gift. + +Then the miser said, 'Bind me fast, bind me fast, for pity's sake.' But +the countryman seized his fiddle, and struck up a tune, and at the first +note judge, clerks, and jailer were in motion; all began capering, and +no one could hold the miser. At the second note the hangman let his +prisoner go, and danced also, and by the time he had played the first +bar of the tune, all were dancing together--judge, court, and miser, and +all the people who had followed to look on. At first the thing was merry +and pleasant enough; but when it had gone on a while, and there seemed +to be no end of playing or dancing, they began to cry out, and beg him +to leave off; but he stopped not a whit the more for their entreaties, +till the judge not only gave him his life, but promised to return him +the hundred florins. + +Then he called to the miser, and said, 'Tell us now, you vagabond, where +you got that gold, or I shall play on for your amusement only,' 'I stole +it,' said the miser in the presence of all the people; 'I acknowledge +that I stole it, and that you earned it fairly.' Then the countryman +stopped his fiddle, and left the miser to take his place at the gallows. + + + + +ASHPUTTEL + +The wife of a rich man fell sick; and when she felt that her end drew +nigh, she called her only daughter to her bed-side, and said, 'Always be +a good girl, and I will look down from heaven and watch over you.' Soon +afterwards she shut her eyes and died, and was buried in the garden; +and the little girl went every day to her grave and wept, and was always +good and kind to all about her. And the snow fell and spread a beautiful +white covering over the grave; but by the time the spring came, and the +sun had melted it away again, her father had married another wife. This +new wife had two daughters of her own, that she brought home with her; +they were fair in face but foul at heart, and it was now a sorry time +for the poor little girl. 'What does the good-for-nothing want in the +parlour?' said they; 'they who would eat bread should first earn it; +away with the kitchen-maid!' Then they took away her fine clothes, and +gave her an old grey frock to put on, and laughed at her, and turned her +into the kitchen. + +There she was forced to do hard work; to rise early before daylight, to +bring the water, to make the fire, to cook and to wash. Besides that, +the sisters plagued her in all sorts of ways, and laughed at her. In the +evening when she was tired, she had no bed to lie down on, but was made +to lie by the hearth among the ashes; and as this, of course, made her +always dusty and dirty, they called her Ashputtel. + +It happened once that the father was going to the fair, and asked his +wife's daughters what he should bring them. 'Fine clothes,' said the +first; 'Pearls and diamonds,' cried the second. 'Now, child,' said he +to his own daughter, 'what will you have?' 'The first twig, dear +father, that brushes against your hat when you turn your face to come +homewards,' said she. Then he bought for the first two the fine clothes +and pearls and diamonds they had asked for: and on his way home, as he +rode through a green copse, a hazel twig brushed against him, and almost +pushed off his hat: so he broke it off and brought it away; and when he +got home he gave it to his daughter. Then she took it, and went to +her mother's grave and planted it there; and cried so much that it was +watered with her tears; and there it grew and became a fine tree. Three +times every day she went to it and cried; and soon a little bird came +and built its nest upon the tree, and talked with her, and watched over +her, and brought her whatever she wished for. + +Now it happened that the king of that land held a feast, which was to +last three days; and out of those who came to it his son was to choose +a bride for himself. Ashputtel's two sisters were asked to come; so they +called her up, and said, 'Now, comb our hair, brush our shoes, and tie +our sashes for us, for we are going to dance at the king's feast.' +Then she did as she was told; but when all was done she could not help +crying, for she thought to herself, she should so have liked to have +gone with them to the ball; and at last she begged her mother very hard +to let her go. 'You, Ashputtel!' said she; 'you who have nothing to +wear, no clothes at all, and who cannot even dance--you want to go to +the ball? And when she kept on begging, she said at last, to get rid of +her, 'I will throw this dishful of peas into the ash-heap, and if in +two hours' time you have picked them all out, you shall go to the feast +too.' + +Then she threw the peas down among the ashes, but the little maiden ran +out at the back door into the garden, and cried out: + + 'Hither, hither, through the sky, + Turtle-doves and linnets, fly! + Blackbird, thrush, and chaffinch gay, + Hither, hither, haste away! + One and all come help me, quick! + Haste ye, haste ye!--pick, pick, pick!' + +Then first came two white doves, flying in at the kitchen window; next +came two turtle-doves; and after them came all the little birds under +heaven, chirping and fluttering in: and they flew down into the ashes. +And the little doves stooped their heads down and set to work, pick, +pick, pick; and then the others began to pick, pick, pick: and among +them all they soon picked out all the good grain, and put it into a dish +but left the ashes. Long before the end of the hour the work was quite +done, and all flew out again at the windows. + +Then Ashputtel brought the dish to her mother, overjoyed at the thought +that now she should go to the ball. But the mother said, 'No, no! you +slut, you have no clothes, and cannot dance; you shall not go.' And when +Ashputtel begged very hard to go, she said, 'If you can in one hour's +time pick two of those dishes of peas out of the ashes, you shall go +too.' And thus she thought she should at least get rid of her. So she +shook two dishes of peas into the ashes. + +But the little maiden went out into the garden at the back of the house, +and cried out as before: + + 'Hither, hither, through the sky, + Turtle-doves and linnets, fly! + Blackbird, thrush, and chaffinch gay, + Hither, hither, haste away! + One and all come help me, quick! + Haste ye, haste ye!--pick, pick, pick!' + +Then first came two white doves in at the kitchen window; next came two +turtle-doves; and after them came all the little birds under heaven, +chirping and hopping about. And they flew down into the ashes; and the +little doves put their heads down and set to work, pick, pick, pick; and +then the others began pick, pick, pick; and they put all the good grain +into the dishes, and left all the ashes. Before half an hour's time all +was done, and out they flew again. And then Ashputtel took the dishes to +her mother, rejoicing to think that she should now go to the ball. +But her mother said, 'It is all of no use, you cannot go; you have no +clothes, and cannot dance, and you would only put us to shame': and off +she went with her two daughters to the ball. + +Now when all were gone, and nobody left at home, Ashputtel went +sorrowfully and sat down under the hazel-tree, and cried out: + + 'Shake, shake, hazel-tree, + Gold and silver over me!' + +Then her friend the bird flew out of the tree, and brought a gold and +silver dress for her, and slippers of spangled silk; and she put them +on, and followed her sisters to the feast. But they did not know her, +and thought it must be some strange princess, she looked so fine and +beautiful in her rich clothes; and they never once thought of Ashputtel, +taking it for granted that she was safe at home in the dirt. + +The king's son soon came up to her, and took her by the hand and danced +with her, and no one else: and he never left her hand; but when anyone +else came to ask her to dance, he said, 'This lady is dancing with me.' + +Thus they danced till a late hour of the night; and then she wanted to +go home: and the king's son said, 'I shall go and take care of you to +your home'; for he wanted to see where the beautiful maiden lived. But +she slipped away from him, unawares, and ran off towards home; and as +the prince followed her, she jumped up into the pigeon-house and shut +the door. Then he waited till her father came home, and told him that +the unknown maiden, who had been at the feast, had hid herself in the +pigeon-house. But when they had broken open the door they found no one +within; and as they came back into the house, Ashputtel was lying, as +she always did, in her dirty frock by the ashes, and her dim little +lamp was burning in the chimney. For she had run as quickly as she could +through the pigeon-house and on to the hazel-tree, and had there taken +off her beautiful clothes, and put them beneath the tree, that the bird +might carry them away, and had lain down again amid the ashes in her +little grey frock. + +The next day when the feast was again held, and her father, mother, and +sisters were gone, Ashputtel went to the hazel-tree, and said: + + 'Shake, shake, hazel-tree, + Gold and silver over me!' + +And the bird came and brought a still finer dress than the one she +had worn the day before. And when she came in it to the ball, everyone +wondered at her beauty: but the king's son, who was waiting for her, +took her by the hand, and danced with her; and when anyone asked her to +dance, he said as before, 'This lady is dancing with me.' + +When night came she wanted to go home; and the king's son followed here +as before, that he might see into what house she went: but she sprang +away from him all at once into the garden behind her father's house. +In this garden stood a fine large pear-tree full of ripe fruit; and +Ashputtel, not knowing where to hide herself, jumped up into it without +being seen. Then the king's son lost sight of her, and could not find +out where she was gone, but waited till her father came home, and said +to him, 'The unknown lady who danced with me has slipped away, and I +think she must have sprung into the pear-tree.' The father thought to +himself, 'Can it be Ashputtel?' So he had an axe brought; and they cut +down the tree, but found no one upon it. And when they came back into +the kitchen, there lay Ashputtel among the ashes; for she had slipped +down on the other side of the tree, and carried her beautiful clothes +back to the bird at the hazel-tree, and then put on her little grey +frock. + +The third day, when her father and mother and sisters were gone, she +went again into the garden, and said: + + 'Shake, shake, hazel-tree, + Gold and silver over me!' + +Then her kind friend the bird brought a dress still finer than the +former one, and slippers which were all of gold: so that when she came +to the feast no one knew what to say, for wonder at her beauty: and the +king's son danced with nobody but her; and when anyone else asked her to +dance, he said, 'This lady is _my_ partner, sir.' + +When night came she wanted to go home; and the king's son would go with +her, and said to himself, 'I will not lose her this time'; but, however, +she again slipped away from him, though in such a hurry that she dropped +her left golden slipper upon the stairs. + +The prince took the shoe, and went the next day to the king his father, +and said, 'I will take for my wife the lady that this golden slipper +fits.' Then both the sisters were overjoyed to hear it; for they +had beautiful feet, and had no doubt that they could wear the golden +slipper. The eldest went first into the room where the slipper was, and +wanted to try it on, and the mother stood by. But her great toe could +not go into it, and the shoe was altogether much too small for her. Then +the mother gave her a knife, and said, 'Never mind, cut it off; when you +are queen you will not care about toes; you will not want to walk.' So +the silly girl cut off her great toe, and thus squeezed on the shoe, +and went to the king's son. Then he took her for his bride, and set her +beside him on his horse, and rode away with her homewards. + +But on their way home they had to pass by the hazel-tree that Ashputtel +had planted; and on the branch sat a little dove singing: + + 'Back again! back again! look to the shoe! + The shoe is too small, and not made for you! + Prince! prince! look again for thy bride, + For she's not the true one that sits by thy side.' + +Then the prince got down and looked at her foot; and he saw, by the +blood that streamed from it, what a trick she had played him. So he +turned his horse round, and brought the false bride back to her home, +and said, 'This is not the right bride; let the other sister try and put +on the slipper.' Then she went into the room and got her foot into the +shoe, all but the heel, which was too large. But her mother squeezed it +in till the blood came, and took her to the king's son: and he set her +as his bride by his side on his horse, and rode away with her. + +But when they came to the hazel-tree the little dove sat there still, +and sang: + + 'Back again! back again! look to the shoe! + The shoe is too small, and not made for you! + Prince! prince! look again for thy bride, + For she's not the true one that sits by thy side.' + +Then he looked down, and saw that the blood streamed so much from the +shoe, that her white stockings were quite red. So he turned his horse +and brought her also back again. 'This is not the true bride,' said he +to the father; 'have you no other daughters?' 'No,' said he; 'there is +only a little dirty Ashputtel here, the child of my first wife; I am +sure she cannot be the bride.' The prince told him to send her. But the +mother said, 'No, no, she is much too dirty; she will not dare to show +herself.' However, the prince would have her come; and she first washed +her face and hands, and then went in and curtsied to him, and he reached +her the golden slipper. Then she took her clumsy shoe off her left foot, +and put on the golden slipper; and it fitted her as if it had been made +for her. And when he drew near and looked at her face he knew her, and +said, 'This is the right bride.' But the mother and both the sisters +were frightened, and turned pale with anger as he took Ashputtel on his +horse, and rode away with her. And when they came to the hazel-tree, the +white dove sang: + + 'Home! home! look at the shoe! + Princess! the shoe was made for you! + Prince! prince! take home thy bride, + For she is the true one that sits by thy side!' + +And when the dove had done its song, it came flying, and perched upon +her right shoulder, and so went home with her. + + + + +THE WHITE SNAKE + +A long time ago there lived a king who was famed for his wisdom through +all the land. Nothing was hidden from him, and it seemed as if news of +the most secret things was brought to him through the air. But he had a +strange custom; every day after dinner, when the table was cleared, +and no one else was present, a trusty servant had to bring him one more +dish. It was covered, however, and even the servant did not know what +was in it, neither did anyone know, for the king never took off the +cover to eat of it until he was quite alone. + +This had gone on for a long time, when one day the servant, who took +away the dish, was overcome with such curiosity that he could not help +carrying the dish into his room. When he had carefully locked the door, +he lifted up the cover, and saw a white snake lying on the dish. But +when he saw it he could not deny himself the pleasure of tasting it, +so he cut of a little bit and put it into his mouth. No sooner had it +touched his tongue than he heard a strange whispering of little voices +outside his window. He went and listened, and then noticed that it was +the sparrows who were chattering together, and telling one another of +all kinds of things which they had seen in the fields and woods. Eating +the snake had given him power of understanding the language of animals. + +Now it so happened that on this very day the queen lost her most +beautiful ring, and suspicion of having stolen it fell upon this trusty +servant, who was allowed to go everywhere. The king ordered the man to +be brought before him, and threatened with angry words that unless he +could before the morrow point out the thief, he himself should be looked +upon as guilty and executed. In vain he declared his innocence; he was +dismissed with no better answer. + +In his trouble and fear he went down into the courtyard and took thought +how to help himself out of his trouble. Now some ducks were sitting +together quietly by a brook and taking their rest; and, whilst they +were making their feathers smooth with their bills, they were having a +confidential conversation together. The servant stood by and listened. +They were telling one another of all the places where they had been +waddling about all the morning, and what good food they had found; and +one said in a pitiful tone: 'Something lies heavy on my stomach; as +I was eating in haste I swallowed a ring which lay under the queen's +window.' The servant at once seized her by the neck, carried her to the +kitchen, and said to the cook: 'Here is a fine duck; pray, kill her.' +'Yes,' said the cook, and weighed her in his hand; 'she has spared +no trouble to fatten herself, and has been waiting to be roasted long +enough.' So he cut off her head, and as she was being dressed for the +spit, the queen's ring was found inside her. + +The servant could now easily prove his innocence; and the king, to make +amends for the wrong, allowed him to ask a favour, and promised him +the best place in the court that he could wish for. The servant refused +everything, and only asked for a horse and some money for travelling, as +he had a mind to see the world and go about a little. When his request +was granted he set out on his way, and one day came to a pond, where he +saw three fishes caught in the reeds and gasping for water. Now, though +it is said that fishes are dumb, he heard them lamenting that they must +perish so miserably, and, as he had a kind heart, he got off his +horse and put the three prisoners back into the water. They leapt with +delight, put out their heads, and cried to him: 'We will remember you +and repay you for saving us!' + +He rode on, and after a while it seemed to him that he heard a voice in +the sand at his feet. He listened, and heard an ant-king complain: 'Why +cannot folks, with their clumsy beasts, keep off our bodies? That stupid +horse, with his heavy hoofs, has been treading down my people without +mercy!' So he turned on to a side path and the ant-king cried out to +him: 'We will remember you--one good turn deserves another!' + +The path led him into a wood, and there he saw two old ravens standing +by their nest, and throwing out their young ones. 'Out with you, you +idle, good-for-nothing creatures!' cried they; 'we cannot find food for +you any longer; you are big enough, and can provide for yourselves.' +But the poor young ravens lay upon the ground, flapping their wings, and +crying: 'Oh, what helpless chicks we are! We must shift for ourselves, +and yet we cannot fly! What can we do, but lie here and starve?' So the +good young fellow alighted and killed his horse with his sword, and gave +it to them for food. Then they came hopping up to it, satisfied their +hunger, and cried: 'We will remember you--one good turn deserves +another!' + +And now he had to use his own legs, and when he had walked a long +way, he came to a large city. There was a great noise and crowd in +the streets, and a man rode up on horseback, crying aloud: 'The king's +daughter wants a husband; but whoever seeks her hand must perform a hard +task, and if he does not succeed he will forfeit his life.' Many had +already made the attempt, but in vain; nevertheless when the youth +saw the king's daughter he was so overcome by her great beauty that he +forgot all danger, went before the king, and declared himself a suitor. + +So he was led out to the sea, and a gold ring was thrown into it, before +his eyes; then the king ordered him to fetch this ring up from the +bottom of the sea, and added: 'If you come up again without it you will +be thrown in again and again until you perish amid the waves.' All the +people grieved for the handsome youth; then they went away, leaving him +alone by the sea. + +He stood on the shore and considered what he should do, when suddenly +he saw three fishes come swimming towards him, and they were the very +fishes whose lives he had saved. The one in the middle held a mussel in +its mouth, which it laid on the shore at the youth's feet, and when he +had taken it up and opened it, there lay the gold ring in the shell. +Full of joy he took it to the king and expected that he would grant him +the promised reward. + +But when the proud princess perceived that he was not her equal in +birth, she scorned him, and required him first to perform another +task. She went down into the garden and strewed with her own hands ten +sacksful of millet-seed on the grass; then she said: 'Tomorrow morning +before sunrise these must be picked up, and not a single grain be +wanting.' + +The youth sat down in the garden and considered how it might be possible +to perform this task, but he could think of nothing, and there he sat +sorrowfully awaiting the break of day, when he should be led to death. +But as soon as the first rays of the sun shone into the garden he saw +all the ten sacks standing side by side, quite full, and not a single +grain was missing. The ant-king had come in the night with thousands +and thousands of ants, and the grateful creatures had by great industry +picked up all the millet-seed and gathered them into the sacks. + +Presently the king's daughter herself came down into the garden, and was +amazed to see that the young man had done the task she had given him. +But she could not yet conquer her proud heart, and said: 'Although he +has performed both the tasks, he shall not be my husband until he had +brought me an apple from the Tree of Life.' The youth did not know where +the Tree of Life stood, but he set out, and would have gone on for ever, +as long as his legs would carry him, though he had no hope of finding +it. After he had wandered through three kingdoms, he came one evening to +a wood, and lay down under a tree to sleep. But he heard a rustling in +the branches, and a golden apple fell into his hand. At the same time +three ravens flew down to him, perched themselves upon his knee, and +said: 'We are the three young ravens whom you saved from starving; when +we had grown big, and heard that you were seeking the Golden Apple, +we flew over the sea to the end of the world, where the Tree of Life +stands, and have brought you the apple.' The youth, full of joy, set out +homewards, and took the Golden Apple to the king's beautiful daughter, +who had now no more excuses left to make. They cut the Apple of Life in +two and ate it together; and then her heart became full of love for him, +and they lived in undisturbed happiness to a great age. + + + + +THE WOLF AND THE SEVEN LITTLE KIDS + +There was once upon a time an old goat who had seven little kids, and +loved them with all the love of a mother for her children. One day she +wanted to go into the forest and fetch some food. So she called all +seven to her and said: 'Dear children, I have to go into the forest, +be on your guard against the wolf; if he comes in, he will devour you +all--skin, hair, and everything. The wretch often disguises himself, but +you will know him at once by his rough voice and his black feet.' The +kids said: 'Dear mother, we will take good care of ourselves; you may go +away without any anxiety.' Then the old one bleated, and went on her way +with an easy mind. + +It was not long before someone knocked at the house-door and called: +'Open the door, dear children; your mother is here, and has brought +something back with her for each of you.' But the little kids knew that +it was the wolf, by the rough voice. 'We will not open the door,' cried +they, 'you are not our mother. She has a soft, pleasant voice, but +your voice is rough; you are the wolf!' Then the wolf went away to a +shopkeeper and bought himself a great lump of chalk, ate this and made +his voice soft with it. Then he came back, knocked at the door of the +house, and called: 'Open the door, dear children, your mother is here +and has brought something back with her for each of you.' But the wolf +had laid his black paws against the window, and the children saw them +and cried: 'We will not open the door, our mother has not black feet +like you: you are the wolf!' Then the wolf ran to a baker and said: 'I +have hurt my feet, rub some dough over them for me.' And when the baker +had rubbed his feet over, he ran to the miller and said: 'Strew some +white meal over my feet for me.' The miller thought to himself: 'The +wolf wants to deceive someone,' and refused; but the wolf said: 'If you +will not do it, I will devour you.' Then the miller was afraid, and made +his paws white for him. Truly, this is the way of mankind. + +So now the wretch went for the third time to the house-door, knocked at +it and said: 'Open the door for me, children, your dear little mother +has come home, and has brought every one of you something back from the +forest with her.' The little kids cried: 'First show us your paws that +we may know if you are our dear little mother.' Then he put his paws +in through the window and when the kids saw that they were white, they +believed that all he said was true, and opened the door. But who should +come in but the wolf! They were terrified and wanted to hide themselves. +One sprang under the table, the second into the bed, the third into the +stove, the fourth into the kitchen, the fifth into the cupboard, the +sixth under the washing-bowl, and the seventh into the clock-case. But +the wolf found them all, and used no great ceremony; one after the +other he swallowed them down his throat. The youngest, who was in +the clock-case, was the only one he did not find. When the wolf had +satisfied his appetite he took himself off, laid himself down under a +tree in the green meadow outside, and began to sleep. Soon afterwards +the old goat came home again from the forest. Ah! what a sight she saw +there! The house-door stood wide open. The table, chairs, and benches +were thrown down, the washing-bowl lay broken to pieces, and the quilts +and pillows were pulled off the bed. She sought her children, but they +were nowhere to be found. She called them one after another by name, but +no one answered. At last, when she came to the youngest, a soft voice +cried: 'Dear mother, I am in the clock-case.' She took the kid out, and +it told her that the wolf had come and had eaten all the others. Then +you may imagine how she wept over her poor children. + +At length in her grief she went out, and the youngest kid ran with her. +When they came to the meadow, there lay the wolf by the tree and snored +so loud that the branches shook. She looked at him on every side and +saw that something was moving and struggling in his gorged belly. 'Ah, +heavens,' she said, 'is it possible that my poor children whom he has +swallowed down for his supper, can be still alive?' Then the kid had to +run home and fetch scissors, and a needle and thread, and the goat cut +open the monster's stomach, and hardly had she made one cut, than one +little kid thrust its head out, and when she had cut farther, all six +sprang out one after another, and were all still alive, and had suffered +no injury whatever, for in his greediness the monster had swallowed them +down whole. What rejoicing there was! They embraced their dear mother, +and jumped like a tailor at his wedding. The mother, however, said: 'Now +go and look for some big stones, and we will fill the wicked beast's +stomach with them while he is still asleep.' Then the seven kids dragged +the stones thither with all speed, and put as many of them into this +stomach as they could get in; and the mother sewed him up again in the +greatest haste, so that he was not aware of anything and never once +stirred. + +When the wolf at length had had his fill of sleep, he got on his legs, +and as the stones in his stomach made him very thirsty, he wanted to +go to a well to drink. But when he began to walk and to move about, the +stones in his stomach knocked against each other and rattled. Then cried +he: + + 'What rumbles and tumbles + Against my poor bones? + I thought 'twas six kids, + But it feels like big stones.' + +And when he got to the well and stooped over the water to drink, the +heavy stones made him fall in, and he drowned miserably. When the seven +kids saw that, they came running to the spot and cried aloud: 'The wolf +is dead! The wolf is dead!' and danced for joy round about the well with +their mother. + + + + +THE QUEEN BEE + +Two kings' sons once upon a time went into the world to seek their +fortunes; but they soon fell into a wasteful foolish way of living, so +that they could not return home again. Then their brother, who was a +little insignificant dwarf, went out to seek for his brothers: but when +he had found them they only laughed at him, to think that he, who was so +young and simple, should try to travel through the world, when they, who +were so much wiser, had been unable to get on. However, they all set +out on their journey together, and came at last to an ant-hill. The two +elder brothers would have pulled it down, in order to see how the poor +ants in their fright would run about and carry off their eggs. But the +little dwarf said, 'Let the poor things enjoy themselves, I will not +suffer you to trouble them.' + +So on they went, and came to a lake where many many ducks were swimming +about. The two brothers wanted to catch two, and roast them. But the +dwarf said, 'Let the poor things enjoy themselves, you shall not kill +them.' Next they came to a bees'-nest in a hollow tree, and there was +so much honey that it ran down the trunk; and the two brothers wanted to +light a fire under the tree and kill the bees, so as to get their honey. +But the dwarf held them back, and said, 'Let the pretty insects enjoy +themselves, I cannot let you burn them.' + +At length the three brothers came to a castle: and as they passed by the +stables they saw fine horses standing there, but all were of marble, and +no man was to be seen. Then they went through all the rooms, till they +came to a door on which were three locks: but in the middle of the door +was a wicket, so that they could look into the next room. There they saw +a little grey old man sitting at a table; and they called to him once or +twice, but he did not hear: however, they called a third time, and then +he rose and came out to them. + +He said nothing, but took hold of them and led them to a beautiful +table covered with all sorts of good things: and when they had eaten and +drunk, he showed each of them to a bed-chamber. + +The next morning he came to the eldest and took him to a marble table, +where there were three tablets, containing an account of the means by +which the castle might be disenchanted. The first tablet said: 'In the +wood, under the moss, lie the thousand pearls belonging to the king's +daughter; they must all be found: and if one be missing by set of sun, +he who seeks them will be turned into marble.' + +The eldest brother set out, and sought for the pearls the whole day: +but the evening came, and he had not found the first hundred: so he was +turned into stone as the tablet had foretold. + +The next day the second brother undertook the task; but he succeeded no +better than the first; for he could only find the second hundred of the +pearls; and therefore he too was turned into stone. + +At last came the little dwarf's turn; and he looked in the moss; but it +was so hard to find the pearls, and the job was so tiresome!--so he sat +down upon a stone and cried. And as he sat there, the king of the ants +(whose life he had saved) came to help him, with five thousand ants; and +it was not long before they had found all the pearls and laid them in a +heap. + +The second tablet said: 'The key of the princess's bed-chamber must be +fished up out of the lake.' And as the dwarf came to the brink of it, +he saw the two ducks whose lives he had saved swimming about; and they +dived down and soon brought in the key from the bottom. + +The third task was the hardest. It was to choose out the youngest and +the best of the king's three daughters. Now they were all beautiful, and +all exactly alike: but he was told that the eldest had eaten a piece of +sugar, the next some sweet syrup, and the youngest a spoonful of honey; +so he was to guess which it was that had eaten the honey. + +Then came the queen of the bees, who had been saved by the little dwarf +from the fire, and she tried the lips of all three; but at last she sat +upon the lips of the one that had eaten the honey: and so the dwarf knew +which was the youngest. Thus the spell was broken, and all who had been +turned into stones awoke, and took their proper forms. And the dwarf +married the youngest and the best of the princesses, and was king after +her father's death; but his two brothers married the other two sisters. + + + + +THE ELVES AND THE SHOEMAKER + +There was once a shoemaker, who worked very hard and was very honest: +but still he could not earn enough to live upon; and at last all he +had in the world was gone, save just leather enough to make one pair of +shoes. + +Then he cut his leather out, all ready to make up the next day, meaning +to rise early in the morning to his work. His conscience was clear and +his heart light amidst all his troubles; so he went peaceably to bed, +left all his cares to Heaven, and soon fell asleep. In the morning after +he had said his prayers, he sat himself down to his work; when, to his +great wonder, there stood the shoes all ready made, upon the table. The +good man knew not what to say or think at such an odd thing happening. +He looked at the workmanship; there was not one false stitch in the +whole job; all was so neat and true, that it was quite a masterpiece. + +The same day a customer came in, and the shoes suited him so well that +he willingly paid a price higher than usual for them; and the poor +shoemaker, with the money, bought leather enough to make two pairs more. +In the evening he cut out the work, and went to bed early, that he might +get up and begin betimes next day; but he was saved all the trouble, for +when he got up in the morning the work was done ready to his hand. Soon +in came buyers, who paid him handsomely for his goods, so that he bought +leather enough for four pair more. He cut out the work again overnight +and found it done in the morning, as before; and so it went on for some +time: what was got ready in the evening was always done by daybreak, and +the good man soon became thriving and well off again. + +One evening, about Christmas-time, as he and his wife were sitting over +the fire chatting together, he said to her, 'I should like to sit up and +watch tonight, that we may see who it is that comes and does my work for +me.' The wife liked the thought; so they left a light burning, and hid +themselves in a corner of the room, behind a curtain that was hung up +there, and watched what would happen. + +As soon as it was midnight, there came in two little naked dwarfs; and +they sat themselves upon the shoemaker's bench, took up all the work +that was cut out, and began to ply with their little fingers, stitching +and rapping and tapping away at such a rate, that the shoemaker was all +wonder, and could not take his eyes off them. And on they went, till the +job was quite done, and the shoes stood ready for use upon the table. +This was long before daybreak; and then they bustled away as quick as +lightning. + +The next day the wife said to the shoemaker. 'These little wights have +made us rich, and we ought to be thankful to them, and do them a good +turn if we can. I am quite sorry to see them run about as they do; and +indeed it is not very decent, for they have nothing upon their backs to +keep off the cold. I'll tell you what, I will make each of them a shirt, +and a coat and waistcoat, and a pair of pantaloons into the bargain; and +do you make each of them a little pair of shoes.' + +The thought pleased the good cobbler very much; and one evening, when +all the things were ready, they laid them on the table, instead of the +work that they used to cut out, and then went and hid themselves, to +watch what the little elves would do. + +About midnight in they came, dancing and skipping, hopped round the +room, and then went to sit down to their work as usual; but when they +saw the clothes lying for them, they laughed and chuckled, and seemed +mightily delighted. + +Then they dressed themselves in the twinkling of an eye, and danced and +capered and sprang about, as merry as could be; till at last they danced +out at the door, and away over the green. + +The good couple saw them no more; but everything went well with them +from that time forward, as long as they lived. + + + + +THE JUNIPER-TREE + +Long, long ago, some two thousand years or so, there lived a rich +man with a good and beautiful wife. They loved each other dearly, but +sorrowed much that they had no children. So greatly did they desire +to have one, that the wife prayed for it day and night, but still they +remained childless. + +In front of the house there was a court, in which grew a juniper-tree. +One winter's day the wife stood under the tree to peel some apples, and +as she was peeling them, she cut her finger, and the blood fell on the +snow. 'Ah,' sighed the woman heavily, 'if I had but a child, as red as +blood and as white as snow,' and as she spoke the words, her heart grew +light within her, and it seemed to her that her wish was granted, and +she returned to the house feeling glad and comforted. A month passed, +and the snow had all disappeared; then another month went by, and all +the earth was green. So the months followed one another, and first the +trees budded in the woods, and soon the green branches grew thickly +intertwined, and then the blossoms began to fall. Once again the wife +stood under the juniper-tree, and it was so full of sweet scent that her +heart leaped for joy, and she was so overcome with her happiness, that +she fell on her knees. Presently the fruit became round and firm, and +she was glad and at peace; but when they were fully ripe she picked the +berries and ate eagerly of them, and then she grew sad and ill. A little +while later she called her husband, and said to him, weeping. 'If I +die, bury me under the juniper-tree.' Then she felt comforted and happy +again, and before another month had passed she had a little child, and +when she saw that it was as white as snow and as red as blood, her joy +was so great that she died. + +Her husband buried her under the juniper-tree, and wept bitterly for +her. By degrees, however, his sorrow grew less, and although at times he +still grieved over his loss, he was able to go about as usual, and later +on he married again. + +He now had a little daughter born to him; the child of his first wife +was a boy, who was as red as blood and as white as snow. The mother +loved her daughter very much, and when she looked at her and then looked +at the boy, it pierced her heart to think that he would always stand in +the way of her own child, and she was continually thinking how she could +get the whole of the property for her. This evil thought took possession +of her more and more, and made her behave very unkindly to the boy. She +drove him from place to place with cuffings and buffetings, so that the +poor child went about in fear, and had no peace from the time he left +school to the time he went back. + +One day the little daughter came running to her mother in the +store-room, and said, 'Mother, give me an apple.' 'Yes, my child,' said +the wife, and she gave her a beautiful apple out of the chest; the chest +had a very heavy lid and a large iron lock. + +'Mother,' said the little daughter again, 'may not brother have one +too?' The mother was angry at this, but she answered, 'Yes, when he +comes out of school.' + +Just then she looked out of the window and saw him coming, and it seemed +as if an evil spirit entered into her, for she snatched the apple out +of her little daughter's hand, and said, 'You shall not have one before +your brother.' She threw the apple into the chest and shut it to. The +little boy now came in, and the evil spirit in the wife made her say +kindly to him, 'My son, will you have an apple?' but she gave him a +wicked look. 'Mother,' said the boy, 'how dreadful you look! Yes, give +me an apple.' The thought came to her that she would kill him. 'Come +with me,' she said, and she lifted up the lid of the chest; 'take one +out for yourself.' And as he bent over to do so, the evil spirit urged +her, and crash! down went the lid, and off went the little boy's head. +Then she was overwhelmed with fear at the thought of what she had done. +'If only I can prevent anyone knowing that I did it,' she thought. So +she went upstairs to her room, and took a white handkerchief out of +her top drawer; then she set the boy's head again on his shoulders, and +bound it with the handkerchief so that nothing could be seen, and placed +him on a chair by the door with an apple in his hand. + +Soon after this, little Marleen came up to her mother who was stirring +a pot of boiling water over the fire, and said, 'Mother, brother is +sitting by the door with an apple in his hand, and he looks so pale; +and when I asked him to give me the apple, he did not answer, and that +frightened me.' + +'Go to him again,' said her mother, 'and if he does not answer, give him +a box on the ear.' So little Marleen went, and said, 'Brother, give me +that apple,' but he did not say a word; then she gave him a box on the +ear, and his head rolled off. She was so terrified at this, that she ran +crying and screaming to her mother. 'Oh!' she said, 'I have knocked off +brother's head,' and then she wept and wept, and nothing would stop her. + +'What have you done!' said her mother, 'but no one must know about it, +so you must keep silence; what is done can't be undone; we will make +him into puddings.' And she took the little boy and cut him up, made him +into puddings, and put him in the pot. But Marleen stood looking on, +and wept and wept, and her tears fell into the pot, so that there was no +need of salt. + +Presently the father came home and sat down to his dinner; he asked, +'Where is my son?' The mother said nothing, but gave him a large dish of +black pudding, and Marleen still wept without ceasing. + +The father again asked, 'Where is my son?' + +'Oh,' answered the wife, 'he is gone into the country to his mother's +great uncle; he is going to stay there some time.' + +'What has he gone there for, and he never even said goodbye to me!' + +'Well, he likes being there, and he told me he should be away quite six +weeks; he is well looked after there.' + +'I feel very unhappy about it,' said the husband, 'in case it should not +be all right, and he ought to have said goodbye to me.' + +With this he went on with his dinner, and said, 'Little Marleen, why do +you weep? Brother will soon be back.' Then he asked his wife for more +pudding, and as he ate, he threw the bones under the table. + +Little Marleen went upstairs and took her best silk handkerchief out of +her bottom drawer, and in it she wrapped all the bones from under the +table and carried them outside, and all the time she did nothing but +weep. Then she laid them in the green grass under the juniper-tree, and +she had no sooner done so, then all her sadness seemed to leave her, +and she wept no more. And now the juniper-tree began to move, and the +branches waved backwards and forwards, first away from one another, and +then together again, as it might be someone clapping their hands for +joy. After this a mist came round the tree, and in the midst of it there +was a burning as of fire, and out of the fire there flew a beautiful +bird, that rose high into the air, singing magnificently, and when it +could no more be seen, the juniper-tree stood there as before, and the +silk handkerchief and the bones were gone. + +Little Marleen now felt as lighthearted and happy as if her brother were +still alive, and she went back to the house and sat down cheerfully to +the table and ate. + +The bird flew away and alighted on the house of a goldsmith and began to +sing: + + 'My mother killed her little son; + My father grieved when I was gone; + My sister loved me best of all; + She laid her kerchief over me, + And took my bones that they might lie + Underneath the juniper-tree + Kywitt, Kywitt, what a beautiful bird am I!' + +The goldsmith was in his workshop making a gold chain, when he heard the +song of the bird on his roof. He thought it so beautiful that he got +up and ran out, and as he crossed the threshold he lost one of his +slippers. But he ran on into the middle of the street, with a slipper on +one foot and a sock on the other; he still had on his apron, and still +held the gold chain and the pincers in his hands, and so he stood gazing +up at the bird, while the sun came shining brightly down on the street. + +'Bird,' he said, 'how beautifully you sing! Sing me that song again.' + +'Nay,' said the bird, 'I do not sing twice for nothing. Give that gold +chain, and I will sing it you again.' + +'Here is the chain, take it,' said the goldsmith. 'Only sing me that +again.' + +The bird flew down and took the gold chain in his right claw, and then +he alighted again in front of the goldsmith and sang: + + 'My mother killed her little son; + My father grieved when I was gone; + My sister loved me best of all; + She laid her kerchief over me, + And took my bones that they might lie + Underneath the juniper-tree + Kywitt, Kywitt, what a beautiful bird am I!' + +Then he flew away, and settled on the roof of a shoemaker's house and +sang: + + 'My mother killed her little son; + My father grieved when I was gone; + My sister loved me best of all; + She laid her kerchief over me, + And took my bones that they might lie + Underneath the juniper-tree + Kywitt, Kywitt, what a beautiful bird am I!' + +The shoemaker heard him, and he jumped up and ran out in his +shirt-sleeves, and stood looking up at the bird on the roof with his +hand over his eyes to keep himself from being blinded by the sun. + +'Bird,' he said, 'how beautifully you sing!' Then he called through the +door to his wife: 'Wife, come out; here is a bird, come and look at it +and hear how beautifully it sings.' Then he called his daughter and the +children, then the apprentices, girls and boys, and they all ran up the +street to look at the bird, and saw how splendid it was with its red +and green feathers, and its neck like burnished gold, and eyes like two +bright stars in its head. + +'Bird,' said the shoemaker, 'sing me that song again.' + +'Nay,' answered the bird, 'I do not sing twice for nothing; you must +give me something.' + +'Wife,' said the man, 'go into the garret; on the upper shelf you will +see a pair of red shoes; bring them to me.' The wife went in and fetched +the shoes. + +'There, bird,' said the shoemaker, 'now sing me that song again.' + +The bird flew down and took the red shoes in his left claw, and then he +went back to the roof and sang: + + 'My mother killed her little son; + My father grieved when I was gone; + My sister loved me best of all; + She laid her kerchief over me, + And took my bones that they might lie + Underneath the juniper-tree + Kywitt, Kywitt, what a beautiful bird am I!' + +When he had finished, he flew away. He had the chain in his right claw +and the shoes in his left, and he flew right away to a mill, and the +mill went 'Click clack, click clack, click clack.' Inside the mill were +twenty of the miller's men hewing a stone, and as they went 'Hick hack, +hick hack, hick hack,' the mill went 'Click clack, click clack, click +clack.' + +The bird settled on a lime-tree in front of the mill and sang: + + 'My mother killed her little son; + +then one of the men left off, + + My father grieved when I was gone; + +two more men left off and listened, + + My sister loved me best of all; + +then four more left off, + + She laid her kerchief over me, + And took my bones that they might lie + +now there were only eight at work, + + Underneath + +And now only five, + + the juniper-tree. + +And now only one, + + Kywitt, Kywitt, what a beautiful bird am I!' + +then he looked up and the last one had left off work. + +'Bird,' he said, 'what a beautiful song that is you sing! Let me hear it +too; sing it again.' + +'Nay,' answered the bird, 'I do not sing twice for nothing; give me that +millstone, and I will sing it again.' + +'If it belonged to me alone,' said the man, 'you should have it.' + +'Yes, yes,' said the others: 'if he will sing again, he can have it.' + +The bird came down, and all the twenty millers set to and lifted up the +stone with a beam; then the bird put his head through the hole and took +the stone round his neck like a collar, and flew back with it to the +tree and sang-- + + 'My mother killed her little son; + My father grieved when I was gone; + My sister loved me best of all; + She laid her kerchief over me, + And took my bones that they might lie + Underneath the juniper-tree + Kywitt, Kywitt, what a beautiful bird am I!' + +And when he had finished his song, he spread his wings, and with the +chain in his right claw, the shoes in his left, and the millstone round +his neck, he flew right away to his father's house. + +The father, the mother, and little Marleen were having their dinner. + +'How lighthearted I feel,' said the father, 'so pleased and cheerful.' + +'And I,' said the mother, 'I feel so uneasy, as if a heavy thunderstorm +were coming.' + +But little Marleen sat and wept and wept. + +Then the bird came flying towards the house and settled on the roof. + +'I do feel so happy,' said the father, 'and how beautifully the sun +shines; I feel just as if I were going to see an old friend again.' + +'Ah!' said the wife, 'and I am so full of distress and uneasiness that +my teeth chatter, and I feel as if there were a fire in my veins,' and +she tore open her dress; and all the while little Marleen sat in the +corner and wept, and the plate on her knees was wet with her tears. + +The bird now flew to the juniper-tree and began singing: + + 'My mother killed her little son; + +the mother shut her eyes and her ears, that she might see and hear +nothing, but there was a roaring sound in her ears like that of a +violent storm, and in her eyes a burning and flashing like lightning: + + My father grieved when I was gone; + +'Look, mother,' said the man, 'at the beautiful bird that is singing so +magnificently; and how warm and bright the sun is, and what a delicious +scent of spice in the air!' + + My sister loved me best of all; + +then little Marleen laid her head down on her knees and sobbed. + +'I must go outside and see the bird nearer,' said the man. + +'Ah, do not go!' cried the wife. 'I feel as if the whole house were in +flames!' + +But the man went out and looked at the bird. + + She laid her kerchief over me, + And took my bones that they might lie + Underneath the juniper-tree + Kywitt, Kywitt, what a beautiful bird am I!' + +With that the bird let fall the gold chain, and it fell just round the +man's neck, so that it fitted him exactly. + +He went inside, and said, 'See, what a splendid bird that is; he has +given me this beautiful gold chain, and looks so beautiful himself.' + +But the wife was in such fear and trouble, that she fell on the floor, +and her cap fell from her head. + +Then the bird began again: + + 'My mother killed her little son; + +'Ah me!' cried the wife, 'if I were but a thousand feet beneath the +earth, that I might not hear that song.' + + My father grieved when I was gone; + +then the woman fell down again as if dead. + + My sister loved me best of all; + +'Well,' said little Marleen, 'I will go out too and see if the bird will +give me anything.' + +So she went out. + + She laid her kerchief over me, + And took my bones that they might lie + +and he threw down the shoes to her, + + Underneath the juniper-tree + Kywitt, Kywitt, what a beautiful bird am I!' + +And she now felt quite happy and lighthearted; she put on the shoes and +danced and jumped about in them. 'I was so miserable,' she said, 'when I +came out, but that has all passed away; that is indeed a splendid bird, +and he has given me a pair of red shoes.' + +The wife sprang up, with her hair standing out from her head like flames +of fire. 'Then I will go out too,' she said, 'and see if it will lighten +my misery, for I feel as if the world were coming to an end.' + +But as she crossed the threshold, crash! the bird threw the millstone +down on her head, and she was crushed to death. + +The father and little Marleen heard the sound and ran out, but they only +saw mist and flame and fire rising from the spot, and when these had +passed, there stood the little brother, and he took the father and +little Marleen by the hand; then they all three rejoiced, and went +inside together and sat down to their dinners and ate. + + + + +THE TURNIP + +There were two brothers who were both soldiers; the one was rich and +the other poor. The poor man thought he would try to better himself; so, +pulling off his red coat, he became a gardener, and dug his ground well, +and sowed turnips. + +When the seed came up, there was one plant bigger than all the rest; and +it kept getting larger and larger, and seemed as if it would never cease +growing; so that it might have been called the prince of turnips for +there never was such a one seen before, and never will again. At last it +was so big that it filled a cart, and two oxen could hardly draw it; and +the gardener knew not what in the world to do with it, nor whether it +would be a blessing or a curse to him. One day he said to himself, 'What +shall I do with it? if I sell it, it will bring no more than another; +and for eating, the little turnips are better than this; the best thing +perhaps is to carry it and give it to the king as a mark of respect.' + +Then he yoked his oxen, and drew the turnip to the court, and gave it +to the king. 'What a wonderful thing!' said the king; 'I have seen many +strange things, but such a monster as this I never saw. Where did you +get the seed? or is it only your good luck? If so, you are a true child +of fortune.' 'Ah, no!' answered the gardener, 'I am no child of fortune; +I am a poor soldier, who never could get enough to live upon; so I +laid aside my red coat, and set to work, tilling the ground. I have a +brother, who is rich, and your majesty knows him well, and all the world +knows him; but because I am poor, everybody forgets me.' + +The king then took pity on him, and said, 'You shall be poor no +longer. I will give you so much that you shall be even richer than your +brother.' Then he gave him gold and lands and flocks, and made him so +rich that his brother's fortune could not at all be compared with his. + +When the brother heard of all this, and how a turnip had made the +gardener so rich, he envied him sorely, and bethought himself how he +could contrive to get the same good fortune for himself. However, he +determined to manage more cleverly than his brother, and got together a +rich present of gold and fine horses for the king; and thought he must +have a much larger gift in return; for if his brother had received so +much for only a turnip, what must his present be worth? + +The king took the gift very graciously, and said he knew not what to +give in return more valuable and wonderful than the great turnip; so +the soldier was forced to put it into a cart, and drag it home with him. +When he reached home, he knew not upon whom to vent his rage and spite; +and at length wicked thoughts came into his head, and he resolved to +kill his brother. + +So he hired some villains to murder him; and having shown them where to +lie in ambush, he went to his brother, and said, 'Dear brother, I have +found a hidden treasure; let us go and dig it up, and share it between +us.' The other had no suspicions of his roguery: so they went out +together, and as they were travelling along, the murderers rushed out +upon him, bound him, and were going to hang him on a tree. + +But whilst they were getting all ready, they heard the trampling of a +horse at a distance, which so frightened them that they pushed their +prisoner neck and shoulders together into a sack, and swung him up by a +cord to the tree, where they left him dangling, and ran away. Meantime +he worked and worked away, till he made a hole large enough to put out +his head. + +When the horseman came up, he proved to be a student, a merry fellow, +who was journeying along on his nag, and singing as he went. As soon as +the man in the sack saw him passing under the tree, he cried out, 'Good +morning! good morning to thee, my friend!' The student looked about +everywhere; and seeing no one, and not knowing where the voice came +from, cried out, 'Who calls me?' + +Then the man in the tree answered, 'Lift up thine eyes, for behold here +I sit in the sack of wisdom; here have I, in a short time, learned great +and wondrous things. Compared to this seat, all the learning of the +schools is as empty air. A little longer, and I shall know all that man +can know, and shall come forth wiser than the wisest of mankind. Here +I discern the signs and motions of the heavens and the stars; the laws +that control the winds; the number of the sands on the seashore; the +healing of the sick; the virtues of all simples, of birds, and of +precious stones. Wert thou but once here, my friend, though wouldst feel +and own the power of knowledge. + +The student listened to all this and wondered much; at last he said, +'Blessed be the day and hour when I found you; cannot you contrive to +let me into the sack for a little while?' Then the other answered, as if +very unwillingly, 'A little space I may allow thee to sit here, if thou +wilt reward me well and entreat me kindly; but thou must tarry yet an +hour below, till I have learnt some little matters that are yet unknown +to me.' + +So the student sat himself down and waited a while; but the time hung +heavy upon him, and he begged earnestly that he might ascend forthwith, +for his thirst for knowledge was great. Then the other pretended to give +way, and said, 'Thou must let the sack of wisdom descend, by untying +yonder cord, and then thou shalt enter.' So the student let him down, +opened the sack, and set him free. 'Now then,' cried he, 'let me ascend +quickly.' As he began to put himself into the sack heels first, 'Wait a +while,' said the gardener, 'that is not the way.' Then he pushed him +in head first, tied up the sack, and soon swung up the searcher after +wisdom dangling in the air. 'How is it with thee, friend?' said he, +'dost thou not feel that wisdom comes unto thee? Rest there in peace, +till thou art a wiser man than thou wert.' + +So saying, he trotted off on the student's nag, and left the poor fellow +to gather wisdom till somebody should come and let him down. + + + + +CLEVER HANS + +The mother of Hans said: 'Whither away, Hans?' Hans answered: 'To +Gretel.' 'Behave well, Hans.' 'Oh, I'll behave well. Goodbye, mother.' +'Goodbye, Hans.' Hans comes to Gretel. 'Good day, Gretel.' 'Good day, +Hans. What do you bring that is good?' 'I bring nothing, I want to have +something given me.' Gretel presents Hans with a needle, Hans says: +'Goodbye, Gretel.' 'Goodbye, Hans.' + +Hans takes the needle, sticks it into a hay-cart, and follows the cart +home. 'Good evening, mother.' 'Good evening, Hans. Where have you been?' +'With Gretel.' 'What did you take her?' 'Took nothing; had something +given me.' 'What did Gretel give you?' 'Gave me a needle.' 'Where is the +needle, Hans?' 'Stuck in the hay-cart.' 'That was ill done, Hans. You +should have stuck the needle in your sleeve.' 'Never mind, I'll do +better next time.' + +'Whither away, Hans?' 'To Gretel, mother.' 'Behave well, Hans.' 'Oh, +I'll behave well. Goodbye, mother.' 'Goodbye, Hans.' Hans comes to +Gretel. 'Good day, Gretel.' 'Good day, Hans. What do you bring that is +good?' 'I bring nothing. I want to have something given to me.' Gretel +presents Hans with a knife. 'Goodbye, Gretel.' 'Goodbye, Hans.' Hans +takes the knife, sticks it in his sleeve, and goes home. 'Good evening, +mother.' 'Good evening, Hans. Where have you been?' 'With Gretel.' What +did you take her?' 'Took her nothing, she gave me something.' 'What did +Gretel give you?' 'Gave me a knife.' 'Where is the knife, Hans?' 'Stuck +in my sleeve.' 'That's ill done, Hans, you should have put the knife in +your pocket.' 'Never mind, will do better next time.' + +'Whither away, Hans?' 'To Gretel, mother.' 'Behave well, Hans.' 'Oh, +I'll behave well. Goodbye, mother.' 'Goodbye, Hans.' Hans comes to +Gretel. 'Good day, Gretel.' 'Good day, Hans. What good thing do you +bring?' 'I bring nothing, I want something given me.' Gretel presents +Hans with a young goat. 'Goodbye, Gretel.' 'Goodbye, Hans.' Hans takes +the goat, ties its legs, and puts it in his pocket. When he gets home it +is suffocated. 'Good evening, mother.' 'Good evening, Hans. Where have +you been?' 'With Gretel.' 'What did you take her?' 'Took nothing, she +gave me something.' 'What did Gretel give you?' 'She gave me a goat.' +'Where is the goat, Hans?' 'Put it in my pocket.' 'That was ill done, +Hans, you should have put a rope round the goat's neck.' 'Never mind, +will do better next time.' + +'Whither away, Hans?' 'To Gretel, mother.' 'Behave well, Hans.' 'Oh, +I'll behave well. Goodbye, mother.' 'Goodbye, Hans.' Hans comes to +Gretel. 'Good day, Gretel.' 'Good day, Hans. What good thing do you +bring?' 'I bring nothing, I want something given me.' Gretel presents +Hans with a piece of bacon. 'Goodbye, Gretel.' 'Goodbye, Hans.' + +Hans takes the bacon, ties it to a rope, and drags it away behind him. +The dogs come and devour the bacon. When he gets home, he has the rope +in his hand, and there is no longer anything hanging on to it. 'Good +evening, mother.' 'Good evening, Hans. Where have you been?' 'With +Gretel.' 'What did you take her?' 'I took her nothing, she gave me +something.' 'What did Gretel give you?' 'Gave me a bit of bacon.' 'Where +is the bacon, Hans?' 'I tied it to a rope, brought it home, dogs took +it.' 'That was ill done, Hans, you should have carried the bacon on your +head.' 'Never mind, will do better next time.' + +'Whither away, Hans?' 'To Gretel, mother.' 'Behave well, Hans.' 'I'll +behave well. Goodbye, mother.' 'Goodbye, Hans.' Hans comes to Gretel. +'Good day, Gretel.' 'Good day, Hans, What good thing do you bring?' 'I +bring nothing, but would have something given.' Gretel presents Hans +with a calf. 'Goodbye, Gretel.' 'Goodbye, Hans.' + +Hans takes the calf, puts it on his head, and the calf kicks his face. +'Good evening, mother.' 'Good evening, Hans. Where have you been?' 'With +Gretel.' 'What did you take her?' 'I took nothing, but had something +given me.' 'What did Gretel give you?' 'A calf.' 'Where have you the +calf, Hans?' 'I set it on my head and it kicked my face.' 'That was +ill done, Hans, you should have led the calf, and put it in the stall.' +'Never mind, will do better next time.' + +'Whither away, Hans?' 'To Gretel, mother.' 'Behave well, Hans.' 'I'll +behave well. Goodbye, mother.' 'Goodbye, Hans.' + +Hans comes to Gretel. 'Good day, Gretel.' 'Good day, Hans. What good +thing do you bring?' 'I bring nothing, but would have something given.' +Gretel says to Hans: 'I will go with you.' + +Hans takes Gretel, ties her to a rope, leads her to the rack, and binds +her fast. Then Hans goes to his mother. 'Good evening, mother.' 'Good +evening, Hans. Where have you been?' 'With Gretel.' 'What did you take +her?' 'I took her nothing.' 'What did Gretel give you?' 'She gave me +nothing, she came with me.' 'Where have you left Gretel?' 'I led her by +the rope, tied her to the rack, and scattered some grass for her.' 'That +was ill done, Hans, you should have cast friendly eyes on her.' 'Never +mind, will do better.' + +Hans went into the stable, cut out all the calves' and sheep's eyes, +and threw them in Gretel's face. Then Gretel became angry, tore herself +loose and ran away, and was no longer the bride of Hans. + + + + +THE THREE LANGUAGES + +An aged count once lived in Switzerland, who had an only son, but he +was stupid, and could learn nothing. Then said the father: 'Hark you, +my son, try as I will I can get nothing into your head. You must go from +hence, I will give you into the care of a celebrated master, who shall +see what he can do with you.' The youth was sent into a strange town, +and remained a whole year with the master. At the end of this time, +he came home again, and his father asked: 'Now, my son, what have you +learnt?' 'Father, I have learnt what the dogs say when they bark.' 'Lord +have mercy on us!' cried the father; 'is that all you have learnt? I +will send you into another town, to another master.' The youth was taken +thither, and stayed a year with this master likewise. When he came back +the father again asked: 'My son, what have you learnt?' He answered: +'Father, I have learnt what the birds say.' Then the father fell into a +rage and said: 'Oh, you lost man, you have spent the precious time and +learnt nothing; are you not ashamed to appear before my eyes? I will +send you to a third master, but if you learn nothing this time also, I +will no longer be your father.' The youth remained a whole year with the +third master also, and when he came home again, and his father inquired: +'My son, what have you learnt?' he answered: 'Dear father, I have this +year learnt what the frogs croak.' Then the father fell into the most +furious anger, sprang up, called his people thither, and said: 'This man +is no longer my son, I drive him forth, and command you to take him +out into the forest, and kill him.' They took him forth, but when they +should have killed him, they could not do it for pity, and let him go, +and they cut the eyes and tongue out of a deer that they might carry +them to the old man as a token. + +The youth wandered on, and after some time came to a fortress where he +begged for a night's lodging. 'Yes,' said the lord of the castle, 'if +you will pass the night down there in the old tower, go thither; but I +warn you, it is at the peril of your life, for it is full of wild dogs, +which bark and howl without stopping, and at certain hours a man has to +be given to them, whom they at once devour.' The whole district was in +sorrow and dismay because of them, and yet no one could do anything to +stop this. The youth, however, was without fear, and said: 'Just let me +go down to the barking dogs, and give me something that I can throw to +them; they will do nothing to harm me.' As he himself would have it so, +they gave him some food for the wild animals, and led him down to the +tower. When he went inside, the dogs did not bark at him, but wagged +their tails quite amicably around him, ate what he set before them, and +did not hurt one hair of his head. Next morning, to the astonishment of +everyone, he came out again safe and unharmed, and said to the lord of +the castle: 'The dogs have revealed to me, in their own language, why +they dwell there, and bring evil on the land. They are bewitched, and +are obliged to watch over a great treasure which is below in the tower, +and they can have no rest until it is taken away, and I have likewise +learnt, from their discourse, how that is to be done.' Then all who +heard this rejoiced, and the lord of the castle said he would adopt him +as a son if he accomplished it successfully. He went down again, and +as he knew what he had to do, he did it thoroughly, and brought a chest +full of gold out with him. The howling of the wild dogs was henceforth +heard no more; they had disappeared, and the country was freed from the +trouble. + +After some time he took it in his head that he would travel to Rome. On +the way he passed by a marsh, in which a number of frogs were sitting +croaking. He listened to them, and when he became aware of what they +were saying, he grew very thoughtful and sad. At last he arrived in +Rome, where the Pope had just died, and there was great doubt among +the cardinals as to whom they should appoint as his successor. They at +length agreed that the person should be chosen as pope who should be +distinguished by some divine and miraculous token. And just as that was +decided on, the young count entered into the church, and suddenly two +snow-white doves flew on his shoulders and remained sitting there. The +ecclesiastics recognized therein the token from above, and asked him on +the spot if he would be pope. He was undecided, and knew not if he were +worthy of this, but the doves counselled him to do it, and at length he +said yes. Then was he anointed and consecrated, and thus was fulfilled +what he had heard from the frogs on his way, which had so affected him, +that he was to be his Holiness the Pope. Then he had to sing a mass, and +did not know one word of it, but the two doves sat continually on his +shoulders, and said it all in his ear. + + + + +THE FOX AND THE CAT + +It happened that the cat met the fox in a forest, and as she thought to +herself: 'He is clever and full of experience, and much esteemed in the +world,' she spoke to him in a friendly way. 'Good day, dear Mr Fox, +how are you? How is all with you? How are you getting on in these hard +times?' The fox, full of all kinds of arrogance, looked at the cat from +head to foot, and for a long time did not know whether he would give +any answer or not. At last he said: 'Oh, you wretched beard-cleaner, you +piebald fool, you hungry mouse-hunter, what can you be thinking of? Have +you the cheek to ask how I am getting on? What have you learnt? How +many arts do you understand?' 'I understand but one,' replied the +cat, modestly. 'What art is that?' asked the fox. 'When the hounds are +following me, I can spring into a tree and save myself.' 'Is that all?' +said the fox. 'I am master of a hundred arts, and have into the bargain +a sackful of cunning. You make me sorry for you; come with me, I will +teach you how people get away from the hounds.' Just then came a hunter +with four dogs. The cat sprang nimbly up a tree, and sat down at the top +of it, where the branches and foliage quite concealed her. 'Open your +sack, Mr Fox, open your sack,' cried the cat to him, but the dogs had +already seized him, and were holding him fast. 'Ah, Mr Fox,' cried the +cat. 'You with your hundred arts are left in the lurch! Had you been +able to climb like me, you would not have lost your life.' + + + + +THE FOUR CLEVER BROTHERS + +'Dear children,' said a poor man to his four sons, 'I have nothing to +give you; you must go out into the wide world and try your luck. Begin +by learning some craft or another, and see how you can get on.' So the +four brothers took their walking-sticks in their hands, and their little +bundles on their shoulders, and after bidding their father goodbye, went +all out at the gate together. When they had got on some way they came +to four crossways, each leading to a different country. Then the eldest +said, 'Here we must part; but this day four years we will come back +to this spot, and in the meantime each must try what he can do for +himself.' + +So each brother went his way; and as the eldest was hastening on a man +met him, and asked him where he was going, and what he wanted. 'I am +going to try my luck in the world, and should like to begin by learning +some art or trade,' answered he. 'Then,' said the man, 'go with me, and +I will teach you to become the cunningest thief that ever was.' 'No,' +said the other, 'that is not an honest calling, and what can one look +to earn by it in the end but the gallows?' 'Oh!' said the man, 'you need +not fear the gallows; for I will only teach you to steal what will be +fair game: I meddle with nothing but what no one else can get or care +anything about, and where no one can find you out.' So the young man +agreed to follow his trade, and he soon showed himself so clever, that +nothing could escape him that he had once set his mind upon. + +The second brother also met a man, who, when he found out what he was +setting out upon, asked him what craft he meant to follow. 'I do not +know yet,' said he. 'Then come with me, and be a star-gazer. It is a +noble art, for nothing can be hidden from you, when once you understand +the stars.' The plan pleased him much, and he soon became such a skilful +star-gazer, that when he had served out his time, and wanted to leave +his master, he gave him a glass, and said, 'With this you can see all +that is passing in the sky and on earth, and nothing can be hidden from +you.' + +The third brother met a huntsman, who took him with him, and taught him +so well all that belonged to hunting, that he became very clever in the +craft of the woods; and when he left his master he gave him a bow, and +said, 'Whatever you shoot at with this bow you will be sure to hit.' + +The youngest brother likewise met a man who asked him what he wished to +do. 'Would not you like,' said he, 'to be a tailor?' 'Oh, no!' said +the young man; 'sitting cross-legged from morning to night, working +backwards and forwards with a needle and goose, will never suit me.' +'Oh!' answered the man, 'that is not my sort of tailoring; come with me, +and you will learn quite another kind of craft from that.' Not knowing +what better to do, he came into the plan, and learnt tailoring from the +beginning; and when he left his master, he gave him a needle, and said, +'You can sew anything with this, be it as soft as an egg or as hard as +steel; and the joint will be so fine that no seam will be seen.' + +After the space of four years, at the time agreed upon, the four +brothers met at the four cross-roads; and having welcomed each other, +set off towards their father's home, where they told him all that had +happened to them, and how each had learned some craft. + +Then, one day, as they were sitting before the house under a very high +tree, the father said, 'I should like to try what each of you can do in +this way.' So he looked up, and said to the second son, 'At the top of +this tree there is a chaffinch's nest; tell me how many eggs there are +in it.' The star-gazer took his glass, looked up, and said, 'Five.' +'Now,' said the father to the eldest son, 'take away the eggs without +letting the bird that is sitting upon them and hatching them know +anything of what you are doing.' So the cunning thief climbed up the +tree, and brought away to his father the five eggs from under the bird; +and it never saw or felt what he was doing, but kept sitting on at its +ease. Then the father took the eggs, and put one on each corner of the +table, and the fifth in the middle, and said to the huntsman, 'Cut all +the eggs in two pieces at one shot.' The huntsman took up his bow, and +at one shot struck all the five eggs as his father wished. + +'Now comes your turn,' said he to the young tailor; 'sew the eggs and +the young birds in them together again, so neatly that the shot shall +have done them no harm.' Then the tailor took his needle, and sewed the +eggs as he was told; and when he had done, the thief was sent to take +them back to the nest, and put them under the bird without its knowing +it. Then she went on sitting, and hatched them: and in a few days they +crawled out, and had only a little red streak across their necks, where +the tailor had sewn them together. + +'Well done, sons!' said the old man; 'you have made good use of your +time, and learnt something worth the knowing; but I am sure I do not +know which ought to have the prize. Oh, that a time might soon come for +you to turn your skill to some account!' + +Not long after this there was a great bustle in the country; for the +king's daughter had been carried off by a mighty dragon, and the king +mourned over his loss day and night, and made it known that whoever +brought her back to him should have her for a wife. Then the four +brothers said to each other, 'Here is a chance for us; let us try +what we can do.' And they agreed to see whether they could not set the +princess free. 'I will soon find out where she is, however,' said the +star-gazer, as he looked through his glass; and he soon cried out, 'I +see her afar off, sitting upon a rock in the sea, and I can spy the +dragon close by, guarding her.' Then he went to the king, and asked for +a ship for himself and his brothers; and they sailed together over the +sea, till they came to the right place. There they found the princess +sitting, as the star-gazer had said, on the rock; and the dragon was +lying asleep, with his head upon her lap. 'I dare not shoot at him,' +said the huntsman, 'for I should kill the beautiful young lady also.' +'Then I will try my skill,' said the thief, and went and stole her away +from under the dragon, so quietly and gently that the beast did not know +it, but went on snoring. + +Then away they hastened with her full of joy in their boat towards the +ship; but soon came the dragon roaring behind them through the air; for +he awoke and missed the princess. But when he got over the boat, and +wanted to pounce upon them and carry off the princess, the huntsman took +up his bow and shot him straight through the heart so that he fell down +dead. They were still not safe; for he was such a great beast that in +his fall he overset the boat, and they had to swim in the open sea +upon a few planks. So the tailor took his needle, and with a few large +stitches put some of the planks together; and he sat down upon these, +and sailed about and gathered up all pieces of the boat; and then tacked +them together so quickly that the boat was soon ready, and they then +reached the ship and got home safe. + +When they had brought home the princess to her father, there was great +rejoicing; and he said to the four brothers, 'One of you shall marry +her, but you must settle amongst yourselves which it is to be.' Then +there arose a quarrel between them; and the star-gazer said, 'If I had +not found the princess out, all your skill would have been of no use; +therefore she ought to be mine.' 'Your seeing her would have been of +no use,' said the thief, 'if I had not taken her away from the dragon; +therefore she ought to be mine.' 'No, she is mine,' said the huntsman; +'for if I had not killed the dragon, he would, after all, have torn you +and the princess into pieces.' 'And if I had not sewn the boat together +again,' said the tailor, 'you would all have been drowned, therefore she +is mine.' Then the king put in a word, and said, 'Each of you is right; +and as all cannot have the young lady, the best way is for neither of +you to have her: for the truth is, there is somebody she likes a great +deal better. But to make up for your loss, I will give each of you, as a +reward for his skill, half a kingdom.' So the brothers agreed that this +plan would be much better than either quarrelling or marrying a lady who +had no mind to have them. And the king then gave to each half a kingdom, +as he had said; and they lived very happily the rest of their days, and +took good care of their father; and somebody took better care of the +young lady, than to let either the dragon or one of the craftsmen have +her again. + + + + +LILY AND THE LION + +A merchant, who had three daughters, was once setting out upon a +journey; but before he went he asked each daughter what gift he should +bring back for her. The eldest wished for pearls; the second for jewels; +but the third, who was called Lily, said, 'Dear father, bring me a +rose.' Now it was no easy task to find a rose, for it was the middle +of winter; yet as she was his prettiest daughter, and was very fond of +flowers, her father said he would try what he could do. So he kissed all +three, and bid them goodbye. + +And when the time came for him to go home, he had bought pearls and +jewels for the two eldest, but he had sought everywhere in vain for the +rose; and when he went into any garden and asked for such a thing, the +people laughed at him, and asked him whether he thought roses grew in +snow. This grieved him very much, for Lily was his dearest child; and as +he was journeying home, thinking what he should bring her, he came to a +fine castle; and around the castle was a garden, in one half of which it +seemed to be summer-time and in the other half winter. On one side the +finest flowers were in full bloom, and on the other everything looked +dreary and buried in the snow. 'A lucky hit!' said he, as he called to +his servant, and told him to go to a beautiful bed of roses that was +there, and bring him away one of the finest flowers. + +This done, they were riding away well pleased, when up sprang a fierce +lion, and roared out, 'Whoever has stolen my roses shall be eaten up +alive!' Then the man said, 'I knew not that the garden belonged to you; +can nothing save my life?' 'No!' said the lion, 'nothing, unless you +undertake to give me whatever meets you on your return home; if you +agree to this, I will give you your life, and the rose too for your +daughter.' But the man was unwilling to do so and said, 'It may be my +youngest daughter, who loves me most, and always runs to meet me when +I go home.' Then the servant was greatly frightened, and said, 'It may +perhaps be only a cat or a dog.' And at last the man yielded with a +heavy heart, and took the rose; and said he would give the lion whatever +should meet him first on his return. + +And as he came near home, it was Lily, his youngest and dearest +daughter, that met him; she came running, and kissed him, and welcomed +him home; and when she saw that he had brought her the rose, she was +still more glad. But her father began to be very sorrowful, and to weep, +saying, 'Alas, my dearest child! I have bought this flower at a high +price, for I have said I would give you to a wild lion; and when he has +you, he will tear you in pieces, and eat you.' Then he told her all that +had happened, and said she should not go, let what would happen. + +But she comforted him, and said, 'Dear father, the word you have given +must be kept; I will go to the lion, and soothe him: perhaps he will let +me come safe home again.' + +The next morning she asked the way she was to go, and took leave of her +father, and went forth with a bold heart into the wood. But the lion was +an enchanted prince. By day he and all his court were lions, but in the +evening they took their right forms again. And when Lily came to the +castle, he welcomed her so courteously that she agreed to marry him. The +wedding-feast was held, and they lived happily together a long time. The +prince was only to be seen as soon as evening came, and then he held his +court; but every morning he left his bride, and went away by himself, +she knew not whither, till the night came again. + +After some time he said to her, 'Tomorrow there will be a great feast in +your father's house, for your eldest sister is to be married; and if +you wish to go and visit her my lions shall lead you thither.' Then she +rejoiced much at the thoughts of seeing her father once more, and set +out with the lions; and everyone was overjoyed to see her, for they had +thought her dead long since. But she told them how happy she was, and +stayed till the feast was over, and then went back to the wood. + +Her second sister was soon after married, and when Lily was asked to +go to the wedding, she said to the prince, 'I will not go alone this +time--you must go with me.' But he would not, and said that it would be +a very hazardous thing; for if the least ray of the torch-light should +fall upon him his enchantment would become still worse, for he should be +changed into a dove, and be forced to wander about the world for seven +long years. However, she gave him no rest, and said she would take care +no light should fall upon him. So at last they set out together, and +took with them their little child; and she chose a large hall with thick +walls for him to sit in while the wedding-torches were lighted; but, +unluckily, no one saw that there was a crack in the door. Then the +wedding was held with great pomp, but as the train came from the church, +and passed with the torches before the hall, a very small ray of light +fell upon the prince. In a moment he disappeared, and when his wife came +in and looked for him, she found only a white dove; and it said to her, +'Seven years must I fly up and down over the face of the earth, but +every now and then I will let fall a white feather, that will show you +the way I am going; follow it, and at last you may overtake and set me +free.' + +This said, he flew out at the door, and poor Lily followed; and every +now and then a white feather fell, and showed her the way she was to +journey. Thus she went roving on through the wide world, and looked +neither to the right hand nor to the left, nor took any rest, for seven +years. Then she began to be glad, and thought to herself that the time +was fast coming when all her troubles should end; yet repose was still +far off, for one day as she was travelling on she missed the white +feather, and when she lifted up her eyes she could nowhere see the dove. +'Now,' thought she to herself, 'no aid of man can be of use to me.' So +she went to the sun and said, 'Thou shinest everywhere, on the hill's +top and the valley's depth--hast thou anywhere seen my white dove?' +'No,' said the sun, 'I have not seen it; but I will give thee a +casket--open it when thy hour of need comes.' + +So she thanked the sun, and went on her way till eventide; and when +the moon arose, she cried unto it, and said, 'Thou shinest through the +night, over field and grove--hast thou nowhere seen my white dove?' +'No,' said the moon, 'I cannot help thee but I will give thee an +egg--break it when need comes.' + +Then she thanked the moon, and went on till the night-wind blew; and she +raised up her voice to it, and said, 'Thou blowest through every tree +and under every leaf--hast thou not seen my white dove?' 'No,' said the +night-wind, 'but I will ask three other winds; perhaps they have seen +it.' Then the east wind and the west wind came, and said they too had +not seen it, but the south wind said, 'I have seen the white dove--he +has fled to the Red Sea, and is changed once more into a lion, for the +seven years are passed away, and there he is fighting with a dragon; +and the dragon is an enchanted princess, who seeks to separate him from +you.' Then the night-wind said, 'I will give thee counsel. Go to the +Red Sea; on the right shore stand many rods--count them, and when thou +comest to the eleventh, break it off, and smite the dragon with it; and +so the lion will have the victory, and both of them will appear to you +in their own forms. Then look round and thou wilt see a griffin, winged +like bird, sitting by the Red Sea; jump on to his back with thy beloved +one as quickly as possible, and he will carry you over the waters to +your home. I will also give thee this nut,' continued the night-wind. +'When you are half-way over, throw it down, and out of the waters will +immediately spring up a high nut-tree on which the griffin will be able +to rest, otherwise he would not have the strength to bear you the whole +way; if, therefore, thou dost forget to throw down the nut, he will let +you both fall into the sea.' + +So our poor wanderer went forth, and found all as the night-wind had +said; and she plucked the eleventh rod, and smote the dragon, and the +lion forthwith became a prince, and the dragon a princess again. But +no sooner was the princess released from the spell, than she seized +the prince by the arm and sprang on to the griffin's back, and went off +carrying the prince away with her. + +Thus the unhappy traveller was again forsaken and forlorn; but she +took heart and said, 'As far as the wind blows, and so long as the cock +crows, I will journey on, till I find him once again.' She went on for +a long, long way, till at length she came to the castle whither the +princess had carried the prince; and there was a feast got ready, and +she heard that the wedding was about to be held. 'Heaven aid me now!' +said she; and she took the casket that the sun had given her, and found +that within it lay a dress as dazzling as the sun itself. So she put it +on, and went into the palace, and all the people gazed upon her; and +the dress pleased the bride so much that she asked whether it was to be +sold. 'Not for gold and silver.' said she, 'but for flesh and blood.' +The princess asked what she meant, and she said, 'Let me speak with the +bridegroom this night in his chamber, and I will give thee the dress.' +At last the princess agreed, but she told her chamberlain to give the +prince a sleeping draught, that he might not hear or see her. When +evening came, and the prince had fallen asleep, she was led into +his chamber, and she sat herself down at his feet, and said: 'I have +followed thee seven years. I have been to the sun, the moon, and the +night-wind, to seek thee, and at last I have helped thee to overcome +the dragon. Wilt thou then forget me quite?' But the prince all the time +slept so soundly, that her voice only passed over him, and seemed like +the whistling of the wind among the fir-trees. + +Then poor Lily was led away, and forced to give up the golden dress; and +when she saw that there was no help for her, she went out into a meadow, +and sat herself down and wept. But as she sat she bethought herself of +the egg that the moon had given her; and when she broke it, there ran +out a hen and twelve chickens of pure gold, that played about, and then +nestled under the old one's wings, so as to form the most beautiful +sight in the world. And she rose up and drove them before her, till the +bride saw them from her window, and was so pleased that she came forth +and asked her if she would sell the brood. 'Not for gold or silver, but +for flesh and blood: let me again this evening speak with the bridegroom +in his chamber, and I will give thee the whole brood.' + +Then the princess thought to betray her as before, and agreed to +what she asked: but when the prince went to his chamber he asked +the chamberlain why the wind had whistled so in the night. And the +chamberlain told him all--how he had given him a sleeping draught, and +how a poor maiden had come and spoken to him in his chamber, and was +to come again that night. Then the prince took care to throw away the +sleeping draught; and when Lily came and began again to tell him what +woes had befallen her, and how faithful and true to him she had been, +he knew his beloved wife's voice, and sprang up, and said, 'You have +awakened me as from a dream, for the strange princess had thrown a spell +around me, so that I had altogether forgotten you; but Heaven hath sent +you to me in a lucky hour.' + +And they stole away out of the palace by night unawares, and seated +themselves on the griffin, who flew back with them over the Red Sea. +When they were half-way across Lily let the nut fall into the water, +and immediately a large nut-tree arose from the sea, whereon the griffin +rested for a while, and then carried them safely home. There they found +their child, now grown up to be comely and fair; and after all their +troubles they lived happily together to the end of their days. + + + + +THE FOX AND THE HORSE + +A farmer had a horse that had been an excellent faithful servant to +him: but he was now grown too old to work; so the farmer would give him +nothing more to eat, and said, 'I want you no longer, so take yourself +off out of my stable; I shall not take you back again until you are +stronger than a lion.' Then he opened the door and turned him adrift. + +The poor horse was very melancholy, and wandered up and down in the +wood, seeking some little shelter from the cold wind and rain. Presently +a fox met him: 'What's the matter, my friend?' said he, 'why do you hang +down your head and look so lonely and woe-begone?' 'Ah!' replied the +horse, 'justice and avarice never dwell in one house; my master has +forgotten all that I have done for him so many years, and because I +can no longer work he has turned me adrift, and says unless I become +stronger than a lion he will not take me back again; what chance can I +have of that? he knows I have none, or he would not talk so.' + +However, the fox bid him be of good cheer, and said, 'I will help you; +lie down there, stretch yourself out quite stiff, and pretend to be +dead.' The horse did as he was told, and the fox went straight to the +lion who lived in a cave close by, and said to him, 'A little way off +lies a dead horse; come with me and you may make an excellent meal of +his carcase.' The lion was greatly pleased, and set off immediately; and +when they came to the horse, the fox said, 'You will not be able to eat +him comfortably here; I'll tell you what--I will tie you fast to +his tail, and then you can draw him to your den, and eat him at your +leisure.' + +This advice pleased the lion, so he laid himself down quietly for the +fox to make him fast to the horse. But the fox managed to tie his legs +together and bound all so hard and fast that with all his strength he +could not set himself free. When the work was done, the fox clapped the +horse on the shoulder, and said, 'Jip! Dobbin! Jip!' Then up he sprang, +and moved off, dragging the lion behind him. The beast began to roar +and bellow, till all the birds of the wood flew away for fright; but the +horse let him sing on, and made his way quietly over the fields to his +master's house. + +'Here he is, master,' said he, 'I have got the better of him': and when +the farmer saw his old servant, his heart relented, and he said. 'Thou +shalt stay in thy stable and be well taken care of.' And so the poor old +horse had plenty to eat, and lived--till he died. + + + + +THE BLUE LIGHT + +There was once upon a time a soldier who for many years had served the +king faithfully, but when the war came to an end could serve no longer +because of the many wounds which he had received. The king said to him: +'You may return to your home, I need you no longer, and you will not +receive any more money, for he only receives wages who renders me +service for them.' Then the soldier did not know how to earn a living, +went away greatly troubled, and walked the whole day, until in the +evening he entered a forest. When darkness came on, he saw a light, +which he went up to, and came to a house wherein lived a witch. 'Do give +me one night's lodging, and a little to eat and drink,' said he to +her, 'or I shall starve.' 'Oho!' she answered, 'who gives anything to a +run-away soldier? Yet will I be compassionate, and take you in, if you +will do what I wish.' 'What do you wish?' said the soldier. 'That you +should dig all round my garden for me, tomorrow.' The soldier consented, +and next day laboured with all his strength, but could not finish it by +the evening. 'I see well enough,' said the witch, 'that you can do no +more today, but I will keep you yet another night, in payment for +which you must tomorrow chop me a load of wood, and chop it small.' The +soldier spent the whole day in doing it, and in the evening the witch +proposed that he should stay one night more. 'Tomorrow, you shall only +do me a very trifling piece of work. Behind my house, there is an old +dry well, into which my light has fallen, it burns blue, and never goes +out, and you shall bring it up again.' Next day the old woman took him +to the well, and let him down in a basket. He found the blue light, and +made her a signal to draw him up again. She did draw him up, but when he +came near the edge, she stretched down her hand and wanted to take the +blue light away from him. 'No,' said he, perceiving her evil intention, +'I will not give you the light until I am standing with both feet upon +the ground.' The witch fell into a passion, let him fall again into the +well, and went away. + +The poor soldier fell without injury on the moist ground, and the blue +light went on burning, but of what use was that to him? He saw very well +that he could not escape death. He sat for a while very sorrowfully, +then suddenly he felt in his pocket and found his tobacco pipe, which +was still half full. 'This shall be my last pleasure,' thought he, +pulled it out, lit it at the blue light and began to smoke. When the +smoke had circled about the cavern, suddenly a little black dwarf stood +before him, and said: 'Lord, what are your commands?' 'What my commands +are?' replied the soldier, quite astonished. 'I must do everything you +bid me,' said the little man. 'Good,' said the soldier; 'then in the +first place help me out of this well.' The little man took him by the +hand, and led him through an underground passage, but he did not forget +to take the blue light with him. On the way the dwarf showed him the +treasures which the witch had collected and hidden there, and the +soldier took as much gold as he could carry. When he was above, he said +to the little man: 'Now go and bind the old witch, and carry her before +the judge.' In a short time she came by like the wind, riding on a wild +tom-cat and screaming frightfully. Nor was it long before the little man +reappeared. 'It is all done,' said he, 'and the witch is already hanging +on the gallows. What further commands has my lord?' inquired the dwarf. +'At this moment, none,' answered the soldier; 'you can return home, only +be at hand immediately, if I summon you.' 'Nothing more is needed than +that you should light your pipe at the blue light, and I will appear +before you at once.' Thereupon he vanished from his sight. + +The soldier returned to the town from which he came. He went to the +best inn, ordered himself handsome clothes, and then bade the landlord +furnish him a room as handsome as possible. When it was ready and the +soldier had taken possession of it, he summoned the little black manikin +and said: 'I have served the king faithfully, but he has dismissed me, +and left me to hunger, and now I want to take my revenge.' 'What am I to +do?' asked the little man. 'Late at night, when the king's daughter is +in bed, bring her here in her sleep, she shall do servant's work for +me.' The manikin said: 'That is an easy thing for me to do, but a very +dangerous thing for you, for if it is discovered, you will fare ill.' +When twelve o'clock had struck, the door sprang open, and the manikin +carried in the princess. 'Aha! are you there?' cried the soldier, 'get +to your work at once! Fetch the broom and sweep the chamber.' When +she had done this, he ordered her to come to his chair, and then he +stretched out his feet and said: 'Pull off my boots,' and then he +threw them in her face, and made her pick them up again, and clean +and brighten them. She, however, did everything he bade her, without +opposition, silently and with half-shut eyes. When the first cock +crowed, the manikin carried her back to the royal palace, and laid her +in her bed. + +Next morning when the princess arose she went to her father, and told +him that she had had a very strange dream. 'I was carried through the +streets with the rapidity of lightning,' said she, 'and taken into a +soldier's room, and I had to wait upon him like a servant, sweep his +room, clean his boots, and do all kinds of menial work. It was only a +dream, and yet I am just as tired as if I really had done everything.' +'The dream may have been true,' said the king. 'I will give you a piece +of advice. Fill your pocket full of peas, and make a small hole in the +pocket, and then if you are carried away again, they will fall out and +leave a track in the streets.' But unseen by the king, the manikin was +standing beside him when he said that, and heard all. At night when +the sleeping princess was again carried through the streets, some peas +certainly did fall out of her pocket, but they made no track, for the +crafty manikin had just before scattered peas in every street there +was. And again the princess was compelled to do servant's work until +cock-crow. + +Next morning the king sent his people out to seek the track, but it was +all in vain, for in every street poor children were sitting, picking up +peas, and saying: 'It must have rained peas, last night.' 'We must think +of something else,' said the king; 'keep your shoes on when you go to +bed, and before you come back from the place where you are taken, hide +one of them there, I will soon contrive to find it.' The black manikin +heard this plot, and at night when the soldier again ordered him to +bring the princess, revealed it to him, and told him that he knew of no +expedient to counteract this stratagem, and that if the shoe were found +in the soldier's house it would go badly with him. 'Do what I bid you,' +replied the soldier, and again this third night the princess was obliged +to work like a servant, but before she went away, she hid her shoe under +the bed. + +Next morning the king had the entire town searched for his daughter's +shoe. It was found at the soldier's, and the soldier himself, who at the +entreaty of the dwarf had gone outside the gate, was soon brought back, +and thrown into prison. In his flight he had forgotten the most valuable +things he had, the blue light and the gold, and had only one ducat in +his pocket. And now loaded with chains, he was standing at the window of +his dungeon, when he chanced to see one of his comrades passing by. The +soldier tapped at the pane of glass, and when this man came up, said to +him: 'Be so kind as to fetch me the small bundle I have left lying in +the inn, and I will give you a ducat for doing it.' His comrade ran +thither and brought him what he wanted. As soon as the soldier was alone +again, he lighted his pipe and summoned the black manikin. 'Have no +fear,' said the latter to his master. 'Go wheresoever they take you, and +let them do what they will, only take the blue light with you.' Next day +the soldier was tried, and though he had done nothing wicked, the judge +condemned him to death. When he was led forth to die, he begged a last +favour of the king. 'What is it?' asked the king. 'That I may smoke one +more pipe on my way.' 'You may smoke three,' answered the king, 'but do +not imagine that I will spare your life.' Then the soldier pulled out +his pipe and lighted it at the blue light, and as soon as a few wreaths +of smoke had ascended, the manikin was there with a small cudgel in his +hand, and said: 'What does my lord command?' 'Strike down to earth that +false judge there, and his constable, and spare not the king who has +treated me so ill.' Then the manikin fell on them like lightning, +darting this way and that way, and whosoever was so much as touched by +his cudgel fell to earth, and did not venture to stir again. The king +was terrified; he threw himself on the soldier's mercy, and merely to +be allowed to live at all, gave him his kingdom for his own, and his +daughter to wife. + + + + +THE RAVEN + +There was once a queen who had a little daughter, still too young to run +alone. One day the child was very troublesome, and the mother could not +quiet it, do what she would. She grew impatient, and seeing the ravens +flying round the castle, she opened the window, and said: 'I wish you +were a raven and would fly away, then I should have a little peace.' +Scarcely were the words out of her mouth, when the child in her arms was +turned into a raven, and flew away from her through the open window. The +bird took its flight to a dark wood and remained there for a long time, +and meanwhile the parents could hear nothing of their child. + +Long after this, a man was making his way through the wood when he heard +a raven calling, and he followed the sound of the voice. As he drew +near, the raven said, 'I am by birth a king's daughter, but am now under +the spell of some enchantment; you can, however, set me free.' 'What +am I to do?' he asked. She replied, 'Go farther into the wood until you +come to a house, wherein lives an old woman; she will offer you food and +drink, but you must not take of either; if you do, you will fall into +a deep sleep, and will not be able to help me. In the garden behind the +house is a large tan-heap, and on that you must stand and watch for me. +I shall drive there in my carriage at two o'clock in the afternoon for +three successive days; the first day it will be drawn by four white, the +second by four chestnut, and the last by four black horses; but if you +fail to keep awake and I find you sleeping, I shall not be set free.' + +The man promised to do all that she wished, but the raven said, 'Alas! I +know even now that you will take something from the woman and be unable +to save me.' The man assured her again that he would on no account touch +a thing to eat or drink. + +When he came to the house and went inside, the old woman met him, and +said, 'Poor man! how tired you are! Come in and rest and let me give you +something to eat and drink.' + +'No,' answered the man, 'I will neither eat not drink.' + +But she would not leave him alone, and urged him saying, 'If you will +not eat anything, at least you might take a draught of wine; one drink +counts for nothing,' and at last he allowed himself to be persuaded, and +drank. + +As it drew towards the appointed hour, he went outside into the garden +and mounted the tan-heap to await the raven. Suddenly a feeling of +fatigue came over him, and unable to resist it, he lay down for a little +while, fully determined, however, to keep awake; but in another minute +his eyes closed of their own accord, and he fell into such a deep sleep, +that all the noises in the world would not have awakened him. At two +o'clock the raven came driving along, drawn by her four white horses; +but even before she reached the spot, she said to herself, sighing, 'I +know he has fallen asleep.' When she entered the garden, there she found +him as she had feared, lying on the tan-heap, fast asleep. She got out +of her carriage and went to him; she called him and shook him, but it +was all in vain, he still continued sleeping. + +The next day at noon, the old woman came to him again with food and +drink which he at first refused. At last, overcome by her persistent +entreaties that he would take something, he lifted the glass and drank +again. + +Towards two o'clock he went into the garden and on to the tan-heap to +watch for the raven. He had not been there long before he began to feel +so tired that his limbs seemed hardly able to support him, and he could +not stand upright any longer; so again he lay down and fell fast asleep. +As the raven drove along her four chestnut horses, she said sorrowfully +to herself, 'I know he has fallen asleep.' She went as before to look +for him, but he slept, and it was impossible to awaken him. + +The following day the old woman said to him, 'What is this? You are not +eating or drinking anything, do you want to kill yourself?' + +He answered, 'I may not and will not either eat or drink.' + +But she put down the dish of food and the glass of wine in front of him, +and when he smelt the wine, he was unable to resist the temptation, and +took a deep draught. + +When the hour came round again he went as usual on to the tan-heap in +the garden to await the king's daughter, but he felt even more overcome +with weariness than on the two previous days, and throwing himself down, +he slept like a log. At two o'clock the raven could be seen approaching, +and this time her coachman and everything about her, as well as her +horses, were black. + +She was sadder than ever as she drove along, and said mournfully, 'I +know he has fallen asleep, and will not be able to set me free.' She +found him sleeping heavily, and all her efforts to awaken him were of no +avail. Then she placed beside him a loaf, and some meat, and a flask +of wine, of such a kind, that however much he took of them, they would +never grow less. After that she drew a gold ring, on which her name was +engraved, off her finger, and put it upon one of his. Finally, she laid +a letter near him, in which, after giving him particulars of the food +and drink she had left for him, she finished with the following words: +'I see that as long as you remain here you will never be able to set me +free; if, however, you still wish to do so, come to the golden castle +of Stromberg; this is well within your power to accomplish.' She then +returned to her carriage and drove to the golden castle of Stromberg. + +When the man awoke and found that he had been sleeping, he was grieved +at heart, and said, 'She has no doubt been here and driven away again, +and it is now too late for me to save her.' Then his eyes fell on the +things which were lying beside him; he read the letter, and knew from it +all that had happened. He rose up without delay, eager to start on his +way and to reach the castle of Stromberg, but he had no idea in which +direction he ought to go. He travelled about a long time in search of it +and came at last to a dark forest, through which he went on walking for +fourteen days and still could not find a way out. Once more the night +came on, and worn out he lay down under a bush and fell asleep. Again +the next day he pursued his way through the forest, and that evening, +thinking to rest again, he lay down as before, but he heard such a +howling and wailing that he found it impossible to sleep. He waited till +it was darker and people had begun to light up their houses, and then +seeing a little glimmer ahead of him, he went towards it. + +He found that the light came from a house which looked smaller than +it really was, from the contrast of its height with that of an immense +giant who stood in front of it. He thought to himself, 'If the giant +sees me going in, my life will not be worth much.' However, after a +while he summoned up courage and went forward. When the giant saw him, +he called out, 'It is lucky for that you have come, for I have not had +anything to eat for a long time. I can have you now for my supper.' 'I +would rather you let that alone,' said the man, 'for I do not willingly +give myself up to be eaten; if you are wanting food I have enough to +satisfy your hunger.' 'If that is so,' replied the giant, 'I will leave +you in peace; I only thought of eating you because I had nothing else.' + +So they went indoors together and sat down, and the man brought out the +bread, meat, and wine, which although he had eaten and drunk of them, +were still unconsumed. The giant was pleased with the good cheer, and +ate and drank to his heart's content. When he had finished his supper +the man asked him if he could direct him to the castle of Stromberg. +The giant said, 'I will look on my map; on it are marked all the towns, +villages, and houses.' So he fetched his map, and looked for the castle, +but could not find it. 'Never mind,' he said, 'I have larger maps +upstairs in the cupboard, we will look on those,' but they searched in +vain, for the castle was not marked even on these. The man now thought +he should like to continue his journey, but the giant begged him to +remain for a day or two longer until the return of his brother, who was +away in search of provisions. When the brother came home, they asked him +about the castle of Stromberg, and he told them he would look on his own +maps as soon as he had eaten and appeased his hunger. Accordingly, when +he had finished his supper, they all went up together to his room and +looked through his maps, but the castle was not to be found. Then he +fetched other older maps, and they went on looking for the castle until +at last they found it, but it was many thousand miles away. 'How shall I +be able to get there?' asked the man. 'I have two hours to spare,' said +the giant, 'and I will carry you into the neighbourhood of the castle; I +must then return to look after the child who is in our care.' + +The giant, thereupon, carried the man to within about a hundred leagues +of the castle, where he left him, saying, 'You will be able to walk the +remainder of the way yourself.' The man journeyed on day and night +till he reached the golden castle of Stromberg. He found it situated, +however, on a glass mountain, and looking up from the foot he saw the +enchanted maiden drive round her castle and then go inside. He was +overjoyed to see her, and longed to get to the top of the mountain, but +the sides were so slippery that every time he attempted to climb he +fell back again. When he saw that it was impossible to reach her, he was +greatly grieved, and said to himself, 'I will remain here and wait for +her,' so he built himself a little hut, and there he sat and watched for +a whole year, and every day he saw the king's daughter driving round her +castle, but still was unable to get nearer to her. + +Looking out from his hut one day he saw three robbers fighting and he +called out to them, 'God be with you.' They stopped when they heard the +call, but looking round and seeing nobody, they went on again with their +fighting, which now became more furious. 'God be with you,' he cried +again, and again they paused and looked about, but seeing no one went +back to their fighting. A third time he called out, 'God be with you,' +and then thinking he should like to know the cause of dispute between +the three men, he went out and asked them why they were fighting so +angrily with one another. One of them said that he had found a stick, +and that he had but to strike it against any door through which he +wished to pass, and it immediately flew open. Another told him that he +had found a cloak which rendered its wearer invisible; and the third had +caught a horse which would carry its rider over any obstacle, and even +up the glass mountain. They had been unable to decide whether they +would keep together and have the things in common, or whether they would +separate. On hearing this, the man said, 'I will give you something in +exchange for those three things; not money, for that I have not got, +but something that is of far more value. I must first, however, prove +whether all you have told me about your three things is true.' The +robbers, therefore, made him get on the horse, and handed him the stick +and the cloak, and when he had put this round him he was no longer +visible. Then he fell upon them with the stick and beat them one after +another, crying, 'There, you idle vagabonds, you have got what you +deserve; are you satisfied now!' + +After this he rode up the glass mountain. When he reached the gate of +the castle, he found it closed, but he gave it a blow with his stick, +and it flew wide open at once and he passed through. He mounted the +steps and entered the room where the maiden was sitting, with a golden +goblet full of wine in front of her. She could not see him for he still +wore his cloak. He took the ring which she had given him off his finger, +and threw it into the goblet, so that it rang as it touched the bottom. +'That is my own ring,' she exclaimed, 'and if that is so the man must +also be here who is coming to set me free.' + +She sought for him about the castle, but could find him nowhere. +Meanwhile he had gone outside again and mounted his horse and thrown off +the cloak. When therefore she came to the castle gate she saw him, and +cried aloud for joy. Then he dismounted and took her in his arms; and +she kissed him, and said, 'Now you have indeed set me free, and tomorrow +we will celebrate our marriage.' + + + + +THE GOLDEN GOOSE + +There was a man who had three sons, the youngest of whom was called +Dummling,[*] and was despised, mocked, and sneered at on every occasion. + +It happened that the eldest wanted to go into the forest to hew wood, +and before he went his mother gave him a beautiful sweet cake and a +bottle of wine in order that he might not suffer from hunger or thirst. + +When he entered the forest he met a little grey-haired old man who bade +him good day, and said: 'Do give me a piece of cake out of your pocket, +and let me have a draught of your wine; I am so hungry and thirsty.' But +the clever son answered: 'If I give you my cake and wine, I shall have +none for myself; be off with you,' and he left the little man standing +and went on. + +But when he began to hew down a tree, it was not long before he made a +false stroke, and the axe cut him in the arm, so that he had to go home +and have it bound up. And this was the little grey man's doing. + +After this the second son went into the forest, and his mother gave him, +like the eldest, a cake and a bottle of wine. The little old grey man +met him likewise, and asked him for a piece of cake and a drink of wine. +But the second son, too, said sensibly enough: 'What I give you will be +taken away from myself; be off!' and he left the little man standing and +went on. His punishment, however, was not delayed; when he had made a +few blows at the tree he struck himself in the leg, so that he had to be +carried home. + +Then Dummling said: 'Father, do let me go and cut wood.' The father +answered: 'Your brothers have hurt themselves with it, leave it alone, +you do not understand anything about it.' But Dummling begged so long +that at last he said: 'Just go then, you will get wiser by hurting +yourself.' His mother gave him a cake made with water and baked in the +cinders, and with it a bottle of sour beer. + +When he came to the forest the little old grey man met him likewise, +and greeting him, said: 'Give me a piece of your cake and a drink out +of your bottle; I am so hungry and thirsty.' Dummling answered: 'I have +only cinder-cake and sour beer; if that pleases you, we will sit +down and eat.' So they sat down, and when Dummling pulled out his +cinder-cake, it was a fine sweet cake, and the sour beer had become good +wine. So they ate and drank, and after that the little man said: 'Since +you have a good heart, and are willing to divide what you have, I will +give you good luck. There stands an old tree, cut it down, and you will +find something at the roots.' Then the little man took leave of him. + +Dummling went and cut down the tree, and when it fell there was a goose +sitting in the roots with feathers of pure gold. He lifted her up, and +taking her with him, went to an inn where he thought he would stay the +night. Now the host had three daughters, who saw the goose and were +curious to know what such a wonderful bird might be, and would have +liked to have one of its golden feathers. + +The eldest thought: 'I shall soon find an opportunity of pulling out a +feather,' and as soon as Dummling had gone out she seized the goose by +the wing, but her finger and hand remained sticking fast to it. + +The second came soon afterwards, thinking only of how she might get a +feather for herself, but she had scarcely touched her sister than she +was held fast. + +At last the third also came with the like intent, and the others +screamed out: 'Keep away; for goodness' sake keep away!' But she did +not understand why she was to keep away. 'The others are there,' she +thought, 'I may as well be there too,' and ran to them; but as soon as +she had touched her sister, she remained sticking fast to her. So they +had to spend the night with the goose. + +The next morning Dummling took the goose under his arm and set out, +without troubling himself about the three girls who were hanging on to +it. They were obliged to run after him continually, now left, now right, +wherever his legs took him. + +In the middle of the fields the parson met them, and when he saw the +procession he said: 'For shame, you good-for-nothing girls, why are you +running across the fields after this young man? Is that seemly?' At the +same time he seized the youngest by the hand in order to pull her away, +but as soon as he touched her he likewise stuck fast, and was himself +obliged to run behind. + +Before long the sexton came by and saw his master, the parson, running +behind three girls. He was astonished at this and called out: 'Hi! +your reverence, whither away so quickly? Do not forget that we have a +christening today!' and running after him he took him by the sleeve, but +was also held fast to it. + +Whilst the five were trotting thus one behind the other, two labourers +came with their hoes from the fields; the parson called out to them +and begged that they would set him and the sexton free. But they had +scarcely touched the sexton when they were held fast, and now there were +seven of them running behind Dummling and the goose. + +Soon afterwards he came to a city, where a king ruled who had a daughter +who was so serious that no one could make her laugh. So he had put forth +a decree that whosoever should be able to make her laugh should marry +her. When Dummling heard this, he went with his goose and all her train +before the king's daughter, and as soon as she saw the seven people +running on and on, one behind the other, she began to laugh quite +loudly, and as if she would never stop. Thereupon Dummling asked to have +her for his wife; but the king did not like the son-in-law, and made all +manner of excuses and said he must first produce a man who could drink +a cellarful of wine. Dummling thought of the little grey man, who could +certainly help him; so he went into the forest, and in the same place +where he had felled the tree, he saw a man sitting, who had a very +sorrowful face. Dummling asked him what he was taking to heart so +sorely, and he answered: 'I have such a great thirst and cannot quench +it; cold water I cannot stand, a barrel of wine I have just emptied, but +that to me is like a drop on a hot stone!' + +'There, I can help you,' said Dummling, 'just come with me and you shall +be satisfied.' + +He led him into the king's cellar, and the man bent over the huge +barrels, and drank and drank till his loins hurt, and before the day was +out he had emptied all the barrels. Then Dummling asked once more +for his bride, but the king was vexed that such an ugly fellow, whom +everyone called Dummling, should take away his daughter, and he made a +new condition; he must first find a man who could eat a whole mountain +of bread. Dummling did not think long, but went straight into the +forest, where in the same place there sat a man who was tying up his +body with a strap, and making an awful face, and saying: 'I have eaten a +whole ovenful of rolls, but what good is that when one has such a hunger +as I? My stomach remains empty, and I must tie myself up if I am not to +die of hunger.' + +At this Dummling was glad, and said: 'Get up and come with me; you shall +eat yourself full.' He led him to the king's palace where all the +flour in the whole Kingdom was collected, and from it he caused a huge +mountain of bread to be baked. The man from the forest stood before it, +began to eat, and by the end of one day the whole mountain had vanished. +Then Dummling for the third time asked for his bride; but the king again +sought a way out, and ordered a ship which could sail on land and on +water. 'As soon as you come sailing back in it,' said he, 'you shall +have my daughter for wife.' + +Dummling went straight into the forest, and there sat the little grey +man to whom he had given his cake. When he heard what Dummling wanted, +he said: 'Since you have given me to eat and to drink, I will give you +the ship; and I do all this because you once were kind to me.' Then he +gave him the ship which could sail on land and water, and when the king +saw that, he could no longer prevent him from having his daughter. The +wedding was celebrated, and after the king's death, Dummling inherited +his kingdom and lived for a long time contentedly with his wife. + + [*] Simpleton + + + + +THE WATER OF LIFE + +Long before you or I were born, there reigned, in a country a great way +off, a king who had three sons. This king once fell very ill--so ill +that nobody thought he could live. His sons were very much grieved +at their father's sickness; and as they were walking together very +mournfully in the garden of the palace, a little old man met them and +asked what was the matter. They told him that their father was very ill, +and that they were afraid nothing could save him. 'I know what would,' +said the little old man; 'it is the Water of Life. If he could have a +draught of it he would be well again; but it is very hard to get.' Then +the eldest son said, 'I will soon find it': and he went to the sick +king, and begged that he might go in search of the Water of Life, as +it was the only thing that could save him. 'No,' said the king. 'I had +rather die than place you in such great danger as you must meet with in +your journey.' But he begged so hard that the king let him go; and the +prince thought to himself, 'If I bring my father this water, he will +make me sole heir to his kingdom.' + +Then he set out: and when he had gone on his way some time he came to a +deep valley, overhung with rocks and woods; and as he looked around, he +saw standing above him on one of the rocks a little ugly dwarf, with a +sugarloaf cap and a scarlet cloak; and the dwarf called to him and said, +'Prince, whither so fast?' 'What is that to thee, you ugly imp?' said +the prince haughtily, and rode on. + +But the dwarf was enraged at his behaviour, and laid a fairy spell +of ill-luck upon him; so that as he rode on the mountain pass became +narrower and narrower, and at last the way was so straitened that he +could not go to step forward: and when he thought to have turned his +horse round and go back the way he came, he heard a loud laugh ringing +round him, and found that the path was closed behind him, so that he was +shut in all round. He next tried to get off his horse and make his way +on foot, but again the laugh rang in his ears, and he found himself +unable to move a step, and thus he was forced to abide spellbound. + +Meantime the old king was lingering on in daily hope of his son's +return, till at last the second son said, 'Father, I will go in search +of the Water of Life.' For he thought to himself, 'My brother is surely +dead, and the kingdom will fall to me if I find the water.' The king was +at first very unwilling to let him go, but at last yielded to his wish. +So he set out and followed the same road which his brother had done, +and met with the same elf, who stopped him at the same spot in the +mountains, saying, as before, 'Prince, prince, whither so fast?' 'Mind +your own affairs, busybody!' said the prince scornfully, and rode on. + +But the dwarf put the same spell upon him as he put on his elder +brother, and he, too, was at last obliged to take up his abode in the +heart of the mountains. Thus it is with proud silly people, who think +themselves above everyone else, and are too proud to ask or take advice. + +When the second prince had thus been gone a long time, the youngest son +said he would go and search for the Water of Life, and trusted he should +soon be able to make his father well again. So he set out, and the dwarf +met him too at the same spot in the valley, among the mountains, and +said, 'Prince, whither so fast?' And the prince said, 'I am going in +search of the Water of Life, because my father is ill, and like to die: +can you help me? Pray be kind, and aid me if you can!' 'Do you know +where it is to be found?' asked the dwarf. 'No,' said the prince, 'I do +not. Pray tell me if you know.' 'Then as you have spoken to me kindly, +and are wise enough to seek for advice, I will tell you how and where to +go. The water you seek springs from a well in an enchanted castle; and, +that you may be able to reach it in safety, I will give you an iron wand +and two little loaves of bread; strike the iron door of the castle three +times with the wand, and it will open: two hungry lions will be lying +down inside gaping for their prey, but if you throw them the bread they +will let you pass; then hasten on to the well, and take some of the +Water of Life before the clock strikes twelve; for if you tarry longer +the door will shut upon you for ever.' + +Then the prince thanked his little friend with the scarlet cloak for his +friendly aid, and took the wand and the bread, and went travelling on +and on, over sea and over land, till he came to his journey's end, and +found everything to be as the dwarf had told him. The door flew open at +the third stroke of the wand, and when the lions were quieted he went on +through the castle and came at length to a beautiful hall. Around it he +saw several knights sitting in a trance; then he pulled off their rings +and put them on his own fingers. In another room he saw on a table a +sword and a loaf of bread, which he also took. Further on he came to a +room where a beautiful young lady sat upon a couch; and she welcomed him +joyfully, and said, if he would set her free from the spell that bound +her, the kingdom should be his, if he would come back in a year and +marry her. Then she told him that the well that held the Water of Life +was in the palace gardens; and bade him make haste, and draw what he +wanted before the clock struck twelve. + +He walked on; and as he walked through beautiful gardens he came to a +delightful shady spot in which stood a couch; and he thought to himself, +as he felt tired, that he would rest himself for a while, and gaze on +the lovely scenes around him. So he laid himself down, and sleep +fell upon him unawares, so that he did not wake up till the clock was +striking a quarter to twelve. Then he sprang from the couch dreadfully +frightened, ran to the well, filled a cup that was standing by him full +of water, and hastened to get away in time. Just as he was going out of +the iron door it struck twelve, and the door fell so quickly upon him +that it snapped off a piece of his heel. + +When he found himself safe, he was overjoyed to think that he had got +the Water of Life; and as he was going on his way homewards, he passed +by the little dwarf, who, when he saw the sword and the loaf, said, 'You +have made a noble prize; with the sword you can at a blow slay whole +armies, and the bread will never fail you.' Then the prince thought +to himself, 'I cannot go home to my father without my brothers'; so he +said, 'My dear friend, cannot you tell me where my two brothers are, who +set out in search of the Water of Life before me, and never came back?' +'I have shut them up by a charm between two mountains,' said the dwarf, +'because they were proud and ill-behaved, and scorned to ask advice.' +The prince begged so hard for his brothers, that the dwarf at last set +them free, though unwillingly, saying, 'Beware of them, for they have +bad hearts.' Their brother, however, was greatly rejoiced to see them, +and told them all that had happened to him; how he had found the Water +of Life, and had taken a cup full of it; and how he had set a beautiful +princess free from a spell that bound her; and how she had engaged to +wait a whole year, and then to marry him, and to give him the kingdom. + +Then they all three rode on together, and on their way home came to a +country that was laid waste by war and a dreadful famine, so that it was +feared all must die for want. But the prince gave the king of the land +the bread, and all his kingdom ate of it. And he lent the king the +wonderful sword, and he slew the enemy's army with it; and thus the +kingdom was once more in peace and plenty. In the same manner he +befriended two other countries through which they passed on their way. + +When they came to the sea, they got into a ship and during their voyage +the two eldest said to themselves, 'Our brother has got the water which +we could not find, therefore our father will forsake us and give him the +kingdom, which is our right'; so they were full of envy and revenge, and +agreed together how they could ruin him. Then they waited till he was +fast asleep, and poured the Water of Life out of the cup, and took it +for themselves, giving him bitter sea-water instead. + +When they came to their journey's end, the youngest son brought his cup +to the sick king, that he might drink and be healed. Scarcely, however, +had he tasted the bitter sea-water when he became worse even than he was +before; and then both the elder sons came in, and blamed the youngest +for what they had done; and said that he wanted to poison their father, +but that they had found the Water of Life, and had brought it with them. +He no sooner began to drink of what they brought him, than he felt his +sickness leave him, and was as strong and well as in his younger days. +Then they went to their brother, and laughed at him, and said, 'Well, +brother, you found the Water of Life, did you? You have had the trouble +and we shall have the reward. Pray, with all your cleverness, why did +not you manage to keep your eyes open? Next year one of us will take +away your beautiful princess, if you do not take care. You had better +say nothing about this to our father, for he does not believe a word you +say; and if you tell tales, you shall lose your life into the bargain: +but be quiet, and we will let you off.' + +The old king was still very angry with his youngest son, and thought +that he really meant to have taken away his life; so he called his court +together, and asked what should be done, and all agreed that he ought to +be put to death. The prince knew nothing of what was going on, till one +day, when the king's chief huntsmen went a-hunting with him, and they +were alone in the wood together, the huntsman looked so sorrowful that +the prince said, 'My friend, what is the matter with you?' 'I cannot and +dare not tell you,' said he. But the prince begged very hard, and said, +'Only tell me what it is, and do not think I shall be angry, for I will +forgive you.' 'Alas!' said the huntsman; 'the king has ordered me to +shoot you.' The prince started at this, and said, 'Let me live, and I +will change dresses with you; you shall take my royal coat to show to my +father, and do you give me your shabby one.' 'With all my heart,' said +the huntsman; 'I am sure I shall be glad to save you, for I could not +have shot you.' Then he took the prince's coat, and gave him the shabby +one, and went away through the wood. + +Some time after, three grand embassies came to the old king's court, +with rich gifts of gold and precious stones for his youngest son; now +all these were sent from the three kings to whom he had lent his sword +and loaf of bread, in order to rid them of their enemy and feed their +people. This touched the old king's heart, and he thought his son might +still be guiltless, and said to his court, 'O that my son were still +alive! how it grieves me that I had him killed!' 'He is still alive,' +said the huntsman; 'and I am glad that I had pity on him, but let him +go in peace, and brought home his royal coat.' At this the king was +overwhelmed with joy, and made it known throughout all his kingdom, that +if his son would come back to his court he would forgive him. + +Meanwhile the princess was eagerly waiting till her deliverer should +come back; and had a road made leading up to her palace all of shining +gold; and told her courtiers that whoever came on horseback, and rode +straight up to the gate upon it, was her true lover; and that they must +let him in: but whoever rode on one side of it, they must be sure was +not the right one; and that they must send him away at once. + +The time soon came, when the eldest brother thought that he would make +haste to go to the princess, and say that he was the one who had set +her free, and that he should have her for his wife, and the kingdom with +her. As he came before the palace and saw the golden road, he stopped to +look at it, and he thought to himself, 'It is a pity to ride upon this +beautiful road'; so he turned aside and rode on the right-hand side of +it. But when he came to the gate, the guards, who had seen the road +he took, said to him, he could not be what he said he was, and must go +about his business. + +The second prince set out soon afterwards on the same errand; and when +he came to the golden road, and his horse had set one foot upon it, +he stopped to look at it, and thought it very beautiful, and said to +himself, 'What a pity it is that anything should tread here!' Then he +too turned aside and rode on the left side of it. But when he came to +the gate the guards said he was not the true prince, and that he too +must go away about his business; and away he went. + +Now when the full year was come round, the third brother left the forest +in which he had lain hid for fear of his father's anger, and set out in +search of his betrothed bride. So he journeyed on, thinking of her all +the way, and rode so quickly that he did not even see what the road was +made of, but went with his horse straight over it; and as he came to the +gate it flew open, and the princess welcomed him with joy, and said +he was her deliverer, and should now be her husband and lord of the +kingdom. When the first joy at their meeting was over, the princess told +him she had heard of his father having forgiven him, and of his wish to +have him home again: so, before his wedding with the princess, he went +to visit his father, taking her with him. Then he told him everything; +how his brothers had cheated and robbed him, and yet that he had borne +all those wrongs for the love of his father. And the old king was very +angry, and wanted to punish his wicked sons; but they made their escape, +and got into a ship and sailed away over the wide sea, and where they +went to nobody knew and nobody cared. + +And now the old king gathered together his court, and asked all his +kingdom to come and celebrate the wedding of his son and the princess. +And young and old, noble and squire, gentle and simple, came at once +on the summons; and among the rest came the friendly dwarf, with the +sugarloaf hat, and a new scarlet cloak. + + And the wedding was held, and the merry bells run. + And all the good people they danced and they sung, + And feasted and frolick'd I can't tell how long. + + + + +THE TWELVE HUNTSMEN + +There was once a king's son who had a bride whom he loved very much. And +when he was sitting beside her and very happy, news came that his father +lay sick unto death, and desired to see him once again before his end. +Then he said to his beloved: 'I must now go and leave you, I give you +a ring as a remembrance of me. When I am king, I will return and fetch +you.' So he rode away, and when he reached his father, the latter was +dangerously ill, and near his death. He said to him: 'Dear son, I wished +to see you once again before my end, promise me to marry as I wish,' and +he named a certain king's daughter who was to be his wife. The son was +in such trouble that he did not think what he was doing, and said: 'Yes, +dear father, your will shall be done,' and thereupon the king shut his +eyes, and died. + +When therefore the son had been proclaimed king, and the time of +mourning was over, he was forced to keep the promise which he had given +his father, and caused the king's daughter to be asked in marriage, and +she was promised to him. His first betrothed heard of this, and fretted +so much about his faithfulness that she nearly died. Then her father +said to her: 'Dearest child, why are you so sad? You shall have +whatsoever you will.' She thought for a moment and said: 'Dear father, +I wish for eleven girls exactly like myself in face, figure, and size.' +The father said: 'If it be possible, your desire shall be fulfilled,' +and he caused a search to be made in his whole kingdom, until eleven +young maidens were found who exactly resembled his daughter in face, +figure, and size. + +When they came to the king's daughter, she had twelve suits of +huntsmen's clothes made, all alike, and the eleven maidens had to put +on the huntsmen's clothes, and she herself put on the twelfth suit. +Thereupon she took her leave of her father, and rode away with them, +and rode to the court of her former betrothed, whom she loved so dearly. +Then she asked if he required any huntsmen, and if he would take all of +them into his service. The king looked at her and did not know her, but +as they were such handsome fellows, he said: 'Yes,' and that he would +willingly take them, and now they were the king's twelve huntsmen. + +The king, however, had a lion which was a wondrous animal, for he knew +all concealed and secret things. It came to pass that one evening he +said to the king: 'You think you have twelve huntsmen?' 'Yes,' said the +king, 'they are twelve huntsmen.' The lion continued: 'You are mistaken, +they are twelve girls.' The king said: 'That cannot be true! How +will you prove that to me?' 'Oh, just let some peas be strewn in the +ante-chamber,' answered the lion, 'and then you will soon see. Men have +a firm step, and when they walk over peas none of them stir, but girls +trip and skip, and drag their feet, and the peas roll about.' The king +was well pleased with the counsel, and caused the peas to be strewn. + +There was, however, a servant of the king's who favoured the huntsmen, +and when he heard that they were going to be put to this test he went to +them and repeated everything, and said: 'The lion wants to make the king +believe that you are girls.' Then the king's daughter thanked him, and +said to her maidens: 'Show some strength, and step firmly on the peas.' +So next morning when the king had the twelve huntsmen called before +him, and they came into the ante-chamber where the peas were lying, they +stepped so firmly on them, and had such a strong, sure walk, that not +one of the peas either rolled or stirred. Then they went away again, +and the king said to the lion: 'You have lied to me, they walk just like +men.' The lion said: 'They have been informed that they were going to +be put to the test, and have assumed some strength. Just let twelve +spinning-wheels be brought into the ante-chamber, and they will go to +them and be pleased with them, and that is what no man would do.' +The king liked the advice, and had the spinning-wheels placed in the +ante-chamber. + +But the servant, who was well disposed to the huntsmen, went to them, +and disclosed the project. So when they were alone the king's daughter +said to her eleven girls: 'Show some constraint, and do not look round +at the spinning-wheels.' And next morning when the king had his twelve +huntsmen summoned, they went through the ante-chamber, and never once +looked at the spinning-wheels. Then the king again said to the lion: +'You have deceived me, they are men, for they have not looked at the +spinning-wheels.' The lion replied: 'They have restrained themselves.' +The king, however, would no longer believe the lion. + +The twelve huntsmen always followed the king to the chase, and his +liking for them continually increased. Now it came to pass that +once when they were out hunting, news came that the king's bride was +approaching. When the true bride heard that, it hurt her so much that +her heart was almost broken, and she fell fainting to the ground. The +king thought something had happened to his dear huntsman, ran up to him, +wanted to help him, and drew his glove off. Then he saw the ring which +he had given to his first bride, and when he looked in her face he +recognized her. Then his heart was so touched that he kissed her, and +when she opened her eyes he said: 'You are mine, and I am yours, and +no one in the world can alter that.' He sent a messenger to the other +bride, and entreated her to return to her own kingdom, for he had a wife +already, and someone who had just found an old key did not require a new +one. Thereupon the wedding was celebrated, and the lion was again taken +into favour, because, after all, he had told the truth. + + + + +THE KING OF THE GOLDEN MOUNTAIN + +There was once a merchant who had only one child, a son, that was very +young, and barely able to run alone. He had two richly laden ships then +making a voyage upon the seas, in which he had embarked all his wealth, +in the hope of making great gains, when the news came that both were +lost. Thus from being a rich man he became all at once so very poor that +nothing was left to him but one small plot of land; and there he often +went in an evening to take his walk, and ease his mind of a little of +his trouble. + +One day, as he was roaming along in a brown study, thinking with no +great comfort on what he had been and what he now was, and was like +to be, all on a sudden there stood before him a little, rough-looking, +black dwarf. 'Prithee, friend, why so sorrowful?' said he to the +merchant; 'what is it you take so deeply to heart?' 'If you would do me +any good I would willingly tell you,' said the merchant. 'Who knows but +I may?' said the little man: 'tell me what ails you, and perhaps you +will find I may be of some use.' Then the merchant told him how all his +wealth was gone to the bottom of the sea, and how he had nothing left +but that little plot of land. 'Oh, trouble not yourself about that,' +said the dwarf; 'only undertake to bring me here, twelve years hence, +whatever meets you first on your going home, and I will give you as much +as you please.' The merchant thought this was no great thing to ask; +that it would most likely be his dog or his cat, or something of that +sort, but forgot his little boy Heinel; so he agreed to the bargain, and +signed and sealed the bond to do what was asked of him. + +But as he drew near home, his little boy was so glad to see him that he +crept behind him, and laid fast hold of his legs, and looked up in +his face and laughed. Then the father started, trembling with fear and +horror, and saw what it was that he had bound himself to do; but as no +gold was come, he made himself easy by thinking that it was only a joke +that the dwarf was playing him, and that, at any rate, when the money +came, he should see the bearer, and would not take it in. + +About a month afterwards he went upstairs into a lumber-room to look +for some old iron, that he might sell it and raise a little money; and +there, instead of his iron, he saw a large pile of gold lying on the +floor. At the sight of this he was overjoyed, and forgetting all about +his son, went into trade again, and became a richer merchant than +before. + +Meantime little Heinel grew up, and as the end of the twelve years drew +near the merchant began to call to mind his bond, and became very sad +and thoughtful; so that care and sorrow were written upon his face. The +boy one day asked what was the matter, but his father would not tell for +some time; at last, however, he said that he had, without knowing it, +sold him for gold to a little, ugly-looking, black dwarf, and that the +twelve years were coming round when he must keep his word. Then Heinel +said, 'Father, give yourself very little trouble about that; I shall be +too much for the little man.' + +When the time came, the father and son went out together to the place +agreed upon: and the son drew a circle on the ground, and set himself +and his father in the middle of it. The little black dwarf soon came, +and walked round and round about the circle, but could not find any way +to get into it, and he either could not, or dared not, jump over it. At +last the boy said to him. 'Have you anything to say to us, my friend, or +what do you want?' Now Heinel had found a friend in a good fairy, that +was fond of him, and had told him what to do; for this fairy knew what +good luck was in store for him. 'Have you brought me what you said you +would?' said the dwarf to the merchant. The old man held his tongue, but +Heinel said again, 'What do you want here?' The dwarf said, 'I come to +talk with your father, not with you.' 'You have cheated and taken in my +father,' said the son; 'pray give him up his bond at once.' 'Fair and +softly,' said the little old man; 'right is right; I have paid my money, +and your father has had it, and spent it; so be so good as to let me +have what I paid it for.' 'You must have my consent to that first,' said +Heinel, 'so please to step in here, and let us talk it over.' The old +man grinned, and showed his teeth, as if he should have been very glad +to get into the circle if he could. Then at last, after a long talk, +they came to terms. Heinel agreed that his father must give him up, and +that so far the dwarf should have his way: but, on the other hand, the +fairy had told Heinel what fortune was in store for him, if he followed +his own course; and he did not choose to be given up to his hump-backed +friend, who seemed so anxious for his company. + +So, to make a sort of drawn battle of the matter, it was settled that +Heinel should be put into an open boat, that lay on the sea-shore hard +by; that the father should push him off with his own hand, and that he +should thus be set adrift, and left to the bad or good luck of wind and +weather. Then he took leave of his father, and set himself in the boat, +but before it got far off a wave struck it, and it fell with one side +low in the water, so the merchant thought that poor Heinel was lost, and +went home very sorrowful, while the dwarf went his way, thinking that at +any rate he had had his revenge. + +The boat, however, did not sink, for the good fairy took care of her +friend, and soon raised the boat up again, and it went safely on. The +young man sat safe within, till at length it ran ashore upon an unknown +land. As he jumped upon the shore he saw before him a beautiful castle +but empty and dreary within, for it was enchanted. 'Here,' said he to +himself, 'must I find the prize the good fairy told me of.' So he once +more searched the whole palace through, till at last he found a white +snake, lying coiled up on a cushion in one of the chambers. + +Now the white snake was an enchanted princess; and she was very glad +to see him, and said, 'Are you at last come to set me free? Twelve +long years have I waited here for the fairy to bring you hither as she +promised, for you alone can save me. This night twelve men will come: +their faces will be black, and they will be dressed in chain armour. +They will ask what you do here, but give no answer; and let them do +what they will--beat, whip, pinch, prick, or torment you--bear all; only +speak not a word, and at twelve o'clock they must go away. The second +night twelve others will come: and the third night twenty-four, who +will even cut off your head; but at the twelfth hour of that night their +power is gone, and I shall be free, and will come and bring you the +Water of Life, and will wash you with it, and bring you back to life +and health.' And all came to pass as she had said; Heinel bore all, and +spoke not a word; and the third night the princess came, and fell on his +neck and kissed him. Joy and gladness burst forth throughout the castle, +the wedding was celebrated, and he was crowned king of the Golden +Mountain. + +They lived together very happily, and the queen had a son. And thus +eight years had passed over their heads, when the king thought of his +father; and he began to long to see him once again. But the queen was +against his going, and said, 'I know well that misfortunes will come +upon us if you go.' However, he gave her no rest till she agreed. At his +going away she gave him a wishing-ring, and said, 'Take this ring, and +put it on your finger; whatever you wish it will bring you; only promise +never to make use of it to bring me hence to your father's house.' Then +he said he would do what she asked, and put the ring on his finger, and +wished himself near the town where his father lived. + +Heinel found himself at the gates in a moment; but the guards would +not let him go in, because he was so strangely clad. So he went up to a +neighbouring hill, where a shepherd dwelt, and borrowed his old frock, +and thus passed unknown into the town. When he came to his father's +house, he said he was his son; but the merchant would not believe him, +and said he had had but one son, his poor Heinel, who he knew was long +since dead: and as he was only dressed like a poor shepherd, he would +not even give him anything to eat. The king, however, still vowed that +he was his son, and said, 'Is there no mark by which you would know me +if I am really your son?' 'Yes,' said his mother, 'our Heinel had a mark +like a raspberry on his right arm.' Then he showed them the mark, and +they knew that what he had said was true. + +He next told them how he was king of the Golden Mountain, and was +married to a princess, and had a son seven years old. But the merchant +said, 'that can never be true; he must be a fine king truly who travels +about in a shepherd's frock!' At this the son was vexed; and forgetting +his word, turned his ring, and wished for his queen and son. In an +instant they stood before him; but the queen wept, and said he had +broken his word, and bad luck would follow. He did all he could to +soothe her, and she at last seemed to be appeased; but she was not so in +truth, and was only thinking how she should punish him. + +One day he took her to walk with him out of the town, and showed her +the spot where the boat was set adrift upon the wide waters. Then he sat +himself down, and said, 'I am very much tired; sit by me, I will rest my +head in your lap, and sleep a while.' As soon as he had fallen asleep, +however, she drew the ring from his finger, and crept softly away, and +wished herself and her son at home in their kingdom. And when he awoke +he found himself alone, and saw that the ring was gone from his finger. +'I can never go back to my father's house,' said he; 'they would say I +am a sorcerer: I will journey forth into the world, till I come again to +my kingdom.' + +So saying he set out and travelled till he came to a hill, where three +giants were sharing their father's goods; and as they saw him pass they +cried out and said, 'Little men have sharp wits; he shall part the goods +between us.' Now there was a sword that cut off an enemy's head whenever +the wearer gave the words, 'Heads off!'; a cloak that made the owner +invisible, or gave him any form he pleased; and a pair of boots that +carried the wearer wherever he wished. Heinel said they must first let +him try these wonderful things, then he might know how to set a value +upon them. Then they gave him the cloak, and he wished himself a fly, +and in a moment he was a fly. 'The cloak is very well,' said he: 'now +give me the sword.' 'No,' said they; 'not unless you undertake not to +say, "Heads off!" for if you do we are all dead men.' So they gave it +him, charging him to try it on a tree. He next asked for the boots also; +and the moment he had all three in his power, he wished himself at +the Golden Mountain; and there he was at once. So the giants were left +behind with no goods to share or quarrel about. + +As Heinel came near his castle he heard the sound of merry music; and +the people around told him that his queen was about to marry another +husband. Then he threw his cloak around him, and passed through the +castle hall, and placed himself by the side of the queen, where no one +saw him. But when anything to eat was put upon her plate, he took it +away and ate it himself; and when a glass of wine was handed to her, he +took it and drank it; and thus, though they kept on giving her meat and +drink, her plate and cup were always empty. + +Upon this, fear and remorse came over her, and she went into her chamber +alone, and sat there weeping; and he followed her there. 'Alas!' said +she to herself, 'was I not once set free? Why then does this enchantment +still seem to bind me?' + +'False and fickle one!' said he. 'One indeed came who set thee free, and +he is now near thee again; but how have you used him? Ought he to +have had such treatment from thee?' Then he went out and sent away the +company, and said the wedding was at an end, for that he was come back +to the kingdom. But the princes, peers, and great men mocked at him. +However, he would enter into no parley with them, but only asked them +if they would go in peace or not. Then they turned upon him and tried +to seize him; but he drew his sword. 'Heads Off!' cried he; and with the +word the traitors' heads fell before him, and Heinel was once more king +of the Golden Mountain. + + + + +DOCTOR KNOWALL + +There was once upon a time a poor peasant called Crabb, who drove with +two oxen a load of wood to the town, and sold it to a doctor for two +talers. When the money was being counted out to him, it so happened that +the doctor was sitting at table, and when the peasant saw how well he +ate and drank, his heart desired what he saw, and would willingly +have been a doctor too. So he remained standing a while, and at length +inquired if he too could not be a doctor. 'Oh, yes,' said the doctor, +'that is soon managed.' 'What must I do?' asked the peasant. 'In the +first place buy yourself an A B C book of the kind which has a cock on +the frontispiece; in the second, turn your cart and your two oxen into +money, and get yourself some clothes, and whatsoever else pertains to +medicine; thirdly, have a sign painted for yourself with the words: "I +am Doctor Knowall," and have that nailed up above your house-door.' The +peasant did everything that he had been told to do. When he had doctored +people awhile, but not long, a rich and great lord had some money +stolen. Then he was told about Doctor Knowall who lived in such and such +a village, and must know what had become of the money. So the lord had +the horses harnessed to his carriage, drove out to the village, and +asked Crabb if he were Doctor Knowall. Yes, he was, he said. Then he was +to go with him and bring back the stolen money. 'Oh, yes, but Grete, my +wife, must go too.' The lord was willing, and let both of them have a +seat in the carriage, and they all drove away together. When they came +to the nobleman's castle, the table was spread, and Crabb was told to +sit down and eat. 'Yes, but my wife, Grete, too,' said he, and he seated +himself with her at the table. And when the first servant came with a +dish of delicate fare, the peasant nudged his wife, and said: 'Grete, +that was the first,' meaning that was the servant who brought the first +dish. The servant, however, thought he intended by that to say: 'That is +the first thief,' and as he actually was so, he was terrified, and said +to his comrade outside: 'The doctor knows all: we shall fare ill, he +said I was the first.' The second did not want to go in at all, but was +forced. So when he went in with his dish, the peasant nudged his wife, +and said: 'Grete, that is the second.' This servant was equally alarmed, +and he got out as fast as he could. The third fared no better, for the +peasant again said: 'Grete, that is the third.' The fourth had to carry +in a dish that was covered, and the lord told the doctor that he was to +show his skill, and guess what was beneath the cover. Actually, there +were crabs. The doctor looked at the dish, had no idea what to say, and +cried: 'Ah, poor Crabb.' When the lord heard that, he cried: 'There! he +knows it; he must also know who has the money!' + +On this the servants looked terribly uneasy, and made a sign to the +doctor that they wished him to step outside for a moment. When therefore +he went out, all four of them confessed to him that they had stolen +the money, and said that they would willingly restore it and give him a +heavy sum into the bargain, if he would not denounce them, for if he +did they would be hanged. They led him to the spot where the money was +concealed. With this the doctor was satisfied, and returned to the hall, +sat down to the table, and said: 'My lord, now will I search in my book +where the gold is hidden.' The fifth servant, however, crept into the +stove to hear if the doctor knew still more. But the doctor sat still +and opened his A B C book, turned the pages backwards and forwards, and +looked for the cock. As he could not find it immediately he said: 'I +know you are there, so you had better come out!' Then the fellow in the +stove thought that the doctor meant him, and full of terror, sprang out, +crying: 'That man knows everything!' Then Doctor Knowall showed the lord +where the money was, but did not say who had stolen it, and received +from both sides much money in reward, and became a renowned man. + + + + +THE SEVEN RAVENS + +There was once a man who had seven sons, and last of all one daughter. +Although the little girl was very pretty, she was so weak and small that +they thought she could not live; but they said she should at once be +christened. + +So the father sent one of his sons in haste to the spring to get some +water, but the other six ran with him. Each wanted to be first at +drawing the water, and so they were in such a hurry that all let their +pitchers fall into the well, and they stood very foolishly looking at +one another, and did not know what to do, for none dared go home. In the +meantime the father was uneasy, and could not tell what made the +young men stay so long. 'Surely,' said he, 'the whole seven must have +forgotten themselves over some game of play'; and when he had waited +still longer and they yet did not come, he flew into a rage and wished +them all turned into ravens. Scarcely had he spoken these words when he +heard a croaking over his head, and looked up and saw seven ravens as +black as coal flying round and round. Sorry as he was to see his wish +so fulfilled, he did not know how what was done could be undone, and +comforted himself as well as he could for the loss of his seven sons +with his dear little daughter, who soon became stronger and every day +more beautiful. + +For a long time she did not know that she had ever had any brothers; for +her father and mother took care not to speak of them before her: but one +day by chance she heard the people about her speak of them. 'Yes,' said +they, 'she is beautiful indeed, but still 'tis a pity that her brothers +should have been lost for her sake.' Then she was much grieved, and went +to her father and mother, and asked if she had any brothers, and what +had become of them. So they dared no longer hide the truth from her, but +said it was the will of Heaven, and that her birth was only the innocent +cause of it; but the little girl mourned sadly about it every day, and +thought herself bound to do all she could to bring her brothers back; +and she had neither rest nor ease, till at length one day she stole +away, and set out into the wide world to find her brothers, wherever +they might be, and free them, whatever it might cost her. + +She took nothing with her but a little ring which her father and mother +had given her, a loaf of bread in case she should be hungry, a little +pitcher of water in case she should be thirsty, and a little stool +to rest upon when she should be weary. Thus she went on and on, and +journeyed till she came to the world's end; then she came to the sun, +but the sun looked much too hot and fiery; so she ran away quickly to +the moon, but the moon was cold and chilly, and said, 'I smell flesh +and blood this way!' so she took herself away in a hurry and came to the +stars, and the stars were friendly and kind to her, and each star sat +upon his own little stool; but the morning star rose up and gave her a +little piece of wood, and said, 'If you have not this little piece of +wood, you cannot unlock the castle that stands on the glass-mountain, +and there your brothers live.' The little girl took the piece of wood, +rolled it up in a little cloth, and went on again until she came to the +glass-mountain, and found the door shut. Then she felt for the little +piece of wood; but when she unwrapped the cloth it was not there, and +she saw she had lost the gift of the good stars. What was to be done? +She wanted to save her brothers, and had no key of the castle of the +glass-mountain; so this faithful little sister took a knife out of her +pocket and cut off her little finger, that was just the size of the +piece of wood she had lost, and put it in the door and opened it. + +As she went in, a little dwarf came up to her, and said, 'What are you +seeking for?' 'I seek for my brothers, the seven ravens,' answered she. +Then the dwarf said, 'My masters are not at home; but if you will wait +till they come, pray step in.' Now the little dwarf was getting their +dinner ready, and he brought their food upon seven little plates, and +their drink in seven little glasses, and set them upon the table, and +out of each little plate their sister ate a small piece, and out of each +little glass she drank a small drop; but she let the ring that she had +brought with her fall into the last glass. + +On a sudden she heard a fluttering and croaking in the air, and the +dwarf said, 'Here come my masters.' When they came in, they wanted to +eat and drink, and looked for their little plates and glasses. Then said +one after the other, + +'Who has eaten from my little plate? And who has been drinking out of my +little glass?' + + 'Caw! Caw! well I ween + Mortal lips have this way been.' + +When the seventh came to the bottom of his glass, and found there the +ring, he looked at it, and knew that it was his father's and mother's, +and said, 'O that our little sister would but come! then we should be +free.' When the little girl heard this (for she stood behind the door +all the time and listened), she ran forward, and in an instant all +the ravens took their right form again; and all hugged and kissed each +other, and went merrily home. + + + + +THE WEDDING OF MRS FOX + + +FIRST STORY + +There was once upon a time an old fox with nine tails, who believed that +his wife was not faithful to him, and wished to put her to the test. He +stretched himself out under the bench, did not move a limb, and behaved +as if he were stone dead. Mrs Fox went up to her room, shut herself in, +and her maid, Miss Cat, sat by the fire, and did the cooking. When it +became known that the old fox was dead, suitors presented themselves. +The maid heard someone standing at the house-door, knocking. She went +and opened it, and it was a young fox, who said: + + 'What may you be about, Miss Cat? + Do you sleep or do you wake?' + +She answered: + + 'I am not sleeping, I am waking, + Would you know what I am making? + I am boiling warm beer with butter, + Will you be my guest for supper?' + +'No, thank you, miss,' said the fox, 'what is Mrs Fox doing?' The maid +replied: + + 'She is sitting in her room, + Moaning in her gloom, + Weeping her little eyes quite red, + Because old Mr Fox is dead.' + +'Do just tell her, miss, that a young fox is here, who would like to woo +her.' 'Certainly, young sir.' + + The cat goes up the stairs trip, trap, + The door she knocks at tap, tap, tap, + 'Mistress Fox, are you inside?' + 'Oh, yes, my little cat,' she cried. + 'A wooer he stands at the door out there.' + 'What does he look like, my dear?' + +'Has he nine as beautiful tails as the late Mr Fox?' 'Oh, no,' answered +the cat, 'he has only one.' 'Then I will not have him.' + +Miss Cat went downstairs and sent the wooer away. Soon afterwards there +was another knock, and another fox was at the door who wished to woo Mrs +Fox. He had two tails, but he did not fare better than the first. After +this still more came, each with one tail more than the other, but they +were all turned away, until at last one came who had nine tails, like +old Mr Fox. When the widow heard that, she said joyfully to the cat: + + 'Now open the gates and doors all wide, + And carry old Mr Fox outside.' + +But just as the wedding was going to be solemnized, old Mr Fox stirred +under the bench, and cudgelled all the rabble, and drove them and Mrs +Fox out of the house. + + +SECOND STORY + +When old Mr Fox was dead, the wolf came as a suitor, and knocked at the +door, and the cat who was servant to Mrs Fox, opened it for him. The +wolf greeted her, and said: + + 'Good day, Mrs Cat of Kehrewit, + How comes it that alone you sit? + What are you making good?' + +The cat replied: + + 'In milk I'm breaking bread so sweet, + Will you be my guest, and eat?' + +'No, thank you, Mrs Cat,' answered the wolf. 'Is Mrs Fox not at home?' + +The cat said: + + 'She sits upstairs in her room, + Bewailing her sorrowful doom, + Bewailing her trouble so sore, + For old Mr Fox is no more.' + +The wolf answered: + + 'If she's in want of a husband now, + Then will it please her to step below?' + The cat runs quickly up the stair, + And lets her tail fly here and there, + Until she comes to the parlour door. + With her five gold rings at the door she knocks: + 'Are you within, good Mistress Fox? + If you're in want of a husband now, + Then will it please you to step below? + +Mrs Fox asked: 'Has the gentleman red stockings on, and has he a pointed +mouth?' 'No,' answered the cat. 'Then he won't do for me.' + +When the wolf was gone, came a dog, a stag, a hare, a bear, a lion, and +all the beasts of the forest, one after the other. But one of the good +qualities which old Mr Fox had possessed, was always lacking, and the +cat had continually to send the suitors away. At length came a young +fox. Then Mrs Fox said: 'Has the gentleman red stockings on, and has a +little pointed mouth?' 'Yes,' said the cat, 'he has.' 'Then let him come +upstairs,' said Mrs Fox, and ordered the servant to prepare the wedding +feast. + + 'Sweep me the room as clean as you can, + Up with the window, fling out my old man! + For many a fine fat mouse he brought, + Yet of his wife he never thought, + But ate up every one he caught.' + +Then the wedding was solemnized with young Mr Fox, and there was much +rejoicing and dancing; and if they have not left off, they are dancing +still. + + + + +THE SALAD + +As a merry young huntsman was once going briskly along through a wood, +there came up a little old woman, and said to him, 'Good day, good day; +you seem merry enough, but I am hungry and thirsty; do pray give me +something to eat.' The huntsman took pity on her, and put his hand in +his pocket and gave her what he had. Then he wanted to go his way; but +she took hold of him, and said, 'Listen, my friend, to what I am going +to tell you; I will reward you for your kindness; go your way, and after +a little time you will come to a tree where you will see nine birds +sitting on a cloak. Shoot into the midst of them, and one will fall down +dead: the cloak will fall too; take it, it is a wishing-cloak, and when +you wear it you will find yourself at any place where you may wish to +be. Cut open the dead bird, take out its heart and keep it, and you will +find a piece of gold under your pillow every morning when you rise. It +is the bird's heart that will bring you this good luck.' + +The huntsman thanked her, and thought to himself, 'If all this does +happen, it will be a fine thing for me.' When he had gone a hundred +steps or so, he heard a screaming and chirping in the branches over him, +and looked up and saw a flock of birds pulling a cloak with their bills +and feet; screaming, fighting, and tugging at each other as if +each wished to have it himself. 'Well,' said the huntsman, 'this is +wonderful; this happens just as the old woman said'; then he shot into +the midst of them so that their feathers flew all about. Off went the +flock chattering away; but one fell down dead, and the cloak with it. +Then the huntsman did as the old woman told him, cut open the bird, took +out the heart, and carried the cloak home with him. + +The next morning when he awoke he lifted up his pillow, and there lay +the piece of gold glittering underneath; the same happened next day, and +indeed every day when he arose. He heaped up a great deal of gold, and +at last thought to himself, 'Of what use is this gold to me whilst I am +at home? I will go out into the world and look about me.' + +Then he took leave of his friends, and hung his bag and bow about his +neck, and went his way. It so happened that his road one day led through +a thick wood, at the end of which was a large castle in a green meadow, +and at one of the windows stood an old woman with a very beautiful young +lady by her side looking about them. Now the old woman was a witch, and +said to the young lady, 'There is a young man coming out of the wood who +carries a wonderful prize; we must get it away from him, my dear child, +for it is more fit for us than for him. He has a bird's heart that +brings a piece of gold under his pillow every morning.' Meantime the +huntsman came nearer and looked at the lady, and said to himself, 'I +have been travelling so long that I should like to go into this castle +and rest myself, for I have money enough to pay for anything I want'; +but the real reason was, that he wanted to see more of the beautiful +lady. Then he went into the house, and was welcomed kindly; and it was +not long before he was so much in love that he thought of nothing else +but looking at the lady's eyes, and doing everything that she wished. +Then the old woman said, 'Now is the time for getting the bird's heart.' +So the lady stole it away, and he never found any more gold under his +pillow, for it lay now under the young lady's, and the old woman took it +away every morning; but he was so much in love that he never missed his +prize. + +'Well,' said the old witch, 'we have got the bird's heart, but not the +wishing-cloak yet, and that we must also get.' 'Let us leave him that,' +said the young lady; 'he has already lost his wealth.' Then the witch +was very angry, and said, 'Such a cloak is a very rare and wonderful +thing, and I must and will have it.' So she did as the old woman told +her, and set herself at the window, and looked about the country and +seemed very sorrowful; then the huntsman said, 'What makes you so sad?' +'Alas! dear sir,' said she, 'yonder lies the granite rock where all the +costly diamonds grow, and I want so much to go there, that whenever I +think of it I cannot help being sorrowful, for who can reach it? only +the birds and the flies--man cannot.' 'If that's all your grief,' said +the huntsman, 'I'll take you there with all my heart'; so he drew her under +his cloak, and the moment he wished to be on the granite mountain they +were both there. The diamonds glittered so on all sides that they were +delighted with the sight and picked up the finest. But the old witch +made a deep sleep come upon him, and he said to the young lady, 'Let us +sit down and rest ourselves a little, I am so tired that I cannot stand +any longer.' So they sat down, and he laid his head in her lap and +fell asleep; and whilst he was sleeping on she took the cloak from +his shoulders, hung it on her own, picked up the diamonds, and wished +herself home again. + +When he awoke and found that his lady had tricked him, and left him +alone on the wild rock, he said, 'Alas! what roguery there is in the +world!' and there he sat in great grief and fear, not knowing what to +do. Now this rock belonged to fierce giants who lived upon it; and as +he saw three of them striding about, he thought to himself, 'I can only +save myself by feigning to be asleep'; so he laid himself down as if he +were in a sound sleep. When the giants came up to him, the first pushed +him with his foot, and said, 'What worm is this that lies here curled +up?' 'Tread upon him and kill him,' said the second. 'It's not worth the +trouble,' said the third; 'let him live, he'll go climbing higher up the +mountain, and some cloud will come rolling and carry him away.' And they +passed on. But the huntsman had heard all they said; and as soon as they +were gone, he climbed to the top of the mountain, and when he had sat +there a short time a cloud came rolling around him, and caught him in a +whirlwind and bore him along for some time, till it settled in a garden, +and he fell quite gently to the ground amongst the greens and cabbages. + +Then he looked around him, and said, 'I wish I had something to eat, if +not I shall be worse off than before; for here I see neither apples +nor pears, nor any kind of fruits, nothing but vegetables.' At last he +thought to himself, 'I can eat salad, it will refresh and strengthen +me.' So he picked out a fine head and ate of it; but scarcely had he +swallowed two bites when he felt himself quite changed, and saw with +horror that he was turned into an ass. However, he still felt very +hungry, and the salad tasted very nice; so he ate on till he came +to another kind of salad, and scarcely had he tasted it when he felt +another change come over him, and soon saw that he was lucky enough to +have found his old shape again. + +Then he laid himself down and slept off a little of his weariness; and +when he awoke the next morning he broke off a head both of the good and +the bad salad, and thought to himself, 'This will help me to my fortune +again, and enable me to pay off some folks for their treachery.' So he +went away to try and find the castle of his friends; and after wandering +about a few days he luckily found it. Then he stained his face all over +brown, so that even his mother would not have known him, and went into +the castle and asked for a lodging; 'I am so tired,' said he, 'that I +can go no farther.' 'Countryman,' said the witch, 'who are you? and what +is your business?' 'I am,' said he, 'a messenger sent by the king to +find the finest salad that grows under the sun. I have been lucky +enough to find it, and have brought it with me; but the heat of the sun +scorches so that it begins to wither, and I don't know that I can carry +it farther.' + +When the witch and the young lady heard of his beautiful salad, they +longed to taste it, and said, 'Dear countryman, let us just taste it.' +'To be sure,' answered he; 'I have two heads of it with me, and will +give you one'; so he opened his bag and gave them the bad. Then the +witch herself took it into the kitchen to be dressed; and when it was +ready she could not wait till it was carried up, but took a few leaves +immediately and put them in her mouth, and scarcely were they swallowed +when she lost her own form and ran braying down into the court in the +form of an ass. Now the servant-maid came into the kitchen, and seeing +the salad ready, was going to carry it up; but on the way she too felt a +wish to taste it as the old woman had done, and ate some leaves; so she +also was turned into an ass and ran after the other, letting the dish +with the salad fall on the ground. The messenger sat all this time with +the beautiful young lady, and as nobody came with the salad and she +longed to taste it, she said, 'I don't know where the salad can be.' +Then he thought something must have happened, and said, 'I will go +into the kitchen and see.' And as he went he saw two asses in the court +running about, and the salad lying on the ground. 'All right!' said +he; 'those two have had their share.' Then he took up the rest of +the leaves, laid them on the dish and brought them to the young lady, +saying, 'I bring you the dish myself that you may not wait any longer.' +So she ate of it, and like the others ran off into the court braying +away. + +Then the huntsman washed his face and went into the court that they +might know him. 'Now you shall be paid for your roguery,' said he; and +tied them all three to a rope and took them along with him till he +came to a mill and knocked at the window. 'What's the matter?' said the +miller. 'I have three tiresome beasts here,' said the other; 'if you +will take them, give them food and room, and treat them as I tell you, +I will pay you whatever you ask.' 'With all my heart,' said the miller; +'but how shall I treat them?' Then the huntsman said, 'Give the old +one stripes three times a day and hay once; give the next (who was +the servant-maid) stripes once a day and hay three times; and give +the youngest (who was the beautiful lady) hay three times a day and +no stripes': for he could not find it in his heart to have her beaten. +After this he went back to the castle, where he found everything he +wanted. + +Some days after, the miller came to him and told him that the old ass +was dead; 'The other two,' said he, 'are alive and eat, but are so +sorrowful that they cannot last long.' Then the huntsman pitied them, +and told the miller to drive them back to him, and when they came, he +gave them some of the good salad to eat. And the beautiful young lady +fell upon her knees before him, and said, 'O dearest huntsman! forgive +me all the ill I have done you; my mother forced me to it, it was +against my will, for I always loved you very much. Your wishing-cloak +hangs up in the closet, and as for the bird's heart, I will give it you +too.' But he said, 'Keep it, it will be just the same thing, for I mean +to make you my wife.' So they were married, and lived together very +happily till they died. + + + + +THE STORY OF THE YOUTH WHO WENT FORTH TO LEARN WHAT FEAR WAS + +A certain father had two sons, the elder of who was smart and sensible, +and could do everything, but the younger was stupid and could neither +learn nor understand anything, and when people saw him they said: +'There's a fellow who will give his father some trouble!' When anything +had to be done, it was always the elder who was forced to do it; but +if his father bade him fetch anything when it was late, or in the +night-time, and the way led through the churchyard, or any other dismal +place, he answered: 'Oh, no father, I'll not go there, it makes me +shudder!' for he was afraid. Or when stories were told by the fire at +night which made the flesh creep, the listeners sometimes said: 'Oh, +it makes us shudder!' The younger sat in a corner and listened with +the rest of them, and could not imagine what they could mean. 'They are +always saying: "It makes me shudder, it makes me shudder!" It does not +make me shudder,' thought he. 'That, too, must be an art of which I +understand nothing!' + +Now it came to pass that his father said to him one day: 'Hearken to me, +you fellow in the corner there, you are growing tall and strong, and you +too must learn something by which you can earn your bread. Look how your +brother works, but you do not even earn your salt.' 'Well, father,' he +replied, 'I am quite willing to learn something--indeed, if it could but +be managed, I should like to learn how to shudder. I don't understand +that at all yet.' The elder brother smiled when he heard that, and +thought to himself: 'Goodness, what a blockhead that brother of mine is! +He will never be good for anything as long as he lives! He who wants to +be a sickle must bend himself betimes.' + +The father sighed, and answered him: 'You shall soon learn what it is to +shudder, but you will not earn your bread by that.' + +Soon after this the sexton came to the house on a visit, and the father +bewailed his trouble, and told him how his younger son was so backward +in every respect that he knew nothing and learnt nothing. 'Just think,' +said he, 'when I asked him how he was going to earn his bread, he +actually wanted to learn to shudder.' 'If that be all,' replied the +sexton, 'he can learn that with me. Send him to me, and I will soon +polish him.' The father was glad to do it, for he thought: 'It will +train the boy a little.' The sexton therefore took him into his house, +and he had to ring the church bell. After a day or two, the sexton awoke +him at midnight, and bade him arise and go up into the church tower and +ring the bell. 'You shall soon learn what shuddering is,' thought he, +and secretly went there before him; and when the boy was at the top of +the tower and turned round, and was just going to take hold of the bell +rope, he saw a white figure standing on the stairs opposite the sounding +hole. 'Who is there?' cried he, but the figure made no reply, and did +not move or stir. 'Give an answer,' cried the boy, 'or take yourself +off, you have no business here at night.' + +The sexton, however, remained standing motionless that the boy might +think he was a ghost. The boy cried a second time: 'What do you want +here?--speak if you are an honest fellow, or I will throw you down the +steps!' The sexton thought: 'He can't mean to be as bad as his words,' +uttered no sound and stood as if he were made of stone. Then the boy +called to him for the third time, and as that was also to no purpose, +he ran against him and pushed the ghost down the stairs, so that it fell +down the ten steps and remained lying there in a corner. Thereupon he +rang the bell, went home, and without saying a word went to bed, and +fell asleep. The sexton's wife waited a long time for her husband, but +he did not come back. At length she became uneasy, and wakened the boy, +and asked: 'Do you know where my husband is? He climbed up the tower +before you did.' 'No, I don't know,' replied the boy, 'but someone was +standing by the sounding hole on the other side of the steps, and as he +would neither gave an answer nor go away, I took him for a scoundrel, +and threw him downstairs. Just go there and you will see if it was he. +I should be sorry if it were.' The woman ran away and found her husband, +who was lying moaning in the corner, and had broken his leg. + +She carried him down, and then with loud screams she hastened to the +boy's father, 'Your boy,' cried she, 'has been the cause of a great +misfortune! He has thrown my husband down the steps so that he broke his +leg. Take the good-for-nothing fellow out of our house.' The father was +terrified, and ran thither and scolded the boy. 'What wicked tricks +are these?' said he. 'The devil must have put them into your head.' +'Father,' he replied, 'do listen to me. I am quite innocent. He was +standing there by night like one intent on doing evil. I did not know +who it was, and I entreated him three times either to speak or to go +away.' 'Ah,' said the father, 'I have nothing but unhappiness with you. +Go out of my sight. I will see you no more.' + +'Yes, father, right willingly, wait only until it is day. Then will I +go forth and learn how to shudder, and then I shall, at any rate, +understand one art which will support me.' 'Learn what you will,' spoke +the father, 'it is all the same to me. Here are fifty talers for you. +Take these and go into the wide world, and tell no one from whence you +come, and who is your father, for I have reason to be ashamed of you.' +'Yes, father, it shall be as you will. If you desire nothing more than +that, I can easily keep it in mind.' + +When the day dawned, therefore, the boy put his fifty talers into his +pocket, and went forth on the great highway, and continually said to +himself: 'If I could but shudder! If I could but shudder!' Then a man +approached who heard this conversation which the youth was holding with +himself, and when they had walked a little farther to where they could +see the gallows, the man said to him: 'Look, there is the tree where +seven men have married the ropemaker's daughter, and are now learning +how to fly. Sit down beneath it, and wait till night comes, and you will +soon learn how to shudder.' 'If that is all that is wanted,' answered +the youth, 'it is easily done; but if I learn how to shudder as fast as +that, you shall have my fifty talers. Just come back to me early in the +morning.' Then the youth went to the gallows, sat down beneath it, and +waited till evening came. And as he was cold, he lighted himself a fire, +but at midnight the wind blew so sharply that in spite of his fire, he +could not get warm. And as the wind knocked the hanged men against each +other, and they moved backwards and forwards, he thought to himself: +'If you shiver below by the fire, how those up above must freeze and +suffer!' And as he felt pity for them, he raised the ladder, and climbed +up, unbound one of them after the other, and brought down all seven. +Then he stoked the fire, blew it, and set them all round it to warm +themselves. But they sat there and did not stir, and the fire caught +their clothes. So he said: 'Take care, or I will hang you up again.' The +dead men, however, did not hear, but were quite silent, and let their +rags go on burning. At this he grew angry, and said: 'If you will not +take care, I cannot help you, I will not be burnt with you,' and he hung +them up again each in his turn. Then he sat down by his fire and fell +asleep, and the next morning the man came to him and wanted to have +the fifty talers, and said: 'Well do you know how to shudder?' 'No,' +answered he, 'how should I know? Those fellows up there did not open +their mouths, and were so stupid that they let the few old rags which +they had on their bodies get burnt.' Then the man saw that he would not +get the fifty talers that day, and went away saying: 'Such a youth has +never come my way before.' + +The youth likewise went his way, and once more began to mutter to +himself: 'Ah, if I could but shudder! Ah, if I could but shudder!' A +waggoner who was striding behind him heard this and asked: 'Who are +you?' 'I don't know,' answered the youth. Then the waggoner asked: 'From +whence do you come?' 'I know not.' 'Who is your father?' 'That I may +not tell you.' 'What is it that you are always muttering between your +teeth?' 'Ah,' replied the youth, 'I do so wish I could shudder, but +no one can teach me how.' 'Enough of your foolish chatter,' said the +waggoner. 'Come, go with me, I will see about a place for you.' The +youth went with the waggoner, and in the evening they arrived at an inn +where they wished to pass the night. Then at the entrance of the parlour +the youth again said quite loudly: 'If I could but shudder! If I could +but shudder!' The host who heard this, laughed and said: 'If that is +your desire, there ought to be a good opportunity for you here.' 'Ah, +be silent,' said the hostess, 'so many prying persons have already lost +their lives, it would be a pity and a shame if such beautiful eyes as +these should never see the daylight again.' + +But the youth said: 'However difficult it may be, I will learn it. For +this purpose indeed have I journeyed forth.' He let the host have +no rest, until the latter told him, that not far from thence stood a +haunted castle where anyone could very easily learn what shuddering was, +if he would but watch in it for three nights. The king had promised that +he who would venture should have his daughter to wife, and she was the +most beautiful maiden the sun shone on. Likewise in the castle lay great +treasures, which were guarded by evil spirits, and these treasures would +then be freed, and would make a poor man rich enough. Already many men +had gone into the castle, but as yet none had come out again. Then the +youth went next morning to the king, and said: 'If it be allowed, I will +willingly watch three nights in the haunted castle.' + +The king looked at him, and as the youth pleased him, he said: 'You may +ask for three things to take into the castle with you, but they must +be things without life.' Then he answered: 'Then I ask for a fire, a +turning lathe, and a cutting-board with the knife.' + +The king had these things carried into the castle for him during the +day. When night was drawing near, the youth went up and made himself +a bright fire in one of the rooms, placed the cutting-board and knife +beside it, and seated himself by the turning-lathe. 'Ah, if I could +but shudder!' said he, 'but I shall not learn it here either.' Towards +midnight he was about to poke his fire, and as he was blowing it, +something cried suddenly from one corner: 'Au, miau! how cold we are!' +'You fools!' cried he, 'what are you crying about? If you are cold, come +and take a seat by the fire and warm yourselves.' And when he had said +that, two great black cats came with one tremendous leap and sat down +on each side of him, and looked savagely at him with their fiery +eyes. After a short time, when they had warmed themselves, they said: +'Comrade, shall we have a game of cards?' 'Why not?' he replied, 'but +just show me your paws.' Then they stretched out their claws. 'Oh,' said +he, 'what long nails you have! Wait, I must first cut them for you.' +Thereupon he seized them by the throats, put them on the cutting-board +and screwed their feet fast. 'I have looked at your fingers,' said he, +'and my fancy for card-playing has gone,' and he struck them dead and +threw them out into the water. But when he had made away with these two, +and was about to sit down again by his fire, out from every hole and +corner came black cats and black dogs with red-hot chains, and more +and more of them came until he could no longer move, and they yelled +horribly, and got on his fire, pulled it to pieces, and tried to put +it out. He watched them for a while quietly, but at last when they were +going too far, he seized his cutting-knife, and cried: 'Away with you, +vermin,' and began to cut them down. Some of them ran away, the others +he killed, and threw out into the fish-pond. When he came back he fanned +the embers of his fire again and warmed himself. And as he thus sat, his +eyes would keep open no longer, and he felt a desire to sleep. Then he +looked round and saw a great bed in the corner. 'That is the very thing +for me,' said he, and got into it. When he was just going to shut his +eyes, however, the bed began to move of its own accord, and went over +the whole of the castle. 'That's right,' said he, 'but go faster.' Then +the bed rolled on as if six horses were harnessed to it, up and down, +over thresholds and stairs, but suddenly hop, hop, it turned over upside +down, and lay on him like a mountain. But he threw quilts and pillows up +in the air, got out and said: 'Now anyone who likes, may drive,' and +lay down by his fire, and slept till it was day. In the morning the king +came, and when he saw him lying there on the ground, he thought the evil +spirits had killed him and he was dead. Then said he: 'After all it is a +pity,--for so handsome a man.' The youth heard it, got up, and said: 'It +has not come to that yet.' Then the king was astonished, but very glad, +and asked how he had fared. 'Very well indeed,' answered he; 'one +night is past, the two others will pass likewise.' Then he went to the +innkeeper, who opened his eyes very wide, and said: 'I never expected to +see you alive again! Have you learnt how to shudder yet?' 'No,' said he, +'it is all in vain. If someone would but tell me!' + +The second night he again went up into the old castle, sat down by the +fire, and once more began his old song: 'If I could but shudder!' When +midnight came, an uproar and noise of tumbling about was heard; at +first it was low, but it grew louder and louder. Then it was quiet for +a while, and at length with a loud scream, half a man came down the +chimney and fell before him. 'Hullo!' cried he, 'another half belongs +to this. This is not enough!' Then the uproar began again, there was a +roaring and howling, and the other half fell down likewise. 'Wait,' said +he, 'I will just stoke up the fire a little for you.' When he had done +that and looked round again, the two pieces were joined together, and a +hideous man was sitting in his place. 'That is no part of our bargain,' +said the youth, 'the bench is mine.' The man wanted to push him away; +the youth, however, would not allow that, but thrust him off with all +his strength, and seated himself again in his own place. Then still more +men fell down, one after the other; they brought nine dead men's legs +and two skulls, and set them up and played at nine-pins with them. The +youth also wanted to play and said: 'Listen you, can I join you?' 'Yes, +if you have any money.' 'Money enough,' replied he, 'but your balls are +not quite round.' Then he took the skulls and put them in the lathe and +turned them till they were round. 'There, now they will roll better!' +said he. 'Hurrah! now we'll have fun!' He played with them and lost some +of his money, but when it struck twelve, everything vanished from his +sight. He lay down and quietly fell asleep. Next morning the king came +to inquire after him. 'How has it fared with you this time?' asked he. +'I have been playing at nine-pins,' he answered, 'and have lost a couple +of farthings.' 'Have you not shuddered then?' 'What?' said he, 'I have +had a wonderful time! If I did but know what it was to shudder!' + +The third night he sat down again on his bench and said quite sadly: +'If I could but shudder.' When it grew late, six tall men came in and +brought a coffin. Then he said: 'Ha, ha, that is certainly my little +cousin, who died only a few days ago,' and he beckoned with his finger, +and cried: 'Come, little cousin, come.' They placed the coffin on the +ground, but he went to it and took the lid off, and a dead man lay +therein. He felt his face, but it was cold as ice. 'Wait,' said he, 'I +will warm you a little,' and went to the fire and warmed his hand and +laid it on the dead man's face, but he remained cold. Then he took him +out, and sat down by the fire and laid him on his breast and rubbed his +arms that the blood might circulate again. As this also did no good, he +thought to himself: 'When two people lie in bed together, they warm each +other,' and carried him to the bed, covered him over and lay down by +him. After a short time the dead man became warm too, and began to move. +Then said the youth, 'See, little cousin, have I not warmed you?' The +dead man, however, got up and cried: 'Now will I strangle you.' + +'What!' said he, 'is that the way you thank me? You shall at once go +into your coffin again,' and he took him up, threw him into it, and shut +the lid. Then came the six men and carried him away again. 'I cannot +manage to shudder,' said he. 'I shall never learn it here as long as I +live.' + +Then a man entered who was taller than all others, and looked terrible. +He was old, however, and had a long white beard. 'You wretch,' cried he, +'you shall soon learn what it is to shudder, for you shall die.' 'Not so +fast,' replied the youth. 'If I am to die, I shall have to have a say +in it.' 'I will soon seize you,' said the fiend. 'Softly, softly, do not +talk so big. I am as strong as you are, and perhaps even stronger.' +'We shall see,' said the old man. 'If you are stronger, I will let you +go--come, we will try.' Then he led him by dark passages to a smith's +forge, took an axe, and with one blow struck an anvil into the ground. +'I can do better than that,' said the youth, and went to the other +anvil. The old man placed himself near and wanted to look on, and his +white beard hung down. Then the youth seized the axe, split the anvil +with one blow, and in it caught the old man's beard. 'Now I have you,' +said the youth. 'Now it is your turn to die.' Then he seized an iron bar +and beat the old man till he moaned and entreated him to stop, when he +would give him great riches. The youth drew out the axe and let him go. +The old man led him back into the castle, and in a cellar showed him +three chests full of gold. 'Of these,' said he, 'one part is for the +poor, the other for the king, the third yours.' In the meantime it +struck twelve, and the spirit disappeared, so that the youth stood in +darkness. 'I shall still be able to find my way out,' said he, and felt +about, found the way into the room, and slept there by his fire. +Next morning the king came and said: 'Now you must have learnt what +shuddering is?' 'No,' he answered; 'what can it be? My dead cousin was +here, and a bearded man came and showed me a great deal of money down +below, but no one told me what it was to shudder.' 'Then,' said the +king, 'you have saved the castle, and shall marry my daughter.' 'That +is all very well,' said he, 'but still I do not know what it is to +shudder!' + +Then the gold was brought up and the wedding celebrated; but howsoever +much the young king loved his wife, and however happy he was, he still +said always: 'If I could but shudder--if I could but shudder.' And this +at last angered her. Her waiting-maid said: 'I will find a cure for him; +he shall soon learn what it is to shudder.' She went out to the stream +which flowed through the garden, and had a whole bucketful of gudgeons +brought to her. At night when the young king was sleeping, his wife was +to draw the clothes off him and empty the bucket full of cold water +with the gudgeons in it over him, so that the little fishes would +sprawl about him. Then he woke up and cried: 'Oh, what makes me shudder +so?--what makes me shudder so, dear wife? Ah! now I know what it is to +shudder!' + + + + +KING GRISLY-BEARD + +A great king of a land far away in the East had a daughter who was very +beautiful, but so proud, and haughty, and conceited, that none of the +princes who came to ask her in marriage was good enough for her, and she +only made sport of them. + +Once upon a time the king held a great feast, and asked thither all +her suitors; and they all sat in a row, ranged according to their +rank--kings, and princes, and dukes, and earls, and counts, and barons, +and knights. Then the princess came in, and as she passed by them she +had something spiteful to say to every one. The first was too fat: 'He's +as round as a tub,' said she. The next was too tall: 'What a maypole!' +said she. The next was too short: 'What a dumpling!' said she. The +fourth was too pale, and she called him 'Wallface.' The fifth was too +red, so she called him 'Coxcomb.' The sixth was not straight enough; +so she said he was like a green stick, that had been laid to dry over +a baker's oven. And thus she had some joke to crack upon every one: but +she laughed more than all at a good king who was there. 'Look at +him,' said she; 'his beard is like an old mop; he shall be called +Grisly-beard.' So the king got the nickname of Grisly-beard. + +But the old king was very angry when he saw how his daughter behaved, +and how she ill-treated all his guests; and he vowed that, willing or +unwilling, she should marry the first man, be he prince or beggar, that +came to the door. + +Two days after there came by a travelling fiddler, who began to play +under the window and beg alms; and when the king heard him, he said, +'Let him come in.' So they brought in a dirty-looking fellow; and when +he had sung before the king and the princess, he begged a boon. Then the +king said, 'You have sung so well, that I will give you my daughter for +your wife.' The princess begged and prayed; but the king said, 'I have +sworn to give you to the first comer, and I will keep my word.' So words +and tears were of no avail; the parson was sent for, and she was married +to the fiddler. When this was over the king said, 'Now get ready to +go--you must not stay here--you must travel on with your husband.' + +Then the fiddler went his way, and took her with him, and they soon came +to a great wood. 'Pray,' said she, 'whose is this wood?' 'It belongs +to King Grisly-beard,' answered he; 'hadst thou taken him, all had been +thine.' 'Ah! unlucky wretch that I am!' sighed she; 'would that I had +married King Grisly-beard!' Next they came to some fine meadows. 'Whose +are these beautiful green meadows?' said she. 'They belong to King +Grisly-beard, hadst thou taken him, they had all been thine.' 'Ah! +unlucky wretch that I am!' said she; 'would that I had married King +Grisly-beard!' + +Then they came to a great city. 'Whose is this noble city?' said she. +'It belongs to King Grisly-beard; hadst thou taken him, it had all been +thine.' 'Ah! wretch that I am!' sighed she; 'why did I not marry King +Grisly-beard?' 'That is no business of mine,' said the fiddler: 'why +should you wish for another husband? Am not I good enough for you?' + +At last they came to a small cottage. 'What a paltry place!' said she; +'to whom does that little dirty hole belong?' Then the fiddler said, +'That is your and my house, where we are to live.' 'Where are your +servants?' cried she. 'What do we want with servants?' said he; 'you +must do for yourself whatever is to be done. Now make the fire, and put +on water and cook my supper, for I am very tired.' But the princess knew +nothing of making fires and cooking, and the fiddler was forced to help +her. When they had eaten a very scanty meal they went to bed; but the +fiddler called her up very early in the morning to clean the house. Thus +they lived for two days: and when they had eaten up all there was in the +cottage, the man said, 'Wife, we can't go on thus, spending money and +earning nothing. You must learn to weave baskets.' Then he went out and +cut willows, and brought them home, and she began to weave; but it made +her fingers very sore. 'I see this work won't do,' said he: 'try and +spin; perhaps you will do that better.' So she sat down and tried to +spin; but the threads cut her tender fingers till the blood ran. 'See +now,' said the fiddler, 'you are good for nothing; you can do no work: +what a bargain I have got! However, I'll try and set up a trade in pots +and pans, and you shall stand in the market and sell them.' 'Alas!' +sighed she, 'if any of my father's court should pass by and see me +standing in the market, how they will laugh at me!' + +But her husband did not care for that, and said she must work, if she +did not wish to die of hunger. At first the trade went well; for many +people, seeing such a beautiful woman, went to buy her wares, and paid +their money without thinking of taking away the goods. They lived on +this as long as it lasted; and then her husband bought a fresh lot of +ware, and she sat herself down with it in the corner of the market; but +a drunken soldier soon came by, and rode his horse against her stall, +and broke all her goods into a thousand pieces. Then she began to cry, +and knew not what to do. 'Ah! what will become of me?' said she; 'what +will my husband say?' So she ran home and told him all. 'Who would +have thought you would have been so silly,' said he, 'as to put an +earthenware stall in the corner of the market, where everybody passes? +but let us have no more crying; I see you are not fit for this sort of +work, so I have been to the king's palace, and asked if they did not +want a kitchen-maid; and they say they will take you, and there you will +have plenty to eat.' + +Thus the princess became a kitchen-maid, and helped the cook to do all +the dirtiest work; but she was allowed to carry home some of the meat +that was left, and on this they lived. + +She had not been there long before she heard that the king's eldest son +was passing by, going to be married; and she went to one of the windows +and looked out. Everything was ready, and all the pomp and brightness of +the court was there. Then she bitterly grieved for the pride and folly +which had brought her so low. And the servants gave her some of the rich +meats, which she put into her basket to take home. + +All on a sudden, as she was going out, in came the king's son in golden +clothes; and when he saw a beautiful woman at the door, he took her +by the hand, and said she should be his partner in the dance; but she +trembled for fear, for she saw that it was King Grisly-beard, who was +making sport of her. However, he kept fast hold, and led her in; and the +cover of the basket came off, so that the meats in it fell about. Then +everybody laughed and jeered at her; and she was so abashed, that she +wished herself a thousand feet deep in the earth. She sprang to the +door to run away; but on the steps King Grisly-beard overtook her, and +brought her back and said, 'Fear me not! I am the fiddler who has lived +with you in the hut. I brought you there because I really loved you. I +am also the soldier that overset your stall. I have done all this only +to cure you of your silly pride, and to show you the folly of your +ill-treatment of me. Now all is over: you have learnt wisdom, and it is +time to hold our marriage feast.' + +Then the chamberlains came and brought her the most beautiful robes; and +her father and his whole court were there already, and welcomed her home +on her marriage. Joy was in every face and every heart. The feast was +grand; they danced and sang; all were merry; and I only wish that you +and I had been of the party. + + + + +IRON HANS + +There was once upon a time a king who had a great forest near his +palace, full of all kinds of wild animals. One day he sent out a +huntsman to shoot him a roe, but he did not come back. 'Perhaps some +accident has befallen him,' said the king, and the next day he sent out +two more huntsmen who were to search for him, but they too stayed away. +Then on the third day, he sent for all his huntsmen, and said: 'Scour +the whole forest through, and do not give up until you have found all +three.' But of these also, none came home again, none were seen again. +From that time forth, no one would any longer venture into the forest, +and it lay there in deep stillness and solitude, and nothing was seen +of it, but sometimes an eagle or a hawk flying over it. This lasted for +many years, when an unknown huntsman announced himself to the king as +seeking a situation, and offered to go into the dangerous forest. The +king, however, would not give his consent, and said: 'It is not safe in +there; I fear it would fare with you no better than with the others, +and you would never come out again.' The huntsman replied: 'Lord, I will +venture it at my own risk, of fear I know nothing.' + +The huntsman therefore betook himself with his dog to the forest. It was +not long before the dog fell in with some game on the way, and wanted to +pursue it; but hardly had the dog run two steps when it stood before a +deep pool, could go no farther, and a naked arm stretched itself out of +the water, seized it, and drew it under. When the huntsman saw that, he +went back and fetched three men to come with buckets and bale out the +water. When they could see to the bottom there lay a wild man whose body +was brown like rusty iron, and whose hair hung over his face down to his +knees. They bound him with cords, and led him away to the castle. There +was great astonishment over the wild man; the king, however, had him put +in an iron cage in his courtyard, and forbade the door to be opened +on pain of death, and the queen herself was to take the key into her +keeping. And from this time forth everyone could again go into the +forest with safety. + +The king had a son of eight years, who was once playing in the +courtyard, and while he was playing, his golden ball fell into the cage. +The boy ran thither and said: 'Give me my ball out.' 'Not till you have +opened the door for me,' answered the man. 'No,' said the boy, 'I will +not do that; the king has forbidden it,' and ran away. The next day he +again went and asked for his ball; the wild man said: 'Open my door,' +but the boy would not. On the third day the king had ridden out hunting, +and the boy went once more and said: 'I cannot open the door even if I +wished, for I have not the key.' Then the wild man said: 'It lies under +your mother's pillow, you can get it there.' The boy, who wanted to have +his ball back, cast all thought to the winds, and brought the key. The +door opened with difficulty, and the boy pinched his fingers. When it +was open the wild man stepped out, gave him the golden ball, and hurried +away. The boy had become afraid; he called and cried after him: 'Oh, +wild man, do not go away, or I shall be beaten!' The wild man turned +back, took him up, set him on his shoulder, and went with hasty steps +into the forest. When the king came home, he observed the empty cage, +and asked the queen how that had happened. She knew nothing about it, +and sought the key, but it was gone. She called the boy, but no one +answered. The king sent out people to seek for him in the fields, but +they did not find him. Then he could easily guess what had happened, and +much grief reigned in the royal court. + +When the wild man had once more reached the dark forest, he took the boy +down from his shoulder, and said to him: 'You will never see your father +and mother again, but I will keep you with me, for you have set me free, +and I have compassion on you. If you do all I bid you, you shall fare +well. Of treasure and gold have I enough, and more than anyone in the +world.' He made a bed of moss for the boy on which he slept, and the +next morning the man took him to a well, and said: 'Behold, the gold +well is as bright and clear as crystal, you shall sit beside it, and +take care that nothing falls into it, or it will be polluted. I will +come every evening to see if you have obeyed my order.' The boy placed +himself by the brink of the well, and often saw a golden fish or a +golden snake show itself therein, and took care that nothing fell in. +As he was thus sitting, his finger hurt him so violently that he +involuntarily put it in the water. He drew it quickly out again, but saw +that it was quite gilded, and whatsoever pains he took to wash the gold +off again, all was to no purpose. In the evening Iron Hans came back, +looked at the boy, and said: 'What has happened to the well?' 'Nothing +nothing,' he answered, and held his finger behind his back, that the +man might not see it. But he said: 'You have dipped your finger into +the water, this time it may pass, but take care you do not again let +anything go in.' By daybreak the boy was already sitting by the well and +watching it. His finger hurt him again and he passed it over his head, +and then unhappily a hair fell down into the well. He took it quickly +out, but it was already quite gilded. Iron Hans came, and already knew +what had happened. 'You have let a hair fall into the well,' said he. +'I will allow you to watch by it once more, but if this happens for the +third time then the well is polluted and you can no longer remain with +me.' + +On the third day, the boy sat by the well, and did not stir his finger, +however much it hurt him. But the time was long to him, and he looked at +the reflection of his face on the surface of the water. And as he +still bent down more and more while he was doing so, and trying to look +straight into the eyes, his long hair fell down from his shoulders into +the water. He raised himself up quickly, but the whole of the hair of +his head was already golden and shone like the sun. You can imagine how +terrified the poor boy was! He took his pocket-handkerchief and tied it +round his head, in order that the man might not see it. When he came he +already knew everything, and said: 'Take the handkerchief off.' Then the +golden hair streamed forth, and let the boy excuse himself as he might, +it was of no use. 'You have not stood the trial and can stay here no +longer. Go forth into the world, there you will learn what poverty is. +But as you have not a bad heart, and as I mean well by you, there is +one thing I will grant you; if you fall into any difficulty, come to the +forest and cry: "Iron Hans," and then I will come and help you. My +power is great, greater than you think, and I have gold and silver in +abundance.' + +Then the king's son left the forest, and walked by beaten and unbeaten +paths ever onwards until at length he reached a great city. There he +looked for work, but could find none, and he learnt nothing by which he +could help himself. At length he went to the palace, and asked if they +would take him in. The people about court did not at all know what use +they could make of him, but they liked him, and told him to stay. At +length the cook took him into his service, and said he might carry wood +and water, and rake the cinders together. Once when it so happened that +no one else was at hand, the cook ordered him to carry the food to the +royal table, but as he did not like to let his golden hair be seen, he +kept his little cap on. Such a thing as that had never yet come under +the king's notice, and he said: 'When you come to the royal table you +must take your hat off.' He answered: 'Ah, Lord, I cannot; I have a bad +sore place on my head.' Then the king had the cook called before him +and scolded him, and asked how he could take such a boy as that into his +service; and that he was to send him away at once. The cook, however, +had pity on him, and exchanged him for the gardener's boy. + +And now the boy had to plant and water the garden, hoe and dig, and bear +the wind and bad weather. Once in summer when he was working alone in +the garden, the day was so warm he took his little cap off that the air +might cool him. As the sun shone on his hair it glittered and flashed so +that the rays fell into the bedroom of the king's daughter, and up she +sprang to see what that could be. Then she saw the boy, and cried to +him: 'Boy, bring me a wreath of flowers.' He put his cap on with all +haste, and gathered wild field-flowers and bound them together. When he +was ascending the stairs with them, the gardener met him, and said: 'How +can you take the king's daughter a garland of such common flowers? Go +quickly, and get another, and seek out the prettiest and rarest.' 'Oh, +no,' replied the boy, 'the wild ones have more scent, and will please +her better.' When he got into the room, the king's daughter said: 'Take +your cap off, it is not seemly to keep it on in my presence.' He again +said: 'I may not, I have a sore head.' She, however, caught at his +cap and pulled it off, and then his golden hair rolled down on his +shoulders, and it was splendid to behold. He wanted to run out, but she +held him by the arm, and gave him a handful of ducats. With these he +departed, but he cared nothing for the gold pieces. He took them to the +gardener, and said: 'I present them to your children, they can play with +them.' The following day the king's daughter again called to him that he +was to bring her a wreath of field-flowers, and then he went in with it, +she instantly snatched at his cap, and wanted to take it away from him, +but he held it fast with both hands. She again gave him a handful of +ducats, but he would not keep them, and gave them to the gardener for +playthings for his children. On the third day things went just the +same; she could not get his cap away from him, and he would not have her +money. + +Not long afterwards, the country was overrun by war. The king gathered +together his people, and did not know whether or not he could offer any +opposition to the enemy, who was superior in strength and had a mighty +army. Then said the gardener's boy: 'I am grown up, and will go to the +wars also, only give me a horse.' The others laughed, and said: 'Seek +one for yourself when we are gone, we will leave one behind us in the +stable for you.' When they had gone forth, he went into the stable, and +led the horse out; it was lame of one foot, and limped hobblety jib, +hobblety jib; nevertheless he mounted it, and rode away to the dark +forest. When he came to the outskirts, he called 'Iron Hans' three +times so loudly that it echoed through the trees. Thereupon the wild man +appeared immediately, and said: 'What do you desire?' 'I want a strong +steed, for I am going to the wars.' 'That you shall have, and still more +than you ask for.' Then the wild man went back into the forest, and it +was not long before a stable-boy came out of it, who led a horse that +snorted with its nostrils, and could hardly be restrained, and behind +them followed a great troop of warriors entirely equipped in iron, and +their swords flashed in the sun. The youth made over his three-legged +horse to the stable-boy, mounted the other, and rode at the head of the +soldiers. When he got near the battlefield a great part of the king's +men had already fallen, and little was wanting to make the rest give +way. Then the youth galloped thither with his iron soldiers, broke like +a hurricane over the enemy, and beat down all who opposed him. They +began to flee, but the youth pursued, and never stopped, until there +was not a single man left. Instead of returning to the king, however, he +conducted his troop by byways back to the forest, and called forth Iron +Hans. 'What do you desire?' asked the wild man. 'Take back your horse +and your troops, and give me my three-legged horse again.' All that he +asked was done, and soon he was riding on his three-legged horse. When +the king returned to his palace, his daughter went to meet him, and +wished him joy of his victory. 'I am not the one who carried away the +victory,' said he, 'but a strange knight who came to my assistance with +his soldiers.' The daughter wanted to hear who the strange knight was, +but the king did not know, and said: 'He followed the enemy, and I did +not see him again.' She inquired of the gardener where his boy was, but +he smiled, and said: 'He has just come home on his three-legged horse, +and the others have been mocking him, and crying: "Here comes our +hobblety jib back again!" They asked, too: "Under what hedge have you +been lying sleeping all the time?" So he said: "I did the best of all, +and it would have gone badly without me." And then he was still more +ridiculed.' + +The king said to his daughter: 'I will proclaim a great feast that shall +last for three days, and you shall throw a golden apple. Perhaps the +unknown man will show himself.' When the feast was announced, the youth +went out to the forest, and called Iron Hans. 'What do you desire?' +asked he. 'That I may catch the king's daughter's golden apple.' 'It is +as safe as if you had it already,' said Iron Hans. 'You shall likewise +have a suit of red armour for the occasion, and ride on a spirited +chestnut-horse.' When the day came, the youth galloped to the spot, took +his place amongst the knights, and was recognized by no one. The king's +daughter came forward, and threw a golden apple to the knights, but none +of them caught it but he, only as soon as he had it he galloped away. + +On the second day Iron Hans equipped him as a white knight, and gave him +a white horse. Again he was the only one who caught the apple, and +he did not linger an instant, but galloped off with it. The king grew +angry, and said: 'That is not allowed; he must appear before me and tell +his name.' He gave the order that if the knight who caught the apple, +should go away again they should pursue him, and if he would not come +back willingly, they were to cut him down and stab him. + +On the third day, he received from Iron Hans a suit of black armour and +a black horse, and again he caught the apple. But when he was riding off +with it, the king's attendants pursued him, and one of them got so near +him that he wounded the youth's leg with the point of his sword. The +youth nevertheless escaped from them, but his horse leapt so violently +that the helmet fell from the youth's head, and they could see that he +had golden hair. They rode back and announced this to the king. + +The following day the king's daughter asked the gardener about his +boy. 'He is at work in the garden; the queer creature has been at the +festival too, and only came home yesterday evening; he has likewise +shown my children three golden apples which he has won.' + +The king had him summoned into his presence, and he came and again had +his little cap on his head. But the king's daughter went up to him and +took it off, and then his golden hair fell down over his shoulders, and +he was so handsome that all were amazed. 'Are you the knight who came +every day to the festival, always in different colours, and who caught +the three golden apples?' asked the king. 'Yes,' answered he, 'and here +the apples are,' and he took them out of his pocket, and returned them +to the king. 'If you desire further proof, you may see the wound which +your people gave me when they followed me. But I am likewise the knight +who helped you to your victory over your enemies.' 'If you can perform +such deeds as that, you are no gardener's boy; tell me, who is your +father?' 'My father is a mighty king, and gold have I in plenty as great +as I require.' 'I well see,' said the king, 'that I owe my thanks to +you; can I do anything to please you?' 'Yes,' answered he, 'that indeed +you can. Give me your daughter to wife.' The maiden laughed, and said: +'He does not stand much on ceremony, but I have already seen by his +golden hair that he was no gardener's boy,' and then she went and +kissed him. His father and mother came to the wedding, and were in great +delight, for they had given up all hope of ever seeing their dear +son again. And as they were sitting at the marriage-feast, the music +suddenly stopped, the doors opened, and a stately king came in with a +great retinue. He went up to the youth, embraced him and said: 'I am +Iron Hans, and was by enchantment a wild man, but you have set me free; +all the treasures which I possess, shall be your property.' + + + + +CAT-SKIN + +There was once a king, whose queen had hair of the purest gold, and was +so beautiful that her match was not to be met with on the whole face of +the earth. But this beautiful queen fell ill, and when she felt that her +end drew near she called the king to her and said, 'Promise me that you +will never marry again, unless you meet with a wife who is as beautiful +as I am, and who has golden hair like mine.' Then when the king in his +grief promised all she asked, she shut her eyes and died. But the king +was not to be comforted, and for a long time never thought of taking +another wife. At last, however, his wise men said, 'this will not do; +the king must marry again, that we may have a queen.' So messengers were +sent far and wide, to seek for a bride as beautiful as the late queen. +But there was no princess in the world so beautiful; and if there had +been, still there was not one to be found who had golden hair. So the +messengers came home, and had had all their trouble for nothing. + +Now the king had a daughter, who was just as beautiful as her mother, +and had the same golden hair. And when she was grown up, the king looked +at her and saw that she was just like this late queen: then he said to +his courtiers, 'May I not marry my daughter? She is the very image of my +dead wife: unless I have her, I shall not find any bride upon the whole +earth, and you say there must be a queen.' When the courtiers heard this +they were shocked, and said, 'Heaven forbid that a father should marry +his daughter! Out of so great a sin no good can come.' And his daughter +was also shocked, but hoped the king would soon give up such thoughts; +so she said to him, 'Before I marry anyone I must have three dresses: +one must be of gold, like the sun; another must be of shining silver, +like the moon; and a third must be dazzling as the stars: besides this, +I want a mantle of a thousand different kinds of fur put together, to +which every beast in the kingdom must give a part of his skin.' And thus +she thought he would think of the matter no more. But the king made the +most skilful workmen in his kingdom weave the three dresses: one golden, +like the sun; another silvery, like the moon; and a third sparkling, +like the stars: and his hunters were told to hunt out all the beasts in +his kingdom, and to take the finest fur out of their skins: and thus a +mantle of a thousand furs was made. + +When all were ready, the king sent them to her; but she got up in the +night when all were asleep, and took three of her trinkets, a golden +ring, a golden necklace, and a golden brooch, and packed the three +dresses--of the sun, the moon, and the stars--up in a nutshell, and +wrapped herself up in the mantle made of all sorts of fur, and besmeared +her face and hands with soot. Then she threw herself upon Heaven for +help in her need, and went away, and journeyed on the whole night, till +at last she came to a large wood. As she was very tired, she sat herself +down in the hollow of a tree and soon fell asleep: and there she slept +on till it was midday. + +Now as the king to whom the wood belonged was hunting in it, his dogs +came to the tree, and began to snuff about, and run round and round, and +bark. 'Look sharp!' said the king to the huntsmen, 'and see what sort +of game lies there.' And the huntsmen went up to the tree, and when they +came back again said, 'In the hollow tree there lies a most wonderful +beast, such as we never saw before; its skin seems to be of a thousand +kinds of fur, but there it lies fast asleep.' 'See,' said the king, 'if +you can catch it alive, and we will take it with us.' So the huntsmen +took it up, and the maiden awoke and was greatly frightened, and said, +'I am a poor child that has neither father nor mother left; have pity on +me and take me with you.' Then they said, 'Yes, Miss Cat-skin, you will +do for the kitchen; you can sweep up the ashes, and do things of that +sort.' So they put her into the coach, and took her home to the king's +palace. Then they showed her a little corner under the staircase, where +no light of day ever peeped in, and said, 'Cat-skin, you may lie and +sleep there.' And she was sent into the kitchen, and made to fetch wood +and water, to blow the fire, pluck the poultry, pick the herbs, sift the +ashes, and do all the dirty work. + +Thus Cat-skin lived for a long time very sorrowfully. 'Ah! pretty +princess!' thought she, 'what will now become of thee?' But it happened +one day that a feast was to be held in the king's castle, so she said to +the cook, 'May I go up a little while and see what is going on? I will +take care and stand behind the door.' And the cook said, 'Yes, you may +go, but be back again in half an hour's time, to rake out the ashes.' +Then she took her little lamp, and went into her cabin, and took off the +fur skin, and washed the soot from off her face and hands, so that her +beauty shone forth like the sun from behind the clouds. She next opened +her nutshell, and brought out of it the dress that shone like the sun, +and so went to the feast. Everyone made way for her, for nobody knew +her, and they thought she could be no less than a king's daughter. But +the king came up to her, and held out his hand and danced with her; and +he thought in his heart, 'I never saw any one half so beautiful.' + +When the dance was at an end she curtsied; and when the king looked +round for her, she was gone, no one knew wither. The guards that stood +at the castle gate were called in: but they had seen no one. The truth +was, that she had run into her little cabin, pulled off her dress, +blackened her face and hands, put on the fur-skin cloak, and was +Cat-skin again. When she went into the kitchen to her work, and began +to rake the ashes, the cook said, 'Let that alone till the morning, and +heat the king's soup; I should like to run up now and give a peep: but +take care you don't let a hair fall into it, or you will run a chance of +never eating again.' + +As soon as the cook went away, Cat-skin heated the king's soup, and +toasted a slice of bread first, as nicely as ever she could; and when it +was ready, she went and looked in the cabin for her little golden ring, +and put it into the dish in which the soup was. When the dance was over, +the king ordered his soup to be brought in; and it pleased him so well, +that he thought he had never tasted any so good before. At the bottom +he saw a gold ring lying; and as he could not make out how it had got +there, he ordered the cook to be sent for. The cook was frightened when +he heard the order, and said to Cat-skin, 'You must have let a hair fall +into the soup; if it be so, you will have a good beating.' Then he went +before the king, and he asked him who had cooked the soup. 'I did,' +answered the cook. But the king said, 'That is not true; it was better +done than you could do it.' Then he answered, 'To tell the truth I did +not cook it, but Cat-skin did.' 'Then let Cat-skin come up,' said the +king: and when she came he said to her, 'Who are you?' 'I am a poor +child,' said she, 'that has lost both father and mother.' 'How came you +in my palace?' asked he. 'I am good for nothing,' said she, 'but to be +scullion-girl, and to have boots and shoes thrown at my head.' 'But how +did you get the ring that was in the soup?' asked the king. Then she +would not own that she knew anything about the ring; so the king sent +her away again about her business. + +After a time there was another feast, and Cat-skin asked the cook to let +her go up and see it as before. 'Yes,' said he, 'but come again in half +an hour, and cook the king the soup that he likes so much.' Then she +ran to her little cabin, washed herself quickly, and took her dress +out which was silvery as the moon, and put it on; and when she went in, +looking like a king's daughter, the king went up to her, and rejoiced at +seeing her again, and when the dance began he danced with her. After the +dance was at an end she managed to slip out, so slyly that the king did +not see where she was gone; but she sprang into her little cabin, and +made herself into Cat-skin again, and went into the kitchen to cook the +soup. Whilst the cook was above stairs, she got the golden necklace and +dropped it into the soup; then it was brought to the king, who ate it, +and it pleased him as well as before; so he sent for the cook, who +was again forced to tell him that Cat-skin had cooked it. Cat-skin was +brought again before the king, but she still told him that she was only +fit to have boots and shoes thrown at her head. + +But when the king had ordered a feast to be got ready for the third +time, it happened just the same as before. 'You must be a witch, +Cat-skin,' said the cook; 'for you always put something into your soup, +so that it pleases the king better than mine.' However, he let her go up +as before. Then she put on her dress which sparkled like the stars, and +went into the ball-room in it; and the king danced with her again, and +thought she had never looked so beautiful as she did then. So whilst +he was dancing with her, he put a gold ring on her finger without her +seeing it, and ordered that the dance should be kept up a long time. +When it was at an end, he would have held her fast by the hand, but she +slipped away, and sprang so quickly through the crowd that he lost sight +of her: and she ran as fast as she could into her little cabin under +the stairs. But this time she kept away too long, and stayed beyond the +half-hour; so she had not time to take off her fine dress, and threw her +fur mantle over it, and in her haste did not blacken herself all over +with soot, but left one of her fingers white. + +Then she ran into the kitchen, and cooked the king's soup; and as soon +as the cook was gone, she put the golden brooch into the dish. When the +king got to the bottom, he ordered Cat-skin to be called once more, and +soon saw the white finger, and the ring that he had put on it whilst +they were dancing: so he seized her hand, and kept fast hold of it, and +when she wanted to loose herself and spring away, the fur cloak fell off +a little on one side, and the starry dress sparkled underneath it. + +Then he got hold of the fur and tore it off, and her golden hair and +beautiful form were seen, and she could no longer hide herself: so she +washed the soot and ashes from her face, and showed herself to be the +most beautiful princess upon the face of the earth. But the king said, +'You are my beloved bride, and we will never more be parted from each +other.' And the wedding feast was held, and a merry day it was, as ever +was heard of or seen in that country, or indeed in any other. + + + + +SNOW-WHITE AND ROSE-RED + +There was once a poor widow who lived in a lonely cottage. In front of +the cottage was a garden wherein stood two rose-trees, one of which bore +white and the other red roses. She had two children who were like the +two rose-trees, and one was called Snow-white, and the other Rose-red. +They were as good and happy, as busy and cheerful as ever two children +in the world were, only Snow-white was more quiet and gentle than +Rose-red. Rose-red liked better to run about in the meadows and fields +seeking flowers and catching butterflies; but Snow-white sat at home +with her mother, and helped her with her housework, or read to her when +there was nothing to do. + +The two children were so fond of one another that they always held each +other by the hand when they went out together, and when Snow-white said: +'We will not leave each other,' Rose-red answered: 'Never so long as we +live,' and their mother would add: 'What one has she must share with the +other.' + +They often ran about the forest alone and gathered red berries, and no +beasts did them any harm, but came close to them trustfully. The little +hare would eat a cabbage-leaf out of their hands, the roe grazed by +their side, the stag leapt merrily by them, and the birds sat still upon +the boughs, and sang whatever they knew. + +No mishap overtook them; if they had stayed too late in the forest, and +night came on, they laid themselves down near one another upon the moss, +and slept until morning came, and their mother knew this and did not +worry on their account. + +Once when they had spent the night in the wood and the dawn had roused +them, they saw a beautiful child in a shining white dress sitting near +their bed. He got up and looked quite kindly at them, but said nothing +and went into the forest. And when they looked round they found that +they had been sleeping quite close to a precipice, and would certainly +have fallen into it in the darkness if they had gone only a few paces +further. And their mother told them that it must have been the angel who +watches over good children. + +Snow-white and Rose-red kept their mother's little cottage so neat that +it was a pleasure to look inside it. In the summer Rose-red took care +of the house, and every morning laid a wreath of flowers by her mother's +bed before she awoke, in which was a rose from each tree. In the winter +Snow-white lit the fire and hung the kettle on the hob. The kettle +was of brass and shone like gold, so brightly was it polished. In the +evening, when the snowflakes fell, the mother said: 'Go, Snow-white, and +bolt the door,' and then they sat round the hearth, and the mother took +her spectacles and read aloud out of a large book, and the two girls +listened as they sat and spun. And close by them lay a lamb upon the +floor, and behind them upon a perch sat a white dove with its head +hidden beneath its wings. + +One evening, as they were thus sitting comfortably together, someone +knocked at the door as if he wished to be let in. The mother said: +'Quick, Rose-red, open the door, it must be a traveller who is seeking +shelter.' Rose-red went and pushed back the bolt, thinking that it was a +poor man, but it was not; it was a bear that stretched his broad, black +head within the door. + +Rose-red screamed and sprang back, the lamb bleated, the dove fluttered, +and Snow-white hid herself behind her mother's bed. But the bear began +to speak and said: 'Do not be afraid, I will do you no harm! I am +half-frozen, and only want to warm myself a little beside you.' + +'Poor bear,' said the mother, 'lie down by the fire, only take care that +you do not burn your coat.' Then she cried: 'Snow-white, Rose-red, come +out, the bear will do you no harm, he means well.' So they both came +out, and by-and-by the lamb and dove came nearer, and were not afraid +of him. The bear said: 'Here, children, knock the snow out of my coat a +little'; so they brought the broom and swept the bear's hide clean; +and he stretched himself by the fire and growled contentedly and +comfortably. It was not long before they grew quite at home, and played +tricks with their clumsy guest. They tugged his hair with their hands, +put their feet upon his back and rolled him about, or they took a +hazel-switch and beat him, and when he growled they laughed. But the +bear took it all in good part, only when they were too rough he called +out: 'Leave me alive, children, + + Snow-white, Rose-red, + Will you beat your wooer dead?' + +When it was bed-time, and the others went to bed, the mother said to the +bear: 'You can lie there by the hearth, and then you will be safe from +the cold and the bad weather.' As soon as day dawned the two children +let him out, and he trotted across the snow into the forest. + +Henceforth the bear came every evening at the same time, laid himself +down by the hearth, and let the children amuse themselves with him as +much as they liked; and they got so used to him that the doors were +never fastened until their black friend had arrived. + +When spring had come and all outside was green, the bear said one +morning to Snow-white: 'Now I must go away, and cannot come back for the +whole summer.' 'Where are you going, then, dear bear?' asked Snow-white. +'I must go into the forest and guard my treasures from the wicked +dwarfs. In the winter, when the earth is frozen hard, they are obliged +to stay below and cannot work their way through; but now, when the sun +has thawed and warmed the earth, they break through it, and come out to +pry and steal; and what once gets into their hands, and in their caves, +does not easily see daylight again.' + +Snow-white was quite sorry at his departure, and as she unbolted the +door for him, and the bear was hurrying out, he caught against the bolt +and a piece of his hairy coat was torn off, and it seemed to Snow-white +as if she had seen gold shining through it, but she was not sure about +it. The bear ran away quickly, and was soon out of sight behind the +trees. + +A short time afterwards the mother sent her children into the forest +to get firewood. There they found a big tree which lay felled on the +ground, and close by the trunk something was jumping backwards and +forwards in the grass, but they could not make out what it was. When +they came nearer they saw a dwarf with an old withered face and a +snow-white beard a yard long. The end of the beard was caught in a +crevice of the tree, and the little fellow was jumping about like a dog +tied to a rope, and did not know what to do. + +He glared at the girls with his fiery red eyes and cried: 'Why do you +stand there? Can you not come here and help me?' 'What are you up to, +little man?' asked Rose-red. 'You stupid, prying goose!' answered the +dwarf: 'I was going to split the tree to get a little wood for cooking. +The little bit of food that we people get is immediately burnt up with +heavy logs; we do not swallow so much as you coarse, greedy folk. I had +just driven the wedge safely in, and everything was going as I wished; +but the cursed wedge was too smooth and suddenly sprang out, and the +tree closed so quickly that I could not pull out my beautiful white +beard; so now it is tight and I cannot get away, and the silly, sleek, +milk-faced things laugh! Ugh! how odious you are!' + +The children tried very hard, but they could not pull the beard out, it +was caught too fast. 'I will run and fetch someone,' said Rose-red. 'You +senseless goose!' snarled the dwarf; 'why should you fetch someone? You +are already two too many for me; can you not think of something better?' +'Don't be impatient,' said Snow-white, 'I will help you,' and she pulled +her scissors out of her pocket, and cut off the end of the beard. + +As soon as the dwarf felt himself free he laid hold of a bag which lay +amongst the roots of the tree, and which was full of gold, and lifted it +up, grumbling to himself: 'Uncouth people, to cut off a piece of my fine +beard. Bad luck to you!' and then he swung the bag upon his back, and +went off without even once looking at the children. + +Some time afterwards Snow-white and Rose-red went to catch a dish +of fish. As they came near the brook they saw something like a large +grasshopper jumping towards the water, as if it were going to leap in. +They ran to it and found it was the dwarf. 'Where are you going?' said +Rose-red; 'you surely don't want to go into the water?' 'I am not such +a fool!' cried the dwarf; 'don't you see that the accursed fish wants +to pull me in?' The little man had been sitting there fishing, and +unluckily the wind had tangled up his beard with the fishing-line; a +moment later a big fish made a bite and the feeble creature had not +strength to pull it out; the fish kept the upper hand and pulled the +dwarf towards him. He held on to all the reeds and rushes, but it was of +little good, for he was forced to follow the movements of the fish, and +was in urgent danger of being dragged into the water. + +The girls came just in time; they held him fast and tried to free his +beard from the line, but all in vain, beard and line were entangled fast +together. There was nothing to do but to bring out the scissors and cut +the beard, whereby a small part of it was lost. When the dwarf saw that +he screamed out: 'Is that civil, you toadstool, to disfigure a man's +face? Was it not enough to clip off the end of my beard? Now you have +cut off the best part of it. I cannot let myself be seen by my people. +I wish you had been made to run the soles off your shoes!' Then he took +out a sack of pearls which lay in the rushes, and without another word +he dragged it away and disappeared behind a stone. + +It happened that soon afterwards the mother sent the two children to the +town to buy needles and thread, and laces and ribbons. The road led them +across a heath upon which huge pieces of rock lay strewn about. There +they noticed a large bird hovering in the air, flying slowly round and +round above them; it sank lower and lower, and at last settled near a +rock not far away. Immediately they heard a loud, piteous cry. They ran +up and saw with horror that the eagle had seized their old acquaintance +the dwarf, and was going to carry him off. + +The children, full of pity, at once took tight hold of the little man, +and pulled against the eagle so long that at last he let his booty go. +As soon as the dwarf had recovered from his first fright he cried +with his shrill voice: 'Could you not have done it more carefully! You +dragged at my brown coat so that it is all torn and full of holes, you +clumsy creatures!' Then he took up a sack full of precious stones, and +slipped away again under the rock into his hole. The girls, who by +this time were used to his ingratitude, went on their way and did their +business in town. + +As they crossed the heath again on their way home they surprised the +dwarf, who had emptied out his bag of precious stones in a clean spot, +and had not thought that anyone would come there so late. The evening +sun shone upon the brilliant stones; they glittered and sparkled with +all colours so beautifully that the children stood still and stared +at them. 'Why do you stand gaping there?' cried the dwarf, and his +ashen-grey face became copper-red with rage. He was still cursing when a +loud growling was heard, and a black bear came trotting towards them out +of the forest. The dwarf sprang up in a fright, but he could not reach +his cave, for the bear was already close. Then in the dread of his heart +he cried: 'Dear Mr Bear, spare me, I will give you all my treasures; +look, the beautiful jewels lying there! Grant me my life; what do you +want with such a slender little fellow as I? you would not feel me +between your teeth. Come, take these two wicked girls, they are tender +morsels for you, fat as young quails; for mercy's sake eat them!' The +bear took no heed of his words, but gave the wicked creature a single +blow with his paw, and he did not move again. + +The girls had run away, but the bear called to them: 'Snow-white and +Rose-red, do not be afraid; wait, I will come with you.' Then they +recognized his voice and waited, and when he came up to them suddenly +his bearskin fell off, and he stood there a handsome man, clothed all in +gold. 'I am a king's son,' he said, 'and I was bewitched by that wicked +dwarf, who had stolen my treasures; I have had to run about the forest +as a savage bear until I was freed by his death. Now he has got his +well-deserved punishment. + +Snow-white was married to him, and Rose-red to his brother, and they +divided between them the great treasure which the dwarf had gathered +together in his cave. The old mother lived peacefully and happily with +her children for many years. She took the two rose-trees with her, and +they stood before her window, and every year bore the most beautiful +roses, white and red. + + +***** + + +The Brothers Grimm, Jacob (1785-1863) and Wilhelm (1786-1859), were born +in Hanau, near Frankfurt, in the German state of Hesse. Throughout +their lives they remained close friends, and both studied law at Marburg +University. Jacob was a pioneer in the study of German philology, +and although Wilhelm's work was hampered by poor health the brothers +collaborated in the creation of a German dictionary, not completed until +a century after their deaths. But they were best (and universally) known +for the collection of over two hundred folk tales they made from oral +sources and published in two volumes of 'Nursery and Household Tales' in +1812 and 1814. Although their intention was to preserve such material as +part of German cultural and literary history, and their collection was +first published with scholarly notes and no illustration, the tales soon +came into the possession of young readers. This was in part due to Edgar +Taylor, who made the first English translation in 1823, selecting about +fifty stories 'with the amusement of some young friends principally in +view.' They have been an essential ingredient of children's reading ever +since. + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's Grimms' Fairy Tales, by The Brothers Grimm + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK GRIMMS' FAIRY TALES *** + +***** This file should be named 2591.txt or 2591.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/2/5/9/2591/ + +Produced by Emma Dudding, John Bickers, and Dagny + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. Special rules, +set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to +copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to +protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark. 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Thus, we do not necessarily +keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition. + + +Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility: + + http://www.gutenberg.org + +This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm, +including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary +Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to +subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks. diff --git a/src/main/pg-huckleberry_finn.txt b/src/main/pg-huckleberry_finn.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..d39524d --- /dev/null +++ b/src/main/pg-huckleberry_finn.txt @@ -0,0 +1,12361 @@ + + +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Complete +by Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens) + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost +no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use +it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this +eBook or online at www.gutenberg.net + +Title: Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Complete + +Author: Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens) + +Release Date: August 20, 2006 [EBook #76] + +Last Updated: April 18, 2015] + +Language: English + + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK HUCKLEBERRY FINN *** + +Produced by David Widger + + + + + +ADVENTURES + +OF + +HUCKLEBERRY FINN + +(Tom Sawyer's Comrade) + +By Mark Twain + +Complete + + + + +CONTENTS. + +CHAPTER I. Civilizing Huck.--Miss Watson.--Tom Sawyer Waits. + +CHAPTER II. The Boys Escape Jim.--Torn Sawyer's Gang.--Deep-laid Plans. + +CHAPTER III. A Good Going-over.--Grace Triumphant.--"One of Tom Sawyers's +Lies". + +CHAPTER IV. Huck and the Judge.--Superstition. + +CHAPTER V. Huck's Father.--The Fond Parent.--Reform. + +CHAPTER VI. He Went for Judge Thatcher.--Huck Decided to Leave.--Political +Economy.--Thrashing Around. + +CHAPTER VII. Laying for Him.--Locked in the Cabin.--Sinking the +Body.--Resting. + +CHAPTER VIII. Sleeping in the Woods.--Raising the Dead.--Exploring the +Island.--Finding Jim.--Jim's Escape.--Signs.--Balum. + +CHAPTER IX. The Cave.--The Floating House. + +CHAPTER X. The Find.--Old Hank Bunker.--In Disguise. + +CHAPTER XI. Huck and the Woman.--The Search.--Prevarication.--Going to +Goshen. + +CHAPTER XII. Slow Navigation.--Borrowing Things.--Boarding the Wreck.--The +Plotters.--Hunting for the Boat. + +CHAPTER XIII. Escaping from the Wreck.--The Watchman.--Sinking. + +CHAPTER XIV. A General Good Time.--The Harem.--French. + +CHAPTER XV. Huck Loses the Raft.--In the Fog.--Huck Finds the Raft.--Trash. + +CHAPTER XVI. Expectation.--A White Lie.--Floating Currency.--Running by +Cairo.--Swimming Ashore. + +CHAPTER XVII. An Evening Call.--The Farm in Arkansaw.--Interior +Decorations.--Stephen Dowling Bots.--Poetical Effusions. + +CHAPTER XVIII. Col. Grangerford.--Aristocracy.--Feuds.--The +Testament.--Recovering the Raft.--The Wood--pile.--Pork and Cabbage. + +CHAPTER XIX. Tying Up Day--times.--An Astronomical Theory.--Running a +Temperance Revival.--The Duke of Bridgewater.--The Troubles of Royalty. + +CHAPTER XX. Huck Explains.--Laying Out a Campaign.--Working the +Camp--meeting.--A Pirate at the Camp--meeting.--The Duke as a Printer. + +CHAPTER XXI. Sword Exercise.--Hamlet's Soliloquy.--They Loafed Around +Town.--A Lazy Town.--Old Boggs.--Dead. + +CHAPTER XXII. Sherburn.--Attending the Circus.--Intoxication in the +Ring.--The Thrilling Tragedy. + +CHAPTER XXIII. Sold.--Royal Comparisons.--Jim Gets Home-sick. + +CHAPTER XXIV. Jim in Royal Robes.--They Take a Passenger.--Getting +Information.--Family Grief. + +CHAPTER XXV. Is It Them?--Singing the "Doxologer."--Awful Square--Funeral +Orgies.--A Bad Investment . + +CHAPTER XXVI. A Pious King.--The King's Clergy.--She Asked His +Pardon.--Hiding in the Room.--Huck Takes the Money. + +CHAPTER XXVII. The Funeral.--Satisfying Curiosity.--Suspicious of +Huck,--Quick Sales and Small. + +CHAPTER XXVIII. The Trip to England.--"The Brute!"--Mary Jane Decides to +Leave.--Huck Parting with Mary Jane.--Mumps.--The Opposition Line. + +CHAPTER XXIX. Contested Relationship.--The King Explains the Loss.--A +Question of Handwriting.--Digging up the Corpse.--Huck Escapes. + +CHAPTER XXX. The King Went for Him.--A Royal Row.--Powerful Mellow. + +CHAPTER XXXI. Ominous Plans.--News from Jim.--Old Recollections.--A Sheep +Story.--Valuable Information. + +CHAPTER XXXII. Still and Sunday--like.--Mistaken Identity.--Up a Stump.--In +a Dilemma. + +CHAPTER XXXIII. A Nigger Stealer.--Southern Hospitality.--A Pretty Long +Blessing.--Tar and Feathers. + +CHAPTER XXXIV. The Hut by the Ash Hopper.--Outrageous.--Climbing the +Lightning Rod.--Troubled with Witches. + +CHAPTER XXXV. Escaping Properly.--Dark Schemes.--Discrimination in +Stealing.--A Deep Hole. + +CHAPTER XXXVI. The Lightning Rod.--His Level Best.--A Bequest to +Posterity.--A High Figure. + +CHAPTER XXXVII. The Last Shirt.--Mooning Around.--Sailing Orders.--The +Witch Pie. + +CHAPTER XXXVIII. The Coat of Arms.--A Skilled Superintendent.--Unpleasant +Glory.--A Tearful Subject. + +CHAPTER XXXIX. Rats.--Lively Bed--fellows.--The Straw Dummy. + +CHAPTER XL. Fishing.--The Vigilance Committee.--A Lively Run.--Jim Advises +a Doctor. + +CHAPTER XLI. The Doctor.--Uncle Silas.--Sister Hotchkiss.--Aunt Sally in +Trouble. + +CHAPTER XLII. Tom Sawyer Wounded.--The Doctor's Story.--Tom +Confesses.--Aunt Polly Arrives.--Hand Out Them Letters . + +CHAPTER THE LAST. Out of Bondage.--Paying the Captive.--Yours Truly, Huck +Finn. + + + + +ILLUSTRATIONS. + +The Widows + +Moses and the "Bulrushers" + +Miss Watson + +Huck Stealing Away + +They Tip-toed Along + +Jim + +Tom Sawyer's Band of Robbers + +Huck Creeps into his Window + +Miss Watson's Lecture + +The Robbers Dispersed + +Rubbing the Lamp + +! ! ! ! + +Judge Thatcher surprised + +Jim Listening + +"Pap" + +Huck and his Father + +Reforming the Drunkard + +Falling from Grace + +The Widows + +Moses and the "Bulrushers" + +Miss Watson + +Huck Stealing Away + +They Tip-toed Along + +Jim + +Tom Sawyer's Band of Robbers + +Huck Creeps into his Window + +Miss Watson's Lecture + +The Robbers Dispersed + +Rubbing the Lamp + +! ! ! ! + +Judge Thatcher surprised + +Jim Listening + +"Pap" + +Huck and his Father + +Reforming the Drunkard + +Falling from Grace + +Getting out of the Way + +Solid Comfort + +Thinking it Over + +Raising a Howl + +"Git Up" + +The Shanty + +Shooting the Pig + +Taking a Rest + +In the Woods + +Watching the Boat + +Discovering the Camp Fire + +Jim and the Ghost + +Misto Bradish's Nigger + +Exploring the Cave + +In the Cave + +Jim sees a Dead Man + +They Found Eight Dollars + +Jim and the Snake + +Old Hank Bunker + +"A Fair Fit" + +"Come In" + +"Him and another Man" + +She puts up a Snack + +"Hump Yourself" + +On the Raft + +He sometimes Lifted a Chicken + +"Please don't, Bill" + +"It ain't Good Morals" + +"Oh! Lordy, Lordy!" + +In a Fix + +"Hello, What's Up?" + +The Wreck + +We turned in and Slept + +Turning over the Truck + +Solomon and his Million Wives + +The story of "Sollermun" + +"We Would Sell the Raft" + +Among the Snags + +Asleep on the Raft + +"Something being Raftsman" + +"Boy, that's a Lie" + +"Here I is, Huck" + +Climbing up the Bank + +"Who's There?" + +"Buck" + +"It made Her look Spidery" + +"They got him out and emptied Him" + +The House + +Col. Grangerford + +Young Harney Shepherdson + +Miss Charlotte + +"And asked me if I Liked Her" + +"Behind the Wood-pile" + +Hiding Day-times + +"And Dogs a-Coming" + +"By rights I am a Duke!" + +"I am the Late Dauphin" + +Tail Piece + +On the Raft + +The King as Juliet + +"Courting on the Sly" + +"A Pirate for Thirty Years" + +Another little Job + +Practizing + +Hamlet's Soliloquy + +"Gimme a Chaw" + +A Little Monthly Drunk + +The Death of Boggs + +Sherburn steps out + +A Dead Head + +He shed Seventeen Suits + +Tragedy + +Their Pockets Bulged + +Henry the Eighth in Boston Harbor + +Harmless + +Adolphus + +He fairly emptied that Young Fellow + +"Alas, our Poor Brother" + +"You Bet it is" + +Leaking + +Making up the "Deffisit" + +Going for him + +The Doctor + +The Bag of Money + +The Cubby + +Supper with the Hare-Lip + +Honest Injun + +The Duke looks under the Bed + +Huck takes the Money + +A Crack in the Dining-room Door + +The Undertaker + +"He had a Rat!" + +"Was you in my Room?" + +Jawing + +In Trouble + +Indignation + +How to Find Them + +He Wrote + +Hannah with the Mumps + +The Auction + +The True Brothers + +The Doctor leads Huck + +The Duke Wrote + +"Gentlemen, Gentlemen!" + +"Jim Lit Out" + +The King shakes Huck + +The Duke went for Him + +Spanish Moss + +"Who Nailed Him?" + +Thinking + +He gave him Ten Cents + +Striking for the Back Country + +Still and Sunday-like + +She hugged him tight + +"Who do you reckon it is?" + +"It was Tom Sawyer" + +"Mr. Archibald Nichols, I presume?" + +A pretty long Blessing + +Traveling By Rail + +Vittles + +A Simple Job + +Witches + +Getting Wood + +One of the Best Authorities + +The Breakfast-Horn + +Smouching the Knives + +Going down the Lightning-Rod + +Stealing spoons + +Tom advises a Witch Pie + +The Rubbage-Pile + +"Missus, dey's a Sheet Gone" + +In a Tearing Way + +One of his Ancestors + +Jim's Coat of Arms + +A Tough Job + +Buttons on their Tails + +Irrigation + +Keeping off Dull Times + +Sawdust Diet + +Trouble is Brewing + +Fishing + +Every one had a Gun + +Tom caught on a Splinter + +Jim advises a Doctor + +The Doctor + +Uncle Silas in Danger + +Old Mrs. Hotchkiss + +Aunt Sally talks to Huck + +Tom Sawyer wounded + +The Doctor speaks for Jim + +Tom rose square up in Bed + +"Hand out them Letters" + +Out of Bondage + +Tom's Liberality + +Yours Truly + + + + +EXPLANATORY + +IN this book a number of dialects are used, to wit: the Missouri negro +dialect; the extremest form of the backwoods Southwestern dialect; the +ordinary "Pike County" dialect; and four modified varieties of this +last. The shadings have not been done in a haphazard fashion, or by +guesswork; but painstakingly, and with the trustworthy guidance and +support of personal familiarity with these several forms of speech. + +I make this explanation for the reason that without it many readers +would suppose that all these characters were trying to talk alike and +not succeeding. + +THE AUTHOR. + + + + +HUCKLEBERRY FINN + +Scene: The Mississippi Valley Time: Forty to fifty years ago + + + + +CHAPTER I. + +YOU don't know about me without you have read a book by the name of The +Adventures of Tom Sawyer; but that ain't no matter. That book was made +by Mr. Mark Twain, and he told the truth, mainly. There was things +which he stretched, but mainly he told the truth. That is nothing. I +never seen anybody but lied one time or another, without it was Aunt +Polly, or the widow, or maybe Mary. Aunt Polly--Tom's Aunt Polly, she +is--and Mary, and the Widow Douglas is all told about in that book, which +is mostly a true book, with some stretchers, as I said before. + +Now the way that the book winds up is this: Tom and me found the money +that the robbers hid in the cave, and it made us rich. We got six +thousand dollars apiece--all gold. It was an awful sight of money when +it was piled up. Well, Judge Thatcher he took it and put it out +at interest, and it fetched us a dollar a day apiece all the year +round--more than a body could tell what to do with. The Widow Douglas +she took me for her son, and allowed she would sivilize me; but it was +rough living in the house all the time, considering how dismal regular +and decent the widow was in all her ways; and so when I couldn't stand +it no longer I lit out. I got into my old rags and my sugar-hogshead +again, and was free and satisfied. But Tom Sawyer he hunted me up and +said he was going to start a band of robbers, and I might join if I +would go back to the widow and be respectable. So I went back. + +The widow she cried over me, and called me a poor lost lamb, and she +called me a lot of other names, too, but she never meant no harm by +it. She put me in them new clothes again, and I couldn't do nothing but +sweat and sweat, and feel all cramped up. Well, then, the old thing +commenced again. The widow rung a bell for supper, and you had to come +to time. When you got to the table you couldn't go right to eating, but +you had to wait for the widow to tuck down her head and grumble a little +over the victuals, though there warn't really anything the matter with +them,--that is, nothing only everything was cooked by itself. In a +barrel of odds and ends it is different; things get mixed up, and the +juice kind of swaps around, and the things go better. + +After supper she got out her book and learned me about Moses and the +Bulrushers, and I was in a sweat to find out all about him; but by and +by she let it out that Moses had been dead a considerable long time; so +then I didn't care no more about him, because I don't take no stock in +dead people. + +Pretty soon I wanted to smoke, and asked the widow to let me. But she +wouldn't. She said it was a mean practice and wasn't clean, and I must +try to not do it any more. That is just the way with some people. They +get down on a thing when they don't know nothing about it. Here she was +a-bothering about Moses, which was no kin to her, and no use to anybody, +being gone, you see, yet finding a power of fault with me for doing a +thing that had some good in it. And she took snuff, too; of course that +was all right, because she done it herself. + +Her sister, Miss Watson, a tolerable slim old maid, with goggles on, +had just come to live with her, and took a set at me now with a +spelling-book. She worked me middling hard for about an hour, and then +the widow made her ease up. I couldn't stood it much longer. Then for +an hour it was deadly dull, and I was fidgety. Miss Watson would say, +"Don't put your feet up there, Huckleberry;" and "Don't scrunch up +like that, Huckleberry--set up straight;" and pretty soon she would +say, "Don't gap and stretch like that, Huckleberry--why don't you try to +behave?" Then she told me all about the bad place, and I said I wished +I was there. She got mad then, but I didn't mean no harm. All I wanted +was to go somewheres; all I wanted was a change, I warn't particular. + She said it was wicked to say what I said; said she wouldn't say it for +the whole world; she was going to live so as to go to the good place. + Well, I couldn't see no advantage in going where she was going, so I +made up my mind I wouldn't try for it. But I never said so, because it +would only make trouble, and wouldn't do no good. + +Now she had got a start, and she went on and told me all about the good +place. She said all a body would have to do there was to go around all +day long with a harp and sing, forever and ever. So I didn't think +much of it. But I never said so. I asked her if she reckoned Tom Sawyer +would go there, and she said not by a considerable sight. I was glad +about that, because I wanted him and me to be together. + +Miss Watson she kept pecking at me, and it got tiresome and lonesome. + By and by they fetched the niggers in and had prayers, and then +everybody was off to bed. I went up to my room with a piece of candle, +and put it on the table. Then I set down in a chair by the window and +tried to think of something cheerful, but it warn't no use. I felt +so lonesome I most wished I was dead. The stars were shining, and the +leaves rustled in the woods ever so mournful; and I heard an owl, away +off, who-whooing about somebody that was dead, and a whippowill and a +dog crying about somebody that was going to die; and the wind was trying +to whisper something to me, and I couldn't make out what it was, and so +it made the cold shivers run over me. Then away out in the woods I heard +that kind of a sound that a ghost makes when it wants to tell about +something that's on its mind and can't make itself understood, and so +can't rest easy in its grave, and has to go about that way every night +grieving. I got so down-hearted and scared I did wish I had some +company. Pretty soon a spider went crawling up my shoulder, and I +flipped it off and it lit in the candle; and before I could budge it +was all shriveled up. I didn't need anybody to tell me that that was +an awful bad sign and would fetch me some bad luck, so I was scared +and most shook the clothes off of me. I got up and turned around in my +tracks three times and crossed my breast every time; and then I tied +up a little lock of my hair with a thread to keep witches away. But +I hadn't no confidence. You do that when you've lost a horseshoe that +you've found, instead of nailing it up over the door, but I hadn't ever +heard anybody say it was any way to keep off bad luck when you'd killed +a spider. + +I set down again, a-shaking all over, and got out my pipe for a smoke; +for the house was all as still as death now, and so the widow wouldn't +know. Well, after a long time I heard the clock away off in the town +go boom--boom--boom--twelve licks; and all still again--stiller than +ever. Pretty soon I heard a twig snap down in the dark amongst the +trees--something was a stirring. I set still and listened. Directly I +could just barely hear a "me-yow! me-yow!" down there. That was good! + Says I, "me-yow! me-yow!" as soft as I could, and then I put out the +light and scrambled out of the window on to the shed. Then I slipped +down to the ground and crawled in among the trees, and, sure enough, +there was Tom Sawyer waiting for me. + + + + +CHAPTER II. + +WE went tiptoeing along a path amongst the trees back towards the end of +the widow's garden, stooping down so as the branches wouldn't scrape our +heads. When we was passing by the kitchen I fell over a root and made +a noise. We scrouched down and laid still. Miss Watson's big nigger, +named Jim, was setting in the kitchen door; we could see him pretty +clear, because there was a light behind him. He got up and stretched +his neck out about a minute, listening. Then he says: + +"Who dah?" + +He listened some more; then he come tiptoeing down and stood right +between us; we could a touched him, nearly. Well, likely it was +minutes and minutes that there warn't a sound, and we all there so close +together. There was a place on my ankle that got to itching, but I +dasn't scratch it; and then my ear begun to itch; and next my back, +right between my shoulders. Seemed like I'd die if I couldn't scratch. + Well, I've noticed that thing plenty times since. If you are with +the quality, or at a funeral, or trying to go to sleep when you ain't +sleepy--if you are anywheres where it won't do for you to scratch, why +you will itch all over in upwards of a thousand places. Pretty soon Jim +says: + +"Say, who is you? Whar is you? Dog my cats ef I didn' hear sumf'n. +Well, I know what I's gwyne to do: I's gwyne to set down here and +listen tell I hears it agin." + +So he set down on the ground betwixt me and Tom. He leaned his back up +against a tree, and stretched his legs out till one of them most touched +one of mine. My nose begun to itch. It itched till the tears come into +my eyes. But I dasn't scratch. Then it begun to itch on the inside. +Next I got to itching underneath. I didn't know how I was going to set +still. This miserableness went on as much as six or seven minutes; but +it seemed a sight longer than that. I was itching in eleven different +places now. I reckoned I couldn't stand it more'n a minute longer, +but I set my teeth hard and got ready to try. Just then Jim begun +to breathe heavy; next he begun to snore--and then I was pretty soon +comfortable again. + +Tom he made a sign to me--kind of a little noise with his mouth--and we +went creeping away on our hands and knees. When we was ten foot off Tom +whispered to me, and wanted to tie Jim to the tree for fun. But I said +no; he might wake and make a disturbance, and then they'd find out I +warn't in. Then Tom said he hadn't got candles enough, and he would slip +in the kitchen and get some more. I didn't want him to try. I said Jim +might wake up and come. But Tom wanted to resk it; so we slid in there +and got three candles, and Tom laid five cents on the table for pay. +Then we got out, and I was in a sweat to get away; but nothing would do +Tom but he must crawl to where Jim was, on his hands and knees, and play +something on him. I waited, and it seemed a good while, everything was +so still and lonesome. + +As soon as Tom was back we cut along the path, around the garden fence, +and by and by fetched up on the steep top of the hill the other side of +the house. Tom said he slipped Jim's hat off of his head and hung it +on a limb right over him, and Jim stirred a little, but he didn't wake. +Afterwards Jim said the witches be witched him and put him in a trance, +and rode him all over the State, and then set him under the trees again, +and hung his hat on a limb to show who done it. And next time Jim told +it he said they rode him down to New Orleans; and, after that, every +time he told it he spread it more and more, till by and by he said they +rode him all over the world, and tired him most to death, and his back +was all over saddle-boils. Jim was monstrous proud about it, and he +got so he wouldn't hardly notice the other niggers. Niggers would come +miles to hear Jim tell about it, and he was more looked up to than any +nigger in that country. Strange niggers would stand with their mouths +open and look him all over, same as if he was a wonder. Niggers is +always talking about witches in the dark by the kitchen fire; but +whenever one was talking and letting on to know all about such things, +Jim would happen in and say, "Hm! What you know 'bout witches?" and +that nigger was corked up and had to take a back seat. Jim always kept +that five-center piece round his neck with a string, and said it was a +charm the devil give to him with his own hands, and told him he could +cure anybody with it and fetch witches whenever he wanted to just by +saying something to it; but he never told what it was he said to it. + Niggers would come from all around there and give Jim anything they +had, just for a sight of that five-center piece; but they wouldn't touch +it, because the devil had had his hands on it. Jim was most ruined for +a servant, because he got stuck up on account of having seen the devil +and been rode by witches. + +Well, when Tom and me got to the edge of the hilltop we looked away down +into the village and could see three or four lights twinkling, where +there was sick folks, maybe; and the stars over us was sparkling ever +so fine; and down by the village was the river, a whole mile broad, and +awful still and grand. We went down the hill and found Jo Harper and +Ben Rogers, and two or three more of the boys, hid in the old tanyard. + So we unhitched a skiff and pulled down the river two mile and a half, +to the big scar on the hillside, and went ashore. + +We went to a clump of bushes, and Tom made everybody swear to keep the +secret, and then showed them a hole in the hill, right in the thickest +part of the bushes. Then we lit the candles, and crawled in on our +hands and knees. We went about two hundred yards, and then the cave +opened up. Tom poked about amongst the passages, and pretty soon ducked +under a wall where you wouldn't a noticed that there was a hole. We +went along a narrow place and got into a kind of room, all damp and +sweaty and cold, and there we stopped. Tom says: + +"Now, we'll start this band of robbers and call it Tom Sawyer's Gang. +Everybody that wants to join has got to take an oath, and write his name +in blood." + +Everybody was willing. So Tom got out a sheet of paper that he had +wrote the oath on, and read it. It swore every boy to stick to the +band, and never tell any of the secrets; and if anybody done anything to +any boy in the band, whichever boy was ordered to kill that person and +his family must do it, and he mustn't eat and he mustn't sleep till he +had killed them and hacked a cross in their breasts, which was the sign +of the band. And nobody that didn't belong to the band could use that +mark, and if he did he must be sued; and if he done it again he must be +killed. And if anybody that belonged to the band told the secrets, he +must have his throat cut, and then have his carcass burnt up and the +ashes scattered all around, and his name blotted off of the list with +blood and never mentioned again by the gang, but have a curse put on it +and be forgot forever. + +Everybody said it was a real beautiful oath, and asked Tom if he got +it out of his own head. He said, some of it, but the rest was out of +pirate-books and robber-books, and every gang that was high-toned had +it. + +Some thought it would be good to kill the _families_ of boys that told +the secrets. Tom said it was a good idea, so he took a pencil and wrote +it in. Then Ben Rogers says: + +"Here's Huck Finn, he hain't got no family; what you going to do 'bout +him?" + +"Well, hain't he got a father?" says Tom Sawyer. + +"Yes, he's got a father, but you can't never find him these days. He +used to lay drunk with the hogs in the tanyard, but he hain't been seen +in these parts for a year or more." + +They talked it over, and they was going to rule me out, because they +said every boy must have a family or somebody to kill, or else it +wouldn't be fair and square for the others. Well, nobody could think of +anything to do--everybody was stumped, and set still. I was most ready +to cry; but all at once I thought of a way, and so I offered them Miss +Watson--they could kill her. Everybody said: + +"Oh, she'll do. That's all right. Huck can come in." + +Then they all stuck a pin in their fingers to get blood to sign with, +and I made my mark on the paper. + +"Now," says Ben Rogers, "what's the line of business of this Gang?" + +"Nothing only robbery and murder," Tom said. + +"But who are we going to rob?--houses, or cattle, or--" + +"Stuff! stealing cattle and such things ain't robbery; it's burglary," +says Tom Sawyer. "We ain't burglars. That ain't no sort of style. We +are highwaymen. We stop stages and carriages on the road, with masks +on, and kill the people and take their watches and money." + +"Must we always kill the people?" + +"Oh, certainly. It's best. Some authorities think different, but +mostly it's considered best to kill them--except some that you bring to +the cave here, and keep them till they're ransomed." + +"Ransomed? What's that?" + +"I don't know. But that's what they do. I've seen it in books; and so +of course that's what we've got to do." + +"But how can we do it if we don't know what it is?" + +"Why, blame it all, we've _got_ to do it. Don't I tell you it's in the +books? Do you want to go to doing different from what's in the books, +and get things all muddled up?" + +"Oh, that's all very fine to _say_, Tom Sawyer, but how in the nation +are these fellows going to be ransomed if we don't know how to do it +to them?--that's the thing I want to get at. Now, what do you reckon it +is?" + +"Well, I don't know. But per'aps if we keep them till they're ransomed, +it means that we keep them till they're dead." + +"Now, that's something _like_. That'll answer. Why couldn't you said +that before? We'll keep them till they're ransomed to death; and a +bothersome lot they'll be, too--eating up everything, and always trying +to get loose." + +"How you talk, Ben Rogers. How can they get loose when there's a guard +over them, ready to shoot them down if they move a peg?" + +"A guard! Well, that _is_ good. So somebody's got to set up all night +and never get any sleep, just so as to watch them. I think that's +foolishness. Why can't a body take a club and ransom them as soon as +they get here?" + +"Because it ain't in the books so--that's why. Now, Ben Rogers, do you +want to do things regular, or don't you?--that's the idea. Don't you +reckon that the people that made the books knows what's the correct +thing to do? Do you reckon _you_ can learn 'em anything? Not by a good +deal. No, sir, we'll just go on and ransom them in the regular way." + +"All right. I don't mind; but I say it's a fool way, anyhow. Say, do +we kill the women, too?" + +"Well, Ben Rogers, if I was as ignorant as you I wouldn't let on. Kill +the women? No; nobody ever saw anything in the books like that. You +fetch them to the cave, and you're always as polite as pie to them; +and by and by they fall in love with you, and never want to go home any +more." + +"Well, if that's the way I'm agreed, but I don't take no stock in it. +Mighty soon we'll have the cave so cluttered up with women, and fellows +waiting to be ransomed, that there won't be no place for the robbers. +But go ahead, I ain't got nothing to say." + +Little Tommy Barnes was asleep now, and when they waked him up he was +scared, and cried, and said he wanted to go home to his ma, and didn't +want to be a robber any more. + +So they all made fun of him, and called him cry-baby, and that made him +mad, and he said he would go straight and tell all the secrets. But +Tom give him five cents to keep quiet, and said we would all go home and +meet next week, and rob somebody and kill some people. + +Ben Rogers said he couldn't get out much, only Sundays, and so he wanted +to begin next Sunday; but all the boys said it would be wicked to do it +on Sunday, and that settled the thing. They agreed to get together and +fix a day as soon as they could, and then we elected Tom Sawyer first +captain and Jo Harper second captain of the Gang, and so started home. + +I clumb up the shed and crept into my window just before day was +breaking. My new clothes was all greased up and clayey, and I was +dog-tired. + + + + +CHAPTER III. + +WELL, I got a good going-over in the morning from old Miss Watson on +account of my clothes; but the widow she didn't scold, but only cleaned +off the grease and clay, and looked so sorry that I thought I would +behave awhile if I could. Then Miss Watson she took me in the closet +and prayed, but nothing come of it. She told me to pray every day, and +whatever I asked for I would get it. But it warn't so. I tried it. +Once I got a fish-line, but no hooks. It warn't any good to me without +hooks. I tried for the hooks three or four times, but somehow I +couldn't make it work. By and by, one day, I asked Miss Watson to +try for me, but she said I was a fool. She never told me why, and I +couldn't make it out no way. + +I set down one time back in the woods, and had a long think about it. + I says to myself, if a body can get anything they pray for, why don't +Deacon Winn get back the money he lost on pork? Why can't the widow get +back her silver snuffbox that was stole? Why can't Miss Watson fat up? +No, says I to my self, there ain't nothing in it. I went and told the +widow about it, and she said the thing a body could get by praying for +it was "spiritual gifts." This was too many for me, but she told me +what she meant--I must help other people, and do everything I could for +other people, and look out for them all the time, and never think about +myself. This was including Miss Watson, as I took it. I went out in the +woods and turned it over in my mind a long time, but I couldn't see no +advantage about it--except for the other people; so at last I reckoned +I wouldn't worry about it any more, but just let it go. Sometimes the +widow would take me one side and talk about Providence in a way to make +a body's mouth water; but maybe next day Miss Watson would take hold +and knock it all down again. I judged I could see that there was two +Providences, and a poor chap would stand considerable show with the +widow's Providence, but if Miss Watson's got him there warn't no help +for him any more. I thought it all out, and reckoned I would belong +to the widow's if he wanted me, though I couldn't make out how he was +a-going to be any better off then than what he was before, seeing I was +so ignorant, and so kind of low-down and ornery. + +Pap he hadn't been seen for more than a year, and that was comfortable +for me; I didn't want to see him no more. He used to always whale me +when he was sober and could get his hands on me; though I used to take +to the woods most of the time when he was around. Well, about this time +he was found in the river drownded, about twelve mile above town, so +people said. They judged it was him, anyway; said this drownded man was +just his size, and was ragged, and had uncommon long hair, which was all +like pap; but they couldn't make nothing out of the face, because it had +been in the water so long it warn't much like a face at all. They said +he was floating on his back in the water. They took him and buried him +on the bank. But I warn't comfortable long, because I happened to think +of something. I knowed mighty well that a drownded man don't float on +his back, but on his face. So I knowed, then, that this warn't pap, but +a woman dressed up in a man's clothes. So I was uncomfortable again. + I judged the old man would turn up again by and by, though I wished he +wouldn't. + +We played robber now and then about a month, and then I resigned. All +the boys did. We hadn't robbed nobody, hadn't killed any people, but +only just pretended. We used to hop out of the woods and go charging +down on hog-drivers and women in carts taking garden stuff to market, +but we never hived any of them. Tom Sawyer called the hogs "ingots," +and he called the turnips and stuff "julery," and we would go to the +cave and powwow over what we had done, and how many people we had killed +and marked. But I couldn't see no profit in it. One time Tom sent a +boy to run about town with a blazing stick, which he called a slogan +(which was the sign for the Gang to get together), and then he said he +had got secret news by his spies that next day a whole parcel of Spanish +merchants and rich A-rabs was going to camp in Cave Hollow with two +hundred elephants, and six hundred camels, and over a thousand "sumter" +mules, all loaded down with di'monds, and they didn't have only a guard +of four hundred soldiers, and so we would lay in ambuscade, as he called +it, and kill the lot and scoop the things. He said we must slick up +our swords and guns, and get ready. He never could go after even a +turnip-cart but he must have the swords and guns all scoured up for it, +though they was only lath and broomsticks, and you might scour at them +till you rotted, and then they warn't worth a mouthful of ashes more +than what they was before. I didn't believe we could lick such a crowd +of Spaniards and A-rabs, but I wanted to see the camels and elephants, +so I was on hand next day, Saturday, in the ambuscade; and when we got +the word we rushed out of the woods and down the hill. But there warn't +no Spaniards and A-rabs, and there warn't no camels nor no elephants. + It warn't anything but a Sunday-school picnic, and only a primer-class +at that. We busted it up, and chased the children up the hollow; but we +never got anything but some doughnuts and jam, though Ben Rogers got +a rag doll, and Jo Harper got a hymn-book and a tract; and then the +teacher charged in, and made us drop everything and cut. + + I didn't see no di'monds, and I told Tom Sawyer so. He said there was +loads of them there, anyway; and he said there was A-rabs there, too, +and elephants and things. I said, why couldn't we see them, then? He +said if I warn't so ignorant, but had read a book called Don Quixote, I +would know without asking. He said it was all done by enchantment. He +said there was hundreds of soldiers there, and elephants and treasure, +and so on, but we had enemies which he called magicians; and they had +turned the whole thing into an infant Sunday-school, just out of spite. + I said, all right; then the thing for us to do was to go for the +magicians. Tom Sawyer said I was a numskull. + +"Why," said he, "a magician could call up a lot of genies, and they +would hash you up like nothing before you could say Jack Robinson. They +are as tall as a tree and as big around as a church." + +"Well," I says, "s'pose we got some genies to help _us_--can't we lick +the other crowd then?" + +"How you going to get them?" + +"I don't know. How do _they_ get them?" + +"Why, they rub an old tin lamp or an iron ring, and then the genies +come tearing in, with the thunder and lightning a-ripping around and the +smoke a-rolling, and everything they're told to do they up and do it. + They don't think nothing of pulling a shot-tower up by the roots, and +belting a Sunday-school superintendent over the head with it--or any +other man." + +"Who makes them tear around so?" + +"Why, whoever rubs the lamp or the ring. They belong to whoever rubs +the lamp or the ring, and they've got to do whatever he says. If he +tells them to build a palace forty miles long out of di'monds, and fill +it full of chewing-gum, or whatever you want, and fetch an emperor's +daughter from China for you to marry, they've got to do it--and they've +got to do it before sun-up next morning, too. And more: they've got +to waltz that palace around over the country wherever you want it, you +understand." + +"Well," says I, "I think they are a pack of flat-heads for not keeping +the palace themselves 'stead of fooling them away like that. And what's +more--if I was one of them I would see a man in Jericho before I would +drop my business and come to him for the rubbing of an old tin lamp." + +"How you talk, Huck Finn. Why, you'd _have_ to come when he rubbed it, +whether you wanted to or not." + +"What! and I as high as a tree and as big as a church? All right, then; +I _would_ come; but I lay I'd make that man climb the highest tree there +was in the country." + +"Shucks, it ain't no use to talk to you, Huck Finn. You don't seem to +know anything, somehow--perfect saphead." + +I thought all this over for two or three days, and then I reckoned I +would see if there was anything in it. I got an old tin lamp and an +iron ring, and went out in the woods and rubbed and rubbed till I sweat +like an Injun, calculating to build a palace and sell it; but it warn't +no use, none of the genies come. So then I judged that all that stuff +was only just one of Tom Sawyer's lies. I reckoned he believed in the +A-rabs and the elephants, but as for me I think different. It had all +the marks of a Sunday-school. + + + + +CHAPTER IV. + +WELL, three or four months run along, and it was well into the winter +now. I had been to school most all the time and could spell and read and +write just a little, and could say the multiplication table up to six +times seven is thirty-five, and I don't reckon I could ever get any +further than that if I was to live forever. I don't take no stock in +mathematics, anyway. + +At first I hated the school, but by and by I got so I could stand it. +Whenever I got uncommon tired I played hookey, and the hiding I got next +day done me good and cheered me up. So the longer I went to school the +easier it got to be. I was getting sort of used to the widow's ways, +too, and they warn't so raspy on me. Living in a house and sleeping in +a bed pulled on me pretty tight mostly, but before the cold weather I +used to slide out and sleep in the woods sometimes, and so that was a +rest to me. I liked the old ways best, but I was getting so I liked the +new ones, too, a little bit. The widow said I was coming along slow but +sure, and doing very satisfactory. She said she warn't ashamed of me. + +One morning I happened to turn over the salt-cellar at breakfast. + I reached for some of it as quick as I could to throw over my left +shoulder and keep off the bad luck, but Miss Watson was in ahead of me, +and crossed me off. She says, "Take your hands away, Huckleberry; what +a mess you are always making!" The widow put in a good word for me, but +that warn't going to keep off the bad luck, I knowed that well enough. + I started out, after breakfast, feeling worried and shaky, and +wondering where it was going to fall on me, and what it was going to be. + There is ways to keep off some kinds of bad luck, but this wasn't one +of them kind; so I never tried to do anything, but just poked along +low-spirited and on the watch-out. + +I went down to the front garden and clumb over the stile where you go +through the high board fence. There was an inch of new snow on the +ground, and I seen somebody's tracks. They had come up from the quarry +and stood around the stile a while, and then went on around the garden +fence. It was funny they hadn't come in, after standing around so. I +couldn't make it out. It was very curious, somehow. I was going to +follow around, but I stooped down to look at the tracks first. I didn't +notice anything at first, but next I did. There was a cross in the left +boot-heel made with big nails, to keep off the devil. + +I was up in a second and shinning down the hill. I looked over my +shoulder every now and then, but I didn't see nobody. I was at Judge +Thatcher's as quick as I could get there. He said: + +"Why, my boy, you are all out of breath. Did you come for your +interest?" + +"No, sir," I says; "is there some for me?" + +"Oh, yes, a half-yearly is in last night--over a hundred and fifty +dollars. Quite a fortune for you. You had better let me invest it +along with your six thousand, because if you take it you'll spend it." + +"No, sir," I says, "I don't want to spend it. I don't want it at +all--nor the six thousand, nuther. I want you to take it; I want to give +it to you--the six thousand and all." + +He looked surprised. He couldn't seem to make it out. He says: + +"Why, what can you mean, my boy?" + +I says, "Don't you ask me no questions about it, please. You'll take +it--won't you?" + +He says: + +"Well, I'm puzzled. Is something the matter?" + +"Please take it," says I, "and don't ask me nothing--then I won't have to +tell no lies." + +He studied a while, and then he says: + +"Oho-o! I think I see. You want to _sell_ all your property to me--not +give it. That's the correct idea." + +Then he wrote something on a paper and read it over, and says: + +"There; you see it says 'for a consideration.' That means I have bought +it of you and paid you for it. Here's a dollar for you. Now you sign +it." + +So I signed it, and left. + +Miss Watson's nigger, Jim, had a hair-ball as big as your fist, which +had been took out of the fourth stomach of an ox, and he used to do +magic with it. He said there was a spirit inside of it, and it knowed +everything. So I went to him that night and told him pap was here +again, for I found his tracks in the snow. What I wanted to know was, +what he was going to do, and was he going to stay? Jim got out his +hair-ball and said something over it, and then he held it up and dropped +it on the floor. It fell pretty solid, and only rolled about an inch. + Jim tried it again, and then another time, and it acted just the same. + Jim got down on his knees, and put his ear against it and listened. + But it warn't no use; he said it wouldn't talk. He said sometimes it +wouldn't talk without money. I told him I had an old slick counterfeit +quarter that warn't no good because the brass showed through the silver +a little, and it wouldn't pass nohow, even if the brass didn't show, +because it was so slick it felt greasy, and so that would tell on it +every time. (I reckoned I wouldn't say nothing about the dollar I got +from the judge.) I said it was pretty bad money, but maybe the hair-ball +would take it, because maybe it wouldn't know the difference. Jim smelt +it and bit it and rubbed it, and said he would manage so the hair-ball +would think it was good. He said he would split open a raw Irish potato +and stick the quarter in between and keep it there all night, and next +morning you couldn't see no brass, and it wouldn't feel greasy no more, +and so anybody in town would take it in a minute, let alone a hair-ball. + Well, I knowed a potato would do that before, but I had forgot it. + +Jim put the quarter under the hair-ball, and got down and listened +again. This time he said the hair-ball was all right. He said it +would tell my whole fortune if I wanted it to. I says, go on. So the +hair-ball talked to Jim, and Jim told it to me. He says: + +"Yo' ole father doan' know yit what he's a-gwyne to do. Sometimes he +spec he'll go 'way, en den agin he spec he'll stay. De bes' way is to +res' easy en let de ole man take his own way. Dey's two angels hoverin' +roun' 'bout him. One uv 'em is white en shiny, en t'other one is black. +De white one gits him to go right a little while, den de black one sail +in en bust it all up. A body can't tell yit which one gwyne to fetch +him at de las'. But you is all right. You gwyne to have considable +trouble in yo' life, en considable joy. Sometimes you gwyne to git +hurt, en sometimes you gwyne to git sick; but every time you's gwyne +to git well agin. Dey's two gals flyin' 'bout you in yo' life. One +uv 'em's light en t'other one is dark. One is rich en t'other is po'. + You's gwyne to marry de po' one fust en de rich one by en by. You +wants to keep 'way fum de water as much as you kin, en don't run no +resk, 'kase it's down in de bills dat you's gwyne to git hung." + +When I lit my candle and went up to my room that night there sat pap his +own self! + + + + +CHAPTER V. + +I had shut the door to. Then I turned around and there he was. I used +to be scared of him all the time, he tanned me so much. I reckoned I +was scared now, too; but in a minute I see I was mistaken--that is, after +the first jolt, as you may say, when my breath sort of hitched, he being +so unexpected; but right away after I see I warn't scared of him worth +bothring about. + +He was most fifty, and he looked it. His hair was long and tangled and +greasy, and hung down, and you could see his eyes shining through +like he was behind vines. It was all black, no gray; so was his long, +mixed-up whiskers. There warn't no color in his face, where his face +showed; it was white; not like another man's white, but a white to make +a body sick, a white to make a body's flesh crawl--a tree-toad white, a +fish-belly white. As for his clothes--just rags, that was all. He had +one ankle resting on t'other knee; the boot on that foot was busted, and +two of his toes stuck through, and he worked them now and then. His hat +was laying on the floor--an old black slouch with the top caved in, like +a lid. + +I stood a-looking at him; he set there a-looking at me, with his chair +tilted back a little. I set the candle down. I noticed the window was +up; so he had clumb in by the shed. He kept a-looking me all over. By +and by he says: + +"Starchy clothes--very. You think you're a good deal of a big-bug, +_don't_ you?" + +"Maybe I am, maybe I ain't," I says. + +"Don't you give me none o' your lip," says he. "You've put on +considerable many frills since I been away. I'll take you down a peg +before I get done with you. You're educated, too, they say--can read and +write. You think you're better'n your father, now, don't you, because +he can't? _I'll_ take it out of you. Who told you you might meddle +with such hifalut'n foolishness, hey?--who told you you could?" + +"The widow. She told me." + +"The widow, hey?--and who told the widow she could put in her shovel +about a thing that ain't none of her business?" + +"Nobody never told her." + +"Well, I'll learn her how to meddle. And looky here--you drop that +school, you hear? I'll learn people to bring up a boy to put on airs +over his own father and let on to be better'n what _he_ is. You lemme +catch you fooling around that school again, you hear? Your mother +couldn't read, and she couldn't write, nuther, before she died. None +of the family couldn't before _they_ died. I can't; and here you're +a-swelling yourself up like this. I ain't the man to stand it--you hear? +Say, lemme hear you read." + +I took up a book and begun something about General Washington and the +wars. When I'd read about a half a minute, he fetched the book a whack +with his hand and knocked it across the house. He says: + +"It's so. You can do it. I had my doubts when you told me. Now looky +here; you stop that putting on frills. I won't have it. I'll lay for +you, my smarty; and if I catch you about that school I'll tan you good. +First you know you'll get religion, too. I never see such a son." + +He took up a little blue and yaller picture of some cows and a boy, and +says: + +"What's this?" + +"It's something they give me for learning my lessons good." + +He tore it up, and says: + +"I'll give you something better--I'll give you a cowhide." + +He set there a-mumbling and a-growling a minute, and then he says: + +"_Ain't_ you a sweet-scented dandy, though? A bed; and bedclothes; and +a look'n'-glass; and a piece of carpet on the floor--and your own father +got to sleep with the hogs in the tanyard. I never see such a son. I +bet I'll take some o' these frills out o' you before I'm done with you. +Why, there ain't no end to your airs--they say you're rich. Hey?--how's +that?" + +"They lie--that's how." + +"Looky here--mind how you talk to me; I'm a-standing about all I can +stand now--so don't gimme no sass. I've been in town two days, and I +hain't heard nothing but about you bein' rich. I heard about it +away down the river, too. That's why I come. You git me that money +to-morrow--I want it." + +"I hain't got no money." + +"It's a lie. Judge Thatcher's got it. You git it. I want it." + +"I hain't got no money, I tell you. You ask Judge Thatcher; he'll tell +you the same." + +"All right. I'll ask him; and I'll make him pungle, too, or I'll know +the reason why. Say, how much you got in your pocket? I want it." + +"I hain't got only a dollar, and I want that to--" + +"It don't make no difference what you want it for--you just shell it +out." + +He took it and bit it to see if it was good, and then he said he was +going down town to get some whisky; said he hadn't had a drink all day. +When he had got out on the shed he put his head in again, and cussed +me for putting on frills and trying to be better than him; and when I +reckoned he was gone he come back and put his head in again, and told me +to mind about that school, because he was going to lay for me and lick +me if I didn't drop that. + +Next day he was drunk, and he went to Judge Thatcher's and bullyragged +him, and tried to make him give up the money; but he couldn't, and then +he swore he'd make the law force him. + +The judge and the widow went to law to get the court to take me away +from him and let one of them be my guardian; but it was a new judge that +had just come, and he didn't know the old man; so he said courts mustn't +interfere and separate families if they could help it; said he'd druther +not take a child away from its father. So Judge Thatcher and the widow +had to quit on the business. + +That pleased the old man till he couldn't rest. He said he'd cowhide +me till I was black and blue if I didn't raise some money for him. I +borrowed three dollars from Judge Thatcher, and pap took it and got +drunk, and went a-blowing around and cussing and whooping and carrying +on; and he kept it up all over town, with a tin pan, till most midnight; +then they jailed him, and next day they had him before court, and jailed +him again for a week. But he said _he_ was satisfied; said he was boss +of his son, and he'd make it warm for _him_. + +When he got out the new judge said he was a-going to make a man of him. +So he took him to his own house, and dressed him up clean and nice, and +had him to breakfast and dinner and supper with the family, and was just +old pie to him, so to speak. And after supper he talked to him about +temperance and such things till the old man cried, and said he'd been +a fool, and fooled away his life; but now he was a-going to turn over +a new leaf and be a man nobody wouldn't be ashamed of, and he hoped the +judge would help him and not look down on him. The judge said he could +hug him for them words; so he cried, and his wife she cried again; pap +said he'd been a man that had always been misunderstood before, and the +judge said he believed it. The old man said that what a man wanted +that was down was sympathy, and the judge said it was so; so they cried +again. And when it was bedtime the old man rose up and held out his +hand, and says: + +"Look at it, gentlemen and ladies all; take a-hold of it; shake it. +There's a hand that was the hand of a hog; but it ain't so no more; it's +the hand of a man that's started in on a new life, and'll die before +he'll go back. You mark them words--don't forget I said them. It's a +clean hand now; shake it--don't be afeard." + +So they shook it, one after the other, all around, and cried. The +judge's wife she kissed it. Then the old man he signed a pledge--made +his mark. The judge said it was the holiest time on record, or something +like that. Then they tucked the old man into a beautiful room, which was +the spare room, and in the night some time he got powerful thirsty and +clumb out on to the porch-roof and slid down a stanchion and traded his +new coat for a jug of forty-rod, and clumb back again and had a good old +time; and towards daylight he crawled out again, drunk as a fiddler, and +rolled off the porch and broke his left arm in two places, and was most +froze to death when somebody found him after sun-up. And when they come +to look at that spare room they had to take soundings before they could +navigate it. + +The judge he felt kind of sore. He said he reckoned a body could reform +the old man with a shotgun, maybe, but he didn't know no other way. + + + + +CHAPTER VI. + +WELL, pretty soon the old man was up and around again, and then he went +for Judge Thatcher in the courts to make him give up that money, and he +went for me, too, for not stopping school. He catched me a couple of +times and thrashed me, but I went to school just the same, and dodged +him or outrun him most of the time. I didn't want to go to school much +before, but I reckoned I'd go now to spite pap. That law trial was a +slow business--appeared like they warn't ever going to get started on it; +so every now and then I'd borrow two or three dollars off of the judge +for him, to keep from getting a cowhiding. Every time he got money he +got drunk; and every time he got drunk he raised Cain around town; and +every time he raised Cain he got jailed. He was just suited--this kind +of thing was right in his line. + +He got to hanging around the widow's too much and so she told him at +last that if he didn't quit using around there she would make trouble +for him. Well, _wasn't_ he mad? He said he would show who was Huck +Finn's boss. So he watched out for me one day in the spring, and +catched me, and took me up the river about three mile in a skiff, and +crossed over to the Illinois shore where it was woody and there warn't +no houses but an old log hut in a place where the timber was so thick +you couldn't find it if you didn't know where it was. + +He kept me with him all the time, and I never got a chance to run off. +We lived in that old cabin, and he always locked the door and put the +key under his head nights. He had a gun which he had stole, I reckon, +and we fished and hunted, and that was what we lived on. Every little +while he locked me in and went down to the store, three miles, to the +ferry, and traded fish and game for whisky, and fetched it home and got +drunk and had a good time, and licked me. The widow she found out where +I was by and by, and she sent a man over to try to get hold of me; but +pap drove him off with the gun, and it warn't long after that till I was +used to being where I was, and liked it--all but the cowhide part. + +It was kind of lazy and jolly, laying off comfortable all day, smoking +and fishing, and no books nor study. Two months or more run along, and +my clothes got to be all rags and dirt, and I didn't see how I'd ever +got to like it so well at the widow's, where you had to wash, and eat on +a plate, and comb up, and go to bed and get up regular, and be forever +bothering over a book, and have old Miss Watson pecking at you all the +time. I didn't want to go back no more. I had stopped cussing, because +the widow didn't like it; but now I took to it again because pap hadn't +no objections. It was pretty good times up in the woods there, take it +all around. + +But by and by pap got too handy with his hick'ry, and I couldn't stand +it. I was all over welts. He got to going away so much, too, and +locking me in. Once he locked me in and was gone three days. It was +dreadful lonesome. I judged he had got drownded, and I wasn't ever +going to get out any more. I was scared. I made up my mind I would fix +up some way to leave there. I had tried to get out of that cabin many +a time, but I couldn't find no way. There warn't a window to it big +enough for a dog to get through. I couldn't get up the chimbly; it +was too narrow. The door was thick, solid oak slabs. Pap was pretty +careful not to leave a knife or anything in the cabin when he was away; +I reckon I had hunted the place over as much as a hundred times; well, I +was most all the time at it, because it was about the only way to put in +the time. But this time I found something at last; I found an old rusty +wood-saw without any handle; it was laid in between a rafter and the +clapboards of the roof. I greased it up and went to work. There was an +old horse-blanket nailed against the logs at the far end of the cabin +behind the table, to keep the wind from blowing through the chinks and +putting the candle out. I got under the table and raised the blanket, +and went to work to saw a section of the big bottom log out--big enough +to let me through. Well, it was a good long job, but I was getting +towards the end of it when I heard pap's gun in the woods. I got rid of +the signs of my work, and dropped the blanket and hid my saw, and pretty +soon pap come in. + +Pap warn't in a good humor--so he was his natural self. He said he was +down town, and everything was going wrong. His lawyer said he reckoned +he would win his lawsuit and get the money if they ever got started on +the trial; but then there was ways to put it off a long time, and Judge +Thatcher knowed how to do it. And he said people allowed there'd be +another trial to get me away from him and give me to the widow for my +guardian, and they guessed it would win this time. This shook me up +considerable, because I didn't want to go back to the widow's any more +and be so cramped up and sivilized, as they called it. Then the old man +got to cussing, and cussed everything and everybody he could think of, +and then cussed them all over again to make sure he hadn't skipped any, +and after that he polished off with a kind of a general cuss all round, +including a considerable parcel of people which he didn't know the names +of, and so called them what's-his-name when he got to them, and went +right along with his cussing. + +He said he would like to see the widow get me. He said he would watch +out, and if they tried to come any such game on him he knowed of a place +six or seven mile off to stow me in, where they might hunt till they +dropped and they couldn't find me. That made me pretty uneasy again, +but only for a minute; I reckoned I wouldn't stay on hand till he got +that chance. + +The old man made me go to the skiff and fetch the things he had +got. There was a fifty-pound sack of corn meal, and a side of bacon, +ammunition, and a four-gallon jug of whisky, and an old book and two +newspapers for wadding, besides some tow. I toted up a load, and went +back and set down on the bow of the skiff to rest. I thought it all +over, and I reckoned I would walk off with the gun and some lines, and +take to the woods when I run away. I guessed I wouldn't stay in one +place, but just tramp right across the country, mostly night times, and +hunt and fish to keep alive, and so get so far away that the old man nor +the widow couldn't ever find me any more. I judged I would saw out and +leave that night if pap got drunk enough, and I reckoned he would. I +got so full of it I didn't notice how long I was staying till the old +man hollered and asked me whether I was asleep or drownded. + +I got the things all up to the cabin, and then it was about dark. While +I was cooking supper the old man took a swig or two and got sort of +warmed up, and went to ripping again. He had been drunk over in town, +and laid in the gutter all night, and he was a sight to look at. A body +would a thought he was Adam--he was just all mud. Whenever his liquor +begun to work he most always went for the govment, this time he says: + +"Call this a govment! why, just look at it and see what it's like. +Here's the law a-standing ready to take a man's son away from him--a +man's own son, which he has had all the trouble and all the anxiety +and all the expense of raising. Yes, just as that man has got that +son raised at last, and ready to go to work and begin to do suthin' for +_him_ and give him a rest, the law up and goes for him. And they call +_that_ govment! That ain't all, nuther. The law backs that old Judge +Thatcher up and helps him to keep me out o' my property. Here's what +the law does: The law takes a man worth six thousand dollars and +up'ards, and jams him into an old trap of a cabin like this, and lets +him go round in clothes that ain't fitten for a hog. They call that +govment! A man can't get his rights in a govment like this. Sometimes +I've a mighty notion to just leave the country for good and all. Yes, +and I _told_ 'em so; I told old Thatcher so to his face. Lots of 'em +heard me, and can tell what I said. Says I, for two cents I'd leave the +blamed country and never come a-near it agin. Them's the very words. I +says look at my hat--if you call it a hat--but the lid raises up and the +rest of it goes down till it's below my chin, and then it ain't rightly +a hat at all, but more like my head was shoved up through a jint o' +stove-pipe. Look at it, says I--such a hat for me to wear--one of the +wealthiest men in this town if I could git my rights. + +"Oh, yes, this is a wonderful govment, wonderful. Why, looky here. +There was a free nigger there from Ohio--a mulatter, most as white as +a white man. He had the whitest shirt on you ever see, too, and the +shiniest hat; and there ain't a man in that town that's got as fine +clothes as what he had; and he had a gold watch and chain, and a +silver-headed cane--the awfulest old gray-headed nabob in the State. And +what do you think? They said he was a p'fessor in a college, and could +talk all kinds of languages, and knowed everything. And that ain't the +wust. They said he could _vote_ when he was at home. Well, that let me +out. Thinks I, what is the country a-coming to? It was 'lection day, +and I was just about to go and vote myself if I warn't too drunk to get +there; but when they told me there was a State in this country where +they'd let that nigger vote, I drawed out. I says I'll never vote agin. + Them's the very words I said; they all heard me; and the country may +rot for all me--I'll never vote agin as long as I live. And to see the +cool way of that nigger--why, he wouldn't a give me the road if I hadn't +shoved him out o' the way. I says to the people, why ain't this nigger +put up at auction and sold?--that's what I want to know. And what do you +reckon they said? Why, they said he couldn't be sold till he'd been in +the State six months, and he hadn't been there that long yet. There, +now--that's a specimen. They call that a govment that can't sell a free +nigger till he's been in the State six months. Here's a govment that +calls itself a govment, and lets on to be a govment, and thinks it is a +govment, and yet's got to set stock-still for six whole months before +it can take a hold of a prowling, thieving, infernal, white-shirted free +nigger, and--" + +Pap was agoing on so he never noticed where his old limber legs was +taking him to, so he went head over heels over the tub of salt pork and +barked both shins, and the rest of his speech was all the hottest kind +of language--mostly hove at the nigger and the govment, though he give +the tub some, too, all along, here and there. He hopped around the +cabin considerable, first on one leg and then on the other, holding +first one shin and then the other one, and at last he let out with his +left foot all of a sudden and fetched the tub a rattling kick. But it +warn't good judgment, because that was the boot that had a couple of his +toes leaking out of the front end of it; so now he raised a howl that +fairly made a body's hair raise, and down he went in the dirt, and +rolled there, and held his toes; and the cussing he done then laid over +anything he had ever done previous. He said so his own self afterwards. + He had heard old Sowberry Hagan in his best days, and he said it laid +over him, too; but I reckon that was sort of piling it on, maybe. + +After supper pap took the jug, and said he had enough whisky there +for two drunks and one delirium tremens. That was always his word. I +judged he would be blind drunk in about an hour, and then I would steal +the key, or saw myself out, one or t'other. He drank and drank, and +tumbled down on his blankets by and by; but luck didn't run my way. + He didn't go sound asleep, but was uneasy. He groaned and moaned and +thrashed around this way and that for a long time. At last I got so +sleepy I couldn't keep my eyes open all I could do, and so before I +knowed what I was about I was sound asleep, and the candle burning. + +I don't know how long I was asleep, but all of a sudden there was an +awful scream and I was up. There was pap looking wild, and skipping +around every which way and yelling about snakes. He said they was +crawling up his legs; and then he would give a jump and scream, and say +one had bit him on the cheek--but I couldn't see no snakes. He started +and run round and round the cabin, hollering "Take him off! take him +off! he's biting me on the neck!" I never see a man look so wild in the +eyes. Pretty soon he was all fagged out, and fell down panting; then he +rolled over and over wonderful fast, kicking things every which way, +and striking and grabbing at the air with his hands, and screaming and +saying there was devils a-hold of him. He wore out by and by, and laid +still a while, moaning. Then he laid stiller, and didn't make a sound. + I could hear the owls and the wolves away off in the woods, and it +seemed terrible still. He was laying over by the corner. By and by he +raised up part way and listened, with his head to one side. He says, +very low: + +"Tramp--tramp--tramp; that's the dead; tramp--tramp--tramp; they're coming +after me; but I won't go. Oh, they're here! don't touch me--don't! hands +off--they're cold; let go. Oh, let a poor devil alone!" + +Then he went down on all fours and crawled off, begging them to let him +alone, and he rolled himself up in his blanket and wallowed in under the +old pine table, still a-begging; and then he went to crying. I could +hear him through the blanket. + +By and by he rolled out and jumped up on his feet looking wild, and he +see me and went for me. He chased me round and round the place with a +clasp-knife, calling me the Angel of Death, and saying he would kill me, +and then I couldn't come for him no more. I begged, and told him I +was only Huck; but he laughed _such_ a screechy laugh, and roared and +cussed, and kept on chasing me up. Once when I turned short and +dodged under his arm he made a grab and got me by the jacket between my +shoulders, and I thought I was gone; but I slid out of the jacket quick +as lightning, and saved myself. Pretty soon he was all tired out, and +dropped down with his back against the door, and said he would rest a +minute and then kill me. He put his knife under him, and said he would +sleep and get strong, and then he would see who was who. + +So he dozed off pretty soon. By and by I got the old split-bottom chair +and clumb up as easy as I could, not to make any noise, and got down the +gun. I slipped the ramrod down it to make sure it was loaded, then I +laid it across the turnip barrel, pointing towards pap, and set down +behind it to wait for him to stir. And how slow and still the time did +drag along. + + + + +CHAPTER VII. + +"GIT up! What you 'bout?" + +I opened my eyes and looked around, trying to make out where I was. It +was after sun-up, and I had been sound asleep. Pap was standing over me +looking sour and sick, too. He says: + +"What you doin' with this gun?" + +I judged he didn't know nothing about what he had been doing, so I says: + +"Somebody tried to get in, so I was laying for him." + +"Why didn't you roust me out?" + +"Well, I tried to, but I couldn't; I couldn't budge you." + +"Well, all right. Don't stand there palavering all day, but out with +you and see if there's a fish on the lines for breakfast. I'll be along +in a minute." + +He unlocked the door, and I cleared out up the river-bank. I noticed +some pieces of limbs and such things floating down, and a sprinkling of +bark; so I knowed the river had begun to rise. I reckoned I would have +great times now if I was over at the town. The June rise used to be +always luck for me; because as soon as that rise begins here comes +cordwood floating down, and pieces of log rafts--sometimes a dozen logs +together; so all you have to do is to catch them and sell them to the +wood-yards and the sawmill. + +I went along up the bank with one eye out for pap and t'other one out +for what the rise might fetch along. Well, all at once here comes a +canoe; just a beauty, too, about thirteen or fourteen foot long, riding +high like a duck. I shot head-first off of the bank like a frog, +clothes and all on, and struck out for the canoe. I just expected +there'd be somebody laying down in it, because people often done that +to fool folks, and when a chap had pulled a skiff out most to it they'd +raise up and laugh at him. But it warn't so this time. It was a +drift-canoe sure enough, and I clumb in and paddled her ashore. Thinks +I, the old man will be glad when he sees this--she's worth ten dollars. + But when I got to shore pap wasn't in sight yet, and as I was running +her into a little creek like a gully, all hung over with vines and +willows, I struck another idea: I judged I'd hide her good, and then, +'stead of taking to the woods when I run off, I'd go down the river +about fifty mile and camp in one place for good, and not have such a +rough time tramping on foot. + +It was pretty close to the shanty, and I thought I heard the old man +coming all the time; but I got her hid; and then I out and looked around +a bunch of willows, and there was the old man down the path a piece just +drawing a bead on a bird with his gun. So he hadn't seen anything. + +When he got along I was hard at it taking up a "trot" line. He abused +me a little for being so slow; but I told him I fell in the river, and +that was what made me so long. I knowed he would see I was wet, and +then he would be asking questions. We got five catfish off the lines +and went home. + +While we laid off after breakfast to sleep up, both of us being about +wore out, I got to thinking that if I could fix up some way to keep pap +and the widow from trying to follow me, it would be a certainer thing +than trusting to luck to get far enough off before they missed me; you +see, all kinds of things might happen. Well, I didn't see no way for a +while, but by and by pap raised up a minute to drink another barrel of +water, and he says: + +"Another time a man comes a-prowling round here you roust me out, you +hear? That man warn't here for no good. I'd a shot him. Next time you +roust me out, you hear?" + +Then he dropped down and went to sleep again; but what he had been +saying give me the very idea I wanted. I says to myself, I can fix it +now so nobody won't think of following me. + +About twelve o'clock we turned out and went along up the bank. The +river was coming up pretty fast, and lots of driftwood going by on the +rise. By and by along comes part of a log raft--nine logs fast together. + We went out with the skiff and towed it ashore. Then we had dinner. +Anybody but pap would a waited and seen the day through, so as to catch +more stuff; but that warn't pap's style. Nine logs was enough for one +time; he must shove right over to town and sell. So he locked me in and +took the skiff, and started off towing the raft about half-past three. + I judged he wouldn't come back that night. I waited till I reckoned he +had got a good start; then I out with my saw, and went to work on that +log again. Before he was t'other side of the river I was out of the +hole; him and his raft was just a speck on the water away off yonder. + +I took the sack of corn meal and took it to where the canoe was hid, and +shoved the vines and branches apart and put it in; then I done the same +with the side of bacon; then the whisky-jug. I took all the coffee and +sugar there was, and all the ammunition; I took the wadding; I took the +bucket and gourd; I took a dipper and a tin cup, and my old saw and two +blankets, and the skillet and the coffee-pot. I took fish-lines and +matches and other things--everything that was worth a cent. I cleaned +out the place. I wanted an axe, but there wasn't any, only the one out +at the woodpile, and I knowed why I was going to leave that. I fetched +out the gun, and now I was done. + +I had wore the ground a good deal crawling out of the hole and dragging +out so many things. So I fixed that as good as I could from the outside +by scattering dust on the place, which covered up the smoothness and the +sawdust. Then I fixed the piece of log back into its place, and put two +rocks under it and one against it to hold it there, for it was bent up +at that place and didn't quite touch ground. If you stood four or five +foot away and didn't know it was sawed, you wouldn't never notice +it; and besides, this was the back of the cabin, and it warn't likely +anybody would go fooling around there. + +It was all grass clear to the canoe, so I hadn't left a track. I +followed around to see. I stood on the bank and looked out over the +river. All safe. So I took the gun and went up a piece into the woods, +and was hunting around for some birds when I see a wild pig; hogs soon +went wild in them bottoms after they had got away from the prairie +farms. I shot this fellow and took him into camp. + +I took the axe and smashed in the door. I beat it and hacked it +considerable a-doing it. I fetched the pig in, and took him back nearly +to the table and hacked into his throat with the axe, and laid him down +on the ground to bleed; I say ground because it was ground--hard packed, +and no boards. Well, next I took an old sack and put a lot of big rocks +in it--all I could drag--and I started it from the pig, and dragged it to +the door and through the woods down to the river and dumped it in, and +down it sunk, out of sight. You could easy see that something had been +dragged over the ground. I did wish Tom Sawyer was there; I knowed he +would take an interest in this kind of business, and throw in the fancy +touches. Nobody could spread himself like Tom Sawyer in such a thing as +that. + +Well, last I pulled out some of my hair, and blooded the axe good, and +stuck it on the back side, and slung the axe in the corner. Then I +took up the pig and held him to my breast with my jacket (so he couldn't +drip) till I got a good piece below the house and then dumped him into +the river. Now I thought of something else. So I went and got the bag +of meal and my old saw out of the canoe, and fetched them to the house. + I took the bag to where it used to stand, and ripped a hole in the +bottom of it with the saw, for there warn't no knives and forks on the +place--pap done everything with his clasp-knife about the cooking. Then +I carried the sack about a hundred yards across the grass and through +the willows east of the house, to a shallow lake that was five mile wide +and full of rushes--and ducks too, you might say, in the season. There +was a slough or a creek leading out of it on the other side that went +miles away, I don't know where, but it didn't go to the river. The meal +sifted out and made a little track all the way to the lake. I dropped +pap's whetstone there too, so as to look like it had been done by +accident. Then I tied up the rip in the meal sack with a string, so it +wouldn't leak no more, and took it and my saw to the canoe again. + +It was about dark now; so I dropped the canoe down the river under some +willows that hung over the bank, and waited for the moon to rise. I +made fast to a willow; then I took a bite to eat, and by and by laid +down in the canoe to smoke a pipe and lay out a plan. I says to myself, +they'll follow the track of that sackful of rocks to the shore and then +drag the river for me. And they'll follow that meal track to the lake +and go browsing down the creek that leads out of it to find the robbers +that killed me and took the things. They won't ever hunt the river for +anything but my dead carcass. They'll soon get tired of that, and won't +bother no more about me. All right; I can stop anywhere I want to. +Jackson's Island is good enough for me; I know that island pretty well, +and nobody ever comes there. And then I can paddle over to town nights, +and slink around and pick up things I want. Jackson's Island's the +place. + +I was pretty tired, and the first thing I knowed I was asleep. When +I woke up I didn't know where I was for a minute. I set up and looked +around, a little scared. Then I remembered. The river looked miles and +miles across. The moon was so bright I could a counted the drift logs +that went a-slipping along, black and still, hundreds of yards out from +shore. Everything was dead quiet, and it looked late, and _smelt_ late. +You know what I mean--I don't know the words to put it in. + +I took a good gap and a stretch, and was just going to unhitch and start +when I heard a sound away over the water. I listened. Pretty soon I +made it out. It was that dull kind of a regular sound that comes from +oars working in rowlocks when it's a still night. I peeped out through +the willow branches, and there it was--a skiff, away across the water. + I couldn't tell how many was in it. It kept a-coming, and when it was +abreast of me I see there warn't but one man in it. Think's I, maybe +it's pap, though I warn't expecting him. He dropped below me with the +current, and by and by he came a-swinging up shore in the easy water, +and he went by so close I could a reached out the gun and touched him. + Well, it _was_ pap, sure enough--and sober, too, by the way he laid his +oars. + +I didn't lose no time. The next minute I was a-spinning down stream +soft but quick in the shade of the bank. I made two mile and a half, +and then struck out a quarter of a mile or more towards the middle of +the river, because pretty soon I would be passing the ferry landing, and +people might see me and hail me. I got out amongst the driftwood, and +then laid down in the bottom of the canoe and let her float. + + I laid there, and had a good rest and a smoke out of my pipe, looking +away into the sky; not a cloud in it. The sky looks ever so deep when +you lay down on your back in the moonshine; I never knowed it before. + And how far a body can hear on the water such nights! I heard people +talking at the ferry landing. I heard what they said, too--every word +of it. One man said it was getting towards the long days and the short +nights now. T'other one said _this_ warn't one of the short ones, he +reckoned--and then they laughed, and he said it over again, and they +laughed again; then they waked up another fellow and told him, and +laughed, but he didn't laugh; he ripped out something brisk, and said +let him alone. The first fellow said he 'lowed to tell it to his +old woman--she would think it was pretty good; but he said that warn't +nothing to some things he had said in his time. I heard one man say it +was nearly three o'clock, and he hoped daylight wouldn't wait more than +about a week longer. After that the talk got further and further away, +and I couldn't make out the words any more; but I could hear the mumble, +and now and then a laugh, too, but it seemed a long ways off. + +I was away below the ferry now. I rose up, and there was Jackson's +Island, about two mile and a half down stream, heavy timbered and +standing up out of the middle of the river, big and dark and solid, like +a steamboat without any lights. There warn't any signs of the bar at +the head--it was all under water now. + +It didn't take me long to get there. I shot past the head at a ripping +rate, the current was so swift, and then I got into the dead water and +landed on the side towards the Illinois shore. I run the canoe into +a deep dent in the bank that I knowed about; I had to part the willow +branches to get in; and when I made fast nobody could a seen the canoe +from the outside. + +I went up and set down on a log at the head of the island, and looked +out on the big river and the black driftwood and away over to the town, +three mile away, where there was three or four lights twinkling. A +monstrous big lumber-raft was about a mile up stream, coming along down, +with a lantern in the middle of it. I watched it come creeping down, +and when it was most abreast of where I stood I heard a man say, "Stern +oars, there! heave her head to stabboard!" I heard that just as plain +as if the man was by my side. + +There was a little gray in the sky now; so I stepped into the woods, and +laid down for a nap before breakfast. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII. + +THE sun was up so high when I waked that I judged it was after eight +o'clock. I laid there in the grass and the cool shade thinking about +things, and feeling rested and ruther comfortable and satisfied. I +could see the sun out at one or two holes, but mostly it was big trees +all about, and gloomy in there amongst them. There was freckled places +on the ground where the light sifted down through the leaves, and the +freckled places swapped about a little, showing there was a little +breeze up there. A couple of squirrels set on a limb and jabbered at me +very friendly. + +I was powerful lazy and comfortable--didn't want to get up and cook +breakfast. Well, I was dozing off again when I thinks I hears a deep +sound of "boom!" away up the river. I rouses up, and rests on my elbow +and listens; pretty soon I hears it again. I hopped up, and went and +looked out at a hole in the leaves, and I see a bunch of smoke laying +on the water a long ways up--about abreast the ferry. And there was the +ferryboat full of people floating along down. I knowed what was the +matter now. "Boom!" I see the white smoke squirt out of the ferryboat's +side. You see, they was firing cannon over the water, trying to make my +carcass come to the top. + +I was pretty hungry, but it warn't going to do for me to start a fire, +because they might see the smoke. So I set there and watched the +cannon-smoke and listened to the boom. The river was a mile wide there, +and it always looks pretty on a summer morning--so I was having a good +enough time seeing them hunt for my remainders if I only had a bite to +eat. Well, then I happened to think how they always put quicksilver in +loaves of bread and float them off, because they always go right to the +drownded carcass and stop there. So, says I, I'll keep a lookout, and +if any of them's floating around after me I'll give them a show. I +changed to the Illinois edge of the island to see what luck I could +have, and I warn't disappointed. A big double loaf come along, and I +most got it with a long stick, but my foot slipped and she floated out +further. Of course I was where the current set in the closest to the +shore--I knowed enough for that. But by and by along comes another one, +and this time I won. I took out the plug and shook out the little dab +of quicksilver, and set my teeth in. It was "baker's bread"--what the +quality eat; none of your low-down corn-pone. + +I got a good place amongst the leaves, and set there on a log, munching +the bread and watching the ferry-boat, and very well satisfied. And +then something struck me. I says, now I reckon the widow or the parson +or somebody prayed that this bread would find me, and here it has gone +and done it. So there ain't no doubt but there is something in that +thing--that is, there's something in it when a body like the widow or the +parson prays, but it don't work for me, and I reckon it don't work for +only just the right kind. + +I lit a pipe and had a good long smoke, and went on watching. The +ferryboat was floating with the current, and I allowed I'd have a chance +to see who was aboard when she come along, because she would come in +close, where the bread did. When she'd got pretty well along down +towards me, I put out my pipe and went to where I fished out the bread, +and laid down behind a log on the bank in a little open place. Where +the log forked I could peep through. + +By and by she come along, and she drifted in so close that they could +a run out a plank and walked ashore. Most everybody was on the boat. + Pap, and Judge Thatcher, and Bessie Thatcher, and Jo Harper, and Tom +Sawyer, and his old Aunt Polly, and Sid and Mary, and plenty more. + Everybody was talking about the murder, but the captain broke in and +says: + +"Look sharp, now; the current sets in the closest here, and maybe he's +washed ashore and got tangled amongst the brush at the water's edge. I +hope so, anyway." + +I didn't hope so. They all crowded up and leaned over the rails, nearly +in my face, and kept still, watching with all their might. I could see +them first-rate, but they couldn't see me. Then the captain sung out: + +"Stand away!" and the cannon let off such a blast right before me that +it made me deef with the noise and pretty near blind with the smoke, and +I judged I was gone. If they'd a had some bullets in, I reckon they'd +a got the corpse they was after. Well, I see I warn't hurt, thanks to +goodness. The boat floated on and went out of sight around the shoulder +of the island. I could hear the booming now and then, further and +further off, and by and by, after an hour, I didn't hear it no more. + The island was three mile long. I judged they had got to the foot, and +was giving it up. But they didn't yet a while. They turned around +the foot of the island and started up the channel on the Missouri side, +under steam, and booming once in a while as they went. I crossed over +to that side and watched them. When they got abreast the head of the +island they quit shooting and dropped over to the Missouri shore and +went home to the town. + +I knowed I was all right now. Nobody else would come a-hunting after +me. I got my traps out of the canoe and made me a nice camp in the thick +woods. I made a kind of a tent out of my blankets to put my things +under so the rain couldn't get at them. I catched a catfish and haggled +him open with my saw, and towards sundown I started my camp fire and had +supper. Then I set out a line to catch some fish for breakfast. + +When it was dark I set by my camp fire smoking, and feeling pretty well +satisfied; but by and by it got sort of lonesome, and so I went and set +on the bank and listened to the current swashing along, and counted the +stars and drift logs and rafts that come down, and then went to bed; +there ain't no better way to put in time when you are lonesome; you +can't stay so, you soon get over it. + +And so for three days and nights. No difference--just the same thing. +But the next day I went exploring around down through the island. I was +boss of it; it all belonged to me, so to say, and I wanted to know +all about it; but mainly I wanted to put in the time. I found plenty +strawberries, ripe and prime; and green summer grapes, and green +razberries; and the green blackberries was just beginning to show. They +would all come handy by and by, I judged. + +Well, I went fooling along in the deep woods till I judged I warn't +far from the foot of the island. I had my gun along, but I hadn't shot +nothing; it was for protection; thought I would kill some game nigh +home. About this time I mighty near stepped on a good-sized snake, +and it went sliding off through the grass and flowers, and I after +it, trying to get a shot at it. I clipped along, and all of a sudden I +bounded right on to the ashes of a camp fire that was still smoking. + +My heart jumped up amongst my lungs. I never waited for to look +further, but uncocked my gun and went sneaking back on my tiptoes as +fast as ever I could. Every now and then I stopped a second amongst the +thick leaves and listened, but my breath come so hard I couldn't hear +nothing else. I slunk along another piece further, then listened again; +and so on, and so on. If I see a stump, I took it for a man; if I trod +on a stick and broke it, it made me feel like a person had cut one of my +breaths in two and I only got half, and the short half, too. + +When I got to camp I warn't feeling very brash, there warn't much sand +in my craw; but I says, this ain't no time to be fooling around. So I +got all my traps into my canoe again so as to have them out of sight, +and I put out the fire and scattered the ashes around to look like an +old last year's camp, and then clumb a tree. + +I reckon I was up in the tree two hours; but I didn't see nothing, +I didn't hear nothing--I only _thought_ I heard and seen as much as a +thousand things. Well, I couldn't stay up there forever; so at last I +got down, but I kept in the thick woods and on the lookout all the +time. All I could get to eat was berries and what was left over from +breakfast. + +By the time it was night I was pretty hungry. So when it was good +and dark I slid out from shore before moonrise and paddled over to the +Illinois bank--about a quarter of a mile. I went out in the woods and +cooked a supper, and I had about made up my mind I would stay there +all night when I hear a _plunkety-plunk, plunkety-plunk_, and says +to myself, horses coming; and next I hear people's voices. I got +everything into the canoe as quick as I could, and then went creeping +through the woods to see what I could find out. I hadn't got far when I +hear a man say: + +"We better camp here if we can find a good place; the horses is about +beat out. Let's look around." + +I didn't wait, but shoved out and paddled away easy. I tied up in the +old place, and reckoned I would sleep in the canoe. + +I didn't sleep much. I couldn't, somehow, for thinking. And every time +I waked up I thought somebody had me by the neck. So the sleep didn't +do me no good. By and by I says to myself, I can't live this way; I'm +a-going to find out who it is that's here on the island with me; I'll +find it out or bust. Well, I felt better right off. + +So I took my paddle and slid out from shore just a step or two, and +then let the canoe drop along down amongst the shadows. The moon was +shining, and outside of the shadows it made it most as light as day. + I poked along well on to an hour, everything still as rocks and sound +asleep. Well, by this time I was most down to the foot of the island. A +little ripply, cool breeze begun to blow, and that was as good as saying +the night was about done. I give her a turn with the paddle and brung +her nose to shore; then I got my gun and slipped out and into the edge +of the woods. I sat down there on a log, and looked out through the +leaves. I see the moon go off watch, and the darkness begin to blanket +the river. But in a little while I see a pale streak over the treetops, +and knowed the day was coming. So I took my gun and slipped off towards +where I had run across that camp fire, stopping every minute or two +to listen. But I hadn't no luck somehow; I couldn't seem to find the +place. But by and by, sure enough, I catched a glimpse of fire away +through the trees. I went for it, cautious and slow. By and by I was +close enough to have a look, and there laid a man on the ground. It +most give me the fan-tods. He had a blanket around his head, and his +head was nearly in the fire. I set there behind a clump of bushes, in +about six foot of him, and kept my eyes on him steady. It was getting +gray daylight now. Pretty soon he gapped and stretched himself and hove +off the blanket, and it was Miss Watson's Jim! I bet I was glad to see +him. I says: + +"Hello, Jim!" and skipped out. + +He bounced up and stared at me wild. Then he drops down on his knees, +and puts his hands together and says: + +"Doan' hurt me--don't! I hain't ever done no harm to a ghos'. I alwuz +liked dead people, en done all I could for 'em. You go en git in de +river agin, whah you b'longs, en doan' do nuffn to Ole Jim, 'at 'uz +awluz yo' fren'." + +Well, I warn't long making him understand I warn't dead. I was ever so +glad to see Jim. I warn't lonesome now. I told him I warn't afraid of +_him_ telling the people where I was. I talked along, but he only set +there and looked at me; never said nothing. Then I says: + +"It's good daylight. Le's get breakfast. Make up your camp fire good." + +"What's de use er makin' up de camp fire to cook strawbries en sich +truck? But you got a gun, hain't you? Den we kin git sumfn better den +strawbries." + +"Strawberries and such truck," I says. "Is that what you live on?" + +"I couldn' git nuffn else," he says. + +"Why, how long you been on the island, Jim?" + +"I come heah de night arter you's killed." + +"What, all that time?" + +"Yes--indeedy." + +"And ain't you had nothing but that kind of rubbage to eat?" + +"No, sah--nuffn else." + +"Well, you must be most starved, ain't you?" + +"I reck'n I could eat a hoss. I think I could. How long you ben on de +islan'?" + +"Since the night I got killed." + +"No! W'y, what has you lived on? But you got a gun. Oh, yes, you got +a gun. Dat's good. Now you kill sumfn en I'll make up de fire." + +So we went over to where the canoe was, and while he built a fire in +a grassy open place amongst the trees, I fetched meal and bacon and +coffee, and coffee-pot and frying-pan, and sugar and tin cups, and the +nigger was set back considerable, because he reckoned it was all done +with witchcraft. I catched a good big catfish, too, and Jim cleaned him +with his knife, and fried him. + +When breakfast was ready we lolled on the grass and eat it smoking hot. +Jim laid it in with all his might, for he was most about starved. Then +when we had got pretty well stuffed, we laid off and lazied. By and by +Jim says: + +"But looky here, Huck, who wuz it dat 'uz killed in dat shanty ef it +warn't you?" + +Then I told him the whole thing, and he said it was smart. He said Tom +Sawyer couldn't get up no better plan than what I had. Then I says: + +"How do you come to be here, Jim, and how'd you get here?" + +He looked pretty uneasy, and didn't say nothing for a minute. Then he +says: + +"Maybe I better not tell." + +"Why, Jim?" + +"Well, dey's reasons. But you wouldn' tell on me ef I uz to tell you, +would you, Huck?" + +"Blamed if I would, Jim." + +"Well, I b'lieve you, Huck. I--_I run off_." + +"Jim!" + +"But mind, you said you wouldn' tell--you know you said you wouldn' tell, +Huck." + +"Well, I did. I said I wouldn't, and I'll stick to it. Honest _injun_, +I will. People would call me a low-down Abolitionist and despise me for +keeping mum--but that don't make no difference. I ain't a-going to tell, +and I ain't a-going back there, anyways. So, now, le's know all about +it." + +"Well, you see, it 'uz dis way. Ole missus--dat's Miss Watson--she pecks +on me all de time, en treats me pooty rough, but she awluz said she +wouldn' sell me down to Orleans. But I noticed dey wuz a nigger trader +roun' de place considable lately, en I begin to git oneasy. Well, one +night I creeps to de do' pooty late, en de do' warn't quite shet, en I +hear old missus tell de widder she gwyne to sell me down to Orleans, but +she didn' want to, but she could git eight hund'd dollars for me, en it +'uz sich a big stack o' money she couldn' resis'. De widder she try to +git her to say she wouldn' do it, but I never waited to hear de res'. I +lit out mighty quick, I tell you. + +"I tuck out en shin down de hill, en 'spec to steal a skift 'long de +sho' som'ers 'bove de town, but dey wuz people a-stirring yit, so I hid +in de ole tumble-down cooper-shop on de bank to wait for everybody to +go 'way. Well, I wuz dah all night. Dey wuz somebody roun' all de time. + 'Long 'bout six in de mawnin' skifts begin to go by, en 'bout eight er +nine every skift dat went 'long wuz talkin' 'bout how yo' pap come over +to de town en say you's killed. Dese las' skifts wuz full o' ladies en +genlmen a-goin' over for to see de place. Sometimes dey'd pull up at +de sho' en take a res' b'fo' dey started acrost, so by de talk I got to +know all 'bout de killin'. I 'uz powerful sorry you's killed, Huck, but +I ain't no mo' now. + +"I laid dah under de shavin's all day. I 'uz hungry, but I warn't +afeard; bekase I knowed ole missus en de widder wuz goin' to start to +de camp-meet'n' right arter breakfas' en be gone all day, en dey knows +I goes off wid de cattle 'bout daylight, so dey wouldn' 'spec to see me +roun' de place, en so dey wouldn' miss me tell arter dark in de evenin'. +De yuther servants wouldn' miss me, kase dey'd shin out en take holiday +soon as de ole folks 'uz out'n de way. + +"Well, when it come dark I tuck out up de river road, en went 'bout two +mile er more to whah dey warn't no houses. I'd made up my mine 'bout +what I's agwyne to do. You see, ef I kep' on tryin' to git away afoot, +de dogs 'ud track me; ef I stole a skift to cross over, dey'd miss dat +skift, you see, en dey'd know 'bout whah I'd lan' on de yuther side, en +whah to pick up my track. So I says, a raff is what I's arter; it doan' +_make_ no track. + +"I see a light a-comin' roun' de p'int bymeby, so I wade' in en shove' +a log ahead o' me en swum more'n half way acrost de river, en got in +'mongst de drift-wood, en kep' my head down low, en kinder swum agin de +current tell de raff come along. Den I swum to de stern uv it en tuck +a-holt. It clouded up en 'uz pooty dark for a little while. So I clumb +up en laid down on de planks. De men 'uz all 'way yonder in de middle, +whah de lantern wuz. De river wuz a-risin', en dey wuz a good current; +so I reck'n'd 'at by fo' in de mawnin' I'd be twenty-five mile down de +river, en den I'd slip in jis b'fo' daylight en swim asho', en take to +de woods on de Illinois side. + +"But I didn' have no luck. When we 'uz mos' down to de head er de +islan' a man begin to come aft wid de lantern, I see it warn't no use +fer to wait, so I slid overboard en struck out fer de islan'. Well, I +had a notion I could lan' mos' anywhers, but I couldn't--bank too bluff. + I 'uz mos' to de foot er de islan' b'fo' I found' a good place. I went +into de woods en jedged I wouldn' fool wid raffs no mo', long as dey +move de lantern roun' so. I had my pipe en a plug er dog-leg, en some +matches in my cap, en dey warn't wet, so I 'uz all right." + +"And so you ain't had no meat nor bread to eat all this time? Why +didn't you get mud-turkles?" + +"How you gwyne to git 'm? You can't slip up on um en grab um; en how's +a body gwyne to hit um wid a rock? How could a body do it in de night? + En I warn't gwyne to show mysef on de bank in de daytime." + +"Well, that's so. You've had to keep in the woods all the time, of +course. Did you hear 'em shooting the cannon?" + +"Oh, yes. I knowed dey was arter you. I see um go by heah--watched um +thoo de bushes." + +Some young birds come along, flying a yard or two at a time and +lighting. Jim said it was a sign it was going to rain. He said it was +a sign when young chickens flew that way, and so he reckoned it was the +same way when young birds done it. I was going to catch some of them, +but Jim wouldn't let me. He said it was death. He said his father laid +mighty sick once, and some of them catched a bird, and his old granny +said his father would die, and he did. + +And Jim said you mustn't count the things you are going to cook for +dinner, because that would bring bad luck. The same if you shook the +table-cloth after sundown. And he said if a man owned a beehive +and that man died, the bees must be told about it before sun-up next +morning, or else the bees would all weaken down and quit work and die. + Jim said bees wouldn't sting idiots; but I didn't believe that, because +I had tried them lots of times myself, and they wouldn't sting me. + +I had heard about some of these things before, but not all of them. Jim +knowed all kinds of signs. He said he knowed most everything. I said +it looked to me like all the signs was about bad luck, and so I asked +him if there warn't any good-luck signs. He says: + +"Mighty few--an' _dey_ ain't no use to a body. What you want to know +when good luck's a-comin' for? Want to keep it off?" And he said: "Ef +you's got hairy arms en a hairy breas', it's a sign dat you's agwyne +to be rich. Well, dey's some use in a sign like dat, 'kase it's so fur +ahead. You see, maybe you's got to be po' a long time fust, en so you +might git discourage' en kill yo'sef 'f you didn' know by de sign dat +you gwyne to be rich bymeby." + +"Have you got hairy arms and a hairy breast, Jim?" + +"What's de use to ax dat question? Don't you see I has?" + +"Well, are you rich?" + +"No, but I ben rich wunst, and gwyne to be rich agin. Wunst I had +foteen dollars, but I tuck to specalat'n', en got busted out." + +"What did you speculate in, Jim?" + +"Well, fust I tackled stock." + +"What kind of stock?" + +"Why, live stock--cattle, you know. I put ten dollars in a cow. But +I ain' gwyne to resk no mo' money in stock. De cow up 'n' died on my +han's." + +"So you lost the ten dollars." + +"No, I didn't lose it all. I on'y los' 'bout nine of it. I sole de +hide en taller for a dollar en ten cents." + +"You had five dollars and ten cents left. Did you speculate any more?" + +"Yes. You know that one-laigged nigger dat b'longs to old Misto +Bradish? Well, he sot up a bank, en say anybody dat put in a dollar +would git fo' dollars mo' at de en' er de year. Well, all de niggers +went in, but dey didn't have much. I wuz de on'y one dat had much. So +I stuck out for mo' dan fo' dollars, en I said 'f I didn' git it I'd +start a bank mysef. Well, o' course dat nigger want' to keep me out er +de business, bekase he says dey warn't business 'nough for two banks, so +he say I could put in my five dollars en he pay me thirty-five at de en' +er de year. + +"So I done it. Den I reck'n'd I'd inves' de thirty-five dollars right +off en keep things a-movin'. Dey wuz a nigger name' Bob, dat had +ketched a wood-flat, en his marster didn' know it; en I bought it off'n +him en told him to take de thirty-five dollars when de en' er de +year come; but somebody stole de wood-flat dat night, en nex day de +one-laigged nigger say de bank's busted. So dey didn' none uv us git no +money." + +"What did you do with the ten cents, Jim?" + +"Well, I 'uz gwyne to spen' it, but I had a dream, en de dream tole me +to give it to a nigger name' Balum--Balum's Ass dey call him for short; +he's one er dem chuckleheads, you know. But he's lucky, dey say, en I +see I warn't lucky. De dream say let Balum inves' de ten cents en he'd +make a raise for me. Well, Balum he tuck de money, en when he wuz in +church he hear de preacher say dat whoever give to de po' len' to de +Lord, en boun' to git his money back a hund'd times. So Balum he tuck +en give de ten cents to de po', en laid low to see what wuz gwyne to +come of it." + +"Well, what did come of it, Jim?" + +"Nuffn never come of it. I couldn' manage to k'leck dat money no way; +en Balum he couldn'. I ain' gwyne to len' no mo' money 'dout I see de +security. Boun' to git yo' money back a hund'd times, de preacher says! +Ef I could git de ten _cents_ back, I'd call it squah, en be glad er de +chanst." + +"Well, it's all right anyway, Jim, long as you're going to be rich again +some time or other." + +"Yes; en I's rich now, come to look at it. I owns mysef, en I's wuth +eight hund'd dollars. I wisht I had de money, I wouldn' want no mo'." + + + + +CHAPTER IX. + +I wanted to go and look at a place right about the middle of the island +that I'd found when I was exploring; so we started and soon got to it, +because the island was only three miles long and a quarter of a mile +wide. + +This place was a tolerable long, steep hill or ridge about forty foot +high. We had a rough time getting to the top, the sides was so steep and +the bushes so thick. We tramped and clumb around all over it, and by +and by found a good big cavern in the rock, most up to the top on the +side towards Illinois. The cavern was as big as two or three rooms +bunched together, and Jim could stand up straight in it. It was cool in +there. Jim was for putting our traps in there right away, but I said we +didn't want to be climbing up and down there all the time. + +Jim said if we had the canoe hid in a good place, and had all the traps +in the cavern, we could rush there if anybody was to come to the island, +and they would never find us without dogs. And, besides, he said them +little birds had said it was going to rain, and did I want the things to +get wet? + +So we went back and got the canoe, and paddled up abreast the cavern, +and lugged all the traps up there. Then we hunted up a place close by +to hide the canoe in, amongst the thick willows. We took some fish off +of the lines and set them again, and begun to get ready for dinner. + +The door of the cavern was big enough to roll a hogshead in, and on one +side of the door the floor stuck out a little bit, and was flat and a +good place to build a fire on. So we built it there and cooked dinner. + +We spread the blankets inside for a carpet, and eat our dinner in there. +We put all the other things handy at the back of the cavern. Pretty +soon it darkened up, and begun to thunder and lighten; so the birds was +right about it. Directly it begun to rain, and it rained like all fury, +too, and I never see the wind blow so. It was one of these regular +summer storms. It would get so dark that it looked all blue-black +outside, and lovely; and the rain would thrash along by so thick that +the trees off a little ways looked dim and spider-webby; and here would +come a blast of wind that would bend the trees down and turn up the +pale underside of the leaves; and then a perfect ripper of a gust would +follow along and set the branches to tossing their arms as if they +was just wild; and next, when it was just about the bluest and +blackest--_FST_! it was as bright as glory, and you'd have a little +glimpse of tree-tops a-plunging about away off yonder in the storm, +hundreds of yards further than you could see before; dark as sin again +in a second, and now you'd hear the thunder let go with an awful crash, +and then go rumbling, grumbling, tumbling, down the sky towards the +under side of the world, like rolling empty barrels down stairs--where +it's long stairs and they bounce a good deal, you know. + +"Jim, this is nice," I says. "I wouldn't want to be nowhere else but +here. Pass me along another hunk of fish and some hot corn-bread." + +"Well, you wouldn't a ben here 'f it hadn't a ben for Jim. You'd a ben +down dah in de woods widout any dinner, en gittn' mos' drownded, too; +dat you would, honey. Chickens knows when it's gwyne to rain, en so do +de birds, chile." + +The river went on raising and raising for ten or twelve days, till at +last it was over the banks. The water was three or four foot deep on +the island in the low places and on the Illinois bottom. On that side +it was a good many miles wide, but on the Missouri side it was the same +old distance across--a half a mile--because the Missouri shore was just a +wall of high bluffs. + +Daytimes we paddled all over the island in the canoe, It was mighty cool +and shady in the deep woods, even if the sun was blazing outside. We +went winding in and out amongst the trees, and sometimes the vines hung +so thick we had to back away and go some other way. Well, on every old +broken-down tree you could see rabbits and snakes and such things; and +when the island had been overflowed a day or two they got so tame, on +account of being hungry, that you could paddle right up and put your +hand on them if you wanted to; but not the snakes and turtles--they would +slide off in the water. The ridge our cavern was in was full of them. +We could a had pets enough if we'd wanted them. + +One night we catched a little section of a lumber raft--nice pine planks. +It was twelve foot wide and about fifteen or sixteen foot long, and +the top stood above water six or seven inches--a solid, level floor. We +could see saw-logs go by in the daylight sometimes, but we let them go; +we didn't show ourselves in daylight. + +Another night when we was up at the head of the island, just before +daylight, here comes a frame-house down, on the west side. She was +a two-story, and tilted over considerable. We paddled out and got +aboard--clumb in at an upstairs window. But it was too dark to see yet, +so we made the canoe fast and set in her to wait for daylight. + +The light begun to come before we got to the foot of the island. Then +we looked in at the window. We could make out a bed, and a table, and +two old chairs, and lots of things around about on the floor, and there +was clothes hanging against the wall. There was something laying on the +floor in the far corner that looked like a man. So Jim says: + +"Hello, you!" + +But it didn't budge. So I hollered again, and then Jim says: + +"De man ain't asleep--he's dead. You hold still--I'll go en see." + +He went, and bent down and looked, and says: + +"It's a dead man. Yes, indeedy; naked, too. He's ben shot in de back. +I reck'n he's ben dead two er three days. Come in, Huck, but doan' look +at his face--it's too gashly." + +I didn't look at him at all. Jim throwed some old rags over him, but +he needn't done it; I didn't want to see him. There was heaps of old +greasy cards scattered around over the floor, and old whisky bottles, +and a couple of masks made out of black cloth; and all over the walls +was the ignorantest kind of words and pictures made with charcoal. + There was two old dirty calico dresses, and a sun-bonnet, and some +women's underclothes hanging against the wall, and some men's clothing, +too. We put the lot into the canoe--it might come good. There was a +boy's old speckled straw hat on the floor; I took that, too. And there +was a bottle that had had milk in it, and it had a rag stopper for a +baby to suck. We would a took the bottle, but it was broke. There was +a seedy old chest, and an old hair trunk with the hinges broke. They +stood open, but there warn't nothing left in them that was any account. + The way things was scattered about we reckoned the people left in a +hurry, and warn't fixed so as to carry off most of their stuff. + +We got an old tin lantern, and a butcher-knife without any handle, and +a bran-new Barlow knife worth two bits in any store, and a lot of tallow +candles, and a tin candlestick, and a gourd, and a tin cup, and a ratty +old bedquilt off the bed, and a reticule with needles and pins and +beeswax and buttons and thread and all such truck in it, and a hatchet +and some nails, and a fishline as thick as my little finger with some +monstrous hooks on it, and a roll of buckskin, and a leather dog-collar, +and a horseshoe, and some vials of medicine that didn't have no label +on them; and just as we was leaving I found a tolerable good curry-comb, +and Jim he found a ratty old fiddle-bow, and a wooden leg. The straps +was broke off of it, but, barring that, it was a good enough leg, though +it was too long for me and not long enough for Jim, and we couldn't find +the other one, though we hunted all around. + +And so, take it all around, we made a good haul. When we was ready to +shove off we was a quarter of a mile below the island, and it was pretty +broad day; so I made Jim lay down in the canoe and cover up with the +quilt, because if he set up people could tell he was a nigger a good +ways off. I paddled over to the Illinois shore, and drifted down most +a half a mile doing it. I crept up the dead water under the bank, and +hadn't no accidents and didn't see nobody. We got home all safe. + + + + +CHAPTER X. + +AFTER breakfast I wanted to talk about the dead man and guess out how he +come to be killed, but Jim didn't want to. He said it would fetch bad +luck; and besides, he said, he might come and ha'nt us; he said a man +that warn't buried was more likely to go a-ha'nting around than one +that was planted and comfortable. That sounded pretty reasonable, so +I didn't say no more; but I couldn't keep from studying over it and +wishing I knowed who shot the man, and what they done it for. + +We rummaged the clothes we'd got, and found eight dollars in silver +sewed up in the lining of an old blanket overcoat. Jim said he reckoned +the people in that house stole the coat, because if they'd a knowed the +money was there they wouldn't a left it. I said I reckoned they killed +him, too; but Jim didn't want to talk about that. I says: + +"Now you think it's bad luck; but what did you say when I fetched in the +snake-skin that I found on the top of the ridge day before yesterday? +You said it was the worst bad luck in the world to touch a snake-skin +with my hands. Well, here's your bad luck! We've raked in all this +truck and eight dollars besides. I wish we could have some bad luck +like this every day, Jim." + +"Never you mind, honey, never you mind. Don't you git too peart. It's +a-comin'. Mind I tell you, it's a-comin'." + +It did come, too. It was a Tuesday that we had that talk. Well, after +dinner Friday we was laying around in the grass at the upper end of the +ridge, and got out of tobacco. I went to the cavern to get some, and +found a rattlesnake in there. I killed him, and curled him up on the +foot of Jim's blanket, ever so natural, thinking there'd be some fun +when Jim found him there. Well, by night I forgot all about the snake, +and when Jim flung himself down on the blanket while I struck a light +the snake's mate was there, and bit him. + +He jumped up yelling, and the first thing the light showed was the +varmint curled up and ready for another spring. I laid him out in a +second with a stick, and Jim grabbed pap's whisky-jug and begun to pour +it down. + +He was barefooted, and the snake bit him right on the heel. That all +comes of my being such a fool as to not remember that wherever you leave +a dead snake its mate always comes there and curls around it. Jim told +me to chop off the snake's head and throw it away, and then skin the +body and roast a piece of it. I done it, and he eat it and said it +would help cure him. He made me take off the rattles and tie them around +his wrist, too. He said that that would help. Then I slid out quiet +and throwed the snakes clear away amongst the bushes; for I warn't going +to let Jim find out it was all my fault, not if I could help it. + +Jim sucked and sucked at the jug, and now and then he got out of his +head and pitched around and yelled; but every time he come to himself he +went to sucking at the jug again. His foot swelled up pretty big, and +so did his leg; but by and by the drunk begun to come, and so I judged +he was all right; but I'd druther been bit with a snake than pap's +whisky. + +Jim was laid up for four days and nights. Then the swelling was all +gone and he was around again. I made up my mind I wouldn't ever take +a-holt of a snake-skin again with my hands, now that I see what had come +of it. Jim said he reckoned I would believe him next time. And he said +that handling a snake-skin was such awful bad luck that maybe we hadn't +got to the end of it yet. He said he druther see the new moon over his +left shoulder as much as a thousand times than take up a snake-skin +in his hand. Well, I was getting to feel that way myself, though I've +always reckoned that looking at the new moon over your left shoulder is +one of the carelessest and foolishest things a body can do. Old Hank +Bunker done it once, and bragged about it; and in less than two years he +got drunk and fell off of the shot-tower, and spread himself out so +that he was just a kind of a layer, as you may say; and they slid him +edgeways between two barn doors for a coffin, and buried him so, so +they say, but I didn't see it. Pap told me. But anyway it all come of +looking at the moon that way, like a fool. + +Well, the days went along, and the river went down between its banks +again; and about the first thing we done was to bait one of the big +hooks with a skinned rabbit and set it and catch a catfish that was +as big as a man, being six foot two inches long, and weighed over two +hundred pounds. We couldn't handle him, of course; he would a flung us +into Illinois. We just set there and watched him rip and tear around +till he drownded. We found a brass button in his stomach and a round +ball, and lots of rubbage. We split the ball open with the hatchet, +and there was a spool in it. Jim said he'd had it there a long time, to +coat it over so and make a ball of it. It was as big a fish as was ever +catched in the Mississippi, I reckon. Jim said he hadn't ever seen +a bigger one. He would a been worth a good deal over at the village. + They peddle out such a fish as that by the pound in the market-house +there; everybody buys some of him; his meat's as white as snow and makes +a good fry. + +Next morning I said it was getting slow and dull, and I wanted to get a +stirring up some way. I said I reckoned I would slip over the river and +find out what was going on. Jim liked that notion; but he said I +must go in the dark and look sharp. Then he studied it over and said, +couldn't I put on some of them old things and dress up like a girl? + That was a good notion, too. So we shortened up one of the calico +gowns, and I turned up my trouser-legs to my knees and got into it. Jim +hitched it behind with the hooks, and it was a fair fit. I put on the +sun-bonnet and tied it under my chin, and then for a body to look in +and see my face was like looking down a joint of stove-pipe. Jim said +nobody would know me, even in the daytime, hardly. I practiced around +all day to get the hang of the things, and by and by I could do pretty +well in them, only Jim said I didn't walk like a girl; and he said +I must quit pulling up my gown to get at my britches-pocket. I took +notice, and done better. + +I started up the Illinois shore in the canoe just after dark. + +I started across to the town from a little below the ferry-landing, and +the drift of the current fetched me in at the bottom of the town. I +tied up and started along the bank. There was a light burning in a +little shanty that hadn't been lived in for a long time, and I wondered +who had took up quarters there. I slipped up and peeped in at the +window. There was a woman about forty year old in there knitting by +a candle that was on a pine table. I didn't know her face; she was a +stranger, for you couldn't start a face in that town that I didn't know. + Now this was lucky, because I was weakening; I was getting afraid I had +come; people might know my voice and find me out. But if this woman had +been in such a little town two days she could tell me all I wanted to +know; so I knocked at the door, and made up my mind I wouldn't forget I +was a girl. + + + + +CHAPTER XI. + +"COME in," says the woman, and I did. She says: "Take a cheer." + +I done it. She looked me all over with her little shiny eyes, and says: + +"What might your name be?" + +"Sarah Williams." + +"Where 'bouts do you live? In this neighborhood?' + +"No'm. In Hookerville, seven mile below. I've walked all the way and +I'm all tired out." + +"Hungry, too, I reckon. I'll find you something." + +"No'm, I ain't hungry. I was so hungry I had to stop two miles below +here at a farm; so I ain't hungry no more. It's what makes me so late. +My mother's down sick, and out of money and everything, and I come to +tell my uncle Abner Moore. He lives at the upper end of the town, she +says. I hain't ever been here before. Do you know him?" + +"No; but I don't know everybody yet. I haven't lived here quite two +weeks. It's a considerable ways to the upper end of the town. You +better stay here all night. Take off your bonnet." + +"No," I says; "I'll rest a while, I reckon, and go on. I ain't afeared +of the dark." + +She said she wouldn't let me go by myself, but her husband would be in +by and by, maybe in a hour and a half, and she'd send him along with me. +Then she got to talking about her husband, and about her relations up +the river, and her relations down the river, and about how much better +off they used to was, and how they didn't know but they'd made a mistake +coming to our town, instead of letting well alone--and so on and so on, +till I was afeard I had made a mistake coming to her to find out what +was going on in the town; but by and by she dropped on to pap and the +murder, and then I was pretty willing to let her clatter right along. + She told about me and Tom Sawyer finding the six thousand dollars (only +she got it ten) and all about pap and what a hard lot he was, and what +a hard lot I was, and at last she got down to where I was murdered. I +says: + +"Who done it? We've heard considerable about these goings on down in +Hookerville, but we don't know who 'twas that killed Huck Finn." + +"Well, I reckon there's a right smart chance of people _here_ that'd +like to know who killed him. Some think old Finn done it himself." + +"No--is that so?" + +"Most everybody thought it at first. He'll never know how nigh he come +to getting lynched. But before night they changed around and judged it +was done by a runaway nigger named Jim." + +"Why _he_--" + +I stopped. I reckoned I better keep still. She run on, and never +noticed I had put in at all: + +"The nigger run off the very night Huck Finn was killed. So there's a +reward out for him--three hundred dollars. And there's a reward out for +old Finn, too--two hundred dollars. You see, he come to town the +morning after the murder, and told about it, and was out with 'em on the +ferryboat hunt, and right away after he up and left. Before night they +wanted to lynch him, but he was gone, you see. Well, next day they +found out the nigger was gone; they found out he hadn't ben seen sence +ten o'clock the night the murder was done. So then they put it on him, +you see; and while they was full of it, next day, back comes old Finn, +and went boo-hooing to Judge Thatcher to get money to hunt for the +nigger all over Illinois with. The judge gave him some, and that evening +he got drunk, and was around till after midnight with a couple of mighty +hard-looking strangers, and then went off with them. Well, he hain't +come back sence, and they ain't looking for him back till this thing +blows over a little, for people thinks now that he killed his boy and +fixed things so folks would think robbers done it, and then he'd get +Huck's money without having to bother a long time with a lawsuit. + People do say he warn't any too good to do it. Oh, he's sly, I reckon. + If he don't come back for a year he'll be all right. You can't prove +anything on him, you know; everything will be quieted down then, and +he'll walk in Huck's money as easy as nothing." + +"Yes, I reckon so, 'm. I don't see nothing in the way of it. Has +everybody quit thinking the nigger done it?" + +"Oh, no, not everybody. A good many thinks he done it. But they'll get +the nigger pretty soon now, and maybe they can scare it out of him." + +"Why, are they after him yet?" + +"Well, you're innocent, ain't you! Does three hundred dollars lay +around every day for people to pick up? Some folks think the nigger +ain't far from here. I'm one of them--but I hain't talked it around. A +few days ago I was talking with an old couple that lives next door in +the log shanty, and they happened to say hardly anybody ever goes to +that island over yonder that they call Jackson's Island. Don't anybody +live there? says I. No, nobody, says they. I didn't say any more, but +I done some thinking. I was pretty near certain I'd seen smoke over +there, about the head of the island, a day or two before that, so I says +to myself, like as not that nigger's hiding over there; anyway, says +I, it's worth the trouble to give the place a hunt. I hain't seen any +smoke sence, so I reckon maybe he's gone, if it was him; but husband's +going over to see--him and another man. He was gone up the river; but he +got back to-day, and I told him as soon as he got here two hours ago." + +I had got so uneasy I couldn't set still. I had to do something with my +hands; so I took up a needle off of the table and went to threading +it. My hands shook, and I was making a bad job of it. When the woman +stopped talking I looked up, and she was looking at me pretty curious +and smiling a little. I put down the needle and thread, and let on to +be interested--and I was, too--and says: + +"Three hundred dollars is a power of money. I wish my mother could get +it. Is your husband going over there to-night?" + +"Oh, yes. He went up-town with the man I was telling you of, to get a +boat and see if they could borrow another gun. They'll go over after +midnight." + +"Couldn't they see better if they was to wait till daytime?" + +"Yes. And couldn't the nigger see better, too? After midnight he'll +likely be asleep, and they can slip around through the woods and hunt up +his camp fire all the better for the dark, if he's got one." + +"I didn't think of that." + +The woman kept looking at me pretty curious, and I didn't feel a bit +comfortable. Pretty soon she says, + +"What did you say your name was, honey?" + +"M--Mary Williams." + +Somehow it didn't seem to me that I said it was Mary before, so I didn't +look up--seemed to me I said it was Sarah; so I felt sort of cornered, +and was afeared maybe I was looking it, too. I wished the woman would +say something more; the longer she set still the uneasier I was. But +now she says: + +"Honey, I thought you said it was Sarah when you first come in?" + +"Oh, yes'm, I did. Sarah Mary Williams. Sarah's my first name. Some +calls me Sarah, some calls me Mary." + +"Oh, that's the way of it?" + +"Yes'm." + +I was feeling better then, but I wished I was out of there, anyway. I +couldn't look up yet. + +Well, the woman fell to talking about how hard times was, and how poor +they had to live, and how the rats was as free as if they owned the +place, and so forth and so on, and then I got easy again. She was right +about the rats. You'd see one stick his nose out of a hole in the corner +every little while. She said she had to have things handy to throw at +them when she was alone, or they wouldn't give her no peace. She showed +me a bar of lead twisted up into a knot, and said she was a good shot +with it generly, but she'd wrenched her arm a day or two ago, and didn't +know whether she could throw true now. But she watched for a chance, +and directly banged away at a rat; but she missed him wide, and said +"Ouch!" it hurt her arm so. Then she told me to try for the next one. + I wanted to be getting away before the old man got back, but of course +I didn't let on. I got the thing, and the first rat that showed his +nose I let drive, and if he'd a stayed where he was he'd a been a +tolerable sick rat. She said that was first-rate, and she reckoned I +would hive the next one. She went and got the lump of lead and fetched +it back, and brought along a hank of yarn which she wanted me to help +her with. I held up my two hands and she put the hank over them, and +went on talking about her and her husband's matters. But she broke off +to say: + +"Keep your eye on the rats. You better have the lead in your lap, +handy." + +So she dropped the lump into my lap just at that moment, and I clapped +my legs together on it and she went on talking. But only about a +minute. Then she took off the hank and looked me straight in the face, +and very pleasant, and says: + +"Come, now, what's your real name?" + +"Wh--what, mum?" + +"What's your real name? Is it Bill, or Tom, or Bob?--or what is it?" + +I reckon I shook like a leaf, and I didn't know hardly what to do. But +I says: + +"Please to don't poke fun at a poor girl like me, mum. If I'm in the +way here, I'll--" + +"No, you won't. Set down and stay where you are. I ain't going to hurt +you, and I ain't going to tell on you, nuther. You just tell me your +secret, and trust me. I'll keep it; and, what's more, I'll help +you. So'll my old man if you want him to. You see, you're a runaway +'prentice, that's all. It ain't anything. There ain't no harm in it. +You've been treated bad, and you made up your mind to cut. Bless you, +child, I wouldn't tell on you. Tell me all about it now, that's a good +boy." + +So I said it wouldn't be no use to try to play it any longer, and I +would just make a clean breast and tell her everything, but she musn't +go back on her promise. Then I told her my father and mother was dead, +and the law had bound me out to a mean old farmer in the country thirty +mile back from the river, and he treated me so bad I couldn't stand it +no longer; he went away to be gone a couple of days, and so I took my +chance and stole some of his daughter's old clothes and cleared out, and +I had been three nights coming the thirty miles. I traveled nights, +and hid daytimes and slept, and the bag of bread and meat I carried from +home lasted me all the way, and I had a-plenty. I said I believed my +uncle Abner Moore would take care of me, and so that was why I struck +out for this town of Goshen. + +"Goshen, child? This ain't Goshen. This is St. Petersburg. Goshen's +ten mile further up the river. Who told you this was Goshen?" + +"Why, a man I met at daybreak this morning, just as I was going to turn +into the woods for my regular sleep. He told me when the roads forked I +must take the right hand, and five mile would fetch me to Goshen." + +"He was drunk, I reckon. He told you just exactly wrong." + +"Well, he did act like he was drunk, but it ain't no matter now. I got +to be moving along. I'll fetch Goshen before daylight." + +"Hold on a minute. I'll put you up a snack to eat. You might want it." + +So she put me up a snack, and says: + +"Say, when a cow's laying down, which end of her gets up first? Answer +up prompt now--don't stop to study over it. Which end gets up first?" + +"The hind end, mum." + +"Well, then, a horse?" + +"The for'rard end, mum." + +"Which side of a tree does the moss grow on?" + +"North side." + +"If fifteen cows is browsing on a hillside, how many of them eats with +their heads pointed the same direction?" + +"The whole fifteen, mum." + +"Well, I reckon you _have_ lived in the country. I thought maybe you +was trying to hocus me again. What's your real name, now?" + +"George Peters, mum." + +"Well, try to remember it, George. Don't forget and tell me it's +Elexander before you go, and then get out by saying it's George +Elexander when I catch you. And don't go about women in that old +calico. You do a girl tolerable poor, but you might fool men, maybe. + Bless you, child, when you set out to thread a needle don't hold the +thread still and fetch the needle up to it; hold the needle still and +poke the thread at it; that's the way a woman most always does, but a +man always does t'other way. And when you throw at a rat or anything, +hitch yourself up a tiptoe and fetch your hand up over your head as +awkward as you can, and miss your rat about six or seven foot. Throw +stiff-armed from the shoulder, like there was a pivot there for it to +turn on, like a girl; not from the wrist and elbow, with your arm out +to one side, like a boy. And, mind you, when a girl tries to catch +anything in her lap she throws her knees apart; she don't clap them +together, the way you did when you catched the lump of lead. Why, I +spotted you for a boy when you was threading the needle; and I contrived +the other things just to make certain. Now trot along to your uncle, +Sarah Mary Williams George Elexander Peters, and if you get into trouble +you send word to Mrs. Judith Loftus, which is me, and I'll do what I can +to get you out of it. Keep the river road all the way, and next time +you tramp take shoes and socks with you. The river road's a rocky one, +and your feet'll be in a condition when you get to Goshen, I reckon." + +I went up the bank about fifty yards, and then I doubled on my tracks +and slipped back to where my canoe was, a good piece below the house. I +jumped in, and was off in a hurry. I went up-stream far enough to +make the head of the island, and then started across. I took off the +sun-bonnet, for I didn't want no blinders on then. When I was about the +middle I heard the clock begin to strike, so I stops and listens; the +sound come faint over the water but clear--eleven. When I struck the +head of the island I never waited to blow, though I was most winded, but +I shoved right into the timber where my old camp used to be, and started +a good fire there on a high and dry spot. + +Then I jumped in the canoe and dug out for our place, a mile and a half +below, as hard as I could go. I landed, and slopped through the timber +and up the ridge and into the cavern. There Jim laid, sound asleep on +the ground. I roused him out and says: + +"Git up and hump yourself, Jim! There ain't a minute to lose. They're +after us!" + +Jim never asked no questions, he never said a word; but the way he +worked for the next half an hour showed about how he was scared. By +that time everything we had in the world was on our raft, and she was +ready to be shoved out from the willow cove where she was hid. We +put out the camp fire at the cavern the first thing, and didn't show a +candle outside after that. + +I took the canoe out from the shore a little piece, and took a look; +but if there was a boat around I couldn't see it, for stars and shadows +ain't good to see by. Then we got out the raft and slipped along down +in the shade, past the foot of the island dead still--never saying a +word. + + + + +CHAPTER XII. + +IT must a been close on to one o'clock when we got below the island at +last, and the raft did seem to go mighty slow. If a boat was to come +along we was going to take to the canoe and break for the Illinois +shore; and it was well a boat didn't come, for we hadn't ever thought to +put the gun in the canoe, or a fishing-line, or anything to eat. We +was in ruther too much of a sweat to think of so many things. It warn't +good judgment to put _everything_ on the raft. + +If the men went to the island I just expect they found the camp fire I +built, and watched it all night for Jim to come. Anyways, they stayed +away from us, and if my building the fire never fooled them it warn't no +fault of mine. I played it as low down on them as I could. + +When the first streak of day began to show we tied up to a towhead in a +big bend on the Illinois side, and hacked off cottonwood branches with +the hatchet, and covered up the raft with them so she looked like there +had been a cave-in in the bank there. A tow-head is a sandbar that has +cottonwoods on it as thick as harrow-teeth. + +We had mountains on the Missouri shore and heavy timber on the Illinois +side, and the channel was down the Missouri shore at that place, so we +warn't afraid of anybody running across us. We laid there all day, +and watched the rafts and steamboats spin down the Missouri shore, and +up-bound steamboats fight the big river in the middle. I told Jim all +about the time I had jabbering with that woman; and Jim said she was +a smart one, and if she was to start after us herself she wouldn't set +down and watch a camp fire--no, sir, she'd fetch a dog. Well, then, I +said, why couldn't she tell her husband to fetch a dog? Jim said he +bet she did think of it by the time the men was ready to start, and he +believed they must a gone up-town to get a dog and so they lost all that +time, or else we wouldn't be here on a towhead sixteen or seventeen mile +below the village--no, indeedy, we would be in that same old town again. + So I said I didn't care what was the reason they didn't get us as long +as they didn't. + +When it was beginning to come on dark we poked our heads out of the +cottonwood thicket, and looked up and down and across; nothing in sight; +so Jim took up some of the top planks of the raft and built a snug +wigwam to get under in blazing weather and rainy, and to keep the things +dry. Jim made a floor for the wigwam, and raised it a foot or more above +the level of the raft, so now the blankets and all the traps was out of +reach of steamboat waves. Right in the middle of the wigwam we made a +layer of dirt about five or six inches deep with a frame around it for +to hold it to its place; this was to build a fire on in sloppy weather +or chilly; the wigwam would keep it from being seen. We made an extra +steering-oar, too, because one of the others might get broke on a snag +or something. We fixed up a short forked stick to hang the old lantern +on, because we must always light the lantern whenever we see a steamboat +coming down-stream, to keep from getting run over; but we wouldn't have +to light it for up-stream boats unless we see we was in what they call +a "crossing"; for the river was pretty high yet, very low banks being +still a little under water; so up-bound boats didn't always run the +channel, but hunted easy water. + +This second night we run between seven and eight hours, with a current +that was making over four mile an hour. We catched fish and talked, +and we took a swim now and then to keep off sleepiness. It was kind of +solemn, drifting down the big, still river, laying on our backs looking +up at the stars, and we didn't ever feel like talking loud, and it +warn't often that we laughed--only a little kind of a low chuckle. We +had mighty good weather as a general thing, and nothing ever happened to +us at all--that night, nor the next, nor the next. + +Every night we passed towns, some of them away up on black hillsides, +nothing but just a shiny bed of lights; not a house could you see. The +fifth night we passed St. Louis, and it was like the whole world lit up. +In St. Petersburg they used to say there was twenty or thirty thousand +people in St. Louis, but I never believed it till I see that wonderful +spread of lights at two o'clock that still night. There warn't a sound +there; everybody was asleep. + +Every night now I used to slip ashore towards ten o'clock at some little +village, and buy ten or fifteen cents' worth of meal or bacon or other +stuff to eat; and sometimes I lifted a chicken that warn't roosting +comfortable, and took him along. Pap always said, take a chicken when +you get a chance, because if you don't want him yourself you can easy +find somebody that does, and a good deed ain't ever forgot. I never see +pap when he didn't want the chicken himself, but that is what he used to +say, anyway. + +Mornings before daylight I slipped into cornfields and borrowed a +watermelon, or a mushmelon, or a punkin, or some new corn, or things of +that kind. Pap always said it warn't no harm to borrow things if you +was meaning to pay them back some time; but the widow said it warn't +anything but a soft name for stealing, and no decent body would do it. + Jim said he reckoned the widow was partly right and pap was partly +right; so the best way would be for us to pick out two or three things +from the list and say we wouldn't borrow them any more--then he reckoned +it wouldn't be no harm to borrow the others. So we talked it over all +one night, drifting along down the river, trying to make up our minds +whether to drop the watermelons, or the cantelopes, or the mushmelons, +or what. But towards daylight we got it all settled satisfactory, and +concluded to drop crabapples and p'simmons. We warn't feeling just +right before that, but it was all comfortable now. I was glad the way +it come out, too, because crabapples ain't ever good, and the p'simmons +wouldn't be ripe for two or three months yet. + +We shot a water-fowl now and then that got up too early in the morning +or didn't go to bed early enough in the evening. Take it all round, we +lived pretty high. + +The fifth night below St. Louis we had a big storm after midnight, with +a power of thunder and lightning, and the rain poured down in a solid +sheet. We stayed in the wigwam and let the raft take care of itself. +When the lightning glared out we could see a big straight river ahead, +and high, rocky bluffs on both sides. By and by says I, "Hel-_lo_, Jim, +looky yonder!" It was a steamboat that had killed herself on a rock. + We was drifting straight down for her. The lightning showed her very +distinct. She was leaning over, with part of her upper deck above +water, and you could see every little chimbly-guy clean and clear, and a +chair by the big bell, with an old slouch hat hanging on the back of it, +when the flashes come. + +Well, it being away in the night and stormy, and all so mysterious-like, +I felt just the way any other boy would a felt when I see that wreck +laying there so mournful and lonesome in the middle of the river. I +wanted to get aboard of her and slink around a little, and see what +there was there. So I says: + +"Le's land on her, Jim." + +But Jim was dead against it at first. He says: + +"I doan' want to go fool'n 'long er no wrack. We's doin' blame' well, +en we better let blame' well alone, as de good book says. Like as not +dey's a watchman on dat wrack." + +"Watchman your grandmother," I says; "there ain't nothing to watch but +the texas and the pilot-house; and do you reckon anybody's going to resk +his life for a texas and a pilot-house such a night as this, when +it's likely to break up and wash off down the river any minute?" Jim +couldn't say nothing to that, so he didn't try. "And besides," I says, +"we might borrow something worth having out of the captain's stateroom. + Seegars, I bet you--and cost five cents apiece, solid cash. Steamboat +captains is always rich, and get sixty dollars a month, and _they_ don't +care a cent what a thing costs, you know, long as they want it. Stick a +candle in your pocket; I can't rest, Jim, till we give her a rummaging. + Do you reckon Tom Sawyer would ever go by this thing? Not for pie, he +wouldn't. He'd call it an adventure--that's what he'd call it; and he'd +land on that wreck if it was his last act. And wouldn't he throw style +into it?--wouldn't he spread himself, nor nothing? Why, you'd think it +was Christopher C'lumbus discovering Kingdom-Come. I wish Tom Sawyer +_was_ here." + +Jim he grumbled a little, but give in. He said we mustn't talk any more +than we could help, and then talk mighty low. The lightning showed us +the wreck again just in time, and we fetched the stabboard derrick, and +made fast there. + +The deck was high out here. We went sneaking down the slope of it to +labboard, in the dark, towards the texas, feeling our way slow with our +feet, and spreading our hands out to fend off the guys, for it was so +dark we couldn't see no sign of them. Pretty soon we struck the forward +end of the skylight, and clumb on to it; and the next step fetched us in +front of the captain's door, which was open, and by Jimminy, away down +through the texas-hall we see a light! and all in the same second we +seem to hear low voices in yonder! + +Jim whispered and said he was feeling powerful sick, and told me to come +along. I says, all right, and was going to start for the raft; but just +then I heard a voice wail out and say: + +"Oh, please don't, boys; I swear I won't ever tell!" + +Another voice said, pretty loud: + +"It's a lie, Jim Turner. You've acted this way before. You always want +more'n your share of the truck, and you've always got it, too, because +you've swore 't if you didn't you'd tell. But this time you've said +it jest one time too many. You're the meanest, treacherousest hound in +this country." + +By this time Jim was gone for the raft. I was just a-biling with +curiosity; and I says to myself, Tom Sawyer wouldn't back out now, +and so I won't either; I'm a-going to see what's going on here. So I +dropped on my hands and knees in the little passage, and crept aft +in the dark till there warn't but one stateroom betwixt me and the +cross-hall of the texas. Then in there I see a man stretched on the +floor and tied hand and foot, and two men standing over him, and one +of them had a dim lantern in his hand, and the other one had a pistol. + This one kept pointing the pistol at the man's head on the floor, and +saying: + +"I'd _like_ to! And I orter, too--a mean skunk!" + +The man on the floor would shrivel up and say, "Oh, please don't, Bill; +I hain't ever goin' to tell." + +And every time he said that the man with the lantern would laugh and +say: + +"'Deed you _ain't!_ You never said no truer thing 'n that, you bet +you." And once he said: "Hear him beg! and yit if we hadn't got the +best of him and tied him he'd a killed us both. And what _for_? Jist +for noth'n. Jist because we stood on our _rights_--that's what for. But +I lay you ain't a-goin' to threaten nobody any more, Jim Turner. Put +_up_ that pistol, Bill." + +Bill says: + +"I don't want to, Jake Packard. I'm for killin' him--and didn't he kill +old Hatfield jist the same way--and don't he deserve it?" + +"But I don't _want_ him killed, and I've got my reasons for it." + +"Bless yo' heart for them words, Jake Packard! I'll never forgit you +long's I live!" says the man on the floor, sort of blubbering. + +Packard didn't take no notice of that, but hung up his lantern on a nail +and started towards where I was there in the dark, and motioned Bill +to come. I crawfished as fast as I could about two yards, but the boat +slanted so that I couldn't make very good time; so to keep from getting +run over and catched I crawled into a stateroom on the upper side. + The man came a-pawing along in the dark, and when Packard got to my +stateroom, he says: + +"Here--come in here." + +And in he come, and Bill after him. But before they got in I was up +in the upper berth, cornered, and sorry I come. Then they stood there, +with their hands on the ledge of the berth, and talked. I couldn't see +them, but I could tell where they was by the whisky they'd been having. + I was glad I didn't drink whisky; but it wouldn't made much difference +anyway, because most of the time they couldn't a treed me because I +didn't breathe. I was too scared. And, besides, a body _couldn't_ +breathe and hear such talk. They talked low and earnest. Bill wanted +to kill Turner. He says: + +"He's said he'll tell, and he will. If we was to give both our shares +to him _now_ it wouldn't make no difference after the row and the way +we've served him. Shore's you're born, he'll turn State's evidence; now +you hear _me_. I'm for putting him out of his troubles." + +"So'm I," says Packard, very quiet. + +"Blame it, I'd sorter begun to think you wasn't. Well, then, that's all +right. Le's go and do it." + +"Hold on a minute; I hain't had my say yit. You listen to me. +Shooting's good, but there's quieter ways if the thing's _got_ to be +done. But what I say is this: it ain't good sense to go court'n around +after a halter if you can git at what you're up to in some way that's +jist as good and at the same time don't bring you into no resks. Ain't +that so?" + +"You bet it is. But how you goin' to manage it this time?" + +"Well, my idea is this: we'll rustle around and gather up whatever +pickins we've overlooked in the staterooms, and shove for shore and hide +the truck. Then we'll wait. Now I say it ain't a-goin' to be more'n two +hours befo' this wrack breaks up and washes off down the river. See? +He'll be drownded, and won't have nobody to blame for it but his own +self. I reckon that's a considerble sight better 'n killin' of him. + I'm unfavorable to killin' a man as long as you can git aroun' it; it +ain't good sense, it ain't good morals. Ain't I right?" + +"Yes, I reck'n you are. But s'pose she _don't_ break up and wash off?" + +"Well, we can wait the two hours anyway and see, can't we?" + +"All right, then; come along." + +So they started, and I lit out, all in a cold sweat, and scrambled +forward. It was dark as pitch there; but I said, in a kind of a coarse +whisper, "Jim!" and he answered up, right at my elbow, with a sort of a +moan, and I says: + +"Quick, Jim, it ain't no time for fooling around and moaning; there's a +gang of murderers in yonder, and if we don't hunt up their boat and set +her drifting down the river so these fellows can't get away from the +wreck there's one of 'em going to be in a bad fix. But if we find their +boat we can put _all_ of 'em in a bad fix--for the sheriff 'll get 'em. +Quick--hurry! I'll hunt the labboard side, you hunt the stabboard. You +start at the raft, and--" + +"Oh, my lordy, lordy! _raf'_? Dey ain' no raf' no mo'; she done broke +loose en gone I--en here we is!" + + + + +CHAPTER XIII. + +WELL, I catched my breath and most fainted. Shut up on a wreck with +such a gang as that! But it warn't no time to be sentimentering. We'd +_got_ to find that boat now--had to have it for ourselves. So we went +a-quaking and shaking down the stabboard side, and slow work it was, +too--seemed a week before we got to the stern. No sign of a boat. Jim +said he didn't believe he could go any further--so scared he hadn't +hardly any strength left, he said. But I said, come on, if we get left +on this wreck we are in a fix, sure. So on we prowled again. We struck +for the stern of the texas, and found it, and then scrabbled along +forwards on the skylight, hanging on from shutter to shutter, for the +edge of the skylight was in the water. When we got pretty close to the +cross-hall door there was the skiff, sure enough! I could just barely +see her. I felt ever so thankful. In another second I would a been +aboard of her, but just then the door opened. One of the men stuck his +head out only about a couple of foot from me, and I thought I was gone; +but he jerked it in again, and says: + +"Heave that blame lantern out o' sight, Bill!" + +He flung a bag of something into the boat, and then got in himself and +set down. It was Packard. Then Bill _he_ come out and got in. Packard +says, in a low voice: + +"All ready--shove off!" + +I couldn't hardly hang on to the shutters, I was so weak. But Bill +says: + +"Hold on--'d you go through him?" + +"No. Didn't you?" + +"No. So he's got his share o' the cash yet." + +"Well, then, come along; no use to take truck and leave money." + +"Say, won't he suspicion what we're up to?" + +"Maybe he won't. But we got to have it anyway. Come along." + +So they got out and went in. + +The door slammed to because it was on the careened side; and in a half +second I was in the boat, and Jim come tumbling after me. I out with my +knife and cut the rope, and away we went! + +We didn't touch an oar, and we didn't speak nor whisper, nor hardly even +breathe. We went gliding swift along, dead silent, past the tip of the +paddle-box, and past the stern; then in a second or two more we was a +hundred yards below the wreck, and the darkness soaked her up, every +last sign of her, and we was safe, and knowed it. + +When we was three or four hundred yards down-stream we see the lantern +show like a little spark at the texas door for a second, and we knowed +by that that the rascals had missed their boat, and was beginning to +understand that they was in just as much trouble now as Jim Turner was. + +Then Jim manned the oars, and we took out after our raft. Now was the +first time that I begun to worry about the men--I reckon I hadn't +had time to before. I begun to think how dreadful it was, even for +murderers, to be in such a fix. I says to myself, there ain't no +telling but I might come to be a murderer myself yet, and then how would +I like it? So says I to Jim: + +"The first light we see we'll land a hundred yards below it or above +it, in a place where it's a good hiding-place for you and the skiff, and +then I'll go and fix up some kind of a yarn, and get somebody to go for +that gang and get them out of their scrape, so they can be hung when +their time comes." + +But that idea was a failure; for pretty soon it begun to storm again, +and this time worse than ever. The rain poured down, and never a light +showed; everybody in bed, I reckon. We boomed along down the river, +watching for lights and watching for our raft. After a long time the +rain let up, but the clouds stayed, and the lightning kept whimpering, +and by and by a flash showed us a black thing ahead, floating, and we +made for it. + +It was the raft, and mighty glad was we to get aboard of it again. We +seen a light now away down to the right, on shore. So I said I would +go for it. The skiff was half full of plunder which that gang had stole +there on the wreck. We hustled it on to the raft in a pile, and I told +Jim to float along down, and show a light when he judged he had gone +about two mile, and keep it burning till I come; then I manned my oars +and shoved for the light. As I got down towards it three or four more +showed--up on a hillside. It was a village. I closed in above the shore +light, and laid on my oars and floated. As I went by I see it was a +lantern hanging on the jackstaff of a double-hull ferryboat. I skimmed +around for the watchman, a-wondering whereabouts he slept; and by and +by I found him roosting on the bitts forward, with his head down between +his knees. I gave his shoulder two or three little shoves, and begun to +cry. + +He stirred up in a kind of a startlish way; but when he see it was only +me he took a good gap and stretch, and then he says: + +"Hello, what's up? Don't cry, bub. What's the trouble?" + +I says: + +"Pap, and mam, and sis, and--" + +Then I broke down. He says: + +"Oh, dang it now, _don't_ take on so; we all has to have our troubles, +and this 'n 'll come out all right. What's the matter with 'em?" + +"They're--they're--are you the watchman of the boat?" + +"Yes," he says, kind of pretty-well-satisfied like. "I'm the captain +and the owner and the mate and the pilot and watchman and head +deck-hand; and sometimes I'm the freight and passengers. I ain't as +rich as old Jim Hornback, and I can't be so blame' generous and good +to Tom, Dick, and Harry as what he is, and slam around money the way he +does; but I've told him a many a time 't I wouldn't trade places with +him; for, says I, a sailor's life's the life for me, and I'm derned if +_I'd_ live two mile out o' town, where there ain't nothing ever goin' +on, not for all his spondulicks and as much more on top of it. Says I--" + +I broke in and says: + +"They're in an awful peck of trouble, and--" + +"_Who_ is?" + +"Why, pap and mam and sis and Miss Hooker; and if you'd take your +ferryboat and go up there--" + +"Up where? Where are they?" + +"On the wreck." + +"What wreck?" + +"Why, there ain't but one." + +"What, you don't mean the Walter Scott?" + +"Yes." + +"Good land! what are they doin' _there_, for gracious sakes?" + +"Well, they didn't go there a-purpose." + +"I bet they didn't! Why, great goodness, there ain't no chance for 'em +if they don't git off mighty quick! Why, how in the nation did they +ever git into such a scrape?" + +"Easy enough. Miss Hooker was a-visiting up there to the town--" + +"Yes, Booth's Landing--go on." + +"She was a-visiting there at Booth's Landing, and just in the edge of +the evening she started over with her nigger woman in the horse-ferry +to stay all night at her friend's house, Miss What-you-may-call-her I +disremember her name--and they lost their steering-oar, and swung +around and went a-floating down, stern first, about two mile, and +saddle-baggsed on the wreck, and the ferryman and the nigger woman and +the horses was all lost, but Miss Hooker she made a grab and got aboard +the wreck. Well, about an hour after dark we come along down in our +trading-scow, and it was so dark we didn't notice the wreck till we was +right on it; and so _we_ saddle-baggsed; but all of us was saved but +Bill Whipple--and oh, he _was_ the best cretur!--I most wish 't it had +been me, I do." + +"My George! It's the beatenest thing I ever struck. And _then_ what +did you all do?" + +"Well, we hollered and took on, but it's so wide there we couldn't +make nobody hear. So pap said somebody got to get ashore and get help +somehow. I was the only one that could swim, so I made a dash for it, +and Miss Hooker she said if I didn't strike help sooner, come here and +hunt up her uncle, and he'd fix the thing. I made the land about a mile +below, and been fooling along ever since, trying to get people to do +something, but they said, 'What, in such a night and such a current? +There ain't no sense in it; go for the steam ferry.' Now if you'll go +and--" + +"By Jackson, I'd _like_ to, and, blame it, I don't know but I will; but +who in the dingnation's a-going' to _pay_ for it? Do you reckon your +pap--" + +"Why _that's_ all right. Miss Hooker she tole me, _particular_, that +her uncle Hornback--" + +"Great guns! is _he_ her uncle? Looky here, you break for that light +over yonder-way, and turn out west when you git there, and about a +quarter of a mile out you'll come to the tavern; tell 'em to dart you +out to Jim Hornback's, and he'll foot the bill. And don't you fool +around any, because he'll want to know the news. Tell him I'll have +his niece all safe before he can get to town. Hump yourself, now; I'm +a-going up around the corner here to roust out my engineer." + +I struck for the light, but as soon as he turned the corner I went back +and got into my skiff and bailed her out, and then pulled up shore in +the easy water about six hundred yards, and tucked myself in among +some woodboats; for I couldn't rest easy till I could see the ferryboat +start. But take it all around, I was feeling ruther comfortable on +accounts of taking all this trouble for that gang, for not many would +a done it. I wished the widow knowed about it. I judged she would be +proud of me for helping these rapscallions, because rapscallions and +dead beats is the kind the widow and good people takes the most interest +in. + +Well, before long here comes the wreck, dim and dusky, sliding along +down! A kind of cold shiver went through me, and then I struck out for +her. She was very deep, and I see in a minute there warn't much chance +for anybody being alive in her. I pulled all around her and hollered +a little, but there wasn't any answer; all dead still. I felt a little +bit heavy-hearted about the gang, but not much, for I reckoned if they +could stand it I could. + +Then here comes the ferryboat; so I shoved for the middle of the river +on a long down-stream slant; and when I judged I was out of eye-reach +I laid on my oars, and looked back and see her go and smell around the +wreck for Miss Hooker's remainders, because the captain would know her +uncle Hornback would want them; and then pretty soon the ferryboat give +it up and went for the shore, and I laid into my work and went a-booming +down the river. + +It did seem a powerful long time before Jim's light showed up; and when +it did show it looked like it was a thousand mile off. By the time I +got there the sky was beginning to get a little gray in the east; so we +struck for an island, and hid the raft, and sunk the skiff, and turned +in and slept like dead people. + + + + +CHAPTER XIV. + +BY and by, when we got up, we turned over the truck the gang had stole +off of the wreck, and found boots, and blankets, and clothes, and all +sorts of other things, and a lot of books, and a spyglass, and three +boxes of seegars. We hadn't ever been this rich before in neither of +our lives. The seegars was prime. We laid off all the afternoon in the +woods talking, and me reading the books, and having a general good +time. I told Jim all about what happened inside the wreck and at the +ferryboat, and I said these kinds of things was adventures; but he said +he didn't want no more adventures. He said that when I went in the +texas and he crawled back to get on the raft and found her gone he +nearly died, because he judged it was all up with _him_ anyway it could +be fixed; for if he didn't get saved he would get drownded; and if he +did get saved, whoever saved him would send him back home so as to get +the reward, and then Miss Watson would sell him South, sure. Well, he +was right; he was most always right; he had an uncommon level head for a +nigger. + +I read considerable to Jim about kings and dukes and earls and such, and +how gaudy they dressed, and how much style they put on, and called each +other your majesty, and your grace, and your lordship, and so on, 'stead +of mister; and Jim's eyes bugged out, and he was interested. He says: + +"I didn' know dey was so many un um. I hain't hearn 'bout none un um, +skasely, but ole King Sollermun, onless you counts dem kings dat's in a +pack er k'yards. How much do a king git?" + +"Get?" I says; "why, they get a thousand dollars a month if they want +it; they can have just as much as they want; everything belongs to +them." + +"_Ain'_ dat gay? En what dey got to do, Huck?" + +"_They_ don't do nothing! Why, how you talk! They just set around." + +"No; is dat so?" + +"Of course it is. They just set around--except, maybe, when there's a +war; then they go to the war. But other times they just lazy around; or +go hawking--just hawking and sp--Sh!--d' you hear a noise?" + +We skipped out and looked; but it warn't nothing but the flutter of a +steamboat's wheel away down, coming around the point; so we come back. + +"Yes," says I, "and other times, when things is dull, they fuss with the +parlyment; and if everybody don't go just so he whacks their heads off. +But mostly they hang round the harem." + +"Roun' de which?" + +"Harem." + +"What's de harem?" + +"The place where he keeps his wives. Don't you know about the harem? +Solomon had one; he had about a million wives." + +"Why, yes, dat's so; I--I'd done forgot it. A harem's a bo'd'n-house, I +reck'n. Mos' likely dey has rackety times in de nussery. En I reck'n +de wives quarrels considable; en dat 'crease de racket. Yit dey say +Sollermun de wises' man dat ever live'. I doan' take no stock in +dat. Bekase why: would a wise man want to live in de mids' er sich a +blim-blammin' all de time? No--'deed he wouldn't. A wise man 'ud take +en buil' a biler-factry; en den he could shet _down_ de biler-factry +when he want to res'." + +"Well, but he _was_ the wisest man, anyway; because the widow she told +me so, her own self." + +"I doan k'yer what de widder say, he _warn't_ no wise man nuther. He +had some er de dad-fetchedes' ways I ever see. Does you know 'bout dat +chile dat he 'uz gwyne to chop in two?" + +"Yes, the widow told me all about it." + +"_Well_, den! Warn' dat de beatenes' notion in de worl'? You jes' +take en look at it a minute. Dah's de stump, dah--dat's one er de women; +heah's you--dat's de yuther one; I's Sollermun; en dish yer dollar bill's +de chile. Bofe un you claims it. What does I do? Does I shin aroun' +mongs' de neighbors en fine out which un you de bill _do_ b'long to, en +han' it over to de right one, all safe en soun', de way dat anybody dat +had any gumption would? No; I take en whack de bill in _two_, en give +half un it to you, en de yuther half to de yuther woman. Dat's de way +Sollermun was gwyne to do wid de chile. Now I want to ast you: what's +de use er dat half a bill?--can't buy noth'n wid it. En what use is a +half a chile? I wouldn' give a dern for a million un um." + +"But hang it, Jim, you've clean missed the point--blame it, you've missed +it a thousand mile." + +"Who? Me? Go 'long. Doan' talk to me 'bout yo' pints. I reck'n I +knows sense when I sees it; en dey ain' no sense in sich doin's as +dat. De 'spute warn't 'bout a half a chile, de 'spute was 'bout a whole +chile; en de man dat think he kin settle a 'spute 'bout a whole chile +wid a half a chile doan' know enough to come in out'n de rain. Doan' +talk to me 'bout Sollermun, Huck, I knows him by de back." + +"But I tell you you don't get the point." + +"Blame de point! I reck'n I knows what I knows. En mine you, de _real_ +pint is down furder--it's down deeper. It lays in de way Sollermun was +raised. You take a man dat's got on'y one or two chillen; is dat man +gwyne to be waseful o' chillen? No, he ain't; he can't 'ford it. _He_ +know how to value 'em. But you take a man dat's got 'bout five million +chillen runnin' roun' de house, en it's diffunt. _He_ as soon chop a +chile in two as a cat. Dey's plenty mo'. A chile er two, mo' er less, +warn't no consekens to Sollermun, dad fatch him!" + +I never see such a nigger. If he got a notion in his head once, there +warn't no getting it out again. He was the most down on Solomon of +any nigger I ever see. So I went to talking about other kings, and let +Solomon slide. I told about Louis Sixteenth that got his head cut off +in France long time ago; and about his little boy the dolphin, that +would a been a king, but they took and shut him up in jail, and some say +he died there. + +"Po' little chap." + +"But some says he got out and got away, and come to America." + +"Dat's good! But he'll be pooty lonesome--dey ain' no kings here, is +dey, Huck?" + +"No." + +"Den he cain't git no situation. What he gwyne to do?" + +"Well, I don't know. Some of them gets on the police, and some of them +learns people how to talk French." + +"Why, Huck, doan' de French people talk de same way we does?" + +"_No_, Jim; you couldn't understand a word they said--not a single word." + +"Well, now, I be ding-busted! How do dat come?" + +"I don't know; but it's so. I got some of their jabber out of a book. +S'pose a man was to come to you and say Polly-voo-franzy--what would you +think?" + +"I wouldn' think nuff'n; I'd take en bust him over de head--dat is, if he +warn't white. I wouldn't 'low no nigger to call me dat." + +"Shucks, it ain't calling you anything. It's only saying, do you know +how to talk French?" + +"Well, den, why couldn't he _say_ it?" + +"Why, he _is_ a-saying it. That's a Frenchman's _way_ of saying it." + +"Well, it's a blame ridicklous way, en I doan' want to hear no mo' 'bout +it. Dey ain' no sense in it." + +"Looky here, Jim; does a cat talk like we do?" + +"No, a cat don't." + +"Well, does a cow?" + +"No, a cow don't, nuther." + +"Does a cat talk like a cow, or a cow talk like a cat?" + +"No, dey don't." + +"It's natural and right for 'em to talk different from each other, ain't +it?" + +"Course." + +"And ain't it natural and right for a cat and a cow to talk different +from _us_?" + +"Why, mos' sholy it is." + +"Well, then, why ain't it natural and right for a _Frenchman_ to talk +different from us? You answer me that." + +"Is a cat a man, Huck?" + +"No." + +"Well, den, dey ain't no sense in a cat talkin' like a man. Is a cow a +man?--er is a cow a cat?" + +"No, she ain't either of them." + +"Well, den, she ain't got no business to talk like either one er the +yuther of 'em. Is a Frenchman a man?" + +"Yes." + +"_Well_, den! Dad blame it, why doan' he _talk_ like a man? You answer +me _dat_!" + +I see it warn't no use wasting words--you can't learn a nigger to argue. +So I quit. + + + + +CHAPTER XV. + +WE judged that three nights more would fetch us to Cairo, at the bottom +of Illinois, where the Ohio River comes in, and that was what we was +after. We would sell the raft and get on a steamboat and go way up the +Ohio amongst the free States, and then be out of trouble. + +Well, the second night a fog begun to come on, and we made for a towhead +to tie to, for it wouldn't do to try to run in a fog; but when I paddled +ahead in the canoe, with the line to make fast, there warn't anything +but little saplings to tie to. I passed the line around one of them +right on the edge of the cut bank, but there was a stiff current, and +the raft come booming down so lively she tore it out by the roots and +away she went. I see the fog closing down, and it made me so sick and +scared I couldn't budge for most a half a minute it seemed to me--and +then there warn't no raft in sight; you couldn't see twenty yards. I +jumped into the canoe and run back to the stern, and grabbed the paddle +and set her back a stroke. But she didn't come. I was in such a hurry +I hadn't untied her. I got up and tried to untie her, but I was so +excited my hands shook so I couldn't hardly do anything with them. + +As soon as I got started I took out after the raft, hot and heavy, right +down the towhead. That was all right as far as it went, but the towhead +warn't sixty yards long, and the minute I flew by the foot of it I shot +out into the solid white fog, and hadn't no more idea which way I was +going than a dead man. + +Thinks I, it won't do to paddle; first I know I'll run into the bank +or a towhead or something; I got to set still and float, and yet it's +mighty fidgety business to have to hold your hands still at such a time. + I whooped and listened. Away down there somewheres I hears a small +whoop, and up comes my spirits. I went tearing after it, listening +sharp to hear it again. The next time it come I see I warn't heading +for it, but heading away to the right of it. And the next time I was +heading away to the left of it--and not gaining on it much either, for +I was flying around, this way and that and t'other, but it was going +straight ahead all the time. + +I did wish the fool would think to beat a tin pan, and beat it all the +time, but he never did, and it was the still places between the whoops +that was making the trouble for me. Well, I fought along, and directly +I hears the whoop _behind_ me. I was tangled good now. That was +somebody else's whoop, or else I was turned around. + +I throwed the paddle down. I heard the whoop again; it was behind me +yet, but in a different place; it kept coming, and kept changing its +place, and I kept answering, till by and by it was in front of me again, +and I knowed the current had swung the canoe's head down-stream, and I +was all right if that was Jim and not some other raftsman hollering. + I couldn't tell nothing about voices in a fog, for nothing don't look +natural nor sound natural in a fog. + +The whooping went on, and in about a minute I come a-booming down on a +cut bank with smoky ghosts of big trees on it, and the current throwed +me off to the left and shot by, amongst a lot of snags that fairly +roared, the currrent was tearing by them so swift. + +In another second or two it was solid white and still again. I set +perfectly still then, listening to my heart thump, and I reckon I didn't +draw a breath while it thumped a hundred. + +I just give up then. I knowed what the matter was. That cut bank +was an island, and Jim had gone down t'other side of it. It warn't no +towhead that you could float by in ten minutes. It had the big timber +of a regular island; it might be five or six miles long and more than +half a mile wide. + +I kept quiet, with my ears cocked, about fifteen minutes, I reckon. I +was floating along, of course, four or five miles an hour; but you don't +ever think of that. No, you _feel_ like you are laying dead still on +the water; and if a little glimpse of a snag slips by you don't think to +yourself how fast _you're_ going, but you catch your breath and think, +my! how that snag's tearing along. If you think it ain't dismal and +lonesome out in a fog that way by yourself in the night, you try it +once--you'll see. + +Next, for about a half an hour, I whoops now and then; at last I hears +the answer a long ways off, and tries to follow it, but I couldn't do +it, and directly I judged I'd got into a nest of towheads, for I had +little dim glimpses of them on both sides of me--sometimes just a narrow +channel between, and some that I couldn't see I knowed was there because +I'd hear the wash of the current against the old dead brush and trash +that hung over the banks. Well, I warn't long loosing the whoops down +amongst the towheads; and I only tried to chase them a little while, +anyway, because it was worse than chasing a Jack-o'-lantern. You never +knowed a sound dodge around so, and swap places so quick and so much. + +I had to claw away from the bank pretty lively four or five times, to +keep from knocking the islands out of the river; and so I judged the +raft must be butting into the bank every now and then, or else it would +get further ahead and clear out of hearing--it was floating a little +faster than what I was. + +Well, I seemed to be in the open river again by and by, but I couldn't +hear no sign of a whoop nowheres. I reckoned Jim had fetched up on a +snag, maybe, and it was all up with him. I was good and tired, so I +laid down in the canoe and said I wouldn't bother no more. I didn't +want to go to sleep, of course; but I was so sleepy I couldn't help it; +so I thought I would take jest one little cat-nap. + +But I reckon it was more than a cat-nap, for when I waked up the stars +was shining bright, the fog was all gone, and I was spinning down a +big bend stern first. First I didn't know where I was; I thought I was +dreaming; and when things began to come back to me they seemed to come +up dim out of last week. + +It was a monstrous big river here, with the tallest and the thickest +kind of timber on both banks; just a solid wall, as well as I could see +by the stars. I looked away down-stream, and seen a black speck on the +water. I took after it; but when I got to it it warn't nothing but a +couple of sawlogs made fast together. Then I see another speck, and +chased that; then another, and this time I was right. It was the raft. + +When I got to it Jim was setting there with his head down between his +knees, asleep, with his right arm hanging over the steering-oar. The +other oar was smashed off, and the raft was littered up with leaves and +branches and dirt. So she'd had a rough time. + +I made fast and laid down under Jim's nose on the raft, and began to +gap, and stretch my fists out against Jim, and says: + +"Hello, Jim, have I been asleep? Why didn't you stir me up?" + +"Goodness gracious, is dat you, Huck? En you ain' dead--you ain' +drownded--you's back agin? It's too good for true, honey, it's too good +for true. Lemme look at you chile, lemme feel o' you. No, you ain' +dead! you's back agin, 'live en soun', jis de same ole Huck--de same ole +Huck, thanks to goodness!" + +"What's the matter with you, Jim? You been a-drinking?" + +"Drinkin'? Has I ben a-drinkin'? Has I had a chance to be a-drinkin'?" + +"Well, then, what makes you talk so wild?" + +"How does I talk wild?" + +"_How_? Why, hain't you been talking about my coming back, and all that +stuff, as if I'd been gone away?" + +"Huck--Huck Finn, you look me in de eye; look me in de eye. _Hain't_ you +ben gone away?" + +"Gone away? Why, what in the nation do you mean? I hain't been gone +anywheres. Where would I go to?" + +"Well, looky here, boss, dey's sumf'n wrong, dey is. Is I _me_, or who +_is_ I? Is I heah, or whah _is_ I? Now dat's what I wants to know." + +"Well, I think you're here, plain enough, but I think you're a +tangle-headed old fool, Jim." + +"I is, is I? Well, you answer me dis: Didn't you tote out de line in +de canoe fer to make fas' to de tow-head?" + +"No, I didn't. What tow-head? I hain't see no tow-head." + +"You hain't seen no towhead? Looky here, didn't de line pull loose en +de raf' go a-hummin' down de river, en leave you en de canoe behine in +de fog?" + +"What fog?" + +"Why, de fog!--de fog dat's been aroun' all night. En didn't you whoop, +en didn't I whoop, tell we got mix' up in de islands en one un us got +los' en t'other one was jis' as good as los', 'kase he didn' know whah +he wuz? En didn't I bust up agin a lot er dem islands en have a turrible +time en mos' git drownded? Now ain' dat so, boss--ain't it so? You +answer me dat." + +"Well, this is too many for me, Jim. I hain't seen no fog, nor no +islands, nor no troubles, nor nothing. I been setting here talking with +you all night till you went to sleep about ten minutes ago, and I reckon +I done the same. You couldn't a got drunk in that time, so of course +you've been dreaming." + +"Dad fetch it, how is I gwyne to dream all dat in ten minutes?" + +"Well, hang it all, you did dream it, because there didn't any of it +happen." + +"But, Huck, it's all jis' as plain to me as--" + +"It don't make no difference how plain it is; there ain't nothing in it. +I know, because I've been here all the time." + +Jim didn't say nothing for about five minutes, but set there studying +over it. Then he says: + +"Well, den, I reck'n I did dream it, Huck; but dog my cats ef it ain't +de powerfullest dream I ever see. En I hain't ever had no dream b'fo' +dat's tired me like dis one." + +"Oh, well, that's all right, because a dream does tire a body like +everything sometimes. But this one was a staving dream; tell me all +about it, Jim." + +So Jim went to work and told me the whole thing right through, just as +it happened, only he painted it up considerable. Then he said he must +start in and "'terpret" it, because it was sent for a warning. He said +the first towhead stood for a man that would try to do us some good, but +the current was another man that would get us away from him. The whoops +was warnings that would come to us every now and then, and if we didn't +try hard to make out to understand them they'd just take us into bad +luck, 'stead of keeping us out of it. The lot of towheads was troubles +we was going to get into with quarrelsome people and all kinds of mean +folks, but if we minded our business and didn't talk back and aggravate +them, we would pull through and get out of the fog and into the big +clear river, which was the free States, and wouldn't have no more +trouble. + +It had clouded up pretty dark just after I got on to the raft, but it +was clearing up again now. + +"Oh, well, that's all interpreted well enough as far as it goes, Jim," I +says; "but what does _these_ things stand for?" + +It was the leaves and rubbish on the raft and the smashed oar. You +could see them first-rate now. + +Jim looked at the trash, and then looked at me, and back at the trash +again. He had got the dream fixed so strong in his head that he +couldn't seem to shake it loose and get the facts back into its place +again right away. But when he did get the thing straightened around he +looked at me steady without ever smiling, and says: + +"What do dey stan' for? I'se gwyne to tell you. When I got all wore +out wid work, en wid de callin' for you, en went to sleep, my heart wuz +mos' broke bekase you wuz los', en I didn' k'yer no' mo' what become +er me en de raf'. En when I wake up en fine you back agin, all safe +en soun', de tears come, en I could a got down on my knees en kiss yo' +foot, I's so thankful. En all you wuz thinkin' 'bout wuz how you could +make a fool uv ole Jim wid a lie. Dat truck dah is _trash_; en trash +is what people is dat puts dirt on de head er dey fren's en makes 'em +ashamed." + +Then he got up slow and walked to the wigwam, and went in there without +saying anything but that. But that was enough. It made me feel so mean +I could almost kissed _his_ foot to get him to take it back. + +It was fifteen minutes before I could work myself up to go and humble +myself to a nigger; but I done it, and I warn't ever sorry for it +afterwards, neither. I didn't do him no more mean tricks, and I +wouldn't done that one if I'd a knowed it would make him feel that way. + + + + +CHAPTER XVI. + +WE slept most all day, and started out at night, a little ways behind a +monstrous long raft that was as long going by as a procession. She had +four long sweeps at each end, so we judged she carried as many as thirty +men, likely. She had five big wigwams aboard, wide apart, and an open +camp fire in the middle, and a tall flag-pole at each end. There was a +power of style about her. It _amounted_ to something being a raftsman +on such a craft as that. + +We went drifting down into a big bend, and the night clouded up and got +hot. The river was very wide, and was walled with solid timber on +both sides; you couldn't see a break in it hardly ever, or a light. We +talked about Cairo, and wondered whether we would know it when we got to +it. I said likely we wouldn't, because I had heard say there warn't but +about a dozen houses there, and if they didn't happen to have them lit +up, how was we going to know we was passing a town? Jim said if the two +big rivers joined together there, that would show. But I said maybe +we might think we was passing the foot of an island and coming into the +same old river again. That disturbed Jim--and me too. So the question +was, what to do? I said, paddle ashore the first time a light showed, +and tell them pap was behind, coming along with a trading-scow, and +was a green hand at the business, and wanted to know how far it was to +Cairo. Jim thought it was a good idea, so we took a smoke on it and +waited. + +There warn't nothing to do now but to look out sharp for the town, and +not pass it without seeing it. He said he'd be mighty sure to see it, +because he'd be a free man the minute he seen it, but if he missed it +he'd be in a slave country again and no more show for freedom. Every +little while he jumps up and says: + +"Dah she is?" + +But it warn't. It was Jack-o'-lanterns, or lightning bugs; so he set +down again, and went to watching, same as before. Jim said it made him +all over trembly and feverish to be so close to freedom. Well, I can +tell you it made me all over trembly and feverish, too, to hear him, +because I begun to get it through my head that he _was_ most free--and +who was to blame for it? Why, _me_. I couldn't get that out of my +conscience, no how nor no way. It got to troubling me so I couldn't +rest; I couldn't stay still in one place. It hadn't ever come home to +me before, what this thing was that I was doing. But now it did; and it +stayed with me, and scorched me more and more. I tried to make out to +myself that I warn't to blame, because I didn't run Jim off from his +rightful owner; but it warn't no use, conscience up and says, every +time, "But you knowed he was running for his freedom, and you could a +paddled ashore and told somebody." That was so--I couldn't get around +that noway. That was where it pinched. Conscience says to me, "What +had poor Miss Watson done to you that you could see her nigger go off +right under your eyes and never say one single word? What did that poor +old woman do to you that you could treat her so mean? Why, she tried to +learn you your book, she tried to learn you your manners, she tried to +be good to you every way she knowed how. _That's_ what she done." + +I got to feeling so mean and so miserable I most wished I was dead. I +fidgeted up and down the raft, abusing myself to myself, and Jim was +fidgeting up and down past me. We neither of us could keep still. + Every time he danced around and says, "Dah's Cairo!" it went through me +like a shot, and I thought if it _was_ Cairo I reckoned I would die of +miserableness. + +Jim talked out loud all the time while I was talking to myself. He was +saying how the first thing he would do when he got to a free State he +would go to saving up money and never spend a single cent, and when he +got enough he would buy his wife, which was owned on a farm close to +where Miss Watson lived; and then they would both work to buy the +two children, and if their master wouldn't sell them, they'd get an +Ab'litionist to go and steal them. + +It most froze me to hear such talk. He wouldn't ever dared to talk such +talk in his life before. Just see what a difference it made in him the +minute he judged he was about free. It was according to the old saying, +"Give a nigger an inch and he'll take an ell." Thinks I, this is what +comes of my not thinking. Here was this nigger, which I had as good +as helped to run away, coming right out flat-footed and saying he would +steal his children--children that belonged to a man I didn't even know; a +man that hadn't ever done me no harm. + +I was sorry to hear Jim say that, it was such a lowering of him. My +conscience got to stirring me up hotter than ever, until at last I says +to it, "Let up on me--it ain't too late yet--I'll paddle ashore at the +first light and tell." I felt easy and happy and light as a feather +right off. All my troubles was gone. I went to looking out sharp for a +light, and sort of singing to myself. By and by one showed. Jim sings +out: + +"We's safe, Huck, we's safe! Jump up and crack yo' heels! Dat's de +good ole Cairo at las', I jis knows it!" + +I says: + +"I'll take the canoe and go and see, Jim. It mightn't be, you know." + +He jumped and got the canoe ready, and put his old coat in the bottom +for me to set on, and give me the paddle; and as I shoved off, he says: + +"Pooty soon I'll be a-shout'n' for joy, en I'll say, it's all on +accounts o' Huck; I's a free man, en I couldn't ever ben free ef it +hadn' ben for Huck; Huck done it. Jim won't ever forgit you, Huck; +you's de bes' fren' Jim's ever had; en you's de _only_ fren' ole Jim's +got now." + +I was paddling off, all in a sweat to tell on him; but when he says +this, it seemed to kind of take the tuck all out of me. I went along +slow then, and I warn't right down certain whether I was glad I started +or whether I warn't. When I was fifty yards off, Jim says: + +"Dah you goes, de ole true Huck; de on'y white genlman dat ever kep' his +promise to ole Jim." + +Well, I just felt sick. But I says, I _got_ to do it--I can't get _out_ +of it. Right then along comes a skiff with two men in it with guns, and +they stopped and I stopped. One of them says: + +"What's that yonder?" + +"A piece of a raft," I says. + +"Do you belong on it?" + +"Yes, sir." + +"Any men on it?" + +"Only one, sir." + +"Well, there's five niggers run off to-night up yonder, above the head +of the bend. Is your man white or black?" + +I didn't answer up prompt. I tried to, but the words wouldn't come. I +tried for a second or two to brace up and out with it, but I warn't man +enough--hadn't the spunk of a rabbit. I see I was weakening; so I just +give up trying, and up and says: + +"He's white." + +"I reckon we'll go and see for ourselves." + +"I wish you would," says I, "because it's pap that's there, and maybe +you'd help me tow the raft ashore where the light is. He's sick--and so +is mam and Mary Ann." + +"Oh, the devil! we're in a hurry, boy. But I s'pose we've got to. + Come, buckle to your paddle, and let's get along." + +I buckled to my paddle and they laid to their oars. When we had made a +stroke or two, I says: + +"Pap'll be mighty much obleeged to you, I can tell you. Everybody goes +away when I want them to help me tow the raft ashore, and I can't do it +by myself." + +"Well, that's infernal mean. Odd, too. Say, boy, what's the matter +with your father?" + +"It's the--a--the--well, it ain't anything much." + +They stopped pulling. It warn't but a mighty little ways to the raft +now. One says: + +"Boy, that's a lie. What _is_ the matter with your pap? Answer up +square now, and it'll be the better for you." + +"I will, sir, I will, honest--but don't leave us, please. It's +the--the--Gentlemen, if you'll only pull ahead, and let me heave you the +headline, you won't have to come a-near the raft--please do." + +"Set her back, John, set her back!" says one. They backed water. "Keep +away, boy--keep to looard. Confound it, I just expect the wind has +blowed it to us. Your pap's got the small-pox, and you know it precious +well. Why didn't you come out and say so? Do you want to spread it all +over?" + +"Well," says I, a-blubbering, "I've told everybody before, and they just +went away and left us." + +"Poor devil, there's something in that. We are right down sorry for +you, but we--well, hang it, we don't want the small-pox, you see. Look +here, I'll tell you what to do. Don't you try to land by yourself, or +you'll smash everything to pieces. You float along down about twenty +miles, and you'll come to a town on the left-hand side of the river. It +will be long after sun-up then, and when you ask for help you tell them +your folks are all down with chills and fever. Don't be a fool again, +and let people guess what is the matter. Now we're trying to do you a +kindness; so you just put twenty miles between us, that's a good boy. + It wouldn't do any good to land yonder where the light is--it's only a +wood-yard. Say, I reckon your father's poor, and I'm bound to say he's +in pretty hard luck. Here, I'll put a twenty-dollar gold piece on this +board, and you get it when it floats by. I feel mighty mean to leave +you; but my kingdom! it won't do to fool with small-pox, don't you see?" + +"Hold on, Parker," says the other man, "here's a twenty to put on the +board for me. Good-bye, boy; you do as Mr. Parker told you, and you'll +be all right." + +"That's so, my boy--good-bye, good-bye. If you see any runaway niggers +you get help and nab them, and you can make some money by it." + +"Good-bye, sir," says I; "I won't let no runaway niggers get by me if I +can help it." + +They went off and I got aboard the raft, feeling bad and low, because I +knowed very well I had done wrong, and I see it warn't no use for me +to try to learn to do right; a body that don't get _started_ right when +he's little ain't got no show--when the pinch comes there ain't nothing +to back him up and keep him to his work, and so he gets beat. Then I +thought a minute, and says to myself, hold on; s'pose you'd a done right +and give Jim up, would you felt better than what you do now? No, says +I, I'd feel bad--I'd feel just the same way I do now. Well, then, says +I, what's the use you learning to do right when it's troublesome to do +right and ain't no trouble to do wrong, and the wages is just the same? + I was stuck. I couldn't answer that. So I reckoned I wouldn't bother +no more about it, but after this always do whichever come handiest at +the time. + +I went into the wigwam; Jim warn't there. I looked all around; he +warn't anywhere. I says: + +"Jim!" + +"Here I is, Huck. Is dey out o' sight yit? Don't talk loud." + +He was in the river under the stern oar, with just his nose out. I told +him they were out of sight, so he come aboard. He says: + +"I was a-listenin' to all de talk, en I slips into de river en was gwyne +to shove for sho' if dey come aboard. Den I was gwyne to swim to de +raf' agin when dey was gone. But lawsy, how you did fool 'em, Huck! + Dat _wuz_ de smartes' dodge! I tell you, chile, I'spec it save' ole +Jim--ole Jim ain't going to forgit you for dat, honey." + +Then we talked about the money. It was a pretty good raise--twenty +dollars apiece. Jim said we could take deck passage on a steamboat +now, and the money would last us as far as we wanted to go in the free +States. He said twenty mile more warn't far for the raft to go, but he +wished we was already there. + +Towards daybreak we tied up, and Jim was mighty particular about hiding +the raft good. Then he worked all day fixing things in bundles, and +getting all ready to quit rafting. + +That night about ten we hove in sight of the lights of a town away down +in a left-hand bend. + +I went off in the canoe to ask about it. Pretty soon I found a man out +in the river with a skiff, setting a trot-line. I ranged up and says: + +"Mister, is that town Cairo?" + +"Cairo? no. You must be a blame' fool." + +"What town is it, mister?" + +"If you want to know, go and find out. If you stay here botherin' +around me for about a half a minute longer you'll get something you +won't want." + +I paddled to the raft. Jim was awful disappointed, but I said never +mind, Cairo would be the next place, I reckoned. + +We passed another town before daylight, and I was going out again; but +it was high ground, so I didn't go. No high ground about Cairo, Jim +said. I had forgot it. We laid up for the day on a towhead tolerable +close to the left-hand bank. I begun to suspicion something. So did +Jim. I says: + +"Maybe we went by Cairo in the fog that night." + +He says: + +"Doan' le's talk about it, Huck. Po' niggers can't have no luck. I +awluz 'spected dat rattlesnake-skin warn't done wid its work." + +"I wish I'd never seen that snake-skin, Jim--I do wish I'd never laid +eyes on it." + +"It ain't yo' fault, Huck; you didn' know. Don't you blame yo'self +'bout it." + +When it was daylight, here was the clear Ohio water inshore, sure +enough, and outside was the old regular Muddy! So it was all up with +Cairo. + +We talked it all over. It wouldn't do to take to the shore; we couldn't +take the raft up the stream, of course. There warn't no way but to wait +for dark, and start back in the canoe and take the chances. So we slept +all day amongst the cottonwood thicket, so as to be fresh for the work, +and when we went back to the raft about dark the canoe was gone! + +We didn't say a word for a good while. There warn't anything to +say. We both knowed well enough it was some more work of the +rattlesnake-skin; so what was the use to talk about it? It would only +look like we was finding fault, and that would be bound to fetch more +bad luck--and keep on fetching it, too, till we knowed enough to keep +still. + +By and by we talked about what we better do, and found there warn't no +way but just to go along down with the raft till we got a chance to buy +a canoe to go back in. We warn't going to borrow it when there warn't +anybody around, the way pap would do, for that might set people after +us. + +So we shoved out after dark on the raft. + +Anybody that don't believe yet that it's foolishness to handle a +snake-skin, after all that that snake-skin done for us, will believe it +now if they read on and see what more it done for us. + +The place to buy canoes is off of rafts laying up at shore. But we +didn't see no rafts laying up; so we went along during three hours and +more. Well, the night got gray and ruther thick, which is the next +meanest thing to fog. You can't tell the shape of the river, and you +can't see no distance. It got to be very late and still, and then along +comes a steamboat up the river. We lit the lantern, and judged she +would see it. Up-stream boats didn't generly come close to us; they +go out and follow the bars and hunt for easy water under the reefs; but +nights like this they bull right up the channel against the whole river. + +We could hear her pounding along, but we didn't see her good till she +was close. She aimed right for us. Often they do that and try to see +how close they can come without touching; sometimes the wheel bites off +a sweep, and then the pilot sticks his head out and laughs, and thinks +he's mighty smart. Well, here she comes, and we said she was going to +try and shave us; but she didn't seem to be sheering off a bit. She +was a big one, and she was coming in a hurry, too, looking like a black +cloud with rows of glow-worms around it; but all of a sudden she bulged +out, big and scary, with a long row of wide-open furnace doors shining +like red-hot teeth, and her monstrous bows and guards hanging right +over us. There was a yell at us, and a jingling of bells to stop the +engines, a powwow of cussing, and whistling of steam--and as Jim went +overboard on one side and I on the other, she come smashing straight +through the raft. + +I dived--and I aimed to find the bottom, too, for a thirty-foot wheel +had got to go over me, and I wanted it to have plenty of room. I could +always stay under water a minute; this time I reckon I stayed under a +minute and a half. Then I bounced for the top in a hurry, for I was +nearly busting. I popped out to my armpits and blowed the water out of +my nose, and puffed a bit. Of course there was a booming current; and +of course that boat started her engines again ten seconds after she +stopped them, for they never cared much for raftsmen; so now she was +churning along up the river, out of sight in the thick weather, though I +could hear her. + +I sung out for Jim about a dozen times, but I didn't get any answer; +so I grabbed a plank that touched me while I was "treading water," and +struck out for shore, shoving it ahead of me. But I made out to see +that the drift of the current was towards the left-hand shore, which +meant that I was in a crossing; so I changed off and went that way. + +It was one of these long, slanting, two-mile crossings; so I was a good +long time in getting over. I made a safe landing, and clumb up the +bank. I couldn't see but a little ways, but I went poking along over +rough ground for a quarter of a mile or more, and then I run across a +big old-fashioned double log-house before I noticed it. I was going to +rush by and get away, but a lot of dogs jumped out and went to howling +and barking at me, and I knowed better than to move another peg. + + + + +CHAPTER XVII. + +IN about a minute somebody spoke out of a window without putting his +head out, and says: + +"Be done, boys! Who's there?" + +I says: + +"It's me." + +"Who's me?" + +"George Jackson, sir." + +"What do you want?" + +"I don't want nothing, sir. I only want to go along by, but the dogs +won't let me." + +"What are you prowling around here this time of night for--hey?" + +"I warn't prowling around, sir, I fell overboard off of the steamboat." + +"Oh, you did, did you? Strike a light there, somebody. What did you +say your name was?" + +"George Jackson, sir. I'm only a boy." + +"Look here, if you're telling the truth you needn't be afraid--nobody'll +hurt you. But don't try to budge; stand right where you are. Rouse out +Bob and Tom, some of you, and fetch the guns. George Jackson, is there +anybody with you?" + +"No, sir, nobody." + +I heard the people stirring around in the house now, and see a light. +The man sung out: + +"Snatch that light away, Betsy, you old fool--ain't you got any sense? +Put it on the floor behind the front door. Bob, if you and Tom are +ready, take your places." + +"All ready." + +"Now, George Jackson, do you know the Shepherdsons?" + +"No, sir; I never heard of them." + +"Well, that may be so, and it mayn't. Now, all ready. Step forward, +George Jackson. And mind, don't you hurry--come mighty slow. If there's +anybody with you, let him keep back--if he shows himself he'll be shot. +Come along now. Come slow; push the door open yourself--just enough to +squeeze in, d' you hear?" + +I didn't hurry; I couldn't if I'd a wanted to. I took one slow step at +a time and there warn't a sound, only I thought I could hear my heart. + The dogs were as still as the humans, but they followed a little behind +me. When I got to the three log doorsteps I heard them unlocking and +unbarring and unbolting. I put my hand on the door and pushed it a +little and a little more till somebody said, "There, that's enough--put +your head in." I done it, but I judged they would take it off. + +The candle was on the floor, and there they all was, looking at me, and +me at them, for about a quarter of a minute: Three big men with guns +pointed at me, which made me wince, I tell you; the oldest, gray +and about sixty, the other two thirty or more--all of them fine and +handsome--and the sweetest old gray-headed lady, and back of her two +young women which I couldn't see right well. The old gentleman says: + +"There; I reckon it's all right. Come in." + +As soon as I was in the old gentleman he locked the door and barred it +and bolted it, and told the young men to come in with their guns, and +they all went in a big parlor that had a new rag carpet on the floor, +and got together in a corner that was out of the range of the front +windows--there warn't none on the side. They held the candle, and took a +good look at me, and all said, "Why, _he_ ain't a Shepherdson--no, there +ain't any Shepherdson about him." Then the old man said he hoped I +wouldn't mind being searched for arms, because he didn't mean no harm by +it--it was only to make sure. So he didn't pry into my pockets, but only +felt outside with his hands, and said it was all right. He told me to +make myself easy and at home, and tell all about myself; but the old +lady says: + +"Why, bless you, Saul, the poor thing's as wet as he can be; and don't +you reckon it may be he's hungry?" + +"True for you, Rachel--I forgot." + +So the old lady says: + +"Betsy" (this was a nigger woman), "you fly around and get him something +to eat as quick as you can, poor thing; and one of you girls go and wake +up Buck and tell him--oh, here he is himself. Buck, take this little +stranger and get the wet clothes off from him and dress him up in some +of yours that's dry." + +Buck looked about as old as me--thirteen or fourteen or along there, +though he was a little bigger than me. He hadn't on anything but a +shirt, and he was very frowzy-headed. He came in gaping and digging one +fist into his eyes, and he was dragging a gun along with the other one. +He says: + +"Ain't they no Shepherdsons around?" + +They said, no, 'twas a false alarm. + +"Well," he says, "if they'd a ben some, I reckon I'd a got one." + +They all laughed, and Bob says: + +"Why, Buck, they might have scalped us all, you've been so slow in +coming." + +"Well, nobody come after me, and it ain't right I'm always kept down; I +don't get no show." + +"Never mind, Buck, my boy," says the old man, "you'll have show enough, +all in good time, don't you fret about that. Go 'long with you now, and +do as your mother told you." + +When we got up-stairs to his room he got me a coarse shirt and a +roundabout and pants of his, and I put them on. While I was at it he +asked me what my name was, but before I could tell him he started to +tell me about a bluejay and a young rabbit he had catched in the woods +day before yesterday, and he asked me where Moses was when the candle +went out. I said I didn't know; I hadn't heard about it before, no way. + +"Well, guess," he says. + +"How'm I going to guess," says I, "when I never heard tell of it +before?" + +"But you can guess, can't you? It's just as easy." + +"_Which_ candle?" I says. + +"Why, any candle," he says. + +"I don't know where he was," says I; "where was he?" + +"Why, he was in the _dark_! That's where he was!" + +"Well, if you knowed where he was, what did you ask me for?" + +"Why, blame it, it's a riddle, don't you see? Say, how long are you +going to stay here? You got to stay always. We can just have booming +times--they don't have no school now. Do you own a dog? I've got a +dog--and he'll go in the river and bring out chips that you throw in. Do +you like to comb up Sundays, and all that kind of foolishness? You bet +I don't, but ma she makes me. Confound these ole britches! I reckon +I'd better put 'em on, but I'd ruther not, it's so warm. Are you all +ready? All right. Come along, old hoss." + +Cold corn-pone, cold corn-beef, butter and buttermilk--that is what they +had for me down there, and there ain't nothing better that ever I've +come across yet. Buck and his ma and all of them smoked cob pipes, +except the nigger woman, which was gone, and the two young women. They +all smoked and talked, and I eat and talked. The young women had +quilts around them, and their hair down their backs. They all asked me +questions, and I told them how pap and me and all the family was living +on a little farm down at the bottom of Arkansaw, and my sister Mary Ann +run off and got married and never was heard of no more, and Bill went +to hunt them and he warn't heard of no more, and Tom and Mort died, +and then there warn't nobody but just me and pap left, and he was just +trimmed down to nothing, on account of his troubles; so when he died +I took what there was left, because the farm didn't belong to us, and +started up the river, deck passage, and fell overboard; and that was how +I come to be here. So they said I could have a home there as long as I +wanted it. Then it was most daylight and everybody went to bed, and I +went to bed with Buck, and when I waked up in the morning, drat it all, +I had forgot what my name was. So I laid there about an hour trying to +think, and when Buck waked up I says: + +"Can you spell, Buck?" + +"Yes," he says. + +"I bet you can't spell my name," says I. + +"I bet you what you dare I can," says he. + +"All right," says I, "go ahead." + +"G-e-o-r-g-e J-a-x-o-n--there now," he says. + +"Well," says I, "you done it, but I didn't think you could. It ain't no +slouch of a name to spell--right off without studying." + +I set it down, private, because somebody might want _me_ to spell it +next, and so I wanted to be handy with it and rattle it off like I was +used to it. + +It was a mighty nice family, and a mighty nice house, too. I hadn't +seen no house out in the country before that was so nice and had so much +style. It didn't have an iron latch on the front door, nor a wooden one +with a buckskin string, but a brass knob to turn, the same as houses in +town. There warn't no bed in the parlor, nor a sign of a bed; but heaps +of parlors in towns has beds in them. There was a big fireplace that +was bricked on the bottom, and the bricks was kept clean and red by +pouring water on them and scrubbing them with another brick; sometimes +they wash them over with red water-paint that they call Spanish-brown, +same as they do in town. They had big brass dog-irons that could hold +up a saw-log. There was a clock on the middle of the mantelpiece, with +a picture of a town painted on the bottom half of the glass front, and +a round place in the middle of it for the sun, and you could see the +pendulum swinging behind it. It was beautiful to hear that clock tick; +and sometimes when one of these peddlers had been along and scoured her +up and got her in good shape, she would start in and strike a hundred +and fifty before she got tuckered out. They wouldn't took any money for +her. + +Well, there was a big outlandish parrot on each side of the clock, +made out of something like chalk, and painted up gaudy. By one of the +parrots was a cat made of crockery, and a crockery dog by the other; +and when you pressed down on them they squeaked, but didn't open +their mouths nor look different nor interested. They squeaked through +underneath. There was a couple of big wild-turkey-wing fans spread out +behind those things. On the table in the middle of the room was a kind +of a lovely crockery basket that had apples and oranges and peaches and +grapes piled up in it, which was much redder and yellower and prettier +than real ones is, but they warn't real because you could see where +pieces had got chipped off and showed the white chalk, or whatever it +was, underneath. + +This table had a cover made out of beautiful oilcloth, with a red and +blue spread-eagle painted on it, and a painted border all around. It +come all the way from Philadelphia, they said. There was some books, +too, piled up perfectly exact, on each corner of the table. One was a +big family Bible full of pictures. One was Pilgrim's Progress, about a +man that left his family, it didn't say why. I read considerable in it +now and then. The statements was interesting, but tough. Another was +Friendship's Offering, full of beautiful stuff and poetry; but I didn't +read the poetry. Another was Henry Clay's Speeches, and another was Dr. +Gunn's Family Medicine, which told you all about what to do if a body +was sick or dead. There was a hymn book, and a lot of other books. And +there was nice split-bottom chairs, and perfectly sound, too--not bagged +down in the middle and busted, like an old basket. + +They had pictures hung on the walls--mainly Washingtons and Lafayettes, +and battles, and Highland Marys, and one called "Signing the +Declaration." There was some that they called crayons, which one of the +daughters which was dead made her own self when she was only +fifteen years old. They was different from any pictures I ever see +before--blacker, mostly, than is common. One was a woman in a slim black +dress, belted small under the armpits, with bulges like a cabbage in +the middle of the sleeves, and a large black scoop-shovel bonnet with +a black veil, and white slim ankles crossed about with black tape, and +very wee black slippers, like a chisel, and she was leaning pensive on a +tombstone on her right elbow, under a weeping willow, and her other hand +hanging down her side holding a white handkerchief and a reticule, +and underneath the picture it said "Shall I Never See Thee More Alas." + Another one was a young lady with her hair all combed up straight +to the top of her head, and knotted there in front of a comb like a +chair-back, and she was crying into a handkerchief and had a dead bird +laying on its back in her other hand with its heels up, and underneath +the picture it said "I Shall Never Hear Thy Sweet Chirrup More Alas." + There was one where a young lady was at a window looking up at the +moon, and tears running down her cheeks; and she had an open letter in +one hand with black sealing wax showing on one edge of it, and she was +mashing a locket with a chain to it against her mouth, and underneath +the picture it said "And Art Thou Gone Yes Thou Art Gone Alas." These +was all nice pictures, I reckon, but I didn't somehow seem to take +to them, because if ever I was down a little they always give me the +fan-tods. Everybody was sorry she died, because she had laid out a lot +more of these pictures to do, and a body could see by what she had done +what they had lost. But I reckoned that with her disposition she was +having a better time in the graveyard. She was at work on what they +said was her greatest picture when she took sick, and every day and +every night it was her prayer to be allowed to live till she got it +done, but she never got the chance. It was a picture of a young woman +in a long white gown, standing on the rail of a bridge all ready to jump +off, with her hair all down her back, and looking up to the moon, with +the tears running down her face, and she had two arms folded across her +breast, and two arms stretched out in front, and two more reaching up +towards the moon--and the idea was to see which pair would look best, +and then scratch out all the other arms; but, as I was saying, she died +before she got her mind made up, and now they kept this picture over the +head of the bed in her room, and every time her birthday come they hung +flowers on it. Other times it was hid with a little curtain. The young +woman in the picture had a kind of a nice sweet face, but there was so +many arms it made her look too spidery, seemed to me. + +This young girl kept a scrap-book when she was alive, and used to paste +obituaries and accidents and cases of patient suffering in it out of the +Presbyterian Observer, and write poetry after them out of her own head. +It was very good poetry. This is what she wrote about a boy by the name +of Stephen Dowling Bots that fell down a well and was drownded: + +ODE TO STEPHEN DOWLING BOTS, DEC'D + +And did young Stephen sicken, And did young Stephen die? And did the +sad hearts thicken, And did the mourners cry? + +No; such was not the fate of Young Stephen Dowling Bots; Though sad +hearts round him thickened, 'Twas not from sickness' shots. + +No whooping-cough did rack his frame, Nor measles drear with spots; +Not these impaired the sacred name Of Stephen Dowling Bots. + +Despised love struck not with woe That head of curly knots, Nor +stomach troubles laid him low, Young Stephen Dowling Bots. + +O no. Then list with tearful eye, Whilst I his fate do tell. His soul +did from this cold world fly By falling down a well. + +They got him out and emptied him; Alas it was too late; His spirit +was gone for to sport aloft In the realms of the good and great. + +If Emmeline Grangerford could make poetry like that before she was +fourteen, there ain't no telling what she could a done by and by. Buck +said she could rattle off poetry like nothing. She didn't ever have to +stop to think. He said she would slap down a line, and if she couldn't +find anything to rhyme with it would just scratch it out and slap down +another one, and go ahead. She warn't particular; she could write about +anything you choose to give her to write about just so it was sadful. +Every time a man died, or a woman died, or a child died, she would be on +hand with her "tribute" before he was cold. She called them tributes. +The neighbors said it was the doctor first, then Emmeline, then the +undertaker--the undertaker never got in ahead of Emmeline but once, and +then she hung fire on a rhyme for the dead person's name, which was +Whistler. She warn't ever the same after that; she never complained, +but she kinder pined away and did not live long. Poor thing, many's the +time I made myself go up to the little room that used to be hers and get +out her poor old scrap-book and read in it when her pictures had been +aggravating me and I had soured on her a little. I liked all that +family, dead ones and all, and warn't going to let anything come between +us. Poor Emmeline made poetry about all the dead people when she was +alive, and it didn't seem right that there warn't nobody to make some +about her now she was gone; so I tried to sweat out a verse or two +myself, but I couldn't seem to make it go somehow. They kept Emmeline's +room trim and nice, and all the things fixed in it just the way she +liked to have them when she was alive, and nobody ever slept there. + The old lady took care of the room herself, though there was plenty +of niggers, and she sewed there a good deal and read her Bible there +mostly. + +Well, as I was saying about the parlor, there was beautiful curtains on +the windows: white, with pictures painted on them of castles with vines +all down the walls, and cattle coming down to drink. There was a little +old piano, too, that had tin pans in it, I reckon, and nothing was ever +so lovely as to hear the young ladies sing "The Last Link is Broken" +and play "The Battle of Prague" on it. The walls of all the rooms was +plastered, and most had carpets on the floors, and the whole house was +whitewashed on the outside. + +It was a double house, and the big open place betwixt them was roofed +and floored, and sometimes the table was set there in the middle of the +day, and it was a cool, comfortable place. Nothing couldn't be better. + And warn't the cooking good, and just bushels of it too! + + + + +CHAPTER XVIII. + +COL. Grangerford was a gentleman, you see. He was a gentleman all +over; and so was his family. He was well born, as the saying is, and +that's worth as much in a man as it is in a horse, so the Widow Douglas +said, and nobody ever denied that she was of the first aristocracy +in our town; and pap he always said it, too, though he warn't no more +quality than a mudcat himself. Col. Grangerford was very tall and +very slim, and had a darkish-paly complexion, not a sign of red in it +anywheres; he was clean shaved every morning all over his thin face, and +he had the thinnest kind of lips, and the thinnest kind of nostrils, and +a high nose, and heavy eyebrows, and the blackest kind of eyes, sunk so +deep back that they seemed like they was looking out of caverns at +you, as you may say. His forehead was high, and his hair was black and +straight and hung to his shoulders. His hands was long and thin, and +every day of his life he put on a clean shirt and a full suit from head +to foot made out of linen so white it hurt your eyes to look at it; +and on Sundays he wore a blue tail-coat with brass buttons on it. He +carried a mahogany cane with a silver head to it. There warn't no +frivolishness about him, not a bit, and he warn't ever loud. He was +as kind as he could be--you could feel that, you know, and so you had +confidence. Sometimes he smiled, and it was good to see; but when he +straightened himself up like a liberty-pole, and the lightning begun to +flicker out from under his eyebrows, you wanted to climb a tree first, +and find out what the matter was afterwards. He didn't ever have to +tell anybody to mind their manners--everybody was always good-mannered +where he was. Everybody loved to have him around, too; he was sunshine +most always--I mean he made it seem like good weather. When he turned +into a cloudbank it was awful dark for half a minute, and that was +enough; there wouldn't nothing go wrong again for a week. + +When him and the old lady come down in the morning all the family got +up out of their chairs and give them good-day, and didn't set down again +till they had set down. Then Tom and Bob went to the sideboard where +the decanter was, and mixed a glass of bitters and handed it to him, and +he held it in his hand and waited till Tom's and Bob's was mixed, and +then they bowed and said, "Our duty to you, sir, and madam;" and _they_ +bowed the least bit in the world and said thank you, and so they drank, +all three, and Bob and Tom poured a spoonful of water on the sugar and +the mite of whisky or apple brandy in the bottom of their tumblers, and +give it to me and Buck, and we drank to the old people too. + +Bob was the oldest and Tom next--tall, beautiful men with very broad +shoulders and brown faces, and long black hair and black eyes. They +dressed in white linen from head to foot, like the old gentleman, and +wore broad Panama hats. + +Then there was Miss Charlotte; she was twenty-five, and tall and proud +and grand, but as good as she could be when she warn't stirred up; but +when she was she had a look that would make you wilt in your tracks, +like her father. She was beautiful. + +So was her sister, Miss Sophia, but it was a different kind. She was +gentle and sweet like a dove, and she was only twenty. + +Each person had their own nigger to wait on them--Buck too. My nigger +had a monstrous easy time, because I warn't used to having anybody do +anything for me, but Buck's was on the jump most of the time. + +This was all there was of the family now, but there used to be +more--three sons; they got killed; and Emmeline that died. + +The old gentleman owned a lot of farms and over a hundred niggers. +Sometimes a stack of people would come there, horseback, from ten or +fifteen mile around, and stay five or six days, and have such junketings +round about and on the river, and dances and picnics in the woods +daytimes, and balls at the house nights. These people was mostly +kinfolks of the family. The men brought their guns with them. It was a +handsome lot of quality, I tell you. + +There was another clan of aristocracy around there--five or six +families--mostly of the name of Shepherdson. They was as high-toned +and well born and rich and grand as the tribe of Grangerfords. The +Shepherdsons and Grangerfords used the same steamboat landing, which was +about two mile above our house; so sometimes when I went up there with a +lot of our folks I used to see a lot of the Shepherdsons there on their +fine horses. + +One day Buck and me was away out in the woods hunting, and heard a horse +coming. We was crossing the road. Buck says: + +"Quick! Jump for the woods!" + +We done it, and then peeped down the woods through the leaves. Pretty +soon a splendid young man come galloping down the road, setting his +horse easy and looking like a soldier. He had his gun across his +pommel. I had seen him before. It was young Harney Shepherdson. I +heard Buck's gun go off at my ear, and Harney's hat tumbled off from his +head. He grabbed his gun and rode straight to the place where we was +hid. But we didn't wait. We started through the woods on a run. The +woods warn't thick, so I looked over my shoulder to dodge the bullet, +and twice I seen Harney cover Buck with his gun; and then he rode away +the way he come--to get his hat, I reckon, but I couldn't see. We never +stopped running till we got home. The old gentleman's eyes blazed a +minute--'twas pleasure, mainly, I judged--then his face sort of smoothed +down, and he says, kind of gentle: + +"I don't like that shooting from behind a bush. Why didn't you step +into the road, my boy?" + +"The Shepherdsons don't, father. They always take advantage." + +Miss Charlotte she held her head up like a queen while Buck was telling +his tale, and her nostrils spread and her eyes snapped. The two young +men looked dark, but never said nothing. Miss Sophia she turned pale, +but the color come back when she found the man warn't hurt. + +Soon as I could get Buck down by the corn-cribs under the trees by +ourselves, I says: + +"Did you want to kill him, Buck?" + +"Well, I bet I did." + +"What did he do to you?" + +"Him? He never done nothing to me." + +"Well, then, what did you want to kill him for?" + +"Why, nothing--only it's on account of the feud." + +"What's a feud?" + +"Why, where was you raised? Don't you know what a feud is?" + +"Never heard of it before--tell me about it." + +"Well," says Buck, "a feud is this way: A man has a quarrel with +another man, and kills him; then that other man's brother kills _him_; +then the other brothers, on both sides, goes for one another; then the +_cousins_ chip in--and by and by everybody's killed off, and there ain't +no more feud. But it's kind of slow, and takes a long time." + +"Has this one been going on long, Buck?" + +"Well, I should _reckon_! It started thirty year ago, or som'ers along +there. There was trouble 'bout something, and then a lawsuit to settle +it; and the suit went agin one of the men, and so he up and shot the +man that won the suit--which he would naturally do, of course. Anybody +would." + +"What was the trouble about, Buck?--land?" + +"I reckon maybe--I don't know." + +"Well, who done the shooting? Was it a Grangerford or a Shepherdson?" + +"Laws, how do I know? It was so long ago." + +"Don't anybody know?" + +"Oh, yes, pa knows, I reckon, and some of the other old people; but they +don't know now what the row was about in the first place." + +"Has there been many killed, Buck?" + +"Yes; right smart chance of funerals. But they don't always kill. Pa's +got a few buckshot in him; but he don't mind it 'cuz he don't weigh +much, anyway. Bob's been carved up some with a bowie, and Tom's been +hurt once or twice." + +"Has anybody been killed this year, Buck?" + +"Yes; we got one and they got one. 'Bout three months ago my cousin +Bud, fourteen year old, was riding through the woods on t'other side +of the river, and didn't have no weapon with him, which was blame' +foolishness, and in a lonesome place he hears a horse a-coming behind +him, and sees old Baldy Shepherdson a-linkin' after him with his gun in +his hand and his white hair a-flying in the wind; and 'stead of jumping +off and taking to the brush, Bud 'lowed he could out-run him; so they +had it, nip and tuck, for five mile or more, the old man a-gaining all +the time; so at last Bud seen it warn't any use, so he stopped and faced +around so as to have the bullet holes in front, you know, and the old +man he rode up and shot him down. But he didn't git much chance to +enjoy his luck, for inside of a week our folks laid _him_ out." + +"I reckon that old man was a coward, Buck." + +"I reckon he _warn't_ a coward. Not by a blame' sight. There ain't a +coward amongst them Shepherdsons--not a one. And there ain't no cowards +amongst the Grangerfords either. Why, that old man kep' up his end in a +fight one day for half an hour against three Grangerfords, and come +out winner. They was all a-horseback; he lit off of his horse and got +behind a little woodpile, and kep' his horse before him to stop the +bullets; but the Grangerfords stayed on their horses and capered around +the old man, and peppered away at him, and he peppered away at them. + Him and his horse both went home pretty leaky and crippled, but the +Grangerfords had to be _fetched_ home--and one of 'em was dead, and +another died the next day. No, sir; if a body's out hunting for cowards +he don't want to fool away any time amongst them Shepherdsons, becuz +they don't breed any of that _kind_." + +Next Sunday we all went to church, about three mile, everybody +a-horseback. The men took their guns along, so did Buck, and kept +them between their knees or stood them handy against the wall. The +Shepherdsons done the same. It was pretty ornery preaching--all about +brotherly love, and such-like tiresomeness; but everybody said it was +a good sermon, and they all talked it over going home, and had such +a powerful lot to say about faith and good works and free grace and +preforeordestination, and I don't know what all, that it did seem to me +to be one of the roughest Sundays I had run across yet. + +About an hour after dinner everybody was dozing around, some in their +chairs and some in their rooms, and it got to be pretty dull. Buck and +a dog was stretched out on the grass in the sun sound asleep. I went up +to our room, and judged I would take a nap myself. I found that sweet +Miss Sophia standing in her door, which was next to ours, and she took +me in her room and shut the door very soft, and asked me if I liked her, +and I said I did; and she asked me if I would do something for her and +not tell anybody, and I said I would. Then she said she'd forgot her +Testament, and left it in the seat at church between two other books, +and would I slip out quiet and go there and fetch it to her, and not say +nothing to nobody. I said I would. So I slid out and slipped off up the +road, and there warn't anybody at the church, except maybe a hog or two, +for there warn't any lock on the door, and hogs likes a puncheon floor +in summer-time because it's cool. If you notice, most folks don't go to +church only when they've got to; but a hog is different. + +Says I to myself, something's up; it ain't natural for a girl to be in +such a sweat about a Testament. So I give it a shake, and out drops a +little piece of paper with "HALF-PAST TWO" wrote on it with a pencil. I +ransacked it, but couldn't find anything else. I couldn't make anything +out of that, so I put the paper in the book again, and when I got home +and upstairs there was Miss Sophia in her door waiting for me. She +pulled me in and shut the door; then she looked in the Testament till +she found the paper, and as soon as she read it she looked glad; and +before a body could think she grabbed me and give me a squeeze, and +said I was the best boy in the world, and not to tell anybody. She was +mighty red in the face for a minute, and her eyes lighted up, and it +made her powerful pretty. I was a good deal astonished, but when I got +my breath I asked her what the paper was about, and she asked me if I +had read it, and I said no, and she asked me if I could read writing, +and I told her "no, only coarse-hand," and then she said the paper +warn't anything but a book-mark to keep her place, and I might go and +play now. + +I went off down to the river, studying over this thing, and pretty soon +I noticed that my nigger was following along behind. When we was out +of sight of the house he looked back and around a second, and then comes +a-running, and says: + +"Mars Jawge, if you'll come down into de swamp I'll show you a whole +stack o' water-moccasins." + +Thinks I, that's mighty curious; he said that yesterday. He oughter +know a body don't love water-moccasins enough to go around hunting for +them. What is he up to, anyway? So I says: + +"All right; trot ahead." + +I followed a half a mile; then he struck out over the swamp, and waded +ankle deep as much as another half-mile. We come to a little flat piece +of land which was dry and very thick with trees and bushes and vines, +and he says: + +"You shove right in dah jist a few steps, Mars Jawge; dah's whah dey is. +I's seed 'm befo'; I don't k'yer to see 'em no mo'." + +Then he slopped right along and went away, and pretty soon the trees hid +him. I poked into the place a-ways and come to a little open patch +as big as a bedroom all hung around with vines, and found a man laying +there asleep--and, by jings, it was my old Jim! + +I waked him up, and I reckoned it was going to be a grand surprise to +him to see me again, but it warn't. He nearly cried he was so glad, but +he warn't surprised. Said he swum along behind me that night, and heard +me yell every time, but dasn't answer, because he didn't want nobody to +pick _him_ up and take him into slavery again. Says he: + +"I got hurt a little, en couldn't swim fas', so I wuz a considable ways +behine you towards de las'; when you landed I reck'ned I could ketch +up wid you on de lan' 'dout havin' to shout at you, but when I see dat +house I begin to go slow. I 'uz off too fur to hear what dey say to +you--I wuz 'fraid o' de dogs; but when it 'uz all quiet agin I knowed +you's in de house, so I struck out for de woods to wait for day. Early +in de mawnin' some er de niggers come along, gwyne to de fields, en dey +tuk me en showed me dis place, whah de dogs can't track me on accounts +o' de water, en dey brings me truck to eat every night, en tells me how +you's a-gitt'n along." + +"Why didn't you tell my Jack to fetch me here sooner, Jim?" + +"Well, 'twarn't no use to 'sturb you, Huck, tell we could do sumfn--but +we's all right now. I ben a-buyin' pots en pans en vittles, as I got a +chanst, en a-patchin' up de raf' nights when--" + +"_What_ raft, Jim?" + +"Our ole raf'." + +"You mean to say our old raft warn't smashed all to flinders?" + +"No, she warn't. She was tore up a good deal--one en' of her was; but +dey warn't no great harm done, on'y our traps was mos' all los'. Ef we +hadn' dive' so deep en swum so fur under water, en de night hadn' ben +so dark, en we warn't so sk'yerd, en ben sich punkin-heads, as de sayin' +is, we'd a seed de raf'. But it's jis' as well we didn't, 'kase now +she's all fixed up agin mos' as good as new, en we's got a new lot o' +stuff, in de place o' what 'uz los'." + +"Why, how did you get hold of the raft again, Jim--did you catch her?" + +"How I gwyne to ketch her en I out in de woods? No; some er de niggers +foun' her ketched on a snag along heah in de ben', en dey hid her in a +crick 'mongst de willows, en dey wuz so much jawin' 'bout which un 'um +she b'long to de mos' dat I come to heah 'bout it pooty soon, so I ups +en settles de trouble by tellin' 'um she don't b'long to none uv um, but +to you en me; en I ast 'm if dey gwyne to grab a young white genlman's +propaty, en git a hid'n for it? Den I gin 'm ten cents apiece, en dey +'uz mighty well satisfied, en wisht some mo' raf's 'ud come along en +make 'm rich agin. Dey's mighty good to me, dese niggers is, en whatever +I wants 'm to do fur me I doan' have to ast 'm twice, honey. Dat Jack's +a good nigger, en pooty smart." + +"Yes, he is. He ain't ever told me you was here; told me to come, and +he'd show me a lot of water-moccasins. If anything happens _he_ ain't +mixed up in it. He can say he never seen us together, and it 'll be the +truth." + +I don't want to talk much about the next day. I reckon I'll cut it +pretty short. I waked up about dawn, and was a-going to turn over and +go to sleep again when I noticed how still it was--didn't seem to be +anybody stirring. That warn't usual. Next I noticed that Buck was +up and gone. Well, I gets up, a-wondering, and goes down stairs--nobody +around; everything as still as a mouse. Just the same outside. Thinks +I, what does it mean? Down by the wood-pile I comes across my Jack, and +says: + +"What's it all about?" + +Says he: + +"Don't you know, Mars Jawge?" + +"No," says I, "I don't." + +"Well, den, Miss Sophia's run off! 'deed she has. She run off in de +night some time--nobody don't know jis' when; run off to get married +to dat young Harney Shepherdson, you know--leastways, so dey 'spec. De +fambly foun' it out 'bout half an hour ago--maybe a little mo'--en' I +_tell_ you dey warn't no time los'. Sich another hurryin' up guns +en hosses _you_ never see! De women folks has gone for to stir up de +relations, en ole Mars Saul en de boys tuck dey guns en rode up de +river road for to try to ketch dat young man en kill him 'fo' he kin +git acrost de river wid Miss Sophia. I reck'n dey's gwyne to be mighty +rough times." + +"Buck went off 'thout waking me up." + +"Well, I reck'n he _did_! Dey warn't gwyne to mix you up in it. + Mars Buck he loaded up his gun en 'lowed he's gwyne to fetch home a +Shepherdson or bust. Well, dey'll be plenty un 'm dah, I reck'n, en you +bet you he'll fetch one ef he gits a chanst." + +I took up the river road as hard as I could put. By and by I begin to +hear guns a good ways off. When I come in sight of the log store and +the woodpile where the steamboats lands I worked along under the trees +and brush till I got to a good place, and then I clumb up into the +forks of a cottonwood that was out of reach, and watched. There was a +wood-rank four foot high a little ways in front of the tree, and first I +was going to hide behind that; but maybe it was luckier I didn't. + +There was four or five men cavorting around on their horses in the open +place before the log store, cussing and yelling, and trying to get at +a couple of young chaps that was behind the wood-rank alongside of the +steamboat landing; but they couldn't come it. Every time one of them +showed himself on the river side of the woodpile he got shot at. The +two boys was squatting back to back behind the pile, so they could watch +both ways. + +By and by the men stopped cavorting around and yelling. They started +riding towards the store; then up gets one of the boys, draws a steady +bead over the wood-rank, and drops one of them out of his saddle. All +the men jumped off of their horses and grabbed the hurt one and started +to carry him to the store; and that minute the two boys started on the +run. They got half way to the tree I was in before the men noticed. +Then the men see them, and jumped on their horses and took out after +them. They gained on the boys, but it didn't do no good, the boys had +too good a start; they got to the woodpile that was in front of my tree, +and slipped in behind it, and so they had the bulge on the men again. +One of the boys was Buck, and the other was a slim young chap about +nineteen years old. + +The men ripped around awhile, and then rode away. As soon as they was +out of sight I sung out to Buck and told him. He didn't know what +to make of my voice coming out of the tree at first. He was awful +surprised. He told me to watch out sharp and let him know when the +men come in sight again; said they was up to some devilment or +other--wouldn't be gone long. I wished I was out of that tree, but I +dasn't come down. Buck begun to cry and rip, and 'lowed that him and +his cousin Joe (that was the other young chap) would make up for this +day yet. He said his father and his two brothers was killed, and two +or three of the enemy. Said the Shepherdsons laid for them in +ambush. Buck said his father and brothers ought to waited for their +relations--the Shepherdsons was too strong for them. I asked him what +was become of young Harney and Miss Sophia. He said they'd got across +the river and was safe. I was glad of that; but the way Buck did take +on because he didn't manage to kill Harney that day he shot at him--I +hain't ever heard anything like it. + +All of a sudden, bang! bang! bang! goes three or four guns--the men had +slipped around through the woods and come in from behind without their +horses! The boys jumped for the river--both of them hurt--and as they +swum down the current the men run along the bank shooting at them and +singing out, "Kill them, kill them!" It made me so sick I most fell out +of the tree. I ain't a-going to tell _all_ that happened--it would make +me sick again if I was to do that. I wished I hadn't ever come ashore +that night to see such things. I ain't ever going to get shut of +them--lots of times I dream about them. + +I stayed in the tree till it begun to get dark, afraid to come down. +Sometimes I heard guns away off in the woods; and twice I seen little +gangs of men gallop past the log store with guns; so I reckoned the +trouble was still a-going on. I was mighty downhearted; so I made up my +mind I wouldn't ever go anear that house again, because I reckoned I +was to blame, somehow. I judged that that piece of paper meant that Miss +Sophia was to meet Harney somewheres at half-past two and run off; and +I judged I ought to told her father about that paper and the curious way +she acted, and then maybe he would a locked her up, and this awful mess +wouldn't ever happened. + +When I got down out of the tree I crept along down the river bank a +piece, and found the two bodies laying in the edge of the water, and +tugged at them till I got them ashore; then I covered up their faces, +and got away as quick as I could. I cried a little when I was covering +up Buck's face, for he was mighty good to me. + +It was just dark now. I never went near the house, but struck through +the woods and made for the swamp. Jim warn't on his island, so I +tramped off in a hurry for the crick, and crowded through the willows, +red-hot to jump aboard and get out of that awful country. The raft was +gone! My souls, but I was scared! I couldn't get my breath for most +a minute. Then I raised a yell. A voice not twenty-five foot from me +says: + +"Good lan'! is dat you, honey? Doan' make no noise." + +It was Jim's voice--nothing ever sounded so good before. I run along the +bank a piece and got aboard, and Jim he grabbed me and hugged me, he was +so glad to see me. He says: + +"Laws bless you, chile, I 'uz right down sho' you's dead agin. Jack's +been heah; he say he reck'n you's ben shot, kase you didn' come home no +mo'; so I's jes' dis minute a startin' de raf' down towards de mouf er +de crick, so's to be all ready for to shove out en leave soon as Jack +comes agin en tells me for certain you _is_ dead. Lawsy, I's mighty +glad to git you back again, honey." + +I says: + +"All right--that's mighty good; they won't find me, and they'll think +I've been killed, and floated down the river--there's something up there +that 'll help them think so--so don't you lose no time, Jim, but just +shove off for the big water as fast as ever you can." + +I never felt easy till the raft was two mile below there and out in +the middle of the Mississippi. Then we hung up our signal lantern, and +judged that we was free and safe once more. I hadn't had a bite to eat +since yesterday, so Jim he got out some corn-dodgers and buttermilk, +and pork and cabbage and greens--there ain't nothing in the world so good +when it's cooked right--and whilst I eat my supper we talked and had a +good time. I was powerful glad to get away from the feuds, and so was +Jim to get away from the swamp. We said there warn't no home like a +raft, after all. Other places do seem so cramped up and smothery, but a +raft don't. You feel mighty free and easy and comfortable on a raft. + + + + +CHAPTER XIX. + +TWO or three days and nights went by; I reckon I might say they swum by, +they slid along so quiet and smooth and lovely. Here is the way we put +in the time. It was a monstrous big river down there--sometimes a mile +and a half wide; we run nights, and laid up and hid daytimes; soon as +night was most gone we stopped navigating and tied up--nearly always +in the dead water under a towhead; and then cut young cottonwoods and +willows, and hid the raft with them. Then we set out the lines. Next +we slid into the river and had a swim, so as to freshen up and cool +off; then we set down on the sandy bottom where the water was about knee +deep, and watched the daylight come. Not a sound anywheres--perfectly +still--just like the whole world was asleep, only sometimes the bullfrogs +a-cluttering, maybe. The first thing to see, looking away over the +water, was a kind of dull line--that was the woods on t'other side; you +couldn't make nothing else out; then a pale place in the sky; then more +paleness spreading around; then the river softened up away off, and +warn't black any more, but gray; you could see little dark spots +drifting along ever so far away--trading scows, and such things; and +long black streaks--rafts; sometimes you could hear a sweep screaking; or +jumbled up voices, it was so still, and sounds come so far; and by and +by you could see a streak on the water which you know by the look of the +streak that there's a snag there in a swift current which breaks on it +and makes that streak look that way; and you see the mist curl up off +of the water, and the east reddens up, and the river, and you make out a +log-cabin in the edge of the woods, away on the bank on t'other side of +the river, being a woodyard, likely, and piled by them cheats so you can +throw a dog through it anywheres; then the nice breeze springs up, and +comes fanning you from over there, so cool and fresh and sweet to smell +on account of the woods and the flowers; but sometimes not that way, +because they've left dead fish laying around, gars and such, and they +do get pretty rank; and next you've got the full day, and everything +smiling in the sun, and the song-birds just going it! + +A little smoke couldn't be noticed now, so we would take some fish off +of the lines and cook up a hot breakfast. And afterwards we would watch +the lonesomeness of the river, and kind of lazy along, and by and by +lazy off to sleep. Wake up by and by, and look to see what done it, and +maybe see a steamboat coughing along up-stream, so far off towards the +other side you couldn't tell nothing about her only whether she was +a stern-wheel or side-wheel; then for about an hour there wouldn't be +nothing to hear nor nothing to see--just solid lonesomeness. Next +you'd see a raft sliding by, away off yonder, and maybe a galoot on it +chopping, because they're most always doing it on a raft; you'd see the +axe flash and come down--you don't hear nothing; you see that axe go +up again, and by the time it's above the man's head then you hear the +_k'chunk_!--it had took all that time to come over the water. So we +would put in the day, lazying around, listening to the stillness. Once +there was a thick fog, and the rafts and things that went by was beating +tin pans so the steamboats wouldn't run over them. A scow or a +raft went by so close we could hear them talking and cussing and +laughing--heard them plain; but we couldn't see no sign of them; it made +you feel crawly; it was like spirits carrying on that way in the air. + Jim said he believed it was spirits; but I says: + +"No; spirits wouldn't say, 'Dern the dern fog.'" + +Soon as it was night out we shoved; when we got her out to about the +middle we let her alone, and let her float wherever the current wanted +her to; then we lit the pipes, and dangled our legs in the water, and +talked about all kinds of things--we was always naked, day and night, +whenever the mosquitoes would let us--the new clothes Buck's folks made +for me was too good to be comfortable, and besides I didn't go much on +clothes, nohow. + +Sometimes we'd have that whole river all to ourselves for the longest +time. Yonder was the banks and the islands, across the water; and maybe +a spark--which was a candle in a cabin window; and sometimes on the water +you could see a spark or two--on a raft or a scow, you know; and maybe +you could hear a fiddle or a song coming over from one of them crafts. +It's lovely to live on a raft. We had the sky up there, all speckled +with stars, and we used to lay on our backs and look up at them, and +discuss about whether they was made or only just happened. Jim he +allowed they was made, but I allowed they happened; I judged it would +have took too long to _make_ so many. Jim said the moon could a _laid_ +them; well, that looked kind of reasonable, so I didn't say nothing +against it, because I've seen a frog lay most as many, so of course it +could be done. We used to watch the stars that fell, too, and see them +streak down. Jim allowed they'd got spoiled and was hove out of the +nest. + +Once or twice of a night we would see a steamboat slipping along in the +dark, and now and then she would belch a whole world of sparks up out +of her chimbleys, and they would rain down in the river and look awful +pretty; then she would turn a corner and her lights would wink out and +her powwow shut off and leave the river still again; and by and by her +waves would get to us, a long time after she was gone, and joggle the +raft a bit, and after that you wouldn't hear nothing for you couldn't +tell how long, except maybe frogs or something. + +After midnight the people on shore went to bed, and then for two or +three hours the shores was black--no more sparks in the cabin windows. + These sparks was our clock--the first one that showed again meant +morning was coming, so we hunted a place to hide and tie up right away. + +One morning about daybreak I found a canoe and crossed over a chute to +the main shore--it was only two hundred yards--and paddled about a mile +up a crick amongst the cypress woods, to see if I couldn't get some +berries. Just as I was passing a place where a kind of a cowpath crossed +the crick, here comes a couple of men tearing up the path as tight as +they could foot it. I thought I was a goner, for whenever anybody was +after anybody I judged it was _me_--or maybe Jim. I was about to dig out +from there in a hurry, but they was pretty close to me then, and sung +out and begged me to save their lives--said they hadn't been doing +nothing, and was being chased for it--said there was men and dogs +a-coming. They wanted to jump right in, but I says: + +"Don't you do it. I don't hear the dogs and horses yet; you've got time +to crowd through the brush and get up the crick a little ways; then you +take to the water and wade down to me and get in--that'll throw the dogs +off the scent." + +They done it, and soon as they was aboard I lit out for our towhead, +and in about five or ten minutes we heard the dogs and the men away off, +shouting. We heard them come along towards the crick, but couldn't +see them; they seemed to stop and fool around a while; then, as we got +further and further away all the time, we couldn't hardly hear them at +all; by the time we had left a mile of woods behind us and struck the +river, everything was quiet, and we paddled over to the towhead and hid +in the cottonwoods and was safe. + +One of these fellows was about seventy or upwards, and had a bald head +and very gray whiskers. He had an old battered-up slouch hat on, and +a greasy blue woollen shirt, and ragged old blue jeans britches stuffed +into his boot-tops, and home-knit galluses--no, he only had one. He had +an old long-tailed blue jeans coat with slick brass buttons flung over +his arm, and both of them had big, fat, ratty-looking carpet-bags. + +The other fellow was about thirty, and dressed about as ornery. After +breakfast we all laid off and talked, and the first thing that come out +was that these chaps didn't know one another. + +"What got you into trouble?" says the baldhead to t'other chap. + +"Well, I'd been selling an article to take the tartar off the teeth--and +it does take it off, too, and generly the enamel along with it--but I +stayed about one night longer than I ought to, and was just in the act +of sliding out when I ran across you on the trail this side of town, and +you told me they were coming, and begged me to help you to get off. So +I told you I was expecting trouble myself, and would scatter out _with_ +you. That's the whole yarn--what's yourn? + +"Well, I'd ben a-running' a little temperance revival thar 'bout a week, +and was the pet of the women folks, big and little, for I was makin' it +mighty warm for the rummies, I _tell_ you, and takin' as much as five +or six dollars a night--ten cents a head, children and niggers free--and +business a-growin' all the time, when somehow or another a little report +got around last night that I had a way of puttin' in my time with a +private jug on the sly. A nigger rousted me out this mornin', and told +me the people was getherin' on the quiet with their dogs and horses, and +they'd be along pretty soon and give me 'bout half an hour's start, +and then run me down if they could; and if they got me they'd tar +and feather me and ride me on a rail, sure. I didn't wait for no +breakfast--I warn't hungry." + +"Old man," said the young one, "I reckon we might double-team it +together; what do you think?" + +"I ain't undisposed. What's your line--mainly?" + +"Jour printer by trade; do a little in patent medicines; +theater-actor--tragedy, you know; take a turn to mesmerism and phrenology +when there's a chance; teach singing-geography school for a change; +sling a lecture sometimes--oh, I do lots of things--most anything that +comes handy, so it ain't work. What's your lay?" + +"I've done considerble in the doctoring way in my time. Layin' on o' +hands is my best holt--for cancer and paralysis, and sich things; and I +k'n tell a fortune pretty good when I've got somebody along to find out +the facts for me. Preachin's my line, too, and workin' camp-meetin's, +and missionaryin' around." + +Nobody never said anything for a while; then the young man hove a sigh +and says: + +"Alas!" + +"What 're you alassin' about?" says the bald-head. + +"To think I should have lived to be leading such a life, and be degraded +down into such company." And he begun to wipe the corner of his eye +with a rag. + +"Dern your skin, ain't the company good enough for you?" says the +baldhead, pretty pert and uppish. + +"Yes, it _is_ good enough for me; it's as good as I deserve; for who +fetched me so low when I was so high? I did myself. I don't blame +_you_, gentlemen--far from it; I don't blame anybody. I deserve it +all. Let the cold world do its worst; one thing I know--there's a grave +somewhere for me. The world may go on just as it's always done, and take +everything from me--loved ones, property, everything; but it can't take +that. Some day I'll lie down in it and forget it all, and my poor broken +heart will be at rest." He went on a-wiping. + +"Drot your pore broken heart," says the baldhead; "what are you heaving +your pore broken heart at _us_ f'r? _we_ hain't done nothing." + +"No, I know you haven't. I ain't blaming you, gentlemen. I brought +myself down--yes, I did it myself. It's right I should suffer--perfectly +right--I don't make any moan." + +"Brought you down from whar? Whar was you brought down from?" + +"Ah, you would not believe me; the world never believes--let it pass--'tis +no matter. The secret of my birth--" + +"The secret of your birth! Do you mean to say--" + +"Gentlemen," says the young man, very solemn, "I will reveal it to you, +for I feel I may have confidence in you. By rights I am a duke!" + +Jim's eyes bugged out when he heard that; and I reckon mine did, too. +Then the baldhead says: "No! you can't mean it?" + +"Yes. My great-grandfather, eldest son of the Duke of Bridgewater, fled +to this country about the end of the last century, to breathe the pure +air of freedom; married here, and died, leaving a son, his own father +dying about the same time. The second son of the late duke seized the +titles and estates--the infant real duke was ignored. I am the lineal +descendant of that infant--I am the rightful Duke of Bridgewater; and +here am I, forlorn, torn from my high estate, hunted of men, despised +by the cold world, ragged, worn, heart-broken, and degraded to the +companionship of felons on a raft!" + +Jim pitied him ever so much, and so did I. We tried to comfort him, but +he said it warn't much use, he couldn't be much comforted; said if we +was a mind to acknowledge him, that would do him more good than most +anything else; so we said we would, if he would tell us how. He said we +ought to bow when we spoke to him, and say "Your Grace," or "My Lord," +or "Your Lordship"--and he wouldn't mind it if we called him plain +"Bridgewater," which, he said, was a title anyway, and not a name; and +one of us ought to wait on him at dinner, and do any little thing for +him he wanted done. + +Well, that was all easy, so we done it. All through dinner Jim stood +around and waited on him, and says, "Will yo' Grace have some o' dis or +some o' dat?" and so on, and a body could see it was mighty pleasing to +him. + +But the old man got pretty silent by and by--didn't have much to say, and +didn't look pretty comfortable over all that petting that was going on +around that duke. He seemed to have something on his mind. So, along +in the afternoon, he says: + +"Looky here, Bilgewater," he says, "I'm nation sorry for you, but you +ain't the only person that's had troubles like that." + +"No?" + +"No you ain't. You ain't the only person that's ben snaked down +wrongfully out'n a high place." + +"Alas!" + +"No, you ain't the only person that's had a secret of his birth." And, +by jings, _he_ begins to cry. + +"Hold! What do you mean?" + +"Bilgewater, kin I trust you?" says the old man, still sort of sobbing. + +"To the bitter death!" He took the old man by the hand and squeezed it, +and says, "That secret of your being: speak!" + +"Bilgewater, I am the late Dauphin!" + +You bet you, Jim and me stared this time. Then the duke says: + +"You are what?" + +"Yes, my friend, it is too true--your eyes is lookin' at this very moment +on the pore disappeared Dauphin, Looy the Seventeen, son of Looy the +Sixteen and Marry Antonette." + +"You! At your age! No! You mean you're the late Charlemagne; you must +be six or seven hundred years old, at the very least." + +"Trouble has done it, Bilgewater, trouble has done it; trouble has brung +these gray hairs and this premature balditude. Yes, gentlemen, you +see before you, in blue jeans and misery, the wanderin', exiled, +trampled-on, and sufferin' rightful King of France." + +Well, he cried and took on so that me and Jim didn't know hardly what to +do, we was so sorry--and so glad and proud we'd got him with us, too. + So we set in, like we done before with the duke, and tried to comfort +_him_. But he said it warn't no use, nothing but to be dead and done +with it all could do him any good; though he said it often made him feel +easier and better for a while if people treated him according to his +rights, and got down on one knee to speak to him, and always called him +"Your Majesty," and waited on him first at meals, and didn't set down +in his presence till he asked them. So Jim and me set to majestying him, +and doing this and that and t'other for him, and standing up till he +told us we might set down. This done him heaps of good, and so he +got cheerful and comfortable. But the duke kind of soured on him, and +didn't look a bit satisfied with the way things was going; still, +the king acted real friendly towards him, and said the duke's +great-grandfather and all the other Dukes of Bilgewater was a good +deal thought of by _his_ father, and was allowed to come to the palace +considerable; but the duke stayed huffy a good while, till by and by the +king says: + +"Like as not we got to be together a blamed long time on this h-yer +raft, Bilgewater, and so what's the use o' your bein' sour? It 'll only +make things oncomfortable. It ain't my fault I warn't born a duke, +it ain't your fault you warn't born a king--so what's the use to worry? + Make the best o' things the way you find 'em, says I--that's my motto. + This ain't no bad thing that we've struck here--plenty grub and an easy +life--come, give us your hand, duke, and le's all be friends." + +The duke done it, and Jim and me was pretty glad to see it. It took +away all the uncomfortableness and we felt mighty good over it, because +it would a been a miserable business to have any unfriendliness on the +raft; for what you want, above all things, on a raft, is for everybody +to be satisfied, and feel right and kind towards the others. + +It didn't take me long to make up my mind that these liars warn't no +kings nor dukes at all, but just low-down humbugs and frauds. But I +never said nothing, never let on; kept it to myself; it's the best way; +then you don't have no quarrels, and don't get into no trouble. If they +wanted us to call them kings and dukes, I hadn't no objections, 'long as +it would keep peace in the family; and it warn't no use to tell Jim, so +I didn't tell him. If I never learnt nothing else out of pap, I learnt +that the best way to get along with his kind of people is to let them +have their own way. + + + + +CHAPTER XX. + +THEY asked us considerable many questions; wanted to know what we +covered up the raft that way for, and laid by in the daytime instead of +running--was Jim a runaway nigger? Says I: + +"Goodness sakes! would a runaway nigger run _south_?" + +No, they allowed he wouldn't. I had to account for things some way, so +I says: + +"My folks was living in Pike County, in Missouri, where I was born, and +they all died off but me and pa and my brother Ike. Pa, he 'lowed +he'd break up and go down and live with Uncle Ben, who's got a little +one-horse place on the river, forty-four mile below Orleans. Pa was +pretty poor, and had some debts; so when he'd squared up there warn't +nothing left but sixteen dollars and our nigger, Jim. That warn't +enough to take us fourteen hundred mile, deck passage nor no other way. + Well, when the river rose pa had a streak of luck one day; he ketched +this piece of a raft; so we reckoned we'd go down to Orleans on it. + Pa's luck didn't hold out; a steamboat run over the forrard corner of +the raft one night, and we all went overboard and dove under the wheel; +Jim and me come up all right, but pa was drunk, and Ike was only four +years old, so they never come up no more. Well, for the next day or +two we had considerable trouble, because people was always coming out in +skiffs and trying to take Jim away from me, saying they believed he was +a runaway nigger. We don't run daytimes no more now; nights they don't +bother us." + +The duke says: + +"Leave me alone to cipher out a way so we can run in the daytime if we +want to. I'll think the thing over--I'll invent a plan that'll fix it. +We'll let it alone for to-day, because of course we don't want to go by +that town yonder in daylight--it mightn't be healthy." + +Towards night it begun to darken up and look like rain; the heat +lightning was squirting around low down in the sky, and the leaves was +beginning to shiver--it was going to be pretty ugly, it was easy to see +that. So the duke and the king went to overhauling our wigwam, to see +what the beds was like. My bed was a straw tick better than Jim's, +which was a corn-shuck tick; there's always cobs around about in a shuck +tick, and they poke into you and hurt; and when you roll over the dry +shucks sound like you was rolling over in a pile of dead leaves; it +makes such a rustling that you wake up. Well, the duke allowed he would +take my bed; but the king allowed he wouldn't. He says: + +"I should a reckoned the difference in rank would a sejested to you that +a corn-shuck bed warn't just fitten for me to sleep on. Your Grace 'll +take the shuck bed yourself." + +Jim and me was in a sweat again for a minute, being afraid there was +going to be some more trouble amongst them; so we was pretty glad when +the duke says: + +"'Tis my fate to be always ground into the mire under the iron heel of +oppression. Misfortune has broken my once haughty spirit; I yield, I +submit; 'tis my fate. I am alone in the world--let me suffer; can bear +it." + +We got away as soon as it was good and dark. The king told us to stand +well out towards the middle of the river, and not show a light till we +got a long ways below the town. We come in sight of the little bunch of +lights by and by--that was the town, you know--and slid by, about a half +a mile out, all right. When we was three-quarters of a mile below we +hoisted up our signal lantern; and about ten o'clock it come on to rain +and blow and thunder and lighten like everything; so the king told us +to both stay on watch till the weather got better; then him and the duke +crawled into the wigwam and turned in for the night. It was my watch +below till twelve, but I wouldn't a turned in anyway if I'd had a bed, +because a body don't see such a storm as that every day in the week, not +by a long sight. My souls, how the wind did scream along! And every +second or two there'd come a glare that lit up the white-caps for a half +a mile around, and you'd see the islands looking dusty through the rain, +and the trees thrashing around in the wind; then comes a H-WHACK!--bum! +bum! bumble-umble-um-bum-bum-bum-bum--and the thunder would go rumbling +and grumbling away, and quit--and then RIP comes another flash and +another sockdolager. The waves most washed me off the raft sometimes, +but I hadn't any clothes on, and didn't mind. We didn't have no trouble +about snags; the lightning was glaring and flittering around so constant +that we could see them plenty soon enough to throw her head this way or +that and miss them. + +I had the middle watch, you know, but I was pretty sleepy by that time, +so Jim he said he would stand the first half of it for me; he was always +mighty good that way, Jim was. I crawled into the wigwam, but the king +and the duke had their legs sprawled around so there warn't no show for +me; so I laid outside--I didn't mind the rain, because it was warm, and +the waves warn't running so high now. About two they come up again, +though, and Jim was going to call me; but he changed his mind, because +he reckoned they warn't high enough yet to do any harm; but he was +mistaken about that, for pretty soon all of a sudden along comes a +regular ripper and washed me overboard. It most killed Jim a-laughing. + He was the easiest nigger to laugh that ever was, anyway. + +I took the watch, and Jim he laid down and snored away; and by and by +the storm let up for good and all; and the first cabin-light that showed +I rousted him out, and we slid the raft into hiding quarters for the +day. + +The king got out an old ratty deck of cards after breakfast, and him +and the duke played seven-up a while, five cents a game. Then they got +tired of it, and allowed they would "lay out a campaign," as they called +it. The duke went down into his carpet-bag, and fetched up a lot of +little printed bills and read them out loud. One bill said, "The +celebrated Dr. Armand de Montalban, of Paris," would "lecture on the +Science of Phrenology" at such and such a place, on the blank day of +blank, at ten cents admission, and "furnish charts of character at +twenty-five cents apiece." The duke said that was _him_. In another +bill he was the "world-renowned Shakespearian tragedian, Garrick the +Younger, of Drury Lane, London." In other bills he had a lot of other +names and done other wonderful things, like finding water and gold with +a "divining-rod," "dissipating witch spells," and so on. By and by he +says: + +"But the histrionic muse is the darling. Have you ever trod the boards, +Royalty?" + +"No," says the king. + +"You shall, then, before you're three days older, Fallen Grandeur," says +the duke. "The first good town we come to we'll hire a hall and do the +sword fight in Richard III. and the balcony scene in Romeo and Juliet. +How does that strike you?" + +"I'm in, up to the hub, for anything that will pay, Bilgewater; but, you +see, I don't know nothing about play-actin', and hain't ever seen much +of it. I was too small when pap used to have 'em at the palace. Do you +reckon you can learn me?" + +"Easy!" + +"All right. I'm jist a-freezn' for something fresh, anyway. Le's +commence right away." + +So the duke he told him all about who Romeo was and who Juliet was, and +said he was used to being Romeo, so the king could be Juliet. + +"But if Juliet's such a young gal, duke, my peeled head and my white +whiskers is goin' to look oncommon odd on her, maybe." + +"No, don't you worry; these country jakes won't ever think of that. +Besides, you know, you'll be in costume, and that makes all the +difference in the world; Juliet's in a balcony, enjoying the moonlight +before she goes to bed, and she's got on her night-gown and her ruffled +nightcap. Here are the costumes for the parts." + +He got out two or three curtain-calico suits, which he said was +meedyevil armor for Richard III. and t'other chap, and a long white +cotton nightshirt and a ruffled nightcap to match. The king was +satisfied; so the duke got out his book and read the parts over in the +most splendid spread-eagle way, prancing around and acting at the same +time, to show how it had got to be done; then he give the book to the +king and told him to get his part by heart. + +There was a little one-horse town about three mile down the bend, and +after dinner the duke said he had ciphered out his idea about how to run +in daylight without it being dangersome for Jim; so he allowed he would +go down to the town and fix that thing. The king allowed he would go, +too, and see if he couldn't strike something. We was out of coffee, so +Jim said I better go along with them in the canoe and get some. + +When we got there there warn't nobody stirring; streets empty, and +perfectly dead and still, like Sunday. We found a sick nigger sunning +himself in a back yard, and he said everybody that warn't too young or +too sick or too old was gone to camp-meeting, about two mile back in the +woods. The king got the directions, and allowed he'd go and work that +camp-meeting for all it was worth, and I might go, too. + +The duke said what he was after was a printing-office. We found it; +a little bit of a concern, up over a carpenter shop--carpenters and +printers all gone to the meeting, and no doors locked. It was a dirty, +littered-up place, and had ink marks, and handbills with pictures of +horses and runaway niggers on them, all over the walls. The duke shed +his coat and said he was all right now. So me and the king lit out for +the camp-meeting. + +We got there in about a half an hour fairly dripping, for it was a most +awful hot day. There was as much as a thousand people there from +twenty mile around. The woods was full of teams and wagons, hitched +everywheres, feeding out of the wagon-troughs and stomping to keep +off the flies. There was sheds made out of poles and roofed over with +branches, where they had lemonade and gingerbread to sell, and piles of +watermelons and green corn and such-like truck. + +The preaching was going on under the same kinds of sheds, only they was +bigger and held crowds of people. The benches was made out of outside +slabs of logs, with holes bored in the round side to drive sticks into +for legs. They didn't have no backs. The preachers had high platforms +to stand on at one end of the sheds. The women had on sun-bonnets; +and some had linsey-woolsey frocks, some gingham ones, and a few of the +young ones had on calico. Some of the young men was barefooted, and +some of the children didn't have on any clothes but just a tow-linen +shirt. Some of the old women was knitting, and some of the young folks +was courting on the sly. + +The first shed we come to the preacher was lining out a hymn. He lined +out two lines, everybody sung it, and it was kind of grand to hear it, +there was so many of them and they done it in such a rousing way; then +he lined out two more for them to sing--and so on. The people woke up +more and more, and sung louder and louder; and towards the end some +begun to groan, and some begun to shout. Then the preacher begun to +preach, and begun in earnest, too; and went weaving first to one side of +the platform and then the other, and then a-leaning down over the front +of it, with his arms and his body going all the time, and shouting his +words out with all his might; and every now and then he would hold up +his Bible and spread it open, and kind of pass it around this way and +that, shouting, "It's the brazen serpent in the wilderness! Look upon +it and live!" And people would shout out, "Glory!--A-a-_men_!" And so +he went on, and the people groaning and crying and saying amen: + +"Oh, come to the mourners' bench! come, black with sin! (_Amen_!) come, +sick and sore! (_Amen_!) come, lame and halt and blind! (_Amen_!) come, +pore and needy, sunk in shame! (_A-A-Men_!) come, all that's worn and +soiled and suffering!--come with a broken spirit! come with a contrite +heart! come in your rags and sin and dirt! the waters that cleanse +is free, the door of heaven stands open--oh, enter in and be at rest!" +(_A-A-Men_! _Glory, Glory Hallelujah!_) + +And so on. You couldn't make out what the preacher said any more, on +account of the shouting and crying. Folks got up everywheres in the +crowd, and worked their way just by main strength to the mourners' +bench, with the tears running down their faces; and when all the +mourners had got up there to the front benches in a crowd, they sung and +shouted and flung themselves down on the straw, just crazy and wild. + +Well, the first I knowed the king got a-going, and you could hear him +over everybody; and next he went a-charging up on to the platform, and +the preacher he begged him to speak to the people, and he done it. He +told them he was a pirate--been a pirate for thirty years out in the +Indian Ocean--and his crew was thinned out considerable last spring in +a fight, and he was home now to take out some fresh men, and thanks to +goodness he'd been robbed last night and put ashore off of a steamboat +without a cent, and he was glad of it; it was the blessedest thing that +ever happened to him, because he was a changed man now, and happy for +the first time in his life; and, poor as he was, he was going to start +right off and work his way back to the Indian Ocean, and put in the rest +of his life trying to turn the pirates into the true path; for he could +do it better than anybody else, being acquainted with all pirate crews +in that ocean; and though it would take him a long time to get there +without money, he would get there anyway, and every time he convinced +a pirate he would say to him, "Don't you thank me, don't you give me no +credit; it all belongs to them dear people in Pokeville camp-meeting, +natural brothers and benefactors of the race, and that dear preacher +there, the truest friend a pirate ever had!" + +And then he busted into tears, and so did everybody. Then somebody +sings out, "Take up a collection for him, take up a collection!" Well, +a half a dozen made a jump to do it, but somebody sings out, "Let _him_ +pass the hat around!" Then everybody said it, the preacher too. + +So the king went all through the crowd with his hat swabbing his eyes, +and blessing the people and praising them and thanking them for being +so good to the poor pirates away off there; and every little while the +prettiest kind of girls, with the tears running down their cheeks, would +up and ask him would he let them kiss him for to remember him by; and he +always done it; and some of them he hugged and kissed as many as five or +six times--and he was invited to stay a week; and everybody wanted him to +live in their houses, and said they'd think it was an honor; but he said +as this was the last day of the camp-meeting he couldn't do no good, and +besides he was in a sweat to get to the Indian Ocean right off and go to +work on the pirates. + +When we got back to the raft and he come to count up he found he had +collected eighty-seven dollars and seventy-five cents. And then he had +fetched away a three-gallon jug of whisky, too, that he found under a +wagon when he was starting home through the woods. The king said, +take it all around, it laid over any day he'd ever put in in the +missionarying line. He said it warn't no use talking, heathens don't +amount to shucks alongside of pirates to work a camp-meeting with. + +The duke was thinking _he'd_ been doing pretty well till the king come +to show up, but after that he didn't think so so much. He had set +up and printed off two little jobs for farmers in that +printing-office--horse bills--and took the money, four dollars. And he +had got in ten dollars' worth of advertisements for the paper, which he +said he would put in for four dollars if they would pay in advance--so +they done it. The price of the paper was two dollars a year, but he took +in three subscriptions for half a dollar apiece on condition of them +paying him in advance; they were going to pay in cordwood and onions as +usual, but he said he had just bought the concern and knocked down the +price as low as he could afford it, and was going to run it for cash. + He set up a little piece of poetry, which he made, himself, out of +his own head--three verses--kind of sweet and saddish--the name of it was, +"Yes, crush, cold world, this breaking heart"--and he left that all set +up and ready to print in the paper, and didn't charge nothing for it. + Well, he took in nine dollars and a half, and said he'd done a pretty +square day's work for it. + +Then he showed us another little job he'd printed and hadn't charged +for, because it was for us. It had a picture of a runaway nigger with +a bundle on a stick over his shoulder, and "$200 reward" under it. The +reading was all about Jim, and just described him to a dot. It said +he run away from St. Jacques' plantation, forty mile below New Orleans, +last winter, and likely went north, and whoever would catch him and send +him back he could have the reward and expenses. + +"Now," says the duke, "after to-night we can run in the daytime if we +want to. Whenever we see anybody coming we can tie Jim hand and foot +with a rope, and lay him in the wigwam and show this handbill and say we +captured him up the river, and were too poor to travel on a steamboat, +so we got this little raft on credit from our friends and are going down +to get the reward. Handcuffs and chains would look still better on Jim, +but it wouldn't go well with the story of us being so poor. Too much +like jewelry. Ropes are the correct thing--we must preserve the unities, +as we say on the boards." + +We all said the duke was pretty smart, and there couldn't be no trouble +about running daytimes. We judged we could make miles enough that night +to get out of the reach of the powwow we reckoned the duke's work in +the printing office was going to make in that little town; then we could +boom right along if we wanted to. + +We laid low and kept still, and never shoved out till nearly ten +o'clock; then we slid by, pretty wide away from the town, and didn't +hoist our lantern till we was clear out of sight of it. + +When Jim called me to take the watch at four in the morning, he says: + +"Huck, does you reck'n we gwyne to run acrost any mo' kings on dis +trip?" + +"No," I says, "I reckon not." + +"Well," says he, "dat's all right, den. I doan' mine one er two kings, +but dat's enough. Dis one's powerful drunk, en de duke ain' much +better." + +I found Jim had been trying to get him to talk French, so he could hear +what it was like; but he said he had been in this country so long, and +had so much trouble, he'd forgot it. + + + + +CHAPTER XXI. + +IT was after sun-up now, but we went right on and didn't tie up. The +king and the duke turned out by and by looking pretty rusty; but after +they'd jumped overboard and took a swim it chippered them up a good +deal. After breakfast the king he took a seat on the corner of the raft, +and pulled off his boots and rolled up his britches, and let his legs +dangle in the water, so as to be comfortable, and lit his pipe, and went +to getting his Romeo and Juliet by heart. When he had got it pretty +good him and the duke begun to practice it together. The duke had to +learn him over and over again how to say every speech; and he made him +sigh, and put his hand on his heart, and after a while he said he done +it pretty well; "only," he says, "you mustn't bellow out _Romeo_! +that way, like a bull--you must say it soft and sick and languishy, +so--R-o-o-meo! that is the idea; for Juliet's a dear sweet mere child of +a girl, you know, and she doesn't bray like a jackass." + +Well, next they got out a couple of long swords that the duke made out +of oak laths, and begun to practice the sword fight--the duke called +himself Richard III.; and the way they laid on and pranced around +the raft was grand to see. But by and by the king tripped and fell +overboard, and after that they took a rest, and had a talk about all +kinds of adventures they'd had in other times along the river. + +After dinner the duke says: + +"Well, Capet, we'll want to make this a first-class show, you know, so +I guess we'll add a little more to it. We want a little something to +answer encores with, anyway." + +"What's onkores, Bilgewater?" + +The duke told him, and then says: + +"I'll answer by doing the Highland fling or the sailor's hornpipe; and +you--well, let me see--oh, I've got it--you can do Hamlet's soliloquy." + +"Hamlet's which?" + +"Hamlet's soliloquy, you know; the most celebrated thing in Shakespeare. +Ah, it's sublime, sublime! Always fetches the house. I haven't got +it in the book--I've only got one volume--but I reckon I can piece it out +from memory. I'll just walk up and down a minute, and see if I can call +it back from recollection's vaults." + +So he went to marching up and down, thinking, and frowning horrible +every now and then; then he would hoist up his eyebrows; next he would +squeeze his hand on his forehead and stagger back and kind of moan; next +he would sigh, and next he'd let on to drop a tear. It was beautiful +to see him. By and by he got it. He told us to give attention. Then +he strikes a most noble attitude, with one leg shoved forwards, and his +arms stretched away up, and his head tilted back, looking up at the sky; +and then he begins to rip and rave and grit his teeth; and after that, +all through his speech, he howled, and spread around, and swelled up his +chest, and just knocked the spots out of any acting ever I see before. + This is the speech--I learned it, easy enough, while he was learning it +to the king: + +To be, or not to be; that is the bare bodkin That makes calamity of +so long life; For who would fardels bear, till Birnam Wood do come +to Dunsinane, But that the fear of something after death Murders the +innocent sleep, Great nature's second course, And makes us rather sling +the arrows of outrageous fortune Than fly to others that we know not of. +There's the respect must give us pause: Wake Duncan with thy knocking! I +would thou couldst; For who would bear the whips and scorns of time, The +oppressor's wrong, the proud man's contumely, The law's delay, and the +quietus which his pangs might take. In the dead waste and middle of the +night, when churchyards yawn In customary suits of solemn black, But +that the undiscovered country from whose bourne no traveler returns, +Breathes forth contagion on the world, And thus the native hue of +resolution, like the poor cat i' the adage, Is sicklied o'er with care. +And all the clouds that lowered o'er our housetops, With this +regard their currents turn awry, And lose the name of action. 'Tis a +consummation devoutly to be wished. But soft you, the fair Ophelia: Ope +not thy ponderous and marble jaws. But get thee to a nunnery—go! + +Well, the old man he liked that speech, and he mighty soon got it so he +could do it first rate. It seemed like he was just born for it; and when +he had his hand in and was excited, it was perfectly lovely the way he +would rip and tear and rair up behind when he was getting it off. + +The first chance we got, the duke he had some show bills printed; and +after that, for two or three days as we floated along, the raft was a +most uncommon lively place, for there warn't nothing but sword-fighting +and rehearsing--as the duke called it--going on all the time. One morning, +when we was pretty well down the State of Arkansaw, we come in sight +of a little one-horse town in a big bend; so we tied up about +three-quarters of a mile above it, in the mouth of a crick which was +shut in like a tunnel by the cypress trees, and all of us but Jim took +the canoe and went down there to see if there was any chance in that +place for our show. + +We struck it mighty lucky; there was going to be a circus there that +afternoon, and the country people was already beginning to come in, in +all kinds of old shackly wagons, and on horses. The circus would leave +before night, so our show would have a pretty good chance. The duke he +hired the court house, and we went around and stuck up our bills. They +read like this: + +Shaksperean Revival!!! + +Wonderful Attraction! + +For One Night Only! The world renowned tragedians, + +David Garrick the younger, of Drury Lane Theatre, London, + +and + +Edmund Kean the elder, of the Royal Haymarket Theatre, Whitechapel, +Pudding Lane, Piccadilly, London, and the Royal Continental Theatres, in +their sublime Shaksperean Spectacle entitled The Balcony Scene in + +Romeo and Juliet!!! + +Romeo...................................... Mr. Garrick. + +Juliet..................................... Mr. Kean. + +Assisted by the whole strength of the company! + +New costumes, new scenery, new appointments! + +Also: + +The thrilling, masterly, and blood-curdling Broad-sword conflict In +Richard III.!!! + +Richard III................................ Mr. Garrick. + +Richmond................................... Mr. Kean. + +also: + +(by special request,) + +Hamlet's Immortal Soliloquy!! + +By the Illustrious Kean! + +Done by him 300 consecutive nights in Paris! + +For One Night Only, + +On account of imperative European engagements! + +Admission 25 cents; children and servants, 10 cents. + +Then we went loafing around the town. The stores and houses was most all +old shackly dried-up frame concerns that hadn't ever been painted; they +was set up three or four foot above ground on stilts, so as to be out of +reach of the water when the river was overflowed. The houses had little +gardens around them, but they didn't seem to raise hardly anything in +them but jimpson weeds, and sunflowers, and ash-piles, and old curled-up +boots and shoes, and pieces of bottles, and rags, and played-out +tin-ware. The fences was made of different kinds of boards, nailed on +at different times; and they leaned every which-way, and had gates that +didn't generly have but one hinge--a leather one. Some of the fences +had been whitewashed, some time or another, but the duke said it was in +Clumbus's time, like enough. There was generly hogs in the garden, and +people driving them out. + +All the stores was along one street. They had white domestic awnings in +front, and the country people hitched their horses to the awning-posts. +There was empty drygoods boxes under the awnings, and loafers roosting +on them all day long, whittling them with their Barlow knives; and +chawing tobacco, and gaping and yawning and stretching--a mighty ornery +lot. They generly had on yellow straw hats most as wide as an umbrella, +but didn't wear no coats nor waistcoats, they called one another Bill, +and Buck, and Hank, and Joe, and Andy, and talked lazy and drawly, and +used considerable many cuss words. There was as many as one loafer +leaning up against every awning-post, and he most always had his hands +in his britches-pockets, except when he fetched them out to lend a chaw +of tobacco or scratch. What a body was hearing amongst them all the +time was: + +"Gimme a chaw 'v tobacker, Hank." + +"Cain't; I hain't got but one chaw left. Ask Bill." + +Maybe Bill he gives him a chaw; maybe he lies and says he ain't got +none. Some of them kinds of loafers never has a cent in the world, nor a +chaw of tobacco of their own. They get all their chawing by borrowing; +they say to a fellow, "I wisht you'd len' me a chaw, Jack, I jist this +minute give Ben Thompson the last chaw I had"--which is a lie pretty +much everytime; it don't fool nobody but a stranger; but Jack ain't no +stranger, so he says: + +"_You_ give him a chaw, did you? So did your sister's cat's +grandmother. You pay me back the chaws you've awready borry'd off'n me, +Lafe Buckner, then I'll loan you one or two ton of it, and won't charge +you no back intrust, nuther." + +"Well, I _did_ pay you back some of it wunst." + +"Yes, you did--'bout six chaws. You borry'd store tobacker and paid back +nigger-head." + +Store tobacco is flat black plug, but these fellows mostly chaws the +natural leaf twisted. When they borrow a chaw they don't generly cut it +off with a knife, but set the plug in between their teeth, and gnaw with +their teeth and tug at the plug with their hands till they get it in +two; then sometimes the one that owns the tobacco looks mournful at it +when it's handed back, and says, sarcastic: + +"Here, gimme the _chaw_, and you take the _plug_." + +All the streets and lanes was just mud; they warn't nothing else _but_ +mud--mud as black as tar and nigh about a foot deep in some places, +and two or three inches deep in _all_ the places. The hogs loafed and +grunted around everywheres. You'd see a muddy sow and a litter of pigs +come lazying along the street and whollop herself right down in the way, +where folks had to walk around her, and she'd stretch out and shut her +eyes and wave her ears whilst the pigs was milking her, and look as +happy as if she was on salary. And pretty soon you'd hear a loafer +sing out, "Hi! _so_ boy! sick him, Tige!" and away the sow would go, +squealing most horrible, with a dog or two swinging to each ear, and +three or four dozen more a-coming; and then you would see all the +loafers get up and watch the thing out of sight, and laugh at the fun +and look grateful for the noise. Then they'd settle back again till +there was a dog fight. There couldn't anything wake them up all over, +and make them happy all over, like a dog fight--unless it might be +putting turpentine on a stray dog and setting fire to him, or tying a +tin pan to his tail and see him run himself to death. + +On the river front some of the houses was sticking out over the bank, +and they was bowed and bent, and about ready to tumble in. The people +had moved out of them. The bank was caved away under one corner of some +others, and that corner was hanging over. People lived in them yet, but +it was dangersome, because sometimes a strip of land as wide as a house +caves in at a time. Sometimes a belt of land a quarter of a mile deep +will start in and cave along and cave along till it all caves into the +river in one summer. Such a town as that has to be always moving back, +and back, and back, because the river's always gnawing at it. + +The nearer it got to noon that day the thicker and thicker was the +wagons and horses in the streets, and more coming all the time. + Families fetched their dinners with them from the country, and eat them +in the wagons. There was considerable whisky drinking going on, and I +seen three fights. By and by somebody sings out: + +"Here comes old Boggs!--in from the country for his little old monthly +drunk; here he comes, boys!" + +All the loafers looked glad; I reckoned they was used to having fun out +of Boggs. One of them says: + +"Wonder who he's a-gwyne to chaw up this time. If he'd a-chawed up all +the men he's ben a-gwyne to chaw up in the last twenty year he'd have +considerable ruputation now." + +Another one says, "I wisht old Boggs 'd threaten me, 'cuz then I'd know +I warn't gwyne to die for a thousan' year." + +Boggs comes a-tearing along on his horse, whooping and yelling like an +Injun, and singing out: + +"Cler the track, thar. I'm on the waw-path, and the price uv coffins is +a-gwyne to raise." + +He was drunk, and weaving about in his saddle; he was over fifty year +old, and had a very red face. Everybody yelled at him and laughed at +him and sassed him, and he sassed back, and said he'd attend to them and +lay them out in their regular turns, but he couldn't wait now because +he'd come to town to kill old Colonel Sherburn, and his motto was, "Meat +first, and spoon vittles to top off on." + +He see me, and rode up and says: + +"Whar'd you come f'm, boy? You prepared to die?" + +Then he rode on. I was scared, but a man says: + +"He don't mean nothing; he's always a-carryin' on like that when he's +drunk. He's the best naturedest old fool in Arkansaw--never hurt nobody, +drunk nor sober." + +Boggs rode up before the biggest store in town, and bent his head down +so he could see under the curtain of the awning and yells: + +"Come out here, Sherburn! Come out and meet the man you've swindled. +You're the houn' I'm after, and I'm a-gwyne to have you, too!" + +And so he went on, calling Sherburn everything he could lay his tongue +to, and the whole street packed with people listening and laughing and +going on. By and by a proud-looking man about fifty-five--and he was a +heap the best dressed man in that town, too--steps out of the store, and +the crowd drops back on each side to let him come. He says to Boggs, +mighty ca'm and slow--he says: + +"I'm tired of this, but I'll endure it till one o'clock. Till one +o'clock, mind--no longer. If you open your mouth against me only once +after that time you can't travel so far but I will find you." + +Then he turns and goes in. The crowd looked mighty sober; nobody +stirred, and there warn't no more laughing. Boggs rode off +blackguarding Sherburn as loud as he could yell, all down the street; +and pretty soon back he comes and stops before the store, still keeping +it up. Some men crowded around him and tried to get him to shut up, +but he wouldn't; they told him it would be one o'clock in about fifteen +minutes, and so he _must_ go home--he must go right away. But it didn't +do no good. He cussed away with all his might, and throwed his hat down +in the mud and rode over it, and pretty soon away he went a-raging down +the street again, with his gray hair a-flying. Everybody that could get +a chance at him tried their best to coax him off of his horse so they +could lock him up and get him sober; but it warn't no use--up the street +he would tear again, and give Sherburn another cussing. By and by +somebody says: + +"Go for his daughter!--quick, go for his daughter; sometimes he'll listen +to her. If anybody can persuade him, she can." + +So somebody started on a run. I walked down street a ways and stopped. +In about five or ten minutes here comes Boggs again, but not on his +horse. He was a-reeling across the street towards me, bare-headed, with +a friend on both sides of him a-holt of his arms and hurrying him along. +He was quiet, and looked uneasy; and he warn't hanging back any, but was +doing some of the hurrying himself. Somebody sings out: + +"Boggs!" + +I looked over there to see who said it, and it was that Colonel +Sherburn. He was standing perfectly still in the street, and had a +pistol raised in his right hand--not aiming it, but holding it out with +the barrel tilted up towards the sky. The same second I see a young +girl coming on the run, and two men with her. Boggs and the men turned +round to see who called him, and when they see the pistol the men +jumped to one side, and the pistol-barrel come down slow and steady to +a level--both barrels cocked. Boggs throws up both of his hands and says, +"O Lord, don't shoot!" Bang! goes the first shot, and he staggers back, +clawing at the air--bang! goes the second one, and he tumbles backwards +on to the ground, heavy and solid, with his arms spread out. That young +girl screamed out and comes rushing, and down she throws herself on her +father, crying, and saying, "Oh, he's killed him, he's killed him!" The +crowd closed up around them, and shouldered and jammed one another, with +their necks stretched, trying to see, and people on the inside trying to +shove them back and shouting, "Back, back! give him air, give him air!" + +Colonel Sherburn he tossed his pistol on to the ground, and turned +around on his heels and walked off. + +They took Boggs to a little drug store, the crowd pressing around just +the same, and the whole town following, and I rushed and got a good +place at the window, where I was close to him and could see in. They +laid him on the floor and put one large Bible under his head, and opened +another one and spread it on his breast; but they tore open his shirt +first, and I seen where one of the bullets went in. He made about a +dozen long gasps, his breast lifting the Bible up when he drawed in his +breath, and letting it down again when he breathed it out--and after that +he laid still; he was dead. Then they pulled his daughter away from +him, screaming and crying, and took her off. She was about sixteen, and +very sweet and gentle looking, but awful pale and scared. + +Well, pretty soon the whole town was there, squirming and scrouging and +pushing and shoving to get at the window and have a look, but people +that had the places wouldn't give them up, and folks behind them was +saying all the time, "Say, now, you've looked enough, you fellows; +'tain't right and 'tain't fair for you to stay thar all the time, and +never give nobody a chance; other folks has their rights as well as +you." + +There was considerable jawing back, so I slid out, thinking maybe +there was going to be trouble. The streets was full, and everybody was +excited. Everybody that seen the shooting was telling how it happened, +and there was a big crowd packed around each one of these fellows, +stretching their necks and listening. One long, lanky man, with long +hair and a big white fur stovepipe hat on the back of his head, and a +crooked-handled cane, marked out the places on the ground where Boggs +stood and where Sherburn stood, and the people following him around from +one place to t'other and watching everything he done, and bobbing their +heads to show they understood, and stooping a little and resting their +hands on their thighs to watch him mark the places on the ground with +his cane; and then he stood up straight and stiff where Sherburn had +stood, frowning and having his hat-brim down over his eyes, and sung +out, "Boggs!" and then fetched his cane down slow to a level, and says +"Bang!" staggered backwards, says "Bang!" again, and fell down flat on +his back. The people that had seen the thing said he done it perfect; +said it was just exactly the way it all happened. Then as much as a +dozen people got out their bottles and treated him. + +Well, by and by somebody said Sherburn ought to be lynched. In about a +minute everybody was saying it; so away they went, mad and yelling, and +snatching down every clothes-line they come to to do the hanging with. + + + + +CHAPTER XXII. + +THEY swarmed up towards Sherburn's house, a-whooping and raging like +Injuns, and everything had to clear the way or get run over and tromped +to mush, and it was awful to see. Children was heeling it ahead of the +mob, screaming and trying to get out of the way; and every window along +the road was full of women's heads, and there was nigger boys in every +tree, and bucks and wenches looking over every fence; and as soon as the +mob would get nearly to them they would break and skaddle back out of +reach. Lots of the women and girls was crying and taking on, scared +most to death. + +They swarmed up in front of Sherburn's palings as thick as they could +jam together, and you couldn't hear yourself think for the noise. It +was a little twenty-foot yard. Some sung out "Tear down the fence! tear +down the fence!" Then there was a racket of ripping and tearing and +smashing, and down she goes, and the front wall of the crowd begins to +roll in like a wave. + +Just then Sherburn steps out on to the roof of his little front porch, +with a double-barrel gun in his hand, and takes his stand, perfectly +ca'm and deliberate, not saying a word. The racket stopped, and the +wave sucked back. + +Sherburn never said a word--just stood there, looking down. The +stillness was awful creepy and uncomfortable. Sherburn run his eye slow +along the crowd; and wherever it struck the people tried a little to +out-gaze him, but they couldn't; they dropped their eyes and looked +sneaky. Then pretty soon Sherburn sort of laughed; not the pleasant +kind, but the kind that makes you feel like when you are eating bread +that's got sand in it. + +Then he says, slow and scornful: + +"The idea of _you_ lynching anybody! It's amusing. The idea of you +thinking you had pluck enough to lynch a _man_! Because you're brave +enough to tar and feather poor friendless cast-out women that come along +here, did that make you think you had grit enough to lay your hands on a +_man_? Why, a _man's_ safe in the hands of ten thousand of your kind--as +long as it's daytime and you're not behind him. + +"Do I know you? I know you clear through. I was born and raised in the +South, and I've lived in the North; so I know the average all around. +The average man's a coward. In the North he lets anybody walk over him +that wants to, and goes home and prays for a humble spirit to bear it. +In the South one man all by himself, has stopped a stage full of men +in the daytime, and robbed the lot. Your newspapers call you a +brave people so much that you think you are braver than any other +people--whereas you're just _as_ brave, and no braver. Why don't your +juries hang murderers? Because they're afraid the man's friends will +shoot them in the back, in the dark--and it's just what they _would_ do. + +"So they always acquit; and then a _man_ goes in the night, with a +hundred masked cowards at his back and lynches the rascal. Your mistake +is, that you didn't bring a man with you; that's one mistake, and the +other is that you didn't come in the dark and fetch your masks. You +brought _part_ of a man--Buck Harkness, there--and if you hadn't had him +to start you, you'd a taken it out in blowing. + +"You didn't want to come. The average man don't like trouble and +danger. _You_ don't like trouble and danger. But if only _half_ a +man--like Buck Harkness, there--shouts 'Lynch him! lynch him!' you're +afraid to back down--afraid you'll be found out to be what you +are--_cowards_--and so you raise a yell, and hang yourselves on to that +half-a-man's coat-tail, and come raging up here, swearing what big +things you're going to do. The pitifulest thing out is a mob; that's +what an army is--a mob; they don't fight with courage that's born in +them, but with courage that's borrowed from their mass, and from their +officers. But a mob without any _man_ at the head of it is _beneath_ +pitifulness. Now the thing for _you_ to do is to droop your tails and +go home and crawl in a hole. If any real lynching's going to be done it +will be done in the dark, Southern fashion; and when they come they'll +bring their masks, and fetch a _man_ along. Now _leave_--and take your +half-a-man with you"--tossing his gun up across his left arm and cocking +it when he says this. + +The crowd washed back sudden, and then broke all apart, and went tearing +off every which way, and Buck Harkness he heeled it after them, looking +tolerable cheap. I could a stayed if I wanted to, but I didn't want to. + +I went to the circus and loafed around the back side till the watchman +went by, and then dived in under the tent. I had my twenty-dollar gold +piece and some other money, but I reckoned I better save it, because +there ain't no telling how soon you are going to need it, away from +home and amongst strangers that way. You can't be too careful. I ain't +opposed to spending money on circuses when there ain't no other way, but +there ain't no use in _wasting_ it on them. + +It was a real bully circus. It was the splendidest sight that ever was +when they all come riding in, two and two, a gentleman and lady, side +by side, the men just in their drawers and undershirts, and no shoes +nor stirrups, and resting their hands on their thighs easy and +comfortable--there must a been twenty of them--and every lady with a +lovely complexion, and perfectly beautiful, and looking just like a gang +of real sure-enough queens, and dressed in clothes that cost millions of +dollars, and just littered with diamonds. It was a powerful fine sight; +I never see anything so lovely. And then one by one they got up +and stood, and went a-weaving around the ring so gentle and wavy and +graceful, the men looking ever so tall and airy and straight, with their +heads bobbing and skimming along, away up there under the tent-roof, and +every lady's rose-leafy dress flapping soft and silky around her hips, +and she looking like the most loveliest parasol. + +And then faster and faster they went, all of them dancing, first one +foot out in the air and then the other, the horses leaning more and +more, and the ringmaster going round and round the center-pole, cracking +his whip and shouting "Hi!--hi!" and the clown cracking jokes behind +him; and by and by all hands dropped the reins, and every lady put her +knuckles on her hips and every gentleman folded his arms, and then how +the horses did lean over and hump themselves! And so one after the +other they all skipped off into the ring, and made the sweetest bow I +ever see, and then scampered out, and everybody clapped their hands and +went just about wild. + +Well, all through the circus they done the most astonishing things; and +all the time that clown carried on so it most killed the people. The +ringmaster couldn't ever say a word to him but he was back at him quick +as a wink with the funniest things a body ever said; and how he ever +_could_ think of so many of them, and so sudden and so pat, was what I +couldn't noway understand. Why, I couldn't a thought of them in a year. +And by and by a drunk man tried to get into the ring--said he wanted to +ride; said he could ride as well as anybody that ever was. They argued +and tried to keep him out, but he wouldn't listen, and the whole show +come to a standstill. Then the people begun to holler at him and make +fun of him, and that made him mad, and he begun to rip and tear; so that +stirred up the people, and a lot of men begun to pile down off of the +benches and swarm towards the ring, saying, "Knock him down! throw him +out!" and one or two women begun to scream. So, then, the ringmaster +he made a little speech, and said he hoped there wouldn't be no +disturbance, and if the man would promise he wouldn't make no more +trouble he would let him ride if he thought he could stay on the horse. + So everybody laughed and said all right, and the man got on. The minute +he was on, the horse begun to rip and tear and jump and cavort around, +with two circus men hanging on to his bridle trying to hold him, and the +drunk man hanging on to his neck, and his heels flying in the air every +jump, and the whole crowd of people standing up shouting and laughing +till tears rolled down. And at last, sure enough, all the circus men +could do, the horse broke loose, and away he went like the very nation, +round and round the ring, with that sot laying down on him and hanging +to his neck, with first one leg hanging most to the ground on one side, +and then t'other one on t'other side, and the people just crazy. It +warn't funny to me, though; I was all of a tremble to see his danger. + But pretty soon he struggled up astraddle and grabbed the bridle, +a-reeling this way and that; and the next minute he sprung up and +dropped the bridle and stood! and the horse a-going like a house afire +too. He just stood up there, a-sailing around as easy and comfortable +as if he warn't ever drunk in his life--and then he begun to pull off his +clothes and sling them. He shed them so thick they kind of clogged up +the air, and altogether he shed seventeen suits. And, then, there he +was, slim and handsome, and dressed the gaudiest and prettiest you +ever saw, and he lit into that horse with his whip and made him fairly +hum--and finally skipped off, and made his bow and danced off to +the dressing-room, and everybody just a-howling with pleasure and +astonishment. + +Then the ringmaster he see how he had been fooled, and he _was_ the +sickest ringmaster you ever see, I reckon. Why, it was one of his own +men! He had got up that joke all out of his own head, and never let on +to nobody. Well, I felt sheepish enough to be took in so, but I wouldn't +a been in that ringmaster's place, not for a thousand dollars. I don't +know; there may be bullier circuses than what that one was, but I +never struck them yet. Anyways, it was plenty good enough for _me_; and +wherever I run across it, it can have all of _my_ custom every time. + +Well, that night we had _our_ show; but there warn't only about twelve +people there--just enough to pay expenses. And they laughed all the +time, and that made the duke mad; and everybody left, anyway, before +the show was over, but one boy which was asleep. So the duke said these +Arkansaw lunkheads couldn't come up to Shakespeare; what they wanted +was low comedy--and maybe something ruther worse than low comedy, he +reckoned. He said he could size their style. So next morning he got +some big sheets of wrapping paper and some black paint, and drawed off +some handbills, and stuck them up all over the village. The bills said: + + + + +CHAPTER XXIII. + +WELL, all day him and the king was hard at it, rigging up a stage and +a curtain and a row of candles for footlights; and that night the house +was jam full of men in no time. When the place couldn't hold no more, +the duke he quit tending door and went around the back way and come on +to the stage and stood up before the curtain and made a little speech, +and praised up this tragedy, and said it was the most thrillingest one +that ever was; and so he went on a-bragging about the tragedy, and about +Edmund Kean the Elder, which was to play the main principal part in it; +and at last when he'd got everybody's expectations up high enough, he +rolled up the curtain, and the next minute the king come a-prancing +out on all fours, naked; and he was painted all over, +ring-streaked-and-striped, all sorts of colors, as splendid as a +rainbow. And--but never mind the rest of his outfit; it was just wild, +but it was awful funny. The people most killed themselves laughing; and +when the king got done capering and capered off behind the scenes, they +roared and clapped and stormed and haw-hawed till he come back and done +it over again, and after that they made him do it another time. Well, it +would make a cow laugh to see the shines that old idiot cut. + +Then the duke he lets the curtain down, and bows to the people, and says +the great tragedy will be performed only two nights more, on accounts of +pressing London engagements, where the seats is all sold already for it +in Drury Lane; and then he makes them another bow, and says if he has +succeeded in pleasing them and instructing them, he will be deeply +obleeged if they will mention it to their friends and get them to come +and see it. + +Twenty people sings out: + +"What, is it over? Is that _all_?" + +The duke says yes. Then there was a fine time. Everybody sings +out, "Sold!" and rose up mad, and was a-going for that stage and them +tragedians. But a big, fine looking man jumps up on a bench and shouts: + +"Hold on! Just a word, gentlemen." They stopped to listen. "We are +sold--mighty badly sold. But we don't want to be the laughing stock of +this whole town, I reckon, and never hear the last of this thing as long +as we live. _No_. What we want is to go out of here quiet, and talk +this show up, and sell the _rest_ of the town! Then we'll all be in the +same boat. Ain't that sensible?" ("You bet it is!--the jedge is right!" +everybody sings out.) "All right, then--not a word about any sell. Go +along home, and advise everybody to come and see the tragedy." + +Next day you couldn't hear nothing around that town but how splendid +that show was. House was jammed again that night, and we sold this +crowd the same way. When me and the king and the duke got home to the +raft we all had a supper; and by and by, about midnight, they made Jim +and me back her out and float her down the middle of the river, and +fetch her in and hide her about two mile below town. + +The third night the house was crammed again--and they warn't new-comers +this time, but people that was at the show the other two nights. I +stood by the duke at the door, and I see that every man that went in had +his pockets bulging, or something muffled up under his coat--and I see it +warn't no perfumery, neither, not by a long sight. I smelt sickly eggs +by the barrel, and rotten cabbages, and such things; and if I know the +signs of a dead cat being around, and I bet I do, there was sixty-four +of them went in. I shoved in there for a minute, but it was too various +for me; I couldn't stand it. Well, when the place couldn't hold no more +people the duke he give a fellow a quarter and told him to tend door +for him a minute, and then he started around for the stage door, I after +him; but the minute we turned the corner and was in the dark he says: + +"Walk fast now till you get away from the houses, and then shin for the +raft like the dickens was after you!" + +I done it, and he done the same. We struck the raft at the same time, +and in less than two seconds we was gliding down stream, all dark and +still, and edging towards the middle of the river, nobody saying a +word. I reckoned the poor king was in for a gaudy time of it with the +audience, but nothing of the sort; pretty soon he crawls out from under +the wigwam, and says: + +"Well, how'd the old thing pan out this time, duke?" He hadn't been +up-town at all. + +We never showed a light till we was about ten mile below the village. +Then we lit up and had a supper, and the king and the duke fairly +laughed their bones loose over the way they'd served them people. The +duke says: + +"Greenhorns, flatheads! I knew the first house would keep mum and let +the rest of the town get roped in; and I knew they'd lay for us the +third night, and consider it was _their_ turn now. Well, it _is_ their +turn, and I'd give something to know how much they'd take for it. I +_would_ just like to know how they're putting in their opportunity. + They can turn it into a picnic if they want to--they brought plenty +provisions." + +Them rapscallions took in four hundred and sixty-five dollars in that +three nights. I never see money hauled in by the wagon-load like that +before. By and by, when they was asleep and snoring, Jim says: + +"Don't it s'prise you de way dem kings carries on, Huck?" + +"No," I says, "it don't." + +"Why don't it, Huck?" + +"Well, it don't, because it's in the breed. I reckon they're all +alike." + +"But, Huck, dese kings o' ourn is reglar rapscallions; dat's jist what +dey is; dey's reglar rapscallions." + +"Well, that's what I'm a-saying; all kings is mostly rapscallions, as +fur as I can make out." + +"Is dat so?" + +"You read about them once--you'll see. Look at Henry the Eight; this 'n +'s a Sunday-school Superintendent to _him_. And look at Charles Second, +and Louis Fourteen, and Louis Fifteen, and James Second, and Edward +Second, and Richard Third, and forty more; besides all them Saxon +heptarchies that used to rip around so in old times and raise Cain. My, +you ought to seen old Henry the Eight when he was in bloom. He _was_ a +blossom. He used to marry a new wife every day, and chop off her head +next morning. And he would do it just as indifferent as if he was +ordering up eggs. 'Fetch up Nell Gwynn,' he says. They fetch her up. +Next morning, 'Chop off her head!' And they chop it off. 'Fetch up +Jane Shore,' he says; and up she comes, Next morning, 'Chop off her +head'--and they chop it off. 'Ring up Fair Rosamun.' Fair Rosamun +answers the bell. Next morning, 'Chop off her head.' And he made every +one of them tell him a tale every night; and he kept that up till he had +hogged a thousand and one tales that way, and then he put them all in a +book, and called it Domesday Book--which was a good name and stated the +case. You don't know kings, Jim, but I know them; and this old rip +of ourn is one of the cleanest I've struck in history. Well, Henry he +takes a notion he wants to get up some trouble with this country. How +does he go at it--give notice?--give the country a show? No. All of a +sudden he heaves all the tea in Boston Harbor overboard, and whacks +out a declaration of independence, and dares them to come on. That was +_his_ style--he never give anybody a chance. He had suspicions of his +father, the Duke of Wellington. Well, what did he do? Ask him to show +up? No--drownded him in a butt of mamsey, like a cat. S'pose people +left money laying around where he was--what did he do? He collared it. + S'pose he contracted to do a thing, and you paid him, and didn't set +down there and see that he done it--what did he do? He always done the +other thing. S'pose he opened his mouth--what then? If he didn't shut it +up powerful quick he'd lose a lie every time. That's the kind of a bug +Henry was; and if we'd a had him along 'stead of our kings he'd a fooled +that town a heap worse than ourn done. I don't say that ourn is lambs, +because they ain't, when you come right down to the cold facts; but they +ain't nothing to _that_ old ram, anyway. All I say is, kings is kings, +and you got to make allowances. Take them all around, they're a mighty +ornery lot. It's the way they're raised." + +"But dis one do _smell_ so like de nation, Huck." + +"Well, they all do, Jim. We can't help the way a king smells; history +don't tell no way." + +"Now de duke, he's a tolerble likely man in some ways." + +"Yes, a duke's different. But not very different. This one's +a middling hard lot for a duke. When he's drunk there ain't no +near-sighted man could tell him from a king." + +"Well, anyways, I doan' hanker for no mo' un um, Huck. Dese is all I +kin stan'." + +"It's the way I feel, too, Jim. But we've got them on our hands, and we +got to remember what they are, and make allowances. Sometimes I wish we +could hear of a country that's out of kings." + +What was the use to tell Jim these warn't real kings and dukes? It +wouldn't a done no good; and, besides, it was just as I said: you +couldn't tell them from the real kind. + +I went to sleep, and Jim didn't call me when it was my turn. He often +done that. When I waked up just at daybreak he was sitting there with +his head down betwixt his knees, moaning and mourning to himself. I +didn't take notice nor let on. I knowed what it was about. He was +thinking about his wife and his children, away up yonder, and he was low +and homesick; because he hadn't ever been away from home before in his +life; and I do believe he cared just as much for his people as white +folks does for their'n. It don't seem natural, but I reckon it's so. + He was often moaning and mourning that way nights, when he judged I +was asleep, and saying, "Po' little 'Lizabeth! po' little Johnny! it's +mighty hard; I spec' I ain't ever gwyne to see you no mo', no mo'!" He +was a mighty good nigger, Jim was. + +But this time I somehow got to talking to him about his wife and young +ones; and by and by he says: + +"What makes me feel so bad dis time 'uz bekase I hear sumpn over yonder +on de bank like a whack, er a slam, while ago, en it mine me er de time +I treat my little 'Lizabeth so ornery. She warn't on'y 'bout fo' year +ole, en she tuck de sk'yarlet fever, en had a powful rough spell; but +she got well, en one day she was a-stannin' aroun', en I says to her, I +says: + +"'Shet de do'.' + +"She never done it; jis' stood dah, kiner smilin' up at me. It make me +mad; en I says agin, mighty loud, I says: + +"'Doan' you hear me? Shet de do'!' + +"She jis stood de same way, kiner smilin' up. I was a-bilin'! I says: + +"'I lay I _make_ you mine!' + +"En wid dat I fetch' her a slap side de head dat sont her a-sprawlin'. +Den I went into de yuther room, en 'uz gone 'bout ten minutes; en when +I come back dah was dat do' a-stannin' open _yit_, en dat chile stannin' +mos' right in it, a-lookin' down and mournin', en de tears runnin' down. + My, but I _wuz_ mad! I was a-gwyne for de chile, but jis' den--it was a +do' dat open innerds--jis' den, 'long come de wind en slam it to, behine +de chile, ker-BLAM!--en my lan', de chile never move'! My breff mos' +hop outer me; en I feel so--so--I doan' know HOW I feel. I crope out, +all a-tremblin', en crope aroun' en open de do' easy en slow, en poke my +head in behine de chile, sof' en still, en all uv a sudden I says POW! +jis' as loud as I could yell. _She never budge!_ Oh, Huck, I bust out +a-cryin' en grab her up in my arms, en say, 'Oh, de po' little thing! + De Lord God Amighty fogive po' ole Jim, kaze he never gwyne to fogive +hisself as long's he live!' Oh, she was plumb deef en dumb, Huck, plumb +deef en dumb--en I'd ben a-treat'n her so!" + + + + +CHAPTER XXIV. + +NEXT day, towards night, we laid up under a little willow towhead out in +the middle, where there was a village on each side of the river, and the +duke and the king begun to lay out a plan for working them towns. Jim +he spoke to the duke, and said he hoped it wouldn't take but a few +hours, because it got mighty heavy and tiresome to him when he had to +lay all day in the wigwam tied with the rope. You see, when we left him +all alone we had to tie him, because if anybody happened on to him all +by himself and not tied it wouldn't look much like he was a runaway +nigger, you know. So the duke said it _was_ kind of hard to have to lay +roped all day, and he'd cipher out some way to get around it. + +He was uncommon bright, the duke was, and he soon struck it. He dressed +Jim up in King Lear's outfit--it was a long curtain-calico gown, and a +white horse-hair wig and whiskers; and then he took his theater paint +and painted Jim's face and hands and ears and neck all over a dead, +dull, solid blue, like a man that's been drownded nine days. Blamed if +he warn't the horriblest looking outrage I ever see. Then the duke took +and wrote out a sign on a shingle so: + +Sick Arab--but harmless when not out of his head. + +And he nailed that shingle to a lath, and stood the lath up four or five +foot in front of the wigwam. Jim was satisfied. He said it was a sight +better than lying tied a couple of years every day, and trembling all +over every time there was a sound. The duke told him to make himself +free and easy, and if anybody ever come meddling around, he must hop +out of the wigwam, and carry on a little, and fetch a howl or two like +a wild beast, and he reckoned they would light out and leave him alone. + Which was sound enough judgment; but you take the average man, and he +wouldn't wait for him to howl. Why, he didn't only look like he was +dead, he looked considerable more than that. + +These rapscallions wanted to try the Nonesuch again, because there was +so much money in it, but they judged it wouldn't be safe, because maybe +the news might a worked along down by this time. They couldn't hit no +project that suited exactly; so at last the duke said he reckoned he'd +lay off and work his brains an hour or two and see if he couldn't put up +something on the Arkansaw village; and the king he allowed he would drop +over to t'other village without any plan, but just trust in Providence +to lead him the profitable way--meaning the devil, I reckon. We had all +bought store clothes where we stopped last; and now the king put his'n +on, and he told me to put mine on. I done it, of course. The king's +duds was all black, and he did look real swell and starchy. I never +knowed how clothes could change a body before. Why, before, he looked +like the orneriest old rip that ever was; but now, when he'd take off +his new white beaver and make a bow and do a smile, he looked that grand +and good and pious that you'd say he had walked right out of the ark, +and maybe was old Leviticus himself. Jim cleaned up the canoe, and I +got my paddle ready. There was a big steamboat laying at the shore away +up under the point, about three mile above the town--been there a couple +of hours, taking on freight. Says the king: + +"Seein' how I'm dressed, I reckon maybe I better arrive down from St. +Louis or Cincinnati, or some other big place. Go for the steamboat, +Huckleberry; we'll come down to the village on her." + +I didn't have to be ordered twice to go and take a steamboat ride. + I fetched the shore a half a mile above the village, and then went +scooting along the bluff bank in the easy water. Pretty soon we come to +a nice innocent-looking young country jake setting on a log swabbing the +sweat off of his face, for it was powerful warm weather; and he had a +couple of big carpet-bags by him. + +"Run her nose in shore," says the king. I done it. "Wher' you bound +for, young man?" + +"For the steamboat; going to Orleans." + +"Git aboard," says the king. "Hold on a minute, my servant 'll he'p you +with them bags. Jump out and he'p the gentleman, Adolphus"--meaning me, +I see. + +I done so, and then we all three started on again. The young chap was +mighty thankful; said it was tough work toting his baggage such weather. +He asked the king where he was going, and the king told him he'd come +down the river and landed at the other village this morning, and now he +was going up a few mile to see an old friend on a farm up there. The +young fellow says: + +"When I first see you I says to myself, 'It's Mr. Wilks, sure, and he +come mighty near getting here in time.' But then I says again, 'No, I +reckon it ain't him, or else he wouldn't be paddling up the river.' You +_ain't_ him, are you?" + +"No, my name's Blodgett--Elexander Blodgett--_Reverend_ Elexander +Blodgett, I s'pose I must say, as I'm one o' the Lord's poor servants. + But still I'm jist as able to be sorry for Mr. Wilks for not arriving +in time, all the same, if he's missed anything by it--which I hope he +hasn't." + +"Well, he don't miss any property by it, because he'll get that all +right; but he's missed seeing his brother Peter die--which he mayn't +mind, nobody can tell as to that--but his brother would a give anything +in this world to see _him_ before he died; never talked about nothing +else all these three weeks; hadn't seen him since they was boys +together--and hadn't ever seen his brother William at all--that's the deef +and dumb one--William ain't more than thirty or thirty-five. Peter and +George were the only ones that come out here; George was the married +brother; him and his wife both died last year. Harvey and William's the +only ones that's left now; and, as I was saying, they haven't got here +in time." + +"Did anybody send 'em word?" + +"Oh, yes; a month or two ago, when Peter was first took; because Peter +said then that he sorter felt like he warn't going to get well this +time. You see, he was pretty old, and George's g'yirls was too young to +be much company for him, except Mary Jane, the red-headed one; and so he +was kinder lonesome after George and his wife died, and didn't seem +to care much to live. He most desperately wanted to see Harvey--and +William, too, for that matter--because he was one of them kind that can't +bear to make a will. He left a letter behind for Harvey, and said he'd +told in it where his money was hid, and how he wanted the rest of the +property divided up so George's g'yirls would be all right--for George +didn't leave nothing. And that letter was all they could get him to put +a pen to." + +"Why do you reckon Harvey don't come? Wher' does he live?" + +"Oh, he lives in England--Sheffield--preaches there--hasn't ever been in +this country. He hasn't had any too much time--and besides he mightn't a +got the letter at all, you know." + +"Too bad, too bad he couldn't a lived to see his brothers, poor soul. +You going to Orleans, you say?" + +"Yes, but that ain't only a part of it. I'm going in a ship, next +Wednesday, for Ryo Janeero, where my uncle lives." + +"It's a pretty long journey. But it'll be lovely; wisht I was a-going. +Is Mary Jane the oldest? How old is the others?" + +"Mary Jane's nineteen, Susan's fifteen, and Joanna's about +fourteen--that's the one that gives herself to good works and has a +hare-lip." + +"Poor things! to be left alone in the cold world so." + +"Well, they could be worse off. Old Peter had friends, and they +ain't going to let them come to no harm. There's Hobson, the Babtis' +preacher; and Deacon Lot Hovey, and Ben Rucker, and Abner Shackleford, +and Levi Bell, the lawyer; and Dr. Robinson, and their wives, and the +widow Bartley, and--well, there's a lot of them; but these are the ones +that Peter was thickest with, and used to write about sometimes, when +he wrote home; so Harvey 'll know where to look for friends when he gets +here." + +Well, the old man went on asking questions till he just fairly emptied +that young fellow. Blamed if he didn't inquire about everybody and +everything in that blessed town, and all about the Wilkses; and about +Peter's business--which was a tanner; and about George's--which was a +carpenter; and about Harvey's--which was a dissentering minister; and so +on, and so on. Then he says: + +"What did you want to walk all the way up to the steamboat for?" + +"Because she's a big Orleans boat, and I was afeard she mightn't stop +there. When they're deep they won't stop for a hail. A Cincinnati boat +will, but this is a St. Louis one." + +"Was Peter Wilks well off?" + +"Oh, yes, pretty well off. He had houses and land, and it's reckoned he +left three or four thousand in cash hid up som'ers." + +"When did you say he died?" + +"I didn't say, but it was last night." + +"Funeral to-morrow, likely?" + +"Yes, 'bout the middle of the day." + +"Well, it's all terrible sad; but we've all got to go, one time or +another. So what we want to do is to be prepared; then we're all right." + +"Yes, sir, it's the best way. Ma used to always say that." + +When we struck the boat she was about done loading, and pretty soon she +got off. The king never said nothing about going aboard, so I lost +my ride, after all. When the boat was gone the king made me paddle up +another mile to a lonesome place, and then he got ashore and says: + +"Now hustle back, right off, and fetch the duke up here, and the new +carpet-bags. And if he's gone over to t'other side, go over there and +git him. And tell him to git himself up regardless. Shove along, now." + +I see what _he_ was up to; but I never said nothing, of course. When +I got back with the duke we hid the canoe, and then they set down on a +log, and the king told him everything, just like the young fellow had +said it--every last word of it. And all the time he was a-doing it he +tried to talk like an Englishman; and he done it pretty well, too, for +a slouch. I can't imitate him, and so I ain't a-going to try to; but he +really done it pretty good. Then he says: + +"How are you on the deef and dumb, Bilgewater?" + +The duke said, leave him alone for that; said he had played a deef +and dumb person on the histronic boards. So then they waited for a +steamboat. + +About the middle of the afternoon a couple of little boats come along, +but they didn't come from high enough up the river; but at last there +was a big one, and they hailed her. She sent out her yawl, and we went +aboard, and she was from Cincinnati; and when they found we only wanted +to go four or five mile they was booming mad, and gave us a cussing, and +said they wouldn't land us. But the king was ca'm. He says: + +"If gentlemen kin afford to pay a dollar a mile apiece to be took on and +put off in a yawl, a steamboat kin afford to carry 'em, can't it?" + +So they softened down and said it was all right; and when we got to the +village they yawled us ashore. About two dozen men flocked down when +they see the yawl a-coming, and when the king says: + +"Kin any of you gentlemen tell me wher' Mr. Peter Wilks lives?" they +give a glance at one another, and nodded their heads, as much as to say, +"What d' I tell you?" Then one of them says, kind of soft and gentle: + +"I'm sorry sir, but the best we can do is to tell you where he _did_ +live yesterday evening." + +Sudden as winking the ornery old cretur went an to smash, and fell up +against the man, and put his chin on his shoulder, and cried down his +back, and says: + +"Alas, alas, our poor brother--gone, and we never got to see him; oh, +it's too, too hard!" + +Then he turns around, blubbering, and makes a lot of idiotic signs to +the duke on his hands, and blamed if he didn't drop a carpet-bag and +bust out a-crying. If they warn't the beatenest lot, them two frauds, +that ever I struck. + +Well, the men gathered around and sympathized with them, and said all +sorts of kind things to them, and carried their carpet-bags up the hill +for them, and let them lean on them and cry, and told the king all about +his brother's last moments, and the king he told it all over again on +his hands to the duke, and both of them took on about that dead tanner +like they'd lost the twelve disciples. Well, if ever I struck anything +like it, I'm a nigger. It was enough to make a body ashamed of the human +race. + + + + +CHAPTER XXV. + +THE news was all over town in two minutes, and you could see the people +tearing down on the run from every which way, some of them putting on +their coats as they come. Pretty soon we was in the middle of a crowd, +and the noise of the tramping was like a soldier march. The windows and +dooryards was full; and every minute somebody would say, over a fence: + +"Is it _them_?" + +And somebody trotting along with the gang would answer back and say: + +"You bet it is." + +When we got to the house the street in front of it was packed, and the +three girls was standing in the door. Mary Jane _was_ red-headed, but +that don't make no difference, she was most awful beautiful, and her +face and her eyes was all lit up like glory, she was so glad her uncles +was come. The king he spread his arms, and Mary Jane she jumped for +them, and the hare-lip jumped for the duke, and there they had it! + Everybody most, leastways women, cried for joy to see them meet again +at last and have such good times. + +Then the king he hunched the duke private--I see him do it--and then he +looked around and see the coffin, over in the corner on two chairs; so +then him and the duke, with a hand across each other's shoulder, and +t'other hand to their eyes, walked slow and solemn over there, everybody +dropping back to give them room, and all the talk and noise stopping, +people saying "Sh!" and all the men taking their hats off and drooping +their heads, so you could a heard a pin fall. And when they got there +they bent over and looked in the coffin, and took one sight, and then +they bust out a-crying so you could a heard them to Orleans, most; and +then they put their arms around each other's necks, and hung their chins +over each other's shoulders; and then for three minutes, or maybe four, +I never see two men leak the way they done. And, mind you, everybody +was doing the same; and the place was that damp I never see anything +like it. Then one of them got on one side of the coffin, and t'other on +t'other side, and they kneeled down and rested their foreheads on the +coffin, and let on to pray all to themselves. Well, when it come +to that it worked the crowd like you never see anything like it, and +everybody broke down and went to sobbing right out loud--the poor girls, +too; and every woman, nearly, went up to the girls, without saying a +word, and kissed them, solemn, on the forehead, and then put their hand +on their head, and looked up towards the sky, with the tears running +down, and then busted out and went off sobbing and swabbing, and give +the next woman a show. I never see anything so disgusting. + +Well, by and by the king he gets up and comes forward a little, and +works himself up and slobbers out a speech, all full of tears and +flapdoodle about its being a sore trial for him and his poor brother +to lose the diseased, and to miss seeing diseased alive after the long +journey of four thousand mile, but it's a trial that's sweetened and +sanctified to us by this dear sympathy and these holy tears, and so he +thanks them out of his heart and out of his brother's heart, because out +of their mouths they can't, words being too weak and cold, and all that +kind of rot and slush, till it was just sickening; and then he blubbers +out a pious goody-goody Amen, and turns himself loose and goes to crying +fit to bust. + +And the minute the words were out of his mouth somebody over in the +crowd struck up the doxolojer, and everybody joined in with all their +might, and it just warmed you up and made you feel as good as church +letting out. Music is a good thing; and after all that soul-butter and +hogwash I never see it freshen up things so, and sound so honest and +bully. + +Then the king begins to work his jaw again, and says how him and his +nieces would be glad if a few of the main principal friends of the +family would take supper here with them this evening, and help set up +with the ashes of the diseased; and says if his poor brother laying +yonder could speak he knows who he would name, for they was names that +was very dear to him, and mentioned often in his letters; and so he will +name the same, to wit, as follows, vizz.:--Rev. Mr. Hobson, and Deacon +Lot Hovey, and Mr. Ben Rucker, and Abner Shackleford, and Levi Bell, and +Dr. Robinson, and their wives, and the widow Bartley. + +Rev. Hobson and Dr. Robinson was down to the end of the town a-hunting +together--that is, I mean the doctor was shipping a sick man to t'other +world, and the preacher was pinting him right. Lawyer Bell was away up +to Louisville on business. But the rest was on hand, and so they all +come and shook hands with the king and thanked him and talked to him; +and then they shook hands with the duke and didn't say nothing, but just +kept a-smiling and bobbing their heads like a passel of sapheads whilst +he made all sorts of signs with his hands and said "Goo-goo--goo-goo-goo" +all the time, like a baby that can't talk. + +So the king he blattered along, and managed to inquire about pretty +much everybody and dog in town, by his name, and mentioned all sorts +of little things that happened one time or another in the town, or to +George's family, or to Peter. And he always let on that Peter wrote him +the things; but that was a lie: he got every blessed one of them out of +that young flathead that we canoed up to the steamboat. + +Then Mary Jane she fetched the letter her father left behind, and the +king he read it out loud and cried over it. It give the dwelling-house +and three thousand dollars, gold, to the girls; and it give the tanyard +(which was doing a good business), along with some other houses and +land (worth about seven thousand), and three thousand dollars in gold +to Harvey and William, and told where the six thousand cash was hid down +cellar. So these two frauds said they'd go and fetch it up, and have +everything square and above-board; and told me to come with a candle. + We shut the cellar door behind us, and when they found the bag +they spilt it out on the floor, and it was a lovely sight, all them +yaller-boys. My, the way the king's eyes did shine! He slaps the duke +on the shoulder and says: + +"Oh, _this_ ain't bully nor noth'n! Oh, no, I reckon not! Why, +_bully_, it beats the Nonesuch, _don't_ it?" + +The duke allowed it did. They pawed the yaller-boys, and sifted them +through their fingers and let them jingle down on the floor; and the +king says: + +"It ain't no use talkin'; bein' brothers to a rich dead man and +representatives of furrin heirs that's got left is the line for you and +me, Bilge. Thish yer comes of trust'n to Providence. It's the best +way, in the long run. I've tried 'em all, and ther' ain't no better +way." + +Most everybody would a been satisfied with the pile, and took it on +trust; but no, they must count it. So they counts it, and it comes out +four hundred and fifteen dollars short. Says the king: + +"Dern him, I wonder what he done with that four hundred and fifteen +dollars?" + +They worried over that awhile, and ransacked all around for it. Then +the duke says: + +"Well, he was a pretty sick man, and likely he made a mistake--I reckon +that's the way of it. The best way's to let it go, and keep still about +it. We can spare it." + +"Oh, shucks, yes, we can _spare_ it. I don't k'yer noth'n 'bout +that--it's the _count_ I'm thinkin' about. We want to be awful square +and open and above-board here, you know. We want to lug this h-yer +money up stairs and count it before everybody--then ther' ain't noth'n +suspicious. But when the dead man says ther's six thous'n dollars, you +know, we don't want to--" + +"Hold on," says the duke. "Le's make up the deffisit," and he begun to +haul out yaller-boys out of his pocket. + +"It's a most amaz'n' good idea, duke--you _have_ got a rattlin' clever +head on you," says the king. "Blest if the old Nonesuch ain't a heppin' +us out agin," and _he_ begun to haul out yaller-jackets and stack them +up. + +It most busted them, but they made up the six thousand clean and clear. + +"Say," says the duke, "I got another idea. Le's go up stairs and count +this money, and then take and _give it to the girls_." + +"Good land, duke, lemme hug you! It's the most dazzling idea 'at ever a +man struck. You have cert'nly got the most astonishin' head I ever see. +Oh, this is the boss dodge, ther' ain't no mistake 'bout it. Let 'em +fetch along their suspicions now if they want to--this 'll lay 'em out." + +When we got up-stairs everybody gethered around the table, and the king +he counted it and stacked it up, three hundred dollars in a pile--twenty +elegant little piles. Everybody looked hungry at it, and licked their +chops. Then they raked it into the bag again, and I see the king begin +to swell himself up for another speech. He says: + +"Friends all, my poor brother that lays yonder has done generous by +them that's left behind in the vale of sorrers. He has done generous by +these yer poor little lambs that he loved and sheltered, and that's left +fatherless and motherless. Yes, and we that knowed him knows that he +would a done _more_ generous by 'em if he hadn't ben afeard o' woundin' +his dear William and me. Now, _wouldn't_ he? Ther' ain't no question +'bout it in _my_ mind. Well, then, what kind o' brothers would it be +that 'd stand in his way at sech a time? And what kind o' uncles would +it be that 'd rob--yes, _rob_--sech poor sweet lambs as these 'at he loved +so at sech a time? If I know William--and I _think_ I do--he--well, I'll +jest ask him." He turns around and begins to make a lot of signs to +the duke with his hands, and the duke he looks at him stupid and +leather-headed a while; then all of a sudden he seems to catch his +meaning, and jumps for the king, goo-gooing with all his might for joy, +and hugs him about fifteen times before he lets up. Then the king says, +"I knowed it; I reckon _that 'll_ convince anybody the way _he_ feels +about it. Here, Mary Jane, Susan, Joanner, take the money--take it +_all_. It's the gift of him that lays yonder, cold but joyful." + +Mary Jane she went for him, Susan and the hare-lip went for the +duke, and then such another hugging and kissing I never see yet. And +everybody crowded up with the tears in their eyes, and most shook the +hands off of them frauds, saying all the time: + +"You _dear_ good souls!--how _lovely_!--how _could_ you!" + +Well, then, pretty soon all hands got to talking about the diseased +again, and how good he was, and what a loss he was, and all that; and +before long a big iron-jawed man worked himself in there from outside, +and stood a-listening and looking, and not saying anything; and nobody +saying anything to him either, because the king was talking and they was +all busy listening. The king was saying--in the middle of something he'd +started in on-- + +"--they bein' partickler friends o' the diseased. That's why they're +invited here this evenin'; but tomorrow we want _all_ to come--everybody; +for he respected everybody, he liked everybody, and so it's fitten that +his funeral orgies sh'd be public." + +And so he went a-mooning on and on, liking to hear himself talk, and +every little while he fetched in his funeral orgies again, till the duke +he couldn't stand it no more; so he writes on a little scrap of paper, +"_Obsequies_, you old fool," and folds it up, and goes to goo-gooing and +reaching it over people's heads to him. The king he reads it and puts +it in his pocket, and says: + +"Poor William, afflicted as he is, his _heart's_ aluz right. Asks me +to invite everybody to come to the funeral--wants me to make 'em all +welcome. But he needn't a worried--it was jest what I was at." + +Then he weaves along again, perfectly ca'm, and goes to dropping in his +funeral orgies again every now and then, just like he done before. And +when he done it the third time he says: + +"I say orgies, not because it's the common term, because it +ain't--obsequies bein' the common term--but because orgies is the right +term. Obsequies ain't used in England no more now--it's gone out. We +say orgies now in England. Orgies is better, because it means the thing +you're after more exact. It's a word that's made up out'n the Greek +_orgo_, outside, open, abroad; and the Hebrew _jeesum_, to plant, cover +up; hence in_ter._ So, you see, funeral orgies is an open er public +funeral." + +He was the _worst_ I ever struck. Well, the iron-jawed man he laughed +right in his face. Everybody was shocked. Everybody says, "Why, +_doctor_!" and Abner Shackleford says: + +"Why, Robinson, hain't you heard the news? This is Harvey Wilks." + +The king he smiled eager, and shoved out his flapper, and says: + +"Is it my poor brother's dear good friend and physician? I--" + +"Keep your hands off of me!" says the doctor. "_You_ talk like an +Englishman, _don't_ you? It's the worst imitation I ever heard. _You_ +Peter Wilks's brother! You're a fraud, that's what you are!" + +Well, how they all took on! They crowded around the doctor and tried to +quiet him down, and tried to explain to him and tell him how Harvey 'd +showed in forty ways that he _was_ Harvey, and knowed everybody by name, +and the names of the very dogs, and begged and _begged_ him not to hurt +Harvey's feelings and the poor girl's feelings, and all that. But it +warn't no use; he stormed right along, and said any man that pretended +to be an Englishman and couldn't imitate the lingo no better than what +he did was a fraud and a liar. The poor girls was hanging to the king +and crying; and all of a sudden the doctor ups and turns on _them_. He +says: + +"I was your father's friend, and I'm your friend; and I warn you as a +friend, and an honest one that wants to protect you and keep you out of +harm and trouble, to turn your backs on that scoundrel and have nothing +to do with him, the ignorant tramp, with his idiotic Greek and Hebrew, +as he calls it. He is the thinnest kind of an impostor--has come here +with a lot of empty names and facts which he picked up somewheres, and +you take them for _proofs_, and are helped to fool yourselves by these +foolish friends here, who ought to know better. Mary Jane Wilks, you +know me for your friend, and for your unselfish friend, too. Now listen +to me; turn this pitiful rascal out--I _beg_ you to do it. Will you?" + +Mary Jane straightened herself up, and my, but she was handsome! She +says: + +"_Here_ is my answer." She hove up the bag of money and put it in the +king's hands, and says, "Take this six thousand dollars, and invest for +me and my sisters any way you want to, and don't give us no receipt for +it." + +Then she put her arm around the king on one side, and Susan and the +hare-lip done the same on the other. Everybody clapped their hands and +stomped on the floor like a perfect storm, whilst the king held up his +head and smiled proud. The doctor says: + +"All right; I wash _my_ hands of the matter. But I warn you all that a +time 's coming when you're going to feel sick whenever you think of this +day." And away he went. + +"All right, doctor," says the king, kinder mocking him; "we'll try and +get 'em to send for you;" which made them all laugh, and they said it +was a prime good hit. + + + + +CHAPTER XXVI. + +WELL, when they was all gone the king he asks Mary Jane how they was off +for spare rooms, and she said she had one spare room, which would do for +Uncle William, and she'd give her own room to Uncle Harvey, which was +a little bigger, and she would turn into the room with her sisters and +sleep on a cot; and up garret was a little cubby, with a pallet in it. +The king said the cubby would do for his valley--meaning me. + +So Mary Jane took us up, and she showed them their rooms, which was +plain but nice. She said she'd have her frocks and a lot of other traps +took out of her room if they was in Uncle Harvey's way, but he said +they warn't. The frocks was hung along the wall, and before them was +a curtain made out of calico that hung down to the floor. There was an +old hair trunk in one corner, and a guitar-box in another, and all sorts +of little knickknacks and jimcracks around, like girls brisken up a room +with. The king said it was all the more homely and more pleasanter for +these fixings, and so don't disturb them. The duke's room was pretty +small, but plenty good enough, and so was my cubby. + +That night they had a big supper, and all them men and women was there, +and I stood behind the king and the duke's chairs and waited on them, +and the niggers waited on the rest. Mary Jane she set at the head of +the table, with Susan alongside of her, and said how bad the biscuits +was, and how mean the preserves was, and how ornery and tough the fried +chickens was--and all that kind of rot, the way women always do for to +force out compliments; and the people all knowed everything was tiptop, +and said so--said "How _do_ you get biscuits to brown so nice?" and +"Where, for the land's sake, _did_ you get these amaz'n pickles?" and +all that kind of humbug talky-talk, just the way people always does at a +supper, you know. + +And when it was all done me and the hare-lip had supper in the kitchen +off of the leavings, whilst the others was helping the niggers clean up +the things. The hare-lip she got to pumping me about England, and blest +if I didn't think the ice was getting mighty thin sometimes. She says: + +"Did you ever see the king?" + +"Who? William Fourth? Well, I bet I have--he goes to our church." I +knowed he was dead years ago, but I never let on. So when I says he +goes to our church, she says: + +"What--regular?" + +"Yes--regular. His pew's right over opposite ourn--on t'other side the +pulpit." + +"I thought he lived in London?" + +"Well, he does. Where _would_ he live?" + +"But I thought _you_ lived in Sheffield?" + +I see I was up a stump. I had to let on to get choked with a chicken +bone, so as to get time to think how to get down again. Then I says: + +"I mean he goes to our church regular when he's in Sheffield. That's +only in the summer time, when he comes there to take the sea baths." + +"Why, how you talk--Sheffield ain't on the sea." + +"Well, who said it was?" + +"Why, you did." + +"I _didn't_ nuther." + +"You did!" + +"I didn't." + +"You did." + +"I never said nothing of the kind." + +"Well, what _did_ you say, then?" + +"Said he come to take the sea _baths_--that's what I said." + +"Well, then, how's he going to take the sea baths if it ain't on the +sea?" + +"Looky here," I says; "did you ever see any Congress-water?" + +"Yes." + +"Well, did you have to go to Congress to get it?" + +"Why, no." + +"Well, neither does William Fourth have to go to the sea to get a sea +bath." + +"How does he get it, then?" + +"Gets it the way people down here gets Congress-water--in barrels. There +in the palace at Sheffield they've got furnaces, and he wants his water +hot. They can't bile that amount of water away off there at the sea. +They haven't got no conveniences for it." + +"Oh, I see, now. You might a said that in the first place and saved +time." + +When she said that I see I was out of the woods again, and so I was +comfortable and glad. Next, she says: + +"Do you go to church, too?" + +"Yes--regular." + +"Where do you set?" + +"Why, in our pew." + +"_Whose_ pew?" + +"Why, _ourn_--your Uncle Harvey's." + +"His'n? What does _he_ want with a pew?" + +"Wants it to set in. What did you _reckon_ he wanted with it?" + +"Why, I thought he'd be in the pulpit." + +Rot him, I forgot he was a preacher. I see I was up a stump again, so I +played another chicken bone and got another think. Then I says: + +"Blame it, do you suppose there ain't but one preacher to a church?" + +"Why, what do they want with more?" + +"What!--to preach before a king? I never did see such a girl as you. +They don't have no less than seventeen." + +"Seventeen! My land! Why, I wouldn't set out such a string as that, +not if I _never_ got to glory. It must take 'em a week." + +"Shucks, they don't _all_ of 'em preach the same day--only _one_ of 'em." + +"Well, then, what does the rest of 'em do?" + +"Oh, nothing much. Loll around, pass the plate--and one thing or +another. But mainly they don't do nothing." + +"Well, then, what are they _for_?" + +"Why, they're for _style_. Don't you know nothing?" + +"Well, I don't _want_ to know no such foolishness as that. How is +servants treated in England? Do they treat 'em better 'n we treat our +niggers?" + +"_No_! A servant ain't nobody there. They treat them worse than dogs." + +"Don't they give 'em holidays, the way we do, Christmas and New Year's +week, and Fourth of July?" + +"Oh, just listen! A body could tell _you_ hain't ever been to England +by that. Why, Hare-l--why, Joanna, they never see a holiday from year's +end to year's end; never go to the circus, nor theater, nor nigger +shows, nor nowheres." + +"Nor church?" + +"Nor church." + +"But _you_ always went to church." + +Well, I was gone up again. I forgot I was the old man's servant. But +next minute I whirled in on a kind of an explanation how a valley was +different from a common servant and _had_ to go to church whether he +wanted to or not, and set with the family, on account of its being the +law. But I didn't do it pretty good, and when I got done I see she +warn't satisfied. She says: + +"Honest injun, now, hain't you been telling me a lot of lies?" + +"Honest injun," says I. + +"None of it at all?" + +"None of it at all. Not a lie in it," says I. + +"Lay your hand on this book and say it." + +I see it warn't nothing but a dictionary, so I laid my hand on it and +said it. So then she looked a little better satisfied, and says: + +"Well, then, I'll believe some of it; but I hope to gracious if I'll +believe the rest." + +"What is it you won't believe, Joe?" says Mary Jane, stepping in with +Susan behind her. "It ain't right nor kind for you to talk so to him, +and him a stranger and so far from his people. How would you like to be +treated so?" + +"That's always your way, Maim--always sailing in to help somebody before +they're hurt. I hain't done nothing to him. He's told some stretchers, +I reckon, and I said I wouldn't swallow it all; and that's every bit +and grain I _did_ say. I reckon he can stand a little thing like that, +can't he?" + +"I don't care whether 'twas little or whether 'twas big; he's here in +our house and a stranger, and it wasn't good of you to say it. If you +was in his place it would make you feel ashamed; and so you oughtn't to +say a thing to another person that will make _them_ feel ashamed." + +"Why, Mam, he said--" + +"It don't make no difference what he _said_--that ain't the thing. The +thing is for you to treat him _kind_, and not be saying things to make +him remember he ain't in his own country and amongst his own folks." + +I says to myself, _this_ is a girl that I'm letting that old reptile rob +her of her money! + +Then Susan _she_ waltzed in; and if you'll believe me, she did give +Hare-lip hark from the tomb! + +Says I to myself, and this is _another_ one that I'm letting him rob her +of her money! + +Then Mary Jane she took another inning, and went in sweet and lovely +again--which was her way; but when she got done there warn't hardly +anything left o' poor Hare-lip. So she hollered. + +"All right, then," says the other girls; "you just ask his pardon." + +She done it, too; and she done it beautiful. She done it so beautiful +it was good to hear; and I wished I could tell her a thousand lies, so +she could do it again. + +I says to myself, this is _another_ one that I'm letting him rob her of +her money. And when she got through they all jest laid theirselves +out to make me feel at home and know I was amongst friends. I felt so +ornery and low down and mean that I says to myself, my mind's made up; +I'll hive that money for them or bust. + +So then I lit out--for bed, I said, meaning some time or another. When +I got by myself I went to thinking the thing over. I says to myself, +shall I go to that doctor, private, and blow on these frauds? No--that +won't do. He might tell who told him; then the king and the duke would +make it warm for me. Shall I go, private, and tell Mary Jane? No--I +dasn't do it. Her face would give them a hint, sure; they've got the +money, and they'd slide right out and get away with it. If she was to +fetch in help I'd get mixed up in the business before it was done with, +I judge. No; there ain't no good way but one. I got to steal that +money, somehow; and I got to steal it some way that they won't suspicion +that I done it. They've got a good thing here, and they ain't a-going +to leave till they've played this family and this town for all they're +worth, so I'll find a chance time enough. I'll steal it and hide it; and +by and by, when I'm away down the river, I'll write a letter and tell +Mary Jane where it's hid. But I better hive it tonight if I can, +because the doctor maybe hasn't let up as much as he lets on he has; he +might scare them out of here yet. + +So, thinks I, I'll go and search them rooms. Upstairs the hall was +dark, but I found the duke's room, and started to paw around it with +my hands; but I recollected it wouldn't be much like the king to let +anybody else take care of that money but his own self; so then I went to +his room and begun to paw around there. But I see I couldn't do nothing +without a candle, and I dasn't light one, of course. So I judged I'd +got to do the other thing--lay for them and eavesdrop. About that time +I hears their footsteps coming, and was going to skip under the bed; I +reached for it, but it wasn't where I thought it would be; but I touched +the curtain that hid Mary Jane's frocks, so I jumped in behind that and +snuggled in amongst the gowns, and stood there perfectly still. + +They come in and shut the door; and the first thing the duke done was to +get down and look under the bed. Then I was glad I hadn't found the bed +when I wanted it. And yet, you know, it's kind of natural to hide under +the bed when you are up to anything private. They sets down then, and +the king says: + +"Well, what is it? And cut it middlin' short, because it's better for +us to be down there a-whoopin' up the mournin' than up here givin' 'em a +chance to talk us over." + +"Well, this is it, Capet. I ain't easy; I ain't comfortable. That +doctor lays on my mind. I wanted to know your plans. I've got a +notion, and I think it's a sound one." + +"What is it, duke?" + +"That we better glide out of this before three in the morning, and clip +it down the river with what we've got. Specially, seeing we got it so +easy--_given_ back to us, flung at our heads, as you may say, when of +course we allowed to have to steal it back. I'm for knocking off and +lighting out." + +That made me feel pretty bad. About an hour or two ago it would a been +a little different, but now it made me feel bad and disappointed, The +king rips out and says: + +"What! And not sell out the rest o' the property? March off like +a passel of fools and leave eight or nine thous'n' dollars' worth o' +property layin' around jest sufferin' to be scooped in?--and all good, +salable stuff, too." + +The duke he grumbled; said the bag of gold was enough, and he didn't +want to go no deeper--didn't want to rob a lot of orphans of _everything_ +they had. + +"Why, how you talk!" says the king. "We sha'n't rob 'em of nothing at +all but jest this money. The people that _buys_ the property is the +suff'rers; because as soon 's it's found out 'at we didn't own it--which +won't be long after we've slid--the sale won't be valid, and it 'll all +go back to the estate. These yer orphans 'll git their house back agin, +and that's enough for _them_; they're young and spry, and k'n easy +earn a livin'. _they_ ain't a-goin to suffer. Why, jest think--there's +thous'n's and thous'n's that ain't nigh so well off. Bless you, _they_ +ain't got noth'n' to complain of." + +Well, the king he talked him blind; so at last he give in, and said all +right, but said he believed it was blamed foolishness to stay, and that +doctor hanging over them. But the king says: + +"Cuss the doctor! What do we k'yer for _him_? Hain't we got all the +fools in town on our side? And ain't that a big enough majority in any +town?" + +So they got ready to go down stairs again. The duke says: + +"I don't think we put that money in a good place." + +That cheered me up. I'd begun to think I warn't going to get a hint of +no kind to help me. The king says: + +"Why?" + +"Because Mary Jane 'll be in mourning from this out; and first you know +the nigger that does up the rooms will get an order to box these duds +up and put 'em away; and do you reckon a nigger can run across money and +not borrow some of it?" + +"Your head's level agin, duke," says the king; and he comes a-fumbling +under the curtain two or three foot from where I was. I stuck tight to +the wall and kept mighty still, though quivery; and I wondered what them +fellows would say to me if they catched me; and I tried to think what +I'd better do if they did catch me. But the king he got the bag before +I could think more than about a half a thought, and he never suspicioned +I was around. They took and shoved the bag through a rip in the straw +tick that was under the feather-bed, and crammed it in a foot or two +amongst the straw and said it was all right now, because a nigger only +makes up the feather-bed, and don't turn over the straw tick only about +twice a year, and so it warn't in no danger of getting stole now. + +But I knowed better. I had it out of there before they was half-way +down stairs. I groped along up to my cubby, and hid it there till I +could get a chance to do better. I judged I better hide it outside +of the house somewheres, because if they missed it they would give the +house a good ransacking: I knowed that very well. Then I turned in, +with my clothes all on; but I couldn't a gone to sleep if I'd a wanted +to, I was in such a sweat to get through with the business. By and by I +heard the king and the duke come up; so I rolled off my pallet and laid +with my chin at the top of my ladder, and waited to see if anything was +going to happen. But nothing did. + +So I held on till all the late sounds had quit and the early ones hadn't +begun yet; and then I slipped down the ladder. + + + + +CHAPTER XXVII. + +I crept to their doors and listened; they was snoring. So I tiptoed +along, and got down stairs all right. There warn't a sound anywheres. + I peeped through a crack of the dining-room door, and see the men that +was watching the corpse all sound asleep on their chairs. The door +was open into the parlor, where the corpse was laying, and there was a +candle in both rooms. I passed along, and the parlor door was open; but +I see there warn't nobody in there but the remainders of Peter; so I +shoved on by; but the front door was locked, and the key wasn't there. + Just then I heard somebody coming down the stairs, back behind me. I +run in the parlor and took a swift look around, and the only place I +see to hide the bag was in the coffin. The lid was shoved along about +a foot, showing the dead man's face down in there, with a wet cloth over +it, and his shroud on. I tucked the money-bag in under the lid, just +down beyond where his hands was crossed, which made me creep, they was +so cold, and then I run back across the room and in behind the door. + +The person coming was Mary Jane. She went to the coffin, very soft, and +kneeled down and looked in; then she put up her handkerchief, and I see +she begun to cry, though I couldn't hear her, and her back was to me. I +slid out, and as I passed the dining-room I thought I'd make sure them +watchers hadn't seen me; so I looked through the crack, and everything +was all right. They hadn't stirred. + +I slipped up to bed, feeling ruther blue, on accounts of the thing +playing out that way after I had took so much trouble and run so much +resk about it. Says I, if it could stay where it is, all right; because +when we get down the river a hundred mile or two I could write back to +Mary Jane, and she could dig him up again and get it; but that ain't the +thing that's going to happen; the thing that's going to happen is, the +money 'll be found when they come to screw on the lid. Then the king +'ll get it again, and it 'll be a long day before he gives anybody +another chance to smouch it from him. Of course I _wanted_ to slide +down and get it out of there, but I dasn't try it. Every minute it was +getting earlier now, and pretty soon some of them watchers would begin +to stir, and I might get catched--catched with six thousand dollars in my +hands that nobody hadn't hired me to take care of. I don't wish to be +mixed up in no such business as that, I says to myself. + +When I got down stairs in the morning the parlor was shut up, and the +watchers was gone. There warn't nobody around but the family and the +widow Bartley and our tribe. I watched their faces to see if anything +had been happening, but I couldn't tell. + +Towards the middle of the day the undertaker come with his man, and they +set the coffin in the middle of the room on a couple of chairs, and then +set all our chairs in rows, and borrowed more from the neighbors till +the hall and the parlor and the dining-room was full. I see the coffin +lid was the way it was before, but I dasn't go to look in under it, with +folks around. + +Then the people begun to flock in, and the beats and the girls took +seats in the front row at the head of the coffin, and for a half an hour +the people filed around slow, in single rank, and looked down at the +dead man's face a minute, and some dropped in a tear, and it was +all very still and solemn, only the girls and the beats holding +handkerchiefs to their eyes and keeping their heads bent, and sobbing a +little. There warn't no other sound but the scraping of the feet on +the floor and blowing noses--because people always blows them more at a +funeral than they do at other places except church. + +When the place was packed full the undertaker he slid around in his +black gloves with his softy soothering ways, putting on the last +touches, and getting people and things all ship-shape and comfortable, +and making no more sound than a cat. He never spoke; he moved people +around, he squeezed in late ones, he opened up passageways, and done +it with nods, and signs with his hands. Then he took his place over +against the wall. He was the softest, glidingest, stealthiest man I ever +see; and there warn't no more smile to him than there is to a ham. + +They had borrowed a melodeum--a sick one; and when everything was ready +a young woman set down and worked it, and it was pretty skreeky and +colicky, and everybody joined in and sung, and Peter was the only one +that had a good thing, according to my notion. Then the Reverend Hobson +opened up, slow and solemn, and begun to talk; and straight off the most +outrageous row busted out in the cellar a body ever heard; it was only +one dog, but he made a most powerful racket, and he kept it up right +along; the parson he had to stand there, over the coffin, and wait--you +couldn't hear yourself think. It was right down awkward, and nobody +didn't seem to know what to do. But pretty soon they see that +long-legged undertaker make a sign to the preacher as much as to say, +"Don't you worry--just depend on me." Then he stooped down and begun +to glide along the wall, just his shoulders showing over the people's +heads. So he glided along, and the powwow and racket getting more and +more outrageous all the time; and at last, when he had gone around two +sides of the room, he disappears down cellar. Then in about two seconds +we heard a whack, and the dog he finished up with a most amazing howl or +two, and then everything was dead still, and the parson begun his solemn +talk where he left off. In a minute or two here comes this undertaker's +back and shoulders gliding along the wall again; and so he glided and +glided around three sides of the room, and then rose up, and shaded his +mouth with his hands, and stretched his neck out towards the preacher, +over the people's heads, and says, in a kind of a coarse whisper, "_He +had a rat_!" Then he drooped down and glided along the wall again to +his place. You could see it was a great satisfaction to the people, +because naturally they wanted to know. A little thing like that don't +cost nothing, and it's just the little things that makes a man to be +looked up to and liked. There warn't no more popular man in town than +what that undertaker was. + +Well, the funeral sermon was very good, but pison long and tiresome; and +then the king he shoved in and got off some of his usual rubbage, and +at last the job was through, and the undertaker begun to sneak up on the +coffin with his screw-driver. I was in a sweat then, and watched him +pretty keen. But he never meddled at all; just slid the lid along as +soft as mush, and screwed it down tight and fast. So there I was! I +didn't know whether the money was in there or not. So, says I, s'pose +somebody has hogged that bag on the sly?--now how do I know whether +to write to Mary Jane or not? S'pose she dug him up and didn't find +nothing, what would she think of me? Blame it, I says, I might get +hunted up and jailed; I'd better lay low and keep dark, and not write at +all; the thing's awful mixed now; trying to better it, I've worsened it +a hundred times, and I wish to goodness I'd just let it alone, dad fetch +the whole business! + +They buried him, and we come back home, and I went to watching faces +again--I couldn't help it, and I couldn't rest easy. But nothing come of +it; the faces didn't tell me nothing. + +The king he visited around in the evening, and sweetened everybody up, +and made himself ever so friendly; and he give out the idea that his +congregation over in England would be in a sweat about him, so he must +hurry and settle up the estate right away and leave for home. He was +very sorry he was so pushed, and so was everybody; they wished he could +stay longer, but they said they could see it couldn't be done. And he +said of course him and William would take the girls home with them; and +that pleased everybody too, because then the girls would be well fixed +and amongst their own relations; and it pleased the girls, too--tickled +them so they clean forgot they ever had a trouble in the world; and told +him to sell out as quick as he wanted to, they would be ready. Them +poor things was that glad and happy it made my heart ache to see them +getting fooled and lied to so, but I didn't see no safe way for me to +chip in and change the general tune. + +Well, blamed if the king didn't bill the house and the niggers and all +the property for auction straight off--sale two days after the funeral; +but anybody could buy private beforehand if they wanted to. + +So the next day after the funeral, along about noon-time, the girls' joy +got the first jolt. A couple of nigger traders come along, and the king +sold them the niggers reasonable, for three-day drafts as they called +it, and away they went, the two sons up the river to Memphis, and their +mother down the river to Orleans. I thought them poor girls and them +niggers would break their hearts for grief; they cried around each +other, and took on so it most made me down sick to see it. The girls +said they hadn't ever dreamed of seeing the family separated or sold +away from the town. I can't ever get it out of my memory, the sight of +them poor miserable girls and niggers hanging around each other's necks +and crying; and I reckon I couldn't a stood it all, but would a had +to bust out and tell on our gang if I hadn't knowed the sale warn't no +account and the niggers would be back home in a week or two. + +The thing made a big stir in the town, too, and a good many come out +flatfooted and said it was scandalous to separate the mother and the +children that way. It injured the frauds some; but the old fool he +bulled right along, spite of all the duke could say or do, and I tell +you the duke was powerful uneasy. + +Next day was auction day. About broad day in the morning the king and +the duke come up in the garret and woke me up, and I see by their look +that there was trouble. The king says: + +"Was you in my room night before last?" + +"No, your majesty"--which was the way I always called him when nobody but +our gang warn't around. + +"Was you in there yisterday er last night?" + +"No, your majesty." + +"Honor bright, now--no lies." + +"Honor bright, your majesty, I'm telling you the truth. I hain't been +a-near your room since Miss Mary Jane took you and the duke and showed +it to you." + +The duke says: + +"Have you seen anybody else go in there?" + +"No, your grace, not as I remember, I believe." + +"Stop and think." + +I studied awhile and see my chance; then I says: + +"Well, I see the niggers go in there several times." + +Both of them gave a little jump, and looked like they hadn't ever +expected it, and then like they _had_. Then the duke says: + +"What, all of them?" + +"No--leastways, not all at once--that is, I don't think I ever see them +all come _out_ at once but just one time." + +"Hello! When was that?" + +"It was the day we had the funeral. In the morning. It warn't early, +because I overslept. I was just starting down the ladder, and I see +them." + +"Well, go on, _go_ on! What did they do? How'd they act?" + +"They didn't do nothing. And they didn't act anyway much, as fur as I +see. They tiptoed away; so I seen, easy enough, that they'd shoved in +there to do up your majesty's room, or something, s'posing you was up; +and found you _warn't_ up, and so they was hoping to slide out of the +way of trouble without waking you up, if they hadn't already waked you +up." + +"Great guns, _this_ is a go!" says the king; and both of them looked +pretty sick and tolerable silly. They stood there a-thinking and +scratching their heads a minute, and the duke he bust into a kind of a +little raspy chuckle, and says: + +"It does beat all how neat the niggers played their hand. They let on +to be _sorry_ they was going out of this region! And I believed they +_was_ sorry, and so did you, and so did everybody. Don't ever tell _me_ +any more that a nigger ain't got any histrionic talent. Why, the way +they played that thing it would fool _anybody_. In my opinion, there's +a fortune in 'em. If I had capital and a theater, I wouldn't want a +better lay-out than that--and here we've gone and sold 'em for a song. + Yes, and ain't privileged to sing the song yet. Say, where _is_ that +song--that draft?" + +"In the bank for to be collected. Where _would_ it be?" + +"Well, _that's_ all right then, thank goodness." + +Says I, kind of timid-like: + +"Is something gone wrong?" + +The king whirls on me and rips out: + +"None o' your business! You keep your head shet, and mind y'r own +affairs--if you got any. Long as you're in this town don't you forgit +_that_--you hear?" Then he says to the duke, "We got to jest swaller it +and say noth'n': mum's the word for _us_." + +As they was starting down the ladder the duke he chuckles again, and +says: + +"Quick sales _and_ small profits! It's a good business--yes." + +The king snarls around on him and says: + +"I was trying to do for the best in sellin' 'em out so quick. If the +profits has turned out to be none, lackin' considable, and none to +carry, is it my fault any more'n it's yourn?" + +"Well, _they'd_ be in this house yet and we _wouldn't_ if I could a got +my advice listened to." + +The king sassed back as much as was safe for him, and then swapped +around and lit into _me_ again. He give me down the banks for not +coming and _telling_ him I see the niggers come out of his room acting +that way--said any fool would a _knowed_ something was up. And then +waltzed in and cussed _himself_ awhile, and said it all come of him not +laying late and taking his natural rest that morning, and he'd be +blamed if he'd ever do it again. So they went off a-jawing; and I felt +dreadful glad I'd worked it all off on to the niggers, and yet hadn't +done the niggers no harm by it. + + + + +CHAPTER XXVIII. + +BY and by it was getting-up time. So I come down the ladder and started +for down-stairs; but as I come to the girls' room the door was open, and +I see Mary Jane setting by her old hair trunk, which was open and she'd +been packing things in it--getting ready to go to England. But she +had stopped now with a folded gown in her lap, and had her face in her +hands, crying. I felt awful bad to see it; of course anybody would. I +went in there and says: + +"Miss Mary Jane, you can't a-bear to see people in trouble, and I +can't--most always. Tell me about it." + +So she done it. And it was the niggers--I just expected it. She said +the beautiful trip to England was most about spoiled for her; she didn't +know _how_ she was ever going to be happy there, knowing the mother and +the children warn't ever going to see each other no more--and then busted +out bitterer than ever, and flung up her hands, and says: + +"Oh, dear, dear, to think they ain't _ever_ going to see each other any +more!" + +"But they _will_--and inside of two weeks--and I _know_ it!" says I. + +Laws, it was out before I could think! And before I could budge she +throws her arms around my neck and told me to say it _again_, say it +_again_, say it _again_! + +I see I had spoke too sudden and said too much, and was in a close +place. I asked her to let me think a minute; and she set there, very +impatient and excited and handsome, but looking kind of happy and +eased-up, like a person that's had a tooth pulled out. So I went to +studying it out. I says to myself, I reckon a body that ups and tells +the truth when he is in a tight place is taking considerable many resks, +though I ain't had no experience, and can't say for certain; but it +looks so to me, anyway; and yet here's a case where I'm blest if it +don't look to me like the truth is better and actuly _safer_ than a lie. + I must lay it by in my mind, and think it over some time or other, it's +so kind of strange and unregular. I never see nothing like it. Well, I +says to myself at last, I'm a-going to chance it; I'll up and tell the +truth this time, though it does seem most like setting down on a kag of +powder and touching it off just to see where you'll go to. Then I says: + +"Miss Mary Jane, is there any place out of town a little ways where you +could go and stay three or four days?" + +"Yes; Mr. Lothrop's. Why?" + +"Never mind why yet. If I'll tell you how I know the niggers will see +each other again inside of two weeks--here in this house--and _prove_ how +I know it--will you go to Mr. Lothrop's and stay four days?" + +"Four days!" she says; "I'll stay a year!" + +"All right," I says, "I don't want nothing more out of _you_ than just +your word--I druther have it than another man's kiss-the-Bible." She +smiled and reddened up very sweet, and I says, "If you don't mind it, +I'll shut the door--and bolt it." + +Then I come back and set down again, and says: + +"Don't you holler. Just set still and take it like a man. I got to +tell the truth, and you want to brace up, Miss Mary, because it's a +bad kind, and going to be hard to take, but there ain't no help for +it. These uncles of yourn ain't no uncles at all; they're a couple of +frauds--regular dead-beats. There, now we're over the worst of it, you +can stand the rest middling easy." + +It jolted her up like everything, of course; but I was over the shoal +water now, so I went right along, her eyes a-blazing higher and higher +all the time, and told her every blame thing, from where we first struck +that young fool going up to the steamboat, clear through to where she +flung herself on to the king's breast at the front door and he kissed +her sixteen or seventeen times--and then up she jumps, with her face +afire like sunset, and says: + +"The brute! Come, don't waste a minute--not a _second_--we'll have them +tarred and feathered, and flung in the river!" + +Says I: + +"Cert'nly. But do you mean _before_ you go to Mr. Lothrop's, or--" + +"Oh," she says, "what am I _thinking_ about!" she says, and set right +down again. "Don't mind what I said--please don't--you _won't,_ now, +_will_ you?" Laying her silky hand on mine in that kind of a way that +I said I would die first. "I never thought, I was so stirred up," she +says; "now go on, and I won't do so any more. You tell me what to do, +and whatever you say I'll do it." + +"Well," I says, "it's a rough gang, them two frauds, and I'm fixed so +I got to travel with them a while longer, whether I want to or not--I +druther not tell you why; and if you was to blow on them this town would +get me out of their claws, and I'd be all right; but there'd be another +person that you don't know about who'd be in big trouble. Well, we +got to save _him_, hain't we? Of course. Well, then, we won't blow on +them." + +Saying them words put a good idea in my head. I see how maybe I could +get me and Jim rid of the frauds; get them jailed here, and then leave. +But I didn't want to run the raft in the daytime without anybody aboard +to answer questions but me; so I didn't want the plan to begin working +till pretty late to-night. I says: + +"Miss Mary Jane, I'll tell you what we'll do, and you won't have to stay +at Mr. Lothrop's so long, nuther. How fur is it?" + +"A little short of four miles--right out in the country, back here." + +"Well, that 'll answer. Now you go along out there, and lay low +till nine or half-past to-night, and then get them to fetch you home +again--tell them you've thought of something. If you get here before +eleven put a candle in this window, and if I don't turn up wait _till_ +eleven, and _then_ if I don't turn up it means I'm gone, and out of the +way, and safe. Then you come out and spread the news around, and get +these beats jailed." + +"Good," she says, "I'll do it." + +"And if it just happens so that I don't get away, but get took up along +with them, you must up and say I told you the whole thing beforehand, +and you must stand by me all you can." + +"Stand by you! indeed I will. They sha'n't touch a hair of your head!" +she says, and I see her nostrils spread and her eyes snap when she said +it, too. + +"If I get away I sha'n't be here," I says, "to prove these rapscallions +ain't your uncles, and I couldn't do it if I _was_ here. I could swear +they was beats and bummers, that's all, though that's worth something. +Well, there's others can do that better than what I can, and they're +people that ain't going to be doubted as quick as I'd be. I'll tell you +how to find them. Gimme a pencil and a piece of paper. There--'Royal +Nonesuch, Bricksville.' Put it away, and don't lose it. When the +court wants to find out something about these two, let them send up to +Bricksville and say they've got the men that played the Royal Nonesuch, +and ask for some witnesses--why, you'll have that entire town down here +before you can hardly wink, Miss Mary. And they'll come a-biling, too." + +I judged we had got everything fixed about right now. So I says: + +"Just let the auction go right along, and don't worry. Nobody don't +have to pay for the things they buy till a whole day after the auction +on accounts of the short notice, and they ain't going out of this till +they get that money; and the way we've fixed it the sale ain't going to +count, and they ain't going to get no money. It's just like the way +it was with the niggers--it warn't no sale, and the niggers will be +back before long. Why, they can't collect the money for the _niggers_ +yet--they're in the worst kind of a fix, Miss Mary." + +"Well," she says, "I'll run down to breakfast now, and then I'll start +straight for Mr. Lothrop's." + +"'Deed, _that_ ain't the ticket, Miss Mary Jane," I says, "by no manner +of means; go _before_ breakfast." + +"Why?" + +"What did you reckon I wanted you to go at all for, Miss Mary?" + +"Well, I never thought--and come to think, I don't know. What was it?" + +"Why, it's because you ain't one of these leather-face people. I don't +want no better book than what your face is. A body can set down and +read it off like coarse print. Do you reckon you can go and face your +uncles when they come to kiss you good-morning, and never--" + +"There, there, don't! Yes, I'll go before breakfast--I'll be glad to. +And leave my sisters with them?" + +"Yes; never mind about them. They've got to stand it yet a while. They +might suspicion something if all of you was to go. I don't want you to +see them, nor your sisters, nor nobody in this town; if a neighbor was +to ask how is your uncles this morning your face would tell something. + No, you go right along, Miss Mary Jane, and I'll fix it with all of +them. I'll tell Miss Susan to give your love to your uncles and say +you've went away for a few hours for to get a little rest and change, or +to see a friend, and you'll be back to-night or early in the morning." + +"Gone to see a friend is all right, but I won't have my love given to +them." + +"Well, then, it sha'n't be." It was well enough to tell _her_ so--no +harm in it. It was only a little thing to do, and no trouble; and it's +the little things that smooths people's roads the most, down here below; +it would make Mary Jane comfortable, and it wouldn't cost nothing. Then +I says: "There's one more thing--that bag of money." + +"Well, they've got that; and it makes me feel pretty silly to think +_how_ they got it." + +"No, you're out, there. They hain't got it." + +"Why, who's got it?" + +"I wish I knowed, but I don't. I _had_ it, because I stole it from +them; and I stole it to give to you; and I know where I hid it, but I'm +afraid it ain't there no more. I'm awful sorry, Miss Mary Jane, I'm +just as sorry as I can be; but I done the best I could; I did honest. I +come nigh getting caught, and I had to shove it into the first place I +come to, and run--and it warn't a good place." + +"Oh, stop blaming yourself--it's too bad to do it, and I won't allow +it--you couldn't help it; it wasn't your fault. Where did you hide it?" + +I didn't want to set her to thinking about her troubles again; and I +couldn't seem to get my mouth to tell her what would make her see that +corpse laying in the coffin with that bag of money on his stomach. So +for a minute I didn't say nothing; then I says: + +"I'd ruther not _tell_ you where I put it, Miss Mary Jane, if you don't +mind letting me off; but I'll write it for you on a piece of paper, and +you can read it along the road to Mr. Lothrop's, if you want to. Do you +reckon that 'll do?" + +"Oh, yes." + +So I wrote: "I put it in the coffin. It was in there when you was +crying there, away in the night. I was behind the door, and I was +mighty sorry for you, Miss Mary Jane." + +It made my eyes water a little to remember her crying there all by +herself in the night, and them devils laying there right under her own +roof, shaming her and robbing her; and when I folded it up and give it +to her I see the water come into her eyes, too; and she shook me by the +hand, hard, and says: + +"_Good_-bye. I'm going to do everything just as you've told me; and if +I don't ever see you again, I sha'n't ever forget you and I'll think of +you a many and a many a time, and I'll _pray_ for you, too!"--and she was +gone. + +Pray for me! I reckoned if she knowed me she'd take a job that was more +nearer her size. But I bet she done it, just the same--she was just that +kind. She had the grit to pray for Judus if she took the notion--there +warn't no back-down to her, I judge. You may say what you want to, but +in my opinion she had more sand in her than any girl I ever see; in +my opinion she was just full of sand. It sounds like flattery, but it +ain't no flattery. And when it comes to beauty--and goodness, too--she +lays over them all. I hain't ever seen her since that time that I see +her go out of that door; no, I hain't ever seen her since, but I reckon +I've thought of her a many and a many a million times, and of her saying +she would pray for me; and if ever I'd a thought it would do any good +for me to pray for _her_, blamed if I wouldn't a done it or bust. + +Well, Mary Jane she lit out the back way, I reckon; because nobody see +her go. When I struck Susan and the hare-lip, I says: + +"What's the name of them people over on t'other side of the river that +you all goes to see sometimes?" + +They says: + +"There's several; but it's the Proctors, mainly." + +"That's the name," I says; "I most forgot it. Well, Miss Mary Jane she +told me to tell you she's gone over there in a dreadful hurry--one of +them's sick." + +"Which one?" + +"I don't know; leastways, I kinder forget; but I thinks it's--" + +"Sakes alive, I hope it ain't _Hanner_?" + +"I'm sorry to say it," I says, "but Hanner's the very one." + +"My goodness, and she so well only last week! Is she took bad?" + +"It ain't no name for it. They set up with her all night, Miss Mary +Jane said, and they don't think she'll last many hours." + +"Only think of that, now! What's the matter with her?" + +I couldn't think of anything reasonable, right off that way, so I says: + +"Mumps." + +"Mumps your granny! They don't set up with people that's got the +mumps." + +"They don't, don't they? You better bet they do with _these_ mumps. + These mumps is different. It's a new kind, Miss Mary Jane said." + +"How's it a new kind?" + +"Because it's mixed up with other things." + +"What other things?" + +"Well, measles, and whooping-cough, and erysiplas, and consumption, and +yaller janders, and brain-fever, and I don't know what all." + +"My land! And they call it the _mumps_?" + +"That's what Miss Mary Jane said." + +"Well, what in the nation do they call it the _mumps_ for?" + +"Why, because it _is_ the mumps. That's what it starts with." + +"Well, ther' ain't no sense in it. A body might stump his toe, and take +pison, and fall down the well, and break his neck, and bust his brains +out, and somebody come along and ask what killed him, and some numskull +up and say, 'Why, he stumped his _toe_.' Would ther' be any sense +in that? _No_. And ther' ain't no sense in _this_, nuther. Is it +ketching?" + +"Is it _ketching_? Why, how you talk. Is a _harrow_ catching--in the +dark? If you don't hitch on to one tooth, you're bound to on another, +ain't you? And you can't get away with that tooth without fetching the +whole harrow along, can you? Well, these kind of mumps is a kind of a +harrow, as you may say--and it ain't no slouch of a harrow, nuther, you +come to get it hitched on good." + +"Well, it's awful, I think," says the hare-lip. "I'll go to Uncle +Harvey and--" + +"Oh, yes," I says, "I _would_. Of _course_ I would. I wouldn't lose no +time." + +"Well, why wouldn't you?" + +"Just look at it a minute, and maybe you can see. Hain't your uncles +obleegd to get along home to England as fast as they can? And do you +reckon they'd be mean enough to go off and leave you to go all that +journey by yourselves? _you_ know they'll wait for you. So fur, so +good. Your uncle Harvey's a preacher, ain't he? Very well, then; is a +_preacher_ going to deceive a steamboat clerk? is he going to deceive +a _ship clerk?_--so as to get them to let Miss Mary Jane go aboard? Now +_you_ know he ain't. What _will_ he do, then? Why, he'll say, 'It's a +great pity, but my church matters has got to get along the best way they +can; for my niece has been exposed to the dreadful pluribus-unum mumps, +and so it's my bounden duty to set down here and wait the three months +it takes to show on her if she's got it.' But never mind, if you think +it's best to tell your uncle Harvey--" + +"Shucks, and stay fooling around here when we could all be having good +times in England whilst we was waiting to find out whether Mary Jane's +got it or not? Why, you talk like a muggins." + +"Well, anyway, maybe you'd better tell some of the neighbors." + +"Listen at that, now. You do beat all for natural stupidness. Can't +you _see_ that _they'd_ go and tell? Ther' ain't no way but just to not +tell anybody at _all_." + +"Well, maybe you're right--yes, I judge you _are_ right." + +"But I reckon we ought to tell Uncle Harvey she's gone out a while, +anyway, so he won't be uneasy about her?" + +"Yes, Miss Mary Jane she wanted you to do that. She says, 'Tell them to +give Uncle Harvey and William my love and a kiss, and say I've run over +the river to see Mr.'--Mr.--what _is_ the name of that rich family your +uncle Peter used to think so much of?--I mean the one that--" + +"Why, you must mean the Apthorps, ain't it?" + +"Of course; bother them kind of names, a body can't ever seem to +remember them, half the time, somehow. Yes, she said, say she has run +over for to ask the Apthorps to be sure and come to the auction and buy +this house, because she allowed her uncle Peter would ruther they had +it than anybody else; and she's going to stick to them till they say +they'll come, and then, if she ain't too tired, she's coming home; and +if she is, she'll be home in the morning anyway. She said, don't say +nothing about the Proctors, but only about the Apthorps--which 'll be +perfectly true, because she is going there to speak about their buying +the house; I know it, because she told me so herself." + +"All right," they said, and cleared out to lay for their uncles, and +give them the love and the kisses, and tell them the message. + +Everything was all right now. The girls wouldn't say nothing because +they wanted to go to England; and the king and the duke would ruther +Mary Jane was off working for the auction than around in reach of +Doctor Robinson. I felt very good; I judged I had done it pretty neat--I +reckoned Tom Sawyer couldn't a done it no neater himself. Of course he +would a throwed more style into it, but I can't do that very handy, not +being brung up to it. + +Well, they held the auction in the public square, along towards the end +of the afternoon, and it strung along, and strung along, and the old man +he was on hand and looking his level pisonest, up there longside of the +auctioneer, and chipping in a little Scripture now and then, or a little +goody-goody saying of some kind, and the duke he was around goo-gooing +for sympathy all he knowed how, and just spreading himself generly. + +But by and by the thing dragged through, and everything was +sold--everything but a little old trifling lot in the graveyard. So +they'd got to work that off--I never see such a girafft as the king was +for wanting to swallow _everything_. Well, whilst they was at it a +steamboat landed, and in about two minutes up comes a crowd a-whooping +and yelling and laughing and carrying on, and singing out: + +"_Here's_ your opposition line! here's your two sets o' heirs to old +Peter Wilks--and you pays your money and you takes your choice!" + + + + +CHAPTER XXIX. + +THEY was fetching a very nice-looking old gentleman along, and a +nice-looking younger one, with his right arm in a sling. And, my souls, +how the people yelled and laughed, and kept it up. But I didn't see no +joke about it, and I judged it would strain the duke and the king some +to see any. I reckoned they'd turn pale. But no, nary a pale did +_they_ turn. The duke he never let on he suspicioned what was up, but +just went a goo-gooing around, happy and satisfied, like a jug that's +googling out buttermilk; and as for the king, he just gazed and gazed +down sorrowful on them new-comers like it give him the stomach-ache in +his very heart to think there could be such frauds and rascals in the +world. Oh, he done it admirable. Lots of the principal people +gethered around the king, to let him see they was on his side. That old +gentleman that had just come looked all puzzled to death. Pretty +soon he begun to speak, and I see straight off he pronounced _like_ an +Englishman--not the king's way, though the king's _was_ pretty good for +an imitation. I can't give the old gent's words, nor I can't imitate +him; but he turned around to the crowd, and says, about like this: + +"This is a surprise to me which I wasn't looking for; and I'll +acknowledge, candid and frank, I ain't very well fixed to meet it and +answer it; for my brother and me has had misfortunes; he's broke his +arm, and our baggage got put off at a town above here last night in the +night by a mistake. I am Peter Wilks' brother Harvey, and this is his +brother William, which can't hear nor speak--and can't even make signs to +amount to much, now't he's only got one hand to work them with. We are +who we say we are; and in a day or two, when I get the baggage, I can +prove it. But up till then I won't say nothing more, but go to the hotel +and wait." + +So him and the new dummy started off; and the king he laughs, and +blethers out: + +"Broke his arm--_very_ likely, _ain't_ it?--and very convenient, too, +for a fraud that's got to make signs, and ain't learnt how. Lost +their baggage! That's _mighty_ good!--and mighty ingenious--under the +_circumstances_!" + +So he laughed again; and so did everybody else, except three or four, +or maybe half a dozen. One of these was that doctor; another one was +a sharp-looking gentleman, with a carpet-bag of the old-fashioned kind +made out of carpet-stuff, that had just come off of the steamboat and +was talking to him in a low voice, and glancing towards the king now and +then and nodding their heads--it was Levi Bell, the lawyer that was gone +up to Louisville; and another one was a big rough husky that come along +and listened to all the old gentleman said, and was listening to the +king now. And when the king got done this husky up and says: + +"Say, looky here; if you are Harvey Wilks, when'd you come to this +town?" + +"The day before the funeral, friend," says the king. + +"But what time o' day?" + +"In the evenin'--'bout an hour er two before sundown." + +"_How'd_ you come?" + +"I come down on the Susan Powell from Cincinnati." + +"Well, then, how'd you come to be up at the Pint in the _mornin_'--in a +canoe?" + +"I warn't up at the Pint in the mornin'." + +"It's a lie." + +Several of them jumped for him and begged him not to talk that way to an +old man and a preacher. + +"Preacher be hanged, he's a fraud and a liar. He was up at the Pint +that mornin'. I live up there, don't I? Well, I was up there, and +he was up there. I see him there. He come in a canoe, along with Tim +Collins and a boy." + +The doctor he up and says: + +"Would you know the boy again if you was to see him, Hines?" + +"I reckon I would, but I don't know. Why, yonder he is, now. I know +him perfectly easy." + +It was me he pointed at. The doctor says: + +"Neighbors, I don't know whether the new couple is frauds or not; but if +_these_ two ain't frauds, I am an idiot, that's all. I think it's our +duty to see that they don't get away from here till we've looked into +this thing. Come along, Hines; come along, the rest of you. We'll take +these fellows to the tavern and affront them with t'other couple, and I +reckon we'll find out _something_ before we get through." + +It was nuts for the crowd, though maybe not for the king's friends; so +we all started. It was about sundown. The doctor he led me along by +the hand, and was plenty kind enough, but he never let go my hand. + +We all got in a big room in the hotel, and lit up some candles, and +fetched in the new couple. First, the doctor says: + +"I don't wish to be too hard on these two men, but I think they're +frauds, and they may have complices that we don't know nothing about. + If they have, won't the complices get away with that bag of gold Peter +Wilks left? It ain't unlikely. If these men ain't frauds, they won't +object to sending for that money and letting us keep it till they prove +they're all right--ain't that so?" + +Everybody agreed to that. So I judged they had our gang in a pretty +tight place right at the outstart. But the king he only looked +sorrowful, and says: + +"Gentlemen, I wish the money was there, for I ain't got no disposition +to throw anything in the way of a fair, open, out-and-out investigation +o' this misable business; but, alas, the money ain't there; you k'n send +and see, if you want to." + +"Where is it, then?" + +"Well, when my niece give it to me to keep for her I took and hid it +inside o' the straw tick o' my bed, not wishin' to bank it for the few +days we'd be here, and considerin' the bed a safe place, we not bein' +used to niggers, and suppos'n' 'em honest, like servants in England. + The niggers stole it the very next mornin' after I had went down +stairs; and when I sold 'em I hadn't missed the money yit, so they got +clean away with it. My servant here k'n tell you 'bout it, gentlemen." + +The doctor and several said "Shucks!" and I see nobody didn't altogether +believe him. One man asked me if I see the niggers steal it. I said +no, but I see them sneaking out of the room and hustling away, and I +never thought nothing, only I reckoned they was afraid they had waked up +my master and was trying to get away before he made trouble with them. + That was all they asked me. Then the doctor whirls on me and says: + +"Are _you_ English, too?" + +I says yes; and him and some others laughed, and said, "Stuff!" + +Well, then they sailed in on the general investigation, and there we had +it, up and down, hour in, hour out, and nobody never said a word about +supper, nor ever seemed to think about it--and so they kept it up, and +kept it up; and it _was_ the worst mixed-up thing you ever see. They +made the king tell his yarn, and they made the old gentleman tell his'n; +and anybody but a lot of prejudiced chuckleheads would a _seen_ that the +old gentleman was spinning truth and t'other one lies. And by and by +they had me up to tell what I knowed. The king he give me a left-handed +look out of the corner of his eye, and so I knowed enough to talk on the +right side. I begun to tell about Sheffield, and how we lived there, +and all about the English Wilkses, and so on; but I didn't get pretty +fur till the doctor begun to laugh; and Levi Bell, the lawyer, says: + +"Set down, my boy; I wouldn't strain myself if I was you. I reckon +you ain't used to lying, it don't seem to come handy; what you want is +practice. You do it pretty awkward." + +I didn't care nothing for the compliment, but I was glad to be let off, +anyway. + +The doctor he started to say something, and turns and says: + +"If you'd been in town at first, Levi Bell--" The king broke in and +reached out his hand, and says: + +"Why, is this my poor dead brother's old friend that he's wrote so often +about?" + +The lawyer and him shook hands, and the lawyer smiled and looked +pleased, and they talked right along awhile, and then got to one side +and talked low; and at last the lawyer speaks up and says: + +"That 'll fix it. I'll take the order and send it, along with your +brother's, and then they'll know it's all right." + +So they got some paper and a pen, and the king he set down and twisted +his head to one side, and chawed his tongue, and scrawled off something; +and then they give the pen to the duke--and then for the first time the +duke looked sick. But he took the pen and wrote. So then the lawyer +turns to the new old gentleman and says: + +"You and your brother please write a line or two and sign your names." + +The old gentleman wrote, but nobody couldn't read it. The lawyer looked +powerful astonished, and says: + +"Well, it beats _me_"--and snaked a lot of old letters out of his pocket, +and examined them, and then examined the old man's writing, and then +_them_ again; and then says: "These old letters is from Harvey Wilks; +and here's _these_ two handwritings, and anybody can see they didn't +write them" (the king and the duke looked sold and foolish, I tell +you, to see how the lawyer had took them in), "and here's _this_ old +gentleman's hand writing, and anybody can tell, easy enough, _he_ didn't +write them--fact is, the scratches he makes ain't properly _writing_ at +all. Now, here's some letters from--" + +The new old gentleman says: + +"If you please, let me explain. Nobody can read my hand but my brother +there--so he copies for me. It's _his_ hand you've got there, not mine." + +"_Well_!" says the lawyer, "this _is_ a state of things. I've got some +of William's letters, too; so if you'll get him to write a line or so we +can com--" + +"He _can't_ write with his left hand," says the old gentleman. "If he +could use his right hand, you would see that he wrote his own letters +and mine too. Look at both, please--they're by the same hand." + +The lawyer done it, and says: + +"I believe it's so--and if it ain't so, there's a heap stronger +resemblance than I'd noticed before, anyway. Well, well, well! I +thought we was right on the track of a solution, but it's gone to grass, +partly. But anyway, one thing is proved--_these_ two ain't either of 'em +Wilkses"--and he wagged his head towards the king and the duke. + +Well, what do you think? That muleheaded old fool wouldn't give in +_then_! Indeed he wouldn't. Said it warn't no fair test. Said his +brother William was the cussedest joker in the world, and hadn't tried +to write--_he_ see William was going to play one of his jokes the minute +he put the pen to paper. And so he warmed up and went warbling and +warbling right along till he was actuly beginning to believe what he was +saying _himself_; but pretty soon the new gentleman broke in, and says: + +"I've thought of something. Is there anybody here that helped to lay +out my br--helped to lay out the late Peter Wilks for burying?" + +"Yes," says somebody, "me and Ab Turner done it. We're both here." + +Then the old man turns towards the king, and says: + +"Perhaps this gentleman can tell me what was tattooed on his breast?" + +Blamed if the king didn't have to brace up mighty quick, or he'd a +squshed down like a bluff bank that the river has cut under, it took +him so sudden; and, mind you, it was a thing that was calculated to make +most _anybody_ sqush to get fetched such a solid one as that without any +notice, because how was _he_ going to know what was tattooed on the man? + He whitened a little; he couldn't help it; and it was mighty still in +there, and everybody bending a little forwards and gazing at him. Says +I to myself, _now_ he'll throw up the sponge--there ain't no more use. + Well, did he? A body can't hardly believe it, but he didn't. I reckon +he thought he'd keep the thing up till he tired them people out, so +they'd thin out, and him and the duke could break loose and get away. + Anyway, he set there, and pretty soon he begun to smile, and says: + +"Mf! It's a _very_ tough question, _ain't_ it! _yes_, sir, I k'n +tell you what's tattooed on his breast. It's jest a small, thin, blue +arrow--that's what it is; and if you don't look clost, you can't see it. + _now_ what do you say--hey?" + +Well, I never see anything like that old blister for clean out-and-out +cheek. + +The new old gentleman turns brisk towards Ab Turner and his pard, and +his eye lights up like he judged he'd got the king _this_ time, and +says: + +"There--you've heard what he said! Was there any such mark on Peter +Wilks' breast?" + +Both of them spoke up and says: + +"We didn't see no such mark." + +"Good!" says the old gentleman. "Now, what you _did_ see on his breast +was a small dim P, and a B (which is an initial he dropped when he was +young), and a W, with dashes between them, so: P--B--W"--and he marked +them that way on a piece of paper. "Come, ain't that what you saw?" + +Both of them spoke up again, and says: + +"No, we _didn't_. We never seen any marks at all." + +Well, everybody _was_ in a state of mind now, and they sings out: + +"The whole _bilin_' of 'm 's frauds! Le's duck 'em! le's drown 'em! +le's ride 'em on a rail!" and everybody was whooping at once, and there +was a rattling powwow. But the lawyer he jumps on the table and yells, +and says: + +"Gentlemen--gentle_men!_ Hear me just a word--just a _single_ word--if you +_please_! There's one way yet--let's go and dig up the corpse and look." + +That took them. + +"Hooray!" they all shouted, and was starting right off; but the lawyer +and the doctor sung out: + +"Hold on, hold on! Collar all these four men and the boy, and fetch +_them_ along, too!" + +"We'll do it!" they all shouted; "and if we don't find them marks we'll +lynch the whole gang!" + +I _was_ scared, now, I tell you. But there warn't no getting away, you +know. They gripped us all, and marched us right along, straight for the +graveyard, which was a mile and a half down the river, and the whole +town at our heels, for we made noise enough, and it was only nine in the +evening. + +As we went by our house I wished I hadn't sent Mary Jane out of town; +because now if I could tip her the wink she'd light out and save me, and +blow on our dead-beats. + +Well, we swarmed along down the river road, just carrying on like +wildcats; and to make it more scary the sky was darking up, and the +lightning beginning to wink and flitter, and the wind to shiver amongst +the leaves. This was the most awful trouble and most dangersome I ever +was in; and I was kinder stunned; everything was going so different from +what I had allowed for; stead of being fixed so I could take my own time +if I wanted to, and see all the fun, and have Mary Jane at my back to +save me and set me free when the close-fit come, here was nothing in the +world betwixt me and sudden death but just them tattoo-marks. If they +didn't find them-- + +I couldn't bear to think about it; and yet, somehow, I couldn't think +about nothing else. It got darker and darker, and it was a beautiful +time to give the crowd the slip; but that big husky had me by the +wrist--Hines--and a body might as well try to give Goliar the slip. He +dragged me right along, he was so excited, and I had to run to keep up. + +When they got there they swarmed into the graveyard and washed over it +like an overflow. And when they got to the grave they found they had +about a hundred times as many shovels as they wanted, but nobody hadn't +thought to fetch a lantern. But they sailed into digging anyway by the +flicker of the lightning, and sent a man to the nearest house, a half a +mile off, to borrow one. + +So they dug and dug like everything; and it got awful dark, and the rain +started, and the wind swished and swushed along, and the lightning come +brisker and brisker, and the thunder boomed; but them people never took +no notice of it, they was so full of this business; and one minute +you could see everything and every face in that big crowd, and the +shovelfuls of dirt sailing up out of the grave, and the next second the +dark wiped it all out, and you couldn't see nothing at all. + +At last they got out the coffin and begun to unscrew the lid, and then +such another crowding and shouldering and shoving as there was, to +scrouge in and get a sight, you never see; and in the dark, that way, it +was awful. Hines he hurt my wrist dreadful pulling and tugging so, +and I reckon he clean forgot I was in the world, he was so excited and +panting. + +All of a sudden the lightning let go a perfect sluice of white glare, +and somebody sings out: + +"By the living jingo, here's the bag of gold on his breast!" + +Hines let out a whoop, like everybody else, and dropped my wrist and +give a big surge to bust his way in and get a look, and the way I lit +out and shinned for the road in the dark there ain't nobody can tell. + +I had the road all to myself, and I fairly flew--leastways, I had it all +to myself except the solid dark, and the now-and-then glares, and the +buzzing of the rain, and the thrashing of the wind, and the splitting of +the thunder; and sure as you are born I did clip it along! + +When I struck the town I see there warn't nobody out in the storm, so +I never hunted for no back streets, but humped it straight through the +main one; and when I begun to get towards our house I aimed my eye and +set it. No light there; the house all dark--which made me feel sorry and +disappointed, I didn't know why. But at last, just as I was sailing by, +_flash_ comes the light in Mary Jane's window! and my heart swelled up +sudden, like to bust; and the same second the house and all was behind +me in the dark, and wasn't ever going to be before me no more in this +world. She _was_ the best girl I ever see, and had the most sand. + +The minute I was far enough above the town to see I could make the +towhead, I begun to look sharp for a boat to borrow, and the first +time the lightning showed me one that wasn't chained I snatched it and +shoved. It was a canoe, and warn't fastened with nothing but a rope. + The towhead was a rattling big distance off, away out there in the +middle of the river, but I didn't lose no time; and when I struck the +raft at last I was so fagged I would a just laid down to blow and gasp +if I could afforded it. But I didn't. As I sprung aboard I sung out: + +"Out with you, Jim, and set her loose! Glory be to goodness, we're shut +of them!" + +Jim lit out, and was a-coming for me with both arms spread, he was so +full of joy; but when I glimpsed him in the lightning my heart shot up +in my mouth and I went overboard backwards; for I forgot he was old King +Lear and a drownded A-rab all in one, and it most scared the livers and +lights out of me. But Jim fished me out, and was going to hug me and +bless me, and so on, he was so glad I was back and we was shut of the +king and the duke, but I says: + +"Not now; have it for breakfast, have it for breakfast! Cut loose and +let her slide!" + +So in two seconds away we went a-sliding down the river, and it _did_ +seem so good to be free again and all by ourselves on the big river, and +nobody to bother us. I had to skip around a bit, and jump up and crack +my heels a few times--I couldn't help it; but about the third crack +I noticed a sound that I knowed mighty well, and held my breath and +listened and waited; and sure enough, when the next flash busted out +over the water, here they come!--and just a-laying to their oars and +making their skiff hum! It was the king and the duke. + +So I wilted right down on to the planks then, and give up; and it was +all I could do to keep from crying. + + + + +CHAPTER XXX. + +WHEN they got aboard the king went for me, and shook me by the collar, +and says: + +"Tryin' to give us the slip, was ye, you pup! Tired of our company, +hey?" + +I says: + +"No, your majesty, we warn't--_please_ don't, your majesty!" + +"Quick, then, and tell us what _was_ your idea, or I'll shake the +insides out o' you!" + +"Honest, I'll tell you everything just as it happened, your majesty. + The man that had a-holt of me was very good to me, and kept saying he +had a boy about as big as me that died last year, and he was sorry +to see a boy in such a dangerous fix; and when they was all took by +surprise by finding the gold, and made a rush for the coffin, he lets go +of me and whispers, 'Heel it now, or they'll hang ye, sure!' and I lit +out. It didn't seem no good for _me_ to stay--I couldn't do nothing, +and I didn't want to be hung if I could get away. So I never stopped +running till I found the canoe; and when I got here I told Jim to hurry, +or they'd catch me and hang me yet, and said I was afeard you and the +duke wasn't alive now, and I was awful sorry, and so was Jim, and was +awful glad when we see you coming; you may ask Jim if I didn't." + +Jim said it was so; and the king told him to shut up, and said, "Oh, +yes, it's _mighty_ likely!" and shook me up again, and said he reckoned +he'd drownd me. But the duke says: + +"Leggo the boy, you old idiot! Would _you_ a done any different? Did +you inquire around for _him_ when you got loose? I don't remember it." + +So the king let go of me, and begun to cuss that town and everybody in +it. But the duke says: + +"You better a blame' sight give _yourself_ a good cussing, for you're +the one that's entitled to it most. You hain't done a thing from the +start that had any sense in it, except coming out so cool and cheeky +with that imaginary blue-arrow mark. That _was_ bright--it was right +down bully; and it was the thing that saved us. For if it hadn't been +for that they'd a jailed us till them Englishmen's baggage come--and +then--the penitentiary, you bet! But that trick took 'em to the +graveyard, and the gold done us a still bigger kindness; for if the +excited fools hadn't let go all holts and made that rush to get a +look we'd a slept in our cravats to-night--cravats warranted to _wear_, +too--longer than _we'd_ need 'em." + +They was still a minute--thinking; then the king says, kind of +absent-minded like: + +"Mf! And we reckoned the _niggers_ stole it!" + +That made me squirm! + +"Yes," says the duke, kinder slow and deliberate and sarcastic, "_we_ +did." + +After about a half a minute the king drawls out: + +"Leastways, I did." + +The duke says, the same way: + +"On the contrary, I did." + +The king kind of ruffles up, and says: + +"Looky here, Bilgewater, what'r you referrin' to?" + +The duke says, pretty brisk: + +"When it comes to that, maybe you'll let me ask, what was _you_ +referring to?" + +"Shucks!" says the king, very sarcastic; "but I don't know--maybe you was +asleep, and didn't know what you was about." + +The duke bristles up now, and says: + +"Oh, let _up_ on this cussed nonsense; do you take me for a blame' fool? +Don't you reckon I know who hid that money in that coffin?" + +"_Yes_, sir! I know you _do_ know, because you done it yourself!" + +"It's a lie!"--and the duke went for him. The king sings out: + +"Take y'r hands off!--leggo my throat!--I take it all back!" + +The duke says: + +"Well, you just own up, first, that you _did_ hide that money there, +intending to give me the slip one of these days, and come back and dig +it up, and have it all to yourself." + +"Wait jest a minute, duke--answer me this one question, honest and fair; +if you didn't put the money there, say it, and I'll b'lieve you, and +take back everything I said." + +"You old scoundrel, I didn't, and you know I didn't. There, now!" + +"Well, then, I b'lieve you. But answer me only jest this one more--now +_don't_ git mad; didn't you have it in your mind to hook the money and +hide it?" + +The duke never said nothing for a little bit; then he says: + +"Well, I don't care if I _did_, I didn't _do_ it, anyway. But you not +only had it in mind to do it, but you _done_ it." + +"I wisht I never die if I done it, duke, and that's honest. I won't say +I warn't goin' to do it, because I _was_; but you--I mean somebody--got in +ahead o' me." + +"It's a lie! You done it, and you got to _say_ you done it, or--" + +The king began to gurgle, and then he gasps out: + +"'Nough!--I _own up!_" + +I was very glad to hear him say that; it made me feel much more easier +than what I was feeling before. So the duke took his hands off and +says: + +"If you ever deny it again I'll drown you. It's _well_ for you to set +there and blubber like a baby--it's fitten for you, after the way +you've acted. I never see such an old ostrich for wanting to gobble +everything--and I a-trusting you all the time, like you was my own +father. You ought to been ashamed of yourself to stand by and hear it +saddled on to a lot of poor niggers, and you never say a word for 'em. + It makes me feel ridiculous to think I was soft enough to _believe_ +that rubbage. Cuss you, I can see now why you was so anxious to make +up the deffisit--you wanted to get what money I'd got out of the Nonesuch +and one thing or another, and scoop it _all_!" + +The king says, timid, and still a-snuffling: + +"Why, duke, it was you that said make up the deffisit; it warn't me." + +"Dry up! I don't want to hear no more out of you!" says the duke. "And +_now_ you see what you GOT by it. They've got all their own money back, +and all of _ourn_ but a shekel or two _besides_. G'long to bed, and +don't you deffersit _me_ no more deffersits, long 's _you_ live!" + +So the king sneaked into the wigwam and took to his bottle for comfort, +and before long the duke tackled HIS bottle; and so in about a half an +hour they was as thick as thieves again, and the tighter they got the +lovinger they got, and went off a-snoring in each other's arms. They +both got powerful mellow, but I noticed the king didn't get mellow +enough to forget to remember to not deny about hiding the money-bag +again. That made me feel easy and satisfied. Of course when they got +to snoring we had a long gabble, and I told Jim everything. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXI. + +WE dasn't stop again at any town for days and days; kept right along +down the river. We was down south in the warm weather now, and a mighty +long ways from home. We begun to come to trees with Spanish moss on +them, hanging down from the limbs like long, gray beards. It was the +first I ever see it growing, and it made the woods look solemn and +dismal. So now the frauds reckoned they was out of danger, and they +begun to work the villages again. + +First they done a lecture on temperance; but they didn't make enough +for them both to get drunk on. Then in another village they started +a dancing-school; but they didn't know no more how to dance than a +kangaroo does; so the first prance they made the general public jumped +in and pranced them out of town. Another time they tried to go at +yellocution; but they didn't yellocute long till the audience got up and +give them a solid good cussing, and made them skip out. They tackled +missionarying, and mesmerizing, and doctoring, and telling fortunes, and +a little of everything; but they couldn't seem to have no luck. So at +last they got just about dead broke, and laid around the raft as she +floated along, thinking and thinking, and never saying nothing, by the +half a day at a time, and dreadful blue and desperate. + +And at last they took a change and begun to lay their heads together in +the wigwam and talk low and confidential two or three hours at a time. +Jim and me got uneasy. We didn't like the look of it. We judged they +was studying up some kind of worse deviltry than ever. We turned it +over and over, and at last we made up our minds they was going to break +into somebody's house or store, or was going into the counterfeit-money +business, or something. So then we was pretty scared, and made up an +agreement that we wouldn't have nothing in the world to do with such +actions, and if we ever got the least show we would give them the cold +shake and clear out and leave them behind. Well, early one morning we +hid the raft in a good, safe place about two mile below a little bit of +a shabby village named Pikesville, and the king he went ashore and told +us all to stay hid whilst he went up to town and smelt around to see +if anybody had got any wind of the Royal Nonesuch there yet. ("House to +rob, you _mean_," says I to myself; "and when you get through robbing it +you'll come back here and wonder what has become of me and Jim and the +raft--and you'll have to take it out in wondering.") And he said if he +warn't back by midday the duke and me would know it was all right, and +we was to come along. + +So we stayed where we was. The duke he fretted and sweated around, and +was in a mighty sour way. He scolded us for everything, and we couldn't +seem to do nothing right; he found fault with every little thing. +Something was a-brewing, sure. I was good and glad when midday come +and no king; we could have a change, anyway--and maybe a chance for _the_ +change on top of it. So me and the duke went up to the village, and +hunted around there for the king, and by and by we found him in the +back room of a little low doggery, very tight, and a lot of loafers +bullyragging him for sport, and he a-cussing and a-threatening with all +his might, and so tight he couldn't walk, and couldn't do nothing to +them. The duke he begun to abuse him for an old fool, and the king +begun to sass back, and the minute they was fairly at it I lit out and +shook the reefs out of my hind legs, and spun down the river road like +a deer, for I see our chance; and I made up my mind that it would be a +long day before they ever see me and Jim again. I got down there all +out of breath but loaded up with joy, and sung out: + +"Set her loose, Jim! we're all right now!" + +But there warn't no answer, and nobody come out of the wigwam. Jim was +gone! I set up a shout--and then another--and then another one; and run +this way and that in the woods, whooping and screeching; but it warn't +no use--old Jim was gone. Then I set down and cried; I couldn't help +it. But I couldn't set still long. Pretty soon I went out on the road, +trying to think what I better do, and I run across a boy walking, and +asked him if he'd seen a strange nigger dressed so and so, and he says: + +"Yes." + +"Whereabouts?" says I. + +"Down to Silas Phelps' place, two mile below here. He's a runaway +nigger, and they've got him. Was you looking for him?" + +"You bet I ain't! I run across him in the woods about an hour or two +ago, and he said if I hollered he'd cut my livers out--and told me to lay +down and stay where I was; and I done it. Been there ever since; afeard +to come out." + +"Well," he says, "you needn't be afeard no more, becuz they've got him. +He run off f'm down South, som'ers." + +"It's a good job they got him." + +"Well, I _reckon_! There's two hunderd dollars reward on him. It's +like picking up money out'n the road." + +"Yes, it is--and I could a had it if I'd been big enough; I see him +_first_. Who nailed him?" + +"It was an old fellow--a stranger--and he sold out his chance in him for +forty dollars, becuz he's got to go up the river and can't wait. Think +o' that, now! You bet _I'd_ wait, if it was seven year." + +"That's me, every time," says I. "But maybe his chance ain't worth +no more than that, if he'll sell it so cheap. Maybe there's something +ain't straight about it." + +"But it _is_, though--straight as a string. I see the handbill myself. + It tells all about him, to a dot--paints him like a picture, and tells +the plantation he's frum, below Newr_leans_. No-sirree-_bob_, they +ain't no trouble 'bout _that_ speculation, you bet you. Say, gimme a +chaw tobacker, won't ye?" + +I didn't have none, so he left. I went to the raft, and set down in the +wigwam to think. But I couldn't come to nothing. I thought till I wore +my head sore, but I couldn't see no way out of the trouble. After all +this long journey, and after all we'd done for them scoundrels, here it +was all come to nothing, everything all busted up and ruined, because +they could have the heart to serve Jim such a trick as that, and make +him a slave again all his life, and amongst strangers, too, for forty +dirty dollars. + +Once I said to myself it would be a thousand times better for Jim to +be a slave at home where his family was, as long as he'd _got_ to be a +slave, and so I'd better write a letter to Tom Sawyer and tell him to +tell Miss Watson where he was. But I soon give up that notion for two +things: she'd be mad and disgusted at his rascality and ungratefulness +for leaving her, and so she'd sell him straight down the river again; +and if she didn't, everybody naturally despises an ungrateful nigger, +and they'd make Jim feel it all the time, and so he'd feel ornery and +disgraced. And then think of _me_! It would get all around that Huck +Finn helped a nigger to get his freedom; and if I was ever to see +anybody from that town again I'd be ready to get down and lick his boots +for shame. That's just the way: a person does a low-down thing, and +then he don't want to take no consequences of it. Thinks as long as he +can hide it, it ain't no disgrace. That was my fix exactly. The more I +studied about this the more my conscience went to grinding me, and the +more wicked and low-down and ornery I got to feeling. And at last, when +it hit me all of a sudden that here was the plain hand of Providence +slapping me in the face and letting me know my wickedness was being +watched all the time from up there in heaven, whilst I was stealing a +poor old woman's nigger that hadn't ever done me no harm, and now was +showing me there's One that's always on the lookout, and ain't a-going +to allow no such miserable doings to go only just so fur and no further, +I most dropped in my tracks I was so scared. Well, I tried the best I +could to kinder soften it up somehow for myself by saying I was brung +up wicked, and so I warn't so much to blame; but something inside of me +kept saying, "There was the Sunday-school, you could a gone to it; and +if you'd a done it they'd a learnt you there that people that acts as +I'd been acting about that nigger goes to everlasting fire." + +It made me shiver. And I about made up my mind to pray, and see if I +couldn't try to quit being the kind of a boy I was and be better. So +I kneeled down. But the words wouldn't come. Why wouldn't they? It +warn't no use to try and hide it from Him. Nor from _me_, neither. I +knowed very well why they wouldn't come. It was because my heart warn't +right; it was because I warn't square; it was because I was playing +double. I was letting _on_ to give up sin, but away inside of me I was +holding on to the biggest one of all. I was trying to make my mouth +_say_ I would do the right thing and the clean thing, and go and write +to that nigger's owner and tell where he was; but deep down in me I +knowed it was a lie, and He knowed it. You can't pray a lie--I found +that out. + +So I was full of trouble, full as I could be; and didn't know what to +do. At last I had an idea; and I says, I'll go and write the letter--and +then see if I can pray. Why, it was astonishing, the way I felt as +light as a feather right straight off, and my troubles all gone. So I +got a piece of paper and a pencil, all glad and excited, and set down +and wrote: + +Miss Watson, your runaway nigger Jim is down here two mile below +Pikesville, and Mr. Phelps has got him and he will give him up for the +reward if you send. + +_Huck Finn._ + +I felt good and all washed clean of sin for the first time I had ever +felt so in my life, and I knowed I could pray now. But I didn't do it +straight off, but laid the paper down and set there thinking--thinking +how good it was all this happened so, and how near I come to being lost +and going to hell. And went on thinking. And got to thinking over our +trip down the river; and I see Jim before me all the time: in the day +and in the night-time, sometimes moonlight, sometimes storms, and we +a-floating along, talking and singing and laughing. But somehow I +couldn't seem to strike no places to harden me against him, but only the +other kind. I'd see him standing my watch on top of his'n, 'stead of +calling me, so I could go on sleeping; and see him how glad he was when +I come back out of the fog; and when I come to him again in the swamp, +up there where the feud was; and such-like times; and would always call +me honey, and pet me and do everything he could think of for me, and how +good he always was; and at last I struck the time I saved him by telling +the men we had small-pox aboard, and he was so grateful, and said I was +the best friend old Jim ever had in the world, and the _only_ one he's +got now; and then I happened to look around and see that paper. + +It was a close place. I took it up, and held it in my hand. I was +a-trembling, because I'd got to decide, forever, betwixt two things, and +I knowed it. I studied a minute, sort of holding my breath, and then +says to myself: + +"All right, then, I'll _go_ to hell"--and tore it up. + +It was awful thoughts and awful words, but they was said. And I let +them stay said; and never thought no more about reforming. I shoved the +whole thing out of my head, and said I would take up wickedness again, +which was in my line, being brung up to it, and the other warn't. And +for a starter I would go to work and steal Jim out of slavery again; +and if I could think up anything worse, I would do that, too; because as +long as I was in, and in for good, I might as well go the whole hog. + +Then I set to thinking over how to get at it, and turned over some +considerable many ways in my mind; and at last fixed up a plan that +suited me. So then I took the bearings of a woody island that was down +the river a piece, and as soon as it was fairly dark I crept out with my +raft and went for it, and hid it there, and then turned in. I slept the +night through, and got up before it was light, and had my breakfast, +and put on my store clothes, and tied up some others and one thing or +another in a bundle, and took the canoe and cleared for shore. I landed +below where I judged was Phelps's place, and hid my bundle in the woods, +and then filled up the canoe with water, and loaded rocks into her and +sunk her where I could find her again when I wanted her, about a quarter +of a mile below a little steam sawmill that was on the bank. + +Then I struck up the road, and when I passed the mill I see a sign on +it, "Phelps's Sawmill," and when I come to the farm-houses, two or +three hundred yards further along, I kept my eyes peeled, but didn't +see nobody around, though it was good daylight now. But I didn't mind, +because I didn't want to see nobody just yet--I only wanted to get the +lay of the land. According to my plan, I was going to turn up there from +the village, not from below. So I just took a look, and shoved along, +straight for town. Well, the very first man I see when I got there was +the duke. He was sticking up a bill for the Royal Nonesuch--three-night +performance--like that other time. They had the cheek, them frauds! I +was right on him before I could shirk. He looked astonished, and says: + +"Hel-_lo_! Where'd _you_ come from?" Then he says, kind of glad and +eager, "Where's the raft?--got her in a good place?" + +I says: + +"Why, that's just what I was going to ask your grace." + +Then he didn't look so joyful, and says: + +"What was your idea for asking _me_?" he says. + +"Well," I says, "when I see the king in that doggery yesterday I says +to myself, we can't get him home for hours, till he's soberer; so I went +a-loafing around town to put in the time and wait. A man up and offered +me ten cents to help him pull a skiff over the river and back to fetch +a sheep, and so I went along; but when we was dragging him to the boat, +and the man left me a-holt of the rope and went behind him to shove him +along, he was too strong for me and jerked loose and run, and we after +him. We didn't have no dog, and so we had to chase him all over the +country till we tired him out. We never got him till dark; then we +fetched him over, and I started down for the raft. When I got there and +see it was gone, I says to myself, 'They've got into trouble and had to +leave; and they've took my nigger, which is the only nigger I've got in +the world, and now I'm in a strange country, and ain't got no property +no more, nor nothing, and no way to make my living;' so I set down and +cried. I slept in the woods all night. But what _did_ become of the +raft, then?--and Jim--poor Jim!" + +"Blamed if I know--that is, what's become of the raft. That old fool had +made a trade and got forty dollars, and when we found him in the doggery +the loafers had matched half-dollars with him and got every cent but +what he'd spent for whisky; and when I got him home late last night and +found the raft gone, we said, 'That little rascal has stole our raft and +shook us, and run off down the river.'" + +"I wouldn't shake my _nigger_, would I?--the only nigger I had in the +world, and the only property." + +"We never thought of that. Fact is, I reckon we'd come to consider him +_our_ nigger; yes, we did consider him so--goodness knows we had trouble +enough for him. So when we see the raft was gone and we flat broke, +there warn't anything for it but to try the Royal Nonesuch another +shake. And I've pegged along ever since, dry as a powder-horn. Where's +that ten cents? Give it here." + +I had considerable money, so I give him ten cents, but begged him to +spend it for something to eat, and give me some, because it was all the +money I had, and I hadn't had nothing to eat since yesterday. He never +said nothing. The next minute he whirls on me and says: + +"Do you reckon that nigger would blow on us? We'd skin him if he done +that!" + +"How can he blow? Hain't he run off?" + +"No! That old fool sold him, and never divided with me, and the money's +gone." + +"_Sold_ him?" I says, and begun to cry; "why, he was _my_ nigger, and +that was my money. Where is he?--I want my nigger." + +"Well, you can't _get_ your nigger, that's all--so dry up your +blubbering. Looky here--do you think _you'd_ venture to blow on us? + Blamed if I think I'd trust you. Why, if you _was_ to blow on us--" + +He stopped, but I never see the duke look so ugly out of his eyes +before. I went on a-whimpering, and says: + +"I don't want to blow on nobody; and I ain't got no time to blow, nohow. +I got to turn out and find my nigger." + +He looked kinder bothered, and stood there with his bills fluttering on +his arm, thinking, and wrinkling up his forehead. At last he says: + +"I'll tell you something. We got to be here three days. If you'll +promise you won't blow, and won't let the nigger blow, I'll tell you +where to find him." + +So I promised, and he says: + +"A farmer by the name of Silas Ph--" and then he stopped. You see, he +started to tell me the truth; but when he stopped that way, and begun to +study and think again, I reckoned he was changing his mind. And so he +was. He wouldn't trust me; he wanted to make sure of having me out of +the way the whole three days. So pretty soon he says: + +"The man that bought him is named Abram Foster--Abram G. Foster--and he +lives forty mile back here in the country, on the road to Lafayette." + +"All right," I says, "I can walk it in three days. And I'll start this +very afternoon." + +"No you wont, you'll start _now_; and don't you lose any time about it, +neither, nor do any gabbling by the way. Just keep a tight tongue in +your head and move right along, and then you won't get into trouble with +_us_, d'ye hear?" + +That was the order I wanted, and that was the one I played for. I +wanted to be left free to work my plans. + +"So clear out," he says; "and you can tell Mr. Foster whatever you want +to. Maybe you can get him to believe that Jim _is_ your nigger--some +idiots don't require documents--leastways I've heard there's such down +South here. And when you tell him the handbill and the reward's bogus, +maybe he'll believe you when you explain to him what the idea was for +getting 'em out. Go 'long now, and tell him anything you want to; but +mind you don't work your jaw any _between_ here and there." + +So I left, and struck for the back country. I didn't look around, but I +kinder felt like he was watching me. But I knowed I could tire him out +at that. I went straight out in the country as much as a mile before +I stopped; then I doubled back through the woods towards Phelps'. I +reckoned I better start in on my plan straight off without fooling +around, because I wanted to stop Jim's mouth till these fellows could +get away. I didn't want no trouble with their kind. I'd seen all I +wanted to of them, and wanted to get entirely shut of them. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXII. + +WHEN I got there it was all still and Sunday-like, and hot and sunshiny; +the hands was gone to the fields; and there was them kind of faint +dronings of bugs and flies in the air that makes it seem so lonesome and +like everybody's dead and gone; and if a breeze fans along and quivers +the leaves it makes you feel mournful, because you feel like it's +spirits whispering--spirits that's been dead ever so many years--and you +always think they're talking about _you_. As a general thing it makes a +body wish _he_ was dead, too, and done with it all. + +Phelps' was one of these little one-horse cotton plantations, and they +all look alike. A rail fence round a two-acre yard; a stile made out +of logs sawed off and up-ended in steps, like barrels of a different +length, to climb over the fence with, and for the women to stand on when +they are going to jump on to a horse; some sickly grass-patches in the +big yard, but mostly it was bare and smooth, like an old hat with the +nap rubbed off; big double log-house for the white folks--hewed logs, +with the chinks stopped up with mud or mortar, and these mud-stripes +been whitewashed some time or another; round-log kitchen, with a big +broad, open but roofed passage joining it to the house; log smoke-house +back of the kitchen; three little log nigger-cabins in a row t'other +side the smoke-house; one little hut all by itself away down against +the back fence, and some outbuildings down a piece the other side; +ash-hopper and big kettle to bile soap in by the little hut; bench by +the kitchen door, with bucket of water and a gourd; hound asleep there +in the sun; more hounds asleep round about; about three shade trees away +off in a corner; some currant bushes and gooseberry bushes in one place +by the fence; outside of the fence a garden and a watermelon patch; then +the cotton fields begins, and after the fields the woods. + +I went around and clumb over the back stile by the ash-hopper, and +started for the kitchen. When I got a little ways I heard the dim hum +of a spinning-wheel wailing along up and sinking along down again; +and then I knowed for certain I wished I was dead--for that _is_ the +lonesomest sound in the whole world. + +I went right along, not fixing up any particular plan, but just trusting +to Providence to put the right words in my mouth when the time come; for +I'd noticed that Providence always did put the right words in my mouth +if I left it alone. + +When I got half-way, first one hound and then another got up and went +for me, and of course I stopped and faced them, and kept still. And +such another powwow as they made! In a quarter of a minute I was a kind +of a hub of a wheel, as you may say--spokes made out of dogs--circle of +fifteen of them packed together around me, with their necks and noses +stretched up towards me, a-barking and howling; and more a-coming; you +could see them sailing over fences and around corners from everywheres. + +A nigger woman come tearing out of the kitchen with a rolling-pin in her +hand, singing out, "Begone _you_ Tige! you Spot! begone sah!" and she +fetched first one and then another of them a clip and sent them howling, +and then the rest followed; and the next second half of them come back, +wagging their tails around me, and making friends with me. There ain't +no harm in a hound, nohow. + +And behind the woman comes a little nigger girl and two little nigger +boys without anything on but tow-linen shirts, and they hung on to their +mother's gown, and peeped out from behind her at me, bashful, the way +they always do. And here comes the white woman running from the house, +about forty-five or fifty year old, bareheaded, and her spinning-stick +in her hand; and behind her comes her little white children, acting the +same way the little niggers was doing. She was smiling all over so she +could hardly stand--and says: + +"It's _you_, at last!--_ain't_ it?" + +I out with a "Yes'm" before I thought. + +She grabbed me and hugged me tight; and then gripped me by both hands +and shook and shook; and the tears come in her eyes, and run down over; +and she couldn't seem to hug and shake enough, and kept saying, "You +don't look as much like your mother as I reckoned you would; but law +sakes, I don't care for that, I'm so glad to see you! Dear, dear, it +does seem like I could eat you up! Children, it's your cousin Tom!--tell +him howdy." + +But they ducked their heads, and put their fingers in their mouths, and +hid behind her. So she run on: + +"Lize, hurry up and get him a hot breakfast right away--or did you get +your breakfast on the boat?" + +I said I had got it on the boat. So then she started for the house, +leading me by the hand, and the children tagging after. When we got +there she set me down in a split-bottomed chair, and set herself down on +a little low stool in front of me, holding both of my hands, and says: + +"Now I can have a _good_ look at you; and, laws-a-me, I've been hungry +for it a many and a many a time, all these long years, and it's come +at last! We been expecting you a couple of days and more. What kep' +you?--boat get aground?" + +"Yes'm--she--" + +"Don't say yes'm--say Aunt Sally. Where'd she get aground?" + +I didn't rightly know what to say, because I didn't know whether the +boat would be coming up the river or down. But I go a good deal on +instinct; and my instinct said she would be coming up--from down towards +Orleans. That didn't help me much, though; for I didn't know the names +of bars down that way. I see I'd got to invent a bar, or forget the +name of the one we got aground on--or--Now I struck an idea, and fetched +it out: + +"It warn't the grounding--that didn't keep us back but a little. We +blowed out a cylinder-head." + +"Good gracious! anybody hurt?" + +"No'm. Killed a nigger." + +"Well, it's lucky; because sometimes people do get hurt. Two years ago +last Christmas your uncle Silas was coming up from Newrleans on the old +Lally Rook, and she blowed out a cylinder-head and crippled a man. And +I think he died afterwards. He was a Baptist. Your uncle Silas knowed +a family in Baton Rouge that knowed his people very well. Yes, I +remember now, he _did_ die. Mortification set in, and they had to +amputate him. But it didn't save him. Yes, it was mortification--that +was it. He turned blue all over, and died in the hope of a glorious +resurrection. They say he was a sight to look at. Your uncle's been up +to the town every day to fetch you. And he's gone again, not more'n an +hour ago; he'll be back any minute now. You must a met him on the road, +didn't you?--oldish man, with a--" + +"No, I didn't see nobody, Aunt Sally. The boat landed just at daylight, +and I left my baggage on the wharf-boat and went looking around the town +and out a piece in the country, to put in the time and not get here too +soon; and so I come down the back way." + +"Who'd you give the baggage to?" + +"Nobody." + +"Why, child, it 'll be stole!" + +"Not where I hid it I reckon it won't," I says. + +"How'd you get your breakfast so early on the boat?" + +It was kinder thin ice, but I says: + +"The captain see me standing around, and told me I better have something +to eat before I went ashore; so he took me in the texas to the officers' +lunch, and give me all I wanted." + +I was getting so uneasy I couldn't listen good. I had my mind on the +children all the time; I wanted to get them out to one side and pump +them a little, and find out who I was. But I couldn't get no show, Mrs. +Phelps kept it up and run on so. Pretty soon she made the cold chills +streak all down my back, because she says: + +"But here we're a-running on this way, and you hain't told me a word +about Sis, nor any of them. Now I'll rest my works a little, and you +start up yourn; just tell me _everything_--tell me all about 'm all every +one of 'm; and how they are, and what they're doing, and what they told +you to tell me; and every last thing you can think of." + +Well, I see I was up a stump--and up it good. Providence had stood by +me this fur all right, but I was hard and tight aground now. I see it +warn't a bit of use to try to go ahead--I'd got to throw up my hand. So +I says to myself, here's another place where I got to resk the truth. + I opened my mouth to begin; but she grabbed me and hustled me in behind +the bed, and says: + +"Here he comes! Stick your head down lower--there, that'll do; you can't +be seen now. Don't you let on you're here. I'll play a joke on him. +Children, don't you say a word." + +I see I was in a fix now. But it warn't no use to worry; there warn't +nothing to do but just hold still, and try and be ready to stand from +under when the lightning struck. + +I had just one little glimpse of the old gentleman when he come in; then +the bed hid him. Mrs. Phelps she jumps for him, and says: + +"Has he come?" + +"No," says her husband. + +"Good-_ness_ gracious!" she says, "what in the warld can have become of +him?" + +"I can't imagine," says the old gentleman; "and I must say it makes me +dreadful uneasy." + +"Uneasy!" she says; "I'm ready to go distracted! He _must_ a come; and +you've missed him along the road. I _know_ it's so--something tells me +so." + +"Why, Sally, I _couldn't_ miss him along the road--_you_ know that." + +"But oh, dear, dear, what _will_ Sis say! He must a come! You must a +missed him. He--" + +"Oh, don't distress me any more'n I'm already distressed. I don't know +what in the world to make of it. I'm at my wit's end, and I don't mind +acknowledging 't I'm right down scared. But there's no hope that he's +come; for he _couldn't_ come and me miss him. Sally, it's terrible--just +terrible--something's happened to the boat, sure!" + +"Why, Silas! Look yonder!--up the road!--ain't that somebody coming?" + +He sprung to the window at the head of the bed, and that give Mrs. +Phelps the chance she wanted. She stooped down quick at the foot of the +bed and give me a pull, and out I come; and when he turned back from the +window there she stood, a-beaming and a-smiling like a house afire, and +I standing pretty meek and sweaty alongside. The old gentleman stared, +and says: + +"Why, who's that?" + +"Who do you reckon 't is?" + +"I hain't no idea. Who _is_ it?" + +"It's _Tom Sawyer!_" + +By jings, I most slumped through the floor! But there warn't no time to +swap knives; the old man grabbed me by the hand and shook, and kept on +shaking; and all the time how the woman did dance around and laugh and +cry; and then how they both did fire off questions about Sid, and Mary, +and the rest of the tribe. + +But if they was joyful, it warn't nothing to what I was; for it was like +being born again, I was so glad to find out who I was. Well, they froze +to me for two hours; and at last, when my chin was so tired it couldn't +hardly go any more, I had told them more about my family--I mean the +Sawyer family--than ever happened to any six Sawyer families. And I +explained all about how we blowed out a cylinder-head at the mouth of +White River, and it took us three days to fix it. Which was all right, +and worked first-rate; because _they_ didn't know but what it would take +three days to fix it. If I'd a called it a bolthead it would a done +just as well. + +Now I was feeling pretty comfortable all down one side, and pretty +uncomfortable all up the other. Being Tom Sawyer was easy and +comfortable, and it stayed easy and comfortable till by and by I hear a +steamboat coughing along down the river. Then I says to myself, s'pose +Tom Sawyer comes down on that boat? And s'pose he steps in here any +minute, and sings out my name before I can throw him a wink to keep +quiet? + +Well, I couldn't _have_ it that way; it wouldn't do at all. I must go +up the road and waylay him. So I told the folks I reckoned I would go +up to the town and fetch down my baggage. The old gentleman was for +going along with me, but I said no, I could drive the horse myself, and +I druther he wouldn't take no trouble about me. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXIII. + +SO I started for town in the wagon, and when I was half-way I see a +wagon coming, and sure enough it was Tom Sawyer, and I stopped and +waited till he come along. I says "Hold on!" and it stopped alongside, +and his mouth opened up like a trunk, and stayed so; and he swallowed +two or three times like a person that's got a dry throat, and then says: + +"I hain't ever done you no harm. You know that. So, then, what you +want to come back and ha'nt _me_ for?" + +I says: + +"I hain't come back--I hain't been _gone_." + +When he heard my voice it righted him up some, but he warn't quite +satisfied yet. He says: + +"Don't you play nothing on me, because I wouldn't on you. Honest injun +now, you ain't a ghost?" + +"Honest injun, I ain't," I says. + +"Well--I--I--well, that ought to settle it, of course; but I can't somehow +seem to understand it no way. Looky here, warn't you ever murdered _at +all?_" + +"No. I warn't ever murdered at all--I played it on them. You come in +here and feel of me if you don't believe me." + +So he done it; and it satisfied him; and he was that glad to see me +again he didn't know what to do. And he wanted to know all about it +right off, because it was a grand adventure, and mysterious, and so it +hit him where he lived. But I said, leave it alone till by and by; and +told his driver to wait, and we drove off a little piece, and I told +him the kind of a fix I was in, and what did he reckon we better do? He +said, let him alone a minute, and don't disturb him. So he thought and +thought, and pretty soon he says: + +"It's all right; I've got it. Take my trunk in your wagon, and let on +it's your'n; and you turn back and fool along slow, so as to get to the +house about the time you ought to; and I'll go towards town a piece, and +take a fresh start, and get there a quarter or a half an hour after you; +and you needn't let on to know me at first." + +I says: + +"All right; but wait a minute. There's one more thing--a thing that +_nobody_ don't know but me. And that is, there's a nigger here that +I'm a-trying to steal out of slavery, and his name is _Jim_--old Miss +Watson's Jim." + +He says: + +"What! Why, Jim is--" + +He stopped and went to studying. I says: + +"I know what you'll say. You'll say it's dirty, low-down business; but +what if it is? I'm low down; and I'm a-going to steal him, and I want +you keep mum and not let on. Will you?" + +His eye lit up, and he says: + +"I'll _help_ you steal him!" + +Well, I let go all holts then, like I was shot. It was the most +astonishing speech I ever heard--and I'm bound to say Tom Sawyer fell +considerable in my estimation. Only I couldn't believe it. Tom Sawyer +a _nigger-stealer!_ + +"Oh, shucks!" I says; "you're joking." + +"I ain't joking, either." + +"Well, then," I says, "joking or no joking, if you hear anything said +about a runaway nigger, don't forget to remember that _you_ don't know +nothing about him, and I don't know nothing about him." + +Then we took the trunk and put it in my wagon, and he drove off his +way and I drove mine. But of course I forgot all about driving slow on +accounts of being glad and full of thinking; so I got home a heap too +quick for that length of a trip. The old gentleman was at the door, and +he says: + +"Why, this is wonderful! Whoever would a thought it was in that mare +to do it? I wish we'd a timed her. And she hain't sweated a hair--not +a hair. It's wonderful. Why, I wouldn't take a hundred dollars for that +horse now--I wouldn't, honest; and yet I'd a sold her for fifteen before, +and thought 'twas all she was worth." + +That's all he said. He was the innocentest, best old soul I ever see. +But it warn't surprising; because he warn't only just a farmer, he was +a preacher, too, and had a little one-horse log church down back of the +plantation, which he built it himself at his own expense, for a church +and schoolhouse, and never charged nothing for his preaching, and it was +worth it, too. There was plenty other farmer-preachers like that, and +done the same way, down South. + +In about half an hour Tom's wagon drove up to the front stile, and Aunt +Sally she see it through the window, because it was only about fifty +yards, and says: + +"Why, there's somebody come! I wonder who 'tis? Why, I do believe it's +a stranger. Jimmy" (that's one of the children) "run and tell Lize to +put on another plate for dinner." + +Everybody made a rush for the front door, because, of course, a stranger +don't come _every_ year, and so he lays over the yaller-fever, for +interest, when he does come. Tom was over the stile and starting for +the house; the wagon was spinning up the road for the village, and we +was all bunched in the front door. Tom had his store clothes on, and an +audience--and that was always nuts for Tom Sawyer. In them circumstances +it warn't no trouble to him to throw in an amount of style that was +suitable. He warn't a boy to meeky along up that yard like a sheep; no, +he come ca'm and important, like the ram. When he got a-front of us he +lifts his hat ever so gracious and dainty, like it was the lid of a box +that had butterflies asleep in it and he didn't want to disturb them, +and says: + +"Mr. Archibald Nichols, I presume?" + +"No, my boy," says the old gentleman, "I'm sorry to say 't your driver +has deceived you; Nichols's place is down a matter of three mile more. +Come in, come in." + +Tom he took a look back over his shoulder, and says, "Too late--he's out +of sight." + +"Yes, he's gone, my son, and you must come in and eat your dinner with +us; and then we'll hitch up and take you down to Nichols's." + +"Oh, I _can't_ make you so much trouble; I couldn't think of it. I'll +walk--I don't mind the distance." + +"But we won't _let_ you walk--it wouldn't be Southern hospitality to do +it. Come right in." + +"Oh, _do_," says Aunt Sally; "it ain't a bit of trouble to us, not a +bit in the world. You must stay. It's a long, dusty three mile, and +we can't let you walk. And, besides, I've already told 'em to put on +another plate when I see you coming; so you mustn't disappoint us. Come +right in and make yourself at home." + +So Tom he thanked them very hearty and handsome, and let himself be +persuaded, and come in; and when he was in he said he was a stranger +from Hicksville, Ohio, and his name was William Thompson--and he made +another bow. + +Well, he run on, and on, and on, making up stuff about Hicksville and +everybody in it he could invent, and I getting a little nervious, and +wondering how this was going to help me out of my scrape; and at last, +still talking along, he reached over and kissed Aunt Sally right on the +mouth, and then settled back again in his chair comfortable, and was +going on talking; but she jumped up and wiped it off with the back of +her hand, and says: + +"You owdacious puppy!" + +He looked kind of hurt, and says: + +"I'm surprised at you, m'am." + +"You're s'rp--Why, what do you reckon I am? I've a good notion to take +and--Say, what do you mean by kissing me?" + +He looked kind of humble, and says: + +"I didn't mean nothing, m'am. I didn't mean no harm. I--I--thought you'd +like it." + +"Why, you born fool!" She took up the spinning stick, and it looked +like it was all she could do to keep from giving him a crack with it. + "What made you think I'd like it?" + +"Well, I don't know. Only, they--they--told me you would." + +"_They_ told you I would. Whoever told you's _another_ lunatic. I +never heard the beat of it. Who's _they_?" + +"Why, everybody. They all said so, m'am." + +It was all she could do to hold in; and her eyes snapped, and her +fingers worked like she wanted to scratch him; and she says: + +"Who's 'everybody'? Out with their names, or ther'll be an idiot +short." + +He got up and looked distressed, and fumbled his hat, and says: + +"I'm sorry, and I warn't expecting it. They told me to. They all told +me to. They all said, kiss her; and said she'd like it. They all said +it--every one of them. But I'm sorry, m'am, and I won't do it no more--I +won't, honest." + +"You won't, won't you? Well, I sh'd _reckon_ you won't!" + +"No'm, I'm honest about it; I won't ever do it again--till you ask me." + +"Till I _ask_ you! Well, I never see the beat of it in my born days! + I lay you'll be the Methusalem-numskull of creation before ever I ask +you--or the likes of you." + +"Well," he says, "it does surprise me so. I can't make it out, somehow. +They said you would, and I thought you would. But--" He stopped and +looked around slow, like he wished he could run across a friendly eye +somewheres, and fetched up on the old gentleman's, and says, "Didn't +_you_ think she'd like me to kiss her, sir?" + +"Why, no; I--I--well, no, I b'lieve I didn't." + +Then he looks on around the same way to me, and says: + +"Tom, didn't _you_ think Aunt Sally 'd open out her arms and say, 'Sid +Sawyer--'" + +"My land!" she says, breaking in and jumping for him, "you impudent +young rascal, to fool a body so--" and was going to hug him, but he +fended her off, and says: + +"No, not till you've asked me first." + +So she didn't lose no time, but asked him; and hugged him and kissed +him over and over again, and then turned him over to the old man, and he +took what was left. And after they got a little quiet again she says: + +"Why, dear me, I never see such a surprise. We warn't looking for _you_ +at all, but only Tom. Sis never wrote to me about anybody coming but +him." + +"It's because it warn't _intended_ for any of us to come but Tom," he +says; "but I begged and begged, and at the last minute she let me +come, too; so, coming down the river, me and Tom thought it would be a +first-rate surprise for him to come here to the house first, and for me +to by and by tag along and drop in, and let on to be a stranger. But it +was a mistake, Aunt Sally. This ain't no healthy place for a stranger +to come." + +"No--not impudent whelps, Sid. You ought to had your jaws boxed; I +hain't been so put out since I don't know when. But I don't care, I +don't mind the terms--I'd be willing to stand a thousand such jokes to +have you here. Well, to think of that performance! I don't deny it, I +was most putrified with astonishment when you give me that smack." + +We had dinner out in that broad open passage betwixt the house and +the kitchen; and there was things enough on that table for seven +families--and all hot, too; none of your flabby, tough meat that's laid +in a cupboard in a damp cellar all night and tastes like a hunk of +old cold cannibal in the morning. Uncle Silas he asked a pretty long +blessing over it, but it was worth it; and it didn't cool it a bit, +neither, the way I've seen them kind of interruptions do lots of times. + There was a considerable good deal of talk all the afternoon, and me +and Tom was on the lookout all the time; but it warn't no use, they +didn't happen to say nothing about any runaway nigger, and we was afraid +to try to work up to it. But at supper, at night, one of the little +boys says: + +"Pa, mayn't Tom and Sid and me go to the show?" + +"No," says the old man, "I reckon there ain't going to be any; and you +couldn't go if there was; because the runaway nigger told Burton and +me all about that scandalous show, and Burton said he would tell the +people; so I reckon they've drove the owdacious loafers out of town +before this time." + +So there it was!--but I couldn't help it. Tom and me was to sleep in the +same room and bed; so, being tired, we bid good-night and went up to +bed right after supper, and clumb out of the window and down the +lightning-rod, and shoved for the town; for I didn't believe anybody was +going to give the king and the duke a hint, and so if I didn't hurry up +and give them one they'd get into trouble sure. + +On the road Tom he told me all about how it was reckoned I was murdered, +and how pap disappeared pretty soon, and didn't come back no more, and +what a stir there was when Jim run away; and I told Tom all about our +Royal Nonesuch rapscallions, and as much of the raft voyage as I had +time to; and as we struck into the town and up through the the middle of +it--it was as much as half-after eight, then--here comes a raging rush of +people with torches, and an awful whooping and yelling, and banging tin +pans and blowing horns; and we jumped to one side to let them go by; +and as they went by I see they had the king and the duke astraddle of a +rail--that is, I knowed it _was_ the king and the duke, though they was +all over tar and feathers, and didn't look like nothing in the +world that was human--just looked like a couple of monstrous big +soldier-plumes. Well, it made me sick to see it; and I was sorry for +them poor pitiful rascals, it seemed like I couldn't ever feel any +hardness against them any more in the world. It was a dreadful thing to +see. Human beings _can_ be awful cruel to one another. + +We see we was too late--couldn't do no good. We asked some stragglers +about it, and they said everybody went to the show looking very +innocent; and laid low and kept dark till the poor old king was in the +middle of his cavortings on the stage; then somebody give a signal, and +the house rose up and went for them. + +So we poked along back home, and I warn't feeling so brash as I was +before, but kind of ornery, and humble, and to blame, somehow--though +I hadn't done nothing. But that's always the way; it don't make no +difference whether you do right or wrong, a person's conscience ain't +got no sense, and just goes for him anyway. If I had a yaller dog that +didn't know no more than a person's conscience does I would pison him. +It takes up more room than all the rest of a person's insides, and yet +ain't no good, nohow. Tom Sawyer he says the same. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXIV. + +WE stopped talking, and got to thinking. By and by Tom says: + +"Looky here, Huck, what fools we are to not think of it before! I bet I +know where Jim is." + +"No! Where?" + +"In that hut down by the ash-hopper. Why, looky here. When we was at +dinner, didn't you see a nigger man go in there with some vittles?" + +"Yes." + +"What did you think the vittles was for?" + +"For a dog." + +"So 'd I. Well, it wasn't for a dog." + +"Why?" + +"Because part of it was watermelon." + +"So it was--I noticed it. Well, it does beat all that I never thought +about a dog not eating watermelon. It shows how a body can see and +don't see at the same time." + +"Well, the nigger unlocked the padlock when he went in, and he locked it +again when he came out. He fetched uncle a key about the time we got up +from table--same key, I bet. Watermelon shows man, lock shows prisoner; +and it ain't likely there's two prisoners on such a little plantation, +and where the people's all so kind and good. Jim's the prisoner. All +right--I'm glad we found it out detective fashion; I wouldn't give shucks +for any other way. Now you work your mind, and study out a plan to +steal Jim, and I will study out one, too; and we'll take the one we like +the best." + +What a head for just a boy to have! If I had Tom Sawyer's head I +wouldn't trade it off to be a duke, nor mate of a steamboat, nor clown +in a circus, nor nothing I can think of. I went to thinking out a plan, +but only just to be doing something; I knowed very well where the right +plan was going to come from. Pretty soon Tom says: + +"Ready?" + +"Yes," I says. + +"All right--bring it out." + +"My plan is this," I says. "We can easy find out if it's Jim in there. +Then get up my canoe to-morrow night, and fetch my raft over from the +island. Then the first dark night that comes steal the key out of the +old man's britches after he goes to bed, and shove off down the river +on the raft with Jim, hiding daytimes and running nights, the way me and +Jim used to do before. Wouldn't that plan work?" + +"_Work_? Why, cert'nly it would work, like rats a-fighting. But it's +too blame' simple; there ain't nothing _to_ it. What's the good of a +plan that ain't no more trouble than that? It's as mild as goose-milk. + Why, Huck, it wouldn't make no more talk than breaking into a soap +factory." + +I never said nothing, because I warn't expecting nothing different; but +I knowed mighty well that whenever he got _his_ plan ready it wouldn't +have none of them objections to it. + +And it didn't. He told me what it was, and I see in a minute it was +worth fifteen of mine for style, and would make Jim just as free a man +as mine would, and maybe get us all killed besides. So I was satisfied, +and said we would waltz in on it. I needn't tell what it was here, +because I knowed it wouldn't stay the way, it was. I knowed he would be +changing it around every which way as we went along, and heaving in new +bullinesses wherever he got a chance. And that is what he done. + +Well, one thing was dead sure, and that was that Tom Sawyer was in +earnest, and was actuly going to help steal that nigger out of slavery. +That was the thing that was too many for me. Here was a boy that was +respectable and well brung up; and had a character to lose; and folks at +home that had characters; and he was bright and not leather-headed; and +knowing and not ignorant; and not mean, but kind; and yet here he was, +without any more pride, or rightness, or feeling, than to stoop to +this business, and make himself a shame, and his family a shame, +before everybody. I _couldn't_ understand it no way at all. It was +outrageous, and I knowed I ought to just up and tell him so; and so be +his true friend, and let him quit the thing right where he was and save +himself. And I _did_ start to tell him; but he shut me up, and says: + +"Don't you reckon I know what I'm about? Don't I generly know what I'm +about?" + +"Yes." + +"Didn't I _say_ I was going to help steal the nigger?" + +"Yes." + +"_Well_, then." + +That's all he said, and that's all I said. It warn't no use to say any +more; because when he said he'd do a thing, he always done it. But I +couldn't make out how he was willing to go into this thing; so I just +let it go, and never bothered no more about it. If he was bound to have +it so, I couldn't help it. + +When we got home the house was all dark and still; so we went on down to +the hut by the ash-hopper for to examine it. We went through the yard +so as to see what the hounds would do. They knowed us, and didn't make +no more noise than country dogs is always doing when anything comes by +in the night. When we got to the cabin we took a look at the front and +the two sides; and on the side I warn't acquainted with--which was the +north side--we found a square window-hole, up tolerable high, with just +one stout board nailed across it. I says: + +"Here's the ticket. This hole's big enough for Jim to get through if we +wrench off the board." + +Tom says: + +"It's as simple as tit-tat-toe, three-in-a-row, and as easy as +playing hooky. I should _hope_ we can find a way that's a little more +complicated than _that_, Huck Finn." + +"Well, then," I says, "how 'll it do to saw him out, the way I done +before I was murdered that time?" + +"That's more _like_," he says. "It's real mysterious, and troublesome, +and good," he says; "but I bet we can find a way that's twice as long. + There ain't no hurry; le's keep on looking around." + +Betwixt the hut and the fence, on the back side, was a lean-to that +joined the hut at the eaves, and was made out of plank. It was as long +as the hut, but narrow--only about six foot wide. The door to it was at +the south end, and was padlocked. Tom he went to the soap-kettle and +searched around, and fetched back the iron thing they lift the lid with; +so he took it and prized out one of the staples. The chain fell down, +and we opened the door and went in, and shut it, and struck a match, +and see the shed was only built against a cabin and hadn't no connection +with it; and there warn't no floor to the shed, nor nothing in it but +some old rusty played-out hoes and spades and picks and a crippled plow. + The match went out, and so did we, and shoved in the staple again, and +the door was locked as good as ever. Tom was joyful. He says; + +"Now we're all right. We'll _dig_ him out. It 'll take about a week!" + +Then we started for the house, and I went in the back door--you only have +to pull a buckskin latch-string, they don't fasten the doors--but that +warn't romantical enough for Tom Sawyer; no way would do him but he must +climb up the lightning-rod. But after he got up half way about three +times, and missed fire and fell every time, and the last time most +busted his brains out, he thought he'd got to give it up; but after he +was rested he allowed he would give her one more turn for luck, and this +time he made the trip. + +In the morning we was up at break of day, and down to the nigger cabins +to pet the dogs and make friends with the nigger that fed Jim--if it +_was_ Jim that was being fed. The niggers was just getting through +breakfast and starting for the fields; and Jim's nigger was piling up +a tin pan with bread and meat and things; and whilst the others was +leaving, the key come from the house. + +This nigger had a good-natured, chuckle-headed face, and his wool was +all tied up in little bunches with thread. That was to keep witches +off. He said the witches was pestering him awful these nights, and +making him see all kinds of strange things, and hear all kinds of +strange words and noises, and he didn't believe he was ever witched so +long before in his life. He got so worked up, and got to running on so +about his troubles, he forgot all about what he'd been a-going to do. + So Tom says: + +"What's the vittles for? Going to feed the dogs?" + +The nigger kind of smiled around gradually over his face, like when you +heave a brickbat in a mud-puddle, and he says: + +"Yes, Mars Sid, A dog. Cur'us dog, too. Does you want to go en look at +'im?" + +"Yes." + +I hunched Tom, and whispers: + +"You going, right here in the daybreak? _that_ warn't the plan." + +"No, it warn't; but it's the plan _now_." + +So, drat him, we went along, but I didn't like it much. When we got in +we couldn't hardly see anything, it was so dark; but Jim was there, sure +enough, and could see us; and he sings out: + +"Why, _Huck_! En good _lan_'! ain' dat Misto Tom?" + +I just knowed how it would be; I just expected it. I didn't know +nothing to do; and if I had I couldn't a done it, because that nigger +busted in and says: + +"Why, de gracious sakes! do he know you genlmen?" + +We could see pretty well now. Tom he looked at the nigger, steady and +kind of wondering, and says: + +"Does _who_ know us?" + +"Why, dis-yer runaway nigger." + +"I don't reckon he does; but what put that into your head?" + +"What _put_ it dar? Didn' he jis' dis minute sing out like he knowed +you?" + +Tom says, in a puzzled-up kind of way: + +"Well, that's mighty curious. _Who_ sung out? _when_ did he sing out? + _what_ did he sing out?" And turns to me, perfectly ca'm, and says, +"Did _you_ hear anybody sing out?" + +Of course there warn't nothing to be said but the one thing; so I says: + +"No; I ain't heard nobody say nothing." + +Then he turns to Jim, and looks him over like he never see him before, +and says: + +"Did you sing out?" + +"No, sah," says Jim; "I hain't said nothing, sah." + +"Not a word?" + +"No, sah, I hain't said a word." + +"Did you ever see us before?" + +"No, sah; not as I knows on." + +So Tom turns to the nigger, which was looking wild and distressed, and +says, kind of severe: + +"What do you reckon's the matter with you, anyway? What made you think +somebody sung out?" + +"Oh, it's de dad-blame' witches, sah, en I wisht I was dead, I do. + Dey's awluz at it, sah, en dey do mos' kill me, dey sk'yers me so. + Please to don't tell nobody 'bout it sah, er ole Mars Silas he'll scole +me; 'kase he say dey _ain't_ no witches. I jis' wish to goodness he was +heah now--_den_ what would he say! I jis' bet he couldn' fine no way to +git aroun' it _dis_ time. But it's awluz jis' so; people dat's _sot_, +stays sot; dey won't look into noth'n'en fine it out f'r deyselves, en +when _you_ fine it out en tell um 'bout it, dey doan' b'lieve you." + +Tom give him a dime, and said we wouldn't tell nobody; and told him to +buy some more thread to tie up his wool with; and then looks at Jim, and +says: + +"I wonder if Uncle Silas is going to hang this nigger. If I was to +catch a nigger that was ungrateful enough to run away, I wouldn't give +him up, I'd hang him." And whilst the nigger stepped to the door to +look at the dime and bite it to see if it was good, he whispers to Jim +and says: + +"Don't ever let on to know us. And if you hear any digging going on +nights, it's us; we're going to set you free." + +Jim only had time to grab us by the hand and squeeze it; then the nigger +come back, and we said we'd come again some time if the nigger wanted +us to; and he said he would, more particular if it was dark, because the +witches went for him mostly in the dark, and it was good to have folks +around then. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXV. + +IT would be most an hour yet till breakfast, so we left and struck down +into the woods; because Tom said we got to have _some_ light to see how +to dig by, and a lantern makes too much, and might get us into trouble; +what we must have was a lot of them rotten chunks that's called +fox-fire, and just makes a soft kind of a glow when you lay them in a +dark place. We fetched an armful and hid it in the weeds, and set down +to rest, and Tom says, kind of dissatisfied: + +"Blame it, this whole thing is just as easy and awkward as it can be. +And so it makes it so rotten difficult to get up a difficult plan. + There ain't no watchman to be drugged--now there _ought_ to be a +watchman. There ain't even a dog to give a sleeping-mixture to. And +there's Jim chained by one leg, with a ten-foot chain, to the leg of his +bed: why, all you got to do is to lift up the bedstead and slip off +the chain. And Uncle Silas he trusts everybody; sends the key to the +punkin-headed nigger, and don't send nobody to watch the nigger. Jim +could a got out of that window-hole before this, only there wouldn't be +no use trying to travel with a ten-foot chain on his leg. Why, drat it, +Huck, it's the stupidest arrangement I ever see. You got to invent _all_ +the difficulties. Well, we can't help it; we got to do the best we can +with the materials we've got. Anyhow, there's one thing--there's more +honor in getting him out through a lot of difficulties and dangers, +where there warn't one of them furnished to you by the people who it was +their duty to furnish them, and you had to contrive them all out of your +own head. Now look at just that one thing of the lantern. When you +come down to the cold facts, we simply got to _let on_ that a lantern's +resky. Why, we could work with a torchlight procession if we wanted to, +I believe. Now, whilst I think of it, we got to hunt up something to +make a saw out of the first chance we get." + +"What do we want of a saw?" + +"What do we _want_ of it? Hain't we got to saw the leg of Jim's bed +off, so as to get the chain loose?" + +"Why, you just said a body could lift up the bedstead and slip the chain +off." + +"Well, if that ain't just like you, Huck Finn. You _can_ get up the +infant-schooliest ways of going at a thing. Why, hain't you ever read +any books at all?--Baron Trenck, nor Casanova, nor Benvenuto Chelleeny, +nor Henri IV., nor none of them heroes? Who ever heard of getting a +prisoner loose in such an old-maidy way as that? No; the way all the +best authorities does is to saw the bed-leg in two, and leave it just +so, and swallow the sawdust, so it can't be found, and put some dirt and +grease around the sawed place so the very keenest seneskal can't see +no sign of it's being sawed, and thinks the bed-leg is perfectly sound. +Then, the night you're ready, fetch the leg a kick, down she goes; slip +off your chain, and there you are. Nothing to do but hitch your +rope ladder to the battlements, shin down it, break your leg in the +moat--because a rope ladder is nineteen foot too short, you know--and +there's your horses and your trusty vassles, and they scoop you up and +fling you across a saddle, and away you go to your native Langudoc, or +Navarre, or wherever it is. It's gaudy, Huck. I wish there was a moat +to this cabin. If we get time, the night of the escape, we'll dig one." + +I says: + +"What do we want of a moat when we're going to snake him out from under +the cabin?" + +But he never heard me. He had forgot me and everything else. He had +his chin in his hand, thinking. Pretty soon he sighs and shakes his +head; then sighs again, and says: + +"No, it wouldn't do--there ain't necessity enough for it." + +"For what?" I says. + +"Why, to saw Jim's leg off," he says. + +"Good land!" I says; "why, there ain't _no_ necessity for it. And what +would you want to saw his leg off for, anyway?" + +"Well, some of the best authorities has done it. They couldn't get the +chain off, so they just cut their hand off and shoved. And a leg would +be better still. But we got to let that go. There ain't necessity +enough in this case; and, besides, Jim's a nigger, and wouldn't +understand the reasons for it, and how it's the custom in Europe; so +we'll let it go. But there's one thing--he can have a rope ladder; we +can tear up our sheets and make him a rope ladder easy enough. And we +can send it to him in a pie; it's mostly done that way. And I've et +worse pies." + +"Why, Tom Sawyer, how you talk," I says; "Jim ain't got no use for a +rope ladder." + +"He _has_ got use for it. How _you_ talk, you better say; you don't +know nothing about it. He's _got_ to have a rope ladder; they all do." + +"What in the nation can he _do_ with it?" + +"_Do_ with it? He can hide it in his bed, can't he?" That's what they +all do; and _he's_ got to, too. Huck, you don't ever seem to want to do +anything that's regular; you want to be starting something fresh all the +time. S'pose he _don't_ do nothing with it? ain't it there in his bed, +for a clew, after he's gone? and don't you reckon they'll want clews? + Of course they will. And you wouldn't leave them any? That would be a +_pretty_ howdy-do, _wouldn't_ it! I never heard of such a thing." + +"Well," I says, "if it's in the regulations, and he's got to have +it, all right, let him have it; because I don't wish to go back on no +regulations; but there's one thing, Tom Sawyer--if we go to tearing up +our sheets to make Jim a rope ladder, we're going to get into trouble +with Aunt Sally, just as sure as you're born. Now, the way I look at +it, a hickry-bark ladder don't cost nothing, and don't waste nothing, +and is just as good to load up a pie with, and hide in a straw tick, +as any rag ladder you can start; and as for Jim, he ain't had no +experience, and so he don't care what kind of a--" + +"Oh, shucks, Huck Finn, if I was as ignorant as you I'd keep +still--that's what I'D do. Who ever heard of a state prisoner escaping +by a hickry-bark ladder? Why, it's perfectly ridiculous." + +"Well, all right, Tom, fix it your own way; but if you'll take my +advice, you'll let me borrow a sheet off of the clothesline." + +He said that would do. And that gave him another idea, and he says: + +"Borrow a shirt, too." + +"What do we want of a shirt, Tom?" + +"Want it for Jim to keep a journal on." + +"Journal your granny--_Jim_ can't write." + +"S'pose he _can't_ write--he can make marks on the shirt, can't he, if +we make him a pen out of an old pewter spoon or a piece of an old iron +barrel-hoop?" + +"Why, Tom, we can pull a feather out of a goose and make him a better +one; and quicker, too." + +"_Prisoners_ don't have geese running around the donjon-keep to pull +pens out of, you muggins. They _always_ make their pens out of the +hardest, toughest, troublesomest piece of old brass candlestick or +something like that they can get their hands on; and it takes them weeks +and weeks and months and months to file it out, too, because they've got +to do it by rubbing it on the wall. _They_ wouldn't use a goose-quill +if they had it. It ain't regular." + +"Well, then, what'll we make him the ink out of?" + +"Many makes it out of iron-rust and tears; but that's the common sort +and women; the best authorities uses their own blood. Jim can do that; +and when he wants to send any little common ordinary mysterious message +to let the world know where he's captivated, he can write it on the +bottom of a tin plate with a fork and throw it out of the window. The +Iron Mask always done that, and it's a blame' good way, too." + +"Jim ain't got no tin plates. They feed him in a pan." + +"That ain't nothing; we can get him some." + +"Can't nobody _read_ his plates." + +"That ain't got anything to _do_ with it, Huck Finn. All _he's_ got to +do is to write on the plate and throw it out. You don't _have_ to be +able to read it. Why, half the time you can't read anything a prisoner +writes on a tin plate, or anywhere else." + +"Well, then, what's the sense in wasting the plates?" + +"Why, blame it all, it ain't the _prisoner's_ plates." + +"But it's _somebody's_ plates, ain't it?" + +"Well, spos'n it is? What does the _prisoner_ care whose--" + +He broke off there, because we heard the breakfast-horn blowing. So we +cleared out for the house. + +Along during the morning I borrowed a sheet and a white shirt off of the +clothes-line; and I found an old sack and put them in it, and we went +down and got the fox-fire, and put that in too. I called it borrowing, +because that was what pap always called it; but Tom said it warn't +borrowing, it was stealing. He said we was representing prisoners; and +prisoners don't care how they get a thing so they get it, and nobody +don't blame them for it, either. It ain't no crime in a prisoner to +steal the thing he needs to get away with, Tom said; it's his right; and +so, as long as we was representing a prisoner, we had a perfect right to +steal anything on this place we had the least use for to get ourselves +out of prison with. He said if we warn't prisoners it would be a very +different thing, and nobody but a mean, ornery person would steal when +he warn't a prisoner. So we allowed we would steal everything there was +that come handy. And yet he made a mighty fuss, one day, after that, +when I stole a watermelon out of the nigger-patch and eat it; and he +made me go and give the niggers a dime without telling them what it +was for. Tom said that what he meant was, we could steal anything we +_needed_. Well, I says, I needed the watermelon. But he said I didn't +need it to get out of prison with; there's where the difference was. + He said if I'd a wanted it to hide a knife in, and smuggle it to Jim +to kill the seneskal with, it would a been all right. So I let it go at +that, though I couldn't see no advantage in my representing a prisoner +if I got to set down and chaw over a lot of gold-leaf distinctions like +that every time I see a chance to hog a watermelon. + +Well, as I was saying, we waited that morning till everybody was settled +down to business, and nobody in sight around the yard; then Tom he +carried the sack into the lean-to whilst I stood off a piece to keep +watch. By and by he come out, and we went and set down on the woodpile +to talk. He says: + +"Everything's all right now except tools; and that's easy fixed." + +"Tools?" I says. + +"Yes." + +"Tools for what?" + +"Why, to dig with. We ain't a-going to _gnaw_ him out, are we?" + +"Ain't them old crippled picks and things in there good enough to dig a +nigger out with?" I says. + +He turns on me, looking pitying enough to make a body cry, and says: + +"Huck Finn, did you _ever_ hear of a prisoner having picks and shovels, +and all the modern conveniences in his wardrobe to dig himself out with? + Now I want to ask you--if you got any reasonableness in you at all--what +kind of a show would _that_ give him to be a hero? Why, they might as +well lend him the key and done with it. Picks and shovels--why, they +wouldn't furnish 'em to a king." + +"Well, then," I says, "if we don't want the picks and shovels, what do +we want?" + +"A couple of case-knives." + +"To dig the foundations out from under that cabin with?" + +"Yes." + +"Confound it, it's foolish, Tom." + +"It don't make no difference how foolish it is, it's the _right_ way--and +it's the regular way. And there ain't no _other_ way, that ever I heard +of, and I've read all the books that gives any information about these +things. They always dig out with a case-knife--and not through dirt, mind +you; generly it's through solid rock. And it takes them weeks and weeks +and weeks, and for ever and ever. Why, look at one of them prisoners in +the bottom dungeon of the Castle Deef, in the harbor of Marseilles, that +dug himself out that way; how long was _he_ at it, you reckon?" + +"I don't know." + +"Well, guess." + +"I don't know. A month and a half." + +"_Thirty-seven year_--and he come out in China. _That's_ the kind. I +wish the bottom of _this_ fortress was solid rock." + +"_Jim_ don't know nobody in China." + +"What's _that_ got to do with it? Neither did that other fellow. But +you're always a-wandering off on a side issue. Why can't you stick to +the main point?" + +"All right--I don't care where he comes out, so he _comes_ out; and Jim +don't, either, I reckon. But there's one thing, anyway--Jim's too old to +be dug out with a case-knife. He won't last." + +"Yes he will _last_, too. You don't reckon it's going to take +thirty-seven years to dig out through a _dirt_ foundation, do you?" + +"How long will it take, Tom?" + +"Well, we can't resk being as long as we ought to, because it mayn't +take very long for Uncle Silas to hear from down there by New Orleans. + He'll hear Jim ain't from there. Then his next move will be to +advertise Jim, or something like that. So we can't resk being as long +digging him out as we ought to. By rights I reckon we ought to be +a couple of years; but we can't. Things being so uncertain, what I +recommend is this: that we really dig right in, as quick as we can; +and after that, we can _let on_, to ourselves, that we was at it +thirty-seven years. Then we can snatch him out and rush him away the +first time there's an alarm. Yes, I reckon that 'll be the best way." + +"Now, there's _sense_ in that," I says. "Letting on don't cost nothing; +letting on ain't no trouble; and if it's any object, I don't mind +letting on we was at it a hundred and fifty year. It wouldn't strain +me none, after I got my hand in. So I'll mosey along now, and smouch a +couple of case-knives." + +"Smouch three," he says; "we want one to make a saw out of." + +"Tom, if it ain't unregular and irreligious to sejest it," I says, +"there's an old rusty saw-blade around yonder sticking under the +weather-boarding behind the smoke-house." + +He looked kind of weary and discouraged-like, and says: + +"It ain't no use to try to learn you nothing, Huck. Run along and +smouch the knives--three of them." So I done it. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXVI. + +AS soon as we reckoned everybody was asleep that night we went down the +lightning-rod, and shut ourselves up in the lean-to, and got out our +pile of fox-fire, and went to work. We cleared everything out of the +way, about four or five foot along the middle of the bottom log. Tom +said he was right behind Jim's bed now, and we'd dig in under it, and +when we got through there couldn't nobody in the cabin ever know there +was any hole there, because Jim's counter-pin hung down most to the +ground, and you'd have to raise it up and look under to see the hole. + So we dug and dug with the case-knives till most midnight; and then +we was dog-tired, and our hands was blistered, and yet you couldn't see +we'd done anything hardly. At last I says: + +"This ain't no thirty-seven year job; this is a thirty-eight year job, +Tom Sawyer." + +He never said nothing. But he sighed, and pretty soon he stopped +digging, and then for a good little while I knowed that he was thinking. +Then he says: + +"It ain't no use, Huck, it ain't a-going to work. If we was prisoners +it would, because then we'd have as many years as we wanted, and no +hurry; and we wouldn't get but a few minutes to dig, every day, while +they was changing watches, and so our hands wouldn't get blistered, and +we could keep it up right along, year in and year out, and do it right, +and the way it ought to be done. But _we_ can't fool along; we got to +rush; we ain't got no time to spare. If we was to put in another +night this way we'd have to knock off for a week to let our hands get +well--couldn't touch a case-knife with them sooner." + +"Well, then, what we going to do, Tom?" + +"I'll tell you. It ain't right, and it ain't moral, and I wouldn't like +it to get out; but there ain't only just the one way: we got to dig him +out with the picks, and _let on_ it's case-knives." + +"_Now_ you're _talking_!" I says; "your head gets leveler and leveler +all the time, Tom Sawyer," I says. "Picks is the thing, moral or no +moral; and as for me, I don't care shucks for the morality of it, nohow. + When I start in to steal a nigger, or a watermelon, or a Sunday-school +book, I ain't no ways particular how it's done so it's done. What I +want is my nigger; or what I want is my watermelon; or what I want is my +Sunday-school book; and if a pick's the handiest thing, that's the thing +I'm a-going to dig that nigger or that watermelon or that Sunday-school +book out with; and I don't give a dead rat what the authorities thinks +about it nuther." + +"Well," he says, "there's excuse for picks and letting-on in a case like +this; if it warn't so, I wouldn't approve of it, nor I wouldn't stand by +and see the rules broke--because right is right, and wrong is wrong, +and a body ain't got no business doing wrong when he ain't ignorant and +knows better. It might answer for _you_ to dig Jim out with a pick, +_without_ any letting on, because you don't know no better; but it +wouldn't for me, because I do know better. Gimme a case-knife." + +He had his own by him, but I handed him mine. He flung it down, and +says: + +"Gimme a _case-knife_." + +I didn't know just what to do--but then I thought. I scratched around +amongst the old tools, and got a pickaxe and give it to him, and he took +it and went to work, and never said a word. + +He was always just that particular. Full of principle. + +So then I got a shovel, and then we picked and shoveled, turn about, +and made the fur fly. We stuck to it about a half an hour, which was as +long as we could stand up; but we had a good deal of a hole to show for +it. When I got up stairs I looked out at the window and see Tom doing +his level best with the lightning-rod, but he couldn't come it, his +hands was so sore. At last he says: + +"It ain't no use, it can't be done. What you reckon I better do? Can't +you think of no way?" + +"Yes," I says, "but I reckon it ain't regular. Come up the stairs, and +let on it's a lightning-rod." + +So he done it. + +Next day Tom stole a pewter spoon and a brass candlestick in the house, +for to make some pens for Jim out of, and six tallow candles; and I +hung around the nigger cabins and laid for a chance, and stole three tin +plates. Tom says it wasn't enough; but I said nobody wouldn't ever see +the plates that Jim throwed out, because they'd fall in the dog-fennel +and jimpson weeds under the window-hole--then we could tote them back and +he could use them over again. So Tom was satisfied. Then he says: + +"Now, the thing to study out is, how to get the things to Jim." + +"Take them in through the hole," I says, "when we get it done." + +He only just looked scornful, and said something about nobody ever heard +of such an idiotic idea, and then he went to studying. By and by he +said he had ciphered out two or three ways, but there warn't no need to +decide on any of them yet. Said we'd got to post Jim first. + +That night we went down the lightning-rod a little after ten, and took +one of the candles along, and listened under the window-hole, and heard +Jim snoring; so we pitched it in, and it didn't wake him. Then we +whirled in with the pick and shovel, and in about two hours and a half +the job was done. We crept in under Jim's bed and into the cabin, and +pawed around and found the candle and lit it, and stood over Jim awhile, +and found him looking hearty and healthy, and then we woke him up gentle +and gradual. He was so glad to see us he most cried; and called us +honey, and all the pet names he could think of; and was for having us +hunt up a cold-chisel to cut the chain off of his leg with right away, +and clearing out without losing any time. But Tom he showed him how +unregular it would be, and set down and told him all about our plans, +and how we could alter them in a minute any time there was an alarm; and +not to be the least afraid, because we would see he got away, _sure_. + So Jim he said it was all right, and we set there and talked over old +times awhile, and then Tom asked a lot of questions, and when Jim told +him Uncle Silas come in every day or two to pray with him, and Aunt +Sally come in to see if he was comfortable and had plenty to eat, and +both of them was kind as they could be, Tom says: + +"_Now_ I know how to fix it. We'll send you some things by them." + +I said, "Don't do nothing of the kind; it's one of the most jackass +ideas I ever struck;" but he never paid no attention to me; went right +on. It was his way when he'd got his plans set. + +So he told Jim how we'd have to smuggle in the rope-ladder pie and other +large things by Nat, the nigger that fed him, and he must be on the +lookout, and not be surprised, and not let Nat see him open them; and +we would put small things in uncle's coat-pockets and he must steal them +out; and we would tie things to aunt's apron-strings or put them in her +apron-pocket, if we got a chance; and told him what they would be and +what they was for. And told him how to keep a journal on the shirt with +his blood, and all that. He told him everything. Jim he couldn't see +no sense in the most of it, but he allowed we was white folks and knowed +better than him; so he was satisfied, and said he would do it all just +as Tom said. + +Jim had plenty corn-cob pipes and tobacco; so we had a right down good +sociable time; then we crawled out through the hole, and so home to +bed, with hands that looked like they'd been chawed. Tom was in high +spirits. He said it was the best fun he ever had in his life, and the +most intellectural; and said if he only could see his way to it we would +keep it up all the rest of our lives and leave Jim to our children to +get out; for he believed Jim would come to like it better and better the +more he got used to it. He said that in that way it could be strung out +to as much as eighty year, and would be the best time on record. And he +said it would make us all celebrated that had a hand in it. + +In the morning we went out to the woodpile and chopped up the brass +candlestick into handy sizes, and Tom put them and the pewter spoon in +his pocket. Then we went to the nigger cabins, and while I got Nat's +notice off, Tom shoved a piece of candlestick into the middle of a +corn-pone that was in Jim's pan, and we went along with Nat to see how +it would work, and it just worked noble; when Jim bit into it it most +mashed all his teeth out; and there warn't ever anything could a worked +better. Tom said so himself. Jim he never let on but what it was only +just a piece of rock or something like that that's always getting into +bread, you know; but after that he never bit into nothing but what he +jabbed his fork into it in three or four places first. + +And whilst we was a-standing there in the dimmish light, here comes a +couple of the hounds bulging in from under Jim's bed; and they kept on +piling in till there was eleven of them, and there warn't hardly room +in there to get your breath. By jings, we forgot to fasten that lean-to +door! The nigger Nat he only just hollered "Witches" once, and keeled +over on to the floor amongst the dogs, and begun to groan like he was +dying. Tom jerked the door open and flung out a slab of Jim's meat, +and the dogs went for it, and in two seconds he was out himself and back +again and shut the door, and I knowed he'd fixed the other door too. +Then he went to work on the nigger, coaxing him and petting him, and +asking him if he'd been imagining he saw something again. He raised up, +and blinked his eyes around, and says: + +"Mars Sid, you'll say I's a fool, but if I didn't b'lieve I see most a +million dogs, er devils, er some'n, I wisht I may die right heah in dese +tracks. I did, mos' sholy. Mars Sid, I _felt_ um--I _felt_ um, sah; dey +was all over me. Dad fetch it, I jis' wisht I could git my han's on one +er dem witches jis' wunst--on'y jis' wunst--it's all I'd ast. But mos'ly +I wisht dey'd lemme 'lone, I does." + +Tom says: + +"Well, I tell you what I think. What makes them come here just at this +runaway nigger's breakfast-time? It's because they're hungry; that's +the reason. You make them a witch pie; that's the thing for _you_ to +do." + +"But my lan', Mars Sid, how's I gwyne to make 'm a witch pie? I doan' +know how to make it. I hain't ever hearn er sich a thing b'fo'." + +"Well, then, I'll have to make it myself." + +"Will you do it, honey?--will you? I'll wusshup de groun' und' yo' foot, +I will!" + +"All right, I'll do it, seeing it's you, and you've been good to us and +showed us the runaway nigger. But you got to be mighty careful. When +we come around, you turn your back; and then whatever we've put in the +pan, don't you let on you see it at all. And don't you look when Jim +unloads the pan--something might happen, I don't know what. And above +all, don't you _handle_ the witch-things." + +"_Hannel 'M_, Mars Sid? What _is_ you a-talkin' 'bout? I wouldn' +lay de weight er my finger on um, not f'r ten hund'd thous'n billion +dollars, I wouldn't." + + + + +CHAPTER XXXVII. + +THAT was all fixed. So then we went away and went to the rubbage-pile +in the back yard, where they keep the old boots, and rags, and pieces +of bottles, and wore-out tin things, and all such truck, and scratched +around and found an old tin washpan, and stopped up the holes as well as +we could, to bake the pie in, and took it down cellar and stole it full +of flour and started for breakfast, and found a couple of shingle-nails +that Tom said would be handy for a prisoner to scrabble his name and +sorrows on the dungeon walls with, and dropped one of them in Aunt +Sally's apron-pocket which was hanging on a chair, and t'other we stuck +in the band of Uncle Silas's hat, which was on the bureau, because we +heard the children say their pa and ma was going to the runaway nigger's +house this morning, and then went to breakfast, and Tom dropped the +pewter spoon in Uncle Silas's coat-pocket, and Aunt Sally wasn't come +yet, so we had to wait a little while. + +And when she come she was hot and red and cross, and couldn't hardly +wait for the blessing; and then she went to sluicing out coffee with one +hand and cracking the handiest child's head with her thimble with the +other, and says: + +"I've hunted high and I've hunted low, and it does beat all what _has_ +become of your other shirt." + +My heart fell down amongst my lungs and livers and things, and a hard +piece of corn-crust started down my throat after it and got met on the +road with a cough, and was shot across the table, and took one of the +children in the eye and curled him up like a fishing-worm, and let a cry +out of him the size of a warwhoop, and Tom he turned kinder blue around +the gills, and it all amounted to a considerable state of things for +about a quarter of a minute or as much as that, and I would a sold out +for half price if there was a bidder. But after that we was all right +again--it was the sudden surprise of it that knocked us so kind of cold. +Uncle Silas he says: + +"It's most uncommon curious, I can't understand it. I know perfectly +well I took it _off_, because--" + +"Because you hain't got but one _on_. Just _listen_ at the man! I know +you took it off, and know it by a better way than your wool-gethering +memory, too, because it was on the clo's-line yesterday--I see it there +myself. But it's gone, that's the long and the short of it, and you'll +just have to change to a red flann'l one till I can get time to make a +new one. And it 'll be the third I've made in two years. It just keeps +a body on the jump to keep you in shirts; and whatever you do manage to +_do_ with 'm all is more'n I can make out. A body 'd think you _would_ +learn to take some sort of care of 'em at your time of life." + +"I know it, Sally, and I do try all I can. But it oughtn't to be +altogether my fault, because, you know, I don't see them nor have +nothing to do with them except when they're on me; and I don't believe +I've ever lost one of them _off_ of me." + +"Well, it ain't _your_ fault if you haven't, Silas; you'd a done it +if you could, I reckon. And the shirt ain't all that's gone, nuther. + Ther's a spoon gone; and _that_ ain't all. There was ten, and now +ther's only nine. The calf got the shirt, I reckon, but the calf never +took the spoon, _that's_ certain." + +"Why, what else is gone, Sally?" + +"Ther's six _candles_ gone--that's what. The rats could a got the +candles, and I reckon they did; I wonder they don't walk off with the +whole place, the way you're always going to stop their holes and don't +do it; and if they warn't fools they'd sleep in your hair, Silas--_you'd_ +never find it out; but you can't lay the _spoon_ on the rats, and that I +know." + +"Well, Sally, I'm in fault, and I acknowledge it; I've been remiss; but +I won't let to-morrow go by without stopping up them holes." + +"Oh, I wouldn't hurry; next year 'll do. Matilda Angelina Araminta +_Phelps!_" + +Whack comes the thimble, and the child snatches her claws out of the +sugar-bowl without fooling around any. Just then the nigger woman steps +on to the passage, and says: + +"Missus, dey's a sheet gone." + +"A _sheet_ gone! Well, for the land's sake!" + +"I'll stop up them holes to-day," says Uncle Silas, looking sorrowful. + +"Oh, _do_ shet up!--s'pose the rats took the _sheet_? _where's_ it gone, +Lize?" + +"Clah to goodness I hain't no notion, Miss' Sally. She wuz on de +clo'sline yistiddy, but she done gone: she ain' dah no mo' now." + +"I reckon the world _is_ coming to an end. I _never_ see the beat of it +in all my born days. A shirt, and a sheet, and a spoon, and six can--" + +"Missus," comes a young yaller wench, "dey's a brass cannelstick +miss'n." + +"Cler out from here, you hussy, er I'll take a skillet to ye!" + +Well, she was just a-biling. I begun to lay for a chance; I reckoned +I would sneak out and go for the woods till the weather moderated. She +kept a-raging right along, running her insurrection all by herself, and +everybody else mighty meek and quiet; and at last Uncle Silas, looking +kind of foolish, fishes up that spoon out of his pocket. She stopped, +with her mouth open and her hands up; and as for me, I wished I was in +Jeruslem or somewheres. But not long, because she says: + +"It's _just_ as I expected. So you had it in your pocket all the time; +and like as not you've got the other things there, too. How'd it get +there?" + +"I reely don't know, Sally," he says, kind of apologizing, "or you know +I would tell. I was a-studying over my text in Acts Seventeen before +breakfast, and I reckon I put it in there, not noticing, meaning to put +my Testament in, and it must be so, because my Testament ain't in; but +I'll go and see; and if the Testament is where I had it, I'll know I +didn't put it in, and that will show that I laid the Testament down and +took up the spoon, and--" + +"Oh, for the land's sake! Give a body a rest! Go 'long now, the whole +kit and biling of ye; and don't come nigh me again till I've got back my +peace of mind." + +I'D a heard her if she'd a said it to herself, let alone speaking it +out; and I'd a got up and obeyed her if I'd a been dead. As we was +passing through the setting-room the old man he took up his hat, and the +shingle-nail fell out on the floor, and he just merely picked it up and +laid it on the mantel-shelf, and never said nothing, and went out. Tom +see him do it, and remembered about the spoon, and says: + +"Well, it ain't no use to send things by _him_ no more, he ain't +reliable." Then he says: "But he done us a good turn with the spoon, +anyway, without knowing it, and so we'll go and do him one without _him_ +knowing it--stop up his rat-holes." + +There was a noble good lot of them down cellar, and it took us a whole +hour, but we done the job tight and good and shipshape. Then we heard +steps on the stairs, and blowed out our light and hid; and here comes +the old man, with a candle in one hand and a bundle of stuff in t'other, +looking as absent-minded as year before last. He went a mooning around, +first to one rat-hole and then another, till he'd been to them all. + Then he stood about five minutes, picking tallow-drip off of his candle +and thinking. Then he turns off slow and dreamy towards the stairs, +saying: + +"Well, for the life of me I can't remember when I done it. I could +show her now that I warn't to blame on account of the rats. But never +mind--let it go. I reckon it wouldn't do no good." + +And so he went on a-mumbling up stairs, and then we left. He was a +mighty nice old man. And always is. + +Tom was a good deal bothered about what to do for a spoon, but he said +we'd got to have it; so he took a think. When he had ciphered it out +he told me how we was to do; then we went and waited around the +spoon-basket till we see Aunt Sally coming, and then Tom went to +counting the spoons and laying them out to one side, and I slid one of +them up my sleeve, and Tom says: + +"Why, Aunt Sally, there ain't but nine spoons _yet_." + +She says: + +"Go 'long to your play, and don't bother me. I know better, I counted +'m myself." + +"Well, I've counted them twice, Aunty, and I can't make but nine." + +She looked out of all patience, but of course she come to count--anybody +would. + +"I declare to gracious ther' _ain't_ but nine!" she says. "Why, what in +the world--plague _take_ the things, I'll count 'm again." + +So I slipped back the one I had, and when she got done counting, she +says: + +"Hang the troublesome rubbage, ther's _ten_ now!" and she looked huffy +and bothered both. But Tom says: + +"Why, Aunty, I don't think there's ten." + +"You numskull, didn't you see me _count 'm?_" + +"I know, but--" + +"Well, I'll count 'm _again_." + +So I smouched one, and they come out nine, same as the other time. + Well, she _was_ in a tearing way--just a-trembling all over, she was so +mad. But she counted and counted till she got that addled she'd start +to count in the basket for a spoon sometimes; and so, three times they +come out right, and three times they come out wrong. Then she grabbed +up the basket and slammed it across the house and knocked the cat +galley-west; and she said cle'r out and let her have some peace, and if +we come bothering around her again betwixt that and dinner she'd skin +us. So we had the odd spoon, and dropped it in her apron-pocket whilst +she was a-giving us our sailing orders, and Jim got it all right, along +with her shingle nail, before noon. We was very well satisfied with +this business, and Tom allowed it was worth twice the trouble it took, +because he said _now_ she couldn't ever count them spoons twice alike +again to save her life; and wouldn't believe she'd counted them right if +she _did_; and said that after she'd about counted her head off for the +next three days he judged she'd give it up and offer to kill anybody +that wanted her to ever count them any more. + +So we put the sheet back on the line that night, and stole one out of +her closet; and kept on putting it back and stealing it again for a +couple of days till she didn't know how many sheets she had any more, +and she didn't _care_, and warn't a-going to bullyrag the rest of her +soul out about it, and wouldn't count them again not to save her life; +she druther die first. + +So we was all right now, as to the shirt and the sheet and the spoon +and the candles, by the help of the calf and the rats and the mixed-up +counting; and as to the candlestick, it warn't no consequence, it would +blow over by and by. + +But that pie was a job; we had no end of trouble with that pie. We +fixed it up away down in the woods, and cooked it there; and we got it +done at last, and very satisfactory, too; but not all in one day; and we +had to use up three wash-pans full of flour before we got through, and +we got burnt pretty much all over, in places, and eyes put out with +the smoke; because, you see, we didn't want nothing but a crust, and we +couldn't prop it up right, and she would always cave in. But of course +we thought of the right way at last--which was to cook the ladder, too, +in the pie. So then we laid in with Jim the second night, and tore +up the sheet all in little strings and twisted them together, and long +before daylight we had a lovely rope that you could a hung a person +with. We let on it took nine months to make it. + +And in the forenoon we took it down to the woods, but it wouldn't go +into the pie. Being made of a whole sheet, that way, there was rope +enough for forty pies if we'd a wanted them, and plenty left over +for soup, or sausage, or anything you choose. We could a had a whole +dinner. + +But we didn't need it. All we needed was just enough for the pie, and +so we throwed the rest away. We didn't cook none of the pies in the +wash-pan--afraid the solder would melt; but Uncle Silas he had a noble +brass warming-pan which he thought considerable of, because it belonged +to one of his ancesters with a long wooden handle that come over from +England with William the Conqueror in the Mayflower or one of them early +ships and was hid away up garret with a lot of other old pots and things +that was valuable, not on account of being any account, because they +warn't, but on account of them being relicts, you know, and we snaked +her out, private, and took her down there, but she failed on the first +pies, because we didn't know how, but she come up smiling on the last +one. We took and lined her with dough, and set her in the coals, and +loaded her up with rag rope, and put on a dough roof, and shut down the +lid, and put hot embers on top, and stood off five foot, with the long +handle, cool and comfortable, and in fifteen minutes she turned out a +pie that was a satisfaction to look at. But the person that et it would +want to fetch a couple of kags of toothpicks along, for if that rope +ladder wouldn't cramp him down to business I don't know nothing what I'm +talking about, and lay him in enough stomach-ache to last him till next +time, too. + +Nat didn't look when we put the witch pie in Jim's pan; and we put the +three tin plates in the bottom of the pan under the vittles; and so Jim +got everything all right, and as soon as he was by himself he busted +into the pie and hid the rope ladder inside of his straw tick, +and scratched some marks on a tin plate and throwed it out of the +window-hole. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXVIII. + +MAKING them pens was a distressid tough job, and so was the saw; and Jim +allowed the inscription was going to be the toughest of all. That's the +one which the prisoner has to scrabble on the wall. But he had to have +it; Tom said he'd _got_ to; there warn't no case of a state prisoner not +scrabbling his inscription to leave behind, and his coat of arms. + +"Look at Lady Jane Grey," he says; "look at Gilford Dudley; look at old +Northumberland! Why, Huck, s'pose it _is_ considerble trouble?--what +you going to do?--how you going to get around it? Jim's _got_ to do his +inscription and coat of arms. They all do." + +Jim says: + +"Why, Mars Tom, I hain't got no coat o' arm; I hain't got nuffn but dish +yer ole shirt, en you knows I got to keep de journal on dat." + +"Oh, you don't understand, Jim; a coat of arms is very different." + +"Well," I says, "Jim's right, anyway, when he says he ain't got no coat +of arms, because he hain't." + +"I reckon I knowed that," Tom says, "but you bet he'll have one before +he goes out of this--because he's going out _right_, and there ain't +going to be no flaws in his record." + +So whilst me and Jim filed away at the pens on a brickbat apiece, Jim +a-making his'n out of the brass and I making mine out of the spoon, +Tom set to work to think out the coat of arms. By and by he said he'd +struck so many good ones he didn't hardly know which to take, but there +was one which he reckoned he'd decide on. He says: + +"On the scutcheon we'll have a bend _or_ in the dexter base, a saltire +_murrey_ in the fess, with a dog, couchant, for common charge, and under +his foot a chain embattled, for slavery, with a chevron _vert_ in a +chief engrailed, and three invected lines on a field _azure_, with the +nombril points rampant on a dancette indented; crest, a runaway nigger, +_sable_, with his bundle over his shoulder on a bar sinister; and a +couple of gules for supporters, which is you and me; motto, _Maggiore +Fretta, Minore Otto._ Got it out of a book--means the more haste the +less speed." + +"Geewhillikins," I says, "but what does the rest of it mean?" + +"We ain't got no time to bother over that," he says; "we got to dig in +like all git-out." + +"Well, anyway," I says, "what's _some_ of it? What's a fess?" + +"A fess--a fess is--_you_ don't need to know what a fess is. I'll show +him how to make it when he gets to it." + +"Shucks, Tom," I says, "I think you might tell a person. What's a bar +sinister?" + +"Oh, I don't know. But he's got to have it. All the nobility does." + +That was just his way. If it didn't suit him to explain a thing to you, +he wouldn't do it. You might pump at him a week, it wouldn't make no +difference. + +He'd got all that coat of arms business fixed, so now he started in to +finish up the rest of that part of the work, which was to plan out a +mournful inscription--said Jim got to have one, like they all done. He +made up a lot, and wrote them out on a paper, and read them off, so: + +1. Here a captive heart busted. 2. Here a poor prisoner, forsook by +the world and friends, fretted his sorrowful life. 3. Here a lonely +heart broke, and a worn spirit went to its rest, after thirty-seven +years of solitary captivity. 4. Here, homeless and friendless, after +thirty-seven years of bitter captivity, perished a noble stranger, +natural son of Louis XIV. + +Tom's voice trembled whilst he was reading them, and he most broke down. +When he got done he couldn't no way make up his mind which one for Jim +to scrabble on to the wall, they was all so good; but at last he allowed +he would let him scrabble them all on. Jim said it would take him a +year to scrabble such a lot of truck on to the logs with a nail, and he +didn't know how to make letters, besides; but Tom said he would block +them out for him, and then he wouldn't have nothing to do but just +follow the lines. Then pretty soon he says: + +"Come to think, the logs ain't a-going to do; they don't have log walls +in a dungeon: we got to dig the inscriptions into a rock. We'll fetch +a rock." + +Jim said the rock was worse than the logs; he said it would take him +such a pison long time to dig them into a rock he wouldn't ever get out. + But Tom said he would let me help him do it. Then he took a look to +see how me and Jim was getting along with the pens. It was most pesky +tedious hard work and slow, and didn't give my hands no show to get +well of the sores, and we didn't seem to make no headway, hardly; so Tom +says: + +"I know how to fix it. We got to have a rock for the coat of arms and +mournful inscriptions, and we can kill two birds with that same rock. +There's a gaudy big grindstone down at the mill, and we'll smouch it, +and carve the things on it, and file out the pens and the saw on it, +too." + +It warn't no slouch of an idea; and it warn't no slouch of a grindstone +nuther; but we allowed we'd tackle it. It warn't quite midnight yet, +so we cleared out for the mill, leaving Jim at work. We smouched the +grindstone, and set out to roll her home, but it was a most nation tough +job. Sometimes, do what we could, we couldn't keep her from falling +over, and she come mighty near mashing us every time. Tom said she was +going to get one of us, sure, before we got through. We got her half +way; and then we was plumb played out, and most drownded with sweat. We +see it warn't no use; we got to go and fetch Jim. So he raised up his +bed and slid the chain off of the bed-leg, and wrapt it round and round +his neck, and we crawled out through our hole and down there, and Jim +and me laid into that grindstone and walked her along like nothing; and +Tom superintended. He could out-superintend any boy I ever see. He +knowed how to do everything. + +Our hole was pretty big, but it warn't big enough to get the grindstone +through; but Jim he took the pick and soon made it big enough. Then Tom +marked out them things on it with the nail, and set Jim to work on them, +with the nail for a chisel and an iron bolt from the rubbage in the +lean-to for a hammer, and told him to work till the rest of his candle +quit on him, and then he could go to bed, and hide the grindstone under +his straw tick and sleep on it. Then we helped him fix his chain back +on the bed-leg, and was ready for bed ourselves. But Tom thought of +something, and says: + +"You got any spiders in here, Jim?" + +"No, sah, thanks to goodness I hain't, Mars Tom." + +"All right, we'll get you some." + +"But bless you, honey, I doan' _want_ none. I's afeard un um. I jis' +'s soon have rattlesnakes aroun'." + +Tom thought a minute or two, and says: + +"It's a good idea. And I reckon it's been done. It _must_ a been done; +it stands to reason. Yes, it's a prime good idea. Where could you keep +it?" + +"Keep what, Mars Tom?" + +"Why, a rattlesnake." + +"De goodness gracious alive, Mars Tom! Why, if dey was a rattlesnake to +come in heah I'd take en bust right out thoo dat log wall, I would, wid +my head." + +"Why, Jim, you wouldn't be afraid of it after a little. You could tame +it." + +"_Tame_ it!" + +"Yes--easy enough. Every animal is grateful for kindness and petting, +and they wouldn't _think_ of hurting a person that pets them. Any book +will tell you that. You try--that's all I ask; just try for two or three +days. Why, you can get him so, in a little while, that he'll love you; +and sleep with you; and won't stay away from you a minute; and will let +you wrap him round your neck and put his head in your mouth." + +"_Please_, Mars Tom--_doan_' talk so! I can't _stan_' it! He'd _let_ +me shove his head in my mouf--fer a favor, hain't it? I lay he'd wait a +pow'ful long time 'fo' I _ast_ him. En mo' en dat, I doan' _want_ him +to sleep wid me." + +"Jim, don't act so foolish. A prisoner's _got_ to have some kind of a +dumb pet, and if a rattlesnake hain't ever been tried, why, there's more +glory to be gained in your being the first to ever try it than any other +way you could ever think of to save your life." + +"Why, Mars Tom, I doan' _want_ no sich glory. Snake take 'n bite +Jim's chin off, den _whah_ is de glory? No, sah, I doan' want no sich +doin's." + +"Blame it, can't you _try_? I only _want_ you to try--you needn't keep +it up if it don't work." + +"But de trouble all _done_ ef de snake bite me while I's a tryin' him. +Mars Tom, I's willin' to tackle mos' anything 'at ain't onreasonable, +but ef you en Huck fetches a rattlesnake in heah for me to tame, I's +gwyne to _leave_, dat's _shore_." + +"Well, then, let it go, let it go, if you're so bull-headed about it. + We can get you some garter-snakes, and you can tie some buttons on +their tails, and let on they're rattlesnakes, and I reckon that 'll have +to do." + +"I k'n stan' _dem_, Mars Tom, but blame' 'f I couldn' get along widout +um, I tell you dat. I never knowed b'fo' 't was so much bother and +trouble to be a prisoner." + +"Well, it _always_ is when it's done right. You got any rats around +here?" + +"No, sah, I hain't seed none." + +"Well, we'll get you some rats." + +"Why, Mars Tom, I doan' _want_ no rats. Dey's de dadblamedest creturs +to 'sturb a body, en rustle roun' over 'im, en bite his feet, when he's +tryin' to sleep, I ever see. No, sah, gimme g'yarter-snakes, 'f I's +got to have 'm, but doan' gimme no rats; I hain' got no use f'r um, +skasely." + +"But, Jim, you _got_ to have 'em--they all do. So don't make no more +fuss about it. Prisoners ain't ever without rats. There ain't no +instance of it. And they train them, and pet them, and learn them +tricks, and they get to be as sociable as flies. But you got to play +music to them. You got anything to play music on?" + +"I ain' got nuffn but a coase comb en a piece o' paper, en a juice-harp; +but I reck'n dey wouldn' take no stock in a juice-harp." + +"Yes they would _they_ don't care what kind of music 'tis. A +jews-harp's plenty good enough for a rat. All animals like music--in a +prison they dote on it. Specially, painful music; and you can't get no +other kind out of a jews-harp. It always interests them; they come out +to see what's the matter with you. Yes, you're all right; you're fixed +very well. You want to set on your bed nights before you go to sleep, +and early in the mornings, and play your jews-harp; play 'The Last Link +is Broken'--that's the thing that 'll scoop a rat quicker 'n anything +else; and when you've played about two minutes you'll see all the rats, +and the snakes, and spiders, and things begin to feel worried about you, +and come. And they'll just fairly swarm over you, and have a noble good +time." + +"Yes, _dey_ will, I reck'n, Mars Tom, but what kine er time is _Jim_ +havin'? Blest if I kin see de pint. But I'll do it ef I got to. I +reck'n I better keep de animals satisfied, en not have no trouble in de +house." + +Tom waited to think it over, and see if there wasn't nothing else; and +pretty soon he says: + +"Oh, there's one thing I forgot. Could you raise a flower here, do you +reckon?" + +"I doan know but maybe I could, Mars Tom; but it's tolable dark in heah, +en I ain' got no use f'r no flower, nohow, en she'd be a pow'ful sight +o' trouble." + +"Well, you try it, anyway. Some other prisoners has done it." + +"One er dem big cat-tail-lookin' mullen-stalks would grow in heah, Mars +Tom, I reck'n, but she wouldn't be wuth half de trouble she'd coss." + +"Don't you believe it. We'll fetch you a little one and you plant it in +the corner over there, and raise it. And don't call it mullen, call it +Pitchiola--that's its right name when it's in a prison. And you want to +water it with your tears." + +"Why, I got plenty spring water, Mars Tom." + +"You don't _want_ spring water; you want to water it with your tears. + It's the way they always do." + +"Why, Mars Tom, I lay I kin raise one er dem mullen-stalks twyste wid +spring water whiles another man's a _start'n_ one wid tears." + +"That ain't the idea. You _got_ to do it with tears." + +"She'll die on my han's, Mars Tom, she sholy will; kase I doan' skasely +ever cry." + +So Tom was stumped. But he studied it over, and then said Jim would +have to worry along the best he could with an onion. He promised +he would go to the nigger cabins and drop one, private, in Jim's +coffee-pot, in the morning. Jim said he would "jis' 's soon have +tobacker in his coffee;" and found so much fault with it, and with the +work and bother of raising the mullen, and jews-harping the rats, and +petting and flattering up the snakes and spiders and things, on top of +all the other work he had to do on pens, and inscriptions, and journals, +and things, which made it more trouble and worry and responsibility to +be a prisoner than anything he ever undertook, that Tom most lost all +patience with him; and said he was just loadened down with more gaudier +chances than a prisoner ever had in the world to make a name for +himself, and yet he didn't know enough to appreciate them, and they was +just about wasted on him. So Jim he was sorry, and said he wouldn't +behave so no more, and then me and Tom shoved for bed. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXIX. + +IN the morning we went up to the village and bought a wire rat-trap and +fetched it down, and unstopped the best rat-hole, and in about an hour +we had fifteen of the bulliest kind of ones; and then we took it and put +it in a safe place under Aunt Sally's bed. But while we was gone for +spiders little Thomas Franklin Benjamin Jefferson Elexander Phelps found +it there, and opened the door of it to see if the rats would come out, +and they did; and Aunt Sally she come in, and when we got back she was +a-standing on top of the bed raising Cain, and the rats was doing what +they could to keep off the dull times for her. So she took and dusted +us both with the hickry, and we was as much as two hours catching +another fifteen or sixteen, drat that meddlesome cub, and they warn't +the likeliest, nuther, because the first haul was the pick of the flock. + I never see a likelier lot of rats than what that first haul was. + +We got a splendid stock of sorted spiders, and bugs, and frogs, and +caterpillars, and one thing or another; and we like to got a hornet's +nest, but we didn't. The family was at home. We didn't give it right +up, but stayed with them as long as we could; because we allowed we'd +tire them out or they'd got to tire us out, and they done it. Then we +got allycumpain and rubbed on the places, and was pretty near all right +again, but couldn't set down convenient. And so we went for the snakes, +and grabbed a couple of dozen garters and house-snakes, and put them in +a bag, and put it in our room, and by that time it was supper-time, and +a rattling good honest day's work: and hungry?--oh, no, I reckon not! + And there warn't a blessed snake up there when we went back--we didn't +half tie the sack, and they worked out somehow, and left. But it didn't +matter much, because they was still on the premises somewheres. So +we judged we could get some of them again. No, there warn't no real +scarcity of snakes about the house for a considerable spell. You'd see +them dripping from the rafters and places every now and then; and they +generly landed in your plate, or down the back of your neck, and most +of the time where you didn't want them. Well, they was handsome and +striped, and there warn't no harm in a million of them; but that never +made no difference to Aunt Sally; she despised snakes, be the breed what +they might, and she couldn't stand them no way you could fix it; and +every time one of them flopped down on her, it didn't make no difference +what she was doing, she would just lay that work down and light out. I +never see such a woman. And you could hear her whoop to Jericho. You +couldn't get her to take a-holt of one of them with the tongs. And if +she turned over and found one in bed she would scramble out and lift a +howl that you would think the house was afire. She disturbed the old +man so that he said he could most wish there hadn't ever been no snakes +created. Why, after every last snake had been gone clear out of the +house for as much as a week Aunt Sally warn't over it yet; she warn't +near over it; when she was setting thinking about something you could +touch her on the back of her neck with a feather and she would jump +right out of her stockings. It was very curious. But Tom said all +women was just so. He said they was made that way for some reason or +other. + +We got a licking every time one of our snakes come in her way, and she +allowed these lickings warn't nothing to what she would do if we ever +loaded up the place again with them. I didn't mind the lickings, +because they didn't amount to nothing; but I minded the trouble we +had to lay in another lot. But we got them laid in, and all the other +things; and you never see a cabin as blithesome as Jim's was when they'd +all swarm out for music and go for him. Jim didn't like the spiders, +and the spiders didn't like Jim; and so they'd lay for him, and make it +mighty warm for him. And he said that between the rats and the snakes +and the grindstone there warn't no room in bed for him, skasely; and +when there was, a body couldn't sleep, it was so lively, and it was +always lively, he said, because _they_ never all slept at one time, but +took turn about, so when the snakes was asleep the rats was on deck, and +when the rats turned in the snakes come on watch, so he always had one +gang under him, in his way, and t'other gang having a circus over him, +and if he got up to hunt a new place the spiders would take a chance at +him as he crossed over. He said if he ever got out this time he wouldn't +ever be a prisoner again, not for a salary. + +Well, by the end of three weeks everything was in pretty good shape. + The shirt was sent in early, in a pie, and every time a rat bit Jim he +would get up and write a little in his journal whilst the ink was fresh; +the pens was made, the inscriptions and so on was all carved on the +grindstone; the bed-leg was sawed in two, and we had et up the sawdust, +and it give us a most amazing stomach-ache. We reckoned we was all +going to die, but didn't. It was the most undigestible sawdust I ever +see; and Tom said the same. + +But as I was saying, we'd got all the work done now, at last; and we was +all pretty much fagged out, too, but mainly Jim. The old man had wrote +a couple of times to the plantation below Orleans to come and get their +runaway nigger, but hadn't got no answer, because there warn't no such +plantation; so he allowed he would advertise Jim in the St. Louis and +New Orleans papers; and when he mentioned the St. Louis ones it give me +the cold shivers, and I see we hadn't no time to lose. So Tom said, now +for the nonnamous letters. + +"What's them?" I says. + +"Warnings to the people that something is up. Sometimes it's done one +way, sometimes another. But there's always somebody spying around that +gives notice to the governor of the castle. When Louis XVI. was going +to light out of the Tooleries, a servant-girl done it. It's a very good +way, and so is the nonnamous letters. We'll use them both. And it's +usual for the prisoner's mother to change clothes with him, and she +stays in, and he slides out in her clothes. We'll do that, too." + +"But looky here, Tom, what do we want to _warn_ anybody for that +something's up? Let them find it out for themselves--it's their +lookout." + +"Yes, I know; but you can't depend on them. It's the way they've acted +from the very start--left us to do _everything_. They're so confiding +and mullet-headed they don't take notice of nothing at all. So if we +don't _give_ them notice there won't be nobody nor nothing to interfere +with us, and so after all our hard work and trouble this escape 'll go +off perfectly flat; won't amount to nothing--won't be nothing _to_ it." + +"Well, as for me, Tom, that's the way I'd like." + +"Shucks!" he says, and looked disgusted. So I says: + +"But I ain't going to make no complaint. Any way that suits you suits +me. What you going to do about the servant-girl?" + +"You'll be her. You slide in, in the middle of the night, and hook that +yaller girl's frock." + +"Why, Tom, that 'll make trouble next morning; because, of course, she +prob'bly hain't got any but that one." + +"I know; but you don't want it but fifteen minutes, to carry the +nonnamous letter and shove it under the front door." + +"All right, then, I'll do it; but I could carry it just as handy in my +own togs." + +"You wouldn't look like a servant-girl _then_, would you?" + +"No, but there won't be nobody to see what I look like, _anyway_." + +"That ain't got nothing to do with it. The thing for us to do is just +to do our _duty_, and not worry about whether anybody _sees_ us do it or +not. Hain't you got no principle at all?" + +"All right, I ain't saying nothing; I'm the servant-girl. Who's Jim's +mother?" + +"I'm his mother. I'll hook a gown from Aunt Sally." + +"Well, then, you'll have to stay in the cabin when me and Jim leaves." + +"Not much. I'll stuff Jim's clothes full of straw and lay it on his bed +to represent his mother in disguise, and Jim 'll take the nigger woman's +gown off of me and wear it, and we'll all evade together. When a +prisoner of style escapes it's called an evasion. It's always called +so when a king escapes, f'rinstance. And the same with a king's son; +it don't make no difference whether he's a natural one or an unnatural +one." + +So Tom he wrote the nonnamous letter, and I smouched the yaller wench's +frock that night, and put it on, and shoved it under the front door, the +way Tom told me to. It said: + +Beware. Trouble is brewing. Keep a sharp lookout. _Unknown_ _Friend_. + +Next night we stuck a picture, which Tom drawed in blood, of a skull and +crossbones on the front door; and next night another one of a coffin on +the back door. I never see a family in such a sweat. They couldn't a +been worse scared if the place had a been full of ghosts laying for them +behind everything and under the beds and shivering through the air. If +a door banged, Aunt Sally she jumped and said "ouch!" if anything fell, +she jumped and said "ouch!" if you happened to touch her, when she +warn't noticing, she done the same; she couldn't face noway and be +satisfied, because she allowed there was something behind her every +time--so she was always a-whirling around sudden, and saying "ouch," and +before she'd got two-thirds around she'd whirl back again, and say it +again; and she was afraid to go to bed, but she dasn't set up. So the +thing was working very well, Tom said; he said he never see a thing work +more satisfactory. He said it showed it was done right. + +So he said, now for the grand bulge! So the very next morning at the +streak of dawn we got another letter ready, and was wondering what we +better do with it, because we heard them say at supper they was going +to have a nigger on watch at both doors all night. Tom he went down the +lightning-rod to spy around; and the nigger at the back door was asleep, +and he stuck it in the back of his neck and come back. This letter +said: + +Don't betray me, I wish to be your friend. There is a desprate gang of +cutthroats from over in the Indian Territory going to steal your runaway +nigger to-night, and they have been trying to scare you so as you will +stay in the house and not bother them. I am one of the gang, but have +got religgion and wish to quit it and lead an honest life again, and +will betray the helish design. They will sneak down from northards, +along the fence, at midnight exact, with a false key, and go in the +nigger's cabin to get him. I am to be off a piece and blow a tin horn +if I see any danger; but stead of that I will _baa_ like a sheep soon as +they get in and not blow at all; then whilst they are getting his +chains loose, you slip there and lock them in, and can kill them at your +leasure. Don't do anything but just the way I am telling you, if you do +they will suspicion something and raise whoop-jamboreehoo. I do not wish +any reward but to know I have done the right thing. _Unknown Friend._ + + + + +CHAPTER XL. + +WE was feeling pretty good after breakfast, and took my canoe and went +over the river a-fishing, with a lunch, and had a good time, and took a +look at the raft and found her all right, and got home late to supper, +and found them in such a sweat and worry they didn't know which end they +was standing on, and made us go right off to bed the minute we was done +supper, and wouldn't tell us what the trouble was, and never let on a +word about the new letter, but didn't need to, because we knowed as much +about it as anybody did, and as soon as we was half up stairs and her +back was turned we slid for the cellar cupboard and loaded up a good +lunch and took it up to our room and went to bed, and got up about +half-past eleven, and Tom put on Aunt Sally's dress that he stole and +was going to start with the lunch, but says: + +"Where's the butter?" + +"I laid out a hunk of it," I says, "on a piece of a corn-pone." + +"Well, you _left_ it laid out, then--it ain't here." + +"We can get along without it," I says. + +"We can get along _with_ it, too," he says; "just you slide down cellar +and fetch it. And then mosey right down the lightning-rod and come +along. I'll go and stuff the straw into Jim's clothes to represent his +mother in disguise, and be ready to _baa_ like a sheep and shove soon as +you get there." + +So out he went, and down cellar went I. The hunk of butter, big as +a person's fist, was where I had left it, so I took up the slab of +corn-pone with it on, and blowed out my light, and started up stairs +very stealthy, and got up to the main floor all right, but here comes +Aunt Sally with a candle, and I clapped the truck in my hat, and clapped +my hat on my head, and the next second she see me; and she says: + +"You been down cellar?" + +"Yes'm." + +"What you been doing down there?" + +"Noth'n." + +"_Noth'n!_" + +"No'm." + +"Well, then, what possessed you to go down there this time of night?" + +"I don't know 'm." + +"You don't _know_? Don't answer me that way. Tom, I want to know what +you been _doing_ down there." + +"I hain't been doing a single thing, Aunt Sally, I hope to gracious if I +have." + +I reckoned she'd let me go now, and as a generl thing she would; but I +s'pose there was so many strange things going on she was just in a sweat +about every little thing that warn't yard-stick straight; so she says, +very decided: + +"You just march into that setting-room and stay there till I come. You +been up to something you no business to, and I lay I'll find out what it +is before I'M done with you." + +So she went away as I opened the door and walked into the setting-room. +My, but there was a crowd there! Fifteen farmers, and every one of them +had a gun. I was most powerful sick, and slunk to a chair and set down. +They was setting around, some of them talking a little, in a low voice, +and all of them fidgety and uneasy, but trying to look like they warn't; +but I knowed they was, because they was always taking off their hats, +and putting them on, and scratching their heads, and changing their +seats, and fumbling with their buttons. I warn't easy myself, but I +didn't take my hat off, all the same. + +I did wish Aunt Sally would come, and get done with me, and lick me, if +she wanted to, and let me get away and tell Tom how we'd overdone this +thing, and what a thundering hornet's-nest we'd got ourselves into, so +we could stop fooling around straight off, and clear out with Jim before +these rips got out of patience and come for us. + +At last she come and begun to ask me questions, but I _couldn't_ answer +them straight, I didn't know which end of me was up; because these men +was in such a fidget now that some was wanting to start right NOW and +lay for them desperadoes, and saying it warn't but a few minutes to +midnight; and others was trying to get them to hold on and wait for the +sheep-signal; and here was Aunty pegging away at the questions, and +me a-shaking all over and ready to sink down in my tracks I was +that scared; and the place getting hotter and hotter, and the butter +beginning to melt and run down my neck and behind my ears; and pretty +soon, when one of them says, "I'M for going and getting in the cabin +_first_ and right _now_, and catching them when they come," I most +dropped; and a streak of butter come a-trickling down my forehead, and +Aunt Sally she see it, and turns white as a sheet, and says: + +"For the land's sake, what _is_ the matter with the child? He's got the +brain-fever as shore as you're born, and they're oozing out!" + +And everybody runs to see, and she snatches off my hat, and out comes +the bread and what was left of the butter, and she grabbed me, and +hugged me, and says: + +"Oh, what a turn you did give me! and how glad and grateful I am it +ain't no worse; for luck's against us, and it never rains but it pours, +and when I see that truck I thought we'd lost you, for I knowed by +the color and all it was just like your brains would be if--Dear, +dear, whyd'nt you _tell_ me that was what you'd been down there for, I +wouldn't a cared. Now cler out to bed, and don't lemme see no more of +you till morning!" + +I was up stairs in a second, and down the lightning-rod in another one, +and shinning through the dark for the lean-to. I couldn't hardly get my +words out, I was so anxious; but I told Tom as quick as I could we must +jump for it now, and not a minute to lose--the house full of men, yonder, +with guns! + +His eyes just blazed; and he says: + +"No!--is that so? _ain't_ it bully! Why, Huck, if it was to do over +again, I bet I could fetch two hundred! If we could put it off till--" + +"Hurry! _Hurry_!" I says. "Where's Jim?" + +"Right at your elbow; if you reach out your arm you can touch him. + He's dressed, and everything's ready. Now we'll slide out and give the +sheep-signal." + +But then we heard the tramp of men coming to the door, and heard them +begin to fumble with the pad-lock, and heard a man say: + +"I _told_ you we'd be too soon; they haven't come--the door is locked. +Here, I'll lock some of you into the cabin, and you lay for 'em in the +dark and kill 'em when they come; and the rest scatter around a piece, +and listen if you can hear 'em coming." + +So in they come, but couldn't see us in the dark, and most trod on +us whilst we was hustling to get under the bed. But we got under all +right, and out through the hole, swift but soft--Jim first, me next, +and Tom last, which was according to Tom's orders. Now we was in the +lean-to, and heard trampings close by outside. So we crept to the door, +and Tom stopped us there and put his eye to the crack, but couldn't make +out nothing, it was so dark; and whispered and said he would listen +for the steps to get further, and when he nudged us Jim must glide out +first, and him last. So he set his ear to the crack and listened, and +listened, and listened, and the steps a-scraping around out there all +the time; and at last he nudged us, and we slid out, and stooped down, +not breathing, and not making the least noise, and slipped stealthy +towards the fence in Injun file, and got to it all right, and me and Jim +over it; but Tom's britches catched fast on a splinter on the top +rail, and then he hear the steps coming, so he had to pull loose, which +snapped the splinter and made a noise; and as he dropped in our tracks +and started somebody sings out: + +"Who's that? Answer, or I'll shoot!" + +But we didn't answer; we just unfurled our heels and shoved. Then there +was a rush, and a _Bang, Bang, Bang!_ and the bullets fairly whizzed +around us! We heard them sing out: + +"Here they are! They've broke for the river! After 'em, boys, and turn +loose the dogs!" + +So here they come, full tilt. We could hear them because they wore +boots and yelled, but we didn't wear no boots and didn't yell. We was +in the path to the mill; and when they got pretty close on to us we +dodged into the bush and let them go by, and then dropped in behind +them. They'd had all the dogs shut up, so they wouldn't scare off the +robbers; but by this time somebody had let them loose, and here they +come, making powwow enough for a million; but they was our dogs; so we +stopped in our tracks till they catched up; and when they see it warn't +nobody but us, and no excitement to offer them, they only just said +howdy, and tore right ahead towards the shouting and clattering; and +then we up-steam again, and whizzed along after them till we was nearly +to the mill, and then struck up through the bush to where my canoe was +tied, and hopped in and pulled for dear life towards the middle of the +river, but didn't make no more noise than we was obleeged to. Then we +struck out, easy and comfortable, for the island where my raft was; and +we could hear them yelling and barking at each other all up and down the +bank, till we was so far away the sounds got dim and died out. And when +we stepped on to the raft I says: + +"_Now_, old Jim, you're a free man again, and I bet you won't ever be a +slave no more." + +"En a mighty good job it wuz, too, Huck. It 'uz planned beautiful, en +it 'uz done beautiful; en dey ain't _nobody_ kin git up a plan dat's mo' +mixed-up en splendid den what dat one wuz." + +We was all glad as we could be, but Tom was the gladdest of all because +he had a bullet in the calf of his leg. + +When me and Jim heard that we didn't feel so brash as what we did +before. It was hurting him considerable, and bleeding; so we laid him in +the wigwam and tore up one of the duke's shirts for to bandage him, but +he says: + +"Gimme the rags; I can do it myself. Don't stop now; don't fool around +here, and the evasion booming along so handsome; man the sweeps, and set +her loose! Boys, we done it elegant!--'deed we did. I wish _we'd_ a +had the handling of Louis XVI., there wouldn't a been no 'Son of Saint +Louis, ascend to heaven!' wrote down in _his_ biography; no, sir, we'd +a whooped him over the _border_--that's what we'd a done with _him_--and +done it just as slick as nothing at all, too. Man the sweeps--man the +sweeps!" + +But me and Jim was consulting--and thinking. And after we'd thought a +minute, I says: + +"Say it, Jim." + +So he says: + +"Well, den, dis is de way it look to me, Huck. Ef it wuz _him_ dat 'uz +bein' sot free, en one er de boys wuz to git shot, would he say, 'Go on +en save me, nemmine 'bout a doctor f'r to save dis one?' Is dat like +Mars Tom Sawyer? Would he say dat? You _bet_ he wouldn't! _well_, +den, is _Jim_ gywne to say it? No, sah--I doan' budge a step out'n dis +place 'dout a _doctor_, not if it's forty year!" + +I knowed he was white inside, and I reckoned he'd say what he did say--so +it was all right now, and I told Tom I was a-going for a doctor. + He raised considerable row about it, but me and Jim stuck to it and +wouldn't budge; so he was for crawling out and setting the raft loose +himself; but we wouldn't let him. Then he give us a piece of his mind, +but it didn't do no good. + +So when he sees me getting the canoe ready, he says: + +"Well, then, if you're bound to go, I'll tell you the way to do when you +get to the village. Shut the door and blindfold the doctor tight and +fast, and make him swear to be silent as the grave, and put a purse +full of gold in his hand, and then take and lead him all around the +back alleys and everywheres in the dark, and then fetch him here in the +canoe, in a roundabout way amongst the islands, and search him and take +his chalk away from him, and don't give it back to him till you get him +back to the village, or else he will chalk this raft so he can find it +again. It's the way they all do." + +So I said I would, and left, and Jim was to hide in the woods when he +see the doctor coming till he was gone again. + + + + +CHAPTER XLI. + +THE doctor was an old man; a very nice, kind-looking old man when I got +him up. I told him me and my brother was over on Spanish Island hunting +yesterday afternoon, and camped on a piece of a raft we found, and about +midnight he must a kicked his gun in his dreams, for it went off and +shot him in the leg, and we wanted him to go over there and fix it and +not say nothing about it, nor let anybody know, because we wanted to +come home this evening and surprise the folks. + +"Who is your folks?" he says. + +"The Phelpses, down yonder." + +"Oh," he says. And after a minute, he says: + +"How'd you say he got shot?" + +"He had a dream," I says, "and it shot him." + +"Singular dream," he says. + +So he lit up his lantern, and got his saddle-bags, and we started. But +when he sees the canoe he didn't like the look of her--said she was big +enough for one, but didn't look pretty safe for two. I says: + +"Oh, you needn't be afeard, sir, she carried the three of us easy +enough." + +"What three?" + +"Why, me and Sid, and--and--and _the guns_; that's what I mean." + +"Oh," he says. + +But he put his foot on the gunnel and rocked her, and shook his head, +and said he reckoned he'd look around for a bigger one. But they was +all locked and chained; so he took my canoe, and said for me to wait +till he come back, or I could hunt around further, or maybe I better +go down home and get them ready for the surprise if I wanted to. But +I said I didn't; so I told him just how to find the raft, and then he +started. + +I struck an idea pretty soon. I says to myself, spos'n he can't fix +that leg just in three shakes of a sheep's tail, as the saying is? +spos'n it takes him three or four days? What are we going to do?--lay +around there till he lets the cat out of the bag? No, sir; I know what +_I'll_ do. I'll wait, and when he comes back if he says he's got to +go any more I'll get down there, too, if I swim; and we'll take and tie +him, and keep him, and shove out down the river; and when Tom's done +with him we'll give him what it's worth, or all we got, and then let him +get ashore. + +So then I crept into a lumber-pile to get some sleep; and next time I +waked up the sun was away up over my head! I shot out and went for the +doctor's house, but they told me he'd gone away in the night some time +or other, and warn't back yet. Well, thinks I, that looks powerful bad +for Tom, and I'll dig out for the island right off. So away I shoved, +and turned the corner, and nearly rammed my head into Uncle Silas's +stomach! He says: + +"Why, _Tom!_ Where you been all this time, you rascal?" + +"I hain't been nowheres," I says, "only just hunting for the runaway +nigger--me and Sid." + +"Why, where ever did you go?" he says. "Your aunt's been mighty +uneasy." + +"She needn't," I says, "because we was all right. We followed the men +and the dogs, but they outrun us, and we lost them; but we thought we +heard them on the water, so we got a canoe and took out after them and +crossed over, but couldn't find nothing of them; so we cruised along +up-shore till we got kind of tired and beat out; and tied up the canoe +and went to sleep, and never waked up till about an hour ago; then we +paddled over here to hear the news, and Sid's at the post-office to see +what he can hear, and I'm a-branching out to get something to eat for +us, and then we're going home." + +So then we went to the post-office to get "Sid"; but just as I +suspicioned, he warn't there; so the old man he got a letter out of the +office, and we waited awhile longer, but Sid didn't come; so the old man +said, come along, let Sid foot it home, or canoe it, when he got done +fooling around--but we would ride. I couldn't get him to let me stay +and wait for Sid; and he said there warn't no use in it, and I must come +along, and let Aunt Sally see we was all right. + +When we got home Aunt Sally was that glad to see me she laughed and +cried both, and hugged me, and give me one of them lickings of hern that +don't amount to shucks, and said she'd serve Sid the same when he come. + +And the place was plum full of farmers and farmers' wives, to dinner; +and such another clack a body never heard. Old Mrs. Hotchkiss was the +worst; her tongue was a-going all the time. She says: + +"Well, Sister Phelps, I've ransacked that-air cabin over, an' I b'lieve +the nigger was crazy. I says to Sister Damrell--didn't I, Sister +Damrell?--s'I, he's crazy, s'I--them's the very words I said. You all +hearn me: he's crazy, s'I; everything shows it, s'I. Look at that-air +grindstone, s'I; want to tell _me_'t any cretur 't's in his right mind +'s a goin' to scrabble all them crazy things onto a grindstone, s'I? + Here sich 'n' sich a person busted his heart; 'n' here so 'n' so +pegged along for thirty-seven year, 'n' all that--natcherl son o' Louis +somebody, 'n' sich everlast'n rubbage. He's plumb crazy, s'I; it's what +I says in the fust place, it's what I says in the middle, 'n' it's what +I says last 'n' all the time--the nigger's crazy--crazy 's Nebokoodneezer, +s'I." + +"An' look at that-air ladder made out'n rags, Sister Hotchkiss," says +old Mrs. Damrell; "what in the name o' goodness _could_ he ever want +of--" + +"The very words I was a-sayin' no longer ago th'n this minute to Sister +Utterback, 'n' she'll tell you so herself. Sh-she, look at that-air rag +ladder, sh-she; 'n' s'I, yes, _look_ at it, s'I--what _could_ he a-wanted +of it, s'I. Sh-she, Sister Hotchkiss, sh-she--" + +"But how in the nation'd they ever _git_ that grindstone _in_ there, +_anyway_? 'n' who dug that-air _hole_? 'n' who--" + +"My very _words_, Brer Penrod! I was a-sayin'--pass that-air sasser o' +m'lasses, won't ye?--I was a-sayin' to Sister Dunlap, jist this minute, +how _did_ they git that grindstone in there, s'I. Without _help_, mind +you--'thout _help_! _that's_ wher 'tis. Don't tell _me_, s'I; there +_wuz_ help, s'I; 'n' ther' wuz a _plenty_ help, too, s'I; ther's ben a +_dozen_ a-helpin' that nigger, 'n' I lay I'd skin every last nigger on +this place but _I'd_ find out who done it, s'I; 'n' moreover, s'I--" + +"A _dozen_ says you!--_forty_ couldn't a done every thing that's been +done. Look at them case-knife saws and things, how tedious they've been +made; look at that bed-leg sawed off with 'm, a week's work for six men; +look at that nigger made out'n straw on the bed; and look at--" + +"You may _well_ say it, Brer Hightower! It's jist as I was a-sayin' +to Brer Phelps, his own self. S'e, what do _you_ think of it, Sister +Hotchkiss, s'e? Think o' what, Brer Phelps, s'I? Think o' that bed-leg +sawed off that a way, s'e? _think_ of it, s'I? I lay it never sawed +_itself_ off, s'I--somebody _sawed_ it, s'I; that's my opinion, take it +or leave it, it mayn't be no 'count, s'I, but sich as 't is, it's my +opinion, s'I, 'n' if any body k'n start a better one, s'I, let him _do_ +it, s'I, that's all. I says to Sister Dunlap, s'I--" + +"Why, dog my cats, they must a ben a house-full o' niggers in there +every night for four weeks to a done all that work, Sister Phelps. Look +at that shirt--every last inch of it kivered over with secret African +writ'n done with blood! Must a ben a raft uv 'm at it right along, all +the time, amost. Why, I'd give two dollars to have it read to me; 'n' +as for the niggers that wrote it, I 'low I'd take 'n' lash 'm t'll--" + +"People to _help_ him, Brother Marples! Well, I reckon you'd _think_ +so if you'd a been in this house for a while back. Why, they've stole +everything they could lay their hands on--and we a-watching all the time, +mind you. They stole that shirt right off o' the line! and as for that +sheet they made the rag ladder out of, ther' ain't no telling how +many times they _didn't_ steal that; and flour, and candles, and +candlesticks, and spoons, and the old warming-pan, and most a thousand +things that I disremember now, and my new calico dress; and me and +Silas and my Sid and Tom on the constant watch day _and_ night, as I was +a-telling you, and not a one of us could catch hide nor hair nor sight +nor sound of them; and here at the last minute, lo and behold you, they +slides right in under our noses and fools us, and not only fools _us_ +but the Injun Territory robbers too, and actuly gets _away_ with that +nigger safe and sound, and that with sixteen men and twenty-two dogs +right on their very heels at that very time! I tell you, it just bangs +anything I ever _heard_ of. Why, _sperits_ couldn't a done better and +been no smarter. And I reckon they must a _been_ sperits--because, _you_ +know our dogs, and ther' ain't no better; well, them dogs never even got +on the _track_ of 'm once! You explain _that_ to me if you can!--_any_ +of you!" + +"Well, it does beat--" + +"Laws alive, I never--" + +"So help me, I wouldn't a be--" + +"_House_-thieves as well as--" + +"Goodnessgracioussakes, I'd a ben afeard to live in sich a--" + +"'Fraid to _live_!--why, I was that scared I dasn't hardly go to bed, or +get up, or lay down, or _set_ down, Sister Ridgeway. Why, they'd steal +the very--why, goodness sakes, you can guess what kind of a fluster I was +in by the time midnight come last night. I hope to gracious if I warn't +afraid they'd steal some o' the family! I was just to that pass I +didn't have no reasoning faculties no more. It looks foolish enough +_now_, in the daytime; but I says to myself, there's my two poor boys +asleep, 'way up stairs in that lonesome room, and I declare to goodness +I was that uneasy 't I crep' up there and locked 'em in! I _did_. And +anybody would. Because, you know, when you get scared that way, and it +keeps running on, and getting worse and worse all the time, and your +wits gets to addling, and you get to doing all sorts o' wild things, +and by and by you think to yourself, spos'n I was a boy, and was away up +there, and the door ain't locked, and you--" She stopped, looking kind +of wondering, and then she turned her head around slow, and when her eye +lit on me--I got up and took a walk. + +Says I to myself, I can explain better how we come to not be in that +room this morning if I go out to one side and study over it a little. + So I done it. But I dasn't go fur, or she'd a sent for me. And when +it was late in the day the people all went, and then I come in and +told her the noise and shooting waked up me and "Sid," and the door was +locked, and we wanted to see the fun, so we went down the lightning-rod, +and both of us got hurt a little, and we didn't never want to try _that_ +no more. And then I went on and told her all what I told Uncle Silas +before; and then she said she'd forgive us, and maybe it was all right +enough anyway, and about what a body might expect of boys, for all boys +was a pretty harum-scarum lot as fur as she could see; and so, as long +as no harm hadn't come of it, she judged she better put in her time +being grateful we was alive and well and she had us still, stead of +fretting over what was past and done. So then she kissed me, and patted +me on the head, and dropped into a kind of a brown study; and pretty +soon jumps up, and says: + +"Why, lawsamercy, it's most night, and Sid not come yet! What _has_ +become of that boy?" + +I see my chance; so I skips up and says: + +"I'll run right up to town and get him," I says. + +"No you won't," she says. "You'll stay right wher' you are; _one's_ +enough to be lost at a time. If he ain't here to supper, your uncle 'll +go." + +Well, he warn't there to supper; so right after supper uncle went. + +He come back about ten a little bit uneasy; hadn't run across Tom's +track. Aunt Sally was a good _deal_ uneasy; but Uncle Silas he said +there warn't no occasion to be--boys will be boys, he said, and you'll +see this one turn up in the morning all sound and right. So she had +to be satisfied. But she said she'd set up for him a while anyway, and +keep a light burning so he could see it. + +And then when I went up to bed she come up with me and fetched her +candle, and tucked me in, and mothered me so good I felt mean, and like +I couldn't look her in the face; and she set down on the bed and talked +with me a long time, and said what a splendid boy Sid was, and didn't +seem to want to ever stop talking about him; and kept asking me every +now and then if I reckoned he could a got lost, or hurt, or maybe +drownded, and might be laying at this minute somewheres suffering or +dead, and she not by him to help him, and so the tears would drip down +silent, and I would tell her that Sid was all right, and would be home +in the morning, sure; and she would squeeze my hand, or maybe kiss me, +and tell me to say it again, and keep on saying it, because it done her +good, and she was in so much trouble. And when she was going away she +looked down in my eyes so steady and gentle, and says: + +"The door ain't going to be locked, Tom, and there's the window and +the rod; but you'll be good, _won't_ you? And you won't go? For _my_ +sake." + +Laws knows I _wanted_ to go bad enough to see about Tom, and was all +intending to go; but after that I wouldn't a went, not for kingdoms. + +But she was on my mind and Tom was on my mind, so I slept very restless. +And twice I went down the rod away in the night, and slipped around +front, and see her setting there by her candle in the window with her +eyes towards the road and the tears in them; and I wished I could do +something for her, but I couldn't, only to swear that I wouldn't never +do nothing to grieve her any more. And the third time I waked up at +dawn, and slid down, and she was there yet, and her candle was most out, +and her old gray head was resting on her hand, and she was asleep. + + + + +CHAPTER XLII. + +THE old man was uptown again before breakfast, but couldn't get no +track of Tom; and both of them set at the table thinking, and not saying +nothing, and looking mournful, and their coffee getting cold, and not +eating anything. And by and by the old man says: + +"Did I give you the letter?" + +"What letter?" + +"The one I got yesterday out of the post-office." + +"No, you didn't give me no letter." + +"Well, I must a forgot it." + +So he rummaged his pockets, and then went off somewheres where he had +laid it down, and fetched it, and give it to her. She says: + +"Why, it's from St. Petersburg--it's from Sis." + +I allowed another walk would do me good; but I couldn't stir. But +before she could break it open she dropped it and run--for she see +something. And so did I. It was Tom Sawyer on a mattress; and that old +doctor; and Jim, in _her_ calico dress, with his hands tied behind him; +and a lot of people. I hid the letter behind the first thing that come +handy, and rushed. She flung herself at Tom, crying, and says: + +"Oh, he's dead, he's dead, I know he's dead!" + +And Tom he turned his head a little, and muttered something or other, +which showed he warn't in his right mind; then she flung up her hands, +and says: + +"He's alive, thank God! And that's enough!" and she snatched a kiss of +him, and flew for the house to get the bed ready, and scattering orders +right and left at the niggers and everybody else, as fast as her tongue +could go, every jump of the way. + +I followed the men to see what they was going to do with Jim; and the +old doctor and Uncle Silas followed after Tom into the house. The men +was very huffy, and some of them wanted to hang Jim for an example to +all the other niggers around there, so they wouldn't be trying to run +away like Jim done, and making such a raft of trouble, and keeping a +whole family scared most to death for days and nights. But the others +said, don't do it, it wouldn't answer at all; he ain't our nigger, and +his owner would turn up and make us pay for him, sure. So that cooled +them down a little, because the people that's always the most anxious +for to hang a nigger that hain't done just right is always the very +ones that ain't the most anxious to pay for him when they've got their +satisfaction out of him. + +They cussed Jim considerble, though, and give him a cuff or two side the +head once in a while, but Jim never said nothing, and he never let on to +know me, and they took him to the same cabin, and put his own clothes +on him, and chained him again, and not to no bed-leg this time, but to +a big staple drove into the bottom log, and chained his hands, too, and +both legs, and said he warn't to have nothing but bread and water to +eat after this till his owner come, or he was sold at auction because +he didn't come in a certain length of time, and filled up our hole, and +said a couple of farmers with guns must stand watch around about the +cabin every night, and a bulldog tied to the door in the daytime; and +about this time they was through with the job and was tapering off with +a kind of generl good-bye cussing, and then the old doctor comes and +takes a look, and says: + +"Don't be no rougher on him than you're obleeged to, because he ain't +a bad nigger. When I got to where I found the boy I see I couldn't cut +the bullet out without some help, and he warn't in no condition for +me to leave to go and get help; and he got a little worse and a little +worse, and after a long time he went out of his head, and wouldn't let +me come a-nigh him any more, and said if I chalked his raft he'd kill +me, and no end of wild foolishness like that, and I see I couldn't do +anything at all with him; so I says, I got to have _help_ somehow; and +the minute I says it out crawls this nigger from somewheres and says +he'll help, and he done it, too, and done it very well. Of course I +judged he must be a runaway nigger, and there I _was_! and there I had +to stick right straight along all the rest of the day and all night. It +was a fix, I tell you! I had a couple of patients with the chills, and +of course I'd of liked to run up to town and see them, but I dasn't, +because the nigger might get away, and then I'd be to blame; and yet +never a skiff come close enough for me to hail. So there I had to stick +plumb until daylight this morning; and I never see a nigger that was a +better nuss or faithfuller, and yet he was risking his freedom to do it, +and was all tired out, too, and I see plain enough he'd been worked +main hard lately. I liked the nigger for that; I tell you, gentlemen, a +nigger like that is worth a thousand dollars--and kind treatment, too. I +had everything I needed, and the boy was doing as well there as he +would a done at home--better, maybe, because it was so quiet; but there I +_was_, with both of 'm on my hands, and there I had to stick till about +dawn this morning; then some men in a skiff come by, and as good luck +would have it the nigger was setting by the pallet with his head propped +on his knees sound asleep; so I motioned them in quiet, and they slipped +up on him and grabbed him and tied him before he knowed what he was +about, and we never had no trouble. And the boy being in a kind of a +flighty sleep, too, we muffled the oars and hitched the raft on, and +towed her over very nice and quiet, and the nigger never made the least +row nor said a word from the start. He ain't no bad nigger, gentlemen; +that's what I think about him." + +Somebody says: + +"Well, it sounds very good, doctor, I'm obleeged to say." + +Then the others softened up a little, too, and I was mighty thankful +to that old doctor for doing Jim that good turn; and I was glad it was +according to my judgment of him, too; because I thought he had a good +heart in him and was a good man the first time I see him. Then they +all agreed that Jim had acted very well, and was deserving to have some +notice took of it, and reward. So every one of them promised, right out +and hearty, that they wouldn't cuss him no more. + +Then they come out and locked him up. I hoped they was going to say he +could have one or two of the chains took off, because they was rotten +heavy, or could have meat and greens with his bread and water; but they +didn't think of it, and I reckoned it warn't best for me to mix in, but +I judged I'd get the doctor's yarn to Aunt Sally somehow or other as +soon as I'd got through the breakers that was laying just ahead of +me--explanations, I mean, of how I forgot to mention about Sid being shot +when I was telling how him and me put in that dratted night paddling +around hunting the runaway nigger. + +But I had plenty time. Aunt Sally she stuck to the sick-room all day +and all night, and every time I see Uncle Silas mooning around I dodged +him. + +Next morning I heard Tom was a good deal better, and they said Aunt +Sally was gone to get a nap. So I slips to the sick-room, and if I +found him awake I reckoned we could put up a yarn for the family that +would wash. But he was sleeping, and sleeping very peaceful, too; and +pale, not fire-faced the way he was when he come. So I set down and +laid for him to wake. In about half an hour Aunt Sally comes gliding +in, and there I was, up a stump again! She motioned me to be still, and +set down by me, and begun to whisper, and said we could all be joyful +now, because all the symptoms was first-rate, and he'd been sleeping +like that for ever so long, and looking better and peacefuller all the +time, and ten to one he'd wake up in his right mind. + +So we set there watching, and by and by he stirs a bit, and opened his +eyes very natural, and takes a look, and says: + +"Hello!--why, I'm at _home_! How's that? Where's the raft?" + +"It's all right," I says. + +"And _Jim_?" + +"The same," I says, but couldn't say it pretty brash. But he never +noticed, but says: + +"Good! Splendid! _Now_ we're all right and safe! Did you tell Aunty?" + +I was going to say yes; but she chipped in and says: "About what, Sid?" + +"Why, about the way the whole thing was done." + +"What whole thing?" + +"Why, _the_ whole thing. There ain't but one; how we set the runaway +nigger free--me and Tom." + +"Good land! Set the run--What _is_ the child talking about! Dear, dear, +out of his head again!" + +"_No_, I ain't out of my _head_; I know all what I'm talking about. We +_did_ set him free--me and Tom. We laid out to do it, and we _done_ it. + And we done it elegant, too." He'd got a start, and she never checked +him up, just set and stared and stared, and let him clip along, and +I see it warn't no use for _me_ to put in. "Why, Aunty, it cost us a +power of work--weeks of it--hours and hours, every night, whilst you was +all asleep. And we had to steal candles, and the sheet, and the shirt, +and your dress, and spoons, and tin plates, and case-knives, and the +warming-pan, and the grindstone, and flour, and just no end of things, +and you can't think what work it was to make the saws, and pens, and +inscriptions, and one thing or another, and you can't think _half_ the +fun it was. And we had to make up the pictures of coffins and things, +and nonnamous letters from the robbers, and get up and down the +lightning-rod, and dig the hole into the cabin, and made the rope ladder +and send it in cooked up in a pie, and send in spoons and things to work +with in your apron pocket--" + +"Mercy sakes!" + +"--and load up the cabin with rats and snakes and so on, for company for +Jim; and then you kept Tom here so long with the butter in his hat that +you come near spiling the whole business, because the men come before +we was out of the cabin, and we had to rush, and they heard us and let +drive at us, and I got my share, and we dodged out of the path and let +them go by, and when the dogs come they warn't interested in us, but +went for the most noise, and we got our canoe, and made for the +raft, and was all safe, and Jim was a free man, and we done it all by +ourselves, and _wasn't_ it bully, Aunty!" + +"Well, I never heard the likes of it in all my born days! So it was +_you_, you little rapscallions, that's been making all this trouble, +and turned everybody's wits clean inside out and scared us all most to +death. I've as good a notion as ever I had in my life to take it out +o' you this very minute. To think, here I've been, night after night, +a--_you_ just get well once, you young scamp, and I lay I'll tan the Old +Harry out o' both o' ye!" + +But Tom, he _was_ so proud and joyful, he just _couldn't_ hold in, +and his tongue just _went_ it--she a-chipping in, and spitting fire all +along, and both of them going it at once, like a cat convention; and she +says: + +"_Well_, you get all the enjoyment you can out of it _now_, for mind I +tell you if I catch you meddling with him again--" + +"Meddling with _who_?" Tom says, dropping his smile and looking +surprised. + +"With _who_? Why, the runaway nigger, of course. Who'd you reckon?" + +Tom looks at me very grave, and says: + +"Tom, didn't you just tell me he was all right? Hasn't he got away?" + +"_Him_?" says Aunt Sally; "the runaway nigger? 'Deed he hasn't. + They've got him back, safe and sound, and he's in that cabin again, +on bread and water, and loaded down with chains, till he's claimed or +sold!" + +Tom rose square up in bed, with his eye hot, and his nostrils opening +and shutting like gills, and sings out to me: + +"They hain't no _right_ to shut him up! SHOVE!--and don't you lose a +minute. Turn him loose! he ain't no slave; he's as free as any cretur +that walks this earth!" + +"What _does_ the child mean?" + +"I mean every word I _say_, Aunt Sally, and if somebody don't go, _I'll_ +go. I've knowed him all his life, and so has Tom, there. Old Miss +Watson died two months ago, and she was ashamed she ever was going to +sell him down the river, and _said_ so; and she set him free in her +will." + +"Then what on earth did _you_ want to set him free for, seeing he was +already free?" + +"Well, that _is_ a question, I must say; and just like women! Why, +I wanted the _adventure_ of it; and I'd a waded neck-deep in blood +to--goodness alive, _Aunt Polly!_" + +If she warn't standing right there, just inside the door, looking as +sweet and contented as an angel half full of pie, I wish I may never! + +Aunt Sally jumped for her, and most hugged the head off of her, and +cried over her, and I found a good enough place for me under the bed, +for it was getting pretty sultry for us, seemed to me. And I peeped +out, and in a little while Tom's Aunt Polly shook herself loose and +stood there looking across at Tom over her spectacles--kind of grinding +him into the earth, you know. And then she says: + +"Yes, you _better_ turn y'r head away--I would if I was you, Tom." + +"Oh, deary me!" says Aunt Sally; "_Is_ he changed so? Why, that ain't +_Tom_, it's Sid; Tom's--Tom's--why, where is Tom? He was here a minute +ago." + +"You mean where's Huck _Finn_--that's what you mean! I reckon I hain't +raised such a scamp as my Tom all these years not to know him when I +_see_ him. That _would_ be a pretty howdy-do. Come out from under that +bed, Huck Finn." + +So I done it. But not feeling brash. + +Aunt Sally she was one of the mixed-upest-looking persons I ever +see--except one, and that was Uncle Silas, when he come in and they told +it all to him. It kind of made him drunk, as you may say, and he didn't +know nothing at all the rest of the day, and preached a prayer-meeting +sermon that night that gave him a rattling ruputation, because the +oldest man in the world couldn't a understood it. So Tom's Aunt Polly, +she told all about who I was, and what; and I had to up and tell how +I was in such a tight place that when Mrs. Phelps took me for Tom +Sawyer--she chipped in and says, "Oh, go on and call me Aunt Sally, I'm +used to it now, and 'tain't no need to change"--that when Aunt Sally took +me for Tom Sawyer I had to stand it--there warn't no other way, and +I knowed he wouldn't mind, because it would be nuts for him, being +a mystery, and he'd make an adventure out of it, and be perfectly +satisfied. And so it turned out, and he let on to be Sid, and made +things as soft as he could for me. + +And his Aunt Polly she said Tom was right about old Miss Watson setting +Jim free in her will; and so, sure enough, Tom Sawyer had gone and took +all that trouble and bother to set a free nigger free! and I couldn't +ever understand before, until that minute and that talk, how he _could_ +help a body set a nigger free with his bringing-up. + +Well, Aunt Polly she said that when Aunt Sally wrote to her that Tom and +_Sid_ had come all right and safe, she says to herself: + +"Look at that, now! I might have expected it, letting him go off that +way without anybody to watch him. So now I got to go and trapse all +the way down the river, eleven hundred mile, and find out what that +creetur's up to _this_ time, as long as I couldn't seem to get any +answer out of you about it." + +"Why, I never heard nothing from you," says Aunt Sally. + +"Well, I wonder! Why, I wrote you twice to ask you what you could mean +by Sid being here." + +"Well, I never got 'em, Sis." + +Aunt Polly she turns around slow and severe, and says: + +"You, Tom!" + +"Well--_what_?" he says, kind of pettish. + +"Don't you what _me_, you impudent thing--hand out them letters." + +"What letters?" + +"_Them_ letters. I be bound, if I have to take a-holt of you I'll--" + +"They're in the trunk. There, now. And they're just the same as they +was when I got them out of the office. I hain't looked into them, I +hain't touched them. But I knowed they'd make trouble, and I thought if +you warn't in no hurry, I'd--" + +"Well, you _do_ need skinning, there ain't no mistake about it. And I +wrote another one to tell you I was coming; and I s'pose he--" + +"No, it come yesterday; I hain't read it yet, but _it's_ all right, I've +got that one." + +I wanted to offer to bet two dollars she hadn't, but I reckoned maybe it +was just as safe to not to. So I never said nothing. + + + + +CHAPTER THE LAST + +THE first time I catched Tom private I asked him what was his idea, time +of the evasion?--what it was he'd planned to do if the evasion worked all +right and he managed to set a nigger free that was already free before? +And he said, what he had planned in his head from the start, if we got +Jim out all safe, was for us to run him down the river on the raft, and +have adventures plumb to the mouth of the river, and then tell him about +his being free, and take him back up home on a steamboat, in style, +and pay him for his lost time, and write word ahead and get out all +the niggers around, and have them waltz him into town with a torchlight +procession and a brass-band, and then he would be a hero, and so would +we. But I reckoned it was about as well the way it was. + +We had Jim out of the chains in no time, and when Aunt Polly and Uncle +Silas and Aunt Sally found out how good he helped the doctor nurse Tom, +they made a heap of fuss over him, and fixed him up prime, and give him +all he wanted to eat, and a good time, and nothing to do. And we had +him up to the sick-room, and had a high talk; and Tom give Jim forty +dollars for being prisoner for us so patient, and doing it up so good, +and Jim was pleased most to death, and busted out, and says: + +"Dah, now, Huck, what I tell you?--what I tell you up dah on Jackson +islan'? I _tole_ you I got a hairy breas', en what's de sign un it; en +I _tole_ you I ben rich wunst, en gwineter to be rich _agin_; en it's +come true; en heah she is! _dah_, now! doan' talk to _me_--signs is +_signs_, mine I tell you; en I knowed jis' 's well 'at I 'uz gwineter be +rich agin as I's a-stannin' heah dis minute!" + +And then Tom he talked along and talked along, and says, le's all three +slide out of here one of these nights and get an outfit, and go for +howling adventures amongst the Injuns, over in the Territory, for a +couple of weeks or two; and I says, all right, that suits me, but I +ain't got no money for to buy the outfit, and I reckon I couldn't get +none from home, because it's likely pap's been back before now, and got +it all away from Judge Thatcher and drunk it up. + +"No, he hain't," Tom says; "it's all there yet--six thousand dollars +and more; and your pap hain't ever been back since. Hadn't when I come +away, anyhow." + +Jim says, kind of solemn: + +"He ain't a-comin' back no mo', Huck." + +I says: + +"Why, Jim?" + +"Nemmine why, Huck--but he ain't comin' back no mo." + +But I kept at him; so at last he says: + +"Doan' you 'member de house dat was float'n down de river, en dey wuz a +man in dah, kivered up, en I went in en unkivered him and didn' let you +come in? Well, den, you kin git yo' money when you wants it, kase dat +wuz him." + +Tom's most well now, and got his bullet around his neck on a watch-guard +for a watch, and is always seeing what time it is, and so there ain't +nothing more to write about, and I am rotten glad of it, because if I'd +a knowed what a trouble it was to make a book I wouldn't a tackled it, +and ain't a-going to no more. But I reckon I got to light out for the +Territory ahead of the rest, because Aunt Sally she's going to adopt me +and sivilize me, and I can't stand it. I been there before. + +THE END. YOURS TRULY, _HUCK FINN_. + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, +Complete, by Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens) + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK HUCKLEBERRY FINN *** + +***** This file should be named 76-h.htm or 76-h.zip ***** This and +all associated files of various formats will be found in: +http://www.gutenberg.net/7/76/ + +Produced by David Widger. Previous editions produced by Ron Burkey and +Internet Wiretap + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will be +renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no one +owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation (and +you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without permission +and without paying copyright royalties. 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Thus, we do not necessarily keep eBooks +in compliance with any particular paper edition. + +Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility: + +http://www.gutenberg.net + +This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm, including +how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive +Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to subscribe to +our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks. + diff --git a/src/main/pg-les_miserables.txt b/src/main/pg-les_miserables.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6c01d70 --- /dev/null +++ b/src/main/pg-les_miserables.txt @@ -0,0 +1,68116 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Les Miserables, by Victor Hugo + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Les Miserables + Complete in Five Volumes + +Author: Victor Hugo + +Translator: Isabel F. Hapgood + +Release Date: June 22, 2008 [EBook #135] +Last Updated: October 30, 2009 + +Language: English + + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LES MISERABLES *** + + + + +Produced by Judith Boss + + + + + +LES MISERABLES + +By Victor Hugo + + +Translated by Isabel F. Hapgood + +Thomas Y. Crowell & Co. +No. 13, Astor Place +New York + +Copyright 1887 + +[Illustration: Bookshelf 1spines] + +[Illustration: Bookcover 1cover] + +[Illustration: Frontpapers 1frontpapers] + +[Illustration: Frontispiece 1frontispiece] + +[Illustration: Titlepage Volume One 1titlepage] + +[Illustration: Titlepage Verso 1verso] + + + + +CONTENTS + + + VOLUME I + + BOOK FIRST.--A JUST MAN + + CHAPTER + I. M. Myriel + II. M. Myriel becomes M. Welcome + III. A Hard Bishopric for a Good Bishop + IV. Works corresponding to Words + V. Monseigneur Bienvenu made his Cassocks last too long + VI. Who guarded his House for him + VII. Cravatte + VIII. Philosophy after Drinking + IX. The Brother as depicted by the Sister + X. The Bishop in the Presence of an Unknown Light + XI. A Restriction + XII. The Solitude of Monseigneur Welcome + XIII. What he believed + XIV. What he thought + + BOOK SECOND.--THE FALL + + I. The Evening of a Day of Walking + II. Prudence counselled to Wisdom + III. The Heroism of Passive Obedience + IV. Details concerning the Cheese-Dairies of Pontarlier + V. Tranquillity + VI. Jean Valjean + VII. The Interior of Despair + VIII. Billows and Shadows + IX. New Troubles + X. The Man aroused + XI. What he does + XII. The Bishop works + XIII. Little Gervais + + BOOK THIRD.--IN THE YEAR 1817 + + I. The Year 1817 + II. A Double Quartette + III. Four and Four + IV. Tholomyes is so Merry that he sings a Spanish Ditty + V. At Bombardas + VI. A Chapter in which they adore Each Other + VII. The Wisdom of Tholomyes + VIII. The Death of a Horse + IX. A Merry End to Mirth + + BOOK FOURTH.--TO CONFIDE IS SOMETIMES TO DELIVER INTO A PERSON'S POWER + + I. One Mother meets Another Mother + II. First Sketch of Two Unprepossessing Figures + III. The Lark + + BOOK FIFTH.--THE DESCENT + + I. The History of a Progress in Black Glass Trinkets + II. Madeleine + III. Sums deposited with Laffitte + IV. M. Madeleine in Mourning + V. Vague Flashes on the Horizon + VI. Father Fauchelevent + VII. Fauchelevent becomes a Gardener in Paris + VIII. Madame Victurnien expends Thirty Francs on Morality + IX. Madame Victurnien's Success + X. Result of the Success + XI. Christus nos Liberavit + XII. M. Bamatabois's Inactivity + XIII. The Solution of Some Questions connected with the + Municipal Police + + BOOK SIXTH.--JAVERT + + I. The Beginning of Repose + II. How Jean may become Champ + + BOOK SEVENTH.--THE CHAMPMATHIEU AFFAIR + + I. Sister Simplice + II. The Perspicacity of Master Scaufflaire + III. A Tempest in a Skull + IV. Forms assumed by Suffering during Sleep + V. Hindrances + VI. Sister Simplice put to the Proof + VII. The Traveller on his Arrival takes Precautions + for Departure + VIII. An Entrance by Favor + IX. A Place where Convictions are in Process of Formation + X. The System of Denials + XI. Champmathieu more and more Astonished + + BOOK EIGHTH.--A COUNTER-BLOW + + I. In what Mirror M. Madeleine contemplates his Hair + II. Fantine Happy + III. Javert Satisfied + IV. Authority reasserts its Rights + V. A Suitable Tomb + + + + VOLUME II + + BOOK FIRST.--WATERLOO + + CHAPTER + I. What is met with on the Way from Nivelles + II. Hougomont + III. The Eighteenth of June, 1815 + IV. A + V. The Quid Obscurum of Battles + VI. Four o'clock in the Afternoon + VII. Napoleon in a Good Humor + VIII. The Emperor puts a Question to the Guide Lacoste + IX. The Unexpected + X. The Plateau of Mont-Saint-Jean + XI. A Bad Guide to Napoleon; a Good Guide to Bulow + XII. The Guard + XIII. The Catastrophe + XIV. The Last Square + XV. Cambronne + XVI. Quot Libras in Duce? + XVII. Is Waterloo to be considered Good? + XVIII. A Recrudescence of Divine Right + XIX. The Battle-Field at Night + + BOOK SECOND.--THE SHIP ORION + + I. Number 24,601 becomes Number 9,430 + II. In which the reader will peruse Two Verses which are + of the Devil's Composition possibly + III. The Ankle-Chain must have undergone a Certain Preparatory + Manipulation to be thus broken with a Blow from a Hammer + + BOOK THIRD.--ACCOMPLISHMENT OF THE PROMISE MADE TO THE DEAD WOMAN + + I. The Water Question at Montfermeil + II. Two Complete Portraits + III. Men must have Wine, and Horses must have Water + IV. Entrance on the Scene of a Doll + V. The Little One All Alone + VI. Which possibly proves Boulatruelle's Intelligence + VII. Cosette Side by Side with the Stranger in the Dark + VIII. The Unpleasantness of receiving into One's House a Poor + Man who may be a Rich Man + IX. Thenardier at his Manoeuvres + X. He who seeks to better himself may render his Situation Worse + XI. Number 9,430 reappears, and Cosette wins it in the Lottery + + BOOK FOURTH.--THE GORBEAU HOVEL + + I. Master Gorbeau + II. A Nest for Owl and a Warbler + III. Two Misfortunes make One Piece of Good Fortune + IV. The Remarks of the Principal Tenant + V. A Five-Franc Piece falls on the Ground and produces a Tumult + + BOOK FIFTH.--FOR A BLACK HUNT, A MUTE PACK + + I. The Zigzags of Strategy + II. It is Lucky that the Pont d'Austerlitz bears + Carriages + III. To Wit, the Plan of Paris in 1727 + IV. The Gropings of Flight + V. Which would be Impossible with Gas Lanterns + VI. The Beginning of an Enigma + VII. Continuation of the Enigma + VIII. The Enigma becomes Doubly Mysterious + IX. The Man with the Bell + X. Which explains how Javert got on the Scent + + BOOK SIXTH.--LE PETIT-PICPUS + + I. Number 62 Rue Petit-Picpus + II. The Obedience of Martin Verga + III. Austerities + IV. Gayeties + V. Distractions + VI. The Little Convent + VII. Some Silhouettes of this Darkness + VIII. Post Corda Lapides + IX. A Century under a Guimpe + X. Origin of the Perpetual Adoration + XI. End of the Petit-Picpus + + BOOK SEVENTH.--PARENTHESIS + + I. The Convent as an Abstract Idea + II. The Convent as an Historical Fact + III. On What Conditions One can respect the Past + IV. The Convent from the Point of View of Principles + V. Prayer + VI. The Absolute Goodness of Prayer + VII. Precautions to be observed in Blame + VIII. Faith, Law + + BOOK EIGHTH.--CEMETERIES TAKE THAT WHICH IS COMMITTED THEM + + I. Which treats of the Manner of entering a Convent + II. Fauchelevent in the Presence of a Difficulty + III. Mother Innocente + IV. In which Jean Valjean has quite the Air of having read + Austin Castillejo + V. It is not Necessary to be Drunk in order to be Immortal + VI. Between Four Planks + VII. In which will be found the Origin of the Saying: Don't + lose the Card + VIII. A Successful Interrogatory + IX. Cloistered + + + VOLUME III + + BOOK FIRST.--PARIS STUDIED IN ITS ATOM + + I. Parvulus + II. Some of his Particular Characteristics + III. He is Agreeable + IV. He may be of Use + V. His Frontiers + VI. A Bit of History + VII. The Gamin should have his Place in the Classifications + of India + VIII. In which the Reader will find a Charming Saying of the + Last King + IX. The Old Soul of Gaul + X. Ecce Paris, ecce Homo + XI. To Scoff, to Reign + XII. The Future Latent in the People + XIII. Little Gavroche + + BOOK SECOND.--THE GREAT BOURGEOIS + + I. Ninety Years and Thirty-two Teeth + II. Like Master, Like House + III. Luc-Esprit + IV. A Centenarian Aspirant + V. Basque and Nicolette + VI. In which Magnon and her Two Children are seen + VII. Rule: Receive No One except in the Evening + VIII. Two do not make a Pair + + BOOK THIRD.--THE GRANDFATHER AND THE GRANDSON + + I. An Ancient Salon + II. One of the Red Spectres of that Epoch + III. Requiescant + IV. End of the Brigand + V. The Utility of going to Mass, in order to become a + Revolutionist + VI. The Consequences of having met a Warden + VII. Some Petticoat + VIII. Marble against Granite + + BOOK FOURTH.--THE FRIENDS OF THE ABC + + I. A Group which barely missed becoming Historic + II. Blondeau's Funeral Oration by Bossuet + III. Marius' Astonishments + IV. The Back Room of the Cafe Musain + V. Enlargement of Horizon + VI. Res Angusta + + BOOK FIFTH.--THE EXCELLENCE OF MISFORTUNE + + I. Marius Indigent + II. Marius Poor + III. Marius Grown Up + IV. M. Mabeuf + V. Poverty a Good Neighbor for Misery + VI. The Substitute + + BOOK SIXTH.--THE CONJUNCTION OF TWO STARS + + I. The Sobriquet; Mode of Formation of Family Names + II. Lux Facta Est + III. Effect of the Spring + IV. Beginning of a Great Malady + V. Divers Claps of Thunder fall on Ma'am Bougon + VI. Taken Prisoner + VII. Adventures of the Letter U delivered over to Conjectures + VIII. The Veterans themselves can be Happy + IX. Eclipse + + BOOK SEVENTH.--PATRON MINETTE + + I. Mines and Miners + II. The Lowest Depths + III. Babet, Gueulemer, Claquesous, and Montparnasse + IV. Composition of the Troupe + + BOOK EIGHTH.--THE WICKED POOR MAN + + I. Marius, while seeking a Girl in a Bonnet encounters a + Man in a Cap + II. Treasure Trove + III. Quadrifrons + IV. A Rose in Misery + V. A Providential Peep-Hole + VI. The Wild Man in his Lair + VII. Strategy and Tactics + VIII. The Ray of Light in the Hovel + IX. Jondrette comes near Weeping + X. Tariff of Licensed Cabs, Two Francs an Hour + XI. Offers of Service from Misery to Wretchedness + XII. The Use made of M. Leblanc's Five-Franc Piece + XIII. Solus cum Solo, in Loco Remoto, non cogitabuntur + orare Pater Noster + XIV. In which a Police Agent bestows Two Fistfuls on a Lawyer + XV. Jondrette makes his Purchases + XVI. In which will be found the Words to an English Air + which was in Fashion in 1832 + XVII. The Use made of Marius' Five-Franc Piece + XVIII. Marius' Two Chairs form a Vis-a-Vis + XIX. Occupying One's Self with Obscure Depths + XX. The Trap + XXI. One should always begin by arresting the Victims + XXII. The Little One who was crying in Volume Two + + + + VOLUME IV + + BOOK FIRST.--A FEW PAGES OF HISTORY + + I. Well Cut + II. Badly Sewed + III. Louis Philippe + IV. Cracks beneath the Foundation + V. Facts whence History springs and which History ignores + VI. Enjolras and his Lieutenants + + BOOK SECOND.--EPONINE + + I. The Lark's Meadow + II. Embryonic Formation of Crimes in the Incubation of Prisons + III. Apparition to Father Mabeuf + IV. An Apparition to Marius + + BOOK THIRD.--THE HOUSE IN THE RUE PLUMET + + I. The House with a Secret + II. Jean Valjean as a National Guard + III. Foliis ac Frondibus + IV. Change of Gate + V. The Rose perceives that it is an Engine of War + VI. The Battle Begun + VII. To One Sadness oppose a Sadness and a Half + VIII. The Chain-Gang + + BOOK FOURTH.--SUCCOR FROM BELOW MAY TURN OUT TO BE SUCCOR FROM ON HIGH + + I. A Wound without, Healing within + II. Mother Plutarque finds no Difficulty in explaining a Phenomenon + + BOOK FIFTH.--THE END OF WHICH DOES NOT RESEMBLE THE BEGINNING + + I. Solitude and Barracks Combined + II. Cosette's Apprehensions + III. Enriched with Commentaries by Toussaint + IV. A Heart beneath a Stone + V. Cosette after the Letter + VI. Old People are made to go out opportunely + + BOOK SIXTH.--LITTLE GAVROCHE + + I. The Malicious Playfulness of the Wind + II. In which Little Gavroche extracts Profit from Napoleon the Great + III. The Vicissitudes of Flight + + BOOK SEVENTH.--SLANG + + I. Origin + II. Roots + III. Slang which weeps and Slang which laughs + IV. The Two Duties: To Watch and to Hope + + BOOK EIGHTH.--ENCHANTMENTS AND DESOLATIONS + + I. Full Light + II. The Bewilderment of Perfect Happiness + III. The Beginning of Shadow + IV. A Cab runs in English and barks in Slang + V. Things of the Night + VI. Marius becomes Practical once more to the Extent of + Giving Cosette his Address + VII. The Old Heart and the Young Heart in the Presence + of Each Other + + BOOK NINTH.--WHITHER ARE THEY GOING? + + I. Jean Valjean + II. Marius + III. M. Mabeuf + + BOOK TENTH.--THE 5TH OF JUNE, 1832 + + I. The Surface of the Question + II. The Root of the Matter + III. A Burial; an Occasion to be born again + IV. The Ebullitions of Former Days + V. Originality of Paris + + BOOK ELEVENTH.--THE ATOM FRATERNIZES WITH THE HURRICANE + + I. Some Explanations with Regard to the Origin of Gavroche's + Poetry. The Influence of an Academician on this Poetry + II. Gavroche on the March + III. Just Indignation of a Hair-dresser + IV. The Child is amazed at the Old Man + V. The Old Man + VI. Recruits + + BOOK TWELFTH.--CORINTHE + + I. History of Corinthe from its Foundation + II. Preliminary Gayeties + III. Night begins to descend upon Grantaire + IV. An Attempt to console the Widow Hucheloup + V. Preparations + VI. Waiting + VII. The Man recruited in the Rue des Billettes + VIII. Many Interrogation Points with Regard to a Certain + Le Cabuc, whose Name may not have been Le Cabuc + + BOOK THIRTEENTH.--MARIUS ENTERS THE SHADOW + + I. From the Rue Plumet to the Quartier Saint-Denis + II. An Owl's View of Paris + III. The Extreme Edge + + BOOK FOURTEENTH.--THE GRANDEURS OF DESPAIR + + I. The Flag: Act First + II. The Flag: Act Second + III. Gavroche would have done better to accept Enjolras' Carbine + IV. The Barrel of Powder + V. End of the Verses of Jean Prouvaire + VI. The Agony of Death after the Agony of Life + VII. Gavroche as a Profound Calculator of Distances + + BOOK FIFTEENTH.--THE RUE DE L'HOMME ARME + + I. A Drinker is a Babbler + II. The Street Urchin an Enemy of Light + III. While Cosette and Toussaint are Asleep + IV. Gavroche's Excess of Zeal + + + + VOLUME V + + BOOK FIRST.--THE WAR BETWEEN FOUR WALLS + + I. The Charybdis of the Faubourg Saint-Antoine and the + Scylla of the Faubourg du Temple + II. What Is to Be Done in the Abyss if One Does Not Converse + III. Light and Shadow + IV. Minus Five, Plus One + V. The Horizon Which One Beholds from the Summit of a Barricade + VI. Marius Haggard, Javert Laconic + VII. The Situation Becomes Aggravated + VIII. The Artillery-men Compel People to Take Them Seriously + IX. Employment of the Old Talents of a Poacher and That + Infallible Marksmanship Which Influenced the + Condemnation of 1796 + X. Dawn + XI. The Shot Which Misses Nothing and Kills No One + XII. Disorder a Partisan of Order + XIII. Passing Gleams + XIV. Wherein Will Appear the Name of Enjolras' Mistress + XV. Gavroche Outside + XVI. How from a Brother One Becomes a Father + XVII. Mortuus Pater Filium Moriturum Expectat + XVIII. The Vulture Becomes Prey + XIX. Jean Valjean Takes His Revenge + XX. The Dead Are in the Right and the Living Are Not in the Wrong + XXI. The Heroes + XXII. Foot to Foot + XXIII. Orestes Fasting and Pylades Drunk + XXIV. Prisoner + + BOOK SECOND.--THE INTESTINE OF THE LEVIATHAN + + I. The Land Impoverished by the Sea + II. Ancient History of the Sewer + III. Bruneseau + IV. Bruneseau + V. Present Progress + VI. Future Progress + + BOOK THIRD.--MUD BUT THE SOUL + + I. The Sewer and Its Surprises + II. Explanation + III. The "Spun" Man + IV. He Also Bears His Cross + V. In the Case of Sand, as in That of Woman, There Is a + Fineness Which Is Treacherous + VI. The Fontis + VII. One Sometimes Runs Aground When One Fancies That + One Is Disembarking + VIII. The Torn Coat-Tail + IX. Marius Produces on Some One Who Is a Judge of the + Matter, the Effect of Being Dead + X. Return of the Son Who Was Prodigal of His Life + XI. Concussion in the Absolute + XII. The Grandfather + + BOOK FOURTH.--JAVERT DERAILED + + I. Javert + + BOOK FIFTH.--GRANDSON AND GRANDFATHER + + I. In Which the Tree with the Zinc Plaster Appears Again + II. Marius, Emerging from Civil War, Makes Ready for + Domestic War + III. Marius Attacked + IV. Mademoiselle Gillenormand Ends by No Longer Thinking + It a Bad Thing That M. Fauchelevent Should Have + Entered With Something Under His Arm + V. Deposit Your Money in a Forest Rather than with a Notary + VI. The Two Old Men Do Everything, Each One After His + Own Fashion, to Render Cosette Happy + VII. The Effects of Dreams Mingled with Happiness + VIII. Two Men Impossible to Find + + BOOK SIXTH.--THE SLEEPLESS NIGHT + + I. The 16th of February, 1833 + II. Jean Valjean Still Wears His Arm in a Sling + III. The Inseparable + IV. The Immortal Liver + + BOOK SEVENTH.--THE LAST DRAUGHT FROM THE CUP + + I. The Seventh Circle and the Eighth Heaven + II. The Obscurities Which a Revelation Can Contain + + BOOK EIGHTH.--FADING AWAY OF THE TWILIGHT + + I. The Lower Chamber + II. Another Step Backwards + III. They Recall the Garden of the Rue Plumet + IV. Attraction and Extinction + + BOOK NINTH.--SUPREME SHADOW, SUPREME DAWN + + I. Pity for the Unhappy, but Indulgence for the Happy + II. Last Flickerings of a Lamp Without Oil + III. A Pen Is Heavy to the Man Who Lifted the + Fauchelevent's Cart + IV. A Bottle of Ink Which Only Succeeded in Whitening + V. A Night Behind Which There Is Day + VI. The Grass Covers and the Rain Effaces + + + + + +LES MISERABLES + + + + + +VOLUME I.--FANTINE. + + + + +PREFACE + + +So long as there shall exist, by virtue of law and custom, decrees of +damnation pronounced by society, artificially creating hells amid the +civilization of earth, and adding the element of human fate to divine +destiny; so long as the three great problems of the century--the +degradation of man through pauperism, the corruption of woman through +hunger, the crippling of children through lack of light--are unsolved; +so long as social asphyxia is possible in any part of the world;--in +other words, and with a still wider significance, so long as ignorance +and poverty exist on earth, books of the nature of Les Miserables cannot +fail to be of use. + +HAUTEVILLE HOUSE, 1862. + + + + +FANTINE + + + + +BOOK FIRST--A JUST MAN + + + + +CHAPTER I--M. MYRIEL + +In 1815, M. Charles-Francois-Bienvenu Myriel was Bishop of D---- He was +an old man of about seventy-five years of age; he had occupied the see +of D---- since 1806. + +Although this detail has no connection whatever with the real substance +of what we are about to relate, it will not be superfluous, if merely +for the sake of exactness in all points, to mention here the various +rumors and remarks which had been in circulation about him from the very +moment when he arrived in the diocese. True or false, that which is said +of men often occupies as important a place in their lives, and above all +in their destinies, as that which they do. M. Myriel was the son of a +councillor of the Parliament of Aix; hence he belonged to the nobility +of the bar. It was said that his father, destining him to be the heir of +his own post, had married him at a very early age, eighteen or twenty, +in accordance with a custom which is rather widely prevalent in +parliamentary families. In spite of this marriage, however, it was said +that Charles Myriel created a great deal of talk. He was well formed, +though rather short in stature, elegant, graceful, intelligent; the +whole of the first portion of his life had been devoted to the world and +to gallantry. + +The Revolution came; events succeeded each other with precipitation; the +parliamentary families, decimated, pursued, hunted down, were dispersed. +M. Charles Myriel emigrated to Italy at the very beginning of the +Revolution. There his wife died of a malady of the chest, from which she +had long suffered. He had no children. What took place next in the fate +of M. Myriel? The ruin of the French society of the olden days, the fall +of his own family, the tragic spectacles of '93, which were, perhaps, +even more alarming to the emigrants who viewed them from a distance, +with the magnifying powers of terror,--did these cause the ideas of +renunciation and solitude to germinate in him? Was he, in the midst of +these distractions, these affections which absorbed his life, suddenly +smitten with one of those mysterious and terrible blows which sometimes +overwhelm, by striking to his heart, a man whom public catastrophes +would not shake, by striking at his existence and his fortune? No one +could have told: all that was known was, that when he returned from +Italy he was a priest. + +In 1804, M. Myriel was the Cure of B---- [Brignolles]. He was already +advanced in years, and lived in a very retired manner. + +About the epoch of the coronation, some petty affair connected with +his curacy--just what, is not precisely known--took him to Paris. +Among other powerful persons to whom he went to solicit aid for his +parishioners was M. le Cardinal Fesch. One day, when the Emperor +had come to visit his uncle, the worthy Cure, who was waiting in the +anteroom, found himself present when His Majesty passed. Napoleon, +on finding himself observed with a certain curiosity by this old man, +turned round and said abruptly:-- + +"Who is this good man who is staring at me?" + +"Sire," said M. Myriel, "you are looking at a good man, and I at a great +man. Each of us can profit by it." + +That very evening, the Emperor asked the Cardinal the name of the Cure, +and some time afterwards M. Myriel was utterly astonished to learn that +he had been appointed Bishop of D---- + +What truth was there, after all, in the stories which were invented as +to the early portion of M. Myriel's life? No one knew. Very few families +had been acquainted with the Myriel family before the Revolution. + +M. Myriel had to undergo the fate of every newcomer in a little town, +where there are many mouths which talk, and very few heads which think. +He was obliged to undergo it although he was a bishop, and because +he was a bishop. But after all, the rumors with which his name +was connected were rumors only,--noise, sayings, words; less than +words--palabres, as the energetic language of the South expresses it. + +However that may be, after nine years of episcopal power and of +residence in D----, all the stories and subjects of conversation which +engross petty towns and petty people at the outset had fallen into +profound oblivion. No one would have dared to mention them; no one would +have dared to recall them. + +M. Myriel had arrived at D---- accompanied by an elderly spinster, +Mademoiselle Baptistine, who was his sister, and ten years his junior. + +Their only domestic was a female servant of the same age as Mademoiselle +Baptistine, and named Madame Magloire, who, after having been the +servant of M. le Cure, now assumed the double title of maid to +Mademoiselle and housekeeper to Monseigneur. + +Mademoiselle Baptistine was a long, pale, thin, gentle creature; she +realized the ideal expressed by the word "respectable"; for it seems +that a woman must needs be a mother in order to be venerable. She +had never been pretty; her whole life, which had been nothing but a +succession of holy deeds, had finally conferred upon her a sort of +pallor and transparency; and as she advanced in years she had acquired +what may be called the beauty of goodness. What had been leanness in +her youth had become transparency in her maturity; and this diaphaneity +allowed the angel to be seen. She was a soul rather than a virgin. Her +person seemed made of a shadow; there was hardly sufficient body to +provide for sex; a little matter enclosing a light; large eyes forever +drooping;--a mere pretext for a soul's remaining on the earth. + +Madame Magloire was a little, fat, white old woman, corpulent and +bustling; always out of breath,--in the first place, because of her +activity, and in the next, because of her asthma. + +On his arrival, M. Myriel was installed in the episcopal palace with +the honors required by the Imperial decrees, which class a bishop +immediately after a major-general. The mayor and the president paid the +first call on him, and he, in turn, paid the first call on the general +and the prefect. + +The installation over, the town waited to see its bishop at work. + + + + +CHAPTER II--M. MYRIEL BECOMES M. WELCOME + + +The episcopal palace of D---- adjoins the hospital. + +The episcopal palace was a huge and beautiful house, built of stone at +the beginning of the last century by M. Henri Puget, Doctor of Theology +of the Faculty of Paris, Abbe of Simore, who had been Bishop of D---- in +1712. This palace was a genuine seignorial residence. Everything about +it had a grand air,--the apartments of the Bishop, the drawing-rooms, +the chambers, the principal courtyard, which was very large, with walks +encircling it under arcades in the old Florentine fashion, and gardens +planted with magnificent trees. In the dining-room, a long and superb +gallery which was situated on the ground-floor and opened on the +gardens, M. Henri Puget had entertained in state, on July 29, 1714, My +Lords Charles Brulart de Genlis, archbishop; Prince d'Embrun; Antoine +de Mesgrigny, the capuchin, Bishop of Grasse; Philippe de Vendome, Grand +Prior of France, Abbe of Saint Honore de Lerins; Francois de Berton de +Crillon, bishop, Baron de Vence; Cesar de Sabran de Forcalquier, bishop, +Seignor of Glandeve; and Jean Soanen, Priest of the Oratory, preacher in +ordinary to the king, bishop, Seignor of Senez. The portraits of these +seven reverend personages decorated this apartment; and this memorable +date, the 29th of July, 1714, was there engraved in letters of gold on a +table of white marble. + +The hospital was a low and narrow building of a single story, with a +small garden. + +Three days after his arrival, the Bishop visited the hospital. The visit +ended, he had the director requested to be so good as to come to his +house. + +"Monsieur the director of the hospital," said he to him, "how many sick +people have you at the present moment?" + +"Twenty-six, Monseigneur." + +"That was the number which I counted," said the Bishop. + +"The beds," pursued the director, "are very much crowded against each +other." + +"That is what I observed." + +"The halls are nothing but rooms, and it is with difficulty that the air +can be changed in them." + +"So it seems to me." + +"And then, when there is a ray of sun, the garden is very small for the +convalescents." + +"That was what I said to myself." + +"In case of epidemics,--we have had the typhus fever this year; we +had the sweating sickness two years ago, and a hundred patients at +times,--we know not what to do." + +"That is the thought which occurred to me." + +"What would you have, Monseigneur?" said the director. "One must resign +one's self." + +This conversation took place in the gallery dining-room on the +ground-floor. + +The Bishop remained silent for a moment; then he turned abruptly to the +director of the hospital. + +"Monsieur," said he, "how many beds do you think this hall alone would +hold?" + +"Monseigneur's dining-room?" exclaimed the stupefied director. + +The Bishop cast a glance round the apartment, and seemed to be taking +measures and calculations with his eyes. + +"It would hold full twenty beds," said he, as though speaking to +himself. Then, raising his voice:-- + +"Hold, Monsieur the director of the hospital, I will tell you something. +There is evidently a mistake here. There are thirty-six of you, in five +or six small rooms. There are three of us here, and we have room for +sixty. There is some mistake, I tell you; you have my house, and I have +yours. Give me back my house; you are at home here." + +On the following day the thirty-six patients were installed in the +Bishop's palace, and the Bishop was settled in the hospital. + +M. Myriel had no property, his family having been ruined by the +Revolution. His sister was in receipt of a yearly income of five hundred +francs, which sufficed for her personal wants at the vicarage. M. Myriel +received from the State, in his quality of bishop, a salary of fifteen +thousand francs. On the very day when he took up his abode in the +hospital, M. Myriel settled on the disposition of this sum once for +all, in the following manner. We transcribe here a note made by his own +hand:-- + + +NOTE ON THE REGULATION OF MY HOUSEHOLD EXPENSES. + + For the little seminary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1,500 livres + Society of the mission . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 100 " + For the Lazarists of Montdidier . . . . . . . . . . 100 " + Seminary for foreign missions in Paris . . . . . . 200 " + Congregation of the Holy Spirit . . . . . . . . . . 150 " + Religious establishments of the Holy Land . . . . . 100 " + Charitable maternity societies . . . . . . . . . . 300 " + Extra, for that of Arles . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50 " + Work for the amelioration of prisons . . . . . . . 400 " + Work for the relief and delivery of prisoners . . . 500 " + To liberate fathers of families incarcerated for debt 1,000 " + Addition to the salary of the poor teachers of the + diocese . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2,000 " + Public granary of the Hautes-Alpes . . . . . . . . 100 " + Congregation of the ladies of D----, of Manosque, and of + Sisteron, for the gratuitous instruction of poor + girls . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1,500 " + For the poor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6,000 " + My personal expenses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1,000 " + ------ + Total . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15,000 " + + +M. Myriel made no change in this arrangement during the entire period +that he occupied the see of D---- As has been seen, he called it +regulating his household expenses. + +This arrangement was accepted with absolute submission by Mademoiselle +Baptistine. This holy woman regarded Monseigneur of D---- as at one and +the same time her brother and her bishop, her friend according to the +flesh and her superior according to the Church. She simply loved and +venerated him. When he spoke, she bowed; when he acted, she yielded her +adherence. Their only servant, Madame Magloire, grumbled a little. It +will be observed that Monsieur the Bishop had reserved for himself +only one thousand livres, which, added to the pension of Mademoiselle +Baptistine, made fifteen hundred francs a year. On these fifteen hundred +francs these two old women and the old man subsisted. + +And when a village curate came to D----, the Bishop still found means to +entertain him, thanks to the severe economy of Madame Magloire, and to +the intelligent administration of Mademoiselle Baptistine. + +One day, after he had been in D---- about three months, the Bishop +said:-- + +"And still I am quite cramped with it all!" + +"I should think so!" exclaimed Madame Magloire. "Monseigneur has not +even claimed the allowance which the department owes him for the expense +of his carriage in town, and for his journeys about the diocese. It was +customary for bishops in former days." + +"Hold!" cried the Bishop, "you are quite right, Madame Magloire." + +And he made his demand. + +Some time afterwards the General Council took this demand under +consideration, and voted him an annual sum of three thousand francs, +under this heading: Allowance to M. the Bishop for expenses of carriage, +expenses of posting, and expenses of pastoral visits. + +This provoked a great outcry among the local burgesses; and a senator +of the Empire, a former member of the Council of the Five Hundred +which favored the 18 Brumaire, and who was provided with a magnificent +senatorial office in the vicinity of the town of D----, wrote to M. +Bigot de Preameneu, the minister of public worship, a very angry and +confidential note on the subject, from which we extract these authentic +lines:-- + +"Expenses of carriage? What can be done with it in a town of less than +four thousand inhabitants? Expenses of journeys? What is the use +of these trips, in the first place? Next, how can the posting be +accomplished in these mountainous parts? There are no roads. No one +travels otherwise than on horseback. Even the bridge between Durance and +Chateau-Arnoux can barely support ox-teams. These priests are all thus, +greedy and avaricious. This man played the good priest when he +first came. Now he does like the rest; he must have a carriage and a +posting-chaise, he must have luxuries, like the bishops of the olden +days. Oh, all this priesthood! Things will not go well, M. le Comte, +until the Emperor has freed us from these black-capped rascals. Down +with the Pope! [Matters were getting embroiled with Rome.] For my part, +I am for Caesar alone." Etc., etc. + +On the other hand, this affair afforded great delight to Madame +Magloire. "Good," said she to Mademoiselle Baptistine; "Monseigneur +began with other people, but he has had to wind up with himself, after +all. He has regulated all his charities. Now here are three thousand +francs for us! At last!" + +That same evening the Bishop wrote out and handed to his sister a +memorandum conceived in the following terms:-- + +EXPENSES OF CARRIAGE AND CIRCUIT. + + For furnishing meat soup to the patients in the hospital. 1,500 livres + For the maternity charitable society of Aix . . . . . . . 250 " + For the maternity charitable society of Draguignan . . . 250 " + For foundlings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 500 " + For orphans . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 500 " + ----- + Total . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3,000 " + +Such was M. Myriel's budget. + +As for the chance episcopal perquisites, the fees for marriage bans, +dispensations, private baptisms, sermons, benedictions, of churches or +chapels, marriages, etc., the Bishop levied them on the wealthy with all +the more asperity, since he bestowed them on the needy. + +After a time, offerings of money flowed in. Those who had and those who +lacked knocked at M. Myriel's door,--the latter in search of the alms +which the former came to deposit. In less than a year the Bishop had +become the treasurer of all benevolence and the cashier of all those +in distress. Considerable sums of money passed through his hands, but +nothing could induce him to make any change whatever in his mode of +life, or add anything superfluous to his bare necessities. + +Far from it. As there is always more wretchedness below than there +is brotherhood above, all was given away, so to speak, before it was +received. It was like water on dry soil; no matter how much money he +received, he never had any. Then he stripped himself. + +The usage being that bishops shall announce their baptismal names at the +head of their charges and their pastoral letters, the poor people of the +country-side had selected, with a sort of affectionate instinct, among +the names and prenomens of their bishop, that which had a meaning for +them; and they never called him anything except Monseigneur Bienvenu +[Welcome]. We will follow their example, and will also call him thus +when we have occasion to name him. Moreover, this appellation pleased +him. + +"I like that name," said he. "Bienvenu makes up for the Monseigneur." + +We do not claim that the portrait herewith presented is probable; we +confine ourselves to stating that it resembles the original. + + + + +CHAPTER III--A HARD BISHOPRIC FOR A GOOD BISHOP + + +The Bishop did not omit his pastoral visits because he had converted his +carriage into alms. The diocese of D---- is a fatiguing one. There are +very few plains and a great many mountains; hardly any roads, as we have +just seen; thirty-two curacies, forty-one vicarships, and two hundred +and eighty-five auxiliary chapels. To visit all these is quite a task. + +The Bishop managed to do it. He went on foot when it was in the +neighborhood, in a tilted spring-cart when it was on the plain, and on +a donkey in the mountains. The two old women accompanied him. When the +trip was too hard for them, he went alone. + +One day he arrived at Senez, which is an ancient episcopal city. He was +mounted on an ass. His purse, which was very dry at that moment, did not +permit him any other equipage. The mayor of the town came to receive +him at the gate of the town, and watched him dismount from his ass, +with scandalized eyes. Some of the citizens were laughing around him. +"Monsieur the Mayor," said the Bishop, "and Messieurs Citizens, I +perceive that I shock you. You think it very arrogant in a poor priest +to ride an animal which was used by Jesus Christ. I have done so from +necessity, I assure you, and not from vanity." + +In the course of these trips he was kind and indulgent, and talked +rather than preached. He never went far in search of his arguments and +his examples. He quoted to the inhabitants of one district the example +of a neighboring district. In the cantons where they were harsh to the +poor, he said: "Look at the people of Briancon! They have conferred on +the poor, on widows and orphans, the right to have their meadows mown +three days in advance of every one else. They rebuild their houses for +them gratuitously when they are ruined. Therefore it is a country which +is blessed by God. For a whole century, there has not been a single +murderer among them." + +In villages which were greedy for profit and harvest, he said: "Look at +the people of Embrun! If, at the harvest season, the father of a family +has his son away on service in the army, and his daughters at service in +the town, and if he is ill and incapacitated, the cure recommends him to +the prayers of the congregation; and on Sunday, after the mass, all the +inhabitants of the village--men, women, and children--go to the poor +man's field and do his harvesting for him, and carry his straw and his +grain to his granary." To families divided by questions of money and +inheritance he said: "Look at the mountaineers of Devolny, a country so +wild that the nightingale is not heard there once in fifty years. +Well, when the father of a family dies, the boys go off to seek their +fortunes, leaving the property to the girls, so that they may find +husbands." To the cantons which had a taste for lawsuits, and where the +farmers ruined themselves in stamped paper, he said: "Look at those good +peasants in the valley of Queyras! There are three thousand souls of +them. Mon Dieu! it is like a little republic. Neither judge nor bailiff +is known there. The mayor does everything. He allots the imposts, +taxes each person conscientiously, judges quarrels for nothing, divides +inheritances without charge, pronounces sentences gratuitously; and he +is obeyed, because he is a just man among simple men." To villages where +he found no schoolmaster, he quoted once more the people of Queyras: "Do +you know how they manage?" he said. "Since a little country of a +dozen or fifteen hearths cannot always support a teacher, they have +school-masters who are paid by the whole valley, who make the round +of the villages, spending a week in this one, ten days in that, and +instruct them. These teachers go to the fairs. I have seen them there. +They are to be recognized by the quill pens which they wear in the cord +of their hat. Those who teach reading only have one pen; those who teach +reading and reckoning have two pens; those who teach reading, reckoning, +and Latin have three pens. But what a disgrace to be ignorant! Do like +the people of Queyras!" + +Thus he discoursed gravely and paternally; in default of examples, he +invented parables, going directly to the point, with few phrases and +many images, which characteristic formed the real eloquence of Jesus +Christ. And being convinced himself, he was persuasive. + + + + +CHAPTER IV--WORKS CORRESPONDING TO WORDS + +His conversation was gay and affable. He put himself on a level with the +two old women who had passed their lives beside him. When he laughed, +it was the laugh of a schoolboy. Madame Magloire liked to call him Your +Grace [Votre Grandeur]. One day he rose from his arm-chair, and went +to his library in search of a book. This book was on one of the upper +shelves. As the bishop was rather short of stature, he could not +reach it. "Madame Magloire," said he, "fetch me a chair. My greatness +[grandeur] does not reach as far as that shelf." + +One of his distant relatives, Madame la Comtesse de Lo, rarely allowed +an opportunity to escape of enumerating, in his presence, what she +designated as "the expectations" of her three sons. She had numerous +relatives, who were very old and near to death, and of whom her sons +were the natural heirs. The youngest of the three was to receive from a +grand-aunt a good hundred thousand livres of income; the second was the +heir by entail to the title of the Duke, his uncle; the eldest was to +succeed to the peerage of his grandfather. The Bishop was accustomed to +listen in silence to these innocent and pardonable maternal boasts. On +one occasion, however, he appeared to be more thoughtful than usual, +while Madame de Lo was relating once again the details of all these +inheritances and all these "expectations." She interrupted herself +impatiently: "Mon Dieu, cousin! What are you thinking about?" "I am +thinking," replied the Bishop, "of a singular remark, which is to be +found, I believe, in St. Augustine,--'Place your hopes in the man from +whom you do not inherit.'" + +At another time, on receiving a notification of the decease of a +gentleman of the country-side, wherein not only the dignities of the +dead man, but also the feudal and noble qualifications of all his +relatives, spread over an entire page: "What a stout back Death has!" +he exclaimed. "What a strange burden of titles is cheerfully imposed +on him, and how much wit must men have, in order thus to press the tomb +into the service of vanity!" + +He was gifted, on occasion, with a gentle raillery, which almost always +concealed a serious meaning. In the course of one Lent, a youthful vicar +came to D----, and preached in the cathedral. He was tolerably eloquent. +The subject of his sermon was charity. He urged the rich to give to the +poor, in order to avoid hell, which he depicted in the most frightful +manner of which he was capable, and to win paradise, which he +represented as charming and desirable. Among the audience there was +a wealthy retired merchant, who was somewhat of a usurer, named M. +Geborand, who had amassed two millions in the manufacture of coarse +cloth, serges, and woollen galloons. Never in his whole life had M. +Geborand bestowed alms on any poor wretch. After the delivery of that +sermon, it was observed that he gave a sou every Sunday to the poor old +beggar-women at the door of the cathedral. There were six of them to +share it. One day the Bishop caught sight of him in the act of bestowing +this charity, and said to his sister, with a smile, "There is M. +Geborand purchasing paradise for a sou." + +When it was a question of charity, he was not to be rebuffed even by +a refusal, and on such occasions he gave utterance to remarks which +induced reflection. Once he was begging for the poor in a drawing-room +of the town; there was present the Marquis de Champtercier, a wealthy +and avaricious old man, who contrived to be, at one and the same time, +an ultra-royalist and an ultra-Voltairian. This variety of man has +actually existed. When the Bishop came to him, he touched his arm, "You +must give me something, M. le Marquis." The Marquis turned round and +answered dryly, "I have poor people of my own, Monseigneur." "Give them +to me," replied the Bishop. + +One day he preached the following sermon in the cathedral:-- + + +"My very dear brethren, my good friends, there are thirteen hundred +and twenty thousand peasants' dwellings in France which have but three +openings; eighteen hundred and seventeen thousand hovels which have but +two openings, the door and one window; and three hundred and forty-six +thousand cabins besides which have but one opening, the door. And this +arises from a thing which is called the tax on doors and windows. Just +put poor families, old women and little children, in those buildings, +and behold the fevers and maladies which result! Alas! God gives air to +men; the law sells it to them. I do not blame the law, but I bless God. +In the department of the Isere, in the Var, in the two departments +of the Alpes, the Hautes, and the Basses, the peasants have not even +wheelbarrows; they transport their manure on the backs of men; they have +no candles, and they burn resinous sticks, and bits of rope dipped in +pitch. That is the state of affairs throughout the whole of the hilly +country of Dauphine. They make bread for six months at one time; they +bake it with dried cow-dung. In the winter they break this bread up with +an axe, and they soak it for twenty-four hours, in order to render it +eatable. My brethren, have pity! behold the suffering on all sides of +you!" + +Born a Provencal, he easily familiarized himself with the dialect of the +south. He said, "En be! moussu, ses sage?" as in lower Languedoc; "Onte +anaras passa?" as in the Basses-Alpes; "Puerte un bouen moutu embe un +bouen fromage grase," as in upper Dauphine. This pleased the people +extremely, and contributed not a little to win him access to all +spirits. He was perfectly at home in the thatched cottage and in the +mountains. He understood how to say the grandest things in the most +vulgar of idioms. As he spoke all tongues, he entered into all hearts. + +Moreover, he was the same towards people of the world and towards +the lower classes. He condemned nothing in haste and without taking +circumstances into account. He said, "Examine the road over which the +fault has passed." + +Being, as he described himself with a smile, an ex-sinner, he had none +of the asperities of austerity, and he professed, with a good deal +of distinctness, and without the frown of the ferociously virtuous, a +doctrine which may be summed up as follows:-- + +"Man has upon him his flesh, which is at once his burden and his +temptation. He drags it with him and yields to it. He must watch it, +check it, repress it, and obey it only at the last extremity. There may +be some fault even in this obedience; but the fault thus committed is +venial; it is a fall, but a fall on the knees which may terminate in +prayer. + +"To be a saint is the exception; to be an upright man is the rule. Err, +fall, sin if you will, but be upright. + +"The least possible sin is the law of man. No sin at all is the dream +of the angel. All which is terrestrial is subject to sin. Sin is a +gravitation." + +When he saw everyone exclaiming very loudly, and growing angry very +quickly, "Oh! oh!" he said, with a smile; "to all appearance, this is +a great crime which all the world commits. These are hypocrisies +which have taken fright, and are in haste to make protest and to put +themselves under shelter." + +He was indulgent towards women and poor people, on whom the burden of +human society rest. He said, "The faults of women, of children, of the +feeble, the indigent, and the ignorant, are the fault of the husbands, +the fathers, the masters, the strong, the rich, and the wise." + +He said, moreover, "Teach those who are ignorant as many things as +possible; society is culpable, in that it does not afford instruction +gratis; it is responsible for the night which it produces. This soul +is full of shadow; sin is therein committed. The guilty one is not the +person who has committed the sin, but the person who has created the +shadow." + +It will be perceived that he had a peculiar manner of his own of judging +things: I suspect that he obtained it from the Gospel. + +One day he heard a criminal case, which was in preparation and on the +point of trial, discussed in a drawing-room. A wretched man, being at +the end of his resources, had coined counterfeit money, out of love for +a woman, and for the child which he had had by her. Counterfeiting was +still punishable with death at that epoch. The woman had been arrested +in the act of passing the first false piece made by the man. She was +held, but there were no proofs except against her. She alone could +accuse her lover, and destroy him by her confession. She denied; they +insisted. She persisted in her denial. Thereupon an idea occurred to +the attorney for the crown. He invented an infidelity on the part of +the lover, and succeeded, by means of fragments of letters cunningly +presented, in persuading the unfortunate woman that she had a rival, and +that the man was deceiving her. Thereupon, exasperated by jealousy, she +denounced her lover, confessed all, proved all. + +The man was ruined. He was shortly to be tried at Aix with his +accomplice. They were relating the matter, and each one was expressing +enthusiasm over the cleverness of the magistrate. By bringing jealousy +into play, he had caused the truth to burst forth in wrath, he had +educed the justice of revenge. The Bishop listened to all this in +silence. When they had finished, he inquired,-- + +"Where are this man and woman to be tried?" + +"At the Court of Assizes." + +He went on, "And where will the advocate of the crown be tried?" + +A tragic event occurred at D---- A man was condemned to death for +murder. He was a wretched fellow, not exactly educated, not exactly +ignorant, who had been a mountebank at fairs, and a writer for the +public. The town took a great interest in the trial. On the eve of the +day fixed for the execution of the condemned man, the chaplain of the +prison fell ill. A priest was needed to attend the criminal in his +last moments. They sent for the cure. It seems that he refused to come, +saying, "That is no affair of mine. I have nothing to do with that +unpleasant task, and with that mountebank: I, too, am ill; and besides, +it is not my place." This reply was reported to the Bishop, who said, +"Monsieur le Cure is right: it is not his place; it is mine." + +He went instantly to the prison, descended to the cell of the +"mountebank," called him by name, took him by the hand, and spoke to +him. He passed the entire day with him, forgetful of food and sleep, +praying to God for the soul of the condemned man, and praying the +condemned man for his own. He told him the best truths, which are also +the most simple. He was father, brother, friend; he was bishop only to +bless. He taught him everything, encouraged and consoled him. The man +was on the point of dying in despair. Death was an abyss to him. As he +stood trembling on its mournful brink, he recoiled with horror. He +was not sufficiently ignorant to be absolutely indifferent. His +condemnation, which had been a profound shock, had, in a manner, broken +through, here and there, that wall which separates us from the mystery +of things, and which we call life. He gazed incessantly beyond this +world through these fatal breaches, and beheld only darkness. The Bishop +made him see light. + +On the following day, when they came to fetch the unhappy wretch, the +Bishop was still there. He followed him, and exhibited himself to the +eyes of the crowd in his purple camail and with his episcopal cross upon +his neck, side by side with the criminal bound with cords. + +He mounted the tumbril with him, he mounted the scaffold with him. The +sufferer, who had been so gloomy and cast down on the preceding day, was +radiant. He felt that his soul was reconciled, and he hoped in God. The +Bishop embraced him, and at the moment when the knife was about to fall, +he said to him: "God raises from the dead him whom man slays; he whom +his brothers have rejected finds his Father once more. Pray, believe, +enter into life: the Father is there." When he descended from the +scaffold, there was something in his look which made the people draw +aside to let him pass. They did not know which was most worthy of +admiration, his pallor or his serenity. On his return to the humble +dwelling, which he designated, with a smile, as his palace, he said to +his sister, "I have just officiated pontifically." + +Since the most sublime things are often those which are the least +understood, there were people in the town who said, when commenting on +this conduct of the Bishop, "It is affectation." + +This, however, was a remark which was confined to the drawing-rooms. +The populace, which perceives no jest in holy deeds, was touched, and +admired him. + +As for the Bishop, it was a shock to him to have beheld the guillotine, +and it was a long time before he recovered from it. + +In fact, when the scaffold is there, all erected and prepared, it has +something about it which produces hallucination. One may feel a certain +indifference to the death penalty, one may refrain from pronouncing upon +it, from saying yes or no, so long as one has not seen a guillotine with +one's own eyes: but if one encounters one of them, the shock is violent; +one is forced to decide, and to take part for or against. Some admire +it, like de Maistre; others execrate it, like Beccaria. The guillotine +is the concretion of the law; it is called vindicte; it is not neutral, +and it does not permit you to remain neutral. He who sees it shivers +with the most mysterious of shivers. All social problems erect their +interrogation point around this chopping-knife. The scaffold is a +vision. The scaffold is not a piece of carpentry; the scaffold is not +a machine; the scaffold is not an inert bit of mechanism constructed of +wood, iron and cords. + +It seems as though it were a being, possessed of I know not what sombre +initiative; one would say that this piece of carpenter's work saw, that +this machine heard, that this mechanism understood, that this wood, +this iron, and these cords were possessed of will. In the frightful +meditation into which its presence casts the soul the scaffold appears +in terrible guise, and as though taking part in what is going on. The +scaffold is the accomplice of the executioner; it devours, it eats +flesh, it drinks blood; the scaffold is a sort of monster fabricated +by the judge and the carpenter, a spectre which seems to live with a +horrible vitality composed of all the death which it has inflicted. + +Therefore, the impression was terrible and profound; on the day +following the execution, and on many succeeding days, the Bishop +appeared to be crushed. The almost violent serenity of the funereal +moment had disappeared; the phantom of social justice tormented him. He, +who generally returned from all his deeds with a radiant satisfaction, +seemed to be reproaching himself. At times he talked to himself, and +stammered lugubrious monologues in a low voice. This is one which his +sister overheard one evening and preserved: "I did not think that it was +so monstrous. It is wrong to become absorbed in the divine law to such a +degree as not to perceive human law. Death belongs to God alone. By what +right do men touch that unknown thing?" + +In course of time these impressions weakened and probably vanished. +Nevertheless, it was observed that the Bishop thenceforth avoided +passing the place of execution. + +M. Myriel could be summoned at any hour to the bedside of the sick and +dying. He did not ignore the fact that therein lay his greatest duty and +his greatest labor. Widowed and orphaned families had no need to summon +him; he came of his own accord. He understood how to sit down and hold +his peace for long hours beside the man who had lost the wife of his +love, of the mother who had lost her child. As he knew the moment for +silence he knew also the moment for speech. Oh, admirable consoler! He +sought not to efface sorrow by forgetfulness, but to magnify and dignify +it by hope. He said:-- + +"Have a care of the manner in which you turn towards the dead. Think +not of that which perishes. Gaze steadily. You will perceive the living +light of your well-beloved dead in the depths of heaven." He knew that +faith is wholesome. He sought to counsel and calm the despairing man, by +pointing out to him the resigned man, and to transform the grief which +gazes upon a grave by showing him the grief which fixes its gaze upon a +star. + + + + +CHAPTER V--MONSEIGNEUR BIENVENU MADE HIS CASSOCKS LAST TOO LONG + + +The private life of M. Myriel was filled with the same thoughts as his +public life. The voluntary poverty in which the Bishop of D---- lived, +would have been a solemn and charming sight for any one who could have +viewed it close at hand. + +Like all old men, and like the majority of thinkers, he slept little. +This brief slumber was profound. In the morning he meditated for an +hour, then he said his mass, either at the cathedral or in his own +house. His mass said, he broke his fast on rye bread dipped in the milk +of his own cows. Then he set to work. + +A Bishop is a very busy man: he must every day receive the secretary +of the bishopric, who is generally a canon, and nearly every day his +vicars-general. He has congregations to reprove, privileges to grant, +a whole ecclesiastical library to examine,--prayer-books, diocesan +catechisms, books of hours, etc.,--charges to write, sermons to +authorize, cures and mayors to reconcile, a clerical correspondence, an +administrative correspondence; on one side the State, on the other the +Holy See; and a thousand matters of business. + +What time was left to him, after these thousand details of business, and +his offices and his breviary, he bestowed first on the necessitous, +the sick, and the afflicted; the time which was left to him from the +afflicted, the sick, and the necessitous, he devoted to work. Sometimes +he dug in his garden; again, he read or wrote. He had but one word +for both these kinds of toil; he called them gardening. "The mind is a +garden," said he. + +Towards mid-day, when the weather was fine, he went forth and took a +stroll in the country or in town, often entering lowly dwellings. He +was seen walking alone, buried in his own thoughts, his eyes cast down, +supporting himself on his long cane, clad in his wadded purple garment +of silk, which was very warm, wearing purple stockings inside his coarse +shoes, and surmounted by a flat hat which allowed three golden tassels +of large bullion to droop from its three points. + +It was a perfect festival wherever he appeared. One would have said that +his presence had something warming and luminous about it. The children +and the old people came out to the doorsteps for the Bishop as for the +sun. He bestowed his blessing, and they blessed him. They pointed out +his house to any one who was in need of anything. + +[Illustration: The Comfortor 1b1-5-comfortor] + +Here and there he halted, accosted the little boys and girls, and smiled +upon the mothers. He visited the poor so long as he had any money; when +he no longer had any, he visited the rich. + +As he made his cassocks last a long while, and did not wish to have it +noticed, he never went out in the town without his wadded purple cloak. +This inconvenienced him somewhat in summer. + +On his return, he dined. The dinner resembled his breakfast. + +At half-past eight in the evening he supped with his sister, Madame +Magloire standing behind them and serving them at table. Nothing could +be more frugal than this repast. If, however, the Bishop had one of his +cures to supper, Madame Magloire took advantage of the opportunity to +serve Monseigneur with some excellent fish from the lake, or with some +fine game from the mountains. Every cure furnished the pretext for +a good meal: the Bishop did not interfere. With that exception, his +ordinary diet consisted only of vegetables boiled in water, and oil +soup. Thus it was said in the town, when the Bishop does not indulge in +the cheer of a cure, he indulges in the cheer of a trappist. + +After supper he conversed for half an hour with Mademoiselle Baptistine +and Madame Magloire; then he retired to his own room and set to writing, +sometimes on loose sheets, and again on the margin of some folio. He was +a man of letters and rather learned. He left behind him five or six +very curious manuscripts; among others, a dissertation on this verse in +Genesis, In the beginning, the spirit of God floated upon the waters. +With this verse he compares three texts: the Arabic verse which says, +The winds of God blew; Flavius Josephus who says, A wind from above was +precipitated upon the earth; and finally, the Chaldaic paraphrase of +Onkelos, which renders it, A wind coming from God blew upon the face of +the waters. In another dissertation, he examines the theological works +of Hugo, Bishop of Ptolemais, great-grand-uncle to the writer of this +book, and establishes the fact, that to this bishop must be attributed +the divers little works published during the last century, under the +pseudonym of Barleycourt. + +Sometimes, in the midst of his reading, no matter what the book might +be which he had in his hand, he would suddenly fall into a profound +meditation, whence he only emerged to write a few lines on the pages of +the volume itself. These lines have often no connection whatever with +the book which contains them. We now have under our eyes a note written +by him on the margin of a quarto entitled Correspondence of Lord Germain +with Generals Clinton, Cornwallis, and the Admirals on the American +station. Versailles, Poincot, book-seller; and Paris, Pissot, +bookseller, Quai des Augustins. + +Here is the note:-- + +"Oh, you who are! + +"Ecclesiastes calls you the All-powerful; the Maccabees call you the +Creator; the Epistle to the Ephesians calls you liberty; Baruch calls +you Immensity; the Psalms call you Wisdom and Truth; John calls you +Light; the Books of Kings call you Lord; Exodus calls you Providence; +Leviticus, Sanctity; Esdras, Justice; the creation calls you God; man +calls you Father; but Solomon calls you Compassion, and that is the most +beautiful of all your names." + +Toward nine o'clock in the evening the two women retired and betook +themselves to their chambers on the first floor, leaving him alone until +morning on the ground floor. + +It is necessary that we should, in this place, give an exact idea of the +dwelling of the Bishop of D---- + + + + +CHAPTER VI--WHO GUARDED HIS HOUSE FOR HIM + +The house in which he lived consisted, as we have said, of a ground +floor, and one story above; three rooms on the ground floor, three +chambers on the first, and an attic above. Behind the house was a +garden, a quarter of an acre in extent. The two women occupied the +first floor; the Bishop was lodged below. The first room, opening on the +street, served him as dining-room, the second was his bedroom, and the +third his oratory. There was no exit possible from this oratory, except +by passing through the bedroom, nor from the bedroom, without passing +through the dining-room. At the end of the suite, in the oratory, there +was a detached alcove with a bed, for use in cases of hospitality. +The Bishop offered this bed to country curates whom business or the +requirements of their parishes brought to D---- + +The pharmacy of the hospital, a small building which had been added +to the house, and abutted on the garden, had been transformed into +a kitchen and cellar. In addition to this, there was in the garden a +stable, which had formerly been the kitchen of the hospital, and in +which the Bishop kept two cows. No matter what the quantity of milk they +gave, he invariably sent half of it every morning to the sick people in +the hospital. "I am paying my tithes," he said. + +His bedroom was tolerably large, and rather difficult to warm in bad +weather. As wood is extremely dear at D----, he hit upon the idea of +having a compartment of boards constructed in the cow-shed. Here he +passed his evenings during seasons of severe cold: he called it his +winter salon. + +In this winter salon, as in the dining-room, there was no other +furniture than a square table in white wood, and four straw-seated +chairs. In addition to this the dining-room was ornamented with an +antique sideboard, painted pink, in water colors. Out of a similar +sideboard, properly draped with white napery and imitation lace, the +Bishop had constructed the altar which decorated his oratory. + +His wealthy penitents and the sainted women of D---- had more than once +assessed themselves to raise the money for a new altar for Monseigneur's +oratory; on each occasion he had taken the money and had given it to +the poor. "The most beautiful of altars," he said, "is the soul of an +unhappy creature consoled and thanking God." + +In his oratory there were two straw prie-Dieu, and there was an +arm-chair, also in straw, in his bedroom. When, by chance, he received +seven or eight persons at one time, the prefect, or the general, or the +staff of the regiment in garrison, or several pupils from the little +seminary, the chairs had to be fetched from the winter salon in the +stable, the prie-Dieu from the oratory, and the arm-chair from the +bedroom: in this way as many as eleven chairs could be collected for the +visitors. A room was dismantled for each new guest. + +It sometimes happened that there were twelve in the party; the Bishop +then relieved the embarrassment of the situation by standing in front +of the chimney if it was winter, or by strolling in the garden if it was +summer. + +There was still another chair in the detached alcove, but the straw was +half gone from it, and it had but three legs, so that it was of service +only when propped against the wall. Mademoiselle Baptistine had also in +her own room a very large easy-chair of wood, which had formerly been +gilded, and which was covered with flowered pekin; but they had been +obliged to hoist this bergere up to the first story through the window, +as the staircase was too narrow; it could not, therefore, be reckoned +among the possibilities in the way of furniture. + +Mademoiselle Baptistine's ambition had been to be able to purchase a set +of drawing-room furniture in yellow Utrecht velvet, stamped with a rose +pattern, and with mahogany in swan's neck style, with a sofa. But this +would have cost five hundred francs at least, and in view of the fact +that she had only been able to lay by forty-two francs and ten sous for +this purpose in the course of five years, she had ended by renouncing +the idea. However, who is there who has attained his ideal? + +Nothing is more easy to present to the imagination than the Bishop's +bedchamber. A glazed door opened on the garden; opposite this was the +bed,--a hospital bed of iron, with a canopy of green serge; in the +shadow of the bed, behind a curtain, were the utensils of the toilet, +which still betrayed the elegant habits of the man of the world: there +were two doors, one near the chimney, opening into the oratory; the +other near the bookcase, opening into the dining-room. The bookcase was +a large cupboard with glass doors filled with books; the chimney was of +wood painted to represent marble, and habitually without fire. In the +chimney stood a pair of firedogs of iron, ornamented above with two +garlanded vases, and flutings which had formerly been silvered +with silver leaf, which was a sort of episcopal luxury; above the +chimney-piece hung a crucifix of copper, with the silver worn off, fixed +on a background of threadbare velvet in a wooden frame from which the +gilding had fallen; near the glass door a large table with an inkstand, +loaded with a confusion of papers and with huge volumes; before the +table an arm-chair of straw; in front of the bed a prie-Dieu, borrowed +from the oratory. + +Two portraits in oval frames were fastened to the wall on each side of +the bed. Small gilt inscriptions on the plain surface of the cloth at +the side of these figures indicated that the portraits represented, +one the Abbe of Chaliot, bishop of Saint Claude; the other, the Abbe +Tourteau, vicar-general of Agde, abbe of Grand-Champ, order of Citeaux, +diocese of Chartres. When the Bishop succeeded to this apartment, after +the hospital patients, he had found these portraits there, and had left +them. They were priests, and probably donors--two reasons for respecting +them. All that he knew about these two persons was, that they had +been appointed by the king, the one to his bishopric, the other to his +benefice, on the same day, the 27th of April, 1785. Madame Magloire +having taken the pictures down to dust, the Bishop had discovered these +particulars written in whitish ink on a little square of paper, yellowed +by time, and attached to the back of the portrait of the Abbe of +Grand-Champ with four wafers. + +At his window he had an antique curtain of a coarse woollen stuff, which +finally became so old, that, in order to avoid the expense of a new one, +Madame Magloire was forced to take a large seam in the very middle +of it. This seam took the form of a cross. The Bishop often called +attention to it: "How delightful that is!" he said. + +All the rooms in the house, without exception, those on the ground +floor as well as those on the first floor, were white-washed, which is a +fashion in barracks and hospitals. + +However, in their latter years, Madame Magloire discovered beneath the +paper which had been washed over, paintings, ornamenting the apartment +of Mademoiselle Baptistine, as we shall see further on. Before becoming +a hospital, this house had been the ancient parliament house of the +Bourgeois. Hence this decoration. The chambers were paved in red bricks, +which were washed every week, with straw mats in front of all the beds. +Altogether, this dwelling, which was attended to by the two women, was +exquisitely clean from top to bottom. This was the sole luxury which the +Bishop permitted. He said, "That takes nothing from the poor." + +It must be confessed, however, that he still retained from his former +possessions six silver knives and forks and a soup-ladle, which +Madame Magloire contemplated every day with delight, as they glistened +splendidly upon the coarse linen cloth. And since we are now painting +the Bishop of D---- as he was in reality, we must add that he had said +more than once, "I find it difficult to renounce eating from silver +dishes." + +To this silverware must be added two large candlesticks of massive +silver, which he had inherited from a great-aunt. These candlesticks +held two wax candles, and usually figured on the Bishop's chimney-piece. +When he had any one to dinner, Madame Magloire lighted the two candles +and set the candlesticks on the table. + +In the Bishop's own chamber, at the head of his bed, there was a small +cupboard, in which Madame Magloire locked up the six silver knives and +forks and the big spoon every night. But it is necessary to add, that +the key was never removed. + +The garden, which had been rather spoiled by the ugly buildings which +we have mentioned, was composed of four alleys in cross-form, radiating +from a tank. Another walk made the circuit of the garden, and skirted +the white wall which enclosed it. These alleys left behind them four +square plots rimmed with box. In three of these, Madame Magloire +cultivated vegetables; in the fourth, the Bishop had planted some +flowers; here and there stood a few fruit-trees. Madame Magloire had +once remarked, with a sort of gentle malice: "Monseigneur, you who turn +everything to account, have, nevertheless, one useless plot. It would be +better to grow salads there than bouquets." "Madame Magloire," retorted +the Bishop, "you are mistaken. The beautiful is as useful as the +useful." He added after a pause, "More so, perhaps." + +This plot, consisting of three or four beds, occupied the Bishop +almost as much as did his books. He liked to pass an hour or two there, +trimming, hoeing, and making holes here and there in the earth, into +which he dropped seeds. He was not as hostile to insects as a gardener +could have wished to see him. Moreover, he made no pretensions to +botany; he ignored groups and consistency; he made not the slightest +effort to decide between Tournefort and the natural method; he took part +neither with the buds against the cotyledons, nor with Jussieu against +Linnaeus. He did not study plants; he loved flowers. He respected +learned men greatly; he respected the ignorant still more; and, without +ever failing in these two respects, he watered his flower-beds every +summer evening with a tin watering-pot painted green. + +The house had not a single door which could be locked. The door of the +dining-room, which, as we have said, opened directly on the cathedral +square, had formerly been ornamented with locks and bolts like the door +of a prison. The Bishop had had all this ironwork removed, and this door +was never fastened, either by night or by day, with anything except the +latch. All that the first passerby had to do at any hour, was to give it +a push. At first, the two women had been very much tried by this door, +which was never fastened, but Monsieur de D---- had said to them, "Have +bolts put on your rooms, if that will please you." They had ended by +sharing his confidence, or by at least acting as though they shared it. +Madame Magloire alone had frights from time to time. As for the Bishop, +his thought can be found explained, or at least indicated, in the three +lines which he wrote on the margin of a Bible, "This is the shade of +difference: the door of the physician should never be shut, the door of +the priest should always be open." + +On another book, entitled Philosophy of the Medical Science, he had +written this other note: "Am not I a physician like them? I also have my +patients, and then, too, I have some whom I call my unfortunates." + +Again he wrote: "Do not inquire the name of him who asks a shelter of +you. The very man who is embarrassed by his name is the one who needs +shelter." + +It chanced that a worthy cure, I know not whether it was the cure of +Couloubroux or the cure of Pompierry, took it into his head to ask +him one day, probably at the instigation of Madame Magloire, whether +Monsieur was sure that he was not committing an indiscretion, to a +certain extent, in leaving his door unfastened day and night, at the +mercy of any one who should choose to enter, and whether, in short, +he did not fear lest some misfortune might occur in a house so little +guarded. The Bishop touched his shoulder, with gentle gravity, and +said to him, "Nisi Dominus custodierit domum, in vanum vigilant qui +custodiunt eam," Unless the Lord guard the house, in vain do they watch +who guard it. + +Then he spoke of something else. + +He was fond of saying, "There is a bravery of the priest as well as +the bravery of a colonel of dragoons,--only," he added, "ours must be +tranquil." + + + + +CHAPTER VII--CRAVATTE + +It is here that a fact falls naturally into place, which we must not +omit, because it is one of the sort which show us best what sort of a +man the Bishop of D---- was. + +After the destruction of the band of Gaspard Bes, who had infested the +gorges of Ollioules, one of his lieutenants, Cravatte, took refuge in +the mountains. He concealed himself for some time with his bandits, the +remnant of Gaspard Bes's troop, in the county of Nice; then he made his +way to Piedmont, and suddenly reappeared in France, in the vicinity +of Barcelonette. He was first seen at Jauziers, then at Tuiles. He hid +himself in the caverns of the Joug-de-l'Aigle, and thence he descended +towards the hamlets and villages through the ravines of Ubaye and +Ubayette. + +He even pushed as far as Embrun, entered the cathedral one night, +and despoiled the sacristy. His highway robberies laid waste the +country-side. The gendarmes were set on his track, but in vain. He +always escaped; sometimes he resisted by main force. He was a bold +wretch. In the midst of all this terror the Bishop arrived. He was +making his circuit to Chastelar. The mayor came to meet him, and urged +him to retrace his steps. Cravatte was in possession of the mountains +as far as Arche, and beyond; there was danger even with an escort; it +merely exposed three or four unfortunate gendarmes to no purpose. + +"Therefore," said the Bishop, "I intend to go without escort." + +"You do not really mean that, Monseigneur!" exclaimed the mayor. + +"I do mean it so thoroughly that I absolutely refuse any gendarmes, and +shall set out in an hour." + +"Set out?" + +"Set out." + +"Alone?" + +"Alone." + +"Monseigneur, you will not do that!" + +"There exists yonder in the mountains," said the Bishop, "a tiny +community no bigger than that, which I have not seen for three years. +They are my good friends, those gentle and honest shepherds. They own +one goat out of every thirty that they tend. They make very pretty +woollen cords of various colors, and they play the mountain airs on +little flutes with six holes. They need to be told of the good God now +and then. What would they say to a bishop who was afraid? What would +they say if I did not go?" + +"But the brigands, Monseigneur?" + +"Hold," said the Bishop, "I must think of that. You are right. I may +meet them. They, too, need to be told of the good God." + +"But, Monseigneur, there is a band of them! A flock of wolves!" + +"Monsieur le maire, it may be that it is of this very flock of wolves +that Jesus has constituted me the shepherd. Who knows the ways of +Providence?" + +"They will rob you, Monseigneur." + +"I have nothing." + +"They will kill you." + +"An old goodman of a priest, who passes along mumbling his prayers? Bah! +To what purpose?" + +"Oh, mon Dieu! what if you should meet them!" + +"I should beg alms of them for my poor." + +"Do not go, Monseigneur. In the name of Heaven! You are risking your +life!" + +"Monsieur le maire," said the Bishop, "is that really all? I am not in +the world to guard my own life, but to guard souls." + +They had to allow him to do as he pleased. He set out, accompanied only +by a child who offered to serve as a guide. His obstinacy was bruited +about the country-side, and caused great consternation. + +He would take neither his sister nor Madame Magloire. He traversed the +mountain on mule-back, encountered no one, and arrived safe and sound +at the residence of his "good friends," the shepherds. He remained +there for a fortnight, preaching, administering the sacrament, teaching, +exhorting. When the time of his departure approached, he resolved to +chant a Te Deum pontifically. He mentioned it to the cure. But what was +to be done? There were no episcopal ornaments. They could only place at +his disposal a wretched village sacristy, with a few ancient chasubles +of threadbare damask adorned with imitation lace. + +"Bah!" said the Bishop. "Let us announce our Te Deum from the pulpit, +nevertheless, Monsieur le Cure. Things will arrange themselves." + +They instituted a search in the churches of the neighborhood. All the +magnificence of these humble parishes combined would not have sufficed +to clothe the chorister of a cathedral properly. + +While they were thus embarrassed, a large chest was brought and +deposited in the presbytery for the Bishop, by two unknown horsemen, who +departed on the instant. The chest was opened; it contained a cope of +cloth of gold, a mitre ornamented with diamonds, an archbishop's cross, +a magnificent crosier,--all the pontifical vestments which had been +stolen a month previously from the treasury of Notre Dame d'Embrun. In +the chest was a paper, on which these words were written, "From Cravatte +to Monseigneur Bienvenu." + +"Did not I say that things would come right of themselves?" said the +Bishop. Then he added, with a smile, "To him who contents himself with +the surplice of a curate, God sends the cope of an archbishop." + +"Monseigneur," murmured the cure, throwing back his head with a smile. +"God--or the Devil." + +The Bishop looked steadily at the cure, and repeated with authority, +"God!" + +When he returned to Chastelar, the people came out to stare at him as at +a curiosity, all along the road. At the priest's house in Chastelar he +rejoined Mademoiselle Baptistine and Madame Magloire, who were waiting +for him, and he said to his sister: "Well! was I in the right? The poor +priest went to his poor mountaineers with empty hands, and he returns +from them with his hands full. I set out bearing only my faith in God; I +have brought back the treasure of a cathedral." + +That evening, before he went to bed, he said again: "Let us never fear +robbers nor murderers. Those are dangers from without, petty dangers. +Let us fear ourselves. Prejudices are the real robbers; vices are the +real murderers. The great dangers lie within ourselves. What matters it +what threatens our head or our purse! Let us think only of that which +threatens our soul." + +Then, turning to his sister: "Sister, never a precaution on the part +of the priest, against his fellow-man. That which his fellow does, God +permits. Let us confine ourselves to prayer, when we think that a danger +is approaching us. Let us pray, not for ourselves, but that our brother +may not fall into sin on our account." + +However, such incidents were rare in his life. We relate those of which +we know; but generally he passed his life in doing the same things at +the same moment. One month of his year resembled one hour of his day. + +As to what became of "the treasure" of the cathedral of Embrun, we +should be embarrassed by any inquiry in that direction. It consisted of +very handsome things, very tempting things, and things which were very +well adapted to be stolen for the benefit of the unfortunate. Stolen +they had already been elsewhere. Half of the adventure was completed; it +only remained to impart a new direction to the theft, and to cause it +to take a short trip in the direction of the poor. However, we make no +assertions on this point. Only, a rather obscure note was found among +the Bishop's papers, which may bear some relation to this matter, and +which is couched in these terms, "The question is, to decide whether +this should be turned over to the cathedral or to the hospital." + + + + +CHAPTER VIII--PHILOSOPHY AFTER DRINKING + +The senator above mentioned was a clever man, who had made his own way, +heedless of those things which present obstacles, and which are called +conscience, sworn faith, justice, duty: he had marched straight to his +goal, without once flinching in the line of his advancement and his +interest. He was an old attorney, softened by success; not a bad man by +any means, who rendered all the small services in his power to his sons, +his sons-in-law, his relations, and even to his friends, having wisely +seized upon, in life, good sides, good opportunities, good windfalls. +Everything else seemed to him very stupid. He was intelligent, and just +sufficiently educated to think himself a disciple of Epicurus; while he +was, in reality, only a product of Pigault-Lebrun. He laughed willingly +and pleasantly over infinite and eternal things, and at the "Crotchets +of that good old fellow the Bishop." He even sometimes laughed at him +with an amiable authority in the presence of M. Myriel himself, who +listened to him. + +On some semi-official occasion or other, I do not recollect what, +Count*** [this senator] and M. Myriel were to dine with the prefect. +At dessert, the senator, who was slightly exhilarated, though still +perfectly dignified, exclaimed:-- + +"Egad, Bishop, let's have a discussion. It is hard for a senator and a +bishop to look at each other without winking. We are two augurs. I am +going to make a confession to you. I have a philosophy of my own." + +"And you are right," replied the Bishop. "As one makes one's philosophy, +so one lies on it. You are on the bed of purple, senator." + +The senator was encouraged, and went on:-- + +"Let us be good fellows." + +"Good devils even," said the Bishop. + +"I declare to you," continued the senator, "that the Marquis d'Argens, +Pyrrhon, Hobbes, and M. Naigeon are no rascals. I have all the +philosophers in my library gilded on the edges." + +"Like yourself, Count," interposed the Bishop. + +The senator resumed:-- + +"I hate Diderot; he is an ideologist, a declaimer, and a revolutionist, +a believer in God at bottom, and more bigoted than Voltaire. Voltaire +made sport of Needham, and he was wrong, for Needham's eels prove that +God is useless. A drop of vinegar in a spoonful of flour paste supplies +the fiat lux. Suppose the drop to be larger and the spoonful bigger; +you have the world. Man is the eel. Then what is the good of the Eternal +Father? The Jehovah hypothesis tires me, Bishop. It is good for nothing +but to produce shallow people, whose reasoning is hollow. Down with that +great All, which torments me! Hurrah for Zero which leaves me in peace! +Between you and me, and in order to empty my sack, and make confession +to my pastor, as it behooves me to do, I will admit to you that I +have good sense. I am not enthusiastic over your Jesus, who preaches +renunciation and sacrifice to the last extremity. 'Tis the counsel of an +avaricious man to beggars. Renunciation; why? Sacrifice; to what end? +I do not see one wolf immolating himself for the happiness of another +wolf. Let us stick to nature, then. We are at the top; let us have a +superior philosophy. What is the advantage of being at the top, if +one sees no further than the end of other people's noses? Let us live +merrily. Life is all. That man has another future elsewhere, on high, +below, anywhere, I don't believe; not one single word of it. Ah! +sacrifice and renunciation are recommended to me; I must take heed to +everything I do; I must cudgel my brains over good and evil, over the +just and the unjust, over the fas and the nefas. Why? Because I shall +have to render an account of my actions. When? After death. What a fine +dream! After my death it will be a very clever person who can catch me. +Have a handful of dust seized by a shadow-hand, if you can. Let us tell +the truth, we who are initiated, and who have raised the veil of Isis: +there is no such thing as either good or evil; there is vegetation. +Let us seek the real. Let us get to the bottom of it. Let us go into it +thoroughly. What the deuce! let us go to the bottom of it! We must scent +out the truth; dig in the earth for it, and seize it. Then it gives you +exquisite joys. Then you grow strong, and you laugh. I am square on the +bottom, I am. Immortality, Bishop, is a chance, a waiting for dead men's +shoes. Ah! what a charming promise! trust to it, if you like! What a +fine lot Adam has! We are souls, and we shall be angels, with blue wings +on our shoulder-blades. Do come to my assistance: is it not Tertullian +who says that the blessed shall travel from star to star? Very well. We +shall be the grasshoppers of the stars. And then, besides, we shall +see God. Ta, ta, ta! What twaddle all these paradises are! God is a +nonsensical monster. I would not say that in the Moniteur, egad! but I +may whisper it among friends. Inter pocula. To sacrifice the world to +paradise is to let slip the prey for the shadow. Be the dupe of the +infinite! I'm not such a fool. I am a nought. I call myself Monsieur le +Comte Nought, senator. Did I exist before my birth? No. Shall I exist +after death? No. What am I? A little dust collected in an organism. What +am I to do on this earth? The choice rests with me: suffer or enjoy. +Whither will suffering lead me? To nothingness; but I shall have +suffered. Whither will enjoyment lead me? To nothingness; but I shall +have enjoyed myself. My choice is made. One must eat or be eaten. I +shall eat. It is better to be the tooth than the grass. Such is my +wisdom. After which, go whither I push thee, the grave-digger is there; +the Pantheon for some of us: all falls into the great hole. End. Finis. +Total liquidation. This is the vanishing-point. Death is death, believe +me. I laugh at the idea of there being any one who has anything to tell +me on that subject. Fables of nurses; bugaboo for children; Jehovah for +men. No; our to-morrow is the night. Beyond the tomb there is nothing +but equal nothingness. You have been Sardanapalus, you have been Vincent +de Paul--it makes no difference. That is the truth. Then live your life, +above all things. Make use of your _I_ while you have it. In truth, +Bishop, I tell you that I have a philosophy of my own, and I have my +philosophers. I don't let myself be taken in with that nonsense. +Of course, there must be something for those who are down,--for the +barefooted beggars, knife-grinders, and miserable wretches. Legends, +chimeras, the soul, immortality, paradise, the stars, are provided for +them to swallow. They gobble it down. They spread it on their dry bread. +He who has nothing else has the good. God. That is the least he can +have. I oppose no objection to that; but I reserve Monsieur Naigeon for +myself. The good God is good for the populace." + +The Bishop clapped his hands. + +"That's talking!" he exclaimed. "What an excellent and really marvellous +thing is this materialism! Not every one who wants it can have it. Ah! +when one does have it, one is no longer a dupe, one does not stupidly +allow one's self to be exiled like Cato, nor stoned like Stephen, nor +burned alive like Jeanne d'Arc. Those who have succeeded in procuring +this admirable materialism have the joy of feeling themselves +irresponsible, and of thinking that they can devour everything without +uneasiness,--places, sinecures, dignities, power, whether well or +ill acquired, lucrative recantations, useful treacheries, savory +capitulations of conscience,--and that they shall enter the tomb with +their digestion accomplished. How agreeable that is! I do not say that +with reference to you, senator. Nevertheless, it is impossible for me +to refrain from congratulating you. You great lords have, so you say, a +philosophy of your own, and for yourselves, which is exquisite, refined, +accessible to the rich alone, good for all sauces, and which seasons +the voluptuousness of life admirably. This philosophy has been +extracted from the depths, and unearthed by special seekers. But you are +good-natured princes, and you do not think it a bad thing that belief in +the good God should constitute the philosophy of the people, very much +as the goose stuffed with chestnuts is the truffled turkey of the poor." + + + + +CHAPTER IX--THE BROTHER AS DEPICTED BY THE SISTER + +In order to furnish an idea of the private establishment of the +Bishop of D----, and of the manner in which those two sainted women +subordinated their actions, their thoughts, their feminine instincts +even, which are easily alarmed, to the habits and purposes of the +Bishop, without his even taking the trouble of speaking in order to +explain them, we cannot do better than transcribe in this place a letter +from Mademoiselle Baptistine to Madame the Vicomtess de Boischevron, the +friend of her childhood. This letter is in our possession. + + + D----, Dec. 16, 18--. +MY GOOD MADAM: Not a day passes without our speaking of you. It is our +established custom; but there is another reason besides. Just imagine, +while washing and dusting the ceilings and walls, Madam Magloire has +made some discoveries; now our two chambers hung with antique paper +whitewashed over, would not discredit a chateau in the style of yours. +Madam Magloire has pulled off all the paper. There were things beneath. +My drawing-room, which contains no furniture, and which we use for +spreading out the linen after washing, is fifteen feet in height, +eighteen square, with a ceiling which was formerly painted and gilded, +and with beams, as in yours. This was covered with a cloth while this +was the hospital. And the woodwork was of the era of our grandmothers. +But my room is the one you ought to see. Madam Magloire has discovered, +under at least ten thicknesses of paper pasted on top, some paintings, +which without being good are very tolerable. The subject is Telemachus +being knighted by Minerva in some gardens, the name of which escapes +me. In short, where the Roman ladies repaired on one single night. What +shall I say to you? I have Romans, and Roman ladies [here occurs an +illegible word], and the whole train. Madam Magloire has cleaned it all +off; this summer she is going to have some small injuries repaired, and +the whole revarnished, and my chamber will be a regular museum. She has +also found in a corner of the attic two wooden pier-tables of ancient +fashion. They asked us two crowns of six francs each to regild them, but +it is much better to give the money to the poor; and they are very ugly +besides, and I should much prefer a round table of mahogany. + +I am always very happy. My brother is so good. He gives all he has to +the poor and sick. We are very much cramped. The country is trying in +the winter, and we really must do something for those who are in need. +We are almost comfortably lighted and warmed. You see that these are +great treats. + +My brother has ways of his own. When he talks, he says that a bishop +ought to be so. Just imagine! the door of our house is never fastened. +Whoever chooses to enter finds himself at once in my brother's room. He +fears nothing, even at night. That is his sort of bravery, he says. + +He does not wish me or Madame Magloire feel any fear for him. He exposes +himself to all sorts of dangers, and he does not like to have us even +seem to notice it. One must know how to understand him. + +He goes out in the rain, he walks in the water, he travels in winter. He +fears neither suspicious roads nor dangerous encounters, nor night. + +Last year he went quite alone into a country of robbers. He would +not take us. He was absent for a fortnight. On his return nothing had +happened to him; he was thought to be dead, but was perfectly well, and +said, "This is the way I have been robbed!" And then he opened a trunk +full of jewels, all the jewels of the cathedral of Embrun, which the +thieves had given him. + +When he returned on that occasion, I could not refrain from scolding him +a little, taking care, however, not to speak except when the carriage +was making a noise, so that no one might hear me. + +At first I used to say to myself, "There are no dangers which will stop +him; he is terrible." Now I have ended by getting used to it. I make a +sign to Madam Magloire that she is not to oppose him. He risks himself +as he sees fit. I carry off Madam Magloire, I enter my chamber, I pray +for him and fall asleep. I am at ease, because I know that if anything +were to happen to him, it would be the end of me. I should go to the +good God with my brother and my bishop. It has cost Madam Magloire +more trouble than it did me to accustom herself to what she terms his +imprudences. But now the habit has been acquired. We pray together, we +tremble together, and we fall asleep. If the devil were to enter this +house, he would be allowed to do so. After all, what is there for us +to fear in this house? There is always some one with us who is stronger +than we. The devil may pass through it, but the good God dwells here. + +This suffices me. My brother has no longer any need of saying a word to +me. I understand him without his speaking, and we abandon ourselves to +the care of Providence. That is the way one has to do with a man who +possesses grandeur of soul. + +I have interrogated my brother with regard to the information which you +desire on the subject of the Faux family. You are aware that he knows +everything, and that he has memories, because he is still a very +good royalist. They really are a very ancient Norman family of the +generalship of Caen. Five hundred years ago there was a Raoul de Faux, a +Jean de Faux, and a Thomas de Faux, who were gentlemen, and one of whom +was a seigneur de Rochefort. The last was Guy-Etienne-Alexandre, and was +commander of a regiment, and something in the light horse of Bretagne. +His daughter, Marie-Louise, married Adrien-Charles de Gramont, son of +the Duke Louis de Gramont, peer of France, colonel of the French guards, +and lieutenant-general of the army. It is written Faux, Fauq, and +Faoucq. + +Good Madame, recommend us to the prayers of your sainted relative, +Monsieur the Cardinal. As for your dear Sylvanie, she has done well in +not wasting the few moments which she passes with you in writing to me. +She is well, works as you would wish, and loves me. + +That is all that I desire. The souvenir which she sent through you +reached me safely, and it makes me very happy. My health is not so very +bad, and yet I grow thinner every day. Farewell; my paper is at an end, +and this forces me to leave you. A thousand good wishes. + +BAPTISTINE. + +P.S. Your grand nephew is charming. Do you know that he will soon be +five years old? Yesterday he saw some one riding by on horseback who +had on knee-caps, and he said, "What has he got on his knees?" He is a +charming child! His little brother is dragging an old broom about the +room, like a carriage, and saying, "Hu!" + + +As will be perceived from this letter, these two women understood how to +mould themselves to the Bishop's ways with that special feminine genius +which comprehends the man better than he comprehends himself. The Bishop +of D----, in spite of the gentle and candid air which never deserted +him, sometimes did things that were grand, bold, and magnificent, +without seeming to have even a suspicion of the fact. They trembled, but +they let him alone. Sometimes Madame Magloire essayed a remonstrance in +advance, but never at the time, nor afterwards. They never interfered +with him by so much as a word or sign, in any action once entered upon. +At certain moments, without his having occasion to mention it, when he +was not even conscious of it himself in all probability, so perfect was +his simplicity, they vaguely felt that he was acting as a bishop; then +they were nothing more than two shadows in the house. They served him +passively; and if obedience consisted in disappearing, they disappeared. +They understood, with an admirable delicacy of instinct, that certain +cares may be put under constraint. Thus, even when believing him to be +in peril, they understood, I will not say his thought, but his nature, +to such a degree that they no longer watched over him. They confided him +to God. + +Moreover, Baptistine said, as we have just read, that her brother's end +would prove her own. Madame Magloire did not say this, but she knew it. + + + + +CHAPTER X--THE BISHOP IN THE PRESENCE OF AN UNKNOWN LIGHT + +At an epoch a little later than the date of the letter cited in the +preceding pages, he did a thing which, if the whole town was to be +believed, was even more hazardous than his trip across the mountains +infested with bandits. + +In the country near D---- a man lived quite alone. This man, we will +state at once, was a former member of the Convention. His name was G---- + +Member of the Convention, G---- was mentioned with a sort of horror in +the little world of D---- A member of the Convention--can you imagine +such a thing? That existed from the time when people called each other +thou, and when they said "citizen." This man was almost a monster. +He had not voted for the death of the king, but almost. He was a +quasi-regicide. He had been a terrible man. How did it happen that such +a man had not been brought before a provost's court, on the return of +the legitimate princes? They need not have cut off his head, if you +please; clemency must be exercised, agreed; but a good banishment for +life. An example, in short, etc. Besides, he was an atheist, like all +the rest of those people. Gossip of the geese about the vulture. + +Was G---- a vulture after all? Yes; if he were to be judged by the +element of ferocity in this solitude of his. As he had not voted for the +death of the king, he had not been included in the decrees of exile, and +had been able to remain in France. + +He dwelt at a distance of three-quarters of an hour from the city, far +from any hamlet, far from any road, in some hidden turn of a very wild +valley, no one knew exactly where. He had there, it was said, a sort +of field, a hole, a lair. There were no neighbors, not even passers-by. +Since he had dwelt in that valley, the path which led thither had +disappeared under a growth of grass. The locality was spoken of as +though it had been the dwelling of a hangman. + +Nevertheless, the Bishop meditated on the subject, and from time to time +he gazed at the horizon at a point where a clump of trees marked the +valley of the former member of the Convention, and he said, "There is a +soul yonder which is lonely." + +And he added, deep in his own mind, "I owe him a visit." + +But, let us avow it, this idea, which seemed natural at the first blush, +appeared to him after a moment's reflection, as strange, impossible, and +almost repulsive. For, at bottom, he shared the general impression, and +the old member of the Convention inspired him, without his being clearly +conscious of the fact himself, with that sentiment which borders on +hate, and which is so well expressed by the word estrangement. + +Still, should the scab of the sheep cause the shepherd to recoil? No. +But what a sheep! + +The good Bishop was perplexed. Sometimes he set out in that direction; +then he returned. + +Finally, the rumor one day spread through the town that a sort of young +shepherd, who served the member of the Convention in his hovel, had come +in quest of a doctor; that the old wretch was dying, that paralysis was +gaining on him, and that he would not live over night.--"Thank God!" +some added. + +The Bishop took his staff, put on his cloak, on account of his too +threadbare cassock, as we have mentioned, and because of the evening +breeze which was sure to rise soon, and set out. + +The sun was setting, and had almost touched the horizon when the Bishop +arrived at the excommunicated spot. With a certain beating of the heart, +he recognized the fact that he was near the lair. He strode over a +ditch, leaped a hedge, made his way through a fence of dead boughs, +entered a neglected paddock, took a few steps with a good deal of +boldness, and suddenly, at the extremity of the waste land, and behind +lofty brambles, he caught sight of the cavern. + +It was a very low hut, poor, small, and clean, with a vine nailed +against the outside. + +Near the door, in an old wheel-chair, the arm-chair of the peasants, +there was a white-haired man, smiling at the sun. + +Near the seated man stood a young boy, the shepherd lad. He was offering +the old man a jar of milk. + +While the Bishop was watching him, the old man spoke: "Thank you," he +said, "I need nothing." And his smile quitted the sun to rest upon the +child. + +The Bishop stepped forward. At the sound which he made in walking, the +old man turned his head, and his face expressed the sum total of the +surprise which a man can still feel after a long life. + +"This is the first time since I have been here," said he, "that any one +has entered here. Who are you, sir?" + +The Bishop answered:-- + +"My name is Bienvenu Myriel." + +"Bienvenu Myriel? I have heard that name. Are you the man whom the +people call Monseigneur Welcome?" + +"I am." + +The old man resumed with a half-smile + +"In that case, you are my bishop?" + +"Something of that sort." + +"Enter, sir." + +The member of the Convention extended his hand to the Bishop, but the +Bishop did not take it. The Bishop confined himself to the remark:-- + +"I am pleased to see that I have been misinformed. You certainly do not +seem to me to be ill." + +"Monsieur," replied the old man, "I am going to recover." + +He paused, and then said:-- + +"I shall die three hours hence." + +Then he continued:-- + +"I am something of a doctor; I know in what fashion the last hour draws +on. Yesterday, only my feet were cold; to-day, the chill has ascended to +my knees; now I feel it mounting to my waist; when it reaches the heart, +I shall stop. The sun is beautiful, is it not? I had myself wheeled +out here to take a last look at things. You can talk to me; it does not +fatigue me. You have done well to come and look at a man who is on +the point of death. It is well that there should be witnesses at that +moment. One has one's caprices; I should have liked to last until the +dawn, but I know that I shall hardly live three hours. It will be night +then. What does it matter, after all? Dying is a simple affair. One has +no need of the light for that. So be it. I shall die by starlight." + +The old man turned to the shepherd lad:-- + +"Go to thy bed; thou wert awake all last night; thou art tired." + +The child entered the hut. + +The old man followed him with his eyes, and added, as though speaking to +himself:-- + +"I shall die while he sleeps. The two slumbers may be good neighbors." + +The Bishop was not touched as it seems that he should have been. He +did not think he discerned God in this manner of dying; let us say the +whole, for these petty contradictions of great hearts must be indicated +like the rest: he, who on occasion, was so fond of laughing at "His +Grace," was rather shocked at not being addressed as Monseigneur, and he +was almost tempted to retort "citizen." He was assailed by a fancy for +peevish familiarity, common enough to doctors and priests, but which +was not habitual with him. This man, after all, this member of the +Convention, this representative of the people, had been one of the +powerful ones of the earth; for the first time in his life, probably, +the Bishop felt in a mood to be severe. + +Meanwhile, the member of the Convention had been surveying him with a +modest cordiality, in which one could have distinguished, possibly, that +humility which is so fitting when one is on the verge of returning to +dust. + +The Bishop, on his side, although he generally restrained his curiosity, +which, in his opinion, bordered on a fault, could not refrain from +examining the member of the Convention with an attention which, as it +did not have its course in sympathy, would have served his conscience as +a matter of reproach, in connection with any other man. A member of the +Convention produced on him somewhat the effect of being outside the pale +of the law, even of the law of charity. G----, calm, his body almost +upright, his voice vibrating, was one of those octogenarians who form +the subject of astonishment to the physiologist. The Revolution had +many of these men, proportioned to the epoch. In this old man one was +conscious of a man put to the proof. Though so near to his end, he +preserved all the gestures of health. In his clear glance, in his firm +tone, in the robust movement of his shoulders, there was something +calculated to disconcert death. Azrael, the Mohammedan angel of the +sepulchre, would have turned back, and thought that he had mistaken +the door. G---- seemed to be dying because he willed it so. There was +freedom in his agony. His legs alone were motionless. It was there that +the shadows held him fast. His feet were cold and dead, but his head +survived with all the power of life, and seemed full of light. G----, +at this solemn moment, resembled the king in that tale of the Orient who +was flesh above and marble below. + +There was a stone there. The Bishop sat down. The exordium was abrupt. + +"I congratulate you," said he, in the tone which one uses for a +reprimand. "You did not vote for the death of the king, after all." + +The old member of the Convention did not appear to notice the bitter +meaning underlying the words "after all." He replied. The smile had +quite disappeared from his face. + +"Do not congratulate me too much, sir. I did vote for the death of the +tyrant." + +It was the tone of austerity answering the tone of severity. + +"What do you mean to say?" resumed the Bishop. + +"I mean to say that man has a tyrant,--ignorance. I voted for the death +of that tyrant. That tyrant engendered royalty, which is authority +falsely understood, while science is authority rightly understood. Man +should be governed only by science." + +"And conscience," added the Bishop. + +"It is the same thing. Conscience is the quantity of innate science +which we have within us." + +Monseigneur Bienvenu listened in some astonishment to this language, +which was very new to him. + +The member of the Convention resumed:-- + +"So far as Louis XVI. was concerned, I said 'no.' I did not think that I +had the right to kill a man; but I felt it my duty to exterminate evil. +I voted the end of the tyrant, that is to say, the end of prostitution +for woman, the end of slavery for man, the end of night for the child. +In voting for the Republic, I voted for that. I voted for fraternity, +concord, the dawn. I have aided in the overthrow of prejudices and +errors. The crumbling away of prejudices and errors causes light. We +have caused the fall of the old world, and the old world, that vase of +miseries, has become, through its upsetting upon the human race, an urn +of joy." + +"Mixed joy," said the Bishop. + +"You may say troubled joy, and to-day, after that fatal return of the +past, which is called 1814, joy which has disappeared! Alas! The work +was incomplete, I admit: we demolished the ancient regime in deeds; we +were not able to suppress it entirely in ideas. To destroy abuses is not +sufficient; customs must be modified. The mill is there no longer; the +wind is still there." + +"You have demolished. It may be of use to demolish, but I distrust a +demolition complicated with wrath." + +"Right has its wrath, Bishop; and the wrath of right is an element of +progress. In any case, and in spite of whatever may be said, the French +Revolution is the most important step of the human race since the advent +of Christ. Incomplete, it may be, but sublime. It set free all the +unknown social quantities; it softened spirits, it calmed, appeased, +enlightened; it caused the waves of civilization to flow over the +earth. It was a good thing. The French Revolution is the consecration of +humanity." + +The Bishop could not refrain from murmuring:-- + +"Yes? '93!" + +The member of the Convention straightened himself up in his chair with +an almost lugubrious solemnity, and exclaimed, so far as a dying man is +capable of exclamation:-- + +"Ah, there you go; '93! I was expecting that word. A cloud had been +forming for the space of fifteen hundred years; at the end of fifteen +hundred years it burst. You are putting the thunderbolt on its trial." + +The Bishop felt, without, perhaps, confessing it, that something within +him had suffered extinction. Nevertheless, he put a good face on the +matter. He replied:-- + +"The judge speaks in the name of justice; the priest speaks in the name +of pity, which is nothing but a more lofty justice. A thunderbolt should +commit no error." And he added, regarding the member of the Convention +steadily the while, "Louis XVII.?" + +The conventionary stretched forth his hand and grasped the Bishop's arm. + +"Louis XVII.! let us see. For whom do you mourn? is it for the innocent +child? very good; in that case I mourn with you. Is it for the royal +child? I demand time for reflection. To me, the brother of Cartouche, +an innocent child who was hung up by the armpits in the Place de Greve, +until death ensued, for the sole crime of having been the brother +of Cartouche, is no less painful than the grandson of Louis XV., an +innocent child, martyred in the tower of the Temple, for the sole crime +of having been grandson of Louis XV." + +"Monsieur," said the Bishop, "I like not this conjunction of names." + +"Cartouche? Louis XV.? To which of the two do you object?" + +A momentary silence ensued. The Bishop almost regretted having come, and +yet he felt vaguely and strangely shaken. + +The conventionary resumed:-- + +"Ah, Monsieur Priest, you love not the crudities of the true. Christ +loved them. He seized a rod and cleared out the Temple. His scourge, +full of lightnings, was a harsh speaker of truths. When he cried, +'Sinite parvulos,' he made no distinction between the little children. +It would not have embarrassed him to bring together the Dauphin of +Barabbas and the Dauphin of Herod. Innocence, Monsieur, is its own +crown. Innocence has no need to be a highness. It is as august in rags +as in fleurs de lys." + +"That is true," said the Bishop in a low voice. + +"I persist," continued the conventionary G---- "You have mentioned Louis +XVII. to me. Let us come to an understanding. Shall we weep for all the +innocent, all martyrs, all children, the lowly as well as the exalted? +I agree to that. But in that case, as I have told you, we must go back +further than '93, and our tears must begin before Louis XVII. I will +weep with you over the children of kings, provided that you will weep +with me over the children of the people." + +"I weep for all," said the Bishop. + +"Equally!" exclaimed conventionary G----; "and if the balance must +incline, let it be on the side of the people. They have been suffering +longer." + +Another silence ensued. The conventionary was the first to break it. He +raised himself on one elbow, took a bit of his cheek between his thumb +and his forefinger, as one does mechanically when one interrogates and +judges, and appealed to the Bishop with a gaze full of all the forces of +the death agony. It was almost an explosion. + +"Yes, sir, the people have been suffering a long while. And hold! that +is not all, either; why have you just questioned me and talked to me +about Louis XVII.? I know you not. Ever since I have been in these parts +I have dwelt in this enclosure alone, never setting foot outside, and +seeing no one but that child who helps me. Your name has reached me in +a confused manner, it is true, and very badly pronounced, I must admit; +but that signifies nothing: clever men have so many ways of imposing on +that honest goodman, the people. By the way, I did not hear the sound of +your carriage; you have left it yonder, behind the coppice at the fork +of the roads, no doubt. I do not know you, I tell you. You have told me +that you are the Bishop; but that affords me no information as to your +moral personality. In short, I repeat my question. Who are you? You are +a bishop; that is to say, a prince of the church, one of those gilded +men with heraldic bearings and revenues, who have vast prebends,--the +bishopric of D---- fifteen thousand francs settled income, ten thousand +in perquisites; total, twenty-five thousand francs,--who have kitchens, +who have liveries, who make good cheer, who eat moor-hens on Friday, who +strut about, a lackey before, a lackey behind, in a gala coach, and +who have palaces, and who roll in their carriages in the name of Jesus +Christ who went barefoot! You are a prelate,--revenues, palace, horses, +servants, good table, all the sensualities of life; you have this like +the rest, and like the rest, you enjoy it; it is well; but this says +either too much or too little; this does not enlighten me upon the +intrinsic and essential value of the man who comes with the probable +intention of bringing wisdom to me. To whom do I speak? Who are you?" + +The Bishop hung his head and replied, "Vermis sum--I am a worm." + +"A worm of the earth in a carriage?" growled the conventionary. + +It was the conventionary's turn to be arrogant, and the Bishop's to be +humble. + +The Bishop resumed mildly:-- + +"So be it, sir. But explain to me how my carriage, which is a few paces +off behind the trees yonder, how my good table and the moor-hens which I +eat on Friday, how my twenty-five thousand francs income, how my palace +and my lackeys prove that clemency is not a duty, and that '93 was not +inexorable." + +The conventionary passed his hand across his brow, as though to sweep +away a cloud. + +"Before replying to you," he said, "I beseech you to pardon me. I have +just committed a wrong, sir. You are at my house, you are my guest, I +owe you courtesy. You discuss my ideas, and it becomes me to confine +myself to combating your arguments. Your riches and your pleasures are +advantages which I hold over you in the debate; but good taste dictates +that I shall not make use of them. I promise you to make no use of them +in the future." + +"I thank you," said the Bishop. + +G---- resumed. + +"Let us return to the explanation which you have asked of me. Where were +we? What were you saying to me? That '93 was inexorable?" + +"Inexorable; yes," said the Bishop. "What think you of Marat clapping +his hands at the guillotine?" + +"What think you of Bossuet chanting the Te Deum over the dragonnades?" + +The retort was a harsh one, but it attained its mark with the directness +of a point of steel. The Bishop quivered under it; no reply occurred to +him; but he was offended by this mode of alluding to Bossuet. The best +of minds will have their fetiches, and they sometimes feel vaguely +wounded by the want of respect of logic. + +The conventionary began to pant; the asthma of the agony which is +mingled with the last breaths interrupted his voice; still, there was a +perfect lucidity of soul in his eyes. He went on:-- + +"Let me say a few words more in this and that direction; I am willing. +Apart from the Revolution, which, taken as a whole, is an immense human +affirmation, '93 is, alas! a rejoinder. You think it inexorable, sir; +but what of the whole monarchy, sir? Carrier is a bandit; but what name +do you give to Montrevel? Fouquier-Tainville is a rascal; but what +is your opinion as to Lamoignon-Baville? Maillard is terrible; but +Saulx-Tavannes, if you please? Duchene senior is ferocious; but what +epithet will you allow me for the elder Letellier? Jourdan-Coupe-Tete +is a monster; but not so great a one as M. the Marquis de Louvois. Sir, +sir, I am sorry for Marie Antoinette, archduchess and queen; but I am +also sorry for that poor Huguenot woman, who, in 1685, under Louis the +Great, sir, while with a nursing infant, was bound, naked to the waist, +to a stake, and the child kept at a distance; her breast swelled with +milk and her heart with anguish; the little one, hungry and pale, beheld +that breast and cried and agonized; the executioner said to the woman, a +mother and a nurse, 'Abjure!' giving her her choice between the death of +her infant and the death of her conscience. What say you to that torture +of Tantalus as applied to a mother? Bear this well in mind sir: the +French Revolution had its reasons for existence; its wrath will be +absolved by the future; its result is the world made better. From its +most terrible blows there comes forth a caress for the human race. I +abridge, I stop, I have too much the advantage; moreover, I am dying." + +And ceasing to gaze at the Bishop, the conventionary concluded his +thoughts in these tranquil words:-- + +"Yes, the brutalities of progress are called revolutions. When they are +over, this fact is recognized,--that the human race has been treated +harshly, but that it has progressed." + +The conventionary doubted not that he had successively conquered all the +inmost intrenchments of the Bishop. One remained, however, and from this +intrenchment, the last resource of Monseigneur Bienvenu's resistance, +came forth this reply, wherein appeared nearly all the harshness of the +beginning:-- + +"Progress should believe in God. Good cannot have an impious servitor. +He who is an atheist is but a bad leader for the human race." + +The former representative of the people made no reply. He was seized +with a fit of trembling. He looked towards heaven, and in his glance a +tear gathered slowly. When the eyelid was full, the tear trickled down +his livid cheek, and he said, almost in a stammer, quite low, and to +himself, while his eyes were plunged in the depths:-- + +"O thou! O ideal! Thou alone existest!" + +The Bishop experienced an indescribable shock. + +After a pause, the old man raised a finger heavenward and said:-- + +"The infinite is. He is there. If the infinite had no person, person +would be without limit; it would not be infinite; in other words, it +would not exist. There is, then, an _I_. That _I_ of the infinite is +God." + +The dying man had pronounced these last words in a loud voice, and with +the shiver of ecstasy, as though he beheld some one. When he had spoken, +his eyes closed. The effort had exhausted him. It was evident that he +had just lived through in a moment the few hours which had been left to +him. That which he had said brought him nearer to him who is in death. +The supreme moment was approaching. + +The Bishop understood this; time pressed; it was as a priest that he had +come: from extreme coldness he had passed by degrees to extreme emotion; +he gazed at those closed eyes, he took that wrinkled, aged and ice-cold +hand in his, and bent over the dying man. + +"This hour is the hour of God. Do you not think that it would be +regrettable if we had met in vain?" + +The conventionary opened his eyes again. A gravity mingled with gloom +was imprinted on his countenance. + +"Bishop," said he, with a slowness which probably arose more from his +dignity of soul than from the failing of his strength, "I have passed my +life in meditation, study, and contemplation. I was sixty years of age +when my country called me and commanded me to concern myself with its +affairs. I obeyed. Abuses existed, I combated them; tyrannies existed, +I destroyed them; rights and principles existed, I proclaimed and +confessed them. Our territory was invaded, I defended it; France was +menaced, I offered my breast. I was not rich; I am poor. I have been one +of the masters of the state; the vaults of the treasury were encumbered +with specie to such a degree that we were forced to shore up the walls, +which were on the point of bursting beneath the weight of gold and +silver; I dined in Dead Tree Street, at twenty-two sous. I have succored +the oppressed, I have comforted the suffering. I tore the cloth from +the altar, it is true; but it was to bind up the wounds of my country. I +have always upheld the march forward of the human race, forward towards +the light, and I have sometimes resisted progress without pity. I have, +when the occasion offered, protected my own adversaries, men of your +profession. And there is at Peteghem, in Flanders, at the very spot +where the Merovingian kings had their summer palace, a convent of +Urbanists, the Abbey of Sainte Claire en Beaulieu, which I saved in +1793. I have done my duty according to my powers, and all the good +that I was able. After which, I was hunted down, pursued, persecuted, +blackened, jeered at, scorned, cursed, proscribed. For many years past, +I with my white hair have been conscious that many people think they +have the right to despise me; to the poor ignorant masses I present the +visage of one damned. And I accept this isolation of hatred, without +hating any one myself. Now I am eighty-six years old; I am on the point +of death. What is it that you have come to ask of me?" + +"Your blessing," said the Bishop. + +And he knelt down. + +When the Bishop raised his head again, the face of the conventionary had +become august. He had just expired. + +The Bishop returned home, deeply absorbed in thoughts which cannot +be known to us. He passed the whole night in prayer. On the following +morning some bold and curious persons attempted to speak to him about +member of the Convention G----; he contented himself with pointing +heavenward. + +From that moment he redoubled his tenderness and brotherly feeling +towards all children and sufferers. + +Any allusion to "that old wretch of a G----" caused him to fall into a +singular preoccupation. No one could say that the passage of that soul +before his, and the reflection of that grand conscience upon his, did +not count for something in his approach to perfection. + +This "pastoral visit" naturally furnished an occasion for a murmur of +comment in all the little local coteries. + +"Was the bedside of such a dying man as that the proper place for a +bishop? There was evidently no conversion to be expected. All those +revolutionists are backsliders. Then why go there? What was there to be +seen there? He must have been very curious indeed to see a soul carried +off by the devil." + +One day a dowager of the impertinent variety who thinks herself +spiritual, addressed this sally to him, "Monseigneur, people are +inquiring when Your Greatness will receive the red cap!"--"Oh! oh! +that's a coarse color," replied the Bishop. "It is lucky that those who +despise it in a cap revere it in a hat." + + + + +CHAPTER XI--A RESTRICTION + +We should incur a great risk of deceiving ourselves, were we to conclude +from this that Monseigneur Welcome was "a philosophical bishop," or a +"patriotic cure." His meeting, which may almost be designated as his +union, with conventionary G----, left behind it in his mind a sort of +astonishment, which rendered him still more gentle. That is all. + +Although Monseigneur Bienvenu was far from being a politician, this is, +perhaps, the place to indicate very briefly what his attitude was in the +events of that epoch, supposing that Monseigneur Bienvenu ever dreamed +of having an attitude. + +Let us, then, go back a few years. + +Some time after the elevation of M. Myriel to the episcopate, the +Emperor had made him a baron of the Empire, in company with many other +bishops. The arrest of the Pope took place, as every one knows, on the +night of the 5th to the 6th of July, 1809; on this occasion, M. Myriel +was summoned by Napoleon to the synod of the bishops of France and Italy +convened at Paris. This synod was held at Notre-Dame, and assembled +for the first time on the 15th of June, 1811, under the presidency +of Cardinal Fesch. M. Myriel was one of the ninety-five bishops who +attended it. But he was present only at one sitting and at three or four +private conferences. Bishop of a mountain diocese, living so very close +to nature, in rusticity and deprivation, it appeared that he imported +among these eminent personages, ideas which altered the temperature of +the assembly. He very soon returned to D---- He was interrogated as to +this speedy return, and he replied: "I embarrassed them. The outside air +penetrated to them through me. I produced on them the effect of an open +door." + +On another occasion he said, "What would you have? Those gentlemen are +princes. I am only a poor peasant bishop." + +The fact is that he displeased them. Among other strange things, it is +said that he chanced to remark one evening, when he found himself at +the house of one of his most notable colleagues: "What beautiful clocks! +What beautiful carpets! What beautiful liveries! They must be a great +trouble. I would not have all those superfluities, crying incessantly +in my ears: 'There are people who are hungry! There are people who are +cold! There are poor people! There are poor people!'" + +Let us remark, by the way, that the hatred of luxury is not an +intelligent hatred. This hatred would involve the hatred of the arts. +Nevertheless, in churchmen, luxury is wrong, except in connection with +representations and ceremonies. It seems to reveal habits which have +very little that is charitable about them. An opulent priest is a +contradiction. The priest must keep close to the poor. Now, can one come +in contact incessantly night and day with all this distress, all these +misfortunes, and this poverty, without having about one's own person a +little of that misery, like the dust of labor? Is it possible to imagine +a man near a brazier who is not warm? Can one imagine a workman who is +working near a furnace, and who has neither a singed hair, nor blackened +nails, nor a drop of sweat, nor a speck of ashes on his face? The first +proof of charity in the priest, in the bishop especially, is poverty. + +This is, no doubt, what the Bishop of D---- thought. + +It must not be supposed, however, that he shared what we call the "ideas +of the century" on certain delicate points. He took very little part +in the theological quarrels of the moment, and maintained silence on +questions in which Church and State were implicated; but if he had +been strongly pressed, it seems that he would have been found to be an +ultramontane rather than a gallican. Since we are making a portrait, and +since we do not wish to conceal anything, we are forced to add that he +was glacial towards Napoleon in his decline. Beginning with 1813, he +gave in his adherence to or applauded all hostile manifestations. He +refused to see him, as he passed through on his return from the island +of Elba, and he abstained from ordering public prayers for the Emperor +in his diocese during the Hundred Days. + +Besides his sister, Mademoiselle Baptistine, he had two brothers, one a +general, the other a prefect. He wrote to both with tolerable frequency. +He was harsh for a time towards the former, because, holding a command +in Provence at the epoch of the disembarkation at Cannes, the general +had put himself at the head of twelve hundred men and had pursued the +Emperor as though the latter had been a person whom one is desirous +of allowing to escape. His correspondence with the other brother, the +ex-prefect, a fine, worthy man who lived in retirement at Paris, Rue +Cassette, remained more affectionate. + +Thus Monseigneur Bienvenu also had his hour of party spirit, his hour +of bitterness, his cloud. The shadow of the passions of the moment +traversed this grand and gentle spirit occupied with eternal things. +Certainly, such a man would have done well not to entertain any +political opinions. Let there be no mistake as to our meaning: we are +not confounding what is called "political opinions" with the grand +aspiration for progress, with the sublime faith, patriotic, democratic, +humane, which in our day should be the very foundation of every generous +intellect. Without going deeply into questions which are only indirectly +connected with the subject of this book, we will simply say this: It +would have been well if Monseigneur Bienvenu had not been a Royalist, +and if his glance had never been, for a single instant, turned away from +that serene contemplation in which is distinctly discernible, above the +fictions and the hatreds of this world, above the stormy vicissitudes of +human things, the beaming of those three pure radiances, truth, justice, +and charity. + +While admitting that it was not for a political office that God created +Monseigneur Welcome, we should have understood and admired his protest +in the name of right and liberty, his proud opposition, his just but +perilous resistance to the all-powerful Napoleon. But that which pleases +us in people who are rising pleases us less in the case of people who +are falling. We only love the fray so long as there is danger, and in +any case, the combatants of the first hour have alone the right to be +the exterminators of the last. He who has not been a stubborn accuser in +prosperity should hold his peace in the face of ruin. The denunciator of +success is the only legitimate executioner of the fall. As for us, when +Providence intervenes and strikes, we let it work. 1812 commenced to +disarm us. In 1813 the cowardly breach of silence of that taciturn +legislative body, emboldened by catastrophe, possessed only traits which +aroused indignation. And it was a crime to applaud, in 1814, in the +presence of those marshals who betrayed; in the presence of that senate +which passed from one dunghill to another, insulting after having +deified; in the presence of that idolatry which was loosing its footing +and spitting on its idol,--it was a duty to turn aside the head. In +1815, when the supreme disasters filled the air, when France was seized +with a shiver at their sinister approach, when Waterloo could be dimly +discerned opening before Napoleon, the mournful acclamation of the army +and the people to the condemned of destiny had nothing laughable in it, +and, after making all allowance for the despot, a heart like that of +the Bishop of D----, ought not perhaps to have failed to recognize the +august and touching features presented by the embrace of a great nation +and a great man on the brink of the abyss. + +With this exception, he was in all things just, true, equitable, +intelligent, humble and dignified, beneficent and kindly, which is only +another sort of benevolence. He was a priest, a sage, and a man. It must +be admitted, that even in the political views with which we have just +reproached him, and which we are disposed to judge almost with severity, +he was tolerant and easy, more so, perhaps, than we who are speaking +here. The porter of the town-hall had been placed there by the Emperor. +He was an old non-commissioned officer of the old guard, a member of the +Legion of Honor at Austerlitz, as much of a Bonapartist as the eagle. +This poor fellow occasionally let slip inconsiderate remarks, which the +law then stigmatized as seditious speeches. After the imperial profile +disappeared from the Legion of Honor, he never dressed himself in his +regimentals, as he said, so that he should not be obliged to wear his +cross. He had himself devoutly removed the imperial effigy from the +cross which Napoleon had given him; this made a hole, and he would not +put anything in its place. "I will die," he said, "rather than wear the +three frogs upon my heart!" He liked to scoff aloud at Louis XVIII. "The +gouty old creature in English gaiters!" he said; "let him take himself +off to Prussia with that queue of his." He was happy to combine in the +same imprecation the two things which he most detested, Prussia and +England. He did it so often that he lost his place. There he was, turned +out of the house, with his wife and children, and without bread. The +Bishop sent for him, reproved him gently, and appointed him beadle in +the cathedral. + +In the course of nine years Monseigneur Bienvenu had, by dint of holy +deeds and gentle manners, filled the town of D----with a sort of +tender and filial reverence. Even his conduct towards Napoleon had been +accepted and tacitly pardoned, as it were, by the people, the good and +weakly flock who adored their emperor, but loved their bishop. + + + + +CHAPTER XII--THE SOLITUDE OF MONSEIGNEUR WELCOME + +A bishop is almost always surrounded by a full squadron of little abbes, +just as a general is by a covey of young officers. This is what +that charming Saint Francois de Sales calls somewhere "les pretres +blancs-becs," callow priests. Every career has its aspirants, who form +a train for those who have attained eminence in it. There is no power +which has not its dependents. There is no fortune which has not its +court. The seekers of the future eddy around the splendid present. Every +metropolis has its staff of officials. Every bishop who possesses the +least influence has about him his patrol of cherubim from the seminary, +which goes the round, and maintains good order in the episcopal palace, +and mounts guard over monseigneur's smile. To please a bishop is +equivalent to getting one's foot in the stirrup for a sub-diaconate. +It is necessary to walk one's path discreetly; the apostleship does not +disdain the canonship. + +Just as there are bigwigs elsewhere, there are big mitres in the Church. +These are the bishops who stand well at Court, who are rich, well +endowed, skilful, accepted by the world, who know how to pray, no doubt, +but who know also how to beg, who feel little scruple at making a whole +diocese dance attendance in their person, who are connecting links +between the sacristy and diplomacy, who are abbes rather than priests, +prelates rather than bishops. Happy those who approach them! Being +persons of influence, they create a shower about them, upon the +assiduous and the favored, and upon all the young men who understand +the art of pleasing, of large parishes, prebends, archidiaconates, +chaplaincies, and cathedral posts, while awaiting episcopal honors. As +they advance themselves, they cause their satellites to progress also; +it is a whole solar system on the march. Their radiance casts a gleam +of purple over their suite. Their prosperity is crumbled up behind +the scenes, into nice little promotions. The larger the diocese of the +patron, the fatter the curacy for the favorite. And then, there is Rome. +A bishop who understands how to become an archbishop, an archbishop who +knows how to become a cardinal, carries you with him as conclavist; +you enter a court of papal jurisdiction, you receive the pallium, and +behold! you are an auditor, then a papal chamberlain, then monsignor, +and from a Grace to an Eminence is only a step, and between the Eminence +and the Holiness there is but the smoke of a ballot. Every skull-cap may +dream of the tiara. The priest is nowadays the only man who can become a +king in a regular manner; and what a king! the supreme king. Then what a +nursery of aspirations is a seminary! How many blushing choristers, +how many youthful abbes bear on their heads Perrette's pot of milk! +Who knows how easy it is for ambition to call itself vocation? in good +faith, perchance, and deceiving itself, devotee that it is. + +Monseigneur Bienvenu, poor, humble, retiring, was not accounted among +the big mitres. This was plain from the complete absence of young +priests about him. We have seen that he "did not take" in Paris. Not a +single future dreamed of engrafting itself on this solitary old man. +Not a single sprouting ambition committed the folly of putting forth its +foliage in his shadow. His canons and grand-vicars were good old men, +rather vulgar like himself, walled up like him in this diocese, without +exit to a cardinalship, and who resembled their bishop, with this +difference, that they were finished and he was completed. The +impossibility of growing great under Monseigneur Bienvenu was so well +understood, that no sooner had the young men whom he ordained left the +seminary than they got themselves recommended to the archbishops of Aix +or of Auch, and went off in a great hurry. For, in short, we repeat it, +men wish to be pushed. A saint who dwells in a paroxysm of abnegation +is a dangerous neighbor; he might communicate to you, by contagion, +an incurable poverty, an anchylosis of the joints, which are useful in +advancement, and in short, more renunciation than you desire; and +this infectious virtue is avoided. Hence the isolation of Monseigneur +Bienvenu. We live in the midst of a gloomy society. Success; that is the +lesson which falls drop by drop from the slope of corruption. + +Be it said in passing, that success is a very hideous thing. Its false +resemblance to merit deceives men. For the masses, success has almost +the same profile as supremacy. Success, that Menaechmus of talent, has +one dupe,--history. Juvenal and Tacitus alone grumble at it. In our +day, a philosophy which is almost official has entered into its +service, wears the livery of success, and performs the service of its +antechamber. Succeed: theory. Prosperity argues capacity. Win in the +lottery, and behold! you are a clever man. He who triumphs is venerated. +Be born with a silver spoon in your mouth! everything lies in that. Be +lucky, and you will have all the rest; be happy, and people will think +you great. Outside of five or six immense exceptions, which compose +the splendor of a century, contemporary admiration is nothing but +short-sightedness. Gilding is gold. It does no harm to be the first +arrival by pure chance, so long as you do arrive. The common herd is an +old Narcissus who adores himself, and who applauds the vulgar herd. +That enormous ability by virtue of which one is Moses, Aeschylus, Dante, +Michael Angelo, or Napoleon, the multitude awards on the spot, and by +acclamation, to whomsoever attains his object, in whatsoever it may +consist. Let a notary transfigure himself into a deputy: let a false +Corneille compose Tiridate; let a eunuch come to possess a harem; let a +military Prudhomme accidentally win the decisive battle of an epoch; +let an apothecary invent cardboard shoe-soles for the army of the +Sambre-and-Meuse, and construct for himself, out of this cardboard, sold +as leather, four hundred thousand francs of income; let a pork-packer +espouse usury, and cause it to bring forth seven or eight millions, of +which he is the father and of which it is the mother; let a preacher +become a bishop by force of his nasal drawl; let the steward of a fine +family be so rich on retiring from service that he is made minister +of finances,--and men call that Genius, just as they call the face +of Mousqueton Beauty, and the mien of Claude Majesty. With the +constellations of space they confound the stars of the abyss which are +made in the soft mire of the puddle by the feet of ducks. + + + + +CHAPTER XIII--WHAT HE BELIEVED + +We are not obliged to sound the Bishop of D---- on the score of +orthodoxy. In the presence of such a soul we feel ourselves in no mood +but respect. The conscience of the just man should be accepted on his +word. Moreover, certain natures being given, we admit the possible +development of all beauties of human virtue in a belief that differs +from our own. + +What did he think of this dogma, or of that mystery? These secrets of +the inner tribunal of the conscience are known only to the tomb, where +souls enter naked. The point on which we are certain is, that the +difficulties of faith never resolved themselves into hypocrisy in his +case. No decay is possible to the diamond. He believed to the extent +of his powers. "Credo in Patrem," he often exclaimed. Moreover, he +drew from good works that amount of satisfaction which suffices to the +conscience, and which whispers to a man, "Thou art with God!" + +The point which we consider it our duty to note is, that outside of and +beyond his faith, as it were, the Bishop possessed an excess of love. It +was in that quarter, quia multum amavit,--because he loved much--that +he was regarded as vulnerable by "serious men," "grave persons" and +"reasonable people"; favorite locutions of our sad world where egotism +takes its word of command from pedantry. What was this excess of love? +It was a serene benevolence which overflowed men, as we have already +pointed out, and which, on occasion, extended even to things. He lived +without disdain. He was indulgent towards God's creation. Every man, +even the best, has within him a thoughtless harshness which he reserves +for animals. The Bishop of D---- had none of that harshness, which is +peculiar to many priests, nevertheless. He did not go as far as the +Brahmin, but he seemed to have weighed this saying of Ecclesiastes: "Who +knoweth whither the soul of the animal goeth?" Hideousness of aspect, +deformity of instinct, troubled him not, and did not arouse his +indignation. He was touched, almost softened by them. It seemed as +though he went thoughtfully away to seek beyond the bounds of life which +is apparent, the cause, the explanation, or the excuse for them. He +seemed at times to be asking God to commute these penalties. He examined +without wrath, and with the eye of a linguist who is deciphering a +palimpsest, that portion of chaos which still exists in nature. This +revery sometimes caused him to utter odd sayings. One morning he was in +his garden, and thought himself alone, but his sister was walking behind +him, unseen by him: suddenly he paused and gazed at something on the +ground; it was a large, black, hairy, frightful spider. His sister heard +him say:-- + +"Poor beast! It is not its fault!" + +Why not mention these almost divinely childish sayings of kindness? +Puerile they may be; but these sublime puerilities were peculiar to +Saint Francis d'Assisi and of Marcus Aurelius. One day he sprained his +ankle in his effort to avoid stepping on an ant. Thus lived this just +man. Sometimes he fell asleep in his garden, and then there was nothing +more venerable possible. + +Monseigneur Bienvenu had formerly been, if the stories anent his youth, +and even in regard to his manhood, were to be believed, a passionate, +and, possibly, a violent man. His universal suavity was less an instinct +of nature than the result of a grand conviction which had filtered into +his heart through the medium of life, and had trickled there slowly, +thought by thought; for, in a character, as in a rock, there may exist +apertures made by drops of water. These hollows are uneffaceable; these +formations are indestructible. + +In 1815, as we think we have already said, he reached his seventy-fifth +birthday, but he did not appear to be more than sixty. He was not tall; +he was rather plump; and, in order to combat this tendency, he was fond +of taking long strolls on foot; his step was firm, and his form was +but slightly bent, a detail from which we do not pretend to draw any +conclusion. Gregory XVI., at the age of eighty, held himself erect and +smiling, which did not prevent him from being a bad bishop. Monseigneur +Welcome had what the people term a "fine head," but so amiable was he +that they forgot that it was fine. + +When he conversed with that infantile gayety which was one of his +charms, and of which we have already spoken, people felt at their ease +with him, and joy seemed to radiate from his whole person. His fresh and +ruddy complexion, his very white teeth, all of which he had preserved, +and which were displayed by his smile, gave him that open and easy air +which cause the remark to be made of a man, "He's a good fellow"; and +of an old man, "He is a fine man." That, it will be recalled, was the +effect which he produced upon Napoleon. On the first encounter, and to +one who saw him for the first time, he was nothing, in fact, but a fine +man. But if one remained near him for a few hours, and beheld him in the +least degree pensive, the fine man became gradually transfigured, and +took on some imposing quality, I know not what; his broad and serious +brow, rendered august by his white locks, became august also by virtue +of meditation; majesty radiated from his goodness, though his goodness +ceased not to be radiant; one experienced something of the emotion which +one would feel on beholding a smiling angel slowly unfold his wings, +without ceasing to smile. Respect, an unutterable respect, penetrated +you by degrees and mounted to your heart, and one felt that one had +before him one of those strong, thoroughly tried, and indulgent souls +where thought is so grand that it can no longer be anything but gentle. + +As we have seen, prayer, the celebration of the offices of religion, +alms-giving, the consolation of the afflicted, the cultivation of a bit +of land, fraternity, frugality, hospitality, renunciation, confidence, +study, work, filled every day of his life. Filled is exactly the word; +certainly the Bishop's day was quite full to the brim, of good words and +good deeds. Nevertheless, it was not complete if cold or rainy weather +prevented his passing an hour or two in his garden before going to bed, +and after the two women had retired. It seemed to be a sort of rite with +him, to prepare himself for slumber by meditation in the presence of +the grand spectacles of the nocturnal heavens. Sometimes, if the two old +women were not asleep, they heard him pacing slowly along the walks at +a very advanced hour of the night. He was there alone, communing with +himself, peaceful, adoring, comparing the serenity of his heart with the +serenity of the ether, moved amid the darkness by the visible splendor +of the constellations and the invisible splendor of God, opening his +heart to the thoughts which fall from the Unknown. At such moments, +while he offered his heart at the hour when nocturnal flowers offer +their perfume, illuminated like a lamp amid the starry night, as he +poured himself out in ecstasy in the midst of the universal radiance of +creation, he could not have told himself, probably, what was passing in +his spirit; he felt something take its flight from him, and something +descend into him. Mysterious exchange of the abysses of the soul with +the abysses of the universe! + +He thought of the grandeur and presence of God; of the future eternity, +that strange mystery; of the eternity past, a mystery still more +strange; of all the infinities, which pierced their way into all +his senses, beneath his eyes; and, without seeking to comprehend the +incomprehensible, he gazed upon it. He did not study God; he was dazzled +by him. He considered those magnificent conjunctions of atoms, which +communicate aspects to matter, reveal forces by verifying them, create +individualities in unity, proportions in extent, the innumerable in the +infinite, and, through light, produce beauty. These conjunctions are +formed and dissolved incessantly; hence life and death. + +He seated himself on a wooden bench, with his back against a decrepit +vine; he gazed at the stars, past the puny and stunted silhouettes +of his fruit-trees. This quarter of an acre, so poorly planted, so +encumbered with mean buildings and sheds, was dear to him, and satisfied +his wants. + +What more was needed by this old man, who divided the leisure of his +life, where there was so little leisure, between gardening in the +daytime and contemplation at night? Was not this narrow enclosure, with +the heavens for a ceiling, sufficient to enable him to adore God in his +most divine works, in turn? Does not this comprehend all, in fact? and +what is there left to desire beyond it? A little garden in which to +walk, and immensity in which to dream. At one's feet that which can be +cultivated and plucked; over head that which one can study and meditate +upon: some flowers on earth, and all the stars in the sky. + + + + +CHAPTER XIV--WHAT HE THOUGHT + + +One last word. + +Since this sort of details might, particularly at the present moment, +and to use an expression now in fashion, give to the Bishop of D---- a +certain "pantheistical" physiognomy, and induce the belief, either +to his credit or discredit, that he entertained one of those personal +philosophies which are peculiar to our century, which sometimes spring +up in solitary spirits, and there take on a form and grow until they +usurp the place of religion, we insist upon it, that not one of +those persons who knew Monseigneur Welcome would have thought himself +authorized to think anything of the sort. That which enlightened this +man was his heart. His wisdom was made of the light which comes from +there. + +No systems; many works. Abstruse speculations contain vertigo; no, +there is nothing to indicate that he risked his mind in apocalypses. The +apostle may be daring, but the bishop must be timid. He would probably +have felt a scruple at sounding too far in advance certain problems +which are, in a manner, reserved for terrible great minds. There is a +sacred horror beneath the porches of the enigma; those gloomy openings +stand yawning there, but something tells you, you, a passer-by in life, +that you must not enter. Woe to him who penetrates thither! + +Geniuses in the impenetrable depths of abstraction and pure speculation, +situated, so to speak, above all dogmas, propose their ideas to +God. Their prayer audaciously offers discussion. Their adoration +interrogates. This is direct religion, which is full of anxiety and +responsibility for him who attempts its steep cliffs. + +Human meditation has no limits. At his own risk and peril, it analyzes +and digs deep into its own bedazzlement. One might almost say, that by +a sort of splendid reaction, it with it dazzles nature; the mysterious +world which surrounds us renders back what it has received; it is +probable that the contemplators are contemplated. However that may be, +there are on earth men who--are they men?--perceive distinctly at the +verge of the horizons of revery the heights of the absolute, and who +have the terrible vision of the infinite mountain. Monseigneur Welcome +was one of these men; Monseigneur Welcome was not a genius. He would +have feared those sublimities whence some very great men even, like +Swedenborg and Pascal, have slipped into insanity. Certainly, these +powerful reveries have their moral utility, and by these arduous paths +one approaches to ideal perfection. As for him, he took the path which +shortens,--the Gospel's. + +He did not attempt to impart to his chasuble the folds of Elijah's +mantle; he projected no ray of future upon the dark groundswell of +events; he did not seek to condense in flame the light of things; he +had nothing of the prophet and nothing of the magician about him. This +humble soul loved, and that was all. + +That he carried prayer to the pitch of a superhuman aspiration is +probable: but one can no more pray too much than one can love too much; +and if it is a heresy to pray beyond the texts, Saint Theresa and Saint +Jerome would be heretics. + +He inclined towards all that groans and all that expiates. The universe +appeared to him like an immense malady; everywhere he felt fever, +everywhere he heard the sound of suffering, and, without seeking to +solve the enigma, he strove to dress the wound. The terrible spectacle +of created things developed tenderness in him; he was occupied only +in finding for himself, and in inspiring others with the best way to +compassionate and relieve. That which exists was for this good and rare +priest a permanent subject of sadness which sought consolation. + +There are men who toil at extracting gold; he toiled at the extraction +of pity. Universal misery was his mine. The sadness which reigned +everywhere was but an excuse for unfailing kindness. Love each other; he +declared this to be complete, desired nothing further, and that was the +whole of his doctrine. One day, that man who believed himself to be a +"philosopher," the senator who has already been alluded to, said to the +Bishop: "Just survey the spectacle of the world: all war against +all; the strongest has the most wit. Your love each other is +nonsense."--"Well," replied Monseigneur Welcome, without contesting the +point, "if it is nonsense, the soul should shut itself up in it, as the +pearl in the oyster." Thus he shut himself up, he lived there, he +was absolutely satisfied with it, leaving on one side the prodigious +questions which attract and terrify, the fathomless perspectives of +abstraction, the precipices of metaphysics--all those profundities +which converge, for the apostle in God, for the atheist in nothingness; +destiny, good and evil, the way of being against being, the conscience +of man, the thoughtful somnambulism of the animal, the transformation +in death, the recapitulation of existences which the tomb contains, the +incomprehensible grafting of successive loves on the persistent _I_, +the essence, the substance, the Nile, and the Ens, the soul, nature, +liberty, necessity; perpendicular problems, sinister obscurities, where +lean the gigantic archangels of the human mind; formidable abysses, +which Lucretius, Manou, Saint Paul, Dante, contemplate with eyes +flashing lightning, which seems by its steady gaze on the infinite to +cause stars to blaze forth there. + +Monseigneur Bienvenu was simply a man who took note of the exterior of +mysterious questions without scrutinizing them, and without troubling +his own mind with them, and who cherished in his own soul a grave +respect for darkness. + + + + +BOOK SECOND--THE FALL + + + + +CHAPTER I--THE EVENING OF A DAY OF WALKING + +Early in the month of October, 1815, about an hour before sunset, a +man who was travelling on foot entered the little town of D----The few +inhabitants who were at their windows or on their thresholds at the +moment stared at this traveller with a sort of uneasiness. It was +difficult to encounter a wayfarer of more wretched appearance. He was +a man of medium stature, thickset and robust, in the prime of life. +He might have been forty-six or forty-eight years old. A cap with a +drooping leather visor partly concealed his face, burned and tanned by +sun and wind, and dripping with perspiration. His shirt of coarse yellow +linen, fastened at the neck by a small silver anchor, permitted a view +of his hairy breast: he had a cravat twisted into a string; trousers of +blue drilling, worn and threadbare, white on one knee and torn on the +other; an old gray, tattered blouse, patched on one of the elbows with +a bit of green cloth sewed on with twine; a tightly packed soldier +knapsack, well buckled and perfectly new, on his back; an enormous, +knotty stick in his hand; iron-shod shoes on his stockingless feet; a +shaved head and a long beard. + +The sweat, the heat, the journey on foot, the dust, added I know not +what sordid quality to this dilapidated whole. His hair was closely cut, +yet bristling, for it had begun to grow a little, and did not seem to +have been cut for some time. + +No one knew him. He was evidently only a chance passer-by. Whence came +he? From the south; from the seashore, perhaps, for he made his entrance +into D---- by the same street which, seven months previously, had +witnessed the passage of the Emperor Napoleon on his way from Cannes +to Paris. This man must have been walking all day. He seemed very much +fatigued. Some women of the ancient market town which is situated below +the city had seen him pause beneath the trees of the boulevard Gassendi, +and drink at the fountain which stands at the end of the promenade. He +must have been very thirsty: for the children who followed him saw him +stop again for a drink, two hundred paces further on, at the fountain in +the market-place. + +On arriving at the corner of the Rue Poichevert, he turned to the left, +and directed his steps toward the town-hall. He entered, then came out +a quarter of an hour later. A gendarme was seated near the door, on the +stone bench which General Drouot had mounted on the 4th of March to read +to the frightened throng of the inhabitants of D---- the proclamation +of the Gulf Juan. The man pulled off his cap and humbly saluted the +gendarme. + +The gendarme, without replying to his salute, stared attentively at him, +followed him for a while with his eyes, and then entered the town-hall. + +There then existed at D---- a fine inn at the sign of the Cross of +Colbas. This inn had for a landlord a certain Jacquin Labarre, a man +of consideration in the town on account of his relationship to another +Labarre, who kept the inn of the Three Dauphins in Grenoble, and had +served in the Guides. At the time of the Emperor's landing, many rumors +had circulated throughout the country with regard to this inn of the +Three Dauphins. It was said that General Bertrand, disguised as a +carter, had made frequent trips thither in the month of January, and +that he had distributed crosses of honor to the soldiers and handfuls +of gold to the citizens. The truth is, that when the Emperor entered +Grenoble he had refused to install himself at the hotel of the +prefecture; he had thanked the mayor, saying, "I am going to the house +of a brave man of my acquaintance"; and he had betaken himself to the +Three Dauphins. This glory of the Labarre of the Three Dauphins was +reflected upon the Labarre of the Cross of Colbas, at a distance of five +and twenty leagues. It was said of him in the town, "That is the cousin +of the man of Grenoble." + +The man bent his steps towards this inn, which was the best in the +country-side. He entered the kitchen, which opened on a level with the +street. All the stoves were lighted; a huge fire blazed gayly in the +fireplace. The host, who was also the chief cook, was going from one +stew-pan to another, very busily superintending an excellent dinner +designed for the wagoners, whose loud talking, conversation, and +laughter were audible from an adjoining apartment. Any one who has +travelled knows that there is no one who indulges in better cheer than +wagoners. A fat marmot, flanked by white partridges and heather-cocks, +was turning on a long spit before the fire; on the stove, two huge carps +from Lake Lauzet and a trout from Lake Alloz were cooking. + +The host, hearing the door open and seeing a newcomer enter, said, +without raising his eyes from his stoves:-- + +"What do you wish, sir?" + +"Food and lodging," said the man. + +"Nothing easier," replied the host. At that moment he turned his head, +took in the traveller's appearance with a single glance, and added, "By +paying for it." + +The man drew a large leather purse from the pocket of his blouse, and +answered, "I have money." + +"In that case, we are at your service," said the host. + +The man put his purse back in his pocket, removed his knapsack from +his back, put it on the ground near the door, retained his stick in his +hand, and seated himself on a low stool close to the fire. D---- is in +the mountains. The evenings are cold there in October. + +But as the host went back and forth, he scrutinized the traveller. + +"Will dinner be ready soon?" said the man. + +"Immediately," replied the landlord. + +While the newcomer was warming himself before the fire, with his back +turned, the worthy host, Jacquin Labarre, drew a pencil from his pocket, +then tore off the corner of an old newspaper which was lying on a small +table near the window. On the white margin he wrote a line or two, +folded it without sealing, and then intrusted this scrap of paper to +a child who seemed to serve him in the capacity both of scullion and +lackey. The landlord whispered a word in the scullion's ear, and the +child set off on a run in the direction of the town-hall. + +The traveller saw nothing of all this. + +Once more he inquired, "Will dinner be ready soon?" + +"Immediately," responded the host. + +The child returned. He brought back the paper. The host unfolded it +eagerly, like a person who is expecting a reply. He seemed to read it +attentively, then tossed his head, and remained thoughtful for a moment. +Then he took a step in the direction of the traveller, who appeared to +be immersed in reflections which were not very serene. + +"I cannot receive you, sir," said he. + +The man half rose. + +"What! Are you afraid that I will not pay you? Do you want me to pay you +in advance? I have money, I tell you." + +"It is not that." + +"What then?" + +"You have money--" + +"Yes," said the man. + +"And I," said the host, "have no room." + +The man resumed tranquilly, "Put me in the stable." + +"I cannot." + +"Why?" + +"The horses take up all the space." + +"Very well!" retorted the man; "a corner of the loft then, a truss of +straw. We will see about that after dinner." + +"I cannot give you any dinner." + +This declaration, made in a measured but firm tone, struck the stranger +as grave. He rose. + +"Ah! bah! But I am dying of hunger. I have been walking since sunrise. I +have travelled twelve leagues. I pay. I wish to eat." + +"I have nothing," said the landlord. + +The man burst out laughing, and turned towards the fireplace and the +stoves: "Nothing! and all that?" + +"All that is engaged." + +"By whom?" + +"By messieurs the wagoners." + +"How many are there of them?" + +"Twelve." + +"There is enough food there for twenty." + +"They have engaged the whole of it and paid for it in advance." + +The man seated himself again, and said, without raising his voice, "I am +at an inn; I am hungry, and I shall remain." + +Then the host bent down to his ear, and said in a tone which made him +start, "Go away!" + +At that moment the traveller was bending forward and thrusting some +brands into the fire with the iron-shod tip of his staff; he turned +quickly round, and as he opened his mouth to reply, the host gazed +steadily at him and added, still in a low voice: "Stop! there's enough +of that sort of talk. Do you want me to tell you your name? Your name is +Jean Valjean. Now do you want me to tell you who you are? When I saw you +come in I suspected something; I sent to the town-hall, and this was the +reply that was sent to me. Can you read?" + +So saying, he held out to the stranger, fully unfolded, the paper which +had just travelled from the inn to the town-hall, and from the town-hall +to the inn. The man cast a glance upon it. The landlord resumed after a +pause. + +"I am in the habit of being polite to every one. Go away!" + +The man dropped his head, picked up the knapsack which he had deposited +on the ground, and took his departure. + +He chose the principal street. He walked straight on at a venture, +keeping close to the houses like a sad and humiliated man. He did not +turn round a single time. Had he done so, he would have seen the host +of the Cross of Colbas standing on his threshold, surrounded by all +the guests of his inn, and all the passers-by in the street, talking +vivaciously, and pointing him out with his finger; and, from the glances +of terror and distrust cast by the group, he might have divined that his +arrival would speedily become an event for the whole town. + +He saw nothing of all this. People who are crushed do not look behind +them. They know but too well the evil fate which follows them. + +Thus he proceeded for some time, walking on without ceasing, traversing +at random streets of which he knew nothing, forgetful of his fatigue, +as is often the case when a man is sad. All at once he felt the pangs +of hunger sharply. Night was drawing near. He glanced about him, to see +whether he could not discover some shelter. + +The fine hostelry was closed to him; he was seeking some very humble +public house, some hovel, however lowly. + +Just then a light flashed up at the end of the streets; a pine branch +suspended from a cross-beam of iron was outlined against the white sky +of the twilight. He proceeded thither. + +It proved to be, in fact, a public house. The public house which is in +the Rue de Chaffaut. + +The wayfarer halted for a moment, and peeped through the window into the +interior of the low-studded room of the public house, illuminated by a +small lamp on a table and by a large fire on the hearth. Some men were +engaged in drinking there. The landlord was warming himself. An iron +pot, suspended from a crane, bubbled over the flame. + +The entrance to this public house, which is also a sort of an inn, is by +two doors. One opens on the street, the other upon a small yard filled +with manure. The traveller dare not enter by the street door. He slipped +into the yard, halted again, then raised the latch timidly and opened +the door. + +"Who goes there?" said the master. + +"Some one who wants supper and bed." + +"Good. We furnish supper and bed here." + +He entered. All the men who were drinking turned round. The lamp +illuminated him on one side, the firelight on the other. They examined +him for some time while he was taking off his knapsack. + +The host said to him, "There is the fire. The supper is cooking in the +pot. Come and warm yourself, comrade." + +He approached and seated himself near the hearth. He stretched out his +feet, which were exhausted with fatigue, to the fire; a fine odor was +emitted by the pot. All that could be distinguished of his face, beneath +his cap, which was well pulled down, assumed a vague appearance +of comfort, mingled with that other poignant aspect which habitual +suffering bestows. + +It was, moreover, a firm, energetic, and melancholy profile. This +physiognomy was strangely composed; it began by seeming humble, and +ended by seeming severe. The eye shone beneath its lashes like a fire +beneath brushwood. + +One of the men seated at the table, however, was a fishmonger who, +before entering the public house of the Rue de Chaffaut, had been to +stable his horse at Labarre's. It chanced that he had that very morning +encountered this unprepossessing stranger on the road between Bras +d'Asse and--I have forgotten the name. I think it was Escoublon. Now, +when he met him, the man, who then seemed already extremely weary, had +requested him to take him on his crupper; to which the fishmonger had +made no reply except by redoubling his gait. This fishmonger had been +a member half an hour previously of the group which surrounded Jacquin +Labarre, and had himself related his disagreeable encounter of the +morning to the people at the Cross of Colbas. From where he sat he made +an imperceptible sign to the tavern-keeper. The tavern-keeper went to +him. They exchanged a few words in a low tone. The man had again become +absorbed in his reflections. + +The tavern-keeper returned to the fireplace, laid his hand abruptly on +the shoulder of the man, and said to him:-- + +"You are going to get out of here." + +The stranger turned round and replied gently, "Ah! You know?--" + +"Yes." + +"I was sent away from the other inn." + +"And you are to be turned out of this one." + +"Where would you have me go?" + +"Elsewhere." + +The man took his stick and his knapsack and departed. + +As he went out, some children who had followed him from the Cross of +Colbas, and who seemed to be lying in wait for him, threw stones at him. +He retraced his steps in anger, and threatened them with his stick: the +children dispersed like a flock of birds. + +He passed before the prison. At the door hung an iron chain attached to +a bell. He rang. + +The wicket opened. + +"Turnkey," said he, removing his cap politely, "will you have the +kindness to admit me, and give me a lodging for the night?" + +A voice replied:-- + +"The prison is not an inn. Get yourself arrested, and you will be +admitted." + +The wicket closed again. + +He entered a little street in which there were many gardens. Some of +them are enclosed only by hedges, which lends a cheerful aspect to the +street. In the midst of these gardens and hedges he caught sight of a +small house of a single story, the window of which was lighted up. He +peered through the pane as he had done at the public house. Within was a +large whitewashed room, with a bed draped in printed cotton stuff, and +a cradle in one corner, a few wooden chairs, and a double-barrelled gun +hanging on the wall. A table was spread in the centre of the room. A +copper lamp illuminated the tablecloth of coarse white linen, the pewter +jug shining like silver, and filled with wine, and the brown, smoking +soup-tureen. At this table sat a man of about forty, with a merry and +open countenance, who was dandling a little child on his knees. Close by +a very young woman was nursing another child. The father was laughing, +the child was laughing, the mother was smiling. + +The stranger paused a moment in revery before this tender and calming +spectacle. What was taking place within him? He alone could have +told. It is probable that he thought that this joyous house would be +hospitable, and that, in a place where he beheld so much happiness, he +would find perhaps a little pity. + +He tapped on the pane with a very small and feeble knock. + +They did not hear him. + +He tapped again. + +He heard the woman say, "It seems to me, husband, that some one is +knocking." + +"No," replied the husband. + +He tapped a third time. + +The husband rose, took the lamp, and went to the door, which he opened. + +He was a man of lofty stature, half peasant, half artisan. He wore a +huge leather apron, which reached to his left shoulder, and which a +hammer, a red handkerchief, a powder-horn, and all sorts of objects +which were upheld by the girdle, as in a pocket, caused to bulge out. He +carried his head thrown backwards; his shirt, widely opened and turned +back, displayed his bull neck, white and bare. He had thick eyelashes, +enormous black whiskers, prominent eyes, the lower part of his face +like a snout; and besides all this, that air of being on his own ground, +which is indescribable. + +"Pardon me, sir," said the wayfarer, "Could you, in consideration of +payment, give me a plate of soup and a corner of that shed yonder in the +garden, in which to sleep? Tell me; can you? For money?" + +"Who are you?" demanded the master of the house. + +The man replied: "I have just come from Puy-Moisson. I have walked all +day long. I have travelled twelve leagues. Can you?--if I pay?" + +"I would not refuse," said the peasant, "to lodge any respectable man +who would pay me. But why do you not go to the inn?" + +"There is no room." + +"Bah! Impossible. This is neither a fair nor a market day. Have you been +to Labarre?" + +"Yes." + +"Well?" + +The traveller replied with embarrassment: "I do not know. He did not +receive me." + +"Have you been to What's-his-name's, in the Rue Chaffaut?" + +The stranger's embarrassment increased; he stammered, "He did not +receive me either." + +The peasant's countenance assumed an expression of distrust; he surveyed +the newcomer from head to feet, and suddenly exclaimed, with a sort of +shudder:-- + +"Are you the man?--" + +He cast a fresh glance upon the stranger, took three steps backwards, +placed the lamp on the table, and took his gun down from the wall. + +Meanwhile, at the words, Are you the man? the woman had risen, had +clasped her two children in her arms, and had taken refuge precipitately +behind her husband, staring in terror at the stranger, with her bosom +uncovered, and with frightened eyes, as she murmured in a low tone, +"Tso-maraude."[1] + +All this took place in less time than it requires to picture it to +one's self. After having scrutinized the man for several moments, as one +scrutinizes a viper, the master of the house returned to the door and +said:-- + +"Clear out!" + +"For pity's sake, a glass of water," said the man. + +"A shot from my gun!" said the peasant. + +Then he closed the door violently, and the man heard him shoot two large +bolts. A moment later, the window-shutter was closed, and the sound of a +bar of iron which was placed against it was audible outside. + +Night continued to fall. A cold wind from the Alps was blowing. By the +light of the expiring day the stranger perceived, in one of the gardens +which bordered the street, a sort of hut, which seemed to him to be +built of sods. He climbed over the wooden fence resolutely, and found +himself in the garden. He approached the hut; its door consisted of a +very low and narrow aperture, and it resembled those buildings which +road-laborers construct for themselves along the roads. He thought +without doubt, that it was, in fact, the dwelling of a road-laborer; he +was suffering from cold and hunger, but this was, at least, a shelter +from the cold. This sort of dwelling is not usually occupied at night. +He threw himself flat on his face, and crawled into the hut. It was warm +there, and he found a tolerably good bed of straw. He lay, for a moment, +stretched out on this bed, without the power to make a movement, so +fatigued was he. Then, as the knapsack on his back was in his way, and +as it furnished, moreover, a pillow ready to his hand, he set about +unbuckling one of the straps. At that moment, a ferocious growl became +audible. He raised his eyes. The head of an enormous dog was outlined in +the darkness at the entrance of the hut. + +It was a dog's kennel. + +He was himself vigorous and formidable; he armed himself with his staff, +made a shield of his knapsack, and made his way out of the kennel in the +best way he could, not without enlarging the rents in his rags. + +He left the garden in the same manner, but backwards, being obliged, +in order to keep the dog respectful, to have recourse to that manoeuvre +with his stick which masters in that sort of fencing designate as la +rose couverte. + +When he had, not without difficulty, repassed the fence, and found +himself once more in the street, alone, without refuge, without shelter, +without a roof over his head, chased even from that bed of straw and +from that miserable kennel, he dropped rather than seated himself on a +stone, and it appears that a passer-by heard him exclaim, "I am not even +a dog!" + +He soon rose again and resumed his march. He went out of the town, +hoping to find some tree or haystack in the fields which would afford +him shelter. + +He walked thus for some time, with his head still drooping. When he felt +himself far from every human habitation, he raised his eyes and gazed +searchingly about him. He was in a field. Before him was one of those +low hills covered with close-cut stubble, which, after the harvest, +resemble shaved heads. + +The horizon was perfectly black. This was not alone the obscurity of +night; it was caused by very low-hanging clouds which seemed to rest +upon the hill itself, and which were mounting and filling the whole +sky. Meanwhile, as the moon was about to rise, and as there was still +floating in the zenith a remnant of the brightness of twilight, these +clouds formed at the summit of the sky a sort of whitish arch, whence a +gleam of light fell upon the earth. + +The earth was thus better lighted than the sky, which produces a +particularly sinister effect, and the hill, whose contour was poor and +mean, was outlined vague and wan against the gloomy horizon. The whole +effect was hideous, petty, lugubrious, and narrow. + +There was nothing in the field or on the hill except a deformed tree, +which writhed and shivered a few paces distant from the wayfarer. + +This man was evidently very far from having those delicate habits of +intelligence and spirit which render one sensible to the mysterious +aspects of things; nevertheless, there was something in that sky, +in that hill, in that plain, in that tree, which was so profoundly +desolate, that after a moment of immobility and revery he turned back +abruptly. There are instants when nature seems hostile. + +He retraced his steps; the gates of D---- were closed. D----, which had +sustained sieges during the wars of religion, was still surrounded +in 1815 by ancient walls flanked by square towers which have been +demolished since. He passed through a breach and entered the town again. + +It might have been eight o'clock in the evening. As he was not +acquainted with the streets, he recommenced his walk at random. + +In this way he came to the prefecture, then to the seminary. As he +passed through the Cathedral Square, he shook his fist at the church. + +At the corner of this square there is a printing establishment. It is +there that the proclamations of the Emperor and of the Imperial Guard +to the army, brought from the Island of Elba and dictated by Napoleon +himself, were printed for the first time. + +Worn out with fatigue, and no longer entertaining any hope, he lay down +on a stone bench which stands at the doorway of this printing office. + +At that moment an old woman came out of the church. She saw the man +stretched out in the shadow. "What are you doing there, my friend?" said +she. + +He answered harshly and angrily: "As you see, my good woman, I am +sleeping." The good woman, who was well worthy the name, in fact, was +the Marquise de R---- + +"On this bench?" she went on. + +"I have had a mattress of wood for nineteen years," said the man; +"to-day I have a mattress of stone." + +"You have been a soldier?" + +"Yes, my good woman, a soldier." + +"Why do you not go to the inn?" + +"Because I have no money." + +"Alas!" said Madame de R----, "I have only four sous in my purse." + +"Give it to me all the same." + +The man took the four sous. Madame de R---- continued: "You cannot +obtain lodgings in an inn for so small a sum. But have you tried? It is +impossible for you to pass the night thus. You are cold and hungry, no +doubt. Some one might have given you a lodging out of charity." + +"I have knocked at all doors." + +"Well?" + +"I have been driven away everywhere." + +The "good woman" touched the man's arm, and pointed out to him on the +other side of the street a small, low house, which stood beside the +Bishop's palace. + +"You have knocked at all doors?" + +"Yes." + +"Have you knocked at that one?" + +"No." + +"Knock there." + + + + +CHAPTER II--PRUDENCE COUNSELLED TO WISDOM. + +That evening, the Bishop of D----, after his promenade through the town, +remained shut up rather late in his room. He was busy over a great work +on Duties, which was never completed, unfortunately. He was carefully +compiling everything that the Fathers and the doctors have said on this +important subject. His book was divided into two parts: firstly, the +duties of all; secondly, the duties of each individual, according to the +class to which he belongs. The duties of all are the great duties. There +are four of these. Saint Matthew points them out: duties towards God +(Matt. vi.); duties towards one's self (Matt. v. 29, 30); duties towards +one's neighbor (Matt. vii. 12); duties towards animals (Matt. vi. 20, +25). As for the other duties the Bishop found them pointed out and +prescribed elsewhere: to sovereigns and subjects, in the Epistle to the +Romans; to magistrates, to wives, to mothers, to young men, by Saint +Peter; to husbands, fathers, children and servants, in the Epistle +to the Ephesians; to the faithful, in the Epistle to the Hebrews; to +virgins, in the Epistle to the Corinthians. Out of these precepts he was +laboriously constructing a harmonious whole, which he desired to present +to souls. + +At eight o'clock he was still at work, writing with a good deal of +inconvenience upon little squares of paper, with a big book open on his +knees, when Madame Magloire entered, according to her wont, to get the +silver-ware from the cupboard near his bed. A moment later, the Bishop, +knowing that the table was set, and that his sister was probably +waiting for him, shut his book, rose from his table, and entered the +dining-room. + +The dining-room was an oblong apartment, with a fireplace, which had a +door opening on the street (as we have said), and a window opening on +the garden. + +Madame Magloire was, in fact, just putting the last touches to the +table. + +As she performed this service, she was conversing with Mademoiselle +Baptistine. + +A lamp stood on the table; the table was near the fireplace. A wood fire +was burning there. + +One can easily picture to one's self these two women, both of whom +were over sixty years of age. Madame Magloire small, plump, vivacious; +Mademoiselle Baptistine gentle, slender, frail, somewhat taller than her +brother, dressed in a gown of puce-colored silk, of the fashion of 1806, +which she had purchased at that date in Paris, and which had lasted +ever since. To borrow vulgar phrases, which possess the merit of giving +utterance in a single word to an idea which a whole page would hardly +suffice to express, Madame Magloire had the air of a peasant, and +Mademoiselle Baptistine that of a lady. Madame Magloire wore a white +quilted cap, a gold Jeannette cross on a velvet ribbon upon her neck, +the only bit of feminine jewelry that there was in the house, a very +white fichu puffing out from a gown of coarse black woollen stuff, with +large, short sleeves, an apron of cotton cloth in red and green checks, +knotted round the waist with a green ribbon, with a stomacher of the +same attached by two pins at the upper corners, coarse shoes on her +feet, and yellow stockings, like the women of Marseilles. Mademoiselle +Baptistine's gown was cut on the patterns of 1806, with a short waist, +a narrow, sheath-like skirt, puffed sleeves, with flaps and buttons. +She concealed her gray hair under a frizzed wig known as the baby wig. +Madame Magloire had an intelligent, vivacious, and kindly air; the two +corners of her mouth unequally raised, and her upper lip, which was +larger than the lower, imparted to her a rather crabbed and imperious +look. So long as Monseigneur held his peace, she talked to him +resolutely with a mixture of respect and freedom; but as soon as +Monseigneur began to speak, as we have seen, she obeyed passively like +her mistress. Mademoiselle Baptistine did not even speak. She confined +herself to obeying and pleasing him. She had never been pretty, even +when she was young; she had large, blue, prominent eyes, and a long +arched nose; but her whole visage, her whole person, breathed forth an +ineffable goodness, as we stated in the beginning. She had always been +predestined to gentleness; but faith, charity, hope, those three virtues +which mildly warm the soul, had gradually elevated that gentleness to +sanctity. Nature had made her a lamb, religion had made her an angel. +Poor sainted virgin! Sweet memory which has vanished! + +Mademoiselle Baptistine has so often narrated what passed at the +episcopal residence that evening, that there are many people now living +who still recall the most minute details. + +At the moment when the Bishop entered, Madame Magloire was talking with +considerable vivacity. She was haranguing Mademoiselle Baptistine on +a subject which was familiar to her and to which the Bishop was also +accustomed. The question concerned the lock upon the entrance door. + +It appears that while procuring some provisions for supper, Madame +Magloire had heard things in divers places. People had spoken of a +prowler of evil appearance; a suspicious vagabond had arrived who must +be somewhere about the town, and those who should take it into their +heads to return home late that night might be subjected to unpleasant +encounters. The police was very badly organized, moreover, because there +was no love lost between the Prefect and the Mayor, who sought to injure +each other by making things happen. It behooved wise people to play the +part of their own police, and to guard themselves well, and care must be +taken to duly close, bar and barricade their houses, and to fasten the +doors well. + +Madame Magloire emphasized these last words; but the Bishop had just +come from his room, where it was rather cold. He seated himself in front +of the fire, and warmed himself, and then fell to thinking of other +things. He did not take up the remark dropped with design by Madame +Magloire. She repeated it. Then Mademoiselle Baptistine, desirous of +satisfying Madame Magloire without displeasing her brother, ventured to +say timidly:-- + +"Did you hear what Madame Magloire is saying, brother?" + +"I have heard something of it in a vague way," replied the Bishop. Then +half-turning in his chair, placing his hands on his knees, and raising +towards the old servant woman his cordial face, which so easily grew +joyous, and which was illuminated from below by the firelight,--"Come, +what is the matter? What is the matter? Are we in any great danger?" + +Then Madame Magloire began the whole story afresh, exaggerating it a +little without being aware of the fact. It appeared that a Bohemian, a +bare-footed vagabond, a sort of dangerous mendicant, was at that moment +in the town. He had presented himself at Jacquin Labarre's to obtain +lodgings, but the latter had not been willing to take him in. He had +been seen to arrive by the way of the boulevard Gassendi and roam about +the streets in the gloaming. A gallows-bird with a terrible face. + +"Really!" said the Bishop. + +This willingness to interrogate encouraged Madame Magloire; it seemed +to her to indicate that the Bishop was on the point of becoming alarmed; +she pursued triumphantly:-- + +"Yes, Monseigneur. That is how it is. There will be some sort of +catastrophe in this town to-night. Every one says so. And withal, the +police is so badly regulated" (a useful repetition). "The idea of living +in a mountainous country, and not even having lights in the streets at +night! One goes out. Black as ovens, indeed! And I say, Monseigneur, and +Mademoiselle there says with me--" + +"I," interrupted his sister, "say nothing. What my brother does is well +done." + +Madame Magloire continued as though there had been no protest:-- + +"We say that this house is not safe at all; that if Monseigneur will +permit, I will go and tell Paulin Musebois, the locksmith, to come and +replace the ancient locks on the doors; we have them, and it is only the +work of a moment; for I say that nothing is more terrible than a +door which can be opened from the outside with a latch by the first +passer-by; and I say that we need bolts, Monseigneur, if only for this +night; moreover, Monseigneur has the habit of always saying 'come in'; +and besides, even in the middle of the night, O mon Dieu! there is no +need to ask permission." + +At that moment there came a tolerably violent knock on the door. + +"Come in," said the Bishop. + + + + +CHAPTER III--THE HEROISM OF PASSIVE OBEDIENCE. + +The door opened. + +It opened wide with a rapid movement, as though some one had given it an +energetic and resolute push. + +A man entered. + +We already know the man. It was the wayfarer whom we have seen wandering +about in search of shelter. + +He entered, advanced a step, and halted, leaving the door open behind +him. He had his knapsack on his shoulders, his cudgel in his hand, a +rough, audacious, weary, and violent expression in his eyes. The fire on +the hearth lighted him up. He was hideous. It was a sinister apparition. + +Madame Magloire had not even the strength to utter a cry. She trembled, +and stood with her mouth wide open. + +Mademoiselle Baptistine turned round, beheld the man entering, and half +started up in terror; then, turning her head by degrees towards the +fireplace again, she began to observe her brother, and her face became +once more profoundly calm and serene. + +The Bishop fixed a tranquil eye on the man. + +As he opened his mouth, doubtless to ask the new-comer what he desired, +the man rested both hands on his staff, directed his gaze at the old man +and the two women, and without waiting for the Bishop to speak, he said, +in a loud voice:-- + +"See here. My name is Jean Valjean. I am a convict from the galleys. +I have passed nineteen years in the galleys. I was liberated four days +ago, and am on my way to Pontarlier, which is my destination. I have +been walking for four days since I left Toulon. I have travelled a dozen +leagues to-day on foot. This evening, when I arrived in these parts, I +went to an inn, and they turned me out, because of my yellow passport, +which I had shown at the town-hall. I had to do it. I went to an inn. +They said to me, 'Be off,' at both places. No one would take me. I +went to the prison; the jailer would not admit me. I went into a dog's +kennel; the dog bit me and chased me off, as though he had been a man. +One would have said that he knew who I was. I went into the fields, +intending to sleep in the open air, beneath the stars. There were no +stars. I thought it was going to rain, and I re-entered the town, to +seek the recess of a doorway. Yonder, in the square, I meant to sleep +on a stone bench. A good woman pointed out your house to me, and said +to me, 'Knock there!' I have knocked. What is this place? Do you keep +an inn? I have money--savings. One hundred and nine francs fifteen sous, +which I earned in the galleys by my labor, in the course of nineteen +years. I will pay. What is that to me? I have money. I am very weary; +twelve leagues on foot; I am very hungry. Are you willing that I should +remain?" + +"Madame Magloire," said the Bishop, "you will set another place." + +The man advanced three paces, and approached the lamp which was on +the table. "Stop," he resumed, as though he had not quite understood; +"that's not it. Did you hear? I am a galley-slave; a convict. I come +from the galleys." He drew from his pocket a large sheet of yellow +paper, which he unfolded. "Here's my passport. Yellow, as you see. This +serves to expel me from every place where I go. Will you read it? I know +how to read. I learned in the galleys. There is a school there for those +who choose to learn. Hold, this is what they put on this passport: 'Jean +Valjean, discharged convict, native of'--that is nothing to you--'has +been nineteen years in the galleys: five years for house-breaking +and burglary; fourteen years for having attempted to escape on four +occasions. He is a very dangerous man.' There! Every one has cast me +out. Are you willing to receive me? Is this an inn? Will you give me +something to eat and a bed? Have you a stable?" + +"Madame Magloire," said the Bishop, "you will put white sheets on the +bed in the alcove." We have already explained the character of the two +women's obedience. + +Madame Magloire retired to execute these orders. + +The Bishop turned to the man. + +"Sit down, sir, and warm yourself. We are going to sup in a few moments, +and your bed will be prepared while you are supping." + +At this point the man suddenly comprehended. The expression of his face, +up to that time sombre and harsh, bore the imprint of stupefaction, +of doubt, of joy, and became extraordinary. He began stammering like a +crazy man:-- + +"Really? What! You will keep me? You do not drive me forth? A convict! +You call me sir! You do not address me as thou? 'Get out of here, you +dog!' is what people always say to me. I felt sure that you would expel +me, so I told you at once who I am. Oh, what a good woman that was who +directed me hither! I am going to sup! A bed with a mattress and sheets, +like the rest of the world! a bed! It is nineteen years since I have +slept in a bed! You actually do not want me to go! You are good +people. Besides, I have money. I will pay well. Pardon me, monsieur the +inn-keeper, but what is your name? I will pay anything you ask. You are +a fine man. You are an inn-keeper, are you not?" + +"I am," replied the Bishop, "a priest who lives here." + +"A priest!" said the man. "Oh, what a fine priest! Then you are not +going to demand any money of me? You are the cure, are you not? the cure +of this big church? Well! I am a fool, truly! I had not perceived your +skull-cap." + +As he spoke, he deposited his knapsack and his cudgel in a corner, +replaced his passport in his pocket, and seated himself. Mademoiselle +Baptistine gazed mildly at him. He continued: + +"You are humane, Monsieur le Cure; you have not scorned me. A good +priest is a very good thing. Then you do not require me to pay?" + +"No," said the Bishop; "keep your money. How much have you? Did you not +tell me one hundred and nine francs?" + +"And fifteen sous," added the man. + +"One hundred and nine francs fifteen sous. And how long did it take you +to earn that?" + +"Nineteen years." + +"Nineteen years!" + +The Bishop sighed deeply. + +The man continued: "I have still the whole of my money. In four days I +have spent only twenty-five sous, which I earned by helping unload some +wagons at Grasse. Since you are an abbe, I will tell you that we had a +chaplain in the galleys. And one day I saw a bishop there. Monseigneur +is what they call him. He was the Bishop of Majore at Marseilles. He is +the cure who rules over the other cures, you understand. Pardon me, +I say that very badly; but it is such a far-off thing to me! You +understand what we are! He said mass in the middle of the galleys, on an +altar. He had a pointed thing, made of gold, on his head; it glittered +in the bright light of midday. We were all ranged in lines on the three +sides, with cannons with lighted matches facing us. We could not see +very well. He spoke; but he was too far off, and we did not hear. That +is what a bishop is like." + +While he was speaking, the Bishop had gone and shut the door, which had +remained wide open. + +Madame Magloire returned. She brought a silver fork and spoon, which she +placed on the table. + +"Madame Magloire," said the Bishop, "place those things as near the fire +as possible." And turning to his guest: "The night wind is harsh on the +Alps. You must be cold, sir." + +Each time that he uttered the word sir, in his voice which was so gently +grave and polished, the man's face lighted up. Monsieur to a convict is +like a glass of water to one of the shipwrecked of the Medusa. Ignominy +thirsts for consideration. + +"This lamp gives a very bad light," said the Bishop. + +Madame Magloire understood him, and went to get the two silver +candlesticks from the chimney-piece in Monseigneur's bed-chamber, and +placed them, lighted, on the table. + +"Monsieur le Cure," said the man, "you are good; you do not despise me. +You receive me into your house. You light your candles for me. Yet I +have not concealed from you whence I come and that I am an unfortunate +man." + +The Bishop, who was sitting close to him, gently touched his hand. "You +could not help telling me who you were. This is not my house; it is +the house of Jesus Christ. This door does not demand of him who enters +whether he has a name, but whether he has a grief. You suffer, you are +hungry and thirsty; you are welcome. And do not thank me; do not say +that I receive you in my house. No one is at home here, except the man +who needs a refuge. I say to you, who are passing by, that you are much +more at home here than I am myself. Everything here is yours. What need +have I to know your name? Besides, before you told me you had one which +I knew." + +The man opened his eyes in astonishment. + +"Really? You knew what I was called?" + +"Yes," replied the Bishop, "you are called my brother." + +"Stop, Monsieur le Cure," exclaimed the man. "I was very hungry when +I entered here; but you are so good, that I no longer know what has +happened to me." + +The Bishop looked at him, and said,-- + +"You have suffered much?" + +"Oh, the red coat, the ball on the ankle, a plank to sleep on, heat, +cold, toil, the convicts, the thrashings, the double chain for nothing, +the cell for one word; even sick and in bed, still the chain! Dogs, dogs +are happier! Nineteen years! I am forty-six. Now there is the yellow +passport. That is what it is like." + +"Yes," resumed the Bishop, "you have come from a very sad place. +Listen. There will be more joy in heaven over the tear-bathed face of a +repentant sinner than over the white robes of a hundred just men. If you +emerge from that sad place with thoughts of hatred and of wrath against +mankind, you are deserving of pity; if you emerge with thoughts of +good-will and of peace, you are more worthy than any one of us." + +In the meantime, Madame Magloire had served supper: soup, made with +water, oil, bread, and salt; a little bacon, a bit of mutton, figs, a +fresh cheese, and a large loaf of rye bread. She had, of her own accord, +added to the Bishop's ordinary fare a bottle of his old Mauves wine. + +The Bishop's face at once assumed that expression of gayety which is +peculiar to hospitable natures. "To table!" he cried vivaciously. As was +his custom when a stranger supped with him, he made the man sit on his +right. Mademoiselle Baptistine, perfectly peaceable and natural, took +her seat at his left. + +The Bishop asked a blessing; then helped the soup himself, according to +his custom. The man began to eat with avidity. + +All at once the Bishop said: "It strikes me there is something missing +on this table." + +Madame Magloire had, in fact, only placed the three sets of forks and +spoons which were absolutely necessary. Now, it was the usage of the +house, when the Bishop had any one to supper, to lay out the whole +six sets of silver on the table-cloth--an innocent ostentation. This +graceful semblance of luxury was a kind of child's play, which was full +of charm in that gentle and severe household, which raised poverty into +dignity. + +Madame Magloire understood the remark, went out without saying a word, +and a moment later the three sets of silver forks and spoons demanded by +the Bishop were glittering upon the cloth, symmetrically arranged before +the three persons seated at the table. + + + + +CHAPTER IV--DETAILS CONCERNING THE CHEESE-DAIRIES OF PONTARLIER. + +Now, in order to convey an idea of what passed at that table, we cannot +do better than to transcribe here a passage from one of Mademoiselle +Baptistine's letters to Madame Boischevron, wherein the conversation +between the convict and the Bishop is described with ingenious +minuteness. + + +". . . This man paid no attention to any one. He ate with the voracity +of a starving man. However, after supper he said: + +"'Monsieur le Cure of the good God, all this is far too good for me; but +I must say that the carters who would not allow me to eat with them keep +a better table than you do.' + +"Between ourselves, the remark rather shocked me. My brother replied:-- + +"'They are more fatigued than I.' + +"'No,' returned the man, 'they have more money. You are poor; I see that +plainly. You cannot be even a curate. Are you really a cure? Ah, if the +good God were but just, you certainly ought to be a cure!' + +"'The good God is more than just,' said my brother. + +"A moment later he added:-- + +"'Monsieur Jean Valjean, is it to Pontarlier that you are going?' + +"'With my road marked out for me.' + +"I think that is what the man said. Then he went on:-- + +"'I must be on my way by daybreak to-morrow. Travelling is hard. If the +nights are cold, the days are hot.' + +"'You are going to a good country,' said my brother. 'During the +Revolution my family was ruined. I took refuge in Franche-Comte at +first, and there I lived for some time by the toil of my hands. My will +was good. I found plenty to occupy me. One has only to choose. There are +paper mills, tanneries, distilleries, oil factories, watch factories +on a large scale, steel mills, copper works, twenty iron foundries at +least, four of which, situated at Lods, at Chatillon, at Audincourt, and +at Beure, are tolerably large.' + +"I think I am not mistaken in saying that those are the names which my +brother mentioned. Then he interrupted himself and addressed me:-- + +"'Have we not some relatives in those parts, my dear sister?' + +"I replied,-- + +"'We did have some; among others, M. de Lucenet, who was captain of the +gates at Pontarlier under the old regime.' + +"'Yes,' resumed my brother; 'but in '93, one had no longer any +relatives, one had only one's arms. I worked. They have, in the +country of Pontarlier, whither you are going, Monsieur Valjean, a +truly patriarchal and truly charming industry, my sister. It is their +cheese-dairies, which they call fruitieres.' + +"Then my brother, while urging the man to eat, explained to him, with +great minuteness, what these fruitieres of Pontarlier were; that they +were divided into two classes: the big barns which belong to the rich, +and where there are forty or fifty cows which produce from seven to +eight thousand cheeses each summer, and the associated fruitieres, which +belong to the poor; these are the peasants of mid-mountain, who hold +their cows in common, and share the proceeds. 'They engage the services +of a cheese-maker, whom they call the grurin; the grurin receives the +milk of the associates three times a day, and marks the quantity on +a double tally. It is towards the end of April that the work of the +cheese-dairies begins; it is towards the middle of June that the +cheese-makers drive their cows to the mountains.' + +"The man recovered his animation as he ate. My brother made him drink +that good Mauves wine, which he does not drink himself, because he says +that wine is expensive. My brother imparted all these details with that +easy gayety of his with which you are acquainted, interspersing his +words with graceful attentions to me. He recurred frequently to that +comfortable trade of grurin, as though he wished the man to understand, +without advising him directly and harshly, that this would afford him +a refuge. One thing struck me. This man was what I have told you. Well, +neither during supper, nor during the entire evening, did my brother +utter a single word, with the exception of a few words about Jesus when +he entered, which could remind the man of what he was, nor of what my +brother was. To all appearances, it was an occasion for preaching him +a little sermon, and of impressing the Bishop on the convict, so that a +mark of the passage might remain behind. This might have appeared to any +one else who had this, unfortunate man in his hands to afford a chance +to nourish his soul as well as his body, and to bestow upon him +some reproach, seasoned with moralizing and advice, or a little +commiseration, with an exhortation to conduct himself better in the +future. My brother did not even ask him from what country he came, +nor what was his history. For in his history there is a fault, and my +brother seemed to avoid everything which could remind him of it. To such +a point did he carry it, that at one time, when my brother was speaking +of the mountaineers of Pontarlier, who exercise a gentle labor near +heaven, and who, he added, are happy because they are innocent, he +stopped short, fearing lest in this remark there might have escaped him +something which might wound the man. By dint of reflection, I think +I have comprehended what was passing in my brother's heart. He was +thinking, no doubt, that this man, whose name is Jean Valjean, had his +misfortune only too vividly present in his mind; that the best thing +was to divert him from it, and to make him believe, if only momentarily, +that he was a person like any other, by treating him just in his +ordinary way. Is not this indeed, to understand charity well? Is there +not, dear Madame, something truly evangelical in this delicacy which +abstains from sermon, from moralizing, from allusions? and is not the +truest pity, when a man has a sore point, not to touch it at all? It has +seemed to me that this might have been my brother's private thought. In +any case, what I can say is that, if he entertained all these ideas, he +gave no sign of them; from beginning to end, even to me he was the same +as he is every evening, and he supped with this Jean Valjean with the +same air and in the same manner in which he would have supped with M. +Gedeon le Provost, or with the curate of the parish. + +"Towards the end, when he had reached the figs, there came a knock at +the door. It was Mother Gerbaud, with her little one in her arms. My +brother kissed the child on the brow, and borrowed fifteen sous which I +had about me to give to Mother Gerbaud. The man was not paying much +heed to anything then. He was no longer talking, and he seemed very much +fatigued. After poor old Gerbaud had taken her departure, my brother +said grace; then he turned to the man and said to him, 'You must be +in great need of your bed.' Madame Magloire cleared the table very +promptly. I understood that we must retire, in order to allow this +traveller to go to sleep, and we both went up stairs. Nevertheless, I +sent Madame Magloire down a moment later, to carry to the man's bed a +goat skin from the Black Forest, which was in my room. The nights are +frigid, and that keeps one warm. It is a pity that this skin is old; all +the hair is falling out. My brother bought it while he was in Germany, +at Tottlingen, near the sources of the Danube, as well as the little +ivory-handled knife which I use at table. + +"Madame Magloire returned immediately. We said our prayers in the +drawing-room, where we hang up the linen, and then we each retired to +our own chambers, without saying a word to each other." + + + + +CHAPTER V--TRANQUILLITY + +After bidding his sister good night, Monseigneur Bienvenu took one of +the two silver candlesticks from the table, handed the other to his +guest, and said to him,-- + +"Monsieur, I will conduct you to your room." + +The man followed him. + +As might have been observed from what has been said above, the house was +so arranged that in order to pass into the oratory where the alcove was +situated, or to get out of it, it was necessary to traverse the Bishop's +bedroom. + +At the moment when he was crossing this apartment, Madame Magloire was +putting away the silverware in the cupboard near the head of the bed. +This was her last care every evening before she went to bed. + +The Bishop installed his guest in the alcove. A fresh white bed had been +prepared there. The man set the candle down on a small table. + +"Well," said the Bishop, "may you pass a good night. To-morrow morning, +before you set out, you shall drink a cup of warm milk from our cows." + +"Thanks, Monsieur l'Abbe," said the man. + +Hardly had he pronounced these words full of peace, when all of a +sudden, and without transition, he made a strange movement, which would +have frozen the two sainted women with horror, had they witnessed it. +Even at this day it is difficult for us to explain what inspired him at +that moment. Did he intend to convey a warning or to throw out a menace? +Was he simply obeying a sort of instinctive impulse which was obscure +even to himself? He turned abruptly to the old man, folded his arms, and +bending upon his host a savage gaze, he exclaimed in a hoarse voice:-- + +"Ah! really! You lodge me in your house, close to yourself like this?" + +He broke off, and added with a laugh in which there lurked something +monstrous:-- + +"Have you really reflected well? How do you know that I have not been an +assassin?" + +The Bishop replied:-- + +"That is the concern of the good God." + +Then gravely, and moving his lips like one who is praying or talking +to himself, he raised two fingers of his right hand and bestowed his +benediction on the man, who did not bow, and without turning his head or +looking behind him, he returned to his bedroom. + +When the alcove was in use, a large serge curtain drawn from wall to +wall concealed the altar. The Bishop knelt before this curtain as he +passed and said a brief prayer. A moment later he was in his garden, +walking, meditating, contemplating, his heart and soul wholly absorbed +in those grand and mysterious things which God shows at night to the +eyes which remain open. + +As for the man, he was actually so fatigued that he did not even profit +by the nice white sheets. Snuffing out his candle with his nostrils +after the manner of convicts, he dropped, all dressed as he was, upon +the bed, where he immediately fell into a profound sleep. + +Midnight struck as the Bishop returned from his garden to his apartment. + +A few minutes later all were asleep in the little house. + + + + +CHAPTER VI--JEAN VALJEAN + +Towards the middle of the night Jean Valjean woke. + +Jean Valjean came from a poor peasant family of Brie. He had not learned +to read in his childhood. When he reached man's estate, he became a +tree-pruner at Faverolles. His mother was named Jeanne Mathieu; his +father was called Jean Valjean or Vlajean, probably a sobriquet, and a +contraction of viola Jean, "here's Jean." + +Jean Valjean was of that thoughtful but not gloomy disposition which +constitutes the peculiarity of affectionate natures. On the whole, +however, there was something decidedly sluggish and insignificant about +Jean Valjean in appearance, at least. He had lost his father and mother +at a very early age. His mother had died of a milk fever, which had not +been properly attended to. His father, a tree-pruner, like himself, had +been killed by a fall from a tree. All that remained to Jean Valjean +was a sister older than himself,--a widow with seven children, boys and +girls. This sister had brought up Jean Valjean, and so long as she had a +husband she lodged and fed her young brother. + +The husband died. The eldest of the seven children was eight years old. +The youngest, one. + +Jean Valjean had just attained his twenty-fifth year. He took the +father's place, and, in his turn, supported the sister who had brought +him up. This was done simply as a duty and even a little churlishly +on the part of Jean Valjean. Thus his youth had been spent in rude and +ill-paid toil. He had never known a "kind woman friend" in his native +parts. He had not had the time to fall in love. + +He returned at night weary, and ate his broth without uttering a word. +His sister, mother Jeanne, often took the best part of his repast from +his bowl while he was eating,--a bit of meat, a slice of bacon, the +heart of the cabbage,--to give to one of her children. As he went on +eating, with his head bent over the table and almost into his soup, his +long hair falling about his bowl and concealing his eyes, he had the air +of perceiving nothing and allowing it. There was at Faverolles, not +far from the Valjean thatched cottage, on the other side of the lane, +a farmer's wife named Marie-Claude; the Valjean children, habitually +famished, sometimes went to borrow from Marie-Claude a pint of milk, in +their mother's name, which they drank behind a hedge or in some alley +corner, snatching the jug from each other so hastily that the little +girls spilled it on their aprons and down their necks. If their mother +had known of this marauding, she would have punished the delinquents +severely. Jean Valjean gruffly and grumblingly paid Marie-Claude for +the pint of milk behind their mother's back, and the children were not +punished. + +In pruning season he earned eighteen sous a day; then he hired out as +a hay-maker, as laborer, as neat-herd on a farm, as a drudge. He did +whatever he could. His sister worked also but what could she do with +seven little children? It was a sad group enveloped in misery, which was +being gradually annihilated. A very hard winter came. Jean had no work. +The family had no bread. No bread literally. Seven children! + +One Sunday evening, Maubert Isabeau, the baker on the Church Square at +Faverolles, was preparing to go to bed, when he heard a violent blow on +the grated front of his shop. He arrived in time to see an arm passed +through a hole made by a blow from a fist, through the grating and the +glass. The arm seized a loaf of bread and carried it off. Isabeau ran +out in haste; the robber fled at the full speed of his legs. Isabeau ran +after him and stopped him. The thief had flung away the loaf, but his +arm was still bleeding. It was Jean Valjean. + +This took place in 1795. Jean Valjean was taken before the tribunals +of the time for theft and breaking and entering an inhabited house at +night. He had a gun which he used better than any one else in the world, +he was a bit of a poacher, and this injured his case. There exists a +legitimate prejudice against poachers. The poacher, like the smuggler, +smacks too strongly of the brigand. Nevertheless, we will remark +cursorily, there is still an abyss between these races of men and the +hideous assassin of the towns. The poacher lives in the forest, the +smuggler lives in the mountains or on the sea. The cities make ferocious +men because they make corrupt men. The mountain, the sea, the forest, +make savage men; they develop the fierce side, but often without +destroying the humane side. + +Jean Valjean was pronounced guilty. The terms of the Code were explicit. +There occur formidable hours in our civilization; there are moments when +the penal laws decree a shipwreck. What an ominous minute is that in +which society draws back and consummates the irreparable abandonment +of a sentient being! Jean Valjean was condemned to five years in the +galleys. + +On the 22d of April, 1796, the victory of Montenotte, won by the +general-in-chief of the army of Italy, whom the message of the Directory +to the Five Hundred, of the 2d of Floreal, year IV., calls Buona-Parte, +was announced in Paris; on that same day a great gang of galley-slaves +was put in chains at Bicetre. Jean Valjean formed a part of that gang. +An old turnkey of the prison, who is now nearly eighty years old, still +recalls perfectly that unfortunate wretch who was chained to the end of +the fourth line, in the north angle of the courtyard. He was seated on +the ground like the others. He did not seem to comprehend his position, +except that it was horrible. It is probable that he, also, was +disentangling from amid the vague ideas of a poor man, ignorant of +everything, something excessive. While the bolt of his iron collar was +being riveted behind his head with heavy blows from the hammer, he wept, +his tears stifled him, they impeded his speech; he only managed to +say from time to time, "I was a tree-pruner at Faverolles." Then still +sobbing, he raised his right hand and lowered it gradually seven times, +as though he were touching in succession seven heads of unequal heights, +and from this gesture it was divined that the thing which he had done, +whatever it was, he had done for the sake of clothing and nourishing +seven little children. + +He set out for Toulon. He arrived there, after a journey of twenty-seven +days, on a cart, with a chain on his neck. At Toulon he was clothed in +the red cassock. All that had constituted his life, even to his name, +was effaced; he was no longer even Jean Valjean; he was number 24,601. +What became of his sister? What became of the seven children? Who +troubled himself about that? What becomes of the handful of leaves from +the young tree which is sawed off at the root? + +It is always the same story. These poor living beings, these creatures +of God, henceforth without support, without guide, without refuge, +wandered away at random,--who even knows?--each in his own direction +perhaps, and little by little buried themselves in that cold mist which +engulfs solitary destinies; gloomy shades, into which disappear in +succession so many unlucky heads, in the sombre march of the human race. +They quitted the country. The clock-tower of what had been their village +forgot them; the boundary line of what had been their field forgot them; +after a few years' residence in the galleys, Jean Valjean himself forgot +them. In that heart, where there had been a wound, there was a scar. +That is all. Only once, during all the time which he spent at Toulon, +did he hear his sister mentioned. This happened, I think, towards +the end of the fourth year of his captivity. I know not through what +channels the news reached him. Some one who had known them in their +own country had seen his sister. She was in Paris. She lived in a poor +street Rear Saint-Sulpice, in the Rue du Gindre. She had with her only +one child, a little boy, the youngest. Where were the other six? Perhaps +she did not know herself. Every morning she went to a printing office, +No. 3 Rue du Sabot, where she was a folder and stitcher. She was obliged +to be there at six o'clock in the morning--long before daylight in +winter. In the same building with the printing office there was a +school, and to this school she took her little boy, who was seven years +old. But as she entered the printing office at six, and the school only +opened at seven, the child had to wait in the courtyard, for the school +to open, for an hour--one hour of a winter night in the open air! They +would not allow the child to come into the printing office, because he +was in the way, they said. When the workmen passed in the morning, they +beheld this poor little being seated on the pavement, overcome with +drowsiness, and often fast asleep in the shadow, crouched down and +doubled up over his basket. When it rained, an old woman, the portress, +took pity on him; she took him into her den, where there was a pallet, a +spinning-wheel, and two wooden chairs, and the little one slumbered in a +corner, pressing himself close to the cat that he might suffer less from +cold. At seven o'clock the school opened, and he entered. That is what +was told to Jean Valjean. + +They talked to him about it for one day; it was a moment, a flash, +as though a window had suddenly been opened upon the destiny of those +things whom he had loved; then all closed again. He heard nothing more +forever. Nothing from them ever reached him again; he never beheld +them; he never met them again; and in the continuation of this mournful +history they will not be met with any more. + +Towards the end of this fourth year Jean Valjean's turn to escape +arrived. His comrades assisted him, as is the custom in that sad place. +He escaped. He wandered for two days in the fields at liberty, if being +at liberty is to be hunted, to turn the head every instant, to quake at +the slightest noise, to be afraid of everything,--of a smoking roof, +of a passing man, of a barking dog, of a galloping horse, of a striking +clock, of the day because one can see, of the night because one cannot +see, of the highway, of the path, of a bush, of sleep. On the evening +of the second day he was captured. He had neither eaten nor slept for +thirty-six hours. The maritime tribunal condemned him, for this crime, +to a prolongation of his term for three years, which made eight years. +In the sixth year his turn to escape occurred again; he availed himself +of it, but could not accomplish his flight fully. He was missing at +roll-call. The cannon were fired, and at night the patrol found him +hidden under the keel of a vessel in process of construction; he +resisted the galley guards who seized him. Escape and rebellion. This +case, provided for by a special code, was punished by an addition of +five years, two of them in the double chain. Thirteen years. In the +tenth year his turn came round again; he again profited by it; he +succeeded no better. Three years for this fresh attempt. Sixteen years. +Finally, I think it was during his thirteenth year, he made a last +attempt, and only succeeded in getting retaken at the end of four +hours of absence. Three years for those four hours. Nineteen years. In +October, 1815, he was released; he had entered there in 1796, for having +broken a pane of glass and taken a loaf of bread. + +Room for a brief parenthesis. This is the second time, during his +studies on the penal question and damnation by law, that the author of +this book has come across the theft of a loaf of bread as the point of +departure for the disaster of a destiny. Claude Gueux had stolen a loaf; +Jean Valjean had stolen a loaf. English statistics prove the fact that +four thefts out of five in London have hunger for their immediate cause. + +Jean Valjean had entered the galleys sobbing and shuddering; he emerged +impassive. He had entered in despair; he emerged gloomy. + +What had taken place in that soul? + + + + +CHAPTER VII--THE INTERIOR OF DESPAIR + + +Let us try to say it. + +It is necessary that society should look at these things, because it is +itself which creates them. + +He was, as we have said, an ignorant man, but he was not a fool. The +light of nature was ignited in him. Unhappiness, which also possesses a +clearness of vision of its own, augmented the small amount of daylight +which existed in this mind. Beneath the cudgel, beneath the chain, in +the cell, in hardship, beneath the burning sun of the galleys, upon the +plank bed of the convict, he withdrew into his own consciousness and +meditated. + +He constituted himself the tribunal. + +He began by putting himself on trial. + +He recognized the fact that he was not an innocent man unjustly +punished. He admitted that he had committed an extreme and blameworthy +act; that that loaf of bread would probably not have been refused to +him had he asked for it; that, in any case, it would have been better to +wait until he could get it through compassion or through work; that +it is not an unanswerable argument to say, "Can one wait when one is +hungry?" That, in the first place, it is very rare for any one to die of +hunger, literally; and next, that, fortunately or unfortunately, man +is so constituted that he can suffer long and much, both morally and +physically, without dying; that it is therefore necessary to have +patience; that that would even have been better for those poor little +children; that it had been an act of madness for him, a miserable, +unfortunate wretch, to take society at large violently by the collar, +and to imagine that one can escape from misery through theft; that that +is in any case a poor door through which to escape from misery through +which infamy enters; in short, that he was in the wrong. + +Then he asked himself-- + +Whether he had been the only one in fault in his fatal history. Whether +it was not a serious thing, that he, a laborer, out of work, that he, an +industrious man, should have lacked bread. And whether, the fault once +committed and confessed, the chastisement had not been ferocious and +disproportioned. Whether there had not been more abuse on the part of +the law, in respect to the penalty, than there had been on the part +of the culprit in respect to his fault. Whether there had not been an +excess of weights in one balance of the scale, in the one which contains +expiation. Whether the over-weight of the penalty was not equivalent +to the annihilation of the crime, and did not result in reversing the +situation, of replacing the fault of the delinquent by the fault of the +repression, of converting the guilty man into the victim, and the debtor +into the creditor, and of ranging the law definitely on the side of the +man who had violated it. + +Whether this penalty, complicated by successive aggravations for +attempts at escape, had not ended in becoming a sort of outrage +perpetrated by the stronger upon the feebler, a crime of society against +the individual, a crime which was being committed afresh every day, a +crime which had lasted nineteen years. + +He asked himself whether human society could have the right to force its +members to suffer equally in one case for its own unreasonable lack +of foresight, and in the other case for its pitiless foresight; and to +seize a poor man forever between a defect and an excess, a default of +work and an excess of punishment. + +Whether it was not outrageous for society to treat thus precisely those +of its members who were the least well endowed in the division of goods +made by chance, and consequently the most deserving of consideration. + +These questions put and answered, he judged society and condemned it. + +He condemned it to his hatred. + +He made it responsible for the fate which he was suffering, and he said +to himself that it might be that one day he should not hesitate to call +it to account. He declared to himself that there was no equilibrium +between the harm which he had caused and the harm which was being done +to him; he finally arrived at the conclusion that his punishment was +not, in truth, unjust, but that it most assuredly was iniquitous. + +Anger may be both foolish and absurd; one can be irritated wrongfully; +one is exasperated only when there is some show of right on one's side +at bottom. Jean Valjean felt himself exasperated. + +And besides, human society had done him nothing but harm; he had never +seen anything of it save that angry face which it calls Justice, and +which it shows to those whom it strikes. Men had only touched him to +bruise him. Every contact with them had been a blow. Never, since +his infancy, since the days of his mother, of his sister, had he ever +encountered a friendly word and a kindly glance. From suffering to +suffering, he had gradually arrived at the conviction that life is a +war; and that in this war he was the conquered. He had no other weapon +than his hate. He resolved to whet it in the galleys and to bear it away +with him when he departed. + +There was at Toulon a school for the convicts, kept by the Ignorantin +friars, where the most necessary branches were taught to those of the +unfortunate men who had a mind for them. He was of the number who had +a mind. He went to school at the age of forty, and learned to read, +to write, to cipher. He felt that to fortify his intelligence was to +fortify his hate. In certain cases, education and enlightenment can +serve to eke out evil. + +This is a sad thing to say; after having judged society, which had +caused his unhappiness, he judged Providence, which had made society, +and he condemned it also. + +Thus during nineteen years of torture and slavery, this soul mounted and +at the same time fell. Light entered it on one side, and darkness on the +other. + +Jean Valjean had not, as we have seen, an evil nature. He was still good +when he arrived at the galleys. He there condemned society, and felt +that he was becoming wicked; he there condemned Providence, and was +conscious that he was becoming impious. + +It is difficult not to indulge in meditation at this point. + +Does human nature thus change utterly and from top to bottom? Can the +man created good by God be rendered wicked by man? Can the soul be +completely made over by fate, and become evil, fate being evil? Can +the heart become misshapen and contract incurable deformities and +infirmities under the oppression of a disproportionate unhappiness, +as the vertebral column beneath too low a vault? Is there not in every +human soul, was there not in the soul of Jean Valjean in particular, a +first spark, a divine element, incorruptible in this world, immortal in +the other, which good can develop, fan, ignite, and make to glow with +splendor, and which evil can never wholly extinguish? + +Grave and obscure questions, to the last of which every physiologist +would probably have responded no, and that without hesitation, had +he beheld at Toulon, during the hours of repose, which were for Jean +Valjean hours of revery, this gloomy galley-slave, seated with folded +arms upon the bar of some capstan, with the end of his chain thrust into +his pocket to prevent its dragging, serious, silent, and thoughtful, +a pariah of the laws which regarded the man with wrath, condemned by +civilization, and regarding heaven with severity. + +Certainly,--and we make no attempt to dissimulate the fact,--the +observing physiologist would have beheld an irremediable misery; he +would, perchance, have pitied this sick man, of the law's making; but +he would not have even essayed any treatment; he would have turned aside +his gaze from the caverns of which he would have caught a glimpse within +this soul, and, like Dante at the portals of hell, he would have effaced +from this existence the word which the finger of God has, nevertheless, +inscribed upon the brow of every man,--hope. + +Was this state of his soul, which we have attempted to analyze, as +perfectly clear to Jean Valjean as we have tried to render it for +those who read us? Did Jean Valjean distinctly perceive, after their +formation, and had he seen distinctly during the process of their +formation, all the elements of which his moral misery was composed? Had +this rough and unlettered man gathered a perfectly clear perception of +the succession of ideas through which he had, by degrees, mounted and +descended to the lugubrious aspects which had, for so many years, formed +the inner horizon of his spirit? Was he conscious of all that passed +within him, and of all that was working there? That is something +which we do not presume to state; it is something which we do not even +believe. There was too much ignorance in Jean Valjean, even after his +misfortune, to prevent much vagueness from still lingering there. At +times he did not rightly know himself what he felt. Jean Valjean was in +the shadows; he suffered in the shadows; he hated in the shadows; one +might have said that he hated in advance of himself. He dwelt habitually +in this shadow, feeling his way like a blind man and a dreamer. Only, at +intervals, there suddenly came to him, from without and from within, an +access of wrath, a surcharge of suffering, a livid and rapid flash which +illuminated his whole soul, and caused to appear abruptly all around +him, in front, behind, amid the gleams of a frightful light, the hideous +precipices and the sombre perspective of his destiny. + +The flash passed, the night closed in again; and where was he? He no +longer knew. The peculiarity of pains of this nature, in which +that which is pitiless--that is to say, that which is +brutalizing--predominates, is to transform a man, little by little, by +a sort of stupid transfiguration, into a wild beast; sometimes into a +ferocious beast. + +Jean Valjean's successive and obstinate attempts at escape would alone +suffice to prove this strange working of the law upon the human soul. +Jean Valjean would have renewed these attempts, utterly useless and +foolish as they were, as often as the opportunity had presented itself, +without reflecting for an instant on the result, nor on the experiences +which he had already gone through. He escaped impetuously, like the wolf +who finds his cage open. Instinct said to him, "Flee!" Reason would have +said, "Remain!" But in the presence of so violent a temptation, reason +vanished; nothing remained but instinct. The beast alone acted. When +he was recaptured, the fresh severities inflicted on him only served to +render him still more wild. + +One detail, which we must not omit, is that he possessed a physical +strength which was not approached by a single one of the denizens of the +galleys. At work, at paying out a cable or winding up a capstan, Jean +Valjean was worth four men. He sometimes lifted and sustained enormous +weights on his back; and when the occasion demanded it, he replaced that +implement which is called a jack-screw, and was formerly called orgueil +[pride], whence, we may remark in passing, is derived the name of the +Rue Montorgueil, near the Halles [Fishmarket] in Paris. His comrades had +nicknamed him Jean the Jack-screw. Once, when they were repairing the +balcony of the town-hall at Toulon, one of those admirable caryatids of +Puget, which support the balcony, became loosened, and was on the point +of falling. Jean Valjean, who was present, supported the caryatid with +his shoulder, and gave the workmen time to arrive. + +His suppleness even exceeded his strength. Certain convicts who were +forever dreaming of escape, ended by making a veritable science of force +and skill combined. It is the science of muscles. An entire system of +mysterious statics is daily practised by prisoners, men who are forever +envious of the flies and birds. To climb a vertical surface, and to find +points of support where hardly a projection was visible, was play to +Jean Valjean. An angle of the wall being given, with the tension of his +back and legs, with his elbows and his heels fitted into the unevenness +of the stone, he raised himself as if by magic to the third story. He +sometimes mounted thus even to the roof of the galley prison. + +He spoke but little. He laughed not at all. An excessive emotion was +required to wring from him, once or twice a year, that lugubrious laugh +of the convict, which is like the echo of the laugh of a demon. To all +appearance, he seemed to be occupied in the constant contemplation of +something terrible. + +He was absorbed, in fact. + +Athwart the unhealthy perceptions of an incomplete nature and a crushed +intelligence, he was confusedly conscious that some monstrous thing was +resting on him. In that obscure and wan shadow within which he crawled, +each time that he turned his neck and essayed to raise his glance, +he perceived with terror, mingled with rage, a sort of frightful +accumulation of things, collecting and mounting above him, beyond the +range of his vision,--laws, prejudices, men, and deeds,--whose outlines +escaped him, whose mass terrified him, and which was nothing else than +that prodigious pyramid which we call civilization. He distinguished, +here and there in that swarming and formless mass, now near him, now +afar off and on inaccessible table-lands, some group, some detail, +vividly illuminated; here the galley-sergeant and his cudgel; there the +gendarme and his sword; yonder the mitred archbishop; away at the top, +like a sort of sun, the Emperor, crowned and dazzling. It seemed to him +that these distant splendors, far from dissipating his night, rendered +it more funereal and more black. All this--laws, prejudices, deeds, men, +things--went and came above him, over his head, in accordance with the +complicated and mysterious movement which God imparts to civilization, +walking over him and crushing him with I know not what peacefulness +in its cruelty and inexorability in its indifference. Souls which have +fallen to the bottom of all possible misfortune, unhappy men lost in the +lowest of those limbos at which no one any longer looks, the reproved of +the law, feel the whole weight of this human society, so formidable for +him who is without, so frightful for him who is beneath, resting upon +their heads. + +In this situation Jean Valjean meditated; and what could be the nature +of his meditation? + +If the grain of millet beneath the millstone had thoughts, it would, +doubtless, think that same thing which Jean Valjean thought. + +All these things, realities full of spectres, phantasmagories full of +realities, had eventually created for him a sort of interior state which +is almost indescribable. + +At times, amid his convict toil, he paused. He fell to thinking. His +reason, at one and the same time riper and more troubled than of yore, +rose in revolt. Everything which had happened to him seemed to him +absurd; everything that surrounded him seemed to him impossible. He said +to himself, "It is a dream." He gazed at the galley-sergeant standing a +few paces from him; the galley-sergeant seemed a phantom to him. All of +a sudden the phantom dealt him a blow with his cudgel. + +Visible nature hardly existed for him. It would almost be true to say +that there existed for Jean Valjean neither sun, nor fine summer days, +nor radiant sky, nor fresh April dawns. I know not what vent-hole +daylight habitually illumined his soul. + +To sum up, in conclusion, that which can be summed up and translated +into positive results in all that we have just pointed out, we will +confine ourselves to the statement that, in the course of nineteen +years, Jean Valjean, the inoffensive tree-pruner of Faverolles, the +formidable convict of Toulon, had become capable, thanks to the manner +in which the galleys had moulded him, of two sorts of evil action: +firstly, of evil action which was rapid, unpremeditated, dashing, +entirely instinctive, in the nature of reprisals for the evil which +he had undergone; secondly, of evil action which was serious, grave, +consciously argued out and premeditated, with the false ideas which +such a misfortune can furnish. His deliberate deeds passed through +three successive phases, which natures of a certain stamp can alone +traverse,--reasoning, will, perseverance. He had for moving causes his +habitual wrath, bitterness of soul, a profound sense of indignities +suffered, the reaction even against the good, the innocent, and the +just, if there are any such. The point of departure, like the point +of arrival, for all his thoughts, was hatred of human law; that hatred +which, if it be not arrested in its development by some providential +incident, becomes, within a given time, the hatred of society, then +the hatred of the human race, then the hatred of creation, and which +manifests itself by a vague, incessant, and brutal desire to do harm to +some living being, no matter whom. It will be perceived that it was +not without reason that Jean Valjean's passport described him as a very +dangerous man. + +From year to year this soul had dried away slowly, but with fatal +sureness. When the heart is dry, the eye is dry. On his departure from +the galleys it had been nineteen years since he had shed a tear. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII--BILLOWS AND SHADOWS + + +A man overboard! + +What matters it? The vessel does not halt. The wind blows. That sombre +ship has a path which it is forced to pursue. It passes on. + +The man disappears, then reappears; he plunges, he rises again to the +surface; he calls, he stretches out his arms; he is not heard. The +vessel, trembling under the hurricane, is wholly absorbed in its own +workings; the passengers and sailors do not even see the drowning man; +his miserable head is but a speck amid the immensity of the waves. He +gives vent to desperate cries from out of the depths. What a spectre is +that retreating sail! He gazes and gazes at it frantically. It retreats, +it grows dim, it diminishes in size. He was there but just now, he was +one of the crew, he went and came along the deck with the rest, he had +his part of breath and of sunlight, he was a living man. Now, what has +taken place? He has slipped, he has fallen; all is at an end. + +He is in the tremendous sea. Under foot he has nothing but what flees +and crumbles. The billows, torn and lashed by the wind, encompass him +hideously; the tossings of the abyss bear him away; all the tongues of +water dash over his head; a populace of waves spits upon him; confused +openings half devour him; every time that he sinks, he catches glimpses +of precipices filled with night; frightful and unknown vegetations seize +him, knot about his feet, draw him to them; he is conscious that he is +becoming an abyss, that he forms part of the foam; the waves toss him +from one to another; he drinks in the bitterness; the cowardly ocean +attacks him furiously, to drown him; the enormity plays with his agony. +It seems as though all that water were hate. + +Nevertheless, he struggles. + +He tries to defend himself; he tries to sustain himself; he makes +an effort; he swims. He, his petty strength all exhausted instantly, +combats the inexhaustible. + +Where, then, is the ship? Yonder. Barely visible in the pale shadows of +the horizon. + +The wind blows in gusts; all the foam overwhelms him. He raises his eyes +and beholds only the lividness of the clouds. He witnesses, amid his +death-pangs, the immense madness of the sea. He is tortured by this +madness; he hears noises strange to man, which seem to come from beyond +the limits of the earth, and from one knows not what frightful region +beyond. + +There are birds in the clouds, just as there are angels above human +distresses; but what can they do for him? They sing and fly and float, +and he, he rattles in the death agony. + +He feels himself buried in those two infinities, the ocean and the sky, +at one and the same time: the one is a tomb; the other is a shroud. + +Night descends; he has been swimming for hours; his strength is +exhausted; that ship, that distant thing in which there were men, has +vanished; he is alone in the formidable twilight gulf; he sinks, he +stiffens himself, he twists himself; he feels under him the monstrous +billows of the invisible; he shouts. + +There are no more men. Where is God? + +He shouts. Help! Help! He still shouts on. + +Nothing on the horizon; nothing in heaven. + +He implores the expanse, the waves, the seaweed, the reef; they are +deaf. He beseeches the tempest; the imperturbable tempest obeys only the +infinite. + +Around him darkness, fog, solitude, the stormy and nonsentient tumult, +the undefined curling of those wild waters. In him horror and fatigue. +Beneath him the depths. Not a point of support. He thinks of the gloomy +adventures of the corpse in the limitless shadow. The bottomless cold +paralyzes him. His hands contract convulsively; they close, and grasp +nothingness. Winds, clouds, whirlwinds, gusts, useless stars! What is +to be done? The desperate man gives up; he is weary, he chooses the +alternative of death; he resists not; he lets himself go; he abandons +his grip; and then he tosses forevermore in the lugubrious dreary depths +of engulfment. + +Oh, implacable march of human societies! Oh, losses of men and of +souls on the way! Ocean into which falls all that the law lets slip! +Disastrous absence of help! Oh, moral death! + +The sea is the inexorable social night into which the penal laws fling +their condemned. The sea is the immensity of wretchedness. + +The soul, going down stream in this gulf, may become a corpse. Who shall +resuscitate it? + + + + +CHAPTER IX--NEW TROUBLES + +When the hour came for him to take his departure from the galleys, when +Jean Valjean heard in his ear the strange words, Thou art free! the +moment seemed improbable and unprecedented; a ray of vivid light, a ray +of the true light of the living, suddenly penetrated within him. But it +was not long before this ray paled. Jean Valjean had been dazzled by +the idea of liberty. He had believed in a new life. He very speedily +perceived what sort of liberty it is to which a yellow passport is +provided. + +And this was encompassed with much bitterness. He had calculated that +his earnings, during his sojourn in the galleys, ought to amount to +a hundred and seventy-one francs. It is but just to add that he had +forgotten to include in his calculations the forced repose of Sundays +and festival days during nineteen years, which entailed a diminution +of about eighty francs. At all events, his hoard had been reduced by +various local levies to the sum of one hundred and nine francs fifteen +sous, which had been counted out to him on his departure. He had +understood nothing of this, and had thought himself wronged. Let us say +the word--robbed. + +On the day following his liberation, he saw, at Grasse, in front of +an orange-flower distillery, some men engaged in unloading bales. He +offered his services. Business was pressing; they were accepted. He set +to work. He was intelligent, robust, adroit; he did his best; the master +seemed pleased. While he was at work, a gendarme passed, observed +him, and demanded his papers. It was necessary to show him the yellow +passport. That done, Jean Valjean resumed his labor. A little while +before he had questioned one of the workmen as to the amount which they +earned each day at this occupation; he had been told thirty sous. When +evening arrived, as he was forced to set out again on the following day, +he presented himself to the owner of the distillery and requested to be +paid. The owner did not utter a word, but handed him twenty-five sous. He +objected. He was told, "That is enough for thee." He persisted. The +master looked him straight between the eyes, and said to him "Beware of +the prison." + +There, again, he considered that he had been robbed. + +Society, the State, by diminishing his hoard, had robbed him wholesale. +Now it was the individual who was robbing him at retail. + +Liberation is not deliverance. One gets free from the galleys, but not +from the sentence. + +That is what happened to him at Grasse. We have seen in what manner he +was received at D---- + + + + +CHAPTER X--THE MAN AROUSED + +As the Cathedral clock struck two in the morning, Jean Valjean awoke. + +What woke him was that his bed was too good. It was nearly twenty years +since he had slept in a bed, and, although he had not undressed, the +sensation was too novel not to disturb his slumbers. + +He had slept more than four hours. His fatigue had passed away. He was +accustomed not to devote many hours to repose. + +He opened his eyes and stared into the gloom which surrounded him; then +he closed them again, with the intention of going to sleep once more. + +When many varied sensations have agitated the day, when various matters +preoccupy the mind, one falls asleep once, but not a second time. +Sleep comes more easily than it returns. This is what happened to Jean +Valjean. He could not get to sleep again, and he fell to thinking. + +He was at one of those moments when the thoughts which one has in one's +mind are troubled. There was a sort of dark confusion in his brain. His +memories of the olden time and of the immediate present floated there +pell-mell and mingled confusedly, losing their proper forms, becoming +disproportionately large, then suddenly disappearing, as in a muddy and +perturbed pool. Many thoughts occurred to him; but there was one which +kept constantly presenting itself afresh, and which drove away all +others. We will mention this thought at once: he had observed the six +sets of silver forks and spoons and the ladle which Madame Magloire had +placed on the table. + +Those six sets of silver haunted him.--They were there.--A few paces +distant.--Just as he was traversing the adjoining room to reach the +one in which he then was, the old servant-woman had been in the act +of placing them in a little cupboard near the head of the bed.--He had +taken careful note of this cupboard.--On the right, as you entered from +the dining-room.--They were solid.--And old silver.--From the ladle one +could get at least two hundred francs.--Double what he had earned in +nineteen years.--It is true that he would have earned more if "the +administration had not robbed him." + +His mind wavered for a whole hour in fluctuations with which there was +certainly mingled some struggle. Three o'clock struck. He opened his +eyes again, drew himself up abruptly into a sitting posture, stretched +out his arm and felt of his knapsack, which he had thrown down on a +corner of the alcove; then he hung his legs over the edge of the bed, +and placed his feet on the floor, and thus found himself, almost without +knowing it, seated on his bed. + +He remained for a time thoughtfully in this attitude, which would have +been suggestive of something sinister for any one who had seen him +thus in the dark, the only person awake in that house where all were +sleeping. All of a sudden he stooped down, removed his shoes and placed +them softly on the mat beside the bed; then he resumed his thoughtful +attitude, and became motionless once more. + +Throughout this hideous meditation, the thoughts which we have above +indicated moved incessantly through his brain; entered, withdrew, +re-entered, and in a manner oppressed him; and then he thought, also, +without knowing why, and with the mechanical persistence of revery, of +a convict named Brevet, whom he had known in the galleys, and whose +trousers had been upheld by a single suspender of knitted cotton. The +checkered pattern of that suspender recurred incessantly to his mind. + +He remained in this situation, and would have so remained indefinitely, +even until daybreak, had not the clock struck one--the half or quarter +hour. It seemed to him that that stroke said to him, "Come on!" + +He rose to his feet, hesitated still another moment, and listened; all +was quiet in the house; then he walked straight ahead, with short steps, +to the window, of which he caught a glimpse. The night was not very +dark; there was a full moon, across which coursed large clouds driven by +the wind. This created, outdoors, alternate shadow and gleams of light, +eclipses, then bright openings of the clouds; and indoors a sort of +twilight. This twilight, sufficient to enable a person to see his way, +intermittent on account of the clouds, resembled the sort of livid light +which falls through an air-hole in a cellar, before which the passersby +come and go. On arriving at the window, Jean Valjean examined it. It had +no grating; it opened in the garden and was fastened, according to the +fashion of the country, only by a small pin. He opened it; but as a +rush of cold and piercing air penetrated the room abruptly, he closed +it again immediately. He scrutinized the garden with that attentive gaze +which studies rather than looks. The garden was enclosed by a tolerably +low white wall, easy to climb. Far away, at the extremity, he perceived +tops of trees, spaced at regular intervals, which indicated that the +wall separated the garden from an avenue or lane planted with trees. + +Having taken this survey, he executed a movement like that of a man who +has made up his mind, strode to his alcove, grasped his knapsack, opened +it, fumbled in it, pulled out of it something which he placed on the +bed, put his shoes into one of his pockets, shut the whole thing up +again, threw the knapsack on his shoulders, put on his cap, drew the +visor down over his eyes, felt for his cudgel, went and placed it in the +angle of the window; then returned to the bed, and resolutely seized the +object which he had deposited there. It resembled a short bar of +iron, pointed like a pike at one end. It would have been difficult to +distinguish in that darkness for what employment that bit of iron could +have been designed. Perhaps it was a lever; possibly it was a club. + +In the daytime it would have been possible to recognize it as nothing +more than a miner's candlestick. Convicts were, at that period, +sometimes employed in quarrying stone from the lofty hills which environ +Toulon, and it was not rare for them to have miners' tools at their +command. These miners' candlesticks are of massive iron, terminated at +the lower extremity by a point, by means of which they are stuck into +the rock. + +He took the candlestick in his right hand; holding his breath and trying +to deaden the sound of his tread, he directed his steps to the door of +the adjoining room, occupied by the Bishop, as we already know. + +On arriving at this door, he found it ajar. The Bishop had not closed +it. + + + + +CHAPTER XI--WHAT HE DOES + +Jean Valjean listened. Not a sound. + +He gave the door a push. + +He pushed it gently with the tip of his finger, lightly, with the +furtive and uneasy gentleness of a cat which is desirous of entering. + +The door yielded to this pressure, and made an imperceptible and silent +movement, which enlarged the opening a little. + +He waited a moment; then gave the door a second and a bolder push. + +It continued to yield in silence. The opening was now large enough to +allow him to pass. But near the door there stood a little table, which +formed an embarrassing angle with it, and barred the entrance. + +Jean Valjean recognized the difficulty. It was necessary, at any cost, +to enlarge the aperture still further. + +He decided on his course of action, and gave the door a third push, more +energetic than the two preceding. This time a badly oiled hinge suddenly +emitted amid the silence a hoarse and prolonged cry. + +Jean Valjean shuddered. The noise of the hinge rang in his ears with +something of the piercing and formidable sound of the trump of the Day +of Judgment. + +In the fantastic exaggerations of the first moment he almost imagined +that that hinge had just become animated, and had suddenly assumed a +terrible life, and that it was barking like a dog to arouse every one, +and warn and to wake those who were asleep. He halted, shuddering, +bewildered, and fell back from the tips of his toes upon his heels. He +heard the arteries in his temples beating like two forge hammers, and +it seemed to him that his breath issued from his breast with the roar +of the wind issuing from a cavern. It seemed impossible to him that the +horrible clamor of that irritated hinge should not have disturbed the +entire household, like the shock of an earthquake; the door, pushed by +him, had taken the alarm, and had shouted; the old man would rise at +once; the two old women would shriek out; people would come to their +assistance; in less than a quarter of an hour the town would be in an +uproar, and the gendarmerie on hand. For a moment he thought himself +lost. + +He remained where he was, petrified like the statue of salt, not daring +to make a movement. Several minutes elapsed. The door had fallen wide +open. He ventured to peep into the next room. Nothing had stirred there. +He lent an ear. Nothing was moving in the house. The noise made by the +rusty hinge had not awakened any one. + +This first danger was past; but there still reigned a frightful tumult +within him. Nevertheless, he did not retreat. Even when he had thought +himself lost, he had not drawn back. His only thought now was to finish +as soon as possible. He took a step and entered the room. + +This room was in a state of perfect calm. Here and there vague and +confused forms were distinguishable, which in the daylight were papers +scattered on a table, open folios, volumes piled upon a stool, an +arm-chair heaped with clothing, a prie-Dieu, and which at that hour +were only shadowy corners and whitish spots. Jean Valjean advanced with +precaution, taking care not to knock against the furniture. He could +hear, at the extremity of the room, the even and tranquil breathing of +the sleeping Bishop. + +He suddenly came to a halt. He was near the bed. He had arrived there +sooner than he had thought for. + +Nature sometimes mingles her effects and her spectacles with our actions +with sombre and intelligent appropriateness, as though she desired to +make us reflect. For the last half-hour a large cloud had covered the +heavens. At the moment when Jean Valjean paused in front of the bed, +this cloud parted, as though on purpose, and a ray of light, traversing +the long window, suddenly illuminated the Bishop's pale face. He was +sleeping peacefully. He lay in his bed almost completely dressed, on +account of the cold of the Basses-Alps, in a garment of brown wool, +which covered his arms to the wrists. His head was thrown back on the +pillow, in the careless attitude of repose; his hand, adorned with the +pastoral ring, and whence had fallen so many good deeds and so many +holy actions, was hanging over the edge of the bed. His whole face +was illumined with a vague expression of satisfaction, of hope, and of +felicity. It was more than a smile, and almost a radiance. He bore upon +his brow the indescribable reflection of a light which was invisible. +The soul of the just contemplates in sleep a mysterious heaven. + +A reflection of that heaven rested on the Bishop. + +It was, at the same time, a luminous transparency, for that heaven was +within him. That heaven was his conscience. + +[Illustration: The Fall 1b2-10-the-fall] + +At the moment when the ray of moonlight superposed itself, so to speak, +upon that inward radiance, the sleeping Bishop seemed as in a glory. It +remained, however, gentle and veiled in an ineffable half-light. That +moon in the sky, that slumbering nature, that garden without a quiver, +that house which was so calm, the hour, the moment, the silence, added +some solemn and unspeakable quality to the venerable repose of this man, +and enveloped in a sort of serene and majestic aureole that white +hair, those closed eyes, that face in which all was hope and all was +confidence, that head of an old man, and that slumber of an infant. + +There was something almost divine in this man, who was thus august, +without being himself aware of it. + +Jean Valjean was in the shadow, and stood motionless, with his iron +candlestick in his hand, frightened by this luminous old man. Never had +he beheld anything like this. This confidence terrified him. The +moral world has no grander spectacle than this: a troubled and +uneasy conscience, which has arrived on the brink of an evil action, +contemplating the slumber of the just. + +That slumber in that isolation, and with a neighbor like himself, had +about it something sublime, of which he was vaguely but imperiously +conscious. + +No one could have told what was passing within him, not even himself. In +order to attempt to form an idea of it, it is necessary to think of the +most violent of things in the presence of the most gentle. Even on +his visage it would have been impossible to distinguish anything with +certainty. It was a sort of haggard astonishment. He gazed at it, and +that was all. But what was his thought? It would have been impossible to +divine it. What was evident was, that he was touched and astounded. But +what was the nature of this emotion? + +His eye never quitted the old man. The only thing which was clearly +to be inferred from his attitude and his physiognomy was a strange +indecision. One would have said that he was hesitating between the two +abysses,--the one in which one loses one's self and that in which one +saves one's self. He seemed prepared to crush that skull or to kiss that +hand. + +At the expiration of a few minutes his left arm rose slowly towards +his brow, and he took off his cap; then his arm fell back with the same +deliberation, and Jean Valjean fell to meditating once more, his cap in +his left hand, his club in his right hand, his hair bristling all over +his savage head. + +The Bishop continued to sleep in profound peace beneath that terrifying +gaze. + +The gleam of the moon rendered confusedly visible the crucifix over the +chimney-piece, which seemed to be extending its arms to both of them, +with a benediction for one and pardon for the other. + +Suddenly Jean Valjean replaced his cap on his brow; then stepped rapidly +past the bed, without glancing at the Bishop, straight to the cupboard, +which he saw near the head; he raised his iron candlestick as though to +force the lock; the key was there; he opened it; the first thing which +presented itself to him was the basket of silverware; he seized it, +traversed the chamber with long strides, without taking any precautions +and without troubling himself about the noise, gained the door, +re-entered the oratory, opened the window, seized his cudgel, bestrode +the window-sill of the ground-floor, put the silver into his knapsack, +threw away the basket, crossed the garden, leaped over the wall like a +tiger, and fled. + + + + +CHAPTER XII--THE BISHOP WORKS + +The next morning at sunrise Monseigneur Bienvenu was strolling in his +garden. Madame Magloire ran up to him in utter consternation. + +"Monseigneur, Monseigneur!" she exclaimed, "does your Grace know where +the basket of silver is?" + +"Yes," replied the Bishop. + +"Jesus the Lord be blessed!" she resumed; "I did not know what had +become of it." + +The Bishop had just picked up the basket in a flower-bed. He presented +it to Madame Magloire. + +"Here it is." + +"Well!" said she. "Nothing in it! And the silver?" + +"Ah," returned the Bishop, "so it is the silver which troubles you? I +don't know where it is." + +"Great, good God! It is stolen! That man who was here last night has +stolen it." + +In a twinkling, with all the vivacity of an alert old woman, Madame +Magloire had rushed to the oratory, entered the alcove, and returned +to the Bishop. The Bishop had just bent down, and was sighing as he +examined a plant of cochlearia des Guillons, which the basket had broken +as it fell across the bed. He rose up at Madame Magloire's cry. + +"Monseigneur, the man is gone! The silver has been stolen!" + +As she uttered this exclamation, her eyes fell upon a corner of the +garden, where traces of the wall having been scaled were visible. The +coping of the wall had been torn away. + +"Stay! yonder is the way he went. He jumped over into Cochefilet Lane. +Ah, the abomination! He has stolen our silver!" + +The Bishop remained silent for a moment; then he raised his grave eyes, +and said gently to Madame Magloire:-- + +"And, in the first place, was that silver ours?" + +Madame Magloire was speechless. Another silence ensued; then the Bishop +went on:-- + +"Madame Magloire, I have for a long time detained that silver +wrongfully. It belonged to the poor. Who was that man? A poor man, +evidently." + +"Alas! Jesus!" returned Madame Magloire. "It is not for my sake, nor for +Mademoiselle's. It makes no difference to us. But it is for the sake of +Monseigneur. What is Monseigneur to eat with now?" + +The Bishop gazed at her with an air of amazement. + +"Ah, come! Are there no such things as pewter forks and spoons?" + +Madame Magloire shrugged her shoulders. + +"Pewter has an odor." + +"Iron forks and spoons, then." + +Madame Magloire made an expressive grimace. + +"Iron has a taste." + +"Very well," said the Bishop; "wooden ones then." + +A few moments later he was breakfasting at the very table at which +Jean Valjean had sat on the previous evening. As he ate his breakfast, +Monseigneur Welcome remarked gayly to his sister, who said nothing, and +to Madame Magloire, who was grumbling under her breath, that one really +does not need either fork or spoon, even of wood, in order to dip a bit +of bread in a cup of milk. + +"A pretty idea, truly," said Madame Magloire to herself, as she went and +came, "to take in a man like that! and to lodge him close to one's self! +And how fortunate that he did nothing but steal! Ah, mon Dieu! it makes +one shudder to think of it!" + +As the brother and sister were about to rise from the table, there came +a knock at the door. + +"Come in," said the Bishop. + +The door opened. A singular and violent group made its appearance on the +threshold. Three men were holding a fourth man by the collar. The three +men were gendarmes; the other was Jean Valjean. + +A brigadier of gendarmes, who seemed to be in command of the group, was +standing near the door. He entered and advanced to the Bishop, making a +military salute. + +"Monseigneur--" said he. + +At this word, Jean Valjean, who was dejected and seemed overwhelmed, +raised his head with an air of stupefaction. + +"Monseigneur!" he murmured. "So he is not the cure?" + +"Silence!" said the gendarme. "He is Monseigneur the Bishop." + +In the meantime, Monseigneur Bienvenu had advanced as quickly as his +great age permitted. + +"Ah! here you are!" he exclaimed, looking at Jean Valjean. "I am glad to +see you. Well, but how is this? I gave you the candlesticks too, which +are of silver like the rest, and for which you can certainly get two +hundred francs. Why did you not carry them away with your forks and +spoons?" + +Jean Valjean opened his eyes wide, and stared at the venerable Bishop +with an expression which no human tongue can render any account of. + +"Monseigneur," said the brigadier of gendarmes, "so what this man said +is true, then? We came across him. He was walking like a man who is +running away. We stopped him to look into the matter. He had this +silver--" + +"And he told you," interposed the Bishop with a smile, "that it had been +given to him by a kind old fellow of a priest with whom he had passed +the night? I see how the matter stands. And you have brought him back +here? It is a mistake." + +"In that case," replied the brigadier, "we can let him go?" + +"Certainly," replied the Bishop. + +The gendarmes released Jean Valjean, who recoiled. + +"Is it true that I am to be released?" he said, in an almost +inarticulate voice, and as though he were talking in his sleep. + +"Yes, thou art released; dost thou not understand?" said one of the +gendarmes. + +"My friend," resumed the Bishop, "before you go, here are your +candlesticks. Take them." + +He stepped to the chimney-piece, took the two silver candlesticks, and +brought them to Jean Valjean. The two women looked on without uttering +a word, without a gesture, without a look which could disconcert the +Bishop. + +Jean Valjean was trembling in every limb. He took the two candlesticks +mechanically, and with a bewildered air. + +"Now," said the Bishop, "go in peace. By the way, when you return, my +friend, it is not necessary to pass through the garden. You can always +enter and depart through the street door. It is never fastened with +anything but a latch, either by day or by night." + +Then, turning to the gendarmes:-- + +"You may retire, gentlemen." + +The gendarmes retired. + +Jean Valjean was like a man on the point of fainting. + +The Bishop drew near to him, and said in a low voice:-- + +"Do not forget, never forget, that you have promised to use this money +in becoming an honest man." + +Jean Valjean, who had no recollection of ever having promised anything, +remained speechless. The Bishop had emphasized the words when he uttered +them. He resumed with solemnity:-- + +"Jean Valjean, my brother, you no longer belong to evil, but to good. It +is your soul that I buy from you; I withdraw it from black thoughts and +the spirit of perdition, and I give it to God." + + + + +CHAPTER XIII--LITTLE GERVAIS + +Jean Valjean left the town as though he were fleeing from it. He set out +at a very hasty pace through the fields, taking whatever roads and paths +presented themselves to him, without perceiving that he was incessantly +retracing his steps. He wandered thus the whole morning, without having +eaten anything and without feeling hungry. He was the prey of a throng +of novel sensations. He was conscious of a sort of rage; he did not +know against whom it was directed. He could not have told whether he was +touched or humiliated. There came over him at moments a strange emotion +which he resisted and to which he opposed the hardness acquired during +the last twenty years of his life. This state of mind fatigued him. +He perceived with dismay that the sort of frightful calm which the +injustice of his misfortune had conferred upon him was giving way within +him. He asked himself what would replace this. At times he would have +actually preferred to be in prison with the gendarmes, and that things +should not have happened in this way; it would have agitated him less. +Although the season was tolerably far advanced, there were still a few +late flowers in the hedge-rows here and there, whose odor as he passed +through them in his march recalled to him memories of his childhood. +These memories were almost intolerable to him, it was so long since they +had recurred to him. + +Unutterable thoughts assembled within him in this manner all day long. + +As the sun declined to its setting, casting long shadows athwart the +soil from every pebble, Jean Valjean sat down behind a bush upon a large +ruddy plain, which was absolutely deserted. There was nothing on the +horizon except the Alps. Not even the spire of a distant village. Jean +Valjean might have been three leagues distant from D---- A path which +intersected the plain passed a few paces from the bush. + +In the middle of this meditation, which would have contributed not +a little to render his rags terrifying to any one who might have +encountered him, a joyous sound became audible. + +He turned his head and saw a little Savoyard, about ten years of age, +coming up the path and singing, his hurdy-gurdy on his hip, and his +marmot-box on his back. + +One of those gay and gentle children, who go from land to land affording +a view of their knees through the holes in their trousers. + +Without stopping his song, the lad halted in his march from time to +time, and played at knuckle-bones with some coins which he had in his +hand--his whole fortune, probably. + +Among this money there was one forty-sou piece. + +The child halted beside the bush, without perceiving Jean Valjean, and +tossed up his handful of sous, which, up to that time, he had caught +with a good deal of adroitness on the back of his hand. + +This time the forty-sou piece escaped him, and went rolling towards the +brushwood until it reached Jean Valjean. + +Jean Valjean set his foot upon it. + +In the meantime, the child had looked after his coin and had caught +sight of him. + +He showed no astonishment, but walked straight up to the man. + +The spot was absolutely solitary. As far as the eye could see there was +not a person on the plain or on the path. The only sound was the tiny, +feeble cries of a flock of birds of passage, which was traversing the +heavens at an immense height. The child was standing with his back to +the sun, which cast threads of gold in his hair and empurpled with its +blood-red gleam the savage face of Jean Valjean. + +"Sir," said the little Savoyard, with that childish confidence which is +composed of ignorance and innocence, "my money." + +"What is your name?" said Jean Valjean. + +"Little Gervais, sir." + +"Go away," said Jean Valjean. + +"Sir," resumed the child, "give me back my money." + +Jean Valjean dropped his head, and made no reply. + +The child began again, "My money, sir." + +Jean Valjean's eyes remained fixed on the earth. + +"My piece of money!" cried the child, "my white piece! my silver!" + +It seemed as though Jean Valjean did not hear him. The child grasped him +by the collar of his blouse and shook him. At the same time he made an +effort to displace the big iron-shod shoe which rested on his treasure. + +"I want my piece of money! my piece of forty sous!" + +The child wept. Jean Valjean raised his head. He still remained seated. +His eyes were troubled. He gazed at the child, in a sort of amazement, +then he stretched out his hand towards his cudgel and cried in a +terrible voice, "Who's there?" + +"I, sir," replied the child. "Little Gervais! I! Give me back my forty +sous, if you please! Take your foot away, sir, if you please!" + +Then irritated, though he was so small, and becoming almost menacing:-- + +"Come now, will you take your foot away? Take your foot away, or we'll +see!" + +"Ah! It's still you!" said Jean Valjean, and rising abruptly to his +feet, his foot still resting on the silver piece, he added:-- + +"Will you take yourself off!" + +The frightened child looked at him, then began to tremble from head to +foot, and after a few moments of stupor he set out, running at the top +of his speed, without daring to turn his neck or to utter a cry. + +Nevertheless, lack of breath forced him to halt after a certain +distance, and Jean Valjean heard him sobbing, in the midst of his own +revery. + +At the end of a few moments the child had disappeared. + +The sun had set. + +The shadows were descending around Jean Valjean. He had eaten nothing +all day; it is probable that he was feverish. + +He had remained standing and had not changed his attitude after the +child's flight. The breath heaved his chest at long and irregular +intervals. His gaze, fixed ten or twelve paces in front of him, seemed +to be scrutinizing with profound attention the shape of an ancient +fragment of blue earthenware which had fallen in the grass. All at once +he shivered; he had just begun to feel the chill of evening. + +He settled his cap more firmly on his brow, sought mechanically to +cross and button his blouse, advanced a step and stopped to pick up his +cudgel. + +At that moment he caught sight of the forty-sou piece, which his foot +had half ground into the earth, and which was shining among the pebbles. +It was as though he had received a galvanic shock. "What is this?" +he muttered between his teeth. He recoiled three paces, then halted, +without being able to detach his gaze from the spot which his foot had +trodden but an instant before, as though the thing which lay glittering +there in the gloom had been an open eye riveted upon him. + +At the expiration of a few moments he darted convulsively towards the +silver coin, seized it, and straightened himself up again and began to +gaze afar off over the plain, at the same time casting his eyes towards +all points of the horizon, as he stood there erect and shivering, like a +terrified wild animal which is seeking refuge. + +He saw nothing. Night was falling, the plain was cold and vague, great +banks of violet haze were rising in the gleam of the twilight. + +He said, "Ah!" and set out rapidly in the direction in which the child +had disappeared. After about thirty paces he paused, looked about him +and saw nothing. + +Then he shouted with all his might:-- + +"Little Gervais! Little Gervais!" + +He paused and waited. + +There was no reply. + +The landscape was gloomy and deserted. He was encompassed by space. +There was nothing around him but an obscurity in which his gaze was +lost, and a silence which engulfed his voice. + +An icy north wind was blowing, and imparted to things around him a +sort of lugubrious life. The bushes shook their thin little arms with +incredible fury. One would have said that they were threatening and +pursuing some one. + +He set out on his march again, then he began to run; and from time to +time he halted and shouted into that solitude, with a voice which was +the most formidable and the most disconsolate that it was possible to +hear, "Little Gervais! Little Gervais!" + +Assuredly, if the child had heard him, he would have been alarmed and +would have taken good care not to show himself. But the child was no +doubt already far away. + +He encountered a priest on horseback. He stepped up to him and said:-- + +"Monsieur le Cure, have you seen a child pass?" + +"No," said the priest. + +"One named Little Gervais?" + +"I have seen no one." + +He drew two five-franc pieces from his money-bag and handed them to the +priest. + +"Monsieur le Cure, this is for your poor people. Monsieur le Cure, he +was a little lad, about ten years old, with a marmot, I think, and a +hurdy-gurdy. One of those Savoyards, you know?" + +"I have not seen him." + +"Little Gervais? There are no villages here? Can you tell me?" + +"If he is like what you say, my friend, he is a little stranger. Such +persons pass through these parts. We know nothing of them." + +Jean Valjean seized two more coins of five francs each with violence, +and gave them to the priest. + +"For your poor," he said. + +Then he added, wildly:-- + +"Monsieur l'Abbe, have me arrested. I am a thief." + +The priest put spurs to his horse and fled in haste, much alarmed. + +Jean Valjean set out on a run, in the direction which he had first +taken. + +In this way he traversed a tolerably long distance, gazing, calling, +shouting, but he met no one. Two or three times he ran across the plain +towards something which conveyed to him the effect of a human being +reclining or crouching down; it turned out to be nothing but brushwood +or rocks nearly on a level with the earth. At length, at a spot where +three paths intersected each other, he stopped. The moon had risen. He +sent his gaze into the distance and shouted for the last time, "Little +Gervais! Little Gervais! Little Gervais!" His shout died away in the +mist, without even awakening an echo. He murmured yet once more, "Little +Gervais!" but in a feeble and almost inarticulate voice. It was his last +effort; his legs gave way abruptly under him, as though an invisible +power had suddenly overwhelmed him with the weight of his evil +conscience; he fell exhausted, on a large stone, his fists clenched in +his hair and his face on his knees, and he cried, "I am a wretch!" + +Then his heart burst, and he began to cry. It was the first time that he +had wept in nineteen years. + +When Jean Valjean left the Bishop's house, he was, as we have seen, +quite thrown out of everything that had been his thought hitherto. He +could not yield to the evidence of what was going on within him. He +hardened himself against the angelic action and the gentle words of the +old man. "You have promised me to become an honest man. I buy your soul. +I take it away from the spirit of perversity; I give it to the good +God." + +This recurred to his mind unceasingly. To this celestial kindness +he opposed pride, which is the fortress of evil within us. He was +indistinctly conscious that the pardon of this priest was the greatest +assault and the most formidable attack which had moved him yet; that his +obduracy was finally settled if he resisted this clemency; that if he +yielded, he should be obliged to renounce that hatred with which the +actions of other men had filled his soul through so many years, and +which pleased him; that this time it was necessary to conquer or to be +conquered; and that a struggle, a colossal and final struggle, had been +begun between his viciousness and the goodness of that man. + +In the presence of these lights, he proceeded like a man who is +intoxicated. As he walked thus with haggard eyes, did he have a distinct +perception of what might result to him from his adventure at D----? Did +he understand all those mysterious murmurs which warn or importune the +spirit at certain moments of life? Did a voice whisper in his ear that +he had just passed the solemn hour of his destiny; that there no longer +remained a middle course for him; that if he were not henceforth the +best of men, he would be the worst; that it behooved him now, so to +speak, to mount higher than the Bishop, or fall lower than the convict; +that if he wished to become good be must become an angel; that if he +wished to remain evil, he must become a monster? + +Here, again, some questions must be put, which we have already put +to ourselves elsewhere: did he catch some shadow of all this in his +thought, in a confused way? Misfortune certainly, as we have said, does +form the education of the intelligence; nevertheless, it is doubtful +whether Jean Valjean was in a condition to disentangle all that we have +here indicated. If these ideas occurred to him, he but caught glimpses +of, rather than saw them, and they only succeeded in throwing him into +an unutterable and almost painful state of emotion. On emerging from +that black and deformed thing which is called the galleys, the Bishop +had hurt his soul, as too vivid a light would have hurt his eyes on +emerging from the dark. The future life, the possible life which offered +itself to him henceforth, all pure and radiant, filled him with tremors +and anxiety. He no longer knew where he really was. Like an owl, who +should suddenly see the sun rise, the convict had been dazzled and +blinded, as it were, by virtue. + +That which was certain, that which he did not doubt, was that he was no +longer the same man, that everything about him was changed, that it was +no longer in his power to make it as though the Bishop had not spoken to +him and had not touched him. + +In this state of mind he had encountered little Gervais, and had robbed +him of his forty sous. Why? He certainly could not have explained it; +was this the last effect and the supreme effort, as it were, of the +evil thoughts which he had brought away from the galleys,--a remnant of +impulse, a result of what is called in statics, acquired force? It +was that, and it was also, perhaps, even less than that. Let us say it +simply, it was not he who stole; it was not the man; it was the beast, +who, by habit and instinct, had simply placed his foot upon that money, +while the intelligence was struggling amid so many novel and hitherto +unheard-of thoughts besetting it. + +When intelligence re-awakened and beheld that action of the brute, Jean +Valjean recoiled with anguish and uttered a cry of terror. + +[Illustration: Awakened 1b2-11-awakened] + +It was because,--strange phenomenon, and one which was possible only +in the situation in which he found himself,--in stealing the money from +that child, he had done a thing of which he was no longer capable. + +However that may be, this last evil action had a decisive effect on +him; it abruptly traversed that chaos which he bore in his mind, and +dispersed it, placed on one side the thick obscurity, and on the other +the light, and acted on his soul, in the state in which it then was, as +certain chemical reagents act upon a troubled mixture by precipitating +one element and clarifying the other. + +First of all, even before examining himself and reflecting, all +bewildered, like one who seeks to save himself, he tried to find the +child in order to return his money to him; then, when he recognized the +fact that this was impossible, he halted in despair. At the moment when +he exclaimed "I am a wretch!" he had just perceived what he was, and he +was already separated from himself to such a degree, that he seemed to +himself to be no longer anything more than a phantom, and as if he had, +there before him, in flesh and blood, the hideous galley-convict, Jean +Valjean, cudgel in hand, his blouse on his hips, his knapsack filled +with stolen objects on his back, with his resolute and gloomy visage, +with his thoughts filled with abominable projects. + +Excess of unhappiness had, as we have remarked, made him in some sort +a visionary. This, then, was in the nature of a vision. He actually saw +that Jean Valjean, that sinister face, before him. He had almost reached +the point of asking himself who that man was, and he was horrified by +him. + +His brain was going through one of those violent and yet perfectly calm +moments in which revery is so profound that it absorbs reality. One no +longer beholds the object which one has before one, and one sees, as +though apart from one's self, the figures which one has in one's own +mind. + +Thus he contemplated himself, so to speak, face to face, and at the same +time, athwart this hallucination, he perceived in a mysterious depth a +sort of light which he at first took for a torch. On scrutinizing +this light which appeared to his conscience with more attention, he +recognized the fact that it possessed a human form and that this torch +was the Bishop. + +His conscience weighed in turn these two men thus placed before it,--the +Bishop and Jean Valjean. Nothing less than the first was required to +soften the second. By one of those singular effects, which are peculiar +to this sort of ecstasies, in proportion as his revery continued, as the +Bishop grew great and resplendent in his eyes, so did Jean Valjean grow +less and vanish. After a certain time he was no longer anything more +than a shade. All at once he disappeared. The Bishop alone remained; he +filled the whole soul of this wretched man with a magnificent radiance. + +Jean Valjean wept for a long time. He wept burning tears, he sobbed with +more weakness than a woman, with more fright than a child. + +As he wept, daylight penetrated more and more clearly into his soul; an +extraordinary light; a light at once ravishing and terrible. His past +life, his first fault, his long expiation, his external brutishness, his +internal hardness, his dismissal to liberty, rejoicing in manifold plans +of vengeance, what had happened to him at the Bishop's, the last thing +that he had done, that theft of forty sous from a child, a crime all the +more cowardly, and all the more monstrous since it had come after the +Bishop's pardon,--all this recurred to his mind and appeared clearly +to him, but with a clearness which he had never hitherto witnessed. +He examined his life, and it seemed horrible to him; his soul, and it +seemed frightful to him. In the meantime a gentle light rested over this +life and this soul. It seemed to him that he beheld Satan by the light +of Paradise. + +How many hours did he weep thus? What did he do after he had wept? +Whither did he go! No one ever knew. The only thing which seems to be +authenticated is that that same night the carrier who served Grenoble at +that epoch, and who arrived at D---- about three o'clock in the morning, +saw, as he traversed the street in which the Bishop's residence was +situated, a man in the attitude of prayer, kneeling on the pavement in +the shadow, in front of the door of Monseigneur Welcome. + + + + +BOOK THIRD.--IN THE YEAR 1817 + + + + +CHAPTER I--THE YEAR 1817 + + +1817 is the year which Louis XVIII., with a certain royal assurance +which was not wanting in pride, entitled the twenty-second of his reign. +It is the year in which M. Bruguiere de Sorsum was celebrated. All the +hairdressers' shops, hoping for powder and the return of the royal bird, +were besmeared with azure and decked with fleurs-de-lys. It was the +candid time at which Count Lynch sat every Sunday as church-warden in +the church-warden's pew of Saint-Germain-des-Pres, in his costume of a +peer of France, with his red ribbon and his long nose and the majesty +of profile peculiar to a man who has performed a brilliant action. +The brilliant action performed by M. Lynch was this: being mayor of +Bordeaux, on the 12th of March, 1814, he had surrendered the city a +little too promptly to M. the Duke d'Angouleme. Hence his peerage. In +1817 fashion swallowed up little boys of from four to six years of +age in vast caps of morocco leather with ear-tabs resembling Esquimaux +mitres. The French army was dressed in white, after the mode of the +Austrian; the regiments were called legions; instead of numbers they +bore the names of departments; Napoleon was at St. Helena; and since +England refused him green cloth, he was having his old coats turned. +In 1817 Pelligrini sang; Mademoiselle Bigottini danced; Potier reigned; +Odry did not yet exist. Madame Saqui had succeeded to Forioso. There +were still Prussians in France. M. Delalot was a personage. Legitimacy +had just asserted itself by cutting off the hand, then the head, of +Pleignier, of Carbonneau, and of Tolleron. The Prince de Talleyrand, +grand chamberlain, and the Abbe Louis, appointed minister of finance, +laughed as they looked at each other, with the laugh of the two augurs; +both of them had celebrated, on the 14th of July, 1790, the mass of +federation in the Champ de Mars; Talleyrand had said it as bishop, Louis +had served it in the capacity of deacon. In 1817, in the side-alleys +of this same Champ de Mars, two great cylinders of wood might have +been seen lying in the rain, rotting amid the grass, painted blue, with +traces of eagles and bees, from which the gilding was falling. These +were the columns which two years before had upheld the Emperor's +platform in the Champ de Mai. They were blackened here and there with +the scorches of the bivouac of Austrians encamped near Gros-Caillou. Two +or three of these columns had disappeared in these bivouac fires, and +had warmed the large hands of the Imperial troops. The Field of May had +this remarkable point: that it had been held in the month of June and in +the Field of March (Mars). In this year, 1817, two things were popular: +the Voltaire-Touquet and the snuff-box a la Charter. The most recent +Parisian sensation was the crime of Dautun, who had thrown his brother's +head into the fountain of the Flower-Market. + +They had begun to feel anxious at the Naval Department, on account of +the lack of news from that fatal frigate, The Medusa, which was destined +to cover Chaumareix with infamy and Gericault with glory. Colonel Selves +was going to Egypt to become Soliman-Pasha. The palace of Thermes, in +the Rue de La Harpe, served as a shop for a cooper. On the platform of +the octagonal tower of the Hotel de Cluny, the little shed of boards, +which had served as an observatory to Messier, the naval astronomer +under Louis XVI., was still to be seen. The Duchesse de Duras read to +three or four friends her unpublished Ourika, in her boudoir furnished +by X. in sky-blue satin. The N's were scratched off the Louvre. The +bridge of Austerlitz had abdicated, and was entitled the bridge of the +King's Garden [du Jardin du Roi], a double enigma, which disguised the +bridge of Austerlitz and the Jardin des Plantes at one stroke. Louis +XVIII., much preoccupied while annotating Horace with the corner of his +finger-nail, heroes who have become emperors, and makers of wooden shoes +who have become dauphins, had two anxieties,--Napoleon and Mathurin +Bruneau. The French Academy had given for its prize subject, The +Happiness procured through Study. M. Bellart was officially eloquent. +In his shadow could be seen germinating that future advocate-general of +Broe, dedicated to the sarcasms of Paul-Louis Courier. There was a false +Chateaubriand, named Marchangy, in the interim, until there should be a +false Marchangy, named d'Arlincourt. Claire d'Albe and Malek-Adel were +masterpieces; Madame Cottin was proclaimed the chief writer of the +epoch. The Institute had the academician, Napoleon Bonaparte, stricken +from its list of members. A royal ordinance erected Angouleme into a +naval school; for the Duc d'Angouleme, being lord high admiral, it was +evident that the city of Angouleme had all the qualities of a seaport; +otherwise the monarchical principle would have received a wound. In +the Council of Ministers the question was agitated whether vignettes +representing slack-rope performances, which adorned Franconi's +advertising posters, and which attracted throngs of street urchins, +should be tolerated. M. Paer, the author of Agnese, a good sort of +fellow, with a square face and a wart on his cheek, directed the little +private concerts of the Marquise de Sasenaye in the Rue Ville l'Eveque. +All the young girls were singing the Hermit of Saint-Avelle, with words +by Edmond Geraud. The Yellow Dwarf was transferred into Mirror. The Cafe +Lemblin stood up for the Emperor, against the Cafe Valois, which upheld +the Bourbons. The Duc de Berri, already surveyed from the shadow by +Louvel, had just been married to a princess of Sicily. Madame de Stael +had died a year previously. The body-guard hissed Mademoiselle Mars. +The grand newspapers were all very small. Their form was restricted, +but their liberty was great. The Constitutionnel was constitutional. +La Minerve called Chateaubriand Chateaubriant. That made the good +middle-class people laugh heartily at the expense of the great writer. +In journals which sold themselves, prostituted journalists, insulted the +exiles of 1815. David had no longer any talent, Arnault had no longer +any wit, Carnot was no longer honest, Soult had won no battles; it is +true that Napoleon had no longer any genius. No one is ignorant of the +fact that letters sent to an exile by post very rarely reached him, as +the police made it their religious duty to intercept them. This is no +new fact; Descartes complained of it in his exile. Now David, having, in +a Belgian publication, shown some displeasure at not receiving letters +which had been written to him, it struck the royalist journals as +amusing; and they derided the prescribed man well on this occasion. What +separated two men more than an abyss was to say, the regicides, or +to say the voters; to say the enemies, or to say the allies; to say +Napoleon, or to say Buonaparte. All sensible people were agreed that the +era of revolution had been closed forever by King Louis XVIII., surnamed +"The Immortal Author of the Charter." On the platform of the Pont-Neuf, +the word Redivivus was carved on the pedestal that awaited the statue of +Henry IV. M. Piet, in the Rue Therese, No. 4, was making the rough draft +of his privy assembly to consolidate the monarchy. The leaders of the +Right said at grave conjunctures, "We must write to Bacot." MM. Canuel, +O'Mahoney, and De Chappedelaine were preparing the sketch, to some +extent with Monsieur's approval, of what was to become later on "The +Conspiracy of the Bord de l'Eau"--of the waterside. L'Epingle Noire was +already plotting in his own quarter. Delaverderie was conferring with +Trogoff. M. Decazes, who was liberal to a degree, reigned. Chateaubriand +stood every morning at his window at No. 27 Rue Saint-Dominique, clad in +footed trousers, and slippers, with a madras kerchief knotted over his +gray hair, with his eyes fixed on a mirror, a complete set of dentist's +instruments spread out before him, cleaning his teeth, which were +charming, while he dictated The Monarchy according to the Charter to +M. Pilorge, his secretary. Criticism, assuming an authoritative tone, +preferred Lafon to Talma. M. de Feletez signed himself A.; M. Hoffmann +signed himself Z. Charles Nodier wrote Therese Aubert. Divorce was +abolished. Lyceums called themselves colleges. The collegians, decorated +on the collar with a golden fleur-de-lys, fought each other apropos of +the King of Rome. The counter-police of the chateau had denounced to her +Royal Highness Madame, the portrait, everywhere exhibited, of M. the +Duc d'Orleans, who made a better appearance in his uniform of a +colonel-general of hussars than M. the Duc de Berri, in his uniform of +colonel-general of dragoons--a serious inconvenience. The city of +Paris was having the dome of the Invalides regilded at its own expense. +Serious men asked themselves what M. de Trinquelague would do on such or +such an occasion; M. Clausel de Montals differed on divers points +from M. Clausel de Coussergues; M. de Salaberry was not satisfied. The +comedian Picard, who belonged to the Academy, which the comedian Moliere +had not been able to do, had The Two Philiberts played at the Odeon, +upon whose pediment the removal of the letters still allowed THEATRE OF +THE EMPRESS to be plainly read. People took part for or against Cugnet +de Montarlot. Fabvier was factious; Bavoux was revolutionary. The +Liberal, Pelicier, published an edition of Voltaire, with the following +title: Works of Voltaire, of the French Academy. "That will attract +purchasers," said the ingenious editor. The general opinion was that M. +Charles Loyson would be the genius of the century; envy was beginning to +gnaw at him--a sign of glory; and this verse was composed on him:-- + + "Even when Loyson steals, one feels that he has paws." + +As Cardinal Fesch refused to resign, M. de Pins, Archbishop of Amasie, +administered the diocese of Lyons. The quarrel over the valley of Dappes +was begun between Switzerland and France by a memoir from Captain, +afterwards General Dufour. Saint-Simon, ignored, was erecting his +sublime dream. There was a celebrated Fourier at the Academy of Science, +whom posterity has forgotten; and in some garret an obscure Fourier, +whom the future will recall. Lord Byron was beginning to make his mark; +a note to a poem by Millevoye introduced him to France in these terms: +a certain Lord Baron. David d'Angers was trying to work in marble. The +Abbe Caron was speaking, in terms of praise, to a private gathering of +seminarists in the blind alley of Feuillantines, of an unknown priest, +named Felicite-Robert, who, at a latter date, became Lamennais. A thing +which smoked and clattered on the Seine with the noise of a swimming dog +went and came beneath the windows of the Tuileries, from the Pont Royal +to the Pont Louis XV.; it was a piece of mechanism which was not +good for much; a sort of plaything, the idle dream of a dream-ridden +inventor; an utopia--a steamboat. The Parisians stared indifferently at +this useless thing. M. de Vaublanc, the reformer of the Institute by +a coup d'etat, the distinguished author of numerous academicians, +ordinances, and batches of members, after having created them, could +not succeed in becoming one himself. The Faubourg Saint-Germain and the +pavilion de Marsan wished to have M. Delaveau for prefect of police, on +account of his piety. Dupuytren and Recamier entered into a quarrel in +the amphitheatre of the School of Medicine, and threatened each other +with their fists on the subject of the divinity of Jesus Christ. Cuvier, +with one eye on Genesis and the other on nature, tried to please bigoted +reaction by reconciling fossils with texts and by making mastodons +flatter Moses. + +M. Francois de Neufchateau, the praiseworthy cultivator of the memory +of Parmentier, made a thousand efforts to have pomme de terre [potato] +pronounced parmentiere, and succeeded therein not at all. The Abbe +Gregoire, ex-bishop, ex-conventionary, ex-senator, had passed, in the +royalist polemics, to the state of "Infamous Gregoire." The locution of +which we have made use--passed to the state of--has been condemned as a +neologism by M. Royer Collard. Under the third arch of the Pont de Jena, +the new stone with which, the two years previously, the mining aperture +made by Blucher to blow up the bridge had been stopped up, was still +recognizable on account of its whiteness. Justice summoned to its bar a +man who, on seeing the Comte d'Artois enter Notre Dame, had said aloud: +"Sapristi! I regret the time when I saw Bonaparte and Talma enter the +Bel Sauvage, arm in arm." A seditious utterance. Six months in prison. +Traitors showed themselves unbuttoned; men who had gone over to the +enemy on the eve of battle made no secret of their recompense, and +strutted immodestly in the light of day, in the cynicism of riches and +dignities; deserters from Ligny and Quatre-Bras, in the brazenness of +their well-paid turpitude, exhibited their devotion to the monarchy in +the most barefaced manner. + +This is what floats up confusedly, pell-mell, for the year 1817, and is +now forgotten. History neglects nearly all these particulars, and cannot +do otherwise; the infinity would overwhelm it. Nevertheless, these +details, which are wrongly called trivial,--there are no trivial facts +in humanity, nor little leaves in vegetation,--are useful. It is of +the physiognomy of the years that the physiognomy of the centuries is +composed. In this year of 1817 four young Parisians arranged "a fine +farce." + + + + +CHAPTER II--A DOUBLE QUARTETTE + + +These Parisians came, one from Toulouse, another from Limoges, the third +from Cahors, and the fourth from Montauban; but they were students; and +when one says student, one says Parisian: to study in Paris is to be +born in Paris. + +These young men were insignificant; every one has seen such faces; four +specimens of humanity taken at random; neither good nor bad, neither +wise nor ignorant, neither geniuses nor fools; handsome, with that +charming April which is called twenty years. They were four Oscars; for, +at that epoch, Arthurs did not yet exist. Burn for him the perfumes of +Araby! exclaimed romance. Oscar advances. Oscar, I shall behold him! +People had just emerged from Ossian; elegance was Scandinavian and +Caledonian; the pure English style was only to prevail later, and +the first of the Arthurs, Wellington, had but just won the battle of +Waterloo. + +These Oscars bore the names, one of Felix Tholomyes, of Toulouse; the +second, Listolier, of Cahors; the next, Fameuil, of Limoges; the last, +Blachevelle, of Montauban. Naturally, each of them had his mistress. +Blachevelle loved Favourite, so named because she had been in England; +Listolier adored Dahlia, who had taken for her nickname the name of a +flower; Fameuil idolized Zephine, an abridgment of Josephine; Tholomyes +had Fantine, called the Blonde, because of her beautiful, sunny hair. + +Favourite, Dahlia, Zephine, and Fantine were four ravishing young women, +perfumed and radiant, still a little like working-women, and not yet +entirely divorced from their needles; somewhat disturbed by intrigues, +but still retaining on their faces something of the serenity of toil, +and in their souls that flower of honesty which survives the first fall +in woman. One of the four was called the young, because she was +the youngest of them, and one was called the old; the old one was +twenty-three. Not to conceal anything, the three first were more +experienced, more heedless, and more emancipated into the tumult of life +than Fantine the Blonde, who was still in her first illusions. + +Dahlia, Zephine, and especially Favourite, could not have said as much. +There had already been more than one episode in their romance, though +hardly begun; and the lover who had borne the name of Adolph in the +first chapter had turned out to be Alphonse in the second, and Gustave +in the third. Poverty and coquetry are two fatal counsellors; one scolds +and the other flatters, and the beautiful daughters of the people have +both of them whispering in their ear, each on its own side. These badly +guarded souls listen. Hence the falls which they accomplish, and the +stones which are thrown at them. They are overwhelmed with splendor of +all that is immaculate and inaccessible. Alas! what if the Jungfrau were +hungry? + +Favourite having been in England, was admired by Dahlia and Zephine. She +had had an establishment of her own very early in life. Her father was +an old unmarried professor of mathematics, a brutal man and a braggart, +who went out to give lessons in spite of his age. This professor, when +he was a young man, had one day seen a chambermaid's gown catch on +a fender; he had fallen in love in consequence of this accident. The +result had been Favourite. She met her father from time to time, and he +bowed to her. One morning an old woman with the air of a devotee, +had entered her apartments, and had said to her, "You do not know me, +Mamemoiselle?" "No." "I am your mother." Then the old woman opened the +sideboard, and ate and drank, had a mattress which she owned brought in, +and installed herself. This cross and pious old mother never spoke to +Favourite, remained hours without uttering a word, breakfasted, dined, +and supped for four, and went down to the porter's quarters for company, +where she spoke ill of her daughter. + +It was having rosy nails that were too pretty which had drawn Dahlia to +Listolier, to others perhaps, to idleness. How could she make such nails +work? She who wishes to remain virtuous must not have pity on her hands. +As for Zephine, she had conquered Fameuil by her roguish and caressing +little way of saying "Yes, sir." + +The young men were comrades; the young girls were friends. Such loves +are always accompanied by such friendships. + +Goodness and philosophy are two distinct things; the proof of this +is that, after making all due allowances for these little irregular +households, Favourite, Zephine, and Dahlia were philosophical young +women, while Fantine was a good girl. + +Good! some one will exclaim; and Tholomyes? Solomon would reply that +love forms a part of wisdom. We will confine ourselves to saying that +the love of Fantine was a first love, a sole love, a faithful love. + +She alone, of all the four, was not called "thou" by a single one of +them. + +Fantine was one of those beings who blossom, so to speak, from the dregs +of the people. Though she had emerged from the most unfathomable depths +of social shadow, she bore on her brow the sign of the anonymous and the +unknown. She was born at M. sur M. Of what parents? Who can say? She had +never known father or mother. She was called Fantine. Why Fantine? She +had never borne any other name. At the epoch of her birth the Directory +still existed. She had no family name; she had no family; no baptismal +name; the Church no longer existed. She bore the name which pleased +the first random passer-by, who had encountered her, when a very small +child, running bare-legged in the street. She received the name as she +received the water from the clouds upon her brow when it rained. She was +called little Fantine. No one knew more than that. This human creature +had entered life in just this way. At the age of ten, Fantine quitted +the town and went to service with some farmers in the neighborhood. At +fifteen she came to Paris "to seek her fortune." Fantine was beautiful, +and remained pure as long as she could. She was a lovely blonde, with +fine teeth. She had gold and pearls for her dowry; but her gold was on +her head, and her pearls were in her mouth. + +She worked for her living; then, still for the sake of her living,--for +the heart, also, has its hunger,--she loved. + +She loved Tholomyes. + +An amour for him; passion for her. The streets of the Latin quarter, +filled with throngs of students and grisettes, saw the beginning of +their dream. Fantine had long evaded Tholomyes in the mazes of the hill +of the Pantheon, where so many adventurers twine and untwine, but in +such a way as constantly to encounter him again. There is a way of +avoiding which resembles seeking. In short, the eclogue took place. + +Blachevelle, Listolier, and Fameuil formed a sort of group of which +Tholomyes was the head. It was he who possessed the wit. + +Tholomyes was the antique old student; he was rich; he had an income of +four thousand francs; four thousand francs! a splendid scandal on +Mount Sainte-Genevieve. Tholomyes was a fast man of thirty, and badly +preserved. He was wrinkled and toothless, and he had the beginning of a +bald spot, of which he himself said with sadness, the skull at thirty, +the knee at forty. His digestion was mediocre, and he had been attacked +by a watering in one eye. But in proportion as his youth disappeared, +gayety was kindled; he replaced his teeth with buffooneries, his hair +with mirth, his health with irony, his weeping eye laughed incessantly. +He was dilapidated but still in flower. His youth, which was packing +up for departure long before its time, beat a retreat in good order, +bursting with laughter, and no one saw anything but fire. He had had a +piece rejected at the Vaudeville. He made a few verses now and then. In +addition to this he doubted everything to the last degree, which is a +vast force in the eyes of the weak. Being thus ironical and bald, he +was the leader. Iron is an English word. Is it possible that irony is +derived from it? + +One day Tholomyes took the three others aside, with the gesture of an +oracle, and said to them:-- + +"Fantine, Dahlia, Zephine, and Favourite have been teasing us for nearly +a year to give them a surprise. We have promised them solemnly that we +would. They are forever talking about it to us, to me in particular, +just as the old women in Naples cry to Saint Januarius, 'Faccia +gialluta, fa o miracolo, Yellow face, perform thy miracle,' so our +beauties say to me incessantly, 'Tholomyes, when will you bring forth +your surprise?' At the same time our parents keep writing to us. +Pressure on both sides. The moment has arrived, it seems to me; let us +discuss the question." + +Thereupon, Tholomyes lowered his voice and articulated something so +mirthful, that a vast and enthusiastic grin broke out upon the four +mouths simultaneously, and Blachevelle exclaimed, "That is an idea." + +A smoky tap-room presented itself; they entered, and the remainder of +their confidential colloquy was lost in shadow. + +The result of these shades was a dazzling pleasure party which took +place on the following Sunday, the four young men inviting the four +young girls. + + + + +CHAPTER III--FOUR AND FOUR + +It is hard nowadays to picture to one's self what a pleasure-trip of +students and grisettes to the country was like, forty-five years ago. +The suburbs of Paris are no longer the same; the physiognomy of what +may be called circumparisian life has changed completely in the last +half-century; where there was the cuckoo, there is the railway car; +where there was a tender-boat, there is now the steamboat; people speak +of Fecamp nowadays as they spoke of Saint-Cloud in those days. The Paris +of 1862 is a city which has France for its outskirts. + +The four couples conscientiously went through with all the country +follies possible at that time. The vacation was beginning, and it was a +warm, bright, summer day. On the preceding day, Favourite, the only one +who knew how to write, had written the following to Tholomyes in the +name of the four: "It is a good hour to emerge from happiness." That +is why they rose at five o'clock in the morning. Then they went to +Saint-Cloud by the coach, looked at the dry cascade and exclaimed, "This +must be very beautiful when there is water!" They breakfasted at the +Tete-Noir, where Castaing had not yet been; they treated themselves to a +game of ring-throwing under the quincunx of trees of the grand fountain; +they ascended Diogenes' lantern, they gambled for macaroons at the +roulette establishment of the Pont de Sevres, picked bouquets at +Pateaux, bought reed-pipes at Neuilly, ate apple tarts everywhere, and +were perfectly happy. + +The young girls rustled and chatted like warblers escaped from their +cage. It was a perfect delirium. From time to time they bestowed little +taps on the young men. Matutinal intoxication of life! adorable years! +the wings of the dragonfly quiver. Oh, whoever you may be, do you not +remember? Have you rambled through the brushwood, holding aside the +branches, on account of the charming head which is coming on behind you? +Have you slid, laughing, down a slope all wet with rain, with a beloved +woman holding your hand, and crying, "Ah, my new boots! what a state +they are in!" + +Let us say at once that that merry obstacle, a shower, was lacking in +the case of this good-humored party, although Favourite had said as they +set out, with a magisterial and maternal tone, "The slugs are crawling +in the paths,--a sign of rain, children." + +All four were madly pretty. A good old classic poet, then famous, a good +fellow who had an Eleonore, M. le Chevalier de Labouisse, as he strolled +that day beneath the chestnut-trees of Saint-Cloud, saw them pass about +ten o'clock in the morning, and exclaimed, "There is one too many of +them," as he thought of the Graces. Favourite, Blachevelle's friend, the +one aged three and twenty, the old one, ran on in front under the great +green boughs, jumped the ditches, stalked distractedly over bushes, and +presided over this merry-making with the spirit of a young female faun. +Zephine and Dahlia, whom chance had made beautiful in such a way that +they set each off when they were together, and completed each other, +never left each other, more from an instinct of coquetry than from +friendship, and clinging to each other, they assumed English poses; the +first keepsakes had just made their appearance, melancholy was dawning +for women, as later on, Byronism dawned for men; and the hair of the +tender sex began to droop dolefully. Zephine and Dahlia had their hair +dressed in rolls. Listolier and Fameuil, who were engaged in discussing +their professors, explained to Fantine the difference that existed +between M. Delvincourt and M. Blondeau. + +Blachevelle seemed to have been created expressly to carry Favourite's +single-bordered, imitation India shawl of Ternaux's manufacture, on his +arm on Sundays. + +Tholomyes followed, dominating the group. He was very gay, but one felt +the force of government in him; there was dictation in his joviality; +his principal ornament was a pair of trousers of elephant-leg pattern of +nankeen, with straps of braided copper wire; he carried a stout rattan +worth two hundred francs in his hand, and, as he treated himself to +everything, a strange thing called a cigar in his mouth. Nothing was +sacred to him; he smoked. + +"That Tholomyes is astounding!" said the others, with veneration. "What +trousers! What energy!" + +As for Fantine, she was a joy to behold. Her splendid teeth had +evidently received an office from God,--laughter. She preferred to carry +her little hat of sewed straw, with its long white strings, in her hand +rather than on her head. Her thick blond hair, which was inclined to +wave, and which easily uncoiled, and which it was necessary to fasten +up incessantly, seemed made for the flight of Galatea under the +willows. Her rosy lips babbled enchantingly. The corners of her mouth +voluptuously turned up, as in the antique masks of Erigone, had an +air of encouraging the audacious; but her long, shadowy lashes drooped +discreetly over the jollity of the lower part of the face as though to +call a halt. There was something indescribably harmonious and striking +about her entire dress. She wore a gown of mauve barege, little reddish +brown buskins, whose ribbons traced an X on her fine, white, open-worked +stockings, and that sort of muslin spencer, a Marseilles invention, +whose name, canezou, a corruption of the words quinze aout, pronounced +after the fashion of the Canebiere, signifies fine weather, heat, and +midday. The three others, less timid, as we have already said, +wore low-necked dresses without disguise, which in summer, beneath +flower-adorned hats, are very graceful and enticing; but by the side +of these audacious outfits, blond Fantine's canezou, with its +transparencies, its indiscretion, and its reticence, concealing and +displaying at one and the same time, seemed an alluring godsend of +decency, and the famous Court of Love, presided over by the Vicomtesse +de Cette, with the sea-green eyes, would, perhaps, have awarded the +prize for coquetry to this canezou, in the contest for the prize of +modesty. The most ingenious is, at times, the wisest. This does happen. + +Brilliant of face, delicate of profile, with eyes of a deep blue, heavy +lids, feet arched and small, wrists and ankles admirably formed, a white +skin which, here and there allowed the azure branching of the veins to +be seen, joy, a cheek that was young and fresh, the robust throat of the +Juno of AEgina, a strong and supple nape of the neck, shoulders modelled +as though by Coustou, with a voluptuous dimple in the middle, visible +through the muslin; a gayety cooled by dreaminess; sculptural and +exquisite--such was Fantine; and beneath these feminine adornments and +these ribbons one could divine a statue, and in that statue a soul. + +Fantine was beautiful, without being too conscious of it. Those rare +dreamers, mysterious priests of the beautiful who silently confront +everything with perfection, would have caught a glimpse in this little +working-woman, through the transparency of her Parisian grace, of the +ancient sacred euphony. This daughter of the shadows was thoroughbred. +She was beautiful in the two ways--style and rhythm. Style is the form +of the ideal; rhythm is its movement. + +We have said that Fantine was joy; she was also modesty. + +To an observer who studied her attentively, that which breathed from +her athwart all the intoxication of her age, the season, and her +love affair, was an invincible expression of reserve and modesty. She +remained a little astonished. This chaste astonishment is the shade +of difference which separates Psyche from Venus. Fantine had the long, +white, fine fingers of the vestal virgin who stirs the ashes of the +sacred fire with a golden pin. Although she would have refused nothing +to Tholomyes, as we shall have more than ample opportunity to see, her +face in repose was supremely virginal; a sort of serious and almost +austere dignity suddenly overwhelmed her at certain times, and there +was nothing more singular and disturbing than to see gayety become so +suddenly extinct there, and meditation succeed to cheerfulness without +any transition state. This sudden and sometimes severely accentuated +gravity resembled the disdain of a goddess. Her brow, her nose, her +chin, presented that equilibrium of outline which is quite distinct +from equilibrium of proportion, and from which harmony of countenance +results; in the very characteristic interval which separates the base +of the nose from the upper lip, she had that imperceptible and charming +fold, a mysterious sign of chastity, which makes Barberousse fall in +love with a Diana found in the treasures of Iconia. + +Love is a fault; so be it. Fantine was innocence floating high over +fault. + + + + +CHAPTER IV--THOLOMYES IS SO MERRY THAT HE SINGS A SPANISH DITTY + + +That day was composed of dawn, from one end to the other. All nature +seemed to be having a holiday, and to be laughing. The flower-beds of +Saint-Cloud perfumed the air; the breath of the Seine rustled the +leaves vaguely; the branches gesticulated in the wind, bees pillaged the +jasmines; a whole bohemia of butterflies swooped down upon the yarrow, +the clover, and the sterile oats; in the august park of the King of +France there was a pack of vagabonds, the birds. + +The four merry couples, mingled with the sun, the fields, the flowers, +the trees, were resplendent. + +And in this community of Paradise, talking, singing, running, dancing, +chasing butterflies, plucking convolvulus, wetting their pink, open-work +stockings in the tall grass, fresh, wild, without malice, all received, +to some extent, the kisses of all, with the exception of Fantine, +who was hedged about with that vague resistance of hers composed of +dreaminess and wildness, and who was in love. "You always have a queer +look about you," said Favourite to her. + +Such things are joys. These passages of happy couples are a profound +appeal to life and nature, and make a caress and light spring forth from +everything. There was once a fairy who created the fields and forests +expressly for those in love,--in that eternal hedge-school of lovers, +which is forever beginning anew, and which will last as long as there +are hedges and scholars. Hence the popularity of spring among thinkers. +The patrician and the knife-grinder, the duke and the peer, the limb +of the law, the courtiers and townspeople, as they used to say in olden +times, all are subjects of this fairy. They laugh and hunt, and there +is in the air the brilliance of an apotheosis--what a transfiguration +effected by love! Notaries' clerks are gods. And the little cries, +the pursuits through the grass, the waists embraced on the fly, those +jargons which are melodies, those adorations which burst forth in the +manner of pronouncing a syllable, those cherries torn from one mouth by +another,--all this blazes forth and takes its place among the celestial +glories. Beautiful women waste themselves sweetly. They think that this +will never come to an end. Philosophers, poets, painters, observe these +ecstasies and know not what to make of it, so greatly are they dazzled +by it. The departure for Cythera! exclaims Watteau; Lancret, the painter +of plebeians, contemplates his bourgeois, who have flitted away into the +azure sky; Diderot stretches out his arms to all these love idyls, and +d'Urfe mingles druids with them. + +After breakfast the four couples went to what was then called the King's +Square to see a newly arrived plant from India, whose name escapes our +memory at this moment, and which, at that epoch, was attracting all +Paris to Saint-Cloud. It was an odd and charming shrub with a long stem, +whose numerous branches, bristling and leafless and as fine as threads, +were covered with a million tiny white rosettes; this gave the shrub the +air of a head of hair studded with flowers. There was always an admiring +crowd about it. + +After viewing the shrub, Tholomyes exclaimed, "I offer you asses!" and +having agreed upon a price with the owner of the asses, they returned +by way of Vanvres and Issy. At Issy an incident occurred. The truly +national park, at that time owned by Bourguin the contractor, happened +to be wide open. They passed the gates, visited the manikin anchorite in +his grotto, tried the mysterious little effects of the famous cabinet +of mirrors, the wanton trap worthy of a satyr become a millionaire or of +Turcaret metamorphosed into a Priapus. They had stoutly shaken the swing +attached to the two chestnut-trees celebrated by the Abbe de Bernis. +As he swung these beauties, one after the other, producing folds in the +fluttering skirts which Greuze would have found to his taste, amid peals +of laughter, the Toulousan Tholomyes, who was somewhat of a Spaniard, +Toulouse being the cousin of Tolosa, sang, to a melancholy chant, the +old ballad gallega, probably inspired by some lovely maid dashing in +full flight upon a rope between two trees:-- + + "Soy de Badajoz, "Badajoz is my home, + Amor me llama, And Love is my name; + Toda mi alma, To my eyes in flame, + Es en mi ojos, All my soul doth come; + Porque ensenas, For instruction meet + A tuas piernas. I receive at thy feet" + + +Fantine alone refused to swing. + +"I don't like to have people put on airs like that," muttered Favourite, +with a good deal of acrimony. + +After leaving the asses there was a fresh delight; they crossed the +Seine in a boat, and proceeding from Passy on foot they reached the +barrier of l'Etoile. They had been up since five o'clock that morning, +as the reader will remember; but bah! there is no such thing as fatigue +on Sunday, said Favourite; on Sunday fatigue does not work. + +About three o'clock the four couples, frightened at their happiness, +were sliding down the Russian mountains, a singular edifice which then +occupied the heights of Beaujon, and whose undulating line was visible +above the trees of the Champs Elysees. + +From time to time Favourite exclaimed:-- + +"And the surprise? I claim the surprise." + +"Patience," replied Tholomyes. + + + + +CHAPTER V--AT BOMBARDA'S + +The Russian mountains having been exhausted, they began to think about +dinner; and the radiant party of eight, somewhat weary at last, became +stranded in Bombarda's public house, a branch establishment which had +been set up in the Champs-Elysees by that famous restaurant-keeper, +Bombarda, whose sign could then be seen in the Rue de Rivoli, near +Delorme Alley. + +A large but ugly room, with an alcove and a bed at the end (they had +been obliged to put up with this accommodation in view of the Sunday +crowd); two windows whence they could survey beyond the elms, the quay +and the river; a magnificent August sunlight lightly touching the panes; +two tables; upon one of them a triumphant mountain of bouquets, mingled +with the hats of men and women; at the other the four couples seated +round a merry confusion of platters, dishes, glasses, and bottles; jugs +of beer mingled with flasks of wine; very little order on the table, +some disorder beneath it; + + "They made beneath the table + A noise, a clatter of the feet that was abominable," + +says Moliere. + +This was the state which the shepherd idyl, begun at five o'clock in +the morning, had reached at half-past four in the afternoon. The sun was +setting; their appetites were satisfied. + +The Champs-Elysees, filled with sunshine and with people, were nothing +but light and dust, the two things of which glory is composed. The +horses of Marly, those neighing marbles, were prancing in a cloud +of gold. Carriages were going and coming. A squadron of magnificent +body-guards, with their clarions at their head, were descending the +Avenue de Neuilly; the white flag, showing faintly rosy in the setting +sun, floated over the dome of the Tuileries. The Place de la Concorde, +which had become the Place Louis XV. once more, was choked with happy +promenaders. Many wore the silver fleur-de-lys suspended from the +white-watered ribbon, which had not yet wholly disappeared from +button-holes in the year 1817. Here and there choruses of little girls +threw to the winds, amid the passersby, who formed into circles and +applauded, the then celebrated Bourbon air, which was destined to strike +the Hundred Days with lightning, and which had for its refrain:-- + + "Rendez-nous notre pere de Gand, + Rendez-nous notre pere." + + "Give us back our father from Ghent, + Give us back our father." + + +Groups of dwellers in the suburbs, in Sunday array, sometimes even +decorated with the fleur-de-lys, like the bourgeois, scattered over the +large square and the Marigny square, were playing at rings and revolving +on the wooden horses; others were engaged in drinking; some journeyman +printers had on paper caps; their laughter was audible. Every thing +was radiant. It was a time of undisputed peace and profound royalist +security; it was the epoch when a special and private report of Chief +of Police Angeles to the King, on the subject of the suburbs of Paris, +terminated with these lines:-- + +"Taking all things into consideration, Sire, there is nothing to be +feared from these people. They are as heedless and as indolent as cats. +The populace is restless in the provinces; it is not in Paris. These are +very pretty men, Sire. It would take all of two of them to make one +of your grenadiers. There is nothing to be feared on the part of the +populace of Paris the capital. It is remarkable that the stature of +this population should have diminished in the last fifty years; and +the populace of the suburbs is still more puny than at the time of the +Revolution. It is not dangerous. In short, it is an amiable rabble." + +Prefects of the police do not deem it possible that a cat can transform +itself into a lion; that does happen, however, and in that lies the +miracle wrought by the populace of Paris. Moreover, the cat so despised +by Count Angles possessed the esteem of the republics of old. In their +eyes it was liberty incarnate; and as though to serve as pendant to +the Minerva Aptera of the Piraeus, there stood on the public square in +Corinth the colossal bronze figure of a cat. The ingenuous police of the +Restoration beheld the populace of Paris in too "rose-colored" a light; +it is not so much of "an amiable rabble" as it is thought. The Parisian +is to the Frenchman what the Athenian was to the Greek: no one sleeps +more soundly than he, no one is more frankly frivolous and lazy than +he, no one can better assume the air of forgetfulness; let him not be +trusted nevertheless; he is ready for any sort of cool deed; but when +there is glory at the end of it, he is worthy of admiration in every +sort of fury. Give him a pike, he will produce the 10th of August; give +him a gun, you will have Austerlitz. He is Napoleon's stay and Danton's +resource. Is it a question of country, he enlists; is it a question of +liberty, he tears up the pavements. Beware! his hair filled with wrath, +is epic; his blouse drapes itself like the folds of a chlamys. Take +care! he will make of the first Rue Grenetat which comes to hand Caudine +Forks. When the hour strikes, this man of the faubourgs will grow in +stature; this little man will arise, and his gaze will be terrible, and +his breath will become a tempest, and there will issue forth from that +slender chest enough wind to disarrange the folds of the Alps. It is, +thanks to the suburban man of Paris, that the Revolution, mixed with +arms, conquers Europe. He sings; it is his delight. Proportion his song +to his nature, and you will see! As long as he has for refrain nothing +but la Carmagnole, he only overthrows Louis XVI.; make him sing the +Marseillaise, and he will free the world. + +This note jotted down on the margin of Angles' report, we will return to +our four couples. The dinner, as we have said, was drawing to its close. + + + + +CHAPTER VI--A CHAPTER IN WHICH THEY ADORE EACH OTHER + +Chat at table, the chat of love; it is as impossible to reproduce one as +the other; the chat of love is a cloud; the chat at table is smoke. + +Fameuil and Dahlia were humming. Tholomyes was drinking. Zephine was +laughing, Fantine smiling, Listolier blowing a wooden trumpet which he +had purchased at Saint-Cloud. + +Favourite gazed tenderly at Blachevelle and said:-- + +"Blachevelle, I adore you." + +This called forth a question from Blachevelle:-- + +"What would you do, Favourite, if I were to cease to love you?" + +"I!" cried Favourite. "Ah! Do not say that even in jest! If you were +to cease to love me, I would spring after you, I would scratch you, +I should rend you, I would throw you into the water, I would have you +arrested." + +Blachevelle smiled with the voluptuous self-conceit of a man who is +tickled in his self-love. Favourite resumed:-- + +"Yes, I would scream to the police! Ah! I should not restrain myself, +not at all! Rabble!" + +Blachevelle threw himself back in his chair, in an ecstasy, and closed +both eyes proudly. + +Dahlia, as she ate, said in a low voice to Favourite, amid the uproar:-- + +"So you really idolize him deeply, that Blachevelle of yours?" + +"I? I detest him," replied Favourite in the same tone, seizing her fork +again. "He is avaricious. I love the little fellow opposite me in my +house. He is very nice, that young man; do you know him? One can see +that he is an actor by profession. I love actors. As soon as he comes +in, his mother says to him: 'Ah! mon Dieu! my peace of mind is gone. +There he goes with his shouting. But, my dear, you are splitting my +head!' So he goes up to rat-ridden garrets, to black holes, as high as +he can mount, and there he sets to singing, declaiming, how do I know +what? so that he can be heard down stairs! He earns twenty sous a day at +an attorney's by penning quibbles. He is the son of a former precentor +of Saint-Jacques-du-Haut-Pas. Ah! he is very nice. He idolizes me so, +that one day when he saw me making batter for some pancakes, he said to +me: 'Mamselle, make your gloves into fritters, and I will eat them.' It +is only artists who can say such things as that. Ah! he is very nice. +I am in a fair way to go out of my head over that little fellow. Never +mind; I tell Blachevelle that I adore him--how I lie! Hey! How I do +lie!" + +Favourite paused, and then went on:-- + +"I am sad, you see, Dahlia. It has done nothing but rain all summer; the +wind irritates me; the wind does not abate. Blachevelle is very stingy; +there are hardly any green peas in the market; one does not know what to +eat. I have the spleen, as the English say, butter is so dear! and then +you see it is horrible, here we are dining in a room with a bed in it, +and that disgusts me with life." + + + + +CHAPTER VII--THE WISDOM OF THOLOMYES + +In the meantime, while some sang, the rest talked together tumultuously +all at once; it was no longer anything but noise. Tholomyes intervened. + +"Let us not talk at random nor too fast," he exclaimed. "Let us reflect, +if we wish to be brilliant. Too much improvisation empties the mind in +a stupid way. Running beer gathers no froth. No haste, gentlemen. Let us +mingle majesty with the feast. Let us eat with meditation; let us make +haste slowly. Let us not hurry. Consider the springtime; if it makes +haste, it is done for; that is to say, it gets frozen. Excess of zeal +ruins peach-trees and apricot-trees. Excess of zeal kills the grace and +the mirth of good dinners. No zeal, gentlemen! Grimod de la Reyniere +agrees with Talleyrand." + +A hollow sound of rebellion rumbled through the group. + +"Leave us in peace, Tholomyes," said Blachevelle. + +"Down with the tyrant!" said Fameuil. + +"Bombarda, Bombance, and Bambochel!" cried Listolier. + +"Sunday exists," resumed Fameuil. + +"We are sober," added Listolier. + +"Tholomyes," remarked Blachevelle, "contemplate my calmness [mon +calme]." + +"You are the Marquis of that," retorted Tholomyes. + +This mediocre play upon words produced the effect of a stone in a pool. +The Marquis de Montcalm was at that time a celebrated royalist. All the +frogs held their peace. + +"Friends," cried Tholomyes, with the accent of a man who had recovered +his empire, "Come to yourselves. This pun which has fallen from the +skies must not be received with too much stupor. Everything which falls +in that way is not necessarily worthy of enthusiasm and respect. The pun +is the dung of the mind which soars. The jest falls, no matter where; +and the mind after producing a piece of stupidity plunges into the azure +depths. A whitish speck flattened against the rock does not prevent the +condor from soaring aloft. Far be it from me to insult the pun! I honor +it in proportion to its merits; nothing more. All the most august, the +most sublime, the most charming of humanity, and perhaps outside of +humanity, have made puns. Jesus Christ made a pun on St. Peter, Moses on +Isaac, AEschylus on Polynices, Cleopatra on Octavius. And observe that +Cleopatra's pun preceded the battle of Actium, and that had it not been +for it, no one would have remembered the city of Toryne, a Greek name +which signifies a ladle. That once conceded, I return to my exhortation. +I repeat, brothers, I repeat, no zeal, no hubbub, no excess; even in +witticisms, gayety, jollities, or plays on words. Listen to me. I have +the prudence of Amphiaraus and the baldness of Caesar. There must be a +limit, even to rebuses. Est modus in rebus. + +"There must be a limit, even to dinners. You are fond of apple +turnovers, ladies; do not indulge in them to excess. Even in the matter +of turnovers, good sense and art are requisite. Gluttony chastises the +glutton, Gula punit Gulax. Indigestion is charged by the good God with +preaching morality to stomachs. And remember this: each one of our +passions, even love, has a stomach which must not be filled too full. In +all things the word finis must be written in good season; self-control +must be exercised when the matter becomes urgent; the bolt must be drawn +on appetite; one must set one's own fantasy to the violin, and carry +one's self to the post. The sage is the man who knows how, at a given +moment, to effect his own arrest. Have some confidence in me, for I +have succeeded to some extent in my study of the law, according to +the verdict of my examinations, for I know the difference between the +question put and the question pending, for I have sustained a thesis in +Latin upon the manner in which torture was administered at Rome at the +epoch when Munatius Demens was quaestor of the Parricide; because I +am going to be a doctor, apparently it does not follow that it is +absolutely necessary that I should be an imbecile. I recommend you to +moderation in your desires. It is true that my name is Felix Tholomyes; +I speak well. Happy is he who, when the hour strikes, takes a heroic +resolve, and abdicates like Sylla or Origenes." + +Favourite listened with profound attention. + +"Felix," said she, "what a pretty word! I love that name. It is Latin; +it means prosper." + +Tholomyes went on:-- + +"Quirites, gentlemen, caballeros, my friends. Do you wish never to feel +the prick, to do without the nuptial bed, and to brave love? Nothing +more simple. Here is the receipt: lemonade, excessive exercise, hard +labor; work yourself to death, drag blocks, sleep not, hold vigil, +gorge yourself with nitrous beverages, and potions of nymphaeas; drink +emulsions of poppies and agnus castus; season this with a strict diet, +starve yourself, and add thereto cold baths, girdles of herbs, the +application of a plate of lead, lotions made with the subacetate of +lead, and fomentations of oxycrat." + +"I prefer a woman," said Listolier. + +"Woman," resumed Tholomyes; "distrust her. Woe to him who yields himself +to the unstable heart of woman! Woman is perfidious and disingenuous. +She detests the serpent from professional jealousy. The serpent is the +shop over the way." + +"Tholomyes!" cried Blachevelle, "you are drunk!" + +"Pardieu," said Tholomyes. + +"Then be gay," resumed Blachevelle. + +"I agree to that," responded Tholomyes. + +And, refilling his glass, he rose. + +"Glory to wine! Nunc te, Bacche, canam! Pardon me ladies; that is +Spanish. And the proof of it, senoras, is this: like people, like cask. +The arrobe of Castile contains sixteen litres; the cantaro of Alicante, +twelve; the almude of the Canaries, twenty-five; the cuartin of the +Balearic Isles, twenty-six; the boot of Tzar Peter, thirty. Long +live that Tzar who was great, and long live his boot, which was still +greater! Ladies, take the advice of a friend; make a mistake in your +neighbor if you see fit. The property of love is to err. A love +affair is not made to crouch down and brutalize itself like an English +serving-maid who has callouses on her knees from scrubbing. It is not +made for that; it errs gayly, our gentle love. It has been said, error +is human; I say, error is love. Ladies, I idolize you all. O Zephine, O +Josephine, face more than irregular, you would be charming were you not +all askew. You have the air of a pretty face upon which some one has +sat down by mistake. As for Favourite, O nymphs and muses! one day +when Blachevelle was crossing the gutter in the Rue Guerin-Boisseau, +he espied a beautiful girl with white stockings well drawn up, which +displayed her legs. This prologue pleased him, and Blachevelle fell +in love. The one he loved was Favourite. O Favourite, thou hast Ionian +lips. There was a Greek painter named Euphorion, who was surnamed the +painter of the lips. That Greek alone would have been worthy to paint +thy mouth. Listen! before thee, there was never a creature worthy of the +name. Thou wert made to receive the apple like Venus, or to eat it like +Eve; beauty begins with thee. I have just referred to Eve; it is thou +who hast created her. Thou deservest the letters-patent of the beautiful +woman. O Favourite, I cease to address you as 'thou,' because I pass +from poetry to prose. You were speaking of my name a little while ago. +That touched me; but let us, whoever we may be, distrust names. They may +delude us. I am called Felix, and I am not happy. Words are liars. Let +us not blindly accept the indications which they afford us. It would be +a mistake to write to Liege [2] for corks, and to Pau for gloves. Miss +Dahlia, were I in your place, I would call myself Rosa. A flower should +smell sweet, and woman should have wit. I say nothing of Fantine; she +is a dreamer, a musing, thoughtful, pensive person; she is a phantom +possessed of the form of a nymph and the modesty of a nun, who has +strayed into the life of a grisette, but who takes refuge in illusions, +and who sings and prays and gazes into the azure without very well +knowing what she sees or what she is doing, and who, with her eyes fixed +on heaven, wanders in a garden where there are more birds than are in +existence. O Fantine, know this: I, Tholomyes, I am all illusion; but +she does not even hear me, that blond maid of Chimeras! as for the rest, +everything about her is freshness, suavity, youth, sweet morning light. +O Fantine, maid worthy of being called Marguerite or Pearl, you are a +woman from the beauteous Orient. Ladies, a second piece of advice: do +not marry; marriage is a graft; it takes well or ill; avoid that risk. +But bah! what am I saying? I am wasting my words. Girls are incurable +on the subject of marriage, and all that we wise men can say will not +prevent the waistcoat-makers and the shoe-stitchers from dreaming +of husbands studded with diamonds. Well, so be it; but, my beauties, +remember this, you eat too much sugar. You have but one fault, O woman, +and that is nibbling sugar. O nibbling sex, your pretty little white +teeth adore sugar. Now, heed me well, sugar is a salt. All salts are +withering. Sugar is the most desiccating of all salts; it sucks the +liquids of the blood through the veins; hence the coagulation, and then +the solidification of the blood; hence tubercles in the lungs, hence +death. That is why diabetes borders on consumption. Then, do not crunch +sugar, and you will live. I turn to the men: gentlemen, make conquest, +rob each other of your well-beloved without remorse. Chassez across. +In love there are no friends. Everywhere where there is a pretty woman +hostility is open. No quarter, war to the death! a pretty woman is a +casus belli; a pretty woman is flagrant misdemeanor. All the invasions +of history have been determined by petticoats. Woman is man's right. +Romulus carried off the Sabines; William carried off the Saxon women; +Caesar carried off the Roman women. The man who is not loved soars like +a vulture over the mistresses of other men; and for my own part, to all +those unfortunate men who are widowers, I throw the sublime proclamation +of Bonaparte to the army of Italy: "Soldiers, you are in need of +everything; the enemy has it." + +Tholomyes paused. + +"Take breath, Tholomyes," said Blachevelle. + +At the same moment Blachevelle, supported by Listolier and Fameuil, +struck up to a plaintive air, one of those studio songs composed of +the first words which come to hand, rhymed richly and not at all, as +destitute of sense as the gesture of the tree and the sound of the wind, +which have their birth in the vapor of pipes, and are dissipated and +take their flight with them. This is the couplet by which the group +replied to Tholomyes' harangue:-- + + + "The father turkey-cocks so grave + Some money to an agent gave, + That master good Clermont-Tonnerre + Might be made pope on Saint Johns' day fair. + But this good Clermont could not be + Made pope, because no priest was he; + And then their agent, whose wrath burned, + With all their money back returned." + + +This was not calculated to calm Tholomyes' improvisation; he emptied his +glass, filled, refilled it, and began again:-- + +"Down with wisdom! Forget all that I have said. Let us be neither prudes +nor prudent men nor prudhommes. I propose a toast to mirth; be merry. +Let us complete our course of law by folly and eating! Indigestion and +the digest. Let Justinian be the male, and Feasting, the female! Joy in +the depths! Live, O creation! The world is a great diamond. I am happy. +The birds are astonishing. What a festival everywhere! The nightingale +is a gratuitous Elleviou. Summer, I salute thee! O Luxembourg! O +Georgics of the Rue Madame, and of the Allee de l'Observatoire! O +pensive infantry soldiers! O all those charming nurses who, while they +guard the children, amuse themselves! The pampas of America would please +me if I had not the arcades of the Odeon. My soul flits away into the +virgin forests and to the savannas. All is beautiful. The flies buzz in +the sun. The sun has sneezed out the humming bird. Embrace me, Fantine!" + +He made a mistake and embraced Favourite. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII--THE DEATH OF A HORSE + + +"The dinners are better at Edon's than at Bombarda's," exclaimed +Zephine. + +"I prefer Bombarda to Edon," declared Blachevelle. "There is more +luxury. It is more Asiatic. Look at the room downstairs; there are +mirrors [glaces] on the walls." + +"I prefer them [glaces, ices] on my plate," said Favourite. + +Blachevelle persisted:-- + +"Look at the knives. The handles are of silver at Bombarda's and of bone +at Edon's. Now, silver is more valuable than bone." + +"Except for those who have a silver chin," observed Tholomyes. + +He was looking at the dome of the Invalides, which was visible from +Bombarda's windows. + +A pause ensued. + +"Tholomyes," exclaimed Fameuil, "Listolier and I were having a +discussion just now." + +"A discussion is a good thing," replied Tholomyes; "a quarrel is +better." + +"We were disputing about philosophy." + +"Well?" + +"Which do you prefer, Descartes or Spinoza?" + +"Desaugiers," said Tholomyes. + +This decree pronounced, he took a drink, and went on:-- + +"I consent to live. All is not at an end on earth since we can still +talk nonsense. For that I return thanks to the immortal gods. We lie. +One lies, but one laughs. One affirms, but one doubts. The unexpected +bursts forth from the syllogism. That is fine. There are still human +beings here below who know how to open and close the surprise box of the +paradox merrily. This, ladies, which you are drinking with so tranquil +an air is Madeira wine, you must know, from the vineyard of Coural das +Freiras, which is three hundred and seventeen fathoms above the level of +the sea. Attention while you drink! three hundred and seventeen fathoms! +and Monsieur Bombarda, the magnificent eating-house keeper, gives you +those three hundred and seventeen fathoms for four francs and fifty +centimes." + +Again Fameuil interrupted him:-- + +"Tholomyes, your opinions fix the law. Who is your favorite author?" + +"Ber--" + +"Quin?" + +"No; Choux." + +And Tholomyes continued:-- + +"Honor to Bombarda! He would equal Munophis of Elephanta if he could but +get me an Indian dancing-girl, and Thygelion of Chaeronea if he could +bring me a Greek courtesan; for, oh, ladies! there were Bombardas in +Greece and in Egypt. Apuleius tells us of them. Alas! always the same, +and nothing new; nothing more unpublished by the creator in creation! +Nil sub sole novum, says Solomon; amor omnibus idem, says Virgil; and +Carabine mounts with Carabin into the bark at Saint-Cloud, as Aspasia +embarked with Pericles upon the fleet at Samos. One last word. Do you +know what Aspasia was, ladies? Although she lived at an epoch when women +had, as yet, no soul, she was a soul; a soul of a rosy and purple +hue, more ardent hued than fire, fresher than the dawn. Aspasia was +a creature in whom two extremes of womanhood met; she was the goddess +prostitute; Socrates plus Manon Lescaut. Aspasia was created in case a +mistress should be needed for Prometheus." + +Tholomyes, once started, would have found some difficulty in stopping, +had not a horse fallen down upon the quay just at that moment. The +shock caused the cart and the orator to come to a dead halt. It was a +Beauceron mare, old and thin, and one fit for the knacker, which was +dragging a very heavy cart. On arriving in front of Bombarda's, the +worn-out, exhausted beast had refused to proceed any further. This +incident attracted a crowd. Hardly had the cursing and indignant carter +had time to utter with proper energy the sacramental word, Matin (the +jade), backed up with a pitiless cut of the whip, when the jade fell, +never to rise again. On hearing the hubbub made by the passersby, +Tholomyes' merry auditors turned their heads, and Tholomyes took +advantage of the opportunity to bring his allocution to a close with +this melancholy strophe:-- + + "Elle etait de ce monde ou coucous et carrosses [3] + Ont le meme destin; + Et, rosse, elle a vecu ce que vivant les rosses, + L'espace d'un matin!" + + +"Poor horse!" sighed Fantine. + +And Dahlia exclaimed:-- + +"There is Fantine on the point of crying over horses. How can one be +such a pitiful fool as that!" + +At that moment Favourite, folding her arms and throwing her head back, +looked resolutely at Tholomyes and said:-- + +"Come, now! the surprise?" + +"Exactly. The moment has arrived," replied Tholomyes. "Gentlemen, +the hour for giving these ladies a surprise has struck. Wait for us a +moment, ladies." + +"It begins with a kiss," said Blachevelle. + +"On the brow," added Tholomyes. + +Each gravely bestowed a kiss on his mistress's brow; then all four filed +out through the door, with their fingers on their lips. + +Favourite clapped her hands on their departure. + +"It is beginning to be amusing already," said she. + +"Don't be too long," murmured Fantine; "we are waiting for you." + + + + +CHAPTER IX--A MERRY END TO MIRTH + +When the young girls were left alone, they leaned two by two on the +window-sills, chatting, craning out their heads, and talking from one +window to the other. + +They saw the young men emerge from the Cafe Bombarda arm in arm. The +latter turned round, made signs to them, smiled, and disappeared in +that dusty Sunday throng which makes a weekly invasion into the +Champs-Elysees. + +"Don't be long!" cried Fantine. + +"What are they going to bring us?" said Zephine. + +"It will certainly be something pretty," said Dahlia. + +"For my part," said Favourite, "I want it to be of gold." + +Their attention was soon distracted by the movements on the shore of the +lake, which they could see through the branches of the large trees, and +which diverted them greatly. + +It was the hour for the departure of the mail-coaches and diligences. +Nearly all the stage-coaches for the south and west passed through the +Champs-Elysees. The majority followed the quay and went through the +Passy Barrier. From moment to moment, some huge vehicle, painted yellow +and black, heavily loaded, noisily harnessed, rendered shapeless +by trunks, tarpaulins, and valises, full of heads which immediately +disappeared, rushed through the crowd with all the sparks of a forge, +with dust for smoke, and an air of fury, grinding the pavements, +changing all the paving-stones into steels. This uproar delighted the +young girls. Favourite exclaimed:-- + +"What a row! One would say that it was a pile of chains flying away." + +It chanced that one of these vehicles, which they could only see with +difficulty through the thick elms, halted for a moment, then set out +again at a gallop. This surprised Fantine. + +"That's odd!" said she. "I thought the diligence never stopped." + +Favourite shrugged her shoulders. + +"This Fantine is surprising. I am coming to take a look at her out of +curiosity. She is dazzled by the simplest things. Suppose a case: I am +a traveller; I say to the diligence, 'I will go on in advance; you shall +pick me up on the quay as you pass.' The diligence passes, sees me, +halts, and takes me. That is done every day. You do not know life, my +dear." + +In this manner a certain time elapsed. All at once Favourite made a +movement, like a person who is just waking up. + +"Well," said she, "and the surprise?" + +"Yes, by the way," joined in Dahlia, "the famous surprise?" + +"They are a very long time about it!" said Fantine. + +As Fantine concluded this sigh, the waiter who had served them at dinner +entered. He held in his hand something which resembled a letter. + +"What is that?" demanded Favourite. + +The waiter replied:-- + +"It is a paper that those gentlemen left for these ladies." + +"Why did you not bring it at once?" + +"Because," said the waiter, "the gentlemen ordered me not to deliver it +to the ladies for an hour." + +Favourite snatched the paper from the waiter's hand. It was, in fact, a +letter. + +"Stop!" said she; "there is no address; but this is what is written on +it--" + + "THIS IS THE SURPRISE." + +She tore the letter open hastily, opened it, and read [she knew how to +read]:-- + +"OUR BELOVED:-- + +"You must know that we have parents. Parents--you do not know much about +such things. They are called fathers and mothers by the civil code, +which is puerile and honest. Now, these parents groan, these old folks +implore us, these good men and these good women call us prodigal sons; +they desire our return, and offer to kill calves for us. Being virtuous, +we obey them. At the hour when you read this, five fiery horses will +be bearing us to our papas and mammas. We are pulling up our stakes, as +Bossuet says. We are going; we are gone. We flee in the arms of Lafitte +and on the wings of Caillard. The Toulouse diligence tears us from +the abyss, and the abyss is you, O our little beauties! We return to +society, to duty, to respectability, at full trot, at the rate of three +leagues an hour. It is necessary for the good of the country that we +should be, like the rest of the world, prefects, fathers of families, +rural police, and councillors of state. Venerate us. We are sacrificing +ourselves. Mourn for us in haste, and replace us with speed. If this +letter lacerates you, do the same by it. Adieu. + +"For the space of nearly two years we have made you happy. We bear you +no grudge for that. "Signed: + BLACHEVELLE. + FAMUEIL. + LISTOLIER. + FELIX THOLOMYES. + +"Postscriptum. The dinner is paid for." + + +The four young women looked at each other. + +Favourite was the first to break the silence. + +"Well!" she exclaimed, "it's a very pretty farce, all the same." + +"It is very droll," said Zephine. + +"That must have been Blachevelle's idea," resumed Favourite. "It makes +me in love with him. No sooner is he gone than he is loved. This is an +adventure, indeed." + +"No," said Dahlia; "it was one of Tholomyes' ideas. That is evident. + +"In that case," retorted Favourite, "death to Blachevelle, and long live +Tholomyes!" + +"Long live Tholomyes!" exclaimed Dahlia and Zephine. + +And they burst out laughing. + +Fantine laughed with the rest. + +An hour later, when she had returned to her room, she wept. It was +her first love affair, as we have said; she had given herself to this +Tholomyes as to a husband, and the poor girl had a child. + + + + +BOOK FOURTH.--TO CONFIDE IS SOMETIMES TO DELIVER INTO A PERSON'S POWER + + + + +CHAPTER I--ONE MOTHER MEETS ANOTHER MOTHER + +There was, at Montfermeil, near Paris, during the first quarter of this +century, a sort of cook-shop which no longer exists. This cook-shop was +kept by some people named Thenardier, husband and wife. It was situated +in Boulanger Lane. Over the door there was a board nailed flat against +the wall. Upon this board was painted something which resembled a +man carrying another man on his back, the latter wearing the big gilt +epaulettes of a general, with large silver stars; red spots represented +blood; the rest of the picture consisted of smoke, and probably +represented a battle. Below ran this inscription: AT THE SIGN OF +SERGEANT OF WATERLOO (Au Sargent de Waterloo). + +Nothing is more common than a cart or a truck at the door of a hostelry. +Nevertheless, the vehicle, or, to speak more accurately, the fragment of +a vehicle, which encumbered the street in front of the cook-shop of the +Sergeant of Waterloo, one evening in the spring of 1818, would certainly +have attracted, by its mass, the attention of any painter who had passed +that way. + +It was the fore-carriage of one of those trucks which are used in wooded +tracts of country, and which serve to transport thick planks and the +trunks of trees. This fore-carriage was composed of a massive iron +axle-tree with a pivot, into which was fitted a heavy shaft, and +which was supported by two huge wheels. The whole thing was compact, +overwhelming, and misshapen. It seemed like the gun-carriage of an +enormous cannon. The ruts of the road had bestowed on the wheels, the +fellies, the hub, the axle, and the shaft, a layer of mud, a hideous +yellowish daubing hue, tolerably like that with which people are fond +of ornamenting cathedrals. The wood was disappearing under mud, and the +iron beneath rust. Under the axle-tree hung, like drapery, a huge chain, +worthy of some Goliath of a convict. This chain suggested, not the +beams, which it was its office to transport, but the mastodons and +mammoths which it might have served to harness; it had the air of the +galleys, but of cyclopean and superhuman galleys, and it seemed to have +been detached from some monster. Homer would have bound Polyphemus with +it, and Shakespeare, Caliban. + +Why was that fore-carriage of a truck in that place in the street? In +the first place, to encumber the street; next, in order that it might +finish the process of rusting. There is a throng of institutions in the +old social order, which one comes across in this fashion as one walks +about outdoors, and which have no other reasons for existence than the +above. + +The centre of the chain swung very near the ground in the middle, and in +the loop, as in the rope of a swing, there were seated and grouped, on +that particular evening, in exquisite interlacement, two little girls; +one about two years and a half old, the other, eighteen months; the +younger in the arms of the other. A handkerchief, cleverly knotted about +them, prevented their falling out. A mother had caught sight of that +frightful chain, and had said, "Come! there's a plaything for my +children." + +The two children, who were dressed prettily and with some elegance, were +radiant with pleasure; one would have said that they were two roses amid +old iron; their eyes were a triumph; their fresh cheeks were full of +laughter. One had chestnut hair; the other, brown. Their innocent faces +were two delighted surprises; a blossoming shrub which grew near wafted +to the passers-by perfumes which seemed to emanate from them; the child +of eighteen months displayed her pretty little bare stomach with the +chaste indecency of childhood. Above and around these two delicate +heads, all made of happiness and steeped in light, the gigantic +fore-carriage, black with rust, almost terrible, all entangled in curves +and wild angles, rose in a vault, like the entrance of a cavern. A few +paces apart, crouching down upon the threshold of the hostelry, the +mother, not a very prepossessing woman, by the way, though touching +at that moment, was swinging the two children by means of a long cord, +watching them carefully, for fear of accidents, with that animal and +celestial expression which is peculiar to maternity. At every backward +and forward swing the hideous links emitted a strident sound, which +resembled a cry of rage; the little girls were in ecstasies; the setting +sun mingled in this joy, and nothing could be more charming than this +caprice of chance which had made of a chain of Titans the swing of +cherubim. + +As she rocked her little ones, the mother hummed in a discordant voice a +romance then celebrated:-- + + + "It must be, said a warrior." + + +Her song, and the contemplation of her daughters, prevented her hearing +and seeing what was going on in the street. + +In the meantime, some one had approached her, as she was beginning the +first couplet of the romance, and suddenly she heard a voice saying very +near her ear:-- + +"You have two beautiful children there, Madame." + + + "To the fair and tender Imogene--" + + +replied the mother, continuing her romance; then she turned her head. + +A woman stood before her, a few paces distant. This woman also had a +child, which she carried in her arms. + +She was carrying, in addition, a large carpet-bag, which seemed very +heavy. + +This woman's child was one of the most divine creatures that it is +possible to behold. It was a girl, two or three years of age. She could +have entered into competition with the two other little ones, so far as +the coquetry of her dress was concerned; she wore a cap of fine linen, +ribbons on her bodice, and Valenciennes lace on her cap. The folds of +her skirt were raised so as to permit a view of her white, firm, and +dimpled leg. She was admirably rosy and healthy. The little beauty +inspired a desire to take a bite from the apples of her cheeks. Of her +eyes nothing could be known, except that they must be very large, and +that they had magnificent lashes. She was asleep. + +She slept with that slumber of absolute confidence peculiar to her +age. The arms of mothers are made of tenderness; in them children sleep +profoundly. + +As for the mother, her appearance was sad and poverty-stricken. She +was dressed like a working-woman who is inclined to turn into a peasant +again. She was young. Was she handsome? Perhaps; but in that attire it +was not apparent. Her hair, a golden lock of which had escaped, seemed +very thick, but was severely concealed beneath an ugly, tight, close, +nun-like cap, tied under the chin. A smile displays beautiful teeth when +one has them; but she did not smile. Her eyes did not seem to have been +dry for a very long time. She was pale; she had a very weary and rather +sickly appearance. She gazed upon her daughter asleep in her arms with +the air peculiar to a mother who has nursed her own child. A large blue +handkerchief, such as the Invalides use, was folded into a fichu, and +concealed her figure clumsily. Her hands were sunburnt and all dotted +with freckles, her forefinger was hardened and lacerated with the +needle; she wore a cloak of coarse brown woollen stuff, a linen gown, +and coarse shoes. It was Fantine. + +It was Fantine, but difficult to recognize. Nevertheless, on +scrutinizing her attentively, it was evident that she still retained +her beauty. A melancholy fold, which resembled the beginning of irony, +wrinkled her right cheek. As for her toilette, that aerial toilette of +muslin and ribbons, which seemed made of mirth, of folly, and of music, +full of bells, and perfumed with lilacs had vanished like that beautiful +and dazzling hoar-frost which is mistaken for diamonds in the sunlight; +it melts and leaves the branch quite black. + +Ten months had elapsed since the "pretty farce." + +What had taken place during those ten months? It can be divined. + +After abandonment, straightened circumstances. Fantine had immediately +lost sight of Favourite, Zephine and Dahlia; the bond once broken on the +side of the men, it was loosed between the women; they would have been +greatly astonished had any one told them a fortnight later, that they +had been friends; there no longer existed any reason for such a thing. +Fantine had remained alone. The father of her child gone,--alas! such +ruptures are irrevocable,--she found herself absolutely isolated, minus +the habit of work and plus the taste for pleasure. Drawn away by her +liaison with Tholomyes to disdain the pretty trade which she knew, she +had neglected to keep her market open; it was now closed to her. She had +no resource. Fantine barely knew how to read, and did not know how to +write; in her childhood she had only been taught to sign her name; +she had a public letter-writer indite an epistle to Tholomyes, then a +second, then a third. Tholomyes replied to none of them. Fantine heard +the gossips say, as they looked at her child: "Who takes those children +seriously! One only shrugs one's shoulders over such children!" Then she +thought of Tholomyes, who had shrugged his shoulders over his child, +and who did not take that innocent being seriously; and her heart grew +gloomy toward that man. But what was she to do? She no longer knew to +whom to apply. She had committed a fault, but the foundation of her +nature, as will be remembered, was modesty and virtue. She was vaguely +conscious that she was on the verge of falling into distress, and of +gliding into a worse state. Courage was necessary; she possessed it, and +held herself firm. The idea of returning to her native town of M. sur +M. occurred to her. There, some one might possibly know her and give her +work; yes, but it would be necessary to conceal her fault. In a confused +way she perceived the necessity of a separation which would be more +painful than the first one. Her heart contracted, but she took her +resolution. Fantine, as we shall see, had the fierce bravery of life. +She had already valiantly renounced finery, had dressed herself in +linen, and had put all her silks, all her ornaments, all her ribbons, +and all her laces on her daughter, the only vanity which was left to +her, and a holy one it was. She sold all that she had, which produced +for her two hundred francs; her little debts paid, she had only about +eighty francs left. At the age of twenty-two, on a beautiful spring +morning, she quitted Paris, bearing her child on her back. Any one who +had seen these two pass would have had pity on them. This woman had, +in all the world, nothing but her child, and the child had, in all the +world, no one but this woman. Fantine had nursed her child, and this had +tired her chest, and she coughed a little. + +We shall have no further occasion to speak of M. Felix Tholomyes. Let us +confine ourselves to saying, that, twenty years later, under King Louis +Philippe, he was a great provincial lawyer, wealthy and influential, a +wise elector, and a very severe juryman; he was still a man of pleasure. + +Towards the middle of the day, after having, from time to time, for the +sake of resting herself, travelled, for three or four sous a league, in +what was then known as the Petites Voitures des Environs de Paris, the +"little suburban coach service," Fantine found herself at Montfermeil, +in the alley Boulanger. + +As she passed the Thenardier hostelry, the two little girls, blissful +in the monster swing, had dazzled her in a manner, and she had halted in +front of that vision of joy. + +Charms exist. These two little girls were a charm to this mother. + +She gazed at them in much emotion. The presence of angels is an +announcement of Paradise. She thought that, above this inn, she beheld +the mysterious HERE of Providence. These two little creatures were +evidently happy. She gazed at them, she admired them, in such emotion +that at the moment when their mother was recovering her breath between +two couplets of her song, she could not refrain from addressing to her +the remark which we have just read:-- + +"You have two pretty children, Madame." + +The most ferocious creatures are disarmed by caresses bestowed on their +young. + +The mother raised her head and thanked her, and bade the wayfarer +sit down on the bench at the door, she herself being seated on the +threshold. The two women began to chat. + +"My name is Madame Thenardier," said the mother of the two little girls. +"We keep this inn." + +Then, her mind still running on her romance, she resumed humming between +her teeth:-- + + "It must be so; I am a knight, + And I am off to Palestine." + + +This Madame Thenardier was a sandy-complexioned woman, thin and +angular--the type of the soldier's wife in all its unpleasantness; and +what was odd, with a languishing air, which she owed to her perusal +of romances. She was a simpering, but masculine creature. Old romances +produce that effect when rubbed against the imagination of cook-shop +woman. She was still young; she was barely thirty. If this crouching +woman had stood upright, her lofty stature and her frame of a +perambulating colossus suitable for fairs, might have frightened the +traveller at the outset, troubled her confidence, and disturbed what +caused what we have to relate to vanish. A person who is seated instead +of standing erect--destinies hang upon such a thing as that. + +The traveller told her story, with slight modifications. + +That she was a working-woman; that her husband was dead; that her +work in Paris had failed her, and that she was on her way to seek it +elsewhere, in her own native parts; that she had left Paris that morning +on foot; that, as she was carrying her child, and felt fatigued, she had +got into the Villemomble coach when she met it; that from Villemomble +she had come to Montfermeil on foot; that the little one had walked a +little, but not much, because she was so young, and that she had been +obliged to take her up, and the jewel had fallen asleep. + +At this word she bestowed on her daughter a passionate kiss, which woke +her. The child opened her eyes, great blue eyes like her mother's, and +looked at--what? Nothing; with that serious and sometimes severe air of +little children, which is a mystery of their luminous innocence in +the presence of our twilight of virtue. One would say that they feel +themselves to be angels, and that they know us to be men. Then the child +began to laugh; and although the mother held fast to her, she slipped to +the ground with the unconquerable energy of a little being which wished +to run. All at once she caught sight of the two others in the swing, +stopped short, and put out her tongue, in sign of admiration. + +Mother Thenardier released her daughters, made them descend from the +swing, and said:-- + +"Now amuse yourselves, all three of you." + +Children become acquainted quickly at that age, and at the expiration +of a minute the little Thenardiers were playing with the new-comer at +making holes in the ground, which was an immense pleasure. + +The new-comer was very gay; the goodness of the mother is written in the +gayety of the child; she had seized a scrap of wood which served her +for a shovel, and energetically dug a cavity big enough for a fly. The +grave-digger's business becomes a subject for laughter when performed by +a child. + +The two women pursued their chat. + +"What is your little one's name?" + +"Cosette." + +For Cosette, read Euphrasie. The child's name was Euphrasie. But out +of Euphrasie the mother had made Cosette by that sweet and graceful +instinct of mothers and of the populace which changes Josepha into +Pepita, and Francoise into Sillette. It is a sort of derivative which +disarranges and disconcerts the whole science of etymologists. We have +known a grandmother who succeeded in turning Theodore into Gnon. + +"How old is she?" + +"She is going on three." + +"That is the age of my eldest." + +In the meantime, the three little girls were grouped in an attitude of +profound anxiety and blissfulness; an event had happened; a big worm +had emerged from the ground, and they were afraid; and they were in +ecstasies over it. + +Their radiant brows touched each other; one would have said that there +were three heads in one aureole. + +"How easily children get acquainted at once!" exclaimed Mother +Thenardier; "one would swear that they were three sisters!" + +This remark was probably the spark which the other mother had been +waiting for. She seized the Thenardier's hand, looked at her fixedly, +and said:-- + +"Will you keep my child for me?" + +The Thenardier made one of those movements of surprise which signify +neither assent nor refusal. + +Cosette's mother continued:-- + +"You see, I cannot take my daughter to the country. My work will not +permit it. With a child one can find no situation. People are ridiculous +in the country. It was the good God who caused me to pass your inn. When +I caught sight of your little ones, so pretty, so clean, and so happy, +it overwhelmed me. I said: 'Here is a good mother. That is just the +thing; that will make three sisters.' And then, it will not be long +before I return. Will you keep my child for me?" + +"I must see about it," replied the Thenardier. + +"I will give you six francs a month." + +Here a man's voice called from the depths of the cook-shop:-- + +"Not for less than seven francs. And six months paid in advance." + +"Six times seven makes forty-two," said the Thenardier. + +"I will give it," said the mother. + +"And fifteen francs in addition for preliminary expenses," added the +man's voice. + +"Total, fifty-seven francs," said Madame Thenardier. And she hummed +vaguely, with these figures:-- + + "It must be, said a warrior." + + +"I will pay it," said the mother. "I have eighty francs. I shall have +enough left to reach the country, by travelling on foot. I shall +earn money there, and as soon as I have a little I will return for my +darling." + +The man's voice resumed:-- + +"The little one has an outfit?" + +"That is my husband," said the Thenardier. + +"Of course she has an outfit, the poor treasure.--I understood perfectly +that it was your husband.--And a beautiful outfit, too! a senseless +outfit, everything by the dozen, and silk gowns like a lady. It is here, +in my carpet-bag." + +"You must hand it over," struck in the man's voice again. + +"Of course I shall give it to you," said the mother. "It would be very +queer if I were to leave my daughter quite naked!" + +The master's face appeared. + +"That's good," said he. + +The bargain was concluded. The mother passed the night at the inn, gave +up her money and left her child, fastened her carpet-bag once more, now +reduced in volume by the removal of the outfit, and light henceforth +and set out on the following morning, intending to return soon. People +arrange such departures tranquilly; but they are despairs! + +A neighbor of the Thenardiers met this mother as she was setting out, +and came back with the remark:-- + +"I have just seen a woman crying in the street so that it was enough to +rend your heart." + +When Cosette's mother had taken her departure, the man said to the +woman:-- + +"That will serve to pay my note for one hundred and ten francs which +falls due to-morrow; I lacked fifty francs. Do you know that I should +have had a bailiff and a protest after me? You played the mouse-trap +nicely with your young ones." + +"Without suspecting it," said the woman. + + + + +CHAPTER II--FIRST SKETCH OF TWO UNPREPOSSESSING FIGURES + +The mouse which had been caught was a pitiful specimen; but the cat +rejoices even over a lean mouse. + +Who were these Thenardiers? + +Let us say a word or two of them now. We will complete the sketch later +on. + +These beings belonged to that bastard class composed of coarse people +who have been successful, and of intelligent people who have descended +in the scale, which is between the class called "middle" and the class +denominated as "inferior," and which combines some of the defects of the +second with nearly all the vices of the first, without possessing +the generous impulse of the workingman nor the honest order of the +bourgeois. + +They were of those dwarfed natures which, if a dull fire chances to warm +them up, easily become monstrous. There was in the woman a substratum +of the brute, and in the man the material for a blackguard. Both were +susceptible, in the highest degree, of the sort of hideous progress +which is accomplished in the direction of evil. There exist crab-like +souls which are continually retreating towards the darkness, +retrograding in life rather than advancing, employing experience to +augment their deformity, growing incessantly worse, and becoming more +and more impregnated with an ever-augmenting blackness. This man and +woman possessed such souls. + +Thenardier, in particular, was troublesome for a physiognomist. One can +only look at some men to distrust them; for one feels that they are +dark in both directions. They are uneasy in the rear and threatening +in front. There is something of the unknown about them. One can no more +answer for what they have done than for what they will do. The shadow +which they bear in their glance denounces them. From merely hearing them +utter a word or seeing them make a gesture, one obtains a glimpse of +sombre secrets in their past and of sombre mysteries in their future. + +This Thenardier, if he himself was to be believed, had been a soldier--a +sergeant, he said. He had probably been through the campaign of 1815, +and had even conducted himself with tolerable valor, it would seem. We +shall see later on how much truth there was in this. The sign of his +hostelry was in allusion to one of his feats of arms. He had painted it +himself; for he knew how to do a little of everything, and badly. + +It was at the epoch when the ancient classical romance which, after +having been Clelie, was no longer anything but Lodoiska, still noble, +but ever more and more vulgar, having fallen from Mademoiselle de +Scuderi to Madame Bournon-Malarme, and from Madame de Lafayette to +Madame Barthelemy-Hadot, was setting the loving hearts of the portresses +of Paris aflame, and even ravaging the suburbs to some extent. Madame +Thenardier was just intelligent enough to read this sort of books. She +lived on them. In them she drowned what brains she possessed. This had +given her, when very young, and even a little later, a sort of pensive +attitude towards her husband, a scamp of a certain depth, a ruffian +lettered to the extent of the grammar, coarse and fine at one and the +same time, but, so far as sentimentalism was concerned, given to the +perusal of Pigault-Lebrun, and "in what concerns the sex," as he said +in his jargon--a downright, unmitigated lout. His wife was twelve or +fifteen years younger than he was. Later on, when her hair, arranged in +a romantically drooping fashion, began to grow gray, when the Magaera +began to be developed from the Pamela, the female Thenardier was nothing +but a coarse, vicious woman, who had dabbled in stupid romances. Now, +one cannot read nonsense with impunity. The result was that her eldest +daughter was named Eponine; as for the younger, the poor little thing +came near being called Gulnare; I know not to what diversion, effected +by a romance of Ducray-Dumenil, she owed the fact that she merely bore +the name of Azelma. + +However, we will remark by the way, everything was not ridiculous and +superficial in that curious epoch to which we are alluding, and which +may be designated as the anarchy of baptismal names. By the side of +this romantic element which we have just indicated there is the social +symptom. It is not rare for the neatherd's boy nowadays to bear the name +of Arthur, Alfred, or Alphonse, and for the vicomte--if there are +still any vicomtes--to be called Thomas, Pierre, or Jacques. This +displacement, which places the "elegant" name on the plebeian and the +rustic name on the aristocrat, is nothing else than an eddy of equality. +The irresistible penetration of the new inspiration is there as +everywhere else. Beneath this apparent discord there is a great and a +profound thing,--the French Revolution. + + + + +CHAPTER III--THE LARK + +It is not all in all sufficient to be wicked in order to prosper. The +cook-shop was in a bad way. + +Thanks to the traveller's fifty-seven francs, Thenardier had been able +to avoid a protest and to honor his signature. On the following month +they were again in need of money. The woman took Cosette's outfit to +Paris, and pawned it at the pawnbroker's for sixty francs. As soon +as that sum was spent, the Thenardiers grew accustomed to look on the +little girl merely as a child whom they were caring for out of charity; +and they treated her accordingly. As she had no longer any clothes, they +dressed her in the cast-off petticoats and chemises of the Thenardier +brats; that is to say, in rags. They fed her on what all the rest +had left--a little better than the dog, a little worse than the cat. +Moreover, the cat and the dog were her habitual table-companions; +Cosette ate with them under the table, from a wooden bowl similar to +theirs. + +The mother, who had established herself, as we shall see later on, at M. +sur M., wrote, or, more correctly, caused to be written, a letter every +month, that she might have news of her child. The Thenardiers replied +invariably, "Cosette is doing wonderfully well." + +At the expiration of the first six months the mother sent seven francs +for the seventh month, and continued her remittances with tolerable +regularity from month to month. The year was not completed when +Thenardier said: "A fine favor she is doing us, in sooth! What does she +expect us to do with her seven francs?" and he wrote to demand twelve +francs. The mother, whom they had persuaded into the belief that her +child was happy, "and was coming on well," submitted, and forwarded the +twelve francs. + +Certain natures cannot love on the one hand without hating on the other. +Mother Thenardier loved her two daughters passionately, which caused her +to hate the stranger. + +It is sad to think that the love of a mother can possess villainous +aspects. Little as was the space occupied by Cosette, it seemed to +her as though it were taken from her own, and that that little child +diminished the air which her daughters breathed. This woman, like many +women of her sort, had a load of caresses and a burden of blows and +injuries to dispense each day. If she had not had Cosette, it is certain +that her daughters, idolized as they were, would have received the whole +of it; but the stranger did them the service to divert the blows to +herself. Her daughters received nothing but caresses. Cosette could not +make a motion which did not draw down upon her head a heavy shower of +violent blows and unmerited chastisement. The sweet, feeble being, who +should not have understood anything of this world or of God, incessantly +punished, scolded, ill-used, beaten, and seeing beside her two little +creatures like herself, who lived in a ray of dawn! + +Madame Thenardier was vicious with Cosette. Eponine and Azelma were +vicious. Children at that age are only copies of their mother. The size +is smaller; that is all. + +A year passed; then another. + +People in the village said:-- + +"Those Thenardiers are good people. They are not rich, and yet they are +bringing up a poor child who was abandoned on their hands!" + +They thought that Cosette's mother had forgotten her. + +In the meanwhile, Thenardier, having learned, it is impossible to say by +what obscure means, that the child was probably a bastard, and that the +mother could not acknowledge it, exacted fifteen francs a month, saying +that "the creature" was growing and "eating," and threatening to send +her away. "Let her not bother me," he exclaimed, "or I'll fire her brat +right into the middle of her secrets. I must have an increase." The +mother paid the fifteen francs. + +From year to year the child grew, and so did her wretchedness. + +As long as Cosette was little, she was the scape-goat of the two other +children; as soon as she began to develop a little, that is to say, +before she was even five years old, she became the servant of the +household. + +Five years old! the reader will say; that is not probable. Alas! it is +true. Social suffering begins at all ages. Have we not recently seen the +trial of a man named Dumollard, an orphan turned bandit, who, from the +age of five, as the official documents state, being alone in the world, +"worked for his living and stole"? + +Cosette was made to run on errands, to sweep the rooms, the courtyard, +the street, to wash the dishes, to even carry burdens. The Thenardiers +considered themselves all the more authorized to behave in this manner, +since the mother, who was still at M. sur M., had become irregular in +her payments. Some months she was in arrears. + +If this mother had returned to Montfermeil at the end of these three +years, she would not have recognized her child. Cosette, so pretty and +rosy on her arrival in that house, was now thin and pale. She had an +indescribably uneasy look. "The sly creature," said the Thenardiers. + +Injustice had made her peevish, and misery had made her ugly. Nothing +remained to her except her beautiful eyes, which inspired pain, because, +large as they were, it seemed as though one beheld in them a still +larger amount of sadness. + +It was a heart-breaking thing to see this poor child, not yet six years +old, shivering in the winter in her old rags of linen, full of holes, +sweeping the street before daylight, with an enormous broom in her tiny +red hands, and a tear in her great eyes. + +[Illustration: Cossette Sweeping 1b4-1-cossette-sweeping] + +She was called the Lark in the neighborhood. The populace, who are fond +of these figures of speech, had taken a fancy to bestow this name on +this trembling, frightened, and shivering little creature, no bigger +than a bird, who was awake every morning before any one else in the +house or the village, and was always in the street or the fields before +daybreak. + +Only the little lark never sang. + + + + +BOOK FIFTH.--THE DESCENT. + + + + +CHAPTER I--THE HISTORY OF A PROGRESS IN BLACK GLASS TRINKETS + +And in the meantime, what had become of that mother who according to +the people at Montfermeil, seemed to have abandoned her child? Where was +she? What was she doing? + +After leaving her little Cosette with the Thenardiers, she had continued +her journey, and had reached M. sur M. + +This, it will be remembered, was in 1818. + +Fantine had quitted her province ten years before. M. sur M. had changed +its aspect. While Fantine had been slowly descending from wretchedness +to wretchedness, her native town had prospered. + +About two years previously one of those industrial facts which are the +grand events of small districts had taken place. + +This detail is important, and we regard it as useful to develop it at +length; we should almost say, to underline it. + +From time immemorial, M. sur M. had had for its special industry the +imitation of English jet and the black glass trinkets of Germany. This +industry had always vegetated, on account of the high price of the raw +material, which reacted on the manufacture. At the moment when Fantine +returned to M. sur M., an unheard-of transformation had taken place +in the production of "black goods." Towards the close of 1815 a man, +a stranger, had established himself in the town, and had been inspired +with the idea of substituting, in this manufacture, gum-lac for resin, +and, for bracelets in particular, slides of sheet-iron simply laid +together, for slides of soldered sheet-iron. + +This very small change had effected a revolution. + +This very small change had, in fact, prodigiously reduced the cost of +the raw material, which had rendered it possible in the first place, to +raise the price of manufacture, a benefit to the country; in the second +place, to improve the workmanship, an advantage to the consumer; in the +third place, to sell at a lower price, while trebling the profit, which +was a benefit to the manufacturer. + +Thus three results ensued from one idea. + +In less than three years the inventor of this process had become rich, +which is good, and had made every one about him rich, which is better. +He was a stranger in the Department. Of his origin, nothing was known; +of the beginning of his career, very little. It was rumored that he had +come to town with very little money, a few hundred francs at the most. + +It was from this slender capital, enlisted in the service of an +ingenious idea, developed by method and thought, that he had drawn his +own fortune, and the fortune of the whole countryside. + +On his arrival at M. sur M. he had only the garments, the appearance, +and the language of a workingman. + +It appears that on the very day when he made his obscure entry into +the little town of M. sur M., just at nightfall, on a December evening, +knapsack on back and thorn club in hand, a large fire had broken out +in the town-hall. This man had rushed into the flames and saved, at the +risk of his own life, two children who belonged to the captain of the +gendarmerie; this is why they had forgotten to ask him for his passport. +Afterwards they had learned his name. He was called Father Madeleine. + + + + +CHAPTER II--MADELEINE + +He was a man about fifty years of age, who had a preoccupied air, and +who was good. That was all that could be said about him. + +Thanks to the rapid progress of the industry which he had so admirably +re-constructed, M. sur M. had become a rather important centre of trade. +Spain, which consumes a good deal of black jet, made enormous purchases +there each year. M. sur M. almost rivalled London and Berlin in this +branch of commerce. Father Madeleine's profits were such, that at the +end of the second year he was able to erect a large factory, in which +there were two vast workrooms, one for the men, and the other for women. +Any one who was hungry could present himself there, and was sure of +finding employment and bread. Father Madeleine required of the men good +will, of the women pure morals, and of all, probity. He had separated +the work-rooms in order to separate the sexes, and so that the women and +girls might remain discreet. On this point he was inflexible. It was the +only thing in which he was in a manner intolerant. He was all the more +firmly set on this severity, since M. sur M., being a garrison town, +opportunities for corruption abounded. However, his coming had been a +boon, and his presence was a godsend. Before Father Madeleine's arrival, +everything had languished in the country; now everything lived with +a healthy life of toil. A strong circulation warmed everything and +penetrated everywhere. Slack seasons and wretchedness were unknown. +There was no pocket so obscure that it had not a little money in it; no +dwelling so lowly that there was not some little joy within it. + +Father Madeleine gave employment to every one. He exacted but one thing: +Be an honest man. Be an honest woman. + +As we have said, in the midst of this activity of which he was the cause +and the pivot, Father Madeleine made his fortune; but a singular thing +in a simple man of business, it did not seem as though that were his +chief care. He appeared to be thinking much of others, and little of +himself. In 1820 he was known to have a sum of six hundred and thirty +thousand francs lodged in his name with Laffitte; but before reserving +these six hundred and thirty thousand francs, he had spent more than a +million for the town and its poor. + +The hospital was badly endowed; he founded six beds there. M. sur M. is +divided into the upper and the lower town. The lower town, in which he +lived, had but one school, a miserable hovel, which was falling to ruin: +he constructed two, one for girls, the other for boys. He allotted a +salary from his own funds to the two instructors, a salary twice as +large as their meagre official salary, and one day he said to some one +who expressed surprise, "The two prime functionaries of the state are +the nurse and the schoolmaster." He created at his own expense an infant +school, a thing then almost unknown in France, and a fund for aiding old +and infirm workmen. As his factory was a centre, a new quarter, in which +there were a good many indigent families, rose rapidly around him; he +established there a free dispensary. + +At first, when they watched his beginnings, the good souls said, "He's +a jolly fellow who means to get rich." When they saw him enriching +the country before he enriched himself, the good souls said, "He is +an ambitious man." This seemed all the more probable since the man was +religious, and even practised his religion to a certain degree, a thing +which was very favorably viewed at that epoch. He went regularly to +low mass every Sunday. The local deputy, who nosed out all rivalry +everywhere, soon began to grow uneasy over this religion. This deputy +had been a member of the legislative body of the Empire, and shared the +religious ideas of a father of the Oratoire, known under the name +of Fouche, Duc d'Otrante, whose creature and friend he had been. He +indulged in gentle raillery at God with closed doors. But when he beheld +the wealthy manufacturer Madeleine going to low mass at seven o'clock, +he perceived in him a possible candidate, and resolved to outdo him; he +took a Jesuit confessor, and went to high mass and to vespers. Ambition +was at that time, in the direct acceptation of the word, a race to the +steeple. The poor profited by this terror as well as the good God, for +the honorable deputy also founded two beds in the hospital, which made +twelve. + +Nevertheless, in 1819 a rumor one morning circulated through the town +to the effect that, on the representations of the prefect and in +consideration of the services rendered by him to the country, Father +Madeleine was to be appointed by the King, mayor of M. sur M. Those who +had pronounced this new-comer to be "an ambitious fellow," seized with +delight on this opportunity which all men desire, to exclaim, "There! +what did we say!" All M. sur M. was in an uproar. The rumor was well +founded. Several days later the appointment appeared in the Moniteur. On +the following day Father Madeleine refused. + +In this same year of 1819 the products of the new process invented by +Madeleine figured in the industrial exhibition; when the jury made their +report, the King appointed the inventor a chevalier of the Legion of +Honor. A fresh excitement in the little town. Well, so it was the cross +that he wanted! Father Madeleine refused the cross. + +Decidedly this man was an enigma. The good souls got out of their +predicament by saying, "After all, he is some sort of an adventurer." + +We have seen that the country owed much to him; the poor owed him +everything; he was so useful and he was so gentle that people had been +obliged to honor and respect him. His workmen, in particular, adored +him, and he endured this adoration with a sort of melancholy gravity. +When he was known to be rich, "people in society" bowed to him, and +he received invitations in the town; he was called, in town, Monsieur +Madeleine; his workmen and the children continued to call him Father +Madeleine, and that was what was most adapted to make him smile. In +proportion as he mounted, throve, invitations rained down upon him. +"Society" claimed him for its own. The prim little drawing-rooms on +M. sur M., which, of course, had at first been closed to the artisan, +opened both leaves of their folding-doors to the millionnaire. They made +a thousand advances to him. He refused. + +This time the good gossips had no trouble. "He is an ignorant man, of +no education. No one knows where he came from. He would not know how to +behave in society. It has not been absolutely proved that he knows how +to read." + +When they saw him making money, they said, "He is a man of business." +When they saw him scattering his money about, they said, "He is an +ambitious man." When he was seen to decline honors, they said, "He is +an adventurer." When they saw him repulse society, they said, "He is a +brute." + +In 1820, five years after his arrival in M. sur M., the services which +he had rendered to the district were so dazzling, the opinion of +the whole country round about was so unanimous, that the King again +appointed him mayor of the town. He again declined; but the prefect +resisted his refusal, all the notabilities of the place came to implore +him, the people in the street besought him; the urging was so vigorous +that he ended by accepting. It was noticed that the thing which seemed +chiefly to bring him to a decision was the almost irritated apostrophe +addressed to him by an old woman of the people, who called to him from +her threshold, in an angry way: "A good mayor is a useful thing. Is he +drawing back before the good which he can do?" + +This was the third phase of his ascent. Father Madeleine had become +Monsieur Madeleine. Monsieur Madeleine became Monsieur le Maire. + + + + +CHAPTER III--SUMS DEPOSITED WITH LAFFITTE + +On the other hand, he remained as simple as on the first day. He had +gray hair, a serious eye, the sunburned complexion of a laborer, the +thoughtful visage of a philosopher. He habitually wore a hat with a +wide brim, and a long coat of coarse cloth, buttoned to the chin. He +fulfilled his duties as mayor; but, with that exception, he lived in +solitude. He spoke to but few people. He avoided polite attentions; +he escaped quickly; he smiled to relieve himself of the necessity of +talking; he gave, in order to get rid of the necessity for smiling, The +women said of him, "What a good-natured bear!" His pleasure consisted in +strolling in the fields. + +He always took his meals alone, with an open book before him, which he +read. He had a well-selected little library. He loved books; books +are cold but safe friends. In proportion as leisure came to him with +fortune, he seemed to take advantage of it to cultivate his mind. It had +been observed that, ever since his arrival at M. sur M.. his language +had grown more polished, more choice, and more gentle with every passing +year. He liked to carry a gun with him on his strolls, but he rarely +made use of it. When he did happen to do so, his shooting was something +so infallible as to inspire terror. He never killed an inoffensive +animal. He never shot at a little bird. + +Although he was no longer young, it was thought that he was still +prodigiously strong. He offered his assistance to any one who was in +need of it, lifted a horse, released a wheel clogged in the mud, or +stopped a runaway bull by the horns. He always had his pockets full +of money when he went out; but they were empty on his return. When he +passed through a village, the ragged brats ran joyously after him, and +surrounded him like a swarm of gnats. + +It was thought that he must, in the past, have lived a country life, +since he knew all sorts of useful secrets, which he taught to the +peasants. He taught them how to destroy scurf on wheat, by sprinkling it +and the granary and inundating the cracks in the floor with a solution +of common salt; and how to chase away weevils by hanging up orviot in +bloom everywhere, on the walls and the ceilings, among the grass and in +the houses. + +He had "recipes" for exterminating from a field, blight, tares, foxtail, +and all parasitic growths which destroy the wheat. He defended a rabbit +warren against rats, simply by the odor of a guinea-pig which he placed +in it. + +One day he saw some country people busily engaged in pulling up nettles; +he examined the plants, which were uprooted and already dried, and said: +"They are dead. Nevertheless, it would be a good thing to know how to +make use of them. When the nettle is young, the leaf makes an excellent +vegetable; when it is older, it has filaments and fibres like hemp and +flax. Nettle cloth is as good as linen cloth. Chopped up, nettles are +good for poultry; pounded, they are good for horned cattle. The seed of +the nettle, mixed with fodder, gives gloss to the hair of animals; the +root, mixed with salt, produces a beautiful yellow coloring-matter. +Moreover, it is an excellent hay, which can be cut twice. And what is +required for the nettle? A little soil, no care, no culture. Only the +seed falls as it is ripe, and it is difficult to collect it. That +is all. With the exercise of a little care, the nettle could be made +useful; it is neglected and it becomes hurtful. It is exterminated. How +many men resemble the nettle!" He added, after a pause: "Remember this, +my friends: there are no such things as bad plants or bad men. There are +only bad cultivators." + +The children loved him because he knew how to make charming little +trifles of straw and cocoanuts. + +When he saw the door of a church hung in black, he entered: he sought +out funerals as other men seek christenings. Widowhood and the grief of +others attracted him, because of his great gentleness; he mingled with +the friends clad in mourning, with families dressed in black, with +the priests groaning around a coffin. He seemed to like to give to his +thoughts for text these funereal psalmodies filled with the vision of +the other world. With his eyes fixed on heaven, he listened with a +sort of aspiration towards all the mysteries of the infinite, those sad +voices which sing on the verge of the obscure abyss of death. + +He performed a multitude of good actions, concealing his agency in them +as a man conceals himself because of evil actions. He penetrated houses +privately, at night; he ascended staircases furtively. A poor wretch +on returning to his attic would find that his door had been opened, +sometimes even forced, during his absence. The poor man made a clamor +over it: some malefactor had been there! He entered, and the first +thing he beheld was a piece of gold lying forgotten on some piece of +furniture. The "malefactor" who had been there was Father Madeleine. + +He was affable and sad. The people said: "There is a rich man who has +not a haughty air. There is a happy man who has not a contented air." + +Some people maintained that he was a mysterious person, and that no +one ever entered his chamber, which was a regular anchorite's cell, +furnished with winged hour-glasses and enlivened by cross-bones and +skulls of dead men! This was much talked of, so that one of the elegant +and malicious young women of M. sur M. came to him one day, and asked: +"Monsieur le Maire, pray show us your chamber. It is said to be a +grotto." He smiled, and introduced them instantly into this "grotto." +They were well punished for their curiosity. The room was very simply +furnished in mahogany, which was rather ugly, like all furniture of +that sort, and hung with paper worth twelve sous. They could see nothing +remarkable about it, except two candlesticks of antique pattern which +stood on the chimney-piece and appeared to be silver, "for they were +hall-marked," an observation full of the type of wit of petty towns. + +Nevertheless, people continued to say that no one ever got into the +room, and that it was a hermit's cave, a mysterious retreat, a hole, a +tomb. + +It was also whispered about that he had "immense" sums deposited with +Laffitte, with this peculiar feature, that they were always at his +immediate disposal, so that, it was added, M. Madeleine could make his +appearance at Laffitte's any morning, sign a receipt, and carry off his +two or three millions in ten minutes. In reality, "these two or three +millions" were reducible, as we have said, to six hundred and thirty or +forty thousand francs. + + + + +CHAPTER IV--M. MADELEINE IN MOURNING + +At the beginning of 1820 the newspapers announced the death of M. +Myriel, Bishop of D----, surnamed "Monseigneur Bienvenu," who had died +in the odor of sanctity at the age of eighty-two. + +The Bishop of D---- to supply here a detail which the papers +omitted--had been blind for many years before his death, and content to +be blind, as his sister was beside him. + +Let us remark by the way, that to be blind and to be loved, is, in fact, +one of the most strangely exquisite forms of happiness upon this earth, +where nothing is complete. To have continually at one's side a woman, a +daughter, a sister, a charming being, who is there because you need her +and because she cannot do without you; to know that we are indispensable +to a person who is necessary to us; to be able to incessantly measure +one's affection by the amount of her presence which she bestows on us, +and to say to ourselves, "Since she consecrates the whole of her time +to me, it is because I possess the whole of her heart"; to behold her +thought in lieu of her face; to be able to verify the fidelity of one +being amid the eclipse of the world; to regard the rustle of a gown +as the sound of wings; to hear her come and go, retire, speak, return, +sing, and to think that one is the centre of these steps, of this +speech; to manifest at each instant one's personal attraction; to feel +one's self all the more powerful because of one's infirmity; to become +in one's obscurity, and through one's obscurity, the star around which +this angel gravitates,--few felicities equal this. The supreme happiness +of life consists in the conviction that one is loved; loved for +one's own sake--let us say rather, loved in spite of one's self; this +conviction the blind man possesses. To be served in distress is to be +caressed. Does he lack anything? No. One does not lose the sight when +one has love. And what love! A love wholly constituted of virtue! There +is no blindness where there is certainty. Soul seeks soul, gropingly, +and finds it. And this soul, found and tested, is a woman. A hand +sustains you; it is hers: a mouth lightly touches your brow; it is her +mouth: you hear a breath very near you; it is hers. To have everything +of her, from her worship to her pity, never to be left, to have that +sweet weakness aiding you, to lean upon that immovable reed, to +touch Providence with one's hands, and to be able to take it in +one's arms,--God made tangible,--what bliss! The heart, that obscure, +celestial flower, undergoes a mysterious blossoming. One would not +exchange that shadow for all brightness! The angel soul is there, +uninterruptedly there; if she departs, it is but to return again; she +vanishes like a dream, and reappears like reality. One feels warmth +approaching, and behold! she is there. One overflows with serenity, with +gayety, with ecstasy; one is a radiance amid the night. And there are +a thousand little cares. Nothings, which are enormous in that void. The +most ineffable accents of the feminine voice employed to lull you, and +supplying the vanished universe to you. One is caressed with the soul. +One sees nothing, but one feels that one is adored. It is a paradise of +shadows. + +It was from this paradise that Monseigneur Welcome had passed to the +other. + +The announcement of his death was reprinted by the local journal of M. +sur M. On the following day, M. Madeleine appeared clad wholly in black, +and with crape on his hat. + +This mourning was noticed in the town, and commented on. It seemed +to throw a light on M. Madeleine's origin. It was concluded that some +relationship existed between him and the venerable Bishop. "He has gone +into mourning for the Bishop of D----" said the drawing-rooms; this +raised M. Madeleine's credit greatly, and procured for him, instantly +and at one blow, a certain consideration in the noble world of M. sur +M. The microscopic Faubourg Saint-Germain of the place meditated raising +the quarantine against M. Madeleine, the probable relative of a bishop. +M. Madeleine perceived the advancement which he had obtained, by the +more numerous courtesies of the old women and the more plentiful smiles +of the young ones. One evening, a ruler in that petty great world, who +was curious by right of seniority, ventured to ask him, "M. le Maire is +doubtless a cousin of the late Bishop of D----?" + +He said, "No, Madame." + +"But," resumed the dowager, "you are wearing mourning for him." + +He replied, "It is because I was a servant in his family in my youth." + +Another thing which was remarked, was, that every time that he +encountered in the town a young Savoyard who was roaming about the +country and seeking chimneys to sweep, the mayor had him summoned, +inquired his name, and gave him money. The little Savoyards told each +other about it: a great many of them passed that way. + + + + +CHAPTER V--VAGUE FLASHES ON THE HORIZON + +Little by little, and in the course of time, all this opposition +subsided. There had at first been exercised against M. Madeleine, +in virtue of a sort of law which all those who rise must submit to, +blackening and calumnies; then they grew to be nothing more than +ill-nature, then merely malicious remarks, then even this entirely +disappeared; respect became complete, unanimous, cordial, and towards +1821 the moment arrived when the word "Monsieur le Maire" was pronounced +at M. sur M. with almost the same accent as "Monseigneur the Bishop" +had been pronounced in D---- in 1815. People came from a distance of ten +leagues around to consult M. Madeleine. He put an end to differences, +he prevented lawsuits, he reconciled enemies. Every one took him for the +judge, and with good reason. It seemed as though he had for a soul the +book of the natural law. It was like an epidemic of veneration, which in +the course of six or seven years gradually took possession of the whole +district. + +One single man in the town, in the arrondissement, absolutely escaped +this contagion, and, whatever Father Madeleine did, remained his +opponent as though a sort of incorruptible and imperturbable instinct +kept him on the alert and uneasy. It seems, in fact, as though there +existed in certain men a veritable bestial instinct, though pure and +upright, like all instincts, which creates antipathies and sympathies, +which fatally separates one nature from another nature, which does not +hesitate, which feels no disquiet, which does not hold its peace, +and which never belies itself, clear in its obscurity, infallible, +imperious, intractable, stubborn to all counsels of the intelligence +and to all the dissolvents of reason, and which, in whatever manner +destinies are arranged, secretly warns the man-dog of the presence of +the man-cat, and the man-fox of the presence of the man-lion. + +It frequently happened that when M. Madeleine was passing along a +street, calm, affectionate, surrounded by the blessings of all, a man of +lofty stature, clad in an iron-gray frock-coat, armed with a heavy +cane, and wearing a battered hat, turned round abruptly behind him, and +followed him with his eyes until he disappeared, with folded arms and +a slow shake of the head, and his upper lip raised in company with +his lower to his nose, a sort of significant grimace which might be +translated by: "What is that man, after all? I certainly have seen him +somewhere. In any case, I am not his dupe." + +This person, grave with a gravity which was almost menacing, was one +of those men who, even when only seen by a rapid glimpse, arrest the +spectator's attention. + +His name was Javert, and he belonged to the police. + +At M. sur M. he exercised the unpleasant but useful functions of an +inspector. He had not seen Madeleine's beginnings. Javert owed the post +which he occupied to the protection of M. Chabouillet, the secretary of +the Minister of State, Comte Angeles, then prefect of police at Paris. +When Javert arrived at M. sur M. the fortune of the great manufacturer +was already made, and Father Madeleine had become Monsieur Madeleine. + +Certain police officers have a peculiar physiognomy, which is +complicated with an air of baseness mingled with an air of authority. +Javert possessed this physiognomy minus the baseness. + +It is our conviction that if souls were visible to the eyes, we should +be able to see distinctly that strange thing that each one individual +of the human race corresponds to some one of the species of the animal +creation; and we could easily recognize this truth, hardly perceived +by the thinker, that from the oyster to the eagle, from the pig to the +tiger, all animals exist in man, and that each one of them is in a man. +Sometimes even several of them at a time. + +Animals are nothing else than the figures of our virtues and our vices, +straying before our eyes, the visible phantoms of our souls. God shows +them to us in order to induce us to reflect. Only since animals are mere +shadows, God has not made them capable of education in the full sense +of the word; what is the use? On the contrary, our souls being realities +and having a goal which is appropriate to them, God has bestowed on +them intelligence; that is to say, the possibility of education. Social +education, when well done, can always draw from a soul, of whatever sort +it may be, the utility which it contains. + +This, be it said, is of course from the restricted point of view of the +terrestrial life which is apparent, and without prejudging the profound +question of the anterior or ulterior personality of the beings which are +not man. The visible _I_ in nowise authorizes the thinker to deny the +latent _I_. Having made this reservation, let us pass on. + +Now, if the reader will admit, for a moment, with us, that in every man +there is one of the animal species of creation, it will be easy for us +to say what there was in Police Officer Javert. + +The peasants of Asturias are convinced that in every litter of wolves +there is one dog, which is killed by the mother because, otherwise, as +he grew up, he would devour the other little ones. + +Give to this dog-son of a wolf a human face, and the result will be +Javert. + +Javert had been born in prison, of a fortune-teller, whose husband was +in the galleys. As he grew up, he thought that he was outside the pale +of society, and he despaired of ever re-entering it. He observed that +society unpardoningly excludes two classes of men,--those who attack +it and those who guard it; he had no choice except between these +two classes; at the same time, he was conscious of an indescribable +foundation of rigidity, regularity, and probity, complicated with an +inexpressible hatred for the race of bohemians whence he was sprung. He +entered the police; he succeeded there. At forty years of age he was an +inspector. + +During his youth he had been employed in the convict establishments of +the South. + +Before proceeding further, let us come to an understanding as to the +words, "human face," which we have just applied to Javert. + +The human face of Javert consisted of a flat nose, with two deep +nostrils, towards which enormous whiskers ascended on his cheeks. One +felt ill at ease when he saw these two forests and these two caverns +for the first time. When Javert laughed,--and his laugh was rare and +terrible,--his thin lips parted and revealed to view not only his teeth, +but his gums, and around his nose there formed a flattened and savage +fold, as on the muzzle of a wild beast. Javert, serious, was a watchdog; +when he laughed, he was a tiger. As for the rest, he had very little +skull and a great deal of jaw; his hair concealed his forehead and +fell over his eyebrows; between his eyes there was a permanent, central +frown, like an imprint of wrath; his gaze was obscure; his mouth pursed +up and terrible; his air that of ferocious command. + +This man was composed of two very simple and two very good sentiments, +comparatively; but he rendered them almost bad, by dint of exaggerating +them,--respect for authority, hatred of rebellion; and in his eyes, +murder, robbery, all crimes, are only forms of rebellion. He enveloped +in a blind and profound faith every one who had a function in the state, +from the prime minister to the rural policeman. He covered with scorn, +aversion, and disgust every one who had once crossed the legal threshold +of evil. He was absolute, and admitted no exceptions. On the one hand, +he said, "The functionary can make no mistake; the magistrate is never +the wrong." On the other hand, he said, "These men are irremediably +lost. Nothing good can come from them." He fully shared the opinion of +those extreme minds which attribute to human law I know not what power +of making, or, if the reader will have it so, of authenticating, demons, +and who place a Styx at the base of society. He was stoical, serious, +austere; a melancholy dreamer, humble and haughty, like fanatics. His +glance was like a gimlet, cold and piercing. His whole life hung on +these two words: watchfulness and supervision. He had introduced a +straight line into what is the most crooked thing in the world; +he possessed the conscience of his usefulness, the religion of his +functions, and he was a spy as other men are priests. Woe to the man +who fell into his hands! He would have arrested his own father, if +the latter had escaped from the galleys, and would have denounced his +mother, if she had broken her ban. And he would have done it with that +sort of inward satisfaction which is conferred by virtue. And, withal, +a life of privation, isolation, abnegation, chastity, with never +a diversion. It was implacable duty; the police understood, as the +Spartans understood Sparta, a pitiless lying in wait, a ferocious +honesty, a marble informer, Brutus in Vidocq. + +Javert's whole person was expressive of the man who spies and who +withdraws himself from observation. The mystical school of Joseph de +Maistre, which at that epoch seasoned with lofty cosmogony those things +which were called the ultra newspapers, would not have failed to declare +that Javert was a symbol. His brow was not visible; it disappeared +beneath his hat: his eyes were not visible, since they were lost under +his eyebrows: his chin was not visible, for it was plunged in his +cravat: his hands were not visible; they were drawn up in his sleeves: +and his cane was not visible; he carried it under his coat. But when the +occasion presented itself, there was suddenly seen to emerge from all +this shadow, as from an ambuscade, a narrow and angular forehead, a +baleful glance, a threatening chin, enormous hands, and a monstrous +cudgel. + +In his leisure moments, which were far from frequent, he read, although +he hated books; this caused him to be not wholly illiterate. This could +be recognized by some emphasis in his speech. + +As we have said, he had no vices. When he was pleased with himself, +he permitted himself a pinch of snuff. Therein lay his connection with +humanity. + +The reader will have no difficulty in understanding that Javert was the +terror of that whole class which the annual statistics of the Ministry +of Justice designates under the rubric, Vagrants. The name of Javert +routed them by its mere utterance; the face of Javert petrified them at +sight. + +Such was this formidable man. + +Javert was like an eye constantly fixed on M. Madeleine. An eye full of +suspicion and conjecture. M. Madeleine had finally perceived the fact; +but it seemed to be of no importance to him. He did not even put a +question to Javert; he neither sought nor avoided him; he bore that +embarrassing and almost oppressive gaze without appearing to notice it. +He treated Javert with ease and courtesy, as he did all the rest of the +world. + +It was divined, from some words which escaped Javert, that he had +secretly investigated, with that curiosity which belongs to the race, +and into which there enters as much instinct as will, all the anterior +traces which Father Madeleine might have left elsewhere. He seemed to +know, and he sometimes said in covert words, that some one had gleaned +certain information in a certain district about a family which had +disappeared. Once he chanced to say, as he was talking to himself, "I +think I have him!" Then he remained pensive for three days, and uttered +not a word. It seemed that the thread which he thought he held had +broken. + +Moreover, and this furnishes the necessary corrective for the too +absolute sense which certain words might present, there can be nothing +really infallible in a human creature, and the peculiarity of instinct +is that it can become confused, thrown off the track, and defeated. +Otherwise, it would be superior to intelligence, and the beast would be +found to be provided with a better light than man. + +Javert was evidently somewhat disconcerted by the perfect naturalness +and tranquillity of M. Madeleine. + +One day, nevertheless, his strange manner appeared to produce an +impression on M. Madeleine. It was on the following occasion. + + + + +CHAPTER VI--FATHER FAUCHELEVENT + +One morning M. Madeleine was passing through an unpaved alley of M. sur +M.; he heard a noise, and saw a group some distance away. He approached. +An old man named Father Fauchelevent had just fallen beneath his cart, +his horse having tumbled down. + +This Fauchelevent was one of the few enemies whom M. Madeleine had at +that time. When Madeleine arrived in the neighborhood, Fauchelevent, an +ex-notary and a peasant who was almost educated, had a business which +was beginning to be in a bad way. Fauchelevent had seen this simple +workman grow rich, while he, a lawyer, was being ruined. This had filled +him with jealousy, and he had done all he could, on every occasion, +to injure Madeleine. Then bankruptcy had come; and as the old man had +nothing left but a cart and a horse, and neither family nor children, he +had turned carter. + +The horse had two broken legs and could not rise. The old man was caught +in the wheels. The fall had been so unlucky that the whole weight of the +vehicle rested on his breast. The cart was quite heavily laden. Father +Fauchelevent was rattling in the throat in the most lamentable manner. +They had tried, but in vain, to drag him out. An unmethodical effort, +aid awkwardly given, a wrong shake, might kill him. It was impossible to +disengage him otherwise than by lifting the vehicle off of him. +Javert, who had come up at the moment of the accident, had sent for a +jack-screw. + +M. Madeleine arrived. People stood aside respectfully. + +"Help!" cried old Fauchelevent. "Who will be good and save the old man?" + +M. Madeleine turned towards those present:-- + +"Is there a jack-screw to be had?" + +"One has been sent for," answered the peasant. + +"How long will it take to get it?" + +"They have gone for the nearest, to Flachot's place, where there is a +farrier; but it makes no difference; it will take a good quarter of an +hour." + +"A quarter of an hour!" exclaimed Madeleine. + +It had rained on the preceding night; the soil was soaked. + +The cart was sinking deeper into the earth every moment, and crushing +the old carter's breast more and more. It was evident that his ribs +would be broken in five minutes more. + +"It is impossible to wait another quarter of an hour," said Madeleine to +the peasants, who were staring at him. + +"We must!" + +"But it will be too late then! Don't you see that the cart is sinking?" + +"Well!" + +"Listen," resumed Madeleine; "there is still room enough under the cart +to allow a man to crawl beneath it and raise it with his back. Only half +a minute, and the poor man can be taken out. Is there any one here who +has stout loins and heart? There are five louis d'or to be earned!" + +Not a man in the group stirred. + +"Ten louis," said Madeleine. + +The persons present dropped their eyes. One of them muttered: "A man +would need to be devilish strong. And then he runs the risk of getting +crushed!" + +"Come," began Madeleine again, "twenty louis." + +The same silence. + +"It is not the will which is lacking," said a voice. + +M. Madeleine turned round, and recognized Javert. He had not noticed him +on his arrival. + +Javert went on:-- + +"It is strength. One would have to be a terrible man to do such a thing +as lift a cart like that on his back." + +Then, gazing fixedly at M. Madeleine, he went on, emphasizing every word +that he uttered:-- + +"Monsieur Madeleine, I have never known but one man capable of doing +what you ask." + +Madeleine shuddered. + +Javert added, with an air of indifference, but without removing his eyes +from Madeleine:-- + +"He was a convict." + +"Ah!" said Madeleine. + +"In the galleys at Toulon." + +Madeleine turned pale. + +Meanwhile, the cart continued to sink slowly. Father Fauchelevent +rattled in the throat, and shrieked:-- + +"I am strangling! My ribs are breaking! a screw! something! Ah!" + +Madeleine glanced about him. + +"Is there, then, no one who wishes to earn twenty louis and save the +life of this poor old man?" + +No one stirred. Javert resumed:-- + +"I have never known but one man who could take the place of a screw, and +he was that convict." + +"Ah! It is crushing me!" cried the old man. + +Madeleine raised his head, met Javert's falcon eye still fixed upon +him, looked at the motionless peasants, and smiled sadly. Then, without +saying a word, he fell on his knees, and before the crowd had even had +time to utter a cry, he was underneath the vehicle. + +A terrible moment of expectation and silence ensued. + +They beheld Madeleine, almost flat on his stomach beneath that terrible +weight, make two vain efforts to bring his knees and his elbows +together. They shouted to him, "Father Madeleine, come out!" Old +Fauchelevent himself said to him, "Monsieur Madeleine, go away! You see +that I am fated to die! Leave me! You will get yourself crushed also!" +Madeleine made no reply. + +All the spectators were panting. The wheels had continued to sink, and +it had become almost impossible for Madeleine to make his way from under +the vehicle. + +Suddenly the enormous mass was seen to quiver, the cart rose slowly, the +wheels half emerged from the ruts. They heard a stifled voice crying, +"Make haste! Help!" It was Madeleine, who had just made a final effort. + +They rushed forwards. The devotion of a single man had given force and +courage to all. The cart was raised by twenty arms. Old Fauchelevent was +saved. + +Madeleine rose. He was pale, though dripping with perspiration. His +clothes were torn and covered with mud. All wept. The old man kissed +his knees and called him the good God. As for him, he bore upon +his countenance an indescribable expression of happy and celestial +suffering, and he fixed his tranquil eye on Javert, who was still +staring at him. + + + + +CHAPTER VII--FAUCHELEVENT BECOMES A GARDENER IN PARIS + + +Fauchelevent had dislocated his kneepan in his fall. Father Madeleine +had him conveyed to an infirmary which he had established for his +workmen in the factory building itself, and which was served by two +sisters of charity. On the following morning the old man found a +thousand-franc bank-note on his night-stand, with these words in Father +Madeleine's writing: "I purchase your horse and cart." The cart was +broken, and the horse was dead. Fauchelevent recovered, but his knee +remained stiff. M. Madeleine, on the recommendation of the sisters of +charity and of his priest, got the good man a place as gardener in a +female convent in the Rue Saint-Antoine in Paris. + +Some time afterwards, M. Madeleine was appointed mayor. The first time +that Javert beheld M. Madeleine clothed in the scarf which gave him +authority over the town, he felt the sort of shudder which a watch-dog +might experience on smelling a wolf in his master's clothes. From +that time forth he avoided him as much as he possibly could. When the +requirements of the service imperatively demanded it, and he could +not do otherwise than meet the mayor, he addressed him with profound +respect. + +This prosperity created at M. sur M. by Father Madeleine had, besides +the visible signs which we have mentioned, another symptom which was +none the less significant for not being visible. This never deceives. +When the population suffers, when work is lacking, when there is no +commerce, the tax-payer resists imposts through penury, he exhausts and +oversteps his respite, and the state expends a great deal of money in +the charges for compelling and collection. When work is abundant, when +the country is rich and happy, the taxes are paid easily and cost the +state nothing. It may be said, that there is one infallible thermometer +of the public misery and riches,--the cost of collecting the taxes. +In the course of seven years the expense of collecting the taxes had +diminished three-fourths in the arrondissement of M. sur M., and this +led to this arrondissement being frequently cited from all the rest by +M. de Villele, then Minister of Finance. + +Such was the condition of the country when Fantine returned thither. No +one remembered her. Fortunately, the door of M. Madeleine's factory was +like the face of a friend. She presented herself there, and was admitted +to the women's workroom. The trade was entirely new to Fantine; she +could not be very skilful at it, and she therefore earned but little by +her day's work; but it was sufficient; the problem was solved; she was +earning her living. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII--MADAME VICTURNIEN EXPENDS THIRTY FRANCS ON MORALITY + +When Fantine saw that she was making her living, she felt joyful for a +moment. To live honestly by her own labor, what mercy from heaven! The +taste for work had really returned to her. She bought a looking-glass, +took pleasure in surveying in it her youth, her beautiful hair, her fine +teeth; she forgot many things; she thought only of Cosette and of the +possible future, and was almost happy. She hired a little room and +furnished on credit on the strength of her future work--a lingering +trace of her improvident ways. As she was not able to say that she was +married she took good care, as we have seen, not to mention her little +girl. + +At first, as the reader has seen, she paid the Thenardiers promptly. As +she only knew how to sign her name, she was obliged to write through a +public letter-writer. + +She wrote often, and this was noticed. It began to be said in an +undertone, in the women's workroom, that Fantine "wrote letters" and +that "she had ways about her." + +There is no one for spying on people's actions like those who are +not concerned in them. Why does that gentleman never come except at +nightfall? Why does Mr. So-and-So never hang his key on its nail on +Tuesday? Why does he always take the narrow streets? Why does Madame +always descend from her hackney-coach before reaching her house? Why +does she send out to purchase six sheets of note paper, when she has a +"whole stationer's shop full of it?" etc. There exist beings who, for +the sake of obtaining the key to these enigmas, which are, moreover, of +no consequence whatever to them, spend more money, waste more time, +take more trouble, than would be required for ten good actions, and +that gratuitously, for their own pleasure, without receiving any other +payment for their curiosity than curiosity. They will follow up such and +such a man or woman for whole days; they will do sentry duty for hours +at a time on the corners of the streets, under alley-way doors at night, +in cold and rain; they will bribe errand-porters, they will make the +drivers of hackney-coaches and lackeys tipsy, buy a waiting-maid, suborn +a porter. Why? For no reason. A pure passion for seeing, knowing, +and penetrating into things. A pure itch for talking. And often +these secrets once known, these mysteries made public, these enigmas +illuminated by the light of day, bring on catastrophies, duels, +failures, the ruin of families, and broken lives, to the great joy +of those who have "found out everything," without any interest in the +matter, and by pure instinct. A sad thing. + +Certain persons are malicious solely through a necessity for talking. +Their conversation, the chat of the drawing-room, gossip of the +anteroom, is like those chimneys which consume wood rapidly; they need +a great amount of combustibles; and their combustibles are furnished by +their neighbors. + +So Fantine was watched. + +In addition, many a one was jealous of her golden hair and of her white +teeth. + +It was remarked that in the workroom she often turned aside, in the +midst of the rest, to wipe away a tear. These were the moments when she +was thinking of her child; perhaps, also, of the man whom she had loved. + +Breaking the gloomy bonds of the past is a mournful task. + +It was observed that she wrote twice a month at least, and that she +paid the carriage on the letter. They managed to obtain the address: +Monsieur, Monsieur Thenardier, inn-keeper at Montfermeil. The public +writer, a good old man who could not fill his stomach with red wine +without emptying his pocket of secrets, was made to talk in the +wine-shop. In short, it was discovered that Fantine had a child. "She +must be a pretty sort of a woman." An old gossip was found, who made the +trip to Montfermeil, talked to the Thenardiers, and said on her return: +"For my five and thirty francs I have freed my mind. I have seen the +child." + +The gossip who did this thing was a gorgon named Madame Victurnien, the +guardian and door-keeper of every one's virtue. Madame Victurnien was +fifty-six, and re-enforced the mask of ugliness with the mask of age. +A quavering voice, a whimsical mind. This old dame had once been +young--astonishing fact! In her youth, in '93, she had married a +monk who had fled from his cloister in a red cap, and passed from +the Bernardines to the Jacobins. She was dry, rough, peevish, sharp, +captious, almost venomous; all this in memory of her monk, whose widow +she was, and who had ruled over her masterfully and bent her to his +will. She was a nettle in which the rustle of the cassock was visible. +At the Restoration she had turned bigot, and that with so much energy +that the priests had forgiven her her monk. She had a small property, +which she bequeathed with much ostentation to a religious community. +She was in high favor at the episcopal palace of Arras. So this Madame +Victurnien went to Montfermeil, and returned with the remark, "I have +seen the child." + +All this took time. Fantine had been at the factory for more than a +year, when, one morning, the superintendent of the workroom handed her +fifty francs from the mayor, told her that she was no longer employed +in the shop, and requested her, in the mayor's name, to leave the +neighborhood. + +This was the very month when the Thenardiers, after having demanded +twelve francs instead of six, had just exacted fifteen francs instead of +twelve. + +Fantine was overwhelmed. She could not leave the neighborhood; she was +in debt for her rent and furniture. Fifty francs was not sufficient +to cancel this debt. She stammered a few supplicating words. The +superintendent ordered her to leave the shop on the instant. Besides, +Fantine was only a moderately good workwoman. Overcome with shame, even +more than with despair, she quitted the shop, and returned to her room. +So her fault was now known to every one. + +She no longer felt strong enough to say a word. She was advised to +see the mayor; she did not dare. The mayor had given her fifty francs +because he was good, and had dismissed her because he was just. She +bowed before the decision. + + + + +CHAPTER IX--MADAME VICTURNIEN'S SUCCESS + +So the monk's widow was good for something. + +But M. Madeleine had heard nothing of all this. Life is full of just +such combinations of events. M. Madeleine was in the habit of almost +never entering the women's workroom. + +At the head of this room he had placed an elderly spinster, whom +the priest had provided for him, and he had full confidence in this +superintendent,--a truly respectable person, firm, equitable, upright, +full of the charity which consists in giving, but not having in the same +degree that charity which consists in understanding and in forgiving. +M. Madeleine relied wholly on her. The best men are often obliged +to delegate their authority. It was with this full power, and the +conviction that she was doing right, that the superintendent had +instituted the suit, judged, condemned, and executed Fantine. + +As regards the fifty francs, she had given them from a fund which M. +Madeleine had intrusted to her for charitable purposes, and for giving +assistance to the workwomen, and of which she rendered no account. + +Fantine tried to obtain a situation as a servant in the neighborhood; +she went from house to house. No one would have her. She could not +leave town. The second-hand dealer, to whom she was in debt for her +furniture--and what furniture!--said to her, "If you leave, I will have +you arrested as a thief." The householder, whom she owed for her rent, +said to her, "You are young and pretty; you can pay." She divided the +fifty francs between the landlord and the furniture-dealer, returned to +the latter three-quarters of his goods, kept only necessaries, and found +herself without work, without a trade, with nothing but her bed, and +still about fifty francs in debt. + +She began to make coarse shirts for soldiers of the garrison, and earned +twelve sous a day. Her daughter cost her ten. It was at this point that +she began to pay the Thenardiers irregularly. + +However, the old woman who lighted her candle for her when she returned +at night, taught her the art of living in misery. Back of living on +little, there is the living on nothing. These are the two chambers; the +first is dark, the second is black. + +Fantine learned how to live without fire entirely in the winter; how to +give up a bird which eats a half a farthing's worth of millet every +two days; how to make a coverlet of one's petticoat, and a petticoat of +one's coverlet; how to save one's candle, by taking one's meals by +the light of the opposite window. No one knows all that certain feeble +creatures, who have grown old in privation and honesty, can get out of +a sou. It ends by being a talent. Fantine acquired this sublime talent, +and regained a little courage. + +At this epoch she said to a neighbor, "Bah! I say to myself, by only +sleeping five hours, and working all the rest of the time at my sewing, +I shall always manage to nearly earn my bread. And, then, when one is +sad, one eats less. Well, sufferings, uneasiness, a little bread on one +hand, trouble on the other,--all this will support me." + +It would have been a great happiness to have her little girl with her in +this distress. She thought of having her come. But what then! Make her +share her own destitution! And then, she was in debt to the Thenardiers! +How could she pay them? And the journey! How pay for that? + +The old woman who had given her lessons in what may be called the life +of indigence, was a sainted spinster named Marguerite, who was pious +with a true piety, poor and charitable towards the poor, and even +towards the rich, knowing how to write just sufficiently to sign herself +Marguerite, and believing in God, which is science. + +There are many such virtuous people in this lower world; some day they +will be in the world above. This life has a morrow. + +At first, Fantine had been so ashamed that she had not dared to go out. + +When she was in the street, she divined that people turned round behind +her, and pointed at her; every one stared at her and no one greeted her; +the cold and bitter scorn of the passers-by penetrated her very flesh +and soul like a north wind. + +It seems as though an unfortunate woman were utterly bare beneath the +sarcasm and the curiosity of all in small towns. In Paris, at least, no +one knows you, and this obscurity is a garment. Oh! how she would have +liked to betake herself to Paris! Impossible! + +She was obliged to accustom herself to disrepute, as she had accustomed +herself to indigence. Gradually she decided on her course. At the +expiration of two or three months she shook off her shame, and began to +go about as though there were nothing the matter. "It is all the same to +me," she said. + +She went and came, bearing her head well up, with a bitter smile, and +was conscious that she was becoming brazen-faced. + +Madame Victurnien sometimes saw her passing, from her window, noticed +the distress of "that creature" who, "thanks to her," had been "put back +in her proper place," and congratulated herself. The happiness of the +evil-minded is black. + +Excess of toil wore out Fantine, and the little dry cough which troubled +her increased. She sometimes said to her neighbor, Marguerite, "Just +feel how hot my hands are!" + +Nevertheless, when she combed her beautiful hair in the morning with +an old broken comb, and it flowed about her like floss silk, she +experienced a moment of happy coquetry. + + + + +CHAPTER X--RESULT OF THE SUCCESS + +She had been dismissed towards the end of the winter; the summer passed, +but winter came again. Short days, less work. Winter: no warmth, +no light, no noonday, the evening joining on to the morning, fogs, +twilight; the window is gray; it is impossible to see clearly at it. The +sky is but a vent-hole. The whole day is a cavern. The sun has the air +of a beggar. A frightful season! Winter changes the water of heaven and +the heart of man into a stone. Her creditors harrassed her. + +Fantine earned too little. Her debts had increased. The Thenardiers, who +were not promptly paid, wrote to her constantly letters whose contents +drove her to despair, and whose carriage ruined her. One day they wrote +to her that her little Cosette was entirely naked in that cold weather, +that she needed a woollen skirt, and that her mother must send at least +ten francs for this. She received the letter, and crushed it in her +hands all day long. That evening she went into a barber's shop at the +corner of the street, and pulled out her comb. Her admirable golden hair +fell to her knees. + +"What splendid hair!" exclaimed the barber. + +"How much will you give me for it?" said she. + +"Ten francs." + +"Cut it off." + +She purchased a knitted petticoat and sent it to the Thenardiers. This +petticoat made the Thenardiers furious. It was the money that they +wanted. They gave the petticoat to Eponine. The poor Lark continued to +shiver. + +Fantine thought: "My child is no longer cold. I have clothed her with my +hair." She put on little round caps which concealed her shorn head, and +in which she was still pretty. + +Dark thoughts held possession of Fantine's heart. + +When she saw that she could no longer dress her hair, she began to hate +every one about her. She had long shared the universal veneration for +Father Madeleine; yet, by dint of repeating to herself that it was he +who had discharged her, that he was the cause of her unhappiness, she +came to hate him also, and most of all. When she passed the factory in +working hours, when the workpeople were at the door, she affected to +laugh and sing. + +An old workwoman who once saw her laughing and singing in this fashion +said, "There's a girl who will come to a bad end." + +She took a lover, the first who offered, a man whom she did not love, +out of bravado and with rage in her heart. He was a miserable scamp, +a sort of mendicant musician, a lazy beggar, who beat her, and who +abandoned her as she had taken him, in disgust. + +She adored her child. + +The lower she descended, the darker everything grew about her, the more +radiant shone that little angel at the bottom of her heart. She said, +"When I get rich, I will have my Cosette with me;" and she laughed. Her +cough did not leave her, and she had sweats on her back. + +One day she received from the Thenardiers a letter couched in the +following terms: "Cosette is ill with a malady which is going the rounds +of the neighborhood. A miliary fever, they call it. Expensive drugs are +required. This is ruining us, and we can no longer pay for them. If you +do not send us forty francs before the week is out, the little one will +be dead." + +She burst out laughing, and said to her old neighbor: "Ah! they are +good! Forty francs! the idea! That makes two napoleons! Where do they +think I am to get them? These peasants are stupid, truly." + +Nevertheless she went to a dormer window in the staircase and read the +letter once more. Then she descended the stairs and emerged, running and +leaping and still laughing. + +Some one met her and said to her, "What makes you so gay?" + +She replied: "A fine piece of stupidity that some country people have +written to me. They demand forty francs of me. So much for you, you +peasants!" + +As she crossed the square, she saw a great many people collected around +a carriage of eccentric shape, upon the top of which stood a man dressed +in red, who was holding forth. He was a quack dentist on his rounds, +who was offering to the public full sets of teeth, opiates, powders and +elixirs. + +Fantine mingled in the group, and began to laugh with the rest at +the harangue, which contained slang for the populace and jargon for +respectable people. The tooth-puller espied the lovely, laughing girl, +and suddenly exclaimed: "You have beautiful teeth, you girl there, who +are laughing; if you want to sell me your palettes, I will give you a +gold napoleon apiece for them." + +"What are my palettes?" asked Fantine. + +"The palettes," replied the dental professor, "are the front teeth, the +two upper ones." + +"How horrible!" exclaimed Fantine. + +"Two napoleons!" grumbled a toothless old woman who was present. "Here's +a lucky girl!" + +Fantine fled and stopped her ears that she might not hear the hoarse +voice of the man shouting to her: "Reflect, my beauty! two napoleons; +they may prove of service. If your heart bids you, come this evening to +the inn of the Tillac d'Argent; you will find me there." + +Fantine returned home. She was furious, and related the occurrence to +her good neighbor Marguerite: "Can you understand such a thing? Is he +not an abominable man? How can they allow such people to go about the +country! Pull out my two front teeth! Why, I should be horrible! My hair +will grow again, but my teeth! Ah! what a monster of a man! I should +prefer to throw myself head first on the pavement from the fifth story! +He told me that he should be at the Tillac d'Argent this evening." + +"And what did he offer?" asked Marguerite. + +"Two napoleons." + +"That makes forty francs." + +"Yes," said Fantine; "that makes forty francs." + +She remained thoughtful, and began her work. At the expiration of a +quarter of an hour she left her sewing and went to read the Thenardiers' +letter once more on the staircase. + +On her return, she said to Marguerite, who was at work beside her:-- + +"What is a miliary fever? Do you know?" + +"Yes," answered the old spinster; "it is a disease." + +"Does it require many drugs?" + +"Oh! terrible drugs." + +"How does one get it?" + +"It is a malady that one gets without knowing how." + +"Then it attacks children?" + +"Children in particular." + +"Do people die of it?" + +"They may," said Marguerite. + +Fantine left the room and went to read her letter once more on the +staircase. + +That evening she went out, and was seen to turn her steps in the +direction of the Rue de Paris, where the inns are situated. + +The next morning, when Marguerite entered Fantine's room before +daylight,--for they always worked together, and in this manner used only +one candle for the two,--she found Fantine seated on her bed, pale and +frozen. She had not lain down. Her cap had fallen on her knees. +Her candle had burned all night, and was almost entirely consumed. +Marguerite halted on the threshold, petrified at this tremendous +wastefulness, and exclaimed:-- + +"Lord! the candle is all burned out! Something has happened." + +Then she looked at Fantine, who turned toward her her head bereft of its +hair. + +Fantine had grown ten years older since the preceding night. + +"Jesus!" said Marguerite, "what is the matter with you, Fantine?" + +"Nothing," replied Fantine. "Quite the contrary. My child will not die +of that frightful malady, for lack of succor. I am content." + +So saying, she pointed out to the spinster two napoleons which were +glittering on the table. + +"Ah! Jesus God!" cried Marguerite. "Why, it is a fortune! Where did you +get those louis d'or?" + +"I got them," replied Fantine. + +At the same time she smiled. The candle illuminated her countenance. It +was a bloody smile. A reddish saliva soiled the corners of her lips, and +she had a black hole in her mouth. + +The two teeth had been extracted. + +She sent the forty francs to Montfermeil. + +After all it was a ruse of the Thenardiers to obtain money. Cosette was +not ill. + +Fantine threw her mirror out of the window. She had long since quitted +her cell on the second floor for an attic with only a latch to fasten +it, next the roof; one of those attics whose extremity forms an angle +with the floor, and knocks you on the head every instant. The poor +occupant can reach the end of his chamber as he can the end of his +destiny, only by bending over more and more. + +She had no longer a bed; a rag which she called her coverlet, a mattress +on the floor, and a seatless chair still remained. A little rosebush +which she had, had dried up, forgotten, in one corner. In the other +corner was a butter-pot to hold water, which froze in winter, and in +which the various levels of the water remained long marked by these +circles of ice. She had lost her shame; she lost her coquetry. A final +sign. She went out, with dirty caps. Whether from lack of time or from +indifference, she no longer mended her linen. As the heels wore out, +she dragged her stockings down into her shoes. This was evident from the +perpendicular wrinkles. She patched her bodice, which was old and worn +out, with scraps of calico which tore at the slightest movement. The +people to whom she was indebted made "scenes" and gave her no peace. +She found them in the street, she found them again on her staircase. She +passed many a night weeping and thinking. Her eyes were very bright, +and she felt a steady pain in her shoulder towards the top of the +left shoulder-blade. She coughed a great deal. She deeply hated Father +Madeleine, but made no complaint. She sewed seventeen hours a day; but +a contractor for the work of prisons, who made the prisoners work at a +discount, suddenly made prices fall, which reduced the daily earnings +of working-women to nine sous. Seventeen hours of toil, and nine sous a +day! Her creditors were more pitiless than ever. The second-hand dealer, +who had taken back nearly all his furniture, said to her incessantly, +"When will you pay me, you hussy?" What did they want of her, good God! +She felt that she was being hunted, and something of the wild beast +developed in her. About the same time, Thenardier wrote to her that he +had waited with decidedly too much amiability and that he must have a +hundred francs at once; otherwise he would turn little Cosette out of +doors, convalescent as she was from her heavy illness, into the cold and +the streets, and that she might do what she liked with herself, and die +if she chose. "A hundred francs," thought Fantine. "But in what trade +can one earn a hundred sous a day?" + +"Come!" said she, "let us sell what is left." + +The unfortunate girl became a woman of the town. + + + + +CHAPTER XI--CHRISTUS NOS LIBERAVIT + +What is this history of Fantine? It is society purchasing a slave. + +From whom? From misery. + +From hunger, cold, isolation, destitution. A dolorous bargain. A soul +for a morsel of bread. Misery offers; society accepts. + +The sacred law of Jesus Christ governs our civilization, but it does +not, as yet, permeate it; it is said that slavery has disappeared from +European civilization. This is a mistake. It still exists; but it weighs +only upon the woman, and it is called prostitution. + +It weighs upon the woman, that is to say, upon grace, weakness, beauty, +maternity. This is not one of the least of man's disgraces. + +At the point in this melancholy drama which we have now reached, nothing +is left to Fantine of that which she had formerly been. + +She has become marble in becoming mire. Whoever touches her feels cold. +She passes; she endures you; she ignores you; she is the severe and +dishonored figure. Life and the social order have said their last word +for her. All has happened to her that will happen to her. She has +felt everything, borne everything, experienced everything, suffered +everything, lost everything, mourned everything. She is resigned, with +that resignation which resembles indifference, as death resembles sleep. +She no longer avoids anything. Let all the clouds fall upon her, and all +the ocean sweep over her! What matters it to her? She is a sponge that +is soaked. + +At least, she believes it to be so; but it is an error to imagine that +fate can be exhausted, and that one has reached the bottom of anything +whatever. + +Alas! What are all these fates, driven on pell-mell? Whither are they +going? Why are they thus? + +He who knows that sees the whole of the shadow. + +He is alone. His name is God. + + + + +CHAPTER XII--M. BAMATABOIS'S INACTIVITY + +There is in all small towns, and there was at M. sur M. in particular, +a class of young men who nibble away an income of fifteen hundred +francs with the same air with which their prototypes devour two hundred +thousand francs a year in Paris. These are beings of the great neuter +species: impotent men, parasites, cyphers, who have a little land, a +little folly, a little wit; who would be rustics in a drawing-room, and +who think themselves gentlemen in the dram-shop; who say, "My fields, +my peasants, my woods"; who hiss actresses at the theatre to prove that +they are persons of taste; quarrel with the officers of the garrison +to prove that they are men of war; hunt, smoke, yawn, drink, smell of +tobacco, play billiards, stare at travellers as they descend from the +diligence, live at the cafe, dine at the inn, have a dog which eats the +bones under the table, and a mistress who eats the dishes on the table; +who stick at a sou, exaggerate the fashions, admire tragedy, despise +women, wear out their old boots, copy London through Paris, and Paris +through the medium of Pont-A-Mousson, grow old as dullards, never work, +serve no use, and do no great harm. + +M. Felix Tholomyes, had he remained in his own province and never beheld +Paris, would have been one of these men. + +If they were richer, one would say, "They are dandies;" if they were +poorer, one would say, "They are idlers." They are simply men without +employment. Among these unemployed there are bores, the bored, dreamers, +and some knaves. + +At that period a dandy was composed of a tall collar, a big cravat, a +watch with trinkets, three vests of different colors, worn one on top of +the other--the red and blue inside; of a short-waisted olive coat, with +a codfish tail, a double row of silver buttons set close to each other +and running up to the shoulder; and a pair of trousers of a lighter +shade of olive, ornamented on the two seams with an indefinite, but +always uneven, number of lines, varying from one to eleven--a limit +which was never exceeded. Add to this, high shoes with little irons +on the heels, a tall hat with a narrow brim, hair worn in a tuft, an +enormous cane, and conversation set off by puns of Potier. Over all, +spurs and a mustache. At that epoch mustaches indicated the bourgeois, +and spurs the pedestrian. + +The provincial dandy wore the longest of spurs and the fiercest of +mustaches. + +It was the period of the conflict of the republics of South America with +the King of Spain, of Bolivar against Morillo. Narrow-brimmed hats were +royalist, and were called morillos; liberals wore hats with wide brims, +which were called bolivars. + +Eight or ten months, then, after that which is related in the preceding +pages, towards the first of January, 1823, on a snowy evening, one of +these dandies, one of these unemployed, a "right thinker," for he wore +a morillo, and was, moreover, warmly enveloped in one of those large +cloaks which completed the fashionable costume in cold weather, was +amusing himself by tormenting a creature who was prowling about in a +ball-dress, with neck uncovered and flowers in her hair, in front of +the officers' cafe. This dandy was smoking, for he was decidedly +fashionable. + +Each time that the woman passed in front of him, he bestowed on her, +together with a puff from his cigar, some apostrophe which he considered +witty and mirthful, such as, "How ugly you are!--Will you get out of my +sight?--You have no teeth!" etc., etc. This gentleman was known as M. +Bamatabois. The woman, a melancholy, decorated spectre which went and +came through the snow, made him no reply, did not even glance at him, +and nevertheless continued her promenade in silence, and with a sombre +regularity, which brought her every five minutes within reach of this +sarcasm, like the condemned soldier who returns under the rods. The +small effect which he produced no doubt piqued the lounger; and taking +advantage of a moment when her back was turned, he crept up behind her +with the gait of a wolf, and stifling his laugh, bent down, picked up a +handful of snow from the pavement, and thrust it abruptly into her back, +between her bare shoulders. The woman uttered a roar, whirled round, +gave a leap like a panther, and hurled herself upon the man, burying her +nails in his face, with the most frightful words which could fall from +the guard-room into the gutter. These insults, poured forth in a voice +roughened by brandy, did, indeed, proceed in hideous wise from a mouth +which lacked its two front teeth. It was Fantine. + +At the noise thus produced, the officers ran out in throngs from the +cafe, passers-by collected, and a large and merry circle, hooting and +applauding, was formed around this whirlwind composed of two beings, +whom there was some difficulty in recognizing as a man and a woman: the +man struggling, his hat on the ground; the woman striking out with feet +and fists, bareheaded, howling, minus hair and teeth, livid with wrath, +horrible. + +Suddenly a man of lofty stature emerged vivaciously from the crowd, +seized the woman by her satin bodice, which was covered with mud, and +said to her, "Follow me!" + +The woman raised her head; her furious voice suddenly died away. Her +eyes were glassy; she turned pale instead of livid, and she trembled +with a quiver of terror. She had recognized Javert. + +The dandy took advantage of the incident to make his escape. + + + + +CHAPTER XIII--THE SOLUTION OF SOME QUESTIONS CONNECTED WITH THE +MUNICIPAL POLICE + +Javert thrust aside the spectators, broke the circle, and set out +with long strides towards the police station, which is situated at the +extremity of the square, dragging the wretched woman after him. She +yielded mechanically. Neither he nor she uttered a word. The cloud of +spectators followed, jesting, in a paroxysm of delight. Supreme misery +an occasion for obscenity. + +On arriving at the police station, which was a low room, warmed by a +stove, with a glazed and grated door opening on the street, and guarded +by a detachment, Javert opened the door, entered with Fantine, and shut +the door behind him, to the great disappointment of the curious, who +raised themselves on tiptoe, and craned their necks in front of the +thick glass of the station-house, in their effort to see. Curiosity is a +sort of gluttony. To see is to devour. + +On entering, Fantine fell down in a corner, motionless and mute, +crouching down like a terrified dog. + +The sergeant of the guard brought a lighted candle to the table. Javert +seated himself, drew a sheet of stamped paper from his pocket, and began +to write. + +This class of women is consigned by our laws entirely to the discretion +of the police. The latter do what they please, punish them, as seems +good to them, and confiscate at their will those two sorry things which +they entitle their industry and their liberty. Javert was impassive; his +grave face betrayed no emotion whatever. Nevertheless, he was seriously +and deeply preoccupied. It was one of those moments when he was +exercising without control, but subject to all the scruples of a severe +conscience, his redoubtable discretionary power. At that moment he was +conscious that his police agent's stool was a tribunal. He was entering +judgment. He judged and condemned. He summoned all the ideas which could +possibly exist in his mind, around the great thing which he was doing. +The more he examined the deed of this woman, the more shocked he felt. +It was evident that he had just witnessed the commission of a crime. +He had just beheld, yonder, in the street, society, in the person of a +freeholder and an elector, insulted and attacked by a creature who was +outside all pales. A prostitute had made an attempt on the life of a +citizen. He had seen that, he, Javert. He wrote in silence. + +When he had finished he signed the paper, folded it, and said to the +sergeant of the guard, as he handed it to him, "Take three men and +conduct this creature to jail." + +Then, turning to Fantine, "You are to have six months of it." The +unhappy woman shuddered. + +"Six months! six months of prison!" she exclaimed. "Six months in which +to earn seven sous a day! But what will become of Cosette? My daughter! +my daughter! But I still owe the Thenardiers over a hundred francs; do +you know that, Monsieur Inspector?" + +She dragged herself across the damp floor, among the muddy boots of all +those men, without rising, with clasped hands, and taking great strides +on her knees. + +"Monsieur Javert," said she, "I beseech your mercy. I assure you that +I was not in the wrong. If you had seen the beginning, you would have +seen. I swear to you by the good God that I was not to blame! That +gentleman, the bourgeois, whom I do not know, put snow in my back. Has +any one the right to put snow down our backs when we are walking along +peaceably, and doing no harm to any one? I am rather ill, as you see. +And then, he had been saying impertinent things to me for a long time: +'You are ugly! you have no teeth!' I know well that I have no longer +those teeth. I did nothing; I said to myself, 'The gentleman is amusing +himself.' I was honest with him; I did not speak to him. It was at that +moment that he put the snow down my back. Monsieur Javert, good Monsieur +Inspector! is there not some person here who saw it and can tell you +that this is quite true? Perhaps I did wrong to get angry. You know that +one is not master of one's self at the first moment. One gives way to +vivacity; and then, when some one puts something cold down your +back just when you are not expecting it! I did wrong to spoil that +gentleman's hat. Why did he go away? I would ask his pardon. Oh, my God! +It makes no difference to me whether I ask his pardon. Do me the favor +to-day, for this once, Monsieur Javert. Hold! you do not know that in +prison one can earn only seven sous a day; it is not the government's +fault, but seven sous is one's earnings; and just fancy, I must pay +one hundred francs, or my little girl will be sent to me. Oh, my God! +I cannot have her with me. What I do is so vile! Oh, my Cosette! Oh, my +little angel of the Holy Virgin! what will become of her, poor creature? +I will tell you: it is the Thenardiers, inn-keepers, peasants; and such +people are unreasonable. They want money. Don't put me in prison! You +see, there is a little girl who will be turned out into the street to +get along as best she may, in the very heart of the winter; and you must +have pity on such a being, my good Monsieur Javert. If she were older, +she might earn her living; but it cannot be done at that age. I am not a +bad woman at bottom. It is not cowardliness and gluttony that have made +me what I am. If I have drunk brandy, it was out of misery. I do not +love it; but it benumbs the senses. When I was happy, it was only +necessary to glance into my closets, and it would have been evident that +I was not a coquettish and untidy woman. I had linen, a great deal of +linen. Have pity on me, Monsieur Javert!" + +She spoke thus, rent in twain, shaken with sobs, blinded with tears, +her neck bare, wringing her hands, and coughing with a dry, short cough, +stammering softly with a voice of agony. Great sorrow is a divine and +terrible ray, which transfigures the unhappy. At that moment Fantine had +become beautiful once more. From time to time she paused, and tenderly +kissed the police agent's coat. She would have softened a heart of +granite; but a heart of wood cannot be softened. + +"Come!" said Javert, "I have heard you out. Have you entirely finished? +You will get six months. Now march! The Eternal Father in person could +do nothing more." + +At these solemn words, "the Eternal Father in person could do nothing +more," she understood that her fate was sealed. She sank down, +murmuring, "Mercy!" + +Javert turned his back. + +The soldiers seized her by the arms. + +A few moments earlier a man had entered, but no one had paid any heed +to him. He shut the door, leaned his back against it, and listened to +Fantine's despairing supplications. + +At the instant when the soldiers laid their hands upon the unfortunate +woman, who would not rise, he emerged from the shadow, and said:-- + +"One moment, if you please." + +Javert raised his eyes and recognized M. Madeleine. He removed his hat, +and, saluting him with a sort of aggrieved awkwardness:-- + +"Excuse me, Mr. Mayor--" + +The words "Mr. Mayor" produced a curious effect upon Fantine. She rose +to her feet with one bound, like a spectre springing from the earth, +thrust aside the soldiers with both arms, walked straight up to M. +Madeleine before any one could prevent her, and gazing intently at him, +with a bewildered air, she cried:-- + +"Ah! so it is you who are M. le Maire!" + +Then she burst into a laugh, and spit in his face. + +M. Madeleine wiped his face, and said:-- + +"Inspector Javert, set this woman at liberty." + +Javert felt that he was on the verge of going mad. He experienced at +that moment, blow upon blow and almost simultaneously, the most violent +emotions which he had ever undergone in all his life. To see a woman of +the town spit in the mayor's face was a thing so monstrous that, in his +most daring flights of fancy, he would have regarded it as a sacrilege +to believe it possible. On the other hand, at the very bottom of his +thought, he made a hideous comparison as to what this woman was, and as +to what this mayor might be; and then he, with horror, caught a glimpse +of I know not what simple explanation of this prodigious attack. But +when he beheld that mayor, that magistrate, calmly wipe his face and +say, "Set this woman at liberty," he underwent a sort of intoxication +of amazement; thought and word failed him equally; the sum total of +possible astonishment had been exceeded in his case. He remained mute. + +The words had produced no less strange an effect on Fantine. She raised +her bare arm, and clung to the damper of the stove, like a person who +is reeling. Nevertheless, she glanced about her, and began to speak in a +low voice, as though talking to herself:-- + +"At liberty! I am to be allowed to go! I am not to go to prison for six +months! Who said that? It is not possible that any one could have said +that. I did not hear aright. It cannot have been that monster of a +mayor! Was it you, my good Monsieur Javert, who said that I was to be +set free? Oh, see here! I will tell you about it, and you will let me +go. That monster of a mayor, that old blackguard of a mayor, is the +cause of all. Just imagine, Monsieur Javert, he turned me out! all +because of a pack of rascally women, who gossip in the workroom. If that +is not a horror, what is? To dismiss a poor girl who is doing her +work honestly! Then I could no longer earn enough, and all this misery +followed. In the first place, there is one improvement which these +gentlemen of the police ought to make, and that is, to prevent prison +contractors from wronging poor people. I will explain it to you, you +see: you are earning twelve sous at shirt-making, the price falls to +nine sous; and it is not enough to live on. Then one has to become +whatever one can. As for me, I had my little Cosette, and I was actually +forced to become a bad woman. Now you understand how it is that that +blackguard of a mayor caused all the mischief. After that I stamped on +that gentleman's hat in front of the officers' cafe; but he had spoiled +my whole dress with snow. We women have but one silk dress for evening +wear. You see that I did not do wrong deliberately--truly, Monsieur +Javert; and everywhere I behold women who are far more wicked than I, +and who are much happier. O Monsieur Javert! it was you who gave orders +that I am to be set free, was it not? Make inquiries, speak to my +landlord; I am paying my rent now; they will tell you that I am +perfectly honest. Ah! my God! I beg your pardon; I have unintentionally +touched the damper of the stove, and it has made it smoke." + +M. Madeleine listened to her with profound attention. While she was +speaking, he fumbled in his waistcoat, drew out his purse and opened +it. It was empty. He put it back in his pocket. He said to Fantine, "How +much did you say that you owed?" + +Fantine, who was looking at Javert only, turned towards him:-- + +"Was I speaking to you?" + +Then, addressing the soldiers:-- + +"Say, you fellows, did you see how I spit in his face? Ah! you old +wretch of a mayor, you came here to frighten me, but I'm not afraid of +you. I am afraid of Monsieur Javert. I am afraid of my good Monsieur +Javert!" + +So saying, she turned to the inspector again:-- + +"And yet, you see, Mr. Inspector, it is necessary to be just. I +understand that you are just, Mr. Inspector; in fact, it is perfectly +simple: a man amuses himself by putting snow down a woman's back, and +that makes the officers laugh; one must divert themselves in some way; +and we--well, we are here for them to amuse themselves with, of course! +And then, you, you come; you are certainly obliged to preserve order, +you lead off the woman who is in the wrong; but on reflection, since you +are a good man, you say that I am to be set at liberty; it is for +the sake of the little one, for six months in prison would prevent my +supporting my child. 'Only, don't do it again, you hussy!' Oh! I won't +do it again, Monsieur Javert! They may do whatever they please to me +now; I will not stir. But to-day, you see, I cried because it hurt me. +I was not expecting that snow from the gentleman at all; and then as I +told you, I am not well; I have a cough; I seem to have a burning ball +in my stomach, and the doctor tells me, 'Take care of yourself.' Here, +feel, give me your hand; don't be afraid--it is here." + +She no longer wept, her voice was caressing; she placed Javert's coarse +hand on her delicate, white throat and looked smilingly at him. + +All at once she rapidly adjusted her disordered garments, dropped the +folds of her skirt, which had been pushed up as she dragged herself +along, almost to the height of her knee, and stepped towards the door, +saying to the soldiers in a low voice, and with a friendly nod:-- + +"Children, Monsieur l'Inspecteur has said that I am to be released, and +I am going." + +She laid her hand on the latch of the door. One step more and she would +be in the street. + +Javert up to that moment had remained erect, motionless, with his eyes +fixed on the ground, cast athwart this scene like some displaced statue, +which is waiting to be put away somewhere. + +The sound of the latch roused him. He raised his head with an expression +of sovereign authority, an expression all the more alarming in +proportion as the authority rests on a low level, ferocious in the wild +beast, atrocious in the man of no estate. + +"Sergeant!" he cried, "don't you see that that jade is walking off! Who +bade you let her go?" + +"I," said Madeleine. + +Fantine trembled at the sound of Javert's voice, and let go of the latch +as a thief relinquishes the article which he has stolen. At the sound +of Madeleine's voice she turned around, and from that moment forth she +uttered no word, nor dared so much as to breathe freely, but her glance +strayed from Madeleine to Javert, and from Javert to Madeleine in turn, +according to which was speaking. + +It was evident that Javert must have been exasperated beyond measure +before he would permit himself to apostrophize the sergeant as he +had done, after the mayor's suggestion that Fantine should be set at +liberty. Had he reached the point of forgetting the mayor's presence? +Had he finally declared to himself that it was impossible that any +"authority" should have given such an order, and that the mayor must +certainly have said one thing by mistake for another, without intending +it? Or, in view of the enormities of which he had been a witness for the +past two hours, did he say to himself, that it was necessary to recur to +supreme resolutions, that it was indispensable that the small should +be made great, that the police spy should transform himself into a +magistrate, that the policeman should become a dispenser of justice, and +that, in this prodigious extremity, order, law, morality, government, +society in its entirety, was personified in him, Javert? + +However that may be, when M. Madeleine uttered that word, _I_, as we +have just heard, Police Inspector Javert was seen to turn toward the +mayor, pale, cold, with blue lips, and a look of despair, his whole body +agitated by an imperceptible quiver and an unprecedented occurrence, and +say to him, with downcast eyes but a firm voice:-- + +"Mr. Mayor, that cannot be." + +"Why not?" said M. Madeleine. + +"This miserable woman has insulted a citizen." + +"Inspector Javert," replied the mayor, in a calm and conciliating tone, +"listen. You are an honest man, and I feel no hesitation in explaining +matters to you. Here is the true state of the case: I was passing +through the square just as you were leading this woman away; there were +still groups of people standing about, and I made inquiries and learned +everything; it was the townsman who was in the wrong and who should have +been arrested by properly conducted police." + +Javert retorted:-- + +"This wretch has just insulted Monsieur le Maire." + +"That concerns me," said M. Madeleine. "My own insult belongs to me, I +think. I can do what I please about it." + +"I beg Monsieur le Maire's pardon. The insult is not to him but to the +law." + +"Inspector Javert," replied M. Madeleine, "the highest law is +conscience. I have heard this woman; I know what I am doing." + +"And I, Mr. Mayor, do not know what I see." + +"Then content yourself with obeying." + +"I am obeying my duty. My duty demands that this woman shall serve six +months in prison." + +M. Madeleine replied gently:-- + +"Heed this well; she will not serve a single day." + +At this decisive word, Javert ventured to fix a searching look on the +mayor and to say, but in a tone of voice that was still profoundly +respectful:-- + +"I am sorry to oppose Monsieur le Maire; it is for the first time in my +life, but he will permit me to remark that I am within the bounds of my +authority. I confine myself, since Monsieur le Maire desires it, to the +question of the gentleman. I was present. This woman flung herself +on Monsieur Bamatabnois, who is an elector and the proprietor of that +handsome house with a balcony, which forms the corner of the esplanade, +three stories high and entirely of cut stone. Such things as there are +in the world! In any case, Monsieur le Maire, this is a question of +police regulations in the streets, and concerns me, and I shall detain +this woman Fantine." + +Then M. Madeleine folded his arms, and said in a severe voice which no +one in the town had heard hitherto:-- + +"The matter to which you refer is one connected with the municipal +police. According to the terms of articles nine, eleven, fifteen, and +sixty-six of the code of criminal examination, I am the judge. I order +that this woman shall be set at liberty." + +Javert ventured to make a final effort. + +"But, Mr. Mayor--" + +"I refer you to article eighty-one of the law of the 13th of December, +1799, in regard to arbitrary detention." + +"Monsieur le Maire, permit me--" + +"Not another word." + +"But--" + +"Leave the room," said M. Madeleine. + +Javert received the blow erect, full in the face, in his breast, like +a Russian soldier. He bowed to the very earth before the mayor and left +the room. + +Fantine stood aside from the door and stared at him in amazement as he +passed. + +Nevertheless, she also was the prey to a strange confusion. She had just +seen herself a subject of dispute between two opposing powers. She had +seen two men who held in their hands her liberty, her life, her soul, +her child, in combat before her very eyes; one of these men was drawing +her towards darkness, the other was leading her back towards the light. +In this conflict, viewed through the exaggerations of terror, these two +men had appeared to her like two giants; the one spoke like her demon, +the other like her good angel. The angel had conquered the demon, and, +strange to say, that which made her shudder from head to foot was +the fact that this angel, this liberator, was the very man whom she +abhorred, that mayor whom she had so long regarded as the author of all +her woes, that Madeleine! And at the very moment when she had insulted +him in so hideous a fashion, he had saved her! Had she, then, been +mistaken? Must she change her whole soul? She did not know; she +trembled. She listened in bewilderment, she looked on in affright, and +at every word uttered by M. Madeleine she felt the frightful shades of +hatred crumble and melt within her, and something warm and ineffable, +indescribable, which was both joy, confidence and love, dawn in her +heart. + +When Javert had taken his departure, M. Madeleine turned to her and said +to her in a deliberate voice, like a serious man who does not wish to +weep and who finds some difficulty in speaking:-- + +"I have heard you. I knew nothing about what you have mentioned. I +believe that it is true, and I feel that it is true. I was even ignorant +of the fact that you had left my shop. Why did you not apply to me? But +here; I will pay your debts, I will send for your child, or you shall go +to her. You shall live here, in Paris, or where you please. I undertake +the care of your child and yourself. You shall not work any longer if +you do not like. I will give all the money you require. You shall be +honest and happy once more. And listen! I declare to you that if all +is as you say,--and I do not doubt it,--you have never ceased to be +virtuous and holy in the sight of God. Oh! poor woman." + +This was more than Fantine could bear. To have Cosette! To leave this +life of infamy. To live free, rich, happy, respectable with Cosette; to +see all these realities of paradise blossom of a sudden in the midst of +her misery. She stared stupidly at this man who was talking to her, and +could only give vent to two or three sobs, "Oh! Oh! Oh!" + +Her limbs gave way beneath her, she knelt in front of M. Madeleine, and +before he could prevent her he felt her grasp his hand and press her +lips to it. + +Then she fainted. + + + + +BOOK SIXTH.--JAVERT + + + + +CHAPTER I--THE BEGINNING OF REPOSE + + +M. Madeleine had Fantine removed to that infirmary which he had +established in his own house. He confided her to the sisters, who put +her to bed. A burning fever had come on. She passed a part of the night +in delirium and raving. At length, however, she fell asleep. + +On the morrow, towards midday, Fantine awoke. She heard some one +breathing close to her bed; she drew aside the curtain and saw M. +Madeleine standing there and looking at something over her head. His +gaze was full of pity, anguish, and supplication. She followed its +direction, and saw that it was fixed on a crucifix which was nailed to +the wall. + +Thenceforth, M. Madeleine was transfigured in Fantine's eyes. He seemed +to her to be clothed in light. He was absorbed in a sort of prayer. She +gazed at him for a long time without daring to interrupt him. At last +she said timidly:-- + +"What are you doing?" + +M. Madeleine had been there for an hour. He had been waiting for Fantine +to awake. He took her hand, felt of her pulse, and replied:-- + +"How do you feel?" + +"Well, I have slept," she replied; "I think that I am better, It is +nothing." + +He answered, responding to the first question which she had put to him +as though he had just heard it:-- + +"I was praying to the martyr there on high." + +And he added in his own mind, "For the martyr here below." + +M. Madeleine had passed the night and the morning in making inquiries. +He knew all now. He knew Fantine's history in all its heart-rending +details. He went on:-- + +"You have suffered much, poor mother. Oh! do not complain; you now have +the dowry of the elect. It is thus that men are transformed into angels. +It is not their fault they do not know how to go to work otherwise. +You see this hell from which you have just emerged is the first form of +heaven. It was necessary to begin there." + +He sighed deeply. But she smiled on him with that sublime smile in which +two teeth were lacking. + +That same night, Javert wrote a letter. The next morning be posted it +himself at the office of M. sur M. It was addressed to Paris, and the +superscription ran: To Monsieur Chabouillet, Secretary of Monsieur le +Prefet of Police. As the affair in the station-house had been bruited +about, the post-mistress and some other persons who saw the letter +before it was sent off, and who recognized Javert's handwriting on the +cover, thought that he was sending in his resignation. + +M. Madeleine made haste to write to the Thenardiers. Fantine owed +them one hundred and twenty francs. He sent them three hundred francs, +telling them to pay themselves from that sum, and to fetch the child +instantly to M. sur M., where her sick mother required her presence. + +This dazzled Thenardier. "The devil!" said the man to his wife; "don't +let's allow the child to go. This lark is going to turn into a milch +cow. I see through it. Some ninny has taken a fancy to the mother." + +He replied with a very well drawn-up bill for five hundred and some odd +francs. In this memorandum two indisputable items figured up over three +hundred francs,--one for the doctor, the other for the apothecary +who had attended and physicked Eponine and Azelma through two long +illnesses. Cosette, as we have already said, had not been ill. It was +only a question of a trifling substitution of names. At the foot of the +memorandum Thenardier wrote, Received on account, three hundred francs. + +M. Madeleine immediately sent three hundred francs more, and wrote, +"Make haste to bring Cosette." + +"Christi!" said Thenardier, "let's not give up the child." + +In the meantime, Fantine did not recover. She still remained in the +infirmary. + +The sisters had at first only received and nursed "that woman" with +repugnance. Those who have seen the bas-reliefs of Rheims will recall +the inflation of the lower lip of the wise virgins as they survey the +foolish virgins. The ancient scorn of the vestals for the ambubajae is +one of the most profound instincts of feminine dignity; the sisters +felt it with the double force contributed by religion. But in a few days +Fantine disarmed them. She said all kinds of humble and gentle things, +and the mother in her provoked tenderness. One day the sisters heard +her say amid her fever: "I have been a sinner; but when I have my child +beside me, it will be a sign that God has pardoned me. While I was +leading a bad life, I should not have liked to have my Cosette with me; +I could not have borne her sad, astonished eyes. It was for her sake +that I did evil, and that is why God pardons me. I shall feel the +benediction of the good God when Cosette is here. I shall gaze at her; +it will do me good to see that innocent creature. She knows nothing at +all. She is an angel, you see, my sisters. At that age the wings have +not fallen off." + +M. Madeleine went to see her twice a day, and each time she asked him:-- + +"Shall I see my Cosette soon?" + +He answered:-- + +"To-morrow, perhaps. She may arrive at any moment. I am expecting her." + +And the mother's pale face grew radiant. + +"Oh!" she said, "how happy I am going to be!" + +We have just said that she did not recover her health. On the contrary, +her condition seemed to become more grave from week to week. That +handful of snow applied to her bare skin between her shoulder-blades had +brought about a sudden suppression of perspiration, as a consequence of +which the malady which had been smouldering within her for many years +was violently developed at last. At that time people were beginning to +follow the fine Laennec's fine suggestions in the study and treatment of +chest maladies. The doctor sounded Fantine's chest and shook his head. + +M. Madeleine said to the doctor:-- + +"Well?" + +"Has she not a child which she desires to see?" said the doctor. + +"Yes." + +"Well! Make haste and get it here!" + +M. Madeleine shuddered. + +Fantine inquired:-- + +"What did the doctor say?" + +M. Madeleine forced himself to smile. + +"He said that your child was to be brought speedily. That that would +restore your health." + +"Oh!" she rejoined, "he is right! But what do those Thenardiers mean +by keeping my Cosette from me! Oh! she is coming. At last I behold +happiness close beside me!" + +In the meantime Thenardier did not "let go of the child," and gave a +hundred insufficient reasons for it. Cosette was not quite well enough +to take a journey in the winter. And then, there still remained some +petty but pressing debts in the neighborhood, and they were collecting +the bills for them, etc., etc. + +"I shall send some one to fetch Cosette!" said Father Madeleine. "If +necessary, I will go myself." + +He wrote the following letter to Fantine's dictation, and made her sign +it:-- + + "MONSIEUR THENARDIER:-- + You will deliver Cosette to this person. + You will be paid for all the little things. + I have the honor to salute you with respect. + "FANTINE." + + +In the meantime a serious incident occurred. Carve as we will the +mysterious block of which our life is made, the black vein of destiny +constantly reappears in it. + + + + +CHAPTER II--HOW JEAN MAY BECOME CHAMP + + +One morning M. Madeleine was in his study, occupied in arranging in +advance some pressing matters connected with the mayor's office, in case +he should decide to take the trip to Montfermeil, when he was informed +that Police Inspector Javert was desirous of speaking with him. +Madeleine could not refrain from a disagreeable impression on hearing +this name. Javert had avoided him more than ever since the affair of the +police-station, and M. Madeleine had not seen him. + +"Admit him," he said. + +Javert entered. + +M. Madeleine had retained his seat near the fire, pen in hand, his eyes +fixed on the docket which he was turning over and annotating, and which +contained the trials of the commission on highways for the infraction of +police regulations. He did not disturb himself on Javert's account. He +could not help thinking of poor Fantine, and it suited him to be glacial +in his manner. + +Javert bestowed a respectful salute on the mayor, whose back was turned +to him. The mayor did not look at him, but went on annotating this +docket. + +Javert advanced two or three paces into the study, and halted, without +breaking the silence. + +If any physiognomist who had been familiar with Javert, and who had +made a lengthy study of this savage in the service of civilization, +this singular composite of the Roman, the Spartan, the monk, and the +corporal, this spy who was incapable of a lie, this unspotted police +agent--if any physiognomist had known his secret and long-cherished +aversion for M. Madeleine, his conflict with the mayor on the subject of +Fantine, and had examined Javert at that moment, he would have said to +himself, "What has taken place?" It was evident to any one acquainted +with that clear, upright, sincere, honest, austere, and ferocious +conscience, that Javert had but just gone through some great interior +struggle. Javert had nothing in his soul which he had not also in his +countenance. Like violent people in general, he was subject to abrupt +changes of opinion. His physiognomy had never been more peculiar and +startling. On entering he bowed to M. Madeleine with a look in which +there was neither rancor, anger, nor distrust; he halted a few paces in +the rear of the mayor's arm-chair, and there he stood, perfectly erect, +in an attitude almost of discipline, with the cold, ingenuous roughness +of a man who has never been gentle and who has always been patient; he +waited without uttering a word, without making a movement, in genuine +humility and tranquil resignation, calm, serious, hat in hand, with +eyes cast down, and an expression which was half-way between that of a +soldier in the presence of his officer and a criminal in the presence +of his judge, until it should please the mayor to turn round. All the +sentiments as well as all the memories which one might have attributed +to him had disappeared. That face, as impenetrable and simple as +granite, no longer bore any trace of anything but a melancholy +depression. His whole person breathed lowliness and firmness and an +indescribable courageous despondency. + +At last the mayor laid down his pen and turned half round. + +"Well! What is it? What is the matter, Javert?" + +Javert remained silent for an instant as though collecting his ideas, +then raised his voice with a sort of sad solemnity, which did not, +however, preclude simplicity. + +"This is the matter, Mr. Mayor; a culpable act has been committed." + +"What act?" + +"An inferior agent of the authorities has failed in respect, and in the +gravest manner, towards a magistrate. I have come to bring the fact to +your knowledge, as it is my duty to do." + +"Who is the agent?" asked M. Madeleine. + +"I," said Javert. + +"You?" + +"I." + +"And who is the magistrate who has reason to complain of the agent?" + +"You, Mr. Mayor." + +M. Madeleine sat erect in his arm-chair. Javert went on, with a severe +air and his eyes still cast down. + +"Mr. Mayor, I have come to request you to instigate the authorities to +dismiss me." + +M. Madeleine opened his mouth in amazement. Javert interrupted him:-- + +"You will say that I might have handed in my resignation, but that does +not suffice. Handing in one's resignation is honorable. I have failed in +my duty; I ought to be punished; I must be turned out." + +And after a pause he added:-- + +"Mr. Mayor, you were severe with me the other day, and unjustly. Be so +to-day, with justice." + +"Come, now! Why?" exclaimed M. Madeleine. "What nonsense is this? +What is the meaning of this? What culpable act have you been guilty of +towards me? What have you done to me? What are your wrongs with regard +to me? You accuse yourself; you wish to be superseded--" + +"Turned out," said Javert. + +"Turned out; so it be, then. That is well. I do not understand." + +"You shall understand, Mr. Mayor." + +Javert sighed from the very bottom of his chest, and resumed, still +coldly and sadly:-- + +"Mr. Mayor, six weeks ago, in consequence of the scene over that woman, +I was furious, and I informed against you." + +"Informed against me!" + +"At the Prefecture of Police in Paris." + +M. Madeleine, who was not in the habit of laughing much oftener than +Javert himself, burst out laughing now:-- + +"As a mayor who had encroached on the province of the police?" + +"As an ex-convict." + +The mayor turned livid. + +Javert, who had not raised his eyes, went on:-- + +"I thought it was so. I had had an idea for a long time; a resemblance; +inquiries which you had caused to be made at Faverolles; the strength +of your loins; the adventure with old Fauchelevant; your skill in +marksmanship; your leg, which you drag a little;--I hardly know what +all,--absurdities! But, at all events, I took you for a certain Jean +Valjean." + +"A certain--What did you say the name was?" + +"Jean Valjean. He was a convict whom I was in the habit of seeing twenty +years ago, when I was adjutant-guard of convicts at Toulon. On leaving +the galleys, this Jean Valjean, as it appears, robbed a bishop; then he +committed another theft, accompanied with violence, on a public highway +on the person of a little Savoyard. He disappeared eight years ago, no +one knows how, and he has been sought, I fancied. In short, I did this +thing! Wrath impelled me; I denounced you at the Prefecture!" + +M. Madeleine, who had taken up the docket again several moments before +this, resumed with an air of perfect indifference:-- + +"And what reply did you receive?" + +"That I was mad." + +"Well?" + +"Well, they were right." + +"It is lucky that you recognize the fact." + +"I am forced to do so, since the real Jean Valjean has been found." + +The sheet of paper which M. Madeleine was holding dropped from his +hand; he raised his head, gazed fixedly at Javert, and said with his +indescribable accent:-- + +"Ah!" + +Javert continued:-- + +"This is the way it is, Mr. Mayor. It seems that there was in the +neighborhood near Ailly-le-Haut-Clocher an old fellow who was called +Father Champmathieu. He was a very wretched creature. No one paid any +attention to him. No one knows what such people subsist on. Lately, last +autumn, Father Champmathieu was arrested for the theft of some cider +apples from--Well, no matter, a theft had been committed, a wall scaled, +branches of trees broken. My Champmathieu was arrested. He still had +the branch of apple-tree in his hand. The scamp is locked up. Up to +this point it was merely an affair of a misdemeanor. But here is where +Providence intervened. + +"The jail being in a bad condition, the examining magistrate finds it +convenient to transfer Champmathieu to Arras, where the departmental +prison is situated. In this prison at Arras there is an ex-convict named +Brevet, who is detained for I know not what, and who has been appointed +turnkey of the house, because of good behavior. Mr. Mayor, no sooner had +Champmathieu arrived than Brevet exclaims: 'Eh! Why, I know that man! +He is a fagot![4] Take a good look at me, my good man! You are Jean +Valjean!' 'Jean Valjean! who's Jean Valjean?' Champmathieu feigns +astonishment. 'Don't play the innocent dodge,' says Brevet. 'You are +Jean Valjean! You have been in the galleys of Toulon; it was twenty +years ago; we were there together.' Champmathieu denies it. Parbleu! You +understand. The case is investigated. The thing was well ventilated for +me. This is what they discovered: This Champmathieu had been, thirty +years ago, a pruner of trees in various localities, notably at +Faverolles. There all trace of him was lost. A long time afterwards he +was seen again in Auvergne; then in Paris, where he is said to have been +a wheelwright, and to have had a daughter, who was a laundress; but that +has not been proved. Now, before going to the galleys for theft, what +was Jean Valjean? A pruner of trees. Where? At Faverolles. Another fact. +This Valjean's Christian name was Jean, and his mother's surname was +Mathieu. What more natural to suppose than that, on emerging from the +galleys, he should have taken his mother's name for the purpose of +concealing himself, and have called himself Jean Mathieu? He goes to +Auvergne. The local pronunciation turns Jean into Chan--he is called +Chan Mathieu. Our man offers no opposition, and behold him transformed +into Champmathieu. You follow me, do you not? Inquiries were made at +Faverolles. The family of Jean Valjean is no longer there. It is not +known where they have gone. You know that among those classes a family +often disappears. Search was made, and nothing was found. When such +people are not mud, they are dust. And then, as the beginning of the +story dates thirty years back, there is no longer any one at Faverolles +who knew Jean Valjean. Inquiries were made at Toulon. Besides Brevet, +there are only two convicts in existence who have seen Jean Valjean; +they are Cochepaille and Chenildieu, and are sentenced for life. +They are taken from the galleys and confronted with the pretended +Champmathieu. They do not hesitate; he is Jean Valjean for them as well +as for Brevet. The same age,--he is fifty-four,--the same height, the +same air, the same man; in short, it is he. It was precisely at this +moment that I forwarded my denunciation to the Prefecture in Paris. I +was told that I had lost my reason, and that Jean Valjean is at Arras, +in the power of the authorities. You can imagine whether this surprised +me, when I thought that I had that same Jean Valjean here. I write to +the examining judge; he sends for me; Champmathieu is conducted to me--" + +"Well?" interposed M. Madeleine. + +Javert replied, his face incorruptible, and as melancholy as ever:-- + +"Mr. Mayor, the truth is the truth. I am sorry; but that man is Jean +Valjean. I recognized him also." + +M. Madeleine resumed in, a very low voice:-- + +"You are sure?" + +Javert began to laugh, with that mournful laugh which comes from +profound conviction. + +"O! Sure!" + +He stood there thoughtfully for a moment, mechanically taking pinches of +powdered wood for blotting ink from the wooden bowl which stood on the +table, and he added:-- + +"And even now that I have seen the real Jean Valjean, I do not see how I +could have thought otherwise. I beg your pardon, Mr. Mayor." + +Javert, as he addressed these grave and supplicating words to the man, +who six weeks before had humiliated him in the presence of the whole +station-house, and bade him "leave the room,"--Javert, that haughty man, +was unconsciously full of simplicity and dignity,--M. Madeleine made no +other reply to his prayer than the abrupt question:-- + +"And what does this man say?" + +"Ah! Indeed, Mr. Mayor, it's a bad business. If he is Jean Valjean, he +has his previous conviction against him. To climb a wall, to break a +branch, to purloin apples, is a mischievous trick in a child; for a +man it is a misdemeanor; for a convict it is a crime. Robbing +and housebreaking--it is all there. It is no longer a question of +correctional police; it is a matter for the Court of Assizes. It is no +longer a matter of a few days in prison; it is the galleys for life. And +then, there is the affair with the little Savoyard, who will return, I +hope. The deuce! there is plenty to dispute in the matter, is there not? +Yes, for any one but Jean Valjean. But Jean Valjean is a sly dog. That +is the way I recognized him. Any other man would have felt that things +were getting hot for him; he would struggle, he would cry out--the +kettle sings before the fire; he would not be Jean Valjean, et +cetera. But he has not the appearance of understanding; he says, 'I am +Champmathieu, and I won't depart from that!' He has an astonished air, +he pretends to be stupid; it is far better. Oh! the rogue is clever! But +it makes no difference. The proofs are there. He has been recognized by +four persons; the old scamp will be condemned. The case has been taken +to the Assizes at Arras. I shall go there to give my testimony. I have +been summoned." + +M. Madeleine had turned to his desk again, and taken up his docket, and +was turning over the leaves tranquilly, reading and writing by turns, +like a busy man. He turned to Javert:-- + +"That will do, Javert. In truth, all these details interest me but +little. We are wasting our time, and we have pressing business on hand. +Javert, you will betake yourself at once to the house of the woman +Buseaupied, who sells herbs at the corner of the Rue Saint-Saulve. You +will tell her that she must enter her complaint against carter Pierre +Chesnelong. The man is a brute, who came near crushing this woman and +her child. He must be punished. You will then go to M. Charcellay, +Rue Montre-de-Champigny. He complained that there is a gutter on the +adjoining house which discharges rain-water on his premises, and is +undermining the foundations of his house. After that, you will verify +the infractions of police regulations which have been reported to me in +the Rue Guibourg, at Widow Doris's, and Rue du Garraud-Blanc, at Madame +Renee le Bosse's, and you will prepare documents. But I am giving you a +great deal of work. Are you not to be absent? Did you not tell me that +you were going to Arras on that matter in a week or ten days?" + +"Sooner than that, Mr. Mayor." + +"On what day, then?" + +"Why, I thought that I had said to Monsieur le Maire that the case was +to be tried to-morrow, and that I am to set out by diligence to-night." + +M. Madeleine made an imperceptible movement. + +"And how long will the case last?" + +"One day, at the most. The judgment will be pronounced to-morrow evening +at latest. But I shall not wait for the sentence, which is certain; I +shall return here as soon as my deposition has been taken." + +"That is well," said M. Madeleine. + +And he dismissed Javert with a wave of the hand. + +Javert did not withdraw. + +"Excuse me, Mr. Mayor," said he. + +"What is it now?" demanded M. Madeleine. + +"Mr. Mayor, there is still something of which I must remind you." + +"What is it?" + +"That I must be dismissed." + +M. Madeleine rose. + +"Javert, you are a man of honor, and I esteem you. You exaggerate your +fault. Moreover, this is an offence which concerns me. Javert, you +deserve promotion instead of degradation. I wish you to retain your +post." + +Javert gazed at M. Madeleine with his candid eyes, in whose depths his +not very enlightened but pure and rigid conscience seemed visible, and +said in a tranquil voice:-- + +"Mr. Mayor, I cannot grant you that." + +"I repeat," replied M. Madeleine, "that the matter concerns me." + +But Javert, heeding his own thought only, continued:-- + +"So far as exaggeration is concerned, I am not exaggerating. This is the +way I reason: I have suspected you unjustly. That is nothing. It is our +right to cherish suspicion, although suspicion directed above ourselves +is an abuse. But without proofs, in a fit of rage, with the object +of wreaking my vengeance, I have denounced you as a convict, you, a +respectable man, a mayor, a magistrate! That is serious, very serious. I +have insulted authority in your person, I, an agent of the authorities! +If one of my subordinates had done what I have done, I should have +declared him unworthy of the service, and have expelled him. Well? Stop, +Mr. Mayor; one word more. I have often been severe in the course of my +life towards others. That is just. I have done well. Now, if I were not +severe towards myself, all the justice that I have done would become +injustice. Ought I to spare myself more than others? No! What! I should +be good for nothing but to chastise others, and not myself! Why, I +should be a blackguard! Those who say, 'That blackguard of a Javert!' +would be in the right. Mr. Mayor, I do not desire that you should treat +me kindly; your kindness roused sufficient bad blood in me when it was +directed to others. I want none of it for myself. The kindness which +consists in upholding a woman of the town against a citizen, the police +agent against the mayor, the man who is down against the man who is +up in the world, is what I call false kindness. That is the sort of +kindness which disorganizes society. Good God! it is very easy to be +kind; the difficulty lies in being just. Come! if you had been what I +thought you, I should not have been kind to you, not I! You would have +seen! Mr. Mayor, I must treat myself as I would treat any other man. +When I have subdued malefactors, when I have proceeded with vigor +against rascals, I have often said to myself, 'If you flinch, if I ever +catch you in fault, you may rest at your ease!' I have flinched, I +have caught myself in a fault. So much the worse! Come, discharged, +cashiered, expelled! That is well. I have arms. I will till the soil; it +makes no difference to me. Mr. Mayor, the good of the service demands an +example. I simply require the discharge of Inspector Javert." + +All this was uttered in a proud, humble, despairing, yet convinced tone, +which lent indescribable grandeur to this singular, honest man. + +"We shall see," said M. Madeleine. + +And he offered him his hand. + +Javert recoiled, and said in a wild voice:-- + +"Excuse me, Mr. Mayor, but this must not be. A mayor does not offer his +hand to a police spy." + +He added between his teeth:-- + +"A police spy, yes; from the moment when I have misused the police. I am +no more than a police spy." + +Then he bowed profoundly, and directed his steps towards the door. + +There he wheeled round, and with eyes still downcast:-- + +"Mr. Mayor," he said, "I shall continue to serve until I am superseded." + +He withdrew. M. Madeleine remained thoughtfully listening to the firm, +sure step, which died away on the pavement of the corridor. + + + + +BOOK SEVENTH.--THE CHAMPMATHIEU AFFAIR + + + + +CHAPTER I--SISTER SIMPLICE + +The incidents the reader is about to peruse were not all known at M. sur +M. But the small portion of them which became known left such a memory +in that town that a serious gap would exist in this book if we did +not narrate them in their most minute details. Among these details the +reader will encounter two or three improbable circumstances, which we +preserve out of respect for the truth. + +On the afternoon following the visit of Javert, M. Madeleine went to see +Fantine according to his wont. + +Before entering Fantine's room, he had Sister Simplice summoned. + +The two nuns who performed the services of nurse in the infirmary, +Lazariste ladies, like all sisters of charity, bore the names of Sister +Perpetue and Sister Simplice. + +Sister Perpetue was an ordinary villager, a sister of charity in a +coarse style, who had entered the service of God as one enters any other +service. She was a nun as other women are cooks. This type is not +so very rare. The monastic orders gladly accept this heavy peasant +earthenware, which is easily fashioned into a Capuchin or an Ursuline. +These rustics are utilized for the rough work of devotion. The +transition from a drover to a Carmelite is not in the least violent; +the one turns into the other without much effort; the fund of ignorance +common to the village and the cloister is a preparation ready at hand, +and places the boor at once on the same footing as the monk: a little +more amplitude in the smock, and it becomes a frock. Sister Perpetue +was a robust nun from Marines near Pontoise, who chattered her patois, +droned, grumbled, sugared the potion according to the bigotry or the +hypocrisy of the invalid, treated her patients abruptly, roughly, was +crabbed with the dying, almost flung God in their faces, stoned their +death agony with prayers mumbled in a rage; was bold, honest, and ruddy. + +Sister Simplice was white, with a waxen pallor. Beside Sister Perpetue, +she was the taper beside the candle. Vincent de Paul has divinely traced +the features of the Sister of Charity in these admirable words, in which +he mingles as much freedom as servitude: "They shall have for their +convent only the house of the sick; for cell only a hired room; for +chapel only their parish church; for cloister only the streets of the +town and the wards of the hospitals; for enclosure only obedience; for +gratings only the fear of God; for veil only modesty." This ideal was +realized in the living person of Sister Simplice: she had never been +young, and it seemed as though she would never grow old. No one could +have told Sister Simplice's age. She was a person--we dare not say a +woman--who was gentle, austere, well-bred, cold, and who had never lied. +She was so gentle that she appeared fragile; but she was more solid than +granite. She touched the unhappy with fingers that were charmingly pure +and fine. There was, so to speak, silence in her speech; she said just +what was necessary, and she possessed a tone of voice which would +have equally edified a confessional or enchanted a drawing-room. This +delicacy accommodated itself to the serge gown, finding in this harsh +contact a continual reminder of heaven and of God. Let us emphasize +one detail. Never to have lied, never to have said, for any interest +whatever, even in indifference, any single thing which was not the +truth, the sacred truth, was Sister Simplice's distinctive trait; it was +the accent of her virtue. She was almost renowned in the congregation +for this imperturbable veracity. The Abbe Sicard speaks of Sister +Simplice in a letter to the deaf-mute Massieu. However pure and sincere +we may be, we all bear upon our candor the crack of the little, innocent +lie. She did not. Little lie, innocent lie--does such a thing exist? To +lie is the absolute form of evil. To lie a little is not possible: he +who lies, lies the whole lie. To lie is the very face of the demon. +Satan has two names; he is called Satan and Lying. That is what she +thought; and as she thought, so she did. The result was the whiteness +which we have mentioned--a whiteness which covered even her lips and her +eyes with radiance. Her smile was white, her glance was white. There was +not a single spider's web, not a grain of dust, on the glass window of +that conscience. On entering the order of Saint Vincent de Paul, she had +taken the name of Simplice by special choice. Simplice of Sicily, as we +know, is the saint who preferred to allow both her breasts to be torn +off rather than to say that she had been born at Segesta when she had +been born at Syracuse--a lie which would have saved her. This patron +saint suited this soul. + +Sister Simplice, on her entrance into the order, had had two faults +which she had gradually corrected: she had a taste for dainties, and she +liked to receive letters. She never read anything but a book of prayers +printed in Latin, in coarse type. She did not understand Latin, but she +understood the book. + +This pious woman had conceived an affection for Fantine, probably +feeling a latent virtue there, and she had devoted herself almost +exclusively to her care. + +M. Madeleine took Sister Simplice apart and recommended Fantine to her +in a singular tone, which the sister recalled later on. + +On leaving the sister, he approached Fantine. + +Fantine awaited M. Madeleine's appearance every day as one awaits a ray +of warmth and joy. She said to the sisters, "I only live when Monsieur +le Maire is here." + +She had a great deal of fever that day. As soon as she saw M. Madeleine +she asked him:-- + +"And Cosette?" + +He replied with a smile:-- + +"Soon." + +M. Madeleine was the same as usual with Fantine. Only he remained an +hour instead of half an hour, to Fantine's great delight. He urged every +one repeatedly not to allow the invalid to want for anything. It was +noticed that there was a moment when his countenance became very sombre. +But this was explained when it became known that the doctor had bent +down to his ear and said to him, "She is losing ground fast." + +Then he returned to the town-hall, and the clerk observed him +attentively examining a road map of France which hung in his study. He +wrote a few figures on a bit of paper with a pencil. + + + + +CHAPTER II--THE PERSPICACITY OF MASTER SCAUFFLAIRE + +From the town-hall he betook himself to the extremity of the town, to a +Fleming named Master Scaufflaer, French Scaufflaire, who let out "horses +and cabriolets as desired." + +In order to reach this Scaufflaire, the shortest way was to take the +little-frequented street in which was situated the parsonage of the +parish in which M. Madeleine resided. The cure was, it was said, a +worthy, respectable, and sensible man. At the moment when M. Madeleine +arrived in front of the parsonage there was but one passer-by in the +street, and this person noticed this: After the mayor had passed the +priest's house he halted, stood motionless, then turned about, and +retraced his steps to the door of the parsonage, which had an iron +knocker. He laid his hand quickly on the knocker and lifted it; then +he paused again and stopped short, as though in thought, and after +the lapse of a few seconds, instead of allowing the knocker to fall +abruptly, he placed it gently, and resumed his way with a sort of haste +which had not been apparent previously. + +M. Madeleine found Master Scaufflaire at home, engaged in stitching a +harness over. + +"Master Scaufflaire," he inquired, "have you a good horse?" + +"Mr. Mayor," said the Fleming, "all my horses are good. What do you mean +by a good horse?" + +"I mean a horse which can travel twenty leagues in a day." + +"The deuce!" said the Fleming. "Twenty leagues!" + +"Yes." + +"Hitched to a cabriolet?" + +"Yes." + +"And how long can he rest at the end of his journey?" + +"He must be able to set out again on the next day if necessary." + +"To traverse the same road?" + +"Yes." + +"The deuce! the deuce! And it is twenty leagues?" + +M. Madeleine drew from his pocket the paper on which he had pencilled +some figures. He showed it to the Fleming. The figures were 5, 6, 8 1/2. + +"You see," he said, "total, nineteen and a half; as well say twenty +leagues." + +"Mr. Mayor," returned the Fleming, "I have just what you want. My little +white horse--you may have seen him pass occasionally; he is a small +beast from Lower Boulonnais. He is full of fire. They wanted to make +a saddle-horse of him at first. Bah! He reared, he kicked, he laid +everybody flat on the ground. He was thought to be vicious, and no one +knew what to do with him. I bought him. I harnessed him to a carriage. +That is what he wanted, sir; he is as gentle as a girl; he goes like the +wind. Ah! indeed he must not be mounted. It does not suit his ideas to +be a saddle-horse. Every one has his ambition. 'Draw? Yes. Carry? No.' +We must suppose that is what he said to himself." + +"And he will accomplish the trip?" + +"Your twenty leagues all at a full trot, and in less than eight hours. +But here are the conditions." + +"State them." + +"In the first place, you will give him half an hour's breathing spell +midway of the road; he will eat; and some one must be by while he is +eating to prevent the stable boy of the inn from stealing his oats; for +I have noticed that in inns the oats are more often drunk by the stable +men than eaten by the horses." + +"Some one will be by." + +"In the second place--is the cabriolet for Monsieur le Maire?" + +"Yes." + +"Does Monsieur le Maire know how to drive?" + +"Yes." + +"Well, Monsieur le Maire will travel alone and without baggage, in order +not to overload the horse?" + +"Agreed." + +"But as Monsieur le Maire will have no one with him, he will be obliged +to take the trouble himself of seeing that the oats are not stolen." + +"That is understood." + +"I am to have thirty francs a day. The days of rest to be paid for +also--not a farthing less; and the beast's food to be at Monsieur le +Maire's expense." + +M. Madeleine drew three napoleons from his purse and laid them on the +table. + +"Here is the pay for two days in advance." + +"Fourthly, for such a journey a cabriolet would be too heavy, and would +fatigue the horse. Monsieur le Maire must consent to travel in a little +tilbury that I own." + +"I consent to that." + +"It is light, but it has no cover." + +"That makes no difference to me." + +"Has Monsieur le Maire reflected that we are in the middle of winter?" + +M. Madeleine did not reply. The Fleming resumed:-- + +"That it is very cold?" + +M. Madeleine preserved silence. + +Master Scaufflaire continued:-- + +"That it may rain?" + +M. Madeleine raised his head and said:-- + +"The tilbury and the horse will be in front of my door to-morrow morning +at half-past four o'clock." + +"Of course, Monsieur le Maire," replied Scaufflaire; then, scratching a +speck in the wood of the table with his thumb-nail, he resumed with that +careless air which the Flemings understand so well how to mingle with +their shrewdness:-- + +"But this is what I am thinking of now: Monsieur le Maire has not told +me where he is going. Where is Monsieur le Maire going?" + +He had been thinking of nothing else since the beginning of the +conversation, but he did not know why he had not dared to put the +question. + +"Are your horse's forelegs good?" said M. Madeleine. + +"Yes, Monsieur le Maire. You must hold him in a little when going down +hill. Are there many descends between here and the place whither you are +going?" + +"Do not forget to be at my door at precisely half-past four o'clock +to-morrow morning," replied M. Madeleine; and he took his departure. + +The Fleming remained "utterly stupid," as he himself said some time +afterwards. + +The mayor had been gone two or three minutes when the door opened again; +it was the mayor once more. + +He still wore the same impassive and preoccupied air. + +"Monsieur Scaufflaire," said he, "at what sum do you estimate the value +of the horse and tilbury which you are to let to me,--the one bearing +the other?" + +"The one dragging the other, Monsieur le Maire," said the Fleming, with +a broad smile. + +"So be it. Well?" + +"Does Monsieur le Maire wish to purchase them or me?" + +"No; but I wish to guarantee you in any case. You shall give me back +the sum at my return. At what value do you estimate your horse and +cabriolet?" + +"Five hundred francs, Monsieur le Maire." + +"Here it is." + +M. Madeleine laid a bank-bill on the table, then left the room; and this +time he did not return. + +Master Scaufflaire experienced a frightful regret that he had not said a +thousand francs. Besides the horse and tilbury together were worth but a +hundred crowns. + +The Fleming called his wife, and related the affair to her. "Where the +devil could Monsieur le Maire be going?" They held counsel together. +"He is going to Paris," said the wife. "I don't believe it," said the +husband. + +M. Madeleine had forgotten the paper with the figures on it, and it lay +on the chimney-piece. The Fleming picked it up and studied it. "Five, +six, eight and a half? That must designate the posting relays." He +turned to his wife:-- + +"I have found out." + +"What?" + +"It is five leagues from here to Hesdin, six from Hesdin to Saint-Pol, +eight and a half from Saint-Pol to Arras. He is going to Arras." + +Meanwhile, M. Madeleine had returned home. He had taken the longest way +to return from Master Scaufflaire's, as though the parsonage door had +been a temptation for him, and he had wished to avoid it. He ascended +to his room, and there he shut himself up, which was a very simple act, +since he liked to go to bed early. Nevertheless, the portress of the +factory, who was, at the same time, M. Madeleine's only servant, noticed +that the latter's light was extinguished at half-past eight, and she +mentioned it to the cashier when he came home, adding:-- + +"Is Monsieur le Maire ill? I thought he had a rather singular air." + +This cashier occupied a room situated directly under M. Madeleine's +chamber. He paid no heed to the portress's words, but went to bed and +to sleep. Towards midnight he woke up with a start; in his sleep he had +heard a noise above his head. He listened; it was a footstep pacing back +and forth, as though some one were walking in the room above him. He +listened more attentively, and recognized M. Madeleine's step. This +struck him as strange; usually, there was no noise in M. Madeleine's +chamber until he rose in the morning. A moment later the cashier heard +a noise which resembled that of a cupboard being opened, and then shut +again; then a piece of furniture was disarranged; then a pause ensued; +then the step began again. The cashier sat up in bed, quite awake now, +and staring; and through his window-panes he saw the reddish gleam of a +lighted window reflected on the opposite wall; from the direction of the +rays, it could only come from the window of M. Madeleine's chamber. The +reflection wavered, as though it came rather from a fire which had +been lighted than from a candle. The shadow of the window-frame was not +shown, which indicated that the window was wide open. The fact that this +window was open in such cold weather was surprising. The cashier fell +asleep again. An hour or two later he waked again. The same step was +still passing slowly and regularly back and forth overhead. + +The reflection was still visible on the wall, but now it was pale and +peaceful, like the reflection of a lamp or of a candle. The window was +still open. + +This is what had taken place in M. Madeleine's room. + + + + +CHAPTER III--A TEMPEST IN A SKULL + +The reader has, no doubt, already divined that M. Madeleine is no other +than Jean Valjean. + +We have already gazed into the depths of this conscience; the moment has +now come when we must take another look into it. We do so not without +emotion and trepidation. There is nothing more terrible in existence +than this sort of contemplation. The eye of the spirit can nowhere find +more dazzling brilliance and more shadow than in man; it can fix itself +on no other thing which is more formidable, more complicated, more +mysterious, and more infinite. There is a spectacle more grand than the +sea; it is heaven: there is a spectacle more grand than heaven; it is +the inmost recesses of the soul. + +To make the poem of the human conscience, were it only with reference to +a single man, were it only in connection with the basest of men, would +be to blend all epics into one superior and definitive epic. Conscience +is the chaos of chimeras, of lusts, and of temptations; the furnace of +dreams; the lair of ideas of which we are ashamed; it is the pandemonium +of sophisms; it is the battlefield of the passions. Penetrate, at +certain hours, past the livid face of a human being who is engaged +in reflection, and look behind, gaze into that soul, gaze into that +obscurity. There, beneath that external silence, battles of giants, +like those recorded in Homer, are in progress; skirmishes of dragons and +hydras and swarms of phantoms, as in Milton; visionary circles, as in +Dante. What a solemn thing is this infinity which every man bears within +him, and which he measures with despair against the caprices of his +brain and the actions of his life! + +Alighieri one day met with a sinister-looking door, before which he +hesitated. Here is one before us, upon whose threshold we hesitate. Let +us enter, nevertheless. + +We have but little to add to what the reader already knows of what had +happened to Jean Valjean after the adventure with Little Gervais. From +that moment forth he was, as we have seen, a totally different man. What +the Bishop had wished to make of him, that he carried out. It was more +than a transformation; it was a transfiguration. + +He succeeded in disappearing, sold the Bishop's silver, reserving only +the candlesticks as a souvenir, crept from town to town, traversed +France, came to M. sur M., conceived the idea which we have mentioned, +accomplished what we have related, succeeded in rendering himself safe +from seizure and inaccessible, and, thenceforth, established at M. sur +M., happy in feeling his conscience saddened by the past and the first +half of his existence belied by the last, he lived in peace, reassured +and hopeful, having henceforth only two thoughts,--to conceal his name +and to sanctify his life; to escape men and to return to God. + +These two thoughts were so closely intertwined in his mind that +they formed but a single one there; both were equally absorbing and +imperative and ruled his slightest actions. In general, they conspired +to regulate the conduct of his life; they turned him towards the gloom; +they rendered him kindly and simple; they counselled him to the same +things. Sometimes, however, they conflicted. In that case, as the reader +will remember, the man whom all the country of M. sur M. called M. +Madeleine did not hesitate to sacrifice the first to the second--his +security to his virtue. Thus, in spite of all his reserve and all his +prudence, he had preserved the Bishop's candlesticks, worn mourning for +him, summoned and interrogated all the little Savoyards who passed that +way, collected information regarding the families at Faverolles, and +saved old Fauchelevent's life, despite the disquieting insinuations of +Javert. It seemed, as we have already remarked, as though he thought, +following the example of all those who have been wise, holy, and just, +that his first duty was not towards himself. + +At the same time, it must be confessed, nothing just like this had yet +presented itself. + +Never had the two ideas which governed the unhappy man whose sufferings +we are narrating, engaged in so serious a struggle. He understood this +confusedly but profoundly at the very first words pronounced by Javert, +when the latter entered his study. At the moment when that name, which +he had buried beneath so many layers, was so strangely articulated, +he was struck with stupor, and as though intoxicated with the sinister +eccentricity of his destiny; and through this stupor he felt that +shudder which precedes great shocks. He bent like an oak at the approach +of a storm, like a soldier at the approach of an assault. He felt +shadows filled with thunders and lightnings descending upon his head. +As he listened to Javert, the first thought which occurred to him was to +go, to run and denounce himself, to take that Champmathieu out of prison +and place himself there; this was as painful and as poignant as an +incision in the living flesh. Then it passed away, and he said to +himself, "We will see! We will see!" He repressed this first, generous +instinct, and recoiled before heroism. + +It would be beautiful, no doubt, after the Bishop's holy words, after +so many years of repentance and abnegation, in the midst of a penitence +admirably begun, if this man had not flinched for an instant, even in +the presence of so terrible a conjecture, but had continued to walk with +the same step towards this yawning precipice, at the bottom of which +lay heaven; that would have been beautiful; but it was not thus. We must +render an account of the things which went on in this soul, and we can +only tell what there was there. He was carried away, at first, by +the instinct of self-preservation; he rallied all his ideas in haste, +stifled his emotions, took into consideration Javert's presence, that +great danger, postponed all decision with the firmness of terror, shook +off thought as to what he had to do, and resumed his calmness as a +warrior picks up his buckler. + +He remained in this state during the rest of the day, a whirlwind +within, a profound tranquillity without. He took no "preservative +measures," as they may be called. Everything was still confused, and +jostling together in his brain. His trouble was so great that he could +not perceive the form of a single idea distinctly, and he could have +told nothing about himself, except that he had received a great blow. + +He repaired to Fantine's bed of suffering, as usual, and prolonged his +visit, through a kindly instinct, telling himself that he must behave +thus, and recommend her well to the sisters, in case he should be +obliged to be absent himself. He had a vague feeling that he might be +obliged to go to Arras; and without having the least in the world made +up his mind to this trip, he said to himself that being, as he was, +beyond the shadow of any suspicion, there could be nothing out of the +way in being a witness to what was to take place, and he engaged the +tilbury from Scaufflaire in order to be prepared in any event. + +He dined with a good deal of appetite. + +On returning to his room, he communed with himself. + +He examined the situation, and found it unprecedented; so unprecedented +that in the midst of his revery he rose from his chair, moved by some +inexplicable impulse of anxiety, and bolted his door. He feared +lest something more should enter. He was barricading himself against +possibilities. + +A moment later he extinguished his light; it embarrassed him. + +It seemed to him as though he might be seen. + +By whom? + +Alas! That on which he desired to close the door had already entered; +that which he desired to blind was staring him in the face,--his +conscience. + +His conscience; that is to say, God. + +Nevertheless, he deluded himself at first; he had a feeling of security +and of solitude; the bolt once drawn, he thought himself impregnable; +the candle extinguished, he felt himself invisible. Then he took +possession of himself: he set his elbows on the table, leaned his head +on his hand, and began to meditate in the dark. + +"Where do I stand? Am not I dreaming? What have I heard? Is it really +true that I have seen that Javert, and that he spoke to me in that +manner? Who can that Champmathieu be? So he resembles me! Is it +possible? When I reflect that yesterday I was so tranquil, and so far +from suspecting anything! What was I doing yesterday at this hour? What +is there in this incident? What will the end be? What is to be done?" + +This was the torment in which he found himself. His brain had lost its +power of retaining ideas; they passed like waves, and he clutched his +brow in both hands to arrest them. + +Nothing but anguish extricated itself from this tumult which overwhelmed +his will and his reason, and from which he sought to draw proof and +resolution. + +His head was burning. He went to the window and threw it wide open. +There were no stars in the sky. He returned and seated himself at the +table. + +The first hour passed in this manner. + +Gradually, however, vague outlines began to take form and to fix +themselves in his meditation, and he was able to catch a glimpse with +precision of the reality,--not the whole situation, but some of +the details. He began by recognizing the fact that, critical and +extraordinary as was this situation, he was completely master of it. + +This only caused an increase of his stupor. + +Independently of the severe and religious aim which he had assigned to +his actions, all that he had made up to that day had been nothing but a +hole in which to bury his name. That which he had always feared most of +all in his hours of self-communion, during his sleepless nights, was to +ever hear that name pronounced; he had said to himself, that that would +be the end of all things for him; that on the day when that name made +its reappearance it would cause his new life to vanish from about +him, and--who knows?--perhaps even his new soul within him, also. He +shuddered at the very thought that this was possible. Assuredly, if any +one had said to him at such moments that the hour would come when that +name would ring in his ears, when the hideous words, Jean Valjean, would +suddenly emerge from the darkness and rise in front of him, when that +formidable light, capable of dissipating the mystery in which he had +enveloped himself, would suddenly blaze forth above his head, and that +that name would not menace him, that that light would but produce +an obscurity more dense, that this rent veil would but increase the +mystery, that this earthquake would solidify his edifice, that this +prodigious incident would have no other result, so far as he was +concerned, if so it seemed good to him, than that of rendering his +existence at once clearer and more impenetrable, and that, out of his +confrontation with the phantom of Jean Valjean, the good and worthy +citizen Monsieur Madeleine would emerge more honored, more peaceful, and +more respected than ever--if any one had told him that, he would have +tossed his head and regarded the words as those of a madman. Well, all +this was precisely what had just come to pass; all that accumulation of +impossibilities was a fact, and God had permitted these wild fancies to +become real things! + +His revery continued to grow clearer. He came more and more to an +understanding of his position. + +It seemed to him that he had but just waked up from some inexplicable +dream, and that he found himself slipping down a declivity in the middle +of the night, erect, shivering, holding back all in vain, on the very +brink of the abyss. He distinctly perceived in the darkness a stranger, +a man unknown to him, whom destiny had mistaken for him, and whom she +was thrusting into the gulf in his stead; in order that the gulf might +close once more, it was necessary that some one, himself or that other +man, should fall into it: he had only let things take their course. + +The light became complete, and he acknowledged this to himself: That +his place was empty in the galleys; that do what he would, it was still +awaiting him; that the theft from little Gervais had led him back to it; +that this vacant place would await him, and draw him on until he filled +it; that this was inevitable and fatal; and then he said to himself, +"that, at this moment, he had a substitute; that it appeared that a +certain Champmathieu had that ill luck, and that, as regards himself, +being present in the galleys in the person of that Champmathieu, present +in society under the name of M. Madeleine, he had nothing more to fear, +provided that he did not prevent men from sealing over the head of +that Champmathieu this stone of infamy which, like the stone of the +sepulchre, falls once, never to rise again." + +All this was so strange and so violent, that there suddenly took place +in him that indescribable movement, which no man feels more than two +or three times in the course of his life, a sort of convulsion of the +conscience which stirs up all that there is doubtful in the heart, which +is composed of irony, of joy, and of despair, and which may be called an +outburst of inward laughter. + +He hastily relighted his candle. + +"Well, what then?" he said to himself; "what am I afraid of? What is +there in all that for me to think about? I am safe; all is over. I had +but one partly open door through which my past might invade my life, +and behold that door is walled up forever! That Javert, who has been +annoying me so long; that terrible instinct which seemed to have divined +me, which had divined me--good God! and which followed me everywhere; +that frightful hunting-dog, always making a point at me, is thrown +off the scent, engaged elsewhere, absolutely turned from the trail: +henceforth he is satisfied; he will leave me in peace; he has his Jean +Valjean. Who knows? it is even probable that he will wish to leave town! +And all this has been brought about without any aid from me, and I count +for nothing in it! Ah! but where is the misfortune in this? Upon my +honor, people would think, to see me, that some catastrophe had happened +to me! After all, if it does bring harm to some one, that is not my +fault in the least: it is Providence which has done it all; it is +because it wishes it so to be, evidently. Have I the right to disarrange +what it has arranged? What do I ask now? Why should I meddle? It does +not concern me; what! I am not satisfied: but what more do I want? The +goal to which I have aspired for so many years, the dream of my nights, +the object of my prayers to Heaven,--security,--I have now attained; it +is God who wills it; I can do nothing against the will of God, and why +does God will it? In order that I may continue what I have begun, that I +may do good, that I may one day be a grand and encouraging example, that +it may be said at last, that a little happiness has been attached to +the penance which I have undergone, and to that virtue to which I have +returned. Really, I do not understand why I was afraid, a little while +ago, to enter the house of that good cure, and to ask his advice; this +is evidently what he would have said to me: It is settled; let things +take their course; let the good God do as he likes!" + +Thus did he address himself in the depths of his own conscience, bending +over what may be called his own abyss; he rose from his chair, and began +to pace the room: "Come," said he, "let us think no more about it; my +resolve is taken!" but he felt no joy. + +Quite the reverse. + +One can no more prevent thought from recurring to an idea than one can +the sea from returning to the shore: the sailor calls it the tide; the +guilty man calls it remorse; God upheaves the soul as he does the ocean. + +After the expiration of a few moments, do what he would, he resumed the +gloomy dialogue in which it was he who spoke and he who listened, saying +that which he would have preferred to ignore, and listened to that which +he would have preferred not to hear, yielding to that mysterious power +which said to him: "Think!" as it said to another condemned man, two +thousand years ago, "March on!" + +Before proceeding further, and in order to make ourselves fully +understood, let us insist upon one necessary observation. + +It is certain that people do talk to themselves; there is no living +being who has not done it. It may even be said that the word is never +a more magnificent mystery than when it goes from thought to conscience +within a man, and when it returns from conscience to thought; it is in +this sense only that the words so often employed in this chapter, he +said, he exclaimed, must be understood; one speaks to one's self, talks +to one's self, exclaims to one's self without breaking the external +silence; there is a great tumult; everything about us talks except the +mouth. The realities of the soul are none the less realities because +they are not visible and palpable. + +So he asked himself where he stood. He interrogated himself upon that +"settled resolve." He confessed to himself that all that he had just +arranged in his mind was monstrous, that "to let things take their +course, to let the good God do as he liked," was simply horrible; to +allow this error of fate and of men to be carried out, not to hinder it, +to lend himself to it through his silence, to do nothing, in short, +was to do everything! that this was hypocritical baseness in the last +degree! that it was a base, cowardly, sneaking, abject, hideous crime! + +For the first time in eight years, the wretched man had just tasted the +bitter savor of an evil thought and of an evil action. + +He spit it out with disgust. + +He continued to question himself. He asked himself severely what he had +meant by this, "My object is attained!" He declared to himself that +his life really had an object; but what object? To conceal his name? +To deceive the police? Was it for so petty a thing that he had done all +that he had done? Had he not another and a grand object, which was the +true one--to save, not his person, but his soul; to become honest and +good once more; to be a just man? Was it not that above all, that alone, +which he had always desired, which the Bishop had enjoined upon him--to +shut the door on his past? But he was not shutting it! great God! he was +re-opening it by committing an infamous action! He was becoming a thief +once more, and the most odious of thieves! He was robbing another of +his existence, his life, his peace, his place in the sunshine. He was +becoming an assassin. He was murdering, morally murdering, a wretched +man. He was inflicting on him that frightful living death, that death +beneath the open sky, which is called the galleys. On the other hand, +to surrender himself to save that man, struck down with so melancholy +an error, to resume his own name, to become once more, out of duty, the +convict Jean Valjean, that was, in truth, to achieve his resurrection, +and to close forever that hell whence he had just emerged; to fall back +there in appearance was to escape from it in reality. This must be +done! He had done nothing if he did not do all this; his whole life was +useless; all his penitence was wasted. There was no longer any need of +saying, "What is the use?" He felt that the Bishop was there, that the +Bishop was present all the more because he was dead, that the Bishop +was gazing fixedly at him, that henceforth Mayor Madeleine, with all his +virtues, would be abominable to him, and that the convict Jean Valjean +would be pure and admirable in his sight; that men beheld his mask, but +that the Bishop saw his face; that men saw his life, but that the Bishop +beheld his conscience. So he must go to Arras, deliver the false Jean +Valjean, and denounce the real one. Alas! that was the greatest of +sacrifices, the most poignant of victories, the last step to take; but +it must be done. Sad fate! he would enter into sanctity only in the eyes +of God when he returned to infamy in the eyes of men. + +"Well," said he, "let us decide upon this; let us do our duty; let us +save this man." He uttered these words aloud, without perceiving that he +was speaking aloud. + +He took his books, verified them, and put them in order. He flung in +the fire a bundle of bills which he had against petty and embarrassed +tradesmen. He wrote and sealed a letter, and on the envelope it might +have been read, had there been any one in his chamber at the moment, +To Monsieur Laffitte, Banker, Rue d'Artois, Paris. He drew from his +secretary a pocket-book which contained several bank-notes and the +passport of which he had made use that same year when he went to the +elections. + +Any one who had seen him during the execution of these various acts, +into which there entered such grave thought, would have had no suspicion +of what was going on within him. Only occasionally did his lips move; at +other times he raised his head and fixed his gaze upon some point of the +wall, as though there existed at that point something which he wished to +elucidate or interrogate. + +When he had finished the letter to M. Laffitte, he put it into his +pocket, together with the pocket-book, and began his walk once more. + +His revery had not swerved from its course. He continued to see his duty +clearly, written in luminous letters, which flamed before his eyes and +changed its place as he altered the direction of his glance:-- + +"Go! Tell your name! Denounce yourself!" + +In the same way he beheld, as though they had passed before him in +visible forms, the two ideas which had, up to that time, formed +the double rule of his soul,--the concealment of his name, the +sanctification of his life. For the first time they appeared to him as +absolutely distinct, and he perceived the distance which separated them. +He recognized the fact that one of these ideas was, necessarily, good, +while the other might become bad; that the first was self-devotion, and +that the other was personality; that the one said, my neighbor, and that +the other said, myself; that one emanated from the light, and the other +from darkness. + +They were antagonistic. He saw them in conflict. In proportion as +he meditated, they grew before the eyes of his spirit. They had now +attained colossal statures, and it seemed to him that he beheld within +himself, in that infinity of which we were recently speaking, in the +midst of the darkness and the lights, a goddess and a giant contending. + +He was filled with terror; but it seemed to him that the good thought +was getting the upper hand. + +He felt that he was on the brink of the second decisive crisis of his +conscience and of his destiny; that the Bishop had marked the first +phase of his new life, and that Champmathieu marked the second. After +the grand crisis, the grand test. + +But the fever, allayed for an instant, gradually resumed possession +of him. A thousand thoughts traversed his mind, but they continued to +fortify him in his resolution. + +One moment he said to himself that he was, perhaps, taking the matter +too keenly; that, after all, this Champmathieu was not interesting, and +that he had actually been guilty of theft. + +He answered himself: "If this man has, indeed, stolen a few apples, that +means a month in prison. It is a long way from that to the galleys. And +who knows? Did he steal? Has it been proved? The name of Jean Valjean +overwhelms him, and seems to dispense with proofs. Do not the attorneys +for the Crown always proceed in this manner? He is supposed to be a +thief because he is known to be a convict." + +In another instant the thought had occurred to him that, when he +denounced himself, the heroism of his deed might, perhaps, be taken into +consideration, and his honest life for the last seven years, and what he +had done for the district, and that they would have mercy on him. + +But this supposition vanished very quickly, and he smiled bitterly as he +remembered that the theft of the forty sous from little Gervais put him +in the position of a man guilty of a second offence after conviction, +that this affair would certainly come up, and, according to the precise +terms of the law, would render him liable to penal servitude for life. + +He turned aside from all illusions, detached himself more and more from +earth, and sought strength and consolation elsewhere. He told himself +that he must do his duty; that perhaps he should not be more unhappy +after doing his duty than after having avoided it; that if he allowed +things to take their own course, if he remained at M. sur M., his +consideration, his good name, his good works, the deference and +veneration paid to him, his charity, his wealth, his popularity, his +virtue, would be seasoned with a crime. And what would be the taste of +all these holy things when bound up with this hideous thing? while, if +he accomplished his sacrifice, a celestial idea would be mingled with +the galleys, the post, the iron necklet, the green cap, unceasing toil, +and pitiless shame. + +At length he told himself that it must be so, that his destiny was thus +allotted, that he had not authority to alter the arrangements made on +high, that, in any case, he must make his choice: virtue without and +abomination within, or holiness within and infamy without. + +The stirring up of these lugubrious ideas did not cause his courage to +fail, but his brain grow weary. He began to think of other things, of +indifferent matters, in spite of himself. + +The veins in his temples throbbed violently; he still paced to and fro; +midnight sounded first from the parish church, then from the town-hall; +he counted the twelve strokes of the two clocks, and compared the sounds +of the two bells; he recalled in this connection the fact that, a few +days previously, he had seen in an ironmonger's shop an ancient clock +for sale, upon which was written the name, Antoine-Albin de Romainville. + +He was cold; he lighted a small fire; it did not occur to him to close +the window. + +In the meantime he had relapsed into his stupor; he was obliged to make +a tolerably vigorous effort to recall what had been the subject of his +thoughts before midnight had struck; he finally succeeded in doing this. + +"Ah! yes," he said to himself, "I had resolved to inform against +myself." + +And then, all of a sudden, he thought of Fantine. + +"Hold!" said he, "and what about that poor woman?" + +Here a fresh crisis declared itself. + +Fantine, by appearing thus abruptly in his revery, produced the effect +of an unexpected ray of light; it seemed to him as though everything +about him were undergoing a change of aspect: he exclaimed:-- + +"Ah! but I have hitherto considered no one but myself; it is proper for +me to hold my tongue or to denounce myself, to conceal my person or +to save my soul, to be a despicable and respected magistrate, or an +infamous and venerable convict; it is I, it is always I and nothing +but I: but, good God! all this is egotism; these are diverse forms +of egotism, but it is egotism all the same. What if I were to think a +little about others? The highest holiness is to think of others; come, +let us examine the matter. The _I_ excepted, the _I_ effaced, the _I_ +forgotten, what would be the result of all this? What if I denounce +myself? I am arrested; this Champmathieu is released; I am put back in +the galleys; that is well--and what then? What is going on here? Ah! +here is a country, a town, here are factories, an industry, workers, +both men and women, aged grandsires, children, poor people! All this I +have created; all these I provide with their living; everywhere where +there is a smoking chimney, it is I who have placed the brand on the +hearth and meat in the pot; I have created ease, circulation, credit; +before me there was nothing; I have elevated, vivified, informed with +life, fecundated, stimulated, enriched the whole country-side; lacking +me, the soul is lacking; I take myself off, everything dies: and this +woman, who has suffered so much, who possesses so many merits in spite +of her fall; the cause of all whose misery I have unwittingly been! And +that child whom I meant to go in search of, whom I have promised to her +mother; do I not also owe something to this woman, in reparation for +the evil which I have done her? If I disappear, what happens? The mother +dies; the child becomes what it can; that is what will take place, if +I denounce myself. If I do not denounce myself? come, let us see how it +will be if I do not denounce myself." + +After putting this question to himself, he paused; he seemed to undergo +a momentary hesitation and trepidation; but it did not last long, and he +answered himself calmly:-- + +"Well, this man is going to the galleys; it is true, but what the deuce! +he has stolen! There is no use in my saying that he has not been guilty +of theft, for he has! I remain here; I go on: in ten years I shall have +made ten millions; I scatter them over the country; I have nothing of +my own; what is that to me? It is not for myself that I am doing it; +the prosperity of all goes on augmenting; industries are aroused and +animated; factories and shops are multiplied; families, a hundred +families, a thousand families, are happy; the district becomes +populated; villages spring up where there were only farms before; +farms rise where there was nothing; wretchedness disappears, and +with wretchedness debauchery, prostitution, theft, murder; all vices +disappear, all crimes: and this poor mother rears her child; and behold +a whole country rich and honest! Ah! I was a fool! I was absurd! +what was that I was saying about denouncing myself? I really must pay +attention and not be precipitate about anything. What! because it would +have pleased me to play the grand and generous; this is melodrama, after +all; because I should have thought of no one but myself, the idea! for +the sake of saving from a punishment, a trifle exaggerated, perhaps, +but just at bottom, no one knows whom, a thief, a good-for-nothing, +evidently, a whole country-side must perish! a poor woman must die in +the hospital! a poor little girl must die in the street! like dogs; ah, +this is abominable! And without the mother even having seen her child +once more, almost without the child's having known her mother; and +all that for the sake of an old wretch of an apple-thief who, most +assuredly, has deserved the galleys for something else, if not for +that; fine scruples, indeed, which save a guilty man and sacrifice the +innocent, which save an old vagabond who has only a few years to live at +most, and who will not be more unhappy in the galleys than in his hovel, +and which sacrifice a whole population, mothers, wives, children. This +poor little Cosette who has no one in the world but me, and who is, no +doubt, blue with cold at this moment in the den of those Thenardiers; +those peoples are rascals; and I was going to neglect my duty towards +all these poor creatures; and I was going off to denounce myself; and I +was about to commit that unspeakable folly! Let us put it at the worst: +suppose that there is a wrong action on my part in this, and that my +conscience will reproach me for it some day, to accept, for the good of +others, these reproaches which weigh only on myself; this evil action +which compromises my soul alone; in that lies self-sacrifice; in that +alone there is virtue." + +He rose and resumed his march; this time, he seemed to be content. + +Diamonds are found only in the dark places of the earth; truths are +found only in the depths of thought. It seemed to him, that, after +having descended into these depths, after having long groped among the +darkest of these shadows, he had at last found one of these diamonds, +one of these truths, and that he now held it in his hand, and he was +dazzled as he gazed upon it. + +"Yes," he thought, "this is right; I am on the right road; I have the +solution; I must end by holding fast to something; my resolve is taken; +let things take their course; let us no longer vacillate; let us no +longer hang back; this is for the interest of all, not for my own; I am +Madeleine, and Madeleine I remain. Woe to the man who is Jean Valjean! +I am no longer he; I do not know that man; I no longer know anything; it +turns out that some one is Jean Valjean at the present moment; let him +look out for himself; that does not concern me; it is a fatal name which +was floating abroad in the night; if it halts and descends on a head, so +much the worse for that head." + +He looked into the little mirror which hung above his chimney-piece, and +said:-- + +"Hold! it has relieved me to come to a decision; I am quite another man +now." + +He proceeded a few paces further, then he stopped short. + +"Come!" he said, "I must not flinch before any of the consequences of +the resolution which I have once adopted; there are still threads which +attach me to that Jean Valjean; they must be broken; in this very room +there are objects which would betray me, dumb things which would bear +witness against me; it is settled; all these things must disappear." + +He fumbled in his pocket, drew out his purse, opened it, and took out a +small key; he inserted the key in a lock whose aperture could hardly +be seen, so hidden was it in the most sombre tones of the design which +covered the wall-paper; a secret receptacle opened, a sort of +false cupboard constructed in the angle between the wall and the +chimney-piece; in this hiding-place there were some rags--a blue linen +blouse, an old pair of trousers, an old knapsack, and a huge thorn +cudgel shod with iron at both ends. Those who had seen Jean Valjean at +the epoch when he passed through D----in October, 1815, could easily +have recognized all the pieces of this miserable outfit. + +He had preserved them as he had preserved the silver candlesticks, in +order to remind himself continually of his starting-point, but he +had concealed all that came from the galleys, and he had allowed the +candlesticks which came from the Bishop to be seen. + +He cast a furtive glance towards the door, as though he feared that it +would open in spite of the bolt which fastened it; then, with a quick +and abrupt movement, he took the whole in his arms at once, without +bestowing so much as a glance on the things which he had so religiously +and so perilously preserved for so many years, and flung them all, rags, +cudgel, knapsack, into the fire. + +[Illustration: Candlesticks Into the Fire 1b7-3-into-the-fire] + +He closed the false cupboard again, and with redoubled precautions, +henceforth unnecessary, since it was now empty, he concealed the door +behind a heavy piece of furniture, which he pushed in front of it. + +After the lapse of a few seconds, the room and the opposite wall were +lighted up with a fierce, red, tremulous glow. Everything was on fire; +the thorn cudgel snapped and threw out sparks to the middle of the +chamber. + +As the knapsack was consumed, together with the hideous rags which it +contained, it revealed something which sparkled in the ashes. By bending +over, one could have readily recognized a coin,--no doubt the forty-sou +piece stolen from the little Savoyard. + +He did not look at the fire, but paced back and forth with the same +step. + +All at once his eye fell on the two silver candlesticks, which shone +vaguely on the chimney-piece, through the glow. + +"Hold!" he thought; "the whole of Jean Valjean is still in them. They +must be destroyed also." + +He seized the two candlesticks. + +There was still fire enough to allow of their being put out of shape, +and converted into a sort of unrecognizable bar of metal. + +He bent over the hearth and warmed himself for a moment. He felt a sense +of real comfort. "How good warmth is!" said he. + +He stirred the live coals with one of the candlesticks. + +A minute more, and they were both in the fire. + +At that moment it seemed to him that he heard a voice within him +shouting: "Jean Valjean! Jean Valjean!" + +His hair rose upright: he became like a man who is listening to some +terrible thing. + +"Yes, that's it! finish!" said the voice. "Complete what you are about! +Destroy these candlesticks! Annihilate this souvenir! Forget the Bishop! +Forget everything! Destroy this Champmathieu, do! That is right! Applaud +yourself! So it is settled, resolved, fixed, agreed: here is an old man +who does not know what is wanted of him, who has, perhaps, done nothing, +an innocent man, whose whole misfortune lies in your name, upon whom +your name weighs like a crime, who is about to be taken for you, who +will be condemned, who will finish his days in abjectness and horror. +That is good! Be an honest man yourself; remain Monsieur le Maire; +remain honorable and honored; enrich the town; nourish the indigent; +rear the orphan; live happy, virtuous, and admired; and, during this +time, while you are here in the midst of joy and light, there will be a +man who will wear your red blouse, who will bear your name in ignominy, +and who will drag your chain in the galleys. Yes, it is well arranged +thus. Ah, wretch!" + +The perspiration streamed from his brow. He fixed a haggard eye on the +candlesticks. But that within him which had spoken had not finished. The +voice continued:-- + +"Jean Valjean, there will be around you many voices, which will make a +great noise, which will talk very loud, and which will bless you, and +only one which no one will hear, and which will curse you in the dark. +Well! listen, infamous man! All those benedictions will fall back before +they reach heaven, and only the malediction will ascend to God." + +This voice, feeble at first, and which had proceeded from the most +obscure depths of his conscience, had gradually become startling and +formidable, and he now heard it in his very ear. It seemed to him that +it had detached itself from him, and that it was now speaking outside +of him. He thought that he heard the last words so distinctly, that he +glanced around the room in a sort of terror. + +"Is there any one here?" he demanded aloud, in utter bewilderment. + +Then he resumed, with a laugh which resembled that of an idiot:-- + +"How stupid I am! There can be no one!" + +There was some one; but the person who was there was of those whom the +human eye cannot see. + +He placed the candlesticks on the chimney-piece. + +Then he resumed his monotonous and lugubrious tramp, which troubled the +dreams of the sleeping man beneath him, and awoke him with a start. + +This tramping to and fro soothed and at the same time intoxicated him. +It sometimes seems, on supreme occasions, as though people moved about +for the purpose of asking advice of everything that they may encounter +by change of place. After the lapse of a few minutes he no longer knew +his position. + +He now recoiled in equal terror before both the resolutions at which he +had arrived in turn. The two ideas which counselled him appeared to him +equally fatal. What a fatality! What conjunction that that Champmathieu +should have been taken for him; to be overwhelmed by precisely the means +which Providence seemed to have employed, at first, to strengthen his +position! + +There was a moment when he reflected on the future. Denounce himself, +great God! Deliver himself up! With immense despair he faced all that +he should be obliged to leave, all that he should be obliged to take up +once more. He should have to bid farewell to that existence which was so +good, so pure, so radiant, to the respect of all, to honor, to liberty. +He should never more stroll in the fields; he should never more hear the +birds sing in the month of May; he should never more bestow alms on the +little children; he should never more experience the sweetness of having +glances of gratitude and love fixed upon him; he should quit that house +which he had built, that little chamber! Everything seemed charming to +him at that moment. Never again should he read those books; never more +should he write on that little table of white wood; his old portress, +the only servant whom he kept, would never more bring him his coffee +in the morning. Great God! instead of that, the convict gang, the iron +necklet, the red waistcoat, the chain on his ankle, fatigue, the cell, +the camp bed all those horrors which he knew so well! At his age, +after having been what he was! If he were only young again! but to +be addressed in his old age as "thou" by any one who pleased; to +be searched by the convict-guard; to receive the galley-sergeant's +cudgellings; to wear iron-bound shoes on his bare feet; to have to +stretch out his leg night and morning to the hammer of the roundsman who +visits the gang; to submit to the curiosity of strangers, who would be +told: "That man yonder is the famous Jean Valjean, who was mayor of +M. sur M."; and at night, dripping with perspiration, overwhelmed with +lassitude, their green caps drawn over their eyes, to remount, two by +two, the ladder staircase of the galleys beneath the sergeant's whip. +Oh, what misery! Can destiny, then, be as malicious as an intelligent +being, and become as monstrous as the human heart? + +And do what he would, he always fell back upon the heartrending dilemma +which lay at the foundation of his revery: "Should he remain in paradise +and become a demon? Should he return to hell and become an angel?" + +What was to be done? Great God! what was to be done? + +The torment from which he had escaped with so much difficulty was +unchained afresh within him. His ideas began to grow confused once +more; they assumed a kind of stupefied and mechanical quality which is +peculiar to despair. The name of Romainville recurred incessantly to his +mind, with the two verses of a song which he had heard in the past. +He thought that Romainville was a little grove near Paris, where young +lovers go to pluck lilacs in the month of April. + +He wavered outwardly as well as inwardly. He walked like a little child +who is permitted to toddle alone. + +At intervals, as he combated his lassitude, he made an effort to recover +the mastery of his mind. He tried to put to himself, for the last time, +and definitely, the problem over which he had, in a manner, fallen +prostrate with fatigue: Ought he to denounce himself? Ought he to hold +his peace? He could not manage to see anything distinctly. The vague +aspects of all the courses of reasoning which had been sketched out by +his meditations quivered and vanished, one after the other, into smoke. +He only felt that, to whatever course of action he made up his mind, +something in him must die, and that of necessity, and without his being +able to escape the fact; that he was entering a sepulchre on the +right hand as much as on the left; that he was passing through a death +agony,--the agony of his happiness, or the agony of his virtue. + +Alas! all his resolution had again taken possession of him. He was no +further advanced than at the beginning. + +Thus did this unhappy soul struggle in its anguish. Eighteen hundred +years before this unfortunate man, the mysterious Being in whom are +summed up all the sanctities and all the sufferings of humanity had also +long thrust aside with his hand, while the olive-trees quivered in +the wild wind of the infinite, the terrible cup which appeared to Him +dripping with darkness and overflowing with shadows in the depths all +studded with stars. + + + + +CHAPTER IV--FORMS ASSUMED BY SUFFERING DURING SLEEP + +Three o'clock in the morning had just struck, and he had been walking +thus for five hours, almost uninterruptedly, when he at length allowed +himself to drop into his chair. + +There he fell asleep and had a dream. + +This dream, like the majority of dreams, bore no relation to the +situation, except by its painful and heart-rending character, but it +made an impression on him. This nightmare struck him so forcibly that he +wrote it down later on. It is one of the papers in his own handwriting +which he has bequeathed to us. We think that we have here reproduced the +thing in strict accordance with the text. + +Of whatever nature this dream may be, the history of this night would +be incomplete if we were to omit it: it is the gloomy adventure of an +ailing soul. + +Here it is. On the envelope we find this line inscribed, "The Dream I +had that Night." + +"I was in a plain; a vast, gloomy plain, where there was no grass. It +did not seem to me to be daylight nor yet night. + +"I was walking with my brother, the brother of my childish years, +the brother of whom, I must say, I never think, and whom I now hardly +remember. + +"We were conversing and we met some passers-by. We were talking of a +neighbor of ours in former days, who had always worked with her window +open from the time when she came to live on the street. As we talked we +felt cold because of that open window. + +"There were no trees in the plain. We saw a man passing close to us. He +was entirely nude, of the hue of ashes, and mounted on a horse which was +earth color. The man had no hair; we could see his skull and the veins +on it. In his hand he held a switch which was as supple as a vine-shoot +and as heavy as iron. This horseman passed and said nothing to us. + +"My brother said to me, 'Let us take to the hollow road.' + +"There existed a hollow way wherein one saw neither a single shrub nor +a spear of moss. Everything was dirt-colored, even the sky. After +proceeding a few paces, I received no reply when I spoke: I perceived +that my brother was no longer with me. + +"I entered a village which I espied. I reflected that it must be +Romainville. (Why Romainville?)[5] + +"The first street that I entered was deserted. I entered a second +street. Behind the angle formed by the two streets, a man was standing +erect against the wall. I said to this Man:-- + +"'What country is this? Where am I?' The man made no reply. I saw the +door of a house open, and I entered. + +"The first chamber was deserted. I entered the second. Behind the door +of this chamber a man was standing erect against the wall. I inquired of +this man, 'Whose house is this? Where am I?' The man replied not. + +"The house had a garden. I quitted the house and entered the garden. +The garden was deserted. Behind the first tree I found a man standing +upright. I said to this man, 'What garden is this? Where am I?' The man +did not answer. + +"I strolled into the village, and perceived that it was a town. All +the streets were deserted, all the doors were open. Not a single living +being was passing in the streets, walking through the chambers or +strolling in the gardens. But behind each angle of the walls, behind +each door, behind each tree, stood a silent man. Only one was to be seen +at a time. These men watched me pass. + +"I left the town and began to ramble about the fields. + +"After the lapse of some time I turned back and saw a great crowd coming +up behind me. I recognized all the men whom I had seen in that town. +They had strange heads. They did not seem to be in a hurry, yet they +walked faster than I did. They made no noise as they walked. In an +instant this crowd had overtaken and surrounded me. The faces of these +men were earthen in hue. + +"Then the first one whom I had seen and questioned on entering the town +said to me:-- + +"'Whither are you going! Do you not know that you have been dead this +long time?' + +"I opened my mouth to reply, and I perceived that there was no one near +me." + + +He woke. He was icy cold. A wind which was chill like the breeze of dawn +was rattling the leaves of the window, which had been left open on their +hinges. The fire was out. The candle was nearing its end. It was still +black night. + +He rose, he went to the window. There were no stars in the sky even yet. + +From his window the yard of the house and the street were visible. A +sharp, harsh noise, which made him drop his eyes, resounded from the +earth. + +Below him he perceived two red stars, whose rays lengthened and +shortened in a singular manner through the darkness. + +As his thoughts were still half immersed in the mists of sleep, "Hold!" +said he, "there are no stars in the sky. They are on earth now." + +But this confusion vanished; a second sound similar to the first roused +him thoroughly; he looked and recognized the fact that these two stars +were the lanterns of a carriage. By the light which they cast he was +able to distinguish the form of this vehicle. It was a tilbury harnessed +to a small white horse. The noise which he had heard was the trampling +of the horse's hoofs on the pavement. + +"What vehicle is this?" he said to himself. "Who is coming here so early +in the morning?" + +At that moment there came a light tap on the door of his chamber. + +He shuddered from head to foot, and cried in a terrible voice:-- + +"Who is there?" + +Some one said:-- + +"I, Monsieur le Maire." + +He recognized the voice of the old woman who was his portress. + +"Well!" he replied, "what is it?" + +"Monsieur le Maire, it is just five o'clock in the morning." + +"What is that to me?" + +"The cabriolet is here, Monsieur le Maire." + +"What cabriolet?" + +"The tilbury." + +"What tilbury?" + +"Did not Monsieur le Maire order a tilbury?" + +"No," said he. + +"The coachman says that he has come for Monsieur le Maire." + +"What coachman?" + +"M. Scaufflaire's coachman." + +"M. Scaufflaire?" + +That name sent a shudder over him, as though a flash of lightning had +passed in front of his face. + +"Ah! yes," he resumed; "M. Scaufflaire!" + +If the old woman could have seen him at that moment, she would have been +frightened. + +A tolerably long silence ensued. He examined the flame of the candle +with a stupid air, and from around the wick he took some of the burning +wax, which he rolled between his fingers. The old woman waited for him. +She even ventured to uplift her voice once more:-- + +"What am I to say, Monsieur le Maire?" + +"Say that it is well, and that I am coming down." + + + + +CHAPTER V--HINDRANCES + +The posting service from Arras to M. sur M. was still operated at this +period by small mail-wagons of the time of the Empire. These mail-wagons +were two-wheeled cabriolets, upholstered inside with fawn-colored +leather, hung on springs, and having but two seats, one for the postboy, +the other for the traveller. The wheels were armed with those long, +offensive axles which keep other vehicles at a distance, and which +may still be seen on the road in Germany. The despatch box, an immense +oblong coffer, was placed behind the vehicle and formed a part of it. +This coffer was painted black, and the cabriolet yellow. + +These vehicles, which have no counterparts nowadays, had something +distorted and hunchbacked about them; and when one saw them passing in +the distance, and climbing up some road to the horizon, they resembled +the insects which are called, I think, termites, and which, though with +but little corselet, drag a great train behind them. But they travelled +at a very rapid rate. The post-wagon which set out from Arras at one +o'clock every night, after the mail from Paris had passed, arrived at M. +sur M. a little before five o'clock in the morning. + +That night the wagon which was descending to M. sur M. by the Hesdin +road, collided at the corner of a street, just as it was entering the +town, with a little tilbury harnessed to a white horse, which was going +in the opposite direction, and in which there was but one person, a man +enveloped in a mantle. The wheel of the tilbury received quite a violent +shock. The postman shouted to the man to stop, but the traveller paid no +heed and pursued his road at full gallop. + +"That man is in a devilish hurry!" said the postman. + +The man thus hastening on was the one whom we have just seen struggling +in convulsions which are certainly deserving of pity. + +Whither was he going? He could not have told. Why was he hastening? +He did not know. He was driving at random, straight ahead. Whither? +To Arras, no doubt; but he might have been going elsewhere as well. +At times he was conscious of it, and he shuddered. He plunged into the +night as into a gulf. Something urged him forward; something drew him +on. No one could have told what was taking place within him; every one +will understand it. What man is there who has not entered, at least once +in his life, into that obscure cavern of the unknown? + +However, he had resolved on nothing, decided nothing, formed no plan, +done nothing. None of the actions of his conscience had been decisive. +He was, more than ever, as he had been at the first moment. + +Why was he going to Arras? + +He repeated what he had already said to himself when he had hired +Scaufflaire's cabriolet: that, whatever the result was to be, there was +no reason why he should not see with his own eyes, and judge of matters +for himself; that this was even prudent; that he must know what took +place; that no decision could be arrived at without having observed and +scrutinized; that one made mountains out of everything from a distance; +that, at any rate, when he should have seen that Champmathieu, some +wretch, his conscience would probably be greatly relieved to allow him +to go to the galleys in his stead; that Javert would indeed be there; +and that Brevet, that Chenildieu, that Cochepaille, old convicts who +had known him; but they certainly would not recognize him;--bah! what an +idea! that Javert was a hundred leagues from suspecting the truth; that +all conjectures and all suppositions were fixed on Champmathieu, and +that there is nothing so headstrong as suppositions and conjectures; +that accordingly there was no danger. + +That it was, no doubt, a dark moment, but that he should emerge from it; +that, after all, he held his destiny, however bad it might be, in his +own hand; that he was master of it. He clung to this thought. + +At bottom, to tell the whole truth, he would have preferred not to go to +Arras. + +Nevertheless, he was going thither. + +As he meditated, he whipped up his horse, which was proceeding at that +fine, regular, and even trot which accomplishes two leagues and a half +an hour. + +In proportion as the cabriolet advanced, he felt something within him +draw back. + +At daybreak he was in the open country; the town of M. sur M. lay far +behind him. He watched the horizon grow white; he stared at all the +chilly figures of a winter's dawn as they passed before his eyes, +but without seeing them. The morning has its spectres as well as the +evening. He did not see them; but without his being aware of it, and by +means of a sort of penetration which was almost physical, these black +silhouettes of trees and of hills added some gloomy and sinister quality +to the violent state of his soul. + +Each time that he passed one of those isolated dwellings which sometimes +border on the highway, he said to himself, "And yet there are people +there within who are sleeping!" + +The trot of the horse, the bells on the harness, the wheels on the road, +produced a gentle, monotonous noise. These things are charming when one +is joyous, and lugubrious when one is sad. + +It was broad daylight when he arrived at Hesdin. He halted in front of +the inn, to allow the horse a breathing spell, and to have him given +some oats. + +The horse belonged, as Scaufflaire had said, to that small race of the +Boulonnais, which has too much head, too much belly, and not enough neck +and shoulders, but which has a broad chest, a large crupper, thin, fine +legs, and solid hoofs--a homely, but a robust and healthy race. The +excellent beast had travelled five leagues in two hours, and had not a +drop of sweat on his loins. + +He did not get out of the tilbury. The stableman who brought the oats +suddenly bent down and examined the left wheel. + +"Are you going far in this condition?" said the man. + +He replied, with an air of not having roused himself from his revery:-- + +"Why?" + +"Have you come from a great distance?" went on the man. + +"Five leagues." + +"Ah!" + +"Why do you say, 'Ah?'" + +The man bent down once more, was silent for a moment, with his eyes +fixed on the wheel; then he rose erect and said:-- + +"Because, though this wheel has travelled five leagues, it certainly +will not travel another quarter of a league." + +He sprang out of the tilbury. + +"What is that you say, my friend?" + +"I say that it is a miracle that you should have travelled five leagues +without you and your horse rolling into some ditch on the highway. Just +see here!" + +The wheel really had suffered serious damage. The shock administered by +the mail-wagon had split two spokes and strained the hub, so that the +nut no longer held firm. + +"My friend," he said to the stableman, "is there a wheelwright here?" + +"Certainly, sir." + +"Do me the service to go and fetch him." + +"He is only a step from here. Hey! Master Bourgaillard!" + +Master Bourgaillard, the wheelwright, was standing on his own threshold. +He came, examined the wheel and made a grimace like a surgeon when the +latter thinks a limb is broken. + +"Can you repair this wheel immediately?" + +"Yes, sir." + +"When can I set out again?" + +"To-morrow." + +"To-morrow!" + +"There is a long day's work on it. Are you in a hurry, sir?" + +"In a very great hurry. I must set out again in an hour at the latest." + +"Impossible, sir." + +"I will pay whatever you ask." + +"Impossible." + +"Well, in two hours, then." + +"Impossible to-day. Two new spokes and a hub must be made. Monsieur will +not be able to start before to-morrow morning." + +"The matter cannot wait until to-morrow. What if you were to replace +this wheel instead of repairing it?" + +"How so?" + +"You are a wheelwright?" + +"Certainly, sir." + +"Have you not a wheel that you can sell me? Then I could start again at +once." + +"A spare wheel?" + +"Yes." + +"I have no wheel on hand that would fit your cabriolet. Two wheels make +a pair. Two wheels cannot be put together hap-hazard." + +"In that case, sell me a pair of wheels." + +"Not all wheels fit all axles, sir." + +"Try, nevertheless." + +"It is useless, sir. I have nothing to sell but cart-wheels. We are but +a poor country here." + +"Have you a cabriolet that you can let me have?" + +The wheelwright had seen at the first glance that the tilbury was a +hired vehicle. He shrugged his shoulders. + +"You treat the cabriolets that people let you so well! If I had one, I +would not let it to you!" + +"Well, sell it to me, then." + +"I have none." + +"What! not even a spring-cart? I am not hard to please, as you see." + +"We live in a poor country. There is, in truth," added the wheelwright, +"an old calash under the shed yonder, which belongs to a bourgeois of +the town, who gave it to me to take care of, and who only uses it on the +thirty-sixth of the month--never, that is to say. I might let that +to you, for what matters it to me? But the bourgeois must not see it +pass--and then, it is a calash; it would require two horses." + +"I will take two post-horses." + +"Where is Monsieur going?" + +"To Arras." + +"And Monsieur wishes to reach there to-day?" + +"Yes, of course." + +"By taking two post-horses?" + +"Why not?" + +"Does it make any difference whether Monsieur arrives at four o'clock +to-morrow morning?" + +"Certainly not." + +"There is one thing to be said about that, you see, by taking +post-horses--Monsieur has his passport?" + +"Yes." + +"Well, by taking post-horses, Monsieur cannot reach Arras before +to-morrow. We are on a cross-road. The relays are badly served, the +horses are in the fields. The season for ploughing is just beginning; +heavy teams are required, and horses are seized upon everywhere, from +the post as well as elsewhere. Monsieur will have to wait three or four +hours at the least at every relay. And, then, they drive at a walk. +There are many hills to ascend." + +"Come then, I will go on horseback. Unharness the cabriolet. Some one +can surely sell me a saddle in the neighborhood." + +"Without doubt. But will this horse bear the saddle?" + +"That is true; you remind me of that; he will not bear it." + +"Then--" + +"But I can surely hire a horse in the village?" + +"A horse to travel to Arras at one stretch?" + +"Yes." + +"That would require such a horse as does not exist in these parts. You +would have to buy it to begin with, because no one knows you. But you +will not find one for sale nor to let, for five hundred francs, or for a +thousand." + +"What am I to do?" + +"The best thing is to let me repair the wheel like an honest man, and +set out on your journey to-morrow." + +"To-morrow will be too late." + +"The deuce!" + +"Is there not a mail-wagon which runs to Arras? When will it pass?" + +"To-night. Both the posts pass at night; the one going as well as the +one coming." + +"What! It will take you a day to mend this wheel?" + +"A day, and a good long one." + +"If you set two men to work?" + +"If I set ten men to work." + +"What if the spokes were to be tied together with ropes?" + +"That could be done with the spokes, not with the hub; and the felly is +in a bad state, too." + +"Is there any one in this village who lets out teams?" + +"No." + +"Is there another wheelwright?" + +The stableman and the wheelwright replied in concert, with a toss of the +head. + +"No." + +He felt an immense joy. + +It was evident that Providence was intervening. That it was it who had +broken the wheel of the tilbury and who was stopping him on the road. +He had not yielded to this sort of first summons; he had just made every +possible effort to continue the journey; he had loyally and scrupulously +exhausted all means; he had been deterred neither by the season, nor +fatigue, nor by the expense; he had nothing with which to reproach +himself. If he went no further, that was no fault of his. It did not +concern him further. It was no longer his fault. It was not the act of +his own conscience, but the act of Providence. + +He breathed again. He breathed freely and to the full extent of his +lungs for the first time since Javert's visit. It seemed to him that the +hand of iron which had held his heart in its grasp for the last twenty +hours had just released him. + +It seemed to him that God was for him now, and was manifesting Himself. + +He said himself that he had done all he could, and that now he had +nothing to do but retrace his steps quietly. + +If his conversation with the wheelwright had taken place in a chamber +of the inn, it would have had no witnesses, no one would have heard him, +things would have rested there, and it is probable that we should not +have had to relate any of the occurrences which the reader is about +to peruse; but this conversation had taken place in the street. Any +colloquy in the street inevitably attracts a crowd. There are always +people who ask nothing better than to become spectators. While he was +questioning the wheelwright, some people who were passing back and forth +halted around them. After listening for a few minutes, a young lad, to +whom no one had paid any heed, detached himself from the group and ran +off. + +At the moment when the traveller, after the inward deliberation which we +have just described, resolved to retrace his steps, this child returned. +He was accompanied by an old woman. + +"Monsieur," said the woman, "my boy tells me that you wish to hire a +cabriolet." + +These simple words uttered by an old woman led by a child made the +perspiration trickle down his limbs. He thought that he beheld the hand +which had relaxed its grasp reappear in the darkness behind him, ready +to seize him once more. + +He answered:-- + +"Yes, my good woman; I am in search of a cabriolet which I can hire." + +And he hastened to add:-- + +"But there is none in the place." + +"Certainly there is," said the old woman. + +"Where?" interpolated the wheelwright. + +"At my house," replied the old woman. + +He shuddered. The fatal hand had grasped him again. + +The old woman really had in her shed a sort of basket spring-cart. +The wheelwright and the stable-man, in despair at the prospect of the +traveller escaping their clutches, interfered. + +"It was a frightful old trap; it rests flat on the axle; it is an actual +fact that the seats were suspended inside it by leather thongs; the rain +came into it; the wheels were rusted and eaten with moisture; it +would not go much further than the tilbury; a regular ramshackle old +stage-wagon; the gentleman would make a great mistake if he trusted +himself to it," etc., etc. + +All this was true; but this trap, this ramshackle old vehicle, this +thing, whatever it was, ran on its two wheels and could go to Arras. + +He paid what was asked, left the tilbury with the wheelwright to be +repaired, intending to reclaim it on his return, had the white horse +put to the cart, climbed into it, and resumed the road which he had been +travelling since morning. + +At the moment when the cart moved off, he admitted that he had felt, a +moment previously, a certain joy in the thought that he should not +go whither he was now proceeding. He examined this joy with a sort of +wrath, and found it absurd. Why should he feel joy at turning back? +After all, he was taking this trip of his own free will. No one was +forcing him to it. + +And assuredly nothing would happen except what he should choose. + +As he left Hesdin, he heard a voice shouting to him: "Stop! Stop!" He +halted the cart with a vigorous movement which contained a feverish and +convulsive element resembling hope. + +It was the old woman's little boy. + +"Monsieur," said the latter, "it was I who got the cart for you." + +"Well?" + +"You have not given me anything." + +He who gave to all so readily thought this demand exorbitant and almost +odious. + +"Ah! it's you, you scamp?" said he; "you shall have nothing." + +He whipped up his horse and set off at full speed. + +He had lost a great deal of time at Hesdin. He wanted to make it good. +The little horse was courageous, and pulled for two; but it was the +month of February, there had been rain; the roads were bad. And then, +it was no longer the tilbury. The cart was very heavy, and in addition, +there were many ascents. + +He took nearly four hours to go from Hesdin to Saint-Pol; four hours for +five leagues. + +At Saint-Pol he had the horse unharnessed at the first inn he came to +and led to the stable; as he had promised Scaufflaire, he stood beside +the manger while the horse was eating; he thought of sad and confusing +things. + +The inn-keeper's wife came to the stable. + +"Does not Monsieur wish to breakfast?" + +"Come, that is true; I even have a good appetite." + +He followed the woman, who had a rosy, cheerful face; she led him to the +public room where there were tables covered with waxed cloth. + +"Make haste!" said he; "I must start again; I am in a hurry." + +A big Flemish servant-maid placed his knife and fork in all haste; he +looked at the girl with a sensation of comfort. + +"That is what ailed me," he thought; "I had not breakfasted." + +His breakfast was served; he seized the bread, took a mouthful, and then +slowly replaced it on the table, and did not touch it again. + +A carter was eating at another table; he said to this man:-- + +"Why is their bread so bitter here?" + +The carter was a German and did not understand him. + +He returned to the stable and remained near the horse. + +An hour later he had quitted Saint-Pol and was directing his course +towards Tinques, which is only five leagues from Arras. + +What did he do during this journey? Of what was he thinking? As in the +morning, he watched the trees, the thatched roofs, the tilled fields +pass by, and the way in which the landscape, broken at every turn of the +road, vanished; this is a sort of contemplation which sometimes +suffices to the soul, and almost relieves it from thought. What is more +melancholy and more profound than to see a thousand objects for the +first and the last time? To travel is to be born and to die at every +instant; perhaps, in the vaguest region of his mind, he did make +comparisons between the shifting horizon and our human existence: all +the things of life are perpetually fleeing before us; the dark and +bright intervals are intermingled; after a dazzling moment, an eclipse; +we look, we hasten, we stretch out our hands to grasp what is passing; +each event is a turn in the road, and, all at once, we are old; we feel +a shock; all is black; we distinguish an obscure door; the gloomy +horse of life, which has been drawing us halts, and we see a veiled and +unknown person unharnessing amid the shadows. + +Twilight was falling when the children who were coming out of school +beheld this traveller enter Tinques; it is true that the days were still +short; he did not halt at Tinques; as he emerged from the village, a +laborer, who was mending the road with stones, raised his head and said +to him:-- + +"That horse is very much fatigued." + +The poor beast was, in fact, going at a walk. + +"Are you going to Arras?" added the road-mender. + +"Yes." + +"If you go on at that rate you will not arrive very early." + +He stopped his horse, and asked the laborer:-- + +"How far is it from here to Arras?" + +"Nearly seven good leagues." + +"How is that? the posting guide only says five leagues and a quarter." + +"Ah!" returned the road-mender, "so you don't know that the road is +under repair? You will find it barred a quarter of an hour further on; +there is no way to proceed further." + +"Really?" + +"You will take the road on the left, leading to Carency; you will cross +the river; when you reach Camblin, you will turn to the right; that is +the road to Mont-Saint-Eloy which leads to Arras." + +"But it is night, and I shall lose my way." + +"You do not belong in these parts?" + +"No." + +"And, besides, it is all cross-roads; stop! sir," resumed the +road-mender; "shall I give you a piece of advice? your horse is tired; +return to Tinques; there is a good inn there; sleep there; you can reach +Arras to-morrow." + +"I must be there this evening." + +"That is different; but go to the inn all the same, and get an extra +horse; the stable-boy will guide you through the cross-roads." + +He followed the road-mender's advice, retraced his steps, and, half an +hour later, he passed the same spot again, but this time at full speed, +with a good horse to aid; a stable-boy, who called himself a postilion, +was seated on the shaft of the cariole. + +Still, he felt that he had lost time. + +Night had fully come. + +They turned into the cross-road; the way became frightfully bad; the +cart lurched from one rut to the other; he said to the postilion:-- + +"Keep at a trot, and you shall have a double fee." + +In one of the jolts, the whiffle-tree broke. + +"There's the whiffle-tree broken, sir," said the postilion; "I don't +know how to harness my horse now; this road is very bad at night; if +you wish to return and sleep at Tinques, we could be in Arras early +to-morrow morning." + +He replied, "Have you a bit of rope and a knife?" + +"Yes, sir." + +He cut a branch from a tree and made a whiffle-tree of it. + +This caused another loss of twenty minutes; but they set out again at a +gallop. + +The plain was gloomy; low-hanging, black, crisp fogs crept over the +hills and wrenched themselves away like smoke: there were whitish gleams +in the clouds; a strong breeze which blew in from the sea produced a +sound in all quarters of the horizon, as of some one moving furniture; +everything that could be seen assumed attitudes of terror. How many +things shiver beneath these vast breaths of the night! + +He was stiff with cold; he had eaten nothing since the night before; +he vaguely recalled his other nocturnal trip in the vast plain in +the neighborhood of D----, eight years previously, and it seemed but +yesterday. + +The hour struck from a distant tower; he asked the boy:-- + +"What time is it?" + +"Seven o'clock, sir; we shall reach Arras at eight; we have but three +leagues still to go." + +At that moment, he for the first time indulged in this reflection, +thinking it odd the while that it had not occurred to him sooner: that +all this trouble which he was taking was, perhaps, useless; that he did +not know so much as the hour of the trial; that he should, at least, +have informed himself of that; that he was foolish to go thus straight +ahead without knowing whether he would be of any service or not; then +he sketched out some calculations in his mind: that, ordinarily, the +sittings of the Court of Assizes began at nine o'clock in the morning; +that it could not be a long affair; that the theft of the apples would +be very brief; that there would then remain only a question of identity, +four or five depositions, and very little for the lawyers to say; that +he should arrive after all was over. + +The postilion whipped up the horses; they had crossed the river and left +Mont-Saint-Eloy behind them. + +The night grew more profound. + + + + +CHAPTER VI--SISTER SIMPLICE PUT TO THE PROOF + +But at that moment Fantine was joyous. + +She had passed a very bad night; her cough was frightful; her fever +had doubled in intensity; she had had dreams: in the morning, when the +doctor paid his visit, she was delirious; he assumed an alarmed look, +and ordered that he should be informed as soon as M. Madeleine arrived. + +All the morning she was melancholy, said but little, and laid plaits +in her sheets, murmuring the while, in a low voice, calculations +which seemed to be calculations of distances. Her eyes were hollow and +staring. They seemed almost extinguished at intervals, then lighted up +again and shone like stars. It seems as though, at the approach of a +certain dark hour, the light of heaven fills those who are quitting the +light of earth. + +Each time that Sister Simplice asked her how she felt, she replied +invariably, "Well. I should like to see M. Madeleine." + +Some months before this, at the moment when Fantine had just lost her +last modesty, her last shame, and her last joy, she was the shadow of +herself; now she was the spectre of herself. Physical suffering had +completed the work of moral suffering. This creature of five and twenty +had a wrinkled brow, flabby cheeks, pinched nostrils, teeth from which +the gums had receded, a leaden complexion, a bony neck, prominent +shoulder-blades, frail limbs, a clayey skin, and her golden hair was +growing out sprinkled with gray. Alas! how illness improvises old-age! + +At mid-day the physician returned, gave some directions, inquired +whether the mayor had made his appearance at the infirmary, and shook +his head. + +M. Madeleine usually came to see the invalid at three o'clock. As +exactness is kindness, he was exact. + +About half-past two, Fantine began to be restless. In the course of +twenty minutes, she asked the nun more than ten times, "What time is it, +sister?" + +Three o'clock struck. At the third stroke, Fantine sat up in bed; she +who could, in general, hardly turn over, joined her yellow, fleshless +hands in a sort of convulsive clasp, and the nun heard her utter one +of those profound sighs which seem to throw off dejection. Then Fantine +turned and looked at the door. + +No one entered; the door did not open. + +She remained thus for a quarter of an hour, her eyes riveted on the +door, motionless and apparently holding her breath. The sister dared not +speak to her. The clock struck a quarter past three. Fantine fell back +on her pillow. + +She said nothing, but began to plait the sheets once more. + +Half an hour passed, then an hour, no one came; every time the clock +struck, Fantine started up and looked towards the door, then fell back +again. + +Her thought was clearly perceptible, but she uttered no name, she made +no complaint, she blamed no one. But she coughed in a melancholy way. +One would have said that something dark was descending upon her. She was +livid and her lips were blue. She smiled now and then. + +Five o'clock struck. Then the sister heard her say, very low and gently, +"He is wrong not to come to-day, since I am going away to-morrow." + +Sister Simplice herself was surprised at M. Madeleine's delay. + +In the meantime, Fantine was staring at the tester of her bed. She +seemed to be endeavoring to recall something. All at once she began to +sing in a voice as feeble as a breath. The nun listened. This is what +Fantine was singing:-- + + + "Lovely things we will buy + As we stroll the faubourgs through. + Roses are pink, corn-flowers are blue, + I love my love, corn-flowers are blue. + + +"Yestere'en the Virgin Mary came near my stove, in a broidered mantle +clad, and said to me, 'Here, hide 'neath my veil the child whom you +one day begged from me. Haste to the city, buy linen, buy a needle, buy +thread.' + + + "Lovely things we will buy + As we stroll the faubourgs through. + + +"Dear Holy Virgin, beside my stove I have set a cradle with ribbons +decked. God may give me his loveliest star; I prefer the child thou hast +granted me. 'Madame, what shall I do with this linen fine?'--'Make of it +clothes for thy new-born babe.' + + + "Roses are pink and corn-flowers are blue, + I love my love, and corn-flowers are blue. + + +"'Wash this linen.'--'Where?'--'In the stream. Make of it, soiling +not, spoiling not, a petticoat fair with its bodice fine, which I will +embroider and fill with flowers.'--'Madame, the child is no longer here; +what is to be done?'--'Then make of it a winding-sheet in which to bury +me.' + + + "Lovely things we will buy + As we stroll the faubourgs through, + Roses are pink, corn-flowers are blue, + I love my love, corn-flowers are blue." + + +This song was an old cradle romance with which she had, in former days, +lulled her little Cosette to sleep, and which had never recurred to her +mind in all the five years during which she had been parted from her +child. She sang it in so sad a voice, and to so sweet an air, that it +was enough to make any one, even a nun, weep. The sister, accustomed as +she was to austerities, felt a tear spring to her eyes. + +The clock struck six. Fantine did not seem to hear it. She no longer +seemed to pay attention to anything about her. + +Sister Simplice sent a serving-maid to inquire of the portress of the +factory, whether the mayor had returned, and if he would not come to the +infirmary soon. The girl returned in a few minutes. + +Fantine was still motionless and seemed absorbed in her own thoughts. + +The servant informed Sister Simplice in a very low tone, that the +mayor had set out that morning before six o'clock, in a little tilbury +harnessed to a white horse, cold as the weather was; that he had gone +alone, without even a driver; that no one knew what road he had taken; +that people said he had been seen to turn into the road to Arras; that +others asserted that they had met him on the road to Paris. That when he +went away he had been very gentle, as usual, and that he had merely told +the portress not to expect him that night. + +While the two women were whispering together, with their backs turned +to Fantine's bed, the sister interrogating, the servant conjecturing, +Fantine, with the feverish vivacity of certain organic maladies, which +unite the free movements of health with the frightful emaciation of +death, had raised herself to her knees in bed, with her shrivelled hands +resting on the bolster, and her head thrust through the opening of the +curtains, and was listening. All at once she cried:-- + +"You are speaking of M. Madeleine! Why are you talking so low? What is +he doing? Why does he not come?" + +Her voice was so abrupt and hoarse that the two women thought they heard +the voice of a man; they wheeled round in affright. + +"Answer me!" cried Fantine. + +The servant stammered:-- + +"The portress told me that he could not come to-day." + +"Be calm, my child," said the sister; "lie down again." + +Fantine, without changing her attitude, continued in a loud voice, and +with an accent that was both imperious and heart-rending:-- + +"He cannot come? Why not? You know the reason. You are whispering it to +each other there. I want to know it." + +The servant-maid hastened to say in the nun's ear, "Say that he is busy +with the city council." + +Sister Simplice blushed faintly, for it was a lie that the maid had +proposed to her. + +On the other hand, it seemed to her that the mere communication of the +truth to the invalid would, without doubt, deal her a terrible blow, and +that this was a serious matter in Fantine's present state. Her flush +did not last long; the sister raised her calm, sad eyes to Fantine, and +said, "Monsieur le Maire has gone away." + +Fantine raised herself and crouched on her heels in the bed: her eyes +sparkled; indescribable joy beamed from that melancholy face. + +"Gone!" she cried; "he has gone to get Cosette." + +Then she raised her arms to heaven, and her white face became ineffable; +her lips moved; she was praying in a low voice. + +When her prayer was finished, "Sister," she said, "I am willing to lie +down again; I will do anything you wish; I was naughty just now; I beg +your pardon for having spoken so loud; it is very wrong to talk loudly; +I know that well, my good sister, but, you see, I am very happy: the +good God is good; M. Madeleine is good; just think! he has gone to +Montfermeil to get my little Cosette." + +She lay down again, with the nun's assistance, helped the nun to arrange +her pillow, and kissed the little silver cross which she wore on her +neck, and which Sister Simplice had given her. + +"My child," said the sister, "try to rest now, and do not talk any +more." + +Fantine took the sister's hand in her moist hands, and the latter was +pained to feel that perspiration. + +"He set out this morning for Paris; in fact, he need not even go through +Paris; Montfermeil is a little to the left as you come thence. Do you +remember how he said to me yesterday, when I spoke to him of Cosette, +Soon, soon? He wants to give me a surprise, you know! he made me sign a +letter so that she could be taken from the Thenardiers; they cannot +say anything, can they? they will give back Cosette, for they have been +paid; the authorities will not allow them to keep the child since they +have received their pay. Do not make signs to me that I must not talk, +sister! I am extremely happy; I am doing well; I am not ill at all any +more; I am going to see Cosette again; I am even quite hungry; it is +nearly five years since I saw her last; you cannot imagine how much +attached one gets to children, and then, she will be so pretty; you will +see! If you only knew what pretty little rosy fingers she had! In the +first place, she will have very beautiful hands; she had ridiculous +hands when she was only a year old; like this! she must be a big girl +now; she is seven years old; she is quite a young lady; I call her +Cosette, but her name is really Euphrasie. Stop! this morning I was +looking at the dust on the chimney-piece, and I had a sort of idea come +across me, like that, that I should see Cosette again soon. Mon Dieu! +how wrong it is not to see one's children for years! One ought to +reflect that life is not eternal. Oh, how good M. le Maire is to go! it +is very cold! it is true; he had on his cloak, at least? he will be +here to-morrow, will he not? to-morrow will be a festival day; to-morrow +morning, sister, you must remind me to put on my little cap that has +lace on it. What a place that Montfermeil is! I took that journey on +foot once; it was very long for me, but the diligences go very quickly! +he will be here to-morrow with Cosette: how far is it from here to +Montfermeil?" + +The sister, who had no idea of distances, replied, "Oh, I think that he +will be here to-morrow." + +"To-morrow! to-morrow!" said Fantine, "I shall see Cosette to-morrow! +you see, good sister of the good God, that I am no longer ill; I am mad; +I could dance if any one wished it." + +A person who had seen her a quarter of an hour previously would not have +understood the change; she was all rosy now; she spoke in a lively and +natural voice; her whole face was one smile; now and then she talked, +she laughed softly; the joy of a mother is almost infantile. + +"Well," resumed the nun, "now that you are happy, mind me, and do not +talk any more." + +Fantine laid her head on her pillow and said in a low voice: "Yes, +lie down again; be good, for you are going to have your child; Sister +Simplice is right; every one here is right." + +And then, without stirring, without even moving her head, she began to +stare all about her with wide-open eyes and a joyous air, and she said +nothing more. + +The sister drew the curtains together again, hoping that she would +fall into a doze. Between seven and eight o'clock the doctor came; not +hearing any sound, he thought Fantine was asleep, entered softly, and +approached the bed on tiptoe; he opened the curtains a little, and, by +the light of the taper, he saw Fantine's big eyes gazing at him. + +She said to him, "She will be allowed to sleep beside me in a little +bed, will she not, sir?" + +The doctor thought that she was delirious. She added:-- + +"See! there is just room." + +The doctor took Sister Simplice aside, and she explained matters to him; +that M. Madeleine was absent for a day or two, and that in their doubt +they had not thought it well to undeceive the invalid, who believed that +the mayor had gone to Montfermeil; that it was possible, after all, that +her guess was correct: the doctor approved. + +He returned to Fantine's bed, and she went on:-- + +"You see, when she wakes up in the morning, I shall be able to say good +morning to her, poor kitten, and when I cannot sleep at night, I can +hear her asleep; her little gentle breathing will do me good." + +"Give me your hand," said the doctor. + +She stretched out her arm, and exclaimed with a laugh:-- + +"Ah, hold! in truth, you did not know it; I am cured; Cosette will +arrive to-morrow." + +The doctor was surprised; she was better; the pressure on her chest +had decreased; her pulse had regained its strength; a sort of life had +suddenly supervened and reanimated this poor, worn-out creature. + +"Doctor," she went on, "did the sister tell you that M. le Maire has +gone to get that mite of a child?" + +The doctor recommended silence, and that all painful emotions should be +avoided; he prescribed an infusion of pure chinchona, and, in case the +fever should increase again during the night, a calming potion. As he +took his departure, he said to the sister:-- + +"She is doing better; if good luck willed that the mayor should +actually arrive to-morrow with the child, who knows? there are crises +so astounding; great joy has been known to arrest maladies; I know well +that this is an organic disease, and in an advanced state, but all those +things are such mysteries: we may be able to save her." + + + + +CHAPTER VII--THE TRAVELLER ON HIS ARRIVAL TAKES PRECAUTIONS FOR +DEPARTURE + +It was nearly eight o'clock in the evening when the cart, which we +left on the road, entered the porte-cochere of the Hotel de la Poste in +Arras; the man whom we have been following up to this moment alighted +from it, responded with an abstracted air to the attentions of the +people of the inn, sent back the extra horse, and with his own hands +led the little white horse to the stable; then he opened the door of a +billiard-room which was situated on the ground floor, sat down there, +and leaned his elbows on a table; he had taken fourteen hours for +the journey which he had counted on making in six; he did himself the +justice to acknowledge that it was not his fault, but at bottom, he was +not sorry. + +The landlady of the hotel entered. + +"Does Monsieur wish a bed? Does Monsieur require supper?" + +He made a sign of the head in the negative. + +"The stableman says that Monsieur's horse is extremely fatigued." + +Here he broke his silence. + +"Will not the horse be in a condition to set out again to-morrow +morning?" + +"Oh, Monsieur! he must rest for two days at least." + +He inquired:-- + +"Is not the posting-station located here?" + +"Yes, sir." + +The hostess conducted him to the office; he showed his passport, and +inquired whether there was any way of returning that same night to M. +sur M. by the mail-wagon; the seat beside the post-boy chanced to be +vacant; he engaged it and paid for it. "Monsieur," said the clerk, +"do not fail to be here ready to start at precisely one o'clock in the +morning." + +This done, he left the hotel and began to wander about the town. + +He was not acquainted with Arras; the streets were dark, and he +walked on at random; but he seemed bent upon not asking the way of the +passers-by. He crossed the little river Crinchon, and found himself in a +labyrinth of narrow alleys where he lost his way. A citizen was passing +along with a lantern. After some hesitation, he decided to apply to this +man, not without having first glanced behind and in front of him, as +though he feared lest some one should hear the question which he was +about to put. + +"Monsieur," said he, "where is the court-house, if you please." + +"You do not belong in town, sir?" replied the bourgeois, who was an +oldish man; "well, follow me. I happen to be going in the direction of +the court-house, that is to say, in the direction of the hotel of the +prefecture; for the court-house is undergoing repairs just at this +moment, and the courts are holding their sittings provisionally in the +prefecture." + +"Is it there that the Assizes are held?" he asked. + +"Certainly, sir; you see, the prefecture of to-day was the bishop's +palace before the Revolution. M. de Conzie, who was bishop in '82, built +a grand hall there. It is in this grand hall that the court is held." + +On the way, the bourgeois said to him:-- + +"If Monsieur desires to witness a case, it is rather late. The sittings +generally close at six o'clock." + +When they arrived on the grand square, however, the man pointed out to +him four long windows all lighted up, in the front of a vast and gloomy +building. + +"Upon my word, sir, you are in luck; you have arrived in season. Do you +see those four windows? That is the Court of Assizes. There is light +there, so they are not through. The matter must have been greatly +protracted, and they are holding an evening session. Do you take an +interest in this affair? Is it a criminal case? Are you a witness?" + +He replied:-- + +"I have not come on any business; I only wish to speak to one of the +lawyers." + +"That is different," said the bourgeois. "Stop, sir; here is the door +where the sentry stands. You have only to ascend the grand staircase." + +He conformed to the bourgeois's directions, and a few minutes later he +was in a hall containing many people, and where groups, intermingled +with lawyers in their gowns, were whispering together here and there. + +It is always a heart-breaking thing to see these congregations of men +robed in black, murmuring together in low voices, on the threshold of +the halls of justice. It is rare that charity and pity are the outcome +of these words. Condemnations pronounced in advance are more likely +to be the result. All these groups seem to the passing and thoughtful +observer so many sombre hives where buzzing spirits construct in concert +all sorts of dark edifices. + +This spacious hall, illuminated by a single lamp, was the old hall of +the episcopal palace, and served as the large hall of the palace +of justice. A double-leaved door, which was closed at that moment, +separated it from the large apartment where the court was sitting. + +The obscurity was such that he did not fear to accost the first lawyer +whom he met. + +"What stage have they reached, sir?" he asked. + +"It is finished," said the lawyer. + +"Finished!" + +This word was repeated in such accents that the lawyer turned round. + +"Excuse me sir; perhaps you are a relative?" + +"No; I know no one here. Has judgment been pronounced?" + +"Of course. Nothing else was possible." + +"To penal servitude?" + +"For life." + +He continued, in a voice so weak that it was barely audible:-- + +"Then his identity was established?" + +"What identity?" replied the lawyer. "There was no identity to be +established. The matter was very simple. The woman had murdered her +child; the infanticide was proved; the jury threw out the question of +premeditation, and she was condemned for life." + +"So it was a woman?" said he. + +"Why, certainly. The Limosin woman. Of what are you speaking?" + +"Nothing. But since it is all over, how comes it that the hall is still +lighted?" + +"For another case, which was begun about two hours ago." + +"What other case?" + +"Oh! this one is a clear case also. It is about a sort of blackguard; +a man arrested for a second offence; a convict who has been guilty of +theft. I don't know his name exactly. There's a bandit's phiz for you! +I'd send him to the galleys on the strength of his face alone." + +"Is there any way of getting into the court-room, sir?" said he. + +"I really think that there is not. There is a great crowd. However, +the hearing has been suspended. Some people have gone out, and when the +hearing is resumed, you might make an effort." + +"Where is the entrance?" + +"Through yonder large door." + +The lawyer left him. In the course of a few moments he had experienced, +almost simultaneously, almost intermingled with each other, all possible +emotions. The words of this indifferent spectator had, in turn, pierced +his heart like needles of ice and like blades of fire. When he saw that +nothing was settled, he breathed freely once more; but he could not have +told whether what he felt was pain or pleasure. + +He drew near to many groups and listened to what they were saying. The +docket of the session was very heavy; the president had appointed +for the same day two short and simple cases. They had begun with the +infanticide, and now they had reached the convict, the old offender, the +"return horse." This man had stolen apples, but that did not appear to +be entirely proved; what had been proved was, that he had already been +in the galleys at Toulon. It was that which lent a bad aspect to +his case. However, the man's examination and the depositions of the +witnesses had been completed, but the lawyer's plea, and the speech +of the public prosecutor were still to come; it could not be +finished before midnight. The man would probably be condemned; the +attorney-general was very clever, and never missed his culprits; he was +a brilliant fellow who wrote verses. + +An usher stood at the door communicating with the hall of the Assizes. +He inquired of this usher:-- + +"Will the door be opened soon, sir?" + +"It will not be opened at all," replied the usher. + +"What! It will not be opened when the hearing is resumed? Is not the +hearing suspended?" + +"The hearing has just been begun again," replied the usher, "but the +door will not be opened again." + +"Why?" + +"Because the hall is full." + +"What! There is not room for one more?" + +"Not another one. The door is closed. No one can enter now." + +The usher added after a pause: "There are, to tell the truth, two +or three extra places behind Monsieur le President, but Monsieur le +President only admits public functionaries to them." + +So saying, the usher turned his back. + +He retired with bowed head, traversed the antechamber, and slowly +descended the stairs, as though hesitating at every step. It is probable +that he was holding counsel with himself. The violent conflict which had +been going on within him since the preceding evening was not yet ended; +and every moment he encountered some new phase of it. On reaching the +landing-place, he leaned his back against the balusters and folded his +arms. All at once he opened his coat, drew out his pocket-book, took +from it a pencil, tore out a leaf, and upon that leaf he wrote rapidly, +by the light of the street lantern, this line: M. Madeleine, Mayor of M. +sur M.; then he ascended the stairs once more with great strides, made +his way through the crowd, walked straight up to the usher, handed him +the paper, and said in an authoritative manner:-- + +"Take this to Monsieur le President." + +The usher took the paper, cast a glance upon it, and obeyed. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII--AN ENTRANCE BY FAVOR + + +Although he did not suspect the fact, the mayor of M. sur M. enjoyed +a sort of celebrity. For the space of seven years his reputation for +virtue had filled the whole of Bas Boulonnais; it had eventually passed +the confines of a small district and had been spread abroad through +two or three neighboring departments. Besides the service which he had +rendered to the chief town by resuscitating the black jet industry, +there was not one out of the hundred and forty communes of the +arrondissement of M. sur M. which was not indebted to him for some +benefit. He had even at need contrived to aid and multiply the +industries of other arrondissements. It was thus that he had, when +occasion offered, supported with his credit and his funds the linen +factory at Boulogne, the flax-spinning industry at Frevent, and the +hydraulic manufacture of cloth at Boubers-sur-Canche. Everywhere the +name of M. Madeleine was pronounced with veneration. Arras and Douai +envied the happy little town of M. sur M. its mayor. + +The Councillor of the Royal Court of Douai, who was presiding over this +session of the Assizes at Arras, was acquainted, in common with the rest +of the world, with this name which was so profoundly and universally +honored. When the usher, discreetly opening the door which connected +the council-chamber with the court-room, bent over the back of the +President's arm-chair and handed him the paper on which was inscribed +the line which we have just perused, adding: "The gentleman desires to +be present at the trial," the President, with a quick and deferential +movement, seized a pen and wrote a few words at the bottom of the paper +and returned it to the usher, saying, "Admit him." + +The unhappy man whose history we are relating had remained near the door +of the hall, in the same place and the same attitude in which the usher +had left him. In the midst of his revery he heard some one saying to +him, "Will Monsieur do me the honor to follow me?" It was the same usher +who had turned his back upon him but a moment previously, and who was +now bowing to the earth before him. At the same time, the usher handed +him the paper. He unfolded it, and as he chanced to be near the light, +he could read it. + +"The President of the Court of Assizes presents his respects to M. +Madeleine." + +He crushed the paper in his hand as though those words contained for him +a strange and bitter aftertaste. + +He followed the usher. + +A few minutes later he found himself alone in a sort of wainscoted +cabinet of severe aspect, lighted by two wax candles, placed upon a +table with a green cloth. The last words of the usher who had just +quitted him still rang in his ears: "Monsieur, you are now in the +council-chamber; you have only to turn the copper handle of yonder door, +and you will find yourself in the court-room, behind the President's +chair." These words were mingled in his thoughts with a vague memory of +narrow corridors and dark staircases which he had recently traversed. + +The usher had left him alone. The supreme moment had arrived. He sought +to collect his faculties, but could not. It is chiefly at the moment +when there is the greatest need for attaching them to the painful +realities of life, that the threads of thought snap within the brain. He +was in the very place where the judges deliberated and condemned. With +stupid tranquillity he surveyed this peaceful and terrible apartment, +where so many lives had been broken, which was soon to ring with his +name, and which his fate was at that moment traversing. He stared at +the wall, then he looked at himself, wondering that it should be that +chamber and that it should be he. + +He had eaten nothing for four and twenty hours; he was worn out by the +jolts of the cart, but he was not conscious of it. It seemed to him that +he felt nothing. + +He approached a black frame which was suspended on the wall, and which +contained, under glass, an ancient autograph letter of Jean Nicolas +Pache, mayor of Paris and minister, and dated, through an error, no +doubt, the 9th of June, of the year II., and in which Pache forwarded to +the commune the list of ministers and deputies held in arrest by them. +Any spectator who had chanced to see him at that moment, and who had +watched him, would have imagined, doubtless, that this letter struck him +as very curious, for he did not take his eyes from it, and he read it +two or three times. He read it without paying any attention to it, and +unconsciously. He was thinking of Fantine and Cosette. + +As he dreamed, he turned round, and his eyes fell upon the brass knob +of the door which separated him from the Court of Assizes. He had almost +forgotten that door. His glance, calm at first, paused there, remained +fixed on that brass handle, then grew terrified, and little by little +became impregnated with fear. Beads of perspiration burst forth among +his hair and trickled down upon his temples. + +At a certain moment he made that indescribable gesture of a sort of +authority mingled with rebellion, which is intended to convey, and which +does so well convey, "Pardieu! who compels me to this?" Then he wheeled +briskly round, caught sight of the door through which he had entered in +front of him, went to it, opened it, and passed out. He was no longer +in that chamber; he was outside in a corridor, a long, narrow corridor, +broken by steps and gratings, making all sorts of angles, lighted +here and there by lanterns similar to the night taper of invalids, the +corridor through which he had approached. He breathed, he listened; not +a sound in front, not a sound behind him, and he fled as though pursued. + +When he had turned many angles in this corridor, he still listened. The +same silence reigned, and there was the same darkness around him. He was +out of breath; he staggered; he leaned against the wall. The stone was +cold; the perspiration lay ice-cold on his brow; he straightened himself +up with a shiver. + +Then, there alone in the darkness, trembling with cold and with +something else, too, perchance, he meditated. + +He had meditated all night long; he had meditated all the day: he heard +within him but one voice, which said, "Alas!" + +A quarter of an hour passed thus. At length he bowed his head, sighed +with agony, dropped his arms, and retraced his steps. He walked slowly, +and as though crushed. It seemed as though some one had overtaken him in +his flight and was leading him back. + +He re-entered the council-chamber. The first thing he caught sight of +was the knob of the door. This knob, which was round and of polished +brass, shone like a terrible star for him. He gazed at it as a lamb +might gaze into the eye of a tiger. + +He could not take his eyes from it. From time to time he advanced a step +and approached the door. + +Had he listened, he would have heard the sound of the adjoining hall +like a sort of confused murmur; but he did not listen, and he did not +hear. + +Suddenly, without himself knowing how it happened, he found himself near +the door; he grasped the knob convulsively; the door opened. + +He was in the court-room. + + + + +CHAPTER IX--A PLACE WHERE CONVICTIONS ARE IN PROCESS OF FORMATION + +He advanced a pace, closed the door mechanically behind him, and +remained standing, contemplating what he saw. + +It was a vast and badly lighted apartment, now full of uproar, now full +of silence, where all the apparatus of a criminal case, with its petty +and mournful gravity in the midst of the throng, was in process of +development. + +At the one end of the hall, the one where he was, were judges, with +abstracted air, in threadbare robes, who were gnawing their nails or +closing their eyelids; at the other end, a ragged crowd; lawyers in +all sorts of attitudes; soldiers with hard but honest faces; ancient, +spotted woodwork, a dirty ceiling, tables covered with serge that was +yellow rather than green; doors blackened by handmarks; tap-room +lamps which emitted more smoke than light, suspended from nails in +the wainscot; on the tables candles in brass candlesticks; darkness, +ugliness, sadness; and from all this there was disengaged an austere and +august impression, for one there felt that grand human thing which is +called the law, and that grand divine thing which is called justice. + +No one in all that throng paid any attention to him; all glances were +directed towards a single point, a wooden bench placed against a small +door, in the stretch of wall on the President's left; on this bench, +illuminated by several candles, sat a man between two gendarmes. + +This man was the man. + +He did not seek him; he saw him; his eyes went thither naturally, as +though they had known beforehand where that figure was. + +He thought he was looking at himself, grown old; not absolutely the same +in face, of course, but exactly similar in attitude and aspect, with his +bristling hair, with that wild and uneasy eye, with that blouse, just as +it was on the day when he entered D----, full of hatred, concealing +his soul in that hideous mass of frightful thoughts which he had spent +nineteen years in collecting on the floor of the prison. + +He said to himself with a shudder, "Good God! shall I become like that +again?" + +This creature seemed to be at least sixty; there was something +indescribably coarse, stupid, and frightened about him. + +At the sound made by the opening door, people had drawn aside to make +way for him; the President had turned his head, and, understanding that +the personage who had just entered was the mayor of M. sur M., he had +bowed to him; the attorney-general, who had seen M. Madeleine at M. +sur M., whither the duties of his office had called him more than once, +recognized him and saluted him also: he had hardly perceived it; he was +the victim of a sort of hallucination; he was watching. + +Judges, clerks, gendarmes, a throng of cruelly curious heads, all these +he had already beheld once, in days gone by, twenty-seven years before; +he had encountered those fatal things once more; there they were; they +moved; they existed; it was no longer an effort of his memory, a mirage +of his thought; they were real gendarmes and real judges, a real +crowd, and real men of flesh and blood: it was all over; he beheld the +monstrous aspects of his past reappear and live once more around him, +with all that there is formidable in reality. + +All this was yawning before him. + +He was horrified by it; he shut his eyes, and exclaimed in the deepest +recesses of his soul, "Never!" + +And by a tragic play of destiny which made all his ideas tremble, and +rendered him nearly mad, it was another self of his that was there! all +called that man who was being tried Jean Valjean. + +Under his very eyes, unheard-of vision, he had a sort of representation +of the most horrible moment of his life, enacted by his spectre. + +Everything was there; the apparatus was the same, the hour of the night, +the faces of the judges, of soldiers, and of spectators; all were the +same, only above the President's head there hung a crucifix, something +which the courts had lacked at the time of his condemnation: God had +been absent when he had been judged. + +There was a chair behind him; he dropped into it, terrified at the +thought that he might be seen; when he was seated, he took advantage of +a pile of cardboard boxes, which stood on the judge's desk, to conceal +his face from the whole room; he could now see without being seen; he +had fully regained consciousness of the reality of things; gradually he +recovered; he attained that phase of composure where it is possible to +listen. + +M. Bamatabois was one of the jurors. + +He looked for Javert, but did not see him; the seat of the witnesses was +hidden from him by the clerk's table, and then, as we have just said, +the hall was sparely lighted. + +At the moment of this entrance, the defendant's lawyer had just finished +his plea. + +The attention of all was excited to the highest pitch; the affair had +lasted for three hours: for three hours that crowd had been watching a +strange man, a miserable specimen of humanity, either profoundly stupid +or profoundly subtle, gradually bending beneath the weight of a terrible +likeness. This man, as the reader already knows, was a vagabond who had +been found in a field carrying a branch laden with ripe apples, broken +in the orchard of a neighbor, called the Pierron orchard. Who was this +man? an examination had been made; witnesses had been heard, and they +were unanimous; light had abounded throughout the entire debate; the +accusation said: "We have in our grasp not only a marauder, a stealer +of fruit; we have here, in our hands, a bandit, an old offender who +has broken his ban, an ex-convict, a miscreant of the most dangerous +description, a malefactor named Jean Valjean, whom justice has long been +in search of, and who, eight years ago, on emerging from the galleys +at Toulon, committed a highway robbery, accompanied by violence, on the +person of a child, a Savoyard named Little Gervais; a crime provided +for by article 383 of the Penal Code, the right to try him for which +we reserve hereafter, when his identity shall have been judicially +established. He has just committed a fresh theft; it is a case of a +second offence; condemn him for the fresh deed; later on he will be +judged for the old crime." In the face of this accusation, in the face +of the unanimity of the witnesses, the accused appeared to be astonished +more than anything else; he made signs and gestures which were meant to +convey No, or else he stared at the ceiling: he spoke with difficulty, +replied with embarrassment, but his whole person, from head to foot, was +a denial; he was an idiot in the presence of all these minds ranged in +order of battle around him, and like a stranger in the midst of this +society which was seizing fast upon him; nevertheless, it was a question +of the most menacing future for him; the likeness increased every +moment, and the entire crowd surveyed, with more anxiety than he did +himself, that sentence freighted with calamity, which descended +ever closer over his head; there was even a glimpse of a possibility +afforded; besides the galleys, a possible death penalty, in case his +identity were established, and the affair of Little Gervais were to end +thereafter in condemnation. Who was this man? what was the nature of his +apathy? was it imbecility or craft? Did he understand too well, or did +he not understand at all? these were questions which divided the crowd, +and seemed to divide the jury; there was something both terrible and +puzzling in this case: the drama was not only melancholy; it was also +obscure. + +The counsel for the defence had spoken tolerably well, in that +provincial tongue which has long constituted the eloquence of the bar, +and which was formerly employed by all advocates, at Paris as well as at +Romorantin or at Montbrison, and which to-day, having become classic, is +no longer spoken except by the official orators of magistracy, to whom +it is suited on account of its grave sonorousness and its majestic +stride; a tongue in which a husband is called a consort, and a woman +a spouse; Paris, the centre of art and civilization; the king, +the monarch; Monseigneur the Bishop, a sainted pontiff; the +district-attorney, the eloquent interpreter of public prosecution; the +arguments, the accents which we have just listened to; the age of Louis +XIV., the grand age; a theatre, the temple of Melpomene; the reigning +family, the august blood of our kings; a concert, a musical solemnity; +the General Commandant of the province, the illustrious warrior, who, +etc.; the pupils in the seminary, these tender levities; errors imputed +to newspapers, the imposture which distills its venom through the +columns of those organs; etc. The lawyer had, accordingly, begun with an +explanation as to the theft of the apples,--an awkward matter couched +in fine style; but Benigne Bossuet himself was obliged to allude to a +chicken in the midst of a funeral oration, and he extricated himself +from the situation in stately fashion. The lawyer established the fact +that the theft of the apples had not been circumstantially proved. +His client, whom he, in his character of counsel, persisted in calling +Champmathieu, had not been seen scaling that wall nor breaking that +branch by any one. He had been taken with that branch (which the lawyer +preferred to call a bough) in his possession; but he said that he had +found it broken off and lying on the ground, and had picked it up. +Where was there any proof to the contrary? No doubt that branch had been +broken off and concealed after the scaling of the wall, then thrown away +by the alarmed marauder; there was no doubt that there had been a +thief in the case. But what proof was there that that thief had been +Champmathieu? One thing only. His character as an ex-convict. The +lawyer did not deny that that character appeared to be, unhappily, +well attested; the accused had resided at Faverolles; the accused had +exercised the calling of a tree-pruner there; the name of Champmathieu +might well have had its origin in Jean Mathieu; all that was true,--in +short, four witnesses recognize Champmathieu, positively and without +hesitation, as that convict, Jean Valjean; to these signs, to this +testimony, the counsel could oppose nothing but the denial of his +client, the denial of an interested party; but supposing that he was +the convict Jean Valjean, did that prove that he was the thief of the +apples? that was a presumption at the most, not a proof. The prisoner, +it was true, and his counsel, "in good faith," was obliged to admit it, +had adopted "a bad system of defence." He obstinately denied everything, +the theft and his character of convict. An admission upon this last +point would certainly have been better, and would have won for him the +indulgence of his judges; the counsel had advised him to do this; but +the accused had obstinately refused, thinking, no doubt, that he would +save everything by admitting nothing. It was an error; but ought not the +paucity of this intelligence to be taken into consideration? This man +was visibly stupid. Long-continued wretchedness in the galleys, long +misery outside the galleys, had brutalized him, etc. He defended himself +badly; was that a reason for condemning him? As for the affair with +Little Gervais, the counsel need not discuss it; it did not enter into +the case. The lawyer wound up by beseeching the jury and the court, if +the identity of Jean Valjean appeared to them to be evident, to apply +to him the police penalties which are provided for a criminal who has +broken his ban, and not the frightful chastisement which descends upon +the convict guilty of a second offence. + +The district-attorney answered the counsel for the defence. He was +violent and florid, as district-attorneys usually are. + +He congratulated the counsel for the defence on his "loyalty," and +skilfully took advantage of this loyalty. He reached the accused through +all the concessions made by his lawyer. The advocate had seemed to admit +that the prisoner was Jean Valjean. He took note of this. So this man +was Jean Valjean. This point had been conceded to the accusation and +could no longer be disputed. Here, by means of a clever +autonomasia which went back to the sources and causes of crime, the +district-attorney thundered against the immorality of the romantic +school, then dawning under the name of the Satanic school, which +had been bestowed upon it by the critics of the Quotidienne and the +Oriflamme; he attributed, not without some probability, to the influence +of this perverse literature the crime of Champmathieu, or rather, +to speak more correctly, of Jean Valjean. Having exhausted these +considerations, he passed on to Jean Valjean himself. Who was this Jean +Valjean? Description of Jean Valjean: a monster spewed forth, etc. +The model for this sort of description is contained in the tale of +Theramene, which is not useful to tragedy, but which every day renders +great services to judicial eloquence. The audience and the jury +"shuddered." The description finished, the district-attorney resumed +with an oratorical turn calculated to raise the enthusiasm of the +journal of the prefecture to the highest pitch on the following day: And +it is such a man, etc., etc., etc., vagabond, beggar, without means of +existence, etc., etc., inured by his past life to culpable deeds, and +but little reformed by his sojourn in the galleys, as was proved by the +crime committed against Little Gervais, etc., etc.; it is such a man, +caught upon the highway in the very act of theft, a few paces from a +wall that had been scaled, still holding in his hand the object +stolen, who denies the crime, the theft, the climbing the wall; denies +everything; denies even his own identity! In addition to a hundred +other proofs, to which we will not recur, four witnesses recognize +him--Javert, the upright inspector of police; Javert, and three of +his former companions in infamy, the convicts Brevet, Chenildieu, and +Cochepaille. What does he offer in opposition to this overwhelming +unanimity? His denial. What obduracy! You will do justice, gentlemen +of the jury, etc., etc. While the district-attorney was speaking, the +accused listened to him open-mouthed, with a sort of amazement in which +some admiration was assuredly blended. He was evidently surprised that +a man could talk like that. From time to time, at those "energetic" +moments of the prosecutor's speech, when eloquence which cannot contain +itself overflows in a flood of withering epithets and envelops the +accused like a storm, he moved his head slowly from right to left and +from left to right in the sort of mute and melancholy protest with which +he had contented himself since the beginning of the argument. Two or +three times the spectators who were nearest to him heard him say in +a low voice, "That is what comes of not having asked M. Baloup." The +district-attorney directed the attention of the jury to this stupid +attitude, evidently deliberate, which denoted not imbecility, but craft, +skill, a habit of deceiving justice, and which set forth in all its +nakedness the "profound perversity" of this man. He ended by making +his reserves on the affair of Little Gervais and demanding a severe +sentence. + +At that time, as the reader will remember, it was penal servitude for +life. + +The counsel for the defence rose, began by complimenting Monsieur +l'Avocat-General on his "admirable speech," then replied as best he +could; but he weakened; the ground was evidently slipping away from +under his feet. + + + + +CHAPTER X--THE SYSTEM OF DENIALS + +The moment for closing the debate had arrived. The President had the +accused stand up, and addressed to him the customary question, "Have you +anything to add to your defence?" + +The man did not appear to understand, as he stood there, twisting in his +hands a terrible cap which he had. + +The President repeated the question. + +This time the man heard it. He seemed to understand. He made a motion +like a man who is just waking up, cast his eyes about him, stared at +the audience, the gendarmes, his counsel, the jury, the court, laid +his monstrous fist on the rim of woodwork in front of his bench, +took another look, and all at once, fixing his glance upon the +district-attorney, he began to speak. It was like an eruption. +It seemed, from the manner in which the words escaped from his +mouth,--incoherent, impetuous, pell-mell, tumbling over each other,--as +though they were all pressing forward to issue forth at once. He said:-- + +"This is what I have to say. That I have been a wheelwright in Paris, +and that it was with Monsieur Baloup. It is a hard trade. In the +wheelwright's trade one works always in the open air, in courtyards, +under sheds when the masters are good, never in closed workshops, +because space is required, you see. In winter one gets so cold that one +beats one's arms together to warm one's self; but the masters don't like +it; they say it wastes time. Handling iron when there is ice between +the paving-stones is hard work. That wears a man out quickly. One is old +while he is still quite young in that trade. At forty a man is done for. +I was fifty-three. I was in a bad state. And then, workmen are so mean! +When a man is no longer young, they call him nothing but an old bird, +old beast! I was not earning more than thirty sous a day. They paid me +as little as possible. The masters took advantage of my age--and then I +had my daughter, who was a laundress at the river. She earned a little +also. It sufficed for us two. She had trouble, also; all day long up to +her waist in a tub, in rain, in snow. When the wind cuts your face, when +it freezes, it is all the same; you must still wash. There are people +who have not much linen, and wait until late; if you do not wash, you +lose your custom. The planks are badly joined, and water drops on you +from everywhere; you have your petticoats all damp above and below. That +penetrates. She has also worked at the laundry of the Enfants-Rouges, +where the water comes through faucets. You are not in the tub there; you +wash at the faucet in front of you, and rinse in a basin behind you. As +it is enclosed, you are not so cold; but there is that hot steam, which +is terrible, and which ruins your eyes. She came home at seven o'clock +in the evening, and went to bed at once, she was so tired. Her husband +beat her. She is dead. We have not been very happy. She was a good girl, +who did not go to the ball, and who was very peaceable. I remember +one Shrove-Tuesday when she went to bed at eight o'clock. There, I am +telling the truth; you have only to ask. Ah, yes! how stupid I am! Paris +is a gulf. Who knows Father Champmathieu there? But M. Baloup does, I +tell you. Go see at M. Baloup's; and after all, I don't know what is +wanted of me." + +The man ceased speaking, and remained standing. He had said these things +in a loud, rapid, hoarse voice, with a sort of irritated and savage +ingenuousness. Once he paused to salute some one in the crowd. The sort +of affirmations which he seemed to fling out before him at random came +like hiccoughs, and to each he added the gesture of a wood-cutter who is +splitting wood. When he had finished, the audience burst into a laugh. +He stared at the public, and, perceiving that they were laughing, and +not understanding why, he began to laugh himself. + +It was inauspicious. + +The President, an attentive and benevolent man, raised his voice. + +He reminded "the gentlemen of the jury" that "the sieur Baloup, formerly +a master-wheelwright, with whom the accused stated that he had served, +had been summoned in vain. He had become bankrupt, and was not to be +found." Then turning to the accused, he enjoined him to listen to what +he was about to say, and added: "You are in a position where reflection +is necessary. The gravest presumptions rest upon you, and may induce +vital results. Prisoner, in your own interests, I summon you for the +last time to explain yourself clearly on two points. In the first place, +did you or did you not climb the wall of the Pierron orchard, break +the branch, and steal the apples; that is to say, commit the crime +of breaking in and theft? In the second place, are you the discharged +convict, Jean Valjean--yes or no?" + +The prisoner shook his head with a capable air, like a man who has +thoroughly understood, and who knows what answer he is going to make. He +opened his mouth, turned towards the President, and said:-- + +"In the first place--" + +Then he stared at his cap, stared at the ceiling, and held his peace. + +"Prisoner," said the district-attorney, in a severe voice; "pay +attention. You are not answering anything that has been asked of you. +Your embarrassment condemns you. It is evident that your name is not +Champmathieu; that you are the convict, Jean Valjean, concealed first +under the name of Jean Mathieu, which was the name of his mother; that +you went to Auvergne; that you were born at Faverolles, where you were +a pruner of trees. It is evident that you have been guilty of entering, +and of the theft of ripe apples from the Pierron orchard. The gentlemen +of the jury will form their own opinion." + +[Illustration: Father Champmathieu on Trial] + +The prisoner had finally resumed his seat; he arose abruptly when the +district-attorney had finished, and exclaimed:-- + +"You are very wicked; that you are! This what I wanted to say; I could +not find words for it at first. I have stolen nothing. I am a man who +does not have something to eat every day. I was coming from Ailly; I +was walking through the country after a shower, which had made the whole +country yellow: even the ponds were overflowed, and nothing sprang from +the sand any more but the little blades of grass at the wayside. I +found a broken branch with apples on the ground; I picked up the branch +without knowing that it would get me into trouble. I have been in +prison, and they have been dragging me about for the last three months; +more than that I cannot say; people talk against me, they tell me, +'Answer!' The gendarme, who is a good fellow, nudges my elbow, and says +to me in a low voice, 'Come, answer!' I don't know how to explain; I +have no education; I am a poor man; that is where they wrong me, because +they do not see this. I have not stolen; I picked up from the ground +things that were lying there. You say, Jean Valjean, Jean Mathieu! I +don't know those persons; they are villagers. I worked for M. Baloup, +Boulevard de l'Hopital; my name is Champmathieu. You are very clever to +tell me where I was born; I don't know myself: it's not everybody +who has a house in which to come into the world; that would be too +convenient. I think that my father and mother were people who strolled +along the highways; I know nothing different. When I was a child, +they called me young fellow; now they call me old fellow; those are my +baptismal names; take that as you like. I have been in Auvergne; I have +been at Faverolles. Pardi. Well! can't a man have been in Auvergne, or +at Faverolles, without having been in the galleys? I tell you that I +have not stolen, and that I am Father Champmathieu; I have been with M. +Baloup; I have had a settled residence. You worry me with your nonsense, +there! Why is everybody pursuing me so furiously?" + +The district-attorney had remained standing; he addressed the +President:-- + +"Monsieur le President, in view of the confused but exceedingly clever +denials of the prisoner, who would like to pass himself off as an idiot, +but who will not succeed in so doing,--we shall attend to that,--we +demand that it shall please you and that it shall please the court to +summon once more into this place the convicts Brevet, Cochepaille, and +Chenildieu, and Police-Inspector Javert, and question them for the last +time as to the identity of the prisoner with the convict Jean Valjean." + +"I would remind the district-attorney," said the President, "that +Police-Inspector Javert, recalled by his duties to the capital of a +neighboring arrondissement, left the court-room and the town as soon as +he had made his deposition; we have accorded him permission, with the +consent of the district-attorney and of the counsel for the prisoner." + +"That is true, Mr. President," responded the district-attorney. "In the +absence of sieur Javert, I think it my duty to remind the gentlemen of +the jury of what he said here a few hours ago. Javert is an estimable +man, who does honor by his rigorous and strict probity to inferior but +important functions. These are the terms of his deposition: 'I do not +even stand in need of circumstantial proofs and moral presumptions to +give the lie to the prisoner's denial. I recognize him perfectly. The +name of this man is not Champmathieu; he is an ex-convict named Jean +Valjean, and is very vicious and much to be feared. It is only with +extreme regret that he was released at the expiration of his term. He +underwent nineteen years of penal servitude for theft. He made five or +six attempts to escape. Besides the theft from Little Gervais, and from +the Pierron orchard, I suspect him of a theft committed in the house of +His Grace the late Bishop of D---- I often saw him at the time when I +was adjutant of the galley-guard at the prison in Toulon. I repeat that +I recognize him perfectly.'" + +This extremely precise statement appeared to produce a vivid impression +on the public and on the jury. The district-attorney concluded by +insisting, that in default of Javert, the three witnesses Brevet, +Chenildieu, and Cochepaille should be heard once more and solemnly +interrogated. + +The President transmitted the order to an usher, and, a moment later, +the door of the witnesses' room opened. The usher, accompanied by a +gendarme ready to lend him armed assistance, introduced the convict +Brevet. The audience was in suspense; and all breasts heaved as though +they had contained but one soul. + +The ex-convict Brevet wore the black and gray waistcoat of the central +prisons. Brevet was a person sixty years of age, who had a sort of +business man's face, and the air of a rascal. The two sometimes go +together. In prison, whither fresh misdeeds had led him, he had become +something in the nature of a turnkey. He was a man of whom his superiors +said, "He tries to make himself of use." The chaplains bore good +testimony as to his religious habits. It must not be forgotten that this +passed under the Restoration. + +"Brevet," said the President, "you have undergone an ignominious +sentence, and you cannot take an oath." + +Brevet dropped his eyes. + +"Nevertheless," continued the President, "even in the man whom the law +has degraded, there may remain, when the divine mercy permits it, a +sentiment of honor and of equity. It is to this sentiment that I +appeal at this decisive hour. If it still exists in you,--and I hope +it does,--reflect before replying to me: consider on the one hand, this +man, whom a word from you may ruin; on the other hand, justice, which a +word from you may enlighten. The instant is solemn; there is still time +to retract if you think you have been mistaken. Rise, prisoner. Brevet, +take a good look at the accused, recall your souvenirs, and tell us on +your soul and conscience, if you persist in recognizing this man as your +former companion in the galleys, Jean Valjean?" + +Brevet looked at the prisoner, then turned towards the court. + +"Yes, Mr. President, I was the first to recognize him, and I stick to +it; that man is Jean Valjean, who entered at Toulon in 1796, and left in +1815. I left a year later. He has the air of a brute now; but it must be +because age has brutalized him; he was sly at the galleys: I recognize +him positively." + +"Take your seat," said the President. "Prisoner, remain standing." + +Chenildieu was brought in, a prisoner for life, as was indicated by his +red cassock and his green cap. He was serving out his sentence at the +galleys of Toulon, whence he had been brought for this case. He was a +small man of about fifty, brisk, wrinkled, frail, yellow, brazen-faced, +feverish, who had a sort of sickly feebleness about all his limbs and +his whole person, and an immense force in his glance. His companions in +the galleys had nicknamed him I-deny-God (Je-nie Dieu, Chenildieu). + +The President addressed him in nearly the same words which he had +used to Brevet. At the moment when he reminded him of his infamy which +deprived him of the right to take an oath, Chenildieu raised his +head and looked the crowd in the face. The President invited him to +reflection, and asked him as he had asked Brevet, if he persisted in +recognition of the prisoner. + +Chenildieu burst out laughing. + +"Pardieu, as if I didn't recognize him! We were attached to the same +chain for five years. So you are sulking, old fellow?" + +"Go take your seat," said the President. + +The usher brought in Cochepaille. He was another convict for life, who +had come from the galleys, and was dressed in red, like Chenildieu, was +a peasant from Lourdes, and a half-bear of the Pyrenees. He had guarded +the flocks among the mountains, and from a shepherd he had slipped into +a brigand. Cochepaille was no less savage and seemed even more stupid +than the prisoner. He was one of those wretched men whom nature has +sketched out for wild beasts, and on whom society puts the finishing +touches as convicts in the galleys. + +The President tried to touch him with some grave and pathetic words, +and asked him, as he had asked the other two, if he persisted, without +hesitation or trouble, in recognizing the man who was standing before +him. + +"He is Jean Valjean," said Cochepaille. "He was even called +Jean-the-Screw, because he was so strong." + +Each of these affirmations from these three men, evidently sincere and +in good faith, had raised in the audience a murmur of bad augury for the +prisoner,--a murmur which increased and lasted longer each time that a +fresh declaration was added to the proceeding. + +The prisoner had listened to them, with that astounded face which was, +according to the accusation, his principal means of defence; at the +first, the gendarmes, his neighbors, had heard him mutter between his +teeth: "Ah, well, he's a nice one!" after the second, he said, a little +louder, with an air that was almost that of satisfaction, "Good!" at the +third, he cried, "Famous!" + +The President addressed him:-- + +"Have you heard, prisoner? What have you to say?" + +He replied:-- + +"I say, 'Famous!'" + +An uproar broke out among the audience, and was communicated to the +jury; it was evident that the man was lost. + +"Ushers," said the President, "enforce silence! I am going to sum up the +arguments." + +At that moment there was a movement just beside the President; a voice +was heard crying:-- + +"Brevet! Chenildieu! Cochepaille! look here!" + +All who heard that voice were chilled, so lamentable and terrible was +it; all eyes were turned to the point whence it had proceeded. A man, +placed among the privileged spectators who were seated behind the +court, had just risen, had pushed open the half-door which separated the +tribunal from the audience, and was standing in the middle of the hall; +the President, the district-attorney, M. Bamatabois, twenty persons, +recognized him, and exclaimed in concert:-- + +"M. Madeleine!" + + + + +CHAPTER XI--CHAMPMATHIEU MORE AND MORE ASTONISHED + +It was he, in fact. The clerk's lamp illumined his countenance. He held +his hat in his hand; there was no disorder in his clothing; his coat +was carefully buttoned; he was very pale, and he trembled slightly; +his hair, which had still been gray on his arrival in Arras, was now +entirely white: it had turned white during the hour he had sat there. + +All heads were raised: the sensation was indescribable; there was +a momentary hesitation in the audience, the voice had been so +heart-rending; the man who stood there appeared so calm that they did +not understand at first. They asked themselves whether he had indeed +uttered that cry; they could not believe that that tranquil man had been +the one to give that terrible outcry. + +This indecision only lasted a few seconds. Even before the President +and the district-attorney could utter a word, before the ushers and the +gendarmes could make a gesture, the man whom all still called, at that +moment, M. Madeleine, had advanced towards the witnesses Cochepaille, +Brevet, and Chenildieu. + +"Do you not recognize me?" said he. + +All three remained speechless, and indicated by a sign of the head that +they did not know him. Cochepaille, who was intimidated, made a military +salute. M. Madeleine turned towards the jury and the court, and said in +a gentle voice:-- + +"Gentlemen of the jury, order the prisoner to be released! Mr. +President, have me arrested. He is not the man whom you are in search +of; it is I: I am Jean Valjean." + +Not a mouth breathed; the first commotion of astonishment had been +followed by a silence like that of the grave; those within the hall +experienced that sort of religious terror which seizes the masses when +something grand has been done. + +In the meantime, the face of the President was stamped with sympathy and +sadness; he had exchanged a rapid sign with the district-attorney and a +few low-toned words with the assistant judges; he addressed the public, +and asked in accents which all understood:-- + +"Is there a physician present?" + +The district-attorney took the word:-- + +"Gentlemen of the jury, the very strange and unexpected incident +which disturbs the audience inspires us, like yourselves, only with a +sentiment which it is unnecessary for us to express. You all know, by +reputation at least, the honorable M. Madeleine, mayor of M. sur M.; +if there is a physician in the audience, we join the President in +requesting him to attend to M. Madeleine, and to conduct him to his +home." + +M. Madeleine did not allow the district-attorney to finish; he +interrupted him in accents full of suavity and authority. These are the +words which he uttered; here they are literally, as they were written +down, immediately after the trial by one of the witnesses to this scene, +and as they now ring in the ears of those who heard them nearly forty +years ago:-- + +"I thank you, Mr. District-Attorney, but I am not mad; you shall see; +you were on the point of committing a great error; release this man! I +am fulfilling a duty; I am that miserable criminal. I am the only one +here who sees the matter clearly, and I am telling you the truth. God, +who is on high, looks down on what I am doing at this moment, and that +suffices. You can take me, for here I am: but I have done my best; I +concealed myself under another name; I have become rich; I have become +a mayor; I have tried to re-enter the ranks of the honest. It seems that +that is not to be done. In short, there are many things which I cannot +tell. I will not narrate the story of my life to you; you will hear it +one of these days. I robbed Monseigneur the Bishop, it is true; it is +true that I robbed Little Gervais; they were right in telling you that +Jean Valjean was a very vicious wretch. Perhaps it was not altogether +his fault. Listen, honorable judges! a man who has been so greatly +humbled as I have has neither any remonstrances to make to Providence, +nor any advice to give to society; but, you see, the infamy from which I +have tried to escape is an injurious thing; the galleys make the convict +what he is; reflect upon that, if you please. Before going to the +galleys, I was a poor peasant, with very little intelligence, a sort +of idiot; the galleys wrought a change in me. I was stupid; I became +vicious: I was a block of wood; I became a firebrand. Later on, +indulgence and kindness saved me, as severity had ruined me. But, pardon +me, you cannot understand what I am saying. You will find at my house, +among the ashes in the fireplace, the forty-sou piece which I stole, +seven years ago, from little Gervais. I have nothing farther to add; +take me. Good God! the district-attorney shakes his head; you say, 'M. +Madeleine has gone mad!' you do not believe me! that is distressing. Do +not, at least, condemn this man! What! these men do not recognize me! I +wish Javert were here; he would recognize me." + +Nothing can reproduce the sombre and kindly melancholy of tone which +accompanied these words. + +He turned to the three convicts, and said:-- + +"Well, I recognize you; do you remember, Brevet?" + +He paused, hesitated for an instant, and said:-- + +"Do you remember the knitted suspenders with a checked pattern which you +wore in the galleys?" + +Brevet gave a start of surprise, and surveyed him from head to foot with +a frightened air. He continued:-- + +"Chenildieu, you who conferred on yourself the name of 'Jenie-Dieu,' +your whole right shoulder bears a deep burn, because you one day laid +your shoulder against the chafing-dish full of coals, in order to efface +the three letters T. F. P., which are still visible, nevertheless; +answer, is this true?" + +"It is true," said Chenildieu. + +He addressed himself to Cochepaille:-- + +"Cochepaille, you have, near the bend in your left arm, a date stamped +in blue letters with burnt powder; the date is that of the landing of +the Emperor at Cannes, March 1, 1815; pull up your sleeve!" + +Cochepaille pushed up his sleeve; all eyes were focused on him and on +his bare arm. + +A gendarme held a light close to it; there was the date. + +The unhappy man turned to the spectators and the judges with a smile +which still rends the hearts of all who saw it whenever they think of +it. It was a smile of triumph; it was also a smile of despair. + +"You see plainly," he said, "that I am Jean Valjean." + +In that chamber there were no longer either judges, accusers, nor +gendarmes; there was nothing but staring eyes and sympathizing hearts. +No one recalled any longer the part that each might be called upon +to play; the district-attorney forgot he was there for the purpose of +prosecuting, the President that he was there to preside, the counsel for +the defence that he was there to defend. It was a striking circumstance +that no question was put, that no authority intervened. The peculiarity +of sublime spectacles is, that they capture all souls and turn witnesses +into spectators. No one, probably, could have explained what he felt; +no one, probably, said to himself that he was witnessing the splendid +outburst of a grand light: all felt themselves inwardly dazzled. + +It was evident that they had Jean Valjean before their eyes. That was +clear. The appearance of this man had sufficed to suffuse with light +that matter which had been so obscure but a moment previously, without +any further explanation: the whole crowd, as by a sort of electric +revelation, understood instantly and at a single glance the simple +and magnificent history of a man who was delivering himself up so +that another man might not be condemned in his stead. The details, the +hesitations, little possible oppositions, were swallowed up in that vast +and luminous fact. + +It was an impression which vanished speedily, but which was irresistible +at the moment. + +"I do not wish to disturb the court further," resumed Jean Valjean. "I +shall withdraw, since you do not arrest me. I have many things to do. +The district-attorney knows who I am; he knows whither I am going; he +can have me arrested when he likes." + +He directed his steps towards the door. Not a voice was raised, not an +arm extended to hinder him. All stood aside. At that moment there was +about him that divine something which causes multitudes to stand aside +and make way for a man. He traversed the crowd slowly. It was never +known who opened the door, but it is certain that he found the door open +when he reached it. On arriving there he turned round and said:-- + +"I am at your command, Mr. District-Attorney." + +Then he addressed the audience:-- + +"All of you, all who are present--consider me worthy of pity, do you +not? Good God! When I think of what I was on the point of doing, I +consider that I am to be envied. Nevertheless, I should have preferred +not to have had this occur." + +He withdrew, and the door closed behind him as it had opened, for those +who do certain sovereign things are always sure of being served by some +one in the crowd. + +Less than an hour after this, the verdict of the jury freed the said +Champmathieu from all accusations; and Champmathieu, being at once +released, went off in a state of stupefaction, thinking that all men +were fools, and comprehending nothing of this vision. + + + + +BOOK EIGHTH.--A COUNTER-BLOW + + + + +CHAPTER I--IN WHAT MIRROR M. MADELEINE CONTEMPLATES HIS HAIR + +The day had begun to dawn. Fantine had passed a sleepless and feverish +night, filled with happy visions; at daybreak she fell asleep. Sister +Simplice, who had been watching with her, availed herself of this +slumber to go and prepare a new potion of chinchona. The worthy sister +had been in the laboratory of the infirmary but a few moments, bending +over her drugs and phials, and scrutinizing things very closely, on +account of the dimness which the half-light of dawn spreads over all +objects. Suddenly she raised her head and uttered a faint shriek. M. +Madeleine stood before her; he had just entered silently. + +"Is it you, Mr. Mayor?" she exclaimed. + +He replied in a low voice:-- + +"How is that poor woman?" + +"Not so bad just now; but we have been very uneasy." + +She explained to him what had passed: that Fantine had been very ill the +day before, and that she was better now, because she thought that the +mayor had gone to Montfermeil to get her child. The sister dared not +question the mayor; but she perceived plainly from his air that he had +not come from there. + +"All that is good," said he; "you were right not to undeceive her." + +"Yes," responded the sister; "but now, Mr. Mayor, she will see you and +will not see her child. What shall we say to her?" + +He reflected for a moment. + +"God will inspire us," said he. + +"But we cannot tell a lie," murmured the sister, half aloud. + +It was broad daylight in the room. The light fell full on M. Madeleine's +face. The sister chanced to raise her eyes to it. + +"Good God, sir!" she exclaimed; "what has happened to you? Your hair is +perfectly white!" + +"White!" said he. + +Sister Simplice had no mirror. She rummaged in a drawer, and pulled out +the little glass which the doctor of the infirmary used to see whether +a patient was dead and whether he no longer breathed. M. Madeleine took +the mirror, looked at his hair, and said:-- + +"Well!" + +He uttered the word indifferently, and as though his mind were on +something else. + +The sister felt chilled by something strange of which she caught a +glimpse in all this. + +He inquired:-- + +"Can I see her?" + +"Is not Monsieur le Maire going to have her child brought back to her?" +said the sister, hardly venturing to put the question. + +"Of course; but it will take two or three days at least." + +"If she were not to see Monsieur le Maire until that time," went on +the sister, timidly, "she would not know that Monsieur le Maire had +returned, and it would be easy to inspire her with patience; and when +the child arrived, she would naturally think Monsieur le Maire had just +come with the child. We should not have to enact a lie." + +M. Madeleine seemed to reflect for a few moments; then he said with his +calm gravity:-- + +"No, sister, I must see her. I may, perhaps, be in haste." + +The nun did not appear to notice this word "perhaps," which communicated +an obscure and singular sense to the words of the mayor's speech. She +replied, lowering her eyes and her voice respectfully:-- + +"In that case, she is asleep; but Monsieur le Maire may enter." + +He made some remarks about a door which shut badly, and the noise of +which might awaken the sick woman; then he entered Fantine's chamber, +approached the bed and drew aside the curtains. She was asleep. Her +breath issued from her breast with that tragic sound which is peculiar +to those maladies, and which breaks the hearts of mothers when they are +watching through the night beside their sleeping child who is condemned +to death. But this painful respiration hardly troubled a sort of +ineffable serenity which overspread her countenance, and which +transfigured her in her sleep. Her pallor had become whiteness; her +cheeks were crimson; her long golden lashes, the only beauty of her +youth and her virginity which remained to her, palpitated, though they +remained closed and drooping. Her whole person was trembling with an +indescribable unfolding of wings, all ready to open wide and bear her +away, which could be felt as they rustled, though they could not be +seen. To see her thus, one would never have dreamed that she was +an invalid whose life was almost despaired of. She resembled rather +something on the point of soaring away than something on the point of +dying. + +The branch trembles when a hand approaches it to pluck a flower, and +seems to both withdraw and to offer itself at one and the same time. +The human body has something of this tremor when the instant arrives in +which the mysterious fingers of Death are about to pluck the soul. + +M. Madeleine remained for some time motionless beside that bed, gazing +in turn upon the sick woman and the crucifix, as he had done two months +before, on the day when he had come for the first time to see her +in that asylum. They were both still there in the same attitude--she +sleeping, he praying; only now, after the lapse of two months, her hair +was gray and his was white. + +The sister had not entered with him. He stood beside the bed, with his +finger on his lips, as though there were some one in the chamber whom he +must enjoin to silence. + +She opened her eyes, saw him, and said quietly, with a smile:-- + +"And Cosette?" + + + + +CHAPTER II--FANTINE HAPPY + +She made no movement of either surprise or of joy; she was joy itself. +That simple question, "And Cosette?" was put with so profound a faith, +with so much certainty, with such a complete absence of disquiet and of +doubt, that he found not a word of reply. She continued:-- + +"I knew that you were there. I was asleep, but I saw you. I have seen +you for a long, long time. I have been following you with my eyes all +night long. You were in a glory, and you had around you all sorts of +celestial forms." + +He raised his glance to the crucifix. + +"But," she resumed, "tell me where Cosette is. Why did not you place her +on my bed against the moment of my waking?" + +He made some mechanical reply which he was never afterwards able to +recall. + +Fortunately, the doctor had been warned, and he now made his appearance. +He came to the aid of M. Madeleine. + +"Calm yourself, my child," said the doctor; "your child is here." + +Fantine's eyes beamed and filled her whole face with light. She clasped +her hands with an expression which contained all that is possible to +prayer in the way of violence and tenderness. + +"Oh!" she exclaimed, "bring her to me!" + +Touching illusion of a mother! Cosette was, for her, still the little +child who is carried. + +"Not yet," said the doctor, "not just now. You still have some fever. +The sight of your child would agitate you and do you harm. You must be +cured first." + +She interrupted him impetuously:-- + +"But I am cured! Oh, I tell you that I am cured! What an ass that doctor +is! The idea! I want to see my child!" + +"You see," said the doctor, "how excited you become. So long as you are +in this state I shall oppose your having your child. It is not enough +to see her; it is necessary that you should live for her. When you are +reasonable, I will bring her to you myself." + +The poor mother bowed her head. + +"I beg your pardon, doctor, I really beg your pardon. Formerly I should +never have spoken as I have just done; so many misfortunes have happened +to me, that I sometimes do not know what I am saying. I understand you; +you fear the emotion. I will wait as long as you like, but I swear to +you that it would not have harmed me to see my daughter. I have been +seeing her; I have not taken my eyes from her since yesterday evening. +Do you know? If she were brought to me now, I should talk to her very +gently. That is all. Is it not quite natural that I should desire to see +my daughter, who has been brought to me expressly from Montfermeil? I +am not angry. I know well that I am about to be happy. All night long I +have seen white things, and persons who smiled at me. When Monsieur le +Docteur pleases, he shall bring me Cosette. I have no longer any fever; +I am well. I am perfectly conscious that there is nothing the matter +with me any more; but I am going to behave as though I were ill, and not +stir, to please these ladies here. When it is seen that I am very calm, +they will say, 'She must have her child.'" + +M. Madeleine was sitting on a chair beside the bed. She turned towards +him; she was making a visible effort to be calm and "very good," as she +expressed it in the feebleness of illness which resembles infancy, in +order that, seeing her so peaceable, they might make no difficulty about +bringing Cosette to her. But while she controlled herself she could not +refrain from questioning M. Madeleine. + +"Did you have a pleasant trip, Monsieur le Maire? Oh! how good you were +to go and get her for me! Only tell me how she is. Did she stand the +journey well? Alas! she will not recognize me. She must have forgotten +me by this time, poor darling! Children have no memories. They are like +birds. A child sees one thing to-day and another thing to-morrow, and +thinks of nothing any longer. And did she have white linen? Did those +Thenardiers keep her clean? How have they fed her? Oh! if you only knew +how I have suffered, putting such questions as that to myself during all +the time of my wretchedness. Now, it is all past. I am happy. Oh, how I +should like to see her! Do you think her pretty, Monsieur le Maire? +Is not my daughter beautiful? You must have been very cold in that +diligence! Could she not be brought for just one little instant? She +might be taken away directly afterwards. Tell me; you are the master; it +could be so if you chose!" + +He took her hand. "Cosette is beautiful," he said, "Cosette is well. +You shall see her soon; but calm yourself; you are talking with too much +vivacity, and you are throwing your arms out from under the clothes, and +that makes you cough." + +In fact, fits of coughing interrupted Fantine at nearly every word. + +Fantine did not murmur; she feared that she had injured by her too +passionate lamentations the confidence which she was desirous of +inspiring, and she began to talk of indifferent things. + +"Montfermeil is quite pretty, is it not? People go there on pleasure +parties in summer. Are the Thenardiers prosperous? There are not many +travellers in their parts. That inn of theirs is a sort of a cook-shop." + +M. Madeleine was still holding her hand, and gazing at her with anxiety; +it was evident that he had come to tell her things before which his mind +now hesitated. The doctor, having finished his visit, retired. Sister +Simplice remained alone with them. + +But in the midst of this pause Fantine exclaimed:-- + +"I hear her! mon Dieu, I hear her!" + +She stretched out her arm to enjoin silence about her, held her breath, +and began to listen with rapture. + +There was a child playing in the yard--the child of the portress or +of some work-woman. It was one of those accidents which are always +occurring, and which seem to form a part of the mysterious stage-setting +of mournful scenes. The child--a little girl--was going and coming, +running to warm herself, laughing, singing at the top of her voice. +Alas! in what are the plays of children not intermingled. It was this +little girl whom Fantine heard singing. + +"Oh!" she resumed, "it is my Cosette! I recognize her voice." + +The child retreated as it had come; the voice died away. Fantine +listened for a while longer, then her face clouded over, and M. +Madeleine heard her say, in a low voice: "How wicked that doctor is not +to allow me to see my daughter! That man has an evil countenance, that +he has." + +But the smiling background of her thoughts came to the front again. She +continued to talk to herself, with her head resting on the pillow: "How +happy we are going to be! We shall have a little garden the very first +thing; M. Madeleine has promised it to me. My daughter will play in the +garden. She must know her letters by this time. I will make her spell. +She will run over the grass after butterflies. I will watch her. Then +she will take her first communion. Ah! when will she take her first +communion?" + +She began to reckon on her fingers. + +"One, two, three, four--she is seven years old. In five years she will +have a white veil, and openwork stockings; she will look like a little +woman. O my good sister, you do not know how foolish I become when I +think of my daughter's first communion!" + +She began to laugh. + +He had released Fantine's hand. He listened to her words as one listens +to the sighing of the breeze, with his eyes on the ground, his mind +absorbed in reflection which had no bottom. All at once she ceased +speaking, and this caused him to raise his head mechanically. Fantine +had become terrible. + +She no longer spoke, she no longer breathed; she had raised herself to +a sitting posture, her thin shoulder emerged from her chemise; her face, +which had been radiant but a moment before, was ghastly, and she +seemed to have fixed her eyes, rendered large with terror, on something +alarming at the other extremity of the room. + +"Good God!" he exclaimed; "what ails you, Fantine?" + +She made no reply; she did not remove her eyes from the object which +she seemed to see. She removed one hand from his arm, and with the other +made him a sign to look behind him. + +He turned, and beheld Javert. + + + + +CHAPTER III--JAVERT SATISFIED + +This is what had taken place. + +The half-hour after midnight had just struck when M. Madeleine quitted +the Hall of Assizes in Arras. He regained his inn just in time to set +out again by the mail-wagon, in which he had engaged his place. A little +before six o'clock in the morning he had arrived at M. sur M., and his +first care had been to post a letter to M. Laffitte, then to enter the +infirmary and see Fantine. + +However, he had hardly quitted the audience hall of the Court of +Assizes, when the district-attorney, recovering from his first shock, +had taken the word to deplore the mad deed of the honorable mayor of +M. sur M., to declare that his convictions had not been in the least +modified by that curious incident, which would be explained thereafter, +and to demand, in the meantime, the condemnation of that Champmathieu, +who was evidently the real Jean Valjean. The district-attorney's +persistence was visibly at variance with the sentiments of every one, of +the public, of the court, and of the jury. The counsel for the defence +had some difficulty in refuting this harangue and in establishing that, +in consequence of the revelations of M. Madeleine, that is to say, of +the real Jean Valjean, the aspect of the matter had been thoroughly +altered, and that the jury had before their eyes now only an innocent +man. Thence the lawyer had drawn some epiphonemas, not very fresh, +unfortunately, upon judicial errors, etc., etc.; the President, in his +summing up, had joined the counsel for the defence, and in a few minutes +the jury had thrown Champmathieu out of the case. + +Nevertheless, the district-attorney was bent on having a Jean Valjean; +and as he had no longer Champmathieu, he took Madeleine. + +Immediately after Champmathieu had been set at liberty, the +district-attorney shut himself up with the President. They conferred "as +to the necessity of seizing the person of M. le Maire of M. sur M." +This phrase, in which there was a great deal of of, is the +district-attorney's, written with his own hand, on the minutes of his +report to the attorney-general. His first emotion having passed off, the +President did not offer many objections. Justice must, after all, take +its course. And then, when all was said, although the President was +a kindly and a tolerably intelligent man, he was, at the same time, a +devoted and almost an ardent royalist, and he had been shocked to hear +the Mayor of M. sur M. say the Emperor, and not Bonaparte, when alluding +to the landing at Cannes. + +The order for his arrest was accordingly despatched. The +district-attorney forwarded it to M. sur M. by a special messenger, at +full speed, and entrusted its execution to Police Inspector Javert. + +The reader knows that Javert had returned to M. sur M. immediately after +having given his deposition. + +Javert was just getting out of bed when the messenger handed him the +order of arrest and the command to produce the prisoner. + +The messenger himself was a very clever member of the police, who, in +two words, informed Javert of what had taken place at Arras. The order +of arrest, signed by the district-attorney, was couched in these words: +"Inspector Javert will apprehend the body of the Sieur Madeleine, mayor +of M. sur M., who, in this day's session of the court, was recognized as +the liberated convict, Jean Valjean." + +Any one who did not know Javert, and who had chanced to see him at the +moment when he penetrated the antechamber of the infirmary, could have +divined nothing of what had taken place, and would have thought his air +the most ordinary in the world. He was cool, calm, grave, his gray +hair was perfectly smooth upon his temples, and he had just mounted +the stairs with his habitual deliberation. Any one who was thoroughly +acquainted with him, and who had examined him attentively at the moment, +would have shuddered. The buckle of his leather stock was under his +left ear instead of at the nape of his neck. This betrayed unwonted +agitation. + +Javert was a complete character, who never had a wrinkle in his duty or +in his uniform; methodical with malefactors, rigid with the buttons of +his coat. + +That he should have set the buckle of his stock awry, it was +indispensable that there should have taken place in him one of those +emotions which may be designated as internal earthquakes. + +He had come in a simple way, had made a requisition on the neighboring +post for a corporal and four soldiers, had left the soldiers in the +courtyard, had had Fantine's room pointed out to him by the portress, +who was utterly unsuspicious, accustomed as she was to seeing armed men +inquiring for the mayor. + +On arriving at Fantine's chamber, Javert turned the handle, pushed +the door open with the gentleness of a sick-nurse or a police spy, and +entered. + +Properly speaking, he did not enter. He stood erect in the half-open +door, his hat on his head and his left hand thrust into his coat, which +was buttoned up to the chin. In the bend of his elbow the leaden head of +his enormous cane, which was hidden behind him, could be seen. + +Thus he remained for nearly a minute, without his presence being +perceived. All at once Fantine raised her eyes, saw him, and made M. +Madeleine turn round. + +The instant that Madeleine's glance encountered Javert's glance, Javert, +without stirring, without moving from his post, without approaching him, +became terrible. No human sentiment can be as terrible as joy. + +It was the visage of a demon who has just found his damned soul. + +The satisfaction of at last getting hold of Jean Valjean caused all that +was in his soul to appear in his countenance. The depths having been +stirred up, mounted to the surface. The humiliation of having, in +some slight degree, lost the scent, and of having indulged, for a few +moments, in an error with regard to Champmathieu, was effaced by pride +at having so well and accurately divined in the first place, and of +having for so long cherished a just instinct. Javert's content shone +forth in his sovereign attitude. The deformity of triumph overspread +that narrow brow. All the demonstrations of horror which a satisfied +face can afford were there. + +Javert was in heaven at that moment. Without putting the thing clearly +to himself, but with a confused intuition of the necessity of his +presence and of his success, he, Javert, personified justice, light, and +truth in their celestial function of crushing out evil. Behind him and +around him, at an infinite distance, he had authority, reason, the case +judged, the legal conscience, the public prosecution, all the stars; he +was protecting order, he was causing the law to yield up its thunders, +he was avenging society, he was lending a helping hand to the absolute, +he was standing erect in the midst of a glory. There existed in his +victory a remnant of defiance and of combat. Erect, haughty, brilliant, +he flaunted abroad in open day the superhuman bestiality of a ferocious +archangel. The terrible shadow of the action which he was accomplishing +caused the vague flash of the social sword to be visible in his clenched +fist; happy and indignant, he held his heel upon crime, vice, rebellion, +perdition, hell; he was radiant, he exterminated, he smiled, and there +was an incontestable grandeur in this monstrous Saint Michael. + +Javert, though frightful, had nothing ignoble about him. + +Probity, sincerity, candor, conviction, the sense of duty, are things +which may become hideous when wrongly directed; but which, even when +hideous, remain grand: their majesty, the majesty peculiar to the human +conscience, clings to them in the midst of horror; they are virtues +which have one vice,--error. The honest, pitiless joy of a fanatic +in the full flood of his atrocity preserves a certain lugubriously +venerable radiance. Without himself suspecting the fact, Javert in his +formidable happiness was to be pitied, as is every ignorant man who +triumphs. Nothing could be so poignant and so terrible as this face, +wherein was displayed all that may be designated as the evil of the +good. + + + + +CHAPTER IV--AUTHORITY REASSERTS ITS RIGHTS + +Fantine had not seen Javert since the day on which the mayor had torn +her from the man. Her ailing brain comprehended nothing, but the only +thing which she did not doubt was that he had come to get her. She could +not endure that terrible face; she felt her life quitting her; she hid +her face in both hands, and shrieked in her anguish:-- + +"Monsieur Madeleine, save me!" + +Jean Valjean--we shall henceforth not speak of him otherwise--had risen. +He said to Fantine in the gentlest and calmest of voices:-- + +"Be at ease; it is not for you that he is come." + +Then he addressed Javert, and said:-- + +"I know what you want." + +Javert replied:-- + +"Be quick about it!" + +There lay in the inflection of voice which accompanied these words +something indescribably fierce and frenzied. Javert did not say, "Be +quick about it!" he said "Bequiabouit." + +No orthography can do justice to the accent with which it was uttered: +it was no longer a human word: it was a roar. + +He did not proceed according to his custom, he did not enter into the +matter, he exhibited no warrant of arrest. In his eyes, Jean Valjean +was a sort of mysterious combatant, who was not to be laid hands upon, +a wrestler in the dark whom he had had in his grasp for the last five +years, without being able to throw him. This arrest was not a beginning, +but an end. He confined himself to saying, "Be quick about it!" + +As he spoke thus, he did not advance a single step; he hurled at Jean +Valjean a glance which he threw out like a grappling-hook, and with +which he was accustomed to draw wretches violently to him. + +It was this glance which Fantine had felt penetrating to the very marrow +of her bones two months previously. + +At Javert's exclamation, Fantine opened her eyes once more. But the +mayor was there; what had she to fear? + +Javert advanced to the middle of the room, and cried:-- + +"See here now! Art thou coming?" + +The unhappy woman glanced about her. No one was present excepting the +nun and the mayor. To whom could that abject use of "thou" be addressed? +To her only. She shuddered. + +Then she beheld a most unprecedented thing, a thing so unprecedented +that nothing equal to it had appeared to her even in the blackest +deliriums of fever. + +She beheld Javert, the police spy, seize the mayor by the collar; she +saw the mayor bow his head. It seemed to her that the world was coming +to an end. + +Javert had, in fact, grasped Jean Valjean by the collar. + +"Monsieur le Maire!" shrieked Fantine. + +Javert burst out laughing with that frightful laugh which displayed all +his gums. + +"There is no longer any Monsieur le Maire here!" + +Jean Valjean made no attempt to disengage the hand which grasped the +collar of his coat. He said:-- + +"Javert--" + +Javert interrupted him: "Call me Mr. Inspector." + +"Monsieur," said Jean Valjean, "I should like to say a word to you in +private." + +"Aloud! Say it aloud!" replied Javert; "people are in the habit of +talking aloud to me." + +Jean Valjean went on in a lower tone:-- + +"I have a request to make of you--" + +"I tell you to speak loud." + +"But you alone should hear it--" + +"What difference does that make to me? I shall not listen." + +Jean Valjean turned towards him and said very rapidly and in a very low +voice:-- + +"Grant me three days' grace! three days in which to go and fetch the +child of this unhappy woman. I will pay whatever is necessary. You shall +accompany me if you choose." + +"You are making sport of me!" cried Javert. "Come now, I did not think +you such a fool! You ask me to give you three days in which to run away! +You say that it is for the purpose of fetching that creature's child! +Ah! Ah! That's good! That's really capital!" + +Fantine was seized with a fit of trembling. + +"My child!" she cried, "to go and fetch my child! She is not here, +then! Answer me, sister; where is Cosette? I want my child! Monsieur +Madeleine! Monsieur le Maire!" + +Javert stamped his foot. + +"And now there's the other one! Will you hold your tongue, you hussy? +It's a pretty sort of a place where convicts are magistrates, and where +women of the town are cared for like countesses! Ah! But we are going to +change all that; it is high time!" + +He stared intently at Fantine, and added, once more taking into his +grasp Jean Valjean's cravat, shirt and collar:-- + +"I tell you that there is no Monsieur Madeleine and that there is no +Monsieur le Maire. There is a thief, a brigand, a convict named Jean +Valjean! And I have him in my grasp! That's what there is!" + +Fantine raised herself in bed with a bound, supporting herself on her +stiffened arms and on both hands: she gazed at Jean Valjean, she gazed +at Javert, she gazed at the nun, she opened her mouth as though to +speak; a rattle proceeded from the depths of her throat, her teeth +chattered; she stretched out her arms in her agony, opening her hands +convulsively, and fumbling about her like a drowning person; then +suddenly fell back on her pillow. + +Her head struck the head-board of the bed and fell forwards on her +breast, with gaping mouth and staring, sightless eyes. + +She was dead. + +Jean Valjean laid his hand upon the detaining hand of Javert, and opened +it as he would have opened the hand of a baby; then he said to Javert:-- + +"You have murdered that woman." + +"Let's have an end of this!" shouted Javert, in a fury; "I am not here +to listen to argument. Let us economize all that; the guard is below; +march on instantly, or you'll get the thumb-screws!" + +In the corner of the room stood an old iron bedstead, which was in a +decidedly decrepit state, and which served the sisters as a camp-bed +when they were watching with the sick. Jean Valjean stepped up to this +bed, in a twinkling wrenched off the head-piece, which was already in a +dilapidated condition, an easy matter to muscles like his, grasped the +principal rod like a bludgeon, and glanced at Javert. Javert retreated +towards the door. Jean Valjean, armed with his bar of iron, walked +slowly up to Fantine's couch. When he arrived there he turned and said +to Javert, in a voice that was barely audible:-- + +"I advise you not to disturb me at this moment." + +One thing is certain, and that is, that Javert trembled. + +It did occur to him to summon the guard, but Jean Valjean might avail +himself of that moment to effect his escape; so he remained, grasped +his cane by the small end, and leaned against the door-post, without +removing his eyes from Jean Valjean. + +Jean Valjean rested his elbow on the knob at the head of the bed, and +his brow on his hand, and began to contemplate the motionless body of +Fantine, which lay extended there. He remained thus, mute, absorbed, +evidently with no further thought of anything connected with this life. +Upon his face and in his attitude there was nothing but inexpressible +pity. After a few moments of this meditation he bent towards Fantine, +and spoke to her in a low voice. + +What did he say to her? What could this man, who was reproved, say to +that woman, who was dead? What words were those? No one on earth heard +them. Did the dead woman hear them? There are some touching illusions +which are, perhaps, sublime realities. The point as to which there +exists no doubt is, that Sister Simplice, the sole witness of the +incident, often said that at the moment that Jean Valjean whispered in +Fantine's ear, she distinctly beheld an ineffable smile dawn on those +pale lips, and in those dim eyes, filled with the amazement of the tomb. + +Jean Valjean took Fantine's head in both his hands, and arranged it on +the pillow as a mother might have done for her child; then he tied the +string of her chemise, and smoothed her hair back under her cap. That +done, he closed her eyes. + +Fantine's face seemed strangely illuminated at that moment. + +Death, that signifies entrance into the great light. + +Fantine's hand was hanging over the side of the bed. Jean Valjean knelt +down before that hand, lifted it gently, and kissed it. + +Then he rose, and turned to Javert. + +"Now," said he, "I am at your disposal." + + + + +CHAPTER V--A SUITABLE TOMB + +Javert deposited Jean Valjean in the city prison. + +The arrest of M. Madeleine occasioned a sensation, or rather, an +extraordinary commotion in M. sur M. We are sorry that we cannot conceal +the fact, that at the single word, "He was a convict," nearly every one +deserted him. In less than two hours all the good that he had done had +been forgotten, and he was nothing but a "convict from the galleys." It +is just to add that the details of what had taken place at Arras were +not yet known. All day long conversations like the following were to be +heard in all quarters of the town:-- + +"You don't know? He was a liberated convict!" "Who?" "The mayor." "Bah! +M. Madeleine?" "Yes." "Really?" "His name was not Madeleine at all; he +had a frightful name, Bejean, Bojean, Boujean." "Ah! Good God!" "He +has been arrested." "Arrested!" "In prison, in the city prison, while +waiting to be transferred." "Until he is transferred!" "He is to be +transferred!" "Where is he to be taken?" "He will be tried at the +Assizes for a highway robbery which he committed long ago." "Well! I +suspected as much. That man was too good, too perfect, too affected. +He refused the cross; he bestowed sous on all the little scamps he came +across. I always thought there was some evil history back of all that." + +The "drawing-rooms" particularly abounded in remarks of this nature. + +One old lady, a subscriber to the Drapeau Blanc, made the following +remark, the depth of which it is impossible to fathom:-- + +"I am not sorry. It will be a lesson to the Bonapartists!" + +It was thus that the phantom which had been called M. Madeleine vanished +from M. sur M. Only three or four persons in all the town remained +faithful to his memory. The old portress who had served him was among +the number. + +On the evening of that day the worthy old woman was sitting in her +lodge, still in a thorough fright, and absorbed in sad reflections. +The factory had been closed all day, the carriage gate was bolted, the +street was deserted. There was no one in the house but the two nuns, +Sister Perpetue and Sister Simplice, who were watching beside the body +of Fantine. + +Towards the hour when M. Madeleine was accustomed to return home, +the good portress rose mechanically, took from a drawer the key of +M. Madeleine's chamber, and the flat candlestick which he used every +evening to go up to his quarters; then she hung the key on the nail +whence he was accustomed to take it, and set the candlestick on one +side, as though she was expecting him. Then she sat down again on her +chair, and became absorbed in thought once more. The poor, good old +woman had done all this without being conscious of it. + +It was only at the expiration of two hours that she roused herself from +her revery, and exclaimed, "Hold! My good God Jesus! And I hung his key +on the nail!" + +At that moment the small window in the lodge opened, a hand passed +through, seized the key and the candlestick, and lighted the taper at +the candle which was burning there. + +The portress raised her eyes, and stood there with gaping mouth, and a +shriek which she confined to her throat. + +She knew that hand, that arm, the sleeve of that coat. + +It was M. Madeleine. + +It was several seconds before she could speak; she had a seizure, as she +said herself, when she related the adventure afterwards. + +"Good God, Monsieur le Maire," she cried at last, "I thought you were--" + +She stopped; the conclusion of her sentence would have been lacking in +respect towards the beginning. Jean Valjean was still Monsieur le Maire +to her. + +He finished her thought. + +"In prison," said he. "I was there; I broke a bar of one of the windows; +I let myself drop from the top of a roof, and here I am. I am going up +to my room; go and find Sister Simplice for me. She is with that poor +woman, no doubt." + +The old woman obeyed in all haste. + +He gave her no orders; he was quite sure that she would guard him better +than he should guard himself. + +No one ever found out how he had managed to get into the courtyard +without opening the big gates. He had, and always carried about him, +a pass-key which opened a little side-door; but he must have been +searched, and his latch-key must have been taken from him. This point +was never explained. + +He ascended the staircase leading to his chamber. On arriving at the +top, he left his candle on the top step of his stairs, opened his door +with very little noise, went and closed his window and his shutters by +feeling, then returned for his candle and re-entered his room. + +It was a useful precaution; it will be recollected that his window could +be seen from the street. + +He cast a glance about him, at his table, at his chair, at his bed which +had not been disturbed for three days. No trace of the disorder of the +night before last remained. The portress had "done up" his room; only +she had picked out of the ashes and placed neatly on the table the two +iron ends of the cudgel and the forty-sou piece which had been blackened +by the fire. + +He took a sheet of paper, on which he wrote: "These are the two tips of +my iron-shod cudgel and the forty-sou piece stolen from Little Gervais, +which I mentioned at the Court of Assizes," and he arranged this piece +of paper, the bits of iron, and the coin in such a way that they were +the first things to be seen on entering the room. From a cupboard he +pulled out one of his old shirts, which he tore in pieces. In the +strips of linen thus prepared he wrapped the two silver candlesticks. He +betrayed neither haste nor agitation; and while he was wrapping up the +Bishop's candlesticks, he nibbled at a piece of black bread. It was +probably the prison-bread which he had carried with him in his flight. + +This was proved by the crumbs which were found on the floor of the room +when the authorities made an examination later on. + +There came two taps at the door. + +"Come in," said he. + +It was Sister Simplice. + +She was pale; her eyes were red; the candle which she carried trembled +in her hand. The peculiar feature of the violences of destiny is, that +however polished or cool we may be, they wring human nature from our +very bowels, and force it to reappear on the surface. The emotions of +that day had turned the nun into a woman once more. She had wept, and +she was trembling. + +Jean Valjean had just finished writing a few lines on a paper, which he +handed to the nun, saying, "Sister, you will give this to Monsieur le +Cure." + +The paper was not folded. She cast a glance upon it. + +"You can read it," said he. + +She read:-- + +"I beg Monsieur le Cure to keep an eye on all that I leave behind me. He +will be so good as to pay out of it the expenses of my trial, and of the +funeral of the woman who died yesterday. The rest is for the poor." + +The sister tried to speak, but she only managed to stammer a few +inarticulate sounds. She succeeded in saying, however:-- + +"Does not Monsieur le Maire desire to take a last look at that poor, +unhappy woman?" + +"No," said he; "I am pursued; it would only end in their arresting me in +that room, and that would disturb her." + +He had hardly finished when a loud noise became audible on the +staircase. They heard a tumult of ascending footsteps, and the old +portress saying in her loudest and most piercing tones:-- + +"My good sir, I swear to you by the good God, that not a soul has +entered this house all day, nor all the evening, and that I have not +even left the door." + +A man responded:-- + +"But there is a light in that room, nevertheless." + +They recognized Javert's voice. + +The chamber was so arranged that the door in opening masked the corner +of the wall on the right. Jean Valjean blew out the light and placed +himself in this angle. Sister Simplice fell on her knees near the table. + +The door opened. + +Javert entered. + +The whispers of many men and the protestations of the portress were +audible in the corridor. + +The nun did not raise her eyes. She was praying. + +The candle was on the chimney-piece, and gave but very little light. + +Javert caught sight of the nun and halted in amazement. + +It will be remembered that the fundamental point in Javert, his element, +the very air he breathed, was veneration for all authority. This was +impregnable, and admitted of neither objection nor restriction. In his +eyes, of course, the ecclesiastical authority was the chief of all; he +was religious, superficial and correct on this point as on all others. +In his eyes, a priest was a mind, who never makes a mistake; a nun was a +creature who never sins; they were souls walled in from this world, +with a single door which never opened except to allow the truth to pass +through. + +On perceiving the sister, his first movement was to retire. + +But there was also another duty which bound him and impelled him +imperiously in the opposite direction. His second movement was to remain +and to venture on at least one question. + +This was Sister Simplice, who had never told a lie in her life. Javert +knew it, and held her in special veneration in consequence. + +"Sister," said he, "are you alone in this room?" + +A terrible moment ensued, during which the poor portress felt as though +she should faint. + +The sister raised her eyes and answered:-- + +"Yes." + +"Then," resumed Javert, "you will excuse me if I persist; it is my duty; +you have not seen a certain person--a man--this evening? He has escaped; +we are in search of him--that Jean Valjean; you have not seen him?" + +The sister replied:-- + +"No." + +She lied. She had lied twice in succession, one after the other, without +hesitation, promptly, as a person does when sacrificing herself. + +"Pardon me," said Javert, and he retired with a deep bow. + +O sainted maid! you left this world many years ago; you have rejoined +your sisters, the virgins, and your brothers, the angels, in the light; +may this lie be counted to your credit in paradise! + +The sister's affirmation was for Javert so decisive a thing that he did +not even observe the singularity of that candle which had but just been +extinguished, and which was still smoking on the table. + +An hour later, a man, marching amid trees and mists, was rapidly +departing from M. sur M. in the direction of Paris. That man was Jean +Valjean. It has been established by the testimony of two or three +carters who met him, that he was carrying a bundle; that he was dressed +in a blouse. Where had he obtained that blouse? No one ever found out. +But an aged workman had died in the infirmary of the factory a few days +before, leaving behind him nothing but his blouse. Perhaps that was the +one. + +One last word about Fantine. + +We all have a mother,--the earth. Fantine was given back to that mother. + +The cure thought that he was doing right, and perhaps he really was, in +reserving as much money as possible from what Jean Valjean had left for +the poor. Who was concerned, after all? A convict and a woman of the +town. That is why he had a very simple funeral for Fantine, and reduced +it to that strictly necessary form known as the pauper's grave. + +So Fantine was buried in the free corner of the cemetery which belongs +to anybody and everybody, and where the poor are lost. Fortunately, God +knows where to find the soul again. Fantine was laid in the shade, +among the first bones that came to hand; she was subjected to the +promiscuousness of ashes. She was thrown into the public grave. Her +grave resembled her bed. + + +[THE END OF VOLUME I. "FANTINE"] + + +[Illustration: Frontispiece Volume Two 2frontispiece] + +[Illustration: Titlepage Volume Two 2titlepage] + + + + + +VOLUME II.--COSETTE + + + + +BOOK FIRST.--WATERLOO + + + + +CHAPTER I--WHAT IS MET WITH ON THE WAY FROM NIVELLES + +Last year (1861), on a beautiful May morning, a traveller, the person +who is telling this story, was coming from Nivelles, and directing his +course towards La Hulpe. He was on foot. He was pursuing a broad paved +road, which undulated between two rows of trees, over the hills which +succeed each other, raise the road and let it fall again, and produce +something in the nature of enormous waves. + +He had passed Lillois and Bois-Seigneur-Isaac. In the west he perceived +the slate-roofed tower of Braine-l'Alleud, which has the form of a +reversed vase. He had just left behind a wood upon an eminence; and +at the angle of the cross-road, by the side of a sort of mouldy gibbet +bearing the inscription Ancient Barrier No. 4, a public house, bearing +on its front this sign: At the Four Winds (Aux Quatre Vents). Echabeau, +Private Cafe. + +A quarter of a league further on, he arrived at the bottom of a little +valley, where there is water which passes beneath an arch made through +the embankment of the road. The clump of sparsely planted but very green +trees, which fills the valley on one side of the road, is dispersed over +the meadows on the other, and disappears gracefully and as in order in +the direction of Braine-l'Alleud. + +On the right, close to the road, was an inn, with a four-wheeled cart +at the door, a large bundle of hop-poles, a plough, a heap of dried +brushwood near a flourishing hedge, lime smoking in a square hole, and +a ladder suspended along an old penthouse with straw partitions. A young +girl was weeding in a field, where a huge yellow poster, probably of +some outside spectacle, such as a parish festival, was fluttering in +the wind. At one corner of the inn, beside a pool in which a flotilla +of ducks was navigating, a badly paved path plunged into the bushes. The +wayfarer struck into this. + +After traversing a hundred paces, skirting a wall of the fifteenth +century, surmounted by a pointed gable, with bricks set in contrast, he +found himself before a large door of arched stone, with a rectilinear +impost, in the sombre style of Louis XIV., flanked by two flat +medallions. A severe facade rose above this door; a wall, perpendicular +to the facade, almost touched the door, and flanked it with an abrupt +right angle. In the meadow before the door lay three harrows, through +which, in disorder, grew all the flowers of May. The door was closed. +The two decrepit leaves which barred it were ornamented with an old +rusty knocker. + +The sun was charming; the branches had that soft shivering of May, +which seems to proceed rather from the nests than from the wind. A brave +little bird, probably a lover, was carolling in a distracted manner in a +large tree. + +The wayfarer bent over and examined a rather large circular excavation, +resembling the hollow of a sphere, in the stone on the left, at the foot +of the pier of the door. + +At this moment the leaves of the door parted, and a peasant woman +emerged. + +She saw the wayfarer, and perceived what he was looking at. + +"It was a French cannon-ball which made that," she said to him. And she +added:-- + +"That which you see there, higher up in the door, near a nail, is the +hole of a big iron bullet as large as an egg. The bullet did not pierce +the wood." + +"What is the name of this place?" inquired the wayfarer. + +"Hougomont," said the peasant woman. + +The traveller straightened himself up. He walked on a few paces, and +went off to look over the tops of the hedges. On the horizon through the +trees, he perceived a sort of little elevation, and on this elevation +something which at that distance resembled a lion. + +He was on the battle-field of Waterloo. + + + + +CHAPTER II--HOUGOMONT + +Hougomont,--this was a funereal spot, the beginning of the obstacle, +the first resistance, which that great wood-cutter of Europe, called +Napoleon, encountered at Waterloo, the first knot under the blows of his +axe. + +It was a chateau; it is no longer anything but a farm. For the +antiquary, Hougomont is Hugomons. This manor was built by Hugo, Sire +of Somerel, the same who endowed the sixth chaplaincy of the Abbey of +Villiers. + +The traveller pushed open the door, elbowed an ancient calash under the +porch, and entered the courtyard. + +The first thing which struck him in this paddock was a door of the +sixteenth century, which here simulates an arcade, everything else +having fallen prostrate around it. A monumental aspect often has its +birth in ruin. In a wall near the arcade opens another arched door, of +the time of Henry IV., permitting a glimpse of the trees of an orchard; +beside this door, a manure-hole, some pickaxes, some shovels, some +carts, an old well, with its flagstone and its iron reel, a chicken +jumping, and a turkey spreading its tail, a chapel surmounted by a small +bell-tower, a blossoming pear-tree trained in espalier against the +wall of the chapel--behold the court, the conquest of which was one of +Napoleon's dreams. This corner of earth, could he but have seized +it, would, perhaps, have given him the world likewise. Chickens are +scattering its dust abroad with their beaks. A growl is audible; it is a +huge dog, who shows his teeth and replaces the English. + +The English behaved admirably there. Cooke's four companies of guards +there held out for seven hours against the fury of an army. + +Hougomont viewed on the map, as a geometrical plan, comprising buildings +and enclosures, presents a sort of irregular rectangle, one angle of +which is nicked out. It is this angle which contains the southern +door, guarded by this wall, which commands it only a gun's length away. +Hougomont has two doors,--the southern door, that of the chateau; and +the northern door, belonging to the farm. Napoleon sent his brother +Jerome against Hougomont; the divisions of Foy, Guilleminot, and Bachelu +hurled themselves against it; nearly the entire corps of Reille was +employed against it, and miscarried; Kellermann's balls were exhausted +on this heroic section of wall. Bauduin's brigade was not strong enough +to force Hougomont on the north, and the brigade of Soye could not do +more than effect the beginning of a breach on the south, but without +taking it. + +The farm buildings border the courtyard on the south. A bit of the north +door, broken by the French, hangs suspended to the wall. It consists of +four planks nailed to two cross-beams, on which the scars of the attack +are visible. + +The northern door, which was beaten in by the French, and which has had +a piece applied to it to replace the panel suspended on the wall, stands +half-open at the bottom of the paddock; it is cut squarely in the wall, +built of stone below, of brick above which closes in the courtyard on +the north. It is a simple door for carts, such as exist in all farms, +with the two large leaves made of rustic planks: beyond lie the meadows. +The dispute over this entrance was furious. For a long time, all sorts +of imprints of bloody hands were visible on the door-posts. It was there +that Bauduin was killed. + +The storm of the combat still lingers in this courtyard; its horror is +visible there; the confusion of the fray was petrified there; it lives +and it dies there; it was only yesterday. The walls are in the death +agony, the stones fall; the breaches cry aloud; the holes are wounds; +the drooping, quivering trees seem to be making an effort to flee. + +This courtyard was more built up in 1815 than it is to-day. Buildings +which have since been pulled down then formed redans and angles. + +The English barricaded themselves there; the French made their way in, +but could not stand their ground. Beside the chapel, one wing of the +chateau, the only ruin now remaining of the manor of Hougomont, rises in +a crumbling state,--disembowelled, one might say. The chateau served +for a dungeon, the chapel for a block-house. There men exterminated each +other. The French, fired on from every point,--from behind the walls, +from the summits of the garrets, from the depths of the cellars, through +all the casements, through all the air-holes, through every crack in the +stones,--fetched fagots and set fire to walls and men; the reply to the +grape-shot was a conflagration. + +In the ruined wing, through windows garnished with bars of iron, the +dismantled chambers of the main building of brick are visible; the +English guards were in ambush in these rooms; the spiral of the +staircase, cracked from the ground floor to the very roof, appears +like the inside of a broken shell. The staircase has two stories; the +English, besieged on the staircase, and massed on its upper steps, had +cut off the lower steps. These consisted of large slabs of blue stone, +which form a heap among the nettles. Half a score of steps still +cling to the wall; on the first is cut the figure of a trident. These +inaccessible steps are solid in their niches. All the rest resembles a +jaw which has been denuded of its teeth. There are two old trees there: +one is dead; the other is wounded at its base, and is clothed with +verdure in April. Since 1815 it has taken to growing through the +staircase. + +A massacre took place in the chapel. The interior, which has recovered +its calm, is singular. The mass has not been said there since the +carnage. Nevertheless, the altar has been left there--an altar of +unpolished wood, placed against a background of roughhewn stone. Four +whitewashed walls, a door opposite the altar, two small arched windows; +over the door a large wooden crucifix, below the crucifix a square +air-hole stopped up with a bundle of hay; on the ground, in one corner, +an old window-frame with the glass all broken to pieces--such is the +chapel. Near the altar there is nailed up a wooden statue of Saint Anne, +of the fifteenth century; the head of the infant Jesus has been carried +off by a large ball. The French, who were masters of the chapel for a +moment, and were then dislodged, set fire to it. The flames filled this +building; it was a perfect furnace; the door was burned, the floor was +burned, the wooden Christ was not burned. The fire preyed upon his +feet, of which only the blackened stumps are now to be seen; then it +stopped,--a miracle, according to the assertion of the people of the +neighborhood. The infant Jesus, decapitated, was less fortunate than the +Christ. + +The walls are covered with inscriptions. Near the feet of Christ this +name is to be read: Henquinez. Then these others: Conde de Rio Maior +Marques y Marquesa de Almagro (Habana). There are French names with +exclamation points,--a sign of wrath. The wall was freshly whitewashed +in 1849. The nations insulted each other there. + +It was at the door of this chapel that the corpse was picked up which +held an axe in its hand; this corpse was Sub-Lieutenant Legros. + +On emerging from the chapel, a well is visible on the left. There are +two in this courtyard. One inquires, Why is there no bucket and pulley +to this? It is because water is no longer drawn there. Why is water not +drawn there? Because it is full of skeletons. + +The last person who drew water from the well was named Guillaume van +Kylsom. He was a peasant who lived at Hougomont, and was gardener there. +On the 18th of June, 1815, his family fled and concealed themselves in +the woods. + +The forest surrounding the Abbey of Villiers sheltered these unfortunate +people who had been scattered abroad, for many days and nights. There +are at this day certain traces recognizable, such as old boles of burned +trees, which mark the site of these poor bivouacs trembling in the +depths of the thickets. + +Guillaume van Kylsom remained at Hougomont, "to guard the chateau," and +concealed himself in the cellar. The English discovered him there. +They tore him from his hiding-place, and the combatants forced this +frightened man to serve them, by administering blows with the flats of +their swords. They were thirsty; this Guillaume brought them water. It +was from this well that he drew it. Many drank there their last draught. +This well where drank so many of the dead was destined to die itself. + +After the engagement, they were in haste to bury the dead bodies. Death +has a fashion of harassing victory, and she causes the pest to follow +glory. The typhus is a concomitant of triumph. This well was deep, and +it was turned into a sepulchre. Three hundred dead bodies were cast into +it. With too much haste perhaps. Were they all dead? Legend says they +were not. It seems that on the night succeeding the interment, feeble +voices were heard calling from the well. + +This well is isolated in the middle of the courtyard. Three walls, part +stone, part brick, and simulating a small, square tower, and folded like +the leaves of a screen, surround it on all sides. The fourth side is +open. It is there that the water was drawn. The wall at the bottom has +a sort of shapeless loophole, possibly the hole made by a shell. This +little tower had a platform, of which only the beams remain. The iron +supports of the well on the right form a cross. On leaning over, the +eye is lost in a deep cylinder of brick which is filled with a heaped-up +mass of shadows. The base of the walls all about the well is concealed +in a growth of nettles. + +This well has not in front of it that large blue slab which forms the +table for all wells in Belgium. The slab has here been replaced by a +cross-beam, against which lean five or six shapeless fragments of knotty +and petrified wood which resemble huge bones. There is no longer either +pail, chain, or pulley; but there is still the stone basin which served +the overflow. The rain-water collects there, and from time to time a +bird of the neighboring forests comes thither to drink, and then flies +away. One house in this ruin, the farmhouse, is still inhabited. The +door of this house opens on the courtyard. Upon this door, beside a +pretty Gothic lock-plate, there is an iron handle with trefoils placed +slanting. At the moment when the Hanoverian lieutenant, Wilda, grasped +this handle in order to take refuge in the farm, a French sapper hewed +off his hand with an axe. + +The family who occupy the house had for their grandfather Guillaume van +Kylsom, the old gardener, dead long since. A woman with gray hair said +to us: "I was there. I was three years old. My sister, who was older, +was terrified and wept. They carried us off to the woods. I went there +in my mother's arms. We glued our ears to the earth to hear. I imitated +the cannon, and went boum! boum!" + +A door opening from the courtyard on the left led into the orchard, so +we were told. The orchard is terrible. + +It is in three parts; one might almost say, in three acts. The first +part is a garden, the second is an orchard, the third is a wood. These +three parts have a common enclosure: on the side of the entrance, the +buildings of the chateau and the farm; on the left, a hedge; on the +right, a wall; and at the end, a wall. The wall on the right is of +brick, the wall at the bottom is of stone. One enters the garden first. +It slopes downwards, is planted with gooseberry bushes, choked with a +wild growth of vegetation, and terminated by a monumental terrace of cut +stone, with balustrade with a double curve. + +It was a seignorial garden in the first French style which preceded Le +Notre; to-day it is ruins and briars. The pilasters are surmounted by +globes which resemble cannon-balls of stone. Forty-three balusters can +still be counted on their sockets; the rest lie prostrate in the grass. +Almost all bear scratches of bullets. One broken baluster is placed on +the pediment like a fractured leg. + +It was in this garden, further down than the orchard, that six +light-infantry men of the 1st, having made their way thither, and being +unable to escape, hunted down and caught like bears in their dens, +accepted the combat with two Hanoverian companies, one of which was +armed with carbines. The Hanoverians lined this balustrade and fired +from above. The infantry men, replying from below, six against two +hundred, intrepid and with no shelter save the currant-bushes, took a +quarter of an hour to die. + +One mounts a few steps and passes from the garden into the orchard, +properly speaking. There, within the limits of those few square fathoms, +fifteen hundred men fell in less than an hour. The wall seems ready +to renew the combat. Thirty-eight loopholes, pierced by the English at +irregular heights, are there still. In front of the sixth are placed two +English tombs of granite. There are loopholes only in the south wall, as +the principal attack came from that quarter. The wall is hidden on the +outside by a tall hedge; the French came up, thinking that they had to +deal only with a hedge, crossed it, and found the wall both an obstacle +and an ambuscade, with the English guards behind it, the thirty-eight +loopholes firing at once a shower of grape-shot and balls, and Soye's +brigade was broken against it. Thus Waterloo began. + +Nevertheless, the orchard was taken. As they had no ladders, the French +scaled it with their nails. They fought hand to hand amid the trees. +All this grass has been soaked in blood. A battalion of Nassau, seven +hundred strong, was overwhelmed there. The outside of the wall, against +which Kellermann's two batteries were trained, is gnawed by grape-shot. + +This orchard is sentient, like others, in the month of May. It has its +buttercups and its daisies; the grass is tall there; the cart-horses +browse there; cords of hair, on which linen is drying, traverse the +spaces between the trees and force the passer-by to bend his head; one +walks over this uncultivated land, and one's foot dives into mole-holes. +In the middle of the grass one observes an uprooted tree-bole which lies +there all verdant. Major Blackmann leaned against it to die. Beneath +a great tree in the neighborhood fell the German general, Duplat, +descended from a French family which fled on the revocation of the Edict +of Nantes. An aged and falling apple-tree leans far over to one side, +its wound dressed with a bandage of straw and of clayey loam. Nearly all +the apple-trees are falling with age. There is not one which has not +had its bullet or its biscayan.[6] The skeletons of dead trees abound in +this orchard. Crows fly through their branches, and at the end of it is +a wood full of violets. + +Bauduin, killed, Foy wounded, conflagration, massacre, carnage, a +rivulet formed of English blood, French blood, German blood mingled +in fury, a well crammed with corpses, the regiment of Nassau and the +regiment of Brunswick destroyed, Duplat killed, Blackmann killed, the +English Guards mutilated, twenty French battalions, besides the forty +from Reille's corps, decimated, three thousand men in that hovel of +Hougomont alone cut down, slashed to pieces, shot, burned, with their +throats cut,--and all this so that a peasant can say to-day to the +traveller: Monsieur, give me three francs, and if you like, I will +explain to you the affair of Waterloo! + + + + +CHAPTER III--THE EIGHTEENTH OF JUNE, 1815 + +Let us turn back,--that is one of the story-teller's rights,--and put +ourselves once more in the year 1815, and even a little earlier than +the epoch when the action narrated in the first part of this book took +place. + +If it had not rained in the night between the 17th and the 18th of +June, 1815, the fate of Europe would have been different. A few drops +of water, more or less, decided the downfall of Napoleon. All that +Providence required in order to make Waterloo the end of Austerlitz +was a little more rain, and a cloud traversing the sky out of season +sufficed to make a world crumble. + +The battle of Waterloo could not be begun until half-past eleven +o'clock, and that gave Blucher time to come up. Why? Because the ground +was wet. The artillery had to wait until it became a little firmer +before they could manoeuvre. + +Napoleon was an artillery officer, and felt the effects of this. The +foundation of this wonderful captain was the man who, in the report to +the Directory on Aboukir, said: Such a one of our balls killed six men. +All his plans of battle were arranged for projectiles. The key to his +victory was to make the artillery converge on one point. He treated the +strategy of the hostile general like a citadel, and made a breach in it. +He overwhelmed the weak point with grape-shot; he joined and dissolved +battles with cannon. There was something of the sharpshooter in his +genius. To beat in squares, to pulverize regiments, to break lines, to +crush and disperse masses,--for him everything lay in this, to +strike, strike, strike incessantly,--and he intrusted this task to the +cannon-ball. A redoubtable method, and one which, united with genius, +rendered this gloomy athlete of the pugilism of war invincible for the +space of fifteen years. + +On the 18th of June, 1815, he relied all the more on his artillery, +because he had numbers on his side. Wellington had only one hundred and +fifty-nine mouths of fire; Napoleon had two hundred and forty. + +Suppose the soil dry, and the artillery capable of moving, the action +would have begun at six o'clock in the morning. The battle would have +been won and ended at two o'clock, three hours before the change of +fortune in favor of the Prussians. What amount of blame attaches to +Napoleon for the loss of this battle? Is the shipwreck due to the pilot? + +Was it the evident physical decline of Napoleon that complicated this +epoch by an inward diminution of force? Had the twenty years of war worn +out the blade as it had worn the scabbard, the soul as well as the body? +Did the veteran make himself disastrously felt in the leader? In a word, +was this genius, as many historians of note have thought, suffering from +an eclipse? Did he go into a frenzy in order to disguise his weakened +powers from himself? Did he begin to waver under the delusion of +a breath of adventure? Had he become--a grave matter in a +general--unconscious of peril? Is there an age, in this class of +material great men, who may be called the giants of action, when genius +grows short-sighted? Old age has no hold on the geniuses of the ideal; +for the Dantes and Michael Angelos to grow old is to grow in greatness; +is it to grow less for the Hannibals and the Bonapartes? Had Napoleon +lost the direct sense of victory? Had he reached the point where he +could no longer recognize the reef, could no longer divine the snare, no +longer discern the crumbling brink of abysses? Had he lost his power of +scenting out catastrophes? He who had in former days known all the +roads to triumph, and who, from the summit of his chariot of lightning, +pointed them out with a sovereign finger, had he now reached that +state of sinister amazement when he could lead his tumultuous legions +harnessed to it, to the precipice? Was he seized at the age of forty-six +with a supreme madness? Was that titanic charioteer of destiny no longer +anything more than an immense dare-devil? + +We do not think so. + +His plan of battle was, by the confession of all, a masterpiece. To +go straight to the centre of the Allies' line, to make a breach in the +enemy, to cut them in two, to drive the British half back on Hal, +and the Prussian half on Tongres, to make two shattered fragments of +Wellington and Blucher, to carry Mont-Saint-Jean, to seize Brussels, +to hurl the German into the Rhine, and the Englishman into the sea. All +this was contained in that battle, according to Napoleon. Afterwards +people would see. + +Of course, we do not here pretend to furnish a history of the battle of +Waterloo; one of the scenes of the foundation of the story which we +are relating is connected with this battle, but this history is not our +subject; this history, moreover, has been finished, and finished in a +masterly manner, from one point of view by Napoleon, and from another +point of view by a whole pleiad of historians.[7] + +As for us, we leave the historians at loggerheads; we are but a distant +witness, a passer-by on the plain, a seeker bending over that soil all +made of human flesh, taking appearances for realities, perchance; we +have no right to oppose, in the name of science, a collection of facts +which contain illusions, no doubt; we possess neither military practice +nor strategic ability which authorize a system; in our opinion, a chain +of accidents dominated the two leaders at Waterloo; and when it becomes +a question of destiny, that mysterious culprit, we judge like that +ingenious judge, the populace. + + + + +CHAPTER IV--A + +Those persons who wish to gain a clear idea of the battle of Waterloo +have only to place, mentally, on the ground, a capital A. The left limb +of the A is the road to Nivelles, the right limb is the road to Genappe, +the tie of the A is the hollow road to Ohain from Braine-l'Alleud. The +top of the A is Mont-Saint-Jean, where Wellington is; the lower left tip +is Hougomont, where Reille is stationed with Jerome Bonaparte; the right +tip is the Belle-Alliance, where Napoleon was. At the centre of this +chord is the precise point where the final word of the battle was +pronounced. It was there that the lion has been placed, the involuntary +symbol of the supreme heroism of the Imperial Guard. + +The triangle included in the top of the A, between the two limbs and the +tie, is the plateau of Mont-Saint-Jean. The dispute over this plateau +constituted the whole battle. The wings of the two armies extended to +the right and left of the two roads to Genappe and Nivelles; d'Erlon +facing Picton, Reille facing Hill. + +Behind the tip of the A, behind the plateau of Mont-Saint-Jean, is the +forest of Soignes. + +As for the plain itself, let the reader picture to himself a vast +undulating sweep of ground; each rise commands the next rise, and all +the undulations mount towards Mont-Saint-Jean, and there end in the +forest. + +Two hostile troops on a field of battle are two wrestlers. It is a +question of seizing the opponent round the waist. The one seeks to trip +up the other. They clutch at everything: a bush is a point of support; +an angle of the wall offers them a rest to the shoulder; for the lack +of a hovel under whose cover they can draw up, a regiment yields its +ground; an unevenness in the ground, a chance turn in the landscape, a +cross-path encountered at the right moment, a grove, a ravine, can +stay the heel of that colossus which is called an army, and prevent its +retreat. He who quits the field is beaten; hence the necessity devolving +on the responsible leader, of examining the most insignificant clump of +trees, and of studying deeply the slightest relief in the ground. + +The two generals had attentively studied the plain of Mont-Saint-Jean, +now called the plain of Waterloo. In the preceding year, Wellington, +with the sagacity of foresight, had examined it as the possible seat of +a great battle. Upon this spot, and for this duel, on the 18th of June, +Wellington had the good post, Napoleon the bad post. The English army +was stationed above, the French army below. + +It is almost superfluous here to sketch the appearance of Napoleon on +horseback, glass in hand, upon the heights of Rossomme, at daybreak, on +June 18, 1815. All the world has seen him before we can show him. +That calm profile under the little three-cornered hat of the school of +Brienne, that green uniform, the white revers concealing the star of the +Legion of Honor, his great coat hiding his epaulets, the corner of red +ribbon peeping from beneath his vest, his leather trousers, the white +horse with the saddle-cloth of purple velvet bearing on the corners +crowned N's and eagles, Hessian boots over silk stockings, silver spurs, +the sword of Marengo,--that whole figure of the last of the Caesars is +present to all imaginations, saluted with acclamations by some, severely +regarded by others. + +That figure stood for a long time wholly in the light; this arose from +a certain legendary dimness evolved by the majority of heroes, and which +always veils the truth for a longer or shorter time; but to-day history +and daylight have arrived. + +That light called history is pitiless; it possesses this peculiar and +divine quality, that, pure light as it is, and precisely because it +is wholly light, it often casts a shadow in places where people had +hitherto beheld rays; from the same man it constructs two different +phantoms, and the one attacks the other and executes justice on it, and +the shadows of the despot contend with the brilliancy of the leader. +Hence arises a truer measure in the definitive judgments of nations. +Babylon violated lessens Alexander, Rome enchained lessens Caesar, +Jerusalem murdered lessens Titus, tyranny follows the tyrant. It is a +misfortune for a man to leave behind him the night which bears his form. + + + + +CHAPTER V--THE QUID OBSCURUM OF BATTLES + +Every one is acquainted with the first phase of this battle; a beginning +which was troubled, uncertain, hesitating, menacing to both armies, but +still more so for the English than for the French. + +It had rained all night, the earth had been cut up by the downpour, the +water had accumulated here and there in the hollows of the plain as if +in casks; at some points the gear of the artillery carriages was buried +up to the axles, the circingles of the horses were dripping with liquid +mud. If the wheat and rye trampled down by this cohort of transports +on the march had not filled in the ruts and strewn a litter beneath the +wheels, all movement, particularly in the valleys, in the direction of +Papelotte would have been impossible. + +The affair began late. Napoleon, as we have already explained, was in +the habit of keeping all his artillery well in hand, like a pistol, +aiming it now at one point, now at another, of the battle; and it had +been his wish to wait until the horse batteries could move and gallop +freely. In order to do that it was necessary that the sun should come +out and dry the soil. But the sun did not make its appearance. It was +no longer the rendezvous of Austerlitz. When the first cannon was fired, +the English general, Colville, looked at his watch, and noted that it +was thirty-five minutes past eleven. + +The action was begun furiously, with more fury, perhaps, than the +Emperor would have wished, by the left wing of the French resting on +Hougomont. At the same time Napoleon attacked the centre by hurling +Quiot's brigade on La Haie-Sainte, and Ney pushed forward the right +wing of the French against the left wing of the English, which rested on +Papelotte. + +The attack on Hougomont was something of a feint; the plan was to draw +Wellington thither, and to make him swerve to the left. This plan would +have succeeded if the four companies of the English guards and the brave +Belgians of Perponcher's division had not held the position solidly, and +Wellington, instead of massing his troops there, could confine himself +to despatching thither, as reinforcements, only four more companies of +guards and one battalion from Brunswick. + +The attack of the right wing of the French on Papelotte was calculated, +in fact, to overthrow the English left, to cut off the road to Brussels, +to bar the passage against possible Prussians, to force Mont-Saint-Jean, +to turn Wellington back on Hougomont, thence on Braine-l'Alleud, thence +on Hal; nothing easier. With the exception of a few incidents this +attack succeeded Papelotte was taken; La Haie-Sainte was carried. + +A detail to be noted. There was in the English infantry, particularly +in Kempt's brigade, a great many raw recruits. These young soldiers were +valiant in the presence of our redoubtable infantry; their inexperience +extricated them intrepidly from the dilemma; they performed particularly +excellent service as skirmishers: the soldier skirmisher, left somewhat +to himself, becomes, so to speak, his own general. These recruits +displayed some of the French ingenuity and fury. This novice of an +infantry had dash. This displeased Wellington. + +After the taking of La Haie-Sainte the battle wavered. + +There is in this day an obscure interval, from mid-day to four o'clock; +the middle portion of this battle is almost indistinct, and participates +in the sombreness of the hand-to-hand conflict. Twilight reigns over it. +We perceive vast fluctuations in that fog, a dizzy mirage, paraphernalia +of war almost unknown to-day, pendant colbacks, floating sabre-taches, +cross-belts, cartridge-boxes for grenades, hussar dolmans, red boots +with a thousand wrinkles, heavy shakos garlanded with torsades, the +almost black infantry of Brunswick mingled with the scarlet infantry +of England, the English soldiers with great, white circular pads on the +slopes of their shoulders for epaulets, the Hanoverian light-horse with +their oblong casques of leather, with brass hands and red horse-tails, +the Scotch with their bare knees and plaids, the great white gaiters +of our grenadiers; pictures, not strategic lines--what Salvator Rosa +requires, not what is suited to the needs of Gribeauval. + +A certain amount of tempest is always mingled with a battle. Quid +obscurum, quid divinum. Each historian traces, to some extent, the +particular feature which pleases him amid this pell-mell. Whatever may +be the combinations of the generals, the shock of armed masses has an +incalculable ebb. During the action the plans of the two leaders enter +into each other and become mutually thrown out of shape. Such a point of +the field of battle devours more combatants than such another, just as +more or less spongy soils soak up more or less quickly the water which +is poured on them. It becomes necessary to pour out more soldiers than +one would like; a series of expenditures which are the unforeseen. The +line of battle waves and undulates like a thread, the trails of blood +gush illogically, the fronts of the armies waver, the regiments +form capes and gulfs as they enter and withdraw; all these reefs are +continually moving in front of each other. Where the infantry stood the +artillery arrives, the cavalry rushes in where the artillery was, the +battalions are like smoke. There was something there; seek it. It has +disappeared; the open spots change place, the sombre folds advance and +retreat, a sort of wind from the sepulchre pushes forward, hurls back, +distends, and disperses these tragic multitudes. What is a fray? an +oscillation? The immobility of a mathematical plan expresses a minute, +not a day. In order to depict a battle, there is required one of those +powerful painters who have chaos in their brushes. Rembrandt is better +than Vandermeulen; Vandermeulen, exact at noon, lies at three o'clock. +Geometry is deceptive; the hurricane alone is trustworthy. That is what +confers on Folard the right to contradict Polybius. Let us add, that +there is a certain instant when the battle degenerates into a combat, +becomes specialized, and disperses into innumerable detailed feats, +which, to borrow the expression of Napoleon himself, "belong rather to +the biography of the regiments than to the history of the army." The +historian has, in this case, the evident right to sum up the whole. He +cannot do more than seize the principal outlines of the struggle, and +it is not given to any one narrator, however conscientious he may be, +to fix, absolutely, the form of that horrible cloud which is called a +battle. + +This, which is true of all great armed encounters, is particularly +applicable to Waterloo. + +Nevertheless, at a certain moment in the afternoon the battle came to a +point. + + + + +CHAPTER VI--FOUR O'CLOCK IN THE AFTERNOON + +Towards four o'clock the condition of the English army was serious. The +Prince of Orange was in command of the centre, Hill of the right wing, +Picton of the left wing. The Prince of Orange, desperate and intrepid, +shouted to the Hollando-Belgians: "Nassau! Brunswick! Never retreat!" +Hill, having been weakened, had come up to the support of Wellington; +Picton was dead. At the very moment when the English had captured from +the French the flag of the 105th of the line, the French had killed the +English general, Picton, with a bullet through the head. The battle +had, for Wellington, two bases of action, Hougomont and La Haie-Sainte; +Hougomont still held out, but was on fire; La Haie-Sainte was taken. Of +the German battalion which defended it, only forty-two men survived; all +the officers, except five, were either dead or captured. Three thousand +combatants had been massacred in that barn. A sergeant of the English +Guards, the foremost boxer in England, reputed invulnerable by his +companions, had been killed there by a little French drummer-boy. Baring +had been dislodged, Alten put to the sword. Many flags had been lost, +one from Alten's division, and one from the battalion of Lunenburg, +carried by a prince of the house of Deux-Ponts. The Scotch Grays no +longer existed; Ponsonby's great dragoons had been hacked to pieces. +That valiant cavalry had bent beneath the lancers of Bro and beneath +the cuirassiers of Travers; out of twelve hundred horses, six +hundred remained; out of three lieutenant-colonels, two lay on the +earth,--Hamilton wounded, Mater slain. Ponsonby had fallen, riddled by +seven lance-thrusts. Gordon was dead. Marsh was dead. Two divisions, the +fifth and the sixth, had been annihilated. + +Hougomont injured, La Haie-Sainte taken, there now existed but one +rallying-point, the centre. That point still held firm. Wellington +reinforced it. He summoned thither Hill, who was at Merle-Braine; he +summoned Chasse, who was at Braine-l'Alleud. + +The centre of the English army, rather concave, very dense, and +very compact, was strongly posted. It occupied the plateau of +Mont-Saint-Jean, having behind it the village, and in front of it the +slope, which was tolerably steep then. It rested on that stout stone +dwelling which at that time belonged to the domain of Nivelles, and +which marks the intersection of the roads--a pile of the sixteenth +century, and so robust that the cannon-balls rebounded from it without +injuring it. All about the plateau the English had cut the hedges here +and there, made embrasures in the hawthorn-trees, thrust the throat of +a cannon between two branches, embattled the shrubs. There artillery was +ambushed in the brushwood. This punic labor, incontestably authorized +by war, which permits traps, was so well done, that Haxo, who had been +despatched by the Emperor at nine o'clock in the morning to reconnoitre +the enemy's batteries, had discovered nothing of it, and had returned +and reported to Napoleon that there were no obstacles except the two +barricades which barred the road to Nivelles and to Genappe. It was +at the season when the grain is tall; on the edge of the plateau a +battalion of Kempt's brigade, the 95th, armed with carabines, was +concealed in the tall wheat. + +Thus assured and buttressed, the centre of the Anglo-Dutch army was well +posted. The peril of this position lay in the forest of Soignes, +then adjoining the field of battle, and intersected by the ponds of +Groenendael and Boitsfort. An army could not retreat thither without +dissolving; the regiments would have broken up immediately there. +The artillery would have been lost among the morasses. The retreat, +according to many a man versed in the art,--though it is disputed by +others,--would have been a disorganized flight. + +To this centre, Wellington added one of Chasse's brigades taken from the +right wing, and one of Wincke's brigades taken from the left wing, plus +Clinton's division. To his English, to the regiments of Halkett, to +the brigades of Mitchell, to the guards of Maitland, he gave as +reinforcements and aids, the infantry of Brunswick, Nassau's contingent, +Kielmansegg's Hanoverians, and Ompteda's Germans. This placed twenty-six +battalions under his hand. The right wing, as Charras says, was thrown +back on the centre. An enormous battery was masked by sacks of earth at +the spot where there now stands what is called the "Museum of Waterloo." +Besides this, Wellington had, behind a rise in the ground, Somerset's +Dragoon Guards, fourteen hundred horse strong. It was the remaining half +of the justly celebrated English cavalry. Ponsonby destroyed, Somerset +remained. + +The battery, which, if completed, would have been almost a redoubt, was +ranged behind a very low garden wall, backed up with a coating of bags +of sand and a large slope of earth. This work was not finished; there +had been no time to make a palisade for it. + +Wellington, uneasy but impassive, was on horseback, and there remained +the whole day in the same attitude, a little in advance of the old mill +of Mont-Saint-Jean, which is still in existence, beneath an elm, which +an Englishman, an enthusiastic vandal, purchased later on for two +hundred francs, cut down, and carried off. Wellington was coldly heroic. +The bullets rained about him. His aide-de-camp, Gordon, fell at his +side. Lord Hill, pointing to a shell which had burst, said to him: "My +lord, what are your orders in case you are killed?" "To do like me," +replied Wellington. To Clinton he said laconically, "To hold this spot +to the last man." The day was evidently turning out ill. Wellington +shouted to his old companions of Talavera, of Vittoria, of Salamanca: +"Boys, can retreat be thought of? Think of old England!" + +Towards four o'clock, the English line drew back. Suddenly nothing +was visible on the crest of the plateau except the artillery and the +sharpshooters; the rest had disappeared: the regiments, dislodged by +the shells and the French bullets, retreated into the bottom, now +intersected by the back road of the farm of Mont-Saint-Jean; a +retrograde movement took place, the English front hid itself, Wellington +drew back. "The beginning of retreat!" cried Napoleon. + + + + +CHAPTER VII--NAPOLEON IN A GOOD HUMOR + +The Emperor, though ill and discommoded on horseback by a local trouble, +had never been in a better humor than on that day. His impenetrability +had been smiling ever since the morning. On the 18th of June, that +profound soul masked by marble beamed blindly. The man who had been +gloomy at Austerlitz was gay at Waterloo. The greatest favorites of +destiny make mistakes. Our joys are composed of shadow. The supreme +smile is God's alone. + +Ridet Caesar, Pompeius flebit, said the legionaries of the Fulminatrix +Legion. Pompey was not destined to weep on that occasion, but it is +certain that Caesar laughed. While exploring on horseback at one o'clock +on the preceding night, in storm and rain, in company with Bertrand, the +communes in the neighborhood of Rossomme, satisfied at the sight of the +long line of the English camp-fires illuminating the whole horizon from +Frischemont to Braine-l'Alleud, it had seemed to him that fate, to +whom he had assigned a day on the field of Waterloo, was exact to +the appointment; he stopped his horse, and remained for some time +motionless, gazing at the lightning and listening to the thunder; +and this fatalist was heard to cast into the darkness this mysterious +saying, "We are in accord." Napoleon was mistaken. They were no longer +in accord. + +He took not a moment for sleep; every instant of that night was marked +by a joy for him. He traversed the line of the principal outposts, +halting here and there to talk to the sentinels. At half-past two, near +the wood of Hougomont, he heard the tread of a column on the march; he +thought at the moment that it was a retreat on the part of Wellington. +He said: "It is the rear-guard of the English getting under way for the +purpose of decamping. I will take prisoners the six thousand English who +have just arrived at Ostend." He conversed expansively; he regained the +animation which he had shown at his landing on the first of March, when +he pointed out to the Grand-Marshal the enthusiastic peasant of the Gulf +Juan, and cried, "Well, Bertrand, here is a reinforcement already!" On +the night of the 17th to the 18th of June he rallied Wellington. "That +little Englishman needs a lesson," said Napoleon. The rain redoubled in +violence; the thunder rolled while the Emperor was speaking. + +At half-past three o'clock in the morning, he lost one illusion; +officers who had been despatched to reconnoitre announced to him that +the enemy was not making any movement. Nothing was stirring; not a +bivouac-fire had been extinguished; the English army was asleep. The +silence on earth was profound; the only noise was in the heavens. +At four o'clock, a peasant was brought in to him by the scouts; this +peasant had served as guide to a brigade of English cavalry, probably +Vivian's brigade, which was on its way to take up a position in the +village of Ohain, at the extreme left. At five o'clock, two Belgian +deserters reported to him that they had just quitted their regiment, +and that the English army was ready for battle. "So much the better!" +exclaimed Napoleon. "I prefer to overthrow them rather than to drive +them back." + +In the morning he dismounted in the mud on the slope which forms an +angle with the Plancenoit road, had a kitchen table and a peasant's +chair brought to him from the farm of Rossomme, seated himself, with a +truss of straw for a carpet, and spread out on the table the chart +of the battle-field, saying to Soult as he did so, "A pretty +checker-board." + +In consequence of the rains during the night, the transports of +provisions, embedded in the soft roads, had not been able to arrive by +morning; the soldiers had had no sleep; they were wet and fasting. This +did not prevent Napoleon from exclaiming cheerfully to Ney, "We have +ninety chances out of a hundred." At eight o'clock the Emperor's +breakfast was brought to him. He invited many generals to it. During +breakfast, it was said that Wellington had been to a ball two nights +before, in Brussels, at the Duchess of Richmond's; and Soult, a rough +man of war, with a face of an archbishop, said, "The ball takes place +to-day." The Emperor jested with Ney, who said, "Wellington will not be +so simple as to wait for Your Majesty." That was his way, however. "He +was fond of jesting," says Fleury de Chaboulon. "A merry humor was +at the foundation of his character," says Gourgaud. "He abounded in +pleasantries, which were more peculiar than witty," says Benjamin +Constant. These gayeties of a giant are worthy of insistence. It was +he who called his grenadiers "his grumblers"; he pinched their ears; he +pulled their mustaches. "The Emperor did nothing but play pranks on us," +is the remark of one of them. During the mysterious trip from the island +of Elba to France, on the 27th of February, on the open sea, the French +brig of war, Le Zephyr, having encountered the brig L'Inconstant, on +which Napoleon was concealed, and having asked the news of Napoleon +from L'Inconstant, the Emperor, who still wore in his hat the white and +amaranthine cockade sown with bees, which he had adopted at the isle of +Elba, laughingly seized the speaking-trumpet, and answered for himself, +"The Emperor is well." A man who laughs like that is on familiar terms +with events. Napoleon indulged in many fits of this laughter during the +breakfast at Waterloo. After breakfast he meditated for a quarter of an +hour; then two generals seated themselves on the truss of straw, pen in +hand and their paper on their knees, and the Emperor dictated to them +the order of battle. + +At nine o'clock, at the instant when the French army, ranged in echelons +and set in motion in five columns, had deployed--the divisions in two +lines, the artillery between the brigades, the music at their head; as +they beat the march, with rolls on the drums and the blasts of trumpets, +mighty, vast, joyous, a sea of casques, of sabres, and of bayonets on +the horizon, the Emperor was touched, and twice exclaimed, "Magnificent! +Magnificent!" + +Between nine o'clock and half-past ten the whole army, incredible as it +may appear, had taken up its position and ranged itself in six lines, +forming, to repeat the Emperor's expression, "the figure of six V's." +A few moments after the formation of the battle-array, in the midst of +that profound silence, like that which heralds the beginning of a storm, +which precedes engagements, the Emperor tapped Haxo on the shoulder, as +he beheld the three batteries of twelve-pounders, detached by his orders +from the corps of Erlon, Reille, and Lobau, and destined to begin the +action by taking Mont-Saint-Jean, which was situated at the intersection +of the Nivelles and the Genappe roads, and said to him, "There are four +and twenty handsome maids, General." + +Sure of the issue, he encouraged with a smile, as they passed before +him, the company of sappers of the first corps, which he had appointed +to barricade Mont-Saint-Jean as soon as the village should be carried. +All this serenity had been traversed by but a single word of haughty +pity; perceiving on his left, at a spot where there now stands a large +tomb, those admirable Scotch Grays, with their superb horses, massing +themselves, he said, "It is a pity." + +Then he mounted his horse, advanced beyond Rossomme, and selected for +his post of observation a contracted elevation of turf to the right of +the road from Genappe to Brussels, which was his second station during +the battle. The third station, the one adopted at seven o'clock in the +evening, between La Belle-Alliance and La Haie-Sainte, is formidable; +it is a rather elevated knoll, which still exists, and behind which the +guard was massed on a slope of the plain. Around this knoll the balls +rebounded from the pavements of the road, up to Napoleon himself. As at +Brienne, he had over his head the shriek of the bullets and of the +heavy artillery. Mouldy cannon-balls, old sword-blades, and shapeless +projectiles, eaten up with rust, were picked up at the spot where his +horse' feet stood. Scabra rubigine. A few years ago, a shell of sixty +pounds, still charged, and with its fuse broken off level with the bomb, +was unearthed. It was at this last post that the Emperor said to his +guide, Lacoste, a hostile and terrified peasant, who was attached to the +saddle of a hussar, and who turned round at every discharge of canister +and tried to hide behind Napoleon: "Fool, it is shameful! You'll get +yourself killed with a ball in the back." He who writes these lines has +himself found, in the friable soil of this knoll, on turning over +the sand, the remains of the neck of a bomb, disintegrated, by the +oxidization of six and forty years, and old fragments of iron which +parted like elder-twigs between the fingers. + +Every one is aware that the variously inclined undulations of the +plains, where the engagement between Napoleon and Wellington took place, +are no longer what they were on June 18, 1815. By taking from this +mournful field the wherewithal to make a monument to it, its real relief +has been taken away, and history, disconcerted, no longer finds her +bearings there. It has been disfigured for the sake of glorifying +it. Wellington, when he beheld Waterloo once more, two years later, +exclaimed, "They have altered my field of battle!" Where the great +pyramid of earth, surmounted by the lion, rises to-day, there was a +hillock which descended in an easy slope towards the Nivelles road, but +which was almost an escarpment on the side of the highway to Genappe. +The elevation of this escarpment can still be measured by the height of +the two knolls of the two great sepulchres which enclose the road from +Genappe to Brussels: one, the English tomb, is on the left; the other, +the German tomb, is on the right. There is no French tomb. The whole +of that plain is a sepulchre for France. Thanks to the thousands upon +thousands of cartloads of earth employed in the hillock one hundred and +fifty feet in height and half a mile in circumference, the plateau +of Mont-Saint-Jean is now accessible by an easy slope. On the day of +battle, particularly on the side of La Haie-Sainte, it was abrupt and +difficult of approach. The slope there is so steep that the English +cannon could not see the farm, situated in the bottom of the valley, +which was the centre of the combat. On the 18th of June, 1815, the rains +had still farther increased this acclivity, the mud complicated the +problem of the ascent, and the men not only slipped back, but stuck fast +in the mire. Along the crest of the plateau ran a sort of trench whose +presence it was impossible for the distant observer to divine. + +What was this trench? Let us explain. Braine-l'Alleud is a Belgian +village; Ohain is another. These villages, both of them concealed in +curves of the landscape, are connected by a road about a league and a +half in length, which traverses the plain along its undulating level, +and often enters and buries itself in the hills like a furrow, which +makes a ravine of this road in some places. In 1815, as at the present +day, this road cut the crest of the plateau of Mont-Saint-Jean between +the two highways from Genappe and Nivelles; only, it is now on a level +with the plain; it was then a hollow way. Its two slopes have been +appropriated for the monumental hillock. This road was, and still is, +a trench throughout the greater portion of its course; a hollow trench, +sometimes a dozen feet in depth, and whose banks, being too steep, +crumbled away here and there, particularly in winter, under driving +rains. Accidents happened here. The road was so narrow at the +Braine-l'Alleud entrance that a passer-by was crushed by a cart, as is +proved by a stone cross which stands near the cemetery, and which gives +the name of the dead, Monsieur Bernard Debrye, Merchant of Brussels, +and the date of the accident, February, 1637.[8] It was so deep on +the table-land of Mont-Saint-Jean that a peasant, Mathieu Nicaise, +was crushed there, in 1783, by a slide from the slope, as is stated on +another stone cross, the top of which has disappeared in the process of +clearing the ground, but whose overturned pedestal is still visible on +the grassy slope to the left of the highway between La Haie-Sainte and +the farm of Mont-Saint-Jean. + +On the day of battle, this hollow road whose existence was in no way +indicated, bordering the crest of Mont-Saint-Jean, a trench at the +summit of the escarpment, a rut concealed in the soil, was invisible; +that is to say, terrible. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII--THE EMPEROR PUTS A QUESTION TO THE GUIDE LACOSTE + +So, on the morning of Waterloo, Napoleon was content. + +He was right; the plan of battle conceived by him was, as we have seen, +really admirable. + +The battle once begun, its very various changes,--the resistance of +Hougomont; the tenacity of La Haie-Sainte; the killing of Bauduin; the +disabling of Foy; the unexpected wall against which Soye's brigade was +shattered; Guilleminot's fatal heedlessness when he had neither petard +nor powder sacks; the miring of the batteries; the fifteen unescorted +pieces overwhelmed in a hollow way by Uxbridge; the small effect of the +bombs falling in the English lines, and there embedding themselves in +the rain-soaked soil, and only succeeding in producing volcanoes of mud, +so that the canister was turned into a splash; the uselessness of Pire's +demonstration on Braine-l'Alleud; all that cavalry, fifteen squadrons, +almost exterminated; the right wing of the English badly alarmed, the +left wing badly cut into; Ney's strange mistake in massing, instead of +echelonning the four divisions of the first corps; men delivered over to +grape-shot, arranged in ranks twenty-seven deep and with a frontage +of two hundred; the frightful holes made in these masses by the +cannon-balls; attacking columns disorganized; the side-battery suddenly +unmasked on their flank; Bourgeois, Donzelot, and Durutte compromised; +Quiot repulsed; Lieutenant Vieux, that Hercules graduated at the +Polytechnic School, wounded at the moment when he was beating in with an +axe the door of La Haie-Sainte under the downright fire of the English +barricade which barred the angle of the road from Genappe to Brussels; +Marcognet's division caught between the infantry and the cavalry, shot +down at the very muzzle of the guns amid the grain by Best and Pack, put +to the sword by Ponsonby; his battery of seven pieces spiked; the Prince +of Saxe-Weimar holding and guarding, in spite of the Comte d'Erlon, both +Frischemont and Smohain; the flag of the 105th taken, the flag of the +45th captured; that black Prussian hussar stopped by runners of the +flying column of three hundred light cavalry on the scout between Wavre +and Plancenoit; the alarming things that had been said by prisoners; +Grouchy's delay; fifteen hundred men killed in the orchard of Hougomont +in less than an hour; eighteen hundred men overthrown in a still shorter +time about La Haie-Sainte,--all these stormy incidents passing like the +clouds of battle before Napoleon, had hardly troubled his gaze and +had not overshadowed that face of imperial certainty. Napoleon was +accustomed to gaze steadily at war; he never added up the heart-rending +details, cipher by cipher; ciphers mattered little to him, provided that +they furnished the total, victory; he was not alarmed if the beginnings +did go astray, since he thought himself the master and the possessor +at the end; he knew how to wait, supposing himself to be out of the +question, and he treated destiny as his equal: he seemed to say to fate, +Thou wilt not dare. + +Composed half of light and half of shadow, Napoleon thought himself +protected in good and tolerated in evil. He had, or thought that he had, +a connivance, one might almost say a complicity, of events in his favor, +which was equivalent to the invulnerability of antiquity. + +Nevertheless, when one has Beresina, Leipzig, and Fontainebleau behind +one, it seems as though one might distrust Waterloo. A mysterious frown +becomes perceptible in the depths of the heavens. + +At the moment when Wellington retreated, Napoleon shuddered. He suddenly +beheld the table-land of Mont-Saint-Jean cleared, and the van of the +English army disappear. It was rallying, but hiding itself. The Emperor +half rose in his stirrups. The lightning of victory flashed from his +eyes. + +Wellington, driven into a corner at the forest of Soignes and +destroyed--that was the definitive conquest of England by France; it was +Crecy, Poitiers, Malplaquet, and Ramillies avenged. The man of Marengo +was wiping out Agincourt. + +So the Emperor, meditating on this terrible turn of fortune, swept his +glass for the last time over all the points of the field of battle. His +guard, standing behind him with grounded arms, watched him from below +with a sort of religion. He pondered; he examined the slopes, noted the +declivities, scrutinized the clumps of trees, the square of rye, the +path; he seemed to be counting each bush. He gazed with some intentness +at the English barricades of the two highways,--two large abatis of +trees, that on the road to Genappe above La Haie-Sainte, armed with two +cannon, the only ones out of all the English artillery which commanded +the extremity of the field of battle, and that on the road to Nivelles +where gleamed the Dutch bayonets of Chasse's brigade. Near this +barricade he observed the old chapel of Saint Nicholas, painted white, +which stands at the angle of the cross-road near Braine-l'Alleud; he +bent down and spoke in a low voice to the guide Lacoste. The guide made +a negative sign with his head, which was probably perfidious. + +The Emperor straightened himself up and fell to thinking. + +Wellington had drawn back. + +All that remained to do was to complete this retreat by crushing him. + +Napoleon turning round abruptly, despatched an express at full speed to +Paris to announce that the battle was won. + +Napoleon was one of those geniuses from whom thunder darts. + +He had just found his clap of thunder. + +He gave orders to Milhaud's cuirassiers to carry the table-land of +Mont-Saint-Jean. + + + + +CHAPTER IX--THE UNEXPECTED + +There were three thousand five hundred of them. They formed a front a +quarter of a league in extent. They were giant men, on colossal horses. +There were six and twenty squadrons of them; and they had behind them to +support them Lefebvre-Desnouettes's division,--the one hundred and six +picked gendarmes, the light cavalry of the Guard, eleven hundred and +ninety-seven men, and the lancers of the guard of eight hundred and +eighty lances. They wore casques without horse-tails, and cuirasses +of beaten iron, with horse-pistols in their holsters, and long +sabre-swords. That morning the whole army had admired them, when, at +nine o'clock, with braying of trumpets and all the music playing "Let us +watch o'er the Safety of the Empire," they had come in a solid column, +with one of their batteries on their flank, another in their centre, and +deployed in two ranks between the roads to Genappe and Frischemont, +and taken up their position for battle in that powerful second line, +so cleverly arranged by Napoleon, which, having on its extreme left +Kellermann's cuirassiers and on its extreme right Milhaud's cuirassiers, +had, so to speak, two wings of iron. + +Aide-de-camp Bernard carried them the Emperor's orders. Ney drew his +sword and placed himself at their head. The enormous squadrons were set +in motion. + +Then a formidable spectacle was seen. + +All their cavalry, with upraised swords, standards and trumpets flung to +the breeze, formed in columns by divisions, descended, by a simultaneous +movement and like one man, with the precision of a brazen battering-ram +which is effecting a breach, the hill of La Belle Alliance, plunged into +the terrible depths in which so many men had already fallen, disappeared +there in the smoke, then emerging from that shadow, reappeared on the +other side of the valley, still compact and in close ranks, mounting at +a full trot, through a storm of grape-shot which burst upon them, +the terrible muddy slope of the table-land of Mont-Saint-Jean. They +ascended, grave, threatening, imperturbable; in the intervals between +the musketry and the artillery, their colossal trampling was audible. +Being two divisions, there were two columns of them; Wathier's division +held the right, Delort's division was on the left. It seemed as though +two immense adders of steel were to be seen crawling towards the crest +of the table-land. It traversed the battle like a prodigy. + +Nothing like it had been seen since the taking of the great redoubt of +the Muskowa by the heavy cavalry; Murat was lacking here, but Ney was +again present. It seemed as though that mass had become a monster and +had but one soul. Each column undulated and swelled like the ring of a +polyp. They could be seen through a vast cloud of smoke which was rent +here and there. A confusion of helmets, of cries, of sabres, a stormy +heaving of the cruppers of horses amid the cannons and the flourish of +trumpets, a terrible and disciplined tumult; over all, the cuirasses +like the scales on the hydra. + +These narrations seemed to belong to another age. Something parallel to +this vision appeared, no doubt, in the ancient Orphic epics, which told +of the centaurs, the old hippanthropes, those Titans with human +heads and equestrian chests who scaled Olympus at a gallop, horrible, +invulnerable, sublime--gods and beasts. + +Odd numerical coincidence,--twenty-six battalions rode to meet +twenty-six battalions. Behind the crest of the plateau, in the shadow of +the masked battery, the English infantry, formed into thirteen squares, +two battalions to the square, in two lines, with seven in the first +line, six in the second, the stocks of their guns to their shoulders, +taking aim at that which was on the point of appearing, waited, calm, +mute, motionless. They did not see the cuirassiers, and the cuirassiers +did not see them. They listened to the rise of this flood of men. They +heard the swelling noise of three thousand horse, the alternate and +symmetrical tramp of their hoofs at full trot, the jingling of the +cuirasses, the clang of the sabres and a sort of grand and savage +breathing. There ensued a most terrible silence; then, all at once, +a long file of uplifted arms, brandishing sabres, appeared above the +crest, and casques, trumpets, and standards, and three thousand heads +with gray mustaches, shouting, "Vive l'Empereur!" All this cavalry +debouched on the plateau, and it was like the appearance of an +earthquake. + +All at once, a tragic incident; on the English left, on our right, the +head of the column of cuirassiers reared up with a frightful clamor. On +arriving at the culminating point of the crest, ungovernable, utterly +given over to fury and their course of extermination of the squares and +cannon, the cuirassiers had just caught sight of a trench,--a trench +between them and the English. It was the hollow road of Ohain. + +It was a terrible moment. The ravine was there, unexpected, yawning, +directly under the horses' feet, two fathoms deep between its double +slopes; the second file pushed the first into it, and the third pushed +on the second; the horses reared and fell backward, landed on their +haunches, slid down, all four feet in the air, crushing and overwhelming +the riders; and there being no means of retreat,--the whole column being +no longer anything more than a projectile,--the force which had been +acquired to crush the English crushed the French; the inexorable ravine +could only yield when filled; horses and riders rolled there pell-mell, +grinding each other, forming but one mass of flesh in this gulf: when +this trench was full of living men, the rest marched over them and +passed on. Almost a third of Dubois's brigade fell into that abyss. + +This began the loss of the battle. + +A local tradition, which evidently exaggerates matters, says that two +thousand horses and fifteen hundred men were buried in the hollow road +of Ohain. This figure probably comprises all the other corpses which +were flung into this ravine the day after the combat. + +Let us note in passing that it was Dubois's sorely tried brigade which, +an hour previously, making a charge to one side, had captured the flag +of the Lunenburg battalion. + +Napoleon, before giving the order for this charge of Milhaud's +cuirassiers, had scrutinized the ground, but had not been able to see +that hollow road, which did not even form a wrinkle on the surface of +the plateau. Warned, nevertheless, and put on the alert by the little +white chapel which marks its angle of junction with the Nivelles +highway, he had probably put a question as to the possibility of an +obstacle, to the guide Lacoste. The guide had answered No. We might +almost affirm that Napoleon's catastrophe originated in that sign of a +peasant's head. + +Other fatalities were destined to arise. + +Was it possible that Napoleon should have won that battle? We answer No. +Why? Because of Wellington? Because of Blucher? No. Because of God. + +Bonaparte victor at Waterloo; that does not come within the law of the +nineteenth century. Another series of facts was in preparation, in which +there was no longer any room for Napoleon. The ill will of events had +declared itself long before. + +It was time that this vast man should fall. + +The excessive weight of this man in human destiny disturbed the balance. +This individual alone counted for more than a universal group. These +plethoras of all human vitality concentrated in a single head; the world +mounting to the brain of one man,--this would be mortal to civilization +were it to last. The moment had arrived for the incorruptible and +supreme equity to alter its plan. Probably the principles and the +elements, on which the regular gravitations of the moral, as of the +material, world depend, had complained. Smoking blood, over-filled +cemeteries, mothers in tears,--these are formidable pleaders. When +the earth is suffering from too heavy a burden, there are mysterious +groanings of the shades, to which the abyss lends an ear. + +Napoleon had been denounced in the infinite and his fall had been +decided on. + +He embarrassed God. + +Waterloo is not a battle; it is a change of front on the part of the +Universe. + + + + +CHAPTER X--THE PLATEAU OF MONT-SAINT-JEAN + +The battery was unmasked at the same moment with the ravine. + +Sixty cannons and the thirteen squares darted lightning point-blank on +the cuirassiers. The intrepid General Delort made the military salute to +the English battery. + +The whole of the flying artillery of the English had re-entered the +squares at a gallop. The cuirassiers had not had even the time for a +halt. The disaster of the hollow road had decimated, but not discouraged +them. They belonged to that class of men who, when diminished in number, +increase in courage. + +Wathier's column alone had suffered in the disaster; Delort's column, +which Ney had deflected to the left, as though he had a presentiment of +an ambush, had arrived whole. + +The cuirassiers hurled themselves on the English squares. + +At full speed, with bridles loose, swords in their teeth pistols in +fist,--such was the attack. + +There are moments in battles in which the soul hardens the man until +the soldier is changed into a statue, and when all this flesh turns into +granite. The English battalions, desperately assaulted, did not stir. + +Then it was terrible. + +All the faces of the English squares were attacked at once. A frenzied +whirl enveloped them. That cold infantry remained impassive. The first +rank knelt and received the cuirassiers on their bayonets, the second +ranks shot them down; behind the second rank the cannoneers charged +their guns, the front of the square parted, permitted the passage of +an eruption of grape-shot, and closed again. The cuirassiers replied +by crushing them. Their great horses reared, strode across the ranks, +leaped over the bayonets and fell, gigantic, in the midst of these four +living wells. The cannon-balls ploughed furrows in these cuirassiers; +the cuirassiers made breaches in the squares. Files of men disappeared, +ground to dust under the horses. The bayonets plunged into the bellies +of these centaurs; hence a hideousness of wounds which has probably +never been seen anywhere else. The squares, wasted by this mad cavalry, +closed up their ranks without flinching. Inexhaustible in the matter of +grape-shot, they created explosions in their assailants' midst. The form +of this combat was monstrous. These squares were no longer battalions, +they were craters; those cuirassiers were no longer cavalry, they were +a tempest. Each square was a volcano attacked by a cloud; lava contended +with lightning. + +The square on the extreme right, the most exposed of all, being in the +air, was almost annihilated at the very first shock. lt was formed +of the 75th regiment of Highlanders. The bagpipe-player in the centre +dropped his melancholy eyes, filled with the reflections of the +forests and the lakes, in profound inattention, while men were being +exterminated around him, and seated on a drum, with his pibroch under +his arm, played the Highland airs. These Scotchmen died thinking of Ben +Lothian, as did the Greeks recalling Argos. The sword of a cuirassier, +which hewed down the bagpipes and the arm which bore it, put an end to +the song by killing the singer. + +The cuirassiers, relatively few in number, and still further diminished +by the catastrophe of the ravine, had almost the whole English army +against them, but they multiplied themselves so that each man of them +was equal to ten. Nevertheless, some Hanoverian battalions yielded. +Wellington perceived it, and thought of his cavalry. Had Napoleon at +that same moment thought of his infantry, he would have won the battle. +This forgetfulness was his great and fatal mistake. + +All at once, the cuirassiers, who had been the assailants, found +themselves assailed. The English cavalry was at their back. Before +them two squares, behind them Somerset; Somerset meant fourteen hundred +dragoons of the guard. On the right, Somerset had Dornberg with the +German light-horse, and on his left, Trip with the Belgian carabineers; +the cuirassiers attacked on the flank and in front, before and in the +rear, by infantry and cavalry, had to face all sides. What mattered it +to them? They were a whirlwind. Their valor was something indescribable. + +In addition to this, they had behind them the battery, which was still +thundering. It was necessary that it should be so, or they could never +have been wounded in the back. One of their cuirasses, pierced on the +shoulder by a ball from a biscayan,[9] is in the collection of the +Waterloo Museum. + +For such Frenchmen nothing less than such Englishmen was needed. It +was no longer a hand-to-hand conflict; it was a shadow, a fury, a dizzy +transport of souls and courage, a hurricane of lightning swords. In an +instant the fourteen hundred dragoon guards numbered only eight hundred. +Fuller, their lieutenant-colonel, fell dead. Ney rushed up with +the lancers and Lefebvre-Desnouettes's light-horse. The plateau +of Mont-Saint-Jean was captured, recaptured, captured again. The +cuirassiers quitted the cavalry to return to the infantry; or, to put +it more exactly, the whole of that formidable rout collared each other +without releasing the other. The squares still held firm. + +There were a dozen assaults. Ney had four horses killed under him. Half +the cuirassiers remained on the plateau. This conflict lasted two hours. + +The English army was profoundly shaken. There is no doubt that, had they +not been enfeebled in their first shock by the disaster of the hollow +road the cuirassiers would have overwhelmed the centre and decided the +victory. This extraordinary cavalry petrified Clinton, who had seen +Talavera and Badajoz. Wellington, three-quarters vanquished, admired +heroically. He said in an undertone, "Sublime!" + +The cuirassiers annihilated seven squares out of thirteen, took or +spiked sixty pieces of ordnance, and captured from the English regiments +six flags, which three cuirassiers and three chasseurs of the Guard bore +to the Emperor, in front of the farm of La Belle Alliance. + +Wellington's situation had grown worse. This strange battle was like a +duel between two raging, wounded men, each of whom, still fighting and +still resisting, is expending all his blood. + +Which of the two will be the first to fall? + +The conflict on the plateau continued. + +What had become of the cuirassiers? No one could have told. One thing +is certain, that on the day after the battle, a cuirassier and his +horse were found dead among the woodwork of the scales for vehicles at +Mont-Saint-Jean, at the very point where the four roads from Nivelles, +Genappe, La Hulpe, and Brussels meet and intersect each other. This +horseman had pierced the English lines. One of the men who picked up the +body still lives at Mont-Saint-Jean. His name is Dehaze. He was eighteen +years old at that time. + +Wellington felt that he was yielding. The crisis was at hand. + +The cuirassiers had not succeeded, since the centre was not broken +through. As every one was in possession of the plateau, no one held it, +and in fact it remained, to a great extent, with the English. Wellington +held the village and the culminating plain; Ney had only the crest and +the slope. They seemed rooted in that fatal soil on both sides. + +But the weakening of the English seemed irremediable. The bleeding +of that army was horrible. Kempt, on the left wing, demanded +reinforcements. "There are none," replied Wellington; "he must let +himself be killed!" Almost at that same moment, a singular coincidence +which paints the exhaustion of the two armies, Ney demanded infantry +from Napoleon, and Napoleon exclaimed, "Infantry! Where does he expect +me to get it? Does he think I can make it?" + +Nevertheless, the English army was in the worse case of the two. The +furious onsets of those great squadrons with cuirasses of iron and +breasts of steel had ground the infantry to nothing. A few men clustered +round a flag marked the post of a regiment; such and such a battalion +was commanded only by a captain or a lieutenant; Alten's division, +already so roughly handled at La Haie-Sainte, was almost destroyed; +the intrepid Belgians of Van Kluze's brigade strewed the rye-fields +all along the Nivelles road; hardly anything was left of those Dutch +grenadiers, who, intermingled with Spaniards in our ranks in 1811, +fought against Wellington; and who, in 1815, rallied to the +English standard, fought against Napoleon. The loss in officers was +considerable. Lord Uxbridge, who had his leg buried on the following +day, had his knee shattered. If, on the French side, in that tussle +of the cuirassiers, Delort, l'Heritier, Colbert, Dnop, Travers, and +Blancard were disabled, on the side of the English there was Alten +wounded, Barne wounded, Delancey killed, Van Meeren killed, Ompteda +killed, the whole of Wellington's staff decimated, and England had the +worse of it in that bloody scale. The second regiment of foot-guards +had lost five lieutenant-colonels, four captains, and three ensigns; +the first battalion of the 30th infantry had lost 24 officers and 1,200 +soldiers; the 79th Highlanders had lost 24 officers wounded, 18 officers +killed, 450 soldiers killed. The Hanoverian hussars of Cumberland, a +whole regiment, with Colonel Hacke at its head, who was destined to be +tried later on and cashiered, had turned bridle in the presence of the +fray, and had fled to the forest of Soignes, sowing defeat all the way +to Brussels. The transports, ammunition-wagons, the baggage-wagons, the +wagons filled with wounded, on perceiving that the French were gaining +ground and approaching the forest, rushed headlong thither. The Dutch, +mowed down by the French cavalry, cried, "Alarm!" From Vert-Coucou to +Groentendael, for a distance of nearly two leagues in the direction +of Brussels, according to the testimony of eye-witnesses who are still +alive, the roads were encumbered with fugitives. This panic was such +that it attacked the Prince de Conde at Mechlin, and Louis XVIII. at +Ghent. With the exception of the feeble reserve echelonned behind the +ambulance established at the farm of Mont-Saint-Jean, and of Vivian's +and Vandeleur's brigades, which flanked the left wing, Wellington had +no cavalry left. A number of batteries lay unhorsed. These facts are +attested by Siborne; and Pringle, exaggerating the disaster, goes so far +as to say that the Anglo-Dutch army was reduced to thirty-four thousand +men. The Iron Duke remained calm, but his lips blanched. Vincent, the +Austrian commissioner, Alava, the Spanish commissioner, who were present +at the battle in the English staff, thought the Duke lost. At five +o'clock Wellington drew out his watch, and he was heard to murmur these +sinister words, "Blucher, or night!" + +It was at about that moment that a distant line of bayonets gleamed on +the heights in the direction of Frischemont. + +Here comes the change of face in this giant drama. + + + + +CHAPTER XI--A BAD GUIDE TO NAPOLEON; A GOOD GUIDE TO BULOW + +The painful surprise of Napoleon is well known. Grouchy hoped for, +Blucher arriving. Death instead of life. + +Fate has these turns; the throne of the world was expected; it was Saint +Helena that was seen. + +If the little shepherd who served as guide to Bulow, Blucher's +lieutenant, had advised him to debouch from the forest above +Frischemont, instead of below Plancenoit, the form of the nineteenth +century might, perhaps, have been different. Napoleon would have won the +battle of Waterloo. By any other route than that below Plancenoit, +the Prussian army would have come out upon a ravine impassable for +artillery, and Bulow would not have arrived. + +Now the Prussian general, Muffling, declares that one hour's delay, and +Blucher would not have found Wellington on his feet. "The battle was +lost." + +It was time that Bulow should arrive, as will be seen. He had, moreover, +been very much delayed. He had bivouacked at Dion-le-Mont, and had set +out at daybreak; but the roads were impassable, and his divisions stuck +fast in the mire. The ruts were up to the hubs of the cannons. Moreover, +he had been obliged to pass the Dyle on the narrow bridge of Wavre; +the street leading to the bridge had been fired by the French, so +the caissons and ammunition-wagons could not pass between two rows of +burning houses, and had been obliged to wait until the conflagration was +extinguished. It was mid-day before Bulow's vanguard had been able to +reach Chapelle-Saint-Lambert. + +Had the action been begun two hours earlier, it would have been over +at four o'clock, and Blucher would have fallen on the battle won by +Napoleon. Such are these immense risks proportioned to an infinite which +we cannot comprehend. + +The Emperor had been the first, as early as mid-day, to descry with his +field-glass, on the extreme horizon, something which had attracted his +attention. He had said, "I see yonder a cloud, which seems to me to be +troops." Then he asked the Duc de Dalmatie, "Soult, what do you see in +the direction of Chapelle-Saint-Lambert?" The marshal, levelling his +glass, answered, "Four or five thousand men, Sire; evidently Grouchy." +But it remained motionless in the mist. All the glasses of the staff +had studied "the cloud" pointed out by the Emperor. Some said: "It is +trees." The truth is, that the cloud did not move. The Emperor detached +Domon's division of light cavalry to reconnoitre in that quarter. + +Bulow had not moved, in fact. His vanguard was very feeble, and could +accomplish nothing. He was obliged to wait for the body of the army +corps, and he had received orders to concentrate his forces before +entering into line; but at five o'clock, perceiving Wellington's peril, +Blucher ordered Bulow to attack, and uttered these remarkable words: "We +must give air to the English army." + +A little later, the divisions of Losthin, Hiller, Hacke, and Ryssel +deployed before Lobau's corps, the cavalry of Prince William of Prussia +debouched from the forest of Paris, Plancenoit was in flames, and the +Prussian cannon-balls began to rain even upon the ranks of the guard in +reserve behind Napoleon. + + + + +CHAPTER XII--THE GUARD + +Every one knows the rest,--the irruption of a third army; the battle +broken to pieces; eighty-six mouths of fire thundering simultaneously; +Pirch the first coming up with Bulow; Zieten's cavalry led by Blucher +in person, the French driven back; Marcognet swept from the plateau of +Ohain; Durutte dislodged from Papelotte; Donzelot and Quiot retreating; +Lobau caught on the flank; a fresh battle precipitating itself on our +dismantled regiments at nightfall; the whole English line resuming the +offensive and thrust forward; the gigantic breach made in the French +army; the English grape-shot and the Prussian grape-shot aiding each +other; the extermination; disaster in front; disaster on the flank; the +Guard entering the line in the midst of this terrible crumbling of all +things. + +Conscious that they were about to die, they shouted, "Vive l'Empereur!" +History records nothing more touching than that agony bursting forth in +acclamations. + +The sky had been overcast all day long. All of a sudden, at that very +moment,--it was eight o'clock in the evening--the clouds on the horizon +parted, and allowed the grand and sinister glow of the setting sun to +pass through, athwart the elms on the Nivelles road. They had seen it +rise at Austerlitz. + +Each battalion of the Guard was commanded by a general for this final +catastrophe. Friant, Michel, Roguet, Harlet, Mallet, Poret de Morvan, +were there. When the tall caps of the grenadiers of the Guard, with +their large plaques bearing the eagle appeared, symmetrical, in line, +tranquil, in the midst of that combat, the enemy felt a respect for +France; they thought they beheld twenty victories entering the field +of battle, with wings outspread, and those who were the conquerors, +believing themselves to be vanquished, retreated; but Wellington +shouted, "Up, Guards, and aim straight!" The red regiment of English +guards, lying flat behind the hedges, sprang up, a cloud of grape-shot +riddled the tricolored flag and whistled round our eagles; all hurled +themselves forwards, and the final carnage began. In the darkness, the +Imperial Guard felt the army losing ground around it, and in the vast +shock of the rout it heard the desperate flight which had taken the +place of the "Vive l'Empereur!" and, with flight behind it, it continued +to advance, more crushed, losing more men at every step that it took. +There were none who hesitated, no timid men in its ranks. The soldier in +that troop was as much of a hero as the general. Not a man was missing +in that suicide. + +Ney, bewildered, great with all the grandeur of accepted death, offered +himself to all blows in that tempest. He had his fifth horse killed +under him there. Perspiring, his eyes aflame, foaming at the mouth, with +uniform unbuttoned, one of his epaulets half cut off by a sword-stroke +from a horseguard, his plaque with the great eagle dented by a bullet; +bleeding, bemired, magnificent, a broken sword in his hand, he said, +"Come and see how a Marshal of France dies on the field of battle!" But +in vain; he did not die. He was haggard and angry. At Drouet d'Erlon he +hurled this question, "Are you not going to get yourself killed?" In +the midst of all that artillery engaged in crushing a handful of men, +he shouted: "So there is nothing for me! Oh! I should like to have all +these English bullets enter my bowels!" Unhappy man, thou wert reserved +for French bullets! + + + + +CHAPTER XIII--THE CATASTROPHE + +The rout behind the Guard was melancholy. + +The army yielded suddenly on all sides at once,--Hougomont, La +Haie-Sainte, Papelotte, Plancenoit. The cry "Treachery!" was followed by +a cry of "Save yourselves who can!" An army which is disbanding is +like a thaw. All yields, splits, cracks, floats, rolls, falls, jostles, +hastens, is precipitated. The disintegration is unprecedented. Ney +borrows a horse, leaps upon it, and without hat, cravat, or sword, +places himself across the Brussels road, stopping both English and +French. He strives to detain the army, he recalls it to its duty, he +insults it, he clings to the rout. He is overwhelmed. The soldiers fly +from him, shouting, "Long live Marshal Ney!" Two of Durutte's regiments +go and come in affright as though tossed back and forth between the +swords of the Uhlans and the fusillade of the brigades of Kempt, Best, +Pack, and Rylandt; the worst of hand-to-hand conflicts is the defeat; +friends kill each other in order to escape; squadrons and battalions +break and disperse against each other, like the tremendous foam of +battle. Lobau at one extremity, and Reille at the other, are drawn into +the tide. In vain does Napoleon erect walls from what is left to him of +his Guard; in vain does he expend in a last effort his last serviceable +squadrons. Quiot retreats before Vivian, Kellermann before Vandeleur, +Lobau before Bulow, Morand before Pirch, Domon and Subervic before +Prince William of Prussia; Guyot, who led the Emperor's squadrons to the +charge, falls beneath the feet of the English dragoons. Napoleon gallops +past the line of fugitives, harangues, urges, threatens, entreats +them. All the mouths which in the morning had shouted, "Long live +the Emperor!" remain gaping; they hardly recognize him. The Prussian +cavalry, newly arrived, dashes forwards, flies, hews, slashes, kills, +exterminates. Horses lash out, the cannons flee; the soldiers of the +artillery-train unharness the caissons and use the horses to make their +escape; transports overturned, with all four wheels in the air, clog the +road and occasion massacres. Men are crushed, trampled down, others walk +over the dead and the living. Arms are lost. A dizzy multitude fills the +roads, the paths, the bridges, the plains, the hills, the valleys, +the woods, encumbered by this invasion of forty thousand men. Shouts +despair, knapsacks and guns flung among the rye, passages forced at +the point of the sword, no more comrades, no more officers, no more +generals, an inexpressible terror. Zieten putting France to the sword at +its leisure. Lions converted into goats. Such was the flight. + +At Genappe, an effort was made to wheel about, to present a battle +front, to draw up in line. Lobau rallied three hundred men. The entrance +to the village was barricaded, but at the first volley of Prussian +canister, all took to flight again, and Lobau was taken. That volley of +grape-shot can be seen to-day imprinted on the ancient gable of a brick +building on the right of the road at a few minutes' distance before you +enter Genappe. The Prussians threw themselves into Genappe, furious, no +doubt, that they were not more entirely the conquerors. The pursuit was +stupendous. Blucher ordered extermination. Roguet had set the lugubrious +example of threatening with death any French grenadier who should bring +him a Prussian prisoner. Blucher outdid Roguet. Duhesme, the general +of the Young Guard, hemmed in at the doorway of an inn at Genappe, +surrendered his sword to a huzzar of death, who took the sword and slew +the prisoner. The victory was completed by the assassination of the +vanquished. Let us inflict punishment, since we are history: old +Blucher disgraced himself. This ferocity put the finishing touch to the +disaster. The desperate route traversed Genappe, traversed Quatre-Bras, +traversed Gosselies, traversed Frasnes, traversed Charleroi, traversed +Thuin, and only halted at the frontier. Alas! and who, then, was fleeing +in that manner? The Grand Army. + +This vertigo, this terror, this downfall into ruin of the loftiest +bravery which ever astounded history,--is that causeless? No. The shadow +of an enormous right is projected athwart Waterloo. It is the day of +destiny. The force which is mightier than man produced that day. Hence +the terrified wrinkle of those brows; hence all those great souls +surrendering their swords. Those who had conquered Europe have fallen +prone on the earth, with nothing left to say nor to do, feeling the +present shadow of a terrible presence. Hoc erat in fatis. That day the +perspective of the human race underwent a change. Waterloo is the +hinge of the nineteenth century. The disappearance of the great man was +necessary to the advent of the great century. Some one, a person to whom +one replies not, took the responsibility on himself. The panic of heroes +can be explained. In the battle of Waterloo there is something more than +a cloud, there is something of the meteor. God has passed by. + +At nightfall, in a meadow near Genappe, Bernard and Bertrand seized by +the skirt of his coat and detained a man, haggard, pensive, sinister, +gloomy, who, dragged to that point by the current of the rout, had just +dismounted, had passed the bridle of his horse over his arm, and with +wild eye was returning alone to Waterloo. It was Napoleon, the immense +somnambulist of this dream which had crumbled, essaying once more to +advance. + + + + +CHAPTER XIV--THE LAST SQUARE + +Several squares of the Guard, motionless amid this stream of the defeat, +as rocks in running water, held their own until night. Night came, +death also; they awaited that double shadow, and, invincible, allowed +themselves to be enveloped therein. Each regiment, isolated from the +rest, and having no bond with the army, now shattered in every part, +died alone. They had taken up position for this final action, some on +the heights of Rossomme, others on the plain of Mont-Saint-Jean. There, +abandoned, vanquished, terrible, those gloomy squares endured their +death-throes in formidable fashion. Ulm, Wagram, Jena, Friedland, died +with them. + +At twilight, towards nine o'clock in the evening, one of them was left +at the foot of the plateau of Mont-Saint-Jean. In that fatal valley, +at the foot of that declivity which the cuirassiers had ascended, now +inundated by the masses of the English, under the converging fires +of the victorious hostile cavalry, under a frightful density of +projectiles, this square fought on. It was commanded by an obscure +officer named Cambronne. At each discharge, the square diminished and +replied. It replied to the grape-shot with a fusillade, continually +contracting its four walls. The fugitives pausing breathless for a +moment in the distance, listened in the darkness to that gloomy and +ever-decreasing thunder. + +When this legion had been reduced to a handful, when nothing was left +of their flag but a rag, when their guns, the bullets all gone, were no +longer anything but clubs, when the heap of corpses was larger than the +group of survivors, there reigned among the conquerors, around those men +dying so sublimely, a sort of sacred terror, and the English artillery, +taking breath, became silent. This furnished a sort of respite. These +combatants had around them something in the nature of a swarm of +spectres, silhouettes of men on horseback, the black profiles of cannon, +the white sky viewed through wheels and gun-carriages, the colossal +death's-head, which the heroes saw constantly through the smoke, in the +depths of the battle, advanced upon them and gazed at them. Through the +shades of twilight they could hear the pieces being loaded; the matches +all lighted, like the eyes of tigers at night, formed a circle round +their heads; all the lintstocks of the English batteries approached the +cannons, and then, with emotion, holding the supreme moment suspended +above these men, an English general, Colville according to some, +Maitland according to others, shouted to them, "Surrender, brave +Frenchmen!" Cambronne replied, "-----." + +{EDITOR'S COMMENTARY: Another edition of this book has the word "Merde!" +in lieu of the ----- above.} + + + + +CHAPTER XV--CAMBRONNE + +If any French reader object to having his susceptibilities offended, one +would have to refrain from repeating in his presence what is perhaps +the finest reply that a Frenchman ever made. This would enjoin us from +consigning something sublime to History. + +At our own risk and peril, let us violate this injunction. + +Now, then, among those giants there was one Titan,--Cambronne. + +To make that reply and then perish, what could be grander? For being +willing to die is the same as to die; and it was not this man's fault if +he survived after he was shot. + +The winner of the battle of Waterloo was not Napoleon, who was put to +flight; nor Wellington, giving way at four o'clock, in despair at five; +nor Blucher, who took no part in the engagement. The winner of Waterloo +was Cambronne. + +To thunder forth such a reply at the lightning-flash that kills you is +to conquer! + +Thus to answer the Catastrophe, thus to speak to Fate, to give this +pedestal to the future lion, to hurl such a challenge to the midnight +rainstorm, to the treacherous wall of Hougomont, to the sunken road of +Ohain, to Grouchy's delay, to Blucher's arrival, to be Irony itself in +the tomb, to act so as to stand upright though fallen, to drown in +two syllables the European coalition, to offer kings privies which +the Caesars once knew, to make the lowest of words the most lofty by +entwining with it the glory of France, insolently to end Waterloo with +Mardigras, to finish Leonidas with Rabellais, to set the crown on this +victory by a word impossible to speak, to lose the field and preserve +history, to have the laugh on your side after such a carnage,--this is +immense! + +It was an insult such as a thunder-cloud might hurl! It reaches the +grandeur of AEschylus! + +Cambronne's reply produces the effect of a violent break. 'Tis like the +breaking of a heart under a weight of scorn. 'Tis the overflow of agony +bursting forth. Who conquered? Wellington? No! Had it not been for +Blucher, he was lost. Was it Blucher? No! If Wellington had not begun, +Blucher could not have finished. This Cambronne, this man spending his +last hour, this unknown soldier, this infinitesimal of war, realizes +that here is a falsehood, a falsehood in a catastrophe, and so doubly +agonizing; and at the moment when his rage is bursting forth because of +it, he is offered this mockery,--life! How could he restrain himself? +Yonder are all the kings of Europe, the general's flushed with victory, +the Jupiter's darting thunderbolts; they have a hundred thousand +victorious soldiers, and back of the hundred thousand a million; their +cannon stand with yawning mouths, the match is lighted; they grind down +under their heels the Imperial guards, and the grand army; they have +just crushed Napoleon, and only Cambronne remains,--only this earthworm +is left to protest. He will protest. Then he seeks for the appropriate +word as one seeks for a sword. His mouth froths, and the froth is the +word. In face of this mean and mighty victory, in face of this victory +which counts none victorious, this desperate soldier stands erect. He +grants its overwhelming immensity, but he establishes its triviality; +and he does more than spit upon it. Borne down by numbers, by superior +force, by brute matter, he finds in his soul an expression: "Excrement!" +We repeat it,--to use that word, to do thus, to invent such an +expression, is to be the conqueror! + +The spirit of mighty days at that portentous moment made its descent +on that unknown man. Cambronne invents the word for Waterloo as Rouget +invents the "Marseillaise," under the visitation of a breath from on +high. An emanation from the divine whirlwind leaps forth and comes +sweeping over these men, and they shake, and one of them sings the song +supreme, and the other utters the frightful cry. + +This challenge of titanic scorn Cambronne hurls not only at Europe in +the name of the Empire,--that would be a trifle: he hurls it at the past +in the name of the Revolution. It is heard, and Cambronne is recognized +as possessed by the ancient spirit of the Titans. Danton seems to be +speaking! Kleber seems to be bellowing! + +At that word from Cambronne, the English voice responded, "Fire!" +The batteries flamed, the hill trembled, from all those brazen mouths +belched a last terrible gush of grape-shot; a vast volume of smoke, +vaguely white in the light of the rising moon, rolled out, and when the +smoke dispersed, there was no longer anything there. That formidable +remnant had been annihilated; the Guard was dead. The four walls of the +living redoubt lay prone, and hardly was there discernible, here and +there, even a quiver in the bodies; it was thus that the French legions, +greater than the Roman legions, expired on Mont-Saint-Jean, on the soil +watered with rain and blood, amid the gloomy grain, on the spot where +nowadays Joseph, who drives the post-wagon from Nivelles, passes +whistling, and cheerfully whipping up his horse at four o'clock in the +morning. + + + + +CHAPTER XVI--QUOT LIBRAS IN DUCE? + +The battle of Waterloo is an enigma. It is as obscure to those who won +it as to those who lost it. For Napoleon it was a panic;[10] Blucher +sees nothing in it but fire; Wellington understands nothing in regard +to it. Look at the reports. The bulletins are confused, the commentaries +involved. Some stammer, others lisp. Jomini divides the battle of +Waterloo into four moments; Muffling cuts it up into three changes; +Charras alone, though we hold another judgment than his on some points, +seized with his haughty glance the characteristic outlines of that +catastrophe of human genius in conflict with divine chance. All the +other historians suffer from being somewhat dazzled, and in this dazzled +state they fumble about. It was a day of lightning brilliancy; in fact, +a crumbling of the military monarchy which, to the vast stupefaction of +kings, drew all the kingdoms after it--the fall of force, the defeat of +war. + +In this event, stamped with superhuman necessity, the part played by men +amounts to nothing. + +If we take Waterloo from Wellington and Blucher, do we thereby deprive +England and Germany of anything? No. Neither that illustrious England +nor that august Germany enter into the problem of Waterloo. Thank +Heaven, nations are great, independently of the lugubrious feats of +the sword. Neither England, nor Germany, nor France is contained in +a scabbard. At this epoch when Waterloo is only a clashing of swords, +above Blucher, Germany has Schiller; above Wellington, England has +Byron. A vast dawn of ideas is the peculiarity of our century, and in +that aurora England and Germany have a magnificent radiance. They +are majestic because they think. The elevation of level which they +contribute to civilization is intrinsic with them; it proceeds from +themselves and not from an accident. The aggrandizement which they have +brought to the nineteenth century has not Waterloo as its source. It is +only barbarous peoples who undergo rapid growth after a victory. That is +the temporary vanity of torrents swelled by a storm. Civilized people, +especially in our day, are neither elevated nor abased by the good or +bad fortune of a captain. Their specific gravity in the human species +results from something more than a combat. Their honor, thank God! their +dignity, their intelligence, their genius, are not numbers which those +gamblers, heroes and conquerors, can put in the lottery of battles. +Often a battle is lost and progress is conquered. There is less glory +and more liberty. The drum holds its peace; reason takes the word. It is +a game in which he who loses wins. Let us, therefore, speak of Waterloo +coldly from both sides. Let us render to chance that which is due +to chance, and to God that which is due to God. What is Waterloo? A +victory? No. The winning number in the lottery. + +The quine [11] won by Europe, paid by France. + +It was not worth while to place a lion there. + +Waterloo, moreover, is the strangest encounter in history. Napoleon and +Wellington. They are not enemies; they are opposites. Never did God, +who is fond of antitheses, make a more striking contrast, a more +extraordinary comparison. On one side, precision, foresight, geometry, +prudence, an assured retreat, reserves spared, with an obstinate +coolness, an imperturbable method, strategy, which takes advantage +of the ground, tactics, which preserve the equilibrium of battalions, +carnage, executed according to rule, war regulated, watch in hand, +nothing voluntarily left to chance, the ancient classic courage, +absolute regularity; on the other, intuition, divination, military +oddity, superhuman instinct, a flaming glance, an indescribable +something which gazes like an eagle, and which strikes like the +lightning, a prodigious art in disdainful impetuosity, all the mysteries +of a profound soul, associated with destiny; the stream, the plain, the +forest, the hill, summoned, and in a manner, forced to obey, the despot +going even so far as to tyrannize over the field of battle; faith in +a star mingled with strategic science, elevating but perturbing it. +Wellington was the Bareme of war; Napoleon was its Michael Angelo; and +on this occasion, genius was vanquished by calculation. On both sides +some one was awaited. It was the exact calculator who succeeded. +Napoleon was waiting for Grouchy; he did not come. Wellington expected +Blucher; he came. + +Wellington is classic war taking its revenge. Bonaparte, at his dawning, +had encountered him in Italy, and beaten him superbly. The old owl had +fled before the young vulture. The old tactics had been not only struck +as by lightning, but disgraced. Who was that Corsican of six and twenty? +What signified that splendid ignoramus, who, with everything against +him, nothing in his favor, without provisions, without ammunition, +without cannon, without shoes, almost without an army, with a mere +handful of men against masses, hurled himself on Europe combined, +and absurdly won victories in the impossible? Whence had issued that +fulminating convict, who almost without taking breath, and with the same +set of combatants in hand, pulverized, one after the other, the five +armies of the emperor of Germany, upsetting Beaulieu on Alvinzi, Wurmser +on Beaulieu, Melas on Wurmser, Mack on Melas? Who was this novice in +war with the effrontery of a luminary? The academical military school +excommunicated him, and as it lost its footing; hence, the implacable +rancor of the old Caesarism against the new; of the regular sword +against the flaming sword; and of the exchequer against genius. On the +18th of June, 1815, that rancor had the last word. and beneath Lodi, +Montebello, Montenotte, Mantua, Arcola, it wrote: Waterloo. A triumph of +the mediocres which is sweet to the majority. Destiny consented to this +irony. In his decline, Napoleon found Wurmser, the younger, again in +front of him. + +In fact, to get Wurmser, it sufficed to blanch the hair of Wellington. + +Waterloo is a battle of the first order, won by a captain of the second. + +That which must be admired in the battle of Waterloo, is England; the +English firmness, the English resolution, the English blood; the superb +thing about England there, no offence to her, was herself. It was not +her captain; it was her army. + +Wellington, oddly ungrateful, declares in a letter to Lord Bathurst, +that his army, the army which fought on the 18th of June, 1815, was a +"detestable army." What does that sombre intermingling of bones buried +beneath the furrows of Waterloo think of that? + +England has been too modest in the matter of Wellington. To make +Wellington so great is to belittle England. Wellington is nothing but +a hero like many another. Those Scotch Grays, those Horse Guards, those +regiments of Maitland and of Mitchell, that infantry of Pack and Kempt, +that cavalry of Ponsonby and Somerset, those Highlanders playing the +pibroch under the shower of grape-shot, those battalions of Rylandt, +those utterly raw recruits, who hardly knew how to handle a musket +holding their own against Essling's and Rivoli's old troops,--that is +what was grand. Wellington was tenacious; in that lay his merit, and we +are not seeking to lessen it: but the least of his foot-soldiers and of +his cavalry would have been as solid as he. The iron soldier is worth +as much as the Iron Duke. As for us, all our glorification goes to the +English soldier, to the English army, to the English people. If trophy +there be, it is to England that the trophy is due. The column of +Waterloo would be more just, if, instead of the figure of a man, it bore +on high the statue of a people. + +But this great England will be angry at what we are saying here. She +still cherishes, after her own 1688 and our 1789, the feudal illusion. +She believes in heredity and hierarchy. This people, surpassed by none +in power and glory, regards itself as a nation, and not as a people. And +as a people, it willingly subordinates itself and takes a lord for its +head. As a workman, it allows itself to be disdained; as a soldier, it +allows itself to be flogged. + +It will be remembered, that at the battle of Inkermann a sergeant who +had, it appears, saved the army, could not be mentioned by Lord Paglan, +as the English military hierarchy does not permit any hero below the +grade of an officer to be mentioned in the reports. + +That which we admire above all, in an encounter of the nature of +Waterloo, is the marvellous cleverness of chance. A nocturnal rain, the +wall of Hougomont, the hollow road of Ohain, Grouchy deaf to the cannon, +Napoleon's guide deceiving him, Bulow's guide enlightening him,--the +whole of this cataclysm is wonderfully conducted. + +On the whole, let us say it plainly, it was more of a massacre than of a +battle at Waterloo. + +Of all pitched battles, Waterloo is the one which has the smallest front +for such a number of combatants. Napoleon three-quarters of a league; +Wellington, half a league; seventy-two thousand combatants on each side. +From this denseness the carnage arose. + +The following calculation has been made, and the following proportion +established: Loss of men: at Austerlitz, French, fourteen per cent; +Russians, thirty per cent; Austrians, forty-four per cent. At Wagram, +French, thirteen per cent; Austrians, fourteen. At the Moskowa, French, +thirty-seven per cent; Russians, forty-four. At Bautzen, French, +thirteen per cent; Russians and Prussians, fourteen. At Waterloo, +French, fifty-six per cent; the Allies, thirty-one. Total for Waterloo, +forty-one per cent; one hundred and forty-four thousand combatants; +sixty thousand dead. + +To-day the field of Waterloo has the calm which belongs to the earth, +the impassive support of man, and it resembles all plains. + +At night, moreover, a sort of visionary mist arises from it; and if a +traveller strolls there, if he listens, if he watches, if he dreams +like Virgil in the fatal plains of Philippi, the hallucination of the +catastrophe takes possession of him. The frightful 18th of June lives +again; the false monumental hillock disappears, the lion vanishes in +air, the battle-field resumes its reality, lines of infantry undulate +over the plain, furious gallops traverse the horizon; the frightened +dreamer beholds the flash of sabres, the gleam of bayonets, the flare of +bombs, the tremendous interchange of thunders; he hears, as it were, +the death rattle in the depths of a tomb, the vague clamor of the battle +phantom; those shadows are grenadiers, those lights are cuirassiers; +that skeleton Napoleon, that other skeleton is Wellington; all this no +longer exists, and yet it clashes together and combats still; and the +ravines are empurpled, and the trees quiver, and there is fury even in +the clouds and in the shadows; all those terrible heights, Hougomont, +Mont-Saint-Jean, Frischemont, Papelotte, Plancenoit, appear confusedly +crowned with whirlwinds of spectres engaged in exterminating each other. + + + + +CHAPTER XVII--IS WATERLOO TO BE CONSIDERED GOOD? + +There exists a very respectable liberal school which does not hate +Waterloo. We do not belong to it. To us, Waterloo is but the stupefied +date of liberty. That such an eagle should emerge from such an egg is +certainly unexpected. + +If one places one's self at the culminating point of view of the +question, Waterloo is intentionally a counter-revolutionary victory. It +is Europe against France; it is Petersburg, Berlin, and Vienna against +Paris; it is the statu quo against the initiative; it is the 14th +of July, 1789, attacked through the 20th of March, 1815; it is the +monarchies clearing the decks in opposition to the indomitable French +rioting. The final extinction of that vast people which had been in +eruption for twenty-six years--such was the dream. The solidarity of the +Brunswicks, the Nassaus, the Romanoffs, the Hohenzollerns, the Hapsburgs +with the Bourbons. Waterloo bears divine right on its crupper. It is +true, that the Empire having been despotic, the kingdom by the natural +reaction of things, was forced to be liberal, and that a constitutional +order was the unwilling result of Waterloo, to the great regret of the +conquerors. It is because revolution cannot be really conquered, and +that being providential and absolutely fatal, it is always cropping +up afresh: before Waterloo, in Bonaparte overthrowing the old thrones; +after Waterloo, in Louis XVIII. granting and conforming to the charter. +Bonaparte places a postilion on the throne of Naples, and a sergeant +on the throne of Sweden, employing inequality to demonstrate equality; +Louis XVIII. at Saint-Ouen countersigns the declaration of the rights +of man. If you wish to gain an idea of what revolution is, call it +Progress; and if you wish to acquire an idea of the nature of progress, +call it To-morrow. To-morrow fulfils its work irresistibly, and it is +already fulfilling it to-day. It always reaches its goal strangely. It +employs Wellington to make of Foy, who was only a soldier, an orator. +Foy falls at Hougomont and rises again in the tribune. Thus does +progress proceed. There is no such thing as a bad tool for that workman. +It does not become disconcerted, but adjusts to its divine work the +man who has bestridden the Alps, and the good old tottering invalid +of Father Elysee. It makes use of the gouty man as well as of the +conqueror; of the conqueror without, of the gouty man within. Waterloo, +by cutting short the demolition of European thrones by the sword, had +no other effect than to cause the revolutionary work to be continued in +another direction. The slashers have finished; it was the turn of the +thinkers. The century that Waterloo was intended to arrest has pursued +its march. That sinister victory was vanquished by liberty. + +In short, and incontestably, that which triumphed at Waterloo; that +which smiled in Wellington's rear; that which brought him all the +marshals' staffs of Europe, including, it is said, the staff of a +marshal of France; that which joyously trundled the barrows full of +bones to erect the knoll of the lion; that which triumphantly inscribed +on that pedestal the date "June 18, 1815"; that which encouraged +Blucher, as he put the flying army to the sword; that which, from the +heights of the plateau of Mont-Saint-Jean, hovered over France as over +its prey, was the counter-revolution. It was the counter-revolution +which murmured that infamous word "dismemberment." On arriving in Paris, +it beheld the crater close at hand; it felt those ashes which scorched +its feet, and it changed its mind; it returned to the stammer of a +charter. + +Let us behold in Waterloo only that which is in Waterloo. Of intentional +liberty there is none. The counter-revolution was involuntarily liberal, +in the same manner as, by a corresponding phenomenon, Napoleon was +involuntarily revolutionary. On the 18th of June, 1815, the mounted +Robespierre was hurled from his saddle. + + + + +CHAPTER XVIII--A RECRUDESCENCE OF DIVINE RIGHT + +End of the dictatorship. A whole European system crumbled away. + +The Empire sank into a gloom which resembled that of the Roman world as +it expired. Again we behold the abyss, as in the days of the barbarians; +only the barbarism of 1815, which must be called by its pet name of the +counter-revolution, was not long breathed, soon fell to panting, and +halted short. The Empire was bewept,--let us acknowledge the fact,--and +bewept by heroic eyes. If glory lies in the sword converted into a +sceptre, the Empire had been glory in person. It had diffused over the +earth all the light which tyranny can give a sombre light. We will say +more; an obscure light. Compared to the true daylight, it is night. This +disappearance of night produces the effect of an eclipse. + +Louis XVIII. re-entered Paris. The circling dances of the 8th of July +effaced the enthusiasms of the 20th of March. The Corsican became the +antithesis of the Bearnese. The flag on the dome of the Tuileries was +white. The exile reigned. Hartwell's pine table took its place in front +of the fleur-de-lys-strewn throne of Louis XIV. Bouvines and Fontenoy +were mentioned as though they had taken place on the preceding +day, Austerlitz having become antiquated. The altar and the throne +fraternized majestically. One of the most undisputed forms of the health +of society in the nineteenth century was established over France, and +over the continent. Europe adopted the white cockade. Trestaillon was +celebrated. The device non pluribus impar re-appeared on the stone rays +representing a sun upon the front of the barracks on the Quai d'Orsay. +Where there had been an Imperial Guard, there was now a red house. The +Arc du Carrousel, all laden with badly borne victories, thrown out +of its element among these novelties, a little ashamed, it may be, of +Marengo and Arcola, extricated itself from its predicament with the +statue of the Duc d'Angouleme. The cemetery of the Madeleine, a terrible +pauper's grave in 1793, was covered with jasper and marble, since the +bones of Louis XVI. and Marie Antoinette lay in that dust. + +In the moat of Vincennes a sepulchral shaft sprang from the earth, +recalling the fact that the Duc d'Enghien had perished in the very +month when Napoleon was crowned. Pope Pius VII., who had performed the +coronation very near this death, tranquilly bestowed his blessing on the +fall as he had bestowed it on the elevation. At Schoenbrunn there was +a little shadow, aged four, whom it was seditious to call the King of +Rome. And these things took place, and the kings resumed their thrones, +and the master of Europe was put in a cage, and the old regime became +the new regime, and all the shadows and all the light of the earth +changed place, because, on the afternoon of a certain summer's day, a +shepherd said to a Prussian in the forest, "Go this way, and not that!" + +This 1815 was a sort of lugubrious April. Ancient unhealthy and +poisonous realities were covered with new appearances. A lie wedded +1789; the right divine was masked under a charter; fictions became +constitutional; prejudices, superstitions and mental reservations, with +Article 14 in the heart, were varnished over with liberalism. It was the +serpent's change of skin. + +Man had been rendered both greater and smaller by Napoleon. Under this +reign of splendid matter, the ideal had received the strange name of +ideology! It is a grave imprudence in a great man to turn the future +into derision. The populace, however, that food for cannon which is so +fond of the cannoneer, sought him with its glance. Where is he? What is +he doing? "Napoleon is dead," said a passer-by to a veteran of Marengo +and Waterloo. "He dead!" cried the soldier; "you don't know him." +Imagination distrusted this man, even when overthrown. The depths of +Europe were full of darkness after Waterloo. Something enormous remained +long empty through Napoleon's disappearance. + +The kings placed themselves in this void. Ancient Europe profited by +it to undertake reforms. There was a Holy Alliance; Belle-Alliance, +Beautiful Alliance, the fatal field of Waterloo had said in advance. + +In presence and in face of that antique Europe reconstructed, the +features of a new France were sketched out. The future, which the +Emperor had rallied, made its entry. On its brow it bore the star, +Liberty. The glowing eyes of all young generations were turned on it. +Singular fact! people were, at one and the same time, in love with +the future, Liberty, and the past, Napoleon. Defeat had rendered the +vanquished greater. Bonaparte fallen seemed more lofty than Napoleon +erect. Those who had triumphed were alarmed. England had him guarded by +Hudson Lowe, and France had him watched by Montchenu. His folded arms +became a source of uneasiness to thrones. Alexander called him "my +sleeplessness." This terror was the result of the quantity of +revolution which was contained in him. That is what explains and excuses +Bonapartist liberalism. This phantom caused the old world to tremble. +The kings reigned, but ill at their ease, with the rock of Saint Helena +on the horizon. + +While Napoleon was passing through the death struggle at Longwood, the +sixty thousand men who had fallen on the field of Waterloo were quietly +rotting, and something of their peace was shed abroad over the world. +The Congress of Vienna made the treaties in 1815, and Europe called this +the Restoration. + +This is what Waterloo was. + +But what matters it to the Infinite? all that tempest, all that cloud, +that war, then that peace? All that darkness did not trouble for a +moment the light of that immense Eye before which a grub skipping from +one blade of grass to another equals the eagle soaring from belfry to +belfry on the towers of Notre Dame. + + + + +CHAPTER XIX--THE BATTLE-FIELD AT NIGHT + +Let us return--it is a necessity in this book--to that fatal +battle-field. + +On the 18th of June the moon was full. Its light favored Blucher's +ferocious pursuit, betrayed the traces of the fugitives, delivered +up that disastrous mass to the eager Prussian cavalry, and aided the +massacre. Such tragic favors of the night do occur sometimes during +catastrophes. + +After the last cannon-shot had been fired, the plain of Mont-Saint-Jean +remained deserted. + +The English occupied the encampment of the French; it is the usual sign +of victory to sleep in the bed of the vanquished. They established their +bivouac beyond Rossomme. The Prussians, let loose on the retreating +rout, pushed forward. Wellington went to the village of Waterloo to draw +up his report to Lord Bathurst. + +If ever the sic vos non vobis was applicable, it certainly is to that +village of Waterloo. Waterloo took no part, and lay half a league from +the scene of action. Mont-Saint-Jean was cannonaded, Hougomont was +burned, La Haie-Sainte was taken by assault, Papelotte was burned, +Plancenoit was burned, La Belle-Alliance beheld the embrace of the two +conquerors; these names are hardly known, and Waterloo, which worked not +in the battle, bears off all the honor. + +We are not of the number of those who flatter war; when the occasion +presents itself, we tell the truth about it. War has frightful beauties +which we have not concealed; it has also, we acknowledge, some hideous +features. One of the most surprising is the prompt stripping of the +bodies of the dead after the victory. The dawn which follows a battle +always rises on naked corpses. + +Who does this? Who thus soils the triumph? What hideous, furtive hand is +that which is slipped into the pocket of victory? What pickpockets +are they who ply their trade in the rear of glory? Some +philosophers--Voltaire among the number--affirm that it is precisely +those persons have made the glory. It is the same men, they say; there +is no relief corps; those who are erect pillage those who are prone +on the earth. The hero of the day is the vampire of the night. One has +assuredly the right, after all, to strip a corpse a bit when one is the +author of that corpse. For our own part, we do not think so; it seems +to us impossible that the same hand should pluck laurels and purloin the +shoes from a dead man. + +One thing is certain, which is, that generally after conquerors follow +thieves. But let us leave the soldier, especially the contemporary +soldier, out of the question. + +Every army has a rear-guard, and it is that which must be blamed. +Bat-like creatures, half brigands and lackeys; all the sorts of +vespertillos that that twilight called war engenders; wearers of +uniforms, who take no part in the fighting; pretended invalids; +formidable limpers; interloping sutlers, trotting along in little carts, +sometimes accompanied by their wives, and stealing things which they +sell again; beggars offering themselves as guides to officers; soldiers' +servants; marauders; armies on the march in days gone by,--we are not +speaking of the present,--dragged all this behind them, so that in the +special language they are called "stragglers." No army, no nation, +was responsible for those beings; they spoke Italian and followed the +Germans, then spoke French and followed the English. It was by one of +these wretches, a Spanish straggler who spoke French, that the Marquis +of Fervacques, deceived by his Picard jargon, and taking him for one +of our own men, was traitorously slain and robbed on the battle-field +itself, in the course of the night which followed the victory of +Cerisoles. The rascal sprang from this marauding. The detestable maxim, +Live on the enemy! produced this leprosy, which a strict discipline +alone could heal. There are reputations which are deceptive; one does +not always know why certain generals, great in other directions, have +been so popular. Turenne was adored by his soldiers because he tolerated +pillage; evil permitted constitutes part of goodness. Turenne was so +good that he allowed the Palatinate to be delivered over to fire and +blood. The marauders in the train of an army were more or less in +number, according as the chief was more or less severe. Hoche and +Marceau had no stragglers; Wellington had few, and we do him the justice +to mention it. + +Nevertheless, on the night from the 18th to the 19th of June, the dead +were robbed. Wellington was rigid; he gave orders that any one caught in +the act should be shot; but rapine is tenacious. The marauders stole in +one corner of the battlefield while others were being shot in another. + +The moon was sinister over this plain. + +Towards midnight, a man was prowling about, or rather, climbing in the +direction of the hollow road of Ohain. To all appearance he was one of +those whom we have just described,--neither English nor French, neither +peasant nor soldier, less a man than a ghoul attracted by the scent +of the dead bodies having theft for his victory, and come to rifle +Waterloo. He was clad in a blouse that was something like a great coat; +he was uneasy and audacious; he walked forwards and gazed behind him. +Who was this man? The night probably knew more of him than the day. He +had no sack, but evidently he had large pockets under his coat. From +time to time he halted, scrutinized the plain around him as though to +see whether he were observed, bent over abruptly, disturbed something +silent and motionless on the ground, then rose and fled. His sliding +motion, his attitudes, his mysterious and rapid gestures, caused him +to resemble those twilight larvae which haunt ruins, and which ancient +Norman legends call the Alleurs. + +Certain nocturnal wading birds produce these silhouettes among the +marshes. + +A glance capable of piercing all that mist deeply would have perceived +at some distance a sort of little sutler's wagon with a fluted wicker +hood, harnessed to a famished nag which was cropping the grass across +its bit as it halted, hidden, as it were, behind the hovel which adjoins +the highway to Nivelles, at the angle of the road from Mont-Saint-Jean +to Braine l'Alleud; and in the wagon, a sort of woman seated on coffers +and packages. Perhaps there was some connection between that wagon and +that prowler. + +The darkness was serene. Not a cloud in the zenith. What matters it if +the earth be red! the moon remains white; these are the indifferences of +the sky. In the fields, branches of trees broken by grape-shot, but not +fallen, upheld by their bark, swayed gently in the breeze of night. +A breath, almost a respiration, moved the shrubbery. Quivers which +resembled the departure of souls ran through the grass. + +In the distance the coming and going of patrols and the general rounds +of the English camp were audible. + +Hougomont and La Haie-Sainte continued to burn, forming, one in the +west, the other in the east, two great flames which were joined by the +cordon of bivouac fires of the English, like a necklace of rubies +with two carbuncles at the extremities, as they extended in an immense +semicircle over the hills along the horizon. + +We have described the catastrophe of the road of Ohain. The heart is +terrified at the thought of what that death must have been to so many +brave men. + +If there is anything terrible, if there exists a reality which surpasses +dreams, it is this: to live, to see the sun; to be in full possession +of virile force; to possess health and joy; to laugh valiantly; to rush +towards a glory which one sees dazzling in front of one; to feel in +one's breast lungs which breathe, a heart which beats, a will which +reasons; to speak, think, hope, love; to have a mother, to have a wife, +to have children; to have the light--and all at once, in the space of a +shout, in less than a minute, to sink into an abyss; to fall, to +roll, to crush, to be crushed; to see ears of wheat, flowers, leaves, +branches; not to be able to catch hold of anything; to feel one's sword +useless, men beneath one, horses on top of one; to struggle in vain, +since one's bones have been broken by some kick in the darkness; to feel +a heel which makes one's eyes start from their sockets; to bite horses' +shoes in one's rage; to stifle, to yell, to writhe; to be beneath, and +to say to one's self, "But just a little while ago I was a living man!" + +There, where that lamentable disaster had uttered its death-rattle, +all was silence now. The edges of the hollow road were encumbered with +horses and riders, inextricably heaped up. Terrible entanglement! There +was no longer any slope, for the corpses had levelled the road with the +plain, and reached the brim like a well-filled bushel of barley. A +heap of dead bodies in the upper part, a river of blood in the lower +part--such was that road on the evening of the 18th of June, 1815. The +blood ran even to the Nivelles highway, and there overflowed in a large +pool in front of the abatis of trees which barred the way, at a spot +which is still pointed out. + +It will be remembered that it was at the opposite point, in the +direction of the Genappe road, that the destruction of the cuirassiers +had taken place. The thickness of the layer of bodies was proportioned +to the depth of the hollow road. Towards the middle, at the point +where it became level, where Delort's division had passed, the layer of +corpses was thinner. + +The nocturnal prowler whom we have just shown to the reader was going +in that direction. He was searching that vast tomb. He gazed about. He +passed the dead in some sort of hideous review. He walked with his feet +in the blood. + +All at once he paused. + +A few paces in front of him, in the hollow road, at the point where +the pile of dead came to an end, an open hand, illumined by the moon, +projected from beneath that heap of men. That hand had on its finger +something sparkling, which was a ring of gold. + +The man bent over, remained in a crouching attitude for a moment, and +when he rose there was no longer a ring on the hand. + +He did not precisely rise; he remained in a stooping and frightened +attitude, with his back turned to the heap of dead, scanning the horizon +on his knees, with the whole upper portion of his body supported on his +two forefingers, which rested on the earth, and his head peering above +the edge of the hollow road. The jackal's four paws suit some actions. + +Then coming to a decision, he rose to his feet. + +At that moment, he gave a terrible start. He felt some one clutch him +from behind. + +He wheeled round; it was the open hand, which had closed, and had seized +the skirt of his coat. + +An honest man would have been terrified; this man burst into a laugh. + +"Come," said he, "it's only a dead body. I prefer a spook to a +gendarme." + +But the hand weakened and released him. Effort is quickly exhausted in +the grave. + +"Well now," said the prowler, "is that dead fellow alive? Let's see." + +He bent down again, fumbled among the heap, pushed aside everything that +was in his way, seized the hand, grasped the arm, freed the head, pulled +out the body, and a few moments later he was dragging the lifeless, or +at least the unconscious, man, through the shadows of hollow road. He +was a cuirassier, an officer, and even an officer of considerable rank; +a large gold epaulette peeped from beneath the cuirass; this officer +no longer possessed a helmet. A furious sword-cut had scarred his face, +where nothing was discernible but blood. + +However, he did not appear to have any broken limbs, and, by some happy +chance, if that word is permissible here, the dead had been vaulted +above him in such a manner as to preserve him from being crushed. His +eyes were still closed. + +On his cuirass he wore the silver cross of the Legion of Honor. + +The prowler tore off this cross, which disappeared into one of the gulfs +which he had beneath his great coat. + +Then he felt of the officer's fob, discovered a watch there, and took +possession of it. Next he searched his waistcoat, found a purse and +pocketed it. + +When he had arrived at this stage of succor which he was administering +to this dying man, the officer opened his eyes. + +"Thanks," he said feebly. + +The abruptness of the movements of the man who was manipulating him, the +freshness of the night, the air which he could inhale freely, had roused +him from his lethargy. + +The prowler made no reply. He raised his head. A sound of footsteps was +audible in the plain; some patrol was probably approaching. + +The officer murmured, for the death agony was still in his voice:-- + +"Who won the battle?" + +"The English," answered the prowler. + +The officer went on:-- + +"Look in my pockets; you will find a watch and a purse. Take them." + +It was already done. + +The prowler executed the required feint, and said:-- + +"There is nothing there." + +"I have been robbed," said the officer; "I am sorry for that. You should +have had them." + +The steps of the patrol became more and more distinct. + +"Some one is coming," said the prowler, with the movement of a man who +is taking his departure. + +The officer raised his arm feebly, and detained him. + +"You have saved my life. Who are you?" + +The prowler answered rapidly, and in a low voice:-- + +"Like yourself, I belonged to the French army. I must leave you. If they +were to catch me, they would shoot me. I have saved your life. Now get +out of the scrape yourself." + +"What is your rank?" + +"Sergeant." + +"What is your name?" + +"Thenardier." + +"I shall not forget that name," said the officer; "and do you remember +mine. My name is Pontmercy." + + + + +BOOK SECOND.--THE SHIP ORION + + + + +CHAPTER I--NUMBER 24,601 BECOMES NUMBER 9,430 + +Jean Valjean had been recaptured. + +The reader will be grateful to us if we pass rapidly over the sad +details. We will confine ourselves to transcribing two paragraphs +published by the journals of that day, a few months after the surprising +events which had taken place at M. sur M. + +These articles are rather summary. It must be remembered, that at that +epoch the Gazette des Tribunaux was not yet in existence. + +We borrow the first from the Drapeau Blanc. It bears the date of July +25, 1823. + + +An arrondissement of the Pas de Calais has just been the theatre of an +event quite out of the ordinary course. A man, who was a stranger in the +Department, and who bore the name of M. Madeleine, had, thanks to the +new methods, resuscitated some years ago an ancient local industry, the +manufacture of jet and of black glass trinkets. He had made his fortune +in the business, and that of the arrondissement as well, we will admit. +He had been appointed mayor, in recognition of his services. The police +discovered that M. Madeleine was no other than an ex-convict who had +broken his ban, condemned in 1796 for theft, and named Jean Valjean. +Jean Valjean has been recommitted to prison. It appears that previous +to his arrest he had succeeded in withdrawing from the hands of M. +Laffitte, a sum of over half a million which he had lodged there, and +which he had, moreover, and by perfectly legitimate means, acquired in +his business. No one has been able to discover where Jean Valjean has +concealed this money since his return to prison at Toulon. + + +The second article, which enters a little more into detail, is an +extract from the Journal de Paris, of the same date. + +A former convict, who had been liberated, named Jean Valjean, has just +appeared before the Court of Assizes of the Var, under circumstances +calculated to attract attention. This wretch had succeeded in escaping +the vigilance of the police, he had changed his name, and had succeeded +in getting himself appointed mayor of one of our small northern towns; +in this town he had established a considerable commerce. He has at last +been unmasked and arrested, thanks to the indefatigable zeal of the +public prosecutor. He had for his concubine a woman of the town, who +died of a shock at the moment of his arrest. This scoundrel, who is +endowed with Herculean strength, found means to escape; but three or +four days after his flight the police laid their hands on him once more, +in Paris itself, at the very moment when he was entering one of those +little vehicles which run between the capital and the village of +Montfermeil (Seine-et-Oise). He is said to have profited by this +interval of three or four days of liberty, to withdraw a considerable +sum deposited by him with one of our leading bankers. This sum has been +estimated at six or seven hundred thousand francs. If the indictment is +to be trusted, he has hidden it in some place known to himself alone, +and it has not been possible to lay hands on it. However that may be, +the said Jean Valjean has just been brought before the Assizes of the +Department of the Var as accused of highway robbery accompanied with +violence, about eight years ago, on the person of one of those honest +children who, as the patriarch of Ferney has said, in immortal verse, + + + ". . . Arrive from Savoy every year, + And who, with gentle hands, do clear + Those long canals choked up with soot." + + +This bandit refused to defend himself. It was proved by the skilful and +eloquent representative of the public prosecutor, that the theft was +committed in complicity with others, and that Jean Valjean was a member +of a band of robbers in the south. Jean Valjean was pronounced guilty +and was condemned to the death penalty in consequence. This criminal +refused to lodge an appeal. The king, in his inexhaustible clemency, has +deigned to commute his penalty to that of penal servitude for life. Jean +Valjean was immediately taken to the prison at Toulon. + + +The reader has not forgotten that Jean Valjean had religious habits at +M. sur M. Some papers, among others the Constitutional, presented this +commutation as a triumph of the priestly party. + +Jean Valjean changed his number in the galleys. He was called 9,430. + +However, and we will mention it at once in order that we may not be +obliged to recur to the subject, the prosperity of M. sur M. vanished +with M. Madeleine; all that he had foreseen during his night of fever +and hesitation was realized; lacking him, there actually was a soul +lacking. After this fall, there took place at M. sur M. that egotistical +division of great existences which have fallen, that fatal dismemberment +of flourishing things which is accomplished every day, obscurely, in +the human community, and which history has noted only once, because it +occurred after the death of Alexander. Lieutenants are crowned kings; +superintendents improvise manufacturers out of themselves. Envious +rivalries arose. M. Madeleine's vast workshops were shut; his buildings +fell to ruin, his workmen were scattered. Some of them quitted the +country, others abandoned the trade. Thenceforth, everything was done +on a small scale, instead of on a grand scale; for lucre instead of +the general good. There was no longer a centre; everywhere there +was competition and animosity. M. Madeleine had reigned over all and +directed all. No sooner had he fallen, than each pulled things to +himself; the spirit of combat succeeded to the spirit of organization, +bitterness to cordiality, hatred of one another to the benevolence of +the founder towards all; the threads which M. Madeleine had set were +tangled and broken, the methods were adulterated, the products were +debased, confidence was killed; the market diminished, for lack of +orders; salaries were reduced, the workshops stood still, bankruptcy +arrived. And then there was nothing more for the poor. All had vanished. + +The state itself perceived that some one had been crushed somewhere. +Less than four years after the judgment of the Court of Assizes +establishing the identity of Jean Valjean and M. Madeleine, for the +benefit of the galleys, the cost of collecting taxes had doubled in the +arrondissement of M. sur M.; and M. de Villele called attention to the +fact in the rostrum, in the month of February, 1827. + + + + +CHAPTER II--IN WHICH THE READER WILL PERUSE TWO VERSES, WHICH ARE OF THE +DEVIL'S COMPOSITION, POSSIBLY + +Before proceeding further, it will be to the purpose to narrate in some +detail, a singular occurrence which took place at about the same epoch, +in Montfermeil, and which is not lacking in coincidence with certain +conjectures of the indictment. + +There exists in the region of Montfermeil a very ancient superstition, +which is all the more curious and all the more precious, because +a popular superstition in the vicinity of Paris is like an aloe in +Siberia. We are among those who respect everything which is in the +nature of a rare plant. Here, then, is the superstition of Montfermeil: +it is thought that the devil, from time immemorial, has selected the +forest as a hiding-place for his treasures. Goodwives affirm that it is +no rarity to encounter at nightfall, in secluded nooks of the forest, +a black man with the air of a carter or a wood-chopper, wearing wooden +shoes, clad in trousers and a blouse of linen, and recognizable by the +fact, that, instead of a cap or hat, he has two immense horns on his +head. This ought, in fact, to render him recognizable. This man is +habitually engaged in digging a hole. There are three ways of profiting +by such an encounter. The first is to approach the man and speak to him. +Then it is seen that the man is simply a peasant, that he appears black +because it is nightfall; that he is not digging any hole whatever, but +is cutting grass for his cows, and that what had been taken for horns +is nothing but a dung-fork which he is carrying on his back, and whose +teeth, thanks to the perspective of evening, seemed to spring from his +head. The man returns home and dies within the week. The second way is +to watch him, to wait until he has dug his hole, until he has filled it +and has gone away; then to run with great speed to the trench, to +open it once more and to seize the "treasure" which the black man +has necessarily placed there. In this case one dies within the month. +Finally, the last method is not to speak to the black man, not to look +at him, and to flee at the best speed of one's legs. One then dies +within the year. + +As all three methods are attended with their special inconveniences, the +second, which at all events, presents some advantages, among others that +of possessing a treasure, if only for a month, is the one most generally +adopted. So bold men, who are tempted by every chance, have quite +frequently, as we are assured, opened the holes excavated by the black +man, and tried to rob the devil. The success of the operation appears +to be but moderate. At least, if the tradition is to be believed, and in +particular the two enigmatical lines in barbarous Latin, which an +evil Norman monk, a bit of a sorcerer, named Tryphon has left on +this subject. This Tryphon is buried at the Abbey of Saint-Georges de +Bocherville, near Rouen, and toads spawn on his grave. + +Accordingly, enormous efforts are made. Such trenches are ordinarily +extremely deep; a man sweats, digs, toils all night--for it must be done +at night; he wets his shirt, burns out his candle, breaks his mattock, +and when he arrives at the bottom of the hole, when he lays his hand on +the "treasure," what does he find? What is the devil's treasure? A sou, +sometimes a crown-piece, a stone, a skeleton, a bleeding body, sometimes +a spectre folded in four like a sheet of paper in a portfolio, +sometimes nothing. This is what Tryphon's verses seem to announce to the +indiscreet and curious:-- + + "Fodit, et in fossa thesauros condit opaca, + As, nummas, lapides, cadaver, simulacra, nihilque." + + +It seems that in our day there is sometimes found a powder-horn with +bullets, sometimes an old pack of cards greasy and worn, which has +evidently served the devil. Tryphon does not record these two finds, +since Tryphon lived in the twelfth century, and since the devil does not +appear to have had the wit to invent powder before Roger Bacon's time, +and cards before the time of Charles VI. + +Moreover, if one plays at cards, one is sure to lose all that one +possesses! and as for the powder in the horn, it possesses the property +of making your gun burst in your face. + +Now, a very short time after the epoch when it seemed to the prosecuting +attorney that the liberated convict Jean Valjean during his flight of +several days had been prowling around Montfermeil, it was remarked in +that village that a certain old road-laborer, named Boulatruelle, had +"peculiar ways" in the forest. People thereabouts thought they knew that +this Boulatruelle had been in the galleys. He was subjected to +certain police supervision, and, as he could find work nowhere, the +administration employed him at reduced rates as a road-mender on the +cross-road from Gagny to Lagny. + +This Boulatruelle was a man who was viewed with disfavor by the +inhabitants of the district as too respectful, too humble, too prompt in +removing his cap to every one, and trembling and smiling in the presence +of the gendarmes,--probably affiliated to robber bands, they said; +suspected of lying in ambush at verge of copses at nightfall. The only +thing in his favor was that he was a drunkard. + +This is what people thought they had noticed:-- + +Of late, Boulatruelle had taken to quitting his task of stone-breaking +and care of the road at a very early hour, and to betaking himself to +the forest with his pickaxe. He was encountered towards evening in +the most deserted clearings, in the wildest thickets; and he had the +appearance of being in search of something, and sometimes he was digging +holes. The goodwives who passed took him at first for Beelzebub; then +they recognized Boulatruelle, and were not in the least reassured +thereby. These encounters seemed to cause Boulatruelle a lively +displeasure. It was evident that he sought to hide, and that there was +some mystery in what he was doing. + +It was said in the village: "It is clear that the devil has appeared. +Boulatruelle has seen him, and is on the search. In sooth, he is cunning +enough to pocket Lucifer's hoard." + +The Voltairians added, "Will Boulatruelle catch the devil, or will the +devil catch Boulatruelle?" The old women made a great many signs of the +cross. + +In the meantime, Boulatruelle's manoeuvres in the forest ceased; and he +resumed his regular occupation of roadmending; and people gossiped of +something else. + +Some persons, however, were still curious, surmising that in all this +there was probably no fabulous treasure of the legends, but some +fine windfall of a more serious and palpable sort than the devil's +bank-bills, and that the road-mender had half discovered the secret. The +most "puzzled" were the school-master and Thenardier, the proprietor of +the tavern, who was everybody's friend, and had not disdained to ally +himself with Boulatruelle. + +"He has been in the galleys," said Thenardier. "Eh! Good God! no one +knows who has been there or will be there." + +One evening the schoolmaster affirmed that in former times the law would +have instituted an inquiry as to what Boulatruelle did in the forest, +and that the latter would have been forced to speak, and that he would +have been put to the torture in case of need, and that Boulatruelle +would not have resisted the water test, for example. "Let us put him to +the wine test," said Thenardier. + +They made an effort, and got the old road-mender to drinking. +Boulatruelle drank an enormous amount, but said very little. He combined +with admirable art, and in masterly proportions, the thirst of a +gormandizer with the discretion of a judge. Nevertheless, by dint of +returning to the charge and of comparing and putting together the few +obscure words which he did allow to escape him, this is what Thenardier +and the schoolmaster imagined that they had made out:-- + +One morning, when Boulatruelle was on his way to his work, at daybreak, +he had been surprised to see, at a nook of the forest in the underbrush, +a shovel and a pickaxe, concealed, as one might say. + +However, he might have supposed that they were probably the shovel and +pick of Father Six-Fours, the water-carrier, and would have thought no +more about it. But, on the evening of that day, he saw, without being +seen himself, as he was hidden by a large tree, "a person who did not +belong in those parts, and whom he, Boulatruelle, knew well," directing +his steps towards the densest part of the wood. Translation by +Thenardier: A comrade of the galleys. Boulatruelle obstinately refused +to reveal his name. This person carried a package--something square, +like a large box or a small trunk. Surprise on the part of Boulatruelle. +However, it was only after the expiration of seven or eight minutes that +the idea of following that "person" had occurred to him. But it was too +late; the person was already in the thicket, night had descended, and +Boulatruelle had not been able to catch up with him. Then he had +adopted the course of watching for him at the edge of the woods. "It was +moonlight." Two or three hours later, Boulatruelle had seen this person +emerge from the brushwood, carrying no longer the coffer, but a shovel +and pick. Boulatruelle had allowed the person to pass, and had not +dreamed of accosting him, because he said to himself that the other man +was three times as strong as he was, and armed with a pickaxe, and that +he would probably knock him over the head on recognizing him, and on +perceiving that he was recognized. Touching effusion of two old comrades +on meeting again. But the shovel and pick had served as a ray of light +to Boulatruelle; he had hastened to the thicket in the morning, and had +found neither shovel nor pick. From this he had drawn the inference that +this person, once in the forest, had dug a hole with his pick, buried +the coffer, and reclosed the hole with his shovel. Now, the coffer was +too small to contain a body; therefore it contained money. Hence his +researches. Boulatruelle had explored, sounded, searched the entire +forest and the thicket, and had dug wherever the earth appeared to him +to have been recently turned up. In vain. + +He had "ferreted out" nothing. No one in Montfermeil thought any more +about it. There were only a few brave gossips, who said, "You may be +certain that the mender on the Gagny road did not take all that trouble +for nothing; he was sure that the devil had come." + + + + +CHAPTER III--THE ANKLE-CHAIN MUST HAVE UNDERGONE A CERTAIN PREPARATORY +MANIPULATION TO BE THUS BROKEN WITH A BLOW FROM A HAMMER + +Towards the end of October, in that same year, 1823, the inhabitants of +Toulon beheld the entry into their port, after heavy weather, and for +the purpose of repairing some damages, of the ship Orion, which was +employed later at Brest as a school-ship, and which then formed a part +of the Mediterranean squadron. + +This vessel, battered as it was,--for the sea had handled it +roughly,--produced a fine effect as it entered the roads. It flew some +colors which procured for it the regulation salute of eleven guns, which +it returned, shot for shot; total, twenty-two. It has been calculated +that what with salvos, royal and military politenesses, courteous +exchanges of uproar, signals of etiquette, formalities of roadsteads and +citadels, sunrises and sunsets, saluted every day by all fortresses and +all ships of war, openings and closings of ports, etc., the civilized +world, discharged all over the earth, in the course of four and twenty +hours, one hundred and fifty thousand useless shots. At six francs the +shot, that comes to nine hundred thousand francs a day, three hundred +millions a year, which vanish in smoke. This is a mere detail. All this +time the poor were dying of hunger. + +The year 1823 was what the Restoration called "the epoch of the Spanish +war." + +This war contained many events in one, and a quantity of peculiarities. +A grand family affair for the house of Bourbon; the branch of France +succoring and protecting the branch of Madrid, that is to say, +performing an act devolving on the elder; an apparent return to our +national traditions, complicated by servitude and by subjection to the +cabinets of the North; M. le Duc d'Angouleme, surnamed by the liberal +sheets the hero of Andujar, compressing in a triumphal attitude that +was somewhat contradicted by his peaceable air, the ancient and very +powerful terrorism of the Holy Office at variance with the chimerical +terrorism of the liberals; the sansculottes resuscitated, to the great +terror of dowagers, under the name of descamisados; monarchy opposing an +obstacle to progress described as anarchy; the theories of '89 roughly +interrupted in the sap; a European halt, called to the French idea, +which was making the tour of the world; beside the son of France as +generalissimo, the Prince de Carignan, afterwards Charles Albert, +enrolling himself in that crusade of kings against people as a +volunteer, with grenadier epaulets of red worsted; the soldiers of the +Empire setting out on a fresh campaign, but aged, saddened, after eight +years of repose, and under the white cockade; the tricolored standard +waved abroad by a heroic handful of Frenchmen, as the white standard had +been thirty years earlier at Coblentz; monks mingled with our troops; +the spirit of liberty and of novelty brought to its senses by bayonets; +principles slaughtered by cannonades; France undoing by her arms that +which she had done by her mind; in addition to this, hostile leaders +sold, soldiers hesitating, cities besieged by millions; no military +perils, and yet possible explosions, as in every mine which is surprised +and invaded; but little bloodshed, little honor won, shame for some, +glory for no one. Such was this war, made by the princes descended from +Louis XIV., and conducted by generals who had been under Napoleon. Its +sad fate was to recall neither the grand war nor grand politics. + +Some feats of arms were serious; the taking of the Trocadero, among +others, was a fine military action; but after all, we repeat, the +trumpets of this war give back a cracked sound, the whole effect was +suspicious; history approves of France for making a difficulty about +accepting this false triumph. It seemed evident that certain Spanish +officers charged with resistance yielded too easily; the idea of +corruption was connected with the victory; it appears as though generals +and not battles had been won, and the conquering soldier returned +humiliated. A debasing war, in short, in which the Bank of France could +be read in the folds of the flag. + +Soldiers of the war of 1808, on whom Saragossa had fallen in formidable +ruin, frowned in 1823 at the easy surrender of citadels, and began to +regret Palafox. It is the nature of France to prefer to have Rostopchine +rather than Ballesteros in front of her. + +From a still more serious point of view, and one which it is also proper +to insist upon here, this war, which wounded the military spirit +of France, enraged the democratic spirit. It was an enterprise of +inthralment. In that campaign, the object of the French soldier, the +son of democracy, was the conquest of a yoke for others. A hideous +contradiction. France is made to arouse the soul of nations, not to +stifle it. All the revolutions of Europe since 1792 are the French +Revolution: liberty darts rays from France. That is a solar fact. Blind +is he who will not see! It was Bonaparte who said it. + +The war of 1823, an outrage on the generous Spanish nation, was then, +at the same time, an outrage on the French Revolution. It was France +who committed this monstrous violence; by foul means, for, with the +exception of wars of liberation, everything that armies do is by foul +means. The words passive obedience indicate this. An army is a strange +masterpiece of combination where force results from an enormous sum +of impotence. Thus is war, made by humanity against humanity, despite +humanity, explained. + +As for the Bourbons, the war of 1823 was fatal to them. They took it for +a success. They did not perceive the danger that lies in having an idea +slain to order. They went astray, in their innocence, to such a degree +that they introduced the immense enfeeblement of a crime into their +establishment as an element of strength. The spirit of the ambush +entered into their politics. 1830 had its germ in 1823. The Spanish +campaign became in their counsels an argument for force and for +adventures by right Divine. France, having re-established elrey netto +in Spain, might well have re-established the absolute king at home. They +fell into the alarming error of taking the obedience of the soldier for +the consent of the nation. Such confidence is the ruin of thrones. It is +not permitted to fall asleep, either in the shadow of a machineel tree, +nor in the shadow of an army. + +Let us return to the ship Orion. + +During the operations of the army commanded by the prince generalissimo, +a squadron had been cruising in the Mediterranean. We have just stated +that the Orion belonged to this fleet, and that accidents of the sea had +brought it into port at Toulon. + +The presence of a vessel of war in a port has something about it which +attracts and engages a crowd. It is because it is great, and the crowd +loves what is great. + +A ship of the line is one of the most magnificent combinations of the +genius of man with the powers of nature. + +A ship of the line is composed, at the same time, of the heaviest and +the lightest of possible matter, for it deals at one and the same time +with three forms of substance,--solid, liquid, and fluid,--and it must +do battle with all three. It has eleven claws of iron with which to +seize the granite on the bottom of the sea, and more wings and more +antennae than winged insects, to catch the wind in the clouds. Its +breath pours out through its hundred and twenty cannons as through +enormous trumpets, and replies proudly to the thunder. The ocean seeks +to lead it astray in the alarming sameness of its billows, but the +vessel has its soul, its compass, which counsels it and always shows it +the north. In the blackest nights, its lanterns supply the place of +the stars. Thus, against the wind, it has its cordage and its canvas; +against the water, wood; against the rocks, its iron, brass, and lead; +against the shadows, its light; against immensity, a needle. + +If one wishes to form an idea of all those gigantic proportions which, +taken as a whole, constitute the ship of the line, one has only to enter +one of the six-story covered construction stocks, in the ports of Brest +or Toulon. The vessels in process of construction are under a bell-glass +there, as it were. This colossal beam is a yard; that great column of +wood which stretches out on the earth as far as the eye can reach is +the main-mast. Taking it from its root in the stocks to its tip in the +clouds, it is sixty fathoms long, and its diameter at its base is +three feet. The English main-mast rises to a height of two hundred and +seventeen feet above the water-line. The navy of our fathers employed +cables, ours employs chains. The simple pile of chains on a ship of a +hundred guns is four feet high, twenty feet in breadth, and eight +feet in depth. And how much wood is required to make this ship? Three +thousand cubic metres. It is a floating forest. + +And moreover, let this be borne in mind, it is only a question here of +the military vessel of forty years ago, of the simple sailing-vessel; +steam, then in its infancy, has since added new miracles to that prodigy +which is called a war vessel. At the present time, for example, the +mixed vessel with a screw is a surprising machine, propelled by three +thousand square metres of canvas and by an engine of two thousand five +hundred horse-power. + +Not to mention these new marvels, the ancient vessel of Christopher +Columbus and of De Ruyter is one of the masterpieces of man. It is as +inexhaustible in force as is the Infinite in gales; it stores up +the wind in its sails, it is precise in the immense vagueness of the +billows, it floats, and it reigns. + +There comes an hour, nevertheless, when the gale breaks that sixty-foot +yard like a straw, when the wind bends that mast four hundred feet tall, +when that anchor, which weighs tens of thousands, is twisted in the jaws +of the waves like a fisherman's hook in the jaws of a pike, when those +monstrous cannons utter plaintive and futile roars, which the hurricane +bears forth into the void and into night, when all that power and all +that majesty are engulfed in a power and majesty which are superior. + +Every time that immense force is displayed to culminate in an immense +feebleness it affords men food for thought, Hence in the ports curious +people abound around these marvellous machines of war and of navigation, +without being able to explain perfectly to themselves why. Every day, +accordingly, from morning until night, the quays, sluices, and the +jetties of the port of Toulon were covered with a multitude of idlers +and loungers, as they say in Paris, whose business consisted in staring +at the Orion. + +The Orion was a ship that had been ailing for a long time; in the course +of its previous cruises thick layers of barnacles had collected on its +keel to such a degree as to deprive it of half its speed; it had gone +into the dry dock the year before this, in order to have the barnacles +scraped off, then it had put to sea again; but this cleaning had +affected the bolts of the keel: in the neighborhood of the Balearic +Isles the sides had been strained and had opened; and, as the plating +in those days was not of sheet iron, the vessel had sprung a leak. +A violent equinoctial gale had come up, which had first staved in +a grating and a porthole on the larboard side, and damaged the +foretop-gallant-shrouds; in consequence of these injuries, the Orion had +run back to Toulon. + +It anchored near the Arsenal; it was fully equipped, and repairs were +begun. The hull had received no damage on the starboard, but some of the +planks had been unnailed here and there, according to custom, to permit +of air entering the hold. + +One morning the crowd which was gazing at it witnessed an accident. + +[Illustration: The Ship Orion, An Accident 2b2-1-the-ship-orion] + +The crew was busy bending the sails; the topman, who had to take the +upper corner of the main-top-sail on the starboard, lost his balance; +he was seen to waver; the multitude thronging the Arsenal quay uttered a +cry; the man's head overbalanced his body; the man fell around the yard, +with his hands outstretched towards the abyss; on his way he seized the +footrope, first with one hand, then with the other, and remained hanging +from it: the sea lay below him at a dizzy depth; the shock of his fall +had imparted to the foot-rope a violent swinging motion; the man swayed +back and forth at the end of that rope, like a stone in a sling. + +It was incurring a frightful risk to go to his assistance; not one +of the sailors, all fishermen of the coast, recently levied for the +service, dared to attempt it. In the meantime, the unfortunate topman +was losing his strength; his anguish could not be discerned on his face, +but his exhaustion was visible in every limb; his arms were contracted +in horrible twitchings; every effort which he made to re-ascend served +but to augment the oscillations of the foot-rope; he did not shout, for +fear of exhausting his strength. All were awaiting the minute when he +should release his hold on the rope, and, from instant to instant, heads +were turned aside that his fall might not be seen. There are moments +when a bit of rope, a pole, the branch of a tree, is life itself, and +it is a terrible thing to see a living being detach himself from it and +fall like a ripe fruit. + +All at once a man was seen climbing into the rigging with the agility +of a tiger-cat; this man was dressed in red; he was a convict; he wore a +green cap; he was a life convict. On arriving on a level with the top, a +gust of wind carried away his cap, and allowed a perfectly white head to +be seen: he was not a young man. + +A convict employed on board with a detachment from the galleys had, in +fact, at the very first instant, hastened to the officer of the watch, +and, in the midst of the consternation and the hesitation of the crew, +while all the sailors were trembling and drawing back, he had asked +the officer's permission to risk his life to save the topman; at an +affirmative sign from the officer he had broken the chain riveted to his +ankle with one blow of a hammer, then he had caught up a rope, and had +dashed into the rigging: no one noticed, at the instant, with what ease +that chain had been broken; it was only later on that the incident was +recalled. + +In a twinkling he was on the yard; he paused for a few seconds and +appeared to be measuring it with his eye; these seconds, during which +the breeze swayed the topman at the extremity of a thread, seemed +centuries to those who were looking on. At last, the convict raised his +eyes to heaven and advanced a step: the crowd drew a long breath. He was +seen to run out along the yard: on arriving at the point, he fastened +the rope which he had brought to it, and allowed the other end to hang +down, then he began to descend the rope, hand over hand, and then,--and +the anguish was indescribable,--instead of one man suspended over the +gulf, there were two. + +One would have said it was a spider coming to seize a fly, only here the +spider brought life, not death. Ten thousand glances were fastened on +this group; not a cry, not a word; the same tremor contracted every +brow; all mouths held their breath as though they feared to add the +slightest puff to the wind which was swaying the two unfortunate men. + +In the meantime, the convict had succeeded in lowering himself to a +position near the sailor. It was high time; one minute more, and the +exhausted and despairing man would have allowed himself to fall into +the abyss. The convict had moored him securely with the cord to which +he clung with one hand, while he was working with the other. At last, he +was seen to climb back on the yard, and to drag the sailor up after him; +he held him there a moment to allow him to recover his strength, then he +grasped him in his arms and carried him, walking on the yard himself to +the cap, and from there to the main-top, where he left him in the hands +of his comrades. + +At that moment the crowd broke into applause: old convict-sergeants +among them wept, and women embraced each other on the quay, and all +voices were heard to cry with a sort of tender rage, "Pardon for that +man!" + +He, in the meantime, had immediately begun to make his descent to rejoin +his detachment. In order to reach them the more speedily, he dropped +into the rigging, and ran along one of the lower yards; all eyes were +following him. At a certain moment fear assailed them; whether it was +that he was fatigued, or that his head turned, they thought they saw him +hesitate and stagger. All at once the crowd uttered a loud shout: the +convict had fallen into the sea. + +The fall was perilous. The frigate Algesiras was anchored alongside the +Orion, and the poor convict had fallen between the two vessels: it was +to be feared that he would slip under one or the other of them. Four men +flung themselves hastily into a boat; the crowd cheered them on; +anxiety again took possession of all souls; the man had not risen to +the surface; he had disappeared in the sea without leaving a ripple, as +though he had fallen into a cask of oil: they sounded, they dived. In +vain. The search was continued until the evening: they did not even find +the body. + +On the following day the Toulon newspaper printed these lines:-- + +"Nov. 17, 1823. Yesterday, a convict belonging to the detachment on +board of the Orion, on his return from rendering assistance to a sailor, +fell into the sea and was drowned. The body has not yet been found; it +is supposed that it is entangled among the piles of the Arsenal point: +this man was committed under the number 9,430, and his name was Jean +Valjean." + + + + + +BOOK THIRD.--ACCOMPLISHMENT OF THE PROMISE MADE TO THE DEAD WOMAN + + + + +CHAPTER I--THE WATER QUESTION AT MONTFERMEIL + +Montfermeil is situated between Livry and Chelles, on the southern edge +of that lofty table-land which separates the Ourcq from the Marne. At +the present day it is a tolerably large town, ornamented all the year +through with plaster villas, and on Sundays with beaming bourgeois. In +1823 there were at Montfermeil neither so many white houses nor so +many well-satisfied citizens: it was only a village in the forest. Some +pleasure-houses of the last century were to be met with there, to be +sure, which were recognizable by their grand air, their balconies in +twisted iron, and their long windows, whose tiny panes cast all sorts +of varying shades of green on the white of the closed shutters; but +Montfermeil was none the less a village. Retired cloth-merchants and +rusticating attorneys had not discovered it as yet; it was a peaceful +and charming place, which was not on the road to anywhere: there people +lived, and cheaply, that peasant rustic life which is so bounteous and +so easy; only, water was rare there, on account of the elevation of the +plateau. + +It was necessary to fetch it from a considerable distance; the end of +the village towards Gagny drew its water from the magnificent ponds +which exist in the woods there. The other end, which surrounds the +church and which lies in the direction of Chelles, found drinking-water +only at a little spring half-way down the slope, near the road to +Chelles, about a quarter of an hour from Montfermeil. + +Thus each household found it hard work to keep supplied with water. The +large houses, the aristocracy, of which the Thenardier tavern formed a +part, paid half a farthing a bucketful to a man who made a business of +it, and who earned about eight sous a day in his enterprise of supplying +Montfermeil with water; but this good man only worked until seven +o'clock in the evening in summer, and five in winter; and night once +come and the shutters on the ground floor once closed, he who had no +water to drink went to fetch it for himself or did without it. + +This constituted the terror of the poor creature whom the reader has +probably not forgotten,--little Cosette. It will be remembered that +Cosette was useful to the Thenardiers in two ways: they made the mother +pay them, and they made the child serve them. So when the mother ceased +to pay altogether, the reason for which we have read in preceding +chapters, the Thenardiers kept Cosette. She took the place of a servant +in their house. In this capacity she it was who ran to fetch water when +it was required. So the child, who was greatly terrified at the idea of +going to the spring at night, took great care that water should never be +lacking in the house. + +Christmas of the year 1823 was particularly brilliant at Montfermeil. +The beginning of the winter had been mild; there had been neither snow +nor frost up to that time. Some mountebanks from Paris had obtained +permission of the mayor to erect their booths in the principal street of +the village, and a band of itinerant merchants, under protection of the +same tolerance, had constructed their stalls on the Church Square, +and even extended them into Boulanger Alley, where, as the reader will +perhaps remember, the Thenardiers' hostelry was situated. These people +filled the inns and drinking-shops, and communicated to that tranquil +little district a noisy and joyous life. In order to play the part of +a faithful historian, we ought even to add that, among the curiosities +displayed in the square, there was a menagerie, in which frightful +clowns, clad in rags and coming no one knew whence, exhibited to +the peasants of Montfermeil in 1823 one of those horrible Brazilian +vultures, such as our Royal Museum did not possess until 1845, and which +have a tricolored cockade for an eye. I believe that naturalists call +this bird Caracara Polyborus; it belongs to the order of the Apicides, +and to the family of the vultures. Some good old Bonapartist soldiers, +who had retired to the village, went to see this creature with great +devotion. The mountebanks gave out that the tricolored cockade was a +unique phenomenon made by God expressly for their menagerie. + +On Christmas eve itself, a number of men, carters, and peddlers, were +seated at table, drinking and smoking around four or five candles in +the public room of Thenardier's hostelry. This room resembled all +drinking-shop rooms,--tables, pewter jugs, bottles, drinkers, smokers; +but little light and a great deal of noise. The date of the year 1823 +was indicated, nevertheless, by two objects which were then fashionable +in the bourgeois class: to wit, a kaleidoscope and a lamp of ribbed tin. +The female Thenardier was attending to the supper, which was roasting in +front of a clear fire; her husband was drinking with his customers and +talking politics. + +Besides political conversations which had for their principal subjects +the Spanish war and M. le Duc d'Angouleme, strictly local parentheses, +like the following, were audible amid the uproar:-- + +"About Nanterre and Suresnes the vines have flourished greatly. When +ten pieces were reckoned on there have been twelve. They have yielded a +great deal of juice under the press." "But the grapes cannot be ripe?" +"In those parts the grapes should not be ripe; the wine turns oily as +soon as spring comes." "Then it is very thin wine?" "There are wines +poorer even than these. The grapes must be gathered while green." Etc. + +Or a miller would call out:-- + +"Are we responsible for what is in the sacks? We find in them a quantity +of small seed which we cannot sift out, and which we are obliged to send +through the mill-stones; there are tares, fennel, vetches, hempseed, +fox-tail, and a host of other weeds, not to mention pebbles, which +abound in certain wheat, especially in Breton wheat. I am not fond of +grinding Breton wheat, any more than long-sawyers like to saw beams with +nails in them. You can judge of the bad dust that makes in grinding. And +then people complain of the flour. They are in the wrong. The flour is +no fault of ours." + +In a space between two windows a mower, who was seated at table with a +landed proprietor who was fixing on a price for some meadow work to be +performed in the spring, was saying:-- + +"It does no harm to have the grass wet. It cuts better. Dew is a good +thing, sir. It makes no difference with that grass. Your grass is young +and very hard to cut still. It's terribly tender. It yields before the +iron." Etc. + +Cosette was in her usual place, seated on the cross-bar of the kitchen +table near the chimney. She was in rags; her bare feet were thrust into +wooden shoes, and by the firelight she was engaged in knitting woollen +stockings destined for the young Thenardiers. A very young kitten was +playing about among the chairs. Laughter and chatter were audible in +the adjoining room, from two fresh children's voices: it was Eponine and +Azelma. + +In the chimney-corner a cat-o'-nine-tails was hanging on a nail. + +At intervals the cry of a very young child, which was somewhere in the +house, rang through the noise of the dram-shop. It was a little boy +who had been born to the Thenardiers during one of the preceding +winters,--"she did not know why," she said, "the result of the +cold,"--and who was a little more than three years old. The mother had +nursed him, but she did not love him. When the persistent clamor of the +brat became too annoying, "Your son is squalling," Thenardier would +say; "do go and see what he wants." "Bah!" the mother would reply, "he +bothers me." And the neglected child continued to shriek in the dark. + + + + +CHAPTER II--TWO COMPLETE PORTRAITS + +So far in this book the Thenardiers have been viewed only in profile; +the moment has arrived for making the circuit of this couple, and +considering it under all its aspects. + +Thenardier had just passed his fiftieth birthday; Madame Thenardier was +approaching her forties, which is equivalent to fifty in a woman; so +that there existed a balance of age between husband and wife. + +Our readers have possibly preserved some recollection of this Thenardier +woman, ever since her first appearance,--tall, blond, red, fat, angular, +square, enormous, and agile; she belonged, as we have said, to the +race of those colossal wild women, who contort themselves at fairs with +paving-stones hanging from their hair. She did everything about the +house,--made the beds, did the washing, the cooking, and everything +else. Cosette was her only servant; a mouse in the service of an +elephant. Everything trembled at the sound of her voice,--window panes, +furniture, and people. Her big face, dotted with red blotches, +presented the appearance of a skimmer. She had a beard. She was an ideal +market-porter dressed in woman's clothes. She swore splendidly; she +boasted of being able to crack a nut with one blow of her fist. Except +for the romances which she had read, and which made the affected lady +peep through the ogress at times, in a very queer way, the idea would +never have occurred to any one to say of her, "That is a woman." +This Thenardier female was like the product of a wench engrafted on a +fishwife. When one heard her speak, one said, "That is a gendarme"; when +one saw her drink, one said, "That is a carter"; when one saw her handle +Cosette, one said, "That is the hangman." One of her teeth projected +when her face was in repose. + +Thenardier was a small, thin, pale, angular, bony, feeble man, who had +a sickly air and who was wonderfully healthy. His cunning began here; +he smiled habitually, by way of precaution, and was almost polite to +everybody, even to the beggar to whom he refused half a farthing. He had +the glance of a pole-cat and the bearing of a man of letters. He greatly +resembled the portraits of the Abbe Delille. His coquetry consisted in +drinking with the carters. No one had ever succeeded in rendering him +drunk. He smoked a big pipe. He wore a blouse, and under his blouse an +old black coat. He made pretensions to literature and to materialism. +There were certain names which he often pronounced to support whatever +things he might be saying,--Voltaire, Raynal, Parny, and, singularly +enough, Saint Augustine. He declared that he had "a system." In +addition, he was a great swindler. A filousophe [philosophe], a +scientific thief. The species does exist. It will be remembered that he +pretended to have served in the army; he was in the habit of relating +with exuberance, how, being a sergeant in the 6th or the 9th light +something or other, at Waterloo, he had alone, and in the presence of a +squadron of death-dealing hussars, covered with his body and saved +from death, in the midst of the grape-shot, "a general, who had been +dangerously wounded." Thence arose for his wall the flaring sign, and +for his inn the name which it bore in the neighborhood, of "the cabaret +of the Sergeant of Waterloo." He was a liberal, a classic, and a +Bonapartist. He had subscribed for the Champ d'Asile. It was said in the +village that he had studied for the priesthood. + +We believe that he had simply studied in Holland for an inn-keeper. This +rascal of composite order was, in all probability, some Fleming from +Lille, in Flanders, a Frenchman in Paris, a Belgian at Brussels, being +comfortably astride of both frontiers. As for his prowess at Waterloo, +the reader is already acquainted with that. It will be perceived that +he exaggerated it a trifle. Ebb and flow, wandering, adventure, was +the leven of his existence; a tattered conscience entails a fragmentary +life, and, apparently at the stormy epoch of June 18, 1815, Thenardier +belonged to that variety of marauding sutlers of which we have spoken, +beating about the country, selling to some, stealing from others, and +travelling like a family man, with wife and children, in a rickety +cart, in the rear of troops on the march, with an instinct for always +attaching himself to the victorious army. This campaign ended, and +having, as he said, "some quibus," he had come to Montfermeil and set up +an inn there. + +This quibus, composed of purses and watches, of gold rings and silver +crosses, gathered in harvest-time in furrows sown with corpses, did +not amount to a large total, and did not carry this sutler turned +eating-house-keeper very far. + +Thenardier had that peculiar rectilinear something about his gestures +which, accompanied by an oath, recalls the barracks, and by a sign +of the cross, the seminary. He was a fine talker. He allowed it to be +thought that he was an educated man. Nevertheless, the schoolmaster had +noticed that he pronounced improperly.[12] + +He composed the travellers' tariff card in a superior manner, but +practised eyes sometimes spied out orthographical errors in it. +Thenardier was cunning, greedy, slothful, and clever. He did not disdain +his servants, which caused his wife to dispense with them. This giantess +was jealous. It seemed to her that that thin and yellow little man must +be an object coveted by all. + +Thenardier, who was, above all, an astute and well-balanced man, was a +scamp of a temperate sort. This is the worst species; hypocrisy enters +into it. + +It is not that Thenardier was not, on occasion, capable of wrath to +quite the same degree as his wife; but this was very rare, and at such +times, since he was enraged with the human race in general, as he bore +within him a deep furnace of hatred. And since he was one of those +people who are continually avenging their wrongs, who accuse everything +that passes before them of everything which has befallen them, and who +are always ready to cast upon the first person who comes to hand, as a +legitimate grievance, the sum total of the deceptions, the bankruptcies, +and the calamities of their lives,--when all this leaven was stirred up +in him and boiled forth from his mouth and eyes, he was terrible. Woe to +the person who came under his wrath at such a time! + +In addition to his other qualities, Thenardier was attentive and +penetrating, silent or talkative, according to circumstances, and always +highly intelligent. He had something of the look of sailors, who are +accustomed to screw up their eyes to gaze through marine glasses. +Thenardier was a statesman. + +Every new-comer who entered the tavern said, on catching sight of Madame +Thenardier, "There is the master of the house." A mistake. She was not +even the mistress. The husband was both master and mistress. She worked; +he created. He directed everything by a sort of invisible and constant +magnetic action. A word was sufficient for him, sometimes a sign; the +mastodon obeyed. Thenardier was a sort of special and sovereign being in +Madame Thenardier's eyes, though she did not thoroughly realize it. +She was possessed of virtues after her own kind; if she had ever had a +disagreement as to any detail with "Monsieur Thenardier,"--which was +an inadmissible hypothesis, by the way,--she would not have blamed +her husband in public on any subject whatever. She would never have +committed "before strangers" that mistake so often committed by women, +and which is called in parliamentary language, "exposing the crown." +Although their concord had only evil as its result, there was +contemplation in Madame Thenardier's submission to her husband. That +mountain of noise and of flesh moved under the little finger of that +frail despot. Viewed on its dwarfed and grotesque side, this was that +grand and universal thing, the adoration of mind by matter; for certain +ugly features have a cause in the very depths of eternal beauty. There +was an unknown quantity about Thenardier; hence the absolute empire +of the man over that woman. At certain moments she beheld him like a +lighted candle; at others she felt him like a claw. + +This woman was a formidable creature who loved no one except her +children, and who did not fear any one except her husband. She was a +mother because she was mammiferous. But her maternity stopped short with +her daughters, and, as we shall see, did not extend to boys. The man had +but one thought,--how to enrich himself. + +He did not succeed in this. A theatre worthy of this great talent was +lacking. Thenardier was ruining himself at Montfermeil, if ruin is +possible to zero; in Switzerland or in the Pyrenees this penniless scamp +would have become a millionaire; but an inn-keeper must browse where +fate has hitched him. + +It will be understood that the word inn-keeper is here employed in a +restricted sense, and does not extend to an entire class. + +In this same year, 1823, Thenardier was burdened with about fifteen +hundred francs' worth of petty debts, and this rendered him anxious. + +Whatever may have been the obstinate injustice of destiny in this case, +Thenardier was one of those men who understand best, with the most +profundity and in the most modern fashion, that thing which is a virtue +among barbarous peoples and an object of merchandise among civilized +peoples,--hospitality. Besides, he was an admirable poacher, and quoted +for his skill in shooting. He had a certain cold and tranquil laugh, +which was particularly dangerous. + +His theories as a landlord sometimes burst forth in lightning flashes. +He had professional aphorisms, which he inserted into his wife's mind. +"The duty of the inn-keeper," he said to her one day, violently, and in +a low voice, "is to sell to the first comer, stews, repose, light, fire, +dirty sheets, a servant, lice, and a smile; to stop passers-by, to empty +small purses, and to honestly lighten heavy ones; to shelter travelling +families respectfully: to shave the man, to pluck the woman, to pick +the child clean; to quote the window open, the window shut, the +chimney-corner, the arm-chair, the chair, the ottoman, the stool, the +feather-bed, the mattress and the truss of straw; to know how much +the shadow uses up the mirror, and to put a price on it; and, by five +hundred thousand devils, to make the traveller pay for everything, even +for the flies which his dog eats!" + +This man and this woman were ruse and rage wedded--a hideous and +terrible team. + +While the husband pondered and combined, Madame Thenardier thought not +of absent creditors, took no heed of yesterday nor of to-morrow, and +lived in a fit of anger, all in a minute. + +Such were these two beings. Cosette was between them, subjected to their +double pressure, like a creature who is at the same time being ground up +in a mill and pulled to pieces with pincers. The man and the woman each +had a different method: Cosette was overwhelmed with blows--this was the +woman's; she went barefooted in winter--that was the man's doing. + +Cosette ran up stairs and down, washed, swept, rubbed, dusted, ran, +fluttered about, panted, moved heavy articles, and weak as she was, +did the coarse work. There was no mercy for her; a fierce mistress and +venomous master. The Thenardier hostelry was like a spider's web, in +which Cosette had been caught, and where she lay trembling. The ideal +of oppression was realized by this sinister household. It was something +like the fly serving the spiders. + +The poor child passively held her peace. + +What takes place within these souls when they have but just quitted God, +find themselves thus, at the very dawn of life, very small and in the +midst of men all naked! + + + + +CHAPTER III--MEN MUST HAVE WINE, AND HORSES MUST HAVE WATER + +Four new travellers had arrived. + +Cosette was meditating sadly; for, although she was only eight years +old, she had already suffered so much that she reflected with the +lugubrious air of an old woman. Her eye was black in consequence of a +blow from Madame Thenardier's fist, which caused the latter to remark +from time to time, "How ugly she is with her fist-blow on her eye!" + +Cosette was thinking that it was dark, very dark, that the pitchers and +caraffes in the chambers of the travellers who had arrived must have +been filled and that there was no more water in the cistern. + +She was somewhat reassured because no one in the Thenardier +establishment drank much water. Thirsty people were never lacking there; +but their thirst was of the sort which applies to the jug rather than to +the pitcher. Any one who had asked for a glass of water among all those +glasses of wine would have appeared a savage to all these men. But there +came a moment when the child trembled; Madame Thenardier raised the +cover of a stew-pan which was boiling on the stove, then seized a glass +and briskly approached the cistern. She turned the faucet; the child +had raised her head and was following all the woman's movements. A thin +stream of water trickled from the faucet, and half filled the glass. +"Well," said she, "there is no more water!" A momentary silence ensued. +The child did not breathe. + +"Bah!" resumed Madame Thenardier, examining the half-filled glass, "this +will be enough." + +Cosette applied herself to her work once more, but for a quarter of an +hour she felt her heart leaping in her bosom like a big snow-flake. + +She counted the minutes that passed in this manner, and wished it were +the next morning. + +From time to time one of the drinkers looked into the street, and +exclaimed, "It's as black as an oven!" or, "One must needs be a cat +to go about the streets without a lantern at this hour!" And Cosette +trembled. + +All at once one of the pedlers who lodged in the hostelry entered, and +said in a harsh voice:-- + +"My horse has not been watered." + +"Yes, it has," said Madame Thenardier. + +"I tell you that it has not," retorted the pedler. + +Cosette had emerged from under the table. + +"Oh, yes, sir!" said she, "the horse has had a drink; he drank out of a +bucket, a whole bucketful, and it was I who took the water to him, and I +spoke to him." + +It was not true; Cosette lied. + +"There's a brat as big as my fist who tells lies as big as the house," +exclaimed the pedler. "I tell you that he has not been watered, you +little jade! He has a way of blowing when he has had no water, which I +know well." + +Cosette persisted, and added in a voice rendered hoarse with anguish, +and which was hardly audible:-- + +"And he drank heartily." + +"Come," said the pedler, in a rage, "this won't do at all, let my horse +be watered, and let that be the end of it!" + +Cosette crept under the table again. + +"In truth, that is fair!" said Madame Thenardier, "if the beast has not +been watered, it must be." + +Then glancing about her:-- + +"Well, now! Where's that other beast?" + +She bent down and discovered Cosette cowering at the other end of the +table, almost under the drinkers' feet. + +"Are you coming?" shrieked Madame Thenardier. + +Cosette crawled out of the sort of hole in which she had hidden herself. +The Thenardier resumed:-- + +"Mademoiselle Dog-lack-name, go and water that horse." + +"But, Madame," said Cosette, feebly, "there is no water." + +The Thenardier threw the street door wide open:-- + +"Well, go and get some, then!" + +Cosette dropped her head, and went for an empty bucket which stood near +the chimney-corner. + +This bucket was bigger than she was, and the child could have set down +in it at her ease. + +The Thenardier returned to her stove, and tasted what was in the +stewpan, with a wooden spoon, grumbling the while:-- + +"There's plenty in the spring. There never was such a malicious creature +as that. I think I should have done better to strain my onions." + +Then she rummaged in a drawer which contained sous, pepper, and +shallots. + +"See here, Mam'selle Toad," she added, "on your way back, you will get a +big loaf from the baker. Here's a fifteen-sou piece." + +Cosette had a little pocket on one side of her apron; she took the coin +without saying a word, and put it in that pocket. + +Then she stood motionless, bucket in hand, the open door before her. She +seemed to be waiting for some one to come to her rescue. + +"Get along with you!" screamed the Thenardier. + +Cosette went out. The door closed behind her. + + + + +CHAPTER IV--ENTRANCE ON THE SCENE OF A DOLL + +The line of open-air booths starting at the church, extended, as the +reader will remember, as far as the hostelry of the Thenardiers. These +booths were all illuminated, because the citizens would soon pass on +their way to the midnight mass, with candles burning in paper funnels, +which, as the schoolmaster, then seated at the table at the Thenardiers' +observed, produced "a magical effect." In compensation, not a star was +visible in the sky. + +The last of these stalls, established precisely opposite the +Thenardiers' door, was a toy-shop all glittering with tinsel, glass, +and magnificent objects of tin. In the first row, and far forwards, the +merchant had placed on a background of white napkins, an immense doll, +nearly two feet high, who was dressed in a robe of pink crepe, with gold +wheat-ears on her head, which had real hair and enamel eyes. All that +day, this marvel had been displayed to the wonderment of all passers-by +under ten years of age, without a mother being found in Montfermeil +sufficiently rich or sufficiently extravagant to give it to her child. +Eponine and Azelma had passed hours in contemplating it, and Cosette +herself had ventured to cast a glance at it, on the sly, it is true. + +At the moment when Cosette emerged, bucket in hand, melancholy and +overcome as she was, she could not refrain from lifting her eyes to +that wonderful doll, towards the lady, as she called it. The poor child +paused in amazement. She had not yet beheld that doll close to. The +whole shop seemed a palace to her: the doll was not a doll; it was a +vision. It was joy, splendor, riches, happiness, which appeared in +a sort of chimerical halo to that unhappy little being so profoundly +engulfed in gloomy and chilly misery. With the sad and innocent sagacity +of childhood, Cosette measured the abyss which separated her from +that doll. She said to herself that one must be a queen, or at least a +princess, to have a "thing" like that. She gazed at that beautiful pink +dress, that beautiful smooth hair, and she thought, "How happy that doll +must be!" She could not take her eyes from that fantastic stall. The +more she looked, the more dazzled she grew. She thought she was gazing +at paradise. There were other dolls behind the large one, which seemed +to her to be fairies and genii. The merchant, who was pacing back and +forth in front of his shop, produced on her somewhat the effect of being +the Eternal Father. + +In this adoration she forgot everything, even the errand with which she +was charged. + +All at once the Thenardier's coarse voice recalled her to reality: +"What, you silly jade! you have not gone? Wait! I'll give it to you! I +want to know what you are doing there! Get along, you little monster!" + +The Thenardier had cast a glance into the street, and had caught sight +of Cosette in her ecstasy. + +Cosette fled, dragging her pail, and taking the longest strides of which +she was capable. + + + + +CHAPTER V--THE LITTLE ONE ALL ALONE + +As the Thenardier hostelry was in that part of the village which is +near the church, it was to the spring in the forest in the direction of +Chelles that Cosette was obliged to go for her water. + +She did not glance at the display of a single other merchant. So long +as she was in Boulanger Lane and in the neighborhood of the church, the +lighted stalls illuminated the road; but soon the last light from the +last stall vanished. The poor child found herself in the dark. She +plunged into it. Only, as a certain emotion overcame her, she made as +much motion as possible with the handle of the bucket as she walked +along. This made a noise which afforded her company. + +The further she went, the denser the darkness became. There was no one +in the streets. However, she did encounter a woman, who turned around +on seeing her, and stood still, muttering between her teeth: "Where can +that child be going? Is it a werewolf child?" Then the woman recognized +Cosette. "Well," said she, "it's the Lark!" + +In this manner Cosette traversed the labyrinth of tortuous and deserted +streets which terminate in the village of Montfermeil on the side of +Chelles. So long as she had the houses or even the walls only on both +sides of her path, she proceeded with tolerable boldness. From time +to time she caught the flicker of a candle through the crack of a +shutter--this was light and life; there were people there, and it +reassured her. But in proportion as she advanced, her pace slackened +mechanically, as it were. When she had passed the corner of the last +house, Cosette paused. It had been hard to advance further than the last +stall; it became impossible to proceed further than the last house. She +set her bucket on the ground, thrust her hand into her hair, and +began slowly to scratch her head,--a gesture peculiar to children when +terrified and undecided what to do. It was no longer Montfermeil; it +was the open fields. Black and desert space was before her. She gazed in +despair at that darkness, where there was no longer any one, where there +were beasts, where there were spectres, possibly. She took a good +look, and heard the beasts walking on the grass, and she distinctly saw +spectres moving in the trees. Then she seized her bucket again; fear had +lent her audacity. "Bah!" said she; "I will tell him that there was no +more water!" And she resolutely re-entered Montfermeil. + +Hardly had she gone a hundred paces when she paused and began to scratch +her head again. Now it was the Thenardier who appeared to her, with her +hideous, hyena mouth, and wrath flashing in her eyes. The child cast a +melancholy glance before her and behind her. What was she to do? What +was to become of her? Where was she to go? In front of her was the +spectre of the Thenardier; behind her all the phantoms of the night +and of the forest. It was before the Thenardier that she recoiled. She +resumed her path to the spring, and began to run. She emerged from +the village, she entered the forest at a run, no longer looking at or +listening to anything. She only paused in her course when her breath +failed her; but she did not halt in her advance. She went straight +before her in desperation. + +As she ran she felt like crying. + +The nocturnal quivering of the forest surrounded her completely. + +She no longer thought, she no longer saw. The immensity of night was +facing this tiny creature. On the one hand, all shadow; on the other, an +atom. + +It was only seven or eight minutes' walk from the edge of the woods to +the spring. Cosette knew the way, through having gone over it many times +in daylight. Strange to say, she did not get lost. A remnant of instinct +guided her vaguely. But she did not turn her eyes either to right or to +left, for fear of seeing things in the branches and in the brushwood. In +this manner she reached the spring. + +It was a narrow, natural basin, hollowed out by the water in a clayey +soil, about two feet deep, surrounded with moss and with those tall, +crimped grasses which are called Henry IV.'s frills, and paved with +several large stones. A brook ran out of it, with a tranquil little +noise. + +Cosette did not take time to breathe. It was very dark, but she was in +the habit of coming to this spring. She felt with her left hand in the +dark for a young oak which leaned over the spring, and which usually +served to support her, found one of its branches, clung to it, bent +down, and plunged the bucket in the water. She was in a state of such +violent excitement that her strength was trebled. While thus bent over, +she did not notice that the pocket of her apron had emptied itself into +the spring. The fifteen-sou piece fell into the water. Cosette neither +saw nor heard it fall. She drew out the bucket nearly full, and set it +on the grass. + +That done, she perceived that she was worn out with fatigue. She would +have liked to set out again at once, but the effort required to fill the +bucket had been such that she found it impossible to take a step. She +was forced to sit down. She dropped on the grass, and remained crouching +there. + +She shut her eyes; then she opened them again, without knowing why, but +because she could not do otherwise. The agitated water in the bucket +beside her was describing circles which resembled tin serpents. + +Overhead the sky was covered with vast black clouds, which were like +masses of smoke. The tragic mask of shadow seemed to bend vaguely over +the child. + +Jupiter was setting in the depths. + +The child stared with bewildered eyes at this great star, with which she +was unfamiliar, and which terrified her. The planet was, in fact, very +near the horizon and was traversing a dense layer of mist which imparted +to it a horrible ruddy hue. The mist, gloomily empurpled, magnified the +star. One would have called it a luminous wound. + +A cold wind was blowing from the plain. The forest was dark, not a leaf +was moving; there were none of the vague, fresh gleams of summertide. +Great boughs uplifted themselves in frightful wise. Slender and +misshapen bushes whistled in the clearings. The tall grasses undulated +like eels under the north wind. The nettles seemed to twist long arms +furnished with claws in search of prey. Some bits of dry heather, tossed +by the breeze, flew rapidly by, and had the air of fleeing in terror +before something which was coming after. On all sides there were +lugubrious stretches. + +The darkness was bewildering. Man requires light. Whoever buries himself +in the opposite of day feels his heart contract. When the eye sees +black, the heart sees trouble. In an eclipse in the night, in the sooty +opacity, there is anxiety even for the stoutest of hearts. No one walks +alone in the forest at night without trembling. Shadows and trees--two +formidable densities. A chimerical reality appears in the indistinct +depths. The inconceivable is outlined a few paces distant from you with +a spectral clearness. One beholds floating, either in space or in one's +own brain, one knows not what vague and intangible thing, like the +dreams of sleeping flowers. There are fierce attitudes on the horizon. +One inhales the effluvia of the great black void. One is afraid to +glance behind him, yet desirous of doing so. The cavities of night, +things grown haggard, taciturn profiles which vanish when one advances, +obscure dishevelments, irritated tufts, livid pools, the lugubrious +reflected in the funereal, the sepulchral immensity of silence, unknown +but possible beings, bendings of mysterious branches, alarming torsos of +trees, long handfuls of quivering plants,--against all this one has no +protection. There is no hardihood which does not shudder and which does +not feel the vicinity of anguish. One is conscious of something hideous, +as though one's soul were becoming amalgamated with the darkness. This +penetration of the shadows is indescribably sinister in the case of a +child. + +Forests are apocalypses, and the beating of the wings of a tiny soul +produces a sound of agony beneath their monstrous vault. + +Without understanding her sensations, Cosette was conscious that she was +seized upon by that black enormity of nature; it was no longer terror +alone which was gaining possession of her; it was something more +terrible even than terror; she shivered. There are no words to express +the strangeness of that shiver which chilled her to the very bottom of +her heart; her eye grew wild; she thought she felt that she should not +be able to refrain from returning there at the same hour on the morrow. + +Then, by a sort of instinct, she began to count aloud, one, two, three, +four, and so on up to ten, in order to escape from that singular state +which she did not understand, but which terrified her, and, when she had +finished, she began again; this restored her to a true perception of +the things about her. Her hands, which she had wet in drawing the water, +felt cold; she rose; her terror, a natural and unconquerable terror, had +returned: she had but one thought now,--to flee at full speed through +the forest, across the fields to the houses, to the windows, to the +lighted candles. Her glance fell upon the water which stood before her; +such was the fright which the Thenardier inspired in her, that she dared +not flee without that bucket of water: she seized the handle with both +hands; she could hardly lift the pail. + +In this manner she advanced a dozen paces, but the bucket was full; it +was heavy; she was forced to set it on the ground once more. She took +breath for an instant, then lifted the handle of the bucket again, and +resumed her march, proceeding a little further this time, but again she +was obliged to pause. After some seconds of repose she set out again. +She walked bent forward, with drooping head, like an old woman; the +weight of the bucket strained and stiffened her thin arms. The iron +handle completed the benumbing and freezing of her wet and tiny hands; +she was forced to halt from time to time, and each time that she did so, +the cold water which splashed from the pail fell on her bare legs. This +took place in the depths of a forest, at night, in winter, far from all +human sight; she was a child of eight: no one but God saw that sad thing +at the moment. + +And her mother, no doubt, alas! + +For there are things that make the dead open their eyes in their graves. + +She panted with a sort of painful rattle; sobs contracted her throat, +but she dared not weep, so afraid was she of the Thenardier, even at a +distance: it was her custom to imagine the Thenardier always present. + +However, she could not make much headway in that manner, and she went +on very slowly. In spite of diminishing the length of her stops, and +of walking as long as possible between them, she reflected with anguish +that it would take her more than an hour to return to Montfermeil in +this manner, and that the Thenardier would beat her. This anguish was +mingled with her terror at being alone in the woods at night; she was +worn out with fatigue, and had not yet emerged from the forest. On +arriving near an old chestnut-tree with which she was acquainted, made +a last halt, longer than the rest, in order that she might get well +rested; then she summoned up all her strength, picked up her bucket +again, and courageously resumed her march, but the poor little desperate +creature could not refrain from crying, "O my God! my God!" + +At that moment she suddenly became conscious that her bucket no longer +weighed anything at all: a hand, which seemed to her enormous, had just +seized the handle, and lifted it vigorously. She raised her head. A +large black form, straight and erect, was walking beside her through the +darkness; it was a man who had come up behind her, and whose approach +she had not heard. This man, without uttering a word, had seized the +handle of the bucket which she was carrying. + +There are instincts for all the encounters of life. + +The child was not afraid. + + + + +CHAPTER VI--WHICH POSSIBLY PROVES BOULATRUELLE'S INTELLIGENCE + +On the afternoon of that same Christmas Day, 1823, a man had walked +for rather a long time in the most deserted part of the Boulevard de +l'Hopital in Paris. This man had the air of a person who is seeking +lodgings, and he seemed to halt, by preference, at the most modest +houses on that dilapidated border of the faubourg Saint-Marceau. + +We shall see further on that this man had, in fact, hired a chamber in +that isolated quarter. + +This man, in his attire, as in all his person, realized the type of what +may be called the well-bred mendicant,--extreme wretchedness combined +with extreme cleanliness. This is a very rare mixture which inspires +intelligent hearts with that double respect which one feels for the man +who is very poor, and for the man who is very worthy. He wore a very +old and very well brushed round hat; a coarse coat, worn perfectly +threadbare, of an ochre yellow, a color that was not in the least +eccentric at that epoch; a large waistcoat with pockets of a venerable +cut; black breeches, worn gray at the knee, stockings of black worsted; +and thick shoes with copper buckles. He would have been pronounced a +preceptor in some good family, returned from the emigration. He would +have been taken for more than sixty years of age, from his perfectly +white hair, his wrinkled brow, his livid lips, and his countenance, +where everything breathed depression and weariness of life. Judging from +his firm tread, from the singular vigor which stamped all his movements, +he would have hardly been thought fifty. The wrinkles on his brow were +well placed, and would have disposed in his favor any one who observed +him attentively. His lip contracted with a strange fold which seemed +severe, and which was humble. There was in the depth of his glance an +indescribable melancholy serenity. In his left hand he carried a little +bundle tied up in a handkerchief; in his right he leaned on a sort of a +cudgel, cut from some hedge. This stick had been carefully trimmed, and +had an air that was not too threatening; the most had been made of its +knots, and it had received a coral-like head, made from red wax: it was +a cudgel, and it seemed to be a cane. + +There are but few passers-by on that boulevard, particularly in the +winter. The man seemed to avoid them rather than to seek them, but this +without any affectation. + +At that epoch, King Louis XVIII. went nearly every day to Choisy-le-Roi: +it was one of his favorite excursions. Towards two o'clock, almost +invariably, the royal carriage and cavalcade was seen to pass at full +speed along the Boulevard de l'Hopital. + +This served in lieu of a watch or clock to the poor women of the quarter +who said, "It is two o'clock; there he is returning to the Tuileries." + +And some rushed forward, and others drew up in line, for a passing king +always creates a tumult; besides, the appearance and disappearance of +Louis XVIII. produced a certain effect in the streets of Paris. It was +rapid but majestic. This impotent king had a taste for a fast gallop; +as he was not able to walk, he wished to run: that cripple would gladly +have had himself drawn by the lightning. He passed, pacific and severe, +in the midst of naked swords. His massive coach, all covered with +gilding, with great branches of lilies painted on the panels, thundered +noisily along. There was hardly time to cast a glance upon it. In the +rear angle on the right there was visible on tufted cushions of white +satin a large, firm, and ruddy face, a brow freshly powdered a l'oiseau +royal, a proud, hard, crafty eye, the smile of an educated man, two +great epaulets with bullion fringe floating over a bourgeois coat, the +Golden Fleece, the cross of Saint Louis, the cross of the Legion of +Honor, the silver plaque of the Saint-Esprit, a huge belly, and a wide +blue ribbon: it was the king. Outside of Paris, he held his hat decked +with white ostrich plumes on his knees enwrapped in high English +gaiters; when he re-entered the city, he put on his hat and saluted +rarely; he stared coldly at the people, and they returned it in kind. +When he appeared for the first time in the Saint-Marceau quarter, +the whole success which he produced is contained in this remark of an +inhabitant of the faubourg to his comrade, "That big fellow yonder is +the government." + +This infallible passage of the king at the same hour was, therefore, the +daily event of the Boulevard de l'Hopital. + +The promenader in the yellow coat evidently did not belong in the +quarter, and probably did not belong in Paris, for he was ignorant as to +this detail. When, at two o'clock, the royal carriage, surrounded by a +squadron of the body-guard all covered with silver lace, debouched +on the boulevard, after having made the turn of the Salpetriere, he +appeared surprised and almost alarmed. There was no one but himself in +this cross-lane. He drew up hastily behind the corner of the wall of an +enclosure, though this did not prevent M. le Duc de Havre from spying +him out. + +M. le Duc de Havre, as captain of the guard on duty that day, was seated +in the carriage, opposite the king. He said to his Majesty, "Yonder +is an evil-looking man." Members of the police, who were clearing the +king's route, took equal note of him: one of them received an order to +follow him. But the man plunged into the deserted little streets of the +faubourg, and as twilight was beginning to fall, the agent lost trace of +him, as is stated in a report addressed that same evening to M. le Comte +d'Angles, Minister of State, Prefect of Police. + +When the man in the yellow coat had thrown the agent off his track, +he redoubled his pace, not without turning round many a time to assure +himself that he was not being followed. At a quarter-past four, that is +to say, when night was fully come, he passed in front of the theatre +of the Porte Saint-Martin, where The Two Convicts was being played that +day. This poster, illuminated by the theatre lanterns, struck him; for, +although he was walking rapidly, he halted to read it. An instant later +he was in the blind alley of La Planchette, and he entered the Plat +d'Etain [the Pewter Platter], where the office of the coach for Lagny +was then situated. This coach set out at half-past four. The horses were +harnessed, and the travellers, summoned by the coachman, were hastily +climbing the lofty iron ladder of the vehicle. + +The man inquired:-- + +"Have you a place?" + +"Only one--beside me on the box," said the coachman. + +"I will take it." + +"Climb up." + +Nevertheless, before setting out, the coachman cast a glance at the +traveller's shabby dress, at the diminutive size of his bundle, and made +him pay his fare. + +"Are you going as far as Lagny?" demanded the coachman. + +"Yes," said the man. + +The traveller paid to Lagny. + +They started. When they had passed the barrier, the coachman tried +to enter into conversation, but the traveller only replied in +monosyllables. The coachman took to whistling and swearing at his +horses. + +The coachman wrapped himself up in his cloak. It was cold. The man +did not appear to be thinking of that. Thus they passed Gournay and +Neuilly-sur-Marne. + +Towards six o'clock in the evening they reached Chelles. The coachman +drew up in front of the carters' inn installed in the ancient buildings +of the Royal Abbey, to give his horses a breathing spell. + +"I get down here," said the man. + +He took his bundle and his cudgel and jumped down from the vehicle. + +An instant later he had disappeared. + +He did not enter the inn. + +When the coach set out for Lagny a few minutes later, it did not +encounter him in the principal street of Chelles. + +The coachman turned to the inside travellers. + +"There," said he, "is a man who does not belong here, for I do not know +him. He had not the air of owning a sou, but he does not consider money; +he pays to Lagny, and he goes only as far as Chelles. It is night; all +the houses are shut; he does not enter the inn, and he is not to be +found. So he has dived through the earth." + +The man had not plunged into the earth, but he had gone with great +strides through the dark, down the principal street of Chelles, then he +had turned to the right before reaching the church, into the cross-road +leading to Montfermeil, like a person who was acquainted with the +country and had been there before. + +He followed this road rapidly. At the spot where it is intersected by +the ancient tree-bordered road which runs from Gagny to Lagny, he heard +people coming. He concealed himself precipitately in a ditch, and there +waited until the passers-by were at a distance. The precaution was +nearly superfluous, however; for, as we have already said, it was a very +dark December night. Not more than two or three stars were visible in +the sky. + +It is at this point that the ascent of the hill begins. The man did not +return to the road to Montfermeil; he struck across the fields to the +right, and entered the forest with long strides. + +Once in the forest he slackened his pace, and began a careful +examination of all the trees, advancing, step by step, as though seeking +and following a mysterious road known to himself alone. There came a +moment when he appeared to lose himself, and he paused in indecision. At +last he arrived, by dint of feeling his way inch by inch, at a clearing +where there was a great heap of whitish stones. He stepped up briskly to +these stones, and examined them attentively through the mists of night, +as though he were passing them in review. A large tree, covered with +those excrescences which are the warts of vegetation, stood a few paces +distant from the pile of stones. He went up to this tree and passed +his hand over the bark of the trunk, as though seeking to recognize and +count all the warts. + +Opposite this tree, which was an ash, there was a chestnut-tree, +suffering from a peeling of the bark, to which a band of zinc had been +nailed by way of dressing. He raised himself on tiptoe and touched this +band of zinc. + +Then he trod about for awhile on the ground comprised in the space +between the tree and the heap of stones, like a person who is trying to +assure himself that the soil has not recently been disturbed. + +That done, he took his bearings, and resumed his march through the +forest. + +It was the man who had just met Cosette. + +As he walked through the thicket in the direction of Montfermeil, he had +espied that tiny shadow moving with a groan, depositing a burden on +the ground, then taking it up and setting out again. He drew near, and +perceived that it was a very young child, laden with an enormous bucket +of water. Then he approached the child, and silently grasped the handle +of the bucket. + + + + +CHAPTER VII--COSETTE SIDE BY SIDE WITH THE STRANGER IN THE DARK + +Cosette, as we have said, was not frightened. + +The man accosted her. He spoke in a voice that was grave and almost +bass. + +"My child, what you are carrying is very heavy for you." + +Cosette raised her head and replied:-- + +"Yes, sir." + +"Give it to me," said the man; "I will carry it for you." + +Cosette let go of the bucket-handle. The man walked along beside her. + +"It really is very heavy," he muttered between his teeth. Then he +added:-- + +"How old are you, little one?" + +"Eight, sir." + +"And have you come from far like this?" + +"From the spring in the forest." + +"Are you going far?" + +"A good quarter of an hour's walk from here." + +The man said nothing for a moment; then he remarked abruptly:-- + +"So you have no mother." + +"I don't know," answered the child. + +Before the man had time to speak again, she added:-- + +"I don't think so. Other people have mothers. I have none." + +And after a silence she went on:-- + +"I think that I never had any." + +The man halted; he set the bucket on the ground, bent down and placed +both hands on the child's shoulders, making an effort to look at her and +to see her face in the dark. + +Cosette's thin and sickly face was vaguely outlined by the livid light +in the sky. + +"What is your name?" said the man. + +"Cosette." + +The man seemed to have received an electric shock. He looked at her once +more; then he removed his hands from Cosette's shoulders, seized the +bucket, and set out again. + +After a moment he inquired:-- + +"Where do you live, little one?" + +"At Montfermeil, if you know where that is." + +"That is where we are going?" + +"Yes, sir." + +He paused; then began again:-- + +"Who sent you at such an hour to get water in the forest?" + +"It was Madame Thenardier." + +The man resumed, in a voice which he strove to render indifferent, but +in which there was, nevertheless, a singular tremor:-- + +"What does your Madame Thenardier do?" + +"She is my mistress," said the child. "She keeps the inn." + +"The inn?" said the man. "Well, I am going to lodge there to-night. Show +me the way." + +"We are on the way there," said the child. + +The man walked tolerably fast. Cosette followed him without difficulty. +She no longer felt any fatigue. From time to time she raised her eyes +towards the man, with a sort of tranquillity and an indescribable +confidence. She had never been taught to turn to Providence and to pray; +nevertheless, she felt within her something which resembled hope and +joy, and which mounted towards heaven. + +Several minutes elapsed. The man resumed:-- + +"Is there no servant in Madame Thenardier's house?" + +"No, sir." + +"Are you alone there?" + +"Yes, sir." + +Another pause ensued. Cosette lifted up her voice:-- + +"That is to say, there are two little girls." + +"What little girls?" + +"Ponine and Zelma." + +This was the way the child simplified the romantic names so dear to the +female Thenardier. + +"Who are Ponine and Zelma?" + +"They are Madame Thenardier's young ladies; her daughters, as you would +say." + +"And what do those girls do?" + +"Oh!" said the child, "they have beautiful dolls; things with gold in +them, all full of affairs. They play; they amuse themselves." + +"All day long?" + +"Yes, sir." + +"And you?" + +"I? I work." + +"All day long?" + +The child raised her great eyes, in which hung a tear, which was not +visible because of the darkness, and replied gently:-- + +"Yes, sir." + +After an interval of silence she went on:-- + +"Sometimes, when I have finished my work and they let me, I amuse +myself, too." + +"How do you amuse yourself?" + +"In the best way I can. They let me alone; but I have not many +playthings. Ponine and Zelma will not let me play with their dolls. I +have only a little lead sword, no longer than that." + +The child held up her tiny finger. + +"And it will not cut?" + +"Yes, sir," said the child; "it cuts salad and the heads of flies." + +They reached the village. Cosette guided the stranger through the +streets. They passed the bakeshop, but Cosette did not think of the +bread which she had been ordered to fetch. The man had ceased to ply her +with questions, and now preserved a gloomy silence. + +When they had left the church behind them, the man, on perceiving all +the open-air booths, asked Cosette:-- + +"So there is a fair going on here?" + +"No, sir; it is Christmas." + +As they approached the tavern, Cosette timidly touched his arm:-- + +"Monsieur?" + +"What, my child?" + +"We are quite near the house." + +"Well?" + +"Will you let me take my bucket now?" + +"Why?" + +"If Madame sees that some one has carried it for me, she will beat me." + +The man handed her the bucket. An instant later they were at the tavern +door. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII--THE UNPLEASANTNESS OF RECEIVING INTO ONE'S HOUSE A POOR +MAN WHO MAY BE A RICH MAN + + +Cosette could not refrain from casting a sidelong glance at the big +doll, which was still displayed at the toy-merchant's; then she knocked. +The door opened. The Thenardier appeared with a candle in her hand. + + +"Ah! so it's you, you little wretch! good mercy, but you've taken your +time! The hussy has been amusing herself!" + +"Madame," said Cosette, trembling all over, "here's a gentleman who +wants a lodging." + +The Thenardier speedily replaced her gruff air by her amiable grimace, +a change of aspect common to tavern-keepers, and eagerly sought the +new-comer with her eyes. + +"This is the gentleman?" said she. + +"Yes, Madame," replied the man, raising his hand to his hat. + +Wealthy travellers are not so polite. This gesture, and an inspection +of the stranger's costume and baggage, which the Thenardier passed in +review with one glance, caused the amiable grimace to vanish, and the +gruff mien to reappear. She resumed dryly:-- + +"Enter, my good man." + +The "good man" entered. The Thenardier cast a second glance at him, paid +particular attention to his frock-coat, which was absolutely threadbare, +and to his hat, which was a little battered, and, tossing her head, +wrinkling her nose, and screwing up her eyes, she consulted her husband, +who was still drinking with the carters. The husband replied by that +imperceptible movement of the forefinger, which, backed up by an +inflation of the lips, signifies in such cases: A regular beggar. +Thereupon, the Thenardier exclaimed:-- + +"Ah! see here, my good man; I am very sorry, but I have no room left." + +"Put me where you like," said the man; "in the attic, in the stable. I +will pay as though I occupied a room." + +"Forty sous." + +"Forty sous; agreed." + +"Very well, then!" + +"Forty sous!" said a carter, in a low tone, to the Thenardier woman; +"why, the charge is only twenty sous!" + +"It is forty in his case," retorted the Thenardier, in the same tone. "I +don't lodge poor folks for less." + +"That's true," added her husband, gently; "it ruins a house to have such +people in it." + +In the meantime, the man, laying his bundle and his cudgel on a bench, +had seated himself at a table, on which Cosette made haste to place a +bottle of wine and a glass. The merchant who had demanded the bucket of +water took it to his horse himself. Cosette resumed her place under the +kitchen table, and her knitting. + +The man, who had barely moistened his lips in the wine which he had +poured out for himself, observed the child with peculiar attention. + +Cosette was ugly. If she had been happy, she might have been pretty. We +have already given a sketch of that sombre little figure. Cosette was +thin and pale; she was nearly eight years old, but she seemed to be +hardly six. Her large eyes, sunken in a sort of shadow, were almost put +out with weeping. The corners of her mouth had that curve of habitual +anguish which is seen in condemned persons and desperately sick people. +Her hands were, as her mother had divined, "ruined with chilblains." The +fire which illuminated her at that moment brought into relief all the +angles of her bones, and rendered her thinness frightfully apparent. +As she was always shivering, she had acquired the habit of pressing her +knees one against the other. Her entire clothing was but a rag which +would have inspired pity in summer, and which inspired horror in winter. +All she had on was hole-ridden linen, not a scrap of woollen. Her skin +was visible here and there and everywhere black and blue spots could be +descried, which marked the places where the Thenardier woman had touched +her. Her naked legs were thin and red. The hollows in her neck were +enough to make one weep. This child's whole person, her mien, her +attitude, the sound of her voice, the intervals which she allowed to +elapse between one word and the next, her glance, her silence, her +slightest gesture, expressed and betrayed one sole idea,--fear. + +Fear was diffused all over her; she was covered with it, so to speak; +fear drew her elbows close to her hips, withdrew her heels under her +petticoat, made her occupy as little space as possible, allowed her only +the breath that was absolutely necessary, and had become what might be +called the habit of her body, admitting of no possible variation except +an increase. In the depths of her eyes there was an astonished nook +where terror lurked. + +Her fear was such, that on her arrival, wet as she was, Cosette did not +dare to approach the fire and dry herself, but sat silently down to her +work again. + +The expression in the glance of that child of eight years was habitually +so gloomy, and at times so tragic, that it seemed at certain moments as +though she were on the verge of becoming an idiot or a demon. + +As we have stated, she had never known what it is to pray; she had never +set foot in a church. "Have I the time?" said the Thenardier. + +The man in the yellow coat never took his eyes from Cosette. + +All at once, the Thenardier exclaimed:-- + +"By the way, where's that bread?" + +Cosette, according to her custom whenever the Thenardier uplifted her +voice, emerged with great haste from beneath the table. + +She had completely forgotten the bread. She had recourse to the +expedient of children who live in a constant state of fear. She lied. + +"Madame, the baker's shop was shut." + +"You should have knocked." + +"I did knock, Madame." + +"Well?" + +"He did not open the door." + +"I'll find out to-morrow whether that is true," said the Thenardier; +"and if you are telling me a lie, I'll lead you a pretty dance. In the +meantime, give me back my fifteen-sou piece." + +Cosette plunged her hand into the pocket of her apron, and turned green. +The fifteen-sou piece was not there. + +"Ah, come now," said Madame Thenardier, "did you hear me?" + +Cosette turned her pocket inside out; there was nothing in it. What +could have become of that money? The unhappy little creature could not +find a word to say. She was petrified. + +"Have you lost that fifteen-sou piece?" screamed the Thenardier, +hoarsely, "or do you want to rob me of it?" + +At the same time, she stretched out her arm towards the +cat-o'-nine-tails which hung on a nail in the chimney-corner. + +This formidable gesture restored to Cosette sufficient strength to +shriek:-- + +"Mercy, Madame, Madame! I will not do so any more!" + +The Thenardier took down the whip. + +In the meantime, the man in the yellow coat had been fumbling in the fob +of his waistcoat, without any one having noticed his movements. Besides, +the other travellers were drinking or playing cards, and were not paying +attention to anything. + +Cosette contracted herself into a ball, with anguish, within the angle +of the chimney, endeavoring to gather up and conceal her poor half-nude +limbs. The Thenardier raised her arm. + +"Pardon me, Madame," said the man, "but just now I caught sight of +something which had fallen from this little one's apron pocket, and +rolled aside. Perhaps this is it." + +At the same time he bent down and seemed to be searching on the floor +for a moment. + +"Exactly; here it is," he went on, straightening himself up. + +And he held out a silver coin to the Thenardier. + +"Yes, that's it," said she. + +It was not it, for it was a twenty-sou piece; but the Thenardier found +it to her advantage. She put the coin in her pocket, and confined +herself to casting a fierce glance at the child, accompanied with the +remark, "Don't let this ever happen again!" + +Cosette returned to what the Thenardier called "her kennel," and her +large eyes, which were riveted on the traveller, began to take on an +expression such as they had never worn before. Thus far it was only an +innocent amazement, but a sort of stupefied confidence was mingled with +it. + +"By the way, would you like some supper?" the Thenardier inquired of the +traveller. + +He made no reply. He appeared to be absorbed in thought. + +"What sort of a man is that?" she muttered between her teeth. "He's some +frightfully poor wretch. He hasn't a sou to pay for a supper. Will he +even pay me for his lodging? It's very lucky, all the same, that it did +not occur to him to steal the money that was on the floor." + +In the meantime, a door had opened, and Eponine and Azelma entered. + +They were two really pretty little girls, more bourgeois than peasant +in looks, and very charming; the one with shining chestnut tresses, +the other with long black braids hanging down her back, both vivacious, +neat, plump, rosy, and healthy, and a delight to the eye. They were +warmly clad, but with so much maternal art that the thickness of the +stuffs did not detract from the coquetry of arrangement. There was a +hint of winter, though the springtime was not wholly effaced. Light +emanated from these two little beings. Besides this, they were on the +throne. In their toilettes, in their gayety, in the noise which they +made, there was sovereignty. When they entered, the Thenardier said to +them in a grumbling tone which was full of adoration, "Ah! there you +are, you children!" + +Then drawing them, one after the other to her knees, smoothing their +hair, tying their ribbons afresh, and then releasing them with +that gentle manner of shaking off which is peculiar to mothers, she +exclaimed, "What frights they are!" + +They went and seated themselves in the chimney-corner. They had a doll, +which they turned over and over on their knees with all sorts of joyous +chatter. From time to time Cosette raised her eyes from her knitting, +and watched their play with a melancholy air. + +Eponine and Azelma did not look at Cosette. She was the same as a dog +to them. These three little girls did not yet reckon up four and twenty +years between them, but they already represented the whole society of +man; envy on the one side, disdain on the other. + +The doll of the Thenardier sisters was very much faded, very old, and +much broken; but it seemed none the less admirable to Cosette, who had +never had a doll in her life, a real doll, to make use of the expression +which all children will understand. + +All at once, the Thenardier, who had been going back and forth in the +room, perceived that Cosette's mind was distracted, and that, instead of +working, she was paying attention to the little ones at their play. + +"Ah! I've caught you at it!" she cried. "So that's the way you work! +I'll make you work to the tune of the whip; that I will." + +The stranger turned to the Thenardier, without quitting his chair. + +"Bah, Madame," he said, with an almost timid air, "let her play!" + +Such a wish expressed by a traveller who had eaten a slice of mutton and +had drunk a couple of bottles of wine with his supper, and who had not +the air of being frightfully poor, would have been equivalent to an +order. But that a man with such a hat should permit himself such a +desire, and that a man with such a coat should permit himself to have a +will, was something which Madame Thenardier did not intend to tolerate. +She retorted with acrimony:-- + +"She must work, since she eats. I don't feed her to do nothing." + +"What is she making?" went on the stranger, in a gentle voice which +contrasted strangely with his beggarly garments and his porter's +shoulders. + +The Thenardier deigned to reply:-- + +"Stockings, if you please. Stockings for my little girls, who have none, +so to speak, and who are absolutely barefoot just now." + +The man looked at Cosette's poor little red feet, and continued:-- + +"When will she have finished this pair of stockings?" + +"She has at least three or four good days' work on them still, the lazy +creature!" + +"And how much will that pair of stockings be worth when she has finished +them?" + +The Thenardier cast a glance of disdain on him. + +"Thirty sous at least." + +"Will you sell them for five francs?" went on the man. + +"Good heavens!" exclaimed a carter who was listening, with a loud laugh; +"five francs! the deuce, I should think so! five balls!" + +Thenardier thought it time to strike in. + +"Yes, sir; if such is your fancy, you will be allowed to have that pair +of stockings for five francs. We can refuse nothing to travellers." + +"You must pay on the spot," said the Thenardier, in her curt and +peremptory fashion. + +"I will buy that pair of stockings," replied the man, "and," he added, +drawing a five-franc piece from his pocket, and laying it on the table, +"I will pay for them." + +Then he turned to Cosette. + +"Now I own your work; play, my child." + +The carter was so much touched by the five-franc piece, that he +abandoned his glass and hastened up. + +"But it's true!" he cried, examining it. "A real hind wheel! and not +counterfeit!" + +Thenardier approached and silently put the coin in his pocket. + +The Thenardier had no reply to make. She bit her lips, and her face +assumed an expression of hatred. + +In the meantime, Cosette was trembling. She ventured to ask:-- + +"Is it true, Madame? May I play?" + +"Play!" said the Thenardier, in a terrible voice. + +"Thanks, Madame," said Cosette. + +And while her mouth thanked the Thenardier, her whole little soul +thanked the traveller. + +Thenardier had resumed his drinking; his wife whispered in his ear:-- + +"Who can this yellow man be?" + +"I have seen millionaires with coats like that," replied Thenardier, in +a sovereign manner. + +Cosette had dropped her knitting, but had not left her seat. Cosette +always moved as little as possible. She picked up some old rags and her +little lead sword from a box behind her. + +Eponine and Azelma paid no attention to what was going on. They had just +executed a very important operation; they had just got hold of the +cat. They had thrown their doll on the ground, and Eponine, who was +the elder, was swathing the little cat, in spite of its mewing and its +contortions, in a quantity of clothes and red and blue scraps. While +performing this serious and difficult work she was saying to her sister +in that sweet and adorable language of children, whose grace, like the +splendor of the butterfly's wing, vanishes when one essays to fix it +fast. + +"You see, sister, this doll is more amusing than the other. She twists, +she cries, she is warm. See, sister, let us play with her. She shall be +my little girl. I will be a lady. I will come to see you, and you shall +look at her. Gradually, you will perceive her whiskers, and that will +surprise you. And then you will see her ears, and then you will see her +tail and it will amaze you. And you will say to me, 'Ah! Mon Dieu!' and +I will say to you: 'Yes, Madame, it is my little girl. Little girls are +made like that just at present.'" + +Azelma listened admiringly to Eponine. + +In the meantime, the drinkers had begun to sing an obscene song, and +to laugh at it until the ceiling shook. Thenardier accompanied and +encouraged them. + +As birds make nests out of everything, so children make a doll out of +anything which comes to hand. While Eponine and Azelma were bundling up +the cat, Cosette, on her side, had dressed up her sword. That done, she +laid it in her arms, and sang to it softly, to lull it to sleep. + +The doll is one of the most imperious needs and, at the same time, one +of the most charming instincts of feminine childhood. To care for, to +clothe, to deck, to dress, to undress, to redress, to teach, scold a +little, to rock, to dandle, to lull to sleep, to imagine that something +is some one,--therein lies the whole woman's future. While dreaming and +chattering, making tiny outfits, and baby clothes, while sewing little +gowns, and corsages and bodices, the child grows into a young girl, the +young girl into a big girl, the big girl into a woman. The first child +is the continuation of the last doll. + +A little girl without a doll is almost as unhappy, and quite as +impossible, as a woman without children. + +So Cosette had made herself a doll out of the sword. + +Madame Thenardier approached the yellow man; "My husband is right," she +thought; "perhaps it is M. Laffitte; there are such queer rich men!" + +She came and set her elbows on the table. + +"Monsieur," said she. At this word, Monsieur, the man turned; up to that +time, the Thenardier had addressed him only as brave homme or bonhomme. + +"You see, sir," she pursued, assuming a sweetish air that was even more +repulsive to behold than her fierce mien, "I am willing that the child +should play; I do not oppose it, but it is good for once, because you +are generous. You see, she has nothing; she must needs work." + +"Then this child is not yours?" demanded the man. + +"Oh! mon Dieu! no, sir! she is a little beggar whom we have taken in +through charity; a sort of imbecile child. She must have water on the +brain; she has a large head, as you see. We do what we can for her, for +we are not rich; we have written in vain to her native place, and have +received no reply these six months. It must be that her mother is dead." + +"Ah!" said the man, and fell into his revery once more. + +"Her mother didn't amount to much," added the Thenardier; "she abandoned +her child." + +During the whole of this conversation Cosette, as though warned by some +instinct that she was under discussion, had not taken her eyes from the +Thenardier's face; she listened vaguely; she caught a few words here and +there. + +Meanwhile, the drinkers, all three-quarters intoxicated, were repeating +their unclean refrain with redoubled gayety; it was a highly spiced and +wanton song, in which the Virgin and the infant Jesus were introduced. +The Thenardier went off to take part in the shouts of laughter. Cosette, +from her post under the table, gazed at the fire, which was reflected +from her fixed eyes. She had begun to rock the sort of baby which she +had made, and, as she rocked it, she sang in a low voice, "My mother is +dead! my mother is dead! my mother is dead!" + +On being urged afresh by the hostess, the yellow man, "the millionaire," +consented at last to take supper. + +"What does Monsieur wish?" + +"Bread and cheese," said the man. + +"Decidedly, he is a beggar" thought Madame Thenardier. + +The drunken men were still singing their song, and the child under the +table was singing hers. + +All at once, Cosette paused; she had just turned round and caught sight +of the little Thenardiers' doll, which they had abandoned for the cat +and had left on the floor a few paces from the kitchen table. + +Then she dropped the swaddled sword, which only half met her needs, and +cast her eyes slowly round the room. Madame Thenardier was whispering to +her husband and counting over some money; Ponine and Zelma were playing +with the cat; the travellers were eating or drinking or singing; not +a glance was fixed on her. She had not a moment to lose; she crept out +from under the table on her hands and knees, made sure once more that no +one was watching her; then she slipped quickly up to the doll and seized +it. An instant later she was in her place again, seated motionless, and +only turned so as to cast a shadow on the doll which she held in her +arms. The happiness of playing with a doll was so rare for her that it +contained all the violence of voluptuousness. + +No one had seen her, except the traveller, who was slowly devouring his +meagre supper. + +This joy lasted about a quarter of an hour. + +But with all the precautions that Cosette had taken she did not perceive +that one of the doll's legs stuck out and that the fire on the hearth +lighted it up very vividly. That pink and shining foot, projecting from +the shadow, suddenly struck the eye of Azelma, who said to Eponine, +"Look! sister." + +The two little girls paused in stupefaction; Cosette had dared to take +their doll! + +Eponine rose, and, without releasing the cat, she ran to her mother, and +began to tug at her skirt. + +"Let me alone!" said her mother; "what do you want?" + +"Mother," said the child, "look there!" + +And she pointed to Cosette. + +Cosette, absorbed in the ecstasies of possession, no longer saw or heard +anything. + +Madame Thenardier's countenance assumed that peculiar expression which +is composed of the terrible mingled with the trifles of life, and which +has caused this style of woman to be named megaeras. + +On this occasion, wounded pride exasperated her wrath still further. +Cosette had overstepped all bounds; Cosette had laid violent hands on +the doll belonging to "these young ladies." A czarina who should see +a muzhik trying on her imperial son's blue ribbon would wear no other +face. + +She shrieked in a voice rendered hoarse with indignation:-- + +"Cosette!" + +Cosette started as though the earth had trembled beneath her; she turned +round. + +"Cosette!" repeated the Thenardier. + +Cosette took the doll and laid it gently on the floor with a sort of +veneration, mingled with despair; then, without taking her eyes from +it, she clasped her hands, and, what is terrible to relate of a child +of that age, she wrung them; then--not one of the emotions of the day, +neither the trip to the forest, nor the weight of the bucket of water, +nor the loss of the money, nor the sight of the whip, nor even the sad +words which she had heard Madame Thenardier utter had been able to wring +this from her--she wept; she burst out sobbing. + +Meanwhile, the traveller had risen to his feet. + +"What is the matter?" he said to the Thenardier. + +"Don't you see?" said the Thenardier, pointing to the corpus delicti +which lay at Cosette's feet. + +"Well, what of it?" resumed the man. + +"That beggar," replied the Thenardier, "has permitted herself to touch +the children's doll!" + +"All this noise for that!" said the man; "well, what if she did play +with that doll?" + +"She touched it with her dirty hands!" pursued the Thenardier, "with her +frightful hands!" + +Here Cosette redoubled her sobs. + +"Will you stop your noise?" screamed the Thenardier. + +The man went straight to the street door, opened it, and stepped out. + +As soon as he had gone, the Thenardier profited by his absence to give +Cosette a hearty kick under the table, which made the child utter loud +cries. + +The door opened again, the man re-appeared; he carried in both hands the +fabulous doll which we have mentioned, and which all the village brats +had been staring at ever since the morning, and he set it upright in +front of Cosette, saying:-- + +"Here; this is for you." + +It must be supposed that in the course of the hour and more which he had +spent there he had taken confused notice through his revery of that +toy shop, lighted up by fire-pots and candles so splendidly that it was +visible like an illumination through the window of the drinking-shop. + +Cosette raised her eyes; she gazed at the man approaching her with that +doll as she might have gazed at the sun; she heard the unprecedented +words, "It is for you"; she stared at him; she stared at the doll; then +she slowly retreated, and hid herself at the extreme end, under the +table in a corner of the wall. + +She no longer cried; she no longer wept; she had the appearance of no +longer daring to breathe. + +The Thenardier, Eponine, and Azelma were like statues also; the very +drinkers had paused; a solemn silence reigned through the whole room. + +Madame Thenardier, petrified and mute, recommenced her conjectures: "Who +is that old fellow? Is he a poor man? Is he a millionaire? Perhaps he is +both; that is to say, a thief." + +The face of the male Thenardier presented that expressive fold which +accentuates the human countenance whenever the dominant instinct appears +there in all its bestial force. The tavern-keeper stared alternately at +the doll and at the traveller; he seemed to be scenting out the man, as +he would have scented out a bag of money. This did not last longer than +the space of a flash of lightning. He stepped up to his wife and said to +her in a low voice:-- + +"That machine costs at least thirty francs. No nonsense. Down on your +belly before that man!" + +Gross natures have this in common with naive natures, that they possess +no transition state. + +"Well, Cosette," said the Thenardier, in a voice that strove to be +sweet, and which was composed of the bitter honey of malicious women, +"aren't you going to take your doll?" + +Cosette ventured to emerge from her hole. + +"The gentleman has given you a doll, my little Cosette," said +Thenardier, with a caressing air. "Take it; it is yours." + +Cosette gazed at the marvellous doll in a sort of terror. Her face was +still flooded with tears, but her eyes began to fill, like the sky at +daybreak, with strange beams of joy. What she felt at that moment was +a little like what she would have felt if she had been abruptly told, +"Little one, you are the Queen of France." + +It seemed to her that if she touched that doll, lightning would dart +from it. + +This was true, up to a certain point, for she said to herself that the +Thenardier would scold and beat her. + +Nevertheless, the attraction carried the day. She ended by drawing near +and murmuring timidly as she turned towards Madame Thenardier:-- + +"May I, Madame?" + +No words can render that air, at once despairing, terrified, and +ecstatic. + +"Pardi!" cried the Thenardier, "it is yours. The gentleman has given it +to you." + +"Truly, sir?" said Cosette. "Is it true? Is the 'lady' mine?" + +The stranger's eyes seemed to be full of tears. He appeared to have +reached that point of emotion where a man does not speak for fear lest +he should weep. He nodded to Cosette, and placed the "lady's" hand in +her tiny hand. + +Cosette hastily withdrew her hand, as though that of the "lady" scorched +her, and began to stare at the floor. We are forced to add that at that +moment she stuck out her tongue immoderately. All at once she wheeled +round and seized the doll in a transport. + +"I shall call her Catherine," she said. + +It was an odd moment when Cosette's rags met and clasped the ribbons and +fresh pink muslins of the doll. + +"Madame," she resumed, "may I put her on a chair?" + +"Yes, my child," replied the Thenardier. + +It was now the turn of Eponine and Azelma to gaze at Cosette with envy. + +Cosette placed Catherine on a chair, then seated herself on the floor +in front of her, and remained motionless, without uttering a word, in an +attitude of contemplation. + +"Play, Cosette," said the stranger. + +"Oh! I am playing," returned the child. + +This stranger, this unknown individual, who had the air of a visit which +Providence was making on Cosette, was the person whom the Thenardier +hated worse than any one in the world at that moment. However, it was +necessary to control herself. Habituated as she was to dissimulation +through endeavoring to copy her husband in all his actions, these +emotions were more than she could endure. She made haste to send her +daughters to bed, then she asked the man's permission to send Cosette +off also; "for she has worked hard all day," she added with a maternal +air. Cosette went off to bed, carrying Catherine in her arms. + +From time to time the Thenardier went to the other end of the room where +her husband was, to relieve her soul, as she said. She exchanged with +her husband words which were all the more furious because she dared not +utter them aloud. + +"Old beast! What has he got in his belly, to come and upset us in this +manner! To want that little monster to play! to give away forty-franc +dolls to a jade that I would sell for forty sous, so I would! A little +more and he will be saying Your Majesty to her, as though to the Duchess +de Berry! Is there any sense in it? Is he mad, then, that mysterious old +fellow?" + +"Why! it is perfectly simple," replied Thenardier, "if that amuses him! +It amuses you to have the little one work; it amuses him to have her +play. He's all right. A traveller can do what he pleases when he pays +for it. If the old fellow is a philanthropist, what is that to you? If +he is an imbecile, it does not concern you. What are you worrying for, +so long as he has money?" + +The language of a master, and the reasoning of an innkeeper, neither of +which admitted of any reply. + +The man had placed his elbows on the table, and resumed his thoughtful +attitude. All the other travellers, both pedlers and carters, had +withdrawn a little, and had ceased singing. They were staring at him +from a distance, with a sort of respectful awe. This poorly dressed +man, who drew "hind-wheels" from his pocket with so much ease, and +who lavished gigantic dolls on dirty little brats in wooden shoes, was +certainly a magnificent fellow, and one to be feared. + +Many hours passed. The midnight mass was over, the chimes had ceased, +the drinkers had taken their departure, the drinking-shop was closed, +the public room was deserted, the fire extinct, the stranger still +remained in the same place and the same attitude. From time to time he +changed the elbow on which he leaned. That was all; but he had not said +a word since Cosette had left the room. + +The Thenardiers alone, out of politeness and curiosity, had remained in +the room. + +"Is he going to pass the night in that fashion?" grumbled the +Thenardier. When two o'clock in the morning struck, she declared herself +vanquished, and said to her husband, "I'm going to bed. Do as you like." +Her husband seated himself at a table in the corner, lighted a candle, +and began to read the Courrier Francais. + +A good hour passed thus. The worthy inn-keeper had perused the Courrier +Francais at least three times, from the date of the number to the +printer's name. The stranger did not stir. + +Thenardier fidgeted, coughed, spit, blew his nose, and creaked his +chair. Not a movement on the man's part. "Is he asleep?" thought +Thenardier. The man was not asleep, but nothing could arouse him. + +At last Thenardier took off his cap, stepped gently up to him, and +ventured to say:-- + +"Is not Monsieur going to his repose?" + +Not going to bed would have seemed to him excessive and familiar. To +repose smacked of luxury and respect. These words possess the mysterious +and admirable property of swelling the bill on the following day. A +chamber where one sleeps costs twenty sous; a chamber in which one +reposes costs twenty francs. + +"Well!" said the stranger, "you are right. Where is your stable?" + +"Sir!" exclaimed Thenardier, with a smile, "I will conduct you, sir." + +He took the candle; the man picked up his bundle and cudgel, and +Thenardier conducted him to a chamber on the first floor, which was of +rare splendor, all furnished in mahogany, with a low bedstead, curtained +with red calico. + +"What is this?" said the traveller. + +"It is really our bridal chamber," said the tavern-keeper. "My wife and +I occupy another. This is only entered three or four times a year." + +"I should have liked the stable quite as well," said the man, abruptly. + +Thenardier pretended not to hear this unamiable remark. + +He lighted two perfectly fresh wax candles which figured on the +chimney-piece. A very good fire was flickering on the hearth. + +On the chimney-piece, under a glass globe, stood a woman's head-dress in +silver wire and orange flowers. + +"And what is this?" resumed the stranger. + +"That, sir," said Thenardier, "is my wife's wedding bonnet." + +The traveller surveyed the object with a glance which seemed to say, +"There really was a time, then, when that monster was a maiden?" + +Thenardier lied, however. When he had leased this paltry building for +the purpose of converting it into a tavern, he had found this chamber +decorated in just this manner, and had purchased the furniture and +obtained the orange flowers at second hand, with the idea that this +would cast a graceful shadow on "his spouse," and would result in what +the English call respectability for his house. + +When the traveller turned round, the host had disappeared. Thenardier +had withdrawn discreetly, without venturing to wish him a good night, +as he did not wish to treat with disrespectful cordiality a man whom he +proposed to fleece royally the following morning. + +The inn-keeper retired to his room. His wife was in bed, but she was not +asleep. When she heard her husband's step she turned over and said to +him:-- + +"Do you know, I'm going to turn Cosette out of doors to-morrow." + +Thenardier replied coldly:-- + +"How you do go on!" + +They exchanged no further words, and a few moments later their candle +was extinguished. + +As for the traveller, he had deposited his cudgel and his bundle in a +corner. The landlord once gone, he threw himself into an arm-chair and +remained for some time buried in thought. Then he removed his shoes, +took one of the two candles, blew out the other, opened the door, and +quitted the room, gazing about him like a person who is in search of +something. He traversed a corridor and came upon a staircase. There he +heard a very faint and gentle sound like the breathing of a child. He +followed this sound, and came to a sort of triangular recess built under +the staircase, or rather formed by the staircase itself. This recess was +nothing else than the space under the steps. There, in the midst of all +sorts of old papers and potsherds, among dust and spiders' webs, was a +bed--if one can call by the name of bed a straw pallet so full of holes +as to display the straw, and a coverlet so tattered as to show the +pallet. No sheets. This was placed on the floor. + +In this bed Cosette was sleeping. + +The man approached and gazed down upon her. + +Cosette was in a profound sleep; she was fully dressed. In the winter +she did not undress, in order that she might not be so cold. + +Against her breast was pressed the doll, whose large eyes, wide open, +glittered in the dark. From time to time she gave vent to a deep sigh as +though she were on the point of waking, and she strained the doll almost +convulsively in her arms. Beside her bed there was only one of her +wooden shoes. + +A door which stood open near Cosette's pallet permitted a view of a +rather large, dark room. The stranger stepped into it. At the further +extremity, through a glass door, he saw two small, very white beds. +They belonged to Eponine and Azelma. Behind these beds, and half hidden, +stood an uncurtained wicker cradle, in which the little boy who had +cried all the evening lay asleep. + +The stranger conjectured that this chamber connected with that of the +Thenardier pair. He was on the point of retreating when his eye fell +upon the fireplace--one of those vast tavern chimneys where there is +always so little fire when there is any fire at all, and which are +so cold to look at. There was no fire in this one, there was not even +ashes; but there was something which attracted the stranger's gaze, +nevertheless. It was two tiny children's shoes, coquettish in shape +and unequal in size. The traveller recalled the graceful and immemorial +custom in accordance with which children place their shoes in the +chimney on Christmas eve, there to await in the darkness some sparkling +gift from their good fairy. Eponine and Azelma had taken care not to +omit this, and each of them had set one of her shoes on the hearth. + +The traveller bent over them. + +The fairy, that is to say, their mother, had already paid her visit, and +in each he saw a brand-new and shining ten-sou piece. + +The man straightened himself up, and was on the point of withdrawing, +when far in, in the darkest corner of the hearth, he caught sight +of another object. He looked at it, and recognized a wooden shoe, a +frightful shoe of the coarsest description, half dilapidated and all +covered with ashes and dried mud. It was Cosette's sabot. Cosette, with +that touching trust of childhood, which can always be deceived yet never +discouraged, had placed her shoe on the hearth-stone also. + +Hope in a child who has never known anything but despair is a sweet and +touching thing. + +There was nothing in this wooden shoe. + +The stranger fumbled in his waistcoat, bent over and placed a louis d'or +in Cosette's shoe. + +Then he regained his own chamber with the stealthy tread of a wolf. + + + + +CHAPTER IX--THENARDIER AND HIS MANOEUVRES + +On the following morning, two hours at least before day-break, +Thenardier, seated beside a candle in the public room of the tavern, pen +in hand, was making out the bill for the traveller with the yellow coat. + +His wife, standing beside him, and half bent over him, was following +him with her eyes. They exchanged not a word. On the one hand, there was +profound meditation, on the other, the religious admiration with which +one watches the birth and development of a marvel of the human mind. A +noise was audible in the house; it was the Lark sweeping the stairs. + +After the lapse of a good quarter of an hour, and some erasures, +Thenardier produced the following masterpiece:-- + + BILL OF THE GENTLEMAN IN No. 1. + + Supper . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 francs. + Chamber . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10 " + Candle . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 " + Fire . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 " + Service . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 " + ---------- + Total . . . . . . 23 francs. + + +Service was written servisse. + +"Twenty-three francs!" cried the woman, with an enthusiasm which was +mingled with some hesitation. + +Like all great artists, Thenardier was dissatisfied. + +"Peuh!" he exclaimed. + +It was the accent of Castlereagh auditing France's bill at the Congress +of Vienna. + +"Monsieur Thenardier, you are right; he certainly owes that," murmured +the wife, who was thinking of the doll bestowed on Cosette in the +presence of her daughters. "It is just, but it is too much. He will not +pay it." + +Thenardier laughed coldly, as usual, and said:-- + +"He will pay." + +This laugh was the supreme assertion of certainty and authority. That +which was asserted in this manner must needs be so. His wife did not +insist. + +She set about arranging the table; her husband paced the room. A moment +later he added:-- + +"I owe full fifteen hundred francs!" + +He went and seated himself in the chimney-corner, meditating, with his +feet among the warm ashes. + +"Ah! by the way," resumed his wife, "you don't forget that I'm going to +turn Cosette out of doors to-day? The monster! She breaks my heart with +that doll of hers! I'd rather marry Louis XVIII. than keep her another +day in the house!" + +Thenardier lighted his pipe, and replied between two puffs:-- + +"You will hand that bill to the man." + +Then he went out. + +Hardly had he left the room when the traveller entered. + +Thenardier instantly reappeared behind him and remained motionless in +the half-open door, visible only to his wife. + +The yellow man carried his bundle and his cudgel in his hand. + +"Up so early?" said Madame Thenardier; "is Monsieur leaving us already?" + +As she spoke thus, she was twisting the bill about in her hands with an +embarrassed air, and making creases in it with her nails. Her hard +face presented a shade which was not habitual with it,--timidity and +scruples. + +To present such a bill to a man who had so completely the air "of a poor +wretch" seemed difficult to her. + +The traveller appeared to be preoccupied and absent-minded. He +replied:-- + +"Yes, Madame, I am going." + +"So Monsieur has no business in Montfermeil?" + +"No, I was passing through. That is all. What do I owe you, Madame," he +added. + +The Thenardier silently handed him the folded bill. + +The man unfolded the paper and glanced at it; but his thoughts were +evidently elsewhere. + +"Madame," he resumed, "is business good here in Montfermeil?" + +"So so, Monsieur," replied the Thenardier, stupefied at not witnessing +another sort of explosion. + +She continued, in a dreary and lamentable tone:-- + +"Oh! Monsieur, times are so hard! and then, we have so few bourgeois in +the neighborhood! All the people are poor, you see. If we had not, now +and then, some rich and generous travellers like Monsieur, we should +not get along at all. We have so many expenses. Just see, that child is +costing us our very eyes." + +"What child?" + +"Why, the little one, you know! Cosette--the Lark, as she is called +hereabouts!" + +"Ah!" said the man. + +She went on:-- + +"How stupid these peasants are with their nicknames! She has more the +air of a bat than of a lark. You see, sir, we do not ask charity, and we +cannot bestow it. We earn nothing and we have to pay out a great deal. +The license, the imposts, the door and window tax, the hundredths! +Monsieur is aware that the government demands a terrible deal of money. +And then, I have my daughters. I have no need to bring up other people's +children." + +The man resumed, in that voice which he strove to render indifferent, +and in which there lingered a tremor:-- + +"What if one were to rid you of her?" + +"Who? Cosette?" + +"Yes." + +The landlady's red and violent face brightened up hideously. + +"Ah! sir, my dear sir, take her, keep her, lead her off, carry her +away, sugar her, stuff her with truffles, drink her, eat her, and the +blessings of the good holy Virgin and of all the saints of paradise be +upon you!" + +"Agreed." + +"Really! You will take her away?" + +"I will take her away." + +"Immediately?" + +"Immediately. Call the child." + +"Cosette!" screamed the Thenardier. + +"In the meantime," pursued the man, "I will pay you what I owe you. How +much is it?" + +He cast a glance on the bill, and could not restrain a start of +surprise:-- + +"Twenty-three francs!" + +He looked at the landlady, and repeated:-- + +"Twenty-three francs?" + +There was in the enunciation of these words, thus repeated, an accent +between an exclamation and an interrogation point. + +The Thenardier had had time to prepare herself for the shock. She +replied, with assurance:-- + +"Good gracious, yes, sir, it is twenty-three francs." + +The stranger laid five five-franc pieces on the table. + +"Go and get the child," said he. + +At that moment Thenardier advanced to the middle of the room, and +said:-- + +"Monsieur owes twenty-six sous." + +"Twenty-six sous!" exclaimed his wife. + +"Twenty sous for the chamber," resumed Thenardier, coldly, "and six sous +for his supper. As for the child, I must discuss that matter a little +with the gentleman. Leave us, wife." + +Madame Thenardier was dazzled as with the shock caused by unexpected +lightning flashes of talent. She was conscious that a great actor was +making his entrance on the stage, uttered not a word in reply, and left +the room. + +As soon as they were alone, Thenardier offered the traveller a chair. +The traveller seated himself; Thenardier remained standing, and his face +assumed a singular expression of good-fellowship and simplicity. + +"Sir," said he, "what I have to say to you is this, that I adore that +child." + +The stranger gazed intently at him. + +"What child?" + +Thenardier continued:-- + +"How strange it is, one grows attached. What money is that? Take back +your hundred-sou piece. I adore the child." + +"Whom do you mean?" demanded the stranger. + +"Eh! our little Cosette! Are you not intending to take her away from +us? Well, I speak frankly; as true as you are an honest man, I will not +consent to it. I shall miss that child. I saw her first when she was a +tiny thing. It is true that she costs us money; it is true that she has +her faults; it is true that we are not rich; it is true that I have paid +out over four hundred francs for drugs for just one of her illnesses! +But one must do something for the good God's sake. She has neither +father nor mother. I have brought her up. I have bread enough for +her and for myself. In truth, I think a great deal of that child. You +understand, one conceives an affection for a person; I am a good sort +of a beast, I am; I do not reason; I love that little girl; my wife is +quick-tempered, but she loves her also. You see, she is just the same as +our own child. I want to keep her to babble about the house." + +The stranger kept his eye intently fixed on Thenardier. The latter +continued:-- + +"Excuse me, sir, but one does not give away one's child to a passer-by, +like that. I am right, am I not? Still, I don't say--you are rich; you +have the air of a very good man,--if it were for her happiness. But one +must find out that. You understand: suppose that I were to let her go +and to sacrifice myself, I should like to know what becomes of her; I +should not wish to lose sight of her; I should like to know with whom +she is living, so that I could go to see her from time to time; so that +she may know that her good foster-father is alive, that he is watching +over her. In short, there are things which are not possible. I do not +even know your name. If you were to take her away, I should say: 'Well, +and the Lark, what has become of her?' One must, at least, see some +petty scrap of paper, some trifle in the way of a passport, you know!" + +The stranger, still surveying him with that gaze which penetrates, as +the saying goes, to the very depths of the conscience, replied in a +grave, firm voice:-- + +"Monsieur Thenardier, one does not require a passport to travel five +leagues from Paris. If I take Cosette away, I shall take her away, and +that is the end of the matter. You will not know my name, you will not +know my residence, you will not know where she is; and my intention is +that she shall never set eyes on you again so long as she lives. I break +the thread which binds her foot, and she departs. Does that suit you? +Yes or no?" + +Since geniuses, like demons, recognize the presence of a superior God by +certain signs, Thenardier comprehended that he had to deal with a very +strong person. It was like an intuition; he comprehended it with his +clear and sagacious promptitude. While drinking with the carters, +smoking, and singing coarse songs on the preceding evening, he had +devoted the whole of the time to observing the stranger, watching him +like a cat, and studying him like a mathematician. He had watched him, +both on his own account, for the pleasure of the thing, and through +instinct, and had spied upon him as though he had been paid for so +doing. Not a movement, not a gesture, on the part of the man in the +yellow great-coat had escaped him. Even before the stranger had so +clearly manifested his interest in Cosette, Thenardier had divined his +purpose. He had caught the old man's deep glances returning constantly +to the child. Who was this man? Why this interest? Why this hideous +costume, when he had so much money in his purse? Questions which he put +to himself without being able to solve them, and which irritated him. He +had pondered it all night long. He could not be Cosette's father. Was he +her grandfather? Then why not make himself known at once? When one has +a right, one asserts it. This man evidently had no right over Cosette. +What was it, then? Thenardier lost himself in conjectures. He caught +glimpses of everything, but he saw nothing. Be that as it may, on +entering into conversation with the man, sure that there was some secret +in the case, that the latter had some interest in remaining in the +shadow, he felt himself strong; when he perceived from the stranger's +clear and firm retort, that this mysterious personage was mysterious in +so simple a way, he became conscious that he was weak. He had expected +nothing of the sort. His conjectures were put to the rout. He rallied +his ideas. He weighed everything in the space of a second. Thenardier +was one of those men who take in a situation at a glance. He decided +that the moment had arrived for proceeding straightforward, and quickly +at that. He did as great leaders do at the decisive moment, which they +know that they alone recognize; he abruptly unmasked his batteries. + +"Sir," said he, "I am in need of fifteen hundred francs." + +The stranger took from his side pocket an old pocketbook of black +leather, opened it, drew out three bank-bills, which he laid on the +table. Then he placed his large thumb on the notes and said to the +inn-keeper:-- + +"Go and fetch Cosette." + +While this was taking place, what had Cosette been doing? + +On waking up, Cosette had run to get her shoe. In it she had found the +gold piece. It was not a Napoleon; it was one of those perfectly new +twenty-franc pieces of the Restoration, on whose effigy the little +Prussian queue had replaced the laurel wreath. Cosette was dazzled. Her +destiny began to intoxicate her. She did not know what a gold piece was; +she had never seen one; she hid it quickly in her pocket, as though +she had stolen it. Still, she felt that it really was hers; she guessed +whence her gift had come, but the joy which she experienced was full of +fear. She was happy; above all she was stupefied. Such magnificent and +beautiful things did not appear real. The doll frightened her, the +gold piece frightened her. She trembled vaguely in the presence of this +magnificence. The stranger alone did not frighten her. On the contrary, +he reassured her. Ever since the preceding evening, amid all her +amazement, even in her sleep, she had been thinking in her little +childish mind of that man who seemed to be so poor and so sad, and who +was so rich and so kind. Everything had changed for her since she had +met that good man in the forest. Cosette, less happy than the most +insignificant swallow of heaven, had never known what it was to take +refuge under a mother's shadow and under a wing. For the last five +years, that is to say, as far back as her memory ran, the poor child had +shivered and trembled. She had always been exposed completely naked +to the sharp wind of adversity; now it seemed to her she was clothed. +Formerly her soul had seemed cold, now it was warm. Cosette was no +longer afraid of the Thenardier. She was no longer alone; there was some +one there. + +She hastily set about her regular morning duties. That louis, which she +had about her, in the very apron pocket whence the fifteen-sou piece had +fallen on the night before, distracted her thoughts. She dared not touch +it, but she spent five minutes in gazing at it, with her tongue hanging +out, if the truth must be told. As she swept the staircase, she paused, +remained standing there motionless, forgetful of her broom and of the +entire universe, occupied in gazing at that star which was blazing at +the bottom of her pocket. + +It was during one of these periods of contemplation that the Thenardier +joined her. She had gone in search of Cosette at her husband's orders. +What was quite unprecedented, she neither struck her nor said an +insulting word to her. + +"Cosette," she said, almost gently, "come immediately." + +An instant later Cosette entered the public room. + +The stranger took up the bundle which he had brought and untied it. This +bundle contained a little woollen gown, an apron, a fustian bodice, a +kerchief, a petticoat, woollen stockings, shoes--a complete outfit for a +girl of seven years. All was black. + +"My child," said the man, "take these, and go and dress yourself +quickly." + +Daylight was appearing when those of the inhabitants of Montfermeil who +had begun to open their doors beheld a poorly clad old man leading a +little girl dressed in mourning, and carrying a pink doll in her arms, +pass along the road to Paris. They were going in the direction of Livry. + +It was our man and Cosette. + +No one knew the man; as Cosette was no longer in rags, many did not +recognize her. Cosette was going away. With whom? She did not know. +Whither? She knew not. All that she understood was that she was leaving +the Thenardier tavern behind her. No one had thought of bidding her +farewell, nor had she thought of taking leave of any one. She was +leaving that hated and hating house. + +Poor, gentle creature, whose heart had been repressed up to that hour! + +Cosette walked along gravely, with her large eyes wide open, and gazing +at the sky. She had put her louis in the pocket of her new apron. From +time to time, she bent down and glanced at it; then she looked at the +good man. She felt something as though she were beside the good God. + + + + +CHAPTER X--HE WHO SEEKS TO BETTER HIMSELF MAY RENDER HIS SITUATION WORSE + +Madame Thenardier had allowed her husband to have his own way, as was +her wont. She had expected great results. When the man and Cosette had +taken their departure, Thenardier allowed a full quarter of an hour +to elapse; then he took her aside and showed her the fifteen hundred +francs. + +"Is that all?" said she. + +It was the first time since they had set up housekeeping that she had +dared to criticise one of the master's acts. + +The blow told. + +"You are right, in sooth," said he; "I am a fool. Give me my hat." + +He folded up the three bank-bills, thrust them into his pocket, and ran +out in all haste; but he made a mistake and turned to the right first. +Some neighbors, of whom he made inquiries, put him on the track again; +the Lark and the man had been seen going in the direction of Livry. He +followed these hints, walking with great strides, and talking to himself +the while:-- + +"That man is evidently a million dressed in yellow, and I am an animal. +First he gave twenty sous, then five francs, then fifty francs, then +fifteen hundred francs, all with equal readiness. He would have given +fifteen thousand francs. But I shall overtake him." + +And then, that bundle of clothes prepared beforehand for the child; all +that was singular; many mysteries lay concealed under it. One does not +let mysteries out of one's hand when one has once grasped them. The +secrets of the wealthy are sponges of gold; one must know how to subject +them to pressure. All these thoughts whirled through his brain. "I am an +animal," said he. + +When one leaves Montfermeil and reaches the turn which the road takes +that runs to Livry, it can be seen stretching out before one to a great +distance across the plateau. On arriving there, he calculated that he +ought to be able to see the old man and the child. He looked as far as +his vision reached, and saw nothing. He made fresh inquiries, but he had +wasted time. Some passers-by informed him that the man and child of whom +he was in search had gone towards the forest in the direction of Gagny. +He hastened in that direction. + +They were far in advance of him; but a child walks slowly, and he walked +fast; and then, he was well acquainted with the country. + +All at once he paused and dealt himself a blow on his forehead like a +man who has forgotten some essential point and who is ready to retrace +his steps. + +"I ought to have taken my gun," said he to himself. + +Thenardier was one of those double natures which sometimes pass through +our midst without our being aware of the fact, and who disappear without +our finding them out, because destiny has only exhibited one side of +them. It is the fate of many men to live thus half submerged. In a +calm and even situation, Thenardier possessed all that is required to +make--we will not say to be--what people have agreed to call an honest +trader, a good bourgeois. At the same time certain circumstances being +given, certain shocks arriving to bring his under-nature to the surface, +he had all the requisites for a blackguard. He was a shopkeeper in +whom there was some taint of the monster. Satan must have occasionally +crouched down in some corner of the hovel in which Thenardier dwelt, and +have fallen a-dreaming in the presence of this hideous masterpiece. + +After a momentary hesitation:-- + +"Bah!" he thought; "they will have time to make their escape." + +And he pursued his road, walking rapidly straight ahead, and with almost +an air of certainty, with the sagacity of a fox scenting a covey of +partridges. + +In truth, when he had passed the ponds and had traversed in an oblique +direction the large clearing which lies on the right of the Avenue de +Bellevue, and reached that turf alley which nearly makes the circuit of +the hill, and covers the arch of the ancient aqueduct of the Abbey of +Chelles, he caught sight, over the top of the brushwood, of the hat on +which he had already erected so many conjectures; it was that man's hat. +The brushwood was not high. Thenardier recognized the fact that the man +and Cosette were sitting there. The child could not be seen on account +of her small size, but the head of her doll was visible. + +Thenardier was not mistaken. The man was sitting there, and letting +Cosette get somewhat rested. The inn-keeper walked round the brushwood +and presented himself abruptly to the eyes of those whom he was in +search of. + +"Pardon, excuse me, sir," he said, quite breathless, "but here are your +fifteen hundred francs." + +So saying, he handed the stranger the three bank-bills. + +The man raised his eyes. + +"What is the meaning of this?" + +Thenardier replied respectfully:-- + +"It means, sir, that I shall take back Cosette." + +Cosette shuddered, and pressed close to the old man. + +He replied, gazing to the very bottom of Thenardier's eyes the while, +and enunciating every syllable distinctly:-- + +"You are go-ing to take back Co-sette?" + +"Yes, sir, I am. I will tell you; I have considered the matter. In fact, +I have not the right to give her to you. I am an honest man, you see; +this child does not belong to me; she belongs to her mother. It was her +mother who confided her to me; I can only resign her to her mother. You +will say to me, 'But her mother is dead.' Good; in that case I can only +give the child up to the person who shall bring me a writing, signed by +her mother, to the effect that I am to hand the child over to the person +therein mentioned; that is clear." + +The man, without making any reply, fumbled in his pocket, and Thenardier +beheld the pocket-book of bank-bills make its appearance once more. + +The tavern-keeper shivered with joy. + +"Good!" thought he; "let us hold firm; he is going to bribe me!" + +Before opening the pocket-book, the traveller cast a glance about him: +the spot was absolutely deserted; there was not a soul either in the +woods or in the valley. The man opened his pocket-book once more and +drew from it, not the handful of bills which Thenardier expected, but a +simple little paper, which he unfolded and presented fully open to the +inn-keeper, saying:-- + +"You are right; read!" + +Thenardier took the paper and read:-- + + "M. SUR M., March 25, 1823. + + "MONSIEUR THENARDIER:-- + + You will deliver Cosette to this person. + You will be paid for all the little things. + I have the honor to salute you with respect, + FANTINE." + +"You know that signature?" resumed the man. + +It certainly was Fantine's signature; Thenardier recognized it. + +There was no reply to make; he experienced two violent vexations, the +vexation of renouncing the bribery which he had hoped for, and the +vexation of being beaten; the man added:-- + +"You may keep this paper as your receipt." + +Thenardier retreated in tolerably good order. + +"This signature is fairly well imitated," he growled between his teeth; +"however, let it go!" + +Then he essayed a desperate effort. + +"It is well, sir," he said, "since you are the person, but I must be +paid for all those little things. A great deal is owing to me." + +The man rose to his feet, filliping the dust from his thread-bare +sleeve:-- + +"Monsieur Thenardier, in January last, the mother reckoned that she owed +you one hundred and twenty francs. In February, you sent her a bill of +five hundred francs; you received three hundred francs at the end of +February, and three hundred francs at the beginning of March. Since then +nine months have elapsed, at fifteen francs a month, the price agreed +upon, which makes one hundred and thirty-five francs. You had received +one hundred francs too much; that makes thirty-five still owing you. I +have just given you fifteen hundred francs." + +Thenardier's sensations were those of the wolf at the moment when he +feels himself nipped and seized by the steel jaw of the trap. + +"Who is this devil of a man?" he thought. + +He did what the wolf does: he shook himself. Audacity had succeeded with +him once. + +"Monsieur-I-don't-know-your-name," he said resolutely, and this time +casting aside all respectful ceremony, "I shall take back Cosette if you +do not give me a thousand crowns." + +The stranger said tranquilly:-- + +"Come, Cosette." + +He took Cosette by his left hand, and with his right he picked up his +cudgel, which was lying on the ground. + +Thenardier noted the enormous size of the cudgel and the solitude of the +spot. + +The man plunged into the forest with the child, leaving the inn-keeper +motionless and speechless. + +While they were walking away, Thenardier scrutinized his huge shoulders, +which were a little rounded, and his great fists. + +Then, bringing his eyes back to his own person, they fell upon his +feeble arms and his thin hands. "I really must have been exceedingly +stupid not to have thought to bring my gun," he said to himself, "since +I was going hunting!" + +However, the inn-keeper did not give up. + +"I want to know where he is going," said he, and he set out to follow +them at a distance. Two things were left on his hands, an irony in +the shape of the paper signed Fantine, and a consolation, the fifteen +hundred francs. + +The man led Cosette off in the direction of Livry and Bondy. He walked +slowly, with drooping head, in an attitude of reflection and sadness. +The winter had thinned out the forest, so that Thenardier did not lose +them from sight, although he kept at a good distance. The man turned +round from time to time, and looked to see if he was being followed. +All at once he caught sight of Thenardier. He plunged suddenly into +the brushwood with Cosette, where they could both hide themselves. "The +deuce!" said Thenardier, and he redoubled his pace. + +The thickness of the undergrowth forced him to draw nearer to them. When +the man had reached the densest part of the thicket, he wheeled +round. It was in vain that Thenardier sought to conceal himself in the +branches; he could not prevent the man seeing him. The man cast upon him +an uneasy glance, then elevated his head and continued his course. The +inn-keeper set out again in pursuit. Thus they continued for two or +three hundred paces. All at once the man turned round once more; he saw +the inn-keeper. This time he gazed at him with so sombre an air that +Thenardier decided that it was "useless" to proceed further. Thenardier +retraced his steps. + + + + +CHAPTER XI--NUMBER 9,430 REAPPEARS, AND COSETTE WINS IT IN THE LOTTERY + +Jean Valjean was not dead. + +When he fell into the sea, or rather, when he threw himself into it, he +was not ironed, as we have seen. He swam under water until he reached a +vessel at anchor, to which a boat was moored. He found means of hiding +himself in this boat until night. At night he swam off again, and +reached the shore a little way from Cape Brun. There, as he did not lack +money, he procured clothing. A small country-house in the neighborhood +of Balaguier was at that time the dressing-room of escaped convicts,--a +lucrative specialty. Then Jean Valjean, like all the sorry fugitives +who are seeking to evade the vigilance of the law and social fatality, +pursued an obscure and undulating itinerary. He found his first +refuge at Pradeaux, near Beausset. Then he directed his course towards +Grand-Villard, near Briancon, in the Hautes-Alpes. It was a fumbling and +uneasy flight,--a mole's track, whose branchings are untraceable. Later +on, some trace of his passage into Ain, in the territory of Civrieux, +was discovered; in the Pyrenees, at Accons; at the spot called +Grange-de-Doumec, near the market of Chavailles, and in the environs of +Perigueux at Brunies, canton of La Chapelle-Gonaguet. He reached Paris. +We have just seen him at Montfermeil. + +His first care on arriving in Paris had been to buy mourning clothes +for a little girl of from seven to eight years of age; then to procure +a lodging. That done, he had betaken himself to Montfermeil. It will +be remembered that already, during his preceding escape, he had made a +mysterious trip thither, or somewhere in that neighborhood, of which the +law had gathered an inkling. + +However, he was thought to be dead, and this still further increased the +obscurity which had gathered about him. At Paris, one of the journals +which chronicled the fact fell into his hands. He felt reassured and +almost at peace, as though he had really been dead. + +On the evening of the day when Jean Valjean rescued Cosette from the +claws of the Thenardiers, he returned to Paris. He re-entered it at +nightfall, with the child, by way of the Barrier Monceaux. There +he entered a cabriolet, which took him to the esplanade of the +Observatoire. There he got out, paid the coachman, took Cosette by +the hand, and together they directed their steps through the +darkness,--through the deserted streets which adjoin the Ourcine and the +Glaciere, towards the Boulevard de l'Hopital. + +The day had been strange and filled with emotions for Cosette. They +had eaten some bread and cheese purchased in isolated taverns, behind +hedges; they had changed carriages frequently; they had travelled short +distances on foot. She made no complaint, but she was weary, and Jean +Valjean perceived it by the way she dragged more and more on his hand +as she walked. He took her on his back. Cosette, without letting go +of Catherine, laid her head on Jean Valjean's shoulder, and there fell +asleep. + + + + +BOOK FOURTH.--THE GORBEAU HOVEL + +[Illustration: The Gorbeau Hovel 2b3-10-gorbeau-house] + + + + +CHAPTER I--MASTER GORBEAU + +Forty years ago, a rambler who had ventured into that unknown country of +the Salpetriere, and who had mounted to the Barriere d'Italie by way +of the boulevard, reached a point where it might be said that Paris +disappeared. It was no longer solitude, for there were passers-by; it +was not the country, for there were houses and streets; it was not the +city, for the streets had ruts like highways, and the grass grew in +them; it was not a village, the houses were too lofty. What was it, +then? It was an inhabited spot where there was no one; it was a desert +place where there was some one; it was a boulevard of the great city, a +street of Paris; more wild at night than the forest, more gloomy by day +than a cemetery. + +It was the old quarter of the Marche-aux-Chevaux. + +The rambler, if he risked himself outside the four decrepit walls of +this Marche-aux-Chevaux; if he consented even to pass beyond the Rue du +Petit-Banquier, after leaving on his right a garden protected by high +walls; then a field in which tan-bark mills rose like gigantic beaver +huts; then an enclosure encumbered with timber, with a heap of stumps, +sawdust, and shavings, on which stood a large dog, barking; then a long, +low, utterly dilapidated wall, with a little black door in mourning, +laden with mosses, which were covered with flowers in the spring; then, +in the most deserted spot, a frightful and decrepit building, on which +ran the inscription in large letters: POST NO BILLS,--this daring +rambler would have reached little known latitudes at the corner of the +Rue des Vignes-Saint-Marcel. There, near a factory, and between two +garden walls, there could be seen, at that epoch, a mean building, +which, at the first glance, seemed as small as a thatched hovel, and +which was, in reality, as large as a cathedral. It presented its side +and gable to the public road; hence its apparent diminutiveness. Nearly +the whole of the house was hidden. Only the door and one window could be +seen. + +This hovel was only one story high. + +The first detail that struck the observer was, that the door could never +have been anything but the door of a hovel, while the window, if it +had been carved out of dressed stone instead of being in rough masonry, +might have been the lattice of a lordly mansion. + +The door was nothing but a collection of worm-eaten planks roughly bound +together by cross-beams which resembled roughly hewn logs. It +opened directly on a steep staircase of lofty steps, muddy, chalky, +plaster-stained, dusty steps, of the same width as itself, which +could be seen from the street, running straight up like a ladder and +disappearing in the darkness between two walls. The top of the shapeless +bay into which this door shut was masked by a narrow scantling in the +centre of which a triangular hole had been sawed, which served both as +wicket and air-hole when the door was closed. On the inside of the +door the figures 52 had been traced with a couple of strokes of a brush +dipped in ink, and above the scantling the same hand had daubed the +number 50, so that one hesitated. Where was one? Above the door it said, +"Number 50"; the inside replied, "no, Number 52." No one knows what +dust-colored figures were suspended like draperies from the triangular +opening. + +The window was large, sufficiently elevated, garnished with Venetian +blinds, and with a frame in large square panes; only these large panes +were suffering from various wounds, which were both concealed and +betrayed by an ingenious paper bandage. And the blinds, dislocated and +unpasted, threatened passers-by rather than screened the occupants. +The horizontal slats were missing here and there and had been naively +replaced with boards nailed on perpendicularly; so that what began as +a blind ended as a shutter. This door with an unclean, and this window +with an honest though dilapidated air, thus beheld on the same house, +produced the effect of two incomplete beggars walking side by side, +with different miens beneath the same rags, the one having always been a +mendicant, and the other having once been a gentleman. + +The staircase led to a very vast edifice which resembled a shed which +had been converted into a house. This edifice had, for its intestinal +tube, a long corridor, on which opened to right and left sorts of +compartments of varied dimensions which were inhabitable under stress +of circumstances, and rather more like stalls than cells. These chambers +received their light from the vague waste grounds in the neighborhood. + +All this was dark, disagreeable, wan, melancholy, sepulchral; traversed +according as the crevices lay in the roof or in the door, by cold rays +or by icy winds. An interesting and picturesque peculiarity of this sort +of dwelling is the enormous size of the spiders. + +To the left of the entrance door, on the boulevard side, at about the +height of a man from the ground, a small window which had been walled up +formed a square niche full of stones which the children had thrown there +as they passed by. + +A portion of this building has recently been demolished. From what still +remains of it one can form a judgment as to what it was in former days. +As a whole, it was not over a hundred years old. A hundred years is +youth in a church and age in a house. It seems as though man's lodging +partook of his ephemeral character, and God's house of his eternity. + +The postmen called the house Number 50-52; but it was known in the +neighborhood as the Gorbeau house. + +Let us explain whence this appellation was derived. + +Collectors of petty details, who become herbalists of anecdotes, and +prick slippery dates into their memories with a pin, know that there +was in Paris, during the last century, about 1770, two attorneys at the +Chatelet named, one Corbeau (Raven), the other Renard (Fox). The two +names had been forestalled by La Fontaine. The opportunity was too fine +for the lawyers; they made the most of it. A parody was immediately +put in circulation in the galleries of the court-house, in verses that +limped a little:-- + + + Maitre Corbeau, sur un dossier perche,[13] + Tenait dans son bee une saisie executoire; + Maitre Renard, par l'odeur alleche, + Lui fit a peu pres cette histoire: + He! bonjour. Etc. + + +The two honest practitioners, embarrassed by the jests, and finding the +bearing of their heads interfered with by the shouts of laughter which +followed them, resolved to get rid of their names, and hit upon the +expedient of applying to the king. + +Their petition was presented to Louis XV. on the same day when the +Papal Nuncio, on the one hand, and the Cardinal de la Roche-Aymon on the +other, both devoutly kneeling, were each engaged in putting on, in his +Majesty's presence, a slipper on the bare feet of Madame du Barry, who +had just got out of bed. The king, who was laughing, continued to laugh, +passed gayly from the two bishops to the two lawyers, and bestowed on +these limbs of the law their former names, or nearly so. By the kings +command, Maitre Corbeau was permitted to add a tail to his initial +letter and to call himself Gorbeau. Maitre Renard was less lucky; all he +obtained was leave to place a P in front of his R, and to call himself +Prenard; so that the second name bore almost as much resemblance as the +first. + +Now, according to local tradition, this Maitre Gorbeau had been the +proprietor of the building numbered 50-52 on the Boulevard de l'Hopital. +He was even the author of the monumental window. + +Hence the edifice bore the name of the Gorbeau house. + +Opposite this house, among the trees of the boulevard, rose a great elm +which was three-quarters dead; almost directly facing it opens the Rue +de la Barriere des Gobelins, a street then without houses, unpaved, +planted with unhealthy trees, which was green or muddy according to the +season, and which ended squarely in the exterior wall of Paris. An odor +of copperas issued in puffs from the roofs of the neighboring factory. + +The barrier was close at hand. In 1823 the city wall was still in +existence. + +This barrier itself evoked gloomy fancies in the mind. It was the +road to Bicetre. It was through it that, under the Empire and the +Restoration, prisoners condemned to death re-entered Paris on the day +of their execution. It was there, that, about 1829, was committed that +mysterious assassination, called "The assassination of the Fontainebleau +barrier," whose authors justice was never able to discover; a melancholy +problem which has never been elucidated, a frightful enigma which has +never been unriddled. Take a few steps, and you come upon that fatal Rue +Croulebarbe, where Ulbach stabbed the goat-girl of Ivry to the sound of +thunder, as in the melodramas. A few paces more, and you arrive at the +abominable pollarded elms of the Barriere Saint-Jacques, that expedient +of the philanthropist to conceal the scaffold, that miserable and +shameful Place de Grove of a shop-keeping and bourgeois society, which +recoiled before the death penalty, neither daring to abolish it with +grandeur, nor to uphold it with authority. + +Leaving aside this Place Saint-Jacques, which was, as it were, +predestined, and which has always been horrible, probably the most +mournful spot on that mournful boulevard, seven and thirty years ago, +was the spot which even to-day is so unattractive, where stood the +building Number 50-52. + +Bourgeois houses only began to spring up there twenty-five years later. +The place was unpleasant. In addition to the gloomy thoughts which +assailed one there, one was conscious of being between the Salpetriere, +a glimpse of whose dome could be seen, and Bicetre, whose outskirts one +was fairly touching; that is to say, between the madness of women and +the madness of men. As far as the eye could see, one could perceive +nothing but the abattoirs, the city wall, and the fronts of a few +factories, resembling barracks or monasteries; everywhere about stood +hovels, rubbish, ancient walls blackened like cerecloths, new white +walls like winding-sheets; everywhere parallel rows of trees, buildings +erected on a line, flat constructions, long, cold rows, and the +melancholy sadness of right angles. Not an unevenness of the ground, +not a caprice in the architecture, not a fold. The ensemble was glacial, +regular, hideous. Nothing oppresses the heart like symmetry. It is +because symmetry is ennui, and ennui is at the very foundation of grief. +Despair yawns. Something more terrible than a hell where one suffers +may be imagined, and that is a hell where one is bored. If such a hell +existed, that bit of the Boulevard de l'Hopital might have formed the +entrance to it. + +Nevertheless, at nightfall, at the moment when the daylight is +vanishing, especially in winter, at the hour when the twilight breeze +tears from the elms their last russet leaves, when the darkness is deep +and starless, or when the moon and the wind are making openings in the +clouds and losing themselves in the shadows, this boulevard suddenly +becomes frightful. The black lines sink inwards and are lost in the +shades, like morsels of the infinite. The passer-by cannot refrain from +recalling the innumerable traditions of the place which are connected +with the gibbet. The solitude of this spot, where so many crimes have +been committed, had something terrible about it. One almost had a +presentiment of meeting with traps in that darkness; all the confused +forms of the darkness seemed suspicious, and the long, hollow square, of +which one caught a glimpse between each tree, seemed graves: by day it +was ugly; in the evening melancholy; by night it was sinister. + +In summer, at twilight, one saw, here and there, a few old women seated +at the foot of the elm, on benches mouldy with rain. These good old +women were fond of begging. + +However, this quarter, which had a superannuated rather than an antique +air, was tending even then to transformation. Even at that time any one +who was desirous of seeing it had to make haste. Each day some detail of +the whole effect was disappearing. For the last twenty years the station +of the Orleans railway has stood beside the old faubourg and distracted +it, as it does to-day. Wherever it is placed on the borders of a +capital, a railway station is the death of a suburb and the birth of a +city. It seems as though, around these great centres of the movements of +a people, the earth, full of germs, trembled and yawned, to engulf the +ancient dwellings of men and to allow new ones to spring forth, at the +rattle of these powerful machines, at the breath of these monstrous +horses of civilization which devour coal and vomit fire. The old houses +crumble and new ones rise. + +Since the Orleans railway has invaded the region of the Salpetriere, +the ancient, narrow streets which adjoin the moats Saint-Victor and the +Jardin des Plantes tremble, as they are violently traversed three or +four times each day by those currents of coach fiacres and omnibuses +which, in a given time, crowd back the houses to the right and the left; +for there are things which are odd when said that are rigorously exact; +and just as it is true to say that in large cities the sun makes the +southern fronts of houses to vegetate and grow, it is certain that the +frequent passage of vehicles enlarges streets. The symptoms of a new +life are evident. In this old provincial quarter, in the wildest nooks, +the pavement shows itself, the sidewalks begin to crawl and to grow +longer, even where there are as yet no pedestrians. One morning,--a +memorable morning in July, 1845,--black pots of bitumen were seen +smoking there; on that day it might be said that civilization had +arrived in the Rue de l'Ourcine, and that Paris had entered the suburb +of Saint-Marceau. + + + + +CHAPTER II--A NEST FOR OWL AND A WARBLER + +It was in front of this Gorbeau house that Jean Valjean halted. Like +wild birds, he had chosen this desert place to construct his nest. + +He fumbled in his waistcoat pocket, drew out a sort of a pass-key, +opened the door, entered, closed it again carefully, and ascended the +staircase, still carrying Cosette. + +At the top of the stairs he drew from his pocket another key, with +which he opened another door. The chamber which he entered, and which +he closed again instantly, was a kind of moderately spacious attic, +furnished with a mattress laid on the floor, a table, and several +chairs; a stove in which a fire was burning, and whose embers were +visible, stood in one corner. A lantern on the boulevard cast a vague +light into this poor room. At the extreme end there was a dressing-room +with a folding bed; Jean Valjean carried the child to this bed and laid +her down there without waking her. + +He struck a match and lighted a candle. All this was prepared beforehand +on the table, and, as he had done on the previous evening, he began +to scrutinize Cosette's face with a gaze full of ecstasy, in which the +expression of kindness and tenderness almost amounted to aberration. The +little girl, with that tranquil confidence which belongs only to extreme +strength and extreme weakness, had fallen asleep without knowing with +whom she was, and continued to sleep without knowing where she was. + +Jean Valjean bent down and kissed that child's hand. + +Nine months before he had kissed the hand of the mother, who had also +just fallen asleep. + +The same sad, piercing, religious sentiment filled his heart. + +He knelt beside Cosette's bed. + +lt was broad daylight, and the child still slept. A wan ray of the +December sun penetrated the window of the attic and lay upon the +ceiling in long threads of light and shade. All at once a heavily laden +carrier's cart, which was passing along the boulevard, shook the frail +bed, like a clap of thunder, and made it quiver from top to bottom. + +"Yes, madame!" cried Cosette, waking with a start, "here I am! here I +am!" + +And she sprang out of bed, her eyes still half shut with the heaviness +of sleep, extending her arms towards the corner of the wall. + +"Ah! mon Dieu, my broom!" said she. + +She opened her eyes wide now, and beheld the smiling countenance of Jean +Valjean. + +"Ah! so it is true!" said the child. "Good morning, Monsieur." + +Children accept joy and happiness instantly and familiarly, being +themselves by nature joy and happiness. + +Cosette caught sight of Catherine at the foot of her bed, and took +possession of her, and, as she played, she put a hundred questions to +Jean Valjean. Where was she? Was Paris very large? Was Madame Thenardier +very far away? Was she to go back? etc., etc. All at once she exclaimed, +"How pretty it is here!" + +It was a frightful hole, but she felt free. + +"Must I sweep?" she resumed at last. + +"Play!" said Jean Valjean. + +The day passed thus. Cosette, without troubling herself to understand +anything, was inexpressibly happy with that doll and that kind man. + + + + +CHAPTER III--TWO MISFORTUNES MAKE ONE PIECE OF GOOD FORTUNE + +On the following morning, at daybreak, Jean Valjean was still by +Cosette's bedside; he watched there motionless, waiting for her to wake. + +Some new thing had come into his soul. + +Jean Valjean had never loved anything; for twenty-five years he had been +alone in the world. He had never been father, lover, husband, friend. In +the prison he had been vicious, gloomy, chaste, ignorant, and shy. +The heart of that ex-convict was full of virginity. His sister and his +sister's children had left him only a vague and far-off memory which +had finally almost completely vanished; he had made every effort to +find them, and not having been able to find them, he had forgotten them. +Human nature is made thus; the other tender emotions of his youth, if he +had ever had any, had fallen into an abyss. + +When he saw Cosette, when he had taken possession of her, carried her +off, and delivered her, he felt his heart moved within him. + +All the passion and affection within him awoke, and rushed towards that +child. He approached the bed, where she lay sleeping, and trembled with +joy. He suffered all the pangs of a mother, and he knew not what it +meant; for that great and singular movement of a heart which begins to +love is a very obscure and a very sweet thing. + +Poor old man, with a perfectly new heart! + +Only, as he was five and fifty, and Cosette eight years of age, all that +might have been love in the whole course of his life flowed together +into a sort of ineffable light. + +It was the second white apparition which he had encountered. The Bishop +had caused the dawn of virtue to rise on his horizon; Cosette caused the +dawn of love to rise. + +The early days passed in this dazzled state. + +Cosette, on her side, had also, unknown to herself, become another +being, poor little thing! She was so little when her mother left her, +that she no longer remembered her. Like all children, who resemble young +shoots of the vine, which cling to everything, she had tried to love; +she had not succeeded. All had repulsed her,--the Thenardiers, their +children, other children. She had loved the dog, and he had died, after +which nothing and nobody would have anything to do with her. It is a sad +thing to say, and we have already intimated it, that, at eight years of +age, her heart was cold. It was not her fault; it was not the faculty +of loving that she lacked; alas! it was the possibility. Thus, from the +very first day, all her sentient and thinking powers loved this kind +man. She felt that which she had never felt before--a sensation of +expansion. + +The man no longer produced on her the effect of being old or poor; she +thought Jean Valjean handsome, just as she thought the hovel pretty. + +These are the effects of the dawn, of childhood, of joy. The novelty of +the earth and of life counts for something here. Nothing is so charming +as the coloring reflection of happiness on a garret. We all have in our +past a delightful garret. + +Nature, a difference of fifty years, had set a profound gulf between +Jean Valjean and Cosette; destiny filled in this gulf. Destiny suddenly +united and wedded with its irresistible power these two uprooted +existences, differing in age, alike in sorrow. One, in fact, completed +the other. Cosette's instinct sought a father, as Jean Valjean's +instinct sought a child. To meet was to find each other. At the +mysterious moment when their hands touched, they were welded together. +When these two souls perceived each other, they recognized each other as +necessary to each other, and embraced each other closely. + +Taking the words in their most comprehensive and absolute sense, we +may say that, separated from every one by the walls of the tomb, Jean +Valjean was the widower, and Cosette was the orphan: this situation +caused Jean Valjean to become Cosette's father after a celestial +fashion. + +And in truth, the mysterious impression produced on Cosette in the +depths of the forest of Chelles by the hand of Jean Valjean grasping +hers in the dark was not an illusion, but a reality. The entrance of +that man into the destiny of that child had been the advent of God. + +Moreover, Jean Valjean had chosen his refuge well. There he seemed +perfectly secure. + +The chamber with a dressing-room, which he occupied with Cosette, was +the one whose window opened on the boulevard. This being the only window +in the house, no neighbors' glances were to be feared from across the +way or at the side. + +The ground-floor of Number 50-52, a sort of dilapidated penthouse, +served as a wagon-house for market-gardeners, and no communication +existed between it and the first story. It was separated by the +flooring, which had neither traps nor stairs, and which formed the +diaphragm of the building, as it were. The first story contained, as we +have said, numerous chambers and several attics, only one of which +was occupied by the old woman who took charge of Jean Valjean's +housekeeping; all the rest was uninhabited. + +It was this old woman, ornamented with the name of the principal lodger, +and in reality intrusted with the functions of portress, who had let +him the lodging on Christmas eve. He had represented himself to her as a +gentleman of means who had been ruined by Spanish bonds, who was coming +there to live with his little daughter. He had paid her six months in +advance, and had commissioned the old woman to furnish the chamber and +dressing-room, as we have seen. It was this good woman who had lighted +the fire in the stove, and prepared everything on the evening of their +arrival. + +Week followed week; these two beings led a happy life in that hovel. + +Cosette laughed, chattered, and sang from daybreak. Children have their +morning song as well as birds. + +It sometimes happened that Jean Valjean clasped her tiny red hand, all +cracked with chilblains, and kissed it. The poor child, who was used +to being beaten, did not know the meaning of this, and ran away in +confusion. + +At times she became serious and stared at her little black gown. Cosette +was no longer in rags; she was in mourning. She had emerged from misery, +and she was entering into life. + +Jean Valjean had undertaken to teach her to read. Sometimes, as he made +the child spell, he remembered that it was with the idea of doing evil +that he had learned to read in prison. This idea had ended in teaching a +child to read. Then the ex-convict smiled with the pensive smile of the +angels. + +He felt in it a premeditation from on high, the will of some one who +was not man, and he became absorbed in revery. Good thoughts have their +abysses as well as evil ones. + +To teach Cosette to read, and to let her play, this constituted nearly +the whole of Jean Valjean's existence. And then he talked of her mother, +and he made her pray. + +She called him father, and knew no other name for him. + +He passed hours in watching her dressing and undressing her doll, and in +listening to her prattle. Life, henceforth, appeared to him to be full +of interest; men seemed to him good and just; he no longer reproached +any one in thought; he saw no reason why he should not live to be a very +old man, now that this child loved him. He saw a whole future stretching +out before him, illuminated by Cosette as by a charming light. The best +of us are not exempt from egotistical thoughts. At times, he reflected +with a sort of joy that she would be ugly. + +This is only a personal opinion; but, to utter our whole thought, at the +point where Jean Valjean had arrived when he began to love Cosette, it +is by no means clear to us that he did not need this encouragement in +order that he might persevere in well-doing. He had just viewed the +malice of men and the misery of society under a new aspect--incomplete +aspects, which unfortunately only exhibited one side of the truth, +the fate of woman as summed up in Fantine, and public authority as +personified in Javert. He had returned to prison, this time for having +done right; he had quaffed fresh bitterness; disgust and lassitude were +overpowering him; even the memory of the Bishop probably suffered +a temporary eclipse, though sure to reappear later on luminous and +triumphant; but, after all, that sacred memory was growing dim. +Who knows whether Jean Valjean had not been on the eve of growing +discouraged and of falling once more? He loved and grew strong again. +Alas! he walked with no less indecision than Cosette. He protected her, +and she strengthened him. Thanks to him, she could walk through life; +thanks to her, he could continue in virtue. He was that child's stay, +and she was his prop. Oh, unfathomable and divine mystery of the +balances of destiny! + + + + +CHAPTER IV--THE REMARKS OF THE PRINCIPAL TENANT + +Jean Valjean was prudent enough never to go out by day. Every evening, +at twilight, he walked for an hour or two, sometimes alone, often with +Cosette, seeking the most deserted side alleys of the boulevard, and +entering churches at nightfall. He liked to go to Saint-Medard, which is +the nearest church. When he did not take Cosette with him, she remained +with the old woman; but the child's delight was to go out with the good +man. She preferred an hour with him to all her rapturous tete-a-tetes +with Catherine. He held her hand as they walked, and said sweet things +to her. + +It turned out that Cosette was a very gay little person. + +The old woman attended to the housekeeping and cooking and went to +market. + +They lived soberly, always having a little fire, but like people in +very moderate circumstances. Jean Valjean had made no alterations in +the furniture as it was the first day; he had merely had the glass door +leading to Cosette's dressing-room replaced by a solid door. + +He still wore his yellow coat, his black breeches, and his old hat. +In the street, he was taken for a poor man. It sometimes happened that +kind-hearted women turned back to bestow a sou on him. Jean Valjean +accepted the sou with a deep bow. It also happened occasionally that he +encountered some poor wretch asking alms; then he looked behind him +to make sure that no one was observing him, stealthily approached the +unfortunate man, put a piece of money into his hand, often a silver +coin, and walked rapidly away. This had its disadvantages. He began +to be known in the neighborhood under the name of the beggar who gives +alms. + +The old principal lodger, a cross-looking creature, who was +thoroughly permeated, so far as her neighbors were concerned, with the +inquisitiveness peculiar to envious persons, scrutinized Jean Valjean +a great deal, without his suspecting the fact. She was a little deaf, +which rendered her talkative. There remained to her from her past, two +teeth,--one above, the other below,--which she was continually knocking +against each other. She had questioned Cosette, who had not been able +to tell her anything, since she knew nothing herself except that she had +come from Montfermeil. One morning, this spy saw Jean Valjean, with +an air which struck the old gossip as peculiar, entering one of the +uninhabited compartments of the hovel. She followed him with the step +of an old cat, and was able to observe him without being seen, through a +crack in the door, which was directly opposite him. Jean Valjean had his +back turned towards this door, by way of greater security, no doubt. The +old woman saw him fumble in his pocket and draw thence a case, scissors, +and thread; then he began to rip the lining of one of the skirts of his +coat, and from the opening he took a bit of yellowish paper, which he +unfolded. The old woman recognized, with terror, the fact that it was +a bank-bill for a thousand francs. It was the second or third only that +she had seen in the course of her existence. She fled in alarm. + +A moment later, Jean Valjean accosted her, and asked her to go and +get this thousand-franc bill changed for him, adding that it was his +quarterly income, which he had received the day before. "Where?" thought +the old woman. "He did not go out until six o'clock in the evening, and +the government bank certainly is not open at that hour." The old +woman went to get the bill changed, and mentioned her surmises. That +thousand-franc note, commented on and multiplied, produced a vast +amount of terrified discussion among the gossips of the Rue des Vignes +Saint-Marcel. + +A few days later, it chanced that Jean Valjean was sawing some wood, in +his shirt-sleeves, in the corridor. The old woman was in the chamber, +putting things in order. She was alone. Cosette was occupied in admiring +the wood as it was sawed. The old woman caught sight of the coat hanging +on a nail, and examined it. The lining had been sewed up again. The good +woman felt of it carefully, and thought she observed in the skirts and +revers thicknesses of paper. More thousand-franc bank-bills, no doubt! + +She also noticed that there were all sorts of things in the pockets. +Not only the needles, thread, and scissors which she had seen, but a big +pocket-book, a very large knife, and--a suspicious circumstance--several +wigs of various colors. Each pocket of this coat had the air of being in +a manner provided against unexpected accidents. + +Thus the inhabitants of the house reached the last days of winter. + + + + +CHAPTER V--A FIVE-FRANC PIECE FALLS ON THE GROUND AND PRODUCES A TUMULT + +Near Saint-Medard's church there was a poor man who was in the habit of +crouching on the brink of a public well which had been condemned, and +on whom Jean Valjean was fond of bestowing charity. He never passed this +man without giving him a few sous. Sometimes he spoke to him. Those who +envied this mendicant said that he belonged to the police. He was an +ex-beadle of seventy-five, who was constantly mumbling his prayers. + +One evening, as Jean Valjean was passing by, when he had not Cosette +with him, he saw the beggar in his usual place, beneath the lantern +which had just been lighted. The man seemed engaged in prayer, according +to his custom, and was much bent over. Jean Valjean stepped up to him +and placed his customary alms in his hand. The mendicant raised his +eyes suddenly, stared intently at Jean Valjean, then dropped his head +quickly. This movement was like a flash of lightning. Jean Valjean was +seized with a shudder. It seemed to him that he had just caught sight, +by the light of the street lantern, not of the placid and beaming +visage of the old beadle, but of a well-known and startling face. He +experienced the same impression that one would have on finding one's +self, all of a sudden, face to face, in the dark, with a tiger. He +recoiled, terrified, petrified, daring neither to breathe, to speak, +to remain, nor to flee, staring at the beggar who had dropped his head, +which was enveloped in a rag, and no longer appeared to know that he +was there. At this strange moment, an instinct--possibly the mysterious +instinct of self-preservation,--restrained Jean Valjean from uttering a +word. The beggar had the same figure, the same rags, the same appearance +as he had every day. "Bah!" said Jean Valjean, "I am mad! I am dreaming! +Impossible!" And he returned profoundly troubled. + +He hardly dared to confess, even to himself, that the face which he +thought he had seen was the face of Javert. + +That night, on thinking the matter over, he regretted not having +questioned the man, in order to force him to raise his head a second +time. + +On the following day, at nightfall, he went back. The beggar was at his +post. "Good day, my good man," said Jean Valjean, resolutely, handing +him a sou. The beggar raised his head, and replied in a whining voice, +"Thanks, my good sir." It was unmistakably the ex-beadle. + +Jean Valjean felt completely reassured. He began to laugh. "How the +deuce could I have thought that I saw Javert there?" he thought. "Am I +going to lose my eyesight now?" And he thought no more about it. + +A few days afterwards,--it might have been at eight o'clock in the +evening,--he was in his room, and engaged in making Cosette spell aloud, +when he heard the house door open and then shut again. This struck him +as singular. The old woman, who was the only inhabitant of the house +except himself, always went to bed at nightfall, so that she might not +burn out her candles. Jean Valjean made a sign to Cosette to be quiet. +He heard some one ascending the stairs. It might possibly be the old +woman, who might have fallen ill and have been out to the apothecary's. +Jean Valjean listened. + +The step was heavy, and sounded like that of a man; but the old woman +wore stout shoes, and there is nothing which so strongly resembles the +step of a man as that of an old woman. Nevertheless, Jean Valjean blew +out his candle. + +He had sent Cosette to bed, saying to her in a low voice, "Get into bed +very softly"; and as he kissed her brow, the steps paused. + +Jean Valjean remained silent, motionless, with his back towards the +door, seated on the chair from which he had not stirred, and holding his +breath in the dark. + +After the expiration of a rather long interval, he turned round, as he +heard nothing more, and, as he raised his eyes towards the door of his +chamber, he saw a light through the keyhole. This light formed a sort +of sinister star in the blackness of the door and the wall. There was +evidently some one there, who was holding a candle in his hand and +listening. + +Several minutes elapsed thus, and the light retreated. But he heard no +sound of footsteps, which seemed to indicate that the person who had +been listening at the door had removed his shoes. + +Jean Valjean threw himself, all dressed as he was, on his bed, and could +not close his eyes all night. + +At daybreak, just as he was falling into a doze through fatigue, he was +awakened by the creaking of a door which opened on some attic at the +end of the corridor, then he heard the same masculine footstep which had +ascended the stairs on the preceding evening. The step was approaching. +He sprang off the bed and applied his eye to the keyhole, which was +tolerably large, hoping to see the person who had made his way by night +into the house and had listened at his door, as he passed. It was a +man, in fact, who passed, this time without pausing, in front of Jean +Valjean's chamber. The corridor was too dark to allow of the person's +face being distinguished; but when the man reached the staircase, a +ray of light from without made it stand out like a silhouette, and Jean +Valjean had a complete view of his back. The man was of lofty stature, +clad in a long frock-coat, with a cudgel under his arm. The formidable +neck and shoulders belonged to Javert. + +Jean Valjean might have attempted to catch another glimpse of him +through his window opening on the boulevard, but he would have been +obliged to open the window: he dared not. + +It was evident that this man had entered with a key, and like himself. +Who had given him that key? What was the meaning of this? + +When the old woman came to do the work, at seven o'clock in the morning, +Jean Valjean cast a penetrating glance on her, but he did not question +her. The good woman appeared as usual. + +As she swept up she remarked to him:-- + +"Possibly Monsieur may have heard some one come in last night?" + +At that age, and on that boulevard, eight o'clock in the evening was the +dead of the night. + +"That is true, by the way," he replied, in the most natural tone +possible. "Who was it?" + +"It was a new lodger who has come into the house," said the old woman. + +"And what is his name?" + +"I don't know exactly; Dumont, or Daumont, or some name of that sort." + +"And who is this Monsieur Dumont?" + +The old woman gazed at him with her little polecat eyes, and answered:-- + +"A gentleman of property, like yourself." + +Perhaps she had no ulterior meaning. Jean Valjean thought he perceived +one. + +When the old woman had taken her departure, he did up a hundred francs +which he had in a cupboard, into a roll, and put it in his pocket. In +spite of all the precautions which he took in this operation so that he +might not be heard rattling silver, a hundred-sou piece escaped from his +hands and rolled noisily on the floor. + +When darkness came on, he descended and carefully scrutinized both sides +of the boulevard. He saw no one. The boulevard appeared to be absolutely +deserted. It is true that a person can conceal himself behind trees. + +He went up stairs again. + +"Come." he said to Cosette. + +He took her by the hand, and they both went out. + + + + +BOOK FIFTH.--FOR A BLACK HUNT, A MUTE PACK + + + + +CHAPTER I--THE ZIGZAGS OF STRATEGY + +An observation here becomes necessary, in view of the pages which the +reader is about to peruse, and of others which will be met with further +on. + +The author of this book, who regrets the necessity of mentioning +himself, has been absent from Paris for many years. Paris has been +transformed since he quitted it. A new city has arisen, which is, after +a fashion, unknown to him. There is no need for him to say that he loves +Paris: Paris is his mind's natal city. In consequence of demolitions and +reconstructions, the Paris of his youth, that Paris which he bore away +religiously in his memory, is now a Paris of days gone by. He must +be permitted to speak of that Paris as though it still existed. It is +possible that when the author conducts his readers to a spot and says, +"In such a street there stands such and such a house," neither street +nor house will any longer exist in that locality. Readers may verify +the facts if they care to take the trouble. For his own part, he is +unacquainted with the new Paris, and he writes with the old Paris before +his eyes in an illusion which is precious to him. It is a delight to him +to dream that there still lingers behind him something of that which he +beheld when he was in his own country, and that all has not vanished. +So long as you go and come in your native land, you imagine that those +streets are a matter of indifference to you; that those windows, +those roofs, and those doors are nothing to you; that those walls are +strangers to you; that those trees are merely the first encountered +haphazard; that those houses, which you do not enter, are useless to +you; that the pavements which you tread are merely stones. Later on, +when you are no longer there, you perceive that the streets are dear to +you; that you miss those roofs, those doors; and that those walls are +necessary to you, those trees are well beloved by you; that you entered +those houses which you never entered, every day, and that you have left +a part of your heart, of your blood, of your soul, in those pavements. +All those places which you no longer behold, which you may never +behold again, perchance, and whose memory you have cherished, take on +a melancholy charm, recur to your mind with the melancholy of an +apparition, make the holy land visible to you, and are, so to speak, +the very form of France, and you love them; and you call them up as they +are, as they were, and you persist in this, and you will submit to no +change: for you are attached to the figure of your fatherland as to the +face of your mother. + +May we, then, be permitted to speak of the past in the present? That +said, we beg the reader to take note of it, and we continue. + +Jean Valjean instantly quitted the boulevard and plunged into the +streets, taking the most intricate lines which he could devise, +returning on his track at times, to make sure that he was not being +followed. + +[Illustration: The Black Hunt 2b5-1-black-hunt] + +This manoeuvre is peculiar to the hunted stag. On soil where an +imprint of the track may be left, this manoeuvre possesses, among other +advantages, that of deceiving the huntsmen and the dogs, by throwing +them on the wrong scent. In venery this is called false re-imbushment. + +The moon was full that night. Jean Valjean was not sorry for this. The +moon, still very close to the horizon, cast great masses of light and +shadow in the streets. Jean Valjean could glide along close to the +houses on the dark side, and yet keep watch on the light side. He did +not, perhaps, take sufficiently into consideration the fact that the +dark side escaped him. Still, in the deserted lanes which lie near the +Rue Poliveau, he thought he felt certain that no one was following him. + +Cosette walked on without asking any questions. The sufferings of the +first six years of her life had instilled something passive into her +nature. Moreover,--and this is a remark to which we shall frequently +have occasion to recur,--she had grown used, without being herself +aware of it, to the peculiarities of this good man and to the freaks of +destiny. And then she was with him, and she felt safe. + +Jean Valjean knew no more where he was going than did Cosette. He +trusted in God, as she trusted in him. It seemed as though he also were +clinging to the hand of some one greater than himself; he thought he +felt a being leading him, though invisible. However, he had no settled +idea, no plan, no project. He was not even absolutely sure that it was +Javert, and then it might have been Javert, without Javert knowing that +he was Jean Valjean. Was not he disguised? Was not he believed to be +dead? Still, queer things had been going on for several days. He wanted +no more of them. He was determined not to return to the Gorbeau house. +Like the wild animal chased from its lair, he was seeking a hole in +which he might hide until he could find one where he might dwell. + +Jean Valjean described many and varied labyrinths in the Mouffetard +quarter, which was already asleep, as though the discipline of the +Middle Ages and the yoke of the curfew still existed; he combined in +various manners, with cunning strategy, the Rue Censier and the Rue +Copeau, the Rue du Battoir-Saint-Victor and the Rue du Puits l'Ermite. +There are lodging houses in this locality, but he did not even enter +one, finding nothing which suited him. He had no doubt that if any one +had chanced to be upon his track, they would have lost it. + +As eleven o'clock struck from Saint-Etienne-du-Mont, he was traversing +the Rue de Pontoise, in front of the office of the commissary of police, +situated at No. 14. A few moments later, the instinct of which we have +spoken above made him turn round. At that moment he saw distinctly, +thanks to the commissary's lantern, which betrayed them, three men +who were following him closely, pass, one after the other, under that +lantern, on the dark side of the street. One of the three entered the +alley leading to the commissary's house. The one who marched at their +head struck him as decidedly suspicious. + +"Come, child," he said to Cosette; and he made haste to quit the Rue +Pontoise. + +He took a circuit, turned into the Passage des Patriarches, which was +closed on account of the hour, strode along the Rue de l'Epee-de-Bois +and the Rue de l'Arbalete, and plunged into the Rue des Postes. + +At that time there was a square formed by the intersection of +streets, where the College Rollin stands to-day, and where the Rue +Neuve-Sainte-Genevieve turns off. + +It is understood, of course, that the Rue Neuve-Sainte-Genevieve is an +old street, and that a posting-chaise does not pass through the Rue des +Postes once in ten years. In the thirteenth century this Rue des Postes +was inhabited by potters, and its real name is Rue des Pots. + +The moon cast a livid light into this open space. Jean Valjean went into +ambush in a doorway, calculating that if the men were still following +him, he could not fail to get a good look at them, as they traversed +this illuminated space. + +In point of fact, three minutes had not elapsed when the men made their +appearance. There were four of them now. All were tall, dressed in long, +brown coats, with round hats, and huge cudgels in their hands. Their +great stature and their vast fists rendered them no less alarming +than did their sinister stride through the darkness. One would have +pronounced them four spectres disguised as bourgeois. + +They halted in the middle of the space and formed a group, like men in +consultation. They had an air of indecision. The one who appeared to be +their leader turned round and pointed hastily with his right hand in the +direction which Jean Valjean had taken; another seemed to indicate the +contrary direction with considerable obstinacy. At the moment when the +first man wheeled round, the moon fell full in his face. Jean Valjean +recognized Javert perfectly. + + + + +CHAPTER II--IT IS LUCKY THAT THE PONT D'AUSTERLITZ BEARS CARRIAGES + +Uncertainty was at an end for Jean Valjean: fortunately it still lasted +for the men. He took advantage of their hesitation. It was time lost for +them, but gained for him. He slipped from under the gate where he had +concealed himself, and went down the Rue des Postes, towards the region +of the Jardin des Plantes. Cosette was beginning to be tired. He took +her in his arms and carried her. There were no passers-by, and the +street lanterns had not been lighted on account of there being a moon. + +He redoubled his pace. + +In a few strides he had reached the Goblet potteries, on the front +of which the moonlight rendered distinctly legible the ancient +inscription:-- + + De Goblet fils c'est ici la fabrique;[14] + Venez choisir des cruches et des broos, + Des pots a fleurs, des tuyaux, de la brique. + A tout venant le Coeur vend des Carreaux. + + + +He left behind him the Rue de la Clef, then the Fountain Saint-Victor, +skirted the Jardin des Plantes by the lower streets, and reached the +quay. There he turned round. The quay was deserted. The streets were +deserted. There was no one behind him. He drew a long breath. + +He gained the Pont d'Austerlitz. + +Tolls were still collected there at that epoch. + +He presented himself at the toll office and handed over a sou. + +"It is two sous," said the old soldier in charge of the bridge. "You are +carrying a child who can walk. Pay for two." + +He paid, vexed that his passage should have aroused remark. Every flight +should be an imperceptible slipping away. + +A heavy cart was crossing the Seine at the same time as himself, and on +its way, like him, to the right bank. This was of use to him. He could +traverse the bridge in the shadow of the cart. + +Towards the middle of the Bridge, Cosette, whose feet were benumbed, +wanted to walk. He set her on the ground and took her hand again. + +The bridge once crossed, he perceived some timber-yards on his right. He +directed his course thither. In order to reach them, it was necessary to +risk himself in a tolerably large unsheltered and illuminated space. +He did not hesitate. Those who were on his track had evidently lost the +scent, and Jean Valjean believed himself to be out of danger. Hunted, +yes; followed, no. + +A little street, the Rue du Chemin-Vert-Saint-Antoine, opened out +between two timber-yards enclosed in walls. This street was dark and +narrow and seemed made expressly for him. Before entering it he cast a +glance behind him. + +From the point where he stood he could see the whole extent of the Pont +d'Austerlitz. + +Four shadows were just entering on the bridge. + +These shadows had their backs turned to the Jardin des Plantes and were +on their way to the right bank. + +These four shadows were the four men. + +Jean Valjean shuddered like the wild beast which is recaptured. + +One hope remained to him; it was, that the men had not, perhaps, stepped +on the bridge, and had not caught sight of him while he was crossing the +large illuminated space, holding Cosette by the hand. + +In that case, by plunging into the little street before him, he +might escape, if he could reach the timber-yards, the marshes, the +market-gardens, the uninhabited ground which was not built upon. + +It seemed to him that he might commit himself to that silent little +street. He entered it. + + + + +CHAPTER III--TO WIT, THE PLAN OF PARIS IN 1727 + +Three hundred paces further on, he arrived at a point where the street +forked. It separated into two streets, which ran in a slanting line, one +to the right, and the other to the left. + +Jean Valjean had before him what resembled the two branches of a Y. +Which should he choose? He did not hesitate, but took the one on the +right. + +Why? + +Because that to the left ran towards a suburb, that is to say, towards +inhabited regions, and the right branch towards the open country, that +is to say, towards deserted regions. + +However, they no longer walked very fast. Cosette's pace retarded Jean +Valjean's. + +He took her up and carried her again. Cosette laid her head on the +shoulder of the good man and said not a word. + +He turned round from time to time and looked behind him. He took care to +keep always on the dark side of the street. The street was straight +in his rear. The first two or three times that he turned round he saw +nothing; the silence was profound, and he continued his march somewhat +reassured. All at once, on turning round, he thought he perceived in the +portion of the street which he had just passed through, far off in the +obscurity, something which was moving. + +He rushed forward precipitately rather than walked, hoping to find some +side-street, to make his escape through it, and thus to break his scent +once more. + +He arrived at a wall. + +This wall, however, did not absolutely prevent further progress; it was +a wall which bordered a transverse street, in which the one he had taken +ended. + +Here again, he was obliged to come to a decision; should he go to the +right or to the left. + +He glanced to the right. The fragmentary lane was prolonged between +buildings which were either sheds or barns, then ended at a blind alley. +The extremity of the cul-de-sac was distinctly visible,--a lofty white +wall. + +He glanced to the left. On that side the lane was open, and about +two hundred paces further on, ran into a street of which it was the +affluent. On that side lay safety. + +At the moment when Jean Valjean was meditating a turn to the left, in +an effort to reach the street which he saw at the end of the lane, he +perceived a sort of motionless, black statue at the corner of the lane +and the street towards which he was on the point of directing his steps. + +It was some one, a man, who had evidently just been posted there, and +who was barring the passage and waiting. + +Jean Valjean recoiled. + +The point of Paris where Jean Valjean found himself, situated between +the Faubourg Saint-Antoine and la Rapee, is one of those which recent +improvements have transformed from top to bottom,--resulting in +disfigurement according to some, and in a transfiguration according to +others. The market-gardens, the timber-yards, and the old buildings +have been effaced. To-day, there are brand-new, wide streets, arenas, +circuses, hippodromes, railway stations, and a prison, Mazas, there; +progress, as the reader sees, with its antidote. + +Half a century ago, in that ordinary, popular tongue, which is all +compounded of traditions, which persists in calling the Institut les +Quatre-Nations, and the Opera-Comique Feydeau, the precise spot +whither Jean Valjean had arrived was called le Petit Picpus. The +Porte Saint-Jacques, the Porte Paris, the Barriere des Sergents, the +Porcherons, la Galiote, les Celestins, les Capucins, le Mail, la Bourbe, +l'Arbre de Cracovie, la Petite-Pologne--these are the names of old Paris +which survive amid the new. The memory of the populace hovers over these +relics of the past. + +Le Petit-Picpus, which, moreover, hardly ever had any existence, and +never was more than the outline of a quarter, had nearly the monkish +aspect of a Spanish town. The roads were not much paved; the streets +were not much built up. With the exception of the two or three streets, +of which we shall presently speak, all was wall and solitude there. Not +a shop, not a vehicle, hardly a candle lighted here and there in the +windows; all lights extinguished after ten o'clock. Gardens, convents, +timber-yards, marshes; occasional lowly dwellings and great walls as +high as the houses. + +Such was this quarter in the last century. The Revolution snubbed +it soundly. The republican government demolished and cut through it. +Rubbish shoots were established there. Thirty years ago, this quarter +was disappearing under the erasing process of new buildings. To-day, +it has been utterly blotted out. The Petit-Picpus, of which no existing +plan has preserved a trace, is indicated with sufficient clearness +in the plan of 1727, published at Paris by Denis Thierry, Rue +Saint-Jacques, opposite the Rue du Platre; and at Lyons, by Jean Girin, +Rue Merciere, at the sign of Prudence. Petit-Picpus had, as +we have just mentioned, a Y of streets, formed by the Rue du +Chemin-Vert-Saint-Antoine, which spread out in two branches, taking on +the left the name of Little Picpus Street, and on the right the name of +the Rue Polonceau. The two limbs of the Y were connected at the apex +as by a bar; this bar was called Rue Droit-Mur. The Rue Polonceau ended +there; Rue Petit-Picpus passed on, and ascended towards the Lenoir +market. A person coming from the Seine reached the extremity of the Rue +Polonceau, and had on his right the Rue Droit-Mur, turning abruptly at a +right angle, in front of him the wall of that street, and on his right a +truncated prolongation of the Rue Droit-Mur, which had no issue and was +called the Cul-de-Sac Genrot. + +It was here that Jean Valjean stood. + +As we have just said, on catching sight of that black silhouette +standing on guard at the angle of the Rue Droit-Mur and the Rue +Petit-Picpus, he recoiled. There could be no doubt of it. That phantom +was lying in wait for him. + +What was he to do? + +The time for retreating was passed. That which he had perceived in +movement an instant before, in the distant darkness, was Javert and his +squad without a doubt. Javert was probably already at the commencement +of the street at whose end Jean Valjean stood. Javert, to all +appearances, was acquainted with this little labyrinth, and had taken +his precautions by sending one of his men to guard the exit. These +surmises, which so closely resembled proofs, whirled suddenly, like a +handful of dust caught up by an unexpected gust of wind, through Jean +Valjean's mournful brain. He examined the Cul-de-Sac Genrot; there he +was cut off. He examined the Rue Petit-Picpus; there stood a sentinel. +He saw that black form standing out in relief against the white +pavement, illuminated by the moon; to advance was to fall into this +man's hands; to retreat was to fling himself into Javert's arms. Jean +Valjean felt himself caught, as in a net, which was slowly contracting; +he gazed heavenward in despair. + + + + +CHAPTER IV--THE GROPINGS OF FLIGHT + +In order to understand what follows, it is requisite to form an exact +idea of the Droit-Mur lane, and, in particular, of the angle which one +leaves on the left when one emerges from the Rue Polonceau into this +lane. Droit-Mur lane was almost entirely bordered on the right, as far +as the Rue Petit-Picpus, by houses of mean aspect; on the left by a +solitary building of severe outlines, composed of numerous parts which +grew gradually higher by a story or two as they approached the Rue +Petit-Picpus side; so that this building, which was very lofty on the +Rue Petit-Picpus side, was tolerably low on the side adjoining the Rue +Polonceau. There, at the angle of which we have spoken, it descended to +such a degree that it consisted of merely a wall. This wall did not abut +directly on the Street; it formed a deeply retreating niche, concealed +by its two corners from two observers who might have been, one in the +Rue Polonceau, the other in the Rue Droit-Mur. + +Beginning with these angles of the niche, the wall extended along the +Rue Polonceau as far as a house which bore the number 49, and along the +Rue Droit-Mur, where the fragment was much shorter, as far as the gloomy +building which we have mentioned and whose gable it intersected, thus +forming another retreating angle in the street. This gable was sombre +of aspect; only one window was visible, or, to speak more correctly, two +shutters covered with a sheet of zinc and kept constantly closed. + +The state of the places of which we are here giving a description is +rigorously exact, and will certainly awaken a very precise memory in the +mind of old inhabitants of the quarter. + +The niche was entirely filled by a thing which resembled a colossal +and wretched door; it was a vast, formless assemblage of perpendicular +planks, the upper ones being broader than the lower, bound together by +long transverse strips of iron. At one side there was a carriage gate of +the ordinary dimensions, and which had evidently not been cut more than +fifty years previously. + +A linden-tree showed its crest above the niche, and the wall was covered +with ivy on the side of the Rue Polonceau. + +In the imminent peril in which Jean Valjean found himself, this sombre +building had about it a solitary and uninhabited look which tempted him. +He ran his eyes rapidly over it; he said to himself, that if he could +contrive to get inside it, he might save himself. First he conceived an +idea, then a hope. + +In the central portion of the front of this building, on the Rue +Droit-Mur side, there were at all the windows of the different stories +ancient cistern pipes of lead. The various branches of the pipes which +led from one central pipe to all these little basins sketched out a sort +of tree on the front. These ramifications of pipes with their hundred +elbows imitated those old leafless vine-stocks which writhe over the +fronts of old farm-houses. + +This odd espalier, with its branches of lead and iron, was the first +thing that struck Jean Valjean. He seated Cosette with her back against +a stone post, with an injunction to be silent, and ran to the spot where +the conduit touched the pavement. Perhaps there was some way of climbing +up by it and entering the house. But the pipe was dilapidated and past +service, and hardly hung to its fastenings. Moreover, all the windows +of this silent dwelling were grated with heavy iron bars, even the attic +windows in the roof. And then, the moon fell full upon that facade, and +the man who was watching at the corner of the street would have seen +Jean Valjean in the act of climbing. And finally, what was to be done +with Cosette? How was she to be drawn up to the top of a three-story +house? + +He gave up all idea of climbing by means of the drain-pipe, and crawled +along the wall to get back into the Rue Polonceau. + +When he reached the slant of the wall where he had left Cosette, he +noticed that no one could see him there. As we have just explained, he +was concealed from all eyes, no matter from which direction they were +approaching; besides this, he was in the shadow. Finally, there were +two doors; perhaps they might be forced. The wall above which he saw the +linden-tree and the ivy evidently abutted on a garden where he could, at +least, hide himself, although there were as yet no leaves on the trees, +and spend the remainder of the night. + +Time was passing; he must act quickly. + +He felt over the carriage door, and immediately recognized the fact that +it was impracticable outside and in. + +He approached the other door with more hope; it was frightfully +decrepit; its very immensity rendered it less solid; the planks were +rotten; the iron bands--there were only three of them--were rusted. It +seemed as though it might be possible to pierce this worm-eaten barrier. + +On examining it he found that the door was not a door; it had neither +hinges, cross-bars, lock, nor fissure in the middle; the iron bands +traversed it from side to side without any break. Through the crevices +in the planks he caught a view of unhewn slabs and blocks of stone +roughly cemented together, which passers-by might still have seen there +ten years ago. He was forced to acknowledge with consternation that this +apparent door was simply the wooden decoration of a building against +which it was placed. It was easy to tear off a plank; but then, one +found one's self face to face with a wall. + + + + +CHAPTER V--WHICH WOULD BE IMPOSSIBLE WITH GAS LANTERNS + +At that moment a heavy and measured sound began to be audible at some +distance. Jean Valjean risked a glance round the corner of the street. +Seven or eight soldiers, drawn up in a platoon, had just debouched +into the Rue Polonceau. He saw the gleam of their bayonets. They were +advancing towards him; these soldiers, at whose head he distinguished +Javert's tall figure, advanced slowly and cautiously. They halted +frequently; it was plain that they were searching all the nooks of the +walls and all the embrasures of the doors and alleys. + +This was some patrol that Javert had encountered--there could be no +mistake as to this surmise--and whose aid he had demanded. + +Javert's two acolytes were marching in their ranks. + +At the rate at which they were marching, and in consideration of the +halts which they were making, it would take them about a quarter of +an hour to reach the spot where Jean Valjean stood. It was a frightful +moment. A few minutes only separated Jean Valjean from that terrible +precipice which yawned before him for the third time. And the galleys +now meant not only the galleys, but Cosette lost to him forever; that is +to say, a life resembling the interior of a tomb. + +There was but one thing which was possible. + +Jean Valjean had this peculiarity, that he carried, as one might say, +two beggar's pouches: in one he kept his saintly thoughts; in the other +the redoubtable talents of a convict. He rummaged in the one or the +other, according to circumstances. + +Among his other resources, thanks to his numerous escapes from the +prison at Toulon, he was, as it will be remembered, a past master in the +incredible art of crawling up without ladder or climbing-irons, by sheer +muscular force, by leaning on the nape of his neck, his shoulders, his +hips, and his knees, by helping himself on the rare projections of the +stone, in the right angle of a wall, as high as the sixth story, if need +be; an art which has rendered so celebrated and so alarming that corner +of the wall of the Conciergerie of Paris by which Battemolle, condemned +to death, made his escape twenty years ago. + +Jean Valjean measured with his eyes the wall above which he espied the +linden; it was about eighteen feet in height. The angle which it formed +with the gable of the large building was filled, at its lower extremity, +by a mass of masonry of a triangular shape, probably intended to +preserve that too convenient corner from the rubbish of those dirty +creatures called the passers-by. This practice of filling up corners of +the wall is much in use in Paris. + +This mass was about five feet in height; the space above the summit of +this mass which it was necessary to climb was not more than fourteen +feet. + +The wall was surmounted by a flat stone without a coping. + +Cosette was the difficulty, for she did not know how to climb a wall. +Should he abandon her? Jean Valjean did not once think of that. It +was impossible to carry her. A man's whole strength is required to +successfully carry out these singular ascents. The least burden would +disturb his centre of gravity and pull him downwards. + +A rope would have been required; Jean Valjean had none. Where was he to +get a rope at midnight, in the Rue Polonceau? Certainly, if Jean Valjean +had had a kingdom, he would have given it for a rope at that moment. + +All extreme situations have their lightning flashes which sometimes +dazzle, sometimes illuminate us. + +Jean Valjean's despairing glance fell on the street lantern-post of the +blind alley Genrot. + +At that epoch there were no gas-jets in the streets of Paris. At +nightfall lanterns placed at regular distances were lighted; they were +ascended and descended by means of a rope, which traversed the street +from side to side, and was adjusted in a groove of the post. The pulley +over which this rope ran was fastened underneath the lantern in a little +iron box, the key to which was kept by the lamp-lighter, and the rope +itself was protected by a metal case. + +Jean Valjean, with the energy of a supreme struggle, crossed the street +at one bound, entered the blind alley, broke the latch of the little box +with the point of his knife, and an instant later he was beside Cosette +once more. He had a rope. These gloomy inventors of expedients work +rapidly when they are fighting against fatality. + +We have already explained that the lanterns had not been lighted that +night. The lantern in the Cul-de-Sac Genrot was thus naturally extinct, +like the rest; and one could pass directly under it without even +noticing that it was no longer in its place. + +Nevertheless, the hour, the place, the darkness, Jean Valjean's +absorption, his singular gestures, his goings and comings, all had begun +to render Cosette uneasy. Any other child than she would have given vent +to loud shrieks long before. She contented herself with plucking Jean +Valjean by the skirt of his coat. They could hear the sound of the +patrol's approach ever more and more distinctly. + +"Father," said she, in a very low voice, "I am afraid. Who is coming +yonder?" + +"Hush!" replied the unhappy man; "it is Madame Thenardier." + +Cosette shuddered. He added:-- + +"Say nothing. Don't interfere with me. If you cry out, if you weep, the +Thenardier is lying in wait for you. She is coming to take you back." + +Then, without haste, but without making a useless movement, with firm +and curt precision, the more remarkable at a moment when the patrol and +Javert might come upon him at any moment, he undid his cravat, passed it +round Cosette's body under the armpits, taking care that it should not +hurt the child, fastened this cravat to one end of the rope, by means of +that knot which seafaring men call a "swallow knot," took the other end +of the rope in his teeth, pulled off his shoes and stockings, which +he threw over the wall, stepped upon the mass of masonry, and began +to raise himself in the angle of the wall and the gable with as much +solidity and certainty as though he had the rounds of a ladder under his +feet and elbows. Half a minute had not elapsed when he was resting on +his knees on the wall. + +Cosette gazed at him in stupid amazement, without uttering a word. Jean +Valjean's injunction, and the name of Madame Thenardier, had chilled her +blood. + +All at once she heard Jean Valjean's voice crying to her, though in a +very low tone:-- + +"Put your back against the wall." + +She obeyed. + +"Don't say a word, and don't be alarmed," went on Jean Valjean. + +And she felt herself lifted from the ground. + +Before she had time to recover herself, she was on the top of the wall. + +Jean Valjean grasped her, put her on his back, took her two tiny hands +in his large left hand, lay down flat on his stomach and crawled along +on top of the wall as far as the cant. As he had guessed, there stood +a building whose roof started from the top of the wooden barricade and +descended to within a very short distance of the ground, with a gentle +slope which grazed the linden-tree. A lucky circumstance, for the wall +was much higher on this side than on the street side. Jean Valjean could +only see the ground at a great depth below him. + +He had just reached the slope of the roof, and had not yet left the +crest of the wall, when a violent uproar announced the arrival of the +patrol. The thundering voice of Javert was audible:-- + +"Search the blind alley! The Rue Droit-Mur is guarded! so is the Rue +Petit-Picpus. I'll answer for it that he is in the blind alley." + +The soldiers rushed into the Genrot alley. + +Jean Valjean allowed himself to slide down the roof, still holding fast +to Cosette, reached the linden-tree, and leaped to the ground. Whether +from terror or courage, Cosette had not breathed a sound, though her +hands were a little abraded. + + + + +CHAPTER VI--THE BEGINNING OF AN ENIGMA + +Jean Valjean found himself in a sort of garden which was very vast and +of singular aspect; one of those melancholy gardens which seem made to +be looked at in winter and at night. This garden was oblong in shape, +with an alley of large poplars at the further end, tolerably tall forest +trees in the corners, and an unshaded space in the centre, where could +be seen a very large, solitary tree, then several fruit-trees, gnarled +and bristling like bushes, beds of vegetables, a melon patch, whose +glass frames sparkled in the moonlight, and an old well. Here and +there stood stone benches which seemed black with moss. The alleys were +bordered with gloomy and very erect little shrubs. The grass had half +taken possession of them, and a green mould covered the rest. + +Jean Valjean had beside him the building whose roof had served him as +a means of descent, a pile of fagots, and, behind the fagots, directly +against the wall, a stone statue, whose mutilated face was no longer +anything more than a shapeless mask which loomed vaguely through the +gloom. + +The building was a sort of ruin, where dismantled chambers were +distinguishable, one of which, much encumbered, seemed to serve as a +shed. + +The large building of the Rue Droit-Mur, which had a wing on the Rue +Petit-Picpus, turned two facades, at right angles, towards this garden. +These interior facades were even more tragic than the exterior. All +the windows were grated. Not a gleam of light was visible at any one of +them. The upper story had scuttles like prisons. One of those facades +cast its shadow on the other, which fell over the garden like an immense +black pall. + +No other house was visible. The bottom of the garden was lost in mist +and darkness. Nevertheless, walls could be confusedly made out, which +intersected as though there were more cultivated land beyond, and the +low roofs of the Rue Polonceau. + +Nothing more wild and solitary than this garden could be imagined. There +was no one in it, which was quite natural in view of the hour; but it +did not seem as though this spot were made for any one to walk in, even +in broad daylight. + +Jean Valjean's first care had been to get hold of his shoes and put them +on again, then to step under the shed with Cosette. A man who is fleeing +never thinks himself sufficiently hidden. The child, whose thoughts were +still on the Thenardier, shared his instinct for withdrawing from sight +as much as possible. + +Cosette trembled and pressed close to him. They heard the tumultuous +noise of the patrol searching the blind alley and the streets; the blows +of their gun-stocks against the stones; Javert's appeals to the police +spies whom he had posted, and his imprecations mingled with words which +could not be distinguished. + +At the expiration of a quarter of an hour it seemed as though that +species of stormy roar were becoming more distant. Jean Valjean held his +breath. + +He had laid his hand lightly on Cosette's mouth. + +However, the solitude in which he stood was so strangely calm, that this +frightful uproar, close and furious as it was, did not disturb him by so +much as the shadow of a misgiving. It seemed as though those walls had +been built of the deaf stones of which the Scriptures speak. + +All at once, in the midst of this profound calm, a fresh sound arose; a +sound as celestial, divine, ineffable, ravishing, as the other had been +horrible. It was a hymn which issued from the gloom, a dazzling burst +of prayer and harmony in the obscure and alarming silence of the night; +women's voices, but voices composed at one and the same time of the pure +accents of virgins and the innocent accents of children,--voices which +are not of the earth, and which resemble those that the newborn infant +still hears, and which the dying man hears already. This song proceeded +from the gloomy edifice which towered above the garden. At the moment +when the hubbub of demons retreated, one would have said that a choir of +angels was approaching through the gloom. + +Cosette and Jean Valjean fell on their knees. + +They knew not what it was, they knew not where they were; but both of +them, the man and the child, the penitent and the innocent, felt that +they must kneel. + +These voices had this strange characteristic, that they did not prevent +the building from seeming to be deserted. It was a supernatural chant in +an uninhabited house. + +While these voices were singing, Jean Valjean thought of nothing. He no +longer beheld the night; he beheld a blue sky. It seemed to him that he +felt those wings which we all have within us, unfolding. + +The song died away. It may have lasted a long time. Jean Valjean could +not have told. Hours of ecstasy are never more than a moment. + +All fell silent again. There was no longer anything in the street; +there was nothing in the garden. That which had menaced, that which had +reassured him,--all had vanished. The breeze swayed a few dry weeds +on the crest of the wall, and they gave out a faint, sweet, melancholy +sound. + + + + +CHAPTER VII--CONTINUATION OF THE ENIGMA + +The night wind had risen, which indicated that it must be between one +and two o'clock in the morning. Poor Cosette said nothing. As she had +seated herself beside him and leaned her head against him, Jean Valjean +had fancied that she was asleep. He bent down and looked at her. +Cosette's eyes were wide open, and her thoughtful air pained Jean +Valjean. + +She was still trembling. + +"Are you sleepy?" said Jean Valjean. + +"I am very cold," she replied. + +A moment later she resumed:-- + +"Is she still there?" + +"Who?" said Jean Valjean. + +"Madame Thenardier." + +Jean Valjean had already forgotten the means which he had employed to +make Cosette keep silent. + +"Ah!" said he, "she is gone. You need fear nothing further." + +The child sighed as though a load had been lifted from her breast. + +The ground was damp, the shed open on all sides, the breeze grew more +keen every instant. The goodman took off his coat and wrapped it round +Cosette. + +"Are you less cold now?" said he. + +"Oh, yes, father." + +"Well, wait for me a moment. I will soon be back." + +He quitted the ruin and crept along the large building, seeking a better +shelter. He came across doors, but they were closed. There were bars at +all the windows of the ground floor. + +Just after he had turned the inner angle of the edifice, he observed +that he was coming to some arched windows, where he perceived a light. +He stood on tiptoe and peeped through one of these windows. They all +opened on a tolerably vast hall, paved with large flagstones, cut up +by arcades and pillars, where only a tiny light and great shadows were +visible. The light came from a taper which was burning in one +corner. The apartment was deserted, and nothing was stirring in it. +Nevertheless, by dint of gazing intently he thought he perceived on the +ground something which appeared to be covered with a winding-sheet, and +which resembled a human form. This form was lying face downward, flat +on the pavement, with the arms extended in the form of a cross, in the +immobility of death. One would have said, judging from a sort of serpent +which undulated over the floor, that this sinister form had a rope round +its neck. + +The whole chamber was bathed in that mist of places which are sparely +illuminated, which adds to horror. + +Jean Valjean often said afterwards, that, although many funereal +spectres had crossed his path in life, he had never beheld anything more +blood-curdling and terrible than that enigmatical form accomplishing +some inexplicable mystery in that gloomy place, and beheld thus at +night. It was alarming to suppose that that thing was perhaps dead; and +still more alarming to think that it was perhaps alive. + +He had the courage to plaster his face to the glass, and to watch +whether the thing would move. In spite of his remaining thus what seemed +to him a very long time, the outstretched form made no movement. All +at once he felt himself overpowered by an inexpressible terror, and he +fled. He began to run towards the shed, not daring to look behind him. +It seemed to him, that if he turned his head, he should see that form +following him with great strides and waving its arms. + +He reached the ruin all out of breath. His knees were giving way beneath +him; the perspiration was pouring from him. + +Where was he? Who could ever have imagined anything like that sort of +sepulchre in the midst of Paris! What was this strange house? An edifice +full of nocturnal mystery, calling to souls through the darkness with +the voice of angels, and when they came, offering them abruptly that +terrible vision; promising to open the radiant portals of heaven, and +then opening the horrible gates of the tomb! And it actually was an +edifice, a house, which bore a number on the street! It was not a dream! +He had to touch the stones to convince himself that such was the fact. + +Cold, anxiety, uneasiness, the emotions of the night, had given him a +genuine fever, and all these ideas were clashing together in his brain. + +He stepped up to Cosette. She was asleep. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII--THE ENIGMA BECOMES DOUBLY MYSTERIOUS + +The child had laid her head on a stone and fallen asleep. + +He sat down beside her and began to think. Little by little, as he gazed +at her, he grew calm and regained possession of his freedom of mind. + +He clearly perceived this truth, the foundation of his life henceforth, +that so long as she was there, so long as he had her near him, he should +need nothing except for her, he should fear nothing except for her. He +was not even conscious that he was very cold, since he had taken off his +coat to cover her. + +Nevertheless, athwart this revery into which he had fallen he had heard +for some time a peculiar noise. It was like the tinkling of a bell. This +sound proceeded from the garden. It could be heard distinctly though +faintly. It resembled the faint, vague music produced by the bells of +cattle at night in the pastures. + +This noise made Valjean turn round. + +He looked and saw that there was some one in the garden. + +A being resembling a man was walking amid the bell-glasses of the melon +beds, rising, stooping, halting, with regular movements, as though he +were dragging or spreading out something on the ground. This person +appeared to limp. + +Jean Valjean shuddered with the continual tremor of the unhappy. For +them everything is hostile and suspicious. They distrust the day +because it enables people to see them, and the night because it aids +in surprising them. A little while before he had shivered because the +garden was deserted, and now he shivered because there was some one +there. + +He fell back from chimerical terrors to real terrors. He said to himself +that Javert and the spies had, perhaps, not taken their departure; that +they had, no doubt, left people on the watch in the street; that if this +man should discover him in the garden, he would cry out for help against +thieves and deliver him up. He took the sleeping Cosette gently in his +arms and carried her behind a heap of old furniture, which was out of +use, in the most remote corner of the shed. Cosette did not stir. + +From that point he scrutinized the appearance of the being in the +melon patch. The strange thing about it was, that the sound of the bell +followed each of this man's movements. When the man approached, the +sound approached; when the man retreated, the sound retreated; if he +made any hasty gesture, a tremolo accompanied the gesture; when he +halted, the sound ceased. It appeared evident that the bell was attached +to that man; but what could that signify? Who was this man who had a +bell suspended about him like a ram or an ox? + +As he put these questions to himself, he touched Cosette's hands. They +were icy cold. + +"Ah! good God!" he cried. + +He spoke to her in a low voice:-- + +"Cosette!" + +She did not open her eyes. + +He shook her vigorously. + +She did not wake. + +"Is she dead?" he said to himself, and sprang to his feet, quivering +from head to foot. + +The most frightful thoughts rushed pell-mell through his mind. There +are moments when hideous surmises assail us like a cohort of furies, and +violently force the partitions of our brains. When those we love are in +question, our prudence invents every sort of madness. He remembered that +sleep in the open air on a cold night may be fatal. + +Cosette was pale, and had fallen at full length on the ground at his +feet, without a movement. + +He listened to her breathing: she still breathed, but with a respiration +which seemed to him weak and on the point of extinction. + + +How was he to warm her back to life? How was he to rouse her? All that +was not connected with this vanished from his thoughts. He rushed wildly +from the ruin. + +It was absolutely necessary that Cosette should be in bed and beside a +fire in less than a quarter of an hour. + + + + +CHAPTER IX--THE MAN WITH THE BELL + +He walked straight up to the man whom he saw in the garden. He had taken +in his hand the roll of silver which was in the pocket of his waistcoat. + +The man's head was bent down, and he did not see him approaching. In a +few strides Jean Valjean stood beside him. + +Jean Valjean accosted him with the cry:-- + +"One hundred francs!" + +The man gave a start and raised his eyes. + +"You can earn a hundred francs," went on Jean Valjean, "if you will +grant me shelter for this night." + +The moon shone full upon Jean Valjean's terrified countenance. + +"What! so it is you, Father Madeleine!" said the man. + +That name, thus pronounced, at that obscure hour, in that unknown spot, +by that strange man, made Jean Valjean start back. + +He had expected anything but that. The person who thus addressed him was +a bent and lame old man, dressed almost like a peasant, who wore on his +left knee a leather knee-cap, whence hung a moderately large bell. His +face, which was in the shadow, was not distinguishable. + +However, the goodman had removed his cap, and exclaimed, trembling all +over:-- + +"Ah, good God! How come you here, Father Madeleine? Where did you enter? +Dieu-Jesus! Did you fall from heaven? There is no trouble about that: +if ever you do fall, it will be from there. And what a state you are in! +You have no cravat; you have no hat; you have no coat! Do you know, you +would have frightened any one who did not know you? No coat! Lord God! +Are the saints going mad nowadays? But how did you get in here?" + +His words tumbled over each other. The goodman talked with a rustic +volubility, in which there was nothing alarming. All this was uttered +with a mixture of stupefaction and naive kindliness. + +"Who are you? and what house is this?" demanded Jean Valjean. + +"Ah! pardieu, this is too much!" exclaimed the old man. "I am the person +for whom you got the place here, and this house is the one where you had +me placed. What! You don't recognize me?" + +"No," said Jean Valjean; "and how happens it that you know me?" + +"You saved my life," said the man. + +He turned. A ray of moonlight outlined his profile, and Jean Valjean +recognized old Fauchelevent. + +"Ah!" said Jean Valjean, "so it is you? Yes, I recollect you." + +"That is very lucky," said the old man, in a reproachful tone. + +"And what are you doing here?" resumed Jean Valjean. + +"Why, I am covering my melons, of course!" + +In fact, at the moment when Jean Valjean accosted him, old Fauchelevent +held in his hand the end of a straw mat which he was occupied in +spreading over the melon bed. During the hour or thereabouts that he had +been in the garden he had already spread out a number of them. It was +this operation which had caused him to execute the peculiar movements +observed from the shed by Jean Valjean. + +He continued:-- + +"I said to myself, 'The moon is bright: it is going to freeze. What if I +were to put my melons into their greatcoats?' And," he added, looking at +Jean Valjean with a broad smile,--"pardieu! you ought to have done the +same! But how do you come here?" + +Jean Valjean, finding himself known to this man, at least only under the +name of Madeleine, thenceforth advanced only with caution. He multiplied +his questions. Strange to say, their roles seemed to be reversed. It was +he, the intruder, who interrogated. + +"And what is this bell which you wear on your knee?" + +"This," replied Fauchelevent, "is so that I may be avoided." + +"What! so that you may be avoided?" + +Old Fauchelevent winked with an indescribable air. + +"Ah, goodness! there are only women in this house--many young girls. It +appears that I should be a dangerous person to meet. The bell gives them +warning. When I come, they go." + +"What house is this?" + +"Come, you know well enough." + +"But I do not." + +"Not when you got me the place here as gardener?" + +"Answer me as though I knew nothing." + +"Well, then, this is the Petit-Picpus convent." + +Memories recurred to Jean Valjean. Chance, that is to say, Providence, +had cast him into precisely that convent in the Quartier Saint-Antoine +where old Fauchelevent, crippled by the fall from his cart, had been +admitted on his recommendation two years previously. He repeated, as +though talking to himself:-- + +"The Petit-Picpus convent." + +"Exactly," returned old Fauchelevent. "But to come to the point, how the +deuce did you manage to get in here, you, Father Madeleine? No matter if +you are a saint; you are a man as well, and no man enters here." + +"You certainly are here." + +"There is no one but me." + +"Still," said Jean Valjean, "I must stay here." + +"Ah, good God!" cried Fauchelevent. + +Jean Valjean drew near to the old man, and said to him in a grave +voice:-- + +"Father Fauchelevent, I saved your life." + +"I was the first to recall it," returned Fauchelevent. + +"Well, you can do to-day for me that which I did for you in the olden +days." + +Fauchelevent took in his aged, trembling, and wrinkled hands Jean +Valjean's two robust hands, and stood for several minutes as though +incapable of speaking. At length he exclaimed:-- + +"Oh! that would be a blessing from the good God, if I could make you +some little return for that! Save your life! Monsieur le Maire, dispose +of the old man!" + +A wonderful joy had transfigured this old man. His countenance seemed to +emit a ray of light. + +"What do you wish me to do?" he resumed. + +"That I will explain to you. You have a chamber?" + +"I have an isolated hovel yonder, behind the ruins of the old convent, +in a corner which no one ever looks into. There are three rooms in it." + +The hut was, in fact, so well hidden behind the ruins, and so cleverly +arranged to prevent it being seen, that Jean Valjean had not perceived +it. + +"Good," said Jean Valjean. "Now I am going to ask two things of you." + +"What are they, Mr. Mayor?" + +"In the first place, you are not to tell any one what you know about me. +In the second, you are not to try to find out anything more." + +"As you please. I know that you can do nothing that is not honest, +that you have always been a man after the good God's heart. And then, +moreover, you it was who placed me here. That concerns you. I am at your +service." + +"That is settled then. Now, come with me. We will go and get the child." + +"Ah!" said Fauchelevent, "so there is a child?" + +He added not a word further, and followed Jean Valjean as a dog follows +his master. + +Less than half an hour afterwards Cosette, who had grown rosy again +before the flame of a good fire, was lying asleep in the old gardener's +bed. Jean Valjean had put on his cravat and coat once more; his hat, +which he had flung over the wall, had been found and picked up. While +Jean Valjean was putting on his coat, Fauchelevent had removed the +bell and kneecap, which now hung on a nail beside a vintage basket that +adorned the wall. The two men were warming themselves with their elbows +resting on a table upon which Fauchelevent had placed a bit of cheese, +black bread, a bottle of wine, and two glasses, and the old man was +saying to Jean Valjean, as he laid his hand on the latter's knee: +"Ah! Father Madeleine! You did not recognize me immediately; you save +people's lives, and then you forget them! That is bad! But they remember +you! You are an ingrate!" + + + + +CHAPTER X--WHICH EXPLAINS HOW JAVERT GOT ON THE SCENT + +The events of which we have just beheld the reverse side, so to speak, +had come about in the simplest possible manner. + +When Jean Valjean, on the evening of the very day when Javert had +arrested him beside Fantine's death-bed, had escaped from the town jail +of M. sur M., the police had supposed that he had betaken himself to +Paris. Paris is a maelstrom where everything is lost, and everything +disappears in this belly of the world, as in the belly of the sea. No +forest hides a man as does that crowd. Fugitives of every sort know +this. They go to Paris as to an abyss; there are gulfs which save. The +police know it also, and it is in Paris that they seek what they +have lost elsewhere. They sought the ex-mayor of M. sur M. Javert was +summoned to Paris to throw light on their researches. Javert had, in +fact, rendered powerful assistance in the recapture of Jean Valjean. +Javert's zeal and intelligence on that occasion had been remarked by +M. Chabouillet, secretary of the Prefecture under Comte Angles. M. +Chabouillet, who had, moreover, already been Javert's patron, had the +inspector of M. sur M. attached to the police force of Paris. There +Javert rendered himself useful in divers and, though the word may seem +strange for such services, honorable manners. + +He no longer thought of Jean Valjean,--the wolf of to-day causes these +dogs who are always on the chase to forget the wolf of yesterday,--when, +in December, 1823, he read a newspaper, he who never read newspapers; +but Javert, a monarchical man, had a desire to know the particulars of +the triumphal entry of the "Prince Generalissimo" into Bayonne. Just as +he was finishing the article, which interested him; a name, the name of +Jean Valjean, attracted his attention at the bottom of a page. The paper +announced that the convict Jean Valjean was dead, and published the fact +in such formal terms that Javert did not doubt it. He confined himself +to the remark, "That's a good entry." Then he threw aside the paper, and +thought no more about it. + +Some time afterwards, it chanced that a police report was transmitted +from the prefecture of the Seine-et-Oise to the prefecture of police in +Paris, concerning the abduction of a child, which had taken place, under +peculiar circumstances, as it was said, in the commune of Montfermeil. +A little girl of seven or eight years of age, the report said, who had +been intrusted by her mother to an inn-keeper of that neighborhood, had +been stolen by a stranger; this child answered to the name of Cosette, +and was the daughter of a girl named Fantine, who had died in the +hospital, it was not known where or when. + +This report came under Javert's eye and set him to thinking. + +The name of Fantine was well known to him. He remembered that Jean +Valjean had made him, Javert, burst into laughter, by asking him for a +respite of three days, for the purpose of going to fetch that creature's +child. He recalled the fact that Jean Valjean had been arrested in Paris +at the very moment when he was stepping into the coach for Montfermeil. +Some signs had made him suspect at the time that this was the second +occasion of his entering that coach, and that he had already, on the +previous day, made an excursion to the neighborhood of that village, for +he had not been seen in the village itself. What had he been intending +to do in that region of Montfermeil? It could not even be surmised. +Javert understood it now. Fantine's daughter was there. Jean Valjean was +going there in search of her. And now this child had been stolen by a +stranger! Who could that stranger be? Could it be Jean Valjean? But Jean +Valjean was dead. Javert, without saying anything to anybody, took the +coach from the Pewter Platter, Cul-de-Sac de la Planchette, and made a +trip to Montfermeil. + +He expected to find a great deal of light on the subject there; he found +a great deal of obscurity. + +For the first few days the Thenardiers had chattered in their rage. The +disappearance of the Lark had created a sensation in the village. He +immediately obtained numerous versions of the story, which ended in the +abduction of a child. Hence the police report. But their first vexation +having passed off, Thenardier, with his wonderful instinct, had +very quickly comprehended that it is never advisable to stir up the +prosecutor of the Crown, and that his complaints with regard to the +abduction of Cosette would have as their first result to fix upon +himself, and upon many dark affairs which he had on hand, the glittering +eye of justice. The last thing that owls desire is to have a candle +brought to them. And in the first place, how explain the fifteen hundred +francs which he had received? He turned squarely round, put a gag on +his wife's mouth, and feigned astonishment when the stolen child was +mentioned to him. He understood nothing about it; no doubt he had +grumbled for awhile at having that dear little creature "taken from him" +so hastily; he should have liked to keep her two or three days longer, +out of tenderness; but her "grandfather" had come for her in the most +natural way in the world. He added the "grandfather," which produced a +good effect. This was the story that Javert hit upon when he arrived at +Montfermeil. The grandfather caused Jean Valjean to vanish. + +Nevertheless, Javert dropped a few questions, like plummets, into +Thenardier's history. "Who was that grandfather? and what was his name?" +Thenardier replied with simplicity: "He is a wealthy farmer. I saw his +passport. I think his name was M. Guillaume Lambert." + +Lambert is a respectable and extremely reassuring name. Thereupon Javert +returned to Paris. + +"Jean Valjean is certainly dead," said he, "and I am a ninny." + +He had again begun to forget this history, when, in the course of +March, 1824, he heard of a singular personage who dwelt in the parish of +Saint-Medard and who had been surnamed "the mendicant who gives alms." +This person, the story ran, was a man of means, whose name no one knew +exactly, and who lived alone with a little girl of eight years, who +knew nothing about herself, save that she had come from Montfermeil. +Montfermeil! that name was always coming up, and it made Javert prick +up his ears. An old beggar police spy, an ex-beadle, to whom this person +had given alms, added a few more details. This gentleman of property was +very shy,--never coming out except in the evening, speaking to no one, +except, occasionally to the poor, and never allowing any one to approach +him. He wore a horrible old yellow frock-coat, which was worth many +millions, being all wadded with bank-bills. This piqued Javert's +curiosity in a decided manner. In order to get a close look at this +fantastic gentleman without alarming him, he borrowed the beadle's +outfit for a day, and the place where the old spy was in the habit of +crouching every evening, whining orisons through his nose, and playing +the spy under cover of prayer. + +"The suspected individual" did indeed approach Javert thus disguised, +and bestow alms on him. At that moment Javert raised his head, and the +shock which Jean Valjean received on recognizing Javert was equal to the +one received by Javert when he thought he recognized Jean Valjean. + +However, the darkness might have misled him; Jean Valjean's death was +official; Javert cherished very grave doubts; and when in doubt, Javert, +the man of scruples, never laid a finger on any one's collar. + +He followed his man to the Gorbeau house, and got "the old woman" to +talking, which was no difficult matter. The old woman confirmed the fact +regarding the coat lined with millions, and narrated to him the episode +of the thousand-franc bill. She had seen it! She had handled it! Javert +hired a room; that evening he installed himself in it. He came and +listened at the mysterious lodger's door, hoping to catch the sound of +his voice, but Jean Valjean saw his candle through the key-hole, and +foiled the spy by keeping silent. + +On the following day Jean Valjean decamped; but the noise made by the +fall of the five-franc piece was noticed by the old woman, who, hearing +the rattling of coin, suspected that he might be intending to leave, and +made haste to warn Javert. At night, when Jean Valjean came out, Javert +was waiting for him behind the trees of the boulevard with two men. + +Javert had demanded assistance at the Prefecture, but he had not +mentioned the name of the individual whom he hoped to seize; that was +his secret, and he had kept it for three reasons: in the first place, +because the slightest indiscretion might put Jean Valjean on the alert; +next, because, to lay hands on an ex-convict who had made his escape +and was reputed dead, on a criminal whom justice had formerly classed +forever as among malefactors of the most dangerous sort, was a +magnificent success which the old members of the Parisian police would +assuredly not leave to a new-comer like Javert, and he was afraid of +being deprived of his convict; and lastly, because Javert, being an +artist, had a taste for the unforeseen. He hated those well-heralded +successes which are talked of long in advance and have had the bloom +brushed off. He preferred to elaborate his masterpieces in the dark and +to unveil them suddenly at the last. + +Javert had followed Jean Valjean from tree to tree, then from corner +to corner of the street, and had not lost sight of him for a single +instant; even at the moments when Jean Valjean believed himself to +be the most secure Javert's eye had been on him. Why had not Javert +arrested Jean Valjean? Because he was still in doubt. + +It must be remembered that at that epoch the police was not precisely +at its ease; the free press embarrassed it; several arbitrary arrests +denounced by the newspapers, had echoed even as far as the Chambers, and +had rendered the Prefecture timid. Interference with individual liberty +was a grave matter. The police agents were afraid of making a mistake; +the prefect laid the blame on them; a mistake meant dismissal. The +reader can imagine the effect which this brief paragraph, reproduced +by twenty newspapers, would have caused in Paris: "Yesterday, an aged +grandfather, with white hair, a respectable and well-to-do gentleman, +who was walking with his grandchild, aged eight, was arrested and +conducted to the agency of the Prefecture as an escaped convict!" + +Let us repeat in addition that Javert had scruples of his own; +injunctions of his conscience were added to the injunctions of the +prefect. He was really in doubt. + +Jean Valjean turned his back on him and walked in the dark. + +Sadness, uneasiness, anxiety, depression, this fresh misfortune of being +forced to flee by night, to seek a chance refuge in Paris for Cosette +and himself, the necessity of regulating his pace to the pace of +the child--all this, without his being aware of it, had altered Jean +Valjean's walk, and impressed on his bearing such senility, that the +police themselves, incarnate in the person of Javert, might, and did in +fact, make a mistake. The impossibility of approaching too close, his +costume of an emigre preceptor, the declaration of Thenardier which made +a grandfather of him, and, finally, the belief in his death in prison, +added still further to the uncertainty which gathered thick in Javert's +mind. + +For an instant it occurred to him to make an abrupt demand for his +papers; but if the man was not Jean Valjean, and if this man was not a +good, honest old fellow living on his income, he was probably some merry +blade deeply and cunningly implicated in the obscure web of Parisian +misdeeds, some chief of a dangerous band, who gave alms to conceal +his other talents, which was an old dodge. He had trusty fellows, +accomplices' retreats in case of emergencies, in which he would, no +doubt, take refuge. All these turns which he was making through the +streets seemed to indicate that he was not a simple and honest man. To +arrest him too hastily would be "to kill the hen that laid the golden +eggs." Where was the inconvenience in waiting? Javert was very sure that +he would not escape. + +Thus he proceeded in a tolerably perplexed state of mind, putting to +himself a hundred questions about this enigmatical personage. + +It was only quite late in the Rue de Pontoise, that, thanks to the +brilliant light thrown from a dram-shop, he decidedly recognized Jean +Valjean. + +There are in this world two beings who give a profound start,--the +mother who recovers her child and the tiger who recovers his prey. +Javert gave that profound start. + +As soon as he had positively recognized Jean Valjean, the formidable +convict, he perceived that there were only three of them, and he asked +for reinforcements at the police station of the Rue de Pontoise. One +puts on gloves before grasping a thorn cudgel. + +This delay and the halt at the Carrefour Rollin to consult with his +agents came near causing him to lose the trail. He speedily divined, +however, that Jean Valjean would want to put the river between his +pursuers and himself. He bent his head and reflected like a blood-hound +who puts his nose to the ground to make sure that he is on the right +scent. Javert, with his powerful rectitude of instinct, went straight to +the bridge of Austerlitz. A word with the toll-keeper furnished him with +the information which he required: "Have you seen a man with a little +girl?" "I made him pay two sous," replied the toll-keeper. Javert +reached the bridge in season to see Jean Valjean traverse the small +illuminated spot on the other side of the water, leading Cosette by +the hand. He saw him enter the Rue du Chemin-Vert-Saint-Antoine; he +remembered the Cul-de-Sac Genrot arranged there like a trap, and of the +sole exit of the Rue Droit-Mur into the Rue Petit-Picpus. He made sure +of his back burrows, as huntsmen say; he hastily despatched one of his +agents, by a roundabout way, to guard that issue. A patrol which was +returning to the Arsenal post having passed him, he made a requisition +on it, and caused it to accompany him. In such games soldiers are aces. +Moreover, the principle is, that in order to get the best of a wild +boar, one must employ the science of venery and plenty of dogs. These +combinations having been effected, feeling that Jean Valjean was caught +between the blind alley Genrot on the right, his agent on the left, and +himself, Javert, in the rear, he took a pinch of snuff. + +Then he began the game. He experienced one ecstatic and infernal moment; +he allowed his man to go on ahead, knowing that he had him safe, but +desirous of postponing the moment of arrest as long as possible, happy +at the thought that he was taken and yet at seeing him free, gloating +over him with his gaze, with that voluptuousness of the spider which +allows the fly to flutter, and of the cat which lets the mouse run. +Claws and talons possess a monstrous sensuality,--the obscure movements +of the creature imprisoned in their pincers. What a delight this +strangling is! + +Javert was enjoying himself. The meshes of his net were stoutly knotted. +He was sure of success; all he had to do now was to close his hand. + +Accompanied as he was, the very idea of resistance was impossible, +however vigorous, energetic, and desperate Jean Valjean might be. + +[Illustration: Javert on the Hunt 2b5-10-javert-on-the-hunt] + +Javert advanced slowly, sounding, searching on his way all the nooks of +the street like so many pockets of thieves. + +When he reached the centre of the web he found the fly no longer there. + +His exasperation can be imagined. + +He interrogated his sentinel of the Rues Droit-Mur and Petit-Picpus; +that agent, who had remained imperturbably at his post, had not seen the +man pass. + +It sometimes happens that a stag is lost head and horns; that is to +say, he escapes although he has the pack on his very heels, and then the +oldest huntsmen know not what to say. Duvivier, Ligniville, and Desprez +halt short. In a discomfiture of this sort, Artonge exclaims, "It was +not a stag, but a sorcerer." Javert would have liked to utter the same +cry. + +His disappointment bordered for a moment on despair and rage. + +It is certain that Napoleon made mistakes during the war with Russia, +that Alexander committed blunders in the war in India, that Caesar made +mistakes in the war in Africa, that Cyrus was at fault in the war +in Scythia, and that Javert blundered in this campaign against Jean +Valjean. He was wrong, perhaps, in hesitating in his recognition of the +exconvict. The first glance should have sufficed him. He was wrong in +not arresting him purely and simply in the old building; he was wrong +in not arresting him when he positively recognized him in the Rue de +Pontoise. He was wrong in taking counsel with his auxiliaries in the +full light of the moon in the Carrefour Rollin. Advice is certainly +useful; it is a good thing to know and to interrogate those of the dogs +who deserve confidence; but the hunter cannot be too cautious when he is +chasing uneasy animals like the wolf and the convict. Javert, by taking +too much thought as to how he should set the bloodhounds of the pack on +the trail, alarmed the beast by giving him wind of the dart, and so +made him run. Above all, he was wrong in that after he had picked up the +scent again on the bridge of Austerlitz, he played that formidable and +puerile game of keeping such a man at the end of a thread. He thought +himself stronger than he was, and believed that he could play at the +game of the mouse and the lion. At the same time, he reckoned himself +as too weak, when he judged it necessary to obtain reinforcement. Fatal +precaution, waste of precious time! Javert committed all these blunders, +and none the less was one of the cleverest and most correct spies that +ever existed. He was, in the full force of the term, what is called in +venery a knowing dog. But what is there that is perfect? + +Great strategists have their eclipses. + +The greatest follies are often composed, like the largest ropes, of +a multitude of strands. Take the cable thread by thread, take all the +petty determining motives separately, and you can break them one after +the other, and you say, "That is all there is of it!" Braid them, twist +them together; the result is enormous: it is Attila hesitating between +Marcian on the east and Valentinian on the west; it is Hannibal tarrying +at Capua; it is Danton falling asleep at Arcis-sur-Aube. + +However that may be, even at the moment when he saw that Jean Valjean +had escaped him, Javert did not lose his head. Sure that the convict who +had broken his ban could not be far off, he established sentinels, he +organized traps and ambuscades, and beat the quarter all that night. The +first thing he saw was the disorder in the street lantern whose rope +had been cut. A precious sign which, however, led him astray, since it +caused him to turn all his researches in the direction of the Cul-de-Sac +Genrot. In this blind alley there were tolerably low walls which abutted +on gardens whose bounds adjoined the immense stretches of waste land. +Jean Valjean evidently must have fled in that direction. The fact is, +that had he penetrated a little further in the Cul-de-Sac Genrot, he +would probably have done so and have been lost. Javert explored these +gardens and these waste stretches as though he had been hunting for a +needle. + +At daybreak he left two intelligent men on the outlook, and returned to +the Prefecture of Police, as much ashamed as a police spy who had been +captured by a robber might have been. + + + + +BOOK SIXTH.--LE PETIT-PICPUS + + + + +CHAPTER I--NUMBER 62 RUE PETIT-PICPUS + +Nothing, half a century ago, more resembled every other carriage gate +than the carriage gate of Number 62 Rue Petit-Picpus. This entrance, +which usually stood ajar in the most inviting fashion, permitted a +view of two things, neither of which have anything very funereal about +them,--a courtyard surrounded by walls hung with vines, and the face +of a lounging porter. Above the wall, at the bottom of the court, tall +trees were visible. When a ray of sunlight enlivened the courtyard, when +a glass of wine cheered up the porter, it was difficult to pass Number +62 Little Picpus Street without carrying away a smiling impression of +it. Nevertheless, it was a sombre place of which one had had a glimpse. + +The threshold smiled; the house prayed and wept. + +If one succeeded in passing the porter, which was not easy,--which was +even nearly impossible for every one, for there was an open sesame! +which it was necessary to know,--if, the porter once passed, one entered +a little vestibule on the right, on which opened a staircase shut in +between two walls and so narrow that only one person could ascend it at +a time, if one did not allow one's self to be alarmed by a daubing of +canary yellow, with a dado of chocolate which clothed this staircase, if +one ventured to ascend it, one crossed a first landing, then a second, +and arrived on the first story at a corridor where the yellow wash and +the chocolate-hued plinth pursued one with a peaceable persistency. +Staircase and corridor were lighted by two beautiful windows. The +corridor took a turn and became dark. If one doubled this cape, one +arrived a few paces further on, in front of a door which was all the +more mysterious because it was not fastened. If one opened it, one +found one's self in a little chamber about six feet square, tiled, +well-scrubbed, clean, cold, and hung with nankin paper with green +flowers, at fifteen sous the roll. A white, dull light fell from a large +window, with tiny panes, on the left, which usurped the whole width +of the room. One gazed about, but saw no one; one listened, one heard +neither a footstep nor a human murmur. The walls were bare, the chamber +was not furnished; there was not even a chair. + +One looked again, and beheld on the wall facing the door a quadrangular +hole, about a foot square, with a grating of interlacing iron bars, +black, knotted, solid, which formed squares--I had almost said +meshes--of less than an inch and a half in diagonal length. The little +green flowers of the nankin paper ran in a calm and orderly manner to +those iron bars, without being startled or thrown into confusion by +their funereal contact. Supposing that a living being had been so +wonderfully thin as to essay an entrance or an exit through the square +hole, this grating would have prevented it. It did not allow the passage +of the body, but it did allow the passage of the eyes; that is to +say, of the mind. This seems to have occurred to them, for it had been +re-enforced by a sheet of tin inserted in the wall a little in the rear, +and pierced with a thousand holes more microscopic than the holes of +a strainer. At the bottom of this plate, an aperture had been pierced +exactly similar to the orifice of a letter box. A bit of tape attached +to a bell-wire hung at the right of the grated opening. + +If the tape was pulled, a bell rang, and one heard a voice very near at +hand, which made one start. + +"Who is there?" the voice demanded. + +It was a woman's voice, a gentle voice, so gentle that it was mournful. + +Here, again, there was a magical word which it was necessary to know. If +one did not know it, the voice ceased, the wall became silent once more, +as though the terrified obscurity of the sepulchre had been on the other +side of it. + +If one knew the password, the voice resumed, "Enter on the right." + +One then perceived on the right, facing the window, a glass door +surmounted by a frame glazed and painted gray. On raising the latch and +crossing the threshold, one experienced precisely the same impression +as when one enters at the theatre into a grated baignoire, before the +grating is lowered and the chandelier is lighted. One was, in fact, in +a sort of theatre-box, narrow, furnished with two old chairs, and a +much-frayed straw matting, sparely illuminated by the vague light from +the glass door; a regular box, with its front just of a height to lean +upon, bearing a tablet of black wood. This box was grated, only +the grating of it was not of gilded wood, as at the opera; it was a +monstrous lattice of iron bars, hideously interlaced and riveted to the +wall by enormous fastenings which resembled clenched fists. + +The first minutes passed; when one's eyes began to grow used to this +cellar-like half-twilight, one tried to pass the grating, but got no +further than six inches beyond it. There he encountered a barrier of +black shutters, re-enforced and fortified with transverse beams of wood +painted a gingerbread yellow. These shutters were divided into long, +narrow slats, and they masked the entire length of the grating. They +were always closed. At the expiration of a few moments one heard a voice +proceeding from behind these shutters, and saying:-- + +"I am here. What do you wish with me?" + +It was a beloved, sometimes an adored, voice. No one was visible. Hardly +the sound of a breath was audible. It seemed as though it were a spirit +which had been evoked, that was speaking to you across the walls of the +tomb. + +If one chanced to be within certain prescribed and very rare conditions, +the slat of one of the shutters opened opposite you; the evoked spirit +became an apparition. Behind the grating, behind the shutter, one +perceived so far as the grating permitted sight, a head, of which only +the mouth and the chin were visible; the rest was covered with a black +veil. One caught a glimpse of a black guimpe, and a form that was barely +defined, covered with a black shroud. That head spoke with you, but did +not look at you and never smiled at you. + +The light which came from behind you was adjusted in such a manner that +you saw her in the white, and she saw you in the black. This light was +symbolical. + +Nevertheless, your eyes plunged eagerly through that opening which +was made in that place shut off from all glances. A profound vagueness +enveloped that form clad in mourning. Your eyes searched that vagueness, +and sought to make out the surroundings of the apparition. At the +expiration of a very short time you discovered that you could see +nothing. What you beheld was night, emptiness, shadows, a wintry mist +mingled with a vapor from the tomb, a sort of terrible peace, a silence +from which you could gather nothing, not even sighs, a gloom in which +you could distinguish nothing, not even phantoms. + +What you beheld was the interior of a cloister. + +It was the interior of that severe and gloomy edifice which was called +the Convent of the Bernardines of the Perpetual Adoration. The box in +which you stood was the parlor. The first voice which had addressed you +was that of the portress who always sat motionless and silent, on the +other side of the wall, near the square opening, screened by the iron +grating and the plate with its thousand holes, as by a double visor. +The obscurity which bathed the grated box arose from the fact that the +parlor, which had a window on the side of the world, had none on the +side of the convent. Profane eyes must see nothing of that sacred place. + +Nevertheless, there was something beyond that shadow; there was a light; +there was life in the midst of that death. Although this was the most +strictly walled of all convents, we shall endeavor to make our way into +it, and to take the reader in, and to say, without transgressing the +proper bounds, things which story-tellers have never seen, and have, +therefore, never described. + + + + +CHAPTER II--THE OBEDIENCE OF MARTIN VERGA + +This convent, which in 1824 had already existed for many a long year in +the Rue Petit-Picpus, was a community of Bernardines of the obedience of +Martin Verga. + +These Bernardines were attached, in consequence, not to Clairvaux, like +the Bernardine monks, but to Citeaux, like the Benedictine monks. In +other words, they were the subjects, not of Saint Bernard, but of Saint +Benoit. + +Any one who has turned over old folios to any extent knows that Martin +Verga founded in 1425 a congregation of Bernardines-Benedictines, +with Salamanca for the head of the order, and Alcala as the branch +establishment. + +This congregation had sent out branches throughout all the Catholic +countries of Europe. + +There is nothing unusual in the Latin Church in these grafts of one +order on another. To mention only a single order of Saint-Benoit, which +is here in question: there are attached to this order, without counting +the obedience of Martin Verga, four congregations,--two in Italy, +Mont-Cassin and Sainte-Justine of Padua; two in France, Cluny and +Saint-Maur; and nine orders,--Vallombrosa, Granmont, the Celestins, +the Camaldules, the Carthusians, the Humilies, the Olivateurs, the +Silvestrins, and lastly, Citeaux; for Citeaux itself, a trunk for other +orders, is only an offshoot of Saint-Benoit. Citeaux dates from Saint +Robert, Abbe de Molesme, in the diocese of Langres, in 1098. Now it was +in 529 that the devil, having retired to the desert of Subiaco--he +was old--had he turned hermit?--was chased from the ancient temple of +Apollo, where he dwelt, by Saint-Benoit, then aged seventeen. + +After the rule of the Carmelites, who go barefoot, wear a bit of willow +on their throats, and never sit down, the harshest rule is that of the +Bernardines-Benedictines of Martin Verga. They are clothed in black, +with a guimpe, which, in accordance with the express command of +Saint-Benoit, mounts to the chin. A robe of serge with large sleeves, +a large woollen veil, the guimpe which mounts to the chin cut square on +the breast, the band which descends over their brow to their eyes,--this +is their dress. All is black except the band, which is white. The +novices wear the same habit, but all in white. The professed nuns also +wear a rosary at their side. + +The Bernardines-Benedictines of Martin Verga practise the Perpetual +Adoration, like the Benedictines called Ladies of the Holy Sacrament, +who, at the beginning of this century, had two houses in Paris,--one at +the Temple, the other in the Rue Neuve-Sainte-Genevieve. However, the +Bernardines-Benedictines of the Petit-Picpus, of whom we are speaking, +were a totally different order from the Ladies of the Holy Sacrament, +cloistered in the Rue Neuve-Sainte-Genevieve and at the Temple. There +were numerous differences in their rule; there were some in their +costume. The Bernardines-Benedictines of the Petit-Picpus wore the +black guimpe, and the Benedictines of the Holy Sacrament and of the +Rue Neuve-Sainte-Genevieve wore a white one, and had, besides, on their +breasts, a Holy Sacrament about three inches long, in silver gilt or +gilded copper. The nuns of the Petit-Picpus did not wear this Holy +Sacrament. The Perpetual Adoration, which was common to the house of +the Petit-Picpus and to the house of the Temple, leaves those two orders +perfectly distinct. Their only resemblance lies in this practice of the +Ladies of the Holy Sacrament and the Bernardines of Martin Verga, just +as there existed a similarity in the study and the glorification of +all the mysteries relating to the infancy, the life, and death of Jesus +Christ and the Virgin, between the two orders, which were, nevertheless, +widely separated, and on occasion even hostile. The Oratory of Italy, +established at Florence by Philip de Neri, and the Oratory of France, +established by Pierre de Berulle. The Oratory of France claimed the +precedence, since Philip de Neri was only a saint, while Berulle was a +cardinal. + +Let us return to the harsh Spanish rule of Martin Verga. + +The Bernardines-Benedictines of this obedience fast all the year +round, abstain from meat, fast in Lent and on many other days which are +peculiar to them, rise from their first sleep, from one to three o'clock +in the morning, to read their breviary and chant matins, sleep in all +seasons between serge sheets and on straw, make no use of the bath, +never light a fire, scourge themselves every Friday, observe the rule of +silence, speak to each other only during the recreation hours, which are +very brief, and wear drugget chemises for six months in the year, from +September 14th, which is the Exaltation of the Holy Cross, until Easter. +These six months are a modification: the rule says all the year, but +this drugget chemise, intolerable in the heat of summer, produced fevers +and nervous spasms. The use of it had to be restricted. Even with this +palliation, when the nuns put on this chemise on the 14th of September, +they suffer from fever for three or four days. Obedience, poverty, +chastity, perseverance in their seclusion,--these are their vows, which +the rule greatly aggravates. + +The prioress is elected for three years by the mothers, who are called +meres vocales because they have a voice in the chapter. A prioress can +only be re-elected twice, which fixes the longest possible reign of a +prioress at nine years. + +They never see the officiating priest, who is always hidden from them +by a serge curtain nine feet in height. During the sermon, when the +preacher is in the chapel, they drop their veils over their faces. They +must always speak low, walk with their eyes on the ground and their +heads bowed. One man only is allowed to enter the convent,--the +archbishop of the diocese. + +There is really one other,--the gardener. But he is always an old man, +and, in order that he may always be alone in the garden, and that the +nuns may be warned to avoid him, a bell is attached to his knee. + +Their submission to the prioress is absolute and passive. It is the +canonical subjection in the full force of its abnegation. As at the +voice of Christ, ut voci Christi, at a gesture, at the first sign, +ad nutum, ad primum signum, immediately, with cheerfulness, with +perseverance, with a certain blind obedience, prompte, hilariter, +perseveranter et caeca quadam obedientia, as the file in the hand of the +workman, quasi limam in manibus fabri, without power to read or to write +without express permission, legere vel scribere non addiscerit sine +expressa superioris licentia. + +Each one of them in turn makes what they call reparation. The reparation +is the prayer for all the sins, for all the faults, for all the +dissensions, for all the violations, for all the iniquities, for all the +crimes committed on earth. For the space of twelve consecutive hours, +from four o'clock in the afternoon till four o'clock in the morning, or +from four o'clock in the morning until four o'clock in the afternoon, +the sister who is making reparation remains on her knees on the stone +before the Holy Sacrament, with hands clasped, a rope around her neck. +When her fatigue becomes unendurable, she prostrates herself flat on +her face against the earth, with her arms outstretched in the form of a +cross; this is her only relief. In this attitude she prays for all the +guilty in the universe. This is great to sublimity. + +As this act is performed in front of a post on which burns a candle, it +is called without distinction, to make reparation or to be at the post. +The nuns even prefer, out of humility, this last expression, which +contains an idea of torture and abasement. + +To make reparation is a function in which the whole soul is absorbed. +The sister at the post would not turn round were a thunderbolt to fall +directly behind her. + +Besides this, there is always a sister kneeling before the Holy +Sacrament. This station lasts an hour. They relieve each other like +soldiers on guard. This is the Perpetual Adoration. + +The prioresses and the mothers almost always bear names stamped with +peculiar solemnity, recalling, not the saints and martyrs, but moments +in the life of Jesus Christ: as Mother Nativity, Mother Conception, +Mother Presentation, Mother Passion. But the names of saints are not +interdicted. + +When one sees them, one never sees anything but their mouths. + +All their teeth are yellow. No tooth-brush ever entered that convent. +Brushing one's teeth is at the top of a ladder at whose bottom is the +loss of one's soul. + +They never say my. They possess nothing of their own, and they must not +attach themselves to anything. They call everything our; thus: our veil, +our chaplet; if they were speaking of their chemise, they would say our +chemise. Sometimes they grow attached to some petty object,--to a book +of hours, a relic, a medal that has been blessed. As soon as they become +aware that they are growing attached to this object, they must give it +up. They recall the words of Saint Therese, to whom a great lady said, +as she was on the point of entering her order, "Permit me, mother, to +send for a Bible to which I am greatly attached." "Ah, you are attached +to something! In that case, do not enter our order!" + +Every person whatever is forbidden to shut herself up, to have a place +of her own, a chamber. They live with their cells open. When they meet, +one says, "Blessed and adored be the most Holy Sacrament of the altar!" +The other responds, "Forever." The same ceremony when one taps at the +other's door. Hardly has she touched the door when a soft voice on the +other side is heard to say hastily, "Forever!" Like all practices, this +becomes mechanical by force of habit; and one sometimes says forever +before the other has had time to say the rather long sentence, "Praised +and adored be the most Holy Sacrament of the altar." + +Among the Visitandines the one who enters says: "Ave Maria," and the one +whose cell is entered says, "Gratia plena." It is their way of saying +good day, which is in fact full of grace. + +At each hour of the day three supplementary strokes sound from the +church bell of the convent. At this signal prioress, vocal mothers, +professed nuns, lay-sisters, novices, postulants, interrupt what they +are saying, what they are doing, or what they are thinking, and all say +in unison if it is five o'clock, for instance, "At five o'clock and at +all hours praised and adored be the most Holy Sacrament of the altar!" +If it is eight o'clock, "At eight o'clock and at all hours!" and so on, +according to the hour. + +This custom, the object of which is to break the thread of thought +and to lead it back constantly to God, exists in many communities; the +formula alone varies. Thus at The Infant Jesus they say, "At this +hour and at every hour may the love of Jesus kindle my heart!" The +Bernardines-Benedictines of Martin Verga, cloistered fifty years ago at +Petit-Picpus, chant the offices to a solemn psalmody, a pure Gregorian +chant, and always with full voice during the whole course of the office. +Everywhere in the missal where an asterisk occurs they pause, and say in +a low voice, "Jesus-Marie-Joseph." For the office of the dead they adopt +a tone so low that the voices of women can hardly descend to such a +depth. The effect produced is striking and tragic. + +The nuns of the Petit-Picpus had made a vault under their grand altar +for the burial of their community. The Government, as they say, does not +permit this vault to receive coffins so they leave the convent when they +die. This is an affliction to them, and causes them consternation as an +infraction of the rules. + +They had obtained a mediocre consolation at best,--permission to be +interred at a special hour and in a special corner in the ancient +Vaugirard cemetery, which was made of land which had formerly belonged +to their community. + +On Fridays the nuns hear high mass, vespers, and all the offices, as on +Sunday. They scrupulously observe in addition all the little festivals +unknown to people of the world, of which the Church of France was so +prodigal in the olden days, and of which it is still prodigal in Spain +and Italy. Their stations in the chapel are interminable. As for the +number and duration of their prayers we can convey no better idea of +them than by quoting the ingenuous remark of one of them: "The prayers +of the postulants are frightful, the prayers of the novices are still +worse, and the prayers of the professed nuns are still worse." + +Once a week the chapter assembles: the prioress presides; the vocal +mothers assist. Each sister kneels in turn on the stones, and confesses +aloud, in the presence of all, the faults and sins which she has +committed during the week. The vocal mothers consult after each +confession and inflict the penance aloud. + +Besides this confession in a loud tone, for which all faults in the +least serious are reserved, they have for their venial offences what +they call the coulpe. To make one's coulpe means to prostrate one's self +flat on one's face during the office in front of the prioress until +the latter, who is never called anything but our mother, notifies the +culprit by a slight tap of her foot against the wood of her stall that +she can rise. The coulpe or peccavi, is made for a very small matter--a +broken glass, a torn veil, an involuntary delay of a few seconds at an +office, a false note in church, etc.; this suffices, and the coulpe +is made. The coulpe is entirely spontaneous; it is the culpable person +herself (the word is etymologically in its place here) who judges +herself and inflicts it on herself. On festival days and Sundays four +mother precentors intone the offices before a large reading-desk with +four places. One day one of the mother precentors intoned a psalm +beginning with Ecce, and instead of Ecce she uttered aloud the three +notes do si sol; for this piece of absent-mindedness she underwent a +coulpe which lasted during the whole service: what rendered the fault +enormous was the fact that the chapter had laughed. + +When a nun is summoned to the parlor, even were it the prioress herself, +she drops her veil, as will be remembered, so that only her mouth is +visible. + +The prioress alone can hold communication with strangers. The others can +see only their immediate family, and that very rarely. If, by chance, +an outsider presents herself to see a nun, or one whom she has known and +loved in the outer world, a regular series of negotiations is required. +If it is a woman, the authorization may sometimes be granted; the nun +comes, and they talk to her through the shutters, which are opened only +for a mother or sister. It is unnecessary to say that permission is +always refused to men. + +Such is the rule of Saint-Benoit, aggravated by Martin Verga. + +These nuns are not gay, rosy, and fresh, as the daughters of other +orders often are. They are pale and grave. Between 1825 and 1830 three +of them went mad. + + + + +CHAPTER III--AUSTERITIES + +One is a postulant for two years at least, often for four; a novice for +four. It is rare that the definitive vows can be pronounced +earlier than the age of twenty-three or twenty-four years. The +Bernardines-Benedictines of Martin Verga do not admit widows to their +order. + +In their cells, they deliver themselves up to many unknown macerations, +of which they must never speak. + +On the day when a novice makes her profession, she is dressed in her +handsomest attire, she is crowned with white roses, her hair is brushed +until it shines, and curled. Then she prostrates herself; a great black +veil is thrown over her, and the office for the dead is sung. Then the +nuns separate into two files; one file passes close to her, saying in +plaintive accents, "Our sister is dead"; and the other file responds in +a voice of ecstasy, "Our sister is alive in Jesus Christ!" + +At the epoch when this story takes place, a boarding-school was attached +to the convent--a boarding-school for young girls of noble and +mostly wealthy families, among whom could be remarked Mademoiselle +de Saint-Aulaire and de Belissen, and an English girl bearing the +illustrious Catholic name of Talbot. These young girls, reared by these +nuns between four walls, grew up with a horror of the world and of the +age. One of them said to us one day, "The sight of the street pavement +made me shudder from head to foot." They were dressed in blue, with a +white cap and a Holy Spirit of silver gilt or of copper on their breast. +On certain grand festival days, particularly Saint Martha's day, they +were permitted, as a high favor and a supreme happiness, to dress +themselves as nuns and to carry out the offices and practice of +Saint-Benoit for a whole day. In the early days the nuns were in the +habit of lending them their black garments. This seemed profane, and +the prioress forbade it. Only the novices were permitted to lend. It is +remarkable that these performances, tolerated and encouraged, no doubt, +in the convent out of a secret spirit of proselytism and in order +to give these children a foretaste of the holy habit, were a genuine +happiness and a real recreation for the scholars. They simply amused +themselves with it. It was new; it gave them a change. Candid reasons +of childhood, which do not, however, succeed in making us worldlings +comprehend the felicity of holding a holy water sprinkler in one's hand +and standing for hours together singing hard enough for four in front of +a reading-desk. + +The pupils conformed, with the exception of the austerities, to all the +practices of the convent. There was a certain young woman who entered +the world, and who after many years of married life had not succeeded in +breaking herself of the habit of saying in great haste whenever any +one knocked at her door, "forever!" Like the nuns, the pupils saw +their relatives only in the parlor. Their very mothers did not obtain +permission to embrace them. The following illustrates to what a degree +severity on that point was carried. One day a young girl received a +visit from her mother, who was accompanied by a little sister three +years of age. The young girl wept, for she wished greatly to embrace +her sister. Impossible. She begged that, at least, the child might be +permitted to pass her little hand through the bars so that she could +kiss it. This was almost indignantly refused. + + + + +CHAPTER IV--GAYETIES + +None the less, these young girls filled this grave house with charming +souvenirs. + +At certain hours childhood sparkled in that cloister. The recreation +hour struck. A door swung on its hinges. The birds said, "Good; +here come the children!" An irruption of youth inundated that garden +intersected with a cross like a shroud. Radiant faces, white foreheads, +innocent eyes, full of merry light, all sorts of auroras, were scattered +about amid these shadows. After the psalmodies, the bells, the peals, +and knells and offices, the sound of these little girls burst forth on a +sudden more sweetly than the noise of bees. The hive of joy was opened, +and each one brought her honey. They played, they called to each other, +they formed into groups, they ran about; pretty little white teeth +chattered in the corners; the veils superintended the laughs from a +distance, shades kept watch of the sunbeams, but what mattered it? Still +they beamed and laughed. Those four lugubrious walls had their moment +of dazzling brilliancy. They looked on, vaguely blanched with the +reflection of so much joy at this sweet swarming of the hives. It was +like a shower of roses falling athwart this house of mourning. The young +girls frolicked beneath the eyes of the nuns; the gaze of impeccability +does not embarrass innocence. Thanks to these children, there was, +among so many austere hours, one hour of ingenuousness. The little ones +skipped about; the elder ones danced. In this cloister play was mingled +with heaven. Nothing is so delightful and so august as all these fresh, +expanding young souls. Homer would have come thither to laugh with +Perrault; and there was in that black garden, youth, health, noise, +cries, giddiness, pleasure, happiness enough to smooth out the wrinkles +of all their ancestresses, those of the epic as well as those of the +fairy-tale, those of the throne as well as those of the thatched cottage +from Hecuba to la Mere-Grand. + +In that house more than anywhere else, perhaps, arise those children's +sayings which are so graceful and which evoke a smile that is full of +thoughtfulness. It was between those four gloomy walls that a child of +five years exclaimed one day: "Mother! one of the big girls has just +told me that I have only nine years and ten months longer to remain +here. What happiness!" + +It was here, too, that this memorable dialogue took place:-- + +A Vocal Mother. Why are you weeping, my child? + +The child (aged six). I told Alix that I knew my French history. She +says that I do not know it, but I do. + +Alix, the big girl (aged nine). No; she does not know it. + +The Mother. How is that, my child? + +Alix. She told me to open the book at random and to ask her any question +in the book, and she would answer it. + +"Well?" + +"She did not answer it." + +"Let us see about it. What did you ask her?" + +"I opened the book at random, as she proposed, and I put the first +question that I came across." + +"And what was the question?" + +"It was, 'What happened after that?'" + +It was there that that profound remark was made anent a rather greedy +paroquet which belonged to a lady boarder:-- + +"How well bred! it eats the top of the slice of bread and butter just +like a person!" + +It was on one of the flagstones of this cloister that there was once +picked up a confession which had been written out in advance, in order +that she might not forget it, by a sinner of seven years:-- + +"Father, I accuse myself of having been avaricious. + +"Father, I accuse myself of having been an adulteress. + +"Father, I accuse myself of having raised my eyes to the gentlemen." + +It was on one of the turf benches of this garden that a rosy mouth six +years of age improvised the following tale, which was listened to by +blue eyes aged four and five years:-- + +"There were three little cocks who owned a country where there were +a great many flowers. They plucked the flowers and put them in their +pockets. After that they plucked the leaves and put them in their +playthings. There was a wolf in that country; there was a great deal of +forest; and the wolf was in the forest; and he ate the little cocks." + +And this other poem:-- + +"There came a blow with a stick. + +"It was Punchinello who bestowed it on the cat. + +"It was not good for her; it hurt her. + +"Then a lady put Punchinello in prison." + +It was there that a little abandoned child, a foundling whom the convent +was bringing up out of charity, uttered this sweet and heart-breaking +saying. She heard the others talking of their mothers, and she murmured +in her corner:-- + +"As for me, my mother was not there when I was born!" + +There was a stout portress who could always be seen hurrying through the +corridors with her bunch of keys, and whose name was Sister Agatha. The +big big girls--those over ten years of age--called her Agathocles. + +The refectory, a large apartment of an oblong square form, which +received no light except through a vaulted cloister on a level with the +garden, was dark and damp, and, as the children say, full of beasts. All +the places round about furnished their contingent of insects. + +Each of its four corners had received, in the language of the pupils, +a special and expressive name. There was Spider corner, Caterpillar +corner, Wood-louse corner, and Cricket corner. + +Cricket corner was near the kitchen and was highly esteemed. It was not +so cold there as elsewhere. From the refectory the names had passed to +the boarding-school, and there served as in the old College Mazarin +to distinguish four nations. Every pupil belonged to one of these four +nations according to the corner of the refectory in which she sat at +meals. One day Monseigneur the Archbishop while making his pastoral +visit saw a pretty little rosy girl with beautiful golden hair enter the +class-room through which he was passing. + +He inquired of another pupil, a charming brunette with rosy cheeks, who +stood near him:-- + +"Who is that?" + +"She is a spider, Monseigneur." + +"Bah! And that one yonder?" + +"She is a cricket." + +"And that one?" + +"She is a caterpillar." + +"Really! and yourself?" + +"I am a wood-louse, Monseigneur." + +Every house of this sort has its own peculiarities. At the beginning of +this century Ecouen was one of those strict and graceful places where +young girls pass their childhood in a shadow that is almost august. At +Ecouen, in order to take rank in the procession of the Holy Sacrament, +a distinction was made between virgins and florists. There were also the +"dais" and the "censors,"--the first who held the cords of the dais, and +the others who carried incense before the Holy Sacrament. The flowers +belonged by right to the florists. Four "virgins" walked in advance. On +the morning of that great day it was no rare thing to hear the question +put in the dormitory, "Who is a virgin?" + +Madame Campan used to quote this saying of a "little one" of seven +years, to a "big girl" of sixteen, who took the head of the procession, +while she, the little one, remained at the rear, "You are a virgin, but +I am not." + + + + +CHAPTER V--DISTRACTIONS + +Above the door of the refectory this prayer, which was called the white +Paternoster, and which possessed the property of bearing people straight +to paradise, was inscribed in large black letters:-- + +"Little white Paternoster, which God made, which God said, which God +placed in paradise. In the evening, when I went to bed, I found three +angels sitting on my bed, one at the foot, two at the head, the good +Virgin Mary in the middle, who told me to lie down without hesitation. +The good God is my father, the good Virgin is my mother, the three +apostles are my brothers, the three virgins are my sisters. The shirt in +which God was born envelopes my body; Saint Margaret's cross is written +on my breast. Madame the Virgin was walking through the meadows, weeping +for God, when she met M. Saint John. 'Monsieur Saint John, whence come +you?' 'I come from Ave Salus.' 'You have not seen the good God; where +is he?' 'He is on the tree of the Cross, his feet hanging, his hands +nailed, a little cap of white thorns on his head.' Whoever shall say +this thrice at eventide, thrice in the morning, shall win paradise at +the last." + +In 1827 this characteristic orison had disappeared from the wall under +a triple coating of daubing paint. At the present time it is finally +disappearing from the memories of several who were young girls then, and +who are old women now. + +A large crucifix fastened to the wall completed the decoration of this +refectory, whose only door, as we think we have mentioned, opened on the +garden. Two narrow tables, each flanked by two wooden benches, formed +two long parallel lines from one end to the other of the refectory. +The walls were white, the tables were black; these two mourning colors +constitute the only variety in convents. The meals were plain, and +the food of the children themselves severe. A single dish of meat and +vegetables combined, or salt fish--such was their luxury. This meagre +fare, which was reserved for the pupils alone, was, nevertheless, an +exception. The children ate in silence, under the eye of the mother +whose turn it was, who, if a fly took a notion to fly or to hum against +the rule, opened and shut a wooden book from time to time. This silence +was seasoned with the lives of the saints, read aloud from a little +pulpit with a desk, which was situated at the foot of the crucifix. The +reader was one of the big girls, in weekly turn. At regular distances, +on the bare tables, there were large, varnished bowls in which the +pupils washed their own silver cups and knives and forks, and into which +they sometimes threw some scrap of tough meat or spoiled fish; this was +punished. These bowls were called ronds d'eau. The child who broke the +silence "made a cross with her tongue." Where? On the ground. She licked +the pavement. The dust, that end of all joys, was charged with the +chastisement of those poor little rose-leaves which had been guilty of +chirping. + +There was in the convent a book which has never been printed except as +a unique copy, and which it is forbidden to read. It is the rule of +Saint-Benoit. An arcanum which no profane eye must penetrate. Nemo +regulas, seu constitutiones nostras, externis communicabit. + +The pupils one day succeeded in getting possession of this book, and set +to reading it with avidity, a reading which was often interrupted by +the fear of being caught, which caused them to close the volume +precipitately. + +From the great danger thus incurred they derived but a very moderate +amount of pleasure. The most "interesting thing" they found were some +unintelligible pages about the sins of young boys. + +They played in an alley of the garden bordered with a few shabby +fruit-trees. In spite of the extreme surveillance and the severity of +the punishments administered, when the wind had shaken the trees, they +sometimes succeeded in picking up a green apple or a spoiled apricot or +an inhabited pear on the sly. I will now cede the privilege of speech +to a letter which lies before me, a letter written five and twenty +years ago by an old pupil, now Madame la Duchesse de----one of the most +elegant women in Paris. I quote literally: "One hides one's pear or +one's apple as best one may. When one goes up stairs to put the veil on +the bed before supper, one stuffs them under one's pillow and at night +one eats them in bed, and when one cannot do that, one eats them in the +closet." That was one of their greatest luxuries. + +Once--it was at the epoch of the visit from the archbishop to the +convent--one of the young girls, Mademoiselle Bouchard, who was +connected with the Montmorency family, laid a wager that she would ask +for a day's leave of absence--an enormity in so austere a community. The +wager was accepted, but not one of those who bet believed that she would +do it. When the moment came, as the archbishop was passing in front of +the pupils, Mademoiselle Bouchard, to the indescribable terror of her +companions, stepped out of the ranks, and said, "Monseigneur, a day's +leave of absence." Mademoiselle Bouchard was tall, blooming, with the +prettiest little rosy face in the world. M. de Quelen smiled and said, +"What, my dear child, a day's leave of absence! Three days if you like. +I grant you three days." The prioress could do nothing; the archbishop +had spoken. Horror of the convent, but joy of the pupil. The effect may +be imagined. + +This stern cloister was not so well walled off, however, but that the +life of the passions of the outside world, drama, and even romance, +did not make their way in. To prove this, we will confine ourselves to +recording here and to briefly mentioning a real and incontestable fact, +which, however, bears no reference in itself to, and is not connected by +any thread whatever with the story which we are relating. We mention the +fact for the sake of completing the physiognomy of the convent in the +reader's mind. + +About this time there was in the convent a mysterious person who was +not a nun, who was treated with great respect, and who was addressed as +Madame Albertine. Nothing was known about her, save that she was mad, +and that in the world she passed for dead. Beneath this history it +was said there lay the arrangements of fortune necessary for a great +marriage. + +This woman, hardly thirty years of age, of dark complexion and tolerably +pretty, had a vague look in her large black eyes. Could she see? There +was some doubt about this. She glided rather than walked, she never +spoke; it was not quite known whether she breathed. Her nostrils were +livid and pinched as after yielding up their last sigh. To touch her +hand was like touching snow. She possessed a strange spectral grace. +Wherever she entered, people felt cold. One day a sister, on seeing her +pass, said to another sister, "She passes for a dead woman." "Perhaps +she is one," replied the other. + +A hundred tales were told of Madame Albertine. This arose from the +eternal curiosity of the pupils. In the chapel there was a gallery +called L'OEil de Boeuf. It was in this gallery, which had only a +circular bay, an oeil de boeuf, that Madame Albertine listened to the +offices. She always occupied it alone because from this gallery, being +on the level of the first story, the preacher or the officiating priest +could be seen, which was interdicted to the nuns. One day the pulpit was +occupied by a young priest of high rank, M. Le Duc de Rohan, peer of +France, officer of the Red Musketeers in 1815 when he was Prince de +Leon, and who died afterward, in 1830, as cardinal and Archbishop of +Besancon. It was the first time that M. de Rohan had preached at the +Petit-Picpus convent. Madame Albertine usually preserved perfect +calmness and complete immobility during the sermons and services. That +day, as soon as she caught sight of M. de Rohan, she half rose, and +said, in a loud voice, amid the silence of the chapel, "Ah! Auguste!" +The whole community turned their heads in amazement, the preacher raised +his eyes, but Madame Albertine had relapsed into her immobility. A +breath from the outer world, a flash of life, had passed for an instant +across that cold and lifeless face and had then vanished, and the mad +woman had become a corpse again. + +Those two words, however, had set every one in the convent who had the +privilege of speech to chattering. How many things were contained in +that "Ah! Auguste!" what revelations! M. de Rohan's name really was +Auguste. It was evident that Madame Albertine belonged to the very +highest society, since she knew M. de Rohan, and that her own rank there +was of the highest, since she spoke thus familiarly of so great a lord, +and that there existed between them some connection, of relationship, +perhaps, but a very close one in any case, since she knew his "pet +name." + +Two very severe duchesses, Mesdames de Choiseul and de Serent, often +visited the community, whither they penetrated, no doubt, in virtue of +the privilege Magnates mulieres, and caused great consternation in the +boarding-school. When these two old ladies passed by, all the poor young +girls trembled and dropped their eyes. + +Moreover, M. de Rohan, quite unknown to himself, was an object of +attention to the school-girls. At that epoch he had just been made, +while waiting for the episcopate, vicar-general of the Archbishop of +Paris. It was one of his habits to come tolerably often to celebrate the +offices in the chapel of the nuns of the Petit-Picpus. Not one of the +young recluses could see him, because of the serge curtain, but he had +a sweet and rather shrill voice, which they had come to know and to +distinguish. He had been a mousquetaire, and then, he was said to be +very coquettish, that his handsome brown hair was very well dressed in +a roll around his head, and that he had a broad girdle of magnificent +moire, and that his black cassock was of the most elegant cut in the +world. He held a great place in all these imaginations of sixteen years. + +Not a sound from without made its way into the convent. But there was +one year when the sound of a flute penetrated thither. This was an +event, and the girls who were at school there at the time still recall +it. + +It was a flute which was played in the neighborhood. This flute always +played the same air, an air which is very far away nowadays,--"My +Zetulbe, come reign o'er my soul,"--and it was heard two or three +times a day. The young girls passed hours in listening to it, the vocal +mothers were upset by it, brains were busy, punishments descended in +showers. This lasted for several months. The girls were all more or +less in love with the unknown musician. Each one dreamed that she was +Zetulbe. The sound of the flute proceeded from the direction of the Rue +Droit-Mur; and they would have given anything, compromised everything, +attempted anything for the sake of seeing, of catching a glance, if only +for a second, of the "young man" who played that flute so deliciously, +and who, no doubt, played on all these souls at the same time. There +were some who made their escape by a back door, and ascended to the +third story on the Rue Droit-Mur side, in order to attempt to catch a +glimpse through the gaps. Impossible! One even went so far as to thrust +her arm through the grating, and to wave her white handkerchief. Two +were still bolder. They found means to climb on a roof, and risked their +lives there, and succeeded at last in seeing "the young man." He was an +old emigre gentleman, blind and penniless, who was playing his flute in +his attic, in order to pass the time. + + + + +CHAPTER VI--THE LITTLE CONVENT + +In this enclosure of the Petit-Picpus there were three perfectly +distinct buildings,--the Great Convent, inhabited by the nuns, the +Boarding-school, where the scholars were lodged; and lastly, what was +called the Little Convent. It was a building with a garden, in which +lived all sorts of aged nuns of various orders, the relics of cloisters +destroyed in the Revolution; a reunion of all the black, gray, and white +medleys of all communities and all possible varieties; what might be +called, if such a coupling of words is permissible, a sort of harlequin +convent. + +When the Empire was established, all these poor old dispersed and exiled +women had been accorded permission to come and take shelter under the +wings of the Bernardines-Benedictines. The government paid them a small +pension, the ladies of the Petit-Picpus received them cordially. It was +a singular pell-mell. Each followed her own rule, Sometimes the pupils +of the boarding-school were allowed, as a great recreation, to pay them +a visit; the result is, that all those young memories have +retained among other souvenirs that of Mother Sainte-Bazile, Mother +Sainte-Scolastique, and Mother Jacob. + +One of these refugees found herself almost at home. She was a nun of +Sainte-Aure, the only one of her order who had survived. The ancient +convent of the ladies of Sainte-Aure occupied, at the beginning of the +eighteenth century, this very house of the Petit-Picpus, which belonged +later to the Benedictines of Martin Verga. This holy woman, too poor to +wear the magnificent habit of her order, which was a white robe with +a scarlet scapulary, had piously put it on a little manikin, which she +exhibited with complacency and which she bequeathed to the house at +her death. In 1824, only one nun of this order remained; to-day, there +remains only a doll. + +In addition to these worthy mothers, some old society women had obtained +permission of the prioress, like Madame Albertine, to retire into the +Little Convent. Among the number were Madame Beaufort d'Hautpoul and +Marquise Dufresne. Another was never known in the convent except by +the formidable noise which she made when she blew her nose. The pupils +called her Madame Vacarmini (hubbub). + +About 1820 or 1821, Madame de Genlis, who was at that time editing a +little periodical publication called l'Intrepide, asked to be allowed +to enter the convent of the Petit-Picpus as lady resident. The Duc +d'Orleans recommended her. Uproar in the hive; the vocal-mothers were +all in a flutter; Madame de Genlis had made romances. But she declared +that she was the first to detest them, and then, she had reached her +fierce stage of devotion. With the aid of God, and of the Prince, she +entered. She departed at the end of six or eight months, alleging as a +reason, that there was no shade in the garden. The nuns were delighted. +Although very old, she still played the harp, and did it very well. + +When she went away she left her mark in her cell. Madame de Genlis was +superstitious and a Latinist. These two words furnish a tolerably good +profile of her. A few years ago, there were still to be seen, pasted in +the inside of a little cupboard in her cell in which she locked up her +silverware and her jewels, these five lines in Latin, written with +her own hand in red ink on yellow paper, and which, in her opinion, +possessed the property of frightening away robbers:-- + + + Imparibus meritis pendent tria corpora ramis:[15] + Dismas et Gesmas, media est divina potestas; + Alta petit Dismas, infelix, infima, Gesmas; + Nos et res nostras conservet summa potestas. + Hos versus dicas, ne tu furto tua perdas. + + +These verses in sixth century Latin raise the question whether the +two thieves of Calvary were named, as is commonly believed, Dismas and +Gestas, or Dismas and Gesmas. This orthography might have confounded the +pretensions put forward in the last century by the Vicomte de Gestas, of +a descent from the wicked thief. However, the useful virtue attached to +these verses forms an article of faith in the order of the Hospitallers. + +The church of the house, constructed in such a manner as to separate the +Great Convent from the Boarding-school like a veritable intrenchment, +was, of course, common to the Boarding-school, the Great Convent, and +the Little Convent. The public was even admitted by a sort of lazaretto +entrance on the street. But all was so arranged, that none of the +inhabitants of the cloister could see a face from the outside world. +Suppose a church whose choir is grasped in a gigantic hand, and +folded in such a manner as to form, not, as in ordinary churches, a +prolongation behind the altar, but a sort of hall, or obscure cellar, to +the right of the officiating priest; suppose this hall to be shut off by +a curtain seven feet in height, of which we have already spoken; in the +shadow of that curtain, pile up on wooden stalls the nuns in the choir +on the left, the school-girls on the right, the lay-sisters and the +novices at the bottom, and you will have some idea of the nuns of the +Petit-Picpus assisting at divine service. That cavern, which was called +the choir, communicated with the cloister by a lobby. The church was +lighted from the garden. When the nuns were present at services where +their rule enjoined silence, the public was warned of their presence +only by the folding seats of the stalls noisily rising and falling. + + + + +CHAPTER VII--SOME SILHOUETTES OF THIS DARKNESS + +During the six years which separate 1819 from 1825, the prioress of the +Petit-Picpus was Mademoiselle de Blemeur, whose name, in religion, +was Mother Innocente. She came of the family of Marguerite de Blemeur, +author of Lives of the Saints of the Order of Saint-Benoit. She had +been re-elected. She was a woman about sixty years of age, short, thick, +"singing like a cracked pot," says the letter which we have already +quoted; an excellent woman, moreover, and the only merry one in the +whole convent, and for that reason adored. She was learned, erudite, +wise, competent, curiously proficient in history, crammed with Latin, +stuffed with Greek, full of Hebrew, and more of a Benedictine monk than +a Benedictine nun. + +The sub-prioress was an old Spanish nun, Mother Cineres, who was almost +blind. + +The most esteemed among the vocal mothers were Mother Sainte-Honorine; +the treasurer, Mother Sainte-Gertrude, the chief mistress of the +novices; Mother-Saint-Ange, the assistant mistress; Mother Annonciation, +the sacristan; Mother Saint-Augustin, the nurse, the only one in the +convent who was malicious; then Mother Sainte-Mechtilde (Mademoiselle +Gauvain), very young and with a beautiful voice; Mother des Anges +(Mademoiselle Drouet), who had been in the convent of the Filles-Dieu, +and in the convent du Tresor, between Gisors and Magny; Mother +Saint-Joseph (Mademoiselle de Cogolludo), Mother Sainte-Adelaide +(Mademoiselle d'Auverney), Mother Misericorde (Mademoiselle de +Cifuentes, who could not resist austerities), Mother Compassion +(Mademoiselle de la Miltiere, received at the age of sixty in defiance +of the rule, and very wealthy); Mother Providence (Mademoiselle de +Laudiniere), Mother Presentation (Mademoiselle de Siguenza), who was +prioress in 1847; and finally, Mother Sainte-Celigne (sister of the +sculptor Ceracchi), who went mad; Mother Sainte-Chantal (Mademoiselle de +Suzon), who went mad. + +There was also, among the prettiest of them, a charming girl of three +and twenty, who was from the Isle de Bourbon, a descendant of the +Chevalier Roze, whose name had been Mademoiselle Roze, and who was +called Mother Assumption. + +Mother Sainte-Mechtilde, intrusted with the singing and the choir, was +fond of making use of the pupils in this quarter. She usually took a +complete scale of them, that is to say, seven, from ten to sixteen years +of age, inclusive, of assorted voices and sizes, whom she made sing +standing, drawn up in a line, side by side, according to age, from the +smallest to the largest. This presented to the eye, something in the +nature of a reed-pipe of young girls, a sort of living Pan-pipe made of +angels. + +Those of the lay-sisters whom the scholars loved most were Sister +Euphrasie, Sister Sainte-Marguerite, Sister Sainte-Marthe, who was in +her dotage, and Sister Sainte-Michel, whose long nose made them laugh. + +All these women were gentle with the children. The nuns were severe only +towards themselves. No fire was lighted except in the school, and the +food was choice compared to that in the convent. Moreover, they lavished +a thousand cares on their scholars. Only, when a child passed near a nun +and addressed her, the nun never replied. + +This rule of silence had had this effect, that throughout the whole +convent, speech had been withdrawn from human creatures, and bestowed +on inanimate objects. Now it was the church-bell which spoke, now it was +the gardener's bell. A very sonorous bell, placed beside the portress, +and which was audible throughout the house, indicated by its varied +peals, which formed a sort of acoustic telegraph, all the actions of +material life which were to be performed, and summoned to the parlor, in +case of need, such or such an inhabitant of the house. Each person +and each thing had its own peal. The prioress had one and one, the +sub-prioress one and two. Six-five announced lessons, so that the pupils +never said "to go to lessons," but "to go to six-five." Four-four was +Madame de Genlis's signal. It was very often heard. "C'est le diable +a quatre,"--it's the very deuce--said the uncharitable. Tennine strokes +announced a great event. It was the opening of the door of seclusion, +a frightful sheet of iron bristling with bolts which only turned on its +hinges in the presence of the archbishop. + +With the exception of the archbishop and the gardener, no man entered +the convent, as we have already said. The schoolgirls saw two others: +one, the chaplain, the Abbe Banes, old and ugly, whom they were +permitted to contemplate in the choir, through a grating; the other the +drawing-master, M. Ansiaux, whom the letter, of which we have perused a +few lines, calls M. Anciot, and describes as a frightful old hunchback. + +It will be seen that all these men were carefully chosen. + +Such was this curious house. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII--POST CORDA LAPIDES + +After having sketched its moral face, it will not prove unprofitable +to point out, in a few words, its material configuration. The reader +already has some idea of it. + +The convent of the Petit-Picpus-Sainte-Antoine filled almost the whole +of the vast trapezium which resulted from the intersection of the Rue +Polonceau, the Rue Droit-Mur, the Rue Petit-Picpus, and the unused lane, +called Rue Aumarais on old plans. These four streets surrounded this +trapezium like a moat. The convent was composed of several buildings +and a garden. The principal building, taken in its entirety, was a +juxtaposition of hybrid constructions which, viewed from a bird's-eye +view, outlined, with considerable exactness, a gibbet laid flat on the +ground. The main arm of the gibbet occupied the whole of the fragment +of the Rue Droit-Mur comprised between the Rue Petit-Picpus and the Rue +Polonceau; the lesser arm was a lofty, gray, severe grated facade which +faced the Rue Petit-Picpus; the carriage entrance No. 62 marked its +extremity. Towards the centre of this facade was a low, arched door, +whitened with dust and ashes, where the spiders wove their webs, +and which was open only for an hour or two on Sundays, and on rare +occasions, when the coffin of a nun left the convent. This was the +public entrance of the church. The elbow of the gibbet was a square +hall which was used as the servants' hall, and which the nuns called the +buttery. In the main arm were the cells of the mothers, the sisters, and +the novices. In the lesser arm lay the kitchens, the refectory, backed +up by the cloisters and the church. Between the door No. 62 and the +corner of the closed lane Aumarais, was the school, which was not +visible from without. The remainder of the trapezium formed the garden, +which was much lower than the level of the Rue Polonceau, which caused +the walls to be very much higher on the inside than on the outside. The +garden, which was slightly arched, had in its centre, on the summit of +a hillock, a fine pointed and conical fir-tree, whence ran, as from +the peaked boss of a shield, four grand alleys, and, ranged by twos +in between the branchings of these, eight small ones, so that, if the +enclosure had been circular, the geometrical plan of the alleys would +have resembled a cross superposed on a wheel. As the alleys all ended +in the very irregular walls of the garden, they were of unequal length. +They were bordered with currant bushes. At the bottom, an alley of tall +poplars ran from the ruins of the old convent, which was at the angle of +the Rue Droit-Mur to the house of the Little Convent, which was at the +angle of the Aumarais lane. In front of the Little Convent was what was +called the little garden. To this whole, let the reader add a courtyard, +all sorts of varied angles formed by the interior buildings, prison +walls, the long black line of roofs which bordered the other side of the +Rue Polonceau for its sole perspective and neighborhood, and he will +be able to form for himself a complete image of what the house of the +Bernardines of the Petit-Picpus was forty years ago. This holy house +had been built on the precise site of a famous tennis-ground of the +fourteenth to the sixteenth century, which was called the "tennis-ground +of the eleven thousand devils." + +All these streets, moreover, were more ancient than Paris. These names, +Droit-Mur and Aumarais, are very ancient; the streets which bear them +are very much more ancient still. Aumarais Lane was called Maugout Lane; +the Rue Droit-Mur was called the Rue des Eglantiers, for God opened +flowers before man cut stones. + + + + +CHAPTER IX--A CENTURY UNDER A GUIMPE + +Since we are engaged in giving details as to what the convent of the +Petit-Picpus was in former times, and since we have ventured to open +a window on that discreet retreat, the reader will permit us one other +little digression, utterly foreign to this book, but characteristic and +useful, since it shows that the cloister even has its original figures. + +In the Little Convent there was a centenarian who came from the Abbey +of Fontevrault. She had even been in society before the Revolution. She +talked a great deal of M. de Miromesnil, Keeper of the Seals under Louis +XVI. and of a Presidentess Duplat, with whom she had been very intimate. +It was her pleasure and her vanity to drag in these names on every +pretext. She told wonders of the Abbey of Fontevrault,--that it was like +a city, and that there were streets in the monastery. + +She talked with a Picard accent which amused the pupils. Every year, +she solemnly renewed her vows, and at the moment of taking the oath, she +said to the priest, "Monseigneur Saint-Francois gave it to Monseigneur +Saint-Julien, Monseigneur Saint-Julien gave it to Monseigneur +Saint-Eusebius, Monseigneur Saint-Eusebius gave it to Monseigneur +Saint-Procopius, etc., etc.; and thus I give it to you, father." And the +school-girls would begin to laugh, not in their sleeves, but under +their veils; charming little stifled laughs which made the vocal mothers +frown. + +On another occasion, the centenarian was telling stories. She said +that in her youth the Bernardine monks were every whit as good as the +mousquetaires. It was a century which spoke through her, but it was the +eighteenth century. She told about the custom of the four wines, which +existed before the Revolution in Champagne and Bourgogne. When a great +personage, a marshal of France, a prince, a duke, and a peer, traversed +a town in Burgundy or Champagne, the city fathers came out to harangue +him and presented him with four silver gondolas into which they +had poured four different sorts of wine. On the first goblet this +inscription could be read, monkey wine; on the second, lion wine; on the +third, sheep wine; on the fourth, hog wine. These four legends express +the four stages descended by the drunkard; the first, intoxication, +which enlivens; the second, that which irritates; the third, that which +dulls; and the fourth, that which brutalizes. + +In a cupboard, under lock and key, she kept a mysterious object of which +she thought a great deal. The rule of Fontevrault did not forbid this. +She would not show this object to anyone. She shut herself up, which her +rule allowed her to do, and hid herself, every time that she desired to +contemplate it. If she heard a footstep in the corridor, she closed the +cupboard again as hastily as it was possible with her aged hands. As +soon as it was mentioned to her, she became silent, she who was so fond +of talking. The most curious were baffled by her silence and the most +tenacious by her obstinacy. Thus it furnished a subject of comment for +all those who were unoccupied or bored in the convent. What could that +treasure of the centenarian be, which was so precious and so secret? +Some holy book, no doubt? Some unique chaplet? Some authentic relic? +They lost themselves in conjectures. When the poor old woman died, +they rushed to her cupboard more hastily than was fitting, perhaps, and +opened it. They found the object beneath a triple linen cloth, like some +consecrated paten. It was a Faenza platter representing little Loves +flitting away pursued by apothecary lads armed with enormous syringes. +The chase abounds in grimaces and in comical postures. One of the +charming little Loves is already fairly spitted. He is resisting, +fluttering his tiny wings, and still making an effort to fly, but the +dancer is laughing with a satanical air. Moral: Love conquered by the +colic. This platter, which is very curious, and which had, possibly, +the honor of furnishing Moliere with an idea, was still in existence +in September, 1845; it was for sale by a bric-a-brac merchant in the +Boulevard Beaumarchais. + +This good old woman would not receive any visits from outside because, +said she, the parlor is too gloomy. + + + + +CHAPTER X--ORIGIN OF THE PERPETUAL ADORATION + +However, this almost sepulchral parlor, of which we have sought to +convey an idea, is a purely local trait which is not reproduced with the +same severity in other convents. At the convent of the Rue du Temple, +in particular, which belonged, in truth, to another order, the black +shutters were replaced by brown curtains, and the parlor itself was a +salon with a polished wood floor, whose windows were draped in white +muslin curtains and whose walls admitted all sorts of frames, a portrait +of a Benedictine nun with unveiled face, painted bouquets, and even the +head of a Turk. + +It is in that garden of the Temple convent, that stood that famous +chestnut-tree which was renowned as the finest and the largest in +France, and which bore the reputation among the good people of the +eighteenth century of being the father of all the chestnut trees of the +realm. + +As we have said, this convent of the Temple was occupied by Benedictines +of the Perpetual Adoration, Benedictines quite different from those who +depended on Citeaux. This order of the Perpetual Adoration is not very +ancient and does not go back more than two hundred years. In 1649 the +holy sacrament was profaned on two occasions a few days apart, in two +churches in Paris, at Saint-Sulpice and at Saint-Jean en Greve, a rare +and frightful sacrilege which set the whole town in an uproar. M. the +Prior and Vicar-General of Saint-Germain des Pres ordered a solemn +procession of all his clergy, in which the Pope's Nuncio officiated. +But this expiation did not satisfy two sainted women, Madame Courtin, +Marquise de Boucs, and the Comtesse de Chateauvieux. This outrage +committed on "the most holy sacrament of the altar," though but +temporary, would not depart from these holy souls, and it seemed to +them that it could only be extenuated by a "Perpetual Adoration" in some +female monastery. Both of them, one in 1652, the other in 1653, made +donations of notable sums to Mother Catherine de Bar, called of the Holy +Sacrament, a Benedictine nun, for the purpose of founding, to this pious +end, a monastery of the order of Saint-Benoit; the first permission for +this foundation was given to Mother Catherine de Bar by M. de Metz, Abbe +of Saint-Germain, "on condition that no woman could be received unless +she contributed three hundred livres income, which amounts to six +thousand livres, to the principal." After the Abbe of Saint-Germain, the +king accorded letters-patent; and all the rest, abbatial charter, and +royal letters, was confirmed in 1654 by the Chamber of Accounts and the +Parliament. + +Such is the origin of the legal consecration of the establishment of the +Benedictines of the Perpetual Adoration of the Holy Sacrament at Paris. +Their first convent was "a new building" in the Rue Cassette, out of the +contributions of Mesdames de Boucs and de Chateauvieux. + +This order, as it will be seen, was not to be confounded with +the Benedictine nuns of Citeaux. It mounted back to the Abbe of +Saint-Germain des Pres, in the same manner that the ladies of the Sacred +Heart go back to the general of the Jesuits, and the sisters of charity +to the general of the Lazarists. + +It was also totally different from the Bernardines of the Petit-Picpus, +whose interior we have just shown. In 1657, Pope Alexander VII. had +authorized, by a special brief, the Bernardines of the Rue Petit-Picpus, +to practise the Perpetual Adoration like the Benedictine nuns of the +Holy Sacrament. But the two orders remained distinct none the less. + + + + +CHAPTER XI--END OF THE PETIT-PICPUS + +At the beginning of the Restoration, the convent of the Petit-Picpus +was in its decay; this forms a part of the general death of the order, +which, after the eighteenth century, has been disappearing like all +the religious orders. Contemplation is, like prayer, one of humanity's +needs; but, like everything which the Revolution touched, it will be +transformed, and from being hostile to social progress, it will become +favorable to it. + +The house of the Petit-Picpus was becoming rapidly depopulated. In 1840, +the Little Convent had disappeared, the school had disappeared. There +were no longer any old women, nor young girls; the first were dead, the +latter had taken their departure. Volaverunt. + +The rule of the Perpetual Adoration is so rigid in its nature that it +alarms, vocations recoil before it, the order receives no recruits. In +1845, it still obtained lay-sisters here and there. But of professed +nuns, none at all. Forty years ago, the nuns numbered nearly a hundred; +fifteen years ago there were not more than twenty-eight of them. How +many are there to-day? In 1847, the prioress was young, a sign that +the circle of choice was restricted. She was not forty years old. In +proportion as the number diminishes, the fatigue increases, the service +of each becomes more painful; the moment could then be seen drawing near +when there would be but a dozen bent and aching shoulders to bear the +heavy rule of Saint-Benoit. The burden is implacable, and remains the +same for the few as for the many. It weighs down, it crushes. Thus they +die. At the period when the author of this book still lived in Paris, +two died. One was twenty-five years old, the other twenty-three. This +latter can say, like Julia Alpinula: "Hic jaceo. Vixi annos viginti et +tres." It is in consequence of this decay that the convent gave up the +education of girls. + +We have not felt able to pass before this extraordinary house without +entering it, and without introducing the minds which accompany us, and +which are listening to our tale, to the profit of some, perchance, of +the melancholy history of Jean Valjean. We have penetrated into this +community, full of those old practices which seem so novel to-day. It +is the closed garden, hortus conclusus. We have spoken of this singular +place in detail, but with respect, in so far, at least, as detail and +respect are compatible. We do not understand all, but we insult nothing. +We are equally far removed from the hosanna of Joseph de Maistre, who +wound up by anointing the executioner, and from the sneer of Voltaire, +who even goes so far as to ridicule the cross. + +An illogical act on Voltaire's part, we may remark, by the way; for +Voltaire would have defended Jesus as he defended Calas; and even +for those who deny superhuman incarnations, what does the crucifix +represent? The assassinated sage. + +In this nineteenth century, the religious idea is undergoing a crisis. +People are unlearning certain things, and they do well, provided that, +while unlearning them they learn this: There is no vacuum in the human +heart. Certain demolitions take place, and it is well that they do, but +on condition that they are followed by reconstructions. + +In the meantime, let us study things which are no more. It is necessary +to know them, if only for the purpose of avoiding them. The counterfeits +of the past assume false names, and gladly call themselves the future. +This spectre, this past, is given to falsifying its own passport. Let +us inform ourselves of the trap. Let us be on our guard. The past has a +visage, superstition, and a mask, hypocrisy. Let us denounce the visage +and let us tear off the mask. + +As for convents, they present a complex problem,--a question of +civilization, which condemns them; a question of liberty, which protects +them. + + + + +BOOK SEVENTH.--PARENTHESIS + + + + +CHAPTER I--THE CONVENT AS AN ABSTRACT IDEA + +This book is a drama, whose leading personage is the Infinite. + +Man is the second. + +Such being the case, and a convent having happened to be on our road, it +has been our duty to enter it. Why? Because the convent, which is common +to the Orient as well as to the Occident, to antiquity as well as to +modern times, to paganism, to Buddhism, to Mahometanism, as well as to +Christianity, is one of the optical apparatuses applied by man to the +Infinite. + +This is not the place for enlarging disproportionately on certain +ideas; nevertheless, while absolutely maintaining our reserves, our +restrictions, and even our indignations, we must say that every time we +encounter man in the Infinite, either well or ill understood, we feel +ourselves overpowered with respect. There is, in the synagogue, in the +mosque, in the pagoda, in the wigwam, a hideous side which we execrate, +and a sublime side, which we adore. What a contemplation for the mind, +and what endless food for thought, is the reverberation of God upon the +human wall! + + + + +CHAPTER II--THE CONVENT AS AN HISTORICAL FACT + +From the point of view of history, of reason, and of truth, monasticism +is condemned. Monasteries, when they abound in a nation, are clogs in +its circulation, cumbrous establishments, centres of idleness where +centres of labor should exist. Monastic communities are to the great +social community what the mistletoe is to the oak, what the wart is +to the human body. Their prosperity and their fatness mean the +impoverishment of the country. The monastic regime, good at the +beginning of civilization, useful in the reduction of the brutal by the +spiritual, is bad when peoples have reached their manhood. Moreover, +when it becomes relaxed, and when it enters into its period of disorder, +it becomes bad for the very reasons which rendered it salutary in its +period of purity, because it still continues to set the example. + +Claustration has had its day. Cloisters, useful in the early education +of modern civilization, have embarrassed its growth, and are injurious +to its development. So far as institution and formation with relation +to man are concerned, monasteries, which were good in the tenth century, +questionable in the fifteenth, are detestable in the nineteenth. The +leprosy of monasticism has gnawed nearly to a skeleton two wonderful +nations, Italy and Spain; the one the light, the other the splendor of +Europe for centuries; and, at the present day, these two illustrious +peoples are but just beginning to convalesce, thanks to the healthy and +vigorous hygiene of 1789 alone. + +The convent--the ancient female convent in particular, such as it still +presents itself on the threshold of this century, in Italy, in Austria, +in Spain--is one of the most sombre concretions of the Middle Ages. The +cloister, that cloister, is the point of intersection of horrors. The +Catholic cloister, properly speaking, is wholly filled with the black +radiance of death. + +The Spanish convent is the most funereal of all. There rise, in +obscurity, beneath vaults filled with gloom, beneath domes vague with +shadow, massive altars of Babel, as high as cathedrals; there immense +white crucifixes hang from chains in the dark; there are extended, all +nude on the ebony, great Christs of ivory; more than bleeding,--bloody; +hideous and magnificent, with their elbows displaying the bones, their +knee-pans showing their integuments, their wounds showing their flesh, +crowned with silver thorns, nailed with nails of gold, with blood drops +of rubies on their brows, and diamond tears in their eyes. The diamonds +and rubies seem wet, and make veiled beings in the shadow below weep, +their sides bruised with the hair shirt and their iron-tipped scourges, +their breasts crushed with wicker hurdles, their knees excoriated with +prayer; women who think themselves wives, spectres who think themselves +seraphim. Do these women think? No. Have they any will? No. Do they +love? No. Do they live? No. Their nerves have turned to bone; their +bones have turned to stone. Their veil is of woven night. Their breath +under their veil resembles the indescribably tragic respiration of +death. The abbess, a spectre, sanctifies them and terrifies them. +The immaculate one is there, and very fierce. Such are the ancient +monasteries of Spain. Lairs of terrible devotion, caverns of virgins, +ferocious places. + +Catholic Spain is more Roman than Rome herself. The Spanish convent was, +above all others, the Catholic convent. There was a flavor of the Orient +about it. The archbishop, the kislar-aga of heaven, locked up and kept +watch over this seraglio of souls reserved for God. The nun was the +odalisque, the priest was the eunuch. The fervent were chosen in dreams +and possessed Christ. At night, the beautiful, nude young man descended +from the cross and became the ecstasy of the cloistered one. Lofty walls +guarded the mystic sultana, who had the crucified for her sultan, from +all living distraction. A glance on the outer world was infidelity. The +in pace replaced the leather sack. That which was cast into the sea in +the East was thrown into the ground in the West. In both quarters, women +wrung their hands; the waves for the first, the grave for the last; here +the drowned, there the buried. Monstrous parallel. + +To-day the upholders of the past, unable to deny these things, have +adopted the expedient of smiling at them. There has come into fashion +a strange and easy manner of suppressing the revelations of history, of +invalidating the commentaries of philosophy, of eliding all embarrassing +facts and all gloomy questions. A matter for declamations, say the +clever. Declamations, repeat the foolish. Jean-Jacques a declaimer; +Diderot a declaimer; Voltaire on Calas, Labarre, and Sirven, declaimers. +I know not who has recently discovered that Tacitus was a declaimer, +that Nero was a victim, and that pity is decidedly due to "that poor +Holofernes." + +Facts, however, are awkward things to disconcert, and they are +obstinate. The author of this book has seen, with his own eyes, eight +leagues distant from Brussels,--there are relics of the Middle Ages +there which are attainable for everybody,--at the Abbey of Villers, the +hole of the oubliettes, in the middle of the field which was formerly +the courtyard of the cloister, and on the banks of the Thil, four stone +dungeons, half under ground, half under the water. They were in pace. +Each of these dungeons has the remains of an iron door, a vault, and a +grated opening which, on the outside, is two feet above the level of the +river, and on the inside, six feet above the level of the ground. Four +feet of river flow past along the outside wall. The ground is always +soaked. The occupant of the in pace had this wet soil for his bed. In +one of these dungeons, there is a fragment of an iron necklet riveted to +the wall; in another, there can be seen a square box made of four slabs +of granite, too short for a person to lie down in, too low for him to +stand upright in. A human being was put inside, with a coverlid of stone +on top. This exists. It can be seen. It can be touched. These in pace, +these dungeons, these iron hinges, these necklets, that lofty peep-hole +on a level with the river's current, that box of stone closed with a lid +of granite like a tomb, with this difference, that the dead man here +was a living being, that soil which is but mud, that vault hole, those +oozing walls,--what declaimers! + + + + +CHAPTER III--ON WHAT CONDITIONS ONE CAN RESPECT THE PAST + +Monasticism, such as it existed in Spain, and such as it still exists in +Thibet, is a sort of phthisis for civilization. It stops life short. It +simply depopulates. Claustration, castration. It has been the scourge +of Europe. Add to this the violence so often done to the conscience, the +forced vocations, feudalism bolstered up by the cloister, the right of +the first-born pouring the excess of the family into monasticism, the +ferocities of which we have just spoken, the in pace, the closed mouths, +the walled-up brains, so many unfortunate minds placed in the dungeon +of eternal vows, the taking of the habit, the interment of living souls. +Add individual tortures to national degradations, and, whoever you +may be, you will shudder before the frock and the veil,--those two +winding-sheets of human devising. Nevertheless, at certain points and in +certain places, in spite of philosophy, in spite of progress, the spirit +of the cloister persists in the midst of the nineteenth century, and +a singular ascetic recrudescence is, at this moment, astonishing +the civilized world. The obstinacy of antiquated institutions in +perpetuating themselves resembles the stubbornness of the rancid perfume +which should claim our hair, the pretensions of the spoiled fish which +should persist in being eaten, the persecution of the child's garment +which should insist on clothing the man, the tenderness of corpses which +should return to embrace the living. + +"Ingrates!" says the garment, "I protected you in inclement weather. Why +will you have nothing to do with me?" "I have just come from the deep +sea," says the fish. "I have been a rose," says the perfume. "I have +loved you," says the corpse. "I have civilized you," says the convent. + +To this there is but one reply: "In former days." + +To dream of the indefinite prolongation of defunct things, and of the +government of men by embalming, to restore dogmas in a bad condition, +to regild shrines, to patch up cloisters, to rebless reliquaries, to +refurnish superstitions, to revictual fanaticisms, to put new handles +on holy water brushes and militarism, to reconstitute monasticism and +militarism, to believe in the salvation of society by the multiplication +of parasites, to force the past on the present,--this seems strange. +Still, there are theorists who hold such theories. These theorists, +who are in other respects people of intelligence, have a very simple +process; they apply to the past a glazing which they call social +order, divine right, morality, family, the respect of elders, antique +authority, sacred tradition, legitimacy, religion; and they go about +shouting, "Look! take this, honest people." This logic was known to the +ancients. The soothsayers practise it. They rubbed a black heifer over +with chalk, and said, "She is white, Bos cretatus." + +As for us, we respect the past here and there, and we spare it, above +all, provided that it consents to be dead. If it insists on being alive, +we attack it, and we try to kill it. + +Superstitions, bigotries, affected devotion, prejudices, those forms all +forms as they are, are tenacious of life; they have teeth and nails in +their smoke, and they must be clasped close, body to body, and war must +be made on them, and that without truce; for it is one of the fatalities +of humanity to be condemned to eternal combat with phantoms. It is +difficult to seize darkness by the throat, and to hurl it to the earth. + +A convent in France, in the broad daylight of the nineteenth century, is +a college of owls facing the light. A cloister, caught in the very act +of asceticism, in the very heart of the city of '89 and of 1830 and +of 1848, Rome blossoming out in Paris, is an anachronism. In ordinary +times, in order to dissolve an anachronism and to cause it to vanish, +one has only to make it spell out the date. But we are not in ordinary +times. + +Let us fight. + +Let us fight, but let us make a distinction. The peculiar property of +truth is never to commit excesses. What need has it of exaggeration? +There is that which it is necessary to destroy, and there is that which +it is simply necessary to elucidate and examine. What a force is kindly +and serious examination! Let us not apply a flame where only a light is +required. + +So, given the nineteenth century, we are opposed, as a general +proposition, and among all peoples, in Asia as well as in Europe, +in India as well as in Turkey, to ascetic claustration. Whoever says +cloister, says marsh. Their putrescence is evident, their stagnation is +unhealthy, their fermentation infects people with fever, and etiolates +them; their multiplication becomes a plague of Egypt. We cannot think +without affright of those lands where fakirs, bonzes, santons, Greek +monks, marabouts, talapoins, and dervishes multiply even like swarms of +vermin. + +This said, the religious question remains. This question has certain +mysterious, almost formidable sides; may we be permitted to look at it +fixedly. + + + + +CHAPTER IV--THE CONVENT FROM THE POINT OF VIEW OF PRINCIPLES + +Men unite themselves and dwell in communities. By virtue of what right? +By virtue of the right of association. + +They shut themselves up at home. By virtue of what right? By virtue of +the right which every man has to open or shut his door. + +They do not come forth. By virtue of what right? By virtue of the right +to go and come, which implies the right to remain at home. + +There, at home, what do they do? + +They speak in low tones; they drop their eyes; they toil. They renounce +the world, towns, sensualities, pleasures, vanities, pride, interests. +They are clothed in coarse woollen or coarse linen. Not one of them +possesses in his own right anything whatever. On entering there, each +one who was rich makes himself poor. What he has, he gives to all. He +who was what is called noble, a gentleman and a lord, is the equal of +him who was a peasant. The cell is identical for all. All undergo the +same tonsure, wear the same frock, eat the same black bread, sleep on +the same straw, die on the same ashes. The same sack on their backs, the +same rope around their loins. If the decision has been to go barefoot, +all go barefoot. There may be a prince among them; that prince is the +same shadow as the rest. No titles. Even family names have disappeared. +They bear only first names. All are bowed beneath the equality of +baptismal names. They have dissolved the carnal family, and constituted +in their community a spiritual family. They have no other relatives than +all men. They succor the poor, they care for the sick. They elect those +whom they obey. They call each other "my brother." + +You stop me and exclaim, "But that is the ideal convent!" + +It is sufficient that it may be the possible convent, that I should take +notice of it. + +Thence it results that, in the preceding book, I have spoken of a +convent with respectful accents. The Middle Ages cast aside, Asia cast +aside, the historical and political question held in reserve, from the +purely philosophical point of view, outside the requirements of militant +policy, on condition that the monastery shall be absolutely a voluntary +matter and shall contain only consenting parties, I shall always +consider a cloistered community with a certain attentive, and, in some +respects, a deferential gravity. + +Wherever there is a community, there is a commune; where there is a +commune, there is right. The monastery is the product of the formula: +Equality, Fraternity. Oh! how grand is liberty! And what a splendid +transfiguration! Liberty suffices to transform the monastery into a +republic. + +Let us continue. + +But these men, or these women who are behind these four walls. They +dress themselves in coarse woollen, they are equals, they call each +other brothers, that is well; but they do something else? + +Yes. + +What? + +They gaze on the darkness, they kneel, and they clasp their hands. + +What does this signify? + + + + +CHAPTER V--PRAYER + +They pray. + +To whom? + +To God. + +To pray to God,--what is the meaning of these words? + +Is there an infinite beyond us? Is that infinite there, inherent, +permanent; necessarily substantial, since it is infinite; and because, +if it lacked matter it would be bounded; necessarily intelligent, since +it is infinite, and because, if it lacked intelligence, it would end +there? Does this infinite awaken in us the idea of essence, while we can +attribute to ourselves only the idea of existence? In other terms, is it +not the absolute, of which we are only the relative? + +At the same time that there is an infinite without us, is there not +an infinite within us? Are not these two infinites (what an alarming +plural!) superposed, the one upon the other? Is not this second +infinite, so to speak, subjacent to the first? Is it not the latter's +mirror, reflection, echo, an abyss which is concentric with another +abyss? Is this second infinity intelligent also? Does it think? Does +it love? Does it will? If these two infinities are intelligent, each of +them has a will principle, and there is an _I_ in the upper infinity as +there is an _I_ in the lower infinity. The _I_ below is the soul; the +_I_ on high is God. + +To place the infinity here below in contact, by the medium of thought, +with the infinity on high, is called praying. + +Let us take nothing from the human mind; to suppress is bad. We must +reform and transform. Certain faculties in man are directed towards +the Unknown; thought, revery, prayer. The Unknown is an ocean. What +is conscience? It is the compass of the Unknown. Thought, revery, +prayer,--these are great and mysterious radiations. Let us respect them. +Whither go these majestic irradiations of the soul? Into the shadow; +that is to say, to the light. + +The grandeur of democracy is to disown nothing and to deny nothing of +humanity. Close to the right of the man, beside it, at the least, there +exists the right of the soul. + +To crush fanaticism and to venerate the infinite, such is the law. Let +us not confine ourselves to prostrating ourselves before the tree of +creation, and to the contemplation of its branches full of stars. We +have a duty to labor over the human soul, to defend the mystery against +the miracle, to adore the incomprehensible and reject the absurd, +to admit, as an inexplicable fact, only what is necessary, to purify +belief, to remove superstitions from above religion; to clear God of +caterpillars. + + + + +CHAPTER VI--THE ABSOLUTE GOODNESS OF PRAYER + +With regard to the modes of prayer, all are good, provided that they are +sincere. Turn your book upside down and be in the infinite. + +There is, as we know, a philosophy which denies the infinite. There is +also a philosophy, pathologically classified, which denies the sun; this +philosophy is called blindness. + +To erect a sense which we lack into a source of truth, is a fine blind +man's self-sufficiency. + +The curious thing is the haughty, superior, and compassionate airs which +this groping philosophy assumes towards the philosophy which beholds +God. One fancies he hears a mole crying, "I pity them with their sun!" + +There are, as we know, powerful and illustrious atheists. At bottom, led +back to the truth by their very force, they are not absolutely sure that +they are atheists; it is with them only a question of definition, and in +any case, if they do not believe in God, being great minds, they prove +God. + +We salute them as philosophers, while inexorably denouncing their +philosophy. + +Let us go on. + +The remarkable thing about it is, also, their facility in paying +themselves off with words. A metaphysical school of the North, +impregnated to some extent with fog, has fancied that it has worked a +revolution in human understanding by replacing the word Force with the +word Will. + +To say: "the plant wills," instead of: "the plant grows": this would be +fecund in results, indeed, if we were to add: "the universe wills." Why? +Because it would come to this: the plant wills, therefore it has an _I_; +the universe wills, therefore it has a God. + +As for us, who, however, in contradistinction to this school, reject +nothing a priori, a will in the plant, accepted by this school, appears +to us more difficult to admit than a will in the universe denied by it. + +To deny the will of the infinite, that is to say, God, is impossible on +any other conditions than a denial of the infinite. We have demonstrated +this. + +The negation of the infinite leads straight to nihilism. Everything +becomes "a mental conception." + +With nihilism, no discussion is possible; for the nihilist logic doubts +the existence of its interlocutor, and is not quite sure that it exists +itself. + +From its point of view, it is possible that it may be for itself, only +"a mental conception." + +Only, it does not perceive that all which it has denied it admits in the +lump, simply by the utterance of the word, mind. + +In short, no way is open to the thought by a philosophy which makes all +end in the monosyllable, No. + +To No there is only one reply, Yes. + +Nihilism has no point. + +There is no such thing as nothingness. Zero does not exist. Everything +is something. Nothing is nothing. + +Man lives by affirmation even more than by bread. + +Even to see and to show does not suffice. Philosophy should be an +energy; it should have for effort and effect to ameliorate the condition +of man. Socrates should enter into Adam and produce Marcus Aurelius; in +other words, the man of wisdom should be made to emerge from the man +of felicity. Eden should be changed into a Lyceum. Science should be +a cordial. To enjoy,--what a sad aim, and what a paltry ambition! The +brute enjoys. To offer thought to the thirst of men, to give them all as +an elixir the notion of God, to make conscience and science fraternize +in them, to render them just by this mysterious confrontation; such is +the function of real philosophy. Morality is a blossoming out of truths. +Contemplation leads to action. The absolute should be practicable. It is +necessary that the ideal should be breathable, drinkable, and eatable to +the human mind. It is the ideal which has the right to say: Take, this! +It is on this condition that it ceases to be a sterile love of science +and becomes the one and sovereign mode of human rallying, and that +philosophy herself is promoted to religion. + +Philosophy should not be a corbel erected on mystery to gaze upon it +at its ease, without any other result than that of being convenient to +curiosity. + +For our part, adjourning the development of our thought to another +occasion, we will confine ourselves to saying that we neither understand +man as a point of departure nor progress as an end, without those two +forces which are their two motors: faith and love. + +Progress is the goal, the ideal is the type. + +What is this ideal? It is God. + +Ideal, absolute, perfection, infinity: identical words. + + + + +CHAPTER VII--PRECAUTIONS TO BE OBSERVED IN BLAME + +History and philosophy have eternal duties, which are, at the same time, +simple duties; to combat Caiphas the High-priest, Draco the Lawgiver, +Trimalcion the Legislator, Tiberius the Emperor; this is clear, direct, +and limpid, and offers no obscurity. + +But the right to live apart, even with its inconveniences and its +abuses, insists on being stated and taken into account. Cenobitism is a +human problem. + +When one speaks of convents, those abodes of error, but of innocence, +of aberration but of good-will, of ignorance but of devotion, of torture +but of martyrdom, it always becomes necessary to say either yes or no. + +A convent is a contradiction. Its object, salvation; its means thereto, +sacrifice. The convent is supreme egoism having for its result supreme +abnegation. + +To abdicate with the object of reigning seems to be the device of +monasticism. + +In the cloister, one suffers in order to enjoy. One draws a bill of +exchange on death. One discounts in terrestrial gloom celestial light. +In the cloister, hell is accepted in advance as a post obit on paradise. + +The taking of the veil or the frock is a suicide paid for with eternity. + +It does not seem to us, that on such a subject mockery is permissible. +All about it is serious, the good as well as the bad. + +The just man frowns, but never smiles with a malicious sneer. We +understand wrath, but not malice. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII--FAITH, LAW + +A few words more. + +We blame the church when she is saturated with intrigues, we despise the +spiritual which is harsh toward the temporal; but we everywhere honor +the thoughtful man. + +We salute the man who kneels. + +A faith; this is a necessity for man. Woe to him who believes nothing. + +One is not unoccupied because one is absorbed. There is visible labor +and invisible labor. + +To contemplate is to labor, to think is to act. + +Folded arms toil, clasped hands work. A gaze fixed on heaven is a work. + +Thales remained motionless for four years. He founded philosophy. + +In our opinion, cenobites are not lazy men, and recluses are not idlers. + +To meditate on the Shadow is a serious thing. + +Without invalidating anything that we have just said, we believe that +a perpetual memory of the tomb is proper for the living. On this point, +the priest and the philosopher agree. We must die. The Abbe de la Trappe +replies to Horace. + +To mingle with one's life a certain presence of the sepulchre,--this is +the law of the sage; and it is the law of the ascetic. In this respect, +the ascetic and the sage converge. There is a material growth; we +admit it. There is a moral grandeur; we hold to that. Thoughtless and +vivacious spirits say:-- + +"What is the good of those motionless figures on the side of mystery? +What purpose do they serve? What do they do?" + +Alas! In the presence of the darkness which environs us, and which +awaits us, in our ignorance of what the immense dispersion will make of +us, we reply: "There is probably no work more divine than that performed +by these souls." And we add: "There is probably no work which is more +useful." + +There certainly must be some who pray constantly for those who never +pray at all. + +In our opinion the whole question lies in the amount of thought that is +mingled with prayer. + +Leibnitz praying is grand, Voltaire adoring is fine. Deo erexit +Voltaire. + +We are for religion as against religions. + +We are of the number who believe in the wretchedness of orisons, and the +sublimity of prayer. + +Moreover, at this minute which we are now traversing,--a minute which +will not, fortunately, leave its impress on the nineteenth century,--at +this hour, when so many men have low brows and souls but little +elevated, among so many mortals whose morality consists in enjoyment, +and who are busied with the brief and misshapen things of matter, +whoever exiles himself seems worthy of veneration to us. + +The monastery is a renunciation. Sacrifice wrongly directed is still +sacrifice. To mistake a grave error for a duty has a grandeur of its +own. + +Taken by itself, and ideally, and in order to examine the truth on all +sides until all aspects have been impartially exhausted, the monastery, +the female convent in particular,--for in our century it is woman who +suffers the most, and in this exile of the cloister there is something +of protestation,--the female convent has incontestably a certain +majesty. + +This cloistered existence which is so austere, so depressing, a few of +whose features we have just traced, is not life, for it is not liberty; +it is not the tomb, for it is not plenitude; it is the strange place +whence one beholds, as from the crest of a lofty mountain, on one side +the abyss where we are, on the other, the abyss whither we shall go; it +is the narrow and misty frontier separating two worlds, illuminated +and obscured by both at the same time, where the ray of life which has +become enfeebled is mingled with the vague ray of death; it is the half +obscurity of the tomb. + +We, who do not believe what these women believe, but who, like them, +live by faith,--we have never been able to think without a sort of +tender and religious terror, without a sort of pity, that is full of +envy, of those devoted, trembling and trusting creatures, of these +humble and august souls, who dare to dwell on the very brink of the +mystery, waiting between the world which is closed and heaven which is +not yet open, turned towards the light which one cannot see, possessing +the sole happiness of thinking that they know where it is, aspiring +towards the gulf, and the unknown, their eyes fixed motionless on the +darkness, kneeling, bewildered, stupefied, shuddering, half lifted, at +times, by the deep breaths of eternity. + + + + +BOOK EIGHTH.--CEMETERIES TAKE THAT WHICH IS COMMITTED THEM + + + + +CHAPTER I--WHICH TREATS OF THE MANNER OF ENTERING A CONVENT + +It was into this house that Jean Valjean had, as Fauchelevent expressed +it, "fallen from the sky." + +He had scaled the wall of the garden which formed the angle of the Rue +Polonceau. That hymn of the angels which he had heard in the middle +of the night, was the nuns chanting matins; that hall, of which he had +caught a glimpse in the gloom, was the chapel. That phantom which he had +seen stretched on the ground was the sister who was making reparation; +that bell, the sound of which had so strangely surprised him, was the +gardener's bell attached to the knee of Father Fauchelevent. + +Cosette once put to bed, Jean Valjean and Fauchelevent had, as we have +already seen, supped on a glass of wine and a bit of cheese before a +good, crackling fire; then, the only bed in the hut being occupied by +Cosette, each threw himself on a truss of straw. + +Before he shut his eyes, Jean Valjean said: "I must remain here +henceforth." This remark trotted through Fauchelevent's head all night +long. + +To tell the truth, neither of them slept. + +Jean Valjean, feeling that he was discovered and that Javert was on +his scent, understood that he and Cosette were lost if they returned to +Paris. Then the new storm which had just burst upon him had stranded +him in this cloister. Jean Valjean had, henceforth, but one thought,--to +remain there. Now, for an unfortunate man in his position, this +convent was both the safest and the most dangerous of places; the most +dangerous, because, as no men might enter there, if he were discovered, +it was a flagrant offence, and Jean Valjean would find but one step +intervening between the convent and prison; the safest, because, if he +could manage to get himself accepted there and remain there, who would +ever seek him in such a place? To dwell in an impossible place was +safety. + +On his side, Fauchelevent was cudgelling his brains. He began by +declaring to himself that he understood nothing of the matter. How had +M. Madeleine got there, when the walls were what they were? Cloister +walls are not to be stepped over. How did he get there with a child? One +cannot scale a perpendicular wall with a child in one's arms. Who was +that child? Where did they both come from? Since Fauchelevent had lived +in the convent, he had heard nothing of M. sur M., and he knew nothing +of what had taken place there. Father Madeleine had an air which +discouraged questions; and besides, Fauchelevent said to himself: "One +does not question a saint." M. Madeleine had preserved all his prestige +in Fauchelevent's eyes. Only, from some words which Jean Valjean had let +fall, the gardener thought he could draw the inference that M. Madeleine +had probably become bankrupt through the hard times, and that he was +pursued by his creditors; or that he had compromised himself in some +political affair, and was in hiding; which last did not displease +Fauchelevent, who, like many of our peasants of the North, had an +old fund of Bonapartism about him. While in hiding, M. Madeleine had +selected the convent as a refuge, and it was quite simple that he should +wish to remain there. But the inexplicable point, to which Fauchelevent +returned constantly and over which he wearied his brain, was that M. +Madeleine should be there, and that he should have that little girl with +him. Fauchelevent saw them, touched them, spoke to them, and still did +not believe it possible. The incomprehensible had just made its entrance +into Fauchelevent's hut. Fauchelevent groped about amid conjectures, and +could see nothing clearly but this: "M. Madeleine saved my life." +This certainty alone was sufficient and decided his course. He said to +himself: "It is my turn now." He added in his conscience: "M. Madeleine +did not stop to deliberate when it was a question of thrusting himself +under the cart for the purpose of dragging me out." He made up his mind +to save M. Madeleine. + +Nevertheless, he put many questions to himself and made himself divers +replies: "After what he did for me, would I save him if he were a thief? +Just the same. If he were an assassin, would I save him? Just the same. +Since he is a saint, shall I save him? Just the same." + +But what a problem it was to manage to have him remain in the convent! +Fauchelevent did not recoil in the face of this almost chimerical +undertaking; this poor peasant of Picardy without any other ladder +than his self-devotion, his good will, and a little of that old +rustic cunning, on this occasion enlisted in the service of a generous +enterprise, undertook to scale the difficulties of the cloister, and the +steep escarpments of the rule of Saint-Benoit. Father Fauchelevent was +an old man who had been an egoist all his life, and who, towards the end +of his days, halt, infirm, with no interest left to him in the world, +found it sweet to be grateful, and perceiving a generous action to be +performed, flung himself upon it like a man, who at the moment when he +is dying, should find close to his hand a glass of good wine which he +had never tasted, and should swallow it with avidity. We may add, +that the air which he had breathed for many years in this convent had +destroyed all personality in him, and had ended by rendering a good +action of some kind absolutely necessary to him. + +So he took his resolve: to devote himself to M. Madeleine. + +We have just called him a poor peasant of Picardy. That description +is just, but incomplete. At the point of this story which we have now +reached, a little of Father Fauchelevent's physiology becomes useful. +He was a peasant, but he had been a notary, which added trickery to his +cunning, and penetration to his ingenuousness. Having, through various +causes, failed in his business, he had descended to the calling of a +carter and a laborer. But, in spite of oaths and lashings, which horses +seem to require, something of the notary had lingered in him. He had +some natural wit; he talked good grammar; he conversed, which is a rare +thing in a village; and the other peasants said of him: "He talks almost +like a gentleman with a hat." Fauchelevent belonged, in fact, to that +species, which the impertinent and flippant vocabulary of the last +century qualified as demi-bourgeois, demi-lout, and which the metaphors +showered by the chateau upon the thatched cottage ticketed in the +pigeon-hole of the plebeian: rather rustic, rather citified; pepper and +salt. Fauchelevent, though sorely tried and harshly used by fate, +worn out, a sort of poor, threadbare old soul, was, nevertheless, an +impulsive man, and extremely spontaneous in his actions; a precious +quality which prevents one from ever being wicked. His defects and his +vices, for he had some, were all superficial; in short, his physiognomy +was of the kind which succeeds with an observer. His aged face had none +of those disagreeable wrinkles at the top of the forehead, which signify +malice or stupidity. + +At daybreak, Father Fauchelevent opened his eyes, after having done an +enormous deal of thinking, and beheld M. Madeleine seated on his truss +of straw, and watching Cosette's slumbers. Fauchelevent sat up and +said:-- + +"Now that you are here, how are you going to contrive to enter?" + +This remark summed up the situation and aroused Jean Valjean from his +revery. + +The two men took counsel together. + +"In the first place," said Fauchelevent, "you will begin by not setting +foot outside of this chamber, either you or the child. One step in the +garden and we are done for." + +"That is true." + +"Monsieur Madeleine," resumed Fauchelevent, "you have arrived at a very +auspicious moment, I mean to say a very inauspicious moment; one of +the ladies is very ill. This will prevent them from looking much in our +direction. It seems that she is dying. The prayers of the forty hours +are being said. The whole community is in confusion. That occupies them. +The one who is on the point of departure is a saint. In fact, we are +all saints here; all the difference between them and me is that they say +'our cell,' and that I say 'my cabin.' The prayers for the dying are to +be said, and then the prayers for the dead. We shall be at peace here +for to-day; but I will not answer for to-morrow." + +"Still," observed Jean Valjean, "this cottage is in the niche of the +wall, it is hidden by a sort of ruin, there are trees, it is not visible +from the convent." + +"And I add that the nuns never come near it." + +"Well?" said Jean Valjean. + +The interrogation mark which accentuated this "well" signified: +"it seems to me that one may remain concealed here?" It was to this +interrogation point that Fauchelevent responded:-- + +"There are the little girls." + +"What little girls?" asked Jean Valjean. + +Just as Fauchelevent opened his mouth to explain the words which he had +uttered, a bell emitted one stroke. + +"The nun is dead," said he. "There is the knell." + +And he made a sign to Jean Valjean to listen. + +The bell struck a second time. + +"It is the knell, Monsieur Madeleine. The bell will continue to strike +once a minute for twenty-four hours, until the body is taken from the +church.--You see, they play. At recreation hours it suffices to have a +ball roll aside, to send them all hither, in spite of prohibitions, to +hunt and rummage for it all about here. Those cherubs are devils." + +"Who?" asked Jean Valjean. + +"The little girls. You would be very quickly discovered. They would +shriek: 'Oh! a man!' There is no danger to-day. There will be no +recreation hour. The day will be entirely devoted to prayers. You hear +the bell. As I told you, a stroke each minute. It is the death knell." + +"I understand, Father Fauchelevent. There are pupils." + +And Jean Valjean thought to himself:-- + +"Here is Cosette's education already provided." + +Fauchelevent exclaimed:-- + +"Pardine! There are little girls indeed! And they would bawl around you! +And they would rush off! To be a man here is to have the plague. You see +how they fasten a bell to my paw as though I were a wild beast." + +Jean Valjean fell into more and more profound thought.--"This convent +would be our salvation," he murmured. + +Then he raised his voice:-- + +"Yes, the difficulty is to remain here." + +"No," said Fauchelevent, "the difficulty is to get out." + +Jean Valjean felt the blood rush back to his heart. + +"To get out!" + +"Yes, Monsieur Madeleine. In order to return here it is first necessary +to get out." + +And after waiting until another stroke of the knell had sounded, +Fauchelevent went on:-- + +"You must not be found here in this fashion. Whence come you? For me, +you fall from heaven, because I know you; but the nuns require one to +enter by the door." + +All at once they heard a rather complicated pealing from another bell. + +"Ah!" said Fauchelevent, "they are ringing up the vocal mothers. They +are going to the chapter. They always hold a chapter when any one dies. +She died at daybreak. People generally do die at daybreak. But cannot +you get out by the way in which you entered? Come, I do not ask for the +sake of questioning you, but how did you get in?" + +Jean Valjean turned pale; the very thought of descending again into +that terrible street made him shudder. You make your way out of a forest +filled with tigers, and once out of it, imagine a friendly counsel that +shall advise you to return thither! Jean Valjean pictured to himself the +whole police force still engaged in swarming in that quarter, agents on +the watch, sentinels everywhere, frightful fists extended towards his +collar, Javert at the corner of the intersection of the streets perhaps. + +"Impossible!" said he. "Father Fauchelevent, say that I fell from the +sky." + +"But I believe it, I believe it," retorted Fauchelevent. "You have no +need to tell me that. The good God must have taken you in his hand for +the purpose of getting a good look at you close to, and then dropped +you. Only, he meant to place you in a man's convent; he made a mistake. +Come, there goes another peal, that is to order the porter to go and +inform the municipality that the dead-doctor is to come here and view a +corpse. All that is the ceremony of dying. These good ladies are not +at all fond of that visit. A doctor is a man who does not believe in +anything. He lifts the veil. Sometimes he lifts something else too. How +quickly they have had the doctor summoned this time! What is the matter? +Your little one is still asleep. What is her name?" + +"Cosette." + +"She is your daughter? You are her grandfather, that is?" + +"Yes." + +"It will be easy enough for her to get out of here. I have my service +door which opens on the courtyard. I knock. The porter opens; I have +my vintage basket on my back, the child is in it, I go out. Father +Fauchelevent goes out with his basket--that is perfectly natural. You +will tell the child to keep very quiet. She will be under the cover. I +will leave her for whatever time is required with a good old friend, a +fruit-seller whom I know in the Rue Chemin-Vert, who is deaf, and who +has a little bed. I will shout in the fruit-seller's ear, that she is a +niece of mine, and that she is to keep her for me until to-morrow. Then +the little one will re-enter with you; for I will contrive to have you +re-enter. It must be done. But how will you manage to get out?" + +Jean Valjean shook his head. + +"No one must see me, the whole point lies there, Father Fauchelevent. +Find some means of getting me out in a basket, under cover, like +Cosette." + +Fauchelevent scratched the lobe of his ear with the middle finger of his +left hand, a sign of serious embarrassment. + +A third peal created a diversion. + +"That is the dead-doctor taking his departure," said Fauchelevent. "He +has taken a look and said: 'She is dead, that is well.' When the doctor +has signed the passport for paradise, the undertaker's company sends a +coffin. If it is a mother, the mothers lay her out; if she is a sister, +the sisters lay her out. After which, I nail her up. That forms a part +of my gardener's duty. A gardener is a bit of a grave-digger. She is +placed in a lower hall of the church which communicates with the street, +and into which no man may enter save the doctor of the dead. I don't +count the undertaker's men and myself as men. It is in that hall that I +nail up the coffin. The undertaker's men come and get it, and whip +up, coachman! that's the way one goes to heaven. They fetch a box with +nothing in it, they take it away again with something in it. That's what +a burial is like. De profundis." + +A horizontal ray of sunshine lightly touched the face of the sleeping +Cosette, who lay with her mouth vaguely open, and had the air of an +angel drinking in the light. Jean Valjean had fallen to gazing at her. +He was no longer listening to Fauchelevent. + +That one is not listened to is no reason for preserving silence. The +good old gardener went on tranquilly with his babble:-- + +"The grave is dug in the Vaugirard cemetery. They declare that they are +going to suppress that Vaugirard cemetery. It is an ancient cemetery +which is outside the regulations, which has no uniform, and which is +going to retire. It is a shame, for it is convenient. I have a friend +there, Father Mestienne, the grave-digger. The nuns here possess one +privilege, it is to be taken to that cemetery at nightfall. There is +a special permission from the Prefecture on their behalf. But how many +events have happened since yesterday! Mother Crucifixion is dead, and +Father Madeleine--" + +"Is buried," said Jean Valjean, smiling sadly. + +Fauchelevent caught the word. + +"Goodness! if you were here for good, it would be a real burial." + +A fourth peal burst out. Fauchelevent hastily detached the belled +knee-cap from its nail and buckled it on his knee again. + +"This time it is for me. The Mother Prioress wants me. Good, now I am +pricking myself on the tongue of my buckle. Monsieur Madeleine, don't +stir from here, and wait for me. Something new has come up. If you are +hungry, there is wine, bread and cheese." + +And he hastened out of the hut, crying: "Coming! coming!" + +Jean Valjean watched him hurrying across the garden as fast as his +crooked leg would permit, casting a sidelong glance by the way on his +melon patch. + +Less than ten minutes later, Father Fauchelevent, whose bell put the +nuns in his road to flight, tapped gently at a door, and a gentle voice +replied: "Forever! Forever!" that is to say: "Enter." + +The door was the one leading to the parlor reserved for seeing the +gardener on business. This parlor adjoined the chapter hall. The +prioress, seated on the only chair in the parlor, was waiting for +Fauchelevent. + + + + +CHAPTER II--FAUCHELEVENT IN THE PRESENCE OF A DIFFICULTY + +It is the peculiarity of certain persons and certain professions, +notably priests and nuns, to wear a grave and agitated air on critical +occasions. At the moment when Fauchelevent entered, this double form of +preoccupation was imprinted on the countenance of the prioress, who was +that wise and charming Mademoiselle de Blemeur, Mother Innocente, who +was ordinarily cheerful. + +The gardener made a timid bow, and remained at the door of the cell. The +prioress, who was telling her beads, raised her eyes and said:-- + +"Ah! it is you, Father Fauvent." + +This abbreviation had been adopted in the convent. + +Fauchelevent bowed again. + +"Father Fauvent, I have sent for you." + +"Here I am, reverend Mother." + +"I have something to say to you." + +"And so have I," said Fauchelevent with a boldness which caused him +inward terror, "I have something to say to the very reverend Mother." + +The prioress stared at him. + +"Ah! you have a communication to make to me." + +"A request." + +"Very well, speak." + +Goodman Fauchelevent, the ex-notary, belonged to the category of +peasants who have assurance. A certain clever ignorance constitutes a +force; you do not distrust it, and you are caught by it. Fauchelevent +had been a success during the something more than two years which he had +passed in the convent. Always solitary and busied about his gardening, +he had nothing else to do than to indulge his curiosity. As he was at a +distance from all those veiled women passing to and fro, he saw before +him only an agitation of shadows. By dint of attention and sharpness +he had succeeded in clothing all those phantoms with flesh, and those +corpses were alive for him. He was like a deaf man whose sight grows +keener, and like a blind man whose hearing becomes more acute. He had +applied himself to riddling out the significance of the different peals, +and he had succeeded, so that this taciturn and enigmatical cloister +possessed no secrets for him; the sphinx babbled all her secrets in his +ear. Fauchelevent knew all and concealed all; that constituted his art. +The whole convent thought him stupid. A great merit in religion. The +vocal mothers made much of Fauchelevent. He was a curious mute. He +inspired confidence. Moreover, he was regular, and never went out except +for well-demonstrated requirements of the orchard and vegetable garden. +This discretion of conduct had inured to his credit. None the less, he +had set two men to chattering: the porter, in the convent, and he +knew the singularities of their parlor, and the grave-digger, at +the cemetery, and he was acquainted with the peculiarities of their +sepulture; in this way, he possessed a double light on the subject of +these nuns, one as to their life, the other as to their death. But he +did not abuse his knowledge. The congregation thought a great deal of +him. Old, lame, blind to everything, probably a little deaf into the +bargain,--what qualities! They would have found it difficult to replace +him. + +The goodman, with the assurance of a person who feels that he is +appreciated, entered into a rather diffuse and very deep rustic harangue +to the reverend prioress. He talked a long time about his age, his +infirmities, the surcharge of years counting double for him henceforth, +of the increasing demands of his work, of the great size of the garden, +of nights which must be passed, like the last, for instance, when he had +been obliged to put straw mats over the melon beds, because of the moon, +and he wound up as follows: "That he had a brother"--(the prioress made +a movement),--"a brother no longer young"--(a second movement on the +part of the prioress, but one expressive of reassurance),--"that, if he +might be permitted, this brother would come and live with him and help +him, that he was an excellent gardener, that the community would receive +from him good service, better than his own; that, otherwise, if his +brother were not admitted, as he, the elder, felt that his health was +broken and that he was insufficient for the work, he should be obliged, +greatly to his regret, to go away; and that his brother had a little +daughter whom he would bring with him, who might be reared for God in +the house, and who might, who knows, become a nun some day." + +When he had finished speaking, the prioress stayed the slipping of her +rosary between her fingers, and said to him:-- + +"Could you procure a stout iron bar between now and this evening?" + +"For what purpose?" + +"To serve as a lever." + +"Yes, reverend Mother," replied Fauchelevent. + +The prioress, without adding a word, rose and entered the adjoining +room, which was the hall of the chapter, and where the vocal mothers +were probably assembled. Fauchelevent was left alone. + + + + +CHAPTER III--MOTHER INNOCENTE + +About a quarter of an hour elapsed. The prioress returned and seated +herself once more on her chair. + +The two interlocutors seemed preoccupied. We will present a stenographic +report of the dialogue which then ensued, to the best of our ability. + +"Father Fauvent!" + +"Reverend Mother!" + +"Do you know the chapel?" + +"I have a little cage there, where I hear the mass and the offices." + +"And you have been in the choir in pursuance of your duties?" + +"Two or three times." + +"There is a stone to be raised." + +"Heavy?" + +"The slab of the pavement which is at the side of the altar." + +"The slab which closes the vault?" + +"Yes." + +"It would be a good thing to have two men for it." + +"Mother Ascension, who is as strong as a man, will help you." + +"A woman is never a man." + +"We have only a woman here to help you. Each one does what he can. +Because Dom Mabillon gives four hundred and seventeen epistles of +Saint Bernard, while Merlonus Horstius only gives three hundred and +sixty-seven, I do not despise Merlonus Horstius." + +"Neither do I." + +"Merit consists in working according to one's strength. A cloister is +not a dock-yard." + +"And a woman is not a man. But my brother is the strong one, though!" + +"And can you get a lever?" + +"That is the only sort of key that fits that sort of door." + +"There is a ring in the stone." + +"I will put the lever through it." + +"And the stone is so arranged that it swings on a pivot." + +"That is good, reverend Mother. I will open the vault." + +"And the four Mother Precentors will help you." + +"And when the vault is open?" + +"It must be closed again." + +"Will that be all?" + +"No." + +"Give me your orders, very reverend Mother." + +"Fauvent, we have confidence in you." + +"I am here to do anything you wish." + +"And to hold your peace about everything!" + +"Yes, reverend Mother." + +"When the vault is open--" + +"I will close it again." + +"But before that--" + +"What, reverend Mother?" + +"Something must be lowered into it." + +A silence ensued. The prioress, after a pout of the under lip which +resembled hesitation, broke it. + +"Father Fauvent!" + +"Reverend Mother!" + +"You know that a mother died this morning?" + +"No." + +"Did you not hear the bell?" + +"Nothing can be heard at the bottom of the garden." + +"Really?" + +"I can hardly distinguish my own signal." + +"She died at daybreak." + +"And then, the wind is not blowing in my direction this morning." + +"It was Mother Crucifixion. A blessed woman." + +The prioress paused, moved her lips, as though in mental prayer, and +resumed:-- + +"Three years ago, Madame de Bethune, a Jansenist, turned orthodox, +merely from having seen Mother Crucifixion at prayer." + +"Ah! yes, now I hear the knell, reverend Mother." + +"The mothers have taken her to the dead-room, which opens on the +church." + +"I know." + +"No other man than you can or must enter that chamber. See to that. A +fine sight it would be, to see a man enter the dead-room!" + +"More often!" + +"Hey?" + +"More often!" + +"What do you say?" + +"I say more often." + +"More often than what?" + +"Reverend Mother, I did not say more often than what, I said more +often." + +"I don't understand you. Why do you say more often?" + +"In order to speak like you, reverend Mother." + +"But I did not say 'more often.'" + +At that moment, nine o'clock struck. + +"At nine o'clock in the morning and at all hours, praised and adored be +the most Holy Sacrament of the altar," said the prioress. + +"Amen," said Fauchelevent. + +The clock struck opportunely. It cut "more often" short. It is probable, +that had it not been for this, the prioress and Fauchelevent would never +have unravelled that skein. + +Fauchelevent mopped his forehead. + +The prioress indulged in another little inward murmur, probably sacred, +then raised her voice:-- + +"In her lifetime, Mother Crucifixion made converts; after her death, she +will perform miracles." + +"She will!" replied Father Fauchelevent, falling into step, and striving +not to flinch again. + +"Father Fauvent, the community has been blessed in Mother Crucifixion. +No doubt, it is not granted to every one to die, like Cardinal de +Berulle, while saying the holy mass, and to breathe forth their souls to +God, while pronouncing these words: Hanc igitur oblationem. But without +attaining to such happiness, Mother Crucifixion's death was very +precious. She retained her consciousness to the very last moment. +She spoke to us, then she spoke to the angels. She gave us her last +commands. If you had a little more faith, and if you could have been +in her cell, she would have cured your leg merely by touching it. +She smiled. We felt that she was regaining her life in God. There was +something of paradise in that death." + +Fauchelevent thought that it was an orison which she was finishing. + +"Amen," said he. + +"Father Fauvent, what the dead wish must be done." + +The prioress took off several beads of her chaplet. Fauchelevent held +his peace. + +She went on:-- + +"I have consulted upon this point many ecclesiastics laboring in Our +Lord, who occupy themselves in the exercises of the clerical life, and +who bear wonderful fruit." + +"Reverend Mother, you can hear the knell much better here than in the +garden." + +"Besides, she is more than a dead woman, she is a saint." + +"Like yourself, reverend Mother." + +"She slept in her coffin for twenty years, by express permission of our +Holy Father, Pius VII.--" + +"The one who crowned the Emp--Buonaparte." + +For a clever man like Fauchelevent, this allusion was an awkward one. +Fortunately, the prioress, completely absorbed in her own thoughts, did +not hear it. She continued:-- + +"Father Fauvent?" + +"Reverend Mother?" + +"Saint Didorus, Archbishop of Cappadocia, desired that this single word +might be inscribed on his tomb: Acarus, which signifies, a worm of the +earth; this was done. Is this true?" + +"Yes, reverend Mother." + +"The blessed Mezzocane, Abbot of Aquila, wished to be buried beneath the +gallows; this was done." + +"That is true." + +"Saint Terentius, Bishop of Port, where the mouth of the Tiber empties +into the sea, requested that on his tomb might be engraved the +sign which was placed on the graves of parricides, in the hope that +passers-by would spit on his tomb. This was done. The dead must be +obeyed." + +"So be it." + +"The body of Bernard Guidonis, born in France near Roche-Abeille, was, +as he had ordered, and in spite of the king of Castile, borne to the +church of the Dominicans in Limoges, although Bernard Guidonis was +Bishop of Tuy in Spain. Can the contrary be affirmed?" + +"For that matter, no, reverend Mother." + +"The fact is attested by Plantavit de la Fosse." + +Several beads of the chaplet were told off, still in silence. The +prioress resumed:-- + +"Father Fauvent, Mother Crucifixion will be interred in the coffin in +which she has slept for the last twenty years." + +"That is just." + +"It is a continuation of her slumber." + +"So I shall have to nail up that coffin?" + +"Yes." + +"And we are to reject the undertaker's coffin?" + +"Precisely." + +"I am at the orders of the very reverend community." + +"The four Mother Precentors will assist you." + +"In nailing up the coffin? I do not need them." + +"No. In lowering the coffin." + +"Where?" + +"Into the vault." + +"What vault?" + +"Under the altar." + +Fauchelevent started. + +"The vault under the altar?" + +"Under the altar." + +"But--" + +"You will have an iron bar." + +"Yes, but--" + +"You will raise the stone with the bar by means of the ring." + +"But--" + +"The dead must be obeyed. To be buried in the vault under the altar of +the chapel, not to go to profane earth; to remain there in death where +she prayed while living; such was the last wish of Mother Crucifixion. +She asked it of us; that is to say, commanded us." + +"But it is forbidden." + +"Forbidden by men, enjoined by God." + +"What if it became known?" + +"We have confidence in you." + +"Oh! I am a stone in your walls." + +"The chapter assembled. The vocal mothers, whom I have just consulted +again, and who are now deliberating, have decided that Mother +Crucifixion shall be buried, according to her wish, in her own coffin, +under our altar. Think, Father Fauvent, if she were to work miracles +here! What a glory of God for the community! And miracles issue from +tombs." + +"But, reverend Mother, if the agent of the sanitary commission--" + +"Saint Benoit II., in the matter of sepulture, resisted Constantine +Pogonatus." + +"But the commissary of police--" + +"Chonodemaire, one of the seven German kings who entered among the Gauls +under the Empire of Constantius, expressly recognized the right of nuns +to be buried in religion, that is to say, beneath the altar." + +"But the inspector from the Prefecture--" + +"The world is nothing in the presence of the cross. Martin, the eleventh +general of the Carthusians, gave to his order this device: Stat crux dum +volvitur orbis." + +"Amen," said Fauchelevent, who imperturbably extricated himself in this +manner from the dilemma, whenever he heard Latin. + +Any audience suffices for a person who has held his peace too long. On +the day when the rhetorician Gymnastoras left his prison, bearing in +his body many dilemmas and numerous syllogisms which had struck in, he +halted in front of the first tree which he came to, harangued it and +made very great efforts to convince it. The prioress, who was usually +subjected to the barrier of silence, and whose reservoir was overfull, +rose and exclaimed with the loquacity of a dam which has broken away:-- + +"I have on my right Benoit and on my left Bernard. Who was Bernard? The +first abbot of Clairvaux. Fontaines in Burgundy is a country that is +blest because it gave him birth. His father was named Tecelin, and his +mother Alethe. He began at Citeaux, to end in Clairvaux; he was ordained +abbot by the bishop of Chalon-sur-Saone, Guillaume de Champeaux; he had +seven hundred novices, and founded a hundred and sixty monasteries; he +overthrew Abeilard at the council of Sens in 1140, and Pierre de Bruys +and Henry his disciple, and another sort of erring spirits who were +called the Apostolics; he confounded Arnauld de Brescia, darted +lightning at the monk Raoul, the murderer of the Jews, dominated the +council of Reims in 1148, caused the condemnation of Gilbert de Porea, +Bishop of Poitiers, caused the condemnation of Eon de l'Etoile, arranged +the disputes of princes, enlightened King Louis the Young, advised Pope +Eugene III., regulated the Temple, preached the crusade, performed +two hundred and fifty miracles during his lifetime, and as many +as thirty-nine in one day. Who was Benoit? He was the patriarch of +Mont-Cassin; he was the second founder of the Saintete Claustrale, +he was the Basil of the West. His order has produced forty popes, two +hundred cardinals, fifty patriarchs, sixteen hundred archbishops, four +thousand six hundred bishops, four emperors, twelve empresses, forty-six +kings, forty-one queens, three thousand six hundred canonized saints, +and has been in existence for fourteen hundred years. On one side Saint +Bernard, on the other the agent of the sanitary department! On one side +Saint Benoit, on the other the inspector of public ways! The state, +the road commissioners, the public undertaker, regulations, the +administration, what do we know of all that? There is not a chance +passer-by who would not be indignant to see how we are treated. We +have not even the right to give our dust to Jesus Christ! Your sanitary +department is a revolutionary invention. God subordinated to the +commissary of police; such is the age. Silence, Fauvent!" + +Fauchelevent was but ill at ease under this shower bath. The prioress +continued:-- + +"No one doubts the right of the monastery to sepulture. Only fanatics +and those in error deny it. We live in times of terrible confusion. We +do not know that which it is necessary to know, and we know that which +we should ignore. We are ignorant and impious. In this age there exist +people who do not distinguish between the very great Saint Bernard and +the Saint Bernard denominated of the poor Catholics, a certain good +ecclesiastic who lived in the thirteenth century. Others are so +blasphemous as to compare the scaffold of Louis XVI. to the cross of +Jesus Christ. Louis XVI. was merely a king. Let us beware of God! There +is no longer just nor unjust. The name of Voltaire is known, but not +the name of Cesar de Bus. Nevertheless, Cesar de Bus is a man of blessed +memory, and Voltaire one of unblessed memory. The last arch-bishop, +the Cardinal de Perigord, did not even know that Charles de +Gondren succeeded to Berulle, and Francois Bourgoin to Gondren, +and Jean-Francois Senault to Bourgoin, and Father Sainte-Marthe to +Jean-Francois Senault. The name of Father Coton is known, not because +he was one of the three who urged the foundation of the Oratorie, but +because he furnished Henri IV., the Huguenot king, with the material +for an oath. That which pleases people of the world in Saint Francois de +Sales, is that he cheated at play. And then, religion is attacked. Why? +Because there have been bad priests, because Sagittaire, Bishop of Gap, +was the brother of Salone, Bishop of Embrun, and because both of them +followed Mommol. What has that to do with the question? Does that +prevent Martin de Tours from being a saint, and giving half of his cloak +to a beggar? They persecute the saints. They shut their eyes to the +truth. Darkness is the rule. The most ferocious beasts are beasts which +are blind. No one thinks of hell as a reality. Oh! how wicked people +are! By order of the king signifies to-day, by order of the revolution. +One no longer knows what is due to the living or to the dead. A holy +death is prohibited. Burial is a civil matter. This is horrible. Saint +Leo II. wrote two special letters, one to Pierre Notaire, the other to +the king of the Visigoths, for the purpose of combating and rejecting, +in questions touching the dead, the authority of the exarch and the +supremacy of the Emperor. Gauthier, Bishop of Chalons, held his own +in this matter against Otho, Duke of Burgundy. The ancient magistracy +agreed with him. In former times we had voices in the chapter, even on +matters of the day. The Abbot of Citeaux, the general of the order, was +councillor by right of birth to the parliament of Burgundy. We do what +we please with our dead. Is not the body of Saint Benoit himself in +France, in the abbey of Fleury, called Saint Benoit-sur-Loire, although +he died in Italy at Mont-Cassin, on Saturday, the 21st of the month +of March, of the year 543? All this is incontestable. I abhor +psalm-singers, I hate priors, I execrate heretics, but I should detest +yet more any one who should maintain the contrary. One has only to +read Arnoul Wion, Gabriel Bucelin, Trithemus, Maurolics, and Dom Luc +d'Achery." + +The prioress took breath, then turned to Fauchelevent. + +"Is it settled, Father Fauvent?" + +"It is settled, reverend Mother." + +"We may depend on you?" + +"I will obey." + +"That is well." + +"I am entirely devoted to the convent." + +"That is understood. You will close the coffin. The sisters will carry +it to the chapel. The office for the dead will then be said. Then we +shall return to the cloister. Between eleven o'clock and midnight, you +will come with your iron bar. All will be done in the most profound +secrecy. There will be in the chapel only the four Mother Precentors, +Mother Ascension and yourself." + +"And the sister at the post?" + +"She will not turn round." + +"But she will hear." + +"She will not listen. Besides, what the cloister knows the world learns +not." + +A pause ensued. The prioress went on:-- + +"You will remove your bell. It is not necessary that the sister at the +post should perceive your presence." + +"Reverend Mother?" + +"What, Father Fauvent?" + +"Has the doctor for the dead paid his visit?" + +"He will pay it at four o'clock to-day. The peal which orders the +doctor for the dead to be summoned has already been rung. But you do not +understand any of the peals?" + +"I pay no attention to any but my own." + +"That is well, Father Fauvent." + +"Reverend Mother, a lever at least six feet long will be required." + +"Where will you obtain it?" + +"Where gratings are not lacking, iron bars are not lacking. I have my +heap of old iron at the bottom of the garden." + +"About three-quarters of an hour before midnight; do not forget." + +"Reverend Mother?" + +"What?" + +"If you were ever to have any other jobs of this sort, my brother is the +strong man for you. A perfect Turk!" + +"You will do it as speedily as possible." + +"I cannot work very fast. I am infirm; that is why I require an +assistant. I limp." + +"To limp is no sin, and perhaps it is a blessing. The Emperor Henry II., +who combated Antipope Gregory and re-established Benoit VIII., has two +surnames, the Saint and the Lame." + +"Two surtouts are a good thing," murmured Fauchelevent, who really was a +little hard of hearing. + +"Now that I think of it, Father Fauvent, let us give a whole hour to it. +That is not too much. Be near the principal altar, with your iron bar, +at eleven o'clock. The office begins at midnight. Everything must have +been completed a good quarter of an hour before that." + +"I will do anything to prove my zeal towards the community. These are my +orders. I am to nail up the coffin. At eleven o'clock exactly, I am to +be in the chapel. The Mother Precentors will be there. Mother Ascension +will be there. Two men would be better. However, never mind! I shall +have my lever. We will open the vault, we will lower the coffin, and +we will close the vault again. After which, there will be no trace +of anything. The government will have no suspicion. Thus all has been +arranged, reverend Mother?" + +"No!" + +"What else remains?" + +"The empty coffin remains." + +This produced a pause. Fauchelevent meditated. The prioress meditated. + +"What is to be done with that coffin, Father Fauvent?" + +"It will be given to the earth." + +"Empty?" + +Another silence. Fauchelevent made, with his left hand, that sort of a +gesture which dismisses a troublesome subject. + +"Reverend Mother, I am the one who is to nail up the coffin in the +basement of the church, and no one can enter there but myself, and I +will cover the coffin with the pall." + +"Yes, but the bearers, when they place it in the hearse and lower it +into the grave, will be sure to feel that there is nothing in it." + +"Ah! the de--!" exclaimed Fauchelevent. + +The prioress began to make the sign of the cross, and looked fixedly at +the gardener. The vil stuck fast in his throat. + +He made haste to improvise an expedient to make her forget the oath. + +"I will put earth in the coffin, reverend Mother. That will produce the +effect of a corpse." + +"You are right. Earth, that is the same thing as man. So you will manage +the empty coffin?" + +"I will make that my special business." + +The prioress's face, up to that moment troubled and clouded, grew serene +once more. She made the sign of a superior dismissing an inferior to +him. Fauchelevent went towards the door. As he was on the point of +passing out, the prioress raised her voice gently:-- + +"I am pleased with you, Father Fauvent; bring your brother to me +to-morrow, after the burial, and tell him to fetch his daughter." + + + + +CHAPTER IV--IN WHICH JEAN VALJEAN HAS QUITE THE AIR OF HAVING READ +AUSTIN CASTILLEJO + +The strides of a lame man are like the ogling glances of a one-eyed man; +they do not reach their goal very promptly. Moreover, Fauchelevent +was in a dilemma. He took nearly a quarter of an hour to return to his +cottage in the garden. Cosette had waked up. Jean Valjean had placed her +near the fire. At the moment when Fauchelevent entered, Jean Valjean was +pointing out to her the vintner's basket on the wall, and saying to her, +"Listen attentively to me, my little Cosette. We must go away from this +house, but we shall return to it, and we shall be very happy here. The +good man who lives here is going to carry you off on his back in that. +You will wait for me at a lady's house. I shall come to fetch you. Obey, +and say nothing, above all things, unless you want Madame Thenardier to +get you again!" + +Cosette nodded gravely. + +Jean Valjean turned round at the noise made by Fauchelevent opening the +door. + +"Well?" + +"Everything is arranged, and nothing is," said Fauchelevent. "I have +permission to bring you in; but before bringing you in you must be +got out. That's where the difficulty lies. It is easy enough with the +child." + +"You will carry her out?" + +"And she will hold her tongue?" + +"I answer for that." + +"But you, Father Madeleine?" + +And, after a silence, fraught with anxiety, Fauchelevent exclaimed:-- + +"Why, get out as you came in!" + +Jean Valjean, as in the first instance, contented himself with saying, +"Impossible." + +Fauchelevent grumbled, more to himself than to Jean Valjean:-- + +"There is another thing which bothers me. I have said that I would put +earth in it. When I come to think it over, the earth instead of the +corpse will not seem like the real thing, it won't do, it will get +displaced, it will move about. The men will bear it. You understand, +Father Madeleine, the government will notice it." + +Jean Valjean stared him straight in the eye and thought that he was +raving. + +Fauchelevent went on:-- + +"How the de--uce are you going to get out? It must all be done by +to-morrow morning. It is to-morrow that I am to bring you in. The +prioress expects you." + +Then he explained to Jean Valjean that this was his recompense for a +service which he, Fauchelevent, was to render to the community. That it +fell among his duties to take part in their burials, that he nailed up +the coffins and helped the grave-digger at the cemetery. That the nun +who had died that morning had requested to be buried in the coffin which +had served her for a bed, and interred in the vault under the altar of +the chapel. That the police regulations forbade this, but that she was +one of those dead to whom nothing is refused. That the prioress and the +vocal mothers intended to fulfil the wish of the deceased. That it was +so much the worse for the government. That he, Fauchelevent, was to nail +up the coffin in the cell, raise the stone in the chapel, and lower the +corpse into the vault. And that, by way of thanks, the prioress was to +admit his brother to the house as a gardener, and his niece as a pupil. +That his brother was M. Madeleine, and that his niece was Cosette. That +the prioress had told him to bring his brother on the following evening, +after the counterfeit interment in the cemetery. But that he could not +bring M. Madeleine in from the outside if M. Madeleine was not outside. +That that was the first problem. And then, that there was another: the +empty coffin. + +"What is that empty coffin?" asked Jean Valjean. + +Fauchelevent replied:-- + +"The coffin of the administration." + +"What coffin? What administration?" + +"A nun dies. The municipal doctor comes and says, 'A nun has died.' +The government sends a coffin. The next day it sends a hearse and +undertaker's men to get the coffin and carry it to the cemetery. The +undertaker's men will come and lift the coffin; there will be nothing in +it." + +"Put something in it." + +"A corpse? I have none." + +"No." + +"What then?" + +"A living person." + +"What person?" + +"Me!" said Jean Valjean. + +Fauchelevent, who was seated, sprang up as though a bomb had burst under +his chair. + +"You!" + +"Why not?" + +Jean Valjean gave way to one of those rare smiles which lighted up his +face like a flash from heaven in the winter. + +"You know, Fauchelevent, what you have said: 'Mother Crucifixion is +dead.' and I add: 'and Father Madeleine is buried.'" + +"Ah! good, you can laugh, you are not speaking seriously." + +"Very seriously, I must get out of this place." + +"Certainly." + +"l have told you to find a basket, and a cover for me also." + +"Well?" + +"The basket will be of pine, and the cover a black cloth." + +"In the first place, it will be a white cloth. Nuns are buried in +white." + +"Let it be a white cloth, then." + +"You are not like other men, Father Madeleine." + +To behold such devices, which are nothing else than the savage and +daring inventions of the galleys, spring forth from the peaceable things +which surrounded him, and mingle with what he called the "petty course +of life in the convent," caused Fauchelevent as much amazement as a +gull fishing in the gutter of the Rue Saint-Denis would inspire in a +passer-by. + +Jean Valjean went on:-- + +"The problem is to get out of here without being seen. This offers +the means. But give me some information, in the first place. How is it +managed? Where is this coffin?" + +"The empty one?" + +"Yes." + +"Down stairs, in what is called the dead-room. It stands on two +trestles, under the pall." + +"How long is the coffin?" + +"Six feet." + +"What is this dead-room?" + +"It is a chamber on the ground floor which has a grated window opening +on the garden, which is closed on the outside by a shutter, and two +doors; one leads into the convent, the other into the church." + +"What church?" + +"The church in the street, the church which any one can enter." + +"Have you the keys to those two doors?" + +"No; I have the key to the door which communicates with the convent; the +porter has the key to the door which communicates with the church." + +"When does the porter open that door?" + +"Only to allow the undertaker's men to enter, when they come to get the +coffin. When the coffin has been taken out, the door is closed again." + +"Who nails up the coffin?" + +"I do." + +"Who spreads the pall over it?" + +"I do." + +"Are you alone?" + +"Not another man, except the police doctor, can enter the dead-room. +That is even written on the wall." + +"Could you hide me in that room to-night when every one is asleep?" + +"No. But I could hide you in a small, dark nook which opens on the +dead-room, where I keep my tools to use for burials, and of which I have +the key." + +"At what time will the hearse come for the coffin to-morrow?" + +"About three o'clock in the afternoon. The burial will take place at the +Vaugirard cemetery a little before nightfall. It is not very near." + +"I will remain concealed in your tool-closet all night and all the +morning. And how about food? I shall be hungry." + +"I will bring you something." + +"You can come and nail me up in the coffin at two o'clock." + +Fauchelevent recoiled and cracked his finger-joints. + +"But that is impossible!" + +"Bah! Impossible to take a hammer and drive some nails in a plank?" + +What seemed unprecedented to Fauchelevent was, we repeat, a simple +matter to Jean Valjean. Jean Valjean had been in worse straits than +this. Any man who has been a prisoner understands how to contract +himself to fit the diameter of the escape. The prisoner is subject to +flight as the sick man is subject to a crisis which saves or kills him. +An escape is a cure. What does not a man undergo for the sake of a +cure? To have himself nailed up in a case and carried off like a bale +of goods, to live for a long time in a box, to find air where there is +none, to economize his breath for hours, to know how to stifle without +dying--this was one of Jean Valjean's gloomy talents. + +Moreover, a coffin containing a living being,--that convict's +expedient,--is also an imperial expedient. If we are to credit the monk +Austin Castillejo, this was the means employed by Charles the Fifth, +desirous of seeing the Plombes for the last time after his abdication. + +He had her brought into and carried out of the monastery of Saint-Yuste +in this manner. + +Fauchelevent, who had recovered himself a little, exclaimed:-- + +"But how will you manage to breathe?" + +"I will breathe." + +"In that box! The mere thought of it suffocates me." + +"You surely must have a gimlet, you will make a few holes here and +there, around my mouth, and you will nail the top plank on loosely." + +"Good! And what if you should happen to cough or to sneeze?" + +"A man who is making his escape does not cough or sneeze." + +And Jean Valjean added:-- + +"Father Fauchelevent, we must come to a decision: I must either be +caught here, or accept this escape through the hearse." + +Every one has noticed the taste which cats have for pausing and lounging +between the two leaves of a half-shut door. Who is there who has not +said to a cat, "Do come in!" There are men who, when an incident stands +half-open before them, have the same tendency to halt in indecision +between two resolutions, at the risk of getting crushed through the +abrupt closing of the adventure by fate. The over-prudent, cats as they +are, and because they are cats, sometimes incur more danger than +the audacious. Fauchelevent was of this hesitating nature. But +Jean Valjean's coolness prevailed over him in spite of himself. He +grumbled:-- + +"Well, since there is no other means." + +Jean Valjean resumed:-- + +"The only thing which troubles me is what will take place at the +cemetery." + +"That is the very point that is not troublesome," exclaimed +Fauchelevent. "If you are sure of coming out of the coffin all right, I +am sure of getting you out of the grave. The grave-digger is a drunkard, +and a friend of mine. He is Father Mestienne. An old fellow of the old +school. The grave-digger puts the corpses in the grave, and I put the +grave-digger in my pocket. I will tell you what will take place. They +will arrive a little before dusk, three-quarters of an hour before the +gates of the cemetery are closed. The hearse will drive directly up to +the grave. I shall follow; that is my business. I shall have a hammer, +a chisel, and some pincers in my pocket. The hearse halts, the +undertaker's men knot a rope around your coffin and lower you down. The +priest says the prayers, makes the sign of the cross, sprinkles the holy +water, and takes his departure. I am left alone with Father Mestienne. +He is my friend, I tell you. One of two things will happen, he will +either be sober, or he will not be sober. If he is not drunk, I shall +say to him: 'Come and drink a bout while the Bon Coing [the Good Quince] +is open.' I carry him off, I get him drunk,--it does not take long to +make Father Mestienne drunk, he always has the beginning of it about +him,--I lay him under the table, I take his card, so that I can get into +the cemetery again, and I return without him. Then you have no longer +any one but me to deal with. If he is drunk, I shall say to him: 'Be +off; I will do your work for you.' Off he goes, and I drag you out of +the hole." + +Jean Valjean held out his hand, and Fauchelevent precipitated himself +upon it with the touching effusion of a peasant. + +"That is settled, Father Fauchelevent. All will go well." + +"Provided nothing goes wrong," thought Fauchelevent. "In that case, it +would be terrible." + + + + +CHAPTER V--IT IS NOT NECESSARY TO BE DRUNK IN ORDER TO BE IMMORTAL + +On the following day, as the sun was declining, the very rare passers-by +on the Boulevard du Maine pulled off their hats to an old-fashioned +hearse, ornamented with skulls, cross-bones, and tears. This hearse +contained a coffin covered with a white cloth over which spread a large +black cross, like a huge corpse with drooping arms. A mourning-coach, in +which could be seen a priest in his surplice, and a choir boy in his red +cap, followed. Two undertaker's men in gray uniforms trimmed with black +walked on the right and the left of the hearse. Behind it came an old +man in the garments of a laborer, who limped along. The procession was +going in the direction of the Vaugirard cemetery. + +The handle of a hammer, the blade of a cold chisel, and the antennae of +a pair of pincers were visible, protruding from the man's pocket. + +The Vaugirard cemetery formed an exception among the cemeteries of +Paris. It had its peculiar usages, just as it had its carriage +entrance and its house door, which old people in the quarter, who clung +tenaciously to ancient words, still called the porte cavaliere and the +porte pietonne.[16] The Bernardines-Benedictines of the Rue Petit-Picpus +had obtained permission, as we have already stated, to be buried there +in a corner apart, and at night, the plot of land having formerly +belonged to their community. The grave-diggers being thus bound to +service in the evening in summer and at night in winter, in this +cemetery, they were subjected to a special discipline. The gates of the +Paris cemeteries closed, at that epoch, at sundown, and this being a +municipal regulation, the Vaugirard cemetery was bound by it like the +rest. The carriage gate and the house door were two contiguous grated +gates, adjoining a pavilion built by the architect Perronet, and +inhabited by the door-keeper of the cemetery. These gates, therefore, +swung inexorably on their hinges at the instant when the sun disappeared +behind the dome of the Invalides. If any grave-digger were delayed +after that moment in the cemetery, there was but one way for him to +get out--his grave-digger's card furnished by the department of public +funerals. A sort of letter-box was constructed in the porter's window. +The grave-digger dropped his card into this box, the porter heard it +fall, pulled the rope, and the small door opened. If the man had not his +card, he mentioned his name, the porter, who was sometimes in bed and +asleep, rose, came out and identified the man, and opened the gate with +his key; the grave-digger stepped out, but had to pay a fine of fifteen +francs. + +This cemetery, with its peculiarities outside the regulations, +embarrassed the symmetry of the administration. It was suppressed +a little later than 1830. The cemetery of Mont-Parnasse, called the +Eastern cemetery, succeeded to it, and inherited that famous dram-shop +next to the Vaugirard cemetery, which was surmounted by a quince painted +on a board, and which formed an angle, one side on the drinkers' tables, +and the other on the tombs, with this sign: Au Bon Coing. + +The Vaugirard cemetery was what may be called a faded cemetery. It +was falling into disuse. Dampness was invading it, the flowers were +deserting it. The bourgeois did not care much about being buried in +the Vaugirard; it hinted at poverty. Pere-Lachaise if you please! to be +buried in Pere-Lachaise is equivalent to having furniture of mahogany. +It is recognized as elegant. The Vaugirard cemetery was a venerable +enclosure, planted like an old-fashioned French garden. Straight alleys, +box, thuya-trees, holly, ancient tombs beneath aged cypress-trees, and +very tall grass. In the evening it was tragic there. There were very +lugubrious lines about it. + +The sun had not yet set when the hearse with the white pall and the +black cross entered the avenue of the Vaugirard cemetery. The lame man +who followed it was no other than Fauchelevent. + +The interment of Mother Crucifixion in the vault under the altar, the +exit of Cosette, the introduction of Jean Valjean to the dead-room,--all +had been executed without difficulty, and there had been no hitch. + +Let us remark in passing, that the burial of Mother Crucifixion under +the altar of the convent is a perfectly venial offence in our sight. It +is one of the faults which resemble a duty. The nuns had committed it, +not only without difficulty, but even with the applause of their own +consciences. In the cloister, what is called the "government" is only +an intermeddling with authority, an interference which is always +questionable. In the first place, the rule; as for the code, we shall +see. Make as many laws as you please, men; but keep them for yourselves. +The tribute to Caesar is never anything but the remnants of the tribute +to God. A prince is nothing in the presence of a principle. + +Fauchelevent limped along behind the hearse in a very contented frame +of mind. His twin plots, the one with the nuns, the one for the convent, +the other against it, the other with M. Madeleine, had succeeded, to +all appearance. Jean Valjean's composure was one of those powerful +tranquillities which are contagious. Fauchelevent no longer felt +doubtful as to his success. + +What remained to be done was a mere nothing. Within the last two years, +he had made good Father Mestienne, a chubby-cheeked person, drunk at +least ten times. He played with Father Mestienne. He did what he liked +with him. He made him dance according to his whim. Mestienne's head +adjusted itself to the cap of Fauchelevent's will. Fauchelevent's +confidence was perfect. + +At the moment when the convoy entered the avenue leading to the +cemetery, Fauchelevent glanced cheerfully at the hearse, and said half +aloud, as he rubbed his big hands:-- + +"Here's a fine farce!" + +All at once the hearse halted; it had reached the gate. The permission +for interment must be exhibited. The undertaker's man addressed himself +to the porter of the cemetery. During this colloquy, which always is +productive of a delay of from one to two minutes, some one, a stranger, +came and placed himself behind the hearse, beside Fauchelevent. He was +a sort of laboring man, who wore a waistcoat with large pockets and +carried a mattock under his arm. + +Fauchelevent surveyed this stranger. + +"Who are you?" he demanded. + +"The man replied:-- + +"The grave-digger." + +If a man could survive the blow of a cannon-ball full in the breast, he +would make the same face that Fauchelevent made. + +"The grave-digger?" + +"Yes." + +"You?" + +"I." + +"Father Mestienne is the grave-digger." + +"He was." + +"What! He was?" + +"He is dead." + +Fauchelevent had expected anything but this, that a grave-digger could +die. It is true, nevertheless, that grave-diggers do die themselves. By +dint of excavating graves for other people, one hollows out one's own. + +Fauchelevent stood there with his mouth wide open. He had hardly the +strength to stammer:-- + +"But it is not possible!" + +"It is so." + +"But," he persisted feebly, "Father Mestienne is the grave-digger." + +"After Napoleon, Louis XVIII. After Mestienne, Gribier. Peasant, my name +is Gribier." + +Fauchelevent, who was deadly pale, stared at this Gribier. + +He was a tall, thin, livid, utterly funereal man. He had the air of an +unsuccessful doctor who had turned grave-digger. + +Fauchelevent burst out laughing. + +"Ah!" said he, "what queer things do happen! Father Mestienne is dead, +but long live little Father Lenoir! Do you know who little Father Lenoir +is? He is a jug of red wine. It is a jug of Surene, morbigou! of real +Paris Surene? Ah! So old Mestienne is dead! I am sorry for it; he was +a jolly fellow. But you are a jolly fellow, too. Are you not, comrade? +We'll go and have a drink together presently." + +The man replied:-- + +"I have been a student. I passed my fourth examination. I never drink." + +The hearse had set out again, and was rolling up the grand alley of the +cemetery. + +Fauchelevent had slackened his pace. He limped more out of anxiety than +from infirmity. + +The grave-digger walked on in front of him. + +Fauchelevent passed the unexpected Gribier once more in review. + +He was one of those men who, though very young, have the air of age, and +who, though slender, are extremely strong. + +"Comrade!" cried Fauchelevent. + +The man turned round. + +"I am the convent grave-digger." + +"My colleague," said the man. + +Fauchelevent, who was illiterate but very sharp, understood that he +had to deal with a formidable species of man, with a fine talker. He +muttered: + +"So Father Mestienne is dead." + +The man replied:-- + +"Completely. The good God consulted his note-book which shows when the +time is up. It was Father Mestienne's turn. Father Mestienne died." + +Fauchelevent repeated mechanically: "The good God--" + +"The good God," said the man authoritatively. "According to the +philosophers, the Eternal Father; according to the Jacobins, the Supreme +Being." + +"Shall we not make each other's acquaintance?" stammered Fauchelevent. + +"It is made. You are a peasant, I am a Parisian." + +"People do not know each other until they have drunk together. He who +empties his glass empties his heart. You must come and have a drink with +me. Such a thing cannot be refused." + +"Business first." + +Fauchelevent thought: "I am lost." + +They were only a few turns of the wheel distant from the small alley +leading to the nuns' corner. + +The grave-digger resumed:-- + +"Peasant, I have seven small children who must be fed. As they must eat, +I cannot drink." + +And he added, with the satisfaction of a serious man who is turning a +phrase well:-- + +"Their hunger is the enemy of my thirst." + +The hearse skirted a clump of cypress-trees, quitted the grand alley, +turned into a narrow one, entered the waste land, and plunged into +a thicket. This indicated the immediate proximity of the place of +sepulture. Fauchelevent slackened his pace, but he could not detain the +hearse. Fortunately, the soil, which was light and wet with the winter +rains, clogged the wheels and retarded its speed. + +He approached the grave-digger. + +"They have such a nice little Argenteuil wine," murmured Fauchelevent. + +"Villager," retorted the man, "I ought not be a grave-digger. My +father was a porter at the Prytaneum [Town-Hall]. He destined me for +literature. But he had reverses. He had losses on 'change. I was obliged +to renounce the profession of author. But I am still a public writer." + +"So you are not a grave-digger, then?" returned Fauchelevent, clutching +at this branch, feeble as it was. + +"The one does not hinder the other. I cumulate." + +Fauchelevent did not understand this last word. + +"Come have a drink," said he. + +Here a remark becomes necessary. Fauchelevent, whatever his anguish, +offered a drink, but he did not explain himself on one point; who was to +pay? Generally, Fauchelevent offered and Father Mestienne paid. An offer +of a drink was the evident result of the novel situation created by the +new grave-digger, and it was necessary to make this offer, but the old +gardener left the proverbial quarter of an hour named after Rabelais in +the dark, and that not unintentionally. As for himself, Fauchelevent did +not wish to pay, troubled as he was. + +The grave-digger went on with a superior smile:-- + +"One must eat. I have accepted Father Mestienne's reversion. One gets to +be a philosopher when one has nearly completed his classes. To the labor +of the hand I join the labor of the arm. I have my scrivener's stall in +the market of the Rue de Sevres. You know? the Umbrella Market. All the +cooks of the Red Cross apply to me. I scribble their declarations of +love to the raw soldiers. In the morning I write love letters; in the +evening I dig graves. Such is life, rustic." + +The hearse was still advancing. Fauchelevent, uneasy to the last degree, +was gazing about him on all sides. Great drops of perspiration trickled +down from his brow. + +"But," continued the grave-digger, "a man cannot serve two mistresses. +I must choose between the pen and the mattock. The mattock is ruining my +hand." + +The hearse halted. + +The choir boy alighted from the mourning-coach, then the priest. + +One of the small front wheels of the hearse had run up a little on a +pile of earth, beyond which an open grave was visible. + +"What a farce this is!" repeated Fauchelevent in consternation. + + + + +CHAPTER VI--BETWEEN FOUR PLANKS + +Who was in the coffin? The reader knows. Jean Valjean. + +Jean Valjean had arranged things so that he could exist there, and he +could almost breathe. + +It is a strange thing to what a degree security of conscience confers +security of the rest. Every combination thought out by Jean Valjean had +been progressing, and progressing favorably, since the preceding day. +He, like Fauchelevent, counted on Father Mestienne. He had no doubt +as to the end. Never was there a more critical situation, never more +complete composure. + +The four planks of the coffin breathe out a kind of terrible peace. It +seemed as though something of the repose of the dead entered into Jean +Valjean's tranquillity. + +From the depths of that coffin he had been able to follow, and he had +followed, all the phases of the terrible drama which he was playing with +death. + +Shortly after Fauchelevent had finished nailing on the upper plank, Jean +Valjean had felt himself carried out, then driven off. He knew, from the +diminution in the jolting, when they left the pavements and reached the +earth road. He had divined, from a dull noise, that they were crossing +the bridge of Austerlitz. At the first halt, he had understood that they +were entering the cemetery; at the second halt, he said to himself:-- + +"Here is the grave." + +Suddenly, he felt hands seize the coffin, then a harsh grating against +the planks; he explained it to himself as the rope which was being +fastened round the casket in order to lower it into the cavity. + +Then he experienced a giddiness. + +The undertaker's man and the grave-digger had probably allowed the +coffin to lose its balance, and had lowered the head before the foot. He +recovered himself fully when he felt himself horizontal and motionless. +He had just touched the bottom. + +He had a certain sensation of cold. + +A voice rose above him, glacial and solemn. He heard Latin words, which +he did not understand, pass over him, so slowly that he was able to +catch them one by one:-- + +"Qui dormiunt in terrae pulvere, evigilabunt; alii in vitam aeternam, et +alii in approbrium, ut videant semper." + +A child's voice said:-- + +"De profundis." + +The grave voice began again:-- + +"Requiem aeternam dona ei, Domine." + +The child's voice responded:-- + +"Et lux perpetua luceat ei." + +He heard something like the gentle patter of several drops of rain on +the plank which covered him. It was probably the holy water. + +He thought: "This will be over soon now. Patience for a little while +longer. The priest will take his departure. Fauchelevent will take +Mestienne off to drink. I shall be left. Then Fauchelevent will return +alone, and I shall get out. That will be the work of a good hour." + +The grave voice resumed + +"Requiescat in pace." + +And the child's voice said:-- + +"Amen." + +Jean Valjean strained his ears, and heard something like retreating +footsteps. + +"There, they are going now," thought he. "I am alone." + +All at once, he heard over his head a sound which seemed to him to be a +clap of thunder. + +It was a shovelful of earth falling on the coffin. + +A second shovelful fell. + +One of the holes through which he breathed had just been stopped up. + +A third shovelful of earth fell. + +Then a fourth. + +There are things which are too strong for the strongest man. Jean +Valjean lost consciousness. + + + + +CHAPTER VII--IN WHICH WILL BE FOUND THE ORIGIN OF THE SAYING: DON'T LOSE +THE CARD + +This is what had taken place above the coffin in which lay Jean Valjean. + +When the hearse had driven off, when the priest and the choir boy had +entered the carriage again and taken their departure, Fauchelevent, who +had not taken his eyes from the grave-digger, saw the latter bend over +and grasp his shovel, which was sticking upright in the heap of dirt. + +Then Fauchelevent took a supreme resolve. + +He placed himself between the grave and the grave-digger, crossed his +arms and said:-- + +"I am the one to pay!" + +The grave-digger stared at him in amazement, and replied:-- + +"What's that, peasant?" + +Fauchelevent repeated:-- + +"I am the one who pays!" + +"What?" + +"For the wine." + +"What wine?" + +"That Argenteuil wine." + +"Where is the Argenteuil?" + +"At the Bon Coing." + +"Go to the devil!" said the grave-digger. + +And he flung a shovelful of earth on the coffin. + +The coffin gave back a hollow sound. Fauchelevent felt himself stagger +and on the point of falling headlong into the grave himself. He shouted +in a voice in which the strangling sound of the death rattle began to +mingle:-- + +"Comrade! Before the Bon Coing is shut!" + +The grave-digger took some more earth on his shovel. Fauchelevent +continued. + +"I will pay." + +And he seized the man's arm. + +"Listen to me, comrade. I am the convent grave-digger, I have come +to help you. It is a business which can be performed at night. Let us +begin, then, by going for a drink." + +And as he spoke, and clung to this desperate insistence, this melancholy +reflection occurred to him: "And if he drinks, will he get drunk?" + +"Provincial," said the man, "if you positively insist upon it, I +consent. We will drink. After work, never before." + +And he flourished his shovel briskly. Fauchelevent held him back. + +"It is Argenteuil wine, at six." + +"Oh, come," said the grave-digger, "you are a bell-ringer. Ding dong, +ding dong, that's all you know how to say. Go hang yourself." + +And he threw in a second shovelful. + +Fauchelevent had reached a point where he no longer knew what he was +saying. + +"Come along and drink," he cried, "since it is I who pays the bill." + +"When we have put the child to bed," said the grave-digger. + +He flung in a third shovelful. + +Then he thrust his shovel into the earth and added:-- + +"It's cold to-night, you see, and the corpse would shriek out after us +if we were to plant her there without a coverlet." + +At that moment, as he loaded his shovel, the grave-digger bent over, +and the pocket of his waistcoat gaped. Fauchelevent's wild gaze fell +mechanically into that pocket, and there it stopped. + +The sun was not yet hidden behind the horizon; there was still light +enough to enable him to distinguish something white at the bottom of +that yawning pocket. + +The sum total of lightning that the eye of a Picard peasant can contain, +traversed Fauchelevent's pupils. An idea had just occurred to him. + +He thrust his hand into the pocket from behind, without the +grave-digger, who was wholly absorbed in his shovelful of earth, +observing it, and pulled out the white object which lay at the bottom of +it. + +The man sent a fourth shovelful tumbling into the grave. + +Just as he turned round to get the fifth, Fauchelevent looked calmly at +him and said:-- + +"By the way, you new man, have you your card?" + +The grave-digger paused. + +"What card?" + +"The sun is on the point of setting." + +"That's good, it is going to put on its nightcap." + +"The gate of the cemetery will close immediately." + +"Well, what then?" + +"Have you your card?" + +"Ah! my card?" said the grave-digger. + +And he fumbled in his pocket. + +Having searched one pocket, he proceeded to search the other. He passed +on to his fobs, explored the first, returned to the second. + +"Why, no," said he, "I have not my card. I must have forgotten it." + +"Fifteen francs fine," said Fauchelevent. + +The grave-digger turned green. Green is the pallor of livid people. + +"Ah! Jesus-mon-Dieu-bancroche-a-bas-la-lune!"[17] he exclaimed. "Fifteen +francs fine!" + +"Three pieces of a hundred sous," said Fauchelevent. + +The grave-digger dropped his shovel. + +Fauchelevent's turn had come. + +"Ah, come now, conscript," said Fauchelevent, "none of this despair. +There is no question of committing suicide and benefiting the grave. +Fifteen francs is fifteen francs, and besides, you may not be able to +pay it. I am an old hand, you are a new one. I know all the ropes and +the devices. I will give you some friendly advice. One thing is clear, +the sun is on the point of setting, it is touching the dome now, the +cemetery will be closed in five minutes more." + +"That is true," replied the man. + +"Five minutes more and you will not have time to fill the grave, it is +as hollow as the devil, this grave, and to reach the gate in season to +pass it before it is shut." + +"That is true." + +"In that case, a fine of fifteen francs." + +"Fifteen francs." + +"But you have time. Where do you live?" + +"A couple of steps from the barrier, a quarter of an hour from here. No. +87 Rue de Vaugirard." + +"You have just time to get out by taking to your heels at your best +speed." + +"That is exactly so." + +"Once outside the gate, you gallop home, you get your card, you return, +the cemetery porter admits you. As you have your card, there will be +nothing to pay. And you will bury your corpse. I'll watch it for you in +the meantime, so that it shall not run away." + +"I am indebted to you for my life, peasant." + +"Decamp!" said Fauchelevent. + +The grave-digger, overwhelmed with gratitude, shook his hand and set off +on a run. + +When the man had disappeared in the thicket, Fauchelevent listened until +he heard his footsteps die away in the distance, then he leaned over the +grave, and said in a low tone:-- + +"Father Madeleine!" + +There was no reply. + +Fauchelevent was seized with a shudder. He tumbled rather than climbed +into the grave, flung himself on the head of the coffin and cried:-- + +"Are you there?" + +Silence in the coffin. + +Fauchelevent, hardly able to draw his breath for trembling, seized his +cold chisel and his hammer, and pried up the coffin lid. + +Jean Valjean's face appeared in the twilight; it was pale and his eyes +were closed. + +Fauchelevent's hair rose upright on his head, he sprang to his feet, +then fell back against the side of the grave, ready to swoon on the +coffin. He stared at Jean Valjean. + +Jean Valjean lay there pallid and motionless. + +Fauchelevent murmured in a voice as faint as a sigh:-- + +"He is dead!" + +And, drawing himself up, and folding his arms with such violence that +his clenched fists came in contact with his shoulders, he cried:-- + +"And this is the way I save his life!" + +Then the poor man fell to sobbing. He soliloquized the while, for it is +an error to suppose that the soliloquy is unnatural. Powerful emotion +often talks aloud. + +"It is Father Mestienne's fault. Why did that fool die? What need was +there for him to give up the ghost at the very moment when no one was +expecting it? It is he who has killed M. Madeleine. Father Madeleine! +He is in the coffin. It is quite handy. All is over. Now, is there any +sense in these things? Ah! my God! he is dead! Well! and his little +girl, what am I to do with her? What will the fruit-seller say? The idea +of its being possible for a man like that to die like this! When I think +how he put himself under that cart! Father Madeleine! Father Madeleine! +Pardine! He was suffocated, I said so. He wouldn't believe me. Well! +Here's a pretty trick to play! He is dead, that good man, the very best +man out of all the good God's good folks! And his little girl! Ah! In +the first place, I won't go back there myself. I shall stay here. After +having done such a thing as that! What's the use of being two old men, +if we are two old fools! But, in the first place, how did he manage to +enter the convent? That was the beginning of it all. One should not +do such things. Father Madeleine! Father Madeleine! Father Madeleine! +Madeleine! Monsieur Madeleine! Monsieur le Maire! He does not hear me. +Now get out of this scrape if you can!" + +And he tore his hair. + +A grating sound became audible through the trees in the distance. It was +the cemetery gate closing. + +Fauchelevent bent over Jean Valjean, and all at once he bounded back and +recoiled so far as the limits of a grave permit. + +Jean Valjean's eyes were open and gazing at him. + +To see a corpse is alarming, to behold a resurrection is almost as much +so. Fauchelevent became like stone, pale, haggard, overwhelmed by all +these excesses of emotion, not knowing whether he had to do with a +living man or a dead one, and staring at Jean Valjean, who was gazing at +him. + +[Illustration: The Resurrection 2b8-7-resurrection] + +"I fell asleep," said Jean Valjean. + +And he raised himself to a sitting posture. + +Fauchelevent fell on his knees. + +"Just, good Virgin! How you frightened me!" + +Then he sprang to his feet and cried:-- + +"Thanks, Father Madeleine!" + +Jean Valjean had merely fainted. The fresh air had revived him. + +Joy is the ebb of terror. Fauchelevent found almost as much difficulty +in recovering himself as Jean Valjean had. + +"So you are not dead! Oh! How wise you are! I called you so much that +you came back. When I saw your eyes shut, I said: 'Good! there he is, +stifled,' I should have gone raving mad, mad enough for a strait jacket. +They would have put me in Bicetre. What do you suppose I should +have done if you had been dead? And your little girl? There's that +fruit-seller,--she would never have understood it! The child is thrust +into your arms, and then--the grandfather is dead! What a story! good +saints of paradise, what a tale! Ah! you are alive, that's the best of +it!" + +"I am cold," said Jean Valjean. + +This remark recalled Fauchelevent thoroughly to reality, and there was +pressing need of it. The souls of these two men were troubled even when +they had recovered themselves, although they did not realize it, +and there was about them something uncanny, which was the sinister +bewilderment inspired by the place. + +"Let us get out of here quickly," exclaimed Fauchelevent. + +He fumbled in his pocket, and pulled out a gourd with which he had +provided himself. + +"But first, take a drop," said he. + +The flask finished what the fresh air had begun, Jean Valjean swallowed +a mouthful of brandy, and regained full possession of his faculties. + +He got out of the coffin, and helped Fauchelevent to nail on the lid +again. + +Three minutes later they were out of the grave. + +Moreover, Fauchelevent was perfectly composed. He took his time. The +cemetery was closed. The arrival of the grave-digger Gribier was not to +be apprehended. That "conscript" was at home busily engaged in looking +for his card, and at some difficulty in finding it in his lodgings, +since it was in Fauchelevent's pocket. Without a card, he could not get +back into the cemetery. + +Fauchelevent took the shovel, and Jean Valjean the pick-axe, and +together they buried the empty coffin. + +When the grave was full, Fauchelevent said to Jean Valjean:-- + +"Let us go. I will keep the shovel; do you carry off the mattock." + +Night was falling. + +Jean Valjean experienced rome difficulty in moving and in walking. He +had stiffened himself in that coffin, and had become a little like a +corpse. The rigidity of death had seized upon him between those four +planks. He had, in a manner, to thaw out, from the tomb. + +"You are benumbed," said Fauchelevent. "It is a pity that I have a game +leg, for otherwise we might step out briskly." + +"Bah!" replied Jean Valjean, "four paces will put life into my legs once +more." + +They set off by the alleys through which the hearse had passed. On +arriving before the closed gate and the porter's pavilion Fauchelevent, +who held the grave-digger's card in his hand, dropped it into the box, +the porter pulled the rope, the gate opened, and they went out. + +"How well everything is going!" said Fauchelevent; "what a capital idea +that was of yours, Father Madeleine!" + +They passed the Vaugirard barrier in the simplest manner in the world. +In the neighborhood of the cemetery, a shovel and pick are equal to two +passports. + +The Rue Vaugirard was deserted. + +"Father Madeleine," said Fauchelevent as they went along, and raising +his eyes to the houses, "Your eyes are better than mine. Show me No. +87." + +"Here it is," said Jean Valjean. + +"There is no one in the street," said Fauchelevent. "Give me your +mattock and wait a couple of minutes for me." + +Fauchelevent entered No. 87, ascended to the very top, guided by the +instinct which always leads the poor man to the garret, and knocked in +the dark, at the door of an attic. + +A voice replied: "Come in." + +It was Gribier's voice. + +Fauchelevent opened the door. The grave-digger's dwelling was, like +all such wretched habitations, an unfurnished and encumbered garret. +A packing-case--a coffin, perhaps--took the place of a commode, a +butter-pot served for a drinking-fountain, a straw mattress served for +a bed, the floor served instead of tables and chairs. In a corner, on a +tattered fragment which had been a piece of an old carpet, a thin +woman and a number of children were piled in a heap. The whole of this +poverty-stricken interior bore traces of having been overturned. One +would have said that there had been an earthquake "for one." The covers +were displaced, the rags scattered about, the jug broken, the mother had +been crying, the children had probably been beaten; traces of a vigorous +and ill-tempered search. It was plain that the grave-digger had made +a desperate search for his card, and had made everybody in the garret, +from the jug to his wife, responsible for its loss. He wore an air of +desperation. + +But Fauchelevent was in too great a hurry to terminate this adventure to +take any notice of this sad side of his success. + +He entered and said:-- + +"I have brought you back your shovel and pick." + +Gribier gazed at him in stupefaction. + +"Is it you, peasant?" + +"And to-morrow morning you will find your card with the porter of the +cemetery." + +And he laid the shovel and mattock on the floor. + +"What is the meaning of this?" demanded Gribier. + +"The meaning of it is, that you dropped your card out of your pocket, +that I found it on the ground after you were gone, that I have buried +the corpse, that I have filled the grave, that I have done your work, +that the porter will return your card to you, and that you will not have +to pay fifteen francs. There you have it, conscript." + +"Thanks, villager!" exclaimed Gribier, radiant. "The next time I will +pay for the drinks." + + + + +CHAPTER VIII--A SUCCESSFUL INTERROGATORY + +An hour later, in the darkness of night, two men and a child presented +themselves at No. 62 Rue Petit-Picpus. The elder of the men lifted the +knocker and rapped. + +They were Fauchelevent, Jean Valjean, and Cosette. + +The two old men had gone to fetch Cosette from the fruiterer's in +the Rue du Chemin-Vert, where Fauchelevent had deposited her on the +preceding day. Cosette had passed these twenty-four hours trembling +silently and understanding nothing. She trembled to such a degree that +she wept. She had neither eaten nor slept. The worthy fruit-seller had +plied her with a hundred questions, without obtaining any other reply +than a melancholy and unvarying gaze. Cosette had betrayed nothing of +what she had seen and heard during the last two days. She divined that +they were passing through a crisis. She was deeply conscious that it was +necessary to "be good." Who has not experienced the sovereign power +of those two words, pronounced with a certain accent in the ear of a +terrified little being: Say nothing! Fear is mute. Moreover, no one +guards a secret like a child. + +But when, at the expiration of these lugubrious twenty-four hours, she +beheld Jean Valjean again, she gave vent to such a cry of joy, that any +thoughtful person who had chanced to hear that cry, would have guessed +that it issued from an abyss. + +Fauchelevent belonged to the convent and knew the pass-words. All the +doors opened. + +Thus was solved the double and alarming problem of how to get out and +how to get in. + +The porter, who had received his instructions, opened the little +servant's door which connected the courtyard with the garden, and which +could still be seen from the street twenty years ago, in the wall at the +bottom of the court, which faced the carriage entrance. + +The porter admitted all three of them through this door, and from that +point they reached the inner, reserved parlor where Fauchelevent, on the +preceding day, had received his orders from the prioress. + +The prioress, rosary in hand, was waiting for them. A vocal mother, with +her veil lowered, stood beside her. + +A discreet candle lighted, one might almost say, made a show of lighting +the parlor. + +The prioress passed Jean Valjean in review. There is nothing which +examines like a downcast eye. + +Then she questioned him:-- + +"You are the brother?" + +"Yes, reverend Mother," replied Fauchelevent. + +"What is your name?" + +Fauchelevent replied:-- + +"Ultime Fauchelevent." + +He really had had a brother named Ultime, who was dead. + +"Where do you come from?" + +Fauchelevent replied:-- + +"From Picquigny, near Amiens." + +"What is your age?" + +Fauchelevent replied:-- + +"Fifty." + +"What is your profession?" + +Fauchelevent replied:-- + +"Gardener." + +"Are you a good Christian?" + +Fauchelevent replied:-- + +"Every one is in the family." + +"Is this your little girl?" + +Fauchelevent replied:-- + +"Yes, reverend Mother." + +"You are her father?" + +Fauchelevent replied:-- + +"Her grandfather." + +The vocal mother said to the prioress in a low voice + +"He answers well." + +Jean Valjean had not uttered a single word. + +The prioress looked attentively at Cosette, and said half aloud to the +vocal mother:-- + +"She will grow up ugly." + +The two mothers consulted for a few moments in very low tones in the +corner of the parlor, then the prioress turned round and said:-- + +"Father Fauvent, you will get another knee-cap with a bell. Two will be +required now." + +On the following day, therefore, two bells were audible in the garden, +and the nuns could not resist the temptation to raise the corner of +their veils. At the extreme end of the garden, under the trees, two +men, Fauvent and another man, were visible as they dug side by side. An +enormous event. Their silence was broken to the extent of saying to each +other: "He is an assistant gardener." + +The vocal mothers added: "He is a brother of Father Fauvent." + +Jean Valjean was, in fact, regularly installed; he had his belled +knee-cap; henceforth he was official. His name was Ultime Fauchelevent. + +The most powerful determining cause of his admission had been the +prioress's observation upon Cosette: "She will grow up ugly." + +The prioress, that pronounced prognosticator, immediately took a fancy +to Cosette and gave her a place in the school as a charity pupil. + +There is nothing that is not strictly logical about this. + +It is in vain that mirrors are banished from the convent, women are +conscious of their faces; now, girls who are conscious of their beauty +do not easily become nuns; the vocation being voluntary in inverse +proportion to their good looks, more is to be hoped from the ugly than +from the pretty. Hence a lively taste for plain girls. + +The whole of this adventure increased the importance of good, old +Fauchelevent; he won a triple success; in the eyes of Jean Valjean, whom +he had saved and sheltered; in those of grave-digger Gribier, who said +to himself: "He spared me that fine"; with the convent, which, being +enabled, thanks to him, to retain the coffin of Mother Crucifixion +under the altar, eluded Caesar and satisfied God. There was a coffin +containing a body in the Petit-Picpus, and a coffin without a body in +the Vaugirard cemetery, public order had no doubt been deeply disturbed +thereby, but no one was aware of it. + +As for the convent, its gratitude to Fauchelevent was very great. +Fauchelevent became the best of servitors and the most precious of +gardeners. Upon the occasion of the archbishop's next visit, the +prioress recounted the affair to his Grace, making something of a +confession at the same time, and yet boasting of her deed. On leaving +the convent, the archbishop mentioned it with approval, and in a whisper +to M. de Latil, Monsieur's confessor, afterwards Archbishop of Reims +and Cardinal. This admiration for Fauchelevent became widespread, for it +made its way to Rome. We have seen a note addressed by the then reigning +Pope, Leo XII., to one of his relatives, a Monsignor in the Nuncio's +establishment in Paris, and bearing, like himself, the name of Della +Genga; it contained these lines: "It appears that there is in a convent +in Paris an excellent gardener, who is also a holy man, named Fauvent." +Nothing of this triumph reached Fauchelevent in his hut; he went on +grafting, weeding, and covering up his melon beds, without in the least +suspecting his excellences and his sanctity. Neither did he suspect his +glory, any more than a Durham or Surrey bull whose portrait is published +in the London Illustrated News, with this inscription: "Bull which +carried off the prize at the Cattle Show." + + + + +CHAPTER IX--CLOISTERED + +Cosette continued to hold her tongue in the convent. + +It was quite natural that Cosette should think herself Jean Valjean's +daughter. Moreover, as she knew nothing, she could say nothing, and +then, she would not have said anything in any case. As we have just +observed, nothing trains children to silence like unhappiness. Cosette +had suffered so much, that she feared everything, even to speak or to +breathe. A single word had so often brought down an avalanche upon her. +She had hardly begun to regain her confidence since she had been with +Jean Valjean. She speedily became accustomed to the convent. Only she +regretted Catherine, but she dared not say so. Once, however, she did +say to Jean Valjean: "Father, if I had known, I would have brought her +away with me." + +Cosette had been obliged, on becoming a scholar in the convent, to don +the garb of the pupils of the house. Jean Valjean succeeded in getting +them to restore to him the garments which she laid aside. This was the +same mourning suit which he had made her put on when she had quitted +the Thenardiers' inn. It was not very threadbare even now. Jean Valjean +locked up these garments, plus the stockings and the shoes, with a +quantity of camphor and all the aromatics in which convents abound, in a +little valise which he found means of procuring. He set this valise on +a chair near his bed, and he always carried the key about his person. +"Father," Cosette asked him one day, "what is there in that box which +smells so good?" + +Father Fauchelevent received other recompense for his good action, in +addition to the glory which we just mentioned, and of which he knew +nothing; in the first place it made him happy; next, he had much less +work, since it was shared. Lastly, as he was very fond of snuff, he +found the presence of M. Madeleine an advantage, in that he used three +times as much as he had done previously, and that in an infinitely more +luxurious manner, seeing that M. Madeleine paid for it. + +The nuns did not adopt the name of Ultime; they called Jean Valjean the +other Fauvent. + +If these holy women had possessed anything of Javert's glance, they +would eventually have noticed that when there was any errand to be +done outside in the behalf of the garden, it was always the elder +Fauchelevent, the old, the infirm, the lame man, who went, and never the +other; but whether it is that eyes constantly fixed on God know not how +to spy, or whether they were, by preference, occupied in keeping watch +on each other, they paid no heed to this. + +Moreover, it was well for Jean Valjean that he kept close and did not +stir out. Javert watched the quarter for more than a month. + +This convent was for Jean Valjean like an island surrounded by gulfs. +Henceforth, those four walls constituted his world. He saw enough of the +sky there to enable him to preserve his serenity, and Cosette enough to +remain happy. + +A very sweet life began for him. + +He inhabited the old hut at the end of the garden, in company with +Fauchelevent. This hovel, built of old rubbish, which was still in +existence in 1845, was composed, as the reader already knows, of three +chambers, all of which were utterly bare and had nothing beyond the +walls. The principal one had been given up, by force, for Jean Valjean +had opposed it in vain, to M. Madeleine, by Father Fauchelevent. The +walls of this chamber had for ornament, in addition to the two nails +whereon to hang the knee-cap and the basket, a Royalist bank-note +of '93, applied to the wall over the chimney-piece, and of which the +following is an exact facsimile:-- + + +[Illustration: Royalist Bank-note 2b8-9-banknote] + + +This specimen of Vendean paper money had been nailed to the wall by +the preceding gardener, an old Chouan, who had died in the convent, and +whose place Fauchelevent had taken. + +Jean Valjean worked in the garden every day and made himself very +useful. He had formerly been a pruner of trees, and he gladly found +himself a gardener once more. It will be remembered that he knew all +sorts of secrets and receipts for agriculture. He turned these to +advantage. Almost all the trees in the orchard were ungrafted, and wild. +He budded them and made them produce excellent fruit. + +Cosette had permission to pass an hour with him every day. As the +sisters were melancholy and he was kind, the child made comparisons and +adored him. At the appointed hour she flew to the hut. When she entered +the lowly cabin, she filled it with paradise. Jean Valjean blossomed +out and felt his happiness increase with the happiness which he afforded +Cosette. The joy which we inspire has this charming property, that, far +from growing meagre, like all reflections, it returns to us more radiant +than ever. At recreation hours, Jean Valjean watched her running and +playing in the distance, and he distinguished her laugh from that of the +rest. + +For Cosette laughed now. + +Cosette's face had even undergone a change, to a certain extent. The +gloom had disappeared from it. A smile is the same as sunshine; it +banishes winter from the human countenance. + +Recreation over, when Cosette went into the house again, Jean Valjean +gazed at the windows of her class-room, and at night he rose to look at +the windows of her dormitory. + +God has his own ways, moreover; the convent contributed, like Cosette, +to uphold and complete the Bishop's work in Jean Valjean. It is certain +that virtue adjoins pride on one side. A bridge built by the devil +exists there. Jean Valjean had been, unconsciously, perhaps, tolerably +near that side and that bridge, when Providence cast his lot in the +convent of the Petit-Picpus; so long as he had compared himself only to +the Bishop, he had regarded himself as unworthy and had remained humble; +but for some time past he had been comparing himself to men in general, +and pride was beginning to spring up. Who knows? He might have ended by +returning very gradually to hatred. + +The convent stopped him on that downward path. + +This was the second place of captivity which he had seen. In his youth, +in what had been for him the beginning of his life, and later on, quite +recently again, he had beheld another,--a frightful place, a terrible +place, whose severities had always appeared to him the iniquity of +justice, and the crime of the law. Now, after the galleys, he saw the +cloister; and when he meditated how he had formed a part of the galleys, +and that he now, so to speak, was a spectator of the cloister, he +confronted the two in his own mind with anxiety. + +Sometimes he crossed his arms and leaned on his hoe, and slowly +descended the endless spirals of revery. + +He recalled his former companions: how wretched they were; they rose at +dawn, and toiled until night; hardly were they permitted to sleep; they +lay on camp beds, where nothing was tolerated but mattresses two inches +thick, in rooms which were heated only in the very harshest months of +the year; they were clothed in frightful red blouses; they were allowed, +as a great favor, linen trousers in the hottest weather, and a woollen +carter's blouse on their backs when it was very cold; they drank no +wine, and ate no meat, except when they went on "fatigue duty." They +lived nameless, designated only by numbers, and converted, after a +manner, into ciphers themselves, with downcast eyes, with lowered +voices, with shorn heads, beneath the cudgel and in disgrace. + +Then his mind reverted to the beings whom he had under his eyes. + +These beings also lived with shorn heads, with downcast eyes, with +lowered voices, not in disgrace, but amid the scoffs of the world, +not with their backs bruised with the cudgel, but with their shoulders +lacerated with their discipline. Their names, also, had vanished from +among men; they no longer existed except under austere appellations. +They never ate meat and they never drank wine; they often remained until +evening without food; they were attired, not in a red blouse, but in a +black shroud, of woollen, which was heavy in summer and thin in winter, +without the power to add or subtract anything from it; without having +even, according to the season, the resource of the linen garment or the +woollen cloak; and for six months in the year they wore serge chemises +which gave them fever. They dwelt, not in rooms warmed only during +rigorous cold, but in cells where no fire was ever lighted; they slept, +not on mattresses two inches thick, but on straw. And finally, they were +not even allowed their sleep; every night, after a day of toil, they +were obliged, in the weariness of their first slumber, at the moment +when they were falling sound asleep and beginning to get warm, to rouse +themselves, to rise and to go and pray in an ice-cold and gloomy chapel, +with their knees on the stones. + +On certain days each of these beings in turn had to remain for twelve +successive hours in a kneeling posture, or prostrate, with face upon the +pavement, and arms outstretched in the form of a cross. + +The others were men; these were women. + +What had those men done? They had stolen, violated, pillaged, +murdered, assassinated. They were bandits, counterfeiters, poisoners, +incendiaries, murderers, parricides. What had these women done? They had +done nothing whatever. + +On the one hand, highway robbery, fraud, deceit, violence, sensuality, +homicide, all sorts of sacrilege, every variety of crime; on the other, +one thing only, innocence. + +Perfect innocence, almost caught up into heaven in a mysterious +assumption, attached to the earth by virtue, already possessing +something of heaven through holiness. + +On the one hand, confidences over crimes, which are exchanged in +whispers; on the other, the confession of faults made aloud. And what +crimes! And what faults! + +On the one hand, miasms; on the other, an ineffable perfume. On the one +hand, a moral pest, guarded from sight, penned up under the range of +cannon, and literally devouring its plague-stricken victims; on +the other, the chaste flame of all souls on the same hearth. There, +darkness; here, the shadow; but a shadow filled with gleams of light, +and of gleams full of radiance. + +Two strongholds of slavery; but in the first, deliverance possible, +a legal limit always in sight, and then, escape. In the second, +perpetuity; the sole hope, at the distant extremity of the future, that +faint light of liberty which men call death. + +In the first, men are bound only with chains; in the other, chained by +faith. + +What flowed from the first? An immense curse, the gnashing of teeth, +hatred, desperate viciousness, a cry of rage against human society, a +sarcasm against heaven. + +What results flowed from the second? Blessings and love. + +And in these two places, so similar yet so unlike, these two species +of beings who were so very unlike, were undergoing the same work, +expiation. + +Jean Valjean understood thoroughly the expiation of the former; that +personal expiation, the expiation for one's self. But he did not +understand that of these last, that of creatures without reproach and +without stain, and he trembled as he asked himself: The expiation of +what? What expiation? + +A voice within his conscience replied: "The most divine of human +generosities, the expiation for others." + +Here all personal theory is withheld; we are only the narrator; we +place ourselves at Jean Valjean's point of view, and we translate his +impressions. + +Before his eyes he had the sublime summit of abnegation, the highest +possible pitch of virtue; the innocence which pardons men their faults, +and which expiates in their stead; servitude submitted to, torture +accepted, punishment claimed by souls which have not sinned, for the +sake of sparing it to souls which have fallen; the love of humanity +swallowed up in the love of God, but even there preserving its distinct +and mediatorial character; sweet and feeble beings possessing the misery +of those who are punished and the smile of those who are recompensed. + +And he remembered that he had dared to murmur! + +Often, in the middle of the night, he rose to listen to the grateful +song of those innocent creatures weighed down with severities, and the +blood ran cold in his veins at the thought that those who were justly +chastised raised their voices heavenward only in blasphemy, and that he, +wretch that he was, had shaken his fist at God. + +There was one striking thing which caused him to meditate deeply, like +a warning whisper from Providence itself: the scaling of that wall, the +passing of those barriers, the adventure accepted even at the risk of +death, the painful and difficult ascent, all those efforts even, which +he had made to escape from that other place of expiation, he had made in +order to gain entrance into this one. Was this a symbol of his destiny? +This house was a prison likewise and bore a melancholy resemblance to +that other one whence he had fled, and yet he had never conceived an +idea of anything similar. + +Again he beheld gratings, bolts, iron bars--to guard whom? Angels. + +These lofty walls which he had seen around tigers, he now beheld once +more around lambs. + +This was a place of expiation, and not of punishment; and yet, it was +still more austere, more gloomy, and more pitiless than the other. + +These virgins were even more heavily burdened than the convicts. A cold, +harsh wind, that wind which had chilled his youth, traversed the barred +and padlocked grating of the vultures; a still harsher and more biting +breeze blew in the cage of these doves. + +Why? + +When he thought on these things, all that was within him was lost in +amazement before this mystery of sublimity. + +In these meditations, his pride vanished. He scrutinized his own heart +in all manner of ways; he felt his pettiness, and many a time he wept. +All that had entered into his life for the last six months had led him +back towards the Bishop's holy injunctions; Cosette through love, the +convent through humility. + +Sometimes at eventide, in the twilight, at an hour when the garden was +deserted, he could be seen on his knees in the middle of the walk which +skirted the chapel, in front of the window through which he had gazed on +the night of his arrival, and turned towards the spot where, as he knew, +the sister was making reparation, prostrated in prayer. Thus he prayed +as he knelt before the sister. + +It seemed as though he dared not kneel directly before God. + +Everything that surrounded him, that peaceful garden, those fragrant +flowers, those children who uttered joyous cries, those grave and simple +women, that silent cloister, slowly permeated him, and little by little, +his soul became compounded of silence like the cloister, of perfume like +the flowers, of simplicity like the women, of joy like the children. +And then he reflected that these had been two houses of God which had +received him in succession at two critical moments in his life: the +first, when all doors were closed and when human society rejected him; +the second, at a moment when human society had again set out in pursuit +of him, and when the galleys were again yawning; and that, had it not +been for the first, he should have relapsed into crime, and had it not +been for the second, into torment. + +His whole heart melted in gratitude, and he loved more and more. + +Many years passed in this manner; Cosette was growing up. + + +[THE END OF VOLUME II. "COSETTE"] + + + + + + +VOLUME III--MARIUS. + + +[Illustration: Frontispiece Volume Three 3frontispiece] + +[Illustration: Titlepage Volume Three 3titlepage] + + + + +BOOK FIRST.--PARIS STUDIED IN ITS ATOM + + + + +CHAPTER I--PARVULUS + +Paris has a child, and the forest has a bird; the bird is called the +sparrow; the child is called the gamin. + +Couple these two ideas which contain, the one all the furnace, the other +all the dawn; strike these two sparks together, Paris, childhood; there +leaps out from them a little being. Homuncio, Plautus would say. + +This little being is joyous. He has not food every day, and he goes to +the play every evening, if he sees good. He has no shirt on his body, +no shoes on his feet, no roof over his head; he is like the flies of +heaven, who have none of these things. He is from seven to thirteen +years of age, he lives in bands, roams the streets, lodges in the open +air, wears an old pair of trousers of his father's, which descend below +his heels, an old hat of some other father, which descends below his +ears, a single suspender of yellow listing; he runs, lies in wait, +rummages about, wastes time, blackens pipes, swears like a convict, +haunts the wine-shop, knows thieves, calls gay women thou, talks slang, +sings obscene songs, and has no evil in his heart. This is because he +has in his heart a pearl, innocence; and pearls are not to be dissolved +in mud. So long as man is in his childhood, God wills that he shall be +innocent. + +If one were to ask that enormous city: "What is this?" she would reply: +"It is my little one." + + + + +CHAPTER II--SOME OF HIS PARTICULAR CHARACTERISTICS + +The gamin--the street Arab--of Paris is the dwarf of the giant. + +Let us not exaggerate, this cherub of the gutter sometimes has a shirt, +but, in that case, he owns but one; he sometimes has shoes, but then +they have no soles; he sometimes has a lodging, and he loves it, for +he finds his mother there; but he prefers the street, because there he +finds liberty. He has his own games, his own bits of mischief, whose +foundation consists of hatred for the bourgeois; his peculiar metaphors: +to be dead is to eat dandelions by the root; his own occupations, +calling hackney-coaches, letting down carriage-steps, establishing means +of transit between the two sides of a street in heavy rains, which he +calls making the bridge of arts, crying discourses pronounced by the +authorities in favor of the French people, cleaning out the cracks +in the pavement; he has his own coinage, which is composed of all the +little morsels of worked copper which are found on the public streets. +This curious money, which receives the name of loques--rags--has +an invariable and well-regulated currency in this little Bohemia of +children. + +Lastly, he has his own fauna, which he observes attentively in +the corners; the lady-bird, the death's-head plant-louse, the +daddy-long-legs, "the devil," a black insect, which menaces by twisting +about its tail armed with two horns. He has his fabulous monster, which +has scales under its belly, but is not a lizard, which has pustules on +its back, but is not a toad, which inhabits the nooks of old lime-kilns +and wells that have run dry, which is black, hairy, sticky, which crawls +sometimes slowly, sometimes rapidly, which has no cry, but which has a +look, and is so terrible that no one has ever beheld it; he calls this +monster "the deaf thing." The search for these "deaf things" among +the stones is a joy of formidable nature. Another pleasure consists in +suddenly prying up a paving-stone, and taking a look at the wood-lice. +Each region of Paris is celebrated for the interesting treasures which +are to be found there. There are ear-wigs in the timber-yards of the +Ursulines, there are millepeds in the Pantheon, there are tadpoles in +the ditches of the Champs-de-Mars. + +As far as sayings are concerned, this child has as many of them as +Talleyrand. He is no less cynical, but he is more honest. He is endowed +with a certain indescribable, unexpected joviality; he upsets the +composure of the shopkeeper with his wild laughter. He ranges boldly +from high comedy to farce. + +A funeral passes by. Among those who accompany the dead there is a +doctor. "Hey there!" shouts some street Arab, "how long has it been +customary for doctors to carry home their own work?" + +Another is in a crowd. A grave man, adorned with spectacles and +trinkets, turns round indignantly: "You good-for-nothing, you have +seized my wife's waist!"--"I, sir? Search me!" + + + + +CHAPTER III--HE IS AGREEABLE + +In the evening, thanks to a few sous, which he always finds means +to procure, the homuncio enters a theatre. On crossing that magic +threshold, he becomes transfigured; he was the street Arab, he becomes +the titi.[18] Theatres are a sort of ship turned upside down with the +keel in the air. It is in that keel that the titi huddle together. +The titi is to the gamin what the moth is to the larva; the same being +endowed with wings and soaring. It suffices for him to be there, with +his radiance of happiness, with his power of enthusiasm and joy, with +his hand-clapping, which resembles a clapping of wings, to confer on +that narrow, dark, fetid, sordid, unhealthy, hideous, abominable keel, +the name of Paradise. + +Bestow on an individual the useless and deprive him of the necessary, +and you have the gamin. + +The gamin is not devoid of literary intuition. His tendency, and we say +it with the proper amount of regret, would not constitute classic +taste. He is not very academic by nature. Thus, to give an example, the +popularity of Mademoiselle Mars among that little audience of stormy +children was seasoned with a touch of irony. The gamin called her +Mademoiselle Muche--"hide yourself." + +This being bawls and scoffs and ridicules and fights, has rags like a +baby and tatters like a philosopher, fishes in the sewer, hunts in the +cesspool, extracts mirth from foulness, whips up the squares with his +wit, grins and bites, whistles and sings, shouts, and shrieks, tempers +Alleluia with Matantur-lurette, chants every rhythm from the De +Profundis to the Jack-pudding, finds without seeking, knows what he is +ignorant of, is a Spartan to the point of thieving, is mad to wisdom, is +lyrical to filth, would crouch down on Olympus, wallows in the dunghill +and emerges from it covered with stars. The gamin of Paris is Rabelais +in this youth. + +He is not content with his trousers unless they have a watch-pocket. + +He is not easily astonished, he is still less easily terrified, he makes +songs on superstitions, he takes the wind out of exaggerations, he twits +mysteries, he thrusts out his tongue at ghosts, he takes the poetry out +of stilted things, he introduces caricature into epic extravaganzas. +It is not that he is prosaic; far from that; but he replaces the solemn +vision by the farcical phantasmagoria. If Adamastor were to appear to +him, the street Arab would say: "Hi there! The bugaboo!" + + + + +CHAPTER IV--HE MAY BE OF USE + +Paris begins with the lounger and ends with the street Arab, two +beings of which no other city is capable; the passive acceptance, which +contents itself with gazing, and the inexhaustible initiative; Prudhomme +and Fouillou. Paris alone has this in its natural history. The whole of +the monarchy is contained in the lounger; the whole of anarchy in the +gamin. + +This pale child of the Parisian faubourgs lives and develops, makes +connections, "grows supple" in suffering, in the presence of social +realities and of human things, a thoughtful witness. He thinks himself +heedless; and he is not. He looks and is on the verge of laughter; he is +on the verge of something else also. Whoever you may be, if your name is +Prejudice, Abuse, Ignorance, Oppression, Iniquity, Despotism, Injustice, +Fanaticism, Tyranny, beware of the gaping gamin. + +The little fellow will grow up. + +Of what clay is he made? Of the first mud that comes to hand. A handful +of dirt, a breath, and behold Adam. It suffices for a God to pass by. A +God has always passed over the street Arab. Fortune labors at this tiny +being. By the word "fortune" we mean chance, to some extent. That pigmy +kneaded out of common earth, ignorant, unlettered, giddy, vulgar, low. +Will that become an Ionian or a Boeotian? Wait, currit rota, the Spirit +of Paris, that demon which creates the children of chance and the men +of destiny, reversing the process of the Latin potter, makes of a jug an +amphora. + + + + +CHAPTER V--HIS FRONTIERS + +The gamin loves the city, he also loves solitude, since he has something +of the sage in him. Urbis amator, like Fuscus; ruris amator, like +Flaccus. + +To roam thoughtfully about, that is to say, to lounge, is a fine +employment of time in the eyes of the philosopher; particularly in that +rather illegitimate species of campaign, which is tolerably ugly but +odd and composed of two natures, which surrounds certain great cities, +notably Paris. To study the suburbs is to study the amphibious animal. +End of the trees, beginning of the roofs; end of the grass, beginning +of the pavements; end of the furrows, beginning of the shops, end of +the wheel-ruts, beginning of the passions; end of the divine murmur, +beginning of the human uproar; hence an extraordinary interest. + +Hence, in these not very attractive places, indelibly stamped by the +passing stroller with the epithet: melancholy, the apparently objectless +promenades of the dreamer. + +He who writes these lines has long been a prowler about the barriers +of Paris, and it is for him a source of profound souvenirs. That +close-shaven turf, those pebbly paths, that chalk, those pools, +those harsh monotonies of waste and fallow lands, the plants of early +market-garden suddenly springing into sight in a bottom, that mixture of +the savage and the citizen, those vast desert nooks where the garrison +drums practise noisily, and produce a sort of lisping of battle, those +hermits by day and cut-throats by night, that clumsy mill which turns +in the wind, the hoisting-wheels of the quarries, the tea-gardens at the +corners of the cemeteries; the mysterious charm of great, sombre walls +squarely intersecting immense, vague stretches of land inundated with +sunshine and full of butterflies,--all this attracted him. + +There is hardly any one on earth who is not acquainted with those +singular spots, the Glaciere, the Cunette, the hideous wall of Grenelle +all speckled with balls, Mont-Parnasse, the Fosse-aux-Loups, Aubiers on +the bank of the Marne, Mont-Souris, the Tombe-Issoire, the Pierre-Plate +de Chatillon, where there is an old, exhausted quarry which no longer +serves any purpose except to raise mushrooms, and which is closed, on a +level with the ground, by a trap-door of rotten planks. The campagna of +Rome is one idea, the banlieue of Paris is another; to behold nothing +but fields, houses, or trees in what a stretch of country offers us, is +to remain on the surface; all aspects of things are thoughts of God. The +spot where a plain effects its junction with a city is always stamped +with a certain piercing melancholy. Nature and humanity both appeal +to you at the same time there. Local originalities there make their +appearance. + +Any one who, like ourselves, has wandered about in these solitudes +contiguous to our faubourgs, which may be designated as the limbos of +Paris, has seen here and there, in the most desert spot, at the +most unexpected moment, behind a meagre hedge, or in the corner of a +lugubrious wall, children grouped tumultuously, fetid, muddy, +dusty, ragged, dishevelled, playing hide-and-seek, and crowned with +corn-flowers. All of them are little ones who have made their escape +from poor families. The outer boulevard is their breathing space; the +suburbs belong to them. There they are eternally playing truant. There +they innocently sing their repertory of dirty songs. There they are, or +rather, there they exist, far from every eye, in the sweet light of +May or June, kneeling round a hole in the ground, snapping marbles with +their thumbs, quarrelling over half-farthings, irresponsible, volatile, +free and happy; and, no sooner do they catch sight of you than they +recollect that they have an industry, and that they must earn their +living, and they offer to sell you an old woollen stocking filled +with cockchafers, or a bunch of lilacs. These encounters with strange +children are one of the charming and at the same time poignant graces of +the environs of Paris. + +Sometimes there are little girls among the throng of boys,--are they +their sisters?--who are almost young maidens, thin, feverish, with +sunburnt hands, covered with freckles, crowned with poppies and ears of +rye, gay, haggard, barefooted. They can be seen devouring cherries among +the wheat. In the evening they can be heard laughing. These groups, +warmly illuminated by the full glow of midday, or indistinctly seen in +the twilight, occupy the thoughtful man for a very long time, and these +visions mingle with his dreams. + +Paris, centre, banlieue, circumference; this constitutes all the earth +to those children. They never venture beyond this. They can no more +escape from the Parisian atmosphere than fish can escape from the +water. For them, nothing exists two leagues beyond the barriers: +Ivry, Gentilly, Arcueil, Belleville, Aubervilliers, Menilmontant, +Choisy-le-Roi, Billancourt, Mendon, Issy, Vanvre, Sevres, Puteaux, +Neuilly, Gennevilliers, Colombes, Romainville, Chatou, Asnieres, +Bougival, Nanterre, Enghien, Noisy-le-Sec, Nogent, Gournay, Drancy, +Gonesse; the universe ends there. + + + + +CHAPTER VI--A BIT OF HISTORY + +At the epoch, nearly contemporary by the way, when the action of this +book takes place, there was not, as there is to-day, a policeman at +the corner of every street (a benefit which there is no time to discuss +here); stray children abounded in Paris. The statistics give an average +of two hundred and sixty homeless children picked up annually at that +period, by the police patrols, in unenclosed lands, in houses in process +of construction, and under the arches of the bridges. One of these +nests, which has become famous, produced "the swallows of the bridge of +Arcola." This is, moreover, the most disastrous of social symptoms. All +crimes of the man begin in the vagabondage of the child. + +Let us make an exception in favor of Paris, nevertheless. In a relative +measure, and in spite of the souvenir which we have just recalled, the +exception is just. While in any other great city the vagabond child is +a lost man, while nearly everywhere the child left to itself is, in +some sort, sacrificed and abandoned to a kind of fatal immersion in the +public vices which devour in him honesty and conscience, the street boy +of Paris, we insist on this point, however defaced and injured on the +surface, is almost intact on the interior. It is a magnificent thing to +put on record, and one which shines forth in the splendid probity of our +popular revolutions, that a certain incorruptibility results from the +idea which exists in the air of Paris, as salt exists in the water of +the ocean. To breathe Paris preserves the soul. + +What we have just said takes away nothing of the anguish of heart which +one experiences every time that one meets one of these children around +whom one fancies that he beholds floating the threads of a broken +family. In the civilization of the present day, incomplete as it still +is, it is not a very abnormal thing to behold these fractured families +pouring themselves out into the darkness, not knowing clearly what has +become of their children, and allowing their own entrails to fall on the +public highway. Hence these obscure destinies. This is called, for this +sad thing has given rise to an expression, "to be cast on the pavements +of Paris." + +Let it be said by the way, that this abandonment of children was not +discouraged by the ancient monarchy. A little of Egypt and Bohemia in +the lower regions suited the upper spheres, and compassed the aims of +the powerful. The hatred of instruction for the children of the people +was a dogma. What is the use of "half-lights"? Such was the countersign. +Now, the erring child is the corollary of the ignorant child. + +Besides this, the monarchy sometimes was in need of children, and in +that case it skimmed the streets. + +Under Louis XIV., not to go any further back, the king rightly desired +to create a fleet. The idea was a good one. But let us consider +the means. There can be no fleet, if, beside the sailing ship, that +plaything of the winds, and for the purpose of towing it, in case of +necessity, there is not the vessel which goes where it pleases, either +by means of oars or of steam; the galleys were then to the marine what +steamers are to-day. Therefore, galleys were necessary; but the galley +is moved only by the galley-slave; hence, galley-slaves were required. +Colbert had the commissioners of provinces and the parliaments make +as many convicts as possible. The magistracy showed a great deal of +complaisance in the matter. A man kept his hat on in the presence of a +procession--it was a Huguenot attitude; he was sent to the galleys. A +child was encountered in the streets; provided that he was fifteen +years of age and did not know where he was to sleep, he was sent to the +galleys. Grand reign; grand century. + +Under Louis XV. children disappeared in Paris; the police carried them +off, for what mysterious purpose no one knew. People whispered with +terror monstrous conjectures as to the king's baths of purple. Barbier +speaks ingenuously of these things. It sometimes happened that the +exempts of the guard, when they ran short of children, took those who +had fathers. The fathers, in despair, attacked the exempts. In that +case, the parliament intervened and had some one hung. Who? The exempts? +No, the fathers. + + + + +CHAPTER VII--THE GAMIN SHOULD HAVE HIS PLACE IN THE CLASSIFICATIONS OF +INDIA + +The body of street Arabs in Paris almost constitutes a caste. One might +almost say: Not every one who wishes to belong to it can do so. + +This word gamin was printed for the first time, and reached popular +speech through the literary tongue, in 1834. It is in a little work +entitled Claude Gueux that this word made its appearance. The horror was +lively. The word passed into circulation. + +The elements which constitute the consideration of the gamins for each +other are very various. We have known and associated with one who was +greatly respected and vastly admired because he had seen a man fall from +the top of the tower of Notre-Dame; another, because he had succeeded in +making his way into the rear courtyard where the statues of the dome +of the Invalides had been temporarily deposited, and had "prigged" some +lead from them; a third, because he had seen a diligence tip over; still +another, because he "knew" a soldier who came near putting out the eye +of a citizen. + +This explains that famous exclamation of a Parisian gamin, a profound +epiphonema, which the vulgar herd laughs at without comprehending,--Dieu +de Dieu! What ill-luck I do have! to think that I have never yet seen +anybody tumble from a fifth-story window! (I have pronounced I'ave and +fifth pronounced fift'.) + +Surely, this saying of a peasant is a fine one: "Father So-and-So, your +wife has died of her malady; why did you not send for the doctor?" +"What would you have, sir, we poor folks die of ourselves." But if +the peasant's whole passivity lies in this saying, the whole of the +free-thinking anarchy of the brat of the faubourgs is, assuredly, +contained in this other saying. A man condemned to death is listening +to his confessor in the tumbrel. The child of Paris exclaims: "He is +talking to his black cap! Oh, the sneak!" + +A certain audacity on matters of religion sets off the gamin. To be +strong-minded is an important item. + +To be present at executions constitutes a duty. He shows himself at the +guillotine, and he laughs. He calls it by all sorts of pet names: The +End of the Soup, The Growler, The Mother in the Blue (the sky), The Last +Mouthful, etc., etc. In order not to lose anything of the affair, he +scales the walls, he hoists himself to balconies, he ascends trees, he +suspends himself to gratings, he clings fast to chimneys. The gamin is +born a tiler as he is born a mariner. A roof inspires him with no more +fear than a mast. There is no festival which comes up to an execution +on the Place de Greve. Samson and the Abbe Montes are the truly popular +names. They hoot at the victim in order to encourage him. They sometimes +admire him. Lacenaire, when a gamin, on seeing the hideous Dautin die +bravely, uttered these words which contain a future: "I was jealous of +him." In the brotherhood of gamins Voltaire is not known, but Papavoine +is. "Politicians" are confused with assassins in the same legend. +They have a tradition as to everybody's last garment. It is known that +Tolleron had a fireman's cap, Avril an otter cap, Losvel a round hat, +that old Delaporte was bald and bare-headed, that Castaing was all ruddy +and very handsome, that Bories had a romantic small beard, that Jean +Martin kept on his suspenders, that Lecouffe and his mother quarrelled. +"Don't reproach each other for your basket," shouted a gamin to them. +Another, in order to get a look at Debacker as he passed, and being too +small in the crowd, caught sight of the lantern on the quay and climbed +it. A gendarme stationed opposite frowned. "Let me climb up, m'sieu le +gendarme," said the gamin. And, to soften the heart of the authorities +he added: "I will not fall." "I don't care if you do," retorted the +gendarme. + +In the brotherhood of gamins, a memorable accident counts for a great +deal. One reaches the height of consideration if one chances to cut +one's self very deeply, "to the very bone." + +The fist is no mediocre element of respect. One of the things that the +gamin is fondest of saying is: "I am fine and strong, come now!" To be +left-handed renders you very enviable. A squint is highly esteemed. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII--IN WHICH THE READER WILL FIND A CHARMING SAYING OF THE +LAST KING + +In summer, he metamorphoses himself into a frog; and in the evening, +when night is falling, in front of the bridges of Austerlitz and Jena, +from the tops of coal wagons, and the washerwomen's boats, he hurls +himself headlong into the Seine, and into all possible infractions of +the laws of modesty and of the police. Nevertheless the police keep an +eye on him, and the result is a highly dramatic situation which +once gave rise to a fraternal and memorable cry; that cry which was +celebrated about 1830, is a strategic warning from gamin to gamin; it +scans like a verse from Homer, with a notation as inexpressible as the +eleusiac chant of the Panathenaea, and in it one encounters again the +ancient Evohe. Here it is: "Ohe, Titi, oheee! Here comes the bobby, here +comes the p'lice, pick up your duds and be off, through the sewer with +you!" + +Sometimes this gnat--that is what he calls himself--knows how to read; +sometimes he knows how to write; he always knows how to daub. He +does not hesitate to acquire, by no one knows what mysterious mutual +instruction, all the talents which can be of use to the public; from +1815 to 1830, he imitated the cry of the turkey; from 1830 to 1848, he +scrawled pears on the walls. One summer evening, when Louis Philippe was +returning home on foot, he saw a little fellow, no higher than his knee, +perspiring and climbing up to draw a gigantic pear in charcoal on one +of the pillars of the gate of Neuilly; the King, with that good-nature +which came to him from Henry IV., helped the gamin, finished the pear, +and gave the child a louis, saying: "The pear is on that also."[19] +The gamin loves uproar. A certain state of violence pleases him. He +execrates "the cures." One day, in the Rue de l'Universite, one of these +scamps was putting his thumb to his nose at the carriage gate of No. +69. "Why are you doing that at the gate?" a passer-by asked. The boy +replied: "There is a cure there." It was there, in fact, that the Papal +Nuncio lived. + +Nevertheless, whatever may be the Voltairianism of the small gamin, if +the occasion to become a chorister presents itself, it is quite possible +that he will accept, and in that case he serves the mass civilly. There +are two things to which he plays Tantalus, and which he always desires +without ever attaining them: to overthrow the government, and to get his +trousers sewed up again. + +The gamin in his perfect state possesses all the policemen of Paris, and +can always put the name to the face of any one which he chances to +meet. He can tell them off on the tips of his fingers. He studies their +habits, and he has special notes on each one of them. He reads the souls +of the police like an open book. He will tell you fluently and without +flinching: "Such an one is a traitor; such another is very malicious; +such another is great; such another is ridiculous." (All these words: +traitor, malicious, great, ridiculous, have a particular meaning in his +mouth.) That one imagines that he owns the Pont-Neuf, and he prevents +people from walking on the cornice outside the parapet; that other has a +mania for pulling person's ears; etc., etc. + + + + +CHAPTER IX--THE OLD SOUL OF GAUL + +There was something of that boy in Poquelin, the son of the fish-market; +Beaumarchais had something of it. Gaminerie is a shade of the Gallic +spirit. Mingled with good sense, it sometimes adds force to the latter, +as alcohol does to wine. Sometimes it is a defect. Homer repeats himself +eternally, granted; one may say that Voltaire plays the gamin. Camille +Desmoulins was a native of the faubourgs. Championnet, who treated +miracles brutally, rose from the pavements of Paris; he had, when a +small lad, inundated the porticos of Saint-Jean de Beauvais, and of +Saint-Etienne du Mont; he had addressed the shrine of Sainte-Genevieve +familiarly to give orders to the phial of Saint Januarius. + +The gamin of Paris is respectful, ironical, and insolent. He has +villainous teeth, because he is badly fed and his stomach suffers, and +handsome eyes because he has wit. If Jehovah himself were present, he +would go hopping up the steps of paradise on one foot. He is strong on +boxing. All beliefs are possible to him. He plays in the gutter, and +straightens himself up with a revolt; his effrontery persists even in +the presence of grape-shot; he was a scapegrace, he is a hero; like the +little Theban, he shakes the skin from the lion; Barra the drummer-boy +was a gamin of Paris; he Shouts: "Forward!" as the horse of Scripture +says "Vah!" and in a moment he has passed from the small brat to the +giant. + +This child of the puddle is also the child of the ideal. Measure that +spread of wings which reaches from Moliere to Barra. + +To sum up the whole, and in one word, the gamin is a being who amuses +himself, because he is unhappy. + + + + +CHAPTER X--ECCE PARIS, ECCE HOMO + +To sum it all up once more, the Paris gamin of to-day, like the +graeculus of Rome in days gone by, is the infant populace with the +wrinkle of the old world on his brow. + +The gamin is a grace to the nation, and at the same time a disease; a +disease which must be cured, how? By light. + +Light renders healthy. + +Light kindles. + +All generous social irradiations spring from science, letters, arts, +education. Make men, make men. Give them light that they may warm +you. Sooner or later the splendid question of universal education will +present itself with the irresistible authority of the absolute truth; +and then, those who govern under the superintendence of the French idea +will have to make this choice; the children of France or the gamins of +Paris; flames in the light or will-o'-the-wisps in the gloom. + +The gamin expresses Paris, and Paris expresses the world. + +For Paris is a total. Paris is the ceiling of the human race. The whole +of this prodigious city is a foreshortening of dead manners and living +manners. He who sees Paris thinks he sees the bottom of all history with +heaven and constellations in the intervals. Paris has a capital, the +Town-Hall, a Parthenon, Notre-Dame, a Mount Aventine, the Faubourg +Saint-Antoine, an Asinarium, the Sorbonne, a Pantheon, the Pantheon, a +Via Sacra, the Boulevard des Italiens, a temple of the winds, opinion; +and it replaces the Gemoniae by ridicule. Its majo is called "faraud," +its Transteverin is the man of the faubourgs, its hammal is the +market-porter, its lazzarone is the pegre, its cockney is the native of +Ghent. Everything that exists elsewhere exists at Paris. The fishwoman +of Dumarsais can retort on the herb-seller of Euripides, the +discobols Vejanus lives again in the Forioso, the tight-rope dancer. +Therapontigonus Miles could walk arm in arm with Vadeboncoeur the +grenadier, Damasippus the second-hand dealer would be happy among +bric-a-brac merchants, Vincennes could grasp Socrates in its fist as +just as Agora could imprison Diderot, Grimod de la Reyniere discovered +larded roast beef, as Curtillus invented roast hedgehog, we see the +trapeze which figures in Plautus reappear under the vault of the Arc +of l'Etoile, the sword-eater of Poecilus encountered by Apuleius is a +sword-swallower on the Pont Neuf, the nephew of Rameau and Curculio +the parasite make a pair, Ergasilus could get himself presented to +Cambaceres by d'Aigrefeuille; the four dandies of Rome: Alcesimarchus, +Phoedromus, Diabolus, and Argyrippus, descend from Courtille in +Labatut's posting-chaise; Aulus Gellius would halt no longer in front of +Congrio than would Charles Nodier in front of Punchinello; Marto is not +a tigress, but Pardalisca was not a dragon; Pantolabus the wag jeers in +the Cafe Anglais at Nomentanus the fast liver, Hermogenus is a tenor +in the Champs-Elysees, and round him, Thracius the beggar, clad like +Bobeche, takes up a collection; the bore who stops you by the button +of your coat in the Tuileries makes you repeat after a lapse of two +thousand years Thesprion's apostrophe: Quis properantem me prehendit +pallio? The wine on Surene is a parody of the wine of Alba, the red +border of Desaugiers forms a balance to the great cutting of Balatro, +Pere Lachaise exhales beneath nocturnal rains same gleams as the +Esquiliae, and the grave of the poor bought for five years, is certainly +the equivalent of the slave's hived coffin. + +Seek something that Paris has not. The vat of Trophonius contains +nothing that is not in Mesmer's tub; Ergaphilas lives again in +Cagliostro; the Brahmin Vasaphanta become incarnate in the Comte de +Saint-Germain; the cemetery of Saint-Medard works quite as good miracles +as the Mosque of Oumoumie at Damascus. + +Paris has an AEsop-Mayeux, and a Canidia, Mademoiselle Lenormand. It is +terrified, like Delphos at the fulgurating realities of the vision; it +makes tables turn as Dodona did tripods. It places the grisette on the +throne, as Rome placed the courtesan there; and, taking it altogether, +if Louis XV. is worse than Claudian, Madame Dubarry is better than +Messalina. Paris combines in an unprecedented type, which has existed +and which we have elbowed, Grecian nudity, the Hebraic ulcer, and the +Gascon pun. It mingles Diogenes, Job, and Jack-pudding, dresses up a +spectre in old numbers of the Constitutional, and makes Chodruc Duclos. + +Although Plutarch says: the tyrant never grows old, Rome, under Sylla as +under Domitian, resigned itself and willingly put water in its wine. The +Tiber was a Lethe, if the rather doctrinary eulogium made of it by Varus +Vibiscus is to be credited: Contra Gracchos Tiberim habemus, Bibere +Tiberim, id est seditionem oblivisci. Paris drinks a million litres of +water a day, but that does not prevent it from occasionally beating the +general alarm and ringing the tocsin. + +With that exception, Paris is amiable. It accepts everything royally; +it is not too particular about its Venus; its Callipyge is Hottentot; +provided that it is made to laugh, it condones; ugliness cheers it, +deformity provokes it to laughter, vice diverts it; be eccentric and +you may be an eccentric; even hypocrisy, that supreme cynicism, does +not disgust it; it is so literary that it does not hold its nose before +Basile, and is no more scandalized by the prayer of Tartuffe than Horace +was repelled by the "hiccup" of Priapus. No trait of the universal face +is lacking in the profile of Paris. The bal Mabile is not the polymnia +dance of the Janiculum, but the dealer in ladies' wearing apparel there +devours the lorette with her eyes, exactly as the procuress Staphyla +lay in wait for the virgin Planesium. The Barriere du Combat is not +the Coliseum, but people are as ferocious there as though Caesar were +looking on. The Syrian hostess has more grace than Mother Saguet, +but, if Virgil haunted the Roman wine-shop, David d'Angers, Balzac +and Charlet have sat at the tables of Parisian taverns. Paris reigns. +Geniuses flash forth there, the red tails prosper there. Adonai passes +on his chariot with its twelve wheels of thunder and lightning; Silenus +makes his entry there on his ass. For Silenus read Ramponneau. + +Paris is the synonym of Cosmos, Paris is Athens, Sybaris, Jerusalem, +Pantin. All civilizations are there in an abridged form, all barbarisms +also. Paris would greatly regret it if it had not a guillotine. + +A little of the Place de Greve is a good thing. What would all that +eternal festival be without this seasoning? Our laws are wisely +provided, and thanks to them, this blade drips on this Shrove Tuesday. + + + + +CHAPTER XI--TO SCOFF, TO REIGN + +There is no limit to Paris. No city has had that domination which +sometimes derides those whom it subjugates. To please you, O Athenians! +exclaimed Alexander. Paris makes more than the law, it makes the +fashion; Paris sets more than the fashion, it sets the routine. Paris +may be stupid, if it sees fit; it sometimes allows itself this luxury; +then the universe is stupid in company with it; then Paris awakes, rubs +its eyes, says: "How stupid I am!" and bursts out laughing in the face +of the human race. What a marvel is such a city! it is a strange thing +that this grandioseness and this burlesque should be amicable neighbors, +that all this majesty should not be thrown into disorder by all this +parody, and that the same mouth can to-day blow into the trump of the +Judgment Day, and to-morrow into the reed-flute! Paris has a sovereign +joviality. Its gayety is of the thunder and its farce holds a sceptre. + +Its tempest sometimes proceeds from a grimace. Its explosions, its days, +its masterpieces, its prodigies, its epics, go forth to the bounds of +the universe, and so also do its cock-and-bull stories. Its laugh is the +mouth of a volcano which spatters the whole earth. Its jests are sparks. +It imposes its caricatures as well as its ideal on people; the highest +monuments of human civilization accept its ironies and lend their +eternity to its mischievous pranks. It is superb; it has a prodigious +14th of July, which delivers the globe; it forces all nations to take +the oath of tennis; its night of the 4th of August dissolves in three +hours a thousand years of feudalism; it makes of its logic the muscle +of unanimous will; it multiplies itself under all sorts of forms of +the sublime; it fills with its light Washington, Kosciusko, Bolivar, +Bozzaris, Riego, Bem, Manin, Lopez, John Brown, Garibaldi; it is +everywhere where the future is being lighted up, at Boston in 1779, +at the Isle de Leon in 1820, at Pesth in 1848, at Palermo in 1860, it +whispers the mighty countersign: Liberty, in the ear of the American +abolitionists grouped about the boat at Harper's Ferry, and in the ear +of the patriots of Ancona assembled in the shadow, to the Archi before +the Gozzi inn on the seashore; it creates Canaris; it creates Quiroga; +it creates Pisacane; it irradiates the great on earth; it was while +proceeding whither its breath urge them, that Byron perished at +Missolonghi, and that Mazet died at Barcelona; it is the tribune under +the feet of Mirabeau, and a crater under the feet of Robespierre; +its books, its theatre, its art, its science, its literature, its +philosophy, are the manuals of the human race; it has Pascal, Regnier, +Corneille, Descartes, Jean-Jacques: Voltaire for all moments, Moliere +for all centuries; it makes its language to be talked by the universal +mouth, and that language becomes the word; it constructs in all minds +the idea of progress, the liberating dogmas which it forges are for the +generations trusty friends, and it is with the soul of its thinkers and +its poets that all heroes of all nations have been made since 1789; this +does not prevent vagabondism, and that enormous genius which is called +Paris, while transfiguring the world by its light, sketches in charcoal +Bouginier's nose on the wall of the temple of Theseus and writes +Credeville the thief on the Pyramids. + +Paris is always showing its teeth; when it is not scolding it is +laughing. + +Such is Paris. The smoke of its roofs forms the ideas of the universe. A +heap of mud and stone, if you will, but, above all, a moral being. It is +more than great, it is immense. Why? Because it is daring. + +To dare; that is the price of progress. + +All sublime conquests are, more or less, the prizes of daring. In +order that the Revolution should take place, it does not suffice that +Montesquieu should foresee it, that Diderot should preach it, that +Beaumarchais should announce it, that Condorcet should calculate it, +that Arouet should prepare it, that Rousseau should premeditate it; it +is necessary that Danton should dare it. + +The cry: Audacity! is a Fiat lux. It is necessary, for the sake of the +forward march of the human race, that there should be proud lessons of +courage permanently on the heights. Daring deeds dazzle history and are +one of man's great sources of light. The dawn dares when it rises. To +attempt, to brave, to persist, to persevere, to be faithful to one's +self, to grasp fate bodily, to astound catastrophe by the small amount +of fear that it occasions us, now to affront unjust power, again to +insult drunken victory, to hold one's position, to stand one's ground; +that is the example which nations need, that is the light which +electrifies them. The same formidable lightning proceeds from the torch +of Prometheus to Cambronne's short pipe. + + + + +CHAPTER XII--THE FUTURE LATENT IN THE PEOPLE + +As for the Parisian populace, even when a man grown, it is always the +street Arab; to paint the child is to paint the city; and it is for that +reason that we have studied this eagle in this arrant sparrow. It is in +the faubourgs, above all, we maintain, that the Parisian race appears; +there is the pure blood; there is the true physiognomy; there this +people toils and suffers, and suffering and toil are the two faces of +man. There exist there immense numbers of unknown beings, among whom +swarm types of the strangest, from the porter of la Rapee to the knacker +of Montfaucon. Fex urbis, exclaims Cicero; mob, adds Burke, indignantly; +rabble, multitude, populace. These are words and quickly uttered. But +so be it. What does it matter? What is it to me if they do go barefoot! +They do not know how to read; so much the worse. Would you abandon them +for that? Would you turn their distress into a malediction? Cannot the +light penetrate these masses? Let us return to that cry: Light! and let +us obstinately persist therein! Light! Light! Who knows whether +these opacities will not become transparent? Are not revolutions +transfigurations? Come, philosophers, teach, enlighten, light up, think +aloud, speak aloud, hasten joyously to the great sun, fraternize with +the public place, announce the good news, spend your alphabets lavishly, +proclaim rights, sing the Marseillaises, sow enthusiasms, tear green +boughs from the oaks. Make a whirlwind of the idea. This crowd may +be rendered sublime. Let us learn how to make use of that vast +conflagration of principles and virtues, which sparkles, bursts forth +and quivers at certain hours. These bare feet, these bare arms, these +rags, these ignorances, these abjectnesses, these darknesses, may be +employed in the conquest of the ideal. Gaze past the people, and you +will perceive truth. Let that vile sand which you trample under foot be +cast into the furnace, let it melt and seethe there, it will become a +splendid crystal, and it is thanks to it that Galileo and Newton will +discover stars. + + + + +CHAPTER XIII--LITTLE GAVROCHE + +[Illustration: Little Gavroche 3b1-13-gavroche] + +Eight or nine years after the events narrated in the second part of this +story, people noticed on the Boulevard du Temple, and in the regions of +the Chateau-d'Eau, a little boy eleven or twelve years of age, who would +have realized with tolerable accuracy that ideal of the gamin sketched +out above, if, with the laugh of his age on his lips, he had not had a +heart absolutely sombre and empty. This child was well muffled up in a +pair of man's trousers, but he did not get them from his father, and a +woman's chemise, but he did not get it from his mother. Some people or +other had clothed him in rags out of charity. Still, he had a father and +a mother. But his father did not think of him, and his mother did not +love him. + +He was one of those children most deserving of pity, among all, one of +those who have father and mother, and who are orphans nevertheless. + +This child never felt so well as when he was in the street. The +pavements were less hard to him than his mother's heart. + +His parents had despatched him into life with a kick. + +He simply took flight. + +He was a boisterous, pallid, nimble, wide-awake, jeering, lad, with a +vivacious but sickly air. He went and came, sang, played at hopscotch, +scraped the gutters, stole a little, but, like cats and sparrows, gayly +laughed when he was called a rogue, and got angry when called a thief. +He had no shelter, no bread, no fire, no love; but he was merry because +he was free. + +When these poor creatures grow to be men, the millstones of the social +order meet them and crush them, but so long as they are children, they +escape because of their smallness. The tiniest hole saves them. + +Nevertheless, abandoned as this child was, it sometimes happened, every +two or three months, that he said, "Come, I'll go and see mamma!" Then +he quitted the boulevard, the Cirque, the Porte Saint-Martin, descended +to the quays, crossed the bridges, reached the suburbs, arrived at the +Salpetriere, and came to a halt, where? Precisely at that double number +50-52 with which the reader is acquainted--at the Gorbeau hovel. + +At that epoch, the hovel 50-52 generally deserted and eternally +decorated with the placard: "Chambers to let," chanced to be, a rare +thing, inhabited by numerous individuals who, however, as is always the +case in Paris, had no connection with each other. All belonged to +that indigent class which begins to separate from the lowest of petty +bourgeoisie in straitened circumstances, and which extends from misery +to misery into the lowest depths of society down to those two beings +in whom all the material things of civilization end, the sewer-man who +sweeps up the mud, and the ragpicker who collects scraps. + +The "principal lodger" of Jean Valjean's day was dead and had been +replaced by another exactly like her. I know not what philosopher has +said: "Old women are never lacking." + +This new old woman was named Madame Bourgon, and had nothing remarkable +about her life except a dynasty of three paroquets, who had reigned in +succession over her soul. + +The most miserable of those who inhabited the hovel were a family of +four persons, consisting of father, mother, and two daughters, already +well grown, all four of whom were lodged in the same attic, one of the +cells which we have already mentioned. + +At first sight, this family presented no very special feature except its +extreme destitution; the father, when he hired the chamber, had stated +that his name was Jondrette. Some time after his moving in, which had +borne a singular resemblance to the entrance of nothing at all, to +borrow the memorable expression of the principal tenant, this Jondrette +had said to the woman, who, like her predecessor, was at the same time +portress and stair-sweeper: "Mother So-and-So, if any one should chance +to come and inquire for a Pole or an Italian, or even a Spaniard, +perchance, it is I." + +This family was that of the merry barefoot boy. He arrived there and +found distress, and, what is still sadder, no smile; a cold hearth +and cold hearts. When he entered, he was asked: "Whence come you?" He +replied: "From the street." When he went away, they asked him: "Whither +are you going?" He replied: "Into the streets." His mother said to him: +"What did you come here for?" + +This child lived, in this absence of affection, like the pale plants +which spring up in cellars. It did not cause him suffering, and he +blamed no one. He did not know exactly how a father and mother should +be. + +Nevertheless, his mother loved his sisters. + +We have forgotten to mention, that on the Boulevard du Temple this child +was called Little Gavroche. Why was he called Little Gavroche? + +Probably because his father's name was Jondrette. + +It seems to be the instinct of certain wretched families to break the +thread. + +The chamber which the Jondrettes inhabited in the Gorbeau hovel was the +last at the end of the corridor. The cell next to it was occupied by a +very poor young man who was called M. Marius. + +Let us explain who this M. Marius was. + + + + +BOOK SECOND.--THE GREAT BOURGEOIS + + + + +CHAPTER I--NINETY YEARS AND THIRTY-TWO TEETH + +In the Rue Boucherat, Rue de Normandie and the Rue de Saintonge there +still exist a few ancient inhabitants who have preserved the memory of a +worthy man named M. Gillenormand, and who mention him with complaisance. +This good man was old when they were young. This silhouette has not yet +entirely disappeared--for those who regard with melancholy that vague +swarm of shadows which is called the past--from the labyrinth of streets +in the vicinity of the Temple to which, under Louis XIV., the names of +all the provinces of France were appended exactly as in our day, the +streets of the new Tivoli quarter have received the names of all the +capitals of Europe; a progression, by the way, in which progress is +visible. + +M.Gillenormand, who was as much alive as possible in 1831, was one of +those men who had become curiosities to be viewed, simply because +they have lived a long time, and who are strange because they formerly +resembled everybody, and now resemble nobody. He was a peculiar old man, +and in very truth, a man of another age, the real, complete and rather +haughty bourgeois of the eighteenth century, who wore his good, old +bourgeoisie with the air with which marquises wear their marquisates. He +was over ninety years of age, his walk was erect, he talked loudly, saw +clearly, drank neat, ate, slept, and snored. He had all thirty-two of +his teeth. He only wore spectacles when he read. He was of an amorous +disposition, but declared that, for the last ten years, he had wholly +and decidedly renounced women. He could no longer please, he said; he +did not add: "I am too old," but: "I am too poor." He said: "If I were +not ruined--Heee!" All he had left, in fact, was an income of about +fifteen thousand francs. His dream was to come into an inheritance and +to have a hundred thousand livres income for mistresses. He did +not belong, as the reader will perceive, to that puny variety of +octogenaries who, like M. de Voltaire, have been dying all their life; +his was no longevity of a cracked pot; this jovial old man had always +had good health. He was superficial, rapid, easily angered. He flew into +a passion at everything, generally quite contrary to all reason. When +contradicted, he raised his cane; he beat people as he had done in the +great century. He had a daughter over fifty years of age, and unmarried, +whom he chastised severely with his tongue, when in a rage, and whom he +would have liked to whip. She seemed to him to be eight years old. He +boxed his servants' ears soundly, and said: "Ah! carogne!" One of his +oaths was: "By the pantoufloche of the pantouflochade!" He had singular +freaks of tranquillity; he had himself shaved every day by a barber who +had been mad and who detested him, being jealous of M. Gillenormand on +account of his wife, a pretty and coquettish barberess. M. Gillenormand +admired his own discernment in all things, and declared that he was +extremely sagacious; here is one of his sayings: "I have, in truth, some +penetration; I am able to say when a flea bites me, from what woman it +came." + +The words which he uttered the most frequently were: the sensible man, +and nature. He did not give to this last word the grand acceptation +which our epoch has accorded to it, but he made it enter, after his own +fashion, into his little chimney-corner satires: "Nature," he said, "in +order that civilization may have a little of everything, gives it even +specimens of its amusing barbarism. Europe possesses specimens of Asia +and Africa on a small scale. The cat is a drawing-room tiger, the lizard +is a pocket crocodile. The dancers at the opera are pink female savages. +They do not eat men, they crunch them; or, magicians that they are, they +transform them into oysters and swallow them. The Caribbeans leave only +the bones, they leave only the shell. Such are our morals. We do not +devour, we gnaw; we do not exterminate, we claw." + + + + +CHAPTER II--LIKE MASTER, LIKE HOUSE + +He lived in the Marais, Rue des Filles-du-Calvaire, No. 6. He owned the +house. This house has since been demolished and rebuilt, and the number +has probably been changed in those revolutions of numeration which the +streets of Paris undergo. He occupied an ancient and vast apartment +on the first floor, between street and gardens, furnished to the very +ceilings with great Gobelins and Beauvais tapestries representing +pastoral scenes; the subjects of the ceilings and the panels were +repeated in miniature on the arm-chairs. He enveloped his bed in a vast, +nine-leaved screen of Coromandel lacquer. Long, full curtains hung from +the windows, and formed great, broken folds that were very magnificent. +The garden situated immediately under his windows was attached to that +one of them which formed the angle, by means of a staircase twelve or +fifteen steps long, which the old gentleman ascended and descended with +great agility. In addition to a library adjoining his chamber, he had a +boudoir of which he thought a great deal, a gallant and elegant retreat, +with magnificent hangings of straw, with a pattern of flowers and +fleurs-de-lys made on the galleys of Louis XIV. and ordered of his +convicts by M. de Vivonne for his mistress. M. Gillenormand had +inherited it from a grim maternal great-aunt, who had died a +centenarian. He had had two wives. His manners were something between +those of the courtier, which he had never been, and the lawyer, which +he might have been. He was gay, and caressing when he had a mind. In +his youth he had been one of those men who are always deceived by their +wives and never by their mistresses, because they are, at the same +time, the most sullen of husbands and the most charming of lovers in +existence. He was a connoisseur of painting. He had in his chamber a +marvellous portrait of no one knows whom, painted by Jordaens, executed +with great dashes of the brush, with millions of details, in a confused +and hap-hazard manner. M. Gillenormand's attire was not the habit of +Louis XIV. nor yet that of Louis XVI.; it was that of the Incroyables +of the Directory. He had thought himself young up to that period and +had followed the fashions. His coat was of light-weight cloth with +voluminous revers, a long swallow-tail and large steel buttons. With +this he wore knee-breeches and buckle shoes. He always thrust his hands +into his fobs. He said authoritatively: "The French Revolution is a heap +of blackguards." + + + + +CHAPTER III--LUC-ESPRIT + +At the age of sixteen, one evening at the opera, he had had the honor +to be stared at through opera-glasses by two beauties at the same +time--ripe and celebrated beauties then, and sung by Voltaire, the +Camargo and the Salle. Caught between two fires, he had beaten a heroic +retreat towards a little dancer, a young girl named Nahenry, who was +sixteen like himself, obscure as a cat, and with whom he was in love. +He abounded in memories. He was accustomed to exclaim: "How pretty she +was--that Guimard-Guimardini-Guimardinette, the last time I saw her +at Longchamps, her hair curled in sustained sentiments, with her +come-and-see of turquoises, her gown of the color of persons newly +arrived, and her little agitation muff!" He had worn in his young +manhood a waistcoat of Nain-Londrin, which he was fond of talking about +effusively. "I was dressed like a Turk of the Levant Levantin," said he. +Madame de Boufflers, having seen him by chance when he was twenty, had +described him as "a charming fool." He was horrified by all the names +which he saw in politics and in power, regarding them as vulgar and +bourgeois. He read the journals, the newspapers, the gazettes as he +said, stifling outbursts of laughter the while. "Oh!" he said, "what +people these are! Corbiere! Humann! Casimir Perier! There's a minister +for you! I can imagine this in a journal: 'M. Gillenorman, minister!' +that would be a farce. Well! They are so stupid that it would pass"; he +merrily called everything by its name, whether decent or indecent, and +did not restrain himself in the least before ladies. He uttered coarse +speeches, obscenities, and filth with a certain tranquillity and lack +of astonishment which was elegant. It was in keeping with the +unceremoniousness of his century. It is to be noted that the age of +periphrase in verse was the age of crudities in prose. His god-father +had predicted that he would turn out a man of genius, and had bestowed +on him these two significant names: Luc-Esprit. + + + + +CHAPTER IV--A CENTENARIAN ASPIRANT + +He had taken prizes in his boyhood at the College of Moulins, where he +was born, and he had been crowned by the hand of the Duc de Nivernais, +whom he called the Duc de Nevers. Neither the Convention, nor the death +of Louis XVI., nor the Napoleon, nor the return of the Bourbons, nor +anything else had been able to efface the memory of this crowning. The +Duc de Nevers was, in his eyes, the great figure of the century. "What a +charming grand seigneur," he said, "and what a fine air he had with his +blue ribbon!" + +In the eyes of M. Gillenormand, Catherine the Second had made reparation +for the crime of the partition of Poland by purchasing, for three +thousand roubles, the secret of the elixir of gold, from Bestucheff. He +grew animated on this subject: "The elixir of gold," he exclaimed, "the +yellow dye of Bestucheff, General Lamotte's drops, in the eighteenth +century,--this was the great remedy for the catastrophes of love, the +panacea against Venus, at one louis the half-ounce phial. Louis XV. +sent two hundred phials of it to the Pope." He would have been greatly +irritated and thrown off his balance, had any one told him that the +elixir of gold is nothing but the perchloride of iron. M. Gillenormand +adored the Bourbons, and had a horror of 1789; he was forever narrating +in what manner he had saved himself during the Terror, and how he had +been obliged to display a vast deal of gayety and cleverness in order to +escape having his head cut off. If any young man ventured to pronounce +an eulogium on the Republic in his presence, he turned purple and grew +so angry that he was on the point of swooning. He sometimes alluded to +his ninety years, and said, "I hope that I shall not see ninety-three +twice." On these occasions, he hinted to people that he meant to live to +be a hundred. + + + + +CHAPTER V--BASQUE AND NICOLETTE + +He had theories. Here is one of them: "When a man is passionately fond +of women, and when he has himself a wife for whom he cares but little, +who is homely, cross, legitimate, with plenty of rights, perched on the +code, and jealous at need, there is but one way of extricating himself +from the quandry and of procuring peace, and that is to let his wife +control the purse-strings. This abdication sets him free. Then his +wife busies herself, grows passionately fond of handling coin, gets her +fingers covered with verdigris in the process, undertakes the education +of half-share tenants and the training of farmers, convokes lawyers, +presides over notaries, harangues scriveners, visits limbs of the law, +follows lawsuits, draws up leases, dictates contracts, feels herself the +sovereign, sells, buys, regulates, promises and compromises, binds fast +and annuls, yields, concedes and retrocedes, arranges, disarranges, +hoards, lavishes; she commits follies, a supreme and personal delight, +and that consoles her. While her husband disdains her, she has the +satisfaction of ruining her husband." This theory M. Gillenormand had +himself applied, and it had become his history. His wife--the second +one--had administered his fortune in such a manner that, one fine day, +when M. Gillenormand found himself a widower, there remained to him just +sufficient to live on, by sinking nearly the whole of it in an annuity +of fifteen thousand francs, three-quarters of which would expire with +him. He had not hesitated on this point, not being anxious to leave +a property behind him. Besides, he had noticed that patrimonies are +subject to adventures, and, for instance, become national property; he +had been present at the avatars of consolidated three per cents, and he +had no great faith in the Great Book of the Public Debt. "All that's +the Rue Quincampois!" he said. His house in the Rue Filles-du-Clavaire +belonged to him, as we have already stated. He had two servants, "a male +and a female." When a servant entered his establishment, M. Gillenormand +re-baptized him. He bestowed on the men the name of their province: +Nimois, Comtois, Poitevin, Picard. His last valet was a big, foundered, +short-winded fellow of fifty-five, who was incapable of running twenty +paces; but, as he had been born at Bayonne, M. Gillenormand called him +Basque. All the female servants in his house were called Nicolette (even +the Magnon, of whom we shall hear more farther on). One day, a haughty +cook, a cordon bleu, of the lofty race of porters, presented herself. +"How much wages do you want a month?" asked M. Gillenormand. "Thirty +francs." "What is your name?" "Olympie." "You shall have fifty francs, +and you shall be called Nicolette." + + + + +CHAPTER VI--IN WHICH MAGNON AND HER TWO CHILDREN ARE SEEN + +With M. Gillenormand, sorrow was converted into wrath; he was furious at +being in despair. He had all sorts of prejudices and took all sorts +of liberties. One of the facts of which his exterior relief and his +internal satisfaction was composed, was, as we have just hinted, that he +had remained a brisk spark, and that he passed energetically for such. +This he called having "royal renown." This royal renown sometimes drew +down upon him singular windfalls. One day, there was brought to him in +a basket, as though it had been a basket of oysters, a stout, newly +born boy, who was yelling like the deuce, and duly wrapped in +swaddling-clothes, which a servant-maid, dismissed six months +previously, attributed to him. M. Gillenormand had, at that time, +fully completed his eighty-fourth year. Indignation and uproar in the +establishment. And whom did that bold hussy think she could persuade to +believe that? What audacity! What an abominable calumny! M. Gillenormand +himself was not at all enraged. He gazed at the brat with the amiable +smile of a good man who is flattered by the calumny, and said in an +aside: "Well, what now? What's the matter? You are finely taken aback, +and really, you are excessively ignorant. M. le Duc d'Angouleme, the +bastard of his Majesty Charles IX., married a silly jade of fifteen +when he was eighty-five; M. Virginal, Marquis d'Alluye, brother to +the Cardinal de Sourdis, Archbishop of Bordeaux, had, at the age of +eighty-three, by the maid of Madame la Presidente Jacquin, a son, a +real child of love, who became a Chevalier of Malta and a counsellor of +state; one of the great men of this century, the Abbe Tabaraud, is the +son of a man of eighty-seven. There is nothing out of the ordinary in +these things. And then, the Bible! Upon that I declare that this little +gentleman is none of mine. Let him be taken care of. It is not his +fault." This manner of procedure was good-tempered. The woman, whose +name was Magnon, sent him another parcel in the following year. It was a +boy again. Thereupon, M. Gillenormand capitulated. He sent the two brats +back to their mother, promising to pay eighty francs a month for their +maintenance, on the condition that the said mother would not do so any +more. He added: "I insist upon it that the mother shall treat them well. +I shall go to see them from time to time." And this he did. He had had +a brother who was a priest, and who had been rector of the Academy of +Poitiers for three and thirty years, and had died at seventy-nine. +"I lost him young," said he. This brother, of whom but little memory +remains, was a peaceable miser, who, being a priest, thought himself +bound to bestow alms on the poor whom he met, but he never gave them +anything except bad or demonetized sous, thereby discovering a means of +going to hell by way of paradise. As for M. Gillenormand the elder, he +never haggled over his alms-giving, but gave gladly and nobly. He was +kindly, abrupt, charitable, and if he had been rich, his turn of mind +would have been magnificent. He desired that all which concerned him +should be done in a grand manner, even his rogueries. One day, having +been cheated by a business man in a matter of inheritance, in a gross +and apparent manner, he uttered this solemn exclamation: "That was +indecently done! I am really ashamed of this pilfering. Everything has +degenerated in this century, even the rascals. Morbleu! this is not the +way to rob a man of my standing. I am robbed as though in a forest, but +badly robbed. Silva, sint consule dignae!" He had had two wives, as +we have already mentioned; by the first he had had a daughter, who had +remained unmarried, and by the second another daughter, who had died +at about the age of thirty, who had wedded, through love, or chance, +or otherwise, a soldier of fortune who had served in the armies of the +Republic and of the Empire, who had won the cross at Austerlitz and had +been made colonel at Waterloo. "He is the disgrace of my family," +said the old bourgeois. He took an immense amount of snuff, and had a +particularly graceful manner of plucking at his lace ruffle with the +back of one hand. He believed very little in God. + + + + +CHAPTER VII--RULE: RECEIVE NO ONE EXCEPT IN THE EVENING + +Such was M. Luc-Esprit Gillenormand, who had not lost his hair,--which +was gray rather than white,--and which was always dressed in "dog's +ears." To sum up, he was venerable in spite of all this. + +He had something of the eighteenth century about him; frivolous and +great. + +In 1814 and during the early years of the Restoration, M. Gillenormand, +who was still young,--he was only seventy-four,--lived in the Faubourg +Saint Germain, Rue Servandoni, near Saint-Sulpice. He had only retired +to the Marais when he quitted society, long after attaining the age of +eighty. + +And, on abandoning society, he had immured himself in his habits. The +principal one, and that which was invariable, was to keep his door +absolutely closed during the day, and never to receive any one whatever +except in the evening. He dined at five o'clock, and after that his door +was open. That had been the fashion of his century, and he would not +swerve from it. "The day is vulgar," said he, "and deserves only a +closed shutter. Fashionable people only light up their minds when the +zenith lights up its stars." And he barricaded himself against every +one, even had it been the king himself. This was the antiquated elegance +of his day. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII--TWO DO NOT MAKE A PAIR + +We have just spoken of M. Gillenormand's two daughters. They had come +into the world ten years apart. In their youth they had borne very +little resemblance to each other, either in character or countenance, +and had also been as little like sisters to each other as possible. The +youngest had a charming soul, which turned towards all that belongs to +the light, was occupied with flowers, with verses, with music, which +fluttered away into glorious space, enthusiastic, ethereal, and was +wedded from her very youth, in ideal, to a vague and heroic figure. The +elder had also her chimera; she espied in the azure some very wealthy +purveyor, a contractor, a splendidly stupid husband, a million made man, +or even a prefect; the receptions of the Prefecture, an usher in the +antechamber with a chain on his neck, official balls, the harangues +of the town-hall, to be "Madame la Prefete,"--all this had created a +whirlwind in her imagination. Thus the two sisters strayed, each in her +own dream, at the epoch when they were young girls. Both had wings, the +one like an angel, the other like a goose. + +No ambition is ever fully realized, here below at least. No paradise +becomes terrestrial in our day. The younger wedded the man of her +dreams, but she died. The elder did not marry at all. + +At the moment when she makes her entrance into this history which we are +relating, she was an antique virtue, an incombustible prude, with one of +the sharpest noses, and one of the most obtuse minds that it is possible +to see. A characteristic detail; outside of her immediate family, no one +had ever known her first name. She was called Mademoiselle Gillenormand, +the elder. + +In the matter of cant, Mademoiselle Gillenormand could have given points +to a miss. Her modesty was carried to the other extreme of blackness. +She cherished a frightful memory of her life; one day, a man had beheld +her garter. + +Age had only served to accentuate this pitiless modesty. Her guimpe was +never sufficiently opaque, and never ascended sufficiently high. She +multiplied clasps and pins where no one would have dreamed of looking. +The peculiarity of prudery is to place all the more sentinels in +proportion as the fortress is the less menaced. + +Nevertheless, let him who can explain these antique mysteries of +innocence, she allowed an officer of the Lancers, her grand nephew, +named Theodule, to embrace her without displeasure. + +In spite of this favored Lancer, the label: Prude, under which we +have classed her, suited her to absolute perfection. Mademoiselle +Gillenormand was a sort of twilight soul. Prudery is a demi-virtue and a +demi-vice. + +To prudery she added bigotry, a well-assorted lining. She belonged +to the society of the Virgin, wore a white veil on certain festivals, +mumbled special orisons, revered "the holy blood," venerated "the sacred +heart," remained for hours in contemplation before a rococo-jesuit altar +in a chapel which was inaccessible to the rank and file of the faithful, +and there allowed her soul to soar among little clouds of marble, and +through great rays of gilded wood. + +She had a chapel friend, an ancient virgin like herself, named +Mademoiselle Vaubois, who was a positive blockhead, and beside whom +Mademoiselle Gillenormand had the pleasure of being an eagle. Beyond +the Agnus Dei and Ave Maria, Mademoiselle Vaubois had no knowledge of +anything except of the different ways of making preserves. Mademoiselle +Vaubois, perfect in her style, was the ermine of stupidity without a +single spot of intelligence. + +Let us say it plainly, Mademoiselle Gillenormand had gained rather than +lost as she grew older. This is the case with passive natures. She had +never been malicious, which is relative kindness; and then, years wear +away the angles, and the softening which comes with time had come to +her. She was melancholy with an obscure sadness of which she did not +herself know the secret. There breathed from her whole person the stupor +of a life that was finished, and which had never had a beginning. + +She kept house for her father. M. Gillenormand had his daughter near +him, as we have seen that Monseigneur Bienvenu had his sister with him. +These households comprised of an old man and an old spinster are not +rare, and always have the touching aspect of two weaknesses leaning on +each other for support. + +There was also in this house, between this elderly spinster and this +old man, a child, a little boy, who was always trembling and mute in the +presence of M. Gillenormand. M. Gillenormand never addressed this child +except in a severe voice, and sometimes, with uplifted cane: "Here, sir! +rascal, scoundrel, come here!--Answer me, you scamp! Just let me see +you, you good-for-nothing!" etc., etc. He idolized him. + +This was his grandson. We shall meet with this child again later on. + + + + +BOOK THIRD.--THE GRANDFATHER AND THE GRANDSON + + + + +CHAPTER I--AN ANCIENT SALON + +When M. Gillenormand lived in the Rue Servandoni, he had frequented +many very good and very aristocratic salons. Although a bourgeois, M. +Gillenormand was received in society. As he had a double measure of wit, +in the first place, that which was born with him, and secondly, that +which was attributed to him, he was even sought out and made much of. He +never went anywhere except on condition of being the chief person there. +There are people who will have influence at any price, and who will have +other people busy themselves over them; when they cannot be oracles, +they turn wags. M. Gillenormand was not of this nature; his domination +in the Royalist salons which he frequented cost his self-respect +nothing. He was an oracle everywhere. It had happened to him to hold his +own against M. de Bonald, and even against M. Bengy-Puy-Vallee. + +About 1817, he invariably passed two afternoons a week in a house in +his own neighborhood, in the Rue Ferou, with Madame la Baronne de T., +a worthy and respectable person, whose husband had been Ambassador of +France to Berlin under Louis XVI. Baron de T., who, during his lifetime, +had gone very passionately into ecstasies and magnetic visions, had died +bankrupt, during the emigration, leaving, as his entire fortune, +some very curious Memoirs about Mesmer and his tub, in ten manuscript +volumes, bound in red morocco and gilded on the edges. Madame de T. had +not published the memoirs, out of pride, and maintained herself on a +meagre income which had survived no one knew how. + +Madame de T. lived far from the Court; "a very mixed society," as she +said, in a noble isolation, proud and poor. A few friends assembled +twice a week about her widowed hearth, and these constituted a purely +Royalist salon. They sipped tea there, and uttered groans or cries of +horror at the century, the charter, the Bonapartists, the prostitution +of the blue ribbon, or the Jacobinism of Louis XVIII., according as the +wind veered towards elegy or dithyrambs; and they spoke in low tones of +the hopes which were presented by Monsieur, afterwards Charles X. + +The songs of the fishwomen, in which Napoleon was called Nicolas, were +received there with transports of joy. Duchesses, the most delicate and +charming women in the world, went into ecstasies over couplets like the +following, addressed to "the federates":-- + + Refoncez dans vos culottes[20] + Le bout d' chemis' qui vous pend. + Qu'on n' dis' pas qu' les patriotes + Ont arbore l' drapeau blanc? + +There they amused themselves with puns which were considered terrible, +with innocent plays upon words which they supposed to be venomous, with +quatrains, with distiches even; thus, upon the Dessolles ministry, a +moderate cabinet, of which MM. Decazes and Deserre were members:-- + + Pour raffermir le trone ebranle sur sa base,[21] + Il faut changer de sol, et de serre et de case. + +Or they drew up a list of the chamber of peers, "an abominably Jacobin +chamber," and from this list they combined alliances of names, in such +a manner as to form, for example, phrases like the following: Damas. +Sabran. Gouvion-Saint-Cyr.--All this was done merrily. In that society, +they parodied the Revolution. They used I know not what desires to give +point to the same wrath in inverse sense. They sang their little Ca +ira:-- + + Ah! ca ira ca ira ca ira! + Les Bonapartistes a la lanterne! + +Songs are like the guillotine; they chop away indifferently, to-day this +head, to-morrow that. It is only a variation. + +In the Fualdes affair, which belongs to this epoch, 1816, they took +part for Bastide and Jausion, because Fualdes was "a Buonapartist." They +designated the liberals as friends and brothers; this constituted the +most deadly insult. + +Like certain church towers, Madame de T.'s salon had two cocks. One of +them was M. Gillenormand, the other was Comte de Lamothe-Valois, of whom +it was whispered about, with a sort of respect: "Do you know? That is +the Lamothe of the affair of the necklace." These singular amnesties do +occur in parties. + +Let us add the following: in the bourgeoisie, honored situations decay +through too easy relations; one must beware whom one admits; in the same +way that there is a loss of caloric in the vicinity of those who are +cold, there is a diminution of consideration in the approach of despised +persons. The ancient society of the upper classes held themselves above +this law, as above every other. Marigny, the brother of the Pompadour, +had his entry with M. le Prince de Soubise. In spite of? No, because. Du +Barry, the god-father of the Vaubernier, was very welcome at the house +of M. le Marechal de Richelieu. This society is Olympus. Mercury and +the Prince de Guemenee are at home there. A thief is admitted there, +provided he be a god. + +The Comte de Lamothe, who, in 1815, was an old man seventy-five years of +age, had nothing remarkable about him except his silent and sententious +air, his cold and angular face, his perfectly polished manners, his coat +buttoned up to his cravat, and his long legs always crossed in long, +flabby trousers of the hue of burnt sienna. His face was the same color +as his trousers. + +This M. de Lamothe was "held in consideration" in this salon on account +of his "celebrity" and, strange to say, though true, because of his name +of Valois. + +As for M. Gillenormand, his consideration was of absolutely first-rate +quality. He had, in spite of his levity, and without its interfering in +any way with his dignity, a certain manner about him which was imposing, +dignified, honest, and lofty, in a bourgeois fashion; and his great +age added to it. One is not a century with impunity. The years finally +produce around a head a venerable dishevelment. + +In addition to this, he said things which had the genuine sparkle of the +old rock. Thus, when the King of Prussia, after having restored Louis +XVIII., came to pay the latter a visit under the name of the Count de +Ruppin, he was received by the descendant of Louis XIV. somewhat +as though he had been the Marquis de Brandebourg, and with the most +delicate impertinence. M. Gillenormand approved: "All kings who are +not the King of France," said he, "are provincial kings." One day, the +following question was put and the following answer returned in his +presence: "To what was the editor of the Courrier Francais condemned?" +"To be suspended." "Sus is superfluous," observed M. Gillenormand.[22] +Remarks of this nature found a situation. + +At the Te Deum on the anniversary of the return of the Bourbons, he +said, on seeing M. de Talleyrand pass by: "There goes his Excellency the +Evil One." + +M. Gillenormand was always accompanied by his daughter, that tall +mademoiselle, who was over forty and looked fifty, and by a handsome +little boy of seven years, white, rosy, fresh, with happy and trusting +eyes, who never appeared in that salon without hearing voices murmur +around him: "How handsome he is! What a pity! Poor child!" This child +was the one of whom we dropped a word a while ago. He was called "poor +child," because he had for a father "a brigand of the Loire." + +This brigand of the Loire was M. Gillenormand's son-in-law, who has +already been mentioned, and whom M. Gillenormand called "the disgrace of +his family." + + + + +CHAPTER II--ONE OF THE RED SPECTRES OF THAT EPOCH + +Any one who had chanced to pass through the little town of Vernon at +this epoch, and who had happened to walk across that fine monumental +bridge, which will soon be succeeded, let us hope, by some hideous iron +cable bridge, might have observed, had he dropped his eyes over the +parapet, a man about fifty years of age wearing a leather cap, and +trousers and a waistcoat of coarse gray cloth, to which something yellow +which had been a red ribbon, was sewn, shod with wooden sabots, tanned +by the sun, his face nearly black and his hair nearly white, a large +scar on his forehead which ran down upon his cheek, bowed, bent, +prematurely aged, who walked nearly every day, hoe and sickle in hand, +in one of those compartments surrounded by walls which abut on the +bridge, and border the left bank of the Seine like a chain of terraces, +charming enclosures full of flowers of which one could say, were they +much larger: "these are gardens," and were they a little smaller: "these +are bouquets." All these enclosures abut upon the river at one end, and +on a house at the other. The man in the waistcoat and the wooden shoes +of whom we have just spoken, inhabited the smallest of these enclosures +and the most humble of these houses about 1817. He lived there alone and +solitary, silently and poorly, with a woman who was neither young nor +old, neither homely nor pretty, neither a peasant nor a bourgeoise, who +served him. The plot of earth which he called his garden was celebrated +in the town for the beauty of the flowers which he cultivated there. +These flowers were his occupation. + +By dint of labor, of perseverance, of attention, and of buckets of +water, he had succeeded in creating after the Creator, and he had +invented certain tulips and certain dahlias which seemed to have been +forgotten by nature. He was ingenious; he had forestalled Soulange +Bodin in the formation of little clumps of earth of heath mould, for the +cultivation of rare and precious shrubs from America and China. He +was in his alleys from the break of day, in summer, planting, cutting, +hoeing, watering, walking amid his flowers with an air of kindness, +sadness, and sweetness, sometimes standing motionless and thoughtful +for hours, listening to the song of a bird in the trees, the babble of a +child in a house, or with his eyes fixed on a drop of dew at the tip of +a spear of grass, of which the sun made a carbuncle. His table was very +plain, and he drank more milk than wine. A child could make him give +way, and his servant scolded him. He was so timid that he seemed shy, he +rarely went out, and he saw no one but the poor people who tapped at his +pane and his cure, the Abbe Mabeuf, a good old man. Nevertheless, if the +inhabitants of the town, or strangers, or any chance comers, curious to +see his tulips, rang at his little cottage, he opened his door with a +smile. He was the "brigand of the Loire." + +Any one who had, at the same time, read military memoirs, biographies, +the Moniteur, and the bulletins of the grand army, would have been +struck by a name which occurs there with tolerable frequency, the name +of Georges Pontmercy. When very young, this Georges Pontmercy had been +a soldier in Saintonge's regiment. The revolution broke out. Saintonge's +regiment formed a part of the army of the Rhine; for the old regiments +of the monarchy preserved their names of provinces even after the fall +of the monarchy, and were only divided into brigades in 1794. Pontmercy +fought at Spire, at Worms, at Neustadt, at Turkheim, at Alzey, at +Mayence, where he was one of the two hundred who formed Houchard's +rearguard. It was the twelfth to hold its ground against the corps +of the Prince of Hesse, behind the old rampart of Andernach, and only +rejoined the main body of the army when the enemy's cannon had opened +a breach from the cord of the parapet to the foot of the glacis. He was +under Kleber at Marchiennes and at the battle of Mont-Palissel, where +a ball from a biscaien broke his arm. Then he passed to the frontier +of Italy, and was one of the thirty grenadiers who defended the Col +de Tende with Joubert. Joubert was appointed its adjutant-general, and +Pontmercy sub-lieutenant. Pontmercy was by Berthier's side in the midst +of the grape-shot of that day at Lodi which caused Bonaparte to say: +"Berthier has been cannoneer, cavalier, and grenadier." He beheld his +old general, Joubert, fall at Novi, at the moment when, with uplifted +sabre, he was shouting: "Forward!" Having been embarked with his +company in the exigencies of the campaign, on board a pinnace which was +proceeding from Genoa to some obscure port on the coast, he fell into +a wasps'-nest of seven or eight English vessels. The Genoese commander +wanted to throw his cannon into the sea, to hide the soldiers between +decks, and to slip along in the dark as a merchant vessel. Pontmercy had +the colors hoisted to the peak, and sailed proudly past under the guns +of the British frigates. Twenty leagues further on, his audacity having +increased, he attacked with his pinnace, and captured a large English +transport which was carrying troops to Sicily, and which was so loaded +down with men and horses that the vessel was sunk to the level of the +sea. In 1805 he was in that Malher division which took Gunzberg from the +Archduke Ferdinand. At Weltingen he received into his arms, beneath a +storm of bullets, Colonel Maupetit, mortally wounded at the head of the +9th Dragoons. He distinguished himself at Austerlitz in that admirable +march in echelons effected under the enemy's fire. When the cavalry of +the Imperial Russian Guard crushed a battalion of the 4th of the line, +Pontmercy was one of those who took their revenge and overthrew the +Guard. The Emperor gave him the cross. Pontmercy saw Wurmser at Mantua, +Melas, and Alexandria, Mack at Ulm, made prisoners in succession. +He formed a part of the eighth corps of the grand army which Mortier +commanded, and which captured Hamburg. Then he was transferred to the +55th of the line, which was the old regiment of Flanders. At Eylau +he was in the cemetery where, for the space of two hours, the heroic +Captain Louis Hugo, the uncle of the author of this book, sustained +alone with his company of eighty-three men every effort of the hostile +army. Pontmercy was one of the three who emerged alive from that +cemetery. He was at Friedland. Then he saw Moscow. Then La Beresina, +then Lutzen, Bautzen, Dresden, Wachau, Leipzig, and the defiles of +Gelenhausen; then Montmirail, Chateau-Thierry, Craon, the banks of the +Marne, the banks of the Aisne, and the redoubtable position of Laon. At +Arnay-Le-Duc, being then a captain, he put ten Cossacks to the sword, +and saved, not his general, but his corporal. He was well slashed up on +this occasion, and twenty-seven splinters were extracted from his left +arm alone. Eight days before the capitulation of Paris he had just +exchanged with a comrade and entered the cavalry. He had what was called +under the old regime, the double hand, that is to say, an equal aptitude +for handling the sabre or the musket as a soldier, or a squadron or +a battalion as an officer. It is from this aptitude, perfected by a +military education, which certain special branches of the service arise, +the dragoons, for example, who are both cavalry-men and infantry at one +and the same time. He accompanied Napoleon to the Island of Elba. At +Waterloo, he was chief of a squadron of cuirassiers, in Dubois' brigade. +It was he who captured the standard of the Lunenburg battalion. He came +and cast the flag at the Emperor's feet. He was covered with blood. +While tearing down the banner he had received a sword-cut across his +face. The Emperor, greatly pleased, shouted to him: "You are a colonel, +you are a baron, you are an officer of the Legion of Honor!" Pontmercy +replied: "Sire, I thank you for my widow." An hour later, he fell in the +ravine of Ohain. Now, who was this Georges Pontmercy? He was this same +"brigand of the Loire." + +We have already seen something of his history. After Waterloo, +Pontmercy, who had been pulled out of the hollow road of Ohain, as it +will be remembered, had succeeded in joining the army, and had dragged +himself from ambulance to ambulance as far as the cantonments of the +Loire. + +The Restoration had placed him on half-pay, then had sent him into +residence, that is to say, under surveillance, at Vernon. King Louis +XVIII., regarding all that which had taken place during the Hundred +Days as not having occurred at all, did not recognize his quality as an +officer of the Legion of Honor, nor his grade of colonel, nor his title +of baron. He, on his side, neglected no occasion of signing himself +"Colonel Baron Pontmercy." He had only an old blue coat, and he never +went out without fastening to it his rosette as an officer of the Legion +of Honor. The Attorney for the Crown had him warned that the authorities +would prosecute him for "illegal" wearing of this decoration. When this +notice was conveyed to him through an officious intermediary, Pontmercy +retorted with a bitter smile: "I do not know whether I no longer +understand French, or whether you no longer speak it; but the fact is +that I do not understand." Then he went out for eight successive days +with his rosette. They dared not interfere with him. Two or three times +the Minister of War and the general in command of the department wrote +to him with the following address: "A Monsieur le Commandant Pontmercy." +He sent back the letters with the seals unbroken. At the same moment, +Napoleon at Saint Helena was treating in the same fashion the missives +of Sir Hudson Lowe addressed to General Bonaparte. Pontmercy had ended, +may we be pardoned the expression, by having in his mouth the same +saliva as his Emperor. + +In the same way, there were at Rome Carthaginian prisoners who refused +to salute Flaminius, and who had a little of Hannibal's spirit. + +One day he encountered the district-attorney in one of the streets of +Vernon, stepped up to him, and said: "Mr. Crown Attorney, am I permitted +to wear my scar?" + +He had nothing save his meagre half-pay as chief of squadron. He had +hired the smallest house which he could find at Vernon. He lived there +alone, we have just seen how. Under the Empire, between two wars, he +had found time to marry Mademoiselle Gillenormand. The old bourgeois, +thoroughly indignant at bottom, had given his consent with a sigh, +saying: "The greatest families are forced into it." In 1815, Madame +Pontmercy, an admirable woman in every sense, by the way, lofty in +sentiment and rare, and worthy of her husband, died, leaving a +child. This child had been the colonel's joy in his solitude; but the +grandfather had imperatively claimed his grandson, declaring that if +the child were not given to him he would disinherit him. The father had +yielded in the little one's interest, and had transferred his love to +flowers. + +Moreover, he had renounced everything, and neither stirred up mischief +nor conspired. He shared his thoughts between the innocent things which +he was then doing and the great things which he had done. He passed his +time in expecting a pink or in recalling Austerlitz. + +M. Gillenormand kept up no relations with his son-in-law. The colonel +was "a bandit" to him. M. Gillenormand never mentioned the colonel, +except when he occasionally made mocking allusions to "his Baronship." +It had been expressly agreed that Pontmercy should never attempt to see +his son nor to speak to him, under penalty of having the latter handed +over to him disowned and disinherited. For the Gillenormands, Pontmercy +was a man afflicted with the plague. They intended to bring up the +child in their own way. Perhaps the colonel was wrong to accept these +conditions, but he submitted to them, thinking that he was doing right +and sacrificing no one but himself. + +The inheritance of Father Gillenormand did not amount to much; but the +inheritance of Mademoiselle Gillenormand the elder was considerable. +This aunt, who had remained unmarried, was very rich on the maternal +side, and her sister's son was her natural heir. The boy, whose name was +Marius, knew that he had a father, but nothing more. No one opened +his mouth to him about it. Nevertheless, in the society into which his +grandfather took him, whispers, innuendoes, and winks, had eventually +enlightened the little boy's mind; he had finally understood something +of the case, and as he naturally took in the ideas and opinions which +were, so to speak, the air he breathed, by a sort of infiltration and +slow penetration, he gradually came to think of his father only with +shame and with a pain at his heart. + +While he was growing up in this fashion, the colonel slipped away every +two or three months, came to Paris on the sly, like a criminal breaking +his ban, and went and posted himself at Saint-Sulpice, at the hour when +Aunt Gillenormand led Marius to the mass. There, trembling lest the aunt +should turn round, concealed behind a pillar, motionless, not daring to +breathe, he gazed at his child. The scarred veteran was afraid of that +old spinster. + +From this had arisen his connection with the cure of Vernon, M. l'Abbe +Mabeuf. + +That worthy priest was the brother of a warden of Saint-Sulpice, who had +often observed this man gazing at his child, and the scar on his cheek, +and the large tears in his eyes. That man, who had so manly an air, yet +who was weeping like a woman, had struck the warden. That face had clung +to his mind. One day, having gone to Vernon to see his brother, he had +encountered Colonel Pontmercy on the bridge, and had recognized the man +of Saint-Sulpice. The warden had mentioned the circumstance to the cure, +and both had paid the colonel a visit, on some pretext or other. This +visit led to others. The colonel, who had been extremely reserved at +first, ended by opening his heart, and the cure and the warden finally +came to know the whole history, and how Pontmercy was sacrificing his +happiness to his child's future. This caused the cure to regard him with +veneration and tenderness, and the colonel, on his side, became fond +of the cure. And moreover, when both are sincere and good, no men so +penetrate each other, and so amalgamate with each other, as an old +priest and an old soldier. At bottom, the man is the same. The one has +devoted his life to his country here below, the other to his country on +high; that is the only difference. + +Twice a year, on the first of January and on St. George's day, Marius +wrote duty letters to his father, which were dictated by his aunt, and +which one would have pronounced to be copied from some formula; this was +all that M. Gillenormand tolerated; and the father answered them with +very tender letters which the grandfather thrust into his pocket unread. + + + + +CHAPTER III--REQUIESCANT + +Madame de T.'s salon was all that Marius Pontmercy knew of the world. It +was the only opening through which he could get a glimpse of life. This +opening was sombre, and more cold than warmth, more night than day, came +to him through this skylight. This child, who had been all joy and light +on entering this strange world, soon became melancholy, and, what is +still more contrary to his age, grave. Surrounded by all those singular +and imposing personages, he gazed about him with serious amazement. +Everything conspired to increase this astonishment in him. There were +in Madame de T.'s salon some very noble ladies named Mathan, Noe, +Levis,--which was pronounced Levi,--Cambis, pronounced Cambyse. These +antique visages and these Biblical names mingled in the child's mind +with the Old Testament which he was learning by heart, and when they +were all there, seated in a circle around a dying fire, sparely lighted +by a lamp shaded with green, with their severe profiles, their gray or +white hair, their long gowns of another age, whose lugubrious colors +could not be distinguished, dropping, at rare intervals, words which +were both majestic and severe, little Marius stared at them with +frightened eyes, in the conviction that he beheld not women, but +patriarchs and magi, not real beings, but phantoms. + +With these phantoms, priests were sometimes mingled, frequenters of +this ancient salon, and some gentlemen; the Marquis de Sass****, private +secretary to Madame de Berry, the Vicomte de Val***, who published, +under the pseudonyme of Charles-Antoine, monorhymed odes, the Prince de +Beauff*******, who, though very young, had a gray head and a pretty and +witty wife, whose very low-necked toilettes of scarlet velvet with gold +torsades alarmed these shadows, the Marquis de C*****d'E******, the man +in all France who best understood "proportioned politeness," the Comte +d'Am*****, the kindly man with the amiable chin, and the Chevalier de +Port-de-Guy, a pillar of the library of the Louvre, called the King's +cabinet, M. de Port-de-Guy, bald, and rather aged than old, was wont +to relate that in 1793, at the age of sixteen, he had been put in the +galleys as refractory and chained with an octogenarian, the Bishop +of Mirepoix, also refractory, but as a priest, while he was so in the +capacity of a soldier. This was at Toulon. Their business was to go at +night and gather up on the scaffold the heads and bodies of the persons +who had been guillotined during the day; they bore away on their backs +these dripping corpses, and their red galley-slave blouses had a clot of +blood at the back of the neck, which was dry in the morning and wet at +night. These tragic tales abounded in Madame de T.'s salon, and by +dint of cursing Marat, they applauded Trestaillon. Some deputies of the +undiscoverable variety played their whist there; M. Thibord du Chalard, +M. Lemarchant de Gomicourt, and the celebrated scoffer of the right, M. +Cornet-Dincourt. The bailiff de Ferrette, with his short breeches +and his thin legs, sometimes traversed this salon on his way to M. de +Talleyrand. He had been M. le Comte d'Artois' companion in pleasures and +unlike Aristotle crouching under Campaspe, he had made the Guimard crawl +on all fours, and in that way he had exhibited to the ages a philosopher +avenged by a bailiff. As for the priests, there was the Abbe Halma, the +same to whom M. Larose, his collaborator on la Foudre, said: "Bah! Who +is there who is not fifty years old? a few greenhorns perhaps?" The Abbe +Letourneur, preacher to the King, the Abbe Frayssinous, who was not, as +yet, either count, or bishop, or minister, or peer, and who wore an old +cassock whose buttons were missing, and the Abbe Keravenant, Cure of +Saint-Germain-des-Pres; also the Pope's Nuncio, then Monsignor Macchi, +Archbishop of Nisibi, later on Cardinal, remarkable for his long, +pensive nose, and another Monsignor, entitled thus: Abbate Palmieri, +domestic prelate, one of the seven participant prothonotaries of the +Holy See, Canon of the illustrious Liberian basilica, Advocate of the +saints, Postulatore dei Santi, which refers to matters of canonization, +and signifies very nearly: Master of Requests of the section of +Paradise. Lastly, two cardinals, M. de la Luzerne, and M. de Cl****** +T*******. The Cardinal of Luzerne was a writer and was destined to have, +a few years later, the honor of signing in the Conservateur articles +side by side with Chateaubriand; M. de Cl****** T******* was Archbishop +of Toul****, and often made trips to Paris, to his nephew, the Marquis +de T*******, who was Minister of Marine and War. The Cardinal of +Cl****** T******* was a merry little man, who displayed his red +stockings beneath his tucked-up cassock; his specialty was a hatred of +the Encyclopaedia, and his desperate play at billiards, and persons who, +at that epoch, passed through the Rue M***** on summer evenings, where +the hotel de Cl****** T******* then stood, halted to listen to the shock +of the balls and the piercing voice of the Cardinal shouting to his +conclavist, Monseigneur Cotiret, Bishop in partibus of Caryste: "Mark, +Abbe, I make a cannon." The Cardinal de Cl****** T******* had been +brought to Madame de T.'s by his most intimate friend, M. de Roquelaure, +former Bishop of Senlis, and one of the Forty. M. de Roquelaure was +notable for his lofty figure and his assiduity at the Academy; through +the glass door of the neighboring hall of the library where the French +Academy then held its meetings, the curious could, on every Tuesday, +contemplate the Ex-Bishop of Senlis, usually standing erect, freshly +powdered, in violet hose, with his back turned to the door, apparently +for the purpose of allowing a better view of his little collar. All +these ecclesiastics, though for the most part as much courtiers as +churchmen, added to the gravity of the T. salon, whose seigniorial +aspect was accentuated by five peers of France, the Marquis de Vib****, +the Marquis de Tal***, the Marquis de Herb*******, the Vicomte Damb***, +and the Duc de Val********. This Duc de Val********, although Prince de +Mon***, that is to say a reigning prince abroad, had so high an idea of +France and its peerage, that he viewed everything through their medium. +It was he who said: "The Cardinals are the peers of France of Rome; +the lords are the peers of France of England." Moreover, as it is +indispensable that the Revolution should be everywhere in this century, +this feudal salon was, as we have said, dominated by a bourgeois. M. +Gillenormand reigned there. + +There lay the essence and quintessence of the Parisian white society. +There reputations, even Royalist reputations, were held in quarantine. +There is always a trace of anarchy in renown. Chateaubriand, had he +entered there, would have produced the effect of Pere Duchene. Some of +the scoffed-at did, nevertheless, penetrate thither on sufferance. Comte +Beug*** was received there, subject to correction. + +The "noble" salons of the present day no longer resemble those salons. +The Faubourg Saint-Germain reeks of the fagot even now. The Royalists of +to-day are demagogues, let us record it to their credit. + +At Madame de T.'s the society was superior, taste was exquisite and +haughty, under the cover of a great show of politeness. Manners there +admitted of all sorts of involuntary refinements which were the old +regime itself, buried but still alive. Some of these habits, especially +in the matter of language, seem eccentric. Persons but superficially +acquainted with them would have taken for provincial that which was only +antique. A woman was called Madame la Generale. Madame la Colonelle was +not entirely disused. The charming Madame de Leon, in memory, no +doubt, of the Duchesses de Longueville and de Chevreuse, preferred this +appellation to her title of Princesse. The Marquise de Crequy was also +called Madame la Colonelle. + +It was this little high society which invented at the Tuileries the +refinement of speaking to the King in private as the King, in the third +person, and never as Your Majesty, the designation of Your Majesty +having been "soiled by the usurper." + +Men and deeds were brought to judgment there. They jeered at the age, +which released them from the necessity of understanding it. They abetted +each other in amazement. They communicated to each other that modicum +of light which they possessed. Methuselah bestowed information on +Epimenides. The deaf man made the blind man acquainted with the course +of things. They declared that the time which had elasped since Coblentz +had not existed. In the same manner that Louis XVIII. was by the grace +of God, in the five and twentieth year of his reign, the emigrants were, +by rights, in the five and twentieth year of their adolescence. + +All was harmonious; nothing was too much alive; speech hardly amounted +to a breath; the newspapers, agreeing with the salons, seemed a papyrus. +There were some young people, but they were rather dead. The liveries in +the antechamber were antiquated. These utterly obsolete personages were +served by domestics of the same stamp. + +They all had the air of having lived a long time ago, and of obstinately +resisting the sepulchre. Nearly the whole dictionary consisted of +Conserver, Conservation, Conservateur; to be in good odor,--that was the +point. There are, in fact, aromatics in the opinions of these venerable +groups, and their ideas smelled of it. It was a mummified society. The +masters were embalmed, the servants were stuffed with straw. + +A worthy old marquise, an emigree and ruined, who had but a solitary +maid, continued to say: "My people." + +What did they do in Madame de T.'s salon? They were ultra. + +To be ultra; this word, although what it represents may not have +disappeared, has no longer any meaning at the present day. Let us +explain it. + +To be ultra is to go beyond. It is to attack the sceptre in the name of +the throne, and the mitre in the name of the attar; it is to ill-treat +the thing which one is dragging, it is to kick over the traces; it is +to cavil at the fagot on the score of the amount of cooking received by +heretics; it is to reproach the idol with its small amount of idolatry; +it is to insult through excess of respect; it is to discover that the +Pope is not sufficiently papish, that the King is not sufficiently +royal, and that the night has too much light; it is to be discontented +with alabaster, with snow, with the swan and the lily in the name of +whiteness; it is to be a partisan of things to the point of becoming +their enemy; it is to be so strongly for, as to be against. + +The ultra spirit especially characterizes the first phase of the +Restoration. + +Nothing in history resembles that quarter of an hour which begins in +1814 and terminates about 1820, with the advent of M. de Villele, +the practical man of the Right. These six years were an extraordinary +moment; at one and the same time brilliant and gloomy, smiling and +sombre, illuminated as by the radiance of dawn and entirely covered, at +the same time, with the shadows of the great catastrophes which still +filled the horizon and were slowly sinking into the past. There existed +in that light and that shadow, a complete little new and old world, +comic and sad, juvenile and senile, which was rubbing its eyes; nothing +resembles an awakening like a return; a group which regarded France +with ill-temper, and which France regarded with irony; good old owls +of marquises by the streetful, who had returned, and of ghosts, the +"former" subjects of amazement at everything, brave and noble gentlemen +who smiled at being in France but wept also, delighted to behold +their country once more, in despair at not finding their monarchy; the +nobility of the Crusades treating the nobility of the Empire, that is to +say, the nobility of the sword, with scorn; historic races who had +lost the sense of history; the sons of the companions of Charlemagne +disdaining the companions of Napoleon. The swords, as we have just +remarked, returned the insult; the sword of Fontenoy was laughable and +nothing but a scrap of rusty iron; the sword of Marengo was odious and +was only a sabre. Former days did not recognize Yesterday. People no +longer had the feeling for what was grand. There was some one who called +Bonaparte Scapin. This Society no longer exists. Nothing of it, we +repeat, exists to-day. When we select from it some one figure at random, +and attempt to make it live again in thought, it seems as strange to us +as the world before the Deluge. It is because it, too, as a matter of +fact, has been engulfed in a deluge. It has disappeared beneath two +Revolutions. What billows are ideas! How quickly they cover all that it +is their mission to destroy and to bury, and how promptly they create +frightful gulfs! + +Such was the physiognomy of the salons of those distant and candid times +when M. Martainville had more wit than Voltaire. + +These salons had a literature and politics of their own. They believed +in Fievee. M. Agier laid down the law in them. They commentated M. +Colnet, the old bookseller and publicist of the Quay Malaquais. Napoleon +was to them thoroughly the Corsican Ogre. Later on the introduction into +history of M. le Marquis de Bonaparte, Lieutenant-General of the King's +armies, was a concession to the spirit of the age. + +These salons did not long preserve their purity. Beginning with 1818, +doctrinarians began to spring up in them, a disturbing shade. Their way +was to be Royalists and to excuse themselves for being so. Where the +ultras were very proud, the doctrinarians were rather ashamed. They had +wit; they had silence; their political dogma was suitably impregnated +with arrogance; they should have succeeded. They indulged, and usefully +too, in excesses in the matter of white neckties and tightly buttoned +coats. The mistake or the misfortune of the doctrinarian party was to +create aged youth. They assumed the poses of wise men. They dreamed of +engrafting a temperate power on the absolute and excessive principle. +They opposed, and sometimes with rare intelligence, conservative +liberalism to the liberalism which demolishes. They were heard to say: +"Thanks for Royalism! It has rendered more than one service. It has +brought back tradition, worship, religion, respect. It is faithful, +brave, chivalric, loving, devoted. It has mingled, though with regret, +the secular grandeurs of the monarchy with the new grandeurs of the +nation. Its mistake is not to understand the Revolution, the Empire, +glory, liberty, young ideas, young generations, the age. But this +mistake which it makes with regard to us,--have we not sometimes been +guilty of it towards them? The Revolution, whose heirs we are, ought to +be intelligent on all points. To attack Royalism is a misconstruction of +liberalism. What an error! And what blindness! Revolutionary France is +wanting in respect towards historic France, that is to say, towards its +mother, that is to say, towards itself. After the 5th of September, the +nobility of the monarchy is treated as the nobility of the Empire was +treated after the 5th of July. They were unjust to the eagle, we are +unjust to the fleur-de-lys. It seems that we must always have something +to proscribe! Does it serve any purpose to ungild the crown of Louis +XIV., to scrape the coat of arms of Henry IV.? We scoff at M. de +Vaublanc for erasing the N's from the bridge of Jena! What was it that +he did? What are we doing? Bouvines belongs to us as well as Marengo. +The fleurs-de-lys are ours as well as the N's. That is our patrimony. To +what purpose shall we diminish it? We must not deny our country in the +past any more than in the present. Why not accept the whole of history? +Why not love the whole of France?" + +It is thus that doctrinarians criticised and protected Royalism, which +was displeased at criticism and furious at protection. + +The ultras marked the first epoch of Royalism, congregation +characterized the second. Skill follows ardor. Let us confine ourselves +here to this sketch. + +In the course of this narrative, the author of this book has encountered +in his path this curious moment of contemporary history; he has been +forced to cast a passing glance upon it, and to trace once more some of +the singular features of this society which is unknown to-day. But he +does it rapidly and without any bitter or derisive idea. Souvenirs both +respectful and affectionate, for they touch his mother, attach him to +this past. Moreover, let us remark, this same petty world had a grandeur +of its own. One may smile at it, but one can neither despise nor hate +it. It was the France of former days. + +Marius Pontmercy pursued some studies, as all children do. When he +emerged from the hands of Aunt Gillenormand, his grandfather confided +him to a worthy professor of the most purely classic innocence. This +young soul which was expanding passed from a prude to a vulgar pedant. + +Marius went through his years of college, then he entered the law +school. He was a Royalist, fanatical and severe. He did not love his +grandfather much, as the latter's gayety and cynicism repelled him, and +his feelings towards his father were gloomy. + +He was, on the whole, a cold and ardent, noble, generous, proud, +religious, enthusiastic lad; dignified to harshness, pure to shyness. + + + + +CHAPTER IV--END OF THE BRIGAND + +The conclusion of Marius' classical studies coincided with M. +Gillenormand's departure from society. The old man bade farewell to +the Faubourg Saint-Germain and to Madame de T.'s salon, and established +himself in the Mardis, in his house of the Rue des Filles-du-Calvaire. +There he had for servants, in addition to the porter, that chambermaid, +Nicolette, who had succeeded to Magnon, and that short-breathed and +pursy Basque, who have been mentioned above. + +In 1827, Marius had just attained his seventeenth year. One evening, on +his return home, he saw his grandfather holding a letter in his hand. + +"Marius," said M. Gillenormand, "you will set out for Vernon to-morrow." + +"Why?" said Marius. + +"To see your father." + +Marius was seized with a trembling fit. He had thought of everything +except this--that he should one day be called upon to see his father. +Nothing could be more unexpected, more surprising, and, let us admit +it, more disagreeable to him. It was forcing estrangement into +reconciliation. It was not an affliction, but it was an unpleasant duty. + +Marius, in addition to his motives of political antipathy, was convinced +that his father, the slasher, as M. Gillenormand called him on his +amiable days, did not love him; this was evident, since he had abandoned +him to others. Feeling that he was not beloved, he did not love. +"Nothing is more simple," he said to himself. + +He was so astounded that he did not question M. Gillenormand. The +grandfather resumed:-- + +"It appears that he is ill. He demands your presence." + +And after a pause, he added:-- + +"Set out to-morrow morning. I think there is a coach which leaves the +Cour des Fontaines at six o'clock, and which arrives in the evening. +Take it. He says that here is haste." + +Then he crushed the letter in his hand and thrust it into his pocket. +Marius might have set out that very evening and have been with his +father on the following morning. A diligence from the Rue du Bouloi +took the trip to Rouen by night at that date, and passed through Vernon. +Neither Marius nor M. Gillenormand thought of making inquiries about it. + +The next day, at twilight, Marius reached Vernon. People were just +beginning to light their candles. He asked the first person whom he +met for "M. Pontmercy's house." For in his own mind, he agreed with the +Restoration, and like it, did not recognize his father's claim to the +title of either colonel or baron. + +The house was pointed out to him. He rang; a woman with a little lamp in +her hand opened the door. + +"M. Pontmercy?" said Marius. + +The woman remained motionless. + +"Is this his house?" demanded Marius. + +The woman nodded affirmatively. + +"Can I speak with him?" + +The woman shook her head. + +"But I am his son!" persisted Marius. "He is expecting me." + +"He no longer expects you," said the woman. + +Then he perceived that she was weeping. + +She pointed to the door of a room on the ground-floor; he entered. + +In that room, which was lighted by a tallow candle standing on the +chimney-piece, there were three men, one standing erect, another +kneeling, and one lying at full length, on the floor in his shirt. The +one on the floor was the colonel. + +The other two were the doctor, and the priest, who was engaged in +prayer. + +The colonel had been attacked by brain fever three days previously. As +he had a foreboding of evil at the very beginning of his illness, he +had written to M. Gillenormand to demand his son. The malady had grown +worse. On the very evening of Marius' arrival at Vernon, the colonel had +had an attack of delirium; he had risen from his bed, in spite of the +servant's efforts to prevent him, crying: "My son is not coming! I shall +go to meet him!" Then he ran out of his room and fell prostrate on the +floor of the antechamber. He had just expired. + +The doctor had been summoned, and the cure. The doctor had arrived too +late. The son had also arrived too late. + +By the dim light of the candle, a large tear could be distinguished on +the pale and prostrate colonel's cheek, where it had trickled from his +dead eye. The eye was extinguished, but the tear was not yet dry. That +tear was his son's delay. + +Marius gazed upon that man whom he beheld for the first time, on that +venerable and manly face, on those open eyes which saw not, on those +white locks, those robust limbs, on which, here and there, brown +lines, marking sword-thrusts, and a sort of red stars, which indicated +bullet-holes, were visible. He contemplated that gigantic sear which +stamped heroism on that countenance upon which God had imprinted +goodness. He reflected that this man was his father, and that this man +was dead, and a chill ran over him. + +The sorrow which he felt was the sorrow which he would have felt in the +presence of any other man whom he had chanced to behold stretched out in +death. + +Anguish, poignant anguish, was in that chamber. The servant-woman was +lamenting in a corner, the cure was praying, and his sobs were audible, +the doctor was wiping his eyes; the corpse itself was weeping. + +The doctor, the priest, and the woman gazed at Marius in the midst of +their affliction without uttering a word; he was the stranger there. +Marius, who was far too little affected, felt ashamed and embarrassed at +his own attitude; he held his hat in his hand; and he dropped it on the +floor, in order to produce the impression that grief had deprived him of +the strength to hold it. + +At the same time, he experienced remorse, and he despised himself for +behaving in this manner. But was it his fault? He did not love his +father? Why should he! + +The colonel had left nothing. The sale of big furniture barely paid the +expenses of his burial. + +The servant found a scrap of paper, which she handed to Marius. It +contained the following, in the colonel's handwriting:-- + +"For my son.--The Emperor made me a Baron on the battle-field of +Waterloo. Since the Restoration disputes my right to this title which I +purchased with my blood, my son shall take it and bear it. That he will +be worthy of it is a matter of course." Below, the colonel had added: +"At that same battle of Waterloo, a sergeant saved my life. The man's +name was Thenardier. I think that he has recently been keeping a +little inn, in a village in the neighborhood of Paris, at Chelles or +Montfermeil. If my son meets him, he will do all the good he can to +Thenardier." + +Marius took this paper and preserved it, not out of duty to his father, +but because of that vague respect for death which is always imperious in +the heart of man. + +Nothing remained of the colonel. M. Gillenormand had his sword and +uniform sold to an old-clothes dealer. The neighbors devastated the +garden and pillaged the rare flowers. The other plants turned to nettles +and weeds, and died. + +Marius remained only forty-eight hours at Vernon. After the interment he +returned to Paris, and applied himself again to his law studies, with +no more thought of his father than if the latter had never lived. In two +days the colonel was buried, and in three forgotten. + +Marius wore crape on his hat. That was all. + + + + +CHAPTER V--THE UTILITY OF GOING TO MASS, IN ORDER TO BECOME A +REVOLUTIONIST + +Marius had preserved the religious habits of his childhood. One Sunday, +when he went to hear mass at Saint-Sulpice, at that same chapel of the +Virgin whither his aunt had led him when a small lad, he placed himself +behind a pillar, being more absent-minded and thoughtful than usual on +that occasion, and knelt down, without paying any special heed, upon a +chair of Utrecht velvet, on the back of which was inscribed this name: +Monsieur Mabeuf, warden. Mass had hardly begun when an old man presented +himself and said to Marius:-- + +"This is my place, sir." + +Marius stepped aside promptly, and the old man took possession of his +chair. + +The mass concluded, Marius still stood thoughtfully a few paces distant; +the old man approached him again and said:-- + +"I beg your pardon, sir, for having disturbed you a while ago, and for +again disturbing you at this moment; you must have thought me intrusive, +and I will explain myself." + +"There is no need of that, Sir," said Marius. + +"Yes!" went on the old man, "I do not wish you to have a bad opinion of +me. You see, I am attached to this place. It seems to me that the mass +is better from here. Why? I will tell you. It is from this place, that +I have watched a poor, brave father come regularly, every two or three +months, for the last ten years, since he had no other opportunity and +no other way of seeing his child, because he was prevented by family +arrangements. He came at the hour when he knew that his son would be +brought to mass. The little one never suspected that his father was +there. Perhaps he did not even know that he had a father, poor innocent! +The father kept behind a pillar, so that he might not be seen. He gazed +at his child and he wept. He adored that little fellow, poor man! I +could see that. This spot has become sanctified in my sight, and I have +contracted a habit of coming hither to listen to the mass. I prefer it +to the stall to which I have a right, in my capacity of warden. I knew +that unhappy gentleman a little, too. He had a father-in-law, a wealthy +aunt, relatives, I don't know exactly what all, who threatened to +disinherit the child if he, the father, saw him. He sacrificed himself +in order that his son might be rich and happy some day. He was separated +from him because of political opinions. Certainly, I approve of +political opinions, but there are people who do not know where to stop. +Mon Dieu! a man is not a monster because he was at Waterloo; a father +is not separated from his child for such a reason as that. He was one of +Bonaparte's colonels. He is dead, I believe. He lived at Vernon, where I +have a brother who is a cure, and his name was something like Pontmarie +or Montpercy. He had a fine sword-cut, on my honor." + +"Pontmercy," suggested Marius, turning pale. + +"Precisely, Pontmercy. Did you know him?" + +"Sir," said Marius, "he was my father." + +The old warden clasped his hands and exclaimed:-- + +"Ah! you are the child! Yes, that's true, he must be a man by this +time. Well! poor child, you may say that you had a father who loved you +dearly!" + +Marius offered his arm to the old man and conducted him to his lodgings. + +On the following day, he said to M. Gillenormand:-- + +"I have arranged a hunting-party with some friends. Will you permit me +to be absent for three days?" + +"Four!" replied his grandfather. "Go and amuse yourself." + +And he said to his daughter in a low tone, and with a wink, "Some love +affair!" + + + + +CHAPTER VI--THE CONSEQUENCES OF HAVING MET A WARDEN + +Where it was that Marius went will be disclosed a little further on. + +Marius was absent for three days, then he returned to Paris, went +straight to the library of the law-school and asked for the files of the +Moniteur. + +He read the Moniteur, he read all the histories of the Republic and +the Empire, the Memorial de Sainte-Helene, all the memoirs, all the +newspapers, the bulletins, the proclamations; he devoured everything. +The first time that he came across his father's name in the bulletins of +the grand army, he had a fever for a week. He went to see the generals +under whom Georges Pontmercy had served, among others, Comte H. +Church-warden Mabeuf, whom he went to see again, told him about the life +at Vernon, the colonel's retreat, his flowers, his solitude. Marius came +to a full knowledge of that rare, sweet, and sublime man, that species +of lion-lamb who had been his father. + +In the meanwhile, occupied as he was with this study which absorbed all +his moments as well as his thoughts, he hardly saw the Gillenormands at +all. He made his appearance at meals; then they searched for him, and he +was not to be found. Father Gillenormand smiled. "Bah! bah! He is just +of the age for the girls!" Sometimes the old man added: "The deuce! +I thought it was only an affair of gallantry, It seems that it is an +affair of passion!" + +It was a passion, in fact. Marius was on the high road to adoring his +father. + +At the same time, his ideas underwent an extraordinary change. The +phases of this change were numerous and successive. As this is the +history of many minds of our day, we think it will prove useful to +follow these phases step by step and to indicate them all. + +That history upon which he had just cast his eyes appalled him. + +The first effect was to dazzle him. + +Up to that time, the Republic, the Empire, had been to him only +monstrous words. The Republic, a guillotine in the twilight; the Empire, +a sword in the night. He had just taken a look at it, and where he had +expected to find only a chaos of shadows, he had beheld, with a sort +of unprecedented surprise, mingled with fear and joy, stars sparkling, +Mirabeau, Vergniaud, Saint-Just, Robespierre, Camille, Desmoulins, +Danton, and a sun arise, Napoleon. He did not know where he stood. He +recoiled, blinded by the brilliant lights. Little by little, when his +astonishment had passed off, he grew accustomed to this radiance, he +contemplated these deeds without dizziness, he examined these personages +without terror; the Revolution and the Empire presented themselves +luminously, in perspective, before his mind's eye; he beheld each of +these groups of events and of men summed up in two tremendous facts: the +Republic in the sovereignty of civil right restored to the masses, +the Empire in the sovereignty of the French idea imposed on Europe; he +beheld the grand figure of the people emerge from the Revolution, and +the grand figure of France spring forth from the Empire. He asserted +in his conscience, that all this had been good. What his dazzled state +neglected in this, his first far too synthetic estimation, we do not +think it necessary to point out here. It is the state of a mind on the +march that we are recording. Progress is not accomplished in one stage. +That stated, once for all, in connection with what precedes as well as +with what is to follow, we continue. + +He then perceived that, up to that moment, he had comprehended his +country no more than he had comprehended his father. He had not known +either the one or the other, and a sort of voluntary night had obscured +his eyes. Now he saw, and on the one hand he admired, while on the other +he adored. + +He was filled with regret and remorse, and he reflected in despair that +all he had in his soul could now be said only to the tomb. Oh! if his +father had still been in existence, if he had still had him, if God, in +his compassion and his goodness, had permitted his father to be still +among the living, how he would have run, how he would have precipitated +himself, how he would have cried to his father: "Father! Here I am! It +is I! I have the same heart as thou! I am thy son!" How he would have +embraced that white head, bathed his hair in tears, gazed upon his scar, +pressed his hands, adored his garment, kissed his feet! Oh! Why had his +father died so early, before his time, before the justice, the love of +his son had come to him? Marius had a continual sob in his heart, which +said to him every moment: "Alas!" At the same time, he became more truly +serious, more truly grave, more sure of his thought and his faith. At +each instant, gleams of the true came to complete his reason. An inward +growth seemed to be in progress within him. He was conscious of a sort +of natural enlargement, which gave him two things that were new to +him--his father and his country. + +As everything opens when one has a key, so he explained to himself that +which he had hated, he penetrated that which he had abhorred; henceforth +he plainly perceived the providential, divine and human sense of the +great things which he had been taught to detest, and of the great men +whom he had been instructed to curse. When he reflected on his former +opinions, which were but those of yesterday, and which, nevertheless, +seemed to him already so very ancient, he grew indignant, yet he smiled. + +From the rehabilitation of his father, he naturally passed to the +rehabilitation of Napoleon. + +But the latter, we will confess, was not effected without labor. + +From his infancy, he had been imbued with the judgments of the party of +1814, on Bonaparte. Now, all the prejudices of the Restoration, all its +interests, all its instincts tended to disfigure Napoleon. It execrated +him even more than it did Robespierre. It had very cleverly turned to +sufficiently good account the fatigue of the nation, and the hatred of +mothers. Bonaparte had become an almost fabulous monster, and in order +to paint him to the imagination of the people, which, as we lately +pointed out, resembles the imagination of children, the party of 1814 +made him appear under all sorts of terrifying masks in succession, from +that which is terrible though it remains grandiose to that which is +terrible and becomes grotesque, from Tiberius to the bugaboo. Thus, in +speaking of Bonaparte, one was free to sob or to puff up with +laughter, provided that hatred lay at the bottom. Marius had never +entertained--about that man, as he was called--any other ideas in his +mind. They had combined with the tenacity which existed in his nature. +There was in him a headstrong little man who hated Napoleon. + +On reading history, on studying him, especially in the documents and +materials for history, the veil which concealed Napoleon from the eyes +of Marius was gradually rent. He caught a glimpse of something immense, +and he suspected that he had been deceived up to that moment, on +the score of Bonaparte as about all the rest; each day he saw more +distinctly; and he set about mounting, slowly, step by step, almost +regretfully in the beginning, then with intoxication and as though +attracted by an irresistible fascination, first the sombre steps, then +the vaguely illuminated steps, at last the luminous and splendid steps +of enthusiasm. + +One night, he was alone in his little chamber near the roof. His candle +was burning; he was reading, with his elbows resting on his table close +to the open window. All sorts of reveries reached him from space, and +mingled with his thoughts. What a spectacle is the night! One hears dull +sounds, without knowing whence they proceed; one beholds Jupiter, which +is twelve hundred times larger than the earth, glowing like a firebrand, +the azure is black, the stars shine; it is formidable. + +He was perusing the bulletins of the grand army, those heroic strophes +penned on the field of battle; there, at intervals, he beheld his +father's name, always the name of the Emperor; the whole of that great +Empire presented itself to him; he felt a flood swelling and rising +within him; it seemed to him at moments that his father passed close +to him like a breath, and whispered in his ear; he gradually got into +a singular state; he thought that he heard drums, cannon, trumpets, +the measured tread of battalions, the dull and distant gallop of the +cavalry; from time to time, his eyes were raised heavenward, and gazed +upon the colossal constellations as they gleamed in the measureless +depths of space, then they fell upon his book once more, and there they +beheld other colossal things moving confusedly. His heart contracted +within him. He was in a transport, trembling, panting. All at once, +without himself knowing what was in him, and what impulse he was +obeying, he sprang to his feet, stretched both arms out of the window, +gazed intently into the gloom, the silence, the infinite darkness, the +eternal immensity, and exclaimed: "Long live the Emperor!" + +From that moment forth, all was over; the Ogre of Corsica,--the +usurper,--the tyrant,--the monster who was the lover of his own +sisters,--the actor who took lessons of Talma,--the poisoner of +Jaffa,--the tiger,--Buonaparte,--all this vanished, and gave place +in his mind to a vague and brilliant radiance in which shone, at an +inaccessible height, the pale marble phantom of Caesar. The Emperor had +been for his father only the well-beloved captain whom one admires, for +whom one sacrifices one's self; he was something more to Marius. He was +the predestined constructor of the French group, succeeding the Roman +group in the domination of the universe. He was a prodigious architect, +of a destruction, the continuer of Charlemagne, of Louis XI., of Henry +IV., of Richelieu, of Louis XIV., and of the Committee of Public Safety, +having his spots, no doubt, his faults, his crimes even, being a man, +that is to say; but august in his faults, brilliant in his spots, +powerful in his crime. + +He was the predestined man, who had forced all nations to say: "The +great nation!" He was better than that, he was the very incarnation of +France, conquering Europe by the sword which he grasped, and the world +by the light which he shed. Marius saw in Bonaparte the dazzling spectre +which will always rise upon the frontier, and which will guard the +future. Despot but dictator; a despot resulting from a republic and +summing up a revolution. Napoleon became for him the man-people as Jesus +Christ is the man-God. + +It will be perceived, that like all new converts to a religion, his +conversion intoxicated him, he hurled himself headlong into adhesion +and he went too far. His nature was so constructed; once on the downward +slope, it was almost impossible for him to put on the drag. Fanaticism +for the sword took possession of him, and complicated in his mind his +enthusiasm for the idea. He did not perceive that, along with genius, +and pell-mell, he was admitting force, that is to say, that he was +installing in two compartments of his idolatry, on the one hand that +which is divine, on the other that which is brutal. In many respects, he +had set about deceiving himself otherwise. He admitted everything. There +is a way of encountering error while on one's way to the truth. He had a +violent sort of good faith which took everything in the lump. In the new +path which he had entered on, in judging the mistakes of the old regime, +as in measuring the glory of Napoleon, he neglected the attenuating +circumstances. + +At all events, a tremendous step had been taken. Where he had formerly +beheld the fall of the monarchy, he now saw the advent of France. His +orientation had changed. What had been his East became the West. He had +turned squarely round. + +All these revolutions were accomplished within him, without his family +obtaining an inkling of the case. + +When, during this mysterious labor, he had entirely shed his old Bourbon +and ultra skin, when he had cast off the aristocrat, the Jacobite and +the Royalist, when he had become thoroughly a revolutionist, profoundly +democratic and republican, he went to an engraver on the Quai des +Orfevres and ordered a hundred cards bearing this name: Le Baron Marius +Pontmercy. + +This was only the strictly logical consequence of the change which had +taken place in him, a change in which everything gravitated round his +father. + +Only, as he did not know any one and could not sow his cards with any +porter, he put them in his pocket. + +By another natural consequence, in proportion as he drew nearer to his +father, to the latter's memory, and to the things for which the +colonel had fought five and twenty years before, he receded from his +grandfather. We have long ago said, that M. Gillenormand's temper did +not please him. There already existed between them all the dissonances +of the grave young man and the frivolous old man. The gayety of Geronte +shocks and exasperates the melancholy of Werther. So long as the same +political opinions and the same ideas had been common to them both, +Marius had met M. Gillenormand there as on a bridge. When the bridge +fell, an abyss was formed. And then, over and above all, Marius +experienced unutterable impulses to revolt, when he reflected that it +was M. Gillenormand who had, from stupid motives, torn him ruthlessly +from the colonel, thus depriving the father of the child, and the child +of the father. + +By dint of pity for his father, Marius had nearly arrived at aversion +for his grandfather. + +Nothing of this sort, however, was betrayed on the exterior, as we have +already said. Only he grew colder and colder; laconic at meals, and rare +in the house. When his aunt scolded him for it, he was very gentle and +alleged his studies, his lectures, the examinations, etc., as a pretext. +His grandfather never departed from his infallible diagnosis: "In love! +I know all about it." + +From time to time Marius absented himself. + +"Where is it that he goes off like this?" said his aunt. + +On one of these trips, which were always very brief, he went to +Montfermeil, in order to obey the injunction which his father had +left him, and he sought the old sergeant to Waterloo, the inn-keeper +Thenardier. Thenardier had failed, the inn was closed, and no one knew +what had become of him. Marius was away from the house for four days on +this quest. + +"He is getting decidedly wild," said his grandfather. + +They thought they had noticed that he wore something on his breast, +under his shirt, which was attached to his neck by a black ribbon. + + + + +CHAPTER VII--SOME PETTICOAT + +We have mentioned a lancer. + +He was a great-grand-nephew of M. Gillenormand, on the paternal side, +who led a garrison life, outside the family and far from the domestic +hearth. Lieutenant Theodule Gillenormand fulfilled all the conditions +required to make what is called a fine officer. He had "a lady's waist," +a victorious manner of trailing his sword and of twirling his mustache +in a hook. He visited Paris very rarely, and so rarely that Marius had +never seen him. The cousins knew each other only by name. We think +we have said that Theodule was the favorite of Aunt Gillenormand, who +preferred him because she did not see him. Not seeing people permits one +to attribute to them all possible perfections. + +One morning, Mademoiselle Gillenormand the elder returned to her +apartment as much disturbed as her placidity was capable of allowing. +Marius had just asked his grandfather's permission to take a little +trip, adding that he meant to set out that very evening. "Go!" had been +his grandfather's reply, and M. Gillenormand had added in an aside, as +he raised his eyebrows to the top of his forehead: "Here he is passing +the night out again." Mademoiselle Gillenormand had ascended to +her chamber greatly puzzled, and on the staircase had dropped this +exclamation: "This is too much!"--and this interrogation: "But where is +it that he goes?" She espied some adventure of the heart, more or less +illicit, a woman in the shadow, a rendezvous, a mystery, and she would +not have been sorry to thrust her spectacles into the affair. Tasting a +mystery resembles getting the first flavor of a scandal; sainted souls +do not detest this. There is some curiosity about scandal in the secret +compartments of bigotry. + +So she was the prey of a vague appetite for learning a history. + +In order to get rid of this curiosity which agitated her a little beyond +her wont, she took refuge in her talents, and set about scalloping, +with one layer of cotton after another, one of those embroideries of the +Empire and the Restoration, in which there are numerous cart-wheels. +The work was clumsy, the worker cross. She had been seated at this for +several hours when the door opened. Mademoiselle Gillenormand raised +her nose. Lieutenant Theodule stood before her, making the regulation +salute. She uttered a cry of delight. One may be old, one may be a +prude, one may be pious, one may be an aunt, but it is always agreeable +to see a lancer enter one's chamber. + +"You here, Theodule!" she exclaimed. + +"On my way through town, aunt." + +"Embrace me." + +"Here goes!" said Theodule. + +And he kissed her. Aunt Gillenormand went to her writing-desk and opened +it. + +"You will remain with us a week at least?" + +"I leave this very evening, aunt." + +"It is not possible!" + +"Mathematically!" + +"Remain, my little Theodule, I beseech you." + +"My heart says 'yes,' but my orders say 'no.' The matter is simple. +They are changing our garrison; we have been at Melun, we are being +transferred to Gaillon. It is necessary to pass through Paris in order +to get from the old post to the new one. I said: 'I am going to see my +aunt.'" + +"Here is something for your trouble." + +And she put ten louis into his hand. + +"For my pleasure, you mean to say, my dear aunt." + +Theodule kissed her again, and she experienced the joy of having some of +the skin scratched from her neck by the braidings on his uniform. + +"Are you making the journey on horseback, with your regiment?" she asked +him. + +"No, aunt. I wanted to see you. I have special permission. My servant is +taking my horse; I am travelling by diligence. And, by the way, I want +to ask you something." + +"What is it?" + +"Is my cousin Marius Pontmercy travelling so, too?" + +"How do you know that?" said his aunt, suddenly pricked to the quick +with a lively curiosity. + +"On my arrival, I went to the diligence to engage my seat in the coupe." + +"Well?" + +"A traveller had already come to engage a seat in the imperial. I saw +his name on the card." + +"What name?" + +"Marius Pontmercy." + +"The wicked fellow!" exclaimed his aunt. "Ah! your cousin is not a +steady lad like yourself. To think that he is to pass the night in a +diligence!" + +"Just as I am going to do." + +"But you--it is your duty; in his case, it is wildness." + +"Bosh!" said Theodule. + +Here an event occurred to Mademoiselle Gillenormand the elder,--an idea +struck her. If she had been a man, she would have slapped her brow. She +apostrophized Theodule:-- + +"Are you aware whether your cousin knows you?" + +"No. I have seen him; but he has never deigned to notice me." + +"So you are going to travel together?" + +"He in the imperial, I in the coupe." + +"Where does this diligence run?" + +"To Andelys." + +"Then that is where Marius is going?" + +"Unless, like myself, he should stop on the way. I get down at Vernon, +in order to take the branch coach for Gaillon. I know nothing of Marius' +plan of travel." + +"Marius! what an ugly name! what possessed them to name him Marius? +While you, at least, are called Theodule." + +"I would rather be called Alfred," said the officer. + +"Listen, Theodule." + +"I am listening, aunt." + +"Pay attention." + +"I am paying attention." + +"You understand?" + +"Yes." + +"Well, Marius absents himself!" + +"Eh! eh!" + +"He travels." + +"Ah! ah!" + +"He spends the night out." + +"Oh! oh!" + +"We should like to know what there is behind all this." + +Theodule replied with the composure of a man of bronze:-- + +"Some petticoat or other." + +And with that inward laugh which denotes certainty, he added:-- + +"A lass." + +"That is evident," exclaimed his aunt, who thought she heard M. +Gillenormand speaking, and who felt her conviction become irresistible +at that word fillette, accentuated in almost the very same fashion by +the granduncle and the grandnephew. She resumed:-- + +"Do us a favor. Follow Marius a little. He does not know you, it will be +easy. Since a lass there is, try to get a sight of her. You must write +us the tale. It will amuse his grandfather." + +Theodule had no excessive taste for this sort of spying; but he was much +touched by the ten louis, and he thought he saw a chance for a possible +sequel. He accepted the commission and said: "As you please, aunt." + +And he added in an aside, to himself: "Here I am a duenna." + +Mademoiselle Gillenormand embraced him. + +"You are not the man to play such pranks, Theodule. You obey discipline, +you are the slave of orders, you are a man of scruples and duty, and you +would not quit your family to go and see a creature." + +The lancer made the pleased grimace of Cartouche when praised for his +probity. + +Marius, on the evening following this dialogue, mounted the diligence +without suspecting that he was watched. As for the watcher, the +first thing he did was to fall asleep. His slumber was complete and +conscientious. Argus snored all night long. + +At daybreak, the conductor of the diligence shouted: "Vernon! relay of +Vernon! Travellers for Vernon!" And Lieutenant Theodule woke. + +"Good," he growled, still half asleep, "this is where I get out." + +Then, as his memory cleared by degrees, the effect of waking, he +recalled his aunt, the ten louis, and the account which he had +undertaken to render of the deeds and proceedings of Marius. This set +him to laughing. + +"Perhaps he is no longer in the coach," he thought, as he rebuttoned the +waistcoat of his undress uniform. "He may have stopped at Poissy; he may +have stopped at Triel; if he did not get out at Meulan, he may have got +out at Mantes, unless he got out at Rolleboise, or if he did not go on +as far as Pacy, with the choice of turning to the left at Evreus, or to +the right at Laroche-Guyon. Run after him, aunty. What the devil am I to +write to that good old soul?" + +At that moment a pair of black trousers descending from the imperial, +made its appearance at the window of the coupe. + +"Can that be Marius?" said the lieutenant. + +It was Marius. + +A little peasant girl, all entangled with the horses and the postilions +at the end of the vehicle, was offering flowers to the travellers. "Give +your ladies flowers!" she cried. + +Marius approached her and purchased the finest flowers in her flat +basket. + +"Come now," said Theodule, leaping down from the coupe, "this piques my +curiosity. Who the deuce is he going to carry those flowers to? She +must be a splendidly handsome woman for so fine a bouquet. I want to see +her." + +And no longer in pursuance of orders, but from personal curiosity, like +dogs who hunt on their own account, he set out to follow Marius. + +Marius paid no attention to Theodule. Elegant women descended from the +diligence; he did not glance at them. He seemed to see nothing around +him. + +"He is pretty deeply in love!" thought Theodule. + +Marius directed his steps towards the church. + +"Capital," said Theodule to himself. "Rendezvous seasoned with a bit of +mass are the best sort. Nothing is so exquisite as an ogle which passes +over the good God's head." + +On arriving at the church, Marius did not enter it, but skirted the +apse. He disappeared behind one of the angles of the apse. + +"The rendezvous is appointed outside," said Theodule. "Let's have a look +at the lass." + +And he advanced on the tips of his boots towards the corner which Marius +had turned. + +On arriving there, he halted in amazement. + +Marius, with his forehead clasped in his hands, was kneeling upon the +grass on a grave. He had strewn his bouquet there. At the extremity of +the grave, on a little swelling which marked the head, there stood +a cross of black wood with this name in white letters: COLONEL BARON +PONTMERCY. Marius' sobs were audible. + +The "lass" was a grave. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII--MARBLE AGAINST GRANITE + +It was hither that Marius had come on the first occasion of his +absenting himself from Paris. It was hither that he had come every time +that M. Gillenormand had said: "He is sleeping out." + +Lieutenant Theodule was absolutely put out of countenance by this +unexpected encounter with a sepulchre; he experienced a singular and +disagreeable sensation which he was incapable of analyzing, and which +was composed of respect for the tomb, mingled with respect for the +colonel. He retreated, leaving Marius alone in the cemetery, and +there was discipline in this retreat. Death appeared to him with large +epaulets, and he almost made the military salute to him. Not knowing +what to write to his aunt, he decided not to write at all; and it is +probable that nothing would have resulted from the discovery made +by Theodule as to the love affairs of Marius, if, by one of those +mysterious arrangements which are so frequent in chance, the scene at +Vernon had not had an almost immediate counter-shock at Paris. + +Marius returned from Vernon on the third day, in the middle of the +morning, descended at his grandfather's door, and, wearied by the two +nights spent in the diligence, and feeling the need of repairing his +loss of sleep by an hour at the swimming-school, he mounted rapidly to +his chamber, took merely time enough to throw off his travelling-coat, +and the black ribbon which he wore round his neck, and went off to the +bath. + +M. Gillenormand, who had risen betimes like all old men in good health, +had heard his entrance, and had made haste to climb, as quickly as his +old legs permitted, the stairs to the upper story where Marius lived, +in order to embrace him, and to question him while so doing, and to find +out where he had been. + +But the youth had taken less time to descend than the old man had to +ascend, and when Father Gillenormand entered the attic, Marius was no +longer there. + +The bed had not been disturbed, and on the bed lay, outspread, but not +defiantly the great-coat and the black ribbon. + +"I like this better," said M. Gillenormand. + +And a moment later, he made his entrance into the salon, where +Mademoiselle Gillenormand was already seated, busily embroidering her +cart-wheels. + +The entrance was a triumphant one. + +M. Gillenormand held in one hand the great-coat, and in the other the +neck-ribbon, and exclaimed:-- + +"Victory! We are about to penetrate the mystery! We are going to +learn the most minute details; we are going to lay our finger on the +debaucheries of our sly friend! Here we have the romance itself. I have +the portrait!" + +In fact, a case of black shagreen, resembling a medallion portrait, was +suspended from the ribbon. + +The old man took this case and gazed at it for some time without opening +it, with that air of enjoyment, rapture, and wrath, with which a poor +hungry fellow beholds an admirable dinner which is not for him, pass +under his very nose. + +"For this evidently is a portrait. I know all about such things. That is +worn tenderly on the heart. How stupid they are! Some abominable fright +that will make us shudder, probably! Young men have such bad taste +nowadays!" + +"Let us see, father," said the old spinster. + +The case opened by the pressure of a spring. They found in it nothing +but a carefully folded paper. + +"From the same to the same," said M. Gillenormand, bursting with +laughter. "I know what it is. A billet-doux." + +"Ah! let us read it!" said the aunt. + +And she put on her spectacles. They unfolded the paper and read as +follows:-- + +"For my son.--The Emperor made me a Baron on the battlefield of +Waterloo. Since the Restoration disputes my right to this title which I +purchased with my blood, my son shall take it and bear it. That he will +be worthy of it is a matter of course." + +The feelings of father and daughter cannot be described. They felt +chilled as by the breath of a death's-head. They did not exchange a +word. + +Only, M. Gillenormand said in a low voice and as though speaking to +himself:-- + +"It is the slasher's handwriting." + +The aunt examined the paper, turned it about in all directions, then put +it back in its case. + +At the same moment a little oblong packet, enveloped in blue paper, fell +from one of the pockets of the great-coat. Mademoiselle Gillenormand +picked it up and unfolded the blue paper. + +It contained Marius' hundred cards. She handed one of them to M. +Gillenormand, who read: Le Baron Marius Pontmercy. + +The old man rang the bell. Nicolette came. M. Gillenormand took the +ribbon, the case, and the coat, flung them all on the floor in the +middle of the room, and said:-- + +"Carry those duds away." + +A full hour passed in the most profound silence. The old man and the old +spinster had seated themselves with their backs to each other, and were +thinking, each on his own account, the same things, in all probability. + +At the expiration of this hour, Aunt Gillenormand said:--"A pretty state +of things!" + +A few moments later, Marius made his appearance. He entered. Even before +he had crossed the threshold, he saw his grandfather holding one of +his own cards in his hand, and on catching sight of him, the latter +exclaimed with his air of bourgeois and grinning superiority which was +something crushing:-- + +"Well! well! well! well! well! so you are a baron now. I present you my +compliments. What is the meaning of this?" + +Marius reddened slightly and replied:-- + +"It means that I am the son of my father." + +M. Gillenormand ceased to laugh, and said harshly:-- + +"I am your father." + +"My father," retorted Marius, with downcast eyes and a severe air, "was +a humble and heroic man, who served the Republic and France gloriously, +who was great in the greatest history that men have ever made, who +lived in the bivouac for a quarter of a century, beneath grape-shot and +bullets, in snow and mud by day, beneath rain at night, who captured two +flags, who received twenty wounds, who died forgotten and abandoned, and +who never committed but one mistake, which was to love too fondly two +ingrates, his country and myself." + +This was more than M. Gillenormand could bear to hear. At the word +republic, he rose, or, to speak more correctly, he sprang to his feet. +Every word that Marius had just uttered produced on the visage of the +old Royalist the effect of the puffs of air from a forge upon a blazing +brand. From a dull hue he had turned red, from red, purple, and from +purple, flame-colored. + +"Marius!" he cried. "Abominable child! I do not know what your father +was! I do not wish to know! I know nothing about that, and I do not know +him! But what I do know is, that there never was anything but scoundrels +among those men! They were all rascals, assassins, red-caps, thieves! I +say all! I say all! I know not one! I say all! Do you hear me, Marius! +See here, you are no more a baron than my slipper is! They were all +bandits in the service of Robespierre! All who served B-u-o-naparte were +brigands! They were all traitors who betrayed, betrayed, betrayed their +legitimate king! All cowards who fled before the Prussians and the +English at Waterloo! That is what I do know! Whether Monsieur your +father comes in that category, I do not know! I am sorry for it, so much +the worse, your humble servant!" + +In his turn, it was Marius who was the firebrand and M. Gillenormand +who was the bellows. Marius quivered in every limb, he did not know what +would happen next, his brain was on fire. He was the priest who beholds +all his sacred wafers cast to the winds, the fakir who beholds a +passer-by spit upon his idol. It could not be that such things had been +uttered in his presence. What was he to do? His father had just been +trampled under foot and stamped upon in his presence, but by whom? By +his grandfather. How was he to avenge the one without outraging the +other? It was impossible for him to insult his grandfather and it was +equally impossible for him to leave his father unavenged. On the one +hand was a sacred grave, on the other hoary locks. + +He stood there for several moments, staggering as though intoxicated, +with all this whirlwind dashing through his head; then he raised +his eyes, gazed fixedly at his grandfather, and cried in a voice of +thunder:-- + +"Down with the Bourbons, and that great hog of a Louis XVIII.!" + +Louis XVIII. had been dead for four years; but it was all the same to +him. + +The old man, who had been crimson, turned whiter than his hair. He +wheeled round towards a bust of M. le Duc de Berry, which stood on the +chimney-piece, and made a profound bow, with a sort of peculiar majesty. +Then he paced twice, slowly and in silence, from the fireplace to the +window and from the window to the fireplace, traversing the whole length +of the room, and making the polished floor creak as though he had been a +stone statue walking. + +On his second turn, he bent over his daughter, who was watching this +encounter with the stupefied air of an antiquated lamb, and said to her +with a smile that was almost calm: "A baron like this gentleman, and a +bourgeois like myself cannot remain under the same roof." + +And drawing himself up, all at once, pallid, trembling, terrible, with +his brow rendered more lofty by the terrible radiance of wrath, he +extended his arm towards Marius and shouted to him:-- + +"Be off!" + +Marius left the house. + +On the following day, M. Gillenormand said to his daughter: + +"You will send sixty pistoles every six months to that blood-drinker, +and you will never mention his name to me." + +Having an immense reserve fund of wrath to get rid of, and not knowing +what to do with it, he continued to address his daughter as you instead +of thou for the next three months. + +Marius, on his side, had gone forth in indignation. There was one +circumstance which, it must be admitted, aggravated his exasperation. +There are always petty fatalities of the sort which complicate domestic +dramas. They augment the grievances in such cases, although, in reality, +the wrongs are not increased by them. While carrying Marius' "duds" +precipitately to his chamber, at his grandfather's command, Nicolette +had, inadvertently, let fall, probably, on the attic staircase, which +was dark, that medallion of black shagreen which contained the paper +penned by the colonel. Neither paper nor case could afterwards be found. +Marius was convinced that "Monsieur Gillenormand"--from that day forth +he never alluded to him otherwise--had flung "his father's testament" in +the fire. He knew by heart the few lines which the colonel had written, +and, consequently, nothing was lost. But the paper, the writing, that +sacred relic,--all that was his very heart. What had been done with it? + +Marius had taken his departure without saying whither he was going, and +without knowing where, with thirty francs, his watch, and a few clothes +in a hand-bag. He had entered a hackney-coach, had engaged it by the +hour, and had directed his course at hap-hazard towards the Latin +quarter. + +What was to become of Marius? + + + + +BOOK FOURTH.--THE FRIENDS OF THE A B C + + + + +CHAPTER I--A GROUP WHICH BARELY MISSED BECOMING HISTORIC + +At that epoch, which was, to all appearances indifferent, a certain +revolutionary quiver was vaguely current. Breaths which had started +forth from the depths of '89 and '93 were in the air. Youth was on +the point, may the reader pardon us the word, of moulting. People were +undergoing a transformation, almost without being conscious of it, +through the movement of the age. The needle which moves round the +compass also moves in souls. Each person was taking that step in advance +which he was bound to take. The Royalists were becoming liberals, +liberals were turning democrats. It was a flood tide complicated with +a thousand ebb movements; the peculiarity of ebbs is to create +intermixtures; hence the combination of very singular ideas; people +adored both Napoleon and liberty. We are making history here. These +were the mirages of that period. Opinions traverse phases. Voltairian +royalism, a quaint variety, had a no less singular sequel, Bonapartist +liberalism. + +Other groups of minds were more serious. In that direction, they +sounded principles, they attached themselves to the right. They +grew enthusiastic for the absolute, they caught glimpses of infinite +realizations; the absolute, by its very rigidity, urges spirits towards +the sky and causes them to float in illimitable space. There is nothing +like dogma for bringing forth dreams. And there is nothing like dreams +for engendering the future. Utopia to-day, flesh and blood to-morrow. + +These advanced opinions had a double foundation. A beginning of mystery +menaced "the established order of things," which was suspicious and +underhand. A sign which was revolutionary to the highest degree. The +second thoughts of power meet the second thoughts of the populace in +the mine. The incubation of insurrections gives the retort to the +premeditation of coups d'etat. + +There did not, as yet, exist in France any of those vast underlying +organizations, like the German tugendbund and Italian Carbonarism; but +here and there there were dark underminings, which were in process of +throwing off shoots. The Cougourde was being outlined at Aix; there +existed at Paris, among other affiliations of that nature, the society +of the Friends of the A B C. + +What were these Friends of the A B C? A society which had for its object +apparently the education of children, in reality the elevation of man. + +They declared themselves the Friends of the A B C,--the Abaisse,--the +debased,--that is to say, the people. They wished to elevate the people. +It was a pun which we should do wrong to smile at. Puns are sometimes +serious factors in politics; witness the Castratus ad castra, which made +a general of the army of Narses; witness: Barbari et Barberini; witness: +Tu es Petrus et super hanc petram, etc., etc. + +The Friends of the A B C were not numerous, it was a secret society in +the state of embryo, we might almost say a coterie, if coteries ended in +heroes. They assembled in Paris in two localities, near the fish-market, +in a wine-shop called Corinthe, of which more will be heard later on, +and near the Pantheon in a little cafe in the Rue Saint-Michel called +the Cafe Musain, now torn down; the first of these meeting-places was +close to the workingman, the second to the students. + +The assemblies of the Friends of the A B C were usually held in a back +room of the Cafe Musain. + +This hall, which was tolerably remote from the cafe, with which it was +connected by an extremely long corridor, had two windows and an exit +with a private stairway on the little Rue des Gres. There they smoked +and drank, and gambled and laughed. There they conversed in very loud +tones about everything, and in whispers of other things. An old map +of France under the Republic was nailed to the wall,--a sign quite +sufficient to excite the suspicion of a police agent. + +The greater part of the Friends of the A B C were students, who were +on cordial terms with the working classes. Here are the names of the +principal ones. They belong, in a certain measure, to history: Enjolras, +Combeferre, Jean Prouvaire, Feuilly, Courfeyrac, Bahorel, Lesgle or +Laigle, Joly, Grantaire. + +These young men formed a sort of family, through the bond of friendship. +All, with the exception of Laigle, were from the South. + +[Illustration: Friends of the A B C 3b4-1-abc-friends] + +This was a remarkable group. It vanished in the invisible depths which +lie behind us. At the point of this drama which we have now reached, +it will not perhaps be superfluous to throw a ray of light upon these +youthful heads, before the reader beholds them plunging into the shadow +of a tragic adventure. + +Enjolras, whose name we have mentioned first of all,--the reader shall +see why later on,--was an only son and wealthy. + +Enjolras was a charming young man, who was capable of being terrible. He +was angelically handsome. He was a savage Antinous. One would have said, +to see the pensive thoughtfulness of his glance, that he had already, +in some previous state of existence, traversed the revolutionary +apocalypse. He possessed the tradition of it as though he had been a +witness. He was acquainted with all the minute details of the great +affair. A pontifical and warlike nature, a singular thing in a youth. He +was an officiating priest and a man of war; from the immediate point of +view, a soldier of the democracy; above the contemporary movement, the +priest of the ideal. His eyes were deep, his lids a little red, his +lower lip was thick and easily became disdainful, his brow was lofty. A +great deal of brow in a face is like a great deal of horizon in a view. +Like certain young men at the beginning of this century and the end of +the last, who became illustrious at an early age, he was endowed with +excessive youth, and was as rosy as a young girl, although subject to +hours of pallor. Already a man, he still seemed a child. His two and +twenty years appeared to be but seventeen; he was serious, it did not +seem as though he were aware there was on earth a thing called woman. +He had but one passion--the right; but one thought--to overthrow +the obstacle. On Mount Aventine, he would have been Gracchus; in the +Convention, he would have been Saint-Just. He hardly saw the roses, he +ignored spring, he did not hear the carolling of the birds; the bare +throat of Evadne would have moved him no more than it would have moved +Aristogeiton; he, like Harmodius, thought flowers good for nothing +except to conceal the sword. He was severe in his enjoyments. He +chastely dropped his eyes before everything which was not the Republic. +He was the marble lover of liberty. His speech was harshly inspired, +and had the thrill of a hymn. He was subject to unexpected outbursts of +soul. Woe to the love-affair which should have risked itself beside him! +If any grisette of the Place Cambrai or the Rue Saint-Jean-de-Beauvais, +seeing that face of a youth escaped from college, that page's mien, +those long, golden lashes, those blue eyes, that hair billowing in the +wind, those rosy cheeks, those fresh lips, those exquisite teeth, had +conceived an appetite for that complete aurora, and had tried her beauty +on Enjolras, an astounding and terrible glance would have promptly shown +her the abyss, and would have taught her not to confound the mighty +cherub of Ezekiel with the gallant Cherubino of Beaumarchais. + +By the side of Enjolras, who represented the logic of the Revolution, +Combeferre represented its philosophy. Between the logic of the +Revolution and its philosophy there exists this difference--that its +logic may end in war, whereas its philosophy can end only in peace. +Combeferre complemented and rectified Enjolras. He was less lofty, but +broader. He desired to pour into all minds the extensive principles of +general ideas: he said: "Revolution, but civilization"; and around the +mountain peak he opened out a vast view of the blue sky. The Revolution +was more adapted for breathing with Combeferre than with Enjolras. +Enjolras expressed its divine right, and Combeferre its natural right. +The first attached himself to Robespierre; the second confined himself +to Condorcet. Combeferre lived the life of all the rest of the world +more than did Enjolras. If it had been granted to these two young men to +attain to history, the one would have been the just, the other the wise +man. Enjolras was the more virile, Combeferre the more humane. Homo and +vir, that was the exact effect of their different shades. Combeferre was +as gentle as Enjolras was severe, through natural whiteness. He loved +the word citizen, but he preferred the word man. He would gladly +have said: Hombre, like the Spanish. He read everything, went to +the theatres, attended the courses of public lecturers, learned the +polarization of light from Arago, grew enthusiastic over a lesson in +which Geoffrey Sainte-Hilaire explained the double function of the +external carotid artery, and the internal, the one which makes the face, +and the one which makes the brain; he kept up with what was going +on, followed science step by step, compared Saint-Simon with Fourier, +deciphered hieroglyphics, broke the pebble which he found and reasoned +on geology, drew from memory a silkworm moth, pointed out the faulty +French in the Dictionary of the Academy, studied Puysegur and Deleuze, +affirmed nothing, not even miracles; denied nothing, not even ghosts; +turned over the files of the Moniteur, reflected. He declared that the +future lies in the hand of the schoolmaster, and busied himself with +educational questions. He desired that society should labor without +relaxation at the elevation of the moral and intellectual level, at +coining science, at putting ideas into circulation, at increasing the +mind in youthful persons, and he feared lest the present poverty of +method, the paltriness from a literary point of view confined to two +or three centuries called classic, the tyrannical dogmatism of official +pedants, scholastic prejudices and routines should end by converting our +colleges into artificial oyster beds. He was learned, a purist, exact, +a graduate of the Polytechnic, a close student, and at the same time, +thoughtful "even to chimaeras," so his friends said. He believed in +all dreams, railroads, the suppression of suffering in chirurgical +operations, the fixing of images in the dark chamber, the electric +telegraph, the steering of balloons. Moreover, he was not much alarmed +by the citadels erected against the human mind in every direction, by +superstition, despotism, and prejudice. He was one of those who think +that science will eventually turn the position. Enjolras was a chief, +Combeferre was a guide. One would have liked to fight under the one and +to march behind the other. It is not that Combeferre was not capable of +fighting, he did not refuse a hand-to-hand combat with the obstacle, and +to attack it by main force and explosively; but it suited him better to +bring the human race into accord with its destiny gradually, by means of +education, the inculcation of axioms, the promulgation of positive laws; +and, between two lights, his preference was rather for illumination than +for conflagration. A conflagration can create an aurora, no doubt, but +why not await the dawn? A volcano illuminates, but daybreak furnishes a +still better illumination. Possibly, Combeferre preferred the whiteness +of the beautiful to the blaze of the sublime. A light troubled by smoke, +progress purchased at the expense of violence, only half satisfied this +tender and serious spirit. The headlong precipitation of a people into +the truth, a '93, terrified him; nevertheless, stagnation was still +more repulsive to him, in it he detected putrefaction and death; on the +whole, he preferred scum to miasma, and he preferred the torrent to the +cesspool, and the falls of Niagara to the lake of Montfaucon. In +short, he desired neither halt nor haste. While his tumultuous friends, +captivated by the absolute, adored and invoked splendid revolutionary +adventures, Combeferre was inclined to let progress, good progress, take +its own course; he may have been cold, but he was pure; methodical, but +irreproachable; phlegmatic, but imperturbable. Combeferre would have +knelt and clasped his hands to enable the future to arrive in all +its candor, and that nothing might disturb the immense and virtuous +evolution of the races. The good must be innocent, he repeated +incessantly. And in fact, if the grandeur of the Revolution consists +in keeping the dazzling ideal fixedly in view, and of soaring thither +athwart the lightnings, with fire and blood in its talons, the beauty +of progress lies in being spotless; and there exists between Washington, +who represents the one, and Danton, who incarnates the other, that +difference which separates the swan from the angel with the wings of an +eagle. + +Jean Prouvaire was a still softer shade than Combeferre. His name +was Jehan, owing to that petty momentary freak which mingled with the +powerful and profound movement whence sprang the very essential study +of the Middle Ages. Jean Prouvaire was in love; he cultivated a pot +of flowers, played on the flute, made verses, loved the people, pitied +woman, wept over the child, confounded God and the future in the same +confidence, and blamed the Revolution for having caused the fall of a +royal head, that of Andre Chenier. His voice was ordinarily delicate, +but suddenly grew manly. He was learned even to erudition, and almost an +Orientalist. Above all, he was good; and, a very simple thing to those +who know how nearly goodness borders on grandeur, in the matter of +poetry, he preferred the immense. He knew Italian, Latin, Greek, and +Hebrew; and these served him only for the perusal of four poets: Dante, +Juvenal, AEschylus, and Isaiah. In French, he preferred Corneille to +Racine, and Agrippa d'Aubigne to Corneille. He loved to saunter through +fields of wild oats and corn-flowers, and busied himself with clouds +nearly as much as with events. His mind had two attitudes, one on +the side towards man, the other on that towards God; he studied or +he contemplated. All day long, he buried himself in social questions, +salary, capital, credit, marriage, religion, liberty of thought, +education, penal servitude, poverty, association, property, production +and sharing, the enigma of this lower world which covers the human +ant-hill with darkness; and at night, he gazed upon the planets, those +enormous beings. Like Enjolras, he was wealthy and an only son. He spoke +softly, bowed his head, lowered his eyes, smiled with embarrassment, +dressed badly, had an awkward air, blushed at a mere nothing, and was +very timid. Yet he was intrepid. + +Feuilly was a workingman, a fan-maker, orphaned both of father and +mother, who earned with difficulty three francs a day, and had but +one thought, to deliver the world. He had one other preoccupation, to +educate himself; he called this also, delivering himself. He had taught +himself to read and write; everything that he knew, he had learned by +himself. Feuilly had a generous heart. The range of his embrace was +immense. This orphan had adopted the peoples. As his mother had +failed him, he meditated on his country. He brooded with the profound +divination of the man of the people, over what we now call the idea of +the nationality, had learned history with the express object of raging +with full knowledge of the case. In this club of young Utopians, +occupied chiefly with France, he represented the outside world. He had +for his specialty Greece, Poland, Hungary, Roumania, Italy. He uttered +these names incessantly, appropriately and inappropriately, with the +tenacity of right. The violations of Turkey on Greece and Thessaly, of +Russia on Warsaw, of Austria on Venice, enraged him. Above all things, +the great violence of 1772 aroused him. There is no more sovereign +eloquence than the true in indignation; he was eloquent with that +eloquence. He was inexhaustible on that infamous date of 1772, on the +subject of that noble and valiant race suppressed by treason, and that +three-sided crime, on that monstrous ambush, the prototype and pattern +of all those horrible suppressions of states, which, since that time, +have struck many a noble nation, and have annulled their certificate of +birth, so to speak. All contemporary social crimes have their origin in +the partition of Poland. The partition of Poland is a theorem of which +all present political outrages are the corollaries. There has not been +a despot, nor a traitor for nearly a century back, who has not signed, +approved, counter-signed, and copied, ne variatur, the partition of +Poland. When the record of modern treasons was examined, that was the +first thing which made its appearance. The congress of Vienna consulted +that crime before consummating its own. 1772 sounded the onset; 1815 +was the death of the game. Such was Feuilly's habitual text. This +poor workingman had constituted himself the tutor of Justice, and she +recompensed him by rendering him great. The fact is, that there is +eternity in right. Warsaw can no more be Tartar than Venice can be +Teuton. Kings lose their pains and their honor in the attempt to make +them so. Sooner or later, the submerged part floats to the surface and +reappears. Greece becomes Greece again, Italy is once more Italy. The +protest of right against the deed persists forever. The theft of a +nation cannot be allowed by prescription. These lofty deeds of rascality +have no future. A nation cannot have its mark extracted like a pocket +handkerchief. + +Courfeyrac had a father who was called M. de Courfeyrac. One of +the false ideas of the bourgeoisie under the Restoration as regards +aristocracy and the nobility was to believe in the particle. The +particle, as every one knows, possesses no significance. But the +bourgeois of the epoch of la Minerve estimated so highly that poor de, +that they thought themselves bound to abdicate it. M. de Chauvelin +had himself called M. Chauvelin; M. de Caumartin, M. Caumartin; M. de +Constant de Robecque, Benjamin Constant; M. de Lafayette, M. Lafayette. +Courfeyrac had not wished to remain behind the rest, and called himself +plain Courfeyrac. + +We might almost, so far as Courfeyrac is concerned, stop here, +and confine ourselves to saying with regard to what remains: "For +Courfeyrac, see Tholomyes." + +Courfeyrac had, in fact, that animation of youth which may be called +the beaute du diable of the mind. Later on, this disappears like the +playfulness of the kitten, and all this grace ends, with the bourgeois, +on two legs, and with the tomcat, on four paws. + +This sort of wit is transmitted from generation to generation of the +successive levies of youth who traverse the schools, who pass it from +hand to hand, quasi cursores, and is almost always exactly the same; +so that, as we have just pointed out, any one who had listened to +Courfeyrac in 1828 would have thought he heard Tholomyes in 1817. Only, +Courfeyrac was an honorable fellow. Beneath the apparent similarities +of the exterior mind, the difference between him and Tholomyes was very +great. The latent man which existed in the two was totally different +in the first from what it was in the second. There was in Tholomyes a +district attorney, and in Courfeyrac a paladin. + +Enjolras was the chief, Combeferre was the guide, Courfeyrac was the +centre. The others gave more light, he shed more warmth; the truth is, +that he possessed all the qualities of a centre, roundness and radiance. + +Bahorel had figured in the bloody tumult of June, 1822, on the occasion +of the burial of young Lallemand. + +Bahorel was a good-natured mortal, who kept bad company, brave, a +spendthrift, prodigal, and to the verge of generosity, talkative, and +at times eloquent, bold to the verge of effrontery; the best fellow +possible; he had daring waistcoats, and scarlet opinions; a wholesale +blusterer, that is to say, loving nothing so much as a quarrel, unless +it were an uprising; and nothing so much as an uprising, unless it were +a revolution; always ready to smash a window-pane, then to tear up the +pavement, then to demolish a government, just to see the effect of it; +a student in his eleventh year. He had nosed about the law, but did not +practise it. He had taken for his device: "Never a lawyer," and for his +armorial bearings a nightstand in which was visible a square cap. Every +time that he passed the law-school, which rarely happened, he buttoned +up his frock-coat,--the paletot had not yet been invented,--and took +hygienic precautions. Of the school porter he said: "What a fine +old man!" and of the dean, M. Delvincourt: "What a monument!" In his +lectures he espied subjects for ballads, and in his professors occasions +for caricature. He wasted a tolerably large allowance, something like +three thousand francs a year, in doing nothing. + +He had peasant parents whom he had contrived to imbue with respect for +their son. + +He said of them: "They are peasants and not bourgeois; that is the +reason they are intelligent." + +Bahorel, a man of caprice, was scattered over numerous cafes; the others +had habits, he had none. He sauntered. To stray is human. To saunter +is Parisian. In reality, he had a penetrating mind and was more of a +thinker than appeared to view. + +He served as a connecting link between the Friends of the A B C and +other still unorganized groups, which were destined to take form later +on. + +In this conclave of young heads, there was one bald member. + +The Marquis d'Avaray, whom Louis XVIII. made a duke for having assisted +him to enter a hackney-coach on the day when he emigrated, was wont +to relate, that in 1814, on his return to France, as the King was +disembarking at Calais, a man handed him a petition. + +"What is your request?" said the King. + +"Sire, a post-office." + +"What is your name?" + +"L'Aigle." + +The King frowned, glanced at the signature of the petition and beheld +the name written thus: LESGLE. This non-Bonoparte orthography touched +the King and he began to smile. "Sire," resumed the man with the +petition, "I had for ancestor a keeper of the hounds surnamed +Lesgueules. This surname furnished my name. I am called Lesgueules, by +contraction Lesgle, and by corruption l'Aigle." This caused the King +to smile broadly. Later on he gave the man the posting office of Meaux, +either intentionally or accidentally. + +The bald member of the group was the son of this Lesgle, or Legle, and +he signed himself, Legle [de Meaux]. As an abbreviation, his companions +called him Bossuet. + +Bossuet was a gay but unlucky fellow. His specialty was not to succeed +in anything. As an offset, he laughed at everything. At five and twenty +he was bald. His father had ended by owning a house and a field; but +he, the son, had made haste to lose that house and field in a bad +speculation. He had nothing left. He possessed knowledge and wit, but +all he did miscarried. Everything failed him and everybody deceived him; +what he was building tumbled down on top of him. If he were splitting +wood, he cut off a finger. If he had a mistress, he speedily discovered +that he had a friend also. Some misfortune happened to him every moment, +hence his joviality. He said: "I live under falling tiles." He was +not easily astonished, because, for him, an accident was what he had +foreseen, he took his bad luck serenely, and smiled at the teasing of +fate, like a person who is listening to pleasantries. He was poor, but +his fund of good humor was inexhaustible. He soon reached his last sou, +never his last burst of laughter. When adversity entered his doors, he +saluted this old acquaintance cordially, he tapped all catastrophes on +the stomach; he was familiar with fatality to the point of calling it by +its nickname: "Good day, Guignon," he said to it. + +These persecutions of fate had rendered him inventive. He was full of +resources. He had no money, but he found means, when it seemed good to +him, to indulge in "unbridled extravagance." One night, he went so far +as to eat a "hundred francs" in a supper with a wench, which inspired +him to make this memorable remark in the midst of the orgy: "Pull off my +boots, you five-louis jade." + +Bossuet was slowly directing his steps towards the profession of a +lawyer; he was pursuing his law studies after the manner of Bahorel. +Bossuet had not much domicile, sometimes none at all. He lodged now with +one, now with another, most often with Joly. Joly was studying medicine. +He was two years younger than Bossuet. + +Joly was the "malade imaginaire" junior. What he had won in medicine was +to be more of an invalid than a doctor. At three and twenty he thought +himself a valetudinarian, and passed his life in inspecting his tongue +in the mirror. He affirmed that man becomes magnetic like a needle, and +in his chamber he placed his bed with its head to the south, and the +foot to the north, so that, at night, the circulation of his blood +might not be interfered with by the great electric current of the globe. +During thunder storms, he felt his pulse. Otherwise, he was the gayest +of them all. All these young, maniacal, puny, merry incoherences lived +in harmony together, and the result was an eccentric and agreeable +being whom his comrades, who were prodigal of winged consonants, called +Jolllly. "You may fly away on the four L's," Jean Prouvaire said to +him.[23] + +Joly had a trick of touching his nose with the tip of his cane, which is +an indication of a sagacious mind. + +All these young men who differed so greatly, and who, on the whole, can +only be discussed seriously, held the same religion: Progress. + +All were the direct sons of the French Revolution. The most giddy of +them became solemn when they pronounced that date: '89. Their fathers in +the flesh had been, either royalists, doctrinaires, it matters not what; +this confusion anterior to themselves, who were young, did not concern +them at all; the pure blood of principle ran in their veins. They +attached themselves, without intermediate shades, to incorruptible right +and absolute duty. + +Affiliated and initiated, they sketched out the ideal underground. + +Among all these glowing hearts and thoroughly convinced minds, there was +one sceptic. How came he there? By juxtaposition. This sceptic's name +was Grantaire, and he was in the habit of signing himself with this +rebus: R. Grantaire was a man who took good care not to believe in +anything. Moreover, he was one of the students who had learned the most +during their course at Paris; he knew that the best coffee was to be had +at the Cafe Lemblin, and the best billiards at the Cafe Voltaire, that +good cakes and lasses were to be found at the Ermitage, on the Boulevard +du Maine, spatchcocked chickens at Mother Sauget's, excellent matelotes +at the Barriere de la Cunette, and a certain thin white wine at the +Barriere du Com pat. He knew the best place for everything; in +addition, boxing and foot-fencing and some dances; and he was a thorough +single-stick player. He was a tremendous drinker to boot. He was +inordinately homely: the prettiest boot-stitcher of that day, Irma +Boissy, enraged with his homeliness, pronounced sentence on him as +follows: "Grantaire is impossible"; but Grantaire's fatuity was not to +be disconcerted. He stared tenderly and fixedly at all women, with the +air of saying to them all: "If I only chose!" and of trying to make his +comrades believe that he was in general demand. + +All those words: rights of the people, rights of man, the social +contract, the French Revolution, the Republic, democracy, humanity, +civilization, religion, progress, came very near to signifying nothing +whatever to Grantaire. He smiled at them. Scepticism, that caries of the +intelligence, had not left him a single whole idea. He lived with irony. +This was his axiom: "There is but one certainty, my full glass." He +sneered at all devotion in all parties, the father as well as the +brother, Robespierre junior as well as Loizerolles. "They are greatly in +advance to be dead," he exclaimed. He said of the crucifix: "There is a +gibbet which has been a success." A rover, a gambler, a libertine, +often drunk, he displeased these young dreamers by humming incessantly: +"J'aimons les filles, et j'aimons le bon vin." Air: Vive Henri IV. + +However, this sceptic had one fanaticism. This fanaticism was neither a +dogma, nor an idea, nor an art, nor a science; it was a man: Enjolras. +Grantaire admired, loved, and venerated Enjolras. To whom did this +anarchical scoffer unite himself in this phalanx of absolute minds? To +the most absolute. In what manner had Enjolras subjugated him? By his +ideas? No. By his character. A phenomenon which is often observable. +A sceptic who adheres to a believer is as simple as the law of +complementary colors. That which we lack attracts us. No one loves the +light like the blind man. The dwarf adores the drum-major. The toad +always has his eyes fixed on heaven. Why? In order to watch the bird in +its flight. Grantaire, in whom writhed doubt, loved to watch faith +soar in Enjolras. He had need of Enjolras. That chaste, healthy, firm, +upright, hard, candid nature charmed him, without his being clearly +aware of it, and without the idea of explaining it to himself having +occurred to him. He admired his opposite by instinct. His soft, +yielding, dislocated, sickly, shapeless ideas attached themselves +to Enjolras as to a spinal column. His moral backbone leaned on that +firmness. Grantaire in the presence of Enjolras became some one once +more. He was, himself, moreover, composed of two elements, which were, +to all appearance, incompatible. He was ironical and cordial. His +indifference loved. His mind could get along without belief, but his +heart could not get along without friendship. A profound contradiction; +for an affection is a conviction. His nature was thus constituted. There +are men who seem to be born to be the reverse, the obverse, the wrong +side. They are Pollux, Patrocles, Nisus, Eudamidas, Ephestion, Pechmeja. +They only exist on condition that they are backed up with another man; +their name is a sequel, and is only written preceded by the conjunction +and; and their existence is not their own; it is the other side of an +existence which is not theirs. Grantaire was one of these men. He was +the obverse of Enjolras. + +One might almost say that affinities begin with the letters of the +alphabet. In the series O and P are inseparable. You can, at will, +pronounce O and P or Orestes and Pylades. + +Grantaire, Enjolras' true satellite, inhabited this circle of young men; +he lived there, he took no pleasure anywhere but there; he followed them +everywhere. His joy was to see these forms go and come through the fumes +of wine. They tolerated him on account of his good humor. + +Enjolras, the believer, disdained this sceptic; and, a sober man +himself, scorned this drunkard. He accorded him a little lofty pity. +Grantaire was an unaccepted Pylades. Always harshly treated by Enjolras, +roughly repulsed, rejected yet ever returning to the charge, he said of +Enjolras: "What fine marble!" + + + + +CHAPTER II--BLONDEAU'S FUNERAL ORATION BY BOSSUET + +On a certain afternoon, which had, as will be seen hereafter, some +coincidence with the events heretofore related, Laigle de Meaux was to +be seen leaning in a sensual manner against the doorpost of the Cafe +Musain. He had the air of a caryatid on a vacation; he carried nothing +but his revery, however. He was staring at the Place Saint-Michel. +To lean one's back against a thing is equivalent to lying down while +standing erect, which attitude is not hated by thinkers. Laigle de Meaux +was pondering without melancholy, over a little misadventure which +had befallen him two days previously at the law-school, and which had +modified his personal plans for the future, plans which were rather +indistinct in any case. + +Revery does not prevent a cab from passing by, nor the dreamer from +taking note of that cab. Laigle de Meaux, whose eyes were straying about +in a sort of diffuse lounging, perceived, athwart his somnambulism, a +two-wheeled vehicle proceeding through the place, at a foot pace and +apparently in indecision. For whom was this cabriolet? Why was it +driving at a walk? Laigle took a survey. In it, beside the coachman, sat +a young man, and in front of the young man lay a rather bulky hand-bag. +The bag displayed to passers-by the following name inscribed in large +black letters on a card which was sewn to the stuff: MARIUS PONTMERCY. + +This name caused Laigle to change his attitude. He drew himself up and +hurled this apostrophe at the young man in the cabriolet:-- + +"Monsieur Marius Pontmercy!" + +The cabriolet thus addressed came to a halt. + +The young man, who also seemed deeply buried in thought, raised his +eyes:-- + +"Hey?" said he. + +"You are M. Marius Pontmercy?" + +"Certainly." + +"I was looking for you," resumed Laigle de Meaux. + +"How so?" demanded Marius; for it was he: in fact, he had just quitted +his grandfather's, and had before him a face which he now beheld for the +first time. "I do not know you." + +"Neither do I know you," responded Laigle. + +Marius thought he had encountered a wag, the beginning of a +mystification in the open street. He was not in a very good humor at the +moment. He frowned. Laigle de Meaux went on imperturbably:-- + +"You were not at the school day before yesterday." + +"That is possible." + +"That is certain." + +"You are a student?" demanded Marius. + +"Yes, sir. Like yourself. Day before yesterday, I entered the school, by +chance. You know, one does have such freaks sometimes. The professor was +just calling the roll. You are not unaware that they are very ridiculous +on such occasions. At the third call, unanswered, your name is erased +from the list. Sixty francs in the gulf." + +Marius began to listen. + +"It was Blondeau who was making the call. You know Blondeau, he has a +very pointed and very malicious nose, and he delights to scent out the +absent. He slyly began with the letter P. I was not listening, not being +compromised by that letter. The call was not going badly. No erasures; +the universe was present. Blondeau was grieved. I said to myself: +'Blondeau, my love, you will not get the very smallest sort of an +execution to-day.' All at once Blondeau calls, 'Marius Pontmercy!' No +one answers. Blondeau, filled with hope, repeats more loudly: 'Marius +Pontmercy!' And he takes his pen. Monsieur, I have bowels of compassion. +I said to myself hastily: 'Here's a brave fellow who is going to get +scratched out. Attention. Here is a veritable mortal who is not exact. +He's not a good student. Here is none of your heavy-sides, a student who +studies, a greenhorn pedant, strong on letters, theology, science, and +sapience, one of those dull wits cut by the square; a pin by profession. +He is an honorable idler who lounges, who practises country jaunts, who +cultivates the grisette, who pays court to the fair sex, who is at +this very moment, perhaps, with my mistress. Let us save him. Death to +Blondeau!' At that moment, Blondeau dipped his pen in, all black with +erasures in the ink, cast his yellow eyes round the audience room, and +repeated for the third time: 'Marius Pontmercy!' I replied: 'Present!' +This is why you were not crossed off." + +"Monsieur!--" said Marius. + +"And why I was," added Laigle de Meaux. + +"I do not understand you," said Marius. + +Laigle resumed:-- + +"Nothing is more simple. I was close to the desk to reply, and close +to the door for the purpose of flight. The professor gazed at me with a +certain intensity. All of a sudden, Blondeau, who must be the malicious +nose alluded to by Boileau, skipped to the letter L. L is my letter. I +am from Meaux, and my name is Lesgle." + +"L'Aigle!" interrupted Marius, "what fine name!" + +"Monsieur, Blondeau came to this fine name, and called: 'Laigle!' I +reply: 'Present!' Then Blondeau gazes at me, with the gentleness of a +tiger, and says to me: 'If you are Pontmercy, you are not Laigle.' A +phrase which has a disobliging air for you, but which was lugubrious +only for me. That said, he crossed me off." + +Marius exclaimed:-- + +"I am mortified, sir--" + +"First of all," interposed Laigle, "I demand permission to embalm +Blondeau in a few phrases of deeply felt eulogium. I will assume that he +is dead. There will be no great change required in his gauntness, in +his pallor, in his coldness, and in his smell. And I say: 'Erudimini +qui judicatis terram. Here lies Blondeau, Blondeau the Nose, Blondeau +Nasica, the ox of discipline, bos disciplinae, the bloodhound of the +password, the angel of the roll-call, who was upright, square exact, +rigid, honest, and hideous. God crossed him off as he crossed me off.'" + +Marius resumed:-- + +"I am very sorry--" + +"Young man," said Laigle de Meaux, "let this serve you as a lesson. In +future, be exact." + +"I really beg you a thousand pardons." + +"Do not expose your neighbor to the danger of having his name erased +again." + +"I am extremely sorry--" + +Laigle burst out laughing. + +"And I am delighted. I was on the brink of becoming a lawyer. This +erasure saves me. I renounce the triumphs of the bar. I shall not defend +the widow, and I shall not attack the orphan. No more toga, no more +stage. Here is my erasure all ready for me. It is to you that I am +indebted for it, Monsieur Pontmercy. I intend to pay a solemn call of +thanks upon you. Where do you live?" + +"In this cab," said Marius. + +"A sign of opulence," retorted Laigle calmly. "I congratulate you. You +have there a rent of nine thousand francs per annum." + +At that moment, Courfeyrac emerged from the cafe. + +Marius smiled sadly. + +"I have paid this rent for the last two hours, and I aspire to get rid +of it; but there is a sort of history attached to it, and I don't know +where to go." + +"Come to my place, sir," said Courfeyrac. + +"I have the priority," observed Laigle, "but I have no home." + +"Hold your tongue, Bossuet," said Courfeyrac. + +"Bossuet," said Marius, "but I thought that your name was Laigle." + +"De Meaux," replied Laigle; "by metaphor, Bossuet." + +Courfeyrac entered the cab. + +"Coachman," said he, "hotel de la Porte-Saint-Jacques." + +And that very evening, Marius found himself installed in a chamber of +the hotel de la Porte-Saint-Jacques side by side with Courfeyrac. + + + + +CHAPTER III--MARIUS' ASTONISHMENTS + +In a few days, Marius had become Courfeyrac's friend. Youth is the +season for prompt welding and the rapid healing of scars. Marius +breathed freely in Courfeyrac's society, a decidedly new thing for him. +Courfeyrac put no questions to him. He did not even think of such a +thing. At that age, faces disclose everything on the spot. Words are +superfluous. There are young men of whom it can be said that their +countenances chatter. One looks at them and one knows them. + +One morning, however, Courfeyrac abruptly addressed this interrogation +to him:-- + +"By the way, have you any political opinions?" + +"The idea!" said Marius, almost affronted by the question. + +"What are you?" + +"A democrat-Bonapartist." + +"The gray hue of a reassured rat," said Courfeyrac. + +On the following day, Courfeyrac introduced Marius at the Cafe Musain. +Then he whispered in his ear, with a smile: "I must give you your entry +to the revolution." And he led him to the hall of the Friends of the A B +C. He presented him to the other comrades, saying this simple word which +Marius did not understand: "A pupil." + +Marius had fallen into a wasps'-nest of wits. However, although he was +silent and grave, he was, none the less, both winged and armed. + +Marius, up to that time solitary and inclined to soliloquy, and to +asides, both by habit and by taste, was a little fluttered by this covey +of young men around him. All these various initiatives solicited his +attention at once, and pulled him about. The tumultuous movements of +these minds at liberty and at work set his ideas in a whirl. Sometimes, +in his trouble, they fled so far from him, that he had difficulty in +recovering them. He heard them talk of philosophy, of literature, of +art, of history, of religion, in unexpected fashion. He caught glimpses +of strange aspects; and, as he did not place them in proper perspective, +he was not altogether sure that it was not chaos that he grasped. On +abandoning his grandfather's opinions for the opinions of his father, +he had supposed himself fixed; he now suspected, with uneasiness, and +without daring to avow it to himself, that he was not. The angle +at which he saw everything began to be displaced anew. A certain +oscillation set all the horizons of his brains in motion. An odd +internal upsetting. He almost suffered from it. + +It seemed as though there were no "consecrated things" for those young +men. Marius heard singular propositions on every sort of subject, which +embarrassed his still timid mind. + +A theatre poster presented itself, adorned with the title of a tragedy +from the ancient repertory called classic: "Down with tragedy dear to +the bourgeois!" cried Bahorel. And Marius heard Combeferre reply:-- + +"You are wrong, Bahorel. The bourgeoisie loves tragedy, and the +bourgeoisie must be left at peace on that score. Bewigged tragedy has +a reason for its existence, and I am not one of those who, by order of +AEschylus, contest its right to existence. There are rough outlines in +nature; there are, in creation, ready-made parodies; a beak which is not +a beak, wings which are not wings, gills which are not gills, paws which +are not paws, a cry of pain which arouses a desire to laugh, there is +the duck. Now, since poultry exists by the side of the bird, I do +not see why classic tragedy should not exist in the face of antique +tragedy." + +Or chance decreed that Marius should traverse Rue Jean-Jacques Rousseau +between Enjolras and Courfeyrac. + +Courfeyrac took his arm:-- + +"Pay attention. This is the Rue Platriere, now called Rue Jean-Jacques +Rousseau, on account of a singular household which lived in it sixty +years ago. This consisted of Jean-Jacques and Therese. From time +to time, little beings were born there. Therese gave birth to them, +Jean-Jacques represented them as foundlings." + +And Enjolras addressed Courfeyrac roughly:-- + +"Silence in the presence of Jean-Jacques! I admire that man. He denied +his own children, that may be; but he adopted the people." + +Not one of these young men articulated the word: The Emperor. +Jean Prouvaire alone sometimes said Napoleon; all the others said +"Bonaparte." Enjolras pronounced it "Buonaparte." + +Marius was vaguely surprised. Initium sapientiae. + + + + +CHAPTER IV--THE BACK ROOM OF THE CAFE MUSAIN + +One of the conversations among the young men, at which Marius was +present and in which he sometimes joined, was a veritable shock to his +mind. + +This took place in the back room of the Cafe Musain. Nearly all the +Friends of the A B C had convened that evening. The argand lamp was +solemnly lighted. They talked of one thing and another, without passion +and with noise. With the exception of Enjolras and Marius, who held +their peace, all were haranguing rather at hap-hazard. Conversations +between comrades sometimes are subject to these peaceable tumults. It +was a game and an uproar as much as a conversation. They tossed words +to each other and caught them up in turn. They were chattering in all +quarters. + +No woman was admitted to this back room, except Louison, the dish-washer +of the cafe, who passed through it from time to time, to go to her +washing in the "lavatory." + +Grantaire, thoroughly drunk, was deafening the corner of which he had +taken possession, reasoning and contradicting at the top of his lungs, +and shouting:-- + +"I am thirsty. Mortals, I am dreaming: that the tun of Heidelberg has an +attack of apoplexy, and that I am one of the dozen leeches which will +be applied to it. I want a drink. I desire to forget life. Life is a +hideous invention of I know not whom. It lasts no time at all, and is +worth nothing. One breaks one's neck in living. Life is a theatre set in +which there are but few practicable entrances. Happiness is an antique +reliquary painted on one side only. Ecclesiastes says: 'All is vanity.' +I agree with that good man, who never existed, perhaps. Zero not wishing +to go stark naked, clothed himself in vanity. O vanity! The patching up +of everything with big words! a kitchen is a laboratory, a dancer is a +professor, an acrobat is a gymnast, a boxer is a pugilist, an apothecary +is a chemist, a wigmaker is an artist, a hodman is an architect, a +jockey is a sportsman, a wood-louse is a pterigybranche. Vanity has a +right and a wrong side; the right side is stupid, it is the negro with +his glass beads; the wrong side is foolish, it is the philosopher with +his rags. I weep over the one and I laugh over the other. What are +called honors and dignities, and even dignity and honor, are generally +of pinchbeck. Kings make playthings of human pride. Caligula made a +horse a consul; Charles II. made a knight of a sirloin. Wrap yourself +up now, then, between Consul Incitatus and Baronet Roastbeef. As for +the intrinsic value of people, it is no longer respectable in the least. +Listen to the panegyric which neighbor makes of neighbor. White on white +is ferocious; if the lily could speak, what a setting down it would give +the dove! A bigoted woman prating of a devout woman is more venomous +than the asp and the cobra. It is a shame that I am ignorant, otherwise +I would quote to you a mass of things; but I know nothing. For instance, +I have always been witty; when I was a pupil of Gros, instead of +daubing wretched little pictures, I passed my time in pilfering apples; +rapin[24] is the masculine of rapine. So much for myself; as for +the rest of you, you are worth no more than I am. I scoff at your +perfections, excellencies, and qualities. Every good quality tends +towards a defect; economy borders on avarice, the generous man is next +door to the prodigal, the brave man rubs elbows with the braggart; he +who says very pious says a trifle bigoted; there are just as many vices +in virtue as there are holes in Diogenes' cloak. Whom do you admire, the +slain or the slayer, Caesar or Brutus? Generally men are in favor of the +slayer. Long live Brutus, he has slain! There lies the virtue. Virtue, +granted, but madness also. There are queer spots on those great men. The +Brutus who killed Caesar was in love with the statue of a little boy. +This statue was from the hand of the Greek sculptor Strongylion, +who also carved that figure of an Amazon known as the Beautiful Leg, +Eucnemos, which Nero carried with him in his travels. This Strongylion +left but two statues which placed Nero and Brutus in accord. Brutus was +in love with the one, Nero with the other. All history is nothing but +wearisome repetition. One century is the plagiarist of the other. The +battle of Marengo copies the battle of Pydna; the Tolbiac of Clovis and +the Austerlitz of Napoleon are as like each other as two drops of water. +I don't attach much importance to victory. Nothing is so stupid as to +conquer; true glory lies in convincing. But try to prove something! If +you are content with success, what mediocrity, and with conquering, what +wretchedness! Alas, vanity and cowardice everywhere. Everything obeys +success, even grammar. Si volet usus, says Horace. Therefore I disdain +the human race. Shall we descend to the party at all? Do you wish me +to begin admiring the peoples? What people, if you please? Shall it be +Greece? The Athenians, those Parisians of days gone by, slew Phocion, +as we might say Coligny, and fawned upon tyrants to such an extent that +Anacephorus said of Pisistratus: "His urine attracts the bees." The most +prominent man in Greece for fifty years was that grammarian Philetas, +who was so small and so thin that he was obliged to load his shoes with +lead in order not to be blown away by the wind. There stood on the great +square in Corinth a statue carved by Silanion and catalogued by Pliny; +this statue represented Episthates. What did Episthates do? He invented +a trip. That sums up Greece and glory. Let us pass on to others. Shall I +admire England? Shall I admire France? France? Why? Because of Paris? +I have just told you my opinion of Athens. England? Why? Because of +London? I hate Carthage. And then, London, the metropolis of luxury, is +the headquarters of wretchedness. There are a hundred deaths a year of +hunger in the parish of Charing-Cross alone. Such is Albion. I add, +as the climax, that I have seen an Englishwoman dancing in a wreath of +roses and blue spectacles. A fig then for England! If I do not admire +John Bull, shall I admire Brother Jonathan? I have but little taste for +that slave-holding brother. Take away Time is money, what remains of +England? Take away Cotton is king, what remains of America? Germany is +the lymph, Italy is the bile. Shall we go into ecstasies over Russia? +Voltaire admired it. He also admired China. I admit that Russia has its +beauties, among others, a stout despotism; but I pity the despots. +Their health is delicate. A decapitated Alexis, a poignarded Peter, +a strangled Paul, another Paul crushed flat with kicks, divers Ivans +strangled, with their throats cut, numerous Nicholases and Basils +poisoned, all this indicates that the palace of the Emperors of Russia +is in a condition of flagrant insalubrity. All civilized peoples offer +this detail to the admiration of the thinker; war; now, war, civilized +war, exhausts and sums up all the forms of ruffianism, from the +brigandage of the Trabuceros in the gorges of Mont Jaxa to the marauding +of the Comanche Indians in the Doubtful Pass. 'Bah!' you will say to +me, 'but Europe is certainly better than Asia?' I admit that Asia is a +farce; but I do not precisely see what you find to laugh at in the Grand +Lama, you peoples of the west, who have mingled with your fashions and +your elegances all the complicated filth of majesty, from the dirty +chemise of Queen Isabella to the chamber-chair of the Dauphin. Gentlemen +of the human race, I tell you, not a bit of it! It is at Brussels that +the most beer is consumed, at Stockholm the most brandy, at Madrid the +most chocolate, at Amsterdam the most gin, at London the most wine, at +Constantinople the most coffee, at Paris the most absinthe; there are +all the useful notions. Paris carries the day, in short. In Paris, +even the rag-pickers are sybarites; Diogenes would have loved to be a +rag-picker of the Place Maubert better than to be a philosopher at the +Piraeus. Learn this in addition; the wineshops of the ragpickers +are called bibines; the most celebrated are the Saucepan and The +Slaughter-House. Hence, tea-gardens, goguettes, caboulots, bouibuis, +mastroquets, bastringues, manezingues, bibines of the rag-pickers, +caravanseries of the caliphs, I certify to you, I am a voluptuary, I eat +at Richard's at forty sous a head, I must have Persian carpets to roll +naked Cleopatra in! Where is Cleopatra? Ah! So it is you, Louison. Good +day." + +Thus did Grantaire, more than intoxicated, launch into speech, catching +at the dish-washer in her passage, from his corner in the back room of +the Cafe Musain. + +Bossuet, extending his hand towards him, tried to impose silence on him, +and Grantaire began again worse than ever:-- + +"Aigle de Meaux, down with your paws. You produce on me no effect with +your gesture of Hippocrates refusing Artaxerxes' bric-a-brac. I excuse +you from the task of soothing me. Moreover, I am sad. What do you wish +me to say to you? Man is evil, man is deformed; the butterfly is a +success, man is a failure. God made a mistake with that animal. A +crowd offers a choice of ugliness. The first comer is a wretch, +Femme--woman--rhymes with infame,--infamous. Yes, I have the spleen, +complicated with melancholy, with homesickness, plus hypochondria, and +I am vexed and I rage, and I yawn, and I am bored, and I am tired to +death, and I am stupid! Let God go to the devil!" + +"Silence then, capital R!" resumed Bossuet, who was discussing a point +of law behind the scenes, and who was plunged more than waist high in a +phrase of judicial slang, of which this is the conclusion:-- + +"--And as for me, although I am hardly a legist, and at the most, an +amateur attorney, I maintain this: that, in accordance with the terms +of the customs of Normandy, at Saint-Michel, and for each year, an +equivalent must be paid to the profit of the lord of the manor, saving +the rights of others, and by all and several, the proprietors as well +as those seized with inheritance, and that, for all emphyteuses, leases, +freeholds, contracts of domain, mortgages--" + +"Echo, plaintive nymph," hummed Grantaire. + +Near Grantaire, an almost silent table, a sheet of paper, an inkstand +and a pen between two glasses of brandy, announced that a vaudeville was +being sketched out. + +This great affair was being discussed in a low voice, and the two heads +at work touched each other: "Let us begin by finding names. When one has +the names, one finds the subject." + +"That is true. Dictate. I will write." + +"Monsieur Dorimon." + +"An independent gentleman?" + +"Of course." + +"His daughter, Celestine." + +"--tine. What next?" + +"Colonel Sainval." + +"Sainval is stale. I should say Valsin." + +Beside the vaudeville aspirants, another group, which was also taking +advantage of the uproar to talk low, was discussing a duel. An old +fellow of thirty was counselling a young one of eighteen, and explaining +to him what sort of an adversary he had to deal with. + +"The deuce! Look out for yourself. He is a fine swordsman. His play is +neat. He has the attack, no wasted feints, wrist, dash, lightning, a +just parade, mathematical parries, bigre! and he is left-handed." + +In the angle opposite Grantaire, Joly and Bahorel were playing dominoes, +and talking of love. + +"You are in luck, that you are," Joly was saying. "You have a mistress +who is always laughing." + +"That is a fault of hers," returned Bahorel. "One's mistress does wrong +to laugh. That encourages one to deceive her. To see her gay removes +your remorse; if you see her sad, your conscience pricks you." + +"Ingrate! a woman who laughs is such a good thing! And you never +quarrel!" + +"That is because of the treaty which we have made. On forming our little +Holy Alliance we assigned ourselves each our frontier, which we never +cross. What is situated on the side of winter belongs to Vaud, on the +side of the wind to Gex. Hence the peace." + +"Peace is happiness digesting." + +"And you, Jolllly, where do you stand in your entanglement with +Mamselle--you know whom I mean?" + +"She sulks at me with cruel patience." + +"Yet you are a lover to soften the heart with gauntness." + +"Alas!" + +"In your place, I would let her alone." + +"That is easy enough to say." + +"And to do. Is not her name Musichetta?" + +"Yes. Ah! my poor Bahorel, she is a superb girl, very literary, with +tiny feet, little hands, she dresses well, and is white and dimpled, +with the eyes of a fortune-teller. I am wild over her." + +"My dear fellow, then in order to please her, you must be elegant, +and produce effects with your knees. Buy a good pair of trousers of +double-milled cloth at Staub's. That will assist." + +"At what price?" shouted Grantaire. + +The third corner was delivered up to a poetical discussion. Pagan +mythology was giving battle to Christian mythology. The question was +about Olympus, whose part was taken by Jean Prouvaire, out of pure +romanticism. + +Jean Prouvaire was timid only in repose. Once excited, he burst forth, +a sort of mirth accentuated his enthusiasm, and he was at once both +laughing and lyric. + +"Let us not insult the gods," said he. "The gods may not have taken +their departure. Jupiter does not impress me as dead. The gods are +dreams, you say. Well, even in nature, such as it is to-day, after the +flight of these dreams, we still find all the grand old pagan myths. +Such and such a mountain with the profile of a citadel, like the +Vignemale, for example, is still to me the headdress of Cybele; it has +not been proved to me that Pan does not come at night to breathe into +the hollow trunks of the willows, stopping up the holes in turn with his +fingers, and I have always believed that Io had something to do with the +cascade of Pissevache." + +In the last corner, they were talking politics. The Charter which had +been granted was getting roughly handled. Combeferre was upholding it +weakly. Courfeyrac was energetically making a breach in it. On the table +lay an unfortunate copy of the famous Touquet Charter. Courfeyrac had +seized it, and was brandishing it, mingling with his arguments the +rattling of this sheet of paper. + +"In the first place, I won't have any kings; if it were only from an +economical point of view, I don't want any; a king is a parasite. One +does not have kings gratis. Listen to this: the dearness of kings. At +the death of Francois I., the national debt of France amounted to an +income of thirty thousand livres; at the death of Louis XIV. it was two +milliards, six hundred millions, at twenty-eight livres the mark, which +was equivalent in 1760, according to Desmarets, to four milliards, five +hundred millions, which would to-day be equivalent to twelve milliards. +In the second place, and no offence to Combeferre, a charter granted is +but a poor expedient of civilization. To save the transition, to soften +the passage, to deaden the shock, to cause the nation to pass insensibly +from the monarchy to democracy by the practice of constitutional +fictions,--what detestable reasons all those are! No! no! let us never +enlighten the people with false daylight. Principles dwindle and pale +in your constitutional cellar. No illegitimacy, no compromise, no grant +from the king to the people. In all such grants there is an Article 14. +By the side of the hand which gives there is the claw which snatches +back. I refuse your charter point-blank. A charter is a mask; the lie +lurks beneath it. A people which accepts a charter abdicates. The law is +only the law when entire. No! no charter!" + +It was winter; a couple of fagots were crackling in the fireplace. This +was tempting, and Courfeyrac could not resist. He crumpled the poor +Touquet Charter in his fist, and flung it in the fire. The paper +flashed up. Combeferre watched the masterpiece of Louis XVIII. burn +philosophically, and contented himself with saying:-- + +"The charter metamorphosed into flame." + +And sarcasms, sallies, jests, that French thing which is called entrain, +and that English thing which is called humor, good and bad taste, +good and bad reasons, all the wild pyrotechnics of dialogue, mounting +together and crossing from all points of the room, produced a sort of +merry bombardment over their heads. + + + + +CHAPTER V--ENLARGEMENT OF HORIZON + +The shocks of youthful minds among themselves have this admirable +property, that one can never foresee the spark, nor divine the lightning +flash. What will dart out presently? No one knows. The burst of laughter +starts from a tender feeling. + +At the moment of jest, the serious makes its entry. Impulses depend on +the first chance word. The spirit of each is sovereign, jest suffices +to open the field to the unexpected. These are conversations with +abrupt turns, in which the perspective changes suddenly. Chance is the +stage-manager of such conversations. + +A severe thought, starting oddly from a clash of words, suddenly +traversed the conflict of quips in which Grantaire, Bahorel, Prouvaire, +Bossuet, Combeferre, and Courfeyrac were confusedly fencing. + +How does a phrase crop up in a dialogue? Whence comes it that it +suddenly impresses itself on the attention of those who hear it? We +have just said, that no one knows anything about it. In the midst of the +uproar, Bossuet all at once terminated some apostrophe to Combeferre, +with this date:-- + +"June 18th, 1815, Waterloo." + +At this name of Waterloo, Marius, who was leaning his elbows on a table, +beside a glass of water, removed his wrist from beneath his chin, and +began to gaze fixedly at the audience. + +"Pardieu!" exclaimed Courfeyrac ("Parbleu" was falling into disuse +at this period), "that number 18 is strange and strikes me. It is +Bonaparte's fatal number. Place Louis in front and Brumaire behind, you +have the whole destiny of the man, with this significant peculiarity, +that the end treads close on the heels of the commencement." + +Enjolras, who had remained mute up to that point, broke the silence and +addressed this remark to Combeferre:-- + +"You mean to say, the crime and the expiation." + +This word crime overpassed the measure of what Marius, who was already +greatly agitated by the abrupt evocation of Waterloo, could accept. + +He rose, walked slowly to the map of France spread out on the wall, and +at whose base an island was visible in a separate compartment, laid his +finger on this compartment and said:-- + +"Corsica, a little island which has rendered France very great." + +This was like a breath of icy air. All ceased talking. They felt that +something was on the point of occurring. + +Bahorel, replying to Bossuet, was just assuming an attitude of the torso +to which he was addicted. He gave it up to listen. + +Enjolras, whose blue eye was not fixed on any one, and who seemed to be +gazing at space, replied, without glancing at Marius:-- + +"France needs no Corsica to be great. France is great because she is +France. Quia nomina leo." + +Marius felt no desire to retreat; he turned towards Enjolras, and his +voice burst forth with a vibration which came from a quiver of his very +being:-- + +"God forbid that I should diminish France! But amalgamating Napoleon +with her is not diminishing her. Come! let us argue the question. I am +a new comer among you, but I will confess that you amaze me. Where do we +stand? Who are we? Who are you? Who am I? Let us come to an explanation +about the Emperor. I hear you say Buonaparte, accenting the u like the +Royalists. I warn you that my grandfather does better still; he +says Buonaparte'. I thought you were young men. Where, then, is your +enthusiasm? And what are you doing with it? Whom do you admire, if you +do not admire the Emperor? And what more do you want? If you will +have none of that great man, what great men would you like? He had +everything. He was complete. He had in his brain the sum of human +faculties. He made codes like Justinian, he dictated like Caesar, his +conversation was mingled with the lightning-flash of Pascal, with the +thunderclap of Tacitus, he made history and he wrote it, his bulletins +are Iliads, he combined the cipher of Newton with the metaphor of +Mahomet, he left behind him in the East words as great as the pyramids, +at Tilsit he taught Emperors majesty, at the Academy of Sciences he +replied to Laplace, in the Council of State be held his own against +Merlin, he gave a soul to the geometry of the first, and to the +chicanery of the last, he was a legist with the attorneys and sidereal +with the astronomers; like Cromwell blowing out one of two candles, he +went to the Temple to bargain for a curtain tassel; he saw everything; +he knew everything; which did not prevent him from laughing +good-naturedly beside the cradle of his little child; and all at once, +frightened Europe lent an ear, armies put themselves in motion, parks of +artillery rumbled, pontoons stretched over the rivers, clouds of cavalry +galloped in the storm, cries, trumpets, a trembling of thrones in every +direction, the frontiers of kingdoms oscillated on the map, the sound +of a superhuman sword was heard, as it was drawn from its sheath; they +beheld him, him, rise erect on the horizon with a blazing brand in his +hand, and a glow in his eyes, unfolding amid the thunder, his two wings, +the grand army and the old guard, and he was the archangel of war!" + +All held their peace, and Enjolras bowed his head. Silence always +produces somewhat the effect of acquiescence, of the enemy being driven +to the wall. Marius continued with increased enthusiasm, and almost +without pausing for breath:-- + +"Let us be just, my friends! What a splendid destiny for a nation to be +the Empire of such an Emperor, when that nation is France and when it +adds its own genius to the genius of that man! To appear and to reign, +to march and to triumph, to have for halting-places all capitals, to +take his grenadiers and to make kings of them, to decree the falls of +dynasties, and to transfigure Europe at the pace of a charge; to make +you feel that when you threaten you lay your hand on the hilt of the +sword of God; to follow in a single man, Hannibal, Caesar, Charlemagne; +to be the people of some one who mingles with your dawns the startling +announcement of a battle won, to have the cannon of the Invalides to +rouse you in the morning, to hurl into abysses of light prodigious words +which flame forever, Marengo, Arcola, Austerlitz, Jena, Wagram! To cause +constellations of victories to flash forth at each instant from the +zenith of the centuries, to make the French Empire a pendant to the +Roman Empire, to be the great nation and to give birth to the grand +army, to make its legions fly forth over all the earth, as a mountain +sends out its eagles on all sides to conquer, to dominate, to strike +with lightning, to be in Europe a sort of nation gilded through glory, +to sound athwart the centuries a trumpet-blast of Titans, to conquer +the world twice, by conquest and by dazzling, that is sublime; and what +greater thing is there?" + +"To be free," said Combeferre. + +Marius lowered his head in his turn; that cold and simple word had +traversed his epic effusion like a blade of steel, and he felt it +vanishing within him. When he raised his eyes, Combeferre was no longer +there. Probably satisfied with his reply to the apotheosis, he had +just taken his departure, and all, with the exception of Enjolras, +had followed him. The room had been emptied. Enjolras, left alone with +Marius, was gazing gravely at him. Marius, however, having rallied his +ideas to some extent, did not consider himself beaten; there lingered in +him a trace of inward fermentation which was on the point, no doubt, of +translating itself into syllogisms arrayed against Enjolras, when all of +a sudden, they heard some one singing on the stairs as he went. It was +Combeferre, and this is what he was singing:-- + + "Si Cesar m'avait donne[25] + La gloire et la guerre, + Et qu'il me fallait quitter + L'amour de ma mere, + Je dirais au grand Cesar: + Reprends ton sceptre et ton char, + J'aime mieux ma mere, o gue! + J'aime mieux ma mere!" + +The wild and tender accents with which Combeferre sang communicated to +this couplet a sort of strange grandeur. Marius, thoughtfully, and +with his eyes diked on the ceiling, repeated almost mechanically: "My +mother?--" + +At that moment, he felt Enjolras' hand on his shoulder. + +"Citizen," said Enjolras to him, "my mother is the Republic." + + + + +CHAPTER VI--RES ANGUSTA + +That evening left Marius profoundly shaken, and with a melancholy shadow +in his soul. He felt what the earth may possibly feel, at the moment +when it is torn open with the iron, in order that grain may be deposited +within it; it feels only the wound; the quiver of the germ and the joy +of the fruit only arrive later. + +Marius was gloomy. He had but just acquired a faith; must he then reject +it already? He affirmed to himself that he would not. He declared to +himself that he would not doubt, and he began to doubt in spite of +himself. To stand between two religions, from one of which you have +not as yet emerged, and another into which you have not yet entered, is +intolerable; and twilight is pleasing only to bat-like souls. Marius +was clear-eyed, and he required the true light. The half-lights of doubt +pained him. Whatever may have been his desire to remain where he was, +he could not halt there, he was irresistibly constrained to continue, to +advance, to examine, to think, to march further. Whither would this lead +him? He feared, after having taken so many steps which had brought him +nearer to his father, to now take a step which should estrange him from +that father. His discomfort was augmented by all the reflections which +occurred to him. An escarpment rose around him. He was in accord neither +with his grandfather nor with his friends; daring in the eyes of +the one, he was behind the times in the eyes of the others, and he +recognized the fact that he was doubly isolated, on the side of age and +on the side of youth. He ceased to go to the Cafe Musain. + +In the troubled state of his conscience, he no longer thought of +certain serious sides of existence. The realities of life do not allow +themselves to be forgotten. They soon elbowed him abruptly. + +One morning, the proprietor of the hotel entered Marius' room and said +to him:-- + +"Monsieur Courfeyrac answered for you." + +"Yes." + +"But I must have my money." + +"Request Courfeyrac to come and talk with me," said Marius. + +Courfeyrac having made his appearance, the host left them. Marius then +told him what it had not before occurred to him to relate, that he was +the same as alone in the world, and had no relatives. + +"What is to become of you?" said Courfeyrac. + +"I do not know in the least," replied Marius. + +"What are you going to do?" + +"I do not know." + +"Have you any money?" + +"Fifteen francs." + +"Do you want me to lend you some?" + +"Never." + +"Have you clothes?" + +"Here is what I have." + +"Have you trinkets?" + +"A watch." + +"Silver?" + +"Gold; here it is." + +"I know a clothes-dealer who will take your frock-coat and a pair of +trousers." + +"That is good." + +"You will then have only a pair of trousers, a waistcoat, a hat and a +coat." + +"And my boots." + +"What! you will not go barefoot? What opulence!" + +"That will be enough." + +"I know a watchmaker who will buy your watch." + +"That is good." + +"No; it is not good. What will you do after that?" + +"Whatever is necessary. Anything honest, that is to say." + +"Do you know English?" + +"No." + +"Do you know German?" + +"No." + +"So much the worse." + +"Why?" + +"Because one of my friends, a publisher, is getting up a sort of an +encyclopaedia, for which you might have translated English or German +articles. It is badly paid work, but one can live by it." + +"I will learn English and German." + +"And in the meanwhile?" + +"In the meanwhile I will live on my clothes and my watch." + +The clothes-dealer was sent for. He paid twenty francs for the cast-off +garments. They went to the watchmaker's. He bought the watch for +forty-five francs. + +"That is not bad," said Marius to Courfeyrac, on their return to the +hotel, "with my fifteen francs, that makes eighty." + +"And the hotel bill?" observed Courfeyrac. + +"Hello, I had forgotten that," said Marius. + +The landlord presented his bill, which had to be paid on the spot. It +amounted to seventy francs. + +"I have ten francs left," said Marius. + +"The deuce," exclaimed Courfeyrac, "you will eat up five francs while +you are learning English, and five while learning German. That will be +swallowing a tongue very fast, or a hundred sous very slowly." + +In the meantime Aunt Gillenormand, a rather good-hearted person at +bottom in difficulties, had finally hunted up Marius' abode. + +One morning, on his return from the law-school, Marius found a letter +from his aunt, and the sixty pistoles, that is to say, six hundred +francs in gold, in a sealed box. + +Marius sent back the thirty louis to his aunt, with a respectful letter, +in which he stated that he had sufficient means of subsistence and that +he should be able thenceforth to supply all his needs. At that moment, +he had three francs left. + +His aunt did not inform his grandfather of this refusal for fear of +exasperating him. Besides, had he not said: "Let me never hear the name +of that blood-drinker again!" + +Marius left the hotel de la Porte Saint-Jacques, as he did not wish to +run in debt there. + + + + +BOOK FIFTH.--THE EXCELLENCE OF MISFORTUNE + + + + +CHAPTER I--MARIUS INDIGENT + +[Illustration: Excellence of Misfortune 3b5-1-misfortune] + + +Life became hard for Marius. It was nothing to eat his clothes and his +watch. He ate of that terrible, inexpressible thing that is called de la +vache enrage; that is to say, he endured great hardships and privations. +A terrible thing it is, containing days without bread, nights without +sleep, evenings without a candle, a hearth without a fire, weeks without +work, a future without hope, a coat out at the elbows, an old hat which +evokes the laughter of young girls, a door which one finds locked on one +at night because one's rent is not paid, the insolence of the porter +and the cook-shop man, the sneers of neighbors, humiliations, dignity +trampled on, work of whatever nature accepted, disgusts, bitterness, +despondency. Marius learned how all this is eaten, and how such are +often the only things which one has to devour. At that moment of his +existence when a man needs his pride, because he needs love, he felt +that he was jeered at because he was badly dressed, and ridiculous +because he was poor. At the age when youth swells the heart with +imperial pride, he dropped his eyes more than once on his dilapidated +boots, and he knew the unjust shame and the poignant blushes of +wretchedness. Admirable and terrible trial from which the feeble emerge +base, from which the strong emerge sublime. A crucible into which +destiny casts a man, whenever it desires a scoundrel or a demi-god. + +For many great deeds are performed in petty combats. There are instances +of bravery ignored and obstinate, which defend themselves step by +step in that fatal onslaught of necessities and turpitudes. Noble and +mysterious triumphs which no eye beholds, which are requited with no +renown, which are saluted with no trumpet blast. Life, misfortune, +isolation, abandonment, poverty, are the fields of battle which have +their heroes; obscure heroes, who are, sometimes, grander than the +heroes who win renown. + +Firm and rare natures are thus created; misery, almost always a +step-mother, is sometimes a mother; destitution gives birth to might of +soul and spirit; distress is the nurse of pride; unhappiness is a good +milk for the magnanimous. + +There came a moment in Marius' life, when he swept his own landing, when +he bought his sou's worth of Brie cheese at the fruiterer's, when he +waited until twilight had fallen to slip into the baker's and purchase +a loaf, which he carried off furtively to his attic as though he had +stolen it. Sometimes there could be seen gliding into the butcher's shop +on the corner, in the midst of the bantering cooks who elbowed him, an +awkward young man, carrying big books under his arm, who had a timid yet +angry air, who, on entering, removed his hat from a brow whereon stood +drops of perspiration, made a profound bow to the butcher's astonished +wife, asked for a mutton cutlet, paid six or seven sous for it, wrapped +it up in a paper, put it under his arm, between two books, and went +away. It was Marius. On this cutlet, which he cooked for himself, he +lived for three days. + +On the first day he ate the meat, on the second he ate the fat, on the +third he gnawed the bone. Aunt Gillenormand made repeated attempts, and +sent him the sixty pistoles several times. Marius returned them on every +occasion, saying that he needed nothing. + +He was still in mourning for his father when the revolution which we +have just described was effected within him. From that time forth, he +had not put off his black garments. But his garments were quitting him. +The day came when he had no longer a coat. The trousers would go next. +What was to be done? Courfeyrac, to whom he had, on his side, done some +good turns, gave him an old coat. For thirty sous, Marius got it turned +by some porter or other, and it was a new coat. But this coat was green. +Then Marius ceased to go out until after nightfall. This made his coat +black. As he wished always to appear in mourning, he clothed himself +with the night. + +In spite of all this, he got admitted to practice as a lawyer. He was +supposed to live in Courfeyrac's room, which was decent, and where +a certain number of law-books backed up and completed by several +dilapidated volumes of romance, passed as the library required by the +regulations. He had his letters addressed to Courfeyrac's quarters. + +When Marius became a lawyer, he informed his grandfather of the fact +in a letter which was cold but full of submission and respect. M. +Gillenormand trembled as he took the letter, read it, tore it in four +pieces, and threw it into the waste-basket. Two or three days later, +Mademoiselle Gillenormand heard her father, who was alone in his room, +talking aloud to himself. He always did this whenever he was greatly +agitated. She listened, and the old man was saying: "If you were not a +fool, you would know that one cannot be a baron and a lawyer at the same +time." + + + + +CHAPTER II--MARIUS POOR + +It is the same with wretchedness as with everything else. It ends by +becoming bearable. It finally assumes a form, and adjusts itself. One +vegetates, that is to say, one develops in a certain meagre fashion, +which is, however, sufficient for life. This is the mode in which the +existence of Marius Pontmercy was arranged: + +He had passed the worst straits; the narrow pass was opening out a +little in front of him. By dint of toil, perseverance, courage, and +will, he had managed to draw from his work about seven hundred francs a +year. He had learned German and English; thanks to Courfeyrac, who had +put him in communication with his friend the publisher, Marius filled +the modest post of utility man in the literature of the publishing +house. He drew up prospectuses, translated newspapers, annotated +editions, compiled biographies, etc.; net product, year in and year +out, seven hundred francs. He lived on it. How? Not so badly. We will +explain. + +Marius occupied in the Gorbeau house, for an annual sum of thirty +francs, a den minus a fireplace, called a cabinet, which contained only +the most indispensable articles of furniture. This furniture belonged +to him. He gave three francs a month to the old principal tenant to come +and sweep his hole, and to bring him a little hot water every morning, +a fresh egg, and a penny roll. He breakfasted on this egg and roll. His +breakfast varied in cost from two to four sous, according as eggs +were dear or cheap. At six o'clock in the evening he descended the +Rue Saint-Jacques to dine at Rousseau's, opposite Basset's, the +stamp-dealer's, on the corner of the Rue des Mathurins. He ate no soup. +He took a six-sou plate of meat, a half-portion of vegetables for three +sous, and a three-sou dessert. For three sous he got as much bread as +he wished. As for wine, he drank water. When he paid at the desk +where Madam Rousseau, at that period still plump and rosy majestically +presided, he gave a sou to the waiter, and Madam Rousseau gave him a +smile. Then he went away. For sixteen sous he had a smile and a dinner. + +This Restaurant Rousseau, where so few bottles and so many water carafes +were emptied, was a calming potion rather than a restaurant. It no +longer exists. The proprietor had a fine nickname: he was called +Rousseau the Aquatic. + +Thus, breakfast four sous, dinner sixteen sous; his food cost him twenty +sous a day; which made three hundred and sixty-five francs a year. Add +the thirty francs for rent, and the thirty-six francs to the old woman, +plus a few trifling expenses; for four hundred and fifty francs, Marius +was fed, lodged, and waited on. His clothing cost him a hundred francs, +his linen fifty francs, his washing fifty francs; the whole did not +exceed six hundred and fifty francs. He was rich. He sometimes lent ten +francs to a friend. Courfeyrac had once been able to borrow sixty francs +of him. As far as fire was concerned, as Marius had no fireplace, he had +"simplified matters." + +Marius always had two complete suits of clothes, the one old, "for every +day"; the other, brand new for special occasions. Both were black. He +had but three shirts, one on his person, the second in the commode, and +the third in the washerwoman's hands. He renewed them as they wore out. +They were always ragged, which caused him to button his coat to the +chin. + +It had required years for Marius to attain to this flourishing +condition. Hard years; difficult, some of them, to traverse, others to +climb. Marius had not failed for a single day. He had endured everything +in the way of destitution; he had done everything except contract debts. +He did himself the justice to say that he had never owed any one a sou. +A debt was, to him, the beginning of slavery. He even said to himself, +that a creditor is worse than a master; for the master possesses only +your person, a creditor possesses your dignity and can administer to +it a box on the ear. Rather than borrow, he went without food. He had +passed many a day fasting. Feeling that all extremes meet, and that, +if one is not on one's guard, lowered fortunes may lead to baseness of +soul, he kept a jealous watch on his pride. Such and such a formality +or action, which, in any other situation would have appeared merely a +deference to him, now seemed insipidity, and he nerved himself against +it. His face wore a sort of severe flush. He was timid even to rudeness. + +During all these trials he had felt himself encouraged and even +uplifted, at times, by a secret force that he possessed within himself. +The soul aids the body, and at certain moments, raises it. It is the +only bird which bears up its own cage. + +Besides his father's name, another name was graven in Marius' heart, +the name of Thenardier. Marius, with his grave and enthusiastic nature, +surrounded with a sort of aureole the man to whom, in his thoughts, +he owed his father's life,--that intrepid sergeant who had saved the +colonel amid the bullets and the cannon-balls of Waterloo. He never +separated the memory of this man from the memory of his father, and +he associated them in his veneration. It was a sort of worship in two +steps, with the grand altar for the colonel and the lesser one for +Thenardier. What redoubled the tenderness of his gratitude towards +Thenardier, was the idea of the distress into which he knew that +Thenardier had fallen, and which had engulfed the latter. Marius had +learned at Montfermeil of the ruin and bankruptcy of the unfortunate +inn-keeper. Since that time, he had made unheard-of efforts to find +traces of him and to reach him in that dark abyss of misery in which +Thenardier had disappeared. Marius had beaten the whole country; he +had gone to Chelles, to Bondy, to Gourney, to Nogent, to Lagny. He had +persisted for three years, expending in these explorations the little +money which he had laid by. No one had been able to give him any news of +Thenardier: he was supposed to have gone abroad. His creditors had also +sought him, with less love than Marius, but with as much assiduity, and +had not been able to lay their hands on him. Marius blamed himself, and +was almost angry with himself for his lack of success in his researches. +It was the only debt left him by the colonel, and Marius made it a +matter of honor to pay it. "What," he thought, "when my father lay dying +on the field of battle, did Thenardier contrive to find him amid the +smoke and the grape-shot, and bear him off on his shoulders, and yet he +owed him nothing, and I, who owe so much to Thenardier, cannot join him +in this shadow where he is lying in the pangs of death, and in my +turn bring him back from death to life! Oh! I will find him!" To find +Thenardier, in fact, Marius would have given one of his arms, to rescue +him from his misery, he would have sacrificed all his blood. To see +Thenardier, to render Thenardier some service, to say to him: "You do +not know me; well, I do know you! Here I am. Dispose of me!" This was +Marius' sweetest and most magnificent dream. + + + + +CHAPTER III--MARIUS GROWN UP + +At this epoch, Marius was twenty years of age. It was three years since +he had left his grandfather. Both parties had remained on the same +terms, without attempting to approach each other, and without seeking to +see each other. Besides, what was the use of seeing each other? Marius +was the brass vase, while Father Gillenormand was the iron pot. + +We admit that Marius was mistaken as to his grandfather's heart. He had +imagined that M. Gillenormand had never loved him, and that that crusty, +harsh, and smiling old fellow who cursed, shouted, and stormed +and brandished his cane, cherished for him, at the most, only that +affection, which is at once slight and severe, of the dotards of comedy. +Marius was in error. There are fathers who do not love their children; +there exists no grandfather who does not adore his grandson. At bottom, +as we have said, M. Gillenormand idolized Marius. He idolized him after +his own fashion, with an accompaniment of snappishness and boxes on the +ear; but, this child once gone, he felt a black void in his heart; +he would allow no one to mention the child to him, and all the while +secretly regretted that he was so well obeyed. At first, he hoped that +this Buonapartist, this Jacobin, this terrorist, this Septembrist, would +return. But the weeks passed by, years passed; to M. Gillenormand's +great despair, the "blood-drinker" did not make his appearance. "I could +not do otherwise than turn him out," said the grandfather to himself, +and he asked himself: "If the thing were to do over again, would I do +it?" His pride instantly answered "yes," but his aged head, which he +shook in silence, replied sadly "no." He had his hours of depression. +He missed Marius. Old men need affection as they need the sun. It is +warmth. Strong as his nature was, the absence of Marius had wrought some +change in him. Nothing in the world could have induced him to take a +step towards "that rogue"; but he suffered. He never inquired about him, +but he thought of him incessantly. He lived in the Marais in a more and +more retired manner; he was still merry and violent as of old, but +his merriment had a convulsive harshness, and his violences always +terminated in a sort of gentle and gloomy dejection. He sometimes said: +"Oh! if he only would return, what a good box on the ear I would give +him!" + +As for his aunt, she thought too little to love much; Marius was no +longer for her much more than a vague black form; and she eventually +came to occupy herself with him much less than with the cat or the +paroquet which she probably had. What augmented Father Gillenormand's +secret suffering was, that he locked it all up within his breast, and +did not allow its existence to be divined. His sorrow was like those +recently invented furnaces which consume their own smoke. It sometimes +happened that officious busybodies spoke to him of Marius, and asked +him: "What is your grandson doing?" "What has become of him?" The old +bourgeois replied with a sigh, that he was a sad case, and giving a +fillip to his cuff, if he wished to appear gay: "Monsieur le Baron de +Pontmercy is practising pettifogging in some corner or other." + +While the old man regretted, Marius applauded himself. As is the case +with all good-hearted people, misfortune had eradicated his bitterness. +He only thought of M. Gillenormand in an amiable light, but he had set +his mind on not receiving anything more from the man who had been +unkind to his father. This was the mitigated translation of his first +indignation. Moreover, he was happy at having suffered, and at suffering +still. It was for his father's sake. The hardness of his life satisfied +and pleased him. He said to himself with a sort of joy that--it was +certainly the least he could do; that it was an expiation;--that, had +it not been for that, he would have been punished in some other way and +later on for his impious indifference towards his father, and such a +father! that it would not have been just that his father should have all +the suffering, and he none of it; and that, in any case, what were his +toils and his destitution compared with the colonel's heroic life? that, +in short, the only way for him to approach his father and resemble him, +was to be brave in the face of indigence, as the other had been valiant +before the enemy; and that that was, no doubt, what the colonel had +meant to imply by the words: "He will be worthy of it." Words which +Marius continued to wear, not on his breast, since the colonel's writing +had disappeared, but in his heart. + +And then, on the day when his grandfather had turned him out of doors, +he had been only a child, now he was a man. He felt it. Misery, we +repeat, had been good for him. Poverty in youth, when it succeeds, has +this magnificent property about it, that it turns the whole will towards +effort, and the whole soul towards aspiration. Poverty instantly lays +material life bare and renders it hideous; hence inexpressible bounds +towards the ideal life. The wealthy young man has a hundred coarse and +brilliant distractions, horse races, hunting, dogs, tobacco, gaming, +good repasts, and all the rest of it; occupations for the baser side +of the soul, at the expense of the loftier and more delicate sides. +The poor young man wins his bread with difficulty; he eats; when he has +eaten, he has nothing more but meditation. He goes to the spectacles +which God furnishes gratis; he gazes at the sky, space, the stars, +flowers, children, the humanity among which he is suffering, the +creation amid which he beams. He gazes so much on humanity that he +perceives its soul, he gazes upon creation to such an extent that he +beholds God. He dreams, he feels himself great; he dreams on, and feels +himself tender. From the egotism of the man who suffers he passes to the +compassion of the man who meditates. An admirable sentiment breaks forth +in him, forgetfulness of self and pity for all. As he thinks of the +innumerable enjoyments which nature offers, gives, and lavishes to souls +which stand open, and refuses to souls that are closed, he comes to +pity, he the millionnaire of the mind, the millionnaire of money. All +hatred departs from his heart, in proportion as light penetrates his +spirit. And is he unhappy? No. The misery of a young man is never +miserable. The first young lad who comes to hand, however poor he may +be, with his strength, his health, his rapid walk, his brilliant eyes, +his warmly circulating blood, his black hair, his red lips, his white +teeth, his pure breath, will always arouse the envy of an aged emperor. +And then, every morning, he sets himself afresh to the task of earning +his bread; and while his hands earn his bread, his dorsal column +gains pride, his brain gathers ideas. His task finished, he returns to +ineffable ecstasies, to contemplation, to joys; he beholds his feet set +in afflictions, in obstacles, on the pavement, in the nettles, sometimes +in the mire; his head in the light. He is firm, serene, gentle, peaceful, +attentive, serious, content with little, kindly; and he thanks God for +having bestowed on him those two forms of riches which many a rich +man lacks: work, which makes him free; and thought, which makes him +dignified. + +This is what had happened with Marius. To tell the truth, he inclined a +little too much to the side of contemplation. From the day when he had +succeeded in earning his living with some approach to certainty, he had +stopped, thinking it good to be poor, and retrenching time from his work +to give to thought; that is to say, he sometimes passed entire days +in meditation, absorbed, engulfed, like a visionary, in the mute +voluptuousness of ecstasy and inward radiance. He had thus propounded +the problem of his life: to toil as little as possible at material +labor, in order to toil as much as possible at the labor which is +impalpable; in other words, to bestow a few hours on real life, and to +cast the rest to the infinite. As he believed that he lacked nothing, he +did not perceive that contemplation, thus understood, ends by becoming +one of the forms of idleness; that he was contenting himself with +conquering the first necessities of life, and that he was resting from +his labors too soon. + +It was evident that, for this energetic and enthusiastic nature, this +could only be a transitory state, and that, at the first shock against +the inevitable complications of destiny, Marius would awaken. + +In the meantime, although he was a lawyer, and whatever Father +Gillenormand thought about the matter, he was not practising, he was +not even pettifogging. Meditation had turned him aside from pleading. To +haunt attorneys, to follow the court, to hunt up cases--what a bore! Why +should he do it? He saw no reason for changing the manner of gaining his +livelihood! The obscure and ill-paid publishing establishment had come +to mean for him a sure source of work which did not involve too much +labor, as we have explained, and which sufficed for his wants. + +One of the publishers for whom he worked, M. Magimel, I think, offered +to take him into his own house, to lodge him well, to furnish him with +regular occupation, and to give him fifteen hundred francs a year. To be +well lodged! Fifteen hundred francs! No doubt. But renounce his liberty! +Be on fixed wages! A sort of hired man of letters! According to Marius' +opinion, if he accepted, his position would become both better and worse +at the same time, he acquired comfort, and lost his dignity; it was a +fine and complete unhappiness converted into a repulsive and ridiculous +state of torture: something like the case of a blind man who should +recover the sight of one eye. He refused. + +Marius dwelt in solitude. Owing to his taste for remaining outside of +everything, and through having been too much alarmed, he had not entered +decidedly into the group presided over by Enjolras. They had remained +good friends; they were ready to assist each other on occasion in every +possible way; but nothing more. Marius had two friends: one young, +Courfeyrac; and one old, M. Mabeuf. He inclined more to the old man. +In the first place, he owed to him the revolution which had taken +place within him; to him he was indebted for having known and loved his +father. "He operated on me for a cataract," he said. + +The churchwarden had certainly played a decisive part. + +It was not, however, that M. Mabeuf had been anything but the calm and +impassive agent of Providence in this connection. He had enlightened +Marius by chance and without being aware of the fact, as does a candle +which some one brings; he had been the candle and not the some one. + +As for Marius' inward political revolution, M. Mabeuf was totally +incapable of comprehending it, of willing or of directing it. + +As we shall see M. Mabeuf again, later on, a few words will not be +superfluous. + + + + +CHAPTER IV--M. MABEUF + +On the day when M. Mabeuf said to Marius: "Certainly I approve of +political opinions," he expressed the real state of his mind. All +political opinions were matters of indifference to him, and he approved +them all, without distinction, provided they left him in peace, as the +Greeks called the Furies "the beautiful, the good, the charming," the +Eumenides. M. Mabeuf's political opinion consisted in a passionate love +for plants, and, above all, for books. Like all the rest of the world, +he possessed the termination in ist, without which no one could exist at +that time, but he was neither a Royalist, a Bonapartist, a Chartist, +an Orleanist, nor an Anarchist; he was a bouquinist, a collector of old +books. He did not understand how men could busy themselves with +hating each other because of silly stuff like the charter, democracy, +legitimacy, monarchy, the republic, etc., when there were in the world +all sorts of mosses, grasses, and shrubs which they might be looking at, +and heaps of folios, and even of 32mos, which they might turn over. He +took good care not to become useless; having books did not prevent his +reading, being a botanist did not prevent his being a gardener. When +he made Pontmercy's acquaintance, this sympathy had existed between the +colonel and himself--that what the colonel did for flowers, he did for +fruits. M. Mabeuf had succeeded in producing seedling pears as savory +as the pears of St. Germain; it is from one of his combinations, +apparently, that the October Mirabelle, now celebrated and no less +perfumed than the summer Mirabelle, owes its origin. He went to mass +rather from gentleness than from piety, and because, as he loved the +faces of men, but hated their noise, he found them assembled and silent +only in church. Feeling that he must be something in the State, he had +chosen the career of warden. However, he had never succeeded in loving +any woman as much as a tulip bulb, nor any man as much as an Elzevir. +He had long passed sixty, when, one day, some one asked him: "Have you +never been married?" "I have forgotten," said he. When it sometimes +happened to him--and to whom does it not happen?--to say: "Oh! if I were +only rich!" it was not when ogling a pretty girl, as was the case with +Father Gillenormand, but when contemplating an old book. He lived alone +with an old housekeeper. He was somewhat gouty, and when he was asleep, +his aged fingers, stiffened with rheumatism, lay crooked up in the folds +of his sheets. He had composed and published a Flora of the Environs of +Cauteretz, with colored plates, a work which enjoyed a tolerable +measure of esteem and which sold well. People rang his bell, in the Rue +Mesieres, two or three times a day, to ask for it. He drew as much as +two thousand francs a year from it; this constituted nearly the whole of +his fortune. Although poor, he had had the talent to form for himself, +by dint of patience, privations, and time, a precious collection of rare +copies of every sort. He never went out without a book under his arm, +and he often returned with two. The sole decoration of the four rooms +on the ground floor, which composed his lodgings, consisted of framed +herbariums, and engravings of the old masters. The sight of a sword or +a gun chilled his blood. He had never approached a cannon in his life, +even at the Invalides. He had a passable stomach, a brother who was a +cure, perfectly white hair, no teeth, either in his mouth or his mind, a +trembling in every limb, a Picard accent, an infantile laugh, the air of +an old sheep, and he was easily frightened. Add to this, that he had no +other friendship, no other acquaintance among the living, than an old +bookseller of the Porte-Saint-Jacques, named Royal. His dream was to +naturalize indigo in France. + +His servant was also a sort of innocent. The poor good old woman was a +spinster. Sultan, her cat, which might have mewed Allegri's miserere in +the Sixtine Chapel, had filled her heart and sufficed for the quantity +of passion which existed in her. None of her dreams had ever proceeded +as far as man. She had never been able to get further than her cat. Like +him, she had a mustache. Her glory consisted in her caps, which were +always white. She passed her time, on Sundays, after mass, in counting +over the linen in her chest, and in spreading out on her bed the dresses +in the piece which she bought and never had made up. She knew how to +read. M. Mabeuf had nicknamed her Mother Plutarque. + +M. Mabeuf had taken a fancy to Marius, because Marius, being young and +gentle, warmed his age without startling his timidity. Youth combined +with gentleness produces on old people the effect of the sun without +wind. When Marius was saturated with military glory, with gunpowder, +with marches and countermarches, and with all those prodigious battles +in which his father had given and received such tremendous blows of the +sword, he went to see M. Mabeuf, and M. Mabeuf talked to him of his hero +from the point of view of flowers. + +His brother the cure died about 1830, and almost immediately, as when +the night is drawing on, the whole horizon grew dark for M. Mabeuf. A +notary's failure deprived him of the sum of ten thousand francs, which +was all that he possessed in his brother's right and his own. The +Revolution of July brought a crisis to publishing. In a period of +embarrassment, the first thing which does not sell is a Flora. The Flora +of the Environs of Cauteretz stopped short. Weeks passed by without a +single purchaser. Sometimes M. Mabeuf started at the sound of the bell. +"Monsieur," said Mother Plutarque sadly, "it is the water-carrier." +In short, one day, M. Mabeuf quitted the Rue Mesieres, abdicated the +functions of warden, gave up Saint-Sulpice, sold not a part of his +books, but of his prints,--that to which he was the least attached,--and +installed himself in a little house on the Rue Montparnasse, where, +however, he remained but one quarter for two reasons: in the first +place, the ground floor and the garden cost three hundred francs, and he +dared not spend more than two hundred francs on his rent; in the second, +being near Faton's shooting-gallery, he could hear the pistol-shots; +which was intolerable to him. + +He carried off his Flora, his copper-plates, his herbariums, his +portfolios, and his books, and established himself near the Salpetriere, +in a sort of thatched cottage of the village of Austerlitz, where, +for fifty crowns a year, he got three rooms and a garden enclosed by a +hedge, and containing a well. He took advantage of this removal to sell +off nearly all his furniture. On the day of his entrance into his new +quarters, he was very gay, and drove the nails on which his engravings +and herbariums were to hang, with his own hands, dug in his garden the +rest of the day, and at night, perceiving that Mother Plutarque had a +melancholy air, and was very thoughtful, he tapped her on the shoulder +and said to her with a smile: "We have the indigo!" + +Only two visitors, the bookseller of the Porte-Saint-Jacques and Marius, +were admitted to view the thatched cottage at Austerlitz, a brawling +name which was, to tell the truth, extremely disagreeable to him. + +However, as we have just pointed out, brains which are absorbed in some +bit of wisdom, or folly, or, as it often happens, in both at once, are +but slowly accessible to the things of actual life. Their own destiny +is a far-off thing to them. There results from such concentration a +passivity, which, if it were the outcome of reasoning, would resemble +philosophy. One declines, descends, trickles away, even crumbles away, +and yet is hardly conscious of it one's self. It always ends, it is +true, in an awakening, but the awakening is tardy. In the meantime, it +seems as though we held ourselves neutral in the game which is going on +between our happiness and our unhappiness. We are the stake, and we look +on at the game with indifference. + +It is thus that, athwart the cloud which formed about him, when all his +hopes were extinguished one after the other, M. Mabeuf remained rather +puerilely, but profoundly serene. His habits of mind had the regular +swing of a pendulum. Once mounted on an illusion, he went for a very +long time, even after the illusion had disappeared. A clock does not +stop short at the precise moment when the key is lost. + +M. Mabeuf had his innocent pleasures. These pleasures were inexpensive +and unexpected; the merest chance furnished them. One day, Mother +Plutarque was reading a romance in one corner of the room. She was +reading aloud, finding that she understood better thus. To read aloud is +to assure one's self of what one is reading. There are people who read +very loud, and who have the appearance of giving themselves their word +of honor as to what they are perusing. + +It was with this sort of energy that Mother Plutarque was reading the +romance which she had in hand. M. Mabeuf heard her without listening to +her. + +In the course of her reading, Mother Plutarque came to this phrase. It +was a question of an officer of dragoons and a beauty:-- + +"--The beauty pouted, and the dragoon--" + +Here she interrupted herself to wipe her glasses. + +"Bouddha and the Dragon," struck in M. Mabeuf in a low voice. "Yes, it +is true that there was a dragon, which, from the depths of its cave, +spouted flame through his maw and set the heavens on fire. Many stars +had already been consumed by this monster, which, besides, had the claws +of a tiger. Bouddha went into its den and succeeded in converting the +dragon. That is a good book that you are reading, Mother Plutarque. +There is no more beautiful legend in existence." + +And M. Mabeuf fell into a delicious revery. + + + + +CHAPTER V--POVERTY A GOOD NEIGHBOR FOR MISERY + +Marius liked this candid old man who saw himself gradually falling into +the clutches of indigence, and who came to feel astonishment, little +by little, without, however, being made melancholy by it. Marius met +Courfeyrac and sought out M. Mabeuf. Very rarely, however; twice a month +at most. + +Marius' pleasure consisted in taking long walks alone on the outer +boulevards, or in the Champs-de-Mars, or in the least frequented alleys +of the Luxembourg. He often spent half a day in gazing at a market +garden, the beds of lettuce, the chickens on the dung-heap, the horse +turning the water-wheel. The passers-by stared at him in surprise, and +some of them thought his attire suspicious and his mien sinister. He was +only a poor young man dreaming in an objectless way. + +It was during one of his strolls that he had hit upon the Gorbeau house, +and, tempted by its isolation and its cheapness, had taken up his abode +there. He was known there only under the name of M. Marius. + +Some of his father's old generals or old comrades had invited him to go +and see them, when they learned about him. Marius had not refused their +invitations. They afforded opportunities of talking about his father. +Thus he went from time to time, to Comte Pajol, to General Bellavesne, +to General Fririon, to the Invalides. There was music and dancing there. +On such evenings, Marius put on his new coat. But he never went to +these evening parties or balls except on days when it was freezing cold, +because he could not afford a carriage, and he did not wish to arrive +with boots otherwise than like mirrors. + +He said sometimes, but without bitterness: "Men are so made that in a +drawing-room you may be soiled everywhere except on your shoes. In order +to insure a good reception there, only one irreproachable thing is asked +of you; your conscience? No, your boots." + +All passions except those of the heart are dissipated by revery. Marius' +political fevers vanished thus. The Revolution of 1830 assisted in the +process, by satisfying and calming him. He remained the same, setting +aside his fits of wrath. He still held the same opinions. Only, they had +been tempered. To speak accurately, he had no longer any opinions, he +had sympathies. To what party did he belong? To the party of humanity. +Out of humanity he chose France; out of the Nation he chose the people; +out of the people he chose the woman. It was to that point above all, +that his pity was directed. Now he preferred an idea to a deed, a +poet to a hero, and he admired a book like Job more than an event like +Marengo. And then, when, after a day spent in meditation, he returned +in the evening through the boulevards, and caught a glimpse through +the branches of the trees of the fathomless space beyond, the nameless +gleams, the abyss, the shadow, the mystery, all that which is only human +seemed very petty indeed to him. + +He thought that he had, and he really had, in fact, arrived at the truth +of life and of human philosophy, and he had ended by gazing at nothing +but heaven, the only thing which Truth can perceive from the bottom of +her well. + +This did not prevent him from multiplying his plans, his combinations, +his scaffoldings, his projects for the future. In this state of revery, +an eye which could have cast a glance into Marius' interior would have +been dazzled with the purity of that soul. In fact, had it been given to +our eyes of the flesh to gaze into the consciences of others, we should +be able to judge a man much more surely according to what he dreams, +than according to what he thinks. There is will in thought, there is +none in dreams. Revery, which is utterly spontaneous, takes and keeps, +even in the gigantic and the ideal, the form of our spirit. Nothing +proceeds more directly and more sincerely from the very depth of our +soul, than our unpremeditated and boundless aspirations towards +the splendors of destiny. In these aspirations, much more than in +deliberate, rational coordinated ideas, is the real character of a man +to be found. Our chimeras are the things which the most resemble us. +Each one of us dreams of the unknown and the impossible in accordance +with his nature. + +Towards the middle of this year 1831, the old woman who waited on Marius +told him that his neighbors, the wretched Jondrette family, had been +turned out of doors. Marius, who passed nearly the whole of his days out +of the house, hardly knew that he had any neighbors. + +"Why are they turned out?" he asked. + +"Because they do not pay their rent; they owe for two quarters." + +"How much is it?" + +"Twenty francs," said the old woman. + +Marius had thirty francs saved up in a drawer. + +"Here," he said to the old woman, "take these twenty-five francs. Pay +for the poor people and give them five francs, and do not tell them that +it was I." + + + + +CHAPTER VI--THE SUBSTITUTE + +It chanced that the regiment to which Lieutenant Theodule belonged came +to perform garrison duty in Paris. This inspired Aunt Gillenormand with +a second idea. She had, on the first occasion, hit upon the plan of +having Marius spied upon by Theodule; now she plotted to have Theodule +take Marius' place. + +At all events and in case the grandfather should feel the vague need of +a young face in the house,--these rays of dawn are sometimes sweet to +ruin,--it was expedient to find another Marius. "Take it as a simple +erratum," she thought, "such as one sees in books. For Marius, read +Theodule." + +A grandnephew is almost the same as a grandson; in default of a lawyer +one takes a lancer. + +One morning, when M. Gillenormand was about to read something in the +Quotidienne, his daughter entered and said to him in her sweetest voice; +for the question concerned her favorite:-- + +"Father, Theodule is coming to present his respects to you this +morning." + +"Who's Theodule?" + +"Your grandnephew." + +"Ah!" said the grandfather. + +Then he went back to his reading, thought no more of his grandnephew, +who was merely some Theodule or other, and soon flew into a rage, which +almost always happened when he read. The "sheet" which he held, although +Royalist, of course, announced for the following day, without any +softening phrases, one of these little events which were of daily +occurrence at that date in Paris: "That the students of the schools +of law and medicine were to assemble on the Place du Pantheon, at +midday,--to deliberate." The discussion concerned one of the questions +of the moment, the artillery of the National Guard, and a conflict +between the Minister of War and "the citizen's militia," on the subject +of the cannon parked in the courtyard of the Louvre. The students were +to "deliberate" over this. It did not take much more than this to swell +M. Gillenormand's rage. + +He thought of Marius, who was a student, and who would probably go with +the rest, to "deliberate, at midday, on the Place du Pantheon." + +As he was indulging in this painful dream, Lieutenant Theodule entered +clad in plain clothes as a bourgeois, which was clever of him, and +was discreetly introduced by Mademoiselle Gillenormand. The lancer had +reasoned as follows: "The old druid has not sunk all his money in a life +pension. It is well to disguise one's self as a civilian from time to +time." + +Mademoiselle Gillenormand said aloud to her father:-- + +"Theodule, your grandnephew." + +And in a low voice to the lieutenant:-- + +"Approve of everything." + +And she withdrew. + +The lieutenant, who was but little accustomed to such venerable +encounters, stammered with some timidity: "Good day, uncle,"--and made +a salute composed of the involuntary and mechanical outline of the +military salute finished off as a bourgeois salute. + +"Ah! so it's you; that is well, sit down," said the old gentleman. + +That said, he totally forgot the lancer. + +Theodule seated himself, and M. Gillenormand rose. + +M. Gillenormand began to pace back and forth, his hands in his pockets, +talking aloud, and twitching, with his irritated old fingers, at the two +watches which he wore in his two fobs. + +"That pack of brats! they convene on the Place du Pantheon! by my life! +urchins who were with their nurses but yesterday! If one were to squeeze +their noses, milk would burst out. And they deliberate to-morrow, at +midday. What are we coming to? What are we coming to? It is clear that +we are making for the abyss. That is what the descamisados have brought +us to! To deliberate on the citizen artillery! To go and jabber in the +open air over the jibes of the National Guard! And with whom are they to +meet there? Just see whither Jacobinism leads. I will bet anything you +like, a million against a counter, that there will be no one there but +returned convicts and released galley-slaves. The Republicans and the +galley-slaves,--they form but one nose and one handkerchief. Carnot used +to say: 'Where would you have me go, traitor?' Fouche replied: 'Wherever +you please, imbecile!' That's what the Republicans are like." + +"That is true," said Theodule. + +M. Gillenormand half turned his head, saw Theodule, and went on:-- + +"When one reflects that that scoundrel was so vile as to turn carbonaro! +Why did you leave my house? To go and become a Republican! Pssst! In +the first place, the people want none of your republic, they have common +sense, they know well that there always have been kings, and that there +always will be; they know well that the people are only the people, +after all, they make sport of it, of your republic--do you understand, +idiot? Is it not a horrible caprice? To fall in love with Pere Duchesne, +to make sheep's-eyes at the guillotine, to sing romances, and play on +the guitar under the balcony of '93--it's enough to make one spit on all +these young fellows, such fools are they! They are all alike. Not one +escapes. It suffices for them to breathe the air which blows through the +street to lose their senses. The nineteenth century is poison. The +first scamp that happens along lets his beard grow like a goat's, +thinks himself a real scoundrel, and abandons his old relatives. He's +a Republican, he's a romantic. What does that mean, romantic? Do me the +favor to tell me what it is. All possible follies. A year ago, they ran +to Hernani. Now, I just ask you, Hernani! antitheses! abominations +which are not even written in French! And then, they have cannons in the +courtyard of the Louvre. Such are the rascalities of this age!" + +"You are right, uncle," said Theodule. + +M. Gillenormand resumed:-- + +"Cannons in the courtyard of the Museum! For what purpose? Do you want +to fire grape-shot at the Apollo Belvedere? What have those cartridges +to do with the Venus de Medici? Oh! the young men of the present day are +all blackguards! What a pretty creature is their Benjamin Constant! And +those who are not rascals are simpletons! They do all they can to make +themselves ugly, they are badly dressed, they are afraid of women, in +the presence of petticoats they have a mendicant air which sets the +girls into fits of laughter; on my word of honor, one would say the poor +creatures were ashamed of love. They are deformed, and they complete +themselves by being stupid; they repeat the puns of Tiercelin and +Potier, they have sack coats, stablemen's waistcoats, shirts of coarse +linen, trousers of coarse cloth, boots of coarse leather, and their +rigmarole resembles their plumage. One might make use of their jargon +to put new soles on their old shoes. And all this awkward batch of brats +has political opinions, if you please. Political opinions should be +strictly forbidden. They fabricate systems, they recast society, they +demolish the monarchy, they fling all laws to the earth, they put the +attic in the cellar's place and my porter in the place of the King, they +turn Europe topsy-turvy, they reconstruct the world, and all their love +affairs consist in staring slily at the ankles of the laundresses as +these women climb into their carts. Ah! Marius! Ah! you blackguard! to +go and vociferate on the public place! to discuss, to debate, to take +measures! They call that measures, just God! Disorder humbles itself +and becomes silly. I have seen chaos, I now see a mess. Students +deliberating on the National Guard,--such a thing could not be seen +among the Ogibewas nor the Cadodaches! Savages who go naked, with their +noddles dressed like a shuttlecock, with a club in their paws, are less +of brutes than those bachelors of arts! The four-penny monkeys! And they +set up for judges! Those creatures deliberate and ratiocinate! The +end of the world is come! This is plainly the end of this miserable +terraqueous globe! A final hiccough was required, and France has emitted +it. Deliberate, my rascals! Such things will happen so long as they go +and read the newspapers under the arcades of the Odeon. That costs them +a sou, and their good sense, and their intelligence, and their heart and +their soul, and their wits. They emerge thence, and decamp from their +families. All newspapers are pests; all, even the Drapeau Blanc! At +bottom, Martainville was a Jacobin. Ah! just Heaven! you may boast of +having driven your grandfather to despair, that you may!" + +"That is evident," said Theodule. + +And profiting by the fact that M. Gillenormand was taking breath, the +lancer added in a magisterial manner:-- + +"There should be no other newspaper than the Moniteur, and no other book +than the Annuaire Militaire." + +M. Gillenormand continued:-- + +"It is like their Sieyes! A regicide ending in a senator; for that is +the way they always end. They give themselves a scar with the address +of thou as citizens, in order to get themselves called, eventually, +Monsieur le Comte. Monsieur le Comte as big as my arm, assassins of +September. The philosopher Sieyes! I will do myself the justice to say, +that I have never had any better opinion of the philosophies of all +those philosophers, than of the spectacles of the grimacer of Tivoli! +One day I saw the Senators cross the Quai Malplaquet in mantles of +violet velvet sown with bees, with hats a la Henri IV. They were +hideous. One would have pronounced them monkeys from the tiger's court. +Citizens, I declare to you, that your progress is madness, that your +humanity is a dream, that your revolution is a crime, that your republic +is a monster, that your young and virgin France comes from the brothel, +and I maintain it against all, whoever you may be, whether journalists, +economists, legists, or even were you better judges of liberty, of +equality, and fraternity than the knife of the guillotine! And that I +announce to you, my fine fellows!" + +"Parbleu!" cried the lieutenant, "that is wonderfully true." + +M. Gillenormand paused in a gesture which he had begun, wheeled round, +stared Lancer Theodule intently in the eyes, and said to him:-- + +"You are a fool." + + + + +BOOK SIXTH.--THE CONJUNCTION OF TWO STARS + + + + +CHAPTER I--THE SOBRIQUET: MODE OF FORMATION OF FAMILY NAMES + +Marius was, at this epoch, a handsome young man, of medium stature, +with thick and intensely black hair, a lofty and intelligent brow, +well-opened and passionate nostrils, an air of calmness and sincerity, +and with something indescribably proud, thoughtful, and innocent over +his whole countenance. His profile, all of whose lines were rounded, +without thereby losing their firmness, had a certain Germanic sweetness, +which has made its way into the French physiognomy by way of Alsace +and Lorraine, and that complete absence of angles which rendered +the Sicambres so easily recognizable among the Romans, and which +distinguishes the leonine from the aquiline race. He was at that period +of life when the mind of men who think is composed, in nearly equal +parts, of depth and ingenuousness. A grave situation being given, he +had all that is required to be stupid: one more turn of the key, and he +might be sublime. His manners were reserved, cold, polished, not very +genial. As his mouth was charming, his lips the reddest, and his teeth +the whitest in the world, his smile corrected the severity of his face, +as a whole. At certain moments, that pure brow and that voluptuous smile +presented a singular contrast. His eyes were small, but his glance was +large. + +At the period of his most abject misery, he had observed that young +girls turned round when he passed by, and he fled or hid, with death in +his soul. He thought that they were staring at him because of his old +clothes, and that they were laughing at them; the fact is, that they +stared at him because of his grace, and that they dreamed of him. + +This mute misunderstanding between him and the pretty passers-by had +made him shy. He chose none of them for the excellent reason that +he fled from all of them. He lived thus indefinitely,--stupidly, as +Courfeyrac said. + +Courfeyrac also said to him: "Do not aspire to be venerable" [they +called each other thou; it is the tendency of youthful friendships to +slip into this mode of address]. "Let me give you a piece of advice, +my dear fellow. Don't read so many books, and look a little more at the +lasses. The jades have some good points about them, O Marius! By dint of +fleeing and blushing, you will become brutalized." + +On other occasions, Courfeyrac encountered him and said:--"Good morning, +Monsieur l'Abbe!" + +When Courfeyrac had addressed to him some remark of this nature, Marius +avoided women, both young and old, more than ever for a week to come, +and he avoided Courfeyrac to boot. + +Nevertheless, there existed in all the immensity of creation, two women +whom Marius did not flee, and to whom he paid no attention whatever. In +truth, he would have been very much amazed if he had been informed +that they were women. One was the bearded old woman who swept out his +chamber, and caused Courfeyrac to say: "Seeing that his servant woman +wears his beard, Marius does not wear his own beard." The other was a +sort of little girl whom he saw very often, and whom he never looked at. + +For more than a year, Marius had noticed in one of the walks of the +Luxembourg, the one which skirts the parapet of the Pepiniere, a man +and a very young girl, who were almost always seated side by side on the +same bench, at the most solitary end of the alley, on the Rue de l'Ouest +side. Every time that that chance which meddles with the strolls of +persons whose gaze is turned inwards, led Marius to that walk,--and it +was nearly every day,--he found this couple there. The man appeared to +be about sixty years of age; he seemed sad and serious; his whole person +presented the robust and weary aspect peculiar to military men who have +retired from the service. If he had worn a decoration, Marius would have +said: "He is an ex-officer." He had a kindly but unapproachable air, +and he never let his glance linger on the eyes of any one. He wore +blue trousers, a blue frock coat and a broad-brimmed hat, which always +appeared to be new, a black cravat, a quaker shirt, that is to say, it +was dazzlingly white, but of coarse linen. A grisette who passed near +him one day, said: "Here's a very tidy widower." His hair was very +white. + +The first time that the young girl who accompanied him came and seated +herself on the bench which they seemed to have adopted, she was a sort +of child thirteen or fourteen years of age, so thin as to be almost +homely, awkward, insignificant, and with a possible promise of +handsome eyes. Only, they were always raised with a sort of displeasing +assurance. Her dress was both aged and childish, like the dress of the +scholars in a convent; it consisted of a badly cut gown of black merino. +They had the air of being father and daughter. + +Marius scanned this old man, who was not yet aged, and this little +girl, who was not yet a person, for a few days, and thereafter paid no +attention to them. They, on their side, did not appear even to see him. +They conversed together with a peaceful and indifferent air. The girl +chattered incessantly and merrily. The old man talked but little, and, +at times, he fixed on her eyes overflowing with an ineffable paternity. + +Marius had acquired the mechanical habit of strolling in that walk. He +invariably found them there. + +This is the way things went:-- + +Marius liked to arrive by the end of the alley which was furthest from +their bench; he walked the whole length of the alley, passed in front +of them, then returned to the extremity whence he had come, and began +again. This he did five or six times in the course of his promenade, +and the promenade was taken five or six times a week, without its +having occurred to him or to these people to exchange a greeting. That +personage, and that young girl, although they appeared,--and perhaps +because they appeared,--to shun all glances, had, naturally, caused some +attention on the part of the five or six students who strolled along +the Pepiniere from time to time; the studious after their lectures, +the others after their game of billiards. Courfeyrac, who was among the +last, had observed them several times, but, finding the girl homely, he +had speedily and carefully kept out of the way. He had fled, discharging +at them a sobriquet, like a Parthian dart. Impressed solely with +the child's gown and the old man's hair, he had dubbed the daughter +Mademoiselle Lanoire, and the father, Monsieur Leblanc, so that as no +one knew them under any other title, this nickname became a law in the +default of any other name. The students said: "Ah! Monsieur Leblanc is +on his bench." And Marius, like the rest, had found it convenient to +call this unknown gentleman Monsieur Leblanc. + +We shall follow their example, and we shall say M. Leblanc, in order to +facilitate this tale. + +So Marius saw them nearly every day, at the same hour, during the first +year. He found the man to his taste, but the girl insipid. + + + + +CHAPTER II--LUX FACTA EST + +During the second year, precisely at the point in this history which the +reader has now reached, it chanced that this habit of the Luxembourg was +interrupted, without Marius himself being quite aware why, and nearly +six months elapsed, during which he did not set foot in the alley. One +day, at last, he returned thither once more; it was a serene summer +morning, and Marius was in joyous mood, as one is when the weather is +fine. It seemed to him that he had in his heart all the songs of the +birds that he was listening to, and all the bits of blue sky of which he +caught glimpses through the leaves of the trees. + +He went straight to "his alley," and when he reached the end of it he +perceived, still on the same bench, that well-known couple. Only, when +he approached, it certainly was the same man; but it seemed to him that +it was no longer the same girl. The person whom he now beheld was a tall +and beautiful creature, possessed of all the most charming lines of a +woman at the precise moment when they are still combined with all the +most ingenuous graces of the child; a pure and fugitive moment, which +can be expressed only by these two words,--"fifteen years." She had +wonderful brown hair, shaded with threads of gold, a brow that seemed +made of marble, cheeks that seemed made of rose-leaf, a pale flush, +an agitated whiteness, an exquisite mouth, whence smiles darted like +sunbeams, and words like music, a head such as Raphael would have given +to Mary, set upon a neck that Jean Goujon would have attributed to a +Venus. And, in order that nothing might be lacking to this bewitching +face, her nose was not handsome--it was pretty; neither straight nor +curved, neither Italian nor Greek; it was the Parisian nose, that is +to say, spiritual, delicate, irregular, pure,--which drives painters to +despair, and charms poets. + +When Marius passed near her, he could not see her eyes, which were +constantly lowered. He saw only her long chestnut lashes, permeated with +shadow and modesty. + +This did not prevent the beautiful child from smiling as she listened +to what the white-haired old man was saying to her, and nothing could +be more fascinating than that fresh smile, combined with those drooping +eyes. + +For a moment, Marius thought that she was another daughter of the same +man, a sister of the former, no doubt. But when the invariable habit of +his stroll brought him, for the second time, near the bench, and he had +examined her attentively, he recognized her as the same. In six months +the little girl had become a young maiden; that was all. Nothing is more +frequent than this phenomenon. There is a moment when girls blossom out +in the twinkling of an eye, and become roses all at once. One left +them children but yesterday; today, one finds them disquieting to the +feelings. + +This child had not only grown, she had become idealized. As three days +in April suffice to cover certain trees with flowers, six months had +sufficed to clothe her with beauty. Her April had arrived. + +One sometimes sees people, who, poor and mean, seem to wake up, pass +suddenly from indigence to luxury, indulge in expenditures of all sorts, +and become dazzling, prodigal, magnificent, all of a sudden. That is +the result of having pocketed an income; a note fell due yesterday. The +young girl had received her quarterly income. + +And then, she was no longer the school-girl with her felt hat, her +merino gown, her scholar's shoes, and red hands; taste had come to her +with beauty; she was a well-dressed person, clad with a sort of rich +and simple elegance, and without affectation. She wore a dress of black +damask, a cape of the same material, and a bonnet of white crape. Her +white gloves displayed the delicacy of the hand which toyed with the +carved, Chinese ivory handle of a parasol, and her silken shoe outlined +the smallness of her foot. When one passed near her, her whole toilette +exhaled a youthful and penetrating perfume. + +As for the man, he was the same as usual. + +The second time that Marius approached her, the young girl raised her +eyelids; her eyes were of a deep, celestial blue, but in that veiled +azure, there was, as yet, nothing but the glance of a child. She looked +at Marius indifferently, as she would have stared at the brat running +beneath the sycamores, or the marble vase which cast a shadow on the +bench, and Marius, on his side, continued his promenade, and thought +about something else. + +He passed near the bench where the young girl sat, five or six times, +but without even turning his eyes in her direction. + +On the following days, he returned, as was his wont, to the Luxembourg; +as usual, he found there "the father and daughter;" but he paid no +further attention to them. He thought no more about the girl now that +she was beautiful than he had when she was homely. He passed very near +the bench where she sat, because such was his habit. + + + + +CHAPTER III--EFFECT OF THE SPRING + +One day, the air was warm, the Luxembourg was inundated with light +and shade, the sky was as pure as though the angels had washed it that +morning, the sparrows were giving vent to little twitters in the depths +of the chestnut-trees. Marius had thrown open his whole soul to nature, +he was not thinking of anything, he simply lived and breathed, he passed +near the bench, the young girl raised her eyes to him, the two glances +met. + +What was there in the young girl's glance on this occasion? Marius could +not have told. There was nothing and there was everything. It was a +strange flash. + +She dropped her eyes, and he pursued his way. + +What he had just seen was no longer the ingenuous and simple eye of a +child; it was a mysterious gulf which had half opened, then abruptly +closed again. + +There comes a day when the young girl glances in this manner. Woe to him +who chances to be there! + +That first gaze of a soul which does not, as yet, know itself, is +like the dawn in the sky. It is the awakening of something radiant +and strange. Nothing can give any idea of the dangerous charm of that +unexpected gleam, which flashes suddenly and vaguely forth from adorable +shadows, and which is composed of all the innocence of the present, and +of all the passion of the future. It is a sort of undecided tenderness +which reveals itself by chance, and which waits. It is a snare which +the innocent maiden sets unknown to herself, and in which she captures +hearts without either wishing or knowing it. It is a virgin looking like +a woman. + +It is rare that a profound revery does not spring from that glance, +where it falls. All purities and all candors meet in that celestial +and fatal gleam which, more than all the best-planned tender glances of +coquettes, possesses the magic power of causing the sudden blossoming, +in the depths of the soul, of that sombre flower, impregnated with +perfume and with poison, which is called love. + +That evening, on his return to his garret, Marius cast his eyes over +his garments, and perceived, for the first time, that he had been so +slovenly, indecorous, and inconceivably stupid as to go for his walk in +the Luxembourg with his "every-day clothes," that is to say, with a +hat battered near the band, coarse carter's boots, black trousers +which showed white at the knees, and a black coat which was pale at the +elbows. + + + + +CHAPTER IV--BEGINNING OF A GREAT MALADY + +On the following day, at the accustomed hour, Marius drew from his +wardrobe his new coat, his new trousers, his new hat, and his new +boots; he clothed himself in this complete panoply, put on his gloves, a +tremendous luxury, and set off for the Luxembourg. + +On the way thither, he encountered Courfeyrac, and pretended not to see +him. Courfeyrac, on his return home, said to his friends:-- + +"I have just met Marius' new hat and new coat, with Marius inside +them. He was going to pass an examination, no doubt. He looked utterly +stupid." + +On arriving at the Luxembourg, Marius made the tour of the fountain +basin, and stared at the swans; then he remained for a long time in +contemplation before a statue whose head was perfectly black with mould, +and one of whose hips was missing. Near the basin there was a bourgeois +forty years of age, with a prominent stomach, who was holding by the +hand a little urchin of five, and saying to him: "Shun excess, my son, +keep at an equal distance from despotism and from anarchy." Marius +listened to this bourgeois. Then he made the circuit of the basin once +more. At last he directed his course towards "his alley," slowly, and as +if with regret. One would have said that he was both forced to go there +and withheld from doing so. He did not perceive it himself, and thought +that he was doing as he always did. + +On turning into the walk, he saw M. Leblanc and the young girl at the +other end, "on their bench." He buttoned his coat up to the very top, +pulled it down on his body so that there might be no wrinkles, examined, +with a certain complaisance, the lustrous gleams of his trousers, and +marched on the bench. This march savored of an attack, and certainly +of a desire for conquest. So I say that he marched on the bench, as I +should say: "Hannibal marched on Rome." + +However, all his movements were purely mechanical, and he had +interrupted none of the habitual preoccupations of his mind and labors. +At that moment, he was thinking that the Manuel du Baccalaureat was +a stupid book, and that it must have been drawn up by rare idiots, to +allow of three tragedies of Racine and only one comedy of Moliere being +analyzed therein as masterpieces of the human mind. There was a piercing +whistling going on in his ears. As he approached the bench, he held +fast to the folds in his coat, and fixed his eyes on the young girl. It +seemed to him that she filled the entire extremity of the alley with a +vague blue light. + +In proportion as he drew near, his pace slackened more and more. On +arriving at some little distance from the bench, and long before he had +reached the end of the walk, he halted, and could not explain to himself +why he retraced his steps. He did not even say to himself that he would +not go as far as the end. It was only with difficulty that the young +girl could have perceived him in the distance and noted his fine +appearance in his new clothes. Nevertheless, he held himself very erect, +in case any one should be looking at him from behind. + +He attained the opposite end, then came back, and this time he +approached a little nearer to the bench. He even got to within three +intervals of trees, but there he felt an indescribable impossibility of +proceeding further, and he hesitated. He thought he saw the young girl's +face bending towards him. But he exerted a manly and violent effort, +subdued his hesitation, and walked straight ahead. A few seconds later, +he rushed in front of the bench, erect and firm, reddening to the very +ears, without daring to cast a glance either to the right or to the +left, with his hand thrust into his coat like a statesman. At the moment +when he passed,--under the cannon of the place,--he felt his heart beat +wildly. As on the preceding day, she wore her damask gown and her crape +bonnet. He heard an ineffable voice, which must have been "her voice." +She was talking tranquilly. She was very pretty. He felt it, although he +made no attempt to see her. "She could not, however," he thought, "help +feeling esteem and consideration for me, if she only knew that I am +the veritable author of the dissertation on Marcos Obregon de la Ronde, +which M. Francois de Neufchateau put, as though it were his own, at the +head of his edition of Gil Blas." He went beyond the bench as far as the +extremity of the walk, which was very near, then turned on his heel and +passed once more in front of the lovely girl. This time, he was very +pale. Moreover, all his emotions were disagreeable. As he went further +from the bench and the young girl, and while his back was turned to her, +he fancied that she was gazing after him, and that made him stumble. + +He did not attempt to approach the bench again; he halted near the +middle of the walk, and there, a thing which he never did, he sat down, +and reflecting in the most profoundly indistinct depths of his spirit, +that after all, it was hard that persons whose white bonnet and black +gown he admired should be absolutely insensible to his splendid trousers +and his new coat. + +At the expiration of a quarter of an hour, he rose, as though he were +on the point of again beginning his march towards that bench which was +surrounded by an aureole. But he remained standing there, motionless. +For the first time in fifteen months, he said to himself that that +gentleman who sat there every day with his daughter, had, on his side, +noticed him, and probably considered his assiduity singular. + +For the first time, also, he was conscious of some irreverence in +designating that stranger, even in his secret thoughts, by the sobriquet +of M. le Blanc. + +He stood thus for several minutes, with drooping head, tracing figures +in the sand, with the cane which he held in his hand. + +Then he turned abruptly in the direction opposite to the bench, to M. +Leblanc and his daughter, and went home. + +That day he forgot to dine. At eight o'clock in the evening he perceived +this fact, and as it was too late to go down to the Rue Saint-Jacques, +he said: "Never mind!" and ate a bit of bread. + +He did not go to bed until he had brushed his coat and folded it up with +great care. + + + + +CHAPTER V--DIVRS CLAPS OF THUNDER FALL ON MA'AM BOUGON + +On the following day, Ma'am Bougon, as Courfeyrac styled the old +portress-principal-tenant, housekeeper of the Gorbeau hovel, Ma'am +Bougon, whose name was, in reality, Madame Burgon, as we have found +out, but this iconoclast, Courfeyrac, respected nothing,--Ma'am Bougon +observed, with stupefaction, that M. Marius was going out again in his +new coat. + +He went to the Luxembourg again, but he did not proceed further than his +bench midway of the alley. He seated himself there, as on the preceding +day, surveying from a distance, and clearly making out, the white +bonnet, the black dress, and above all, that blue light. He did not stir +from it, and only went home when the gates of the Luxembourg closed. He +did not see M. Leblanc and his daughter retire. He concluded that they +had quitted the garden by the gate on the Rue de l'Ouest. Later on, +several weeks afterwards, when he came to think it over, he could never +recall where he had dined that evening. + +On the following day, which was the third, Ma'am Bougon was +thunderstruck. Marius went out in his new coat. "Three days in +succession!" she exclaimed. + +She tried to follow him, but Marius walked briskly, and with immense +strides; it was a hippopotamus undertaking the pursuit of a chamois. +She lost sight of him in two minutes, and returned breathless, +three-quarters choked with asthma, and furious. "If there is any sense," +she growled, "in putting on one's best clothes every day, and making +people run like this!" + +Marius betook himself to the Luxembourg. + +The young girl was there with M. Leblanc. Marius approached as near as +he could, pretending to be busy reading a book, but he halted afar off, +then returned and seated himself on his bench, where he spent four hours +in watching the house-sparrows who were skipping about the walk, and who +produced on him the impression that they were making sport of him. + +A fortnight passed thus. Marius went to the Luxembourg no longer for the +sake of strolling there, but to seat himself always in the same spot, +and that without knowing why. Once arrived there, he did not stir. +He put on his new coat every morning, for the purpose of not showing +himself, and he began all over again on the morrow. + +She was decidedly a marvellous beauty. The only remark approaching a +criticism, that could be made, was, that the contradiction between +her gaze, which was melancholy, and her smile, which was merry, gave +a rather wild effect to her face, which sometimes caused this sweet +countenance to become strange without ceasing to be charming. + + + + +CHAPTER VI--TAKEN PRISONER + +On one of the last days of the second week, Marius was seated on his +bench, as usual, holding in his hand an open book, of which he had not +turned a page for the last two hours. All at once he started. An event +was taking place at the other extremity of the walk. Leblanc and his +daughter had just left their seat, and the daughter had taken her +father's arm, and both were advancing slowly, towards the middle of the +alley where Marius was. Marius closed his book, then opened it again, +then forced himself to read; he trembled; the aureole was coming +straight towards him. "Ah! good Heavens!" thought he, "I shall not have +time to strike an attitude." Still the white-haired man and the girl +advanced. It seemed to him that this lasted for a century, and that it +was but a second. "What are they coming in this direction for?" he asked +himself. "What! She will pass here? Her feet will tread this sand, this +walk, two paces from me?" He was utterly upset, he would have liked to +be very handsome, he would have liked to own the cross. He heard the +soft and measured sound of their approaching footsteps. He imagined that +M. Leblanc was darting angry glances at him. "Is that gentleman going to +address me?" he thought to himself. He dropped his head; when he raised +it again, they were very near him. The young girl passed, and as she +passed, she glanced at him. She gazed steadily at him, with a pensive +sweetness which thrilled Marius from head to foot. It seemed to him +that she was reproaching him for having allowed so long a time to elapse +without coming as far as her, and that she was saying to him: "I am +coming myself." Marius was dazzled by those eyes fraught with rays and +abysses. + +He felt his brain on fire. She had come to him, what joy! And then, how +she had looked at him! She appeared to him more beautiful than he had +ever seen her yet. Beautiful with a beauty which was wholly feminine and +angelic, with a complete beauty which would have made Petrarch sing and +Dante kneel. It seemed to him that he was floating free in the azure +heavens. At the same time, he was horribly vexed because there was dust +on his boots. + +He thought he felt sure that she had looked at his boots too. + +He followed her with his eyes until she disappeared. Then he started +up and walked about the Luxembourg garden like a madman. It is possible +that, at times, he laughed to himself and talked aloud. He was so dreamy +when he came near the children's nurses, that each one of them thought +him in love with her. + +He quitted the Luxembourg, hoping to find her again in the street. + +He encountered Courfeyrac under the arcades of the Odeon, and said to +him: "Come and dine with me." They went off to Rousseau's and spent +six francs. Marius ate like an ogre. He gave the waiter six sous. At +dessert, he said to Courfeyrac. "Have you read the paper? What a fine +discourse Audry de Puyraveau delivered!" + +He was desperately in love. + +After dinner, he said to Courfeyrac: "I will treat you to the play." +They went to the Porte-Sainte-Martin to see Frederick in l'Auberge des +Adrets. Marius was enormously amused. + +At the same time, he had a redoubled attack of shyness. On emerging +from the theatre, he refused to look at the garter of a modiste who was +stepping across a gutter, and Courfeyrac, who said: "I should like to +put that woman in my collection," almost horrified him. + +Courfeyrac invited him to breakfast at the Cafe Voltaire on the +following morning. Marius went thither, and ate even more than on the +preceding evening. He was very thoughtful and very merry. One would +have said that he was taking advantage of every occasion to laugh +uproariously. He tenderly embraced some man or other from the provinces, +who was presented to him. A circle of students formed round the table, +and they spoke of the nonsense paid for by the State which was uttered +from the rostrum in the Sorbonne, then the conversation fell upon the +faults and omissions in Guicherat's dictionaries and grammars. Marius +interrupted the discussion to exclaim: "But it is very agreeable, all +the same to have the cross!" + +"That's queer!" whispered Courfeyrac to Jean Prouvaire. + +"No," responded Prouvaire, "that's serious." + +It was serious; in fact, Marius had reached that first violent and +charming hour with which grand passions begin. + +A glance had wrought all this. + +When the mine is charged, when the conflagration is ready, nothing is +more simple. A glance is a spark. + +It was all over with him. Marius loved a woman. His fate was entering +the unknown. + +The glance of women resembles certain combinations of wheels, which are +tranquil in appearance yet formidable. You pass close to them every +day, peaceably and with impunity, and without a suspicion of anything. A +moment arrives when you forget that the thing is there. You go and come, +dream, speak, laugh. All at once you feel yourself clutched; all is +over. The wheels hold you fast, the glance has ensnared you. It has +caught you, no matter where or how, by some portion of your thought +which was fluttering loose, by some distraction which had attacked you. +You are lost. The whole of you passes into it. A chain of mysterious +forces takes possession of you. You struggle in vain; no more human +succor is possible. You go on falling from gearing to gearing, from +agony to agony, from torture to torture, you, your mind, your fortune, +your future, your soul; and, according to whether you are in the power +of a wicked creature, or of a noble heart, you will not escape from this +terrifying machine otherwise than disfigured with shame, or transfigured +by passion. + + + + +CHAPTER VII--ADVENTURES OF THE LETTER U DELIVERED OVER TO CONJECTURES + +Isolation, detachment from everything, pride, independence, the taste +of nature, the absence of daily and material activity, the life within +himself, the secret conflicts of chastity, a benevolent ecstasy towards +all creation, had prepared Marius for this possession which is called +passion. His worship of his father had gradually become a religion, +and, like all religions, it had retreated to the depths of his soul. +Something was required in the foreground. Love came. + +A full month elapsed, during which Marius went every day to the +Luxembourg. When the hour arrived, nothing could hold him back.--"He +is on duty," said Courfeyrac. Marius lived in a state of delight. It is +certain that the young girl did look at him. + +He had finally grown bold, and approached the bench. Still, he did not +pass in front of it any more, in obedience to the instinct of timidity +and to the instinct of prudence common to lovers. He considered it +better not to attract "the attention of the father." He combined his +stations behind the trees and the pedestals of the statues with a +profound diplomacy, so that he might be seen as much as possible by the +young girl and as little as possible by the old gentleman. Sometimes, he +remained motionless by the half-hour together in the shade of a Leonidas +or a Spartacus, holding in his hand a book, above which his eyes, gently +raised, sought the beautiful girl, and she, on her side, turned her +charming profile towards him with a vague smile. While conversing in the +most natural and tranquil manner in the world with the white-haired man, +she bent upon Marius all the reveries of a virginal and passionate eye. +Ancient and time-honored manoeuvre which Eve understood from the very +first day of the world, and which every woman understands from the very +first day of her life! her mouth replied to one, and her glance replied +to another. + +It must be supposed, that M. Leblanc finally noticed something, for +often, when Marius arrived, he rose and began to walk about. He had +abandoned their accustomed place and had adopted the bench by the +Gladiator, near the other end of the walk, as though with the object +of seeing whether Marius would pursue them thither. Marius did not +understand, and committed this error. "The father" began to grow +inexact, and no longer brought "his daughter" every day. Sometimes, he +came alone. Then Marius did not stay. Another blunder. + +Marius paid no heed to these symptoms. From the phase of timidity, he +had passed, by a natural and fatal progress, to the phase of blindness. +His love increased. He dreamed of it every night. And then, an +unexpected bliss had happened to him, oil on the fire, a redoubling of +the shadows over his eyes. One evening, at dusk, he had found, on +the bench which "M. Leblanc and his daughter" had just quitted, a +handkerchief, a very simple handkerchief, without embroidery, but white, +and fine, and which seemed to him to exhale ineffable perfume. He seized +it with rapture. This handkerchief was marked with the letters U. F. +Marius knew nothing about this beautiful child,--neither her family +name, her Christian name nor her abode; these two letters were the first +thing of her that he had gained possession of, adorable initials, upon +which he immediately began to construct his scaffolding. U was evidently +the Christian name. "Ursule!" he thought, "what a delicious name!" He +kissed the handkerchief, drank it in, placed it on his heart, on his +flesh, during the day, and at night, laid it beneath his lips that he +might fall asleep on it. + +"I feel that her whole soul lies within it!" he exclaimed. + +This handkerchief belonged to the old gentleman, who had simply let it +fall from his pocket. + +In the days which followed the finding of this treasure, he only +displayed himself at the Luxembourg in the act of kissing the +handkerchief and laying it on his heart. The beautiful child understood +nothing of all this, and signified it to him by imperceptible signs. + +"O modesty!" said Marius. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII--THE VETERANS THEMSELVES CAN BE HAPPY + +Since we have pronounced the word modesty, and since we conceal nothing, +we ought to say that once, nevertheless, in spite of his ecstasies, "his +Ursule" caused him very serious grief. It was on one of the days when +she persuaded M. Leblanc to leave the bench and stroll along the walk. +A brisk May breeze was blowing, which swayed the crests of the +plaintain-trees. The father and daughter, arm in arm, had just passed +Marius' bench. Marius had risen to his feet behind them, and was +following them with his eyes, as was fitting in the desperate situation +of his soul. + +All at once, a gust of wind, more merry than the rest, and probably +charged with performing the affairs of Springtime, swept down from +the nursery, flung itself on the alley, enveloped the young girl in +a delicious shiver, worthy of Virgil's nymphs, and the fawns of +Theocritus, and lifted her dress, the robe more sacred than that of +Isis, almost to the height of her garter. A leg of exquisite shape +appeared. Marius saw it. He was exasperated and furious. + +The young girl had hastily thrust down her dress, with a divinely +troubled motion, but he was none the less angry for all that. He was +alone in the alley, it is true. But there might have been some one +there. And what if there had been some one there! Can any one comprehend +such a thing? What she had just done is horrible!--Alas, the poor child +had done nothing; there had been but one culprit, the wind; but Marius, +in whom quivered the Bartholo who exists in Cherubin, was determined to +be vexed, and was jealous of his own shadow. It is thus, in fact, that +the harsh and capricious jealousy of the flesh awakens in the human +heart, and takes possession of it, even without any right. Moreover, +setting aside even that jealousy, the sight of that charming leg had +contained nothing agreeable for him; the white stocking of the first +woman he chanced to meet would have afforded him more pleasure. + +When "his Ursule," after having reached the end of the walk, retraced +her steps with M. Leblanc, and passed in front of the bench on which +Marius had seated himself once more, Marius darted a sullen and +ferocious glance at her. The young girl gave way to that slight +straightening up with a backward movement, accompanied by a raising of +the eyelids, which signifies: "Well, what is the matter?" + +This was "their first quarrel." + +Marius had hardly made this scene at her with his eyes, when some one +crossed the walk. It was a veteran, very much bent, extremely wrinkled, +and pale, in a uniform of the Louis XV. pattern, bearing on his breast +the little oval plaque of red cloth, with the crossed swords, the +soldier's cross of Saint-Louis, and adorned, in addition, with a +coat-sleeve, which had no arm within it, with a silver chin and a wooden +leg. Marius thought he perceived that this man had an extremely well +satisfied air. It even struck him that the aged cynic, as he hobbled +along past him, addressed to him a very fraternal and very merry wink, +as though some chance had created an understanding between them, and as +though they had shared some piece of good luck together. What did that +relic of Mars mean by being so contented? What had passed between +that wooden leg and the other? Marius reached a paroxysm of +jealousy.--"Perhaps he was there!" he said to himself; "perhaps he +saw!"--And he felt a desire to exterminate the veteran. + +With the aid of time, all points grow dull. Marius' wrath against +"Ursule," just and legitimate as it was, passed off. He finally pardoned +her; but this cost him a great effort; he sulked for three days. + +Nevertheless, in spite of all this, and because of all this, his passion +augmented and grew to madness. + + + + +CHAPTER IX--ECLIPSE + +The reader has just seen how Marius discovered, or thought that he +discovered, that She was named Ursule. + +Appetite grows with loving. To know that her name was Ursule was a great +deal; it was very little. In three or four weeks, Marius had devoured +this bliss. He wanted another. He wanted to know where she lived. + +He had committed his first blunder, by falling into the ambush of the +bench by the Gladiator. He had committed a second, by not remaining at +the Luxembourg when M. Leblanc came thither alone. He now committed a +third, and an immense one. He followed "Ursule." + +She lived in the Rue de l'Ouest, in the most unfrequented spot, in a +new, three-story house, of modest appearance. + +From that moment forth, Marius added to his happiness of seeing her at +the Luxembourg the happiness of following her home. + +His hunger was increasing. He knew her first name, at least, a charming +name, a genuine woman's name; he knew where she lived; he wanted to know +who she was. + +One evening, after he had followed them to their dwelling, and had seen +them disappear through the carriage gate, he entered in their train and +said boldly to the porter:-- + +"Is that the gentleman who lives on the first floor, who has just come +in?" + +"No," replied the porter. "He is the gentleman on the third floor." + +Another step gained. This success emboldened Marius. + +"On the front?" he asked. + +"Parbleu!" said the porter, "the house is only built on the street." + +"And what is that gentleman's business?" began Marius again. + +"He is a gentleman of property, sir. A very kind man who does good to +the unfortunate, though not rich himself." + +"What is his name?" resumed Marius. + +The porter raised his head and said:-- + +"Are you a police spy, sir?" + +Marius went off quite abashed, but delighted. He was getting on. + +"Good," thought he, "I know that her name is Ursule, that she is the +daughter of a gentleman who lives on his income, and that she lives +there, on the third floor, in the Rue de l'Ouest." + +On the following day, M. Leblanc and his daughter made only a very +brief stay in the Luxembourg; they went away while it was still broad +daylight. Marius followed them to the Rue de l'Ouest, as he had taken up +the habit of doing. On arriving at the carriage entrance M. Leblanc made +his daughter pass in first, then paused, before crossing the threshold, +and stared intently at Marius. + +On the next day they did not come to the Luxembourg. Marius waited for +them all day in vain. + +At nightfall, he went to the Rue de l'Ouest, and saw a light in the +windows of the third story. + +He walked about beneath the windows until the light was extinguished. + +The next day, no one at the Luxembourg. Marius waited all day, then went +and did sentinel duty under their windows. This carried him on to ten +o'clock in the evening. + +His dinner took care of itself. Fever nourishes the sick man, and love +the lover. + +He spent a week in this manner. M. Leblanc no longer appeared at the +Luxembourg. + +Marius indulged in melancholy conjectures; he dared not watch the porte +cochere during the day; he contented himself with going at night to gaze +upon the red light of the windows. At times he saw shadows flit across +them, and his heart began to beat. + +On the eighth day, when he arrived under the windows, there was no light +in them. + +"Hello!" he said, "the lamp is not lighted yet. But it is dark. Can they +have gone out?" He waited until ten o'clock. Until midnight. Until one +in the morning. Not a light appeared in the windows of the third story, +and no one entered the house. + +He went away in a very gloomy frame of mind. + +On the morrow,--for he only existed from morrow to morrow, there was, +so to speak, no to-day for him,--on the morrow, he found no one at the +Luxembourg; he had expected this. At dusk, he went to the house. + +No light in the windows; the shades were drawn; the third floor was +totally dark. + +Marius rapped at the porte cochere, entered, and said to the porter:-- + +"The gentleman on the third floor?" + +"Has moved away," replied the porter. + +Marius reeled and said feebly:-- + +"How long ago?" + +"Yesterday." + +"Where is he living now?" + +"I don't know anything about it." + +"So he has not left his new address?" + +"No." + +And the porter, raising his eyes, recognized Marius. + +"Come! So it's you!" said he; "but you are decidedly a spy then?" + + + + +BOOK SEVENTH.--PATRON MINETTE + + + + +CHAPTER I--MINES AND MINERS + +Human societies all have what is called in theatrical parlance, a third +lower floor. The social soil is everywhere undermined, sometimes for +good, sometimes for evil. These works are superposed one upon the other. +There are superior mines and inferior mines. There is a top and a +bottom in this obscure sub-soil, which sometimes gives way beneath +civilization, and which our indifference and heedlessness trample under +foot. The Encyclopedia, in the last century, was a mine that was +almost open to the sky. The shades, those sombre hatchers of primitive +Christianity, only awaited an opportunity to bring about an explosion +under the Caesars and to inundate the human race with light. For in the +sacred shadows there lies latent light. Volcanoes are full of a shadow +that is capable of flashing forth. Every form begins by being night. The +catacombs, in which the first mass was said, were not alone the cellar +of Rome, they were the vaults of the world. + +Beneath the social construction, that complicated marvel of a structure, +there are excavations of all sorts. There is the religious mine, the +philosophical mine, the economic mine, the revolutionary mine. Such and +such a pick-axe with the idea, such a pick with ciphers. Such another +with wrath. People hail and answer each other from one catacomb to +another. Utopias travel about underground, in the pipes. There they +branch out in every direction. They sometimes meet, and fraternize +there. Jean-Jacques lends his pick to Diogenes, who lends him his +lantern. Sometimes they enter into combat there. Calvin seizes Socinius +by the hair. But nothing arrests nor interrupts the tension of all these +energies toward the goal, and the vast, simultaneous activity, which +goes and comes, mounts, descends, and mounts again in these obscurities, +and which immense unknown swarming slowly transforms the top and the +bottom and the inside and the outside. Society hardly even suspects this +digging which leaves its surface intact and changes its bowels. There +are as many different subterranean stages as there are varying works, +as there are extractions. What emerges from these deep excavations? The +future. + +The deeper one goes, the more mysterious are the toilers. The work +is good, up to a degree which the social philosophies are able to +recognize; beyond that degree it is doubtful and mixed; lower down, +it becomes terrible. At a certain depth, the excavations are no longer +penetrable by the spirit of civilization, the limit breathable by man +has been passed; a beginning of monsters is possible. + +The descending scale is a strange one; and each one of the rungs of this +ladder corresponds to a stage where philosophy can find foothold, and +where one encounters one of these workmen, sometimes divine, sometimes +misshapen. Below John Huss, there is Luther; below Luther, there is +Descartes; below Descartes, there is Voltaire; below Voltaire, there +is Condorcet; below Condorcet, there is Robespierre; below Robespierre, +there is Marat; below Marat there is Babeuf. And so it goes on. Lower +down, confusedly, at the limit which separates the indistinct from the +invisible, one perceives other gloomy men, who perhaps do not exist as +yet. The men of yesterday are spectres; those of to-morrow are forms. +The eye of the spirit distinguishes them but obscurely. The embryonic +work of the future is one of the visions of philosophy. + +A world in limbo, in the state of foetus, what an unheard-of spectre! + +Saint-Simon, Owen, Fourier, are there also, in lateral galleries. + +Surely, although a divine and invisible chain unknown to themselves, +binds together all these subterranean pioneers who, almost always, think +themselves isolated, and who are not so, their works vary greatly, and +the light of some contrasts with the blaze of others. The first are +paradisiacal, the last are tragic. Nevertheless, whatever may be the +contrast, all these toilers, from the highest to the most nocturnal, +from the wisest to the most foolish, possess one likeness, and this +is it: disinterestedness. Marat forgets himself like Jesus. They +throw themselves on one side, they omit themselves, they think not of +themselves. They have a glance, and that glance seeks the absolute. The +first has the whole heavens in his eyes; the last, enigmatical though he +may be, has still, beneath his eyelids, the pale beam of the infinite. +Venerate the man, whoever he may be, who has this sign--the starry eye. + +The shadowy eye is the other sign. + +With it, evil commences. Reflect and tremble in the presence of any one +who has no glance at all. The social order has its black miners. + +There is a point where depth is tantamount to burial, and where light +becomes extinct. + +Below all these mines which we have just mentioned, below all these +galleries, below this whole immense, subterranean, venous system of +progress and utopia, much further on in the earth, much lower than +Marat, lower than Babeuf, lower, much lower, and without any connection +with the upper levels, there lies the last mine. A formidable spot. This +is what we have designated as the le troisieme dessous. It is the grave +of shadows. It is the cellar of the blind. Inferi. + +This communicates with the abyss. + + + + +CHAPTER II--THE LOWEST DEPTHS + +There disinterestedness vanishes. The demon is vaguely outlined; each +one is for himself. The _I_ in the eyes howls, seeks, fumbles, and +gnaws. The social Ugolino is in this gulf. + +The wild spectres who roam in this grave, almost beasts, almost +phantoms, are not occupied with universal progress; they are ignorant +both of the idea and of the word; they take no thought for anything +but the satisfaction of their individual desires. They are almost +unconscious, and there exists within them a sort of terrible +obliteration. They have two mothers, both step-mothers, ignorance and +misery. They have a guide, necessity; and for all forms of satisfaction, +appetite. They are brutally voracious, that is to say, ferocious, not +after the fashion of the tyrant, but after the fashion of the tiger. +From suffering these spectres pass to crime; fatal affiliation, dizzy +creation, logic of darkness. That which crawls in the social third lower +level is no longer complaint stifled by the absolute; it is the protest +of matter. Man there becomes a dragon. To be hungry, to be thirsty--that +is the point of departure; to be Satan--that is the point reached. From +that vault Lacenaire emerges. + +We have just seen, in Book Fourth, one of the compartments of the +upper mine, of the great political, revolutionary, and philosophical +excavation. There, as we have just said, all is pure, noble, dignified, +honest. There, assuredly, one might be misled; but error is worthy of +veneration there, so thoroughly does it imply heroism. The work there +effected, taken as a whole has a name: Progress. + +The moment has now come when we must take a look at other depths, +hideous depths. There exists beneath society, we insist upon this point, +and there will exist, until that day when ignorance shall be dissipated, +the great cavern of evil. + +This cavern is below all, and is the foe of all. It is hatred, without +exception. This cavern knows no philosophers; its dagger has never cut +a pen. Its blackness has no connection with the sublime blackness of the +inkstand. Never have the fingers of night which contract beneath this +stifling ceiling, turned the leaves of a book nor unfolded a newspaper. +Babeuf is a speculator to Cartouche; Marat is an aristocrat to +Schinderhannes. This cavern has for its object the destruction of +everything. + +Of everything. Including the upper superior mines, which it execrates. +It not only undermines, in its hideous swarming, the actual social +order; it undermines philosophy, it undermines human thought, it +undermines civilization, it undermines revolution, it undermines +progress. Its name is simply theft, prostitution, murder, assassination. +It is darkness, and it desires chaos. Its vault is formed of ignorance. + +All the others, those above it, have but one object--to suppress it. +It is to this point that philosophy and progress tend, with all their +organs simultaneously, by their amelioration of the real, as well as by +their contemplation of the absolute. Destroy the cavern Ignorance and +you destroy the lair Crime. + +Let us condense, in a few words, a part of what we have just written. +The only social peril is darkness. + +Humanity is identity. All men are made of the same clay. There is no +difference, here below, at least, in predestination. The same shadow +in front, the same flesh in the present, the same ashes afterwards. But +ignorance, mingled with the human paste, blackens it. This incurable +blackness takes possession of the interior of a man and is there +converted into evil. + + + + +CHAPTER III--BABET, GUEULEMER, CLAQUESOUS, AND MONTPARNASSE + +A quartette of ruffians, Claquesous, Gueulemer, Babet, and Montparnasse +governed the third lower floor of Paris, from 1830 to 1835. + +Gueulemer was a Hercules of no defined position. For his lair he had the +sewer of the Arche-Marion. He was six feet high, his pectoral muscles +were of marble, his biceps of brass, his breath was that of a cavern, +his torso that of a colossus, his head that of a bird. One thought one +beheld the Farnese Hercules clad in duck trousers and a cotton velvet +waistcoat. Gueulemer, built after this sculptural fashion, might have +subdued monsters; he had found it more expeditious to be one. A low +brow, large temples, less than forty years of age, but with crow's-feet, +harsh, short hair, cheeks like a brush, a beard like that of a wild +boar; the reader can see the man before him. His muscles called for +work, his stupidity would have none of it. He was a great, idle force. +He was an assassin through coolness. He was thought to be a creole. He +had, probably, somewhat to do with Marshal Brune, having been a porter +at Avignon in 1815. After this stage, he had turned ruffian. + +The diaphaneity of Babet contrasted with the grossness of Gueulemer. +Babet was thin and learned. He was transparent but impenetrable. +Daylight was visible through his bones, but nothing through his eyes. He +declared that he was a chemist. He had been a jack of all trades. He had +played in vaudeville at Saint-Mihiel. He was a man of purpose, a fine +talker, who underlined his smiles and accentuated his gestures. His +occupation consisted in selling, in the open air, plaster busts and +portraits of "the head of the State." In addition to this, he extracted +teeth. He had exhibited phenomena at fairs, and he had owned a booth +with a trumpet and this poster: "Babet, Dental Artist, Member of the +Academies, makes physical experiments on metals and metalloids, extracts +teeth, undertakes stumps abandoned by his brother practitioners. Price: +one tooth, one franc, fifty centimes; two teeth, two francs; three +teeth, two francs, fifty. Take advantage of this opportunity." This Take +advantage of this opportunity meant: Have as many teeth extracted as +possible. He had been married and had had children. He did not know what +had become of his wife and children. He had lost them as one loses his +handkerchief. Babet read the papers, a striking exception in the world +to which he belonged. One day, at the period when he had his family with +him in his booth on wheels, he had read in the Messager, that a woman +had just given birth to a child, who was doing well, and had a calf's +muzzle, and he exclaimed: "There's a fortune! my wife has not the wit to +present me with a child like that!" + +Later on he had abandoned everything, in order to "undertake Paris." +This was his expression. + +Who was Claquesous? He was night. He waited until the sky was daubed +with black, before he showed himself. At nightfall he emerged from the +hole whither he returned before daylight. Where was this hole? No one +knew. He only addressed his accomplices in the most absolute darkness, +and with his back turned to them. Was his name Claquesous? Certainly +not. If a candle was brought, he put on a mask. He was a ventriloquist. +Babet said: "Claquesous is a nocturne for two voices." Claquesous was +vague, terrible, and a roamer. No one was sure whether he had a name, +Claquesous being a sobriquet; none was sure that he had a voice, as his +stomach spoke more frequently than his voice; no one was sure that he +had a face, as he was never seen without his mask. He disappeared as +though he had vanished into thin air; when he appeared, it was as though +he sprang from the earth. + +A lugubrious being was Montparnasse. Montparnasse was a child; less than +twenty years of age, with a handsome face, lips like cherries, charming +black hair, the brilliant light of springtime in his eyes; he had all +vices and aspired to all crimes. + +The digestion of evil aroused in him an appetite for worse. It was the +street boy turned pickpocket, and a pickpocket turned garroter. He was +genteel, effeminate, graceful, robust, sluggish, ferocious. The rim of +his hat was curled up on the left side, in order to make room for a tuft +of hair, after the style of 1829. He lived by robbery with violence. +His coat was of the best cut, but threadbare. Montparnasse was a +fashion-plate in misery and given to the commission of murders. The +cause of all this youth's crimes was the desire to be well-dressed. The +first grisette who had said to him: "You are handsome!" had cast the +stain of darkness into his heart, and had made a Cain of this Abel. +Finding that he was handsome, he desired to be elegant: now, the +height of elegance is idleness; idleness in a poor man means crime. Few +prowlers were so dreaded as Montparnasse. At eighteen, he had already +numerous corpses in his past. More than one passer-by lay with +outstretched arms in the presence of this wretch, with his face in a +pool of blood. Curled, pomaded, with laced waist, the hips of a woman, +the bust of a Prussian officer, the murmur of admiration from the +boulevard wenches surrounding him, his cravat knowingly tied, a bludgeon +in his pocket, a flower in his buttonhole; such was this dandy of the +sepulchre. + + + + +CHAPTER IV--COMPOSITION OF THE TROUPE + +These four ruffians formed a sort of Proteus, winding like a serpent +among the police, and striving to escape Vidocq's indiscreet glances +"under divers forms, tree, flame, fountain," lending each other their +names and their traps, hiding in their own shadows, boxes with +secret compartments and refuges for each other, stripping off their +personalities, as one removes his false nose at a masked ball, sometimes +simplifying matters to the point of consisting of but one individual, +sometimes multiplying themselves to such a point that Coco-Latour +himself took them for a whole throng. + +These four men were not four men; they were a sort of mysterious robber +with four heads, operating on a grand scale on Paris; they were that +monstrous polyp of evil, which inhabits the crypt of society. + +Thanks to their ramifications, and to the network underlying their +relations, Babet, Gueulemer, Claquesous, and Montparnasse were charged +with the general enterprise of the ambushes of the department of +the Seine. The inventors of ideas of that nature, men with nocturnal +imaginations, applied to them to have their ideas executed. They +furnished the canvas to the four rascals, and the latter undertook the +preparation of the scenery. They labored at the stage setting. They were +always in a condition to lend a force proportioned and suitable to +all crimes which demanded a lift of the shoulder, and which were +sufficiently lucrative. When a crime was in quest of arms, they +under-let their accomplices. They kept a troupe of actors of the shadows +at the disposition of all underground tragedies. + +They were in the habit of assembling at nightfall, the hour when they +woke up, on the plains which adjoin the Salpetriere. There they held +their conferences. They had twelve black hours before them; they +regulated their employment accordingly. + +Patron-Minette,--such was the name which was bestowed in the +subterranean circulation on the association of these four men. In the +fantastic, ancient, popular parlance, which is vanishing day by day, +Patron-Minette signifies the morning, the same as entre chien et +loup--between dog and wolf--signifies the evening. This appellation, +Patron-Minette, was probably derived from the hour at which their work +ended, the dawn being the vanishing moment for phantoms and for the +separation of ruffians. These four men were known under this title. +When the President of the Assizes visited Lacenaire in his prison, and +questioned him concerning a misdeed which Lacenaire denied, "Who did +it?" demanded the President. Lacenaire made this response, enigmatical +so far as the magistrate was concerned, but clear to the police: +"Perhaps it was Patron-Minette." + +A piece can sometimes be divined on the enunciation of the personages; +in the same manner a band can almost be judged from the list of ruffians +composing it. Here are the appellations to which the principal members +of Patron-Minette answered,--for the names have survived in special +memoirs. + +Panchaud, alias Printanier, alias Bigrenaille. + +Brujon. [There was a Brujon dynasty; we cannot refrain from +interpolating this word.] + +Boulatruelle, the road-mender already introduced. + +Laveuve. + +Finistere. + +Homere-Hogu, a negro. + +Mardisoir. (Tuesday evening.) + +Depeche. (Make haste.) + +Fauntleroy, alias Bouquetiere (the Flower Girl). + +Glorieux, a discharged convict. + +Barrecarrosse (Stop-carriage), called Monsieur Dupont. + +L'Esplanade-du-Sud. + +Poussagrive. + +Carmagnolet. + +Kruideniers, called Bizarro. + +Mangedentelle. (Lace-eater.) + +Les-pieds-en-l'Air. (Feet in the air.) + +Demi-Liard, called Deux-Milliards. + +Etc., etc. + +We pass over some, and not the worst of them. These names have faces +attached. They do not express merely beings, but species. Each one of +these names corresponds to a variety of those misshapen fungi from the +under side of civilization. + +Those beings, who were not very lavish with their countenances, were not +among the men whom one sees passing along the streets. Fatigued by the +wild nights which they passed, they went off by day to sleep, sometimes +in the lime-kilns, sometimes in the abandoned quarries of Montmatre or +Montrouge, sometimes in the sewers. They ran to earth. + +What became of these men? They still exist. They have always existed. +Horace speaks of them: Ambubaiarum collegia, pharmacopolae, mendici, +mimae; and so long as society remains what it is, they will remain what +they are. Beneath the obscure roof of their cavern, they are continually +born again from the social ooze. They return, spectres, but always +identical; only, they no longer bear the same names and they are +no longer in the same skins. The individuals extirpated, the tribe +subsists. + +They always have the same faculties. From the vagrant to the tramp, the +race is maintained in its purity. They divine purses in pockets, they +scent out watches in fobs. Gold and silver possess an odor for them. +There exist ingenuous bourgeois, of whom it might be said, that they +have a "stealable" air. These men patiently pursue these bourgeois. They +experience the quivers of a spider at the passage of a stranger or of a +man from the country. + +These men are terrible, when one encounters them, or catches a glimpse +of them, towards midnight, on a deserted boulevard. They do not seem +to be men but forms composed of living mists; one would say that they +habitually constitute one mass with the shadows, that they are in +no wise distinct from them, that they possess no other soul than the +darkness, and that it is only momentarily and for the purpose of living +for a few minutes a monstrous life, that they have separated from the +night. + +What is necessary to cause these spectres to vanish? Light. Light in +floods. Not a single bat can resist the dawn. Light up society from +below. + + + + +BOOK EIGHTH.--THE WICKED POOR MAN + + + + +CHAPTER I--MARIUS, WHILE SEEKING A GIRL IN A BONNET, ENCOUNTERS A MAN IN +A CAP + +Summer passed, then the autumn; winter came. Neither M. Leblanc nor the +young girl had again set foot in the Luxembourg garden. Thenceforth, +Marius had but one thought,--to gaze once more on that sweet and +adorable face. He sought constantly, he sought everywhere; he found +nothing. He was no longer Marius, the enthusiastic dreamer, the firm, +resolute, ardent man, the bold defier of fate, the brain which erected +future on future, the young spirit encumbered with plans, with projects, +with pride, with ideas and wishes; he was a lost dog. He fell into a +black melancholy. All was over. Work disgusted him, walking tired him. +Vast nature, formerly so filled with forms, lights, voices, counsels, +perspectives, horizons, teachings, now lay empty before him. It seemed +to him that everything had disappeared. + +He thought incessantly, for he could not do otherwise; but he no longer +took pleasure in his thoughts. To everything that they proposed to him +in a whisper, he replied in his darkness: "What is the use?" + +He heaped a hundred reproaches on himself. "Why did I follow her? I +was so happy at the mere sight of her! She looked at me; was not that +immense? She had the air of loving me. Was not that everything? I wished +to have, what? There was nothing after that. I have been absurd. It is +my own fault," etc., etc. Courfeyrac, to whom he confided nothing,--it +was his nature,--but who made some little guess at everything,--that was +his nature,--had begun by congratulating him on being in love, though he +was amazed at it; then, seeing Marius fall into this melancholy state, +he ended by saying to him: "I see that you have been simply an animal. +Here, come to the Chaumiere." + +Once, having confidence in a fine September sun, Marius had allowed +himself to be taken to the ball at Sceaux by Courfeyrac, Bossuet, and +Grantaire, hoping, what a dream! that he might, perhaps, find her there. +Of course he did not see the one he sought.--"But this is the place, +all the same, where all lost women are found," grumbled Grantaire in an +aside. Marius left his friends at the ball and returned home on foot, +alone, through the night, weary, feverish, with sad and troubled eyes, +stunned by the noise and dust of the merry wagons filled with singing +creatures on their way home from the feast, which passed close to +him, as he, in his discouragement, breathed in the acrid scent of the +walnut-trees, along the road, in order to refresh his head. + +He took to living more and more alone, utterly overwhelmed, wholly given +up to his inward anguish, going and coming in his pain like the wolf in +the trap, seeking the absent one everywhere, stupefied by love. + +On another occasion, he had an encounter which produced on him a +singular effect. He met, in the narrow streets in the vicinity of the +Boulevard des Invalides, a man dressed like a workingman and wearing a +cap with a long visor, which allowed a glimpse of locks of very +white hair. Marius was struck with the beauty of this white hair, and +scrutinized the man, who was walking slowly and as though absorbed in +painful meditation. Strange to say, he thought that he recognized M. +Leblanc. The hair was the same, also the profile, so far as the cap +permitted a view of it, the mien identical, only more depressed. But why +these workingman's clothes? What was the meaning of this? What signified +that disguise? Marius was greatly astonished. When he recovered himself, +his first impulse was to follow the man; who knows whether he did not +hold at last the clue which he was seeking? In any case, he must see the +man near at hand, and clear up the mystery. But the idea occurred to him +too late, the man was no longer there. He had turned into some little +side street, and Marius could not find him. This encounter occupied +his mind for three days and then was effaced. "After all," he said to +himself, "it was probably only a resemblance." + + + + +CHAPTER II--TREASURE TROVE + +Marius had not left the Gorbeau house. He paid no attention to any one +there. + +At that epoch, to tell the truth, there were no other inhabitants in the +house, except himself and those Jondrettes whose rent he had once paid, +without, moreover, ever having spoken to either father, mother, or +daughters. The other lodgers had moved away or had died, or had been +turned out in default of payment. + +One day during that winter, the sun had shown itself a little in the +afternoon, but it was the 2d of February, that ancient Candlemas +day whose treacherous sun, the precursor of a six weeks' cold spell, +inspired Mathieu Laensberg with these two lines, which have with justice +remained classic:-- + + + Qu'il luise ou qu'il luiserne, + L'ours rentre dans en sa caverne.[26] + + +Marius had just emerged from his: night was falling. It was the hour for +his dinner; for he had been obliged to take to dining again, alas! oh, +infirmities of ideal passions! + +He had just crossed his threshold, where Ma'am Bougon was sweeping at +the moment, as she uttered this memorable monologue:-- + +"What is there that is cheap now? Everything is dear. There is nothing +in the world that is cheap except trouble; you can get that for nothing, +the trouble of the world!" + +Marius slowly ascended the boulevard towards the barrier, in order to +reach the Rue Saint-Jacques. He was walking along with drooping head. + +All at once, he felt some one elbow him in the dusk; he wheeled round, +and saw two young girls clad in rags, the one tall and slim, the other a +little shorter, who were passing rapidly, all out of breath, in terror, +and with the appearance of fleeing; they had been coming to meet him, +had not seen him, and had jostled him as they passed. Through the +twilight, Marius could distinguish their livid faces, their wild heads, +their dishevelled hair, their hideous bonnets, their ragged petticoats, +and their bare feet. They were talking as they ran. The taller said in a +very low voice:-- + +"The bobbies have come. They came near nabbing me at the half-circle." +The other answered: "I saw them. I bolted, bolted, bolted!" + +Through this repulsive slang, Marius understood that gendarmes or the +police had come near apprehending these two children, and that the +latter had escaped. + +They plunged among the trees of the boulevard behind him, and there +created, for a few minutes, in the gloom, a sort of vague white spot, +then disappeared. + +Marius had halted for a moment. + +He was about to pursue his way, when his eye lighted on a little grayish +package lying on the ground at his feet. He stooped and picked it up. It +was a sort of envelope which appeared to contain papers. + +"Good," he said to himself, "those unhappy girls dropped it." + +He retraced his steps, he called, he did not find them; he reflected +that they must already be far away, put the package in his pocket, and +went off to dine. + +On the way, he saw in an alley of the Rue Mouffetard, a child's coffin, +covered with a black cloth resting on three chairs, and illuminated by a +candle. The two girls of the twilight recurred to his mind. + +"Poor mothers!" he thought. "There is one thing sadder than to see one's +children die; it is to see them leading an evil life." + +Then those shadows which had varied his melancholy vanished from his +thoughts, and he fell back once more into his habitual preoccupations. +He fell to thinking once more of his six months of love and happiness +in the open air and the broad daylight, beneath the beautiful trees of +Luxembourg. + +"How gloomy my life has become!" he said to himself. "Young girls are +always appearing to me, only formerly they were angels and now they are +ghouls." + + + + +CHAPTER III--QUADRIFRONS + +That evening, as he was undressing preparatory to going to bed, his hand +came in contact, in the pocket of his coat, with the packet which he +had picked up on the boulevard. He had forgotten it. He thought that it +would be well to open it, and that this package might possibly contain +the address of the young girls, if it really belonged to them, and, in +any case, the information necessary to a restitution to the person who +had lost it. + +He opened the envelope. + +It was not sealed and contained four letters, also unsealed. + +They bore addresses. + +All four exhaled a horrible odor of tobacco. + +The first was addressed: "To Madame, Madame la Marquise de Grucheray, +the place opposite the Chamber of Deputies, No.--" + +Marius said to himself, that he should probably find in it the +information which he sought, and that, moreover, the letter being open, +it was probable that it could be read without impropriety. + +It was conceived as follows:-- + + +Madame la Marquise: The virtue of clemency and piety is that which most +closely unites sosiety. Turn your Christian spirit and cast a look of +compassion on this unfortunate Spanish victim of loyalty and attachment +to the sacred cause of legitimacy, who has given with his blood, +consecrated his fortune, evverything, to defend that cause, and to-day +finds himself in the greatest missery. He doubts not that your honorable +person will grant succor to preserve an existence exteremely painful for +a military man of education and honor full of wounds, counts in advance +on the humanity which animates you and on the interest which Madame la +Marquise bears to a nation so unfortunate. Their prayer will not be in +vain, and their gratitude will preserve theirs charming souvenir. + + My respectful sentiments, with which I have the honor to be + Madame, + Don Alvares, Spanish Captain + of Cavalry, a royalist who + has take refuge in France, + who finds himself on travells + for his country, and the + resources are lacking him to + continue his travells. + + +No address was joined to the signature. Marius hoped to find the address +in the second letter, whose superscription read: A Madame, Madame la +Comtesse de Montvernet, Rue Cassette, No. 9. This is what Marius read in +it:-- + + + Madame la Comtesse: It is an unhappy mother of a family of six + children the last of which is only eight months old. I sick + since my last confinement, abandoned by my husband five months ago, + haveing no resources in the world the most frightful indigance. + + In the hope of Madame la Comtesse, she has the honor to be, + Madame, with profound respect, + Mistress Balizard. + + +Marius turned to the third letter, which was a petition like the +preceding; he read:-- + + Monsieur Pabourgeot, Elector, wholesale stocking merchant, + Rue Saint-Denis on the corner of the Rue aux Fers. + + I permit myself to address you this letter to beg you to grant me + the pretious favor of your simpaties and to interest yourself in a man + of letters who has just sent a drama to the Theatre-Francais. The subject + is historical, and the action takes place in Auvergne in the time + of the Empire; the style, I think, is natural, laconic, and may have + some merit. There are couplets to be sung in four places. The comic, + the serious, the unexpected, are mingled in a variety of characters, + and a tinge of romanticism lightly spread through all the intrigue + which proceeds misteriously, and ends, after striking altarations, + in the midst of many beautiful strokes of brilliant scenes. + + My principal object is to satisfi the desire which progressively + animates the man of our century, that is to say, the fashion, + that capritious and bizarre weathervane which changes at almost + every new wind. + + In spite of these qualities I have reason to fear that jealousy, + the egotism of priviliged authors, may obtaine my exclusion from + the theatre, for I am not ignorant of the mortifications with which + new-comers are treated. + + Monsiuer Pabourgeot, your just reputation as an enlightened protector + of men of litters emboldens me to send you my daughter who will + explain our indigant situation to you, lacking bread and fire + in this wynter season. When I say to you that I beg you to accept + the dedication of my drama which I desire to make to you and of all + those that I shall make, is to prove to you how great is my ambition + to have the honor of sheltering myself under your protection, + and of adorning my writings with your name. If you deign to honor + me with the most modest offering, I shall immediately occupy myself + in making a piesse of verse to pay you my tribute of gratitude. + Which I shall endeavor to render this piesse as perfect as possible, + will be sent to you before it is inserted at the beginning of the + drama and delivered on the stage. + To Monsieur + and Madame Pabourgeot, + My most respectful complements, + Genflot, man of letters. + P. S. Even if it is only forty sous. + + Excuse me for sending my daughter and not presenting myself, + but sad motives connected with the toilet do not permit me, + alas! to go out. + + +Finally, Marius opened the fourth letter. The address ran: To the +benevolent Gentleman of the church of Saint-Jacquesdu-haut-Pas. It +contained the following lines:-- + + + Benevolent Man: If you deign to accompany my daughter, you will + behold a misserable calamity, and I will show you my certificates. + + At the aspect of these writings your generous soul will be moved + with a sentiment of obvious benevolence, for true philosophers + always feel lively emotions. + + Admit, compassionate man, that it is necessary to suffer the most + cruel need, and that it is very painful, for the sake of obtaining + a little relief, to get oneself attested by the authorities as though + one were not free to suffer and to die of inanition while waiting + to have our misery relieved. Destinies are very fatal for several + and too prodigal or too protecting for others. + + I await your presence or your offering, if you deign to make one, + and I beseech you to accept the respectful sentiments with which I + have the honor to be, + truly magnanimous man, + your very humble + and very obedient servant, + P. Fabantou, dramatic artist. + + +After perusing these four letters, Marius did not find himself much +further advanced than before. + +In the first place, not one of the signers gave his address. + +Then, they seemed to come from four different individuals, Don Alveras, +Mistress Balizard, the poet Genflot, and dramatic artist Fabantou; but +the singular thing about these letters was, that all four were written +by the same hand. + +What conclusion was to be drawn from this, except that they all come +from the same person? + +Moreover, and this rendered the conjecture all the more probable, the +coarse and yellow paper was the same in all four, the odor of tobacco +was the same, and, although an attempt had been made to vary the +style, the same orthographical faults were reproduced with the greatest +tranquillity, and the man of letters Genflot was no more exempt from +them than the Spanish captain. + +It was waste of trouble to try to solve this petty mystery. Had it not +been a chance find, it would have borne the air of a mystification. +Marius was too melancholy to take even a chance pleasantry well, and to +lend himself to a game which the pavement of the street seemed desirous +of playing with him. It seemed to him that he was playing the part of +the blind man in blind man's buff between the four letters, and that +they were making sport of him. + +Nothing, however, indicated that these letters belonged to the two +young girls whom Marius had met on the boulevard. After all, they were +evidently papers of no value. Marius replaced them in their envelope, +flung the whole into a corner and went to bed. About seven o'clock in +the morning, he had just risen and breakfasted, and was trying to settle +down to work, when there came a soft knock at his door. + +As he owned nothing, he never locked his door, unless occasionally, +though very rarely, when he was engaged in some pressing work. Even when +absent he left his key in the lock. "You will be robbed," said Ma'am +Bougon. "Of what?" said Marius. The truth is, however, that he had, one +day, been robbed of an old pair of boots, to the great triumph of Ma'am +Bougon. + +There came a second knock, as gentle as the first. + +"Come in," said Marius. + +The door opened. + +"What do you want, Ma'am Bougon?" asked Marius, without raising his eyes +from the books and manuscripts on his table. + +A voice which did not belong to Ma'am Bougon replied:-- + +"Excuse me, sir--" + +It was a dull, broken, hoarse, strangled voice, the voice of an old man, +roughened with brandy and liquor. + +Marius turned round hastily, and beheld a young girl. + + + + +CHAPTER IV--A ROSE IN MISERY + +[Illustration: Rose in Misery 3b8-4-rose-in-misery] + +A very young girl was standing in the half-open door. The dormer window +of the garret, through which the light fell, was precisely opposite +the door, and illuminated the figure with a wan light. She was a frail, +emaciated, slender creature; there was nothing but a chemise and a +petticoat upon that chilled and shivering nakedness. Her girdle was a +string, her head ribbon a string, her pointed shoulders emerged from her +chemise, a blond and lymphatic pallor, earth-colored collar-bones, red +hands, a half-open and degraded mouth, missing teeth, dull, bold, base +eyes; she had the form of a young girl who has missed her youth, and the +look of a corrupt old woman; fifty years mingled with fifteen; one of +those beings which are both feeble and horrible, and which cause those +to shudder whom they do not cause to weep. + +Marius had risen, and was staring in a sort of stupor at this being, who +was almost like the forms of the shadows which traverse dreams. + +The most heart-breaking thing of all was, that this young girl had not +come into the world to be homely. In her early childhood she must even +have been pretty. The grace of her age was still struggling against the +hideous, premature decrepitude of debauchery and poverty. The remains of +beauty were dying away in that face of sixteen, like the pale sunlight +which is extinguished under hideous clouds at dawn on a winter's day. + +That face was not wholly unknown to Marius. He thought he remembered +having seen it somewhere. + +"What do you wish, Mademoiselle?" he asked. + +The young girl replied in her voice of a drunken convict:-- + +"Here is a letter for you, Monsieur Marius." + +She called Marius by his name; he could not doubt that he was the person +whom she wanted; but who was this girl? How did she know his name? + +Without waiting for him to tell her to advance, she entered. She entered +resolutely, staring, with a sort of assurance that made the heart bleed, +at the whole room and the unmade bed. Her feet were bare. Large holes +in her petticoat permitted glimpses of her long legs and her thin knees. +She was shivering. + +She held a letter in her hand, which she presented to Marius. + +Marius, as he opened the letter, noticed that the enormous wafer which +sealed it was still moist. The message could not have come from a +distance. He read:-- + + + My amiable neighbor, young man: I have learned of your goodness to me, + that you paid my rent six months ago. I bless you, young man. + My eldest daughter will tell you that we have been without a morsel + of bread for two days, four persons and my spouse ill. If I am + not deseaved in my opinion, I think I may hope that your generous + heart will melt at this statement and the desire will subjugate you + to be propitious to me by daigning to lavish on me a slight favor. + + I am with the distinguished consideration which is due to the + benefactors of humanity,-- + + Jondrette. + + P.S. My eldest daughter will await your orders, dear Monsieur Marius. + + +This letter, coming in the very midst of the mysterious adventure which +had occupied Marius' thoughts ever since the preceding evening, was like +a candle in a cellar. All was suddenly illuminated. + +This letter came from the same place as the other four. There was the +same writing, the same style, the same orthography, the same paper, the +same odor of tobacco. + +There were five missives, five histories, five signatures, and a single +signer. The Spanish Captain Don Alvares, the unhappy Mistress Balizard, +the dramatic poet Genflot, the old comedian Fabantou, were all four +named Jondrette, if, indeed, Jondrette himself were named Jondrette. + +Marius had lived in the house for a tolerably long time, and he had had, +as we have said, but very rare occasion to see, to even catch a glimpse +of, his extremely mean neighbors. His mind was elsewhere, and where the +mind is, there the eyes are also. He had been obliged more than once to +pass the Jondrettes in the corridor or on the stairs; but they were mere +forms to him; he had paid so little heed to them, that, on the preceding +evening, he had jostled the Jondrette girls on the boulevard, without +recognizing them, for it had evidently been they, and it was with great +difficulty that the one who had just entered his room had awakened in +him, in spite of disgust and pity, a vague recollection of having met +her elsewhere. + +Now he saw everything clearly. He understood that his neighbor +Jondrette, in his distress, exercised the industry of speculating on the +charity of benevolent persons, that he procured addresses, and that he +wrote under feigned names to people whom he judged to be wealthy and +compassionate, letters which his daughters delivered at their risk +and peril, for this father had come to such a pass, that he risked his +daughters; he was playing a game with fate, and he used them as the +stake. Marius understood that probably, judging from their flight on the +evening before, from their breathless condition, from their terror +and from the words of slang which he had overheard, these unfortunate +creatures were plying some inexplicably sad profession, and that the +result of the whole was, in the midst of human society, as it is now +constituted, two miserable beings who were neither girls nor women, a +species of impure and innocent monsters produced by misery. + +Sad creatures, without name, or sex, or age, to whom neither good nor +evil were any longer possible, and who, on emerging from childhood, +have already nothing in this world, neither liberty, nor virtue, nor +responsibility. Souls which blossomed out yesterday, and are faded +to-day, like those flowers let fall in the streets, which are soiled +with every sort of mire, while waiting for some wheel to crush them. +Nevertheless, while Marius bent a pained and astonished gaze on her, the +young girl was wandering back and forth in the garret with the audacity +of a spectre. She kicked about, without troubling herself as to her +nakedness. Occasionally her chemise, which was untied and torn, fell +almost to her waist. She moved the chairs about, she disarranged the +toilet articles which stood on the commode, she handled Marius' clothes, +she rummaged about to see what there was in the corners. + +"Hullo!" said she, "you have a mirror!" + +And she hummed scraps of vaudevilles, as though she had been alone, +frolicsome refrains which her hoarse and guttural voice rendered +lugubrious. + +An indescribable constraint, weariness, and humiliation were perceptible +beneath this hardihood. Effrontery is a disgrace. + +Nothing could be more melancholy than to see her sport about the room, +and, so to speak, flit with the movements of a bird which is frightened +by the daylight, or which has broken its wing. One felt that under other +conditions of education and destiny, the gay and over-free mien of this +young girl might have turned out sweet and charming. Never, even among +animals, does the creature born to be a dove change into an osprey. That +is only to be seen among men. + +Marius reflected, and allowed her to have her way. + +She approached the table. + +"Ah!" said she, "books!" + +A flash pierced her glassy eye. She resumed, and her accent expressed +the happiness which she felt in boasting of something, to which no human +creature is insensible:-- + +"I know how to read, I do!" + +She eagerly seized a book which lay open on the table, and read with +tolerable fluency:-- + +"--General Bauduin received orders to take the chateau of Hougomont +which stands in the middle of the plain of Waterloo, with five +battalions of his brigade." + +She paused. + +"Ah! Waterloo! I know about that. It was a battle long ago. My father +was there. My father has served in the armies. We are fine Bonapartists +in our house, that we are! Waterloo was against the English." + +She laid down the book, caught up a pen, and exclaimed:-- + +"And I know how to write, too!" + +She dipped her pen in the ink, and turning to Marius:-- + +"Do you want to see? Look here, I'm going to write a word to show you." + +And before he had time to answer, she wrote on a sheet of white paper, +which lay in the middle of the table: "The bobbies are here." + +Then throwing down the pen:-- + +"There are no faults of orthography. You can look. We have received an +education, my sister and I. We have not always been as we are now. We +were not made--" + +Here she paused, fixed her dull eyes on Marius, and burst out laughing, +saying, with an intonation which contained every form of anguish, +stifled by every form of cynicism:-- + +"Bah!" + +And she began to hum these words to a gay air:-- + + "J'ai faim, mon pere." I am hungry, father. + Pas de fricot. I have no food. + J'ai froid, ma mere. I am cold, mother. + Pas de tricot. I have no clothes. + Grelotte, Lolotte! + Lolotte! Shiver, + Sanglote, Sob, + Jacquot!" Jacquot!" + + +She had hardly finished this couplet, when she exclaimed:-- + +"Do you ever go to the play, Monsieur Marius? I do. I have a little +brother who is a friend of the artists, and who gives me tickets +sometimes. But I don't like the benches in the galleries. One is cramped +and uncomfortable there. There are rough people there sometimes; and +people who smell bad." + +Then she scrutinized Marius, assumed a singular air and said:-- + +"Do you know, Mr. Marius, that you are a very handsome fellow?" + +And at the same moment the same idea occurred to them both, and made +her smile and him blush. She stepped up to him, and laid her hand on his +shoulder: "You pay no heed to me, but I know you, Mr. Marius. I meet you +here on the staircase, and then I often see you going to a person named +Father Mabeuf who lives in the direction of Austerlitz, sometimes when I +have been strolling in that quarter. It is very becoming to you to have +your hair tumbled thus." + +She tried to render her voice soft, but only succeeded in making it very +deep. A portion of her words was lost in the transit from her larynx to +her lips, as though on a piano where some notes are missing. + +Marius had retreated gently. + +"Mademoiselle," said he, with his cool gravity, "I have here a package +which belongs to you, I think. Permit me to return it to you." + +And he held out the envelope containing the four letters. + +She clapped her hands and exclaimed:-- + +"We have been looking everywhere for that!" + +Then she eagerly seized the package and opened the envelope, saying as +she did so:-- + +"Dieu de Dieu! how my sister and I have hunted! And it was you who found +it! On the boulevard, was it not? It must have been on the boulevard? +You see, we let it fall when we were running. It was that brat of a +sister of mine who was so stupid. When we got home, we could not find it +anywhere. As we did not wish to be beaten, as that is useless, as that +is entirely useless, as that is absolutely useless, we said that we had +carried the letters to the proper persons, and that they had said to us: +'Nix.' So here they are, those poor letters! And how did you find out +that they belonged to me? Ah! yes, the writing. So it was you that we +jostled as we passed last night. We couldn't see. I said to my sister: +'Is it a gentleman?' My sister said to me: 'I think it is a gentleman.'" + +In the meanwhile she had unfolded the petition addressed to "the +benevolent gentleman of the church of Saint-Jacquesdu-Haut-Pas." + +"Here!" said she, "this is for that old fellow who goes to mass. By the +way, this is his hour. I'll go and carry it to him. Perhaps he will give +us something to breakfast on." + +Then she began to laugh again, and added:-- + +"Do you know what it will mean if we get a breakfast today? It will mean +that we shall have had our breakfast of the day before yesterday, our +breakfast of yesterday, our dinner of to-day, and all that at once, and +this morning. Come! Parbleu! if you are not satisfied, dogs, burst!" + +This reminded Marius of the wretched girl's errand to himself. He +fumbled in his waistcoat pocket, and found nothing there. + +The young girl went on, and seemed to have no consciousness of Marius' +presence. + +"I often go off in the evening. Sometimes I don't come home again. Last +winter, before we came here, we lived under the arches of the bridges. +We huddled together to keep from freezing. My little sister cried. How +melancholy the water is! When I thought of drowning myself, I said +to myself: 'No, it's too cold.' I go out alone, whenever I choose, I +sometimes sleep in the ditches. Do you know, at night, when I walk along +the boulevard, I see the trees like forks, I see houses, all black and +as big as Notre Dame, I fancy that the white walls are the river, I say +to myself: 'Why, there's water there!' The stars are like the lamps in +illuminations, one would say that they smoked and that the wind blew +them out, I am bewildered, as though horses were breathing in my ears; +although it is night, I hear hand-organs and spinning-machines, and I +don't know what all. I think people are flinging stones at me, I flee +without knowing whither, everything whirls and whirls. You feel very +queer when you have had no food." + +And then she stared at him with a bewildered air. + +By dint of searching and ransacking his pockets, Marius had finally +collected five francs sixteen sous. This was all he owned in the world +for the moment. "At all events," he thought, "there is my dinner for +to-day, and to-morrow we will see." He kept the sixteen sous, and handed +the five francs to the young girl. + +She seized the coin. + +"Good!" said she, "the sun is shining!" + +And, as though the sun had possessed the property of melting the +avalanches of slang in her brain, she went on:-- + +"Five francs! the shiner! a monarch! in this hole! Ain't this fine! +You're a jolly thief! I'm your humble servant! Bravo for the good +fellows! Two days' wine! and meat! and stew! we'll have a royal feast! +and a good fill!" + +She pulled her chemise up on her shoulders, made a low bow to Marius, +then a familiar sign with her hand, and went towards the door, saying:-- + +"Good morning, sir. It's all right. I'll go and find my old man." + +As she passed, she caught sight of a dry crust of bread on the commode, +which was moulding there amid the dust; she flung herself upon it and +bit into it, muttering:-- + +"That's good! it's hard! it breaks my teeth!" + +Then she departed. + + + + +CHAPTER V--A PROVIDENTIAL PEEP-HOLE + +Marius had lived for five years in poverty, in destitution, even in +distress, but he now perceived that he had not known real misery. True +misery he had but just had a view of. It was its spectre which had just +passed before his eyes. In fact, he who has only beheld the misery of +man has seen nothing; the misery of woman is what he must see; he who +has seen only the misery of woman has seen nothing; he must see the +misery of the child. + +When a man has reached his last extremity, he has reached his last +resources at the same time. Woe to the defenceless beings who surround +him! Work, wages, bread, fire, courage, good will, all fail him +simultaneously. The light of day seems extinguished without, the moral +light within; in these shadows man encounters the feebleness of the +woman and the child, and bends them violently to ignominy. + +Then all horrors become possible. Despair is surrounded with fragile +partitions which all open on either vice or crime. + +Health, youth, honor, all the shy delicacies of the young body, the +heart, virginity, modesty, that epidermis of the soul, are manipulated +in sinister wise by that fumbling which seeks resources, which +encounters opprobrium, and which accommodates itself to it. Fathers, +mothers, children, brothers, sisters, men, women, daughters, adhere +and become incorporated, almost like a mineral formation, in that dusky +promiscuousness of sexes, relationships, ages, infamies, and innocences. +They crouch, back to back, in a sort of hut of fate. They exchange +woe-begone glances. Oh, the unfortunate wretches! How pale they are! How +cold they are! It seems as though they dwelt in a planet much further +from the sun than ours. + +This young girl was to Marius a sort of messenger from the realm of sad +shadows. She revealed to him a hideous side of the night. + +Marius almost reproached himself for the preoccupations of revery and +passion which had prevented his bestowing a glance on his neighbors up +to that day. The payment of their rent had been a mechanical movement, +which any one would have yielded to; but he, Marius, should have done +better than that. What! only a wall separated him from those abandoned +beings who lived gropingly in the dark outside the pale of the rest of +the world, he was elbow to elbow with them, he was, in some sort, the +last link of the human race which they touched, he heard them live, or +rather, rattle in the death agony beside him, and he paid no heed to +them! Every day, every instant, he heard them walking on the other side +of the wall, he heard them go, and come, and speak, and he did not even +lend an ear! And groans lay in those words, and he did not even listen +to them, his thoughts were elsewhere, given up to dreams, to impossible +radiances, to loves in the air, to follies; and all the while, human +creatures, his brothers in Jesus Christ, his brothers in the people, +were agonizing in vain beside him! He even formed a part of their +misfortune, and he aggravated it. For if they had had another neighbor +who was less chimerical and more attentive, any ordinary and charitable +man, evidently their indigence would have been noticed, their signals of +distress would have been perceived, and they would have been taken hold +of and rescued! They appeared very corrupt and very depraved, no +doubt, very vile, very odious even; but those who fall without becoming +degraded are rare; besides, there is a point where the unfortunate and +the infamous unite and are confounded in a single word, a fatal word, +the miserable; whose fault is this? And then should not the charity be +all the more profound, in proportion as the fall is great? + +While reading himself this moral lesson, for there were occasions on +which Marius, like all truly honest hearts, was his own pedagogue and +scolded himself more than he deserved, he stared at the wall which +separated him from the Jondrettes, as though he were able to make his +gaze, full of pity, penetrate that partition and warm these wretched +people. The wall was a thin layer of plaster upheld by lathes and beams, +and, as the reader had just learned, it allowed the sound of voices and +words to be clearly distinguished. Only a man as dreamy as Marius could +have failed to perceive this long before. There was no paper pasted on +the wall, either on the side of the Jondrettes or on that of Marius; the +coarse construction was visible in its nakedness. Marius examined the +partition, almost unconsciously; sometimes revery examines, observes, +and scrutinizes as thought would. All at once he sprang up; he had just +perceived, near the top, close to the ceiling, a triangular hole, which +resulted from the space between three lathes. The plaster which should +have filled this cavity was missing, and by mounting on the commode, +a view could be had through this aperture into the Jondrettes' attic. +Commiseration has, and should have, its curiosity. This aperture formed +a sort of peep-hole. It is permissible to gaze at misfortune like a +traitor in order to succor it.[27] + +"Let us get some little idea of what these people are like," thought +Marius, "and in what condition they are." + +He climbed upon the commode, put his eye to the crevice, and looked. + + + + +CHAPTER VI--THE WILD MAN IN HIS LAIR + +Cities, like forests, have their caverns in which all the most wicked +and formidable creatures which they contain conceal themselves. Only, +in cities, that which thus conceals itself is ferocious, unclean, and +petty, that is to say, ugly; in forests, that which conceals itself is +ferocious, savage, and grand, that is to say, beautiful. Taking one lair +with another, the beast's is preferable to the man's. Caverns are better +than hovels. + +What Marius now beheld was a hovel. + +Marius was poor, and his chamber was poverty-stricken, but as his +poverty was noble, his garret was neat. The den upon which his eye now +rested was abject, dirty, fetid, pestiferous, mean, sordid. The only +furniture consisted of a straw chair, an infirm table, some old bits of +crockery, and in two of the corners, two indescribable pallets; all +the light was furnished by a dormer window of four panes, draped with +spiders' webs. Through this aperture there penetrated just enough light +to make the face of a man appear like the face of a phantom. The walls +had a leprous aspect, and were covered with seams and scars, like a +visage disfigured by some horrible malady; a repulsive moisture exuded +from them. Obscene sketches roughly sketched with charcoal could be +distinguished upon them. + +The chamber which Marius occupied had a dilapidated brick pavement; this +one was neither tiled nor planked; its inhabitants stepped directly +on the antique plaster of the hovel, which had grown black under the +long-continued pressure of feet. Upon this uneven floor, where the dirt +seemed to be fairly incrusted, and which possessed but one virginity, +that of the broom, were capriciously grouped constellations of old +shoes, socks, and repulsive rags; however, this room had a fireplace, +so it was let for forty francs a year. There was every sort of thing +in that fireplace, a brazier, a pot, broken boards, rags suspended +from nails, a bird-cage, ashes, and even a little fire. Two brands were +smouldering there in a melancholy way. + +One thing which added still more to the horrors of this garret was, that +it was large. It had projections and angles and black holes, the lower +sides of roofs, bays, and promontories. Hence horrible, unfathomable +nooks where it seemed as though spiders as big as one's fist, wood-lice +as large as one's foot, and perhaps even--who knows?--some monstrous +human beings, must be hiding. + +One of the pallets was near the door, the other near the window. One +end of each touched the fireplace and faced Marius. In a corner near the +aperture through which Marius was gazing, a colored engraving in a black +frame was suspended to a nail on the wall, and at its bottom, in large +letters, was the inscription: THE DREAM. This represented a sleeping +woman, and a child, also asleep, the child on the woman's lap, an eagle +in a cloud, with a crown in his beak, and the woman thrusting the +crown away from the child's head, without awaking the latter; in the +background, Napoleon in a glory, leaning on a very blue column with a +yellow capital ornamented with this inscription: + + MARINGO + AUSTERLITS + IENA + WAGRAMME + ELOT + +Beneath this frame, a sort of wooden panel, which was no longer than it +was broad, stood on the ground and rested in a sloping attitude against +the wall. It had the appearance of a picture with its face turned to +the wall, of a frame probably showing a daub on the other side, of some +pier-glass detached from a wall and lying forgotten there while waiting +to be rehung. + +Near the table, upon which Marius descried a pen, ink, and paper, sat +a man about sixty years of age, small, thin, livid, haggard, with a +cunning, cruel, and uneasy air; a hideous scoundrel. + +If Lavater had studied this visage, he would have found the vulture +mingled with the attorney there, the bird of prey and the pettifogger +rendering each other mutually hideous and complementing each other; the +pettifogger making the bird of prey ignoble, the bird of prey making the +pettifogger horrible. + +This man had a long gray beard. He was clad in a woman's chemise, which +allowed his hairy breast and his bare arms, bristling with gray hair, +to be seen. Beneath this chemise, muddy trousers and boots through which +his toes projected were visible. + +He had a pipe in his mouth and was smoking. There was no bread in the +hovel, but there was still tobacco. + +He was writing probably some more letters like those which Marius had +read. + +On the corner of the table lay an ancient, dilapidated, reddish volume, +and the size, which was the antique 12mo of reading-rooms, betrayed a +romance. On the cover sprawled the following title, printed in large +capitals: GOD; THE KING; HONOR AND THE LADIES; BY DUCRAY DUMINIL, 1814. + +As the man wrote, he talked aloud, and Marius heard his words:-- + +"The idea that there is no equality, even when you are dead! Just look +at Pere Lachaise! The great, those who are rich, are up above, in the +acacia alley, which is paved. They can reach it in a carriage. The +little people, the poor, the unhappy, well, what of them? they are put +down below, where the mud is up to your knees, in the damp places. They +are put there so that they will decay the sooner! You cannot go to see +them without sinking into the earth." + +He paused, smote the table with his fist, and added, as he ground his +teeth:-- + +"Oh! I could eat the whole world!" + +A big woman, who might be forty years of age, or a hundred, was +crouching near the fireplace on her bare heels. + +She, too, was clad only in a chemise and a knitted petticoat patched +with bits of old cloth. A coarse linen apron concealed the half of her +petticoat. Although this woman was doubled up and bent together, it +could be seen that she was of very lofty stature. She was a sort of +giant, beside her husband. She had hideous hair, of a reddish blond +which was turning gray, and which she thrust back from time to time, +with her enormous shining hands, with their flat nails. + +Beside her, on the floor, wide open, lay a book of the same form as the +other, and probably a volume of the same romance. + +On one of the pallets, Marius caught a glimpse of a sort of tall pale +young girl, who sat there half naked and with pendant feet, and who did +not seem to be listening or seeing or living. + +No doubt the younger sister of the one who had come to his room. + +She seemed to be eleven or twelve years of age. On closer scrutiny it +was evident that she really was fourteen. She was the child who had +said, on the boulevard the evening before: "I bolted, bolted, bolted!" + +She was of that puny sort which remains backward for a long time, +then suddenly starts up rapidly. It is indigence which produces these +melancholy human plants. These creatures have neither childhood nor +youth. At fifteen years of age they appear to be twelve, at sixteen they +seem twenty. To-day a little girl, to-morrow a woman. One might say +that they stride through life, in order to get through with it the more +speedily. + +At this moment, this being had the air of a child. + +Moreover, no trace of work was revealed in that dwelling; no handicraft, +no spinning-wheel, not a tool. In one corner lay some ironmongery of +dubious aspect. It was the dull listlessness which follows despair and +precedes the death agony. + +Marius gazed for a while at this gloomy interior, more terrifying than +the interior of a tomb, for the human soul could be felt fluttering +there, and life was palpitating there. The garret, the cellar, the lowly +ditch where certain indigent wretches crawl at the very bottom of the +social edifice, is not exactly the sepulchre, but only its antechamber; +but, as the wealthy display their greatest magnificence at the entrance +of their palaces, it seems that death, which stands directly side by +side with them, places its greatest miseries in that vestibule. + +The man held his peace, the woman spoke no word, the young girl did +not even seem to breathe. The scratching of the pen on the paper was +audible. + +The man grumbled, without pausing in his writing. "Canaille! canaille! +everybody is canaille!" + +This variation to Solomon's exclamation elicited a sigh from the woman. + +"Calm yourself, my little friend," she said. "Don't hurt yourself, my +dear. You are too good to write to all those people, husband." + +Bodies press close to each other in misery, as in cold, but hearts draw +apart. This woman must have loved this man, to all appearance, judging +from the amount of love within her; but probably, in the daily and +reciprocal reproaches of the horrible distress which weighed on the +whole group, this had become extinct. There no longer existed in her +anything more than the ashes of affection for her husband. Nevertheless, +caressing appellations had survived, as is often the case. She called +him: My dear, my little friend, my good man, etc., with her mouth while +her heart was silent. + +The man resumed his writing. + + + + +CHAPTER VII--STRATEGY AND TACTICS + +Marius, with a load upon his breast, was on the point of descending +from the species of observatory which he had improvised, when a sound +attracted his attention and caused him to remain at his post. + +The door of the attic had just burst open abruptly. The eldest girl made +her appearance on the threshold. On her feet, she had large, coarse, +men's shoes, bespattered with mud, which had splashed even to her red +ankles, and she was wrapped in an old mantle which hung in tatters. +Marius had not seen it on her an hour previously, but she had probably +deposited it at his door, in order that she might inspire the more pity, +and had picked it up again on emerging. She entered, pushed the door to +behind her, paused to take breath, for she was completely breathless, +then exclaimed with an expression of triumph and joy:-- + +"He is coming!" + +The father turned his eyes towards her, the woman turned her head, the +little sister did not stir. + +"Who?" demanded her father. + +"The gentleman!" + +"The philanthropist?" + +"Yes." + +"From the church of Saint-Jacques?" + +"Yes." + +"That old fellow?" + +"Yes." + +"And he is coming?" + +"He is following me." + +"You are sure?" + +"I am sure." + +"There, truly, he is coming?" + +"He is coming in a fiacre." + +"In a fiacre. He is Rothschild." + +The father rose. + +"How are you sure? If he is coming in a fiacre, how is it that you +arrive before him? You gave him our address at least? Did you tell him +that it was the last door at the end of the corridor, on the right? If +he only does not make a mistake! So you found him at the church? Did he +read my letter? What did he say to you?" + +"Ta, ta, ta," said the girl, "how you do gallop on, my good man! See +here: I entered the church, he was in his usual place, I made him a +reverence, and I handed him the letter; he read it and said to me: +'Where do you live, my child?' I said: 'Monsieur, I will show you.' He +said to me: 'No, give me your address, my daughter has some purchases to +make, I will take a carriage and reach your house at the same time that +you do.' I gave him the address. When I mentioned the house, he seemed +surprised and hesitated for an instant, then he said: 'Never mind, I +will come.' When the mass was finished, I watched him leave the church +with his daughter, and I saw them enter a carriage. I certainly did tell +him the last door in the corridor, on the right." + +"And what makes you think that he will come?" + +"I have just seen the fiacre turn into the Rue Petit-Banquier. That is +what made me run so." + +"How do you know that it was the same fiacre?" + +"Because I took notice of the number, so there!" + +"What was the number?" + +"440." + +"Good, you are a clever girl." + +The girl stared boldly at her father, and showing the shoes which she +had on her feet:-- + +"A clever girl, possibly; but I tell you I won't put these shoes on +again, and that I won't, for the sake of my health, in the first place, +and for the sake of cleanliness, in the next. I don't know anything +more irritating than shoes that squelch, and go ghi, ghi, ghi, the whole +time. I prefer to go barefoot." + +"You are right," said her father, in a sweet tone which contrasted with +the young girl's rudeness, "but then, you will not be allowed to enter +churches, for poor people must have shoes to do that. One cannot go +barefoot to the good God," he added bitterly. + +Then, returning to the subject which absorbed him:-- + +"So you are sure that he will come?" + +"He is following on my heels," said she. + +The man started up. A sort of illumination appeared on his countenance. + +"Wife!" he exclaimed, "you hear. Here is the philanthropist. Extinguish +the fire." + +The stupefied mother did not stir. + +The father, with the agility of an acrobat, seized a broken-nosed jug +which stood on the chimney, and flung the water on the brands. + +Then, addressing his eldest daughter:-- + +"Here you! Pull the straw off that chair!" + +His daughter did not understand. + +He seized the chair, and with one kick he rendered it seatless. His leg +passed through it. + +As he withdrew his leg, he asked his daughter:-- + +"Is it cold?" + +"Very cold. It is snowing." + +The father turned towards the younger girl who sat on the bed near the +window, and shouted to her in a thundering voice:-- + +"Quick! get off that bed, you lazy thing! will you never do anything? +Break a pane of glass!" + +The little girl jumped off the bed with a shiver. + +"Break a pane!" he repeated. + +The child stood still in bewilderment. + +"Do you hear me?" repeated her father, "I tell you to break a pane!" + +The child, with a sort of terrified obedience, rose on tiptoe, and +struck a pane with her fist. The glass broke and fell with a loud +clatter. + +"Good," said the father. + +He was grave and abrupt. His glance swept rapidly over all the crannies +of the garret. One would have said that he was a general making the +final preparation at the moment when the battle is on the point of +beginning. + +The mother, who had not said a word so far, now rose and demanded in +a dull, slow, languid voice, whence her words seemed to emerge in a +congealed state:-- + +"What do you mean to do, my dear?" + +"Get into bed," replied the man. + +His intonation admitted of no deliberation. The mother obeyed, and threw +herself heavily on one of the pallets. + +In the meantime, a sob became audible in one corner. + +"What's that?" cried the father. + +The younger daughter exhibited her bleeding fist, without quitting the +corner in which she was cowering. She had wounded herself while breaking +the window; she went off, near her mother's pallet and wept silently. + +It was now the mother's turn to start up and exclaim:-- + +"Just see there! What follies you commit! She has cut herself breaking +that pane for you!" + +"So much the better!" said the man. "I foresaw that." + +"What? So much the better?" retorted his wife. + +"Peace!" replied the father, "I suppress the liberty of the press." + +Then tearing the woman's chemise which he was wearing, he made a strip +of cloth with which he hastily swathed the little girl's bleeding wrist. + +That done, his eye fell with a satisfied expression on his torn chemise. + +"And the chemise too," said he, "this has a good appearance." + +An icy breeze whistled through the window and entered the room. The +outer mist penetrated thither and diffused itself like a whitish sheet +of wadding vaguely spread by invisible fingers. Through the broken pane +the snow could be seen falling. The snow promised by the Candlemas sun +of the preceding day had actually come. + +The father cast a glance about him as though to make sure that he had +forgotten nothing. He seized an old shovel and spread ashes over the wet +brands in such a manner as to entirely conceal them. + +Then drawing himself up and leaning against the chimney-piece:-- + +"Now," said he, "we can receive the philanthropist." + + + + +CHAPTER VIII--THE RAY OF LIGHT IN THE HOVEL + +The big girl approached and laid her hand in her father's. + +"Feel how cold I am," said she. + +"Bah!" replied the father, "I am much colder than that." + +The mother exclaimed impetuously:-- + +"You always have something better than any one else, so you do! even bad +things." + +"Down with you!" said the man. + +The mother, being eyed after a certain fashion, held her tongue. + +Silence reigned for a moment in the hovel. The elder girl was removing +the mud from the bottom of her mantle, with a careless air; her younger +sister continued to sob; the mother had taken the latter's head between +her hands, and was covering it with kisses, whispering to her the +while:-- + +"My treasure, I entreat you, it is nothing of consequence, don't cry, +you will anger your father." + +"No!" exclaimed the father, "quite the contrary! sob! sob! that's +right." + +Then turning to the elder:-- + +"There now! He is not coming! What if he were not to come! I shall have +extinguished my fire, wrecked my chair, torn my shirt, and broken my +pane all for nothing." + +"And wounded the child!" murmured the mother. + +"Do you know," went on the father, "that it's beastly cold in this +devil's garret! What if that man should not come! Oh! See there, you! He +makes us wait! He says to himself: 'Well! they will wait for me! +That's what they're there for.' Oh! how I hate them, and with what joy, +jubilation, enthusiasm, and satisfaction I could strangle all those rich +folks! all those rich folks! These men who pretend to be charitable, +who put on airs, who go to mass, who make presents to the priesthood, +preachy, preachy, in their skullcaps, and who think themselves above +us, and who come for the purpose of humiliating us, and to bring us +'clothes,' as they say! old duds that are not worth four sous! And +bread! That's not what I want, pack of rascals that they are, it's +money! Ah! money! Never! Because they say that we would go off and drink +it up, and that we are drunkards and idlers! And they! What are they, +then, and what have they been in their time! Thieves! They never could +have become rich otherwise! Oh! Society ought to be grasped by the four +corners of the cloth and tossed into the air, all of it! It would all +be smashed, very likely, but at least, no one would have anything, +and there would be that much gained! But what is that blockhead of +a benevolent gentleman doing? Will he come? Perhaps the animal has +forgotten the address! I'll bet that that old beast--" + +At that moment there came a light tap at the door, the man rushed to it +and opened it, exclaiming, amid profound bows and smiles of adoration:-- + +"Enter, sir! Deign to enter, most respected benefactor, and your +charming young lady, also." + +A man of ripe age and a young girl made their appearance on the +threshold of the attic. + +Marius had not quitted his post. His feelings for the moment surpassed +the powers of the human tongue. + +It was She! + +Whoever has loved knows all the radiant meanings contained in those +three letters of that word: She. + +It was certainly she. Marius could hardly distinguish her through the +luminous vapor which had suddenly spread before his eyes. It was that +sweet, absent being, that star which had beamed upon him for six months; +it was those eyes, that brow, that mouth, that lovely vanished face +which had created night by its departure. The vision had been eclipsed, +now it reappeared. + +It reappeared in that gloom, in that garret, in that misshapen attic, in +all that horror. + +Marius shuddered in dismay. What! It was she! The palpitations of his +heart troubled his sight. He felt that he was on the brink of bursting +into tears! What! He beheld her again at last, after having sought her +so long! It seemed to him that he had lost his soul, and that he had +just found it again. + +She was the same as ever, only a little pale; her delicate face was +framed in a bonnet of violet velvet, her figure was concealed beneath +a pelisse of black satin. Beneath her long dress, a glimpse could be +caught of her tiny foot shod in a silken boot. + +She was still accompanied by M. Leblanc. + +She had taken a few steps into the room, and had deposited a tolerably +bulky parcel on the table. + +The eldest Jondrette girl had retired behind the door, and was staring +with sombre eyes at that velvet bonnet, that silk mantle, and that +charming, happy face. + + + + +CHAPTER IX--JONDRETTE COMES NEAR WEEPING + +The hovel was so dark, that people coming from without felt on entering +it the effect produced on entering a cellar. The two new-comers +advanced, therefore, with a certain hesitation, being hardly able +to distinguish the vague forms surrounding them, while they could be +clearly seen and scrutinized by the eyes of the inhabitants of the +garret, who were accustomed to this twilight. + +M. Leblanc approached, with his sad but kindly look, and said to +Jondrette the father:-- + +"Monsieur, in this package you will find some new clothes and some +woollen stockings and blankets." + +"Our angelic benefactor overwhelms us," said Jondrette, bowing to the +very earth. + +Then, bending down to the ear of his eldest daughter, while the two +visitors were engaged in examining this lamentable interior, he added in +a low and rapid voice:-- + +"Hey? What did I say? Duds! No money! They are all alike! By the way, +how was the letter to that old blockhead signed?" + +"Fabantou," replied the girl. + +"The dramatic artist, good!" + +It was lucky for Jondrette, that this had occurred to him, for at the +very moment, M. Leblanc turned to him, and said to him with the air of a +person who is seeking to recall a name:-- + +"I see that you are greatly to be pitied, Monsieur--" + +"Fabantou," replied Jondrette quickly. + +"Monsieur Fabantou, yes, that is it. I remember." + +"Dramatic artist, sir, and one who has had some success." + +Here Jondrette evidently judged the moment propitious for capturing the +"philanthropist." He exclaimed with an accent which smacked at the same +time of the vainglory of the mountebank at fairs, and the humility of +the mendicant on the highway:-- + +"A pupil of Talma! Sir! I am a pupil of Talma! Fortune formerly smiled +on me--Alas! Now it is misfortune's turn. You see, my benefactor, no +bread, no fire. My poor babes have no fire! My only chair has no seat! A +broken pane! And in such weather! My spouse in bed! Ill!" + +"Poor woman!" said M. Leblanc. + +"My child wounded!" added Jondrette. + +The child, diverted by the arrival of the strangers, had fallen to +contemplating "the young lady," and had ceased to sob. + +"Cry! bawl!" said Jondrette to her in a low voice. + +At the same time he pinched her sore hand. All this was done with the +talent of a juggler. + +The little girl gave vent to loud shrieks. + +The adorable young girl, whom Marius, in his heart, called "his Ursule," +approached her hastily. + +"Poor, dear child!" said she. + +"You see, my beautiful young lady," pursued Jondrette "her bleeding +wrist! It came through an accident while working at a machine to earn +six sous a day. It may be necessary to cut off her arm." + +"Really?" said the old gentleman, in alarm. + +The little girl, taking this seriously, fell to sobbing more violently +than ever. + +"Alas! yes, my benefactor!" replied the father. + +For several minutes, Jondrette had been scrutinizing "the benefactor" +in a singular fashion. As he spoke, he seemed to be examining the other +attentively, as though seeking to summon up his recollections. All at +once, profiting by a moment when the new-comers were questioning the +child with interest as to her injured hand, he passed near his wife, +who lay in her bed with a stupid and dejected air, and said to her in a +rapid but very low tone:-- + +"Take a look at that man!" + +Then, turning to M. Leblanc, and continuing his lamentations:-- + +"You see, sir! All the clothing that I have is my wife's chemise! And +all torn at that! In the depths of winter! I can't go out for lack of a +coat. If I had a coat of any sort, I would go and see Mademoiselle Mars, +who knows me and is very fond of me. Does she not still reside in the +Rue de la Tour-des-Dames? Do you know, sir? We played together in the +provinces. I shared her laurels. Celimene would come to my succor, sir! +Elmire would bestow alms on Belisaire! But no, nothing! And not a sou in +the house! My wife ill, and not a sou! My daughter dangerously injured, +not a sou! My wife suffers from fits of suffocation. It comes from her +age, and besides, her nervous system is affected. She ought to have +assistance, and my daughter also! But the doctor! But the apothecary! +How am I to pay them? I would kneel to a penny, sir! Such is the +condition to which the arts are reduced. And do you know, my charming +young lady, and you, my generous protector, do you know, you who breathe +forth virtue and goodness, and who perfume that church where my daughter +sees you every day when she says her prayers?--For I have brought up my +children religiously, sir. I did not want them to take to the theatre. +Ah! the hussies! If I catch them tripping! I do not jest, that I don't! +I read them lessons on honor, on morality, on virtue! Ask them! They +have got to walk straight. They are none of your unhappy wretches who +begin by having no family, and end by espousing the public. One is +Mamselle Nobody, and one becomes Madame Everybody. Deuce take it! None +of that in the Fabantou family! I mean to bring them up virtuously, and +they shall be honest, and nice, and believe in God, by the sacred name! +Well, sir, my worthy sir, do you know what is going to happen to-morrow? +To-morrow is the fourth day of February, the fatal day, the last day of +grace allowed me by my landlord; if by this evening I have not paid my +rent, to-morrow my oldest daughter, my spouse with her fever, my child +with her wound,--we shall all four be turned out of here and thrown into +the street, on the boulevard, without shelter, in the rain, in the snow. +There, sir. I owe for four quarters--a whole year! that is to say, sixty +francs." + +Jondrette lied. Four quarters would have amounted to only forty francs, +and he could not owe four, because six months had not elapsed since +Marius had paid for two. + +M. Leblanc drew five francs from his pocket and threw them on the table. + +Jondrette found time to mutter in the ear of his eldest daughter:-- + +"The scoundrel! What does he think I can do with his five francs? +That won't pay me for my chair and pane of glass! That's what comes of +incurring expenses!" + +In the meanwhile, M. Leblanc had removed the large brown great-coat +which he wore over his blue coat, and had thrown it over the back of the +chair. + +"Monsieur Fabantou," he said, "these five francs are all that I have +about me, but I shall now take my daughter home, and I will return this +evening,--it is this evening that you must pay, is it not?" + +Jondrette's face lighted up with a strange expression. He replied +vivaciously:-- + +"Yes, respected sir. At eight o'clock, I must be at my landlord's." + +"I will be here at six, and I will fetch you the sixty francs." + +"My benefactor!" exclaimed Jondrette, overwhelmed. And he added, in a +low tone: "Take a good look at him, wife!" + +M. Leblanc had taken the arm of the young girl, once more, and had +turned towards the door. + +"Farewell until this evening, my friends!" said he. + +"Six o'clock?" said Jondrette. + +"Six o'clock precisely." + +At that moment, the overcoat lying on the chair caught the eye of the +elder Jondrette girl. + +"You are forgetting your coat, sir," said she. + +Jondrette darted an annihilating look at his daughter, accompanied by a +formidable shrug of the shoulders. + +M. Leblanc turned back and said, with a smile:-- + +"I have not forgotten it, I am leaving it." + +"O my protector!" said Jondrette, "my august benefactor, I melt into +tears! Permit me to accompany you to your carriage." + +"If you come out," answered M. Leblanc, "put on this coat. It really is +very cold." + +Jondrette did not need to be told twice. He hastily donned the brown +great-coat. And all three went out, Jondrette preceding the two +strangers. + + + + +CHAPTER X--TARIFF OF LICENSED CABS: TWO FRANCS AN HOUR + +Marius had lost nothing of this entire scene, and yet, in reality, had +seen nothing. His eyes had remained fixed on the young girl, his heart +had, so to speak, seized her and wholly enveloped her from the moment of +her very first step in that garret. During her entire stay there, he +had lived that life of ecstasy which suspends material perceptions and +precipitates the whole soul on a single point. He contemplated, not that +girl, but that light which wore a satin pelisse and a velvet bonnet. The +star Sirius might have entered the room, and he would not have been any +more dazzled. + +While the young girl was engaged in opening the package, unfolding the +clothing and the blankets, questioning the sick mother kindly, and the +little injured girl tenderly, he watched her every movement, he sought +to catch her words. He knew her eyes, her brow, her beauty, her form, +her walk, he did not know the sound of her voice. He had once fancied +that he had caught a few words at the Luxembourg, but he was not +absolutely sure of the fact. He would have given ten years of his life +to hear it, in order that he might bear away in his soul a little of +that music. But everything was drowned in the lamentable exclamations +and trumpet bursts of Jondrette. This added a touch of genuine wrath +to Marius' ecstasy. He devoured her with his eyes. He could not believe +that it really was that divine creature whom he saw in the midst of +those vile creatures in that monstrous lair. It seemed to him that he +beheld a humming-bird in the midst of toads. + +When she took her departure, he had but one thought, to follow her, to +cling to her trace, not to quit her until he learned where she +lived, not to lose her again, at least, after having so miraculously +re-discovered her. He leaped down from the commode and seized his hat. +As he laid his hand on the lock of the door, and was on the point of +opening it, a sudden reflection caused him to pause. The corridor was +long, the staircase steep, Jondrette was talkative, M. Leblanc had, +no doubt, not yet regained his carriage; if, on turning round in the +corridor, or on the staircase, he were to catch sight of him, Marius, +in that house, he would, evidently, take the alarm, and find means to +escape from him again, and this time it would be final. What was he +to do? Should he wait a little? But while he was waiting, the carriage +might drive off. Marius was perplexed. At last he accepted the risk and +quitted his room. + +There was no one in the corridor. He hastened to the stairs. There was +no one on the staircase. He descended in all haste, and reached the +boulevard in time to see a fiacre turning the corner of the Rue du +Petit-Banquier, on its way back to Paris. + +Marius rushed headlong in that direction. On arriving at the angle of +the boulevard, he caught sight of the fiacre again, rapidly descending +the Rue Mouffetard; the carriage was already a long way off, and there +was no means of overtaking it; what! run after it? Impossible; and +besides, the people in the carriage would assuredly notice an individual +running at full speed in pursuit of a fiacre, and the father would +recognize him. At that moment, wonderful and unprecedented good luck, +Marius perceived an empty cab passing along the boulevard. There was but +one thing to be done, to jump into this cab and follow the fiacre. That +was sure, efficacious, and free from danger. + +Marius made the driver a sign to halt, and called to him:-- + +"By the hour?" + +Marius wore no cravat, he had on his working-coat, which was destitute +of buttons, his shirt was torn along one of the plaits on the bosom. + +The driver halted, winked, and held out his left hand to Marius, rubbing +his forefinger gently with his thumb. + +"What is it?" said Marius. + +"Pay in advance," said the coachman. + +Marius recollected that he had but sixteen sous about him. + +"How much?" he demanded. + +"Forty sous." + +"I will pay on my return." + +The driver's only reply was to whistle the air of La Palisse and to whip +up his horse. + +Marius stared at the retreating cabriolet with a bewildered air. For the +lack of four and twenty sous, he was losing his joy, his happiness, +his love! He had seen, and he was becoming blind again. He reflected +bitterly, and it must be confessed, with profound regret, on the five +francs which he had bestowed, that very morning, on that miserable girl. +If he had had those five francs, he would have been saved, he would have +been born again, he would have emerged from the limbo and darkness, he +would have made his escape from isolation and spleen, from his widowed +state; he might have re-knotted the black thread of his destiny to that +beautiful golden thread, which had just floated before his eyes and +had broken at the same instant, once more! He returned to his hovel in +despair. + +He might have told himself that M. Leblanc had promised to return in +the evening, and that all he had to do was to set about the matter more +skilfully, so that he might follow him on that occasion; but, in his +contemplation, it is doubtful whether he had heard this. + +As he was on the point of mounting the staircase, he perceived, on the +other side of the boulevard, near the deserted wall skirting the Rue De +la Barriere-des-Gobelins, Jondrette, wrapped in the "philanthropist's" +great-coat, engaged in conversation with one of those men of disquieting +aspect who have been dubbed by common consent, prowlers of the barriers; +people of equivocal face, of suspicious monologues, who present the +air of having evil minds, and who generally sleep in the daytime, which +suggests the supposition that they work by night. + +These two men, standing there motionless and in conversation, in the +snow which was falling in whirlwinds, formed a group that a policeman +would surely have observed, but which Marius hardly noticed. + +Still, in spite of his mournful preoccupation, he could not refrain from +saying to himself that this prowler of the barriers with whom Jondrette +was talking resembled a certain Panchaud, alias Printanier, alias +Bigrenaille, whom Courfeyrac had once pointed out to him as a very +dangerous nocturnal roamer. This man's name the reader has learned in +the preceding book. This Panchaud, alias Printanier, alias Bigrenaille, +figured later on in many criminal trials, and became a notorious rascal. +He was at that time only a famous rascal. To-day he exists in the state +of tradition among ruffians and assassins. He was at the head of +a school towards the end of the last reign. And in the evening, at +nightfall, at the hour when groups form and talk in whispers, he was +discussed at La Force in the Fosse-aux-Lions. One might even, in +that prison, precisely at the spot where the sewer which served the +unprecedented escape, in broad daylight, of thirty prisoners, in 1843, +passes under the culvert, read his name, PANCHAUD, audaciously carved +by his own hand on the wall of the sewer, during one of his attempts at +flight. In 1832, the police already had their eye on him, but he had not +as yet made a serious beginning. + + + + +CHAPTER XI--OFFERS OF SERVICE FROM MISERY TO WRETCHEDNESS + +Marius ascended the stairs of the hovel with slow steps; at the moment +when he was about to re-enter his cell, he caught sight of the elder +Jondrette girl following him through the corridor. The very sight of +this girl was odious to him; it was she who had his five francs, it was +too late to demand them back, the cab was no longer there, the fiacre +was far away. Moreover, she would not have given them back. As for +questioning her about the residence of the persons who had just been +there, that was useless; it was evident that she did not know, since the +letter signed Fabantou had been addressed "to the benevolent gentleman +of the church of Saint-Jacquesdu-Haut-Pas." + +Marius entered his room and pushed the door to after him. + +It did not close; he turned round and beheld a hand which held the door +half open. + +"What is it?" he asked, "who is there?" + +It was the Jondrette girl. + +"Is it you?" resumed Marius almost harshly, "still you! What do you want +with me?" + +She appeared to be thoughtful and did not look at him. She no longer had +the air of assurance which had characterized her that morning. She did +not enter, but held back in the darkness of the corridor, where Marius +could see her through the half-open door. + +"Come now, will you answer?" cried Marius. "What do you want with me?" + +She raised her dull eyes, in which a sort of gleam seemed to flicker +vaguely, and said:-- + +"Monsieur Marius, you look sad. What is the matter with you?" + +"With me!" said Marius. + +"Yes, you." + +"There is nothing the matter with me." + +"Yes, there is!" + +"No." + +"I tell you there is!" + +"Let me alone!" + +Marius gave the door another push, but she retained her hold on it. + +"Stop," said she, "you are in the wrong. Although you are not rich, you +were kind this morning. Be so again now. You gave me something to eat, +now tell me what ails you. You are grieved, that is plain. I do not want +you to be grieved. What can be done for it? Can I be of any service? +Employ me. I do not ask for your secrets, you need not tell them to me, +but I may be of use, nevertheless. I may be able to help you, since I +help my father. When it is necessary to carry letters, to go to houses, +to inquire from door to door, to find out an address, to follow any one, +I am of service. Well, you may assuredly tell me what is the matter with +you, and I will go and speak to the persons; sometimes it is enough if +some one speaks to the persons, that suffices to let them understand +matters, and everything comes right. Make use of me." + +An idea flashed across Marius' mind. What branch does one disdain when +one feels that one is falling? + +He drew near to the Jondrette girl. + +"Listen--" he said to her. + +She interrupted him with a gleam of joy in her eyes. + +"Oh yes, do call me thou! I like that better." + +"Well," he resumed, "thou hast brought hither that old gentleman and his +daughter!" + +"Yes." + +"Dost thou know their address?" + +"No." + +"Find it for me." + +The Jondrette's dull eyes had grown joyous, and they now became gloomy. + +"Is that what you want?" she demanded. + +"Yes." + +"Do you know them?" + +"No." + +"That is to say," she resumed quickly, "you do not know her, but you +wish to know her." + +This them which had turned into her had something indescribably +significant and bitter about it. + +"Well, can you do it?" said Marius. + +"You shall have the beautiful lady's address." + +There was still a shade in the words "the beautiful lady" which troubled +Marius. He resumed:-- + +"Never mind, after all, the address of the father and daughter. Their +address, indeed!" + +She gazed fixedly at him. + +"What will you give me?" + +"Anything you like." + +"Anything I like?" + +"Yes." + +"You shall have the address." + +She dropped her head; then, with a brusque movement, she pulled to the +door, which closed behind her. + +Marius found himself alone. + +He dropped into a chair, with his head and both elbows on his bed, +absorbed in thoughts which he could not grasp, and as though a prey to +vertigo. All that had taken place since the morning, the appearance of +the angel, her disappearance, what that creature had just said to him, a +gleam of hope floating in an immense despair,--this was what filled his +brain confusedly. + +All at once he was violently aroused from his revery. + +He heard the shrill, hard voice of Jondrette utter these words, which +were fraught with a strange interest for him:-- + +"I tell you that I am sure of it, and that I recognized him." + +Of whom was Jondrette speaking? Whom had he recognized? M. Leblanc? The +father of "his Ursule"? What! Did Jondrette know him? Was Marius about +to obtain in this abrupt and unexpected fashion all the information +without which his life was so dark to him? Was he about to learn at last +who it was that he loved, who that young girl was? Who her father +was? Was the dense shadow which enwrapped them on the point of being +dispelled? Was the veil about to be rent? Ah! Heavens! + +He bounded rather than climbed upon his commode, and resumed his post +near the little peep-hole in the partition wall. + +Again he beheld the interior of Jondrette's hovel. + + + + +CHAPTER XII--THE USE MADE OF M. LEBLANC'S FIVE-FRANC PIECE + +Nothing in the aspect of the family was altered, except that the wife +and daughters had levied on the package and put on woollen stockings and +jackets. Two new blankets were thrown across the two beds. + +Jondrette had evidently just returned. He still had the breathlessness +of out of doors. His daughters were seated on the floor near the +fireplace, the elder engaged in dressing the younger's wounded hand. His +wife had sunk back on the bed near the fireplace, with a face indicative +of astonishment. Jondrette was pacing up and down the garret with long +strides. His eyes were extraordinary. + +The woman, who seemed timid and overwhelmed with stupor in the presence +of her husband, turned to say:-- + +"What, really? You are sure?" + +"Sure! Eight years have passed! But I recognize him! Ah! I recognize +him. I knew him at once! What! Didn't it force itself on you?" + +"No." + +"But I told you: 'Pay attention!' Why, it is his figure, it is his face, +only older,--there are people who do not grow old, I don't know how they +manage it,--it is the very sound of his voice. He is better dressed, +that is all! Ah! you mysterious old devil, I've got you, that I have!" + +He paused, and said to his daughters:-- + +"Get out of here, you!--It's queer that it didn't strike you!" + +They arose to obey. + +The mother stammered:-- + +"With her injured hand." + +"The air will do it good," said Jondrette. "Be off." + +It was plain that this man was of the sort to whom no one offers to +reply. The two girls departed. + +At the moment when they were about to pass through the door, the father +detained the elder by the arm, and said to her with a peculiar accent:-- + +"You will be here at five o'clock precisely. Both of you. I shall need +you." + +Marius redoubled his attention. + +On being left alone with his wife, Jondrette began to pace the room +again, and made the tour of it two or three times in silence. Then he +spent several minutes in tucking the lower part of the woman's chemise +which he wore into his trousers. + +All at once, he turned to the female Jondrette, folded his arms and +exclaimed:-- + +"And would you like to have me tell you something? The young lady--" + +"Well, what?" retorted his wife, "the young lady?" + +Marius could not doubt that it was really she of whom they were +speaking. He listened with ardent anxiety. His whole life was in his +ears. + +But Jondrette had bent over and spoke to his wife in a whisper. Then he +straightened himself up and concluded aloud:-- + +"It is she!" + +"That one?" said his wife. + +"That very one," said the husband. + +No expression can reproduce the significance of the mother's words. +Surprise, rage, hate, wrath, were mingled and combined in one monstrous +intonation. The pronunciation of a few words, the name, no doubt, which +her husband had whispered in her ear, had sufficed to rouse this huge, +somnolent woman, and from being repulsive she became terrible. + +"It is not possible!" she cried. "When I think that my daughters are +going barefoot, and have not a gown to their backs! What! A satin +pelisse, a velvet bonnet, boots, and everything; more than two hundred +francs' worth of clothes! so that one would think she was a lady! No, +you are mistaken! Why, in the first place, the other was hideous, and +this one is not so bad-looking! She really is not bad-looking! It can't +be she!" + +"I tell you that it is she. You will see." + +At this absolute assertion, the Jondrette woman raised her large, red, +blonde face and stared at the ceiling with a horrible expression. +At that moment, she seemed to Marius even more to be feared than her +husband. She was a sow with the look of a tigress. + +"What!" she resumed, "that horrible, beautiful young lady, who gazed at +my daughters with an air of pity,--she is that beggar brat! Oh! I should +like to kick her stomach in for her!" + +She sprang off of the bed, and remained standing for a moment, her +hair in disorder, her nostrils dilating, her mouth half open, her fists +clenched and drawn back. Then she fell back on the bed once more. The +man paced to and fro and paid no attention to his female. + +After a silence lasting several minutes, he approached the female +Jondrette, and halted in front of her, with folded arms, as he had done +a moment before:-- + +"And shall I tell you another thing?" + +"What is it?" she asked. + +He answered in a low, curt voice:-- + +"My fortune is made." + +The woman stared at him with the look that signifies: "Is the person who +is addressing me on the point of going mad?" + +He went on:-- + +"Thunder! It was not so very long ago that I was a parishioner of +the parish of +die-of-hunger-if-you-have-a-fire,-die-of-cold-if-you-have-bread! I have +had enough of misery! my share and other people's share! I am not joking +any longer, I don't find it comic any more, I've had enough of puns, +good God! no more farces, Eternal Father! I want to eat till I am full, +I want to drink my fill! to gormandize! to sleep! to do nothing! I want +to have my turn, so I do, come now! before I die! I want to be a bit of +a millionnaire!" + +He took a turn round the hovel, and added:-- + +"Like other people." + +"What do you mean by that?" asked the woman. + +He shook his head, winked, screwed up one eye, and raised his voice like +a medical professor who is about to make a demonstration:-- + +"What do I mean by that? Listen!" + +"Hush!" muttered the woman, "not so loud! These are matters which must +not be overheard." + +"Bah! Who's here? Our neighbor? I saw him go out a little while ago. +Besides, he doesn't listen, the big booby. And I tell you that I saw him +go out." + +Nevertheless, by a sort of instinct, Jondrette lowered his voice, +although not sufficiently to prevent Marius hearing his words. One +favorable circumstance, which enabled Marius not to lose a word of this +conversation was the falling snow which deadened the sound of vehicles +on the boulevard. + +This is what Marius heard:-- + +"Listen carefully. The Croesus is caught, or as good as caught! That's +all settled already. Everything is arranged. I have seen some people. He +will come here this evening at six o'clock. To bring sixty francs, the +rascal! Did you notice how I played that game on him, my sixty francs, +my landlord, my fourth of February? I don't even owe for one quarter! +Isn't he a fool! So he will come at six o'clock! That's the hour when +our neighbor goes to his dinner. Mother Bougon is off washing dishes in +the city. There's not a soul in the house. The neighbor never comes home +until eleven o'clock. The children shall stand on watch. You shall help +us. He will give in." + +"And what if he does not give in?" demanded his wife. + +Jondrette made a sinister gesture, and said:-- + +"We'll fix him." + +And he burst out laughing. + +This was the first time Marius had seen him laugh. The laugh was cold +and sweet, and provoked a shudder. + +Jondrette opened a cupboard near the fireplace, and drew from it an old +cap, which he placed on his head, after brushing it with his sleeve. + +"Now," said he, "I'm going out. I have some more people that I must see. +Good ones. You'll see how well the whole thing will work. I shall be +away as short a time as possible, it's a fine stroke of business, do you +look after the house." + +And with both fists thrust into the pockets of his trousers, he stood +for a moment in thought, then exclaimed:-- + +"Do you know, it's mighty lucky, by the way, that he didn't recognize +me! If he had recognized me on his side, he would not have come back +again. He would have slipped through our fingers! It was my beard that +saved us! my romantic beard! my pretty little romantic beard!" + +And again he broke into a laugh. + +He stepped to the window. The snow was still falling, and streaking the +gray of the sky. + +"What beastly weather!" said he. + +Then lapping his overcoat across his breast:-- + +"This rind is too large for me. Never mind," he added, "he did a +devilish good thing in leaving it for me, the old scoundrel! If it +hadn't been for that, I couldn't have gone out, and everything would +have gone wrong! What small points things hang on, anyway!" + +And pulling his cap down over his eyes, he quitted the room. + +He had barely had time to take half a dozen steps from the door, when +the door opened again, and his savage but intelligent face made its +appearance once more in the opening. + +"I came near forgetting," said he. "You are to have a brazier of +charcoal ready." + +And he flung into his wife's apron the five-franc piece which the +"philanthropist" had left with him. + +"A brazier of charcoal?" asked his wife. + +"Yes." + +"How many bushels?" + +"Two good ones." + +"That will come to thirty sous. With the rest I will buy something for +dinner." + +"The devil, no." + +"Why?" + +"Don't go and spend the hundred-sou piece." + +"Why?" + +"Because I shall have to buy something, too." + +"What?" + +"Something." + +"How much shall you need?" + +"Whereabouts in the neighborhood is there an ironmonger's shop?" + +"Rue Mouffetard." + +"Ah! yes, at the corner of a street; I can see the shop." + +"But tell me how much you will need for what you have to purchase?" + +"Fifty sous--three francs." + +"There won't be much left for dinner." + +"Eating is not the point to-day. There's something better to be done." + +"That's enough, my jewel." + +At this word from his wife, Jondrette closed the door again, and this +time, Marius heard his step die away in the corridor of the hovel, and +descend the staircase rapidly. + +At that moment, one o'clock struck from the church of Saint-Medard. + + + + +CHAPTER XIII--SOLUS CUM SOLO, IN LOCO REMOTO, NON COGITABUNTUR ORARE +PATER NOSTER + +Marius, dreamer as he was, was, as we have said, firm and energetic by +nature. His habits of solitary meditation, while they had developed in +him sympathy and compassion, had, perhaps, diminished the faculty for +irritation, but had left intact the power of waxing indignant; he had +the kindliness of a brahmin, and the severity of a judge; he took pity +upon a toad, but he crushed a viper. Now, it was into a hole of vipers +that his glance had just been directed, it was a nest of monsters that +he had beneath his eyes. + +"These wretches must be stamped upon," said he. + +Not one of the enigmas which he had hoped to see solved had been +elucidated; on the contrary, all of them had been rendered more dense, +if anything; he knew nothing more about the beautiful maiden of the +Luxembourg and the man whom he called M. Leblanc, except that Jondrette +was acquainted with them. Athwart the mysterious words which had been +uttered, the only thing of which he caught a distinct glimpse was the +fact that an ambush was in course of preparation, a dark but terrible +trap; that both of them were incurring great danger, she probably, her +father certainly; that they must be saved; that the hideous plots of the +Jondrettes must be thwarted, and the web of these spiders broken. + +He scanned the female Jondrette for a moment. She had pulled an old +sheet-iron stove from a corner, and she was rummaging among the old heap +of iron. + +He descended from the commode as softly as possible, taking care not to +make the least noise. Amid his terror as to what was in preparation, and +in the horror with which the Jondrettes had inspired him, he experienced +a sort of joy at the idea that it might be granted to him perhaps to +render a service to the one whom he loved. + +But how was it to be done? How warn the persons threatened? He did not +know their address. They had reappeared for an instant before his eyes, +and had then plunged back again into the immense depths of Paris. Should +he wait for M. Leblanc at the door that evening at six o'clock, at the +moment of his arrival, and warn him of the trap? But Jondrette and his +men would see him on the watch, the spot was lonely, they were stronger +than he, they would devise means to seize him or to get him away, and +the man whom Marius was anxious to save would be lost. One o'clock had +just struck, the trap was to be sprung at six. Marius had five hours +before him. + +There was but one thing to be done. + +He put on his decent coat, knotted a silk handkerchief round his neck, +took his hat, and went out, without making any more noise than if he had +been treading on moss with bare feet. + +Moreover, the Jondrette woman continued to rummage among her old iron. + +Once outside of the house, he made for the Rue du Petit-Banquier. + +He had almost reached the middle of this street, near a very low wall +which a man can easily step over at certain points, and which abuts on +a waste space, and was walking slowly, in consequence of his preoccupied +condition, and the snow deadened the sound of his steps; all at once he +heard voices talking very close by. He turned his head, the street was +deserted, there was not a soul in it, it was broad daylight, and yet he +distinctly heard voices. + +It occurred to him to glance over the wall which he was skirting. + +There, in fact, sat two men, flat on the snow, with their backs against +the wall, talking together in subdued tones. + +These two persons were strangers to him; one was a bearded man in a +blouse, and the other a long-haired individual in rags. The bearded man +had on a fez, the other's head was bare, and the snow had lodged in his +hair. + +By thrusting his head over the wall, Marius could hear their remarks. + +The hairy one jogged the other man's elbow and said:-- + +"--With the assistance of Patron-Minette, it can't fail." + +"Do you think so?" said the bearded man. + +And the long-haired one began again:-- + +"It's as good as a warrant for each one, of five hundred balls, and the +worst that can happen is five years, six years, ten years at the most!" + +The other replied with some hesitation, and shivering beneath his fez:-- + +"That's a real thing. You can't go against such things." + +"I tell you that the affair can't go wrong," resumed the long-haired +man. "Father What's-his-name's team will be already harnessed." + +Then they began to discuss a melodrama that they had seen on the +preceding evening at the Gaite Theatre. + +Marius went his way. + +It seemed to him that the mysterious words of these men, so strangely +hidden behind that wall, and crouching in the snow, could not but bear +some relation to Jondrette's abominable projects. That must be the +affair. + +He directed his course towards the faubourg Saint-Marceau and asked at +the first shop he came to where he could find a commissary of police. + +He was directed to Rue de Pontoise, No. 14. + +Thither Marius betook himself. + +As he passed a baker's shop, he bought a two-penny roll, and ate it, +foreseeing that he should not dine. + +On the way, he rendered justice to Providence. He reflected that had he +not given his five francs to the Jondrette girl in the morning, he +would have followed M. Leblanc's fiacre, and consequently have remained +ignorant of everything, and that there would have been no obstacle to +the trap of the Jondrettes and that M. Leblanc would have been lost, and +his daughter with him, no doubt. + + + + +CHAPTER XIV--IN WHICH A POLICE AGENT BESTOWS TWO FISTFULS ON A LAWYER + +On arriving at No. 14, Rue de Pontoise, he ascended to the first floor +and inquired for the commissary of police. + +"The commissary of police is not here," said a clerk; "but there is an +inspector who takes his place. Would you like to speak to him? Are you +in haste?" + +"Yes," said Marius. + +The clerk introduced him into the commissary's office. There stood a +tall man behind a grating, leaning against a stove, and holding up with +both hands the tails of a vast topcoat, with three collars. His face +was square, with a thin, firm mouth, thick, gray, and very ferocious +whiskers, and a look that was enough to turn your pockets inside out. +Of that glance it might have been well said, not that it penetrated, but +that it searched. + +This man's air was not much less ferocious nor less terrible than +Jondrette's; the dog is, at times, no less terrible to meet than the +wolf. + +"What do you want?" he said to Marius, without adding "monsieur." + +"Is this Monsieur le Commissaire de Police?" + +"He is absent. I am here in his stead." + +"The matter is very private." + +"Then speak." + +"And great haste is required." + +"Then speak quick." + +This calm, abrupt man was both terrifying and reassuring at one and the +same time. He inspired fear and confidence. Marius related the adventure +to him: That a person with whom he was not acquainted otherwise than by +sight, was to be inveigled into a trap that very evening; that, as he +occupied the room adjoining the den, he, Marius Pontmercy, a lawyer, +had heard the whole plot through the partition; that the wretch who +had planned the trap was a certain Jondrette; that there would be +accomplices, probably some prowlers of the barriers, among others a +certain Panchaud, alias Printanier, alias Bigrenaille; that Jondrette's +daughters were to lie in wait; that there was no way of warning the +threatened man, since he did not even know his name; and that, finally, +all this was to be carried out at six o'clock that evening, at the most +deserted point of the Boulevard de l'Hopital, in house No. 50-52. + +At the sound of this number, the inspector raised his head, and said +coldly:-- + +"So it is in the room at the end of the corridor?" + +"Precisely," answered Marius, and he added: "Are you acquainted with +that house?" + +The inspector remained silent for a moment, then replied, as he warmed +the heel of his boot at the door of the stove:-- + +"Apparently." + +He went on, muttering between his teeth, and not addressing Marius so +much as his cravat:-- + +"Patron-Minette must have had a hand in this." + +This word struck Marius. + +"Patron-Minette," said he, "I did hear that word pronounced, in fact." + +And he repeated to the inspector the dialogue between the long-haired +man and the bearded man in the snow behind the wall of the Rue du +Petit-Banquier. + +The inspector muttered:-- + +"The long-haired man must be Brujon, and the bearded one Demi-Liard, +alias Deux-Milliards." + +He had dropped his eyelids again, and became absorbed in thought. + +"As for Father What's-his-name, I think I recognize him. Here, I've +burned my coat. They always have too much fire in these cursed stoves. +Number 50-52. Former property of Gorbeau." + +Then he glanced at Marius. + +"You saw only that bearded and that long-haired man?" + +"And Panchaud." + +"You didn't see a little imp of a dandy prowling about the premises?" + +"No." + +"Nor a big lump of matter, resembling an elephant in the Jardin des +Plantes?" + +"No." + +"Nor a scamp with the air of an old red tail?" + +"No." + +"As for the fourth, no one sees him, not even his adjutants, clerks, and +employees. It is not surprising that you did not see him." + +"No. Who are all those persons?" asked Marius. + +The inspector answered:-- + +"Besides, this is not the time for them." + +He relapsed into silence, then resumed:-- + +"50-52. I know that barrack. Impossible to conceal ourselves inside +it without the artists seeing us, and then they will get off simply +by countermanding the vaudeville. They are so modest! An audience +embarrasses them. None of that, none of that. I want to hear them sing +and make them dance." + +This monologue concluded, he turned to Marius, and demanded, gazing at +him intently the while:-- + +"Are you afraid?" + +"Of what?" said Marius. + +"Of these men?" + +"No more than yourself!" retorted Marius rudely, who had begun to notice +that this police agent had not yet said "monsieur" to him. + +The inspector stared still more intently at Marius, and continued with +sententious solemnity:-- + +"There, you speak like a brave man, and like an honest man. Courage does +not fear crime, and honesty does not fear authority." + +Marius interrupted him:-- + +"That is well, but what do you intend to do?" + +The inspector contented himself with the remark:-- + +"The lodgers have pass-keys with which to get in at night. You must have +one." + +"Yes," said Marius. + +"Have you it about you?" + +"Yes." + +"Give it to me," said the inspector. + +Marius took his key from his waistcoat pocket, handed it to the +inspector and added:-- + +"If you will take my advice, you will come in force." + +The inspector cast on Marius such a glance as Voltaire might have +bestowed on a provincial academician who had suggested a rhyme to him; +with one movement he plunged his hands, which were enormous, into the +two immense pockets of his top-coat, and pulled out two small steel +pistols, of the sort called "knock-me-downs." Then he presented them to +Marius, saying rapidly, in a curt tone:-- + +"Take these. Go home. Hide in your chamber, so that you may be supposed +to have gone out. They are loaded. Each one carries two balls. You will +keep watch; there is a hole in the wall, as you have informed me. These +men will come. Leave them to their own devices for a time. When you +think matters have reached a crisis, and that it is time to put a stop +to them, fire a shot. Not too soon. The rest concerns me. A shot into +the ceiling, the air, no matter where. Above all things, not too soon. +Wait until they begin to put their project into execution; you are a +lawyer; you know the proper point." Marius took the pistols and put them +in the side pocket of his coat. + +"That makes a lump that can be seen," said the inspector. "Put them in +your trousers pocket." + +Marius hid the pistols in his trousers pockets. + +"Now," pursued the inspector, "there is not a minute more to be lost by +any one. What time is it? Half-past two. Seven o'clock is the hour?" + +"Six o'clock," answered Marius. + +"I have plenty of time," said the inspector, "but no more than enough. +Don't forget anything that I have said to you. Bang. A pistol shot." + +"Rest easy," said Marius. + +And as Marius laid his hand on the handle of the door on his way out, +the inspector called to him:-- + +"By the way, if you have occasion for my services between now and then, +come or send here. You will ask for Inspector Javert." + + + + +CHAPTER XV--JONDRETTE MAKES HIS PURCHASES + +A few moments later, about three o'clock, Courfeyrac chanced to be +passing along the Rue Mouffetard in company with Bossuet. The snow had +redoubled in violence, and filled the air. Bossuet was just saying to +Courfeyrac:-- + +"One would say, to see all these snow-flakes fall, that there was a +plague of white butterflies in heaven." All at once, Bossuet caught +sight of Marius coming up the street towards the barrier with a peculiar +air. + +"Hold!" said Bossuet. "There's Marius." + +"I saw him," said Courfeyrac. "Don't let's speak to him." + +"Why?" + +"He is busy." + +"With what?" + +"Don't you see his air?" + +"What air?" + +"He has the air of a man who is following some one." + +"That's true," said Bossuet. + +"Just see the eyes he is making!" said Courfeyrac. + +"But who the deuce is he following?" + +"Some fine, flowery bonneted wench! He's in love." + +"But," observed Bossuet, "I don't see any wench nor any flowery bonnet +in the street. There's not a woman round." + +Courfeyrac took a survey, and exclaimed:-- + +"He's following a man!" + +A man, in fact, wearing a gray cap, and whose gray beard could be +distinguished, although they only saw his back, was walking along about +twenty paces in advance of Marius. + +This man was dressed in a great-coat which was perfectly new and too +large for him, and in a frightful pair of trousers all hanging in rags +and black with mud. + +Bossuet burst out laughing. + +"Who is that man?" + +"He?" retorted Courfeyrac, "he's a poet. Poets are very fond of wearing +the trousers of dealers in rabbit skins and the overcoats of peers of +France." + +"Let's see where Marius will go," said Bossuet; "let's see where the man +is going, let's follow them, hey?" + +"Bossuet!" exclaimed Courfeyrac, "eagle of Meaux! You are a prodigious +brute. Follow a man who is following another man, indeed!" + +They retraced their steps. + +Marius had, in fact, seen Jondrette passing along the Rue Mouffetard, +and was spying on his proceedings. + +Jondrette walked straight ahead, without a suspicion that he was already +held by a glance. + +He quitted the Rue Mouffetard, and Marius saw him enter one of the most +terrible hovels in the Rue Gracieuse; he remained there about a quarter +of an hour, then returned to the Rue Mouffetard. He halted at +an ironmonger's shop, which then stood at the corner of the Rue +Pierre-Lombard, and a few minutes later Marius saw him emerge from the +shop, holding in his hand a huge cold chisel with a white wood handle, +which he concealed beneath his great-coat. At the top of the Rue +Petit-Gentilly he turned to the left and proceeded rapidly to the Rue du +Petit-Banquier. The day was declining; the snow, which had ceased for a +moment, had just begun again. Marius posted himself on the watch at the +very corner of the Rue du Petit-Banquier, which was deserted, as usual, +and did not follow Jondrette into it. It was lucky that he did so, +for, on arriving in the vicinity of the wall where Marius had heard the +long-haired man and the bearded man conversing, Jondrette turned round, +made sure that no one was following him, did not see him, then sprang +across the wall and disappeared. + +The waste land bordered by this wall communicated with the back yard of +an ex-livery stable-keeper of bad repute, who had failed and who still +kept a few old single-seated berlins under his sheds. + +Marius thought that it would be wise to profit by Jondrette's absence to +return home; moreover, it was growing late; every evening, Ma'am Bougon +when she set out for her dish-washing in town, had a habit of locking +the door, which was always closed at dusk. Marius had given his key to +the inspector of police; it was important, therefore, that he should +make haste. + +Evening had arrived, night had almost closed in; on the horizon and in +the immensity of space, there remained but one spot illuminated by the +sun, and that was the moon. + +It was rising in a ruddy glow behind the low dome of Salpetriere. + +Marius returned to No. 50-52 with great strides. The door was still open +when he arrived. He mounted the stairs on tip-toe and glided along the +wall of the corridor to his chamber. This corridor, as the reader will +remember, was bordered on both sides by attics, all of which were, for +the moment, empty and to let. Ma'am Bougon was in the habit of leaving +all the doors open. As he passed one of these attics, Marius thought +he perceived in the uninhabited cell the motionless heads of four men, +vaguely lighted up by a remnant of daylight, falling through a dormer +window. + +Marius made no attempt to see, not wishing to be seen himself. He +succeeded in reaching his chamber without being seen and without making +any noise. It was high time. A moment later he heard Ma'am Bougon take +her departure, locking the door of the house behind her. + + + + +CHAPTER XVI--IN WHICH WILL BE FOUND THE WORDS TO AN ENGLISH AIR WHICH +WAS IN FASHION IN 1832 + +Marius seated himself on his bed. It might have been half-past five +o'clock. Only half an hour separated him from what was about to happen. +He heard the beating of his arteries as one hears the ticking of a watch +in the dark. He thought of the double march which was going on at that +moment in the dark,--crime advancing on one side, justice coming up on +the other. He was not afraid, but he could not think without a shudder +of what was about to take place. As is the case with all those who are +suddenly assailed by an unforeseen adventure, the entire day produced +upon him the effect of a dream, and in order to persuade himself that he +was not the prey of a nightmare, he had to feel the cold barrels of the +steel pistols in his trousers pockets. + +It was no longer snowing; the moon disengaged itself more and more +clearly from the mist, and its light, mingled with the white reflection +of the snow which had fallen, communicated to the chamber a sort of +twilight aspect. + +There was a light in the Jondrette den. Marius saw the hole in the wall +shining with a reddish glow which seemed bloody to him. + +It was true that the light could not be produced by a candle. However, +there was not a sound in the Jondrette quarters, not a soul was moving +there, not a soul speaking, not a breath; the silence was glacial and +profound, and had it not been for that light, he might have thought +himself next door to a sepulchre. + +Marius softly removed his boots and pushed them under his bed. + +Several minutes elapsed. Marius heard the lower door turn on its hinges; +a heavy step mounted the staircase, and hastened along the corridor; the +latch of the hovel was noisily lifted; it was Jondrette returning. + +Instantly, several voices arose. The whole family was in the garret. +Only, it had been silent in the master's absence, like wolf whelps in +the absence of the wolf. + +"It's I," said he. + +"Good evening, daddy," yelped the girls. + +"Well?" said the mother. + +"All's going first-rate," responded Jondrette, "but my feet are beastly +cold. Good! You have dressed up. You have done well! You must inspire +confidence." + +"All ready to go out." + +"Don't forget what I told you. You will do everything sure?" + +"Rest easy." + +"Because--" said Jondrette. And he left the phrase unfinished. + +Marius heard him lay something heavy on the table, probably the chisel +which he had purchased. + +"By the way," said Jondrette, "have you been eating here?" + +"Yes," said the mother. "I got three large potatoes and some salt. I +took advantage of the fire to cook them." + +"Good," returned Jondrette. "To-morrow I will take you out to dine with +me. We will have a duck and fixings. You shall dine like Charles the +Tenth; all is going well!" + +Then he added:-- + +"The mouse-trap is open. The cats are there." + +He lowered his voice still further, and said:-- + +"Put this in the fire." + +Marius heard a sound of charcoal being knocked with the tongs or some +iron utensil, and Jondrette continued:-- + +"Have you greased the hinges of the door so that they will not squeak?" + +"Yes," replied the mother. + +"What time is it?" + +"Nearly six. The half-hour struck from Saint-Medard a while ago." + +"The devil!" ejaculated Jondrette; "the children must go and watch. Come +you, do you listen here." + +A whispering ensued. + +Jondrette's voice became audible again:-- + +"Has old Bougon left?" + +"Yes," said the mother. + +"Are you sure that there is no one in our neighbor's room?" + +"He has not been in all day, and you know very well that this is his +dinner hour." + +"You are sure?" + +"Sure." + +"All the same," said Jondrette, "there's no harm in going to see whether +he is there. Here, my girl, take the candle and go there." + +Marius fell on his hands and knees and crawled silently under his bed. + +Hardly had he concealed himself, when he perceived a light through the +crack of his door. + +"P'pa," cried a voice, "he is not in here." + +He recognized the voice of the eldest daughter. + +"Did you go in?" demanded her father. + +"No," replied the girl, "but as his key is in the door, he must be out." + +The father exclaimed:-- + +"Go in, nevertheless." + +The door opened, and Marius saw the tall Jondrette come in with a candle +in her hand. She was as she had been in the morning, only still more +repulsive in this light. + +She walked straight up to the bed. Marius endured an indescribable +moment of anxiety; but near the bed there was a mirror nailed to the +wall, and it was thither that she was directing her steps. She raised +herself on tiptoe and looked at herself in it. In the neighboring room, +the sound of iron articles being moved was audible. + +She smoothed her hair with the palm of her hand, and smiled into the +mirror, humming with her cracked and sepulchral voice:-- + + Nos amours ont dure toute une semaine,[28] + Mais que du bonheur les instants sont courts! + S'adorer huit jours, c' etait bien la peine! + Le temps des amours devait durer toujours! + Devrait durer toujours! devrait durer toujours! + + +In the meantime, Marius trembled. It seemed impossible to him that she +should not hear his breathing. + +She stepped to the window and looked out with the half-foolish way she +had. + +"How ugly Paris is when it has put on a white chemise!" said she. + +She returned to the mirror and began again to put on airs before it, +scrutinizing herself full-face and three-quarters face in turn. + +"Well!" cried her father, "what are you about there?" + +"I am looking under the bed and the furniture," she replied, continuing +to arrange her hair; "there's no one here." + +"Booby!" yelled her father. "Come here this minute! And don't waste any +time about it!" + +"Coming! Coming!" said she. "One has no time for anything in this +hovel!" + +She hummed:-- + + Vous me quittez pour aller a la gloire;[29] + Mon triste coeur suivra partout. + + +She cast a parting glance in the mirror and went out, shutting the door +behind her. + +A moment more, and Marius heard the sound of the two young girls' bare +feet in the corridor, and Jondrette's voice shouting to them:-- + +"Pay strict heed! One on the side of the barrier, the other at the +corner of the Rue du Petit-Banquier. Don't lose sight for a moment of +the door of this house, and the moment you see anything, rush here on +the instant! as hard as you can go! You have a key to get in." + +The eldest girl grumbled:-- + +"The idea of standing watch in the snow barefoot!" + +"To-morrow you shall have some dainty little green silk boots!" said the +father. + +They ran down stairs, and a few seconds later the shock of the outer +door as it banged to announced that they were outside. + +There now remained in the house only Marius, the Jondrettes and +probably, also, the mysterious persons of whom Marius had caught a +glimpse in the twilight, behind the door of the unused attic. + + + + +CHAPTER XVII--THE USE MADE OF MARIUS' FIVE-FRANC PIECE + +Marius decided that the moment had now arrived when he must resume his +post at his observatory. In a twinkling, and with the agility of his +age, he had reached the hole in the partition. + +He looked. + +The interior of the Jondrette apartment presented a curious aspect, and +Marius found an explanation of the singular light which he had noticed. +A candle was burning in a candlestick covered with verdigris, but +that was not what really lighted the chamber. The hovel was completely +illuminated, as it were, by the reflection from a rather large +sheet-iron brazier standing in the fireplace, and filled with burning +charcoal, the brazier prepared by the Jondrette woman that morning. The +charcoal was glowing hot and the brazier was red; a blue flame flickered +over it, and helped him to make out the form of the chisel purchased by +Jondrette in the Rue Pierre-Lombard, where it had been thrust into the +brazier to heat. In one corner, near the door, and as though prepared +for some definite use, two heaps were visible, which appeared to be, the +one a heap of old iron, the other a heap of ropes. All this would have +caused the mind of a person who knew nothing of what was in preparation, +to waver between a very sinister and a very simple idea. The lair thus +lighted up more resembled a forge than a mouth of hell, but Jondrette, +in this light, had rather the air of a demon than of a smith. + +The heat of the brazier was so great, that the candle on the table was +melting on the side next the chafing-dish, and was drooping over. An old +dark-lantern of copper, worthy of Diogenes turned Cartouche, stood on +the chimney-piece. + +The brazier, placed in the fireplace itself, beside the nearly extinct +brands, sent its vapors up the chimney, and gave out no odor. + +The moon, entering through the four panes of the window, cast its +whiteness into the crimson and flaming garret; and to the poetic spirit +of Marius, who was dreamy even in the moment of action, it was like a +thought of heaven mingled with the misshapen reveries of earth. + +A breath of air which made its way in through the open pane, helped to +dissipate the smell of the charcoal and to conceal the presence of the +brazier. + +The Jondrette lair was, if the reader recalls what we have said of the +Gorbeau building, admirably chosen to serve as the theatre of a violent +and sombre deed, and as the envelope for a crime. It was the most +retired chamber in the most isolated house on the most deserted +boulevard in Paris. If the system of ambush and traps had not already +existed, they would have been invented there. + +The whole thickness of a house and a multitude of uninhabited rooms +separated this den from the boulevard, and the only window that existed +opened on waste lands enclosed with walls and palisades. + +Jondrette had lighted his pipe, seated himself on the seatless chair, +and was engaged in smoking. His wife was talking to him in a low tone. + +If Marius had been Courfeyrac, that is to say, one of those men who +laugh on every occasion in life, he would have burst with laughter when +his gaze fell on the Jondrette woman. She had on a black bonnet with +plumes not unlike the hats of the heralds-at-arms at the coronation of +Charles X., an immense tartan shawl over her knitted petticoat, and the +man's shoes which her daughter had scorned in the morning. It was this +toilette which had extracted from Jondrette the exclamation: "Good! You +have dressed up. You have done well. You must inspire confidence!" + +As for Jondrette, he had not taken off the new surtout, which was too +large for him, and which M. Leblanc had given him, and his costume +continued to present that contrast of coat and trousers which +constituted the ideal of a poet in Courfeyrac's eyes. + +All at once, Jondrette lifted up his voice:-- + +"By the way! Now that I think of it. In this weather, he will come in a +carriage. Light the lantern, take it and go down stairs. You will stand +behind the lower door. The very moment that you hear the carriage stop, +you will open the door, instantly, he will come up, you will light the +staircase and the corridor, and when he enters here, you will go down +stairs again as speedily as possible, you will pay the coachman, and +dismiss the fiacre." + +"And the money?" inquired the woman. + +Jondrette fumbled in his trousers pocket and handed her five francs. + +"What's this?" she exclaimed. + +Jondrette replied with dignity:-- + +"That is the monarch which our neighbor gave us this morning." + +And he added:-- + +"Do you know what? Two chairs will be needed here." + +"What for?" + +"To sit on." + +Marius felt a cold chill pass through his limbs at hearing this mild +answer from Jondrette. + +"Pardieu! I'll go and get one of our neighbor's." + +And with a rapid movement, she opened the door of the den, and went out +into the corridor. + +Marius absolutely had not the time to descend from the commode, reach +his bed, and conceal himself beneath it. + +"Take the candle," cried Jondrette. + +"No," said she, "it would embarrass me, I have the two chairs to carry. +There is moonlight." + +Marius heard Mother Jondrette's heavy hand fumbling at his lock in the +dark. The door opened. He remained nailed to the spot with the shock and +with horror. + +The Jondrette entered. + +The dormer window permitted the entrance of a ray of moonlight between +two blocks of shadow. One of these blocks of shadow entirely covered the +wall against which Marius was leaning, so that he disappeared within it. + +Mother Jondrette raised her eyes, did not see Marius, took the two +chairs, the only ones which Marius possessed, and went away, letting the +door fall heavily to behind her. + +She re-entered the lair. + +"Here are the two chairs." + +"And here is the lantern. Go down as quick as you can." + +She hastily obeyed, and Jondrette was left alone. + +He placed the two chairs on opposite sides of the table, turned the +chisel in the brazier, set in front of the fireplace an old screen which +masked the chafing-dish, then went to the corner where lay the pile +of rope, and bent down as though to examine something. Marius then +recognized the fact, that what he had taken for a shapeless mass was a +very well-made rope-ladder, with wooden rungs and two hooks with which +to attach it. + +This ladder, and some large tools, veritable masses of iron, which were +mingled with the old iron piled up behind the door, had not been in the +Jondrette hovel in the morning, and had evidently been brought thither +in the afternoon, during Marius' absence. + +"Those are the utensils of an edge-tool maker," thought Marius. + +Had Marius been a little more learned in this line, he would have +recognized in what he took for the engines of an edge-tool maker, +certain instruments which will force a lock or pick a lock, and others +which will cut or slice, the two families of tools which burglars call +cadets and fauchants. + +The fireplace and the two chairs were exactly opposite Marius. The +brazier being concealed, the only light in the room was now furnished +by the candle; the smallest bit of crockery on the table or on the +chimney-piece cast a large shadow. There was something indescribably +calm, threatening, and hideous about this chamber. One felt that there +existed in it the anticipation of something terrible. + +Jondrette had allowed his pipe to go out, a serious sign of +preoccupation, and had again seated himself. The candle brought out the +fierce and the fine angles of his countenance. He indulged in scowls and +in abrupt unfoldings of the right hand, as though he were responding to +the last counsels of a sombre inward monologue. In the course of one of +these dark replies which he was making to himself, he pulled the table +drawer rapidly towards him, took out a long kitchen knife which was +concealed there, and tried the edge of its blade on his nail. That done, +he put the knife back in the drawer and shut it. + +Marius, on his side, grasped the pistol in his right pocket, drew it out +and cocked it. + +The pistol emitted a sharp, clear click, as he cocked it. + +Jondrette started, half rose, listened a moment, then began to laugh and +said:-- + +"What a fool I am! It's the partition cracking!" + +Marius kept the pistol in his hand. + + + + +CHAPTER XVIII--MARIUS' TWO CHAIRS FORM A VIS-A-VIS + +Suddenly, the distant and melancholy vibration of a clock shook the +panes. Six o'clock was striking from Saint-Medard. + +Jondrette marked off each stroke with a toss of his head. When the sixth +had struck, he snuffed the candle with his fingers. + +Then he began to pace up and down the room, listened at the corridor, +walked on again, then listened once more. + +"Provided only that he comes!" he muttered, then he returned to his +chair. + +He had hardly reseated himself when the door opened. + +Mother Jondrette had opened it, and now remained in the corridor making +a horrible, amiable grimace, which one of the holes of the dark-lantern +illuminated from below. + +"Enter, sir," she said. + +"Enter, my benefactor," repeated Jondrette, rising hastily. + +M. Leblanc made his appearance. + +He wore an air of serenity which rendered him singularly venerable. + +He laid four louis on the table. + +"Monsieur Fabantou," said he, "this is for your rent and your most +pressing necessities. We will attend to the rest hereafter." + +"May God requite it to you, my generous benefactor!" said Jondrette. + +And rapidly approaching his wife:-- + +"Dismiss the carriage!" + +She slipped out while her husband was lavishing salutes and offering +M. Leblanc a chair. An instant later she returned and whispered in his +ear:-- + +"'Tis done." + +The snow, which had not ceased falling since the morning, was so deep +that the arrival of the fiacre had not been audible, and they did not +now hear its departure. + +Meanwhile, M. Leblanc had seated himself. + +Jondrette had taken possession of the other chair, facing M. Leblanc. + +Now, in order to form an idea of the scene which is to follow, let the +reader picture to himself in his own mind, a cold night, the solitudes +of the Salpetriere covered with snow and white as winding-sheets in +the moonlight, the taper-like lights of the street lanterns which shone +redly here and there along those tragic boulevards, and the long rows +of black elms, not a passer-by for perhaps a quarter of a league around, +the Gorbeau hovel, at its highest pitch of silence, of horror, and of +darkness; in that building, in the midst of those solitudes, in the +midst of that darkness, the vast Jondrette garret lighted by a single +candle, and in that den two men seated at a table, M. Leblanc tranquil, +Jondrette smiling and alarming, the Jondrette woman, the female wolf, +in one corner, and, behind the partition, Marius, invisible, erect, not +losing a word, not missing a single movement, his eye on the watch, and +pistol in hand. + +However, Marius experienced only an emotion of horror, but no fear. He +clasped the stock of the pistol firmly and felt reassured. "I shall be +able to stop that wretch whenever I please," he thought. + +He felt that the police were there somewhere in ambuscade, waiting for +the signal agreed upon and ready to stretch out their arm. + +Moreover, he was in hopes, that this violent encounter between Jondrette +and M. Leblanc would cast some light on all the things which he was +interested in learning. + + + + +CHAPTER XIX--OCCUPYING ONE'S SELF WITH OBSCURE DEPTHS + +Hardly was M. Leblanc seated, when he turned his eyes towards the +pallets, which were empty. + +"How is the poor little wounded girl?" he inquired. + +"Bad," replied Jondrette with a heart-broken and grateful smile, "very +bad, my worthy sir. Her elder sister has taken her to the Bourbe to +have her hurt dressed. You will see them presently; they will be back +immediately." + +"Madame Fabantou seems to me to be better," went on M. Leblanc, casting +his eyes on the eccentric costume of the Jondrette woman, as she stood +between him and the door, as though already guarding the exit, and gazed +at him in an attitude of menace and almost of combat. + +"She is dying," said Jondrette. "But what do you expect, sir! She has so +much courage, that woman has! She's not a woman, she's an ox." + +The Jondrette, touched by his compliment, deprecated it with the +affected airs of a flattered monster. + +"You are always too good to me, Monsieur Jondrette!" + +"Jondrette!" said M. Leblanc, "I thought your name was Fabantou?" + +"Fabantou, alias Jondrette!" replied the husband hurriedly. "An artistic +sobriquet!" + +And launching at his wife a shrug of the shoulders which M. Leblanc did +not catch, he continued with an emphatic and caressing inflection of +voice:-- + +"Ah! we have had a happy life together, this poor darling and I! What +would there be left for us if we had not that? We are so wretched, my +respectable sir! We have arms, but there is no work! We have the will, +no work! I don't know how the government arranges that, but, on my word +of honor, sir, I am not Jacobin, sir, I am not a bousingot.[30] I don't +wish them any evil, but if I were the ministers, on my most sacred word, +things would be different. Here, for instance, I wanted to have my +girls taught the trade of paper-box makers. You will say to me: 'What! +a trade?' Yes! A trade! A simple trade! A bread-winner! What a fall, +my benefactor! What a degradation, when one has been what we have been! +Alas! There is nothing left to us of our days of prosperity! One thing +only, a picture, of which I think a great deal, but which I am willing +to part with, for I must live! Item, one must live!" + +While Jondrette thus talked, with an apparent incoherence which +detracted nothing from the thoughtful and sagacious expression of his +physiognomy, Marius raised his eyes, and perceived at the other end of +the room a person whom he had not seen before. A man had just entered, +so softly that the door had not been heard to turn on its hinges. This +man wore a violet knitted vest, which was old, worn, spotted, cut and +gaping at every fold, wide trousers of cotton velvet, wooden shoes on +his feet, no shirt, had his neck bare, his bare arms tattooed, and his +face smeared with black. He had seated himself in silence on the nearest +bed, and, as he was behind Jondrette, he could only be indistinctly +seen. + +That sort of magnetic instinct which turns aside the gaze, caused M. +Leblanc to turn round almost at the same moment as Marius. He could not +refrain from a gesture of surprise which did not escape Jondrette. + +"Ah! I see!" exclaimed Jondrette, buttoning up his coat with an air of +complaisance, "you are looking at your overcoat? It fits me! My faith, +but it fits me!" + +"Who is that man?" said M. Leblanc. + +"Him?" ejaculated Jondrette, "he's a neighbor of mine. Don't pay any +attention to him." + +The neighbor was a singular-looking individual. However, manufactories +of chemical products abound in the Faubourg Saint-Marceau. Many of the +workmen might have black faces. Besides this, M. Leblanc's whole person +was expressive of candid and intrepid confidence. + +He went on:-- + +"Excuse me; what were you saying, M. Fabantou?" + +"I was telling you, sir, and dear protector," replied Jondrette placing +his elbows on the table and contemplating M. Leblanc with steady and +tender eyes, not unlike the eyes of the boa-constrictor, "I was telling +you, that I have a picture to sell." + +A slight sound came from the door. A second man had just entered and +seated himself on the bed, behind Jondrette. + +Like the first, his arms were bare, and he had a mask of ink or +lampblack. + +Although this man had, literally, glided into the room, he had not been +able to prevent M. Leblanc catching sight of him. + +"Don't mind them," said Jondrette, "they are people who belong in the +house. So I was saying, that there remains in my possession a valuable +picture. But stop, sir, take a look at it." + +He rose, went to the wall at the foot of which stood the panel which we +have already mentioned, and turned it round, still leaving it supported +against the wall. It really was something which resembled a picture, and +which the candle illuminated, somewhat. Marius could make nothing out of +it, as Jondrette stood between the picture and him; he only saw a coarse +daub, and a sort of principal personage colored with the harsh crudity +of foreign canvasses and screen paintings. + +"What is that?" asked M. Leblanc. + +Jondrette exclaimed:-- + +"A painting by a master, a picture of great value, my benefactor! I am +as much attached to it as I am to my two daughters; it recalls souvenirs +to me! But I have told you, and I will not take it back, that I am so +wretched that I will part with it." + +Either by chance, or because he had begun to feel a dawning uneasiness, +M. Leblanc's glance returned to the bottom of the room as he examined +the picture. + +There were now four men, three seated on the bed, one standing near the +door-post, all four with bare arms and motionless, with faces smeared +with black. One of those on the bed was leaning against the wall, with +closed eyes, and it might have been supposed that he was asleep. He +was old; his white hair contrasting with his blackened face produced a +horrible effect. The other two seemed to be young; one wore a beard, the +other wore his hair long. None of them had on shoes; those who did not +wear socks were barefooted. + +Jondrette noticed that M. Leblanc's eye was fixed on these men. + +"They are friends. They are neighbors," said he. "Their faces are black +because they work in charcoal. They are chimney-builders. Don't trouble +yourself about them, my benefactor, but buy my picture. Have pity on +my misery. I will not ask you much for it. How much do you think it is +worth?" + +"Well," said M. Leblanc, looking Jondrette full in the eye, and with the +manner of a man who is on his guard, "it is some signboard for a tavern, +and is worth about three francs." + +Jondrette replied sweetly:-- + +"Have you your pocket-book with you? I should be satisfied with a +thousand crowns." + +M. Leblanc sprang up, placed his back against the wall, and cast a rapid +glance around the room. He had Jondrette on his left, on the side next +the window, and the Jondrette woman and the four men on his right, on +the side next the door. The four men did not stir, and did not even seem +to be looking on. + +Jondrette had again begun to speak in a plaintive tone, with so vague +an eye, and so lamentable an intonation, that M. Leblanc might have +supposed that what he had before him was a man who had simply gone mad +with misery. + +"If you do not buy my picture, my dear benefactor," said Jondrette, "I +shall be left without resources; there will be nothing left for me but +to throw myself into the river. When I think that I wanted to have my +two girls taught the middle-class paper-box trade, the making of boxes +for New Year's gifts! Well! A table with a board at the end to keep the +glasses from falling off is required, then a special stove is needed, a +pot with three compartments for the different degrees of strength of +the paste, according as it is to be used for wood, paper, or stuff, a +paring-knife to cut the cardboard, a mould to adjust it, a hammer to +nail the steels, pincers, how the devil do I know what all? And all that +in order to earn four sous a day! And you have to work fourteen hours a +day! And each box passes through the workwoman's hands thirteen times! +And you can't wet the paper! And you mustn't spot anything! And you must +keep the paste hot. The devil, I tell you! Four sous a day! How do you +suppose a man is to live?" + +As he spoke, Jondrette did not look at M. Leblanc, who was observing +him. M. Leblanc's eye was fixed on Jondrette, and Jondrette's eye was +fixed on the door. Marius' eager attention was transferred from one +to the other. M. Leblanc seemed to be asking himself: "Is this man an +idiot?" Jondrette repeated two or three distinct times, with all manner +of varying inflections of the whining and supplicating order: "There +is nothing left for me but to throw myself into the river! I went down +three steps at the side of the bridge of Austerlitz the other day for +that purpose." + +All at once his dull eyes lighted up with a hideous flash; the little +man drew himself up and became terrible, took a step toward M. Leblanc +and cried in a voice of thunder: "That has nothing to do with the +question! Do you know me?" + + + + +CHAPTER XX--THE TRAP + +The door of the garret had just opened abruptly, and allowed a view of +three men clad in blue linen blouses, and masked with masks of black +paper. The first was thin, and had a long, iron-tipped cudgel; the +second, who was a sort of colossus, carried, by the middle of the +handle, with the blade downward, a butcher's pole-axe for slaughtering +cattle. The third, a man with thick-set shoulders, not so slender as +the first, held in his hand an enormous key stolen from the door of some +prison. + +It appeared that the arrival of these men was what Jondrette had been +waiting for. A rapid dialogue ensued between him and the man with the +cudgel, the thin one. + +"Is everything ready?" said Jondrette. + +"Yes," replied the thin man. + +"Where is Montparnasse?" + +"The young principal actor stopped to chat with your girl." + +"Which?" + +"The eldest." + +"Is there a carriage at the door?" + +"Yes." + +"Is the team harnessed?" + +"Yes." + +"With two good horses?" + +"Excellent." + +"Is it waiting where I ordered?" + +"Yes." + +"Good," said Jondrette. + +M. Leblanc was very pale. He was scrutinizing everything around him in +the den, like a man who understands what he has fallen into, and his +head, directed in turn toward all the heads which surrounded him, moved +on his neck with an astonished and attentive slowness, but there +was nothing in his air which resembled fear. He had improvised +an intrenchment out of the table; and the man, who but an instant +previously, had borne merely the appearance of a kindly old man, had +suddenly become a sort of athlete, and placed his robust fist on the +back of his chair, with a formidable and surprising gesture. + +This old man, who was so firm and so brave in the presence of such a +danger, seemed to possess one of those natures which are as courageous +as they are kind, both easily and simply. The father of a woman whom we +love is never a stranger to us. Marius felt proud of that unknown man. + +Three of the men, of whom Jondrette had said: "They are +chimney-builders," had armed themselves from the pile of old iron, one +with a heavy pair of shears, the second with weighing-tongs, the third +with a hammer, and had placed themselves across the entrance without +uttering a syllable. The old man had remained on the bed, and had merely +opened his eyes. The Jondrette woman had seated herself beside him. + +Marius decided that in a few seconds more the moment for intervention +would arrive, and he raised his right hand towards the ceiling, in the +direction of the corridor, in readiness to discharge his pistol. + +Jondrette having terminated his colloquy with the man with the cudgel, +turned once more to M. Leblanc, and repeated his question, accompanying +it with that low, repressed, and terrible laugh which was peculiar to +him:-- + +"So you do not recognize me?" + +M. Leblanc looked him full in the face, and replied:-- + +"No." + +Then Jondrette advanced to the table. He leaned across the candle, +crossing his arms, putting his angular and ferocious jaw close to M. +Leblanc's calm face, and advancing as far as possible without forcing M. +Leblanc to retreat, and, in this posture of a wild beast who is about to +bite, he exclaimed:-- + +"My name is not Fabantou, my name is not Jondrette, my name is +Thenardier. I am the inn-keeper of Montfermeil! Do you understand? +Thenardier! Now do you know me?" + +An almost imperceptible flush crossed M. Leblanc's brow, and he replied +with a voice which neither trembled nor rose above its ordinary level, +with his accustomed placidity:-- + +"No more than before." + +Marius did not hear this reply. Any one who had seen him at that moment +through the darkness would have perceived that he was haggard, +stupid, thunder-struck. At the moment when Jondrette said: "My name is +Thenardier," Marius had trembled in every limb, and had leaned against +the wall, as though he felt the cold of a steel blade through his heart. +Then his right arm, all ready to discharge the signal shot, dropped +slowly, and at the moment when Jondrette repeated, "Thenardier, do you +understand?" Marius's faltering fingers had come near letting the pistol +fall. Jondrette, by revealing his identity, had not moved M. Leblanc, +but he had quite upset Marius. That name of Thenardier, with which M. +Leblanc did not seem to be acquainted, Marius knew well. Let the reader +recall what that name meant to him! That name he had worn on his heart, +inscribed in his father's testament! He bore it at the bottom of his +mind, in the depths of his memory, in that sacred injunction: "A certain +Thenardier saved my life. If my son encounters him, he will do him all +the good that lies in his power." That name, it will be remembered, +was one of the pieties of his soul; he mingled it with the name of +his father in his worship. What! This man was that Thenardier, that +inn-keeper of Montfermeil whom he had so long and so vainly sought! He +had found him at last, and how? His father's saviour was a ruffian! +That man, to whose service Marius was burning to devote himself, was +a monster! That liberator of Colonel Pontmercy was on the point +of committing a crime whose scope Marius did not, as yet, clearly +comprehend, but which resembled an assassination! And against whom, +great God! what a fatality! What a bitter mockery of fate! His father +had commanded him from the depths of his coffin to do all the good in +his power to this Thenardier, and for four years Marius had cherished +no other thought than to acquit this debt of his father's, and at the +moment when he was on the eve of having a brigand seized in the very +act of crime by justice, destiny cried to him: "This is Thenardier!" +He could at last repay this man for his father's life, saved amid a +hail-storm of grape-shot on the heroic field of Waterloo, and repay it +with the scaffold! He had sworn to himself that if ever he found that +Thenardier, he would address him only by throwing himself at his feet; +and now he actually had found him, but it was only to deliver him over +to the executioner! His father said to him: "Succor Thenardier!" And he +replied to that adored and sainted voice by crushing Thenardier! He was +about to offer to his father in his grave the spectacle of that man who +had torn him from death at the peril of his own life, executed on the +Place Saint-Jacques through the means of his son, of that Marius to whom +he had entrusted that man by his will! And what a mockery to have so +long worn on his breast his father's last commands, written in his own +hand, only to act in so horribly contrary a sense! But, on the other +hand, now look on that trap and not prevent it! Condemn the victim and +to spare the assassin! Could one be held to any gratitude towards so +miserable a wretch? All the ideas which Marius had cherished for the +last four years were pierced through and through, as it were, by this +unforeseen blow. + +He shuddered. Everything depended on him. Unknown to themselves, he +held in his hand all those beings who were moving about there before his +eyes. If he fired his pistol, M. Leblanc was saved, and Thenardier lost; +if he did not fire, M. Leblanc would be sacrificed, and, who knows? +Thenardier would escape. Should he dash down the one or allow the other +to fall? Remorse awaited him in either case. + +What was he to do? What should he choose? Be false to the most imperious +souvenirs, to all those solemn vows to himself, to the most sacred duty, +to the most venerated text! Should he ignore his father's testament, +or allow the perpetration of a crime! On the one hand, it seemed to him +that he heard "his Ursule" supplicating for her father and on the other, +the colonel commending Thenardier to his care. He felt that he was going +mad. His knees gave way beneath him. And he had not even the time for +deliberation, so great was the fury with which the scene before his eyes +was hastening to its catastrophe. It was like a whirlwind of which he +had thought himself the master, and which was now sweeping him away. He +was on the verge of swooning. + +In the meantime, Thenardier, whom we shall henceforth call by no other +name, was pacing up and down in front of the table in a sort of frenzy +and wild triumph. + +He seized the candle in his fist, and set it on the chimney-piece with +so violent a bang that the wick came near being extinguished, and the +tallow bespattered the wall. + +Then he turned to M. Leblanc with a horrible look, and spit out these +words:-- + +"Done for! Smoked brown! Cooked! Spitchcocked!" + +And again he began to march back and forth, in full eruption. + +"Ah!" he cried, "so I've found you again at last, Mister philanthropist! +Mister threadbare millionnaire! Mister giver of dolls! you old +ninny! Ah! so you don't recognize me! No, it wasn't you who came to +Montfermeil, to my inn, eight years ago, on Christmas eve, 1823! It +wasn't you who carried off that Fantine's child from me! The Lark! It +wasn't you who had a yellow great-coat! No! Nor a package of duds in +your hand, as you had this morning here! Say, wife, it seems to be his +mania to carry packets of woollen stockings into houses! Old charity +monger, get out with you! Are you a hosier, Mister millionnaire? You +give away your stock in trade to the poor, holy man! What bosh! merry +Andrew! Ah! and you don't recognize me? Well, I recognize you, that I +do! I recognized you the very moment you poked your snout in here. Ah! +you'll find out presently, that it isn't all roses to thrust yourself +in that fashion into people's houses, under the pretext that they are +taverns, in wretched clothes, with the air of a poor man, to whom one +would give a sou, to deceive persons, to play the generous, to take away +their means of livelihood, and to make threats in the woods, and you +can't call things quits because afterwards, when people are ruined, you +bring a coat that is too large, and two miserable hospital blankets, you +old blackguard, you child-stealer!" + +He paused, and seemed to be talking to himself for a moment. One would +have said that his wrath had fallen into some hole, like the Rhone; +then, as though he were concluding aloud the things which he had been +saying to himself in a whisper, he smote the table with his fist, and +shouted:-- + +"And with his goody-goody air!" + +And, apostrophizing M. Leblanc:-- + +"Parbleu! You made game of me in the past! You are the cause of all my +misfortunes! For fifteen hundred francs you got a girl whom I had, and +who certainly belonged to rich people, and who had already brought in a +great deal of money, and from whom I might have extracted enough to live +on all my life! A girl who would have made up to me for everything that +I lost in that vile cook-shop, where there was nothing but one continual +row, and where, like a fool, I ate up my last farthing! Oh! I wish all +the wine folks drank in my house had been poison to those who drank it! +Well, never mind! Say, now! You must have thought me ridiculous when you +went off with the Lark! You had your cudgel in the forest. You were the +stronger. Revenge. I'm the one to hold the trumps to-day! You're in a +sorry case, my good fellow! Oh, but I can laugh! Really, I laugh! Didn't +he fall into the trap! I told him that I was an actor, that my name was +Fabantou, that I had played comedy with Mamselle Mars, with Mamselle +Muche, that my landlord insisted on being paid tomorrow, the 4th of +February, and he didn't even notice that the 8th of January, and not the +4th of February is the time when the quarter runs out! Absurd idiot! +And the four miserable Philippes which he has brought me! Scoundrel! +He hadn't the heart even to go as high as a hundred francs! And how +he swallowed my platitudes! That did amuse me. I said to myself: +'Blockhead! Come, I've got you! I lick your paws this morning, but I'll +gnaw your heart this evening!'" + +Thenardier paused. He was out of breath. His little, narrow chest panted +like a forge bellows. His eyes were full of the ignoble happiness of a +feeble, cruel, and cowardly creature, which finds that it can, at last, +harass what it has feared, and insult what it has flattered, the joy of +a dwarf who should be able to set his heel on the head of Goliath, the +joy of a jackal which is beginning to rend a sick bull, so nearly dead +that he can no longer defend himself, but sufficiently alive to suffer +still. + +M. Leblanc did not interrupt him, but said to him when he paused:-- + +"I do not know what you mean to say. You are mistaken in me. I am a very +poor man, and anything but a millionnaire. I do not know you. You are +mistaking me for some other person." + +"Ah!" roared Thenardier hoarsely, "a pretty lie! You stick to that +pleasantry, do you! You're floundering, my old buck! Ah! You don't +remember! You don't see who I am?" + +"Excuse me, sir," said M. Leblanc with a politeness of accent, which at +that moment seemed peculiarly strange and powerful, "I see that you are +a villain!" + +Who has not remarked the fact that odious creatures possess a +susceptibility of their own, that monsters are ticklish! At this word +"villain," the female Thenardier sprang from the bed, Thenardier grasped +his chair as though he were about to crush it in his hands. "Don't you +stir!" he shouted to his wife; and, turning to M. Leblanc:-- + +"Villain! Yes, I know that you call us that, you rich gentlemen! Stop! +it's true that I became bankrupt, that I am in hiding, that I have no +bread, that I have not a single sou, that I am a villain! It's three +days since I have had anything to eat, so I'm a villain! Ah! you folks +warm your feet, you have Sakoski boots, you have wadded great-coats, +like archbishops, you lodge on the first floor in houses that have +porters, you eat truffles, you eat asparagus at forty francs the bunch +in the month of January, and green peas, you gorge yourselves, and when +you want to know whether it is cold, you look in the papers to see what +the engineer Chevalier's thermometer says about it. We, it is we who are +thermometers. We don't need to go out and look on the quay at the corner +of the Tour de l'Horologe, to find out the number of degrees of cold; +we feel our blood congealing in our veins, and the ice forming round our +hearts, and we say: 'There is no God!' And you come to our caverns, yes +our caverns, for the purpose of calling us villains! But we'll devour +you! But we'll devour you, poor little things! Just see here, Mister +millionnaire: I have been a solid man, I have held a license, I have +been an elector, I am a bourgeois, that I am! And it's quite possible +that you are not!" + +Here Thenardier took a step towards the men who stood near the door, and +added with a shudder:-- + +"When I think that he has dared to come here and talk to me like a +cobbler!" + +Then addressing M. Leblanc with a fresh outburst of frenzy:-- + +"And listen to this also, Mister philanthropist! I'm not a suspicious +character, not a bit of it! I'm not a man whose name nobody knows, and +who comes and abducts children from houses! I'm an old French soldier, +I ought to have been decorated! I was at Waterloo, so I was! And in the +battle I saved a general called the Comte of I don't know what. He told +me his name, but his beastly voice was so weak that I didn't hear. All I +caught was Merci [thanks]. I'd rather have had his name than his thanks. +That would have helped me to find him again. The picture that you see +here, and which was painted by David at Bruqueselles,--do you know what +it represents? It represents me. David wished to immortalize that +feat of prowess. I have that general on my back, and I am carrying him +through the grape-shot. There's the history of it! That general never +did a single thing for me; he was no better than the rest! But none the +less, I saved his life at the risk of my own, and I have the certificate +of the fact in my pocket! I am a soldier of Waterloo, by all the furies! +And now that I have had the goodness to tell you all this, let's have an +end of it. I want money, I want a deal of money, I must have an enormous +lot of money, or I'll exterminate you, by the thunder of the good God!" + +Marius had regained some measure of control over his anguish, and was +listening. The last possibility of doubt had just vanished. It certainly +was the Thenardier of the will. Marius shuddered at that reproach of +ingratitude directed against his father, and which he was on the point +of so fatally justifying. His perplexity was redoubled. + +Moreover, there was in all these words of Thenardier, in his accent, in +his gesture, in his glance which darted flames at every word, there +was, in this explosion of an evil nature disclosing everything, in that +mixture of braggadocio and abjectness, of pride and pettiness, of rage +and folly, in that chaos of real griefs and false sentiments, in +that immodesty of a malicious man tasting the voluptuous delights +of violence, in that shameless nudity of a repulsive soul, in that +conflagration of all sufferings combined with all hatreds, something +which was as hideous as evil, and as heart-rending as the truth. + +The picture of the master, the painting by David which he had proposed +that M. Leblanc should purchase, was nothing else, as the reader has +divined, than the sign of his tavern painted, as it will be remembered, +by himself, the only relic which he had preserved from his shipwreck at +Montfermeil. + +As he had ceased to intercept Marius' visual ray, Marius could examine +this thing, and in the daub, he actually did recognize a battle, a +background of smoke, and a man carrying another man. It was the group +composed of Pontmercy and Thenardier; the sergeant the rescuer, the +colonel rescued. Marius was like a drunken man; this picture restored +his father to life in some sort; it was no longer the signboard of the +wine-shop at Montfermeil, it was a resurrection; a tomb had yawned, a +phantom had risen there. Marius heard his heart beating in his temples, +he had the cannon of Waterloo in his ears, his bleeding father, vaguely +depicted on that sinister panel terrified him, and it seemed to him that +the misshapen spectre was gazing intently at him. + +When Thenardier had recovered his breath, he turned his bloodshot eyes +on M. Leblanc, and said to him in a low, curt voice:-- + +"What have you to say before we put the handcuffs on you?" + +M. Leblanc held his peace. + +In the midst of this silence, a cracked voice launched this lugubrious +sarcasm from the corridor:-- + +"If there's any wood to be split, I'm there!" + +It was the man with the axe, who was growing merry. + +At the same moment, an enormous, bristling, and clayey face made its +appearance at the door, with a hideous laugh which exhibited not teeth, +but fangs. + +It was the face of the man with the butcher's axe. + +"Why have you taken off your mask?" cried Thenardier in a rage. + +"For fun," retorted the man. + +For the last few minutes M. Leblanc had appeared to be watching and +following all the movements of Thenardier, who, blinded and dazzled by +his own rage, was stalking to and fro in the den with full confidence +that the door was guarded, and of holding an unarmed man fast, he being +armed himself, of being nine against one, supposing that the female +Thenardier counted for but one man. + +During his address to the man with the pole-axe, he had turned his back +to M. Leblanc. + +M. Leblanc seized this moment, overturned the chair with his foot and +the table with his fist, and with one bound, with prodigious agility, +before Thenardier had time to turn round, he had reached the window. To +open it, to scale the frame, to bestride it, was the work of a second +only. He was half out when six robust fists seized him and dragged +him back energetically into the hovel. These were the three +"chimney-builders," who had flung themselves upon him. At the same time +the Thenardier woman had wound her hands in his hair. + +At the trampling which ensued, the other ruffians rushed up from the +corridor. The old man on the bed, who seemed under the influence +of wine, descended from the pallet and came reeling up, with a +stone-breaker's hammer in his hand. + +One of the "chimney-builders," whose smirched face was lighted up by +the candle, and in whom Marius recognized, in spite of his daubing, +Panchaud, alias Printanier, alias Bigrenaille, lifted above M. Leblanc's +head a sort of bludgeon made of two balls of lead, at the two ends of a +bar of iron. + +Marius could not resist this sight. "My father," he thought, "forgive +me!" + +And his finger sought the trigger of his pistol. + +The shot was on the point of being discharged when Thenardier's voice +shouted:-- + +"Don't harm him!" + +This desperate attempt of the victim, far from exasperating Thenardier, +had calmed him. There existed in him two men, the ferocious man and +the adroit man. Up to that moment, in the excess of his triumph in the +presence of the prey which had been brought down, and which did not +stir, the ferocious man had prevailed; when the victim struggled and +tried to resist, the adroit man reappeared and took the upper hand. + +"Don't hurt him!" he repeated, and without suspecting it, his first +success was to arrest the pistol in the act of being discharged, and to +paralyze Marius, in whose opinion the urgency of the case disappeared, +and who, in the face of this new phase, saw no inconvenience in waiting +a while longer. + +Who knows whether some chance would not arise which would deliver him +from the horrible alternative of allowing Ursule's father to perish, or +of destroying the colonel's saviour? + +A herculean struggle had begun. With one blow full in the chest, M. +Leblanc had sent the old man tumbling, rolling in the middle of the +room, then with two backward sweeps of his hand he had overthrown two +more assailants, and he held one under each of his knees; the wretches +were rattling in the throat beneath this pressure as under a granite +millstone; but the other four had seized the formidable old man by both +arms and the back of his neck, and were holding him doubled up over the +two "chimney-builders" on the floor. + +Thus, the master of some and mastered by the rest, crushing those +beneath him and stifling under those on top of him, endeavoring in vain +to shake off all the efforts which were heaped upon him, M. Leblanc +disappeared under the horrible group of ruffians like the wild boar +beneath a howling pile of dogs and hounds. + +They succeeded in overthrowing him upon the bed nearest the window, and +there they held him in awe. The Thenardier woman had not released her +clutch on his hair. + +"Don't you mix yourself up in this affair," said Thenardier. "You'll +tear your shawl." + +The Thenardier obeyed, as the female wolf obeys the male wolf, with a +growl. + +"Now," said Thenardier, "search him, you other fellows!" + +M. Leblanc seemed to have renounced the idea of resistance. + +They searched him. + +He had nothing on his person except a leather purse containing six +francs, and his handkerchief. + +Thenardier put the handkerchief into his own pocket. + +"What! No pocket-book?" he demanded. + +"No, nor watch," replied one of the "chimney-builders." + +"Never mind," murmured the masked man who carried the big key, in the +voice of a ventriloquist, "he's a tough old fellow." + +Thenardier went to the corner near the door, picked up a bundle of ropes +and threw them at the men. + +"Tie him to the leg of the bed," said he. + +And, catching sight of the old man who had been stretched across the +room by the blow from M. Leblanc's fist, and who made no movement, he +added:-- + +"Is Boulatruelle dead?" + +"No," replied Bigrenaille, "he's drunk." + +"Sweep him into a corner," said Thenardier. + +Two of the "chimney-builders" pushed the drunken man into the corner +near the heap of old iron with their feet. + +"Babet," said Thenardier in a low tone to the man with the cudgel, "why +did you bring so many; they were not needed." + +"What can you do?" replied the man with the cudgel, "they all wanted to +be in it. This is a bad season. There's no business going on." + +The pallet on which M. Leblanc had been thrown was a sort of hospital +bed, elevated on four coarse wooden legs, roughly hewn. + +M. Leblanc let them take their own course. + +The ruffians bound him securely, in an upright attitude, with his feet +on the ground at the head of the bed, the end which was most remote from +the window, and nearest to the fireplace. + +When the last knot had been tied, Thenardier took a chair and seated +himself almost facing M. Leblanc. + +Thenardier no longer looked like himself; in the course of a few moments +his face had passed from unbridled violence to tranquil and cunning +sweetness. + +Marius found it difficult to recognize in that polished smile of a man +in official life the almost bestial mouth which had been foaming but a +moment before; he gazed with amazement on that fantastic and alarming +metamorphosis, and he felt as a man might feel who should behold a tiger +converted into a lawyer. + +"Monsieur--" said Thenardier. + +And dismissing with a gesture the ruffians who still kept their hands on +M. Leblanc:-- + +"Stand off a little, and let me have a talk with the gentleman." + +All retired towards the door. + +He went on:-- + +"Monsieur, you did wrong to try to jump out of the window. You might +have broken your leg. Now, if you will permit me, we will converse +quietly. In the first place, I must communicate to you an observation +which I have made which is, that you have not uttered the faintest cry." + +Thenardier was right, this detail was correct, although it had escaped +Marius in his agitation. M. Leblanc had barely pronounced a few words, +without raising his voice, and even during his struggle with the six +ruffians near the window he had preserved the most profound and singular +silence. + +Thenardier continued:-- + +"Mon Dieu! You might have shouted 'stop thief' a bit, and I should not +have thought it improper. 'Murder!' That, too, is said occasionally, +and, so far as I am concerned, I should not have taken it in bad part. +It is very natural that you should make a little row when you find +yourself with persons who don't inspire you with sufficient confidence. +You might have done that, and no one would have troubled you on that +account. You would not even have been gagged. And I will tell you why. +This room is very private. That's its only recommendation, but it has +that in its favor. You might fire off a mortar and it would produce +about as much noise at the nearest police station as the snores of a +drunken man. Here a cannon would make a boum, and the thunder would make +a pouf. It's a handy lodging. But, in short, you did not shout, and +it is better so. I present you my compliments, and I will tell you the +conclusion that I draw from that fact: My dear sir, when a man shouts, +who comes? The police. And after the police? Justice. Well! You have not +made an outcry; that is because you don't care to have the police and +the courts come in any more than we do. It is because,--I have long +suspected it,--you have some interest in hiding something. On our side +we have the same interest. So we can come to an understanding." + +As he spoke thus, it seemed as though Thenardier, who kept his eyes +fixed on M. Leblanc, were trying to plunge the sharp points which darted +from the pupils into the very conscience of his prisoner. Moreover, his +language, which was stamped with a sort of moderated, subdued insolence +and crafty insolence, was reserved and almost choice, and in that +rascal, who had been nothing but a robber a short time previously, one +now felt "the man who had studied for the priesthood." + +The silence preserved by the prisoner, that precaution which had been +carried to the point of forgetting all anxiety for his own life, that +resistance opposed to the first impulse of nature, which is to utter +a cry, all this, it must be confessed, now that his attention had +been called to it, troubled Marius, and affected him with painful +astonishment. + +Thenardier's well-grounded observation still further obscured for Marius +the dense mystery which enveloped that grave and singular person on whom +Courfeyrac had bestowed the sobriquet of Monsieur Leblanc. + +But whoever he was, bound with ropes, surrounded with executioners, half +plunged, so to speak, in a grave which was closing in upon him to the +extent of a degree with every moment that passed, in the presence +of Thenardier's wrath, as in the presence of his sweetness, this man +remained impassive; and Marius could not refrain from admiring at such a +moment the superbly melancholy visage. + +Here, evidently, was a soul which was inaccessible to terror, and which +did not know the meaning of despair. Here was one of those men who +command amazement in desperate circumstances. Extreme as was the crisis, +inevitable as was the catastrophe, there was nothing here of the agony +of the drowning man, who opens his horror-filled eyes under the water. + +Thenardier rose in an unpretending manner, went to the fireplace, shoved +aside the screen, which he leaned against the neighboring pallet, and +thus unmasked the brazier full of glowing coals, in which the prisoner +could plainly see the chisel white-hot and spotted here and there with +tiny scarlet stars. + +Then Thenardier returned to his seat beside M. Leblanc. + +"I continue," said he. "We can come to an understanding. Let us arrange +this matter in an amicable way. I was wrong to lose my temper just now, +I don't know what I was thinking of, I went a great deal too far, I said +extravagant things. For example, because you are a millionnaire, I told +you that I exacted money, a lot of money, a deal of money. That would +not be reasonable. Mon Dieu, in spite of your riches, you have expenses +of your own--who has not? I don't want to ruin you, I am not a greedy +fellow, after all. I am not one of those people who, because they have +the advantage of the position, profit by the fact to make themselves +ridiculous. Why, I'm taking things into consideration and making a +sacrifice on my side. I only want two hundred thousand francs." + +M. Leblanc uttered not a word. + +Thenardier went on:-- + +"You see that I put not a little water in my wine; I'm very moderate. I +don't know the state of your fortune, but I do know that you don't stick +at money, and a benevolent man like yourself can certainly give two +hundred thousand francs to the father of a family who is out of luck. +Certainly, you are reasonable, too; you haven't imagined that I should +take all the trouble I have to-day and organized this affair this +evening, which has been labor well bestowed, in the opinion of these +gentlemen, merely to wind up by asking you for enough to go and drink +red wine at fifteen sous and eat veal at Desnoyer's. Two hundred +thousand francs--it's surely worth all that. This trifle once out of +your pocket, I guarantee you that that's the end of the matter, and that +you have no further demands to fear. You will say to me: 'But I haven't +two hundred thousand francs about me.' Oh! I'm not extortionate. I don't +demand that. I only ask one thing of you. Have the goodness to write +what I am about to dictate to you." + +Here Thenardier paused; then he added, emphasizing his words, and +casting a smile in the direction of the brazier:-- + +"I warn you that I shall not admit that you don't know how to write." + +A grand inquisitor might have envied that smile. + +Thenardier pushed the table close to M. Leblanc, and took an inkstand, +a pen, and a sheet of paper from the drawer which he left half open, and +in which gleamed the long blade of the knife. + +He placed the sheet of paper before M. Leblanc. + +"Write," said he. + +The prisoner spoke at last. + +"How do you expect me to write? I am bound." + +"That's true, excuse me!" ejaculated Thenardier, "you are quite right." + +And turning to Bigrenaille:-- + +"Untie the gentleman's right arm." + +Panchaud, alias Printanier, alias Bigrenaille, executed Thenardier's +order. + +When the prisoner's right arm was free, Thenardier dipped the pen in the +ink and presented it to him. + +"Understand thoroughly, sir, that you are in our power, at our +discretion, that no human power can get you out of this, and that we +shall be really grieved if we are forced to proceed to disagreeable +extremities. I know neither your name, nor your address, but I warn you, +that you will remain bound until the person charged with carrying the +letter which you are about to write shall have returned. Now, be so good +as to write." + +"What?" demanded the prisoner. + +"I will dictate." + +M. Leblanc took the pen. + +Thenardier began to dictate:-- + +"My daughter--" + +The prisoner shuddered, and raised his eyes to Thenardier. + +"Put down 'My dear daughter'--" said Thenardier. + +M. Leblanc obeyed. + +Thenardier continued:-- + +"Come instantly--" + +He paused:-- + +"You address her as thou, do you not?" + +"Who?" asked M. Leblanc. + +"Parbleu!" cried Thenardier, "the little one, the Lark." + +M. Leblanc replied without the slightest apparent emotion:-- + +"I do not know what you mean." + +"Go on, nevertheless," ejaculated Thenardier, and he continued to +dictate:-- + +"Come immediately, I am in absolute need of thee. The person who will +deliver this note to thee is instructed to conduct thee to me. I am +waiting for thee. Come with confidence." + +M. Leblanc had written the whole of this. + +Thenardier resumed:-- + +"Ah! erase 'come with confidence'; that might lead her to suppose that +everything was not as it should be, and that distrust is possible." + +M. Leblanc erased the three words. + +"Now," pursued Thenardier, "sign it. What's your name?" + +The prisoner laid down the pen and demanded:-- + +"For whom is this letter?" + +"You know well," retorted Thenardier, "for the little one I just told +you so." + +It was evident that Thenardier avoided naming the young girl in +question. He said "the Lark," he said "the little one," but he did not +pronounce her name--the precaution of a clever man guarding his secret +from his accomplices. To mention the name was to deliver the whole +"affair" into their hands, and to tell them more about it than there was +any need of their knowing. + +He went on:-- + +"Sign. What is your name?" + +"Urbain Fabre," said the prisoner. + +Thenardier, with the movement of a cat, dashed his hand into his pocket +and drew out the handkerchief which had been seized on M. Leblanc. He +looked for the mark on it, and held it close to the candle. + +"U. F. That's it. Urbain Fabre. Well, sign it U. F." + +The prisoner signed. + +"As two hands are required to fold the letter, give it to me, I will +fold it." + +That done, Thenardier resumed:-- + +"Address it, 'Mademoiselle Fabre,' at your house. I know that you live +a long distance from here, near Saint-Jacquesdu-Haut-Pas, because you go +to mass there every day, but I don't know in what street. I see that +you understand your situation. As you have not lied about your name, you +will not lie about your address. Write it yourself." + +The prisoner paused thoughtfully for a moment, then he took the pen and +wrote:-- + +"Mademoiselle Fabre, at M. Urbain Fabre's, Rue Saint-Dominique-D'Enfer, +No. 17." + +Thenardier seized the letter with a sort of feverish convulsion. + +"Wife!" he cried. + +The Thenardier woman hastened to him. + +"Here's the letter. You know what you have to do. There is a carriage at +the door. Set out at once, and return ditto." + +And addressing the man with the meat-axe:-- + +"Since you have taken off your nose-screen, accompany the mistress. You +will get up behind the fiacre. You know where you left the team?" + +"Yes," said the man. + +And depositing his axe in a corner, he followed Madame Thenardier. + +As they set off, Thenardier thrust his head through the half-open door, +and shouted into the corridor:-- + +"Above all things, don't lose the letter! remember that you carry two +hundred thousand francs with you!" + +The Thenardier's hoarse voice replied:-- + +"Be easy. I have it in my bosom." + +A minute had not elapsed, when the sound of the cracking of a whip was +heard, which rapidly retreated and died away. + +"Good!" growled Thenardier. "They're going at a fine pace. At such a +gallop, the bourgeoise will be back inside three-quarters of an hour." + +He drew a chair close to the fireplace, folding his arms, and presenting +his muddy boots to the brazier. + +"My feet are cold!" said he. + +Only five ruffians now remained in the den with Thenardier and the +prisoner. + +These men, through the black masks or paste which covered their faces, +and made of them, at fear's pleasure, charcoal-burners, negroes, or +demons, had a stupid and gloomy air, and it could be felt that they +perpetrated a crime like a bit of work, tranquilly, without either wrath +or mercy, with a sort of ennui. They were crowded together in one corner +like brutes, and remained silent. + +Thenardier warmed his feet. + +The prisoner had relapsed into his taciturnity. A sombre calm had +succeeded to the wild uproar which had filled the garret but a few +moments before. + +The candle, on which a large "stranger" had formed, cast but a dim +light in the immense hovel, the brazier had grown dull, and all those +monstrous heads cast misshapen shadows on the walls and ceiling. + +No sound was audible except the quiet breathing of the old drunken man, +who was fast asleep. + +Marius waited in a state of anxiety that was augmented by every trifle. +The enigma was more impenetrable than ever. + +Who was this "little one" whom Thenardier had called the Lark? Was she +his "Ursule"? The prisoner had not seemed to be affected by that word, +"the Lark," and had replied in the most natural manner in the world: +"I do not know what you mean." On the other hand, the two letters U. F. +were explained; they meant Urbain Fabre; and Ursule was no longer named +Ursule. This was what Marius perceived most clearly of all. + +A sort of horrible fascination held him nailed to his post, from which +he was observing and commanding this whole scene. There he stood, +almost incapable of movement or reflection, as though annihilated by the +abominable things viewed at such close quarters. He waited, in the hope +of some incident, no matter of what nature, since he could not collect +his thoughts and did not know upon what course to decide. + +"In any case," he said, "if she is the Lark, I shall see her, for the +Thenardier woman is to bring her hither. That will be the end, and then +I will give my life and my blood if necessary, but I will deliver her! +Nothing shall stop me." + +Nearly half an hour passed in this manner. Thenardier seemed to be +absorbed in gloomy reflections, the prisoner did not stir. Still, Marius +fancied that at intervals, and for the last few moments, he had heard a +faint, dull noise in the direction of the prisoner. + +All at once, Thenardier addressed the prisoner: + +"By the way, Monsieur Fabre, I might as well say it to you at once." + +These few words appeared to be the beginning of an explanation. Marius +strained his ears. + +"My wife will be back shortly, don't get impatient. I think that the +Lark really is your daughter, and it seems to me quite natural that you +should keep her. Only, listen to me a bit. My wife will go and hunt her +up with your letter. I told my wife to dress herself in the way she did, +so that your young lady might make no difficulty about following her. +They will both enter the carriage with my comrade behind. Somewhere, +outside the barrier, there is a trap harnessed to two very good horses. +Your young lady will be taken to it. She will alight from the fiacre. +My comrade will enter the other vehicle with her, and my wife will come +back here to tell us: 'It's done.' As for the young lady, no harm will +be done to her; the trap will conduct her to a place where she will be +quiet, and just as soon as you have handed over to me those little two +hundred thousand francs, she will be returned to you. If you have me +arrested, my comrade will give a turn of his thumb to the Lark, that's +all." + +The prisoner uttered not a syllable. After a pause, Thenardier +continued:-- + +"It's very simple, as you see. There'll be no harm done unless you wish +that there should be harm done. I'm telling you how things stand. I warn +you so that you may be prepared." + +He paused: the prisoner did not break the silence, and Thenardier +resumed:-- + +"As soon as my wife returns and says to me: 'The Lark is on the way,' we +will release you, and you will be free to go and sleep at home. You see +that our intentions are not evil." + +Terrible images passed through Marius' mind. What! That young girl whom +they were abducting was not to be brought back? One of those monsters +was to bear her off into the darkness? Whither? And what if it were she! + +It was clear that it was she. Marius felt his heart stop beating. + +What was he to do? Discharge the pistol? Place all those scoundrels in +the hands of justice? But the horrible man with the meat-axe would, none +the less, be out of reach with the young girl, and Marius reflected on +Thenardier's words, of which he perceived the bloody significance: "If +you have me arrested, my comrade will give a turn of his thumb to the +Lark." + +Now, it was not alone by the colonel's testament, it was by his own +love, it was by the peril of the one he loved, that he felt himself +restrained. + +This frightful situation, which had already lasted above half an hour, +was changing its aspect every moment. + +Marius had sufficient strength of mind to review in succession all the +most heart-breaking conjectures, seeking hope and finding none. + +The tumult of his thoughts contrasted with the funereal silence of the +den. + +In the midst of this silence, the door at the bottom of the staircase +was heard to open and shut again. + +The prisoner made a movement in his bonds. + +"Here's the bourgeoise," said Thenardier. + +He had hardly uttered the words, when the Thenardier woman did in fact +rush hastily into the room, red, panting, breathless, with flaming eyes, +and cried, as she smote her huge hands on her thighs simultaneously:-- + +"False address!" + +The ruffian who had gone with her made his appearance behind her and +picked up his axe again. + +She resumed:-- + +"Nobody there! Rue Saint-Dominique, No. 17, no Monsieur Urbain Fabre! +They know not what it means!" + +She paused, choking, then went on:-- + +"Monsieur Thenardier! That old fellow has duped you! You are too good, +you see! If it had been me, I'd have chopped the beast in four quarters +to begin with! And if he had acted ugly, I'd have boiled him alive! He +would have been obliged to speak, and say where the girl is, and where +he keeps his shiners! That's the way I should have managed matters! +People are perfectly right when they say that men are a deal stupider +than women! Nobody at No. 17. It's nothing but a big carriage gate! No +Monsieur Fabre in the Rue Saint-Dominique! And after all that racing +and fee to the coachman and all! I spoke to both the porter and the +portress, a fine, stout woman, and they know nothing about him!" + +Marius breathed freely once more. + +She, Ursule or the Lark, he no longer knew what to call her, was safe. + +While his exasperated wife vociferated, Thenardier had seated himself on +the table. + +For several minutes he uttered not a word, but swung his right foot, +which hung down, and stared at the brazier with an air of savage revery. + +Finally, he said to the prisoner, with a slow and singularly ferocious +tone: + +"A false address? What did you expect to gain by that?" + +"To gain time!" cried the prisoner in a thundering voice, and at the +same instant he shook off his bonds; they were cut. The prisoner was +only attached to the bed now by one leg. + +Before the seven men had time to collect their senses and dash forward, +he had bent down into the fireplace, had stretched out his hand to the +brazier, and had then straightened himself up again, and now Thenardier, +the female Thenardier, and the ruffians, huddled in amazement at the +extremity of the hovel, stared at him in stupefaction, as almost free +and in a formidable attitude, he brandished above his head the red-hot +chisel, which emitted a threatening glow. + +The judicial examination to which the ambush in the Gorbeau house +eventually gave rise, established the fact that a large sou piece, cut +and worked in a peculiar fashion, was found in the garret, when the +police made their descent on it. This sou piece was one of those marvels +of industry, which are engendered by the patience of the galleys in +the shadows and for the shadows, marvels which are nothing else than +instruments of escape. These hideous and delicate products of wonderful +art are to jewellers' work what the metaphors of slang are to poetry. +There are Benvenuto Cellinis in the galleys, just as there are Villons +in language. The unhappy wretch who aspires to deliverance finds means +sometimes without tools, sometimes with a common wooden-handled knife, +to saw a sou into two thin plates, to hollow out these plates without +affecting the coinage stamp, and to make a furrow on the edge of the sou +in such a manner that the plates will adhere again. This can be screwed +together and unscrewed at will; it is a box. In this box he hides a +watch-spring, and this watch-spring, properly handled, cuts good-sized +chains and bars of iron. The unfortunate convict is supposed to possess +merely a sou; not at all, he possesses liberty. It was a large sou of +this sort which, during the subsequent search of the police, was found +under the bed near the window. They also found a tiny saw of blue steel +which would fit the sou. + +It is probable that the prisoner had this sou piece on his person at the +moment when the ruffians searched him, that he contrived to conceal +it in his hand, and that afterward, having his right hand free, he +unscrewed it, and used it as a saw to cut the cords which fastened him, +which would explain the faint noise and almost imperceptible movements +which Marius had observed. + +As he had not been able to bend down, for fear of betraying himself, he +had not cut the bonds of his left leg. + +The ruffians had recovered from their first surprise. + +"Be easy," said Bigrenaille to Thenardier. "He still holds by one leg, +and he can't get away. I'll answer for that. I tied that paw for him." + +In the meanwhile, the prisoner had begun to speak:-- + +"You are wretches, but my life is not worth the trouble of defending it. +When you think that you can make me speak, that you can make me write +what I do not choose to write, that you can make me say what I do not +choose to say--" + +He stripped up his left sleeve, and added:-- + +"See here." + +At the same moment he extended his arm, and laid the glowing chisel +which he held in his left hand by its wooden handle on his bare flesh. + +The crackling of the burning flesh became audible, and the odor peculiar +to chambers of torture filled the hovel. + +[Illustration: Red Hot Chisel 3b8-20-red-hot-chisel] + +Marius reeled in utter horror, the very ruffians shuddered, hardly a +muscle of the old man's face contracted, and while the red-hot iron +sank into the smoking wound, impassive and almost august, he fixed on +Thenardier his beautiful glance, in which there was no hatred, and where +suffering vanished in serene majesty. + +With grand and lofty natures, the revolts of the flesh and the senses +when subjected to physical suffering cause the soul to spring forth, and +make it appear on the brow, just as rebellions among the soldiery force +the captain to show himself. + +"Wretches!" said he, "have no more fear of me than I have for you!" + +And, tearing the chisel from the wound, he hurled it through the window, +which had been left open; the horrible, glowing tool disappeared into +the night, whirling as it flew, and fell far away on the snow. + +The prisoner resumed:-- + +"Do what you please with me." He was disarmed. + +"Seize him!" said Thenardier. + +Two of the ruffians laid their hands on his shoulder, and the masked +man with the ventriloquist's voice took up his station in front of him, +ready to smash his skull at the slightest movement. + +At the same time, Marius heard below him, at the base of the partition, +but so near that he could not see who was speaking, this colloquy +conducted in a low tone:-- + +"There is only one thing left to do." + +"Cut his throat." + +"That's it." + +It was the husband and wife taking counsel together. + +Thenardier walked slowly towards the table, opened the drawer, and +took out the knife. Marius fretted with the handle of his pistol. +Unprecedented perplexity! For the last hour he had had two voices in his +conscience, the one enjoining him to respect his father's testament, the +other crying to him to rescue the prisoner. These two voices continued +uninterruptedly that struggle which tormented him to agony. Up to that +moment he had cherished a vague hope that he should find some means +of reconciling these two duties, but nothing within the limits of +possibility had presented itself. + +However, the peril was urgent, the last bounds of delay had been +reached; Thenardier was standing thoughtfully a few paces distant from +the prisoner. + +Marius cast a wild glance about him, the last mechanical resource of +despair. All at once a shudder ran through him. + +At his feet, on the table, a bright ray of light from the full moon +illuminated and seemed to point out to him a sheet of paper. On this +paper he read the following line written that very morning, in large +letters, by the eldest of the Thenardier girls:-- + +"THE BOBBIES ARE HERE." + +An idea, a flash, crossed Marius' mind; this was the expedient of which +he was in search, the solution of that frightful problem which was +torturing him, of sparing the assassin and saving the victim. + +He knelt down on his commode, stretched out his arm, seized the sheet of +paper, softly detached a bit of plaster from the wall, wrapped the paper +round it, and tossed the whole through the crevice into the middle of +the den. + +It was high time. Thenardier had conquered his last fears or his last +scruples, and was advancing on the prisoner. + +"Something is falling!" cried the Thenardier woman. + +"What is it?" asked her husband. + +The woman darted forward and picked up the bit of plaster. She handed it +to her husband. + +"Where did this come from?" demanded Thenardier. + +"Pardie!" ejaculated his wife, "where do you suppose it came from? +Through the window, of course." + +"I saw it pass," said Bigrenaille. + +Thenardier rapidly unfolded the paper and held it close to the candle. + +"It's in Eponine's handwriting. The devil!" + +He made a sign to his wife, who hastily drew near, and showed her the +line written on the sheet of paper, then he added in a subdued voice:-- + +"Quick! The ladder! Let's leave the bacon in the mousetrap and decamp!" + +"Without cutting that man's throat?" asked, the Thenardier woman. + +"We haven't the time." + +"Through what?" resumed Bigrenaille. + +"Through the window," replied Thenardier. "Since Ponine has thrown the +stone through the window, it indicates that the house is not watched on +that side." + +The mask with the ventriloquist's voice deposited his huge key on the +floor, raised both arms in the air, and opened and clenched his fists, +three times rapidly without uttering a word. + +This was the signal like the signal for clearing the decks for action on +board ship. + +The ruffians who were holding the prisoner released him; in the +twinkling of an eye the rope ladder was unrolled outside the window, and +solidly fastened to the sill by the two iron hooks. + +The prisoner paid no attention to what was going on around him. He +seemed to be dreaming or praying. + +As soon as the ladder was arranged, Thenardier cried: + +"Come! the bourgeoise first!" + +And he rushed headlong to the window. + +But just as he was about to throw his leg over, Bigrenaille seized him +roughly by the collar. + +"Not much, come now, you old dog, after us!" + +"After us!" yelled the ruffians. + +"You are children," said Thenardier, "we are losing time. The police are +on our heels." + +"Well," said the ruffians, "let's draw lots to see who shall go down +first." + +Thenardier exclaimed:-- + +"Are you mad! Are you crazy! What a pack of boobies! You want to waste +time, do you? Draw lots, do you? By a wet finger, by a short straw! With +written names! Thrown into a hat!--" + +"Would you like my hat?" cried a voice on the threshold. + +All wheeled round. It was Javert. + +He had his hat in his hand, and was holding it out to them with a smile. + + + + +CHAPTER XXI--ONE SHOULD ALWAYS BEGIN BY ARRESTING THE VICTIMS + +At nightfall, Javert had posted his men and had gone into ambush himself +between the trees of the Rue de la Barrieredes-Gobelins which faced +the Gorbeau house, on the other side of the boulevard. He had begun +operations by opening "his pockets," and dropping into it the two young +girls who were charged with keeping a watch on the approaches to the +den. But he had only "caged" Azelma. As for Eponine, she was not at her +post, she had disappeared, and he had not been able to seize her. Then +Javert had made a point and had bent his ear to waiting for the signal +agreed upon. The comings and goings of the fiacres had greatly agitated +him. At last, he had grown impatient, and, sure that there was a nest +there, sure of being in "luck," having recognized many of the ruffians +who had entered, he had finally decided to go upstairs without waiting +for the pistol-shot. + +It will be remembered that he had Marius' pass-key. + +He had arrived just in the nick of time. + +The terrified ruffians flung themselves on the arms which they had +abandoned in all the corners at the moment of flight. In less than a +second, these seven men, horrible to behold, had grouped themselves in +an attitude of defence, one with his meat-axe, another with his key, +another with his bludgeon, the rest with shears, pincers, and hammers. +Thenardier had his knife in his fist. The Thenardier woman snatched up +an enormous paving-stone which lay in the angle of the window and served +her daughters as an ottoman. + +[Illustration: Snatched up a Paving Stone 3b8-21-paving-stone] + +Javert put on his hat again, and advanced a couple of paces into the +room, with arms folded, his cane under one arm, his sword in its sheath. + +"Halt there," said he. "You shall not go out by the window, you shall go +through the door. It's less unhealthy. There are seven of you, there +are fifteen of us. Don't let's fall to collaring each other like men of +Auvergne." + +Bigrenaille drew out a pistol which he had kept concealed under his +blouse, and put it in Thenardier's hand, whispering in the latter's +ear:-- + +"It's Javert. I don't dare fire at that man. Do you dare?" + +"Parbleu!" replied Thenardier. + +"Well, then, fire." + +Thenardier took the pistol and aimed at Javert. + +Javert, who was only three paces from him, stared intently at him and +contented himself with saying:-- + +"Come now, don't fire. You'll miss fire." + +Thenardier pulled the trigger. The pistol missed fire. + +"Didn't I tell you so!" ejaculated Javert. + +Bigrenaille flung his bludgeon at Javert's feet. + +"You're the emperor of the fiends! I surrender." + +"And you?" Javert asked the rest of the ruffians. + +They replied:-- + +"So do we." + +Javert began again calmly:-- + +"That's right, that's good, I said so, you are nice fellows." + +"I only ask one thing," said Bigrenaille, "and that is, that I may not +be denied tobacco while I am in confinement." + +"Granted," said Javert. + +And turning round and calling behind him:-- + +"Come in now!" + +A squad of policemen, sword in hand, and agents armed with bludgeons and +cudgels, rushed in at Javert's summons. They pinioned the ruffians. + +This throng of men, sparely lighted by the single candle, filled the den +with shadows. + +"Handcuff them all!" shouted Javert. + +"Come on!" cried a voice which was not the voice of a man, but of which +no one would ever have said: "It is a woman's voice." + +The Thenardier woman had entrenched herself in one of the angles of the +window, and it was she who had just given vent to this roar. + +The policemen and agents recoiled. + +She had thrown off her shawl, but retained her bonnet; her husband, who +was crouching behind her, was almost hidden under the discarded +shawl, and she was shielding him with her body, as she elevated the +paving-stone above her head with the gesture of a giantess on the point +of hurling a rock. + +"Beware!" she shouted. + +All crowded back towards the corridor. A broad open space was cleared in +the middle of the garret. + +The Thenardier woman cast a glance at the ruffians who had allowed +themselves to be pinioned, and muttered in hoarse and guttural +accents:-- + +"The cowards!" + +Javert smiled, and advanced across the open space which the Thenardier +was devouring with her eyes. + +"Don't come near me," she cried, "or I'll crush you." + +"What a grenadier!" ejaculated Javert; "you've got a beard like a man, +mother, but I have claws like a woman." + +And he continued to advance. + +The Thenardier, dishevelled and terrible, set her feet far apart, threw +herself backwards, and hurled the paving-stone at Javert's head. Javert +ducked, the stone passed over him, struck the wall behind, knocked off a +huge piece of plastering, and, rebounding from angle to angle across the +hovel, now luckily almost empty, rested at Javert's feet. + +At the same moment, Javert reached the Thenardier couple. One of his +big hands descended on the woman's shoulder; the other on the husband's +head. + +"The handcuffs!" he shouted. + +The policemen trooped in in force, and in a few seconds Javert's order +had been executed. + +The Thenardier female, overwhelmed, stared at her pinioned hands, and +at those of her husband, who had dropped to the floor, and exclaimed, +weeping:-- + +"My daughters!" + +"They are in the jug," said Javert. + +In the meanwhile, the agents had caught sight of the drunken man asleep +behind the door, and were shaking him:-- + +He awoke, stammering:-- + +"Is it all over, Jondrette?" + +"Yes," replied Javert. + +The six pinioned ruffians were standing, and still preserved their +spectral mien; all three besmeared with black, all three masked. + +"Keep on your masks," said Javert. + +And passing them in review with a glance of a Frederick II. at a Potsdam +parade, he said to the three "chimney-builders":-- + +"Good day, Bigrenaille! good day, Brujon! good day, Deuxmilliards!" + +Then turning to the three masked men, he said to the man with the +meat-axe:-- + +"Good day, Gueulemer!" + +And to the man with the cudgel:-- + +"Good day, Babet!" + +And to the ventriloquist:-- + +"Your health, Claquesous." + +At that moment, he caught sight of the ruffians' prisoner, who, ever +since the entrance of the police, had not uttered a word, and had held +his head down. + +"Untie the gentleman!" said Javert, "and let no one go out!" + +That said, he seated himself with sovereign dignity before the table, +where the candle and the writing-materials still remained, drew a +stamped paper from his pocket, and began to prepare his report. + +When he had written the first lines, which are formulas that never vary, +he raised his eyes:-- + +"Let the gentleman whom these gentlemen bound step forward." + +The policemen glanced round them. + +"Well," said Javert, "where is he?" + +The prisoner of the ruffians, M. Leblanc, M. Urbain Fabre, the father of +Ursule or the Lark, had disappeared. + +The door was guarded, but the window was not. As soon as he had found +himself released from his bonds, and while Javert was drawing up his +report, he had taken advantage of confusion, the crowd, the darkness, +and of a moment when the general attention was diverted from him, to +dash out of the window. + +An agent sprang to the opening and looked out. He saw no one outside. + +The rope ladder was still shaking. + +"The devil!" ejaculated Javert between his teeth, "he must have been the +most valuable of the lot." + + + + +CHAPTER XXII--THE LITTLE ONE WHO WAS CRYING IN VOLUME TWO + +On the day following that on which these events took place in the house +on the Boulevard de l'Hopital, a child, who seemed to be coming from the +direction of the bridge of Austerlitz, was ascending the side-alley on +the right in the direction of the Barriere de Fontainebleau. + +Night had fully come. + +This lad was pale, thin, clad in rags, with linen trousers in the month +of February, and was singing at the top of his voice. + +At the corner of the Rue du Petit-Banquier, a bent old woman was +rummaging in a heap of refuse by the light of a street lantern; the +child jostled her as he passed, then recoiled, exclaiming:-- + +"Hello! And I took it for an enormous, enormous dog!" + +He pronounced the word enormous the second time with a jeering swell +of the voice which might be tolerably well represented by capitals: "an +enormous, ENORMOUS dog." + +The old woman straightened herself up in a fury. + +"Nasty brat!" she grumbled. "If I hadn't been bending over, I know well +where I would have planted my foot on you." + +The boy was already far away. + +"Kisss! kisss!" he cried. "After that, I don't think I was mistaken!" + +The old woman, choking with indignation, now rose completely upright, +and the red gleam of the lantern fully lighted up her livid face, all +hollowed into angles and wrinkles, with crow's-feet meeting the corners +of her mouth. + +Her body was lost in the darkness, and only her head was visible. One +would have pronounced her a mask of Decrepitude carved out by a light +from the night. + +The boy surveyed her. + +"Madame," said he, "does not possess that style of beauty which pleases +me." + +He then pursued his road, and resumed his song:-- + + "Le roi Coupdesabot + S'en allait a la chasse, + A la chasse aux corbeaux--" + + +At the end of these three lines he paused. He had arrived in front of +No. 50-52, and finding the door fastened, he began to assault it with +resounding and heroic kicks, which betrayed rather the man's shoes that +he was wearing than the child's feet which he owned. + +In the meanwhile, the very old woman whom he had encountered at the +corner of the Rue du Petit-Banquier hastened up behind him, uttering +clamorous cries and indulging in lavish and exaggerated gestures. + +"What's this? What's this? Lord God! He's battering the door down! He's +knocking the house down." + +The kicks continued. + +The old woman strained her lungs. + +"Is that the way buildings are treated nowadays?" + +All at once she paused. + +She had recognized the gamin. + +"What! so it's that imp!" + +"Why, it's the old lady," said the lad. "Good day, Bougonmuche. I have +come to see my ancestors." + +The old woman retorted with a composite grimace, and a wonderful +improvisation of hatred taking advantage of feebleness and ugliness, +which was, unfortunately, wasted in the dark:-- + +"There's no one here." + +"Bah!" retorted the boy, "where's my father?" + +"At La Force." + +"Come, now! And my mother?" + +"At Saint-Lazare." + +"Well! And my sisters?" + +"At the Madelonettes." + +The lad scratched his head behind his ear, stared at Ma'am Bougon, and +said:-- + +"Ah!" + +Then he executed a pirouette on his heel; a moment later, the old woman, +who had remained on the door-step, heard him singing in his clear, young +voice, as he plunged under the black elm-trees, in the wintry wind:-- + + "Le roi Coupdesabot[31] + S'en allait a la chasse, + A la chasse aux corbeaux, + Monte sur deux echasses. + Quand on passait dessous, + On lui payait deux sous." + + +[THE END OF VOLUME III. "MARIUS"] + + + + + +VOLUME IV.--SAINT-DENIS. + +[Illustration: Frontispiece Volume Four] + +[Illustration: Titlepage Volume Four] + + +THE IDYL IN THE RUE PLUMET AND THE EPIC IN THE RUE SAINT-DENIS + + + + +BOOK FIRST.--A FEW PAGES OF HISTORY + + + + +CHAPTER I--WELL CUT + +1831 and 1832, the two years which are immediately connected with the +Revolution of July, form one of the most peculiar and striking moments +of history. These two years rise like two mountains midway between those +which precede and those which follow them. They have a revolutionary +grandeur. Precipices are to be distinguished there. The social masses, +the very assizes of civilization, the solid group of superposed and +adhering interests, the century-old profiles of the ancient French +formation, appear and disappear in them every instant, athwart the storm +clouds of systems, of passions, and of theories. These appearances +and disappearances have been designated as movement and resistance. +At intervals, truth, that daylight of the human soul, can be descried +shining there. + +This remarkable epoch is decidedly circumscribed and is beginning to +be sufficiently distant from us to allow of our grasping the principal +lines even at the present day. + +We shall make the attempt. + +The Restoration had been one of those intermediate phases, hard to +define, in which there is fatigue, buzzing, murmurs, sleep, tumult, +and which are nothing else than the arrival of a great nation at a +halting-place. + +These epochs are peculiar and mislead the politicians who desire to +convert them to profit. In the beginning, the nation asks nothing but +repose; it thirsts for but one thing, peace; it has but one ambition, +to be small. Which is the translation of remaining tranquil. Of great +events, great hazards, great adventures, great men, thank God, we +have seen enough, we have them heaped higher than our heads. We would +exchange Caesar for Prusias, and Napoleon for the King of Yvetot. "What +a good little king was he!" We have marched since daybreak, we have +reached the evening of a long and toilsome day; we have made our first +change with Mirabeau, the second with Robespierre, the third with +Bonaparte; we are worn out. Each one demands a bed. + +Devotion which is weary, heroism which has grown old, ambitions which +are sated, fortunes which are made, seek, demand, implore, solicit, +what? A shelter. They have it. They take possession of peace, of +tranquillity, of leisure; behold, they are content. But, at the same +time certain facts arise, compel recognition, and knock at the door in +their turn. These facts are the products of revolutions and wars, they +are, they exist, they have the right to install themselves in society, +and they do install themselves therein; and most of the time, facts +are the stewards of the household and fouriers[32] who do nothing but +prepare lodgings for principles. + +This, then, is what appears to philosophical politicians:-- + +At the same time that weary men demand repose, accomplished facts demand +guarantees. Guarantees are the same to facts that repose is to men. + +This is what England demanded of the Stuarts after the Protector; this +is what France demanded of the Bourbons after the Empire. + +These guarantees are a necessity of the times. They must be accorded. +Princes "grant" them, but in reality, it is the force of things which +gives them. A profound truth, and one useful to know, which the Stuarts +did not suspect in 1662 and which the Bourbons did not even obtain a +glimpse of in 1814. + +The predestined family, which returned to France when Napoleon fell, had +the fatal simplicity to believe that it was itself which bestowed, and +that what it had bestowed it could take back again; that the House of +Bourbon possessed the right divine, that France possessed nothing, and +that the political right conceded in the charter of Louis XVIII. was +merely a branch of the right divine, was detached by the House of +Bourbon and graciously given to the people until such day as it should +please the King to reassume it. Still, the House of Bourbon should have +felt, from the displeasure created by the gift, that it did not come +from it. + +This house was churlish to the nineteenth century. It put on an +ill-tempered look at every development of the nation. To make use of a +trivial word, that is to say, of a popular and a true word, it looked +glum. The people saw this. + +It thought it possessed strength because the Empire had been carried +away before it like a theatrical stage-setting. It did not perceive that +it had, itself, been brought in in the same fashion. It did not perceive +that it also lay in that hand which had removed Napoleon. + +It thought that it had roots, because it was the past. It was mistaken; +it formed a part of the past, but the whole past was France. The roots +of French society were not fixed in the Bourbons, but in the nations. +These obscure and lively roots constituted, not the right of a family, +but the history of a people. They were everywhere, except under the +throne. + +The House of Bourbon was to France the illustrious and bleeding knot in +her history, but was no longer the principal element of her destiny, +and the necessary base of her politics. She could get along without the +Bourbons; she had done without them for two and twenty years; there +had been a break of continuity; they did not suspect the fact. And how +should they have suspected it, they who fancied that Louis XVII. reigned +on the 9th of Thermidor, and that Louis XVIII. was reigning at the +battle of Marengo? Never, since the origin of history, had princes been +so blind in the presence of facts and the portion of divine authority +which facts contain and promulgate. Never had that pretension here below +which is called the right of kings denied to such a point the right from +on high. + +A capital error which led this family to lay its hand once more on the +guarantees "granted" in 1814, on the concessions, as it termed them. +Sad. A sad thing! What it termed its concessions were our conquests; +what it termed our encroachments were our rights. + +When the hour seemed to it to have come, the Restoration, supposing +itself victorious over Bonaparte and well-rooted in the country, that is +to say, believing itself to be strong and deep, abruptly decided on its +plan of action, and risked its stroke. One morning it drew itself up +before the face of France, and, elevating its voice, it contested the +collective title and the individual right of the nation to sovereignty, +of the citizen to liberty. In other words, it denied to the nation +that which made it a nation, and to the citizen that which made him a +citizen. + +This is the foundation of those famous acts which are called the +ordinances of July. The Restoration fell. + +It fell justly. But, we admit, it had not been absolutely hostile to +all forms of progress. Great things had been accomplished, with it +alongside. + +Under the Restoration, the nation had grown accustomed to calm +discussion, which had been lacking under the Republic, and to grandeur +in peace, which had been wanting under the Empire. France free and +strong had offered an encouraging spectacle to the other peoples of +Europe. The Revolution had had the word under Robespierre; the cannon +had had the word under Bonaparte; it was under Louis XVIII. and Charles +X. that it was the turn of intelligence to have the word. The wind +ceased, the torch was lighted once more. On the lofty heights, the +pure light of mind could be seen flickering. A magnificent, useful, and +charming spectacle. For a space of fifteen years, those great principles +which are so old for the thinker, so new for the statesman, could be +seen at work in perfect peace, on the public square; equality before the +law, liberty of conscience, liberty of speech, liberty of the press, the +accessibility of all aptitudes to all functions. Thus it proceeded until +1830. The Bourbons were an instrument of civilization which broke in the +hands of Providence. + +The fall of the Bourbons was full of grandeur, not on their side, but +on the side of the nation. They quitted the throne with gravity, but +without authority; their descent into the night was not one of those +solemn disappearances which leave a sombre emotion in history; it +was neither the spectral calm of Charles I., nor the eagle scream of +Napoleon. They departed, that is all. They laid down the crown, and +retained no aureole. They were worthy, but they were not august. They +lacked, in a certain measure, the majesty of their misfortune. Charles +X. during the voyage from Cherbourg, causing a round table to be cut +over into a square table, appeared to be more anxious about imperilled +etiquette than about the crumbling monarchy. This diminution saddened +devoted men who loved their persons, and serious men who honored their +race. The populace was admirable. The nation, attacked one morning with +weapons, by a sort of royal insurrection, felt itself in the possession +of so much force that it did not go into a rage. It defended itself, +restrained itself, restored things to their places, the government to +law, the Bourbons to exile, alas! and then halted! It took the old king +Charles X. from beneath that dais which had sheltered Louis XIV. and +set him gently on the ground. It touched the royal personages only with +sadness and precaution. It was not one man, it was not a few men, it +was France, France entire, France victorious and intoxicated with her +victory, who seemed to be coming to herself, and who put into practice, +before the eyes of the whole world, these grave words of Guillaume du +Vair after the day of the Barricades:-- + +"It is easy for those who are accustomed to skim the favors of the +great, and to spring, like a bird from bough to bough, from an afflicted +fortune to a flourishing one, to show themselves harsh towards their +Prince in his adversity; but as for me, the fortune of my Kings and +especially of my afflicted Kings, will always be venerable to me." + +The Bourbons carried away with them respect, but not regret. As we have +just stated, their misfortune was greater than they were. They faded out +in the horizon. + +The Revolution of July instantly had friends and enemies throughout the +entire world. The first rushed toward her with joy and enthusiasm, the +others turned away, each according to his nature. At the first blush, +the princes of Europe, the owls of this dawn, shut their eyes, wounded +and stupefied, and only opened them to threaten. A fright which can be +comprehended, a wrath which can be pardoned. This strange revolution had +hardly produced a shock; it had not even paid to vanquished royalty the +honor of treating it as an enemy, and of shedding its blood. In the eyes +of despotic governments, who are always interested in having liberty +calumniate itself, the Revolution of July committed the fault of being +formidable and of remaining gentle. Nothing, however, was attempted or +plotted against it. The most discontented, the most irritated, the most +trembling, saluted it; whatever our egotism and our rancor may be, a +mysterious respect springs from events in which we are sensible of the +collaboration of some one who is working above man. + +The Revolution of July is the triumph of right overthrowing the fact. A +thing which is full of splendor. + +Right overthrowing the fact. Hence the brilliancy of the Revolution of +1830, hence, also, its mildness. Right triumphant has no need of being +violent. + +Right is the just and the true. + +The property of right is to remain eternally beautiful and pure. The +fact, even when most necessary to all appearances, even when most +thoroughly accepted by contemporaries, if it exist only as a fact, and +if it contain only too little of right, or none at all, is infallibly +destined to become, in the course of time, deformed, impure, perhaps, +even monstrous. If one desires to learn at one blow, to what degree of +hideousness the fact can attain, viewed at the distance of centuries, +let him look at Machiavelli. Machiavelli is not an evil genius, nor a +demon, nor a miserable and cowardly writer; he is nothing but the fact. +And he is not only the Italian fact; he is the European fact, the +fact of the sixteenth century. He seems hideous, and so he is, in the +presence of the moral idea of the nineteenth. + +This conflict of right and fact has been going on ever since the origin +of society. To terminate this duel, to amalgamate the pure idea with the +humane reality, to cause right to penetrate pacifically into the fact +and the fact into right, that is the task of sages. + + + + +CHAPTER II--BADLY SEWED + +But the task of sages is one thing, the task of clever men is another. +The Revolution of 1830 came to a sudden halt. + +As soon as a revolution has made the coast, the skilful make haste to +prepare the shipwreck. + +The skilful in our century have conferred on themselves the title of +Statesmen; so that this word, statesmen, has ended by becoming somewhat +of a slang word. It must be borne in mind, in fact, that wherever +there is nothing but skill, there is necessarily pettiness. To say "the +skilful" amounts to saying "the mediocre." + +In the same way, to say "statesmen" is sometimes equivalent to saying +"traitors." If, then, we are to believe the skilful, revolutions like +the Revolution of July are severed arteries; a prompt ligature is +indispensable. The right, too grandly proclaimed, is shaken. Also, right +once firmly fixed, the state must be strengthened. Liberty once assured, +attention must be directed to power. + +Here the sages are not, as yet, separated from the skilful, but they +begin to be distrustful. Power, very good. But, in the first place, what +is power? In the second, whence comes it? The skilful do not seem to +hear the murmured objection, and they continue their manoeuvres. + +According to the politicians, who are ingenious in putting the mask +of necessity on profitable fictions, the first requirement of a people +after a revolution, when this people forms part of a monarchical +continent, is to procure for itself a dynasty. In this way, say they, +peace, that is to say, time to dress our wounds, and to repair +the house, can be had after a revolution. The dynasty conceals the +scaffolding and covers the ambulance. Now, it is not always easy to +procure a dynasty. + +If it is absolutely necessary, the first man of genius or even the first +man of fortune who comes to hand suffices for the manufacturing of a +king. You have, in the first case, Napoleon; in the second, Iturbide. + +But the first family that comes to hand does not suffice to make a +dynasty. There is necessarily required a certain modicum of antiquity in +a race, and the wrinkle of the centuries cannot be improvised. + +If we place ourselves at the point of view of the "statesmen," after +making all allowances, of course, after a revolution, what are the +qualities of the king which result from it? He may be and it is useful +for him to be a revolutionary; that is to say, a participant in his own +person in that revolution, that he should have lent a hand to it, that +he should have either compromised or distinguished himself therein, that +he should have touched the axe or wielded the sword in it. + +What are the qualities of a dynasty? It should be national; that is to +say, revolutionary at a distance, not through acts committed, but by +reason of ideas accepted. It should be composed of past and be historic; +be composed of future and be sympathetic. + +All this explains why the early revolutions contented themselves with +finding a man, Cromwell or Napoleon; and why the second absolutely +insisted on finding a family, the House of Brunswick or the House of +Orleans. + +Royal houses resemble those Indian fig-trees, each branch of which, +bending over to the earth, takes root and becomes a fig-tree itself. +Each branch may become a dynasty. On the sole condition that it shall +bend down to the people. + +Such is the theory of the skilful. + +Here, then, lies the great art: to make a little render to success the +sound of a catastrophe in order that those who profit by it may tremble +from it also, to season with fear every step that is taken, to augment +the curve of the transition to the point of retarding progress, to dull +that aurora, to denounce and retrench the harshness of enthusiasm, to +cut all angles and nails, to wad triumph, to muffle up right, to envelop +the giant-people in flannel, and to put it to bed very speedily, to +impose a diet on that excess of health, to put Hercules on the treatment +of a convalescent, to dilute the event with the expedient, to offer to +spirits thirsting for the ideal that nectar thinned out with a potion, +to take one's precautions against too much success, to garnish the +revolution with a shade. + +1830 practised this theory, already applied to England by 1688. + +1830 is a revolution arrested midway. Half of progress, quasi-right. +Now, logic knows not the "almost," absolutely as the sun knows not the +candle. + +Who arrests revolutions half-way? The bourgeoisie? + +Why? + +Because the bourgeoisie is interest which has reached satisfaction. +Yesterday it was appetite, to-day it is plenitude, to-morrow it will be +satiety. + +The phenomenon of 1814 after Napoleon was reproduced in 1830 after +Charles X. + +The attempt has been made, and wrongly, to make a class of the +bourgeoisie. The bourgeoisie is simply the contented portion of the +people. The bourgeois is the man who now has time to sit down. A chair +is not a caste. + +But through a desire to sit down too soon, one may arrest the very march +of the human race. This has often been the fault of the bourgeoisie. + +One is not a class because one has committed a fault. Selfishness is not +one of the divisions of the social order. + +Moreover, we must be just to selfishness. The state to which that part +of the nation which is called the bourgeoisie aspired after the shock +of 1830 was not the inertia which is complicated with indifference and +laziness, and which contains a little shame; it was not the slumber +which presupposes a momentary forgetfulness accessible to dreams; it was +the halt. + +The halt is a word formed of a singular double and almost contradictory +sense: a troop on the march, that is to say, movement; a stand, that is +to say, repose. + +The halt is the restoration of forces; it is repose armed and on the +alert; it is the accomplished fact which posts sentinels and holds +itself on its guard. + +The halt presupposes the combat of yesterday and the combat of +to-morrow. + +It is the partition between 1830 and 1848. + +What we here call combat may also be designated as progress. + +The bourgeoisie then, as well as the statesmen, required a man who +should express this word Halt. An Although-Because. A composite +individuality, signifying revolution and signifying stability, in other +terms, strengthening the present by the evident compatibility of the +past with the future. + +This man was "already found." His name was Louis Philippe d'Orleans. + +The 221 made Louis Philippe King. Lafayette undertook the coronation. + +He called it the best of republics. The town-hall of Paris took the +place of the Cathedral of Rheims. + +This substitution of a half-throne for a whole throne was "the work of +1830." + +When the skilful had finished, the immense vice of their solution became +apparent. All this had been accomplished outside the bounds of absolute +right. Absolute right cried: "I protest!" then, terrible to say, it +retired into the darkness. + + + + +CHAPTER III--LOUIS PHILIPPE + +Revolutions have a terrible arm and a happy hand, they strike firmly and +choose well. Even incomplete, even debased and abused and reduced to the +state of a junior revolution like the Revolution of 1830, they nearly +always retain sufficient providential lucidity to prevent them from +falling amiss. Their eclipse is never an abdication. + +Nevertheless, let us not boast too loudly; revolutions also may be +deceived, and grave errors have been seen. + +Let us return to 1830. 1830, in its deviation, had good luck. In the +establishment which entitled itself order after the revolution had been +cut short, the King amounted to more than royalty. Louis Philippe was a +rare man. + +The son of a father to whom history will accord certain attenuating +circumstances, but also as worthy of esteem as that father had been of +blame; possessing all private virtues and many public virtues; careful +of his health, of his fortune, of his person, of his affairs, knowing +the value of a minute and not always the value of a year; sober, serene, +peaceable, patient; a good man and a good prince; sleeping with his +wife, and having in his palace lackeys charged with the duty of showing +the conjugal bed to the bourgeois, an ostentation of the regular +sleeping-apartment which had become useful after the former illegitimate +displays of the elder branch; knowing all the languages of Europe, and, +what is more rare, all the languages of all interests, and speaking +them; an admirable representative of the "middle class," but +outstripping it, and in every way greater than it; possessing excellent +sense, while appreciating the blood from which he had sprung, counting +most of all on his intrinsic worth, and, on the question of his race, +very particular, declaring himself Orleans and not Bourbon; thoroughly +the first Prince of the Blood Royal while he was still only a Serene +Highness, but a frank bourgeois from the day he became king; diffuse in +public, concise in private; reputed, but not proved to be a miser; at +bottom, one of those economists who are readily prodigal at their own +fancy or duty; lettered, but not very sensitive to letters; a gentleman, +but not a chevalier; simple, calm, and strong; adored by his family and +his household; a fascinating talker, an undeceived statesman, inwardly +cold, dominated by immediate interest, always governing at the shortest +range, incapable of rancor and of gratitude, making use without mercy of +superiority on mediocrity, clever in getting parliamentary majorities to +put in the wrong those mysterious unanimities which mutter dully under +thrones; unreserved, sometimes imprudent in his lack of reserve, but +with marvellous address in that imprudence; fertile in expedients, in +countenances, in masks; making France fear Europe and Europe France! +Incontestably fond of his country, but preferring his family; assuming +more domination than authority and more authority than dignity, a +disposition which has this unfortunate property, that as it turns +everything to success, it admits of ruse and does not absolutely +repudiate baseness, but which has this valuable side, that it preserves +politics from violent shocks, the state from fractures, and society +from catastrophes; minute, correct, vigilant, attentive, sagacious, +indefatigable; contradicting himself at times and giving himself the +lie; bold against Austria at Ancona, obstinate against England in Spain, +bombarding Antwerp, and paying off Pritchard; singing the Marseillaise +with conviction, inaccessible to despondency, to lassitude, to the taste +for the beautiful and the ideal, to daring generosity, to Utopia, to +chimeras, to wrath, to vanity, to fear; possessing all the forms +of personal intrepidity; a general at Valmy; a soldier at Jemappes; +attacked eight times by regicides and always smiling. Brave as a +grenadier, courageous as a thinker; uneasy only in the face of the +chances of a European shaking up, and unfitted for great political +adventures; always ready to risk his life, never his work; disguising +his will in influence, in order that he might be obeyed as an +intelligence rather than as a king; endowed with observation and not +with divination; not very attentive to minds, but knowing men, that is +to say requiring to see in order to judge; prompt and penetrating +good sense, practical wisdom, easy speech, prodigious memory; drawing +incessantly on this memory, his only point of resemblance with Caesar, +Alexander, and Napoleon; knowing deeds, facts, details, dates, proper +names, ignorant of tendencies, passions, the diverse geniuses of the +crowd, the interior aspirations, the hidden and obscure uprisings of +souls, in a word, all that can be designated as the invisible currents +of consciences; accepted by the surface, but little in accord with +France lower down; extricating himself by dint of tact; governing too +much and not enough; his own first minister; excellent at creating out +of the pettiness of realities an obstacle to the immensity of ideas; +mingling a genuine creative faculty of civilization, of order and +organization, an indescribable spirit of proceedings and chicanery, the +founder and lawyer of a dynasty; having something of Charlemagne and +something of an attorney; in short, a lofty and original figure, a +prince who understood how to create authority in spite of the uneasiness +of France, and power in spite of the jealousy of Europe. Louis Philippe +will be classed among the eminent men of his century, and would be +ranked among the most illustrious governors of history had he loved +glory but a little, and if he had had the sentiment of what is great to +the same degree as the feeling for what is useful. + +Louis Philippe had been handsome, and in his old age he remained +graceful; not always approved by the nation, he always was so by the +masses; he pleased. He had that gift of charming. He lacked majesty; he +wore no crown, although a king, and no white hair, although an old man; +his manners belonged to the old regime and his habits to the new; a +mixture of the noble and the bourgeois which suited 1830; Louis Philippe +was transition reigning; he had preserved the ancient pronunciation +and the ancient orthography which he placed at the service of opinions +modern; he loved Poland and Hungary, but he wrote les Polonois, and he +pronounced les Hongrais. He wore the uniform of the national guard, like +Charles X., and the ribbon of the Legion of Honor, like Napoleon. + +He went a little to chapel, not at all to the chase, never to the opera. +Incorruptible by sacristans, by whippers-in, by ballet-dancers; this +made a part of his bourgeois popularity. He had no heart. He went out +with his umbrella under his arm, and this umbrella long formed a part of +his aureole. He was a bit of a mason, a bit of a gardener, something +of a doctor; he bled a postilion who had tumbled from his horse; Louis +Philippe no more went about without his lancet, than did Henri IV. +without his poniard. The Royalists jeered at this ridiculous king, the +first who had ever shed blood with the object of healing. + +For the grievances against Louis Philippe, there is one deduction to be +made; there is that which accuses royalty, that which accuses the reign, +that which accuses the King; three columns which all give different +totals. Democratic right confiscated, progress becomes a matter of +secondary interest, the protests of the street violently repressed, +military execution of insurrections, the rising passed over by arms, the +Rue Transnonain, the counsels of war, the absorption of the real +country by the legal country, on half shares with three hundred thousand +privileged persons,--these are the deeds of royalty; Belgium refused, +Algeria too harshly conquered, and, as in the case of India by the +English, with more barbarism than civilization, the breach of faith, to +Abd-el-Kader, Blaye, Deutz bought, Pritchard paid,--these are the doings +of the reign; the policy which was more domestic than national was the +doing of the King. + +As will be seen, the proper deduction having been made, the King's +charge is decreased. + +This is his great fault; he was modest in the name of France. + +Whence arises this fault? + +We will state it. + +Louis Philippe was rather too much of a paternal king; that incubation +of a family with the object of founding a dynasty is afraid of +everything and does not like to be disturbed; hence excessive timidity, +which is displeasing to the people, who have the 14th of July in their +civil and Austerlitz in their military tradition. + +Moreover, if we deduct the public duties which require to be fulfilled +first of all, that deep tenderness of Louis Philippe towards his +family was deserved by the family. That domestic group was worthy of +admiration. Virtues there dwelt side by side with talents. One of Louis +Philippe's daughters, Marie d'Orleans, placed the name of her race among +artists, as Charles d'Orleans had placed it among poets. She made of +her soul a marble which she named Jeanne d'Arc. Two of Louis Philippe's +daughters elicited from Metternich this eulogium: "They are young people +such as are rarely seen, and princes such as are never seen." + +This, without any dissimulation, and also without any exaggeration, is +the truth about Louis Philippe. + +To be Prince Equality, to bear in his own person the contradiction of +the Restoration and the Revolution, to have that disquieting side of the +revolutionary which becomes reassuring in governing power, therein lay +the fortune of Louis Philippe in 1830; never was there a more complete +adaptation of a man to an event; the one entered into the other, and the +incarnation took place. Louis Philippe is 1830 made man. Moreover, he +had in his favor that great recommendation to the throne, exile. He had +been proscribed, a wanderer, poor. He had lived by his own labor. In +Switzerland, this heir to the richest princely domains in France had +sold an old horse in order to obtain bread. At Reichenau, he gave +lessons in mathematics, while his sister Adelaide did wool work and +sewed. These souvenirs connected with a king rendered the bourgeoisie +enthusiastic. He had, with his own hands, demolished the iron cage of +Mont-Saint-Michel, built by Louis XI, and used by Louis XV. He was the +companion of Dumouriez, he was the friend of Lafayette; he had belonged +to the Jacobins' club; Mirabeau had slapped him on the shoulder; Danton +had said to him: "Young man!" At the age of four and twenty, in '93, +being then M. de Chartres, he had witnessed, from the depth of a box, +the trial of Louis XVI., so well named that poor tyrant. The blind +clairvoyance of the Revolution, breaking royalty in the King and the +King with royalty, did so almost without noticing the man in the fierce +crushing of the idea, the vast storm of the Assembly-Tribunal, the +public wrath interrogating, Capet not knowing what to reply, the +alarming, stupefied vacillation by that royal head beneath that sombre +breath, the relative innocence of all in that catastrophe, of those +who condemned as well as of the man condemned,--he had looked on those +things, he had contemplated that giddiness; he had seen the centuries +appear before the bar of the Assembly-Convention; he had beheld, behind +Louis XVI., that unfortunate passer-by who was made responsible, the +terrible culprit, the monarchy, rise through the shadows; and there had +lingered in his soul the respectful fear of these immense justices of +the populace, which are almost as impersonal as the justice of God. + +The trace left in him by the Revolution was prodigious. Its memory was +like a living imprint of those great years, minute by minute. One day, +in the presence of a witness whom we are not permitted to doubt, he +rectified from memory the whole of the letter A in the alphabetical list +of the Constituent Assembly. + +Louis Philippe was a king of the broad daylight. While he reigned the +press was free, the tribune was free, conscience and speech were free. +The laws of September are open to sight. Although fully aware of the +gnawing power of light on privileges, he left his throne exposed to the +light. History will do justice to him for this loyalty. + +Louis Philippe, like all historical men who have passed from the scene, +is to-day put on his trial by the human conscience. His case is, as yet, +only in the lower court. + +The hour when history speaks with its free and venerable accent, has +not yet sounded for him; the moment has not come to pronounce a definite +judgment on this king; the austere and illustrious historian Louis Blanc +has himself recently softened his first verdict; Louis Philippe was +elected by those two almosts which are called the 221 and 1830, that is +to say, by a half-Parliament, and a half-revolution; and in any case, +from the superior point of view where philosophy must place itself, we +cannot judge him here, as the reader has seen above, except with certain +reservations in the name of the absolute democratic principle; in the +eyes of the absolute, outside these two rights, the right of man in the +first place, the right of the people in the second, all is usurpation; +but what we can say, even at the present day, that after making these +reserves is, that to sum up the whole, and in whatever manner he is +considered, Louis Philippe, taken in himself, and from the point of view +of human goodness, will remain, to use the antique language of ancient +history, one of the best princes who ever sat on a throne. + +What is there against him? That throne. Take away Louis Philippe the +king, there remains the man. And the man is good. He is good at times +even to the point of being admirable. Often, in the midst of his gravest +souvenirs, after a day of conflict with the whole diplomacy of the +continent, he returned at night to his apartments, and there, exhausted +with fatigue, overwhelmed with sleep, what did he do? He took a death +sentence and passed the night in revising a criminal suit, considering +it something to hold his own against Europe, but that it was a still +greater matter to rescue a man from the executioner. He obstinately +maintained his opinion against his keeper of the seals; he disputed the +ground with the guillotine foot by foot against the crown attorneys, +those chatterers of the law, as he called them. Sometimes the pile of +sentences covered his table; he examined them all; it was anguish to +him to abandon these miserable, condemned heads. One day, he said to +the same witness to whom we have recently referred: "I won seven last +night." During the early years of his reign, the death penalty was +as good as abolished, and the erection of a scaffold was a violence +committed against the King. The Greve having disappeared with the elder +branch, a bourgeois place of execution was instituted under the name +of the Barriere-Saint-Jacques; "practical men" felt the necessity of +a quasi-legitimate guillotine; and this was one of the victories of +Casimir Perier, who represented the narrow sides of the bourgeoisie, +over Louis Philippe, who represented its liberal sides. Louis Philippe +annotated Beccaria with his own hand. After the Fieschi machine, he +exclaimed: "What a pity that I was not wounded! Then I might have +pardoned!" On another occasion, alluding to the resistance offered by +his ministry, he wrote in connection with a political criminal, who is +one of the most generous figures of our day: "His pardon is granted; it +only remains for me to obtain it." Louis Philippe was as gentle as Louis +IX. and as kindly as Henri IV. + +Now, to our mind, in history, where kindness is the rarest of pearls, +the man who is kindly almost takes precedence of the man who is great. + +Louis Philippe having been severely judged by some, harshly, perhaps, by +others, it is quite natural that a man, himself a phantom at the present +day, who knew that king, should come and testify in his favor before +history; this deposition, whatever else it may be, is evidently and +above all things, entirely disinterested; an epitaph penned by a dead +man is sincere; one shade may console another shade; the sharing of the +same shadows confers the right to praise it; it is not greatly to +be feared that it will ever be said of two tombs in exile: "This one +flattered the other." + + + + +CHAPTER IV--CRACKS BENEATH THE FOUNDATION + +At the moment when the drama which we are narrating is on the point of +penetrating into the depths of one of the tragic clouds which envelop +the beginning of Louis Philippe's reign, it was necessary that there +should be no equivoque, and it became requisite that this book should +offer some explanation with regard to this king. + +Louis Philippe had entered into possession of his royal authority +without violence, without any direct action on his part, by virtue of a +revolutionary change, evidently quite distinct from the real aim of the +Revolution, but in which he, the Duc d'Orleans, exercised no personal +initiative. He had been born a Prince, and he believed himself to have +been elected King. He had not served this mandate on himself; he had not +taken it; it had been offered to him, and he had accepted it; convinced, +wrongly, to be sure, but convinced nevertheless, that the offer was in +accordance with right and that the acceptance of it was in accordance +with duty. Hence his possession was in good faith. Now, we say it in +good conscience, Louis Philippe being in possession in perfect good +faith, and the democracy being in good faith in its attack, the amount +of terror discharged by the social conflicts weighs neither on the +King nor on the democracy. A clash of principles resembles a clash of +elements. The ocean defends the water, the hurricane defends the +air, the King defends Royalty, the democracy defends the people; the +relative, which is the monarchy, resists the absolute, which is the +republic; society bleeds in this conflict, but that which constitutes +its suffering to-day will constitute its safety later on; and, in any +case, those who combat are not to be blamed; one of the two parties is +evidently mistaken; the right is not, like the Colossus of Rhodes, on +two shores at once, with one foot on the republic, and one in Royalty; +it is indivisible, and all on one side; but those who are in error are +so sincerely; a blind man is no more a criminal than a Vendean is a +ruffian. Let us, then, impute to the fatality of things alone these +formidable collisions. Whatever the nature of these tempests may be, +human irresponsibility is mingled with them. + +Let us complete this exposition. + +The government of 1830 led a hard life immediately. Born yesterday, it +was obliged to fight to-day. + +Hardly installed, it was already everywhere conscious of vague movements +of traction on the apparatus of July so recently laid, and so lacking in +solidity. + +Resistance was born on the morrow; perhaps even, it was born on the +preceding evening. From month to month the hostility increased, and from +being concealed it became patent. + +The Revolution of July, which gained but little acceptance outside of +France by kings, had been diversely interpreted in France, as we have +said. + +God delivers over to men his visible will in events, an obscure text +written in a mysterious tongue. Men immediately make translations of it; +translations hasty, incorrect, full of errors, of gaps, and of nonsense. +Very few minds comprehend the divine language. The most sagacious, the +calmest, the most profound, decipher slowly, and when they arrive with +their text, the task has long been completed; there are already twenty +translations on the public place. From each remaining springs a party, +and from each misinterpretation a faction; and each party thinks that it +alone has the true text, and each faction thinks that it possesses the +light. + +Power itself is often a faction. + +There are, in revolutions, swimmers who go against the current; they are +the old parties. + +For the old parties who clung to heredity by the grace of God, think +that revolutions, having sprung from the right to revolt, one has the +right to revolt against them. Error. For in these revolutions, the one +who revolts is not the people; it is the king. Revolution is precisely +the contrary of revolt. Every revolution, being a normal outcome, +contains within itself its legitimacy, which false revolutionists +sometimes dishonor, but which remains even when soiled, which survives +even when stained with blood. + +Revolutions spring not from an accident, but from necessity. A +revolution is a return from the fictitious to the real. It is because it +must be that it is. + +None the less did the old legitimist parties assail the Revolution of +1830 with all the vehemence which arises from false reasoning. Errors +make excellent projectiles. They strike it cleverly in its vulnerable +spot, in default of a cuirass, in its lack of logic; they attacked this +revolution in its royalty. They shouted to it: "Revolution, why this +king?" Factions are blind men who aim correctly. + +This cry was uttered equally by the republicans. But coming from +them, this cry was logical. What was blindness in the legitimists was +clearness of vision in the democrats. 1830 had bankrupted the people. +The enraged democracy reproached it with this. + +Between the attack of the past and the attack of the future, the +establishment of July struggled. It represented the minute at +loggerheads on the one hand with the monarchical centuries, on the other +hand with eternal right. + +In addition, and beside all this, as it was no longer revolution and had +become a monarchy, 1830 was obliged to take precedence of all Europe. To +keep the peace, was an increase of complication. A harmony established +contrary to sense is often more onerous than a war. From this secret +conflict, always muzzled, but always growling, was born armed peace, +that ruinous expedient of civilization which in the harness of the +European cabinets is suspicious in itself. The Royalty of July reared +up, in spite of the fact that it caught it in the harness of European +cabinets. Metternich would gladly have put it in kicking-straps. Pushed +on in France by progress, it pushed on the monarchies, those loiterers +in Europe. After having been towed, it undertook to tow. + +Meanwhile, within her, pauperism, the proletariat, salary, education, +penal servitude, prostitution, the fate of the woman, wealth, misery, +production, consumption, division, exchange, coin, credit, the rights of +capital, the rights of labor,--all these questions were multiplied above +society, a terrible slope. + +Outside of political parties properly so called, another movement became +manifest. Philosophical fermentation replied to democratic fermentation. +The elect felt troubled as well as the masses; in another manner, but +quite as much. + +Thinkers meditated, while the soil, that is to say, the people, +traversed by revolutionary currents, trembled under them with +indescribably vague epileptic shocks. These dreamers, some isolated, +others united in families and almost in communion, turned over social +questions in a pacific but profound manner; impassive miners, who +tranquilly pushed their galleries into the depths of a volcano, hardly +disturbed by the dull commotion and the furnaces of which they caught +glimpses. + +This tranquillity was not the least beautiful spectacle of this agitated +epoch. + +These men left to political parties the question of rights, they +occupied themselves with the question of happiness. + +The well-being of man, that was what they wanted to extract from +society. + +They raised material questions, questions of agriculture, of industry, +of commerce, almost to the dignity of a religion. In civilization, such +as it has formed itself, a little by the command of God, a great deal by +the agency of man, interests combine, unite, and amalgamate in a +manner to form a veritable hard rock, in accordance with a dynamic law, +patiently studied by economists, those geologists of politics. These men +who grouped themselves under different appellations, but who may all be +designated by the generic title of socialists, endeavored to pierce that +rock and to cause it to spout forth the living waters of human felicity. + +From the question of the scaffold to the question of war, their works +embraced everything. To the rights of man, as proclaimed by the French +Revolution, they added the rights of woman and the rights of the child. + +The reader will not be surprised if, for various reasons, we do not +here treat in a thorough manner, from the theoretical point of view, the +questions raised by socialism. We confine ourselves to indicating them. + +All the problems that the socialists proposed to themselves, cosmogonic +visions, revery and mysticism being cast aside, can be reduced to two +principal problems. + +First problem: To produce wealth. + +Second problem: To share it. + +The first problem contains the question of work. + +The second contains the question of salary. + +In the first problem the employment of forces is in question. + +In the second, the distribution of enjoyment. + +From the proper employment of forces results public power. + +From a good distribution of enjoyments results individual happiness. + +By a good distribution, not an equal but an equitable distribution must +be understood. + +From these two things combined, the public power without, individual +happiness within, results social prosperity. + +Social prosperity means the man happy, the citizen free, the nation +great. + +England solves the first of these two problems. She creates wealth +admirably, she divides it badly. This solution which is complete on +one side only leads her fatally to two extremes: monstrous opulence, +monstrous wretchedness. All enjoyments for some, all privations for the +rest, that is to say, for the people; privilege, exception, monopoly, +feudalism, born from toil itself. A false and dangerous situation, which +sates public power or private misery, which sets the roots of the State +in the sufferings of the individual. A badly constituted grandeur in +which are combined all the material elements and into which no moral +element enters. + +Communism and agrarian law think that they solve the second problem. +They are mistaken. Their division kills production. Equal partition +abolishes emulation; and consequently labor. It is a partition made +by the butcher, which kills that which it divides. It is therefore +impossible to pause over these pretended solutions. Slaying wealth is +not the same thing as dividing it. + +The two problems require to be solved together, to be well solved. The +two problems must be combined and made but one. + +Solve only the first of the two problems; you will be Venice, you will +be England. You will have, like Venice, an artificial power, or, like +England, a material power; you will be the wicked rich man. You will die +by an act of violence, as Venice died, or by bankruptcy, as England +will fall. And the world will allow to die and fall all that is merely +selfishness, all that does not represent for the human race either a +virtue or an idea. + +It is well understood here, that by the words Venice, England, we +designate not the peoples, but social structures; the oligarchies +superposed on nations, and not the nations themselves. The nations +always have our respect and our sympathy. Venice, as a people, will live +again; England, the aristocracy, will fall, but England, the nation, is +immortal. That said, we continue. + +Solve the two problems, encourage the wealthy, and protect the poor, +suppress misery, put an end to the unjust farming out of the feeble by +the strong, put a bridle on the iniquitous jealousy of the man who +is making his way against the man who has reached the goal, adjust, +mathematically and fraternally, salary to labor, mingle gratuitous and +compulsory education with the growth of childhood, and make of science +the base of manliness, develop minds while keeping arms busy, be at one +and the same time a powerful people and a family of happy men, render +property democratic, not by abolishing it, but by making it universal, +so that every citizen, without exception, may be a proprietor, an easier +matter than is generally supposed; in two words, learn how to produce +wealth and how to distribute it, and you will have at once moral and +material greatness; and you will be worthy to call yourself France. + +This is what socialism said outside and above a few sects which have +gone astray; that is what it sought in facts, that is what it sketched +out in minds. + +Efforts worthy of admiration! Sacred attempts! + +These doctrines, these theories, these resistances, the unforeseen +necessity for the statesman to take philosophers into account, confused +evidences of which we catch a glimpse, a new system of politics to be +created, which shall be in accord with the old world without too much +disaccord with the new revolutionary ideal, a situation in which it +became necessary to use Lafayette to defend Polignac, the intuition of +progress transparent beneath the revolt, the chambers and streets, the +competitions to be brought into equilibrium around him, his faith in +the Revolution, perhaps an eventual indefinable resignation born of the +vague acceptance of a superior definitive right, his desire to remain of +his race, his domestic spirit, his sincere respect for the people, his +own honesty, preoccupied Louis Philippe almost painfully, and there were +moments when strong and courageous as he was, he was overwhelmed by the +difficulties of being a king. + +He felt under his feet a formidable disaggregation, which was not, +nevertheless, a reduction to dust, France being more France than ever. + +Piles of shadows covered the horizon. A strange shade, gradually drawing +nearer, extended little by little over men, over things, over ideas; +a shade which came from wraths and systems. Everything which had been +hastily stifled was moving and fermenting. At times the conscience of +the honest man resumed its breathing, so great was the discomfort +of that air in which sophisms were intermingled with truths. Spirits +trembled in the social anxiety like leaves at the approach of a storm. +The electric tension was such that at certain instants, the first comer, +a stranger, brought light. Then the twilight obscurity closed in again. +At intervals, deep and dull mutterings allowed a judgment to be formed +as to the quantity of thunder contained by the cloud. + +Twenty months had barely elapsed since the Revolution of July, the year +1832 had opened with an aspect of something impending and threatening. + +The distress of the people, the laborers without bread, the last Prince +de Conde engulfed in the shadows, Brussels expelling the Nassaus as +Paris did the Bourbons, Belgium offering herself to a French Prince +and giving herself to an English Prince, the Russian hatred of Nicolas, +behind us the demons of the South, Ferdinand in Spain, Miguel in +Portugal, the earth quaking in Italy, Metternich extending his hand over +Bologna, France treating Austria sharply at Ancona, at the North no one +knew what sinister sound of the hammer nailing up Poland in her coffin, +irritated glances watching France narrowly all over Europe, England, a +suspected ally, ready to give a push to that which was tottering and to +hurl herself on that which should fall, the peerage sheltering itself +behind Beccaria to refuse four heads to the law, the fleurs-de-lys +erased from the King's carriage, the cross torn from Notre Dame, +Lafayette lessened, Laffitte ruined, Benjamin Constant dead in +indigence, Casimir Perier dead in the exhaustion of his power; political +and social malady breaking out simultaneously in the two capitals of the +kingdom, the one in the city of thought, the other in the city of toil; +at Paris civil war, at Lyons servile war; in the two cities, the same +glare of the furnace; a crater-like crimson on the brow of the people; +the South rendered fanatic, the West troubled, the Duchesse de Berry in +la Vendee, plots, conspiracies, risings, cholera, added the sombre roar +of tumult of events to the sombre roar of ideas. + + + + +CHAPTER V--FACTS WHENCE HISTORY SPRINGS AND WHICH HISTORY IGNORES + +Towards the end of April, everything had become aggravated. The +fermentation entered the boiling state. Ever since 1830, petty partial +revolts had been going on here and there, which were quickly suppressed, +but ever bursting forth afresh, the sign of a vast underlying +conflagration. Something terrible was in preparation. Glimpses could be +caught of the features still indistinct and imperfectly lighted, of a +possible revolution. France kept an eye on Paris; Paris kept an eye on +the Faubourg Saint-Antoine. + +The Faubourg Saint-Antoine, which was in a dull glow, was beginning its +ebullition. + +[Illustration: A Street Orator 4b1-5-street-orator] + +The wine-shops of the Rue de Charonne were, although the union of +the two epithets seems singular when applied to wine-shops, grave and +stormy. + +The government was there purely and simply called in question. There +people publicly discussed the question of fighting or of keeping quiet. +There were back shops where workingmen were made to swear that they +would hasten into the street at the first cry of alarm, and "that they +would fight without counting the number of the enemy." This engagement +once entered into, a man seated in the corner of the wine-shop "assumed +a sonorous tone," and said, "You understand! You have sworn!" + +Sometimes they went up stairs, to a private room on the first floor, +and there scenes that were almost masonic were enacted. They made the +initiated take oaths to render service to himself as well as to the +fathers of families. That was the formula. + +In the tap-rooms, "subversive" pamphlets were read. They treated the +government with contempt, says a secret report of that time. + +Words like the following could be heard there:-- + +"I don't know the names of the leaders. We folks shall not know the day +until two hours beforehand." One workman said: "There are three hundred +of us, let each contribute ten sous, that will make one hundred and +fifty francs with which to procure powder and shot." + +Another said: "I don't ask for six months, I don't ask for even two. +In less than a fortnight we shall be parallel with the government. With +twenty-five thousand men we can face them." Another said: "I don't sleep +at night, because I make cartridges all night." From time to time, +men "of bourgeois appearance, and in good coats" came and "caused +embarrassment," and with the air of "command," shook hands with the most +important, and then went away. They never stayed more than ten minutes. +Significant remarks were exchanged in a low tone: "The plot is ripe, the +matter is arranged." "It was murmured by all who were there," to borrow +the very expression of one of those who were present. The exaltation was +such that one day, a workingman exclaimed, before the whole wine-shop: +"We have no arms!" One of his comrades replied: "The soldiers have!" +thus parodying without being aware of the fact, Bonaparte's proclamation +to the army in Italy: "When they had anything of a more secret nature on +hand," adds one report, "they did not communicate it to each other." It +is not easy to understand what they could conceal after what they said. + +These reunions were sometimes periodical. At certain ones of them, there +were never more than eight or ten persons present, and they were always +the same. In others, any one entered who wished, and the room was +so full that they were forced to stand. Some went thither through +enthusiasm and passion; others because it was on their way to their +work. As during the Revolution, there were patriotic women in some of +these wine-shops who embraced new-comers. + +Other expressive facts came to light. + +A man would enter a shop, drink, and go his way with the remark: +"Wine-merchant, the revolution will pay what is due to you." + +Revolutionary agents were appointed in a wine-shop facing the Rue de +Charonne. The balloting was carried on in their caps. + +Workingmen met at the house of a fencing-master who gave lessons in +the Rue de Cotte. There there was a trophy of arms formed of wooden +broadswords, canes, clubs, and foils. One day, the buttons were removed +from the foils. + +A workman said: "There are twenty-five of us, but they don't count +on me, because I am looked upon as a machine." Later on, that machine +became Quenisset. + +The indefinite things which were brewing gradually acquired a strange +and indescribable notoriety. A woman sweeping off her doorsteps said +to another woman: "For a long time, there has been a strong force busy +making cartridges." In the open street, proclamation could be seen +addressed to the National Guard in the departments. One of these +proclamations was signed: Burtot, wine-merchant. + +One day a man with his beard worn like a collar and with an Italian +accent mounted a stone post at the door of a liquor-seller in the Marche +Lenoir, and read aloud a singular document, which seemed to emanate from +an occult power. Groups formed around him, and applauded. + +The passages which touched the crowd most deeply were collected and +noted down. "--Our doctrines are trammelled, our proclamations torn, our +bill-stickers are spied upon and thrown into prison."--"The breakdown +which has recently taken place in cottons has converted to us many +mediums."--"The future of nations is being worked out in our obscure +ranks."--"Here are the fixed terms: action or reaction, revolution or +counter-revolution. For, at our epoch, we no longer believe either in +inertia or in immobility. For the people against the people, that is the +question. There is no other."--"On the day when we cease to suit you, +break us, but up to that day, help us to march on." All this in broad +daylight. + +Other deeds, more audacious still, were suspicious in the eyes of the +people by reason of their very audacity. On the 4th of April, 1832, a +passer-by mounted the post on the corner which forms the angle of the +Rue Sainte-Marguerite and shouted: "I am a Babouvist!" But beneath +Babeuf, the people scented Gisquet. + +Among other things, this man said:-- + +"Down with property! The opposition of the left is cowardly and +treacherous. When it wants to be on the right side, it preaches +revolution, it is democratic in order to escape being beaten, and +royalist so that it may not have to fight. The republicans are beasts +with feathers. Distrust the republicans, citizens of the laboring +classes." + +"Silence, citizen spy!" cried an artisan. + +This shout put an end to the discourse. + +Mysterious incidents occurred. + +At nightfall, a workingman encountered near the canal a "very well +dressed man," who said to him: "Whither are you bound, citizen?" "Sir," +replied the workingman, "I have not the honor of your acquaintance." "I +know you very well, however." And the man added: "Don't be alarmed, I +am an agent of the committee. You are suspected of not being quite +faithful. You know that if you reveal anything, there is an eye fixed on +you." Then he shook hands with the workingman and went away, saying: "We +shall meet again soon." + +The police, who were on the alert, collected singular dialogues, not +only in the wine-shops, but in the street. + +"Get yourself received very soon," said a weaver to a cabinet-maker. + +"Why?" + +"There is going to be a shot to fire." + +Two ragged pedestrians exchanged these remarkable replies, fraught with +evident Jacquerie:-- + +"Who governs us?" + +"M. Philippe." + +"No, it is the bourgeoisie." + +The reader is mistaken if he thinks that we take the word Jacquerie in a +bad sense. The Jacques were the poor. + +On another occasion two men were heard to say to each other as they +passed by: "We have a good plan of attack." + +Only the following was caught of a private conversation between four men +who were crouching in a ditch of the circle of the Barriere du Trone:-- + +"Everything possible will be done to prevent his walking about Paris any +more." + +Who was the he? Menacing obscurity. + +"The principal leaders," as they said in the faubourg, held themselves +apart. It was supposed that they met for consultation in a wine-shop +near the point Saint-Eustache. A certain Aug--, chief of the Society +aid for tailors, Rue Mondetour, had the reputation of serving as +intermediary central between the leaders and the Faubourg Saint-Antoine. + +Nevertheless, there was always a great deal of mystery about these +leaders, and no certain fact can invalidate the singular arrogance of +this reply made later on by a man accused before the Court of Peers:-- + +"Who was your leader?" + +"I knew of none and I recognized none." + +There was nothing but words, transparent but vague; sometimes idle +reports, rumors, hearsay. Other indications cropped up. + +A carpenter, occupied in nailing boards to a fence around the ground +on which a house was in process of construction, in the Rue de Reuilly +found on that plot the torn fragment of a letter on which were still +legible the following lines:-- + + +The committee must take measures to prevent recruiting in the sections +for the different societies. + + +And, as a postscript:-- + + +We have learned that there are guns in the Rue du Faubourg-Poissonniere, +No. 5 [bis], to the number of five or six thousand, in the house of a +gunsmith in that court. The section owns no arms. + + +What excited the carpenter and caused him to show this thing to his +neighbors was the fact, that a few paces further on he picked up another +paper, torn like the first, and still more significant, of which we +reproduce a facsimile, because of the historical interest attaching to +these strange documents:-- + +[Illustration: Code Table 4b1-5 page 26] + + +------------------------------------------------------------+ + | Q | C | D | E | Learn this list by heart. After so doing + | | | | | | you will tear it up. The men admitted + | | | | | | will do the same when you have transmitted + | | | | | | their orders to them. + | | | | | | Health and Fraternity, + | | | | | | u og a fe L. | + +------------------------------------------------------------+ + +It was only later on that the persons who were in the secret of this +find at the time, learned the significance of those four capital +letters: quinturions, centurions, decurions, eclaireurs [scouts], and +the sense of the letters: u og a fe, which was a date, and meant April +15th, 1832. Under each capital letter were inscribed names followed by +very characteristic notes. Thus: Q. Bannerel. 8 guns, 83 cartridges. A +safe man.--C. Boubiere. 1 pistol, 40 cartridges.--D. Rollet. 1 foil, +1 pistol, 1 pound of powder.--E. Tessier. 1 sword, 1 cartridge-box. +Exact.--Terreur. 8 guns. Brave, etc. + +Finally, this carpenter found, still in the same enclosure, a third +paper on which was written in pencil, but very legibly, this sort of +enigmatical list:-- + + Unite: Blanchard: Arbre-Sec. 6. + Barra. Soize. Salle-au-Comte. + Kosciusko. Aubry the Butcher? + J. J. R. + Caius Gracchus. + Right of revision. Dufond. Four. + Fall of the Girondists. Derbac. Maubuee. + Washington. Pinson. 1 pistol, 86 cartridges. + Marseillaise. + Sovereignty of the people. Michel. Quincampoix. Sword. + Hoche. + Marceau. Plato. Arbre-Sec. + Warsaw. Tilly, crier of the Populaire. + + +The honest bourgeois into whose hands this list fell knew its +significance. It appears that this list was the complete nomenclature of +the sections of the fourth arondissement of the Society of the Rights +of Man, with the names and dwellings of the chiefs of sections. To-day, +when all these facts which were obscure are nothing more than history, +we may publish them. It should be added, that the foundation of the +Society of the Rights of Man seems to have been posterior to the date +when this paper was found. Perhaps this was only a rough draft. + +Still, according to all the remarks and the words, according to written +notes, material facts begin to make their appearance. + +In the Rue Popincourt, in the house of a dealer in bric-abrac, there +were seized seven sheets of gray paper, all folded alike lengthwise +and in four; these sheets enclosed twenty-six squares of this same +gray paper folded in the form of a cartridge, and a card, on which was +written the following:-- + + Saltpetre . . . . . . . . . . . 12 ounces. + Sulphur . . . . . . . . . . . 2 ounces. + Charcoal . . . . . . . . . . . 2 ounces and a half. + Water . . . . . . . . . . . 2 ounces. + + +The report of the seizure stated that the drawer exhaled a strong smell +of powder. + +A mason returning from his day's work, left behind him a little package +on a bench near the bridge of Austerlitz. This package was taken to +the police station. It was opened, and in it were found two printed +dialogues, signed Lahautiere, a song entitled: "Workmen, band together," +and a tin box full of cartridges. + +One artisan drinking with a comrade made the latter feel him to see how +warm he was; the other man felt a pistol under his waistcoat. + +In a ditch on the boulevard, between Pere-Lachaise and the Barriere +du Trone, at the most deserted spot, some children, while playing, +discovered beneath a mass of shavings and refuse bits of wood, a +bag containing a bullet-mould, a wooden punch for the preparation of +cartridges, a wooden bowl, in which there were grains of hunting-powder, +and a little cast-iron pot whose interior presented evident traces of +melted lead. + +Police agents, making their way suddenly and unexpectedly at five +o'clock in the morning, into the dwelling of a certain Pardon, who +was afterwards a member of the Barricade-Merry section and got himself +killed in the insurrection of April, 1834, found him standing near his +bed, and holding in his hand some cartridges which he was in the act of +preparing. + +Towards the hour when workingmen repose, two men were seen to meet +between the Barriere Picpus and the Barriere Charenton in a little lane +between two walls, near a wine-shop, in front of which there was a "Jeu +de Siam."[33] One drew a pistol from beneath his blouse and handed it to +the other. As he was handing it to him, he noticed that the perspiration +of his chest had made the powder damp. He primed the pistol and added +more powder to what was already in the pan. Then the two men parted. + +A certain Gallais, afterwards killed in the Rue Beaubourg in the affair +of April, boasted of having in his house seven hundred cartridges and +twenty-four flints. + +The government one day received a warning that arms and two hundred +thousand cartridges had just been distributed in the faubourg. On +the following week thirty thousand cartridges were distributed. The +remarkable point about it was, that the police were not able to seize a +single one. + +An intercepted letter read: "The day is not far distant when, within +four hours by the clock, eighty thousand patriots will be under arms." + +All this fermentation was public, one might almost say tranquil. The +approaching insurrection was preparing its storm calmly in the face of +the government. No singularity was lacking to this still subterranean +crisis, which was already perceptible. The bourgeois talked peaceably to +the working-classes of what was in preparation. They said: "How is the +rising coming along?" in the same tone in which they would have said: +"How is your wife?" + +A furniture-dealer, of the Rue Moreau, inquired: "Well, when are you +going to make the attack?" + +Another shop-keeper said:-- + +"The attack will be made soon." + +"I know it. A month ago, there were fifteen thousand of you, now there +are twenty-five thousand." He offered his gun, and a neighbor offered a +small pistol which he was willing to sell for seven francs. + +Moreover, the revolutionary fever was growing. Not a point in Paris nor +in France was exempt from it. The artery was beating everywhere. Like +those membranes which arise from certain inflammations and form in the +human body, the network of secret societies began to spread all over the +country. From the associations of the Friends of the People, which was +at the same time public and secret, sprang the Society of the Rights of +Man, which also dated from one of the orders of the day: Pluviose, Year +40 of the republican era, which was destined to survive even the mandate +of the Court of Assizes which pronounced its dissolution, and which +did not hesitate to bestow on its sections significant names like the +following:-- + + Pikes. + Tocsin. + Signal cannon. + Phrygian cap. + January 21. + The beggars. + The vagabonds. + Forward march. + Robespierre. + Level. + Ca Ira. + +The Society of the Rights of Man engendered the Society of Action. These +were impatient individuals who broke away and hastened ahead. Other +associations sought to recruit themselves from the great mother +societies. The members of sections complained that they were torn +asunder. Thus, the Gallic Society, and the committee of organization of +the Municipalities. Thus the associations for the liberty of the press, +for individual liberty, for the instruction of the people against +indirect taxes. Then the Society of Equal Workingmen which was divided +into three fractions, the levellers, the communists, the reformers. +Then the Army of the Bastilles, a sort of cohort organized on a military +footing, four men commanded by a corporal, ten by a sergeant, twenty by +a sub-lieutenant, forty by a lieutenant; there were never more than +five men who knew each other. Creation where precaution is combined with +audacity and which seemed stamped with the genius of Venice. + +The central committee, which was at the head, had two arms, the Society +of Action, and the Army of the Bastilles. + +A legitimist association, the Chevaliers of Fidelity, stirred about +among these the republican affiliations. It was denounced and repudiated +there. + +The Parisian societies had ramifications in the principal cities, Lyons, +Nantes, Lille, Marseilles, and each had its Society of the Rights of +Man, the Charbonniere, and The Free Men. All had a revolutionary society +which was called the Cougourde. We have already mentioned this word. + +In Paris, the Faubourg Saint-Marceau kept up an equal buzzing with the +Faubourg Saint-Antoine, and the schools were no less moved than the +faubourgs. A cafe in the Rue Saint-Hyacinthe and the wine-shop of the +Seven Billiards, Rue des Mathurins-Saint-Jacques, served as rallying +points for the students. The Society of the Friends of the A B C +affiliated to the Mutualists of Angers, and to the Cougourde of Aix, +met, as we have seen, in the Cafe Musain. These same young men assembled +also, as we have stated already, in a restaurant wine-shop of the Rue +Mondetour which was called Corinthe. These meetings were secret. Others +were as public as possible, and the reader can judge of their boldness +from these fragments of an interrogatory undergone in one of the +ulterior prosecutions: "Where was this meeting held?" "In the Rue de la +Paix." "At whose house?" "In the street." "What sections were there?" +"Only one." "Which?" "The Manuel section." "Who was its leader?" +"I." "You are too young to have decided alone upon the bold course of +attacking the government. Where did your instructions come from?" "From +the central committee." + +The army was mined at the same time as the population, as was proved +subsequently by the operations of Beford, Luneville, and Epinard. They +counted on the fifty-second regiment, on the fifth, on the eighth, on +the thirty-seventh, and on the twentieth light cavalry. In Burgundy and +in the southern towns they planted the liberty tree; that is to say, a +pole surmounted by a red cap. + +Such was the situation. + +The Faubourg Saint-Antoine, more than any other group of the population, +as we stated in the beginning, accentuated this situation and made +it felt. That was the sore point. This old faubourg, peopled like +an ant-hill, laborious, courageous, and angry as a hive of bees, was +quivering with expectation and with the desire for a tumult. Everything +was in a state of agitation there, without any interruption, however, of +the regular work. It is impossible to convey an idea of this lively yet +sombre physiognomy. In this faubourg exists poignant distress hidden +under attic roofs; there also exist rare and ardent minds. It is +particularly in the matter of distress and intelligence that it is +dangerous to have extremes meet. + +The Faubourg Saint-Antoine had also other causes to tremble; for it +received the counter-shock of commercial crises, of failures, strikes, +slack seasons, all inherent to great political disturbances. In times +of revolution misery is both cause and effect. The blow which it deals +rebounds upon it. This population full of proud virtue, capable to the +highest degree of latent heat, always ready to fly to arms, prompt to +explode, irritated, deep, undermined, seemed to be only awaiting the +fall of a spark. Whenever certain sparks float on the horizon chased +by the wind of events, it is impossible not to think of the Faubourg +Saint-Antoine and of the formidable chance which has placed at the very +gates of Paris that powder-house of suffering and ideas. + +The wine-shops of the Faubourg Antoine, which have been more than +once drawn in the sketches which the reader has just perused, possess +historical notoriety. In troublous times people grow intoxicated there +more on words than on wine. A sort of prophetic spirit and an afflatus +of the future circulates there, swelling hearts and enlarging souls. The +cabarets of the Faubourg Saint-Antoine resemble those taverns of Mont +Aventine erected on the cave of the Sibyl and communicating with +the profound and sacred breath; taverns where the tables were almost +tripods, and where was drunk what Ennius calls the sibylline wine. + +The Faubourg Saint-Antoine is a reservoir of people. Revolutionary +agitations create fissures there, through which trickles the popular +sovereignty. This sovereignty may do evil; it can be mistaken like any +other; but, even when led astray, it remains great. We may say of it as +of the blind cyclops, Ingens. + +In '93, according as the idea which was floating about was good or evil, +according as it was the day of fanaticism or of enthusiasm, there leaped +forth from the Faubourg Saint-Antoine now savage legions, now heroic +bands. + +Savage. Let us explain this word. When these bristling men, who in the +early days of the revolutionary chaos, tattered, howling, wild, with +uplifted bludgeon, pike on high, hurled themselves upon ancient Paris in +an uproar, what did they want? They wanted an end to oppression, an +end to tyranny, an end to the sword, work for men, instruction for the +child, social sweetness for the woman, liberty, equality, fraternity, +bread for all, the idea for all, the Edenizing of the world. Progress; +and that holy, sweet, and good thing, progress, they claimed in terrible +wise, driven to extremities as they were, half naked, club in fist, +a roar in their mouths. They were savages, yes; but the savages of +civilization. + +They proclaimed right furiously; they were desirous, if only with +fear and trembling, to force the human race to paradise. They seemed +barbarians, and they were saviours. They demanded light with the mask of +night. + +Facing these men, who were ferocious, we admit, and terrifying, but +ferocious and terrifying for good ends, there are other men, smiling, +embroidered, gilded, beribboned, starred, in silk stockings, in white +plumes, in yellow gloves, in varnished shoes, who, with their elbows on +a velvet table, beside a marble chimney-piece, insist gently on demeanor +and the preservation of the past, of the Middle Ages, of divine right, +of fanaticism, of innocence, of slavery, of the death penalty, of war, +glorifying in low tones and with politeness, the sword, the stake, and +the scaffold. For our part, if we were forced to make a choice between +the barbarians of civilization and the civilized men of barbarism, we +should choose the barbarians. + +But, thank Heaven, still another choice is possible. No perpendicular +fall is necessary, in front any more than in the rear. + +Neither despotism nor terrorism. We desire progress with a gentle slope. + +God takes care of that. God's whole policy consists in rendering slopes +less steep. + + + + +CHAPTER VI--ENJOLRAS AND HIS LIEUTENANTS + +It was about this epoch that Enjolras, in view of a possible +catastrophe, instituted a kind of mysterious census. + +All were present at a secret meeting at the Cafe Musain. + +Enjolras said, mixing his words with a few half-enigmatical but +significant metaphors:-- + +"It is proper that we should know where we stand and on whom we may +count. If combatants are required, they must be provided. It can do no +harm to have something with which to strike. Passers-by always have more +chance of being gored when there are bulls on the road than when there +are none. Let us, therefore, reckon a little on the herd. How many of us +are there? There is no question of postponing this task until to-morrow. +Revolutionists should always be hurried; progress has no time to lose. +Let us mistrust the unexpected. Let us not be caught unprepared. We must +go over all the seams that we have made and see whether they hold fast. +This business ought to be concluded to-day. Courfeyrac, you will see the +polytechnic students. It is their day to go out. To-day is Wednesday. +Feuilly, you will see those of the Glaciere, will you not? Combeferre +has promised me to go to Picpus. There is a perfect swarm and an +excellent one there. Bahorel will visit the Estrapade. Prouvaire, the +masons are growing lukewarm; you will bring us news from the lodge of +the Rue de Grenelle-Saint-Honore. Joly will go to Dupuytren's clinical +lecture, and feel the pulse of the medical school. Bossuet will take a +little turn in the court and talk with the young law licentiates. I will +take charge of the Cougourde myself." + +"That arranges everything," said Courfeyrac. + +"No." + +"What else is there?" + +"A very important thing." + +"What is that?" asked Courfeyrac. + +"The Barriere du Maine," replied Enjolras. + +Enjolras remained for a moment as though absorbed in reflection, then he +resumed:-- + +"At the Barriere du Maine there are marble-workers, painters, and +journeymen in the studios of sculptors. They are an enthusiastic family, +but liable to cool off. I don't know what has been the matter with +them for some time past. They are thinking of something else. They are +becoming extinguished. They pass their time playing dominoes. There is +urgent need that some one should go and talk with them a little, but +with firmness. They meet at Richefeu's. They are to be found there +between twelve and one o'clock. Those ashes must be fanned into a glow. +For that errand I had counted on that abstracted Marius, who is a good +fellow on the whole, but he no longer comes to us. I need some one for +the Barriere du Maine. I have no one." + +"What about me?" said Grantaire. "Here am I." + +"You?" + +"I." + +"You indoctrinate republicans! you warm up hearts that have grown cold +in the name of principle!" + +"Why not?" + +"Are you good for anything?" + +"I have a vague ambition in that direction," said Grantaire. + +"You do not believe in everything." + +"I believe in you." + +"Grantaire will you do me a service?" + +"Anything. I'll black your boots." + +"Well, don't meddle with our affairs. Sleep yourself sober from your +absinthe." + +"You are an ingrate, Enjolras." + +"You the man to go to the Barriere du Maine! You capable of it!" + +"I am capable of descending the Rue de Gres, of crossing the Place +Saint-Michel, of sloping through the Rue Monsieur-le-Prince, of taking +the Rue de Vaugirard, of passing the Carmelites, of turning into the Rue +d'Assas, of reaching the Rue du Cherche-Midi, of leaving behind me the +Conseil de Guerre, of pacing the Rue des Vielles Tuileries, of striding +across the boulevard, of following the Chaussee du Maine, of passing +the barrier, and entering Richefeu's. I am capable of that. My shoes are +capable of that." + +"Do you know anything of those comrades who meet at Richefeu's?" + +"Not much. We only address each other as thou." + +"What will you say to them?" + +"I will speak to them of Robespierre, pardi! Of Danton. Of principles." + +"You?" + +"I. But I don't receive justice. When I set about it, I am terrible. I +have read Prudhomme, I know the Social Contract, I know my constitution +of the year Two by heart. 'The liberty of one citizen ends where the +liberty of another citizen begins.' Do you take me for a brute? I have +an old bank-bill of the Republic in my drawer. The Rights of Man, the +sovereignty of the people, sapristi! I am even a bit of a Hebertist. I +can talk the most superb twaddle for six hours by the clock, watch in +hand." + +"Be serious," said Enjolras. + +"I am wild," replied Grantaire. + +Enjolras meditated for a few moments, and made the gesture of a man who +has taken a resolution. + +"Grantaire," he said gravely, "I consent to try you. You shall go to the +Barriere du Maine." + +Grantaire lived in furnished lodgings very near the Cafe Musain. He went +out, and five minutes later he returned. He had gone home to put on a +Robespierre waistcoat. + +"Red," said he as he entered, and he looked intently at Enjolras. Then, +with the palm of his energetic hand, he laid the two scarlet points of +the waistcoat across his breast. + +And stepping up to Enjolras, he whispered in his ear:-- + +"Be easy." + +He jammed his hat on resolutely and departed. + +A quarter of an hour later, the back room of the Cafe Musain was +deserted. All the friends of the A B C were gone, each in his own +direction, each to his own task. Enjolras, who had reserved the +Cougourde of Aix for himself, was the last to leave. + +Those members of the Cougourde of Aix who were in Paris then met on the +plain of Issy, in one of the abandoned quarries which are so numerous in +that side of Paris. + +As Enjolras walked towards this place, he passed the whole situation +in review in his own mind. The gravity of events was self-evident. When +facts, the premonitory symptoms of latent social malady, move heavily, +the slightest complication stops and entangles them. A phenomenon whence +arises ruin and new births. Enjolras descried a luminous uplifting +beneath the gloomy skirts of the future. Who knows? Perhaps the moment +was at hand. The people were again taking possession of right, and +what a fine spectacle! The revolution was again majestically taking +possession of France and saying to the world: "The sequel to-morrow!" +Enjolras was content. The furnace was being heated. He had at that +moment a powder train of friends scattered all over Paris. He composed, +in his own mind, with Combeferre's philosophical and penetrating +eloquence, Feuilly's cosmopolitan enthusiasm, Courfeyrac's dash, +Bahorel's smile, Jean Prouvaire's melancholy, Joly's science, Bossuet's +sarcasms, a sort of electric spark which took fire nearly everywhere at +once. All hands to work. Surely, the result would answer to the effort. +This was well. This made him think of Grantaire. + +"Hold," said he to himself, "the Barriere du Maine will not take me far +out of my way. What if I were to go on as far as Richefeu's? Let us have +a look at what Grantaire is about, and see how he is getting on." + +One o'clock was striking from the Vaugirard steeple when Enjolras +reached the Richefeu smoking-room. + +He pushed open the door, entered, folded his arms, letting the door fall +to and strike his shoulders, and gazed at that room filled with tables, +men, and smoke. + +A voice broke forth from the mist of smoke, interrupted by another +voice. It was Grantaire holding a dialogue with an adversary. + +Grantaire was sitting opposite another figure, at a marble Saint-Anne +table, strewn with grains of bran and dotted with dominos. He was +hammering the table with his fist, and this is what Enjolras heard:-- + +"Double-six." + +"Fours." + +"The pig! I have no more." + +"You are dead. A two." + +"Six." + +"Three." + +"One." + +"It's my move." + +"Four points." + +"Not much." + +"It's your turn." + +"I have made an enormous mistake." + +"You are doing well." + +"Fifteen." + +"Seven more." + +"That makes me twenty-two." [Thoughtfully, "Twenty-two!"] + +"You weren't expecting that double-six. If I had placed it at the +beginning, the whole play would have been changed." + +"A two again." + +"One." + +"One! Well, five." + +"I haven't any." + +"It was your play, I believe?" + +"Yes." + +"Blank." + +"What luck he has! Ah! You are lucky! [Long revery.] Two." + +"One." + +"Neither five nor one. That's bad for you." + +"Domino." + +"Plague take it!" + + + + +BOOK SECOND.--EPONINE + + + + +CHAPTER I--THE LARK'S MEADOW + +Marius had witnessed the unexpected termination of the ambush upon whose +track he had set Javert; but Javert had no sooner quitted the building, +bearing off his prisoners in three hackney-coaches, than Marius also +glided out of the house. It was only nine o'clock in the evening. Marius +betook himself to Courfeyrac. Courfeyrac was no longer the imperturbable +inhabitant of the Latin Quarter, he had gone to live in the Rue de la +Verrerie "for political reasons"; this quarter was one where, at that +epoch, insurrection liked to install itself. Marius said to Courfeyrac: +"I have come to sleep with you." Courfeyrac dragged a mattress off his +bed, which was furnished with two, spread it out on the floor, and said: +"There." + +At seven o'clock on the following morning, Marius returned to the hovel, +paid the quarter's rent which he owed to Ma'am Bougon, had his books, +his bed, his table, his commode, and his two chairs loaded on a +hand-cart and went off without leaving his address, so that when Javert +returned in the course of the morning, for the purpose of questioning +Marius as to the events of the preceding evening, he found only Ma'am +Bougon, who answered: "Moved away!" + +Ma'am Bougon was convinced that Marius was to some extent an accomplice +of the robbers who had been seized the night before. "Who would ever +have said it?" she exclaimed to the portresses of the quarter, "a young +man like that, who had the air of a girl!" + +Marius had two reasons for this prompt change of residence. The first +was, that he now had a horror of that house, where he had beheld, so +close at hand, and in its most repulsive and most ferocious development, +a social deformity which is, perhaps, even more terrible than the wicked +rich man, the wicked poor man. The second was, that he did not wish +to figure in the lawsuit which would insue in all probability, and be +brought in to testify against Thenardier. + +Javert thought that the young man, whose name he had forgotten, was +afraid, and had fled, or perhaps, had not even returned home at the time +of the ambush; he made some efforts to find him, however, but without +success. + +A month passed, then another. Marius was still with Courfeyrac. He had +learned from a young licentiate in law, an habitual frequenter of the +courts, that Thenardier was in close confinement. Every Monday, +Marius had five francs handed in to the clerk's office of La Force for +Thenardier. + +As Marius had no longer any money, he borrowed the five francs from +Courfeyrac. It was the first time in his life that he had ever borrowed +money. These periodical five francs were a double riddle to Courfeyrac +who lent and to Thenardier who received them. "To whom can they go?" +thought Courfeyrac. "Whence can this come to me?" Thenardier asked +himself. + +Moreover, Marius was heart-broken. Everything had plunged through a +trap-door once more. He no longer saw anything before him; his life +was again buried in mystery where he wandered fumblingly. He had for a +moment beheld very close at hand, in that obscurity, the young girl whom +he loved, the old man who seemed to be her father, those unknown beings, +who were his only interest and his only hope in this world; and, at the +very moment when he thought himself on the point of grasping them, a +gust had swept all these shadows away. Not a spark of certainty and +truth had been emitted even in the most terrible of collisions. No +conjecture was possible. He no longer knew even the name that he thought +he knew. It certainly was not Ursule. And the Lark was a nickname. And +what was he to think of the old man? Was he actually in hiding from +the police? The white-haired workman whom Marius had encountered in the +vicinity of the Invalides recurred to his mind. It now seemed probable +that that workingman and M. Leblanc were one and the same person. So he +disguised himself? That man had his heroic and his equivocal sides. Why +had he not called for help? Why had he fled? Was he, or was he not, +the father of the young girl? Was he, in short, the man whom Thenardier +thought that he recognized? Thenardier might have been mistaken. These +formed so many insoluble problems. All this, it is true, detracted +nothing from the angelic charms of the young girl of the Luxembourg. +Heart-rending distress; Marius bore a passion in his heart, and night +over his eyes. He was thrust onward, he was drawn, and he could not +stir. All had vanished, save love. Of love itself he had lost the +instincts and the sudden illuminations. Ordinarily, this flame which +burns us lights us also a little, and casts some useful gleams without. +But Marius no longer even heard these mute counsels of passion. He never +said to himself: "What if I were to go to such a place? What if I were +to try such and such a thing?" The girl whom he could no longer call +Ursule was evidently somewhere; nothing warned Marius in what direction +he should seek her. His whole life was now summed up in two words; +absolute uncertainty within an impenetrable fog. To see her once again; +he still aspired to this, but he no longer expected it. + +To crown all, his poverty had returned. He felt that icy breath close to +him, on his heels. In the midst of his torments, and long before +this, he had discontinued his work, and nothing is more dangerous than +discontinued work; it is a habit which vanishes. A habit which is easy +to get rid of, and difficult to take up again. + +A certain amount of dreaming is good, like a narcotic in discreet doses. +It lulls to sleep the fevers of the mind at labor, which are sometimes +severe, and produces in the spirit a soft and fresh vapor which corrects +the over-harsh contours of pure thought, fills in gaps here and there, +binds together and rounds off the angles of the ideas. But too much +dreaming sinks and drowns. Woe to the brain-worker who allows himself to +fall entirely from thought into revery! He thinks that he can re-ascend +with equal ease, and he tells himself that, after all, it is the same +thing. Error! + +Thought is the toil of the intelligence, revery its voluptuousness. To +replace thought with revery is to confound a poison with a food. + +Marius had begun in that way, as the reader will remember. Passion had +supervened and had finished the work of precipitating him into chimaeras +without object or bottom. One no longer emerges from one's self except +for the purpose of going off to dream. Idle production. Tumultuous and +stagnant gulf. And, in proportion as labor diminishes, needs increase. +This is a law. Man, in a state of revery, is generally prodigal and +slack; the unstrung mind cannot hold life within close bounds. + +There is, in that mode of life, good mingled with evil, for if +enervation is baleful, generosity is good and healthful. But the poor +man who is generous and noble, and who does not work, is lost. Resources +are exhausted, needs crop up. + +Fatal declivity down which the most honest and the firmest as well as +the most feeble and most vicious are drawn, and which ends in one of two +holds, suicide or crime. + +By dint of going outdoors to think, the day comes when one goes out to +throw one's self in the water. + +Excess of revery breeds men like Escousse and Lebras. + +Marius was descending this declivity at a slow pace, with his eyes +fixed on the girl whom he no longer saw. What we have just written seems +strange, and yet it is true. The memory of an absent being kindles in +the darkness of the heart; the more it has disappeared, the more it +beams; the gloomy and despairing soul sees this light on its horizon; +the star of the inner night. She--that was Marius' whole thought. He +meditated of nothing else; he was confusedly conscious that his old coat +was becoming an impossible coat, and that his new coat was growing old, +that his shirts were wearing out, that his hat was wearing out, that his +boots were giving out, and he said to himself: "If I could but see her +once again before I die!" + +One sweet idea alone was left to him, that she had loved him, that her +glance had told him so, that she did not know his name, but that she did +know his soul, and that, wherever she was, however mysterious the place, +she still loved him perhaps. Who knows whether she were not thinking of +him as he was thinking of her? Sometimes, in those inexplicable hours +such as are experienced by every heart that loves, though he had no +reasons for anything but sadness and yet felt an obscure quiver of joy, +he said to himself: "It is her thoughts that are coming to me!" Then he +added: "Perhaps my thoughts reach her also." + +This illusion, at which he shook his head a moment later, was +sufficient, nevertheless, to throw beams, which at times resembled hope, +into his soul. From time to time, especially at that evening hour which +is the most depressing to even the dreamy, he allowed the purest, the +most impersonal, the most ideal of the reveries which filled his brain, +to fall upon a notebook which contained nothing else. He called this +"writing to her." + +It must not be supposed that his reason was deranged. Quite the +contrary. He had lost the faculty of working and of moving firmly +towards any fixed goal, but he was endowed with more clear-sightedness +and rectitude than ever. Marius surveyed by a calm and real, although +peculiar light, what passed before his eyes, even the most indifferent +deeds and men; he pronounced a just criticism on everything with a sort +of honest dejection and candid disinterestedness. His judgment, which +was almost wholly disassociated from hope, held itself aloof and soared +on high. + +In this state of mind nothing escaped him, nothing deceived him, and +every moment he was discovering the foundation of life, of humanity, and +of destiny. Happy, even in the midst of anguish, is he to whom God has +given a soul worthy of love and of unhappiness! He who has not viewed +the things of this world and the heart of man under this double light +has seen nothing and knows nothing of the true. + +The soul which loves and suffers is in a state of sublimity. + +However, day followed day, and nothing new presented itself. It +merely seemed to him, that the sombre space which still remained to be +traversed by him was growing shorter with every instant. He thought that +he already distinctly perceived the brink of the bottomless abyss. + +"What!" he repeated to himself, "shall I not see her again before then!" + +When you have ascended the Rue Saint-Jacques, left the barrier on one +side and followed the old inner boulevard for some distance, you reach +the Rue de la Sante, then the Glaciere, and, a little while before +arriving at the little river of the Gobelins, you come to a sort of +field which is the only spot in the long and monotonous chain of the +boulevards of Paris, where Ruysdeel would be tempted to sit down. + +There is something indescribable there which exhales grace, a green +meadow traversed by tightly stretched lines, from which flutter rags +drying in the wind, and an old market-gardener's house, built in the +time of Louis XIII., with its great roof oddly pierced with dormer +windows, dilapidated palisades, a little water amid poplar-trees, +women, voices, laughter; on the horizon the Pantheon, the pole of +the Deaf-Mutes, the Val-de-Grace, black, squat, fantastic, amusing, +magnificent, and in the background, the severe square crests of the +towers of Notre Dame. + +As the place is worth looking at, no one goes thither. Hardly one cart +or wagoner passes in a quarter of an hour. + +It chanced that Marius' solitary strolls led him to this plot of +ground, near the water. That day, there was a rarity on the boulevard, +a passer-by. Marius, vaguely impressed with the almost savage beauty of +the place, asked this passer-by:--"What is the name of this spot?" + +The person replied: "It is the Lark's meadow." + +And he added: "It was here that Ulbach killed the shepherdess of Ivry." + +But after the word "Lark" Marius heard nothing more. These sudden +congealments in the state of revery, which a single word suffices to +evoke, do occur. The entire thought is abruptly condensed around an +idea, and it is no longer capable of perceiving anything else. + +The Lark was the appellation which had replaced Ursule in the depths of +Marius' melancholy.--"Stop," said he with a sort of unreasoning stupor +peculiar to these mysterious asides, "this is her meadow. I shall know +where she lives now." + +It was absurd, but irresistible. + +And every day he returned to that meadow of the Lark. + + + + +CHAPTER II--EMBRYONIC FORMATION OF CRIMES IN THE INCUBATION OF PRISONS + +Javert's triumph in the Gorbeau hovel seemed complete, but had not been +so. + +In the first place, and this constituted the principal anxiety, Javert +had not taken the prisoner prisoner. The assassinated man who flees +is more suspicious than the assassin, and it is probable that this +personage, who had been so precious a capture for the ruffians, would be +no less fine a prize for the authorities. + +And then, Montparnasse had escaped Javert. + +Another opportunity of laying hands on that "devil's dandy" must be +waited for. Montparnasse had, in fact, encountered Eponine as she stood +on the watch under the trees of the boulevard, and had led her off, +preferring to play Nemorin with the daughter rather than Schinderhannes +with the father. It was well that he did so. He was free. As for +Eponine, Javert had caused her to be seized; a mediocre consolation. +Eponine had joined Azelma at Les Madelonettes. + +And finally, on the way from the Gorbeau house to La Force, one of the +principal prisoners, Claquesous, had been lost. It was not known how +this had been effected, the police agents and the sergeants "could +not understand it at all." He had converted himself into vapor, he had +slipped through the handcuffs, he had trickled through the crevices of +the carriage, the fiacre was cracked, and he had fled; all that they +were able to say was, that on arriving at the prison, there was no +Claquesous. Either the fairies or the police had had a hand in it. Had +Claquesous melted into the shadows like a snow-flake in water? Had there +been unavowed connivance of the police agents? Did this man belong +to the double enigma of order and disorder? Was he concentric with +infraction and repression? Had this sphinx his fore paws in crime and +his hind paws in authority? Javert did not accept such comminations, and +would have bristled up against such compromises; but his squad included +other inspectors besides himself, who were more initiated than he, +perhaps, although they were his subordinates in the secrets of the +Prefecture, and Claquesous had been such a villain that he might make +a very good agent. It is an excellent thing for ruffianism and an +admirable thing for the police to be on such intimate juggling terms +with the night. These double-edged rascals do exist. However that may +be, Claquesous had gone astray and was not found again. Javert appeared +to be more irritated than amazed at this. + +As for Marius, "that booby of a lawyer," who had probably become +frightened, and whose name Javert had forgotten, Javert attached very +little importance to him. Moreover, a lawyer can be hunted up at any +time. But was he a lawyer after all? + +The investigation had begun. + +The magistrate had thought it advisable not to put one of these men of +the band of Patron Minette in close confinement, in the hope that he +would chatter. This man was Brujon, the long-haired man of the Rue du +Petit-Banquier. He had been let loose in the Charlemagne courtyard, and +the eyes of the watchers were fixed on him. + +This name of Brujon is one of the souvenirs of La Force. In that hideous +courtyard, called the court of the Batiment-Neuf (New Building), which +the administration called the court Saint-Bernard, and which the robbers +called the Fosseaux-Lions (The Lion's Ditch), on that wall covered with +scales and leprosy, which rose on the left to a level with the roofs, +near an old door of rusty iron which led to the ancient chapel of the +ducal residence of La Force, then turned in a dormitory for ruffians, +there could still be seen, twelve years ago, a sort of fortress roughly +carved in the stone with a nail, and beneath it this signature:-- + + BRUJON, 1811. + + +The Brujon of 1811 was the father of the Brujon of 1832. + +The latter, of whom the reader caught but a glimpse at the Gorbeau +house, was a very cunning and very adroit young spark, with a bewildered +and plaintive air. It was in consequence of this plaintive air that the +magistrate had released him, thinking him more useful in the Charlemagne +yard than in close confinement. + +Robbers do not interrupt their profession because they are in the hands +of justice. They do not let themselves be put out by such a trifle as +that. To be in prison for one crime is no reason for not beginning on +another crime. They are artists, who have one picture in the salon, and +who toil, none the less, on a new work in their studios. + +Brujon seemed to be stupefied by prison. He could sometimes be seen +standing by the hour together in front of the sutler's window in the +Charlemagne yard, staring like an idiot at the sordid list of prices +which began with: garlic, 62 centimes, and ended with: cigar, 5 +centimes. Or he passed his time in trembling, chattering his teeth, +saying that he had a fever, and inquiring whether one of the eight and +twenty beds in the fever ward was vacant. + +All at once, towards the end of February, 1832, it was discovered that +Brujon, that somnolent fellow, had had three different commissions +executed by the errand-men of the establishment, not under his own name, +but in the name of three of his comrades; and they had cost him in all +fifty sous, an exorbitant outlay which attracted the attention of the +prison corporal. + +Inquiries were instituted, and on consulting the tariff of commissions +posted in the convict's parlor, it was learned that the fifty sous could +be analyzed as follows: three commissions; one to the Pantheon, ten +sous; one to Val-de-Grace, fifteen sous; and one to the Barriere de +Grenelle, twenty-five sous. This last was the dearest of the whole +tariff. Now, at the Pantheon, at the Val-de-Grace, and at the Barriere +de Grenelle were situated the domiciles of the three very redoubtable +prowlers of the barriers, Kruideniers, alias Bizarre, Glorieux, an +ex-convict, and Barre-Carosse, upon whom the attention of the police was +directed by this incident. It was thought that these men were members +of Patron Minette; two of those leaders, Babet and Gueulemer, had been +captured. It was supposed that the messages, which had been addressed, +not to houses, but to people who were waiting for them in the street, +must have contained information with regard to some crime that had been +plotted. They were in possession of other indications; they laid hand on +the three prowlers, and supposed that they had circumvented some one or +other of Brujon's machinations. + +About a week after these measures had been taken, one night, as the +superintendent of the watch, who had been inspecting the lower dormitory +in the Batiment-Neuf, was about to drop his chestnut in the box--this +was the means adopted to make sure that the watchmen performed their +duties punctually; every hour a chestnut must be dropped into all the +boxes nailed to the doors of the dormitories--a watchman looked through +the peep-hole of the dormitory and beheld Brujon sitting on his bed and +writing something by the light of the hall-lamp. The guardian entered, +Brujon was put in a solitary cell for a month, but they were not able to +seize what he had written. The police learned nothing further about it. + +What is certain is, that on the following morning, a "postilion" +was flung from the Charlemagne yard into the Lions' Ditch, over the +five-story building which separated the two court-yards. + +What prisoners call a "postilion" is a pellet of bread artistically +moulded, which is sent into Ireland, that is to say, over the roofs of a +prison, from one courtyard to another. Etymology: over England; from one +land to another; into Ireland. This little pellet falls in the yard. The +man who picks it up opens it and finds in it a note addressed to some +prisoner in that yard. If it is a prisoner who finds the treasure, he +forwards the note to its destination; if it is a keeper, or one of the +prisoners secretly sold who are called sheep in prisons and foxes in the +galleys, the note is taken to the office and handed over to the police. + +On this occasion, the postilion reached its address, although the person +to whom it was addressed was, at that moment, in solitary confinement. +This person was no other than Babet, one of the four heads of Patron +Minette. + +The postilion contained a roll of paper on which only these two lines +were written:-- + +"Babet. There is an affair in the Rue Plumet. A gate on a garden." + +This is what Brujon had written the night before. + +In spite of male and female searchers, Babet managed to pass the note on +from La Force to the Salpetriere, to a "good friend" whom he had and who +was shut up there. This woman in turn transmitted the note to another +woman of her acquaintance, a certain Magnon, who was strongly suspected +by the police, though not yet arrested. This Magnon, whose name the +reader has already seen, had relations with the Thenardier, which will +be described in detail later on, and she could, by going to see Eponine, +serve as a bridge between the Salpetriere and Les Madelonettes. + +It happened, that at precisely that moment, as proofs were wanting +in the investigation directed against Thenardier in the matter of his +daughters, Eponine and Azelma were released. When Eponine came out, +Magnon, who was watching the gate of the Madelonettes, handed her +Brujon's note to Babet, charging her to look into the matter. + +Eponine went to the Rue Plumet, recognized the gate and the garden, +observed the house, spied, lurked, and, a few days later, brought to +Magnon, who delivers in the Rue Clocheperce, a biscuit, which Magnon +transmitted to Babet's mistress in the Salpetriere. A biscuit, in the +shady symbolism of prisons, signifies: Nothing to be done. + +So that in less than a week from that time, as Brujon and Babet met in +the circle of La Force, the one on his way to the examination, the other +on his way from it:-- + +"Well?" asked Brujon, "the Rue P.?" + +"Biscuit," replied Babet. Thus did the foetus of crime engendered by +Brujon in La Force miscarry. + +This miscarriage had its consequences, however, which were perfectly +distinct from Brujon's programme. The reader will see what they were. + +Often when we think we are knotting one thread, we are tying quite +another. + + + + +CHAPTER III--APPARITION TO FATHER MABEUF + +Marius no longer went to see any one, but he sometimes encountered +Father Mabeuf by chance. + +While Marius was slowly descending those melancholy steps which may be +called the cellar stairs, and which lead to places without light, where +the happy can be heard walking overhead, M. Mabeuf was descending on his +side. + +The Flora of Cauteretz no longer sold at all. The experiments on indigo +had not been successful in the little garden of Austerlitz, which had +a bad exposure. M. Mabeuf could cultivate there only a few plants which +love shade and dampness. Nevertheless, he did not become discouraged. He +had obtained a corner in the Jardin des Plantes, with a good exposure, +to make his trials with indigo "at his own expense." For this purpose he +had pawned his copperplates of the Flora. He had reduced his breakfast +to two eggs, and he left one of these for his old servant, to whom he +had paid no wages for the last fifteen months. And often his breakfast +was his only meal. He no longer smiled with his infantile smile, he had +grown morose and no longer received visitors. Marius did well not to +dream of going thither. Sometimes, at the hour when M. Mabeuf was on his +way to the Jardin des Plantes, the old man and the young man passed +each other on the Boulevard de l'Hopital. They did not speak, and only +exchanged a melancholy sign of the head. A heart-breaking thing it is +that there comes a moment when misery looses bonds! Two men who have +been friends become two chance passers-by. + +Royal the bookseller was dead. M. Mabeuf no longer knew his books, +his garden, or his indigo: these were the three forms which happiness, +pleasure, and hope had assumed for him. This sufficed him for his +living. He said to himself: "When I shall have made my balls of blueing, +I shall be rich, I will withdraw my copperplates from the pawn-shop, +I will put my Flora in vogue again with trickery, plenty of money and +advertisements in the newspapers and I will buy, I know well where, a +copy of Pierre de Medine's Art de Naviguer, with wood-cuts, edition of +1655." In the meantime, he toiled all day over his plot of indigo, and +at night he returned home to water his garden, and to read his books. At +that epoch, M. Mabeuf was nearly eighty years of age. + +One evening he had a singular apparition. + +He had returned home while it was still broad daylight. Mother +Plutarque, whose health was declining, was ill and in bed. He had dined +on a bone, on which a little meat lingered, and a bit of bread that he +had found on the kitchen table, and had seated himself on an overturned +stone post, which took the place of a bench in his garden. + +Near this bench there rose, after the fashion in orchard-gardens, a sort +of large chest, of beams and planks, much dilapidated, a rabbit-hutch on +the ground floor, a fruit-closet on the first. There was nothing in the +hutch, but there were a few apples in the fruit-closet,--the remains of +the winter's provision. + +M. Mabeuf had set himself to turning over and reading, with the aid of +his glasses, two books of which he was passionately fond and in which, +a serious thing at his age, he was interested. His natural timidity +rendered him accessible to the acceptance of superstitions in a certain +degree. The first of these books was the famous treatise of President +Delancre, De l'inconstance des Demons; the other was a quarto by Mutor +de la Rubaudiere, Sur les Diables de Vauvert et les Gobelins de la +Bievre. This last-mentioned old volume interested him all the more, +because his garden had been one of the spots haunted by goblins in +former times. The twilight had begun to whiten what was on high and to +blacken all below. As he read, over the top of the book which he held +in his hand, Father Mabeuf was surveying his plants, and among others a +magnificent rhododendron which was one of his consolations; four days of +heat, wind, and sun without a drop of rain, had passed; the stalks were +bending, the buds drooping, the leaves falling; all this needed water, +the rhododendron was particularly sad. Father Mabeuf was one of those +persons for whom plants have souls. The old man had toiled all day over +his indigo plot, he was worn out with fatigue, but he rose, laid +his books on the bench, and walked, all bent over and with tottering +footsteps, to the well, but when he had grasped the chain, he could not +even draw it sufficiently to unhook it. Then he turned round and cast a +glance of anguish toward heaven which was becoming studded with stars. + +The evening had that serenity which overwhelms the troubles of man +beneath an indescribably mournful and eternal joy. The night promised to +be as arid as the day had been. + +"Stars everywhere!" thought the old man; "not the tiniest cloud! Not a +drop of water!" + +And his head, which had been upraised for a moment, fell back upon his +breast. + +He raised it again, and once more looked at the sky, murmuring:-- + +"A tear of dew! A little pity!" + +He tried again to unhook the chain of the well, and could not. + +At that moment, he heard a voice saying:-- + +"Father Mabeuf, would you like to have me water your garden for you?" + +At the same time, a noise as of a wild animal passing became audible +in the hedge, and he beheld emerging from the shrubbery a sort of tall, +slender girl, who drew herself up in front of him and stared boldly at +him. She had less the air of a human being than of a form which had just +blossomed forth from the twilight. + +Before Father Mabeuf, who was easily terrified, and who was, as we have +said, quick to take alarm, was able to reply by a single syllable, this +being, whose movements had a sort of odd abruptness in the darkness, had +unhooked the chain, plunged in and withdrawn the bucket, and filled the +watering-pot, and the goodman beheld this apparition, which had bare +feet and a tattered petticoat, running about among the flower-beds +distributing life around her. The sound of the watering-pot on the +leaves filled Father Mabeuf's soul with ecstasy. It seemed to him that +the rhododendron was happy now. + +The first bucketful emptied, the girl drew a second, then a third. She +watered the whole garden. + +There was something about her, as she thus ran about among paths, where +her outline appeared perfectly black, waving her angular arms, and with +her fichu all in rags, that resembled a bat. + +When she had finished, Father Mabeuf approached her with tears in his +eyes, and laid his hand on her brow. + +"God will bless you," said he, "you are an angel since you take care of +the flowers." + +"No," she replied. "I am the devil, but that's all the same to me." + +The old man exclaimed, without either waiting for or hearing her +response:-- + +"What a pity that I am so unhappy and so poor, and that I can do nothing +for you!" + +"You can do something," said she. + +"What?" + +"Tell me where M. Marius lives." + +The old man did not understand. "What Monsieur Marius?" + +He raised his glassy eyes and seemed to be seeking something that had +vanished. + +"A young man who used to come here." + +In the meantime, M. Mabeuf had searched his memory. + +"Ah! yes--" he exclaimed. "I know what you mean. Wait! Monsieur +Marius--the Baron Marius Pontmercy, parbleu! He lives,--or rather, he no +longer lives,--ah well, I don't know." + +As he spoke, he had bent over to train a branch of rhododendron, and he +continued:-- + +"Hold, I know now. He very often passes along the boulevard, and goes in +the direction of the Glaciere, Rue Croulebarbe. The meadow of the Lark. +Go there. It is not hard to meet him." + +When M. Mabeuf straightened himself up, there was no longer any one +there; the girl had disappeared. + +He was decidedly terrified. + +"Really," he thought, "if my garden had not been watered, I should think +that she was a spirit." + +An hour later, when he was in bed, it came back to him, and as he fell +asleep, at that confused moment when thought, like that fabulous bird +which changes itself into a fish in order to cross the sea, little by +little assumes the form of a dream in order to traverse slumber, he said +to himself in a bewildered way:-- + +"In sooth, that greatly resembles what Rubaudiere narrates of the +goblins. Could it have been a goblin?" + + + + +CHAPTER IV--AN APPARITION TO MARIUS + +Some days after this visit of a "spirit" to Farmer Mabeuf, one +morning,--it was on a Monday, the day when Marius borrowed the +hundred-sou piece from Courfeyrac for Thenardier--Marius had put this +coin in his pocket, and before carrying it to the clerk's office, he +had gone "to take a little stroll," in the hope that this would make him +work on his return. It was always thus, however. As soon as he rose, he +seated himself before a book and a sheet of paper in order to scribble +some translation; his task at that epoch consisted in turning into +French a celebrated quarrel between Germans, the Gans and Savigny +controversy; he took Savigny, he took Gans, read four lines, tried to +write one, could not, saw a star between him and his paper, and rose +from his chair, saying: "I shall go out. That will put me in spirits." + +And off he went to the Lark's meadow. + +There he beheld more than ever the star, and less than ever Savigny and +Gans. + +He returned home, tried to take up his work again, and did not succeed; +there was no means of re-knotting a single one of the threads which +were broken in his brain; then he said to himself: "I will not go out +to-morrow. It prevents my working." And he went out every day. + +He lived in the Lark's meadow more than in Courfeyrac's lodgings. That +was his real address: Boulevard de la Sante, at the seventh tree from +the Rue Croulebarbe. + +That morning he had quitted the seventh tree and had seated himself on +the parapet of the River des Gobelins. A cheerful sunlight penetrated +the freshly unfolded and luminous leaves. + +He was dreaming of "Her." And his meditation turning to a reproach, fell +back upon himself; he reflected dolefully on his idleness, his paralysis +of soul, which was gaining on him, and of that night which was growing +more dense every moment before him, to such a point that he no longer +even saw the sun. + +Nevertheless, athwart this painful extrication of indistinct ideas which +was not even a monologue, so feeble had action become in him, and he +had no longer the force to care to despair, athwart this melancholy +absorption, sensations from without did reach him. He heard behind him, +beneath him, on both banks of the river, the laundresses of the Gobelins +beating their linen, and above his head, the birds chattering and +singing in the elm-trees. On the one hand, the sound of liberty, the +careless happiness of the leisure which has wings; on the other, the +sound of toil. What caused him to meditate deeply, and almost reflect, +were two cheerful sounds. + +All at once, in the midst of his dejected ecstasy, he heard a familiar +voice saying:-- + +"Come! Here he is!" + +He raised his eyes, and recognized that wretched child who had come to +him one morning, the elder of the Thenardier daughters, Eponine; he knew +her name now. Strange to say, she had grown poorer and prettier, +two steps which it had not seemed within her power to take. She had +accomplished a double progress, towards the light and towards distress. +She was barefooted and in rags, as on the day when she had so resolutely +entered his chamber, only her rags were two months older now, the holes +were larger, the tatters more sordid. It was the same harsh voice, +the same brow dimmed and wrinkled with tan, the same free, wild, and +vacillating glance. She had besides, more than formerly, in her face +that indescribably terrified and lamentable something which sojourn in a +prison adds to wretchedness. + +She had bits of straw and hay in her hair, not like Ophelia through +having gone mad from the contagion of Hamlet's madness, but because she +had slept in the loft of some stable. + +And in spite of it all, she was beautiful. What a star art thou, O +youth! + +In the meantime, she had halted in front of Marius with a trace of joy +in her livid countenance, and something which resembled a smile. + +She stood for several moments as though incapable of speech. + +"So I have met you at last!" she said at length. "Father Mabeuf was +right, it was on this boulevard! How I have hunted for you! If you only +knew! Do you know? I have been in the jug. A fortnight! They let me out! +seeing that there was nothing against me, and that, moreover, I had not +reached years of discretion. I lack two months of it. Oh! how I have +hunted for you! These six weeks! So you don't live down there any more?" + +"No," said Marius. + +"Ah! I understand. Because of that affair. Those take-downs are +disagreeable. You cleared out. Come now! Why do you wear old hats like +this! A young man like you ought to have fine clothes. Do you know, +Monsieur Marius, Father Mabeuf calls you Baron Marius, I don't know +what. It isn't true that you are a baron? Barons are old fellows, they +go to the Luxembourg, in front of the chateau, where there is the most +sun, and they read the Quotidienne for a sou. I once carried a letter to +a baron of that sort. He was over a hundred years old. Say, where do you +live now?" + +Marius made no reply. + +"Ah!" she went on, "you have a hole in your shirt. I must sew it up for +you." + +She resumed with an expression which gradually clouded over:-- + +"You don't seem glad to see me." + +Marius held his peace; she remained silent for a moment, then +exclaimed:-- + +"But if I choose, nevertheless, I could force you to look glad!" + +"What?" demanded Marius. "What do you mean?" + +"Ah! you used to call me thou," she retorted. + +"Well, then, what dost thou mean?" + +She bit her lips; she seemed to hesitate, as though a prey to some sort +of inward conflict. At last she appeared to come to a decision. + +"So much the worse, I don't care. You have a melancholy air, I want you +to be pleased. Only promise me that you will smile. I want to see you +smile and hear you say: 'Ah, well, that's good.' Poor Mr. Marius! you +know? You promised me that you would give me anything I like--" + +"Yes! Only speak!" + +She looked Marius full in the eye, and said:-- + +"I have the address." + +Marius turned pale. All the blood flowed back to his heart. + +"What address?" + +"The address that you asked me to get!" + +She added, as though with an effort:-- + +"The address--you know very well!" + +"Yes!" stammered Marius. + +"Of that young lady." + +This word uttered, she sighed deeply. + +Marius sprang from the parapet on which he had been sitting and seized +her hand distractedly. + +"Oh! Well! lead me thither! Tell me! Ask of me anything you wish! Where +is it?" + +"Come with me," she responded. "I don't know the street or number very +well; it is in quite the other direction from here, but I know the house +well, I will take you to it." + +She withdrew her hand and went on, in a tone which could have rent +the heart of an observer, but which did not even graze Marius in his +intoxicated and ecstatic state:-- + +"Oh! how glad you are!" + +A cloud swept across Marius' brow. He seized Eponine by the arm:-- + +"Swear one thing to me!" + +"Swear!" said she, "what does that mean? Come! You want me to swear?" + +And she laughed. + +"Your father! promise me, Eponine! Swear to me that you will not give +this address to your father!" + +She turned to him with a stupefied air. + +"Eponine! How do you know that my name is Eponine?" + +"Promise what I tell you!" + +But she did not seem to hear him. + +"That's nice! You have called me Eponine!" + +Marius grasped both her arms at once. + +"But answer me, in the name of Heaven! pay attention to what I am saying +to you, swear to me that you will not tell your father this address that +you know!" + +"My father!" said she. "Ah yes, my father! Be at ease. He's in close +confinement. Besides, what do I care for my father!" + +"But you do not promise me!" exclaimed Marius. + +"Let go of me!" she said, bursting into a laugh, "how you do shake me! +Yes! Yes! I promise that! I swear that to you! What is that to me? I +will not tell my father the address. There! Is that right? Is that it?" + +"Nor to any one?" said Marius. + +"Nor to any one." + +"Now," resumed Marius, "take me there." + +"Immediately?" + +"Immediately." + +"Come along. Ah! how pleased he is!" said she. + +After a few steps she halted. + +"You are following me too closely, Monsieur Marius. Let me go on ahead, +and follow me so, without seeming to do it. A nice young man like you +must not be seen with a woman like me." + +No tongue can express all that lay in that word, woman, thus pronounced +by that child. + +She proceeded a dozen paces and then halted once more; Marius joined +her. She addressed him sideways, and without turning towards him:-- + +"By the way, you know that you promised me something?" + +Marius fumbled in his pocket. All that he owned in the world was the +five francs intended for Thenardier the father. He took them and laid +them in Eponine's hand. + +She opened her fingers and let the coin fall to the ground, and gazed at +him with a gloomy air. + +"I don't want your money," said she. + + + + +BOOK THIRD.--THE HOUSE IN THE RUE PLUMET + + + + +CHAPTER I--THE HOUSE WITH A SECRET + +About the middle of the last century, a chief justice in the Parliament +of Paris having a mistress and concealing the fact, for at that period +the grand seignors displayed their mistresses, and the bourgeois +concealed them, had "a little house" built in the Faubourg +Saint-Germain, in the deserted Rue Blomet, which is now called Rue +Plumet, not far from the spot which was then designated as Combat des +Animaux. + +This house was composed of a single-storied pavilion; two rooms on the +ground floor, two chambers on the first floor, a kitchen down stairs, +a boudoir up stairs, an attic under the roof, the whole preceded by a +garden with a large gate opening on the street. This garden was about +an acre and a half in extent. This was all that could be seen by +passers-by; but behind the pavilion there was a narrow courtyard, and +at the end of the courtyard a low building consisting of two rooms and +a cellar, a sort of preparation destined to conceal a child and nurse +in case of need. This building communicated in the rear by a masked +door which opened by a secret spring, with a long, narrow, paved winding +corridor, open to the sky, hemmed in with two lofty walls, which, hidden +with wonderful art, and lost as it were between garden enclosures and +cultivated land, all of whose angles and detours it followed, ended in +another door, also with a secret lock which opened a quarter of a league +away, almost in another quarter, at the solitary extremity of the Rue du +Babylone. + +Through this the chief justice entered, so that even those who were +spying on him and following him would merely have observed that the +justice betook himself every day in a mysterious way somewhere, and +would never have suspected that to go to the Rue de Babylone was to go +to the Rue Blomet. Thanks to clever purchasers of land, the magistrate +had been able to make a secret, sewer-like passage on his own property, +and consequently, without interference. Later on, he had sold in little +parcels, for gardens and market gardens, the lots of ground adjoining +the corridor, and the proprietors of these lots on both sides thought +they had a party wall before their eyes, and did not even suspect the +long, paved ribbon winding between two walls amid their flower-beds and +their orchards. Only the birds beheld this curiosity. It is probable +that the linnets and tomtits of the last century gossiped a great deal +about the chief justice. + +The pavilion, built of stone in the taste of Mansard, wainscoted and +furnished in the Watteau style, rocaille on the inside, old-fashioned +on the outside, walled in with a triple hedge of flowers, had something +discreet, coquettish, and solemn about it, as befits a caprice of love +and magistracy. + +This house and corridor, which have now disappeared, were in existence +fifteen years ago. In '93 a coppersmith had purchased the house with +the idea of demolishing it, but had not been able to pay the price; the +nation made him bankrupt. So that it was the house which demolished the +coppersmith. After that, the house remained uninhabited, and fell slowly +to ruin, as does every dwelling to which the presence of man does not +communicate life. It had remained fitted with its old furniture, was +always for sale or to let, and the ten or a dozen people who passed +through the Rue Plumet were warned of the fact by a yellow and illegible +bit of writing which had hung on the garden wall since 1819. + +Towards the end of the Restoration, these same passers-by might have +noticed that the bill had disappeared, and even that the shutters on the +first floor were open. The house was occupied, in fact. The windows had +short curtains, a sign that there was a woman about. + +In the month of October, 1829, a man of a certain age had presented +himself and had hired the house just as it stood, including, of course, +the back building and the lane which ended in the Rue de Babylone. He +had had the secret openings of the two doors to this passage repaired. +The house, as we have just mentioned, was still very nearly furnished +with the justice's old fitting; the new tenant had ordered some +repairs, had added what was lacking here and there, had replaced the +paving-stones in the yard, bricks in the floors, steps in the stairs, +missing bits in the inlaid floors and the glass in the lattice windows, +and had finally installed himself there with a young girl and an elderly +maid-servant, without commotion, rather like a person who is slipping +in than like a man who is entering his own house. The neighbors did not +gossip about him, for the reason that there were no neighbors. + +This unobtrusive tenant was Jean Valjean, the young girl was Cosette. +The servant was a woman named Toussaint, whom Jean Valjean had saved +from the hospital and from wretchedness, and who was elderly, a +stammerer, and from the provinces, three qualities which had decided +Jean Valjean to take her with him. He had hired the house under the name +of M. Fauchelevent, independent gentleman. In all that has been +related heretofore, the reader has, doubtless, been no less prompt than +Thenardier to recognize Jean Valjean. + +Why had Jean Valjean quitted the convent of the Petit-Picpus? What had +happened? + +Nothing had happened. + +It will be remembered that Jean Valjean was happy in the convent, so +happy that his conscience finally took the alarm. He saw Cosette every +day, he felt paternity spring up and develop within him more and more, +he brooded over the soul of that child, he said to himself that she +was his, that nothing could take her from him, that this would last +indefinitely, that she would certainly become a nun, being thereto +gently incited every day, that thus the convent was henceforth the +universe for her as it was for him, that he should grow old there, and +that she would grow up there, that she would grow old there, and that +he should die there; that, in short, delightful hope, no separation +was possible. On reflecting upon this, he fell into perplexity. He +interrogated himself. He asked himself if all that happiness were +really his, if it were not composed of the happiness of another, of +the happiness of that child which he, an old man, was confiscating and +stealing; if that were not theft? He said to himself, that this child +had a right to know life before renouncing it, that to deprive her in +advance, and in some sort without consulting her, of all joys, under +the pretext of saving her from all trials, to take advantage of her +ignorance of her isolation, in order to make an artificial vocation +germinate in her, was to rob a human creature of its nature and to lie +to God. And who knows if, when she came to be aware of all this some +day, and found herself a nun to her sorrow, Cosette would not come to +hate him? A last, almost selfish thought, and less heroic than the rest, +but which was intolerable to him. He resolved to quit the convent. + +He resolved on this; he recognized with anguish, the fact that it was +necessary. As for objections, there were none. Five years' sojourn +between these four walls and of disappearance had necessarily destroyed +or dispersed the elements of fear. He could return tranquilly among men. +He had grown old, and all had undergone a change. Who would recognize +him now? And then, to face the worst, there was danger only for himself, +and he had no right to condemn Cosette to the cloister for the reason +that he had been condemned to the galleys. Besides, what is danger in +comparison with the right? Finally, nothing prevented his being prudent +and taking his precautions. + +As for Cosette's education, it was almost finished and complete. + +His determination once taken, he awaited an opportunity. It was not long +in presenting itself. Old Fauchelevent died. + +Jean Valjean demanded an audience with the revered prioress and told her +that, having come into a little inheritance at the death of his brother, +which permitted him henceforth to live without working, he should leave +the service of the convent and take his daughter with him; but that, as +it was not just that Cosette, since she had not taken the vows, should +have received her education gratuitously, he humbly begged the Reverend +Prioress to see fit that he should offer to the community, as indemnity, +for the five years which Cosette had spent there, the sum of five +thousand francs. + +It was thus that Jean Valjean quitted the convent of the Perpetual +Adoration. + +On leaving the convent, he took in his own arms the little valise the +key to which he still wore on his person, and would permit no porter to +touch it. This puzzled Cosette, because of the odor of embalming which +proceeded from it. + +Let us state at once, that this trunk never quitted him more. He always +had it in his chamber. It was the first and only thing sometimes, that +he carried off in his moving when he moved about. Cosette laughed at it, +and called this valise his inseparable, saying: "I am jealous of it." + +Nevertheless, Jean Valjean did not reappear in the open air without +profound anxiety. + +He discovered the house in the Rue Plumet, and hid himself from +sight there. Henceforth he was in the possession of the name:--Ultime +Fauchelevent. + +At the same time he hired two other apartments in Paris, in order that +he might attract less attention than if he were to remain always in the +same quarter, and so that he could, at need, take himself off at the +slightest disquietude which should assail him, and in short, so that +he might not again be caught unprovided as on the night when he had +so miraculously escaped from Javert. These two apartments were very +pitiable, poor in appearance, and in two quarters which were far remote +from each other, the one in the Rue de l'Ouest, the other in the Rue de +l'Homme Arme. + +He went from time to time, now to the Rue de l'Homme Arme, now to the +Rue de l'Ouest, to pass a month or six weeks, without taking Toussaint. +He had himself served by the porters, and gave himself out as a +gentleman from the suburbs, living on his funds, and having a little +temporary resting-place in town. This lofty virtue had three domiciles +in Paris for the sake of escaping from the police. + + + + +CHAPTER II--JEAN VALJEAN AS A NATIONAL GUARD + +However, properly speaking, he lived in the Rue Plumet, and he had +arranged his existence there in the following fashion:-- + +Cosette and the servant occupied the pavilion; she had the big +sleeping-room with the painted pier-glasses, the boudoir with the gilded +fillets, the justice's drawing-room furnished with tapestries and vast +arm-chairs; she had the garden. Jean Valjean had a canopied bed of +antique damask in three colors and a beautiful Persian rug purchased in +the Rue du Figuier-Saint-Paul at Mother Gaucher's, put into Cosette's +chamber, and, in order to redeem the severity of these magnificent +old things, he had amalgamated with this bric-a-brac all the gay and +graceful little pieces of furniture suitable to young girls, an etagere, +a bookcase filled with gilt-edged books, an inkstand, a blotting-book, +paper, a work-table incrusted with mother of pearl, a silver-gilt +dressing-case, a toilet service in Japanese porcelain. Long damask +curtains with a red foundation and three colors, like those on the +bed, hung at the windows of the first floor. On the ground floor, the +curtains were of tapestry. All winter long, Cosette's little house was +heated from top to bottom. Jean Valjean inhabited the sort of porter's +lodge which was situated at the end of the back courtyard, with a +mattress on a folding-bed, a white wood table, two straw chairs, an +earthenware water-jug, a few old volumes on a shelf, his beloved valise +in one corner, and never any fire. He dined with Cosette, and he had a +loaf of black bread on the table for his own use. + +When Toussaint came, he had said to her: "It is the young lady who is +the mistress of this house."--"And you, monsieur?" Toussaint replied in +amazement.--"I am a much better thing than the master, I am the father." + +Cosette had been taught housekeeping in the convent, and she regulated +their expenditure, which was very modest. Every day, Jean Valjean put +his arm through Cosette's and took her for a walk. He led her to the +Luxembourg, to the least frequented walk, and every Sunday he took her +to mass at Saint-Jacques-du-Haut-Pas, because that was a long way off. +As it was a very poor quarter, he bestowed alms largely there, and the +poor people surrounded him in church, which had drawn down upon him +Thenardier's epistle: "To the benevolent gentleman of the church of +Saint-Jacques-du-Haut-Pas." He was fond of taking Cosette to visit the +poor and the sick. No stranger ever entered the house in the Rue Plumet. +Toussaint brought their provisions, and Jean Valjean went himself for +water to a fountain near by on the boulevard. Their wood and wine were +put into a half-subterranean hollow lined with rock-work which lay near +the Rue de Babylone and which had formerly served the chief-justice as +a grotto; for at the epoch of follies and "Little Houses" no love was +without a grotto. + +In the door opening on the Rue de Babylone, there was a box destined for +the reception of letters and papers; only, as the three inhabitants of +the pavilion in the Rue Plumet received neither papers nor letters, the +entire usefulness of that box, formerly the go-between of a love +affair, and the confidant of a love-lorn lawyer, was now limited to +the tax-collector's notices, and the summons of the guard. For M. +Fauchelevent, independent gentleman, belonged to the national guard; +he had not been able to escape through the fine meshes of the census of +1831. The municipal information collected at that time had even reached +the convent of the Petit-Picpus, a sort of impenetrable and holy cloud, +whence Jean Valjean had emerged in venerable guise, and, consequently, +worthy of mounting guard in the eyes of the townhall. + +Three or four times a year, Jean Valjean donned his uniform and mounted +guard; he did this willingly, however; it was a correct disguise which +mixed him with every one, and yet left him solitary. Jean Valjean had +just attained his sixtieth birthday, the age of legal exemption; but he +did not appear to be over fifty; moreover, he had no desire to escape +his sergeant-major nor to quibble with Comte de Lobau; he possessed +no civil status, he was concealing his name, he was concealing his +identity, so he concealed his age, he concealed everything; and, as we +have just said, he willingly did his duty as a national guard; the sum +of his ambition lay in resembling any other man who paid his taxes. This +man had for his ideal, within, the angel, without, the bourgeois. + +Let us note one detail, however; when Jean Valjean went out with +Cosette, he dressed as the reader has already seen, and had the air of +a retired officer. When he went out alone, which was generally at night, +he was always dressed in a workingman's trousers and blouse, and wore +a cap which concealed his face. Was this precaution or humility? Both. +Cosette was accustomed to the enigmatical side of her destiny, and +hardly noticed her father's peculiarities. As for Toussaint, she +venerated Jean Valjean, and thought everything he did right. + +One day, her butcher, who had caught a glimpse of Jean Valjean, said to +her: "That's a queer fish." She replied: "He's a saint." + +Neither Jean Valjean nor Cosette nor Toussaint ever entered or emerged +except by the door on the Rue de Babylone. Unless seen through the +garden gate it would have been difficult to guess that they lived in +the Rue Plumet. That gate was always closed. Jean Valjean had left the +garden uncultivated, in order not to attract attention. + +In this, possibly, he made a mistake. + + + + +CHAPTER III--FOLIIS AC FRONDIBUS + +The garden thus left to itself for more than half a century had become +extraordinary and charming. The passers-by of forty years ago halted to +gaze at it, without a suspicion of the secrets which it hid in its fresh +and verdant depths. More than one dreamer of that epoch often allowed +his thoughts and his eyes to penetrate indiscreetly between the bars of +that ancient, padlocked gate, twisted, tottering, fastened to two +green and moss-covered pillars, and oddly crowned with a pediment of +undecipherable arabesque. + +There was a stone bench in one corner, one or two mouldy statues, +several lattices which had lost their nails with time, were rotting on +the wall, and there were no walks nor turf; but there was enough grass +everywhere. Gardening had taken its departure, and nature had returned. +Weeds abounded, which was a great piece of luck for a poor corner of +land. The festival of gilliflowers was something splendid. Nothing +in this garden obstructed the sacred effort of things towards life; +venerable growth reigned there among them. The trees had bent over +towards the nettles, the plant had sprung upward, the branch had +inclined, that which crawls on the earth had gone in search of that +which expands in the air, that which floats on the wind had bent over +towards that which trails in the moss; trunks, boughs, leaves, fibres, +clusters, tendrils, shoots, spines, thorns, had mingled, crossed, +married, confounded themselves in each other; vegetation in a deep +and close embrace, had celebrated and accomplished there, under the +well-pleased eye of the Creator, in that enclosure three hundred feet +square, the holy mystery of fraternity, symbol of the human fraternity. +This garden was no longer a garden, it was a colossal thicket, that is +to say, something as impenetrable as a forest, as peopled as a city, +quivering like a nest, sombre like a cathedral, fragrant like a bouquet, +solitary as a tomb, living as a throng. + +In Floreal[34] this enormous thicket, free behind its gate and within +its four walls, entered upon the secret labor of germination, quivered +in the rising sun, almost like an animal which drinks in the breaths of +cosmic love, and which feels the sap of April rising and boiling in +its veins, and shakes to the wind its enormous wonderful green locks, +sprinkled on the damp earth, on the defaced statues, on the crumbling +steps of the pavilion, and even on the pavement of the deserted street, +flowers like stars, dew like pearls, fecundity, beauty, life, joy, +perfumes. At midday, a thousand white butterflies took refuge there, and +it was a divine spectacle to see that living summer snow whirling about +there in flakes amid the shade. There, in those gay shadows of verdure, +a throng of innocent voices spoke sweetly to the soul, and what the +twittering forgot to say the humming completed. In the evening, a dreamy +vapor exhaled from the garden and enveloped it; a shroud of mist, a +calm and celestial sadness covered it; the intoxicating perfume of the +honeysuckles and convolvulus poured out from every part of it, like an +exquisite and subtle poison; the last appeals of the woodpeckers and +the wagtails were audible as they dozed among the branches; one felt the +sacred intimacy of the birds and the trees; by day the wings rejoice the +leaves, by night the leaves protect the wings. + +In winter the thicket was black, dripping, bristling, shivering, and +allowed some glimpse of the house. Instead of flowers on the branches +and dew in the flowers, the long silvery tracks of the snails were +visible on the cold, thick carpet of yellow leaves; but in any fashion, +under any aspect, at all seasons, spring, winter, summer, autumn, this +tiny enclosure breathed forth melancholy, contemplation, solitude, +liberty, the absence of man, the presence of God; and the rusty old gate +had the air of saying: "This garden belongs to me." + +It was of no avail that the pavements of Paris were there on every side, +the classic and splendid hotels of the Rue de Varennes a couple of paces +away, the dome of the Invalides close at hand, the Chamber of Deputies +not far off; the carriages of the Rue de Bourgogne and of the Rue +Saint-Dominique rumbled luxuriously, in vain, in the vicinity, in vain +did the yellow, brown, white, and red omnibuses cross each other's +course at the neighboring cross-roads; the Rue Plumet was the desert; +and the death of the former proprietors, the revolution which had passed +over it, the crumbling away of ancient fortunes, absence, forgetfulness, +forty years of abandonment and widowhood, had sufficed to restore to +this privileged spot ferns, mulleins, hemlock, yarrow, tall weeds, great +crimped plants, with large leaves of pale green cloth, lizards, beetles, +uneasy and rapid insects; to cause to spring forth from the depths +of the earth and to reappear between those four walls a certain +indescribable and savage grandeur; and for nature, which disconcerts +the petty arrangements of man, and which sheds herself always thoroughly +where she diffuses herself at all, in the ant as well as in the eagle, +to blossom out in a petty little Parisian garden with as much rude force +and majesty as in a virgin forest of the New World. + +Nothing is small, in fact; any one who is subject to the profound +and penetrating influence of nature knows this. Although no absolute +satisfaction is given to philosophy, either to circumscribe the cause +or to limit the effect, the contemplator falls into those unfathomable +ecstasies caused by these decompositions of force terminating in unity. +Everything toils at everything. + +Algebra is applied to the clouds; the radiation of the star profits +the rose; no thinker would venture to affirm that the perfume of the +hawthorn is useless to the constellations. Who, then, can calculate the +course of a molecule? How do we know that the creation of worlds is not +determined by the fall of grains of sand? Who knows the reciprocal +ebb and flow of the infinitely great and the infinitely little, the +reverberations of causes in the precipices of being, and the avalanches +of creation? The tiniest worm is of importance; the great is little, the +little is great; everything is balanced in necessity; alarming vision +for the mind. There are marvellous relations between beings and things; +in that inexhaustible whole, from the sun to the grub, nothing despises +the other; all have need of each other. The light does not bear away +terrestrial perfumes into the azure depths, without knowing what it is +doing; the night distributes stellar essences to the sleeping flowers. +All birds that fly have round their leg the thread of the infinite. +Germination is complicated with the bursting forth of a meteor and with +the peck of a swallow cracking its egg, and it places on one level the +birth of an earthworm and the advent of Socrates. Where the telescope +ends, the microscope begins. Which of the two possesses the larger field +of vision? Choose. A bit of mould is a pleiad of flowers; a nebula is an +ant-hill of stars. The same promiscuousness, and yet more unprecedented, +exists between the things of the intelligence and the facts of +substance. Elements and principles mingle, combine, wed, multiply with +each other, to such a point that the material and the moral world are +brought eventually to the same clearness. The phenomenon is perpetually +returning upon itself. In the vast cosmic exchanges the universal life +goes and comes in unknown quantities, rolling entirely in the invisible +mystery of effluvia, employing everything, not losing a single dream, +not a single slumber, sowing an animalcule here, crumbling to bits a +planet there, oscillating and winding, making of light a force and of +thought an element, disseminated and invisible, dissolving all, +except that geometrical point, the I; bringing everything back to the +soul-atom; expanding everything in God, entangling all activity, from +summit to base, in the obscurity of a dizzy mechanism, attaching the +flight of an insect to the movement of the earth, subordinating, who +knows? Were it only by the identity of the law, the evolution of the +comet in the firmament to the whirling of the infusoria in the drop +of water. A machine made of mind. Enormous gearing, the prime motor of +which is the gnat, and whose final wheel is the zodiac. + + + + +CHAPTER IV--CHANGE OF GATE + +It seemed that this garden, created in olden days to conceal wanton +mysteries, had been transformed and become fitted to shelter chaste +mysteries. There were no longer either arbors, or bowling greens, or +tunnels, or grottos; there was a magnificent, dishevelled obscurity +falling like a veil over all. Paphos had been made over into Eden. It is +impossible to say what element of repentance had rendered this retreat +wholesome. This flower-girl now offered her blossom to the soul. This +coquettish garden, formerly decidedly compromised, had returned to +virginity and modesty. A justice assisted by a gardener, a goodman who +thought that he was a continuation of Lamoignon, and another goodman who +thought that he was a continuation of Lenotre, had turned it about, cut, +ruffled, decked, moulded it to gallantry; nature had taken possession of +it once more, had filled it with shade, and had arranged it for love. + +There was, also, in this solitude, a heart which was quite ready. Love +had only to show himself; he had here a temple composed of verdure, +grass, moss, the sight of birds, tender shadows, agitated branches, and +a soul made of sweetness, of faith, of candor, of hope, of aspiration, +and of illusion. + +Cosette had left the convent when she was still almost a child; she was +a little more than fourteen, and she was at the "ungrateful age"; we +have already said, that with the exception of her eyes, she was homely +rather than pretty; she had no ungraceful feature, but she was awkward, +thin, timid and bold at once, a grown-up little girl, in short. + +Her education was finished, that is to say, she has been taught +religion, and even and above all, devotion; then "history," that is to +say the thing that bears that name in convents, geography, grammar, +the participles, the kings of France, a little music, a little drawing, +etc.; but in all other respects she was utterly ignorant, which is a +great charm and a great peril. The soul of a young girl should not be +left in the dark; later on, mirages that are too abrupt and too lively +are formed there, as in a dark chamber. She should be gently and +discreetly enlightened, rather with the reflection of realities than +with their harsh and direct light. A useful and graciously austere +half-light which dissipates puerile fears and obviates falls. There is +nothing but the maternal instinct, that admirable intuition composed of +the memories of the virgin and the experience of the woman, which knows +how this half-light is to be created and of what it should consist. + +Nothing supplies the place of this instinct. All the nuns in the world +are not worth as much as one mother in the formation of a young girl's +soul. + +Cosette had had no mother. She had only had many mothers, in the plural. + +As for Jean Valjean, he was, indeed, all tenderness, all solicitude; but +he was only an old man and he knew nothing at all. + +Now, in this work of education, in this grave matter of preparing a +woman for life, what science is required to combat that vast ignorance +which is called innocence! + +Nothing prepares a young girl for passions like the convent. The convent +turns the thoughts in the direction of the unknown. The heart, thus +thrown back upon itself, works downward within itself, since it cannot +overflow, and grows deep, since it cannot expand. Hence visions, +suppositions, conjectures, outlines of romances, a desire for +adventures, fantastic constructions, edifices built wholly in the inner +obscurity of the mind, sombre and secret abodes where the passions +immediately find a lodgement as soon as the open gate permits them to +enter. The convent is a compression which, in order to triumph over the +human heart, should last during the whole life. + +On quitting the convent, Cosette could have found nothing more sweet and +more dangerous than the house in the Rue Plumet. It was the continuation +of solitude with the beginning of liberty; a garden that was closed, but +a nature that was acrid, rich, voluptuous, and fragrant; the same dreams +as in the convent, but with glimpses of young men; a grating, but one +that opened on the street. + +Still, when she arrived there, we repeat, she was only a child. Jean +Valjean gave this neglected garden over to her. "Do what you like with +it," he said to her. This amused Cosette; she turned over all the clumps +and all the stones, she hunted for "beasts"; she played in it, while +awaiting the time when she would dream in it; she loved this garden +for the insects that she found beneath her feet amid the grass, while +awaiting the day when she would love it for the stars that she would see +through the boughs above her head. + +And then, she loved her father, that is to say, Jean Valjean, with +all her soul, with an innocent filial passion which made the goodman +a beloved and charming companion to her. It will be remembered that M. +Madeleine had been in the habit of reading a great deal. Jean Valjean +had continued this practice; he had come to converse well; he possessed +the secret riches and the eloquence of a true and humble mind which has +spontaneously cultivated itself. He retained just enough sharpness to +season his kindness; his mind was rough and his heart was soft. During +their conversations in the Luxembourg, he gave her explanations of +everything, drawing on what he had read, and also on what he had +suffered. As she listened to him, Cosette's eyes wandered vaguely about. + +This simple man sufficed for Cosette's thought, the same as the wild +garden sufficed for her eyes. When she had had a good chase after the +butterflies, she came panting up to him and said: "Ah! How I have run!" +He kissed her brow. + +Cosette adored the goodman. She was always at his heels. Where Jean +Valjean was, there happiness was. Jean Valjean lived neither in the +pavilion nor the garden; she took greater pleasure in the paved back +courtyard, than in the enclosure filled with flowers, and in his little +lodge furnished with straw-seated chairs than in the great drawing-room +hung with tapestry, against which stood tufted easy-chairs. Jean Valjean +sometimes said to her, smiling at his happiness in being importuned: "Do +go to your own quarters! Leave me alone a little!" + +She gave him those charming and tender scoldings which are so graceful +when they come from a daughter to her father. + +"Father, I am very cold in your rooms; why don't you have a carpet here +and a stove?" + +"Dear child, there are so many people who are better than I and who have +not even a roof over their heads." + +"Then why is there a fire in my rooms, and everything that is needed?" + +"Because you are a woman and a child." + +"Bah! must men be cold and feel uncomfortable?" + +"Certain men." + +"That is good, I shall come here so often that you will be obliged to +have a fire." + +And again she said to him:-- + +"Father, why do you eat horrible bread like that?" + +"Because, my daughter." + +"Well, if you eat it, I will eat it too." + +Then, in order to prevent Cosette eating black bread, Jean Valjean ate +white bread. + +Cosette had but a confused recollection of her childhood. She prayed +morning and evening for her mother whom she had never known. The +Thenardiers had remained with her as two hideous figures in a dream. She +remembered that she had gone "one day, at night," to fetch water in a +forest. She thought that it had been very far from Paris. It seemed to +her that she had begun to live in an abyss, and that it was Jean Valjean +who had rescued her from it. Her childhood produced upon her the effect +of a time when there had been nothing around her but millepeds, spiders, +and serpents. When she meditated in the evening, before falling asleep, +as she had not a very clear idea that she was Jean Valjean's daughter, +and that he was her father, she fancied that the soul of her mother had +passed into that good man and had come to dwell near her. + +When he was seated, she leaned her cheek against his white hair, and +dropped a silent tear, saying to herself: "Perhaps this man is my +mother." + +Cosette, although this is a strange statement to make, in the profound +ignorance of a girl brought up in a convent,--maternity being also +absolutely unintelligible to virginity,--had ended by fancying that she +had had as little mother as possible. She did not even know her mother's +name. Whenever she asked Jean Valjean, Jean Valjean remained silent. If +she repeated her question, he responded with a smile. Once she insisted; +the smile ended in a tear. + +This silence on the part of Jean Valjean covered Fantine with darkness. + +Was it prudence? Was it respect? Was it a fear that he should deliver +this name to the hazards of another memory than his own? + +So long as Cosette had been small, Jean Valjean had been willing to talk +to her of her mother; when she became a young girl, it was impossible +for him to do so. It seemed to him that he no longer dared. Was it +because of Cosette? Was it because of Fantine? He felt a certain +religious horror at letting that shadow enter Cosette's thought; and of +placing a third in their destiny. The more sacred this shade was to him, +the more did it seem that it was to be feared. He thought of Fantine, +and felt himself overwhelmed with silence. + +Through the darkness, he vaguely perceived something which appeared +to have its finger on its lips. Had all the modesty which had been +in Fantine, and which had violently quitted her during her lifetime, +returned to rest upon her after her death, to watch in indignation over +the peace of that dead woman, and in its shyness, to keep her in her +grave? Was Jean Valjean unconsciously submitting to the pressure? We +who believe in death, are not among the number who will reject this +mysterious explanation. + +Hence the impossibility of uttering, even for Cosette, that name of +Fantine. + +One day Cosette said to him:-- + +"Father, I saw my mother in a dream last night. She had two big wings. +My mother must have been almost a saint during her life." + +"Through martyrdom," replied Jean Valjean. + +However, Jean Valjean was happy. + +When Cosette went out with him, she leaned on his arm, proud and happy, +in the plenitude of her heart. Jean Valjean felt his heart melt within +him with delight, at all these sparks of a tenderness so exclusive, so +wholly satisfied with himself alone. The poor man trembled, inundated +with angelic joy; he declared to himself ecstatically that this would +last all their lives; he told himself that he really had not suffered +sufficiently to merit so radiant a bliss, and he thanked God, in the +depths of his soul, for having permitted him to be loved thus, he, a +wretch, by that innocent being. + + + + +CHAPTER V--THE ROSE PERCEIVES THAT IT IS AN ENGINE OF WAR + +One day, Cosette chanced to look at herself in her mirror, and she said +to herself: "Really!" It seemed to her almost that she was pretty. This +threw her in a singularly troubled state of mind. Up to that moment she +had never thought of her face. She saw herself in her mirror, but she +did not look at herself. And then, she had so often been told that she +was homely; Jean Valjean alone said gently: "No indeed! no indeed!" At +all events, Cosette had always thought herself homely, and had grown up +in that belief with the easy resignation of childhood. And here, all +at once, was her mirror saying to her, as Jean Valjean had said: "No +indeed!" That night, she did not sleep. "What if I were pretty!" she +thought. "How odd it would be if I were pretty!" And she recalled those +of her companions whose beauty had produced a sensation in the convent, +and she said to herself: "What! Am I to be like Mademoiselle So-and-So?" + +The next morning she looked at herself again, not by accident this time, +and she was assailed with doubts: "Where did I get such an idea?" said +she; "no, I am ugly." She had not slept well, that was all, her eyes +were sunken and she was pale. She had not felt very joyous on the +preceding evening in the belief that she was beautiful, but it made her +very sad not to be able to believe in it any longer. She did not look at +herself again, and for more than a fortnight she tried to dress her hair +with her back turned to the mirror. + +In the evening, after dinner, she generally embroidered in wool or +did some convent needlework in the drawing-room, and Jean Valjean read +beside her. Once she raised her eyes from her work, and was rendered +quite uneasy by the manner in which her father was gazing at her. + +On another occasion, she was passing along the street, and it seemed +to her that some one behind her, whom she did not see, said: "A pretty +woman! but badly dressed." "Bah!" she thought, "he does not mean me. +I am well dressed and ugly." She was then wearing a plush hat and her +merino gown. + +At last, one day when she was in the garden, she heard poor old +Toussaint saying: "Do you notice how pretty Cosette is growing, sir?" +Cosette did not hear her father's reply, but Toussaint's words caused +a sort of commotion within her. She fled from the garden, ran up to +her room, flew to the looking-glass,--it was three months since she +had looked at herself,--and gave vent to a cry. She had just dazzled +herself. + +She was beautiful and lovely; she could not help agreeing with Toussaint +and her mirror. Her figure was formed, her skin had grown white, her +hair was lustrous, an unaccustomed splendor had been lighted in her blue +eyes. The consciousness of her beauty burst upon her in an instant, like +the sudden advent of daylight; other people noticed it also, Toussaint +had said so, it was evidently she of whom the passer-by had spoken, +there could no longer be any doubt of that; she descended to the garden +again, thinking herself a queen, imagining that she heard the birds +singing, though it was winter, seeing the sky gilded, the sun among +the trees, flowers in the thickets, distracted, wild, in inexpressible +delight. + +Jean Valjean, on his side, experienced a deep and undefinable oppression +at heart. + +In fact, he had, for some time past, been contemplating with terror that +beauty which seemed to grow more radiant every day on Cosette's sweet +face. The dawn that was smiling for all was gloomy for him. + +Cosette had been beautiful for a tolerably long time before she became +aware of it herself. But, from the very first day, that unexpected light +which was rising slowly and enveloping the whole of the young girl's +person, wounded Jean Valjean's sombre eye. He felt that it was a change +in a happy life, a life so happy that he did not dare to move for fear +of disarranging something. This man, who had passed through all manner +of distresses, who was still all bleeding from the bruises of fate, who +had been almost wicked and who had become almost a saint, who, after +having dragged the chain of the galleys, was now dragging the invisible +but heavy chain of indefinite misery, this man whom the law had not +released from its grasp and who could be seized at any moment and +brought back from the obscurity of his virtue to the broad daylight of +public opprobrium, this man accepted all, excused all, pardoned all, and +merely asked of Providence, of man, of the law, of society, of nature, +of the world, one thing, that Cosette might love him! + +That Cosette might continue to love him! That God would not prevent +the heart of the child from coming to him, and from remaining with him! +Beloved by Cosette, he felt that he was healed, rested, appeased, loaded +with benefits, recompensed, crowned. Beloved by Cosette, it was well +with him! He asked nothing more! Had any one said to him: "Do you want +anything better?" he would have answered: "No." God might have said to +him: "Do you desire heaven?" and he would have replied: "I should lose +by it." + +Everything which could affect this situation, if only on the surface, +made him shudder like the beginning of something new. He had never +known very distinctly himself what the beauty of a woman means; but he +understood instinctively, that it was something terrible. + +He gazed with terror on this beauty, which was blossoming out ever more +triumphant and superb beside him, beneath his very eyes, on the innocent +and formidable brow of that child, from the depths of her homeliness, of +his old age, of his misery, of his reprobation. + +He said to himself: "How beautiful she is! What is to become of me?" + +There, moreover, lay the difference between his tenderness and the +tenderness of a mother. What he beheld with anguish, a mother would have +gazed upon with joy. + +The first symptoms were not long in making their appearance. + +On the very morrow of the day on which she had said to herself: +"Decidedly I am beautiful!" Cosette began to pay attention to her +toilet. She recalled the remark of that passer-by: "Pretty, but badly +dressed," the breath of an oracle which had passed beside her and had +vanished, after depositing in her heart one of the two germs which are +destined, later on, to fill the whole life of woman, coquetry. Love is +the other. + +With faith in her beauty, the whole feminine soul expanded within her. +She conceived a horror for her merinos, and shame for her plush hat. Her +father had never refused her anything. She at once acquired the whole +science of the bonnet, the gown, the mantle, the boot, the cuff, the +stuff which is in fashion, the color which is becoming, that science +which makes of the Parisian woman something so charming, so deep, and so +dangerous. The words heady woman were invented for the Parisienne. + +In less than a month, little Cosette, in that Thebaid of the Rue de +Babylone, was not only one of the prettiest, but one of the "best +dressed" women in Paris, which means a great deal more. + +She would have liked to encounter her "passer-by," to see what he would +say, and to "teach him a lesson!" The truth is, that she was ravishing +in every respect, and that she distinguished the difference between a +bonnet from Gerard and one from Herbaut in the most marvellous way. + +Jean Valjean watched these ravages with anxiety. He who felt that +he could never do anything but crawl, walk at the most, beheld wings +sprouting on Cosette. + +Moreover, from the mere inspection of Cosette's toilet, a woman +would have recognized the fact that she had no mother. Certain little +proprieties, certain special conventionalities, were not observed by +Cosette. A mother, for instance, would have told her that a young girl +does not dress in damask. + +The first day that Cosette went out in her black damask gown and mantle, +and her white crape bonnet, she took Jean Valjean's arm, gay, radiant, +rosy, proud, dazzling. "Father," she said, "how do you like me in this +guise?" Jean Valjean replied in a voice which resembled the bitter voice +of an envious man: "Charming!" He was the same as usual during their +walk. On their return home, he asked Cosette:-- + +"Won't you put on that other gown and bonnet again,--you know the ones I +mean?" + +This took place in Cosette's chamber. Cosette turned towards the +wardrobe where her cast-off schoolgirl's clothes were hanging. + +"That disguise!" said she. "Father, what do you want me to do with it? +Oh no, the idea! I shall never put on those horrors again. With that +machine on my head, I have the air of Madame Mad-dog." + +Jean Valjean heaved a deep sigh. + +From that moment forth, he noticed that Cosette, who had always +heretofore asked to remain at home, saying: "Father, I enjoy myself more +here with you," now was always asking to go out. In fact, what is the +use of having a handsome face and a delicious costume if one does not +display them? + +He also noticed that Cosette had no longer the same taste for the back +garden. Now she preferred the garden, and did not dislike to promenade +back and forth in front of the railed fence. Jean Valjean, who was shy, +never set foot in the garden. He kept to his back yard, like a dog. + +Cosette, in gaining the knowledge that she was beautiful, lost the grace +of ignoring it. An exquisite grace, for beauty enhanced by ingenuousness +is ineffable, and nothing is so adorable as a dazzling and innocent +creature who walks along, holding in her hand the key to paradise +without being conscious of it. But what she had lost in ingenuous grace, +she gained in pensive and serious charm. Her whole person, permeated +with the joy of youth, of innocence, and of beauty, breathed forth a +splendid melancholy. + +It was at this epoch that Marius, after the lapse of six months, saw her +once more at the Luxembourg. + + + + +CHAPTER VI--THE BATTLE BEGUN + +Cosette in her shadow, like Marius in his, was all ready to take fire. +Destiny, with its mysterious and fatal patience, slowly drew together +these two beings, all charged and all languishing with the stormy +electricity of passion, these two souls which were laden with love as +two clouds are laden with lightning, and which were bound to overflow +and mingle in a look like the clouds in a flash of fire. + +The glance has been so much abused in love romances that it has finally +fallen into disrepute. One hardly dares to say, nowadays, that two +beings fell in love because they looked at each other. That is the way +people do fall in love, nevertheless, and the only way. The rest is +nothing, but the rest comes afterwards. Nothing is more real than these +great shocks which two souls convey to each other by the exchange of +that spark. + +At that particular hour when Cosette unconsciously darted that glance +which troubled Marius, Marius had no suspicion that he had also launched +a look which disturbed Cosette. + +He caused her the same good and the same evil. + +She had been in the habit of seeing him for a long time, and she had +scrutinized him as girls scrutinize and see, while looking elsewhere. +Marius still considered Cosette ugly, when she had already begun to +think Marius handsome. But as he paid no attention to her, the young man +was nothing to her. + +Still, she could not refrain from saying to herself that he had +beautiful hair, beautiful eyes, handsome teeth, a charming tone of voice +when she heard him conversing with his comrades, that he held himself +badly when he walked, if you like, but with a grace that was all his +own, that he did not appear to be at all stupid, that his whole person +was noble, gentle, simple, proud, and that, in short, though he seemed +to be poor, yet his air was fine. + +On the day when their eyes met at last, and said to each other those +first, obscure, and ineffable things which the glance lisps, Cosette did +not immediately understand. She returned thoughtfully to the house in +the Rue de l'Ouest, where Jean Valjean, according to his custom, had +come to spend six weeks. The next morning, on waking, she thought of +that strange young man, so long indifferent and icy, who now seemed to +pay attention to her, and it did not appear to her that this attention +was the least in the world agreeable to her. She was, on the contrary, +somewhat incensed at this handsome and disdainful individual. A +substratum of war stirred within her. It struck her, and the idea caused +her a wholly childish joy, that she was going to take her revenge at +last. + +Knowing that she was beautiful, she was thoroughly conscious, though +in an indistinct fashion, that she possessed a weapon. Women play with +their beauty as children do with a knife. They wound themselves. + +The reader will recall Marius' hesitations, his palpitations, his +terrors. He remained on his bench and did not approach. This vexed +Cosette. One day, she said to Jean Valjean: "Father, let us stroll about +a little in that direction." Seeing that Marius did not come to her, +she went to him. In such cases, all women resemble Mahomet. And then, +strange to say, the first symptom of true love in a young man is +timidity; in a young girl it is boldness. This is surprising, and yet +nothing is more simple. It is the two sexes tending to approach each +other and assuming, each the other's qualities. + +That day, Cosette's glance drove Marius beside himself, and Marius' +glance set Cosette to trembling. Marius went away confident, and Cosette +uneasy. From that day forth, they adored each other. + +The first thing that Cosette felt was a confused and profound +melancholy. It seemed to her that her soul had become black since the +day before. She no longer recognized it. The whiteness of soul in young +girls, which is composed of coldness and gayety, resembles snow. It +melts in love, which is its sun. + +Cosette did not know what love was. She had never heard the word uttered +in its terrestrial sense. On the books of profane music which entered +the convent, amour (love) was replaced by tambour (drum) or pandour. +This created enigmas which exercised the imaginations of the big girls, +such as: Ah, how delightful is the drum! or, Pity is not a pandour. But +Cosette had left the convent too early to have occupied herself much +with the "drum." Therefore, she did not know what name to give to what +she now felt. Is any one the less ill because one does not know the name +of one's malady? + +She loved with all the more passion because she loved ignorantly. She +did not know whether it was a good thing or a bad thing, useful or +dangerous, eternal or temporary, allowable or prohibited; she loved. She +would have been greatly astonished, had any one said to her: "You do not +sleep? But that is forbidden! You do not eat? Why, that is very bad! You +have oppressions and palpitations of the heart? That must not be! You +blush and turn pale, when a certain being clad in black appears at the +end of a certain green walk? But that is abominable!" She would not have +understood, and she would have replied: "What fault is there of mine in +a matter in which I have no power and of which I know nothing?" + +It turned out that the love which presented itself was exactly suited to +the state of her soul. It was a sort of admiration at a distance, a mute +contemplation, the deification of a stranger. It was the apparition of +youth to youth, the dream of nights become a reality yet remaining +a dream, the longed-for phantom realized and made flesh at last, but +having as yet, neither name, nor fault, nor spot, nor exigence, nor +defect; in a word, the distant lover who lingered in the ideal, a +chimaera with a form. Any nearer and more palpable meeting would have +alarmed Cosette at this first stage, when she was still half immersed in +the exaggerated mists of the cloister. She had all the fears of children +and all the fears of nuns combined. The spirit of the convent, with +which she had been permeated for the space of five years, was still in +the process of slow evaporation from her person, and made everything +tremble around her. In this situation he was not a lover, he was not +even an admirer, he was a vision. She set herself to adoring Marius as +something charming, luminous, and impossible. + +As extreme innocence borders on extreme coquetry, she smiled at him with +all frankness. + +Every day, she looked forward to the hour for their walk with +impatience, she found Marius there, she felt herself unspeakably happy, +and thought in all sincerity that she was expressing her whole thought +when she said to Jean Valjean:-- + +"What a delicious garden that Luxembourg is!" + +Marius and Cosette were in the dark as to one another. They did not +address each other, they did not salute each other, they did not know +each other; they saw each other; and like stars of heaven which are +separated by millions of leagues, they lived by gazing at each other. + +It was thus that Cosette gradually became a woman and developed, +beautiful and loving, with a consciousness of her beauty, and in +ignorance of her love. She was a coquette to boot through her ignorance. + + + + +CHAPTER VII--TO ONE SADNESS OPPOSE A SADNESS AND A HALF + +All situations have their instincts. Old and eternal Mother Nature +warned Jean Valjean in a dim way of the presence of Marius. Jean Valjean +shuddered to the very bottom of his soul. Jean Valjean saw nothing, knew +nothing, and yet he scanned with obstinate attention, the darkness +in which he walked, as though he felt on one side of him something in +process of construction, and on the other, something which was crumbling +away. Marius, also warned, and, in accordance with the deep law of God, +by that same Mother Nature, did all he could to keep out of sight of +"the father." Nevertheless, it came to pass that Jean Valjean sometimes +espied him. Marius' manners were no longer in the least natural. He +exhibited ambiguous prudence and awkward daring. He no longer came quite +close to them as formerly. He seated himself at a distance and pretended +to be reading; why did he pretend that? Formerly he had come in his old +coat, now he wore his new one every day; Jean Valjean was not sure +that he did not have his hair curled, his eyes were very queer, he wore +gloves; in short, Jean Valjean cordially detested this young man. + +Cosette allowed nothing to be divined. Without knowing just what was the +matter with her she was convinced that there was something in it, and +that it must be concealed. + +There was a coincidence between the taste for the toilet which had +recently come to Cosette, and the habit of new clothes developed by +that stranger which was very repugnant to Jean Valjean. It might be +accidental, no doubt, certainly, but it was a menacing accident. + +He never opened his mouth to Cosette about this stranger. One day, +however, he could not refrain from so doing, and, with that vague +despair which suddenly casts the lead into the depths of its despair, he +said to her: "What a very pedantic air that young man has!" + +Cosette, but a year before only an indifferent little girl, would have +replied: "Why, no, he is charming." Ten years later, with the love +of Marius in her heart, she would have answered: "A pedant, and +insufferable to the sight! You are right!"--At the moment in life +and the heart which she had then attained, she contented herself with +replying, with supreme calmness: "That young man!" + +As though she now beheld him for the first time in her life. + +"How stupid I am!" thought Jean Valjean. "She had not noticed him. It is +I who have pointed him out to her." + +Oh, simplicity of the old! oh, the depth of children! + +It is one of the laws of those fresh years of suffering and trouble, of +those vivacious conflicts between a first love and the first obstacles, +that the young girl does not allow herself to be caught in any trap +whatever, and that the young man falls into every one. Jean Valjean +had instituted an undeclared war against Marius, which Marius, with +the sublime stupidity of his passion and his age, did not divine. Jean +Valjean laid a host of ambushes for him; he changed his hour, he changed +his bench, he forgot his handkerchief, he came alone to the Luxembourg; +Marius dashed headlong into all these snares; and to all the +interrogation marks planted by Jean Valjean in his pathway, he +ingenuously answered "yes." But Cosette remained immured in her apparent +unconcern and in her imperturbable tranquillity, so that Jean Valjean +arrived at the following conclusion: "That ninny is madly in love with +Cosette, but Cosette does not even know that he exists." + +None the less did he bear in his heart a mournful tremor. The minute +when Cosette would love might strike at any moment. Does not everything +begin with indifference? + +Only once did Cosette make a mistake and alarm him. He rose from his +seat to depart, after a stay of three hours, and she said: "What, +already?" + +Jean Valjean had not discontinued his trips to the Luxembourg, as he +did not wish to do anything out of the way, and as, above all things, +he feared to arouse Cosette; but during the hours which were so sweet +to the lovers, while Cosette was sending her smile to the intoxicated +Marius, who perceived nothing else now, and who now saw nothing in all +the world but an adored and radiant face, Jean Valjean was fixing on +Marius flashing and terrible eyes. He, who had finally come to believe +himself incapable of a malevolent feeling, experienced moments when +Marius was present, in which he thought he was becoming savage and +ferocious once more, and he felt the old depths of his soul, which +had formerly contained so much wrath, opening once more and rising up +against that young man. It almost seemed to him that unknown craters +were forming in his bosom. + +What! he was there, that creature! What was he there for? He came +creeping about, smelling out, examining, trying! He came, saying: "Hey! +Why not?" He came to prowl about his, Jean Valjean's, life! to prowl +about his happiness, with the purpose of seizing it and bearing it away! + +Jean Valjean added: "Yes, that's it! What is he in search of? An +adventure! What does he want? A love affair! A love affair! And I? What! +I have been first, the most wretched of men, and then the most unhappy, +and I have traversed sixty years of life on my knees, I have suffered +everything that man can suffer, I have grown old without having been +young, I have lived without a family, without relatives, without +friends, without life, without children, I have left my blood on every +stone, on every bramble, on every mile-post, along every wall, I have +been gentle, though others have been hard to me, and kind, although +others have been malicious, I have become an honest man once more, in +spite of everything, I have repented of the evil that I have done and +have forgiven the evil that has been done to me, and at the moment +when I receive my recompense, at the moment when it is all over, at the +moment when I am just touching the goal, at the moment when I have what +I desire, it is well, it is good, I have paid, I have earned it, all +this is to take flight, all this will vanish, and I shall lose Cosette, +and I shall lose my life, my joy, my soul, because it has pleased a +great booby to come and lounge at the Luxembourg." + +Then his eyes were filled with a sad and extraordinary gleam. + +It was no longer a man gazing at a man; it was no longer an enemy +surveying an enemy. It was a dog scanning a thief. + +The reader knows the rest. Marius pursued his senseless course. One day +he followed Cosette to the Rue de l'Ouest. Another day he spoke to +the porter. The porter, on his side, spoke, and said to Jean Valjean: +"Monsieur, who is that curious young man who is asking for you?" On the +morrow Jean Valjean bestowed on Marius that glance which Marius at last +perceived. A week later, Jean Valjean had taken his departure. He swore +to himself that he would never again set foot either in the Luxembourg +or in the Rue de l'Ouest. He returned to the Rue Plumet. + +Cosette did not complain, she said nothing, she asked no questions, she +did not seek to learn his reasons; she had already reached the point +where she was afraid of being divined, and of betraying herself. Jean +Valjean had no experience of these miseries, the only miseries which +are charming and the only ones with which he was not acquainted; the +consequence was that he did not understand the grave significance of +Cosette's silence. + +He merely noticed that she had grown sad, and he grew gloomy. On his +side and on hers, inexperience had joined issue. + +Once he made a trial. He asked Cosette:-- + +"Would you like to come to the Luxembourg?" + +A ray illuminated Cosette's pale face. + +"Yes," said she. + +They went thither. Three months had elapsed. Marius no longer went +there. Marius was not there. + +On the following day, Jean Valjean asked Cosette again:-- + +"Would you like to come to the Luxembourg?" + +She replied, sadly and gently:-- + +"No." + +Jean Valjean was hurt by this sadness, and heart-broken at this +gentleness. + +What was going on in that mind which was so young and yet already so +impenetrable? What was on its way there within? What was taking place +in Cosette's soul? Sometimes, instead of going to bed, Jean Valjean +remained seated on his pallet, with his head in his hands, and he passed +whole nights asking himself: "What has Cosette in her mind?" and in +thinking of the things that she might be thinking about. + +Oh! at such moments, what mournful glances did he cast towards that +cloister, that chaste peak, that abode of angels, that inaccessible +glacier of virtue! How he contemplated, with despairing ecstasy, that +convent garden, full of ignored flowers and cloistered virgins, where +all perfumes and all souls mount straight to heaven! How he adored that +Eden forever closed against him, whence he had voluntarily and madly +emerged! How he regretted his abnegation and his folly in having brought +Cosette back into the world, poor hero of sacrifice, seized and hurled +to the earth by his very self-devotion! How he said to himself, "What +have I done?" + +However, nothing of all this was perceptible to Cosette. No ill-temper, +no harshness. His face was always serene and kind. Jean Valjean's +manners were more tender and more paternal than ever. If anything could +have betrayed his lack of joy, it was his increased suavity. + +On her side, Cosette languished. She suffered from the absence of Marius +as she had rejoiced in his presence, peculiarly, without exactly being +conscious of it. When Jean Valjean ceased to take her on their customary +strolls, a feminine instinct murmured confusedly, at the bottom of her +heart, that she must not seem to set store on the Luxembourg garden, and +that if this proved to be a matter of indifference to her, her father +would take her thither once more. But days, weeks, months, elapsed. Jean +Valjean had tacitly accepted Cosette's tacit consent. She regretted it. +It was too late. So Marius had disappeared; all was over. The day on +which she returned to the Luxembourg, Marius was no longer there. What +was to be done? Should she ever find him again? She felt an anguish at +her heart, which nothing relieved, and which augmented every day; she no +longer knew whether it was winter or summer, whether it was raining or +shining, whether the birds were singing, whether it was the season for +dahlias or daisies, whether the Luxembourg was more charming than +the Tuileries, whether the linen which the laundress brought home +was starched too much or not enough, whether Toussaint had done "her +marketing" well or ill; and she remained dejected, absorbed, attentive +to but a single thought, her eyes vague and staring as when one gazes by +night at a black and fathomless spot where an apparition has vanished. + +However, she did not allow Jean Valjean to perceive anything of this, +except her pallor. + +She still wore her sweet face for him. + +This pallor sufficed but too thoroughly to trouble Jean Valjean. +Sometimes he asked her:-- + +"What is the matter with you?" + +She replied: "There is nothing the matter with me." + +And after a silence, when she divined that he was sad also, she would +add:-- + +"And you, father--is there anything wrong with you?" + +"With me? Nothing," said he. + +These two beings who had loved each other so exclusively, and with so +touching an affection, and who had lived so long for each other +now suffered side by side, each on the other's account; without +acknowledging it to each other, without anger towards each other, and +with a smile. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII--THE CHAIN-GANG + +Jean Valjean was the more unhappy of the two. Youth, even in its +sorrows, always possesses its own peculiar radiance. + +At times, Jean Valjean suffered so greatly that he became puerile. It is +the property of grief to cause the childish side of man to reappear. He +had an unconquerable conviction that Cosette was escaping from him. He +would have liked to resist, to retain her, to arouse her enthusiasm by +some external and brilliant matter. These ideas, puerile, as we have +just said, and at the same time senile, conveyed to him, by their very +childishness, a tolerably just notion of the influence of gold lace on +the imaginations of young girls. He once chanced to see a general on +horseback, in full uniform, pass along the street, Comte Coutard, the +commandant of Paris. He envied that gilded man; what happiness it +would be, he said to himself, if he could put on that suit which was an +incontestable thing; and if Cosette could behold him thus, she would be +dazzled, and when he had Cosette on his arm and passed the gates of the +Tuileries, the guard would present arms to him, and that would suffice +for Cosette, and would dispel her idea of looking at young men. + +An unforeseen shock was added to these sad reflections. + +In the isolated life which they led, and since they had come to dwell +in the Rue Plumet, they had contracted one habit. They sometimes took +a pleasure trip to see the sun rise, a mild species of enjoyment which +befits those who are entering life and those who are quitting it. + +For those who love solitude, a walk in the early morning is equivalent +to a stroll by night, with the cheerfulness of nature added. The streets +are deserted and the birds are singing. Cosette, a bird herself, liked +to rise early. These matutinal excursions were planned on the preceding +evening. He proposed, and she agreed. It was arranged like a plot, they +set out before daybreak, and these trips were so many small delights for +Cosette. These innocent eccentricities please young people. + +Jean Valjean's inclination led him, as we have seen, to the least +frequented spots, to solitary nooks, to forgotten places. There then +existed, in the vicinity of the barriers of Paris, a sort of poor +meadows, which were almost confounded with the city, where grew in +summer sickly grain, and which, in autumn, after the harvest had been +gathered, presented the appearance, not of having been reaped, but +peeled. Jean Valjean loved to haunt these fields. Cosette was not bored +there. It meant solitude to him and liberty to her. There, she became a +little girl once more, she could run and almost play; she took off her +hat, laid it on Jean Valjean's knees, and gathered bunches of flowers. +She gazed at the butterflies on the flowers, but did not catch them; +gentleness and tenderness are born with love, and the young girl who +cherishes within her breast a trembling and fragile ideal has mercy on +the wing of a butterfly. She wove garlands of poppies, which she placed +on her head, and which, crossed and penetrated with sunlight, glowing +until they flamed, formed for her rosy face a crown of burning embers. + +Even after their life had grown sad, they kept up their custom of early +strolls. + +One morning in October, therefore, tempted by the serene perfection of +the autumn of 1831, they set out, and found themselves at break of +day near the Barriere du Maine. It was not dawn, it was daybreak; a +delightful and stern moment. A few constellations here and there in the +deep, pale azure, the earth all black, the heavens all white, a quiver +amid the blades of grass, everywhere the mysterious chill of twilight. A +lark, which seemed mingled with the stars, was carolling at a prodigious +height, and one would have declared that that hymn of pettiness calmed +immensity. In the East, the Valde-Grace projected its dark mass on the +clear horizon with the sharpness of steel; Venus dazzlingly brilliant +was rising behind that dome and had the air of a soul making its escape +from a gloomy edifice. + +All was peace and silence; there was no one on the road; a few stray +laborers, of whom they caught barely a glimpse, were on their way to +their work along the side-paths. + +Jean Valjean was sitting in a cross-walk on some planks deposited at the +gate of a timber-yard. His face was turned towards the highway, his back +towards the light; he had forgotten the sun which was on the point of +rising; he had sunk into one of those profound absorptions in which the +mind becomes concentrated, which imprison even the eye, and which are +equivalent to four walls. There are meditations which may be called +vertical; when one is at the bottom of them, time is required to return +to earth. Jean Valjean had plunged into one of these reveries. He was +thinking of Cosette, of the happiness that was possible if nothing came +between him and her, of the light with which she filled his life, a +light which was but the emanation of her soul. He was almost happy in +his revery. Cosette, who was standing beside him, was gazing at the +clouds as they turned rosy. + +All at once Cosette exclaimed: "Father, I should think some one was +coming yonder." Jean Valjean raised his eyes. + +Cosette was right. The causeway which leads to the ancient Barriere du +Maine is a prolongation, as the reader knows, of the Rue de Sevres, +and is cut at right angles by the inner boulevard. At the elbow of the +causeway and the boulevard, at the spot where it branches, they heard a +noise which it was difficult to account for at that hour, and a sort of +confused pile made its appearance. Some shapeless thing which was coming +from the boulevard was turning into the road. + +It grew larger, it seemed to move in an orderly manner, though it was +bristling and quivering; it seemed to be a vehicle, but its load could +not be distinctly made out. There were horses, wheels, shouts; whips +were cracking. By degrees the outlines became fixed, although bathed +in shadows. It was a vehicle, in fact, which had just turned from the +boulevard into the highway, and which was directing its course towards +the barrier near which sat Jean Valjean; a second, of the same aspect, +followed, then a third, then a fourth; seven chariots made their +appearance in succession, the heads of the horses touching the rear of +the wagon in front. Figures were moving on these vehicles, flashes were +visible through the dusk as though there were naked swords there, a +clanking became audible which resembled the rattling of chains, and as +this something advanced, the sound of voices waxed louder, and it turned +into a terrible thing such as emerges from the cave of dreams. + +As it drew nearer, it assumed a form, and was outlined behind the trees +with the pallid hue of an apparition; the mass grew white; the day, +which was slowly dawning, cast a wan light on this swarming heap which +was at once both sepulchral and living, the heads of the figures turned +into the faces of corpses, and this is what it proved to be:-- + +Seven wagons were driving in a file along the road. The first six were +singularly constructed. They resembled coopers' drays; they consisted +of long ladders placed on two wheels and forming barrows at their rear +extremities. Each dray, or rather let us say, each ladder, was attached +to four horses harnessed tandem. On these ladders strange clusters of +men were being drawn. In the faint light, these men were to be divined +rather than seen. Twenty-four on each vehicle, twelve on a side, back to +back, facing the passers-by, their legs dangling in the air,--this was +the manner in which these men were travelling, and behind their backs +they had something which clanked, and which was a chain, and on their +necks something which shone, and which was an iron collar. Each man had +his collar, but the chain was for all; so that if these four and twenty +men had occasion to alight from the dray and walk, they were seized with +a sort of inexorable unity, and were obliged to wind over the ground +with the chain for a backbone, somewhat after the fashion of millepeds. +In the back and front of each vehicle, two men armed with muskets +stood erect, each holding one end of the chain under his foot. The iron +necklets were square. The seventh vehicle, a huge rack-sided baggage +wagon, without a hood, had four wheels and six horses, and carried a +sonorous pile of iron boilers, cast-iron pots, braziers, and chains, +among which were mingled several men who were pinioned and stretched at +full length, and who seemed to be ill. This wagon, all lattice-work, +was garnished with dilapidated hurdles which appeared to have served for +former punishments. These vehicles kept to the middle of the road. On +each side marched a double hedge of guards of infamous aspect, wearing +three-cornered hats, like the soldiers under the Directory, shabby, +covered with spots and holes, muffled in uniforms of veterans and the +trousers of undertakers' men, half gray, half blue, which were almost +hanging in rags, with red epaulets, yellow shoulder belts, short sabres, +muskets, and cudgels; they were a species of soldier-blackguards. +These myrmidons seemed composed of the abjectness of the beggar and the +authority of the executioner. The one who appeared to be their chief +held a postilion's whip in his hand. All these details, blurred by the +dimness of dawn, became more and more clearly outlined as the light +increased. At the head and in the rear of the convoy rode mounted +gendarmes, serious and with sword in fist. + +This procession was so long that when the first vehicle reached the +barrier, the last was barely debauching from the boulevard. A throng, +sprung, it is impossible to say whence, and formed in a twinkling, as +is frequently the case in Paris, pressed forward from both sides of +the road and looked on. In the neighboring lanes the shouts of people +calling to each other and the wooden shoes of market-gardeners hastening +up to gaze were audible. + +The men massed upon the drays allowed themselves to be jolted along in +silence. They were livid with the chill of morning. They all wore linen +trousers, and their bare feet were thrust into wooden shoes. The rest +of their costume was a fantasy of wretchedness. Their accoutrements were +horribly incongruous; nothing is more funereal than the harlequin in +rags. Battered felt hats, tarpaulin caps, hideous woollen nightcaps, +and, side by side with a short blouse, a black coat broken at the elbow; +many wore women's headgear, others had baskets on their heads; hairy +breasts were visible, and through the rent in their garments tattooed +designs could be descried; temples of Love, flaming hearts, Cupids; +eruptions and unhealthy red blotches could also be seen. Two or three +had a straw rope attached to the cross-bar of the dray, and suspended +under them like a stirrup, which supported their feet. One of them held +in his hand and raised to his mouth something which had the appearance +of a black stone and which he seemed to be gnawing; it was bread which +he was eating. There were no eyes there which were not either dry, +dulled, or flaming with an evil light. The escort troop cursed, the men +in chains did not utter a syllable; from time to time the sound of +a blow became audible as the cudgels descended on shoulder-blades or +skulls; some of these men were yawning; their rags were terrible; +their feet hung down, their shoulders oscillated, their heads clashed +together, their fetters clanked, their eyes glared ferociously, their +fists clenched or fell open inertly like the hands of corpses; in the +rear of the convoy ran a band of children screaming with laughter. + +This file of vehicles, whatever its nature was, was mournful. It +was evident that to-morrow, that an hour hence, a pouring rain might +descend, that it might be followed by another and another, and that +their dilapidated garments would be drenched, that once soaked, these +men would not get dry again, that once chilled, they would not again +get warm, that their linen trousers would be glued to their bones by the +downpour, that the water would fill their shoes, that no lashes from +the whips would be able to prevent their jaws from chattering, that the +chain would continue to bind them by the neck, that their legs would +continue to dangle, and it was impossible not to shudder at the sight +of these human beings thus bound and passive beneath the cold clouds of +autumn, and delivered over to the rain, to the blast, to all the furies +of the air, like trees and stones. + +Blows from the cudgel were not omitted even in the case of the sick men, +who lay there knotted with ropes and motionless on the seventh wagon, +and who appeared to have been tossed there like sacks filled with +misery. + +Suddenly, the sun made its appearance; the immense light of the Orient +burst forth, and one would have said that it had set fire to all those +ferocious heads. Their tongues were unloosed; a conflagration of grins, +oaths, and songs exploded. The broad horizontal sheet of light severed +the file in two parts, illuminating heads and bodies, leaving feet and +wheels in the obscurity. Thoughts made their appearance on these faces; +it was a terrible moment; visible demons with their masks removed, +fierce souls laid bare. Though lighted up, this wild throng remained in +gloom. Some, who were gay, had in their mouths quills through which they +blew vermin over the crowd, picking out the women; the dawn accentuated +these lamentable profiles with the blackness of its shadows; there +was not one of these creatures who was not deformed by reason of +wretchedness; and the whole was so monstrous that one would have +said that the sun's brilliancy had been changed into the glare of the +lightning. The wagon-load which headed the line had struck up a song, +and were shouting at the top of their voices with a haggard joviality, +a potpourri by Desaugiers, then famous, called The Vestal; the trees +shivered mournfully; in the cross-lanes, countenances of bourgeois +listened in an idiotic delight to these coarse strains droned by +spectres. + +All sorts of distress met in this procession as in chaos; here were to +be found the facial angles of every sort of beast, old men, youths, +bald heads, gray beards, cynical monstrosities, sour resignation, savage +grins, senseless attitudes, snouts surmounted by caps, heads like those +of young girls with corkscrew curls on the temples, infantile visages, +and by reason of that, horrible thin skeleton faces, to which death +alone was lacking. On the first cart was a negro, who had been a slave, +in all probability, and who could make a comparison of his chains. The +frightful leveller from below, shame, had passed over these brows; at +that degree of abasement, the last transformations were suffered by all +in their extremest depths, and ignorance, converted into dulness, was +the equal of intelligence converted into despair. There was no choice +possible between these men who appeared to the eye as the flower of the +mud. It was evident that the person who had had the ordering of that +unclean procession had not classified them. These beings had been +fettered and coupled pell-mell, in alphabetical disorder, probably, and +loaded hap-hazard on those carts. Nevertheless, horrors, when grouped +together, always end by evolving a result; all additions of wretched men +give a sum total, each chain exhaled a common soul, and each dray-load +had its own physiognomy. By the side of the one where they were singing, +there was one where they were howling; a third where they were begging; +one could be seen in which they were gnashing their teeth; another load +menaced the spectators, another blasphemed God; the last was as silent +as the tomb. Dante would have thought that he beheld his seven circles +of hell on the march. The march of the damned to their tortures, +performed in sinister wise, not on the formidable and flaming chariot +of the Apocalypse, but, what was more mournful than that, on the gibbet +cart. + +One of the guards, who had a hook on the end of his cudgel, made a +pretence from time to time, of stirring up this mass of human filth. +An old woman in the crowd pointed them out to her little boy five years +old, and said to him: "Rascal, let that be a warning to you!" + +As the songs and blasphemies increased, the man who appeared to be the +captain of the escort cracked his whip, and at that signal a fearful +dull and blind flogging, which produced the sound of hail, fell upon the +seven dray-loads; many roared and foamed at the mouth; which redoubled +the delight of the street urchins who had hastened up, a swarm of flies +on these wounds. + +Jean Valjean's eyes had assumed a frightful expression. They were no +longer eyes; they were those deep and glassy objects which replace the +glance in the case of certain wretched men, which seem unconscious +of reality, and in which flames the reflection of terrors and of +catastrophes. He was not looking at a spectacle, he was seeing a vision. +He tried to rise, to flee, to make his escape; he could not move his +feet. Sometimes, the things that you see seize upon you and hold you +fast. He remained nailed to the spot, petrified, stupid, asking himself, +athwart confused and inexpressible anguish, what this sepulchral +persecution signified, and whence had come that pandemonium which was +pursuing him. All at once, he raised his hand to his brow, a gesture +habitual to those whose memory suddenly returns; he remembered that this +was, in fact, the usual itinerary, that it was customary to make this +detour in order to avoid all possibility of encountering royalty on the +road to Fontainebleau, and that, five and thirty years before, he had +himself passed through that barrier. + +Cosette was no less terrified, but in a different way. She did not +understand; what she beheld did not seem to her to be possible; at +length she cried:-- + +"Father! What are those men in those carts?" + +Jean Valjean replied: "Convicts." + +"Whither are they going?" + +"To the galleys." + +At that moment, the cudgelling, multiplied by a hundred hands, became +zealous, blows with the flat of the sword were mingled with it, it was a +perfect storm of whips and clubs; the convicts bent before it, a hideous +obedience was evoked by the torture, and all held their peace, darting +glances like chained wolves. + +Cosette trembled in every limb; she resumed:-- + +"Father, are they still men?" + +"Sometimes," answered the unhappy man. + +It was the chain-gang, in fact, which had set out before daybreak from +Bicetre, and had taken the road to Mans in order to avoid Fontainebleau, +where the King then was. This caused the horrible journey to last three +or four days longer; but torture may surely be prolonged with the object +of sparing the royal personage a sight of it. + +Jean Valjean returned home utterly overwhelmed. Such encounters are +shocks, and the memory that they leave behind them resembles a thorough +shaking up. + +Nevertheless, Jean Valjean did not observe that, on his way back to +the Rue de Babylone with Cosette, the latter was plying him with other +questions on the subject of what they had just seen; perhaps he was +too much absorbed in his own dejection to notice her words and reply to +them. But when Cosette was leaving him in the evening, to betake herself +to bed, he heard her say in a low voice, and as though talking to +herself: "It seems to me, that if I were to find one of those men in my +pathway, oh, my God, I should die merely from the sight of him close at +hand." + +Fortunately, chance ordained that on the morrow of that tragic day, +there was some official solemnity apropos of I know not what,--fetes in +Paris, a review in the Champ de Mars, jousts on the Seine, theatrical +performances in the Champs-Elysees, fireworks at the Arc de l'Etoile, +illuminations everywhere. Jean Valjean did violence to his habits, and +took Cosette to see these rejoicings, for the purpose of diverting her +from the memory of the day before, and of effacing, beneath the smiling +tumult of all Paris, the abominable thing which had passed before her. +The review with which the festival was spiced made the presence of +uniforms perfectly natural; Jean Valjean donned his uniform of a +national guard with the vague inward feeling of a man who is betaking +himself to shelter. However, this trip seemed to attain its object. +Cosette, who made it her law to please her father, and to whom, +moreover, all spectacles were a novelty, accepted this diversion +with the light and easy good grace of youth, and did not pout too +disdainfully at that flutter of enjoyment called a public fete; so that +Jean Valjean was able to believe that he had succeeded, and that no +trace of that hideous vision remained. + +Some days later, one morning, when the sun was shining brightly, and +they were both on the steps leading to the garden, another infraction of +the rules which Jean Valjean seemed to have imposed upon himself, and +to the custom of remaining in her chamber which melancholy had caused +Cosette to adopt, Cosette, in a wrapper, was standing erect in that +negligent attire of early morning which envelops young girls in an +adorable way and which produces the effect of a cloud drawn over a star; +and, with her head bathed in light, rosy after a good sleep, submitting +to the gentle glances of the tender old man, she was picking a daisy +to pieces. Cosette did not know the delightful legend, I love a little, +passionately, etc.--who was there who could have taught her? She was +handling the flower instinctively, innocently, without a suspicion that +to pluck a daisy apart is to do the same by a heart. If there were a +fourth, and smiling Grace called Melancholy, she would have worn the air +of that Grace. Jean Valjean was fascinated by the contemplation of those +tiny fingers on that flower, and forgetful of everything in the radiance +emitted by that child. A red-breast was warbling in the thicket, on one +side. White cloudlets floated across the sky, so gayly, that one would +have said that they had just been set at liberty. Cosette went on +attentively tearing the leaves from her flower; she seemed to be +thinking about something; but whatever it was, it must be something +charming; all at once she turned her head over her shoulder with the +delicate languor of a swan, and said to Jean Valjean: "Father, what are +the galleys like?" + + + + +BOOK FOURTH.--SUCCOR FROM BELOW MAY TURN OUT TO BE SUCCOR FROM ON HIGH + + + + +CHAPTER I--A WOUND WITHOUT, HEALING WITHIN + +Thus their life clouded over by degrees. + +But one diversion, which had formerly been a happiness, remained to +them, which was to carry bread to those who were hungry, and clothing +to those who were cold. Cosette often accompanied Jean Valjean on these +visits to the poor, on which they recovered some remnants of their +former free intercourse; and sometimes, when the day had been a good +one, and they had assisted many in distress, and cheered and warmed many +little children, Cosette was rather merry in the evening. It was at this +epoch that they paid their visit to the Jondrette den. + +On the day following that visit, Jean Valjean made his appearance in the +pavilion in the morning, calm as was his wont, but with a large wound on +his left arm which was much inflamed, and very angry, which resembled a +burn, and which he explained in some way or other. This wound resulted +in his being detained in the house for a month with fever. He would not +call in a doctor. When Cosette urged him, "Call the dog-doctor," said +he. + +Cosette dressed the wound morning and evening with so divine an air and +such angelic happiness at being of use to him, that Jean Valjean felt +all his former joy returning, his fears and anxieties dissipating, and +he gazed at Cosette, saying: "Oh! what a kindly wound! Oh! what a good +misfortune!" + +Cosette on perceiving that her father was ill, had deserted the pavilion +and again taken a fancy to the little lodging and the back courtyard. +She passed nearly all her days beside Jean Valjean and read to him +the books which he desired. Generally they were books of travel. Jean +Valjean was undergoing a new birth; his happiness was reviving in these +ineffable rays; the Luxembourg, the prowling young stranger, Cosette's +coldness,--all these clouds upon his soul were growing dim. He had +reached the point where he said to himself: "I imagined all that. I am +an old fool." + +His happiness was so great that the horrible discovery of the +Thenardiers made in the Jondrette hovel, unexpected as it was, had, +after a fashion, glided over him unnoticed. He had succeeded in making +his escape; all trace of him was lost--what more did he care for! he +only thought of those wretched beings to pity them. "Here they are in +prison, and henceforth they will be incapacitated for doing any harm," +he thought, "but what a lamentable family in distress!" + +As for the hideous vision of the Barriere du Maine, Cosette had not +referred to it again. + +Sister Sainte-Mechtilde had taught Cosette music in the convent; Cosette +had the voice of a linnet with a soul, and sometimes, in the evening, +in the wounded man's humble abode, she warbled melancholy songs which +delighted Jean Valjean. + +Spring came; the garden was so delightful at that season of the year, +that Jean Valjean said to Cosette:-- + +"You never go there; I want you to stroll in it." + +"As you like, father," said Cosette. + +And for the sake of obeying her father, she resumed her walks in the +garden, generally alone, for, as we have mentioned, Jean Valjean, who +was probably afraid of being seen through the fence, hardly ever went +there. + +Jean Valjean's wound had created a diversion. + +When Cosette saw that her father was suffering less, that he was +convalescing, and that he appeared to be happy, she experienced a +contentment which she did not even perceive, so gently and naturally +had it come. Then, it was in the month of March, the days were growing +longer, the winter was departing, the winter always bears away with it a +portion of our sadness; then came April, that daybreak of summer, fresh +as dawn always is, gay like every childhood; a little inclined to weep +at times like the new-born being that it is. In that month, nature +has charming gleams which pass from the sky, from the trees, from the +meadows and the flowers into the heart of man. + +Cosette was still too young to escape the penetrating influence of that +April joy which bore so strong a resemblance to herself. Insensibly, and +without her suspecting the fact, the blackness departed from her spirit. +In spring, sad souls grow light, as light falls into cellars at midday. +Cosette was no longer sad. However, though this was so, she did not +account for it to herself. In the morning, about ten o'clock, after +breakfast, when she had succeeded in enticing her father into the garden +for a quarter of an hour, and when she was pacing up and down in the +sunlight in front of the steps, supporting his left arm for him, she did +not perceive that she laughed every moment and that she was happy. + +Jean Valjean, intoxicated, beheld her growing fresh and rosy once more. + +"Oh! What a good wound!" he repeated in a whisper. + +And he felt grateful to the Thenardiers. + +His wound once healed, he resumed his solitary twilight strolls. + +It is a mistake to suppose that a person can stroll alone in that +fashion in the uninhabited regions of Paris without meeting with some +adventure. + + + + +CHAPTER II--MOTHER PLUTARQUE FINDS NO DIFFICULTY IN EXPLAINING A +PHENOMENON + +One evening, little Gavroche had had nothing to eat; he remembered +that he had not dined on the preceding day either; this was becoming +tiresome. He resolved to make an effort to secure some supper. He +strolled out beyond the Salpetriere into deserted regions; that is +where windfalls are to be found; where there is no one, one always +finds something. He reached a settlement which appeared to him to be the +village of Austerlitz. + +In one of his preceding lounges he had noticed there an old garden +haunted by an old man and an old woman, and in that garden, a passable +apple-tree. Beside the apple-tree stood a sort of fruit-house, which was +not securely fastened, and where one might contrive to get an apple. One +apple is a supper; one apple is life. That which was Adam's ruin might +prove Gavroche's salvation. The garden abutted on a solitary, unpaved +lane, bordered with brushwood while awaiting the arrival of houses; the +garden was separated from it by a hedge. + +Gavroche directed his steps towards this garden; he found the lane, he +recognized the apple-tree, he verified the fruit-house, he examined the +hedge; a hedge means merely one stride. The day was declining, there was +not even a cat in the lane, the hour was propitious. Gavroche began +the operation of scaling the hedge, then suddenly paused. Some one was +talking in the garden. Gavroche peeped through one of the breaks in the +hedge. + +[Illustration: Succor from Below 4b4-1-succor-from-below] + +A couple of paces distant, at the foot of the hedge on the other side, +exactly at the point where the gap which he was meditating would have +been made, there was a sort of recumbent stone which formed a bench, and +on this bench was seated the old man of the garden, while the old woman +was standing in front of him. The old woman was grumbling. Gavroche, who +was not very discreet, listened. + +"Monsieur Mabeuf!" said the old woman. + +"Mabeuf!" thought Gavroche, "that name is a perfect farce." + +The old man who was thus addressed, did not stir. The old woman +repeated:-- + +"Monsieur Mabeuf!" + +The old man, without raising his eyes from the ground, made up his mind +to answer:-- + +"What is it, Mother Plutarque?" + +"Mother Plutarque!" thought Gavroche, "another farcical name." + +Mother Plutarque began again, and the old man was forced to accept the +conversation:-- + +"The landlord is not pleased." + +"Why?" + +"We owe three quarters rent." + +"In three months, we shall owe him for four quarters." + +"He says that he will turn you out to sleep." + +"I will go." + +"The green-grocer insists on being paid. She will no longer leave her +fagots. What will you warm yourself with this winter? We shall have no +wood." + +"There is the sun." + +"The butcher refuses to give credit; he will not let us have any more +meat." + +"That is quite right. I do not digest meat well. It is too heavy." + +"What shall we have for dinner?" + +"Bread." + +"The baker demands a settlement, and says, 'no money, no bread.'" + +"That is well." + +"What will you eat?" + +"We have apples in the apple-room." + +"But, Monsieur, we can't live like that without money." + +"I have none." + +The old woman went away, the old man remained alone. He fell into +thought. Gavroche became thoughtful also. It was almost dark. + +The first result of Gavroche's meditation was, that instead of scaling +the hedge, he crouched down under it. The branches stood apart a little +at the foot of the thicket. + +"Come," exclaimed Gavroche mentally, "here's a nook!" and he curled up +in it. His back was almost in contact with Father Mabeuf's bench. He +could hear the octogenarian breathe. + +Then, by way of dinner, he tried to sleep. + +It was a cat-nap, with one eye open. While he dozed, Gavroche kept on +the watch. + +The twilight pallor of the sky blanched the earth, and the lane formed a +livid line between two rows of dark bushes. + +All at once, in this whitish band, two figures made their appearance. +One was in front, the other some distance in the rear. + +"There come two creatures," muttered Gavroche. + +The first form seemed to be some elderly bourgeois, who was bent and +thoughtful, dressed more than plainly, and who was walking slowly +because of his age, and strolling about in the open evening air. + +The second was straight, firm, slender. It regulated its pace by that +of the first; but in the voluntary slowness of its gait, suppleness +and agility were discernible. This figure had also something fierce and +disquieting about it, the whole shape was that of what was then called +an elegant; the hat was of good shape, the coat black, well cut, +probably of fine cloth, and well fitted in at the waist. The head was +held erect with a sort of robust grace, and beneath the hat the pale +profile of a young man could be made out in the dim light. The profile +had a rose in its mouth. This second form was well known to Gavroche; it +was Montparnasse. + +He could have told nothing about the other, except that he was a +respectable old man. + +Gavroche immediately began to take observations. + +One of these two pedestrians evidently had a project connected with +the other. Gavroche was well placed to watch the course of events. The +bedroom had turned into a hiding-place at a very opportune moment. + +Montparnasse on the hunt at such an hour, in such a place, betokened +something threatening. Gavroche felt his gamin's heart moved with +compassion for the old man. + +What was he to do? Interfere? One weakness coming to the aid of another! +It would be merely a laughing matter for Montparnasse. Gavroche did not +shut his eyes to the fact that the old man, in the first place, and the +child in the second, would make but two mouthfuls for that redoubtable +ruffian eighteen years of age. + +While Gavroche was deliberating, the attack took place, abruptly and +hideously. The attack of the tiger on the wild ass, the attack of the +spider on the fly. Montparnasse suddenly tossed away his rose, bounded +upon the old man, seized him by the collar, grasped and clung to him, +and Gavroche with difficulty restrained a scream. A moment later one of +these men was underneath the other, groaning, struggling, with a knee +of marble upon his breast. Only, it was not just what Gavroche had +expected. The one who lay on the earth was Montparnasse; the one who +was on top was the old man. All this took place a few paces distant from +Gavroche. + +The old man had received the shock, had returned it, and that in such +a terrible fashion, that in a twinkling, the assailant and the assailed +had exchanged roles. + +"Here's a hearty veteran!" thought Gavroche. + +He could not refrain from clapping his hands. But it was applause +wasted. It did not reach the combatants, absorbed and deafened as they +were, each by the other, as their breath mingled in the struggle. + +Silence ensued. Montparnasse ceased his struggles. Gavroche indulged in +this aside: "Can he be dead!" + +The goodman had not uttered a word, nor given vent to a cry. He rose to +his feet, and Gavroche heard him say to Montparnasse:-- + +"Get up." + +Montparnasse rose, but the goodman held him fast. Montparnasse's +attitude was the humiliated and furious attitude of the wolf who has +been caught by a sheep. + +Gavroche looked on and listened, making an effort to reinforce his eyes +with his ears. He was enjoying himself immensely. + +He was repaid for his conscientious anxiety in the character of a +spectator. He was able to catch on the wing a dialogue which borrowed +from the darkness an indescribably tragic accent. The goodman +questioned, Montparnasse replied. + +"How old are you?" + +"Nineteen." + +"You are strong and healthy. Why do you not work?" + +"It bores me." + +"What is your trade?" + +"An idler." + +"Speak seriously. Can anything be done for you? What would you like to +be?" + +"A thief." + +A pause ensued. The old man seemed absorbed in profound thought. He +stood motionless, and did not relax his hold on Montparnasse. + +Every moment the vigorous and agile young ruffian indulged in the +twitchings of a wild beast caught in a snare. He gave a jerk, tried a +crook of the knee, twisted his limbs desperately, and made efforts to +escape. + +The old man did not appear to notice it, and held both his arms with one +hand, with the sovereign indifference of absolute force. + +The old man's revery lasted for some time, then, looking steadily at +Montparnasse, he addressed to him in a gentle voice, in the midst of the +darkness where they stood, a solemn harangue, of which Gavroche did not +lose a single syllable:-- + +"My child, you are entering, through indolence, on one of the most +laborious of lives. Ah! You declare yourself to be an idler! prepare to +toil. There is a certain formidable machine, have you seen it? It is +the rolling-mill. You must be on your guard against it, it is crafty +and ferocious; if it catches hold of the skirt of your coat, you will be +drawn in bodily. That machine is laziness. Stop while there is yet time, +and save yourself! Otherwise, it is all over with you; in a short time +you will be among the gearing. Once entangled, hope for nothing more. +Toil, lazybones! there is no more repose for you! The iron hand of +implacable toil has seized you. You do not wish to earn your living, to +have a task, to fulfil a duty! It bores you to be like other men? Well! +You will be different. Labor is the law; he who rejects it will find +ennui his torment. You do not wish to be a workingman, you will be a +slave. Toil lets go of you on one side only to grasp you again on the +other. You do not desire to be its friend, you shall be its negro slave. +Ah! You would have none of the honest weariness of men, you shall have +the sweat of the damned. Where others sing, you will rattle in your +throat. You will see afar off, from below, other men at work; it will +seem to you that they are resting. The laborer, the harvester, the +sailor, the blacksmith, will appear to you in glory like the blessed +spirits in paradise. What radiance surrounds the forge! To guide the +plough, to bind the sheaves, is joy. The bark at liberty in the wind, +what delight! Do you, lazy idler, delve, drag on, roll, march! Drag your +halter. You are a beast of burden in the team of hell! Ah! To do nothing +is your object. Well, not a week, not a day, not an hour shall you have +free from oppression. You will be able to lift nothing without anguish. +Every minute that passes will make your muscles crack. What is a feather +to others will be a rock to you. The simplest things will become steep +acclivities. Life will become monstrous all about you. To go, to come, +to breathe, will be just so many terrible labors. Your lungs will +produce on you the effect of weighing a hundred pounds. Whether you +shall walk here rather than there, will become a problem that must be +solved. Any one who wants to go out simply gives his door a push, and +there he is in the open air. If you wish to go out, you will be obliged +to pierce your wall. What does every one who wants to step into the +street do? He goes down stairs; you will tear up your sheets, little +by little you will make of them a rope, then you will climb out of your +window, and you will suspend yourself by that thread over an abyss, and +it will be night, amid storm, rain, and the hurricane, and if the rope +is too short, but one way of descending will remain to you, to fall. To +drop hap-hazard into the gulf, from an unknown height, on what? On what +is beneath, on the unknown. Or you will crawl up a chimney-flue, at the +risk of burning; or you will creep through a sewer-pipe, at the risk of +drowning; I do not speak of the holes that you will be obliged to mask, +of the stones which you will have to take up and replace twenty times a +day, of the plaster that you will have to hide in your straw pallet. A +lock presents itself; the bourgeois has in his pocket a key made by a +locksmith. If you wish to pass out, you will be condemned to execute a +terrible work of art; you will take a large sou, you will cut it in +two plates; with what tools? You will have to invent them. That is your +business. Then you will hollow out the interior of these plates, taking +great care of the outside, and you will make on the edges a thread, so +that they can be adjusted one upon the other like a box and its cover. +The top and bottom thus screwed together, nothing will be suspected. To +the overseers it will be only a sou; to you it will be a box. What will +you put in this box? A small bit of steel. A watch-spring, in which you +will have cut teeth, and which will form a saw. With this saw, as long +as a pin, and concealed in a sou, you will cut the bolt of the lock, you +will sever bolts, the padlock of your chain, and the bar at your window, +and the fetter on your leg. This masterpiece finished, this prodigy +accomplished, all these miracles of art, address, skill, and patience +executed, what will be your recompense if it becomes known that you +are the author? The dungeon. There is your future. What precipices are +idleness and pleasure! Do you know that to do nothing is a melancholy +resolution? To live in idleness on the property of society! to be +useless, that is to say, pernicious! This leads straight to the depth +of wretchedness. Woe to the man who desires to be a parasite! He will +become vermin! Ah! So it does not please you to work? Ah! You have but +one thought, to drink well, to eat well, to sleep well. You will drink +water, you will eat black bread, you will sleep on a plank with a fetter +whose cold touch you will feel on your flesh all night long, riveted to +your limbs. You will break those fetters, you will flee. That is well. +You will crawl on your belly through the brushwood, and you will eat +grass like the beasts of the forest. And you will be recaptured. And +then you will pass years in a dungeon, riveted to a wall, groping for +your jug that you may drink, gnawing at a horrible loaf of darkness +which dogs would not touch, eating beans that the worms have eaten +before you. You will be a wood-louse in a cellar. Ah! Have pity on +yourself, you miserable young child, who were sucking at nurse less +than twenty years ago, and who have, no doubt, a mother still alive! I +conjure you, listen to me, I entreat you. You desire fine black cloth, +varnished shoes, to have your hair curled and sweet-smelling oils on +your locks, to please low women, to be handsome. You will be shaven +clean, and you will wear a red blouse and wooden shoes. You want rings +on your fingers, you will have an iron necklet on your neck. If you +glance at a woman, you will receive a blow. And you will enter there at +the age of twenty. And you will come out at fifty! You will enter young, +rosy, fresh, with brilliant eyes, and all your white teeth, and your +handsome, youthful hair; you will come out broken, bent, wrinkled, +toothless, horrible, with white locks! Ah! my poor child, you are on the +wrong road; idleness is counselling you badly; the hardest of all work +is thieving. Believe me, do not undertake that painful profession of +an idle man. It is not comfortable to become a rascal. It is less +disagreeable to be an honest man. Now go, and ponder on what I have said +to you. By the way, what did you want of me? My purse? Here it is." + +And the old man, releasing Montparnasse, put his purse in the latter's +hand; Montparnasse weighed it for a moment, after which he allowed it to +slide gently into the back pocket of his coat, with the same mechanical +precaution as though he had stolen it. + +All this having been said and done, the goodman turned his back and +tranquilly resumed his stroll. + +"The blockhead!" muttered Montparnasse. + +Who was this goodman? The reader has, no doubt, already divined. + +Montparnasse watched him with amazement, as he disappeared in the dusk. +This contemplation was fatal to him. + +While the old man was walking away, Gavroche drew near. + +Gavroche had assured himself, with a sidelong glance, that Father Mabeuf +was still sitting on his bench, probably sound asleep. Then the gamin +emerged from his thicket, and began to crawl after Montparnasse in the +dark, as the latter stood there motionless. In this manner he came up +to Montparnasse without being seen or heard, gently insinuated his hand +into the back pocket of that frock-coat of fine black cloth, seized the +purse, withdrew his hand, and having recourse once more to his crawling, +he slipped away like an adder through the shadows. Montparnasse, who +had no reason to be on his guard, and who was engaged in thought for the +first time in his life, perceived nothing. When Gavroche had once more +attained the point where Father Mabeuf was, he flung the purse over the +hedge, and fled as fast as his legs would carry him. + +The purse fell on Father Mabeuf's foot. This commotion roused him. + +He bent over and picked up the purse. + +He did not understand in the least, and opened it. + +The purse had two compartments; in one of them there was some small +change; in the other lay six napoleons. + +M. Mabeuf, in great alarm, referred the matter to his housekeeper. + +"That has fallen from heaven," said Mother Plutarque. + + + + +BOOK FIFTH.--THE END OF WHICH DOES NOT RESEMBLE THE BEGINNING + + + + +CHAPTER I--SOLITUDE AND THE BARRACKS COMBINED + +Cosette's grief, which had been so poignant and lively four or five +months previously, had, without her being conscious of the fact, entered +upon its convalescence. Nature, spring, youth, love for her father, +the gayety of the birds and flowers, caused something almost resembling +forgetfulness to filter gradually, drop by drop, into that soul, which +was so virgin and so young. Was the fire wholly extinct there? Or was +it merely that layers of ashes had formed? The truth is, that she hardly +felt the painful and burning spot any longer. + +One day she suddenly thought of Marius: "Why!" said she, "I no longer +think of him." + +That same week, she noticed a very handsome officer of lancers, with +a wasp-like waist, a delicious uniform, the cheeks of a young girl, a +sword under his arm, waxed mustaches, and a glazed schapka, passing the +gate. Moreover, he had light hair, prominent blue eyes, a round face, +was vain, insolent and good-looking; quite the reverse of Marius. He +had a cigar in his mouth. Cosette thought that this officer doubtless +belonged to the regiment in barracks in the Rue de Babylone. + +On the following day, she saw him pass again. She took note of the hour. + +From that time forth, was it chance? she saw him pass nearly every day. + +The officer's comrades perceived that there was, in that "badly kept" +garden, behind that malicious rococo fence, a very pretty creature, +who was almost always there when the handsome lieutenant,--who is not +unknown to the reader, and whose name was Theodule Gillenormand,--passed +by. + +"See here!" they said to him, "there's a little creature there who is +making eyes at you, look." + +"Have I the time," replied the lancer, "to look at all the girls who +look at me?" + +This was at the precise moment when Marius was descending heavily +towards agony, and was saying: "If I could but see her before I +die!"--Had his wish been realized, had he beheld Cosette at that moment +gazing at the lancer, he would not have been able to utter a word, and +he would have expired with grief. + +Whose fault was it? No one's. + +Marius possessed one of those temperaments which bury themselves in +sorrow and there abide; Cosette was one of those persons who plunge into +sorrow and emerge from it again. + +Cosette was, moreover, passing through that dangerous period, the fatal +phase of feminine revery abandoned to itself, in which the isolated +heart of a young girl resembles the tendrils of the vine which cling, +as chance directs, to the capital of a marble column or to the post of +a wine-shop: A rapid and decisive moment, critical for every orphan, be +she rich or poor, for wealth does not prevent a bad choice; misalliances +are made in very high circles, real misalliance is that of souls; and as +many an unknown young man, without name, without birth, without fortune, +is a marble column which bears up a temple of grand sentiments and grand +ideas, so such and such a man of the world satisfied and opulent, who +has polished boots and varnished words, if looked at not outside, but +inside, a thing which is reserved for his wife, is nothing more than a +block obscurely haunted by violent, unclean, and vinous passions; the +post of a drinking-shop. + +What did Cosette's soul contain? Passion calmed or lulled to sleep; +something limpid, brilliant, troubled to a certain depth, and gloomy +lower down. The image of the handsome officer was reflected in +the surface. Did a souvenir linger in the depths?--Quite at the +bottom?--Possibly. Cosette did not know. + +A singular incident supervened. + + + + +CHAPTER II--COSETTE'S APPREHENSIONS + +During the first fortnight in April, Jean Valjean took a journey. This, +as the reader knows, happened from time to time, at very long intervals. +He remained absent a day or two days at the utmost. Where did he go? No +one knew, not even Cosette. Once only, on the occasion of one of these +departures, she had accompanied him in a hackney-coach as far as a +little blind-alley at the corner of which she read: Impasse de la +Planchette. There he alighted, and the coach took Cosette back to the +Rue de Babylone. It was usually when money was lacking in the house that +Jean Valjean took these little trips. + +So Jean Valjean was absent. He had said: "I shall return in three days." + +That evening, Cosette was alone in the drawing-room. In order to get +rid of her ennui, she had opened her piano-organ, and had begun to sing, +accompanying herself the while, the chorus from Euryanthe: "Hunters +astray in the wood!" which is probably the most beautiful thing in all +the sphere of music. When she had finished, she remained wrapped in +thought. + +All at once, it seemed to her that she heard the sound of footsteps in +the garden. + +It could not be her father, he was absent; it could not be Toussaint, +she was in bed, and it was ten o'clock at night. + +She stepped to the shutter of the drawing-room, which was closed, and +laid her ear against it. + +It seemed to her that it was the tread of a man, and that he was walking +very softly. + +She mounted rapidly to the first floor, to her own chamber, opened a +small wicket in her shutter, and peeped into the garden. The moon was at +the full. Everything could be seen as plainly as by day. + +There was no one there. + +She opened the window. The garden was absolutely calm, and all that was +visible was that the street was deserted as usual. + +Cosette thought that she had been mistaken. She thought that she had +heard a noise. It was a hallucination produced by the melancholy and +magnificent chorus of Weber, which lays open before the mind terrified +depths, which trembles before the gaze like a dizzy forest, and in which +one hears the crackling of dead branches beneath the uneasy tread of the +huntsmen of whom one catches a glimpse through the twilight. + +She thought no more about it. + +Moreover, Cosette was not very timid by nature. There flowed in her +veins some of the blood of the bohemian and the adventuress who runs +barefoot. It will be remembered that she was more of a lark than a dove. +There was a foundation of wildness and bravery in her. + +On the following day, at an earlier hour, towards nightfall, she was +strolling in the garden. In the midst of the confused thoughts which +occupied her, she fancied that she caught for an instant a sound similar +to that of the preceding evening, as though some one were walking +beneath the trees in the dusk, and not very far from her; but she told +herself that nothing so closely resembles a step on the grass as the +friction of two branches which have moved from side to side, and she +paid no heed to it. Besides, she could see nothing. + +She emerged from "the thicket"; she had still to cross a small lawn to +regain the steps. + +The moon, which had just risen behind her, cast Cosette's shadow in +front of her upon this lawn, as she came out from the shrubbery. + +Cosette halted in alarm. + +Beside her shadow, the moon outlined distinctly upon the turf another +shadow, which was particularly startling and terrible, a shadow which +had a round hat. + +It was the shadow of a man, who must have been standing on the border of +the clump of shrubbery, a few paces in the rear of Cosette. + +She stood for a moment without the power to speak, or cry, or call, or +stir, or turn her head. + +Then she summoned up all her courage, and turned round resolutely. + +There was no one there. + +She glanced on the ground. The figure had disappeared. + +She re-entered the thicket, searched the corners boldly, went as far as +the gate, and found nothing. + +She felt herself absolutely chilled with terror. Was this another +hallucination? What! Two days in succession! One hallucination might +pass, but two hallucinations? The disquieting point about it was, that +the shadow had assuredly not been a phantom. Phantoms do not wear round +hats. + +On the following day Jean Valjean returned. Cosette told him what she +thought she had heard and seen. She wanted to be reassured and to see +her father shrug his shoulders and say to her: "You are a little goose." + +Jean Valjean grew anxious. + +"It cannot be anything," said he. + +He left her under some pretext, and went into the garden, and she saw +him examining the gate with great attention. + +During the night she woke up; this time she was sure, and she distinctly +heard some one walking close to the flight of steps beneath her window. +She ran to her little wicket and opened it. In point of fact, there +was a man in the garden, with a large club in his hand. Just as she +was about to scream, the moon lighted up the man's profile. It was her +father. She returned to her bed, saying to herself: "He is very uneasy!" + +Jean Valjean passed that night and the two succeeding nights in the +garden. Cosette saw him through the hole in her shutter. + +On the third night, the moon was on the wane, and had begun to rise +later; at one o'clock in the morning, possibly, she heard a loud burst +of laughter and her father's voice calling her:-- + +"Cosette!" + +She jumped out of bed, threw on her dressing-gown, and opened her +window. + +Her father was standing on the grass-plot below. + +"I have waked you for the purpose of reassuring you," said he; "look, +there is your shadow with the round hat." + +And he pointed out to her on the turf a shadow cast by the moon, and +which did indeed, bear considerable resemblance to the spectre of a man +wearing a round hat. It was the shadow produced by a chimney-pipe of +sheet iron, with a hood, which rose above a neighboring roof. + +Cosette joined in his laughter, all her lugubrious suppositions were +allayed, and the next morning, as she was at breakfast with her father, +she made merry over the sinister garden haunted by the shadows of iron +chimney-pots. + +Jean Valjean became quite tranquil once more; as for Cosette, she did +not pay much attention to the question whether the chimney-pot was +really in the direction of the shadow which she had seen, or thought she +had seen, and whether the moon had been in the same spot in the sky. + +She did not question herself as to the peculiarity of a chimney-pot +which is afraid of being caught in the act, and which retires when some +one looks at its shadow, for the shadow had taken the alarm when Cosette +had turned round, and Cosette had thought herself very sure of this. +Cosette's serenity was fully restored. The proof appeared to her to +be complete, and it quite vanished from her mind, whether there could +possibly be any one walking in the garden during the evening or at +night. + +A few days later, however, a fresh incident occurred. + + + + +CHAPTER III--ENRICHED WITH COMMENTARIES BY TOUSSAINT + +In the garden, near the railing on the street, there was a stone bench, +screened from the eyes of the curious by a plantation of yoke-elms, +but which could, in case of necessity, be reached by an arm from the +outside, past the trees and the gate. + +One evening during that same month of April, Jean Valjean had gone out; +Cosette had seated herself on this bench after sundown. The breeze was +blowing briskly in the trees, Cosette was meditating; an objectless +sadness was taking possession of her little by little, that invincible +sadness evoked by the evening, and which arises, perhaps, who knows, +from the mystery of the tomb which is ajar at that hour. + +Perhaps Fantine was within that shadow. + +Cosette rose, slowly made the tour of the garden, walking on the +grass drenched in dew, and saying to herself, through the species of +melancholy somnambulism in which she was plunged: "Really, one needs +wooden shoes for the garden at this hour. One takes cold." + +She returned to the bench. + +As she was about to resume her seat there, she observed on the spot +which she had quitted, a tolerably large stone which had, evidently, not +been there a moment before. + +Cosette gazed at the stone, asking herself what it meant. All at once +the idea occurred to her that the stone had not reached the bench all by +itself, that some one had placed it there, that an arm had been thrust +through the railing, and this idea appeared to alarm her. This time, the +fear was genuine; the stone was there. No doubt was possible; she did +not touch it, fled without glancing behind her, took refuge in the +house, and immediately closed with shutter, bolt, and bar the door-like +window opening on the flight of steps. She inquired of Toussaint:-- + +"Has my father returned yet?" + +"Not yet, Mademoiselle." + +[We have already noted once for all the fact that Toussaint stuttered. +May we be permitted to dispense with it for the future. The musical +notation of an infirmity is repugnant to us.] + +Jean Valjean, a thoughtful man, and given to nocturnal strolls, often +returned quite late at night. + +"Toussaint," went on Cosette, "are you careful to thoroughly barricade +the shutters opening on the garden, at least with bars, in the evening, +and to put the little iron things in the little rings that close them?" + +"Oh! be easy on that score, Miss." + +Toussaint did not fail in her duty, and Cosette was well aware of the +fact, but she could not refrain from adding:-- + +"It is so solitary here." + +"So far as that is concerned," said Toussaint, "it is true. We might be +assassinated before we had time to say ouf! And Monsieur does not sleep +in the house, to boot. But fear nothing, Miss, I fasten the shutters up +like prisons. Lone women! That is enough to make one shudder, I believe +you! Just imagine, what if you were to see men enter your chamber at +night and say: 'Hold your tongue!' and begin to cut your throat. It's +not the dying so much; you die, for one must die, and that's all right; +it's the abomination of feeling those people touch you. And then, their +knives; they can't be able to cut well with them! Ah, good gracious!" + +"Be quiet," said Cosette. "Fasten everything thoroughly." + +Cosette, terrified by the melodrama improvised by Toussaint, and +possibly, also, by the recollection of the apparitions of the past week, +which recurred to her memory, dared not even say to her: "Go and look at +the stone which has been placed on the bench!" for fear of opening the +garden gate and allowing "the men" to enter. She saw that all the doors +and windows were carefully fastened, made Toussaint go all over the +house from garret to cellar, locked herself up in her own chamber, +bolted her door, looked under her couch, went to bed and slept badly. +All night long she saw that big stone, as large as a mountain and full +of caverns. + +At sunrise,--the property of the rising sun is to make us laugh at all +our terrors of the past night, and our laughter is in direct proportion +to our terror which they have caused,--at sunrise Cosette, when she +woke, viewed her fright as a nightmare, and said to herself: "What have +I been thinking of? It is like the footsteps that I thought I heard a +week or two ago in the garden at night! It is like the shadow of the +chimney-pot! Am I becoming a coward?" The sun, which was glowing through +the crevices in her shutters, and turning the damask curtains crimson, +reassured her to such an extent that everything vanished from her +thoughts, even the stone. + +"There was no more a stone on the bench than there was a man in a round +hat in the garden; I dreamed about the stone, as I did all the rest." + +She dressed herself, descended to the garden, ran to the bench, and +broke out in a cold perspiration. The stone was there. + +But this lasted only for a moment. That which is terror by night is +curiosity by day. + +"Bah!" said she, "come, let us see what it is." + +She lifted the stone, which was tolerably large. Beneath it was +something which resembled a letter. It was a white envelope. Cosette +seized it. There was no address on one side, no seal on the other. +Yet the envelope, though unsealed, was not empty. Papers could be seen +inside. + +Cosette examined it. It was no longer alarm, it was no longer curiosity; +it was a beginning of anxiety. + +Cosette drew from the envelope its contents, a little notebook of paper, +each page of which was numbered and bore a few lines in a very fine and +rather pretty handwriting, as Cosette thought. + +Cosette looked for a name; there was none. To whom was this addressed? +To her, probably, since a hand had deposited the packet on her bench. +From whom did it come? An irresistible fascination took possession +of her; she tried to turn away her eyes from the leaflets which were +trembling in her hand, she gazed at the sky, the street, the acacias +all bathed in light, the pigeons fluttering over a neighboring roof, +and then her glance suddenly fell upon the manuscript, and she said to +herself that she must know what it contained. + +This is what she read. + + + + +CHAPTER IV--A HEART BENEATH A STONE + +[Illustration: Cosette with Letter 4b4-5-cosette-after-letter] + +The reduction of the universe to a single being, the expansion of a +single being even to God, that is love. + + +Love is the salutation of the angels to the stars. + + +How sad is the soul, when it is sad through love! + + +What a void in the absence of the being who, by herself alone fills the +world! Oh! how true it is that the beloved being becomes God. One could +comprehend that God might be jealous of this had not God the Father of +all evidently made creation for the soul, and the soul for love. + + +The glimpse of a smile beneath a white crape bonnet with a lilac curtain +is sufficient to cause the soul to enter into the palace of dreams. + + +God is behind everything, but everything hides God. Things are +black, creatures are opaque. To love a being is to render that being +transparent. + + +Certain thoughts are prayers. There are moments when, whatever the +attitude of the body may be, the soul is on its knees. + + +Parted lovers beguile absence by a thousand chimerical devices, which +possess, however, a reality of their own. They are prevented from seeing +each other, they cannot write to each other; they discover a multitude +of mysterious means to correspond. They send each other the song of the +birds, the perfume of the flowers, the smiles of children, the light of +the sun, the sighings of the breeze, the rays of stars, all creation. +And why not? All the works of God are made to serve love. Love is +sufficiently potent to charge all nature with its messages. + +Oh Spring! Thou art a letter that I write to her. + + +The future belongs to hearts even more than it does to minds. Love, that +is the only thing that can occupy and fill eternity. In the infinite, +the inexhaustible is requisite. + + +Love participates of the soul itself. It is of the same nature. Like +it, it is the divine spark; like it, it is incorruptible, indivisible, +imperishable. It is a point of fire that exists within us, which is +immortal and infinite, which nothing can confine, and which nothing can +extinguish. We feel it burning even to the very marrow of our bones, and +we see it beaming in the very depths of heaven. + + +Oh Love! Adorations! voluptuousness of two minds which understand each +other, of two hearts which exchange with each other, of two glances +which penetrate each other! You will come to me, will you not, bliss! +strolls by twos in the solitudes! Blessed and radiant days! I have +sometimes dreamed that from time to time hours detached themselves from +the lives of the angels and came here below to traverse the destinies of +men. + + +God can add nothing to the happiness of those who love, except to give +them endless duration. After a life of love, an eternity of love is, in +fact, an augmentation; but to increase in intensity even the ineffable +felicity which love bestows on the soul even in this world, is +impossible, even to God. God is the plenitude of heaven; love is the +plenitude of man. + + +You look at a star for two reasons, because it is luminous, and because +it is impenetrable. You have beside you a sweeter radiance and a greater +mystery, woman. + + +All of us, whoever we may be, have our respirable beings. We lack +air and we stifle. Then we die. To die for lack of love is horrible. +Suffocation of the soul. + + +When love has fused and mingled two beings in a sacred and angelic +unity, the secret of life has been discovered so far as they are +concerned; they are no longer anything more than the two boundaries of +the same destiny; they are no longer anything but the two wings of the +same spirit. Love, soar. + + +On the day when a woman as she passes before you emits light as she +walks, you are lost, you love. But one thing remains for you to do: to +think of her so intently that she is constrained to think of you. + + +What love commences can be finished by God alone. + + +True love is in despair and is enchanted over a glove lost or a +handkerchief found, and eternity is required for its devotion and its +hopes. It is composed both of the infinitely great and the infinitely +little. + + +If you are a stone, be adamant; if you are a plant, be the sensitive +plant; if you are a man, be love. + + +Nothing suffices for love. We have happiness, we desire paradise; we +possess paradise, we desire heaven. + +Oh ye who love each other, all this is contained in love. Understand +how to find it there. Love has contemplation as well as heaven, and more +than heaven, it has voluptuousness. + + +"Does she still come to the Luxembourg?" "No, sir." "This is the church +where she attends mass, is it not?" "She no longer comes here." "Does +she still live in this house?" "She has moved away." "Where has she gone +to dwell?" + +"She did not say." + +What a melancholy thing not to know the address of one's soul! + +Love has its childishness, other passions have their pettinesses. Shame +on the passions which belittle man! Honor to the one which makes a child +of him! + + +There is one strange thing, do you know it? I dwell in the night. There +is a being who carried off my sky when she went away. + + +Oh! would that we were lying side by side in the same grave, hand +in hand, and from time to time, in the darkness, gently caressing a +finger,--that would suffice for my eternity! + + +Ye who suffer because ye love, love yet more. To die of love, is to live +in it. + + +Love. A sombre and starry transfiguration is mingled with this torture. +There is ecstasy in agony. + + +Oh joy of the birds! It is because they have nests that they sing. + + +Love is a celestial respiration of the air of paradise. + + +Deep hearts, sage minds, take life as God has made it; it is a long +trial, an incomprehensible preparation for an unknown destiny. This +destiny, the true one, begins for a man with the first step inside the +tomb. Then something appears to him, and he begins to distinguish the +definitive. The definitive, meditate upon that word. The living perceive +the infinite; the definitive permits itself to be seen only by the dead. +In the meanwhile, love and suffer, hope and contemplate. Woe, alas! to +him who shall have loved only bodies, forms, appearances! Death will +deprive him of all. Try to love souls, you will find them again. + + +I encountered in the street, a very poor young man who was in love. His +hat was old, his coat was worn, his elbows were in holes; water trickled +through his shoes, and the stars through his soul. + + +What a grand thing it is to be loved! What a far grander thing it is +to love! The heart becomes heroic, by dint of passion. It is no longer +composed of anything but what is pure; it no longer rests on anything +that is not elevated and great. An unworthy thought can no more +germinate in it, than a nettle on a glacier. The serene and lofty soul, +inaccessible to vulgar passions and emotions, dominating the clouds +and the shades of this world, its follies, its lies, its hatreds, its +vanities, its miseries, inhabits the blue of heaven, and no longer feels +anything but profound and subterranean shocks of destiny, as the crests +of mountains feel the shocks of earthquake. + + +If there did not exist some one who loved, the sun would become extinct. + + + + +CHAPTER V--COSETTE AFTER THE LETTER + +As Cosette read, she gradually fell into thought. At the very moment +when she raised her eyes from the last line of the note-book, the +handsome officer passed triumphantly in front of the gate,--it was his +hour; Cosette thought him hideous. + +She resumed her contemplation of the book. It was written in the most +charming of chirography, thought Cosette; in the same hand, but with +divers inks, sometimes very black, again whitish, as when ink has been +added to the inkstand, and consequently on different days. It was, +then, a mind which had unfolded itself there, sigh by sigh, irregularly, +without order, without choice, without object, hap-hazard. Cosette +had never read anything like it. This manuscript, in which she already +perceived more light than obscurity, produced upon her the effect of a +half-open sanctuary. Each one of these mysterious lines shone before +her eyes and inundated her heart with a strange radiance. The education +which she had received had always talked to her of the soul, and never +of love, very much as one might talk of the firebrand and not of the +flame. This manuscript of fifteen pages suddenly and sweetly revealed +to her all of love, sorrow, destiny, life, eternity, the beginning, +the end. It was as if a hand had opened and suddenly flung upon her +a handful of rays of light. In these few lines she felt a passionate, +ardent, generous, honest nature, a sacred will, an immense sorrow, and +an immense despair, a suffering heart, an ecstasy fully expanded. What +was this manuscript? A letter. A letter without name, without address, +without date, without signature, pressing and disinterested, an enigma +composed of truths, a message of love made to be brought by an angel and +read by a virgin, an appointment made beyond the bounds of earth, the +love-letter of a phantom to a shade. It was an absent one, tranquil and +dejected, who seemed ready to take refuge in death and who sent to the +absent love, his lady, the secret of fate, the key of life, love. This +had been written with one foot in the grave and one finger in heaven. +These lines, which had fallen one by one on the paper, were what might +be called drops of soul. + +Now, from whom could these pages come? Who could have penned them? + +Cosette did not hesitate a moment. One man only. + +He! + +Day had dawned once more in her spirit; all had reappeared. She felt an +unheard-of joy, and a profound anguish. It was he! he who had written! +he was there! it was he whose arm had been thrust through that railing! +While she was forgetful of him, he had found her again! But had she +forgotten him? No, never! She was foolish to have thought so for a +single moment. She had always loved him, always adored him. The fire had +been smothered, and had smouldered for a time, but she saw all plainly +now; it had but made headway, and now it had burst forth afresh, and +had inflamed her whole being. This note-book was like a spark which +had fallen from that other soul into hers. She felt the conflagration +starting up once more. + +She imbued herself thoroughly with every word of the manuscript: "Oh +yes!" said she, "how perfectly I recognize all that! That is what I had +already read in his eyes." As she was finishing it for the third time, +Lieutenant Theodule passed the gate once more, and rattled his spurs +upon the pavement. Cosette was forced to raise her eyes. She thought him +insipid, silly, stupid, useless, foppish, displeasing, impertinent, and +extremely ugly. The officer thought it his duty to smile at her. + +She turned away as in shame and indignation. She would gladly have +thrown something at his head. + +She fled, re-entered the house, and shut herself up in her chamber to +peruse the manuscript once more, to learn it by heart, and to dream. +When she had thoroughly mastered it she kissed it and put it in her +bosom. + +All was over, Cosette had fallen back into deep, seraphic love. The +abyss of Eden had yawned once more. + +All day long, Cosette remained in a sort of bewilderment. She scarcely +thought, her ideas were in the state of a tangled skein in her brain, +she could not manage to conjecture anything, she hoped through a tremor, +what? vague things. She dared make herself no promises, and she did +not wish to refuse herself anything. Flashes of pallor passed over her +countenance, and shivers ran through her frame. It seemed to her, at +intervals, that she was entering the land of chimaeras; she said to +herself: "Is this reality?" Then she felt of the dear paper within her +bosom under her gown, she pressed it to her heart, she felt its angles +against her flesh; and if Jean Valjean had seen her at the moment, he +would have shuddered in the presence of that luminous and unknown joy, +which overflowed from beneath her eyelids.--"Oh yes!" she thought, "it +is certainly he! This comes from him, and is for me!" + +And she told herself that an intervention of the angels, a celestial +chance, had given him back to her. + +Oh transfiguration of love! Oh dreams! That celestial chance, that +intervention of the angels, was a pellet of bread tossed by one thief to +another thief, from the Charlemagne Courtyard to the Lion's Ditch, over +the roofs of La Force. + + + + +CHAPTER VI--OLD PEOPLE ARE MADE TO GO OUT OPPORTUNELY + +When evening came, Jean Valjean went out; Cosette dressed herself. She +arranged her hair in the most becoming manner, and she put on a dress +whose bodice had received one snip of the scissors too much, and which, +through this slope, permitted a view of the beginning of her throat, and +was, as young girls say, "a trifle indecent." It was not in the least +indecent, but it was prettier than usual. She made her toilet thus +without knowing why she did so. + +Did she mean to go out? No. + +Was she expecting a visitor? No. + +At dusk, she went down to the garden. Toussaint was busy in her kitchen, +which opened on the back yard. + +She began to stroll about under the trees, thrusting aside the branches +from time to time with her hand, because there were some which hung very +low. + +In this manner she reached the bench. + +The stone was still there. + +She sat down, and gently laid her white hand on this stone as though she +wished to caress and thank it. + +All at once, she experienced that indefinable impression which one +undergoes when there is some one standing behind one, even when she does +not see the person. + +She turned her head and rose to her feet. + +It was he. + +His head was bare. He appeared to have grown thin and pale. His black +clothes were hardly discernible. The twilight threw a wan light on +his fine brow, and covered his eyes in shadows. Beneath a veil of +incomparable sweetness, he had something about him that suggested death +and night. His face was illuminated by the light of the dying day, and +by the thought of a soul that is taking flight. + +He seemed to be not yet a ghost, and he was no longer a man. + +He had flung away his hat in the thicket, a few paces distant. + +Cosette, though ready to swoon, uttered no cry. She retreated slowly, +for she felt herself attracted. He did not stir. By virtue of something +ineffable and melancholy which enveloped him, she felt the look in his +eyes which she could not see. + +Cosette, in her retreat, encountered a tree and leaned against it. Had +it not been for this tree, she would have fallen. + +Then she heard his voice, that voice which she had really never heard, +barely rising above the rustle of the leaves, and murmuring:-- + +"Pardon me, here I am. My heart is full. I could not live on as I was +living, and I have come. Have you read what I placed there on the bench? +Do you recognize me at all? Have no fear of me. It is a long time, you +remember the day, since you looked at me at the Luxembourg, near the +Gladiator. And the day when you passed before me? It was on the 16th of +June and the 2d of July. It is nearly a year ago. I have not seen you +for a long time. I inquired of the woman who let the chairs, and she +told me that she no longer saw you. You lived in the Rue de l'Ouest, on +the third floor, in the front apartments of a new house,--you see that +I know! I followed you. What else was there for me to do? And then you +disappeared. I thought I saw you pass once, while I was reading the +newspapers under the arcade of the Odeon. I ran after you. But no. It +was a person who had a bonnet like yours. At night I came hither. Do +not be afraid, no one sees me. I come to gaze upon your windows near +at hand. I walk very softly, so that you may not hear, for you might be +alarmed. The other evening I was behind you, you turned round, I fled. +Once, I heard you singing. I was happy. Did it affect you because I +heard you singing through the shutters? That could not hurt you. No, +it is not so? You see, you are my angel! Let me come sometimes; I think +that I am going to die. If you only knew! I adore you. Forgive me, I +speak to you, but I do not know what I am saying; I may have displeased +you; have I displeased you?" + +"Oh! my mother!" said she. + +And she sank down as though on the point of death. + +He grasped her, she fell, he took her in his arms, he pressed her close, +without knowing what he was doing. He supported her, though he was +tottering himself. It was as though his brain were full of smoke; +lightnings darted between his lips; his ideas vanished; it seemed to him +that he was accomplishing some religious act, and that he was committing +a profanation. Moreover, he had not the least passion for this lovely +woman whose force he felt against his breast. He was beside himself with +love. + +She took his hand and laid it on her heart. He felt the paper there, he +stammered:-- + +"You love me, then?" + +She replied in a voice so low that it was no longer anything more than a +barely audible breath:-- + +"Hush! Thou knowest it!" + +And she hid her blushing face on the breast of the superb and +intoxicated young man. + +He fell upon the bench, and she beside him. They had no words more. The +stars were beginning to gleam. How did it come to pass that their lips +met? How comes it to pass that the birds sing, that snow melts, that +the rose unfolds, that May expands, that the dawn grows white behind the +black trees on the shivering crest of the hills? + +A kiss, and that was all. + +Both started, and gazed into the darkness with sparkling eyes. + +They felt neither the cool night, nor the cold stone, nor the damp +earth, nor the wet grass; they looked at each other, and their hearts +were full of thoughts. They had clasped hands unconsciously. + +She did not ask him, she did not even wonder, how he had entered there, +and how he had made his way into the garden. It seemed so simple to her +that he should be there! + +From time to time, Marius' knee touched Cosette's knee, and both +shivered. + +At intervals, Cosette stammered a word. Her soul fluttered on her lips +like a drop of dew on a flower. + +Little by little they began to talk to each other. Effusion followed +silence, which is fulness. The night was serene and splendid overhead. +These two beings, pure as spirits, told each other everything, their +dreams, their intoxications, their ecstasies, their chimaeras, their +weaknesses, how they had adored each other from afar, how they had +longed for each other, their despair when they had ceased to see each +other. They confided to each other in an ideal intimacy, which nothing +could augment, their most secret and most mysterious thoughts. They +related to each other, with candid faith in their illusions, all that +love, youth, and the remains of childhood which still lingered about +them, suggested to their minds. Their two hearts poured themselves out +into each other in such wise, that at the expiration of a quarter of an +hour, it was the young man who had the young girl's soul, and the young +girl who had the young man's soul. Each became permeated with the other, +they were enchanted with each other, they dazzled each other. + +When they had finished, when they had told each other everything, she +laid her head on his shoulder and asked him:-- + +"What is your name?" + +"My name is Marius," said he. "And yours?" + +"My name is Cosette." + + + + +BOOK SIXTH.--LITTLE GAVROCHE + + + + +CHAPTER I--THE MALICIOUS PLAYFULNESS OF THE WIND + +Since 1823, when the tavern of Montfermeil was on the way to shipwreck +and was being gradually engulfed, not in the abyss of a bankruptcy, but +in the cesspool of petty debts, the Thenardier pair had had two other +children; both males. That made five; two girls and three boys. + +Madame Thenardier had got rid of the last two, while they were still +young and very small, with remarkable luck. + +Got rid of is the word. There was but a mere fragment of nature in that +woman. A phenomenon, by the way, of which there is more than one example +extant. Like the Marechale de La Mothe-Houdancourt, the Thenardier was +a mother to her daughters only. There her maternity ended. Her hatred of +the human race began with her own sons. In the direction of her sons her +evil disposition was uncompromising, and her heart had a lugubrious wall +in that quarter. As the reader has seen, she detested the eldest; she +cursed the other two. Why? Because. The most terrible of motives, the +most unanswerable of retorts--Because. "I have no need of a litter of +squalling brats," said this mother. + +Let us explain how the Thenardiers had succeeded in getting rid of their +last two children; and even in drawing profit from the operation. + +The woman Magnon, who was mentioned a few pages further back, was the +same one who had succeeded in making old Gillenormand support the two +children which she had had. She lived on the Quai des Celestins, at the +corner of this ancient street of the Petit-Musc which afforded her the +opportunity of changing her evil repute into good odor. The reader will +remember the great epidemic of croup which ravaged the river districts +of the Seine in Paris thirty-five years ago, and of which science took +advantage to make experiments on a grand scale as to the efficacy of +inhalations of alum, so beneficially replaced at the present day by the +external tincture of iodine. During this epidemic, the Magnon lost both +her boys, who were still very young, one in the morning, the other +in the evening of the same day. This was a blow. These children were +precious to their mother; they represented eighty francs a month. These +eighty francs were punctually paid in the name of M. Gillenormand, by +collector of his rents, M. Barge, a retired tip-staff, in the Rue du +Roi-de-Sicile. The children dead, the income was at an end. The Magnon +sought an expedient. In that dark free-masonry of evil of which she +formed a part, everything is known, all secrets are kept, and all lend +mutual aid. Magnon needed two children; the Thenardiers had two. +The same sex, the same age. A good arrangement for the one, a good +investment for the other. The little Thenardiers became little Magnons. +Magnon quitted the Quai des Celestins and went to live in the Rue +Clocheperce. In Paris, the identity which binds an individual to himself +is broken between one street and another. + +The registry office being in no way warned, raised no objections, and +the substitution was effected in the most simple manner in the world. +Only, the Thenardier exacted for this loan of her children, ten francs a +month, which Magnon promised to pay, and which she actually did pay. +It is unnecessary to add that M. Gillenormand continued to perform +his compact. He came to see the children every six months. He did not +perceive the change. "Monsieur," Magnon said to him, "how much they +resemble you!" + +Thenardier, to whom avatars were easy, seized this occasion to become +Jondrette. His two daughters and Gavroche had hardly had time to +discover that they had two little brothers. When a certain degree +of misery is reached, one is overpowered with a sort of spectral +indifference, and one regards human beings as though they were spectres. +Your nearest relations are often no more for you than vague shadowy +forms, barely outlined against a nebulous background of life and easily +confounded again with the invisible. + +On the evening of the day when she had handed over her two little +ones to Magnon, with express intention of renouncing them forever, the +Thenardier had felt, or had appeared to feel, a scruple. She said to her +husband: "But this is abandoning our children!" Thenardier, masterful +and phlegmatic, cauterized the scruple with this saying: "Jean Jacques +Rousseau did even better!" From scruples, the mother proceeded to +uneasiness: "But what if the police were to annoy us? Tell me, Monsieur +Thenardier, is what we have done permissible?" Thenardier replied: +"Everything is permissible. No one will see anything but true blue in +it. Besides, no one has any interest in looking closely after children +who have not a sou." + +Magnon was a sort of fashionable woman in the sphere of crime. She was +careful about her toilet. She shared her lodgings, which were furnished +in an affected and wretched style, with a clever gallicized English +thief. This English woman, who had become a naturalized Parisienne, +recommended by very wealthy relations, intimately connected with the +medals in the Library and Mademoiselle Mar's diamonds, became celebrated +later on in judicial accounts. She was called Mamselle Miss. + +The two little creatures who had fallen to Magnon had no reason to +complain of their lot. Recommended by the eighty francs, they were well +cared for, as is everything from which profit is derived; they were +neither badly clothed, nor badly fed; they were treated almost like +"little gentlemen,"--better by their false mother than by their real +one. Magnon played the lady, and talked no thieves' slang in their +presence. + +Thus passed several years. Thenardier augured well from the fact. One +day, he chanced to say to Magnon as she handed him his monthly stipend +of ten francs: "The father must give them some education." + +All at once, these two poor children, who had up to that time been +protected tolerably well, even by their evil fate, were abruptly hurled +into life and forced to begin it for themselves. + +A wholesale arrest of malefactors, like that in the Jondrette garret, +necessarily complicated by investigations and subsequent incarcerations, +is a veritable disaster for that hideous and occult counter-society +which pursues its existence beneath public society; an adventure of this +description entails all sorts of catastrophes in that sombre world. The +Thenardier catastrophe involved the catastrophe of Magnon. + + +One day, a short time after Magnon had handed to Eponine the note +relating to the Rue Plumet, a sudden raid was made by the police in the +Rue Clocheperce; Magnon was seized, as was also Mamselle Miss; and all +the inhabitants of the house, which was of a suspicious character, were +gathered into the net. While this was going on, the two little boys were +playing in the back yard, and saw nothing of the raid. When they tried +to enter the house again, they found the door fastened and the house +empty. A cobbler opposite called them to him, and delivered to them a +paper which "their mother" had left for them. On this paper there was an +address: M. Barge, collector of rents, Rue du Roi-de-Sicile, No. 8. The +proprietor of the stall said to them: "You cannot live here any longer. +Go there. It is near by. The first street on the left. Ask your way from +this paper." + +The children set out, the elder leading the younger, and holding in his +hand the paper which was to guide them. It was cold, and his benumbed +little fingers could not close very firmly, and they did not keep a very +good hold on the paper. At the corner of the Rue Clocheperce, a gust of +wind tore it from him, and as night was falling, the child was not able +to find it again. + +They began to wander aimlessly through the streets. + + + + +CHAPTER II--IN WHICH LITTLE GAVROCHE EXTRACTS PROFIT FROM NAPOLEON THE +GREAT + +Spring in Paris is often traversed by harsh and piercing breezes which +do not precisely chill but freeze one; these north winds which sadden +the most beautiful days produce exactly the effect of those puffs of +cold air which enter a warm room through the cracks of a badly fitting +door or window. It seems as though the gloomy door of winter had +remained ajar, and as though the wind were pouring through it. In the +spring of 1832, the epoch when the first great epidemic of this century +broke out in Europe, these north gales were more harsh and piercing +than ever. It was a door even more glacial than that of winter which +was ajar. It was the door of the sepulchre. In these winds one felt the +breath of the cholera. + +From a meteorological point of view, these cold winds possessed this +peculiarity, that they did not preclude a strong electric tension. +Frequent storms, accompanied by thunder and lightning, burst forth at +this epoch. + +One evening, when these gales were blowing rudely, to such a degree that +January seemed to have returned and that the bourgeois had resumed their +cloaks, Little Gavroche, who was always shivering gayly under his rags, +was standing as though in ecstasy before a wig-maker's shop in the +vicinity of the Orme-Saint-Gervais. He was adorned with a woman's +woollen shawl, picked up no one knows where, and which he had converted +into a neck comforter. Little Gavroche appeared to be engaged in intent +admiration of a wax bride, in a low-necked dress, and crowned with +orange-flowers, who was revolving in the window, and displaying her +smile to passers-by, between two argand lamps; but in reality, he was +taking an observation of the shop, in order to discover whether he +could not "prig" from the shop-front a cake of soap, which he would then +proceed to sell for a sou to a "hair-dresser" in the suburbs. He had +often managed to breakfast off of such a roll. He called his species of +work, for which he possessed special aptitude, "shaving barbers." + +While contemplating the bride, and eyeing the cake of soap, he muttered +between his teeth: "Tuesday. It was not Tuesday. Was it Tuesday? Perhaps +it was Tuesday. Yes, it was Tuesday." + +No one has ever discovered to what this monologue referred. + +Yes, perchance, this monologue had some connection with the last +occasion on which he had dined, three days before, for it was now +Friday. + +The barber in his shop, which was warmed by a good stove, was shaving +a customer and casting a glance from time to time at the enemy, that +freezing and impudent street urchin both of whose hands were in his +pockets, but whose mind was evidently unsheathed. + +While Gavroche was scrutinizing the shop-window and the cakes of windsor +soap, two children of unequal stature, very neatly dressed, and still +smaller than himself, one apparently about seven years of age, the other +five, timidly turned the handle and entered the shop, with a request for +something or other, alms possibly, in a plaintive murmur which resembled +a groan rather than a prayer. They both spoke at once, and their words +were unintelligible because sobs broke the voice of the younger, and the +teeth of the elder were chattering with cold. The barber wheeled round +with a furious look, and without abandoning his razor, thrust back the +elder with his left hand and the younger with his knee, and slammed +his door, saying: "The idea of coming in and freezing everybody for +nothing!" + +The two children resumed their march in tears. In the meantime, a cloud +had risen; it had begun to rain. + +Little Gavroche ran after them and accosted them:-- + +"What's the matter with you, brats?" + +"We don't know where we are to sleep," replied the elder. + +"Is that all?" said Gavroche. "A great matter, truly. The idea of +bawling about that. They must be greenies!" + +And adopting, in addition to his superiority, which was rather +bantering, an accent of tender authority and gentle patronage:-- + +"Come along with me, young 'uns!" + +"Yes, sir," said the elder. + +And the two children followed him as they would have followed an +archbishop. They had stopped crying. + +Gavroche led them up the Rue Saint-Antoine in the direction of the +Bastille. + +As Gavroche walked along, he cast an indignant backward glance at the +barber's shop. + +"That fellow has no heart, the whiting,"[35] he muttered. "He's an +Englishman." + +A woman who caught sight of these three marching in a file, with +Gavroche at their head, burst into noisy laughter. This laugh was +wanting in respect towards the group. + +"Good day, Mamselle Omnibus," said Gavroche to her. + +An instant later, the wig-maker occurred to his mind once more, and he +added:-- + +"I am making a mistake in the beast; he's not a whiting, he's a serpent. +Barber, I'll go and fetch a locksmith, and I'll have a bell hung to your +tail." + +This wig-maker had rendered him aggressive. As he strode over a gutter, +he apostrophized a bearded portress who was worthy to meet Faust on the +Brocken, and who had a broom in her hand. + +"Madam," said he, "so you are going out with your horse?" + +And thereupon, he spattered the polished boots of a pedestrian. + +"You scamp!" shouted the furious pedestrian. + +Gavroche elevated his nose above his shawl. + +"Is Monsieur complaining?" + +"Of you!" ejaculated the man. + +"The office is closed," said Gavroche, "I do not receive any more +complaints." + +In the meanwhile, as he went on up the street, he perceived a +beggar-girl, thirteen or fourteen years old, and clad in so short a +gown that her knees were visible, lying thoroughly chilled under a +porte-cochere. The little girl was getting to be too old for such a +thing. Growth does play these tricks. The petticoat becomes short at the +moment when nudity becomes indecent. + +"Poor girl!" said Gavroche. "She hasn't even trousers. Hold on, take +this." + +And unwinding all the comfortable woollen which he had around his neck, +he flung it on the thin and purple shoulders of the beggar-girl, where +the scarf became a shawl once more. + +The child stared at him in astonishment, and received the shawl in +silence. When a certain stage of distress has been reached in his +misery, the poor man no longer groans over evil, no longer returns +thanks for good. + +That done: "Brrr!" said Gavroche, who was shivering more than Saint +Martin, for the latter retained one-half of his cloak. + +At this brrr! the downpour of rain, redoubled in its spite, became +furious. The wicked skies punish good deeds. + +"Ah, come now!" exclaimed Gavroche, "what's the meaning of this? It's +re-raining! Good Heavens, if it goes on like this, I shall stop my +subscription." + +And he set out on the march once more. + +"It's all right," he resumed, casting a glance at the beggar-girl, as +she coiled up under the shawl, "she's got a famous peel." + +And looking up at the clouds he exclaimed:-- + +"Caught!" + +The two children followed close on his heels. + +As they were passing one of these heavy grated lattices, which indicate +a baker's shop, for bread is put behind bars like gold, Gavroche turned +round:-- + +"Ah, by the way, brats, have we dined?" + +"Monsieur," replied the elder, "we have had nothing to eat since this +morning." + +"So you have neither father nor mother?" resumed Gavroche majestically. + +"Excuse us, sir, we have a papa and a mamma, but we don't know where +they are." + +"Sometimes that's better than knowing where they are," said Gavroche, +who was a thinker. + +"We have been wandering about these two hours," continued the elder, "we +have hunted for things at the corners of the streets, but we have found +nothing." + +"I know," ejaculated Gavroche, "it's the dogs who eat everything." + +He went on, after a pause:-- + +"Ah! we have lost our authors. We don't know what we have done with +them. This should not be, gamins. It's stupid to let old people stray +off like that. Come now! we must have a snooze all the same." + +However, he asked them no questions. What was more simple than that they +should have no dwelling place! + +The elder of the two children, who had almost entirely recovered the +prompt heedlessness of childhood, uttered this exclamation:-- + +"It's queer, all the same. Mamma told us that she would take us to get a +blessed spray on Palm Sunday." + +"Bosh," said Gavroche. + +"Mamma," resumed the elder, "is a lady who lives with Mamselle Miss." + +"Tanflute!" retorted Gavroche. + +Meanwhile he had halted, and for the last two minutes he had been +feeling and fumbling in all sorts of nooks which his rags contained. + +At last he tossed his head with an air intended to be merely satisfied, +but which was triumphant, in reality. + +"Let us be calm, young 'uns. Here's supper for three." + +And from one of his pockets he drew forth a sou. + +Without allowing the two urchins time for amazement, he pushed both of +them before him into the baker's shop, and flung his sou on the counter, +crying:-- + +"Boy! five centimes' worth of bread." + +The baker, who was the proprietor in person, took up a loaf and a knife. + +"In three pieces, my boy!" went on Gavroche. + +And he added with dignity:-- + +"There are three of us." + +And seeing that the baker, after scrutinizing the three customers, had +taken down a black loaf, he thrust his finger far up his nose with +an inhalation as imperious as though he had had a pinch of the great +Frederick's snuff on the tip of his thumb, and hurled this indignant +apostrophe full in the baker's face:-- + +"Keksekca?" + +Those of our readers who might be tempted to espy in this interpellation +of Gavroche's to the baker a Russian or a Polish word, or one of those +savage cries which the Yoways and the Botocudos hurl at each other from +bank to bank of a river, athwart the solitudes, are warned that it is a +word which they [our readers] utter every day, and which takes the place +of the phrase: "Qu'est-ce que c'est que cela?" The baker understood +perfectly, and replied:-- + +"Well! It's bread, and very good bread of the second quality." + +"You mean larton brutal [black bread]!" retorted Gavroche, calmly and +coldly disdainful. "White bread, boy! white bread [larton savonne]! I'm +standing treat." + +The baker could not repress a smile, and as he cut the white bread he +surveyed them in a compassionate way which shocked Gavroche. + +"Come, now, baker's boy!" said he, "what are you taking our measure like +that for?" + +All three of them placed end to end would have hardly made a measure. + +When the bread was cut, the baker threw the sou into his drawer, and +Gavroche said to the two children:-- + +"Grub away." + +The little boys stared at him in surprise. + +Gavroche began to laugh. + +"Ah! hullo, that's so! they don't understand yet, they're too small." + +And he repeated:-- + +"Eat away." + +At the same time, he held out a piece of bread to each of them. + +And thinking that the elder, who seemed to him the more worthy of +his conversation, deserved some special encouragement and ought to be +relieved from all hesitation to satisfy his appetite, he added, as be +handed him the largest share:-- + +"Ram that into your muzzle." + +One piece was smaller than the others; he kept this for himself. + +The poor children, including Gavroche, were famished. As they tore their +bread apart in big mouthfuls, they blocked up the shop of the baker, +who, now that they had paid their money, looked angrily at them. + +"Let's go into the street again," said Gavroche. + +They set off once more in the direction of the Bastille. + +From time to time, as they passed the lighted shop-windows, the smallest +halted to look at the time on a leaden watch which was suspended from +his neck by a cord. + +"Well, he is a very green 'un," said Gavroche. + +Then, becoming thoughtful, he muttered between his teeth:-- + +"All the same, if I had charge of the babes I'd lock 'em up better than +that." + +Just as they were finishing their morsel of bread, and had reached the +angle of that gloomy Rue des Ballets, at the other end of which the low +and threatening wicket of La Force was visible:-- + +"Hullo, is that you, Gavroche?" said some one. + +"Hullo, is that you, Montparnasse?" said Gavroche. + +A man had just accosted the street urchin, and the man was no other +than Montparnasse in disguise, with blue spectacles, but recognizable to +Gavroche. + +"The bow-wows!" went on Gavroche, "you've got a hide the color of a +linseed plaster, and blue specs like a doctor. You're putting on style, +'pon my word!" + +"Hush!" ejaculated Montparnasse, "not so loud." + +And he drew Gavroche hastily out of range of the lighted shops. + +The two little ones followed mechanically, holding each other by the +hand. + +When they were ensconced under the arch of a portecochere, sheltered +from the rain and from all eyes:-- + +"Do you know where I'm going?" demanded Montparnasse. + +"To the Abbey of Ascend-with-Regret,"[36] replied Gavroche. + +"Joker!" + +And Montparnasse went on:-- + +"I'm going to find Babet." + +"Ah!" exclaimed Gavroche, "so her name is Babet." + +Montparnasse lowered his voice:-- + +"Not she, he." + +"Ah! Babet." + +"Yes, Babet." + +"I thought he was buckled." + +"He has undone the buckle," replied Montparnasse. + +And he rapidly related to the gamin how, on the morning of that very +day, Babet, having been transferred to La Conciergerie, had made his +escape, by turning to the left instead of to the right in "the police +office." + +Gavroche expressed his admiration for this skill. + +"What a dentist!" he cried. + +Montparnasse added a few details as to Babet's flight, and ended with:-- + +"Oh! That's not all." + +Gavroche, as he listened, had seized a cane that Montparnasse held in +his hand, and mechanically pulled at the upper part, and the blade of a +dagger made its appearance. + +"Ah!" he exclaimed, pushing the dagger back in haste, "you have brought +along your gendarme disguised as a bourgeois." + +Montparnasse winked. + +"The deuce!" resumed Gavroche, "so you're going to have a bout with the +bobbies?" + +"You can't tell," replied Montparnasse with an indifferent air. "It's +always a good thing to have a pin about one." + +Gavroche persisted:-- + +"What are you up to to-night?" + +Again Montparnasse took a grave tone, and said, mouthing every syllable: +"Things." + +And abruptly changing the conversation:-- + +"By the way!" + +"What?" + +"Something happened t'other day. Fancy. I meet a bourgeois. He makes +me a present of a sermon and his purse. I put it in my pocket. A minute +later, I feel in my pocket. There's nothing there." + +"Except the sermon," said Gavroche. + +"But you," went on Montparnasse, "where are you bound for now?" + +Gavroche pointed to his two proteges, and said:-- + +"I'm going to put these infants to bed." + +"Whereabouts is the bed?" + +"At my house." + +"Where's your house?" + +"At my house." + +"So you have a lodging?" + +"Yes, I have." + +"And where is your lodging?" + +"In the elephant," said Gavroche. + +Montparnasse, though not naturally inclined to astonishment, could not +restrain an exclamation. + +"In the elephant!" + +"Well, yes, in the elephant!" retorted Gavroche. "Kekcaa?" + +This is another word of the language which no one writes, and which +every one speaks. + +Kekcaa signifies: Quest que c'est que cela a? [What's the matter with +that?] + +The urchin's profound remark recalled Montparnasse to calmness and +good sense. He appeared to return to better sentiments with regard to +Gavroche's lodging. + +"Of course," said he, "yes, the elephant. Is it comfortable there?" + +"Very," said Gavroche. "It's really bully there. There ain't any +draughts, as there are under the bridges." + +"How do you get in?" + +"Oh, I get in." + +"So there is a hole?" demanded Montparnasse. + +"Parbleu! I should say so. But you mustn't tell. It's between the fore +legs. The bobbies haven't seen it." + +"And you climb up? Yes, I understand." + +"A turn of the hand, cric, crac, and it's all over, no one there." + +After a pause, Gavroche added:-- + +"I shall have a ladder for these children." + +Montparnasse burst out laughing:-- + +"Where the devil did you pick up those young 'uns?" + +Gavroche replied with great simplicity:-- + +"They are some brats that a wig-maker made me a present of." + +Meanwhile, Montparnasse had fallen to thinking:-- + +"You recognized me very readily," he muttered. + +He took from his pocket two small objects which were nothing more than +two quills wrapped in cotton, and thrust one up each of his nostrils. +This gave him a different nose. + +"That changes you," remarked Gavroche, "you are less homely so, you +ought to keep them on all the time." + +Montparnasse was a handsome fellow, but Gavroche was a tease. + +"Seriously," demanded Montparnasse, "how do you like me so?" + +The sound of his voice was different also. In a twinkling, Montparnasse +had become unrecognizable. + +"Oh! Do play Porrichinelle for us!" exclaimed Gavroche. + +The two children, who had not been listening up to this point, being +occupied themselves in thrusting their fingers up their noses, drew +near at this name, and stared at Montparnasse with dawning joy and +admiration. + +Unfortunately, Montparnasse was troubled. + +He laid his hand on Gavroche's shoulder, and said to him, emphasizing +his words: "Listen to what I tell you, boy! if I were on the square with +my dog, my knife, and my wife, and if you were to squander ten sous on +me, I wouldn't refuse to work, but this isn't Shrove Tuesday." + +This odd phrase produced a singular effect on the gamin. He wheeled +round hastily, darted his little sparkling eyes about him with profound +attention, and perceived a police sergeant standing with his back to +them a few paces off. Gavroche allowed an: "Ah! good!" to escape him, +but immediately suppressed it, and shaking Montparnasse's hand:-- + +"Well, good evening," said he, "I'm going off to my elephant with my +brats. Supposing that you should need me some night, you can come and +hunt me up there. I lodge on the entresol. There is no porter. You will +inquire for Monsieur Gavroche." + +"Very good," said Montparnasse. + +And they parted, Montparnasse betaking himself in the direction of +the Greve, and Gavroche towards the Bastille. The little one of five, +dragged along by his brother who was dragged by Gavroche, turned his +head back several times to watch "Porrichinelle" as he went. + +The ambiguous phrase by means of which Montparnasse had warned Gavroche +of the presence of the policeman, contained no other talisman than +the assonance dig repeated five or six times in different forms. This +syllable, dig, uttered alone or artistically mingled with the words of +a phrase, means: "Take care, we can no longer talk freely." There was +besides, in Montparnasse's sentence, a literary beauty which was +lost upon Gavroche, that is mon dogue, ma dague et ma digue, a slang +expression of the Temple, which signifies my dog, my knife, and my wife, +greatly in vogue among clowns and the red-tails in the great century +when Moliere wrote and Callot drew. + +Twenty years ago, there was still to be seen in the southwest corner of +the Place de la Bastille, near the basin of the canal, excavated in the +ancient ditch of the fortress-prison, a singular monument, which has +already been effaced from the memories of Parisians, and which deserved +to leave some trace, for it was the idea of a "member of the Institute, +the General-in-chief of the army of Egypt." + +We say monument, although it was only a rough model. But this model +itself, a marvellous sketch, the grandiose skeleton of an idea of +Napoleon's, which successive gusts of wind have carried away and thrown, +on each occasion, still further from us, had become historical and had +acquired a certain definiteness which contrasted with its provisional +aspect. It was an elephant forty feet high, constructed of timber and +masonry, bearing on its back a tower which resembled a house, formerly +painted green by some dauber, and now painted black by heaven, the wind, +and time. In this deserted and unprotected corner of the place, the +broad brow of the colossus, his trunk, his tusks, his tower, his +enormous crupper, his four feet, like columns produced, at night, under +the starry heavens, a surprising and terrible form. It was a sort of +symbol of popular force. It was sombre, mysterious, and immense. It was +some mighty, visible phantom, one knew not what, standing erect beside +the invisible spectre of the Bastille. + +Few strangers visited this edifice, no passer-by looked at it. It was +falling into ruins; every season the plaster which detached itself +from its sides formed hideous wounds upon it. "The aediles," as the +expression ran in elegant dialect, had forgotten it ever since 1814. +There it stood in its corner, melancholy, sick, crumbling, surrounded +by a rotten palisade, soiled continually by drunken coachmen; cracks +meandered athwart its belly, a lath projected from its tail, tall grass +flourished between its legs; and, as the level of the place had been +rising all around it for a space of thirty years, by that slow and +continuous movement which insensibly elevates the soil of large towns, +it stood in a hollow, and it looked as though the ground were giving way +beneath it. It was unclean, despised, repulsive, and superb, ugly in the +eyes of the bourgeois, melancholy in the eyes of the thinker. There was +something about it of the dirt which is on the point of being swept out, +and something of the majesty which is on the point of being decapitated. +As we have said, at night, its aspect changed. Night is the real element +of everything that is dark. As soon as twilight descended, the old +elephant became transfigured; he assumed a tranquil and redoubtable +appearance in the formidable serenity of the shadows. Being of the past, +he belonged to night; and obscurity was in keeping with his grandeur. + +This rough, squat, heavy, hard, austere, almost misshapen, but assuredly +majestic monument, stamped with a sort of magnificent and savage +gravity, has disappeared, and left to reign in peace, a sort of gigantic +stove, ornamented with its pipe, which has replaced the sombre fortress +with its nine towers, very much as the bourgeoisie replaces the feudal +classes. It is quite natural that a stove should be the symbol of an +epoch in which a pot contains power. This epoch will pass away, people +have already begun to understand that, if there can be force in a +boiler, there can be no force except in the brain; in other words, +that which leads and drags on the world, is not locomotives, but ideas. +Harness locomotives to ideas,--that is well done; but do not mistake the +horse for the rider. + +At all events, to return to the Place de la Bastille, the architect +of this elephant succeeded in making a grand thing out of plaster; the +architect of the stove has succeeded in making a pretty thing out of +bronze. + +This stove-pipe, which has been baptized by a sonorous name, and called +the column of July, this monument of a revolution that miscarried, +was still enveloped in 1832, in an immense shirt of woodwork, which we +regret, for our part, and by a vast plank enclosure, which completed the +task of isolating the elephant. + +It was towards this corner of the place, dimly lighted by the reflection +of a distant street lamp, that the gamin guided his two "brats." + +The reader must permit us to interrupt ourselves here and to remind him +that we are dealing with simple reality, and that twenty years ago, the +tribunals were called upon to judge, under the charge of vagabondage, +and mutilation of a public monument, a child who had been caught asleep +in this very elephant of the Bastille. This fact noted, we proceed. + +On arriving in the vicinity of the colossus, Gavroche comprehended the +effect which the infinitely great might produce on the infinitely small, +and said:-- + +"Don't be scared, infants." + +Then he entered through a gap in the fence into the elephant's enclosure +and helped the young ones to clamber through the breach. The two +children, somewhat frightened, followed Gavroche without uttering a +word, and confided themselves to this little Providence in rags which +had given them bread and had promised them a shelter. + +There, extended along the fence, lay a ladder which by day served +the laborers in the neighboring timber-yard. Gavroche raised it with +remarkable vigor, and placed it against one of the elephant's forelegs. +Near the point where the ladder ended, a sort of black hole in the belly +of the colossus could be distinguished. + +Gavroche pointed out the ladder and the hole to his guests, and said to +them:-- + +"Climb up and go in." + +The two little boys exchanged terrified glances. + +"You're afraid, brats!" exclaimed Gavroche. + +And he added:-- + +"You shall see!" + +He clasped the rough leg of the elephant, and in a twinkling, without +deigning to make use of the ladder, he had reached the aperture. He +entered it as an adder slips through a crevice, and disappeared within, +and an instant later, the two children saw his head, which looked pale, +appear vaguely, on the edge of the shadowy hole, like a wan and whitish +spectre. + +"Well!" he exclaimed, "climb up, young 'uns! You'll see how snug it is +here! Come up, you!" he said to the elder, "I'll lend you a hand." + +The little fellows nudged each other, the gamin frightened and inspired +them with confidence at one and the same time, and then, it was raining +very hard. The elder one undertook the risk. The younger, on seeing his +brother climbing up, and himself left alone between the paws of this +huge beast, felt greatly inclined to cry, but he did not dare. + +The elder lad climbed, with uncertain steps, up the rungs of the ladder; +Gavroche, in the meanwhile, encouraging him with exclamations like a +fencing-master to his pupils, or a muleteer to his mules. + +"Don't be afraid!--That's it!--Come on!--Put your feet there!--Give us +your hand here!--Boldly!" + +And when the child was within reach, he seized him suddenly and +vigorously by the arm, and pulled him towards him. + +"Nabbed!" said he. + +The brat had passed through the crack. + +"Now," said Gavroche, "wait for me. Be so good as to take a seat, +Monsieur." + +And making his way out of the hole as he had entered it, he slipped down +the elephant's leg with the agility of a monkey, landed on his feet in +the grass, grasped the child of five round the body, and planted him +fairly in the middle of the ladder, then he began to climb up behind +him, shouting to the elder:-- + +"I'm going to boost him, do you tug." + +And in another instant, the small lad was pushed, dragged, pulled, +thrust, stuffed into the hole, before he had time to recover himself, +and Gavroche, entering behind him, and repulsing the ladder with a kick +which sent it flat on the grass, began to clap his hands and to cry:-- + +"Here we are! Long live General Lafayette!" + +This explosion over, he added:-- + +"Now, young 'uns, you are in my house." + +Gavroche was at home, in fact. + +Oh, unforeseen utility of the useless! Charity of great things! Goodness +of giants! This huge monument, which had embodied an idea of the +Emperor's, had become the box of a street urchin. The brat had been +accepted and sheltered by the colossus. The bourgeois decked out in +their Sunday finery who passed the elephant of the Bastille, were fond +of saying as they scanned it disdainfully with their prominent eyes: +"What's the good of that?" It served to save from the cold, the frost, +the hail, and rain, to shelter from the winds of winter, to preserve +from slumber in the mud which produces fever, and from slumber in the +snow which produces death, a little being who had no father, no mother, +no bread, no clothes, no refuge. It served to receive the innocent whom +society repulsed. It served to diminish public crime. It was a lair +open to one against whom all doors were shut. It seemed as though the +miserable old mastodon, invaded by vermin and oblivion, covered with +warts, with mould, and ulcers, tottering, worm-eaten, abandoned, +condemned, a sort of mendicant colossus, asking alms in vain with a +benevolent look in the midst of the cross-roads, had taken pity on that +other mendicant, the poor pygmy, who roamed without shoes to his feet, +without a roof over his head, blowing on his fingers, clad in rags, fed +on rejected scraps. That was what the elephant of the Bastille was good +for. This idea of Napoleon, disdained by men, had been taken back by +God. That which had been merely illustrious, had become august. In order +to realize his thought, the Emperor should have had porphyry, brass, +iron, gold, marble; the old collection of planks, beams and plaster +sufficed for God. The Emperor had had the dream of a genius; in that +Titanic elephant, armed, prodigious, with trunk uplifted, bearing its +tower and scattering on all sides its merry and vivifying waters, he +wished to incarnate the people. God had done a grander thing with it, he +had lodged a child there. + +The hole through which Gavroche had entered was a breach which was +hardly visible from the outside, being concealed, as we have stated, +beneath the elephant's belly, and so narrow that it was only cats and +homeless children who could pass through it. + +"Let's begin," said Gavroche, "by telling the porter that we are not at +home." + +And plunging into the darkness with the assurance of a person who is +well acquainted with his apartments, he took a plank and stopped up the +aperture. + +Again Gavroche plunged into the obscurity. The children heard the +crackling of the match thrust into the phosphoric bottle. The chemical +match was not yet in existence; at that epoch the Fumade steel +represented progress. + +A sudden light made them blink; Gavroche had just managed to ignite one +of those bits of cord dipped in resin which are called cellar rats. The +cellar rat, which emitted more smoke than light, rendered the interior +of the elephant confusedly visible. + +Gavroche's two guests glanced about them, and the sensation which they +experienced was something like that which one would feel if shut up in +the great tun of Heidelberg, or, better still, like what Jonah must have +felt in the biblical belly of the whale. An entire and gigantic skeleton +appeared enveloping them. Above, a long brown beam, whence started at +regular distances, massive, arching ribs, represented the vertebral +column with its sides, stalactites of plaster depended from them like +entrails, and vast spiders' webs stretching from side to side, formed +dirty diaphragms. Here and there, in the corners, were visible large +blackish spots which had the appearance of being alive, and which +changed places rapidly with an abrupt and frightened movement. + +Fragments which had fallen from the elephant's back into his belly had +filled up the cavity, so that it was possible to walk upon it as on a +floor. + +The smaller child nestled up against his brother, and whispered to +him:-- + +"It's black." + +This remark drew an exclamation from Gavroche. The petrified air of the +two brats rendered some shock necessary. + +"What's that you are gabbling about there?" he exclaimed. "Are +you scoffing at me? Are you turning up your noses? Do you want the +tuileries? Are you brutes? Come, say! I warn you that I don't belong to +the regiment of simpletons. Ah, come now, are you brats from the Pope's +establishment?" + +A little roughness is good in cases of fear. It is reassuring. The two +children drew close to Gavroche. + +Gavroche, paternally touched by this confidence, passed from grave to +gentle, and addressing the smaller:-- + +"Stupid," said he, accenting the insulting word, with a caressing +intonation, "it's outside that it is black. Outside it's raining, here +it does not rain; outside it's cold, here there's not an atom of wind; +outside there are heaps of people, here there's no one; outside there +ain't even the moon, here there's my candle, confound it!" + +The two children began to look upon the apartment with less terror; but +Gavroche allowed them no more time for contemplation. + +"Quick," said he. + +And he pushed them towards what we are very glad to be able to call the +end of the room. + +There stood his bed. + +Gavroche's bed was complete; that is to say, it had a mattress, a +blanket, and an alcove with curtains. + +The mattress was a straw mat, the blanket a rather large strip of +gray woollen stuff, very warm and almost new. This is what the alcove +consisted of:-- + +Three rather long poles, thrust into and consolidated, with the rubbish +which formed the floor, that is to say, the belly of the elephant, two +in front and one behind, and united by a rope at their summits, so as to +form a pyramidal bundle. This cluster supported a trellis-work of brass +wire which was simply placed upon it, but artistically applied, and held +by fastenings of iron wire, so that it enveloped all three holes. A row +of very heavy stones kept this network down to the floor so that nothing +could pass under it. This grating was nothing else than a piece of the +brass screens with which aviaries are covered in menageries. Gavroche's +bed stood as in a cage, behind this net. The whole resembled an +Esquimaux tent. + +This trellis-work took the place of curtains. + +Gavroche moved aside the stones which fastened the net down in front, +and the two folds of the net which lapped over each other fell apart. + +"Down on all fours, brats!" said Gavroche. + +He made his guests enter the cage with great precaution, then he crawled +in after them, pulled the stones together, and closed the opening +hermetically again. + +All three had stretched out on the mat. Gavroche still had the cellar +rat in his hand. + +"Now," said he, "go to sleep! I'm going to suppress the candelabra." + +"Monsieur," the elder of the brothers asked Gavroche, pointing to the +netting, "what's that for?" + +"That," answered Gavroche gravely, "is for the rats. Go to sleep!" + +Nevertheless, he felt obliged to add a few words of instruction for the +benefit of these young creatures, and he continued:-- + +"It's a thing from the Jardin des Plantes. It's used for fierce animals. +There's a whole shopful of them there. All you've got to do is to climb +over a wall, crawl through a window, and pass through a door. You can +get as much as you want." + +As he spoke, he wrapped the younger one up bodily in a fold of the +blanket, and the little one murmured:-- + +"Oh! how good that is! It's warm!" + +Gavroche cast a pleased eye on the blanket. + +"That's from the Jardin des Plantes, too," said he. "I took that from +the monkeys." + +And, pointing out to the eldest the mat on which he was lying, a very +thick and admirably made mat, he added:-- + +"That belonged to the giraffe." + +After a pause he went on:-- + +"The beasts had all these things. I took them away from them. It didn't +trouble them. I told them: 'It's for the elephant.'" + +He paused, and then resumed:-- + +"You crawl over the walls and you don't care a straw for the government. +So there now!" + +The two children gazed with timid and stupefied respect on this +intrepid and ingenious being, a vagabond like themselves, isolated +like themselves, frail like themselves, who had something admirable +and all-powerful about him, who seemed supernatural to them, and whose +physiognomy was composed of all the grimaces of an old mountebank, +mingled with the most ingenuous and charming smiles. + +"Monsieur," ventured the elder timidly, "you are not afraid of the +police, then?" + +Gavroche contented himself with replying:-- + +"Brat! Nobody says 'police,' they say 'bobbies.'" + +The smaller had his eyes wide open, but he said nothing. As he was on +the edge of the mat, the elder being in the middle, Gavroche tucked the +blanket round him as a mother might have done, and heightened the mat +under his head with old rags, in such a way as to form a pillow for the +child. Then he turned to the elder:-- + +"Hey! We're jolly comfortable here, ain't we?" + +"Ah, yes!" replied the elder, gazing at Gavroche with the expression of +a saved angel. + +The two poor little children who had been soaked through, began to grow +warm once more. + +"Ah, by the way," continued Gavroche, "what were you bawling about?" + +And pointing out the little one to his brother:-- + +"A mite like that, I've nothing to say about, but the idea of a big +fellow like you crying! It's idiotic; you looked like a calf." + +"Gracious," replied the child, "we have no lodging." + +"Bother!" retorted Gavroche, "you don't say 'lodgings,' you say 'crib.'" + +"And then, we were afraid of being alone like that at night." + +"You don't say 'night,' you say 'darkmans.'" + +"Thank you, sir," said the child. + +"Listen," went on Gavroche, "you must never bawl again over anything. +I'll take care of you. You shall see what fun we'll have. In summer, +we'll go to the Glaciere with Navet, one of my pals, we'll bathe in +the Gare, we'll run stark naked in front of the rafts on the bridge at +Austerlitz,--that makes the laundresses raging. They scream, they get +mad, and if you only knew how ridiculous they are! We'll go and see the +man-skeleton. And then I'll take you to the play. I'll take you to see +Frederick Lemaitre. I have tickets, I know some of the actors, I even +played in a piece once. There were a lot of us fellers, and we ran +under a cloth, and that made the sea. I'll get you an engagement at my +theatre. We'll go to see the savages. They ain't real, those savages +ain't. They wear pink tights that go all in wrinkles, and you can see +where their elbows have been darned with white. Then, we'll go to the +Opera. We'll get in with the hired applauders. The Opera claque is well +managed. I wouldn't associate with the claque on the boulevard. At the +Opera, just fancy! some of them pay twenty sous, but they're ninnies. +They're called dishclouts. And then we'll go to see the guillotine work. +I'll show you the executioner. He lives in the Rue des Marais. Monsieur +Sanson. He has a letter-box at his door. Ah! we'll have famous fun!" + +At that moment a drop of wax fell on Gavroche's finger, and recalled him +to the realities of life. + +"The deuce!" said he, "there's the wick giving out. Attention! I can't +spend more than a sou a month on my lighting. When a body goes to bed, +he must sleep. We haven't the time to read M. Paul de Kock's +romances. And besides, the light might pass through the cracks of the +porte-cochere, and all the bobbies need to do is to see it." + +"And then," remarked the elder timidly,--he alone dared talk to +Gavroche, and reply to him, "a spark might fall in the straw, and we +must look out and not burn the house down." + +"People don't say 'burn the house down,'" remarked Gavroche, "they say +'blaze the crib.'" + +The storm increased in violence, and the heavy downpour beat upon the +back of the colossus amid claps of thunder. "You're taken in, rain!" +said Gavroche. "It amuses me to hear the decanter run down the legs of +the house. Winter is a stupid; it wastes its merchandise, it loses +its labor, it can't wet us, and that makes it kick up a row, old +water-carrier that it is." + +This allusion to the thunder, all the consequences of which Gavroche, in +his character of a philosopher of the nineteenth century, accepted, was +followed by a broad flash of lightning, so dazzling that a hint of it +entered the belly of the elephant through the crack. Almost at the same +instant, the thunder rumbled with great fury. The two little creatures +uttered a shriek, and started up so eagerly that the network came near +being displaced, but Gavroche turned his bold face to them, and took +advantage of the clap of thunder to burst into a laugh. + +"Calm down, children. Don't topple over the edifice. That's fine, +first-class thunder; all right. That's no slouch of a streak of +lightning. Bravo for the good God! Deuce take it! It's almost as good as +it is at the Ambigu." + +That said, he restored order in the netting, pushed the two children +gently down on the bed, pressed their knees, in order to stretch them +out at full length, and exclaimed:-- + +"Since the good God is lighting his candle, I can blow out mine. Now, +babes, now, my young humans, you must shut your peepers. It's very bad +not to sleep. It'll make you swallow the strainer, or, as they say, in +fashionable society, stink in the gullet. Wrap yourself up well in the +hide! I'm going to put out the light. Are you ready?" + +"Yes," murmured the elder, "I'm all right. I seem to have feathers under +my head." + +"People don't say 'head,'" cried Gavroche, "they say 'nut'." + +The two children nestled close to each other, Gavroche finished +arranging them on the mat, drew the blanket up to their very ears, then +repeated, for the third time, his injunction in the hieratical tongue:-- + +"Shut your peepers!" + +And he snuffed out his tiny light. + +Hardly had the light been extinguished, when a peculiar trembling began +to affect the netting under which the three children lay. + +It consisted of a multitude of dull scratches which produced a metallic +sound, as if claws and teeth were gnawing at the copper wire. This was +accompanied by all sorts of little piercing cries. + +The little five-year-old boy, on hearing this hubbub overhead, and +chilled with terror, jogged his brother's elbow; but the elder brother +had already shut his peepers, as Gavroche had ordered. Then the little +one, who could no longer control his terror, questioned Gavroche, but in +a very low tone, and with bated breath:-- + +"Sir?" + +"Hey?" said Gavroche, who had just closed his eyes. + +"What is that?" + +"It's the rats," replied Gavroche. + +And he laid his head down on the mat again. + +The rats, in fact, who swarmed by thousands in the carcass of the +elephant, and who were the living black spots which we have already +mentioned, had been held in awe by the flame of the candle, so long as +it had been lighted; but as soon as the cavern, which was the same +as their city, had returned to darkness, scenting what the good +story-teller Perrault calls "fresh meat," they had hurled themselves in +throngs on Gavroche's tent, had climbed to the top of it, and had begun +to bite the meshes as though seeking to pierce this new-fangled trap. + +Still the little one could not sleep. + +"Sir?" he began again. + +"Hey?" said Gavroche. + +"What are rats?" + +"They are mice." + +This explanation reassured the child a little. He had seen white mice in +the course of his life, and he was not afraid of them. Nevertheless, he +lifted up his voice once more. + +"Sir?" + +"Hey?" said Gavroche again. + +"Why don't you have a cat?" + +"I did have one," replied Gavroche, "I brought one here, but they ate +her." + +This second explanation undid the work of the first, and the little +fellow began to tremble again. + +The dialogue between him and Gavroche began again for the fourth time:-- + +"Monsieur?" + +"Hey?" + +"Who was it that was eaten?" + +"The cat." + +"And who ate the cat?" + +"The rats." + +"The mice?" + +"Yes, the rats." + +The child, in consternation, dismayed at the thought of mice which ate +cats, pursued:-- + +"Sir, would those mice eat us?" + +"Wouldn't they just!" ejaculated Gavroche. + +The child's terror had reached its climax. But Gavroche added:-- + +"Don't be afraid. They can't get in. And besides, I'm here! Here, catch +hold of my hand. Hold your tongue and shut your peepers!" + +At the same time Gavroche grasped the little fellow's hand across his +brother. The child pressed the hand close to him, and felt reassured. +Courage and strength have these mysterious ways of communicating +themselves. Silence reigned round them once more, the sound of their +voices had frightened off the rats; at the expiration of a few minutes, +they came raging back, but in vain, the three little fellows were fast +asleep and heard nothing more. + +The hours of the night fled away. Darkness covered the vast Place de la +Bastille. A wintry gale, which mingled with the rain, blew in gusts, the +patrol searched all the doorways, alleys, enclosures, and obscure nooks, +and in their search for nocturnal vagabonds they passed in silence +before the elephant; the monster, erect, motionless, staring open-eyed +into the shadows, had the appearance of dreaming happily over his good +deed; and sheltered from heaven and from men the three poor sleeping +children. + +In order to understand what is about to follow, the reader must +remember, that, at that epoch, the Bastille guard-house was situated at +the other end of the square, and that what took place in the vicinity of +the elephant could neither be seen nor heard by the sentinel. + +Towards the end of that hour which immediately precedes the dawn, a +man turned from the Rue Saint-Antoine at a run, made the circuit of the +enclosure of the column of July, and glided between the palings until he +was underneath the belly of the elephant. If any light had illuminated +that man, it might have been divined from the thorough manner in which +he was soaked that he had passed the night in the rain. Arrived beneath +the elephant, he uttered a peculiar cry, which did not belong to any +human tongue, and which a paroquet alone could have imitated. Twice he +repeated this cry, of whose orthography the following barely conveys an +idea:-- + +"Kirikikiou!" + +At the second cry, a clear, young, merry voice responded from the belly +of the elephant:-- + +"Yes!" + +Almost immediately, the plank which closed the hole was drawn aside, +and gave passage to a child who descended the elephant's leg, and fell +briskly near the man. It was Gavroche. The man was Montparnasse. + +As for his cry of Kirikikiou,--that was, doubtless, what the child had +meant, when he said:-- + +"You will ask for Monsieur Gavroche." + +On hearing it, he had waked with a start, had crawled out of his +"alcove," pushing apart the netting a little, and carefully drawing it +together again, then he had opened the trap, and descended. + +The man and the child recognized each other silently amid the gloom: +Montparnasse confined himself to the remark:-- + +"We need you. Come, lend us a hand." + +The lad asked for no further enlightenment. + +"I'm with you," said he. + +And both took their way towards the Rue Saint-Antoine, whence +Montparnasse had emerged, winding rapidly through the long file of +market-gardeners' carts which descend towards the markets at that hour. + +The market-gardeners, crouching, half-asleep, in their wagons, amid the +salads and vegetables, enveloped to their very eyes in their mufflers +on account of the beating rain, did not even glance at these strange +pedestrians. + + + + +CHAPTER III--THE VICISSITUDES OF FLIGHT + +This is what had taken place that same night at the La Force:-- + +An escape had been planned between Babet, Brujon, Guelemer, and +Thenardier, although Thenardier was in close confinement. Babet had +arranged the matter for his own benefit, on the same day, as the reader +has seen from Montparnasse's account to Gavroche. Montparnasse was to +help them from outside. + +Brujon, after having passed a month in the punishment cell, had had +time, in the first place, to weave a rope, in the second, to mature a +plan. In former times, those severe places where the discipline of the +prison delivers the convict into his own hands, were composed of four +stone walls, a stone ceiling, a flagged pavement, a camp bed, a grated +window, and a door lined with iron, and were called dungeons; but the +dungeon was judged to be too terrible; nowadays they are composed of an +iron door, a grated window, a camp bed, a flagged pavement, four stone +walls, and a stone ceiling, and are called chambers of punishment. A +little light penetrates towards mid-day. The inconvenient point about +these chambers which, as the reader sees, are not dungeons, is that they +allow the persons who should be at work to think. + +So Brujon meditated, and he emerged from the chamber of punishment with +a rope. As he had the name of being very dangerous in the Charlemagne +courtyard, he was placed in the New Building. The first thing he found +in the New Building was Guelemer, the second was a nail; Guelemer, that +is to say, crime; a nail, that is to say, liberty. Brujon, of whom it +is high time that the reader should have a complete idea, was, with an +appearance of delicate health and a profoundly premeditated languor, a +polished, intelligent sprig, and a thief, who had a caressing glance, +and an atrocious smile. His glance resulted from his will, and his +smile from his nature. His first studies in his art had been directed +to roofs. He had made great progress in the industry of the men who tear +off lead, who plunder the roofs and despoil the gutters by the process +called double pickings. + +The circumstance which put the finishing touch on the moment peculiarly +favorable for an attempt at escape, was that the roofers were re-laying +and re-jointing, at that very moment, a portion of the slates on the +prison. The Saint-Bernard courtyard was no longer absolutely isolated +from the Charlemagne and the Saint-Louis courts. Up above there were +scaffoldings and ladders; in other words, bridges and stairs in the +direction of liberty. + +The New Building, which was the most cracked and decrepit thing to be +seen anywhere in the world, was the weak point in the prison. The walls +were eaten by saltpetre to such an extent that the authorities had been +obliged to line the vaults of the dormitories with a sheathing of wood, +because stones were in the habit of becoming detached and falling on +the prisoners in their beds. In spite of this antiquity, the authorities +committed the error of confining in the New Building the most +troublesome prisoners, of placing there "the hard cases," as they say in +prison parlance. + +The New Building contained four dormitories, one above the other, and a +top story which was called the Bel-Air (Fine Air). A large chimney-flue, +probably from some ancient kitchen of the Dukes de la Force, started +from the groundfloor, traversed all four stories, cut the dormitories, +where it figured as a flattened pillar, into two portions, and finally +pierced the roof. + +Guelemer and Brujon were in the same dormitory. They had been placed, by +way of precaution, on the lower story. Chance ordained that the heads of +their beds should rest against the chimney. + +Thenardier was directly over their heads in the top story known as +Fine-Air. The pedestrian who halts on the Rue Culture-Sainte-Catherine, +after passing the barracks of the firemen, in front of the porte-cochere +of the bathing establishment, beholds a yard full of flowers and shrubs +in wooden boxes, at the extremity of which spreads out a little white +rotunda with two wings, brightened up with green shutters, the bucolic +dream of Jean Jacques. + +Not more than ten years ago, there rose above that rotunda an enormous +black, hideous, bare wall by which it was backed up. + +This was the outer wall of La Force. + +This wall, beside that rotunda, was Milton viewed through Berquin. + +Lofty as it was, this wall was overtopped by a still blacker roof, which +could be seen beyond. This was the roof of the New Building. There +one could descry four dormer-windows, guarded with bars; they were the +windows of the Fine-Air. + +A chimney pierced the roof; this was the chimney which traversed the +dormitories. + +The Bel-Air, that top story of the New Building, was a sort of large +hall, with a Mansard roof, guarded with triple gratings and double doors +of sheet iron, which were studded with enormous bolts. When one entered +from the north end, one had on one's left the four dormer-windows, on +one's right, facing the windows, at regular intervals, four square, +tolerably vast cages, separated by narrow passages, built of masonry +to about the height of the elbow, and the rest, up to the roof, of iron +bars. + +Thenardier had been in solitary confinement in one of these cages since +the night of the 3d of February. No one was ever able to discover how, +and by what connivance, he succeeded in procuring, and secreting a +bottle of wine, invented, so it is said, by Desrues, with which +a narcotic is mixed, and which the band of the Endormeurs, or +Sleep-compellers, rendered famous. + +There are, in many prisons, treacherous employees, half-jailers, +half-thieves, who assist in escapes, who sell to the police an +unfaithful service, and who turn a penny whenever they can. + +On that same night, then, when Little Gavroche picked up the two lost +children, Brujon and Guelemer, who knew that Babet, who had escaped that +morning, was waiting for them in the street as well as Montparnasse, +rose softly, and with the nail which Brujon had found, began to pierce +the chimney against which their beds stood. The rubbish fell on Brujon's +bed, so that they were not heard. Showers mingled with thunder shook +the doors on their hinges, and created in the prison a terrible and +opportune uproar. Those of the prisoners who woke, pretended to fall +asleep again, and left Guelemer and Brujon to their own devices. Brujon +was adroit; Guelemer was vigorous. Before any sound had reached the +watcher, who was sleeping in the grated cell which opened into the +dormitory, the wall had, been pierced, the chimney scaled, the iron +grating which barred the upper orifice of the flue forced, and the two +redoubtable ruffians were on the roof. The wind and rain redoubled, the +roof was slippery. + +"What a good night to leg it!" said Brujon. + +An abyss six feet broad and eighty feet deep separated them from the +surrounding wall. At the bottom of this abyss, they could see the musket +of a sentinel gleaming through the gloom. They fastened one end of the +rope which Brujon had spun in his dungeon to the stumps of the iron bars +which they had just wrenched off, flung the other over the outer wall, +crossed the abyss at one bound, clung to the coping of the wall, got +astride of it, let themselves slip, one after the other, along the rope, +upon a little roof which touches the bath-house, pulled their rope after +them, jumped down into the courtyard of the bath-house, traversed it, +pushed open the porter's wicket, beside which hung his rope, pulled +this, opened the porte-cochere, and found themselves in the street. + +Three-quarters of an hour had not elapsed since they had risen in bed in +the dark, nail in hand, and their project in their heads. + +A few moments later they had joined Babet and Montparnasse, who were +prowling about the neighborhood. + +They had broken their rope in pulling it after them, and a bit of it +remained attached to the chimney on the roof. They had sustained no +other damage, however, than that of scratching nearly all the skin off +their hands. + +That night, Thenardier was warned, without any one being able to explain +how, and was not asleep. + +Towards one o'clock in the morning, the night being very dark, he saw +two shadows pass along the roof, in the rain and squalls, in front of +the dormer-window which was opposite his cage. One halted at the window, +long enough to dart in a glance. This was Brujon. + +Thenardier recognized him, and understood. This was enough. + +Thenardier, rated as a burglar, and detained as a measure of precaution +under the charge of organizing a nocturnal ambush, with armed force, was +kept in sight. The sentry, who was relieved every two hours, marched +up and down in front of his cage with loaded musket. The Fine-Air was +lighted by a skylight. The prisoner had on his feet fetters weighing +fifty pounds. Every day, at four o'clock in the afternoon, a jailer, +escorted by two dogs,--this was still in vogue at that time,--entered +his cage, deposited beside his bed a loaf of black bread weighing two +pounds, a jug of water, a bowl filled with rather thin bouillon, in +which swam a few Mayagan beans, inspected his irons and tapped the bars. +This man and his dogs made two visits during the night. + +Thenardier had obtained permission to keep a sort of iron bolt which he +used to spike his bread into a crack in the wall, "in order to preserve +it from the rats," as he said. As Thenardier was kept in sight, +no objection had been made to this spike. Still, it was remembered +afterwards, that one of the jailers had said: "It would be better to let +him have only a wooden spike." + +At two o'clock in the morning, the sentinel, who was an old soldier, was +relieved, and replaced by a conscript. A few moments later, the man with +the dogs paid his visit, and went off without noticing anything, except, +possibly, the excessive youth and "the rustic air" of the "raw recruit." +Two hours afterwards, at four o'clock, when they came to relieve the +conscript, he was found asleep on the floor, lying like a log near +Thenardier's cage. As for Thenardier, he was no longer there. There was +a hole in the ceiling of his cage, and, above it, another hole in the +roof. One of the planks of his bed had been wrenched off, and probably +carried away with him, as it was not found. They also seized in his cell +a half-empty bottle which contained the remains of the stupefying wine +with which the soldier had been drugged. The soldier's bayonet had +disappeared. + +At the moment when this discovery was made, it was assumed that +Thenardier was out of reach. The truth is, that he was no longer in the +New Building, but that he was still in great danger. + +Thenardier, on reaching the roof of the New Building, had found the +remains of Brujon's rope hanging to the bars of the upper trap of the +chimney, but, as this broken fragment was much too short, he had not +been able to escape by the outer wall, as Brujon and Guelemer had done. + +When one turns from the Rue des Ballets into the Rue du Roi-de-Sicile, +one almost immediately encounters a repulsive ruin. There stood on +that spot, in the last century, a house of which only the back wall now +remains, a regular wall of masonry, which rises to the height of the +third story between the adjoining buildings. This ruin can be recognized +by two large square windows which are still to be seen there; the middle +one, that nearest the right gable, is barred with a worm-eaten beam +adjusted like a prop. Through these windows there was formerly visible a +lofty and lugubrious wall, which was a fragment of the outer wall of La +Force. + +The empty space on the street left by the demolished house is +half-filled by a fence of rotten boards, shored up by five stone posts. +In this recess lies concealed a little shanty which leans against the +portion of the ruin which has remained standing. The fence has a gate, +which, a few years ago, was fastened only by a latch. + +It was the crest of this ruin that Thenardier had succeeded in reaching, +a little after one o'clock in the morning. + +How had he got there? That is what no one has ever been able to explain +or understand. The lightning must, at the same time, have hindered +and helped him. Had he made use of the ladders and scaffoldings of the +slaters to get from roof to roof, from enclosure to enclosure, from +compartment to compartment, to the buildings of the Charlemagne court, +then to the buildings of the Saint-Louis court, to the outer wall, and +thence to the hut on the Rue du Roi-de-Sicile? But in that itinerary +there existed breaks which seemed to render it an impossibility. Had +he placed the plank from his bed like a bridge from the roof of the +Fine-Air to the outer wall, and crawled flat, on his belly on the coping +of the outer wall the whole distance round the prison as far as the hut? +But the outer wall of La Force formed a crenellated and unequal line; +it mounted and descended, it dropped at the firemen's barracks, it rose +towards the bath-house, it was cut in twain by buildings, it was not +even of the same height on the Hotel Lamoignon as on the Rue Pavee; +everywhere occurred falls and right angles; and then, the sentinels must +have espied the dark form of the fugitive; hence, the route taken by +Thenardier still remains rather inexplicable. In two manners, flight was +impossible. Had Thenardier, spurred on by that thirst for liberty which +changes precipices into ditches, iron bars into wattles of osier, a +legless man into an athlete, a gouty man into a bird, stupidity into +instinct, instinct into intelligence, and intelligence into genius, had +Thenardier invented a third mode? No one has ever found out. + +The marvels of escape cannot always be accounted for. The man who makes +his escape, we repeat, is inspired; there is something of the star and +of the lightning in the mysterious gleam of flight; the effort towards +deliverance is no less surprising than the flight towards the sublime, +and one says of the escaped thief: "How did he contrive to scale that +wall?" in the same way that one says of Corneille: "Where did he find +the means of dying?" + +At all events, dripping with perspiration, drenched with rain, with his +clothes hanging in ribbons, his hands flayed, his elbows bleeding, his +knees torn, Thenardier had reached what children, in their figurative +language, call the edge of the wall of the ruin, there he had stretched +himself out at full length, and there his strength had failed him. A +steep escarpment three stories high separated him from the pavement of +the street. + +The rope which he had was too short. + +There he waited, pale, exhausted, desperate with all the despair which +he had undergone, still hidden by the night, but telling himself that +the day was on the point of dawning, alarmed at the idea of hearing the +neighboring clock of Saint-Paul strike four within a few minutes, an +hour when the sentinel was relieved and when the latter would be found +asleep under the pierced roof, staring in horror at a terrible depth, at +the light of the street lanterns, the wet, black pavement, that pavement +longed for yet frightful, which meant death, and which meant liberty. + +He asked himself whether his three accomplices in flight had succeeded, +if they had heard him, and if they would come to his assistance. He +listened. With the exception of the patrol, no one had passed through +the street since he had been there. Nearly the whole of the descent of +the market-gardeners from Montreuil, from Charonne, from Vincennes, +and from Bercy to the markets was accomplished through the Rue +Saint-Antoine. + +Four o'clock struck. Thenardier shuddered. A few moments later, that +terrified and confused uproar which follows the discovery of an escape +broke forth in the prison. The sound of doors opening and shutting, the +creaking of gratings on their hinges, a tumult in the guard-house, the +hoarse shouts of the turnkeys, the shock of musket-butts on the pavement +of the courts, reached his ears. Lights ascended and descended past the +grated windows of the dormitories, a torch ran along the ridge-pole of +the top story of the New Building, the firemen belonging in the barracks +on the right had been summoned. Their helmets, which the torch lighted +up in the rain, went and came along the roofs. At the same time, +Thenardier perceived in the direction of the Bastille a wan whiteness +lighting up the edge of the sky in doleful wise. + +He was on top of a wall ten inches wide, stretched out under the heavy +rains, with two gulfs to right and left, unable to stir, subject to the +giddiness of a possible fall, and to the horror of a certain arrest, +and his thoughts, like the pendulum of a clock, swung from one of these +ideas to the other: "Dead if I fall, caught if I stay." In the midst of +this anguish, he suddenly saw, the street being still dark, a man who +was gliding along the walls and coming from the Rue Pavee, halt in the +recess above which Thenardier was, as it were, suspended. Here this +man was joined by a second, who walked with the same caution, then by +a third, then by a fourth. When these men were re-united, one of them +lifted the latch of the gate in the fence, and all four entered +the enclosure in which the shanty stood. They halted directly under +Thenardier. These men had evidently chosen this vacant space in order +that they might consult without being seen by the passers-by or by the +sentinel who guards the wicket of La Force a few paces distant. It +must be added, that the rain kept this sentinel blocked in his box. +Thenardier, not being able to distinguish their visages, lent an ear to +their words with the desperate attention of a wretch who feels himself +lost. + +Thenardier saw something resembling a gleam of hope flash before his +eyes,--these men conversed in slang. + +The first said in a low but distinct voice:-- + +"Let's cut. What are we up to here?" + +The second replied: "It's raining hard enough to put out the very +devil's fire. And the bobbies will be along instanter. There's a soldier +on guard yonder. We shall get nabbed here." + +These two words, icigo and icicaille, both of which mean ici, and which +belong, the first to the slang of the barriers, the second to the slang +of the Temple, were flashes of light for Thenardier. By the icigo he +recognized Brujon, who was a prowler of the barriers, by the icicaille +he knew Babet, who, among his other trades, had been an old-clothes +broker at the Temple. + +The antique slang of the great century is no longer spoken except in +the Temple, and Babet was really the only person who spoke it in all +its purity. Had it not been for the icicaille, Thenardier would not have +recognized him, for he had entirely changed his voice. + +In the meanwhile, the third man had intervened. + +"There's no hurry yet, let's wait a bit. How do we know that he doesn't +stand in need of us?" + +By this, which was nothing but French, Thenardier recognized +Montparnasse, who made it a point in his elegance to understand all +slangs and to speak none of them. + +As for the fourth, he held his peace, but his huge shoulders betrayed +him. Thenardier did not hesitate. It was Guelemer. + +Brujon replied almost impetuously but still in a low tone:-- + +"What are you jabbering about? The tavern-keeper hasn't managed to cut +his stick. He don't tumble to the racket, that he don't! You have to be +a pretty knowing cove to tear up your shirt, cut up your sheet to make +a rope, punch holes in doors, get up false papers, make false keys, file +your irons, hang out your cord, hide yourself, and disguise yourself! +The old fellow hasn't managed to play it, he doesn't understand how to +work the business." + +Babet added, still in that classical slang which was spoken by +Poulailler and Cartouche, and which is to the bold, new, highly colored +and risky argot used by Brujon what the language of Racine is to the +language of Andre Chenier:-- + +"Your tavern-keeper must have been nabbed in the act. You have to be +knowing. He's only a greenhorn. He must have let himself be taken in +by a bobby, perhaps even by a sheep who played it on him as his pal. +Listen, Montparnasse, do you hear those shouts in the prison? You have +seen all those lights. He's recaptured, there! He'll get off with twenty +years. I ain't afraid, I ain't a coward, but there ain't anything more +to do, or otherwise they'd lead us a dance. Don't get mad, come with us, +let's go drink a bottle of old wine together." + +"One doesn't desert one's friends in a scrape," grumbled Montparnasse. + +"I tell you he's nabbed!" retorted Brujon. "At the present moment, the +inn-keeper ain't worth a ha'penny. We can't do nothing for him. Let's be +off. Every minute I think a bobby has got me in his fist." + +Montparnasse no longer offered more than a feeble resistance; the fact +is, that these four men, with the fidelity of ruffians who never abandon +each other, had prowled all night long about La Force, great as was +their peril, in the hope of seeing Thenardier make his appearance on the +top of some wall. But the night, which was really growing too fine,--for +the downpour was such as to render all the streets deserted,--the cold +which was overpowering them, their soaked garments, their hole-ridden +shoes, the alarming noise which had just burst forth in the prison, the +hours which had elapsed, the patrol which they had encountered, the +hope which was vanishing, all urged them to beat a retreat. Montparnasse +himself, who was, perhaps, almost Thenardier's son-in-law, yielded. A +moment more, and they would be gone. Thenardier was panting on his wall +like the shipwrecked sufferers of the Meduse on their raft when they +beheld the vessel which had appeared in sight vanish on the horizon. + +He dared not call to them; a cry might be heard and ruin everything. An +idea occurred to him, a last idea, a flash of inspiration; he drew from +his pocket the end of Brujon's rope, which he had detached from the +chimney of the New Building, and flung it into the space enclosed by the +fence. + +This rope fell at their feet. + +"A widow,"[37] said Babet. + +"My tortouse!"[38] said Brujon. + +"The tavern-keeper is there," said Montparnasse. + +They raised their eyes. Thenardier thrust out his head a very little. + +"Quick!" said Montparnasse, "have you the other end of the rope, +Brujon?" + +"Yes." + +"Knot the two pieces together, we'll fling him the rope, he can fasten +it to the wall, and he'll have enough of it to get down with." + +Thenardier ran the risk, and spoke:-- + +"I am paralyzed with cold." + +"We'll warm you up." + +"I can't budge." + +"Let yourself slide, we'll catch you." + +"My hands are benumbed." + +"Only fasten the rope to the wall." + +"I can't." + +"Then one of us must climb up," said Montparnasse. + +"Three stories!" ejaculated Brujon. + +An ancient plaster flue, which had served for a stove that had been used +in the shanty in former times, ran along the wall and mounted almost +to the very spot where they could see Thenardier. This flue, then much +damaged and full of cracks, has since fallen, but the marks of it are +still visible. + +It was very narrow. + +"One might get up by the help of that," said Montparnasse. + +"By that flue?" exclaimed Babet, "a grown-up cove, never! it would take +a brat." + +"A brat must be got," resumed Brujon. + +"Where are we to find a young 'un?" said Guelemer. + +"Wait," said Montparnasse. "I've got the very article." + +He opened the gate of the fence very softly, made sure that no one was +passing along the street, stepped out cautiously, shut the gate behind +him, and set off at a run in the direction of the Bastille. + +Seven or eight minutes elapsed, eight thousand centuries to Thenardier; +Babet, Brujon, and Guelemer did not open their lips; at last the gate +opened once more, and Montparnasse appeared, breathless, and followed by +Gavroche. The rain still rendered the street completely deserted. + +Little Gavroche entered the enclosure and gazed at the forms of these +ruffians with a tranquil air. The water was dripping from his hair. +Guelemer addressed him:-- + +"Are you a man, young 'un?" + +Gavroche shrugged his shoulders, and replied:-- + +"A young 'un like me's a man, and men like you are babes." + +"The brat's tongue's well hung!" exclaimed Babet. + +"The Paris brat ain't made of straw," added Brujon. + +"What do you want?" asked Gavroche. + +Montparnasse answered:-- + +"Climb up that flue." + +"With this rope," said Babet. + +"And fasten it," continued Brujon. + +"To the top of the wall," went on Babet. + +"To the cross-bar of the window," added Brujon. + +"And then?" said Gavroche. + +"There!" said Guelemer. + +The gamin examined the rope, the flue, the wall, the windows, and made +that indescribable and disdainful noise with his lips which signifies:-- + +"Is that all!" + +"There's a man up there whom you are to save," resumed Montparnasse. + +"Will you?" began Brujon again. + +"Greenhorn!" replied the lad, as though the question appeared a most +unprecedented one to him. + +And he took off his shoes. + +Guelemer seized Gavroche by one arm, set him on the roof of the shanty, +whose worm-eaten planks bent beneath the urchin's weight, and handed +him the rope which Brujon had knotted together during Montparnasse's +absence. The gamin directed his steps towards the flue, which it was +easy to enter, thanks to a large crack which touched the roof. At the +moment when he was on the point of ascending, Thenardier, who saw life +and safety approaching, bent over the edge of the wall; the first light +of dawn struck white upon his brow dripping with sweat, upon his livid +cheek-bones, his sharp and savage nose, his bristling gray beard, and +Gavroche recognized him. + +"Hullo! it's my father! Oh, that won't hinder." + +And taking the rope in his teeth, he resolutely began the ascent. + +He reached the summit of the hut, bestrode the old wall as though it had +been a horse, and knotted the rope firmly to the upper cross-bar of the +window. + +A moment later, Thenardier was in the street. + +As soon as he touched the pavement, as soon as he found himself out +of danger, he was no longer either weary, or chilled or trembling; the +terrible things from which he had escaped vanished like smoke, all that +strange and ferocious mind awoke once more, and stood erect and free, +ready to march onward. + +These were this man's first words:-- + +"Now, whom are we to eat?" + +It is useless to explain the sense of this frightfully transparent +remark, which signifies both to kill, to assassinate, and to plunder. To +eat, true sense: to devour. + +"Let's get well into a corner," said Brujon. "Let's settle it in three +words, and part at once. There was an affair that promised well in the +Rue Plumet, a deserted street, an isolated house, an old rotten gate on +a garden, and lone women." + +"Well! why not?" demanded Thenardier. + +"Your girl, Eponine, went to see about the matter," replied Babet. + +"And she brought a biscuit to Magnon," added Guelemer. "Nothing to be +made there." + +"The girl's no fool," said Thenardier. "Still, it must be seen to." + +"Yes, yes," said Brujon, "it must be looked up." + +In the meanwhile, none of the men seemed to see Gavroche, who, during +this colloquy, had seated himself on one of the fence-posts; he waited +a few moments, thinking that perhaps his father would turn towards him, +then he put on his shoes again, and said:-- + +"Is that all? You don't want any more, my men? Now you're out of your +scrape. I'm off. I must go and get my brats out of bed." + +And off he went. + +The five men emerged, one after another, from the enclosure. + +When Gavroche had disappeared at the corner of the Rue des Ballets, +Babet took Thenardier aside. + +"Did you take a good look at that young 'un?" he asked. + +"What young 'un?" + +"The one who climbed the wall and carried you the rope." + +"Not particularly." + +"Well, I don't know, but it strikes me that it was your son." + +"Bah!" said Thenardier, "do you think so?" + + + + +BOOK SEVENTH.--SLANG + +[Illustration: Slang b7-1-slang] + + + + +CHAPTER I--ORIGIN + +Pigritia is a terrible word. + +It engenders a whole world, la pegre, for which read theft, and a hell, +la pegrenne, for which read hunger. + +Thus, idleness is the mother. + +She has a son, theft, and a daughter, hunger. + +Where are we at this moment? In the land of slang. + +What is slang? It is at one and the same time, a nation and a dialect; +it is theft in its two kinds; people and language. + +When, four and thirty years ago, the narrator of this grave and sombre +history introduced into a work written with the same aim as this[39] a +thief who talked argot, there arose amazement and clamor.--"What! How! +Argot! Why, argot is horrible! It is the language of prisons, galleys, +convicts, of everything that is most abominable in society!" etc., etc. + +We have never understood this sort of objections. + +Since that time, two powerful romancers, one of whom is a profound +observer of the human heart, the other an intrepid friend of the people, +Balzac and Eugene Sue, having represented their ruffians as talking +their natural language, as the author of The Last Day of a Condemned +Man did in 1828, the same objections have been raised. People repeated: +"What do authors mean by that revolting dialect? Slang is odious! Slang +makes one shudder!" + +Who denies that? Of course it does. + +When it is a question of probing a wound, a gulf, a society, since when +has it been considered wrong to go too far? to go to the bottom? We have +always thought that it was sometimes a courageous act, and, at least, a +simple and useful deed, worthy of the sympathetic attention which duty +accepted and fulfilled merits. Why should one not explore everything, +and study everything? Why should one halt on the way? The halt is a +matter depending on the sounding-line, and not on the leadsman. + +Certainly, too, it is neither an attractive nor an easy task to +undertake an investigation into the lowest depths of the social order, +where terra firma comes to an end and where mud begins, to rummage in +those vague, murky waves, to follow up, to seize and to fling, still +quivering, upon the pavement that abject dialect which is dripping with +filth when thus brought to the light, that pustulous vocabulary each +word of which seems an unclean ring from a monster of the mire and the +shadows. Nothing is more lugubrious than the contemplation thus in +its nudity, in the broad light of thought, of the horrible swarming of +slang. It seems, in fact, to be a sort of horrible beast made for the +night which has just been torn from its cesspool. One thinks one beholds +a frightful, living, and bristling thicket which quivers, rustles, +wavers, returns to shadow, threatens and glares. One word resembles a +claw, another an extinguished and bleeding eye, such and such a phrase +seems to move like the claw of a crab. All this is alive with +the hideous vitality of things which have been organized out of +disorganization. + +Now, when has horror ever excluded study? Since when has malady banished +medicine? Can one imagine a naturalist refusing to study the viper, the +bat, the scorpion, the centipede, the tarantula, and one who would +cast them back into their darkness, saying: "Oh! how ugly that is!" The +thinker who should turn aside from slang would resemble a surgeon +who should avert his face from an ulcer or a wart. He would be like +a philologist refusing to examine a fact in language, a philosopher +hesitating to scrutinize a fact in humanity. For, it must be stated +to those who are ignorant of the case, that argot is both a literary +phenomenon and a social result. What is slang, properly speaking? It is +the language of wretchedness. + +We may be stopped; the fact may be put to us in general terms, which is +one way of attenuating it; we may be told, that all trades, professions, +it may be added, all the accidents of the social hierarchy and all +forms of intelligence, have their own slang. The merchant who says: +"Montpellier not active, Marseilles fine quality," the broker on 'change +who says: "Assets at end of current month," the gambler who says: "Tiers +et tout, refait de pique," the sheriff of the Norman Isles who says: +"The holder in fee reverting to his landed estate cannot claim the +fruits of that estate during the hereditary seizure of the real estate +by the mortgagor," the playwright who says: "The piece was hissed," +the comedian who says: "I've made a hit," the philosopher who says: +"Phenomenal triplicity," the huntsman who says: "Voileci allais, +Voileci fuyant," the phrenologist who says: "Amativeness, combativeness, +secretiveness," the infantry soldier who says: "My shooting-iron," the +cavalry-man who says: "My turkey-cock," the fencing-master who says: +"Tierce, quarte, break," the printer who says: "My shooting-stick and +galley,"--all, printer, fencing-master, cavalry dragoon, infantry-man, +phrenologist, huntsman, philosopher, comedian, playwright, sheriff, +gambler, stock-broker, and merchant, speak slang. The painter who says: +"My grinder," the notary who says: "My Skip-the-Gutter," the hairdresser +who says: "My mealyback," the cobbler who says: "My cub," talks slang. +Strictly speaking, if one absolutely insists on the point, all the +different fashions of saying the right and the left, the sailor's port +and starboard, the scene-shifter's court-side, and garden-side, the +beadle's Gospel-side and Epistle-side, are slang. There is the slang of +the affected lady as well as of the precieuses. The Hotel Rambouillet +nearly adjoins the Cour des Miracles. There is a slang of duchesses, +witness this phrase contained in a love-letter from a very great lady +and a very pretty woman of the Restoration: "You will find in this +gossip a fultitude of reasons why I should libertize."[40] Diplomatic +ciphers are slang; the pontifical chancellery by using 26 for Rome, +grkztntgzyal for despatch, and abfxustgrnogrkzu tu XI. for the Due de +Modena, speaks slang. The physicians of the Middle Ages who, for +carrot, radish, and turnip, said Opoponach, perfroschinum, +reptitalmus, dracatholicum, angelorum, postmegorum, talked slang. The +sugar-manufacturer who says: "Loaf, clarified, lumps, bastard, common, +burnt,"--this honest manufacturer talks slang. A certain school of +criticism twenty years ago, which used to say: "Half of the works of +Shakespeare consists of plays upon words and puns,"--talked slang. The +poet, and the artist who, with profound understanding, would designate +M. de Montmorency as "a bourgeois," if he were not a judge of verses and +statues, speak slang. The classic Academician who calls flowers "Flora," +fruits, "Pomona," the sea, "Neptune," love, "fires," beauty, "charms," +a horse, "a courser," the white or tricolored cockade, "the rose of +Bellona," the three-cornered hat, "Mars' triangle,"--that classical +Academician talks slang. Algebra, medicine, botany, have each their +slang. The tongue which is employed on board ship, that wonderful +language of the sea, which is so complete and so picturesque, which was +spoken by Jean Bart, Duquesne, Suffren, and Duperre, which mingles with +the whistling of the rigging, the sound of the speaking-trumpets, the +shock of the boarding-irons, the roll of the sea, the wind, the gale, +the cannon, is wholly a heroic and dazzling slang, which is to the +fierce slang of the thieves what the lion is to the jackal. + +No doubt. But say what we will, this manner of understanding the word +slang is an extension which every one will not admit. For our part, +we reserve to the word its ancient and precise, circumscribed and +determined significance, and we restrict slang to slang. The veritable +slang and the slang that is pre-eminently slang, if the two words can be +coupled thus, the slang immemorial which was a kingdom, is nothing +else, we repeat, than the homely, uneasy, crafty, treacherous, venomous, +cruel, equivocal, vile, profound, fatal tongue of wretchedness. There +exists, at the extremity of all abasement and all misfortunes, a last +misery which revolts and makes up its mind to enter into conflict +with the whole mass of fortunate facts and reigning rights; a fearful +conflict, where, now cunning, now violent, unhealthy and ferocious +at one and the same time, it attacks the social order with pin-pricks +through vice, and with club-blows through crime. To meet the needs of +this conflict, wretchedness has invented a language of combat, which is +slang. + +To keep afloat and to rescue from oblivion, to hold above the gulf, were +it but a fragment of some language which man has spoken and which would, +otherwise, be lost, that is to say, one of the elements, good or bad, of +which civilization is composed, or by which it is complicated, to extend +the records of social observation; is to serve civilization itself. This +service Plautus rendered, consciously or unconsciously, by making two +Carthaginian soldiers talk Phoenician; that service Moliere rendered, +by making so many of his characters talk Levantine and all sorts of +dialects. Here objections spring up afresh. Phoenician, very good! +Levantine, quite right! Even dialect, let that pass! They are tongues +which have belonged to nations or provinces; but slang! What is the use +of preserving slang? What is the good of assisting slang "to survive"? + +To this we reply in one word, only. Assuredly, if the tongue which a +nation or a province has spoken is worthy of interest, the language +which has been spoken by a misery is still more worthy of attention and +study. + +It is the language which has been spoken, in France, for example, for +more than four centuries, not only by a misery, but by every possible +human misery. + +And then, we insist upon it, the study of social deformities and +infirmities, and the task of pointing them out with a view to remedy, +is not a business in which choice is permitted. The historian of manners +and ideas has no less austere a mission than the historian of events. +The latter has the surface of civilization, the conflicts of crowns, the +births of princes, the marriages of kings, battles, assemblages, great +public men, revolutions in the daylight, everything on the exterior; +the other historian has the interior, the depths, the people who toil, +suffer, wait, the oppressed woman, the agonizing child, the secret war +between man and man, obscure ferocities, prejudices, plotted +iniquities, the subterranean, the indistinct tremors of multitudes, the +die-of-hunger, the counter-blows of the law, the secret evolution of +souls, the go-bare-foot, the bare-armed, the disinherited, the orphans, +the unhappy, and the infamous, all the forms which roam through the +darkness. He must descend with his heart full of charity, and severity +at the same time, as a brother and as a judge, to those impenetrable +casemates where crawl, pell-mell, those who bleed and those who deal the +blow, those who weep and those who curse, those who fast and those +who devour, those who endure evil and those who inflict it. Have these +historians of hearts and souls duties at all inferior to the historians +of external facts? Does any one think that Alighieri has any fewer +things to say than Machiavelli? Is the under side of civilization any +less important than the upper side merely because it is deeper and more +sombre? Do we really know the mountain well when we are not acquainted +with the cavern? + +Let us say, moreover, parenthetically, that from a few words of what +precedes a marked separation might be inferred between the two classes +of historians which does not exist in our mind. No one is a good +historian of the patent, visible, striking, and public life of peoples, +if he is not, at the same time, in a certain measure, the historian +of their deep and hidden life; and no one is a good historian of the +interior unless he understands how, at need, to be the historian of the +exterior also. The history of manners and ideas permeates the history +of events, and this is true reciprocally. They constitute two different +orders of facts which correspond to each other, which are always +interlaced, and which often bring forth results. All the lineaments +which providence traces on the surface of a nation have their parallels, +sombre but distinct, in their depths, and all convulsions of the depths +produce ebullitions on the surface. True history being a mixture of all +things, the true historian mingles in everything. + +Man is not a circle with a single centre; he is an ellipse with a double +focus. Facts form one of these, and ideas the other. + +Slang is nothing but a dressing-room where the tongue having some +bad action to perform, disguises itself. There it clothes itself in +word-masks, in metaphor-rags. In this guise it becomes horrible. + +One finds it difficult to recognize. Is it really the French tongue, the +great human tongue? Behold it ready to step upon the stage and to retort +upon crime, and prepared for all the employments of the repertory of +evil. It no longer walks, it hobbles; it limps on the crutch of the +Court of Miracles, a crutch metamorphosable into a club; it is called +vagrancy; every sort of spectre, its dressers, have painted its face, it +crawls and rears, the double gait of the reptile. Henceforth, it is apt +at all roles, it is made suspicious by the counterfeiter, covered with +verdigris by the forger, blacked by the soot of the incendiary; and the +murderer applies its rouge. + +When one listens, by the side of honest men, at the portals of society, +one overhears the dialogues of those who are on the outside. +One distinguishes questions and replies. One perceives, without +understanding it, a hideous murmur, sounding almost like human accents, +but more nearly resembling a howl than an articulate word. It is slang. +The words are misshapen and stamped with an indescribable and fantastic +bestiality. One thinks one hears hydras talking. + +It is unintelligible in the dark. It gnashes and whispers, completing +the gloom with mystery. It is black in misfortune, it is blacker still +in crime; these two blacknesses amalgamated, compose slang. Obscurity +in the atmosphere, obscurity in acts, obscurity in voices. Terrible, +toad-like tongue which goes and comes, leaps, crawls, slobbers, and +stirs about in monstrous wise in that immense gray fog composed of rain +and night, of hunger, of vice, of falsehood, of injustice, of nudity, of +suffocation, and of winter, the high noonday of the miserable. + +Let us have compassion on the chastised. Alas! Who are we ourselves? Who +am I who now address you? Who are you who are listening to me? And are +you very sure that we have done nothing before we were born? The earth +is not devoid of resemblance to a jail. Who knows whether man is not a +recaptured offender against divine justice? Look closely at life. It is +so made, that everywhere we feel the sense of punishment. + +Are you what is called a happy man? Well! you are sad every day. Each +day has its own great grief or its little care. Yesterday you were +trembling for a health that is dear to you, to-day you fear for your +own; to-morrow it will be anxiety about money, the day after to-morrow +the diatribe of a slanderer, the day after that, the misfortune of some +friend; then the prevailing weather, then something that has been broken +or lost, then a pleasure with which your conscience and your vertebral +column reproach you; again, the course of public affairs. This without +reckoning in the pains of the heart. And so it goes on. One cloud is +dispelled, another forms. There is hardly one day out of a hundred which +is wholly joyous and sunny. And you belong to that small class who are +happy! As for the rest of mankind, stagnating night rests upon them. + +Thoughtful minds make but little use of the phrase: the fortunate and +the unfortunate. In this world, evidently the vestibule of another, +there are no fortunate. + +The real human division is this: the luminous and the shady. To diminish +the number of the shady, to augment the number of the luminous,--that +is the object. That is why we cry: Education! science! To teach reading, +means to light the fire; every syllable spelled out sparkles. + +However, he who says light does not, necessarily, say joy. People suffer +in the light; excess burns. The flame is the enemy of the wing. To burn +without ceasing to fly,--therein lies the marvel of genius. + +When you shall have learned to know, and to love, you will still suffer. +The day is born in tears. The luminous weep, if only over those in +darkness. + + + + +CHAPTER II--ROOTS + +Slang is the tongue of those who sit in darkness. + +Thought is moved in its most sombre depths, social philosophy is bidden +to its most poignant meditations, in the presence of that enigmatic +dialect at once so blighted and rebellious. Therein lies chastisement +made visible. Every syllable has an air of being marked. The words of +the vulgar tongue appear therein wrinkled and shrivelled, as it were, +beneath the hot iron of the executioner. Some seem to be still smoking. +Such and such a phrase produces upon you the effect of the shoulder of a +thief branded with the fleur-de-lys, which has suddenly been laid bare. +Ideas almost refuse to be expressed in these substantives which are +fugitives from justice. Metaphor is sometimes so shameless, that one +feels that it has worn the iron neck-fetter. + +Moreover, in spite of all this, and because of all this, this strange +dialect has by rights, its own compartment in that great impartial case +of pigeon-holes where there is room for the rusty farthing as well as +for the gold medal, and which is called literature. Slang, whether the +public admit the fact or not has its syntax and its poetry. It is a +language. Yes, by the deformity of certain terms, we recognize the +fact that it was chewed by Mandrin, and by the splendor of certain +metonymies, we feel that Villon spoke it. + +That exquisite and celebrated verse-- + + Mais ou sont les neiges d'antan? + But where are the snows of years gone by? + +is a verse of slang. Antam--ante annum--is a word of Thunes slang, which +signified the past year, and by extension, formerly. Thirty-five years +ago, at the epoch of the departure of the great chain-gang, there could +be read in one of the cells at Bicetre, this maxim engraved with a +nail on the wall by a king of Thunes condemned to the galleys: Les dabs +d'antan trimaient siempre pour la pierre du Coesre. This means Kings in +days gone by always went and had themselves anointed. In the opinion of +that king, anointment meant the galleys. + +The word decarade, which expresses the departure of heavy vehicles at +a gallop, is attributed to Villon, and it is worthy of him. This word, +which strikes fire with all four of its feet, sums up in a masterly +onomatopoeia the whole of La Fontaine's admirable verse:-- + + Six forts chevaux tiraient un coche. + Six stout horses drew a coach. + + +From a purely literary point of view, few studies would prove more +curious and fruitful than the study of slang. It is a whole language +within a language, a sort of sickly excrescence, an unhealthy graft +which has produced a vegetation, a parasite which has its roots in the +old Gallic trunk, and whose sinister foliage crawls all over one side of +the language. This is what may be called the first, the vulgar aspect of +slang. But, for those who study the tongue as it should be studied, that +is to say, as geologists study the earth, slang appears like a veritable +alluvial deposit. According as one digs a longer or shorter distance +into it, one finds in slang, below the old popular French, Provencal, +Spanish, Italian, Levantine, that language of the Mediterranean ports, +English and German, the Romance language in its three varieties, French, +Italian, and Romance Romance, Latin, and finally Basque and Celtic. A +profound and unique formation. A subterranean edifice erected in common +by all the miserable. Each accursed race has deposited its layer, each +suffering has dropped its stone there, each heart has contributed its +pebble. A throng of evil, base, or irritated souls, who have traversed +life and have vanished into eternity, linger there almost entirely +visible still beneath the form of some monstrous word. + +Do you want Spanish? The old Gothic slang abounded in it. Here is +boffete, a box on the ear, which is derived from bofeton; vantane, +window (later on vanterne), which comes from vantana; gat, cat, which +comes from gato; acite, oil, which comes from aceyte. Do you want +Italian? Here is spade, sword, which comes from spada; carvel, boat, +which comes from caravella. Do you want English? Here is bichot, which +comes from bishop; raille, spy, which comes from rascal, rascalion; +pilche, a case, which comes from pilcher, a sheath. Do you want German? +Here is the caleur, the waiter, kellner; the hers, the master, herzog +(duke). Do you want Latin? Here is frangir, to break, frangere; affurer, +to steal, fur; cadene, chain, catena. There is one word which crops up +in every language of the continent, with a sort of mysterious power and +authority. It is the word magnus; the Scotchman makes of it his mac, +which designates the chief of the clan; Mac-Farlane, Mac-Callumore, the +great Farlane, the great Callumore[41]; slang turns it into meck and +later le meg, that is to say, God. Would you like Basque? Here is +gahisto, the devil, which comes from gaiztoa, evil; sorgabon, good +night, which comes from gabon, good evening. Do you want Celtic? Here is +blavin, a handkerchief, which comes from blavet, gushing water; menesse, +a woman (in a bad sense), which comes from meinec, full of stones; +barant, brook, from baranton, fountain; goffeur, locksmith, from goff, +blacksmith; guedouze, death, which comes from guenn-du, black-white. +Finally, would you like history? Slang calls crowns les malteses, a +souvenir of the coin in circulation on the galleys of Malta. + +In addition to the philological origins just indicated, slang possesses +other and still more natural roots, which spring, so to speak, from the +mind of man itself. + +In the first place, the direct creation of words. Therein lies the +mystery of tongues. To paint with words, which contains figures +one knows not how or why, is the primitive foundation of all human +languages, what may be called their granite. + +Slang abounds in words of this description, immediate words, words +created instantaneously no one knows either where or by whom, without +etymology, without analogies, without derivatives, solitary, barbarous, +sometimes hideous words, which at times possess a singular power of +expression and which live. The executioner, le taule; the forest, +le sabri; fear, flight, taf; the lackey, le larbin; the mineral, +the prefect, the minister, pharos; the devil, le rabouin. Nothing is +stranger than these words which both mask and reveal. Some, le rabouin, +for example, are at the same time grotesque and terrible, and produce on +you the effect of a cyclopean grimace. + +In the second place, metaphor. The peculiarity of a language which is +desirous of saying all yet concealing all is that it is rich in figures. +Metaphor is an enigma, wherein the thief who is plotting a stroke, +the prisoner who is arranging an escape, take refuge. No idiom is more +metaphorical than slang: devisser le coco (to unscrew the nut), to twist +the neck; tortiller (to wriggle), to eat; etre gerbe, to be tried; a +rat, a bread thief; il lansquine, it rains, a striking, ancient figure +which partly bears its date about it, which assimilates long oblique +lines of rain, with the dense and slanting pikes of the lancers, and +which compresses into a single word the popular expression: it rains +halberds. Sometimes, in proportion as slang progresses from the first +epoch to the second, words pass from the primitive and savage sense to +the metaphorical sense. The devil ceases to be le rabouin, and becomes +le boulanger (the baker), who puts the bread into the oven. This is +more witty, but less grand, something like Racine after Corneille, like +Euripides after AEschylus. Certain slang phrases which participate +in the two epochs and have at once the barbaric character and the +metaphorical character resemble phantasmagories. Les sorgueuers vont +solliciter des gails a la lune--the prowlers are going to steal horses +by night,--this passes before the mind like a group of spectres. One +knows not what one sees. + +In the third place, the expedient. Slang lives on the language. It uses +it in accordance with its fancy, it dips into it hap-hazard, and it +often confines itself, when occasion arises, to alter it in a gross and +summary fashion. Occasionally, with the ordinary words thus deformed and +complicated with words of pure slang, picturesque phrases are formed, in +which there can be felt the mixture of the two preceding elements, the +direct creation and the metaphor: le cab jaspine, je marronne que la +roulotte de Pantin trime dans le sabri, the dog is barking, I suspect +that the diligence for Paris is passing through the woods. Le dab est +sinve, la dabuge est merloussiere, la fee est bative, the bourgeois is +stupid, the bourgeoise is cunning, the daughter is pretty. Generally, +to throw listeners off the track, slang confines itself to adding to +all the words of the language without distinction, an ignoble tail, a +termination in aille, in orgue, in iergue, or in uche. Thus: Vousiergue +trouvaille bonorgue ce gigotmuche? Do you think that leg of mutton +good? A phrase addressed by Cartouche to a turnkey in order to find out +whether the sum offered for his escape suited him. + +The termination in mar has been added recently. + +Slang, being the dialect of corruption, quickly becomes corrupted +itself. Besides this, as it is always seeking concealment, as soon as +it feels that it is understood, it changes its form. Contrary to what +happens with every other vegetation, every ray of light which falls +upon it kills whatever it touches. Thus slang is in constant process of +decomposition and recomposition; an obscure and rapid work which never +pauses. It passes over more ground in ten years than a language in ten +centuries. Thus le larton (bread) becomes le lartif; le gail (horse) +becomes le gaye; la fertanche (straw) becomes la fertille; le momignard +(brat), le momacque; les fiques (duds), frusques; la chique (the +church), l'egrugeoir; le colabre (neck), le colas. The devil is at +first, gahisto, then le rabouin, then the baker; the priest is a +ratichon, then the boar (le sanglier); the dagger is le vingt-deux +(twenty-two), then le surin, then le lingre; the police are railles, +then roussins, then rousses, then marchands de lacets (dealers in +stay-laces), then coquers, then cognes; the executioner is le taule, +then Charlot, l'atigeur, then le becquillard. In the seventeenth +century, to fight was "to give each other snuff"; in the nineteenth +it is "to chew each other's throats." There have been twenty different +phrases between these two extremes. Cartouche's talk would have been +Hebrew to Lacenaire. All the words of this language are perpetually +engaged in flight like the men who utter them. + +Still, from time to time, and in consequence of this very movement, +the ancient slang crops up again and becomes new once more. It has its +headquarters where it maintains its sway. The Temple preserved the slang +of the seventeenth century; Bicetre, when it was a prison, preserved the +slang of Thunes. There one could hear the termination in anche of +the old Thuneurs. Boyanches-tu (bois-tu), do you drink? But perpetual +movement remains its law, nevertheless. + +If the philosopher succeeds in fixing, for a moment, for purposes of +observation, this language which is incessantly evaporating, he falls +into doleful and useful meditation. No study is more efficacious and +more fecund in instruction. There is not a metaphor, not an analogy, in +slang, which does not contain a lesson. Among these men, to beat means +to feign; one beats a malady; ruse is their strength. + +For them, the idea of the man is not separated from the idea of +darkness. The night is called la sorgue; man, l'orgue. Man is a +derivative of the night. + +They have taken up the practice of considering society in the light +of an atmosphere which kills them, of a fatal force, and they speak of +their liberty as one would speak of his health. A man under arrest is a +sick man; one who is condemned is a dead man. + +The most terrible thing for the prisoner within the four walls in which +he is buried, is a sort of glacial chastity, and he calls the dungeon +the castus. In that funereal place, life outside always presents itself +under its most smiling aspect. The prisoner has irons on his feet; you +think, perhaps, that his thought is that it is with the feet that one +walks? No; he is thinking that it is with the feet that one dances; so, +when he has succeeded in severing his fetters, his first idea is that +now he can dance, and he calls the saw the bastringue (public-house +ball).--A name is a centre; profound assimilation.--The ruffian has two +heads, one of which reasons out his actions and leads him all his life +long, and the other which he has upon his shoulders on the day of his +death; he calls the head which counsels him in crime la sorbonne, +and the head which expiates it la tronche.--When a man has no longer +anything but rags upon his body and vices in his heart, when he has +arrived at that double moral and material degradation which the word +blackguard characterizes in its two acceptations, he is ripe for crime; +he is like a well-whetted knife; he has two cutting edges, his +distress and his malice; so slang does not say a blackguard, it says +un reguise.--What are the galleys? A brazier of damnation, a hell. The +convict calls himself a fagot.--And finally, what name do malefactors +give to their prison? The college. A whole penitentiary system can be +evolved from that word. + +Does the reader wish to know where the majority of the songs of the +galleys, those refrains called in the special vocabulary lirlonfa, have +had their birth? + +Let him listen to what follows:-- + +There existed at the Chatelet in Paris a large and long cellar. This +cellar was eight feet below the level of the Seine. It had neither +windows nor air-holes, its only aperture was the door; men could enter +there, air could not. This vault had for ceiling a vault of stone, and +for floor ten inches of mud. It was flagged; but the pavement had rotted +and cracked under the oozing of the water. Eight feet above the floor, +a long and massive beam traversed this subterranean excavation from side +to side; from this beam hung, at short distances apart, chains three +feet long, and at the end of these chains there were rings for the +neck. In this vault, men who had been condemned to the galleys were +incarcerated until the day of their departure for Toulon. They were +thrust under this beam, where each one found his fetters swinging in the +darkness and waiting for him. + +The chains, those pendant arms, and the necklets, those open hands, +caught the unhappy wretches by the throat. They were rivetted and +left there. As the chain was too short, they could not lie down. They +remained motionless in that cavern, in that night, beneath that beam, +almost hanging, forced to unheard-of efforts to reach their bread, jug, +or their vault overhead, mud even to mid-leg, filth flowing to their +very calves, broken asunder with fatigue, with thighs and knees giving +way, clinging fast to the chain with their hands in order to obtain some +rest, unable to sleep except when standing erect, and awakened every +moment by the strangling of the collar; some woke no more. In order to +eat, they pushed the bread, which was flung to them in the mud, along +their leg with their heel until it reached their hand. + +How long did they remain thus? One month, two months, six months +sometimes; one stayed a year. It was the antechamber of the galleys. +Men were put there for stealing a hare from the king. In this +sepulchre-hell, what did they do? What man can do in a sepulchre, they +went through the agonies of death, and what can man do in hell, they +sang; for song lingers where there is no longer any hope. In the waters +of Malta, when a galley was approaching, the song could be heard before +the sound of the oars. Poor Survincent, the poacher, who had gone +through the prison-cellar of the Chatelet, said: "It was the rhymes that +kept me up." Uselessness of poetry. What is the good of rhyme? + +It is in this cellar that nearly all the slang songs had their birth. +It is from the dungeon of the Grand-Chatelet of Paris that comes +the melancholy refrain of the Montgomery galley: "Timaloumisaine, +timaloumison." The majority of these: + + Icicaille est la theatre Here is the theatre + Du petit dardant. Of the little archer (Cupid). + + +Do what you will, you cannot annihilate that eternal relic in the heart +of man, love. + +In this world of dismal deeds, people keep their secrets. The secret is +the thing above all others. The secret, in the eyes of these wretches, +is unity which serves as a base of union. To betray a secret is to +tear from each member of this fierce community something of his own +personality. To inform against, in the energetic slang dialect, is +called: "to eat the bit." As though the informer drew to himself a +little of the substance of all and nourished himself on a bit of each +one's flesh. + +What does it signify to receive a box on the ear? Commonplace metaphor +replies: "It is to see thirty-six candles." + +Here slang intervenes and takes it up: Candle, camoufle. Thereupon, the +ordinary tongue gives camouflet[42] as the synonym for soufflet. Thus, +by a sort of infiltration from below upwards, with the aid of metaphor, +that incalculable, trajectory slang mounts from the cavern to the +Academy; and Poulailler saying: "I light my camoufle," causes Voltaire +to write: "Langleviel La Beaumelle deserves a hundred camouflets." + +Researches in slang mean discoveries at every step. Study and +investigation of this strange idiom lead to the mysterious point of +intersection of regular society with society which is accursed. + +The thief also has his food for cannon, stealable matter, you, I, +whoever passes by; le pantre. (Pan, everybody.) + +Slang is language turned convict. + +That the thinking principle of man be thrust down ever so low, that it +can be dragged and pinioned there by obscure tyrannies of fatality, +that it can be bound by no one knows what fetters in that abyss, is +sufficient to create consternation. + +Oh, poor thought of miserable wretches! + +Alas! will no one come to the succor of the human soul in that darkness? +Is it her destiny there to await forever the mind, the liberator, the +immense rider of Pegasi and hippo-griffs, the combatant of heroes of +the dawn who shall descend from the azure between two wings, the radiant +knight of the future? Will she forever summon in vain to her assistance +the lance of light of the ideal? Is she condemned to hear the fearful +approach of Evil through the density of the gulf, and to catch glimpses, +nearer and nearer at hand, beneath the hideous water of that dragon's +head, that maw streaked with foam, and that writhing undulation of +claws, swellings, and rings? Must it remain there, without a gleam +of light, without hope, given over to that terrible approach, vaguely +scented out by the monster, shuddering, dishevelled, wringing its arms, +forever chained to the rock of night, a sombre Andromeda white and naked +amid the shadows! + + + + +CHAPTER III--SLANG WHICH WEEPS AND SLANG WHICH LAUGHS + +As the reader perceives, slang in its entirety, slang of four hundred +years ago, like the slang of to-day, is permeated with that sombre, +symbolical spirit which gives to all words a mien which is now mournful, +now menacing. One feels in it the wild and ancient sadness of those +vagrants of the Court of Miracles who played at cards with packs of +their own, some of which have come down to us. The eight of clubs, for +instance, represented a huge tree bearing eight enormous trefoil leaves, +a sort of fantastic personification of the forest. At the foot of this +tree a fire was burning, over which three hares were roasting a huntsman +on a spit, and behind him, on another fire, hung a steaming pot, whence +emerged the head of a dog. Nothing can be more melancholy than these +reprisals in painting, by a pack of cards, in the presence of stakes +for the roasting of smugglers and of the cauldron for the boiling of +counterfeiters. The diverse forms assumed by thought in the realm +of slang, even song, even raillery, even menace, all partook of this +powerless and dejected character. All the songs, the melodies of some +of which have been collected, were humble and lamentable to the point of +evoking tears. The pegre is always the poor pegre, and he is always +the hare in hiding, the fugitive mouse, the flying bird. He hardly +complains, he contents himself with sighing; one of his moans has come +down to us: "I do not understand how God, the father of men, can torture +his children and his grandchildren and hear them cry, without himself +suffering torture."[43] The wretch, whenever he has time to think, makes +himself small before the low, and frail in the presence of society; +he lies down flat on his face, he entreats, he appeals to the side of +compassion; we feel that he is conscious of his guilt. + +Towards the middle of the last century a change took place, prison songs +and thieves' ritournelles assumed, so to speak, an insolent and jovial +mien. The plaintive malure was replaced by the larifla. We find in the +eighteenth century, in nearly all the songs of the galleys and prisons, +a diabolical and enigmatical gayety. We hear this strident and lilting +refrain which we should say had been lighted up by a phosphorescent +gleam, and which seems to have been flung into the forest by a +will-o'-the-wisp playing the fife:-- + + Miralabi suslababo + Mirliton ribonribette + Surlababi mirlababo + Mirliton ribonribo. + + +This was sung in a cellar or in a nook of the forest while cutting a +man's throat. + +A serious symptom. In the eighteenth century, the ancient melancholy of +the dejected classes vanishes. They began to laugh. They rally the grand +meg and the grand dab. Given Louis XV. they call the King of France "le +Marquis de Pantin." And behold, they are almost gay. A sort of gleam +proceeds from these miserable wretches, as though their consciences were +not heavy within them any more. These lamentable tribes of darkness have +no longer merely the desperate audacity of actions, they possess the +heedless audacity of mind. A sign that they are losing the sense of +their criminality, and that they feel, even among thinkers and dreamers, +some indefinable support which the latter themselves know not of. A +sign that theft and pillage are beginning to filter into doctrines and +sophisms, in such a way as to lose somewhat of their ugliness, while +communicating much of it to sophisms and doctrines. A sign, in short, of +some outbreak which is prodigious and near unless some diversion shall +arise. + +Let us pause a moment. Whom are we accusing here? Is it the eighteenth +century? Is it philosophy? Certainly not. The work of the eighteenth +century is healthy and good and wholesome. The encyclopedists, Diderot +at their head; the physiocrates, Turgot at their head; the philosophers, +Voltaire at their head; the Utopians, Rousseau at their head,--these are +four sacred legions. Humanity's immense advance towards the light is due +to them. They are the four vanguards of the human race, marching towards +the four cardinal points of progress. Diderot towards the beautiful, +Turgot towards the useful, Voltaire towards the true, Rousseau towards +the just. But by the side of and above the philosophers, there were the +sophists, a venomous vegetation mingled with a healthy growth, hemlock +in the virgin forest. While the executioner was burning the great +books of the liberators of the century on the grand staircase of the +court-house, writers now forgotten were publishing, with the King's +sanction, no one knows what strangely disorganizing writings, which were +eagerly read by the unfortunate. Some of these publications, odd to +say, which were patronized by a prince, are to be found in the Secret +Library. These facts, significant but unknown, were imperceptible on the +surface. Sometimes, in the very obscurity of a fact lurks its danger. +It is obscure because it is underhand. Of all these writers, the one +who probably then excavated in the masses the most unhealthy gallery was +Restif de La Bretonne. + +This work, peculiar to the whole of Europe, effected more ravages in +Germany than anywhere else. In Germany, during a given period, summed up +by Schiller in his famous drama The Robbers, theft and pillage rose up +in protest against property and labor, assimilated certain specious and +false elementary ideas, which, though just in appearance, were absurd in +reality, enveloped themselves in these ideas, disappeared within them, +after a fashion, assumed an abstract name, passed into the state of +theory, and in that shape circulated among the laborious, suffering, and +honest masses, unknown even to the imprudent chemists who had prepared +the mixture, unknown even to the masses who accepted it. Whenever a fact +of this sort presents itself, the case is grave. Suffering engenders +wrath; and while the prosperous classes blind themselves or fall asleep, +which is the same thing as shutting one's eyes, the hatred of the +unfortunate classes lights its torch at some aggrieved or ill-made +spirit which dreams in a corner, and sets itself to the scrutiny of +society. The scrutiny of hatred is a terrible thing. + +Hence, if the ill-fortune of the times so wills it, those fearful +commotions which were formerly called jacqueries, beside which purely +political agitations are the merest child's play, which are no longer +the conflict of the oppressed and the oppressor, but the revolt of +discomfort against comfort. Then everything crumbles. + +Jacqueries are earthquakes of the people. + +It is this peril, possibly imminent towards the close of the eighteenth +century, which the French Revolution, that immense act of probity, cut +short. + +The French Revolution, which is nothing else than the idea armed with +the sword, rose erect, and, with the same abrupt movement, closed the +door of ill and opened the door of good. + +It put a stop to torture, promulgated the truth, expelled miasma, +rendered the century healthy, crowned the populace. + +It may be said of it that it created man a second time, by giving him a +second soul, the right. + +The nineteenth century has inherited and profited by its work, and +to-day, the social catastrophe to which we lately alluded is simply +impossible. Blind is he who announces it! Foolish is he who fears it! +Revolution is the vaccine of Jacquerie. + +Thanks to the Revolution, social conditions have changed. Feudal and +monarchical maladies no longer run in our blood. There is no more of +the Middle Ages in our constitution. We no longer live in the days when +terrible swarms within made irruptions, when one heard beneath his feet +the obscure course of a dull rumble, when indescribable elevations from +mole-like tunnels appeared on the surface of civilization, where the +soil cracked open, where the roofs of caverns yawned, and where one +suddenly beheld monstrous heads emerging from the earth. + +The revolutionary sense is a moral sense. The sentiment of right, once +developed, develops the sentiment of duty. The law of all is +liberty, which ends where the liberty of others begins, according to +Robespierre's admirable definition. Since '89, the whole people has +been dilating into a sublime individual; there is not a poor man, who, +possessing his right, has not his ray of sun; the die-of-hunger feels +within him the honesty of France; the dignity of the citizen is an +internal armor; he who is free is scrupulous; he who votes reigns. Hence +incorruptibility; hence the miscarriage of unhealthy lusts; hence eyes +heroically lowered before temptations. The revolutionary wholesomeness +is such, that on a day of deliverance, a 14th of July, a 10th of August, +there is no longer any populace. The first cry of the enlightened and +increasing throngs is: death to thieves! Progress is an honest man; the +ideal and the absolute do not filch pocket-handkerchiefs. By whom were +the wagons containing the wealth of the Tuileries escorted in 1848? By +the rag-pickers of the Faubourg Saint-Antoine. Rags mounted guard over +the treasure. Virtue rendered these tatterdemalions resplendent. In +those wagons in chests, hardly closed, and some, even, half-open, amid a +hundred dazzling caskets, was that ancient crown of France, studded with +diamonds, surmounted by the carbuncle of royalty, by the Regent diamond, +which was worth thirty millions. Barefooted, they guarded that crown. + +Hence, no more Jacquerie. I regret it for the sake of the skilful. The +old fear has produced its last effects in that quarter; and henceforth +it can no longer be employed in politics. The principal spring of the +red spectre is broken. Every one knows it now. The scare-crow scares +no longer. The birds take liberties with the mannikin, foul creatures +alight upon it, the bourgeois laugh at it. + + + + +CHAPTER IV--THE TWO DUTIES: TO WATCH AND TO HOPE + +This being the case, is all social danger dispelled? Certainly not. +There is no Jacquerie; society may rest assured on that point; blood +will no longer rush to its head. But let society take heed to the manner +in which it breathes. Apoplexy is no longer to be feared, but phthisis +is there. Social phthisis is called misery. + +One can perish from being undermined as well as from being struck by +lightning. + +Let us not weary of repeating, and sympathetic souls must not forget +that this is the first of fraternal obligations, and selfish hearts must +understand that the first of political necessities consists in thinking +first of all of the disinherited and sorrowing throngs, in solacing, +airing, enlightening, loving them, in enlarging their horizon to a +magnificent extent, in lavishing upon them education in every form, in +offering them the example of labor, never the example of idleness, +in diminishing the individual burden by enlarging the notion of the +universal aim, in setting a limit to poverty without setting a limit +to wealth, in creating vast fields of public and popular activity, in +having, like Briareus, a hundred hands to extend in all directions to +the oppressed and the feeble, in employing the collective power for that +grand duty of opening workshops for all arms, schools for all aptitudes, +and laboratories for all degrees of intelligence, in augmenting +salaries, diminishing trouble, balancing what should be and what is, +that is to say, in proportioning enjoyment to effort and a glut to need; +in a word, in evolving from the social apparatus more light and more +comfort for the benefit of those who suffer and those who are ignorant. + +And, let us say it, all this is but the beginning. The true question is +this: labor cannot be a law without being a right. + +We will not insist upon this point; this is not the proper place for +that. + +If nature calls itself Providence, society should call itself foresight. + +Intellectual and moral growth is no less indispensable than material +improvement. To know is a sacrament, to think is the prime necessity, +truth is nourishment as well as grain. A reason which fasts from science +and wisdom grows thin. Let us enter equal complaint against stomachs and +minds which do not eat. If there is anything more heart-breaking than +a body perishing for lack of bread, it is a soul which is dying from +hunger for the light. + +The whole of progress tends in the direction of solution. Some day we +shall be amazed. As the human race mounts upward, the deep layers emerge +naturally from the zone of distress. The obliteration of misery will be +accomplished by a simple elevation of level. + +We should do wrong were we to doubt this blessed consummation. + +The past is very strong, it is true, at the present moment. It censures. +This rejuvenation of a corpse is surprising. Behold, it is walking and +advancing. It seems a victor; this dead body is a conqueror. He arrives +with his legions, superstitions, with his sword, despotism, with his +banner, ignorance; a while ago, he won ten battles. He advances, he +threatens, he laughs, he is at our doors. Let us not despair, on our +side. Let us sell the field on which Hannibal is encamped. + +What have we to fear, we who believe? + +No such thing as a back-flow of ideas exists any more than there exists +a return of a river on its course. + +But let those who do not desire a future reflect on this matter. When +they say "no" to progress, it is not the future but themselves that +they are condemning. They are giving themselves a sad malady; they are +inoculating themselves with the past. There is but one way of rejecting +To-morrow, and that is to die. + +Now, no death, that of the body as late as possible, that of the soul +never,--this is what we desire. + +Yes, the enigma will utter its word, the sphinx will speak, the problem +will be solved. + +Yes, the people, sketched out by the eighteenth century, will be +finished by the nineteenth. He who doubts this is an idiot! The future +blossoming, the near blossoming forth of universal well-being, is a +divinely fatal phenomenon. + +Immense combined propulsions direct human affairs and conduct them +within a given time to a logical state, that is to say, to a state of +equilibrium; that is to say, to equity. A force composed of earth and +heaven results from humanity and governs it; this force is a worker +of miracles; marvellous issues are no more difficult to it than +extraordinary vicissitudes. Aided by science, which comes from one man, +and by the event, which comes from another, it is not greatly alarmed +by these contradictions in the attitude of problems, which seem +impossibilities to the vulgar herd. It is no less skilful at causing a +solution to spring forth from the reconciliation of ideas, than a lesson +from the reconciliation of facts, and we may expect anything from that +mysterious power of progress, which brought the Orient and the Occident +face to face one fine day, in the depths of a sepulchre, and made the +imaums converse with Bonaparte in the interior of the Great Pyramid. + +In the meantime, let there be no halt, no hesitation, no pause in the +grandiose onward march of minds. Social philosophy consists essentially +in science and peace. Its object is, and its result must be, to dissolve +wrath by the study of antagonisms. It examines, it scrutinizes, it +analyzes; then it puts together once more, it proceeds by means of +reduction, discarding all hatred. + +More than once, a society has been seen to give way before the wind +which is let loose upon mankind; history is full of the shipwrecks of +nations and empires; manners, customs, laws, religions,--and some fine +day that unknown force, the hurricane, passes by and bears them all +away. The civilizations of India, of Chaldea, of Persia, of Syria, of +Egypt, have disappeared one after the other. Why? We know not. What are +the causes of these disasters? We do not know. Could these societies +have been saved? Was it their fault? Did they persist in the fatal vice +which destroyed them? What is the amount of suicide in these terrible +deaths of a nation and a race? Questions to which there exists no reply. +Darkness enwraps condemned civilizations. They sprung a leak, then they +sank. We have nothing more to say; and it is with a sort of terror that +we look on, at the bottom of that sea which is called the past, behind +those colossal waves, at the shipwreck of those immense vessels, +Babylon, Nineveh, Tarsus, Thebes, Rome, beneath the fearful gusts which +emerge from all the mouths of the shadows. But shadows are there, and +light is here. We are not acquainted with the maladies of these ancient +civilizations, we do not know the infirmities of our own. Everywhere +upon it we have the right of light, we contemplate its beauties, we +lay bare its defects. Where it is ill, we probe; and the sickness once +diagnosed, the study of the cause leads to the discovery of the remedy. +Our civilization, the work of twenty centuries, is its law and its +prodigy; it is worth the trouble of saving. It will be saved. It is +already much to have solaced it; its enlightenment is yet another point. +All the labors of modern social philosophies must converge towards +this point. The thinker of to-day has a great duty--to auscultate +civilization. + +We repeat, that this auscultation brings encouragement; it is by this +persistence in encouragement that we wish to conclude these pages, an +austere interlude in a mournful drama. Beneath the social mortality, we +feel human imperishableness. The globe does not perish, because it has +these wounds, craters, eruptions, sulphur pits, here and there, nor +because of a volcano which ejects its pus. The maladies of the people do +not kill man. + +And yet, any one who follows the course of social clinics shakes his +head at times. The strongest, the tenderest, the most logical have their +hours of weakness. + +Will the future arrive? It seems as though we might almost put +this question, when we behold so much terrible darkness. Melancholy +face-to-face encounter of selfish and wretched. On the part of +the selfish, the prejudices, shadows of costly education, appetite +increasing through intoxication, a giddiness of prosperity which dulls, +a fear of suffering which, in some, goes as far as an aversion for the +suffering, an implacable satisfaction, the I so swollen that it bars the +soul; on the side of the wretched covetousness, envy, hatred of seeing +others enjoy, the profound impulses of the human beast towards assuaging +its desires, hearts full of mist, sadness, need, fatality, impure and +simple ignorance. + +Shall we continue to raise our eyes to heaven? is the luminous point +which we distinguish there one of those which vanish? The ideal +is frightful to behold, thus lost in the depths, small, isolated, +imperceptible, brilliant, but surrounded by those great, black menaces, +monstrously heaped around it; yet no more in danger than a star in the +maw of the clouds. + + + + +BOOK EIGHTH.--ENCHANTMENTS AND DESOLATIONS + + + + +CHAPTER I--FULL LIGHT + +The reader has probably understood that Eponine, having recognized +through the gate, the inhabitant of that Rue Plumet whither Magnon had +sent her, had begun by keeping the ruffians away from the Rue Plumet, +and had then conducted Marius thither, and that, after many days spent +in ecstasy before that gate, Marius, drawn on by that force which draws +the iron to the magnet and a lover towards the stones of which is built +the house of her whom he loves, had finally entered Cosette's garden as +Romeo entered the garden of Juliet. This had even proved easier for him +than for Romeo; Romeo was obliged to scale a wall, Marius had only +to use a little force on one of the bars of the decrepit gate which +vacillated in its rusty recess, after the fashion of old people's teeth. +Marius was slender and readily passed through. + +As there was never any one in the street, and as Marius never entered +the garden except at night, he ran no risk of being seen. + +Beginning with that blessed and holy hour when a kiss betrothed these +two souls, Marius was there every evening. If, at that period of +her existence, Cosette had fallen in love with a man in the least +unscrupulous or debauched, she would have been lost; for there are +generous natures which yield themselves, and Cosette was one of them. +One of woman's magnanimities is to yield. Love, at the height where it +is absolute, is complicated with some indescribably celestial blindness +of modesty. But what dangers you run, O noble souls! Often you give the +heart, and we take the body. Your heart remains with you, you gaze upon +it in the gloom with a shudder. Love has no middle course; it either +ruins or it saves. All human destiny lies in this dilemma. This dilemma, +ruin, or safety, is set forth no more inexorably by any fatality than +by love. Love is life, if it is not death. Cradle; also coffin. The same +sentiment says "yes" and "no" in the human heart. Of all the things that +God has made, the human heart is the one which sheds the most light, +alas! and the most darkness. + +God willed that Cosette's love should encounter one of the loves which +save. + +Throughout the whole of the month of May of that year 1832, there were +there, in every night, in that poor, neglected garden, beneath that +thicket which grew thicker and more fragrant day by day, two beings +composed of all chastity, all innocence, overflowing with all the +felicity of heaven, nearer to the archangels than to mankind, pure, +honest, intoxicated, radiant, who shone for each other amid the shadows. +It seemed to Cosette that Marius had a crown, and to Marius that Cosette +had a nimbus. They touched each other, they gazed at each other, they +clasped each other's hands, they pressed close to each other; but there +was a distance which they did not pass. Not that they respected it; +they did not know of its existence. Marius was conscious of a barrier, +Cosette's innocence; and Cosette of a support, Marius' loyalty. The +first kiss had also been the last. Marius, since that time, had not gone +further than to touch Cosette's hand, or her kerchief, or a lock of her +hair, with his lips. For him, Cosette was a perfume and not a woman. +He inhaled her. She refused nothing, and he asked nothing. Cosette was +happy, and Marius was satisfied. They lived in this ecstatic state which +can be described as the dazzling of one soul by another soul. It was +the ineffable first embrace of two maiden souls in the ideal. Two swans +meeting on the Jungfrau. + +At that hour of love, an hour when voluptuousness is absolutely mute, +beneath the omnipotence of ecstasy, Marius, the pure and seraphic +Marius, would rather have gone to a woman of the town than have raised +Cosette's robe to the height of her ankle. Once, in the moonlight, +Cosette stooped to pick up something on the ground, her bodice fell +apart and permitted a glimpse of the beginning of her throat. Marius +turned away his eyes. + +What took place between these two beings? Nothing. They adored each +other. + +At night, when they were there, that garden seemed a living and a sacred +spot. All flowers unfolded around them and sent them incense; and they +opened their souls and scattered them over the flowers. The wanton and +vigorous vegetation quivered, full of strength and intoxication, around +these two innocents, and they uttered words of love which set the trees +to trembling. + +What words were these? Breaths. Nothing more. These breaths sufficed to +trouble and to touch all nature round about. Magic power which we +should find it difficult to understand were we to read in a book these +conversations which are made to be borne away and dispersed like smoke +wreaths by the breeze beneath the leaves. Take from those murmurs of two +lovers that melody which proceeds from the soul and which accompanies +them like a lyre, and what remains is nothing more than a shade; you +say: "What! is that all!" eh! yes, childish prattle, repetitions, +laughter at nothing, nonsense, everything that is deepest and most +sublime in the world! The only things which are worth the trouble of +saying and hearing! + +The man who has never heard, the man who has never uttered these +absurdities, these paltry remarks, is an imbecile and a malicious +fellow. Cosette said to Marius:-- + +"Dost thou know?--" + +[In all this and athwart this celestial maidenliness, and without either +of them being able to say how it had come about, they had begun to call +each other thou.] + +"Dost thou know? My name is Euphrasie." + +"Euphrasie? Why, no, thy name is Cosette." + +"Oh! Cosette is a very ugly name that was given to me when I was +a little thing. But my real name is Euphrasie. Dost thou like that +name--Euphrasie?" + +"Yes. But Cosette is not ugly." + +"Do you like it better than Euphrasie?" + +"Why, yes." + +"Then I like it better too. Truly, it is pretty, Cosette. Call me +Cosette." + +And the smile that she added made of this dialogue an idyl worthy of a +grove situated in heaven. On another occasion she gazed intently at him +and exclaimed:-- + +"Monsieur, you are handsome, you are good-looking, you are witty, you +are not at all stupid, you are much more learned than I am, but I bid +you defiance with this word: I love you!" + +And Marius, in the very heavens, thought he heard a strain sung by a +star. + +Or she bestowed on him a gentle tap because he coughed, and she said to +him:-- + +"Don't cough, sir; I will not have people cough on my domain without my +permission. It's very naughty to cough and to disturb me. I want you to +be well, because, in the first place, if you were not well, I should be +very unhappy. What should I do then?" + +And this was simply divine. + +Once Marius said to Cosette:-- + +"Just imagine, I thought at one time that your name was Ursule." + +This made both of them laugh the whole evening. + +In the middle of another conversation, he chanced to exclaim:-- + +"Oh! One day, at the Luxembourg, I had a good mind to finish breaking +up a veteran!" But he stopped short, and went no further. He would have +been obliged to speak to Cosette of her garter, and that was impossible. +This bordered on a strange theme, the flesh, before which that immense +and innocent love recoiled with a sort of sacred fright. + +Marius pictured life with Cosette to himself like this, without anything +else; to come every evening to the Rue Plumet, to displace the old and +accommodating bar of the chief-justice's gate, to sit elbow to elbow +on that bench, to gaze through the trees at the scintillation of the +on-coming night, to fit a fold of the knee of his trousers into the +ample fall of Cosette's gown, to caress her thumb-nail, to call her +thou, to smell of the same flower, one after the other, forever, +indefinitely. During this time, clouds passed above their heads. Every +time that the wind blows it bears with it more of the dreams of men than +of the clouds of heaven. + +This chaste, almost shy love was not devoid of gallantry, by any means. +To pay compliments to the woman whom a man loves is the first method of +bestowing caresses, and he is half audacious who tries it. A compliment +is something like a kiss through a veil. Voluptuousness mingles there +with its sweet tiny point, while it hides itself. The heart draws back +before voluptuousness only to love the more. Marius' blandishments, all +saturated with fancy, were, so to speak, of azure hue. The birds when +they fly up yonder, in the direction of the angels, must hear such +words. There were mingled with them, nevertheless, life, humanity, all +the positiveness of which Marius was capable. It was what is said in +the bower, a prelude to what will be said in the chamber; a lyrical +effusion, strophe and sonnet intermingled, pleasing hyperboles of +cooing, all the refinements of adoration arranged in a bouquet and +exhaling a celestial perfume, an ineffable twitter of heart to heart. + +"Oh!" murmured Marius, "how beautiful you are! I dare not look at you. +It is all over with me when I contemplate you. You are a grace. I know +not what is the matter with me. The hem of your gown, when the tip of +your shoe peeps from beneath, upsets me. And then, what an enchanted +gleam when you open your thought even but a little! You talk +astonishingly good sense. It seems to me at times that you are a +dream. Speak, I listen, I admire. Oh Cosette! how strange it is and how +charming! I am really beside myself. You are adorable, Mademoiselle. I +study your feet with the microscope and your soul with the telescope." + +And Cosette answered:-- + +"I have been loving a little more all the time that has passed since +this morning." + +Questions and replies took care of themselves in this dialogue, which +always turned with mutual consent upon love, as the little pith figures +always turn on their peg. + +Cosette's whole person was ingenuousness, ingenuity, transparency, +whiteness, candor, radiance. It might have been said of Cosette that she +was clear. She produced on those who saw her the sensation of April +and dawn. There was dew in her eyes. Cosette was a condensation of the +auroral light in the form of a woman. + +It was quite simple that Marius should admire her, since he adored her. +But the truth is, that this little school-girl, fresh from the convent, +talked with exquisite penetration and uttered, at times, all sorts of +true and delicate sayings. Her prattle was conversation. She never made +a mistake about anything, and she saw things justly. The woman feels and +speaks with the tender instinct of the heart, which is infallible. + +No one understands so well as a woman, how to say things that are, at +once, both sweet and deep. Sweetness and depth, they are the whole of +woman; in them lies the whole of heaven. + +In this full felicity, tears welled up to their eyes every instant. A +crushed lady-bug, a feather fallen from a nest, a branch of hawthorn +broken, aroused their pity, and their ecstasy, sweetly mingled with +melancholy, seemed to ask nothing better than to weep. The most +sovereign symptom of love is a tenderness that is, at times, almost +unbearable. + +And, in addition to this,--all these contradictions are the lightning +play of love,--they were fond of laughing, they laughed readily and with +a delicious freedom, and so familiarly that they sometimes presented the +air of two boys. + +Still, though unknown to hearts intoxicated with purity, nature is +always present and will not be forgotten. She is there with her brutal +and sublime object; and however great may be the innocence of souls, one +feels in the most modest private interview, the adorable and mysterious +shade which separates a couple of lovers from a pair of friends. + +They idolized each other. + +The permanent and the immutable are persistent. People live, they smile, +they laugh, they make little grimaces with the tips of their lips, they +interlace their fingers, they call each other thou, and that does not +prevent eternity. + +Two lovers hide themselves in the evening, in the twilight, in the +invisible, with the birds, with the roses; they fascinate each other in +the darkness with their hearts which they throw into their eyes, they +murmur, they whisper, and in the meantime, immense librations of the +planets fill the infinite universe. + + + + +CHAPTER II--THE BEWILDERMENT OF PERFECT HAPPINESS + +They existed vaguely, frightened at their happiness. They did not notice +the cholera which decimated Paris precisely during that very month. They +had confided in each other as far as possible, but this had not extended +much further than their names. Marius had told Cosette that he was an +orphan, that his name was Marius Pontmercy, that he was a lawyer, that +he lived by writing things for publishers, that his father had been a +colonel, that the latter had been a hero, and that he, Marius, was on +bad terms with his grandfather who was rich. He had also hinted at being +a baron, but this had produced no effect on Cosette. She did not +know the meaning of the word. Marius was Marius. On her side, she +had confided to him that she had been brought up at the Petit-Picpus +convent, that her mother, like his own, was dead, that her father's name +was M. Fauchelevent, that he was very good, that he gave a great deal +to the poor, but that he was poor himself, and that he denied himself +everything though he denied her nothing. + +Strange to say, in the sort of symphony which Marius had lived since he +had been in the habit of seeing Cosette, the past, even the most recent +past, had become so confused and distant to him, that what Cosette told +him satisfied him completely. It did not even occur to him to tell her +about the nocturnal adventure in the hovel, about Thenardier, about the +burn, and about the strange attitude and singular flight of her father. +Marius had momentarily forgotten all this; in the evening he did not +even know that there had been a morning, what he had done, where he had +breakfasted, nor who had spoken to him; he had songs in his ears which +rendered him deaf to every other thought; he only existed at the hours +when he saw Cosette. Then, as he was in heaven, it was quite natural +that he should forget earth. Both bore languidly the indefinable burden +of immaterial pleasures. Thus lived these somnambulists who are called +lovers. + +Alas! Who is there who has not felt all these things? Why does there +come an hour when one emerges from this azure, and why does life go on +afterwards? + +Loving almost takes the place of thinking. Love is an ardent +forgetfulness of all the rest. Then ask logic of passion if you will. +There is no more absolute logical sequence in the human heart than there +is a perfect geometrical figure in the celestial mechanism. For Cosette +and Marius nothing existed except Marius and Cosette. The universe +around them had fallen into a hole. They lived in a golden minute. There +was nothing before them, nothing behind. It hardly occurred to Marius +that Cosette had a father. His brain was dazzled and obliterated. Of +what did these lovers talk then? We have seen, of the flowers, and +the swallows, the setting sun and the rising moon, and all sorts of +important things. They had told each other everything except everything. +The everything of lovers is nothing. But the father, the realities, that +lair, the ruffians, that adventure, to what purpose? And was he very +sure that this nightmare had actually existed? They were two, and they +adored each other, and beyond that there was nothing. Nothing else +existed. It is probable that this vanishing of hell in our rear is +inherent to the arrival of paradise. Have we beheld demons? Are there +any? Have we trembled? Have we suffered? We no longer know. A rosy cloud +hangs over it. + +So these two beings lived in this manner, high aloft, with all that +improbability which is in nature; neither at the nadir nor at the +zenith, between man and seraphim, above the mire, below the ether, in +the clouds; hardly flesh and blood, soul and ecstasy from head to foot; +already too sublime to walk the earth, still too heavily charged with +humanity to disappear in the blue, suspended like atoms which are +waiting to be precipitated; apparently beyond the bounds of destiny; +ignorant of that rut; yesterday, to-day, to-morrow; amazed, rapturous, +floating, soaring; at times so light that they could take their flight +out into the infinite; almost prepared to soar away to all eternity. +They slept wide-awake, thus sweetly lulled. Oh! splendid lethargy of the +real overwhelmed by the ideal. + +Sometimes, beautiful as Cosette was, Marius shut his eyes in her +presence. The best way to look at the soul is through closed eyes. + +Marius and Cosette never asked themselves whither this was to lead them. +They considered that they had already arrived. It is a strange claim on +man's part to wish that love should lead to something. + + + + +CHAPTER III--THE BEGINNING OF SHADOW + +Jean Valjean suspected nothing. + +Cosette, who was rather less dreamy than Marius, was gay, and that +sufficed for Jean Valjean's happiness. The thoughts which Cosette +cherished, her tender preoccupations, Marius' image which filled her +heart, took away nothing from the incomparable purity of her beautiful, +chaste, and smiling brow. She was at the age when the virgin bears her +love as the angel his lily. So Jean Valjean was at ease. And then, when +two lovers have come to an understanding, things always go well; the +third party who might disturb their love is kept in a state of perfect +blindness by a restricted number of precautions which are always the +same in the case of all lovers. Thus, Cosette never objected to any of +Jean Valjean's proposals. Did she want to take a walk? "Yes, dear little +father." Did she want to stay at home? Very good. Did he wish to pass +the evening with Cosette? She was delighted. As he always went to bed at +ten o'clock, Marius did not come to the garden on such occasions until +after that hour, when, from the street, he heard Cosette open the long +glass door on the veranda. Of course, no one ever met Marius in the +daytime. Jean Valjean never even dreamed any longer that Marius was in +existence. Only once, one morning, he chanced to say to Cosette: "Why, +you have whitewash on your back!" On the previous evening, Marius, in a +transport, had pushed Cosette against the wall. + +Old Toussaint, who retired early, thought of nothing but her sleep, and +was as ignorant of the whole matter as Jean Valjean. + +Marius never set foot in the house. When he was with Cosette, they hid +themselves in a recess near the steps, in order that they might neither +be seen nor heard from the street, and there they sat, frequently +contenting themselves, by way of conversation, with pressing each +other's hands twenty times a minute as they gazed at the branches of the +trees. At such times, a thunderbolt might have fallen thirty paces from +them, and they would not have noticed it, so deeply was the revery of +the one absorbed and sunk in the revery of the other. + +Limpid purity. Hours wholly white; almost all alike. This sort of love +is a recollection of lily petals and the plumage of the dove. + +The whole extent of the garden lay between them and the street. Every +time that Marius entered and left, he carefully adjusted the bar of the +gate in such a manner that no displacement was visible. + +He usually went away about midnight, and returned to Courfeyrac's +lodgings. Courfeyrac said to Bahorel:-- + +"Would you believe it? Marius comes home nowadays at one o'clock in the +morning." + +Bahorel replied:-- + +"What do you expect? There's always a petard in a seminary fellow." + +At times, Courfeyrac folded his arms, assumed a serious air, and said to +Marius:-- + +"You are getting irregular in your habits, young man." + +Courfeyrac, being a practical man, did not take in good part this +reflection of an invisible paradise upon Marius; he was not much in the +habit of concealed passions; it made him impatient, and now and then he +called upon Marius to come back to reality. + +One morning, he threw him this admonition:-- + +"My dear fellow, you produce upon me the effect of being located in +the moon, the realm of dreams, the province of illusions, capital, +soap-bubble. Come, be a good boy, what's her name?" + +But nothing could induce Marius "to talk." They might have torn out his +nails before one of the two sacred syllables of which that ineffable +name, Cosette, was composed. True love is as luminous as the dawn and as +silent as the tomb. Only, Courfeyrac saw this change in Marius, that his +taciturnity was of the beaming order. + +During this sweet month of May, Marius and Cosette learned to know these +immense delights. To dispute and to say you for thou, simply that they +might say thou the better afterwards. To talk at great length with very +minute details, of persons in whom they took not the slightest interest +in the world; another proof that in that ravishing opera called love, +the libretto counts for almost nothing. + +For Marius, to listen to Cosette discussing finery. + +For Cosette, to listen to Marius talk in politics; + +To listen, knee pressed to knee, to the carriages rolling along the Rue +de Babylone; + +To gaze upon the same planet in space, or at the same glowworm gleaming +in the grass; + +To hold their peace together; a still greater delight than conversation; + +Etc., etc. + +In the meantime, divers complications were approaching. + +One evening, Marius was on his way to the rendezvous, by way of the +Boulevard des Invalides. He habitually walked with drooping head. As he +was on the point of turning the corner of the Rue Plumet, he heard some +one quite close to him say:-- + +"Good evening, Monsieur Marius." + +He raised his head and recognized Eponine. + +This produced a singular effect upon him. He had not thought of that +girl a single time since the day when she had conducted him to the Rue +Plumet, he had not seen her again, and she had gone completely out of +his mind. He had no reasons for anything but gratitude towards her, he +owed her his happiness, and yet, it was embarrassing to him to meet her. + +It is an error to think that passion, when it is pure and happy, leads +man to a state of perfection; it simply leads him, as we have noted, to +a state of oblivion. In this situation, man forgets to be bad, but +he also forgets to be good. Gratitude, duty, matters essential and +important to be remembered, vanish. At any other time, Marius would have +behaved quite differently to Eponine. Absorbed in Cosette, he had not +even clearly put it to himself that this Eponine was named Eponine +Thenardier, and that she bore the name inscribed in his father's will, +that name, for which, but a few months before, he would have so ardently +sacrificed himself. We show Marius as he was. His father himself was +fading out of his soul to some extent, under the splendor of his love. + +He replied with some embarrassment:-- + +"Ah! so it's you, Eponine?" + +"Why do you call me you? Have I done anything to you?" + +"No," he answered. + +Certainly, he had nothing against her. Far from it. Only, he felt that +he could not do otherwise, now that he used thou to Cosette, than say +you to Eponine. + +As he remained silent, she exclaimed:-- + +"Say--" + +Then she paused. It seemed as though words failed that creature formerly +so heedless and so bold. She tried to smile and could not. Then she +resumed:-- + +"Well?" + +Then she paused again, and remained with downcast eyes. + +"Good evening, Mr. Marius," said she suddenly and abruptly; and away she +went. + + + + +CHAPTER IV--A CAB RUNS IN ENGLISH AND BARKS IN SLANG + +The following day was the 3d of June, 1832, a date which it is necessary +to indicate on account of the grave events which at that epoch hung on +the horizon of Paris in the state of lightning-charged clouds. Marius, +at nightfall, was pursuing the same road as on the preceding evening, +with the same thoughts of delight in his heart, when he caught sight +of Eponine approaching, through the trees of the boulevard. Two days +in succession--this was too much. He turned hastily aside, quitted the +boulevard, changed his course and went to the Rue Plumet through the Rue +Monsieur. + +This caused Eponine to follow him to the Rue Plumet, a thing which +she had not yet done. Up to that time, she had contented herself with +watching him on his passage along the boulevard without ever seeking to +encounter him. It was only on the evening before that she had attempted +to address him. + +So Eponine followed him, without his suspecting the fact. She saw him +displace the bar and slip into the garden. + +She approached the railing, felt of the bars one after the other, and +readily recognized the one which Marius had moved. + +She murmured in a low voice and in gloomy accents:-- + +"None of that, Lisette!" + +She seated herself on the underpinning of the railing, close beside the +bar, as though she were guarding it. It was precisely at the point where +the railing touched the neighboring wall. There was a dim nook there, in +which Eponine was entirely concealed. + +She remained thus for more than an hour, without stirring and without +breathing, a prey to her thoughts. + +Towards ten o'clock in the evening, one of the two or three persons who +passed through the Rue Plumet, an old, belated bourgeois who was making +haste to escape from this deserted spot of evil repute, as he skirted +the garden railings and reached the angle which it made with the wall, +heard a dull and threatening voice saying:-- + +"I'm no longer surprised that he comes here every evening." + +The passer-by cast a glance around him, saw no one, dared not peer into +the black niche, and was greatly alarmed. He redoubled his pace. + +This passer-by had reason to make haste, for a very few instants later, +six men, who were marching separately and at some distance from each +other, along the wall, and who might have been taken for a gray patrol, +entered the Rue Plumet. + +The first to arrive at the garden railing halted, and waited for the +others; a second later, all six were reunited. + +These men began to talk in a low voice. + +"This is the place," said one of them. + +"Is there a cab [dog] in the garden?" asked another. + +"I don't know. In any case, I have fetched a ball that we'll make him +eat." + +"Have you some putty to break the pane with?" + +"Yes." + +"The railing is old," interpolated a fifth, who had the voice of a +ventriloquist. + +"So much the better," said the second who had spoken. "It won't screech +under the saw, and it won't be hard to cut." + +The sixth, who had not yet opened his lips, now began to inspect +the gate, as Eponine had done an hour earlier, grasping each bar in +succession, and shaking them cautiously. + +Thus he came to the bar which Marius had loosened. As he was on the +point of grasping this bar, a hand emerged abruptly from the darkness, +fell upon his arm; he felt himself vigorously thrust aside by a push +in the middle of his breast, and a hoarse voice said to him, but not +loudly:-- + +"There's a dog." + +At the same moment, he perceived a pale girl standing before him. + +The man underwent that shock which the unexpected always brings. He +bristled up in hideous wise; nothing is so formidable to behold as +ferocious beasts who are uneasy; their terrified air evokes terror. + +He recoiled and stammered:-- + +"What jade is this?" + +"Your daughter." + +It was, in fact, Eponine, who had addressed Thenardier. + +At the apparition of Eponine, the other five, that is to say, +Claquesous, Guelemer, Babet, Brujon, and Montparnasse had noiselessly +drawn near, without precipitation, without uttering a word, with the +sinister slowness peculiar to these men of the night. + +Some indescribable but hideous tools were visible in their hands. +Guelemer held one of those pairs of curved pincers which prowlers call +fanchons. + +"Ah, see here, what are you about there? What do you want with us? Are +you crazy?" exclaimed Thenardier, as loudly as one can exclaim and still +speak low; "what have you come here to hinder our work for?" + +Eponine burst out laughing, and threw herself on his neck. + +"I am here, little father, because I am here. Isn't a person allowed to +sit on the stones nowadays? It's you who ought not to be here. What +have you come here for, since it's a biscuit? I told Magnon so. There's +nothing to be done here. But embrace me, my good little father! It's a +long time since I've seen you! So you're out?" + +Thenardier tried to disentangle himself from Eponine's arms, and +grumbled:-- + +"That's good. You've embraced me. Yes, I'm out. I'm not in. Now, get +away with you." + +But Eponine did not release her hold, and redoubled her caresses. + +"But how did you manage it, little pa? You must have been very clever to +get out of that. Tell me about it! And my mother? Where is mother? Tell +me about mamma." + +Thenardier replied:-- + +"She's well. I don't know, let me alone, and be off, I tell you." + +"I won't go, so there now," pouted Eponine like a spoiled child; "you +send me off, and it's four months since I saw you, and I've hardly had +time to kiss you." + +And she caught her father round the neck again. + +"Come, now, this is stupid!" said Babet. + +"Make haste!" said Guelemer, "the cops may pass." + +The ventriloquist's voice repeated his distich:-- + + + "Nous n' sommes pas le jour de l'an, + "This isn't New Year's day + A becoter papa, maman." + To peck at pa and ma." + + +Eponine turned to the five ruffians. + +"Why, it's Monsieur Brujon. Good day, Monsieur Babet. Good day, +Monsieur Claquesous. Don't you know me, Monsieur Guelemer? How goes it, +Montparnasse?" + +"Yes, they know you!" ejaculated Thenardier. "But good day, good +evening, sheer off! leave us alone!" + +"It's the hour for foxes, not for chickens," said Montparnasse. + +"You see the job we have on hand here," added Babet. + +Eponine caught Montparnasse's hand. + +"Take care," said he, "you'll cut yourself, I've a knife open." + +"My little Montparnasse," responded Eponine very gently, "you must have +confidence in people. I am the daughter of my father, perhaps. Monsieur +Babet, Monsieur Guelemer, I'm the person who was charged to investigate +this matter." + +It is remarkable that Eponine did not talk slang. That frightful tongue +had become impossible to her since she had known Marius. + +She pressed in her hand, small, bony, and feeble as that of a skeleton, +Guelemer's huge, coarse fingers, and continued:-- + +"You know well that I'm no fool. Ordinarily, I am believed. I have +rendered you service on various occasions. Well, I have made inquiries; +you will expose yourselves to no purpose, you see. I swear to you that +there is nothing in this house." + +"There are lone women," said Guelemer. + +"No, the persons have moved away." + +"The candles haven't, anyway!" ejaculated Babet. + +And he pointed out to Eponine, across the tops of the trees, a light +which was wandering about in the mansard roof of the pavilion. It was +Toussaint, who had stayed up to spread out some linen to dry. + +Eponine made a final effort. + +"Well," said she, "they're very poor folks, and it's a hovel where there +isn't a sou." + +"Go to the devil!" cried Thenardier. "When we've turned the house upside +down and put the cellar at the top and the attic below, we'll tell +you what there is inside, and whether it's francs or sous or +half-farthings." + +And he pushed her aside with the intention of entering. + +"My good friend, Mr. Montparnasse," said Eponine, "I entreat you, you +are a good fellow, don't enter." + +"Take care, you'll cut yourself," replied Montparnasse. + +Thenardier resumed in his decided tone:-- + +"Decamp, my girl, and leave men to their own affairs!" + +Eponine released Montparnasse's hand, which she had grasped again, and +said:-- + +"So you mean to enter this house?" + +"Rather!" grinned the ventriloquist. + +Then she set her back against the gate, faced the six ruffians who were +armed to the teeth, and to whom the night lent the visages of demons, +and said in a firm, low voice:-- + +"Well, I don't mean that you shall." + +They halted in amazement. The ventriloquist, however, finished his grin. +She went on:-- + +"Friends! Listen well. This is not what you want. Now I'm talking. In +the first place, if you enter this garden, if you lay a hand on this +gate, I'll scream, I'll beat on the door, I'll rouse everybody, I'll +have the whole six of you seized, I'll call the police." + +"She'd do it, too," said Thenardier in a low tone to Brujon and the +ventriloquist. + +She shook her head and added:-- + +"Beginning with my father!" + +Thenardier stepped nearer. + +"Not so close, my good man!" said she. + +He retreated, growling between his teeth:-- + +"Why, what's the matter with her?" + +And he added:-- + +"Bitch!" + +She began to laugh in a terrible way:-- + +"As you like, but you shall not enter here. I'm not the daughter of +a dog, since I'm the daughter of a wolf. There are six of you, what +matters that to me? You are men. Well, I'm a woman. You don't frighten +me. I tell you that you shan't enter this house, because it doesn't suit +me. If you approach, I'll bark. I told you, I'm the dog, and I don't +care a straw for you. Go your way, you bore me! Go where you please, but +don't come here, I forbid it! You can use your knives. I'll use kicks; +it's all the same to me, come on!" + +She advanced a pace nearer the ruffians, she was terrible, she burst out +laughing:-- + +"Pardine! I'm not afraid. I shall be hungry this summer, and I shall be +cold this winter. Aren't they ridiculous, these ninnies of men, to think +they can scare a girl! What! Scare? Oh, yes, much! Because you have +finical poppets of mistresses who hide under the bed when you put on a +big voice, forsooth! I ain't afraid of anything, that I ain't!" + +She fastened her intent gaze upon Thenardier and said:-- + +"Not even of you, father!" + +Then she continued, as she cast her blood-shot, spectre-like eyes upon +the ruffians in turn:-- + +"What do I care if I'm picked up to-morrow morning on the pavement of +the Rue Plumet, killed by the blows of my father's club, or whether I'm +found a year from now in the nets at Saint-Cloud or the Isle of Swans in +the midst of rotten old corks and drowned dogs?" + +She was forced to pause; she was seized by a dry cough, her breath came +from her weak and narrow chest like the death-rattle. + +She resumed:-- + +"I have only to cry out, and people will come, and then slap, bang! +There are six of you; I represent the whole world." + +Thenardier made a movement towards her. + +"Don't approach!" she cried. + +He halted, and said gently:-- + +"Well, no; I won't approach, but don't speak so loud. So you intend to +hinder us in our work, my daughter? But we must earn our living all the +same. Have you no longer any kind feeling for your father?" + +"You bother me," said Eponine. + +"But we must live, we must eat--" + +"Burst!" + +So saying, she seated herself on the underpinning of the fence and +hummed:-- + + "Mon bras si dodu, "My arm so plump, + Ma jambe bien faite My leg well formed, + Et le temps perdu." And time wasted." + + +She had set her elbow on her knee and her chin in her hand, and she +swung her foot with an air of indifference. Her tattered gown permitted +a view of her thin shoulder-blades. The neighboring street lantern +illuminated her profile and her attitude. Nothing more resolute and more +surprising could be seen. + +The six rascals, speechless and gloomy at being held in check by a girl, +retreated beneath the shadow cast by the lantern, and held counsel with +furious and humiliated shrugs. + +In the meantime she stared at them with a stern but peaceful air. + +"There's something the matter with her," said Babet. "A reason. Is she +in love with the dog? It's a shame to miss this, anyway. Two women, an +old fellow who lodges in the back-yard, and curtains that ain't so bad +at the windows. The old cove must be a Jew. I think the job's a good +one." + +"Well, go in, then, the rest of you," exclaimed Montparnasse. "Do the +job. I'll stay here with the girl, and if she fails us--" + +He flashed the knife, which he held open in his hand, in the light of +the lantern. + +Thenardier said not a word, and seemed ready for whatever the rest +pleased. + +Brujon, who was somewhat of an oracle, and who had, as the reader knows, +"put up the job," had not as yet spoken. He seemed thoughtful. He had +the reputation of not sticking at anything, and it was known that he +had plundered a police post simply out of bravado. Besides this he made +verses and songs, which gave him great authority. + +Babet interrogated him:-- + +"You say nothing, Brujon?" + +Brujon remained silent an instant longer, then he shook his head in +various ways, and finally concluded to speak:-- + +"See here; this morning I came across two sparrows fighting, this +evening I jostled a woman who was quarrelling. All that's bad. Let's +quit." + +They went away. + +As they went, Montparnasse muttered:-- + +"Never mind! if they had wanted, I'd have cut her throat." + +Babet responded + +"I wouldn't. I don't hit a lady." + +At the corner of the street they halted and exchanged the following +enigmatical dialogue in a low tone:-- + +"Where shall we go to sleep to-night?" + +"Under Pantin [Paris]." + +"Have you the key to the gate, Thenardier?" + +"Pardi." + +Eponine, who never took her eyes off of them, saw them retreat by the +road by which they had come. She rose and began to creep after them +along the walls and the houses. She followed them thus as far as the +boulevard. + +There they parted, and she saw these six men plunge into the gloom, +where they appeared to melt away. + + + + +CHAPTER V--THINGS OF THE NIGHT + +After the departure of the ruffians, the Rue Plumet resumed its +tranquil, nocturnal aspect. That which had just taken place in this +street would not have astonished a forest. The lofty trees, the copses, +the heaths, the branches rudely interlaced, the tall grass, exist in +a sombre manner; the savage swarming there catches glimpses of sudden +apparitions of the invisible; that which is below man distinguishes, +through the mists, that which is beyond man; and the things of which we +living beings are ignorant there meet face to face in the night. Nature, +bristling and wild, takes alarm at certain approaches in which she +fancies that she feels the supernatural. The forces of the gloom know +each other, and are strangely balanced by each other. Teeth and claws +fear what they cannot grasp. Blood-drinking bestiality, voracious +appetites, hunger in search of prey, the armed instincts of nails +and jaws which have for source and aim the belly, glare and smell out +uneasily the impassive spectral forms straying beneath a shroud, erect +in its vague and shuddering robe, and which seem to them to live with +a dead and terrible life. These brutalities, which are only matter, +entertain a confused fear of having to deal with the immense obscurity +condensed into an unknown being. A black figure barring the way stops +the wild beast short. That which emerges from the cemetery intimidates +and disconcerts that which emerges from the cave; the ferocious fear the +sinister; wolves recoil when they encounter a ghoul. + + + + +CHAPTER VI--MARIUS BECOMES PRACTICAL ONCE MORE TO THE EXTENT OF GIVING +COSETTE HIS ADDRESS + +While this sort of a dog with a human face was mounting guard over the +gate, and while the six ruffians were yielding to a girl, Marius was by +Cosette's side. + +Never had the sky been more studded with stars and more charming, the +trees more trembling, the odor of the grass more penetrating; never had +the birds fallen asleep among the leaves with a sweeter noise; never had +all the harmonies of universal serenity responded more thoroughly to the +inward music of love; never had Marius been more captivated, more happy, +more ecstatic. + +But he had found Cosette sad; Cosette had been weeping. Her eyes were +red. + +This was the first cloud in that wonderful dream. + +Marius' first word had been: "What is the matter?" + +And she had replied: "This." + +Then she had seated herself on the bench near the steps, and while he +tremblingly took his place beside her, she had continued:-- + +"My father told me this morning to hold myself in readiness, because he +has business, and we may go away from here." + +Marius shivered from head to foot. + +When one is at the end of one's life, to die means to go away; when one +is at the beginning of it, to go away means to die. + +For the last six weeks, Marius had little by little, slowly, by degrees, +taken possession of Cosette each day. As we have already explained, in +the case of first love, the soul is taken long before the body; later +on, one takes the body long before the soul; sometimes one does not take +the soul at all; the Faublas and the Prudhommes add: "Because there is +none"; but the sarcasm is, fortunately, a blasphemy. So Marius possessed +Cosette, as spirits possess, but he enveloped her with all his soul, and +seized her jealously with incredible conviction. He possessed her smile, +her breath, her perfume, the profound radiance of her blue eyes, the +sweetness of her skin when he touched her hand, the charming mark which +she had on her neck, all her thoughts. Therefore, he possessed all +Cosette's dreams. + +He incessantly gazed at, and he sometimes touched lightly with his +breath, the short locks on the nape of her neck, and he declared to +himself that there was not one of those short hairs which did not belong +to him, Marius. He gazed upon and adored the things that she wore, her +knot of ribbon, her gloves, her sleeves, her shoes, her cuffs, as sacred +objects of which he was the master. He dreamed that he was the lord of +those pretty shell combs which she wore in her hair, and he even said to +himself, in confused and suppressed stammerings of voluptuousness which +did not make their way to the light, that there was not a ribbon of her +gown, not a mesh in her stockings, not a fold in her bodice, which was +not his. Beside Cosette he felt himself beside his own property, his +own thing, his own despot and his slave. It seemed as though they had +so intermingled their souls, that it would have been impossible to tell +them apart had they wished to take them back again.--"This is mine." +"No, it is mine." "I assure you that you are mistaken. This is my +property." "What you are taking as your own is myself."--Marius was +something that made a part of Cosette, and Cosette was something which +made a part of Marius. Marius felt Cosette within him. To have Cosette, +to possess Cosette, this, to him, was not to be distinguished from +breathing. It was in the midst of this faith, of this intoxication, of +this virgin possession, unprecedented and absolute, of this sovereignty, +that these words: "We are going away," fell suddenly, at a blow, and +that the harsh voice of reality cried to him: "Cosette is not yours!" + +Marius awoke. For six weeks Marius had been living, as we have said, +outside of life; those words, going away! caused him to re-enter it +harshly. + +He found not a word to say. Cosette merely felt that his hand was very +cold. She said to him in her turn: "What is the matter?" + +He replied in so low a tone that Cosette hardly heard him:-- + +"I did not understand what you said." + +She began again:-- + +"This morning my father told me to settle all my little affairs and to +hold myself in readiness, that he would give me his linen to put in a +trunk, that he was obliged to go on a journey, that we were to go away, +that it is necessary to have a large trunk for me and a small one for +him, and that all is to be ready in a week from now, and that we might +go to England." + +"But this is outrageous!" exclaimed Marius. + +It is certain, that, at that moment, no abuse of power, no violence, not +one of the abominations of the worst tyrants, no action of Busiris, of +Tiberius, or of Henry VIII., could have equalled this in atrocity, +in the opinion of Marius; M. Fauchelevent taking his daughter off to +England because he had business there. + +He demanded in a weak voice:-- + +"And when do you start?" + +"He did not say when." + +"And when shall you return?" + +"He did not say when." + +Marius rose and said coldly:-- + +"Cosette, shall you go?" + +Cosette turned toward him her beautiful eyes, all filled with anguish, +and replied in a sort of bewilderment:-- + +"Where?" + +"To England. Shall you go?" + +"Why do you say you to me?" + +"I ask you whether you will go?" + +"What do you expect me to do?" she said, clasping her hands. + +"So, you will go?" + +"If my father goes." + +"So, you will go?" + +Cosette took Marius' hand, and pressed it without replying. + +"Very well," said Marius, "then I will go elsewhere." + +Cosette felt rather than understood the meaning of these words. +She turned so pale that her face shone white through the gloom. She +stammered:-- + +"What do you mean?" + +Marius looked at her, then raised his eyes to heaven, and answered: +"Nothing." + +When his eyes fell again, he saw Cosette smiling at him. The smile of a +woman whom one loves possesses a visible radiance, even at night. + +"How silly we are! Marius, I have an idea." + +"What is it?" + +"If we go away, do you go too! I will tell you where! Come and join me +wherever I am." + +Marius was now a thoroughly roused man. He had fallen back into reality. +He cried to Cosette:-- + +"Go away with you! Are you mad? Why, I should have to have money, and I +have none! Go to England? But I am in debt now, I owe, I don't know how +much, more than ten louis to Courfeyrac, one of my friends with whom you +are not acquainted! I have an old hat which is not worth three francs, +I have a coat which lacks buttons in front, my shirt is all ragged, my +elbows are torn, my boots let in the water; for the last six weeks I +have not thought about it, and I have not told you about it. You only +see me at night, and you give me your love; if you were to see me in the +daytime, you would give me a sou! Go to England! Eh! I haven't enough to +pay for a passport!" + +He threw himself against a tree which was close at hand, erect, his brow +pressed close to the bark, feeling neither the wood which flayed his +skin, nor the fever which was throbbing in his temples, and there he +stood motionless, on the point of falling, like the statue of despair. + +He remained a long time thus. One could remain for eternity in such +abysses. At last he turned round. He heard behind him a faint stifled +noise, which was sweet yet sad. + +It was Cosette sobbing. + +She had been weeping for more than two hours beside Marius as he +meditated. + +He came to her, fell at her knees, and slowly prostrating himself, he +took the tip of her foot which peeped out from beneath her robe, and +kissed it. + +She let him have his way in silence. There are moments when a woman +accepts, like a sombre and resigned goddess, the religion of love. + +"Do not weep," he said. + +She murmured:-- + +"Not when I may be going away, and you cannot come!" + +He went on:-- + +"Do you love me?" + +She replied, sobbing, by that word from paradise which is never more +charming than amid tears:-- + +"I adore you!" + +He continued in a tone which was an indescribable caress:-- + +"Do not weep. Tell me, will you do this for me, and cease to weep?" + +"Do you love me?" said she. + +He took her hand. + +"Cosette, I have never given my word of honor to any one, because my +word of honor terrifies me. I feel that my father is by my side. Well, I +give you my most sacred word of honor, that if you go away I shall die." + +In the tone with which he uttered these words there lay a melancholy so +solemn and so tranquil, that Cosette trembled. She felt that chill which +is produced by a true and gloomy thing as it passes by. The shock made +her cease weeping. + +"Now, listen," said he, "do not expect me to-morrow." + +"Why?" + +"Do not expect me until the day after to-morrow." + +"Oh! Why?" + +"You will see." + +"A day without seeing you! But that is impossible!" + +"Let us sacrifice one day in order to gain our whole lives, perhaps." + +And Marius added in a low tone and in an aside:-- + +"He is a man who never changes his habits, and he has never received any +one except in the evening." + +"Of what man are you speaking?" asked Cosette. + +"I? I said nothing." + +"What do you hope, then?" + +"Wait until the day after to-morrow." + +"You wish it?" + +"Yes, Cosette." + +She took his head in both her hands, raising herself on tiptoe in order +to be on a level with him, and tried to read his hope in his eyes. + +Marius resumed:-- + +"Now that I think of it, you ought to know my address: something might +happen, one never knows; I live with that friend named Courfeyrac, Rue +de la Verrerie, No. 16." + +He searched in his pocket, pulled out his penknife, and with the blade +he wrote on the plaster of the wall:-- + +"16 Rue de la Verrerie." + +In the meantime, Cosette had begun to gaze into his eyes once more. + +"Tell me your thought, Marius; you have some idea. Tell it to me. Oh! +tell me, so that I may pass a pleasant night." + +"This is my idea: that it is impossible that God should mean to part us. +Wait; expect me the day after to-morrow." + +"What shall I do until then?" said Cosette. "You are outside, you go, +and come! How happy men are! I shall remain entirely alone! Oh! How sad +I shall be! What is it that you are going to do to-morrow evening? tell +me." + +"I am going to try something." + +"Then I will pray to God and I will think of you here, so that you may +be successful. I will question you no further, since you do not wish it. +You are my master. I shall pass the evening to-morrow in singing that +music from Euryanthe that you love, and that you came one evening to +listen to, outside my shutters. But day after to-morrow you will come +early. I shall expect you at dusk, at nine o'clock precisely, I warn +you. Mon Dieu! how sad it is that the days are so long! On the stroke of +nine, do you understand, I shall be in the garden." + +"And I also." + +And without having uttered it, moved by the same thought, impelled by +those electric currents which place lovers in continual communication, +both being intoxicated with delight even in their sorrow, they fell into +each other's arms, without perceiving that their lips met while their +uplifted eyes, overflowing with rapture and full of tears, gazed upon +the stars. + +When Marius went forth, the street was deserted. This was the moment +when Eponine was following the ruffians to the boulevard. + +While Marius had been dreaming with his head pressed to the tree, an +idea had crossed his mind; an idea, alas! that he himself judged to be +senseless and impossible. He had come to a desperate decision. + + + + +CHAPTER VII--THE OLD HEART AND THE YOUNG HEART IN THE PRESENCE OF EACH +OTHER + +At that epoch, Father Gillenormand was well past his ninety-first +birthday. He still lived with Mademoiselle Gillenormand in the Rue des +Filles-du-Calvaire, No. 6, in the old house which he owned. He was, as +the reader will remember, one of those antique old men who await death +perfectly erect, whom age bears down without bending, and whom even +sorrow cannot curve. + +Still, his daughter had been saying for some time: "My father is +sinking." He no longer boxed the maids' ears; he no longer thumped +the landing-place so vigorously with his cane when Basque was slow in +opening the door. The Revolution of July had exasperated him for the +space of barely six months. He had viewed, almost tranquilly, that +coupling of words, in the Moniteur: M. Humblot-Conte, peer of France. +The fact is, that the old man was deeply dejected. He did not bend, he +did not yield; this was no more a characteristic of his physical than +of his moral nature, but he felt himself giving way internally. For four +years he had been waiting for Marius, with his foot firmly planted, that +is the exact word, in the conviction that that good-for-nothing young +scamp would ring at his door some day or other; now he had reached +the point, where, at certain gloomy hours, he said to himself, that +if Marius made him wait much longer--It was not death that was +insupportable to him; it was the idea that perhaps he should never see +Marius again. The idea of never seeing Marius again had never entered +his brain until that day; now the thought began to recur to him, and +it chilled him. Absence, as is always the case in genuine and natural +sentiments, had only served to augment the grandfather's love for the +ungrateful child, who had gone off like a flash. It is during December +nights, when the cold stands at ten degrees, that one thinks oftenest of +the son. + +M. Gillenormand was, or thought himself, above all things, incapable +of taking a single step, he--the grandfather, towards his grandson; "I +would die rather," he said to himself. He did not consider himself +as the least to blame; but he thought of Marius only with profound +tenderness, and the mute despair of an elderly, kindly old man who is +about to vanish in the dark. + +He began to lose his teeth, which added to his sadness. + +M. Gillenormand, without however acknowledging it to himself, for it +would have rendered him furious and ashamed, had never loved a mistress +as he loved Marius. + +He had had placed in his chamber, opposite the head of his bed, so that +it should be the first thing on which his eyes fell on waking, an +old portrait of his other daughter, who was dead, Madame Pontmercy, +a portrait which had been taken when she was eighteen. He gazed +incessantly at that portrait. One day, he happened to say, as he gazed +upon it:-- + +"I think the likeness is strong." + +"To my sister?" inquired Mademoiselle Gillenormand. "Yes, certainly." + +"The old man added:-- + +"And to him also." + +Once as he sat with his knees pressed together, and his eyes almost +closed, in a despondent attitude, his daughter ventured to say to him:-- + +"Father, are you as angry with him as ever?" + +She paused, not daring to proceed further. + +"With whom?" he demanded. + +"With that poor Marius." + +He raised his aged head, laid his withered and emaciated fist on the +table, and exclaimed in his most irritated and vibrating tone:-- + +"Poor Marius, do you say! That gentleman is a knave, a wretched +scoundrel, a vain little ingrate, a heartless, soulless, haughty, and +wicked man!" + +And he turned away so that his daughter might not see the tear that +stood in his eye. + +Three days later he broke a silence which had lasted four hours, to say +to his daughter point-blank:-- + +"I had the honor to ask Mademoiselle Gillenormand never to mention him +to me." + +Aunt Gillenormand renounced every effort, and pronounced this acute +diagnosis: "My father never cared very much for my sister after her +folly. It is clear that he detests Marius." + +"After her folly" meant: "after she had married the colonel." + +However, as the reader has been able to conjecture, Mademoiselle +Gillenormand had failed in her attempt to substitute her favorite, the +officer of lancers, for Marius. The substitute, Theodule, had not been a +success. M. Gillenormand had not accepted the quid pro quo. A vacancy +in the heart does not accommodate itself to a stop-gap. Theodule, on his +side, though he scented the inheritance, was disgusted at the task +of pleasing. The goodman bored the lancer; and the lancer shocked the +goodman. Lieutenant Theodule was gay, no doubt, but a chatter-box, +frivolous, but vulgar; a high liver, but a frequenter of bad company; he +had mistresses, it is true, and he had a great deal to say about them, +it is true also; but he talked badly. All his good qualities had a +defect. M. Gillenormand was worn out with hearing him tell about the +love affairs that he had in the vicinity of the barracks in the Rue +de Babylone. And then, Lieutenant Gillenormand sometimes came in his +uniform, with the tricolored cockade. This rendered him downright +intolerable. Finally, Father Gillenormand had said to his daughter: +"I've had enough of that Theodule. I haven't much taste for warriors +in time of peace. Receive him if you choose. I don't know but I prefer +slashers to fellows that drag their swords. The clash of blades in +battle is less dismal, after all, than the clank of the scabbard on +the pavement. And then, throwing out your chest like a bully and +lacing yourself like a girl, with stays under your cuirass, is doubly +ridiculous. When one is a veritable man, one holds equally aloof +from swagger and from affected airs. He is neither a blusterer nor a +finnicky-hearted man. Keep your Theodule for yourself." + +It was in vain that his daughter said to him: "But he is your +grandnephew, nevertheless,"--it turned out that M. Gillenormand, who +was a grandfather to the very finger-tips, was not in the least a +grand-uncle. + +In fact, as he had good sense, and as he had compared the two, Theodule +had only served to make him regret Marius all the more. + +One evening,--it was the 24th of June, which did not prevent Father +Gillenormand having a rousing fire on the hearth,--he had dismissed his +daughter, who was sewing in a neighboring apartment. He was alone in +his chamber, amid its pastoral scenes, with his feet propped on the +andirons, half enveloped in his huge screen of coromandel lacquer, with +its nine leaves, with his elbow resting on a table where burned two +candles under a green shade, engulfed in his tapestry armchair, and in +his hand a book which he was not reading. He was dressed, according +to his wont, like an incroyable, and resembled an antique portrait by +Garat. This would have made people run after him in the street, had not +his daughter covered him up, whenever he went out, in a vast bishop's +wadded cloak, which concealed his attire. At home, he never wore a +dressing gown, except when he rose and retired. "It gives one a look of +age," said he. + +Father Gillenormand was thinking of Marius lovingly and bitterly; and, +as usual, bitterness predominated. His tenderness once soured always +ended by boiling and turning to indignation. He had reached the point +where a man tries to make up his mind and to accept that which rends his +heart. He was explaining to himself that there was no longer any reason +why Marius should return, that if he intended to return, he should +have done it long ago, that he must renounce the idea. He was trying to +accustom himself to the thought that all was over, and that he should +die without having beheld "that gentleman" again. But his whole nature +revolted; his aged paternity would not consent to this. "Well!" said +he,--this was his doleful refrain,--"he will not return!" His bald head +had fallen upon his breast, and he fixed a melancholy and irritated gaze +upon the ashes on his hearth. + +In the very midst of his revery, his old servant Basque entered, and +inquired:-- + +"Can Monsieur receive M. Marius?" + +The old man sat up erect, pallid, and like a corpse which rises under +the influence of a galvanic shock. All his blood had retreated to his +heart. He stammered:-- + +"M. Marius what?" + +"I don't know," replied Basque, intimidated and put out of countenance +by his master's air; "I have not seen him. Nicolette came in and said to +me: 'There's a young man here; say that it is M. Marius.'" + +Father Gillenormand stammered in a low voice:-- + +"Show him in." + +And he remained in the same attitude, with shaking head, and his eyes +fixed on the door. It opened once more. A young man entered. It was +Marius. + +Marius halted at the door, as though waiting to be bidden to enter. + +His almost squalid attire was not perceptible in the obscurity caused by +the shade. Nothing could be seen but his calm, grave, but strangely sad +face. + +It was several minutes before Father Gillenormand, dulled with amazement +and joy, could see anything except a brightness as when one is in the +presence of an apparition. He was on the point of swooning; he saw +Marius through a dazzling light. It certainly was he, it certainly was +Marius. + +At last! After the lapse of four years! He grasped him entire, so to +speak, in a single glance. He found him noble, handsome, distinguished, +well-grown, a complete man, with a suitable mien and a charming air. He +felt a desire to open his arms, to call him, to fling himself forward; +his heart melted with rapture, affectionate words swelled and overflowed +his breast; at length all his tenderness came to the light and reached +his lips, and, by a contrast which constituted the very foundation of +his nature, what came forth was harshness. He said abruptly:-- + +"What have you come here for?" + +Marius replied with embarrassment:-- + +"Monsieur--" + +M. Gillenormand would have liked to have Marius throw himself into his +arms. He was displeased with Marius and with himself. He was conscious +that he was brusque, and that Marius was cold. It caused the goodman +unendurable and irritating anxiety to feel so tender and forlorn +within, and only to be able to be hard outside. Bitterness returned. He +interrupted Marius in a peevish tone:-- + +"Then why did you come?" + +That "then" signified: If you do not come to embrace me. Marius looked +at his grandfather, whose pallor gave him a face of marble. + +"Monsieur--" + +"Have you come to beg my pardon? Do you acknowledge your faults?" + +He thought he was putting Marius on the right road, and that "the child" +would yield. Marius shivered; it was the denial of his father that was +required of him; he dropped his eyes and replied:-- + +"No, sir." + +"Then," exclaimed the old man impetuously, with a grief that was +poignant and full of wrath, "what do you want of me?" + +Marius clasped his hands, advanced a step, and said in a feeble and +trembling voice:-- + +"Sir, have pity on me." + +These words touched M. Gillenormand; uttered a little sooner, they would +have rendered him tender, but they came too late. The grandfather rose; +he supported himself with both hands on his cane; his lips were white, +his brow wavered, but his lofty form towered above Marius as he bowed. + +"Pity on you, sir! It is youth demanding pity of the old man of +ninety-one! You are entering into life, I am leaving it; you go to the +play, to balls, to the cafe, to the billiard-hall; you have wit, you +please the women, you are a handsome fellow; as for me, I spit on my +brands in the heart of summer; you are rich with the only riches that +are really such, I possess all the poverty of age; infirmity, isolation! +You have your thirty-two teeth, a good digestion, bright eyes, strength, +appetite, health, gayety, a forest of black hair; I have no longer even +white hair, I have lost my teeth, I am losing my legs, I am losing my +memory; there are three names of streets that I confound incessantly, +the Rue Charlot, the Rue du Chaume, and the Rue Saint-Claude, that +is what I have come to; you have before you the whole future, full of +sunshine, and I am beginning to lose my sight, so far am I advancing +into the night; you are in love, that is a matter of course, I am +beloved by no one in all the world; and you ask pity of me! Parbleu! +Moliere forgot that. If that is the way you jest at the courthouse, +Messieurs the lawyers, I sincerely compliment you. You are droll." + +And the octogenarian went on in a grave and angry voice:-- + +"Come, now, what do you want of me?" + +"Sir," said Marius, "I know that my presence is displeasing to you, but +I have come merely to ask one thing of you, and then I shall go away +immediately." + +"You are a fool!" said the old man. "Who said that you were to go away?" + +This was the translation of the tender words which lay at the bottom of +his heart:-- + +"Ask my pardon! Throw yourself on my neck!" + +M. Gillenormand felt that Marius would leave him in a few moments, that +his harsh reception had repelled the lad, that his hardness was driving +him away; he said all this to himself, and it augmented his grief; and +as his grief was straightway converted into wrath, it increased his +harshness. He would have liked to have Marius understand, and Marius did +not understand, which made the goodman furious. + +He began again:-- + +"What! you deserted me, your grandfather, you left my house to go no +one knows whither, you drove your aunt to despair, you went off, it is +easily guessed, to lead a bachelor life; it's more convenient, to play +the dandy, to come in at all hours, to amuse yourself; you have given me +no signs of life, you have contracted debts without even telling me to +pay them, you have become a smasher of windows and a blusterer, and, at +the end of four years, you come to me, and that is all you have to say +to me!" + +This violent fashion of driving a grandson to tenderness was productive +only of silence on the part of Marius. M. Gillenormand folded his arms; +a gesture which with him was peculiarly imperious, and apostrophized +Marius bitterly:-- + +"Let us make an end of this. You have come to ask something of me, you +say? Well, what? What is it? Speak!" + +"Sir," said Marius, with the look of a man who feels that he is falling +over a precipice, "I have come to ask your permission to marry." + +M. Gillenormand rang the bell. Basque opened the door half-way. + +"Call my daughter." + +A second later, the door was opened once more, Mademoiselle Gillenormand +did not enter, but showed herself; Marius was standing, mute, with +pendant arms and the face of a criminal; M. Gillenormand was pacing back +and forth in the room. He turned to his daughter and said to her:-- + +"Nothing. It is Monsieur Marius. Say good day to him. Monsieur wishes to +marry. That's all. Go away." + +The curt, hoarse sound of the old man's voice announced a strange degree +of excitement. The aunt gazed at Marius with a frightened air, hardly +appeared to recognize him, did not allow a gesture or a syllable to +escape her, and disappeared at her father's breath more swiftly than a +straw before the hurricane. + +In the meantime, Father Gillenormand had returned and placed his back +against the chimney-piece once more. + +"You marry! At one and twenty! You have arranged that! You have only +a permission to ask! a formality. Sit down, sir. Well, you have had a +revolution since I had the honor to see you last. The Jacobins got the +upper hand. You must have been delighted. Are you not a Republican since +you are a Baron? You can make that agree. The Republic makes a good +sauce for the barony. Are you one of those decorated by July? Have you +taken the Louvre at all, sir? Quite near here, in the Rue Saint-Antoine, +opposite the Rue des Nonamdieres, there is a cannon-ball incrusted in +the wall of the third story of a house with this inscription: 'July +28th, 1830.' Go take a look at that. It produces a good effect. Ah! +those friends of yours do pretty things. By the way, aren't they +erecting a fountain in the place of the monument of M. le Duc de Berry? +So you want to marry? Whom? Can one inquire without indiscretion?" + +He paused, and, before Marius had time to answer, he added violently:-- + +"Come now, you have a profession? A fortune made? How much do you earn +at your trade of lawyer?" + +"Nothing," said Marius, with a sort of firmness and resolution that was +almost fierce. + +"Nothing? Then all that you have to live upon is the twelve hundred +livres that I allow you?" + +Marius did not reply. M. Gillenormand continued:-- + +"Then I understand the girl is rich?" + +"As rich as I am." + +"What! No dowry?" + +"No." + +"Expectations?" + +"I think not." + +"Utterly naked! What's the father?" + +"I don't know." + +"And what's her name?" + +"Mademoiselle Fauchelevent." + +"Fauchewhat?" + +"Fauchelevent." + +"Pttt!" ejaculated the old gentleman. + +"Sir!" exclaimed Marius. + +M. Gillenormand interrupted him with the tone of a man who is speaking +to himself:-- + +"That's right, one and twenty years of age, no profession, twelve +hundred livres a year, Madame la Baronne de Pontmercy will go and +purchase a couple of sous' worth of parsley from the fruiterer." + +"Sir," repeated Marius, in the despair at the last hope, which was +vanishing, "I entreat you! I conjure you in the name of Heaven, with +clasped hands, sir, I throw myself at your feet, permit me to marry +her!" + +The old man burst into a shout of strident and mournful laughter, +coughing and laughing at the same time. + +"Ah! ah! ah! You said to yourself: 'Pardine! I'll go hunt up that old +blockhead, that absurd numskull! What a shame that I'm not twenty-five! +How I'd treat him to a nice respectful summons! How nicely I'd get along +without him! It's nothing to me, I'd say to him: "You're only too happy +to see me, you old idiot, I want to marry, I desire to wed Mamselle +No-matter-whom, daughter of Monsieur No-matter-what, I have no shoes, +she has no chemise, that just suits; I want to throw my career, my +future, my youth, my life to the dogs; I wish to take a plunge into +wretchedness with a woman around my neck, that's an idea, and you must +consent to it!" and the old fossil will consent.' Go, my lad, do as +you like, attach your paving-stone, marry your Pousselevent, your +Coupelevent--Never, sir, never!" + +"Father--" + +"Never!" + +At the tone in which that "never" was uttered, Marius lost all hope. He +traversed the chamber with slow steps, with bowed head, tottering and +more like a dying man than like one merely taking his departure. M. +Gillenormand followed him with his eyes, and at the moment when the +door opened, and Marius was on the point of going out, he advanced four +paces, with the senile vivacity of impetuous and spoiled old gentlemen, +seized Marius by the collar, brought him back energetically into the +room, flung him into an armchair and said to him:-- + +"Tell me all about it!" + +"It was that single word "father" which had effected this revolution. + +Marius stared at him in bewilderment. M. Gillenormand's mobile face was +no longer expressive of anything but rough and ineffable good-nature. +The grandsire had given way before the grandfather. + +"Come, see here, speak, tell me about your love affairs, jabber, tell me +everything! Sapristi! how stupid young folks are!" + +"Father--" repeated Marius. + +The old man's entire countenance lighted up with indescribable radiance. + +"Yes, that's right, call me father, and you'll see!" + +There was now something so kind, so gentle, so openhearted, and so +paternal in this brusqueness, that Marius, in the sudden transition from +discouragement to hope, was stunned and intoxicated by it, as it were. +He was seated near the table, the light from the candles brought out +the dilapidation of his costume, which Father Gillenormand regarded with +amazement. + +"Well, father--" said Marius. + +"Ah, by the way," interrupted M. Gillenormand, "you really have not a +penny then? You are dressed like a pickpocket." + +He rummaged in a drawer, drew forth a purse, which he laid on the table: +"Here are a hundred louis, buy yourself a hat." + +"Father," pursued Marius, "my good father, if you only knew! I love her. +You cannot imagine it; the first time I saw her was at the Luxembourg, +she came there; in the beginning, I did not pay much heed to her, and +then, I don't know how it came about, I fell in love with her. Oh! how +unhappy that made me! Now, at last, I see her every day, at her own +home, her father does not know it, just fancy, they are going away, it +is in the garden that we meet, in the evening, her father means to take +her to England, then I said to myself: 'I'll go and see my grandfather +and tell him all about the affair. I should go mad first, I should die, +I should fall ill, I should throw myself into the water. I absolutely +must marry her, since I should go mad otherwise.' This is the whole +truth, and I do not think that I have omitted anything. She lives in a +garden with an iron fence, in the Rue Plumet. It is in the neighborhood +of the Invalides." + +Father Gillenormand had seated himself, with a beaming countenance, +beside Marius. As he listened to him and drank in the sound of his +voice, he enjoyed at the same time a protracted pinch of snuff. At +the words "Rue Plumet" he interrupted his inhalation and allowed the +remainder of his snuff to fall upon his knees. + +"The Rue Plumet, the Rue Plumet, did you say?--Let us see!--Are there +not barracks in that vicinity?--Why, yes, that's it. Your cousin +Theodule has spoken to me about it. The lancer, the officer. A gay girl, +my good friend, a gay girl!--Pardieu, yes, the Rue Plumet. It is what +used to be called the Rue Blomet.--It all comes back to me now. I have +heard of that little girl of the iron railing in the Rue Plumet. In a +garden, a Pamela. Your taste is not bad. She is said to be a very tidy +creature. Between ourselves, I think that simpleton of a lancer has been +courting her a bit. I don't know where he did it. However, that's not +to the purpose. Besides, he is not to be believed. He brags, Marius! I +think it quite proper that a young man like you should be in love. It's +the right thing at your age. I like you better as a lover than as a +Jacobin. I like you better in love with a petticoat, sapristi! with +twenty petticoats, than with M. de Robespierre. For my part, I will do +myself the justice to say, that in the line of sans-culottes, I have +never loved any one but women. Pretty girls are pretty girls, the deuce! +There's no objection to that. As for the little one, she receives you +without her father's knowledge. That's in the established order of +things. I have had adventures of that same sort myself. More than one. +Do you know what is done then? One does not take the matter ferociously; +one does not precipitate himself into the tragic; one does not make +one's mind to marriage and M. le Maire with his scarf. One simply +behaves like a fellow of spirit. One shows good sense. Slip along, +mortals; don't marry. You come and look up your grandfather, who is a +good-natured fellow at bottom, and who always has a few rolls of louis +in an old drawer; you say to him: 'See here, grandfather.' And the +grandfather says: 'That's a simple matter. Youth must amuse itself, and +old age must wear out. I have been young, you will be old. Come, my boy, +you shall pass it on to your grandson. Here are two hundred pistoles. +Amuse yourself, deuce take it!' Nothing better! That's the way the +affair should be treated. You don't marry, but that does no harm. You +understand me?" + +Marius, petrified and incapable of uttering a syllable, made a sign with +his head that he did not. + +The old man burst out laughing, winked his aged eye, gave him a slap on +the knee, stared him full in the face with a mysterious and beaming air, +and said to him, with the tenderest of shrugs of the shoulder:-- + +"Booby! make her your mistress." + +Marius turned pale. He had understood nothing of what his grandfather +had just said. This twaddle about the Rue Blomet, Pamela, the barracks, +the lancer, had passed before Marius like a dissolving view. Nothing of +all that could bear any reference to Cosette, who was a lily. The good +man was wandering in his mind. But this wandering terminated in words +which Marius did understand, and which were a mortal insult to Cosette. +Those words, "make her your mistress," entered the heart of the strict +young man like a sword. + +He rose, picked up his hat which lay on the floor, and walked to the +door with a firm, assured step. There he turned round, bowed deeply to +his grandfather, raised his head erect again, and said:-- + +"Five years ago you insulted my father; to-day you have insulted my +wife. I ask nothing more of you, sir. Farewell." + +Father Gillenormand, utterly confounded, opened his mouth, extended his +arms, tried to rise, and before he could utter a word, the door closed +once more, and Marius had disappeared. + +The old man remained for several minutes motionless and as though +struck by lightning, without the power to speak or breathe, as though +a clenched fist grasped his throat. At last he tore himself from his +arm-chair, ran, so far as a man can run at ninety-one, to the door, +opened it, and cried:-- + +"Help! Help!" + +His daughter made her appearance, then the domestics. He began again, +with a pitiful rattle: "Run after him! Bring him back! What have I done +to him? He is mad! He is going away! Ah! my God! Ah! my God! This time +he will not come back!" + +He went to the window which looked out on the street, threw it open with +his aged and palsied hands, leaned out more than half-way, while Basque +and Nicolette held him behind, and shouted:-- + +"Marius! Marius! Marius! Marius!" + +But Marius could no longer hear him, for at that moment he was turning +the corner of the Rue Saint-Louis. + +The octogenarian raised his hands to his temples two or three times +with an expression of anguish, recoiled tottering, and fell back into an +arm-chair, pulseless, voiceless, tearless, with quivering head and lips +which moved with a stupid air, with nothing in his eyes and nothing +any longer in his heart except a gloomy and profound something which +resembled night. + + + + +BOOK NINTH.--WHITHER ARE THEY GOING? + + + + +CHAPTER I--JEAN VALJEAN + +That same day, towards four o'clock in the afternoon, Jean Valjean was +sitting alone on the back side of one of the most solitary slopes in the +Champ-de-Mars. Either from prudence, or from a desire to meditate, or +simply in consequence of one of those insensible changes of habit which +gradually introduce themselves into the existence of every one, he now +rarely went out with Cosette. He had on his workman's waistcoat, +and trousers of gray linen; and his long-visored cap concealed his +countenance. + +He was calm and happy now beside Cosette; that which had, for a time, +alarmed and troubled him had been dissipated; but for the last week or +two, anxieties of another nature had come up. One day, while walking +on the boulevard, he had caught sight of Thenardier; thanks to his +disguise, Thenardier had not recognized him; but since that day, Jean +Valjean had seen him repeatedly, and he was now certain that Thenardier +was prowling about in their neighborhood. + +This had been sufficient to make him come to a decision. + +Moreover, Paris was not tranquil: political troubles presented this +inconvenient feature, for any one who had anything to conceal in his +life, that the police had grown very uneasy and very suspicious, and +that while seeking to ferret out a man like Pepin or Morey, they might +very readily discover a man like Jean Valjean. + +Jean Valjean had made up his mind to quit Paris, and even France, and go +over to England. + +He had warned Cosette. He wished to set out before the end of the week. + +He had seated himself on the slope in the Champ-de-Mars, turning over +all sorts of thoughts in his mind,--Thenardier, the police, the journey, +and the difficulty of procuring a passport. + +He was troubled from all these points of view. + +Last of all, an inexplicable circumstance which had just attracted his +attention, and from which he had not yet recovered, had added to his +state of alarm. + +On the morning of that very day, when he alone of the household was +stirring, while strolling in the garden before Cosette's shutters +were open, he had suddenly perceived on the wall, the following line, +engraved, probably with a nail:-- + +16 Rue de la Verrerie. + +This was perfectly fresh, the grooves in the ancient black mortar were +white, a tuft of nettles at the foot of the wall was powdered with the +fine, fresh plaster. + +This had probably been written on the preceding night. + +What was this? A signal for others? A warning for himself? + +In any case, it was evident that the garden had been violated, and that +strangers had made their way into it. + +He recalled the odd incidents which had already alarmed the household. + +His mind was now filling in this canvas. + +He took good care not to speak to Cosette of the line written on the +wall, for fear of alarming her. + +In the midst of his preoccupations, he perceived, from a shadow cast by +the sun, that some one had halted on the crest of the slope immediately +behind him. + +He was on the point of turning round, when a paper folded in four fell +upon his knees as though a hand had dropped it over his head. + +He took the paper, unfolded it, and read these words written in large +characters, with a pencil:-- + +"MOVE AWAY FROM YOUR HOUSE." + +Jean Valjean sprang hastily to his feet; there was no one on the slope; +he gazed all around him and perceived a creature larger than a +child, not so large as a man, clad in a gray blouse and trousers of +dust-colored cotton velvet, who was jumping over the parapet and who +slipped into the moat of the Champde-Mars. + +Jean Valjean returned home at once, in a very thoughtful mood. + + + + +CHAPTER II--MARIUS + +Marius had left M. Gillenormand in despair. He had entered the house +with very little hope, and quitted it with immense despair. + +However, and those who have observed the depths of the human heart will +understand this, the officer, the lancer, the ninny, Cousin Theodule, +had left no trace in his mind. Not the slightest. The dramatic poet +might, apparently, expect some complications from this revelation made +point-blank by the grandfather to the grandson. But what the drama would +gain thereby, truth would lose. Marius was at an age when one believes +nothing in the line of evil; later on comes the age when one believes +everything. Suspicions are nothing else than wrinkles. Early youth +has none of them. That which overwhelmed Othello glides innocuous over +Candide. Suspect Cosette! There are hosts of crimes which Marius could +sooner have committed. + +He began to wander about the streets, the resource of those who suffer. +He thought of nothing, so far as he could afterwards remember. At two +o'clock in the morning he returned to Courfeyrac's quarters and flung +himself, without undressing, on his mattress. The sun was shining +brightly when he sank into that frightful leaden slumber which permits +ideas to go and come in the brain. When he awoke, he saw Courfeyrac, +Enjolras, Feuilly, and Combeferre standing in the room with their hats +on and all ready to go out. + +Courfeyrac said to him:-- + +"Are you coming to General Lamarque's funeral?" + +It seemed to him that Courfeyrac was speaking Chinese. + +He went out some time after them. He put in his pocket the pistols which +Javert had given him at the time of the adventure on the 3d of February, +and which had remained in his hands. These pistols were still loaded. It +would be difficult to say what vague thought he had in his mind when he +took them with him. + +All day long he prowled about, without knowing where he was going; it +rained at times, he did not perceive it; for his dinner, he purchased a +penny roll at a baker's, put it in his pocket and forgot it. It appears +that he took a bath in the Seine without being aware of it. There are +moments when a man has a furnace within his skull. Marius was passing +through one of those moments. He no longer hoped for anything; this +step he had taken since the preceding evening. He waited for night with +feverish impatience, he had but one idea clearly before his mind;--this +was, that at nine o'clock he should see Cosette. This last happiness +now constituted his whole future; after that, gloom. At intervals, as +he roamed through the most deserted boulevards, it seemed to him that he +heard strange noises in Paris. He thrust his head out of his revery and +said: "Is there fighting on hand?" + +At nightfall, at nine o'clock precisely, as he had promised Cosette, +he was in the Rue Plumet. When he approached the grating he forgot +everything. It was forty-eight hours since he had seen Cosette; he was +about to behold her once more; every other thought was effaced, and +he felt only a profound and unheard-of joy. Those minutes in which one +lives centuries always have this sovereign and wonderful property, that +at the moment when they are passing they fill the heart completely. + +Marius displaced the bar, and rushed headlong into the garden. Cosette +was not at the spot where she ordinarily waited for him. He traversed +the thicket, and approached the recess near the flight of steps: "She +is waiting for me there," said he. Cosette was not there. He raised his +eyes, and saw that the shutters of the house were closed. He made the +tour of the garden, the garden was deserted. Then he returned to +the house, and, rendered senseless by love, intoxicated, terrified, +exasperated with grief and uneasiness, like a master who returns home at +an evil hour, he tapped on the shutters. He knocked and knocked again, +at the risk of seeing the window open, and her father's gloomy face +make its appearance, and demand: "What do you want?" This was nothing in +comparison with what he dimly caught a glimpse of. When he had rapped, +he lifted up his voice and called Cosette.--"Cosette!" he cried; +"Cosette!" he repeated imperiously. There was no reply. All was over. No +one in the garden; no one in the house. + +Marius fixed his despairing eyes on that dismal house, which was as +black and as silent as a tomb and far more empty. He gazed at the stone +seat on which he had passed so many adorable hours with Cosette. Then he +seated himself on the flight of steps, his heart filled with sweetness +and resolution, he blessed his love in the depths of his thought, and +he said to himself that, since Cosette was gone, all that there was left +for him was to die. + +All at once he heard a voice which seemed to proceed from the street, +and which was calling to him through the trees:-- + +"Mr. Marius!" + +He started to his feet. + +"Hey?" said he. + +"Mr. Marius, are you there?" + +"Yes." + +"Mr. Marius," went on the voice, "your friends are waiting for you at +the barricade of the Rue de la Chanvrerie." + +This voice was not wholly unfamiliar to him. It resembled the hoarse, +rough voice of Eponine. Marius hastened to the gate, thrust aside the +movable bar, passed his head through the aperture, and saw some one who +appeared to him to be a young man, disappearing at a run into the gloom. + + + + +CHAPTER III--M. MABEUF + +Jean Valjean's purse was of no use to M. Mabeuf. M. Mabeuf, in his +venerable, infantile austerity, had not accepted the gift of the stars; +he had not admitted that a star could coin itself into louis d'or. He +had not divined that what had fallen from heaven had come from Gavroche. +He had taken the purse to the police commissioner of the quarter, as +a lost article placed by the finder at the disposal of claimants. The +purse was actually lost. It is unnecessary to say that no one claimed +it, and that it did not succor M. Mabeuf. + +Moreover, M. Mabeuf had continued his downward course. + +His experiments on indigo had been no more successful in the Jardin des +Plantes than in his garden at Austerlitz. The year before he had owed +his housekeeper's wages; now, as we have seen, he owed three quarters +of his rent. The pawnshop had sold the plates of his Flora after the +expiration of thirteen months. Some coppersmith had made stewpans of +them. His copper plates gone, and being unable to complete even the +incomplete copies of his Flora which were in his possession, he had +disposed of the text, at a miserable price, as waste paper, to a +second-hand bookseller. Nothing now remained to him of his life's work. +He set to work to eat up the money for these copies. When he saw that +this wretched resource was becoming exhausted, he gave up his garden +and allowed it to run to waste. Before this, a long time before, he had +given up his two eggs and the morsel of beef which he ate from time +to time. He dined on bread and potatoes. He had sold the last of his +furniture, then all duplicates of his bedding, his clothing and his +blankets, then his herbariums and prints; but he still retained his most +precious books, many of which were of the greatest rarity, among others, +Les Quadrins Historiques de la Bible, edition of 1560; La Concordance +des Bibles, by Pierre de Besse; Les Marguerites de la Marguerite, of +Jean de La Haye, with a dedication to the Queen of Navarre; the book de +la Charge et Dignite de l'Ambassadeur, by the Sieur de Villiers +Hotman; a Florilegium Rabbinicum of 1644; a Tibullus of 1567, with this +magnificent inscription: Venetiis, in aedibus Manutianis; and lastly, a +Diogenes Laertius, printed at Lyons in 1644, which contained the famous +variant of the manuscript 411, thirteenth century, of the Vatican, and +those of the two manuscripts of Venice, 393 and 394, consulted with +such fruitful results by Henri Estienne, and all the passages in Doric +dialect which are only found in the celebrated manuscript of the twelfth +century belonging to the Naples Library. M. Mabeuf never had any fire +in his chamber, and went to bed at sundown, in order not to consume +any candles. It seemed as though he had no longer any neighbors: people +avoided him when he went out; he perceived the fact. The wretchedness of +a child interests a mother, the wretchedness of a young man interests a +young girl, the wretchedness of an old man interests no one. It is, of +all distresses, the coldest. Still, Father Mabeuf had not entirely lost +his childlike serenity. His eyes acquired some vivacity when they rested +on his books, and he smiled when he gazed at the Diogenes Laertius, +which was a unique copy. His bookcase with glass doors was the +only piece of furniture which he had kept beyond what was strictly +indispensable. + +One day, Mother Plutarque said to him:-- + +"I have no money to buy any dinner." + +What she called dinner was a loaf of bread and four or five potatoes. + +"On credit?" suggested M. Mabeuf. + +"You know well that people refuse me." + +M. Mabeuf opened his bookcase, took a long look at all his books, one +after another, as a father obliged to decimate his children would gaze +upon them before making a choice, then seized one hastily, put it +in under his arm and went out. He returned two hours later, without +anything under his arm, laid thirty sous on the table, and said:-- + +"You will get something for dinner." + +From that moment forth, Mother Plutarque saw a sombre veil, which was +never more lifted, descend over the old man's candid face. + +On the following day, on the day after, and on the day after that, it +had to be done again. + +M. Mabeuf went out with a book and returned with a coin. As the +second-hand dealers perceived that he was forced to sell, they purchased +of him for twenty sous that for which he had paid twenty francs, +sometimes at those very shops. Volume by volume, the whole library +went the same road. He said at times: "But I am eighty;" as though he +cherished some secret hope that he should arrive at the end of his days +before reaching the end of his books. His melancholy increased. Once, +however, he had a pleasure. He had gone out with a Robert Estienne, +which he had sold for thirty-five sous under the Quai Malaquais, and he +returned with an Aldus which he had bought for forty sous in the Rue des +Gres.--"I owe five sous," he said, beaming on Mother Plutarque. That day +he had no dinner. + +He belonged to the Horticultural Society. His destitution became known +there. The president of the society came to see him, promised to +speak to the Minister of Agriculture and Commerce about him, and did +so.--"Why, what!" exclaimed the Minister, "I should think so! An old +savant! a botanist! an inoffensive man! Something must be done for him!" +On the following day, M. Mabeuf received an invitation to dine with the +Minister. Trembling with joy, he showed the letter to Mother Plutarque. +"We are saved!" said he. On the day appointed, he went to the Minister's +house. He perceived that his ragged cravat, his long, square coat, and +his waxed shoes astonished the ushers. No one spoke to him, not even the +Minister. About ten o'clock in the evening, while he was still waiting +for a word, he heard the Minister's wife, a beautiful woman in a +low-necked gown whom he had not ventured to approach, inquire: "Who is +that old gentleman?" He returned home on foot at midnight, in a driving +rain-storm. He had sold an Elzevir to pay for a carriage in which to go +thither. + +He had acquired the habit of reading a few pages in his Diogenes +Laertius every night, before he went to bed. He knew enough Greek to +enjoy the peculiarities of the text which he owned. He had now no other +enjoyment. Several weeks passed. All at once, Mother Plutarque fell ill. +There is one thing sadder than having no money with which to buy bread +at the baker's and that is having no money to purchase drugs at the +apothecary's. One evening, the doctor had ordered a very expensive +potion. And the malady was growing worse; a nurse was required. M. +Mabeuf opened his bookcase; there was nothing there. The last volume had +taken its departure. All that was left to him was Diogenes Laertius. +He put this unique copy under his arm, and went out. It was the 4th of +June, 1832; he went to the Porte Saint-Jacques, to Royal's successor, +and returned with one hundred francs. He laid the pile of five-franc +pieces on the old serving-woman's nightstand, and returned to his +chamber without saying a word. + +On the following morning, at dawn, he seated himself on the overturned +post in his garden, and he could be seen over the top of the hedge, +sitting the whole morning motionless, with drooping head, his eyes +vaguely fixed on the withered flower-beds. It rained at intervals; the +old man did not seem to perceive the fact. + +In the afternoon, extraordinary noises broke out in Paris. They +resembled shots and the clamors of a multitude. + +Father Mabeuf raised his head. He saw a gardener passing, and +inquired:-- + +"What is it?" + +The gardener, spade on back, replied in the most unconcerned tone:-- + +"It is the riots." + +"What riots?" + +"Yes, they are fighting." + +"Why are they fighting?" + +"Ah, good Heavens!" ejaculated the gardener. + +"In what direction?" went on M. Mabeuf. + +"In the neighborhood of the Arsenal." + +Father Mabeuf went to his room, took his hat, mechanically sought for a +book to place under his arm, found none, said: "Ah! truly!" and went off +with a bewildered air. + + + + +BOOK TENTH.--THE 5TH OF JUNE, 1832 + + + + +CHAPTER I--THE SURFACE OF THE QUESTION + +Of what is revolt composed? Of nothing and of everything. Of an +electricity disengaged, little by little, of a flame suddenly darting +forth, of a wandering force, of a passing breath. This breath encounters +heads which speak, brains which dream, souls which suffer, passions +which burn, wretchedness which howls, and bears them away. + +Whither? + +At random. Athwart the state, the laws, athwart prosperity and the +insolence of others. + +Irritated convictions, embittered enthusiasms, agitated indignations, +instincts of war which have been repressed, youthful courage which has +been exalted, generous blindness; curiosity, the taste for change, +the thirst for the unexpected, the sentiment which causes one to +take pleasure in reading the posters for the new play, and love, +the prompter's whistle, at the theatre; the vague hatreds, rancors, +disappointments, every vanity which thinks that destiny has bankrupted +it; discomfort, empty dreams, ambitious that are hedged about, whoever +hopes for a downfall, some outcome, in short, at the very bottom, the +rabble, that mud which catches fire,--such are the elements of revolt. +That which is grandest and that which is basest; the beings who prowl +outside of all bounds, awaiting an occasion, bohemians, vagrants, +vagabonds of the cross-roads, those who sleep at night in a desert of +houses with no other roof than the cold clouds of heaven, those who, +each day, demand their bread from chance and not from toil, the unknown +of poverty and nothingness, the bare-armed, the bare-footed, belong to +revolt. Whoever cherishes in his soul a secret revolt against any deed +whatever on the part of the state, of life or of fate, is ripe for riot, +and, as soon as it makes its appearance, he begins to quiver, and to +feel himself borne away with the whirlwind. + +Revolt is a sort of waterspout in the social atmosphere which forms +suddenly in certain conditions of temperature, and which, as it eddies +about, mounts, descends, thunders, tears, razes, crushes, demolishes, +uproots, bearing with it great natures and small, the strong man and the +feeble mind, the tree trunk and the stalk of straw. Woe to him whom it +bears away as well as to him whom it strikes! It breaks the one against +the other. + +It communicates to those whom it seizes an indescribable and +extraordinary power. It fills the first-comer with the force of events; +it converts everything into projectiles. It makes a cannon-ball of a +rough stone, and a general of a porter. + +If we are to believe certain oracles of crafty political views, a little +revolt is desirable from the point of view of power. System: revolt +strengthens those governments which it does not overthrow. It puts +the army to the test; it consecrates the bourgeoisie, it draws out +the muscles of the police; it demonstrates the force of the social +framework. It is an exercise in gymnastics; it is almost hygiene. Power +is in better health after a revolt, as a man is after a good rubbing +down. + +Revolt, thirty years ago, was regarded from still other points of view. + +There is for everything a theory, which proclaims itself "good sense"; +Philintus against Alcestis; mediation offered between the false and the +true; explanation, admonition, rather haughty extenuation which, because +it is mingled with blame and excuse, thinks itself wisdom, and is often +only pedantry. A whole political school called "the golden mean" has +been the outcome of this. As between cold water and hot water, it is +the lukewarm water party. This school with its false depth, all on the +surface, which dissects effects without going back to first causes, +chides from its height of a demi-science, the agitation of the public +square. + +If we listen to this school, "The riots which complicated the affair +of 1830 deprived that great event of a portion of its purity. The +Revolution of July had been a fine popular gale, abruptly followed +by blue sky. They made the cloudy sky reappear. They caused that +revolution, at first so remarkable for its unanimity, to degenerate into +a quarrel. In the Revolution of July, as in all progress accomplished by +fits and starts, there had been secret fractures; these riots rendered +them perceptible. It might have been said: 'Ah! this is broken.' After +the Revolution of July, one was sensible only of deliverance; after the +riots, one was conscious of a catastrophe. + +"All revolt closes the shops, depresses the funds, throws the Exchange +into consternation, suspends commerce, clogs business, precipitates +failures; no more money, private fortunes rendered uneasy, public credit +shaken, industry disconcerted, capital withdrawing, work at a discount, +fear everywhere; counter-shocks in every town. Hence gulfs. It has been +calculated that the first day of a riot costs France twenty millions, +the second day forty, the third sixty, a three days' uprising costs +one hundred and twenty millions, that is to say, if only the financial +result be taken into consideration, it is equivalent to a disaster, a +shipwreck or a lost battle, which should annihilate a fleet of sixty +ships of the line. + +"No doubt, historically, uprisings have their beauty; the war of the +pavements is no less grandiose, and no less pathetic, than the war of +thickets: in the one there is the soul of forests, in the other the +heart of cities; the one has Jean Chouan, the other has a Jeanne. +Revolts have illuminated with a red glare all the most original points +of the Parisian character, generosity, devotion, stormy gayety, students +proving that bravery forms part of intelligence, the National Guard +invincible, bivouacs of shopkeepers, fortresses of street urchins, +contempt of death on the part of passers-by. Schools and legions clashed +together. After all, between the combatants, there was only a difference +of age; the race is the same; it is the same stoical men who died at the +age of twenty for their ideas, at forty for their families. The +army, always a sad thing in civil wars, opposed prudence to audacity. +Uprisings, while proving popular intrepidity, also educated the courage +of the bourgeois. + +"This is well. But is all this worth the bloodshed? And to the bloodshed +add the future darkness, progress compromised, uneasiness among the +best men, honest liberals in despair, foreign absolutism happy in these +wounds dealt to revolution by its own hand, the vanquished of 1830 +triumphing and saying: 'We told you so!' Add Paris enlarged, possibly, +but France most assuredly diminished. Add, for all must needs be told, +the massacres which have too often dishonored the victory of order grown +ferocious over liberty gone mad. To sum up all, uprisings have been +disastrous." + +Thus speaks that approximation to wisdom with which the bourgeoisie, +that approximation to the people, so willingly contents itself. + +For our parts, we reject this word uprisings as too large, and +consequently as too convenient. We make a distinction between one +popular movement and another popular movement. We do not inquire whether +an uprising costs as much as a battle. Why a battle, in the first place? +Here the question of war comes up. Is war less of a scourge than an +uprising is of a calamity? And then, are all uprisings calamities? And +what if the revolt of July did cost a hundred and twenty millions? The +establishment of Philip V. in Spain cost France two milliards. Even at +the same price, we should prefer the 14th of July. However, we reject +these figures, which appear to be reasons and which are only words. An +uprising being given, we examine it by itself. In all that is said by +the doctrinarian objection above presented, there is no question of +anything but effect, we seek the cause. + +We will be explicit. + + + + +CHAPTER II--THE ROOT OF THE MATTER + +There is such a thing as an uprising, and there is such a thing as +insurrection; these are two separate phases of wrath; one is in the +wrong, the other is in the right. In democratic states, the only ones +which are founded on justice, it sometimes happens that the fraction +usurps; then the whole rises and the necessary claim of its rights may +proceed as far as resort to arms. In all questions which result from +collective sovereignty, the war of the whole against the fraction is +insurrection; the attack of the fraction against the whole is revolt; +according as the Tuileries contain a king or the Convention, they +are justly or unjustly attacked. The same cannon, pointed against the +populace, is wrong on the 10th of August, and right on the 14th of +Vendemiaire. Alike in appearance, fundamentally different in reality; +the Swiss defend the false, Bonaparte defends the true. That which +universal suffrage has effected in its liberty and in its sovereignty +cannot be undone by the street. It is the same in things pertaining +purely to civilization; the instinct of the masses, clear-sighted +to-day, may be troubled to-morrow. The same fury legitimate when +directed against Terray and absurd when directed against Turgot. The +destruction of machines, the pillage of warehouses, the breaking of +rails, the demolition of docks, the false routes of multitudes, the +refusal by the people of justice to progress, Ramus assassinated by +students, Rousseau driven out of Switzerland and stoned,--that is +revolt. Israel against Moses, Athens against Phocian, Rome against +Cicero,--that is an uprising; Paris against the Bastille,--that is +insurrection. The soldiers against Alexander, the sailors against +Christopher Columbus,--this is the same revolt; impious revolt; +why? Because Alexander is doing for Asia with the sword that which +Christopher Columbus is doing for America with the compass; Alexander +like Columbus, is finding a world. These gifts of a world to +civilization are such augmentations of light, that all resistance in +that case is culpable. Sometimes the populace counterfeits fidelity to +itself. The masses are traitors to the people. Is there, for example, +anything stranger than that long and bloody protest of dealers in +contraband salt, a legitimate chronic revolt, which, at the decisive +moment, on the day of salvation, at the very hour of popular victory, +espouses the throne, turns into chouannerie, and, from having been an +insurrection against, becomes an uprising for, sombre masterpieces of +ignorance! The contraband salt dealer escapes the royal gibbets, and +with a rope's end round his neck, mounts the white cockade. "Death to +the salt duties," brings forth, "Long live the King!" The assassins of +Saint-Barthelemy, the cut-throats of September, the manslaughterers of +Avignon, the assassins of Coligny, the assassins of Madam Lamballe, the +assassins of Brune, Miquelets, Verdets, Cadenettes, the companions of +Jehu, the chevaliers of Brassard,--behold an uprising. La Vendee is +a grand, catholic uprising. The sound of right in movement is +recognizable, it does not always proceed from the trembling of excited +masses; there are mad rages, there are cracked bells, all tocsins do not +give out the sound of bronze. The brawl of passions and ignorances +is quite another thing from the shock of progress. Show me in what +direction you are going. Rise, if you will, but let it be that you may +grow great. There is no insurrection except in a forward direction. Any +other sort of rising is bad; every violent step towards the rear is a +revolt; to retreat is to commit a deed of violence against the human +race. Insurrection is a fit of rage on the part of truth; the pavements +which the uprising disturbs give forth the spark of right. These +pavements bequeath to the uprising only their mud. Danton against Louis +XIV. is insurrection; Hebert against Danton is revolt. + +Hence it results that if insurrection in given cases may be, as +Lafayette says, the most holy of duties, an uprising may be the most +fatal of crimes. + +There is also a difference in the intensity of heat; insurrection is +often a volcano, revolt is often only a fire of straw. + +Revolt, as we have said, is sometimes found among those in power. +Polignac is a rioter; Camille Desmoulins is one of the governing powers. + +Insurrection is sometimes resurrection. + +The solution of everything by universal suffrage being an absolutely +modern fact, and all history anterior to this fact being, for the space +of four thousand years, filled with violated right, and the suffering of +peoples, each epoch of history brings with it that protest of which it +is capable. Under the Caesars, there was no insurrection, but there was +Juvenal. + +The facit indignatio replaces the Gracchi. + +Under the Caesars, there is the exile to Syene; there is also the man of +the Annales. We do not speak of the immense exile of Patmos who, on his +part also, overwhelms the real world with a protest in the name of the +ideal world, who makes of his vision an enormous satire and casts on +Rome-Nineveh, on Rome-Babylon, on Rome-Sodom, the flaming reflection of +the Apocalypse. John on his rock is the sphinx on its pedestal; we may +understand him, he is a Jew, and it is Hebrew; but the man who writes +the Annales is of the Latin race, let us rather say he is a Roman. + +As the Neros reign in a black way, they should be painted to match. The +work of the graving-tool alone would be too pale; there must be poured +into the channel a concentrated prose which bites. + +Despots count for something in the question of philosophers. A word that +is chained is a terrible word. The writer doubles and trebles his style +when silence is imposed on a nation by its master. From this silence +there arises a certain mysterious plenitude which filters into thought +and there congeals into bronze. The compression of history produces +conciseness in the historian. The granite solidity of such and such a +celebrated prose is nothing but the accumulation effected by the tyrant. + +Tyranny constrains the writer to conditions of diameter which are +augmentations of force. The Ciceronian period, which hardly sufficed +for Verres, would be blunted on Caligula. The less spread of sail in +the phrase, the more intensity in the blow. Tacitus thinks with all his +might. + +The honesty of a great heart, condensed in justice and truth, overwhelms +as with lightning. + +Be it remarked, in passing, that Tacitus is not historically superposed +upon Caesar. The Tiberii were reserved for him. Caesar and Tacitus +are two successive phenomena, a meeting between whom seems to be +mysteriously avoided, by the One who, when He sets the centuries on the +stage, regulates the entrances and the exits. Caesar is great, Tacitus +is great; God spares these two greatnesses by not allowing them to clash +with one another. The guardian of justice, in striking Caesar, might +strike too hard and be unjust. God does not will it. The great wars +of Africa and Spain, the pirates of Sicily destroyed, civilization +introduced into Gaul, into Britanny, into Germany,--all this glory +covers the Rubicon. There is here a sort of delicacy of the divine +justice, hesitating to let loose upon the illustrious usurper the +formidable historian, sparing Caesar Tacitus, and according extenuating +circumstances to genius. + +Certainly, despotism remains despotism, even under the despot of genius. +There is corruption under all illustrious tyrants, but the moral pest is +still more hideous under infamous tyrants. In such reigns, nothing veils +the shame; and those who make examples, Tacitus as well as Juvenal, +slap this ignominy which cannot reply, in the face, more usefully in the +presence of all humanity. + +Rome smells worse under Vitellius than under Sylla. Under Claudius and +under Domitian, there is a deformity of baseness corresponding to the +repulsiveness of the tyrant. The villainy of slaves is a direct product +of the despot; a miasma exhales from these cowering consciences wherein +the master is reflected; public powers are unclean; hearts are small; +consciences are dull, souls are like vermin; thus it is under Caracalla, +thus it is under Commodus, thus it is under Heliogabalus, while, from +the Roman Senate, under Caesar, there comes nothing but the odor of the +dung which is peculiar to the eyries of the eagles. + +Hence the advent, apparently tardy, of the Tacituses and the Juvenals; +it is in the hour for evidence, that the demonstrator makes his +appearance. + +But Juvenal and Tacitus, like Isaiah in Biblical times, like Dante in +the Middle Ages, is man; riot and insurrection are the multitude, which +is sometimes right and sometimes wrong. + +In the majority of cases, riot proceeds from a material fact; +insurrection is always a moral phenomenon. Riot is Masaniello; +insurrection, Spartacus. Insurrection borders on mind, riot on the +stomach; Gaster grows irritated; but Gaster, assuredly, is not always in +the wrong. In questions of famine, riot, Buzancais, for example, holds a +true, pathetic, and just point of departure. Nevertheless, it remains +a riot. Why? It is because, right at bottom, it was wrong in form. Shy +although in the right, violent although strong, it struck at random; it +walked like a blind elephant; it left behind it the corpses of old +men, of women, and of children; it wished the blood of inoffensive and +innocent persons without knowing why. The nourishment of the people is a +good object; to massacre them is a bad means. + +All armed protests, even the most legitimate, even that of the 10th of +August, even that of July 14th, begin with the same troubles. Before +the right gets set free, there is foam and tumult. In the beginning, the +insurrection is a riot, just as a river is a torrent. Ordinarily it ends +in that ocean: revolution. Sometimes, however, coming from those lofty +mountains which dominate the moral horizon, justice, wisdom, reason, +right, formed of the pure snow of the ideal, after a long fall from +rock to rock, after having reflected the sky in its transparency and +increased by a hundred affluents in the majestic mien of triumph, +insurrection is suddenly lost in some quagmire, as the Rhine is in a +swamp. + +All this is of the past, the future is another thing. Universal suffrage +has this admirable property, that it dissolves riot in its inception, +and, by giving the vote to insurrection, it deprives it of its arms. +The disappearance of wars, of street wars as well as of wars on the +frontiers, such is the inevitable progression. Whatever To-day may be, +To-morrow will be peace. + +However, insurrection, riot, and points of difference between the former +and the latter,--the bourgeois, properly speaking, knows nothing of such +shades. In his mind, all is sedition, rebellion pure and simple, the +revolt of the dog against his master, an attempt to bite whom must be +punished by the chain and the kennel, barking, snapping, until such day +as the head of the dog, suddenly enlarged, is outlined vaguely in the +gloom face to face with the lion. + +Then the bourgeois shouts: "Long live the people!" + +This explanation given, what does the movement of June, 1832, signify, +so far as history is concerned? Is it a revolt? Is it an insurrection? + +It may happen to us, in placing this formidable event on the stage, to +say revolt now and then, but merely to distinguish superficial facts, +and always preserving the distinction between revolt, the form, and +insurrection, the foundation. + +This movement of 1832 had, in its rapid outbreak and in its melancholy +extinction, so much grandeur, that even those who see in it only an +uprising, never refer to it otherwise than with respect. For them, it +is like a relic of 1830. Excited imaginations, say they, are not to be +calmed in a day. A revolution cannot be cut off short. It must needs +undergo some undulations before it returns to a state of rest, like a +mountain sinking into the plain. There are no Alps without their Jura, +nor Pyrenees without the Asturias. + +This pathetic crisis of contemporary history which the memory of +Parisians calls "the epoch of the riots," is certainly a characteristic +hour amid the stormy hours of this century. A last word, before we enter +on the recital. + +The facts which we are about to relate belong to that dramatic and +living reality, which the historian sometimes neglects for lack of time +and space. There, nevertheless, we insist upon it, is life, palpitation, +human tremor. Petty details, as we think we have already said, are, so +to speak, the foliage of great events, and are lost in the distance of +history. The epoch, surnamed "of the riots," abounds in details of +this nature. Judicial inquiries have not revealed, and perhaps have not +sounded the depths, for another reason than history. We shall therefore +bring to light, among the known and published peculiarities, things +which have not heretofore been known, about facts over which have passed +the forgetfulness of some, and the death of others. The majority of the +actors in these gigantic scenes have disappeared; beginning with the +very next day they held their peace; but of what we shall relate, we +shall be able to say: "We have seen this." We alter a few names, for +history relates and does not inform against, but the deed which we shall +paint will be genuine. In accordance with the conditions of the book +which we are now writing, we shall show only one side and one episode, +and certainly, the least known at that, of the two days, the 5th and the +6th of June, 1832, but we shall do it in such wise that the reader may +catch a glimpse, beneath the gloomy veil which we are about to lift, of +the real form of this frightful public adventure. + + + + +CHAPTER III--A BURIAL; AN OCCASION TO BE BORN AGAIN + +In the spring of 1832, although the cholera had been chilling all +minds for the last three months and had cast over their agitation an +indescribable and gloomy pacification, Paris had already long been ripe +for commotion. As we have said, the great city resembles a piece of +artillery; when it is loaded, it suffices for a spark to fall, and the +shot is discharged. In June, 1832, the spark was the death of General +Lamarque. + +Lamarque was a man of renown and of action. He had had in succession, +under the Empire and under the Restoration, the sorts of bravery +requisite for the two epochs, the bravery of the battle-field and the +bravery of the tribune. He was as eloquent as he had been valiant; a +sword was discernible in his speech. Like Foy, his predecessor, after +upholding the command, he upheld liberty; he sat between the left and +the extreme left, beloved of the people because he accepted the chances +of the future, beloved of the populace because he had served the +Emperor well; he was, in company with Comtes Gerard and Drouet, one +of Napoleon's marshals in petto. The treaties of 1815 removed him as +a personal offence. He hated Wellington with a downright hatred which +pleased the multitude; and, for seventeen years, he majestically +preserved the sadness of Waterloo, paying hardly any attention to +intervening events. In his death agony, at his last hour, he clasped to +his breast a sword which had been presented to him by the officers of +the Hundred Days. Napoleon had died uttering the word army, Lamarque +uttering the word country. + +His death, which was expected, was dreaded by the people as a loss, and +by the government as an occasion. This death was an affliction. Like +everything that is bitter, affliction may turn to revolt. This is what +took place. + +On the preceding evening, and on the morning of the 5th of June, the day +appointed for Lamarque's burial, the Faubourg Saint-Antoine, which the +procession was to touch at, assumed a formidable aspect. This tumultuous +network of streets was filled with rumors. They armed themselves as best +they might. Joiners carried off door-weights of their establishment +"to break down doors." One of them had made himself a dagger of a +stocking-weaver's hook by breaking off the hook and sharpening the +stump. Another, who was in a fever "to attack," slept wholly dressed +for three days. A carpenter named Lombier met a comrade, who asked him: +"Whither are you going?" "Eh! well, I have no weapons." "What then?" +"I'm going to my timber-yard to get my compasses." "What for?" "I don't +know," said Lombier. A certain Jacqueline, an expeditious man, accosted +some passing artisans: "Come here, you!" He treated them to ten sous' +worth of wine and said: "Have you work?" "No." "Go to Filspierre, +between the Barriere Charonne and the Barriere Montreuil, and you will +find work." At Filspierre's they found cartridges and arms. Certain +well-known leaders were going the rounds, that is to say, running from +one house to another, to collect their men. At Barthelemy's, near the +Barriere du Trone, at Capel's, near the Petit-Chapeau, the drinkers +accosted each other with a grave air. They were heard to say: "Have you +your pistol?" "Under my blouse." "And you?" "Under my shirt." In the +Rue Traversiere, in front of the Bland workshop, and in the yard of +the Maison-Brulee, in front of tool-maker Bernier's, groups whispered +together. Among them was observed a certain Mavot, who never remained +more than a week in one shop, as the masters always discharged him +"because they were obliged to dispute with him every day." Mavot was +killed on the following day at the barricade of the Rue Menilmontant. +Pretot, who was destined to perish also in the struggle, seconded Mavot, +and to the question: "What is your object?" he replied: "Insurrection." +Workmen assembled at the corner of the Rue de Bercy, waited for a +certain Lemarin, the revolutionary agent for the Faubourg Saint-Marceau. +Watchwords were exchanged almost publicly. + +On the 5th of June, accordingly, a day of mingled rain and sun, General +Lamarque's funeral procession traversed Paris with official military +pomp, somewhat augmented through precaution. Two battalions, with draped +drums and reversed arms, ten thousand National Guards, with their swords +at their sides, escorted the coffin. The hearse was drawn by young men. +The officers of the Invalides came immediately behind it, bearing laurel +branches. Then came an innumerable, strange, agitated multitude, the +sectionaries of the Friends of the People, the Law School, the Medical +School, refugees of all nationalities, and Spanish, Italian, German, +and Polish flags, tricolored horizontal banners, every possible sort of +banner, children waving green boughs, stone-cutters and carpenters who +were on strike at the moment, printers who were recognizable by their +paper caps, marching two by two, three by three, uttering cries, nearly +all of them brandishing sticks, some brandishing sabres, without order +and yet with a single soul, now a tumultuous rout, again a column. +Squads chose themselves leaders; a man armed with a pair of pistols in +full view, seemed to pass the host in review, and the files separated +before him. On the side alleys of the boulevards, in the branches of the +trees, on balconies, in windows, on the roofs, swarmed the heads of men, +women, and children; all eyes were filled with anxiety. An armed throng +was passing, and a terrified throng looked on. + +The Government, on its side, was taking observations. It observed with +its hand on its sword. Four squadrons of carabineers could be seen in +the Place Louis XV. in their saddles, with their trumpets at their head, +cartridge-boxes filled and muskets loaded, all in readiness to march; +in the Latin country and at the Jardin des Plantes, the Municipal Guard +echelonned from street to street; at the Halle-aux-Vins, a squadron of +dragoons; at the Greve half of the 12th Light Infantry, the other +half being at the Bastille; the 6th Dragoons at the Celestins; and the +courtyard of the Louvre full of artillery. The remainder of the troops +were confined to their barracks, without reckoning the regiments of the +environs of Paris. Power being uneasy, held suspended over the menacing +multitude twenty-four thousand soldiers in the city and thirty thousand +in the banlieue. + +Divers reports were in circulation in the cortege. Legitimist tricks +were hinted at; they spoke of the Duc de Reichstadt, whom God had marked +out for death at that very moment when the populace were designating +him for the Empire. One personage, whose name has remained unknown, +announced that at a given hour two overseers who had been won over, +would throw open the doors of a factory of arms to the people. That +which predominated on the uncovered brows of the majority of those +present was enthusiasm mingled with dejection. Here and there, also, in +that multitude given over to such violent but noble emotions, there were +visible genuine visages of criminals and ignoble mouths which said: "Let +us plunder!" There are certain agitations which stir up the bottoms of +marshes and make clouds of mud rise through the water. A phenomenon to +which "well drilled" policemen are no strangers. + +The procession proceeded, with feverish slowness, from the house of the +deceased, by way of the boulevards as far as the Bastille. It rained +from time to time; the rain mattered nothing to that throng. Many +incidents, the coffin borne round the Vendome column, stones thrown at +the Duc de Fitz-James, who was seen on a balcony with his hat on his +head, the Gallic cock torn from a popular flag and dragged in the mire, +a policeman wounded with a blow from a sword at the Porte Saint-Martin, +an officer of the 12th Light Infantry saying aloud: "I am a Republican," +the Polytechnic School coming up unexpectedly against orders to remain +at home, the shouts of: "Long live the Polytechnique! Long live the +Republic!" marked the passage of the funeral train. At the Bastille, +long files of curious and formidable people who descended from the +Faubourg Saint-Antoine, effected a junction with the procession, and a +certain terrible seething began to agitate the throng. + +One man was heard to say to another: "Do you see that fellow with a +red beard, he's the one who will give the word when we are to fire." It +appears that this red beard was present, at another riot, the Quenisset +affair, entrusted with this same function. + +The hearse passed the Bastille, traversed the small bridge, and reached +the esplanade of the bridge of Austerlitz. There it halted. The crowd, +surveyed at that moment with a bird'seye view, would have presented the +aspect of a comet whose head was on the esplanade and whose tail spread +out over the Quai Bourdon, covered the Bastille, and was prolonged on +the boulevard as far as the Porte Saint-Martin. A circle was traced +around the hearse. The vast rout held their peace. Lafayette spoke and +bade Lamarque farewell. This was a touching and august instant, all +heads uncovered, all hearts beat high. + +All at once, a man on horseback, clad in black, made his appearance +in the middle of the group with a red flag, others say, with a pike +surmounted with a red liberty-cap. Lafayette turned aside his head. +Exelmans quitted the procession. + +This red flag raised a storm, and disappeared in the midst of it. From +the Boulevard Bourdon to the bridge of Austerlitz one of those clamors +which resemble billows stirred the multitude. Two prodigious shouts went +up: "Lamarque to the Pantheon!--Lafayette to the Town-hall!" Some young +men, amid the declamations of the throng, harnessed themselves and +began to drag Lamarque in the hearse across the bridge of Austerlitz and +Lafayette in a hackney-coach along the Quai Morland. + +In the crowd which surrounded and cheered Lafayette, it was noticed +that a German showed himself named Ludwig Snyder, who died a centenarian +afterwards, who had also been in the war of 1776, and who had fought at +Trenton under Washington, and at Brandywine under Lafayette. + +In the meantime, the municipal cavalry on the left bank had been set +in motion, and came to bar the bridge, on the right bank the dragoons +emerged from the Celestins and deployed along the Quai Morland. The men +who were dragging Lafayette suddenly caught sight of them at the corner +of the quay and shouted: "The dragoons!" The dragoons advanced at a +walk, in silence, with their pistols in their holsters, their swords in +their scabbards, their guns slung in their leather sockets, with an air +of gloomy expectation. + +They halted two hundred paces from the little bridge. The carriage in +which sat Lafayette advanced to them, their ranks opened and allowed it +to pass, and then closed behind it. At that moment the dragoons and the +crowd touched. The women fled in terror. What took place during that +fatal minute? No one can say. It is the dark moment when two clouds come +together. Some declare that a blast of trumpets sounding the charge was +heard in the direction of the Arsenal others that a blow from a dagger +was given by a child to a dragoon. The fact is, that three shots were +suddenly discharged: the first killed Cholet, chief of the squadron, +the second killed an old deaf woman who was in the act of closing her +window, the third singed the shoulder of an officer; a woman screamed: +"They are beginning too soon!" and all at once, a squadron of dragoons +which had remained in the barracks up to this time, was seen to debouch +at a gallop with bared swords, through the Rue Bassompierre and the +Boulevard Bourdon, sweeping all before them. + +Then all is said, the tempest is loosed, stones rain down, a fusillade +breaks forth, many precipitate themselves to the bottom of the bank, and +pass the small arm of the Seine, now filled in, the timber-yards of the +Isle Louviers, that vast citadel ready to hand, bristle with combatants, +stakes are torn up, pistol-shots fired, a barricade begun, the young men +who are thrust back pass the Austerlitz bridge with the hearse at a run, +and the municipal guard, the carabineers rush up, the dragoons ply their +swords, the crowd disperses in all directions, a rumor of war flies to +all four quarters of Paris, men shout: "To arms!" they run, tumble down, +flee, resist. Wrath spreads abroad the riot as wind spreads a fire. + + + + +CHAPTER IV--THE EBULLITIONS OF FORMER DAYS + +Nothing is more extraordinary than the first breaking out of a riot. +Everything bursts forth everywhere at once. Was it foreseen? Yes. Was it +prepared? No. Whence comes it? From the pavements. Whence falls it? From +the clouds. Here insurrection assumes the character of a plot; there +of an improvisation. The first comer seizes a current of the throng +and leads it whither he wills. A beginning full of terror, in which is +mingled a sort of formidable gayety. First come clamors, the shops are +closed, the displays of the merchants disappear; then come isolated +shots; people flee; blows from gun-stocks beat against portes cocheres, +servants can be heard laughing in the courtyards of houses and saying: +"There's going to be a row!" + +A quarter of an hour had not elapsed when this is what was taking place +at twenty different spots in Paris at once. + +In the Rue Sainte-Croix-de-la-Bretonnerie, twenty young men, bearded and +with long hair, entered a dram-shop and emerged a moment later, carrying +a horizontal tricolored flag covered with crape, and having at their +head three men armed, one with a sword, one with a gun, and the third +with a pike. + +In the Rue des Nonaindieres, a very well-dressed bourgeois, who had a +prominent belly, a sonorous voice, a bald head, a lofty brow, a black +beard, and one of these stiff mustaches which will not lie flat, offered +cartridges publicly to passers-by. + +In the Rue Saint-Pierre-Montmartre, men with bare arms carried about a +black flag, on which could be read in white letters this inscription: +"Republic or Death!" In the Rue des Jeuneurs, Rue du Cadran, Rue +Montorgueil, Rue Mandar, groups appeared waving flags on which could be +distinguished in gold letters, the word section with a number. One of +these flags was red and blue with an almost imperceptible stripe of +white between. + +They pillaged a factory of small-arms on the Boulevard Saint-Martin, and +three armorers' shops, the first in the Rue Beaubourg, the second in the +Rue Michel-le-Comte, the other in the Rue du Temple. In a few minutes, +the thousand hands of the crowd had seized and carried off two hundred +and thirty guns, nearly all double-barrelled, sixty-four swords, and +eighty-three pistols. In order to provide more arms, one man took the +gun, the other the bayonet. + +Opposite the Quai de la Greve, young men armed with muskets installed +themselves in the houses of some women for the purpose of firing. One +of them had a flint-lock. They rang, entered, and set about making +cartridges. One of these women relates: "I did not know what cartridges +were; it was my husband who told me." + +One cluster broke into a curiosity shop in the Rue des Vielles +Haudriettes, and seized yataghans and Turkish arms. + +The body of a mason who had been killed by a gun-shot lay in the Rue de +la Perle. + +And then on the right bank, the left bank, on the quays, on the +boulevards, in the Latin country, in the quarter of the Halles, panting +men, artisans, students, members of sections read proclamations and +shouted: "To arms!" broke street lanterns, unharnessed carriages, +unpaved the streets, broke in the doors of houses, uprooted trees, +rummaged cellars, rolled out hogsheads, heaped up paving-stones, rough +slabs, furniture and planks, and made barricades. + +They forced the bourgeois to assist them in this. They entered the +dwellings of women, they forced them to hand over the swords and guns +of their absent husbands, and they wrote on the door, with whiting: "The +arms have been delivered"; some signed "their names" to receipts for +the guns and swords and said: "Send for them to-morrow at the Mayor's +office." They disarmed isolated sentinels and National Guardsmen in +the streets on their way to the Townhall. They tore the epaulets from +officers. In the Rue du Cimitiere-Saint-Nicholas, an officer of the +National Guard, on being pursued by a crowd armed with clubs and foils, +took refuge with difficulty in a house, whence he was only able to +emerge at nightfall and in disguise. + +In the Quartier Saint-Jacques, the students swarmed out of their +hotels and ascended the Rue Saint-Hyacinthe to the Cafe du Progress, +or descended to the Cafe des Sept-Billards, in the Rue des Mathurins. +There, in front of the door, young men mounted on the stone +corner-posts, distributed arms. They plundered the timber-yard in the +Rue Transnonain in order to obtain material for barricades. On a single +point the inhabitants resisted, at the corner of the Rue Sainte-Avoye +and the Rue Simon-Le-Franc, where they destroyed the barricade with +their own hands. At a single point the insurgents yielded; they +abandoned a barricade begun in the Rue de Temple after having fired on +a detachment of the National Guard, and fled through the Rue de la +Corderie. The detachment picked up in the barricade a red flag, a +package of cartridges, and three hundred pistol-balls. The National +Guardsmen tore up the flag, and carried off its tattered remains on the +points of their bayonets. + +All that we are here relating slowly and successively took place +simultaneously at all points of the city in the midst of a vast tumult, +like a mass of tongues of lightning in one clap of thunder. In less than +an hour, twenty-seven barricades sprang out of the earth in the quarter +of the Halles alone. In the centre was that famous house No. 50, which +was the fortress of Jeanne and her six hundred companions, and which, +flanked on the one hand by a barricade at Saint-Merry, and on the other +by a barricade of the Rue Maubuee, commanded three streets, the Rue +des Arcis, the Rue Saint-Martin, and the Rue Aubry-le-Boucher, which +it faced. The barricades at right angles fell back, the one of the +Rue Montorgueil on the Grande-Truanderie, the other of the Rue +Geoffroy-Langevin on the Rue Sainte-Avoye. Without reckoning innumerable +barricades in twenty other quarters of Paris, in the Marais, at +Mont-Sainte-Genevieve; one in the Rue Menilmontant, where was visible +a porte cochere torn from its hinges; another near the little bridge of +the Hotel-Dieu made with an "ecossais," which had been unharnessed and +overthrown, three hundred paces from the Prefecture of Police. + +At the barricade of the Rue des Menetriers, a well-dressed man +distributed money to the workmen. At the barricade of the Rue Grenetat, +a horseman made his appearance and handed to the one who seemed to be +the commander of the barricade what had the appearance of a roll of +silver. "Here," said he, "this is to pay expenses, wine, et caetera." +A light-haired young man, without a cravat, went from barricade to +barricade, carrying pass-words. Another, with a naked sword, a blue +police cap on his head, placed sentinels. In the interior, beyond the +barricades, the wine-shops and porters' lodges were converted into +guard-houses. Otherwise the riot was conducted after the most scientific +military tactics. The narrow, uneven, sinuous streets, full of angles +and turns, were admirably chosen; the neighborhood of the Halles, in +particular, a network of streets more intricate than a forest. The +Society of the Friends of the People had, it was said, undertaken to +direct the insurrection in the Quartier Sainte-Avoye. A man killed in +the Rue du Ponceau who was searched had on his person a plan of Paris. + +That which had really undertaken the direction of the uprising was a +sort of strange impetuosity which was in the air. The insurrection +had abruptly built barricades with one hand, and with the other seized +nearly all the posts of the garrison. In less than three hours, like a +train of powder catching fire, the insurgents had invaded and occupied, +on the right bank, the Arsenal, the Mayoralty of the Place Royale, the +whole of the Marais, the Popincourt arms manufactory, la Galiote, the +Chateau-d'Eau, and all the streets near the Halles; on the left bank, +the barracks of the Veterans, Sainte-Pelagie, the Place Maubert, the +powder magazine of the Deux-Moulins, and all the barriers. At five +o'clock in the evening, they were masters of the Bastille, of the +Lingerie, of the Blancs-Manteaux; their scouts had reached the Place +des Victoires, and menaced the Bank, the Petits-Peres barracks, and the +Post-Office. A third of Paris was in the hands of the rioters. + +The conflict had been begun on a gigantic scale at all points; and, as a +result of the disarming domiciliary visits, and armorers' shops hastily +invaded, was, that the combat which had begun with the throwing of +stones was continued with gun-shots. + +About six o'clock in the evening, the Passage du Saumon became the field +of battle. The uprising was at one end, the troops were at the other. +They fired from one gate to the other. An observer, a dreamer, the +author of this book, who had gone to get a near view of this volcano, +found himself in the passage between the two fires. All that he had to +protect him from the bullets was the swell of the two half-columns which +separate the shops; he remained in this delicate situation for nearly +half an hour. + +Meanwhile the call to arms was beaten, the National Guard armed in +haste, the legions emerged from the Mayoralities, the regiments from +their barracks. Opposite the passage de l'Ancre a drummer received a +blow from a dagger. Another, in the Rue du Cygne, was assailed by thirty +young men who broke his instrument, and took away his sword. Another was +killed in the Rue Grenier-Saint-Lazare. In the Rue-Michelle-Comte, three +officers fell dead one after the other. Many of the Municipal Guards, on +being wounded, in the Rue des Lombards, retreated. + +In front of the Cour-Batave, a detachment of National Guards found a red +flag bearing the following inscription: Republican revolution, No. 127. +Was this a revolution, in fact? + +The insurrection had made of the centre of Paris a sort of inextricable, +tortuous, colossal citadel. + +There was the hearth; there, evidently, was the question. All the rest +was nothing but skirmishes. The proof that all would be decided there +lay in the fact that there was no fighting going on there as yet. + +In some regiments, the soldiers were uncertain, which added to the +fearful uncertainty of the crisis. They recalled the popular ovation +which had greeted the neutrality of the 53d of the Line in July, 1830. +Two intrepid men, tried in great wars, the Marshal Lobau and General +Bugeaud, were in command, Bugeaud under Lobau. Enormous patrols, +composed of battalions of the Line, enclosed in entire companies of the +National Guard, and preceded by a commissary of police wearing his scarf +of office, went to reconnoitre the streets in rebellion. The insurgents, +on their side, placed videttes at the corners of all open spaces, and +audaciously sent their patrols outside the barricades. Each side was +watching the other. The Government, with an army in its hand, hesitated; +the night was almost upon them, and the Saint-Merry tocsin began to make +itself heard. The Minister of War at that time, Marshal Soult, who had +seen Austerlitz, regarded this with a gloomy air. + +These old sailors, accustomed to correct manoeuvres and having as +resource and guide only tactics, that compass of battles, are utterly +disconcerted in the presence of that immense foam which is called public +wrath. + +The National Guards of the suburbs rushed up in haste and disorder. A +battalion of the 12th Light came at a run from Saint-Denis, the 14th of +the Line arrived from Courbevoie, the batteries of the Military School +had taken up their position on the Carrousel; cannons were descending +from Vincennes. + +Solitude was formed around the Tuileries. Louis Philippe was perfectly +serene. + + + + +CHAPTER V--ORIGINALITY OF PARIS + +During the last two years, as we have said, Paris had witnessed more +than one insurrection. Nothing is, generally, more singularly calm than +the physiognomy of Paris during an uprising beyond the bounds of +the rebellious quarters. Paris very speedily accustoms herself to +anything,--it is only a riot,--and Paris has so many affairs on hand, +that she does not put herself out for so small a matter. These colossal +cities alone can offer such spectacles. These immense enclosures alone +can contain at the same time civil war and an odd and indescribable +tranquillity. Ordinarily, when an insurrection commences, when the +shop-keeper hears the drum, the call to arms, the general alarm, he +contents himself with the remark:-- + +"There appears to be a squabble in the Rue Saint-Martin." + +Or:-- + +"In the Faubourg Saint-Antoine." + +Often he adds carelessly:-- + +"Or somewhere in that direction." + +Later on, when the heart-rending and mournful hubbub of musketry and +firing by platoons becomes audible, the shopkeeper says:-- + +"It's getting hot! Hullo, it's getting hot!" + +A moment later, the riot approaches and gains in force, he shuts up his +shop precipitately, hastily dons his uniform, that is to say, he places +his merchandise in safety and risks his own person. + +Men fire in a square, in a passage, in a blind alley; they take and +re-take the barricade; blood flows, the grape-shot riddles the fronts +of the houses, the balls kill people in their beds, corpses encumber the +streets. A few streets away, the shock of billiard-balls can be heard in +the cafes. + +The theatres open their doors and present vaudevilles; the curious laugh +and chat a couple of paces distant from these streets filled with +war. Hackney-carriages go their way; passers-by are going to a dinner +somewhere in town. Sometimes in the very quarter where the fighting is +going on. + +In 1831, a fusillade was stopped to allow a wedding party to pass. + +At the time of the insurrection of 1839, in the Rue Saint-Martin a +little, infirm old man, pushing a hand-cart surmounted by a tricolored +rag, in which he had carafes filled with some sort of liquid, went and +came from barricade to troops and from troops to the barricade, offering +his glasses of cocoa impartially,--now to the Government, now to +anarchy. + +Nothing can be stranger; and this is the peculiar character of uprisings +in Paris, which cannot be found in any other capital. To this end, two +things are requisite, the size of Paris and its gayety. The city of +Voltaire and Napoleon is necessary. + +On this occasion, however, in the resort to arms of June 25th, 1832, the +great city felt something which was, perhaps, stronger than itself. It +was afraid. + +Closed doors, windows, and shutters were to be seen everywhere, in the +most distant and most "disinterested" quarters. The courageous took to +arms, the poltroons hid. The busy and heedless passer-by disappeared. +Many streets were empty at four o'clock in the morning. + +Alarming details were hawked about, fatal news was disseminated,--that +they were masters of the Bank;--that there were six hundred of them +in the Cloister of Saint-Merry alone, entrenched and embattled in the +church; that the line was not to be depended on; that Armand Carrel +had been to see Marshal Clausel and that the Marshal had said: "Get a +regiment first"; that Lafayette was ill, but that he had said to them, +nevertheless: "I am with you. I will follow you wherever there is room +for a chair"; that one must be on one's guard; that at night there would +be people pillaging isolated dwellings in the deserted corners of Paris +(there the imagination of the police, that Anne Radcliffe mixed up with +the Government was recognizable); that a battery had been established +in the Rue Aubry le Boucher; that Lobau and Bugeaud were putting their +heads together, and that, at midnight, or at daybreak at latest, four +columns would march simultaneously on the centre of the uprising, the +first coming from the Bastille, the second from the Porte Saint-Martin, +the third from the Greve, the fourth from the Halles; that perhaps, +also, the troops would evacuate Paris and withdraw to the Champ-de-Mars; +that no one knew what would happen, but that this time, it certainly was +serious. + +People busied themselves over Marshal Soult's hesitations. Why did not +he attack at once? It is certain that he was profoundly absorbed. The +old lion seemed to scent an unknown monster in that gloom. + +Evening came, the theatres did not open; the patrols circulated with +an air of irritation; passers-by were searched; suspicious persons were +arrested. By nine o'clock, more than eight hundred persons had been +arrested, the Prefecture of Police was encumbered with them, so was the +Conciergerie, so was La Force. + +At the Conciergerie in particular, the long vault which is called the +Rue de Paris was littered with trusses of straw upon which lay a heap +of prisoners, whom the man of Lyons, Lagrange, harangued valiantly. +All that straw rustled by all these men, produced the sound of a heavy +shower. Elsewhere prisoners slept in the open air in the meadows, piled +on top of each other. + +Anxiety reigned everywhere, and a certain tremor which was not habitual +with Paris. + +People barricaded themselves in their houses; wives and mothers were +uneasy; nothing was to be heard but this: "Ah! my God! He has not come +home!" There was hardly even the distant rumble of a vehicle to be +heard. + +People listened on their thresholds, to the rumors, the shouts, the +tumult, the dull and indistinct sounds, to the things that were +said: "It is cavalry," or: "Those are the caissons galloping," to the +trumpets, the drums, the firing, and, above all, to that lamentable +alarm peal from Saint-Merry. + +They waited for the first cannon-shot. Men sprang up at the corners of +the streets and disappeared, shouting: "Go home!" And people made haste +to bolt their doors. They said: "How will all this end?" From moment to +moment, in proportion as the darkness descended, Paris seemed to take on +a more mournful hue from the formidable flaming of the revolt. + + + + +BOOK ELEVENTH.--THE ATOM FRATERNIZES WITH THE HURRICANE + + + + +CHAPTER I--SOME EXPLANATIONS WITH REGARD TO THE ORIGIN OF GAVROCHE'S +POETRY. THE INFLUENCE OF AN ACADEMICIAN ON THIS POETRY + +At the instant when the insurrection, arising from the shock of the +populace and the military in front of the Arsenal, started a movement +in advance and towards the rear in the multitude which was following the +hearse and which, through the whole length of the boulevards, weighed, +so to speak, on the head of the procession, there arose a frightful ebb. +The rout was shaken, their ranks were broken, all ran, fled, made their +escape, some with shouts of attack, others with the pallor of flight. +The great river which covered the boulevards divided in a twinkling, +overflowed to right and left, and spread in torrents over two hundred +streets at once with the roar of a sewer that has broken loose. + +At that moment, a ragged child who was coming down through the Rue +Menilmontant, holding in his hand a branch of blossoming laburnum which +he had just plucked on the heights of Belleville, caught sight of an old +holster-pistol in the show-window of a bric-a-brac merchant's shop. + +"Mother What's-your-name, I'm going to borrow your machine." + +And off he ran with the pistol. + +Two minutes later, a flood of frightened bourgeois who were fleeing +through the Rue Amelot and the Rue Basse, encountered the lad +brandishing his pistol and singing:-- + + La nuit on ne voit rien, + Le jour on voit tres bien, + D'un ecrit apocrypha + Le bourgeois s'ebouriffe, + Pratiquez la vertu, + Tutu, chapeau pointu![44] + + +It was little Gavroche on his way to the wars. + +On the boulevard he noticed that the pistol had no trigger. + +Who was the author of that couplet which served to punctuate his march, +and of all the other songs which he was fond of singing on occasion? We +know not. Who does know? Himself, perhaps. However, Gavroche was well +up in all the popular tunes in circulation, and he mingled with them his +own chirpings. An observing urchin and a rogue, he made a potpourri of +the voices of nature and the voices of Paris. He combined the repertory +of the birds with the repertory of the workshops. He was acquainted with +thieves, a tribe contiguous to his own. He had, it appears, been +for three months apprenticed to a printer. He had one day executed a +commission for M. Baour-Lormian, one of the Forty. Gavroche was a gamin +of letters. + +Moreover, Gavroche had no suspicion of the fact that when he had offered +the hospitality of his elephant to two brats on that villainously +rainy night, it was to his own brothers that he had played the part of +Providence. His brothers in the evening, his father in the morning; +that is what his night had been like. On quitting the Rue des Ballets +at daybreak, he had returned in haste to the elephant, had artistically +extracted from it the two brats, had shared with them some sort of +breakfast which he had invented, and had then gone away, confiding +them to that good mother, the street, who had brought him up, almost +entirely. On leaving them, he had appointed to meet them at the same +spot in the evening, and had left them this discourse by way of a +farewell: "I break a cane, otherwise expressed, I cut my stick, or, as +they say at the court, I file off. If you don't find papa and mamma, +young 'uns, come back here this evening. I'll scramble you up some +supper, and I'll give you a shakedown." The two children, picked up by +some policeman and placed in the refuge, or stolen by some mountebank, +or having simply strayed off in that immense Chinese puzzle of a Paris, +did not return. The lowest depths of the actual social world are full of +these lost traces. Gavroche did not see them again. Ten or twelve weeks +had elapsed since that night. More than once he had scratched the back +of his head and said: "Where the devil are my two children?" + +In the meantime, he had arrived, pistol in hand, in the Rue du +Pont-aux-Choux. He noticed that there was but one shop open in that +street, and, a matter worthy of reflection, that was a pastry-cook's +shop. This presented a providential occasion to eat another +apple-turnover before entering the unknown. Gavroche halted, fumbled in +his fob, turned his pocket inside out, found nothing, not even a sou, +and began to shout: "Help!" + +It is hard to miss the last cake. + +Nevertheless, Gavroche pursued his way. + +Two minutes later he was in the Rue Saint-Louis. While traversing the +Rue du Parc-Royal, he felt called upon to make good the loss of the +apple-turnover which had been impossible, and he indulged himself in the +immense delight of tearing down the theatre posters in broad daylight. + +A little further on, on catching sight of a group of comfortable-looking +persons, who seemed to be landed proprietors, he shrugged his shoulders +and spit out at random before him this mouthful of philosophical bile as +they passed: + +"How fat those moneyed men are! They're drunk! They just wallow in good +dinners. Ask 'em what they do with their money. They don't know. They +eat it, that's what they do! As much as their bellies will hold." + + + + +CHAPTER II--GAVROCHE ON THE MARCH + +The brandishing of a triggerless pistol, grasped in one's hand in the +open street, is so much of a public function that Gavroche felt his +fervor increasing with every moment. Amid the scraps of the Marseillaise +which he was singing, he shouted:-- + +"All goes well. I suffer a great deal in my left paw, I'm all broken +up with rheumatism, but I'm satisfied, citizens. All that the bourgeois +have to do is to bear themselves well, I'll sneeze them out subversive +couplets. What are the police spies? Dogs. And I'd just like to have +one of them at the end of my pistol. I'm just from the boulevard, my +friends. It's getting hot there, it's getting into a little boil, it's +simmering. It's time to skim the pot. Forward march, men! Let an impure +blood inundate the furrows! I give my days to my country, I shall never +see my concubine more, Nini, finished, yes, Nini? But never mind! Long +live joy! Let's fight, crebleu! I've had enough of despotism." + +At that moment, the horse of a lancer of the National Guard having +fallen, Gavroche laid his pistol on the pavement, and picked up the +man, then he assisted in raising the horse. After which he picked up his +pistol and resumed his way. In the Rue de Thorigny, all was peace and +silence. This apathy, peculiar to the Marais, presented a contrast with +the vast surrounding uproar. Four gossips were chatting in a doorway. + +Scotland has trios of witches, Paris has quartettes of old gossiping +hags; and the "Thou shalt be King" could be quite as mournfully hurled +at Bonaparte in the Carrefour Baudoyer as at Macbeth on the heath of +Armuyr. The croak would be almost identical. + +The gossips of the Rue de Thorigny busied themselves only with their own +concerns. Three of them were portresses, and the fourth was a rag-picker +with her basket on her back. + +All four of them seemed to be standing at the four corners of old age, +which are decrepitude, decay, ruin, and sadness. + +The rag-picker was humble. In this open-air society, it is the +rag-picker who salutes and the portress who patronizes. This is caused +by the corner for refuse, which is fat or lean, according to the will of +the portresses, and after the fancy of the one who makes the heap. There +may be kindness in the broom. + +This rag-picker was a grateful creature, and she smiled, with what a +smile! on the three portresses. Things of this nature were said:-- + +"Ah, by the way, is your cat still cross?" + +"Good gracious, cats are naturally the enemies of dogs, you know. It's +the dogs who complain." + +"And people also." + +"But the fleas from a cat don't go after people." + +"That's not the trouble, dogs are dangerous. I remember one year +when there were so many dogs that it was necessary to put it in the +newspapers. That was at the time when there were at the Tuileries great +sheep that drew the little carriage of the King of Rome. Do you remember +the King of Rome?" + +"I liked the Duc de Bordeau better." + +"I knew Louis XVIII. I prefer Louis XVIII." + +"Meat is awfully dear, isn't it, Mother Patagon?" + +"Ah! don't mention it, the butcher's shop is a horror. A horrible +horror--one can't afford anything but the poor cuts nowadays." + +Here the rag-picker interposed:-- + +"Ladies, business is dull. The refuse heaps are miserable. No one throws +anything away any more. They eat everything." + +"There are poorer people than you, la Vargouleme." + +"Ah, that's true," replied the rag-picker, with deference, "I have a +profession." + +A pause succeeded, and the rag-picker, yielding to that necessity for +boasting which lies at the bottom of man, added:-- + +"In the morning, on my return home, I pick over my basket, I sort my +things. This makes heaps in my room. I put the rags in a basket, the +cores and stalks in a bucket, the linen in my cupboard, the woollen +stuff in my commode, the old papers in the corner of the window, +the things that are good to eat in my bowl, the bits of glass in my +fireplace, the old shoes behind my door, and the bones under my bed." + +Gavroche had stopped behind her and was listening. + +"Old ladies," said he, "what do you mean by talking politics?" + +He was assailed by a broadside, composed of a quadruple howl. + +"Here's another rascal." + +"What's that he's got in his paddle? A pistol?" + +"Well, I'd like to know what sort of a beggar's brat this is?" + +"That sort of animal is never easy unless he's overturning the +authorities." + +Gavroche disdainfully contented himself, by way of reprisal, with +elevating the tip of his nose with his thumb and opening his hand wide. + +The rag-picker cried:-- + +"You malicious, bare-pawed little wretch!" + +The one who answered to the name of Patagon clapped her hands together +in horror. + +"There's going to be evil doings, that's certain. The errand-boy next +door has a little pointed beard, I have seen him pass every day with a +young person in a pink bonnet on his arm; to-day I saw him pass, and +he had a gun on his arm. Mame Bacheux says, that last week there was a +revolution at--at--at--where's the calf!--at Pontoise. And then, there +you see him, that horrid scamp, with his pistol! It seems that the +Celestins are full of pistols. What do you suppose the Government can +do with good-for-nothings who don't know how to do anything but contrive +ways of upsetting the world, when we had just begun to get a little +quiet after all the misfortunes that have happened, good Lord! to that +poor queen whom I saw pass in the tumbril! And all this is going to +make tobacco dearer. It's infamous! And I shall certainly go to see him +beheaded on the guillotine, the wretch!" + +"You've got the sniffles, old lady," said Gavroche. "Blow your +promontory." + +And he passed on. When he was in the Rue Pavee, the rag-picker occurred +to his mind, and he indulged in this soliloquy:-- + +"You're in the wrong to insult the revolutionists, Mother +Dust-Heap-Corner. This pistol is in your interests. It's so that you may +have more good things to eat in your basket." + +All at once, he heard a shout behind him; it was the portress Patagon +who had followed him, and who was shaking her fist at him in the +distance and crying:-- + +"You're nothing but a bastard." + +"Oh! Come now," said Gavroche, "I don't care a brass farthing for that!" + +Shortly afterwards, he passed the Hotel Lamoignon. There he uttered this +appeal:-- + +"Forward march to the battle!" + +And he was seized with a fit of melancholy. He gazed at his pistol with +an air of reproach which seemed an attempt to appease it:-- + +"I'm going off," said he, "but you won't go off!" + +One dog may distract the attention from another dog.[45] A very gaunt +poodle came along at the moment. Gavroche felt compassion for him. + +"My poor doggy," said he, "you must have gone and swallowed a cask, for +all the hoops are visible." + +Then he directed his course towards l'Orme-Saint-Gervais. + + + + +CHAPTER III--JUST INDIGNATION OF A HAIR-DRESSER + +The worthy hair-dresser who had chased from his shop the two little +fellows to whom Gavroche had opened the paternal interior of the +elephant was at that moment in his shop engaged in shaving an old +soldier of the legion who had served under the Empire. They were +talking. The hair-dresser had, naturally, spoken to the veteran of the +riot, then of General Lamarque, and from Lamarque they had passed to +the Emperor. Thence sprang up a conversation between barber and +soldier which Prudhomme, had he been present, would have enriched with +arabesques, and which he would have entitled: "Dialogue between the +razor and the sword." + +"How did the Emperor ride, sir?" said the barber. + +"Badly. He did not know how to fall--so he never fell." + +"Did he have fine horses? He must have had fine horses!" + +"On the day when he gave me my cross, I noticed his beast. It was a +racing mare, perfectly white. Her ears were very wide apart, her saddle +deep, a fine head marked with a black star, a very long neck, strongly +articulated knees, prominent ribs, oblique shoulders and a powerful +crupper. A little more than fifteen hands in height." + +"A pretty horse," remarked the hair-dresser. + +"It was His Majesty's beast." + +The hair-dresser felt, that after this observation, a short silence +would be fitting, so he conformed himself to it, and then went on:-- + +"The Emperor was never wounded but once, was he, sir?" + +The old soldier replied with the calm and sovereign tone of a man who +had been there:-- + +"In the heel. At Ratisbon. I never saw him so well dressed as on that +day. He was as neat as a new sou." + +"And you, Mr. Veteran, you must have been often wounded?" + +"I?" said the soldier, "ah! not to amount to anything. At Marengo, I +received two sabre-blows on the back of my neck, a bullet in the right +arm at Austerlitz, another in the left hip at Jena. At Friedland, +a thrust from a bayonet, there,--at the Moskowa seven or eight +lance-thrusts, no matter where, at Lutzen a splinter of a shell crushed +one of my fingers. Ah! and then at Waterloo, a ball from a biscaien in +the thigh, that's all." + +"How fine that is!" exclaimed the hair-dresser, in Pindaric accents, "to +die on the field of battle! On my word of honor, rather than die in bed, +of an illness, slowly, a bit by bit each day, with drugs, cataplasms, +syringes, medicines, I should prefer to receive a cannon-ball in my +belly!" + +"You're not over fastidious," said the soldier. + +He had hardly spoken when a fearful crash shook the shop. The +show-window had suddenly been fractured. + +The wig-maker turned pale. + +"Ah, good God!" he exclaimed, "it's one of them!" + +"What?" + +"A cannon-ball." + +"Here it is," said the soldier. + +And he picked up something that was rolling about the floor. It was a +pebble. + +The hair-dresser ran to the broken window and beheld Gavroche fleeing +at the full speed, towards the Marche Saint-Jean. As he passed the +hair-dresser's shop Gavroche, who had the two brats still in his mind, +had not been able to resist the impulse to say good day to him, and had +flung a stone through his panes. + +"You see!" shrieked the hair-dresser, who from white had turned blue, +"that fellow returns and does mischief for the pure pleasure of it. What +has any one done to that gamin?" + + + + +CHAPTER IV--THE CHILD IS AMAZED AT THE OLD MAN + +In the meantime, in the Marche Saint-Jean, where the post had already +been disarmed, Gavroche had just "effected a junction" with a band led +by Enjolras, Courfeyrac, Combeferre, and Feuilly. They were armed after +a fashion. Bahorel and Jean Prouvaire had found them and swelled the +group. Enjolras had a double-barrelled hunting-gun, Combeferre the gun +of a National Guard bearing the number of his legion, and in his belt, +two pistols which his unbuttoned coat allowed to be seen, Jean Prouvaire +an old cavalry musket, Bahorel a rifle; Courfeyrac was brandishing an +unsheathed sword-cane. Feuilly, with a naked sword in his hand, marched +at their head shouting: "Long live Poland!" + +They reached the Quai Morland. Cravatless, hatless, breathless, soaked +by the rain, with lightning in their eyes. Gavroche accosted them +calmly:-- + +"Where are we going?" + +"Come along," said Courfeyrac. + +Behind Feuilly marched, or rather bounded, Bahorel, who was like a fish +in water in a riot. He wore a scarlet waistcoat, and indulged in +the sort of words which break everything. His waistcoat astounded a +passer-by, who cried in bewilderment:-- + +"Here are the reds!" + +"The reds, the reds!" retorted Bahorel. "A queer kind of fear, +bourgeois. For my part I don't tremble before a poppy, the little red +hat inspires me with no alarm. Take my advice, bourgeois, let's leave +fear of the red to horned cattle." + +He caught sight of a corner of the wall on which was placarded the +most peaceable sheet of paper in the world, a permission to eat eggs, a +Lenten admonition addressed by the Archbishop of Paris to his "flock." + +Bahorel exclaimed:-- + +"'Flock'; a polite way of saying geese." + +And he tore the charge from the nail. This conquered Gavroche. From that +instant Gavroche set himself to study Bahorel. + +"Bahorel," observed Enjolras, "you are wrong. You should have let that +charge alone, he is not the person with whom we have to deal, you are +wasting your wrath to no purpose. Take care of your supply. One does not +fire out of the ranks with the soul any more than with a gun." + +"Each one in his own fashion, Enjolras," retorted Bahorel. "This +bishop's prose shocks me; I want to eat eggs without being permitted. +Your style is the hot and cold; I am amusing myself. Besides, I'm not +wasting myself, I'm getting a start; and if I tore down that charge, +Hercle! 'twas only to whet my appetite." + +This word, Hercle, struck Gavroche. He sought all occasions for +learning, and that tearer-down of posters possessed his esteem. He +inquired of him:-- + +"What does Hercle mean?" + +Bahorel answered:-- + +"It means cursed name of a dog, in Latin." + +Here Bahorel recognized at a window a pale young man with a black beard +who was watching them as they passed, probably a Friend of the A B C. He +shouted to him:-- + +"Quick, cartridges, para bellum." + +"A fine man! that's true," said Gavroche, who now understood Latin. + +A tumultuous retinue accompanied them,--students, artists, young men +affiliated to the Cougourde of Aix, artisans, longshoremen, armed with +clubs and bayonets; some, like Combeferre, with pistols thrust into +their trousers. + +An old man, who appeared to be extremely aged, was walking in the band. + +He had no arms, and he made great haste, so that he might not be left +behind, although he had a thoughtful air. + +Gavroche caught sight of him:-- + +"Keksekca?" said he to Courfeyrac. + +"He's an old duffer." + +It was M. Mabeuf. + + + + +CHAPTER V--THE OLD MAN + +Let us recount what had taken place. + +Enjolras and his friends had been on the Boulevard Bourdon, near the +public storehouses, at the moment when the dragoons had made their +charge. Enjolras, Courfeyrac, and Combeferre were among those who had +taken to the Rue Bassompierre, shouting: "To the barricades!" In the Rue +Lesdiguieres they had met an old man walking along. What had attracted +their attention was that the goodman was walking in a zig-zag, as though +he were intoxicated. Moreover, he had his hat in his hand, although it +had been raining all the morning, and was raining pretty briskly at the +very time. Courfeyrac had recognized Father Mabeuf. He knew him through +having many times accompanied Marius as far as his door. As he was +acquainted with the peaceful and more than timid habits of the old +beadle-book-collector, and was amazed at the sight of him in the midst +of that uproar, a couple of paces from the cavalry charges, almost in +the midst of a fusillade, hatless in the rain, and strolling about among +the bullets, he had accosted him, and the following dialogue had been +exchanged between the rioter of fire and the octogenarian:-- + +"M. Mabeuf, go to your home." + +"Why?" + +"There's going to be a row." + +"That's well." + +"Thrusts with the sword and firing, M. Mabeuf." + +"That is well." + +"Firing from cannon." + +"That is good. Where are the rest of you going?" + +"We are going to fling the government to the earth." + +"That is good." + +And he had set out to follow them. From that moment forth he had not +uttered a word. His step had suddenly become firm; artisans had offered +him their arms; he had refused with a sign of the head. He advanced +nearly to the front rank of the column, with the movement of a man who +is marching and the countenance of a man who is sleeping. + +"What a fierce old fellow!" muttered the students. The rumor spread +through the troop that he was a former member of the Convention,--an old +regicide. The mob had turned in through the Rue de la Verrerie. + +Little Gavroche marched in front with that deafening song which made of +him a sort of trumpet. + +He sang: "Voici la lune qui paratt, + Quand irons-nous dans la foret? + Demandait Charlot a Charlotte. + + Tou tou tou + Pour Chatou. + Je n'ai qu'un Dieu, qu'un roi, qu'un liard, et qu'une botte. + + "Pour avoir bu de grand matin + La rosee a meme le thym, + Deux moineaux etaient en ribotte. + + Zi zi zi + Pour Passy. + Je n'ai qu'un Dieu, qu'un roi, qu'un liard, et qu'une botte. + + "Et ces deux pauvres petits loups, + Comme deux grives estaient souls; + Une tigre en riait dans sa grotte. + + Don don don + Pour Meudon. + Je n'ai qu'un Dieu, qu'un roi, qu'un liard, et qu'une botte. + + "L'un jurait et l'autre sacrait. + Quand irons nous dans la foret? + Demandait Charlot a Charlotte. + + Tin tin tin + Pour Pantin. + Je n'ai qu'un Dieu, qu'un roi, qu'un liard, et qu'une botte."[46] + +They directed their course towards Saint-Merry. + + + + +CHAPTER VI--RECRUITS + +The band augmented every moment. Near the Rue des Billettes, a man of +lofty stature, whose hair was turning gray, and whose bold and daring +mien was remarked by Courfeyrac, Enjolras, and Combeferre, but whom +none of them knew, joined them. Gavroche, who was occupied in singing, +whistling, humming, running on ahead and pounding on the shutters of the +shops with the butt of his triggerless pistol; paid no attention to this +man. + +It chanced that in the Rue de la Verrerie, they passed in front of +Courfeyrac's door. + +"This happens just right," said Courfeyrac, "I have forgotten my purse, +and I have lost my hat." + +He quitted the mob and ran up to his quarters at full speed. He seized +an old hat and his purse. + +He also seized a large square coffer, of the dimensions of a large +valise, which was concealed under his soiled linen. + +As he descended again at a run, the portress hailed him:-- + +"Monsieur de Courfeyrac!" + +"What's your name, portress?" + +The portress stood bewildered. + +"Why, you know perfectly well, I'm the concierge; my name is Mother +Veuvain." + +"Well, if you call me Monsieur de Courfeyrac again, I shall call you +Mother de Veuvain. Now speak, what's the matter? What do you want?" + +"There is some one who wants to speak with you." + +"Who is it?" + +"I don't know." + +"Where is he?" + +"In my lodge." + +"The devil!" ejaculated Courfeyrac. + +"But the person has been waiting your return for over an hour," said the +portress. + +At the same time, a sort of pale, thin, small, freckled, and youthful +artisan, clad in a tattered blouse and patched trousers of ribbed +velvet, and who had rather the air of a girl accoutred as a man than of +a man, emerged from the lodge and said to Courfeyrac in a voice which +was not the least in the world like a woman's voice:-- + +"Monsieur Marius, if you please." + +"He is not here." + +"Will he return this evening?" + +"I know nothing about it." + +And Courfeyrac added:-- + +"For my part, I shall not return." + +The young man gazed steadily at him and said:-- + +"Why not?" + +"Because." + +"Where are you going, then?" + +"What business is that of yours?" + +"Would you like to have me carry your coffer for you?" + +"I am going to the barricades." + +"Would you like to have me go with you?" + +"If you like!" replied Courfeyrac. "The street is free, the pavements +belong to every one." + +And he made his escape at a run to join his friends. When he had +rejoined them, he gave the coffer to one of them to carry. It was only +a quarter of an hour after this that he saw the young man, who had +actually followed them. + +A mob does not go precisely where it intends. We have explained that +a gust of wind carries it away. They overshot Saint-Merry and found +themselves, without precisely knowing how, in the Rue Saint-Denis. + + + + +BOOK TWELFTH.--CORINTHE + + + + +CHAPTER I--HISTORY OF CORINTHE FROM ITS FOUNDATION + +The Parisians who nowadays on entering on the Rue Rambuteau at the end +near the Halles, notice on their right, opposite the Rue Mondetour, a +basket-maker's shop having for its sign a basket in the form of Napoleon +the Great with this inscription:-- + + NAPOLEON IS MADE + WHOLLY OF WILLOW, + +have no suspicion of the terrible scenes which this very spot witnessed +hardly thirty years ago. + +It was there that lay the Rue de la Chanvrerie, which ancient deeds +spell Chanverrerie, and the celebrated public-house called Corinthe. + +The reader will remember all that has been said about the barricade +effected at this point, and eclipsed, by the way, by the barricade +Saint-Merry. It was on this famous barricade of the Rue de la +Chanvrerie, now fallen into profound obscurity, that we are about to +shed a little light. + +May we be permitted to recur, for the sake of clearness in the recital, +to the simple means which we have already employed in the case of +Waterloo. Persons who wish to picture to themselves in a tolerably exact +manner the constitution of the houses which stood at that epoch near the +Pointe Saint-Eustache, at the northeast angle of the Halles of Paris, +where to-day lies the embouchure of the Rue Rambuteau, have only to +imagine an N touching the Rue Saint-Denis with its summit and the Halles +with its base, and whose two vertical bars should form the Rue de la +Grande-Truanderie, and the Rue de la Chanvrerie, and whose transverse +bar should be formed by the Rue de la Petite-Truanderie. The old Rue +Mondetour cut the three strokes of the N at the most crooked angles, +so that the labyrinthine confusion of these four streets sufficed to +form, on a space three fathoms square, between the Halles and the Rue +Saint-Denis on the one hand, and between the Rue du Cygne and the Rue +des Precheurs on the other, seven islands of houses, oddly cut up, of +varying sizes, placed crosswise and hap-hazard, and barely separated, +like the blocks of stone in a dock, by narrow crannies. + +We say narrow crannies, and we can give no more just idea of those dark, +contracted, many-angled alleys, lined with eight-story buildings. These +buildings were so decrepit that, in the Rue de la Chanvrerie and the Rue +de la Petite-Truanderie, the fronts were shored up with beams running +from one house to another. The street was narrow and the gutter broad, +the pedestrian there walked on a pavement that was always wet, skirting +little stalls resembling cellars, big posts encircled with iron hoops, +excessive heaps of refuse, and gates armed with enormous, century-old +gratings. The Rue Rambuteau has devastated all that. + +The name of Mondetour paints marvellously well the sinuosities of that +whole set of streets. A little further on, they are found still better +expressed by the Rue Pirouette, which ran into the Rue Mondetour. + +The passer-by who got entangled from the Rue Saint-Denis in the Rue de +la Chanvrerie beheld it gradually close in before him as though he had +entered an elongated funnel. At the end of this street, which was very +short, he found further passage barred in the direction of the Halles +by a tall row of houses, and he would have thought himself in a blind +alley, had he not perceived on the right and left two dark cuts through +which he could make his escape. This was the Rue Mondetour, which on +one side ran into the Rue de Precheurs, and on the other into the Rue +du Cygne and the Petite-Truanderie. At the bottom of this sort of +cul-de-sac, at the angle of the cutting on the right, there was to be +seen a house which was not so tall as the rest, and which formed a sort +of cape in the street. It is in this house, of two stories only, that +an illustrious wine-shop had been merrily installed three hundred years +before. This tavern created a joyous noise in the very spot which old +Theophilus described in the following couplet:-- + + La branle le squelette horrible + D'un pauvre amant qui se pendit.[47] + + +The situation was good, and tavern-keepers succeeded each other there, +from father to son. + +In the time of Mathurin Regnier, this cabaret was called the +Pot-aux-Roses, and as the rebus was then in fashion, it had for its +sign-board, a post (poteau) painted rose-color. In the last century, the +worthy Natoire, one of the fantastic masters nowadays despised by the +stiff school, having got drunk many times in this wine-shop at the +very table where Regnier had drunk his fill, had painted, by way of +gratitude, a bunch of Corinth grapes on the pink post. The keeper of the +cabaret, in his joy, had changed his device and had caused to be placed +in gilt letters beneath the bunch these words: "At the Bunch of Corinth +Grapes" ("Au Raisin de Corinthe"). Hence the name of Corinthe. Nothing +is more natural to drunken men than ellipses. The ellipsis is the +zig-zag of the phrase. Corinthe gradually dethroned the Pot-aux-Roses. +The last proprietor of the dynasty, Father Hucheloup, no longer +acquainted even with the tradition, had the post painted blue. + +A room on the ground floor, where the bar was situated, one on the first +floor containing a billiard-table, a wooden spiral staircase piercing +the ceiling, wine on the tables, smoke on the walls, candles in broad +daylight,--this was the style of this cabaret. A staircase with a +trap-door in the lower room led to the cellar. On the second floor were +the lodgings of the Hucheloup family. They were reached by a staircase +which was a ladder rather than a staircase, and had for their entrance +only a private door in the large room on the first floor. Under the +roof, in two mansard attics, were the nests for the servants. The +kitchen shared the ground-floor with the tap-room. + +Father Hucheloup had, possibly, been born a chemist, but the fact is +that he was a cook; people did not confine themselves to drinking alone +in his wine-shop, they also ate there. Hucheloup had invented a capital +thing which could be eaten nowhere but in his house, stuffed carps, +which he called carpes au gras. These were eaten by the light of a +tallow candle or of a lamp of the time of Louis XVI., on tables to which +were nailed waxed cloths in lieu of table-cloths. People came thither +from a distance. Hucheloup, one fine morning, had seen fit to notify +passers-by of this "specialty"; he had dipped a brush in a pot of black +paint, and as he was an orthographer on his own account, as well as +a cook after his own fashion, he had improvised on his wall this +remarkable inscription:-- + + CARPES HO GRAS. + + +One winter, the rain-storms and the showers had taken a fancy to +obliterate the S which terminated the first word, and the G which began +the third; this is what remained:-- + + CARPE HO RAS. + + +Time and rain assisting, a humble gastronomical announcement had become +a profound piece of advice. + +In this way it came about, that though he knew no French, Father +Hucheloup understood Latin, that he had evoked philosophy from his +kitchen, and that, desirous simply of effacing Lent, he had equalled +Horace. And the striking thing about it was, that that also meant: +"Enter my wine-shop." + +Nothing of all this is in existence now. The Mondetour labyrinth was +disembowelled and widely opened in 1847, and probably no longer exists +at the present moment. The Rue de la Chanvrerie and Corinthe have +disappeared beneath the pavement of the Rue Rambuteau. + +As we have already said, Corinthe was the meeting-place if not the +rallying-point, of Courfeyrac and his friends. It was Grantaire who had +discovered Corinthe. He had entered it on account of the Carpe horas, +and had returned thither on account of the Carpes au gras. There they +drank, there they ate, there they shouted; they did not pay much, they +paid badly, they did not pay at all, but they were always welcome. +Father Hucheloup was a jovial host. + +Hucheloup, that amiable man, as was just said, was a wine-shop-keeper +with a mustache; an amusing variety. He always had an ill-tempered air, +seemed to wish to intimidate his customers, grumbled at the people who +entered his establishment, and had rather the mien of seeking a quarrel +with them than of serving them with soup. And yet, we insist upon +the word, people were always welcome there. This oddity had attracted +customers to his shop, and brought him young men, who said to each +other: "Come hear Father Hucheloup growl." He had been a fencing-master. +All of a sudden, he would burst out laughing. A big voice, a good +fellow. He had a comic foundation under a tragic exterior, he asked +nothing better than to frighten you, very much like those snuff-boxes +which are in the shape of a pistol. The detonation makes one sneeze. + +Mother Hucheloup, his wife, was a bearded and a very homely creature. + +About 1830, Father Hucheloup died. With him disappeared the secret of +stuffed carps. His inconsolable widow continued to keep the wine-shop. +But the cooking deteriorated, and became execrable; the wine, which had +always been bad, became fearfully bad. Nevertheless, Courfeyrac and his +friends continued to go to Corinthe,--out of pity, as Bossuet said. + +The Widow Hucheloup was breathless and misshapen and given to rustic +recollections. She deprived them of their flatness by her pronunciation. +She had a way of her own of saying things, which spiced her +reminiscences of the village and of her springtime. It had formerly been +her delight, so she affirmed, to hear the loups-de-gorge (rouges-gorges) +chanter dans les ogrepines (aubepines)--to hear the redbreasts sing in +the hawthorn-trees. + +The hall on the first floor, where "the restaurant" was situated, was +a large and long apartment encumbered with stools, chairs, benches, and +tables, and with a crippled, lame, old billiard-table. It was reached +by a spiral staircase which terminated in the corner of the room at a +square hole like the hatchway of a ship. + +This room, lighted by a single narrow window, and by a lamp that was +always burning, had the air of a garret. All the four-footed furniture +comported itself as though it had but three legs--the whitewashed walls +had for their only ornament the following quatrain in honor of Mame +Hucheloup:-- + + Elle etonne a dix pas, elle epouvente a deux, + Une verrue habite en son nez hasardeux; + On tremble a chaque instant qu'elle ne vous la mouche + Et qu'un beau jour son nez ne tombe dans sa bouche.[48] + + +This was scrawled in charcoal on the wall. + +Mame Hucheloup, a good likeness, went and came from morning till +night before this quatrain with the most perfect tranquillity. Two +serving-maids, named Matelote and Gibelotte,[49] and who had never been +known by any other names, helped Mame Hucheloup to set on the tables +the jugs of poor wine, and the various broths which were served to the +hungry patrons in earthenware bowls. Matelote, large, plump, redhaired, +and noisy, the favorite ex-sultana of the defunct Hucheloup, was +homelier than any mythological monster, be it what it may; still, as it +becomes the servant to always keep in the rear of the mistress, she was +less homely than Mame Hucheloup. Gibelotte, tall, delicate, white with a +lymphatic pallor, with circles round her eyes, and drooping lids, always +languid and weary, afflicted with what may be called chronic lassitude, +the first up in the house and the last in bed, waited on every one, even +the other maid, silently and gently, smiling through her fatigue with a +vague and sleepy smile. + +Before entering the restaurant room, the visitor read on the door the +following line written there in chalk by Courfeyrac:-- + + Regale si tu peux et mange si tu l'oses.[50] + + + + +CHAPTER II--PRELIMINARY GAYETIES + +Laigle de Meaux, as the reader knows, lived more with Joly than +elsewhere. He had a lodging, as a bird has one on a branch. The +two friends lived together, ate together, slept together. They had +everything in common, even Musichetta, to some extent. They were, what +the subordinate monks who accompany monks are called, bini. On the +morning of the 5th of June, they went to Corinthe to breakfast. Joly, +who was all stuffed up, had a catarrh which Laigle was beginning to +share. Laigle's coat was threadbare, but Joly was well dressed. + +It was about nine o'clock in the morning, when they opened the door of +Corinthe. + +They ascended to the first floor. + +Matelote and Gibelotte received them. + +"Oysters, cheese, and ham," said Laigle. + +And they seated themselves at a table. + +The wine-shop was empty; there was no one there but themselves. + +Gibelotte, knowing Joly and Laigle, set a bottle of wine on the table. + +While they were busy with their first oysters, a head appeared at the +hatchway of the staircase, and a voice said:-- + +"I am passing by. I smell from the street a delicious odor of Brie +cheese. I enter." It was Grantaire. + +Grantaire took a stool and drew up to the table. + +At the sight of Grantaire, Gibelotte placed two bottles of wine on the +table. + +That made three. + +"Are you going to drink those two bottles?" Laigle inquired of +Grantaire. + +Grantaire replied:-- + +"All are ingenious, thou alone art ingenuous. Two bottles never yet +astonished a man." + +The others had begun by eating, Grantaire began by drinking. Half a +bottle was rapidly gulped down. + +"So you have a hole in your stomach?" began Laigle again. + +"You have one in your elbow," said Grantaire. + +And after having emptied his glass, he added:-- + +"Ah, by the way, Laigle of the funeral oration, your coat is old." + +"I should hope so," retorted Laigle. "That's why we get on well +together, my coat and I. It has acquired all my folds, it does not bind +me anywhere, it is moulded on my deformities, it falls in with all my +movements, I am only conscious of it because it keeps me warm. Old coats +are just like old friends." + +"That's true," ejaculated Joly, striking into the dialogue, "an old goat +is an old abi" (ami, friend). + +"Especially in the mouth of a man whose head is stuffed up," said +Grantaire. + +"Grantaire," demanded Laigle, "have you just come from the boulevard?" + +"No." + +"We have just seen the head of the procession pass, Joly and I." + +"It's a marvellous sight," said Joly. + +"How quiet this street is!" exclaimed Laigle. "Who would suspect that +Paris was turned upside down? How plainly it is to be seen that in +former days there were nothing but convents here! In this neighborhood! +Du Breul and Sauval give a list of them, and so does the Abbe Lebeuf. +They were all round here, they fairly swarmed, booted and barefooted, +shaven, bearded, gray, black, white, Franciscans, Minims, Capuchins, +Carmelites, Little Augustines, Great Augustines, old Augustines--there +was no end of them." + +"Don't let's talk of monks," interrupted Grantaire, "it makes one want +to scratch one's self." + +Then he exclaimed:-- + +"Bouh! I've just swallowed a bad oyster. Now hypochondria is taking +possession of me again. The oysters are spoiled, the servants are ugly. +I hate the human race. I just passed through the Rue Richelieu, in front +of the big public library. That pile of oyster-shells which is called +a library is disgusting even to think of. What paper! What ink! What +scrawling! And all that has been written! What rascal was it who said +that man was a featherless biped?[51] And then, I met a pretty girl of +my acquaintance, who is as beautiful as the spring, worthy to be called +Floreal, and who is delighted, enraptured, as happy as the angels, +because a wretch yesterday, a frightful banker all spotted with +small-pox, deigned to take a fancy to her! Alas! woman keeps on the +watch for a protector as much as for a lover; cats chase mice as well +as birds. Two months ago that young woman was virtuous in an attic, she +adjusted little brass rings in the eyelet-holes of corsets, what do +you call it? She sewed, she had a camp bed, she dwelt beside a pot +of flowers, she was contented. Now here she is a bankeress. This +transformation took place last night. I met the victim this morning in +high spirits. The hideous point about it is, that the jade is as pretty +to-day as she was yesterday. Her financier did not show in her face. +Roses have this advantage or disadvantage over women, that the traces +left upon them by caterpillars are visible. Ah! there is no morality on +earth. I call to witness the myrtle, the symbol of love, the laurel, +the symbol of air, the olive, that ninny, the symbol of peace, the +apple-tree which came nearest rangling Adam with its pips, and the +fig-tree, the grandfather of petticoats. As for right, do you know what +right is? The Gauls covet Clusium, Rome protects Clusium, and demands +what wrong Clusium has done to them. Brennus answers: 'The wrong that +Alba did to you, the wrong that Fidenae did to you, the wrong that the +Eques, the Volsci, and the Sabines have done to you. They were your +neighbors. The Clusians are ours. We understand neighborliness just as +you do. You have stolen Alba, we shall take Clusium.' Rome said: 'You +shall not take Clusium.' Brennus took Rome. Then he cried: 'Vae victis!' +That is what right is. Ah! what beasts of prey there are in this world! +What eagles! It makes my flesh creep." + +He held out his glass to Joly, who filled it, then he drank and went on, +having hardly been interrupted by this glass of wine, of which no one, +not even himself, had taken any notice:-- + +"Brennus, who takes Rome, is an eagle; the banker who takes the grisette +is an eagle. There is no more modesty in the one case than in the other. +So we believe in nothing. There is but one reality: drink. Whatever your +opinion may be in favor of the lean cock, like the Canton of Uri, or +in favor of the fat cock, like the Canton of Glaris, it matters little, +drink. You talk to me of the boulevard, of that procession, et caetera, +et caetera. Come now, is there going to be another revolution? This +poverty of means on the part of the good God astounds me. He has to keep +greasing the groove of events every moment. There is a hitch, it won't +work. Quick, a revolution! The good God has his hands perpetually black +with that cart-grease. If I were in his place, I'd be perfectly simple +about it, I would not wind up my mechanism every minute, I'd lead the +human race in a straightforward way, I'd weave matters mesh by mesh, +without breaking the thread, I would have no provisional arrangements, +I would have no extraordinary repertory. What the rest of you call +progress advances by means of two motors, men and events. But, sad to +say, from time to time, the exceptional becomes necessary. The ordinary +troupe suffices neither for event nor for men: among men geniuses are +required, among events revolutions. Great accidents are the law; the +order of things cannot do without them; and, judging from the apparition +of comets, one would be tempted to think that Heaven itself finds actors +needed for its performance. At the moment when one expects it the least, +God placards a meteor on the wall of the firmament. Some queer star +turns up, underlined by an enormous tail. And that causes the death +of Caesar. Brutus deals him a blow with a knife, and God a blow with a +comet. Crac, and behold an aurora borealis, behold a revolution, behold +a great man; '93 in big letters, Napoleon on guard, the comet of 1811 +at the head of the poster. Ah! what a beautiful blue theatre all studded +with unexpected flashes! Boum! Boum! extraordinary show! Raise your +eyes, boobies. Everything is in disorder, the star as well as the drama. +Good God, it is too much and not enough. These resources, gathered from +exception, seem magnificence and poverty. My friends, Providence has +come down to expedients. What does a revolution prove? That God is in a +quandry. He effects a coup d'etat because he, God, has not been able to +make both ends meet. In fact, this confirms me in my conjectures as +to Jehovah's fortune; and when I see so much distress in heaven and on +earth, from the bird who has not a grain of millet to myself without a +hundred thousand livres of income, when I see human destiny, which is +very badly worn, and even royal destiny, which is threadbare, witness +the Prince de Conde hung, when I see winter, which is nothing but a rent +in the zenith through which the wind blows, when I see so many rags even +in the perfectly new purple of the morning on the crests of hills, when +I see the drops of dew, those mock pearls, when I see the frost, that +paste, when I see humanity ripped apart and events patched up, and so +many spots on the sun and so many holes in the moon, when I see so +much misery everywhere, I suspect that God is not rich. The appearance +exists, it is true, but I feel that he is hard up. He gives a revolution +as a tradesman whose money-box is empty gives a ball. God must not be +judged from appearances. Beneath the gilding of heaven I perceive +a poverty-stricken universe. Creation is bankrupt. That is why I am +discontented. Here it is the 4th of June, it is almost night; ever since +this morning I have been waiting for daylight to come; it has not come, +and I bet that it won't come all day. This is the inexactness of an +ill-paid clerk. Yes, everything is badly arranged, nothing fits anything +else, this old world is all warped, I take my stand on the opposition, +everything goes awry; the universe is a tease. It's like children, those +who want them have none, and those who don't want them have them. Total: +I'm vexed. Besides, Laigle de Meaux, that bald-head, offends my sight. +It humiliates me to think that I am of the same age as that baldy. +However, I criticise, but I do not insult. The universe is what it is. +I speak here without evil intent and to ease my conscience. Receive, +Eternal Father, the assurance of my distinguished consideration. Ah! +by all the saints of Olympus and by all the gods of paradise, I was not +intended to be a Parisian, that is to say, to rebound forever, like a +shuttlecock between two battledores, from the group of the loungers to +the group of the roysterers. I was made to be a Turk, watching oriental +houris all day long, executing those exquisite Egyptian dances, as +sensuous as the dream of a chaste man, or a Beauceron peasant, or a +Venetian gentleman surrounded by gentlewomen, or a petty German prince, +furnishing the half of a foot-soldier to the Germanic confederation, and +occupying his leisure with drying his breeches on his hedge, that is to +say, his frontier. Those are the positions for which I was born! Yes, I +have said a Turk, and I will not retract. I do not understand how people +can habitually take Turks in bad part; Mohammed had his good points; +respect for the inventor of seraglios with houris and paradises with +odalisques! Let us not insult Mohammedanism, the only religion which is +ornamented with a hen-roost! Now, I insist on a drink. The earth is a +great piece of stupidity. And it appears that they are going to fight, +all those imbeciles, and to break each other's profiles and to massacre +each other in the heart of summer, in the month of June, when they might +go off with a creature on their arm, to breathe the immense heaps of +new-mown hay in the meadows! Really, people do commit altogether +too many follies. An old broken lantern which I have just seen at a +bric-a-brac merchant's suggests a reflection to my mind; it is time to +enlighten the human race. Yes, behold me sad again. That's what comes +of swallowing an oyster and a revolution the wrong way! I am growing +melancholy once more. Oh! frightful old world. People strive, turn each +other out, prostitute themselves, kill each other, and get used to it!" + +And Grantaire, after this fit of eloquence, had a fit of coughing, which +was well earned. + +"A propos of revolution," said Joly, "it is decidedly abberent that +Barius is in lub." + +"Does any one know with whom?" demanded Laigle. + +"Do." + +"No?" + +"Do! I tell you." + +"Marius' love affairs!" exclaimed Grantaire. "I can imagine it. Marius +is a fog, and he must have found a vapor. Marius is of the race of +poets. He who says poet, says fool, madman, Tymbraeus Apollo. Marius and +his Marie, or his Marion, or his Maria, or his Mariette. They must make +a queer pair of lovers. I know just what it is like. Ecstasies in which +they forget to kiss. Pure on earth, but joined in heaven. They are souls +possessed of senses. They lie among the stars." + +Grantaire was attacking his second bottle and, possibly, his second +harangue, when a new personage emerged from the square aperture of the +stairs. It was a boy less than ten years of age, ragged, very small, +yellow, with an odd phiz, a vivacious eye, an enormous amount of hair +drenched with rain, and wearing a contented air. + +The child unhesitatingly making his choice among the three, addressed +himself to Laigle de Meaux. + +"Are you Monsieur Bossuet?" + +"That is my nickname," replied Laigle. "What do you want with me?" + +"This. A tall blonde fellow on the boulevard said to me: 'Do you know +Mother Hucheloup?' I said: 'Yes, Rue Chanvrerie, the old man's widow;' +he said to me: 'Go there. There you will find M. Bossuet. Tell him from +me: "A B C".' It's a joke that they're playing on you, isn't it. He gave +me ten sous." + +"Joly, lend me ten sous," said Laigle; and, turning to Grantaire: +"Grantaire, lend me ten sous." + +This made twenty sous, which Laigle handed to the lad. + +"Thank you, sir," said the urchin. + +"What is your name?" inquired Laigle. + +"Navet, Gavroche's friend." + +"Stay with us," said Laigle. + +"Breakfast with us," said Grantaire. + +The child replied:-- + +"I can't, I belong in the procession, I'm the one to shout 'Down with +Polignac!'" + +And executing a prolonged scrape of his foot behind him, which is the +most respectful of all possible salutes, he took his departure. + +The child gone, Grantaire took the word:-- + +"That is the pure-bred gamin. There are a great many varieties of the +gamin species. The notary's gamin is called Skip-the-Gutter, the cook's +gamin is called a scullion, the baker's gamin is called a mitron, +the lackey's gamin is called a groom, the marine gamin is called the +cabin-boy, the soldier's gamin is called the drummer-boy, the painter's +gamin is called paint-grinder, the tradesman's gamin is called an +errand-boy, the courtesan gamin is called the minion, the kingly gamin +is called the dauphin, the god gamin is called the bambino." + +In the meantime, Laigle was engaged in reflection; he said half aloud:-- + +"A B C, that is to say: the burial of Lamarque." + +"The tall blonde," remarked Grantaire, "is Enjolras, who is sending you +a warning." + +"Shall we go?" ejaculated Bossuet. + +"It's raiding," said Joly. "I have sworn to go through fire, but not +through water. I don't wand to ged a gold." + +"I shall stay here," said Grantaire. "I prefer a breakfast to a hearse." + +"Conclusion: we remain," said Laigle. "Well, then, let us drink. +Besides, we might miss the funeral without missing the riot." + +"Ah! the riot, I am with you!" cried Joly. + +Laigle rubbed his hands. + +"Now we're going to touch up the revolution of 1830. As a matter of +fact, it does hurt the people along the seams." + +"I don't think much of your revolution," said Grantaire. "I don't +execrate this Government. It is the crown tempered by the cotton +night-cap. It is a sceptre ending in an umbrella. In fact, I think +that to-day, with the present weather, Louis Philippe might utilize his +royalty in two directions, he might extend the tip of the sceptre end +against the people, and open the umbrella end against heaven." + +The room was dark, large clouds had just finished the extinction of +daylight. There was no one in the wine-shop, or in the street, every one +having gone off "to watch events." + +"Is it mid-day or midnight?" cried Bossuet. "You can't see your hand +before your face. Gibelotte, fetch a light." + +Grantaire was drinking in a melancholy way. + +"Enjolras disdains me," he muttered. "Enjolras said: 'Joly is ill, +Grantaire is drunk.' It was to Bossuet that he sent Navet. If he had +come for me, I would have followed him. So much the worse for Enjolras! +I won't go to his funeral." + +This resolution once arrived at, Bossuet, Joly, and Grantaire did not +stir from the wine-shop. By two o'clock in the afternoon, the table at +which they sat was covered with empty bottles. Two candles were burning +on it, one in a flat copper candlestick which was perfectly green, the +other in the neck of a cracked carafe. Grantaire had seduced Joly and +Bossuet to wine; Bossuet and Joly had conducted Grantaire back towards +cheerfulness. + +As for Grantaire, he had got beyond wine, that merely moderate +inspirer of dreams, ever since mid-day. Wine enjoys only a conventional +popularity with serious drinkers. There is, in fact, in the matter +of inebriety, white magic and black magic; wine is only white magic. +Grantaire was a daring drinker of dreams. The blackness of a terrible +fit of drunkenness yawning before him, far from arresting him, attracted +him. He had abandoned the bottle and taken to the beerglass. The +beer-glass is the abyss. Having neither opium nor hashish on hand, and +being desirous of filling his brain with twilight, he had had recourse +to that fearful mixture of brandy, stout, absinthe, which produces the +most terrible of lethargies. It is of these three vapors, beer, brandy, +and absinthe, that the lead of the soul is composed. They are three +grooms; the celestial butterfly is drowned in them; and there are formed +there in a membranous smoke, vaguely condensed into the wing of the bat, +three mute furies, Nightmare, Night, and Death, which hover about the +slumbering Psyche. + +Grantaire had not yet reached that lamentable phase; far from it. He was +tremendously gay, and Bossuet and Joly retorted. They clinked glasses. +Grantaire added to the eccentric accentuation of words and ideas, +a peculiarity of gesture; he rested his left fist on his knee with +dignity, his arm forming a right angle, and, with cravat untied, seated +astride a stool, his full glass in his right hand, he hurled solemn +words at the big maid-servant Matelote:-- + +"Let the doors of the palace be thrown open! Let every one be a member +of the French Academy and have the right to embrace Madame Hucheloup. +Let us drink." + +And turning to Madame Hucheloup, he added:-- + +"Woman ancient and consecrated by use, draw near that I may contemplate +thee!" + +And Joly exclaimed:-- + +"Matelote and Gibelotte, dod't gib Grantaire anything more to drink. +He has already devoured, since this bording, in wild prodigality, two +francs and ninety-five centibes." + +And Grantaire began again:-- + +"Who has been unhooking the stars without my permission, and putting +them on the table in the guise of candles?" + +Bossuet, though very drunk, preserved his equanimity. + +He was seated on the sill of the open window, wetting his back in the +falling rain, and gazing at his two friends. + +All at once, he heard a tumult behind him, hurried footsteps, cries of +"To arms!" He turned round and saw in the Rue Saint-Denis, at the end +of the Rue de la Chanvrerie, Enjolras passing, gun in hand, and Gavroche +with his pistol, Feuilly with his sword, Courfeyrac with his sword, and +Jean Prouvaire with his blunderbuss, Combeferre with his gun, Bahorel +with his gun, and the whole armed and stormy rabble which was following +them. + +The Rue de la Chanvrerie was not more than a gunshot long. Bossuet +improvised a speaking-trumpet from his two hands placed around his +mouth, and shouted:-- + +"Courfeyrac! Courfeyrac! Hohee!" + +Courfeyrac heard the shout, caught sight of Bossuet, and advanced a few +paces into the Rue de la Chanvrerie, shouting: "What do you want?" which +crossed a "Where are you going?" + +"To make a barricade," replied Courfeyrac. + +"Well, here! This is a good place! Make it here!" + +"That's true, Aigle," said Courfeyrac. + +And at a signal from Courfeyrac, the mob flung themselves into the Rue +de la Chanvrerie. + + + + +CHAPTER III--NIGHT BEGINS TO DESCEND UPON GRANTAIRE + +The spot was, in fact, admirably adapted, the entrance to the street +widened out, the other extremity narrowed together into a pocket +without exit. Corinthe created an obstacle, the Rue Mondetour was easily +barricaded on the right and the left, no attack was possible except +from the Rue Saint-Denis, that is to say, in front, and in full sight. +Bossuet had the comprehensive glance of a fasting Hannibal. + +Terror had seized on the whole street at the irruption of the mob. There +was not a passer-by who did not get out of sight. In the space of a +flash of lightning, in the rear, to right and left, shops, stables, +area-doors, windows, blinds, attic skylights, shutters of every +description were closed, from the ground floor to the roof. A terrified +old woman fixed a mattress in front of her window on two clothes-poles +for drying linen, in order to deaden the effect of musketry. The +wine-shop alone remained open; and that for a very good reason, that the +mob had rushed into it.--"Ah my God! Ah my God!" sighed Mame Hucheloup. + +Bossuet had gone down to meet Courfeyrac. + +Joly, who had placed himself at the window, exclaimed:-- + +"Courfeyrac, you ought to have brought an umbrella. You will gatch +gold." + +In the meantime, in the space of a few minutes, twenty iron bars had +been wrenched from the grated front of the wine-shop, ten fathoms of +street had been unpaved; Gavroche and Bahorel had seized in its passage, +and overturned, the dray of a lime-dealer named Anceau; this dray +contained three barrels of lime, which they placed beneath the piles +of paving-stones: Enjolras raised the cellar trap, and all the widow +Hucheloup's empty casks were used to flank the barrels of lime; Feuilly, +with his fingers skilled in painting the delicate sticks of fans, had +backed up the barrels and the dray with two massive heaps of blocks of +rough stone. Blocks which were improvised like the rest and procured +no one knows where. The beams which served as props were torn from +the neighboring house-fronts and laid on the casks. When Bossuet and +Courfeyrac turned round, half the street was already barred with +a rampart higher than a man. There is nothing like the hand of the +populace for building everything that is built by demolishing. + +Matelote and Gibelotte had mingled with the workers. Gibelotte went and +came loaded with rubbish. Her lassitude helped on the barricade. She +served the barricade as she would have served wine, with a sleepy air. + +An omnibus with two white horses passed the end of the street. + +Bossuet strode over the paving-stones, ran to it, stopped the driver, +made the passengers alight, offered his hand to "the ladies," dismissed +the conductor, and returned, leading the vehicle and the horses by the +bridle. + +"Omnibuses," said he, "do not pass the Corinthe. Non licet omnibus adire +Corinthum." + +An instant later, the horses were unharnessed and went off at their +will, through the Rue Mondetour, and the omnibus lying on its side +completed the bar across the street. + +Mame Hucheloup, quite upset, had taken refuge in the first story. + +Her eyes were vague, and stared without seeing anything, and she cried +in a low tone. Her terrified shrieks did not dare to emerge from her +throat. + +"The end of the world has come," she muttered. + +Joly deposited a kiss on Mame Hucheloup's fat, red, wrinkled neck, and +said to Grantaire: "My dear fellow, I have always regarded a woman's +neck as an infinitely delicate thing." + +But Grantaire attained to the highest regions of dithryamb. Matelote +had mounted to the first floor once more, Grantaire seized her round her +waist, and gave vent to long bursts of laughter at the window. + +"Matelote is homely!" he cried: "Matelote is of a dream of ugliness! +Matelote is a chimaera. This is the secret of her birth: a Gothic +Pygmalion, who was making gargoyles for cathedrals, fell in love with +one of them, the most horrible, one fine morning. He besought Love to +give it life, and this produced Matelote. Look at her, citizens! She has +chromate-of-lead-colored hair, like Titian's mistress, and she is a good +girl. I guarantee that she will fight well. Every good girl contains +a hero. As for Mother Hucheloup, she's an old warrior. Look at her +moustaches! She inherited them from her husband. A hussar indeed! She +will fight too. These two alone will strike terror to the heart of the +banlieue. Comrades, we shall overthrow the government as true as there +are fifteen intermediary acids between margaric acid and formic acid; +however, that is a matter of perfect indifference to me. Gentlemen, my +father always detested me because I could not understand mathematics. +I understand only love and liberty. I am Grantaire, the good fellow. +Having never had any money, I never acquired the habit of it, and the +result is that I have never lacked it; but, if I had been rich, there +would have been no more poor people! You would have seen! Oh, if the +kind hearts only had fat purses, how much better things would go! I +picture myself Jesus Christ with Rothschild's fortune! How much good he +would do! Matelote, embrace me! You are voluptuous and timid! You have +cheeks which invite the kiss of a sister, and lips which claim the kiss +of a lover." + +"Hold your tongue, you cask!" said Courfeyrac. + +Grantaire retorted:-- + +"I am the capitoul[52] and the master of the floral games!" + +Enjolras, who was standing on the crest of the barricade, gun in hand, +raised his beautiful, austere face. Enjolras, as the reader knows, had +something of the Spartan and of the Puritan in his composition. He would +have perished at Thermopylae with Leonidas, and burned at Drogheda with +Cromwell. + +"Grantaire," he shouted, "go get rid of the fumes of your wine somewhere +else than here. This is the place for enthusiasm, not for drunkenness. +Don't disgrace the barricade!" + +This angry speech produced a singular effect on Grantaire. One would +have said that he had had a glass of cold water flung in his face. He +seemed to be rendered suddenly sober. + +He sat down, put his elbows on a table near the window, looked at +Enjolras with indescribable gentleness, and said to him:-- + +"Let me sleep here." + +"Go and sleep somewhere else," cried Enjolras. + +But Grantaire, still keeping his tender and troubled eyes fixed on him, +replied:-- + +"Let me sleep here,--until I die." + +Enjolras regarded him with disdainful eyes:-- + +"Grantaire, you are incapable of believing, of thinking, of willing, of +living, and of dying." + +Grantaire replied in a grave tone:-- + +"You will see." + +He stammered a few more unintelligible words, then his head fell heavily +on the table, and, as is the usual effect of the second period of +inebriety, into which Enjolras had roughly and abruptly thrust him, an +instant later he had fallen asleep. + + + + +CHAPTER IV--AN ATTEMPT TO CONSOLE THE WIDOW HUCHELOUP + +Bahorel, in ecstasies over the barricade, shouted:-- + +"Here's the street in its low-necked dress! How well it looks!" + +Courfeyrac, as he demolished the wine-shop to some extent, sought to +console the widowed proprietress. + +"Mother Hucheloup, weren't you complaining the other day because you +had had a notice served on you for infringing the law, because Gibelotte +shook a counterpane out of your window?" + +"Yes, my good Monsieur Courfeyrac. Ah! good Heavens, are you going +to put that table of mine in your horror, too? And it was for the +counterpane, and also for a pot of flowers which fell from the attic +window into the street, that the government collected a fine of a +hundred francs. If that isn't an abomination, what is!" + +"Well, Mother Hucheloup, we are avenging you." + +Mother Hucheloup did not appear to understand very clearly the benefit +which she was to derive from these reprisals made on her account. She +was satisfied after the manner of that Arab woman, who, having received +a box on the ear from her husband, went to complain to her father, and +cried for vengeance, saying: "Father, you owe my husband affront for +affront." The father asked: "On which cheek did you receive the blow?" +"On the left cheek." The father slapped her right cheek and said: "Now +you are satisfied. Go tell your husband that he boxed my daughter's +ears, and that I have accordingly boxed his wife's." + +The rain had ceased. Recruits had arrived. Workmen had brought under +their blouses a barrel of powder, a basket containing bottles of +vitriol, two or three carnival torches, and a basket filled with +fire-pots, "left over from the King's festival." This festival was very +recent, having taken place on the 1st of May. It was said that these +munitions came from a grocer in the Faubourg Saint-Antoine named Pepin. +They smashed the only street lantern in the Rue de la Chanvrerie, +the lantern corresponding to one in the Rue Saint-Denis, and all +the lanterns in the surrounding streets, de Mondetour, du Cygne, des +Precheurs, and de la Grande and de la Petite-Truanderie. + +Enjolras, Combeferre, and Courfeyrac directed everything. Two barricades +were now in process of construction at once, both of them resting on the +Corinthe house and forming a right angle; the larger shut off the Rue +de la Chanvrerie, the other closed the Rue Mondetour, on the side of +the Rue de Cygne. This last barricade, which was very narrow, was +constructed only of casks and paving-stones. There were about fifty +workers on it; thirty were armed with guns; for, on their way, they had +effected a wholesale loan from an armorer's shop. + +Nothing could be more bizarre and at the same time more motley than this +troop. One had a round-jacket, a cavalry sabre, and two holster-pistols, +another was in his shirt-sleeves, with a round hat, and a powder-horn +slung at his side, a third wore a plastron of nine sheets of gray paper +and was armed with a saddler's awl. There was one who was shouting: +"Let us exterminate them to the last man and die at the point of our +bayonet." This man had no bayonet. Another spread out over his coat the +cross-belt and cartridge-box of a National Guardsman, the cover of the +cartridge-box being ornamented with this inscription in red worsted: +Public Order. There were a great many guns bearing the numbers of the +legions, few hats, no cravats, many bare arms, some pikes. Add to +this, all ages, all sorts of faces, small, pale young men, and bronzed +longshoremen. All were in haste; and as they helped each other, they +discussed the possible chances. That they would receive succor about +three o'clock in the morning--that they were sure of one regiment, that +Paris would rise. Terrible sayings with which was mingled a sort of +cordial joviality. One would have pronounced them brothers, but they did +not know each other's names. Great perils have this fine characteristic, +that they bring to light the fraternity of strangers. A fire had been +lighted in the kitchen, and there they were engaged in moulding into +bullets, pewter mugs, spoons, forks, and all the brass table-ware of +the establishment. In the midst of it all, they drank. Caps and +buckshot were mixed pell-mell on the tables with glasses of wine. In +the billiard-hall, Mame Hucheloup, Matelote, and Gibelotte, variously +modified by terror, which had stupefied one, rendered another +breathless, and roused the third, were tearing up old dish-cloths and +making lint; three insurgents were assisting them, three bushy-haired, +jolly blades with beards and moustaches, who plucked away at the linen +with the fingers of seamstresses and who made them tremble. + +The man of lofty stature whom Courfeyrac, Combeferre, and Enjolras had +observed at the moment when he joined the mob at the corner of the +Rue des Billettes, was at work on the smaller barricade and was making +himself useful there. Gavroche was working on the larger one. As for the +young man who had been waiting for Courfeyrac at his lodgings, and who +had inquired for M. Marius, he had disappeared at about the time when +the omnibus had been overturned. + +Gavroche, completely carried away and radiant, had undertaken to get +everything in readiness. He went, came, mounted, descended, re-mounted, +whistled, and sparkled. He seemed to be there for the encouragement of +all. Had he any incentive? Yes, certainly, his poverty; had he wings? +yes, certainly, his joy. Gavroche was a whirlwind. He was constantly +visible, he was incessantly audible. He filled the air, as he was +everywhere at once. He was a sort of almost irritating ubiquity; no halt +was possible with him. The enormous barricade felt him on its haunches. +He troubled the loungers, he excited the idle, he reanimated the weary, +he grew impatient over the thoughtful, he inspired gayety in some, +and breath in others, wrath in others, movement in all, now pricking +a student, now biting an artisan; he alighted, paused, flew off again, +hovered over the tumult, and the effort, sprang from one party to +another, murmuring and humming, and harassed the whole company; a fly on +the immense revolutionary coach. + +Perpetual motion was in his little arms and perpetual clamor in his +little lungs. + +"Courage! more paving-stones! more casks! more machines! Where are you +now? A hod of plaster for me to stop this hole with! Your barricade +is very small. It must be carried up. Put everything on it, fling +everything there, stick it all in. Break down the house. A barricade is +Mother Gibou's tea. Hullo, here's a glass door." + +This elicited an exclamation from the workers. + +"A glass door? what do you expect us to do with a glass door, tubercle?" + +"Hercules yourselves!" retorted Gavroche. "A glass door is an excellent +thing in a barricade. It does not prevent an attack, but it prevents the +enemy taking it. So you've never prigged apples over a wall where there +were broken bottles? A glass door cuts the corns of the National Guard +when they try to mount on the barricade. Pardi! glass is a treacherous +thing. Well, you haven't a very wildly lively imagination, comrades." + +However, he was furious over his triggerless pistol. He went from one to +another, demanding: "A gun, I want a gun! Why don't you give me a gun?" + +"Give you a gun!" said Combeferre. + +"Come now!" said Gavroche, "why not? I had one in 1830 when we had a +dispute with Charles X." + +Enjolras shrugged his shoulders. + +"When there are enough for the men, we will give some to the children." + +Gavroche wheeled round haughtily, and answered:-- + +"If you are killed before me, I shall take yours." + +"Gamin!" said Enjolras. + +"Greenhorn!" said Gavroche. + +A dandy who had lost his way and who lounged past the end of the street +created a diversion! Gavroche shouted to him:-- + +"Come with us, young fellow! well now, don't we do anything for this old +country of ours?" + +The dandy fled. + + + + +CHAPTER V--PREPARATIONS + +The journals of the day which said that that nearly impregnable +structure, of the barricade of the Rue de la Chanvrerie, as they call +it, reached to the level of the first floor, were mistaken. The fact is, +that it did not exceed an average height of six or seven feet. It was +built in such a manner that the combatants could, at their will, either +disappear behind it or dominate the barrier and even scale its crest by +means of a quadruple row of paving-stones placed on top of each other +and arranged as steps in the interior. On the outside, the front of the +barricade, composed of piles of paving-stones and casks bound together +by beams and planks, which were entangled in the wheels of Anceau's dray +and of the overturned omnibus, had a bristling and inextricable aspect. + +An aperture large enough to allow a man to pass through had been made +between the wall of the houses and the extremity of the barricade which +was furthest from the wine-shop, so that an exit was possible at this +point. The pole of the omnibus was placed upright and held up with +ropes, and a red flag, fastened to this pole, floated over the +barricade. + +The little Mondetour barricade, hidden behind the wine-shop building, +was not visible. The two barricades united formed a veritable redoubt. +Enjolras and Courfeyrac had not thought fit to barricade the other +fragment of the Rue Mondetour which opens through the Rue des Precheurs +an issue into the Halles, wishing, no doubt, to preserve a possible +communication with the outside, and not entertaining much fear of +an attack through the dangerous and difficult street of the Rue des +Precheurs. + +With the exception of this issue which was left free, and which +constituted what Folard in his strategical style would have termed a +branch and taking into account, also, the narrow cutting arranged on the +Rue de la Chanvrerie, the interior of the barricade, where the wine-shop +formed a salient angle, presented an irregular square, closed on all +sides. There existed an interval of twenty paces between the grand +barrier and the lofty houses which formed the background of the street, +so that one might say that the barricade rested on these houses, all +inhabited, but closed from top to bottom. + +All this work was performed without any hindrance, in less than an hour, +and without this handful of bold men seeing a single bear-skin cap or +a single bayonet make their appearance. The very bourgeois who still +ventured at this hour of riot to enter the Rue Saint-Denis cast a +glance at the Rue de la Chanvrerie, caught sight of the barricade, and +redoubled their pace. + +The two barricades being finished, and the flag run up, a table was +dragged out of the wine-shop; and Courfeyrac mounted on the table. +Enjolras brought the square coffer, and Courfeyrac opened it. This +coffer was filled with cartridges. When the mob saw the cartridges, a +tremor ran through the bravest, and a momentary silence ensued. + +Courfeyrac distributed them with a smile. + +Each one received thirty cartridges. Many had powder, and set about +making others with the bullets which they had run. As for the barrel of +powder, it stood on a table on one side, near the door, and was held in +reserve. + +The alarm beat which ran through all Paris, did not cease, but it had +finally come to be nothing more than a monotonous noise to which they no +longer paid any attention. This noise retreated at times, and again drew +near, with melancholy undulations. + +They loaded the guns and carbines, all together, without haste, with +solemn gravity. Enjolras went and stationed three sentinels outside the +barricades, one in the Rue de la Chanvrerie, the second in the Rue des +Precheurs, the third at the corner of the Rue de la Petite Truanderie. + +Then, the barricades having been built, the posts assigned, the guns +loaded, the sentinels stationed, they waited, alone in those redoubtable +streets through which no one passed any longer, surrounded by those +dumb houses which seemed dead and in which no human movement palpitated, +enveloped in the deepening shades of twilight which was drawing on, +in the midst of that silence through which something could be felt +advancing, and which had about it something tragic and terrifying, +isolated, armed, determined, and tranquil. + + + + +CHAPTER VI--WAITING + +During those hours of waiting, what did they do? + +We must needs tell, since this is a matter of history. + +While the men made bullets and the women lint, while a large saucepan +of melted brass and lead, destined to the bullet-mould smoked over a +glowing brazier, while the sentinels watched, weapon in hand, on the +barricade, while Enjolras, whom it was impossible to divert, kept an +eye on the sentinels, Combeferre, Courfeyrac, Jean Prouvaire, Feuilly, +Bossuet, Joly, Bahorel, and some others, sought each other out and +united as in the most peaceful days of their conversations in their +student life, and, in one corner of this wine-shop which had been +converted into a casement, a couple of paces distant from the redoubt +which they had built, with their carbines loaded and primed resting +against the backs of their chairs, these fine young fellows, so close to +a supreme hour, began to recite love verses. + +What verses? These:-- + + Vous rappelez-vous notre douce vie, + Lorsque nous etions si jeunes tous deux, + Et que nous n'avions au coeur d'autre envie + Que d'etre bien mis et d'etre amoureux, + + Lorsqu'en ajoutant votre age a mon age, + Nous ne comptions pas a deux quarante ans, + Et que, dans notre humble et petit menage, + Tout, meme l'hiver, nous etait printemps? + + Beaux jours! Manuel etait fier et sage, + Paris s'asseyait a de saints banquets, + Foy lancait la foudre, et votre corsage + Avait une epingle ou je me piquais. + + Tout vous contemplait. Avocat sans causes, + Quand je vous menais au Prado diner, + Vous etiez jolie au point que les roses + Me faisaient l'effet de se retourner. + + Je les entendais dire: Est elle belle! + Comme elle sent bon! Quels cheveux a flots! + Sous son mantelet elle cache une aile, + Son bonnet charmant est a peine eclos. + + J'errais avec toi, pressant ton bras souple. + Les passants crovaient que l'amour charme + Avait marie, dans notre heureux couple, + Le doux mois d'avril au beau mois de mai. + + Nous vivions caches, contents, porte close, + Devorant l'amour, bon fruit defendu, + Ma bouche n'avait pas dit une chose + Que deja ton coeur avait repondu. + + La Sorbonne etait l'endroit bucolique + Ou je t'adorais du soir au matin. + C'est ainsi qu'une ame amoureuse applique + La carte du Tendre au pays Latin. + + O place Maubert! o place Dauphine! + Quand, dans le taudis frais et printanier, + Tu tirais ton bas sur ton jambe fine, + Je voyais un astre au fond du grenier. + + J'ai fort lu Platon, mais rien ne m'en reste; + Mieux que Malebranche et que Lamennais, + Tu me demontrais la bonte celeste + Avec une fleur que tu me donnais. + + Je t'obeissais, tu m' etais soumise; + O grenier dore! te lacer! te voir + Aller et venir des l'aube en chemise, + Mirant ton jeune front a ton vieux miroir. + + Et qui done pourrait perde la memoire + De ces temps d'aurore et de firmament, + De rubans, de fleurs, de gaze et de moire, + Ou l'amour begaye un argot charmant? + + Nos jardins etaient un pot de tulipe; + Tu masquais la vitre avec un jupon; + Je prenais le bol de terre de pipe, + Et je te donnais le tasse en japon. + + Et ces grands malheurs qui nous faisaient rire! + Ton manchon brule, ton boa perdu! + Et ce cher portrait du divin Shakespeare + Qu'un soir pour souper nons avons vendu! + + J'etais mendiant et toi charitable. + Je baisais au vol tes bras frais et ronds. + Dante in folio nous servait de table + Pour manger gaiment un cent de marrons. + + La premiere fois qu'en mon joyeux bouge + Je pris un baiser a ton levre en feu, + Quand tu t'en allais decoiffee et rouge, + Je restai tout pale et je crus en Dieu! + + Te rappelles-tu nos bonheurs sans nombre, + Et tous ces fichus changes en chiffons? + Oh que de soupirs, de nos coeurs pleins d'ombre, + Se sont envoles dans les cieux profonds![53] + + +The hour, the spot, these souvenirs of youth recalled, a few stars +which began to twinkle in the sky, the funeral repose of those deserted +streets, the imminence of the inexorable adventure, which was in +preparation, gave a pathetic charm to these verses murmured in a low +tone in the dusk by Jean Prouvaire, who, as we have said, was a gentle +poet. + +In the meantime, a lamp had been lighted in the small barricade, and in +the large one, one of those wax torches such as are to be met with on +Shrove-Tuesday in front of vehicles loaded with masks, on their way +to la Courtille. These torches, as the reader has seen, came from the +Faubourg Saint-Antoine. + +The torch had been placed in a sort of cage of paving-stones closed on +three sides to shelter it from the wind, and disposed in such a fashion +that all the light fell on the flag. The street and the barricade +remained sunk in gloom, and nothing was to be seen except the red flag +formidably illuminated as by an enormous dark-lantern. + +This light enhanced the scarlet of the flag, with an indescribable and +terrible purple. + + + + +CHAPTER VII--THE MAN RECRUITED IN THE RUE DES BILLETTES + +Night was fully come, nothing made its appearance. All that they heard +was confused noises, and at intervals, fusillades; but these were rare, +badly sustained and distant. This respite, which was thus prolonged, +was a sign that the Government was taking its time, and collecting its +forces. These fifty men were waiting for sixty thousand. + +Enjolras felt attacked by that impatience which seizes on strong souls +on the threshold of redoubtable events. He went in search of Gavroche, +who had set to making cartridges in the tap-room, by the dubious light +of two candles placed on the counter by way of precaution, on account of +the powder which was scattered on the tables. These two candles cast no +gleam outside. The insurgents had, moreover, taken pains not to have any +light in the upper stories. + +Gavroche was deeply preoccupied at that moment, but not precisely with +his cartridges. The man of the Rue des Billettes had just entered +the tap-room and had seated himself at the table which was the least +lighted. A musket of large model had fallen to his share, and he held it +between his legs. Gavroche, who had been, up to that moment, distracted +by a hundred "amusing" things, had not even seen this man. + +When he entered, Gavroche followed him mechanically with his eyes, +admiring his gun; then, all at once, when the man was seated, the street +urchin sprang to his feet. Any one who had spied upon that man up to +that moment, would have seen that he was observing everything in the +barricade and in the band of insurgents, with singular attention; but, +from the moment when he had entered this room, he had fallen into a sort +of brown study, and no longer seemed to see anything that was going on. +The gamin approached this pensive personage, and began to step around +him on tiptoe, as one walks in the vicinity of a person whom one is +afraid of waking. At the same time, over his childish countenance which +was, at once so impudent and so serious, so giddy and so profound, so +gay and so heart-breaking, passed all those grimaces of an old man which +signify: Ah bah! impossible! My sight is bad! I am dreaming! can this +be? no, it is not! but yes! why, no! etc. Gavroche balanced on his +heels, clenched both fists in his pockets, moved his neck around like a +bird, expended in a gigantic pout all the sagacity of his lower lip. He +was astounded, uncertain, incredulous, convinced, dazzled. He had the +mien of the chief of the eunuchs in the slave mart, discovering a +Venus among the blowsy females, and the air of an amateur recognizing +a Raphael in a heap of daubs. His whole being was at work, the instinct +which scents out, and the intelligence which combines. It was evident +that a great event had happened in Gavroche's life. + +It was at the most intense point of this preoccupation that Enjolras +accosted him. + +"You are small," said Enjolras, "you will not be seen. Go out of the +barricade, slip along close to the houses, skirmish about a bit in the +streets, and come back and tell me what is going on." + +Gavroche raised himself on his haunches. + +"So the little chaps are good for something! that's very lucky! I'll +go! In the meanwhile, trust to the little fellows, and distrust the big +ones." And Gavroche, raising his head and lowering his voice, added, +as he indicated the man of the Rue des Billettes: "Do you see that big +fellow there?" + +"Well?" + +"He's a police spy." + +"Are you sure of it?" + +"It isn't two weeks since he pulled me off the cornice of the Port +Royal, where I was taking the air, by my ear." + +Enjolras hastily quitted the urchin and murmured a few words in a very +low tone to a longshoreman from the winedocks who chanced to be at hand. +The man left the room, and returned almost immediately, accompanied by +three others. The four men, four porters with broad shoulders, went +and placed themselves without doing anything to attract his attention, +behind the table on which the man of the Rue des Billettes was leaning +with his elbows. They were evidently ready to hurl themselves upon him. + +Then Enjolras approached the man and demanded of him:-- + +"Who are you?" + +At this abrupt query, the man started. He plunged his gaze deep into +Enjolras' clear eyes and appeared to grasp the latter's meaning. He +smiled with a smile than which nothing more disdainful, more energetic, +and more resolute could be seen in the world, and replied with haughty +gravity:-- + +"I see what it is. Well, yes!" + +"You are a police spy?" + +"I am an agent of the authorities." + +"And your name?" + +"Javert." + +Enjolras made a sign to the four men. In the twinkling of an eye, before +Javert had time to turn round, he was collared, thrown down, pinioned +and searched. + +They found on him a little round card pasted between two pieces of +glass, and bearing on one side the arms of France, engraved, and with +this motto: Supervision and vigilance, and on the other this note: +"JAVERT, inspector of police, aged fifty-two," and the signature of the +Prefect of Police of that day, M. Gisquet. + +Besides this, he had his watch and his purse, which contained several +gold pieces. They left him his purse and his watch. Under the watch, +at the bottom of his fob, they felt and seized a paper in an envelope, +which Enjolras unfolded, and on which he read these five lines, written +in the very hand of the Prefect of Police:-- + +"As soon as his political mission is accomplished, Inspector Javert +will make sure, by special supervision, whether it is true that the +malefactors have instituted intrigues on the right bank of the Seine, +near the Jena bridge." + +The search ended, they lifted Javert to his feet, bound his arms behind +his back, and fastened him to that celebrated post in the middle of the +room which had formerly given the wine-shop its name. + +Gavroche, who had looked on at the whole of this scene and had approved +of everything with a silent toss of his head, stepped up to Javert and +said to him:-- + +"It's the mouse who has caught the cat." + +All this was so rapidly executed, that it was all over when those about +the wine-shop noticed it. + +Javert had not uttered a single cry. + +At the sight of Javert bound to the post, Courfeyrac, Bossuet, Joly, +Combeferre, and the men scattered over the two barricades came running +up. + +Javert, with his back to the post, and so surrounded with ropes that he +could not make a movement, raised his head with the intrepid serenity of +the man who has never lied. + +"He is a police spy," said Enjolras. + +And turning to Javert: "You will be shot ten minutes before the +barricade is taken." + +Javert replied in his most imperious tone:-- + +"Why not at once?" + +"We are saving our powder." + +"Then finish the business with a blow from a knife." + +"Spy," said the handsome Enjolras, "we are judges and not assassins." + +Then he called Gavroche:-- + +"Here you! go about your business! Do what I told you!" + +"I'm going!" cried Gavroche. + +And halting as he was on the point of setting out:-- + +"By the way, you will give me his gun!" and he added: "I leave you the +musician, but I want the clarionet." + +The gamin made the military salute and passed gayly through the opening +in the large barricade. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII--MANY INTERROGATION POINTS WITH REGARD TO A CERTAIN LE +CABUC WHOSE NAME MAY NOT HAVE BEEN LE CABUC + +The tragic picture which we have undertaken would not be complete, the +reader would not see those grand moments of social birth-pangs in a +revolutionary birth, which contain convulsion mingled with effort, +in their exact and real relief, were we to omit, in the sketch here +outlined, an incident full of epic and savage horror which occurred +almost immediately after Gavroche's departure. + +Mobs, as the reader knows, are like a snowball, and collect as they +roll along, a throng of tumultuous men. These men do not ask each other +whence they come. Among the passers-by who had joined the rabble led by +Enjolras, Combeferre, and Courfeyrac, there had been a person wearing +the jacket of a street porter, which was very threadbare on the +shoulders, who gesticulated and vociferated, and who had the look of a +drunken savage. This man, whose name or nickname was Le Cabuc, and who +was, moreover, an utter stranger to those who pretended to know him, +was very drunk, or assumed the appearance of being so, and had seated +himself with several others at a table which they had dragged outside +of the wine-shop. This Cabuc, while making those who vied with him drunk +seemed to be examining with a thoughtful air the large house at the +extremity of the barricade, whose five stories commanded the whole +street and faced the Rue Saint-Denis. All at once he exclaimed:-- + +"Do you know, comrades, it is from that house yonder that we must fire. +When we are at the windows, the deuce is in it if any one can advance +into the street!" + +"Yes, but the house is closed," said one of the drinkers. + +"Let us knock!" + +"They will not open." + +"Let us break in the door!" + +Le Cabuc runs to the door, which had a very massive knocker, and knocks. +The door opens not. He strikes a second blow. No one answers. A third +stroke. The same silence. + +"Is there any one here?" shouts Cabuc. + +Nothing stirs. + +Then he seizes a gun and begins to batter the door with the butt end. + +It was an ancient alley door, low, vaulted, narrow, solid, entirely of +oak, lined on the inside with a sheet of iron and iron stays, a genuine +prison postern. The blows from the butt end of the gun made the house +tremble, but did not shake the door. + +Nevertheless, it is probable that the inhabitants were disturbed, for a +tiny, square window was finally seen to open on the third story, and at +this aperture appeared the reverend and terrified face of a gray-haired +old man, who was the porter, and who held a candle. + +The man who was knocking paused. + +"Gentlemen," said the porter, "what do you want?" + +"Open!" said Cabuc. + +"That cannot be, gentlemen." + +"Open, nevertheless." + +"Impossible, gentlemen." + +Le Cabuc took his gun and aimed at the porter; but as he was below, and +as it was very dark, the porter did not see him. + +"Will you open, yes or no?" + +"No, gentlemen." + +"Do you say no?" + +"I say no, my goo--" + +The porter did not finish. The shot was fired; the ball entered under +his chin and came out at the nape of his neck, after traversing the +jugular vein. + +The old man fell back without a sigh. The candle fell and was +extinguished, and nothing more was to be seen except a motionless head +lying on the sill of the small window, and a little whitish smoke which +floated off towards the roof. + +"There!" said Le Cabuc, dropping the butt end of his gun to the +pavement. + +He had hardly uttered this word, when he felt a hand laid on his +shoulder with the weight of an eagle's talon, and he heard a voice +saying to him:-- + +"On your knees." + +The murderer turned round and saw before him Enjolras' cold, white face. + +Enjolras held a pistol in his hand. + +He had hastened up at the sound of the discharge. + +He had seized Cabuc's collar, blouse, shirt, and suspender with his left +hand. + +"On your knees!" he repeated. + +And, with an imperious motion, the frail young man of twenty years bent +the thickset and sturdy porter like a reed, and brought him to his knees +in the mire. + +Le Cabuc attempted to resist, but he seemed to have been seized by a +superhuman hand. + +Enjolras, pale, with bare neck and dishevelled hair, and his woman's +face, had about him at that moment something of the antique Themis. +His dilated nostrils, his downcast eyes, gave to his implacable Greek +profile that expression of wrath and that expression of Chastity which, +as the ancient world viewed the matter, befit Justice. + +The whole barricade hastened up, then all ranged themselves in a circle +at a distance, feeling that it was impossible to utter a word in the +presence of the thing which they were about to behold. + +Le Cabuc, vanquished, no longer tried to struggle, and trembled in every +limb. + +Enjolras released him and drew out his watch. + +"Collect yourself," said he. "Think or pray. You have one minute." + +"Mercy!" murmured the murderer; then he dropped his head and stammered a +few inarticulate oaths. + +Enjolras never took his eyes off of him: he allowed a minute to pass, +then he replaced his watch in his fob. That done, he grasped Le Cabuc +by the hair, as the latter coiled himself into a ball at his knees and +shrieked, and placed the muzzle of the pistol to his ear. Many of those +intrepid men, who had so tranquilly entered upon the most terrible of +adventures, turned aside their heads. + +An explosion was heard, the assassin fell to the pavement face +downwards. + +Enjolras straightened himself up, and cast a convinced and severe glance +around him. Then he spurned the corpse with his foot and said:-- + +"Throw that outside." + +Three men raised the body of the unhappy wretch, which was still +agitated by the last mechanical convulsions of the life that had fled, +and flung it over the little barricade into the Rue Mondetour. + +Enjolras was thoughtful. It is impossible to say what grandiose shadows +slowly spread over his redoubtable serenity. All at once he raised his +voice. + +A silence fell upon them. + +"Citizens," said Enjolras, "what that man did is frightful, what I have +done is horrible. He killed, therefore I killed him. I had to do it, +because insurrection must have its discipline. Assassination is even +more of a crime here than elsewhere; we are under the eyes of the +Revolution, we are the priests of the Republic, we are the victims of +duty, and must not be possible to slander our combat. I have, therefore, +tried that man, and condemned him to death. As for myself, constrained +as I am to do what I have done, and yet abhorring it, I have judged +myself also, and you shall soon see to what I have condemned myself." + +Those who listened to him shuddered. + +"We will share thy fate," cried Combeferre. + +"So be it," replied Enjolras. "One word more. In executing this man, +I have obeyed necessity; but necessity is a monster of the old world, +necessity's name is Fatality. Now, the law of progress is, that monsters +shall disappear before the angels, and that Fatality shall vanish before +Fraternity. It is a bad moment to pronounce the word love. No matter, I +do pronounce it. And I glorify it. Love, the future is thine. Death, I +make use of thee, but I hate thee. Citizens, in the future there will +be neither darkness nor thunderbolts; neither ferocious ignorance, nor +bloody retaliation. As there will be no more Satan, there will be no +more Michael. In the future no one will kill any one else, the earth +will beam with radiance, the human race will love. The day will come, +citizens, when all will be concord, harmony, light, joy and life; it +will come, and it is in order that it may come that we are about to +die." + +Enjolras ceased. His virgin lips closed; and he remained for some time +standing on the spot where he had shed blood, in marble immobility. His +staring eye caused those about him to speak in low tones. + +Jean Prouvaire and Combeferre pressed each other's hands silently, and, +leaning against each other in an angle of the barricade, they watched +with an admiration in which there was some compassion, that grave young +man, executioner and priest, composed of light, like crystal, and also +of rock. + +Let us say at once that later on, after the action, when the bodies were +taken to the morgue and searched, a police agent's card was found on Le +Cabuc. The author of this book had in his hands, in 1848, the special +report on this subject made to the Prefect of Police in 1832. + +We will add, that if we are to believe a tradition of the police, which +is strange but probably well founded, Le Cabuc was Claquesous. The fact +is, that dating from the death of Le Cabuc, there was no longer any +question of Claquesous. Claquesous had nowhere left any trace of his +disappearance; he would seem to have amalgamated himself with the +invisible. His life had been all shadows, his end was night. + +The whole insurgent group was still under the influence of the emotion +of that tragic case which had been so quickly tried and so quickly +terminated, when Courfeyrac again beheld on the barricade, the small +young man who had inquired of him that morning for Marius. + +This lad, who had a bold and reckless air, had come by night to join the +insurgents. + + + + +BOOK THIRTEENTH.--MARIUS ENTERS THE SHADOW + + + + +CHAPTER I--FROM THE RUE PLUMET TO THE QUARTIER SAINT-DENIS + +The voice which had summoned Marius through the twilight to the +barricade of the Rue de la Chanvrerie, had produced on him the effect +of the voice of destiny. He wished to die; the opportunity presented +itself; he knocked at the door of the tomb, a hand in the darkness +offered him the key. These melancholy openings which take place in the +gloom before despair, are tempting. Marius thrust aside the bar which +had so often allowed him to pass, emerged from the garden, and said: "I +will go." + +Mad with grief, no longer conscious of anything fixed or solid in his +brain, incapable of accepting anything thenceforth of fate after those +two months passed in the intoxication of youth and love, overwhelmed at +once by all the reveries of despair, he had but one desire remaining, to +make a speedy end of all. + +He set out at rapid pace. He found himself most opportunely armed, as he +had Javert's pistols with him. + +The young man of whom he thought that he had caught a glimpse, had +vanished from his sight in the street. + +Marius, who had emerged from the Rue Plumet by the boulevard, traversed +the Esplanade and the bridge of the Invalides, the Champs Elysees, the +Place Louis XV., and reached the Rue de Rivoli. The shops were open +there, the gas was burning under the arcades, women were making their +purchases in the stalls, people were eating ices in the Cafe Laiter, +and nibbling small cakes at the English pastry-cook's shop. Only a few +posting-chaises were setting out at a gallop from the Hotel des Princes +and the Hotel Meurice. + +Marius entered the Rue Saint-Honore through the Passage Delorme. There +the shops were closed, the merchants were chatting in front of their +half-open doors, people were walking about, the street lanterns were +lighted, beginning with the first floor, all the windows were lighted as +usual. There was cavalry on the Place du Palais-Royal. + +Marius followed the Rue Saint-Honore. In proportion as he left the +Palais-Royal behind him, there were fewer lighted windows, the shops +were fast shut, no one was chatting on the thresholds, the street grew +sombre, and, at the same time, the crowd increased in density. For the +passers-by now amounted to a crowd. No one could be seen to speak in +this throng, and yet there arose from it a dull, deep murmur. + +Near the fountain of the Arbre-Sec, there were "assemblages", motionless +and gloomy groups which were to those who went and came as stones in the +midst of running water. + +At the entrance to the Rue des Prouvaires, the crowd no longer walked. +It formed a resisting, massive, solid, compact, almost impenetrable +block of people who were huddled together, and conversing in low tones. +There were hardly any black coats or round hats now, but smock frocks, +blouses, caps, and bristling and cadaverous heads. This multitude +undulated confusedly in the nocturnal gloom. Its whisperings had the +hoarse accent of a vibration. Although not one of them was walking, a +dull trampling was audible in the mire. Beyond this dense portion of +the throng, in the Rue du Roule, in the Rue des Prouvaires, and in the +extension of the Rue Saint-Honore, there was no longer a single window +in which a candle was burning. Only the solitary and diminishing rows +of lanterns could be seen vanishing into the street in the distance. The +lanterns of that date resembled large red stars, hanging to ropes, and +shed upon the pavement a shadow which had the form of a huge spider. +These streets were not deserted. There could be descried piles of guns, +moving bayonets, and troops bivouacking. No curious observer passed that +limit. There circulation ceased. There the rabble ended and the army +began. + +Marius willed with the will of a man who hopes no more. He had been +summoned, he must go. He found a means to traverse the throng and to +pass the bivouac of the troops, he shunned the patrols, he avoided the +sentinels. He made a circuit, reached the Rue de Bethisy, and directed +his course towards the Halles. At the corner of the Rue des Bourdonnais, +there were no longer any lanterns. + +After having passed the zone of the crowd, he had passed the limits of +the troops; he found himself in something startling. There was no longer +a passer-by, no longer a soldier, no longer a light, there was no one; +solitude, silence, night, I know not what chill which seized hold upon +one. Entering a street was like entering a cellar. + +He continued to advance. + +He took a few steps. Some one passed close to him at a run. Was it a +man? Or a woman? Were there many of them? he could not have told. It had +passed and vanished. + +Proceeding from circuit to circuit, he reached a lane which he judged +to be the Rue de la Poterie; near the middle of this street, he came in +contact with an obstacle. He extended his hands. It was an overturned +wagon; his foot recognized pools of water, gullies, and paving-stones +scattered and piled up. A barricade had been begun there and abandoned. +He climbed over the stones and found himself on the other side of the +barrier. He walked very near the street-posts, and guided himself along +the walls of the houses. A little beyond the barricade, it seemed to him +that he could make out something white in front of him. He approached, +it took on a form. It was two white horses; the horses of the omnibus +harnessed by Bossuet in the morning, who had been straying at random all +day from street to street, and had finally halted there, with the weary +patience of brutes who no more understand the actions of men, than man +understands the actions of Providence. + +Marius left the horses behind him. As he was approaching a street which +seemed to him to be the Rue du Contrat-Social, a shot coming no one +knows whence, and traversing the darkness at random, whistled close by +him, and the bullet pierced a brass shaving-dish suspended above his +head over a hairdresser's shop. This pierced shaving-dish was still +to be seen in 1848, in the Rue du Contrat-Social, at the corner of the +pillars of the market. + +This shot still betokened life. From that instant forth he encountered +nothing more. + +The whole of this itinerary resembled a descent of black steps. + +Nevertheless, Marius pressed forward. + + + + +CHAPTER II--AN OWL'S VIEW OF PARIS + +A being who could have hovered over Paris that night with the wing of +the bat or the owl would have had beneath his eyes a gloomy spectacle. + +All that old quarter of the Halles, which is like a city within a +city, through which run the Rues Saint-Denis and Saint-Martin, where a +thousand lanes cross, and of which the insurgents had made their +redoubt and their stronghold, would have appeared to him like a dark and +enormous cavity hollowed out in the centre of Paris. There the glance +fell into an abyss. Thanks to the broken lanterns, thanks to the closed +windows, there all radiance, all life, all sound, all movement ceased. +The invisible police of the insurrection were on the watch everywhere, +and maintained order, that is to say, night. The necessary tactics of +insurrection are to drown small numbers in a vast obscurity, to multiply +every combatant by the possibilities which that obscurity contains. At +dusk, every window where a candle was burning received a shot. The light +was extinguished, sometimes the inhabitant was killed. Hence nothing was +stirring. There was nothing but fright, mourning, stupor in the houses; +and in the streets, a sort of sacred horror. Not even the long rows of +windows and stores, the indentations of the chimneys, and the roofs, +and the vague reflections which are cast back by the wet and muddy +pavements, were visible. An eye cast upward at that mass of shadows +might, perhaps, have caught a glimpse here and there, at intervals, +of indistinct gleams which brought out broken and eccentric lines, and +profiles of singular buildings, something like the lights which go and +come in ruins; it was at such points that the barricades were situated. +The rest was a lake of obscurity, foggy, heavy, and funereal, above +which, in motionless and melancholy outlines, rose the tower of +Saint-Jacques, the church of Saint-Merry, and two or three more of those +grand edifices of which man makes giants and the night makes phantoms. + +All around this deserted and disquieting labyrinth, in the quarters +where the Parisian circulation had not been annihilated, and where a +few street lanterns still burned, the aerial observer might have +distinguished the metallic gleam of swords and bayonets, the dull rumble +of artillery, and the swarming of silent battalions whose ranks were +swelling from minute to minute; a formidable girdle which was slowly +drawing in and around the insurrection. + +The invested quarter was no longer anything more than a monstrous +cavern; everything there appeared to be asleep or motionless, and, as we +have just seen, any street which one might come to offered nothing but +darkness. + +A wild darkness, full of traps, full of unseen and formidable shocks, +into which it was alarming to penetrate, and in which it was terrible to +remain, where those who entered shivered before those whom they awaited, +where those who waited shuddered before those who were coming. Invisible +combatants were entrenched at every corner of the street; snares of the +sepulchre concealed in the density of night. All was over. No more +light was to be hoped for, henceforth, except the lightning of guns, +no further encounter except the abrupt and rapid apparition of death. +Where? How? When? No one knew, but it was certain and inevitable. In +this place which had been marked out for the struggle, the Government +and the insurrection, the National Guard, and popular societies, the +bourgeois and the uprising, groping their way, were about to come into +contact. The necessity was the same for both. The only possible issue +thenceforth was to emerge thence killed or conquerors. A situation so +extreme, an obscurity so powerful, that the most timid felt themselves +seized with resolution, and the most daring with terror. + +Moreover, on both sides, the fury, the rage, and the determination were +equal. For the one party, to advance meant death, and no one dreamed of +retreating; for the other, to remain meant death, and no one dreamed of +flight. + +It was indispensable that all should be ended on the following day, that +triumph should rest either here or there, that the insurrection should +prove itself a revolution or a skirmish. The Government understood this +as well as the parties; the most insignificant bourgeois felt it. Hence +a thought of anguish which mingled with the impenetrable gloom of this +quarter where all was at the point of being decided; hence a redoubled +anxiety around that silence whence a catastrophe was on the point of +emerging. Here only one sound was audible, a sound as heart-rending +as the death rattle, as menacing as a malediction, the tocsin of +Saint-Merry. Nothing could be more blood-curdling than the clamor of +that wild and desperate bell, wailing amid the shadows. + +As it often happens, nature seemed to have fallen into accord with what +men were about to do. Nothing disturbed the harmony of the whole effect. +The stars had disappeared, heavy clouds filled the horizon with their +melancholy folds. A black sky rested on these dead streets, as though an +immense winding-sheet were being outspread over this immense tomb. + +While a battle that was still wholly political was in preparation in the +same locality which had already witnessed so many revolutionary events, +while youth, the secret associations, the schools, in the name of +principles, and the middle classes, in the name of interests, were +approaching preparatory to dashing themselves together, clasping and +throwing each other, while each one hastened and invited the last and +decisive hour of the crisis, far away and quite outside of this fatal +quarter, in the most profound depths of the unfathomable cavities of +that wretched old Paris which disappears under the splendor of happy +and opulent Paris, the sombre voice of the people could be heard giving +utterance to a dull roar. + +A fearful and sacred voice which is composed of the roar of the brute +and of the word of God, which terrifies the weak and which warns the +wise, which comes both from below like the voice of the lion, and from +on high like the voice of the thunder. + + + + +CHAPTER III--THE EXTREME EDGE + +Marius had reached the Halles. + +There everything was still calmer, more obscure and more motionless than +in the neighboring streets. One would have said that the glacial peace +of the sepulchre had sprung forth from the earth and had spread over the +heavens. + +Nevertheless, a red glow brought out against this black background the +lofty roofs of the houses which barred the Rue de la Chanvrerie on +the Saint-Eustache side. It was the reflection of the torch which was +burning in the Corinthe barricade. Marius directed his steps towards +that red light. It had drawn him to the Marche-aux-Poirees, and he +caught a glimpse of the dark mouth of the Rue des Precheurs. He entered +it. The insurgents' sentinel, who was guarding the other end, did not +see him. He felt that he was very close to that which he had come in +search of, and he walked on tiptoe. In this manner he reached the elbow +of that short section of the Rue Mondetour which was, as the reader will +remember, the only communication which Enjolras had preserved with the +outside world. At the corner of the last house, on his left, he thrust +his head forward, and looked into the fragment of the Rue Mondetour. + +A little beyond the angle of the lane and the Rue de la Chanvrerie which +cast a broad curtain of shadow, in which he was himself engulfed, +he perceived some light on the pavement, a bit of the wine-shop, and +beyond, a flickering lamp within a sort of shapeless wall, and men +crouching down with guns on their knees. All this was ten fathoms +distant from him. It was the interior of the barricade. + +The houses which bordered the lane on the right concealed the rest of +the wine-shop, the large barricade, and the flag from him. + +Marius had but a step more to take. + +Then the unhappy young man seated himself on a post, folded his arms, +and fell to thinking about his father. + +He thought of that heroic Colonel Pontmercy, who had been so proud a +soldier, who had guarded the frontier of France under the Republic, and +had touched the frontier of Asia under Napoleon, who had beheld Genoa, +Alexandria, Milan, Turin, Madrid, Vienna, Dresden, Berlin, Moscow, who +had left on all the victorious battle-fields of Europe drops of that +same blood, which he, Marius, had in his veins, who had grown gray +before his time in discipline and command, who had lived with his +sword-belt buckled, his epaulets falling on his breast, his cockade +blackened with powder, his brow furrowed with his helmet, in barracks, +in camp, in the bivouac, in ambulances, and who, at the expiration of +twenty years, had returned from the great wars with a scarred cheek, a +smiling countenance, tranquil, admirable, pure as a child, having done +everything for France and nothing against her. + +He said to himself that his day had also come now, that his hour had +struck, that following his father, he too was about to show himself +brave, intrepid, bold, to run to meet the bullets, to offer his breast +to bayonets, to shed his blood, to seek the enemy, to seek death, that +he was about to wage war in his turn and descend to the field of battle, +and that the field of battle upon which he was to descend was the +street, and that the war in which he was about to engage was civil war! + +He beheld civil war laid open like a gulf before him, and into this he +was about to fall. Then he shuddered. + +He thought of his father's sword, which his grandfather had sold to a +second-hand dealer, and which he had so mournfully regretted. He said to +himself that that chaste and valiant sword had done well to escape from +him, and to depart in wrath into the gloom; that if it had thus fled, it +was because it was intelligent and because it had foreseen the future; +that it had had a presentiment of this rebellion, the war of the +gutters, the war of the pavements, fusillades through cellar-windows, +blows given and received in the rear; it was because, coming from +Marengo and Friedland, it did not wish to go to the Rue de la +Chanvrerie; it was because, after what it had done with the father, it +did not wish to do this for the son! He told himself that if that sword +were there, if after taking possession of it at his father's pillow, +he had dared to take it and carry it off for this combat of darkness +between Frenchmen in the streets, it would assuredly have scorched his +hands and burst out aflame before his eyes, like the sword of the angel! +He told himself that it was fortunate that it was not there and that +it had disappeared, that that was well, that that was just, that his +grandfather had been the true guardian of his father's glory, and that +it was far better that the colonel's sword should be sold at auction, +sold to the old-clothes man, thrown among the old junk, than that it +should, to-day, wound the side of his country. + +And then he fell to weeping bitterly. + +This was horrible. But what was he to do? Live without Cosette he could +not. Since she was gone, he must needs die. Had he not given her his +word of honor that he would die? She had gone knowing that; this meant +that it pleased her that Marius should die. And then, it was clear that +she no longer loved him, since she had departed thus without warning, +without a word, without a letter, although she knew his address! What +was the good of living, and why should he live now? And then, what! +should he retreat after going so far? should he flee from danger after +having approached it? should he slip away after having come and peeped +into the barricade? slip away, all in a tremble, saying: "After all, I +have had enough of it as it is. I have seen it, that suffices, this is +civil war, and I shall take my leave!" Should he abandon his friends who +were expecting him? Who were in need of him possibly! who were a mere +handful against an army! Should he be untrue at once to his love, to +country, to his word? Should he give to his cowardice the pretext of +patriotism? But this was impossible, and if the phantom of his father +was there in the gloom, and beheld him retreating, he would beat him on +the loins with the flat of his sword, and shout to him: "March on, you +poltroon!" + +Thus a prey to the conflicting movements of his thoughts, he dropped his +head. + +All at once he raised it. A sort of splendid rectification had just been +effected in his mind. There is a widening of the sphere of thought which +is peculiar to the vicinity of the grave; it makes one see clearly to +be near death. The vision of the action into which he felt that he +was, perhaps, on the point of entering, appeared to him no more +as lamentable, but as superb. The war of the street was suddenly +transfigured by some unfathomable inward working of his soul, before the +eye of his thought. All the tumultuous interrogation points of revery +recurred to him in throngs, but without troubling him. He left none of +them unanswered. + +Let us see, why should his father be indignant? Are there not cases +where insurrection rises to the dignity of duty? What was there that was +degrading for the son of Colonel Pontmercy in the combat which was about +to begin? It is no longer Montmirail nor Champaubert; it is something +quite different. The question is no longer one of sacred territory,--but +of a holy idea. The country wails, that may be, but humanity applauds. +But is it true that the country does wail? France bleeds, but liberty +smiles; and in the presence of liberty's smile, France forgets her +wound. And then if we look at things from a still more lofty point of +view, why do we speak of civil war? + +Civil war--what does that mean? Is there a foreign war? Is not all war +between men, war between brothers? War is qualified only by its object. +There is no such thing as foreign or civil war; there is only just and +unjust war. Until that day when the grand human agreement is concluded, +war, that at least which is the effort of the future, which is hastening +on against the past, which is lagging in the rear, may be necessary. +What have we to reproach that war with? War does not become a disgrace, +the sword does not become a disgrace, except when it is used for +assassinating the right, progress, reason, civilization, truth. Then +war, whether foreign or civil, is iniquitous; it is called crime. +Outside the pale of that holy thing, justice, by what right does +one form of man despise another? By what right should the sword of +Washington disown the pike of Camille Desmoulins? Leonidas against the +stranger, Timoleon against the tyrant, which is the greater? the one is +the defender, the other the liberator. Shall we brand every appeal +to arms within a city's limits without taking the object into a +consideration? Then note the infamy of Brutus, Marcel, Arnould von +Blankenheim, Coligny, Hedgerow war? War of the streets? Why not? That +was the war of Ambiorix, of Artevelde, of Marnix, of Pelagius. But +Ambiorix fought against Rome, Artevelde against France, Marnix against +Spain, Pelagius against the Moors; all against the foreigner. Well, the +monarchy is a foreigner; oppression is a stranger; the right divine is +a stranger. Despotism violates the moral frontier, an invasion violates +the geographical frontier. Driving out the tyrant or driving out the +English, in both cases, regaining possession of one's own territory. +There comes an hour when protestation no longer suffices; after +philosophy, action is required; live force finishes what the idea +has sketched out; Prometheus chained begins, Arostogeiton ends; the +encyclopedia enlightens souls, the 10th of August electrifies them. +After AEschylus, Thrasybulus; after Diderot, Danton. Multitudes have +a tendency to accept the master. Their mass bears witness to apathy. +A crowd is easily led as a whole to obedience. Men must be stirred up, +pushed on, treated roughly by the very benefit of their deliverance, +their eyes must be wounded by the true, light must be hurled at them +in terrible handfuls. They must be a little thunderstruck themselves at +their own well-being; this dazzling awakens them. Hence the necessity +of tocsins and wars. Great combatants must rise, must enlighten nations +with audacity, and shake up that sad humanity which is covered +with gloom by the right divine, Caesarian glory, force, fanaticism, +irresponsible power, and absolute majesty; a rabble stupidly occupied in +the contemplation, in their twilight splendor, of these sombre triumphs +of the night. Down with the tyrant! Of whom are you speaking? Do you +call Louis Philippe the tyrant? No; no more than Louis XVI. Both of them +are what history is in the habit of calling good kings; but principles +are not to be parcelled out, the logic of the true is rectilinear, the +peculiarity of truth is that it lacks complaisance; no concessions, +then; all encroachments on man should be repressed. There is a divine +right in Louis XVI., there is because a Bourbon in Louis Philippe; both +represent in a certain measure the confiscation of right, and, in order +to clear away universal insurrection, they must be combated; it must +be done, France being always the one to begin. When the master falls +in France, he falls everywhere. In short, what cause is more just, and +consequently, what war is greater, than that which re-establishes +social truth, restores her throne to liberty, restores the people to the +people, restores sovereignty to man, replaces the purple on the head of +France, restores equity and reason in their plenitude, suppresses every +germ of antagonism by restoring each one to himself, annihilates the +obstacle which royalty presents to the whole immense universal concord, +and places the human race once more on a level with the right? These +wars build up peace. An enormous fortress of prejudices, privileges, +superstitions, lies, exactions, abuses, violences, iniquities, and +darkness still stands erect in this world, with its towers of hatred. +It must be cast down. This monstrous mass must be made to crumble. To +conquer at Austerlitz is grand; to take the Bastille is immense. + +There is no one who has not noticed it in his own case--the soul,--and +therein lies the marvel of its unity complicated with ubiquity, has +a strange aptitude for reasoning almost coldly in the most violent +extremities, and it often happens that heartbroken passion and profound +despair in the very agony of their blackest monologues, treat subjects +and discuss theses. Logic is mingled with convulsion, and the thread +of the syllogism floats, without breaking, in the mournful storm of +thought. This was the situation of Marius' mind. + +As he meditated thus, dejected but resolute, hesitating in every +direction, and, in short, shuddering at what he was about to do, his +glance strayed to the interior of the barricade. The insurgents +were here conversing in a low voice, without moving, and there +was perceptible that quasi-silence which marks the last stage of +expectation. Overhead, at the small window in the third story Marius +descried a sort of spectator who appeared to him to be singularly +attentive. This was the porter who had been killed by Le Cabuc. Below, +by the lights of the torch, which was thrust between the paving-stones, +this head could be vaguely distinguished. Nothing could be stranger, in +that sombre and uncertain gleam, than that livid, motionless, astonished +face, with its bristling hair, its eyes fixed and staring, and its +yawning mouth, bent over the street in an attitude of curiosity. One +would have said that the man who was dead was surveying those who were +about to die. A long trail of blood which had flowed from that head, +descended in reddish threads from the window to the height of the first +floor, where it stopped. + + + + +BOOK FOURTEENTH.--THE GRANDEURS OF DESPAIR + +[Illustration: The Grandeurs of Despair 4b-14-1-despair] + + + + +CHAPTER I--THE FLAG: ACT FIRST + +As yet, nothing had come. Ten o'clock had sounded from Saint-Merry. +Enjolras and Combeferre had gone and seated themselves, carbines in +hand, near the outlet of the grand barricade. They no longer addressed +each other, they listened, seeking to catch even the faintest and most +distant sound of marching. + +Suddenly, in the midst of the dismal calm, a clear, gay, young voice, +which seemed to come from the Rue Saint-Denis, rose and began to sing +distinctly, to the old popular air of "By the Light of the Moon," this +bit of poetry, terminated by a cry like the crow of a cock:-- + + Mon nez est en larmes, + Mon ami Bugeaud, + Prete moi tes gendarmes + Pour leur dire un mot. + + En capote bleue, + La poule au shako, + Voici la banlieue! + Co-cocorico![54] + + +They pressed each other's hands. + +"That is Gavroche," said Enjolras. + +"He is warning us," said Combeferre. + +A hasty rush troubled the deserted street; they beheld a being more +agile than a clown climb over the omnibus, and Gavroche bounded into the +barricade, all breathless, saying:-- + +"My gun! Here they are!" + +An electric quiver shot through the whole barricade, and the sound of +hands seeking their guns became audible. + +"Would you like my carbine?" said Enjolras to the lad. + +"I want a big gun," replied Gavroche. + +And he seized Javert's gun. + +Two sentinels had fallen back, and had come in almost at the same moment +as Gavroche. They were the sentinels from the end of the street, and the +vidette of the Rue de la Petite-Truanderie. The vidette of the Lane des +Precheurs had remained at his post, which indicated that nothing was +approaching from the direction of the bridges and Halles. + +The Rue de la Chanvrerie, of which a few paving-stones alone were dimly +visible in the reflection of the light projected on the flag, offered +to the insurgents the aspect of a vast black door vaguely opened into a +smoke. + +Each man had taken up his position for the conflict. + +Forty-three insurgents, among whom were Enjolras, Combeferre, +Courfeyrac, Bossuet, Joly, Bahorel, and Gavroche, were kneeling inside +the large barricade, with their heads on a level with the crest of the +barrier, the barrels of their guns and carbines aimed on the stones as +though at loop-holes, attentive, mute, ready to fire. Six, commanded +by Feuilly, had installed themselves, with their guns levelled at their +shoulders, at the windows of the two stories of Corinthe. + +Several minutes passed thus, then a sound of footsteps, measured, heavy, +and numerous, became distinctly audible in the direction of Saint-Leu. +This sound, faint at first, then precise, then heavy and sonorous, +approached slowly, without halt, without intermission, with a tranquil +and terrible continuity. Nothing was to be heard but this. It was that +combined silence and sound, of the statue of the commander, but this +stony step had something indescribably enormous and multiple about it +which awakened the idea of a throng, and, at the same time, the idea +of a spectre. One thought one heard the terrible statue Legion marching +onward. This tread drew near; it drew still nearer, and stopped. It +seemed as though the breathing of many men could be heard at the end of +the street. Nothing was to be seen, however, but at the bottom of that +dense obscurity there could be distinguished a multitude of metallic +threads, as fine as needles and almost imperceptible, which moved about +like those indescribable phosphoric networks which one sees beneath +one's closed eyelids, in the first mists of slumber at the moment +when one is dropping off to sleep. These were bayonets and gun-barrels +confusedly illuminated by the distant reflection of the torch. + +A pause ensued, as though both sides were waiting. All at once, from the +depths of this darkness, a voice, which was all the more sinister, since +no one was visible, and which appeared to be the gloom itself speaking, +shouted:-- + +"Who goes there?" + +At the same time, the click of guns, as they were lowered into position, +was heard. + +Enjolras replied in a haughty and vibrating tone:-- + +"The French Revolution!" + +"Fire!" shouted the voice. + +A flash empurpled all the facades in the street as though the door of a +furnace had been flung open, and hastily closed again. + +A fearful detonation burst forth on the barricade. The red flag fell. +The discharge had been so violent and so dense that it had cut the +staff, that is to say, the very tip of the omnibus pole. + +Bullets which had rebounded from the cornices of the houses penetrated +the barricade and wounded several men. + +The impression produced by this first discharge was freezing. The attack +had been rough, and of a nature to inspire reflection in the boldest. +It was evident that they had to deal with an entire regiment at the very +least. + +"Comrades!" shouted Courfeyrac, "let us not waste our powder. Let us +wait until they are in the street before replying." + +"And, above all," said Enjolras, "let us raise the flag again." + +He picked up the flag, which had fallen precisely at his feet. + +Outside, the clatter of the ramrods in the guns could be heard; the +troops were re-loading their arms. + +Enjolras went on:-- + +"Who is there here with a bold heart? Who will plant the flag on the +barricade again?" + +Not a man responded. To mount on the barricade at the very moment when, +without any doubt, it was again the object of their aim, was simply +death. The bravest hesitated to pronounce his own condemnation. Enjolras +himself felt a thrill. He repeated:-- + +"Does no one volunteer?" + + + + +CHAPTER II--THE FLAG: ACT SECOND + +Since they had arrived at Corinthe, and had begun the construction of +the barricade, no attention had been paid to Father Mabeuf. M. Mabeuf +had not quitted the mob, however; he had entered the ground-floor of the +wine-shop and had seated himself behind the counter. There he had, so to +speak, retreated into himself. He no longer seemed to look or to think. +Courfeyrac and others had accosted him two or three times, warning him +of his peril, beseeching him to withdraw, but he did not hear them. +When they were not speaking to him, his mouth moved as though he were +replying to some one, and as soon as he was addressed, his lips became +motionless and his eyes no longer had the appearance of being alive. + +Several hours before the barricade was attacked, he had assumed an +attitude which he did not afterwards abandon, with both fists planted +on his knees and his head thrust forward as though he were gazing over a +precipice. Nothing had been able to move him from this attitude; it did +not seem as though his mind were in the barricade. When each had gone +to take up his position for the combat, there remained in the tap-room +where Javert was bound to the post, only a single insurgent with a naked +sword, watching over Javert, and himself, Mabeuf. At the moment of the +attack, at the detonation, the physical shock had reached him and had, +as it were, awakened him; he started up abruptly, crossed the room, +and at the instant when Enjolras repeated his appeal: "Does no one +volunteer?" the old man was seen to make his appearance on the threshold +of the wine-shop. His presence produced a sort of commotion in the +different groups. A shout went up:-- + +"It is the voter! It is the member of the Convention! It is the +representative of the people!" + +It is probable that he did not hear them. + +He strode straight up to Enjolras, the insurgents withdrawing before him +with a religious fear; he tore the flag from Enjolras, who recoiled in +amazement and then, since no one dared to stop or to assist him, this +old man of eighty, with shaking head but firm foot, began slowly to +ascend the staircase of paving-stones arranged in the barricade. This +was so melancholy and so grand that all around him cried: "Off with your +hats!" At every step that he mounted, it was a frightful spectacle; his +white locks, his decrepit face, his lofty, bald, and wrinkled brow, +his amazed and open mouth, his aged arm upholding the red banner, rose +through the gloom and were enlarged in the bloody light of the torch, +and the bystanders thought that they beheld the spectre of '93 emerging +from the earth, with the flag of terror in his hand. + +When he had reached the last step, when this trembling and terrible +phantom, erect on that pile of rubbish in the presence of twelve hundred +invisible guns, drew himself up in the face of death and as though +he were more powerful than it, the whole barricade assumed amid the +darkness, a supernatural and colossal form. + +There ensued one of those silences which occur only in the presence of +prodigies. In the midst of this silence, the old man waved the red flag +and shouted:-- + +"Long live the Revolution! Long live the Republic! Fraternity! Equality! +and Death!" + +Those in the barricade heard a low and rapid whisper, like the murmur +of a priest who is despatching a prayer in haste. It was probably the +commissary of police who was making the legal summons at the other end +of the street. + +Then the same piercing voice which had shouted: "Who goes there?" +shouted:-- + +"Retire!" + +M. Mabeuf, pale, haggard, his eyes lighted up with the mournful flame of +aberration, raised the flag above his head and repeated:-- + +"Long live the Republic!" + +"Fire!" said the voice. + +A second discharge, similar to the first, rained down upon the +barricade. + +The old man fell on his knees, then rose again, dropped the flag +and fell backwards on the pavement, like a log, at full length, with +outstretched arms. + +Rivulets of blood flowed beneath him. His aged head, pale and sad, +seemed to be gazing at the sky. + +One of those emotions which are superior to man, which make him forget +even to defend himself, seized upon the insurgents, and they approached +the body with respectful awe. + +"What men these regicides were!" said Enjolras. + +Courfeyrac bent down to Enjolras' ear:-- + +"This is for yourself alone, I do not wish to dampen the enthusiasm. But +this man was anything rather than a regicide. I knew him. His name was +Father Mabeuf. I do not know what was the matter with him to-day. But he +was a brave blockhead. Just look at his head." + +"The head of a blockhead and the heart of a Brutus," replied Enjolras. + +Then he raised his voice:-- + +"Citizens! This is the example which the old give to the young. We +hesitated, he came! We were drawing back, he advanced! This is what +those who are trembling with age teach to those who tremble with fear! +This aged man is august in the eyes of his country. He has had a long +life and a magnificent death! Now, let us place the body under cover, +that each one of us may defend this old man dead as he would his +father living, and may his presence in our midst render the barricade +impregnable!" + +A murmur of gloomy and energetic assent followed these words. + +Enjolras bent down, raised the old man's head, and fierce as he was, he +kissed him on the brow, then, throwing wide his arms, and handling this +dead man with tender precaution, as though he feared to hurt it, he +removed his coat, showed the bloody holes in it to all, and said:-- + +"This is our flag now." + + + + +CHAPTER III--GAVROCHE WOULD HAVE DONE BETTER TO ACCEPT ENJOLRAS' CARBINE + +They threw a long black shawl of Widow Hucheloup's over Father Mabeuf. +Six men made a litter of their guns; on this they laid the body, and +bore it, with bared heads, with solemn slowness, to the large table in +the tap-room. + +These men, wholly absorbed in the grave and sacred task in which they +were engaged, thought no more of the perilous situation in which they +stood. + +When the corpse passed near Javert, who was still impassive, Enjolras +said to the spy:-- + +"It will be your turn presently!" + +During all this time, Little Gavroche, who alone had not quitted his +post, but had remained on guard, thought he espied some men stealthily +approaching the barricade. All at once he shouted:-- + +"Look out!" + +Courfeyrac, Enjolras, Jean Prouvaire, Combeferre, Joly, Bahorel, +Bossuet, and all the rest ran tumultuously from the wine-shop. It was +almost too late. They saw a glistening density of bayonets undulating +above the barricade. Municipal guards of lofty stature were making +their way in, some striding over the omnibus, others through the cut, +thrusting before them the urchin, who retreated, but did not flee. + +The moment was critical. It was that first, redoubtable moment of +inundation, when the stream rises to the level of the levee and when the +water begins to filter through the fissures of dike. A second more and +the barricade would have been taken. + +Bahorel dashed upon the first municipal guard who was entering, and +killed him on the spot with a blow from his gun; the second killed +Bahorel with a blow from his bayonet. Another had already overthrown +Courfeyrac, who was shouting: "Follow me!" The largest of all, a sort of +colossus, marched on Gavroche with his bayonet fixed. The urchin took in +his arms Javert's immense gun, levelled it resolutely at the giant, and +fired. No discharge followed. Javert's gun was not loaded. The municipal +guard burst into a laugh and raised his bayonet at the child. + +Before the bayonet had touched Gavroche, the gun slipped from the +soldier's grasp, a bullet had struck the municipal guardsman in the +centre of the forehead, and he fell over on his back. A second bullet +struck the other guard, who had assaulted Courfeyrac in the breast, and +laid him low on the pavement. + +This was the work of Marius, who had just entered the barricade. + + + + +CHAPTER IV--THE BARREL OF POWDER + +Marius, still concealed in the turn of the Rue Mondetour, had witnessed, +shuddering and irresolute, the first phase of the combat. But he had not +long been able to resist that mysterious and sovereign vertigo which may +be designated as the call of the abyss. In the presence of the imminence +of the peril, in the presence of the death of M. Mabeuf, that melancholy +enigma, in the presence of Bahorel killed, and Courfeyrac shouting: +"Follow me!" of that child threatened, of his friends to succor or to +avenge, all hesitation had vanished, and he had flung himself into the +conflict, his two pistols in hand. With his first shot he had saved +Gavroche, and with the second delivered Courfeyrac. + +Amid the sound of the shots, amid the cries of the assaulted guards, +the assailants had climbed the entrenchment, on whose summit Municipal +Guards, soldiers of the line and National Guards from the suburbs could +now be seen, gun in hand, rearing themselves to more than half the +height of their bodies. + +They already covered more than two-thirds of the barrier, but they did +not leap into the enclosure, as though wavering in the fear of some +trap. They gazed into the dark barricade as one would gaze into a lion's +den. The light of the torch illuminated only their bayonets, their +bear-skin caps, and the upper part of their uneasy and angry faces. + +Marius had no longer any weapons; he had flung away his discharged +pistols after firing them; but he had caught sight of the barrel of +powder in the tap-room, near the door. + +As he turned half round, gazing in that direction, a soldier took aim at +him. At the moment when the soldier was sighting Marius, a hand was laid +on the muzzle of the gun and obstructed it. This was done by some one +who had darted forward,--the young workman in velvet trousers. The shot +sped, traversed the hand and possibly, also, the workman, since he fell, +but the ball did not strike Marius. All this, which was rather to be +apprehended than seen through the smoke, Marius, who was entering the +tap-room, hardly noticed. Still, he had, in a confused way, perceived +that gun-barrel aimed at him, and the hand which had blocked it, and he +had heard the discharge. But in moments like this, the things which one +sees vacillate and are precipitated, and one pauses for nothing. One +feels obscurely impelled towards more darkness still, and all is cloud. + +The insurgents, surprised but not terrified, had rallied. Enjolras had +shouted: "Wait! Don't fire at random!" In the first confusion, they +might, in fact, wound each other. The majority of them had ascended +to the window on the first story and to the attic windows, whence they +commanded the assailants. + +The most determined, with Enjolras, Courfeyrac, Jean Prouvaire, and +Combeferre, had proudly placed themselves with their backs against the +houses at the rear, unsheltered and facing the ranks of soldiers and +guards who crowned the barricade. + +All this was accomplished without haste, with that strange and +threatening gravity which precedes engagements. They took aim, point +blank, on both sides: they were so close that they could talk together +without raising their voices. + +When they had reached this point where the spark is on the brink of +darting forth, an officer in a gorget extended his sword and said:-- + +"Lay down your arms!" + +"Fire!" replied Enjolras. + +The two discharges took place at the same moment, and all disappeared in +smoke. + +An acrid and stifling smoke in which dying and wounded lay with weak, +dull groans. When the smoke cleared away, the combatants on both sides +could be seen to be thinned out, but still in the same positions, +reloading in silence. All at once, a thundering voice was heard, +shouting:-- + +"Be off with you, or I'll blow up the barricade!" + +All turned in the direction whence the voice proceeded. + +Marius had entered the tap-room, and had seized the barrel of powder, +then he had taken advantage of the smoke, and the sort of obscure mist +which filled the entrenched enclosure, to glide along the barricade as +far as that cage of paving-stones where the torch was fixed. To tear +it from the torch, to replace it by the barrel of powder, to thrust the +pile of stones under the barrel, which was instantly staved in, with +a sort of horrible obedience,--all this had cost Marius but the time +necessary to stoop and rise again; and now all, National Guards, +Municipal Guards, officers, soldiers, huddled at the other extremity of +the barricade, gazed stupidly at him, as he stood with his foot on the +stones, his torch in his hand, his haughty face illuminated by a fatal +resolution, drooping the flame of the torch towards that redoubtable +pile where they could make out the broken barrel of powder, and giving +vent to that startling cry:-- + +"Be off with you, or I'll blow up the barricade!" + +Marius on that barricade after the octogenarian was the vision of the +young revolution after the apparition of the old. + +"Blow up the barricade!" said a sergeant, "and yourself with it!" + +Marius retorted: "And myself also." + +And he dropped the torch towards the barrel of powder. + +But there was no longer any one on the barrier. The assailants, +abandoning their dead and wounded, flowed back pell-mell and in disorder +towards the extremity of the street, and there were again lost in the +night. It was a headlong flight. + +The barricade was free. + + + + +CHAPTER V--END OF THE VERSES OF JEAN PROUVAIRE + +All flocked around Marius. Courfeyrac flung himself on his neck. + +"Here you are!" + +"What luck!" said Combeferre. + +"You came in opportunely!" ejaculated Bossuet. + +"If it had not been for you, I should have been dead!" began Courfeyrac +again. + +"If it had not been for you, I should have been gobbled up!" added +Gavroche. + +Marius asked:-- + +"Where is the chief?" + +"You are he!" said Enjolras. + +Marius had had a furnace in his brain all day long; now it was a +whirlwind. This whirlwind which was within him, produced on him the +effect of being outside of him and of bearing him away. It seemed to him +that he was already at an immense distance from life. His two luminous +months of joy and love, ending abruptly at that frightful precipice, +Cosette lost to him, that barricade, M. Mabeuf getting himself killed +for the Republic, himself the leader of the insurgents,--all these +things appeared to him like a tremendous nightmare. He was obliged to +make a mental effort to recall the fact that all that surrounded him was +real. Marius had already seen too much of life not to know that nothing +is more imminent than the impossible, and that what it is always +necessary to foresee is the unforeseen. He had looked on at his own +drama as a piece which one does not understand. + +In the mists which enveloped his thoughts, he did not recognize Javert, +who, bound to his post, had not so much as moved his head during the +whole of the attack on the barricade, and who had gazed on the revolt +seething around him with the resignation of a martyr and the majesty of +a judge. Marius had not even seen him. + +In the meanwhile, the assailants did not stir, they could be heard +marching and swarming through at the end of the street but they did not +venture into it, either because they were awaiting orders or because +they were awaiting reinforcements before hurling themselves afresh on +this impregnable redoubt. The insurgents had posted sentinels, and some +of them, who were medical students, set about caring for the wounded. + +They had thrown the tables out of the wine-shop, with the exception of +the two tables reserved for lint and cartridges, and of the one on +which lay Father Mabeuf; they had added them to the barricade, and had +replaced them in the tap-room with mattresses from the bed of the +widow Hucheloup and her servants. On these mattresses they had laid the +wounded. As for the three poor creatures who inhabited Corinthe, no one +knew what had become of them. They were finally found, however, hidden +in the cellar. + +A poignant emotion clouded the joy of the disencumbered barricade. + +The roll was called. One of the insurgents was missing. And who was +it? One of the dearest. One of the most valiant. Jean Prouvaire. He +was sought among the wounded, he was not there. He was sought among the +dead, he was not there. He was evidently a prisoner. Combeferre said to +Enjolras:-- + +"They have our friend; we have their agent. Are you set on the death of +that spy?" + +"Yes," replied Enjolras; "but less so than on the life of Jean +Prouvaire." + +This took place in the tap-room near Javert's post. + +"Well," resumed Combeferre, "I am going to fasten my handkerchief to +my cane, and go as a flag of truce, to offer to exchange our man for +theirs." + +"Listen," said Enjolras, laying his hand on Combeferre's arm. + +At the end of the street there was a significant clash of arms. + +They heard a manly voice shout:-- + +"Vive la France! Long live France! Long live the future!" + +They recognized the voice of Prouvaire. + +A flash passed, a report rang out. + +Silence fell again. + +"They have killed him," exclaimed Combeferre. + +Enjolras glanced at Javert, and said to him:-- + +"Your friends have just shot you." + + + + +CHAPTER VI--THE AGONY OF DEATH AFTER THE AGONY OF LIFE + +A peculiarity of this species of war is, that the attack of the +barricades is almost always made from the front, and that the assailants +generally abstain from turning the position, either because they +fear ambushes, or because they are afraid of getting entangled in the +tortuous streets. The insurgents' whole attention had been directed, +therefore, to the grand barricade, which was, evidently, the spot always +menaced, and there the struggle would infallibly recommence. But Marius +thought of the little barricade, and went thither. It was deserted and +guarded only by the fire-pot which trembled between the paving-stones. +Moreover, the Mondetour alley, and the branches of the Rue de la Petite +Truanderie and the Rue du Cygne were profoundly calm. + +As Marius was withdrawing, after concluding his inspection, he heard his +name pronounced feebly in the darkness. + +"Monsieur Marius!" + +He started, for he recognized the voice which had called to him two +hours before through the gate in the Rue Plumet. + +Only, the voice now seemed to be nothing more than a breath. + +He looked about him, but saw no one. + +Marius thought he had been mistaken, that it was an illusion added by +his mind to the extraordinary realities which were clashing around +him. He advanced a step, in order to quit the distant recess where the +barricade lay. + +"Monsieur Marius!" repeated the voice. + +This time he could not doubt that he had heard it distinctly; he looked +and saw nothing. + +"At your feet," said the voice. + +He bent down, and saw in the darkness a form which was dragging itself +towards him. + +It was crawling along the pavement. It was this that had spoken to him. + +The fire-pot allowed him to distinguish a blouse, torn trousers of +coarse velvet, bare feet, and something which resembled a pool of blood. +Marius indistinctly made out a pale head which was lifted towards him +and which was saying to him:-- + +"You do not recognize me?" + +"No." + +"Eponine." + +Marius bent hastily down. It was, in fact, that unhappy child. She was +dressed in men's clothes. + +"How come you here? What are you doing here?" + +"I am dying," said she. + +There are words and incidents which arouse dejected beings. Marius cried +out with a start:-- + +"You are wounded! Wait, I will carry you into the room! They will attend +to you there. Is it serious? How must I take hold of you in order not +to hurt you? Where do you suffer? Help! My God! But why did you come +hither?" + +And he tried to pass his arm under her, in order to raise her. + +She uttered a feeble cry. + +"Have I hurt you?" asked Marius. + +"A little." + +"But I only touched your hand." + +She raised her hand to Marius, and in the middle of that hand Marius saw +a black hole. + +"What is the matter with your hand?" said he. + +"It is pierced." + +"Pierced?" + +"Yes." + +"What with?" + +"A bullet." + +"How?" + +"Did you see a gun aimed at you?" + +"Yes, and a hand stopping it." + +"It was mine." + +Marius was seized with a shudder. + +"What madness! Poor child! But so much the better, if that is all, it is +nothing, let me carry you to a bed. They will dress your wound; one does +not die of a pierced hand." + +She murmured:-- + +"The bullet traversed my hand, but it came out through my back. It is +useless to remove me from this spot. I will tell you how you can care +for me better than any surgeon. Sit down near me on this stone." + +He obeyed; she laid her head on Marius' knees, and, without looking at +him, she said:-- + +"Oh! How good this is! How comfortable this is! There; I no longer +suffer." + +She remained silent for a moment, then she turned her face with an +effort, and looked at Marius. + +"Do you know what, Monsieur Marius? It puzzled me because you entered +that garden; it was stupid, because it was I who showed you that house; +and then, I ought to have said to myself that a young man like you--" + +She paused, and overstepping the sombre transitions that undoubtedly +existed in her mind, she resumed with a heartrending smile:-- + +"You thought me ugly, didn't you?" + +She continued:-- + +"You see, you are lost! Now, no one can get out of the barricade. It was +I who led you here, by the way! You are going to die, I count upon that. +And yet, when I saw them taking aim at you, I put my hand on the muzzle +of the gun. How queer it is! But it was because I wanted to die before +you. When I received that bullet, I dragged myself here, no one saw +me, no one picked me up, I was waiting for you, I said: 'So he is not +coming!' Oh, if you only knew. I bit my blouse, I suffered so! Now I am +well. Do you remember the day I entered your chamber and when I +looked at myself in your mirror, and the day when I came to you on the +boulevard near the washerwomen? How the birds sang! That was a long time +ago. You gave me a hundred sous, and I said to you: 'I don't want your +money.' I hope you picked up your coin? You are not rich. I did not +think to tell you to pick it up. The sun was shining bright, and it was +not cold. Do you remember, Monsieur Marius? Oh! How happy I am! Every +one is going to die." + +She had a mad, grave, and heart-breaking air. Her torn blouse disclosed +her bare throat. + +As she talked, she pressed her pierced hand to her breast, where there +was another hole, and whence there spurted from moment to moment a +stream of blood, like a jet of wine from an open bung-hole. + +Marius gazed at this unfortunate creature with profound compassion. + +"Oh!" she resumed, "it is coming again, I am stifling!" + +She caught up her blouse and bit it, and her limbs stiffened on the +pavement. + +At that moment the young cock's crow executed by little Gavroche +resounded through the barricade. + +The child had mounted a table to load his gun, and was singing gayly the +song then so popular:-- + + + "En voyant Lafayette, "On beholding Lafayette, + Le gendarme repete:-- The gendarme repeats:-- + Sauvons nous! sauvons nous! Let us flee! let us flee! + sauvons nous!" let us flee! + + +Eponine raised herself and listened; then she murmured:-- + +"It is he." + +And turning to Marius:-- + +"My brother is here. He must not see me. He would scold me." + +"Your brother?" inquired Marius, who was meditating in the most bitter +and sorrowful depths of his heart on the duties to the Thenardiers which +his father had bequeathed to him; "who is your brother?" + +"That little fellow." + +"The one who is singing?" + +"Yes." + +Marius made a movement. + +"Oh! don't go away," said she, "it will not be long now." + +She was sitting almost upright, but her voice was very low and broken by +hiccoughs. + +At intervals, the death rattle interrupted her. She put her face as near +that of Marius as possible. She added with a strange expression:-- + +"Listen, I do not wish to play you a trick. I have a letter in my pocket +for you. I was told to put it in the post. I kept it. I did not want to +have it reach you. But perhaps you will be angry with me for it when we +meet again presently? Take your letter." + +She grasped Marius' hand convulsively with her pierced hand, but she no +longer seemed to feel her sufferings. She put Marius' hand in the pocket +of her blouse. There, in fact, Marius felt a paper. + +"Take it," said she. + +Marius took the letter. + +She made a sign of satisfaction and contentment. + +"Now, for my trouble, promise me--" + +And she stopped. + +"What?" asked Marius. + +"Promise me!" + +"I promise." + +"Promise to give me a kiss on my brow when I am dead.--I shall feel it." + +She dropped her head again on Marius' knees, and her eyelids closed. He +thought the poor soul had departed. Eponine remained motionless. All +at once, at the very moment when Marius fancied her asleep forever, she +slowly opened her eyes in which appeared the sombre profundity of death, +and said to him in a tone whose sweetness seemed already to proceed from +another world:-- + +"And by the way, Monsieur Marius, I believe that I was a little bit in +love with you." + +She tried to smile once more and expired. + + + + +CHAPTER VII--GAVROCHE AS A PROFOUND CALCULATOR OF DISTANCES + +Marius kept his promise. He dropped a kiss on that livid brow, where the +icy perspiration stood in beads. + +This was no infidelity to Cosette; it was a gentle and pensive farewell +to an unhappy soul. + +It was not without a tremor that he had taken the letter which Eponine +had given him. He had immediately felt that it was an event of weight. +He was impatient to read it. The heart of man is so constituted that the +unhappy child had hardly closed her eyes when Marius began to think of +unfolding this paper. + +He laid her gently on the ground, and went away. Something told him that +he could not peruse that letter in the presence of that body. + +He drew near to a candle in the tap-room. It was a small note, folded +and sealed with a woman's elegant care. The address was in a woman's +hand and ran:-- + +"To Monsieur, Monsieur Marius Pontmercy, at M. Courfeyrac's, Rue de la +Verrerie, No. 16." + +He broke the seal and read:-- + + "My dearest, alas! my father insists on our setting out immediately. + We shall be this evening in the Rue de l'Homme Arme, No. 7. + In a week we shall be in England. COSETTE. June 4th." + +Such was the innocence of their love that Marius was not even acquainted +with Cosette's handwriting. + +What had taken place may be related in a few words. Eponine had been +the cause of everything. After the evening of the 3d of June she had +cherished a double idea, to defeat the projects of her father and the +ruffians on the house of the Rue Plumet, and to separate Marius and +Cosette. She had exchanged rags with the first young scamp she came +across who had thought it amusing to dress like a woman, while Eponine +disguised herself like a man. It was she who had conveyed to Jean +Valjean in the Champ de Mars the expressive warning: "Leave your house." +Jean Valjean had, in fact, returned home, and had said to Cosette: +"We set out this evening and we go to the Rue de l'Homme Arme with +Toussaint. Next week, we shall be in London." Cosette, utterly +overwhelmed by this unexpected blow, had hastily penned a couple of +lines to Marius. But how was she to get the letter to the post? She +never went out alone, and Toussaint, surprised at such a commission, +would certainly show the letter to M. Fauchelevent. In this dilemma, +Cosette had caught sight through the fence of Eponine in man's clothes, +who now prowled incessantly around the garden. Cosette had called to +"this young workman" and had handed him five francs and the letter, +saying: "Carry this letter immediately to its address." Eponine had put +the letter in her pocket. The next day, on the 5th of June, she went +to Courfeyrac's quarters to inquire for Marius, not for the purpose of +delivering the letter, but,--a thing which every jealous and loving soul +will comprehend,--"to see." There she had waited for Marius, or at least +for Courfeyrac, still for the purpose of seeing. When Courfeyrac had +told her: "We are going to the barricades," an idea flashed through her +mind, to fling herself into that death, as she would have done into any +other, and to thrust Marius into it also. She had followed Courfeyrac, +had made sure of the locality where the barricade was in process of +construction; and, quite certain, since Marius had received no warning, +and since she had intercepted the letter, that he would go at dusk to +his trysting place for every evening, she had betaken herself to the Rue +Plumet, had there awaited Marius, and had sent him, in the name of his +friends, the appeal which would, she thought, lead him to the barricade. +She reckoned on Marius' despair when he should fail to find Cosette; she +was not mistaken. She had returned to the Rue de la Chanvrerie herself. +What she did there the reader has just seen. She died with the tragic +joy of jealous hearts who drag the beloved being into their own death, +and who say: "No one shall have him!" + +Marius covered Cosette's letter with kisses. So she loved him! For one +moment the idea occurred to him that he ought not to die now. Then +he said to himself: "She is going away. Her father is taking her to +England, and my grandfather refuses his consent to the marriage. Nothing +is changed in our fates." Dreamers like Marius are subject to supreme +attacks of dejection, and desperate resolves are the result. The fatigue +of living is insupportable; death is sooner over with. Then he reflected +that he had still two duties to fulfil: to inform Cosette of his +death and send her a final farewell, and to save from the impending +catastrophe which was in preparation, that poor child, Eponine's brother +and Thenardier's son. + +He had a pocket-book about him; the same one which had contained +the note-book in which he had inscribed so many thoughts of love for +Cosette. He tore out a leaf and wrote on it a few lines in pencil:-- + +"Our marriage was impossible. I asked my grandfather, he refused; I have +no fortune, neither hast thou. I hastened to thee, thou wert no longer +there. Thou knowest the promise that I gave thee, I shall keep it. I +die. I love thee. When thou readest this, my soul will be near thee, and +thou wilt smile." + +Having nothing wherewith to seal this letter, he contented himself with +folding the paper in four, and added the address:-- + +"To Mademoiselle Cosette Fauchelevent, at M. Fauchelevent's, Rue de +l'Homme Arme, No. 7." + +Having folded the letter, he stood in thought for a moment, drew out +his pocket-book again, opened it, and wrote, with the same pencil, these +four lines on the first page:-- + +"My name is Marius Pontmercy. Carry my body to my grandfather, M. +Gillenormand, Rue des Filles-du-Calvaire, No. 6, in the Marais." + +He put his pocketbook back in his pocket, then he called Gavroche. + +The gamin, at the sound of Marius' voice, ran up to him with his merry +and devoted air. + +"Will you do something for me?" + +"Anything," said Gavroche. "Good God! if it had not been for you, I +should have been done for." + +"Do you see this letter?" + +"Yes." + +"Take it. Leave the barricade instantly" (Gavroche began to scratch his +ear uneasily) "and to-morrow morning, you will deliver it at its address +to Mademoiselle Cosette, at M. Fauchelevent's, Rue de l'Homme Arme, No. +7." + +The heroic child replied + +"Well, but! in the meanwhile the barricade will be taken, and I shall +not be there." + +"The barricade will not be attacked until daybreak, according to all +appearances, and will not be taken before to-morrow noon." + +The fresh respite which the assailants were granting to the barricade +had, in fact, been prolonged. It was one of those intermissions which +frequently occur in nocturnal combats, which are always followed by an +increase of rage. + +"Well," said Gavroche, "what if I were to go and carry your letter +to-morrow?" + +"It will be too late. The barricade will probably be blockaded, all +the streets will be guarded, and you will not be able to get out. Go at +once." + +Gavroche could think of no reply to this, and stood there in indecision, +scratching his ear sadly. + +All at once, he took the letter with one of those birdlike movements +which were common with him. + +"All right," said he. + +And he started off at a run through Mondetour lane. + +An idea had occurred to Gavroche which had brought him to a decision, +but he had not mentioned it for fear that Marius might offer some +objection to it. + +This was the idea:-- + +"It is barely midnight, the Rue de l'Homme Arme is not far off; I will +go and deliver the letter at once, and I shall get back in time." + + + + +BOOK FIFTEENTH.--THE RUE DE L'HOMME ARME + + + + +CHAPTER I--A DRINKER IS A BABBLER + +What are the convulsions of a city in comparison with the insurrections +of the soul? Man is a depth still greater than the people. Jean Valjean +at that very moment was the prey of a terrible upheaval. Every sort of +gulf had opened again within him. He also was trembling, like Paris, +on the brink of an obscure and formidable revolution. A few hours +had sufficed to bring this about. His destiny and his conscience had +suddenly been covered with gloom. Of him also, as well as of Paris, it +might have been said: "Two principles are face to face. The white angel +and the black angel are about to seize each other on the bridge of the +abyss. Which of the two will hurl the other over? Who will carry the +day?" + +On the evening preceding this same 5th of June, Jean Valjean, +accompanied by Cosette and Toussaint had installed himself in the Rue de +l'Homme Arme. A change awaited him there. + +Cosette had not quitted the Rue Plumet without making an effort at +resistance. For the first time since they had lived side by side, +Cosette's will and the will of Jean Valjean had proved to be distinct, +and had been in opposition, at least, if they had not clashed. There had +been objections on one side and inflexibility on the other. The abrupt +advice: "Leave your house," hurled at Jean Valjean by a stranger, had +alarmed him to the extent of rendering him peremptory. He thought that +he had been traced and followed. Cosette had been obliged to give way. + +Both had arrived in the Rue de l'Homme Arme without opening their lips, +and without uttering a word, each being absorbed in his own personal +preoccupation; Jean Valjean so uneasy that he did not notice Cosette's +sadness, Cosette so sad that she did not notice Jean Valjean's +uneasiness. + +Jean Valjean had taken Toussaint with him, a thing which he had never +done in his previous absences. He perceived the possibility of not +returning to the Rue Plumet, and he could neither leave Toussaint behind +nor confide his secret to her. Besides, he felt that she was devoted and +trustworthy. Treachery between master and servant begins in curiosity. +Now Toussaint, as though she had been destined to be Jean Valjean's +servant, was not curious. She stammered in her peasant dialect of +Barneville: "I am made so; I do my work; the rest is no affair of mine." + +In this departure from the Rue Plumet, which had been almost a flight, +Jean Valjean had carried away nothing but the little embalmed valise, +baptized by Cosette "the inseparable." Full trunks would have required +porters, and porters are witnesses. A fiacre had been summoned to the +door on the Rue de Babylone, and they had taken their departure. + +It was with difficulty that Toussaint had obtained permission to pack up +a little linen and clothes and a few toilet articles. Cosette had taken +only her portfolio and her blotting-book. + +Jean Valjean, with a view to augmenting the solitude and the mystery of +this departure, had arranged to quit the pavilion of the Rue Plumet only +at dusk, which had allowed Cosette time to write her note to Marius. +They had arrived in the Rue de l'Homme Arme after night had fully +fallen. + +They had gone to bed in silence. + +The lodgings in the Rue de l'Homme Arme were situated on a back +court, on the second floor, and were composed of two sleeping-rooms, a +dining-room and a kitchen adjoining the dining-room, with a garret +where there was a folding-bed, and which fell to Toussaint's share. The +dining-room was an antechamber as well, and separated the two bedrooms. +The apartment was provided with all necessary utensils. + +People re-acquire confidence as foolishly as they lose it; human nature +is so constituted. Hardly had Jean Valjean reached the Rue de l'Homme +Arme when his anxiety was lightened and by degrees dissipated. There +are soothing spots which act in some sort mechanically on the mind. +An obscure street, peaceable inhabitants. Jean Valjean experienced an +indescribable contagion of tranquillity in that alley of ancient Paris, +which is so narrow that it is barred against carriages by a transverse +beam placed on two posts, which is deaf and dumb in the midst of the +clamorous city, dimly lighted at mid-day, and is, so to speak, incapable +of emotions between two rows of lofty houses centuries old, which hold +their peace like ancients as they are. There was a touch of stagnant +oblivion in that street. Jean Valjean drew his breath once more there. +How could he be found there? + +His first care was to place the inseparable beside him. + +He slept well. Night brings wisdom; we may add, night soothes. On the +following morning he awoke in a mood that was almost gay. He thought the +dining-room charming, though it was hideous, furnished with an old round +table, a long sideboard surmounted by a slanting mirror, a dilapidated +arm-chair, and several plain chairs which were encumbered with +Toussaint's packages. In one of these packages Jean Valjean's uniform of +a National Guard was visible through a rent. + +As for Cosette, she had had Toussaint take some broth to her room, and +did not make her appearance until evening. + +About five o'clock, Toussaint, who was going and coming and busying +herself with the tiny establishment, set on the table a cold chicken, +which Cosette, out of deference to her father, consented to glance at. + +That done, Cosette, under the pretext of an obstinate sick headache, +had bade Jean Valjean good night and had shut herself up in her chamber. +Jean Valjean had eaten a wing of the chicken with a good appetite, and +with his elbows on the table, having gradually recovered his serenity, +had regained possession of his sense of security. + +While he was discussing this modest dinner, he had, twice or thrice, +noticed in a confused way, Toussaint's stammering words as she said +to him: "Monsieur, there is something going on, they are fighting in +Paris." But absorbed in a throng of inward calculations, he had paid no +heed to it. To tell the truth, he had not heard her. He rose and began +to pace from the door to the window and from the window to the door, +growing ever more serene. + +With this calm, Cosette, his sole anxiety, recurred to his thoughts. Not +that he was troubled by this headache, a little nervous crisis, a young +girl's fit of sulks, the cloud of a moment, there would be nothing left +of it in a day or two; but he meditated on the future, and, as was his +habit, he thought of it with pleasure. After all, he saw no obstacle to +their happy life resuming its course. At certain hours, everything seems +impossible, at others everything appears easy; Jean Valjean was in the +midst of one of these good hours. They generally succeed the bad +ones, as day follows night, by virtue of that law of succession and +of contrast which lies at the very foundation of nature, and which +superficial minds call antithesis. In this peaceful street where he had +taken refuge, Jean Valjean got rid of all that had been troubling him +for some time past. This very fact, that he had seen many shadows, made +him begin to perceive a little azure. To have quitted the Rue +Plumet without complications or incidents was one good step already +accomplished. Perhaps it would be wise to go abroad, if only for a few +months, and to set out for London. Well, they would go. What difference +did it make to him whether he was in France or in England, provided he +had Cosette beside him? Cosette was his nation. Cosette sufficed for +his happiness; the idea that he, perhaps, did not suffice for Cosette's +happiness, that idea which had formerly been the cause of his fever +and sleeplessness, did not even present itself to his mind. He was in a +state of collapse from all his past sufferings, and he was fully entered +on optimism. Cosette was by his side, she seemed to be his; an optical +illusion which every one has experienced. He arranged in his own mind, +with all sorts of felicitous devices, his departure for England with +Cosette, and he beheld his felicity reconstituted wherever he pleased, +in the perspective of his revery. + +As he paced to and fro with long strides, his glance suddenly +encountered something strange. + +In the inclined mirror facing him which surmounted the sideboard, he saw +the four lines which follow:-- + +"My dearest, alas! my father insists on our setting out immediately. We +shall be this evening in the Rue de l'Homme Arme, No. 7. In a week we +shall be in England. COSETTE. June 4th." + +Jean Valjean halted, perfectly haggard. + +Cosette on her arrival had placed her blotting-book on the sideboard in +front of the mirror, and, utterly absorbed in her agony of grief, had +forgotten it and left it there, without even observing that she had left +it wide open, and open at precisely the page on which she had laid to +dry the four lines which she had penned, and which she had given in +charge of the young workman in the Rue Plumet. The writing had been +printed off on the blotter. + +The mirror reflected the writing. + +The result was, what is called in geometry, the symmetrical image; so +that the writing, reversed on the blotter, was righted in the mirror and +presented its natural appearance; and Jean Valjean had beneath his eyes +the letter written by Cosette to Marius on the preceding evening. + +It was simple and withering. + +Jean Valjean stepped up to the mirror. He read the four lines again, but +he did not believe them. They produced on him the effect of appearing in +a flash of lightning. It was a hallucination, it was impossible. It was +not so. + +Little by little, his perceptions became more precise; he looked at +Cosette's blotting-book, and the consciousness of the reality returned +to him. He caught up the blotter and said: "It comes from there." +He feverishly examined the four lines imprinted on the blotter, the +reversal of the letters converted into an odd scrawl, and he saw no +sense in it. Then he said to himself: "But this signifies nothing; there +is nothing written here." And he drew a long breath with inexpressible +relief. Who has not experienced those foolish joys in horrible instants? +The soul does not surrender to despair until it has exhausted all +illusions. + +He held the blotter in his hand and contemplated it in stupid delight, +almost ready to laugh at the hallucination of which he had been the +dupe. All at once his eyes fell upon the mirror again, and again he +beheld the vision. There were the four lines outlined with inexorable +clearness. This time it was no mirage. The recurrence of a vision is a +reality; it was palpable, it was the writing restored in the mirror. He +understood. + +Jean Valjean tottered, dropped the blotter, and fell into the old +arm-chair beside the buffet, with drooping head, and glassy eyes, in +utter bewilderment. He told himself that it was plain, that the light of +the world had been eclipsed forever, and that Cosette had written that +to some one. Then he heard his soul, which had become terrible once +more, give vent to a dull roar in the gloom. Try then the effect of +taking from the lion the dog which he has in his cage! + +Strange and sad to say, at that very moment, Marius had not yet received +Cosette's letter; chance had treacherously carried it to Jean Valjean +before delivering it to Marius. Up to that day, Jean Valjean had not +been vanquished by trial. He had been subjected to fearful proofs; no +violence of bad fortune had been spared him; the ferocity of fate, armed +with all vindictiveness and all social scorn, had taken him for her prey +and had raged against him. He had accepted every extremity when it had +been necessary; he had sacrificed his inviolability as a reformed man, +had yielded up his liberty, risked his head, lost everything, suffered +everything, and he had remained disinterested and stoical to such a +point that he might have been thought to be absent from himself like a +martyr. His conscience inured to every assault of destiny, might have +appeared to be forever impregnable. Well, any one who had beheld his +spiritual self would have been obliged to concede that it weakened at +that moment. It was because, of all the tortures which he had undergone +in the course of this long inquisition to which destiny had doomed him, +this was the most terrible. Never had such pincers seized him hitherto. +He felt the mysterious stirring of all his latent sensibilities. He felt +the plucking at the strange chord. Alas! the supreme trial, let us say +rather, the only trial, is the loss of the beloved being. + +Poor old Jean Valjean certainly did not love Cosette otherwise than as +a father; but we have already remarked, above, that into this paternity +the widowhood of his life had introduced all the shades of love; he +loved Cosette as his daughter, and he loved her as his mother, and he +loved her as his sister; and, as he had never had either a woman to +love or a wife, as nature is a creditor who accepts no protest, that +sentiment also, the most impossible to lose, was mingled with the +rest, vague, ignorant, pure with the purity of blindness, unconscious, +celestial, angelic, divine; less like a sentiment than like an instinct, +less like an instinct than like an imperceptible and invisible but real +attraction; and love, properly speaking, was, in his immense tenderness +for Cosette, like the thread of gold in the mountain, concealed and +virgin. + +Let the reader recall the situation of heart which we have already +indicated. No marriage was possible between them; not even that of +souls; and yet, it is certain that their destinies were wedded. With the +exception of Cosette, that is to say, with the exception of a childhood, +Jean Valjean had never, in the whole of his long life, known anything of +that which may be loved. The passions and loves which succeed each other +had not produced in him those successive green growths, tender green or +dark green, which can be seen in foliage which passes through the winter +and in men who pass fifty. In short, and we have insisted on it more +than once, all this interior fusion, all this whole, of which the sum +total was a lofty virtue, ended in rendering Jean Valjean a father to +Cosette. A strange father, forged from the grandfather, the son, the +brother, and the husband, that existed in Jean Valjean; a father in whom +there was included even a mother; a father who loved Cosette and adored +her, and who held that child as his light, his home, his family, his +country, his paradise. + +Thus when he saw that the end had absolutely come, that she was escaping +from him, that she was slipping from his hands, that she was gliding +from him, like a cloud, like water, when he had before his eyes this +crushing proof: "another is the goal of her heart, another is the wish +of her life; there is a dearest one, I am no longer anything but her +father, I no longer exist"; when he could no longer doubt, when he +said to himself: "She is going away from me!" the grief which he felt +surpassed the bounds of possibility. To have done all that he had done +for the purpose of ending like this! And the very idea of being nothing! +Then, as we have just said, a quiver of revolt ran through him from +head to foot. He felt, even in the very roots of his hair, the immense +reawakening of egotism, and the _I_ in this man's abyss howled. + +There is such a thing as the sudden giving way of the inward subsoil. A +despairing certainty does not make its way into a man without thrusting +aside and breaking certain profound elements which, in some cases, are +the very man himself. Grief, when it attains this shape, is a headlong +flight of all the forces of the conscience. These are fatal crises. Few +among us emerge from them still like ourselves and firm in duty. When +the limit of endurance is overstepped, the most imperturbable virtue is +disconcerted. Jean Valjean took the blotter again, and convinced himself +afresh; he remained bowed and as though petrified and with staring eyes, +over those four unobjectionable lines; and there arose within him such +a cloud that one might have thought that everything in this soul was +crumbling away. + +He examined this revelation, athwart the exaggerations of revery, with +an apparent and terrifying calmness, for it is a fearful thing when a +man's calmness reaches the coldness of the statue. + +He measured the terrible step which his destiny had taken without his +having a suspicion of the fact; he recalled his fears of the preceding +summer, so foolishly dissipated; he recognized the precipice, it was +still the same; only, Jean Valjean was no longer on the brink, he was at +the bottom of it. + +The unprecedented and heart-rending thing about it was that he had +fallen without perceiving it. All the light of his life had departed, +while he still fancied that he beheld the sun. + +His instinct did not hesitate. He put together certain circumstances, +certain dates, certain blushes and certain pallors on Cosette's part, +and he said to himself: "It is he." + +The divination of despair is a sort of mysterious bow which never misses +its aim. He struck Marius with his first conjecture. He did not know the +name, but he found the man instantly. He distinctly perceived, in the +background of the implacable conjuration of his memories, the unknown +prowler of the Luxembourg, that wretched seeker of love adventures, that +idler of romance, that idiot, that coward, for it is cowardly to come +and make eyes at young girls who have beside them a father who loves +them. + +After he had thoroughly verified the fact that this young man was at +the bottom of this situation, and that everything proceeded from that +quarter, he, Jean Valjean, the regenerated man, the man who had so +labored over his soul, the man who had made so many efforts to resolve +all life, all misery, and all unhappiness into love, looked into his own +breast and there beheld a spectre, Hate. + +Great griefs contain something of dejection. They discourage one with +existence. The man into whom they enter feels something within him +withdraw from him. In his youth, their visits are lugubrious; later on +they are sinister. Alas, if despair is a fearful thing when the blood is +hot, when the hair is black, when the head is erect on the body like +the flame on the torch, when the roll of destiny still retains its full +thickness, when the heart, full of desirable love, still possesses beats +which can be returned to it, when one has time for redress, when all +women and all smiles and all the future and all the horizon are before +one, when the force of life is complete, what is it in old age, when +the years hasten on, growing ever paler, to that twilight hour when one +begins to behold the stars of the tomb? + +While he was meditating, Toussaint entered. Jean Valjean rose and asked +her:-- + +"In what quarter is it? Do you know?" + +Toussaint was struck dumb, and could only answer him:-- + +"What is it, sir?" + +Jean Valjean began again: "Did you not tell me that just now that there +is fighting going on?" + +"Ah! yes, sir," replied Toussaint. "It is in the direction of +Saint-Merry." + +There is a mechanical movement which comes to us, unconsciously, from +the most profound depths of our thought. It was, no doubt, under +the impulse of a movement of this sort, and of which he was hardly +conscious, that Jean Valjean, five minutes later, found himself in the +street. + +Bareheaded, he sat upon the stone post at the door of his house. He +seemed to be listening. + +Night had come. + + + + +CHAPTER II--THE STREET URCHIN AN ENEMY OF LIGHT + +How long did he remain thus? What was the ebb and flow of this tragic +meditation? Did he straighten up? Did he remain bowed? Had he been +bent to breaking? Could he still rise and regain his footing in his +conscience upon something solid? He probably would not have been able to +tell himself. + +The street was deserted. A few uneasy bourgeois, who were rapidly +returning home, hardly saw him. Each one for himself in times of peril. +The lamp-lighter came as usual to light the lantern which was situated +precisely opposite the door of No. 7, and then went away. Jean Valjean +would not have appeared like a living man to any one who had examined +him in that shadow. He sat there on the post of his door, motionless as +a form of ice. There is congealment in despair. The alarm bells and +a vague and stormy uproar were audible. In the midst of all these +convulsions of the bell mingled with the revolt, the clock of Saint-Paul +struck eleven, gravely and without haste; for the tocsin is man; the +hour is God. The passage of the hour produced no effect on Jean Valjean; +Jean Valjean did not stir. Still, at about that moment, a brusque report +burst forth in the direction of the Halles, a second yet more violent +followed; it was probably that attack on the barricade in the Rue de la +Chanvrerie which we have just seen repulsed by Marius. At this double +discharge, whose fury seemed augmented by the stupor of the night, Jean +Valjean started; he rose, turning towards the quarter whence the noise +proceeded; then he fell back upon the post again, folded his arms, and +his head slowly sank on his bosom again. + +He resumed his gloomy dialogue with himself. + +All at once, he raised his eyes; some one was walking in the street, he +heard steps near him. He looked, and by the light of the lanterns, in +the direction of the street which ran into the Rue-aux-Archives, he +perceived a young, livid, and beaming face. + +Gavroche had just arrived in the Rue l'Homme Arme. + +Gavroche was staring into the air, apparently in search of something. He +saw Jean Valjean perfectly well but he took no notice of him. + +Gavroche after staring into the air, stared below; he raised himself on +tiptoe, and felt of the doors and windows of the ground floor; they were +all shut, bolted, and padlocked. After having authenticated the fronts +of five or six barricaded houses in this manner, the urchin shrugged his +shoulders, and took himself to task in these terms:-- + +"Pardi!" + +Then he began to stare into the air again. + +Jean Valjean, who, an instant previously, in his then state of mind, +would not have spoken to or even answered any one, felt irresistibly +impelled to accost that child. + +"What is the matter with you, my little fellow?" he said. + +"The matter with me is that I am hungry," replied Gavroche frankly. And +he added: "Little fellow yourself." + +Jean Valjean fumbled in his fob and pulled out a five-franc piece. + +But Gavroche, who was of the wagtail species, and who skipped +vivaciously from one gesture to another, had just picked up a stone. He +had caught sight of the lantern. + +"See here," said he, "you still have your lanterns here. You are +disobeying the regulations, my friend. This is disorderly. Smash that +for me." + +And he flung the stone at the lantern, whose broken glass fell with +such a clatter that the bourgeois in hiding behind their curtains in the +opposite house cried: "There is 'Ninety-three' come again." + +The lantern oscillated violently, and went out. The street had suddenly +become black. + +"That's right, old street," ejaculated Gavroche, "put on your +night-cap." + +And turning to Jean Valjean:-- + +"What do you call that gigantic monument that you have there at the end +of the street? It's the Archives, isn't it? I must crumble up those big +stupids of pillars a bit and make a nice barricade out of them." + +Jean Valjean stepped up to Gavroche. + +"Poor creature," he said in a low tone, and speaking to himself, "he is +hungry." + +And he laid the hundred-sou piece in his hand. + +Gavroche raised his face, astonished at the size of this sou; he stared +at it in the darkness, and the whiteness of the big sou dazzled him. +He knew five-franc pieces by hearsay; their reputation was agreeable to +him; he was delighted to see one close to. He said:-- + +"Let us contemplate the tiger." + +He gazed at it for several minutes in ecstasy; then, turning to Jean +Valjean, he held out the coin to him, and said majestically to him:-- + +"Bourgeois, I prefer to smash lanterns. Take back your ferocious beast. +You can't bribe me. That has got five claws; but it doesn't scratch me." + +"Have you a mother?" asked Jean Valjean. + +Gavroche replied:-- + +"More than you have, perhaps." + +"Well," returned Jean Valjean, "keep the money for your mother!" + +Gavroche was touched. Moreover, he had just noticed that the man who was +addressing him had no hat, and this inspired him with confidence. + +"Truly," said he, "so it wasn't to keep me from breaking the lanterns?" + +"Break whatever you please." + +"You're a fine man," said Gavroche. + +And he put the five-franc piece into one of his pockets. + +His confidence having increased, he added:-- + +"Do you belong in this street?" + +"Yes, why?" + +"Can you tell me where No. 7 is?" + +"What do you want with No. 7?" + +Here the child paused, he feared that he had said too much; he thrust +his nails energetically into his hair and contented himself with +replying:-- + +"Ah! Here it is." + +An idea flashed through Jean Valjean's mind. Anguish does have these +gleams. He said to the lad:-- + +"Are you the person who is bringing a letter that I am expecting?" + +"You?" said Gavroche. "You are not a woman." + +"The letter is for Mademoiselle Cosette, is it not?" + +"Cosette," muttered Gavroche. "Yes, I believe that is the queer name." + +"Well," resumed Jean Valjean, "I am the person to whom you are to +deliver the letter. Give it here." + +"In that case, you must know that I was sent from the barricade." + +"Of course," said Jean Valjean. + +Gavroche engulfed his hand in another of his pockets and drew out a +paper folded in four. + +Then he made the military salute. + +"Respect for despatches," said he. "It comes from the Provisional +Government." + +"Give it to me," said Jean Valjean. + +Gavroche held the paper elevated above his head. + +"Don't go and fancy it's a love letter. It is for a woman, but it's for +the people. We men fight and we respect the fair sex. We are not as +they are in fine society, where there are lions who send chickens[55] to +camels." + +"Give it to me." + +"After all," continued Gavroche, "you have the air of an honest man." + +"Give it to me quick." + +"Catch hold of it." + +And he handed the paper to Jean Valjean. + +"And make haste, Monsieur What's-your-name, for Mamselle Cosette is +waiting." + +Gavroche was satisfied with himself for having produced this remark. + +Jean Valjean began again:-- + +"Is it to Saint-Merry that the answer is to be sent?" + +"There you are making some of those bits of pastry vulgarly called +brioches [blunders]. This letter comes from the barricade of the Rue de +la Chanvrerie, and I'm going back there. Good evening, citizen." + +That said, Gavroche took himself off, or, to describe it more exactly, +fluttered away in the direction whence he had come with a flight like +that of an escaped bird. He plunged back into the gloom as though he +made a hole in it, with the rigid rapidity of a projectile; the alley of +l'Homme Arme became silent and solitary once more; in a twinkling, that +strange child, who had about him something of the shadow and of the +dream, had buried himself in the mists of the rows of black houses, and +was lost there, like smoke in the dark; and one might have thought that +he had dissipated and vanished, had there not taken place, a few minutes +after his disappearance, a startling shiver of glass, and had not the +magnificent crash of a lantern rattling down on the pavement once more +abruptly awakened the indignant bourgeois. It was Gavroche upon his way +through the Rue du Chaume. + + + + +CHAPTER III--WHILE COSETTE AND TOUSSAINT ARE ASLEEP + +Jean Valjean went into the house with Marius' letter. + +He groped his way up the stairs, as pleased with the darkness as an owl +who grips his prey, opened and shut his door softly, listened to see +whether he could hear any noise,--made sure that, to all appearances, +Cosette and Toussaint were asleep, and plunged three or four matches +into the bottle of the Fumade lighter before he could evoke a spark, so +greatly did his hand tremble. What he had just done smacked of theft. At +last the candle was lighted; he leaned his elbows on the table, unfolded +the paper, and read. + +In violent emotions, one does not read, one flings to the earth, so to +speak, the paper which one holds, one clutches it like a victim, one +crushes it, one digs into it the nails of one's wrath, or of one's joy; +one hastens to the end, one leaps to the beginning; attention is at +fever heat; it takes up in the gross, as it were, the essential points; +it seizes on one point, and the rest disappears. In Marius' note to +Cosette, Jean Valjean saw only these words:-- + +"I die. When thou readest this, my soul will be near thee." + +In the presence of these two lines, he was horribly dazzled; he remained +for a moment, crushed, as it were, by the change of emotion which +was taking place within him, he stared at Marius' note with a sort of +intoxicated amazement, he had before his eyes that splendor, the death +of a hated individual. + +He uttered a frightful cry of inward joy. So it was all over. The +catastrophe had arrived sooner than he had dared to hope. The being who +obstructed his destiny was disappearing. That man had taken himself off +of his own accord, freely, willingly. This man was going to his death, +and he, Jean Valjean, had had no hand in the matter, and it was through +no fault of his. Perhaps, even, he is already dead. Here his fever +entered into calculations. No, he is not dead yet. The letter had +evidently been intended for Cosette to read on the following morning; +after the two discharges that were heard between eleven o'clock and +midnight, nothing more has taken place; the barricade will not be +attacked seriously until daybreak; but that makes no difference, from +the moment when "that man" is concerned in this war, he is lost; he is +caught in the gearing. Jean Valjean felt himself delivered. So he was +about to find himself alone with Cosette once more. The rivalry would +cease; the future was beginning again. He had but to keep this note in +his pocket. Cosette would never know what had become of that man. All +that there requires to be done is to let things take their own course. +This man cannot escape. If he is not already dead, it is certain that he +is about to die. What good fortune! + +Having said all this to himself, he became gloomy. + +Then he went down stairs and woke up the porter. + +About an hour later, Jean Valjean went out in the complete costume of +a National Guard, and with his arms. The porter had easily found in the +neighborhood the wherewithal to complete his equipment. He had a loaded +gun and a cartridge-box filled with cartridges. + +He strode off in the direction of the markets. + + + + +CHAPTER IV--GAVROCHE'S EXCESS OF ZEAL + +In the meantime, Gavroche had had an adventure. + +Gavroche, after having conscientiously stoned the lantern in the Rue du +Chaume, entered the Rue des Vielles-Haudriettes, and not seeing "even a +cat" there, he thought the opportunity a good one to strike up all the +song of which he was capable. His march, far from being retarded by his +singing, was accelerated by it. He began to sow along the sleeping or +terrified houses these incendiary couplets:-- + + "L'oiseau medit dans les charmilles, + Et pretend qu'hier Atala + Avec un Russe s'en alla. + Ou vont les belles filles, + Lon la. + + "Mon ami Pierrot, tu babilles, + Parce que l'autre jour Mila + Cogna sa vitre et m'appela, + Ou vont les belles filles, + Lon la. + + "Les drolesses sont fort gentilles, + Leur poison qui m'ensorcela + Griserait Monsieur Orfila. + Ou vont les belles filles, + Lon la. + + "J'aime l'amour et les bisbilles, + J'aime Agnes, j'aime Pamela, + Lisa en m'allumant se brula. + Ou vont les belles filles, + Lon la. + + "Jadis, quand je vis les mantilles + De Suzette et de Zeila, + Mon ame aleurs plis se mela, + Ou vont les belles filles, + Lon la. + + "Amour, quand dans l'ombre ou tu brilles, + Tu coiffes de roses Lola, + Je me damnerais pour cela. + Ou vont les belles filles, + Lon la. + + "Jeanne a ton miroir tu t'habilles! + Mon coeur un beau jour s'envola. + Je crois que c'est Jeanne qui l'a. + Ou vont les belles filles, + Lon la. + + "Le soir, en sortant des quadrilles, + Je montre aux etoiles Stella, + Et je leur dis: 'Regardez-la.' + Ou vont les belles filles, + Lon la."[56] + +Gavroche, as he sang, was lavish of his pantomime. Gesture is the strong +point of the refrain. His face, an inexhaustible repertory of masks, +produced grimaces more convulsing and more fantastic than the rents of a +cloth torn in a high gale. Unfortunately, as he was alone, and as it was +night, this was neither seen nor even visible. Such wastes of riches do +occur. + +All at once, he stopped short. + +"Let us interrupt the romance," said he. + +His feline eye had just descried, in the recess of a carriage door, +what is called in painting, an ensemble, that is to say, a person and +a thing; the thing was a hand-cart, the person was a man from Auvergene +who was sleeping therein. + +The shafts of the cart rested on the pavement, and the Auvergnat's head +was supported against the front of the cart. His body was coiled up on +this inclined plane and his feet touched the ground. + +Gavroche, with his experience of the things of this world, recognized +a drunken man. He was some corner errand-man who had drunk too much and +was sleeping too much. + +"There now," thought Gavroche, "that's what the summer nights are good +for. We'll take the cart for the Republic, and leave the Auvergnat for +the Monarchy." + +His mind had just been illuminated by this flash of light:-- + +"How bully that cart would look on our barricade!" + +The Auvergnat was snoring. + +Gavroche gently tugged at the cart from behind, and at the Auvergnat +from the front, that is to say, by the feet, and at the expiration of +another minute the imperturbable Auvergnat was reposing flat on the +pavement. + +The cart was free. + +Gavroche, habituated to facing the unexpected in all quarters, had +everything about him. He fumbled in one of his pockets, and pulled from +it a scrap of paper and a bit of red pencil filched from some carpenter. + +He wrote:-- + + "French Republic." + + "Received thy cart." + + And he signed it: "GAVROCHE." + +That done, he put the paper in the pocket of the still snoring +Auvergnat's velvet vest, seized the cart shafts in both hands, and set +off in the direction of the Halles, pushing the cart before him at a +hard gallop with a glorious and triumphant uproar. + +This was perilous. There was a post at the Royal Printing Establishment. +Gavroche did not think of this. This post was occupied by the National +Guards of the suburbs. The squad began to wake up, and heads were raised +from camp beds. Two street lanterns broken in succession, that ditty +sung at the top of the lungs. This was a great deal for those cowardly +streets, which desire to go to sleep at sunset, and which put the +extinguisher on their candles at such an early hour. For the last hour, +that boy had been creating an uproar in that peaceable arrondissement, +the uproar of a fly in a bottle. The sergeant of the banlieue lent an +ear. He waited. He was a prudent man. + +The mad rattle of the cart, filled to overflowing the possible measure +of waiting, and decided the sergeant to make a reconnaisance. + +"There's a whole band of them there!" said he, "let us proceed gently." + +It was clear that the hydra of anarchy had emerged from its box and that +it was stalking abroad through the quarter. + +And the sergeant ventured out of the post with cautious tread. + +All at once, Gavroche, pushing his cart in front of him, and at the very +moment when he was about to turn into the Rue des Vielles-Haudriettes, +found himself face to face with a uniform, a shako, a plume, and a gun. + +For the second time, he stopped short. + +"Hullo," said he, "it's him. Good day, public order." + +Gavroche's amazement was always brief and speedily thawed. + +"Where are you going, you rascal?" shouted the sergeant. + +"Citizen," retorted Gavroche, "I haven't called you 'bourgeois' yet. Why +do you insult me?" + +"Where are you going, you rogue?" + +"Monsieur," retorted Gavroche, "perhaps you were a man of wit yesterday, +but you have degenerated this morning." + +"I ask you where are you going, you villain?" + +Gavroche replied:-- + +"You speak prettily. Really, no one would suppose you as old as you are. +You ought to sell all your hair at a hundred francs apiece. That would +yield you five hundred francs." + +"Where are you going? Where are you going? Where are you going, bandit?" + +Gavroche retorted again:-- + +"What villainous words! You must wipe your mouth better the first time +that they give you suck." + +The sergeant lowered his bayonet. + +"Will you tell me where you are going, you wretch?" + +"General," said Gavroche "I'm on my way to look for a doctor for my wife +who is in labor." + +"To arms!" shouted the sergeant. + +The master-stroke of strong men consists in saving themselves by the +very means that have ruined them; Gavroche took in the whole situation +at a glance. It was the cart which had told against him, it was the +cart's place to protect him. + +At the moment when the sergeant was on the point of making his descent +on Gavroche, the cart, converted into a projectile and launched with all +the latter's might, rolled down upon him furiously, and the sergeant, +struck full in the stomach, tumbled over backwards into the gutter while +his gun went off in the air. + +The men of the post had rushed out pell-mell at the sergeant's shout; +the shot brought on a general random discharge, after which they +reloaded their weapons and began again. + +This blind-man's-buff musketry lasted for a quarter of an hour and +killed several panes of glass. + +In the meanwhile, Gavroche, who had retraced his steps at full speed, +halted five or six streets distant and seated himself, panting, on the +stone post which forms the corner of the Enfants-Rouges. + +He listened. + +After panting for a few minutes, he turned in the direction where the +fusillade was raging, lifted his left hand to a level with his nose and +thrust it forward three times, as he slapped the back of his head with +his right hand; an imperious gesture in which Parisian street-urchindom +has condensed French irony, and which is evidently efficacious, since it +has already lasted half a century. + +This gayety was troubled by one bitter reflection. + +"Yes," said he, "I'm splitting with laughter, I'm twisting with +delight, I abound in joy, but I'm losing my way, I shall have to take a +roundabout way. If I only reach the barricade in season!" + +Thereupon he set out again on a run. + +And as he ran:-- + +"Ah, by the way, where was I?" said he. + +And he resumed his ditty, as he plunged rapidly through the streets, and +this is what died away in the gloom:-- + + "Mais il reste encore des bastilles, + Et je vais mettre le hola + Dans l'orde public que voila. + Ou vont les belles filles, + Lon la. + + "Quelqu'un veut-il jouer aux quilles? + Tout l'ancien monde s'ecroula + Quand la grosse boule roula. + Ou vont les belles filles, + Lon la. + + "Vieux bon peuple, a coups de bequilles, + Cassons ce Louvre ou s'etala + La monarchie en falbala. + Ou vont les belles filles, + Lon la. + + "Nous en avons force les grilles, + Le roi Charles-Dix ce jour la, + Tenait mal et se decolla. + Ou vont les belles filles, + Lon la."[57] + +The post's recourse to arms was not without result. The cart was +conquered, the drunken man was taken prisoner. The first was put in the +pound, the second was later on somewhat harassed before the councils +of war as an accomplice. The public ministry of the day proved its +indefatigable zeal in the defence of society, in this instance. + +Gavroche's adventure, which has lingered as a tradition in the quarters +of the Temple, is one of the most terrible souvenirs of the elderly +bourgeois of the Marais, and is entitled in their memories: "The +nocturnal attack by the post of the Royal Printing Establishment." + + +[THE END OF VOLUME IV. "SAINT DENIS"] + + + + + + +VOLUME V--JEAN VALJEAN + +[Illustration: Frontispiece Volume Five ] + +[Illustration: Titlepage Volume Five ] + + + + +BOOK FIRST.--THE WAR BETWEEN FOUR WALLS + + + + +CHAPTER I--THE CHARYBDIS OF THE FAUBOURG SAINT ANTOINE AND THE SCYLLA OF +THE FAUBOURG DU TEMPLE + +The two most memorable barricades which the observer of social maladies +can name do not belong to the period in which the action of this work +is laid. These two barricades, both of them symbols, under two different +aspects, of a redoubtable situation, sprang from the earth at the time +of the fatal insurrection of June, 1848, the greatest war of the streets +that history has ever beheld. + +It sometimes happens that, even contrary to principles, even contrary to +liberty, equality, and fraternity, even contrary to the universal vote, +even contrary to the government, by all for all, from the depths of its +anguish, of its discouragements and its destitutions, of its fevers, of +its distresses, of its miasmas, of its ignorances, of its darkness, that +great and despairing body, the rabble, protests against, and that the +populace wages battle against, the people. + +Beggars attack the common right; the ochlocracy rises against demos. + +These are melancholy days; for there is always a certain amount of night +even in this madness, there is suicide in this duel, and those words +which are intended to be insults--beggars, canaille, ochlocracy, +populace--exhibit, alas! rather the fault of those who reign than the +fault of those who suffer; rather the fault of the privileged than the +fault of the disinherited. + +For our own part, we never pronounce those words without pain and +without respect, for when philosophy fathoms the facts to which they +correspond, it often finds many a grandeur beside these miseries. Athens +was an ochlocracy; the beggars were the making of Holland; the populace +saved Rome more than once; and the rabble followed Jesus Christ. + +There is no thinker who has not at times contemplated the magnificences +of the lower classes. + +It was of this rabble that Saint Jerome was thinking, no doubt, and of +all these poor people and all these vagabonds and all these miserable +people whence sprang the apostles and the martyrs, when he uttered this +mysterious saying: "Fex urbis, lex orbis,"--the dregs of the city, the +law of the earth. + +The exasperations of this crowd which suffers and bleeds, its violences +contrary to all sense, directed against the principles which are its +life, its masterful deeds against the right, are its popular coups +d'etat and should be repressed. The man of probity sacrifices himself, +and out of his very love for this crowd, he combats it. But how +excusable he feels it even while holding out against it! How he +venerates it even while resisting it! This is one of those rare moments +when, while doing that which it is one's duty to do, one feels something +which disconcerts one, and which would dissuade one from proceeding +further; one persists, it is necessary, but conscience, though +satisfied, is sad, and the accomplishment of duty is complicated with a +pain at the heart. + +June, 1848, let us hasten to say, was an exceptional fact, and almost +impossible of classification, in the philosophy of history. All the +words which we have just uttered, must be discarded, when it becomes +a question of this extraordinary revolt, in which one feels the holy +anxiety of toil claiming its rights. It was necessary to combat it, and +this was a duty, for it attacked the republic. But what was June, 1848, +at bottom? A revolt of the people against itself. + +Where the subject is not lost sight of, there is no digression; may we, +then, be permitted to arrest the reader's attention for a moment on the +two absolutely unique barricades of which we have just spoken and which +characterized this insurrection. + +One blocked the entrance to the Faubourg Saint Antoine; the other +defended the approach to the Faubourg du Temple; those before whom these +two fearful masterpieces of civil war reared themselves beneath the +brilliant blue sky of June, will never forget them. + +The Saint-Antoine barricade was tremendous; it was three stories high, +and seven hundred feet wide. It barred the vast opening of the faubourg, +that is to say, three streets, from angle to angle; ravined, jagged, +cut up, divided, crenelated, with an immense rent, buttressed with piles +that were bastions in themselves throwing out capes here and there, +powerfully backed up by two great promontories of houses of the +faubourg, it reared itself like a cyclopean dike at the end of the +formidable place which had seen the 14th of July. Nineteen barricades +were ranged, one behind the other, in the depths of the streets +behind this principal barricade. At the very sight of it, one felt the +agonizing suffering in the immense faubourg, which had reached that +point of extremity when a distress may become a catastrophe. Of what was +that barricade made? Of the ruins of three six-story houses demolished +expressly, said some. Of the prodigy of all wraths, said others. It wore +the lamentable aspect of all constructions of hatred, ruin. It might be +asked: Who built this? It might also be said: Who destroyed this? It was +the improvisation of the ebullition. Hold! take this door! this grating! +this penthouse! this chimney-piece! this broken brazier! this cracked +pot! Give all! cast away all! Push this roll, dig, dismantle, overturn, +ruin everything! It was the collaboration of the pavement, the block of +stone, the beam, the bar of iron, the rag, the scrap, the broken pane, +the unseated chair, the cabbage-stalk, the tatter, the rag, and the +malediction. It was grand and it was petty. It was the abyss parodied +on the public place by hubbub. The mass beside the atom; the strip of +ruined wall and the broken bowl,--threatening fraternization of +every sort of rubbish. Sisyphus had thrown his rock there and Job his +potsherd. Terrible, in short. It was the acropolis of the barefooted. +Overturned carts broke the uniformity of the slope; an immense dray was +spread out there crossways, its axle pointing heavenward, and seemed a +scar on that tumultuous facade; an omnibus hoisted gayly, by main force, +to the very summit of the heap, as though the architects of this bit of +savagery had wished to add a touch of the street urchin humor to their +terror, presented its horseless, unharnessed pole to no one knows what +horses of the air. This gigantic heap, the alluvium of the revolt, +figured to the mind an Ossa on Pelion of all revolutions; '93 on '89, +the 9th of Thermidor on the 10th of August, the 18th of Brumaire on the +11th of January, Vendemiaire on Prairial, 1848 on 1830. The situation +deserved the trouble and this barricade was worthy to figure on the very +spot whence the Bastille had disappeared. If the ocean made dikes, it +is thus that it would build. The fury of the flood was stamped upon this +shapeless mass. What flood? The crowd. One thought one beheld hubbub +petrified. One thought one heard humming above this barricade as though +there had been over their hive, enormous, dark bees of violent progress. +Was it a thicket? Was it a bacchanalia? Was it a fortress? Vertigo +seemed to have constructed it with blows of its wings. There was +something of the cess-pool in that redoubt and something Olympian in +that confusion. One there beheld in a pell-mell full of despair, the +rafters of roofs, bits of garret windows with their figured paper, +window sashes with their glass planted there in the ruins awaiting +the cannon, wrecks of chimneys, cupboards, tables, benches, howling +topsyturveydom, and those thousand poverty-stricken things, the very +refuse of the mendicant, which contain at the same time fury and +nothingness. One would have said that it was the tatters of a people, +rags of wood, of iron, of bronze, of stone, and that the Faubourg Saint +Antoine had thrust it there at its door, with a colossal flourish of the +broom making of its misery its barricade. Blocks resembling headsman's +blocks, dislocated chains, pieces of woodwork with brackets having +the form of gibbets, horizontal wheels projecting from the rubbish, +amalgamated with this edifice of anarchy the sombre figure of the old +tortures endured by the people. The barricade Saint Antoine converted +everything into a weapon; everything that civil war could throw at the +head of society proceeded thence; it was not combat, it was a paroxysm; +the carbines which defended this redoubt, among which there were some +blunderbusses, sent bits of earthenware bones, coat-buttons, even the +casters from night-stands, dangerous projectiles on account of +the brass. This barricade was furious; it hurled to the clouds an +inexpressible clamor; at certain moments, when provoking the army, it +was covered with throngs and tempest; a tumultuous crowd of flaming +heads crowned it; a swarm filled it; it had a thorny crest of guns, of +sabres, of cudgels, of axes, of pikes and of bayonets; a vast red flag +flapped in the wind; shouts of command, songs of attack, the roll of +drums, the sobs of women and bursts of gloomy laughter from the starving +were to be heard there. It was huge and living, and, like the back of an +electric beast, there proceeded from it little flashes of lightning. The +spirit of revolution covered with its cloud this summit where rumbled +that voice of the people which resembles the voice of God; a strange +majesty was emitted by this titanic basket of rubbish. It was a heap of +filth and it was Sinai. + +As we have said previously, it attacked in the name of the +revolution--what? The revolution. It--that barricade, chance, hazard, +disorder, terror, misunderstanding, the unknown--had facing it the +Constituent Assembly, the sovereignty of the people, universal suffrage, +the nation, the republic; and it was the Carmagnole bidding defiance to +the Marseillaise. + +Immense but heroic defiance, for the old faubourg is a hero. + +The faubourg and its redoubt lent each other assistance. The faubourg +shouldered the redoubt, the redoubt took its stand under cover of the +faubourg. The vast barricade spread out like a cliff against which +the strategy of the African generals dashed itself. Its caverns, its +excrescences, its warts, its gibbosities, grimaced, so to speak, and +grinned beneath the smoke. The mitraille vanished in shapelessness; the +bombs plunged into it; bullets only succeeded in making holes in it; +what was the use of cannonading chaos? and the regiments, accustomed to +the fiercest visions of war, gazed with uneasy eyes on that species of +redoubt, a wild beast in its boar-like bristling and a mountain by its +enormous size. + +A quarter of a league away, from the corner of the Rue du Temple which +debouches on the boulevard near the Chateaud'Eau, if one thrust one's +head bodily beyond the point formed by the front of the Dallemagne shop, +one perceived in the distance, beyond the canal, in the street which +mounts the slopes of Belleville at the culminating point of the rise, a +strange wall reaching to the second story of the house fronts, a sort +of hyphen between the houses on the right and the houses on the left, as +though the street had folded back on itself its loftiest wall in order +to close itself abruptly. This wall was built of paving-stones. It was +straight, correct, cold, perpendicular, levelled with the square, laid +out by rule and line. Cement was lacking, of course, but, as in the case +of certain Roman walls, without interfering with its rigid architecture. +The entablature was mathematically parallel with the base. From distance +to distance, one could distinguish on the gray surface, almost invisible +loopholes which resembled black threads. These loopholes were separated +from each other by equal spaces. The street was deserted as far as the +eye could reach. All windows and doors were closed. In the background +rose this barrier, which made a blind thoroughfare of the street, a +motionless and tranquil wall; no one was visible, nothing was audible; +not a cry, not a sound, not a breath. A sepulchre. + +The dazzling sun of June inundated this terrible thing with light. + +It was the barricade of the Faubourg of the Temple. + +As soon as one arrived on the spot, and caught sight of it, it was +impossible, even for the boldest, not to become thoughtful before +this mysterious apparition. It was adjusted, jointed, imbricated, +rectilinear, symmetrical and funereal. Science and gloom met there. One +felt that the chief of this barricade was a geometrician or a spectre. +One looked at it and spoke low. + +From time to time, if some soldier, an officer or representative of the +people, chanced to traverse the deserted highway, a faint, sharp whistle +was heard, and the passer-by fell dead or wounded, or, if he escaped the +bullet, sometimes a biscaien was seen to ensconce itself in some closed +shutter, in the interstice between two blocks of stone, or in the +plaster of a wall. For the men in the barricade had made themselves two +small cannons out of two cast-iron lengths of gas-pipe, plugged up at +one end with tow and fire-clay. There was no waste of useless powder. +Nearly every shot told. There were corpses here and there, and pools of +blood on the pavement. I remember a white butterfly which went and came +in the street. Summer does not abdicate. + +In the neighborhood, the spaces beneath the portes cocheres were +encumbered with wounded. + +One felt oneself aimed at by some person whom one did not see, and one +understood that guns were levelled at the whole length of the street. + +Massed behind the sort of sloping ridge which the vaulted canal forms +at the entrance to the Faubourg du Temple, the soldiers of the attacking +column, gravely and thoughtfully, watched this dismal redoubt, this +immobility, this passivity, whence sprang death. Some crawled flat on +their faces as far as the crest of the curve of the bridge, taking care +that their shakos did not project beyond it. + +The valiant Colonel Monteynard admired this barricade with a +shudder.--"How that is built!" he said to a Representative. "Not one +paving-stone projects beyond its neighbor. It is made of porcelain."--At +that moment, a bullet broke the cross on his breast, and he fell. + +"The cowards!" people said. "Let them show themselves. Let us see them! +They dare not! They are hiding!" + +The barricade of the Faubourg du Temple, defended by eighty men, +attacked by ten thousand, held out for three days. On the fourth, they +did as at Zaatcha, as at Constantine, they pierced the houses, they came +over the roofs, the barricade was taken. Not one of the eighty cowards +thought of flight, all were killed there with the exception of the +leader, Barthelemy, of whom we shall speak presently. + +The Saint-Antoine barricade was the tumult of thunders; the barricade +of the Temple was silence. The difference between these two redoubts +was the difference between the formidable and the sinister. One seemed a +maw; the other a mask. + +Admitting that the gigantic and gloomy insurrection of June was composed +of a wrath and of an enigma, one divined in the first barricade the +dragon, and behind the second the sphinx. + +These two fortresses had been erected by two men named, the one, +Cournet, the other, Barthelemy. Cournet made the Saint-Antoine +barricade; Barthelemy the barricade of the Temple. Each was the image of +the man who had built it. + +Cournet was a man of lofty stature; he had broad shoulders, a red face, +a crushing fist, a bold heart, a loyal soul, a sincere and terrible eye. +Intrepid, energetic, irascible, stormy; the most cordial of men, the +most formidable of combatants. War, strife, conflict, were the very air +he breathed and put him in a good humor. He had been an officer in the +navy, and, from his gestures and his voice, one divined that he sprang +from the ocean, and that he came from the tempest; he carried the +hurricane on into battle. With the exception of the genius, there was +in Cournet something of Danton, as, with the exception of the divinity, +there was in Danton something of Hercules. + +Barthelemy, thin, feeble, pale, taciturn, was a sort of tragic street +urchin, who, having had his ears boxed by a policeman, lay in wait for +him, and killed him, and at seventeen was sent to the galleys. He came +out and made this barricade. + +Later on, fatal circumstance, in London, proscribed by all, Barthelemy +slew Cournet. It was a funereal duel. Some time afterwards, caught in +the gearing of one of those mysterious adventures in which passion +plays a part, a catastrophe in which French justice sees extenuating +circumstances, and in which English justice sees only death, Barthelemy +was hanged. The sombre social construction is so made that, thanks to +material destitution, thanks to moral obscurity, that unhappy being +who possessed an intelligence, certainly firm, possibly great, began +in France with the galleys, and ended in England with the gallows. +Barthelemy, on occasion, flew but one flag, the black flag. + + + + +CHAPTER II--WHAT IS TO BE DONE IN THE ABYSS IF ONE DOES NOT CONVERSE + +Sixteen years count in the subterranean education of insurrection, and +June, 1848, knew a great deal more about it than June, 1832. So the +barricade of the Rue de la Chanvrerie was only an outline, and an embryo +compared to the two colossal barricades which we have just sketched; but +it was formidable for that epoch. + +The insurgents under the eye of Enjolras, for Marius no longer looked +after anything, had made good use of the night. The barricade had been +not only repaired, but augmented. They had raised it two feet. Bars +of iron planted in the pavement resembled lances in rest. All sorts of +rubbish brought and added from all directions complicated the external +confusion. The redoubt had been cleverly made over, into a wall on the +inside and a thicket on the outside. + +The staircase of paving-stones which permitted one to mount it like the +wall of a citadel had been reconstructed. + +The barricade had been put in order, the tap-room disencumbered, the +kitchen appropriated for the ambulance, the dressing of the wounded +completed, the powder scattered on the ground and on the tables had been +gathered up, bullets run, cartridges manufactured, lint scraped, the +fallen weapons re-distributed, the interior of the redoubt cleaned, the +rubbish swept up, corpses removed. + +They laid the dead in a heap in the Mondetour lane, of which they were +still the masters. The pavement was red for a long time at that spot. +Among the dead there were four National Guardsmen of the suburbs. +Enjolras had their uniforms laid aside. + +Enjolras had advised two hours of sleep. Advice from Enjolras was a +command. Still, only three or four took advantage of it. + +Feuilly employed these two hours in engraving this inscription on the +wall which faced the tavern:-- + + LONG LIVE THE PEOPLES! + +These four words, hollowed out in the rough stone with a nail, could be +still read on the wall in 1848. + +The three women had profited by the respite of the night to vanish +definitely; which allowed the insurgents to breathe more freely. + +They had found means of taking refuge in some neighboring house. + +The greater part of the wounded were able, and wished, to fight still. +On a litter of mattresses and trusses of straw in the kitchen, which had +been converted into an ambulance, there were five men gravely wounded, +two of whom were municipal guardsmen. The municipal guardsmen were +attended to first. + +In the tap-room there remained only Mabeuf under his black cloth and +Javert bound to his post. + +"This is the hall of the dead," said Enjolras. + +In the interior of this hall, barely lighted by a candle at one end, the +mortuary table being behind the post like a horizontal bar, a sort of +vast, vague cross resulted from Javert erect and Mabeuf lying prone. + +The pole of the omnibus, although snapped off by the fusillade, was +still sufficiently upright to admit of their fastening the flag to it. + +Enjolras, who possessed that quality of a leader, of always doing what +he said, attached to this staff the bullet-ridden and bloody coat of the +old man's. + +No repast had been possible. There was neither bread nor meat. The fifty +men in the barricade had speedily exhausted the scanty provisions of +the wine-shop during the sixteen hours which they had passed there. At a +given moment, every barricade inevitably becomes the raft of la Meduse. +They were obliged to resign themselves to hunger. They had then reached +the first hours of that Spartan day of the 6th of June when, in the +barricade Saint-Merry, Jeanne, surrounded by the insurgents who demanded +bread, replied to all combatants crying: "Something to eat!" with: "Why? +It is three o'clock; at four we shall be dead." + +As they could no longer eat, Enjolras forbade them to drink. He +interdicted wine, and portioned out the brandy. + +They had found in the cellar fifteen full bottles hermetically sealed. +Enjolras and Combeferre examined them. Combeferre when he came up again +said:--"It's the old stock of Father Hucheloup, who began business as +a grocer."--"It must be real wine," observed Bossuet. "It's lucky that +Grantaire is asleep. If he were on foot, there would be a good deal of +difficulty in saving those bottles."--Enjolras, in spite of all murmurs, +placed his veto on the fifteen bottles, and, in order that no one might +touch them, he had them placed under the table on which Father Mabeuf +was lying. + +About two o'clock in the morning, they reckoned up their strength. There +were still thirty-seven of them. + +The day began to dawn. The torch, which had been replaced in its +cavity in the pavement, had just been extinguished. The interior of the +barricade, that species of tiny courtyard appropriated from the street, +was bathed in shadows, and resembled, athwart the vague, twilight +horror, the deck of a disabled ship. The combatants, as they went +and came, moved about there like black forms. Above that terrible +nesting-place of gloom the stories of the mute houses were lividly +outlined; at the very top, the chimneys stood palely out. The sky was of +that charming, undecided hue, which may be white and may be blue. Birds +flew about in it with cries of joy. The lofty house which formed the +back of the barricade, being turned to the East, had upon its roof a +rosy reflection. The morning breeze ruffled the gray hair on the head of +the dead man at the third-story window. + +"I am delighted that the torch has been extinguished," said Courfeyrac +to Feuilly. "That torch flickering in the wind annoyed me. It had the +appearance of being afraid. The light of torches resembles the wisdom of +cowards; it gives a bad light because it trembles." + +Dawn awakens minds as it does the birds; all began to talk. + +Joly, perceiving a cat prowling on a gutter, extracted philosophy from +it. + +"What is the cat?" he exclaimed. "It is a corrective. The good God, +having made the mouse, said: 'Hullo! I have committed a blunder.' And +so he made the cat. The cat is the erratum of the mouse. The mouse, plus +the cat, is the proof of creation revised and corrected." + +Combeferre, surrounded by students and artisans, was speaking of the +dead, of Jean Prouvaire, of Bahorel, of Mabeuf, and even of Cabuc, and +of Enjolras' sad severity. He said:-- + +"Harmodius and Aristogiton, Brutus, Chereas, Stephanus, Cromwell, +Charlotte Corday, Sand, have all had their moment of agony when it was +too late. Our hearts quiver so, and human life is such a mystery that, +even in the case of a civic murder, even in a murder for liberation, if +there be such a thing, the remorse for having struck a man surpasses the +joy of having served the human race." + +And, such are the windings of the exchange of speech, that, a moment +later, by a transition brought about through Jean Prouvaire's verses, +Combeferre was comparing the translators of the Georgics, Raux with +Cournand, Cournand with Delille, pointing out the passages translated +by Malfilatre, particularly the prodigies of Caesar's death; and at that +word, Caesar, the conversation reverted to Brutus. + +"Caesar," said Combeferre, "fell justly. Cicero was severe towards +Caesar, and he was right. That severity is not diatribe. When Zoilus +insults Homer, when Maevius insults Virgil, when Vise insults Moliere, +when Pope insults Shakspeare, when Frederic insults Voltaire, it is an +old law of envy and hatred which is being carried out; genius attracts +insult, great men are always more or less barked at. But Zoilus and +Cicero are two different persons. Cicero is an arbiter in thought, just +as Brutus is an arbiter by the sword. For my own part, I blame that last +justice, the blade; but, antiquity admitted it. Caesar, the violator +of the Rubicon, conferring, as though they came from him, the dignities +which emanated from the people, not rising at the entrance of the +senate, committed the acts of a king and almost of a tyrant, regia ac +pene tyrannica. He was a great man; so much the worse, or so much the +better; the lesson is but the more exalted. His twenty-three wounds +touch me less than the spitting in the face of Jesus Christ. Caesar is +stabbed by the senators; Christ is cuffed by lackeys. One feels the God +through the greater outrage." + +Bossuet, who towered above the interlocutors from the summit of a heap +of paving-stones, exclaimed, rifle in hand:-- + +"Oh Cydathenaeum, Oh Myrrhinus, Oh Probalinthus, Oh graces of the +AEantides! Oh! Who will grant me to pronounce the verses of Homer like a +Greek of Laurium or of Edapteon?" + + + + +CHAPTER III--LIGHT AND SHADOW + +Enjolras had been to make a reconnaissance. He had made his way out +through Mondetour lane, gliding along close to the houses. + +The insurgents, we will remark, were full of hope. The manner in which +they had repulsed the attack of the preceding night had caused them to +almost disdain in advance the attack at dawn. They waited for it with +a smile. They had no more doubt as to their success than as to their +cause. Moreover, succor was, evidently, on the way to them. They +reckoned on it. With that facility of triumphant prophecy which is one +of the sources of strength in the French combatant, they divided the +day which was at hand into three distinct phases. At six o'clock in the +morning a regiment "which had been labored with," would turn; at noon, +the insurrection of all Paris; at sunset, revolution. + +They heard the alarm bell of Saint-Merry, which had not been silent for +an instant since the night before; a proof that the other barricade, the +great one, Jeanne's, still held out. + +All these hopes were exchanged between the different groups in a sort of +gay and formidable whisper which resembled the warlike hum of a hive of +bees. + +Enjolras reappeared. He returned from his sombre eagle flight into outer +darkness. He listened for a moment to all this joy with folded arms, and +one hand on his mouth. Then, fresh and rosy in the growing whiteness of +the dawn, he said: + +"The whole army of Paris is to strike. A third of the army is bearing +down upon the barricades in which you now are. There is the National +Guard in addition. I have picked out the shakos of the fifth of the +line, and the standard-bearers of the sixth legion. In one hour you will +be attacked. As for the populace, it was seething yesterday, to-day +it is not stirring. There is nothing to expect; nothing to hope for. +Neither from a faubourg nor from a regiment. You are abandoned." + +These words fell upon the buzzing of the groups, and produced on them +the effect caused on a swarm of bees by the first drops of a storm. A +moment of indescribable silence ensued, in which death might have been +heard flitting by. + +This moment was brief. + +A voice from the obscurest depths of the groups shouted to Enjolras: + +"So be it. Let us raise the barricade to a height of twenty feet, and +let us all remain in it. Citizens, let us offer the protests of corpses. +Let us show that, if the people abandon the republicans, the republicans +do not abandon the people." + +These words freed the thought of all from the painful cloud of +individual anxieties. It was hailed with an enthusiastic acclamation. + +No one ever has known the name of the man who spoke thus; he was some +unknown blouse-wearer, a stranger, a man forgotten, a passing hero, that +great anonymous, always mingled in human crises and in social geneses +who, at a given moment, utters in a supreme fashion the decisive word, +and who vanishes into the shadows after having represented for a minute, +in a lightning flash, the people and God. + +This inexorable resolution so thoroughly impregnated the air of the +6th of June, 1832, that, almost at the very same hour, on the barricade +Saint-Merry, the insurgents were raising that clamor which has become a +matter of history and which has been consigned to the documents in the +case:--"What matters it whether they come to our assistance or not? Let +us get ourselves killed here, to the very last man." + +As the reader sees, the two barricades, though materially isolated, were +in communication with each other. + + + + +CHAPTER IV--MINUS FIVE, PLUS ONE + +After the man who decreed the "protest of corpses" had spoken, and had +given this formula of their common soul, there issued from all mouths a +strangely satisfied and terrible cry, funereal in sense and triumphant +in tone: + +"Long live death! Let us all remain here!" + +"Why all?" said Enjolras. + +"All! All!" + +Enjolras resumed: + +"The position is good; the barricade is fine. Thirty men are enough. Why +sacrifice forty?" + +They replied: + +"Because not one will go away." + +"Citizens," cried Enjolras, and there was an almost irritated vibration +in his voice, "this republic is not rich enough in men to indulge in +useless expenditure of them. Vain-glory is waste. If the duty of some is +to depart, that duty should be fulfilled like any other." + +Enjolras, the man-principle, had over his co-religionists that sort of +omnipotent power which emanates from the absolute. Still, great as was +this omnipotence, a murmur arose. A leader to the very finger-tips, +Enjolras, seeing that they murmured, insisted. He resumed haughtily: + +"Let those who are afraid of not numbering more than thirty say so." + +The murmurs redoubled. + +"Besides," observed a voice in one group, "it is easy enough to talk +about leaving. The barricade is hemmed in." + +"Not on the side of the Halles," said Enjolras. "The Rue Mondetour is +free, and through the Rue des Precheurs one can reach the Marche des +Innocents." + +"And there," went on another voice, "you would be captured. You would +fall in with some grand guard of the line or the suburbs; they will spy +a man passing in blouse and cap. 'Whence come you?' 'Don't you belong to +the barricade?' And they will look at your hands. You smell of powder. +Shot." + +Enjolras, without making any reply, touched Combeferre's shoulder, and +the two entered the tap-room. + +They emerged thence a moment later. Enjolras held in his outstretched +hands the four uniforms which he had laid aside. Combeferre followed, +carrying the shoulder-belts and the shakos. + +"With this uniform," said Enjolras, "you can mingle with the ranks and +escape; here is enough for four." And he flung on the ground, deprived +of its pavement, the four uniforms. + +No wavering took place in his stoical audience. Combeferre took the +word. + +"Come," said he, "you must have a little pity. Do you know what the +question is here? It is a question of women. See here. Are there +women or are there not? Are there children or are there not? Are there +mothers, yes or no, who rock cradles with their foot and who have a lot +of little ones around them? Let that man of you who has never beheld a +nurse's breast raise his hand. Ah! you want to get yourselves killed, so +do I--I, who am speaking to you; but I do not want to feel the phantoms +of women wreathing their arms around me. Die, if you will, but +don't make others die. Suicides like that which is on the brink of +accomplishment here are sublime; but suicide is narrow, and does not +admit of extension; and as soon as it touches your neighbors, suicide +is murder. Think of the little blond heads; think of the white locks. +Listen, Enjolras has just told me that he saw at the corner of the Rue +du Cygne a lighted casement, a candle in a poor window, on the fifth +floor, and on the pane the quivering shadow of the head of an old woman, +who had the air of having spent the night in watching. Perhaps she is +the mother of some one of you. Well, let that man go, and make haste, to +say to his mother: 'Here I am, mother!' Let him feel at ease, the task +here will be performed all the same. When one supports one's relatives +by one's toil, one has not the right to sacrifice one's self. That +is deserting one's family. And those who have daughters! what are you +thinking of? You get yourselves killed, you are dead, that is well. And +tomorrow? Young girls without bread--that is a terrible thing. Man begs, +woman sells. Ah! those charming and gracious beings, so gracious and so +sweet, who have bonnets of flowers, who fill the house with purity, who +sing and prattle, who are like a living perfume, who prove the existence +of angels in heaven by the purity of virgins on earth, that Jeanne, +that Lise, that Mimi, those adorable and honest creatures who are your +blessings and your pride, ah! good God, they will suffer hunger! What do +you want me to say to you? There is a market for human flesh; and it +is not with your shadowy hands, shuddering around them, that you +will prevent them from entering it! Think of the street, think of the +pavement covered with passers-by, think of the shops past which women +go and come with necks all bare, and through the mire. These women, +too, were pure once. Think of your sisters, those of you who have them. +Misery, prostitution, the police, Saint-Lazare--that is what those +beautiful, delicate girls, those fragile marvels of modesty, gentleness +and loveliness, fresher than lilacs in the month of May, will come to. +Ah! you have got yourselves killed! You are no longer on hand! That +is well; you have wished to release the people from Royalty, and you +deliver over your daughters to the police. Friends, have a care, have +mercy. Women, unhappy women, we are not in the habit of bestowing much +thought on them. We trust to the women not having received a man's +education, we prevent their reading, we prevent their thinking, we +prevent their occupying themselves with politics; will you prevent them +from going to the dead-house this evening, and recognizing your bodies? +Let us see, those who have families must be tractable, and shake hands +with us and take themselves off, and leave us here alone to attend to +this affair. I know well that courage is required to leave, that it is +hard; but the harder it is, the more meritorious. You say: 'I have a +gun, I am at the barricade; so much the worse, I shall remain there.' So +much the worse is easily said. My friends, there is a morrow; you will +not be here to-morrow, but your families will; and what sufferings! See, +here is a pretty, healthy child, with cheeks like an apple, who babbles, +prattles, chatters, who laughs, who smells sweet beneath your kiss,--and +do you know what becomes of him when he is abandoned? I have seen one, +a very small creature, no taller than that. His father was dead. Poor +people had taken him in out of charity, but they had bread only for +themselves. The child was always hungry. It was winter. He did not cry. +You could see him approach the stove, in which there was never any fire, +and whose pipe, you know, was of mastic and yellow clay. His breathing +was hoarse, his face livid, his limbs flaccid, his belly prominent. He +said nothing. If you spoke to him, he did not answer. He is dead. He was +taken to the Necker Hospital, where I saw him. I was house-surgeon in +that hospital. Now, if there are any fathers among you, fathers whose +happiness it is to stroll on Sundays holding their child's tiny hand in +their robust hand, let each one of those fathers imagine that this child +is his own. That poor brat, I remember, and I seem to see him now, when +he lay nude on the dissecting table, how his ribs stood out on his skin +like the graves beneath the grass in a cemetery. A sort of mud was found +in his stomach. There were ashes in his teeth. Come, let us examine +ourselves conscientiously and take counsel with our heart. Statistics +show that the mortality among abandoned children is fifty-five per cent. +I repeat, it is a question of women, it concerns mothers, it concerns +young girls, it concerns little children. Who is talking to you of +yourselves? We know well what you are; we know well that you are all +brave, parbleu! we know well that you all have in your souls the joy and +the glory of giving your life for the great cause; we know well that you +feel yourselves elected to die usefully and magnificently, and that each +one of you clings to his share in the triumph. Very well. But you are +not alone in this world. There are other beings of whom you must think. +You must not be egoists." + +All dropped their heads with a gloomy air. + +Strange contradictions of the human heart at its most sublime moments. +Combeferre, who spoke thus, was not an orphan. He recalled the mothers +of other men, and forgot his own. He was about to get himself killed. He +was "an egoist." + +Marius, fasting, fevered, having emerged in succession from all hope, +and having been stranded in grief, the most sombre of shipwrecks, and +saturated with violent emotions and conscious that the end was near, +had plunged deeper and deeper into that visionary stupor which always +precedes the fatal hour voluntarily accepted. + +A physiologist might have studied in him the growing symptoms of that +febrile absorption known to, and classified by, science, and which is +to suffering what voluptuousness is to pleasure. Despair, also, has its +ecstasy. Marius had reached this point. He looked on at everything as +from without; as we have said, things which passed before him seemed far +away; he made out the whole, but did not perceive the details. He beheld +men going and coming as through a flame. He heard voices speaking as at +the bottom of an abyss. + +But this moved him. There was in this scene a point which pierced and +roused even him. He had but one idea now, to die; and he did not wish to +be turned aside from it, but he reflected, in his gloomy somnambulism, +that while destroying himself, he was not prohibited from saving some +one else. + +He raised his voice. + +"Enjolras and Combeferre are right," said he; "no unnecessary sacrifice. +I join them, and you must make haste. Combeferre has said convincing +things to you. There are some among you who have families, mothers, +sisters, wives, children. Let such leave the ranks." + +No one stirred. + +"Married men and the supporters of families, step out of the ranks!" +repeated Marius. + +His authority was great. Enjolras was certainly the head of the +barricade, but Marius was its savior. + +"I order it," cried Enjolras. + +"I entreat you," said Marius. + +Then, touched by Combeferre's words, shaken by Enjolras' order, touched +by Marius' entreaty, these heroic men began to denounce each other.--"It +is true," said one young man to a full grown man, "you are the father +of a family. Go."--"It is your duty rather," retorted the man, "you have +two sisters whom you maintain."--And an unprecedented controversy broke +forth. Each struggled to determine which should not allow himself to be +placed at the door of the tomb. + +"Make haste," said Courfeyrac, "in another quarter of an hour it will be +too late." + +"Citizens," pursued Enjolras, "this is the Republic, and universal +suffrage reigns. Do you yourselves designate those who are to go." + +They obeyed. After the expiration of a few minutes, five were +unanimously selected and stepped out of the ranks. + +"There are five of them!" exclaimed Marius. + +There were only four uniforms. + +"Well," began the five, "one must stay behind." + +And then a struggle arose as to who should remain, and who should find +reasons for the others not remaining. The generous quarrel began afresh. + +"You have a wife who loves you."--"You have your aged mother."--" You +have neither father nor mother, and what is to become of your three +little brothers?"--"You are the father of five children."--"You have a +right to live, you are only seventeen, it is too early for you to die." + +These great revolutionary barricades were assembling points for heroism. +The improbable was simple there. These men did not astonish each other. + +"Be quick," repeated Courfeyrac. + +Men shouted to Marius from the groups: + +"Do you designate who is to remain." + +"Yes," said the five, "choose. We will obey you." + +Marius did not believe that he was capable of another emotion. Still, +at this idea, that of choosing a man for death, his blood rushed back +to his heart. He would have turned pale, had it been possible for him to +become any paler. + +He advanced towards the five, who smiled upon him, and each, with his +eyes full of that grand flame which one beholds in the depths of history +hovering over Thermopylae, cried to him: + +"Me! me! me!" + +And Marius stupidly counted them; there were still five of them! Then +his glance dropped to the four uniforms. + +At that moment, a fifth uniform fell, as if from heaven, upon the other +four. + +The fifth man was saved. + +Marius raised his eyes and recognized M. Fauchelevent. + +Jean Valjean had just entered the barricade. + +He had arrived by way of Mondetour lane, whither by dint of inquiries +made, or by instinct, or chance. Thanks to his dress of a National +Guardsman, he had made his way without difficulty. + +The sentinel stationed by the insurgents in the Rue Mondetour had no +occasion to give the alarm for a single National Guardsman, and he had +allowed the latter to entangle himself in the street, saying to himself: +"Probably it is a reinforcement, in any case it is a prisoner." The +moment was too grave to admit of the sentinel abandoning his duty and +his post of observation. + +At the moment when Jean Valjean entered the redoubt, no one had noticed +him, all eyes being fixed on the five chosen men and the four uniforms. +Jean Valjean also had seen and heard, and he had silently removed his +coat and flung it on the pile with the rest. + +The emotion aroused was indescribable. + +"Who is this man?" demanded Bossuet. + +"He is a man who saves others," replied Combeferre. + +Marius added in a grave voice: + +"I know him." + +This guarantee satisfied every one. + +Enjolras turned to Jean Valjean. + +"Welcome, citizen." + +And he added: + +"You know that we are about to die." + +Jean Valjean, without replying, helped the insurgent whom he was saving +to don his uniform. + + + + +CHAPTER V--THE HORIZON WHICH ONE BEHOLDS FROM THE SUMMIT OF A BARRICADE + +The situation of all in that fatal hour and that pitiless place, had as +result and culminating point Enjolras' supreme melancholy. + +Enjolras bore within him the plenitude of the revolution; he was +incomplete, however, so far as the absolute can be so; he had too much +of Saint-Just about him, and not enough of Anacharsis Cloots; still, +his mind, in the society of the Friends of the A B C, had ended by +undergoing a certain polarization from Combeferre's ideas; for some time +past, he had been gradually emerging from the narrow form of dogma, and +had allowed himself to incline to the broadening influence of progress, +and he had come to accept, as a definitive and magnificent evolution, +the transformation of the great French Republic, into the immense +human republic. As far as the immediate means were concerned, a violent +situation being given, he wished to be violent; on that point, he never +varied; and he remained of that epic and redoubtable school which is +summed up in the words: "Eighty-three." Enjolras was standing erect on +the staircase of paving-stones, one elbow resting on the stock of +his gun. He was engaged in thought; he quivered, as at the passage of +prophetic breaths; places where death is have these effects of tripods. +A sort of stifled fire darted from his eyes, which were filled with an +inward look. All at once he threw back his head, his blond locks fell +back like those of an angel on the sombre quadriga made of stars, they +were like the mane of a startled lion in the flaming of an halo, and +Enjolras cried: + +"Citizens, do you picture the future to yourselves? The streets of +cities inundated with light, green branches on the thresholds, nations +sisters, men just, old men blessing children, the past loving the +present, thinkers entirely at liberty, believers on terms of full +equality, for religion heaven, God the direct priest, human conscience +become an altar, no more hatreds, the fraternity of the workshop and the +school, for sole penalty and recompense fame, work for all, right for +all, peace over all, no more bloodshed, no more wars, happy mothers! To +conquer matter is the first step; to realize the ideal is the second. +Reflect on what progress has already accomplished. Formerly, the +first human races beheld with terror the hydra pass before their eyes, +breathing on the waters, the dragon which vomited flame, the griffin who +was the monster of the air, and who flew with the wings of an eagle +and the talons of a tiger; fearful beasts which were above man. Man, +nevertheless, spread his snares, consecrated by intelligence, and +finally conquered these monsters. We have vanquished the hydra, and +it is called the locomotive; we are on the point of vanquishing the +griffin, we already grasp it, and it is called the balloon. On the day +when this Promethean task shall be accomplished, and when man shall have +definitely harnessed to his will the triple Chimaera of antiquity, the +hydra, the dragon and the griffin, he will be the master of water, fire, +and of air, and he will be for the rest of animated creation that which +the ancient gods formerly were to him. Courage, and onward! Citizens, +whither are we going? To science made government, to the force of things +become the sole public force, to the natural law, having in itself its +sanction and its penalty and promulgating itself by evidence, to a dawn +of truth corresponding to a dawn of day. We are advancing to the union +of peoples; we are advancing to the unity of man. No more fictions; +no more parasites. The real governed by the true, that is the goal. +Civilization will hold its assizes at the summit of Europe, and, +later on, at the centre of continents, in a grand parliament of the +intelligence. Something similar has already been seen. The amphictyons +had two sittings a year, one at Delphos the seat of the gods, the other +at Thermopylae, the place of heroes. Europe will have her amphictyons; +the globe will have its amphictyons. France bears this sublime future in +her breast. This is the gestation of the nineteenth century. That which +Greece sketched out is worthy of being finished by France. Listen to me, +you, Feuilly, valiant artisan, man of the people. I revere you. Yes, you +clearly behold the future, yes, you are right. You had neither father +nor mother, Feuilly; you adopted humanity for your mother and right +for your father. You are about to die, that is to say to triumph, here. +Citizens, whatever happens to-day, through our defeat as well as +through our victory, it is a revolution that we are about to create. +As conflagrations light up a whole city, so revolutions illuminate the +whole human race. And what is the revolution that we shall cause? I have +just told you, the Revolution of the True. From a political point of +view, there is but a single principle; the sovereignty of man over +himself. This sovereignty of myself over myself is called Liberty. Where +two or three of these sovereignties are combined, the state begins. But +in that association there is no abdication. Each sovereignty concedes a +certain quantity of itself, for the purpose of forming the common right. +This quantity is the same for all of us. This identity of concession +which each makes to all, is called Equality. Common right is nothing +else than the protection of all beaming on the right of each. This +protection of all over each is called Fraternity. The point of +intersection of all these assembled sovereignties is called society. +This intersection being a junction, this point is a knot. Hence what +is called the social bond. Some say social contract; which is the same +thing, the word contract being etymologically formed with the idea of a +bond. Let us come to an understanding about equality; for, if liberty +is the summit, equality is the base. Equality, citizens, is not wholly a +surface vegetation, a society of great blades of grass and tiny oaks; a +proximity of jealousies which render each other null and void; legally +speaking, it is all aptitudes possessed of the same opportunity; +politically, it is all votes possessed of the same weight; religiously, +it is all consciences possessed of the same right. Equality has an +organ: gratuitous and obligatory instruction. The right to the alphabet, +that is where the beginning must be made. The primary school imposed +on all, the secondary school offered to all, that is the law. From an +identical school, an identical society will spring. Yes, instruction! +light! light! everything comes from light, and to it everything returns. +Citizens, the nineteenth century is great, but the twentieth century +will be happy. Then, there will be nothing more like the history of old, +we shall no longer, as to-day, have to fear a conquest, an invasion, +a usurpation, a rivalry of nations, arms in hand, an interruption of +civilization depending on a marriage of kings, on a birth in hereditary +tyrannies, a partition of peoples by a congress, a dismemberment because +of the failure of a dynasty, a combat of two religions meeting face +to face, like two bucks in the dark, on the bridge of the infinite; we +shall no longer have to fear famine, farming out, prostitution arising +from distress, misery from the failure of work and the scaffold and the +sword, and battles and the ruffianism of chance in the forest of events. +One might almost say: There will be no more events. We shall be happy. +The human race will accomplish its law, as the terrestrial globe +accomplishes its law; harmony will be re-established between the soul +and the star; the soul will gravitate around the truth, as the planet +around the light. Friends, the present hour in which I am addressing +you, is a gloomy hour; but these are terrible purchases of the future. +A revolution is a toll. Oh! the human race will be delivered, raised up, +consoled! We affirm it on this barrier. Whence should proceed that cry +of love, if not from the heights of sacrifice? Oh my brothers, this is +the point of junction, of those who think and of those who suffer; this +barricade is not made of paving-stones, nor of joists, nor of bits of +iron; it is made of two heaps, a heap of ideas, and a heap of woes. Here +misery meets the ideal. The day embraces the night, and says to it: 'I +am about to die, and thou shalt be born again with me.' From the embrace +of all desolations faith leaps forth. Sufferings bring hither their +agony and ideas their immortality. This agony and this immortality are +about to join and constitute our death. Brothers, he who dies here dies +in the radiance of the future, and we are entering a tomb all flooded +with the dawn." + +Enjolras paused rather than became silent; his lips continued to move +silently, as though he were talking to himself, which caused them all +to gaze attentively at him, in the endeavor to hear more. There was no +applause; but they whispered together for a long time. Speech being a +breath, the rustling of intelligences resembles the rustling of leaves. + + + + +CHAPTER VI--MARIUS HAGGARD, JAVERT LACONIC + +Let us narrate what was passing in Marius' thoughts. + +Let the reader recall the state of his soul. We have just recalled it, +everything was a vision to him now. His judgment was disturbed. Marius, +let us insist on this point, was under the shadow of the great, dark +wings which are spread over those in the death agony. He felt that he +had entered the tomb, it seemed to him that he was already on the other +side of the wall, and he no longer beheld the faces of the living except +with the eyes of one dead. + +How did M. Fauchelevent come there? Why was he there? What had he come +there to do? Marius did not address all these questions to himself. +Besides, since our despair has this peculiarity, that it envelops others +as well as ourselves, it seemed logical to him that all the world should +come thither to die. + +Only, he thought of Cosette with a pang at his heart. + +However, M. Fauchelevent did not speak to him, did not look at him, and +had not even the air of hearing him, when Marius raised his voice to +say: "I know him." + +As far as Marius was concerned, this attitude of M. Fauchelevent was +comforting, and, if such a word can be used for such impressions, +we should say that it pleased him. He had always felt the absolute +impossibility of addressing that enigmatical man, who was, in his eyes, +both equivocal and imposing. Moreover, it had been a long time since +he had seen him; and this still further augmented the impossibility for +Marius' timid and reserved nature. + +The five chosen men left the barricade by way of Mondetour lane; they +bore a perfect resemblance to members of the National Guard. One of them +wept as he took his leave. Before setting out, they embraced those who +remained. + +When the five men sent back to life had taken their departure, Enjolras +thought of the man who had been condemned to death. + +He entered the tap-room. Javert, still bound to the post, was engaged in +meditation. + +"Do you want anything?" Enjolras asked him. + +Javert replied: "When are you going to kill me?" + +"Wait. We need all our cartridges just at present." + +"Then give me a drink," said Javert. + +Enjolras himself offered him a glass of water, and, as Javert was +pinioned, he helped him to drink. + +"Is that all?" inquired Enjolras. + +"I am uncomfortable against this post," replied Javert. "You are not +tender to have left me to pass the night here. Bind me as you please, +but you surely might lay me out on a table like that other man." + +And with a motion of the head, he indicated the body of M. Mabeuf. + +There was, as the reader will remember, a long, broad table at the +end of the room, on which they had been running bullets and making +cartridges. All the cartridges having been made, and all the powder +used, this table was free. + +At Enjolras' command, four insurgents unbound Javert from the post. +While they were loosing him, a fifth held a bayonet against his breast. + +Leaving his arms tied behind his back, they placed about his feet a +slender but stout whip-cord, as is done to men on the point of mounting +the scaffold, which allowed him to take steps about fifteen inches in +length, and made him walk to the table at the end of the room, where +they laid him down, closely bound about the middle of the body. + +By way of further security, and by means of a rope fastened to his neck, +they added to the system of ligatures which rendered every attempt +at escape impossible, that sort of bond which is called in prisons a +martingale, which, starting at the neck, forks on the stomach, and meets +the hands, after passing between the legs. + +While they were binding Javert, a man standing on the threshold was +surveying him with singular attention. The shadow cast by this man made +Javert turn his head. He raised his eyes, and recognized Jean Valjean. +He did not even start, but dropped his lids proudly and confined himself +to the remark: "It is perfectly simple." + + + + +CHAPTER VII--THE SITUATION BECOMES AGGRAVATED + +The daylight was increasing rapidly. Not a window was opened, not a door +stood ajar; it was the dawn but not the awaking. The end of the Rue de +la Chanvrerie, opposite the barricade, had been evacuated by the +troops, as we have stated it seemed to be free, and presented itself to +passers-by with a sinister tranquillity. The Rue Saint-Denis was as +dumb as the avenue of Sphinxes at Thebes. Not a living being in the +cross-roads, which gleamed white in the light of the sun. Nothing is so +mournful as this light in deserted streets. Nothing was to be seen, but +there was something to be heard. A mysterious movement was going on at +a certain distance. It was evident that the critical moment was +approaching. As on the previous evening, the sentinels had come in; but +this time all had come. + +The barricade was stronger than on the occasion of the first attack. +Since the departure of the five, they had increased its height still +further. + +On the advice of the sentinel who had examined the region of the +Halles, Enjolras, for fear of a surprise in the rear, came to a serious +decision. He had the small gut of the Mondetour lane, which had been +left open up to that time, barricaded. For this purpose, they tore up +the pavement for the length of several houses more. In this manner, +the barricade, walled on three streets, in front on the Rue de +la Chanvrerie, to the left on the Rues du Cygne and de la Petite +Truanderie, to the right on the Rue Mondetour, was really almost +impregnable; it is true that they were fatally hemmed in there. It +had three fronts, but no exit.--"A fortress but a rat hole too," said +Courfeyrac with a laugh. + +Enjolras had about thirty paving-stones "torn up in excess," said +Bossuet, piled up near the door of the wine-shop. + +The silence was now so profound in the quarter whence the attack must +needs come, that Enjolras had each man resume his post of battle. + +An allowance of brandy was doled out to each. + +Nothing is more curious than a barricade preparing for an assault. Each +man selects his place as though at the theatre. They jostle, and elbow +and crowd each other. There are some who make stalls of paving-stones. +Here is a corner of the wall which is in the way, it is removed; here +is a redan which may afford protection, they take shelter behind it. +Left-handed men are precious; they take the places that are inconvenient +to the rest. Many arrange to fight in a sitting posture. They wish to be +at ease to kill, and to die comfortably. In the sad war of June, 1848, +an insurgent who was a formidable marksman, and who was firing from the +top of a terrace upon a roof, had a reclining-chair brought there for +his use; a charge of grape-shot found him out there. + +As soon as the leader has given the order to clear the decks for action, +all disorderly movements cease; there is no more pulling from one +another; there are no more coteries; no more asides, there is no more +holding aloof; everything in their spirits converges in, and changes +into, a waiting for the assailants. A barricade before the arrival of +danger is chaos; in danger, it is discipline itself. Peril produces +order. + +As soon as Enjolras had seized his double-barrelled rifle, and had +placed himself in a sort of embrasure which he had reserved for himself, +all the rest held their peace. A series of faint, sharp noises resounded +confusedly along the wall of paving-stones. It was the men cocking their +guns. + +Moreover, their attitudes were prouder, more confident than ever; the +excess of sacrifice strengthens; they no longer cherished any hope, +but they had despair, despair,--the last weapon, which sometimes gives +victory; Virgil has said so. Supreme resources spring from extreme +resolutions. To embark in death is sometimes the means of escaping a +shipwreck; and the lid of the coffin becomes a plank of safety. + +As on the preceding evening, the attention of all was directed, we +might almost say leaned upon, the end of the street, now lighted up and +visible. + +They had not long to wait. A stir began distinctly in the Saint-Leu +quarter, but it did not resemble the movement of the first attack. A +clashing of chains, the uneasy jolting of a mass, the click of brass +skipping along the pavement, a sort of solemn uproar, announced that +some sinister construction of iron was approaching. There arose a tremor +in the bosoms of these peaceful old streets, pierced and built for the +fertile circulation of interests and ideas, and which are not made for +the horrible rumble of the wheels of war. + +The fixity of eye in all the combatants upon the extremity of the street +became ferocious. + +A cannon made its appearance. + +Artillery-men were pushing the piece; it was in firing trim; the +fore-carriage had been detached; two upheld the gun-carriage, four were +at the wheels; others followed with the caisson. They could see the +smoke of the burning lint-stock. + +"Fire!" shouted Enjolras. + +The whole barricade fired, the report was terrible; an avalanche of +smoke covered and effaced both cannon and men; after a few seconds, the +cloud dispersed, and the cannon and men re-appeared; the gun-crew had +just finished rolling it slowly, correctly, without haste, into position +facing the barricade. Not one of them had been struck. Then the captain +of the piece, bearing down upon the breech in order to raise the muzzle, +began to point the cannon with the gravity of an astronomer levelling a +telescope. + +"Bravo for the cannoneers!" cried Bossuet. + +And the whole barricade clapped their hands. + +A moment later, squarely planted in the very middle of the street, +astride of the gutter, the piece was ready for action. A formidable pair +of jaws yawned on the barricade. + +"Come, merrily now!" ejaculated Courfeyrac. "That's the brutal part of +it. After the fillip on the nose, the blow from the fist. The army is +reaching out its big paw to us. The barricade is going to be severely +shaken up. The fusillade tries, the cannon takes." + +"It is a piece of eight, new model, brass," added Combeferre. "Those +pieces are liable to burst as soon as the proportion of ten parts of tin +to one hundred of brass is exceeded. The excess of tin renders them too +tender. Then it comes to pass that they have caves and chambers when +looked at from the vent hole. In order to obviate this danger, and +to render it possible to force the charge, it may become necessary +to return to the process of the fourteenth century, hooping, and to +encircle the piece on the outside with a series of unwelded steel bands, +from the breech to the trunnions. In the meantime, they remedy this +defect as best they may; they manage to discover where the holes are +located in the vent of a cannon, by means of a searcher. But there is a +better method, with Gribeauval's movable star." + +"In the sixteenth century," remarked Bossuet, "they used to rifle +cannon." + +"Yes," replied Combeferre, "that augments the projectile force, but +diminishes the accuracy of the firing. In firing at short range, +the trajectory is not as rigid as could be desired, the parabola is +exaggerated, the line of the projectile is no longer sufficiently +rectilinear to allow of its striking intervening objects, which is, +nevertheless, a necessity of battle, the importance of which increases +with the proximity of the enemy and the precipitation of the discharge. +This defect of the tension of the curve of the projectile in the rifled +cannon of the sixteenth century arose from the smallness of the charge; +small charges for that sort of engine are imposed by the ballistic +necessities, such, for instance, as the preservation of the +gun-carriage. In short, that despot, the cannon, cannot do all that +it desires; force is a great weakness. A cannon-ball only travels +six hundred leagues an hour; light travels seventy thousand leagues a +second. Such is the superiority of Jesus Christ over Napoleon." + +"Reload your guns," said Enjolras. + +How was the casing of the barricade going to behave under the +cannon-balls? Would they effect a breach? That was the question. While +the insurgents were reloading their guns, the artillery-men were loading +the cannon. + +The anxiety in the redoubt was profound. + +The shot sped the report burst forth. + +"Present!" shouted a joyous voice. + +And Gavroche flung himself into the barricade just as the ball dashed +against it. + +He came from the direction of the Rue du Cygne, and he had nimbly +climbed over the auxiliary barricade which fronted on the labyrinth of +the Rue de la Petite Truanderie. + +Gavroche produced a greater sensation in the barricade than the +cannon-ball. + +The ball buried itself in the mass of rubbish. At the most there was an +omnibus wheel broken, and the old Anceau cart was demolished. On seeing +this, the barricade burst into a laugh. + +"Go on!" shouted Bossuet to the artillerists. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII--THE ARTILLERY-MEN COMPEL PEOPLE TO TAKE THEM SERIOUSLY + +They flocked round Gavroche. But he had no time to tell anything. Marius +drew him aside with a shudder. + +"What are you doing here?" + +"Hullo!" said the child, "what are you doing here yourself?" + +And he stared at Marius intently with his epic effrontery. His eyes grew +larger with the proud light within them. + +It was with an accent of severity that Marius continued: + +"Who told you to come back? Did you deliver my letter at the address?" + +Gavroche was not without some compunctions in the matter of that letter. +In his haste to return to the barricade, he had got rid of it rather +than delivered it. He was forced to acknowledge to himself that he had +confided it rather lightly to that stranger whose face he had not been +able to make out. It is true that the man was bareheaded, but that was +not sufficient. In short, he had been administering to himself little +inward remonstrances and he feared Marius' reproaches. In order to +extricate himself from the predicament, he took the simplest course; he +lied abominably. + +"Citizen, I delivered the letter to the porter. The lady was asleep. She +will have the letter when she wakes up." + +Marius had had two objects in sending that letter: to bid farewell to +Cosette and to save Gavroche. He was obliged to content himself with the +half of his desire. + +The despatch of his letter and the presence of M. Fauchelevent in the +barricade, was a coincidence which occurred to him. He pointed out M. +Fauchelevent to Gavroche. + +"Do you know that man?" + +"No," said Gavroche. + +Gavroche had, in fact, as we have just mentioned, seen Jean Valjean only +at night. + +The troubled and unhealthy conjectures which had outlined themselves in +Marius' mind were dissipated. Did he know M. Fauchelevent's opinions? +Perhaps M. Fauchelevent was a republican. Hence his very natural +presence in this combat. + +In the meanwhile, Gavroche was shouting, at the other end of the +barricade: "My gun!" + +Courfeyrac had it returned to him. + +Gavroche warned "his comrades" as he called them, that the barricade was +blocked. He had had great difficulty in reaching it. A battalion of the +line whose arms were piled in the Rue de la Petite Truanderie was on +the watch on the side of the Rue du Cygne; on the opposite side, the +municipal guard occupied the Rue des Precheurs. The bulk of the army was +facing them in front. + +This information given, Gavroche added: + +"I authorize you to hit 'em a tremendous whack." + +Meanwhile, Enjolras was straining his ears and watching at his +embrasure. + +The assailants, dissatisfied, no doubt, with their shot, had not +repeated it. + +A company of infantry of the line had come up and occupied the end of +the street behind the piece of ordnance. The soldiers were tearing up +the pavement and constructing with the stones a small, low wall, a +sort of side-work not more than eighteen inches high, and facing the +barricade. In the angle at the left of this epaulement, there was +visible the head of the column of a battalion from the suburbs massed in +the Rue Saint-Denis. + +Enjolras, on the watch, thought he distinguished the peculiar sound +which is produced when the shells of grape-shot are drawn from the +caissons, and he saw the commander of the piece change the elevation +and incline the mouth of the cannon slightly to the left. Then the +cannoneers began to load the piece. The chief seized the lint-stock +himself and lowered it to the vent. + +"Down with your heads, hug the wall!" shouted Enjolras, "and all on your +knees along the barricade!" + +The insurgents who were straggling in front of the wine-shop, and +who had quitted their posts of combat on Gavroche's arrival, rushed +pell-mell towards the barricade; but before Enjolras' order could be +executed, the discharge took place with the terrifying rattle of a round +of grape-shot. This is what it was, in fact. + +The charge had been aimed at the cut in the redoubt, and had there +rebounded from the wall; and this terrible rebound had produced two dead +and three wounded. + +If this were continued, the barricade was no longer tenable. The +grape-shot made its way in. + +A murmur of consternation arose. + +"Let us prevent the second discharge," said Enjolras. + +And, lowering his rifle, he took aim at the captain of the gun, who, at +that moment, was bearing down on the breach of his gun and rectifying +and definitely fixing its pointing. + +The captain of the piece was a handsome sergeant of artillery, very +young, blond, with a very gentle face, and the intelligent air peculiar +to that predestined and redoubtable weapon which, by dint of perfecting +itself in horror, must end in killing war. + +Combeferre, who was standing beside Enjolras, scrutinized this young +man. + +"What a pity!" said Combeferre. "What hideous things these butcheries +are! Come, when there are no more kings, there will be no more war. +Enjolras, you are taking aim at that sergeant, you are not looking at +him. Fancy, he is a charming young man; he is intrepid; it is evident +that he is thoughtful; those young artillery-men are very well educated; +he has a father, a mother, a family; he is probably in love; he is not +more than five and twenty at the most; he might be your brother." + +"He is," said Enjolras. + +"Yes," replied Combeferre, "he is mine too. Well, let us not kill him." + +"Let me alone. It must be done." + +And a tear trickled slowly down Enjolras' marble cheek. + +At the same moment, he pressed the trigger of his rifle. The flame +leaped forth. The artillery-man turned round twice, his arms extended in +front of him, his head uplifted, as though for breath, then he fell with +his side on the gun, and lay there motionless. They could see his back, +from the centre of which there flowed directly a stream of blood. The +ball had traversed his breast from side to side. He was dead. + +He had to be carried away and replaced by another. Several minutes were +thus gained, in fact. + + + + +CHAPTER IX--EMPLOYMENT OF THE OLD TALENTS OF A POACHER AND THAT +INFALLIBLE MARKSMANSHIP WHICH INFLUENCED THE CONDEMNATION OF 1796 + +Opinions were exchanged in the barricade. The firing from the gun was +about to begin again. Against that grape-shot, they could not hold out +a quarter of an hour longer. It was absolutely necessary to deaden the +blows. + +Enjolras issued this command: + +"We must place a mattress there." + +"We have none," said Combeferre, "the wounded are lying on them." + +Jean Valjean, who was seated apart on a stone post, at the corner of the +tavern, with his gun between his knees, had, up to that moment, taken +no part in anything that was going on. He did not appear to hear the +combatants saying around him: "Here is a gun that is doing nothing." + +At the order issued by Enjolras, he rose. + +It will be remembered that, on the arrival of the rabble in the Rue +de la Chanvrerie, an old woman, foreseeing the bullets, had placed her +mattress in front of her window. This window, an attic window, was on +the roof of a six-story house situated a little beyond the barricade. +The mattress, placed cross-wise, supported at the bottom on two poles +for drying linen, was upheld at the top by two ropes, which, at that +distance, looked like two threads, and which were attached to two nails +planted in the window frames. These ropes were distinctly visible, like +hairs, against the sky. + +"Can some one lend me a double-barrelled rifle?" said Jean Valjean. + +Enjolras, who had just re-loaded his, handed it to him. + +Jean Valjean took aim at the attic window and fired. + +One of the mattress ropes was cut. + +The mattress now hung by one thread only. + +Jean Valjean fired the second charge. The second rope lashed the panes +of the attic window. The mattress slipped between the two poles and fell +into the street. + +The barricade applauded. + +All voices cried: + +"Here is a mattress!" + +"Yes," said Combeferre, "but who will go and fetch it?" + +The mattress had, in fact, fallen outside the barricade, between +besiegers and besieged. Now, the death of the sergeant of artillery +having exasperated the troop, the soldiers had, for several minutes, +been lying flat on their stomachs behind the line of paving-stones which +they had erected, and, in order to supply the forced silence of +the piece, which was quiet while its service was in course of +reorganization, they had opened fire on the barricade. The insurgents +did not reply to this musketry, in order to spare their ammunition The +fusillade broke against the barricade; but the street, which it filled, +was terrible. + +Jean Valjean stepped out of the cut, entered the street, traversed the +storm of bullets, walked up to the mattress, hoisted it upon his back, +and returned to the barricade. + +He placed the mattress in the cut with his own hands. He fixed it there +against the wall in such a manner that the artillery-men should not see +it. + +That done, they awaited the next discharge of grape-shot. + +It was not long in coming. + +The cannon vomited forth its package of buck-shot with a roar. But there +was no rebound. The effect which they had foreseen had been attained. +The barricade was saved. + +"Citizen," said Enjolras to Jean Valjean, "the Republic thanks you." + +Bossuet admired and laughed. He exclaimed: + +"It is immoral that a mattress should have so much power. Triumph of +that which yields over that which strikes with lightning. But never +mind, glory to the mattress which annuls a cannon!" + + + + +CHAPTER X--DAWN + +At that moment, Cosette awoke. + +Her chamber was narrow, neat, unobtrusive, with a long sash-window, +facing the East on the back court-yard of the house. + +Cosette knew nothing of what was going on in Paris. She had not been +there on the preceding evening, and she had already retired to her +chamber when Toussaint had said: + +"It appears that there is a row." + +Cosette had slept only a few hours, but soundly. She had had sweet +dreams, which possibly arose from the fact that her little bed was very +white. Some one, who was Marius, had appeared to her in the light. She +awoke with the sun in her eyes, which, at first, produced on her the +effect of being a continuation of her dream. Her first thought on +emerging from this dream was a smiling one. Cosette felt herself +thoroughly reassured. Like Jean Valjean, she had, a few hours +previously, passed through that reaction of the soul which absolutely +will not hear of unhappiness. She began to cherish hope, with all her +might, without knowing why. Then she felt a pang at her heart. It was +three days since she had seen Marius. But she said to herself that he +must have received her letter, that he knew where she was, and that +he was so clever that he would find means of reaching her.--And that +certainly to-day, and perhaps that very morning.--It was broad daylight, +but the rays of light were very horizontal; she thought that it was very +early, but that she must rise, nevertheless, in order to receive Marius. + +She felt that she could not live without Marius, and that, consequently, +that was sufficient and that Marius would come. No objection was valid. +All this was certain. It was monstrous enough already to have suffered +for three days. Marius absent three days, this was horrible on the part +of the good God. Now, this cruel teasing from on high had been gone +through with. Marius was about to arrive, and he would bring good news. +Youth is made thus; it quickly dries its eyes; it finds sorrow useless +and does not accept it. Youth is the smile of the future in the presence +of an unknown quantity, which is itself. It is natural to it to be +happy. It seems as though its respiration were made of hope. + +Moreover, Cosette could not remember what Marius had said to her on +the subject of this absence which was to last only one day, and what +explanation of it he had given her. Every one has noticed with what +nimbleness a coin which one has dropped on the ground rolls away and +hides, and with what art it renders itself undiscoverable. There are +thoughts which play us the same trick; they nestle away in a corner of +our brain; that is the end of them; they are lost; it is impossible to +lay the memory on them. Cosette was somewhat vexed at the useless little +effort made by her memory. She told herself, that it was very naughty +and very wicked of her, to have forgotten the words uttered by Marius. + +She sprang out of bed and accomplished the two ablutions of soul and +body, her prayers and her toilet. + +One may, in a case of exigency, introduce the reader into a nuptial +chamber, not into a virginal chamber. Verse would hardly venture it, +prose must not. + +It is the interior of a flower that is not yet unfolded, it is whiteness +in the dark, it is the private cell of a closed lily, which must not be +gazed upon by man so long as the sun has not gazed upon it. Woman in the +bud is sacred. That innocent bud which opens, that adorable half-nudity +which is afraid of itself, that white foot which takes refuge in a +slipper, that throat which veils itself before a mirror as though +a mirror were an eye, that chemise which makes haste to rise up and +conceal the shoulder for a creaking bit of furniture or a passing +vehicle, those cords tied, those clasps fastened, those laces drawn, +those tremors, those shivers of cold and modesty, that exquisite +affright in every movement, that almost winged uneasiness where there +is no cause for alarm, the successive phases of dressing, as charming as +the clouds of dawn,--it is not fitting that all this should be narrated, +and it is too much to have even called attention to it. + +The eye of man must be more religious in the presence of the rising of a +young girl than in the presence of the rising of a star. The possibility +of hurting should inspire an augmentation of respect. The down on the +peach, the bloom on the plum, the radiated crystal of the snow, the wing +of the butterfly powdered with feathers, are coarse compared to that +chastity which does not even know that it is chaste. The young girl is +only the flash of a dream, and is not yet a statue. Her bed-chamber is +hidden in the sombre part of the ideal. The indiscreet touch of a glance +brutalizes this vague penumbra. Here, contemplation is profanation. + +We shall, therefore, show nothing of that sweet little flutter of +Cosette's rising. + +An oriental tale relates how the rose was made white by God, but that +Adam looked upon her when she was unfolding, and she was ashamed and +turned crimson. We are of the number who fall speechless in the presence +of young girls and flowers, since we think them worthy of veneration. + +Cosette dressed herself very hastily, combed and dressed her hair, which +was a very simple matter in those days, when women did not swell out +their curls and bands with cushions and puffs, and did not put crinoline +in their locks. Then she opened the window and cast her eyes around her +in every direction, hoping to descry some bit of the street, an angle of +the house, an edge of pavement, so that she might be able to watch for +Marius there. But no view of the outside was to be had. The back court +was surrounded by tolerably high walls, and the outlook was only on +several gardens. Cosette pronounced these gardens hideous: for the first +time in her life, she found flowers ugly. The smallest scrap of the +gutter of the street would have met her wishes better. She decided to +gaze at the sky, as though she thought that Marius might come from that +quarter. + +All at once, she burst into tears. Not that this was fickleness of +soul; but hopes cut in twain by dejection--that was her case. She had a +confused consciousness of something horrible. Thoughts were rife in the +air, in fact. She told herself that she was not sure of anything, that +to withdraw herself from sight was to be lost; and the idea that Marius +could return to her from heaven appeared to her no longer charming but +mournful. + +Then, as is the nature of these clouds, calm returned to her, and hope +and a sort of unconscious smile, which yet indicated trust in God. + +Every one in the house was still asleep. A country-like silence reigned. +Not a shutter had been opened. The porter's lodge was closed. Toussaint +had not risen, and Cosette, naturally, thought that her father was +asleep. She must have suffered much, and she must have still been +suffering greatly, for she said to herself, that her father had been +unkind; but she counted on Marius. The eclipse of such a light was +decidedly impossible. Now and then, she heard sharp shocks in the +distance, and she said: "It is odd that people should be opening and +shutting their carriage gates so early." They were the reports of the +cannon battering the barricade. + +A few feet below Cosette's window, in the ancient and perfectly black +cornice of the wall, there was a martin's nest; the curve of this nest +formed a little projection beyond the cornice, so that from above it +was possible to look into this little paradise. The mother was there, +spreading her wings like a fan over her brood; the father fluttered +about, flew away, then came back, bearing in his beak food and kisses. +The dawning day gilded this happy thing, the great law, "Multiply," lay +there smiling and august, and that sweet mystery unfolded in the +glory of the morning. Cosette, with her hair in the sunlight, her +soul absorbed in chimeras, illuminated by love within and by the dawn +without, bent over mechanically, and almost without daring to avow to +herself that she was thinking at the same time of Marius, began to gaze +at these birds, at this family, at that male and female, that mother and +her little ones, with the profound trouble which a nest produces on a +virgin. + + + + +CHAPTER XI--THE SHOT WHICH MISSES NOTHING AND KILLS NO ONE + +The assailants' fire continued. Musketry and grape-shot alternated, but +without committing great ravages, to tell the truth. The top alone of +the Corinthe facade suffered; the window on the first floor, and the +attic window in the roof, riddled with buck-shot and biscaiens, were +slowly losing their shape. The combatants who had been posted there had +been obliged to withdraw. However, this is according to the tactics +of barricades; to fire for a long while, in order to exhaust the +insurgents' ammunition, if they commit the mistake of replying. When it +is perceived, from the slackening of their fire, that they have no more +powder and ball, the assault is made. Enjolras had not fallen into this +trap; the barricade did not reply. + +At every discharge by platoons, Gavroche puffed out his cheek with his +tongue, a sign of supreme disdain. + +"Good for you," said he, "rip up the cloth. We want some lint." + +Courfeyrac called the grape-shot to order for the little effect which it +produced, and said to the cannon: + +"You are growing diffuse, my good fellow." + +One gets puzzled in battle, as at a ball. It is probable that this +silence on the part of the redoubt began to render the besiegers uneasy, +and to make them fear some unexpected incident, and that they felt the +necessity of getting a clear view behind that heap of paving-stones, and +of knowing what was going on behind that impassable wall which received +blows without retorting. The insurgents suddenly perceived a helmet +glittering in the sun on a neighboring roof. A fireman had placed his +back against a tall chimney, and seemed to be acting as sentinel. His +glance fell directly down into the barricade. + +"There's an embarrassing watcher," said Enjolras. + +Jean Valjean had returned Enjolras' rifle, but he had his own gun. + +Without saying a word, he took aim at the fireman, and, a second later, +the helmet, smashed by a bullet, rattled noisily into the street. The +terrified soldier made haste to disappear. A second observer took his +place. This one was an officer. Jean Valjean, who had re-loaded his +gun, took aim at the newcomer and sent the officer's casque to join the +soldier's. The officer did not persist, and retired speedily. This time +the warning was understood. No one made his appearance thereafter on +that roof; and the idea of spying on the barricade was abandoned. + +"Why did you not kill the man?" Bossuet asked Jean Valjean. + +Jean Valjean made no reply. + + + + +CHAPTER XII--DISORDER A PARTISAN OF ORDER + +Bossuet muttered in Combeferre's ear: + +"He did not answer my question." + +"He is a man who does good by gun-shots," said Combeferre. + +Those who have preserved some memory of this already distant epoch +know that the National Guard from the suburbs was valiant against +insurrections. It was particularly zealous and intrepid in the days of +June, 1832. A certain good dram-shop keeper of Pantin des Vertus or +la Cunette, whose "establishment" had been closed by the riots, became +leonine at the sight of his deserted dance-hall, and got himself killed +to preserve the order represented by a tea-garden. In that bourgeois and +heroic time, in the presence of ideas which had their knights, interests +had their paladins. The prosiness of the originators detracted nothing +from the bravery of the movement. The diminution of a pile of crowns +made bankers sing the Marseillaise. They shed their blood lyrically for +the counting-house; and they defended the shop, that immense diminutive +of the fatherland, with Lacedaemonian enthusiasm. + +At bottom, we will observe, there was nothing in all this that was not +extremely serious. It was social elements entering into strife, while +awaiting the day when they should enter into equilibrium. + +Another sign of the times was the anarchy mingled with governmentalism +[the barbarous name of the correct party]. People were for order in +combination with lack of discipline. + +The drum suddenly beat capricious calls, at the command of such or +such a Colonel of the National Guard; such and such a captain went into +action through inspiration; such and such National Guardsmen fought, +"for an idea," and on their own account. At critical moments, on "days" +they took counsel less of their leaders than of their instincts. There +existed in the army of order, veritable guerilleros, some of the sword, +like Fannicot, others of the pen, like Henri Fonfrede. + +Civilization, unfortunately, represented at this epoch rather by an +aggregation of interests than by a group of principles, was or thought +itself, in peril; it set up the cry of alarm; each, constituting himself +a centre, defended it, succored it, and protected it with his own head; +and the first comer took it upon himself to save society. + +Zeal sometimes proceeded to extermination. A platoon of the National +Guard would constitute itself on its own authority a private council of +war, and judge and execute a captured insurgent in five minutes. It +was an improvisation of this sort that had slain Jean Prouvaire. Fierce +Lynch law, with which no one party had any right to reproach the rest, +for it has been applied by the Republic in America, as well as by the +monarchy in Europe. This Lynch law was complicated with mistakes. On one +day of rioting, a young poet, named Paul Aime Garnier, was pursued +in the Place Royale, with a bayonet at his loins, and only escaped by +taking refuge under the porte-cochere of No. 6. They shouted:--"There's +another of those Saint-Simonians!" and they wanted to kill him. Now, he +had under his arm a volume of the memoirs of the Duc de Saint-Simon. +A National Guard had read the words Saint-Simon on the book, and had +shouted: "Death!" + +On the 6th of June, 1832, a company of the National Guards from the +suburbs, commanded by the Captain Fannicot, above mentioned, had itself +decimated in the Rue de la Chanvrerie out of caprice and its own good +pleasure. This fact, singular though it may seem, was proved at the +judicial investigation opened in consequence of the insurrection of +1832. Captain Fannicot, a bold and impatient bourgeois, a sort of +condottiere of the order of those whom we have just characterized, +a fanatical and intractable governmentalist, could not resist the +temptation to fire prematurely, and the ambition of capturing the +barricade alone and unaided, that is to say, with his company. +Exasperated by the successive apparition of the red flag and the old +coat which he took for the black flag, he loudly blamed the generals and +chiefs of the corps, who were holding council and did not think that the +moment for the decisive assault had arrived, and who were allowing "the +insurrection to fry in its own fat," to use the celebrated expression +of one of them. For his part, he thought the barricade ripe, and as that +which is ripe ought to fall, he made the attempt. + +He commanded men as resolute as himself, "raging fellows," as a witness +said. His company, the same which had shot Jean Prouvaire the poet, was +the first of the battalion posted at the angle of the street. At the +moment when they were least expecting it, the captain launched his men +against the barricade. This movement, executed with more good will than +strategy, cost the Fannicot company dear. Before it had traversed two +thirds of the street it was received by a general discharge from the +barricade. Four, the most audacious, who were running on in front, +were mown down point-blank at the very foot of the redoubt, and this +courageous throng of National Guards, very brave men but lacking in +military tenacity, were forced to fall back, after some hesitation, +leaving fifteen corpses on the pavement. This momentary hesitation gave +the insurgents time to re-load their weapons, and a second and very +destructive discharge struck the company before it could regain the +corner of the street, its shelter. A moment more, and it was caught +between two fires, and it received the volley from the battery piece +which, not having received the order, had not discontinued its firing. + +The intrepid and imprudent Fannicot was one of the dead from this +grape-shot. He was killed by the cannon, that is to say, by order. + +This attack, which was more furious than serious, irritated +Enjolras.--"The fools!" said he. "They are getting their own men killed +and they are using up our ammunition for nothing." + +Enjolras spoke like the real general of insurrection which he +was. Insurrection and repression do not fight with equal weapons. +Insurrection, which is speedily exhausted, has only a certain number +of shots to fire and a certain number of combatants to expend. An empty +cartridge-box, a man killed, cannot be replaced. As repression has the +army, it does not count its men, and, as it has Vincennes, it does not +count its shots. Repression has as many regiments as the barricade has +men, and as many arsenals as the barricade has cartridge-boxes. Thus +they are struggles of one against a hundred, which always end in +crushing the barricade; unless the revolution, uprising suddenly, +flings into the balance its flaming archangel's sword. This does happen +sometimes. Then everything rises, the pavements begin to seethe, popular +redoubts abound. Paris quivers supremely, the quid divinum is given +forth, a 10th of August is in the air, a 29th of July is in the air, a +wonderful light appears, the yawning maw of force draws back, and the +army, that lion, sees before it, erect and tranquil, that prophet, +France. + + + + +CHAPTER XIII--PASSING GLEAMS + +In the chaos of sentiments and passions which defend a barricade, there +is a little of everything; there is bravery, there is youth, honor, +enthusiasm, the ideal, conviction, the rage of the gambler, and, above +all, intermittences of hope. + +One of these intermittences, one of these vague quivers of hope suddenly +traversed the barricade of the Rue de la Chanvrerie at the moment when +it was least expected. + +"Listen," suddenly cried Enjolras, who was still on the watch, "it seems +to me that Paris is waking up." + +It is certain that, on the morning of the 6th of June, the insurrection +broke out afresh for an hour or two, to a certain extent. The obstinacy +of the alarm peal of Saint-Merry reanimated some fancies. Barricades +were begun in the Rue du Poirier and the Rue des Gravilliers. In front +of the Porte Saint-Martin, a young man, armed with a rifle, attacked +alone a squadron of cavalry. In plain sight, on the open boulevard, he +placed one knee on the ground, shouldered his weapon, fired, killed the +commander of the squadron, and turned away, saying: "There's another who +will do us no more harm." + +He was put to the sword. In the Rue Saint-Denis, a woman fired on the +National Guard from behind a lowered blind. The slats of the blind could +be seen to tremble at every shot. A child fourteen years of age +was arrested in the Rue de la Cossonerie, with his pockets full of +cartridges. Many posts were attacked. At the entrance to the Rue +Bertin-Poiree, a very lively and utterly unexpected fusillade welcomed +a regiment of cuirrassiers, at whose head marched Marshal General +Cavaignac de Barague. In the Rue Planche-Mibray, they threw old pieces +of pottery and household utensils down on the soldiers from the roofs; a +bad sign; and when this matter was reported to Marshal Soult, Napoleon's +old lieutenant grew thoughtful, as he recalled Suchet's saying at +Saragossa: "We are lost when the old women empty their pots de chambre +on our heads." + +These general symptoms which presented themselves at the moment when +it was thought that the uprising had been rendered local, this fever +of wrath, these sparks which flew hither and thither above those deep +masses of combustibles which are called the faubourgs of Paris,--all +this, taken together, disturbed the military chiefs. They made haste to +stamp out these beginnings of conflagration. + +They delayed the attack on the barricades Maubuee, de la Chanvrerie and +Saint-Merry until these sparks had been extinguished, in order that they +might have to deal with the barricades only and be able to finish +them at one blow. Columns were thrown into the streets where there was +fermentation, sweeping the large, sounding the small, right and left, +now slowly and cautiously, now at full charge. The troops broke in +the doors of houses whence shots had been fired; at the same time, +manoeuvres by the cavalry dispersed the groups on the boulevards. This +repression was not effected without some commotion, and without that +tumultuous uproar peculiar to collisions between the army and the +people. This was what Enjolras had caught in the intervals of the +cannonade and the musketry. Moreover, he had seen wounded men passing +the end of the street in litters, and he said to Courfeyrac:--"Those +wounded do not come from us." + +Their hope did not last long; the gleam was quickly eclipsed. In less +than half an hour, what was in the air vanished, it was a flash of +lightning unaccompanied by thunder, and the insurgents felt that sort of +leaden cope, which the indifference of the people casts over obstinate +and deserted men, fall over them once more. + +The general movement, which seemed to have assumed a vague outline, had +miscarried; and the attention of the minister of war and the strategy of +the generals could now be concentrated on the three or four barricades +which still remained standing. + +The sun was mounting above the horizon. + +An insurgent hailed Enjolras. + +"We are hungry here. Are we really going to die like this, without +anything to eat?" + +Enjolras, who was still leaning on his elbows at his embrasure, made an +affirmative sign with his head, but without taking his eyes from the end +of the street. + + + + +CHAPTER XIV--WHEREIN WILL APPEAR THE NAME OF ENJOLRAS' MISTRESS + +Courfeyrac, seated on a paving-stone beside Enjolras, continued to +insult the cannon, and each time that that gloomy cloud of projectiles +which is called grape-shot passed overhead with its terrible sound he +assailed it with a burst of irony. + +"You are wearing out your lungs, poor, brutal, old fellow, you pain me, +you are wasting your row. That's not thunder, it's a cough." + +And the bystanders laughed. + +Courfeyrac and Bossuet, whose brave good humor increased with the peril, +like Madame Scarron, replaced nourishment with pleasantry, and, as wine +was lacking, they poured out gayety to all. + +"I admire Enjolras," said Bossuet. "His impassive temerity astounds +me. He lives alone, which renders him a little sad, perhaps; Enjolras +complains of his greatness, which binds him to widowhood. The rest of us +have mistresses, more or less, who make us crazy, that is to say, brave. +When a man is as much in love as a tiger, the least that he can do is to +fight like a lion. That is one way of taking our revenge for the capers +that mesdames our grisettes play on us. Roland gets himself killed for +Angelique; all our heroism comes from our women. A man without a woman +is a pistol without a trigger; it is the woman that sets the man off. +Well, Enjolras has no woman. He is not in love, and yet he manages to be +intrepid. It is a thing unheard of that a man should be as cold as ice +and as bold as fire." + +Enjolras did not appear to be listening, but had any one been near him, +that person would have heard him mutter in a low voice: "Patria." + +Bossuet was still laughing when Courfeyrac exclaimed: + +"News!" + +And assuming the tone of an usher making an announcement, he added: + +"My name is Eight-Pounder." + +In fact, a new personage had entered on the scene. This was a second +piece of ordnance. + +The artillery-men rapidly performed their manoeuvres in force and placed +this second piece in line with the first. + +This outlined the catastrophe. + +A few minutes later, the two pieces, rapidly served, were firing +point-blank at the redoubt; the platoon firing of the line and of the +soldiers from the suburbs sustained the artillery. + +Another cannonade was audible at some distance. At the same time that +the two guns were furiously attacking the redoubt from the Rue de la +Chanvrerie, two other cannons, trained one from the Rue Saint-Denis, +the other from the Rue Aubry-le-Boucher, were riddling the Saint-Merry +barricade. The four cannons echoed each other mournfully. + +The barking of these sombre dogs of war replied to each other. + +One of the two pieces which was now battering the barricade on the Rue +de la Chanvrerie was firing grape-shot, the other balls. + +The piece which was firing balls was pointed a little high, and the aim +was calculated so that the ball struck the extreme edge of the upper +crest of the barricade, and crumbled the stone down upon the insurgents, +mingled with bursts of grape-shot. + +The object of this mode of firing was to drive the insurgents from +the summit of the redoubt, and to compel them to gather close in the +interior, that is to say, this announced the assault. + +The combatants once driven from the crest of the barricade by balls, +and from the windows of the cabaret by grape-shot, the attacking columns +could venture into the street without being picked off, perhaps, even, +without being seen, could briskly and suddenly scale the redoubt, as on +the preceding evening, and, who knows? take it by surprise. + +"It is absolutely necessary that the inconvenience of those guns +should be diminished," said Enjolras, and he shouted: "Fire on the +artillery-men!" + +All were ready. The barricade, which had long been silent, poured forth +a desperate fire; seven or eight discharges followed, with a sort of +rage and joy; the street was filled with blinding smoke, and, at the end +of a few minutes, athwart this mist all streaked with flame, two thirds +of the gunners could be distinguished lying beneath the wheels of the +cannons. Those who were left standing continued to serve the pieces with +severe tranquillity, but the fire had slackened. + +"Things are going well now," said Bossuet to Enjolras. "Success." + +Enjolras shook his head and replied: + +"Another quarter of an hour of this success, and there will not be any +cartridges left in the barricade." + +It appears that Gavroche overheard this remark. + + + + +CHAPTER XV--GAVROCHE OUTSIDE + +Courfeyrac suddenly caught sight of some one at the base of the +barricade, outside in the street, amid the bullets. + +Gavroche had taken a bottle basket from the wine-shop, had made his +way out through the cut, and was quietly engaged in emptying the full +cartridge-boxes of the National Guardsmen who had been killed on the +slope of the redoubt, into his basket. + +"What are you doing there?" asked Courfeyrac. + +Gavroche raised his face:-- + +"I'm filling my basket, citizen." + +"Don't you see the grape-shot?" + +Gavroche replied: + +"Well, it is raining. What then?" + +Courfeyrac shouted:--"Come in!" + +"Instanter," said Gavroche. + +And with a single bound he plunged into the street. + +It will be remembered that Fannicot's company had left behind it a trail +of bodies. Twenty corpses lay scattered here and there on the pavement, +through the whole length of the street. Twenty cartouches for Gavroche +meant a provision of cartridges for the barricade. + +The smoke in the street was like a fog. Whoever has beheld a cloud which +has fallen into a mountain gorge between two peaked escarpments can +imagine this smoke rendered denser and thicker by two gloomy rows of +lofty houses. It rose gradually and was incessantly renewed; hence a +twilight which made even the broad daylight turn pale. The combatants +could hardly see each other from one end of the street to the other, +short as it was. + +This obscurity, which had probably been desired and calculated on by the +commanders who were to direct the assault on the barricade, was useful +to Gavroche. + +Beneath the folds of this veil of smoke, and thanks to his small size, +he could advance tolerably far into the street without being seen. He +rifled the first seven or eight cartridge-boxes without much danger. + +He crawled flat on his belly, galloped on all fours, took his basket +in his teeth, twisted, glided, undulated, wound from one dead body to +another, and emptied the cartridge-box or cartouche as a monkey opens a +nut. + +They did not dare to shout to him to return from the barricade, which +was quite near, for fear of attracting attention to him. + +On one body, that of a corporal, he found a powder-flask. + +"For thirst," said he, putting it in his pocket. + +By dint of advancing, he reached a point where the fog of the fusillade +became transparent. So that the sharpshooters of the line ranged on +the outlook behind their paving-stone dike and the sharpshooters of the +banlieue massed at the corner of the street suddenly pointed out to each +other something moving through the smoke. + +At the moment when Gavroche was relieving a sergeant, who was lying near +a stone door-post, of his cartridges, a bullet struck the body. + +"Fichtre!" ejaculated Gavroche. "They are killing my dead men for me." + +A second bullet struck a spark from the pavement beside him.--A third +overturned his basket. + +Gavroche looked and saw that this came from the men of the banlieue. + +He sprang to his feet, stood erect, with his hair flying in the wind, +his hands on his hips, his eyes fixed on the National Guardsmen who were +firing, and sang: + + "On est laid a Nanterre, "Men are ugly at Nanterre, + C'est la faute a Voltaire; 'Tis the fault of Voltaire; + Et bete a Palaiseau, And dull at Palaiseau, + C'est la faute a Rousseau." 'Tis the fault of Rousseau." + + +Then he picked up his basket, replaced the cartridges which had fallen +from it, without missing a single one, and, advancing towards the +fusillade, set about plundering another cartridge-box. There a fourth +bullet missed him, again. Gavroche sang: + + "Je ne suis pas notaire, "I am not a notary, + C'est la faute a Voltaire; 'Tis the fault of Voltaire; + Je suis un petit oiseau, I'm a little bird, + C'est la faute a Rousseau." 'Tis the fault of Rousseau." + +A fifth bullet only succeeded in drawing from him a third couplet. + + "Joie est mon caractere, "Joy is my character, + C'est la faute a Voltaire; 'Tis the fault of Voltaire; + Misere est mon trousseau, Misery is my trousseau, + C'est la faute a Rousseau." 'Tis the fault of Rousseau." + + +Thus it went on for some time. + +It was a charming and terrible sight. Gavroche, though shot at, was +teasing the fusillade. He had the air of being greatly diverted. It was +the sparrow pecking at the sportsmen. To each discharge he retorted +with a couplet. They aimed at him constantly, and always missed him. The +National Guardsmen and the soldiers laughed as they took aim at him. He +lay down, sprang to his feet, hid in the corner of a doorway, then made +a bound, disappeared, re-appeared, scampered away, returned, replied to +the grape-shot with his thumb at his nose, and, all the while, went on +pillaging the cartouches, emptying the cartridge-boxes, and filling his +basket. The insurgents, panting with anxiety, followed him with their +eyes. The barricade trembled; he sang. He was not a child, he was not +a man; he was a strange gamin-fairy. He might have been called the +invulnerable dwarf of the fray. The bullets flew after him, he was more +nimble than they. He played a fearful game of hide and seek with death; +every time that the flat-nosed face of the spectre approached, the +urchin administered to it a fillip. + +One bullet, however, better aimed or more treacherous than the rest, +finally struck the will-o'-the-wisp of a child. Gavroche was seen to +stagger, then he sank to the earth. The whole barricade gave vent to a +cry; but there was something of Antaeus in that pygmy; for the gamin +to touch the pavement is the same as for the giant to touch the earth; +Gavroche had fallen only to rise again; he remained in a sitting +posture, a long thread of blood streaked his face, he raised both arms +in the air, glanced in the direction whence the shot had come, and began +to sing: + + + "Je suis tombe par terre, "I have fallen to the earth, + C'est la faute a Voltaire; 'Tis the fault of Voltaire; + Le nez dans le ruisseau, With my nose in the gutter, + C'est la faute a . . . " 'Tis the fault of . . . " + + +He did not finish. A second bullet from the same marksman stopped him +short. This time he fell face downward on the pavement, and moved no +more. This grand little soul had taken its flight. + + + + +CHAPTER XVI--HOW FROM A BROTHER ONE BECOMES A FATHER + +At that same moment, in the garden of the Luxembourg,--for the gaze of +the drama must be everywhere present,--two children were holding each +other by the hand. One might have been seven years old, the other five. +The rain having soaked them, they were walking along the paths on +the sunny side; the elder was leading the younger; they were pale and +ragged; they had the air of wild birds. The smaller of them said: "I am +very hungry." + +The elder, who was already somewhat of a protector, was leading his +brother with his left hand and in his right he carried a small stick. + +They were alone in the garden. The garden was deserted, the gates had +been closed by order of the police, on account of the insurrection. The +troops who had been bivouacking there had departed for the exigencies of +combat. + +How did those children come there? Perhaps they had escaped from some +guard-house which stood ajar; perhaps there was in the vicinity, at +the Barriere d'Enfer; or on the Esplanade de l'Observatoire, or in the +neighboring carrefour, dominated by the pediment on which could be read: +Invenerunt parvulum pannis involutum, some mountebank's booth from which +they had fled; perhaps they had, on the preceding evening, escaped the +eye of the inspectors of the garden at the hour of closing, and had +passed the night in some one of those sentry-boxes where people read the +papers? The fact is, they were stray lambs and they seemed free. To be +astray and to seem free is to be lost. These poor little creatures were, +in fact, lost. + +These two children were the same over whom Gavroche had been put to +some trouble, as the reader will recollect. Children of the Thenardiers, +leased out to Magnon, attributed to M. Gillenormand, and now leaves +fallen from all these rootless branches, and swept over the ground by +the wind. Their clothing, which had been clean in Magnon's day, and +which had served her as a prospectus with M. Gillenormand, had been +converted into rags. + +Henceforth these beings belonged to the statistics as "Abandoned +children," whom the police take note of, collect, mislay and find again +on the pavements of Paris. + +It required the disturbance of a day like that to account for these +miserable little creatures being in that garden. If the superintendents +had caught sight of them, they would have driven such rags forth. Poor +little things do not enter public gardens; still, people should reflect +that, as children, they have a right to flowers. + +These children were there, thanks to the locked gates. They were there +contrary to the regulations. They had slipped into the garden and there +they remained. Closed gates do not dismiss the inspectors, oversight +is supposed to continue, but it grows slack and reposes; and the +inspectors, moved by the public anxiety and more occupied with the +outside than the inside, no longer glanced into the garden, and had not +seen the two delinquents. + +It had rained the night before, and even a little in the morning. But +in June, showers do not count for much. An hour after a storm, it can +hardly be seen that the beautiful blonde day has wept. The earth, in +summer, is as quickly dried as the cheek of a child. At that period of +the solstice, the light of full noonday is, so to speak, poignant. It +takes everything. It applies itself to the earth, and superposes itself +with a sort of suction. One would say that the sun was thirsty. A shower +is but a glass of water; a rainstorm is instantly drunk up. In the +morning everything was dripping, in the afternoon everything is powdered +over. + +Nothing is so worthy of admiration as foliage washed by the rain and +wiped by the rays of sunlight; it is warm freshness. The gardens and +meadows, having water at their roots, and sun in their flowers, become +perfuming-pans of incense, and smoke with all their odors at +once. Everything smiles, sings and offers itself. One feels gently +intoxicated. The springtime is a provisional paradise, the sun helps man +to have patience. + +There are beings who demand nothing further; mortals, who, having +the azure of heaven, say: "It is enough!" dreamers absorbed in the +wonderful, dipping into the idolatry of nature, indifferent to good and +evil, contemplators of cosmos and radiantly forgetful of man, who do not +understand how people can occupy themselves with the hunger of these, +and the thirst of those, with the nudity of the poor in winter, with the +lymphatic curvature of the little spinal column, with the pallet, the +attic, the dungeon, and the rags of shivering young girls, when they +can dream beneath the trees; peaceful and terrible spirits they, and +pitilessly satisfied. Strange to say, the infinite suffices them. That +great need of man, the finite, which admits of embrace, they ignore. +The finite which admits of progress and sublime toil, they do not +think about. The indefinite, which is born from the human and divine +combination of the infinite and the finite, escapes them. Provided that +they are face to face with immensity, they smile. Joy never, ecstasy +forever. Their life lies in surrendering their personality in +contemplation. The history of humanity is for them only a detailed +plan. All is not there; the true All remains without; what is the use +of busying oneself over that detail, man? Man suffers, that is quite +possible; but look at Aldebaran rising! The mother has no more milk, the +new-born babe is dying. I know nothing about that, but just look at this +wonderful rosette which a slice of wood-cells of the pine presents under +the microscope! Compare the most beautiful Mechlin lace to that if you +can! These thinkers forget to love. The zodiac thrives with them to such +a point that it prevents their seeing the weeping child. God eclipses +their souls. This is a family of minds which are, at once, great and +petty. Horace was one of them; so was Goethe. La Fontaine perhaps; +magnificent egoists of the infinite, tranquil spectators of sorrow, who +do not behold Nero if the weather be fair, for whom the sun conceals the +funeral pile, who would look on at an execution by the guillotine in the +search for an effect of light, who hear neither the cry nor the sob, nor +the death rattle, nor the alarm peal, for whom everything is well, since +there is a month of May, who, so long as there are clouds of purple +and gold above their heads, declare themselves content, and who are +determined to be happy until the radiance of the stars and the songs of +the birds are exhausted. + +These are dark radiances. They have no suspicion that they are to be +pitied. Certainly they are so. He who does not weep does not see. They +are to be admired and pitied, as one would both pity and admire a being +at once night and day, without eyes beneath his lashes but with a star +on his brow. + +The indifference of these thinkers, is, according to some, a superior +philosophy. That may be; but in this superiority there is some +infirmity. One may be immortal and yet limp: witness Vulcan. One may +be more than man and less than man. There is incomplete immensity in +nature. Who knows whether the sun is not a blind man? + +But then, what? In whom can we trust? Solem quis dicere falsum audeat? +Who shall dare to say that the sun is false? Thus certain geniuses, +themselves, certain Very-Lofty mortals, man-stars, may be mistaken? That +which is on high at the summit, at the crest, at the zenith, that which +sends down so much light on the earth, sees but little, sees badly, sees +not at all? Is not this a desperate state of things? No. But what is +there, then, above the sun? The god. + +On the 6th of June, 1832, about eleven o'clock in the morning, the +Luxembourg, solitary and depopulated, was charming. The quincunxes and +flower-beds shed forth balm and dazzling beauty into the sunlight. The +branches, wild with the brilliant glow of midday, seemed endeavoring +to embrace. In the sycamores there was an uproar of linnets, sparrows +triumphed, woodpeckers climbed along the chestnut trees, administering +little pecks on the bark. The flower-beds accepted the legitimate +royalty of the lilies; the most august of perfumes is that which +emanates from whiteness. The peppery odor of the carnations was +perceptible. The old crows of Marie de Medici were amorous in the tall +trees. The sun gilded, empurpled, set fire to and lighted up the tulips, +which are nothing but all the varieties of flame made into flowers. All +around the banks of tulips the bees, the sparks of these flame-flowers, +hummed. All was grace and gayety, even the impending rain; this relapse, +by which the lilies of the valley and the honeysuckles were destined to +profit, had nothing disturbing about it; the swallows indulged in the +charming threat of flying low. He who was there aspired to happiness; +life smelled good; all nature exhaled candor, help, assistance, +paternity, caress, dawn. The thoughts which fell from heaven were as +sweet as the tiny hand of a baby when one kisses it. + +The statues under the trees, white and nude, had robes of shadow pierced +with light; these goddesses were all tattered with sunlight; rays hung +from them on all sides. Around the great fountain, the earth was already +dried up to the point of being burnt. There was sufficient breeze to +raise little insurrections of dust here and there. A few yellow leaves, +left over from the autumn, chased each other merrily, and seemed to be +playing tricks on each other. + +This abundance of light had something indescribably reassuring about it. +Life, sap, heat, odors overflowed; one was conscious, beneath creation, +of the enormous size of the source; in all these breaths permeated with +love, in this interchange of reverberations and reflections, in this +marvellous expenditure of rays, in this infinite outpouring of liquid +gold, one felt the prodigality of the inexhaustible; and, behind this +splendor as behind a curtain of flame, one caught a glimpse of God, that +millionaire of stars. + +Thanks to the sand, there was not a speck of mud; thanks to the rain, +there was not a grain of ashes. The clumps of blossoms had just been +bathed; every sort of velvet, satin, gold and varnish, which springs +from the earth in the form of flowers, was irreproachable. This +magnificence was cleanly. The grand silence of happy nature filled the +garden. A celestial silence that is compatible with a thousand sorts of +music, the cooing of nests, the buzzing of swarms, the flutterings of +the breeze. All the harmony of the season was complete in one gracious +whole; the entrances and exits of spring took place in proper order; the +lilacs ended; the jasmines began; some flowers were tardy, some insects +in advance of their time; the van-guard of the red June butterflies +fraternized with the rear-guard of the white butterflies of May. The +plantain trees were getting their new skins. The breeze hollowed out +undulations in the magnificent enormity of the chestnut-trees. It +was splendid. A veteran from the neighboring barracks, who was gazing +through the fence, said: "Here is the Spring presenting arms and in full +uniform." + +All nature was breakfasting; creation was at table; this was its hour; +the great blue cloth was spread in the sky, and the great green cloth +on earth; the sun lighted it all up brilliantly. God was serving +the universal repast. Each creature had his pasture or his mess. The +ring-dove found his hemp-seed, the chaffinch found his millet, the +goldfinch found chickweed, the red-breast found worms, the green finch +found flies, the fly found infusoriae, the bee found flowers. They ate +each other somewhat, it is true, which is the misery of evil mixed with +good; but not a beast of them all had an empty stomach. + +The two little abandoned creatures had arrived in the vicinity of the +grand fountain, and, rather bewildered by all this light, they tried to +hide themselves, the instinct of the poor and the weak in the presence +of even impersonal magnificence; and they kept behind the swans' hutch. + +Here and there, at intervals, when the wind blew, shouts, clamor, a sort +of tumultuous death rattle, which was the firing, and dull blows, which +were discharges of cannon, struck the ear confusedly. Smoke hung over +the roofs in the direction of the Halles. A bell, which had the air of +an appeal, was ringing in the distance. + +These children did not appear to notice these noises. The little one +repeated from time to time: "I am hungry." + +Almost at the same instant with the children, another couple approached +the great basin. They consisted of a goodman, about fifty years of age, +who was leading by the hand a little fellow of six. No doubt, a father +and his son. The little man of six had a big brioche. + +At that epoch, certain houses abutting on the river, in the Rues Madame +and d'Enfer, had keys to the Luxembourg garden, of which the lodgers +enjoyed the use when the gates were shut, a privilege which was +suppressed later on. This father and son came from one of these houses, +no doubt. + +The two poor little creatures watched "that gentleman" approaching, and +hid themselves a little more thoroughly. + +He was a bourgeois. The same person, perhaps, whom Marius had one day +heard, through his love fever, near the same grand basin, counselling +his son "to avoid excesses." He had an affable and haughty air, and a +mouth which was always smiling, since it did not shut. This mechanical +smile, produced by too much jaw and too little skin, shows the teeth +rather than the soul. The child, with his brioche, which he had bitten +into but had not finished eating, seemed satiated. The child was dressed +as a National Guardsman, owing to the insurrection, and the father had +remained clad as a bourgeois out of prudence. + +Father and son halted near the fountain where two swans were sporting. +This bourgeois appeared to cherish a special admiration for the swans. +He resembled them in this sense, that he walked like them. + +For the moment, the swans were swimming, which is their principal +talent, and they were superb. + +If the two poor little beings had listened and if they had been of an +age to understand, they might have gathered the words of this grave man. +The father was saying to his son: + +"The sage lives content with little. Look at me, my son. I do not love +pomp. I am never seen in clothes decked with gold lace and stones; I +leave that false splendor to badly organized souls." + +Here the deep shouts which proceeded from the direction of the Halles +burst out with fresh force of bell and uproar. + +"What is that?" inquired the child. + +The father replied: + +"It is the Saturnalia." + +All at once, he caught sight of the two little ragged boys behind the +green swan-hutch. + +"There is the beginning," said he. + +And, after a pause, he added: + +"Anarchy is entering this garden." + +In the meanwhile, his son took a bite of his brioche, spit it out, and, +suddenly burst out crying. + +"What are you crying about?" demanded his father. + +"I am not hungry any more," said the child. + +The father's smile became more accentuated. + +"One does not need to be hungry in order to eat a cake." + +"My cake tires me. It is stale." + +"Don't you want any more of it?" + +"No." + +The father pointed to the swans. + +"Throw it to those palmipeds." + +The child hesitated. A person may not want any more of his cake; but +that is no reason for giving it away. + +The father went on: + +"Be humane. You must have compassion on animals." + +And, taking the cake from his son, he flung it into the basin. + +The cake fell very near the edge. + +The swans were far away, in the centre of the basin, and busy with some +prey. They had seen neither the bourgeois nor the brioche. + +The bourgeois, feeling that the cake was in danger of being wasted, and +moved by this useless shipwreck, entered upon a telegraphic agitation, +which finally attracted the attention of the swans. + +They perceived something floating, steered for the edge like ships, as +they are, and slowly directed their course toward the brioche, with the +stupid majesty which befits white creatures. + +"The swans [cygnes] understand signs [signes]," said the bourgeois, +delighted to make a jest. + +At that moment, the distant tumult of the city underwent another sudden +increase. This time it was sinister. There are some gusts of wind which +speak more distinctly than others. The one which was blowing at that +moment brought clearly defined drum-beats, clamors, platoon firing, and +the dismal replies of the tocsin and the cannon. This coincided with a +black cloud which suddenly veiled the sun. + +The swans had not yet reached the brioche. + +"Let us return home," said the father, "they are attacking the +Tuileries." + +He grasped his son's hand again. Then he continued: + +"From the Tuileries to the Luxembourg, there is but the distance which +separates Royalty from the peerage; that is not far. Shots will soon +rain down." + +He glanced at the cloud. + +"Perhaps it is rain itself that is about to shower down; the sky +is joining in; the younger branch is condemned. Let us return home +quickly." + +"I should like to see the swans eat the brioche," said the child. + +The father replied: + +"That would be imprudent." + +And he led his little bourgeois away. + +The son, regretting the swans, turned his head back toward the basin +until a corner of the quincunxes concealed it from him. + +In the meanwhile, the two little waifs had approached the brioche at +the same time as the swans. It was floating on the water. The smaller of +them stared at the cake, the elder gazed after the retreating bourgeois. + +Father and son entered the labyrinth of walks which leads to the grand +flight of steps near the clump of trees on the side of the Rue Madame. + +As soon as they had disappeared from view, the elder child hastily +flung himself flat on his stomach on the rounding curb of the basin, and +clinging to it with his left hand, and leaning over the water, on the +verge of falling in, he stretched out his right hand with his stick +towards the cake. The swans, perceiving the enemy, made haste, and in so +doing, they produced an effect of their breasts which was of service to +the little fisher; the water flowed back before the swans, and one of +these gentle concentric undulations softly floated the brioche towards +the child's wand. Just as the swans came up, the stick touched the cake. +The child gave it a brisk rap, drew in the brioche, frightened away the +swans, seized the cake, and sprang to his feet. The cake was wet; +but they were hungry and thirsty. The elder broke the cake into two +portions, a large one and a small one, took the small one for himself, +gave the large one to his brother, and said to him: + +"Ram that into your muzzle." + + + + +CHAPTER XVII--MORTUUS PATER FILIUM MORITURUM EXPECTAT + +Marius dashed out of the barricade, Combeferre followed him. But he +was too late. Gavroche was dead. Combeferre brought back the basket of +cartridges; Marius bore the child. + +"Alas!" he thought, "that which the father had done for his father, he +was requiting to the son; only, Thenardier had brought back his father +alive; he was bringing back the child dead." + +When Marius re-entered the redoubt with Gavroche in his arms, his face, +like the child, was inundated with blood. + +At the moment when he had stooped to lift Gavroche, a bullet had grazed +his head; he had not noticed it. + +Courfeyrac untied his cravat and with it bandaged Marius' brow. + +They laid Gavroche on the same table with Mabeuf, and spread over the +two corpses the black shawl. There was enough of it for both the old man +and the child. + +Combeferre distributed the cartridges from the basket which he had +brought in. + +This gave each man fifteen rounds to fire. + +Jean Valjean was still in the same place, motionless on his stone post. +When Combeferre offered him his fifteen cartridges, he shook his head. + +"Here's a rare eccentric," said Combeferre in a low voice to Enjolras. +"He finds a way of not fighting in this barricade." + +"Which does not prevent him from defending it," responded Enjolras. + +"Heroism has its originals," resumed Combeferre. + +And Courfeyrac, who had overheard, added: + +"He is another sort from Father Mabeuf." + +One thing which must be noted is, that the fire which was battering the +barricade hardly disturbed the interior. Those who have never traversed +the whirlwind of this sort of war can form no idea of the singular +moments of tranquillity mingled with these convulsions. Men go and +come, they talk, they jest, they lounge. Some one whom we know heard a +combatant say to him in the midst of the grape-shot: "We are here as +at a bachelor breakfast." The redoubt of the Rue de la Chanvrerie, we +repeat, seemed very calm within. All mutations and all phases had been, +or were about to be, exhausted. The position, from critical, had become +menacing, and, from menacing, was probably about to become desperate. In +proportion as the situation grew gloomy, the glow of heroism empurpled +the barricade more and more. Enjolras, who was grave, dominated it, +in the attitude of a young Spartan sacrificing his naked sword to the +sombre genius, Epidotas. + +Combeferre, wearing an apron, was dressing the wounds: Bossuet and +Feuilly were making cartridges with the powder-flask picked up by +Gavroche on the dead corporal, and Bossuet said to Feuilly: "We are soon +to take the diligence for another planet"; Courfeyrac was disposing and +arranging on some paving-stones which he had reserved for himself near +Enjolras, a complete arsenal, his sword-cane, his gun, two holster +pistols, and a cudgel, with the care of a young girl setting a small +dunkerque in order. Jean Valjean stared silently at the wall opposite +him. An artisan was fastening Mother Hucheloup's big straw hat on his +head with a string, "for fear of sun-stroke," as he said. The young +men from the Cougourde d'Aix were chatting merrily among themselves, +as though eager to speak patois for the last time. Joly, who had taken +Widow Hucheloup's mirror from the wall, was examining his tongue in it. +Some combatants, having discovered a few crusts of rather mouldy bread, +in a drawer, were eagerly devouring them. Marius was disturbed with +regard to what his father was about to say to him. + + + + +CHAPTER XVIII--THE VULTURE BECOME PREY + +We must insist upon one psychological fact peculiar to barricades. +Nothing which is characteristic of that surprising war of the streets +should be omitted. + +Whatever may have been the singular inward tranquillity which we have +just mentioned, the barricade, for those who are inside it, remains, +none the less, a vision. + +There is something of the apocalypse in civil war, all the mists of the +unknown are commingled with fierce flashes, revolutions are sphinxes, +and any one who has passed through a barricade thinks he has traversed a +dream. + +The feelings to which one is subject in these places we have pointed out +in the case of Marius, and we shall see the consequences; they are both +more and less than life. On emerging from a barricade, one no longer +knows what one has seen there. One has been terrible, but one knows +it not. One has been surrounded with conflicting ideas which had human +faces; one's head has been in the light of the future. There were +corpses lying prone there, and phantoms standing erect. The hours were +colossal and seemed hours of eternity. One has lived in death. Shadows +have passed by. What were they? + +One has beheld hands on which there was blood; there was a deafening +horror; there was also a frightful silence; there were open mouths which +shouted, and other open mouths which held their peace; one was in the +midst of smoke, of night, perhaps. One fancied that one had touched the +sinister ooze of unknown depths; one stares at something red on one's +finger nails. One no longer remembers anything. + +Let us return to the Rue de la Chanvrerie. + +All at once, between two discharges, the distant sound of a clock +striking the hour became audible. + +"It is midday," said Combeferre. + +The twelve strokes had not finished striking when Enjolras sprang to his +feet, and from the summit of the barricade hurled this thundering shout: + +"Carry stones up into the houses; line the windowsills and the +roofs with them. Half the men to their guns, the other half to the +paving-stones. There is not a minute to be lost." + +A squad of sappers and miners, axe on shoulder, had just made their +appearance in battle array at the end of the street. + +This could only be the head of a column; and of what column? The +attacking column, evidently; the sappers charged with the demolition of +the barricade must always precede the soldiers who are to scale it. + +They were, evidently, on the brink of that moment which M. +Clermont-Tonnerre, in 1822, called "the tug of war." + +Enjolras' order was executed with the correct haste which is peculiar +to ships and barricades, the only two scenes of combat where escape +is impossible. In less than a minute, two thirds of the stones which +Enjolras had had piled up at the door of Corinthe had been carried up to +the first floor and the attic, and before a second minute had elapsed, +these stones, artistically set one upon the other, walled up the +sash-window on the first floor and the windows in the roof to half their +height. A few loop-holes carefully planned by Feuilly, the principal +architect, allowed of the passage of the gun-barrels. This armament of +the windows could be effected all the more easily since the firing of +grape-shot had ceased. The two cannons were now discharging ball +against the centre of the barrier in order to make a hole there, and, if +possible, a breach for the assault. + +When the stones destined to the final defence were in place, Enjolras +had the bottles which he had set under the table where Mabeuf lay, +carried to the first floor. + +"Who is to drink that?" Bossuet asked him. + +"They," replied Enjolras. + +Then they barricaded the window below, and held in readiness the iron +cross-bars which served to secure the door of the wine-shop at night. + +The fortress was complete. The barricade was the rampart, the wine-shop +was the dungeon. With the stones which remained they stopped up the +outlet. + +As the defenders of a barricade are always obliged to be sparing of +their ammunition, and as the assailants know this, the assailants +combine their arrangements with a sort of irritating leisure, expose +themselves to fire prematurely, though in appearance more than in +reality, and take their ease. The preparations for attack are always +made with a certain methodical deliberation; after which, the lightning +strikes. + +This deliberation permitted Enjolras to take a review of everything and +to perfect everything. He felt that, since such men were to die, their +death ought to be a masterpiece. + +He said to Marius: "We are the two leaders. I will give the last orders +inside. Do you remain outside and observe." + +Marius posted himself on the lookout upon the crest of the barricade. + +Enjolras had the door of the kitchen, which was the ambulance, as the +reader will remember, nailed up. + +"No splashing of the wounded," he said. + +He issued his final orders in the tap-room in a curt, but profoundly +tranquil tone; Feuilly listened and replied in the name of all. + +"On the first floor, hold your axes in readiness to cut the staircase. +Have you them?" + +"Yes," said Feuilly. + +"How many?" + +"Two axes and a pole-axe." + +"That is good. There are now twenty-six combatants of us on foot. How +many guns are there?" + +"Thirty-four." + +"Eight too many. Keep those eight guns loaded like the rest and at +hand. Swords and pistols in your belts. Twenty men to the barricade. Six +ambushed in the attic windows, and at the window on the first floor to +fire on the assailants through the loop-holes in the stones. Let not a +single worker remain inactive here. Presently, when the drum beats the +assault, let the twenty below stairs rush to the barricade. The first to +arrive will have the best places." + +These arrangements made, he turned to Javert and said: + +"I am not forgetting you." + +And, laying a pistol on the table, he added: + +"The last man to leave this room will smash the skull of this spy." + +"Here?" inquired a voice. + +"No, let us not mix their corpses with our own. The little barricade of +the Mondetour lane can be scaled. It is only four feet high. The man is +well pinioned. He shall be taken thither and put to death." + +There was some one who was more impassive at that moment than Enjolras, +it was Javert. Here Jean Valjean made his appearance. + +He had been lost among the group of insurgents. He stepped forth and +said to Enjolras: + +"You are the commander?" + +"Yes." + +"You thanked me a while ago." + +"In the name of the Republic. The barricade has two saviors, Marius +Pontmercy and yourself." + +"Do you think that I deserve a recompense?" + +"Certainly." + +"Well, I request one." + +"What is it?" + +"That I may blow that man's brains out." + +Javert raised his head, saw Jean Valjean, made an almost imperceptible +movement, and said: + +"That is just." + +As for Enjolras, he had begun to re-load his rifle; he cut his eyes +about him: + +"No objections." + +And he turned to Jean Valjean: + +"Take the spy." + +Jean Valjean did, in fact, take possession of Javert, by seating +himself on the end of the table. He seized the pistol, and a faint click +announced that he had cocked it. + +Almost at the same moment, a blast of trumpets became audible. + +"Take care!" shouted Marius from the top of the barricade. + +Javert began to laugh with that noiseless laugh which was peculiar to +him, and gazing intently at the insurgents, he said to them: + +"You are in no better case than I am." + +"All out!" shouted Enjolras. + +The insurgents poured out tumultuously, and, as they went, received in +the back,--may we be permitted the expression,--this sally of Javert's: + +"We shall meet again shortly!" + + + + +CHAPTER XIX--JEAN VALJEAN TAKES HIS REVENGE + +When Jean Valjean was left alone with Javert, he untied the rope which +fastened the prisoner across the middle of the body, and the knot of +which was under the table. After this he made him a sign to rise. + +Javert obeyed with that indefinable smile in which the supremacy of +enchained authority is condensed. + +Jean Valjean took Javert by the martingale, as one would take a beast of +burden by the breast-band, and, dragging the latter after him, emerged +from the wine-shop slowly, because Javert, with his impeded limbs, could +take only very short steps. + +Jean Valjean had the pistol in his hand. + +In this manner they crossed the inner trapezium of the barricade. The +insurgents, all intent on the attack, which was imminent, had their +backs turned to these two. + +Marius alone, stationed on one side, at the extreme left of the +barricade, saw them pass. This group of victim and executioner was +illuminated by the sepulchral light which he bore in his own soul. + +Jean Valjean with some difficulty, but without relaxing his hold for +a single instant, made Javert, pinioned as he was, scale the little +entrenchment in the Mondetour lane. + +When they had crossed this barrier, they found themselves alone in the +lane. No one saw them. Among the heap they could distinguish a livid +face, streaming hair, a pierced hand and the half nude breast of a +woman. It was Eponine. The corner of the houses hid them from the +insurgents. The corpses carried away from the barricade formed a +terrible pile a few paces distant. + +Javert gazed askance at this body, and, profoundly calm, said in a low +tone: + +"It strikes me that I know that girl." + +Then he turned to Jean Valjean. + +Jean Valjean thrust the pistol under his arm and fixed on Javert a look +which it required no words to interpret: "Javert, it is I." + +Javert replied: + +"Take your revenge." + +Jean Valjean drew from his pocket a knife, and opened it. + +"A clasp-knife!" exclaimed Javert, "you are right. That suits you +better." + +Jean Valjean cut the martingale which Javert had about his neck, then he +cut the cords on his wrists, then, stooping down, he cut the cord on his +feet; and, straightening himself up, he said to him: + +"You are free." + +Javert was not easily astonished. Still, master of himself though +he was, he could not repress a start. He remained open-mouthed and +motionless. + +Jean Valjean continued: + +"I do not think that I shall escape from this place. But if, by chance, +I do, I live, under the name of Fauchelevent, in the Rue de l'Homme +Arme, No. 7." + +Javert snarled like a tiger, which made him half open one corner of his +mouth, and he muttered between his teeth: + +"Have a care." + +"Go," said Jean Valjean. + +Javert began again: + +"Thou saidst Fauchelevent, Rue de l'Homme Arme?" + +"Number 7." + +Javert repeated in a low voice:--"Number 7." + +He buttoned up his coat once more, resumed the military stiffness +between his shoulders, made a half turn, folded his arms and, supporting +his chin on one of his hands, he set out in the direction of the Halles. +Jean Valjean followed him with his eyes: + +A few minutes later, Javert turned round and shouted to Jean Valjean: + +"You annoy me. Kill me, rather." + +Javert himself did not notice that he no longer addressed Jean Valjean +as "thou." + +"Be off with you," said Jean Valjean. + +Javert retreated slowly. A moment later he turned the corner of the Rue +des Precheurs. + +When Javert had disappeared, Jean Valjean fired his pistol in the air. + +Then he returned to the barricade and said: + +"It is done." + +In the meanwhile, this is what had taken place. + +Marius, more intent on the outside than on the interior, had not, up to +that time, taken a good look at the pinioned spy in the dark background +of the tap-room. + +When he beheld him in broad daylight, striding over the barricade in +order to proceed to his death, he recognized him. Something suddenly +recurred to his mind. He recalled the inspector of the Rue de Pontoise, +and the two pistols which the latter had handed to him and which he, +Marius, had used in this very barricade, and not only did he recall his +face, but his name as well. + +This recollection was misty and troubled, however, like all his ideas. + +It was not an affirmation that he made, but a question which he put to +himself: + +"Is not that the inspector of police who told me that his name was +Javert?" + +Perhaps there was still time to intervene in behalf of that man. But, in +the first place, he must know whether this was Javert. + +Marius called to Enjolras, who had just stationed himself at the other +extremity of the barricade: + +"Enjolras!" + +"What?" + +"What is the name of yonder man?" + +"What man?" + +"The police agent. Do you know his name?" + +"Of course. He told us." + +"What is it?" + +"Javert." + +Marius sprang to his feet. + +At that moment, they heard the report of the pistol. + +Jean Valjean re-appeared and cried: "It is done." + +A gloomy chill traversed Marius' heart. + + + + +CHAPTER XX--THE DEAD ARE IN THE RIGHT AND THE LIVING ARE NOT IN THE +WRONG + +The death agony of the barricade was about to begin. + +Everything contributed to its tragic majesty at that supreme moment; a +thousand mysterious crashes in the air, the breath of armed masses set +in movement in the streets which were not visible, the intermittent +gallop of cavalry, the heavy shock of artillery on the march, the firing +by squads, and the cannonades crossing each other in the labyrinth +of Paris, the smokes of battle mounting all gilded above the roofs, +indescribable and vaguely terrible cries, lightnings of menace +everywhere, the tocsin of Saint-Merry, which now had the accents of a +sob, the mildness of the weather, the splendor of the sky filled with +sun and clouds, the beauty of the day, and the alarming silence of the +houses. + +For, since the preceding evening, the two rows of houses in the Rue +de la Chanvrerie had become two walls; ferocious walls, doors closed, +windows closed, shutters closed. + +In those days, so different from those in which we live, when the hour +was come, when the people wished to put an end to a situation, which had +lasted too long, with a charter granted or with a legal country, when +universal wrath was diffused in the atmosphere, when the city consented +to the tearing up of the pavements, when insurrection made the +bourgeoisie smile by whispering its password in its ear, then the +inhabitant, thoroughly penetrated with the revolt, so to speak, was +the auxiliary of the combatant, and the house fraternized with the +improvised fortress which rested on it. When the situation was not +ripe, when the insurrection was not decidedly admitted, when the masses +disowned the movement, all was over with the combatants, the city was +changed into a desert around the revolt, souls grew chilled, refuges +were nailed up, and the street turned into a defile to help the army to +take the barricade. + +A people cannot be forced, through surprise, to walk more quickly than +it chooses. Woe to whomsoever tries to force its hand! A people does not +let itself go at random. Then it abandons the insurrection to itself. +The insurgents become noxious, infected with the plague. A house is an +escarpment, a door is a refusal, a facade is a wall. This wall hears, +sees and will not. It might open and save you. No. This wall is a judge. +It gazes at you and condemns you. What dismal things are closed houses. +They seem dead, they are living. Life which is, as it were, suspended +there, persists there. No one has gone out of them for four and twenty +hours, but no one is missing from them. In the interior of that rock, +people go and come, go to bed and rise again; they are a family party +there; there they eat and drink; they are afraid, a terrible thing! Fear +excuses this fearful lack of hospitality; terror is mixed with it, an +extenuating circumstance. Sometimes, even, and this has been actually +seen, fear turns to passion; fright may change into fury, as prudence +does into rage; hence this wise saying: "The enraged moderates." There +are outbursts of supreme terror, whence springs wrath like a mournful +smoke.--"What do these people want? What have they come there to do? +Let them get out of the scrape. So much the worse for them. It is their +fault. They are only getting what they deserve. It does not concern +us. Here is our poor street all riddled with balls. They are a pack of +rascals. Above all things, don't open the door."--And the house assumes +the air of a tomb. The insurgent is in the death-throes in front of +that house; he sees the grape-shot and naked swords drawing near; if +he cries, he knows that they are listening to him, and that no one will +come; there stand walls which might protect him, there are men who might +save him; and these walls have ears of flesh, and these men have bowels +of stone. + +Whom shall he reproach? + +No one and every one. + +The incomplete times in which we live. + +It is always at its own risk and peril that Utopia is converted into +revolution, and from philosophical protest becomes an armed protest, and +from Minerva turns to Pallas. + +The Utopia which grows impatient and becomes revolt knows what awaits +it; it almost always comes too soon. Then it becomes resigned, and +stoically accepts catastrophe in lieu of triumph. It serves those who +deny it without complaint, even excusing them, and even disculpates +them, and its magnanimity consists in consenting to abandonment. It is +indomitable in the face of obstacles and gentle towards ingratitude. + +Is this ingratitude, however? + +Yes, from the point of view of the human race. + +No, from the point of view of the individual. + +Progress is man's mode of existence. The general life of the human race +is called Progress, the collective stride of the human race is called +Progress. Progress advances; it makes the great human and terrestrial +journey towards the celestial and the divine; it has its halting +places where it rallies the laggard troop, it has its stations where it +meditates, in the presence of some splendid Canaan suddenly unveiled +on its horizon, it has its nights when it sleeps; and it is one of the +poignant anxieties of the thinker that he sees the shadow resting on the +human soul, and that he gropes in darkness without being able to awaken +that slumbering Progress. + +"God is dead, perhaps," said Gerard de Nerval one day to the writer of +these lines, confounding progress with God, and taking the interruption +of movement for the death of Being. + +He who despairs is in the wrong. Progress infallibly awakes, and, in +short, we may say that it marches on, even when it is asleep, for it has +increased in size. When we behold it erect once more, we find it taller. +To be always peaceful does not depend on progress any more than it does +on the stream; erect no barriers, cast in no boulders; obstacles make +water froth and humanity boil. Hence arise troubles; but after these +troubles, we recognize the fact that ground has been gained. Until +order, which is nothing else than universal peace, has been established, +until harmony and unity reign, progress will have revolutions as its +halting-places. + +What, then, is progress? We have just enunciated it; the permanent life +of the peoples. + +Now, it sometimes happens, that the momentary life of individuals offers +resistance to the eternal life of the human race. + +Let us admit without bitterness, that the individual has his distinct +interests, and can, without forfeiture, stipulate for his interest, and +defend it; the present has its pardonable dose of egotism; momentary +life has its rights, and is not bound to sacrifice itself constantly to +the future. The generation which is passing in its turn over the earth, +is not forced to abridge it for the sake of the generations, its equal, +after all, who will have their turn later on.--"I exist," murmurs that +some one whose name is All. "I am young and in love, I am old and I +wish to repose, I am the father of a family, I toil, I prosper, I am +successful in business, I have houses to lease, I have money in the +government funds, I am happy, I have a wife and children, I have all +this, I desire to live, leave me in peace."--Hence, at certain hours, a +profound cold broods over the magnanimous vanguard of the human race. + +Utopia, moreover, we must admit, quits its radiant sphere when it makes +war. It, the truth of to-morrow, borrows its mode of procedure, battle, +from the lie of yesterday. It, the future, behaves like the past. It, +pure idea, becomes a deed of violence. It complicates its heroism with +a violence for which it is just that it should be held to answer; a +violence of occasion and expedient, contrary to principle, and for which +it is fatally punished. The Utopia, insurrection, fights with the old +military code in its fist; it shoots spies, it executes traitors; it +suppresses living beings and flings them into unknown darkness. It makes +use of death, a serious matter. It seems as though Utopia had no longer +any faith in radiance, its irresistible and incorruptible force. It +strikes with the sword. Now, no sword is simple. Every blade has two +edges; he who wounds with the one is wounded with the other. + +Having made this reservation, and made it with all severity, it is +impossible for us not to admire, whether they succeed or not, those the +glorious combatants of the future, the confessors of Utopia. Even when +they miscarry, they are worthy of veneration; and it is, perhaps, in +failure, that they possess the most majesty. Victory, when it is in +accord with progress, merits the applause of the people; but a heroic +defeat merits their tender compassion. The one is magnificent, the other +sublime. For our own part, we prefer martyrdom to success. John Brown is +greater than Washington, and Pisacane is greater than Garibaldi. + +It certainly is necessary that some one should take the part of the +vanquished. + +We are unjust towards these great men who attempt the future, when they +fail. + +Revolutionists are accused of sowing fear abroad. Every barricade seems +a crime. Their theories are incriminated, their aim suspected, their +ulterior motive is feared, their conscience denounced. They are +reproached with raising, erecting, and heaping up, against the reigning +social state, a mass of miseries, of griefs, of iniquities, of wrongs, +of despairs, and of tearing from the lowest depths blocks of shadow +in order therein to embattle themselves and to combat. People shout +to them: "You are tearing up the pavements of hell!" They might reply: +"That is because our barricade is made of good intentions." + +The best thing, assuredly, is the pacific solution. In short, let us +agree that when we behold the pavement, we think of the bear, and it is +a good will which renders society uneasy. But it depends on society +to save itself, it is to its own good will that we make our appeal. +No violent remedy is necessary. To study evil amiably, to prove its +existence, then to cure it. It is to this that we invite it. + +However that may be, even when fallen, above all when fallen, these men, +who at every point of the universe, with their eyes fixed on France, are +striving for the grand work with the inflexible logic of the ideal, +are august; they give their life a free offering to progress; they +accomplish the will of providence; they perform a religious act. At the +appointed hour, with as much disinterestedness as an actor who answers +to his cue, in obedience to the divine stage-manager, they enter the +tomb. And this hopeless combat, this stoical disappearance they accept +in order to bring about the supreme and universal consequences, the +magnificent and irresistibly human movement begun on the 14th of July, +1789; these soldiers are priests. The French revolution is an act of +God. + +Moreover, there are, and it is proper to add this distinction to the +distinctions already pointed out in another chapter,--there are accepted +revolutions, revolutions which are called revolutions; there are refused +revolutions, which are called riots. + +An insurrection which breaks out, is an idea which is passing its +examination before the people. If the people lets fall a black ball, the +idea is dried fruit; the insurrection is a mere skirmish. + +Waging war at every summons and every time that Utopia desires it, is +not the thing for the peoples. Nations have not always and at every hour +the temperament of heroes and martyrs. + +They are positive. A priori, insurrection is repugnant to them, in the +first place, because it often results in a catastrophe, in the second +place, because it always has an abstraction as its point of departure. + +Because, and this is a noble thing, it is always for the ideal, and for +the ideal alone, that those who sacrifice themselves do thus sacrifice +themselves. An insurrection is an enthusiasm. Enthusiasm may wax wroth; +hence the appeal to arms. But every insurrection, which aims at a +government or a regime, aims higher. Thus, for instance, and we +insist upon it, what the chiefs of the insurrection of 1832, and, in +particular, the young enthusiasts of the Rue de la Chanvrerie were +combating, was not precisely Louis Philippe. The majority of them, +when talking freely, did justice to this king who stood midway between +monarchy and revolution; no one hated him. But they attacked the younger +branch of the divine right in Louis Philippe as they had attacked its +elder branch in Charles X.; and that which they wished to overturn in +overturning royalty in France, was, as we have explained, the usurpation +of man over man, and of privilege over right in the entire universe. +Paris without a king has as result the world without despots. This is +the manner in which they reasoned. Their aim was distant no doubt, +vague perhaps, and it retreated in the face of their efforts; but it was +great. + +Thus it is. And we sacrifice ourselves for these visions, which are +almost always illusions for the sacrificed, but illusions with which, +after all, the whole of human certainty is mingled. We throw ourselves +into these tragic affairs and become intoxicated with that which we are +about to do. Who knows? We may succeed. We are few in number, we have a +whole army arrayed against us; but we are defending right, the natural +law, the sovereignty of each one over himself from which no abdication +is possible, justice and truth, and in case of need, we die like the +three hundred Spartans. We do not think of Don Quixote but of Leonidas. +And we march straight before us, and once pledged, we do not draw +back, and we rush onwards with head held low, cherishing as our hope an +unprecedented victory, revolution completed, progress set free again, +the aggrandizement of the human race, universal deliverance; and in the +event of the worst, Thermopylae. + +These passages of arms for the sake of progress often suffer shipwreck, +and we have just explained why. The crowd is restive in the presence of +the impulses of paladins. Heavy masses, the multitudes which are fragile +because of their very weight, fear adventures; and there is a touch of +adventure in the ideal. + +Moreover, and we must not forget this, interests which are not very +friendly to the ideal and the sentimental are in the way. Sometimes the +stomach paralyzes the heart. + +The grandeur and beauty of France lies in this, that she takes less from +the stomach than other nations: she more easily knots the rope about her +loins. She is the first awake, the last asleep. She marches forwards. +She is a seeker. + +This arises from the fact that she is an artist. + +The ideal is nothing but the culminating point of logic, the same as the +beautiful is nothing but the summit of the true. Artistic peoples are +also consistent peoples. To love beauty is to see the light. That is why +the torch of Europe, that is to say of civilization, was first borne by +Greece, who passed it on to Italy, who handed it on to France. Divine, +illuminating nations of scouts! Vitaelampada tradunt. + +It is an admirable thing that the poetry of a people is the element of +its progress. The amount of civilization is measured by the quantity +of imagination. Only, a civilizing people should remain a manly people. +Corinth, yes; Sybaris, no. Whoever becomes effeminate makes himself a +bastard. He must be neither a dilettante nor a virtuoso: but he must be +artistic. In the matter of civilization, he must not refine, but he must +sublime. On this condition, one gives to the human race the pattern of +the ideal. + +The modern ideal has its type in art, and its means is science. It is +through science that it will realize that august vision of the poets, +the socially beautiful. Eden will be reconstructed by A+B. At the point +which civilization has now reached, the exact is a necessary element +of the splendid, and the artistic sentiment is not only served, but +completed by the scientific organ; dreams must be calculated. Art, which +is the conqueror, should have for support science, which is the walker; +the solidity of the creature which is ridden is of importance. The +modern spirit is the genius of Greece with the genius of India as its +vehicle; Alexander on the elephant. + +Races which are petrified in dogma or demoralized by lucre are unfit to +guide civilization. Genuflection before the idol or before money wastes +away the muscles which walk and the will which advances. Hieratic or +mercantile absorption lessens a people's power of radiance, lowers its +horizon by lowering its level, and deprives it of that intelligence, +at once both human and divine of the universal goal, which makes +missionaries of nations. Babylon has no ideal; Carthage has no ideal. +Athens and Rome have and keep, throughout all the nocturnal darkness of +the centuries, halos of civilization. + +France is in the same quality of race as Greece and Italy. She is +Athenian in the matter of beauty, and Roman in her greatness. Moreover, +she is good. She gives herself. Oftener than is the case with other +races, is she in the humor for self-devotion and sacrifice. Only, this +humor seizes upon her, and again abandons her. And therein lies the +great peril for those who run when she desires only to walk, or who walk +on when she desires to halt. France has her relapses into materialism, +and, at certain instants, the ideas which obstruct that sublime brain +have no longer anything which recalls French greatness and are of the +dimensions of a Missouri or a South Carolina. What is to be done in +such a case? The giantess plays at being a dwarf; immense France has her +freaks of pettiness. That is all. + +To this there is nothing to say. Peoples, like planets, possess the +right to an eclipse. And all is well, provided that the light +returns and that the eclipse does not degenerate into night. Dawn and +resurrection are synonymous. The reappearance of the light is identical +with the persistence of the _I_. + +Let us state these facts calmly. Death on the barricade or the tomb in +exile, is an acceptable occasion for devotion. The real name of +devotion is disinterestedness. Let the abandoned allow themselves to +be abandoned, let the exiled allow themselves to be exiled, and let us +confine ourselves to entreating great nations not to retreat too far, +when they do retreat. One must not push too far in descent under pretext +of a return to reason. + +Matter exists, the minute exists, interest exists, the stomach exists; +but the stomach must not be the sole wisdom. The life of the moment has +its rights, we admit, but permanent life has its rights also. Alas! the +fact that one is mounted does not preclude a fall. This can be seen in +history more frequently than is desirable: A nation is great, it tastes +the ideal, then it bites the mire, and finds it good; and if it be asked +how it happens that it has abandoned Socrates for Falstaff, it replies: +"Because I love statesmen." + +One word more before returning to our subject, the conflict. + +A battle like the one which we are engaged in describing is nothing else +than a convulsion towards the ideal. Progress trammelled is sickly, and +is subject to these tragic epilepsies. With that malady of progress, +civil war, we have been obliged to come in contact in our passage. This +is one of the fatal phases, at once act and entr'acte of that drama +whose pivot is a social condemnation, and whose veritable title is +Progress. + +Progress! + +The cry to which we frequently give utterance is our whole thought; and, +at the point of this drama which we have now reached, the idea which it +contains having still more than one trial to undergo, it is, perhaps, +permitted to us, if not to lift the veil from it, to at least allow its +light to shine through. + +The book which the reader has under his eye at this moment is, from +one end to the other, as a whole and in detail, whatever may be its +intermittences, exceptions and faults, the march from evil to good, from +the unjust to the just, from night to day, from appetite to conscience, +from rottenness to life, from hell to heaven, from nothingness to God. +Point of departure: matter; point of arrival: the soul. The hydra at the +beginning, the angel at the end. + + + + +CHAPTER XXI--THE HEROES + +All at once, the drum beat the charge. + +The attack was a hurricane. On the evening before, in the darkness, +the barricade had been approached silently, as by a boa. Now, in broad +daylight, in that widening street, surprise was decidedly impossible, +rude force had, moreover, been unmasked, the cannon had begun the +roar, the army hurled itself on the barricade. Fury now became skill. +A powerful detachment of infantry of the line, broken at regular +intervals, by the National Guard and the Municipal Guard on foot, +and supported by serried masses which could be heard though not seen, +debauched into the street at a run, with drums beating, trumpets +braying, bayonets levelled, the sappers at their head, and, +imperturbable under the projectiles, charged straight for the barricade +with the weight of a brazen beam against a wall. + +The wall held firm. + +The insurgents fired impetuously. The barricade once scaled had a mane +of lightning flashes. The assault was so furious, that for one moment, +it was inundated with assailants; but it shook off the soldiers as the +lion shakes off the dogs, and it was only covered with besiegers as +the cliff is covered with foam, to re-appear, a moment later, beetling, +black and formidable. + +The column, forced to retreat, remained massed in the street, +unprotected but terrible, and replied to the redoubt with a terrible +discharge of musketry. Any one who has seen fireworks will recall the +sheaf formed of interlacing lightnings which is called a bouquet. Let +the reader picture to himself this bouquet, no longer vertical but +horizontal, bearing a bullet, buck-shot or a biscaien at the tip of each +one of its jets of flame, and picking off dead men one after another +from its clusters of lightning. The barricade was underneath it. + +On both sides, the resolution was equal. The bravery exhibited there +was almost barbarous and was complicated with a sort of heroic ferocity +which began by the sacrifice of self. + +This was the epoch when a National Guardsman fought like a Zouave. +The troop wished to make an end of it, insurrection was desirous of +fighting. The acceptance of the death agony in the flower of youth and +in the flush of health turns intrepidity into frenzy. In this fray, each +one underwent the broadening growth of the death hour. The street was +strewn with corpses. + +The barricade had Enjolras at one of its extremities and Marius at the +other. Enjolras, who carried the whole barricade in his head, reserved +and sheltered himself; three soldiers fell, one after the other, under +his embrasure, without having even seen him; Marius fought unprotected. +He made himself a target. He stood with more than half his body above +the breastworks. There is no more violent prodigal than the avaricious +man who takes the bit in his teeth; there is no man more terrible in +action than a dreamer. Marius was formidable and pensive. In battle he +was as in a dream. One would have pronounced him a phantom engaged in +firing a gun. + +The insurgents' cartridges were giving out; but not their sarcasms. In +this whirlwind of the sepulchre in which they stood, they laughed. + +Courfeyrac was bare-headed. + +"What have you done with your hat?" Bossuet asked him. + +Courfeyrac replied: + +"They have finally taken it away from me with cannon-balls." + +Or they uttered haughty comments. + +"Can any one understand," exclaimed Feuilly bitterly, "those men,--[and +he cited names, well-known names, even celebrated names, some belonging +to the old army]--who had promised to join us, and taken an oath to aid +us, and who had pledged their honor to it, and who are our generals, and +who abandon us!" + +And Combeferre restricted himself to replying with a grave smile. + +"There are people who observe the rules of honor as one observes the +stars, from a great distance." + +The interior of the barricade was so strewn with torn cartridges that +one would have said that there had been a snowstorm. + +The assailants had numbers in their favor; the insurgents had position. +They were at the top of a wall, and they thundered point-blank upon +the soldiers tripping over the dead and wounded and entangled in +the escarpment. This barricade, constructed as it was and admirably +buttressed, was really one of those situations where a handful of men +hold a legion in check. Nevertheless, the attacking column, constantly +recruited and enlarged under the shower of bullets, drew inexorably +nearer, and now, little by little, step by step, but surely, the army +closed in around the barricade as the vice grasps the wine-press. + +One assault followed another. The horror of the situation kept +increasing. + +Then there burst forth on that heap of paving-stones, in that Rue de la +Chanvrerie, a battle worthy of a wall of Troy. These haggard, ragged, +exhausted men, who had had nothing to eat for four and twenty hours, who +had not slept, who had but a few more rounds to fire, who were fumbling +in their pockets which had been emptied of cartridges, nearly all +of whom were wounded, with head or arm bandaged with black and +blood-stained linen, with holes in their clothes from which the blood +trickled, and who were hardly armed with poor guns and notched swords, +became Titans. The barricade was ten times attacked, approached, +assailed, scaled, and never captured. + +In order to form an idea of this struggle, it is necessary to imagine +fire set to a throng of terrible courages, and then to gaze at the +conflagration. It was not a combat, it was the interior of a furnace; +there mouths breathed the flame; there countenances were extraordinary. +The human form seemed impossible there, the combatants flamed forth +there, and it was formidable to behold the going and coming in that red +glow of those salamanders of the fray. + +The successive and simultaneous scenes of this grand slaughter we +renounce all attempts at depicting. The epic alone has the right to fill +twelve thousand verses with a battle. + +One would have pronounced this that hell of Brahmanism, the most +redoubtable of the seventeen abysses, which the Veda calls the Forest of +Swords. + +They fought hand to hand, foot to foot, with pistol shots, with blows of +the sword, with their fists, at a distance, close at hand, from above, +from below, from everywhere, from the roofs of the houses, from the +windows of the wine-shop, from the cellar windows, whither some had +crawled. They were one against sixty. + +The facade of Corinthe, half demolished, was hideous. The window, +tattooed with grape-shot, had lost glass and frame and was nothing now +but a shapeless hole, tumultuously blocked with paving-stones. + +Bossuet was killed; Feuilly was killed; Courfeyrac was killed; +Combeferre, transfixed by three blows from a bayonet in the breast at +the moment when he was lifting up a wounded soldier, had only time to +cast a glance to heaven when he expired. + +Marius, still fighting, was so riddled with wounds, particularly in the +head, that his countenance disappeared beneath the blood, and one would +have said that his face was covered with a red kerchief. + +Enjolras alone was not struck. When he had no longer any weapon, he +reached out his hands to right and left and an insurgent thrust some arm +or other into his fist. All he had left was the stumps of four swords; +one more than Francois I. at Marignan. Homer says: "Diomedes cuts +the throat of Axylus, son of Teuthranis, who dwelt in happy Arisba; +Euryalus, son of Mecistaeus, exterminates Dresos and Opheltios, +Esepius, and that Pedasus whom the naiad Abarbarea bore to the blameless +Bucolion; Ulysses overthrows Pidytes of Percosius; Antilochus, Ablerus; +Polypaetes, Astyalus; Polydamas, Otos, of Cyllene; and Teucer, Aretaon. +Meganthios dies under the blows of Euripylus' pike. Agamemnon, king +of the heroes, flings to earth Elatos, born in the rocky city which +is laved by the sounding river Satnois." In our old poems of exploits, +Esplandian attacks the giant marquis Swantibore with a cobbler's +shoulder-stick of fire, and the latter defends himself by stoning the +hero with towers which he plucks up by the roots. Our ancient mural +frescoes show us the two Dukes of Bretagne and Bourbon, armed, +emblazoned and crested in war-like guise, on horseback and approaching +each other, their battle-axes in hand, masked with iron, gloved with +iron, booted with iron, the one caparisoned in ermine, the other draped +in azure: Bretagne with his lion between the two horns of his crown, +Bourbon helmeted with a monster fleur de lys on his visor. But, in order +to be superb, it is not necessary to wear, like Yvon, the ducal morion, +to have in the fist, like Esplandian, a living flame, or, like Phyles, +father of Polydamas, to have brought back from Ephyra a good suit of +mail, a present from the king of men, Euphetes; it suffices to give +one's life for a conviction or a loyalty. This ingenuous little +soldier, yesterday a peasant of Bauce or Limousin, who prowls with his +clasp-knife by his side, around the children's nurses in the Luxembourg +garden, this pale young student bent over a piece of anatomy or a book, +a blond youth who shaves his beard with scissors,--take both of them, +breathe upon them with a breath of duty, place them face to face in the +Carrefour Boucherat or in the blind alley Planche-Mibray, and let the +one fight for his flag, and the other for his ideal, and let both of +them imagine that they are fighting for their country; the struggle will +be colossal; and the shadow which this raw recruit and this sawbones +in conflict will produce in that grand epic field where humanity +is striving, will equal the shadow cast by Megaryon, King of Lycia, +tiger-filled, crushing in his embrace the immense body of Ajax, equal to +the gods. + + + + +CHAPTER XXII--FOOT TO FOOT + +When there were no longer any of the leaders left alive, except Enjolras +and Marius at the two extremities of the barricade, the centre, which +had so long sustained Courfeyrac, Joly, Bossuet, Feuilly and Combeferre, +gave way. The cannon, though it had not effected a practicable breach, +had made a rather large hollow in the middle of the redoubt; there, the +summit of the wall had disappeared before the balls, and had crumbled +away; and the rubbish which had fallen, now inside, now outside, had, +as it accumulated, formed two piles in the nature of slopes on the two +sides of the barrier, one on the inside, the other on the outside. The +exterior slope presented an inclined plane to the attack. + +A final assault was there attempted, and this assault succeeded. The +mass bristling with bayonets and hurled forward at a run, came up with +irresistible force, and the serried front of battle of the attacking +column made its appearance through the smoke on the crest of the +battlements. This time, it was decisive. The group of insurgents who +were defending the centre retreated in confusion. + +Then the gloomy love of life awoke once more in some of them. Many, +finding themselves under the muzzles of this forest of guns, did not +wish to die. This is a moment when the instinct of self-preservation +emits howls, when the beast re-appears in men. They were hemmed in by +the lofty, six-story house which formed the background of their redoubt. +This house might prove their salvation. The building was barricaded, and +walled, as it were, from top to bottom. Before the troops of the line +had reached the interior of the redoubt, there was time for a door to +open and shut, the space of a flash of lightning was sufficient for +that, and the door of that house, suddenly opened a crack and closed +again instantly, was life for these despairing men. Behind this house, +there were streets, possible flight, space. They set to knocking at that +door with the butts of their guns, and with kicks, shouting, calling, +entreating, wringing their hands. No one opened. From the little window +on the third floor, the head of the dead man gazed down upon them. + +But Enjolras and Marius, and the seven or eight rallied about them, +sprang forward and protected them. Enjolras had shouted to the soldiers: +"Don't advance!" and as an officer had not obeyed, Enjolras had killed +the officer. He was now in the little inner court of the redoubt, with +his back planted against the Corinthe building, a sword in one hand, +a rifle in the other, holding open the door of the wine-shop which he +barred against assailants. He shouted to the desperate men:--"There is +but one door open; this one."--And shielding them with his body, and +facing an entire battalion alone, he made them pass in behind him. All +precipitated themselves thither. Enjolras, executing with his rifle, +which he now used like a cane, what single-stick players call a "covered +rose" round his head, levelled the bayonets around and in front of him, +and was the last to enter; and then ensued a horrible moment, when the +soldiers tried to make their way in, and the insurgents strove to bar +them out. The door was slammed with such violence, that, as it fell back +into its frame, it showed the five fingers of a soldier who had been +clinging to it, cut off and glued to the post. + +Marius remained outside. A shot had just broken his collar bone, he +felt that he was fainting and falling. At that moment, with eyes already +shut, he felt the shock of a vigorous hand seizing him, and the swoon +in which his senses vanished, hardly allowed him time for the thought, +mingled with a last memory of Cosette:--"I am taken prisoner. I shall be +shot." + +Enjolras, not seeing Marius among those who had taken refuge in the +wine-shop, had the same idea. But they had reached a moment when each +man has not the time to meditate on his own death. Enjolras fixed the +bar across the door, and bolted it, and double-locked it with key and +chain, while those outside were battering furiously at it, the soldiers +with the butts of their muskets, the sappers with their axes. The +assailants were grouped about that door. The siege of the wine-shop was +now beginning. + +The soldiers, we will observe, were full of wrath. + +The death of the artillery-sergeant had enraged them, and then, a still +more melancholy circumstance. During the few hours which had preceded +the attack, it had been reported among them that the insurgents were +mutilating their prisoners, and that there was the headless body of +a soldier in the wine-shop. This sort of fatal rumor is the usual +accompaniment of civil wars, and it was a false report of this kind +which, later on, produced the catastrophe of the Rue Transnonain. + +When the door was barricaded, Enjolras said to the others: + +"Let us sell our lives dearly." + +Then he approached the table on which lay Mabeuf and Gavroche. Beneath +the black cloth two straight and rigid forms were visible, one large, +the other small, and the two faces were vaguely outlined beneath the +cold folds of the shroud. A hand projected from beneath the winding +sheet and hung near the floor. It was that of the old man. + +Enjolras bent down and kissed that venerable hand, just as he had kissed +his brow on the preceding evening. + +These were the only two kisses which he had bestowed in the course of +his life. + +Let us abridge the tale. The barricade had fought like a gate of Thebes; +the wine-shop fought like a house of Saragossa. These resistances are +dogged. No quarter. No flag of truce possible. Men are willing to die, +provided their opponent will kill them. + +When Suchet says:--"Capitulate,"--Palafox replies: "After the war with +cannon, the war with knives." Nothing was lacking in the capture by +assault of the Hucheloup wine-shop; neither paving-stones raining from +the windows and the roof on the besiegers and exasperating the soldiers +by crushing them horribly, nor shots fired from the attic-windows and +the cellar, nor the fury of attack, nor, finally, when the door yielded, +the frenzied madness of extermination. The assailants, rushing into the +wine-shop, their feet entangled in the panels of the door which had been +beaten in and flung on the ground, found not a single combatant there. +The spiral staircase, hewn asunder with the axe, lay in the middle of +the tap-room, a few wounded men were just breathing their last, every +one who was not killed was on the first floor, and from there, through +the hole in the ceiling, which had formed the entrance of the stairs, +a terrific fire burst forth. It was the last of their cartridges. When +they were exhausted, when these formidable men on the point of death had +no longer either powder or ball, each grasped in his hands two of the +bottles which Enjolras had reserved, and of which we have spoken, and +held the scaling party in check with these frightfully fragile clubs. +They were bottles of aquafortis. + +We relate these gloomy incidents of carnage as they occurred. The +besieged man, alas! converts everything into a weapon. Greek fire did +not disgrace Archimedes, boiling pitch did not disgrace Bayard. All war +is a thing of terror, and there is no choice in it. The musketry of the +besiegers, though confined and embarrassed by being directed from below +upwards, was deadly. The rim of the hole in the ceiling was speedily +surrounded by heads of the slain, whence dripped long, red and smoking +streams, the uproar was indescribable; a close and burning smoke almost +produced night over this combat. Words are lacking to express horror +when it has reached this pitch. There were no longer men in this +conflict, which was now infernal. They were no longer giants matched +with colossi. It resembled Milton and Dante rather than Homer. Demons +attacked, spectres resisted. + +It was heroism become monstrous. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIII--ORESTES FASTING AND PYLADES DRUNK + +At length, by dint of mounting on each other's backs, aiding themselves +with the skeleton of the staircase, climbing up the walls, clinging to +the ceiling, slashing away at the very brink of the trap-door, the last +one who offered resistance, a score of assailants, soldiers, National +Guardsmen, municipal guardsmen, in utter confusion, the majority +disfigured by wounds in the face during that redoubtable ascent, blinded +by blood, furious, rendered savage, made an irruption into the apartment +on the first floor. There they found only one man still on his feet, +Enjolras. Without cartridges, without sword, he had nothing in his hand +now but the barrel of his gun whose stock he had broken over the head +of those who were entering. He had placed the billiard table between his +assailants and himself; he had retreated into the corner of the room, +and there, with haughty eye, and head borne high, with this stump of a +weapon in his hand, he was still so alarming as to speedily create an +empty space around him. A cry arose: + +"He is the leader! It was he who slew the artillery-man. It is well that +he has placed himself there. Let him remain there. Let us shoot him down +on the spot." + +"Shoot me," said Enjolras. + +And flinging away his bit of gun-barrel, and folding his arms, he +offered his breast. + +The audacity of a fine death always affects men. As soon as Enjolras +folded his arms and accepted his end, the din of strife ceased in +the room, and this chaos suddenly stilled into a sort of sepulchral +solemnity. The menacing majesty of Enjolras disarmed and motionless, +appeared to oppress this tumult, and this young man, haughty, bloody, +and charming, who alone had not a wound, who was as indifferent as an +invulnerable being, seemed, by the authority of his tranquil glance, to +constrain this sinister rabble to kill him respectfully. His beauty, at +that moment augmented by his pride, was resplendent, and he was fresh +and rosy after the fearful four and twenty hours which had just elapsed, +as though he could no more be fatigued than wounded. It was of him, +possibly, that a witness spoke afterwards, before the council of +war: "There was an insurgent whom I heard called Apollo." A National +Guardsman who had taken aim at Enjolras, lowered his gun, saying: "It +seems to me that I am about to shoot a flower." + +Twelve men formed into a squad in the corner opposite Enjolras, and +silently made ready their guns. + +Then a sergeant shouted: + +"Take aim!" + +An officer intervened. + +"Wait." + +And addressing Enjolras: + +"Do you wish to have your eyes bandaged?" + +"No." + +"Was it you who killed the artillery sergeant?" + +"Yes." + +Grantaire had waked up a few moments before. + +Grantaire, it will be remembered, had been asleep ever since the +preceding evening in the upper room of the wine-shop, seated on a chair +and leaning on the table. + +He realized in its fullest sense the old metaphor of "dead drunk." The +hideous potion of absinthe-porter and alcohol had thrown him into a +lethargy. His table being small, and not suitable for the barricade, +he had been left in possession of it. He was still in the same posture, +with his breast bent over the table, his head lying flat on his arms, +surrounded by glasses, beer-jugs and bottles. His was the overwhelming +slumber of the torpid bear and the satiated leech. Nothing had had any +effect upon it, neither the fusillade, nor the cannon-balls, nor the +grape-shot which had made its way through the window into the room where +he was. Nor the tremendous uproar of the assault. He merely replied to +the cannonade, now and then, by a snore. He seemed to be waiting there +for a bullet which should spare him the trouble of waking. Many corpses +were strewn around him; and, at the first glance, there was nothing to +distinguish him from those profound sleepers of death. + +Noise does not rouse a drunken man; silence awakens him. The fall +of everything around him only augmented Grantaire's prostration; the +crumbling of all things was his lullaby. The sort of halt which the +tumult underwent in the presence of Enjolras was a shock to this heavy +slumber. It had the effect of a carriage going at full speed, which +suddenly comes to a dead stop. The persons dozing within it wake up. +Grantaire rose to his feet with a start, stretched out his arms, rubbed +his eyes, stared, yawned, and understood. + +A fit of drunkenness reaching its end resembles a curtain which is torn +away. One beholds, at a single glance and as a whole, all that it has +concealed. All suddenly presents itself to the memory; and the drunkard +who has known nothing of what has been taking place during the last +twenty-four hours, has no sooner opened his eyes than he is perfectly +informed. Ideas recur to him with abrupt lucidity; the obliteration +of intoxication, a sort of steam which has obscured the brain, is +dissipated, and makes way for the clear and sharply outlined importunity +of realities. + +Relegated, as he was, to one corner, and sheltered behind the +billiard-table, the soldiers whose eyes were fixed on Enjolras, had not +even noticed Grantaire, and the sergeant was preparing to repeat his +order: "Take aim!" when all at once, they heard a strong voice shout +beside them: + +"Long live the Republic! I'm one of them." + +Grantaire had risen. The immense gleam of the whole combat which he +had missed, and in which he had had no part, appeared in the brilliant +glance of the transfigured drunken man. + +He repeated: "Long live the Republic!" crossed the room with a firm +stride and placed himself in front of the guns beside Enjolras. + +"Finish both of us at one blow," said he. + +And turning gently to Enjolras, he said to him: + +"Do you permit it?" + +Enjolras pressed his hand with a smile. + +This smile was not ended when the report resounded. + +Enjolras, pierced by eight bullets, remained leaning against the wall, +as though the balls had nailed him there. Only, his head was bowed. + +Grantaire fell at his feet, as though struck by a thunderbolt. + +A few moments later, the soldiers dislodged the last remaining +insurgents, who had taken refuge at the top of the house. They fired +into the attic through a wooden lattice. They fought under the very +roof. They flung bodies, some of them still alive, out through the +windows. Two light-infantrymen, who tried to lift the shattered omnibus, +were slain by two shots fired from the attic. A man in a blouse was +flung down from it, with a bayonet wound in the abdomen, and breathed +his last on the ground. A soldier and an insurgent slipped together +on the sloping slates of the roof, and, as they would not release each +other, they fell, clasped in a ferocious embrace. A similar conflict +went on in the cellar. Shouts, shots, a fierce trampling. Then silence. +The barricade was captured. + +The soldiers began to search the houses round about, and to pursue the +fugitives. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIV--PRISONER + +Marius was, in fact, a prisoner. + +The hand which had seized him from behind and whose grasp he had felt +at the moment of his fall and his loss of consciousness was that of Jean +Valjean. + +Jean Valjean had taken no other part in the combat than to expose +himself in it. Had it not been for him, no one, in that supreme phase +of agony, would have thought of the wounded. Thanks to him, everywhere +present in the carnage, like a providence, those who fell were picked +up, transported to the tap-room, and cared for. In the intervals, he +reappeared on the barricade. But nothing which could resemble a blow, +an attack or even personal defence proceeded from his hands. He held his +peace and lent succor. Moreover he had received only a few scratches. +The bullets would have none of him. If suicide formed part of what he +had meditated on coming to this sepulchre, to that spot, he had +not succeeded. But we doubt whether he had thought of suicide, an +irreligious act. + +Jean Valjean, in the thick cloud of the combat, did not appear to see +Marius; the truth is, that he never took his eyes from the latter. When +a shot laid Marius low, Jean Valjean leaped forward with the agility of +a tiger, fell upon him as on his prey, and bore him off. + +The whirlwind of the attack was, at that moment, so violently +concentrated upon Enjolras and upon the door of the wine-shop, that +no one saw Jean Valjean sustaining the fainting Marius in his arms, +traverse the unpaved field of the barricade and disappear behind the +angle of the Corinthe building. + +The reader will recall this angle which formed a sort of cape on the +street; it afforded shelter from the bullets, the grape-shot, and all +eyes, and a few square feet of space. There is sometimes a chamber +which does not burn in the midst of a conflagration, and in the midst of +raging seas, beyond a promontory or at the extremity of a blind alley +of shoals, a tranquil nook. It was in this sort of fold in the interior +trapezium of the barricade, that Eponine had breathed her last. + +There Jean Valjean halted, let Marius slide to the ground, placed his +back against the wall, and cast his eyes about him. + +The situation was alarming. + +For an instant, for two or three perhaps, this bit of wall was a +shelter, but how was he to escape from this massacre? He recalled the +anguish which he had suffered in the Rue Polonceau eight years before, +and in what manner he had contrived to make his escape; it was difficult +then, to-day it was impossible. He had before him that deaf and +implacable house, six stories in height, which appeared to be inhabited +only by a dead man leaning out of his window; he had on his right the +rather low barricade, which shut off the Rue de la Petite Truanderie; +to pass this obstacle seemed easy, but beyond the crest of the barrier a +line of bayonets was visible. The troops of the line were posted on the +watch behind that barricade. It was evident, that to pass the barricade +was to go in quest of the fire of the platoon, and that any head which +should run the risk of lifting itself above the top of that wall of +stones would serve as a target for sixty shots. On his left he had the +field of battle. Death lurked round the corner of that wall. + +What was to be done? + +Only a bird could have extricated itself from this predicament. + +And it was necessary to decide on the instant, to devise some expedient, +to come to some decision. Fighting was going on a few paces away; +fortunately, all were raging around a single point, the door of the +wine-shop; but if it should occur to one soldier, to one single soldier, +to turn the corner of the house, or to attack him on the flank, all was +over. + +Jean Valjean gazed at the house facing him, he gazed at the barricade at +one side of him, then he looked at the ground, with the violence of the +last extremity, bewildered, and as though he would have liked to pierce +a hole there with his eyes. + +By dint of staring, something vaguely striking in such an agony began +to assume form and outline at his feet, as though it had been a power +of glance which made the thing desired unfold. A few paces distant he +perceived, at the base of the small barrier so pitilessly guarded and +watched on the exterior, beneath a disordered mass of paving-stones +which partly concealed it, an iron grating, placed flat and on a level +with the soil. This grating, made of stout, transverse bars, was about +two feet square. The frame of paving-stones which supported it had been +torn up, and it was, as it were, unfastened. + +Through the bars a view could be had of a dark aperture, something like +the flue of a chimney, or the pipe of a cistern. Jean Valjean darted +forward. His old art of escape rose to his brain like an illumination. +To thrust aside the stones, to raise the grating, to lift Marius, who +was as inert as a dead body, upon his shoulders, to descend, with this +burden on his loins, and with the aid of his elbows and knees into that +sort of well, fortunately not very deep, to let the heavy trap, upon +which the loosened stones rolled down afresh, fall into its place behind +him, to gain his footing on a flagged surface three metres below the +surface,--all this was executed like that which one does in dreams, with +the strength of a giant and the rapidity of an eagle; this took only a +few minutes. + +Jean Valjean found himself with Marius, who was still unconscious, in a +sort of long, subterranean corridor. + +There reigned profound peace, absolute silence, night. + +The impression which he had formerly experienced when falling from the +wall into the convent recurred to him. Only, what he was carrying to-day +was not Cosette; it was Marius. He could barely hear the formidable +tumult in the wine-shop, taken by assault, like a vague murmur overhead. + + + + +BOOK SECOND.--THE INTESTINE OF THE LEVIATHAN + + + + +CHAPTER I--THE LAND IMPOVERISHED BY THE SEA + +Paris casts twenty-five millions yearly into the water. And this without +metaphor. How, and in what manner? Day and night. With what object? With +no object. With what intention? With no intention. Why? For no +reason. By means of what organ? By means of its intestine. What is its +intestine? The sewer. + +Twenty-five millions is the most moderate approximative figure which the +valuations of special science have set upon it. + +Science, after having long groped about, now knows that the most +fecundating and the most efficacious of fertilizers is human manure. +The Chinese, let us confess it to our shame, knew it before us. Not +a Chinese peasant--it is Eckberg who says this,--goes to town without +bringing back with him, at the two extremities of his bamboo pole, two +full buckets of what we designate as filth. Thanks to human dung, the +earth in China is still as young as in the days of Abraham. Chinese +wheat yields a hundred fold of the seed. There is no guano comparable +in fertility with the detritus of a capital. A great city is the most +mighty of dung-makers. Certain success would attend the experiment +of employing the city to manure the plain. If our gold is manure, our +manure, on the other hand, is gold. + +What is done with this golden manure? It is swept into the abyss. + +Fleets of vessels are despatched, at great expense, to collect the dung +of petrels and penguins at the South Pole, and the incalculable element +of opulence which we have on hand, we send to the sea. All the human and +animal manure which the world wastes, restored to the land instead of +being cast into the water, would suffice to nourish the world. + +Those heaps of filth at the gate-posts, those tumbrils of mud which +jolt through the street by night, those terrible casks of the street +department, those fetid drippings of subterranean mire, which the +pavements hide from you,--do you know what they are? They are the meadow +in flower, the green grass, wild thyme, thyme and sage, they are game, +they are cattle, they are the satisfied bellows of great oxen in the +evening, they are perfumed hay, they are golden wheat, they are the +bread on your table, they are the warm blood in your veins, they are +health, they are joy, they are life. This is the will of that mysterious +creation which is transformation on earth and transfiguration in heaven. + +Restore this to the great crucible; your abundance will flow forth from +it. The nutrition of the plains furnishes the nourishment of men. + +You have it in your power to lose this wealth, and to consider me +ridiculous to boot. This will form the master-piece of your ignorance. + +Statisticians have calculated that France alone makes a deposit of +half a milliard every year, in the Atlantic, through the mouths of her +rivers. Note this: with five hundred millions we could pay one quarter +of the expenses of our budget. The cleverness of man is such that he +prefers to get rid of these five hundred millions in the gutter. It is +the very substance of the people that is carried off, here drop by +drop, there wave after wave, the wretched outpour of our sewers into the +rivers, and the gigantic collection of our rivers into the ocean. Every +hiccough of our sewers costs us a thousand francs. From this spring two +results, the land impoverished, and the water tainted. Hunger arising +from the furrow, and disease from the stream. + +It is notorious, for example, that at the present hour, the Thames is +poisoning London. + +So far as Paris is concerned, it has become indispensable of late, to +transport the mouths of the sewers down stream, below the last bridge. + +A double tubular apparatus, provided with valves and sluices, sucking up +and driving back, a system of elementary drainage, simple as the lungs +of a man, and which is already in full working order in many communities +in England, would suffice to conduct the pure water of the fields into +our cities, and to send back to the fields the rich water of the cities, +and this easy exchange, the simplest in the world, would retain among us +the five hundred millions now thrown away. People are thinking of other +things. + +The process actually in use does evil, with the intention of doing good. +The intention is good, the result is melancholy. Thinking to purge the +city, the population is blanched like plants raised in cellars. A sewer +is a mistake. When drainage, everywhere, with its double function, +restoring what it takes, shall have replaced the sewer, which is a +simple impoverishing washing, then, this being combined with the data +of a now social economy, the product of the earth will be increased +tenfold, and the problem of misery will be singularly lightened. Add the +suppression of parasitism, and it will be solved. + +In the meanwhile, the public wealth flows away to the river, and leakage +takes place. Leakage is the word. Europe is being ruined in this manner +by exhaustion. + +As for France, we have just cited its figures. Now, Paris contains one +twenty-fifth of the total population of France, and Parisian guano being +the richest of all, we understate the truth when we value the loss on +the part of Paris at twenty-five millions in the half milliard which +France annually rejects. These twenty-five millions, employed in +assistance and enjoyment, would double the splendor of Paris. The +city spends them in sewers. So that we may say that Paris's great +prodigality, its wonderful festival, its Beaujon folly, its orgy, its +stream of gold from full hands, its pomp, its luxury, its magnificence, +is its sewer system. + +It is in this manner that, in the blindness of a poor political economy, +we drown and allow to float down stream and to be lost in the gulfs the +well-being of all. There should be nets at Saint-Cloud for the public +fortune. + +Economically considered, the matter can be summed up thus: Paris is +a spendthrift. Paris, that model city, that patron of well-arranged +capitals, of which every nation strives to possess a copy, that +metropolis of the ideal, that august country of the initiative, of +impulse and of effort, that centre and that dwelling of minds, that +nation-city, that hive of the future, that marvellous combination of +Babylon and Corinth, would make a peasant of the Fo-Kian shrug his +shoulders, from the point of view which we have just indicated. + +Imitate Paris and you will ruin yourselves. + +Moreover, and particularly in this immemorial and senseless waste, Paris +is itself an imitator. + +These surprising exhibitions of stupidity are not novel; this is no +young folly. The ancients did like the moderns. "The sewers of Rome," +says Liebig, "have absorbed all the well-being of the Roman peasant." +When the Campagna of Rome was ruined by the Roman sewer, Rome exhausted +Italy, and when she had put Italy in her sewer, she poured in Sicily, +then Sardinia, then Africa. The sewer of Rome has engulfed the world. +This cess-pool offered its engulfment to the city and the universe. Urbi +et orbi. Eternal city, unfathomable sewer. + +Rome sets the example for these things as well as for others. + +Paris follows this example with all the stupidity peculiar to +intelligent towns. + +For the requirements of the operation upon the subject of which we have +just explained our views, Paris has beneath it another Paris; a Paris +of sewers; which has its streets, its cross-roads, its squares, its +blind-alleys, its arteries, and its circulation, which is of mire and +minus the human form. + +For nothing must be flattered, not even a great people; where there +is everything there is also ignominy by the side of sublimity; and, +if Paris contains Athens, the city of light, Tyre, the city of might, +Sparta, the city of virtue, Nineveh, the city of marvels, it also +contains Lutetia, the city of mud. + +However, the stamp of its power is there also, and the Titanic sink of +Paris realizes, among monuments, that strange ideal realized in humanity +by some men like Macchiavelli, Bacon and Mirabeau, grandiose vileness. + +The sub-soil of Paris, if the eye could penetrate its surface, would +present the aspect of a colossal madrepore. A sponge has no more +partitions and ducts than the mound of earth for a circuit of six +leagues round about, on which rests the great and ancient city. Not to +mention its catacombs, which are a separate cellar, not to mention +the inextricable trellis-work of gas pipes, without reckoning the vast +tubular system for the distribution of fresh water which ends in the +pillar fountains, the sewers alone form a tremendous, shadowy net-work +under the two banks; a labyrinth which has its slope for its guiding +thread. + +There appears, in the humid mist, the rat which seems the product to +which Paris has given birth. + + + + +CHAPTER II--ANCIENT HISTORY OF THE SEWER + +Let the reader imagine Paris lifted off like a cover, the subterranean +net-work of sewers, from a bird's eye view, will outline on the banks +a species of large branch grafted on the river. On the right bank, the +belt sewer will form the trunk of this branch, the secondary ducts will +form the branches, and those without exit the twigs. + +This figure is but a summary one and half exact, the right angle, which +is the customary angle of this species of subterranean ramifications, +being very rare in vegetation. + +A more accurate image of this strange geometrical plan can be formed +by supposing that one is viewing some eccentric oriental alphabet, +as intricate as a thicket, against a background of shadows, and the +misshapen letters should be welded one to another in apparent confusion, +and as at haphazard, now by their angles, again by their extremities. + +Sinks and sewers played a great part in the Middle Ages, in the Lower +Empire and in the Orient of old. The masses regarded these beds of +decomposition, these monstrous cradles of death, with a fear that was +almost religious. The vermin ditch of Benares is no less conducive to +giddiness than the lions' ditch of Babylon. Teglath-Phalasar, according +to the rabbinical books, swore by the sink of Nineveh. It was from the +sewer of Munster that John of Leyden produced his false moon, and it +was from the cess-pool of Kekscheb that oriental menalchme, Mokanna, the +veiled prophet of Khorassan, caused his false sun to emerge. + +The history of men is reflected in the history of sewers. The +Germoniae[58] narrated Rome. The sewer of Paris has been an ancient and +formidable thing. It has been a sepulchre, it has served as an asylum. +Crime, intelligence, social protest, liberty of conscience, thought, +theft, all that human laws persecute or have persecuted, is hidden in +that hole; the maillotins in the fourteenth century, the tire-laine of +the fifteenth, the Huguenots in the sixteenth, Morin's illuminated in +the seventeenth, the chauffeurs [brigands] in the eighteenth. A +hundred years ago, the nocturnal blow of the dagger emerged thence, the +pickpocket in danger slipped thither; the forest had its cave, Paris had +its sewer. Vagrancy, that Gallic picareria, accepted the sewer as the +adjunct of the Cour des Miracles, and at evening, it returned thither, +fierce and sly, through the Maubuee outlet, as into a bed-chamber. + +It was quite natural, that those who had the blind-alley Vide-Gousset, +[Empty-Pocket] or the Rue Coupe-Gorge [Cut-Throat], for the scene of +their daily labor, should have for their domicile by night the culvert +of the Chemin-Vert, or the catch basin of Hurepoix. Hence a throng of +souvenirs. All sorts of phantoms haunt these long, solitary +corridors; everywhere is putrescence and miasma; here and there are +breathing-holes, where Villon within converses with Rabelais without. + +The sewer in ancient Paris is the rendezvous of all exhaustions and +of all attempts. Political economy therein spies a detritus, social +philosophy there beholds a residuum. + +The sewer is the conscience of the city. Everything there converges +and confronts everything else. In that livid spot there are shades, but +there are no longer any secrets. Each thing bears its true form, or at +least, its definitive form. The mass of filth has this in its favor, +that it is not a liar. Ingenuousness has taken refuge there. The mask +of Basil is to be found there, but one beholds its cardboard and its +strings and the inside as well as the outside, and it is accentuated +by honest mud. Scapin's false nose is its next-door neighbor. All the +uncleannesses of civilization, once past their use, fall into this +trench of truth, where the immense social sliding ends. They are +there engulfed, but they display themselves there. This mixture is a +confession. There, no more false appearances, no plastering over is +possible, filth removes its shirt, absolute denudation puts to the rout +all illusions and mirages, there is nothing more except what really +exists, presenting the sinister form of that which is coming to an end. +There, the bottom of a bottle indicates drunkenness, a basket-handle +tells a tale of domesticity; there the core of an apple which has +entertained literary opinions becomes an apple-core once more; the +effigy on the big sou becomes frankly covered with verdigris, Caiphas' +spittle meets Falstaff's puking, the louis-d'or which comes from +the gaming-house jostles the nail whence hangs the rope's end of the +suicide. A livid foetus rolls along, enveloped in the spangles which +danced at the Opera last Shrove-Tuesday, a cap which has pronounced +judgment on men wallows beside a mass of rottenness which was formerly +Margoton's petticoat; it is more than fraternization, it is equivalent +to addressing each other as thou. All which was formerly rouged, is +washed free. The last veil is torn away. A sewer is a cynic. It tells +everything. + +The sincerity of foulness pleases us, and rests the soul. When one has +passed one's time in enduring upon earth the spectacle of the great airs +which reasons of state, the oath, political sagacity, human justice, +professional probity, the austerities of situation, incorruptible robes +all assume, it solaces one to enter a sewer and to behold the mire which +befits it. + +This is instructive at the same time. We have just said that history +passes through the sewer. The Saint-Barthelemys filter through there, +drop by drop, between the paving-stones. Great public assassinations, +political and religious butcheries, traverse this underground passage +of civilization, and thrust their corpses there. For the eye of the +thinker, all historic murderers are to be found there, in that hideous +penumbra, on their knees, with a scrap of their winding-sheet for +an apron, dismally sponging out their work. Louis XI. is there with +Tristan, Francois I. with Duprat, Charles IX. is there with his mother, +Richelieu is there with Louis XIII., Louvois is there, Letellier is +there, Hebert and Maillard are there, scratching the stones, and trying +to make the traces of their actions disappear. Beneath these vaults one +hears the brooms of spectres. One there breathes the enormous fetidness +of social catastrophes. One beholds reddish reflections in the corners. +There flows a terrible stream, in which bloody hands have been washed. + +The social observer should enter these shadows. They form a part of +his laboratory. Philosophy is the microscope of the thought. Everything +desires to flee from it, but nothing escapes it. Tergiversation is +useless. What side of oneself does one display in evasions? the shameful +side. Philosophy pursues with its glance, probes the evil, and does +not permit it to escape into nothingness. In the obliteration of things +which disappear, in the watching of things which vanish, it recognizes +all. It reconstructs the purple from the rag, and the woman from the +scrap of her dress. From the cess-pool, it re-constitutes the city; from +mud, it reconstructs manners; from the potsherd it infers the amphora +or the jug. By the imprint of a finger-nail on a piece of parchment, it +recognizes the difference which separates the Jewry of the Judengasse +from the Jewry of the Ghetto. It re-discovers in what remains that +which has been, good, evil, the true, the blood-stain of the palace, +the ink-blot of the cavern, the drop of sweat from the brothel, trials +undergone, temptations welcomed, orgies cast forth, the turn which +characters have taken as they became abased, the trace of prostitution +in souls of which their grossness rendered them capable, and on the +vesture of the porters of Rome the mark of Messalina's elbowing. + + + + +CHAPTER III--BRUNESEAU + +The sewer of Paris in the Middle Ages was legendary. In the sixteenth +century, Henri II. attempted a bore, which failed. Not a hundred years +ago, the cess-pool, Mercier attests the fact, was abandoned to itself, +and fared as best it might. + +Such was this ancient Paris, delivered over to quarrels, to indecision, +and to gropings. It was tolerably stupid for a long time. Later on, '89 +showed how understanding comes to cities. But in the good, old times, +the capital had not much head. It did not know how to manage its own +affairs either morally or materially, and could not sweep out filth +any better than it could abuses. Everything presented an obstacle, +everything raised a question. The sewer, for example, was refractory to +every itinerary. One could no more find one's bearings in the sewer +than one could understand one's position in the city; above the +unintelligible, below the inextricable; beneath the confusion of tongues +there reigned the confusion of caverns; Daedalus backed up Babel. + +Sometimes the Paris sewer took a notion to overflow, as though this +misunderstood Nile were suddenly seized with a fit of rage. There +occurred, infamous to relate, inundations of the sewer. At times, that +stomach of civilization digested badly, the cess-pool flowed back into +the throat of the city, and Paris got an after-taste of her own filth. +These resemblances of the sewer to remorse had their good points; they +were warnings; very badly accepted, however; the city waxed indignant +at the audacity of its mire, and did not admit that the filth should +return. Drive it out better. + +The inundation of 1802 is one of the actual memories of Parisians of +the age of eighty. The mud spread in cross-form over the Place des +Victoires, where stands the statue of Louis XIV.; it entered the Rue +Saint-Honore by the two mouths to the sewer in the Champs-Elysees, +the Rue Saint-Florentin through the Saint-Florentin sewer, the Rue +Pierre-a-Poisson through the sewer de la Sonnerie, the Rue Popincourt, +through the sewer of the Chemin-Vert, the Rue de la Roquette, through +the sewer of the Rue de Lappe; it covered the drain of the Rue des +Champs-Elysees to the height of thirty-five centimetres; and, to the +South, through the vent of the Seine, performing its functions in +inverse sense, it penetrated the Rue Mazarine, the Rue de l'Echaude, and +the Rue des Marais, where it stopped at a distance of one hundred and +nine metres, a few paces distant from the house in which Racine had +lived, respecting, in the seventeenth century, the poet more than the +King. It attained its maximum depth in the Rue Saint-Pierre, where +it rose to the height of three feet above the flag-stones of the +water-spout, and its maximum length in the Rue Saint-Sabin, where it +spread out over a stretch two hundred and thirty-eight metres in length. + +At the beginning of this century, the sewer of Paris was still a +mysterious place. Mud can never enjoy a good fame; but in this case its +evil renown reached the verge of the terrible. Paris knew, in a confused +way, that she had under her a terrible cavern. People talked of it as +of that monstrous bed of Thebes in which swarmed centipedes fifteen long +feet in length, and which might have served Behemoth for a bathtub. +The great boots of the sewermen never ventured further than certain +well-known points. We were then very near the epoch when the scavenger's +carts, from the summit of which Sainte-Foix fraternized with the Marquis +de Crequi, discharged their loads directly into the sewer. As for +cleaning out,--that function was entrusted to the pouring rains which +encumbered rather than swept away. Rome left some poetry to her sewer, +and called it the Gemoniae; Paris insulted hers, and entitled it the +Polypus-Hole. Science and superstition were in accord, in horror. The +Polypus hole was no less repugnant to hygiene than to legend. The goblin +was developed under the fetid covering of the Mouffetard sewer; the +corpses of the Marmousets had been cast into the sewer de la Barillerie; +Fagon attributed the redoubtable malignant fever of 1685 to the great +hiatus of the sewer of the Marais, which remained yawning until 1833 in +the Rue Saint-Louis, almost opposite the sign of the Gallant Messenger. +The mouth of the sewer of the Rue de la Mortellerie was celebrated for +the pestilences which had their source there; with its grating of iron, +with points simulating a row of teeth, it was like a dragon's maw +in that fatal street, breathing forth hell upon men. The popular +imagination seasoned the sombre Parisian sink with some indescribably +hideous intermixture of the infinite. The sewer had no bottom. The sewer +was the lower world. The idea of exploring these leprous regions did not +even occur to the police. To try that unknown thing, to cast the plummet +into that shadow, to set out on a voyage of discovery in that abyss--who +would have dared? It was alarming. Nevertheless, some one did present +himself. The cess-pool had its Christopher Columbus. + +One day, in 1805, during one of the rare apparitions which the Emperor +made in Paris, the Minister of the Interior, some Decres or Cretet or +other, came to the master's intimate levee. In the Carrousel there was +audible the clanking of swords of all those extraordinary soldiers of +the great Republic, and of the great Empire; then Napoleon's door was +blocked with heroes; men from the Rhine, from the Escaut, from the +Adige, and from the Nile; companions of Joubert, of Desaix, of Marceau, +of Hoche, of Kleber; the aerostiers of Fleurus, the grenadiers of +Mayence, the pontoon-builders of Genoa, hussars whom the Pyramids had +looked down upon, artillerists whom Junot's cannon-ball had spattered +with mud, cuirassiers who had taken by assault the fleet lying at anchor +in the Zuyderzee; some had followed Bonaparte upon the bridge of Lodi, +others had accompanied Murat in the trenches of Mantua, others had +preceded Lannes in the hollow road of Montebello. The whole army of that +day was present there, in the court-yard of the Tuileries, represented +by a squadron or a platoon, and guarding Napoleon in repose; and that +was the splendid epoch when the grand army had Marengo behind it and +Austerlitz before it.--"Sire," said the Minister of the Interior to +Napoleon, "yesterday I saw the most intrepid man in your Empire."--"What +man is that?" said the Emperor brusquely, "and what has he done?"--"He +wants to do something, Sire."--"What is it?"--"To visit the sewers of +Paris." + +This man existed and his name was Bruneseau. + + + + +CHAPTER IV--BRUNESEAU. + +The visit took place. It was a formidable campaign; a nocturnal battle +against pestilence and suffocation. It was, at the same time, a voyage +of discovery. One of the survivors of this expedition, an intelligent +workingman, who was very young at the time, related curious details with +regard to it, several years ago, which Bruneseau thought himself obliged +to omit in his report to the prefect of police, as unworthy of official +style. The processes of disinfection were, at that epoch, extremely +rudimentary. Hardly had Bruneseau crossed the first articulations of +that subterranean network, when eight laborers out of the twenty refused +to go any further. The operation was complicated; the visit entailed the +necessity of cleaning; hence it was necessary to cleanse and at the same +time, to proceed; to note the entrances of water, to count the gratings +and the vents, to lay out in detail the branches, to indicate the +currents at the point where they parted, to define the respective bounds +of the divers basins, to sound the small sewers grafted on the principal +sewer, to measure the height under the key-stone of each drain, and the +width, at the spring of the vaults as well as at the bottom, in order +to determine the arrangements with regard to the level of each +water-entrance, either of the bottom of the arch, or on the soil of the +street. They advanced with toil. The lanterns pined away in the foul +atmosphere. From time to time, a fainting sewerman was carried out. +At certain points, there were precipices. The soil had given away, the +pavement had crumbled, the sewer had changed into a bottomless well; +they found nothing solid; a man disappeared suddenly; they had great +difficulty in getting him out again. On the advice of Fourcroy, they +lighted large cages filled with tow steeped in resin, from time to time, +in spots which had been sufficiently disinfected. In some places, the +wall was covered with misshapen fungi,--one would have said tumors; the +very stone seemed diseased within this unbreathable atmosphere. + +Bruneseau, in his exploration, proceeded down hill. At the point of +separation of the two water-conduits of the Grand-Hurleur, he deciphered +upon a projecting stone the date of 1550; this stone indicated the +limits where Philibert Delorme, charged by Henri II. with visiting the +subterranean drains of Paris, had halted. This stone was the mark of +the sixteenth century on the sewer; Bruneseau found the handiwork of +the seventeenth century once more in the Ponceau drain of the old Rue +Vielle-du-Temple, vaulted between 1600 and 1650; and the handiwork of +the eighteenth in the western section of the collecting canal, walled +and vaulted in 1740. These two vaults, especially the less ancient, that +of 1740, were more cracked and decrepit than the masonry of the belt +sewer, which dated from 1412, an epoch when the brook of fresh water of +Menilmontant was elevated to the dignity of the Grand Sewer of Paris, an +advancement analogous to that of a peasant who should become first valet +de chambre to the King; something like Gros-Jean transformed into Lebel. + +Here and there, particularly beneath the Court-House, they thought they +recognized the hollows of ancient dungeons, excavated in the very sewer +itself. Hideous place! An iron neck-collar was hanging in one of these +cells. They walled them all up. Some of their finds were singular; among +others, the skeleton of an ourang-outan, who had disappeared from the +Jardin des Plantes in 1800, a disappearance probably connected with +the famous and indisputable apparition of the devil in the Rue des +Bernardins, in the last year of the eighteenth century. The poor devil +had ended by drowning himself in the sewer. + +Beneath this long, arched drain which terminated at the Arche-Marion, +a perfectly preserved rag-picker's basket excited the admiration of all +connoisseurs. Everywhere, the mire, which the sewermen came to handle +with intrepidity, abounded in precious objects, jewels of gold and +silver, precious stones, coins. If a giant had filtered this cesspool, +he would have had the riches of centuries in his lair. At the point +where the two branches of the Rue du Temple and of the Rue Sainte-Avoye +separate, they picked up a singular Huguenot medal in copper, bearing on +one side the pig hooded with a cardinal's hat, and on the other, a wolf +with a tiara on his head. + +The most surprising encounter was at the entrance to the Grand Sewer. +This entrance had formerly been closed by a grating of which nothing but +the hinges remained. From one of these hinges hung a dirty and shapeless +rag which, arrested there in its passage, no doubt, had floated there +in the darkness and finished its process of being torn apart. Bruneseau +held his lantern close to this rag and examined it. It was of very fine +batiste, and in one of the corners, less frayed than the rest, they +made out a heraldic coronet and embroidered above these seven letters: +LAVBESP. The crown was the coronet of a Marquis, and the seven letters +signified Laubespine. They recognized the fact, that what they had +before their eyes was a morsel of the shroud of Marat. Marat in his +youth had had amorous intrigues. This was when he was a member of the +household of the Comte d'Artois, in the capacity of physician to the +Stables. From these love affairs, historically proved, with a great +lady, he had retained this sheet. As a waif or a souvenir. At his death, +as this was the only linen of any fineness which he had in his house, +they buried him in it. Some old women had shrouded him for the tomb in +that swaddling-band in which the tragic Friend of the people had enjoyed +voluptuousness. Bruneseau passed on. They left that rag where it hung; +they did not put the finishing touch to it. Did this arise from scorn +or from respect? Marat deserved both. And then, destiny was there +sufficiently stamped to make them hesitate to touch it. Besides, the +things of the sepulchre must be left in the spot which they select. In +short, the relic was a strange one. A Marquise had slept in it; Marat +had rotted in it; it had traversed the Pantheon to end with the rats +of the sewer. This chamber rag, of which Watteau would formerly have +joyfully sketched every fold, had ended in becoming worthy of the fixed +gaze of Dante. + +The whole visit to the subterranean stream of filth of Paris lasted +seven years, from 1805 to 1812. As he proceeded, Bruneseau drew, +directed, and completed considerable works; in 1808 he lowered the arch +of the Ponceau, and, everywhere creating new lines, he pushed the +sewer, in 1809, under the Rue Saint-Denis as far as the fountain of +the Innocents; in 1810, under the Rue Froidmanteau and under the +Salpetriere; in 1811 under the Rue Neuve-des-Petits-Peres, under the Rue +du Mail, under the Rue de l'Echarpe, under the Place Royale; in 1812, +under the Rue de la Paix, and under the Chaussee d'Antin. At the same +time, he had the whole net-work disinfected and rendered healthful. In +the second year of his work, Bruneseau engaged the assistance of his +son-in-law Nargaud. + +It was thus that, at the beginning of the century, ancient society +cleansed its double bottom, and performed the toilet of its sewer. There +was that much clean, at all events. + +Tortuous, cracked, unpaved, full of fissures, intersected by gullies, +jolted by eccentric elbows, mounting and descending illogically, fetid, +wild, fierce, submerged in obscurity, with cicatrices on its pavements +and scars on its walls, terrible,--such was, retrospectively viewed, the +antique sewer of Paris. Ramifications in every direction, crossings, +of trenches, branches, goose-feet, stars, as in military mines, coecum, +blind alleys, vaults lined with saltpetre, pestiferous pools, scabby +sweats, on the walls, drops dripping from the ceilings, darkness; +nothing could equal the horror of this old, waste crypt, the digestive +apparatus of Babylon, a cavern, ditch, gulf pierced with streets, a +titanic mole-burrow, where the mind seems to behold that enormous blind +mole, the past, prowling through the shadows, in the filth which has +been splendor. + +This, we repeat, was the sewer of the past. + + + + +CHAPTER V--PRESENT PROGRESS + +To-day the sewer is clean, cold, straight, correct. It almost realizes +the ideal of what is understood in England by the word "respectable." It +is proper and grayish; laid out by rule and line; one might almost say +as though it came out of a bandbox. It resembles a tradesman who has +become a councillor of state. One can almost see distinctly there. The +mire there comports itself with decency. At first, one might readily +mistake it for one of those subterranean corridors, which were so common +in former days, and so useful in flights of monarchs and princes, in +those good old times, "when the people loved their kings." The present +sewer is a beautiful sewer; the pure style reigns there; the classical +rectilinear alexandrine which, driven out of poetry, appears to have +taken refuge in architecture, seems mingled with all the stones of +that long, dark and whitish vault; each outlet is an arcade; the Rue de +Rivoli serves as pattern even in the sewer. However, if the geometrical +line is in place anywhere, it is certainly in the drainage trench of +a great city. There, everything should be subordinated to the shortest +road. The sewer has, nowadays, assumed a certain official aspect. The +very police reports, of which it sometimes forms the subject, no longer +are wanting in respect towards it. The words which characterize it in +administrative language are sonorous and dignified. What used to be +called a gut is now called a gallery; what used to be called a hole is +now called a surveying orifice. Villon would no longer meet with his +ancient temporary provisional lodging. This net-work of cellars has its +immemorial population of prowlers, rodents, swarming in greater numbers +than ever; from time to time, an aged and veteran rat risks his head at +the window of the sewer and surveys the Parisians; but even these vermin +grow tame, so satisfied are they with their subterranean palace. The +cesspool no longer retains anything of its primitive ferocity. The rain, +which in former days soiled the sewer, now washes it. Nevertheless, do +not trust yourself too much to it. Miasmas still inhabit it. It is +more hypocritical than irreproachable. The prefecture of police and +the commission of health have done their best. But, in spite of all the +processes of disinfection, it exhales, a vague, suspicious odor like +Tartuffe after confession. + +Let us confess, that, taking it all in all, this sweeping is a homage +which the sewer pays to civilization, and as, from this point of view, +Tartuffe's conscience is a progress over the Augean stables, it is +certain that the sewers of Paris have been improved. + +It is more than progress; it is transmutation. Between the ancient +and the present sewer there is a revolution. What has effected this +revolution? + +The man whom all the world forgets, and whom we have mentioned, +Bruneseau. + + + + +CHAPTER VI--FUTURE PROGRESS + +The excavation of the sewer of Paris has been no slight task. The last +ten centuries have toiled at it without being able to bring it to a +termination, any more than they have been able to finish Paris. The +sewer, in fact, receives all the counter-shocks of the growth of Paris. +Within the bosom of the earth, it is a sort of mysterious polyp with a +thousand antennae, which expands below as the city expands above. Every +time that the city cuts a street, the sewer stretches out an arm. The +old monarchy had constructed only twenty-three thousand three hundred +metres of sewers; that was where Paris stood in this respect on the +first of January, 1806. Beginning with this epoch, of which we shall +shortly speak, the work was usefully and energetically resumed and +prosecuted; Napoleon built--the figures are curious--four thousand eight +hundred and four metres; Louis XVIII., five thousand seven hundred +and nine; Charles X., ten thousand eight hundred and thirty-six; +Louis-Philippe, eighty-nine thousand and twenty; the Republic of +1848, twenty-three thousand three hundred and eighty-one; the present +government, seventy thousand five hundred; in all, at the present time, +two hundred and twenty-six thousand six hundred and ten metres; +sixty leagues of sewers; the enormous entrails of Paris. An obscure +ramification ever at work; a construction which is immense and ignored. + +As the reader sees, the subterranean labyrinth of Paris is to-day +more than ten times what it was at the beginning of the century. It is +difficult to form any idea of all the perseverance and the efforts which +have been required to bring this cess-pool to the point of relative +perfection in which it now is. It was with great difficulty that the +ancient monarchical provostship and, during the last ten years of +the eighteenth century, the revolutionary mayoralty, had succeeded in +perforating the five leagues of sewer which existed previous to 1806. +All sorts of obstacles hindered this operation, some peculiar to the +soil, others inherent in the very prejudices of the laborious population +of Paris. Paris is built upon a soil which is singularly rebellious to +the pick, the hoe, the bore, and to human manipulation. There is nothing +more difficult to pierce and to penetrate than the geological formation +upon which is superposed the marvellous historical formation called +Paris; as soon as work in any form whatsoever is begun and adventures +upon this stretch of alluvium, subterranean resistances abound. There +are liquid clays, springs, hard rocks, and those soft and deep quagmires +which special science calls moutardes.[59] The pick advances laboriously +through the calcareous layers alternating with very slender threads of +clay, and schistose beds in plates incrusted with oyster-shells, the +contemporaries of the pre-Adamite oceans. Sometimes a rivulet suddenly +bursts through a vault that has been begun, and inundates the laborers; +or a layer of marl is laid bare, and rolls down with the fury of a +cataract, breaking the stoutest supporting beams like glass. Quite +recently, at Villette, when it became necessary to pass the collecting +sewer under the Saint-Martin canal without interrupting navigation or +emptying the canal, a fissure appeared in the basin of the canal, water +suddenly became abundant in the subterranean tunnel, which was beyond +the power of the pumping engines; it was necessary to send a diver to +explore the fissure which had been made in the narrow entrance of the +grand basin, and it was not without great difficulty that it was stopped +up. Elsewhere near the Seine, and even at a considerable distance +from the river, as for instance, at Belleville, Grand-Rue and Lumiere +Passage, quicksands are encountered in which one sticks fast, and in +which a man sinks visibly. Add suffocation by miasmas, burial by slides, +and sudden crumbling of the earth. Add the typhus, with which the +workmen become slowly impregnated. In our own day, after having +excavated the gallery of Clichy, with a banquette to receive the +principal water-conduit of Ourcq, a piece of work which was executed in +a trench ten metres deep; after having, in the midst of land-slides, and +with the aid of excavations often putrid, and of shoring up, vaulted +the Bievre from the Boulevard de l'Hopital, as far as the Seine; after +having, in order to deliver Paris from the floods of Montmartre and in +order to provide an outlet for that river-like pool nine hectares in +extent, which crouched near the Barriere des Martyrs, after having, let +us state, constructed the line of sewers from the Barriere Blanche to +the road of Aubervilliers, in four months, working day and night, at a +depth of eleven metres; after having--a thing heretofore unseen--made a +subterranean sewer in the Rue Barre-du-Bec, without a trench, six +metres below the surface, the superintendent, Monnot, died. After having +vaulted three thousand metres of sewer in all quarters of the city, from +the Rue Traversiere-Saint-Antoine to the Rue de l'Ourcine, after having +freed the Carrefour Censier-Mouffetard from inundations of rain by means +of the branch of the Arbalete, after having built the Saint-Georges +sewer, on rock and concrete in the fluid sands, after having directed +the formidable lowering of the flooring of the vault timber in the +Notre-Dame-de-Nazareth branch, Duleau the engineer died. There are no +bulletins for such acts of bravery as these, which are more useful, +nevertheless, than the brutal slaughter of the field of battle. + +The sewers of Paris in 1832 were far from being what they are to-day. +Bruneseau had given the impulse, but the cholera was required to +bring about the vast reconstruction which took place later on. It is +surprising to say, for example, that in 1821, a part of the belt sewer, +called the Grand Canal, as in Venice, still stood stagnating uncovered +to the sky, in the Rue des Gourdes. It was only in 1821 that the city +of Paris found in its pocket the two hundred and sixty-thousand eighty +francs and six centimes required for covering this mass of filth. The +three absorbing wells, of the Combat, the Cunette, and Saint-Mande, with +their discharging mouths, their apparatus, their cesspools, and their +depuratory branches, only date from 1836. The intestinal sewer of Paris +has been made over anew, and, as we have said, it has been extended more +than tenfold within the last quarter of a century. + +Thirty years ago, at the epoch of the insurrection of the 5th and 6th of +June, it was still, in many localities, nearly the same ancient sewer. +A very great number of streets which are now convex were then sunken +causeways. At the end of a slope, where the tributaries of a street or +cross-roads ended, there were often to be seen large, square gratings +with heavy bars, whose iron, polished by the footsteps of the throng, +gleamed dangerous and slippery for vehicles, and caused horses to fall. +The official language of the Roads and Bridges gave to these gratings +the expressive name of Cassis.[60] + +In 1832, in a number of streets, in the Rue de l'Etoile, the Rue +Saint-Louis, the Rue du Temple, the Rue Vielle-duTemple, the Rue +Notre-Dame de Nazareth, the Rue Folie-Mericourt, the Quai aux Fleurs, +the Rue du Petit-Muse, the Rue du Normandie, the Rue Pont-Aux-Biches, +the Rue des Marais, the Faubourg Saint-Martin, the Rue Notre Dame +des-Victoires, the Faubourg Montmartre, the Rue Grange-Bateliere, in the +Champs-Elysees, the Rue Jacob, the Rue de Tournon, the ancient gothic +sewer still cynically displayed its maw. It consisted of enormous +voids of stone catch-basins sometimes surrounded by stone posts, with +monumental effrontery. + +Paris in 1806 still had nearly the same sewers numerically as stated in +1663; five thousand three hundred fathoms. After Bruneseau, on the 1st +of January, 1832, it had forty thousand three hundred metres. Between +1806 and 1831, there had been built, on an average, seven hundred and +fifty metres annually, afterwards eight and even ten thousand metres of +galleries were constructed every year, in masonry, of small stones, with +hydraulic mortar which hardens under water, on a cement foundation. At +two hundred francs the metre, the sixty leagues of Paris' sewers of the +present day represent forty-eight millions. + +In addition to the economic progress which we have indicated at the +beginning, grave problems of public hygiene are connected with that +immense question: the sewers of Paris. + +Paris is the centre of two sheets, a sheet of water and a sheet of air. +The sheet of water, lying at a tolerably great depth underground, but +already sounded by two bores, is furnished by the layer of green clay +situated between the chalk and the Jurassic lime-stone; this layer may +be represented by a disk five and twenty leagues in circumference; a +multitude of rivers and brooks ooze there; one drinks the Seine, the +Marne, the Yonne, the Oise, the Aisne, the Cher, the Vienne and the +Loire in a glass of water from the well of Grenelle. The sheet of water +is healthy, it comes from heaven in the first place and next from the +earth; the sheet of air is unhealthy, it comes from the sewer. All the +miasms of the cess-pool are mingled with the breath of the city; hence +this bad breath. The air taken from above a dung-heap, as has been +scientifically proved, is purer than the air taken from above Paris. In +a given time, with the aid of progress, mechanisms become perfected, and +as light increases, the sheet of water will be employed to purify the +sheet of air; that is to say, to wash the sewer. The reader knows, that +by "washing the sewer" we mean: the restitution of the filth to the +earth; the return to the soil of dung and of manure to the fields. +Through this simple act, the entire social community will experience a +diminution of misery and an augmentation of health. At the present hour, +the radiation of diseases from Paris extends to fifty leagues around the +Louvre, taken as the hub of this pestilential wheel. + +We might say that, for ten centuries, the cess-pool has been the disease +of Paris. The sewer is the blemish which Paris has in her blood. The +popular instinct has never been deceived in it. The occupation of +sewermen was formerly almost as perilous, and almost as repugnant to the +people, as the occupation of knacker, which was so long held in horror +and handed over to the executioner. High wages were necessary to induce +a mason to disappear in that fetid mine; the ladder of the cess-pool +cleaner hesitated to plunge into it; it was said, in proverbial form: +"to descend into the sewer is to enter the grave;" and all sorts of +hideous legends, as we have said, covered this colossal sink with +terror; a dread sink-hole which bears the traces of the revolutions +of the globe as of the revolutions of man, and where are to be found +vestiges of all cataclysms from the shells of the Deluge to the rag of +Marat. + + + + +BOOK THIRD.--MUD BUT THE SOUL + + + + +CHAPTER I--THE SEWER AND ITS SURPRISES + +It was in the sewers of Paris that Jean Valjean found himself. + +Still another resemblance between Paris and the sea. As in the ocean, +the diver may disappear there. + +The transition was an unheard-of one. In the very heart of the city, +Jean Valjean had escaped from the city, and, in the twinkling of an eye, +in the time required to lift the cover and to replace it, he had passed +from broad daylight to complete obscurity, from midday to midnight, from +tumult to silence, from the whirlwind of thunders to the stagnation of +the tomb, and, by a vicissitude far more tremendous even than that of +the Rue Polonceau, from the most extreme peril to the most absolute +obscurity. + +An abrupt fall into a cavern; a disappearance into the secret trap-door +of Paris; to quit that street where death was on every side, for that +sort of sepulchre where there was life, was a strange instant. He +remained for several seconds as though bewildered; listening, stupefied. +The waste-trap of safety had suddenly yawned beneath him. Celestial +goodness had, in a manner, captured him by treachery. Adorable +ambuscades of providence! + +Only, the wounded man did not stir, and Jean Valjean did not know +whether that which he was carrying in that grave was a living being or a +dead corpse. + +His first sensation was one of blindness. All of a sudden, he could see +nothing. It seemed to him too, that, in one instant, he had become deaf. +He no longer heard anything. The frantic storm of murder which had been +let loose a few feet above his head did not reach him, thanks to the +thickness of the earth which separated him from it, as we have said, +otherwise than faintly and indistinctly, and like a rumbling, in the +depths. He felt that the ground was solid under his feet; that was all; +but that was enough. He extended one arm and then the other, touched +the walls on both sides, and perceived that the passage was narrow; he +slipped, and thus perceived that the pavement was wet. He cautiously put +forward one foot, fearing a hole, a sink, some gulf; he discovered that +the paving continued. A gust of fetidness informed him of the place in +which he stood. + +After the lapse of a few minutes, he was no longer blind. A little light +fell through the man-hole through which he had descended, and his eyes +became accustomed to this cavern. He began to distinguish something. The +passage in which he had burrowed--no other word can better express the +situation--was walled in behind him. It was one of those blind alleys, +which the special jargon terms branches. In front of him there was +another wall, a wall like night. The light of the air-hole died out ten +or twelve paces from the point where Jean Valjean stood, and barely cast +a wan pallor on a few metres of the damp walls of the sewer. Beyond, +the opaqueness was massive; to penetrate thither seemed horrible, an +entrance into it appeared like an engulfment. A man could, however, +plunge into that wall of fog and it was necessary so to do. Haste was +even requisite. It occurred to Jean Valjean that the grating which he +had caught sight of under the flag-stones might also catch the eye of +the soldiery, and that everything hung upon this chance. They also might +descend into that well and search it. There was not a minute to be lost. +He had deposited Marius on the ground, he picked him up again,--that is +the real word for it,--placed him on his shoulders once more, and set +out. He plunged resolutely into the gloom. + +The truth is, that they were less safe than Jean Valjean fancied. Perils +of another sort and no less serious were awaiting them, perchance. After +the lightning-charged whirlwind of the combat, the cavern of miasmas and +traps; after chaos, the sewer. Jean Valjean had fallen from one circle +of hell into another. + +When he had advanced fifty paces, he was obliged to halt. A problem +presented itself. The passage terminated in another gut which he +encountered across his path. There two ways presented themselves. Which +should he take? Ought he to turn to the left or to the right? How was he +to find his bearings in that black labyrinth? This labyrinth, to which +we have already called the reader's attention, has a clue, which is its +slope. To follow to the slope is to arrive at the river. + +This Jean Valjean instantly comprehended. + +He said to himself that he was probably in the sewer des Halles; that +if he were to choose the path to the left and follow the slope, he would +arrive, in less than a quarter of an hour, at some mouth on the Seine +between the Pont au Change and the Pont-Neuf, that is to say, he would +make his appearance in broad daylight on the most densely peopled spot +in Paris. Perhaps he would come out on some man-hole at the intersection +of streets. Amazement of the passers-by at beholding two bleeding men +emerge from the earth at their feet. Arrival of the police, a call to +arms of the neighboring post of guards. Thus they would be seized before +they had even got out. It would be better to plunge into that labyrinth, +to confide themselves to that black gloom, and to trust to Providence +for the outcome. + +He ascended the incline, and turned to the right. + +When he had turned the angle of the gallery, the distant glimmer of an +air-hole disappeared, the curtain of obscurity fell upon him once more, +and he became blind again. Nevertheless, he advanced as rapidly as +possible. Marius' two arms were passed round his neck, and the former's +feet dragged behind him. He held both these arms with one hand, and +groped along the wall with the other. Marius' cheek touched his, and +clung there, bleeding. He felt a warm stream which came from Marius +trickling down upon him and making its way under his clothes. But a +humid warmth near his ear, which the mouth of the wounded man touched, +indicated respiration, and consequently, life. The passage along which +Jean Valjean was now proceeding was not so narrow as the first. Jean +Valjean walked through it with considerable difficulty. The rain of the +preceding day had not, as yet, entirely run off, and it created a little +torrent in the centre of the bottom, and he was forced to hug the wall +in order not to have his feet in the water. + +Thus he proceeded in the gloom. He resembled the beings of the night +groping in the invisible and lost beneath the earth in veins of shadow. + +Still, little by little, whether it was that the distant air-holes +emitted a little wavering light in this opaque gloom, or whether his +eyes had become accustomed to the obscurity, some vague vision returned +to him, and he began once more to gain a confused idea, now of the wall +which he touched, now of the vault beneath which he was passing. The +pupil dilates in the dark, and the soul dilates in misfortune and ends +by finding God there. + +It was not easy to direct his course. + +The line of the sewer re-echoes, so to speak, the line of the streets +which lie above it. There were then in Paris two thousand two hundred +streets. Let the reader imagine himself beneath that forest of gloomy +branches which is called the sewer. The system of sewers existing at +that epoch, placed end to end, would have given a length of eleven +leagues. We have said above, that the actual net-work, thanks to the +special activity of the last thirty years, was no less than sixty +leagues in extent. + +Jean Valjean began by committing a blunder. He thought that he was +beneath the Rue Saint-Denis, and it was a pity that it was not so. Under +the Rue Saint-Denis there is an old stone sewer which dates from Louis +XIII. and which runs straight to the collecting sewer, called the Grand +Sewer, with but a single elbow, on the right, on the elevation of the +ancient Cour des Miracles, and a single branch, the Saint-Martin sewer, +whose four arms describe a cross. But the gut of the Petite-Truanderie +the entrance to which was in the vicinity of the Corinthe wine-shop has +never communicated with the sewer of the Rue Saint-Denis; it ended +at the Montmartre sewer, and it was in this that Jean Valjean was +entangled. There opportunities of losing oneself abound. The Montmartre +sewer is one of the most labyrinthine of the ancient network. +Fortunately, Jean Valjean had left behind him the sewer of the markets +whose geometrical plan presents the appearance of a multitude of +parrots' roosts piled on top of each other; but he had before him more +than one embarrassing encounter and more than one street corner--for +they are streets--presenting itself in the gloom like an interrogation +point; first, on his left, the vast sewer of the Platriere, a sort of +Chinese puzzle, thrusting out and entangling its chaos of Ts and Zs +under the Post-Office and under the rotunda of the Wheat Market, as far +as the Seine, where it terminates in a Y; secondly, on his right, the +curving corridor of the Rue du Cadran with its three teeth, which +are also blind courts; thirdly, on his left, the branch of the +Mail, complicated, almost at its inception, with a sort of fork, and +proceeding from zig-zag to zig-zag until it ends in the grand crypt of +the outlet of the Louvre, truncated and ramified in every direction; and +lastly, the blind alley of a passage of the Rue des Jeuneurs, without +counting little ducts here and there, before reaching the belt sewer, +which alone could conduct him to some issue sufficiently distant to be +safe. + +Had Jean Valjean had any idea of all that we have here pointed out, he +would speedily have perceived, merely by feeling the wall, that he was +not in the subterranean gallery of the Rue Saint-Denis. Instead of the +ancient stone, instead of the antique architecture, haughty and royal +even in the sewer, with pavement and string courses of granite and +mortar costing eight hundred livres the fathom, he would have felt under +his hand contemporary cheapness, economical expedients, porous stone +filled with mortar on a concrete foundation, which costs two hundred +francs the metre, and the bourgeoise masonry known as a petits +materiaux--small stuff; but of all this he knew nothing. + +He advanced with anxiety, but with calmness, seeing nothing, knowing +nothing, buried in chance, that is to say, engulfed in providence. + +By degrees, we will admit, a certain horror seized upon him. The gloom +which enveloped him penetrated his spirit. He walked in an enigma. This +aqueduct of the sewer is formidable; it interlaces in a dizzy fashion. +It is a melancholy thing to be caught in this Paris of shadows. Jean +Valjean was obliged to find and even to invent his route without seeing +it. In this unknown, every step that he risked might be his last. How +was he to get out? should he find an issue? should he find it in time? +would that colossal subterranean sponge with its stone cavities, allow +itself to be penetrated and pierced? should he there encounter some +unexpected knot in the darkness? should he arrive at the inextricable +and the impassable? would Marius die there of hemorrhage and he of +hunger? should they end by both getting lost, and by furnishing two +skeletons in a nook of that night? He did not know. He put all these +questions to himself without replying to them. The intestines of Paris +form a precipice. Like the prophet, he was in the belly of the monster. + +All at once, he had a surprise. At the most unforeseen moment, and +without having ceased to walk in a straight line, he perceived that he +was no longer ascending; the water of the rivulet was beating against +his heels, instead of meeting him at his toes. The sewer was now +descending. Why? Was he about to arrive suddenly at the Seine? This +danger was a great one, but the peril of retreating was still greater. +He continued to advance. + +It was not towards the Seine that he was proceeding. The ridge which +the soil of Paris forms on its right bank empties one of its water-sheds +into the Seine and the other into the Grand Sewer. The crest of this +ridge which determines the division of the waters describes a very +capricious line. The culminating point, which is the point of +separation of the currents, is in the Sainte-Avoye sewer, beyond the Rue +Michelle-Comte, in the sewer of the Louvre, near the boulevards, and +in the Montmartre sewer, near the Halles. It was this culminating point +that Jean Valjean had reached. He was directing his course towards the +belt sewer; he was on the right path. But he did not know it. + +Every time that he encountered a branch, he felt of its angles, and if +he found that the opening which presented itself was smaller than the +passage in which he was, he did not enter but continued his route, +rightly judging that every narrower way must needs terminate in a blind +alley, and could only lead him further from his goal, that is to say, +the outlet. Thus he avoided the quadruple trap which was set for him in +the darkness by the four labyrinths which we have just enumerated. + +At a certain moment, he perceived that he was emerging from beneath +the Paris which was petrified by the uprising, where the barricades had +suppressed circulation, and that he was entering beneath the living and +normal Paris. Overhead he suddenly heard a noise as of thunder, distant +but continuous. It was the rumbling of vehicles. + +He had been walking for about half an hour, at least according to the +calculation which he made in his own mind, and he had not yet thought of +rest; he had merely changed the hand with which he was holding Marius. +The darkness was more profound than ever, but its very depth reassured +him. + +All at once, he saw his shadow in front of him. It was outlined on +a faint, almost indistinct reddish glow, which vaguely empurpled the +flooring vault underfoot, and the vault overhead, and gilded to his +right and to his left the two viscous walls of the passage. Stupefied, +he turned round. + +Behind him, in the portion of the passage which he had just passed +through, at a distance which appeared to him immense, piercing the dense +obscurity, flamed a sort of horrible star which had the air of surveying +him. + +It was the gloomy star of the police which was rising in the sewer. + +In the rear of that star eight or ten forms were moving about in a +confused way, black, upright, indistinct, horrible. + + + + +CHAPTER II--EXPLANATION + +On the day of the sixth of June, a battue of the sewers had been +ordered. It was feared that the vanquished might have taken to them for +refuge, and Prefect Gisquet was to search occult Paris while General +Bugeaud swept public Paris; a double and connected operation which +exacted a double strategy on the part of the public force, represented +above by the army and below by the police. Three squads of agents and +sewermen explored the subterranean drain of Paris, the first on the +right bank, the second on the left bank, the third in the city. The +agents of police were armed with carabines, with bludgeons, swords and +poignards. + +That which was directed at Jean Valjean at that moment, was the lantern +of the patrol of the right bank. + +This patrol had just visited the curving gallery and the three blind +alleys which lie beneath the Rue du Cadran. While they were passing +their lantern through the depths of these blind alleys, Jean Valjean had +encountered on his path the entrance to the gallery, had perceived +that it was narrower than the principal passage and had not penetrated +thither. He had passed on. The police, on emerging from the gallery +du Cadran, had fancied that they heard the sound of footsteps in the +direction of the belt sewer. They were, in fact, the steps of Jean +Valjean. The sergeant in command of the patrol had raised his lantern, +and the squad had begun to gaze into the mist in the direction whence +the sound proceeded. + +This was an indescribable moment for Jean Valjean. + +Happily, if he saw the lantern well, the lantern saw him but ill. It +was light and he was shadow. He was very far off, and mingled with the +darkness of the place. He hugged the wall and halted. Moreover, he did +not understand what it was that was moving behind him. The lack of sleep +and food, and his emotions had caused him also to pass into the state of +a visionary. He beheld a gleam, and around that gleam, forms. What was +it? He did not comprehend. + +Jean Valjean having paused, the sound ceased. + +The men of the patrol listened, and heard nothing, they looked and saw +nothing. They held a consultation. + +There existed at that epoch at this point of the Montmartre sewer a sort +of cross-roads called de service, which was afterwards suppressed, on +account of the little interior lake which formed there, swallowing up +the torrent of rain in heavy storms. The patrol could form a cluster in +this open space. Jean Valjean saw these spectres form a sort of circle. +These bull-dogs' heads approached each other closely and whispered +together. + +The result of this council held by the watch dogs was, that they had +been mistaken, that there had been no noise, that it was useless to get +entangled in the belt sewer, that it would only be a waste of time, +but that they ought to hasten towards Saint-Merry; that if there +was anything to do, and any "bousingot" to track out, it was in that +quarter. + +From time to time, parties re-sole their old insults. In 1832, the word +bousingot formed the interim between the word jacobin, which had become +obsolete, and the word demagogue which has since rendered such excellent +service. + +The sergeant gave orders to turn to the left, towards the watershed of +the Seine. + +If it had occurred to them to separate into two squads, and to go in +both directions, Jean Valjean would have been captured. All hung on +that thread. It is probable that the instructions of the prefecture, +foreseeing a possibility of combat and insurgents in force, had +forbidden the patrol to part company. The patrol resumed its march, +leaving Jean Valjean behind it. Of all this movement, Jean Valjean +perceived nothing, except the eclipse of the lantern which suddenly +wheeled round. + +Before taking his departure, the Sergeant, in order to acquit his +policeman's conscience, discharged his gun in the direction of Jean +Valjean. The detonation rolled from echo to echo in the crypt, like the +rumbling of that titanic entrail. A bit of plaster which fell into the +stream and splashed up the water a few paces away from Jean Valjean, +warned him that the ball had struck the arch over his head. + +Slow and measured steps resounded for some time on the timber work, +gradually dying away as they retreated to a greater distance; the group +of black forms vanished, a glimmer of light oscillated and floated, +communicating to the vault a reddish glow which grew fainter, then +disappeared; the silence became profound once more, the obscurity became +complete, blindness and deafness resumed possession of the shadows; +and Jean Valjean, not daring to stir as yet, remained for a long time +leaning with his back against the wall, with straining ears, and dilated +pupils, watching the disappearance of that phantom patrol. + + + + +CHAPTER III--THE "SPUN" MAN + +This justice must be rendered to the police of that period, that even in +the most serious public junctures, it imperturbably fulfilled its duties +connected with the sewers and surveillance. A revolt was, in its eyes, +no pretext for allowing malefactors to take the bit in their own mouths, +and for neglecting society for the reason that the government was in +peril. The ordinary service was performed correctly in company with the +extraordinary service, and was not troubled by the latter. In the midst +of an incalculable political event already begun, under the pressure of +a possible revolution, a police agent, "spun" a thief without allowing +himself to be distracted by insurrection and barricades. + +It was something precisely parallel which took place on the afternoon +of the 6th of June on the banks of the Seine, on the slope of the right +shore, a little beyond the Pont des Invalides. + +There is no longer any bank there now. The aspect of the locality has +changed. + +On that bank, two men, separated by a certain distance, seemed to be +watching each other while mutually avoiding each other. The one who was +in advance was trying to get away, the one in the rear was trying to +overtake the other. + +It was like a game of checkers played at a distance and in silence. +Neither seemed to be in any hurry, and both walked slowly, as though +each of them feared by too much haste to make his partner redouble his +pace. + +One would have said that it was an appetite following its prey, and +purposely without wearing the air of doing so. The prey was crafty and +on its guard. + +The proper relations between the hunted pole-cat and the hunting dog +were observed. The one who was seeking to escape had an insignificant +mien and not an impressive appearance; the one who was seeking to seize +him was rude of aspect, and must have been rude to encounter. + +The first, conscious that he was the more feeble, avoided the second; +but he avoided him in a manner which was deeply furious; any one who +could have observed him would have discerned in his eyes the sombre +hostility of flight, and all the menace that fear contains. + +The shore was deserted; there were no passers-by; not even a boatman nor +a lighter-man was in the skiffs which were moored here and there. + +It was not easy to see these two men, except from the quay opposite, and +to any person who had scrutinized them at that distance, the man who was +in advance would have appeared like a bristling, tattered, and equivocal +being, who was uneasy and trembling beneath a ragged blouse, and the +other like a classic and official personage, wearing the frock-coat of +authority buttoned to the chin. + +Perchance the reader might recognize these two men, if he were to see +them closer at hand. + +What was the object of the second man? + +Probably to succeed in clothing the first more warmly. + +When a man clothed by the state pursues a man in rags, it is in order +to make of him a man who is also clothed by the state. Only, the whole +question lies in the color. To be dressed in blue is glorious; to be +dressed in red is disagreeable. + +There is a purple from below. + +It is probably some unpleasantness and some purple of this sort which +the first man is desirous of shirking. + +If the other allowed him to walk on, and had not seized him as yet, it +was, judging from all appearances, in the hope of seeing him lead up to +some significant meeting-place and to some group worth catching. This +delicate operation is called "spinning." + +What renders this conjecture entirely probable is that the buttoned-up +man, on catching sight from the shore of a hackney-coach on the quay +as it was passing along empty, made a sign to the driver; the driver +understood, evidently recognized the person with whom he had to deal, +turned about and began to follow the two men at the top of the quay, +at a foot-pace. This was not observed by the slouching and tattered +personage who was in advance. + +The hackney-coach rolled along the trees of the Champs-Elysees. The +bust of the driver, whip in hand, could be seen moving along above the +parapet. + +One of the secret instructions of the police authorities to their agents +contains this article: "Always have on hand a hackney-coach, in case of +emergency." + +While these two men were manoeuvring, each on his own side, with +irreproachable strategy, they approached an inclined plane on the quay +which descended to the shore, and which permitted cab-drivers arriving +from Passy to come to the river and water their horses. This inclined +plane was suppressed later on, for the sake of symmetry; horses may die +of thirst, but the eye is gratified. + +It is probable that the man in the blouse had intended to ascend +this inclined plane, with a view to making his escape into the +Champs-Elysees, a place ornamented with trees, but, in return, much +infested with policemen, and where the other could easily exercise +violence. + +This point on the quay is not very far distant from the house brought to +Paris from Moret in 1824, by Colonel Brack, and designated as "the house +of Francois I." A guard house is situated close at hand. + +To the great surprise of his watcher, the man who was being tracked did +not mount by the inclined plane for watering. He continued to advance +along the quay on the shore. + +His position was visibly becoming critical. + +What was he intending to do, if not to throw himself into the Seine? + +Henceforth, there existed no means of ascending to the quay; there was +no other inclined plane, no staircase; and they were near the spot, +marked by the bend in the Seine towards the Pont de Jena, where the +bank, growing constantly narrower, ended in a slender tongue, and +was lost in the water. There he would inevitably find himself blocked +between the perpendicular wall on his right, the river on his left and +in front of him, and the authorities on his heels. + +It is true that this termination of the shore was hidden from sight by a +heap of rubbish six or seven feet in height, produced by some demolition +or other. But did this man hope to conceal himself effectually behind +that heap of rubbish, which one need but skirt? The expedient would +have been puerile. He certainly was not dreaming of such a thing. The +innocence of thieves does not extend to that point. + +The pile of rubbish formed a sort of projection at the water's edge, +which was prolonged in a promontory as far as the wall of the quay. + +The man who was being followed arrived at this little mound and went +round it, so that he ceased to be seen by the other. + +The latter, as he did not see, could not be seen; he took advantage of +this fact to abandon all dissimulation and to walk very rapidly. In a +few moments, he had reached the rubbish heap and passed round it. There +he halted in sheer amazement. The man whom he had been pursuing was no +longer there. + +Total eclipse of the man in the blouse. + +The shore, beginning with the rubbish heap, was only about thirty paces +long, then it plunged into the water which beat against the wall of the +quay. The fugitive could not have thrown himself into the Seine without +being seen by the man who was following him. What had become of him? + +The man in the buttoned-up coat walked to the extremity of the shore, +and remained there in thought for a moment, his fists clenched, his eyes +searching. All at once he smote his brow. He had just perceived, at the +point where the land came to an end and the water began, a large iron +grating, low, arched, garnished with a heavy lock and with three massive +hinges. This grating, a sort of door pierced at the base of the quay, +opened on the river as well as on the shore. A blackish stream passed +under it. This stream discharged into the Seine. + +Beyond the heavy, rusty iron bars, a sort of dark and vaulted corridor +could be descried. The man folded his arms and stared at the grating +with an air of reproach. + +As this gaze did not suffice, he tried to thrust it aside; he shook +it, it resisted solidly. It is probable that it had just been opened, +although no sound had been heard, a singular circumstance in so rusty a +grating; but it is certain that it had been closed again. This indicated +that the man before whom that door had just opened had not a hook but a +key. + +This evidence suddenly burst upon the mind of the man who was trying to +move the grating, and evoked from him this indignant ejaculation: + +"That is too much! A government key!" + +Then, immediately regaining his composure, he expressed a whole world +of interior ideas by this outburst of monosyllables accented almost +ironically: "Come! Come! Come! Come!" + +That said, and in the hope of something or other, either that he should +see the man emerge or other men enter, he posted himself on the watch +behind a heap of rubbish, with the patient rage of a pointer. + +The hackney-coach, which regulated all its movements on his, had, in its +turn, halted on the quay above him, close to the parapet. The coachman, +foreseeing a prolonged wait, encased his horses' muzzles in the bag of +oats which is damp at the bottom, and which is so familiar to Parisians, +to whom, be it said in parenthesis, the Government sometimes applies it. +The rare passers-by on the Pont de Jena turned their heads, before they +pursued their way, to take a momentary glance at these two motionless +items in the landscape, the man on the shore, the carriage on the quay. + + + + +CHAPTER IV--HE ALSO BEARS HIS CROSS + +Jean Valjean had resumed his march and had not again paused. + +This march became more and more laborious. The level of these vaults +varies; the average height is about five feet, six inches, and has been +calculated for the stature of a man; Jean Valjean was forced to bend +over, in order not to strike Marius against the vault; at every step +he had to bend, then to rise, and to feel incessantly of the wall. The +moisture of the stones, and the viscous nature of the timber framework +furnished but poor supports to which to cling, either for hand or foot. +He stumbled along in the hideous dung-heap of the city. The intermittent +gleams from the air-holes only appeared at very long intervals, and were +so wan that the full sunlight seemed like the light of the moon; all +the rest was mist, miasma, opaqueness, blackness. Jean Valjean was both +hungry and thirsty; especially thirsty; and this, like the sea, was a +place full of water where a man cannot drink. His strength, which was +prodigious, as the reader knows, and which had been but little decreased +by age, thanks to his chaste and sober life, began to give way, +nevertheless. Fatigue began to gain on him; and as his strength +decreased, it made the weight of his burden increase. Marius, who was, +perhaps, dead, weighed him down as inert bodies weigh. Jean Valjean +held him in such a manner that his chest was not oppressed, and so that +respiration could proceed as well as possible. Between his legs he felt +the rapid gliding of the rats. One of them was frightened to such a +degree that he bit him. From time to time, a breath of fresh air reached +him through the vent-holes of the mouths of the sewer, and re-animated +him. + +It might have been three hours past midday when he reached the +belt-sewer. + +He was, at first, astonished at this sudden widening. He found himself, +all at once, in a gallery where his outstretched hands could not reach +the two walls, and beneath a vault which his head did not touch. The +Grand Sewer is, in fact, eight feet wide and seven feet high. + +At the point where the Montmartre sewer joins the Grand Sewer, two other +subterranean galleries, that of the Rue de Provence, and that of the +Abattoir, form a square. Between these four ways, a less sagacious man +would have remained undecided. Jean Valjean selected the broadest, that +is to say, the belt-sewer. But here the question again came up--should +he descend or ascend? He thought that the situation required haste, and +that he must now gain the Seine at any risk. In other terms, he must +descend. He turned to the left. + +It was well that he did so, for it is an error to suppose that the +belt-sewer has two outlets, the one in the direction of Bercy, the other +towards Passy, and that it is, as its name indicates, the subterranean +girdle of the Paris on the right bank. The Grand Sewer, which is, it +must be remembered, nothing else than the old brook of Menilmontant, +terminates, if one ascends it, in a blind sack, that is to say, at its +ancient point of departure which was its source, at the foot of the +knoll of Menilmontant. There is no direct communication with the +branch which collects the waters of Paris beginning with the Quartier +Popincourt, and which falls into the Seine through the Amelot sewer +above the ancient Isle Louviers. This branch, which completes the +collecting sewer, is separated from it, under the Rue Menilmontant +itself, by a pile which marks the dividing point of the waters, between +upstream and downstream. If Jean Valjean had ascended the gallery he +would have arrived, after a thousand efforts, and broken down with +fatigue, and in an expiring condition, in the gloom, at a wall. He would +have been lost. + +In case of necessity, by retracing his steps a little way, and entering +the passage of the Filles-du-Calvaire, on condition that he did not +hesitate at the subterranean crossing of the Carrefour Boucherat, and by +taking the corridor Saint-Louis, then the Saint-Gilles gut on the left, +then turning to the right and avoiding the Saint-Sebastian gallery, he +might have reached the Amelot sewer, and thence, provided that he did +not go astray in the sort of F which lies under the Bastille, he might +have attained the outlet on the Seine near the Arsenal. But in order +to do this, he must have been thoroughly familiar with the enormous +madrepore of the sewer in all its ramifications and in all its openings. +Now, we must again insist that he knew nothing of that frightful drain +which he was traversing; and had any one asked him in what he was, he +would have answered: "In the night." + +His instinct served him well. To descend was, in fact, possible safety. + +He left on his right the two narrow passages which branch out in the +form of a claw under the Rue Laffitte and the Rue Saint-Georges and the +long, bifurcated corridor of the Chaussee d'Antin. + +A little beyond an affluent, which was, probably, the Madeleine branch, +he halted. He was extremely weary. A passably large air-hole, probably +the man-hole in the Rue d'Anjou, furnished a light that was almost +vivid. Jean Valjean, with the gentleness of movement which a brother +would exercise towards his wounded brother, deposited Marius on the +banquette of the sewer. Marius' blood-stained face appeared under the +wan light of the air-hole like the ashes at the bottom of a tomb. His +eyes were closed, his hair was plastered down on his temples like a +painter's brushes dried in red wash; his hands hung limp and dead. A +clot of blood had collected in the knot of his cravat; his limbs were +cold, and blood was clotted at the corners of his mouth; his shirt had +thrust itself into his wounds, the cloth of his coat was chafing the +yawning gashes in the living flesh. Jean Valjean, pushing aside the +garments with the tips of his fingers, laid his hand upon Marius' +breast; his heart was still beating. Jean Valjean tore up his shirt, +bandaged the young man's wounds as well as he was able and stopped the +flowing blood; then bending over Marius, who still lay unconscious +and almost without breathing, in that half light, he gazed at him with +inexpressible hatred. + +On disarranging Marius' garments, he had found two things in his +pockets, the roll which had been forgotten there on the preceding +evening, and Marius' pocketbook. He ate the roll and opened the +pocketbook. On the first page he found the four lines written by Marius. +The reader will recall them: + +"My name is Marius Pontmercy. Carry my body to my grandfather, M. +Gillenormand, Rue des Filles-du-Calvaire, No. 6, in the Marais." + +Jean Valjean read these four lines by the light of the air-hole, and +remained for a moment as though absorbed in thought, repeating in a low +tone: "Rue des Filles-du-Calvaire, number 6, Monsieur Gillenormand." He +replaced the pocketbook in Marius' pocket. He had eaten, his strength +had returned to him; he took Marius up once more upon his back, placed +the latter's head carefully on his right shoulder, and resumed his +descent of the sewer. + +The Grand Sewer, directed according to the course of the valley of +Menilmontant, is about two leagues long. It is paved throughout a +notable portion of its extent. + +This torch of the names of the streets of Paris, with which we are +illuminating for the reader Jean Valjean's subterranean march, Jean +Valjean himself did not possess. Nothing told him what zone of the city +he was traversing, nor what way he had made. Only the growing pallor of +the pools of light which he encountered from time to time indicated to +him that the sun was withdrawing from the pavement, and that the day +would soon be over; and the rolling of vehicles overhead, having become +intermittent instead of continuous, then having almost ceased, he +concluded that he was no longer under central Paris, and that he +was approaching some solitary region, in the vicinity of the outer +boulevards, or the extreme outer quays. Where there are fewer houses and +streets, the sewer has fewer air-holes. The gloom deepened around Jean +Valjean. Nevertheless, he continued to advance, groping his way in the +dark. + +Suddenly this darkness became terrible. + + + + +CHAPTER V--IN THE CASE OF SAND AS IN THAT OF WOMAN, THERE IS A FINENESS +WHICH IS TREACHEROUS + +He felt that he was entering the water, and that he no longer had a +pavement under his feet, but only mud. + +It sometimes happens, that on certain shores of Bretagne or Scotland a +man, either a traveller or a fisherman, while walking at low tide on the +beach far from shore, suddenly notices that for several minutes past, +he has been walking with some difficulty. The beach under foot is +like pitch; his soles stick fast to it; it is no longer sand, it is +bird-lime. The strand is perfectly dry, but at every step that he takes, +as soon as the foot is raised, the print is filled with water. The +eye, however, has perceived no change; the immense beach is smooth and +tranquil, all the sand has the same aspect, nothing distinguishes the +soil that is solid from that which is not solid; the joyous little +cloud of sand-lice continues to leap tumultuously under the feet of the +passer-by. + +The man pursues his way, he walks on, turns towards the land, endeavors +to approach the shore. He is not uneasy. Uneasy about what? Only he is +conscious that the heaviness of his feet seems to be increasing at every +step that he takes. All at once he sinks in. He sinks in two or three +inches. Decidedly, he is not on the right road; he halts to get his +bearings. Suddenly he glances at his feet; his feet have disappeared. +The sand has covered them. He draws his feet out of the sand, he tries +to retrace his steps, he turns back, he sinks in more deeply than +before. The sand is up to his ankles, he tears himself free from it +and flings himself to the left, the sand reaches to mid-leg, he flings +himself to the right, the sand comes up to his knees. Then, with +indescribable terror, he recognizes the fact that he is caught in a +quicksand, and that he has beneath him that frightful medium in which +neither man can walk nor fish can swim. He flings away his burden, if he +have one, he lightens himself, like a ship in distress; it is too late, +the sand is above his knees. + +He shouts, he waves his hat, or his handkerchief, the sand continually +gains on him; if the beach is deserted, if the land is too far away, if +the bank of sand is too ill-famed, there is no hero in the neighborhood, +all is over, he is condemned to be engulfed. He is condemned to that +terrible interment, long, infallible, implacable, which it is impossible +to either retard or hasten, which lasts for hours, which will not come +to an end, which seizes you erect, free, in the flush of health, which +drags you down by the feet, which, at every effort that you attempt, at +every shout that you utter, draws you a little lower, which has the air +of punishing you for your resistance by a redoubled grasp, which forces +a man to return slowly to earth, while leaving him time to survey the +horizon, the trees, the verdant country, the smoke of the villages on +the plain, the sails of the ships on the sea, the birds which fly +and sing, the sun and the sky. This engulfment is the sepulchre which +assumes a tide, and which mounts from the depths of the earth towards +a living man. Each minute is an inexorable layer-out of the dead. The +wretched man tries to sit down, to lie down, to climb; every movement +that he makes buries him deeper; he straightens himself up, he sinks; he +feels that he is being swallowed up; he shrieks, implores, cries to the +clouds, wrings his hands, grows desperate. Behold him in the sand up +to his belly, the sand reaches to his breast, he is only a bust now. +He uplifts his hands, utters furious groans, clenches his nails on the +beach, tries to cling fast to that ashes, supports himself on his elbows +in order to raise himself from that soft sheath, and sobs frantically; +the sand mounts higher. The sand has reached his shoulders, the sand +reaches to his throat; only his face is visible now. His mouth cries +aloud, the sand fills it; silence. His eyes still gaze forth, the sand +closes them, night. Then his brow decreases, a little hair quivers above +the sand; a hand projects, pierces the surface of the beach, waves and +disappears. Sinister obliteration of a man. + +Sometimes a rider is engulfed with his horse; sometimes the carter is +swallowed up with his cart; all founders in that strand. It is shipwreck +elsewhere than in the water. It is the earth drowning a man. The earth, +permeated with the ocean, becomes a pitfall. It presents itself in the +guise of a plain, and it yawns like a wave. The abyss is subject to +these treacheries. + +This melancholy fate, always possible on certain sea beaches, was also +possible, thirty years ago, in the sewers of Paris. + +Before the important works, undertaken in 1833, the subterranean drain +of Paris was subject to these sudden slides. + +The water filtered into certain subjacent strata, which were +particularly friable; the foot-way, which was of flag-stones, as in +the ancient sewers, or of cement on concrete, as in the new galleries, +having no longer an underpinning, gave way. A fold in a flooring of this +sort means a crack, means crumbling. The framework crumbled away for a +certain length. This crevice, the hiatus of a gulf of mire, was called a +fontis, in the special tongue. What is a fontis? It is the quicksands of +the seashore suddenly encountered under the surface of the earth; it is +the beach of Mont Saint-Michel in a sewer. The soaked soil is in a +state of fusion, as it were; all its molecules are in suspension in soft +medium; it is not earth and it is not water. The depth is sometimes very +great. Nothing can be more formidable than such an encounter. If the +water predominates, death is prompt, the man is swallowed up; if earth +predominates, death is slow. + +Can any one picture to himself such a death? If being swallowed by the +earth is terrible on the seashore, what is it in a cess-pool? Instead of +the open air, the broad daylight, the clear horizon, those vast sounds, +those free clouds whence rains life, instead of those barks descried +in the distance, of that hope under all sorts of forms, of probable +passers-by, of succor possible up to the very last moment,--instead +of all this, deafness, blindness, a black vault, the inside of a tomb +already prepared, death in the mire beneath a cover! slow suffocation +by filth, a stone box where asphyxia opens its claw in the mire and +clutches you by the throat; fetidness mingled with the death-rattle; +slime instead of the strand, sulfuretted hydrogen in place of the +hurricane, dung in place of the ocean! And to shout, to gnash one's +teeth, and to writhe, and to struggle, and to agonize, with that +enormous city which knows nothing of it all, over one's head! + +Inexpressible is the horror of dying thus! Death sometimes redeems +his atrocity by a certain terrible dignity. On the funeral pile, in +shipwreck, one can be great; in the flames as in the foam, a superb +attitude is possible; one there becomes transfigured as one perishes. +But not here. Death is filthy. It is humiliating to expire. The supreme +floating visions are abject. Mud is synonymous with shame. It is +petty, ugly, infamous. To die in a butt of Malvoisie, like Clarence, is +permissible; in the ditch of a scavenger, like Escoubleau, is horrible. +To struggle therein is hideous; at the same time that one is going +through the death agony, one is floundering about. There are shadows +enough for hell, and mire enough to render it nothing but a slough, and +the dying man knows not whether he is on the point of becoming a spectre +or a frog. + +Everywhere else the sepulchre is sinister; here it is deformed. + +The depth of the fontis varied, as well as their length and their +density, according to the more or less bad quality of the sub-soil. +Sometimes a fontis was three or four feet deep, sometimes eight or ten; +sometimes the bottom was unfathomable. Here the mire was almost solid, +there almost liquid. In the Luniere fontis, it would have taken a man a +day to disappear, while he would have been devoured in five minutes by +the Philippeaux slough. The mire bears up more or less, according to its +density. A child can escape where a man will perish. The first law of +safety is to get rid of every sort of load. Every sewerman who felt the +ground giving way beneath him began by flinging away his sack of tools, +or his back-basket, or his hod. + +The fontis were due to different causes: the friability of the soil; +some landslip at a depth beyond the reach of man; the violent summer +rains; the incessant flooding of winter; long, drizzling showers. +Sometimes the weight of the surrounding houses on a marly or sandy soil +forced out the vaults of the subterranean galleries and caused them to +bend aside, or it chanced that a flooring vault burst and split under +this crushing thrust. In this manner, the heaping up of the Parthenon, +obliterated, a century ago, a portion of the vaults of Saint-Genevieve +hill. When a sewer was broken in under the pressure of the houses, the +mischief was sometimes betrayed in the street above by a sort of space, +like the teeth of a saw, between the paving-stones; this crevice was +developed in an undulating line throughout the entire length of the +cracked vault, and then, the evil being visible, the remedy could be +promptly applied. It also frequently happened, that the interior ravages +were not revealed by any external scar, and in that case, woe to the +sewermen. When they entered without precaution into the sewer, they were +liable to be lost. Ancient registers make mention of several scavengers +who were buried in fontis in this manner. They give many names; among +others, that of the sewerman who was swallowed up in a quagmire under +the man-hole of the Rue Careme-Prenant, a certain Blaise Poutrain; this +Blaise Poutrain was the brother of Nicholas Poutrain, who was the last +grave-digger of the cemetery called the Charnier des Innocents, in 1785, +the epoch when that cemetery expired. + +There was also that young and charming Vicomte d'Escoubleau, of whom we +have just spoken, one of the heroes of the siege of Lerida, where they +delivered the assault in silk stockings, with violins at their head. +D'Escoubleau, surprised one night at his cousin's, the Duchess de +Sourdis', was drowned in a quagmire of the Beautreillis sewer, in which +he had taken refuge in order to escape from the Duke. Madame de Sourdis, +when informed of his death, demanded her smelling-bottle, and forgot to +weep, through sniffling at her salts. In such cases, there is no love +which holds fast; the sewer extinguishes it. Hero refuses to wash the +body of Leander. Thisbe stops her nose in the presence of Pyramus and +says: "Phew!" + + + + +CHAPTER VI--THE FONTIS + +Jean Valjean found himself in the presence of a fontis. + +This sort of quagmire was common at that period in the subsoil of the +Champs-Elysees, difficult to handle in the hydraulic works and a bad +preservative of the subterranean constructions, on account of its +excessive fluidity. This fluidity exceeds even the inconsistency of the +sands of the Quartier Saint-Georges, which could only be conquered by +a stone construction on a concrete foundation, and the clayey strata, +infected with gas, of the Quartier des Martyrs, which are so liquid +that the only way in which a passage was effected under the gallery des +Martyrs was by means of a cast-iron pipe. When, in 1836, the old stone +sewer beneath the Faubourg Saint-Honore, in which we now see Jean +Valjean, was demolished for the purpose of reconstructing it, the +quicksand, which forms the subsoil of the Champs-Elysees as far as the +Seine, presented such an obstacle, that the operation lasted nearly +six months, to the great clamor of the dwellers on the riverside, +particularly those who had hotels and carriages. The work was more than +unhealthy; it was dangerous. It is true that they had four months and a +half of rain, and three floods of the Seine. + +The fontis which Jean Valjean had encountered was caused by the downpour +of the preceding day. The pavement, badly sustained by the subjacent +sand, had given way and had produced a stoppage of the water. +Infiltration had taken place, a slip had followed. The dislocated bottom +had sunk into the ooze. To what extent? Impossible to say. The obscurity +was more dense there than elsewhere. It was a pit of mire in a cavern of +night. + +Jean Valjean felt the pavement vanishing beneath his feet. He entered +this slime. There was water on the surface, slime at the bottom. He must +pass it. To retrace his steps was impossible. Marius was dying, and Jean +Valjean exhausted. Besides, where was he to go? Jean Valjean advanced. +Moreover, the pit seemed, for the first few steps, not to be very deep. +But in proportion as he advanced, his feet plunged deeper. Soon he had +the slime up to his calves and water above his knees. He walked on, +raising Marius in his arms, as far above the water as he could. The mire +now reached to his knees, and the water to his waist. He could no longer +retreat. This mud, dense enough for one man, could not, obviously, +uphold two. Marius and Jean Valjean would have stood a chance of +extricating themselves singly. Jean Valjean continued to advance, +supporting the dying man, who was, perhaps, a corpse. + +The water came up to his arm-pits; he felt that he was sinking; it was +only with difficulty that he could move in the depth of ooze which +he had now reached. The density, which was his support, was also +an obstacle. He still held Marius on high, and with an unheard-of +expenditure of force, he advanced still; but he was sinking. He had only +his head above the water now and his two arms holding up Marius. In the +old paintings of the deluge there is a mother holding her child thus. + +He sank still deeper, he turned his face to the rear, to escape the +water, and in order that he might be able to breathe; anyone who had +seen him in that gloom would have thought that what he beheld was a +mask floating on the shadows; he caught a faint glimpse above him of the +drooping head and livid face of Marius; he made a desperate effort and +launched his foot forward; his foot struck something solid; a point of +support. It was high time. + +He straightened himself up, and rooted himself upon that point of +support with a sort of fury. This produced upon him the effect of the +first step in a staircase leading back to life. + +The point of support, thus encountered in the mire at the supreme +moment, was the beginning of the other water-shed of the pavement, which +had bent but had not given way, and which had curved under the water +like a plank and in a single piece. Well built pavements form a vault +and possess this sort of firmness. This fragment of the vaulting, partly +submerged, but solid, was a veritable inclined plane, and, once on this +plane, he was safe. Jean Valjean mounted this inclined plane and reached +the other side of the quagmire. + +As he emerged from the water, he came in contact with a stone and fell +upon his knees. He reflected that this was but just, and he remained +there for some time, with his soul absorbed in words addressed to God. + +He rose to his feet, shivering, chilled, foul-smelling, bowed beneath +the dying man whom he was dragging after him, all dripping with slime, +and his soul filled with a strange light. + + + + +CHAPTER VII--ONE SOMETIMES RUNS AGROUND WHEN ONE FANCIES THAT ONE IS +DISEMBARKING + +He set out on his way once more. + +However, although he had not left his life in the fontis, he seemed +to have left his strength behind him there. That supreme effort had +exhausted him. His lassitude was now such that he was obliged to pause +for breath every three or four steps, and lean against the wall. Once +he was forced to seat himself on the banquette in order to alter Marius' +position, and he thought that he should have to remain there. But if his +vigor was dead, his energy was not. He rose again. + +He walked on desperately, almost fast, proceeded thus for a hundred +paces, almost without drawing breath, and suddenly came in contact with +the wall. He had reached an elbow of the sewer, and, arriving at the +turn with head bent down, he had struck the wall. He raised his eyes, +and at the extremity of the vault, far, very far away in front of him, +he perceived a light. This time it was not that terrible light; it was +good, white light. It was daylight. Jean Valjean saw the outlet. + +A damned soul, who, in the midst of the furnace, should suddenly +perceive the outlet of Gehenna, would experience what Jean Valjean felt. +It would fly wildly with the stumps of its burned wings towards that +radiant portal. Jean Valjean was no longer conscious of fatigue, he no +longer felt Marius' weight, he found his legs once more of steel, he ran +rather than walked. As he approached, the outlet became more and more +distinctly defined. It was a pointed arch, lower than the vault, which +gradually narrowed, and narrower than the gallery, which closed in as +the vault grew lower. The tunnel ended like the interior of a funnel; +a faulty construction, imitated from the wickets of penitentiaries, +logical in a prison, illogical in a sewer, and which has since been +corrected. + +Jean Valjean reached the outlet. + +There he halted. + +It certainly was the outlet, but he could not get out. + +The arch was closed by a heavy grating, and the grating, which, to all +appearance, rarely swung on its rusty hinges, was clamped to its stone +jamb by a thick lock, which, red with rust, seemed like an enormous +brick. The keyhole could be seen, and the robust latch, deeply sunk in +the iron staple. The door was plainly double-locked. It was one of those +prison locks which old Paris was so fond of lavishing. + +Beyond the grating was the open air, the river, the daylight, the shore, +very narrow but sufficient for escape. The distant quays, Paris, that +gulf in which one so easily hides oneself, the broad horizon, liberty. +On the right, down stream, the bridge of Jena was discernible, on the +left, upstream, the bridge of the Invalides; the place would have been a +propitious one in which to await the night and to escape. It was one +of the most solitary points in Paris; the shore which faces the +Grand-Caillou. Flies were entering and emerging through the bars of the +grating. + +It might have been half-past eight o'clock in the evening. The day was +declining. + +Jean Valjean laid Marius down along the wall, on the dry portion of the +vaulting, then he went to the grating and clenched both fists round the +bars; the shock which he gave it was frenzied, but it did not move. The +grating did not stir. Jean Valjean seized the bars one after the other, +in the hope that he might be able to tear away the least solid, and to +make of it a lever wherewith to raise the door or to break the lock. Not +a bar stirred. The teeth of a tiger are not more firmly fixed in their +sockets. No lever; no prying possible. The obstacle was invincible. +There was no means of opening the gate. + +Must he then stop there? What was he to do? What was to become of him? +He had not the strength to retrace his steps, to recommence the journey +which he had already taken. Besides, how was he to again traverse that +quagmire whence he had only extricated himself as by a miracle? And +after the quagmire, was there not the police patrol, which assuredly +could not be twice avoided? And then, whither was he to go? What +direction should he pursue? To follow the incline would not conduct +him to his goal. If he were to reach another outlet, he would find it +obstructed by a plug or a grating. Every outlet was, undoubtedly, closed +in that manner. Chance had unsealed the grating through which he had +entered, but it was evident that all the other sewer mouths were barred. +He had only succeeded in escaping into a prison. + +All was over. Everything that Jean Valjean had done was useless. +Exhaustion had ended in failure. + +They were both caught in the immense and gloomy web of death, and Jean +Valjean felt the terrible spider running along those black strands and +quivering in the shadows. He turned his back to the grating, and fell +upon the pavement, hurled to earth rather than seated, close to Marius, +who still made no movement, and with his head bent between his knees. +This was the last drop of anguish. + +Of what was he thinking during this profound depression? Neither of +himself nor of Marius. He was thinking of Cosette. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII--THE TORN COAT-TAIL + +In the midst of this prostration, a hand was laid on his shoulder, and a +low voice said to him: + +"Half shares." + +Some person in that gloom? Nothing so closely resembles a dream as +despair. Jean Valjean thought that he was dreaming. He had heard no +footsteps. Was it possible? He raised his eyes. + +A man stood before him. + +This man was clad in a blouse; his feet were bare; he held his shoes +in his left hand; he had evidently removed them in order to reach Jean +Valjean, without allowing his steps to be heard. + +Jean Valjean did not hesitate for an instant. Unexpected as was this +encounter, this man was known to him. The man was Thenardier. + +Although awakened, so to speak, with a start, Jean Valjean, accustomed +to alarms, and steeled to unforeseen shocks that must be promptly +parried, instantly regained possession of his presence of mind. +Moreover, the situation could not be made worse, a certain degree of +distress is no longer capable of a crescendo, and Thenardier himself +could add nothing to this blackness of this night. + +A momentary pause ensued. + +Thenardier, raising his right hand to a level with his forehead, formed +with it a shade, then he brought his eyelashes together, by screwing up +his eyes, a motion which, in connection with a slight contraction of the +mouth, characterizes the sagacious attention of a man who is endeavoring +to recognize another man. He did not succeed. Jean Valjean, as we have +just stated, had his back turned to the light, and he was, moreover, +so disfigured, so bemired, so bleeding that he would have been +unrecognizable in full noonday. On the contrary, illuminated by the +light from the grating, a cellar light, it is true, livid, yet precise +in its lividness, Thenardier, as the energetic popular metaphor +expresses it, immediately "leaped into" Jean Valjean's eyes. This +inequality of conditions sufficed to assure some advantage to Jean +Valjean in that mysterious duel which was on the point of beginning +between the two situations and the two men. The encounter took place +between Jean Valjean veiled and Thenardier unmasked. + +Jean Valjean immediately perceived that Thenardier did not recognize +him. + +They surveyed each other for a moment in that half-gloom, as though +taking each other's measure. Thenardier was the first to break the +silence. + +"How are you going to manage to get out?" + +Jean Valjean made no reply. Thenardier continued: + +"It's impossible to pick the lock of that gate. But still you must get +out of this." + +"That is true," said Jean Valjean. + +"Well, half shares then." + +"What do you mean by that?" + +"You have killed that man; that's all right. I have the key." + +Thenardier pointed to Marius. He went on: + +"I don't know you, but I want to help you. You must be a friend." + +Jean Valjean began to comprehend. Thenardier took him for an assassin. + +Thenardier resumed: + +"Listen, comrade. You didn't kill that man without looking to see what +he had in his pockets. Give me my half. I'll open the door for you." + +And half drawing from beneath his tattered blouse a huge key, he added: + +"Do you want to see how a key to liberty is made? Look here." + +Jean Valjean "remained stupid"--the expression belongs to the elder +Corneille--to such a degree that he doubted whether what he beheld was +real. It was providence appearing in horrible guise, and his good angel +springing from the earth in the form of Thenardier. + +Thenardier thrust his fist into a large pocket concealed under his +blouse, drew out a rope and offered it to Jean Valjean. + +"Hold on," said he, "I'll give you the rope to boot." + +"What is the rope for?" + +"You will need a stone also, but you can find one outside. There's a +heap of rubbish." + +"What am I to do with a stone?" + +"Idiot, you'll want to sling that stiff into the river, you'll need a +stone and a rope, otherwise it would float on the water." + +Jean Valjean took the rope. There is no one who does not occasionally +accept in this mechanical way. + +Thenardier snapped his fingers as though an idea had suddenly occurred +to him. + +"Ah, see here, comrade, how did you contrive to get out of that slough +yonder? I haven't dared to risk myself in it. Phew! you don't smell +good." + +After a pause he added: + +"I'm asking you questions, but you're perfectly right not to answer. +It's an apprenticeship against that cursed quarter of an hour before the +examining magistrate. And then, when you don't talk at all, you run no +risk of talking too loud. That's no matter, as I can't see your face and +as I don't know your name, you are wrong in supposing that I don't know +who you are and what you want. I twig. You've broken up that gentleman +a bit; now you want to tuck him away somewhere. The river, that great +hider of folly, is what you want. I'll get you out of your scrape. +Helping a good fellow in a pinch is what suits me to a hair." + +While expressing his approval of Jean Valjean's silence, he endeavored +to force him to talk. He jostled his shoulder in an attempt to catch a +sight of his profile, and he exclaimed, without, however, raising his +tone: + +"Apropos of that quagmire, you're a hearty animal. Why didn't you toss +the man in there?" + +Jean Valjean preserved silence. + +Thenardier resumed, pushing the rag which served him as a cravat to the +level of his Adam's apple, a gesture which completes the capable air of +a serious man: + +"After all, you acted wisely. The workmen, when they come to-morrow to +stop up that hole, would certainly have found the stiff abandoned there, +and it might have been possible, thread by thread, straw by straw, to +pick up the scent and reach you. Some one has passed through the sewer. +Who? Where did he get out? Was he seen to come out? The police are full +of cleverness. The sewer is treacherous and tells tales of you. Such a +find is a rarity, it attracts attention, very few people make use of +the sewers for their affairs, while the river belongs to everybody. The +river is the true grave. At the end of a month they fish up your man +in the nets at Saint-Cloud. Well, what does one care for that? It's +carrion! Who killed that man? Paris. And justice makes no inquiries. You +have done well." + +The more loquacious Thenardier became, the more mute was Jean Valjean. + +Again Thenardier shook him by the shoulder. + +"Now let's settle this business. Let's go shares. You have seen my key, +show me your money." + +Thenardier was haggard, fierce, suspicious, rather menacing, yet +amicable. + +There was one singular circumstance; Thenardier's manners were not +simple; he had not the air of being wholly at his ease; while affecting +an air of mystery, he spoke low; from time to time he laid his finger on +his mouth, and muttered, "hush!" It was difficult to divine why. There +was no one there except themselves. Jean Valjean thought that other +ruffians might possibly be concealed in some nook, not very far off, and +that Thenardier did not care to share with them. + +Thenardier resumed: + +"Let's settle up. How much did the stiff have in his bags?" + +Jean Valjean searched his pockets. + +It was his habit, as the reader will remember, to always have some +money about him. The mournful life of expedients to which he had been +condemned imposed this as a law upon him. On this occasion, however, +he had been caught unprepared. When donning his uniform of a National +Guardsman on the preceding evening, he had forgotten, dolefully absorbed +as he was, to take his pocket-book. He had only some small change in his +fob. He turned out his pocket, all soaked with ooze, and spread out on +the banquette of the vault one louis d'or, two five-franc pieces, and +five or six large sous. + +Thenardier thrust out his lower lip with a significant twist of the +neck. + +"You knocked him over cheap," said he. + +He set to feeling the pockets of Jean Valjean and Marius, with the +greatest familiarity. Jean Valjean, who was chiefly concerned in keeping +his back to the light, let him have his way. + +While handling Marius' coat, Thenardier, with the skill of a pickpocket, +and without being noticed by Jean Valjean, tore off a strip which he +concealed under his blouse, probably thinking that this morsel of +stuff might serve, later on, to identify the assassinated man and the +assassin. However, he found no more than the thirty francs. + +"That's true," said he, "both of you together have no more than that." + +And, forgetting his motto: "half shares," he took all. + +He hesitated a little over the large sous. After due reflection, he took +them also, muttering: + +"Never mind! You cut folks' throats too cheap altogether." + +That done, he once more drew the big key from under his blouse. + +"Now, my friend, you must leave. It's like the fair here, you pay when +you go out. You have paid, now clear out." + +And he began to laugh. + +Had he, in lending to this stranger the aid of his key, and in making +some other man than himself emerge from that portal, the pure and +disinterested intention of rescuing an assassin? We may be permitted to +doubt this. + +Thenardier helped Jean Valjean to replace Marius on his shoulders, then +he betook himself to the grating on tiptoe, and barefooted, making Jean +Valjean a sign to follow him, looked out, laid his finger on his mouth, +and remained for several seconds, as though in suspense; his inspection +finished, he placed the key in the lock. The bolt slipped back and the +gate swung open. It neither grated nor squeaked. It moved very softly. + +It was obvious that this gate and those hinges, carefully oiled, were +in the habit of opening more frequently than was supposed. This +softness was suspicious; it hinted at furtive goings and comings, silent +entrances and exits of nocturnal men, and the wolf-like tread of crime. + +The sewer was evidently an accomplice of some mysterious band. This +taciturn grating was a receiver of stolen goods. + +Thenardier opened the gate a little way, allowing just sufficient space +for Jean Valjean to pass out, closed the grating again, gave the key +a double turn in the lock and plunged back into the darkness, without +making any more noise than a breath. He seemed to walk with the velvet +paws of a tiger. + +A moment later, that hideous providence had retreated into the +invisibility. + +Jean Valjean found himself in the open air. + + + + +CHAPTER IX--MARIUS PRODUCES ON SOME ONE WHO IS A JUDGE OF THE MATTER, +THE EFFECT OF BEING DEAD + +He allowed Marius to slide down upon the shore. + +They were in the open air! + +The miasmas, darkness, horror lay behind him. The pure, healthful, +living, joyous air that was easy to breathe inundated him. Everywhere +around him reigned silence, but that charming silence when the sun has +set in an unclouded azure sky. Twilight had descended; night was drawing +on, the great deliverer, the friend of all those who need a mantle of +darkness that they may escape from an anguish. The sky presented itself +in all directions like an enormous calm. The river flowed to his feet +with the sound of a kiss. The aerial dialogue of the nests bidding each +other good night in the elms of the Champs-Elysees was audible. A few +stars, daintily piercing the pale blue of the zenith, and visible to +revery alone, formed imperceptible little splendors amid the immensity. +Evening was unfolding over the head of Jean Valjean all the sweetness of +the infinite. + +It was that exquisite and undecided hour which says neither yes nor no. +Night was already sufficiently advanced to render it possible to lose +oneself at a little distance and yet there was sufficient daylight to +permit of recognition at close quarters. + +For several seconds, Jean Valjean was irresistibly overcome by that +august and caressing serenity; such moments of oblivion do come to men; +suffering refrains from harassing the unhappy wretch; everything is +eclipsed in the thoughts; peace broods over the dreamer like night; and, +beneath the twilight which beams and in imitation of the sky which is +illuminated, the soul becomes studded with stars. Jean Valjean could +not refrain from contemplating that vast, clear shadow which rested +over him; thoughtfully he bathed in the sea of ecstasy and prayer in the +majestic silence of the eternal heavens. Then he bent down swiftly +to Marius, as though the sentiment of duty had returned to him, and, +dipping up water in the hollow of his hand, he gently sprinkled a +few drops on the latter's face. Marius' eyelids did not open; but his +half-open mouth still breathed. + +Jean Valjean was on the point of dipping his hand in the river once +more, when, all at once, he experienced an indescribable embarrassment, +such as a person feels when there is some one behind him whom he does +not see. + +We have already alluded to this impression, with which everyone is +familiar. + +He turned round. + +Some one was, in fact, behind him, as there had been a short while +before. + +A man of lofty stature, enveloped in a long coat, with folded arms, +and bearing in his right fist a bludgeon of which the leaden head was +visible, stood a few paces in the rear of the spot where Jean Valjean +was crouching over Marius. + +With the aid of the darkness, it seemed a sort of apparition. An +ordinary man would have been alarmed because of the twilight, a +thoughtful man on account of the bludgeon. Jean Valjean recognized +Javert. + +The reader has divined, no doubt, that Thenardier's pursuer was no other +than Javert. Javert, after his unlooked-for escape from the barricade, +had betaken himself to the prefecture of police, had rendered a +verbal account to the Prefect in person in a brief audience, had then +immediately gone on duty again, which implied--the note, the reader will +recollect, which had been captured on his person--a certain surveillance +of the shore on the right bank of the Seine near the Champs-Elysees, +which had, for some time past, aroused the attention of the police. +There he had caught sight of Thenardier and had followed him. The reader +knows the rest. + +Thus it will be easily understood that that grating, so obligingly +opened to Jean Valjean, was a bit of cleverness on Thenardier's part. +Thenardier intuitively felt that Javert was still there; the man spied +upon has a scent which never deceives him; it was necessary to fling +a bone to that sleuth-hound. An assassin, what a godsend! Such an +opportunity must never be allowed to slip. Thenardier, by putting Jean +Valjean outside in his stead, provided a prey for the police, forced +them to relinquish his scent, made them forget him in a bigger +adventure, repaid Javert for his waiting, which always flatters a spy, +earned thirty francs, and counted with certainty, so far as he himself +was concerned, on escaping with the aid of this diversion. + +Jean Valjean had fallen from one danger upon another. + +These two encounters, this falling one after the other, from Thenardier +upon Javert, was a rude shock. + +Javert did not recognize Jean Valjean, who, as we have stated, no longer +looked like himself. He did not unfold his arms, he made sure of his +bludgeon in his fist, by an imperceptible movement, and said in a curt, +calm voice: + +"Who are you?" + +"I." + +"Who is 'I'?" + +"Jean Valjean." + +Javert thrust his bludgeon between his teeth, bent his knees, inclined +his body, laid his two powerful hands on the shoulders of Jean Valjean, +which were clamped within them as in a couple of vices, scrutinized +him, and recognized him. Their faces almost touched. Javert's look was +terrible. + +Jean Valjean remained inert beneath Javert's grasp, like a lion +submitting to the claws of a lynx. + +"Inspector Javert," said he, "you have me in your power. Moreover, I +have regarded myself as your prisoner ever since this morning. I did not +give you my address with any intention of escaping from you. Take me. +Only grant me one favor." + +Javert did not appear to hear him. He kept his eyes riveted on Jean +Valjean. His chin being contracted, thrust his lips upwards towards +his nose, a sign of savage revery. At length he released Jean Valjean, +straightened himself stiffly up without bending, grasped his bludgeon +again firmly, and, as though in a dream, he murmured rather than uttered +this question: + +"What are you doing here? And who is this man?" + +He still abstained from addressing Jean Valjean as thou. + +Jean Valjean replied, and the sound of his voice appeared to rouse +Javert: + +"It is with regard to him that I desire to speak to you. Dispose of me +as you see fit; but first help me to carry him home. That is all that I +ask of you." + +Javert's face contracted as was always the case when any one seemed to +think him capable of making a concession. Nevertheless, he did not say +"no." + +Again he bent over, drew from his pocket a handkerchief which +he moistened in the water and with which he then wiped Marius' +blood-stained brow. + +"This man was at the barricade," said he in a low voice and as though +speaking to himself. "He is the one they called Marius." + +A spy of the first quality, who had observed everything, listened to +everything, and taken in everything, even when he thought that he was to +die; who had played the spy even in his agony, and who, with his elbows +leaning on the first step of the sepulchre, had taken notes. + +He seized Marius' hand and felt his pulse. + +"He is wounded," said Jean Valjean. + +"He is a dead man," said Javert. + +Jean Valjean replied: + +"No. Not yet." + +"So you have brought him thither from the barricade?" remarked Javert. + +His preoccupation must indeed have been very profound for him not to +insist on this alarming rescue through the sewer, and for him not to +even notice Jean Valjean's silence after his question. + +Jean Valjean, on his side, seemed to have but one thought. He resumed: + +"He lives in the Marais, Rue des Filles-du-Calvaire, with his +grandfather. I do not recollect his name." + +Jean Valjean fumbled in Marius' coat, pulled out his pocket-book, opened +it at the page which Marius had pencilled, and held it out to Javert. + +There was still sufficient light to admit of reading. Besides this, +Javert possessed in his eye the feline phosphorescence of night +birds. He deciphered the few lines written by Marius, and muttered: +"Gillenormand, Rue des Filles-du Calvaire, No. 6." + +Then he exclaimed: "Coachman!" + +The reader will remember that the hackney-coach was waiting in case of +need. + +Javert kept Marius' pocket-book. + +A moment later, the carriage, which had descended by the inclined plane +of the watering-place, was on the shore. Marius was laid upon the back +seat, and Javert seated himself on the front seat beside Jean Valjean. + +The door slammed, and the carriage drove rapidly away, ascending the +quays in the direction of the Bastille. + +They quitted the quays and entered the streets. The coachman, a black +form on his box, whipped up his thin horses. A glacial silence reigned +in the carriage. Marius, motionless, with his body resting in the +corner, and his head drooping on his breast, his arms hanging, his legs +stiff, seemed to be awaiting only a coffin; Jean Valjean seemed made of +shadow, and Javert of stone, and in that vehicle full of night, whose +interior, every time that it passed in front of a street lantern, +appeared to be turned lividly wan, as by an intermittent flash of +lightning, chance had united and seemed to be bringing face to face +the three forms of tragic immobility, the corpse, the spectre, and the +statue. + + + + +CHAPTER X--RETURN OF THE SON WHO WAS PRODIGAL OF HIS LIFE + +At every jolt over the pavement, a drop of blood trickled from Marius' +hair. + +Night had fully closed in when the carriage arrived at No. 6, Rue des +Filles-du-Calvaire. + +Javert was the first to alight; he made sure with one glance of the +number on the carriage gate, and, raising the heavy knocker of beaten +iron, embellished in the old style, with a male goat and a satyr +confronting each other, he gave a violent peal. The gate opened a little +way and Javert gave it a push. The porter half made his appearance +yawning, vaguely awake, and with a candle in his hand. + +Everyone in the house was asleep. People go to bed betimes in the +Marais, especially on days when there is a revolt. This good, old +quarter, terrified at the Revolution, takes refuge in slumber, as +children, when they hear the Bugaboo coming, hide their heads hastily +under their coverlet. + +In the meantime Jean Valjean and the coachman had taken Marius out of +the carriage, Jean Valjean supporting him under the armpits, and the +coachman under the knees. + +As they thus bore Marius, Jean Valjean slipped his hand under the +latter's clothes, which were broadly rent, felt his breast, and assured +himself that his heart was still beating. It was even beating a little +less feebly, as though the movement of the carriage had brought about a +certain fresh access of life. + +Javert addressed the porter in a tone befitting the government, and the +presence of the porter of a factious person. + +"Some person whose name is Gillenormand?" + +"Here. What do you want with him?" + +"His son is brought back." + +"His son?" said the porter stupidly. + +"He is dead." + +Jean Valjean, who, soiled and tattered, stood behind Javert, and whom +the porter was surveying with some horror, made a sign to him with his +head that this was not so. + +The porter did not appear to understand either Javert's words or Jean +Valjean's sign. + +Javert continued: + +"He went to the barricade, and here he is." + +"To the barricade?" ejaculated the porter. + +"He has got himself killed. Go waken his father." + +The porter did not stir. + +"Go along with you!" repeated Javert. + +And he added: + +"There will be a funeral here to-morrow." + +For Javert, the usual incidents of the public highway were categorically +classed, which is the beginning of foresight and surveillance, and each +contingency had its own compartment; all possible facts were arranged +in drawers, as it were, whence they emerged on occasion, in variable +quantities; in the street, uproar, revolt, carnival, and funeral. + +The porter contented himself with waking Basque. Basque woke Nicolette; +Nicolette roused great-aunt Gillenormand. + +As for the grandfather, they let him sleep on, thinking that he would +hear about the matter early enough in any case. + +Marius was carried up to the first floor, without any one in the other +parts of the house being aware of the fact, and deposited on an old sofa +in M. Gillenormand's antechamber; and while Basque went in search of a +physician, and while Nicolette opened the linen-presses, Jean Valjean +felt Javert touch him on the shoulder. He understood and descended the +stairs, having behind him the step of Javert who was following him. + +The porter watched them take their departure as he had watched their +arrival, in terrified somnolence. + +They entered the carriage once more, and the coachman mounted his box. + +"Inspector Javert," said Jean, "grant me yet another favor." + +"What is it?" demanded Javert roughly. + +"Let me go home for one instant. Then you shall do whatever you like +with me." + +Javert remained silent for a few moments, with his chin drawn back into +the collar of his great-coat, then he lowered the glass and front: + +"Driver," said he, "Rue de l'Homme Arme, No. 7." + + + + +CHAPTER XI--CONCUSSION IN THE ABSOLUTE + +They did not open their lips again during the whole space of their ride. + +What did Jean Valjean want? To finish what he had begun; to warn +Cosette, to tell her where Marius was, to give her, possibly, some other +useful information, to take, if he could, certain final measures. As +for himself, so far as he was personally concerned, all was over; he had +been seized by Javert and had not resisted; any other man than himself +in like situation would, perhaps, have had some vague thoughts connected +with the rope which Thenardier had given him, and of the bars of the +first cell that he should enter; but, let us impress it upon the +reader, after the Bishop, there had existed in Jean Valjean a profound +hesitation in the presence of any violence, even when directed against +himself. + +Suicide, that mysterious act of violence against the unknown which may +contain, in a measure, the death of the soul, was impossible to Jean +Valjean. + +At the entrance to the Rue de l'Homme Arme, the carriage halted, the way +being too narrow to admit of the entrance of vehicles. Javert and Jean +Valjean alighted. + +The coachman humbly represented to "monsieur l'Inspecteur," that the +Utrecht velvet of his carriage was all spotted with the blood of the +assassinated man, and with mire from the assassin. That is the way he +understood it. He added that an indemnity was due him. At the same time, +drawing his certificate book from his pocket, he begged the inspector to +have the goodness to write him "a bit of an attestation." + +Javert thrust aside the book which the coachman held out to him, and +said: + +"How much do you want, including your time of waiting and the drive?" + +"It comes to seven hours and a quarter," replied the man, "and my velvet +was perfectly new. Eighty francs, Mr. Inspector." + +Javert drew four napoleons from his pocket and dismissed the carriage. + +Jean Valjean fancied that it was Javert's intention to conduct him on +foot to the post of the Blancs-Manteaux or to the post of the Archives, +both of which are close at hand. + +They entered the street. It was deserted as usual. Javert followed Jean +Valjean. They reached No. 7. Jean Valjean knocked. The door opened. + +"It is well," said Javert. "Go up stairs." + +He added with a strange expression, and as though he were exerting an +effort in speaking in this manner: + +"I will wait for you here." + +Jean Valjean looked at Javert. This mode of procedure was but little in +accord with Javert's habits. However, he could not be greatly surprised +that Javert should now have a sort of haughty confidence in him, the +confidence of the cat which grants the mouse liberty to the length of +its claws, seeing that Jean Valjean had made up his mind to surrender +himself and to make an end of it. He pushed open the door, entered the +house, called to the porter who was in bed and who had pulled the cord +from his couch: "It is I!" and ascended the stairs. + +On arriving at the first floor, he paused. All sorrowful roads +have their stations. The window on the landing-place, which was a +sash-window, was open. As in many ancient houses, the staircase got its +light from without and had a view on the street. The street-lantern, +situated directly opposite, cast some light on the stairs, and thus +effected some economy in illumination. + +Jean Valjean, either for the sake of getting the air, or mechanically, +thrust his head out of this window. He leaned out over the street. It +is short, and the lantern lighted it from end to end. Jean Valjean was +overwhelmed with amazement; there was no longer any one there. + +Javert had taken his departure. + + + + +CHAPTER XII--THE GRANDFATHER + +Basque and the porter had carried Marius into the drawing-room, as he +still lay stretched out, motionless, on the sofa upon which he had been +placed on his arrival. The doctor who had been sent for had hastened +thither. Aunt Gillenormand had risen. + +Aunt Gillenormand went and came, in affright, wringing her hands and +incapable of doing anything but saying: "Heavens! is it possible?" At +times she added: "Everything will be covered with blood." When her first +horror had passed off, a certain philosophy of the situation penetrated +her mind, and took form in the exclamation: "It was bound to end in this +way!" She did not go so far as: "I told you so!" which is customary on +this sort of occasion. At the physician's orders, a camp bed had been +prepared beside the sofa. The doctor examined Marius, and after having +found that his pulse was still beating, that the wounded man had no very +deep wound on his breast, and that the blood on the corners of his lips +proceeded from his nostrils, he had him placed flat on the bed, without +a pillow, with his head on the same level as his body, and even a +trifle lower, and with his bust bare in order to facilitate respiration. +Mademoiselle Gillenormand, on perceiving that they were undressing +Marius, withdrew. She set herself to telling her beads in her own +chamber. + +The trunk had not suffered any internal injury; a bullet, deadened by +the pocket-book, had turned aside and made the tour of his ribs with a +hideous laceration, which was of no great depth, and consequently, not +dangerous. The long, underground journey had completed the dislocation +of the broken collar-bone, and the disorder there was serious. The arms +had been slashed with sabre cuts. Not a single scar disfigured his face; +but his head was fairly covered with cuts; what would be the result of +these wounds on the head? Would they stop short at the hairy cuticle, or +would they attack the brain? As yet, this could not be decided. A grave +symptom was that they had caused a swoon, and that people do not always +recover from such swoons. Moreover, the wounded man had been exhausted +by hemorrhage. From the waist down, the barricade had protected the +lower part of the body from injury. + +Basque and Nicolette tore up linen and prepared bandages; Nicolette +sewed them, Basque rolled them. As lint was lacking, the doctor, for +the time being, arrested the bleeding with layers of wadding. Beside +the bed, three candles burned on a table where the case of surgical +instruments lay spread out. The doctor bathed Marius' face and hair with +cold water. A full pail was reddened in an instant. The porter, candle +in hand, lighted them. + +The doctor seemed to be pondering sadly. From time to time, he made a +negative sign with his head, as though replying to some question which +he had inwardly addressed to himself. + +A bad sign for the sick man are these mysterious dialogues of the doctor +with himself. + +At the moment when the doctor was wiping Marius' face, and lightly +touching his still closed eyes with his finger, a door opened at the end +of the drawing-room, and a long, pallid figure made its appearance. + +This was the grandfather. + +The revolt had, for the past two days, deeply agitated, enraged and +engrossed the mind of M. Gillenormand. He had not been able to sleep +on the previous night, and he had been in a fever all day long. In the +evening, he had gone to bed very early, recommending that everything in +the house should be well barred, and he had fallen into a doze through +sheer fatigue. + +Old men sleep lightly; M. Gillenormand's chamber adjoined the +drawing-room, and in spite of all the precautions that had been taken, +the noise had awakened him. Surprised at the rift of light which he +saw under his door, he had risen from his bed, and had groped his way +thither. + +He stood astonished on the threshold, one hand on the handle of the +half-open door, with his head bent a little forward and quivering, +his body wrapped in a white dressing-gown, which was straight and as +destitute of folds as a winding-sheet; and he had the air of a phantom +who is gazing into a tomb. + +He saw the bed, and on the mattress that young man, bleeding, white with +a waxen whiteness, with closed eyes and gaping mouth, and pallid lips, +stripped to the waist, slashed all over with crimson wounds, motionless +and brilliantly lighted up. + +The grandfather trembled from head to foot as powerfully as ossified +limbs can tremble, his eyes, whose corneae were yellow on account of +his great age, were veiled in a sort of vitreous glitter, his whole +face assumed in an instant the earthy angles of a skull, his arms fell +pendent, as though a spring had broken, and his amazement was betrayed +by the outspreading of the fingers of his two aged hands, which quivered +all over, his knees formed an angle in front, allowing, through +the opening in his dressing-gown, a view of his poor bare legs, all +bristling with white hairs, and he murmured: + +"Marius!" + +"Sir," said Basque, "Monsieur has just been brought back. He went to the +barricade, and . . ." + +"He is dead!" cried the old man in a terrible voice. "Ah! The rascal!" + +Then a sort of sepulchral transformation straightened up this +centenarian as erect as a young man. + +"Sir," said he, "you are the doctor. Begin by telling me one thing. He +is dead, is he not?" + +The doctor, who was at the highest pitch of anxiety, remained silent. + +M. Gillenormand wrung his hands with an outburst of terrible laughter. + +"He is dead! He is dead! He is dead! He has got himself killed on +the barricades! Out of hatred to me! He did that to spite me! Ah! You +blood-drinker! This is the way he returns to me! Misery of my life, he +is dead!" + +He went to the window, threw it wide open as though he were stifling, +and, erect before the darkness, he began to talk into the street, to the +night: + +"Pierced, sabred, exterminated, slashed, hacked in pieces! Just look at +that, the villain! He knew well that I was waiting for him, and that I +had had his room arranged, and that I had placed at the head of my bed +his portrait taken when he was a little child! He knew well that he had +only to come back, and that I had been recalling him for years, and that +I remained by my fireside, with my hands on my knees, not knowing what +to do, and that I was mad over it! You knew well, that you had but to +return and to say: 'It is I,' and you would have been the master of the +house, and that I should have obeyed you, and that you could have done +whatever you pleased with your old numskull of a grandfather! you knew +that well, and you said: + +"No, he is a Royalist, I will not go! And you went to the barricades, +and you got yourself killed out of malice! To revenge yourself for what +I said to you about Monsieur le Duc de Berry. It is infamous! Go to bed +then and sleep tranquilly! he is dead, and this is my awakening." + +The doctor, who was beginning to be uneasy in both quarters, quitted +Marius for a moment, went to M. Gillenormand, and took his arm. +The grandfather turned round, gazed at him with eyes which seemed +exaggerated in size and bloodshot, and said to him calmly: + +"I thank you, sir. I am composed, I am a man, I witnessed the death of +Louis XVI., I know how to bear events. One thing is terrible and that is +to think that it is your newspapers which do all the mischief. You will +have scribblers, chatterers, lawyers, orators, tribunes, discussions, +progress, enlightenment, the rights of man, the liberty of the press, +and this is the way that your children will be brought home to you. Ah! +Marius! It is abominable! Killed! Dead before me! A barricade! Ah, the +scamp! Doctor, you live in this quarter, I believe? Oh! I know you well. +I see your cabriolet pass my window. I am going to tell you. You are +wrong to think that I am angry. One does not fly into a rage against a +dead man. That would be stupid. This is a child whom I have reared. +I was already old while he was very young. He played in the Tuileries +garden with his little shovel and his little chair, and in order that +the inspectors might not grumble, I stopped up the holes that he made in +the earth with his shovel, with my cane. One day he exclaimed: Down with +Louis XVIII.! and off he went. It was no fault of mine. He was all rosy +and blond. His mother is dead. Have you ever noticed that all little +children are blond? Why is it so? He is the son of one of those brigands +of the Loire, but children are innocent of their fathers' crimes. +I remember when he was no higher than that. He could not manage +to pronounce his Ds. He had a way of talking that was so sweet and +indistinct that you would have thought it was a bird chirping. I +remember that once, in front of the Hercules Farnese, people formed a +circle to admire him and marvel at him, he was so handsome, was that +child! He had a head such as you see in pictures. I talked in a deep +voice, and I frightened him with my cane, but he knew very well that it +was only to make him laugh. In the morning, when he entered my room, I +grumbled, but he was like the sunlight to me, all the same. One cannot +defend oneself against those brats. They take hold of you, they hold you +fast, they never let you go again. The truth is, that there never was a +cupid like that child. Now, what can you say for your Lafayettes, your +Benjamin Constants, and your Tirecuir de Corcelles who have killed him? +This cannot be allowed to pass in this fashion." + +He approached Marius, who still lay livid and motionless, and to whom +the physician had returned, and began once more to wring his hands. The +old man's pallid lips moved as though mechanically, and permitted the +passage of words that were barely audible, like breaths in the death +agony: + +"Ah! heartless lad! Ah! clubbist! Ah! wretch! Ah! Septembrist!" + +Reproaches in the low voice of an agonizing man, addressed to a corpse. + +Little by little, as it is always indispensable that internal eruptions +should come to the light, the sequence of words returned, but the +grandfather appeared no longer to have the strength to utter them, his +voice was so weak, and extinct, that it seemed to come from the other +side of an abyss: + +"It is all the same to me, I am going to die too, that I am. And +to think that there is not a hussy in Paris who would not have been +delighted to make this wretch happy! A scamp who, instead of amusing +himself and enjoying life, went off to fight and get himself shot down +like a brute! And for whom? Why? For the Republic! Instead of going to +dance at the Chaumiere, as it is the duty of young folks to do! What's +the use of being twenty years old? The Republic, a cursed pretty folly! +Poor mothers, beget fine boys, do! Come, he is dead. That will make two +funerals under the same carriage gate. So you have got yourself arranged +like this for the sake of General Lamarque's handsome eyes! What had +that General Lamarque done to you? A slasher! A chatter-box! To get +oneself killed for a dead man! If that isn't enough to drive any one +mad! Just think of it! At twenty! And without so much as turning his +head to see whether he was not leaving something behind him! That's the +way poor, good old fellows are forced to die alone, now-adays. Perish +in your corner, owl! Well, after all, so much the better, that is what +I was hoping for, this will kill me on the spot. I am too old, I am +a hundred years old, I am a hundred thousand years old, I ought, by +rights, to have been dead long ago. This blow puts an end to it. So all +is over, what happiness! What is the good of making him inhale ammonia +and all that parcel of drugs? You are wasting your trouble, you fool of +a doctor! Come, he's dead, completely dead. I know all about it, I +am dead myself too. He hasn't done things by half. Yes, this age is +infamous, infamous and that's what I think of you, of your ideas, of +your systems, of your masters, of your oracles, of your doctors, of your +scape-graces of writers, of your rascally philosophers, and of all the +revolutions which, for the last sixty years, have been frightening +the flocks of crows in the Tuileries! But you were pitiless in getting +yourself killed like this, I shall not even grieve over your death, do +you understand, you assassin?" + +At that moment, Marius slowly opened his eyes, and his glance, still +dimmed by lethargic wonder, rested on M. Gillenormand. + +"Marius!" cried the old man. "Marius! My little Marius! my child! my +well-beloved son! You open your eyes, you gaze upon me, you are alive, +thanks!" + +And he fell fainting. + + + + +BOOK FOURTH.--JAVERT DERAILED + + + + +CHAPTER I--JAVERT + +Javert passed slowly down the Rue de l'Homme Arme. + +He walked with drooping head for the first time in his life, and +likewise, for the first time in his life, with his hands behind his +back. + +Up to that day, Javert had borrowed from Napoleon's attitudes, only that +which is expressive of resolution, with arms folded across the chest; +that which is expressive of uncertainty--with the hands behind the +back--had been unknown to him. Now, a change had taken place; his whole +person, slow and sombre, was stamped with anxiety. + +He plunged into the silent streets. + +Nevertheless, he followed one given direction. + +He took the shortest cut to the Seine, reached the Quai des Ormes, +skirted the quay, passed the Greve, and halted at some distance from +the post of the Place du Chatelet, at the angle of the Pont Notre-Dame. +There, between the Notre-Dame and the Pont au Change on the one hand, +and the Quai de la Megisserie and the Quai aux Fleurs on the other, the +Seine forms a sort of square lake, traversed by a rapid. + +This point of the Seine is dreaded by mariners. Nothing is more +dangerous than this rapid, hemmed in, at that epoch, and irritated by +the piles of the mill on the bridge, now demolished. The two bridges, +situated thus close together, augment the peril; the water hurries in +formidable wise through the arches. It rolls in vast and terrible waves; +it accumulates and piles up there; the flood attacks the piles of the +bridges as though in an effort to pluck them up with great liquid ropes. +Men who fall in there never re-appear; the best of swimmers are drowned +there. + +Javert leaned both elbows on the parapet, his chin resting in both +hands, and, while his nails were mechanically twined in the abundance of +his whiskers, he meditated. + +A novelty, a revolution, a catastrophe had just taken place in the +depths of his being; and he had something upon which to examine himself. + +Javert was undergoing horrible suffering. + +For several hours, Javert had ceased to be simple. He was troubled; +that brain, so limpid in its blindness, had lost its transparency; that +crystal was clouded. Javert felt duty divided within his conscience, and +he could not conceal the fact from himself. When he had so unexpectedly +encountered Jean Valjean on the banks of the Seine, there had been in +him something of the wolf which regains his grip on his prey, and of the +dog who finds his master again. + +He beheld before him two paths, both equally straight, but he beheld +two; and that terrified him; him, who had never in all his life known +more than one straight line. And, the poignant anguish lay in this, that +the two paths were contrary to each other. One of these straight lines +excluded the other. Which of the two was the true one? + +His situation was indescribable. + +To owe his life to a malefactor, to accept that debt and to repay it; to +be, in spite of himself, on a level with a fugitive from justice, and to +repay his service with another service; to allow it to be said to him, +"Go," and to say to the latter in his turn: "Be free"; to sacrifice to +personal motives duty, that general obligation, and to be conscious, +in those personal motives, of something that was also general, and, +perchance, superior, to betray society in order to remain true to his +conscience; that all these absurdities should be realized and should +accumulate upon him,--this was what overwhelmed him. + +One thing had amazed him,--this was that Jean Valjean should have done +him a favor, and one thing petrified him,--that he, Javert, should have +done Jean Valjean a favor. + +Where did he stand? He sought to comprehend his position, and could no +longer find his bearings. + +What was he to do now? To deliver up Jean Valjean was bad; to leave Jean +Valjean at liberty was bad. In the first case, the man of authority fell +lower than the man of the galleys, in the second, a convict rose above +the law, and set his foot upon it. In both cases, dishonor for him, +Javert. There was disgrace in any resolution at which he might arrive. +Destiny has some extremities which rise perpendicularly from the +impossible, and beyond which life is no longer anything but a precipice. +Javert had reached one of those extremities. + +One of his anxieties consisted in being constrained to think. The very +violence of all these conflicting emotions forced him to it. Thought was +something to which he was unused, and which was peculiarly painful. + +In thought there always exists a certain amount of internal rebellion; +and it irritated him to have that within him. + +Thought on any subject whatever, outside of the restricted circle of his +functions, would have been for him in any case useless and a fatigue; +thought on the day which had just passed was a torture. Nevertheless, it +was indispensable that he should take a look into his conscience, after +such shocks, and render to himself an account of himself. + +What he had just done made him shudder. He, Javert, had seen fit to +decide, contrary to all the regulations of the police, contrary to the +whole social and judicial organization, contrary to the entire code, +upon a release; this had suited him; he had substituted his own affairs +for the affairs of the public; was not this unjustifiable? Every time +that he brought himself face to face with this deed without a name which +he had committed, he trembled from head to foot. Upon what should he +decide? One sole resource remained to him; to return in all haste to +the Rue de l'Homme Arme, and commit Jean Valjean to prison. It was clear +that that was what he ought to do. He could not. + +Something barred his way in that direction. + +Something? What? Is there in the world, anything outside of the +tribunals, executory sentences, the police and the authorities? Javert +was overwhelmed. + +A galley-slave sacred! A convict who could not be touched by the law! +And that the deed of Javert! + +Was it not a fearful thing that Javert and Jean Valjean, the man made to +proceed with vigor, the man made to submit,--that these two men who were +both the things of the law, should have come to such a pass, that both +of them had set themselves above the law? What then! such enormities +were to happen and no one was to be punished! Jean Valjean, stronger +than the whole social order, was to remain at liberty, and he, Javert, +was to go on eating the government's bread! + +His revery gradually became terrible. + +He might, athwart this revery, have also reproached himself on +the subject of that insurgent who had been taken to the Rue des +Filles-du-Calvaire; but he never even thought of that. The lesser fault +was lost in the greater. Besides, that insurgent was, obviously, a dead +man, and, legally, death puts an end to pursuit. + +Jean Valjean was the load which weighed upon his spirit. + +Jean Valjean disconcerted him. All the axioms which had served him as +points of support all his life long, had crumbled away in the presence +of this man. Jean Valjean's generosity towards him, Javert, crushed him. +Other facts which he now recalled, and which he had formerly treated +as lies and folly, now recurred to him as realities. M. Madeleine +re-appeared behind Jean Valjean, and the two figures were superposed in +such fashion that they now formed but one, which was venerable. Javert +felt that something terrible was penetrating his soul--admiration for +a convict. Respect for a galley-slave--is that a possible thing? He +shuddered at it, yet could not escape from it. In vain did he struggle, +he was reduced to confess, in his inmost heart, the sublimity of that +wretch. This was odious. + +A benevolent malefactor, merciful, gentle, helpful, clement, a convict, +returning good for evil, giving back pardon for hatred, preferring pity +to vengeance, preferring to ruin himself rather than to ruin his enemy, +saving him who had smitten him, kneeling on the heights of virtue, more +nearly akin to an angel than to a man. Javert was constrained to admit +to himself that this monster existed. + +Things could not go on in this manner. + +Certainly, and we insist upon this point, he had not yielded without +resistance to that monster, to that infamous angel, to that hideous +hero, who enraged almost as much as he amazed him. Twenty times, as he +sat in that carriage face to face with Jean Valjean, the legal tiger had +roared within him. A score of times he had been tempted to fling himself +upon Jean Valjean, to seize him and devour him, that is to say, to +arrest him. What more simple, in fact? To cry out at the first post that +they passed:--"Here is a fugitive from justice, who has broken his ban!" +to summon the gendarmes and say to them: "This man is yours!" then to +go off, leaving that condemned man there, to ignore the rest and not to +meddle further in the matter. This man is forever a prisoner of the law; +the law may do with him what it will. What could be more just? Javert +had said all this to himself; he had wished to pass beyond, to act, to +apprehend the man, and then, as at present, he had not been able to do +it; and every time that his arm had been raised convulsively towards +Jean Valjean's collar, his hand had fallen back again, as beneath an +enormous weight, and in the depths of his thought he had heard a voice, +a strange voice crying to him:--"It is well. Deliver up your savior. +Then have the basin of Pontius Pilate brought and wash your claws." + +Then his reflections reverted to himself and beside Jean Valjean +glorified he beheld himself, Javert, degraded. + +A convict was his benefactor! + +But then, why had he permitted that man to leave him alive? He had +the right to be killed in that barricade. He should have asserted that +right. It would have been better to summon the other insurgents to his +succor against Jean Valjean, to get himself shot by force. + +His supreme anguish was the loss of certainty. He felt that he had been +uprooted. The code was no longer anything more than a stump in his hand. +He had to deal with scruples of an unknown species. There had taken +place within him a sentimental revelation entirely distinct from legal +affirmation, his only standard of measurement hitherto. To remain in his +former uprightness did not suffice. A whole order of unexpected facts +had cropped up and subjugated him. A whole new world was dawning on +his soul: kindness accepted and repaid, devotion, mercy, indulgence, +violences committed by pity on austerity, respect for persons, no more +definitive condemnation, no more conviction, the possibility of a tear +in the eye of the law, no one knows what justice according to God, +running in inverse sense to justice according to men. He perceived amid +the shadows the terrible rising of an unknown moral sun; it horrified +and dazzled him. An owl forced to the gaze of an eagle. + +He said to himself that it was true that there were exceptional cases, +that authority might be put out of countenance, that the rule might +be inadequate in the presence of a fact, that everything could not +be framed within the text of the code, that the unforeseen compelled +obedience, that the virtue of a convict might set a snare for the virtue +of the functionary, that destiny did indulge in such ambushes, and +he reflected with despair that he himself had not even been fortified +against a surprise. + +He was forced to acknowledge that goodness did exist. This convict had +been good. And he himself, unprecedented circumstance, had just been +good also. So he was becoming depraved. + +He found that he was a coward. He conceived a horror of himself. + +Javert's ideal, was not to be human, to be grand, to be sublime; it was +to be irreproachable. + +Now, he had just failed in this. + +How had he come to such a pass? How had all this happened? He could not +have told himself. He clasped his head in both hands, but in spite of +all that he could do, he could not contrive to explain it to himself. + +He had certainly always entertained the intention of restoring Jean +Valjean to the law of which Jean Valjean was the captive, and of which +he, Javert, was the slave. Not for a single instant while he held him +in his grasp had he confessed to himself that he entertained the idea of +releasing him. It was, in some sort, without his consciousness, that his +hand had relaxed and had let him go free. + +All sorts of interrogation points flashed before his eyes. He put +questions to himself, and made replies to himself, and his replies +frightened him. He asked himself: "What has that convict done, that +desperate fellow, whom I have pursued even to persecution, and who has +had me under his foot, and who could have avenged himself, and who +owed it both to his rancor and to his safety, in leaving me my life, in +showing mercy upon me? His duty? No. Something more. And I in showing +mercy upon him in my turn--what have I done? My duty? No. Something +more. So there is something beyond duty?" Here he took fright; his +balance became disjointed; one of the scales fell into the abyss, the +other rose heavenward, and Javert was no less terrified by the one which +was on high than by the one which was below. Without being in the least +in the world what is called Voltairian or a philosopher, or incredulous, +being, on the contrary, respectful by instinct, towards the established +church, he knew it only as an august fragment of the social whole; order +was his dogma, and sufficed for him; ever since he had attained to man's +estate and the rank of a functionary, he had centred nearly all his +religion in the police. Being,--and here we employ words without the +least irony and in their most serious acceptation, being, as we have +said, a spy as other men are priests. He had a superior, M. Gisquet; up +to that day he had never dreamed of that other superior, God. + +This new chief, God, he became unexpectedly conscious of, and he felt +embarrassed by him. This unforeseen presence threw him off his bearings; +he did not know what to do with this superior, he, who was not ignorant +of the fact that the subordinate is bound always to bow, that he must +not disobey, nor find fault, nor discuss, and that, in the presence of a +superior who amazes him too greatly, the inferior has no other resource +than that of handing in his resignation. + +But how was he to set about handing in his resignation to God? + +However things might stand,--and it was to this point that he reverted +constantly,--one fact dominated everything else for him, and that was, +that he had just committed a terrible infraction of the law. He had just +shut his eyes on an escaped convict who had broken his ban. He had just +set a galley-slave at large. He had just robbed the laws of a man who +belonged to them. That was what he had done. He no longer understood +himself. The very reasons for his action escaped him; only their vertigo +was left with him. Up to that moment he had lived with that blind faith +which gloomy probity engenders. This faith had quitted him, this probity +had deserted him. All that he had believed in melted away. Truths which +he did not wish to recognize were besieging him, inexorably. Henceforth, +he must be a different man. He was suffering from the strange pains of +a conscience abruptly operated on for the cataract. He saw that which +it was repugnant to him to behold. He felt himself emptied, useless, put +out of joint with his past life, turned out, dissolved. Authority was +dead within him. He had no longer any reason for existing. + +A terrible situation! to be touched. + +To be granite and to doubt! to be the statue of Chastisement cast in one +piece in the mould of the law, and suddenly to become aware of the fact +that one cherishes beneath one's breast of bronze something absurd +and disobedient which almost resembles a heart! To come to the pass of +returning good for good, although one has said to oneself up to that day +that that good is evil! to be the watch-dog, and to lick the intruder's +hand! to be ice and melt! to be the pincers and to turn into a hand! +to suddenly feel one's fingers opening! to relax one's grip,--what a +terrible thing! + +The man-projectile no longer acquainted with his route and retreating! + +To be obliged to confess this to oneself: infallibility is not +infallible, there may exist error in the dogma, all has not been said +when a code speaks, society is not perfect, authority is complicated +with vacillation, a crack is possible in the immutable, judges are but +men, the law may err, tribunals may make a mistake! to behold a rift in +the immense blue pane of the firmament! + +That which was passing in Javert was the Fampoux of a rectilinear +conscience, the derailment of a soul, the crushing of a probity which +had been irresistibly launched in a straight line and was breaking +against God. It certainly was singular that the stoker of order, that +the engineer of authority, mounted on the blind iron horse with its +rigid road, could be unseated by a flash of light! that the immovable, +the direct, the correct, the geometrical, the passive, the perfect, +could bend! that there should exist for the locomotive a road to +Damascus! + +God, always within man, and refractory, He, the true conscience, to the +false; a prohibition to the spark to die out; an order to the ray to +remember the sun; an injunction to the soul to recognize the veritable +absolute when confronted with the fictitious absolute, humanity +which cannot be lost; the human heart indestructible; that splendid +phenomenon, the finest, perhaps, of all our interior marvels, did Javert +understand this? Did Javert penetrate it? Did Javert account for it +to himself? Evidently he did not. But beneath the pressure of that +incontestable incomprehensibility he felt his brain bursting. + +He was less the man transfigured than the victim of this prodigy. In all +this he perceived only the tremendous difficulty of existence. It seemed +to him that, henceforth, his respiration was repressed forever. He was +not accustomed to having something unknown hanging over his head. + +Up to this point, everything above him had been, to his gaze, merely a +smooth, limpid and simple surface; there was nothing incomprehensible, +nothing obscure; nothing that was not defined, regularly disposed, +linked, precise, circumscribed, exact, limited, closed, fully provided +for; authority was a plane surface; there was no fall in it, no +dizziness in its presence. Javert had never beheld the unknown except +from below. The irregular, the unforeseen, the disordered opening of +chaos, the possible slip over a precipice--this was the work of the +lower regions, of rebels, of the wicked, of wretches. Now Javert threw +himself back, and he was suddenly terrified by this unprecedented +apparition: a gulf on high. + +What! one was dismantled from top to bottom! one was disconcerted, +absolutely! In what could one trust! That which had been agreed upon was +giving way! What! the defect in society's armor could be discovered by +a magnanimous wretch! What! an honest servitor of the law could suddenly +find himself caught between two crimes--the crime of allowing a man to +escape and the crime of arresting him! everything was not settled in +the orders given by the State to the functionary! There might be +blind alleys in duty! What,--all this was real! was it true that an +ex-ruffian, weighed down with convictions, could rise erect and end by +being in the right? Was this credible? were there cases in which the law +should retire before transfigured crime, and stammer its excuses?--Yes, +that was the state of the case! and Javert saw it! and Javert had +touched it! and not only could he not deny it, but he had taken part +in it. These were realities. It was abominable that actual facts could +reach such deformity. If facts did their duty, they would confine +themselves to being proofs of the law; facts--it is God who sends them. +Was anarchy, then, on the point of now descending from on high? + +Thus,--and in the exaggeration of anguish, and the optical illusion +of consternation, all that might have corrected and restrained this +impression was effaced, and society, and the human race, and the +universe were, henceforth, summed up in his eyes, in one simple and +terrible feature,--thus the penal laws, the thing judged, the force due +to legislation, the decrees of the sovereign courts, the magistracy, +the government, prevention, repression, official cruelty, wisdom, legal +infallibility, the principle of authority, all the dogmas on which rest +political and civil security, sovereignty, justice, public truth, all +this was rubbish, a shapeless mass, chaos; he himself, Javert, the spy +of order, incorruptibility in the service of the police, the bull-dog +providence of society, vanquished and hurled to earth; and, erect, at +the summit of all that ruin, a man with a green cap on his head and a +halo round his brow; this was the astounding confusion to which he had +come; this was the fearful vision which he bore within his soul. + +Was this to be endured? No. + +A violent state, if ever such existed. There were only two ways of +escaping from it. One was to go resolutely to Jean Valjean, and restore +to his cell the convict from the galleys. The other . . . + +Javert quitted the parapet, and, with head erect this time, betook +himself, with a firm tread, towards the station-house indicated by a +lantern at one of the corners of the Place du Chatelet. + +On arriving there, he saw through the window a sergeant of police, and +he entered. Policemen recognize each other by the very way in which they +open the door of a station-house. Javert mentioned his name, showed his +card to the sergeant, and seated himself at the table of the post on +which a candle was burning. On a table lay a pen, a leaden inkstand and +paper, provided in the event of possible reports and the orders of the +night patrols. This table, still completed by its straw-seated chair, +is an institution; it exists in all police stations; it is invariably +ornamented with a box-wood saucer filled with sawdust and a wafer box +of cardboard filled with red wafers, and it forms the lowest stage of +official style. It is there that the literature of the State has its +beginning. + +Javert took a pen and a sheet of paper, and began to write. This is what +he wrote: + + A FEW OBSERVATIONS FOR THE GOOD OF THE SERVICE. + + + "In the first place: I beg Monsieur le Prefet to cast his eyes + on this. + + "Secondly: prisoners, on arriving after examination, take off + their shoes and stand barefoot on the flagstones while they are + being searched. Many of them cough on their return to prison. + This entails hospital expenses. + + "Thirdly: the mode of keeping track of a man with relays of police + agents from distance to distance, is good, but, on important occasions, + it is requisite that at least two agents should never lose sight + of each other, so that, in case one agent should, for any cause, + grow weak in his service, the other may supervise him and take + his place. + + "Fourthly: it is inexplicable why the special regulation of the prison + of the Madelonettes interdicts the prisoner from having a chair, + even by paying for it. + + "Fifthly: in the Madelonettes there are only two bars to the canteen, + so that the canteen woman can touch the prisoners with her hand. + + "Sixthly: the prisoners called barkers, who summon the other + prisoners to the parlor, force the prisoner to pay them two sous + to call his name distinctly. This is a theft. + + "Seventhly: for a broken thread ten sous are withheld in the + weaving shop; this is an abuse of the contractor, since the cloth + is none the worse for it. + + "Eighthly: it is annoying for visitors to La Force to be + obliged to traverse the boys' court in order to reach the parlor + of Sainte-Marie-l'Egyptienne. + + "Ninthly: it is a fact that any day gendarmes can be overheard + relating in the court-yard of the prefecture the interrogations put + by the magistrates to prisoners. For a gendarme, who should be + sworn to secrecy, to repeat what he has heard in the examination + room is a grave disorder. + + "Tenthly: Mme. Henry is an honest woman; her canteen is very neat; + but it is bad to have a woman keep the wicket to the mouse-trap + of the secret cells. This is unworthy of the Conciergerie of a + great civilization." + + Javert wrote these lines in his calmest and most correct chirography, + not omitting a single comma, and making the paper screech under his pen. + Below the last line he signed: + + "JAVERT, + "Inspector of the 1st class. + "The Post of the Place du Chatelet. + "June 7th, 1832, about one o'clock in the morning." + + +Javert dried the fresh ink on the paper, folded it like a letter, sealed +it, wrote on the back: Note for the administration, left it on the +table, and quitted the post. The glazed and grated door fell to behind +him. + +Again he traversed the Place du Chatelet diagonally, regained the quay, +and returned with automatic precision to the very point which he had +abandoned a quarter of an hour previously, leaned on his elbows and +found himself again in the same attitude on the same paving-stone of the +parapet. He did not appear to have stirred. + +The darkness was complete. It was the sepulchral moment which follows +midnight. A ceiling of clouds concealed the stars. Not a single light +burned in the houses of the city; no one was passing; all of the streets +and quays which could be seen were deserted; Notre-Dame and the towers +of the Court-House seemed features of the night. A street lantern +reddened the margin of the quay. The outlines of the bridges lay +shapeless in the mist one behind the other. Recent rains had swollen the +river. + +The spot where Javert was leaning was, it will be remembered, situated +precisely over the rapids of the Seine, perpendicularly above that +formidable spiral of whirlpools which loose and knot themselves again +like an endless screw. + +Javert bent his head and gazed. All was black. Nothing was to be +distinguished. A sound of foam was audible; but the river could not be +seen. At moments, in that dizzy depth, a gleam of light appeared, and +undulated vaguely, water possessing the power of taking light, no one +knows whence, and converting it into a snake. The light vanished, and +all became indistinct once more. Immensity seemed thrown open there. +What lay below was not water, it was a gulf. The wall of the quay, +abrupt, confused, mingled with the vapors, instantly concealed from +sight, produced the effect of an escarpment of the infinite. Nothing was +to be seen, but the hostile chill of the water and the stale odor of +the wet stones could be felt. A fierce breath rose from this abyss. The +flood in the river, divined rather than perceived, the tragic whispering +of the waves, the melancholy vastness of the arches of the bridge, the +imaginable fall into that gloomy void, into all that shadow was full of +horror. + +Javert remained motionless for several minutes, gazing at this opening +of shadow; he considered the invisible with a fixity that resembled +attention. The water roared. All at once he took off his hat and placed +it on the edge of the quay. A moment later, a tall black figure, which +a belated passer-by in the distance might have taken for a phantom, +appeared erect upon the parapet of the quay, bent over towards the +Seine, then drew itself up again, and fell straight down into the +shadows; a dull splash followed; and the shadow alone was in the secret +of the convulsions of that obscure form which had disappeared beneath +the water. + + + + +BOOK FIFTH.--GRANDSON AND GRANDFATHER + + + + +CHAPTER I--IN WHICH THE TREE WITH THE ZINC PLASTER APPEARS AGAIN + +Some time after the events which we have just recorded, Sieur +Boulatruelle experienced a lively emotion. + +Sieur Boulatruelle was that road-mender of Montfermeil whom the reader +has already seen in the gloomy parts of this book. + +Boulatruelle, as the reader may, perchance, recall, was a man who +was occupied with divers and troublesome matters. He broke stones and +damaged travellers on the highway. + +Road-mender and thief as he was, he cherished one dream; he believed in +the treasures buried in the forest of Montfermeil. He hoped some day to +find the money in the earth at the foot of a tree; in the meanwhile, he +lived to search the pockets of passers-by. + +Nevertheless, for an instant, he was prudent. He had just escaped +neatly. He had been, as the reader is aware, picked up in Jondrette's +garret in company with the other ruffians. Utility of a vice: his +drunkenness had been his salvation. The authorities had never been able +to make out whether he had been there in the quality of a robber or a +man who had been robbed. An order of nolle prosequi, founded on his well +authenticated state of intoxication on the evening of the ambush, had +set him at liberty. He had taken to his heels. He had returned to his +road from Gagny to Lagny, to make, under administrative supervision, +broken stone for the good of the state, with downcast mien, in a very +pensive mood, his ardor for theft somewhat cooled; but he was addicted +none the less tenderly to the wine which had recently saved him. + +As for the lively emotion which he had experienced a short time after +his return to his road-mender's turf-thatched cot, here it is: + +One morning, Boulatruelle, while on his way as was his wont, to his +work, and possibly also to his ambush, a little before daybreak caught +sight, through the branches of the trees, of a man, whose back alone +he saw, but the shape of whose shoulders, as it seemed to him at that +distance and in the early dusk, was not entirely unfamiliar to him. +Boulatruelle, although intoxicated, had a correct and lucid memory, a +defensive arm that is indispensable to any one who is at all in conflict +with legal order. + +"Where the deuce have I seen something like that man yonder?" he said +to himself. But he could make himself no answer, except that the man +resembled some one of whom his memory preserved a confused trace. + +However, apart from the identity which he could not manage to catch, +Boulatruelle put things together and made calculations. This man did +not belong in the country-side. He had just arrived there. On foot, +evidently. No public conveyance passes through Montfermeil at that hour. +He had walked all night. Whence came he? Not from a very great distance; +for he had neither haversack, nor bundle. From Paris, no doubt. Why was +he in these woods? why was he there at such an hour? what had he come +there for? + +Boulatruelle thought of the treasure. By dint of ransacking his memory, +he recalled in a vague way that he had already, many years before, had +a similar alarm in connection with a man who produced on him the effect +that he might well be this very individual. + +"By the deuce," said Boulatruelle, "I'll find him again. I'll discover +the parish of that parishioner. This prowler of Patron-Minette has a +reason, and I'll know it. People can't have secrets in my forest if I +don't have a finger in the pie." + +He took his pick-axe which was very sharply pointed. + +"There now," he grumbled, "is something that will search the earth and a +man." + +And, as one knots one thread to another thread, he took up the line of +march at his best pace in the direction which the man must follow, and +set out across the thickets. + +When he had compassed a hundred strides, the day, which was already +beginning to break, came to his assistance. Footprints stamped in the +sand, weeds trodden down here and there, heather crushed, young branches +in the brushwood bent and in the act of straightening themselves up +again with the graceful deliberation of the arms of a pretty woman who +stretches herself when she wakes, pointed out to him a sort of track. He +followed it, then lost it. Time was flying. He plunged deeper into the +woods and came to a sort of eminence. An early huntsman who was passing +in the distance along a path, whistling the air of Guillery, suggested +to him the idea of climbing a tree. Old as he was, he was agile. There +stood close at hand a beech-tree of great size, worthy of Tityrus and of +Boulatruelle. Boulatruelle ascended the beech as high as he was able. + +The idea was a good one. On scrutinizing the solitary waste on the side +where the forest is thoroughly entangled and wild, Boulatruelle suddenly +caught sight of his man. + +Hardly had he got his eye upon him when he lost sight of him. + +The man entered, or rather, glided into, an open glade, at a +considerable distance, masked by large trees, but with which +Boulatruelle was perfectly familiar, on account of having noticed, near +a large pile of porous stones, an ailing chestnut-tree bandaged with +a sheet of zinc nailed directly upon the bark. This glade was the one +which was formerly called the Blaru-bottom. The heap of stones, destined +for no one knows what employment, which was visible there thirty years +ago, is doubtless still there. Nothing equals a heap of stones in +longevity, unless it is a board fence. They are temporary expedients. +What a reason for lasting! + +Boulatruelle, with the rapidity of joy, dropped rather than descended +from the tree. The lair was unearthed, the question now was to seize the +beast. That famous treasure of his dreams was probably there. + +It was no small matter to reach that glade. By the beaten paths, which +indulge in a thousand teasing zigzags, it required a good quarter of an +hour. In a bee-line, through the underbrush, which is peculiarly dense, +very thorny, and very aggressive in that locality, a full half hour was +necessary. Boulatruelle committed the error of not comprehending this. +He believed in the straight line; a respectable optical illusion which +ruins many a man. The thicket, bristling as it was, struck him as the +best road. + +"Let's take to the wolves' Rue de Rivoli," said he. + +Boulatruelle, accustomed to taking crooked courses, was on this occasion +guilty of the fault of going straight. + +He flung himself resolutely into the tangle of undergrowth. + +He had to deal with holly bushes, nettles, hawthorns, eglantines, +thistles, and very irascible brambles. He was much lacerated. + +At the bottom of the ravine he found water which he was obliged to +traverse. + +At last he reached the Blaru-bottom, after the lapse of forty minutes, +sweating, soaked, breathless, scratched, and ferocious. + +There was no one in the glade. Boulatruelle rushed to the heap of +stones. It was in its place. It had not been carried off. + +As for the man, he had vanished in the forest. He had made his escape. +Where? in what direction? into what thicket? Impossible to guess. + +And, heartrending to say, there, behind the pile of stones, in front of +the tree with the sheet of zinc, was freshly turned earth, a pick-axe, +abandoned or forgotten, and a hole. + +The hole was empty. + +"Thief!" shrieked Boulatruelle, shaking his fist at the horizon. + + + + +CHAPTER II--MARIUS, EMERGING FROM CIVIL WAR, MAKES READY FOR DOMESTIC +WAR + +For a long time, Marius was neither dead nor alive. For many weeks he +lay in a fever accompanied by delirium, and by tolerably grave cerebral +symptoms, caused more by the shocks of the wounds on the head than by +the wounds themselves. + +He repeated Cosette's name for whole nights in the melancholy loquacity +of fever, and with the sombre obstinacy of agony. The extent of some of +the lesions presented a serious danger, the suppuration of large wounds +being always liable to become re-absorbed, and consequently, to kill +the sick man, under certain atmospheric conditions; at every change of +weather, at the slightest storm, the physician was uneasy. + +"Above all things," he repeated, "let the wounded man be subjected to no +emotion." The dressing of the wounds was complicated and difficult, +the fixation of apparatus and bandages by cerecloths not having been +invented as yet, at that epoch. Nicolette used up a sheet "as big as the +ceiling," as she put it, for lint. It was not without difficulty +that the chloruretted lotions and the nitrate of silver overcame the +gangrene. As long as there was any danger, M. Gillenormand, seated in +despair at his grandson's pillow, was, like Marius, neither alive nor +dead. + +Every day, sometimes twice a day, a very well dressed gentleman with +white hair,--such was the description given by the porter,--came to +inquire about the wounded man, and left a large package of lint for the +dressings. + +Finally, on the 7th of September, four months to a day, after the +sorrowful night when he had been brought back to his grandfather in a +dying condition, the doctor declared that he would answer for Marius. +Convalescence began. But Marius was forced to remain for two months more +stretched out on a long chair, on account of the results called up by +the fracture of his collar-bone. There always is a last wound like that +which will not close, and which prolongs the dressings indefinitely, to +the great annoyance of the sick person. + +However, this long illness and this long convalescence saved him +from all pursuit. In France, there is no wrath, not even of a public +character, which six months will not extinguish. Revolts, in the present +state of society, are so much the fault of every one, that they are +followed by a certain necessity of shutting the eyes. + +Let us add, that the inexcusable Gisquet order, which enjoined doctors +to lodge information against the wounded, having outraged public +opinion, and not opinion alone, but the King first of all, the wounded +were covered and protected by this indignation; and, with the exception +of those who had been made prisoners in the very act of combat, the +councils of war did not dare to trouble any one. So Marius was left in +peace. + +M. Gillenormand first passed through all manner of anguish, and then +through every form of ecstasy. It was found difficult to prevent his +passing every night beside the wounded man; he had his big arm-chair +carried to Marius' bedside; he required his daughter to take the +finest linen in the house for compresses and bandages. Mademoiselle +Gillenormand, like a sage and elderly person, contrived to spare the +fine linen, while allowing the grandfather to think that he was obeyed. +M. Gillenormand would not permit any one to explain to him, that for the +preparation of lint batiste is not nearly so good as coarse linen, +nor new linen as old linen. He was present at all the dressings of the +wounds from which Mademoiselle Gillenormand modestly absented herself. +When the dead flesh was cut away with scissors, he said: "Aie! aie!" +Nothing was more touching than to see him with his gentle, senile palsy, +offer the wounded man a cup of his cooling-draught. He overwhelmed the +doctor with questions. He did not observe that he asked the same ones +over and over again. + +On the day when the doctor announced to him that Marius was out of +danger, the good man was in a delirium. He made his porter a present of +three louis. That evening, on his return to his own chamber, he danced +a gavotte, using his thumb and forefinger as castanets, and he sang the +following song: + + "Jeanne est nee a Fougere "Amour, tu vis en elle; + Vrai nid d'une bergere; Car c'est dans sa prunelle + J'adore son jupon, Que tu mets ton carquois. + Fripon. Narquois! + + "Moi, je la chante, et j'aime, + Plus que Diane meme, + Jeanne et ses durs tetons + Bretons."[61] + + +"Love, thou dwellest in her; For 'tis in her eyes that thou placest thy +quiver, sly scamp! + +"As for me, I sing her, and I love, more than Diana herself, Jeanne and +her firm Breton breasts." + + +Then he knelt upon a chair, and Basque, who was watching him through the +half-open door, made sure that he was praying. + +Up to that time, he had not believed in God. + +At each succeeding phase of improvement, which became more and more +pronounced, the grandfather raved. He executed a multitude of mechanical +actions full of joy; he ascended and descended the stairs, without +knowing why. A pretty female neighbor was amazed one morning at +receiving a big bouquet; it was M. Gillenormand who had sent it to +her. The husband made a jealous scene. M. Gillenormand tried to draw +Nicolette upon his knees. He called Marius, "M. le Baron." He shouted: +"Long live the Republic!" + +Every moment, he kept asking the doctor: "Is he no longer in danger?" +He gazed upon Marius with the eyes of a grandmother. He brooded over him +while he ate. He no longer knew himself, he no longer rendered himself +an account of himself. Marius was the master of the house, there was +abdication in his joy, he was the grandson of his grandson. + +In the state of joy in which he then was, he was the most venerable of +children. In his fear lest he might fatigue or annoy the convalescent, +he stepped behind him to smile. He was content, joyous, delighted, +charming, young. His white locks added a gentle majesty to the gay +radiance of his visage. When grace is mingled with wrinkles, it is +adorable. There is an indescribable aurora in beaming old age. + +As for Marius, as he allowed them to dress his wounds and care for him, +he had but one fixed idea: Cosette. + +After the fever and delirium had left him, he did not again pronounce +her name, and it might have been supposed that he no longer thought of +her. He held his peace, precisely because his soul was there. + +He did not know what had become of Cosette; the whole affair of the +Rue de la Chanvrerie was like a cloud in his memory; shadows that were +almost indistinct, floated through his mind, Eponine, Gavroche, Mabeuf, +the Thenardiers, all his friends gloomily intermingled with the smoke +of the barricade; the strange passage of M. Fauchelevent through that +adventure produced on him the effect of a puzzle in a tempest; he +understood nothing connected with his own life, he did not know how nor +by whom he had been saved, and no one of those around him knew this; all +that they had been able to tell him was, that he had been brought home +at night in a hackney-coach, to the Rue des Filles-du-Calvaire; past, +present, future were nothing more to him than the mist of a vague idea; +but in that fog there was one immovable point, one clear and precise +outline, something made of granite, a resolution, a will; to find +Cosette once more. For him, the idea of life was not distinct from the +idea of Cosette. He had decreed in his heart that he would not accept +the one without the other, and he was immovably resolved to exact of +any person whatever, who should desire to force him to live,--from his +grandfather, from fate, from hell,--the restitution of his vanished +Eden. + +He did not conceal from himself the fact that obstacles existed. + +Let us here emphasize one detail, he was not won over and was but little +softened by all the solicitude and tenderness of his grandfather. In +the first place, he was not in the secret; then, in his reveries of +an invalid, which were still feverish, possibly, he distrusted this +tenderness as a strange and novel thing, which had for its object his +conquest. He remained cold. The grandfather absolutely wasted his poor +old smile. Marius said to himself that it was all right so long as he, +Marius, did not speak, and let things take their course; but that when +it became a question of Cosette, he would find another face, and that +his grandfather's true attitude would be unmasked. Then there would +be an unpleasant scene; a recrudescence of family questions, a +confrontation of positions, every sort of sarcasm and all manner of +objections at one and the same time, Fauchelevent, Coupelevent, fortune, +poverty, a stone about his neck, the future. Violent resistance; +conclusion: a refusal. Marius stiffened himself in advance. + +And then, in proportion as he regained life, the old ulcers of his +memory opened once more, he reflected again on the past, Colonel +Pontmercy placed himself once more between M. Gillenormand and him, +Marius, he told himself that he had no true kindness to expect from +a person who had been so unjust and so hard to his father. And +with health, there returned to him a sort of harshness towards his +grandfather. The old man was gently pained by this. M. Gillenormand, +without however allowing it to appear, observed that Marius, ever since +the latter had been brought back to him and had regained consciousness, +had not once called him father. It is true that he did not say +"monsieur" to him; but he contrived not to say either the one or the +other, by means of a certain way of turning his phrases. Obviously, a +crisis was approaching. + +As almost always happens in such cases, Marius skirmished before giving +battle, by way of proving himself. This is called "feeling the ground." +One morning it came to pass that M. Gillenormand spoke slightingly of +the Convention, apropos of a newspaper which had fallen into his +hands, and gave vent to a Royalist harangue on Danton, Saint-Juste and +Robespierre.--"The men of '93 were giants," said Marius with severity. +The old man held his peace, and uttered not a sound during the remainder +of that day. + +Marius, who had always present to his mind the inflexible grandfather of +his early years, interpreted this silence as a profound concentration +of wrath, augured from it a hot conflict, and augmented his preparations +for the fray in the inmost recesses of his mind. + +He decided that, in case of a refusal, he would tear off his bandages, +dislocate his collar-bone, that he would lay bare all the wounds which +he had left, and would reject all food. His wounds were his munitions of +war. He would have Cosette or die. + +He awaited the propitious moment with the crafty patience of the sick. + +That moment arrived. + + + + +CHAPTER III--MARIUS ATTACKED + +One day, M. Gillenormand, while his daughter was putting in order the +phials and cups on the marble of the commode, bent over Marius and said +to him in his tenderest accents: "Look here, my little Marius, if I were +in your place, I would eat meat now in preference to fish. A fried sole +is excellent to begin a convalescence with, but a good cutlet is needed +to put a sick man on his feet." + +Marius, who had almost entirely recovered his strength, collected +the whole of it, drew himself up into a sitting posture, laid his two +clenched fists on the sheets of his bed, looked his grandfather in the +face, assumed a terrible air, and said: + +"This leads me to say something to you." + +"What is it?" + +"That I wish to marry." + +"Agreed," said his grandfather.--And he burst out laughing. + +"How agreed?" + +"Yes, agreed. You shall have your little girl." + +Marius, stunned and overwhelmed with the dazzling shock, trembled in +every limb. + +M. Gillenormand went on: + +"Yes, you shall have her, that pretty little girl of yours. She comes +every day in the shape of an old gentleman to inquire after you. Ever +since you were wounded, she has passed her time in weeping and making +lint. I have made inquiries. She lives in the Rue de l'Homme Arme, No. +7. Ah! There we have it! Ah! so you want her! Well, you shall have +her. You're caught. You had arranged your little plot, you had said to +yourself:--'I'm going to signify this squarely to my grandfather, to +that mummy of the Regency and of the Directory, to that ancient beau, +to that Dorante turned Geronte; he has indulged in his frivolities also, +that he has, and he has had his love affairs, and his grisettes and his +Cosettes; he has made his rustle, he has had his wings, he has eaten of +the bread of spring; he certainly must remember it.' Ah! you take the +cockchafer by the horns. That's good. I offer you a cutlet and you +answer me: 'By the way, I want to marry.' There's a transition for +you! Ah! you reckoned on a bickering! You do not know that I am an old +coward. What do you say to that? You are vexed? You did not expect to +find your grandfather still more foolish than yourself, you are wasting +the discourse which you meant to bestow upon me, Mr. Lawyer, and that's +vexatious. Well, so much the worse, rage away. I'll do whatever +you wish, and that cuts you short, imbecile! Listen. I have made my +inquiries, I'm cunning too; she is charming, she is discreet, it is not +true about the lancer, she has made heaps of lint, she's a jewel, she +adores you, if you had died, there would have been three of us, her +coffin would have accompanied mine. I have had an idea, ever since you +have been better, of simply planting her at your bedside, but it is only +in romances that young girls are brought to the bedsides of handsome +young wounded men who interest them. It is not done. What would your +aunt have said to it? You were nude three quarters of the time, my good +fellow. Ask Nicolette, who has not left you for a moment, if there was +any possibility of having a woman here. And then, what would the doctor +have said? A pretty girl does not cure a man of fever. In short, it's +all right, let us say no more about it, all's said, all's done, it's all +settled, take her. Such is my ferocity. You see, I perceived that you +did not love me. I said to myself: 'Here now, I have my little Cosette +right under my hand, I'm going to give her to him, he will be obliged +to love me a little then, or he must tell the reason why.' Ah! so you +thought that the old man was going to storm, to put on a big voice, +to shout no, and to lift his cane at all that aurora. Not a bit of it. +Cosette, so be it; love, so be it; I ask nothing better. Pray take the +trouble of getting married, sir. Be happy, my well-beloved child." + +That said, the old man burst forth into sobs. + +And he seized Marius' head, and pressed it with both arms against his +breast, and both fell to weeping. This is one of the forms of supreme +happiness. + +"Father!" cried Marius. + +"Ah, so you love me!" said the old man. + +An ineffable moment ensued. They were choking and could not speak. + +At length the old man stammered: + +"Come! his mouth is unstopped at last. He has said: 'Father' to me." + +Marius disengaged his head from his grandfather's arms, and said gently: + +"But, father, now that I am quite well, it seems to me that I might see +her." + +"Agreed again, you shall see her to-morrow." + +"Father!" + +"What?" + +"Why not to-day?" + +"Well, to-day then. Let it be to-day. You have called me 'father' three +times, and it is worth it. I will attend to it. She shall be brought +hither. Agreed, I tell you. It has already been put into verse. This is +the ending of the elegy of the 'Jeune Malade' by Andre Chenier, by Andre +Chenier whose throat was cut by the ras . . . by the giants of '93." + +M. Gillenormand fancied that he detected a faint frown on the part of +Marius, who, in truth, as we must admit, was no longer listening to him, +and who was thinking far more of Cosette than of 1793. + +The grandfather, trembling at having so inopportunely introduced Andre +Chenier, resumed precipitately: + +"Cut his throat is not the word. The fact is that the great +revolutionary geniuses, who were not malicious, that is incontestable, +who were heroes, pardi! found that Andre Chenier embarrassed them +somewhat, and they had him guillot . . . that is to say, those great +men on the 7th of Thermidor, besought Andre Chenier, in the interests of +public safety, to be so good as to go . . ." + +M. Gillenormand, clutched by the throat by his own phrase, could not +proceed. Being able neither to finish it nor to retract it, while his +daughter arranged the pillow behind Marius, who was overwhelmed with so +many emotions, the old man rushed headlong, with as much rapidity as +his age permitted, from the bed-chamber, shut the door behind him, and, +purple, choking and foaming at the mouth, his eyes starting from his +head, he found himself nose to nose with honest Basque, who was blacking +boots in the anteroom. He seized Basque by the collar, and shouted full +in his face in fury:--"By the hundred thousand Javottes of the devil, +those ruffians did assassinate him!" + +"Who, sir?" + +"Andre Chenier!" + +"Yes, sir," said Basque in alarm. + + + + +CHAPTER IV--MADEMOISELLE GILLENORMAND ENDS BY NO LONGER THINKING IT A +BAD THING THAT M. FAUCHELEVENT SHOULD HAVE ENTERED WITH SOMETHING UNDER +HIS ARM + +Cosette and Marius beheld each other once more. + +What that interview was like we decline to say. There are things which +one must not attempt to depict; the sun is one of them. + +The entire family, including Basque and Nicolette, were assembled in +Marius' chamber at the moment when Cosette entered it. + +Precisely at that moment, the grandfather was on the point of blowing +his nose; he stopped short, holding his nose in his handkerchief, and +gazing over it at Cosette. + +She appeared on the threshold; it seemed to him that she was surrounded +by a glory. + +"Adorable!" he exclaimed. + +Then he blew his nose noisily. + +Cosette was intoxicated, delighted, frightened, in heaven. She was as +thoroughly alarmed as any one can be by happiness. She stammered all +pale, yet flushed, she wanted to fling herself into Marius' arms, and +dared not. Ashamed of loving in the presence of all these people. People +are pitiless towards happy lovers; they remain when the latter most +desire to be left alone. Lovers have no need of any people whatever. + +With Cosette, and behind her, there had entered a man with white hair +who was grave yet smiling, though with a vague and heartrending smile. +It was "Monsieur Fauchelevent"; it was Jean Valjean. + +He was very well dressed, as the porter had said, entirely in black, in +perfectly new garments, and with a white cravat. + +The porter was a thousand leagues from recognizing in this correct +bourgeois, in this probable notary, the fear-inspiring bearer of the +corpse, who had sprung up at his door on the night of the 7th of June, +tattered, muddy, hideous, haggard, his face masked in blood and mire, +supporting in his arms the fainting Marius; still, his porter's scent +was aroused. When M. Fauchelevent arrived with Cosette, the porter had +not been able to refrain from communicating to his wife this aside: "I +don't know why it is, but I can't help fancying that I've seen that face +before." + +M. Fauchelevent in Marius' chamber, remained apart near the door. He +had under his arm, a package which bore considerable resemblance to an +octavo volume enveloped in paper. The enveloping paper was of a greenish +hue, and appeared to be mouldy. + +"Does the gentleman always have books like that under his arm?" +Mademoiselle Gillenormand, who did not like books, demanded in a low +tone of Nicolette. + +"Well," retorted M. Gillenormand, who had overheard her, in the same +tone, "he's a learned man. What then? Is that his fault? Monsieur +Boulard, one of my acquaintances, never walked out without a book under +his arm either, and he always had some old volume hugged to his heart +like that." + +And, with a bow, he said aloud: + +"Monsieur Tranchelevent . . ." + +Father Gillenormand did not do it intentionally, but inattention to +proper names was an aristocratic habit of his. + +"Monsieur Tranchelevent, I have the honor of asking you, on behalf of my +grandson, Baron Marius Pontmercy, for the hand of Mademoiselle." + +Monsieur Tranchelevent bowed. + +"That's settled," said the grandfather. + +And, turning to Marius and Cosette, with both arms extended in blessing, +he cried: + +"Permission to adore each other!" + +They did not require him to repeat it twice. So much the worse! the +chirping began. They talked low. Marius, resting on his elbow on his +reclining chair, Cosette standing beside him. "Oh, heavens!" murmured +Cosette, "I see you once again! it is thou! it is you! The idea of going +and fighting like that! But why? It is horrible. I have been dead for +four months. Oh! how wicked it was of you to go to that battle! What had +I done to you? I pardon you, but you will never do it again. A little +while ago, when they came to tell us to come to you, I still thought +that I was about to die, but it was from joy. I was so sad! I have not +taken the time to dress myself, I must frighten people with my looks! +What will your relatives say to see me in a crumpled collar? Do speak! +You let me do all the talking. We are still in the Rue de l'Homme Arme. +It seems that your shoulder was terrible. They told me that you could +put your fist in it. And then, it seems that they cut your flesh with +the scissors. That is frightful. I have cried till I have no eyes left. +It is queer that a person can suffer like that. Your grandfather has a +very kindly air. Don't disturb yourself, don't rise on your elbow, you +will injure yourself. Oh! how happy I am! So our unhappiness is over! +I am quite foolish. I had things to say to you, and I no longer know in +the least what they were. Do you still love me? We live in the Rue de +l'Homme Arme. There is no garden. I made lint all the time; stay, sir, +look, it is your fault, I have a callous on my fingers." + +"Angel!" said Marius. + +Angel is the only word in the language which cannot be worn out. No +other word could resist the merciless use which lovers make of it. + +Then as there were spectators, they paused and said not a word more, +contenting themselves with softly touching each other's hands. + +M. Gillenormand turned towards those who were in the room and cried: + +"Talk loud, the rest of you. Make a noise, you people behind the scenes. +Come, a little uproar, the deuce! so that the children can chatter at +their ease." + +And, approaching Marius and Cosette, he said to them in a very low +voice: + +"Call each other thou. Don't stand on ceremony." + +Aunt Gillenormand looked on in amazement at this irruption of light +in her elderly household. There was nothing aggressive about this +amazement; it was not the least in the world like the scandalized and +envious glance of an owl at two turtle-doves, it was the stupid eye of a +poor innocent seven and fifty years of age; it was a life which had been +a failure gazing at that triumph, love. + +"Mademoiselle Gillenormand senior," said her father to her, "I told you +that this is what would happen to you." + +He remained silent for a moment, and then added: + +"Look at the happiness of others." + +Then he turned to Cosette. + +"How pretty she is! how pretty she is! She's a Greuze. So you are going +to have that all to yourself, you scamp! Ah! my rogue, you are getting +off nicely with me, you are happy; if I were not fifteen years too old, +we would fight with swords to see which of us should have her. Come now! +I am in love with you, mademoiselle. It's perfectly simple. It is your +right. You are in the right. Ah! what a sweet, charming little wedding +this will make! Our parish is Saint-Denis du Saint Sacrament, but I will +get a dispensation so that you can be married at Saint-Paul. The church +is better. It was built by the Jesuits. It is more coquettish. It is +opposite the fountain of Cardinal de Birague. The masterpiece of Jesuit +architecture is at Namur. It is called Saint-Loup. You must go there +after you are married. It is worth the journey. Mademoiselle, I am quite +of your mind, I think girls ought to marry; that is what they are made +for. There is a certain Sainte-Catherine whom I should always like to +see uncoiffed.[62] It's a fine thing to remain a spinster, but it is +chilly. The Bible says: Multiply. In order to save the people, Jeanne +d'Arc is needed; but in order to make people, what is needed is Mother +Goose. So, marry, my beauties. I really do not see the use in remaining +a spinster! I know that they have their chapel apart in the church, +and that they fall back on the Society of the Virgin; but, sapristi, a +handsome husband, a fine fellow, and at the expiration of a year, a +big, blond brat who nurses lustily, and who has fine rolls of fat on his +thighs, and who musses up your breast in handfuls with his little rosy +paws, laughing the while like the dawn,--that's better than holding a +candle at vespers, and chanting Turris eburnea!" + +The grandfather executed a pirouette on his eighty-year-old heels, and +began to talk again like a spring that has broken loose once more: + + "Ainsi, bornant les cours de tes revasseries, + Alcippe, il est donc vrai, dans peu tu te maries."[63] + + +"By the way!" + +"What is it, father?" + +"Have not you an intimate friend?" + +"Yes, Courfeyrac." + +"What has become of him?" + +"He is dead." + +"That is good." + +He seated himself near them, made Cosette sit down, and took their four +hands in his aged and wrinkled hands: + +"She is exquisite, this darling. She's a masterpiece, this Cosette! +She is a very little girl and a very great lady. She will only be a +Baroness, which is a come down for her; she was born a Marquise. What +eyelashes she has! Get it well fixed in your noddles, my children, that +you are in the true road. Love each other. Be foolish about it. Love is +the folly of men and the wit of God. Adore each other. Only," he added, +suddenly becoming gloomy, "what a misfortune! It has just occurred to +me! More than half of what I possess is swallowed up in an annuity; so +long as I live, it will not matter, but after my death, a score of years +hence, ah! my poor children, you will not have a sou! Your beautiful +white hands, Madame la Baronne, will do the devil the honor of pulling +him by the tail."[64] + +At this point they heard a grave and tranquil voice say: + +"Mademoiselle Euphrasie Fauchelevent possesses six hundred thousand +francs." + +It was the voice of Jean Valjean. + +So far he had not uttered a single word, no one seemed to be aware that +he was there, and he had remained standing erect and motionless, behind +all these happy people. + +"What has Mademoiselle Euphrasie to do with the question?" inquired the +startled grandfather. + +"I am she," replied Cosette. + +"Six hundred thousand francs?" resumed M. Gillenormand. + +"Minus fourteen or fifteen thousand francs, possibly," said Jean +Valjean. + +And he laid on the table the package which Mademoiselle Gillenormand had +mistaken for a book. + +Jean Valjean himself opened the package; it was a bundle of bank-notes. +They were turned over and counted. There were five hundred notes for a +thousand francs each, and one hundred and sixty-eight of five hundred. +In all, five hundred and eighty-four thousand francs. + +"This is a fine book," said M. Gillenormand. + +"Five hundred and eighty-four thousand francs!" murmured the aunt. + +"This arranges things well, does it not, Mademoiselle Gillenormand +senior?" said the grandfather. "That devil of a Marius has ferreted out +the nest of a millionaire grisette in his tree of dreams! Just trust +to the love affairs of young folks now, will you! Students find +studentesses with six hundred thousand francs. Cherubino works better +than Rothschild." + +"Five hundred and eighty-four thousand francs!" repeated Mademoiselle +Gillenormand, in a low tone. "Five hundred and eighty-four! one might as +well say six hundred thousand!" + +As for Marius and Cosette, they were gazing at each other while this was +going on; they hardly heeded this detail. + + + + +CHAPTER V--DEPOSIT YOUR MONEY IN A FOREST RATHER THAN WITH A NOTARY + +The reader has, no doubt, understood, without necessitating a lengthy +explanation, that Jean Valjean, after the Champmathieu affair, had been +able, thanks to his first escape of a few days' duration, to come to +Paris and to withdraw in season, from the hands of Laffitte, the +sum earned by him, under the name of Monsieur Madeleine, at +Montreuil-sur-Mer; and that fearing that he might be recaptured,--which +eventually happened--he had buried and hidden that sum in the forest +of Montfermeil, in the locality known as the Blaru-bottom. The sum, +six hundred and thirty thousand francs, all in bank-bills, was not very +bulky, and was contained in a box; only, in order to preserve the +box from dampness, he had placed it in a coffer filled with chestnut +shavings. In the same coffer he had placed his other treasures, the +Bishop's candlesticks. It will be remembered that he had carried off +the candlesticks when he made his escape from Montreuil-sur-Mer. The man +seen one evening for the first time by Boulatruelle, was Jean Valjean. +Later on, every time that Jean Valjean needed money, he went to get it +in the Blaru-bottom. Hence the absences which we have mentioned. He had +a pickaxe somewhere in the heather, in a hiding-place known to himself +alone. When he beheld Marius convalescent, feeling that the hour was at +hand, when that money might prove of service, he had gone to get it; +it was he again, whom Boulatruelle had seen in the woods, but on +this occasion, in the morning instead of in the evening. Boulatreulle +inherited his pickaxe. + +The actual sum was five hundred and eighty-four thousand, five hundred +francs. Jean Valjean withdrew the five hundred francs for himself.--"We +shall see hereafter," he thought. + +The difference between that sum and the six hundred and thirty thousand +francs withdrawn from Laffitte represented his expenditure in ten years, +from 1823 to 1833. The five years of his stay in the convent had cost +only five thousand francs. + +Jean Valjean set the two candlesticks on the chimney-piece, where they +glittered to the great admiration of Toussaint. + +Moreover, Jean Valjean knew that he was delivered from Javert. The +story had been told in his presence, and he had verified the fact in +the Moniteur, how a police inspector named Javert had been found drowned +under a boat belonging to some laundresses, between the Pont au Change +and the Pont-Neuf, and that a writing left by this man, otherwise +irreproachable and highly esteemed by his superiors, pointed to a fit +of mental aberration and a suicide.--"In fact," thought Jean Valjean, +"since he left me at liberty, once having got me in his power, he must +have been already mad." + + + + +CHAPTER VI--THE TWO OLD MEN DO EVERYTHING, EACH ONE AFTER HIS OWN +FASHION, TO RENDER COSETTE HAPPY + +Everything was made ready for the wedding. The doctor, on being +consulted, declared that it might take place in February. It was then +December. A few ravishing weeks of perfect happiness passed. + +The grandfather was not the least happy of them all. He remained for a +quarter of an hour at a time gazing at Cosette. + +"The wonderful, beautiful girl!" he exclaimed. "And she has so sweet and +good an air! she is, without exception, the most charming girl that I +have ever seen in my life. Later on, she'll have virtues with an odor of +violets. How graceful! one cannot live otherwise than nobly with such +a creature. Marius, my boy, you are a Baron, you are rich, don't go to +pettifogging, I beg of you." + +Cosette and Marius had passed abruptly from the sepulchre to paradise. +The transition had not been softened, and they would have been stunned, +had they not been dazzled by it. + +"Do you understand anything about it?" said Marius to Cosette. + +"No," replied Cosette, "but it seems to me that the good God is caring +for us." + +Jean Valjean did everything, smoothed away every difficulty, arranged +everything, made everything easy. He hastened towards Cosette's +happiness with as much ardor, and, apparently with as much joy, as +Cosette herself. + +As he had been a mayor, he understood how to solve that delicate +problem, with the secret of which he alone was acquainted, Cosette's +civil status. If he were to announce her origin bluntly, it might +prevent the marriage, who knows? He extricated Cosette from all +difficulties. He concocted for her a family of dead people, a sure means +of not encountering any objections. Cosette was the only scion of an +extinct family; Cosette was not his own daughter, but the daughter of +the other Fauchelevent. Two brothers Fauchelevent had been gardeners to +the convent of the Petit-Picpus. Inquiry was made at that convent; the +very best information and the most respectable references abounded; the +good nuns, not very apt and but little inclined to fathom questions of +paternity, and not attaching any importance to the matter, had never +understood exactly of which of the two Fauchelevents Cosette was the +daughter. They said what was wanted and they said it with zeal. An +acte de notoriete was drawn up. Cosette became in the eyes of the law, +Mademoiselle Euphrasie Fauchelevent. She was declared an orphan, both +father and mother being dead. Jean Valjean so arranged it that he was +appointed, under the name of Fauchelevent, as Cosette's guardian, with +M. Gillenormand as supervising guardian over him. + +As for the five hundred and eighty thousand francs, they constituted +a legacy bequeathed to Cosette by a dead person, who desired to +remain unknown. The original legacy had consisted of five hundred and +ninety-four thousand francs; but ten thousand francs had been expended +on the education of Mademoiselle Euphrasie, five thousand francs of that +amount having been paid to the convent. This legacy, deposited in +the hands of a third party, was to be turned over to Cosette at her +majority, or at the date of her marriage. This, taken as a whole, was +very acceptable, as the reader will perceive, especially when the sum +due was half a million. There were some peculiarities here and there, +it is true, but they were not noticed; one of the interested parties +had his eyes blindfolded by love, the others by the six hundred thousand +francs. + +Cosette learned that she was not the daughter of that old man whom she +had so long called father. He was merely a kinsman; another Fauchelevent +was her real father. At any other time this would have broken her heart. +But at the ineffable moment which she was then passing through, it cast +but a slight shadow, a faint cloud, and she was so full of joy that the +cloud did not last long. She had Marius. The young man arrived, the old +man was effaced; such is life. + +And then, Cosette had, for long years, been habituated to seeing enigmas +around her; every being who has had a mysterious childhood is always +prepared for certain renunciations. + +Nevertheless, she continued to call Jean Valjean: Father. + +Cosette, happy as the angels, was enthusiastic over Father Gillenormand. +It is true that he overwhelmed her with gallant compliments and +presents. While Jean Valjean was building up for Cosette a normal +situation in society and an unassailable status, M. Gillenormand was +superintending the basket of wedding gifts. Nothing so amused him as +being magnificent. He had given to Cosette a robe of Binche guipure +which had descended to him from his own grandmother. + +"These fashions come up again," said he, "ancient things are the +rage, and the young women of my old age dress like the old women of my +childhood." + +He rifled his respectable chests of drawers in Coromandel lacquer, with +swelling fronts, which had not been opened for years.--"Let us hear the +confession of these dowagers," he said, "let us see what they have in +their paunches." He noisily violated the pot-bellied drawers of all +his wives, of all his mistresses and of all his grandmothers. Pekins, +damasks, lampas, painted moires, robes of shot gros de Tours, India +kerchiefs embroidered in gold that could be washed, dauphines without a +right or wrong side, in the piece, Genoa and Alencon point lace, +parures in antique goldsmith's work, ivory bon-bon boxes ornamented +with microscopic battles, gewgaws and ribbons--he lavished everything on +Cosette. Cosette, amazed, desperately in love with Marius, and wild with +gratitude towards M. Gillenormand, dreamed of a happiness without limit +clothed in satin and velvet. Her wedding basket seemed to her to be +upheld by seraphim. Her soul flew out into the azure depths, with wings +of Mechlin lace. + +The intoxication of the lovers was only equalled, as we have already +said, by the ecstasy of the grandfather. A sort of flourish of trumpets +went on in the Rue des Filles-du-Calvaire. + +Every morning, a fresh offering of bric-a-brac from the grandfather to +Cosette. All possible knickknacks glittered around her. + +One day Marius, who was fond of talking gravely in the midst of his +bliss, said, apropos of I know not what incident: + +"The men of the revolution are so great, that they have the prestige of +the ages, like Cato and like Phocion, and each one of them seems to me +an antique memory." + +"Moire antique!" exclaimed the old gentleman. "Thanks, Marius. That is +precisely the idea of which I was in search." + +And on the following day, a magnificent dress of tea-rose colored moire +antique was added to Cosette's wedding presents. + +From these fripperies, the grandfather extracted a bit of wisdom. + +"Love is all very well; but there must be something else to go with +it. The useless must be mingled with happiness. Happiness is only the +necessary. Season that enormously with the superfluous for me. A +palace and her heart. Her heart and the Louvre. Her heart and the grand +waterworks of Versailles. Give me my shepherdess and try to make her a +duchess. Fetch me Phyllis crowned with corn-flowers, and add a hundred +thousand francs income. Open for me a bucolic perspective as far as you +can see, beneath a marble colonnade. I consent to the bucolic and also +to the fairy spectacle of marble and gold. Dry happiness resembles dry +bread. One eats, but one does not dine. I want the superfluous, the +useless, the extravagant, excess, that which serves no purpose. I +remember to have seen, in the Cathedral of Strasburg, a clock, as tall +as a three-story house which marked the hours, which had the kindness to +indicate the hour, but which had not the air of being made for that; and +which, after having struck midday, or midnight,--midday, the hour of the +sun, or midnight, the hour of love,--or any other hour that you like, +gave you the moon and the stars, the earth and the sea, birds and +fishes, Phoebus and Phoebe, and a host of things which emerged from a +niche, and the twelve apostles, and the Emperor Charles the Fifth, and +Eponine, and Sabinus, and a throng of little gilded goodmen, who played +on the trumpet to boot. Without reckoning delicious chimes which it +sprinkled through the air, on every occasion, without any one's knowing +why. Is a petty bald clock-face which merely tells the hour equal to +that? For my part, I am of the opinion of the big clock of Strasburg, +and I prefer it to the cuckoo clock from the Black Forest." + +M. Gillenormand talked nonsense in connection with the wedding, and all +the fripperies of the eighteenth century passed pell-mell through his +dithyrambs. + +"You are ignorant of the art of festivals. You do not know how to +organize a day of enjoyment in this age," he exclaimed. "Your nineteenth +century is weak. It lacks excess. It ignores the rich, it ignores the +noble. In everything it is clean-shaven. Your third estate is insipid, +colorless, odorless, and shapeless. The dreams of your bourgeois who +set up, as they express it: a pretty boudoir freshly decorated, violet, +ebony and calico. Make way! Make way! the Sieur Curmudgeon is marrying +Mademoiselle Clutch-penny. Sumptuousness and splendor. A louis d'or has +been stuck to a candle. There's the epoch for you. My demand is that I +may flee from it beyond the Sarmatians. Ah! in 1787, I predict that all +was lost, from the day when I beheld the Duc de Rohan, Prince de Leon, +Duc de Chabot, Duc de Montbazon, Marquis de Sonbise, Vicomte de Thouars, +peer of France, go to Longchamps in a tapecu! That has borne its fruits. +In this century, men attend to business, they gamble on 'Change, they +win money, they are stingy. People take care of their surfaces and +varnish them; every one is dressed as though just out of a band-box, +washed, soaped, scraped, shaved, combed, waked, smoothed, rubbed, +brushed, cleaned on the outside, irreproachable, polished as a pebble, +discreet, neat, and at the same time, death of my life, in the depths of +their consciences they have dung-heaps and cesspools that are enough to +make a cow-herd who blows his nose in his fingers, recoil. I grant to +this age the device: 'Dirty Cleanliness.' Don't be vexed, Marius, give +me permission to speak; I say no evil of the people as you see, I am +always harping on your people, but do look favorably on my dealing a bit +of a slap to the bourgeoisie. I belong to it. He who loves well lashes +well. Thereupon, I say plainly, that now-a-days people marry, but that +they no longer know how to marry. Ah! it is true, I regret the grace +of the ancient manners. I regret everything about them, their elegance, +their chivalry, those courteous and delicate ways, that joyous luxury +which every one possessed, music forming part of the wedding, a symphony +above stairs, a beating of drums below stairs, the dances, the joyous +faces round the table, the fine-spun gallant compliments, the songs, the +fireworks, the frank laughter, the devil's own row, the huge knots of +ribbon. I regret the bride's garter. The bride's garter is cousin to the +girdle of Venus. On what does the war of Troy turn? On Helen's garter, +parbleu! Why did they fight, why did Diomed the divine break over +the head of Meriones that great brazen helmet of ten points? why did +Achilles and Hector hew each other up with vast blows of their lances? +Because Helen allowed Paris to take her garter. With Cosette's garter, +Homer would construct the Iliad. He would put in his poem, a loquacious +old fellow, like me, and he would call him Nestor. My friends, in bygone +days, in those amiable days of yore, people married wisely; they had a +good contract, and then they had a good carouse. As soon as Cujas had +taken his departure, Gamacho entered. But, in sooth! the stomach is +an agreeable beast which demands its due, and which wants to have its +wedding also. People supped well, and had at table a beautiful neighbor +without a guimpe so that her throat was only moderately concealed. Oh! +the large laughing mouths, and how gay we were in those days! youth was +a bouquet; every young man terminated in a branch of lilacs or a tuft +of roses; whether he was a shepherd or a warrior; and if, by chance, +one was a captain of dragoons, one found means to call oneself Florian. +People thought much of looking well. They embroidered and tinted +themselves. A bourgeois had the air of a flower, a Marquis had the air +of a precious stone. People had no straps to their boots, they had no +boots. They were spruce, shining, waved, lustrous, fluttering, dainty, +coquettish, which did not at all prevent their wearing swords by their +sides. The humming-bird has beak and claws. That was the day of the +Galland Indies. One of the sides of that century was delicate, the other +was magnificent; and by the green cabbages! people amused themselves. +To-day, people are serious. The bourgeois is avaricious, the bourgeoise +is a prude; your century is unfortunate. People would drive away the +Graces as being too low in the neck. Alas! beauty is concealed as +though it were ugliness. Since the revolution, everything, including the +ballet-dancers, has had its trousers; a mountebank dancer must be grave; +your rigadoons are doctrinarian. It is necessary to be majestic. People +would be greatly annoyed if they did not carry their chins in their +cravats. The ideal of an urchin of twenty when he marries, is to +resemble M. Royer-Collard. And do you know what one arrives at with +that majesty? at being petty. Learn this: joy is not only joyous; it is +great. But be in love gayly then, what the deuce! marry, when you marry, +with fever and giddiness, and tumult, and the uproar of happiness! Be +grave in church, well and good. But, as soon as the mass is finished, +sarpejou! you must make a dream whirl around the bride. A marriage +should be royal and chimerical; it should promenade its ceremony from +the cathedral of Rheims to the pagoda of Chanteloup. I have a horror +of a paltry wedding. Ventregoulette! be in Olympus for that one day, +at least. Be one of the gods. Ah! people might be sylphs. Games and +Laughter, argiraspides; they are stupids. My friends, every recently +made bridegroom ought to be Prince Aldobrandini. Profit by that unique +minute in life to soar away to the empyrean with the swans and the +eagles, even if you do have to fall back on the morrow into the +bourgeoisie of the frogs. Don't economize on the nuptials, do not prune +them of their splendors; don't scrimp on the day when you beam. The +wedding is not the housekeeping. Oh! if I were to carry out my fancy, +it would be gallant, violins would be heard under the trees. Here is +my programme: sky-blue and silver. I would mingle with the festival +the rural divinities, I would convoke the Dryads and the Nereids. The +nuptials of Amphitrite, a rosy cloud, nymphs with well dressed locks +and entirely naked, an Academician offering quatrains to the goddess, a +chariot drawn by marine monsters. + + "Triton trottait devant, et tirait de sa conque + Des sons si ravissants qu'il ravissait quiconque!"[65] + +--there's a festive programme, there's a good one, or else I know +nothing of such matters, deuce take it!" + +While the grandfather, in full lyrical effusion, was listening to +himself, Cosette and Marius grew intoxicated as they gazed freely at +each other. + +Aunt Gillenormand surveyed all this with her imperturbable placidity. +Within the last five or six months she had experienced a certain amount +of emotions. Marius returned, Marius brought back bleeding, Marius +brought back from a barricade, Marius dead, then living, Marius +reconciled, Marius betrothed, Marius wedding a poor girl, Marius wedding +a millionairess. The six hundred thousand francs had been her last +surprise. Then, her indifference of a girl taking her first communion +returned to her. She went regularly to service, told her beads, read her +euchology, mumbled Aves in one corner of the house, while I love you +was being whispered in the other, and she beheld Marius and Cosette in a +vague way, like two shadows. The shadow was herself. + +There is a certain state of inert asceticism in which the soul, +neutralized by torpor, a stranger to that which may be designated as the +business of living, receives no impressions, either human, or pleasant +or painful, with the exception of earthquakes and catastrophes. This +devotion, as Father Gillenormand said to his daughter, corresponds to +a cold in the head. You smell nothing of life. Neither any bad, nor any +good odor. + +Moreover, the six hundred thousand francs had settled the elderly +spinster's indecision. Her father had acquired the habit of taking her +so little into account, that he had not consulted her in the matter of +consent to Marius' marriage. He had acted impetuously, according to his +wont, having, a despot-turned slave, but a single thought,--to satisfy +Marius. As for the aunt,--it had not even occurred to him that the aunt +existed, and that she could have an opinion of her own, and, sheep as +she was, this had vexed her. Somewhat resentful in her inmost soul, but +impassive externally, she had said to herself: "My father has settled +the question of the marriage without reference to me; I shall settle the +question of the inheritance without consulting him." She was rich, in +fact, and her father was not. She had reserved her decision on this +point. It is probable that, had the match been a poor one, she would +have left him poor. "So much the worse for my nephew! he is wedding a +beggar, let him be a beggar himself!" But Cosette's half-million pleased +the aunt, and altered her inward situation so far as this pair of lovers +were concerned. One owes some consideration to six hundred thousand +francs, and it was evident that she could not do otherwise than leave +her fortune to these young people, since they did not need it. + +It was arranged that the couple should live with the grandfather--M. +Gillenormand insisted on resigning to them his chamber, the finest in +the house. "That will make me young again," he said. "It's an old plan +of mine. I have always entertained the idea of having a wedding in my +chamber." + +He furnished this chamber with a multitude of elegant trifles. He had +the ceiling and walls hung with an extraordinary stuff, which he had by +him in the piece, and which he believed to have emanated from Utrecht +with a buttercup-colored satin ground, covered with velvet auricula +blossoms.--"It was with that stuff," said he, "that the bed of the +Duchesse d'Anville at la Roche-Guyon was draped."--On the chimney-piece, +he set a little figure in Saxe porcelain, carrying a muff against her +nude stomach. + +M. Gillenormand's library became the lawyer's study, which Marius +needed; a study, it will be remembered, being required by the council of +the order. + + + + +CHAPTER VII--THE EFFECTS OF DREAMS MINGLED WITH HAPPINESS + +The lovers saw each other every day. Cosette came with M. +Fauchelevent.--"This is reversing things," said Mademoiselle +Gillenormand, "to have the bride come to the house to do the courting +like this." But Marius' convalescence had caused the habit to become +established, and the arm-chairs of the Rue des Filles-du-Calvaire, +better adapted to interviews than the straw chairs of the Rue de l'Homme +Arme, had rooted it. Marius and M. Fauchelevent saw each other, but did +not address each other. It seemed as though this had been agreed upon. +Every girl needs a chaperon. Cosette could not have come without +M. Fauchelevent. In Marius' eyes, M. Fauchelevent was the condition +attached to Cosette. He accepted it. By dint of discussing political +matters, vaguely and without precision, from the point of view of the +general amelioration of the fate of all men, they came to say a little +more than "yes" and "no." Once, on the subject of education, which +Marius wished to have free and obligatory, multiplied under all forms +lavished on every one, like the air and the sun in a word, respirable +for the entire population, they were in unison, and they almost +conversed. M. Fauchelevent talked well, and even with a certain +loftiness of language--still he lacked something indescribable. M. +Fauchelevent possessed something less and also something more, than a +man of the world. + +Marius, inwardly, and in the depths of his thought, surrounded with +all sorts of mute questions this M. Fauchelevent, who was to him simply +benevolent and cold. There were moments when doubts as to his own +recollections occurred to him. There was a void in his memory, a black +spot, an abyss excavated by four months of agony.--Many things had been +lost therein. He had come to the point of asking himself whether it were +really a fact that he had seen M. Fauchelevent, so serious and so calm a +man, in the barricade. + +This was not, however, the only stupor which the apparitions and the +disappearances of the past had left in his mind. It must not be supposed +that he was delivered from all those obsessions of the memory which +force us, even when happy, even when satisfied, to glance sadly behind +us. The head which does not turn backwards towards horizons that have +vanished contains neither thought nor love. At times, Marius clasped his +face between his hands, and the vague and tumultuous past traversed the +twilight which reigned in his brain. Again he beheld Mabeuf fall, he +heard Gavroche singing amid the grape-shot, he felt beneath his lips the +cold brow of Eponine; Enjolras, Courfeyrac, Jean Prouvaire, Combeferre, +Bossuet, Grantaire, all his friends rose erect before him, then +dispersed into thin air. Were all those dear, sorrowful, valiant, +charming or tragic beings merely dreams? had they actually existed? The +revolt had enveloped everything in its smoke. These great fevers create +great dreams. He questioned himself; he felt himself; all these vanished +realities made him dizzy. Where were they all then? was it really true +that all were dead? A fall into the shadows had carried off all except +himself. It all seemed to him to have disappeared as though behind the +curtain of a theatre. There are curtains like this which drop in life. +God passes on to the following act. + +And he himself--was he actually the same man? He, the poor man, was +rich; he, the abandoned, had a family; he, the despairing, was to marry +Cosette. It seemed to him that he had traversed a tomb, and that he had +entered into it black and had emerged from it white, and in that tomb +the others had remained. At certain moments, all these beings of the +past, returned and present, formed a circle around him, and overshadowed +him; then he thought of Cosette, and recovered his serenity; but nothing +less than this felicity could have sufficed to efface that catastrophe. + +M. Fauchelevent almost occupied a place among these vanished beings. +Marius hesitated to believe that the Fauchelevent of the barricade was +the same as this Fauchelevent in flesh and blood, sitting so gravely +beside Cosette. The first was, probably, one of those nightmares +occasioned and brought back by his hours of delirium. However, +the natures of both men were rigid, no question from Marius to M. +Fauchelevent was possible. Such an idea had not even occurred to him. We +have already indicated this characteristic detail. + +Two men who have a secret in common, and who, by a sort of tacit +agreement, exchange not a word on the subject, are less rare than is +commonly supposed. + +Once only, did Marius make the attempt. He introduced into the +conversation the Rue de la Chanvrerie, and, turning to M. Fauchelevent, +he said to him: + +"Of course, you are acquainted with that street?" + +"What street?" + +"The Rue de la Chanvrerie." + +"I have no idea of the name of that street," replied M. Fauchelevent, in +the most natural manner in the world. + +The response which bore upon the name of the street and not upon the +street itself, appeared to Marius to be more conclusive than it really +was. + +"Decidedly," thought he, "I have been dreaming. I have been subject to +a hallucination. It was some one who resembled him. M. Fauchelevent was +not there."' + + + + +CHAPTER VIII--TWO MEN IMPOSSIBLE TO FIND + +Marius' enchantment, great as it was, could not efface from his mind +other pre-occupations. + +While the wedding was in preparation, and while awaiting the date fixed +upon, he caused difficult and scrupulous retrospective researches to be +made. + +He owed gratitude in various quarters; he owed it on his father's +account, he owed it on his own. + +There was Thenardier; there was the unknown man who had brought him, +Marius, back to M. Gillenormand. + +Marius endeavored to find these two men, not intending to marry, to +be happy, and to forget them, and fearing that, were these debts of +gratitude not discharged, they would leave a shadow on his life, which +promised so brightly for the future. + +It was impossible for him to leave all these arrears of suffering behind +him, and he wished, before entering joyously into the future, to obtain +a quittance from the past. + +That Thenardier was a villain detracted nothing from the fact that he +had saved Colonel Pontmercy. Thenardier was a ruffian in the eyes of all +the world except Marius. + +And Marius, ignorant of the real scene in the battle field of Waterloo, +was not aware of the peculiar detail, that his father, so far as +Thenardier was concerned was in the strange position of being indebted +to the latter for his life, without being indebted to him for any +gratitude. + +None of the various agents whom Marius employed succeeded in discovering +any trace of Thenardier. Obliteration appeared to be complete in +that quarter. Madame Thenardier had died in prison pending the trial. +Thenardier and his daughter Azelma, the only two remaining of that +lamentable group, had plunged back into the gloom. The gulf of the +social unknown had silently closed above those beings. On the surface +there was not visible so much as that quiver, that trembling, those +obscure concentric circles which announce that something has fallen in, +and that the plummet may be dropped. + +Madame Thenardier being dead, Boulatruelle being eliminated from the +case, Claquesous having disappeared, the principal persons accused +having escaped from prison, the trial connected with the ambush in the +Gorbeau house had come to nothing. + +That affair had remained rather obscure. The bench of Assizes had been +obliged to content themselves with two subordinates. Panchaud, alias +Printanier, alias Bigrenaille, and Demi-Liard, alias Deux-Milliards, who +had been inconsistently condemned, after a hearing of both sides of +the case, to ten years in the galleys. Hard labor for life had been the +sentence pronounced against the escaped and contumacious accomplices. + +Thenardier, the head and leader, had been, through contumacy, likewise +condemned to death. + +This sentence was the only information remaining about Thenardier, +casting upon that buried name its sinister light like a candle beside a +bier. + +Moreover, by thrusting Thenardier back into the very remotest depths, +through a fear of being re-captured, this sentence added to the density +of the shadows which enveloped this man. + +As for the other person, as for the unknown man who had saved Marius, +the researches were at first to some extent successful, then came to +an abrupt conclusion. They succeeded in finding the carriage which had +brought Marius to the Rue des Filles-du-Calvaire on the evening of the +6th of June. + +The coachman declared that, on the 6th of June, in obedience to the +commands of a police-agent, he had stood from three o'clock in the +afternoon until nightfall on the Quai des Champs-Elysees, above the +outlet of the Grand Sewer; that, towards nine o'clock in the evening, +the grating of the sewer, which abuts on the bank of the river, had +opened; that a man had emerged therefrom, bearing on his shoulders +another man, who seemed to be dead; that the agent, who was on the watch +at that point, had arrested the living man and had seized the dead man; +that, at the order of the police-agent, he, the coachman, had taken "all +those folks" into his carriage; that they had first driven to the Rue +des Filles-du-Calvaire; that they had there deposited the dead man; that +the dead man was Monsieur Marius, and that he, the coachman, recognized +him perfectly, although he was alive "this time"; that afterwards, they +had entered the vehicle again, that he had whipped up his horses; a few +paces from the gate of the Archives, they had called to him to halt; +that there, in the street, they had paid him and left him, and that the +police-agent had led the other man away; that he knew nothing more; that +the night had been very dark. + +Marius, as we have said, recalled nothing. He only remembered that he +had been seized from behind by an energetic hand at the moment when he +was falling backwards into the barricade; then, everything vanished so +far as he was concerned. + +He had only regained consciousness at M. Gillenormand's. + +He was lost in conjectures. + +He could not doubt his own identity. Still, how had it come to pass +that, having fallen in the Rue de la Chanvrerie, he had been picked +up by the police-agent on the banks of the Seine, near the Pont des +Invalides? + +Some one had carried him from the Quartier des Halles to the +Champs-Elysees. And how? Through the sewer. Unheard-of devotion! + +Some one? Who? + +This was the man for whom Marius was searching. + +Of this man, who was his savior, nothing; not a trace; not the faintest +indication. + +Marius, although forced to preserve great reserve, in that direction, +pushed his inquiries as far as the prefecture of police. There, no more +than elsewhere, did the information obtained lead to any enlightenment. + +The prefecture knew less about the matter than did the hackney-coachman. +They had no knowledge of any arrest having been made on the 6th of June +at the mouth of the Grand Sewer. + +No report of any agent had been received there upon this matter, which +was regarded at the prefecture as a fable. The invention of this fable +was attributed to the coachman. + +A coachman who wants a gratuity is capable of anything, even of +imagination. The fact was assured, nevertheless, and Marius could not +doubt it, unless he doubted his own identity, as we have just said. + +Everything about this singular enigma was inexplicable. + +What had become of that man, that mysterious man, whom the coachman had +seen emerge from the grating of the Grand Sewer bearing upon his back +the unconscious Marius, and whom the police-agent on the watch had +arrested in the very act of rescuing an insurgent? What had become of +the agent himself? + +Why had this agent preserved silence? Had the man succeeded in making +his escape? Had he bribed the agent? Why did this man give no sign of +life to Marius, who owed everything to him? His disinterestedness was no +less tremendous than his devotion. Why had not that man appeared again? +Perhaps he was above compensation, but no one is above gratitude. Was he +dead? Who was the man? What sort of a face had he? No one could tell him +this. + +The coachman answered: "The night was very dark." Basque and Nicolette, +all in a flutter, had looked only at their young master all covered with +blood. + +The porter, whose candle had lighted the tragic arrival of Marius, had +been the only one to take note of the man in question, and this is the +description that he gave: + +"That man was terrible." + +Marius had the blood-stained clothing which he had worn when he had been +brought back to his grandfather preserved, in the hope that it would +prove of service in his researches. + +On examining the coat, it was found that one skirt had been torn in a +singular way. A piece was missing. + +One evening, Marius was speaking in the presence of Cosette and Jean +Valjean of the whole of that singular adventure, of the innumerable +inquiries which he had made, and of the fruitlessness of his efforts. +The cold countenance of "Monsieur Fauchelevent" angered him. + +He exclaimed, with a vivacity which had something of wrath in it: + +"Yes, that man, whoever he may have been, was sublime. Do you know what +he did, sir? He intervened like an archangel. He must have flung himself +into the midst of the battle, have stolen me away, have opened the +sewer, have dragged me into it and have carried me through it! He +must have traversed more than a league and a half in those frightful +subterranean galleries, bent over, weighed down, in the dark, in the +cess-pool,--more than a league and a half, sir, with a corpse upon his +back! And with what object? With the sole object of saving the corpse. +And that corpse I was. He said to himself: 'There may still be a +glimpse of life there, perchance; I will risk my own existence for that +miserable spark!' And his existence he risked not once but twenty times! +And every step was a danger. The proof of it is, that on emerging from +the sewer, he was arrested. Do you know, sir, that that man did all +this? And he had no recompense to expect. What was I? An insurgent. +What was I? One of the conquered. Oh! if Cosette's six hundred thousand +francs were mine . . ." + +"They are yours," interrupted Jean Valjean. + +"Well," resumed Marius, "I would give them all to find that man once +more." + +Jean Valjean remained silent. + + + + +BOOK SIXTH.--THE SLEEPLESS NIGHT + + + + +CHAPTER I--THE 16TH OF FEBRUARY, 1833 + +The night of the 16th to the 17th of February, 1833, was a blessed +night. Above its shadows heaven stood open. It was the wedding night of +Marius and Cosette. + +The day had been adorable. + +It had not been the grand festival dreamed by the grandfather, a fairy +spectacle, with a confusion of cherubim and Cupids over the heads of the +bridal pair, a marriage worthy to form the subject of a painting to be +placed over a door; but it had been sweet and smiling. + +The manner of marriage in 1833 was not the same as it is to-day. France +had not yet borrowed from England that supreme delicacy of carrying off +one's wife, of fleeing, on coming out of church, of hiding oneself with +shame from one's happiness, and of combining the ways of a bankrupt with +the delights of the Song of Songs. People had not yet grasped to the +full the chastity, exquisiteness, and decency of jolting their paradise +in a posting-chaise, of breaking up their mystery with clic-clacs, of +taking for a nuptial bed the bed of an inn, and of leaving behind them, +in a commonplace chamber, at such a night, the most sacred of +the souvenirs of life mingled pell-mell with the tete-a-tete of the +conductor of the diligence and the maid-servant of the inn. + +In this second half of the nineteenth century in which we are now +living, the mayor and his scarf, the priest and his chasuble, the law +and God no longer suffice; they must be eked out by the Postilion de +Lonjumeau; a blue waistcoat turned up with red, and with bell buttons, +a plaque like a vantbrace, knee-breeches of green leather, oaths to the +Norman horses with their tails knotted up, false galloons, varnished +hat, long powdered locks, an enormous whip and tall boots. France does +not yet carry elegance to the length of doing like the English nobility, +and raining down on the post-chaise of the bridal pair a hail storm +of slippers trodden down at heel and of worn-out shoes, in memory of +Churchill, afterwards Marlborough, or Malbrouck, who was assailed on +his wedding-day by the wrath of an aunt which brought him good luck. +Old shoes and slippers do not, as yet, form a part of our nuptial +celebrations; but patience, as good taste continues to spread, we shall +come to that. + +In 1833, a hundred years ago, marriage was not conducted at a full trot. + +Strange to say, at that epoch, people still imagined that a wedding was +a private and social festival, that a patriarchal banquet does not +spoil a domestic solemnity, that gayety, even in excess, provided it be +honest, and decent, does happiness no harm, and that, in short, it is a +good and a venerable thing that the fusion of these two destinies whence +a family is destined to spring, should begin at home, and that the +household should thenceforth have its nuptial chamber as its witness. + +And people were so immodest as to marry in their own homes. + +The marriage took place, therefore, in accordance with this now +superannuated fashion, at M. Gillenormand's house. + +Natural and commonplace as this matter of marrying is, the banns to +publish, the papers to be drawn up, the mayoralty, and the church +produce some complication. They could not get ready before the 16th of +February. + +Now, we note this detail, for the pure satisfaction of being exact, it +chanced that the 16th fell on Shrove Tuesday. Hesitations, scruples, +particularly on the part of Aunt Gillenormand. + +"Shrove Tuesday!" exclaimed the grandfather, "so much the better. There +is a proverb: + + "'Mariage un Mardi gras + N'aura point enfants ingrats.'[66] + + +Let us proceed. Here goes for the 16th! Do you want to delay, Marius?" + +"No, certainly not!" replied the lover. + +"Let us marry, then," cried the grandfather. + +Accordingly, the marriage took place on the 16th, notwithstanding the +public merrymaking. It rained that day, but there is always in the sky +a tiny scrap of blue at the service of happiness, which lovers see, even +when the rest of creation is under an umbrella. + +On the preceding evening, Jean Valjean handed to Marius, in the presence +of M. Gillenormand, the five hundred and eighty-four thousand francs. + +As the marriage was taking place under the regime of community of +property, the papers had been simple. + +Henceforth, Toussaint was of no use to Jean Valjean; Cosette inherited +her and promoted her to the rank of lady's maid. + +As for Jean Valjean, a beautiful chamber in the Gillenormand house had +been furnished expressly for him, and Cosette had said to him in such +an irresistible manner: "Father, I entreat you," that she had almost +persuaded him to promise that he would come and occupy it. + +A few days before that fixed on for the marriage, an accident happened +to Jean Valjean; he crushed the thumb of his right hand. This was not a +serious matter; and he had not allowed any one to trouble himself +about it, nor to dress it, nor even to see his hurt, not even Cosette. +Nevertheless, this had forced him to swathe his hand in a linen bandage, +and to carry his arm in a sling, and had prevented his signing. M. +Gillenormand, in his capacity of Cosette's supervising-guardian, had +supplied his place. + +We will not conduct the reader either to the mayor's office or to the +church. One does not follow a pair of lovers to that extent, and one is +accustomed to turn one's back on the drama as soon as it puts a wedding +nosegay in its buttonhole. We will confine ourselves to noting an +incident which, though unnoticed by the wedding party, marked the +transit from the Rue des Filles-du-Calvaire to the church of Saint-Paul. + +At that epoch, the northern extremity of the Rue Saint-Louis was in +process of repaving. It was barred off, beginning with the Rue du +Pare-Royal. It was impossible for the wedding carriages to go directly +to Saint-Paul. They were obliged to alter their course, and the simplest +way was to turn through the boulevard. One of the invited guests +observed that it was Shrove Tuesday, and that there would be a jam +of vehicles.--"Why?" asked M. Gillenormand--"Because of the +maskers."--"Capital," said the grandfather, "let us go that way. These +young folks are on the way to be married; they are about to enter the +serious part of life. This will prepare them for seeing a bit of the +masquerade." + +They went by way of the boulevard. The first wedding coach held Cosette +and Aunt Gillenormand, M. Gillenormand and Jean Valjean. Marius, still +separated from his betrothed according to usage, did not come until +the second. The nuptial train, on emerging from the Rue des +Filles-du-Calvaire, became entangled in a long procession of vehicles +which formed an endless chain from the Madeleine to the Bastille, and +from the Bastille to the Madeleine. Maskers abounded on the boulevard. +In spite of the fact that it was raining at intervals, Merry-Andrew, +Pantaloon and Clown persisted. In the good humor of that winter of 1833, +Paris had disguised itself as Venice. Such Shrove Tuesdays are no +longer to be seen now-a-days. Everything which exists being a scattered +Carnival, there is no longer any Carnival. + +The sidewalks were overflowing with pedestrians and the windows with +curious spectators. The terraces which crown the peristyles of the +theatres were bordered with spectators. Besides the maskers, they stared +at that procession--peculiar to Shrove Tuesday as to Longchamps,--of +vehicles of every description, citadines, tapissieres, carioles, +cabriolets marching in order, rigorously riveted to each other by the +police regulations, and locked into rails, as it were. Any one in +these vehicles is at once a spectator and a spectacle. Police-sergeants +maintained, on the sides of the boulevard, these two interminable +parallel files, moving in contrary directions, and saw to it that +nothing interfered with that double current, those two brooks of +carriages, flowing, the one down stream, the other up stream, the +one towards the Chaussee d'Antin, the other towards the Faubourg +Saint-Antoine. The carriages of the peers of France and of the +Ambassadors, emblazoned with coats of arms, held the middle of the way, +going and coming freely. Certain joyous and magnificent trains, notably +that of the Boeuf Gras, had the same privilege. In this gayety of Paris, +England cracked her whip; Lord Seymour's post-chaise, harassed by a +nickname from the populace, passed with great noise. + +In the double file, along which the municipal guards galloped like +sheep-dogs, honest family coaches, loaded down with great-aunts and +grandmothers, displayed at their doors fresh groups of children in +disguise, Clowns of seven years of age, Columbines of six, ravishing +little creatures, who felt that they formed an official part of the +public mirth, who were imbued with the dignity of their harlequinade, +and who possessed the gravity of functionaries. + +From time to time, a hitch arose somewhere in the procession of +vehicles; one or other of the two lateral files halted until the knot +was disentangled; one carriage delayed sufficed to paralyze the whole +line. Then they set out again on the march. + +The wedding carriages were in the file proceeding towards the Bastille, +and skirting the right side of the Boulevard. At the top of the +Pont-aux-Choux, there was a stoppage. Nearly at the same moment, the +other file, which was proceeding towards the Madeleine, halted also. At +that point of the file there was a carriage-load of maskers. + +These carriages, or to speak more correctly, these wagon-loads of +maskers are very familiar to Parisians. If they were missing on a Shrove +Tuesday, or at the Mid-Lent, it would be taken in bad part, and people +would say: "There's something behind that. Probably the ministry +is about to undergo a change." A pile of Cassandras, Harlequins and +Columbines, jolted along high above the passers-by, all possible +grotesquenesses, from the Turk to the savage, Hercules supporting +Marquises, fishwives who would have made Rabelais stop up his ears just +as the Maenads made Aristophanes drop his eyes, tow wigs, pink tights, +dandified hats, spectacles of a grimacer, three-cornered hats of Janot +tormented with a butterfly, shouts directed at pedestrians, fists on +hips, bold attitudes, bare shoulders, immodesty unchained; a chaos of +shamelessness driven by a coachman crowned with flowers; this is what +that institution was like. + +Greece stood in need of the chariot of Thespis, France stands in need of +the hackney-coach of Vade. + +Everything can be parodied, even parody. The Saturnalia, that grimace of +antique beauty, ends, through exaggeration after exaggeration, in Shrove +Tuesday; and the Bacchanal, formerly crowned with sprays of vine leaves +and grapes, inundated with sunshine, displaying her marble breast in a +divine semi-nudity, having at the present day lost her shape under +the soaked rags of the North, has finally come to be called the +Jack-pudding. + +The tradition of carriage-loads of maskers runs back to the most ancient +days of the monarchy. The accounts of Louis XI. allot to the bailiff of +the palace "twenty sous, Tournois, for three coaches of mascarades +in the cross-roads." In our day, these noisy heaps of creatures are +accustomed to have themselves driven in some ancient cuckoo carriage, +whose imperial they load down, or they overwhelm a hired landau, with +its top thrown back, with their tumultuous groups. Twenty of them ride +in a carriage intended for six. They cling to the seats, to the rumble, +on the cheeks of the hood, on the shafts. They even bestride the +carriage lamps. They stand, sit, lie, with their knees drawn up in a +knot, and their legs hanging. The women sit on the men's laps. Far +away, above the throng of heads, their wild pyramid is visible. These +carriage-loads form mountains of mirth in the midst of the rout. Colle, +Panard and Piron flow from it, enriched with slang. This carriage which +has become colossal through its freight, has an air of conquest. Uproar +reigns in front, tumult behind. People vociferate, shout, howl, there +they break forth and writhe with enjoyment; gayety roars; sarcasm flames +forth, joviality is flaunted like a red flag; two jades there drag farce +blossomed forth into an apotheosis; it is the triumphal car of laughter. + +A laughter that is too cynical to be frank. In truth, this laughter is +suspicious. This laughter has a mission. It is charged with proving the +Carnival to the Parisians. + +These fishwife vehicles, in which one feels one knows not what shadows, +set the philosopher to thinking. There is government therein. There one +lays one's finger on a mysterious affinity between public men and public +women. + +It certainly is sad that turpitude heaped up should give a sum total +of gayety, that by piling ignominy upon opprobrium the people should +be enticed, that the system of spying, and serving as caryatids to +prostitution should amuse the rabble when it confronts them, that the +crowd loves to behold that monstrous living pile of tinsel rags, half +dung, half light, roll by on four wheels howling and laughing, that they +should clap their hands at this glory composed of all shames, that there +would be no festival for the populace, did not the police promenade in +their midst these sorts of twenty-headed hydras of joy. But what can be +done about it? These be-ribboned and be-flowered tumbrils of mire are +insulted and pardoned by the laughter of the public. The laughter of all +is the accomplice of universal degradation. Certain unhealthy festivals +disaggregate the people and convert them into the populace. And +populaces, like tyrants, require buffoons. The King has Roquelaure, +the populace has the Merry-Andrew. Paris is a great, mad city on every +occasion that it is a great sublime city. There the Carnival forms +part of politics. Paris,--let us confess it--willingly allows infamy to +furnish it with comedy. She only demands of her masters--when she has +masters--one thing: "Paint me the mud." Rome was of the same mind. She +loved Nero. Nero was a titanic lighterman. + +Chance ordained, as we have just said, that one of these shapeless +clusters of masked men and women, dragged about on a vast calash, should +halt on the left of the boulevard, while the wedding train halted on the +right. The carriage-load of masks caught sight of the wedding carriage +containing the bridal party opposite them on the other side of the +boulevard. + +"Hullo!" said a masker, "here's a wedding." + +"A sham wedding," retorted another. "We are the genuine article." + +And, being too far off to accost the wedding party, and fearing also, +the rebuke of the police, the two maskers turned their eyes elsewhere. + +At the end of another minute, the carriage-load of maskers had their +hands full, the multitude set to yelling, which is the crowd's caress +to masquerades; and the two maskers who had just spoken had to face the +throng with their comrades, and did not find the entire repertory of +projectiles of the fishmarkets too extensive to retort to the enormous +verbal attacks of the populace. A frightful exchange of metaphors took +place between the maskers and the crowd. + +In the meanwhile, two other maskers in the same carriage, a Spaniard +with an enormous nose, an elderly air, and huge black moustache, and a +gaunt fishwife, who was quite a young girl, masked with a loup,[67] had +also noticed the wedding, and while their companions and the passers-by +were exchanging insults, they had held a dialogue in a low voice. + +Their aside was covered by the tumult and was lost in it. The gusts of +rain had drenched the front of the vehicle, which was wide open; the +breezes of February are not warm; as the fishwife, clad in a low-necked +gown, replied to the Spaniard, she shivered, laughed and coughed. + +Here is their dialogue: + +"Say, now." + +"What, daddy?" + +"Do you see that old cove?" + +"What old cove?" + +"Yonder, in the first wedding-cart, on our side." + +"The one with his arm hung up in a black cravat?" + +"Yes." + +"Well?" + +"I'm sure that I know him." + +"Ah!" + +"I'm willing that they should cut my throat, and I'm ready to swear that +I never said either you, thou, or I, in my life, if I don't know that +Parisian." [pantinois.] + +"Paris in Pantin to-day." + +"Can you see the bride if you stoop down?" + +"No." + +"And the bridegroom?" + +"There's no bridegroom in that trap." + +"Bah!" + +"Unless it's the old fellow." + +"Try to get a sight of the bride by stooping very low." + +"I can't." + +"Never mind, that old cove who has something the matter with his paw I +know, and that I'm positive." + +"And what good does it do to know him?" + +"No one can tell. Sometimes it does!" + +"I don't care a hang for old fellows, that I don't!" + +"I know him." + +"Know him, if you want to." + +"How the devil does he come to be one of the wedding party?" + +"We are in it, too." + +"Where does that wedding come from?" + +"How should I know?" + +"Listen." + +"Well, what?" + +"There's one thing you ought to do." + +"What's that?" + +"Get off of our trap and spin that wedding." + +"What for?" + +"To find out where it goes, and what it is. Hurry up and jump down, +trot, my girl, your legs are young." + +"I can't quit the vehicle." + +"Why not?" + +"I'm hired." + +"Ah, the devil!" + +"I owe my fishwife day to the prefecture." + +"That's true." + +"If I leave the cart, the first inspector who gets his eye on me will +arrest me. You know that well enough." + +"Yes, I do." + +"I'm bought by the government for to-day." + +"All the same, that old fellow bothers me." + +"Do the old fellows bother you? But you're not a young girl." + +"He's in the first carriage." + +"Well?" + +"In the bride's trap." + +"What then?" + +"So he is the father." + +"What concern is that of mine?" + +"I tell you that he's the father." + +"As if he were the only father." + +"Listen." + +"What?" + +"I can't go out otherwise than masked. Here I'm concealed, no one knows +that I'm here. But to-morrow, there will be no more maskers. It's Ash +Wednesday. I run the risk of being nabbed. I must sneak back into my +hole. But you are free." + +"Not particularly." + +"More than I am, at any rate." + +"Well, what of that?" + +"You must try to find out where that wedding-party went to." + +"Where it went?" + +"Yes." + +"I know." + +"Where is it going then?" + +"To the Cadran-Bleu." + +"In the first place, it's not in that direction." + +"Well! to la Rapee." + +"Or elsewhere." + +"It's free. Wedding-parties are at liberty." + +"That's not the point at all. I tell you that you must try to learn for +me what that wedding is, who that old cove belongs to, and where that +wedding pair lives." + +"I like that! that would be queer. It's so easy to find out a +wedding-party that passed through the street on a Shrove Tuesday, a week +afterwards. A pin in a hay-mow! It ain't possible!" + +"That don't matter. You must try. You understand me, Azelma." + +The two files resumed their movement on both sides of the boulevard, in +opposite directions, and the carriage of the maskers lost sight of the +"trap" of the bride. + + + + +CHAPTER II--JEAN VALJEAN STILL WEARS HIS ARM IN A SLING + +To realize one's dream. To whom is this accorded? There must be +elections for this in heaven; we are all candidates, unknown to +ourselves; the angels vote. Cosette and Marius had been elected. + +Cosette, both at the mayor's office and at church, was dazzling and +touching. Toussaint, assisted by Nicolette, had dressed her. + +Cosette wore over a petticoat of white taffeta, her robe of Binche +guipure, a veil of English point, a necklace of fine pearls, a wreath +of orange flowers; all this was white, and, from the midst of that +whiteness she beamed forth. It was an exquisite candor expanding and +becoming transfigured in the light. One would have pronounced her a +virgin on the point of turning into a goddess. + +Marius' handsome hair was lustrous and perfumed; here and there, beneath +the thick curls, pale lines--the scars of the barricade--were visible. + +The grandfather, haughty, with head held high, amalgamating more than +ever in his toilet and his manners all the elegances of the epoch of +Barras, escorted Cosette. He took the place of Jean Valjean, who, on +account of his arm being still in a sling, could not give his hand to +the bride. + +Jean Valjean, dressed in black, followed them with a smile. + +"Monsieur Fauchelevent," said the grandfather to him, "this is a fine +day. I vote for the end of afflictions and sorrows. Henceforth, there +must be no sadness anywhere. Pardieu, I decree joy! Evil has no right to +exist. That there should be any unhappy men is, in sooth, a disgrace +to the azure of the sky. Evil does not come from man, who is good at +bottom. All human miseries have for their capital and central government +hell, otherwise, known as the Devil's Tuileries. Good, here I am +uttering demagogical words! As far as I am concerned, I have no longer +any political opinions; let all me be rich, that is to say, mirthful, +and I confine myself to that." + +When, at the conclusion of all the ceremonies, after having pronounced +before the mayor and before the priest all possible "yesses," after +having signed the registers at the municipality and at the sacristy, +after having exchanged their rings, after having knelt side by side +under the pall of white moire in the smoke of the censer, they arrived, +hand in hand, admired and envied by all, Marius in black, she in white, +preceded by the suisse, with the epaulets of a colonel, tapping the +pavement with his halberd, between two rows of astonished spectators, at +the portals of the church, both leaves of which were thrown wide open, +ready to enter their carriage again, and all being finished, Cosette +still could not believe that it was real. She looked at Marius, she +looked at the crowd, she looked at the sky: it seemed as though she +feared that she should wake up from her dream. Her amazed and uneasy air +added something indescribably enchanting to her beauty. They entered the +same carriage to return home, Marius beside Cosette; M. Gillenormand +and Jean Valjean sat opposite them; Aunt Gillenormand had withdrawn one +degree, and was in the second vehicle. + +"My children," said the grandfather, "here you are, Monsieur le Baron +and Madame la Baronne, with an income of thirty thousand livres." + +And Cosette, nestling close to Marius, caressed his ear with an angelic +whisper: "So it is true. My name is Marius. I am Madame Thou." + +These two creatures were resplendent. They had reached that irrevocable +and irrecoverable moment, at the dazzling intersection of all youth and +all joy. They realized the verses of Jean Prouvaire; they were forty +years old taken together. It was marriage sublimated; these two children +were two lilies. They did not see each other, they did not contemplate +each other. Cosette perceived Marius in the midst of a glory; Marius +perceived Cosette on an altar. And on that altar, and in that glory, the +two apotheoses mingling, in the background, one knows not how, behind a +cloud for Cosette, in a flash for Marius, there was the ideal thing, the +real thing, the meeting of the kiss and the dream, the nuptial pillow. +All the torments through which they had passed came back to them in +intoxication. It seemed to them that their sorrows, their sleepless +nights, their tears, their anguish, their terrors, their despair, +converted into caresses and rays of light, rendered still more charming +the charming hour which was approaching; and that their griefs were but +so many handmaidens who were preparing the toilet of joy. How good it is +to have suffered! Their unhappiness formed a halo round their happiness. +The long agony of their love was terminating in an ascension. + +It was the same enchantment in two souls, tinged with voluptuousness +in Marius, and with modesty in Cosette. They said to each other in low +tones: "We will go back to take a look at our little garden in the Rue +Plumet." The folds of Cosette's gown lay across Marius. + +Such a day is an ineffable mixture of dream and of reality. One +possesses and one supposes. One still has time before one to divine. The +emotion on that day, of being at mid-day and of dreaming of midnight +is indescribable. The delights of these two hearts overflowed upon the +crowd, and inspired the passers-by with cheerfulness. + +People halted in the Rue Saint-Antoine, in front of Saint-Paul, to gaze +through the windows of the carriage at the orange-flowers quivering on +Cosette's head. + +Then they returned home to the Rue des Filles-du-Calvaire. Marius, +triumphant and radiant, mounted side by side with Cosette the staircase +up which he had been borne in a dying condition. The poor, who had +trooped to the door, and who shared their purses, blessed them. There +were flowers everywhere. The house was no less fragrant than the church; +after the incense, roses. They thought they heard voices carolling in +the infinite; they had God in their hearts; destiny appeared to them +like a ceiling of stars; above their heads they beheld the light of a +rising sun. All at once, the clock struck. Marius glanced at Cosette's +charming bare arm, and at the rosy things which were vaguely visible +through the lace of her bodice, and Cosette, intercepting Marius' +glance, blushed to her very hair. + +Quite a number of old family friends of the Gillenormand family had +been invited; they pressed about Cosette. Each one vied with the rest in +saluting her as Madame la Baronne. + +The officer, Theodule Gillenormand, now a captain, had come from +Chartres, where he was stationed in garrison, to be present at the +wedding of his cousin Pontmercy. Cosette did not recognize him. + +He, on his side, habituated as he was to have women consider him +handsome, retained no more recollection of Cosette than of any other +woman. + +"How right I was not to believe in that story about the lancer!" said +Father Gillenormand, to himself. + +Cosette had never been more tender with Jean Valjean. She was in unison +with Father Gillenormand; while he erected joy into aphorisms and +maxims, she exhaled goodness like a perfume. Happiness desires that all +the world should be happy. + +She regained, for the purpose of addressing Jean Valjean, inflections of +voice belonging to the time when she was a little girl. She caressed him +with her smile. + +A banquet had been spread in the dining-room. + +Illumination as brilliant as the daylight is the necessary seasoning of +a great joy. Mist and obscurity are not accepted by the happy. They do +not consent to be black. The night, yes; the shadows, no. If there is no +sun, one must be made. + +The dining-room was full of gay things. In the centre, above the white +and glittering table, was a Venetian lustre with flat plates, with all +sorts of colored birds, blue, violet, red, and green, perched amid the +candles; around the chandelier, girandoles, on the walls, sconces with +triple and quintuple branches; mirrors, silverware, glassware, plate, +porcelain, faience, pottery, gold and silversmith's work, all was +sparkling and gay. The empty spaces between the candelabra were filled +in with bouquets, so that where there was not a light, there was a +flower. + +In the antechamber, three violins and a flute softly played quartettes +by Haydn. + +Jean Valjean had seated himself on a chair in the drawing-room, behind +the door, the leaf of which folded back upon him in such a manner as to +nearly conceal him. A few moments before they sat down to table, Cosette +came, as though inspired by a sudden whim, and made him a deep courtesy, +spreading out her bridal toilet with both hands, and with a tenderly +roguish glance, she asked him: + +"Father, are you satisfied?" + +"Yes," said Jean Valjean, "I am content!" + +"Well, then, laugh." + +Jean Valjean began to laugh. + +A few moments later, Basque announced that dinner was served. + +The guests, preceded by M. Gillenormand with Cosette on his arm, entered +the dining-room, and arranged themselves in the proper order around the +table. + +Two large arm-chairs figured on the right and left of the bride, the +first for M. Gillenormand, the other for Jean Valjean. M. Gillenormand +took his seat. The other arm-chair remained empty. + +They looked about for M. Fauchelevent. + +He was no longer there. + +M. Gillenormand questioned Basque. + +"Do you know where M. Fauchelevent is?" + +"Sir," replied Basque, "I do, precisely. M. Fauchelevent told me to say +to you, sir, that he was suffering, his injured hand was paining him +somewhat, and that he could not dine with Monsieur le Baron and Madame +la Baronne. That he begged to be excused, that he would come to-morrow. +He has just taken his departure." + +That empty arm-chair chilled the effusion of the wedding feast for a +moment. But, if M. Fauchelevent was absent, M. Gillenormand was present, +and the grandfather beamed for two. He affirmed that M. Fauchelevent had +done well to retire early, if he were suffering, but that it was only a +slight ailment. This declaration sufficed. Moreover, what is an obscure +corner in such a submersion of joy? Cosette and Marius were passing +through one of those egotistical and blessed moments when no other +faculty is left to a person than that of receiving happiness. And then, +an idea occurred to M. Gillenormand.--"Pardieu, this armchair is empty. +Come hither, Marius. Your aunt will permit it, although she has a +right to you. This armchair is for you. That is legal and delightful. +Fortunatus beside Fortunata."--Applause from the whole table. Marius +took Jean Valjean's place beside Cosette, and things fell out so that +Cosette, who had, at first, been saddened by Jean Valjean's absence, +ended by being satisfied with it. From the moment when Marius took his +place, and was the substitute, Cosette would not have regretted God +himself. She set her sweet little foot, shod in white satin, on Marius' +foot. + +The arm-chair being occupied, M. Fauchelevent was obliterated; and +nothing was lacking. + +And, five minutes afterward, the whole table from one end to the other, +was laughing with all the animation of forgetfulness. + +At dessert, M. Gillenormand, rising to his feet, with a glass of +champagne in his hand--only half full so that the palsy of his eighty +years might not cause an overflow,--proposed the health of the married +pair. + +"You shall not escape two sermons," he exclaimed. "This morning you +had one from the cure, this evening you shall have one from your +grandfather. Listen to me; I will give you a bit of advice: Adore each +other. I do not make a pack of gyrations, I go straight to the mark, +be happy. In all creation, only the turtle-doves are wise. Philosophers +say: 'Moderate your joys.' I say: 'Give rein to your joys.' Be as +much smitten with each other as fiends. Be in a rage about it. The +philosophers talk stuff and nonsense. I should like to stuff their +philosophy down their gullets again. Can there be too many perfumes, +too many open rose-buds, too many nightingales singing, too many green +leaves, too much aurora in life? can people love each other too much? +can people please each other too much? Take care, Estelle, thou art too +pretty! Have a care, Nemorin, thou art too handsome! Fine stupidity, +in sooth! Can people enchant each other too much, cajole each other too +much, charm each other too much? Can one be too much alive, too happy? +Moderate your joys. Ah, indeed! Down with the philosophers! Wisdom +consists in jubilation. Make merry, let us make merry. Are we happy +because we are good, or are we good because we are happy? Is the Sancy +diamond called the Sancy because it belonged to Harley de Sancy, or +because it weighs six hundred carats? I know nothing about it, life is +full of such problems; the important point is to possess the Sancy and +happiness. Let us be happy without quibbling and quirking. Let us obey +the sun blindly. What is the sun? It is love. He who says love, says +woman. Ah! ah! behold omnipotence--women. Ask that demagogue of a Marius +if he is not the slave of that little tyrant of a Cosette. And of his +own free will, too, the coward! Woman! There is no Robespierre who keeps +his place but woman reigns. I am no longer Royalist except towards that +royalty. What is Adam? The kingdom of Eve. No '89 for Eve. There has +been the royal sceptre surmounted by a fleur-de-lys, there has been the +imperial sceptre surmounted by a globe, there has been the sceptre of +Charlemagne, which was of iron, there has been the sceptre of Louis the +Great, which was of gold,--the revolution twisted them between its thumb +and forefinger, ha'penny straws; it is done with, it is broken, it lies +on the earth, there is no longer any sceptre, but make me a revolution +against that little embroidered handkerchief, which smells of patchouli! +I should like to see you do it. Try. Why is it so solid? Because it is a +gewgaw. Ah! you are the nineteenth century? Well, what then? And we +have been as foolish as you. Do not imagine that you have effected +much change in the universe, because your trip-gallant is called the +cholera-morbus, and because your pourree is called the cachuca. In fact, +the women must always be loved. I defy you to escape from that. These +friends are our angels. Yes, love, woman, the kiss forms a circle from +which I defy you to escape; and, for my own part, I should be only +too happy to re-enter it. Which of you has seen the planet Venus, the +coquette of the abyss, the Celimene of the ocean, rise in the infinite, +calming all here below? The ocean is a rough Alcestis. Well, grumble +as he will, when Venus appears he is forced to smile. That brute beast +submits. We are all made so. Wrath, tempest, claps of thunder, foam to +the very ceiling. A woman enters on the scene, a planet rises; flat on +your face! Marius was fighting six months ago; to-day he is married. +That is well. Yes, Marius, yes, Cosette, you are in the right. Exist +boldly for each other, make us burst with rage that we cannot do the +same, idealize each other, catch in your beaks all the tiny blades of +felicity that exist on earth, and arrange yourselves a nest for life. +Pardi, to love, to be loved, what a fine miracle when one is young! +Don't imagine that you have invented that. I, too, have had my dream, I, +too, have meditated, I, too, have sighed; I, too, have had a moonlight +soul. Love is a child six thousand years old. Love has the right to a +long white beard. Methusalem is a street arab beside Cupid. For sixty +centuries men and women have got out of their scrape by loving. The +devil, who is cunning, took to hating man; man, who is still more +cunning, took to loving woman. In this way he does more good than +the devil does him harm. This craft was discovered in the days of +the terrestrial paradise. The invention is old, my friends, but it is +perfectly new. Profit by it. Be Daphnis and Chloe, while waiting to +become Philemon and Baucis. Manage so that, when you are with each +other, nothing shall be lacking to you, and that Cosette may be the sun +for Marius, and that Marius may be the universe to Cosette. Cosette, let +your fine weather be the smile of your husband; Marius, let your rain +be your wife's tears. And let it never rain in your household. You have +filched the winning number in the lottery; you have gained the great +prize, guard it well, keep it under lock and key, do not squander it, +adore each other and snap your fingers at all the rest. Believe what I +say to you. It is good sense. And good sense cannot lie. Be a religion +to each other. Each man has his own fashion of adoring God. Saperlotte! +the best way to adore God is to love one's wife. I love thee! that's +my catechism. He who loves is orthodox. The oath of Henri IV. places +sanctity somewhere between feasting and drunkenness. Ventre-saint-gris! +I don't belong to the religion of that oath. Woman is forgotten in it. +This astonishes me on the part of Henri IV. My friends, long live women! +I am old, they say; it's astonishing how much I feel in the mood to +be young. I should like to go and listen to the bagpipes in the woods. +Children who contrive to be beautiful and contented,--that intoxicates +me. I would like greatly to get married, if any one would have me. It is +impossible to imagine that God could have made us for anything but this: +to idolize, to coo, to preen ourselves, to be dove-like, to be dainty, +to bill and coo our loves from morn to night, to gaze at one's image in +one's little wife, to be proud, to be triumphant, to plume oneself; that +is the aim of life. There, let not that displease you which we used to +think in our day, when we were young folks. Ah! vertu-bamboche! what +charming women there were in those days, and what pretty little faces +and what lovely lasses! I committed my ravages among them. Then love +each other. If people did not love each other, I really do not see what +use there would be in having any springtime; and for my own part, I +should pray the good God to shut up all the beautiful things that he +shows us, and to take away from us and put back in his box, the flowers, +the birds, and the pretty maidens. My children, receive an old man's +blessing." + +The evening was gay, lively and agreeable. The grandfather's sovereign +good humor gave the key-note to the whole feast, and each person +regulated his conduct on that almost centenarian cordiality. They danced +a little, they laughed a great deal; it was an amiable wedding. Goodman +Days of Yore might have been invited to it. However, he was present in +the person of Father Gillenormand. + +There was a tumult, then silence. + +The married pair disappeared. + +A little after midnight, the Gillenormand house became a temple. + +Here we pause. On the threshold of wedding nights stands a smiling angel +with his finger on his lips. + +The soul enters into contemplation before that sanctuary where the +celebration of love takes place. + +There should be flashes of light athwart such houses. The joy which +they contain ought to make its escape through the stones of the walls in +brilliancy, and vaguely illuminate the gloom. It is impossible that this +sacred and fatal festival should not give off a celestial radiance to +the infinite. Love is the sublime crucible wherein the fusion of the man +and the woman takes place; the being one, the being triple, the being +final, the human trinity proceeds from it. This birth of two souls into +one, ought to be an emotion for the gloom. The lover is the priest; +the ravished virgin is terrified. Something of that joy ascends to God. +Where true marriage is, that is to say, where there is love, the ideal +enters in. A nuptial bed makes a nook of dawn amid the shadows. If it +were given to the eye of the flesh to scan the formidable and charming +visions of the upper life, it is probable that we should behold the +forms of night, the winged unknowns, the blue passers of the invisible, +bend down, a throng of sombre heads, around the luminous house, +satisfied, showering benedictions, pointing out to each other the virgin +wife gently alarmed, sweetly terrified, and bearing the reflection of +human bliss upon their divine countenances. If at that supreme hour, the +wedded pair, dazzled with voluptuousness and believing themselves alone, +were to listen, they would hear in their chamber a confused rustling of +wings. Perfect happiness implies a mutual understanding with the angels. +That dark little chamber has all heaven for its ceiling. When two +mouths, rendered sacred by love, approach to create, it is impossible +that there should not be, above that ineffable kiss, a quivering +throughout the immense mystery of stars. + +These felicities are the true ones. There is no joy outside of these +joys. Love is the only ecstasy. All the rest weeps. + +To love, or to have loved,--this suffices. Demand nothing more. There +is no other pearl to be found in the shadowy folds of life. To love is a +fulfilment. + + + + +CHAPTER III--THE INSEPARABLE + +What had become of Jean Valjean? + +Immediately after having laughed, at Cosette's graceful command, when +no one was paying any heed to him, Jean Valjean had risen and had gained +the antechamber unperceived. This was the very room which, eight months +before, he had entered black with mud, with blood and powder, bringing +back the grandson to the grandfather. The old wainscoting was garlanded +with foliage and flowers; the musicians were seated on the sofa on which +they had laid Marius down. Basque, in a black coat, knee-breeches, white +stockings and white gloves, was arranging roses round all of the dishes +that were to be served. Jean Valjean pointed to his arm in its sling, +charged Basque to explain his absence, and went away. + +The long windows of the dining-room opened on the street. Jean Valjean +stood for several minutes, erect and motionless in the darkness, beneath +those radiant windows. He listened. The confused sounds of the banquet +reached his ear. He heard the loud, commanding tones of the grandfather, +the violins, the clatter of the plates, the bursts of laughter, and +through all that merry uproar, he distinguished Cosette's sweet and +joyous voice. + +He quitted the Rue des Filles-du-Calvaire, and returned to the Rue de +l'Homme Arme. + +In order to return thither, he took the Rue Saint-Louis, the Rue +Culture-Sainte-Catherine, and the Blancs-Manteaux; it was a little +longer, but it was the road through which, for the last three months, +he had become accustomed to pass every day on his way from the Rue de +l'Homme Arme to the Rue des Filles-du-Calvaire, in order to avoid the +obstructions and the mud in the Rue Vielle-du-Temple. + +This road, through which Cosette had passed, excluded for him all +possibility of any other itinerary. + +Jean Valjean entered his lodgings. He lighted his candle and mounted +the stairs. The apartment was empty. Even Toussaint was no longer there. +Jean Valjean's step made more noise than usual in the chambers. All the +cupboards stood open. He penetrated to Cosette's bedroom. There were no +sheets on the bed. The pillow, covered with ticking, and without a case +or lace, was laid on the blankets folded up on the foot of the mattress, +whose covering was visible, and on which no one was ever to sleep again. +All the little feminine objects which Cosette was attached to had been +carried away; nothing remained except the heavy furniture and the four +walls. Toussaint's bed was despoiled in like manner. One bed only was +made up, and seemed to be waiting some one, and this was Jean Valjean's +bed. + +Jean Valjean looked at the walls, closed some of the cupboard doors, and +went and came from one room to another. + +Then he sought his own chamber once more, and set his candle on a table. + +He had disengaged his arm from the sling, and he used his right hand as +though it did not hurt him. + +He approached his bed, and his eyes rested, was it by chance? was it +intentionally? on the inseparable of which Cosette had been jealous, on +the little portmanteau which never left him. On his arrival in the Rue +de l'Homme Arme, on the 4th of June, he had deposited it on a round +table near the head of his bed. He went to this table with a sort of +vivacity, took a key from his pocket, and opened the valise. + +From it he slowly drew forth the garments in which, ten years before, +Cosette had quitted Montfermeil; first the little gown, then the black +fichu, then the stout, coarse child's shoes which Cosette might almost +have worn still, so tiny were her feet, then the fustian bodice, which +was very thick, then the knitted petticoat, next the apron with pockets, +then the woollen stockings. These stockings, which still preserved the +graceful form of a tiny leg, were no longer than Jean Valjean's hand. +All this was black of hue. It was he who had brought those garments to +Montfermeil for her. As he removed them from the valise, he laid them on +the bed. He fell to thinking. He called up memories. It was in winter, +in a very cold month of December, she was shivering, half-naked, in +rags, her poor little feet were all red in their wooden shoes. He, Jean +Valjean, had made her abandon those rags to clothe herself in these +mourning habiliments. The mother must have felt pleased in her grave, to +see her daughter wearing mourning for her, and, above all, to see that +she was properly clothed, and that she was warm. He thought of that +forest of Montfermeil; they had traversed it together, Cosette and he; +he thought of what the weather had been, of the leafless trees, of the +wood destitute of birds, of the sunless sky; it mattered not, it was +charming. He arranged the tiny garments on the bed, the fichu next to +the petticoat, the stockings beside the shoes, and he looked at them, +one after the other. She was no taller than that, she had her big doll +in her arms, she had put her louis d'or in the pocket of that apron, she +had laughed, they walked hand in hand, she had no one in the world but +him. + +Then his venerable, white head fell forward on the bed, that stoical old +heart broke, his face was engulfed, so to speak, in Cosette's garments, +and if any one had passed up the stairs at that moment, he would have +heard frightful sobs. + + + + +CHAPTER IV--THE IMMORTAL LIVER [68] + +The old and formidable struggle, of which we have already witnessed so +many phases, began once more. + +Jacob struggled with the angel but one night. Alas! how many times have +we beheld Jean Valjean seized bodily by his conscience, in the darkness, +and struggling desperately against it! + +Unheard-of conflict! At certain moments the foot slips; at other moments +the ground crumbles away underfoot. How many times had that conscience, +mad for the good, clasped and overthrown him! How many times had the +truth set her knee inexorably upon his breast! How many times, hurled +to earth by the light, had he begged for mercy! How many times had +that implacable spark, lighted within him, and upon him by the Bishop, +dazzled him by force when he had wished to be blind! How many times +had he risen to his feet in the combat, held fast to the rock, leaning +against sophism, dragged in the dust, now getting the upper hand of his +conscience, again overthrown by it! How many times, after an equivoque, +after the specious and treacherous reasoning of egotism, had he heard +his irritated conscience cry in his ear: "A trip! you wretch!" How many +times had his refractory thoughts rattled convulsively in his throat, +under the evidence of duty! Resistance to God. Funereal sweats. What +secret wounds which he alone felt bleed! What excoriations in his +lamentable existence! How many times he had risen bleeding, bruised, +broken, enlightened, despair in his heart, serenity in his soul! +and, vanquished, he had felt himself the conqueror. And, after having +dislocated, broken, and rent his conscience with red-hot pincers, it had +said to him, as it stood over him, formidable, luminous, and tranquil: +"Now, go in peace!" + +But on emerging from so melancholy a conflict, what a lugubrious peace, +alas! + +Nevertheless, that night Jean Valjean felt that he was passing through +his final combat. + +A heart-rending question presented itself. + +Predestinations are not all direct; they do not open out in a straight +avenue before the predestined man; they have blind courts, impassable +alleys, obscure turns, disturbing crossroads offering the choice of many +ways. Jean Valjean had halted at that moment at the most perilous of +these crossroads. + +He had come to the supreme crossing of good and evil. He had that +gloomy intersection beneath his eyes. On this occasion once more, as had +happened to him already in other sad vicissitudes, two roads opened out +before him, the one tempting, the other alarming. + +Which was he to take? + +He was counselled to the one which alarmed him by that mysterious index +finger which we all perceive whenever we fix our eyes on the darkness. + +Once more, Jean Valjean had the choice between the terrible port and the +smiling ambush. + +Is it then true? the soul may recover; but not fate. Frightful thing! an +incurable destiny! + +This is the problem which presented itself to him: + +In what manner was Jean Valjean to behave in relation to the happiness +of Cosette and Marius? It was he who had willed that happiness, it was +he who had brought it about; he had, himself, buried it in his entrails, +and at that moment, when he reflected on it, he was able to enjoy the +sort of satisfaction which an armorer would experience on recognizing +his factory mark on a knife, on withdrawing it, all smoking, from his +own breast. + +Cosette had Marius, Marius possessed Cosette. They had everything, even +riches. And this was his doing. + +But what was he, Jean Valjean, to do with this happiness, now that +it existed, now that it was there? Should he force himself on this +happiness? Should he treat it as belonging to him? No doubt, Cosette did +belong to another; but should he, Jean Valjean, retain of Cosette all +that he could retain? Should he remain the sort of father, half seen but +respected, which he had hitherto been? Should he, without saying a +word, bring his past to that future? Should he present himself there, +as though he had a right, and should he seat himself, veiled, at that +luminous fireside? Should he take those innocent hands into his tragic +hands, with a smile? Should he place upon the peaceful fender of the +Gillenormand drawing-room those feet of his, which dragged behind them +the disgraceful shadow of the law? Should he enter into participation in +the fair fortunes of Cosette and Marius? Should he render the obscurity +on his brow and the cloud upon theirs still more dense? Should he +place his catastrophe as a third associate in their felicity? Should he +continue to hold his peace? In a word, should he be the sinister mute of +destiny beside these two happy beings? + +We must have become habituated to fatality and to encounters with it, in +order to have the daring to raise our eyes when certain questions appear +to us in all their horrible nakedness. Good or evil stands behind +this severe interrogation point. What are you going to do? demands the +sphinx. + +This habit of trial Jean Valjean possessed. He gazed intently at the +sphinx. + +He examined the pitiless problem under all its aspects. + +Cosette, that charming existence, was the raft of this shipwreck. What +was he to do? To cling fast to it, or to let go his hold? + +If he clung to it, he should emerge from disaster, he should ascend +again into the sunlight, he should let the bitter water drip from his +garments and his hair, he was saved, he should live. + +And if he let go his hold? + +Then the abyss. + +Thus he took sad council with his thoughts. Or, to speak more correctly, +he fought; he kicked furiously internally, now against his will, now +against his conviction. + +Happily for Jean Valjean that he had been able to weep. That relieved +him, possibly. But the beginning was savage. A tempest, more furious +than the one which had formerly driven him to Arras, broke loose within +him. The past surged up before him facing the present; he compared +them and sobbed. The silence of tears once opened, the despairing man +writhed. + +He felt that he had been stopped short. + +Alas! in this fight to the death between our egotism and our duty, when +we thus retreat step by step before our immutable ideal, bewildered, +furious, exasperated at having to yield, disputing the ground, hoping +for a possible flight, seeking an escape, what an abrupt and sinister +resistance does the foot of the wall offer in our rear! + +To feel the sacred shadow which forms an obstacle! + +The invisible inexorable, what an obsession! + +Then, one is never done with conscience. Make your choice, Brutus; make +your choice, Cato. It is fathomless, since it is God. One flings into +that well the labor of one's whole life, one flings in one's fortune, +one flings in one's riches, one flings in one's success, one flings in +one's liberty or fatherland, one flings in one's well-being, one flings +in one's repose, one flings in one's joy! More! more! more! Empty the +vase! tip the urn! One must finish by flinging in one's heart. + +Somewhere in the fog of the ancient hells, there is a tun like that. + +Is not one pardonable, if one at last refuses! Can the inexhaustible +have any right? Are not chains which are endless above human strength? +Who would blame Sisyphus and Jean Valjean for saying: "It is enough!" + +The obedience of matter is limited by friction; is there no limit to the +obedience of the soul? If perpetual motion is impossible, can perpetual +self-sacrifice be exacted? + +The first step is nothing, it is the last which is difficult. What was +the Champmathieu affair in comparison with Cosette's marriage and of +that which it entailed? What is a re-entrance into the galleys, compared +to entrance into the void? + +Oh, first step that must be descended, how sombre art thou! Oh, second +step, how black art thou! + +How could he refrain from turning aside his head this time? + +Martyrdom is sublimation, corrosive sublimation. It is a torture which +consecrates. One can consent to it for the first hour; one seats oneself +on the throne of glowing iron, one places on one's head the crown of hot +iron, one accepts the globe of red hot iron, one takes the sceptre of +red hot iron, but the mantle of flame still remains to be donned, and +comes there not a moment when the miserable flesh revolts and when one +abdicates from suffering? + +At length, Jean Valjean entered into the peace of exhaustion. + +He weighed, he reflected, he considered the alternatives, the mysterious +balance of light and darkness. + +Should he impose his galleys on those two dazzling children, or should +he consummate his irremediable engulfment by himself? On one side lay +the sacrifice of Cosette, on the other that of himself. + +At what solution should he arrive? What decision did he come to? + +What resolution did he take? What was his own inward definitive response +to the unbribable interrogatory of fatality? What door did he decide to +open? Which side of his life did he resolve upon closing and condemning? +Among all the unfathomable precipices which surrounded him, which was +his choice? What extremity did he accept? To which of the gulfs did he +nod his head? + +His dizzy revery lasted all night long. + +He remained there until daylight, in the same attitude, bent double over +that bed, prostrate beneath the enormity of fate, crushed, perchance, +alas! with clenched fists, with arms outspread at right angles, like a +man crucified who has been un-nailed, and flung face down on the earth. +There he remained for twelve hours, the twelve long hours of a long +winter's night, ice-cold, without once raising his head, and without +uttering a word. He was as motionless as a corpse, while his thoughts +wallowed on the earth and soared, now like the hydra, now like the +eagle. Any one to behold him thus motionless would have pronounced him +dead; all at once he shuddered convulsively, and his mouth, glued to +Cosette's garments, kissed them; then it could be seen that he was +alive. + +Who could see? Since Jean Valjean was alone, and there was no one there. + +The One who is in the shadows. + + + + +BOOK SEVENTH.--THE LAST DRAUGHT FROM THE CUP + +[Illustration: Last Drop from the Cup 5b7-1-last-drop] + + + + +CHAPTER I--THE SEVENTH CIRCLE AND THE EIGHTH HEAVEN + +The days that follow weddings are solitary. People respect the +meditations of the happy pair. And also, their tardy slumbers, to some +degree. The tumult of visits and congratulations only begins later on. +On the morning of the 17th of February, it was a little past midday when +Basque, with napkin and feather-duster under his arm, busy in setting +his antechamber to rights, heard a light tap at the door. There had been +no ring, which was discreet on such a day. Basque opened the door, and +beheld M. Fauchelevent. He introduced him into the drawing-room, still +encumbered and topsy-turvy, and which bore the air of a field of battle +after the joys of the preceding evening. + +"Dame, sir," remarked Basque, "we all woke up late." + +"Is your master up?" asked Jean Valjean. + +"How is Monsieur's arm?" replied Basque. + +"Better. Is your master up?" + +"Which one? the old one or the new one?" + +"Monsieur Pontmercy." + +"Monsieur le Baron," said Basque, drawing himself up. + +A man is a Baron most of all to his servants. He counts for something +with them; they are what a philosopher would call, bespattered with the +title, and that flatters them. Marius, be it said in passing, a militant +republican as he had proved, was now a Baron in spite of himself. A +small revolution had taken place in the family in connection with +this title. It was now M. Gillenormand who clung to it, and Marius who +detached himself from it. But Colonel Pontmercy had written: "My son +will bear my title." Marius obeyed. And then, Cosette, in whom the woman +was beginning to dawn, was delighted to be a Baroness. + +"Monsieur le Baron?" repeated Basque. "I will go and see. I will tell +him that M. Fauchelevent is here." + +"No. Do not tell him that it is I. Tell him that some one wishes to +speak to him in private, and mention no name." + +"Ah!" ejaculated Basque. + +"I wish to surprise him." + +"Ah!" ejaculated Basque once more, emitting his second "ah!" as an +explanation of the first. + +And he left the room. + +Jean Valjean remained alone. + +The drawing-room, as we have just said, was in great disorder. It seemed +as though, by lending an air, one might still hear the vague noise of +the wedding. On the polished floor lay all sorts of flowers which +had fallen from garlands and head-dresses. The wax candles, burned +to stumps, added stalactites of wax to the crystal drops of the +chandeliers. Not a single piece of furniture was in its place. In the +corners, three or four arm-chairs, drawn close together in a circle, +had the appearance of continuing a conversation. The whole effect was +cheerful. A certain grace still lingers round a dead feast. It has been +a happy thing. On the chairs in disarray, among those fading flowers, +beneath those extinct lights, people have thought of joy. The sun +had succeeded to the chandelier, and made its way gayly into the +drawing-room. + +Several minutes elapsed. Jean Valjean stood motionless on the spot where +Basque had left him. He was very pale. His eyes were hollow, and so +sunken in his head by sleeplessness that they nearly disappeared in +their orbits. His black coat bore the weary folds of a garment that +has been up all night. The elbows were whitened with the down which the +friction of cloth against linen leaves behind it. + +Jean Valjean stared at the window outlined on the polished floor at his +feet by the sun. + +There came a sound at the door, and he raised his eyes. + +Marius entered, his head well up, his mouth smiling, an indescribable +light on his countenance, his brow expanded, his eyes triumphant. He had +not slept either. + +"It is you, father!" he exclaimed, on catching sight of Jean Valjean; +"that idiot of a Basque had such a mysterious air! But you have come too +early. It is only half past twelve. Cosette is asleep." + +That word: "Father," said to M. Fauchelevent by Marius, signified: +supreme felicity. There had always existed, as the reader knows, a lofty +wall, a coldness and a constraint between them; ice which must be broken +or melted. Marius had reached that point of intoxication when the wall +was lowered, when the ice dissolved, and when M. Fauchelevent was to +him, as to Cosette, a father. + +He continued: his words poured forth, as is the peculiarity of divine +paroxysms of joy. + +"How glad I am to see you! If you only knew how we missed you yesterday! +Good morning, father. How is your hand? Better, is it not?" + +And, satisfied with the favorable reply which he had made to himself, he +pursued: + +"We have both been talking about you. Cosette loves you so dearly! You +must not forget that you have a chamber here, We want nothing more to +do with the Rue de l'Homme Arme. We will have no more of it at all. How +could you go to live in a street like that, which is sickly, which is +disagreeable, which is ugly, which has a barrier at one end, where one +is cold, and into which one cannot enter? You are to come and install +yourself here. And this very day. Or you will have to deal with Cosette. +She means to lead us all by the nose, I warn you. You have your own +chamber here, it is close to ours, it opens on the garden; the trouble +with the clock has been attended to, the bed is made, it is all ready, +you have only to take possession of it. Near your bed Cosette has placed +a huge, old, easy-chair covered with Utrecht velvet and she has said to +it: 'Stretch out your arms to him.' A nightingale comes to the clump of +acacias opposite your windows, every spring. In two months more you will +have it. You will have its nest on your left and ours on your right. By +night it will sing, and by day Cosette will prattle. Your chamber faces +due South. Cosette will arrange your books for you, your Voyages of +Captain Cook and the other,--Vancouver's and all your affairs. I believe +that there is a little valise to which you are attached, I have fixed +upon a corner of honor for that. You have conquered my grandfather, you +suit him. We will live together. Do you play whist? you will overwhelm +my grandfather with delight if you play whist. It is you who shall take +Cosette to walk on the days when I am at the courts, you shall give her +your arm, you know, as you used to, in the Luxembourg. We are absolutely +resolved to be happy. And you shall be included in it, in our happiness, +do you hear, father? Come, will you breakfast with us to-day?" + +"Sir," said Jean Valjean, "I have something to say to you. I am an +ex-convict." + +The limit of shrill sounds perceptible can be overleaped, as well in +the case of the mind as in that of the ear. These words: "I am an +ex-convict," proceeding from the mouth of M. Fauchelevent and entering +the ear of Marius overshot the possible. It seemed to him that something +had just been said to him; but he did not know what. He stood with his +mouth wide open. + +Then he perceived that the man who was addressing him was frightful. +Wholly absorbed in his own dazzled state, he had not, up to that moment, +observed the other man's terrible pallor. + +Jean Valjean untied the black cravat which supported his right arm, +unrolled the linen from around his hand, bared his thumb and showed it +to Marius. + +"There is nothing the matter with my hand," said he. + +Marius looked at the thumb. + +"There has not been anything the matter with it," went on Jean Valjean. + +There was, in fact, no trace of any injury. + +Jean Valjean continued: + +"It was fitting that I should be absent from your marriage. I absented +myself as much as was in my power. So I invented this injury in order +that I might not commit a forgery, that I might not introduce a flaw +into the marriage documents, in order that I might escape from signing." + +Marius stammered. + +"What is the meaning of this?" + +"The meaning of it is," replied Jean Valjean, "that I have been in the +galleys." + +"You are driving me mad!" exclaimed Marius in terror. + +"Monsieur Pontmercy," said Jean Valjean, "I was nineteen years in the +galleys. For theft. Then, I was condemned for life for theft, for a +second offence. At the present moment, I have broken my ban." + +In vain did Marius recoil before the reality, refuse the fact, resist +the evidence, he was forced to give way. He began to understand, and, as +always happens in such cases, he understood too much. An inward shudder +of hideous enlightenment flashed through him; an idea which made him +quiver traversed his mind. He caught a glimpse of a wretched destiny for +himself in the future. + +"Say all, say all!" he cried. "You are Cosette's father!" + +And he retreated a couple of paces with a movement of indescribable +horror. + +Jean Valjean elevated his head with so much majesty of attitude that he +seemed to grow even to the ceiling. + +"It is necessary that you should believe me here, sir; although our oath +to others may not be received in law . . ." + +Here he paused, then, with a sort of sovereign and sepulchral authority, +he added, articulating slowly, and emphasizing the syllables: + +". . . You will believe me. I the father of Cosette! before God, no. +Monsieur le Baron Pontmercy, I am a peasant of Faverolles. I earned my +living by pruning trees. My name is not Fauchelevent, but Jean Valjean. +I am not related to Cosette. Reassure yourself." + +Marius stammered: + +"Who will prove that to me?" + +"I. Since I tell you so." + +Marius looked at the man. He was melancholy yet tranquil. No lie could +proceed from such a calm. That which is icy is sincere. The truth could +be felt in that chill of the tomb. + +"I believe you," said Marius. + +Jean Valjean bent his head, as though taking note of this, and +continued: + +"What am I to Cosette? A passer-by. Ten years ago, I did not know that +she was in existence. I love her, it is true. One loves a child whom one +has seen when very young, being old oneself. When one is old, one feels +oneself a grandfather towards all little children. You may, it seems to +me, suppose that I have something which resembles a heart. She was an +orphan. Without either father or mother. She needed me. That is why I +began to love her. Children are so weak that the first comer, even a man +like me, can become their protector. I have fulfilled this duty towards +Cosette. I do not think that so slight a thing can be called a good +action; but if it be a good action, well, say that I have done it. +Register this attenuating circumstance. To-day, Cosette passes out of my +life; our two roads part. Henceforth, I can do nothing for her. She is +Madame Pontmercy. Her providence has changed. And Cosette gains by the +change. All is well. As for the six hundred thousand francs, you do not +mention them to me, but I forestall your thought, they are a deposit. +How did that deposit come into my hands? What does that matter? I +restore the deposit. Nothing more can be demanded of me. I complete +the restitution by announcing my true name. That concerns me. I have a +reason for desiring that you should know who I am." + +And Jean Valjean looked Marius full in the face. + +All that Marius experienced was tumultuous and incoherent. Certain gusts +of destiny produce these billows in our souls. + +We have all undergone moments of trouble in which everything within us +is dispersed; we say the first things that occur to us, which are +not always precisely those which should be said. There are sudden +revelations which one cannot bear, and which intoxicate like baleful +wine. Marius was stupefied by the novel situation which presented itself +to him, to the point of addressing that man almost like a person who was +angry with him for this avowal. + +"But why," he exclaimed, "do you tell me all this? Who forces you to +do so? You could have kept your secret to yourself. You are neither +denounced, nor tracked nor pursued. You have a reason for wantonly +making such a revelation. Conclude. There is something more. In what +connection do you make this confession? What is your motive?" + +"My motive?" replied Jean Valjean in a voice so low and dull that one +would have said that he was talking to himself rather than to Marius. +"From what motive, in fact, has this convict just said 'I am a convict'? +Well, yes! the motive is strange. It is out of honesty. Stay, the +unfortunate point is that I have a thread in my heart, which keeps me +fast. It is when one is old that that sort of thread is particularly +solid. All life falls in ruin around one; one resists. Had I been able +to tear out that thread, to break it, to undo the knot or to cut it, to +go far away, I should have been safe. I had only to go away; there are +diligences in the Rue Bouloy; you are happy; I am going. I have tried +to break that thread, I have jerked at it, it would not break, I tore my +heart with it. Then I said: 'I cannot live anywhere else than here.' I +must stay. Well, yes, you are right, I am a fool, why not simply +remain here? You offer me a chamber in this house, Madame Pontmercy is +sincerely attached to me, she said to the arm-chair: 'Stretch out your +arms to him,' your grandfather demands nothing better than to have me, I +suit him, we shall live together, and take our meals in common, I shall +give Cosette my arm . . . Madame Pontmercy, excuse me, it is a habit, we +shall have but one roof, one table, one fire, the same chimney-corner +in winter, the same promenade in summer, that is joy, that is happiness, +that is everything. We shall live as one family. One family!" + +At that word, Jean Valjean became wild. He folded his arms, glared at +the floor beneath his feet as though he would have excavated an abyss +therein, and his voice suddenly rose in thundering tones: + +"As one family! No. I belong to no family. I do not belong to yours. +I do not belong to any family of men. In houses where people are among +themselves, I am superfluous. There are families, but there is nothing +of the sort for me. I am an unlucky wretch; I am left outside. Did I +have a father and mother? I almost doubt it. On the day when I gave that +child in marriage, all came to an end. I have seen her happy, and that +she is with a man whom she loves, and that there exists here a kind old +man, a household of two angels, and all joys in that house, and that it +was well, I said to myself: 'Enter thou not.' I could have lied, it is +true, have deceived you all, and remained Monsieur Fauchelevent. So long +as it was for her, I could lie; but now it would be for myself, and I +must not. It was sufficient for me to hold my peace, it is true, and all +would go on. You ask me what has forced me to speak? a very odd thing; +my conscience. To hold my peace was very easy, however. I passed the +night in trying to persuade myself to it; you questioned me, and what I +have just said to you is so extraordinary that you have the right to do +it; well, yes, I have passed the night in alleging reasons to myself, +and I gave myself very good reasons, I have done what I could. But there +are two things in which I have not succeeded; in breaking the thread +that holds me fixed, riveted and sealed here by the heart, or in +silencing some one who speaks softly to me when I am alone. That is why +I have come hither to tell you everything this morning. Everything or +nearly everything. It is useless to tell you that which concerns only +myself; I keep that to myself. You know the essential points. So I have +taken my mystery and have brought it to you. And I have disembowelled my +secret before your eyes. It was not a resolution that was easy to take. +I struggled all night long. Ah! you think that I did not tell myself +that this was no Champmathieu affair, that by concealing my name I was +doing no one any injury, that the name of Fauchelevent had been given to +me by Fauchelevent himself, out of gratitude for a service rendered to +him, and that I might assuredly keep it, and that I should be happy in +that chamber which you offer me, that I should not be in any one's way, +that I should be in my own little corner, and that, while you would have +Cosette, I should have the idea that I was in the same house with her. +Each one of us would have had his share of happiness. If I continued to +be Monsieur Fauchelevent, that would arrange everything. Yes, with the +exception of my soul. There was joy everywhere upon my surface, but the +bottom of my soul remained black. It is not enough to be happy, one must +be content. Thus I should have remained Monsieur Fauchelevent, thus +I should have concealed my true visage, thus, in the presence of your +expansion, I should have had an enigma, thus, in the midst of your full +noonday, I should have had shadows, thus, without crying ''ware,' I +should have simply introduced the galleys to your fireside, I should +have taken my seat at your table with the thought that if you knew who +I was, you would drive me from it, I should have allowed myself to +be served by domestics who, had they known, would have said: 'How +horrible!' I should have touched you with my elbow, which you have a +right to dislike, I should have filched your clasps of the hand! There +would have existed in your house a division of respect between venerable +white locks and tainted white locks; at your most intimate hours, when +all hearts thought themselves open to the very bottom to all the rest, +when we four were together, your grandfather, you two and myself, a +stranger would have been present! I should have been side by side with +you in your existence, having for my only care not to disarrange the +cover of my dreadful pit. Thus, I, a dead man, should have thrust myself +upon you who are living beings. I should have condemned her to myself +forever. You and Cosette and I would have had all three of our heads in +the green cap! Does it not make you shudder? I am only the most crushed +of men; I should have been the most monstrous of men. And I should have +committed that crime every day! And I should have had that face of night +upon my visage every day! every day! And I should have communicated to +you a share in my taint every day! every day! to you, my dearly beloved, +my children, to you, my innocent creatures! Is it nothing to hold one's +peace? is it a simple matter to keep silence? No, it is not simple. +There is a silence which lies. And my lie, and my fraud and my +indignity, and my cowardice and my treason and my crime, I should have +drained drop by drop, I should have spit it out, then swallowed it +again, I should have finished at midnight and have begun again at +midday, and my 'good morning' would have lied, and my 'good night' would +have lied, and I should have slept on it, I should have eaten it, with +my bread, and I should have looked Cosette in the face, and I should +have responded to the smile of the angel by the smile of the damned +soul, and I should have been an abominable villain! Why should I do +it? in order to be happy. In order to be happy. Have I the right to be +happy? I stand outside of life, Sir." + +Jean Valjean paused. Marius listened. Such chains of ideas and of +anguishes cannot be interrupted. Jean Valjean lowered his voice once +more, but it was no longer a dull voice--it was a sinister voice. + +"You ask why I speak? I am neither denounced, nor pursued, nor tracked, +you say. Yes! I am denounced! yes! I am tracked! By whom? By myself. +It is I who bar the passage to myself, and I drag myself, and I push +myself, and I arrest myself, and I execute myself, and when one holds +oneself, one is firmly held." + +And, seizing a handful of his own coat by the nape of the neck and +extending it towards Marius: + +"Do you see that fist?" he continued. "Don't you think that it holds +that collar in such a wise as not to release it? Well! conscience +is another grasp! If one desires to be happy, sir, one must never +understand duty; for, as soon as one has comprehended it, it is +implacable. One would say that it punished you for comprehending it; +but no, it rewards you; for it places you in a hell, where you feel God +beside you. One has no sooner lacerated his own entrails than he is at +peace with himself." + +And, with a poignant accent, he added: + +"Monsieur Pontmercy, this is not common sense, I am an honest man. It is +by degrading myself in your eyes that I elevate myself in my own. This +has happened to me once before, but it was less painful then; it was +a mere nothing. Yes, an honest man. I should not be so if, through my +fault, you had continued to esteem me; now that you despise me, I am so. +I have that fatality hanging over me that, not being able to ever have +anything but stolen consideration, that consideration humiliates me, +and crushes me inwardly, and, in order that I may respect myself, it is +necessary that I should be despised. Then I straighten up again. I am +a galley-slave who obeys his conscience. I know well that that is most +improbable. But what would you have me do about it? it is the fact. +I have entered into engagements with myself; I keep them. There are +encounters which bind us, there are chances which involve us in duties. +You see, Monsieur Pontmercy, various things have happened to me in the +course of my life." + +Again Jean Valjean paused, swallowing his saliva with an effort, as +though his words had a bitter after-taste, and then he went on: + +"When one has such a horror hanging over one, one has not the right to +make others share it without their knowledge, one has not the right to +make them slip over one's own precipice without their perceiving it, +one has not the right to let one's red blouse drag upon them, one has no +right to slyly encumber with one's misery the happiness of others. It is +hideous to approach those who are healthy, and to touch them in the dark +with one's ulcer. In spite of the fact that Fauchelevent lent me his +name, I have no right to use it; he could give it to me, but I could not +take it. A name is an _I_. You see, sir, that I have thought somewhat, I +have read a little, although I am a peasant; and you see that I +express myself properly. I understand things. I have procured myself an +education. Well, yes, to abstract a name and to place oneself under it +is dishonest. Letters of the alphabet can be filched, like a purse or a +watch. To be a false signature in flesh and blood, to be a living false +key, to enter the house of honest people by picking their lock, never +more to look straightforward, to forever eye askance, to be infamous +within the _I_, no! no! no! no! no! It is better to suffer, to bleed, to +weep, to tear one's skin from the flesh with one's nails, to pass nights +writhing in anguish, to devour oneself body and soul. That is why I have +just told you all this. Wantonly, as you say." + +He drew a painful breath, and hurled this final word: + +"In days gone by, I stole a loaf of bread in order to live; to-day, in +order to live, I will not steal a name." + +"To live!" interrupted Marius. "You do not need that name in order to +live?" + +"Ah! I understand the matter," said Jean Valjean, raising and lowering +his head several times in succession. + +A silence ensued. Both held their peace, each plunged in a gulf of +thoughts. Marius was sitting near a table and resting the corner of his +mouth on one of his fingers, which was folded back. Jean Valjean was +pacing to and fro. He paused before a mirror, and remained motionless. +Then, as though replying to some inward course of reasoning, he said, as +he gazed at the mirror, which he did not see: + +"While, at present, I am relieved." + +He took up his march again, and walked to the other end of the +drawing-room. At the moment when he turned round, he perceived that +Marius was watching his walk. Then he said, with an inexpressible +intonation: + +"I drag my leg a little. Now you understand why!" + +Then he turned fully round towards Marius: + +"And now, sir, imagine this: I have said nothing, I have remained +Monsieur Fauchelevent, I have taken my place in your house, I am one of +you, I am in my chamber, I come to breakfast in the morning in slippers, +in the evening all three of us go to the play, I accompany Madame +Pontmercy to the Tuileries, and to the Place Royale, we are together, +you think me your equal; one fine day you are there, and I am there, we +are conversing, we are laughing; all at once, you hear a voice shouting +this name: 'Jean Valjean!' and behold, that terrible hand, the police, +darts from the darkness, and abruptly tears off my mask!" + +Again he paused; Marius had sprung to his feet with a shudder. Jean +Valjean resumed: + +"What do you say to that?" + +Marius' silence answered for him. + +Jean Valjean continued: + +"You see that I am right in not holding my peace. Be happy, be +in heaven, be the angel of an angel, exist in the sun, be content +therewith, and do not trouble yourself about the means which a poor +damned wretch takes to open his breast and force his duty to come forth; +you have before you, sir, a wretched man." + +Marius slowly crossed the room, and, when he was quite close to Jean +Valjean, he offered the latter his hand. + +But Marius was obliged to step up and take that hand which was not +offered, Jean Valjean let him have his own way, and it seemed to Marius +that he pressed a hand of marble. + +"My grandfather has friends," said Marius; "I will procure your pardon." + +"It is useless," replied Jean Valjean. "I am believed to be dead, and +that suffices. The dead are not subjected to surveillance. They are +supposed to rot in peace. Death is the same thing as pardon." + +And, disengaging the hand which Marius held, he added, with a sort of +inexorable dignity: + +"Moreover, the friend to whom I have recourse is the doing of my duty; +and I need but one pardon, that of my conscience." + +At that moment, a door at the other end of the drawing-room opened +gently half way, and in the opening Cosette's head appeared. They saw +only her sweet face, her hair was in charming disorder, her eyelids were +still swollen with sleep. She made the movement of a bird, which thrusts +its head out of its nest, glanced first at her husband, then at Jean +Valjean, and cried to them with a smile, so that they seemed to behold a +smile at the heart of a rose: + +"I will wager that you are talking politics. How stupid that is, instead +of being with me!" + +Jean Valjean shuddered. + +"Cosette! . . ." stammered Marius. + +And he paused. One would have said that they were two criminals. + +Cosette, who was radiant, continued to gaze at both of them. There was +something in her eyes like gleams of paradise. + +"I have caught you in the very act," said Cosette. "Just now, I heard my +father Fauchelevent through the door saying: 'Conscience . . . doing my +duty . . .' That is politics, indeed it is. I will not have it. People +should not talk politics the very next day. It is not right." + +"You are mistaken. Cosette," said Marius, "we are talking business. We +are discussing the best investment of your six hundred thousand +francs . . ." + +"That is not it at all," interrupted Cosette. "I am coming. Does any +body want me here?" + +And, passing resolutely through the door, she entered the drawing-room. +She was dressed in a voluminous white dressing-gown, with a thousand +folds and large sleeves which, starting from the neck, fell to her feet. +In the golden heavens of some ancient gothic pictures, there are these +charming sacks fit to clothe the angels. + +She contemplated herself from head to foot in a long mirror, then +exclaimed, in an outburst of ineffable ecstasy: + +"There was once a King and a Queen. Oh! how happy I am!" + +That said, she made a curtsey to Marius and to Jean Valjean. + +"There," said she, "I am going to install myself near you in an +easy-chair, we breakfast in half an hour, you shall say anything you +like, I know well that men must talk, and I will be very good." + +Marius took her by the arm and said lovingly to her: + +"We are talking business." + +"By the way," said Cosette, "I have opened my window, a flock of +pierrots has arrived in the garden,--Birds, not maskers. To-day is +Ash-Wednesday; but not for the birds." + +"I tell you that we are talking business, go, my little Cosette, leave +us alone for a moment. We are talking figures. That will bore you." + +"You have a charming cravat on this morning, Marius. You are very +dandified, monseigneur. No, it will not bore me." + +"I assure you that it will bore you." + +"No. Since it is you. I shall not understand you, but I shall listen +to you. When one hears the voices of those whom one loves, one does not +need to understand the words that they utter. That we should be here +together--that is all that I desire. I shall remain with you, bah!" + +"You are my beloved Cosette! Impossible." + +"Impossible!" + +"Yes." + +"Very good," said Cosette. "I was going to tell you some news. I could +have told you that your grandfather is still asleep, that your aunt is +at mass, that the chimney in my father Fauchelevent's room smokes, that +Nicolette has sent for the chimney-sweep, that Toussaint and Nicolette +have already quarrelled, that Nicolette makes sport of Toussaint's +stammer. Well, you shall know nothing. Ah! it is impossible? you shall +see, gentlemen, that I, in my turn, can say: It is impossible. Then who +will be caught? I beseech you, my little Marius, let me stay here with +you two." + +"I swear to you, that it is indispensable that we should be alone." + +"Well, am I anybody?" + +Jean Valjean had not uttered a single word. Cosette turned to him: + +"In the first place, father, I want you to come and embrace me. What do +you mean by not saying anything instead of taking my part? who gave me +such a father as that? You must perceive that my family life is very +unhappy. My husband beats me. Come, embrace me instantly." + +Jean Valjean approached. + +Cosette turned toward Marius. + +"As for you, I shall make a face at you." + +Then she presented her brow to Jean Valjean. + +Jean Valjean advanced a step toward her. + +Cosette recoiled. + +"Father, you are pale. Does your arm hurt you?" + +"It is well," said Jean Valjean. + +"Did you sleep badly?" + +"No." + +"Are you sad?" + +"No." + +"Embrace me if you are well, if you sleep well, if you are content, I +will not scold you." + +And again she offered him her brow. + +Jean Valjean dropped a kiss upon that brow whereon rested a celestial +gleam. + +"Smile." + +Jean Valjean obeyed. It was the smile of a spectre. + +"Now, defend me against my husband." + +"Cosette! . . ." ejaculated Marius. + +"Get angry, father. Say that I must stay. You can certainly talk before +me. So you think me very silly. What you say is astonishing! business, +placing money in a bank a great matter truly. Men make mysteries out of +nothing. I am very pretty this morning. Look at me, Marius." + +And with an adorable shrug of the shoulders, and an indescribably +exquisite pout, she glanced at Marius. + +"I love you!" said Marius. + +"I adore you!" said Cosette. + +And they fell irresistibly into each other's arms. + +"Now," said Cosette, adjusting a fold of her dressing-gown, with a +triumphant little grimace, "I shall stay." + +"No, not that," said Marius, in a supplicating tone. "We have to finish +something." + +"Still no?" + +Marius assumed a grave tone: + +"I assure you, Cosette, that it is impossible." + +"Ah! you put on your man's voice, sir. That is well, I go. You, father, +have not upheld me. Monsieur my father, monsieur my husband, you are +tyrants. I shall go and tell grandpapa. If you think that I am going to +return and talk platitudes to you, you are mistaken. I am proud. I shall +wait for you now. You shall see, that it is you who are going to be +bored without me. I am going, it is well." + +And she left the room. + +Two seconds later, the door opened once more, her fresh and rosy head +was again thrust between the two leaves, and she cried to them: + +"I am very angry indeed." + +The door closed again, and the shadows descended once more. + +It was as though a ray of sunlight should have suddenly traversed the +night, without itself being conscious of it. + +Marius made sure that the door was securely closed. + +"Poor Cosette!" he murmured, "when she finds out . . ." + +At that word Jean Valjean trembled in every limb. He fixed on Marius a +bewildered eye. + +"Cosette! oh yes, it is true, you are going to tell Cosette about this. +That is right. Stay, I had not thought of that. One has the strength for +one thing, but not for another. Sir, I conjure you, I entreat now, sir, +give me your most sacred word of honor, that you will not tell her. Is +it not enough that you should know it? I have been able to say it myself +without being forced to it, I could have told it to the universe, to the +whole world,--it was all one to me. But she, she does not know what +it is, it would terrify her. What, a convict! we should be obliged to +explain matters to her, to say to her: 'He is a man who has been in the +galleys.' She saw the chain-gang pass by one day. Oh! My God!" . . . He +dropped into an arm-chair and hid his face in his hands. + +His grief was not audible, but from the quivering of his shoulders it +was evident that he was weeping. Silent tears, terrible tears. + +There is something of suffocation in the sob. He was seized with a sort +of convulsion, he threw himself against the back of the chair as though +to gain breath, letting his arms fall, and allowing Marius to see his +face inundated with tears, and Marius heard him murmur, so low that his +voice seemed to issue from fathomless depths: + +"Oh! would that I could die!" + +"Be at your ease," said Marius, "I will keep your secret for myself +alone." And, less touched, perhaps, than he ought to have been, but +forced, for the last hour, to familiarize himself with something +as unexpected as it was dreadful, gradually beholding the convict +superposed before his very eyes, upon M. Fauchelevent, overcome, +little by little, by that lugubrious reality, and led, by the natural +inclination of the situation, to recognize the space which had just been +placed between that man and himself, Marius added: + +"It is impossible that I should not speak a word to you with regard to +the deposit which you have so faithfully and honestly remitted. That is +an act of probity. It is just that some recompense should be bestowed on +you. Fix the sum yourself, it shall be counted out to you. Do not fear +to set it very high." + +"I thank you, sir," replied Jean Valjean, gently. + +He remained in thought for a moment, mechanically passing the tip of his +fore-finger across his thumb-nail, then he lifted up his voice: + +"All is nearly over. But one last thing remains for me . . ." + +"What is it?" + +Jean Valjean struggled with what seemed a last hesitation, and, without +voice, without breath, he stammered rather than said: + +"Now that you know, do you think, sir, you, who are the master, that I +ought not to see Cosette any more?" + +"I think that would be better," replied Marius coldly. + +"I shall never see her more," murmured Jean Valjean. And he directed his +steps towards the door. + +He laid his hand on the knob, the latch yielded, the door opened. Jean +Valjean pushed it open far enough to pass through, stood motionless for +a second, then closed the door again and turned to Marius. + +He was no longer pale, he was livid. There were no longer any tears +in his eyes, but only a sort of tragic flame. His voice had regained a +strange composure. + +"Stay, sir," he said. "If you will allow it, I will come to see her. I +assure you that I desire it greatly. If I had not cared to see Cosette, +I should not have made to you the confession that I have made, I should +have gone away; but, as I desired to remain in the place where Cosette +is, and to continue to see her, I had to tell you about it honestly. You +follow my reasoning, do you not? it is a matter easily understood. You +see, I have had her with me for more than nine years. We lived first +in that hut on the boulevard, then in the convent, then near the +Luxembourg. That was where you saw her for the first time. You remember +her blue plush hat. Then we went to the Quartier des Invalides, where +there was a railing on a garden, the Rue Plumet. I lived in a little +back court-yard, whence I could hear her piano. That was my life. We +never left each other. That lasted for nine years and some months. I +was like her own father, and she was my child. I do not know whether +you understand, Monsieur Pontmercy, but to go away now, never to see her +again, never to speak to her again, to no longer have anything, would +be hard. If you do not disapprove of it, I will come to see Cosette from +time to time. I will not come often. I will not remain long. You shall +give orders that I am to be received in the little waiting-room. On the +ground floor. I could enter perfectly well by the back door, but that +might create surprise perhaps, and it would be better, I think, for me +to enter by the usual door. Truly, sir, I should like to see a little +more of Cosette. As rarely as you please. Put yourself in my place, +I have nothing left but that. And then, we must be cautious. If I +no longer come at all, it would produce a bad effect, it would be +considered singular. What I can do, by the way, is to come in the +afternoon, when night is beginning to fall." + +"You shall come every evening," said Marius, "and Cosette will be +waiting for you." + +"You are kind, sir," said Jean Valjean. + +Marius saluted Jean Valjean, happiness escorted despair to the door, and +these two men parted. + + + + +CHAPTER II--THE OBSCURITIES WHICH A REVELATION CAN CONTAIN + +Marius was quite upset. + +The sort of estrangement which he had always felt towards the man beside +whom he had seen Cosette, was now explained to him. There was something +enigmatic about that person, of which his instinct had warned him. + +This enigma was the most hideous of disgraces, the galleys. This M. +Fauchelevent was the convict Jean Valjean. + +To abruptly find such a secret in the midst of one's happiness resembles +the discovery of a scorpion in a nest of turtledoves. + +Was the happiness of Marius and Cosette thenceforth condemned to such a +neighborhood? Was this an accomplished fact? Did the acceptance of that +man form a part of the marriage now consummated? Was there nothing to be +done? + +Had Marius wedded the convict as well? + +In vain may one be crowned with light and joy, in vain may one taste the +grand purple hour of life, happy love, such shocks would force even the +archangel in his ecstasy, even the demigod in his glory, to shudder. + +As is always the case in changes of view of this nature, Marius asked +himself whether he had nothing with which to reproach himself. Had he +been wanting in divination? Had he been wanting in prudence? Had he +involuntarily dulled his wits? A little, perhaps. Had he entered upon +this love affair, which had ended in his marriage to Cosette, without +taking sufficient precautions to throw light upon the surroundings? He +admitted,--it is thus, by a series of successive admissions of ourselves +in regard to ourselves, that life amends us, little by little,--he +admitted the chimerical and visionary side of his nature, a sort of +internal cloud peculiar to many organizations, and which, in paroxysms +of passion and sorrow, dilates as the temperature of the soul changes, +and invades the entire man, to such a degree as to render him nothing +more than a conscience bathed in a mist. We have more than once +indicated this characteristic element of Marius' individuality. + +He recalled that, in the intoxication of his love, in the Rue Plumet, +during those six or seven ecstatic weeks, he had not even spoke to +Cosette of that drama in the Gorbeau hovel, where the victim had taken +up such a singular line of silence during the struggle and the ensuing +flight. How had it happened that he had not mentioned this to Cosette? +Yet it was so near and so terrible! How had it come to pass that he had +not even named the Thenardiers, and, particularly, on the day when he +had encountered Eponine? He now found it almost difficult to explain his +silence of that time. Nevertheless, he could account for it. He recalled +his benumbed state, his intoxication with Cosette, love absorbing +everything, that catching away of each other into the ideal, and perhaps +also, like the imperceptible quantity of reason mingled with this +violent and charming state of the soul, a vague, dull instinct impelling +him to conceal and abolish in his memory that redoubtable adventure, +contact with which he dreaded, in which he did not wish to play any +part, his agency in which he had kept secret, and in which he could be +neither narrator nor witness without being an accuser. + +Moreover, these few weeks had been a flash of lightning; there had been +no time for anything except love. + +In short, having weighed everything, turned everything over in his mind, +examined everything, whatever might have been the consequences if he had +told Cosette about the Gorbeau ambush, even if he had discovered that +Jean Valjean was a convict, would that have changed him, Marius? Would +that have changed her, Cosette? Would he have drawn back? Would he have +adored her any the less? Would he have refrained from marrying her? No. +Then there was nothing to regret, nothing with which he need reproach +himself. All was well. There is a deity for those drunken men who are +called lovers. Marius blind, had followed the path which he would have +chosen had he been in full possession of his sight. Love had bandaged +his eyes, in order to lead him whither? To paradise. + +But this paradise was henceforth complicated with an infernal +accompaniment. + +Marius' ancient estrangement towards this man, towards this Fauchelevent +who had turned into Jean Valjean, was at present mingled with horror. + +In this horror, let us state, there was some pity, and even a certain +surprise. + +This thief, this thief guilty of a second offence, had restored that +deposit. And what a deposit! Six hundred thousand francs. + +He alone was in the secret of that deposit. He might have kept it all, +he had restored it all. + +Moreover, he had himself revealed his situation. Nothing forced him to +this. If any one learned who he was, it was through himself. In this +avowal there was something more than acceptance of humiliation, there +was acceptance of peril. For a condemned man, a mask is not a mask, it +is a shelter. A false name is security, and he had rejected that false +name. He, the galley-slave, might have hidden himself forever in an +honest family; he had withstood this temptation. And with what motive? +Through a conscientious scruple. He himself explained this with the +irresistible accents of truth. In short, whatever this Jean Valjean +might be, he was, undoubtedly, a conscience which was awakening. There +existed some mysterious re-habilitation which had begun; and, to all +appearances, scruples had for a long time already controlled this man. +Such fits of justice and goodness are not characteristic of vulgar +natures. An awakening of conscience is grandeur of soul. + +Jean Valjean was sincere. This sincerity, visible, palpable, +irrefragable, evident from the very grief that it caused him, rendered +inquiries useless, and conferred authority on all that that man had +said. + +Here, for Marius, there was a strange reversal of situations. What +breathed from M. Fauchelevent? distrust. What did Jean Valjean inspire? +confidence. + +In the mysterious balance of this Jean Valjean which the pensive Marius +struck, he admitted the active principle, he admitted the passive +principle, and he tried to reach a balance. + +But all this went on as in a storm. Marius, while endeavoring to form a +clear idea of this man, and while pursuing Jean Valjean, so to speak, in +the depths of his thought, lost him and found him again in a fatal mist. + +The deposit honestly restored, the probity of the confession--these were +good. This produced a lightening of the cloud, then the cloud became +black once more. + +Troubled as were Marius' memories, a shadow of them returned to him. + +After all, what was that adventure in the Jondrette attic? Why had that +man taken to flight on the arrival of the police, instead of entering a +complaint? + +Here Marius found the answer. Because that man was a fugitive from +justice, who had broken his ban. + +Another question: Why had that man come to the barricade? + +For Marius now once more distinctly beheld that recollection which had +re-appeared in his emotions like sympathetic ink at the application of +heat. This man had been in the barricade. He had not fought there. What +had he come there for? In the presence of this question a spectre sprang +up and replied: "Javert." + +Marius recalled perfectly now that funereal sight of Jean Valjean +dragging the pinioned Javert out of the barricade, and he still heard +behind the corner of the little Rue Mondetour that frightful pistol +shot. Obviously, there was hatred between that police spy and the +galley-slave. The one was in the other's way. Jean Valjean had gone to +the barricade for the purpose of revenging himself. He had arrived late. +He probably knew that Javert was a prisoner there. The Corsican vendetta +has penetrated to certain lower strata and has become the law there; it +is so simple that it does not astonish souls which are but half turned +towards good; and those hearts are so constituted that a criminal, who +is in the path of repentance, may be scrupulous in the matter of theft +and unscrupulous in the matter of vengeance. Jean Valjean had killed +Javert. At least, that seemed to be evident. + +This was the final question, to be sure; but to this there was no reply. +This question Marius felt like pincers. How had it come to pass that +Jean Valjean's existence had elbowed that of Cosette for so long a +period? + +What melancholy sport of Providence was that which had placed that child +in contact with that man? Are there then chains for two which are forged +on high? and does God take pleasure in coupling the angel with the +demon? So a crime and an innocence can be room-mates in the mysterious +galleys of wretchedness? In that defiling of condemned persons which +is called human destiny, can two brows pass side by side, the one +ingenuous, the other formidable, the one all bathed in the divine +whiteness of dawn, the other forever blemished by the flash of an +eternal lightning? Who could have arranged that inexplicable pairing +off? In what manner, in consequence of what prodigy, had any community +of life been established between this celestial little creature and that +old criminal? + +Who could have bound the lamb to the wolf, and, what was still more +incomprehensible, have attached the wolf to the lamb? For the wolf loved +the lamb, for the fierce creature adored the feeble one, for, during +the space of nine years, the angel had had the monster as her point of +support. Cosette's childhood and girlhood, her advent in the daylight, +her virginal growth towards life and light, had been sheltered by +that hideous devotion. Here questions exfoliated, so to speak, into +innumerable enigmas, abysses yawned at the bottoms of abysses, and +Marius could no longer bend over Jean Valjean without becoming dizzy. +What was this man-precipice? + +The old symbols of Genesis are eternal; in human society, such as it now +exists, and until a broader day shall effect a change in it, there will +always be two men, the one superior, the other subterranean; the one +which is according to good is Abel; the other which is according to evil +is Cain. What was this tender Cain? What was this ruffian religiously +absorbed in the adoration of a virgin, watching over her, rearing her, +guarding her, dignifying her, and enveloping her, impure as he was +himself, with purity? + +What was that cess-pool which had venerated that innocence to such a +point as not to leave upon it a single spot? What was this Jean Valjean +educating Cosette? What was this figure of the shadows which had for its +only object the preservation of the rising of a star from every shadow +and from every cloud? + +That was Jean Valjean's secret; that was also God's secret. + +In the presence of this double secret, Marius recoiled. The one, in some +sort, reassured him as to the other. God was as visible in this affair +as was Jean Valjean. God has his instruments. He makes use of the tool +which he wills. He is not responsible to men. Do we know how God sets +about the work? Jean Valjean had labored over Cosette. He had, to some +extent, made that soul. That was incontestable. Well, what then? The +workman was horrible; but the work was admirable. God produces his +miracles as seems good to him. He had constructed that charming Cosette, +and he had employed Jean Valjean. It had pleased him to choose this +strange collaborator for himself. What account have we to demand of him? +Is this the first time that the dung-heap has aided the spring to create +the rose? + +Marius made himself these replies, and declared to himself that they +were good. He had not dared to press Jean Valjean on all the points +which we have just indicated, but he did not confess to himself that he +did not dare to do it. He adored Cosette, he possessed Cosette, Cosette +was splendidly pure. That was sufficient for him. What enlightenment did +he need? Cosette was a light. Does light require enlightenment? He had +everything; what more could he desire? All,--is not that enough? Jean +Valjean's personal affairs did not concern him. + +And bending over the fatal shadow of that man, he clung fast, +convulsively, to the solemn declaration of that unhappy wretch: "I +am nothing to Cosette. Ten years ago I did not know that she was in +existence." + +Jean Valjean was a passer-by. He had said so himself. Well, he had +passed. Whatever he was, his part was finished. + +Henceforth, there remained Marius to fulfil the part of Providence to +Cosette. Cosette had sought the azure in a person like herself, in her +lover, her husband, her celestial male. Cosette, as she took her flight, +winged and transfigured, left behind her on the earth her hideous and +empty chrysalis, Jean Valjean. + +In whatever circle of ideas Marius revolved, he always returned to a +certain horror for Jean Valjean. A sacred horror, perhaps, for, as we +have just pointed out, he felt a quid divinum in that man. But do what +he would, and seek what extenuation he would, he was certainly forced to +fall back upon this: the man was a convict; that is to say, a being who +has not even a place in the social ladder, since he is lower than the +very lowest rung. After the very last of men comes the convict. The +convict is no longer, so to speak, in the semblance of the living. The +law has deprived him of the entire quantity of humanity of which it can +deprive a man. + +Marius, on penal questions, still held to the inexorable system, though +he was a democrat and he entertained all the ideas of the law on the +subject of those whom the law strikes. He had not yet accomplished all +progress, we admit. He had not yet come to distinguish between that +which is written by man and that which is written by God, between law +and right. He had not examined and weighed the right which man takes to +dispose of the irrevocable and the irreparable. He was not shocked by +the word vindicte. He found it quite simple that certain breaches of the +written law should be followed by eternal suffering, and he accepted, +as the process of civilization, social damnation. He still stood at this +point, though safe to advance infallibly later on, since his nature was +good, and, at bottom, wholly formed of latent progress. + +In this stage of his ideas, Jean Valjean appeared to him hideous and +repulsive. He was a man reproved, he was the convict. That word was +for him like the sound of the trump on the Day of Judgment; and, after +having reflected upon Jean Valjean for a long time, his final gesture +had been to turn away his head. Vade retro. + +Marius, if we must recognize and even insist upon the fact, while +interrogating Jean Valjean to such a point that Jean Valjean had said: +"You are confessing me," had not, nevertheless, put to him two or three +decisive questions. + +It was not that they had not presented themselves to his mind, but that +he had been afraid of them. The Jondrette attic? The barricade? Javert? +Who knows where these revelations would have stopped? Jean Valjean did +not seem like a man who would draw back, and who knows whether Marius, +after having urged him on, would not have himself desired to hold him +back? + +Has it not happened to all of us, in certain supreme conjunctures, to +stop our ears in order that we may not hear the reply, after we have +asked a question? It is especially when one loves that one gives way +to these exhibitions of cowardice. It is not wise to question sinister +situations to the last point, particularly when the indissoluble side of +our life is fatally intermingled with them. What a terrible light might +have proceeded from the despairing explanations of Jean Valjean, and who +knows whether that hideous glare would not have darted forth as far +as Cosette? Who knows whether a sort of infernal glow would not have +lingered behind it on the brow of that angel? The spattering of a +lightning-flash is of the thunder also. Fatality has points of juncture +where innocence itself is stamped with crime by the gloomy law of the +reflections which give color. The purest figures may forever preserve +the reflection of a horrible association. Rightly or wrongly, Marius +had been afraid. He already knew too much. He sought to dull his senses +rather than to gain further light. + +In dismay he bore off Cosette in his arms and shut his eyes to Jean +Valjean. + +That man was the night, the living and horrible night. How should he +dare to seek the bottom of it? It is a terrible thing to interrogate +the shadow. Who knows what its reply will be? The dawn may be blackened +forever by it. + +In this state of mind the thought that that man would, henceforth, come +into any contact whatever with Cosette was a heartrending perplexity to +Marius. + +He now almost reproached himself for not having put those formidable +questions, before which he had recoiled, and from which an implacable +and definitive decision might have sprung. He felt that he was too good, +too gentle, too weak, if we must say the word. This weakness had led him +to an imprudent concession. He had allowed himself to be touched. He +had been in the wrong. He ought to have simply and purely rejected +Jean Valjean. Jean Valjean played the part of fire, and that is what he +should have done, and have freed his house from that man. + +He was vexed with himself, he was angry with that whirlwind of emotions +which had deafened, blinded, and carried him away. He was displeased +with himself. + +What was he to do now? Jean Valjean's visits were profoundly repugnant +to him. What was the use in having that man in his house? What did the +man want? Here, he became dismayed, he did not wish to dig down, he did +not wish to penetrate deeply; he did not wish to sound himself. He +had promised, he had allowed himself to be drawn into a promise; Jean +Valjean held his promise; one must keep one's word even to a convict, +above all to a convict. Still, his first duty was to Cosette. In short, +he was carried away by the repugnance which dominated him. + +Marius turned over all this confusion of ideas in his mind, passing +from one to the other, and moved by all of them. Hence arose a profound +trouble. + +It was not easy for him to hide this trouble from Cosette, but love is a +talent, and Marius succeeded in doing it. + +However, without any apparent object, he questioned Cosette, who was as +candid as a dove is white and who suspected nothing; he talked of her +childhood and her youth, and he became more and more convinced that that +convict had been everything good, paternal and respectable that a man +can be towards Cosette. All that Marius had caught a glimpse of and had +surmised was real. That sinister nettle had loved and protected that +lily. + + + + +BOOK EIGHTH.--FADING AWAY OF THE TWILIGHT + +[Illustration: The Twilight Decline 5b8-1-decline] + + + + +CHAPTER I--THE LOWER CHAMBER + +On the following day, at nightfall, Jean Valjean knocked at the carriage +gate of the Gillenormand house. It was Basque who received him. Basque +was in the courtyard at the appointed hour, as though he had received +his orders. It sometimes happens that one says to a servant: "You will +watch for Mr. So and So, when he arrives." + +Basque addressed Jean Valjean without waiting for the latter to approach +him: + +"Monsieur le Baron has charged me to inquire whether monsieur desires to +go upstairs or to remain below?" + +"I will remain below," replied Jean Valjean. + +Basque, who was perfectly respectful, opened the door of the +waiting-room and said: + +"I will go and inform Madame." + +The room which Jean Valjean entered was a damp, vaulted room on the +ground floor, which served as a cellar on occasion, which opened on the +street, was paved with red squares and was badly lighted by a grated +window. + +This chamber was not one of those which are harassed by the +feather-duster, the pope's head brush, and the broom. The dust rested +tranquilly there. Persecution of the spiders was not organized there. A +fine web, which spread far and wide, and was very black and ornamented +with dead flies, formed a wheel on one of the window-panes. The room, +which was small and low-ceiled, was furnished with a heap of empty +bottles piled up in one corner. + +The wall, which was daubed with an ochre yellow wash, was scaling off in +large flakes. At one end there was a chimney-piece painted in black +with a narrow shelf. A fire was burning there; which indicated that Jean +Valjean's reply: "I will remain below," had been foreseen. + +Two arm-chairs were placed at the two corners of the fireplace. Between +the chairs an old bedside rug, which displayed more foundation thread +than wool, had been spread by way of a carpet. + +The chamber was lighted by the fire on the hearth and the twilight +falling through the window. + +Jean Valjean was fatigued. For days he had neither eaten nor slept. He +threw himself into one of the arm-chairs. + +Basque returned, set a lighted candle on the chimney-piece and retired. +Jean Valjean, his head drooping and his chin resting on his breast, +perceived neither Basque nor the candle. + +All at once, he drew himself up with a start. Cosette was standing +beside him. + +He had not seen her enter, but he had felt that she was there. + +He turned round. He gazed at her. She was adorably lovely. But what he +was contemplating with that profound gaze was not her beauty but her +soul. + +"Well," exclaimed Cosette, "father, I knew that you were peculiar, but +I never should have expected this. What an idea! Marius told me that you +wish me to receive you here." + +"Yes, it is my wish." + +"I expected that reply. Good. I warn you that I am going to make a scene +for you. Let us begin at the beginning. Embrace me, father." + +And she offered him her cheek. + +Jean Valjean remained motionless. + +"You do not stir. I take note of it. Attitude of guilt. But never mind, +I pardon you. Jesus Christ said: Offer the other cheek. Here it is." + +And she presented her other cheek. + +Jean Valjean did not move. It seemed as though his feet were nailed to +the pavement. + +"This is becoming serious," said Cosette. "What have I done to you? I +declare that I am perplexed. You owe me reparation. You will dine with +us." + +"I have dined." + +"That is not true. I will get M. Gillenormand to scold you. Grandfathers +are made to reprimand fathers. Come. Go upstairs with me to the +drawing-room. Immediately." + +"Impossible." + +Here Cosette lost ground a little. She ceased to command and passed to +questioning. + +"But why? and you choose the ugliest chamber in the house in which to +see me. It's horrible here." + +"Thou knowest . . ." + +Jean Valjean caught himself up. + +"You know, madame, that I am peculiar, I have my freaks." + +Cosette struck her tiny hands together. + +"Madame! . . . You know! . . . more novelties! What is the meaning of +this?" + +Jean Valjean directed upon her that heartrending smile to which he +occasionally had recourse: + +"You wished to be Madame. You are so." + +"Not for you, father." + +"Do not call me father." + +"What?" + +"Call me 'Monsieur Jean.' 'Jean,' if you like." + +"You are no longer my father? I am no longer Cosette? 'Monsieur Jean'? +What does this mean? why, these are revolutions, aren't they? what has +taken place? come, look me in the face. And you won't live with us! +And you won't have my chamber! What have I done to you? Has anything +happened?" + +"Nothing." + +"Well then?" + +"Everything is as usual." + +"Why do you change your name?" + +"You have changed yours, surely." + +He smiled again with the same smile as before and added: + +"Since you are Madame Pontmercy, I certainly can be Monsieur Jean." + +"I don't understand anything about it. All this is idiotic. I shall ask +permission of my husband for you to be 'Monsieur Jean.' I hope that he +will not consent to it. You cause me a great deal of pain. One does +have freaks, but one does not cause one's little Cosette grief. That is +wrong. You have no right to be wicked, you who are so good." + +He made no reply. + +She seized his hands with vivacity, and raising them to her face with +an irresistible movement, she pressed them against her neck beneath her +chin, which is a gesture of profound tenderness. + +"Oh!" she said to him, "be good!" + +And she went on: + +"This is what I call being good: being nice and coming and living +here,--there are birds here as there are in the Rue Plumet,--living with +us, quitting that hole of a Rue de l'Homme Arme, not giving us riddles +to guess, being like all the rest of the world, dining with us, +breakfasting with us, being my father." + +He loosed her hands. + +"You no longer need a father, you have a husband." + +Cosette became angry. + +"I no longer need a father! One really does not know what to say to +things like that, which are not common sense!" + +"If Toussaint were here," resumed Jean Valjean, like a person who is +driven to seek authorities, and who clutches at every branch, "she would +be the first to agree that it is true that I have always had ways of my +own. There is nothing new in this. I always have loved my black corner." + +"But it is cold here. One cannot see distinctly. It is abominable, that +it is, to wish to be Monsieur Jean! I will not have you say 'you' to me. + +"Just now, as I was coming hither," replied Jean Valjean, "I saw a piece +of furniture in the Rue Saint Louis. It was at a cabinet-maker's. If I +were a pretty woman, I would treat myself to that bit of furniture. A +very neat toilet table in the reigning style. What you call rosewood, I +think. It is inlaid. The mirror is quite large. There are drawers. It is +pretty." + +"Hou! the villainous bear!" replied Cosette. + +And with supreme grace, setting her teeth and drawing back her lips, she +blew at Jean Valjean. She was a Grace copying a cat. + +"I am furious," she resumed. "Ever since yesterday, you have made me +rage, all of you. I am greatly vexed. I don't understand. You do not +defend me against Marius. Marius will not uphold me against you. I am +all alone. I arrange a chamber prettily. If I could have put the good +God there I would have done it. My chamber is left on my hands. My +lodger sends me into bankruptcy. I order a nice little dinner of +Nicolette. We will have nothing to do with your dinner, Madame. And my +father Fauchelevent wants me to call him 'Monsieur Jean,' and to receive +him in a frightful, old, ugly cellar, where the walls have beards, and +where the crystal consists of empty bottles, and the curtains are of +spiders' webs! You are singular, I admit, that is your style, but people +who get married are granted a truce. You ought not to have begun being +singular again instantly. So you are going to be perfectly contented in +your abominable Rue de l'Homme Arme. I was very desperate indeed there, +that I was. What have you against me? You cause me a great deal of +grief. Fi!" + +And, becoming suddenly serious, she gazed intently at Jean Valjean and +added: + +"Are you angry with me because I am happy?" + +Ingenuousness sometimes unconsciously penetrates deep. This question, +which was simple for Cosette, was profound for Jean Valjean. Cosette had +meant to scratch, and she lacerated. + +Jean Valjean turned pale. + +He remained for a moment without replying, then, with an inexpressible +intonation, and speaking to himself, he murmured: + +"Her happiness was the object of my life. Now God may sign my dismissal. +Cosette, thou art happy; my day is over." + +"Ah, you have said thou to me!" exclaimed Cosette. + +And she sprang to his neck. + +Jean Valjean, in bewilderment, strained her wildly to his breast. It +almost seemed to him as though he were taking her back. + +"Thanks, father!" said Cosette. + +This enthusiastic impulse was on the point of becoming poignant for Jean +Valjean. He gently removed Cosette's arms, and took his hat. + +"Well?" said Cosette. + +"I leave you, Madame, they are waiting for you." + +And, from the threshold, he added: + +"I have said thou to you. Tell your husband that this shall not happen +again. Pardon me." + +Jean Valjean quitted the room, leaving Cosette stupefied at this +enigmatical farewell. + + + + +CHAPTER II--ANOTHER STEP BACKWARDS + +On the following day, at the same hour, Jean Valjean came. + +Cosette asked him no questions, was no longer astonished, no longer +exclaimed that she was cold, no longer spoke of the drawing-room, she +avoided saying either "father" or "Monsieur Jean." She allowed herself +to be addressed as you. She allowed herself to be called Madame. Only, +her joy had undergone a certain diminution. She would have been sad, if +sadness had been possible to her. + +It is probable that she had had with Marius one of those conversations +in which the beloved man says what he pleases, explains nothing, and +satisfies the beloved woman. The curiosity of lovers does not extend +very far beyond their own love. + +The lower room had made a little toilet. Basque had suppressed the +bottles, and Nicolette the spiders. + +All the days which followed brought Jean Valjean at the same hour. He +came every day, because he had not the strength to take Marius' words +otherwise than literally. Marius arranged matters so as to be absent at +the hours when Jean Valjean came. The house grew accustomed to the novel +ways of M. Fauchelevent. Toussaint helped in this direction: "Monsieur +has always been like that," she repeated. The grandfather issued this +decree:--"He's an original." And all was said. Moreover, at the age of +ninety-six, no bond is any longer possible, all is merely juxtaposition; +a newcomer is in the way. There is no longer any room; all habits are +acquired. M. Fauchelevent, M. Tranchelevent, Father Gillenormand +asked nothing better than to be relieved from "that gentleman." He +added:--"Nothing is more common than those originals. They do all sorts +of queer things. They have no reason. The Marquis de Canaples was still +worse. He bought a palace that he might lodge in the garret. These are +fantastic appearances that people affect." + +No one caught a glimpse of the sinister foundation. And moreover, who +could have guessed such a thing? There are marshes of this description +in India. The water seems extraordinary, inexplicable, rippling though +there is no wind, and agitated where it should be calm. One gazes at the +surface of these causeless ebullitions; one does not perceive the hydra +which crawls on the bottom. + +Many men have a secret monster in this same manner, a dragon which gnaws +them, a despair which inhabits their night. Such a man resembles +other men, he goes and comes. No one knows that he bears within him a +frightful parasitic pain with a thousand teeth, which lives within the +unhappy man, and of which he is dying. No one knows that this man is a +gulf. He is stagnant but deep. From time to time, a trouble of which +the onlooker understands nothing appears on his surface. A mysterious +wrinkle is formed, then vanishes, then re-appears; an air-bubble rises +and bursts. It is the breathing of the unknown beast. + +Certain strange habits: arriving at the hour when other people are +taking their leave, keeping in the background when other people +are displaying themselves, preserving on all occasions what may be +designated as the wall-colored mantle, seeking the solitary walk, +preferring the deserted street, avoiding any share in conversation, +avoiding crowds and festivals, seeming at one's ease and living poorly, +having one's key in one's pocket, and one's candle at the porter's +lodge, however rich one may be, entering by the side door, ascending +the private staircase,--all these insignificant singularities, fugitive +folds on the surface, often proceed from a formidable foundation. + +Many weeks passed in this manner. A new life gradually took possession +of Cosette: the relations which marriage creates, visits, the care +of the house, pleasures, great matters. Cosette's pleasures were not +costly, they consisted in one thing: being with Marius. The great +occupation of her life was to go out with him, to remain with him. It +was for them a joy that was always fresh, to go out arm in arm, in the +face of the sun, in the open street, without hiding themselves, before +the whole world, both of them completely alone. + +Cosette had one vexation. Toussaint could not get on with Nicolette, the +soldering of two elderly maids being impossible, and she went away. +The grandfather was well; Marius argued a case here and there; Aunt +Gillenormand peacefully led that life aside which sufficed for her, +beside the new household. Jean Valjean came every day. + +The address as thou disappeared, the you, the "Madame," the "Monsieur +Jean," rendered him another person to Cosette. The care which he had +himself taken to detach her from him was succeeding. She became more and +more gay and less and less tender. Yet she still loved him sincerely, +and he felt it. + +One day she said to him suddenly: "You used to be my father, you are +no longer my father, you were my uncle, you are no longer my uncle, you +were Monsieur Fauchelevent, you are Jean. Who are you then? I don't +like all this. If I did not know how good you are, I should be afraid of +you." + +He still lived in the Rue de l'Homme Arme, because he could not make up +his mind to remove to a distance from the quarter where Cosette dwelt. + +At first, he only remained a few minutes with Cosette, and then went +away. + +Little by little he acquired the habit of making his visits less brief. +One would have said that he was taking advantage of the authorization of +the days which were lengthening, he arrived earlier and departed later. + +One day Cosette chanced to say "father" to him. A flash of joy +illuminated Jean Valjean's melancholy old countenance. He caught her +up: "Say Jean."--"Ah! truly," she replied with a burst of laughter, +"Monsieur Jean."--"That is right," said he. And he turned aside so that +she might not see him wipe his eyes. + + + + +CHAPTER III--THEY RECALL THE GARDEN OF THE RUE PLUMET + +This was the last time. After that last flash of light, complete +extinction ensued. No more familiarity, no more good-morning with a +kiss, never more that word so profoundly sweet: "My father!" He was at +his own request and through his own complicity driven out of all his +happinesses one after the other; and he had this sorrow, that after +having lost Cosette wholly in one day, he was afterwards obliged to lose +her again in detail. + +The eye eventually becomes accustomed to the light of a cellar. In +short, it sufficed for him to have an apparition of Cosette every day. +His whole life was concentrated in that one hour. + +He seated himself close to her, he gazed at her in silence, or he talked +to her of years gone by, of her childhood, of the convent, of her little +friends of those bygone days. + +One afternoon,--it was on one of those early days in April, already +warm and fresh, the moment of the sun's great gayety, the gardens which +surrounded the windows of Marius and Cosette felt the emotion of waking, +the hawthorn was on the point of budding, a jewelled garniture of +gillyflowers spread over the ancient walls, snapdragons yawned through +the crevices of the stones, amid the grass there was a charming +beginning of daisies, and buttercups, the white butterflies of the +year were making their first appearance, the wind, that minstrel of the +eternal wedding, was trying in the trees the first notes of that grand, +auroral symphony which the old poets called the springtide,--Marius said +to Cosette:--"We said that we would go back to take a look at our garden +in the Rue Plumet. Let us go thither. We must not be ungrateful."--And +away they flitted, like two swallows towards the spring. This garden of +the Rue Plumet produced on them the effect of the dawn. They already +had behind them in life something which was like the springtime of their +love. The house in the Rue Plumet being held on a lease, still belonged +to Cosette. They went to that garden and that house. There they +found themselves again, there they forgot themselves. That +evening, at the usual hour, Jean Valjean came to the Rue des +Filles-du-Calvaire.--"Madame went out with Monsieur and has not yet +returned," Basque said to him. He seated himself in silence, and waited +an hour. Cosette did not return. He departed with drooping head. + +Cosette was so intoxicated with her walk to "their garden," and so +joyous at having "lived a whole day in her past," that she talked of +nothing else on the morrow. She did not notice that she had not seen +Jean Valjean. + +"In what way did you go thither?" Jean Valjean asked her." + +"On foot." + +"And how did you return?" + +"In a hackney carriage." + +For some time, Jean Valjean had noticed the economical life led by the +young people. He was troubled by it. Marius' economy was severe, and +that word had its absolute meaning for Jean Valjean. He hazarded a +query: + +"Why do you not have a carriage of your own? A pretty coupe would only +cost you five hundred francs a month. You are rich." + +"I don't know," replied Cosette. + +"It is like Toussaint," resumed Jean Valjean. "She is gone. You have not +replaced her. Why?" + +"Nicolette suffices." + +"But you ought to have a maid." + +"Have I not Marius?" + +"You ought to have a house of your own, your own servants, a carriage, a +box at the theatre. There is nothing too fine for you. Why not profit by +your riches? Wealth adds to happiness." + +Cosette made no reply. + +Jean Valjean's visits were not abridged. Far from it. When it is the +heart which is slipping, one does not halt on the downward slope. + +When Jean Valjean wished to prolong his visit and to induce +forgetfulness of the hour, he sang the praises of Marius; he pronounced +him handsome, noble, courageous, witty, eloquent, good. Cosette outdid +him. Jean Valjean began again. They were never weary. Marius--that word +was inexhaustible; those six letters contained volumes. In this manner, +Jean Valjean contrived to remain a long time. + +It was so sweet to see Cosette, to forget by her side! It alleviated his +wounds. It frequently happened that Basque came twice to announce: +"M. Gillenormand sends me to remind Madame la Baronne that dinner is +served." + +On those days, Jean Valjean was very thoughtful on his return home. + +Was there, then, any truth in that comparison of the chrysalis which +had presented itself to the mind of Marius? Was Jean Valjean really a +chrysalis who would persist, and who would come to visit his butterfly? + +One day he remained still longer than usual. On the following day he +observed that there was no fire on the hearth.--"Hello!" he thought. "No +fire."--And he furnished the explanation for himself.--"It is perfectly +simple. It is April. The cold weather has ceased." + +"Heavens! how cold it is here!" exclaimed Cosette when she entered. + +"Why, no," said Jean Valjean. + +"Was it you who told Basque not to make a fire then?" + +"Yes, since we are now in the month of May." + +"But we have a fire until June. One is needed all the year in this +cellar." + +"I thought that a fire was unnecessary." + +"That is exactly like one of your ideas!" retorted Cosette. + +On the following day there was a fire. But the two arm-chairs were +arranged at the other end of the room near the door. "--What is the +meaning of this?" thought Jean Valjean. + +He went for the arm-chairs and restored them to their ordinary place +near the hearth. + +This fire lighted once more encouraged him, however. He prolonged the +conversation even beyond its customary limits. As he rose to take his +leave, Cosette said to him: + +"My husband said a queer thing to me yesterday." + +"What was it?" + +"He said to me: 'Cosette, we have an income of thirty thousand livres. +Twenty-seven that you own, and three that my grandfather gives me.' I +replied: 'That makes thirty.' He went on: 'Would you have the courage to +live on the three thousand?' I answered: 'Yes, on nothing. Provided +that it was with you.' And then I asked: 'Why do you say that to me?' He +replied: 'I wanted to know.'" + +Jean Valjean found not a word to answer. Cosette probably expected some +explanation from him; he listened in gloomy silence. He went back to the +Rue de l'Homme Arme; he was so deeply absorbed that he mistook the +door and instead of entering his own house, he entered the adjoining +dwelling. It was only after having ascended nearly two stories that he +perceived his error and went down again. + +His mind was swarming with conjectures. It was evident that Marius had +his doubts as to the origin of the six hundred thousand francs, that +he feared some source that was not pure, who knows? that he had even, +perhaps, discovered that the money came from him, Jean Valjean, that he +hesitated before this suspicious fortune, and was disinclined to take +it as his own,--preferring that both he and Cosette should remain poor, +rather than that they should be rich with wealth that was not clean. + +Moreover, Jean Valjean began vaguely to surmise that he was being shown +the door. + +On the following day, he underwent something like a shock on entering +the ground-floor room. The arm-chairs had disappeared. There was not a +single chair of any sort. + +"Ah, what's this!" exclaimed Cosette as she entered, "no chairs! Where +are the arm-chairs?" + +"They are no longer here," replied Jean Valjean. + +"This is too much!" + +Jean Valjean stammered: + +"It was I who told Basque to remove them." + +"And your reason?" + +"I have only a few minutes to stay to-day." + +"A brief stay is no reason for remaining standing." + +"I think that Basque needed the chairs for the drawing-room." + +"Why?" + +"You have company this evening, no doubt." + +"We expect no one." + +Jean Valjean had not another word to say. + +Cosette shrugged her shoulders. + +"To have the chairs carried off! The other day you had the fire put out. +How odd you are!" + +"Adieu!" murmured Jean Valjean. + +He did not say: "Adieu, Cosette." But he had not the strength to say: +"Adieu, Madame." + +He went away utterly overwhelmed. + +This time he had understood. + +On the following day he did not come. Cosette only observed the fact in +the evening. + +"Why," said she, "Monsieur Jean has not been here today." + +And she felt a slight twinge at her heart, but she hardly perceived it, +being immediately diverted by a kiss from Marius. + +On the following day he did not come. + +Cosette paid no heed to this, passed her evening and slept well that +night, as usual, and thought of it only when she woke. She was so happy! +She speedily despatched Nicolette to M. Jean's house to inquire whether +he were ill, and why he had not come on the previous evening. Nicolette +brought back the reply of M. Jean that he was not ill. He was busy. He +would come soon. As soon as he was able. Moreover, he was on the point +of taking a little journey. Madame must remember that it was his custom +to take trips from time to time. They were not to worry about him. They +were not to think of him. + +Nicolette on entering M. Jean's had repeated to him her mistress' very +words. That Madame had sent her to inquire why M. Jean bad not come on +the preceding evening."--It is two days since I have been there," said +Jean Valjean gently. + +But the remark passed unnoticed by Nicolette, who did not report it to +Cosette. + + + + +CHAPTER IV--ATTRACTION AND EXTINCTION + +During the last months of spring and the first months of summer in 1833, +the rare passersby in the Marais, the petty shopkeepers, the loungers on +thresholds, noticed an old man neatly clad in black, who emerged every +day at the same hour, towards nightfall, from the Rue de l'Homme Arme, +on the side of the Rue Sainte-Croix-de-la-Bretonnerie, passed in front +of the Blancs Manteaux, gained the Rue Culture-Sainte-Catherine, and, +on arriving at the Rue de l'Echarpe, turned to the left, and entered the +Rue Saint-Louis. + +There he walked at a slow pace, with his head strained forward, seeing +nothing, hearing nothing, his eye immovably fixed on a point which +seemed to be a star to him, which never varied, and which was no +other than the corner of the Rue des Filles-du-Calvaire. The nearer he +approached the corner of the street the more his eye lighted up; a sort +of joy illuminated his pupils like an inward aurora, he had a fascinated +and much affected air, his lips indulged in obscure movements, as though +he were talking to some one whom he did not see, he smiled vaguely and +advanced as slowly as possible. One would have said that, while desirous +of reaching his destination, he feared the moment when he should be +close at hand. When only a few houses remained between him and that +street which appeared to attract him his pace slackened, to such a +degree that, at times, one might have thought that he was no longer +advancing at all. The vacillation of his head and the fixity of his +eyeballs suggested the thought of the magnetic needle seeking the pole. +Whatever time he spent on arriving, he was obliged to arrive at last; he +reached the Rue des Filles-du-Calvaire; then he halted, he trembled, he +thrust his head with a sort of melancholy timidity round the corner of +the last house, and gazed into that street, and there was in that tragic +look something which resembled the dazzling light of the impossible, +and the reflection from a paradise that was closed to him. Then a tear, +which had slowly gathered in the corner of his lids, and had become +large enough to fall, trickled down his cheek, and sometimes stopped at +his mouth. The old man tasted its bitter flavor. Thus he remained for +several minutes as though made of stone, then he returned by the same +road and with the same step, and, in proportion as he retreated, his +glance died out. + +Little by little, this old man ceased to go as far as the corner of the +Rue des Filles-du-Calvaire; he halted half way in the Rue Saint-Louis; +sometimes a little further off, sometimes a little nearer. + +One day he stopped at the corner of the Rue Culture-Sainte-Catherine and +looked at the Rue des Filles-du-Calvaire from a distance. Then he +shook his head slowly from right to left, as though refusing himself +something, and retraced his steps. + +Soon he no longer came as far as the Rue Saint-Louis. He got as far as +the Rue Pavee, shook his head and turned back; then he went no +further than the Rue des Trois-Pavillons; then he did not overstep the +Blancs-Manteaux. One would have said that he was a pendulum which was +no longer wound up, and whose oscillations were growing shorter before +ceasing altogether. + +Every day he emerged from his house at the same hour, he undertook the +same trip, but he no longer completed it, and, perhaps without +himself being aware of the fact, he constantly shortened it. His whole +countenance expressed this single idea: What is the use?--His eye was +dim; no more radiance. His tears were also exhausted; they no longer +collected in the corner of his eye-lid; that thoughtful eye was dry. The +old man's head was still craned forward; his chin moved at times; the +folds in his gaunt neck were painful to behold. Sometimes, when the +weather was bad, he had an umbrella under his arm, but he never opened +it. + +The good women of the quarter said: "He is an innocent." The children +followed him and laughed. + + + + +BOOK NINTH.--SUPREME SHADOW, SUPREME DAWN + + + + +CHAPTER I--PITY FOR THE UNHAPPY, BUT INDULGENCE FOR THE HAPPY + +It is a terrible thing to be happy! How content one is! How +all-sufficient one finds it! How, being in possession of the false +object of life, happiness, one forgets the true object, duty! + +Let us say, however, that the reader would do wrong were he to blame +Marius. + +Marius, as we have explained, before his marriage, had put no questions +to M. Fauchelevent, and, since that time, he had feared to put any to +Jean Valjean. He had regretted the promise into which he had allowed +himself to be drawn. He had often said to himself that he had done +wrong in making that concession to despair. He had confined himself to +gradually estranging Jean Valjean from his house and to effacing him, +as much as possible, from Cosette's mind. He had, in a manner, always +placed himself between Cosette and Jean Valjean, sure that, in this +way, she would not perceive nor think of the latter. It was more than +effacement, it was an eclipse. + +Marius did what he considered necessary and just. He thought that he had +serious reasons which the reader has already seen, and others which will +be seen later on, for getting rid of Jean Valjean without harshness, but +without weakness. + +Chance having ordained that he should encounter, in a case which he had +argued, a former employee of the Laffitte establishment, he had acquired +mysterious information, without seeking it, which he had not been +able, it is true, to probe, out of respect for the secret which he had +promised to guard, and out of consideration for Jean Valjean's perilous +position. He believed at that moment that he had a grave duty to +perform: the restitution of the six hundred thousand francs to some +one whom he sought with all possible discretion. In the meanwhile, he +abstained from touching that money. + +As for Cosette, she had not been initiated into any of these secrets; +but it would be harsh to condemn her also. + +There existed between Marius and her an all-powerful magnetism, which +caused her to do, instinctively and almost mechanically, what Marius +wished. She was conscious of Marius' will in the direction of "Monsieur +Jean," she conformed to it. Her husband had not been obliged to say +anything to her; she yielded to the vague but clear pressure of his +tacit intentions, and obeyed blindly. Her obedience in this instance +consisted in not remembering what Marius forgot. She was not obliged to +make any effort to accomplish this. Without her knowing why herself, and +without his having any cause to accuse her of it, her soul had become +so wholly her husband's that that which was shrouded in gloom in Marius' +mind became overcast in hers. + +Let us not go too far, however; in what concerns Jean Valjean, this +forgetfulness and obliteration were merely superficial. She was rather +heedless than forgetful. At bottom, she was sincerely attached to the +man whom she had so long called her father; but she loved her husband +still more dearly. This was what had somewhat disturbed the balance of +her heart, which leaned to one side only. + +It sometimes happened that Cosette spoke of Jean Valjean and expressed +her surprise. Then Marius calmed her: "He is absent, I think. Did not +he say that he was setting out on a journey?"--"That is true," thought +Cosette. "He had a habit of disappearing in this fashion. But not for so +long." Two or three times she despatched Nicolette to inquire in the +Rue de l'Homme Arme whether M. Jean had returned from his journey. Jean +Valjean caused the answer "no" to be given. + +Cosette asked nothing more, since she had but one need on earth, Marius. + +Let us also say that, on their side, Cosette and Marius had also +been absent. They had been to Vernon. Marius had taken Cosette to his +father's grave. + +Marius gradually won Cosette away from Jean Valjean. Cosette allowed it. + +Moreover that which is called, far too harshly in certain cases, the +ingratitude of children, is not always a thing so deserving of reproach +as it is supposed. It is the ingratitude of nature. Nature, as we have +elsewhere said, "looks before her." Nature divides living beings into +those who are arriving and those who are departing. Those who are +departing are turned towards the shadows, those who are arriving towards +the light. Hence a gulf which is fatal on the part of the old, and +involuntary on the part of the young. This breach, at first insensible, +increases slowly, like all separations of branches. The boughs, without +becoming detached from the trunk, grow away from it. It is no fault of +theirs. Youth goes where there is joy, festivals, vivid lights, love. +Old age goes towards the end. They do not lose sight of each other, but +there is no longer a close connection. Young people feel the cooling +off of life; old people, that of the tomb. Let us not blame these poor +children. + + + + +CHAPTER II--LAST FLICKERINGS OF A LAMP WITHOUT OIL + +One day, Jean Valjean descended his staircase, took three steps in the +street, seated himself on a post, on that same stone post where Gavroche +had found him meditating on the night between the 5th and the 6th of +June; he remained there a few moments, then went up stairs again. This +was the last oscillation of the pendulum. On the following day he did +not leave his apartment. On the day after that, he did not leave his +bed. + +His portress, who prepared his scanty repasts, a few cabbages or +potatoes with bacon, glanced at the brown earthenware plate and +exclaimed: + +"But you ate nothing yesterday, poor, dear man!" + +"Certainly I did," replied Jean Valjean. + +"The plate is quite full." + +"Look at the water jug. It is empty." + +"That proves that you have drunk; it does not prove that you have +eaten." + +"Well," said Jean Valjean, "what if I felt hungry only for water?" + +"That is called thirst, and, when one does not eat at the same time, it +is called fever." + +"I will eat to-morrow." + +"Or at Trinity day. Why not to-day? Is it the thing to say: 'I will eat +to-morrow'? The idea of leaving my platter without even touching it! My +ladyfinger potatoes were so good!" + +Jean Valjean took the old woman's hand: + +"I promise you that I will eat them," he said, in his benevolent voice. + +"I am not pleased with you," replied the portress. + +Jean Valjean saw no other human creature than this good woman. There are +streets in Paris through which no one ever passes, and houses to which +no one ever comes. He was in one of those streets and one of those +houses. + +While he still went out, he had purchased of a coppersmith, for a few +sous, a little copper crucifix which he had hung up on a nail opposite +his bed. That gibbet is always good to look at. + +A week passed, and Jean Valjean had not taken a step in his room. He +still remained in bed. The portress said to her husband:--"The good man +upstairs yonder does not get up, he no longer eats, he will not last +long. That man has his sorrows, that he has. You won't get it out of my +head that his daughter has made a bad marriage." + +The porter replied, with the tone of marital sovereignty: + +"If he's rich, let him have a doctor. If he is not rich, let him go +without. If he has no doctor he will die." + +"And if he has one?" + +"He will die," said the porter. + +The portress set to scraping away the grass from what she called her +pavement, with an old knife, and, as she tore out the blades, she +grumbled: + +"It's a shame. Such a neat old man! He's as white as a chicken." + +She caught sight of the doctor of the quarter as he passed the end of +the street; she took it upon herself to request him to come up stairs. + +"It's on the second floor," said she. "You have only to enter. As the +good man no longer stirs from his bed, the door is always unlocked." + +The doctor saw Jean Valjean and spoke with him. + +When he came down again the portress interrogated him: + +"Well, doctor?" + +"Your sick man is very ill indeed." + +"What is the matter with him?" + +"Everything and nothing. He is a man who, to all appearances, has lost +some person who is dear to him. People die of that." + +"What did he say to you?" + +"He told me that he was in good health." + +"Shall you come again, doctor?" + +"Yes," replied the doctor. "But some one else besides must come." + + + + +CHAPTER III--A PEN IS HEAVY TO THE MAN WHO LIFTED THE FAUCHELEVENT'S +CART + +One evening Jean Valjean found difficulty in raising himself on his +elbow; he felt of his wrist and could not find his pulse; his breath +was short and halted at times; he recognized the fact that he was weaker +than he had ever been before. Then, no doubt under the pressure of some +supreme preoccupation, he made an effort, drew himself up into a sitting +posture and dressed himself. He put on his old workingman's clothes. As +he no longer went out, he had returned to them and preferred them. He +was obliged to pause many times while dressing himself; merely putting +his arms through his waistcoat made the perspiration trickle from his +forehead. + +Since he had been alone, he had placed his bed in the antechamber, in +order to inhabit that deserted apartment as little as possible. + +He opened the valise and drew from it Cosette's outfit. + +He spread it out on his bed. + +The Bishop's candlesticks were in their place on the chimney-piece. He +took from a drawer two wax candles and put them in the candlesticks. +Then, although it was still broad daylight,--it was summer,--he lighted +them. In the same way candles are to be seen lighted in broad daylight +in chambers where there is a corpse. + +Every step that he took in going from one piece of furniture to another +exhausted him, and he was obliged to sit down. It was not ordinary +fatigue which expends the strength only to renew it; it was the remnant +of all movement possible to him, it was life drained which flows away +drop by drop in overwhelming efforts and which will never be renewed. + +The chair into which he allowed himself to fall was placed in front of +that mirror, so fatal for him, so providential for Marius, in which +he had read Cosette's reversed writing on the blotting book. He caught +sight of himself in this mirror, and did not recognize himself. He was +eighty years old; before Marius' marriage, he would have hardly been +taken for fifty; that year had counted for thirty. What he bore on his +brow was no longer the wrinkles of age, it was the mysterious mark of +death. The hollowing of that pitiless nail could be felt there. His +cheeks were pendulous; the skin of his face had the color which would +lead one to think that it already had earth upon it; the corners of his +mouth drooped as in the mask which the ancients sculptured on tombs. He +gazed into space with an air of reproach; one would have said that he +was one of those grand tragic beings who have cause to complain of some +one. + +He was in that condition, the last phase of dejection, in which sorrow +no longer flows; it is coagulated, so to speak; there is something on +the soul like a clot of despair. + +Night had come. He laboriously dragged a table and the old arm-chair to +the fireside, and placed upon the table a pen, some ink and some paper. + +That done, he had a fainting fit. When he recovered consciousness, he +was thirsty. As he could not lift the jug, he tipped it over painfully +towards his mouth, and swallowed a draught. + +As neither the pen nor the ink had been used for a long time, the point +of the pen had curled up, the ink had dried away, he was forced to rise +and put a few drops of water in the ink, which he did not accomplish +without pausing and sitting down two or three times, and he was +compelled to write with the back of the pen. He wiped his brow from time +to time. + +Then he turned towards the bed, and, still seated, for he could not +stand, he gazed at the little black gown and all those beloved objects. + +These contemplations lasted for hours which seemed minutes. + +All at once he shivered, he felt that a child was taking possession of +him; he rested his elbows on the table, which was illuminated by the +Bishop's candles and took up the pen. His hand trembled. He wrote slowly +the few following lines: + +"Cosette, I bless thee. I am going to explain to thee. Thy husband was +right in giving me to understand that I ought to go away; but there is +a little error in what he believed, though he was in the right. He is +excellent. Love him well even after I am dead. Monsieur Pontmercy, love +my darling child well. Cosette, this paper will be found; this is what +I wish to say to thee, thou wilt see the figures, if I have the strength +to recall them, listen well, this money is really thine. Here is the +whole matter: White jet comes from Norway, black jet comes from England, +black glass jewellery comes from Germany. Jet is the lightest, the most +precious, the most costly. Imitations can be made in France as well as +in Germany. What is needed is a little anvil two inches square, and a +lamp burning spirits of wine to soften the wax. The wax was formerly +made with resin and lampblack, and cost four livres the pound. I +invented a way of making it with gum shellac and turpentine. It does not +cost more than thirty sous, and is much better. Buckles are made with +a violet glass which is stuck fast, by means of this wax, to a little +framework of black iron. The glass must be violet for iron jewellery, +and black for gold jewellery. Spain buys a great deal of it. It is the +country of jet . . ." + +Here he paused, the pen fell from his fingers, he was seized by one of +those sobs which at times welled up from the very depths of his being; +the poor man clasped his head in both hands, and meditated. + +"Oh!" he exclaimed within himself [lamentable cries, heard by God +alone], "all is over. I shall never see her more. She is a smile which +passed over me. I am about to plunge into the night without even seeing +her again. Oh! one minute, one instant, to hear her voice, to touch her +dress, to gaze upon her, upon her, the angel! and then to die! It is +nothing to die, what is frightful is to die without seeing her. She +would smile on me, she would say a word to me, would that do any harm to +any one? No, all is over, and forever. Here I am all alone. My God! My +God! I shall never see her again!" At that moment there came a knock at +the door. + + + + +CHAPTER IV--A BOTTLE OF INK WHICH ONLY SUCCEEDED IN WHITENING + +That same day, or to speak more accurately, that same evening, as Marius +left the table, and was on the point of withdrawing to his study, having +a case to look over, Basque handed him a letter saying: "The person who +wrote the letter is in the antechamber." + +Cosette had taken the grandfather's arm and was strolling in the garden. + +A letter, like a man, may have an unprepossessing exterior. Coarse +paper, coarsely folded--the very sight of certain missives is +displeasing. + +The letter which Basque had brought was of this sort. + +Marius took it. It smelled of tobacco. Nothing evokes a memory like an +odor. Marius recognized that tobacco. He looked at the superscription: +"To Monsieur, Monsieur le Baron Pommerci. At his hotel." The recognition +of the tobacco caused him to recognize the writing as well. It may be +said that amazement has its lightning flashes. + +Marius was, as it were, illuminated by one of these flashes. + +The sense of smell, that mysterious aid to memory, had just revived a +whole world within him. This was certainly the paper, the fashion +of folding, the dull tint of ink; it was certainly the well-known +handwriting, especially was it the same tobacco. + +The Jondrette garret rose before his mind. + +Thus, strange freak of chance! one of the two scents which he had so +diligently sought, the one in connection with which he had lately again +exerted so many efforts and which he supposed to be forever lost, had +come and presented itself to him of its own accord. + +He eagerly broke the seal, and read: + + + "Monsieur le Baron:--If the Supreme Being had given me the talents, + I might have been baron Thenard, member of the Institute [academy + of ciences], but I am not. I only bear the same as him, happy if + this memory recommends me to the eccellence of your kindnesses. + The benefit with which you will honor me will be reciprocle. + I am in possession of a secret concerning an individual. + This individual concerns you. I hold the secret at your disposal + desiring to have the honor to be huseful to you. I will furnish + you with the simple means of driving from your honorabel family + that individual who has no right there, madame la baronne being + of lofty birth. The sanctuary of virtue cannot cohabit longer + with crime without abdicating. + + "I awate in the entichamber the orders of monsieur le baron. + + "With respect." + + +The letter was signed "Thenard." + +This signature was not false. It was merely a trifle abridged. + +Moreover, the rigmarole and the orthography completed the revelation. +The certificate of origin was complete. + +Marius' emotion was profound. After a start of surprise, he underwent a +feeling of happiness. If he could now but find that other man of whom he +was in search, the man who had saved him, Marius, there would be nothing +left for him to desire. + +He opened the drawer of his secretary, took out several bank-notes, +put them in his pocket, closed the secretary again, and rang the bell. +Basque half opened the door. + +"Show the man in," said Marius. + +Basque announced: + +"Monsieur Thenard." + +A man entered. + +A fresh surprise for Marius. The man who entered was an utter stranger +to him. + +This man, who was old, moreover, had a thick nose, his chin swathed in a +cravat, green spectacles with a double screen of green taffeta over his +eyes, and his hair was plastered and flattened down on his brow on +a level with his eyebrows like the wigs of English coachmen in "high +life." His hair was gray. He was dressed in black from head to foot, in +garments that were very threadbare but clean; a bunch of seals depending +from his fob suggested the idea of a watch. He held in his hand an old +hat! He walked in a bent attitude, and the curve in his spine augmented +the profundity of his bow. + +The first thing that struck the observer was, that this personage's +coat, which was too ample although carefully buttoned, had not been made +for him. + +Here a short digression becomes necessary. + +There was in Paris at that epoch, in a low-lived old lodging in the Rue +Beautreillis, near the Arsenal, an ingenious Jew whose profession was +to change villains into honest men. Not for too long, which might have +proved embarrassing for the villain. The change was on sight, for a day +or two, at the rate of thirty sous a day, by means of a costume which +resembled the honesty of the world in general as nearly as possible. +This costumer was called "the Changer"; the pickpockets of Paris +had given him this name and knew him by no other. He had a tolerably +complete wardrobe. The rags with which he tricked out people were almost +probable. He had specialties and categories; on each nail of his +shop hung a social status, threadbare and worn; here the suit of a +magistrate, there the outfit of a Cure, beyond the outfit of a banker, +in one corner the costume of a retired military man, elsewhere +the habiliments of a man of letters, and further on the dress of a +statesman. + +This creature was the costumer of the immense drama which knavery plays +in Paris. His lair was the green-room whence theft emerged, and into +which roguery retreated. A tattered knave arrived at this dressing-room, +deposited his thirty sous and selected, according to the part which +he wished to play, the costume which suited him, and on descending the +stairs once more, the knave was a somebody. On the following day, the +clothes were faithfully returned, and the Changer, who trusted the +thieves with everything, was never robbed. There was one inconvenience +about these clothes, they "did not fit"; not having been made for those +who wore them, they were too tight for one, too loose for another and +did not adjust themselves to any one. Every pickpocket who exceeded or +fell short of the human average was ill at his ease in the Changer's +costumes. It was necessary that one should not be either too fat or +too lean. The changer had foreseen only ordinary men. He had taken the +measure of the species from the first rascal who came to hand, who is +neither stout nor thin, neither tall nor short. Hence adaptations which +were sometimes difficult and from which the Changer's clients extricated +themselves as best they might. So much the worse for the exceptions! +The suit of the statesman, for instance, black from head to foot, and +consequently proper, would have been too large for Pitt and too small +for Castelcicala. The costume of a statesman was designated as follows +in the Changer's catalogue; we copy: + +"A coat of black cloth, trowsers of black wool, a silk waistcoat, boots +and linen." On the margin there stood: ex-ambassador, and a note +which we also copy: "In a separate box, a neatly frizzed peruke, green +glasses, seals, and two small quills an inch long, wrapped in cotton." +All this belonged to the statesman, the ex-ambassador. This whole +costume was, if we may so express ourselves, debilitated; the seams were +white, a vague button-hole yawned at one of the elbows; moreover, one of +the coat buttons was missing on the breast; but this was only detail; as +the hand of the statesman should always be thrust into his coat and laid +upon his heart, its function was to conceal the absent button. + +If Marius had been familiar with the occult institutions of Paris, he +would instantly have recognized upon the back of the visitor whom +Basque had just shown in, the statesman's suit borrowed from the +pick-me-down-that shop of the Changer. + +Marius' disappointment on beholding another man than the one whom he +expected to see turned to the newcomer's disadvantage. + +He surveyed him from head to foot, while that personage made exaggerated +bows, and demanded in a curt tone: + +"What do you want?" + +The man replied with an amiable grin of which the caressing smile of a +crocodile will furnish some idea: + +"It seems to me impossible that I should not have already had the honor +of seeing Monsieur le Baron in society. I think I actually did meet +monsieur personally, several years ago, at the house of Madame la +Princesse Bagration and in the drawing-rooms of his Lordship the Vicomte +Dambray, peer of France." + +It is always a good bit of tactics in knavery to pretend to recognize +some one whom one does not know. + +Marius paid attention to the manner of this man's speech. He spied +on his accent and gesture, but his disappointment increased; the +pronunciation was nasal and absolutely unlike the dry, shrill tone which +he had expected. + +He was utterly routed. + +"I know neither Madame Bagration nor M. Dambray," said he. "I have never +set foot in the house of either of them in my life." + +The reply was ungracious. The personage, determined to be gracious at +any cost, insisted. + +"Then it must have been at Chateaubriand's that I have seen Monsieur! I +know Chateaubriand very well. He is very affable. He sometimes says to +me: 'Thenard, my friend . . . won't you drink a glass of wine with me?'" + +Marius' brow grew more and more severe: + +"I have never had the honor of being received by M. de Chateaubriand. +Let us cut it short. What do you want?" + +The man bowed lower at that harsh voice. + +"Monsieur le Baron, deign to listen to me. There is in America, in a +district near Panama, a village called la Joya. That village is composed +of a single house, a large, square house of three stories, built of +bricks dried in the sun, each side of the square five hundred feet in +length, each story retreating twelve feet back of the story below, in +such a manner as to leave in front a terrace which makes the circuit +of the edifice, in the centre an inner court where the provisions and +munitions are kept; no windows, loopholes, no doors, ladders, ladders +to mount from the ground to the first terrace, and from the first to the +second, and from the second to the third, ladders to descend into the +inner court, no doors to the chambers, trap-doors, no staircases to the +chambers, ladders; in the evening the traps are closed, the ladders +are withdrawn carbines and blunderbusses trained from the loopholes; +no means of entering, a house by day, a citadel by night, eight hundred +inhabitants,--that is the village. Why so many precautions? because the +country is dangerous; it is full of cannibals. Then why do people go +there? because the country is marvellous; gold is found there." + +"What are you driving at?" interrupted Marius, who had passed from +disappointment to impatience. + +"At this, Monsieur le Baron. I am an old and weary diplomat. Ancient +civilization has thrown me on my own devices. I want to try savages." + +"Well?" + +"Monsieur le Baron, egotism is the law of the world. The proletarian +peasant woman, who toils by the day, turns round when the diligence +passes by, the peasant proprietress, who toils in her field, does not +turn round. The dog of the poor man barks at the rich man, the dog +of the rich man barks at the poor man. Each one for himself. +Self-interest--that's the object of men. Gold, that's the loadstone." + +"What then? Finish." + +"I should like to go and establish myself at la Joya. There are three +of us. I have my spouse and my young lady; a very beautiful girl. The +journey is long and costly. I need a little money." + +"What concern is that of mine?" demanded Marius. + +The stranger stretched his neck out of his cravat, a gesture +characteristic of the vulture, and replied with an augmented smile. + +"Has not Monsieur le Baron perused my letter?" + +There was some truth in this. The fact is, that the contents of the +epistle had slipped Marius' mind. He had seen the writing rather than +read the letter. He could hardly recall it. But a moment ago a fresh +start had been given him. He had noted that detail: "my spouse and my +young lady." + +He fixed a penetrating glance on the stranger. An examining judge could +not have done the look better. He almost lay in wait for him. + +He confined himself to replying: + +"State the case precisely." + +The stranger inserted his two hands in both his fobs, drew himself up +without straightening his dorsal column, but scrutinizing Marius in his +turn, with the green gaze of his spectacles. + +"So be it, Monsieur le Baron. I will be precise. I have a secret to sell +to you." + +"A secret?" + +"A secret." + +"Which concerns me?" + +"Somewhat." + +"What is the secret?" + +Marius scrutinized the man more and more as he listened to him. + +"I commence gratis," said the stranger. "You will see that I am +interesting." + +"Speak." + +"Monsieur le Baron, you have in your house a thief and an assassin." + +Marius shuddered. + +"In my house? no," said he. + +The imperturbable stranger brushed his hat with his elbow and went on: + +"An assassin and a thief. Remark, Monsieur le Baron, that I do not here +speak of ancient deeds, deeds of the past which have lapsed, which can +be effaced by limitation before the law and by repentance before God. +I speak of recent deeds, of actual facts as still unknown to justice +at this hour. I continue. This man has insinuated himself into your +confidence, and almost into your family under a false name. I am about +to tell you his real name. And to tell it to you for nothing." + +"I am listening." + +"His name is Jean Valjean." + +"I know it." + +"I am going to tell you, equally for nothing, who he is." + +"Say on." + +"He is an ex-convict." + +"I know it." + +"You know it since I have had the honor of telling you." + +"No. I knew it before." + +Marius' cold tone, that double reply of "I know it," his laconicism, +which was not favorable to dialogue, stirred up some smouldering wrath +in the stranger. He launched a furious glance on the sly at Marius, +which was instantly extinguished. Rapid as it was, this glance was of +the kind which a man recognizes when he has once beheld it; it did not +escape Marius. Certain flashes can only proceed from certain souls; +the eye, that vent-hole of the thought, glows with it; spectacles hide +nothing; try putting a pane of glass over hell! + +The stranger resumed with a smile: + +"I will not permit myself to contradict Monsieur le Baron. In any case, +you ought to perceive that I am well informed. Now what I have to tell +you is known to myself alone. This concerns the fortune of Madame la +Baronne. It is an extraordinary secret. It is for sale--I make you the +first offer of it. Cheap. Twenty thousand francs." + +"I know that secret as well as the others," said Marius. + +The personage felt the necessity of lowering his price a trifle. + +"Monsieur le Baron, say ten thousand francs and I will speak." + +"I repeat to you that there is nothing which you can tell me. I know +what you wish to say to me." + +A fresh flash gleamed in the man's eye. He exclaimed: + +"But I must dine to-day, nevertheless. It is an extraordinary secret, +I tell you. Monsieur le Baron, I will speak. I speak. Give me twenty +francs." + +Marius gazed intently at him: + +"I know your extraordinary secret, just as I knew Jean Valjean's name, +just as I know your name." + +"My name?" + +"Yes." + +"That is not difficult, Monsieur le Baron. I had the honor to write to +you and to tell it to you. Thenard." + +"--Dier." + +"Hey?" + +"Thenardier." + +"Who's that?" + +In danger the porcupine bristles up, the beetle feigns death, the old +guard forms in a square; this man burst into laughter. + +Then he flicked a grain of dust from the sleeve of his coat with a +fillip. + +Marius continued: + +"You are also Jondrette the workman, Fabantou the comedian, Genflot the +poet, Don Alvares the Spaniard, and Mistress Balizard." + +"Mistress what?" + +"And you kept a pot-house at Montfermeil." + +"A pot-house! Never." + +"And I tell you that your name is Thenardier." + +"I deny it." + +"And that you are a rascal. Here." + +And Marius drew a bank-note from his pocket and flung it in his face. + +"Thanks! Pardon me! five hundred francs! Monsieur le Baron!" + +And the man, overcome, bowed, seized the note and examined it. + +"Five hundred francs!" he began again, taken aback. And he stammered in +a low voice: "An honest rustler."[69] + +Then brusquely: + +"Well, so be it!" he exclaimed. "Let us put ourselves at our ease." + +And with the agility of a monkey, flinging back his hair, tearing off +his spectacles, and withdrawing from his nose by sleight of hand the two +quills of which mention was recently made, and which the reader has also +met with on another page of this book, he took off his face as the man +takes off his hat. + +His eye lighted up; his uneven brow, with hollows in some places and +bumps in others, hideously wrinkled at the top, was laid bare, his nose +had become as sharp as a beak; the fierce and sagacious profile of the +man of prey reappeared. + +"Monsieur le Baron is infallible," he said in a clear voice whence all +nasal twang had disappeared, "I am Thenardier." + +And he straightened up his crooked back. + +Thenardier, for it was really he, was strangely surprised; he would have +been troubled, had he been capable of such a thing. He had come to bring +astonishment, and it was he who had received it. This humiliation had +been worth five hundred francs to him, and, taking it all in all, he +accepted it; but he was none the less bewildered. + +He beheld this Baron Pontmercy for the first time, and, in spite of +his disguise, this Baron Pontmercy recognized him, and recognized +him thoroughly. And not only was this Baron perfectly informed as to +Thenardier, but he seemed well posted as to Jean Valjean. Who was this +almost beardless young man, who was so glacial and so generous, who knew +people's names, who knew all their names, and who opened his purse to +them, who bullied rascals like a judge, and who paid them like a dupe? + +Thenardier, the reader will remember, although he had been Marius' +neighbor, had never seen him, which is not unusual in Paris; he had +formerly, in a vague way, heard his daughters talk of a very poor young +man named Marius who lived in the house. He had written to him, without +knowing him, the letter with which the reader is acquainted. + +No connection between that Marius and M. le Baron Pontmercy was possible +in his mind. + +As for the name Pontmercy, it will be recalled that, on the battlefield +of Waterloo, he had only heard the last two syllables, for which he +always entertained the legitimate scorn which one owes to what is merely +an expression of thanks. + +However, through his daughter Azelma, who had started on the scent of +the married pair on the 16th of February, and through his own personal +researches, he had succeeded in learning many things, and, from the +depths of his own gloom, he had contrived to grasp more than one +mysterious clew. He had discovered, by dint of industry, or, at least, +by dint of induction, he had guessed who the man was whom he had +encountered on a certain day in the Grand Sewer. From the man he had +easily reached the name. He knew that Madame la Baronne Pontmercy was +Cosette. But he meant to be discreet in that quarter. + +Who was Cosette? He did not know exactly himself. He did, indeed, catch +an inkling of illegitimacy, the history of Fantine had always seemed to +him equivocal; but what was the use of talking about that? in order to +cause himself to be paid for his silence? He had, or thought he had, +better wares than that for sale. And, according to all appearances, if +he were to come and make to the Baron Pontmercy this revelation--and +without proof: "Your wife is a bastard," the only result would be to +attract the boot of the husband towards the loins of the revealer. + +From Thenardier's point of view, the conversation with Marius had not +yet begun. He ought to have drawn back, to have modified his strategy, +to have abandoned his position, to have changed his front; but nothing +essential had been compromised as yet, and he had five hundred francs +in his pocket. Moreover, he had something decisive to say, and, even +against this very well-informed and well-armed Baron Pontmercy, he felt +himself strong. For men of Thenardier's nature, every dialogue is +a combat. In the one in which he was about to engage, what was his +situation? He did not know to whom he was speaking, but he did know of +what he was speaking, he made this rapid review of his inner forces, and +after having said: "I am Thenardier," he waited. + +Marius had become thoughtful. So he had hold of Thenardier at last. +That man whom he had so greatly desired to find was before him. He could +honor Colonel Pontmercy's recommendation. + +He felt humiliated that that hero should have owned anything to this +villain, and that the letter of change drawn from the depths of the tomb +by his father upon him, Marius, had been protested up to that day. It +also seemed to him, in the complex state of his mind towards Thenardier, +that there was occasion to avenge the Colonel for the misfortune of +having been saved by such a rascal. In any case, he was content. He +was about to deliver the Colonel's shade from this unworthy creditor +at last, and it seemed to him that he was on the point of rescuing his +father's memory from the debtors' prison. By the side of this duty there +was another--to elucidate, if possible, the source of Cosette's fortune. +The opportunity appeared to present itself. Perhaps Thenardier knew +something. It might prove useful to see the bottom of this man. + +He commenced with this. + +Thenardier had caused the "honest rustler" to disappear in his fob, and +was gazing at Marius with a gentleness that was almost tender. + +Marius broke the silence. + +"Thenardier, I have told you your name. Now, would you like to have me +tell you your secret--the one that you came here to reveal to me? I have +information of my own, also. You shall see that I know more about it +than you do. Jean Valjean, as you have said, is an assassin and a thief. +A thief, because he robbed a wealthy manufacturer, whose ruin he brought +about. An assassin, because he assassinated police-agent Javert." + +"I don't understand, sir," ejaculated Thenardier. + +"I will make myself intelligible. In a certain arrondissement of the Pas +de Calais, there was, in 1822, a man who had fallen out with justice, +and who, under the name of M. Madeleine, had regained his status and +rehabilitated himself. This man had become a just man in the full force +of the term. In a trade, the manufacture of black glass goods, he +made the fortune of an entire city. As far as his personal fortune was +concerned he made that also, but as a secondary matter, and in some +sort, by accident. He was the foster-father of the poor. He founded +hospitals, opened schools, visited the sick, dowered young girls, +supported widows, and adopted orphans; he was like the guardian angel of +the country. He refused the cross, he was appointed Mayor. A liberated +convict knew the secret of a penalty incurred by this man in former +days; he denounced him, and had him arrested, and profited by the arrest +to come to Paris and cause the banker Laffitte,--I have the fact from +the cashier himself,--by means of a false signature, to hand over to +him the sum of over half a million which belonged to M. Madeleine. This +convict who robbed M. Madeleine was Jean Valjean. As for the other fact, +you have nothing to tell me about it either. Jean Valjean killed the +agent Javert; he shot him with a pistol. I, the person who is speaking +to you, was present." + +Thenardier cast upon Marius the sovereign glance of a conquered man who +lays his hand once more upon the victory, and who has just regained, in +one instant, all the ground which he has lost. But the smile returned +instantly. The inferior's triumph in the presence of his superior must +be wheedling. + +Thenardier contented himself with saying to Marius: + +"Monsieur le Baron, we are on the wrong track." + +And he emphasized this phrase by making his bunch of seals execute an +expressive whirl. + +"What!" broke forth Marius, "do you dispute that? These are facts." + +"They are chimeras. The confidence with which Monsieur le Baron honors +me renders it my duty to tell him so. Truth and justice before all +things. I do not like to see folks accused unjustly. Monsieur le Baron, +Jean Valjean did not rob M. Madeleine and Jean Valjean did not kill +Javert." + +"This is too much! How is this?" + +"For two reasons." + +"What are they? Speak." + +"This is the first: he did not rob M. Madeleine, because it is Jean +Valjean himself who was M. Madeleine." + +"What tale are you telling me?" + +"And this is the second: he did not assassinate Javert, because the +person who killed Javert was Javert." + +"What do you mean to say?" + +"That Javert committed suicide." + +"Prove it! prove it!" cried Marius beside himself. + +Thenardier resumed, scanning his phrase after the manner of the ancient +Alexandrine measure: + + +"Police-agent-Ja-vert-was-found-drowned-un-der-a-boat-of-the-Pont-au-Change." + +"But prove it!" + +Thenardier drew from his pocket a large envelope of gray paper, which +seemed to contain sheets folded in different sizes. + +"I have my papers," he said calmly. + +And he added: + +"Monsieur le Baron, in your interests I desired to know Jean Valjean +thoroughly. I say that Jean Valjean and M. Madeleine are one and the +same man, and I say that Javert had no other assassin than Javert. If +I speak, it is because I have proofs. Not manuscript proofs--writing is +suspicious, handwriting is complaisant,--but printed proofs." + +As he spoke, Thenardier extracted from the envelope two copies of +newspapers, yellow, faded, and strongly saturated with tobacco. One of +these two newspapers, broken at every fold and falling into rags, seemed +much older than the other. + +"Two facts, two proofs," remarked Thenardier. And he offered the two +newspapers, unfolded, to Marius. + +The reader is acquainted with these two papers. One, the most ancient, a +number of the Drapeau Blanc of the 25th of July, 1823, the text of +which can be seen in the first volume, established the identity of M. +Madeleine and Jean Valjean. + +The other, a Moniteur of the 15th of June, 1832, announced the suicide +of Javert, adding that it appeared from a verbal report of Javert to the +prefect that, having been taken prisoner in the barricade of the Rue de +la Chanvrerie, he had owed his life to the magnanimity of an insurgent +who, holding him under his pistol, had fired into the air, instead of +blowing out his brains. + +Marius read. He had evidence, a certain date, irrefragable proof, these +two newspapers had not been printed expressly for the purpose of backing +up Thenardier's statements; the note printed in the Moniteur had been an +administrative communication from the Prefecture of Police. Marius could +not doubt. + +The information of the cashier-clerk had been false, and he himself had +been deceived. + +Jean Valjean, who had suddenly grown grand, emerged from his cloud. +Marius could not repress a cry of joy. + +"Well, then this unhappy wretch is an admirable man! the whole of that +fortune really belonged to him! he is Madeleine, the providence of a +whole countryside! he is Jean Valjean, Javert's savior! he is a hero! he +is a saint!" + +"He's not a saint, and he's not a hero!" said Thenardier. "He's an +assassin and a robber." + +And he added, in the tone of a man who begins to feel that he possesses +some authority: + +"Let us be calm." + +Robber, assassin--those words which Marius thought had disappeared and +which returned, fell upon him like an ice-cold shower-bath. + +"Again!" said he. + +"Always," ejaculated Thenardier. "Jean Valjean did not rob Madeleine, +but he is a thief. He did not kill Javert, but he is a murderer." + +"Will you speak," retorted Marius, "of that miserable theft, committed +forty years ago, and expiated, as your own newspapers prove, by a whole +life of repentance, of self-abnegation and of virtue?" + +"I say assassination and theft, Monsieur le Baron, and I repeat that I +am speaking of actual facts. What I have to reveal to you is absolutely +unknown. It belongs to unpublished matter. And perhaps you will find in +it the source of the fortune so skilfully presented to Madame la Baronne +by Jean Valjean. I say skilfully, because, by a gift of that nature it +would not be so very unskilful to slip into an honorable house whose +comforts one would then share, and, at the same stroke, to conceal one's +crime, and to enjoy one's theft, to bury one's name and to create for +oneself a family." + +"I might interrupt you at this point," said Marius, "but go on." + +"Monsieur le Baron, I will tell you all, leaving the recompense to your +generosity. This secret is worth massive gold. You will say to me: 'Why +do not you apply to Jean Valjean?' For a very simple reason; I know +that he has stripped himself, and stripped himself in your favor, and I +consider the combination ingenious; but he has no longer a son, he would +show me his empty hands, and, since I am in need of some money for +my trip to la Joya, I prefer you, you who have it all, to him who has +nothing. I am a little fatigued, permit me to take a chair." + +Marius seated himself and motioned to him to do the same. + +Thenardier installed himself on a tufted chair, picked up his two +newspapers, thrust them back into their envelope, and murmured as he +pecked at the Drapeau Blanc with his nail: "It cost me a good deal of +trouble to get this one." + +That done he crossed his legs and stretched himself out on the back of +the chair, an attitude characteristic of people who are sure of what +they are saying, then he entered upon his subject gravely, emphasizing +his words: + +"Monsieur le Baron, on the 6th of June, 1832, about a year ago, on the +day of the insurrection, a man was in the Grand Sewer of Paris, at the +point where the sewer enters the Seine, between the Pont des Invalides +and the Pont de Jena." + +Marius abruptly drew his chair closer to that of Thenardier. Thenardier +noticed this movement and continued with the deliberation of an orator +who holds his interlocutor and who feels his adversary palpitating under +his words: + +"This man, forced to conceal himself, and for reasons, moreover, which +are foreign to politics, had adopted the sewer as his domicile and had +a key to it. It was, I repeat, on the 6th of June; it might have been +eight o'clock in the evening. The man hears a noise in the sewer. +Greatly surprised, he hides himself and lies in wait. It was the sound +of footsteps, some one was walking in the dark, and coming in his +direction. Strange to say, there was another man in the sewer besides +himself. The grating of the outlet from the sewer was not far off. +A little light which fell through it permitted him to recognize the +newcomer, and to see that the man was carrying something on his back. +He was walking in a bent attitude. The man who was walking in a bent +attitude was an ex-convict, and what he was dragging on his shoulders +was a corpse. Assassination caught in the very act, if ever there was +such a thing. As for the theft, that is understood; one does not kill +a man gratis. This convict was on his way to fling the body into the +river. One fact is to be noticed, that before reaching the exit +grating, this convict, who had come a long distance in the sewer, must, +necessarily, have encountered a frightful quagmire where it seems as +though he might have left the body, but the sewermen would have found +the assassinated man the very next day, while at work on the quagmire, +and that did not suit the assassin's plans. He had preferred to +traverse that quagmire with his burden, and his exertions must have been +terrible, for it is impossible to risk one's life more completely; I +don't understand how he could have come out of that alive." + +Marius' chair approached still nearer. Thenardier took advantage of this +to draw a long breath. He went on: + +"Monsieur le Baron, a sewer is not the Champ de Mars. One lacks +everything there, even room. When two men are there, they must meet. +That is what happened. The man domiciled there and the passer-by were +forced to bid each other good-day, greatly to the regret of both. The +passer-by said to the inhabitant:--"You see what I have on my back, I +must get out, you have the key, give it to me." That convict was a man +of terrible strength. There was no way of refusing. Nevertheless, the +man who had the key parleyed, simply to gain time. He examined the dead +man, but he could see nothing, except that the latter was young, well +dressed, with the air of being rich, and all disfigured with blood. +While talking, the man contrived to tear and pull off behind, without +the assassin perceiving it, a bit of the assassinated man's coat. A +document for conviction, you understand; a means of recovering the trace +of things and of bringing home the crime to the criminal. He put +this document for conviction in his pocket. After which he opened the +grating, made the man go out with his embarrassment on his back, closed +the grating again, and ran off, not caring to be mixed up with the +remainder of the adventure and above all, not wishing to be present +when the assassin threw the assassinated man into the river. Now you +comprehend. The man who was carrying the corpse was Jean Valjean; the +one who had the key is speaking to you at this moment; and the piece of +the coat . . ." + +Thenardier completed his phrase by drawing from his pocket, and holding, +on a level with his eyes, nipped between his two thumbs and his two +forefingers, a strip of torn black cloth, all covered with dark spots. + +Marius had sprung to his feet, pale, hardly able to draw his breath, +with his eyes riveted on the fragment of black cloth, and, without +uttering a word, without taking his eyes from that fragment, he +retreated to the wall and fumbled with his right hand along the wall for +a key which was in the lock of a cupboard near the chimney. + +He found the key, opened the cupboard, plunged his arm into it without +looking, and without his frightened gaze quitting the rag which +Thenardier still held outspread. + +But Thenardier continued: + +"Monsieur le Baron, I have the strongest of reasons for believing that +the assassinated young man was an opulent stranger lured into a trap by +Jean Valjean, and the bearer of an enormous sum of money." + +"The young man was myself, and here is the coat!" cried Marius, and he +flung upon the floor an old black coat all covered with blood. + +Then, snatching the fragment from the hands of Thenardier, he crouched +down over the coat, and laid the torn morsel against the tattered skirt. +The rent fitted exactly, and the strip completed the coat. + +Thenardier was petrified. + +This is what he thought: "I'm struck all of a heap." + +Marius rose to his feet trembling, despairing, radiant. + +He fumbled in his pocket and stalked furiously to Thenardier, presenting +to him and almost thrusting in his face his fist filled with bank-notes +for five hundred and a thousand francs. + +"You are an infamous wretch! you are a liar, a calumniator, a villain. +You came to accuse that man, you have only justified him; you wanted to +ruin him, you have only succeeded in glorifying him. And it is you who +are the thief! And it is you who are the assassin! I saw you, Thenardier +Jondrette, in that lair on the Rue de l'Hopital. I know enough about +you to send you to the galleys and even further if I choose. Here are a +thousand francs, bully that you are!" + +And he flung a thousand franc note at Thenardier. + +"Ah! Jondrette Thenardier, vile rascal! Let this serve you as a lesson, +you dealer in second-hand secrets, merchant of mysteries, rummager of +the shadows, wretch! Take these five hundred francs and get out of here! +Waterloo protects you." + +"Waterloo!" growled Thenardier, pocketing the five hundred francs along +with the thousand. + +"Yes, assassin! You there saved the life of a Colonel. . ." + +"Of a General," said Thenardier, elevating his head. + +"Of a Colonel!" repeated Marius in a rage. "I wouldn't give a ha'penny +for a general. And you come here to commit infamies! I tell you that +you have committed all crimes. Go! disappear! Only be happy, that is all +that I desire. Ah! monster! here are three thousand francs more. Take +them. You will depart to-morrow, for America, with your daughter; +for your wife is dead, you abominable liar. I shall watch over your +departure, you ruffian, and at that moment I will count out to you +twenty thousand francs. Go get yourself hung elsewhere!" + +"Monsieur le Baron!" replied Thenardier, bowing to the very earth, +"eternal gratitude." And Thenardier left the room, understanding +nothing, stupefied and delighted with this sweet crushing beneath sacks +of gold, and with that thunder which had burst forth over his head in +bank-bills. + +Struck by lightning he was, but he was also content; and he would +have been greatly angered had he had a lightning rod to ward off such +lightning as that. + +Let us finish with this man at once. + +Two days after the events which we are at this moment narrating, he set +out, thanks to Marius' care, for America under a false name, with his +daughter Azelma, furnished with a draft on New York for twenty thousand +francs. + +The moral wretchedness of Thenardier, the bourgeois who had missed +his vocation, was irremediable. He was in America what he had been in +Europe. Contact with an evil man sometimes suffices to corrupt a good +action and to cause evil things to spring from it. With Marius' money, +Thenardier set up as a slave-dealer. + +As soon as Thenardier had left the house, Marius rushed to the garden, +where Cosette was still walking. + +"Cosette! Cosette!" he cried. "Come! come quick! Let us go. Basque, a +carriage! Cosette, come. Ah! My God! It was he who saved my life! Let us +not lose a minute! Put on your shawl." + +Cosette thought him mad and obeyed. + +He could not breathe, he laid his hand on his heart to restrain its +throbbing. He paced back and forth with huge strides, he embraced +Cosette: + +"Ah! Cosette! I am an unhappy wretch!" said he. + +Marius was bewildered. He began to catch a glimpse in Jean Valjean of +some indescribably lofty and melancholy figure. An unheard-of virtue, +supreme and sweet, humble in its immensity, appeared to him. The convict +was transfigured into Christ. + +Marius was dazzled by this prodigy. He did not know precisely what he +beheld, but it was grand. + +In an instant, a hackney-carriage stood in front of the door. + +Marius helped Cosette in and darted in himself. + +"Driver," said he, "Rue de l'Homme Arme, Number 7." + +The carriage drove off. + +"Ah! what happiness!" ejaculated Cosette. "Rue de l'Homme Arme, I did +not dare to speak to you of that. We are going to see M. Jean." + +"Thy father! Cosette, thy father more than ever. Cosette, I guess it. +You told me that you had never received the letter that I sent you by +Gavroche. It must have fallen into his hands. Cosette, he went to the +barricade to save me. As it is a necessity with him to be an angel, he +saved others also; he saved Javert. He rescued me from that gulf to give +me to you. He carried me on his back through that frightful sewer. Ah! I +am a monster of ingratitude. Cosette, after having been your providence, +he became mine. Just imagine, there was a terrible quagmire enough to +drown one a hundred times over, to drown one in mire. Cosette! he made +me traverse it. I was unconscious; I saw nothing, I heard nothing, I +could know nothing of my own adventure. We are going to bring him back, +to take him with us, whether he is willing or not, he shall never leave +us again. If only he is at home! Provided only that we can find him, +I will pass the rest of my life in venerating him. Yes, that is how it +should be, do you see, Cosette? Gavroche must have delivered my letter +to him. All is explained. You understand." + +Cosette did not understand a word. + +"You are right," she said to him. + +Meanwhile the carriage rolled on. + + + + +CHAPTER V--A NIGHT BEHIND WHICH THERE IS DAY + +Jean Valjean turned round at the knock which he heard on his door. + +"Come in," he said feebly. + +The door opened. + +Cosette and Marius made their appearance. + +Cosette rushed into the room. + +Marius remained on the threshold, leaning against the jamb of the door. + +"Cosette!" said Jean Valjean. + +And he sat erect in his chair, his arms outstretched and trembling, +haggard, livid, gloomy, an immense joy in his eyes. + +Cosette, stifling with emotion, fell upon Jean Valjean's breast. + +"Father!" said she. + +Jean Valjean, overcome, stammered: + +"Cosette! she! you! Madame! it is thou! Ah! my God!" + +And, pressed close in Cosette's arms, he exclaimed: + +"It is thou! thou art here! Thou dost pardon me then!" + +Marius, lowering his eyelids, in order to keep his tears from flowing, +took a step forward and murmured between lips convulsively contracted to +repress his sobs: + +"My father!" + +"And you also, you pardon me!" Jean Valjean said to him. + +Marius could find no words, and Jean Valjean added: + +"Thanks." + +Cosette tore off her shawl and tossed her hat on the bed. + +"It embarrasses me," said she. + +And, seating herself on the old man's knees, she put aside his white +locks with an adorable movement, and kissed his brow. + +Jean Valjean, bewildered, let her have her own way. + +Cosette, who only understood in a very confused manner, redoubled her +caresses, as though she desired to pay Marius' debt. + +Jean Valjean stammered: + +"How stupid people are! I thought that I should never see her again. +Imagine, Monsieur Pontmercy, at the very moment when you entered, I +was saying to myself: 'All is over. Here is her little gown, I am a +miserable man, I shall never see Cosette again,' and I was saying that +at the very moment when you were mounting the stairs. Was not I an +idiot? Just see how idiotic one can be! One reckons without the good +God. The good God says: + +"'You fancy that you are about to be abandoned, stupid! No. No, things +will not go so. Come, there is a good man yonder who is in need of an +angel.' And the angel comes, and one sees one's Cosette again! and one +sees one's little Cosette once more! Ah! I was very unhappy." + +For a moment he could not speak, then he went on: + +"I really needed to see Cosette a little bit now and then. A heart needs +a bone to gnaw. But I was perfectly conscious that I was in the way. I +gave myself reasons: 'They do not want you, keep in your own course, +one has not the right to cling eternally.' Ah! God be praised, I see her +once more! Dost thou know, Cosette, thy husband is very handsome? Ah! +what a pretty embroidered collar thou hast on, luckily. I am fond of +that pattern. It was thy husband who chose it, was it not? And then, +thou shouldst have some cashmere shawls. Let me call her thou, Monsieur +Pontmercy. It will not be for long." + +And Cosette began again: + +"How wicked of you to have left us like that! Where did you go? Why have +you stayed away so long? Formerly your journeys only lasted three or +four days. I sent Nicolette, the answer always was: 'He is absent.' How +long have you been back? Why did you not let us know? Do you know that +you are very much changed? Ah! what a naughty father! he has been ill, +and we have not known it! Stay, Marius, feel how cold his hand is!" + +"So you are here! Monsieur Pontmercy, you pardon me!" repeated Jean +Valjean. + +At that word which Jean Valjean had just uttered once more, all that was +swelling Marius' heart found vent. + +He burst forth: + +"Cosette, do you hear? he has come to that! he asks my forgiveness! And +do you know what he has done for me, Cosette? He has saved my life. He +has done more--he has given you to me. And after having saved me, and +after having given you to me, Cosette, what has he done with himself? He +has sacrificed himself. Behold the man. And he says to me the ingrate, +to me the forgetful, to me the pitiless, to me the guilty one: Thanks! +Cosette, my whole life passed at the feet of this man would be too +little. That barricade, that sewer, that furnace, that cesspool,--all +that he traversed for me, for thee, Cosette! He carried me away through +all the deaths which he put aside before me, and accepted for himself. +Every courage, every virtue, every heroism, every sanctity he possesses! +Cosette, that man is an angel!" + +"Hush! hush!" said Jean Valjean in a low voice. "Why tell all that?" + +"But you!" cried Marius with a wrath in which there was veneration, "why +did you not tell it to me? It is your own fault, too. You save people's +lives, and you conceal it from them! You do more, under the pretext of +unmasking yourself, you calumniate yourself. It is frightful." + +"I told the truth," replied Jean Valjean. + +"No," retorted Marius, "the truth is the whole truth; and that you did +not tell. You were Monsieur Madeleine, why not have said so? You saved +Javert, why not have said so? I owed my life to you, why not have said +so?" + +"Because I thought as you do. I thought that you were in the right. It +was necessary that I should go away. If you had known about that affair, +of the sewer, you would have made me remain near you. I was therefore +forced to hold my peace. If I had spoken, it would have caused +embarrassment in every way." + +"It would have embarrassed what? embarrassed whom?" retorted Marius. "Do +you think that you are going to stay here? We shall carry you off. Ah! +good heavens! when I reflect that it was by an accident that I have +learned all this. You form a part of ourselves. You are her father, +and mine. You shall not pass another day in this dreadful house. Do not +imagine that you will be here to-morrow." + +"To-morrow," said Jean Valjean, "I shall not be here, but I shall not be +with you." + +"What do you mean?" replied Marius. "Ah! come now, we are not going to +permit any more journeys. You shall never leave us again. You belong to +us. We shall not loose our hold of you." + +"This time it is for good," added Cosette. "We have a carriage at the +door. I shall run away with you. If necessary, I shall employ force." + +And she laughingly made a movement to lift the old man in her arms. + +"Your chamber still stands ready in our house," she went on. "If you +only knew how pretty the garden is now! The azaleas are doing very +well there. The walks are sanded with river sand; there are tiny violet +shells. You shall eat my strawberries. I water them myself. And no +more 'madame,' no more 'Monsieur Jean,' we are living under a Republic, +everybody says thou, don't they, Marius? The programme is changed. If +you only knew, father, I have had a sorrow, there was a robin redbreast +which had made her nest in a hole in the wall, and a horrible cat ate +her. My poor, pretty, little robin red-breast which used to put her head +out of her window and look at me! I cried over it. I should have liked +to kill the cat. But now nobody cries any more. Everybody laughs, +everybody is happy. You are going to come with us. How delighted +grandfather will be! You shall have your plot in the garden, you shall +cultivate it, and we shall see whether your strawberries are as fine as +mine. And, then, I shall do everything that you wish, and then, you will +obey me prettily." + +Jean Valjean listened to her without hearing her. He heard the music of +her voice rather than the sense of her words; one of those large tears +which are the sombre pearls of the soul welled up slowly in his eyes. + +He murmured: + +"The proof that God is good is that she is here." + +"Father!" said Cosette. + +Jean Valjean continued: + +"It is quite true that it would be charming for us to live together. +Their trees are full of birds. I would walk with Cosette. It is sweet to +be among living people who bid each other 'good-day,' who call to each +other in the garden. People see each other from early morning. We +should each cultivate our own little corner. She would make me eat her +strawberries. I would make her gather my roses. That would be charming. +Only . . ." + +He paused and said gently: + +"It is a pity." + +The tear did not fall, it retreated, and Jean Valjean replaced it with a +smile. + +Cosette took both the old man's hands in hers. + +"My God!" said she, "your hands are still colder than before. Are you +ill? Do you suffer?" + +"I? No," replied Jean Valjean. "I am very well. Only . . ." + +He paused. + +"Only what?" + +"I am going to die presently." + +Cosette and Marius shuddered. + +"To die!" exclaimed Marius. + +"Yes, but that is nothing," said Jean Valjean. + +He took breath, smiled and resumed: + +"Cosette, thou wert talking to me, go on, so thy little robin red-breast +is dead? Speak, so that I may hear thy voice." + +Marius gazed at the old man in amazement. + +Cosette uttered a heartrending cry. + +"Father! my father! you will live. You are going to live. I insist upon +your living, do you hear?" + +Jean Valjean raised his head towards her with adoration. + +"Oh! yes, forbid me to die. Who knows? Perhaps I shall obey. I was on +the verge of dying when you came. That stopped me, it seemed to me that +I was born again." + +"You are full of strength and life," cried Marius. "Do you imagine that +a person can die like this? You have had sorrow, you shall have no more. +It is I who ask your forgiveness, and on my knees! You are going to +live, and to live with us, and to live a long time. We take possession +of you once more. There are two of us here who will henceforth have no +other thought than your happiness." + +"You see," resumed Cosette, all bathed in tears, "that Marius says that +you shall not die." + +Jean Valjean continued to smile. + +"Even if you were to take possession of me, Monsieur Pontmercy, would +that make me other than I am? No, God has thought like you and myself, +and he does not change his mind; it is useful for me to go. Death is +a good arrangement. God knows better than we what we need. May you be +happy, may Monsieur Pontmercy have Cosette, may youth wed the morning, +may there be around you, my children, lilacs and nightingales; may your +life be a beautiful, sunny lawn, may all the enchantments of heaven fill +your souls, and now let me, who am good for nothing, die; it is certain +that all this is right. Come, be reasonable, nothing is possible now, I +am fully conscious that all is over. And then, last night, I drank that +whole jug of water. How good thy husband is, Cosette! Thou art much +better off with him than with me." + +A noise became audible at the door. + +It was the doctor entering. + +"Good-day, and farewell, doctor," said Jean Valjean. "Here are my poor +children." + +Marius stepped up to the doctor. He addressed to him only this single +word: "Monsieur? . . ." But his manner of pronouncing it contained a +complete question. + +The doctor replied to the question by an expressive glance. + +"Because things are not agreeable," said Jean Valjean, "that is no +reason for being unjust towards God." + +A silence ensued. + +All breasts were oppressed. + +Jean Valjean turned to Cosette. He began to gaze at her as though he +wished to retain her features for eternity. + +In the depths of the shadow into which he had already descended, ecstasy +was still possible to him when gazing at Cosette. The reflection of that +sweet face lighted up his pale visage. + +The doctor felt of his pulse. + +"Ah! it was you that he wanted!" he murmured, looking at Cosette and +Marius. + +And bending down to Marius' ear, he added in a very low voice: + +"Too late." + +Jean Valjean surveyed the doctor and Marius serenely, almost without +ceasing to gaze at Cosette. + +These barely articulate words were heard to issue from his mouth: + +"It is nothing to die; it is dreadful not to live." + +All at once he rose to his feet. These accesses of strength are +sometimes the sign of the death agony. He walked with a firm step to +the wall, thrusting aside Marius and the doctor who tried to help him, +detached from the wall a little copper crucifix which was suspended +there, and returned to his seat with all the freedom of movement of +perfect health, and said in a loud voice, as he laid the crucifix on the +table: + +"Behold the great martyr." + +Then his chest sank in, his head wavered, as though the intoxication of +the tomb were seizing hold upon him. + +His hands, which rested on his knees, began to press their nails into +the stuff of his trousers. + +Cosette supported his shoulders, and sobbed, and tried to speak to him, +but could not. + +Among the words mingled with that mournful saliva which accompanies +tears, they distinguished words like the following: + +"Father, do not leave us. Is it possible that we have found you only to +lose you again?" + +It might be said that agony writhes. It goes, comes, advances towards +the sepulchre, and returns towards life. There is groping in the action +of dying. + +Jean Valjean rallied after this semi-swoon, shook his brow as though +to make the shadows fall away from it and became almost perfectly lucid +once more. + +He took a fold of Cosette's sleeve and kissed it. + +"He is coming back! doctor, he is coming back," cried Marius. + +"You are good, both of you," said Jean Valjean. "I am going to tell you +what has caused me pain. What has pained me, Monsieur Pontmercy, is that +you have not been willing to touch that money. That money really belongs +to your wife. I will explain to you, my children, and for that reason, +also, I am glad to see you. Black jet comes from England, white jet +comes from Norway. All this is in this paper, which you will read. For +bracelets, I invented a way of substituting for slides of soldered sheet +iron, slides of iron laid together. It is prettier, better and less +costly. You will understand how much money can be made in that way. So +Cosette's fortune is really hers. I give you these details, in order +that your mind may be set at rest." + +The portress had come upstairs and was gazing in at the half-open door. +The doctor dismissed her. + +But he could not prevent this zealous woman from exclaiming to the dying +man before she disappeared: "Would you like a priest?" + +"I have had one," replied Jean Valjean. + +And with his finger he seemed to indicate a point above his head where +one would have said that he saw some one. + +It is probable, in fact, that the Bishop was present at this death +agony. + +Cosette gently slipped a pillow under his loins. + +Jean Valjean resumed: + +"Have no fear, Monsieur Pontmercy, I adjure you. The six hundred +thousand francs really belong to Cosette. My life will have been wasted +if you do not enjoy them! We managed to do very well with those glass +goods. We rivalled what is called Berlin jewellery. However, we could +not equal the black glass of England. A gross, which contains twelve +hundred very well cut grains, only costs three francs." + +When a being who is dear to us is on the point of death, we gaze upon +him with a look which clings convulsively to him and which would fain +hold him back. + +Cosette gave her hand to Marius, and both, mute with anguish, not +knowing what to say to the dying man, stood trembling and despairing +before him. + +Jean Valjean sank moment by moment. He was failing; he was drawing near +to the gloomy horizon. + +His breath had become intermittent; a little rattling interrupted it. +He found some difficulty in moving his forearm, his feet had lost all +movement, and in proportion as the wretchedness of limb and feebleness +of body increased, all the majesty of his soul was displayed and spread +over his brow. The light of the unknown world was already visible in his +eyes. + +His face paled and smiled. Life was no longer there, it was something +else. + +His breath sank, his glance grew grander. He was a corpse on which the +wings could be felt. + +He made a sign to Cosette to draw near, then to Marius; the last minute +of the last hour had, evidently, arrived. + +He began to speak to them in a voice so feeble that it seemed to come +from a distance, and one would have said that a wall now rose between +them and him. + +"Draw near, draw near, both of you. I love you dearly. Oh! how good it +is to die like this! And thou lovest me also, my Cosette. I knew well +that thou still felt friendly towards thy poor old man. How kind it was +of thee to place that pillow under my loins! Thou wilt weep for me a +little, wilt thou not? Not too much. I do not wish thee to have any real +griefs. You must enjoy yourselves a great deal, my children. I forgot +to tell you that the profit was greater still on the buckles without +tongues than on all the rest. A gross of a dozen dozens cost ten francs +and sold for sixty. It really was a good business. So there is no +occasion for surprise at the six hundred thousand francs, Monsieur +Pontmercy. It is honest money. You may be rich with a tranquil mind. +Thou must have a carriage, a box at the theatres now and then, and +handsome ball dresses, my Cosette, and then, thou must give good dinners +to thy friends, and be very happy. I was writing to Cosette a while ago. +She will find my letter. I bequeath to her the two candlesticks which +stand on the chimney-piece. They are of silver, but to me they are gold, +they are diamonds; they change candles which are placed in them into +wax-tapers. I do not know whether the person who gave them to me is +pleased with me yonder on high. I have done what I could. My children, +you will not forget that I am a poor man, you will have me buried in the +first plot of earth that you find, under a stone to mark the spot. This +is my wish. No name on the stone. If Cosette cares to come for a little +while now and then, it will give me pleasure. And you too, Monsieur +Pontmercy. I must admit that I have not always loved you. I ask your +pardon for that. Now she and you form but one for me. I feel very +grateful to you. I am sure that you make Cosette happy. If you only +knew, Monsieur Pontmercy, her pretty rosy cheeks were my delight; when I +saw her in the least pale, I was sad. In the chest of drawers, there is +a bank-bill for five hundred francs. I have not touched it. It is for +the poor. Cosette, dost thou see thy little gown yonder on the bed? dost +thou recognize it? That was ten years ago, however. How time flies! We +have been very happy. All is over. Do not weep, my children, I am not +going very far, I shall see you from there, you will only have to +look at night, and you will see me smile. Cosette, dost thou remember +Montfermeil? Thou wert in the forest, thou wert greatly terrified; dost +thou remember how I took hold of the handle of the water-bucket? That +was the first time that I touched thy poor, little hand. It was so cold! +Ah! your hands were red then, mademoiselle, they are very white now. And +the big doll! dost thou remember? Thou didst call her Catherine. Thou +regrettedest not having taken her to the convent! How thou didst make +me laugh sometimes, my sweet angel! When it had been raining, thou didst +float bits of straw on the gutters, and watch them pass away. One day +I gave thee a willow battledore and a shuttlecock with yellow, blue and +green feathers. Thou hast forgotten it. Thou wert roguish so young! Thou +didst play. Thou didst put cherries in thy ears. Those are things of +the past. The forests through which one has passed with one's child, the +trees under which one has strolled, the convents where one has concealed +oneself, the games, the hearty laughs of childhood, are shadows. I +imagined that all that belonged to me. In that lay my stupidity. Those +Thenardiers were wicked. Thou must forgive them. Cosette, the moment +has come to tell thee the name of thy mother. She was called Fantine. +Remember that name--Fantine. Kneel whenever thou utterest it. She +suffered much. She loved thee dearly. She had as much unhappiness as +thou hast had happiness. That is the way God apportions things. He is +there on high, he sees us all, and he knows what he does in the midst of +his great stars. I am on the verge of departure, my children. Love each +other well and always. There is nothing else but that in the world: love +for each other. You will think sometimes of the poor old man who died +here. Oh my Cosette, it is not my fault, indeed, that I have not seen +thee all this time, it cut me to the heart; I went as far as the corner +of the street, I must have produced a queer effect on the people who +saw me pass, I was like a madman, I once went out without my hat. I no +longer see clearly, my children, I had still other things to say, but +never mind. Think a little of me. Come still nearer. I die happy. Give +me your dear and well-beloved heads, so that I may lay my hands upon +them." + +Cosette and Marius fell on their knees, in despair, suffocating with +tears, each beneath one of Jean Valjean's hands. Those august hands no +longer moved. + +He had fallen backwards, the light of the candles illuminated him. + +His white face looked up to heaven, he allowed Cosette and Marius to +cover his hands with kisses. + +He was dead. + +The night was starless and extremely dark. No doubt, in the gloom, some +immense angel stood erect with wings outspread, awaiting that soul. + +[Illustration: Darkness 5b9-1-Darkness] + + + + +CHAPTER VI--THE GRASS COVERS AND THE RAIN EFFACES + +In the cemetery of Pere-Lachaise, in the vicinity of the common grave, +far from the elegant quarter of that city of sepulchres, far from all +the tombs of fancy which display in the presence of eternity all the +hideous fashions of death, in a deserted corner, beside an old wall, +beneath a great yew tree over which climbs the wild convolvulus, amid +dandelions and mosses, there lies a stone. That stone is no more exempt +than others from the leprosy of time, of dampness, of the lichens and +from the defilement of the birds. The water turns it green, the air +blackens it. It is not near any path, and people are not fond of +walking in that direction, because the grass is high and their feet +are immediately wet. When there is a little sunshine, the lizards +come thither. All around there is a quivering of weeds. In the spring, +linnets warble in the trees. + +This stone is perfectly plain. In cutting it the only thought was the +requirements of the tomb, and no other care was taken than to make the +stone long enough and narrow enough to cover a man. + +No name is to be read there. + +Only, many years ago, a hand wrote upon it in pencil these four lines, +which have become gradually illegible beneath the rain and the dust, and +which are, to-day, probably effaced: + + Il dort. Quoique le sort fut pour lui bien etrange, + Il vivait. Il mourut quand il n'eut plus son ange. + La chose simplement d'elle-meme arriva, + Comme la nuit se fait lorsque le jour s'en va.[70] + + + + + +LETTER TO M. DAELLI + +Publisher of the Italian translation of Les Miserables in Milan. + + HAUTEVILLE-HOUSE, October 18, 1862. + + +You are right, sir, when you tell me that Les Miserables is written for +all nations. I do not know whether it will be read by all, but I wrote +it for all. It is addressed to England as well as to Spain, to Italy as +well as to France, to Germany as well as to Ireland, to Republics which +have slaves as well as to Empires which have serfs. Social problems +overstep frontiers. The sores of the human race, those great sores which +cover the globe, do not halt at the red or blue lines traced upon the +map. In every place where man is ignorant and despairing, in every place +where woman is sold for bread, wherever the child suffers for lack of +the book which should instruct him and of the hearth which should warm +him, the book of Les Miserables knocks at the door and says: "Open to +me, I come for you." + +At the hour of civilization through which we are now passing, and which +is still so sombre, the miserable's name is Man; he is agonizing in all +climes, and he is groaning in all languages. + +Your Italy is no more exempt from the evil than is our France. Your +admirable Italy has all miseries on the face of it. Does not banditism, +that raging form of pauperism, inhabit your mountains? Few nations are +more deeply eaten by that ulcer of convents which I have endeavored to +fathom. In spite of your possessing Rome, Milan, Naples, Palermo, Turin, +Florence, Sienna, Pisa, Mantua, Bologna, Ferrara, Genoa, Venice, a +heroic history, sublime ruins, magnificent ruins, and superb cities, +you are, like ourselves, poor. You are covered with marvels and vermin. +Assuredly, the sun of Italy is splendid, but, alas, azure in the sky +does not prevent rags on man. + +Like us, you have prejudices, superstitions, tyrannies, fanaticisms, +blind laws lending assistance to ignorant customs. You taste nothing of +the present nor of the future without a flavor of the past being mingled +with it. You have a barbarian, the monk, and a savage, the lazzarone. +The social question is the same for you as for us. There are a few less +deaths from hunger with you, and a few more from fever; your social +hygiene is not much better than ours; shadows, which are Protestant in +England, are Catholic in Italy; but, under different names, the vescovo +is identical with the bishop, and it always means night, and of pretty +nearly the same quality. To explain the Bible badly amounts to the same +thing as to understand the Gospel badly. + +Is it necessary to emphasize this? Must this melancholy parallelism +be yet more completely verified? Have you not indigent persons? Glance +below. Have you not parasites? Glance up. Does not that hideous balance, +whose two scales, pauperism and parasitism, so mournfully preserve their +mutual equilibrium, oscillate before you as it does before us? Where +is your army of schoolmasters, the only army which civilization +acknowledges? + +Where are your free and compulsory schools? Does every one know how to +read in the land of Dante and of Michael Angelo? Have you made public +schools of your barracks? Have you not, like ourselves, an opulent +war-budget and a paltry budget of education? Have not you also that +passive obedience which is so easily converted into soldierly obedience? +military establishment which pushes the regulations to the extreme of +firing upon Garibaldi; that is to say, upon the living honor of Italy? +Let us subject your social order to examination, let us take it where it +stands and as it stands, let us view its flagrant offences, show me the +woman and the child. It is by the amount of protection with which these +two feeble creatures are surrounded that the degree of civilization +is to be measured. Is prostitution less heartrending in Naples than in +Paris? What is the amount of truth that springs from your laws, and what +amount of justice springs from your tribunals? Do you chance to be so +fortunate as to be ignorant of the meaning of those gloomy words: public +prosecution, legal infamy, prison, the scaffold, the executioner, the +death penalty? Italians, with you as with us, Beccaria is dead and +Farinace is alive. And then, let us scrutinize your state reasons. +Have you a government which comprehends the identity of morality and +politics? You have reached the point where you grant amnesty to heroes! +Something very similar has been done in France. Stay, let us pass +miseries in review, let each one contribute his pile, you are as rich +as we. Have you not, like ourselves, two condemnations, religious +condemnation pronounced by the priest, and social condemnation decreed +by the judge? Oh, great nation of Italy, thou resemblest the great +nation of France! Alas! our brothers, you are, like ourselves, +Miserables. + +From the depths of the gloom wherein you dwell, you do not see much more +distinctly than we the radiant and distant portals of Eden. Only, the +priests are mistaken. These holy portals are before and not behind us. + +I resume. This book, Les Miserables, is no less your mirror than ours. +Certain men, certain castes, rise in revolt against this book,--I +understand that. Mirrors, those revealers of the truth, are hated; that +does not prevent them from being of use. + +As for myself, I have written for all, with a profound love for my own +country, but without being engrossed by France more than by any other +nation. In proportion as I advance in life, I grow more simple, and I +become more and more patriotic for humanity. + +This is, moreover, the tendency of our age, and the law of radiance +of the French Revolution; books must cease to be exclusively French, +Italian, German, Spanish, or English, and become European, I say more, +human, if they are to correspond to the enlargement of civilization. + +Hence a new logic of art, and of certain requirements of composition +which modify everything, even the conditions, formerly narrow, of taste +and language, which must grow broader like all the rest. + +In France, certain critics have reproached me, to my great delight, +with having transgressed the bounds of what they call "French taste"; I +should be glad if this eulogium were merited. + +In short, I am doing what I can, I suffer with the same universal +suffering, and I try to assuage it, I possess only the puny forces of a +man, and I cry to all: "Help me!" + +This, sir, is what your letter prompts me to say; I say it for you and +for your country. If I have insisted so strongly, it is because of one +phrase in your letter. You write:-- + +"There are Italians, and they are numerous, who say: 'This book, Les +Miserables, is a French book. It does not concern us. Let the French +read it as a history, we read it as a romance.'"--Alas! I repeat, +whether we be Italians or Frenchmen, misery concerns us all. Ever since +history has been written, ever since philosophy has meditated, misery +has been the garment of the human race; the moment has at length arrived +for tearing off that rag, and for replacing, upon the naked limbs of the +Man-People, the sinister fragment of the past with the grand purple robe +of the dawn. + +If this letter seems to you of service in enlightening some minds and +in dissipating some prejudices, you are at liberty to publish it, +sir. Accept, I pray you, a renewed assurance of my very distinguished +sentiments. + + VICTOR HUGO. + + +***** + +FOOTNOTES: + + +[Footnote 1: Patois of the French Alps: chat de maraude, rascally +marauder.] + +[Footnote 2: Liege: a cork-tree. Pau: a jest on peau, skin.] + +[Footnote 3: She belonged to that circle where cuckoos and carriages +share the same fate; and a jade herself, she lived, as jades live, for +the space of a morning (or jade).] + +[Footnote 4: An ex-convict.] + +[Footnote 5: This parenthesis is due to Jean Valjean.] + +[Footnote 6: A bullet as large as an egg.] + +[Footnote 7: Walter Scott, Lamartine, Vaulabelle, Charras, Quinet, +Thiers.] + +[Footnote 8: This is the inscription:-- + + D. O. M. + CY A ETE ECRASE + PAR MALHEUR + SOUS UN CHARIOT, + MONSIEUR BERNARD + DE BRYE MARCHAND + A BRUXELLE LE [Illegible] + FEVRIER 1637.] + +[Footnote 9: A heavy rifled gun.] + +[Footnote 10: "A battle terminated, a day finished, false measures +repaired, greater successes assured for the morrow,--all was lost by a +moment of panic, terror."--Napoleon, Dictees de Sainte Helene.] + +[Footnote 11: Five winning numbers in a lottery] + +[Footnote 12: Literally "made cuirs"; i. e., pronounced a t or an s at +the end of words where the opposite letter should occur, or used either +one of them where neither exists.] + +[Footnote 13: Lawyer Corbeau, perched on a docket, held in his beak a +writ of execution; Lawyer Renard, attracted by the smell, addressed him +nearly as follows, etc.] + +[Footnote 14: This is the factory of Goblet Junior: + Come choose your jugs and crocks, + Flower-pots, pipes, bricks. + The Heart sells Diamonds to every comer.] + +[Footnote 15: On the boughs hang three bodies of unequal merits: Dismas +and Gesmas, between is the divine power. Dismas seeks the heights, +Gesmas, unhappy man, the lowest regions; the highest power will preserve +us and our effects. If you repeat this verse, you will not lose your +things by theft.] + +[Footnote 16: Instead of porte cochere and porte batarde.] + +[Footnote 17: Jesus-my-God-bandy-leg--down with the moon!] + +[Footnote 18: Chicken: slang allusion to the noise made in calling +poultry.] + +[Footnote 19: Louis XVIII. is represented in comic pictures of that day +as having a pear-shaped head.] + +[Footnote 20: Tuck into your trousers the shirt-tail that is hanging +out. Let it not be said that patriots have hoisted the white flag.] + +[Footnote 21: In order to re-establish the shaken throne firmly on +its base, soil (Des solles), greenhouse and house (Decazes) must be +changed.] + +[Footnote 22: Suspendu, suspended; pendu, hung.] + +[Footnote 23: L'Aile, wing.] + +[Footnote 24: The slang term for a painter's assistant.] + +[Footnote 25: If Cesar had given me glory and war, and I were obliged +to quit my mother's love, I would say to great Caesar, "Take back thy +sceptre and thy chariot; I prefer the love of my mother."] + +[Footnote 26: Whether the sun shines brightly or dim, the bear returns +to his cave.] + +[Footnote 27: The peep-hole is a Judas in French. Hence the half-punning +allusion.] + +[Footnote 28: Our love has lasted a whole week, but how short are the +instants of happiness! To adore each other for eight days was hardly +worth the while! The time of love should last forever.] + +[Footnote 29: You leave me to go to glory; my sad heart will follow you +everywhere.] + +[Footnote 30: A democrat.] + +[Footnote 31: King Bootkick went a-hunting after crows, mounted on two +stilts. When one passed beneath them, one paid him two sous.] + +[Footnote 32: In olden times, fouriers were the officials who preceded +the Court and allotted the lodgings.] + +[Footnote 33: A game of ninepins, in which one side of the ball is +smaller than the other, so that it does not roll straight, but describes +a curve on the ground.] + +[Footnote 34: From April 19 to May 20.] + +[Footnote 35: Merlan: a sobriquet given to hairdressers because they are +white with powder.] + +[Footnote 36: The scaffold.] + +[Footnote 37: Argot of the Temple.] + +[Footnote 38: Argot of the barriers.] + +[Footnote 39: The Last Day of a Condemned Man.] + +[Footnote 40: "Vous trouverez dans ces potains-la, une foultitude de +raisons pour que je me libertise."] + +[Footnote 41: It must be observed, however, that mac in Celtic means +son.] + +[Footnote 42: Smoke puffed in the face of a person asleep.] + +[Footnote 43: Je n'entrave que le dail comment meck, le daron des +orgues, peut atiger ses momes et ses momignards et les locher criblant +sans etre agite lui-meme.] + +[Footnote 44: At night one sees nothing, by day one sees very well; +the bourgeois gets flurried over an apocryphal scrawl, practice virtue, +tutu, pointed hat!] + +[Footnote 45: Chien, dog, trigger.] + +[Footnote 46: Here is the morn appearing. When shall we go to the +forest, Charlot asked Charlotte. Tou, tou, tou, for Chatou, I have but +one God, one King, one half-farthing, and one boot. And these two poor +little wolves were as tipsy as sparrows from having drunk dew and thyme +very early in the morning. And these two poor little things were as +drunk as thrushes in a vineyard; a tiger laughed at them in his cave. +The one cursed, the other swore. When shall we go to the forest? Charlot +asked Charlotte.] + +[Footnote 47: There swings the horrible skeleton of a poor lover who +hung himself.] + +[Footnote 48: She astounds at ten paces, she frightens at two, a wart +inhabits her hazardous nose; you tremble every instant lest she should +blow it at you, and lest, some fine day, her nose should tumble into her +mouth.] + +[Footnote 49: Matelote: a culinary preparation of various fishes. +Gibelotte: stewed rabbits.] + +[Footnote 50: Treat if you can, and eat if you dare.] + +[Footnote 51: Bipede sans plume: biped without feathers--pen.] + +[Footnote 52: Municipal officer of Toulouse.] + +[Footnote 53: Do you remember our sweet life, when we were both so +young, and when we had no other desire in our hearts than to be well +dressed and in love? When, by adding your age to my age, we could +not count forty years between us, and when, in our humble and tiny +household, everything was spring to us even in winter. Fair days! +Manuel was proud and wise, Paris sat at sacred banquets, Foy launched +thunderbolts, and your corsage had a pin on which I pricked myself. +Everything gazed upon you. A briefless lawyer, when I took you to the +Prado to dine, you were so beautiful that the roses seemed to me to turn +round, and I heard them say: Is she not beautiful! How good she smells! +What billowing hair! Beneath her mantle she hides a wing. Her charming +bonnet is hardly unfolded. I wandered with thee, pressing thy supple +arm. The passers-by thought that love bewitched had wedded, in our happy +couple, the gentle month of April to the fair month of May. We lived +concealed, content, with closed doors, devouring love, that sweet +forbidden fruit. My mouth had not uttered a thing when thy heart had +already responded. The Sorbonne was the bucolic spot where I adored thee +from eve till morn. 'Tis thus that an amorous soul applies the chart of +the Tender to the Latin country. O Place Maubert! O Place Dauphine! +When in the fresh spring-like hut thou didst draw thy stocking on thy +delicate leg, I saw a star in the depths of the garret. I have read +a great deal of Plato, but nothing of it remains by me; better than +Malebranche and then Lamennais thou didst demonstrate to me celestial +goodness with a flower which thou gavest to me, I obeyed thee, thou +didst submit to me; oh gilded garret! to lace thee! to behold thee going +and coming from dawn in thy chemise, gazing at thy young brow in thine +ancient mirror! And who, then, would forego the memory of those days of +aurora and the firmament, of flowers, of gauze and of moire, when love +stammers a charming slang? Our gardens consisted of a pot of tulips; +thou didst mask the window with thy petticoat; I took the earthenware +bowl and I gave thee the Japanese cup. And those great misfortunes which +made us laugh! Thy cuff scorched, thy boa lost! And that dear portrait +of the divine Shakespeare which we sold one evening that we might sup! I +was a beggar and thou wert charitable. I kissed thy fresh round arms +in haste. A folio Dante served us as a table on which to eat merrily a +centime's worth of chestnuts. The first time that, in my joyous den, I +snatched a kiss from thy fiery lip, when thou wentest forth, dishevelled +and blushing, I turned deathly pale and I believed in God. Dost thou +recall our innumerable joys, and all those fichus changed to rags? Oh! +what sighs from our hearts full of gloom fluttered forth to the heavenly +depths!] + +[Footnote 54: My nose is in tears, my friend Bugeaud, lend me thy +gendarmes that I may say a word to them. With a blue capote and a +chicken in his shako, here's the banlieue, co-cocorico.] + +[Footnote 55: Love letters.] + +[Footnote 56: + + "The bird slanders in the elms, + And pretends that yesterday, Atala + Went off with a Russian, + Where fair maids go. + Lon la. + +My friend Pierrot, thou pratest, because Mila knocked at her pane the +other day and called me. The jades are very charming, their poison which +bewitched me would intoxicate Monsieur Orfila. I'm fond of love and its +bickerings, I love Agnes, I love Pamela, Lise burned herself in setting +me aflame. In former days when I saw the mantillas of Suzette and of +Zeila, my soul mingled with their folds. Love, when thou gleamest in +the dark thou crownest Lola with roses, I would lose my soul for that. +Jeanne, at thy mirror thou deckest thyself! One fine day, my heart flew +forth. I think that it is Jeanne who has it. At night, when I come from +the quadrilles, I show Stella to the stars, and I say to them: "Behold +her." Where fair maids go, lon la.] + + +[Footnote 57: But some prisons still remain, and I am going to put +a stop to this sort of public order. Does any one wish to play at +skittles? The whole ancient world fell in ruin, when the big ball +rolled. Good old folks, let us smash with our crutches that Louvre where +the monarchy displayed itself in furbelows. We have forced its gates. On +that day, King Charles X. did not stick well and came unglued.] + +[Footnote 58: Steps on the Aventine Hill, leading to the Tiber, to which +the bodies of executed criminals were dragged by hooks to be thrown into +the Tiber.] + +[Footnote 59: Mustards.] + +[Footnote 60: From casser, to break: break-necks.] + +[Footnote 61: "Jeanne was born at Fougere, a true shepherd's nest; I +adore her petticoat, the rogue."] + +[Footnote 62: In allusion to the expression, coiffer Sainte-Catherine, +"to remain unmarried."] + +[Footnote 63: "Thus, hemming in the course of thy musings, Alcippus, it +is true that thou wilt wed ere long."] + +[Footnote 64: Tirer le diable par la queue, "to live from hand to +mouth."] + +[Footnote 65: "Triton trotted on before, and drew from his conch-shell +sounds so ravishing that he delighted everyone!"] + +[Footnote 66: "A Shrove-Tuesday marriage will have no ungrateful +children."] + +[Footnote 67: A short mask.] + +[Footnote 68: In allusion to the story of Prometheus.] + +[Footnote 69: Un fafiot serieux. Fafiot is the slang term for a +bank-bill, derived from its rustling noise.] + +[Footnote 70: He sleeps. Although his fate was very strange, he lived. +He died when he had no longer his angel. The thing came to pass simply, +of itself, as the night comes when day is gone.] + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Les Miserables, by Victor Hugo + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LES MISERABLES *** + +***** This file should be named 135.txt or 135.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/1/3/135/ + +Produced by Judith Boss + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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Thus, we do not necessarily +keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition. + + +Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility: + + http://www.gutenberg.org + +This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm, +including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary +Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to +subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks. diff --git a/src/main/pg-metamorphosis.txt b/src/main/pg-metamorphosis.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..9270f3d --- /dev/null +++ b/src/main/pg-metamorphosis.txt @@ -0,0 +1,2362 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Metamorphosis, by Franz Kafka +Translated by David Wyllie. + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.net + +** This is a COPYRIGHTED Project Gutenberg eBook, Details Below ** +** Please follow the copyright guidelines in this file. ** + + +Title: Metamorphosis + +Author: Franz Kafka + +Translator: David Wyllie + +Release Date: August 16, 2005 [EBook #5200] +First posted: May 13, 2002 +Last updated: May 20, 2012 + +Language: English + + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK METAMORPHOSIS *** + + + + +Copyright (C) 2002 David Wyllie. + + + + + + Metamorphosis + Franz Kafka + +Translated by David Wyllie + + + +I + + +One morning, when Gregor Samsa woke from troubled dreams, he found +himself transformed in his bed into a horrible vermin. He lay on +his armour-like back, and if he lifted his head a little he could +see his brown belly, slightly domed and divided by arches into stiff +sections. The bedding was hardly able to cover it and seemed ready +to slide off any moment. His many legs, pitifully thin compared +with the size of the rest of him, waved about helplessly as he +looked. + +"What's happened to me?" he thought. It wasn't a dream. His room, +a proper human room although a little too small, lay peacefully +between its four familiar walls. A collection of textile samples +lay spread out on the table - Samsa was a travelling salesman - and +above it there hung a picture that he had recently cut out of an +illustrated magazine and housed in a nice, gilded frame. It showed +a lady fitted out with a fur hat and fur boa who sat upright, +raising a heavy fur muff that covered the whole of her lower arm +towards the viewer. + +Gregor then turned to look out the window at the dull weather. +Drops of rain could be heard hitting the pane, which made him feel +quite sad. "How about if I sleep a little bit longer and forget all +this nonsense", he thought, but that was something he was unable to +do because he was used to sleeping on his right, and in his present +state couldn't get into that position. However hard he threw +himself onto his right, he always rolled back to where he was. He +must have tried it a hundred times, shut his eyes so that he +wouldn't have to look at the floundering legs, and only stopped when +he began to feel a mild, dull pain there that he had never felt +before. + +"Oh, God", he thought, "what a strenuous career it is that I've +chosen! Travelling day in and day out. Doing business like this +takes much more effort than doing your own business at home, and on +top of that there's the curse of travelling, worries about making +train connections, bad and irregular food, contact with different +people all the time so that you can never get to know anyone or +become friendly with them. It can all go to Hell!" He felt a +slight itch up on his belly; pushed himself slowly up on his back +towards the headboard so that he could lift his head better; found +where the itch was, and saw that it was covered with lots of little +white spots which he didn't know what to make of; and when he tried +to feel the place with one of his legs he drew it quickly back +because as soon as he touched it he was overcome by a cold shudder. + +He slid back into his former position. "Getting up early all the +time", he thought, "it makes you stupid. You've got to get enough +sleep. Other travelling salesmen live a life of luxury. For +instance, whenever I go back to the guest house during the morning +to copy out the contract, these gentlemen are always still sitting +there eating their breakfasts. I ought to just try that with my +boss; I'd get kicked out on the spot. But who knows, maybe that +would be the best thing for me. If I didn't have my parents to +think about I'd have given in my notice a long time ago, I'd have +gone up to the boss and told him just what I think, tell him +everything I would, let him know just what I feel. He'd fall right +off his desk! And it's a funny sort of business to be sitting up +there at your desk, talking down at your subordinates from up there, +especially when you have to go right up close because the boss is +hard of hearing. Well, there's still some hope; once I've got the +money together to pay off my parents' debt to him - another five or +six years I suppose - that's definitely what I'll do. That's when +I'll make the big change. First of all though, I've got to get up, +my train leaves at five." + +And he looked over at the alarm clock, ticking on the chest of +drawers. "God in Heaven!" he thought. It was half past six and the +hands were quietly moving forwards, it was even later than half +past, more like quarter to seven. Had the alarm clock not rung? He +could see from the bed that it had been set for four o'clock as it +should have been; it certainly must have rung. Yes, but was it +possible to quietly sleep through that furniture-rattling noise? +True, he had not slept peacefully, but probably all the more deeply +because of that. What should he do now? The next train went at +seven; if he were to catch that he would have to rush like mad and +the collection of samples was still not packed, and he did not at +all feel particularly fresh and lively. And even if he did catch +the train he would not avoid his boss's anger as the office +assistant would have been there to see the five o'clock train go, he +would have put in his report about Gregor's not being there a long +time ago. The office assistant was the boss's man, spineless, and +with no understanding. What about if he reported sick? But that +would be extremely strained and suspicious as in fifteen years of +service Gregor had never once yet been ill. His boss would +certainly come round with the doctor from the medical insurance +company, accuse his parents of having a lazy son, and accept the +doctor's recommendation not to make any claim as the doctor believed +that no-one was ever ill but that many were workshy. And what's +more, would he have been entirely wrong in this case? Gregor did in +fact, apart from excessive sleepiness after sleeping for so long, +feel completely well and even felt much hungrier than usual. + +He was still hurriedly thinking all this through, unable to decide +to get out of the bed, when the clock struck quarter to seven. +There was a cautious knock at the door near his head. "Gregor", +somebody called - it was his mother - "it's quarter to seven. +Didn't you want to go somewhere?" That gentle voice! Gregor was +shocked when he heard his own voice answering, it could hardly be +recognised as the voice he had had before. As if from deep inside +him, there was a painful and uncontrollable squeaking mixed in with +it, the words could be made out at first but then there was a sort +of echo which made them unclear, leaving the hearer unsure whether +he had heard properly or not. Gregor had wanted to give a full +answer and explain everything, but in the circumstances contented +himself with saying: "Yes, mother, yes, thank-you, I'm getting up +now." The change in Gregor's voice probably could not be noticed +outside through the wooden door, as his mother was satisfied with +this explanation and shuffled away. But this short conversation +made the other members of the family aware that Gregor, against +their expectations was still at home, and soon his father came +knocking at one of the side doors, gently, but with his fist. +"Gregor, Gregor", he called, "what's wrong?" And after a short +while he called again with a warning deepness in his voice: "Gregor! +Gregor!" At the other side door his sister came plaintively: +"Gregor? Aren't you well? Do you need anything?" Gregor answered to +both sides: "I'm ready, now", making an effort to remove all the +strangeness from his voice by enunciating very carefully and putting +long pauses between each, individual word. His father went back to +his breakfast, but his sister whispered: "Gregor, open the door, I +beg of you." Gregor, however, had no thought of opening the door, +and instead congratulated himself for his cautious habit, acquired +from his travelling, of locking all doors at night even when he was +at home. + +The first thing he wanted to do was to get up in peace without being +disturbed, to get dressed, and most of all to have his breakfast. +Only then would he consider what to do next, as he was well aware +that he would not bring his thoughts to any sensible conclusions by +lying in bed. He remembered that he had often felt a slight pain in +bed, perhaps caused by lying awkwardly, but that had always turned +out to be pure imagination and he wondered how his imaginings would +slowly resolve themselves today. He did not have the slightest +doubt that the change in his voice was nothing more than the first +sign of a serious cold, which was an occupational hazard for +travelling salesmen. + +It was a simple matter to throw off the covers; he only had to blow +himself up a little and they fell off by themselves. But it became +difficult after that, especially as he was so exceptionally broad. +He would have used his arms and his hands to push himself up; but +instead of them he only had all those little legs continuously +moving in different directions, and which he was moreover unable to +control. If he wanted to bend one of them, then that was the first +one that would stretch itself out; and if he finally managed to do +what he wanted with that leg, all the others seemed to be set free +and would move about painfully. "This is something that can't be +done in bed", Gregor said to himself, "so don't keep trying to do +it". + +The first thing he wanted to do was get the lower part of his body +out of the bed, but he had never seen this lower part, and could not +imagine what it looked like; it turned out to be too hard to move; +it went so slowly; and finally, almost in a frenzy, when he +carelessly shoved himself forwards with all the force he could +gather, he chose the wrong direction, hit hard against the lower +bedpost, and learned from the burning pain he felt that the lower +part of his body might well, at present, be the most sensitive. + +So then he tried to get the top part of his body out of the bed +first, carefully turning his head to the side. This he managed +quite easily, and despite its breadth and its weight, the bulk of +his body eventually followed slowly in the direction of the head. +But when he had at last got his head out of the bed and into the +fresh air it occurred to him that if he let himself fall it would be +a miracle if his head were not injured, so he became afraid to carry +on pushing himself forward the same way. And he could not knock +himself out now at any price; better to stay in bed than lose +consciousness. + +It took just as much effort to get back to where he had been +earlier, but when he lay there sighing, and was once more watching +his legs as they struggled against each other even harder than +before, if that was possible, he could think of no way of bringing +peace and order to this chaos. He told himself once more that it +was not possible for him to stay in bed and that the most sensible +thing to do would be to get free of it in whatever way he could at +whatever sacrifice. At the same time, though, he did not forget to +remind himself that calm consideration was much better than rushing +to desperate conclusions. At times like this he would direct his +eyes to the window and look out as clearly as he could, but +unfortunately, even the other side of the narrow street was +enveloped in morning fog and the view had little confidence or cheer +to offer him. "Seven o'clock, already", he said to himself when the +clock struck again, "seven o'clock, and there's still a fog like +this." And he lay there quietly a while longer, breathing lightly +as if he perhaps expected the total stillness to bring things back +to their real and natural state. + +But then he said to himself: "Before it strikes quarter past seven +I'll definitely have to have got properly out of bed. And by then +somebody will have come round from work to ask what's happened to me +as well, as they open up at work before seven o'clock." And so he +set himself to the task of swinging the entire length of his body +out of the bed all at the same time. If he succeeded in falling out +of bed in this way and kept his head raised as he did so he could +probably avoid injuring it. His back seemed to be quite hard, and +probably nothing would happen to it falling onto the carpet. His +main concern was for the loud noise he was bound to make, and which +even through all the doors would probably raise concern if not +alarm. But it was something that had to be risked. + +When Gregor was already sticking half way out of the bed - the new +method was more of a game than an effort, all he had to do was rock +back and forth - it occurred to him how simple everything would be +if somebody came to help him. Two strong people - he had his father +and the maid in mind - would have been more than enough; they would +only have to push their arms under the dome of his back, peel him +away from the bed, bend down with the load and then be patient and +careful as he swang over onto the floor, where, hopefully, the +little legs would find a use. Should he really call for help +though, even apart from the fact that all the doors were locked? +Despite all the difficulty he was in, he could not suppress a smile +at this thought. + +After a while he had already moved so far across that it would have +been hard for him to keep his balance if he rocked too hard. The +time was now ten past seven and he would have to make a final +decision very soon. Then there was a ring at the door of the flat. +"That'll be someone from work", he said to himself, and froze very +still, although his little legs only became all the more lively as +they danced around. For a moment everything remained quiet. +"They're not opening the door", Gregor said to himself, caught in +some nonsensical hope. But then of course, the maid's firm steps +went to the door as ever and opened it. Gregor only needed to hear +the visitor's first words of greeting and he knew who it was - the +chief clerk himself. Why did Gregor have to be the only one +condemned to work for a company where they immediately became highly +suspicious at the slightest shortcoming? Were all employees, every +one of them, louts, was there not one of them who was faithful and +devoted who would go so mad with pangs of conscience that he +couldn't get out of bed if he didn't spend at least a couple of +hours in the morning on company business? Was it really not enough +to let one of the trainees make enquiries - assuming enquiries were +even necessary - did the chief clerk have to come himself, and did +they have to show the whole, innocent family that this was so +suspicious that only the chief clerk could be trusted to have the +wisdom to investigate it? And more because these thoughts had made +him upset than through any proper decision, he swang himself with +all his force out of the bed. There was a loud thump, but it wasn't +really a loud noise. His fall was softened a little by the carpet, +and Gregor's back was also more elastic than he had thought, which +made the sound muffled and not too noticeable. He had not held his +head carefully enough, though, and hit it as he fell; annoyed and in +pain, he turned it and rubbed it against the carpet. + +"Something's fallen down in there", said the chief clerk in the room +on the left. Gregor tried to imagine whether something of the sort +that had happened to him today could ever happen to the chief clerk +too; you had to concede that it was possible. But as if in gruff +reply to this question, the chief clerk's firm footsteps in his +highly polished boots could now be heard in the adjoining room. +From the room on his right, Gregor's sister whispered to him to let +him know: "Gregor, the chief clerk is here." "Yes, I know", said +Gregor to himself; but without daring to raise his voice loud enough +for his sister to hear him. + +"Gregor", said his father now from the room to his left, "the chief +clerk has come round and wants to know why you didn't leave on the +early train. We don't know what to say to him. And anyway, he +wants to speak to you personally. So please open up this door. I'm +sure he'll be good enough to forgive the untidiness of your room." +Then the chief clerk called "Good morning, Mr. Samsa". "He isn't +well", said his mother to the chief clerk, while his father +continued to speak through the door. "He isn't well, please believe +me. Why else would Gregor have missed a train! The lad only ever +thinks about the business. It nearly makes me cross the way he +never goes out in the evenings; he's been in town for a week now but +stayed home every evening. He sits with us in the kitchen and just +reads the paper or studies train timetables. His idea of relaxation +is working with his fretsaw. He's made a little frame, for +instance, it only took him two or three evenings, you'll be amazed +how nice it is; it's hanging up in his room; you'll see it as soon +as Gregor opens the door. Anyway, I'm glad you're here; we wouldn't +have been able to get Gregor to open the door by ourselves; he's so +stubborn; and I'm sure he isn't well, he said this morning that he +is, but he isn't." "I'll be there in a moment", said Gregor slowly +and thoughtfully, but without moving so that he would not miss any +word of the conversation. "Well I can't think of any other way of +explaining it, Mrs. Samsa", said the chief clerk, "I hope it's +nothing serious. But on the other hand, I must say that if we +people in commerce ever become slightly unwell then, fortunately or +unfortunately as you like, we simply have to overcome it because of +business considerations." "Can the chief clerk come in to see you +now then?", asked his father impatiently, knocking at the door +again. "No", said Gregor. In the room on his right there followed +a painful silence; in the room on his left his sister began to cry. + +So why did his sister not go and join the others? She had probably +only just got up and had not even begun to get dressed. And why was +she crying? Was it because he had not got up, and had not let the +chief clerk in, because he was in danger of losing his job and if +that happened his boss would once more pursue their parents with the +same demands as before? There was no need to worry about things like +that yet. Gregor was still there and had not the slightest +intention of abandoning his family. For the time being he just lay +there on the carpet, and no-one who knew the condition he was in +would seriously have expected him to let the chief clerk in. It was +only a minor discourtesy, and a suitable excuse could easily be +found for it later on, it was not something for which Gregor could +be sacked on the spot. And it seemed to Gregor much more sensible +to leave him now in peace instead of disturbing him with talking at +him and crying. But the others didn't know what was happening, they +were worried, that would excuse their behaviour. + +The chief clerk now raised his voice, "Mr. Samsa", he called to him, +"what is wrong? You barricade yourself in your room, give us no more +than yes or no for an answer, you are causing serious and +unnecessary concern to your parents and you fail - and I mention +this just by the way - you fail to carry out your business duties in +a way that is quite unheard of. I'm speaking here on behalf of your +parents and of your employer, and really must request a clear and +immediate explanation. I am astonished, quite astonished. I +thought I knew you as a calm and sensible person, and now you +suddenly seem to be showing off with peculiar whims. This morning, +your employer did suggest a possible reason for your failure to +appear, it's true - it had to do with the money that was recently +entrusted to you - but I came near to giving him my word of honour +that that could not be the right explanation. But now that I see +your incomprehensible stubbornness I no longer feel any wish +whatsoever to intercede on your behalf. And nor is your position +all that secure. I had originally intended to say all this to you +in private, but since you cause me to waste my time here for no good +reason I don't see why your parents should not also learn of it. +Your turnover has been very unsatisfactory of late; I grant you that +it's not the time of year to do especially good business, we +recognise that; but there simply is no time of year to do no +business at all, Mr. Samsa, we cannot allow there to be." + +"But Sir", called Gregor, beside himself and forgetting all else in +the excitement, "I'll open up immediately, just a moment. I'm +slightly unwell, an attack of dizziness, I haven't been able to get +up. I'm still in bed now. I'm quite fresh again now, though. I'm +just getting out of bed. Just a moment. Be patient! It's not quite +as easy as I'd thought. I'm quite alright now, though. It's +shocking, what can suddenly happen to a person! I was quite alright +last night, my parents know about it, perhaps better than me, I had +a small symptom of it last night already. They must have noticed +it. I don't know why I didn't let you know at work! But you always +think you can get over an illness without staying at home. Please, +don't make my parents suffer! There's no basis for any of the +accusations you're making; nobody's ever said a word to me about any +of these things. Maybe you haven't read the latest contracts I sent +in. I'll set off with the eight o'clock train, as well, these few +hours of rest have given me strength. You don't need to wait, sir; +I'll be in the office soon after you, and please be so good as to +tell that to the boss and recommend me to him!" + +And while Gregor gushed out these words, hardly knowing what he was +saying, he made his way over to the chest of drawers - this was +easily done, probably because of the practise he had already had in +bed - where he now tried to get himself upright. He really did want +to open the door, really did want to let them see him and to speak +with the chief clerk; the others were being so insistent, and he was +curious to learn what they would say when they caught sight of him. +If they were shocked then it would no longer be Gregor's +responsibility and he could rest. If, however, they took everything +calmly he would still have no reason to be upset, and if he hurried +he really could be at the station for eight o'clock. The first few +times he tried to climb up on the smooth chest of drawers he just +slid down again, but he finally gave himself one last swing and +stood there upright; the lower part of his body was in serious pain +but he no longer gave any attention to it. Now he let himself fall +against the back of a nearby chair and held tightly to the edges of +it with his little legs. By now he had also calmed down, and kept +quiet so that he could listen to what the chief clerk was saying. + +"Did you understand a word of all that?" the chief clerk asked his +parents, "surely he's not trying to make fools of us". "Oh, God!" +called his mother, who was already in tears, "he could be seriously +ill and we're making him suffer. Grete! Grete!" she then cried. +"Mother?" his sister called from the other side. They communicated +across Gregor's room. "You'll have to go for the doctor straight +away. Gregor is ill. Quick, get the doctor. Did you hear the way +Gregor spoke just now?" "That was the voice of an animal", said the +chief clerk, with a calmness that was in contrast with his mother's +screams. "Anna! Anna!" his father called into the kitchen through +the entrance hall, clapping his hands, "get a locksmith here, now!" +And the two girls, their skirts swishing, immediately ran out +through the hall, wrenching open the front door of the flat as they +went. How had his sister managed to get dressed so quickly? There +was no sound of the door banging shut again; they must have left it +open; people often do in homes where something awful has happened. + +Gregor, in contrast, had become much calmer. So they couldn't +understand his words any more, although they seemed clear enough to +him, clearer than before - perhaps his ears had become used to the +sound. They had realised, though, that there was something wrong +with him, and were ready to help. The first response to his +situation had been confident and wise, and that made him feel +better. He felt that he had been drawn back in among people, and +from the doctor and the locksmith he expected great and surprising +achievements - although he did not really distinguish one from the +other. Whatever was said next would be crucial, so, in order to +make his voice as clear as possible, he coughed a little, but taking +care to do this not too loudly as even this might well sound +different from the way that a human coughs and he was no longer sure +he could judge this for himself. Meanwhile, it had become very +quiet in the next room. Perhaps his parents were sat at the table +whispering with the chief clerk, or perhaps they were all pressed +against the door and listening. + +Gregor slowly pushed his way over to the door with the chair. Once +there he let go of it and threw himself onto the door, holding +himself upright against it using the adhesive on the tips of his +legs. He rested there a little while to recover from the effort +involved and then set himself to the task of turning the key in the +lock with his mouth. He seemed, unfortunately, to have no proper +teeth - how was he, then, to grasp the key? - but the lack of teeth +was, of course, made up for with a very strong jaw; using the jaw, +he really was able to start the key turning, ignoring the fact that +he must have been causing some kind of damage as a brown fluid came +from his mouth, flowed over the key and dripped onto the floor. +"Listen", said the chief clerk in the next room, "he's turning the +key." Gregor was greatly encouraged by this; but they all should +have been calling to him, his father and his mother too: "Well done, +Gregor", they should have cried, "keep at it, keep hold of the +lock!" And with the idea that they were all excitedly following his +efforts, he bit on the key with all his strength, paying no +attention to the pain he was causing himself. As the key turned +round he turned around the lock with it, only holding himself +upright with his mouth, and hung onto the key or pushed it down +again with the whole weight of his body as needed. The clear sound +of the lock as it snapped back was Gregor's sign that he could break +his concentration, and as he regained his breath he said to himself: +"So, I didn't need the locksmith after all". Then he lay his head on +the handle of the door to open it completely. + +Because he had to open the door in this way, it was already wide +open before he could be seen. He had first to slowly turn himself +around one of the double doors, and he had to do it very carefully +if he did not want to fall flat on his back before entering the +room. He was still occupied with this difficult movement, unable to +pay attention to anything else, when he heard the chief clerk +exclaim a loud "Oh!", which sounded like the soughing of the wind. +Now he also saw him - he was the nearest to the door - his hand +pressed against his open mouth and slowly retreating as if driven by +a steady and invisible force. Gregor's mother, her hair still +dishevelled from bed despite the chief clerk's being there, looked +at his father. Then she unfolded her arms, took two steps forward +towards Gregor and sank down onto the floor into her skirts that +spread themselves out around her as her head disappeared down onto +her breast. His father looked hostile, and clenched his fists as if +wanting to knock Gregor back into his room. Then he looked +uncertainly round the living room, covered his eyes with his hands +and wept so that his powerful chest shook. + +So Gregor did not go into the room, but leant against the inside of +the other door which was still held bolted in place. In this way +only half of his body could be seen, along with his head above it +which he leant over to one side as he peered out at the others. +Meanwhile the day had become much lighter; part of the endless, +grey-black building on the other side of the street - which was a +hospital - could be seen quite clearly with the austere and regular +line of windows piercing its facade; the rain was still +falling, now throwing down large, individual droplets which hit the +ground one at a time. The washing up from breakfast lay on the +table; there was so much of it because, for Gregor's father, +breakfast was the most important meal of the day and he would +stretch it out for several hours as he sat reading a number of +different newspapers. On the wall exactly opposite there was +photograph of Gregor when he was a lieutenant in the army, his sword +in his hand and a carefree smile on his face as he called forth +respect for his uniform and bearing. The door to the entrance hall +was open and as the front door of the flat was also open he could +see onto the landing and the stairs where they began their way down +below. + +"Now, then", said Gregor, well aware that he was the only one to +have kept calm, "I'll get dressed straight away now, pack up my +samples and set off. Will you please just let me leave? You can +see", he said to the chief clerk, "that I'm not stubborn and I +like to do my job; being a commercial traveller is arduous but +without travelling I couldn't earn my living. So where are you +going, in to the office? Yes? Will you report everything accurately, +then? It's quite possible for someone to be temporarily unable to +work, but that's just the right time to remember what's been +achieved in the past and consider that later on, once the difficulty +has been removed, he will certainly work with all the more diligence +and concentration. You're well aware that I'm seriously in debt to +our employer as well as having to look after my parents and my +sister, so that I'm trapped in a difficult situation, but I will +work my way out of it again. Please don't make things any harder +for me than they are already, and don't take sides against me at the +office. I know that nobody likes the travellers. They think we +earn an enormous wage as well as having a soft time of it. That's +just prejudice but they have no particular reason to think better of +it. But you, sir, you have a better overview than the rest of the +staff, in fact, if I can say this in confidence, a better overview +than the boss himself - it's very easy for a businessman like him to +make mistakes about his employees and judge them more harshly than +he should. And you're also well aware that we travellers spend +almost the whole year away from the office, so that we can very +easily fall victim to gossip and chance and groundless complaints, +and it's almost impossible to defend yourself from that sort of +thing, we don't usually even hear about them, or if at all it's when +we arrive back home exhausted from a trip, and that's when we feel +the harmful effects of what's been going on without even knowing +what caused them. Please, don't go away, at least first say +something to show that you grant that I'm at least partly right!" + +But the chief clerk had turned away as soon as Gregor had started to +speak, and, with protruding lips, only stared back at him over his +trembling shoulders as he left. He did not keep still for a moment +while Gregor was speaking, but moved steadily towards the door +without taking his eyes off him. He moved very gradually, as if +there had been some secret prohibition on leaving the room. It was +only when he had reached the entrance hall that he made a sudden +movement, drew his foot from the living room, and rushed forward in +a panic. In the hall, he stretched his right hand far out towards +the stairway as if out there, there were some supernatural force +waiting to save him. + +Gregor realised that it was out of the question to let the chief +clerk go away in this mood if his position in the firm was not to be +put into extreme danger. That was something his parents did not +understand very well; over the years, they had become convinced that +this job would provide for Gregor for his entire life, and besides, +they had so much to worry about at present that they had lost sight +of any thought for the future. Gregor, though, did think about the +future. The chief clerk had to be held back, calmed down, convinced +and finally won over; the future of Gregor and his family depended +on it! If only his sister were here! She was clever; she was already +in tears while Gregor was still lying peacefully on his back. And +the chief clerk was a lover of women, surely she could persuade him; +she would close the front door in the entrance hall and talk him out +of his shocked state. But his sister was not there, Gregor would +have to do the job himself. And without considering that he still +was not familiar with how well he could move about in his present +state, or that his speech still might not - or probably would not - +be understood, he let go of the door; pushed himself through the +opening; tried to reach the chief clerk on the landing who, +ridiculously, was holding on to the banister with both hands; but +Gregor fell immediately over and, with a little scream as he sought +something to hold onto, landed on his numerous little legs. Hardly +had that happened than, for the first time that day, he began to +feel alright with his body; the little legs had the solid ground +under them; to his pleasure, they did exactly as he told them; they +were even making the effort to carry him where he wanted to go; and +he was soon believing that all his sorrows would soon be finally at +an end. He held back the urge to move but swayed from side to side +as he crouched there on the floor. His mother was not far away in +front of him and seemed, at first, quite engrossed in herself, but +then she suddenly jumped up with her arms outstretched and her +fingers spread shouting: "Help, for pity's sake, Help!" The way she +held her head suggested she wanted to see Gregor better, but the +unthinking way she was hurrying backwards showed that she did not; +she had forgotten that the table was behind her with all the +breakfast things on it; when she reached the table she sat quickly +down on it without knowing what she was doing; without even seeming +to notice that the coffee pot had been knocked over and a gush of +coffee was pouring down onto the carpet. + +"Mother, mother", said Gregor gently, looking up at her. He had +completely forgotten the chief clerk for the moment, but could not +help himself snapping in the air with his jaws at the sight of the +flow of coffee. That set his mother screaming anew, she fled from +the table and into the arms of his father as he rushed towards her. +Gregor, though, had no time to spare for his parents now; the chief +clerk had already reached the stairs; with his chin on the banister, +he looked back for the last time. Gregor made a run for him; he +wanted to be sure of reaching him; the chief clerk must have +expected something, as he leapt down several steps at once and +disappeared; his shouts resounding all around the staircase. The +flight of the chief clerk seemed, unfortunately, to put Gregor's +father into a panic as well. Until then he had been relatively self +controlled, but now, instead of running after the chief clerk +himself, or at least not impeding Gregor as he ran after him, +Gregor's father seized the chief clerk's stick in his right hand +(the chief clerk had left it behind on a chair, along with his hat +and overcoat), picked up a large newspaper from the table with his +left, and used them to drive Gregor back into his room, stamping his +foot at him as he went. Gregor's appeals to his father were of no +help, his appeals were simply not understood, however much he humbly +turned his head his father merely stamped his foot all the harder. +Across the room, despite the chilly weather, Gregor's mother had +pulled open a window, leant far out of it and pressed her hands to +her face. A strong draught of air flew in from the street towards +the stairway, the curtains flew up, the newspapers on the table +fluttered and some of them were blown onto the floor. Nothing would +stop Gregor's father as he drove him back, making hissing noises at +him like a wild man. Gregor had never had any practice in moving +backwards and was only able to go very slowly. If Gregor had only +been allowed to turn round he would have been back in his room +straight away, but he was afraid that if he took the time to do that +his father would become impatient, and there was the threat of a +lethal blow to his back or head from the stick in his father's hand +any moment. Eventually, though, Gregor realised that he had no +choice as he saw, to his disgust, that he was quite incapable of +going backwards in a straight line; so he began, as quickly as +possible and with frequent anxious glances at his father, to turn +himself round. It went very slowly, but perhaps his father was able +to see his good intentions as he did nothing to hinder him, in fact +now and then he used the tip of his stick to give directions from a +distance as to which way to turn. If only his father would stop +that unbearable hissing! It was making Gregor quite confused. When +he had nearly finished turning round, still listening to that +hissing, he made a mistake and turned himself back a little the way +he had just come. He was pleased when he finally had his head in +front of the doorway, but then saw that it was too narrow, and his +body was too broad to get through it without further difficulty. In +his present mood, it obviously did not occur to his father to open +the other of the double doors so that Gregor would have enough space +to get through. He was merely fixed on the idea that Gregor should +be got back into his room as quickly as possible. Nor would he ever +have allowed Gregor the time to get himself upright as preparation +for getting through the doorway. What he did, making more noise +than ever, was to drive Gregor forwards all the harder as if there +had been nothing in the way; it sounded to Gregor as if there was +now more than one father behind him; it was not a pleasant +experience, and Gregor pushed himself into the doorway without +regard for what might happen. One side of his body lifted itself, +he lay at an angle in the doorway, one flank scraped on the white +door and was painfully injured, leaving vile brown flecks on it, +soon he was stuck fast and would not have been able to move at all +by himself, the little legs along one side hung quivering in the air +while those on the other side were pressed painfully against the +ground. Then his father gave him a hefty shove from behind which +released him from where he was held and sent him flying, and heavily +bleeding, deep into his room. The door was slammed shut with the +stick, then, finally, all was quiet. + + + +II + + +It was not until it was getting dark that evening that Gregor awoke +from his deep and coma-like sleep. He would have woken soon +afterwards anyway even if he hadn't been disturbed, as he had had +enough sleep and felt fully rested. But he had the impression that +some hurried steps and the sound of the door leading into the front +room being carefully shut had woken him. The light from the +electric street lamps shone palely here and there onto the ceiling +and tops of the furniture, but down below, where Gregor was, it was +dark. He pushed himself over to the door, feeling his way clumsily +with his antennae - of which he was now beginning to learn the value +- in order to see what had been happening there. The whole of his +left side seemed like one, painfully stretched scar, and he limped +badly on his two rows of legs. One of the legs had been badly +injured in the events of that morning - it was nearly a miracle that +only one of them had been - and dragged along lifelessly. + +It was only when he had reached the door that he realised what it +actually was that had drawn him over to it; it was the smell of +something to eat. By the door there was a dish filled with +sweetened milk with little pieces of white bread floating in it. He +was so pleased he almost laughed, as he was even hungrier than he +had been that morning, and immediately dipped his head into the +milk, nearly covering his eyes with it. But he soon drew his head +back again in disappointment; not only did the pain in his tender +left side make it difficult to eat the food - he was only able to +eat if his whole body worked together as a snuffling whole - but the +milk did not taste at all nice. Milk like this was normally his +favourite drink, and his sister had certainly left it there for him +because of that, but he turned, almost against his own will, away +from the dish and crawled back into the centre of the room. + +Through the crack in the door, Gregor could see that the gas had +been lit in the living room. His father at this time would normally +be sat with his evening paper, reading it out in a loud voice to +Gregor's mother, and sometimes to his sister, but there was now not +a sound to be heard. Gregor's sister would often write and tell him +about this reading, but maybe his father had lost the habit in +recent times. It was so quiet all around too, even though there +must have been somebody in the flat. "What a quiet life it is the +family lead", said Gregor to himself, and, gazing into the darkness, +felt a great pride that he was able to provide a life like that in +such a nice home for his sister and parents. But what now, if all +this peace and wealth and comfort should come to a horrible and +frightening end? That was something that Gregor did not want to +think about too much, so he started to move about, crawling up and +down the room. + +Once during that long evening, the door on one side of the room was +opened very slightly and hurriedly closed again; later on the door +on the other side did the same; it seemed that someone needed to +enter the room but thought better of it. Gregor went and waited +immediately by the door, resolved either to bring the timorous +visitor into the room in some way or at least to find out who it +was; but the door was opened no more that night and Gregor waited in +vain. The previous morning while the doors were locked everyone had +wanted to get in there to him, but now, now that he had opened up +one of the doors and the other had clearly been unlocked some time +during the day, no-one came, and the keys were in the other sides. + +It was not until late at night that the gaslight in the living room +was put out, and now it was easy to see that his parents and sister had +stayed awake all that time, as they all could be distinctly heard as +they went away together on tip-toe. It was clear that no-one would +come into Gregor's room any more until morning; that gave him plenty +of time to think undisturbed about how he would have to re-arrange +his life. For some reason, the tall, empty room where he was forced +to remain made him feel uneasy as he lay there flat on the floor, +even though he had been living in it for five years. Hardly aware +of what he was doing other than a slight feeling of shame, he +hurried under the couch. It pressed down on his back a little, and +he was no longer able to lift his head, but he nonetheless felt +immediately at ease and his only regret was that his body was too +broad to get it all underneath. + +He spent the whole night there. Some of the time he passed in a +light sleep, although he frequently woke from it in alarm because of +his hunger, and some of the time was spent in worries and vague +hopes which, however, always led to the same conclusion: for the +time being he must remain calm, he must show patience and the +greatest consideration so that his family could bear the +unpleasantness that he, in his present condition, was forced to +impose on them. + +Gregor soon had the opportunity to test the strength of his +decisions, as early the next morning, almost before the night had +ended, his sister, nearly fully dressed, opened the door from the +front room and looked anxiously in. She did not see him straight +away, but when she did notice him under the couch - he had to be +somewhere, for God's sake, he couldn't have flown away - she was so +shocked that she lost control of herself and slammed the door shut +again from outside. But she seemed to regret her behaviour, as she +opened the door again straight away and came in on tip-toe as if +entering the room of someone seriously ill or even of a stranger. +Gregor had pushed his head forward, right to the edge of the couch, +and watched her. Would she notice that he had left the milk as it +was, realise that it was not from any lack of hunger and bring him +in some other food that was more suitable? If she didn't do it +herself he would rather go hungry than draw her attention to it, +although he did feel a terrible urge to rush forward from under the +couch, throw himself at his sister's feet and beg her for something +good to eat. However, his sister noticed the full dish immediately +and looked at it and the few drops of milk splashed around it with +some surprise. She immediately picked it up - using a rag, +not her bare hands - and carried it out. Gregor was extremely +curious as to what she would bring in its place, imagining the +wildest possibilities, but he never could have guessed what his +sister, in her goodness, actually did bring. In order to test his +taste, she brought him a whole selection of things, all spread out +on an old newspaper. There were old, half-rotten vegetables; bones +from the evening meal, covered in white sauce that had gone hard; a +few raisins and almonds; some cheese that Gregor had declared +inedible two days before; a dry roll and some bread spread with +butter and salt. As well as all that she had poured some water into +the dish, which had probably been permanently set aside for Gregor's +use, and placed it beside them. Then, out of consideration for +Gregor's feelings, as she knew that he would not eat in front of +her, she hurried out again and even turned the key in the lock so +that Gregor would know he could make things as comfortable for +himself as he liked. Gregor's little legs whirred, at last he could +eat. What's more, his injuries must already have completely healed +as he found no difficulty in moving. This amazed him, as more than +a month earlier he had cut his finger slightly with a knife, he +thought of how his finger had still hurt the day before yesterday. +"Am I less sensitive than I used to be, then?", he thought, and was +already sucking greedily at the cheese which had immediately, almost +compellingly, attracted him much more than the other foods on the +newspaper. Quickly one after another, his eyes watering with +pleasure, he consumed the cheese, the vegetables and the sauce; the +fresh foods, on the other hand, he didn't like at all, and even +dragged the things he did want to eat a little way away from them +because he couldn't stand the smell. Long after he had finished +eating and lay lethargic in the same place, his sister slowly turned +the key in the lock as a sign to him that he should withdraw. He +was immediately startled, although he had been half asleep, and he +hurried back under the couch. But he needed great self-control to +stay there even for the short time that his sister was in the room, +as eating so much food had rounded out his body a little and he +could hardly breathe in that narrow space. Half suffocating, he +watched with bulging eyes as his sister unselfconsciously took a +broom and swept up the left-overs, mixing them in with the food he +had not even touched at all as if it could not be used any more. +She quickly dropped it all into a bin, closed it with its wooden +lid, and carried everything out. She had hardly turned her back +before Gregor came out again from under the couch and stretched +himself. + +This was how Gregor received his food each day now, once in the +morning while his parents and the maid were still asleep, and the +second time after everyone had eaten their meal at midday as his +parents would sleep for a little while then as well, and Gregor's +sister would send the maid away on some errand. Gregor's father and +mother certainly did not want him to starve either, but perhaps it +would have been more than they could stand to have any more +experience of his feeding than being told about it, and perhaps his +sister wanted to spare them what distress she could as they were +indeed suffering enough. + +It was impossible for Gregor to find out what they had told the +doctor and the locksmith that first morning to get them out of the +flat. As nobody could understand him, nobody, not even his sister, +thought that he could understand them, so he had to be content to +hear his sister's sighs and appeals to the saints as she moved about +his room. It was only later, when she had become a little more used +to everything - there was, of course, no question of her ever +becoming fully used to the situation - that Gregor would sometimes +catch a friendly comment, or at least a comment that could be +construed as friendly. "He's enjoyed his dinner today", she might +say when he had diligently cleared away all the food left for him, +or if he left most of it, which slowly became more and more +frequent, she would often say, sadly, "now everything's just been +left there again". + +Although Gregor wasn't able to hear any news directly he did listen +to much of what was said in the next rooms, and whenever he heard +anyone speaking he would scurry straight to the appropriate door and +press his whole body against it. There was seldom any conversation, +especially at first, that was not about him in some way, even if +only in secret. For two whole days, all the talk at every mealtime +was about what they should do now; but even between meals they spoke +about the same subject as there were always at least two members of +the family at home - nobody wanted to be at home by themselves and +it was out of the question to leave the flat entirely empty. And on +the very first day the maid had fallen to her knees and begged +Gregor's mother to let her go without delay. It was not very clear +how much she knew of what had happened but she left within a quarter +of an hour, tearfully thanking Gregor's mother for her dismissal as +if she had done her an enormous service. She even swore +emphatically not to tell anyone the slightest about what had +happened, even though no-one had asked that of her. + +Now Gregor's sister also had to help his mother with the cooking; +although that was not so much bother as no-one ate very much. +Gregor often heard how one of them would unsuccessfully urge another +to eat, and receive no more answer than "no thanks, I've had enough" +or something similar. No-one drank very much either. His sister +would sometimes ask his father whether he would like a beer, hoping +for the chance to go and fetch it herself. When his father then +said nothing she would add, so that he would not feel selfish, that +she could send the housekeeper for it, but then his father would +close the matter with a big, loud "No", and no more would be said. + +Even before the first day had come to an end, his father had +explained to Gregor's mother and sister what their finances and +prospects were. Now and then he stood up from the table and took +some receipt or document from the little cash box he had saved from +his business when it had collapsed five years earlier. Gregor heard +how he opened the complicated lock and then closed it again after he +had taken the item he wanted. What he heard his father say was some +of the first good news that Gregor heard since he had first been +incarcerated in his room. He had thought that nothing at all +remained from his father's business, at least he had never told him +anything different, and Gregor had never asked him about it anyway. +Their business misfortune had reduced the family to a state of total +despair, and Gregor's only concern at that time had been to arrange +things so that they could all forget about it as quickly as +possible. So then he started working especially hard, with a fiery +vigour that raised him from a junior salesman to a travelling +representative almost overnight, bringing with it the chance to earn +money in quite different ways. Gregor converted his success at work +straight into cash that he could lay on the table at home for the +benefit of his astonished and delighted family. They had been good +times and they had never come again, at least not with the same +splendour, even though Gregor had later earned so much that he was +in a position to bear the costs of the whole family, and did bear +them. They had even got used to it, both Gregor and the family, +they took the money with gratitude and he was glad to provide it, +although there was no longer much warm affection given in return. +Gregor only remained close to his sister now. Unlike him, she was +very fond of music and a gifted and expressive violinist, it was his +secret plan to send her to the conservatory next year even though it +would cause great expense that would have to be made up for in some +other way. During Gregor's short periods in town, conversation with +his sister would often turn to the conservatory but it was only ever +mentioned as a lovely dream that could never be realised. Their +parents did not like to hear this innocent talk, but Gregor thought +about it quite hard and decided he would let them know what he +planned with a grand announcement of it on Christmas day. + +That was the sort of totally pointless thing that went through his +mind in his present state, pressed upright against the door and +listening. There were times when he simply became too tired to +continue listening, when his head would fall wearily against the +door and he would pull it up again with a start, as even the +slightest noise he caused would be heard next door and they would +all go silent. "What's that he's doing now", his father would say +after a while, clearly having gone over to the door, and only then +would the interrupted conversation slowly be taken up again. + +When explaining things, his father repeated himself several times, +partly because it was a long time since he had been occupied with +these matters himself and partly because Gregor's mother did not +understand everything the first time. From these repeated explanations +Gregor learned, to his pleasure, that despite all their misfortunes +there was still some money available from the old days. It was not +a lot, but it had not been touched in the meantime and some interest +had accumulated. Besides that, they had not been using up all the +money that Gregor had been bringing home every month, keeping only a +little for himself, so that that, too, had been accumulating. +Behind the door, Gregor nodded with enthusiasm in his pleasure at +this unexpected thrift and caution. He could actually have used +this surplus money to reduce his father's debt to his boss, and the +day when he could have freed himself from that job would have come +much closer, but now it was certainly better the way his father had +done things. + +This money, however, was certainly not enough to enable the family +to live off the interest; it was enough to maintain them for, +perhaps, one or two years, no more. That's to say, it was money +that should not really be touched but set aside for emergencies; +money to live on had to be earned. His father was healthy but old, +and lacking in self confidence. During the five years that he had +not been working - the first holiday in a life that had been full of +strain and no success - he had put on a lot of weight and become +very slow and clumsy. Would Gregor's elderly mother now have to go +and earn money? She suffered from asthma and it was a strain for her +just to move about the home, every other day would be spent +struggling for breath on the sofa by the open window. Would his +sister have to go and earn money? She was still a child of +seventeen, her life up till then had been very enviable, consisting +of wearing nice clothes, sleeping late, helping out in the business, +joining in with a few modest pleasures and most of all playing the +violin. Whenever they began to talk of the need to earn money, +Gregor would always first let go of the door and then throw himself +onto the cool, leather sofa next to it, as he became quite hot with +shame and regret. + +He would often lie there the whole night through, not sleeping a +wink but scratching at the leather for hours on end. Or he might go +to all the effort of pushing a chair to the window, climbing up onto +the sill and, propped up in the chair, leaning on the window to +stare out of it. He had used to feel a great sense of freedom from +doing this, but doing it now was obviously something more remembered +than experienced, as what he actually saw in this way was becoming +less distinct every day, even things that were quite near; he had +used to curse the ever-present view of the hospital across the +street, but now he could not see it at all, and if he had not known +that he lived in Charlottenstrasse, which was a quiet street despite +being in the middle of the city, he could have thought that he was +looking out the window at a barren waste where the grey sky and the +grey earth mingled inseparably. His observant sister only needed to +notice the chair twice before she would always push it back to its +exact position by the window after she had tidied up the room, and +even left the inner pane of the window open from then on. + +If Gregor had only been able to speak to his sister and thank her +for all that she had to do for him it would have been easier for him +to bear it; but as it was it caused him pain. His sister, +naturally, tried as far as possible to pretend there was nothing +burdensome about it, and the longer it went on, of course, the +better she was able to do so, but as time went by Gregor was also +able to see through it all so much better. It had even become very +unpleasant for him, now, whenever she entered the room. No sooner +had she come in than she would quickly close the door as a +precaution so that no-one would have to suffer the view into +Gregor's room, then she would go straight to the window and pull it +hurriedly open almost as if she were suffocating. Even if it was +cold, she would stay at the window breathing deeply for a little +while. She would alarm Gregor twice a day with this running about +and noise making; he would stay under the couch shivering the whole +while, knowing full well that she would certainly have liked to +spare him this ordeal, but it was impossible for her to be in the +same room with him with the windows closed. + +One day, about a month after Gregor's transformation when his sister +no longer had any particular reason to be shocked at his appearance, +she came into the room a little earlier than usual and found him +still staring out the window, motionless, and just where he would be +most horrible. In itself, his sister's not coming into the room +would have been no surprise for Gregor as it would have been +difficult for her to immediately open the window while he was still +there, but not only did she not come in, she went straight back and +closed the door behind her, a stranger would have thought he had +threatened her and tried to bite her. Gregor went straight to hide +himself under the couch, of course, but he had to wait until midday +before his sister came back and she seemed much more uneasy than +usual. It made him realise that she still found his appearance +unbearable and would continue to do so, she probably even had to +overcome the urge to flee when she saw the little bit of him that +protruded from under the couch. One day, in order to spare her even +this sight, he spent four hours carrying the bedsheet over to the +couch on his back and arranged it so that he was completely covered +and his sister would not be able to see him even if she bent down. +If she did not think this sheet was necessary then all she had to do +was take it off again, as it was clear enough that it was no +pleasure for Gregor to cut himself off so completely. She left the +sheet where it was. Gregor even thought he glimpsed a look of +gratitude one time when he carefully looked out from under the sheet +to see how his sister liked the new arrangement. + +For the first fourteen days, Gregor's parents could not bring +themselves to come into the room to see him. He would often hear +them say how they appreciated all the new work his sister was doing +even though, before, they had seen her as a girl who was somewhat +useless and frequently been annoyed with her. But now the two of +them, father and mother, would often both wait outside the door of +Gregor's room while his sister tidied up in there, and as soon as +she went out again she would have to tell them exactly how +everything looked, what Gregor had eaten, how he had behaved this +time and whether, perhaps, any slight improvement could be seen. +His mother also wanted to go in and visit Gregor relatively soon but +his father and sister at first persuaded her against it. Gregor +listened very closely to all this, and approved fully. Later, +though, she had to be held back by force, which made her call out: +"Let me go and see Gregor, he is my unfortunate son! Can't you +understand I have to see him?", and Gregor would think to himself +that maybe it would be better if his mother came in, not every day +of course, but one day a week, perhaps; she could understand +everything much better than his sister who, for all her courage, was +still just a child after all, and really might not have had an +adult's appreciation of the burdensome job she had taken on. + +Gregor's wish to see his mother was soon realised. Out of +consideration for his parents, Gregor wanted to avoid being seen at +the window during the day, the few square meters of the floor did +not give him much room to crawl about, it was hard to just lie +quietly through the night, his food soon stopped giving him any +pleasure at all, and so, to entertain himself, he got into the habit +of crawling up and down the walls and ceiling. He was especially +fond of hanging from the ceiling; it was quite different from lying +on the floor; he could breathe more freely; his body had a light +swing to it; and up there, relaxed and almost happy, it might happen +that he would surprise even himself by letting go of the ceiling and +landing on the floor with a crash. But now, of course, he had far +better control of his body than before and, even with a fall as +great as that, caused himself no damage. Very soon his sister +noticed Gregor's new way of entertaining himself - he had, after +all, left traces of the adhesive from his feet as he crawled about - +and got it into her head to make it as easy as possible for him by +removing the furniture that got in his way, especially the chest of +drawers and the desk. Now, this was not something that she would be +able to do by herself; she did not dare to ask for help from her +father; the sixteen year old maid had carried on bravely since the +cook had left but she certainly would not have helped in this, she +had even asked to be allowed to keep the kitchen locked at all times +and never to have to open the door unless it was especially +important; so his sister had no choice but to choose some time when +Gregor's father was not there and fetch his mother to help her. As +she approached the room, Gregor could hear his mother express her +joy, but once at the door she went silent. First, of course, his +sister came in and looked round to see that everything in the room +was alright; and only then did she let her mother enter. Gregor had +hurriedly pulled the sheet down lower over the couch and put more +folds into it so that everything really looked as if it had just +been thrown down by chance. Gregor also refrained, this time, from +spying out from under the sheet; he gave up the chance to see his +mother until later and was simply glad that she had come. "You can +come in, he can't be seen", said his sister, obviously leading her +in by the hand. The old chest of drawers was too heavy for a pair +of feeble women to be heaving about, but Gregor listened as they +pushed it from its place, his sister always taking on the heaviest +part of the work for herself and ignoring her mother's warnings that +she would strain herself. This lasted a very long time. After +labouring at it for fifteen minutes or more his mother said it would +be better to leave the chest where it was, for one thing it was too +heavy for them to get the job finished before Gregor's father got +home and leaving it in the middle of the room it would be in his way +even more, and for another thing it wasn't even sure that taking the +furniture away would really be any help to him. She thought just +the opposite; the sight of the bare walls saddened her right to her +heart; and why wouldn't Gregor feel the same way about it, he'd been +used to this furniture in his room for a long time and it would make +him feel abandoned to be in an empty room like that. Then, quietly, +almost whispering as if wanting Gregor (whose whereabouts she did +not know) to hear not even the tone of her voice, as she was +convinced that he did not understand her words, she added "and by +taking the furniture away, won't it seem like we're showing that +we've given up all hope of improvement and we're abandoning him to +cope for himself? I think it'd be best to leave the room exactly the +way it was before so that when Gregor comes back to us again he'll +find everything unchanged and he'll be able to forget the time in +between all the easier". + +Hearing these words from his mother made Gregor realise that the +lack of any direct human communication, along with the monotonous +life led by the family during these two months, must have made him +confused - he could think of no other way of explaining to himself +why he had seriously wanted his room emptied out. Had he really +wanted to transform his room into a cave, a warm room fitted out +with the nice furniture he had inherited? That would have let him +crawl around unimpeded in any direction, but it would also have let +him quickly forget his past when he had still been human. He had +come very close to forgetting, and it had only been the voice of his +mother, unheard for so long, that had shaken him out of it. Nothing +should be removed; everything had to stay; he could not do without +the good influence the furniture had on his condition; and if the +furniture made it difficult for him to crawl about mindlessly that +was not a loss but a great advantage. + +His sister, unfortunately, did not agree; she had become used to the +idea, not without reason, that she was Gregor's spokesman to his +parents about the things that concerned him. This meant that his +mother's advice now was sufficient reason for her to insist on +removing not only the chest of drawers and the desk, as she had +thought at first, but all the furniture apart from the all-important +couch. It was more than childish perversity, of course, or the +unexpected confidence she had recently acquired, that made her +insist; she had indeed noticed that Gregor needed a lot of room to +crawl about in, whereas the furniture, as far as anyone could see, +was of no use to him at all. Girls of that age, though, do become +enthusiastic about things and feel they must get their way whenever +they can. Perhaps this was what tempted Grete to make Gregor's +situation seem even more shocking than it was so that she could do +even more for him. Grete would probably be the only one who would +dare enter a room dominated by Gregor crawling about the bare walls +by himself. + +So she refused to let her mother dissuade her. Gregor's mother +already looked uneasy in his room, she soon stopped speaking and +helped Gregor's sister to get the chest of drawers out with what +strength she had. The chest of drawers was something that Gregor +could do without if he had to, but the writing desk had to stay. +Hardly had the two women pushed the chest of drawers, groaning, out +of the room than Gregor poked his head out from under the couch to +see what he could do about it. He meant to be as careful and +considerate as he could, but, unfortunately, it was his mother who +came back first while Grete in the next room had her arms round the +chest, pushing and pulling at it from side to side by herself +without, of course, moving it an inch. His mother was not used to +the sight of Gregor, he might have made her ill, so Gregor hurried +backwards to the far end of the couch. In his startlement, though, +he was not able to prevent the sheet at its front from moving a +little. It was enough to attract his mother's attention. She stood +very still, remained there a moment, and then went back out to +Grete. + +Gregor kept trying to assure himself that nothing unusual was +happening, it was just a few pieces of furniture being moved after +all, but he soon had to admit that the women going to and fro, their +little calls to each other, the scraping of the furniture on the +floor, all these things made him feel as if he were being assailed +from all sides. With his head and legs pulled in against him and +his body pressed to the floor, he was forced to admit to himself +that he could not stand all of this much longer. They were emptying +his room out; taking away everything that was dear to him; they had +already taken out the chest containing his fretsaw and other tools; +now they threatened to remove the writing desk with its place +clearly worn into the floor, the desk where he had done his homework +as a business trainee, at high school, even while he had been at +infant school--he really could not wait any longer to see whether +the two women's intentions were good. He had nearly forgotten they +were there anyway, as they were now too tired to say anything while +they worked and he could only hear their feet as they stepped +heavily on the floor. + +So, while the women were leant against the desk in the other room +catching their breath, he sallied out, changed direction four times +not knowing what he should save first before his attention was +suddenly caught by the picture on the wall - which was already +denuded of everything else that had been on it - of the lady dressed +in copious fur. He hurried up onto the picture and pressed himself +against its glass, it held him firmly and felt good on his hot +belly. This picture at least, now totally covered by Gregor, would +certainly be taken away by no-one. He turned his head to face the +door into the living room so that he could watch the women when they +came back. + +They had not allowed themselves a long rest and came back quite +soon; Grete had put her arm around her mother and was nearly +carrying her. "What shall we take now, then?", said Grete and +looked around. Her eyes met those of Gregor on the wall. Perhaps +only because her mother was there, she remained calm, bent her face +to her so that she would not look round and said, albeit hurriedly +and with a tremor in her voice: "Come on, let's go back in the +living room for a while?" Gregor could see what Grete had in mind, +she wanted to take her mother somewhere safe and then chase him down +from the wall. Well, she could certainly try it! He sat unyielding +on his picture. He would rather jump at Grete's face. + +But Grete's words had made her mother quite worried, she stepped to +one side, saw the enormous brown patch against the flowers of the +wallpaper, and before she even realised it was Gregor that she saw +screamed: "Oh God, oh God!" Arms outstretched, she fell onto the +couch as if she had given up everything and stayed there immobile. +"Gregor!" shouted his sister, glowering at him and shaking her fist. + That was the first word she had spoken to him directly since his +transformation. She ran into the other room to fetch some kind of +smelling salts to bring her mother out of her faint; Gregor wanted +to help too - he could save his picture later, although he stuck +fast to the glass and had to pull himself off by force; then he, +too, ran into the next room as if he could advise his sister like in +the old days; but he had to just stand behind her doing nothing; she +was looking into various bottles, he startled her when she turned +round; a bottle fell to the ground and broke; a splinter cut +Gregor's face, some kind of caustic medicine splashed all over him; +now, without delaying any longer, Grete took hold of all the bottles +she could and ran with them in to her mother; she slammed the door +shut with her foot. So now Gregor was shut out from his mother, +who, because of him, might be near to death; he could not open the +door if he did not want to chase his sister away, and she had to +stay with his mother; there was nothing for him to do but wait; and, +oppressed with anxiety and self-reproach, he began to crawl about, +he crawled over everything, walls, furniture, ceiling, and finally +in his confusion as the whole room began to spin around him he fell +down into the middle of the dinner table. + +He lay there for a while, numb and immobile, all around him it was +quiet, maybe that was a good sign. Then there was someone at the +door. The maid, of course, had locked herself in her kitchen so +that Grete would have to go and answer it. His father had arrived +home. "What's happened?" were his first words; Grete's appearance +must have made everything clear to him. She answered him with +subdued voice, and openly pressed her face into his chest: "Mother's +fainted, but she's better now. Gregor got out." "Just as I +expected", said his father, "just as I always said, but you women +wouldn't listen, would you." It was clear to Gregor that Grete had +not said enough and that his father took it to mean that something +bad had happened, that he was responsible for some act of violence. +That meant Gregor would now have to try to calm his father, as he +did not have the time to explain things to him even if that had been +possible. So he fled to the door of his room and pressed himself +against it so that his father, when he came in from the hall, could +see straight away that Gregor had the best intentions and would go +back into his room without delay, that it would not be necessary to +drive him back but that they had only to open the door and he would +disappear. + +His father, though, was not in the mood to notice subtleties like +that; "Ah!", he shouted as he came in, sounding as if he were both +angry and glad at the same time. Gregor drew his head back from the +door and lifted it towards his father. He really had not imagined +his father the way he stood there now; of late, with his new habit +of crawling about, he had neglected to pay attention to what was +going on the rest of the flat the way he had done before. He really +ought to have expected things to have changed, but still, still, was +that really his father? The same tired man as used to be laying +there entombed in his bed when Gregor came back from his business +trips, who would receive him sitting in the armchair in his +nightgown when he came back in the evenings; who was hardly even +able to stand up but, as a sign of his pleasure, would just raise +his arms and who, on the couple of times a year when they went for a +walk together on a Sunday or public holiday wrapped up tightly in +his overcoat between Gregor and his mother, would always labour his +way forward a little more slowly than them, who were already walking +slowly for his sake; who would place his stick down carefully and, +if he wanted to say something would invariably stop and gather his +companions around him. He was standing up straight enough now; +dressed in a smart blue uniform with gold buttons, the sort worn by +the employees at the banking institute; above the high, stiff collar +of the coat his strong double-chin emerged; under the bushy +eyebrows, his piercing, dark eyes looked out fresh and alert; his +normally unkempt white hair was combed down painfully close to his +scalp. He took his cap, with its gold monogram from, probably, some +bank, and threw it in an arc right across the room onto the sofa, +put his hands in his trouser pockets, pushing back the bottom of his +long uniform coat, and, with look of determination, walked towards +Gregor. He probably did not even know himself what he had in mind, +but nonetheless lifted his feet unusually high. Gregor was amazed +at the enormous size of the soles of his boots, but wasted no time +with that - he knew full well, right from the first day of his new +life, that his father thought it necessary to always be extremely +strict with him. And so he ran up to his father, stopped when his +father stopped, scurried forwards again when he moved, even +slightly. In this way they went round the room several times +without anything decisive happening, without even giving the +impression of a chase as everything went so slowly. Gregor remained +all this time on the floor, largely because he feared his father +might see it as especially provoking if he fled onto the wall or +ceiling. Whatever he did, Gregor had to admit that he certainly +would not be able to keep up this running about for long, as for +each step his father took he had to carry out countless movements. +He became noticeably short of breath, even in his earlier life his +lungs had not been very reliable. Now, as he lurched about in his +efforts to muster all the strength he could for running he could +hardly keep his eyes open; his thoughts became too slow for him to +think of any other way of saving himself than running; he almost +forgot that the walls were there for him to use although, here, they +were concealed behind carefully carved furniture full of notches and +protrusions - then, right beside him, lightly tossed, something flew +down and rolled in front of him. It was an apple; then another one +immediately flew at him; Gregor froze in shock; there was no longer +any point in running as his father had decided to bombard him. He +had filled his pockets with fruit from the bowl on the sideboard and +now, without even taking the time for careful aim, threw one apple +after another. These little, red apples rolled about on the floor, +knocking into each other as if they had electric motors. An apple +thrown without much force glanced against Gregor's back and slid off +without doing any harm. Another one however, immediately following +it, hit squarely and lodged in his back; Gregor wanted to drag +himself away, as if he could remove the surprising, the incredible +pain by changing his position; but he felt as if nailed to the spot +and spread himself out, all his senses in confusion. The last thing +he saw was the door of his room being pulled open, his sister was +screaming, his mother ran out in front of her in her blouse (as his +sister had taken off some of her clothes after she had fainted to +make it easier for her to breathe), she ran to his father, her +skirts unfastened and sliding one after another to the ground, +stumbling over the skirts she pushed herself to his father, her arms +around him, uniting herself with him totally - now Gregor lost his +ability to see anything - her hands behind his father's head begging +him to spare Gregor's life. + + + +III + + +No-one dared to remove the apple lodged in Gregor's flesh, so it +remained there as a visible reminder of his injury. He had suffered +it there for more than a month, and his condition seemed serious +enough to remind even his father that Gregor, despite his current +sad and revolting form, was a family member who could not be treated +as an enemy. On the contrary, as a family there was a duty to +swallow any revulsion for him and to be patient, just to be patient. + +Because of his injuries, Gregor had lost much of his mobility - +probably permanently. He had been reduced to the condition of an +ancient invalid and it took him long, long minutes to crawl across +his room - crawling over the ceiling was out of the question - but +this deterioration in his condition was fully (in his opinion) made +up for by the door to the living room being left open every evening. + He got into the habit of closely watching it for one or two hours +before it was opened and then, lying in the darkness of his room +where he could not be seen from the living room, he could watch the +family in the light of the dinner table and listen to their +conversation - with everyone's permission, in a way, and thus quite +differently from before. + +They no longer held the lively conversations of earlier times, of +course, the ones that Gregor always thought about with longing when +he was tired and getting into the damp bed in some small hotel room. + All of them were usually very quiet nowadays. Soon after dinner, +his father would go to sleep in his chair; his mother and sister +would urge each other to be quiet; his mother, bent deeply under the +lamp, would sew fancy underwear for a fashion shop; his sister, who +had taken a sales job, learned shorthand and French in the evenings +so that she might be able to get a better position later on. +Sometimes his father would wake up and say to Gregor's mother +"you're doing so much sewing again today!", as if he did not know +that he had been dozing - and then he would go back to sleep again +while mother and sister would exchange a tired grin. + +With a kind of stubbornness, Gregor's father refused to take his +uniform off even at home; while his nightgown hung unused on its peg +Gregor's father would slumber where he was, fully dressed, as if +always ready to serve and expecting to hear the voice of his +superior even here. The uniform had not been new to start with, but +as a result of this it slowly became even shabbier despite the +efforts of Gregor's mother and sister to look after it. Gregor +would often spend the whole evening looking at all the stains on +this coat, with its gold buttons always kept polished and shiny, +while the old man in it would sleep, highly uncomfortable but +peaceful. + +As soon as it struck ten, Gregor's mother would speak gently to his +father to wake him and try to persuade him to go to bed, as he +couldn't sleep properly where he was and he really had to get his +sleep if he was to be up at six to get to work. But since he had +been in work he had become more obstinate and would always insist on +staying longer at the table, even though he regularly fell asleep +and it was then harder than ever to persuade him to exchange the +chair for his bed. Then, however much mother and sister would +importune him with little reproaches and warnings he would keep +slowly shaking his head for a quarter of an hour with his eyes +closed and refusing to get up. Gregor's mother would tug at his +sleeve, whisper endearments into his ear, Gregor's sister would +leave her work to help her mother, but nothing would have any effect +on him. He would just sink deeper into his chair. Only when the +two women took him under the arms he would abruptly open his eyes, +look at them one after the other and say: "What a life! This is what +peace I get in my old age!" And supported by the two women he would +lift himself up carefully as if he were carrying the greatest load +himself, let the women take him to the door, send them off and carry +on by himself while Gregor's mother would throw down her needle and +his sister her pen so that they could run after his father and +continue being of help to him. + +Who, in this tired and overworked family, would have had time to +give more attention to Gregor than was absolutely necessary? The +household budget became even smaller; so now the maid was dismissed; +an enormous, thick-boned charwoman with white hair that flapped +around her head came every morning and evening to do the heaviest +work; everything else was looked after by Gregor's mother on top of +the large amount of sewing work she did. Gregor even learned, +listening to the evening conversation about what price they had +hoped for, that several items of jewellery belonging to the family +had been sold, even though both mother and sister had been very fond +of wearing them at functions and celebrations. But the loudest +complaint was that although the flat was much too big for their +present circumstances, they could not move out of it, there was no +imaginable way of transferring Gregor to the new address. He could +see quite well, though, that there were more reasons than +consideration for him that made it difficult for them to move, it +would have been quite easy to transport him in any suitable crate +with a few air holes in it; the main thing holding the family back +from their decision to move was much more to do with their total +despair, and the thought that they had been struck with a misfortune +unlike anything experienced by anyone else they knew or were related +to. They carried out absolutely everything that the world expects +from poor people, Gregor's father brought bank employees their +breakfast, his mother sacrificed herself by washing clothes for +strangers, his sister ran back and forth behind her desk at the +behest of the customers, but they just did not have the strength to +do any more. And the injury in Gregor's back began to hurt as much +as when it was new. After they had come back from taking his father +to bed Gregor's mother and sister would now leave their work where +it was and sit close together, cheek to cheek; his mother would +point to Gregor's room and say "Close that door, Grete", and then, +when he was in the dark again, they would sit in the next room and +their tears would mingle, or they would simply sit there staring +dry-eyed at the table. + +Gregor hardly slept at all, either night or day. Sometimes he would +think of taking over the family's affairs, just like before, the +next time the door was opened; he had long forgotten about his boss +and the chief clerk, but they would appear again in his thoughts, +the salesmen and the apprentices, that stupid teaboy, two or three +friends from other businesses, one of the chambermaids from a +provincial hotel, a tender memory that appeared and disappeared +again, a cashier from a hat shop for whom his attention had been +serious but too slow, - all of them appeared to him, mixed together +with strangers and others he had forgotten, but instead of helping +him and his family they were all of them inaccessible, and he was +glad when they disappeared. Other times he was not at all in the +mood to look after his family, he was filled with simple rage about +the lack of attention he was shown, and although he could think of +nothing he would have wanted, he made plans of how he could get into +the pantry where he could take all the things he was entitled to, +even if he was not hungry. Gregor's sister no longer thought about +how she could please him but would hurriedly push some food or other +into his room with her foot before she rushed out to work in the +morning and at midday, and in the evening she would sweep it away +again with the broom, indifferent as to whether it had been eaten or +- more often than not - had been left totally untouched. She still +cleared up the room in the evening, but now she could not have been +any quicker about it. Smears of dirt were left on the walls, here +and there were little balls of dust and filth. At first, Gregor +went into one of the worst of these places when his sister arrived +as a reproach to her, but he could have stayed there for weeks +without his sister doing anything about it; she could see the dirt +as well as he could but she had simply decided to leave him to it. +At the same time she became touchy in a way that was quite new for +her and which everyone in the family understood - cleaning up +Gregor's room was for her and her alone. Gregor's mother did once +thoroughly clean his room, and needed to use several bucketfuls of +water to do it - although that much dampness also made Gregor ill +and he lay flat on the couch, bitter and immobile. But his mother +was to be punished still more for what she had done, as hardly had +his sister arrived home in the evening than she noticed the change +in Gregor's room and, highly aggrieved, ran back into the living +room where, despite her mothers raised and imploring hands, she +broke into convulsive tears. Her father, of course, was startled +out of his chair and the two parents looked on astonished and +helpless; then they, too, became agitated; Gregor's father, standing +to the right of his mother, accused her of not leaving the cleaning +of Gregor's room to his sister; from her left, Gregor's sister +screamed at her that she was never to clean Gregor's room again; +while his mother tried to draw his father, who was beside himself +with anger, into the bedroom; his sister, quaking with tears, +thumped on the table with her small fists; and Gregor hissed in +anger that no-one had even thought of closing the door to save him +the sight of this and all its noise. + +Gregor's sister was exhausted from going out to work, and looking +after Gregor as she had done before was even more work for her, but +even so his mother ought certainly not to have taken her place. +Gregor, on the other hand, ought not to be neglected. Now, though, +the charwoman was here. This elderly widow, with a robust bone +structure that made her able to withstand the hardest of things in +her long life, wasn't really repelled by Gregor. Just by chance one +day, rather than any real curiosity, she opened the door to Gregor's +room and found herself face to face with him. He was taken totally +by surprise, no-one was chasing him but he began to rush to and fro +while she just stood there in amazement with her hands crossed in +front of her. From then on she never failed to open the door +slightly every evening and morning and look briefly in on him. At +first she would call to him as she did so with words that she +probably considered friendly, such as "come on then, you old +dung-beetle!", or "look at the old dung-beetle there!" Gregor never +responded to being spoken to in that way, but just remained where he +was without moving as if the door had never even been opened. If +only they had told this charwoman to clean up his room every day +instead of letting her disturb him for no reason whenever she felt +like it! One day, early in the morning while a heavy rain struck the +windowpanes, perhaps indicating that spring was coming, she began to +speak to him in that way once again. Gregor was so resentful of it +that he started to move toward her, he was slow and infirm, but it +was like a kind of attack. Instead of being afraid, the charwoman +just lifted up one of the chairs from near the door and stood there +with her mouth open, clearly intending not to close her mouth until +the chair in her hand had been slammed down into Gregor's back. +"Aren't you coming any closer, then?", she asked when Gregor turned +round again, and she calmly put the chair back in the corner. + +Gregor had almost entirely stopped eating. Only if he happened to +find himself next to the food that had been prepared for him he +might take some of it into his mouth to play with it, leave it there +a few hours and then, more often than not, spit it out again. At +first he thought it was distress at the state of his room that +stopped him eating, but he had soon got used to the changes made +there. They had got into the habit of putting things into this room +that they had no room for anywhere else, and there were now many +such things as one of the rooms in the flat had been rented out to +three gentlemen. These earnest gentlemen - all three of them had +full beards, as Gregor learned peering through the crack in the door +one day - were painfully insistent on things' being tidy. This +meant not only in their own room but, since they had taken a room in +this establishment, in the entire flat and especially in the +kitchen. Unnecessary clutter was something they could not tolerate, +especially if it was dirty. They had moreover brought most of their +own furnishings and equipment with them. For this reason, many +things had become superfluous which, although they could not be +sold, the family did not wish to discard. All these things found +their way into Gregor's room. The dustbins from the kitchen found +their way in there too. The charwoman was always in a hurry, and +anything she couldn't use for the time being she would just chuck in +there. He, fortunately, would usually see no more than the object +and the hand that held it. The woman most likely meant to fetch the +things back out again when she had time and the opportunity, or to +throw everything out in one go, but what actually happened was that +they were left where they landed when they had first been thrown +unless Gregor made his way through the junk and moved it somewhere +else. At first he moved it because, with no other room free where +he could crawl about, he was forced to, but later on he came to +enjoy it although moving about in that way left him sad and tired to +death and he would remain immobile for hours afterwards. + +The gentlemen who rented the room would sometimes take their evening +meal at home in the living room that was used by everyone, and so +the door to this room was often kept closed in the evening. But +Gregor found it easy to give up having the door open, he had, after +all, often failed to make use of it when it was open and, without +the family having noticed it, lain in his room in its darkest +corner. One time, though, the charwoman left the door to the living +room slightly open, and it remained open when the gentlemen who +rented the room came in in the evening and the light was put on. +They sat up at the table where, formerly, Gregor had taken his meals +with his father and mother, they unfolded the serviettes and picked +up their knives and forks. Gregor's mother immediately appeared in +the doorway with a dish of meat and soon behind her came his sister +with a dish piled high with potatoes. The food was steaming, and +filled the room with its smell. The gentlemen bent over the dishes +set in front of them as if they wanted to test the food before +eating it, and the gentleman in the middle, who seemed to count as +an authority for the other two, did indeed cut off a piece of meat +while it was still in its dish, clearly wishing to establish whether +it was sufficiently cooked or whether it should be sent back to the +kitchen. It was to his satisfaction, and Gregor's mother and +sister, who had been looking on anxiously, began to breathe again +and smiled. + +The family themselves ate in the kitchen. Nonetheless, Gregor's +father came into the living room before he went into the kitchen, +bowed once with his cap in his hand and did his round of the table. +The gentlemen stood as one, and mumbled something into their beards. + Then, once they were alone, they ate in near perfect silence. It +seemed remarkable to Gregor that above all the various noises of +eating their chewing teeth could still be heard, as if they had +wanted to show Gregor that you need teeth in order to eat and it was +not possible to perform anything with jaws that are toothless +however nice they might be. "I'd like to eat something", said +Gregor anxiously, "but not anything like they're eating. They do +feed themselves. And here I am, dying!" + +Throughout all this time, Gregor could not remember having heard the +violin being played, but this evening it began to be heard from the +kitchen. The three gentlemen had already finished their meal, the +one in the middle had produced a newspaper, given a page to each of +the others, and now they leant back in their chairs reading them and +smoking. When the violin began playing they became attentive, stood +up and went on tip-toe over to the door of the hallway where they +stood pressed against each other. Someone must have heard them in +the kitchen, as Gregor's father called out: "Is the playing perhaps +unpleasant for the gentlemen? We can stop it straight away." "On +the contrary", said the middle gentleman, "would the young lady not +like to come in and play for us here in the room, where it is, after +all, much more cosy and comfortable?" "Oh yes, we'd love to", +called back Gregor's father as if he had been the violin player +himself. The gentlemen stepped back into the room and waited. +Gregor's father soon appeared with the music stand, his mother with +the music and his sister with the violin. She calmly prepared +everything for her to begin playing; his parents, who had never +rented a room out before and therefore showed an exaggerated +courtesy towards the three gentlemen, did not even dare to sit on +their own chairs; his father leant against the door with his right +hand pushed in between two buttons on his uniform coat; his mother, +though, was offered a seat by one of the gentlemen and sat - leaving +the chair where the gentleman happened to have placed it - out of +the way in a corner. + +His sister began to play; father and mother paid close attention, +one on each side, to the movements of her hands. Drawn in by the +playing, Gregor had dared to come forward a little and already had +his head in the living room. Before, he had taken great pride in +how considerate he was but now it hardly occurred to him that he had +become so thoughtless about the others. What's more, there was now +all the more reason to keep himself hidden as he was covered in the +dust that lay everywhere in his room and flew up at the slightest +movement; he carried threads, hairs, and remains of food about on +his back and sides; he was much too indifferent to everything now to +lay on his back and wipe himself on the carpet like he had used to +do several times a day. And despite this condition, he was not too +shy to move forward a little onto the immaculate floor of the living +room. + +No-one noticed him, though. The family was totally preoccupied with +the violin playing; at first, the three gentlemen had put their +hands in their pockets and come up far too close behind the music +stand to look at all the notes being played, and they must have +disturbed Gregor's sister, but soon, in contrast with the family, +they withdrew back to the window with their heads sunk and talking +to each other at half volume, and they stayed by the window while +Gregor's father observed them anxiously. It really now seemed very +obvious that they had expected to hear some beautiful or +entertaining violin playing but had been disappointed, that they had +had enough of the whole performance and it was only now out of +politeness that they allowed their peace to be disturbed. It was +especially unnerving, the way they all blew the smoke from their +cigarettes upwards from their mouth and noses. Yet Gregor's sister +was playing so beautifully. Her face was leant to one side, +following the lines of music with a careful and melancholy +expression. Gregor crawled a little further forward, keeping his +head close to the ground so that he could meet her eyes if the +chance came. Was he an animal if music could captivate him so? It +seemed to him that he was being shown the way to the unknown +nourishment he had been yearning for. He was determined to make his +way forward to his sister and tug at her skirt to show her she might +come into his room with her violin, as no-one appreciated her +playing here as much as he would. He never wanted to let her out of +his room, not while he lived, anyway; his shocking appearance +should, for once, be of some use to him; he wanted to be at every +door of his room at once to hiss and spit at the attackers; his +sister should not be forced to stay with him, though, but stay of +her own free will; she would sit beside him on the couch with her +ear bent down to him while he told her how he had always intended to +send her to the conservatory, how he would have told everyone about +it last Christmas - had Christmas really come and gone already? - if +this misfortune hadn't got in the way, and refuse to let anyone +dissuade him from it. On hearing all this, his sister would break +out in tears of emotion, and Gregor would climb up to her shoulder +and kiss her neck, which, since she had been going out to work, she +had kept free without any necklace or collar. + +"Mr. Samsa!", shouted the middle gentleman to Gregor's father, +pointing, without wasting any more words, with his forefinger at +Gregor as he slowly moved forward. The violin went silent, the +middle of the three gentlemen first smiled at his two friends, +shaking his head, and then looked back at Gregor. His father seemed +to think it more important to calm the three gentlemen before +driving Gregor out, even though they were not at all upset and +seemed to think Gregor was more entertaining than the violin playing +had been. He rushed up to them with his arms spread out and +attempted to drive them back into their room at the same time as +trying to block their view of Gregor with his body. Now they did +become a little annoyed, and it was not clear whether it was his +father's behaviour that annoyed them or the dawning realisation that +they had had a neighbour like Gregor in the next room without +knowing it. They asked Gregor's father for explanations, raised +their arms like he had, tugged excitedly at their beards and moved +back towards their room only very slowly. Meanwhile Gregor's sister +had overcome the despair she had fallen into when her playing was +suddenly interrupted. She had let her hands drop and let violin and +bow hang limply for a while but continued to look at the music as if +still playing, but then she suddenly pulled herself together, lay +the instrument on her mother's lap who still sat laboriously +struggling for breath where she was, and ran into the next room +which, under pressure from her father, the three gentlemen were more +quickly moving toward. Under his sister's experienced hand, the +pillows and covers on the beds flew up and were put into order and +she had already finished making the beds and slipped out again +before the three gentlemen had reached the room. Gregor's father +seemed so obsessed with what he was doing that he forgot all the +respect he owed to his tenants. He urged them and pressed them +until, when he was already at the door of the room, the middle of +the three gentlemen shouted like thunder and stamped his foot and +thereby brought Gregor's father to a halt. "I declare here and +now", he said, raising his hand and glancing at Gregor's mother and +sister to gain their attention too, "that with regard to the +repugnant conditions that prevail in this flat and with this family" +- here he looked briefly but decisively at the floor - "I give +immediate notice on my room. For the days that I have been living +here I will, of course, pay nothing at all, on the contrary I will +consider whether to proceed with some kind of action for damages +from you, and believe me it would be very easy to set out the +grounds for such an action." He was silent and looked straight +ahead as if waiting for something. And indeed, his two friends +joined in with the words: "And we also give immediate notice." With +that, he took hold of the door handle and slammed the door. + +Gregor's father staggered back to his seat, feeling his way with his +hands, and fell into it; it looked as if he was stretching himself +out for his usual evening nap but from the uncontrolled way his head +kept nodding it could be seen that he was not sleeping at all. +Throughout all this, Gregor had lain still where the three gentlemen +had first seen him. His disappointment at the failure of his plan, +and perhaps also because he was weak from hunger, made it impossible +for him to move. He was sure that everyone would turn on him any +moment, and he waited. He was not even startled out of this state +when the violin on his mother's lap fell from her trembling fingers +and landed loudly on the floor. + +"Father, Mother", said his sister, hitting the table with her hand +as introduction, "we can't carry on like this. Maybe you can't see +it, but I can. I don't want to call this monster my brother, all I +can say is: we have to try and get rid of it. We've done all that's +humanly possible to look after it and be patient, I don't think +anyone could accuse us of doing anything wrong." + +"She's absolutely right", said Gregor's father to himself. His +mother, who still had not had time to catch her breath, began to +cough dully, her hand held out in front of her and a deranged +expression in her eyes. + +Gregor's sister rushed to his mother and put her hand on her +forehead. Her words seemed to give Gregor's father some more +definite ideas. He sat upright, played with his uniform cap between +the plates left by the three gentlemen after their meal, and +occasionally looked down at Gregor as he lay there immobile. + +"We have to try and get rid of it", said Gregor's sister, now +speaking only to her father, as her mother was too occupied with +coughing to listen, "it'll be the death of both of you, I can see it +coming. We can't all work as hard as we have to and then come home +to be tortured like this, we can't endure it. I can't endure it any +more." And she broke out so heavily in tears that they flowed down +the face of her mother, and she wiped them away with mechanical hand +movements. + +"My child", said her father with sympathy and obvious understanding, +"what are we to do?" + +His sister just shrugged her shoulders as a sign of the helplessness +and tears that had taken hold of her, displacing her earlier +certainty. + +"If he could just understand us", said his father almost as a +question; his sister shook her hand vigorously through her tears as +a sign that of that there was no question. + +"If he could just understand us", repeated Gregor's father, closing +his eyes in acceptance of his sister's certainty that that was quite +impossible, "then perhaps we could come to some kind of arrangement +with him. But as it is ..." + +"It's got to go", shouted his sister, "that's the only way, Father. +You've got to get rid of the idea that that's Gregor. We've only +harmed ourselves by believing it for so long. How can that be +Gregor? If it were Gregor he would have seen long ago that it's not +possible for human beings to live with an animal like that and he +would have gone of his own free will. We wouldn't have a brother +any more, then, but we could carry on with our lives and remember +him with respect. As it is this animal is persecuting us, it's +driven out our tenants, it obviously wants to take over the whole +flat and force us to sleep on the streets. Father, look, just +look", she suddenly screamed, "he's starting again!" In her alarm, +which was totally beyond Gregor's comprehension, his sister even +abandoned his mother as she pushed herself vigorously out of her +chair as if more willing to sacrifice her own mother than stay +anywhere near Gregor. She rushed over to behind her father, who had +become excited merely because she was and stood up half raising his +hands in front of Gregor's sister as if to protect her. + +But Gregor had had no intention of frightening anyone, least of all +his sister. All he had done was begin to turn round so that he +could go back into his room, although that was in itself quite +startling as his pain-wracked condition meant that turning round +required a great deal of effort and he was using his head to help +himself do it, repeatedly raising it and striking it against the +floor. He stopped and looked round. They seemed to have realised +his good intention and had only been alarmed briefly. Now they all +looked at him in unhappy silence. His mother lay in her chair with +her legs stretched out and pressed against each other, her eyes +nearly closed with exhaustion; his sister sat next to his father +with her arms around his neck. + +"Maybe now they'll let me turn round", thought Gregor and went back +to work. He could not help panting loudly with the effort and had +sometimes to stop and take a rest. No-one was making him rush any +more, everything was left up to him. As soon as he had finally +finished turning round he began to move straight ahead. He was +amazed at the great distance that separated him from his room, and +could not understand how he had covered that distance in his weak +state a little while before and almost without noticing it. He +concentrated on crawling as fast as he could and hardly noticed that +there was not a word, not any cry, from his family to distract him. +He did not turn his head until he had reached the doorway. He did +not turn it all the way round as he felt his neck becoming stiff, +but it was nonetheless enough to see that nothing behind him had +changed, only his sister had stood up. With his last glance he saw +that his mother had now fallen completely asleep. + +He was hardly inside his room before the door was hurriedly shut, +bolted and locked. The sudden noise behind Gregor so startled him +that his little legs collapsed under him. It was his sister who had +been in so much of a rush. She had been standing there waiting and +sprung forward lightly, Gregor had not heard her coming at all, and +as she turned the key in the lock she said loudly to her parents "At +last!". + +"What now, then?", Gregor asked himself as he looked round in the +darkness. He soon made the discovery that he could no longer move +at all. This was no surprise to him, it seemed rather that being +able to actually move around on those spindly little legs until then +was unnatural. He also felt relatively comfortable. It is true +that his entire body was aching, but the pain seemed to be slowly +getting weaker and weaker and would finally disappear altogether. +He could already hardly feel the decayed apple in his back or the +inflamed area around it, which was entirely covered in white dust. +He thought back of his family with emotion and love. If it was +possible, he felt that he must go away even more strongly than his +sister. He remained in this state of empty and peaceful rumination +until he heard the clock tower strike three in the morning. He +watched as it slowly began to get light everywhere outside the +window too. Then, without his willing it, his head sank down +completely, and his last breath flowed weakly from his nostrils. + +When the cleaner came in early in the morning - they'd often asked +her not to keep slamming the doors but with her strength and in her +hurry she still did, so that everyone in the flat knew when she'd +arrived and from then on it was impossible to sleep in peace - she +made her usual brief look in on Gregor and at first found nothing +special. She thought he was laying there so still on purpose, +playing the martyr; she attributed all possible understanding to +him. She happened to be holding the long broom in her hand, so she +tried to tickle Gregor with it from the doorway. When she had no +success with that she tried to make a nuisance of herself and poked +at him a little, and only when she found she could shove him across +the floor with no resistance at all did she start to pay attention. +She soon realised what had really happened, opened her eyes wide, +whistled to herself, but did not waste time to yank open the bedroom +doors and shout loudly into the darkness of the bedrooms: "Come and +'ave a look at this, it's dead, just lying there, stone dead!" + +Mr. and Mrs. Samsa sat upright there in their marriage bed and had +to make an effort to get over the shock caused by the cleaner before +they could grasp what she was saying. But then, each from his own +side, they hurried out of bed. Mr. Samsa threw the blanket over his +shoulders, Mrs. Samsa just came out in her nightdress; and that is +how they went into Gregor's room. On the way they opened the door +to the living room where Grete had been sleeping since the three +gentlemen had moved in; she was fully dressed as if she had never +been asleep, and the paleness of her face seemed to confirm this. +"Dead?", asked Mrs. Samsa, looking at the charwoman enquiringly, +even though she could have checked for herself and could have known +it even without checking. "That's what I said", replied the +cleaner, and to prove it she gave Gregor's body another shove with +the broom, sending it sideways across the floor. Mrs. Samsa made a +movement as if she wanted to hold back the broom, but did not +complete it. "Now then", said Mr. Samsa, "let's give thanks to God +for that". He crossed himself, and the three women followed his +example. Grete, who had not taken her eyes from the corpse, said: +"Just look how thin he was. He didn't eat anything for so long. +The food came out again just the same as when it went in". Gregor's +body was indeed completely dried up and flat, they had not seen it +until then, but now he was not lifted up on his little legs, nor did +he do anything to make them look away. + +"Grete, come with us in here for a little while", said Mrs. Samsa +with a pained smile, and Grete followed her parents into the bedroom +but not without looking back at the body. The cleaner shut the door +and opened the window wide. Although it was still early in the +morning the fresh air had something of warmth mixed in with it. It +was already the end of March, after all. + +The three gentlemen stepped out of their room and looked round in +amazement for their breakfasts; they had been forgotten about. +"Where is our breakfast?", the middle gentleman asked the cleaner +irritably. She just put her finger on her lips and made a quick and +silent sign to the men that they might like to come into Gregor's +room. They did so, and stood around Gregor's corpse with their +hands in the pockets of their well-worn coats. It was now quite +light in the room. + +Then the door of the bedroom opened and Mr. Samsa appeared in his +uniform with his wife on one arm and his daughter on the other. All +of them had been crying a little; Grete now and then pressed her +face against her father's arm. + +"Leave my home. Now!", said Mr. Samsa, indicating the door and +without letting the women from him. "What do you mean?", asked the +middle of the three gentlemen somewhat disconcerted, and he smiled +sweetly. The other two held their hands behind their backs and +continually rubbed them together in gleeful anticipation of a loud +quarrel which could only end in their favour. "I mean just what I +said", answered Mr. Samsa, and, with his two companions, went in a +straight line towards the man. At first, he stood there still, +looking at the ground as if the contents of his head were +rearranging themselves into new positions. "Alright, we'll go +then", he said, and looked up at Mr. Samsa as if he had been +suddenly overcome with humility and wanted permission again from +Mr. Samsa for his decision. Mr. Samsa merely opened his eyes wide +and briefly nodded to him several times. At that, and without +delay, the man actually did take long strides into the front +hallway; his two friends had stopped rubbing their hands some time +before and had been listening to what was being said. Now they +jumped off after their friend as if taken with a sudden fear that +Mr. Samsa might go into the hallway in front of them and break the +connection with their leader. Once there, all three took their hats +from the stand, took their sticks from the holder, bowed without a +word and left the premises. Mr. Samsa and the two women followed +them out onto the landing; but they had had no reason to mistrust +the men's intentions and as they leaned over the landing they saw how +the three gentlemen made slow but steady progress down the many +steps. As they turned the corner on each floor they disappeared and +would reappear a few moments later; the further down they went, the +more that the Samsa family lost interest in them; when a butcher's +boy, proud of posture with his tray on his head, passed them on his +way up and came nearer than they were, Mr. Samsa and the women came +away from the landing and went, as if relieved, back into the flat. + +They decided the best way to make use of that day was for relaxation +and to go for a walk; not only had they earned a break from work but +they were in serious need of it. So they sat at the table and wrote +three letters of excusal, Mr. Samsa to his employers, Mrs. Samsa +to her contractor and Grete to her principal. The cleaner came in +while they were writing to tell them she was going, she'd finished +her work for that morning. The three of them at first just nodded +without looking up from what they were writing, and it was only when +the cleaner still did not seem to want to leave that they looked up +in irritation. "Well?", asked Mr. Samsa. The charwoman stood in +the doorway with a smile on her face as if she had some tremendous +good news to report, but would only do it if she was clearly asked +to. The almost vertical little ostrich feather on her hat, which +had been a source of irritation to Mr. Samsa all the time she had +been working for them, swayed gently in all directions. "What is it +you want then?", asked Mrs. Samsa, whom the cleaner had the most +respect for. "Yes", she answered, and broke into a friendly laugh +that made her unable to speak straight away, "well then, that thing +in there, you needn't worry about how you're going to get rid of it. + That's all been sorted out." Mrs. Samsa and Grete bent down over +their letters as if intent on continuing with what they were +writing; Mr. Samsa saw that the cleaner wanted to start describing +everything in detail but, with outstretched hand, he made it quite +clear that she was not to. So, as she was prevented from telling +them all about it, she suddenly remembered what a hurry she was in +and, clearly peeved, called out "Cheerio then, everyone", turned +round sharply and left, slamming the door terribly as she went. + +"Tonight she gets sacked", said Mr. Samsa, but he received no reply +from either his wife or his daughter as the charwoman seemed to have +destroyed the peace they had only just gained. They got up and went +over to the window where they remained with their arms around each +other. Mr. Samsa twisted round in his chair to look at them and sat +there watching for a while. Then he called out: "Come here, then. +Let's forget about all that old stuff, shall we. Come and give me a +bit of attention". The two women immediately did as he said, +hurrying over to him where they kissed him and hugged him and then +they quickly finished their letters. + +After that, the three of them left the flat together, which was +something they had not done for months, and took the tram out to the +open country outside the town. They had the tram, filled with warm +sunshine, all to themselves. Leant back comfortably on their seats, +they discussed their prospects and found that on closer examination +they were not at all bad - until then they had never asked each +other about their work but all three had jobs which were very good +and held particularly good promise for the future. The greatest +improvement for the time being, of course, would be achieved quite +easily by moving house; what they needed now was a flat that was +smaller and cheaper than the current one which had been chosen by +Gregor, one that was in a better location and, most of all, more +practical. All the time, Grete was becoming livelier. With all the +worry they had been having of late her cheeks had become pale, but, +while they were talking, Mr. and Mrs. Samsa were struck, almost +simultaneously, with the thought of how their daughter was +blossoming into a well built and beautiful young lady. They became +quieter. Just from each other's glance and almost without knowing +it they agreed that it would soon be time to find a good man for +her. And, as if in confirmation of their new dreams and good +intentions, as soon as they reached their destination Grete was the +first to get up and stretch out her young body. + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Metamorphosis, by Franz Kafka +Translated by David Wyllie. + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK METAMORPHOSIS *** + +***** This file should be named 5200.txt or 5200.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.net/5/2/0/5200/ + + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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Thus, we do not necessarily +keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition. + +Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility: + +http://www.gutenberg.net + +This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm, +including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary +Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to +subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks. diff --git a/src/main/pg-moby_dick.txt b/src/main/pg-moby_dick.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..7ed4cd1 --- /dev/null +++ b/src/main/pg-moby_dick.txt @@ -0,0 +1,22108 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Moby Dick; or The Whale, by Herman Melville + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Moby Dick; or The Whale + +Author: Herman Melville + +Last Updated: January 3, 2009 +Posting Date: December 25, 2008 [EBook #2701] +Release Date: June, 2001 + +Language: English + + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MOBY DICK; OR THE WHALE *** + + + + +Produced by Daniel Lazarus and Jonesey + + + + + +MOBY DICK; OR THE WHALE + +By Herman Melville + + + + +Original Transcriber's Notes: + +This text is a combination of etexts, one from the now-defunct ERIS +project at Virginia Tech and one from Project Gutenberg's archives. The +proofreaders of this version are indebted to The University of Adelaide +Library for preserving the Virginia Tech version. The resulting etext +was compared with a public domain hard copy version of the text. + +In chapters 24, 89, and 90, we substituted a capital L for the symbol +for the British pound, a unit of currency. + + + + +ETYMOLOGY. + +(Supplied by a Late Consumptive Usher to a Grammar School) + +The pale Usher--threadbare in coat, heart, body, and brain; I see him +now. He was ever dusting his old lexicons and grammars, with a queer +handkerchief, mockingly embellished with all the gay flags of all +the known nations of the world. He loved to dust his old grammars; it +somehow mildly reminded him of his mortality. + +"While you take in hand to school others, and to teach them by what +name a whale-fish is to be called in our tongue leaving out, through +ignorance, the letter H, which almost alone maketh the signification of +the word, you deliver that which is not true." --HACKLUYT + +"WHALE.... Sw. and Dan. HVAL. This animal is named from roundness or +rolling; for in Dan. HVALT is arched or vaulted." --WEBSTER'S DICTIONARY + +"WHALE.... It is more immediately from the Dut. and Ger. WALLEN; A.S. +WALW-IAN, to roll, to wallow." --RICHARDSON'S DICTIONARY + + KETOS, GREEK. + CETUS, LATIN. + WHOEL, ANGLO-SAXON. + HVALT, DANISH. + WAL, DUTCH. + HWAL, SWEDISH. + WHALE, ICELANDIC. + WHALE, ENGLISH. + BALEINE, FRENCH. + BALLENA, SPANISH. + PEKEE-NUEE-NUEE, FEGEE. + PEHEE-NUEE-NUEE, ERROMANGOAN. + + + + +EXTRACTS (Supplied by a Sub-Sub-Librarian). + +It will be seen that this mere painstaking burrower and grub-worm of a +poor devil of a Sub-Sub appears to have gone through the long Vaticans +and street-stalls of the earth, picking up whatever random allusions to +whales he could anyways find in any book whatsoever, sacred or +profane. Therefore you must not, in every case at least, take the +higgledy-piggledy whale statements, however authentic, in these +extracts, for veritable gospel cetology. Far from it. As touching the +ancient authors generally, as well as the poets here appearing, these +extracts are solely valuable or entertaining, as affording a glancing +bird's eye view of what has been promiscuously said, thought, fancied, +and sung of Leviathan, by many nations and generations, including our +own. + +So fare thee well, poor devil of a Sub-Sub, whose commentator I am. Thou +belongest to that hopeless, sallow tribe which no wine of this world +will ever warm; and for whom even Pale Sherry would be too rosy-strong; +but with whom one sometimes loves to sit, and feel poor-devilish, too; +and grow convivial upon tears; and say to them bluntly, with full eyes +and empty glasses, and in not altogether unpleasant sadness--Give it up, +Sub-Subs! For by how much the more pains ye take to please the world, +by so much the more shall ye for ever go thankless! Would that I could +clear out Hampton Court and the Tuileries for ye! But gulp down your +tears and hie aloft to the royal-mast with your hearts; for your friends +who have gone before are clearing out the seven-storied heavens, and +making refugees of long-pampered Gabriel, Michael, and Raphael, against +your coming. Here ye strike but splintered hearts together--there, ye +shall strike unsplinterable glasses! + + +EXTRACTS. + +"And God created great whales." --GENESIS. + +"Leviathan maketh a path to shine after him; One would think the deep to +be hoary." --JOB. + +"Now the Lord had prepared a great fish to swallow up Jonah." --JONAH. + +"There go the ships; there is that Leviathan whom thou hast made to play +therein." --PSALMS. + +"In that day, the Lord with his sore, and great, and strong sword, +shall punish Leviathan the piercing serpent, even Leviathan that crooked +serpent; and he shall slay the dragon that is in the sea." --ISAIAH + +"And what thing soever besides cometh within the chaos of this monster's +mouth, be it beast, boat, or stone, down it goes all incontinently that +foul great swallow of his, and perisheth in the bottomless gulf of his +paunch." --HOLLAND'S PLUTARCH'S MORALS. + +"The Indian Sea breedeth the most and the biggest fishes that are: among +which the Whales and Whirlpooles called Balaene, take up as much in +length as four acres or arpens of land." --HOLLAND'S PLINY. + +"Scarcely had we proceeded two days on the sea, when about sunrise a +great many Whales and other monsters of the sea, appeared. Among the +former, one was of a most monstrous size.... This came towards us, +open-mouthed, raising the waves on all sides, and beating the sea before +him into a foam." --TOOKE'S LUCIAN. "THE TRUE HISTORY." + +"He visited this country also with a view of catching horse-whales, +which had bones of very great value for their teeth, of which he brought +some to the king.... The best whales were catched in his own country, of +which some were forty-eight, some fifty yards long. He said that he was +one of six who had killed sixty in two days." --OTHER OR OTHER'S VERBAL +NARRATIVE TAKEN DOWN FROM HIS MOUTH BY KING ALFRED, A.D. 890. + +"And whereas all the other things, whether beast or vessel, that +enter into the dreadful gulf of this monster's (whale's) mouth, are +immediately lost and swallowed up, the sea-gudgeon retires into it in +great security, and there sleeps." --MONTAIGNE. --APOLOGY FOR RAIMOND +SEBOND. + +"Let us fly, let us fly! Old Nick take me if is not Leviathan described +by the noble prophet Moses in the life of patient Job." --RABELAIS. + +"This whale's liver was two cartloads." --STOWE'S ANNALS. + +"The great Leviathan that maketh the seas to seethe like boiling pan." +--LORD BACON'S VERSION OF THE PSALMS. + +"Touching that monstrous bulk of the whale or ork we have received +nothing certain. They grow exceeding fat, insomuch that an incredible +quantity of oil will be extracted out of one whale." --IBID. "HISTORY OF +LIFE AND DEATH." + +"The sovereignest thing on earth is parmacetti for an inward bruise." +--KING HENRY. + +"Very like a whale." --HAMLET. + + "Which to secure, no skill of leach's art + Mote him availle, but to returne againe + To his wound's worker, that with lowly dart, + Dinting his breast, had bred his restless paine, + Like as the wounded whale to shore flies thro' the maine." + --THE FAERIE QUEEN. + +"Immense as whales, the motion of whose vast bodies can in a peaceful +calm trouble the ocean til it boil." --SIR WILLIAM DAVENANT. PREFACE TO +GONDIBERT. + +"What spermacetti is, men might justly doubt, since the learned +Hosmannus in his work of thirty years, saith plainly, Nescio quid sit." +--SIR T. BROWNE. OF SPERMA CETI AND THE SPERMA CETI WHALE. VIDE HIS V. +E. + + "Like Spencer's Talus with his modern flail + He threatens ruin with his ponderous tail. + ... + Their fixed jav'lins in his side he wears, + And on his back a grove of pikes appears." + --WALLER'S BATTLE OF THE SUMMER ISLANDS. + +"By art is created that great Leviathan, called a Commonwealth or +State--(in Latin, Civitas) which is but an artificial man." --OPENING +SENTENCE OF HOBBES'S LEVIATHAN. + +"Silly Mansoul swallowed it without chewing, as if it had been a sprat +in the mouth of a whale." --PILGRIM'S PROGRESS. + + "That sea beast + Leviathan, which God of all his works + Created hugest that swim the ocean stream." --PARADISE LOST. + + ---"There Leviathan, + Hugest of living creatures, in the deep + Stretched like a promontory sleeps or swims, + And seems a moving land; and at his gills + Draws in, and at his breath spouts out a sea." --IBID. + +"The mighty whales which swim in a sea of water, and have a sea of oil +swimming in them." --FULLLER'S PROFANE AND HOLY STATE. + + "So close behind some promontory lie + The huge Leviathan to attend their prey, + And give no chance, but swallow in the fry, + Which through their gaping jaws mistake the way." + --DRYDEN'S ANNUS MIRABILIS. + +"While the whale is floating at the stern of the ship, they cut off his +head, and tow it with a boat as near the shore as it will come; but it +will be aground in twelve or thirteen feet water." --THOMAS EDGE'S TEN +VOYAGES TO SPITZBERGEN, IN PURCHAS. + +"In their way they saw many whales sporting in the ocean, and in +wantonness fuzzing up the water through their pipes and vents, which +nature has placed on their shoulders." --SIR T. HERBERT'S VOYAGES INTO +ASIA AND AFRICA. HARRIS COLL. + +"Here they saw such huge troops of whales, that they were forced to +proceed with a great deal of caution for fear they should run their ship +upon them." --SCHOUTEN'S SIXTH CIRCUMNAVIGATION. + +"We set sail from the Elbe, wind N.E. in the ship called The +Jonas-in-the-Whale.... Some say the whale can't open his mouth, but that +is a fable.... They frequently climb up the masts to see whether they +can see a whale, for the first discoverer has a ducat for his pains.... +I was told of a whale taken near Shetland, that had above a barrel of +herrings in his belly.... One of our harpooneers told me that he caught +once a whale in Spitzbergen that was white all over." --A VOYAGE TO +GREENLAND, A.D. 1671 HARRIS COLL. + +"Several whales have come in upon this coast (Fife) Anno 1652, one +eighty feet in length of the whale-bone kind came in, which (as I was +informed), besides a vast quantity of oil, did afford 500 weight of +baleen. The jaws of it stand for a gate in the garden of Pitferren." +--SIBBALD'S FIFE AND KINROSS. + +"Myself have agreed to try whether I can master and kill this +Sperma-ceti whale, for I could never hear of any of that sort that was +killed by any man, such is his fierceness and swiftness." --RICHARD +STRAFFORD'S LETTER FROM THE BERMUDAS. PHIL. TRANS. A.D. 1668. + +"Whales in the sea God's voice obey." --N. E. PRIMER. + +"We saw also abundance of large whales, there being more in those +southern seas, as I may say, by a hundred to one; than we have to the +northward of us." --CAPTAIN COWLEY'S VOYAGE ROUND THE GLOBE, A.D. 1729. + +"... and the breath of the whale is frequently attended with such an +insupportable smell, as to bring on a disorder of the brain." --ULLOA'S +SOUTH AMERICA. + + "To fifty chosen sylphs of special note, + We trust the important charge, the petticoat. + Oft have we known that seven-fold fence to fail, + Tho' stuffed with hoops and armed with ribs of whale." + --RAPE OF THE LOCK. + +"If we compare land animals in respect to magnitude, with those +that take up their abode in the deep, we shall find they will appear +contemptible in the comparison. The whale is doubtless the largest +animal in creation." --GOLDSMITH, NAT. HIST. + +"If you should write a fable for little fishes, you would make them +speak like great wales." --GOLDSMITH TO JOHNSON. + +"In the afternoon we saw what was supposed to be a rock, but it was +found to be a dead whale, which some Asiatics had killed, and were then +towing ashore. They seemed to endeavor to conceal themselves behind the +whale, in order to avoid being seen by us." --COOK'S VOYAGES. + +"The larger whales, they seldom venture to attack. They stand in so +great dread of some of them, that when out at sea they are afraid to +mention even their names, and carry dung, lime-stone, juniper-wood, +and some other articles of the same nature in their boats, in order to +terrify and prevent their too near approach." --UNO VON TROIL'S LETTERS +ON BANKS'S AND SOLANDER'S VOYAGE TO ICELAND IN 1772. + +"The Spermacetti Whale found by the Nantuckois, is an active, fierce +animal, and requires vast address and boldness in the fishermen." +--THOMAS JEFFERSON'S WHALE MEMORIAL TO THE FRENCH MINISTER IN 1778. + +"And pray, sir, what in the world is equal to it?" --EDMUND BURKE'S +REFERENCE IN PARLIAMENT TO THE NANTUCKET WHALE-FISHERY. + +"Spain--a great whale stranded on the shores of Europe." --EDMUND BURKE. +(SOMEWHERE.) + +"A tenth branch of the king's ordinary revenue, said to be grounded on +the consideration of his guarding and protecting the seas from pirates +and robbers, is the right to royal fish, which are whale and sturgeon. +And these, when either thrown ashore or caught near the coast, are the +property of the king." --BLACKSTONE. + + "Soon to the sport of death the crews repair: + Rodmond unerring o'er his head suspends + The barbed steel, and every turn attends." + --FALCONER'S SHIPWRECK. + + "Bright shone the roofs, the domes, the spires, + And rockets blew self driven, + To hang their momentary fire + Around the vault of heaven. + + "So fire with water to compare, + The ocean serves on high, + Up-spouted by a whale in air, + To express unwieldy joy." --COWPER, ON THE QUEEN'S + VISIT TO LONDON. + +"Ten or fifteen gallons of blood are thrown out of the heart at +a stroke, with immense velocity." --JOHN HUNTER'S ACCOUNT OF THE +DISSECTION OF A WHALE. (A SMALL SIZED ONE.) + +"The aorta of a whale is larger in the bore than the main pipe of the +water-works at London Bridge, and the water roaring in its passage +through that pipe is inferior in impetus and velocity to the blood +gushing from the whale's heart." --PALEY'S THEOLOGY. + +"The whale is a mammiferous animal without hind feet." --BARON CUVIER. + +"In 40 degrees south, we saw Spermacetti Whales, but did not take +any till the first of May, the sea being then covered with them." +--COLNETT'S VOYAGE FOR THE PURPOSE OF EXTENDING THE SPERMACETI WHALE +FISHERY. + + "In the free element beneath me swam, + Floundered and dived, in play, in chace, in battle, + Fishes of every colour, form, and kind; + Which language cannot paint, and mariner + Had never seen; from dread Leviathan + To insect millions peopling every wave: + Gather'd in shoals immense, like floating islands, + Led by mysterious instincts through that waste + And trackless region, though on every side + Assaulted by voracious enemies, + Whales, sharks, and monsters, arm'd in front or jaw, + With swords, saws, spiral horns, or hooked fangs." + --MONTGOMERY'S WORLD BEFORE THE FLOOD. + + "Io! Paean! Io! sing. + To the finny people's king. + Not a mightier whale than this + In the vast Atlantic is; + Not a fatter fish than he, + Flounders round the Polar Sea." + --CHARLES LAMB'S TRIUMPH OF THE WHALE. + +"In the year 1690 some persons were on a high hill observing the +whales spouting and sporting with each other, when one observed: +there--pointing to the sea--is a green pasture where our children's +grand-children will go for bread." --OBED MACY'S HISTORY OF NANTUCKET. + +"I built a cottage for Susan and myself and made a gateway in the form +of a Gothic Arch, by setting up a whale's jaw bones." --HAWTHORNE'S +TWICE TOLD TALES. + +"She came to bespeak a monument for her first love, who had been killed +by a whale in the Pacific ocean, no less than forty years ago." --IBID. + +"No, Sir, 'tis a Right Whale," answered Tom; "I saw his sprout; he threw +up a pair of as pretty rainbows as a Christian would wish to look at. +He's a raal oil-butt, that fellow!" --COOPER'S PILOT. + +"The papers were brought in, and we saw in the Berlin Gazette +that whales had been introduced on the stage there." --ECKERMANN'S +CONVERSATIONS WITH GOETHE. + +"My God! Mr. Chace, what is the matter?" I answered, "we have been stove +by a whale." --"NARRATIVE OF THE SHIPWRECK OF THE WHALE SHIP ESSEX OF +NANTUCKET, WHICH WAS ATTACKED AND FINALLY DESTROYED BY A LARGE SPERM +WHALE IN THE PACIFIC OCEAN." BY OWEN CHACE OF NANTUCKET, FIRST MATE OF +SAID VESSEL. NEW YORK, 1821. + + "A mariner sat in the shrouds one night, + The wind was piping free; + Now bright, now dimmed, was the moonlight pale, + And the phospher gleamed in the wake of the whale, + As it floundered in the sea." + --ELIZABETH OAKES SMITH. + +"The quantity of line withdrawn from the boats engaged in the capture +of this one whale, amounted altogether to 10,440 yards or nearly six +English miles.... + +"Sometimes the whale shakes its tremendous tail in the air, which, +cracking like a whip, resounds to the distance of three or four miles." +--SCORESBY. + +"Mad with the agonies he endures from these fresh attacks, the +infuriated Sperm Whale rolls over and over; he rears his enormous head, +and with wide expanded jaws snaps at everything around him; he rushes +at the boats with his head; they are propelled before him with vast +swiftness, and sometimes utterly destroyed.... It is a matter of great +astonishment that the consideration of the habits of so interesting, +and, in a commercial point of view, so important an animal (as the Sperm +Whale) should have been so entirely neglected, or should have excited +so little curiosity among the numerous, and many of them competent +observers, that of late years, must have possessed the most abundant +and the most convenient opportunities of witnessing their habitudes." +--THOMAS BEALE'S HISTORY OF THE SPERM WHALE, 1839. + +"The Cachalot" (Sperm Whale) "is not only better armed than the True +Whale" (Greenland or Right Whale) "in possessing a formidable weapon +at either extremity of its body, but also more frequently displays a +disposition to employ these weapons offensively and in manner at once so +artful, bold, and mischievous, as to lead to its being regarded as the +most dangerous to attack of all the known species of the whale tribe." +--FREDERICK DEBELL BENNETT'S WHALING VOYAGE ROUND THE GLOBE, 1840. + + October 13. "There she blows," was sung out from the mast-head. + "Where away?" demanded the captain. + "Three points off the lee bow, sir." + "Raise up your wheel. Steady!" "Steady, sir." + "Mast-head ahoy! Do you see that whale now?" + "Ay ay, sir! A shoal of Sperm Whales! There she blows! There she + breaches!" + "Sing out! sing out every time!" + "Ay Ay, sir! There she blows! there--there--THAR she + blows--bowes--bo-o-os!" + "How far off?" + "Two miles and a half." + "Thunder and lightning! so near! Call all hands." + --J. ROSS BROWNE'S ETCHINGS OF A WHALING CRUIZE. 1846. + +"The Whale-ship Globe, on board of which vessel occurred the horrid +transactions we are about to relate, belonged to the island of +Nantucket." --"NARRATIVE OF THE GLOBE," BY LAY AND HUSSEY SURVIVORS. +A.D. 1828. + +Being once pursued by a whale which he had wounded, he parried the +assault for some time with a lance; but the furious monster at length +rushed on the boat; himself and comrades only being preserved by leaping +into the water when they saw the onset was inevitable." --MISSIONARY +JOURNAL OF TYERMAN AND BENNETT. + +"Nantucket itself," said Mr. Webster, "is a very striking and peculiar +portion of the National interest. There is a population of eight or nine +thousand persons living here in the sea, adding largely every year +to the National wealth by the boldest and most persevering industry." +--REPORT OF DANIEL WEBSTER'S SPEECH IN THE U. S. SENATE, ON THE +APPLICATION FOR THE ERECTION OF A BREAKWATER AT NANTUCKET. 1828. + +"The whale fell directly over him, and probably killed him in a moment." +--"THE WHALE AND HIS CAPTORS, OR THE WHALEMAN'S ADVENTURES AND THE +WHALE'S BIOGRAPHY, GATHERED ON THE HOMEWARD CRUISE OF THE COMMODORE +PREBLE." BY REV. HENRY T. CHEEVER. + +"If you make the least damn bit of noise," replied Samuel, "I will send +you to hell." --LIFE OF SAMUEL COMSTOCK (THE MUTINEER), BY HIS BROTHER, +WILLIAM COMSTOCK. ANOTHER VERSION OF THE WHALE-SHIP GLOBE NARRATIVE. + +"The voyages of the Dutch and English to the Northern Ocean, in order, +if possible, to discover a passage through it to India, though they +failed of their main object, laid-open the haunts of the whale." +--MCCULLOCH'S COMMERCIAL DICTIONARY. + +"These things are reciprocal; the ball rebounds, only to bound forward +again; for now in laying open the haunts of the whale, the whalemen seem +to have indirectly hit upon new clews to that same mystic North-West +Passage." --FROM "SOMETHING" UNPUBLISHED. + +"It is impossible to meet a whale-ship on the ocean without being struck +by her near appearance. The vessel under short sail, with look-outs at +the mast-heads, eagerly scanning the wide expanse around them, has a +totally different air from those engaged in regular voyage." --CURRENTS +AND WHALING. U.S. EX. EX. + +"Pedestrians in the vicinity of London and elsewhere may recollect +having seen large curved bones set upright in the earth, either to form +arches over gateways, or entrances to alcoves, and they may perhaps +have been told that these were the ribs of whales." --TALES OF A WHALE +VOYAGER TO THE ARCTIC OCEAN. + +"It was not till the boats returned from the pursuit of these whales, +that the whites saw their ship in bloody possession of the savages +enrolled among the crew." --NEWSPAPER ACCOUNT OF THE TAKING AND RETAKING +OF THE WHALE-SHIP HOBOMACK. + +"It is generally well known that out of the crews of Whaling vessels +(American) few ever return in the ships on board of which they +departed." --CRUISE IN A WHALE BOAT. + +"Suddenly a mighty mass emerged from the water, and shot up +perpendicularly into the air. It was the whale." --MIRIAM COFFIN OR THE +WHALE FISHERMAN. + +"The Whale is harpooned to be sure; but bethink you, how you would +manage a powerful unbroken colt, with the mere appliance of a rope tied +to the root of his tail." --A CHAPTER ON WHALING IN RIBS AND TRUCKS. + +"On one occasion I saw two of these monsters (whales) probably male and +female, slowly swimming, one after the other, within less than a stone's +throw of the shore" (Terra Del Fuego), "over which the beech tree +extended its branches." --DARWIN'S VOYAGE OF A NATURALIST. + +"'Stern all!' exclaimed the mate, as upon turning his head, he saw the +distended jaws of a large Sperm Whale close to the head of the boat, +threatening it with instant destruction;--'Stern all, for your lives!'" +--WHARTON THE WHALE KILLER. + +"So be cheery, my lads, let your hearts never fail, While the bold +harpooneer is striking the whale!" --NANTUCKET SONG. + + "Oh, the rare old Whale, mid storm and gale + In his ocean home will be + A giant in might, where might is right, + And King of the boundless sea." + --WHALE SONG. + + + + +CHAPTER 1. Loomings. + + +Call me Ishmael. Some years ago--never mind how long precisely--having +little or no money in my purse, and nothing particular to interest me on +shore, I thought I would sail about a little and see the watery part of +the world. It is a way I have of driving off the spleen and regulating +the circulation. Whenever I find myself growing grim about the mouth; +whenever it is a damp, drizzly November in my soul; whenever I find +myself involuntarily pausing before coffin warehouses, and bringing up +the rear of every funeral I meet; and especially whenever my hypos get +such an upper hand of me, that it requires a strong moral principle to +prevent me from deliberately stepping into the street, and methodically +knocking people's hats off--then, I account it high time to get to sea +as soon as I can. This is my substitute for pistol and ball. With a +philosophical flourish Cato throws himself upon his sword; I quietly +take to the ship. There is nothing surprising in this. If they but knew +it, almost all men in their degree, some time or other, cherish very +nearly the same feelings towards the ocean with me. + +There now is your insular city of the Manhattoes, belted round by +wharves as Indian isles by coral reefs--commerce surrounds it with +her surf. Right and left, the streets take you waterward. Its extreme +downtown is the battery, where that noble mole is washed by waves, and +cooled by breezes, which a few hours previous were out of sight of land. +Look at the crowds of water-gazers there. + +Circumambulate the city of a dreamy Sabbath afternoon. Go from Corlears +Hook to Coenties Slip, and from thence, by Whitehall, northward. What +do you see?--Posted like silent sentinels all around the town, stand +thousands upon thousands of mortal men fixed in ocean reveries. Some +leaning against the spiles; some seated upon the pier-heads; some +looking over the bulwarks of ships from China; some high aloft in the +rigging, as if striving to get a still better seaward peep. But these +are all landsmen; of week days pent up in lath and plaster--tied to +counters, nailed to benches, clinched to desks. How then is this? Are +the green fields gone? What do they here? + +But look! here come more crowds, pacing straight for the water, and +seemingly bound for a dive. Strange! Nothing will content them but the +extremest limit of the land; loitering under the shady lee of yonder +warehouses will not suffice. No. They must get just as nigh the water +as they possibly can without falling in. And there they stand--miles of +them--leagues. Inlanders all, they come from lanes and alleys, streets +and avenues--north, east, south, and west. Yet here they all unite. +Tell me, does the magnetic virtue of the needles of the compasses of all +those ships attract them thither? + +Once more. Say you are in the country; in some high land of lakes. Take +almost any path you please, and ten to one it carries you down in a +dale, and leaves you there by a pool in the stream. There is magic +in it. Let the most absent-minded of men be plunged in his deepest +reveries--stand that man on his legs, set his feet a-going, and he will +infallibly lead you to water, if water there be in all that region. +Should you ever be athirst in the great American desert, try this +experiment, if your caravan happen to be supplied with a metaphysical +professor. Yes, as every one knows, meditation and water are wedded for +ever. + +But here is an artist. He desires to paint you the dreamiest, shadiest, +quietest, most enchanting bit of romantic landscape in all the valley of +the Saco. What is the chief element he employs? There stand his trees, +each with a hollow trunk, as if a hermit and a crucifix were within; and +here sleeps his meadow, and there sleep his cattle; and up from yonder +cottage goes a sleepy smoke. Deep into distant woodlands winds a +mazy way, reaching to overlapping spurs of mountains bathed in their +hill-side blue. But though the picture lies thus tranced, and though +this pine-tree shakes down its sighs like leaves upon this shepherd's +head, yet all were vain, unless the shepherd's eye were fixed upon the +magic stream before him. Go visit the Prairies in June, when for scores +on scores of miles you wade knee-deep among Tiger-lilies--what is the +one charm wanting?--Water--there is not a drop of water there! Were +Niagara but a cataract of sand, would you travel your thousand miles to +see it? Why did the poor poet of Tennessee, upon suddenly receiving two +handfuls of silver, deliberate whether to buy him a coat, which he sadly +needed, or invest his money in a pedestrian trip to Rockaway Beach? Why +is almost every robust healthy boy with a robust healthy soul in him, at +some time or other crazy to go to sea? Why upon your first voyage as a +passenger, did you yourself feel such a mystical vibration, when first +told that you and your ship were now out of sight of land? Why did the +old Persians hold the sea holy? Why did the Greeks give it a separate +deity, and own brother of Jove? Surely all this is not without meaning. +And still deeper the meaning of that story of Narcissus, who because +he could not grasp the tormenting, mild image he saw in the fountain, +plunged into it and was drowned. But that same image, we ourselves see +in all rivers and oceans. It is the image of the ungraspable phantom of +life; and this is the key to it all. + +Now, when I say that I am in the habit of going to sea whenever I begin +to grow hazy about the eyes, and begin to be over conscious of my lungs, +I do not mean to have it inferred that I ever go to sea as a passenger. +For to go as a passenger you must needs have a purse, and a purse is +but a rag unless you have something in it. Besides, passengers get +sea-sick--grow quarrelsome--don't sleep of nights--do not enjoy +themselves much, as a general thing;--no, I never go as a passenger; +nor, though I am something of a salt, do I ever go to sea as a +Commodore, or a Captain, or a Cook. I abandon the glory and distinction +of such offices to those who like them. For my part, I abominate all +honourable respectable toils, trials, and tribulations of every kind +whatsoever. It is quite as much as I can do to take care of myself, +without taking care of ships, barques, brigs, schooners, and what not. +And as for going as cook,--though I confess there is considerable glory +in that, a cook being a sort of officer on ship-board--yet, somehow, +I never fancied broiling fowls;--though once broiled, judiciously +buttered, and judgmatically salted and peppered, there is no one who +will speak more respectfully, not to say reverentially, of a broiled +fowl than I will. It is out of the idolatrous dotings of the old +Egyptians upon broiled ibis and roasted river horse, that you see the +mummies of those creatures in their huge bake-houses the pyramids. + +No, when I go to sea, I go as a simple sailor, right before the mast, +plumb down into the forecastle, aloft there to the royal mast-head. +True, they rather order me about some, and make me jump from spar to +spar, like a grasshopper in a May meadow. And at first, this sort +of thing is unpleasant enough. It touches one's sense of honour, +particularly if you come of an old established family in the land, the +Van Rensselaers, or Randolphs, or Hardicanutes. And more than all, +if just previous to putting your hand into the tar-pot, you have been +lording it as a country schoolmaster, making the tallest boys stand +in awe of you. The transition is a keen one, I assure you, from a +schoolmaster to a sailor, and requires a strong decoction of Seneca and +the Stoics to enable you to grin and bear it. But even this wears off in +time. + +What of it, if some old hunks of a sea-captain orders me to get a broom +and sweep down the decks? What does that indignity amount to, weighed, +I mean, in the scales of the New Testament? Do you think the archangel +Gabriel thinks anything the less of me, because I promptly and +respectfully obey that old hunks in that particular instance? Who ain't +a slave? Tell me that. Well, then, however the old sea-captains may +order me about--however they may thump and punch me about, I have the +satisfaction of knowing that it is all right; that everybody else is +one way or other served in much the same way--either in a physical +or metaphysical point of view, that is; and so the universal thump is +passed round, and all hands should rub each other's shoulder-blades, and +be content. + +Again, I always go to sea as a sailor, because they make a point of +paying me for my trouble, whereas they never pay passengers a single +penny that I ever heard of. On the contrary, passengers themselves must +pay. And there is all the difference in the world between paying +and being paid. The act of paying is perhaps the most uncomfortable +infliction that the two orchard thieves entailed upon us. But BEING +PAID,--what will compare with it? The urbane activity with which a man +receives money is really marvellous, considering that we so earnestly +believe money to be the root of all earthly ills, and that on no account +can a monied man enter heaven. Ah! how cheerfully we consign ourselves +to perdition! + +Finally, I always go to sea as a sailor, because of the wholesome +exercise and pure air of the fore-castle deck. For as in this world, +head winds are far more prevalent than winds from astern (that is, +if you never violate the Pythagorean maxim), so for the most part the +Commodore on the quarter-deck gets his atmosphere at second hand from +the sailors on the forecastle. He thinks he breathes it first; but not +so. In much the same way do the commonalty lead their leaders in many +other things, at the same time that the leaders little suspect it. +But wherefore it was that after having repeatedly smelt the sea as a +merchant sailor, I should now take it into my head to go on a whaling +voyage; this the invisible police officer of the Fates, who has the +constant surveillance of me, and secretly dogs me, and influences me +in some unaccountable way--he can better answer than any one else. And, +doubtless, my going on this whaling voyage, formed part of the grand +programme of Providence that was drawn up a long time ago. It came in as +a sort of brief interlude and solo between more extensive performances. +I take it that this part of the bill must have run something like this: + + +"GRAND CONTESTED ELECTION FOR THE PRESIDENCY OF THE UNITED STATES. + +"WHALING VOYAGE BY ONE ISHMAEL. + +"BLOODY BATTLE IN AFFGHANISTAN." + + +Though I cannot tell why it was exactly that those stage managers, the +Fates, put me down for this shabby part of a whaling voyage, when others +were set down for magnificent parts in high tragedies, and short and +easy parts in genteel comedies, and jolly parts in farces--though +I cannot tell why this was exactly; yet, now that I recall all the +circumstances, I think I can see a little into the springs and motives +which being cunningly presented to me under various disguises, induced +me to set about performing the part I did, besides cajoling me into the +delusion that it was a choice resulting from my own unbiased freewill +and discriminating judgment. + +Chief among these motives was the overwhelming idea of the great +whale himself. Such a portentous and mysterious monster roused all my +curiosity. Then the wild and distant seas where he rolled his island +bulk; the undeliverable, nameless perils of the whale; these, with all +the attending marvels of a thousand Patagonian sights and sounds, helped +to sway me to my wish. With other men, perhaps, such things would not +have been inducements; but as for me, I am tormented with an everlasting +itch for things remote. I love to sail forbidden seas, and land on +barbarous coasts. Not ignoring what is good, I am quick to perceive a +horror, and could still be social with it--would they let me--since it +is but well to be on friendly terms with all the inmates of the place +one lodges in. + +By reason of these things, then, the whaling voyage was welcome; the +great flood-gates of the wonder-world swung open, and in the wild +conceits that swayed me to my purpose, two and two there floated into +my inmost soul, endless processions of the whale, and, mid most of them +all, one grand hooded phantom, like a snow hill in the air. + + + +CHAPTER 2. The Carpet-Bag. + + +I stuffed a shirt or two into my old carpet-bag, tucked it under my arm, +and started for Cape Horn and the Pacific. Quitting the good city of +old Manhatto, I duly arrived in New Bedford. It was a Saturday night in +December. Much was I disappointed upon learning that the little packet +for Nantucket had already sailed, and that no way of reaching that place +would offer, till the following Monday. + +As most young candidates for the pains and penalties of whaling stop at +this same New Bedford, thence to embark on their voyage, it may as well +be related that I, for one, had no idea of so doing. For my mind was +made up to sail in no other than a Nantucket craft, because there was a +fine, boisterous something about everything connected with that famous +old island, which amazingly pleased me. Besides though New Bedford has +of late been gradually monopolising the business of whaling, and though +in this matter poor old Nantucket is now much behind her, yet Nantucket +was her great original--the Tyre of this Carthage;--the place where the +first dead American whale was stranded. Where else but from Nantucket +did those aboriginal whalemen, the Red-Men, first sally out in canoes to +give chase to the Leviathan? And where but from Nantucket, too, did that +first adventurous little sloop put forth, partly laden with imported +cobblestones--so goes the story--to throw at the whales, in order to +discover when they were nigh enough to risk a harpoon from the bowsprit? + +Now having a night, a day, and still another night following before me +in New Bedford, ere I could embark for my destined port, it became a +matter of concernment where I was to eat and sleep meanwhile. It was a +very dubious-looking, nay, a very dark and dismal night, bitingly cold +and cheerless. I knew no one in the place. With anxious grapnels I had +sounded my pocket, and only brought up a few pieces of silver,--So, +wherever you go, Ishmael, said I to myself, as I stood in the middle of +a dreary street shouldering my bag, and comparing the gloom towards the +north with the darkness towards the south--wherever in your wisdom you +may conclude to lodge for the night, my dear Ishmael, be sure to inquire +the price, and don't be too particular. + +With halting steps I paced the streets, and passed the sign of "The +Crossed Harpoons"--but it looked too expensive and jolly there. Further +on, from the bright red windows of the "Sword-Fish Inn," there came such +fervent rays, that it seemed to have melted the packed snow and ice from +before the house, for everywhere else the congealed frost lay ten inches +thick in a hard, asphaltic pavement,--rather weary for me, when I struck +my foot against the flinty projections, because from hard, remorseless +service the soles of my boots were in a most miserable plight. Too +expensive and jolly, again thought I, pausing one moment to watch the +broad glare in the street, and hear the sounds of the tinkling glasses +within. But go on, Ishmael, said I at last; don't you hear? get away +from before the door; your patched boots are stopping the way. So on I +went. I now by instinct followed the streets that took me waterward, for +there, doubtless, were the cheapest, if not the cheeriest inns. + +Such dreary streets! blocks of blackness, not houses, on either hand, +and here and there a candle, like a candle moving about in a tomb. At +this hour of the night, of the last day of the week, that quarter of +the town proved all but deserted. But presently I came to a smoky light +proceeding from a low, wide building, the door of which stood invitingly +open. It had a careless look, as if it were meant for the uses of the +public; so, entering, the first thing I did was to stumble over an +ash-box in the porch. Ha! thought I, ha, as the flying particles almost +choked me, are these ashes from that destroyed city, Gomorrah? But "The +Crossed Harpoons," and "The Sword-Fish?"--this, then must needs be the +sign of "The Trap." However, I picked myself up and hearing a loud voice +within, pushed on and opened a second, interior door. + +It seemed the great Black Parliament sitting in Tophet. A hundred black +faces turned round in their rows to peer; and beyond, a black Angel +of Doom was beating a book in a pulpit. It was a negro church; and the +preacher's text was about the blackness of darkness, and the weeping and +wailing and teeth-gnashing there. Ha, Ishmael, muttered I, backing out, +Wretched entertainment at the sign of 'The Trap!' + +Moving on, I at last came to a dim sort of light not far from the docks, +and heard a forlorn creaking in the air; and looking up, saw a swinging +sign over the door with a white painting upon it, faintly representing +a tall straight jet of misty spray, and these words underneath--"The +Spouter Inn:--Peter Coffin." + +Coffin?--Spouter?--Rather ominous in that particular connexion, thought +I. But it is a common name in Nantucket, they say, and I suppose this +Peter here is an emigrant from there. As the light looked so dim, and +the place, for the time, looked quiet enough, and the dilapidated little +wooden house itself looked as if it might have been carted here from +the ruins of some burnt district, and as the swinging sign had a +poverty-stricken sort of creak to it, I thought that here was the very +spot for cheap lodgings, and the best of pea coffee. + +It was a queer sort of place--a gable-ended old house, one side palsied +as it were, and leaning over sadly. It stood on a sharp bleak corner, +where that tempestuous wind Euroclydon kept up a worse howling than ever +it did about poor Paul's tossed craft. Euroclydon, nevertheless, is a +mighty pleasant zephyr to any one in-doors, with his feet on the hob +quietly toasting for bed. "In judging of that tempestuous wind called +Euroclydon," says an old writer--of whose works I possess the only copy +extant--"it maketh a marvellous difference, whether thou lookest out at +it from a glass window where the frost is all on the outside, or whether +thou observest it from that sashless window, where the frost is on both +sides, and of which the wight Death is the only glazier." True enough, +thought I, as this passage occurred to my mind--old black-letter, thou +reasonest well. Yes, these eyes are windows, and this body of mine is +the house. What a pity they didn't stop up the chinks and the crannies +though, and thrust in a little lint here and there. But it's too late +to make any improvements now. The universe is finished; the copestone +is on, and the chips were carted off a million years ago. Poor Lazarus +there, chattering his teeth against the curbstone for his pillow, and +shaking off his tatters with his shiverings, he might plug up both ears +with rags, and put a corn-cob into his mouth, and yet that would not +keep out the tempestuous Euroclydon. Euroclydon! says old Dives, in his +red silken wrapper--(he had a redder one afterwards) pooh, pooh! What +a fine frosty night; how Orion glitters; what northern lights! Let them +talk of their oriental summer climes of everlasting conservatories; give +me the privilege of making my own summer with my own coals. + +But what thinks Lazarus? Can he warm his blue hands by holding them up +to the grand northern lights? Would not Lazarus rather be in Sumatra +than here? Would he not far rather lay him down lengthwise along the +line of the equator; yea, ye gods! go down to the fiery pit itself, in +order to keep out this frost? + +Now, that Lazarus should lie stranded there on the curbstone before the +door of Dives, this is more wonderful than that an iceberg should be +moored to one of the Moluccas. Yet Dives himself, he too lives like a +Czar in an ice palace made of frozen sighs, and being a president of a +temperance society, he only drinks the tepid tears of orphans. + +But no more of this blubbering now, we are going a-whaling, and there is +plenty of that yet to come. Let us scrape the ice from our frosted feet, +and see what sort of a place this "Spouter" may be. + + + +CHAPTER 3. The Spouter-Inn. + + +Entering that gable-ended Spouter-Inn, you found yourself in a wide, +low, straggling entry with old-fashioned wainscots, reminding one of +the bulwarks of some condemned old craft. On one side hung a very large +oilpainting so thoroughly besmoked, and every way defaced, that in the +unequal crosslights by which you viewed it, it was only by diligent +study and a series of systematic visits to it, and careful inquiry of +the neighbors, that you could any way arrive at an understanding of its +purpose. Such unaccountable masses of shades and shadows, that at first +you almost thought some ambitious young artist, in the time of the New +England hags, had endeavored to delineate chaos bewitched. But by dint +of much and earnest contemplation, and oft repeated ponderings, and +especially by throwing open the little window towards the back of the +entry, you at last come to the conclusion that such an idea, however +wild, might not be altogether unwarranted. + +But what most puzzled and confounded you was a long, limber, portentous, +black mass of something hovering in the centre of the picture over three +blue, dim, perpendicular lines floating in a nameless yeast. A boggy, +soggy, squitchy picture truly, enough to drive a nervous man distracted. +Yet was there a sort of indefinite, half-attained, unimaginable +sublimity about it that fairly froze you to it, till you involuntarily +took an oath with yourself to find out what that marvellous painting +meant. Ever and anon a bright, but, alas, deceptive idea would dart you +through.--It's the Black Sea in a midnight gale.--It's the unnatural +combat of the four primal elements.--It's a blasted heath.--It's a +Hyperborean winter scene.--It's the breaking-up of the icebound stream +of Time. But at last all these fancies yielded to that one portentous +something in the picture's midst. THAT once found out, and all the rest +were plain. But stop; does it not bear a faint resemblance to a gigantic +fish? even the great leviathan himself? + +In fact, the artist's design seemed this: a final theory of my own, +partly based upon the aggregated opinions of many aged persons with whom +I conversed upon the subject. The picture represents a Cape-Horner in a +great hurricane; the half-foundered ship weltering there with its three +dismantled masts alone visible; and an exasperated whale, purposing to +spring clean over the craft, is in the enormous act of impaling himself +upon the three mast-heads. + +The opposite wall of this entry was hung all over with a heathenish +array of monstrous clubs and spears. Some were thickly set with +glittering teeth resembling ivory saws; others were tufted with knots of +human hair; and one was sickle-shaped, with a vast handle sweeping round +like the segment made in the new-mown grass by a long-armed mower. You +shuddered as you gazed, and wondered what monstrous cannibal and savage +could ever have gone a death-harvesting with such a hacking, horrifying +implement. Mixed with these were rusty old whaling lances and harpoons +all broken and deformed. Some were storied weapons. With this once long +lance, now wildly elbowed, fifty years ago did Nathan Swain kill fifteen +whales between a sunrise and a sunset. And that harpoon--so like a +corkscrew now--was flung in Javan seas, and run away with by a whale, +years afterwards slain off the Cape of Blanco. The original iron entered +nigh the tail, and, like a restless needle sojourning in the body of a +man, travelled full forty feet, and at last was found imbedded in the +hump. + +Crossing this dusky entry, and on through yon low-arched way--cut +through what in old times must have been a great central chimney with +fireplaces all round--you enter the public room. A still duskier place +is this, with such low ponderous beams above, and such old wrinkled +planks beneath, that you would almost fancy you trod some old craft's +cockpits, especially of such a howling night, when this corner-anchored +old ark rocked so furiously. On one side stood a long, low, shelf-like +table covered with cracked glass cases, filled with dusty rarities +gathered from this wide world's remotest nooks. Projecting from the +further angle of the room stands a dark-looking den--the bar--a rude +attempt at a right whale's head. Be that how it may, there stands the +vast arched bone of the whale's jaw, so wide, a coach might almost drive +beneath it. Within are shabby shelves, ranged round with old decanters, +bottles, flasks; and in those jaws of swift destruction, like another +cursed Jonah (by which name indeed they called him), bustles a little +withered old man, who, for their money, dearly sells the sailors +deliriums and death. + +Abominable are the tumblers into which he pours his poison. Though +true cylinders without--within, the villanous green goggling glasses +deceitfully tapered downwards to a cheating bottom. Parallel meridians +rudely pecked into the glass, surround these footpads' goblets. Fill to +THIS mark, and your charge is but a penny; to THIS a penny more; and so +on to the full glass--the Cape Horn measure, which you may gulp down for +a shilling. + +Upon entering the place I found a number of young seamen gathered about +a table, examining by a dim light divers specimens of SKRIMSHANDER. I +sought the landlord, and telling him I desired to be accommodated with a +room, received for answer that his house was full--not a bed unoccupied. +"But avast," he added, tapping his forehead, "you haint no objections +to sharing a harpooneer's blanket, have ye? I s'pose you are goin' +a-whalin', so you'd better get used to that sort of thing." + +I told him that I never liked to sleep two in a bed; that if I should +ever do so, it would depend upon who the harpooneer might be, and +that if he (the landlord) really had no other place for me, and the +harpooneer was not decidedly objectionable, why rather than wander +further about a strange town on so bitter a night, I would put up with +the half of any decent man's blanket. + +"I thought so. All right; take a seat. Supper?--you want supper? +Supper'll be ready directly." + +I sat down on an old wooden settle, carved all over like a bench on the +Battery. At one end a ruminating tar was still further adorning it with +his jack-knife, stooping over and diligently working away at the space +between his legs. He was trying his hand at a ship under full sail, but +he didn't make much headway, I thought. + +At last some four or five of us were summoned to our meal in an +adjoining room. It was cold as Iceland--no fire at all--the landlord +said he couldn't afford it. Nothing but two dismal tallow candles, each +in a winding sheet. We were fain to button up our monkey jackets, and +hold to our lips cups of scalding tea with our half frozen fingers. But +the fare was of the most substantial kind--not only meat and potatoes, +but dumplings; good heavens! dumplings for supper! One young fellow in +a green box coat, addressed himself to these dumplings in a most direful +manner. + +"My boy," said the landlord, "you'll have the nightmare to a dead +sartainty." + +"Landlord," I whispered, "that aint the harpooneer is it?" + +"Oh, no," said he, looking a sort of diabolically funny, "the harpooneer +is a dark complexioned chap. He never eats dumplings, he don't--he eats +nothing but steaks, and he likes 'em rare." + +"The devil he does," says I. "Where is that harpooneer? Is he here?" + +"He'll be here afore long," was the answer. + +I could not help it, but I began to feel suspicious of this "dark +complexioned" harpooneer. At any rate, I made up my mind that if it so +turned out that we should sleep together, he must undress and get into +bed before I did. + +Supper over, the company went back to the bar-room, when, knowing not +what else to do with myself, I resolved to spend the rest of the evening +as a looker on. + +Presently a rioting noise was heard without. Starting up, the landlord +cried, "That's the Grampus's crew. I seed her reported in the offing +this morning; a three years' voyage, and a full ship. Hurrah, boys; now +we'll have the latest news from the Feegees." + +A tramping of sea boots was heard in the entry; the door was flung open, +and in rolled a wild set of mariners enough. Enveloped in their shaggy +watch coats, and with their heads muffled in woollen comforters, all +bedarned and ragged, and their beards stiff with icicles, they seemed an +eruption of bears from Labrador. They had just landed from their boat, +and this was the first house they entered. No wonder, then, that they +made a straight wake for the whale's mouth--the bar--when the wrinkled +little old Jonah, there officiating, soon poured them out brimmers all +round. One complained of a bad cold in his head, upon which Jonah +mixed him a pitch-like potion of gin and molasses, which he swore was a +sovereign cure for all colds and catarrhs whatsoever, never mind of how +long standing, or whether caught off the coast of Labrador, or on the +weather side of an ice-island. + +The liquor soon mounted into their heads, as it generally does even +with the arrantest topers newly landed from sea, and they began capering +about most obstreperously. + +I observed, however, that one of them held somewhat aloof, and though +he seemed desirous not to spoil the hilarity of his shipmates by his own +sober face, yet upon the whole he refrained from making as much noise +as the rest. This man interested me at once; and since the sea-gods +had ordained that he should soon become my shipmate (though but a +sleeping-partner one, so far as this narrative is concerned), I will +here venture upon a little description of him. He stood full six feet +in height, with noble shoulders, and a chest like a coffer-dam. I have +seldom seen such brawn in a man. His face was deeply brown and burnt, +making his white teeth dazzling by the contrast; while in the deep +shadows of his eyes floated some reminiscences that did not seem to give +him much joy. His voice at once announced that he was a Southerner, +and from his fine stature, I thought he must be one of those tall +mountaineers from the Alleghanian Ridge in Virginia. When the revelry +of his companions had mounted to its height, this man slipped away +unobserved, and I saw no more of him till he became my comrade on the +sea. In a few minutes, however, he was missed by his shipmates, and +being, it seems, for some reason a huge favourite with them, they raised +a cry of "Bulkington! Bulkington! where's Bulkington?" and darted out of +the house in pursuit of him. + +It was now about nine o'clock, and the room seeming almost +supernaturally quiet after these orgies, I began to congratulate myself +upon a little plan that had occurred to me just previous to the entrance +of the seamen. + +No man prefers to sleep two in a bed. In fact, you would a good deal +rather not sleep with your own brother. I don't know how it is, but +people like to be private when they are sleeping. And when it comes to +sleeping with an unknown stranger, in a strange inn, in a strange +town, and that stranger a harpooneer, then your objections indefinitely +multiply. Nor was there any earthly reason why I as a sailor should +sleep two in a bed, more than anybody else; for sailors no more sleep +two in a bed at sea, than bachelor Kings do ashore. To be sure they +all sleep together in one apartment, but you have your own hammock, and +cover yourself with your own blanket, and sleep in your own skin. + +The more I pondered over this harpooneer, the more I abominated the +thought of sleeping with him. It was fair to presume that being a +harpooneer, his linen or woollen, as the case might be, would not be of +the tidiest, certainly none of the finest. I began to twitch all over. +Besides, it was getting late, and my decent harpooneer ought to be +home and going bedwards. Suppose now, he should tumble in upon me at +midnight--how could I tell from what vile hole he had been coming? + +"Landlord! I've changed my mind about that harpooneer.--I shan't sleep +with him. I'll try the bench here." + +"Just as you please; I'm sorry I can't spare ye a tablecloth for a +mattress, and it's a plaguy rough board here"--feeling of the knots and +notches. "But wait a bit, Skrimshander; I've got a carpenter's plane +there in the bar--wait, I say, and I'll make ye snug enough." So saying +he procured the plane; and with his old silk handkerchief first dusting +the bench, vigorously set to planing away at my bed, the while grinning +like an ape. The shavings flew right and left; till at last the +plane-iron came bump against an indestructible knot. The landlord was +near spraining his wrist, and I told him for heaven's sake to quit--the +bed was soft enough to suit me, and I did not know how all the planing +in the world could make eider down of a pine plank. So gathering up the +shavings with another grin, and throwing them into the great stove in +the middle of the room, he went about his business, and left me in a +brown study. + +I now took the measure of the bench, and found that it was a foot too +short; but that could be mended with a chair. But it was a foot too +narrow, and the other bench in the room was about four inches higher +than the planed one--so there was no yoking them. I then placed the +first bench lengthwise along the only clear space against the wall, +leaving a little interval between, for my back to settle down in. But I +soon found that there came such a draught of cold air over me from under +the sill of the window, that this plan would never do at all, especially +as another current from the rickety door met the one from the window, +and both together formed a series of small whirlwinds in the immediate +vicinity of the spot where I had thought to spend the night. + +The devil fetch that harpooneer, thought I, but stop, couldn't I steal +a march on him--bolt his door inside, and jump into his bed, not to be +wakened by the most violent knockings? It seemed no bad idea; but upon +second thoughts I dismissed it. For who could tell but what the next +morning, so soon as I popped out of the room, the harpooneer might be +standing in the entry, all ready to knock me down! + +Still, looking round me again, and seeing no possible chance of spending +a sufferable night unless in some other person's bed, I began to think +that after all I might be cherishing unwarrantable prejudices against +this unknown harpooneer. Thinks I, I'll wait awhile; he must be dropping +in before long. I'll have a good look at him then, and perhaps we may +become jolly good bedfellows after all--there's no telling. + +But though the other boarders kept coming in by ones, twos, and threes, +and going to bed, yet no sign of my harpooneer. + +"Landlord!" said I, "what sort of a chap is he--does he always keep such +late hours?" It was now hard upon twelve o'clock. + +The landlord chuckled again with his lean chuckle, and seemed to +be mightily tickled at something beyond my comprehension. "No," he +answered, "generally he's an early bird--airley to bed and airley to +rise--yes, he's the bird what catches the worm. But to-night he went out +a peddling, you see, and I don't see what on airth keeps him so late, +unless, may be, he can't sell his head." + +"Can't sell his head?--What sort of a bamboozingly story is this you +are telling me?" getting into a towering rage. "Do you pretend to say, +landlord, that this harpooneer is actually engaged this blessed Saturday +night, or rather Sunday morning, in peddling his head around this town?" + +"That's precisely it," said the landlord, "and I told him he couldn't +sell it here, the market's overstocked." + +"With what?" shouted I. + +"With heads to be sure; ain't there too many heads in the world?" + +"I tell you what it is, landlord," said I quite calmly, "you'd better +stop spinning that yarn to me--I'm not green." + +"May be not," taking out a stick and whittling a toothpick, "but I +rayther guess you'll be done BROWN if that ere harpooneer hears you a +slanderin' his head." + +"I'll break it for him," said I, now flying into a passion again at this +unaccountable farrago of the landlord's. + +"It's broke a'ready," said he. + +"Broke," said I--"BROKE, do you mean?" + +"Sartain, and that's the very reason he can't sell it, I guess." + +"Landlord," said I, going up to him as cool as Mt. Hecla in a +snow-storm--"landlord, stop whittling. You and I must understand one +another, and that too without delay. I come to your house and want a +bed; you tell me you can only give me half a one; that the other half +belongs to a certain harpooneer. And about this harpooneer, whom I +have not yet seen, you persist in telling me the most mystifying and +exasperating stories tending to beget in me an uncomfortable feeling +towards the man whom you design for my bedfellow--a sort of connexion, +landlord, which is an intimate and confidential one in the highest +degree. I now demand of you to speak out and tell me who and what this +harpooneer is, and whether I shall be in all respects safe to spend the +night with him. And in the first place, you will be so good as to unsay +that story about selling his head, which if true I take to be good +evidence that this harpooneer is stark mad, and I've no idea of sleeping +with a madman; and you, sir, YOU I mean, landlord, YOU, sir, by trying +to induce me to do so knowingly, would thereby render yourself liable to +a criminal prosecution." + +"Wall," said the landlord, fetching a long breath, "that's a purty long +sarmon for a chap that rips a little now and then. But be easy, be easy, +this here harpooneer I have been tellin' you of has just arrived from +the south seas, where he bought up a lot of 'balmed New Zealand heads +(great curios, you know), and he's sold all on 'em but one, and that one +he's trying to sell to-night, cause to-morrow's Sunday, and it would not +do to be sellin' human heads about the streets when folks is goin' to +churches. He wanted to, last Sunday, but I stopped him just as he was +goin' out of the door with four heads strung on a string, for all the +airth like a string of inions." + +This account cleared up the otherwise unaccountable mystery, and showed +that the landlord, after all, had had no idea of fooling me--but at +the same time what could I think of a harpooneer who stayed out of a +Saturday night clean into the holy Sabbath, engaged in such a cannibal +business as selling the heads of dead idolators? + +"Depend upon it, landlord, that harpooneer is a dangerous man." + +"He pays reg'lar," was the rejoinder. "But come, it's getting dreadful +late, you had better be turning flukes--it's a nice bed; Sal and me +slept in that ere bed the night we were spliced. There's plenty of room +for two to kick about in that bed; it's an almighty big bed that. Why, +afore we give it up, Sal used to put our Sam and little Johnny in the +foot of it. But I got a dreaming and sprawling about one night, and +somehow, Sam got pitched on the floor, and came near breaking his arm. +Arter that, Sal said it wouldn't do. Come along here, I'll give ye a +glim in a jiffy;" and so saying he lighted a candle and held it towards +me, offering to lead the way. But I stood irresolute; when looking at a +clock in the corner, he exclaimed "I vum it's Sunday--you won't see that +harpooneer to-night; he's come to anchor somewhere--come along then; DO +come; WON'T ye come?" + +I considered the matter a moment, and then up stairs we went, and I was +ushered into a small room, cold as a clam, and furnished, sure enough, +with a prodigious bed, almost big enough indeed for any four harpooneers +to sleep abreast. + +"There," said the landlord, placing the candle on a crazy old sea chest +that did double duty as a wash-stand and centre table; "there, make +yourself comfortable now, and good night to ye." I turned round from +eyeing the bed, but he had disappeared. + +Folding back the counterpane, I stooped over the bed. Though none of the +most elegant, it yet stood the scrutiny tolerably well. I then glanced +round the room; and besides the bedstead and centre table, could see +no other furniture belonging to the place, but a rude shelf, the four +walls, and a papered fireboard representing a man striking a whale. Of +things not properly belonging to the room, there was a hammock lashed +up, and thrown upon the floor in one corner; also a large seaman's bag, +containing the harpooneer's wardrobe, no doubt in lieu of a land trunk. +Likewise, there was a parcel of outlandish bone fish hooks on the shelf +over the fire-place, and a tall harpoon standing at the head of the bed. + +But what is this on the chest? I took it up, and held it close to the +light, and felt it, and smelt it, and tried every way possible to arrive +at some satisfactory conclusion concerning it. I can compare it to +nothing but a large door mat, ornamented at the edges with little +tinkling tags something like the stained porcupine quills round an +Indian moccasin. There was a hole or slit in the middle of this mat, +as you see the same in South American ponchos. But could it be possible +that any sober harpooneer would get into a door mat, and parade the +streets of any Christian town in that sort of guise? I put it on, to try +it, and it weighed me down like a hamper, being uncommonly shaggy and +thick, and I thought a little damp, as though this mysterious harpooneer +had been wearing it of a rainy day. I went up in it to a bit of glass +stuck against the wall, and I never saw such a sight in my life. I tore +myself out of it in such a hurry that I gave myself a kink in the neck. + +I sat down on the side of the bed, and commenced thinking about this +head-peddling harpooneer, and his door mat. After thinking some time on +the bed-side, I got up and took off my monkey jacket, and then stood in +the middle of the room thinking. I then took off my coat, and thought +a little more in my shirt sleeves. But beginning to feel very cold now, +half undressed as I was, and remembering what the landlord said about +the harpooneer's not coming home at all that night, it being so very +late, I made no more ado, but jumped out of my pantaloons and boots, and +then blowing out the light tumbled into bed, and commended myself to the +care of heaven. + +Whether that mattress was stuffed with corn-cobs or broken crockery, +there is no telling, but I rolled about a good deal, and could not sleep +for a long time. At last I slid off into a light doze, and had pretty +nearly made a good offing towards the land of Nod, when I heard a heavy +footfall in the passage, and saw a glimmer of light come into the room +from under the door. + +Lord save me, thinks I, that must be the harpooneer, the infernal +head-peddler. But I lay perfectly still, and resolved not to say a word +till spoken to. Holding a light in one hand, and that identical New +Zealand head in the other, the stranger entered the room, and without +looking towards the bed, placed his candle a good way off from me on the +floor in one corner, and then began working away at the knotted cords +of the large bag I before spoke of as being in the room. I was all +eagerness to see his face, but he kept it averted for some time while +employed in unlacing the bag's mouth. This accomplished, however, he +turned round--when, good heavens! what a sight! Such a face! It was of +a dark, purplish, yellow colour, here and there stuck over with large +blackish looking squares. Yes, it's just as I thought, he's a terrible +bedfellow; he's been in a fight, got dreadfully cut, and here he is, +just from the surgeon. But at that moment he chanced to turn his face +so towards the light, that I plainly saw they could not be +sticking-plasters at all, those black squares on his cheeks. They were +stains of some sort or other. At first I knew not what to make of this; +but soon an inkling of the truth occurred to me. I remembered a story of +a white man--a whaleman too--who, falling among the cannibals, had been +tattooed by them. I concluded that this harpooneer, in the course of his +distant voyages, must have met with a similar adventure. And what is it, +thought I, after all! It's only his outside; a man can be honest in any +sort of skin. But then, what to make of his unearthly complexion, that +part of it, I mean, lying round about, and completely independent of the +squares of tattooing. To be sure, it might be nothing but a good coat of +tropical tanning; but I never heard of a hot sun's tanning a white man +into a purplish yellow one. However, I had never been in the South Seas; +and perhaps the sun there produced these extraordinary effects upon the +skin. Now, while all these ideas were passing through me like lightning, +this harpooneer never noticed me at all. But, after some difficulty +having opened his bag, he commenced fumbling in it, and presently pulled +out a sort of tomahawk, and a seal-skin wallet with the hair on. Placing +these on the old chest in the middle of the room, he then took the New +Zealand head--a ghastly thing enough--and crammed it down into the bag. +He now took off his hat--a new beaver hat--when I came nigh singing out +with fresh surprise. There was no hair on his head--none to speak of at +least--nothing but a small scalp-knot twisted up on his forehead. His +bald purplish head now looked for all the world like a mildewed skull. +Had not the stranger stood between me and the door, I would have bolted +out of it quicker than ever I bolted a dinner. + +Even as it was, I thought something of slipping out of the window, but +it was the second floor back. I am no coward, but what to make of +this head-peddling purple rascal altogether passed my comprehension. +Ignorance is the parent of fear, and being completely nonplussed and +confounded about the stranger, I confess I was now as much afraid of him +as if it was the devil himself who had thus broken into my room at +the dead of night. In fact, I was so afraid of him that I was not +game enough just then to address him, and demand a satisfactory answer +concerning what seemed inexplicable in him. + +Meanwhile, he continued the business of undressing, and at last showed +his chest and arms. As I live, these covered parts of him were checkered +with the same squares as his face; his back, too, was all over the same +dark squares; he seemed to have been in a Thirty Years' War, and just +escaped from it with a sticking-plaster shirt. Still more, his very +legs were marked, as if a parcel of dark green frogs were running up +the trunks of young palms. It was now quite plain that he must be some +abominable savage or other shipped aboard of a whaleman in the South +Seas, and so landed in this Christian country. I quaked to think of it. +A peddler of heads too--perhaps the heads of his own brothers. He might +take a fancy to mine--heavens! look at that tomahawk! + +But there was no time for shuddering, for now the savage went about +something that completely fascinated my attention, and convinced me that +he must indeed be a heathen. Going to his heavy grego, or wrapall, or +dreadnaught, which he had previously hung on a chair, he fumbled in the +pockets, and produced at length a curious little deformed image with +a hunch on its back, and exactly the colour of a three days' old Congo +baby. Remembering the embalmed head, at first I almost thought that +this black manikin was a real baby preserved in some similar manner. But +seeing that it was not at all limber, and that it glistened a good deal +like polished ebony, I concluded that it must be nothing but a wooden +idol, which indeed it proved to be. For now the savage goes up to the +empty fire-place, and removing the papered fire-board, sets up this +little hunch-backed image, like a tenpin, between the andirons. The +chimney jambs and all the bricks inside were very sooty, so that I +thought this fire-place made a very appropriate little shrine or chapel +for his Congo idol. + +I now screwed my eyes hard towards the half hidden image, feeling but +ill at ease meantime--to see what was next to follow. First he takes +about a double handful of shavings out of his grego pocket, and places +them carefully before the idol; then laying a bit of ship biscuit on +top and applying the flame from the lamp, he kindled the shavings into +a sacrificial blaze. Presently, after many hasty snatches into the fire, +and still hastier withdrawals of his fingers (whereby he seemed to be +scorching them badly), he at last succeeded in drawing out the biscuit; +then blowing off the heat and ashes a little, he made a polite offer of +it to the little negro. But the little devil did not seem to fancy such +dry sort of fare at all; he never moved his lips. All these strange +antics were accompanied by still stranger guttural noises from the +devotee, who seemed to be praying in a sing-song or else singing some +pagan psalmody or other, during which his face twitched about in the +most unnatural manner. At last extinguishing the fire, he took the idol +up very unceremoniously, and bagged it again in his grego pocket as +carelessly as if he were a sportsman bagging a dead woodcock. + +All these queer proceedings increased my uncomfortableness, and +seeing him now exhibiting strong symptoms of concluding his business +operations, and jumping into bed with me, I thought it was high time, +now or never, before the light was put out, to break the spell in which +I had so long been bound. + +But the interval I spent in deliberating what to say, was a fatal one. +Taking up his tomahawk from the table, he examined the head of it for an +instant, and then holding it to the light, with his mouth at the handle, +he puffed out great clouds of tobacco smoke. The next moment the light +was extinguished, and this wild cannibal, tomahawk between his teeth, +sprang into bed with me. I sang out, I could not help it now; and giving +a sudden grunt of astonishment he began feeling me. + +Stammering out something, I knew not what, I rolled away from him +against the wall, and then conjured him, whoever or whatever he might +be, to keep quiet, and let me get up and light the lamp again. But his +guttural responses satisfied me at once that he but ill comprehended my +meaning. + +"Who-e debel you?"--he at last said--"you no speak-e, dam-me, I kill-e." +And so saying the lighted tomahawk began flourishing about me in the +dark. + +"Landlord, for God's sake, Peter Coffin!" shouted I. "Landlord! Watch! +Coffin! Angels! save me!" + +"Speak-e! tell-ee me who-ee be, or dam-me, I kill-e!" again growled the +cannibal, while his horrid flourishings of the tomahawk scattered the +hot tobacco ashes about me till I thought my linen would get on fire. +But thank heaven, at that moment the landlord came into the room light +in hand, and leaping from the bed I ran up to him. + +"Don't be afraid now," said he, grinning again, "Queequeg here wouldn't +harm a hair of your head." + +"Stop your grinning," shouted I, "and why didn't you tell me that that +infernal harpooneer was a cannibal?" + +"I thought ye know'd it;--didn't I tell ye, he was a peddlin' heads +around town?--but turn flukes again and go to sleep. Queequeg, look +here--you sabbee me, I sabbee--you this man sleepe you--you sabbee?" + +"Me sabbee plenty"--grunted Queequeg, puffing away at his pipe and +sitting up in bed. + +"You gettee in," he added, motioning to me with his tomahawk, and +throwing the clothes to one side. He really did this in not only a civil +but a really kind and charitable way. I stood looking at him a moment. +For all his tattooings he was on the whole a clean, comely looking +cannibal. What's all this fuss I have been making about, thought I to +myself--the man's a human being just as I am: he has just as much reason +to fear me, as I have to be afraid of him. Better sleep with a sober +cannibal than a drunken Christian. + +"Landlord," said I, "tell him to stash his tomahawk there, or pipe, or +whatever you call it; tell him to stop smoking, in short, and I will +turn in with him. But I don't fancy having a man smoking in bed with me. +It's dangerous. Besides, I ain't insured." + +This being told to Queequeg, he at once complied, and again politely +motioned me to get into bed--rolling over to one side as much as to +say--"I won't touch a leg of ye." + +"Good night, landlord," said I, "you may go." + +I turned in, and never slept better in my life. + + + +CHAPTER 4. The Counterpane. + + +Upon waking next morning about daylight, I found Queequeg's arm thrown +over me in the most loving and affectionate manner. You had almost +thought I had been his wife. The counterpane was of patchwork, full of +odd little parti-coloured squares and triangles; and this arm of his +tattooed all over with an interminable Cretan labyrinth of a figure, +no two parts of which were of one precise shade--owing I suppose to +his keeping his arm at sea unmethodically in sun and shade, his shirt +sleeves irregularly rolled up at various times--this same arm of his, I +say, looked for all the world like a strip of that same patchwork quilt. +Indeed, partly lying on it as the arm did when I first awoke, I could +hardly tell it from the quilt, they so blended their hues together; and +it was only by the sense of weight and pressure that I could tell that +Queequeg was hugging me. + +My sensations were strange. Let me try to explain them. When I was a +child, I well remember a somewhat similar circumstance that befell me; +whether it was a reality or a dream, I never could entirely settle. +The circumstance was this. I had been cutting up some caper or other--I +think it was trying to crawl up the chimney, as I had seen a little +sweep do a few days previous; and my stepmother who, somehow or other, +was all the time whipping me, or sending me to bed supperless,--my +mother dragged me by the legs out of the chimney and packed me off to +bed, though it was only two o'clock in the afternoon of the 21st June, +the longest day in the year in our hemisphere. I felt dreadfully. But +there was no help for it, so up stairs I went to my little room in the +third floor, undressed myself as slowly as possible so as to kill time, +and with a bitter sigh got between the sheets. + +I lay there dismally calculating that sixteen entire hours must elapse +before I could hope for a resurrection. Sixteen hours in bed! the +small of my back ached to think of it. And it was so light too; the +sun shining in at the window, and a great rattling of coaches in the +streets, and the sound of gay voices all over the house. I felt worse +and worse--at last I got up, dressed, and softly going down in my +stockinged feet, sought out my stepmother, and suddenly threw myself +at her feet, beseeching her as a particular favour to give me a good +slippering for my misbehaviour; anything indeed but condemning me to lie +abed such an unendurable length of time. But she was the best and most +conscientious of stepmothers, and back I had to go to my room. For +several hours I lay there broad awake, feeling a great deal worse than I +have ever done since, even from the greatest subsequent misfortunes. At +last I must have fallen into a troubled nightmare of a doze; and slowly +waking from it--half steeped in dreams--I opened my eyes, and the before +sun-lit room was now wrapped in outer darkness. Instantly I felt a shock +running through all my frame; nothing was to be seen, and nothing was +to be heard; but a supernatural hand seemed placed in mine. My arm hung +over the counterpane, and the nameless, unimaginable, silent form +or phantom, to which the hand belonged, seemed closely seated by my +bed-side. For what seemed ages piled on ages, I lay there, frozen with +the most awful fears, not daring to drag away my hand; yet ever thinking +that if I could but stir it one single inch, the horrid spell would be +broken. I knew not how this consciousness at last glided away from me; +but waking in the morning, I shudderingly remembered it all, and for +days and weeks and months afterwards I lost myself in confounding +attempts to explain the mystery. Nay, to this very hour, I often puzzle +myself with it. + +Now, take away the awful fear, and my sensations at feeling the +supernatural hand in mine were very similar, in their strangeness, to +those which I experienced on waking up and seeing Queequeg's pagan +arm thrown round me. But at length all the past night's events soberly +recurred, one by one, in fixed reality, and then I lay only alive to +the comical predicament. For though I tried to move his arm--unlock his +bridegroom clasp--yet, sleeping as he was, he still hugged me tightly, +as though naught but death should part us twain. I now strove to rouse +him--"Queequeg!"--but his only answer was a snore. I then rolled over, +my neck feeling as if it were in a horse-collar; and suddenly felt a +slight scratch. Throwing aside the counterpane, there lay the tomahawk +sleeping by the savage's side, as if it were a hatchet-faced baby. A +pretty pickle, truly, thought I; abed here in a strange house in the +broad day, with a cannibal and a tomahawk! "Queequeg!--in the name of +goodness, Queequeg, wake!" At length, by dint of much wriggling, and +loud and incessant expostulations upon the unbecomingness of his +hugging a fellow male in that matrimonial sort of style, I succeeded in +extracting a grunt; and presently, he drew back his arm, shook himself +all over like a Newfoundland dog just from the water, and sat up in bed, +stiff as a pike-staff, looking at me, and rubbing his eyes as if he +did not altogether remember how I came to be there, though a dim +consciousness of knowing something about me seemed slowly dawning over +him. Meanwhile, I lay quietly eyeing him, having no serious misgivings +now, and bent upon narrowly observing so curious a creature. When, at +last, his mind seemed made up touching the character of his bedfellow, +and he became, as it were, reconciled to the fact; he jumped out upon +the floor, and by certain signs and sounds gave me to understand that, +if it pleased me, he would dress first and then leave me to dress +afterwards, leaving the whole apartment to myself. Thinks I, Queequeg, +under the circumstances, this is a very civilized overture; but, the +truth is, these savages have an innate sense of delicacy, say what +you will; it is marvellous how essentially polite they are. I pay this +particular compliment to Queequeg, because he treated me with so much +civility and consideration, while I was guilty of great rudeness; +staring at him from the bed, and watching all his toilette motions; for +the time my curiosity getting the better of my breeding. Nevertheless, +a man like Queequeg you don't see every day, he and his ways were well +worth unusual regarding. + +He commenced dressing at top by donning his beaver hat, a very tall one, +by the by, and then--still minus his trowsers--he hunted up his boots. +What under the heavens he did it for, I cannot tell, but his next +movement was to crush himself--boots in hand, and hat on--under the bed; +when, from sundry violent gaspings and strainings, I inferred he was +hard at work booting himself; though by no law of propriety that I ever +heard of, is any man required to be private when putting on his +boots. But Queequeg, do you see, was a creature in the transition +stage--neither caterpillar nor butterfly. He was just enough civilized +to show off his outlandishness in the strangest possible manners. His +education was not yet completed. He was an undergraduate. If he had not +been a small degree civilized, he very probably would not have troubled +himself with boots at all; but then, if he had not been still a savage, +he never would have dreamt of getting under the bed to put them on. At +last, he emerged with his hat very much dented and crushed down over his +eyes, and began creaking and limping about the room, as if, not +being much accustomed to boots, his pair of damp, wrinkled cowhide +ones--probably not made to order either--rather pinched and tormented +him at the first go off of a bitter cold morning. + +Seeing, now, that there were no curtains to the window, and that the +street being very narrow, the house opposite commanded a plain view +into the room, and observing more and more the indecorous figure that +Queequeg made, staving about with little else but his hat and boots on; +I begged him as well as I could, to accelerate his toilet somewhat, +and particularly to get into his pantaloons as soon as possible. He +complied, and then proceeded to wash himself. At that time in the +morning any Christian would have washed his face; but Queequeg, to +my amazement, contented himself with restricting his ablutions to his +chest, arms, and hands. He then donned his waistcoat, and taking up a +piece of hard soap on the wash-stand centre table, dipped it into water +and commenced lathering his face. I was watching to see where he kept +his razor, when lo and behold, he takes the harpoon from the bed corner, +slips out the long wooden stock, unsheathes the head, whets it a little +on his boot, and striding up to the bit of mirror against the wall, +begins a vigorous scraping, or rather harpooning of his cheeks. Thinks +I, Queequeg, this is using Rogers's best cutlery with a vengeance. +Afterwards I wondered the less at this operation when I came to know of +what fine steel the head of a harpoon is made, and how exceedingly sharp +the long straight edges are always kept. + +The rest of his toilet was soon achieved, and he proudly marched out of +the room, wrapped up in his great pilot monkey jacket, and sporting his +harpoon like a marshal's baton. + + + +CHAPTER 5. Breakfast. + + +I quickly followed suit, and descending into the bar-room accosted the +grinning landlord very pleasantly. I cherished no malice towards him, +though he had been skylarking with me not a little in the matter of my +bedfellow. + +However, a good laugh is a mighty good thing, and rather too scarce a +good thing; the more's the pity. So, if any one man, in his own +proper person, afford stuff for a good joke to anybody, let him not be +backward, but let him cheerfully allow himself to spend and be spent in +that way. And the man that has anything bountifully laughable about him, +be sure there is more in that man than you perhaps think for. + +The bar-room was now full of the boarders who had been dropping in the +night previous, and whom I had not as yet had a good look at. They were +nearly all whalemen; chief mates, and second mates, and third mates, and +sea carpenters, and sea coopers, and sea blacksmiths, and harpooneers, +and ship keepers; a brown and brawny company, with bosky beards; an +unshorn, shaggy set, all wearing monkey jackets for morning gowns. + +You could pretty plainly tell how long each one had been ashore. This +young fellow's healthy cheek is like a sun-toasted pear in hue, and +would seem to smell almost as musky; he cannot have been three days +landed from his Indian voyage. That man next him looks a few shades +lighter; you might say a touch of satin wood is in him. In the +complexion of a third still lingers a tropic tawn, but slightly bleached +withal; HE doubtless has tarried whole weeks ashore. But who could show +a cheek like Queequeg? which, barred with various tints, seemed like the +Andes' western slope, to show forth in one array, contrasting climates, +zone by zone. + +"Grub, ho!" now cried the landlord, flinging open a door, and in we went +to breakfast. + +They say that men who have seen the world, thereby become quite at ease +in manner, quite self-possessed in company. Not always, though: Ledyard, +the great New England traveller, and Mungo Park, the Scotch one; of all +men, they possessed the least assurance in the parlor. But perhaps the +mere crossing of Siberia in a sledge drawn by dogs as Ledyard did, or +the taking a long solitary walk on an empty stomach, in the negro heart +of Africa, which was the sum of poor Mungo's performances--this kind of +travel, I say, may not be the very best mode of attaining a high social +polish. Still, for the most part, that sort of thing is to be had +anywhere. + +These reflections just here are occasioned by the circumstance that +after we were all seated at the table, and I was preparing to hear some +good stories about whaling; to my no small surprise, nearly every +man maintained a profound silence. And not only that, but they looked +embarrassed. Yes, here were a set of sea-dogs, many of whom without the +slightest bashfulness had boarded great whales on the high seas--entire +strangers to them--and duelled them dead without winking; and yet, here +they sat at a social breakfast table--all of the same calling, all of +kindred tastes--looking round as sheepishly at each other as though they +had never been out of sight of some sheepfold among the Green Mountains. +A curious sight; these bashful bears, these timid warrior whalemen! + +But as for Queequeg--why, Queequeg sat there among them--at the head of +the table, too, it so chanced; as cool as an icicle. To be sure I cannot +say much for his breeding. His greatest admirer could not have cordially +justified his bringing his harpoon into breakfast with him, and using it +there without ceremony; reaching over the table with it, to the imminent +jeopardy of many heads, and grappling the beefsteaks towards him. But +THAT was certainly very coolly done by him, and every one knows that in +most people's estimation, to do anything coolly is to do it genteelly. + +We will not speak of all Queequeg's peculiarities here; how he eschewed +coffee and hot rolls, and applied his undivided attention to beefsteaks, +done rare. Enough, that when breakfast was over he withdrew like the +rest into the public room, lighted his tomahawk-pipe, and was sitting +there quietly digesting and smoking with his inseparable hat on, when I +sallied out for a stroll. + + + +CHAPTER 6. The Street. + + +If I had been astonished at first catching a glimpse of so outlandish +an individual as Queequeg circulating among the polite society of a +civilized town, that astonishment soon departed upon taking my first +daylight stroll through the streets of New Bedford. + +In thoroughfares nigh the docks, any considerable seaport will +frequently offer to view the queerest looking nondescripts from foreign +parts. Even in Broadway and Chestnut streets, Mediterranean mariners +will sometimes jostle the affrighted ladies. Regent Street is not +unknown to Lascars and Malays; and at Bombay, in the Apollo Green, live +Yankees have often scared the natives. But New Bedford beats all Water +Street and Wapping. In these last-mentioned haunts you see only sailors; +but in New Bedford, actual cannibals stand chatting at street corners; +savages outright; many of whom yet carry on their bones unholy flesh. It +makes a stranger stare. + +But, besides the Feegeeans, Tongatobooarrs, Erromanggoans, Pannangians, +and Brighggians, and, besides the wild specimens of the whaling-craft +which unheeded reel about the streets, you will see other sights still +more curious, certainly more comical. There weekly arrive in this town +scores of green Vermonters and New Hampshire men, all athirst for gain +and glory in the fishery. They are mostly young, of stalwart frames; +fellows who have felled forests, and now seek to drop the axe and snatch +the whale-lance. Many are as green as the Green Mountains whence they +came. In some things you would think them but a few hours old. Look +there! that chap strutting round the corner. He wears a beaver hat and +swallow-tailed coat, girdled with a sailor-belt and sheath-knife. Here +comes another with a sou'-wester and a bombazine cloak. + +No town-bred dandy will compare with a country-bred one--I mean a +downright bumpkin dandy--a fellow that, in the dog-days, will mow his +two acres in buckskin gloves for fear of tanning his hands. Now when a +country dandy like this takes it into his head to make a distinguished +reputation, and joins the great whale-fishery, you should see the +comical things he does upon reaching the seaport. In bespeaking his +sea-outfit, he orders bell-buttons to his waistcoats; straps to his +canvas trowsers. Ah, poor Hay-Seed! how bitterly will burst those straps +in the first howling gale, when thou art driven, straps, buttons, and +all, down the throat of the tempest. + +But think not that this famous town has only harpooneers, cannibals, and +bumpkins to show her visitors. Not at all. Still New Bedford is a queer +place. Had it not been for us whalemen, that tract of land would this +day perhaps have been in as howling condition as the coast of Labrador. +As it is, parts of her back country are enough to frighten one, they +look so bony. The town itself is perhaps the dearest place to live +in, in all New England. It is a land of oil, true enough: but not like +Canaan; a land, also, of corn and wine. The streets do not run with +milk; nor in the spring-time do they pave them with fresh eggs. Yet, in +spite of this, nowhere in all America will you find more patrician-like +houses; parks and gardens more opulent, than in New Bedford. Whence came +they? how planted upon this once scraggy scoria of a country? + +Go and gaze upon the iron emblematical harpoons round yonder lofty +mansion, and your question will be answered. Yes; all these brave houses +and flowery gardens came from the Atlantic, Pacific, and Indian oceans. +One and all, they were harpooned and dragged up hither from the bottom +of the sea. Can Herr Alexander perform a feat like that? + +In New Bedford, fathers, they say, give whales for dowers to their +daughters, and portion off their nieces with a few porpoises a-piece. +You must go to New Bedford to see a brilliant wedding; for, they say, +they have reservoirs of oil in every house, and every night recklessly +burn their lengths in spermaceti candles. + +In summer time, the town is sweet to see; full of fine maples--long +avenues of green and gold. And in August, high in air, the beautiful and +bountiful horse-chestnuts, candelabra-wise, proffer the passer-by their +tapering upright cones of congregated blossoms. So omnipotent is art; +which in many a district of New Bedford has superinduced bright terraces +of flowers upon the barren refuse rocks thrown aside at creation's final +day. + +And the women of New Bedford, they bloom like their own red roses. But +roses only bloom in summer; whereas the fine carnation of their cheeks +is perennial as sunlight in the seventh heavens. Elsewhere match that +bloom of theirs, ye cannot, save in Salem, where they tell me the young +girls breathe such musk, their sailor sweethearts smell them miles off +shore, as though they were drawing nigh the odorous Moluccas instead of +the Puritanic sands. + + + +CHAPTER 7. The Chapel. + + +In this same New Bedford there stands a Whaleman's Chapel, and few are +the moody fishermen, shortly bound for the Indian Ocean or Pacific, who +fail to make a Sunday visit to the spot. I am sure that I did not. + +Returning from my first morning stroll, I again sallied out upon this +special errand. The sky had changed from clear, sunny cold, to driving +sleet and mist. Wrapping myself in my shaggy jacket of the cloth called +bearskin, I fought my way against the stubborn storm. Entering, I +found a small scattered congregation of sailors, and sailors' wives and +widows. A muffled silence reigned, only broken at times by the shrieks +of the storm. Each silent worshipper seemed purposely sitting apart from +the other, as if each silent grief were insular and incommunicable. The +chaplain had not yet arrived; and there these silent islands of men and +women sat steadfastly eyeing several marble tablets, with black borders, +masoned into the wall on either side the pulpit. Three of them ran +something like the following, but I do not pretend to quote:-- + +SACRED TO THE MEMORY OF JOHN TALBOT, Who, at the age of eighteen, was +lost overboard, Near the Isle of Desolation, off Patagonia, November +1st, 1836. THIS TABLET Is erected to his Memory BY HIS SISTER. + +SACRED TO THE MEMORY OF ROBERT LONG, WILLIS ELLERY, NATHAN COLEMAN, +WALTER CANNY, SETH MACY, AND SAMUEL GLEIG, Forming one of the boats' +crews OF THE SHIP ELIZA Who were towed out of sight by a Whale, On the +Off-shore Ground in the PACIFIC, December 31st, 1839. THIS MARBLE Is +here placed by their surviving SHIPMATES. + +SACRED TO THE MEMORY OF The late CAPTAIN EZEKIEL HARDY, Who in the bows +of his boat was killed by a Sperm Whale on the coast of Japan, AUGUST +3d, 1833. THIS TABLET Is erected to his Memory BY HIS WIDOW. + +Shaking off the sleet from my ice-glazed hat and jacket, I seated myself +near the door, and turning sideways was surprised to see Queequeg near +me. Affected by the solemnity of the scene, there was a wondering gaze +of incredulous curiosity in his countenance. This savage was the only +person present who seemed to notice my entrance; because he was the only +one who could not read, and, therefore, was not reading those frigid +inscriptions on the wall. Whether any of the relatives of the seamen +whose names appeared there were now among the congregation, I knew not; +but so many are the unrecorded accidents in the fishery, and so plainly +did several women present wear the countenance if not the trappings +of some unceasing grief, that I feel sure that here before me were +assembled those, in whose unhealing hearts the sight of those bleak +tablets sympathetically caused the old wounds to bleed afresh. + +Oh! ye whose dead lie buried beneath the green grass; who standing among +flowers can say--here, HERE lies my beloved; ye know not the desolation +that broods in bosoms like these. What bitter blanks in those +black-bordered marbles which cover no ashes! What despair in those +immovable inscriptions! What deadly voids and unbidden infidelities in +the lines that seem to gnaw upon all Faith, and refuse resurrections to +the beings who have placelessly perished without a grave. As well might +those tablets stand in the cave of Elephanta as here. + +In what census of living creatures, the dead of mankind are included; +why it is that a universal proverb says of them, that they tell no +tales, though containing more secrets than the Goodwin Sands; how it is +that to his name who yesterday departed for the other world, we prefix +so significant and infidel a word, and yet do not thus entitle him, if +he but embarks for the remotest Indies of this living earth; why the +Life Insurance Companies pay death-forfeitures upon immortals; in what +eternal, unstirring paralysis, and deadly, hopeless trance, yet lies +antique Adam who died sixty round centuries ago; how it is that we +still refuse to be comforted for those who we nevertheless maintain are +dwelling in unspeakable bliss; why all the living so strive to hush all +the dead; wherefore but the rumor of a knocking in a tomb will terrify a +whole city. All these things are not without their meanings. + +But Faith, like a jackal, feeds among the tombs, and even from these +dead doubts she gathers her most vital hope. + +It needs scarcely to be told, with what feelings, on the eve of a +Nantucket voyage, I regarded those marble tablets, and by the murky +light of that darkened, doleful day read the fate of the whalemen +who had gone before me. Yes, Ishmael, the same fate may be thine. But +somehow I grew merry again. Delightful inducements to embark, fine +chance for promotion, it seems--aye, a stove boat will make me an +immortal by brevet. Yes, there is death in this business of whaling--a +speechlessly quick chaotic bundling of a man into Eternity. But what +then? Methinks we have hugely mistaken this matter of Life and Death. +Methinks that what they call my shadow here on earth is my true +substance. Methinks that in looking at things spiritual, we are too +much like oysters observing the sun through the water, and thinking that +thick water the thinnest of air. Methinks my body is but the lees of my +better being. In fact take my body who will, take it I say, it is not +me. And therefore three cheers for Nantucket; and come a stove boat and +stove body when they will, for stave my soul, Jove himself cannot. + + + +CHAPTER 8. The Pulpit. + + +I had not been seated very long ere a man of a certain venerable +robustness entered; immediately as the storm-pelted door flew back upon +admitting him, a quick regardful eyeing of him by all the congregation, +sufficiently attested that this fine old man was the chaplain. Yes, it +was the famous Father Mapple, so called by the whalemen, among whom he +was a very great favourite. He had been a sailor and a harpooneer in his +youth, but for many years past had dedicated his life to the ministry. +At the time I now write of, Father Mapple was in the hardy winter of a +healthy old age; that sort of old age which seems merging into a second +flowering youth, for among all the fissures of his wrinkles, there shone +certain mild gleams of a newly developing bloom--the spring verdure +peeping forth even beneath February's snow. No one having previously +heard his history, could for the first time behold Father Mapple without +the utmost interest, because there were certain engrafted clerical +peculiarities about him, imputable to that adventurous maritime life +he had led. When he entered I observed that he carried no umbrella, and +certainly had not come in his carriage, for his tarpaulin hat ran down +with melting sleet, and his great pilot cloth jacket seemed almost to +drag him to the floor with the weight of the water it had absorbed. +However, hat and coat and overshoes were one by one removed, and hung up +in a little space in an adjacent corner; when, arrayed in a decent suit, +he quietly approached the pulpit. + +Like most old fashioned pulpits, it was a very lofty one, and since a +regular stairs to such a height would, by its long angle with the floor, +seriously contract the already small area of the chapel, the architect, +it seemed, had acted upon the hint of Father Mapple, and finished the +pulpit without a stairs, substituting a perpendicular side ladder, like +those used in mounting a ship from a boat at sea. The wife of a whaling +captain had provided the chapel with a handsome pair of red worsted +man-ropes for this ladder, which, being itself nicely headed, and +stained with a mahogany colour, the whole contrivance, considering what +manner of chapel it was, seemed by no means in bad taste. Halting for +an instant at the foot of the ladder, and with both hands grasping the +ornamental knobs of the man-ropes, Father Mapple cast a look upwards, +and then with a truly sailor-like but still reverential dexterity, hand +over hand, mounted the steps as if ascending the main-top of his vessel. + +The perpendicular parts of this side ladder, as is usually the case with +swinging ones, were of cloth-covered rope, only the rounds were of wood, +so that at every step there was a joint. At my first glimpse of the +pulpit, it had not escaped me that however convenient for a ship, +these joints in the present instance seemed unnecessary. For I was not +prepared to see Father Mapple after gaining the height, slowly turn +round, and stooping over the pulpit, deliberately drag up the ladder +step by step, till the whole was deposited within, leaving him +impregnable in his little Quebec. + +I pondered some time without fully comprehending the reason for this. +Father Mapple enjoyed such a wide reputation for sincerity and sanctity, +that I could not suspect him of courting notoriety by any mere tricks +of the stage. No, thought I, there must be some sober reason for this +thing; furthermore, it must symbolize something unseen. Can it be, +then, that by that act of physical isolation, he signifies his spiritual +withdrawal for the time, from all outward worldly ties and connexions? +Yes, for replenished with the meat and wine of the word, to the faithful +man of God, this pulpit, I see, is a self-containing stronghold--a lofty +Ehrenbreitstein, with a perennial well of water within the walls. + +But the side ladder was not the only strange feature of the place, +borrowed from the chaplain's former sea-farings. Between the marble +cenotaphs on either hand of the pulpit, the wall which formed its back +was adorned with a large painting representing a gallant ship beating +against a terrible storm off a lee coast of black rocks and snowy +breakers. But high above the flying scud and dark-rolling clouds, there +floated a little isle of sunlight, from which beamed forth an angel's +face; and this bright face shed a distinct spot of radiance upon the +ship's tossed deck, something like that silver plate now inserted into +the Victory's plank where Nelson fell. "Ah, noble ship," the angel +seemed to say, "beat on, beat on, thou noble ship, and bear a hardy +helm; for lo! the sun is breaking through; the clouds are rolling +off--serenest azure is at hand." + +Nor was the pulpit itself without a trace of the same sea-taste that +had achieved the ladder and the picture. Its panelled front was in +the likeness of a ship's bluff bows, and the Holy Bible rested on a +projecting piece of scroll work, fashioned after a ship's fiddle-headed +beak. + +What could be more full of meaning?--for the pulpit is ever this earth's +foremost part; all the rest comes in its rear; the pulpit leads the +world. From thence it is the storm of God's quick wrath is first +descried, and the bow must bear the earliest brunt. From thence it is +the God of breezes fair or foul is first invoked for favourable winds. +Yes, the world's a ship on its passage out, and not a voyage complete; +and the pulpit is its prow. + + + +CHAPTER 9. The Sermon. + + +Father Mapple rose, and in a mild voice of unassuming authority ordered +the scattered people to condense. "Starboard gangway, there! side away +to larboard--larboard gangway to starboard! Midships! midships!" + +There was a low rumbling of heavy sea-boots among the benches, and a +still slighter shuffling of women's shoes, and all was quiet again, and +every eye on the preacher. + +He paused a little; then kneeling in the pulpit's bows, folded his large +brown hands across his chest, uplifted his closed eyes, and offered +a prayer so deeply devout that he seemed kneeling and praying at the +bottom of the sea. + +This ended, in prolonged solemn tones, like the continual tolling of +a bell in a ship that is foundering at sea in a fog--in such tones he +commenced reading the following hymn; but changing his manner towards +the concluding stanzas, burst forth with a pealing exultation and joy-- + + "The ribs and terrors in the whale, + Arched over me a dismal gloom, + While all God's sun-lit waves rolled by, + And lift me deepening down to doom. + + "I saw the opening maw of hell, + With endless pains and sorrows there; + Which none but they that feel can tell-- + Oh, I was plunging to despair. + + "In black distress, I called my God, + When I could scarce believe him mine, + He bowed his ear to my complaints-- + No more the whale did me confine. + + "With speed he flew to my relief, + As on a radiant dolphin borne; + Awful, yet bright, as lightning shone + The face of my Deliverer God. + + "My song for ever shall record + That terrible, that joyful hour; + I give the glory to my God, + His all the mercy and the power." + + +Nearly all joined in singing this hymn, which swelled high above the +howling of the storm. A brief pause ensued; the preacher slowly turned +over the leaves of the Bible, and at last, folding his hand down upon +the proper page, said: "Beloved shipmates, clinch the last verse of the +first chapter of Jonah--'And God had prepared a great fish to swallow up +Jonah.'" + +"Shipmates, this book, containing only four chapters--four yarns--is one +of the smallest strands in the mighty cable of the Scriptures. Yet what +depths of the soul does Jonah's deep sealine sound! what a pregnant +lesson to us is this prophet! What a noble thing is that canticle in the +fish's belly! How billow-like and boisterously grand! We feel the floods +surging over us; we sound with him to the kelpy bottom of the waters; +sea-weed and all the slime of the sea is about us! But WHAT is this +lesson that the book of Jonah teaches? Shipmates, it is a two-stranded +lesson; a lesson to us all as sinful men, and a lesson to me as a pilot +of the living God. As sinful men, it is a lesson to us all, because it +is a story of the sin, hard-heartedness, suddenly awakened fears, the +swift punishment, repentance, prayers, and finally the deliverance and +joy of Jonah. As with all sinners among men, the sin of this son of +Amittai was in his wilful disobedience of the command of God--never +mind now what that command was, or how conveyed--which he found a hard +command. But all the things that God would have us do are hard for us to +do--remember that--and hence, he oftener commands us than endeavors to +persuade. And if we obey God, we must disobey ourselves; and it is in +this disobeying ourselves, wherein the hardness of obeying God consists. + +"With this sin of disobedience in him, Jonah still further flouts at +God, by seeking to flee from Him. He thinks that a ship made by men will +carry him into countries where God does not reign, but only the Captains +of this earth. He skulks about the wharves of Joppa, and seeks a ship +that's bound for Tarshish. There lurks, perhaps, a hitherto unheeded +meaning here. By all accounts Tarshish could have been no other city +than the modern Cadiz. That's the opinion of learned men. And where is +Cadiz, shipmates? Cadiz is in Spain; as far by water, from Joppa, +as Jonah could possibly have sailed in those ancient days, when the +Atlantic was an almost unknown sea. Because Joppa, the modern Jaffa, +shipmates, is on the most easterly coast of the Mediterranean, the +Syrian; and Tarshish or Cadiz more than two thousand miles to the +westward from that, just outside the Straits of Gibraltar. See ye +not then, shipmates, that Jonah sought to flee world-wide from God? +Miserable man! Oh! most contemptible and worthy of all scorn; with +slouched hat and guilty eye, skulking from his God; prowling among the +shipping like a vile burglar hastening to cross the seas. So disordered, +self-condemning is his look, that had there been policemen in those +days, Jonah, on the mere suspicion of something wrong, had been arrested +ere he touched a deck. How plainly he's a fugitive! no baggage, not a +hat-box, valise, or carpet-bag,--no friends accompany him to the wharf +with their adieux. At last, after much dodging search, he finds the +Tarshish ship receiving the last items of her cargo; and as he steps on +board to see its Captain in the cabin, all the sailors for the moment +desist from hoisting in the goods, to mark the stranger's evil eye. +Jonah sees this; but in vain he tries to look all ease and confidence; +in vain essays his wretched smile. Strong intuitions of the man assure +the mariners he can be no innocent. In their gamesome but still serious +way, one whispers to the other--"Jack, he's robbed a widow;" or, "Joe, +do you mark him; he's a bigamist;" or, "Harry lad, I guess he's the +adulterer that broke jail in old Gomorrah, or belike, one of the missing +murderers from Sodom." Another runs to read the bill that's stuck +against the spile upon the wharf to which the ship is moored, offering +five hundred gold coins for the apprehension of a parricide, and +containing a description of his person. He reads, and looks from Jonah +to the bill; while all his sympathetic shipmates now crowd round Jonah, +prepared to lay their hands upon him. Frighted Jonah trembles, and +summoning all his boldness to his face, only looks so much the more a +coward. He will not confess himself suspected; but that itself is strong +suspicion. So he makes the best of it; and when the sailors find him +not to be the man that is advertised, they let him pass, and he descends +into the cabin. + +"'Who's there?' cries the Captain at his busy desk, hurriedly making +out his papers for the Customs--'Who's there?' Oh! how that harmless +question mangles Jonah! For the instant he almost turns to flee again. +But he rallies. 'I seek a passage in this ship to Tarshish; how soon +sail ye, sir?' Thus far the busy Captain had not looked up to Jonah, +though the man now stands before him; but no sooner does he hear that +hollow voice, than he darts a scrutinizing glance. 'We sail with the +next coming tide,' at last he slowly answered, still intently eyeing +him. 'No sooner, sir?'--'Soon enough for any honest man that goes a +passenger.' Ha! Jonah, that's another stab. But he swiftly calls away +the Captain from that scent. 'I'll sail with ye,'--he says,--'the +passage money how much is that?--I'll pay now.' For it is particularly +written, shipmates, as if it were a thing not to be overlooked in this +history, 'that he paid the fare thereof' ere the craft did sail. And +taken with the context, this is full of meaning. + +"Now Jonah's Captain, shipmates, was one whose discernment detects crime +in any, but whose cupidity exposes it only in the penniless. In this +world, shipmates, sin that pays its way can travel freely, and without +a passport; whereas Virtue, if a pauper, is stopped at all frontiers. +So Jonah's Captain prepares to test the length of Jonah's purse, ere he +judge him openly. He charges him thrice the usual sum; and it's assented +to. Then the Captain knows that Jonah is a fugitive; but at the same +time resolves to help a flight that paves its rear with gold. Yet when +Jonah fairly takes out his purse, prudent suspicions still molest the +Captain. He rings every coin to find a counterfeit. Not a forger, any +way, he mutters; and Jonah is put down for his passage. 'Point out my +state-room, Sir,' says Jonah now, 'I'm travel-weary; I need sleep.' +'Thou lookest like it,' says the Captain, 'there's thy room.' Jonah +enters, and would lock the door, but the lock contains no key. Hearing +him foolishly fumbling there, the Captain laughs lowly to himself, and +mutters something about the doors of convicts' cells being never allowed +to be locked within. All dressed and dusty as he is, Jonah throws +himself into his berth, and finds the little state-room ceiling almost +resting on his forehead. The air is close, and Jonah gasps. Then, in +that contracted hole, sunk, too, beneath the ship's water-line, Jonah +feels the heralding presentiment of that stifling hour, when the whale +shall hold him in the smallest of his bowels' wards. + +"Screwed at its axis against the side, a swinging lamp slightly +oscillates in Jonah's room; and the ship, heeling over towards the wharf +with the weight of the last bales received, the lamp, flame and all, +though in slight motion, still maintains a permanent obliquity with +reference to the room; though, in truth, infallibly straight itself, it +but made obvious the false, lying levels among which it hung. The lamp +alarms and frightens Jonah; as lying in his berth his tormented eyes +roll round the place, and this thus far successful fugitive finds no +refuge for his restless glance. But that contradiction in the lamp more +and more appals him. The floor, the ceiling, and the side, are all awry. +'Oh! so my conscience hangs in me!' he groans, 'straight upwards, so it +burns; but the chambers of my soul are all in crookedness!' + +"Like one who after a night of drunken revelry hies to his bed, still +reeling, but with conscience yet pricking him, as the plungings of the +Roman race-horse but so much the more strike his steel tags into him; as +one who in that miserable plight still turns and turns in giddy anguish, +praying God for annihilation until the fit be passed; and at last amid +the whirl of woe he feels, a deep stupor steals over him, as over the +man who bleeds to death, for conscience is the wound, and there's naught +to staunch it; so, after sore wrestlings in his berth, Jonah's prodigy +of ponderous misery drags him drowning down to sleep. + +"And now the time of tide has come; the ship casts off her cables; and +from the deserted wharf the uncheered ship for Tarshish, all careening, +glides to sea. That ship, my friends, was the first of recorded +smugglers! the contraband was Jonah. But the sea rebels; he will not +bear the wicked burden. A dreadful storm comes on, the ship is like to +break. But now when the boatswain calls all hands to lighten her; +when boxes, bales, and jars are clattering overboard; when the wind +is shrieking, and the men are yelling, and every plank thunders with +trampling feet right over Jonah's head; in all this raging tumult, Jonah +sleeps his hideous sleep. He sees no black sky and raging sea, feels not +the reeling timbers, and little hears he or heeds he the far rush of the +mighty whale, which even now with open mouth is cleaving the seas after +him. Aye, shipmates, Jonah was gone down into the sides of the ship--a +berth in the cabin as I have taken it, and was fast asleep. But the +frightened master comes to him, and shrieks in his dead ear, 'What +meanest thou, O, sleeper! arise!' Startled from his lethargy by that +direful cry, Jonah staggers to his feet, and stumbling to the deck, +grasps a shroud, to look out upon the sea. But at that moment he is +sprung upon by a panther billow leaping over the bulwarks. Wave after +wave thus leaps into the ship, and finding no speedy vent runs roaring +fore and aft, till the mariners come nigh to drowning while yet afloat. +And ever, as the white moon shows her affrighted face from the steep +gullies in the blackness overhead, aghast Jonah sees the rearing +bowsprit pointing high upward, but soon beat downward again towards the +tormented deep. + +"Terrors upon terrors run shouting through his soul. In all his cringing +attitudes, the God-fugitive is now too plainly known. The sailors mark +him; more and more certain grow their suspicions of him, and at last, +fully to test the truth, by referring the whole matter to high Heaven, +they fall to casting lots, to see for whose cause this great tempest was +upon them. The lot is Jonah's; that discovered, then how furiously they +mob him with their questions. 'What is thine occupation? Whence comest +thou? Thy country? What people? But mark now, my shipmates, the behavior +of poor Jonah. The eager mariners but ask him who he is, and where +from; whereas, they not only receive an answer to those questions, +but likewise another answer to a question not put by them, but the +unsolicited answer is forced from Jonah by the hard hand of God that is +upon him. + +"'I am a Hebrew,' he cries--and then--'I fear the Lord the God of Heaven +who hath made the sea and the dry land!' Fear him, O Jonah? Aye, well +mightest thou fear the Lord God THEN! Straightway, he now goes on to +make a full confession; whereupon the mariners became more and more +appalled, but still are pitiful. For when Jonah, not yet supplicating +God for mercy, since he but too well knew the darkness of his +deserts,--when wretched Jonah cries out to them to take him and cast him +forth into the sea, for he knew that for HIS sake this great tempest +was upon them; they mercifully turn from him, and seek by other means to +save the ship. But all in vain; the indignant gale howls louder; +then, with one hand raised invokingly to God, with the other they not +unreluctantly lay hold of Jonah. + +"And now behold Jonah taken up as an anchor and dropped into the sea; +when instantly an oily calmness floats out from the east, and the sea +is still, as Jonah carries down the gale with him, leaving smooth +water behind. He goes down in the whirling heart of such a masterless +commotion that he scarce heeds the moment when he drops seething into +the yawning jaws awaiting him; and the whale shoots-to all his ivory +teeth, like so many white bolts, upon his prison. Then Jonah prayed unto +the Lord out of the fish's belly. But observe his prayer, and learn a +weighty lesson. For sinful as he is, Jonah does not weep and wail for +direct deliverance. He feels that his dreadful punishment is just. He +leaves all his deliverance to God, contenting himself with this, that +spite of all his pains and pangs, he will still look towards His holy +temple. And here, shipmates, is true and faithful repentance; not +clamorous for pardon, but grateful for punishment. And how pleasing to +God was this conduct in Jonah, is shown in the eventual deliverance of +him from the sea and the whale. Shipmates, I do not place Jonah before +you to be copied for his sin but I do place him before you as a model +for repentance. Sin not; but if you do, take heed to repent of it like +Jonah." + +While he was speaking these words, the howling of the shrieking, +slanting storm without seemed to add new power to the preacher, who, +when describing Jonah's sea-storm, seemed tossed by a storm himself. +His deep chest heaved as with a ground-swell; his tossed arms seemed the +warring elements at work; and the thunders that rolled away from off his +swarthy brow, and the light leaping from his eye, made all his simple +hearers look on him with a quick fear that was strange to them. + +There now came a lull in his look, as he silently turned over the leaves +of the Book once more; and, at last, standing motionless, with closed +eyes, for the moment, seemed communing with God and himself. + +But again he leaned over towards the people, and bowing his head lowly, +with an aspect of the deepest yet manliest humility, he spake these +words: + +"Shipmates, God has laid but one hand upon you; both his hands press +upon me. I have read ye by what murky light may be mine the lesson that +Jonah teaches to all sinners; and therefore to ye, and still more to me, +for I am a greater sinner than ye. And now how gladly would I come down +from this mast-head and sit on the hatches there where you sit, and +listen as you listen, while some one of you reads ME that other and more +awful lesson which Jonah teaches to ME, as a pilot of the living God. +How being an anointed pilot-prophet, or speaker of true things, and +bidden by the Lord to sound those unwelcome truths in the ears of a +wicked Nineveh, Jonah, appalled at the hostility he should raise, fled +from his mission, and sought to escape his duty and his God by taking +ship at Joppa. But God is everywhere; Tarshish he never reached. As we +have seen, God came upon him in the whale, and swallowed him down to +living gulfs of doom, and with swift slantings tore him along 'into the +midst of the seas,' where the eddying depths sucked him ten thousand +fathoms down, and 'the weeds were wrapped about his head,' and all the +watery world of woe bowled over him. Yet even then beyond the reach of +any plummet--'out of the belly of hell'--when the whale grounded upon +the ocean's utmost bones, even then, God heard the engulphed, repenting +prophet when he cried. Then God spake unto the fish; and from the +shuddering cold and blackness of the sea, the whale came breeching +up towards the warm and pleasant sun, and all the delights of air and +earth; and 'vomited out Jonah upon the dry land;' when the word of the +Lord came a second time; and Jonah, bruised and beaten--his ears, like +two sea-shells, still multitudinously murmuring of the ocean--Jonah +did the Almighty's bidding. And what was that, shipmates? To preach the +Truth to the face of Falsehood! That was it! + +"This, shipmates, this is that other lesson; and woe to that pilot of +the living God who slights it. Woe to him whom this world charms from +Gospel duty! Woe to him who seeks to pour oil upon the waters when God +has brewed them into a gale! Woe to him who seeks to please rather than +to appal! Woe to him whose good name is more to him than goodness! Woe +to him who, in this world, courts not dishonour! Woe to him who would +not be true, even though to be false were salvation! Yea, woe to him +who, as the great Pilot Paul has it, while preaching to others is +himself a castaway!" + +He dropped and fell away from himself for a moment; then lifting his +face to them again, showed a deep joy in his eyes, as he cried out with +a heavenly enthusiasm,--"But oh! shipmates! on the starboard hand of +every woe, there is a sure delight; and higher the top of that delight, +than the bottom of the woe is deep. Is not the main-truck higher than +the kelson is low? Delight is to him--a far, far upward, and inward +delight--who against the proud gods and commodores of this earth, ever +stands forth his own inexorable self. Delight is to him whose strong +arms yet support him, when the ship of this base treacherous world has +gone down beneath him. Delight is to him, who gives no quarter in the +truth, and kills, burns, and destroys all sin though he pluck it out +from under the robes of Senators and Judges. Delight,--top-gallant +delight is to him, who acknowledges no law or lord, but the Lord his +God, and is only a patriot to heaven. Delight is to him, whom all the +waves of the billows of the seas of the boisterous mob can never shake +from this sure Keel of the Ages. And eternal delight and deliciousness +will be his, who coming to lay him down, can say with his final +breath--O Father!--chiefly known to me by Thy rod--mortal or immortal, +here I die. I have striven to be Thine, more than to be this world's, or +mine own. Yet this is nothing: I leave eternity to Thee; for what is man +that he should live out the lifetime of his God?" + +He said no more, but slowly waving a benediction, covered his face with +his hands, and so remained kneeling, till all the people had departed, +and he was left alone in the place. + + + +CHAPTER 10. A Bosom Friend. + + +Returning to the Spouter-Inn from the Chapel, I found Queequeg there +quite alone; he having left the Chapel before the benediction some time. +He was sitting on a bench before the fire, with his feet on the stove +hearth, and in one hand was holding close up to his face that little +negro idol of his; peering hard into its face, and with a jack-knife +gently whittling away at its nose, meanwhile humming to himself in his +heathenish way. + +But being now interrupted, he put up the image; and pretty soon, going +to the table, took up a large book there, and placing it on his lap +began counting the pages with deliberate regularity; at every fiftieth +page--as I fancied--stopping a moment, looking vacantly around him, and +giving utterance to a long-drawn gurgling whistle of astonishment. He +would then begin again at the next fifty; seeming to commence at number +one each time, as though he could not count more than fifty, and it was +only by such a large number of fifties being found together, that his +astonishment at the multitude of pages was excited. + +With much interest I sat watching him. Savage though he was, and +hideously marred about the face--at least to my taste--his countenance +yet had a something in it which was by no means disagreeable. You cannot +hide the soul. Through all his unearthly tattooings, I thought I saw +the traces of a simple honest heart; and in his large, deep eyes, +fiery black and bold, there seemed tokens of a spirit that would dare a +thousand devils. And besides all this, there was a certain lofty bearing +about the Pagan, which even his uncouthness could not altogether maim. +He looked like a man who had never cringed and never had had a creditor. +Whether it was, too, that his head being shaved, his forehead was drawn +out in freer and brighter relief, and looked more expansive than it +otherwise would, this I will not venture to decide; but certain it was +his head was phrenologically an excellent one. It may seem ridiculous, +but it reminded me of General Washington's head, as seen in the popular +busts of him. It had the same long regularly graded retreating slope +from above the brows, which were likewise very projecting, like two +long promontories thickly wooded on top. Queequeg was George Washington +cannibalistically developed. + +Whilst I was thus closely scanning him, half-pretending meanwhile to be +looking out at the storm from the casement, he never heeded my presence, +never troubled himself with so much as a single glance; but appeared +wholly occupied with counting the pages of the marvellous book. +Considering how sociably we had been sleeping together the night +previous, and especially considering the affectionate arm I had found +thrown over me upon waking in the morning, I thought this indifference +of his very strange. But savages are strange beings; at times you do not +know exactly how to take them. At first they are overawing; their calm +self-collectedness of simplicity seems a Socratic wisdom. I had noticed +also that Queequeg never consorted at all, or but very little, with the +other seamen in the inn. He made no advances whatever; appeared to have +no desire to enlarge the circle of his acquaintances. All this struck +me as mighty singular; yet, upon second thoughts, there was something +almost sublime in it. Here was a man some twenty thousand miles from +home, by the way of Cape Horn, that is--which was the only way he could +get there--thrown among people as strange to him as though he were in +the planet Jupiter; and yet he seemed entirely at his ease; preserving +the utmost serenity; content with his own companionship; always equal to +himself. Surely this was a touch of fine philosophy; though no doubt he +had never heard there was such a thing as that. But, perhaps, to be +true philosophers, we mortals should not be conscious of so living or +so striving. So soon as I hear that such or such a man gives himself +out for a philosopher, I conclude that, like the dyspeptic old woman, he +must have "broken his digester." + +As I sat there in that now lonely room; the fire burning low, in that +mild stage when, after its first intensity has warmed the air, it then +only glows to be looked at; the evening shades and phantoms gathering +round the casements, and peering in upon us silent, solitary twain; +the storm booming without in solemn swells; I began to be sensible of +strange feelings. I felt a melting in me. No more my splintered heart +and maddened hand were turned against the wolfish world. This soothing +savage had redeemed it. There he sat, his very indifference speaking a +nature in which there lurked no civilized hypocrisies and bland deceits. +Wild he was; a very sight of sights to see; yet I began to feel myself +mysteriously drawn towards him. And those same things that would have +repelled most others, they were the very magnets that thus drew me. I'll +try a pagan friend, thought I, since Christian kindness has proved but +hollow courtesy. I drew my bench near him, and made some friendly signs +and hints, doing my best to talk with him meanwhile. At first he little +noticed these advances; but presently, upon my referring to his last +night's hospitalities, he made out to ask me whether we were again to be +bedfellows. I told him yes; whereat I thought he looked pleased, perhaps +a little complimented. + +We then turned over the book together, and I endeavored to explain to +him the purpose of the printing, and the meaning of the few pictures +that were in it. Thus I soon engaged his interest; and from that we went +to jabbering the best we could about the various outer sights to be seen +in this famous town. Soon I proposed a social smoke; and, producing +his pouch and tomahawk, he quietly offered me a puff. And then we sat +exchanging puffs from that wild pipe of his, and keeping it regularly +passing between us. + +If there yet lurked any ice of indifference towards me in the Pagan's +breast, this pleasant, genial smoke we had, soon thawed it out, and left +us cronies. He seemed to take to me quite as naturally and unbiddenly as +I to him; and when our smoke was over, he pressed his forehead against +mine, clasped me round the waist, and said that henceforth we were +married; meaning, in his country's phrase, that we were bosom friends; +he would gladly die for me, if need should be. In a countryman, this +sudden flame of friendship would have seemed far too premature, a thing +to be much distrusted; but in this simple savage those old rules would +not apply. + +After supper, and another social chat and smoke, we went to our room +together. He made me a present of his embalmed head; took out his +enormous tobacco wallet, and groping under the tobacco, drew out +some thirty dollars in silver; then spreading them on the table, and +mechanically dividing them into two equal portions, pushed one of them +towards me, and said it was mine. I was going to remonstrate; but he +silenced me by pouring them into my trowsers' pockets. I let them stay. +He then went about his evening prayers, took out his idol, and removed +the paper fireboard. By certain signs and symptoms, I thought he seemed +anxious for me to join him; but well knowing what was to follow, I +deliberated a moment whether, in case he invited me, I would comply or +otherwise. + +I was a good Christian; born and bred in the bosom of the infallible +Presbyterian Church. How then could I unite with this wild idolator in +worshipping his piece of wood? But what is worship? thought I. Do +you suppose now, Ishmael, that the magnanimous God of heaven and +earth--pagans and all included--can possibly be jealous of an +insignificant bit of black wood? Impossible! But what is worship?--to do +the will of God--THAT is worship. And what is the will of God?--to do to +my fellow man what I would have my fellow man to do to me--THAT is the +will of God. Now, Queequeg is my fellow man. And what do I wish that +this Queequeg would do to me? Why, unite with me in my particular +Presbyterian form of worship. Consequently, I must then unite with him +in his; ergo, I must turn idolator. So I kindled the shavings; helped +prop up the innocent little idol; offered him burnt biscuit with +Queequeg; salamed before him twice or thrice; kissed his nose; and that +done, we undressed and went to bed, at peace with our own consciences +and all the world. But we did not go to sleep without some little chat. + +How it is I know not; but there is no place like a bed for confidential +disclosures between friends. Man and wife, they say, there open the very +bottom of their souls to each other; and some old couples often lie +and chat over old times till nearly morning. Thus, then, in our hearts' +honeymoon, lay I and Queequeg--a cosy, loving pair. + + + +CHAPTER 11. Nightgown. + + +We had lain thus in bed, chatting and napping at short intervals, and +Queequeg now and then affectionately throwing his brown tattooed legs +over mine, and then drawing them back; so entirely sociable and free +and easy were we; when, at last, by reason of our confabulations, what +little nappishness remained in us altogether departed, and we felt like +getting up again, though day-break was yet some way down the future. + +Yes, we became very wakeful; so much so that our recumbent position +began to grow wearisome, and by little and little we found ourselves +sitting up; the clothes well tucked around us, leaning against the +head-board with our four knees drawn up close together, and our two +noses bending over them, as if our kneepans were warming-pans. We felt +very nice and snug, the more so since it was so chilly out of doors; +indeed out of bed-clothes too, seeing that there was no fire in the +room. The more so, I say, because truly to enjoy bodily warmth, some +small part of you must be cold, for there is no quality in this world +that is not what it is merely by contrast. Nothing exists in itself. If +you flatter yourself that you are all over comfortable, and have been so +a long time, then you cannot be said to be comfortable any more. But if, +like Queequeg and me in the bed, the tip of your nose or the crown +of your head be slightly chilled, why then, indeed, in the general +consciousness you feel most delightfully and unmistakably warm. For this +reason a sleeping apartment should never be furnished with a fire, which +is one of the luxurious discomforts of the rich. For the height of this +sort of deliciousness is to have nothing but the blanket between you and +your snugness and the cold of the outer air. Then there you lie like the +one warm spark in the heart of an arctic crystal. + +We had been sitting in this crouching manner for some time, when all at +once I thought I would open my eyes; for when between sheets, whether +by day or by night, and whether asleep or awake, I have a way of always +keeping my eyes shut, in order the more to concentrate the snugness +of being in bed. Because no man can ever feel his own identity aright +except his eyes be closed; as if darkness were indeed the proper element +of our essences, though light be more congenial to our clayey part. Upon +opening my eyes then, and coming out of my own pleasant and self-created +darkness into the imposed and coarse outer gloom of the unilluminated +twelve-o'clock-at-night, I experienced a disagreeable revulsion. Nor did +I at all object to the hint from Queequeg that perhaps it were best to +strike a light, seeing that we were so wide awake; and besides he felt +a strong desire to have a few quiet puffs from his Tomahawk. Be it said, +that though I had felt such a strong repugnance to his smoking in the +bed the night before, yet see how elastic our stiff prejudices grow when +love once comes to bend them. For now I liked nothing better than to +have Queequeg smoking by me, even in bed, because he seemed to be full +of such serene household joy then. I no more felt unduly concerned for +the landlord's policy of insurance. I was only alive to the condensed +confidential comfortableness of sharing a pipe and a blanket with a real +friend. With our shaggy jackets drawn about our shoulders, we now passed +the Tomahawk from one to the other, till slowly there grew over us a +blue hanging tester of smoke, illuminated by the flame of the new-lit +lamp. + +Whether it was that this undulating tester rolled the savage away to far +distant scenes, I know not, but he now spoke of his native island; and, +eager to hear his history, I begged him to go on and tell it. He gladly +complied. Though at the time I but ill comprehended not a few of his +words, yet subsequent disclosures, when I had become more familiar with +his broken phraseology, now enable me to present the whole story such as +it may prove in the mere skeleton I give. + + + +CHAPTER 12. Biographical. + + +Queequeg was a native of Rokovoko, an island far away to the West and +South. It is not down in any map; true places never are. + +When a new-hatched savage running wild about his native woodlands in +a grass clout, followed by the nibbling goats, as if he were a green +sapling; even then, in Queequeg's ambitious soul, lurked a strong desire +to see something more of Christendom than a specimen whaler or two. His +father was a High Chief, a King; his uncle a High Priest; and on the +maternal side he boasted aunts who were the wives of unconquerable +warriors. There was excellent blood in his veins--royal stuff; though +sadly vitiated, I fear, by the cannibal propensity he nourished in his +untutored youth. + +A Sag Harbor ship visited his father's bay, and Queequeg sought a +passage to Christian lands. But the ship, having her full complement of +seamen, spurned his suit; and not all the King his father's influence +could prevail. But Queequeg vowed a vow. Alone in his canoe, he paddled +off to a distant strait, which he knew the ship must pass through when +she quitted the island. On one side was a coral reef; on the other a low +tongue of land, covered with mangrove thickets that grew out into the +water. Hiding his canoe, still afloat, among these thickets, with its +prow seaward, he sat down in the stern, paddle low in hand; and when the +ship was gliding by, like a flash he darted out; gained her side; with +one backward dash of his foot capsized and sank his canoe; climbed up +the chains; and throwing himself at full length upon the deck, grappled +a ring-bolt there, and swore not to let it go, though hacked in pieces. + +In vain the captain threatened to throw him overboard; suspended a +cutlass over his naked wrists; Queequeg was the son of a King, and +Queequeg budged not. Struck by his desperate dauntlessness, and his wild +desire to visit Christendom, the captain at last relented, and told +him he might make himself at home. But this fine young savage--this sea +Prince of Wales, never saw the Captain's cabin. They put him down among +the sailors, and made a whaleman of him. But like Czar Peter content to +toil in the shipyards of foreign cities, Queequeg disdained no seeming +ignominy, if thereby he might happily gain the power of enlightening his +untutored countrymen. For at bottom--so he told me--he was actuated by a +profound desire to learn among the Christians, the arts whereby to +make his people still happier than they were; and more than that, +still better than they were. But, alas! the practices of whalemen soon +convinced him that even Christians could be both miserable and wicked; +infinitely more so, than all his father's heathens. Arrived at last in +old Sag Harbor; and seeing what the sailors did there; and then going on +to Nantucket, and seeing how they spent their wages in that place also, +poor Queequeg gave it up for lost. Thought he, it's a wicked world in +all meridians; I'll die a pagan. + +And thus an old idolator at heart, he yet lived among these Christians, +wore their clothes, and tried to talk their gibberish. Hence the queer +ways about him, though now some time from home. + +By hints, I asked him whether he did not propose going back, and having +a coronation; since he might now consider his father dead and gone, he +being very old and feeble at the last accounts. He answered no, not yet; +and added that he was fearful Christianity, or rather Christians, had +unfitted him for ascending the pure and undefiled throne of thirty pagan +Kings before him. But by and by, he said, he would return,--as soon as +he felt himself baptized again. For the nonce, however, he proposed to +sail about, and sow his wild oats in all four oceans. They had made a +harpooneer of him, and that barbed iron was in lieu of a sceptre now. + +I asked him what might be his immediate purpose, touching his future +movements. He answered, to go to sea again, in his old vocation. Upon +this, I told him that whaling was my own design, and informed him of my +intention to sail out of Nantucket, as being the most promising port for +an adventurous whaleman to embark from. He at once resolved to accompany +me to that island, ship aboard the same vessel, get into the same watch, +the same boat, the same mess with me, in short to share my every hap; +with both my hands in his, boldly dip into the Potluck of both worlds. +To all this I joyously assented; for besides the affection I now felt +for Queequeg, he was an experienced harpooneer, and as such, could not +fail to be of great usefulness to one, who, like me, was wholly ignorant +of the mysteries of whaling, though well acquainted with the sea, as +known to merchant seamen. + +His story being ended with his pipe's last dying puff, Queequeg embraced +me, pressed his forehead against mine, and blowing out the light, we +rolled over from each other, this way and that, and very soon were +sleeping. + + +CHAPTER 13. Wheelbarrow. + + +Next morning, Monday, after disposing of the embalmed head to a barber, +for a block, I settled my own and comrade's bill; using, however, my +comrade's money. The grinning landlord, as well as the boarders, seemed +amazingly tickled at the sudden friendship which had sprung up between +me and Queequeg--especially as Peter Coffin's cock and bull stories +about him had previously so much alarmed me concerning the very person +whom I now companied with. + +We borrowed a wheelbarrow, and embarking our things, including my own +poor carpet-bag, and Queequeg's canvas sack and hammock, away we went +down to "the Moss," the little Nantucket packet schooner moored at the +wharf. As we were going along the people stared; not at Queequeg +so much--for they were used to seeing cannibals like him in their +streets,--but at seeing him and me upon such confidential terms. But we +heeded them not, going along wheeling the barrow by turns, and Queequeg +now and then stopping to adjust the sheath on his harpoon barbs. I asked +him why he carried such a troublesome thing with him ashore, and +whether all whaling ships did not find their own harpoons. To this, in +substance, he replied, that though what I hinted was true enough, yet +he had a particular affection for his own harpoon, because it was of +assured stuff, well tried in many a mortal combat, and deeply intimate +with the hearts of whales. In short, like many inland reapers +and mowers, who go into the farmers' meadows armed with their own +scythes--though in no wise obliged to furnish them--even so, Queequeg, +for his own private reasons, preferred his own harpoon. + +Shifting the barrow from my hand to his, he told me a funny story about +the first wheelbarrow he had ever seen. It was in Sag Harbor. The owners +of his ship, it seems, had lent him one, in which to carry his +heavy chest to his boarding house. Not to seem ignorant about the +thing--though in truth he was entirely so, concerning the precise way in +which to manage the barrow--Queequeg puts his chest upon it; lashes it +fast; and then shoulders the barrow and marches up the wharf. "Why," +said I, "Queequeg, you might have known better than that, one would +think. Didn't the people laugh?" + +Upon this, he told me another story. The people of his island of +Rokovoko, it seems, at their wedding feasts express the fragrant water +of young cocoanuts into a large stained calabash like a punchbowl; and +this punchbowl always forms the great central ornament on the braided +mat where the feast is held. Now a certain grand merchant ship once +touched at Rokovoko, and its commander--from all accounts, a very +stately punctilious gentleman, at least for a sea captain--this +commander was invited to the wedding feast of Queequeg's sister, a +pretty young princess just turned of ten. Well; when all the wedding +guests were assembled at the bride's bamboo cottage, this Captain +marches in, and being assigned the post of honour, placed himself over +against the punchbowl, and between the High Priest and his majesty the +King, Queequeg's father. Grace being said,--for those people have their +grace as well as we--though Queequeg told me that unlike us, who at such +times look downwards to our platters, they, on the contrary, copying the +ducks, glance upwards to the great Giver of all feasts--Grace, I say, +being said, the High Priest opens the banquet by the immemorial ceremony +of the island; that is, dipping his consecrated and consecrating fingers +into the bowl before the blessed beverage circulates. Seeing himself +placed next the Priest, and noting the ceremony, and thinking +himself--being Captain of a ship--as having plain precedence over a +mere island King, especially in the King's own house--the Captain coolly +proceeds to wash his hands in the punchbowl;--taking it I suppose for a +huge finger-glass. "Now," said Queequeg, "what you tink now?--Didn't our +people laugh?" + +At last, passage paid, and luggage safe, we stood on board the schooner. +Hoisting sail, it glided down the Acushnet river. On one side, New +Bedford rose in terraces of streets, their ice-covered trees all +glittering in the clear, cold air. Huge hills and mountains of casks on +casks were piled upon her wharves, and side by side the world-wandering +whale ships lay silent and safely moored at last; while from others +came a sound of carpenters and coopers, with blended noises of fires and +forges to melt the pitch, all betokening that new cruises were on the +start; that one most perilous and long voyage ended, only begins a +second; and a second ended, only begins a third, and so on, for ever +and for aye. Such is the endlessness, yea, the intolerableness of all +earthly effort. + +Gaining the more open water, the bracing breeze waxed fresh; the little +Moss tossed the quick foam from her bows, as a young colt his snortings. +How I snuffed that Tartar air!--how I spurned that turnpike earth!--that +common highway all over dented with the marks of slavish heels and +hoofs; and turned me to admire the magnanimity of the sea which will +permit no records. + +At the same foam-fountain, Queequeg seemed to drink and reel with me. +His dusky nostrils swelled apart; he showed his filed and pointed teeth. +On, on we flew; and our offing gained, the Moss did homage to the +blast; ducked and dived her bows as a slave before the Sultan. Sideways +leaning, we sideways darted; every ropeyarn tingling like a wire; the +two tall masts buckling like Indian canes in land tornadoes. So full of +this reeling scene were we, as we stood by the plunging bowsprit, that +for some time we did not notice the jeering glances of the passengers, a +lubber-like assembly, who marvelled that two fellow beings should be so +companionable; as though a white man were anything more dignified than a +whitewashed negro. But there were some boobies and bumpkins there, who, +by their intense greenness, must have come from the heart and centre of +all verdure. Queequeg caught one of these young saplings mimicking him +behind his back. I thought the bumpkin's hour of doom was come. Dropping +his harpoon, the brawny savage caught him in his arms, and by an almost +miraculous dexterity and strength, sent him high up bodily into the air; +then slightly tapping his stern in mid-somerset, the fellow landed with +bursting lungs upon his feet, while Queequeg, turning his back upon him, +lighted his tomahawk pipe and passed it to me for a puff. + +"Capting! Capting!" yelled the bumpkin, running towards that officer; +"Capting, Capting, here's the devil." + +"Hallo, _you_ sir," cried the Captain, a gaunt rib of the sea, stalking +up to Queequeg, "what in thunder do you mean by that? Don't you know you +might have killed that chap?" + +"What him say?" said Queequeg, as he mildly turned to me. + +"He say," said I, "that you came near kill-e that man there," pointing +to the still shivering greenhorn. + +"Kill-e," cried Queequeg, twisting his tattooed face into an unearthly +expression of disdain, "ah! him bevy small-e fish-e; Queequeg no kill-e +so small-e fish-e; Queequeg kill-e big whale!" + +"Look you," roared the Captain, "I'll kill-e YOU, you cannibal, if you +try any more of your tricks aboard here; so mind your eye." + +But it so happened just then, that it was high time for the Captain to +mind his own eye. The prodigious strain upon the main-sail had parted +the weather-sheet, and the tremendous boom was now flying from side to +side, completely sweeping the entire after part of the deck. The poor +fellow whom Queequeg had handled so roughly, was swept overboard; all +hands were in a panic; and to attempt snatching at the boom to stay it, +seemed madness. It flew from right to left, and back again, almost +in one ticking of a watch, and every instant seemed on the point of +snapping into splinters. Nothing was done, and nothing seemed capable of +being done; those on deck rushed towards the bows, and stood eyeing the +boom as if it were the lower jaw of an exasperated whale. In the +midst of this consternation, Queequeg dropped deftly to his knees, and +crawling under the path of the boom, whipped hold of a rope, secured one +end to the bulwarks, and then flinging the other like a lasso, caught it +round the boom as it swept over his head, and at the next jerk, the spar +was that way trapped, and all was safe. The schooner was run into the +wind, and while the hands were clearing away the stern boat, Queequeg, +stripped to the waist, darted from the side with a long living arc of +a leap. For three minutes or more he was seen swimming like a dog, +throwing his long arms straight out before him, and by turns revealing +his brawny shoulders through the freezing foam. I looked at the grand +and glorious fellow, but saw no one to be saved. The greenhorn had gone +down. Shooting himself perpendicularly from the water, Queequeg, now +took an instant's glance around him, and seeming to see just how matters +were, dived down and disappeared. A few minutes more, and he rose again, +one arm still striking out, and with the other dragging a lifeless form. +The boat soon picked them up. The poor bumpkin was restored. All hands +voted Queequeg a noble trump; the captain begged his pardon. From that +hour I clove to Queequeg like a barnacle; yea, till poor Queequeg took +his last long dive. + +Was there ever such unconsciousness? He did not seem to think that he at +all deserved a medal from the Humane and Magnanimous Societies. He only +asked for water--fresh water--something to wipe the brine off; that +done, he put on dry clothes, lighted his pipe, and leaning against the +bulwarks, and mildly eyeing those around him, seemed to be saying +to himself--"It's a mutual, joint-stock world, in all meridians. We +cannibals must help these Christians." + + + +CHAPTER 14. Nantucket. + + +Nothing more happened on the passage worthy the mentioning; so, after a +fine run, we safely arrived in Nantucket. + +Nantucket! Take out your map and look at it. See what a real corner of +the world it occupies; how it stands there, away off shore, more lonely +than the Eddystone lighthouse. Look at it--a mere hillock, and elbow of +sand; all beach, without a background. There is more sand there than +you would use in twenty years as a substitute for blotting paper. Some +gamesome wights will tell you that they have to plant weeds there, they +don't grow naturally; that they import Canada thistles; that they have +to send beyond seas for a spile to stop a leak in an oil cask; that +pieces of wood in Nantucket are carried about like bits of the true +cross in Rome; that people there plant toadstools before their houses, +to get under the shade in summer time; that one blade of grass makes an +oasis, three blades in a day's walk a prairie; that they wear quicksand +shoes, something like Laplander snow-shoes; that they are so shut up, +belted about, every way inclosed, surrounded, and made an utter island +of by the ocean, that to their very chairs and tables small clams will +sometimes be found adhering, as to the backs of sea turtles. But these +extravaganzas only show that Nantucket is no Illinois. + +Look now at the wondrous traditional story of how this island was +settled by the red-men. Thus goes the legend. In olden times an eagle +swooped down upon the New England coast, and carried off an infant +Indian in his talons. With loud lament the parents saw their child borne +out of sight over the wide waters. They resolved to follow in the same +direction. Setting out in their canoes, after a perilous passage they +discovered the island, and there they found an empty ivory casket,--the +poor little Indian's skeleton. + +What wonder, then, that these Nantucketers, born on a beach, should take +to the sea for a livelihood! They first caught crabs and quohogs in +the sand; grown bolder, they waded out with nets for mackerel; more +experienced, they pushed off in boats and captured cod; and at last, +launching a navy of great ships on the sea, explored this watery world; +put an incessant belt of circumnavigations round it; peeped in +at Behring's Straits; and in all seasons and all oceans declared +everlasting war with the mightiest animated mass that has survived the +flood; most monstrous and most mountainous! That Himmalehan, salt-sea +Mastodon, clothed with such portentousness of unconscious power, that +his very panics are more to be dreaded than his most fearless and +malicious assaults! + +And thus have these naked Nantucketers, these sea hermits, issuing from +their ant-hill in the sea, overrun and conquered the watery world like +so many Alexanders; parcelling out among them the Atlantic, Pacific, and +Indian oceans, as the three pirate powers did Poland. Let America add +Mexico to Texas, and pile Cuba upon Canada; let the English overswarm +all India, and hang out their blazing banner from the sun; two thirds +of this terraqueous globe are the Nantucketer's. For the sea is his; he +owns it, as Emperors own empires; other seamen having but a right of +way through it. Merchant ships are but extension bridges; armed ones but +floating forts; even pirates and privateers, though following the sea +as highwaymen the road, they but plunder other ships, other fragments of +the land like themselves, without seeking to draw their living from the +bottomless deep itself. The Nantucketer, he alone resides and riots on +the sea; he alone, in Bible language, goes down to it in ships; to and +fro ploughing it as his own special plantation. THERE is his home; THERE +lies his business, which a Noah's flood would not interrupt, though it +overwhelmed all the millions in China. He lives on the sea, as prairie +cocks in the prairie; he hides among the waves, he climbs them as +chamois hunters climb the Alps. For years he knows not the land; so +that when he comes to it at last, it smells like another world, more +strangely than the moon would to an Earthsman. With the landless gull, +that at sunset folds her wings and is rocked to sleep between billows; +so at nightfall, the Nantucketer, out of sight of land, furls his sails, +and lays him to his rest, while under his very pillow rush herds of +walruses and whales. + + + +CHAPTER 15. Chowder. + + +It was quite late in the evening when the little Moss came snugly +to anchor, and Queequeg and I went ashore; so we could attend to no +business that day, at least none but a supper and a bed. The landlord of +the Spouter-Inn had recommended us to his cousin Hosea Hussey of the +Try Pots, whom he asserted to be the proprietor of one of the best kept +hotels in all Nantucket, and moreover he had assured us that Cousin +Hosea, as he called him, was famous for his chowders. In short, he +plainly hinted that we could not possibly do better than try pot-luck at +the Try Pots. But the directions he had given us about keeping a yellow +warehouse on our starboard hand till we opened a white church to the +larboard, and then keeping that on the larboard hand till we made a +corner three points to the starboard, and that done, then ask the first +man we met where the place was: these crooked directions of his very +much puzzled us at first, especially as, at the outset, Queequeg +insisted that the yellow warehouse--our first point of departure--must +be left on the larboard hand, whereas I had understood Peter Coffin to +say it was on the starboard. However, by dint of beating about a little +in the dark, and now and then knocking up a peaceable inhabitant +to inquire the way, we at last came to something which there was no +mistaking. + +Two enormous wooden pots painted black, and suspended by asses' ears, +swung from the cross-trees of an old top-mast, planted in front of an +old doorway. The horns of the cross-trees were sawed off on the other +side, so that this old top-mast looked not a little like a gallows. +Perhaps I was over sensitive to such impressions at the time, but I +could not help staring at this gallows with a vague misgiving. A sort of +crick was in my neck as I gazed up to the two remaining horns; yes, TWO +of them, one for Queequeg, and one for me. It's ominous, thinks I. A +Coffin my Innkeeper upon landing in my first whaling port; tombstones +staring at me in the whalemen's chapel; and here a gallows! and a pair +of prodigious black pots too! Are these last throwing out oblique hints +touching Tophet? + +I was called from these reflections by the sight of a freckled woman +with yellow hair and a yellow gown, standing in the porch of the inn, +under a dull red lamp swinging there, that looked much like an injured +eye, and carrying on a brisk scolding with a man in a purple woollen +shirt. + +"Get along with ye," said she to the man, "or I'll be combing ye!" + +"Come on, Queequeg," said I, "all right. There's Mrs. Hussey." + +And so it turned out; Mr. Hosea Hussey being from home, but leaving +Mrs. Hussey entirely competent to attend to all his affairs. Upon +making known our desires for a supper and a bed, Mrs. Hussey, postponing +further scolding for the present, ushered us into a little room, and +seating us at a table spread with the relics of a recently concluded +repast, turned round to us and said--"Clam or Cod?" + +"What's that about Cods, ma'am?" said I, with much politeness. + +"Clam or Cod?" she repeated. + +"A clam for supper? a cold clam; is THAT what you mean, Mrs. Hussey?" +says I, "but that's a rather cold and clammy reception in the winter +time, ain't it, Mrs. Hussey?" + +But being in a great hurry to resume scolding the man in the purple +Shirt, who was waiting for it in the entry, and seeming to hear nothing +but the word "clam," Mrs. Hussey hurried towards an open door leading to +the kitchen, and bawling out "clam for two," disappeared. + +"Queequeg," said I, "do you think that we can make out a supper for us +both on one clam?" + +However, a warm savory steam from the kitchen served to belie the +apparently cheerless prospect before us. But when that smoking chowder +came in, the mystery was delightfully explained. Oh, sweet friends! +hearken to me. It was made of small juicy clams, scarcely bigger than +hazel nuts, mixed with pounded ship biscuit, and salted pork cut up into +little flakes; the whole enriched with butter, and plentifully seasoned +with pepper and salt. Our appetites being sharpened by the frosty +voyage, and in particular, Queequeg seeing his favourite fishing food +before him, and the chowder being surpassingly excellent, we despatched +it with great expedition: when leaning back a moment and bethinking +me of Mrs. Hussey's clam and cod announcement, I thought I would try +a little experiment. Stepping to the kitchen door, I uttered the word +"cod" with great emphasis, and resumed my seat. In a few moments the +savoury steam came forth again, but with a different flavor, and in good +time a fine cod-chowder was placed before us. + +We resumed business; and while plying our spoons in the bowl, thinks I +to myself, I wonder now if this here has any effect on the head? +What's that stultifying saying about chowder-headed people? "But look, +Queequeg, ain't that a live eel in your bowl? Where's your harpoon?" + +Fishiest of all fishy places was the Try Pots, which well deserved +its name; for the pots there were always boiling chowders. Chowder for +breakfast, and chowder for dinner, and chowder for supper, till you +began to look for fish-bones coming through your clothes. The area +before the house was paved with clam-shells. Mrs. Hussey wore a polished +necklace of codfish vertebra; and Hosea Hussey had his account books +bound in superior old shark-skin. There was a fishy flavor to the milk, +too, which I could not at all account for, till one morning happening +to take a stroll along the beach among some fishermen's boats, I saw +Hosea's brindled cow feeding on fish remnants, and marching along the +sand with each foot in a cod's decapitated head, looking very slip-shod, +I assure ye. + +Supper concluded, we received a lamp, and directions from Mrs. Hussey +concerning the nearest way to bed; but, as Queequeg was about to precede +me up the stairs, the lady reached forth her arm, and demanded his +harpoon; she allowed no harpoon in her chambers. "Why not?" said I; +"every true whaleman sleeps with his harpoon--but why not?" "Because +it's dangerous," says she. "Ever since young Stiggs coming from that +unfort'nt v'y'ge of his, when he was gone four years and a half, with +only three barrels of _ile_, was found dead in my first floor back, with +his harpoon in his side; ever since then I allow no boarders to take +sich dangerous weepons in their rooms at night. So, Mr. Queequeg" (for +she had learned his name), "I will just take this here iron, and keep +it for you till morning. But the chowder; clam or cod to-morrow for +breakfast, men?" + +"Both," says I; "and let's have a couple of smoked herring by way of +variety." + + + +CHAPTER 16. The Ship. + + +In bed we concocted our plans for the morrow. But to my surprise and +no small concern, Queequeg now gave me to understand, that he had been +diligently consulting Yojo--the name of his black little god--and Yojo +had told him two or three times over, and strongly insisted upon it +everyway, that instead of our going together among the whaling-fleet in +harbor, and in concert selecting our craft; instead of this, I say, Yojo +earnestly enjoined that the selection of the ship should rest wholly +with me, inasmuch as Yojo purposed befriending us; and, in order to +do so, had already pitched upon a vessel, which, if left to myself, I, +Ishmael, should infallibly light upon, for all the world as though it +had turned out by chance; and in that vessel I must immediately ship +myself, for the present irrespective of Queequeg. + +I have forgotten to mention that, in many things, Queequeg placed great +confidence in the excellence of Yojo's judgment and surprising forecast +of things; and cherished Yojo with considerable esteem, as a rather good +sort of god, who perhaps meant well enough upon the whole, but in all +cases did not succeed in his benevolent designs. + +Now, this plan of Queequeg's, or rather Yojo's, touching the selection +of our craft; I did not like that plan at all. I had not a little relied +upon Queequeg's sagacity to point out the whaler best fitted to carry +us and our fortunes securely. But as all my remonstrances produced +no effect upon Queequeg, I was obliged to acquiesce; and accordingly +prepared to set about this business with a determined rushing sort +of energy and vigor, that should quickly settle that trifling little +affair. Next morning early, leaving Queequeg shut up with Yojo in our +little bedroom--for it seemed that it was some sort of Lent or Ramadan, +or day of fasting, humiliation, and prayer with Queequeg and Yojo that +day; HOW it was I never could find out, for, though I applied myself +to it several times, I never could master his liturgies and XXXIX +Articles--leaving Queequeg, then, fasting on his tomahawk pipe, and Yojo +warming himself at his sacrificial fire of shavings, I sallied out among +the shipping. After much prolonged sauntering and many random inquiries, +I learnt that there were three ships up for three-years' voyages--The +Devil-dam, the Tit-bit, and the Pequod. DEVIL-DAM, I do not know the +origin of; TIT-BIT is obvious; PEQUOD, you will no doubt remember, was +the name of a celebrated tribe of Massachusetts Indians; now extinct +as the ancient Medes. I peered and pryed about the Devil-dam; from her, +hopped over to the Tit-bit; and finally, going on board the Pequod, +looked around her for a moment, and then decided that this was the very +ship for us. + +You may have seen many a quaint craft in your day, for aught I +know;--square-toed luggers; mountainous Japanese junks; butter-box +galliots, and what not; but take my word for it, you never saw such a +rare old craft as this same rare old Pequod. She was a ship of the old +school, rather small if anything; with an old-fashioned claw-footed look +about her. Long seasoned and weather-stained in the typhoons and calms +of all four oceans, her old hull's complexion was darkened like a French +grenadier's, who has alike fought in Egypt and Siberia. Her venerable +bows looked bearded. Her masts--cut somewhere on the coast of Japan, +where her original ones were lost overboard in a gale--her masts stood +stiffly up like the spines of the three old kings of Cologne. Her +ancient decks were worn and wrinkled, like the pilgrim-worshipped +flag-stone in Canterbury Cathedral where Becket bled. But to all these +her old antiquities, were added new and marvellous features, pertaining +to the wild business that for more than half a century she had followed. +Old Captain Peleg, many years her chief-mate, before he commanded +another vessel of his own, and now a retired seaman, and one of the +principal owners of the Pequod,--this old Peleg, during the term of his +chief-mateship, had built upon her original grotesqueness, and inlaid +it, all over, with a quaintness both of material and device, unmatched +by anything except it be Thorkill-Hake's carved buckler or bedstead. She +was apparelled like any barbaric Ethiopian emperor, his neck heavy with +pendants of polished ivory. She was a thing of trophies. A cannibal of +a craft, tricking herself forth in the chased bones of her enemies. All +round, her unpanelled, open bulwarks were garnished like one continuous +jaw, with the long sharp teeth of the sperm whale, inserted there for +pins, to fasten her old hempen thews and tendons to. Those thews ran not +through base blocks of land wood, but deftly travelled over sheaves of +sea-ivory. Scorning a turnstile wheel at her reverend helm, she sported +there a tiller; and that tiller was in one mass, curiously carved +from the long narrow lower jaw of her hereditary foe. The helmsman who +steered by that tiller in a tempest, felt like the Tartar, when he holds +back his fiery steed by clutching its jaw. A noble craft, but somehow a +most melancholy! All noble things are touched with that. + +Now when I looked about the quarter-deck, for some one having authority, +in order to propose myself as a candidate for the voyage, at first I saw +nobody; but I could not well overlook a strange sort of tent, or +rather wigwam, pitched a little behind the main-mast. It seemed only +a temporary erection used in port. It was of a conical shape, some ten +feet high; consisting of the long, huge slabs of limber black bone taken +from the middle and highest part of the jaws of the right-whale. +Planted with their broad ends on the deck, a circle of these slabs laced +together, mutually sloped towards each other, and at the apex united in +a tufted point, where the loose hairy fibres waved to and fro like the +top-knot on some old Pottowottamie Sachem's head. A triangular opening +faced towards the bows of the ship, so that the insider commanded a +complete view forward. + +And half concealed in this queer tenement, I at length found one who +by his aspect seemed to have authority; and who, it being noon, and +the ship's work suspended, was now enjoying respite from the burden of +command. He was seated on an old-fashioned oaken chair, wriggling all +over with curious carving; and the bottom of which was formed of a +stout interlacing of the same elastic stuff of which the wigwam was +constructed. + +There was nothing so very particular, perhaps, about the appearance of +the elderly man I saw; he was brown and brawny, like most old seamen, +and heavily rolled up in blue pilot-cloth, cut in the Quaker style; +only there was a fine and almost microscopic net-work of the minutest +wrinkles interlacing round his eyes, which must have arisen from +his continual sailings in many hard gales, and always looking to +windward;--for this causes the muscles about the eyes to become pursed +together. Such eye-wrinkles are very effectual in a scowl. + +"Is this the Captain of the Pequod?" said I, advancing to the door of +the tent. + +"Supposing it be the captain of the Pequod, what dost thou want of him?" +he demanded. + +"I was thinking of shipping." + +"Thou wast, wast thou? I see thou art no Nantucketer--ever been in a +stove boat?" + +"No, Sir, I never have." + +"Dost know nothing at all about whaling, I dare say--eh? + +"Nothing, Sir; but I have no doubt I shall soon learn. I've been several +voyages in the merchant service, and I think that--" + +"Merchant service be damned. Talk not that lingo to me. Dost see that +leg?--I'll take that leg away from thy stern, if ever thou talkest of +the marchant service to me again. Marchant service indeed! I suppose now +ye feel considerable proud of having served in those marchant ships. +But flukes! man, what makes thee want to go a whaling, eh?--it looks +a little suspicious, don't it, eh?--Hast not been a pirate, hast +thou?--Didst not rob thy last Captain, didst thou?--Dost not think of +murdering the officers when thou gettest to sea?" + +I protested my innocence of these things. I saw that under the mask +of these half humorous innuendoes, this old seaman, as an insulated +Quakerish Nantucketer, was full of his insular prejudices, and rather +distrustful of all aliens, unless they hailed from Cape Cod or the +Vineyard. + +"But what takes thee a-whaling? I want to know that before I think of +shipping ye." + +"Well, sir, I want to see what whaling is. I want to see the world." + +"Want to see what whaling is, eh? Have ye clapped eye on Captain Ahab?" + +"Who is Captain Ahab, sir?" + +"Aye, aye, I thought so. Captain Ahab is the Captain of this ship." + +"I am mistaken then. I thought I was speaking to the Captain himself." + +"Thou art speaking to Captain Peleg--that's who ye are speaking to, +young man. It belongs to me and Captain Bildad to see the Pequod fitted +out for the voyage, and supplied with all her needs, including crew. We +are part owners and agents. But as I was going to say, if thou wantest +to know what whaling is, as thou tellest ye do, I can put ye in a way of +finding it out before ye bind yourself to it, past backing out. Clap +eye on Captain Ahab, young man, and thou wilt find that he has only one +leg." + +"What do you mean, sir? Was the other one lost by a whale?" + +"Lost by a whale! Young man, come nearer to me: it was devoured, +chewed up, crunched by the monstrousest parmacetty that ever chipped a +boat!--ah, ah!" + +I was a little alarmed by his energy, perhaps also a little touched at +the hearty grief in his concluding exclamation, but said as calmly as I +could, "What you say is no doubt true enough, sir; but how could I know +there was any peculiar ferocity in that particular whale, though indeed +I might have inferred as much from the simple fact of the accident." + +"Look ye now, young man, thy lungs are a sort of soft, d'ye see; thou +dost not talk shark a bit. SURE, ye've been to sea before now; sure of +that?" + +"Sir," said I, "I thought I told you that I had been four voyages in the +merchant--" + +"Hard down out of that! Mind what I said about the marchant +service--don't aggravate me--I won't have it. But let us understand each +other. I have given thee a hint about what whaling is; do ye yet feel +inclined for it?" + +"I do, sir." + +"Very good. Now, art thou the man to pitch a harpoon down a live whale's +throat, and then jump after it? Answer, quick!" + +"I am, sir, if it should be positively indispensable to do so; not to be +got rid of, that is; which I don't take to be the fact." + +"Good again. Now then, thou not only wantest to go a-whaling, to find +out by experience what whaling is, but ye also want to go in order to +see the world? Was not that what ye said? I thought so. Well then, just +step forward there, and take a peep over the weather-bow, and then back +to me and tell me what ye see there." + +For a moment I stood a little puzzled by this curious request, not +knowing exactly how to take it, whether humorously or in earnest. But +concentrating all his crow's feet into one scowl, Captain Peleg started +me on the errand. + +Going forward and glancing over the weather bow, I perceived that the +ship swinging to her anchor with the flood-tide, was now obliquely +pointing towards the open ocean. The prospect was unlimited, but +exceedingly monotonous and forbidding; not the slightest variety that I +could see. + +"Well, what's the report?" said Peleg when I came back; "what did ye +see?" + +"Not much," I replied--"nothing but water; considerable horizon though, +and there's a squall coming up, I think." + +"Well, what does thou think then of seeing the world? Do ye wish to go +round Cape Horn to see any more of it, eh? Can't ye see the world where +you stand?" + +I was a little staggered, but go a-whaling I must, and I would; and the +Pequod was as good a ship as any--I thought the best--and all this I now +repeated to Peleg. Seeing me so determined, he expressed his willingness +to ship me. + +"And thou mayest as well sign the papers right off," he added--"come +along with ye." And so saying, he led the way below deck into the cabin. + +Seated on the transom was what seemed to me a most uncommon and +surprising figure. It turned out to be Captain Bildad, who along with +Captain Peleg was one of the largest owners of the vessel; the other +shares, as is sometimes the case in these ports, being held by a crowd +of old annuitants; widows, fatherless children, and chancery wards; each +owning about the value of a timber head, or a foot of plank, or a nail +or two in the ship. People in Nantucket invest their money in whaling +vessels, the same way that you do yours in approved state stocks +bringing in good interest. + +Now, Bildad, like Peleg, and indeed many other Nantucketers, was a +Quaker, the island having been originally settled by that sect; and to +this day its inhabitants in general retain in an uncommon measure the +peculiarities of the Quaker, only variously and anomalously modified +by things altogether alien and heterogeneous. For some of these same +Quakers are the most sanguinary of all sailors and whale-hunters. They +are fighting Quakers; they are Quakers with a vengeance. + +So that there are instances among them of men, who, named with Scripture +names--a singularly common fashion on the island--and in childhood +naturally imbibing the stately dramatic thee and thou of the Quaker +idiom; still, from the audacious, daring, and boundless adventure +of their subsequent lives, strangely blend with these unoutgrown +peculiarities, a thousand bold dashes of character, not unworthy a +Scandinavian sea-king, or a poetical Pagan Roman. And when these things +unite in a man of greatly superior natural force, with a globular brain +and a ponderous heart; who has also by the stillness and seclusion +of many long night-watches in the remotest waters, and beneath +constellations never seen here at the north, been led to think +untraditionally and independently; receiving all nature's sweet or +savage impressions fresh from her own virgin voluntary and confiding +breast, and thereby chiefly, but with some help from accidental +advantages, to learn a bold and nervous lofty language--that man makes +one in a whole nation's census--a mighty pageant creature, formed for +noble tragedies. Nor will it at all detract from him, dramatically +regarded, if either by birth or other circumstances, he have what seems +a half wilful overruling morbidness at the bottom of his nature. For all +men tragically great are made so through a certain morbidness. Be sure +of this, O young ambition, all mortal greatness is but disease. But, +as yet we have not to do with such an one, but with quite another; and +still a man, who, if indeed peculiar, it only results again from another +phase of the Quaker, modified by individual circumstances. + +Like Captain Peleg, Captain Bildad was a well-to-do, retired whaleman. +But unlike Captain Peleg--who cared not a rush for what are called +serious things, and indeed deemed those self-same serious things the +veriest of all trifles--Captain Bildad had not only been originally +educated according to the strictest sect of Nantucket Quakerism, but all +his subsequent ocean life, and the sight of many unclad, lovely island +creatures, round the Horn--all that had not moved this native born +Quaker one single jot, had not so much as altered one angle of his +vest. Still, for all this immutableness, was there some lack of +common consistency about worthy Captain Peleg. Though refusing, from +conscientious scruples, to bear arms against land invaders, yet himself +had illimitably invaded the Atlantic and Pacific; and though a sworn foe +to human bloodshed, yet had he in his straight-bodied coat, spilled tuns +upon tuns of leviathan gore. How now in the contemplative evening of his +days, the pious Bildad reconciled these things in the reminiscence, I do +not know; but it did not seem to concern him much, and very probably +he had long since come to the sage and sensible conclusion that a man's +religion is one thing, and this practical world quite another. This +world pays dividends. Rising from a little cabin-boy in short clothes +of the drabbest drab, to a harpooneer in a broad shad-bellied waistcoat; +from that becoming boat-header, chief-mate, and captain, and finally a +ship owner; Bildad, as I hinted before, had concluded his adventurous +career by wholly retiring from active life at the goodly age of +sixty, and dedicating his remaining days to the quiet receiving of his +well-earned income. + +Now, Bildad, I am sorry to say, had the reputation of being an +incorrigible old hunks, and in his sea-going days, a bitter, hard +task-master. They told me in Nantucket, though it certainly seems a +curious story, that when he sailed the old Categut whaleman, his crew, +upon arriving home, were mostly all carried ashore to the hospital, sore +exhausted and worn out. For a pious man, especially for a Quaker, he was +certainly rather hard-hearted, to say the least. He never used to swear, +though, at his men, they said; but somehow he got an inordinate +quantity of cruel, unmitigated hard work out of them. When Bildad was a +chief-mate, to have his drab-coloured eye intently looking at you, made +you feel completely nervous, till you could clutch something--a hammer +or a marling-spike, and go to work like mad, at something or other, +never mind what. Indolence and idleness perished before him. His own +person was the exact embodiment of his utilitarian character. On his +long, gaunt body, he carried no spare flesh, no superfluous beard, +his chin having a soft, economical nap to it, like the worn nap of his +broad-brimmed hat. + +Such, then, was the person that I saw seated on the transom when I +followed Captain Peleg down into the cabin. The space between the decks +was small; and there, bolt-upright, sat old Bildad, who always sat so, +and never leaned, and this to save his coat tails. His broad-brim was +placed beside him; his legs were stiffly crossed; his drab vesture was +buttoned up to his chin; and spectacles on nose, he seemed absorbed in +reading from a ponderous volume. + +"Bildad," cried Captain Peleg, "at it again, Bildad, eh? Ye have been +studying those Scriptures, now, for the last thirty years, to my certain +knowledge. How far ye got, Bildad?" + +As if long habituated to such profane talk from his old shipmate, +Bildad, without noticing his present irreverence, quietly looked up, and +seeing me, glanced again inquiringly towards Peleg. + +"He says he's our man, Bildad," said Peleg, "he wants to ship." + +"Dost thee?" said Bildad, in a hollow tone, and turning round to me. + +"I dost," said I unconsciously, he was so intense a Quaker. + +"What do ye think of him, Bildad?" said Peleg. + +"He'll do," said Bildad, eyeing me, and then went on spelling away at +his book in a mumbling tone quite audible. + +I thought him the queerest old Quaker I ever saw, especially as Peleg, +his friend and old shipmate, seemed such a blusterer. But I said +nothing, only looking round me sharply. Peleg now threw open a chest, +and drawing forth the ship's articles, placed pen and ink before him, +and seated himself at a little table. I began to think it was high time +to settle with myself at what terms I would be willing to engage for the +voyage. I was already aware that in the whaling business they paid no +wages; but all hands, including the captain, received certain shares of +the profits called lays, and that these lays were proportioned to the +degree of importance pertaining to the respective duties of the ship's +company. I was also aware that being a green hand at whaling, my own +lay would not be very large; but considering that I was used to the sea, +could steer a ship, splice a rope, and all that, I made no doubt that +from all I had heard I should be offered at least the 275th lay--that +is, the 275th part of the clear net proceeds of the voyage, whatever +that might eventually amount to. And though the 275th lay was what they +call a rather LONG LAY, yet it was better than nothing; and if we had a +lucky voyage, might pretty nearly pay for the clothing I would wear out +on it, not to speak of my three years' beef and board, for which I would +not have to pay one stiver. + +It might be thought that this was a poor way to accumulate a princely +fortune--and so it was, a very poor way indeed. But I am one of those +that never take on about princely fortunes, and am quite content if the +world is ready to board and lodge me, while I am putting up at this grim +sign of the Thunder Cloud. Upon the whole, I thought that the 275th lay +would be about the fair thing, but would not have been surprised had I +been offered the 200th, considering I was of a broad-shouldered make. + +But one thing, nevertheless, that made me a little distrustful about +receiving a generous share of the profits was this: Ashore, I had heard +something of both Captain Peleg and his unaccountable old crony Bildad; +how that they being the principal proprietors of the Pequod, therefore +the other and more inconsiderable and scattered owners, left nearly the +whole management of the ship's affairs to these two. And I did not know +but what the stingy old Bildad might have a mighty deal to say about +shipping hands, especially as I now found him on board the Pequod, +quite at home there in the cabin, and reading his Bible as if at his +own fireside. Now while Peleg was vainly trying to mend a pen with his +jack-knife, old Bildad, to my no small surprise, considering that he was +such an interested party in these proceedings; Bildad never heeded +us, but went on mumbling to himself out of his book, "LAY not up for +yourselves treasures upon earth, where moth--" + +"Well, Captain Bildad," interrupted Peleg, "what d'ye say, what lay +shall we give this young man?" + +"Thou knowest best," was the sepulchral reply, "the seven hundred and +seventy-seventh wouldn't be too much, would it?--'where moth and rust do +corrupt, but LAY--'" + +LAY, indeed, thought I, and such a lay! the seven hundred and +seventy-seventh! Well, old Bildad, you are determined that I, for one, +shall not LAY up many LAYS here below, where moth and rust do corrupt. +It was an exceedingly LONG LAY that, indeed; and though from the +magnitude of the figure it might at first deceive a landsman, yet +the slightest consideration will show that though seven hundred and +seventy-seven is a pretty large number, yet, when you come to make +a TEENTH of it, you will then see, I say, that the seven hundred and +seventy-seventh part of a farthing is a good deal less than seven +hundred and seventy-seven gold doubloons; and so I thought at the time. + +"Why, blast your eyes, Bildad," cried Peleg, "thou dost not want to +swindle this young man! he must have more than that." + +"Seven hundred and seventy-seventh," again said Bildad, without lifting +his eyes; and then went on mumbling--"for where your treasure is, there +will your heart be also." + +"I am going to put him down for the three hundredth," said Peleg, "do ye +hear that, Bildad! The three hundredth lay, I say." + +Bildad laid down his book, and turning solemnly towards him said, +"Captain Peleg, thou hast a generous heart; but thou must consider the +duty thou owest to the other owners of this ship--widows and orphans, +many of them--and that if we too abundantly reward the labors of this +young man, we may be taking the bread from those widows and those +orphans. The seven hundred and seventy-seventh lay, Captain Peleg." + +"Thou Bildad!" roared Peleg, starting up and clattering about the +cabin. "Blast ye, Captain Bildad, if I had followed thy advice in these +matters, I would afore now had a conscience to lug about that would be +heavy enough to founder the largest ship that ever sailed round Cape +Horn." + +"Captain Peleg," said Bildad steadily, "thy conscience may be drawing +ten inches of water, or ten fathoms, I can't tell; but as thou art still +an impenitent man, Captain Peleg, I greatly fear lest thy conscience be +but a leaky one; and will in the end sink thee foundering down to the +fiery pit, Captain Peleg." + +"Fiery pit! fiery pit! ye insult me, man; past all natural bearing, ye +insult me. It's an all-fired outrage to tell any human creature that +he's bound to hell. Flukes and flames! Bildad, say that again to me, and +start my soul-bolts, but I'll--I'll--yes, I'll swallow a live goat with +all his hair and horns on. Out of the cabin, ye canting, drab-coloured +son of a wooden gun--a straight wake with ye!" + +As he thundered out this he made a rush at Bildad, but with a marvellous +oblique, sliding celerity, Bildad for that time eluded him. + +Alarmed at this terrible outburst between the two principal and +responsible owners of the ship, and feeling half a mind to give up +all idea of sailing in a vessel so questionably owned and temporarily +commanded, I stepped aside from the door to give egress to Bildad, who, +I made no doubt, was all eagerness to vanish from before the awakened +wrath of Peleg. But to my astonishment, he sat down again on the +transom very quietly, and seemed to have not the slightest intention of +withdrawing. He seemed quite used to impenitent Peleg and his ways. As +for Peleg, after letting off his rage as he had, there seemed no more +left in him, and he, too, sat down like a lamb, though he twitched a +little as if still nervously agitated. "Whew!" he whistled at last--"the +squall's gone off to leeward, I think. Bildad, thou used to be good at +sharpening a lance, mend that pen, will ye. My jack-knife here needs +the grindstone. That's he; thank ye, Bildad. Now then, my young man, +Ishmael's thy name, didn't ye say? Well then, down ye go here, Ishmael, +for the three hundredth lay." + +"Captain Peleg," said I, "I have a friend with me who wants to ship +too--shall I bring him down to-morrow?" + +"To be sure," said Peleg. "Fetch him along, and we'll look at him." + +"What lay does he want?" groaned Bildad, glancing up from the book in +which he had again been burying himself. + +"Oh! never thee mind about that, Bildad," said Peleg. "Has he ever +whaled it any?" turning to me. + +"Killed more whales than I can count, Captain Peleg." + +"Well, bring him along then." + +And, after signing the papers, off I went; nothing doubting but that I +had done a good morning's work, and that the Pequod was the identical +ship that Yojo had provided to carry Queequeg and me round the Cape. + +But I had not proceeded far, when I began to bethink me that the Captain +with whom I was to sail yet remained unseen by me; though, indeed, in +many cases, a whale-ship will be completely fitted out, and receive all +her crew on board, ere the captain makes himself visible by arriving +to take command; for sometimes these voyages are so prolonged, and the +shore intervals at home so exceedingly brief, that if the captain have +a family, or any absorbing concernment of that sort, he does not trouble +himself much about his ship in port, but leaves her to the owners till +all is ready for sea. However, it is always as well to have a look at +him before irrevocably committing yourself into his hands. Turning back +I accosted Captain Peleg, inquiring where Captain Ahab was to be found. + +"And what dost thou want of Captain Ahab? It's all right enough; thou +art shipped." + +"Yes, but I should like to see him." + +"But I don't think thou wilt be able to at present. I don't know exactly +what's the matter with him; but he keeps close inside the house; a sort +of sick, and yet he don't look so. In fact, he ain't sick; but no, he +isn't well either. Any how, young man, he won't always see me, so I +don't suppose he will thee. He's a queer man, Captain Ahab--so some +think--but a good one. Oh, thou'lt like him well enough; no fear, no +fear. He's a grand, ungodly, god-like man, Captain Ahab; doesn't speak +much; but, when he does speak, then you may well listen. Mark ye, be +forewarned; Ahab's above the common; Ahab's been in colleges, as well as +'mong the cannibals; been used to deeper wonders than the waves; fixed +his fiery lance in mightier, stranger foes than whales. His lance! +aye, the keenest and the surest that out of all our isle! Oh! he ain't +Captain Bildad; no, and he ain't Captain Peleg; HE'S AHAB, boy; and Ahab +of old, thou knowest, was a crowned king!" + +"And a very vile one. When that wicked king was slain, the dogs, did +they not lick his blood?" + +"Come hither to me--hither, hither," said Peleg, with a significance in +his eye that almost startled me. "Look ye, lad; never say that on board +the Pequod. Never say it anywhere. Captain Ahab did not name himself. +'Twas a foolish, ignorant whim of his crazy, widowed mother, who died +when he was only a twelvemonth old. And yet the old squaw Tistig, at +Gayhead, said that the name would somehow prove prophetic. And, perhaps, +other fools like her may tell thee the same. I wish to warn thee. It's a +lie. I know Captain Ahab well; I've sailed with him as mate years ago; +I know what he is--a good man--not a pious, good man, like Bildad, but +a swearing good man--something like me--only there's a good deal more of +him. Aye, aye, I know that he was never very jolly; and I know that on +the passage home, he was a little out of his mind for a spell; but it +was the sharp shooting pains in his bleeding stump that brought that +about, as any one might see. I know, too, that ever since he lost +his leg last voyage by that accursed whale, he's been a kind of +moody--desperate moody, and savage sometimes; but that will all pass +off. And once for all, let me tell thee and assure thee, young man, it's +better to sail with a moody good captain than a laughing bad one. So +good-bye to thee--and wrong not Captain Ahab, because he happens to +have a wicked name. Besides, my boy, he has a wife--not three voyages +wedded--a sweet, resigned girl. Think of that; by that sweet girl that +old man has a child: hold ye then there can be any utter, hopeless +harm in Ahab? No, no, my lad; stricken, blasted, if he be, Ahab has his +humanities!" + +As I walked away, I was full of thoughtfulness; what had been +incidentally revealed to me of Captain Ahab, filled me with a certain +wild vagueness of painfulness concerning him. And somehow, at the time, +I felt a sympathy and a sorrow for him, but for I don't know what, +unless it was the cruel loss of his leg. And yet I also felt a strange +awe of him; but that sort of awe, which I cannot at all describe, was +not exactly awe; I do not know what it was. But I felt it; and it did +not disincline me towards him; though I felt impatience at what seemed +like mystery in him, so imperfectly as he was known to me then. However, +my thoughts were at length carried in other directions, so that for the +present dark Ahab slipped my mind. + + + +CHAPTER 17. The Ramadan. + + +As Queequeg's Ramadan, or Fasting and Humiliation, was to continue all +day, I did not choose to disturb him till towards night-fall; for I +cherish the greatest respect towards everybody's religious obligations, +never mind how comical, and could not find it in my heart to undervalue +even a congregation of ants worshipping a toad-stool; or those other +creatures in certain parts of our earth, who with a degree of footmanism +quite unprecedented in other planets, bow down before the torso of +a deceased landed proprietor merely on account of the inordinate +possessions yet owned and rented in his name. + +I say, we good Presbyterian Christians should be charitable in these +things, and not fancy ourselves so vastly superior to other mortals, +pagans and what not, because of their half-crazy conceits on these +subjects. There was Queequeg, now, certainly entertaining the most +absurd notions about Yojo and his Ramadan;--but what of that? Queequeg +thought he knew what he was about, I suppose; he seemed to be content; +and there let him rest. All our arguing with him would not avail; let +him be, I say: and Heaven have mercy on us all--Presbyterians and Pagans +alike--for we are all somehow dreadfully cracked about the head, and +sadly need mending. + +Towards evening, when I felt assured that all his performances and +rituals must be over, I went up to his room and knocked at the door; but +no answer. I tried to open it, but it was fastened inside. "Queequeg," +said I softly through the key-hole:--all silent. "I say, Queequeg! why +don't you speak? It's I--Ishmael." But all remained still as before. I +began to grow alarmed. I had allowed him such abundant time; I thought +he might have had an apoplectic fit. I looked through the key-hole; but +the door opening into an odd corner of the room, the key-hole prospect +was but a crooked and sinister one. I could only see part of the +foot-board of the bed and a line of the wall, but nothing more. I +was surprised to behold resting against the wall the wooden shaft of +Queequeg's harpoon, which the landlady the evening previous had taken +from him, before our mounting to the chamber. That's strange, thought I; +but at any rate, since the harpoon stands yonder, and he seldom or +never goes abroad without it, therefore he must be inside here, and no +possible mistake. + +"Queequeg!--Queequeg!"--all still. Something must have happened. +Apoplexy! I tried to burst open the door; but it stubbornly resisted. +Running down stairs, I quickly stated my suspicions to the first person +I met--the chamber-maid. "La! la!" she cried, "I thought something must +be the matter. I went to make the bed after breakfast, and the door was +locked; and not a mouse to be heard; and it's been just so silent ever +since. But I thought, may be, you had both gone off and locked your +baggage in for safe keeping. La! la, ma'am!--Mistress! murder! Mrs. +Hussey! apoplexy!"--and with these cries, she ran towards the kitchen, I +following. + +Mrs. Hussey soon appeared, with a mustard-pot in one hand and a +vinegar-cruet in the other, having just broken away from the occupation +of attending to the castors, and scolding her little black boy meantime. + +"Wood-house!" cried I, "which way to it? Run for God's sake, and fetch +something to pry open the door--the axe!--the axe! he's had a stroke; +depend upon it!"--and so saying I was unmethodically rushing up stairs +again empty-handed, when Mrs. Hussey interposed the mustard-pot and +vinegar-cruet, and the entire castor of her countenance. + +"What's the matter with you, young man?" + +"Get the axe! For God's sake, run for the doctor, some one, while I pry +it open!" + +"Look here," said the landlady, quickly putting down the vinegar-cruet, +so as to have one hand free; "look here; are you talking about prying +open any of my doors?"--and with that she seized my arm. "What's the +matter with you? What's the matter with you, shipmate?" + +In as calm, but rapid a manner as possible, I gave her to understand the +whole case. Unconsciously clapping the vinegar-cruet to one side of her +nose, she ruminated for an instant; then exclaimed--"No! I haven't seen +it since I put it there." Running to a little closet under the landing +of the stairs, she glanced in, and returning, told me that Queequeg's +harpoon was missing. "He's killed himself," she cried. "It's unfort'nate +Stiggs done over again--there goes another counterpane--God pity his poor +mother!--it will be the ruin of my house. Has the poor lad a sister? +Where's that girl?--there, Betty, go to Snarles the Painter, and tell +him to paint me a sign, with--"no suicides permitted here, and no +smoking in the parlor;"--might as well kill both birds at once. Kill? +The Lord be merciful to his ghost! What's that noise there? You, young +man, avast there!" + +And running up after me, she caught me as I was again trying to force +open the door. + +"I don't allow it; I won't have my premises spoiled. Go for the +locksmith, there's one about a mile from here. But avast!" putting her +hand in her side-pocket, "here's a key that'll fit, I guess; let's +see." And with that, she turned it in the lock; but, alas! Queequeg's +supplemental bolt remained unwithdrawn within. + +"Have to burst it open," said I, and was running down the entry a +little, for a good start, when the landlady caught at me, again vowing +I should not break down her premises; but I tore from her, and with a +sudden bodily rush dashed myself full against the mark. + +With a prodigious noise the door flew open, and the knob slamming +against the wall, sent the plaster to the ceiling; and there, good +heavens! there sat Queequeg, altogether cool and self-collected; right +in the middle of the room; squatting on his hams, and holding Yojo on +top of his head. He looked neither one way nor the other way, but sat +like a carved image with scarce a sign of active life. + +"Queequeg," said I, going up to him, "Queequeg, what's the matter with +you?" + +"He hain't been a sittin' so all day, has he?" said the landlady. + +But all we said, not a word could we drag out of him; I almost felt +like pushing him over, so as to change his position, for it was almost +intolerable, it seemed so painfully and unnaturally constrained; +especially, as in all probability he had been sitting so for upwards of +eight or ten hours, going too without his regular meals. + +"Mrs. Hussey," said I, "he's ALIVE at all events; so leave us, if you +please, and I will see to this strange affair myself." + +Closing the door upon the landlady, I endeavored to prevail upon +Queequeg to take a chair; but in vain. There he sat; and all he could +do--for all my polite arts and blandishments--he would not move a peg, +nor say a single word, nor even look at me, nor notice my presence in +the slightest way. + +I wonder, thought I, if this can possibly be a part of his Ramadan; do +they fast on their hams that way in his native island. It must be so; +yes, it's part of his creed, I suppose; well, then, let him rest; he'll +get up sooner or later, no doubt. It can't last for ever, thank God, +and his Ramadan only comes once a year; and I don't believe it's very +punctual then. + +I went down to supper. After sitting a long time listening to the long +stories of some sailors who had just come from a plum-pudding voyage, as +they called it (that is, a short whaling-voyage in a schooner or brig, +confined to the north of the line, in the Atlantic Ocean only); after +listening to these plum-puddingers till nearly eleven o'clock, I went +up stairs to go to bed, feeling quite sure by this time Queequeg must +certainly have brought his Ramadan to a termination. But no; there he +was just where I had left him; he had not stirred an inch. I began to +grow vexed with him; it seemed so downright senseless and insane to be +sitting there all day and half the night on his hams in a cold room, +holding a piece of wood on his head. + +"For heaven's sake, Queequeg, get up and shake yourself; get up and have +some supper. You'll starve; you'll kill yourself, Queequeg." But not a +word did he reply. + +Despairing of him, therefore, I determined to go to bed and to sleep; +and no doubt, before a great while, he would follow me. But previous to +turning in, I took my heavy bearskin jacket, and threw it over him, as +it promised to be a very cold night; and he had nothing but his ordinary +round jacket on. For some time, do all I would, I could not get into +the faintest doze. I had blown out the candle; and the mere thought +of Queequeg--not four feet off--sitting there in that uneasy position, +stark alone in the cold and dark; this made me really wretched. Think of +it; sleeping all night in the same room with a wide awake pagan on his +hams in this dreary, unaccountable Ramadan! + +But somehow I dropped off at last, and knew nothing more till break of +day; when, looking over the bedside, there squatted Queequeg, as if he +had been screwed down to the floor. But as soon as the first glimpse of +sun entered the window, up he got, with stiff and grating joints, +but with a cheerful look; limped towards me where I lay; pressed his +forehead again against mine; and said his Ramadan was over. + +Now, as I before hinted, I have no objection to any person's religion, +be it what it may, so long as that person does not kill or insult any +other person, because that other person don't believe it also. But when +a man's religion becomes really frantic; when it is a positive torment +to him; and, in fine, makes this earth of ours an uncomfortable inn to +lodge in; then I think it high time to take that individual aside and +argue the point with him. + +And just so I now did with Queequeg. "Queequeg," said I, "get into bed +now, and lie and listen to me." I then went on, beginning with the rise +and progress of the primitive religions, and coming down to the various +religions of the present time, during which time I labored to show +Queequeg that all these Lents, Ramadans, and prolonged ham-squattings in +cold, cheerless rooms were stark nonsense; bad for the health; useless +for the soul; opposed, in short, to the obvious laws of Hygiene and +common sense. I told him, too, that he being in other things such an +extremely sensible and sagacious savage, it pained me, very badly pained +me, to see him now so deplorably foolish about this ridiculous Ramadan +of his. Besides, argued I, fasting makes the body cave in; hence the +spirit caves in; and all thoughts born of a fast must necessarily be +half-starved. This is the reason why most dyspeptic religionists cherish +such melancholy notions about their hereafters. In one word, Queequeg, +said I, rather digressively; hell is an idea first born on an undigested +apple-dumpling; and since then perpetuated through the hereditary +dyspepsias nurtured by Ramadans. + +I then asked Queequeg whether he himself was ever troubled with +dyspepsia; expressing the idea very plainly, so that he could take it +in. He said no; only upon one memorable occasion. It was after a great +feast given by his father the king, on the gaining of a great battle +wherein fifty of the enemy had been killed by about two o'clock in the +afternoon, and all cooked and eaten that very evening. + +"No more, Queequeg," said I, shuddering; "that will do;" for I knew the +inferences without his further hinting them. I had seen a sailor who had +visited that very island, and he told me that it was the custom, when +a great battle had been gained there, to barbecue all the slain in the +yard or garden of the victor; and then, one by one, they were placed +in great wooden trenchers, and garnished round like a pilau, with +breadfruit and cocoanuts; and with some parsley in their mouths, were +sent round with the victor's compliments to all his friends, just as +though these presents were so many Christmas turkeys. + +After all, I do not think that my remarks about religion made much +impression upon Queequeg. Because, in the first place, he somehow seemed +dull of hearing on that important subject, unless considered from his +own point of view; and, in the second place, he did not more than one +third understand me, couch my ideas simply as I would; and, finally, he +no doubt thought he knew a good deal more about the true religion than +I did. He looked at me with a sort of condescending concern and +compassion, as though he thought it a great pity that such a sensible +young man should be so hopelessly lost to evangelical pagan piety. + +At last we rose and dressed; and Queequeg, taking a prodigiously hearty +breakfast of chowders of all sorts, so that the landlady should not +make much profit by reason of his Ramadan, we sallied out to board the +Pequod, sauntering along, and picking our teeth with halibut bones. + + + +CHAPTER 18. His Mark. + + +As we were walking down the end of the wharf towards the ship, Queequeg +carrying his harpoon, Captain Peleg in his gruff voice loudly hailed us +from his wigwam, saying he had not suspected my friend was a cannibal, +and furthermore announcing that he let no cannibals on board that craft, +unless they previously produced their papers. + +"What do you mean by that, Captain Peleg?" said I, now jumping on the +bulwarks, and leaving my comrade standing on the wharf. + +"I mean," he replied, "he must show his papers." + +"Yes," said Captain Bildad in his hollow voice, sticking his head from +behind Peleg's, out of the wigwam. "He must show that he's converted. +Son of darkness," he added, turning to Queequeg, "art thou at present in +communion with any Christian church?" + +"Why," said I, "he's a member of the first Congregational Church." Here +be it said, that many tattooed savages sailing in Nantucket ships at +last come to be converted into the churches. + +"First Congregational Church," cried Bildad, "what! that worships in +Deacon Deuteronomy Coleman's meeting-house?" and so saying, taking +out his spectacles, he rubbed them with his great yellow bandana +handkerchief, and putting them on very carefully, came out of the +wigwam, and leaning stiffly over the bulwarks, took a good long look at +Queequeg. + +"How long hath he been a member?" he then said, turning to me; "not very +long, I rather guess, young man." + +"No," said Peleg, "and he hasn't been baptized right either, or it would +have washed some of that devil's blue off his face." + +"Do tell, now," cried Bildad, "is this Philistine a regular member of +Deacon Deuteronomy's meeting? I never saw him going there, and I pass it +every Lord's day." + +"I don't know anything about Deacon Deuteronomy or his meeting," said +I; "all I know is, that Queequeg here is a born member of the First +Congregational Church. He is a deacon himself, Queequeg is." + +"Young man," said Bildad sternly, "thou art skylarking with me--explain +thyself, thou young Hittite. What church dost thee mean? answer me." + +Finding myself thus hard pushed, I replied. "I mean, sir, the same +ancient Catholic Church to which you and I, and Captain Peleg there, +and Queequeg here, and all of us, and every mother's son and soul of +us belong; the great and everlasting First Congregation of this whole +worshipping world; we all belong to that; only some of us cherish some +queer crotchets no ways touching the grand belief; in THAT we all join +hands." + +"Splice, thou mean'st SPLICE hands," cried Peleg, drawing nearer. "Young +man, you'd better ship for a missionary, instead of a fore-mast hand; +I never heard a better sermon. Deacon Deuteronomy--why Father Mapple +himself couldn't beat it, and he's reckoned something. Come aboard, come +aboard; never mind about the papers. I say, tell Quohog there--what's +that you call him? tell Quohog to step along. By the great anchor, what +a harpoon he's got there! looks like good stuff that; and he handles it +about right. I say, Quohog, or whatever your name is, did you ever stand +in the head of a whale-boat? did you ever strike a fish?" + +Without saying a word, Queequeg, in his wild sort of way, jumped upon +the bulwarks, from thence into the bows of one of the whale-boats +hanging to the side; and then bracing his left knee, and poising his +harpoon, cried out in some such way as this:-- + +"Cap'ain, you see him small drop tar on water dere? You see him? well, +spose him one whale eye, well, den!" and taking sharp aim at it, he +darted the iron right over old Bildad's broad brim, clean across the +ship's decks, and struck the glistening tar spot out of sight. + +"Now," said Queequeg, quietly hauling in the line, "spos-ee him whale-e +eye; why, dad whale dead." + +"Quick, Bildad," said Peleg, his partner, who, aghast at the close +vicinity of the flying harpoon, had retreated towards the cabin gangway. +"Quick, I say, you Bildad, and get the ship's papers. We must have +Hedgehog there, I mean Quohog, in one of our boats. Look ye, Quohog, +we'll give ye the ninetieth lay, and that's more than ever was given a +harpooneer yet out of Nantucket." + +So down we went into the cabin, and to my great joy Queequeg was soon +enrolled among the same ship's company to which I myself belonged. + +When all preliminaries were over and Peleg had got everything ready for +signing, he turned to me and said, "I guess, Quohog there don't know how +to write, does he? I say, Quohog, blast ye! dost thou sign thy name or +make thy mark?" + +But at this question, Queequeg, who had twice or thrice before taken +part in similar ceremonies, looked no ways abashed; but taking the +offered pen, copied upon the paper, in the proper place, an exact +counterpart of a queer round figure which was tattooed upon his arm; so +that through Captain Peleg's obstinate mistake touching his appellative, +it stood something like this:-- + +Quohog. his X mark. + +Meanwhile Captain Bildad sat earnestly and steadfastly eyeing Queequeg, +and at last rising solemnly and fumbling in the huge pockets of his +broad-skirted drab coat, took out a bundle of tracts, and selecting +one entitled "The Latter Day Coming; or No Time to Lose," placed it in +Queequeg's hands, and then grasping them and the book with both his, +looked earnestly into his eyes, and said, "Son of darkness, I must do my +duty by thee; I am part owner of this ship, and feel concerned for the +souls of all its crew; if thou still clingest to thy Pagan ways, which I +sadly fear, I beseech thee, remain not for aye a Belial bondsman. Spurn +the idol Bell, and the hideous dragon; turn from the wrath to come; mind +thine eye, I say; oh! goodness gracious! steer clear of the fiery pit!" + +Something of the salt sea yet lingered in old Bildad's language, +heterogeneously mixed with Scriptural and domestic phrases. + +"Avast there, avast there, Bildad, avast now spoiling our harpooneer," +cried Peleg. "Pious harpooneers never make good voyagers--it takes the shark +out of 'em; no harpooneer is worth a straw who aint pretty sharkish. +There was young Nat Swaine, once the bravest boat-header out of all +Nantucket and the Vineyard; he joined the meeting, and never came to +good. He got so frightened about his plaguy soul, that he shrinked and +sheered away from whales, for fear of after-claps, in case he got stove +and went to Davy Jones." + +"Peleg! Peleg!" said Bildad, lifting his eyes and hands, "thou thyself, +as I myself, hast seen many a perilous time; thou knowest, Peleg, what +it is to have the fear of death; how, then, can'st thou prate in this +ungodly guise. Thou beliest thine own heart, Peleg. Tell me, when this +same Pequod here had her three masts overboard in that typhoon on Japan, +that same voyage when thou went mate with Captain Ahab, did'st thou not +think of Death and the Judgment then?" + +"Hear him, hear him now," cried Peleg, marching across the cabin, and +thrusting his hands far down into his pockets,--"hear him, all of ye. +Think of that! When every moment we thought the ship would sink! +Death and the Judgment then? What? With all three masts making such an +everlasting thundering against the side; and every sea breaking over us, +fore and aft. Think of Death and the Judgment then? No! no time to think +about Death then. Life was what Captain Ahab and I was thinking of; +and how to save all hands--how to rig jury-masts--how to get into the +nearest port; that was what I was thinking of." + +Bildad said no more, but buttoning up his coat, stalked on deck, +where we followed him. There he stood, very quietly overlooking some +sailmakers who were mending a top-sail in the waist. Now and then +he stooped to pick up a patch, or save an end of tarred twine, which +otherwise might have been wasted. + + + +CHAPTER 19. The Prophet. + + +"Shipmates, have ye shipped in that ship?" + +Queequeg and I had just left the Pequod, and were sauntering away from +the water, for the moment each occupied with his own thoughts, when +the above words were put to us by a stranger, who, pausing before us, +levelled his massive forefinger at the vessel in question. He was but +shabbily apparelled in faded jacket and patched trowsers; a rag of a +black handkerchief investing his neck. A confluent small-pox had in all +directions flowed over his face, and left it like the complicated ribbed +bed of a torrent, when the rushing waters have been dried up. + +"Have ye shipped in her?" he repeated. + +"You mean the ship Pequod, I suppose," said I, trying to gain a little +more time for an uninterrupted look at him. + +"Aye, the Pequod--that ship there," he said, drawing back his whole +arm, and then rapidly shoving it straight out from him, with the fixed +bayonet of his pointed finger darted full at the object. + +"Yes," said I, "we have just signed the articles." + +"Anything down there about your souls?" + +"About what?" + +"Oh, perhaps you hav'n't got any," he said quickly. "No matter though, +I know many chaps that hav'n't got any,--good luck to 'em; and they are +all the better off for it. A soul's a sort of a fifth wheel to a wagon." + +"What are you jabbering about, shipmate?" said I. + +"HE'S got enough, though, to make up for all deficiencies of that sort +in other chaps," abruptly said the stranger, placing a nervous emphasis +upon the word HE. + +"Queequeg," said I, "let's go; this fellow has broken loose from +somewhere; he's talking about something and somebody we don't know." + +"Stop!" cried the stranger. "Ye said true--ye hav'n't seen Old Thunder +yet, have ye?" + +"Who's Old Thunder?" said I, again riveted with the insane earnestness +of his manner. + +"Captain Ahab." + +"What! the captain of our ship, the Pequod?" + +"Aye, among some of us old sailor chaps, he goes by that name. Ye +hav'n't seen him yet, have ye?" + +"No, we hav'n't. He's sick they say, but is getting better, and will be +all right again before long." + +"All right again before long!" laughed the stranger, with a solemnly +derisive sort of laugh. "Look ye; when Captain Ahab is all right, then +this left arm of mine will be all right; not before." + +"What do you know about him?" + +"What did they TELL you about him? Say that!" + +"They didn't tell much of anything about him; only I've heard that he's +a good whale-hunter, and a good captain to his crew." + +"That's true, that's true--yes, both true enough. But you must jump when +he gives an order. Step and growl; growl and go--that's the word with +Captain Ahab. But nothing about that thing that happened to him off Cape +Horn, long ago, when he lay like dead for three days and nights; +nothing about that deadly skrimmage with the Spaniard afore the altar in +Santa?--heard nothing about that, eh? Nothing about the silver calabash +he spat into? And nothing about his losing his leg last voyage, +according to the prophecy. Didn't ye hear a word about them matters and +something more, eh? No, I don't think ye did; how could ye? Who knows +it? Not all Nantucket, I guess. But hows'ever, mayhap, ye've heard tell +about the leg, and how he lost it; aye, ye have heard of that, I dare +say. Oh yes, THAT every one knows a'most--I mean they know he's only one +leg; and that a parmacetti took the other off." + +"My friend," said I, "what all this gibberish of yours is about, I +don't know, and I don't much care; for it seems to me that you must be a +little damaged in the head. But if you are speaking of Captain Ahab, of +that ship there, the Pequod, then let me tell you, that I know all about +the loss of his leg." + +"ALL about it, eh--sure you do?--all?" + +"Pretty sure." + +With finger pointed and eye levelled at the Pequod, the beggar-like +stranger stood a moment, as if in a troubled reverie; then starting a +little, turned and said:--"Ye've shipped, have ye? Names down on the +papers? Well, well, what's signed, is signed; and what's to be, will be; +and then again, perhaps it won't be, after all. Anyhow, it's all fixed +and arranged a'ready; and some sailors or other must go with him, I +suppose; as well these as any other men, God pity 'em! Morning to ye, +shipmates, morning; the ineffable heavens bless ye; I'm sorry I stopped +ye." + +"Look here, friend," said I, "if you have anything important to tell +us, out with it; but if you are only trying to bamboozle us, you are +mistaken in your game; that's all I have to say." + +"And it's said very well, and I like to hear a chap talk up that way; +you are just the man for him--the likes of ye. Morning to ye, shipmates, +morning! Oh! when ye get there, tell 'em I've concluded not to make one +of 'em." + +"Ah, my dear fellow, you can't fool us that way--you can't fool us. It +is the easiest thing in the world for a man to look as if he had a great +secret in him." + +"Morning to ye, shipmates, morning." + +"Morning it is," said I. "Come along, Queequeg, let's leave this crazy +man. But stop, tell me your name, will you?" + +"Elijah." + +Elijah! thought I, and we walked away, both commenting, after each +other's fashion, upon this ragged old sailor; and agreed that he was +nothing but a humbug, trying to be a bugbear. But we had not gone +perhaps above a hundred yards, when chancing to turn a corner, and +looking back as I did so, who should be seen but Elijah following us, +though at a distance. Somehow, the sight of him struck me so, that I +said nothing to Queequeg of his being behind, but passed on with my +comrade, anxious to see whether the stranger would turn the same corner +that we did. He did; and then it seemed to me that he was dogging +us, but with what intent I could not for the life of me imagine. This +circumstance, coupled with his ambiguous, half-hinting, half-revealing, +shrouded sort of talk, now begat in me all kinds of vague wonderments +and half-apprehensions, and all connected with the Pequod; and Captain +Ahab; and the leg he had lost; and the Cape Horn fit; and the silver +calabash; and what Captain Peleg had said of him, when I left the ship +the day previous; and the prediction of the squaw Tistig; and the voyage +we had bound ourselves to sail; and a hundred other shadowy things. + +I was resolved to satisfy myself whether this ragged Elijah was really +dogging us or not, and with that intent crossed the way with Queequeg, +and on that side of it retraced our steps. But Elijah passed on, without +seeming to notice us. This relieved me; and once more, and finally as it +seemed to me, I pronounced him in my heart, a humbug. + + + +CHAPTER 20. All Astir. + + +A day or two passed, and there was great activity aboard the Pequod. +Not only were the old sails being mended, but new sails were coming on +board, and bolts of canvas, and coils of rigging; in short, everything +betokened that the ship's preparations were hurrying to a close. Captain +Peleg seldom or never went ashore, but sat in his wigwam keeping a sharp +look-out upon the hands: Bildad did all the purchasing and providing +at the stores; and the men employed in the hold and on the rigging were +working till long after night-fall. + +On the day following Queequeg's signing the articles, word was given at +all the inns where the ship's company were stopping, that their chests +must be on board before night, for there was no telling how soon +the vessel might be sailing. So Queequeg and I got down our traps, +resolving, however, to sleep ashore till the last. But it seems they +always give very long notice in these cases, and the ship did not sail +for several days. But no wonder; there was a good deal to be done, and +there is no telling how many things to be thought of, before the Pequod +was fully equipped. + +Every one knows what a multitude of things--beds, sauce-pans, knives +and forks, shovels and tongs, napkins, nut-crackers, and what not, are +indispensable to the business of housekeeping. Just so with whaling, +which necessitates a three-years' housekeeping upon the wide ocean, +far from all grocers, costermongers, doctors, bakers, and bankers. And +though this also holds true of merchant vessels, yet not by any means +to the same extent as with whalemen. For besides the great length of the +whaling voyage, the numerous articles peculiar to the prosecution of the +fishery, and the impossibility of replacing them at the remote harbors +usually frequented, it must be remembered, that of all ships, whaling +vessels are the most exposed to accidents of all kinds, and especially +to the destruction and loss of the very things upon which the success of +the voyage most depends. Hence, the spare boats, spare spars, and spare +lines and harpoons, and spare everythings, almost, but a spare Captain +and duplicate ship. + +At the period of our arrival at the Island, the heaviest storage of the +Pequod had been almost completed; comprising her beef, bread, water, +fuel, and iron hoops and staves. But, as before hinted, for some time +there was a continual fetching and carrying on board of divers odds and +ends of things, both large and small. + +Chief among those who did this fetching and carrying was Captain +Bildad's sister, a lean old lady of a most determined and indefatigable +spirit, but withal very kindhearted, who seemed resolved that, if SHE +could help it, nothing should be found wanting in the Pequod, after once +fairly getting to sea. At one time she would come on board with a jar +of pickles for the steward's pantry; another time with a bunch of quills +for the chief mate's desk, where he kept his log; a third time with a +roll of flannel for the small of some one's rheumatic back. Never did +any woman better deserve her name, which was Charity--Aunt Charity, as +everybody called her. And like a sister of charity did this charitable +Aunt Charity bustle about hither and thither, ready to turn her hand +and heart to anything that promised to yield safety, comfort, and +consolation to all on board a ship in which her beloved brother +Bildad was concerned, and in which she herself owned a score or two of +well-saved dollars. + +But it was startling to see this excellent hearted Quakeress coming on +board, as she did the last day, with a long oil-ladle in one hand, and +a still longer whaling lance in the other. Nor was Bildad himself nor +Captain Peleg at all backward. As for Bildad, he carried about with him +a long list of the articles needed, and at every fresh arrival, down +went his mark opposite that article upon the paper. Every once in a +while Peleg came hobbling out of his whalebone den, roaring at the men +down the hatchways, roaring up to the riggers at the mast-head, and then +concluded by roaring back into his wigwam. + +During these days of preparation, Queequeg and I often visited the +craft, and as often I asked about Captain Ahab, and how he was, and when +he was going to come on board his ship. To these questions they would +answer, that he was getting better and better, and was expected aboard +every day; meantime, the two captains, Peleg and Bildad, could attend +to everything necessary to fit the vessel for the voyage. If I had been +downright honest with myself, I would have seen very plainly in my heart +that I did but half fancy being committed this way to so long a voyage, +without once laying my eyes on the man who was to be the absolute +dictator of it, so soon as the ship sailed out upon the open sea. +But when a man suspects any wrong, it sometimes happens that if he be +already involved in the matter, he insensibly strives to cover up his +suspicions even from himself. And much this way it was with me. I said +nothing, and tried to think nothing. + +At last it was given out that some time next day the ship would +certainly sail. So next morning, Queequeg and I took a very early start. + + + +CHAPTER 21. Going Aboard. + + +It was nearly six o'clock, but only grey imperfect misty dawn, when we +drew nigh the wharf. + +"There are some sailors running ahead there, if I see right," said I to +Queequeg, "it can't be shadows; she's off by sunrise, I guess; come on!" + +"Avast!" cried a voice, whose owner at the same time coming close behind +us, laid a hand upon both our shoulders, and then insinuating himself +between us, stood stooping forward a little, in the uncertain twilight, +strangely peering from Queequeg to me. It was Elijah. + +"Going aboard?" + +"Hands off, will you," said I. + +"Lookee here," said Queequeg, shaking himself, "go 'way!" + +"Ain't going aboard, then?" + +"Yes, we are," said I, "but what business is that of yours? Do you know, +Mr. Elijah, that I consider you a little impertinent?" + +"No, no, no; I wasn't aware of that," said Elijah, slowly and +wonderingly looking from me to Queequeg, with the most unaccountable +glances. + +"Elijah," said I, "you will oblige my friend and me by withdrawing. We +are going to the Indian and Pacific Oceans, and would prefer not to be +detained." + +"Ye be, be ye? Coming back afore breakfast?" + +"He's cracked, Queequeg," said I, "come on." + +"Holloa!" cried stationary Elijah, hailing us when we had removed a few +paces. + +"Never mind him," said I, "Queequeg, come on." + +But he stole up to us again, and suddenly clapping his hand on my +shoulder, said--"Did ye see anything looking like men going towards that +ship a while ago?" + +Struck by this plain matter-of-fact question, I answered, saying, "Yes, +I thought I did see four or five men; but it was too dim to be sure." + +"Very dim, very dim," said Elijah. "Morning to ye." + +Once more we quitted him; but once more he came softly after us; and +touching my shoulder again, said, "See if you can find 'em now, will ye? + +"Find who?" + +"Morning to ye! morning to ye!" he rejoined, again moving off. "Oh! I +was going to warn ye against--but never mind, never mind--it's all one, +all in the family too;--sharp frost this morning, ain't it? Good-bye to +ye. Shan't see ye again very soon, I guess; unless it's before the Grand +Jury." And with these cracked words he finally departed, leaving me, for +the moment, in no small wonderment at his frantic impudence. + +At last, stepping on board the Pequod, we found everything in profound +quiet, not a soul moving. The cabin entrance was locked within; the +hatches were all on, and lumbered with coils of rigging. Going forward +to the forecastle, we found the slide of the scuttle open. Seeing a +light, we went down, and found only an old rigger there, wrapped in a +tattered pea-jacket. He was thrown at whole length upon two chests, his +face downwards and inclosed in his folded arms. The profoundest slumber +slept upon him. + +"Those sailors we saw, Queequeg, where can they have gone to?" said I, +looking dubiously at the sleeper. But it seemed that, when on the wharf, +Queequeg had not at all noticed what I now alluded to; hence I would +have thought myself to have been optically deceived in that matter, +were it not for Elijah's otherwise inexplicable question. But I beat the +thing down; and again marking the sleeper, jocularly hinted to Queequeg +that perhaps we had best sit up with the body; telling him to establish +himself accordingly. He put his hand upon the sleeper's rear, as though +feeling if it was soft enough; and then, without more ado, sat quietly +down there. + +"Gracious! Queequeg, don't sit there," said I. + +"Oh! perry dood seat," said Queequeg, "my country way; won't hurt him +face." + +"Face!" said I, "call that his face? very benevolent countenance then; +but how hard he breathes, he's heaving himself; get off, Queequeg, you +are heavy, it's grinding the face of the poor. Get off, Queequeg! Look, +he'll twitch you off soon. I wonder he don't wake." + +Queequeg removed himself to just beyond the head of the sleeper, and +lighted his tomahawk pipe. I sat at the feet. We kept the pipe passing +over the sleeper, from one to the other. Meanwhile, upon questioning him +in his broken fashion, Queequeg gave me to understand that, in his +land, owing to the absence of settees and sofas of all sorts, the king, +chiefs, and great people generally, were in the custom of fattening some +of the lower orders for ottomans; and to furnish a house comfortably in +that respect, you had only to buy up eight or ten lazy fellows, and lay +them round in the piers and alcoves. Besides, it was very convenient on +an excursion; much better than those garden-chairs which are convertible +into walking-sticks; upon occasion, a chief calling his attendant, and +desiring him to make a settee of himself under a spreading tree, perhaps +in some damp marshy place. + +While narrating these things, every time Queequeg received the tomahawk +from me, he flourished the hatchet-side of it over the sleeper's head. + +"What's that for, Queequeg?" + +"Perry easy, kill-e; oh! perry easy!" + +He was going on with some wild reminiscences about his tomahawk-pipe, +which, it seemed, had in its two uses both brained his foes and soothed +his soul, when we were directly attracted to the sleeping rigger. The +strong vapour now completely filling the contracted hole, it began +to tell upon him. He breathed with a sort of muffledness; then seemed +troubled in the nose; then revolved over once or twice; then sat up and +rubbed his eyes. + +"Holloa!" he breathed at last, "who be ye smokers?" + +"Shipped men," answered I, "when does she sail?" + +"Aye, aye, ye are going in her, be ye? She sails to-day. The Captain +came aboard last night." + +"What Captain?--Ahab?" + +"Who but him indeed?" + +I was going to ask him some further questions concerning Ahab, when we +heard a noise on deck. + +"Holloa! Starbuck's astir," said the rigger. "He's a lively chief mate, +that; good man, and a pious; but all alive now, I must turn to." And so +saying he went on deck, and we followed. + +It was now clear sunrise. Soon the crew came on board in twos and +threes; the riggers bestirred themselves; the mates were actively +engaged; and several of the shore people were busy in bringing various +last things on board. Meanwhile Captain Ahab remained invisibly +enshrined within his cabin. + + + +CHAPTER 22. Merry Christmas. + + +At length, towards noon, upon the final dismissal of the ship's riggers, +and after the Pequod had been hauled out from the wharf, and after the +ever-thoughtful Charity had come off in a whale-boat, with her last +gift--a night-cap for Stubb, the second mate, her brother-in-law, and a +spare Bible for the steward--after all this, the two Captains, Peleg +and Bildad, issued from the cabin, and turning to the chief mate, Peleg +said: + +"Now, Mr. Starbuck, are you sure everything is right? Captain Ahab is +all ready--just spoke to him--nothing more to be got from shore, eh? +Well, call all hands, then. Muster 'em aft here--blast 'em!" + +"No need of profane words, however great the hurry, Peleg," said Bildad, +"but away with thee, friend Starbuck, and do our bidding." + +How now! Here upon the very point of starting for the voyage, Captain +Peleg and Captain Bildad were going it with a high hand on the +quarter-deck, just as if they were to be joint-commanders at sea, as +well as to all appearances in port. And, as for Captain Ahab, no sign of +him was yet to be seen; only, they said he was in the cabin. But then, +the idea was, that his presence was by no means necessary in getting the +ship under weigh, and steering her well out to sea. Indeed, as that was +not at all his proper business, but the pilot's; and as he was not +yet completely recovered--so they said--therefore, Captain Ahab stayed +below. And all this seemed natural enough; especially as in the merchant +service many captains never show themselves on deck for a considerable +time after heaving up the anchor, but remain over the cabin table, +having a farewell merry-making with their shore friends, before they +quit the ship for good with the pilot. + +But there was not much chance to think over the matter, for Captain +Peleg was now all alive. He seemed to do most of the talking and +commanding, and not Bildad. + +"Aft here, ye sons of bachelors," he cried, as the sailors lingered at +the main-mast. "Mr. Starbuck, drive'em aft." + +"Strike the tent there!"--was the next order. As I hinted before, this +whalebone marquee was never pitched except in port; and on board the +Pequod, for thirty years, the order to strike the tent was well known to +be the next thing to heaving up the anchor. + +"Man the capstan! Blood and thunder!--jump!"--was the next command, and +the crew sprang for the handspikes. + +Now in getting under weigh, the station generally occupied by the pilot +is the forward part of the ship. And here Bildad, who, with Peleg, be it +known, in addition to his other officers, was one of the licensed pilots +of the port--he being suspected to have got himself made a pilot in +order to save the Nantucket pilot-fee to all the ships he was concerned +in, for he never piloted any other craft--Bildad, I say, might now +be seen actively engaged in looking over the bows for the approaching +anchor, and at intervals singing what seemed a dismal stave of psalmody, +to cheer the hands at the windlass, who roared forth some sort of +a chorus about the girls in Booble Alley, with hearty good will. +Nevertheless, not three days previous, Bildad had told them that no +profane songs would be allowed on board the Pequod, particularly in +getting under weigh; and Charity, his sister, had placed a small choice +copy of Watts in each seaman's berth. + +Meantime, overseeing the other part of the ship, Captain Peleg ripped +and swore astern in the most frightful manner. I almost thought he would +sink the ship before the anchor could be got up; involuntarily I paused +on my handspike, and told Queequeg to do the same, thinking of the +perils we both ran, in starting on the voyage with such a devil for a +pilot. I was comforting myself, however, with the thought that in pious +Bildad might be found some salvation, spite of his seven hundred and +seventy-seventh lay; when I felt a sudden sharp poke in my rear, and +turning round, was horrified at the apparition of Captain Peleg in the +act of withdrawing his leg from my immediate vicinity. That was my first +kick. + +"Is that the way they heave in the marchant service?" he roared. +"Spring, thou sheep-head; spring, and break thy backbone! Why don't ye +spring, I say, all of ye--spring! Quohog! spring, thou chap with the red +whiskers; spring there, Scotch-cap; spring, thou green pants. Spring, I +say, all of ye, and spring your eyes out!" And so saying, he moved +along the windlass, here and there using his leg very freely, while +imperturbable Bildad kept leading off with his psalmody. Thinks I, +Captain Peleg must have been drinking something to-day. + +At last the anchor was up, the sails were set, and off we glided. It +was a short, cold Christmas; and as the short northern day merged into +night, we found ourselves almost broad upon the wintry ocean, whose +freezing spray cased us in ice, as in polished armor. The long rows of +teeth on the bulwarks glistened in the moonlight; and like the white +ivory tusks of some huge elephant, vast curving icicles depended from +the bows. + +Lank Bildad, as pilot, headed the first watch, and ever and anon, as the +old craft deep dived into the green seas, and sent the shivering frost +all over her, and the winds howled, and the cordage rang, his steady +notes were heard,-- + +"Sweet fields beyond the swelling flood, Stand dressed in living green. +So to the Jews old Canaan stood, While Jordan rolled between." + + +Never did those sweet words sound more sweetly to me than then. They +were full of hope and fruition. Spite of this frigid winter night in the +boisterous Atlantic, spite of my wet feet and wetter jacket, there was +yet, it then seemed to me, many a pleasant haven in store; and meads +and glades so eternally vernal, that the grass shot up by the spring, +untrodden, unwilted, remains at midsummer. + +At last we gained such an offing, that the two pilots were needed +no longer. The stout sail-boat that had accompanied us began ranging +alongside. + +It was curious and not unpleasing, how Peleg and Bildad were affected at +this juncture, especially Captain Bildad. For loath to depart, yet; +very loath to leave, for good, a ship bound on so long and perilous a +voyage--beyond both stormy Capes; a ship in which some thousands of +his hard earned dollars were invested; a ship, in which an old shipmate +sailed as captain; a man almost as old as he, once more starting to +encounter all the terrors of the pitiless jaw; loath to say good-bye to +a thing so every way brimful of every interest to him,--poor old Bildad +lingered long; paced the deck with anxious strides; ran down into the +cabin to speak another farewell word there; again came on deck, and +looked to windward; looked towards the wide and endless waters, only +bounded by the far-off unseen Eastern Continents; looked towards +the land; looked aloft; looked right and left; looked everywhere +and nowhere; and at last, mechanically coiling a rope upon its pin, +convulsively grasped stout Peleg by the hand, and holding up a lantern, +for a moment stood gazing heroically in his face, as much as to say, +"Nevertheless, friend Peleg, I can stand it; yes, I can." + +As for Peleg himself, he took it more like a philosopher; but for all +his philosophy, there was a tear twinkling in his eye, when the lantern +came too near. And he, too, did not a little run from cabin to deck--now +a word below, and now a word with Starbuck, the chief mate. + +But, at last, he turned to his comrade, with a final sort of look +about him,--"Captain Bildad--come, old shipmate, we must go. Back the +main-yard there! Boat ahoy! Stand by to come close alongside, now! +Careful, careful!--come, Bildad, boy--say your last. Luck to ye, +Starbuck--luck to ye, Mr. Stubb--luck to ye, Mr. Flask--good-bye and +good luck to ye all--and this day three years I'll have a hot supper +smoking for ye in old Nantucket. Hurrah and away!" + +"God bless ye, and have ye in His holy keeping, men," murmured old +Bildad, almost incoherently. "I hope ye'll have fine weather now, so +that Captain Ahab may soon be moving among ye--a pleasant sun is all +he needs, and ye'll have plenty of them in the tropic voyage ye go. +Be careful in the hunt, ye mates. Don't stave the boats needlessly, +ye harpooneers; good white cedar plank is raised full three per cent. +within the year. Don't forget your prayers, either. Mr. Starbuck, mind +that cooper don't waste the spare staves. Oh! the sail-needles are in +the green locker! Don't whale it too much a' Lord's days, men; but don't +miss a fair chance either, that's rejecting Heaven's good gifts. Have an +eye to the molasses tierce, Mr. Stubb; it was a little leaky, I thought. +If ye touch at the islands, Mr. Flask, beware of fornication. Good-bye, +good-bye! Don't keep that cheese too long down in the hold, Mr. +Starbuck; it'll spoil. Be careful with the butter--twenty cents the +pound it was, and mind ye, if--" + +"Come, come, Captain Bildad; stop palavering,--away!" and with that, +Peleg hurried him over the side, and both dropt into the boat. + +Ship and boat diverged; the cold, damp night breeze blew between; a +screaming gull flew overhead; the two hulls wildly rolled; we gave +three heavy-hearted cheers, and blindly plunged like fate into the lone +Atlantic. + + + +CHAPTER 23. The Lee Shore. + + +Some chapters back, one Bulkington was spoken of, a tall, newlanded +mariner, encountered in New Bedford at the inn. + +When on that shivering winter's night, the Pequod thrust her vindictive +bows into the cold malicious waves, who should I see standing at her +helm but Bulkington! I looked with sympathetic awe and fearfulness upon +the man, who in mid-winter just landed from a four years' dangerous +voyage, could so unrestingly push off again for still another +tempestuous term. The land seemed scorching to his feet. Wonderfullest +things are ever the unmentionable; deep memories yield no epitaphs; this +six-inch chapter is the stoneless grave of Bulkington. Let me only say +that it fared with him as with the storm-tossed ship, that miserably +drives along the leeward land. The port would fain give succor; the port +is pitiful; in the port is safety, comfort, hearthstone, supper, warm +blankets, friends, all that's kind to our mortalities. But in that gale, +the port, the land, is that ship's direst jeopardy; she must fly all +hospitality; one touch of land, though it but graze the keel, would make +her shudder through and through. With all her might she crowds all sail +off shore; in so doing, fights 'gainst the very winds that fain would +blow her homeward; seeks all the lashed sea's landlessness again; +for refuge's sake forlornly rushing into peril; her only friend her +bitterest foe! + +Know ye now, Bulkington? Glimpses do ye seem to see of that mortally +intolerable truth; that all deep, earnest thinking is but the intrepid +effort of the soul to keep the open independence of her sea; while +the wildest winds of heaven and earth conspire to cast her on the +treacherous, slavish shore? + +But as in landlessness alone resides highest truth, shoreless, +indefinite as God--so, better is it to perish in that howling infinite, +than be ingloriously dashed upon the lee, even if that were safety! +For worm-like, then, oh! who would craven crawl to land! Terrors of +the terrible! is all this agony so vain? Take heart, take heart, +O Bulkington! Bear thee grimly, demigod! Up from the spray of thy +ocean-perishing--straight up, leaps thy apotheosis! + + + +CHAPTER 24. The Advocate. + + +As Queequeg and I are now fairly embarked in this business of whaling; +and as this business of whaling has somehow come to be regarded among +landsmen as a rather unpoetical and disreputable pursuit; therefore, I +am all anxiety to convince ye, ye landsmen, of the injustice hereby done +to us hunters of whales. + +In the first place, it may be deemed almost superfluous to establish +the fact, that among people at large, the business of whaling is not +accounted on a level with what are called the liberal professions. If a +stranger were introduced into any miscellaneous metropolitan society, +it would but slightly advance the general opinion of his merits, were +he presented to the company as a harpooneer, say; and if in emulation +of the naval officers he should append the initials S.W.F. (Sperm +Whale Fishery) to his visiting card, such a procedure would be deemed +pre-eminently presuming and ridiculous. + +Doubtless one leading reason why the world declines honouring us +whalemen, is this: they think that, at best, our vocation amounts to a +butchering sort of business; and that when actively engaged therein, we +are surrounded by all manner of defilements. Butchers we are, that is +true. But butchers, also, and butchers of the bloodiest badge have been +all Martial Commanders whom the world invariably delights to honour. And +as for the matter of the alleged uncleanliness of our business, ye shall +soon be initiated into certain facts hitherto pretty generally unknown, +and which, upon the whole, will triumphantly plant the sperm whale-ship +at least among the cleanliest things of this tidy earth. But even +granting the charge in question to be true; what disordered slippery +decks of a whale-ship are comparable to the unspeakable carrion of those +battle-fields from which so many soldiers return to drink in all ladies' +plaudits? And if the idea of peril so much enhances the popular conceit +of the soldier's profession; let me assure ye that many a veteran +who has freely marched up to a battery, would quickly recoil at the +apparition of the sperm whale's vast tail, fanning into eddies the air +over his head. For what are the comprehensible terrors of man compared +with the interlinked terrors and wonders of God! + +But, though the world scouts at us whale hunters, yet does it +unwittingly pay us the profoundest homage; yea, an all-abounding +adoration! for almost all the tapers, lamps, and candles that burn round +the globe, burn, as before so many shrines, to our glory! + +But look at this matter in other lights; weigh it in all sorts of +scales; see what we whalemen are, and have been. + +Why did the Dutch in De Witt's time have admirals of their whaling +fleets? Why did Louis XVI. of France, at his own personal expense, fit +out whaling ships from Dunkirk, and politely invite to that town some +score or two of families from our own island of Nantucket? Why did +Britain between the years 1750 and 1788 pay to her whalemen in bounties +upwards of L1,000,000? And lastly, how comes it that we whalemen of +America now outnumber all the rest of the banded whalemen in the world; +sail a navy of upwards of seven hundred vessels; manned by eighteen +thousand men; yearly consuming 4,000,000 of dollars; the ships worth, +at the time of sailing, $20,000,000! and every year importing into our +harbors a well reaped harvest of $7,000,000. How comes all this, if +there be not something puissant in whaling? + +But this is not the half; look again. + +I freely assert, that the cosmopolite philosopher cannot, for his life, +point out one single peaceful influence, which within the last sixty +years has operated more potentially upon the whole broad world, taken in +one aggregate, than the high and mighty business of whaling. One way +and another, it has begotten events so remarkable in themselves, and so +continuously momentous in their sequential issues, that whaling may +well be regarded as that Egyptian mother, who bore offspring themselves +pregnant from her womb. It would be a hopeless, endless task to +catalogue all these things. Let a handful suffice. For many years past +the whale-ship has been the pioneer in ferreting out the remotest and +least known parts of the earth. She has explored seas and archipelagoes +which had no chart, where no Cook or Vancouver had ever sailed. If +American and European men-of-war now peacefully ride in once savage +harbors, let them fire salutes to the honour and glory of the +whale-ship, which originally showed them the way, and first interpreted +between them and the savages. They may celebrate as they will the heroes +of Exploring Expeditions, your Cooks, your Krusensterns; but I say that +scores of anonymous Captains have sailed out of Nantucket, that were +as great, and greater than your Cook and your Krusenstern. For in their +succourless empty-handedness, they, in the heathenish sharked waters, +and by the beaches of unrecorded, javelin islands, battled with virgin +wonders and terrors that Cook with all his marines and muskets would +not willingly have dared. All that is made such a flourish of in the old +South Sea Voyages, those things were but the life-time commonplaces of +our heroic Nantucketers. Often, adventures which Vancouver dedicates +three chapters to, these men accounted unworthy of being set down in the +ship's common log. Ah, the world! Oh, the world! + +Until the whale fishery rounded Cape Horn, no commerce but colonial, +scarcely any intercourse but colonial, was carried on between Europe and +the long line of the opulent Spanish provinces on the Pacific coast. +It was the whaleman who first broke through the jealous policy of the +Spanish crown, touching those colonies; and, if space permitted, it +might be distinctly shown how from those whalemen at last eventuated the +liberation of Peru, Chili, and Bolivia from the yoke of Old Spain, and +the establishment of the eternal democracy in those parts. + +That great America on the other side of the sphere, Australia, was given +to the enlightened world by the whaleman. After its first blunder-born +discovery by a Dutchman, all other ships long shunned those shores +as pestiferously barbarous; but the whale-ship touched there. The +whale-ship is the true mother of that now mighty colony. Moreover, +in the infancy of the first Australian settlement, the emigrants were +several times saved from starvation by the benevolent biscuit of the +whale-ship luckily dropping an anchor in their waters. The uncounted +isles of all Polynesia confess the same truth, and do commercial homage +to the whale-ship, that cleared the way for the missionary and the +merchant, and in many cases carried the primitive missionaries to their +first destinations. If that double-bolted land, Japan, is ever to become +hospitable, it is the whale-ship alone to whom the credit will be due; +for already she is on the threshold. + +But if, in the face of all this, you still declare that whaling has no +aesthetically noble associations connected with it, then am I ready to +shiver fifty lances with you there, and unhorse you with a split helmet +every time. + +The whale has no famous author, and whaling no famous chronicler, you +will say. + +THE WHALE NO FAMOUS AUTHOR, AND WHALING NO FAMOUS CHRONICLER? Who wrote +the first account of our Leviathan? Who but mighty Job! And who composed +the first narrative of a whaling-voyage? Who, but no less a prince than +Alfred the Great, who, with his own royal pen, took down the words from +Other, the Norwegian whale-hunter of those times! And who pronounced our +glowing eulogy in Parliament? Who, but Edmund Burke! + +True enough, but then whalemen themselves are poor devils; they have no +good blood in their veins. + +NO GOOD BLOOD IN THEIR VEINS? They have something better than royal +blood there. The grandmother of Benjamin Franklin was Mary Morrel; +afterwards, by marriage, Mary Folger, one of the old settlers +of Nantucket, and the ancestress to a long line of Folgers and +harpooneers--all kith and kin to noble Benjamin--this day darting the +barbed iron from one side of the world to the other. + +Good again; but then all confess that somehow whaling is not +respectable. + +WHALING NOT RESPECTABLE? Whaling is imperial! By old English statutory +law, the whale is declared "a royal fish."* + +Oh, that's only nominal! The whale himself has never figured in any +grand imposing way. + +THE WHALE NEVER FIGURED IN ANY GRAND IMPOSING WAY? In one of the mighty +triumphs given to a Roman general upon his entering the world's capital, +the bones of a whale, brought all the way from the Syrian coast, were +the most conspicuous object in the cymballed procession.* + + +*See subsequent chapters for something more on this head. + + +Grant it, since you cite it; but, say what you will, there is no real +dignity in whaling. + +NO DIGNITY IN WHALING? The dignity of our calling the very heavens +attest. Cetus is a constellation in the South! No more! Drive down your +hat in presence of the Czar, and take it off to Queequeg! No more! I +know a man that, in his lifetime, has taken three hundred and fifty +whales. I account that man more honourable than that great captain of +antiquity who boasted of taking as many walled towns. + +And, as for me, if, by any possibility, there be any as yet undiscovered +prime thing in me; if I shall ever deserve any real repute in that small +but high hushed world which I might not be unreasonably ambitious of; if +hereafter I shall do anything that, upon the whole, a man might rather +have done than to have left undone; if, at my death, my executors, or +more properly my creditors, find any precious MSS. in my desk, then here +I prospectively ascribe all the honour and the glory to whaling; for a +whale-ship was my Yale College and my Harvard. + + + +CHAPTER 25. Postscript. + + +In behalf of the dignity of whaling, I would fain advance naught but +substantiated facts. But after embattling his facts, an advocate who +should wholly suppress a not unreasonable surmise, which might +tell eloquently upon his cause--such an advocate, would he not be +blameworthy? + +It is well known that at the coronation of kings and queens, even modern +ones, a certain curious process of seasoning them for their functions is +gone through. There is a saltcellar of state, so called, and there +may be a castor of state. How they use the salt, precisely--who knows? +Certain I am, however, that a king's head is solemnly oiled at his +coronation, even as a head of salad. Can it be, though, that they +anoint it with a view of making its interior run well, as they anoint +machinery? Much might be ruminated here, concerning the essential +dignity of this regal process, because in common life we esteem but +meanly and contemptibly a fellow who anoints his hair, and palpably +smells of that anointing. In truth, a mature man who uses hair-oil, +unless medicinally, that man has probably got a quoggy spot in him +somewhere. As a general rule, he can't amount to much in his totality. + +But the only thing to be considered here, is this--what kind of oil is +used at coronations? Certainly it cannot be olive oil, nor macassar oil, +nor castor oil, nor bear's oil, nor train oil, nor cod-liver oil. What +then can it possibly be, but sperm oil in its unmanufactured, unpolluted +state, the sweetest of all oils? + +Think of that, ye loyal Britons! we whalemen supply your kings and +queens with coronation stuff! + + + +CHAPTER 26. Knights and Squires. + + +The chief mate of the Pequod was Starbuck, a native of Nantucket, and a +Quaker by descent. He was a long, earnest man, and though born on an icy +coast, seemed well adapted to endure hot latitudes, his flesh being hard +as twice-baked biscuit. Transported to the Indies, his live blood would +not spoil like bottled ale. He must have been born in some time of +general drought and famine, or upon one of those fast days for which +his state is famous. Only some thirty arid summers had he seen; those +summers had dried up all his physical superfluousness. But this, his +thinness, so to speak, seemed no more the token of wasting anxieties and +cares, than it seemed the indication of any bodily blight. It was merely +the condensation of the man. He was by no means ill-looking; quite the +contrary. His pure tight skin was an excellent fit; and closely wrapped +up in it, and embalmed with inner health and strength, like a revivified +Egyptian, this Starbuck seemed prepared to endure for long ages to come, +and to endure always, as now; for be it Polar snow or torrid sun, like +a patent chronometer, his interior vitality was warranted to do well +in all climates. Looking into his eyes, you seemed to see there the yet +lingering images of those thousand-fold perils he had calmly confronted +through life. A staid, steadfast man, whose life for the most part was a +telling pantomime of action, and not a tame chapter of sounds. Yet, for +all his hardy sobriety and fortitude, there were certain qualities +in him which at times affected, and in some cases seemed well nigh to +overbalance all the rest. Uncommonly conscientious for a seaman, and +endued with a deep natural reverence, the wild watery loneliness of his +life did therefore strongly incline him to superstition; but to that +sort of superstition, which in some organizations seems rather to +spring, somehow, from intelligence than from ignorance. Outward portents +and inward presentiments were his. And if at times these things bent the +welded iron of his soul, much more did his far-away domestic memories +of his young Cape wife and child, tend to bend him still more from the +original ruggedness of his nature, and open him still further to those +latent influences which, in some honest-hearted men, restrain the gush +of dare-devil daring, so often evinced by others in the more perilous +vicissitudes of the fishery. "I will have no man in my boat," said +Starbuck, "who is not afraid of a whale." By this, he seemed to mean, +not only that the most reliable and useful courage was that which arises +from the fair estimation of the encountered peril, but that an utterly +fearless man is a far more dangerous comrade than a coward. + +"Aye, aye," said Stubb, the second mate, "Starbuck, there, is as careful +a man as you'll find anywhere in this fishery." But we shall ere long +see what that word "careful" precisely means when used by a man like +Stubb, or almost any other whale hunter. + +Starbuck was no crusader after perils; in him courage was not a +sentiment; but a thing simply useful to him, and always at hand upon all +mortally practical occasions. Besides, he thought, perhaps, that in this +business of whaling, courage was one of the great staple outfits of +the ship, like her beef and her bread, and not to be foolishly wasted. +Wherefore he had no fancy for lowering for whales after sun-down; nor +for persisting in fighting a fish that too much persisted in fighting +him. For, thought Starbuck, I am here in this critical ocean to kill +whales for my living, and not to be killed by them for theirs; and that +hundreds of men had been so killed Starbuck well knew. What doom was +his own father's? Where, in the bottomless deeps, could he find the torn +limbs of his brother? + +With memories like these in him, and, moreover, given to a certain +superstitiousness, as has been said; the courage of this Starbuck which +could, nevertheless, still flourish, must indeed have been extreme. But +it was not in reasonable nature that a man so organized, and with such +terrible experiences and remembrances as he had; it was not in nature +that these things should fail in latently engendering an element in +him, which, under suitable circumstances, would break out from its +confinement, and burn all his courage up. And brave as he might be, it +was that sort of bravery chiefly, visible in some intrepid men, which, +while generally abiding firm in the conflict with seas, or winds, or +whales, or any of the ordinary irrational horrors of the world, yet +cannot withstand those more terrific, because more spiritual terrors, +which sometimes menace you from the concentrating brow of an enraged and +mighty man. + +But were the coming narrative to reveal in any instance, the complete +abasement of poor Starbuck's fortitude, scarce might I have the heart to +write it; for it is a thing most sorrowful, nay shocking, to expose +the fall of valour in the soul. Men may seem detestable as joint +stock-companies and nations; knaves, fools, and murderers there may be; +men may have mean and meagre faces; but man, in the ideal, is so noble +and so sparkling, such a grand and glowing creature, that over any +ignominious blemish in him all his fellows should run to throw their +costliest robes. That immaculate manliness we feel within ourselves, +so far within us, that it remains intact though all the outer character +seem gone; bleeds with keenest anguish at the undraped spectacle of +a valor-ruined man. Nor can piety itself, at such a shameful sight, +completely stifle her upbraidings against the permitting stars. But this +august dignity I treat of, is not the dignity of kings and robes, but +that abounding dignity which has no robed investiture. Thou shalt see it +shining in the arm that wields a pick or drives a spike; that democratic +dignity which, on all hands, radiates without end from God; Himself! The +great God absolute! The centre and circumference of all democracy! His +omnipresence, our divine equality! + +If, then, to meanest mariners, and renegades and castaways, I shall +hereafter ascribe high qualities, though dark; weave round them tragic +graces; if even the most mournful, perchance the most abased, among them +all, shall at times lift himself to the exalted mounts; if I shall touch +that workman's arm with some ethereal light; if I shall spread a rainbow +over his disastrous set of sun; then against all mortal critics bear +me out in it, thou Just Spirit of Equality, which hast spread one royal +mantle of humanity over all my kind! Bear me out in it, thou great +democratic God! who didst not refuse to the swart convict, Bunyan, the +pale, poetic pearl; Thou who didst clothe with doubly hammered leaves +of finest gold, the stumped and paupered arm of old Cervantes; Thou who +didst pick up Andrew Jackson from the pebbles; who didst hurl him upon a +war-horse; who didst thunder him higher than a throne! Thou who, in all +Thy mighty, earthly marchings, ever cullest Thy selectest champions from +the kingly commons; bear me out in it, O God! + + + +CHAPTER 27. Knights and Squires. + + +Stubb was the second mate. He was a native of Cape Cod; and hence, +according to local usage, was called a Cape-Cod-man. A happy-go-lucky; +neither craven nor valiant; taking perils as they came with an +indifferent air; and while engaged in the most imminent crisis of the +chase, toiling away, calm and collected as a journeyman joiner engaged +for the year. Good-humored, easy, and careless, he presided over his +whale-boat as if the most deadly encounter were but a dinner, and his +crew all invited guests. He was as particular about the comfortable +arrangement of his part of the boat, as an old stage-driver is about the +snugness of his box. When close to the whale, in the very death-lock of +the fight, he handled his unpitying lance coolly and off-handedly, as +a whistling tinker his hammer. He would hum over his old rigadig tunes +while flank and flank with the most exasperated monster. Long usage had, +for this Stubb, converted the jaws of death into an easy chair. What he +thought of death itself, there is no telling. Whether he ever thought of +it at all, might be a question; but, if he ever did chance to cast his +mind that way after a comfortable dinner, no doubt, like a good sailor, +he took it to be a sort of call of the watch to tumble aloft, and bestir +themselves there, about something which he would find out when he obeyed +the order, and not sooner. + +What, perhaps, with other things, made Stubb such an easy-going, +unfearing man, so cheerily trudging off with the burden of life in a +world full of grave pedlars, all bowed to the ground with their packs; +what helped to bring about that almost impious good-humor of his; that +thing must have been his pipe. For, like his nose, his short, black +little pipe was one of the regular features of his face. You would +almost as soon have expected him to turn out of his bunk without his +nose as without his pipe. He kept a whole row of pipes there ready +loaded, stuck in a rack, within easy reach of his hand; and, whenever he +turned in, he smoked them all out in succession, lighting one from +the other to the end of the chapter; then loading them again to be in +readiness anew. For, when Stubb dressed, instead of first putting his +legs into his trowsers, he put his pipe into his mouth. + +I say this continual smoking must have been one cause, at least, of his +peculiar disposition; for every one knows that this earthly air, whether +ashore or afloat, is terribly infected with the nameless miseries of +the numberless mortals who have died exhaling it; and as in time of the +cholera, some people go about with a camphorated handkerchief to their +mouths; so, likewise, against all mortal tribulations, Stubb's tobacco +smoke might have operated as a sort of disinfecting agent. + +The third mate was Flask, a native of Tisbury, in Martha's Vineyard. A +short, stout, ruddy young fellow, very pugnacious concerning whales, +who somehow seemed to think that the great leviathans had personally +and hereditarily affronted him; and therefore it was a sort of point of +honour with him, to destroy them whenever encountered. So utterly lost +was he to all sense of reverence for the many marvels of their majestic +bulk and mystic ways; and so dead to anything like an apprehension of +any possible danger from encountering them; that in his poor opinion, +the wondrous whale was but a species of magnified mouse, or at least +water-rat, requiring only a little circumvention and some small +application of time and trouble in order to kill and boil. This +ignorant, unconscious fearlessness of his made him a little waggish in +the matter of whales; he followed these fish for the fun of it; and a +three years' voyage round Cape Horn was only a jolly joke that lasted +that length of time. As a carpenter's nails are divided into wrought +nails and cut nails; so mankind may be similarly divided. Little Flask +was one of the wrought ones; made to clinch tight and last long. They +called him King-Post on board of the Pequod; because, in form, he could +be well likened to the short, square timber known by that name in Arctic +whalers; and which by the means of many radiating side timbers inserted +into it, serves to brace the ship against the icy concussions of those +battering seas. + +Now these three mates--Starbuck, Stubb, and Flask, were momentous +men. They it was who by universal prescription commanded three of the +Pequod's boats as headsmen. In that grand order of battle in which +Captain Ahab would probably marshal his forces to descend on the whales, +these three headsmen were as captains of companies. Or, being armed with +their long keen whaling spears, they were as a picked trio of lancers; +even as the harpooneers were flingers of javelins. + +And since in this famous fishery, each mate or headsman, like a Gothic +Knight of old, is always accompanied by his boat-steerer or harpooneer, +who in certain conjunctures provides him with a fresh lance, when +the former one has been badly twisted, or elbowed in the assault; and +moreover, as there generally subsists between the two, a close intimacy +and friendliness; it is therefore but meet, that in this place we set +down who the Pequod's harpooneers were, and to what headsman each of +them belonged. + +First of all was Queequeg, whom Starbuck, the chief mate, had selected +for his squire. But Queequeg is already known. + +Next was Tashtego, an unmixed Indian from Gay Head, the most westerly +promontory of Martha's Vineyard, where there still exists the last +remnant of a village of red men, which has long supplied the neighboring +island of Nantucket with many of her most daring harpooneers. In the +fishery, they usually go by the generic name of Gay-Headers. Tashtego's +long, lean, sable hair, his high cheek bones, and black rounding +eyes--for an Indian, Oriental in their largeness, but Antarctic in their +glittering expression--all this sufficiently proclaimed him an inheritor +of the unvitiated blood of those proud warrior hunters, who, in quest +of the great New England moose, had scoured, bow in hand, the aboriginal +forests of the main. But no longer snuffing in the trail of the wild +beasts of the woodland, Tashtego now hunted in the wake of the great +whales of the sea; the unerring harpoon of the son fitly replacing the +infallible arrow of the sires. To look at the tawny brawn of his lithe +snaky limbs, you would almost have credited the superstitions of some of +the earlier Puritans, and half-believed this wild Indian to be a son +of the Prince of the Powers of the Air. Tashtego was Stubb the second +mate's squire. + +Third among the harpooneers was Daggoo, a gigantic, coal-black +negro-savage, with a lion-like tread--an Ahasuerus to behold. Suspended +from his ears were two golden hoops, so large that the sailors called +them ring-bolts, and would talk of securing the top-sail halyards to +them. In his youth Daggoo had voluntarily shipped on board of a whaler, +lying in a lonely bay on his native coast. And never having been +anywhere in the world but in Africa, Nantucket, and the pagan harbors +most frequented by whalemen; and having now led for many years the bold +life of the fishery in the ships of owners uncommonly heedful of what +manner of men they shipped; Daggoo retained all his barbaric virtues, +and erect as a giraffe, moved about the decks in all the pomp of six +feet five in his socks. There was a corporeal humility in looking up at +him; and a white man standing before him seemed a white flag come to +beg truce of a fortress. Curious to tell, this imperial negro, Ahasuerus +Daggoo, was the Squire of little Flask, who looked like a chess-man +beside him. As for the residue of the Pequod's company, be it said, that +at the present day not one in two of the many thousand men before the +mast employed in the American whale fishery, are Americans born, though +pretty nearly all the officers are. Herein it is the same with the +American whale fishery as with the American army and military and +merchant navies, and the engineering forces employed in the construction +of the American Canals and Railroads. The same, I say, because in all +these cases the native American liberally provides the brains, the rest +of the world as generously supplying the muscles. No small number of +these whaling seamen belong to the Azores, where the outward bound +Nantucket whalers frequently touch to augment their crews from the hardy +peasants of those rocky shores. In like manner, the Greenland whalers +sailing out of Hull or London, put in at the Shetland Islands, to +receive the full complement of their crew. Upon the passage homewards, +they drop them there again. How it is, there is no telling, but +Islanders seem to make the best whalemen. They were nearly all Islanders +in the Pequod, ISOLATOES too, I call such, not acknowledging the common +continent of men, but each ISOLATO living on a separate continent of his +own. Yet now, federated along one keel, what a set these Isolatoes were! +An Anacharsis Clootz deputation from all the isles of the sea, and all +the ends of the earth, accompanying Old Ahab in the Pequod to lay the +world's grievances before that bar from which not very many of them ever +come back. Black Little Pip--he never did--oh, no! he went before. Poor +Alabama boy! On the grim Pequod's forecastle, ye shall ere long see him, +beating his tambourine; prelusive of the eternal time, when sent for, +to the great quarter-deck on high, he was bid strike in with angels, and +beat his tambourine in glory; called a coward here, hailed a hero there! + + + +CHAPTER 28. Ahab. + + +For several days after leaving Nantucket, nothing above hatches was seen +of Captain Ahab. The mates regularly relieved each other at the watches, +and for aught that could be seen to the contrary, they seemed to be the +only commanders of the ship; only they sometimes issued from the cabin +with orders so sudden and peremptory, that after all it was plain they +but commanded vicariously. Yes, their supreme lord and dictator was +there, though hitherto unseen by any eyes not permitted to penetrate +into the now sacred retreat of the cabin. + +Every time I ascended to the deck from my watches below, I instantly +gazed aft to mark if any strange face were visible; for my first vague +disquietude touching the unknown captain, now in the seclusion of the +sea, became almost a perturbation. This was strangely heightened +at times by the ragged Elijah's diabolical incoherences uninvitedly +recurring to me, with a subtle energy I could not have before conceived +of. But poorly could I withstand them, much as in other moods I was +almost ready to smile at the solemn whimsicalities of that outlandish +prophet of the wharves. But whatever it was of apprehensiveness or +uneasiness--to call it so--which I felt, yet whenever I came to look +about me in the ship, it seemed against all warrantry to cherish such +emotions. For though the harpooneers, with the great body of the crew, +were a far more barbaric, heathenish, and motley set than any of the +tame merchant-ship companies which my previous experiences had made me +acquainted with, still I ascribed this--and rightly ascribed it--to the +fierce uniqueness of the very nature of that wild Scandinavian vocation +in which I had so abandonedly embarked. But it was especially the aspect +of the three chief officers of the ship, the mates, which was most +forcibly calculated to allay these colourless misgivings, and induce +confidence and cheerfulness in every presentment of the voyage. Three +better, more likely sea-officers and men, each in his own different way, +could not readily be found, and they were every one of them Americans; a +Nantucketer, a Vineyarder, a Cape man. Now, it being Christmas when the +ship shot from out her harbor, for a space we had biting Polar weather, +though all the time running away from it to the southward; and by every +degree and minute of latitude which we sailed, gradually leaving that +merciless winter, and all its intolerable weather behind us. It was one +of those less lowering, but still grey and gloomy enough mornings of the +transition, when with a fair wind the ship was rushing through the water +with a vindictive sort of leaping and melancholy rapidity, that as I +mounted to the deck at the call of the forenoon watch, so soon as I +levelled my glance towards the taffrail, foreboding shivers ran over me. +Reality outran apprehension; Captain Ahab stood upon his quarter-deck. + +There seemed no sign of common bodily illness about him, nor of the +recovery from any. He looked like a man cut away from the stake, when +the fire has overrunningly wasted all the limbs without consuming them, +or taking away one particle from their compacted aged robustness. His +whole high, broad form, seemed made of solid bronze, and shaped in an +unalterable mould, like Cellini's cast Perseus. Threading its way out +from among his grey hairs, and continuing right down one side of his +tawny scorched face and neck, till it disappeared in his clothing, +you saw a slender rod-like mark, lividly whitish. It resembled that +perpendicular seam sometimes made in the straight, lofty trunk of +a great tree, when the upper lightning tearingly darts down it, and +without wrenching a single twig, peels and grooves out the bark from top +to bottom, ere running off into the soil, leaving the tree still greenly +alive, but branded. Whether that mark was born with him, or whether it +was the scar left by some desperate wound, no one could certainly say. +By some tacit consent, throughout the voyage little or no allusion was +made to it, especially by the mates. But once Tashtego's senior, an old +Gay-Head Indian among the crew, superstitiously asserted that not till +he was full forty years old did Ahab become that way branded, and +then it came upon him, not in the fury of any mortal fray, but in +an elemental strife at sea. Yet, this wild hint seemed inferentially +negatived, by what a grey Manxman insinuated, an old sepulchral man, +who, having never before sailed out of Nantucket, had never ere this +laid eye upon wild Ahab. Nevertheless, the old sea-traditions, the +immemorial credulities, popularly invested this old Manxman with +preternatural powers of discernment. So that no white sailor seriously +contradicted him when he said that if ever Captain Ahab should +be tranquilly laid out--which might hardly come to pass, so he +muttered--then, whoever should do that last office for the dead, would +find a birth-mark on him from crown to sole. + +So powerfully did the whole grim aspect of Ahab affect me, and the livid +brand which streaked it, that for the first few moments I hardly noted +that not a little of this overbearing grimness was owing to the barbaric +white leg upon which he partly stood. It had previously come to me that +this ivory leg had at sea been fashioned from the polished bone of +the sperm whale's jaw. "Aye, he was dismasted off Japan," said the old +Gay-Head Indian once; "but like his dismasted craft, he shipped another +mast without coming home for it. He has a quiver of 'em." + +I was struck with the singular posture he maintained. Upon each side of +the Pequod's quarter deck, and pretty close to the mizzen shrouds, there +was an auger hole, bored about half an inch or so, into the plank. +His bone leg steadied in that hole; one arm elevated, and holding by a +shroud; Captain Ahab stood erect, looking straight out beyond the +ship's ever-pitching prow. There was an infinity of firmest fortitude, +a determinate, unsurrenderable wilfulness, in the fixed and fearless, +forward dedication of that glance. Not a word he spoke; nor did his +officers say aught to him; though by all their minutest gestures +and expressions, they plainly showed the uneasy, if not painful, +consciousness of being under a troubled master-eye. And not only that, +but moody stricken Ahab stood before them with a crucifixion in his +face; in all the nameless regal overbearing dignity of some mighty woe. + +Ere long, from his first visit in the air, he withdrew into his cabin. +But after that morning, he was every day visible to the crew; either +standing in his pivot-hole, or seated upon an ivory stool he had; or +heavily walking the deck. As the sky grew less gloomy; indeed, began to +grow a little genial, he became still less and less a recluse; as +if, when the ship had sailed from home, nothing but the dead wintry +bleakness of the sea had then kept him so secluded. And, by and by, it +came to pass, that he was almost continually in the air; but, as yet, +for all that he said, or perceptibly did, on the at last sunny deck, +he seemed as unnecessary there as another mast. But the Pequod was +only making a passage now; not regularly cruising; nearly all whaling +preparatives needing supervision the mates were fully competent to, so +that there was little or nothing, out of himself, to employ or excite +Ahab, now; and thus chase away, for that one interval, the clouds that +layer upon layer were piled upon his brow, as ever all clouds choose the +loftiest peaks to pile themselves upon. + +Nevertheless, ere long, the warm, warbling persuasiveness of the +pleasant, holiday weather we came to, seemed gradually to charm him from +his mood. For, as when the red-cheeked, dancing girls, April and May, +trip home to the wintry, misanthropic woods; even the barest, ruggedest, +most thunder-cloven old oak will at least send forth some few green +sprouts, to welcome such glad-hearted visitants; so Ahab did, in the +end, a little respond to the playful allurings of that girlish air. More +than once did he put forth the faint blossom of a look, which, in any +other man, would have soon flowered out in a smile. + + + +CHAPTER 29. Enter Ahab; to Him, Stubb. + + +Some days elapsed, and ice and icebergs all astern, the Pequod now +went rolling through the bright Quito spring, which, at sea, almost +perpetually reigns on the threshold of the eternal August of the Tropic. +The warmly cool, clear, ringing, perfumed, overflowing, redundant days, +were as crystal goblets of Persian sherbet, heaped up--flaked up, with +rose-water snow. The starred and stately nights seemed haughty dames in +jewelled velvets, nursing at home in lonely pride, the memory of their +absent conquering Earls, the golden helmeted suns! For sleeping man, +'twas hard to choose between such winsome days and such seducing nights. +But all the witcheries of that unwaning weather did not merely lend new +spells and potencies to the outward world. Inward they turned upon the +soul, especially when the still mild hours of eve came on; then, memory +shot her crystals as the clear ice most forms of noiseless twilights. +And all these subtle agencies, more and more they wrought on Ahab's +texture. + +Old age is always wakeful; as if, the longer linked with life, the less +man has to do with aught that looks like death. Among sea-commanders, +the old greybeards will oftenest leave their berths to visit the +night-cloaked deck. It was so with Ahab; only that now, of late, he +seemed so much to live in the open air, that truly speaking, his visits +were more to the cabin, than from the cabin to the planks. "It feels +like going down into one's tomb,"--he would mutter to himself--"for an +old captain like me to be descending this narrow scuttle, to go to my +grave-dug berth." + +So, almost every twenty-four hours, when the watches of the night were +set, and the band on deck sentinelled the slumbers of the band below; +and when if a rope was to be hauled upon the forecastle, the sailors +flung it not rudely down, as by day, but with some cautiousness dropt +it to its place for fear of disturbing their slumbering shipmates; when +this sort of steady quietude would begin to prevail, habitually, the +silent steersman would watch the cabin-scuttle; and ere long the old man +would emerge, gripping at the iron banister, to help his crippled way. +Some considering touch of humanity was in him; for at times like these, +he usually abstained from patrolling the quarter-deck; because to his +wearied mates, seeking repose within six inches of his ivory heel, such +would have been the reverberating crack and din of that bony step, that +their dreams would have been on the crunching teeth of sharks. But once, +the mood was on him too deep for common regardings; and as with heavy, +lumber-like pace he was measuring the ship from taffrail to mainmast, +Stubb, the old second mate, came up from below, with a certain +unassured, deprecating humorousness, hinted that if Captain Ahab was +pleased to walk the planks, then, no one could say nay; but there might +be some way of muffling the noise; hinting something indistinctly and +hesitatingly about a globe of tow, and the insertion into it, of the +ivory heel. Ah! Stubb, thou didst not know Ahab then. + +"Am I a cannon-ball, Stubb," said Ahab, "that thou wouldst wad me that +fashion? But go thy ways; I had forgot. Below to thy nightly grave; +where such as ye sleep between shrouds, to use ye to the filling one at +last.--Down, dog, and kennel!" + +Starting at the unforseen concluding exclamation of the so suddenly +scornful old man, Stubb was speechless a moment; then said excitedly, "I +am not used to be spoken to that way, sir; I do but less than half like +it, sir." + +"Avast! gritted Ahab between his set teeth, and violently moving away, +as if to avoid some passionate temptation. + +"No, sir; not yet," said Stubb, emboldened, "I will not tamely be called +a dog, sir." + +"Then be called ten times a donkey, and a mule, and an ass, and begone, +or I'll clear the world of thee!" + +As he said this, Ahab advanced upon him with such overbearing terrors in +his aspect, that Stubb involuntarily retreated. + +"I was never served so before without giving a hard blow for it," +muttered Stubb, as he found himself descending the cabin-scuttle. "It's +very queer. Stop, Stubb; somehow, now, I don't well know whether to go +back and strike him, or--what's that?--down here on my knees and pray +for him? Yes, that was the thought coming up in me; but it would be the +first time I ever DID pray. It's queer; very queer; and he's queer too; +aye, take him fore and aft, he's about the queerest old man Stubb ever +sailed with. How he flashed at me!--his eyes like powder-pans! is he +mad? Anyway there's something on his mind, as sure as there must be +something on a deck when it cracks. He aint in his bed now, either, more +than three hours out of the twenty-four; and he don't sleep then. Didn't +that Dough-Boy, the steward, tell me that of a morning he always finds +the old man's hammock clothes all rumpled and tumbled, and the sheets +down at the foot, and the coverlid almost tied into knots, and the +pillow a sort of frightful hot, as though a baked brick had been on +it? A hot old man! I guess he's got what some folks ashore call +a conscience; it's a kind of Tic-Dolly-row they say--worse nor a +toothache. Well, well; I don't know what it is, but the Lord keep me +from catching it. He's full of riddles; I wonder what he goes into the +after hold for, every night, as Dough-Boy tells me he suspects; what's +that for, I should like to know? Who's made appointments with him in +the hold? Ain't that queer, now? But there's no telling, it's the old +game--Here goes for a snooze. Damn me, it's worth a fellow's while to be +born into the world, if only to fall right asleep. And now that I think +of it, that's about the first thing babies do, and that's a sort of +queer, too. Damn me, but all things are queer, come to think of 'em. But +that's against my principles. Think not, is my eleventh commandment; and +sleep when you can, is my twelfth--So here goes again. But how's that? +didn't he call me a dog? blazes! he called me ten times a donkey, and +piled a lot of jackasses on top of THAT! He might as well have kicked +me, and done with it. Maybe he DID kick me, and I didn't observe it, +I was so taken all aback with his brow, somehow. It flashed like a +bleached bone. What the devil's the matter with me? I don't stand right +on my legs. Coming afoul of that old man has a sort of turned me wrong +side out. By the Lord, I must have been dreaming, though--How? how? +how?--but the only way's to stash it; so here goes to hammock again; +and in the morning, I'll see how this plaguey juggling thinks over by +daylight." + + + +CHAPTER 30. The Pipe. + + +When Stubb had departed, Ahab stood for a while leaning over the +bulwarks; and then, as had been usual with him of late, calling a sailor +of the watch, he sent him below for his ivory stool, and also his pipe. +Lighting the pipe at the binnacle lamp and planting the stool on the +weather side of the deck, he sat and smoked. + +In old Norse times, the thrones of the sea-loving Danish kings were +fabricated, saith tradition, of the tusks of the narwhale. How could one +look at Ahab then, seated on that tripod of bones, without bethinking +him of the royalty it symbolized? For a Khan of the plank, and a king of +the sea, and a great lord of Leviathans was Ahab. + +Some moments passed, during which the thick vapour came from his mouth +in quick and constant puffs, which blew back again into his face. "How +now," he soliloquized at last, withdrawing the tube, "this smoking no +longer soothes. Oh, my pipe! hard must it go with me if thy charm be +gone! Here have I been unconsciously toiling, not pleasuring--aye, and +ignorantly smoking to windward all the while; to windward, and with +such nervous whiffs, as if, like the dying whale, my final jets were the +strongest and fullest of trouble. What business have I with this pipe? +This thing that is meant for sereneness, to send up mild white vapours +among mild white hairs, not among torn iron-grey locks like mine. I'll +smoke no more--" + +He tossed the still lighted pipe into the sea. The fire hissed in the +waves; the same instant the ship shot by the bubble the sinking pipe +made. With slouched hat, Ahab lurchingly paced the planks. + + + +CHAPTER 31. Queen Mab. + + +Next morning Stubb accosted Flask. + +"Such a queer dream, King-Post, I never had. You know the old man's +ivory leg, well I dreamed he kicked me with it; and when I tried to kick +back, upon my soul, my little man, I kicked my leg right off! And then, +presto! Ahab seemed a pyramid, and I, like a blazing fool, kept kicking +at it. But what was still more curious, Flask--you know how curious all +dreams are--through all this rage that I was in, I somehow seemed to be +thinking to myself, that after all, it was not much of an insult, that +kick from Ahab. 'Why,' thinks I, 'what's the row? It's not a real leg, +only a false leg.' And there's a mighty difference between a living +thump and a dead thump. That's what makes a blow from the hand, Flask, +fifty times more savage to bear than a blow from a cane. The living +member--that makes the living insult, my little man. And thinks I to +myself all the while, mind, while I was stubbing my silly toes against +that cursed pyramid--so confoundedly contradictory was it all, all +the while, I say, I was thinking to myself, 'what's his leg now, but +a cane--a whalebone cane. Yes,' thinks I, 'it was only a playful +cudgelling--in fact, only a whaleboning that he gave me--not a base +kick. Besides,' thinks I, 'look at it once; why, the end of it--the foot +part--what a small sort of end it is; whereas, if a broad footed farmer +kicked me, THERE'S a devilish broad insult. But this insult is whittled +down to a point only.' But now comes the greatest joke of the +dream, Flask. While I was battering away at the pyramid, a sort of +badger-haired old merman, with a hump on his back, takes me by the +shoulders, and slews me round. 'What are you 'bout?' says he. Slid! man, +but I was frightened. Such a phiz! But, somehow, next moment I was over +the fright. 'What am I about?' says I at last. 'And what business is +that of yours, I should like to know, Mr. Humpback? Do YOU want a kick?' +By the lord, Flask, I had no sooner said that, than he turned round his +stern to me, bent over, and dragging up a lot of seaweed he had for a +clout--what do you think, I saw?--why thunder alive, man, his stern +was stuck full of marlinspikes, with the points out. Says I, on second +thoughts, 'I guess I won't kick you, old fellow.' 'Wise Stubb,' said he, +'wise Stubb;' and kept muttering it all the time, a sort of eating of +his own gums like a chimney hag. Seeing he wasn't going to stop saying +over his 'wise Stubb, wise Stubb,' I thought I might as well fall to +kicking the pyramid again. But I had only just lifted my foot for it, +when he roared out, 'Stop that kicking!' 'Halloa,' says I, 'what's +the matter now, old fellow?' 'Look ye here,' says he; 'let's argue +the insult. Captain Ahab kicked ye, didn't he?' 'Yes, he did,' says +I--'right HERE it was.' 'Very good,' says he--'he used his ivory leg, +didn't he?' 'Yes, he did,' says I. 'Well then,' says he, 'wise Stubb, +what have you to complain of? Didn't he kick with right good will? it +wasn't a common pitch pine leg he kicked with, was it? No, you were +kicked by a great man, and with a beautiful ivory leg, Stubb. It's an +honour; I consider it an honour. Listen, wise Stubb. In old England the +greatest lords think it great glory to be slapped by a queen, and made +garter-knights of; but, be YOUR boast, Stubb, that ye were kicked by +old Ahab, and made a wise man of. Remember what I say; BE kicked by him; +account his kicks honours; and on no account kick back; for you can't +help yourself, wise Stubb. Don't you see that pyramid?' With that, he +all of a sudden seemed somehow, in some queer fashion, to swim off into +the air. I snored; rolled over; and there I was in my hammock! Now, what +do you think of that dream, Flask?" + +"I don't know; it seems a sort of foolish to me, tho.'" + +"May be; may be. But it's made a wise man of me, Flask. D'ye see Ahab +standing there, sideways looking over the stern? Well, the best thing +you can do, Flask, is to let the old man alone; never speak to him, +whatever he says. Halloa! What's that he shouts? Hark!" + +"Mast-head, there! Look sharp, all of ye! There are whales hereabouts! + +"If ye see a white one, split your lungs for him! + +"What do you think of that now, Flask? ain't there a small drop of +something queer about that, eh? A white whale--did ye mark that, man? +Look ye--there's something special in the wind. Stand by for it, Flask. +Ahab has that that's bloody on his mind. But, mum; he comes this way." + + + +CHAPTER 32. Cetology. + + +Already we are boldly launched upon the deep; but soon we shall be lost +in its unshored, harbourless immensities. Ere that come to pass; ere the +Pequod's weedy hull rolls side by side with the barnacled hulls of the +leviathan; at the outset it is but well to attend to a matter almost +indispensable to a thorough appreciative understanding of the more +special leviathanic revelations and allusions of all sorts which are to +follow. + +It is some systematized exhibition of the whale in his broad genera, +that I would now fain put before you. Yet is it no easy task. The +classification of the constituents of a chaos, nothing less is here +essayed. Listen to what the best and latest authorities have laid down. + +"No branch of Zoology is so much involved as that which is entitled +Cetology," says Captain Scoresby, A.D. 1820. + +"It is not my intention, were it in my power, to enter into the +inquiry as to the true method of dividing the cetacea into groups and +families.... Utter confusion exists among the historians of this animal" +(sperm whale), says Surgeon Beale, A.D. 1839. + +"Unfitness to pursue our research in the unfathomable waters." +"Impenetrable veil covering our knowledge of the cetacea." "A field +strewn with thorns." "All these incomplete indications but serve to +torture us naturalists." + +Thus speak of the whale, the great Cuvier, and John Hunter, and Lesson, +those lights of zoology and anatomy. Nevertheless, though of real +knowledge there be little, yet of books there are a plenty; and so in +some small degree, with cetology, or the science of whales. Many are +the men, small and great, old and new, landsmen and seamen, who have at +large or in little, written of the whale. Run over a few:--The Authors +of the Bible; Aristotle; Pliny; Aldrovandi; Sir Thomas Browne; Gesner; +Ray; Linnaeus; Rondeletius; Willoughby; Green; Artedi; Sibbald; Brisson; +Marten; Lacepede; Bonneterre; Desmarest; Baron Cuvier; Frederick Cuvier; +John Hunter; Owen; Scoresby; Beale; Bennett; J. Ross Browne; the +Author of Miriam Coffin; Olmstead; and the Rev. T. Cheever. But to what +ultimate generalizing purpose all these have written, the above cited +extracts will show. + +Of the names in this list of whale authors, only those following Owen +ever saw living whales; and but one of them was a real professional +harpooneer and whaleman. I mean Captain Scoresby. On the separate +subject of the Greenland or right-whale, he is the best existing +authority. But Scoresby knew nothing and says nothing of the great +sperm whale, compared with which the Greenland whale is almost unworthy +mentioning. And here be it said, that the Greenland whale is an usurper +upon the throne of the seas. He is not even by any means the largest +of the whales. Yet, owing to the long priority of his claims, and the +profound ignorance which, till some seventy years back, invested the +then fabulous or utterly unknown sperm-whale, and which ignorance to +this present day still reigns in all but some few scientific retreats +and whale-ports; this usurpation has been every way complete. Reference +to nearly all the leviathanic allusions in the great poets of past days, +will satisfy you that the Greenland whale, without one rival, was to +them the monarch of the seas. But the time has at last come for a new +proclamation. This is Charing Cross; hear ye! good people all,--the +Greenland whale is deposed,--the great sperm whale now reigneth! + +There are only two books in being which at all pretend to put the living +sperm whale before you, and at the same time, in the remotest degree +succeed in the attempt. Those books are Beale's and Bennett's; both in +their time surgeons to English South-Sea whale-ships, and both exact and +reliable men. The original matter touching the sperm whale to be found +in their volumes is necessarily small; but so far as it goes, it is of +excellent quality, though mostly confined to scientific description. As +yet, however, the sperm whale, scientific or poetic, lives not complete +in any literature. Far above all other hunted whales, his is an +unwritten life. + +Now the various species of whales need some sort of popular +comprehensive classification, if only an easy outline one for the +present, hereafter to be filled in all its departments by subsequent +laborers. As no better man advances to take this matter in hand, I +hereupon offer my own poor endeavors. I promise nothing complete; +because any human thing supposed to be complete, must for that very +reason infallibly be faulty. I shall not pretend to a minute anatomical +description of the various species, or--in this place at least--to much +of any description. My object here is simply to project the draught of a +systematization of cetology. I am the architect, not the builder. + +But it is a ponderous task; no ordinary letter-sorter in the Post-Office +is equal to it. To grope down into the bottom of the sea after them; +to have one's hands among the unspeakable foundations, ribs, and very +pelvis of the world; this is a fearful thing. What am I that I should +essay to hook the nose of this leviathan! The awful tauntings in Job +might well appal me. Will he (the leviathan) make a covenant with thee? +Behold the hope of him is vain! But I have swam through libraries and +sailed through oceans; I have had to do with whales with these visible +hands; I am in earnest; and I will try. There are some preliminaries to +settle. + +First: The uncertain, unsettled condition of this science of Cetology +is in the very vestibule attested by the fact, that in some quarters it +still remains a moot point whether a whale be a fish. In his System of +Nature, A.D. 1776, Linnaeus declares, "I hereby separate the whales from +the fish." But of my own knowledge, I know that down to the year 1850, +sharks and shad, alewives and herring, against Linnaeus's express edict, +were still found dividing the possession of the same seas with the +Leviathan. + +The grounds upon which Linnaeus would fain have banished the whales from +the waters, he states as follows: "On account of their warm bilocular +heart, their lungs, their movable eyelids, their hollow ears, penem +intrantem feminam mammis lactantem," and finally, "ex lege naturae jure +meritoque." I submitted all this to my friends Simeon Macey and Charley +Coffin, of Nantucket, both messmates of mine in a certain voyage, and +they united in the opinion that the reasons set forth were altogether +insufficient. Charley profanely hinted they were humbug. + +Be it known that, waiving all argument, I take the good old fashioned +ground that the whale is a fish, and call upon holy Jonah to back me. +This fundamental thing settled, the next point is, in what internal +respect does the whale differ from other fish. Above, Linnaeus has given +you those items. But in brief, they are these: lungs and warm blood; +whereas, all other fish are lungless and cold blooded. + +Next: how shall we define the whale, by his obvious externals, so as +conspicuously to label him for all time to come? To be short, then, a +whale is A SPOUTING FISH WITH A HORIZONTAL TAIL. There you have +him. However contracted, that definition is the result of expanded +meditation. A walrus spouts much like a whale, but the walrus is not a +fish, because he is amphibious. But the last term of the definition is +still more cogent, as coupled with the first. Almost any one must have +noticed that all the fish familiar to landsmen have not a flat, but a +vertical, or up-and-down tail. Whereas, among spouting fish the tail, +though it may be similarly shaped, invariably assumes a horizontal +position. + +By the above definition of what a whale is, I do by no means exclude +from the leviathanic brotherhood any sea creature hitherto identified +with the whale by the best informed Nantucketers; nor, on the other +hand, link with it any fish hitherto authoritatively regarded as alien.* +Hence, all the smaller, spouting, and horizontal tailed fish must be +included in this ground-plan of Cetology. Now, then, come the grand +divisions of the entire whale host. + + +*I am aware that down to the present time, the fish styled Lamatins and +Dugongs (Pig-fish and Sow-fish of the Coffins of Nantucket) are included +by many naturalists among the whales. But as these pig-fish are a noisy, +contemptible set, mostly lurking in the mouths of rivers, and feeding on +wet hay, and especially as they do not spout, I deny their credentials +as whales; and have presented them with their passports to quit the +Kingdom of Cetology. + + +First: According to magnitude I divide the whales into three primary +BOOKS (subdivisible into CHAPTERS), and these shall comprehend them all, +both small and large. + +I. THE FOLIO WHALE; II. the OCTAVO WHALE; III. the DUODECIMO WHALE. + +As the type of the FOLIO I present the SPERM WHALE; of the OCTAVO, the +GRAMPUS; of the DUODECIMO, the PORPOISE. + +FOLIOS. Among these I here include the following chapters:--I. The SPERM +WHALE; II. the RIGHT WHALE; III. the FIN-BACK WHALE; IV. the HUMP-BACKED +WHALE; V. the RAZOR-BACK WHALE; VI. the SULPHUR-BOTTOM WHALE. + +BOOK I. (FOLIO), CHAPTER I. (SPERM WHALE).--This whale, among the +English of old vaguely known as the Trumpa whale, and the Physeter +whale, and the Anvil Headed whale, is the present Cachalot of the +French, and the Pottsfich of the Germans, and the Macrocephalus of the +Long Words. He is, without doubt, the largest inhabitant of the globe; +the most formidable of all whales to encounter; the most majestic in +aspect; and lastly, by far the most valuable in commerce; he being +the only creature from which that valuable substance, spermaceti, is +obtained. All his peculiarities will, in many other places, be enlarged +upon. It is chiefly with his name that I now have to do. Philologically +considered, it is absurd. Some centuries ago, when the Sperm whale was +almost wholly unknown in his own proper individuality, and when his oil +was only accidentally obtained from the stranded fish; in those days +spermaceti, it would seem, was popularly supposed to be derived from a +creature identical with the one then known in England as the Greenland +or Right Whale. It was the idea also, that this same spermaceti was that +quickening humor of the Greenland Whale which the first syllable of +the word literally expresses. In those times, also, spermaceti was +exceedingly scarce, not being used for light, but only as an ointment +and medicament. It was only to be had from the druggists as you nowadays +buy an ounce of rhubarb. When, as I opine, in the course of time, the +true nature of spermaceti became known, its original name was still +retained by the dealers; no doubt to enhance its value by a notion so +strangely significant of its scarcity. And so the appellation must at +last have come to be bestowed upon the whale from which this spermaceti +was really derived. + +BOOK I. (FOLIO), CHAPTER II. (RIGHT WHALE).--In one respect this is the +most venerable of the leviathans, being the one first regularly hunted +by man. It yields the article commonly known as whalebone or baleen; and +the oil specially known as "whale oil," an inferior article in commerce. +Among the fishermen, he is indiscriminately designated by all the +following titles: The Whale; the Greenland Whale; the Black Whale; +the Great Whale; the True Whale; the Right Whale. There is a deal of +obscurity concerning the identity of the species thus multitudinously +baptised. What then is the whale, which I include in the second species +of my Folios? It is the Great Mysticetus of the English naturalists; the +Greenland Whale of the English whalemen; the Baleine Ordinaire of the +French whalemen; the Growlands Walfish of the Swedes. It is the whale +which for more than two centuries past has been hunted by the Dutch and +English in the Arctic seas; it is the whale which the American fishermen +have long pursued in the Indian ocean, on the Brazil Banks, on the Nor' +West Coast, and various other parts of the world, designated by them +Right Whale Cruising Grounds. + +Some pretend to see a difference between the Greenland whale of the +English and the right whale of the Americans. But they precisely agree +in all their grand features; nor has there yet been presented a single +determinate fact upon which to ground a radical distinction. It is by +endless subdivisions based upon the most inconclusive differences, that +some departments of natural history become so repellingly intricate. The +right whale will be elsewhere treated of at some length, with reference +to elucidating the sperm whale. + +BOOK I. (FOLIO), CHAPTER III. (FIN-BACK).--Under this head I reckon +a monster which, by the various names of Fin-Back, Tall-Spout, and +Long-John, has been seen almost in every sea and is commonly the whale +whose distant jet is so often descried by passengers crossing the +Atlantic, in the New York packet-tracks. In the length he attains, and +in his baleen, the Fin-back resembles the right whale, but is of a less +portly girth, and a lighter colour, approaching to olive. His great lips +present a cable-like aspect, formed by the intertwisting, slanting folds +of large wrinkles. His grand distinguishing feature, the fin, from which +he derives his name, is often a conspicuous object. This fin is some +three or four feet long, growing vertically from the hinder part of the +back, of an angular shape, and with a very sharp pointed end. Even if +not the slightest other part of the creature be visible, this isolated +fin will, at times, be seen plainly projecting from the surface. When +the sea is moderately calm, and slightly marked with spherical ripples, +and this gnomon-like fin stands up and casts shadows upon the wrinkled +surface, it may well be supposed that the watery circle surrounding it +somewhat resembles a dial, with its style and wavy hour-lines graved on +it. On that Ahaz-dial the shadow often goes back. The Fin-Back is not +gregarious. He seems a whale-hater, as some men are man-haters. Very +shy; always going solitary; unexpectedly rising to the surface in the +remotest and most sullen waters; his straight and single lofty jet +rising like a tall misanthropic spear upon a barren plain; gifted with +such wondrous power and velocity in swimming, as to defy all present +pursuit from man; this leviathan seems the banished and unconquerable +Cain of his race, bearing for his mark that style upon his back. From +having the baleen in his mouth, the Fin-Back is sometimes included with +the right whale, among a theoretic species denominated WHALEBONE WHALES, +that is, whales with baleen. Of these so called Whalebone whales, there +would seem to be several varieties, most of which, however, are little +known. Broad-nosed whales and beaked whales; pike-headed whales; bunched +whales; under-jawed whales and rostrated whales, are the fishermen's +names for a few sorts. + +In connection with this appellative of "Whalebone whales," it is of +great importance to mention, that however such a nomenclature may be +convenient in facilitating allusions to some kind of whales, yet it is +in vain to attempt a clear classification of the Leviathan, founded upon +either his baleen, or hump, or fin, or teeth; notwithstanding that those +marked parts or features very obviously seem better adapted to afford +the basis for a regular system of Cetology than any other detached +bodily distinctions, which the whale, in his kinds, presents. How +then? The baleen, hump, back-fin, and teeth; these are things whose +peculiarities are indiscriminately dispersed among all sorts of whales, +without any regard to what may be the nature of their structure in other +and more essential particulars. Thus, the sperm whale and the humpbacked +whale, each has a hump; but there the similitude ceases. Then, this same +humpbacked whale and the Greenland whale, each of these has baleen; +but there again the similitude ceases. And it is just the same with the +other parts above mentioned. In various sorts of whales, they form such +irregular combinations; or, in the case of any one of them detached, +such an irregular isolation; as utterly to defy all general +methodization formed upon such a basis. On this rock every one of the +whale-naturalists has split. + +But it may possibly be conceived that, in the internal parts of the +whale, in his anatomy--there, at least, we shall be able to hit the +right classification. Nay; what thing, for example, is there in the +Greenland whale's anatomy more striking than his baleen? Yet we have +seen that by his baleen it is impossible correctly to classify the +Greenland whale. And if you descend into the bowels of the various +leviathans, why there you will not find distinctions a fiftieth part as +available to the systematizer as those external ones already enumerated. +What then remains? nothing but to take hold of the whales bodily, in +their entire liberal volume, and boldly sort them that way. And this is +the Bibliographical system here adopted; and it is the only one that can +possibly succeed, for it alone is practicable. To proceed. + +BOOK I. (FOLIO) CHAPTER IV. (HUMP-BACK).--This whale is often seen on +the northern American coast. He has been frequently captured there, and +towed into harbor. He has a great pack on him like a peddler; or you +might call him the Elephant and Castle whale. At any rate, the popular +name for him does not sufficiently distinguish him, since the sperm +whale also has a hump though a smaller one. His oil is not very +valuable. He has baleen. He is the most gamesome and light-hearted of +all the whales, making more gay foam and white water generally than any +other of them. + +BOOK I. (FOLIO), CHAPTER V. (RAZOR-BACK).--Of this whale little is known +but his name. I have seen him at a distance off Cape Horn. Of a retiring +nature, he eludes both hunters and philosophers. Though no coward, he +has never yet shown any part of him but his back, which rises in a long +sharp ridge. Let him go. I know little more of him, nor does anybody +else. + +BOOK I. (FOLIO), CHAPTER VI. (SULPHUR-BOTTOM).--Another retiring +gentleman, with a brimstone belly, doubtless got by scraping along the +Tartarian tiles in some of his profounder divings. He is seldom seen; +at least I have never seen him except in the remoter southern seas, +and then always at too great a distance to study his countenance. He is +never chased; he would run away with rope-walks of line. Prodigies are +told of him. Adieu, Sulphur Bottom! I can say nothing more that is true +of ye, nor can the oldest Nantucketer. + +Thus ends BOOK I. (FOLIO), and now begins BOOK II. (OCTAVO). + +OCTAVOES.*--These embrace the whales of middling magnitude, among which +present may be numbered:--I., the GRAMPUS; II., the BLACK FISH; III., +the NARWHALE; IV., the THRASHER; V., the KILLER. + + +*Why this book of whales is not denominated the Quarto is very plain. +Because, while the whales of this order, though smaller than those of +the former order, nevertheless retain a proportionate likeness to them +in figure, yet the bookbinder's Quarto volume in its dimensioned form +does not preserve the shape of the Folio volume, but the Octavo volume +does. + + +BOOK II. (OCTAVO), CHAPTER I. (GRAMPUS).--Though this fish, whose +loud sonorous breathing, or rather blowing, has furnished a proverb +to landsmen, is so well known a denizen of the deep, yet is he not +popularly classed among whales. But possessing all the grand distinctive +features of the leviathan, most naturalists have recognised him for one. +He is of moderate octavo size, varying from fifteen to twenty-five feet +in length, and of corresponding dimensions round the waist. He swims in +herds; he is never regularly hunted, though his oil is considerable in +quantity, and pretty good for light. By some fishermen his approach is +regarded as premonitory of the advance of the great sperm whale. + +BOOK II. (OCTAVO), CHAPTER II. (BLACK FISH).--I give the popular +fishermen's names for all these fish, for generally they are the best. +Where any name happens to be vague or inexpressive, I shall say so, +and suggest another. I do so now, touching the Black Fish, so-called, +because blackness is the rule among almost all whales. So, call him the +Hyena Whale, if you please. His voracity is well known, and from the +circumstance that the inner angles of his lips are curved upwards, he +carries an everlasting Mephistophelean grin on his face. This whale +averages some sixteen or eighteen feet in length. He is found in almost +all latitudes. He has a peculiar way of showing his dorsal hooked fin +in swimming, which looks something like a Roman nose. When not more +profitably employed, the sperm whale hunters sometimes capture the Hyena +whale, to keep up the supply of cheap oil for domestic employment--as +some frugal housekeepers, in the absence of company, and quite alone by +themselves, burn unsavory tallow instead of odorous wax. Though their +blubber is very thin, some of these whales will yield you upwards of +thirty gallons of oil. + +BOOK II. (OCTAVO), CHAPTER III. (NARWHALE), that is, NOSTRIL +WHALE.--Another instance of a curiously named whale, so named I suppose +from his peculiar horn being originally mistaken for a peaked nose. The +creature is some sixteen feet in length, while its horn averages five +feet, though some exceed ten, and even attain to fifteen feet. Strictly +speaking, this horn is but a lengthened tusk, growing out from the jaw +in a line a little depressed from the horizontal. But it is only +found on the sinister side, which has an ill effect, giving its owner +something analogous to the aspect of a clumsy left-handed man. What +precise purpose this ivory horn or lance answers, it would be hard to +say. It does not seem to be used like the blade of the sword-fish and +bill-fish; though some sailors tell me that the Narwhale employs it for +a rake in turning over the bottom of the sea for food. Charley Coffin +said it was used for an ice-piercer; for the Narwhale, rising to the +surface of the Polar Sea, and finding it sheeted with ice, thrusts his +horn up, and so breaks through. But you cannot prove either of these +surmises to be correct. My own opinion is, that however this one-sided +horn may really be used by the Narwhale--however that may be--it would +certainly be very convenient to him for a folder in reading pamphlets. +The Narwhale I have heard called the Tusked whale, the Horned whale, and +the Unicorn whale. He is certainly a curious example of the Unicornism +to be found in almost every kingdom of animated nature. From certain +cloistered old authors I have gathered that this same sea-unicorn's horn +was in ancient days regarded as the great antidote against poison, +and as such, preparations of it brought immense prices. It was also +distilled to a volatile salts for fainting ladies, the same way that the +horns of the male deer are manufactured into hartshorn. Originally it +was in itself accounted an object of great curiosity. Black Letter tells +me that Sir Martin Frobisher on his return from that voyage, when +Queen Bess did gallantly wave her jewelled hand to him from a window +of Greenwich Palace, as his bold ship sailed down the Thames; "when Sir +Martin returned from that voyage," saith Black Letter, "on bended knees +he presented to her highness a prodigious long horn of the Narwhale, +which for a long period after hung in the castle at Windsor." An Irish +author avers that the Earl of Leicester, on bended knees, did likewise +present to her highness another horn, pertaining to a land beast of the +unicorn nature. + +The Narwhale has a very picturesque, leopard-like look, being of a +milk-white ground colour, dotted with round and oblong spots of black. +His oil is very superior, clear and fine; but there is little of it, and +he is seldom hunted. He is mostly found in the circumpolar seas. + +BOOK II. (OCTAVO), CHAPTER IV. (KILLER).--Of this whale little is +precisely known to the Nantucketer, and nothing at all to the professed +naturalist. From what I have seen of him at a distance, I should say +that he was about the bigness of a grampus. He is very savage--a sort of +Feegee fish. He sometimes takes the great Folio whales by the lip, and +hangs there like a leech, till the mighty brute is worried to death. The +Killer is never hunted. I never heard what sort of oil he has. Exception +might be taken to the name bestowed upon this whale, on the ground +of its indistinctness. For we are all killers, on land and on sea; +Bonapartes and Sharks included. + +BOOK II. (OCTAVO), CHAPTER V. (THRASHER).--This gentleman is famous for +his tail, which he uses for a ferule in thrashing his foes. He mounts +the Folio whale's back, and as he swims, he works his passage by +flogging him; as some schoolmasters get along in the world by a similar +process. Still less is known of the Thrasher than of the Killer. Both +are outlaws, even in the lawless seas. + +Thus ends BOOK II. (OCTAVO), and begins BOOK III. (DUODECIMO). + +DUODECIMOES.--These include the smaller whales. I. The Huzza Porpoise. +II. The Algerine Porpoise. III. The Mealy-mouthed Porpoise. + +To those who have not chanced specially to study the subject, it may +possibly seem strange, that fishes not commonly exceeding four or five +feet should be marshalled among WHALES--a word, which, in the popular +sense, always conveys an idea of hugeness. But the creatures set +down above as Duodecimoes are infallibly whales, by the terms of my +definition of what a whale is--i.e. a spouting fish, with a horizontal +tail. + +BOOK III. (DUODECIMO), CHAPTER 1. (HUZZA PORPOISE).--This is the +common porpoise found almost all over the globe. The name is of my own +bestowal; for there are more than one sort of porpoises, and something +must be done to distinguish them. I call him thus, because he always +swims in hilarious shoals, which upon the broad sea keep tossing +themselves to heaven like caps in a Fourth-of-July crowd. Their +appearance is generally hailed with delight by the mariner. Full of fine +spirits, they invariably come from the breezy billows to windward. They +are the lads that always live before the wind. They are accounted a +lucky omen. If you yourself can withstand three cheers at beholding +these vivacious fish, then heaven help ye; the spirit of godly +gamesomeness is not in ye. A well-fed, plump Huzza Porpoise will +yield you one good gallon of good oil. But the fine and delicate fluid +extracted from his jaws is exceedingly valuable. It is in request among +jewellers and watchmakers. Sailors put it on their hones. Porpoise +meat is good eating, you know. It may never have occurred to you that +a porpoise spouts. Indeed, his spout is so small that it is not very +readily discernible. But the next time you have a chance, watch him; and +you will then see the great Sperm whale himself in miniature. + +BOOK III. (DUODECIMO), CHAPTER II. (ALGERINE PORPOISE).--A pirate. Very +savage. He is only found, I think, in the Pacific. He is somewhat larger +than the Huzza Porpoise, but much of the same general make. Provoke him, +and he will buckle to a shark. I have lowered for him many times, but +never yet saw him captured. + +BOOK III. (DUODECIMO), CHAPTER III. (MEALY-MOUTHED PORPOISE).--The +largest kind of Porpoise; and only found in the Pacific, so far as it is +known. The only English name, by which he has hitherto been designated, +is that of the fishers--Right-Whale Porpoise, from the circumstance that +he is chiefly found in the vicinity of that Folio. In shape, he differs +in some degree from the Huzza Porpoise, being of a less rotund and jolly +girth; indeed, he is of quite a neat and gentleman-like figure. He has +no fins on his back (most other porpoises have), he has a lovely tail, +and sentimental Indian eyes of a hazel hue. But his mealy-mouth spoils +all. Though his entire back down to his side fins is of a deep sable, +yet a boundary line, distinct as the mark in a ship's hull, called +the "bright waist," that line streaks him from stem to stern, with two +separate colours, black above and white below. The white comprises part +of his head, and the whole of his mouth, which makes him look as if he +had just escaped from a felonious visit to a meal-bag. A most mean and +mealy aspect! His oil is much like that of the common porpoise. + + +Beyond the DUODECIMO, this system does not proceed, inasmuch as +the Porpoise is the smallest of the whales. Above, you have all the +Leviathans of note. But there are a rabble of uncertain, fugitive, +half-fabulous whales, which, as an American whaleman, I know by +reputation, but not personally. I shall enumerate them by their +fore-castle appellations; for possibly such a list may be valuable to +future investigators, who may complete what I have here but begun. If +any of the following whales, shall hereafter be caught and marked, then +he can readily be incorporated into this System, according to his Folio, +Octavo, or Duodecimo magnitude:--The Bottle-Nose Whale; the Junk Whale; +the Pudding-Headed Whale; the Cape Whale; the Leading Whale; the Cannon +Whale; the Scragg Whale; the Coppered Whale; the Elephant Whale; the +Iceberg Whale; the Quog Whale; the Blue Whale; etc. From Icelandic, +Dutch, and old English authorities, there might be quoted other lists of +uncertain whales, blessed with all manner of uncouth names. But I omit +them as altogether obsolete; and can hardly help suspecting them for +mere sounds, full of Leviathanism, but signifying nothing. + +Finally: It was stated at the outset, that this system would not be +here, and at once, perfected. You cannot but plainly see that I have +kept my word. But I now leave my cetological System standing thus +unfinished, even as the great Cathedral of Cologne was left, with the +crane still standing upon the top of the uncompleted tower. For small +erections may be finished by their first architects; grand ones, true +ones, ever leave the copestone to posterity. God keep me from ever +completing anything. This whole book is but a draught--nay, but the +draught of a draught. Oh, Time, Strength, Cash, and Patience! + + + +CHAPTER 33. The Specksynder. + + +Concerning the officers of the whale-craft, this seems as good a place +as any to set down a little domestic peculiarity on ship-board, arising +from the existence of the harpooneer class of officers, a class unknown +of course in any other marine than the whale-fleet. + +The large importance attached to the harpooneer's vocation is evinced +by the fact, that originally in the old Dutch Fishery, two centuries +and more ago, the command of a whale ship was not wholly lodged in +the person now called the captain, but was divided between him and an +officer called the Specksynder. Literally this word means Fat-Cutter; +usage, however, in time made it equivalent to Chief Harpooneer. In +those days, the captain's authority was restricted to the navigation +and general management of the vessel; while over the whale-hunting +department and all its concerns, the Specksynder or Chief Harpooneer +reigned supreme. In the British Greenland Fishery, under the corrupted +title of Specksioneer, this old Dutch official is still retained, but +his former dignity is sadly abridged. At present he ranks simply +as senior Harpooneer; and as such, is but one of the captain's more +inferior subalterns. Nevertheless, as upon the good conduct of the +harpooneers the success of a whaling voyage largely depends, and since +in the American Fishery he is not only an important officer in the boat, +but under certain circumstances (night watches on a whaling ground) the +command of the ship's deck is also his; therefore the grand political +maxim of the sea demands, that he should nominally live apart from +the men before the mast, and be in some way distinguished as their +professional superior; though always, by them, familiarly regarded as +their social equal. + +Now, the grand distinction drawn between officer and man at sea, is +this--the first lives aft, the last forward. Hence, in whale-ships and +merchantmen alike, the mates have their quarters with the captain; and +so, too, in most of the American whalers the harpooneers are lodged in +the after part of the ship. That is to say, they take their meals in the +captain's cabin, and sleep in a place indirectly communicating with it. + +Though the long period of a Southern whaling voyage (by far the longest +of all voyages now or ever made by man), the peculiar perils of it, and +the community of interest prevailing among a company, all of whom, high +or low, depend for their profits, not upon fixed wages, but upon their +common luck, together with their common vigilance, intrepidity, and +hard work; though all these things do in some cases tend to beget a less +rigorous discipline than in merchantmen generally; yet, never mind +how much like an old Mesopotamian family these whalemen may, in some +primitive instances, live together; for all that, the punctilious +externals, at least, of the quarter-deck are seldom materially relaxed, +and in no instance done away. Indeed, many are the Nantucket ships in +which you will see the skipper parading his quarter-deck with an elated +grandeur not surpassed in any military navy; nay, extorting almost +as much outward homage as if he wore the imperial purple, and not the +shabbiest of pilot-cloth. + +And though of all men the moody captain of the Pequod was the least +given to that sort of shallowest assumption; and though the only homage +he ever exacted, was implicit, instantaneous obedience; though he +required no man to remove the shoes from his feet ere stepping upon +the quarter-deck; and though there were times when, owing to peculiar +circumstances connected with events hereafter to be detailed, he +addressed them in unusual terms, whether of condescension or IN +TERROREM, or otherwise; yet even Captain Ahab was by no means +unobservant of the paramount forms and usages of the sea. + +Nor, perhaps, will it fail to be eventually perceived, that behind those +forms and usages, as it were, he sometimes masked himself; incidentally +making use of them for other and more private ends than they were +legitimately intended to subserve. That certain sultanism of his brain, +which had otherwise in a good degree remained unmanifested; through +those forms that same sultanism became incarnate in an irresistible +dictatorship. For be a man's intellectual superiority what it will, +it can never assume the practical, available supremacy over other men, +without the aid of some sort of external arts and entrenchments, always, +in themselves, more or less paltry and base. This it is, that for ever +keeps God's true princes of the Empire from the world's hustings; and +leaves the highest honours that this air can give, to those men who +become famous more through their infinite inferiority to the choice +hidden handful of the Divine Inert, than through their undoubted +superiority over the dead level of the mass. Such large virtue lurks +in these small things when extreme political superstitions invest them, +that in some royal instances even to idiot imbecility they have imparted +potency. But when, as in the case of Nicholas the Czar, the ringed crown +of geographical empire encircles an imperial brain; then, the plebeian +herds crouch abased before the tremendous centralization. Nor, will the +tragic dramatist who would depict mortal indomitableness in its fullest +sweep and direct swing, ever forget a hint, incidentally so important in +his art, as the one now alluded to. + +But Ahab, my Captain, still moves before me in all his Nantucket +grimness and shagginess; and in this episode touching Emperors and +Kings, I must not conceal that I have only to do with a poor old +whale-hunter like him; and, therefore, all outward majestical trappings +and housings are denied me. Oh, Ahab! what shall be grand in thee, it +must needs be plucked at from the skies, and dived for in the deep, and +featured in the unbodied air! + + + +CHAPTER 34. The Cabin-Table. + + +It is noon; and Dough-Boy, the steward, thrusting his pale loaf-of-bread +face from the cabin-scuttle, announces dinner to his lord and +master; who, sitting in the lee quarter-boat, has just been taking an +observation of the sun; and is now mutely reckoning the latitude on the +smooth, medallion-shaped tablet, reserved for that daily purpose on +the upper part of his ivory leg. From his complete inattention to the +tidings, you would think that moody Ahab had not heard his menial. But +presently, catching hold of the mizen shrouds, he swings himself to +the deck, and in an even, unexhilarated voice, saying, "Dinner, Mr. +Starbuck," disappears into the cabin. + +When the last echo of his sultan's step has died away, and Starbuck, the +first Emir, has every reason to suppose that he is seated, then Starbuck +rouses from his quietude, takes a few turns along the planks, and, after +a grave peep into the binnacle, says, with some touch of pleasantness, +"Dinner, Mr. Stubb," and descends the scuttle. The second Emir lounges +about the rigging awhile, and then slightly shaking the main brace, to +see whether it will be all right with that important rope, he likewise +takes up the old burden, and with a rapid "Dinner, Mr. Flask," follows +after his predecessors. + +But the third Emir, now seeing himself all alone on the quarter-deck, +seems to feel relieved from some curious restraint; for, tipping all +sorts of knowing winks in all sorts of directions, and kicking off his +shoes, he strikes into a sharp but noiseless squall of a hornpipe right +over the Grand Turk's head; and then, by a dexterous sleight, pitching +his cap up into the mizentop for a shelf, he goes down rollicking so +far at least as he remains visible from the deck, reversing all other +processions, by bringing up the rear with music. But ere stepping into +the cabin doorway below, he pauses, ships a new face altogether, and, +then, independent, hilarious little Flask enters King Ahab's presence, +in the character of Abjectus, or the Slave. + +It is not the least among the strange things bred by the intense +artificialness of sea-usages, that while in the open air of the deck +some officers will, upon provocation, bear themselves boldly and +defyingly enough towards their commander; yet, ten to one, let those +very officers the next moment go down to their customary dinner in that +same commander's cabin, and straightway their inoffensive, not to say +deprecatory and humble air towards him, as he sits at the head of +the table; this is marvellous, sometimes most comical. Wherefore this +difference? A problem? Perhaps not. To have been Belshazzar, King of +Babylon; and to have been Belshazzar, not haughtily but courteously, +therein certainly must have been some touch of mundane grandeur. But he +who in the rightly regal and intelligent spirit presides over his own +private dinner-table of invited guests, that man's unchallenged power +and dominion of individual influence for the time; that man's royalty of +state transcends Belshazzar's, for Belshazzar was not the greatest. Who +has but once dined his friends, has tasted what it is to be Caesar. It +is a witchery of social czarship which there is no withstanding. Now, +if to this consideration you superadd the official supremacy of a +ship-master, then, by inference, you will derive the cause of that +peculiarity of sea-life just mentioned. + +Over his ivory-inlaid table, Ahab presided like a mute, maned +sea-lion on the white coral beach, surrounded by his warlike but still +deferential cubs. In his own proper turn, each officer waited to be +served. They were as little children before Ahab; and yet, in Ahab, +there seemed not to lurk the smallest social arrogance. With one mind, +their intent eyes all fastened upon the old man's knife, as he carved +the chief dish before him. I do not suppose that for the world they +would have profaned that moment with the slightest observation, even +upon so neutral a topic as the weather. No! And when reaching out his +knife and fork, between which the slice of beef was locked, Ahab thereby +motioned Starbuck's plate towards him, the mate received his meat as +though receiving alms; and cut it tenderly; and a little started +if, perchance, the knife grazed against the plate; and chewed it +noiselessly; and swallowed it, not without circumspection. For, like +the Coronation banquet at Frankfort, where the German Emperor profoundly +dines with the seven Imperial Electors, so these cabin meals were +somehow solemn meals, eaten in awful silence; and yet at table old Ahab +forbade not conversation; only he himself was dumb. What a relief it was +to choking Stubb, when a rat made a sudden racket in the hold below. And +poor little Flask, he was the youngest son, and little boy of this weary +family party. His were the shinbones of the saline beef; his would have +been the drumsticks. For Flask to have presumed to help himself, this +must have seemed to him tantamount to larceny in the first degree. Had +he helped himself at that table, doubtless, never more would he have +been able to hold his head up in this honest world; nevertheless, +strange to say, Ahab never forbade him. And had Flask helped himself, +the chances were Ahab had never so much as noticed it. Least of all, did +Flask presume to help himself to butter. Whether he thought the owners +of the ship denied it to him, on account of its clotting his clear, +sunny complexion; or whether he deemed that, on so long a voyage in such +marketless waters, butter was at a premium, and therefore was not for +him, a subaltern; however it was, Flask, alas! was a butterless man! + +Another thing. Flask was the last person down at the dinner, and Flask +is the first man up. Consider! For hereby Flask's dinner was badly +jammed in point of time. Starbuck and Stubb both had the start of him; +and yet they also have the privilege of lounging in the rear. If Stubb +even, who is but a peg higher than Flask, happens to have but a small +appetite, and soon shows symptoms of concluding his repast, then Flask +must bestir himself, he will not get more than three mouthfuls that day; +for it is against holy usage for Stubb to precede Flask to the deck. +Therefore it was that Flask once admitted in private, that ever since he +had arisen to the dignity of an officer, from that moment he had never +known what it was to be otherwise than hungry, more or less. For what +he ate did not so much relieve his hunger, as keep it immortal in him. +Peace and satisfaction, thought Flask, have for ever departed from +my stomach. I am an officer; but, how I wish I could fish a bit of +old-fashioned beef in the forecastle, as I used to when I was before the +mast. There's the fruits of promotion now; there's the vanity of glory: +there's the insanity of life! Besides, if it were so that any mere +sailor of the Pequod had a grudge against Flask in Flask's official +capacity, all that sailor had to do, in order to obtain ample vengeance, +was to go aft at dinner-time, and get a peep at Flask through the cabin +sky-light, sitting silly and dumfoundered before awful Ahab. + +Now, Ahab and his three mates formed what may be called the first table +in the Pequod's cabin. After their departure, taking place in inverted +order to their arrival, the canvas cloth was cleared, or rather was +restored to some hurried order by the pallid steward. And then the three +harpooneers were bidden to the feast, they being its residuary legatees. +They made a sort of temporary servants' hall of the high and mighty +cabin. + +In strange contrast to the hardly tolerable constraint and nameless +invisible domineerings of the captain's table, was the entire care-free +license and ease, the almost frantic democracy of those inferior fellows +the harpooneers. While their masters, the mates, seemed afraid of the +sound of the hinges of their own jaws, the harpooneers chewed their food +with such a relish that there was a report to it. They dined like lords; +they filled their bellies like Indian ships all day loading with spices. +Such portentous appetites had Queequeg and Tashtego, that to fill out +the vacancies made by the previous repast, often the pale Dough-Boy was +fain to bring on a great baron of salt-junk, seemingly quarried out of +the solid ox. And if he were not lively about it, if he did not go with +a nimble hop-skip-and-jump, then Tashtego had an ungentlemanly way of +accelerating him by darting a fork at his back, harpoon-wise. And once +Daggoo, seized with a sudden humor, assisted Dough-Boy's memory by +snatching him up bodily, and thrusting his head into a great empty +wooden trencher, while Tashtego, knife in hand, began laying out the +circle preliminary to scalping him. He was naturally a very nervous, +shuddering sort of little fellow, this bread-faced steward; the progeny +of a bankrupt baker and a hospital nurse. And what with the standing +spectacle of the black terrific Ahab, and the periodical tumultuous +visitations of these three savages, Dough-Boy's whole life was one +continual lip-quiver. Commonly, after seeing the harpooneers furnished +with all things they demanded, he would escape from their clutches into +his little pantry adjoining, and fearfully peep out at them through the +blinds of its door, till all was over. + +It was a sight to see Queequeg seated over against Tashtego, opposing +his filed teeth to the Indian's: crosswise to them, Daggoo seated on the +floor, for a bench would have brought his hearse-plumed head to the low +carlines; at every motion of his colossal limbs, making the low cabin +framework to shake, as when an African elephant goes passenger in a +ship. But for all this, the great negro was wonderfully abstemious, +not to say dainty. It seemed hardly possible that by such comparatively +small mouthfuls he could keep up the vitality diffused through so broad, +baronial, and superb a person. But, doubtless, this noble savage fed +strong and drank deep of the abounding element of air; and through his +dilated nostrils snuffed in the sublime life of the worlds. Not by +beef or by bread, are giants made or nourished. But Queequeg, he had a +mortal, barbaric smack of the lip in eating--an ugly sound enough--so +much so, that the trembling Dough-Boy almost looked to see whether +any marks of teeth lurked in his own lean arms. And when he would hear +Tashtego singing out for him to produce himself, that his bones might be +picked, the simple-witted steward all but shattered the crockery hanging +round him in the pantry, by his sudden fits of the palsy. Nor did the +whetstone which the harpooneers carried in their pockets, for their +lances and other weapons; and with which whetstones, at dinner, they +would ostentatiously sharpen their knives; that grating sound did not at +all tend to tranquillize poor Dough-Boy. How could he forget that in his +Island days, Queequeg, for one, must certainly have been guilty of some +murderous, convivial indiscretions. Alas! Dough-Boy! hard fares the +white waiter who waits upon cannibals. Not a napkin should he carry on +his arm, but a buckler. In good time, though, to his great delight, +the three salt-sea warriors would rise and depart; to his credulous, +fable-mongering ears, all their martial bones jingling in them at every +step, like Moorish scimetars in scabbards. + +But, though these barbarians dined in the cabin, and nominally lived +there; still, being anything but sedentary in their habits, they were +scarcely ever in it except at mealtimes, and just before sleeping-time, +when they passed through it to their own peculiar quarters. + +In this one matter, Ahab seemed no exception to most American whale +captains, who, as a set, rather incline to the opinion that by rights +the ship's cabin belongs to them; and that it is by courtesy alone that +anybody else is, at any time, permitted there. So that, in real truth, +the mates and harpooneers of the Pequod might more properly be said to +have lived out of the cabin than in it. For when they did enter it, it +was something as a street-door enters a house; turning inwards for +a moment, only to be turned out the next; and, as a permanent thing, +residing in the open air. Nor did they lose much hereby; in the cabin +was no companionship; socially, Ahab was inaccessible. Though nominally +included in the census of Christendom, he was still an alien to it. He +lived in the world, as the last of the Grisly Bears lived in settled +Missouri. And as when Spring and Summer had departed, that wild Logan of +the woods, burying himself in the hollow of a tree, lived out the winter +there, sucking his own paws; so, in his inclement, howling old age, +Ahab's soul, shut up in the caved trunk of his body, there fed upon the +sullen paws of its gloom! + + + +CHAPTER 35. The Mast-Head. + + +It was during the more pleasant weather, that in due rotation with the +other seamen my first mast-head came round. + +In most American whalemen the mast-heads are manned almost +simultaneously with the vessel's leaving her port; even though she may +have fifteen thousand miles, and more, to sail ere reaching her proper +cruising ground. And if, after a three, four, or five years' voyage +she is drawing nigh home with anything empty in her--say, an empty vial +even--then, her mast-heads are kept manned to the last; and not till her +skysail-poles sail in among the spires of the port, does she altogether +relinquish the hope of capturing one whale more. + +Now, as the business of standing mast-heads, ashore or afloat, is a very +ancient and interesting one, let us in some measure expatiate here. +I take it, that the earliest standers of mast-heads were the old +Egyptians; because, in all my researches, I find none prior to them. +For though their progenitors, the builders of Babel, must doubtless, by +their tower, have intended to rear the loftiest mast-head in all Asia, +or Africa either; yet (ere the final truck was put to it) as that great +stone mast of theirs may be said to have gone by the board, in the dread +gale of God's wrath; therefore, we cannot give these Babel builders +priority over the Egyptians. And that the Egyptians were a nation of +mast-head standers, is an assertion based upon the general belief among +archaeologists, that the first pyramids were founded for astronomical +purposes: a theory singularly supported by the peculiar stair-like +formation of all four sides of those edifices; whereby, with prodigious +long upliftings of their legs, those old astronomers were wont to mount +to the apex, and sing out for new stars; even as the look-outs of a +modern ship sing out for a sail, or a whale just bearing in sight. In +Saint Stylites, the famous Christian hermit of old times, who built him +a lofty stone pillar in the desert and spent the whole latter portion of +his life on its summit, hoisting his food from the ground with a +tackle; in him we have a remarkable instance of a dauntless +stander-of-mast-heads; who was not to be driven from his place by fogs +or frosts, rain, hail, or sleet; but valiantly facing everything out to +the last, literally died at his post. Of modern standers-of-mast-heads +we have but a lifeless set; mere stone, iron, and bronze men; who, +though well capable of facing out a stiff gale, are still entirely +incompetent to the business of singing out upon discovering any strange +sight. There is Napoleon; who, upon the top of the column of Vendome, +stands with arms folded, some one hundred and fifty feet in the air; +careless, now, who rules the decks below; whether Louis Philippe, Louis +Blanc, or Louis the Devil. Great Washington, too, stands high aloft on +his towering main-mast in Baltimore, and like one of Hercules' pillars, +his column marks that point of human grandeur beyond which few mortals +will go. Admiral Nelson, also, on a capstan of gun-metal, stands his +mast-head in Trafalgar Square; and ever when most obscured by that +London smoke, token is yet given that a hidden hero is there; for +where there is smoke, must be fire. But neither great Washington, nor +Napoleon, nor Nelson, will answer a single hail from below, however +madly invoked to befriend by their counsels the distracted decks +upon which they gaze; however it may be surmised, that their spirits +penetrate through the thick haze of the future, and descry what shoals +and what rocks must be shunned. + +It may seem unwarrantable to couple in any respect the mast-head +standers of the land with those of the sea; but that in truth it is +not so, is plainly evinced by an item for which Obed Macy, the sole +historian of Nantucket, stands accountable. The worthy Obed tells us, +that in the early times of the whale fishery, ere ships were regularly +launched in pursuit of the game, the people of that island erected lofty +spars along the sea-coast, to which the look-outs ascended by means +of nailed cleats, something as fowls go upstairs in a hen-house. A few +years ago this same plan was adopted by the Bay whalemen of New Zealand, +who, upon descrying the game, gave notice to the ready-manned boats nigh +the beach. But this custom has now become obsolete; turn we then to the +one proper mast-head, that of a whale-ship at sea. The three mast-heads +are kept manned from sun-rise to sun-set; the seamen taking their +regular turns (as at the helm), and relieving each other every two +hours. In the serene weather of the tropics it is exceedingly pleasant +the mast-head; nay, to a dreamy meditative man it is delightful. There +you stand, a hundred feet above the silent decks, striding along the +deep, as if the masts were gigantic stilts, while beneath you and +between your legs, as it were, swim the hugest monsters of the sea, even +as ships once sailed between the boots of the famous Colossus at old +Rhodes. There you stand, lost in the infinite series of the sea, with +nothing ruffled but the waves. The tranced ship indolently rolls; the +drowsy trade winds blow; everything resolves you into languor. For the +most part, in this tropic whaling life, a sublime uneventfulness invests +you; you hear no news; read no gazettes; extras with startling accounts +of commonplaces never delude you into unnecessary excitements; you hear +of no domestic afflictions; bankrupt securities; fall of stocks; are +never troubled with the thought of what you shall have for dinner--for +all your meals for three years and more are snugly stowed in casks, and +your bill of fare is immutable. + +In one of those southern whalesmen, on a long three or four years' +voyage, as often happens, the sum of the various hours you spend at the +mast-head would amount to several entire months. And it is much to be +deplored that the place to which you devote so considerable a portion +of the whole term of your natural life, should be so sadly destitute +of anything approaching to a cosy inhabitiveness, or adapted to breed a +comfortable localness of feeling, such as pertains to a bed, a hammock, +a hearse, a sentry box, a pulpit, a coach, or any other of those small +and snug contrivances in which men temporarily isolate themselves. Your +most usual point of perch is the head of the t' gallant-mast, where you +stand upon two thin parallel sticks (almost peculiar to whalemen) called +the t' gallant cross-trees. Here, tossed about by the sea, the beginner +feels about as cosy as he would standing on a bull's horns. To be sure, +in cold weather you may carry your house aloft with you, in the shape of +a watch-coat; but properly speaking the thickest watch-coat is no more +of a house than the unclad body; for as the soul is glued inside of its +fleshy tabernacle, and cannot freely move about in it, nor even move out +of it, without running great risk of perishing (like an ignorant pilgrim +crossing the snowy Alps in winter); so a watch-coat is not so much of +a house as it is a mere envelope, or additional skin encasing you. You +cannot put a shelf or chest of drawers in your body, and no more can you +make a convenient closet of your watch-coat. + +Concerning all this, it is much to be deplored that the mast-heads of a +southern whale ship are unprovided with those enviable little tents +or pulpits, called CROW'S-NESTS, in which the look-outs of a Greenland +whaler are protected from the inclement weather of the frozen seas. In +the fireside narrative of Captain Sleet, entitled "A Voyage among the +Icebergs, in quest of the Greenland Whale, and incidentally for the +re-discovery of the Lost Icelandic Colonies of Old Greenland;" in +this admirable volume, all standers of mast-heads are furnished with +a charmingly circumstantial account of the then recently invented +CROW'S-NEST of the Glacier, which was the name of Captain Sleet's good +craft. He called it the SLEET'S CROW'S-NEST, in honour of himself; he +being the original inventor and patentee, and free from all ridiculous +false delicacy, and holding that if we call our own children after our +own names (we fathers being the original inventors and patentees), so +likewise should we denominate after ourselves any other apparatus we +may beget. In shape, the Sleet's crow's-nest is something like a large +tierce or pipe; it is open above, however, where it is furnished with +a movable side-screen to keep to windward of your head in a hard gale. +Being fixed on the summit of the mast, you ascend into it through a +little trap-hatch in the bottom. On the after side, or side next the +stern of the ship, is a comfortable seat, with a locker underneath for +umbrellas, comforters, and coats. In front is a leather rack, in which +to keep your speaking trumpet, pipe, telescope, and other nautical +conveniences. When Captain Sleet in person stood his mast-head in this +crow's-nest of his, he tells us that he always had a rifle with him +(also fixed in the rack), together with a powder flask and shot, for +the purpose of popping off the stray narwhales, or vagrant sea unicorns +infesting those waters; for you cannot successfully shoot at them from +the deck owing to the resistance of the water, but to shoot down upon +them is a very different thing. Now, it was plainly a labor of love +for Captain Sleet to describe, as he does, all the little detailed +conveniences of his crow's-nest; but though he so enlarges upon many +of these, and though he treats us to a very scientific account of his +experiments in this crow's-nest, with a small compass he kept there for +the purpose of counteracting the errors resulting from what is called +the "local attraction" of all binnacle magnets; an error ascribable to +the horizontal vicinity of the iron in the ship's planks, and in the +Glacier's case, perhaps, to there having been so many broken-down +blacksmiths among her crew; I say, that though the Captain is very +discreet and scientific here, yet, for all his learned "binnacle +deviations," "azimuth compass observations," and "approximate errors," +he knows very well, Captain Sleet, that he was not so much immersed +in those profound magnetic meditations, as to fail being attracted +occasionally towards that well replenished little case-bottle, so nicely +tucked in on one side of his crow's nest, within easy reach of his hand. +Though, upon the whole, I greatly admire and even love the brave, the +honest, and learned Captain; yet I take it very ill of him that he +should so utterly ignore that case-bottle, seeing what a faithful friend +and comforter it must have been, while with mittened fingers and hooded +head he was studying the mathematics aloft there in that bird's nest +within three or four perches of the pole. + +But if we Southern whale-fishers are not so snugly housed aloft as +Captain Sleet and his Greenlandmen were; yet that disadvantage is +greatly counter-balanced by the widely contrasting serenity of those +seductive seas in which we South fishers mostly float. For one, I used +to lounge up the rigging very leisurely, resting in the top to have a +chat with Queequeg, or any one else off duty whom I might find there; +then ascending a little way further, and throwing a lazy leg over the +top-sail yard, take a preliminary view of the watery pastures, and so at +last mount to my ultimate destination. + +Let me make a clean breast of it here, and frankly admit that I kept but +sorry guard. With the problem of the universe revolving in me, how +could I--being left completely to myself at such a thought-engendering +altitude--how could I but lightly hold my obligations to observe all +whale-ships' standing orders, "Keep your weather eye open, and sing out +every time." + +And let me in this place movingly admonish you, ye ship-owners of +Nantucket! Beware of enlisting in your vigilant fisheries any lad with +lean brow and hollow eye; given to unseasonable meditativeness; and who +offers to ship with the Phaedon instead of Bowditch in his head. Beware +of such an one, I say; your whales must be seen before they can be +killed; and this sunken-eyed young Platonist will tow you ten wakes +round the world, and never make you one pint of sperm the richer. Nor +are these monitions at all unneeded. For nowadays, the whale-fishery +furnishes an asylum for many romantic, melancholy, and absent-minded +young men, disgusted with the carking cares of earth, and seeking +sentiment in tar and blubber. Childe Harold not unfrequently perches +himself upon the mast-head of some luckless disappointed whale-ship, and +in moody phrase ejaculates:-- + +"Roll on, thou deep and dark blue ocean, roll! Ten thousand +blubber-hunters sweep over thee in vain." + +Very often do the captains of such ships take those absent-minded +young philosophers to task, upbraiding them with not feeling sufficient +"interest" in the voyage; half-hinting that they are so hopelessly lost +to all honourable ambition, as that in their secret souls they would +rather not see whales than otherwise. But all in vain; those young +Platonists have a notion that their vision is imperfect; they are +short-sighted; what use, then, to strain the visual nerve? They have +left their opera-glasses at home. + +"Why, thou monkey," said a harpooneer to one of these lads, "we've been +cruising now hard upon three years, and thou hast not raised a whale +yet. Whales are scarce as hen's teeth whenever thou art up here." +Perhaps they were; or perhaps there might have been shoals of them in +the far horizon; but lulled into such an opium-like listlessness of +vacant, unconscious reverie is this absent-minded youth by the blending +cadence of waves with thoughts, that at last he loses his identity; +takes the mystic ocean at his feet for the visible image of that deep, +blue, bottomless soul, pervading mankind and nature; and every +strange, half-seen, gliding, beautiful thing that eludes him; every +dimly-discovered, uprising fin of some undiscernible form, seems to him +the embodiment of those elusive thoughts that only people the soul by +continually flitting through it. In this enchanted mood, thy spirit ebbs +away to whence it came; becomes diffused through time and space; like +Crammer's(Thomas Cranmer) sprinkled Pantheistic ashes, forming at last a part of every +shore the round globe over. + +There is no life in thee, now, except that rocking life imparted by a +gently rolling ship; by her, borrowed from the sea; by the sea, from +the inscrutable tides of God. But while this sleep, this dream is on ye, +move your foot or hand an inch; slip your hold at all; and your identity +comes back in horror. Over Descartian vortices you hover. And perhaps, +at mid-day, in the fairest weather, with one half-throttled shriek you +drop through that transparent air into the summer sea, no more to rise +for ever. Heed it well, ye Pantheists! + + + +CHAPTER 36. The Quarter-Deck. + + +(ENTER AHAB: THEN, ALL) + + +It was not a great while after the affair of the pipe, that one +morning shortly after breakfast, Ahab, as was his wont, ascended the +cabin-gangway to the deck. There most sea-captains usually walk at that +hour, as country gentlemen, after the same meal, take a few turns in the +garden. + +Soon his steady, ivory stride was heard, as to and fro he paced his old +rounds, upon planks so familiar to his tread, that they were all over +dented, like geological stones, with the peculiar mark of his walk. Did +you fixedly gaze, too, upon that ribbed and dented brow; there also, +you would see still stranger foot-prints--the foot-prints of his one +unsleeping, ever-pacing thought. + +But on the occasion in question, those dents looked deeper, even as +his nervous step that morning left a deeper mark. And, so full of his +thought was Ahab, that at every uniform turn that he made, now at the +main-mast and now at the binnacle, you could almost see that thought +turn in him as he turned, and pace in him as he paced; so completely +possessing him, indeed, that it all but seemed the inward mould of every +outer movement. + +"D'ye mark him, Flask?" whispered Stubb; "the chick that's in him pecks +the shell. 'Twill soon be out." + +The hours wore on;--Ahab now shut up within his cabin; anon, pacing the +deck, with the same intense bigotry of purpose in his aspect. + +It drew near the close of day. Suddenly he came to a halt by the +bulwarks, and inserting his bone leg into the auger-hole there, and with +one hand grasping a shroud, he ordered Starbuck to send everybody aft. + +"Sir!" said the mate, astonished at an order seldom or never given on +ship-board except in some extraordinary case. + +"Send everybody aft," repeated Ahab. "Mast-heads, there! come down!" + +When the entire ship's company were assembled, and with curious and not +wholly unapprehensive faces, were eyeing him, for he looked not unlike +the weather horizon when a storm is coming up, Ahab, after rapidly +glancing over the bulwarks, and then darting his eyes among the crew, +started from his standpoint; and as though not a soul were nigh him +resumed his heavy turns upon the deck. With bent head and half-slouched +hat he continued to pace, unmindful of the wondering whispering among +the men; till Stubb cautiously whispered to Flask, that Ahab must have +summoned them there for the purpose of witnessing a pedestrian feat. But +this did not last long. Vehemently pausing, he cried:-- + +"What do ye do when ye see a whale, men?" + +"Sing out for him!" was the impulsive rejoinder from a score of clubbed +voices. + +"Good!" cried Ahab, with a wild approval in his tones; observing the +hearty animation into which his unexpected question had so magnetically +thrown them. + +"And what do ye next, men?" + +"Lower away, and after him!" + +"And what tune is it ye pull to, men?" + +"A dead whale or a stove boat!" + +More and more strangely and fiercely glad and approving, grew the +countenance of the old man at every shout; while the mariners began +to gaze curiously at each other, as if marvelling how it was that they +themselves became so excited at such seemingly purposeless questions. + +But, they were all eagerness again, as Ahab, now half-revolving in his +pivot-hole, with one hand reaching high up a shroud, and tightly, almost +convulsively grasping it, addressed them thus:-- + +"All ye mast-headers have before now heard me give orders about a white +whale. Look ye! d'ye see this Spanish ounce of gold?"--holding up a +broad bright coin to the sun--"it is a sixteen dollar piece, men. D'ye +see it? Mr. Starbuck, hand me yon top-maul." + +While the mate was getting the hammer, Ahab, without speaking, was +slowly rubbing the gold piece against the skirts of his jacket, as if +to heighten its lustre, and without using any words was meanwhile +lowly humming to himself, producing a sound so strangely muffled and +inarticulate that it seemed the mechanical humming of the wheels of his +vitality in him. + +Receiving the top-maul from Starbuck, he advanced towards the main-mast +with the hammer uplifted in one hand, exhibiting the gold with the +other, and with a high raised voice exclaiming: "Whosoever of ye +raises me a white-headed whale with a wrinkled brow and a crooked jaw; +whosoever of ye raises me that white-headed whale, with three holes +punctured in his starboard fluke--look ye, whosoever of ye raises me +that same white whale, he shall have this gold ounce, my boys!" + +"Huzza! huzza!" cried the seamen, as with swinging tarpaulins they +hailed the act of nailing the gold to the mast. + +"It's a white whale, I say," resumed Ahab, as he threw down the topmaul: +"a white whale. Skin your eyes for him, men; look sharp for white water; +if ye see but a bubble, sing out." + +All this while Tashtego, Daggoo, and Queequeg had looked on with even +more intense interest and surprise than the rest, and at the mention +of the wrinkled brow and crooked jaw they had started as if each was +separately touched by some specific recollection. + +"Captain Ahab," said Tashtego, "that white whale must be the same that +some call Moby Dick." + +"Moby Dick?" shouted Ahab. "Do ye know the white whale then, Tash?" + +"Does he fan-tail a little curious, sir, before he goes down?" said the +Gay-Header deliberately. + +"And has he a curious spout, too," said Daggoo, "very bushy, even for a +parmacetty, and mighty quick, Captain Ahab?" + +"And he have one, two, three--oh! good many iron in him hide, too, +Captain," cried Queequeg disjointedly, "all twiske-tee be-twisk, like +him--him--" faltering hard for a word, and screwing his hand round and +round as though uncorking a bottle--"like him--him--" + +"Corkscrew!" cried Ahab, "aye, Queequeg, the harpoons lie all twisted +and wrenched in him; aye, Daggoo, his spout is a big one, like a whole +shock of wheat, and white as a pile of our Nantucket wool after the +great annual sheep-shearing; aye, Tashtego, and he fan-tails like a +split jib in a squall. Death and devils! men, it is Moby Dick ye have +seen--Moby Dick--Moby Dick!" + +"Captain Ahab," said Starbuck, who, with Stubb and Flask, had thus far +been eyeing his superior with increasing surprise, but at last seemed +struck with a thought which somewhat explained all the wonder. "Captain +Ahab, I have heard of Moby Dick--but it was not Moby Dick that took off +thy leg?" + +"Who told thee that?" cried Ahab; then pausing, "Aye, Starbuck; aye, my +hearties all round; it was Moby Dick that dismasted me; Moby Dick that +brought me to this dead stump I stand on now. Aye, aye," he shouted with +a terrific, loud, animal sob, like that of a heart-stricken moose; +"Aye, aye! it was that accursed white whale that razed me; made a poor +pegging lubber of me for ever and a day!" Then tossing both arms, with +measureless imprecations he shouted out: "Aye, aye! and I'll chase him +round Good Hope, and round the Horn, and round the Norway Maelstrom, and +round perdition's flames before I give him up. And this is what ye have +shipped for, men! to chase that white whale on both sides of land, and +over all sides of earth, till he spouts black blood and rolls fin out. +What say ye, men, will ye splice hands on it, now? I think ye do look +brave." + +"Aye, aye!" shouted the harpooneers and seamen, running closer to the +excited old man: "A sharp eye for the white whale; a sharp lance for +Moby Dick!" + +"God bless ye," he seemed to half sob and half shout. "God bless ye, +men. Steward! go draw the great measure of grog. But what's this long +face about, Mr. Starbuck; wilt thou not chase the white whale? art not +game for Moby Dick?" + +"I am game for his crooked jaw, and for the jaws of Death too, Captain +Ahab, if it fairly comes in the way of the business we follow; but I +came here to hunt whales, not my commander's vengeance. How many barrels +will thy vengeance yield thee even if thou gettest it, Captain Ahab? it +will not fetch thee much in our Nantucket market." + +"Nantucket market! Hoot! But come closer, Starbuck; thou requirest +a little lower layer. If money's to be the measurer, man, and the +accountants have computed their great counting-house the globe, by +girdling it with guineas, one to every three parts of an inch; then, let +me tell thee, that my vengeance will fetch a great premium HERE!" + +"He smites his chest," whispered Stubb, "what's that for? methinks it +rings most vast, but hollow." + +"Vengeance on a dumb brute!" cried Starbuck, "that simply smote thee +from blindest instinct! Madness! To be enraged with a dumb thing, +Captain Ahab, seems blasphemous." + +"Hark ye yet again--the little lower layer. All visible objects, man, +are but as pasteboard masks. But in each event--in the living act, the +undoubted deed--there, some unknown but still reasoning thing puts forth +the mouldings of its features from behind the unreasoning mask. If man +will strike, strike through the mask! How can the prisoner reach outside +except by thrusting through the wall? To me, the white whale is that +wall, shoved near to me. Sometimes I think there's naught beyond. But +'tis enough. He tasks me; he heaps me; I see in him outrageous strength, +with an inscrutable malice sinewing it. That inscrutable thing is +chiefly what I hate; and be the white whale agent, or be the white whale +principal, I will wreak that hate upon him. Talk not to me of blasphemy, +man; I'd strike the sun if it insulted me. For could the sun do that, +then could I do the other; since there is ever a sort of fair play +herein, jealousy presiding over all creations. But not my master, man, +is even that fair play. Who's over me? Truth hath no confines. Take off +thine eye! more intolerable than fiends' glarings is a doltish +stare! So, so; thou reddenest and palest; my heat has melted thee to +anger-glow. But look ye, Starbuck, what is said in heat, that thing +unsays itself. There are men from whom warm words are small indignity. I +meant not to incense thee. Let it go. Look! see yonder Turkish cheeks of +spotted tawn--living, breathing pictures painted by the sun. The Pagan +leopards--the unrecking and unworshipping things, that live; and seek, +and give no reasons for the torrid life they feel! The crew, man, the +crew! Are they not one and all with Ahab, in this matter of the whale? +See Stubb! he laughs! See yonder Chilian! he snorts to think of it. +Stand up amid the general hurricane, thy one tost sapling cannot, +Starbuck! And what is it? Reckon it. 'Tis but to help strike a fin; no +wondrous feat for Starbuck. What is it more? From this one poor hunt, +then, the best lance out of all Nantucket, surely he will not hang back, +when every foremast-hand has clutched a whetstone? Ah! constrainings +seize thee; I see! the billow lifts thee! Speak, but speak!--Aye, aye! +thy silence, then, THAT voices thee. (ASIDE) Something shot from my +dilated nostrils, he has inhaled it in his lungs. Starbuck now is mine; +cannot oppose me now, without rebellion." + +"God keep me!--keep us all!" murmured Starbuck, lowly. + +But in his joy at the enchanted, tacit acquiescence of the mate, Ahab +did not hear his foreboding invocation; nor yet the low laugh from the +hold; nor yet the presaging vibrations of the winds in the cordage; +nor yet the hollow flap of the sails against the masts, as for a moment +their hearts sank in. For again Starbuck's downcast eyes lighted up with +the stubbornness of life; the subterranean laugh died away; the winds +blew on; the sails filled out; the ship heaved and rolled as before. Ah, +ye admonitions and warnings! why stay ye not when ye come? But +rather are ye predictions than warnings, ye shadows! Yet not so much +predictions from without, as verifications of the foregoing things +within. For with little external to constrain us, the innermost +necessities in our being, these still drive us on. + +"The measure! the measure!" cried Ahab. + +Receiving the brimming pewter, and turning to the harpooneers, he +ordered them to produce their weapons. Then ranging them before him near +the capstan, with their harpoons in their hands, while his three mates +stood at his side with their lances, and the rest of the ship's company +formed a circle round the group; he stood for an instant searchingly +eyeing every man of his crew. But those wild eyes met his, as the +bloodshot eyes of the prairie wolves meet the eye of their leader, ere +he rushes on at their head in the trail of the bison; but, alas! only to +fall into the hidden snare of the Indian. + +"Drink and pass!" he cried, handing the heavy charged flagon to the +nearest seaman. "The crew alone now drink. Round with it, round! Short +draughts--long swallows, men; 'tis hot as Satan's hoof. So, so; it +goes round excellently. It spiralizes in ye; forks out at the +serpent-snapping eye. Well done; almost drained. That way it went, this +way it comes. Hand it me--here's a hollow! Men, ye seem the years; so +brimming life is gulped and gone. Steward, refill! + +"Attend now, my braves. I have mustered ye all round this capstan; and +ye mates, flank me with your lances; and ye harpooneers, stand there +with your irons; and ye, stout mariners, ring me in, that I may in some +sort revive a noble custom of my fisherman fathers before me. O men, you +will yet see that--Ha! boy, come back? bad pennies come not sooner. Hand +it me. Why, now, this pewter had run brimming again, were't not thou St. +Vitus' imp--away, thou ague! + +"Advance, ye mates! Cross your lances full before me. Well done! Let +me touch the axis." So saying, with extended arm, he grasped the +three level, radiating lances at their crossed centre; while so doing, +suddenly and nervously twitched them; meanwhile, glancing intently from +Starbuck to Stubb; from Stubb to Flask. It seemed as though, by some +nameless, interior volition, he would fain have shocked into them the +same fiery emotion accumulated within the Leyden jar of his own magnetic +life. The three mates quailed before his strong, sustained, and mystic +aspect. Stubb and Flask looked sideways from him; the honest eye of +Starbuck fell downright. + +"In vain!" cried Ahab; "but, maybe, 'tis well. For did ye three but +once take the full-forced shock, then mine own electric thing, THAT had +perhaps expired from out me. Perchance, too, it would have dropped ye +dead. Perchance ye need it not. Down lances! And now, ye mates, I do +appoint ye three cupbearers to my three pagan kinsmen there--yon three +most honourable gentlemen and noblemen, my valiant harpooneers. Disdain +the task? What, when the great Pope washes the feet of beggars, using +his tiara for ewer? Oh, my sweet cardinals! your own condescension, THAT +shall bend ye to it. I do not order ye; ye will it. Cut your seizings +and draw the poles, ye harpooneers!" + +Silently obeying the order, the three harpooneers now stood with the +detached iron part of their harpoons, some three feet long, held, barbs +up, before him. + +"Stab me not with that keen steel! Cant them; cant them over! know ye +not the goblet end? Turn up the socket! So, so; now, ye cup-bearers, +advance. The irons! take them; hold them while I fill!" Forthwith, +slowly going from one officer to the other, he brimmed the harpoon +sockets with the fiery waters from the pewter. + +"Now, three to three, ye stand. Commend the murderous chalices! Bestow +them, ye who are now made parties to this indissoluble league. Ha! +Starbuck! but the deed is done! Yon ratifying sun now waits to sit upon +it. Drink, ye harpooneers! drink and swear, ye men that man the deathful +whaleboat's bow--Death to Moby Dick! God hunt us all, if we do not hunt +Moby Dick to his death!" The long, barbed steel goblets were lifted; +and to cries and maledictions against the white whale, the spirits were +simultaneously quaffed down with a hiss. Starbuck paled, and turned, and +shivered. Once more, and finally, the replenished pewter went the rounds +among the frantic crew; when, waving his free hand to them, they all +dispersed; and Ahab retired within his cabin. + + + +CHAPTER 37. Sunset. + + +THE CABIN; BY THE STERN WINDOWS; AHAB SITTING ALONE, AND GAZING OUT. + + +I leave a white and turbid wake; pale waters, paler cheeks, where'er I +sail. The envious billows sidelong swell to whelm my track; let them; +but first I pass. + +Yonder, by ever-brimming goblet's rim, the warm waves blush like wine. +The gold brow plumbs the blue. The diver sun--slow dived from noon--goes +down; my soul mounts up! she wearies with her endless hill. Is, then, +the crown too heavy that I wear? this Iron Crown of Lombardy. Yet is +it bright with many a gem; I the wearer, see not its far flashings; but +darkly feel that I wear that, that dazzlingly confounds. 'Tis iron--that +I know--not gold. 'Tis split, too--that I feel; the jagged edge galls +me so, my brain seems to beat against the solid metal; aye, steel skull, +mine; the sort that needs no helmet in the most brain-battering fight! + +Dry heat upon my brow? Oh! time was, when as the sunrise nobly spurred +me, so the sunset soothed. No more. This lovely light, it lights not me; +all loveliness is anguish to me, since I can ne'er enjoy. Gifted with +the high perception, I lack the low, enjoying power; damned, most subtly +and most malignantly! damned in the midst of Paradise! Good night--good +night! (WAVING HIS HAND, HE MOVES FROM THE WINDOW.) + +'Twas not so hard a task. I thought to find one stubborn, at the least; +but my one cogged circle fits into all their various wheels, and they +revolve. Or, if you will, like so many ant-hills of powder, they all +stand before me; and I their match. Oh, hard! that to fire others, the +match itself must needs be wasting! What I've dared, I've willed; and +what I've willed, I'll do! They think me mad--Starbuck does; but I'm +demoniac, I am madness maddened! That wild madness that's only calm +to comprehend itself! The prophecy was that I should be dismembered; +and--Aye! I lost this leg. I now prophesy that I will dismember my +dismemberer. Now, then, be the prophet and the fulfiller one. That's +more than ye, ye great gods, ever were. I laugh and hoot at ye, ye +cricket-players, ye pugilists, ye deaf Burkes and blinded Bendigoes! +I will not say as schoolboys do to bullies--Take some one of your own +size; don't pommel ME! No, ye've knocked me down, and I am up again; but +YE have run and hidden. Come forth from behind your cotton bags! I have +no long gun to reach ye. Come, Ahab's compliments to ye; come and see +if ye can swerve me. Swerve me? ye cannot swerve me, else ye swerve +yourselves! man has ye there. Swerve me? The path to my fixed purpose is +laid with iron rails, whereon my soul is grooved to run. Over unsounded +gorges, through the rifled hearts of mountains, under torrents' beds, +unerringly I rush! Naught's an obstacle, naught's an angle to the iron +way! + + + +CHAPTER 38. Dusk. + + +BY THE MAINMAST; STARBUCK LEANING AGAINST IT. + + +My soul is more than matched; she's overmanned; and by a madman! +Insufferable sting, that sanity should ground arms on such a field! But +he drilled deep down, and blasted all my reason out of me! I think I see +his impious end; but feel that I must help him to it. Will I, nill I, +the ineffable thing has tied me to him; tows me with a cable I have no +knife to cut. Horrible old man! Who's over him, he cries;--aye, he would +be a democrat to all above; look, how he lords it over all below! Oh! I +plainly see my miserable office,--to obey, rebelling; and worse yet, +to hate with touch of pity! For in his eyes I read some lurid woe would +shrivel me up, had I it. Yet is there hope. Time and tide flow wide. +The hated whale has the round watery world to swim in, as the small +gold-fish has its glassy globe. His heaven-insulting purpose, God may +wedge aside. I would up heart, were it not like lead. But my whole +clock's run down; my heart the all-controlling weight, I have no key to +lift again. + + +[A BURST OF REVELRY FROM THE FORECASTLE.] + + +Oh, God! to sail with such a heathen crew that have small touch of human +mothers in them! Whelped somewhere by the sharkish sea. The white whale +is their demigorgon. Hark! the infernal orgies! that revelry is forward! +mark the unfaltering silence aft! Methinks it pictures life. Foremost +through the sparkling sea shoots on the gay, embattled, bantering +bow, but only to drag dark Ahab after it, where he broods within his +sternward cabin, builded over the dead water of the wake, and further +on, hunted by its wolfish gurglings. The long howl thrills me through! +Peace! ye revellers, and set the watch! Oh, life! 'tis in an hour like +this, with soul beat down and held to knowledge,--as wild, untutored +things are forced to feed--Oh, life! 'tis now that I do feel the latent +horror in thee! but 'tis not me! that horror's out of me! and with the +soft feeling of the human in me, yet will I try to fight ye, ye grim, +phantom futures! Stand by me, hold me, bind me, O ye blessed influences! + + + +CHAPTER 39. First Night Watch. + +Fore-Top. + +(STUBB SOLUS, AND MENDING A BRACE.) + + +Ha! ha! ha! ha! hem! clear my throat!--I've been thinking over it +ever since, and that ha, ha's the final consequence. Why so? Because a +laugh's the wisest, easiest answer to all that's queer; and come what +will, one comfort's always left--that unfailing comfort is, it's all +predestinated. I heard not all his talk with Starbuck; but to my poor +eye Starbuck then looked something as I the other evening felt. Be sure +the old Mogul has fixed him, too. I twigged it, knew it; had had the +gift, might readily have prophesied it--for when I clapped my eye upon +his skull I saw it. Well, Stubb, WISE Stubb--that's my title--well, +Stubb, what of it, Stubb? Here's a carcase. I know not all that may be +coming, but be it what it will, I'll go to it laughing. Such a waggish +leering as lurks in all your horribles! I feel funny. Fa, la! lirra, +skirra! What's my juicy little pear at home doing now? Crying its eyes +out?--Giving a party to the last arrived harpooneers, I dare say, gay as +a frigate's pennant, and so am I--fa, la! lirra, skirra! Oh-- + +We'll drink to-night with hearts as light, To love, as gay and fleeting +As bubbles that swim, on the beaker's brim, And break on the lips while +meeting. + + +A brave stave that--who calls? Mr. Starbuck? Aye, aye, sir--(ASIDE) he's +my superior, he has his too, if I'm not mistaken.--Aye, aye, sir, just +through with this job--coming. + + + +CHAPTER 40. Midnight, Forecastle. + +HARPOONEERS AND SAILORS. + +(FORESAIL RISES AND DISCOVERS THE WATCH STANDING, LOUNGING, LEANING, AND +LYING IN VARIOUS ATTITUDES, ALL SINGING IN CHORUS.) + + Farewell and adieu to you, Spanish ladies! + Farewell and adieu to you, ladies of Spain! + Our captain's commanded.-- + +1ST NANTUCKET SAILOR. Oh, boys, don't be sentimental; it's bad for the +digestion! Take a tonic, follow me! (SINGS, AND ALL FOLLOW) + + Our captain stood upon the deck, + A spy-glass in his hand, + A viewing of those gallant whales + That blew at every strand. + Oh, your tubs in your boats, my boys, + And by your braces stand, + And we'll have one of those fine whales, + Hand, boys, over hand! + So, be cheery, my lads! may your hearts never fail! + While the bold harpooner is striking the whale! + +MATE'S VOICE FROM THE QUARTER-DECK. Eight bells there, forward! + +2ND NANTUCKET SAILOR. Avast the chorus! Eight bells there! d'ye hear, +bell-boy? Strike the bell eight, thou Pip! thou blackling! and let me +call the watch. I've the sort of mouth for that--the hogshead mouth. +So, so, (THRUSTS HIS HEAD DOWN THE SCUTTLE,) Star-bo-l-e-e-n-s, a-h-o-y! +Eight bells there below! Tumble up! + +DUTCH SAILOR. Grand snoozing to-night, maty; fat night for that. I +mark this in our old Mogul's wine; it's quite as deadening to some as +filliping to others. We sing; they sleep--aye, lie down there, like +ground-tier butts. At 'em again! There, take this copper-pump, and hail +'em through it. Tell 'em to avast dreaming of their lasses. Tell 'em +it's the resurrection; they must kiss their last, and come to judgment. +That's the way--THAT'S it; thy throat ain't spoiled with eating +Amsterdam butter. + +FRENCH SAILOR. Hist, boys! let's have a jig or two before we ride to +anchor in Blanket Bay. What say ye? There comes the other watch. Stand +by all legs! Pip! little Pip! hurrah with your tambourine! + +PIP. (SULKY AND SLEEPY) Don't know where it is. + +FRENCH SAILOR. Beat thy belly, then, and wag thy ears. Jig it, men, +I say; merry's the word; hurrah! Damn me, won't you dance? Form, now, +Indian-file, and gallop into the double-shuffle? Throw yourselves! Legs! +legs! + +ICELAND SAILOR. I don't like your floor, maty; it's too springy to my +taste. I'm used to ice-floors. I'm sorry to throw cold water on the +subject; but excuse me. + +MALTESE SAILOR. Me too; where's your girls? Who but a fool would take +his left hand by his right, and say to himself, how d'ye do? Partners! I +must have partners! + +SICILIAN SAILOR. Aye; girls and a green!--then I'll hop with ye; yea, +turn grasshopper! + +LONG-ISLAND SAILOR. Well, well, ye sulkies, there's plenty more of us. +Hoe corn when you may, say I. All legs go to harvest soon. Ah! here +comes the music; now for it! + +AZORE SAILOR. (ASCENDING, AND PITCHING THE TAMBOURINE UP THE SCUTTLE.) +Here you are, Pip; and there's the windlass-bitts; up you mount! Now, +boys! (THE HALF OF THEM DANCE TO THE TAMBOURINE; SOME GO BELOW; SOME +SLEEP OR LIE AMONG THE COILS OF RIGGING. OATHS A-PLENTY.) + +AZORE SAILOR. (DANCING) Go it, Pip! Bang it, bell-boy! Rig it, dig it, +stig it, quig it, bell-boy! Make fire-flies; break the jinglers! + +PIP. Jinglers, you say?--there goes another, dropped off; I pound it so. + +CHINA SAILOR. Rattle thy teeth, then, and pound away; make a pagoda of +thyself. + + +FRENCH SAILOR. Merry-mad! Hold up thy hoop, Pip, till I jump through it! +Split jibs! tear yourselves! + +TASHTEGO. (QUIETLY SMOKING) That's a white man; he calls that fun: +humph! I save my sweat. + +OLD MANX SAILOR. I wonder whether those jolly lads bethink them of what +they are dancing over. I'll dance over your grave, I will--that's +the bitterest threat of your night-women, that beat head-winds round +corners. O Christ! to think of the green navies and the green-skulled +crews! Well, well; belike the whole world's a ball, as you scholars have +it; and so 'tis right to make one ballroom of it. Dance on, lads, you're +young; I was once. + +3D NANTUCKET SAILOR. Spell oh!--whew! this is worse than pulling after +whales in a calm--give us a whiff, Tash. + +(THEY CEASE DANCING, AND GATHER IN CLUSTERS. MEANTIME THE SKY +DARKENS--THE WIND RISES.) + +LASCAR SAILOR. By Brahma! boys, it'll be douse sail soon. The sky-born, +high-tide Ganges turned to wind! Thou showest thy black brow, Seeva! + +MALTESE SAILOR. (RECLINING AND SHAKING HIS CAP.) It's the waves--the +snow's caps turn to jig it now. They'll shake their tassels soon. Now +would all the waves were women, then I'd go drown, and chassee with them +evermore! There's naught so sweet on earth--heaven may not match +it!--as those swift glances of warm, wild bosoms in the dance, when the +over-arboring arms hide such ripe, bursting grapes. + +SICILIAN SAILOR. (RECLINING.) Tell me not of it! Hark ye, lad--fleet +interlacings of the limbs--lithe swayings--coyings--flutterings! lip! +heart! hip! all graze: unceasing touch and go! not taste, observe ye, +else come satiety. Eh, Pagan? (NUDGING.) + +TAHITAN SAILOR. (RECLINING ON A MAT.) Hail, holy nakedness of our +dancing girls!--the Heeva-Heeva! Ah! low veiled, high palmed Tahiti! I +still rest me on thy mat, but the soft soil has slid! I saw thee woven +in the wood, my mat! green the first day I brought ye thence; now worn +and wilted quite. Ah me!--not thou nor I can bear the change! How +then, if so be transplanted to yon sky? Hear I the roaring streams from +Pirohitee's peak of spears, when they leap down the crags and drown the +villages?--The blast! the blast! Up, spine, and meet it! (LEAPS TO HIS +FEET.) + +PORTUGUESE SAILOR. How the sea rolls swashing 'gainst the side! Stand +by for reefing, hearties! the winds are just crossing swords, pell-mell +they'll go lunging presently. + +DANISH SAILOR. Crack, crack, old ship! so long as thou crackest, thou +holdest! Well done! The mate there holds ye to it stiffly. He's no more +afraid than the isle fort at Cattegat, put there to fight the Baltic +with storm-lashed guns, on which the sea-salt cakes! + +4TH NANTUCKET SAILOR. He has his orders, mind ye that. I heard old +Ahab tell him he must always kill a squall, something as they burst a +waterspout with a pistol--fire your ship right into it! + +ENGLISH SAILOR. Blood! but that old man's a grand old cove! We are the +lads to hunt him up his whale! + +ALL. Aye! aye! + +OLD MANX SAILOR. How the three pines shake! Pines are the hardest sort +of tree to live when shifted to any other soil, and here there's none +but the crew's cursed clay. Steady, helmsman! steady. This is the sort +of weather when brave hearts snap ashore, and keeled hulls split at sea. +Our captain has his birthmark; look yonder, boys, there's another in the +sky--lurid-like, ye see, all else pitch black. + +DAGGOO. What of that? Who's afraid of black's afraid of me! I'm quarried +out of it! + +SPANISH SAILOR. (ASIDE.) He wants to bully, ah!--the old grudge makes +me touchy (ADVANCING.) Aye, harpooneer, thy race is the undeniable dark +side of mankind--devilish dark at that. No offence. + +DAGGOO (GRIMLY). None. + +ST. JAGO'S SAILOR. That Spaniard's mad or drunk. But that can't be, or +else in his one case our old Mogul's fire-waters are somewhat long in +working. + +5TH NANTUCKET SAILOR. What's that I saw--lightning? Yes. + +SPANISH SAILOR. No; Daggoo showing his teeth. + +DAGGOO (SPRINGING). Swallow thine, mannikin! White skin, white liver! + +SPANISH SAILOR (MEETING HIM). Knife thee heartily! big frame, small +spirit! + +ALL. A row! a row! a row! + +TASHTEGO (WITH A WHIFF). A row a'low, and a row aloft--Gods and +men--both brawlers! Humph! + +BELFAST SAILOR. A row! arrah a row! The Virgin be blessed, a row! Plunge +in with ye! + +ENGLISH SAILOR. Fair play! Snatch the Spaniard's knife! A ring, a ring! + +OLD MANX SAILOR. Ready formed. There! the ringed horizon. In that ring +Cain struck Abel. Sweet work, right work! No? Why then, God, mad'st thou +the ring? + +MATE'S VOICE FROM THE QUARTER-DECK. Hands by the halyards! in +top-gallant sails! Stand by to reef topsails! + +ALL. The squall! the squall! jump, my jollies! (THEY SCATTER.) + + +PIP (SHRINKING UNDER THE WINDLASS). Jollies? Lord help such jollies! +Crish, crash! there goes the jib-stay! Blang-whang! God! Duck lower, +Pip, here comes the royal yard! It's worse than being in the whirled +woods, the last day of the year! Who'd go climbing after chestnuts now? +But there they go, all cursing, and here I don't. Fine prospects to 'em; +they're on the road to heaven. Hold on hard! Jimmini, what a squall! +But those chaps there are worse yet--they are your white squalls, they. +White squalls? white whale, shirr! shirr! Here have I heard all their +chat just now, and the white whale--shirr! shirr!--but spoken of +once! and only this evening--it makes me jingle all over like my +tambourine--that anaconda of an old man swore 'em in to hunt him! Oh, +thou big white God aloft there somewhere in yon darkness, have mercy on +this small black boy down here; preserve him from all men that have no +bowels to feel fear! + + + +CHAPTER 41. Moby Dick. + + +I, Ishmael, was one of that crew; my shouts had gone up with the rest; +my oath had been welded with theirs; and stronger I shouted, and more +did I hammer and clinch my oath, because of the dread in my soul. A +wild, mystical, sympathetical feeling was in me; Ahab's quenchless feud +seemed mine. With greedy ears I learned the history of that murderous +monster against whom I and all the others had taken our oaths of +violence and revenge. + +For some time past, though at intervals only, the unaccompanied, +secluded White Whale had haunted those uncivilized seas mostly +frequented by the Sperm Whale fishermen. But not all of them knew of his +existence; only a few of them, comparatively, had knowingly seen him; +while the number who as yet had actually and knowingly given battle to +him, was small indeed. For, owing to the large number of whale-cruisers; +the disorderly way they were sprinkled over the entire watery +circumference, many of them adventurously pushing their quest along +solitary latitudes, so as seldom or never for a whole twelvemonth or +more on a stretch, to encounter a single news-telling sail of any sort; +the inordinate length of each separate voyage; the irregularity of the +times of sailing from home; all these, with other circumstances, direct +and indirect, long obstructed the spread through the whole world-wide +whaling-fleet of the special individualizing tidings concerning Moby +Dick. It was hardly to be doubted, that several vessels reported to have +encountered, at such or such a time, or on such or such a meridian, +a Sperm Whale of uncommon magnitude and malignity, which whale, after +doing great mischief to his assailants, had completely escaped them; to +some minds it was not an unfair presumption, I say, that the whale in +question must have been no other than Moby Dick. Yet as of late the +Sperm Whale fishery had been marked by various and not unfrequent +instances of great ferocity, cunning, and malice in the monster +attacked; therefore it was, that those who by accident ignorantly gave +battle to Moby Dick; such hunters, perhaps, for the most part, were +content to ascribe the peculiar terror he bred, more, as it were, to +the perils of the Sperm Whale fishery at large, than to the individual +cause. In that way, mostly, the disastrous encounter between Ahab and +the whale had hitherto been popularly regarded. + +And as for those who, previously hearing of the White Whale, by chance +caught sight of him; in the beginning of the thing they had every one of +them, almost, as boldly and fearlessly lowered for him, as for any other +whale of that species. But at length, such calamities did ensue in these +assaults--not restricted to sprained wrists and ankles, broken limbs, or +devouring amputations--but fatal to the last degree of fatality; those +repeated disastrous repulses, all accumulating and piling their terrors +upon Moby Dick; those things had gone far to shake the fortitude of many +brave hunters, to whom the story of the White Whale had eventually come. + +Nor did wild rumors of all sorts fail to exaggerate, and still the more +horrify the true histories of these deadly encounters. For not only do +fabulous rumors naturally grow out of the very body of all surprising +terrible events,--as the smitten tree gives birth to its fungi; but, in +maritime life, far more than in that of terra firma, wild rumors abound, +wherever there is any adequate reality for them to cling to. And as the +sea surpasses the land in this matter, so the whale fishery surpasses +every other sort of maritime life, in the wonderfulness and fearfulness +of the rumors which sometimes circulate there. For not only are whalemen +as a body unexempt from that ignorance and superstitiousness hereditary +to all sailors; but of all sailors, they are by all odds the most +directly brought into contact with whatever is appallingly astonishing +in the sea; face to face they not only eye its greatest marvels, but, +hand to jaw, give battle to them. Alone, in such remotest waters, that +though you sailed a thousand miles, and passed a thousand shores, you +would not come to any chiseled hearth-stone, or aught hospitable beneath +that part of the sun; in such latitudes and longitudes, pursuing too +such a calling as he does, the whaleman is wrapped by influences all +tending to make his fancy pregnant with many a mighty birth. + +No wonder, then, that ever gathering volume from the mere transit over +the widest watery spaces, the outblown rumors of the White Whale did +in the end incorporate with themselves all manner of morbid hints, +and half-formed foetal suggestions of supernatural agencies, which +eventually invested Moby Dick with new terrors unborrowed from anything +that visibly appears. So that in many cases such a panic did he finally +strike, that few who by those rumors, at least, had heard of the White +Whale, few of those hunters were willing to encounter the perils of his +jaw. + +But there were still other and more vital practical influences at work. +Not even at the present day has the original prestige of the Sperm +Whale, as fearfully distinguished from all other species of the +leviathan, died out of the minds of the whalemen as a body. There are +those this day among them, who, though intelligent and courageous +enough in offering battle to the Greenland or Right whale, would +perhaps--either from professional inexperience, or incompetency, or +timidity, decline a contest with the Sperm Whale; at any rate, there are +plenty of whalemen, especially among those whaling nations not sailing +under the American flag, who have never hostilely encountered the Sperm +Whale, but whose sole knowledge of the leviathan is restricted to +the ignoble monster primitively pursued in the North; seated on their +hatches, these men will hearken with a childish fireside interest +and awe, to the wild, strange tales of Southern whaling. Nor is the +pre-eminent tremendousness of the great Sperm Whale anywhere more +feelingly comprehended, than on board of those prows which stem him. + +And as if the now tested reality of his might had in former +legendary times thrown its shadow before it; we find some book +naturalists--Olassen and Povelson--declaring the Sperm Whale not only to +be a consternation to every other creature in the sea, but also to be so +incredibly ferocious as continually to be athirst for human blood. Nor +even down to so late a time as Cuvier's, were these or almost similar +impressions effaced. For in his Natural History, the Baron himself +affirms that at sight of the Sperm Whale, all fish (sharks included) are +"struck with the most lively terrors," and "often in the precipitancy of +their flight dash themselves against the rocks with such violence as to +cause instantaneous death." And however the general experiences in the +fishery may amend such reports as these; yet in their full terribleness, +even to the bloodthirsty item of Povelson, the superstitious belief in +them is, in some vicissitudes of their vocation, revived in the minds of +the hunters. + +So that overawed by the rumors and portents concerning him, not a few of +the fishermen recalled, in reference to Moby Dick, the earlier days +of the Sperm Whale fishery, when it was oftentimes hard to induce long +practised Right whalemen to embark in the perils of this new and daring +warfare; such men protesting that although other leviathans might be +hopefully pursued, yet to chase and point lance at such an apparition +as the Sperm Whale was not for mortal man. That to attempt it, would +be inevitably to be torn into a quick eternity. On this head, there are +some remarkable documents that may be consulted. + +Nevertheless, some there were, who even in the face of these things +were ready to give chase to Moby Dick; and a still greater number who, +chancing only to hear of him distantly and vaguely, without the +specific details of any certain calamity, and without superstitious +accompaniments, were sufficiently hardy not to flee from the battle if +offered. + +One of the wild suggestions referred to, as at last coming to be linked +with the White Whale in the minds of the superstitiously inclined, +was the unearthly conceit that Moby Dick was ubiquitous; that he had +actually been encountered in opposite latitudes at one and the same +instant of time. + +Nor, credulous as such minds must have been, was this conceit altogether +without some faint show of superstitious probability. For as the secrets +of the currents in the seas have never yet been divulged, even to +the most erudite research; so the hidden ways of the Sperm Whale +when beneath the surface remain, in great part, unaccountable to his +pursuers; and from time to time have originated the most curious and +contradictory speculations regarding them, especially concerning the +mystic modes whereby, after sounding to a great depth, he transports +himself with such vast swiftness to the most widely distant points. + +It is a thing well known to both American and English whale-ships, and +as well a thing placed upon authoritative record years ago by Scoresby, +that some whales have been captured far north in the Pacific, in whose +bodies have been found the barbs of harpoons darted in the Greenland +seas. Nor is it to be gainsaid, that in some of these instances it has +been declared that the interval of time between the two assaults could +not have exceeded very many days. Hence, by inference, it has been +believed by some whalemen, that the Nor' West Passage, so long a problem +to man, was never a problem to the whale. So that here, in the real +living experience of living men, the prodigies related in old times of +the inland Strello mountain in Portugal (near whose top there was said +to be a lake in which the wrecks of ships floated up to the surface); +and that still more wonderful story of the Arethusa fountain near +Syracuse (whose waters were believed to have come from the Holy Land +by an underground passage); these fabulous narrations are almost fully +equalled by the realities of the whalemen. + +Forced into familiarity, then, with such prodigies as these; and knowing +that after repeated, intrepid assaults, the White Whale had escaped +alive; it cannot be much matter of surprise that some whalemen should +go still further in their superstitions; declaring Moby Dick not only +ubiquitous, but immortal (for immortality is but ubiquity in time); that +though groves of spears should be planted in his flanks, he would still +swim away unharmed; or if indeed he should ever be made to spout thick +blood, such a sight would be but a ghastly deception; for again in +unensanguined billows hundreds of leagues away, his unsullied jet would +once more be seen. + +But even stripped of these supernatural surmisings, there was enough in +the earthly make and incontestable character of the monster to strike +the imagination with unwonted power. For, it was not so much his +uncommon bulk that so much distinguished him from other sperm whales, +but, as was elsewhere thrown out--a peculiar snow-white wrinkled +forehead, and a high, pyramidical white hump. These were his prominent +features; the tokens whereby, even in the limitless, uncharted seas, he +revealed his identity, at a long distance, to those who knew him. + +The rest of his body was so streaked, and spotted, and marbled with +the same shrouded hue, that, in the end, he had gained his distinctive +appellation of the White Whale; a name, indeed, literally justified by +his vivid aspect, when seen gliding at high noon through a dark blue +sea, leaving a milky-way wake of creamy foam, all spangled with golden +gleamings. + +Nor was it his unwonted magnitude, nor his remarkable hue, nor yet his +deformed lower jaw, that so much invested the whale with natural terror, +as that unexampled, intelligent malignity which, according to specific +accounts, he had over and over again evinced in his assaults. More than +all, his treacherous retreats struck more of dismay than perhaps aught +else. For, when swimming before his exulting pursuers, with every +apparent symptom of alarm, he had several times been known to turn +round suddenly, and, bearing down upon them, either stave their boats to +splinters, or drive them back in consternation to their ship. + +Already several fatalities had attended his chase. But though similar +disasters, however little bruited ashore, were by no means unusual +in the fishery; yet, in most instances, such seemed the White Whale's +infernal aforethought of ferocity, that every dismembering or death +that he caused, was not wholly regarded as having been inflicted by an +unintelligent agent. + +Judge, then, to what pitches of inflamed, distracted fury the minds of +his more desperate hunters were impelled, when amid the chips of chewed +boats, and the sinking limbs of torn comrades, they swam out of the +white curds of the whale's direful wrath into the serene, exasperating +sunlight, that smiled on, as if at a birth or a bridal. + +His three boats stove around him, and oars and men both whirling in the +eddies; one captain, seizing the line-knife from his broken prow, had +dashed at the whale, as an Arkansas duellist at his foe, blindly seeking +with a six inch blade to reach the fathom-deep life of the whale. +That captain was Ahab. And then it was, that suddenly sweeping his +sickle-shaped lower jaw beneath him, Moby Dick had reaped away Ahab's +leg, as a mower a blade of grass in the field. No turbaned Turk, no +hired Venetian or Malay, could have smote him with more seeming malice. +Small reason was there to doubt, then, that ever since that almost fatal +encounter, Ahab had cherished a wild vindictiveness against the whale, +all the more fell for that in his frantic morbidness he at last came +to identify with him, not only all his bodily woes, but all his +intellectual and spiritual exasperations. The White Whale swam before +him as the monomaniac incarnation of all those malicious agencies which +some deep men feel eating in them, till they are left living on with +half a heart and half a lung. That intangible malignity which has been +from the beginning; to whose dominion even the modern Christians ascribe +one-half of the worlds; which the ancient Ophites of the east reverenced +in their statue devil;--Ahab did not fall down and worship it like them; +but deliriously transferring its idea to the abhorred white whale, he +pitted himself, all mutilated, against it. All that most maddens and +torments; all that stirs up the lees of things; all truth with malice +in it; all that cracks the sinews and cakes the brain; all the subtle +demonisms of life and thought; all evil, to crazy Ahab, were visibly +personified, and made practically assailable in Moby Dick. He piled upon +the whale's white hump the sum of all the general rage and hate felt +by his whole race from Adam down; and then, as if his chest had been a +mortar, he burst his hot heart's shell upon it. + +It is not probable that this monomania in him took its instant rise at +the precise time of his bodily dismemberment. Then, in darting at the +monster, knife in hand, he had but given loose to a sudden, passionate, +corporal animosity; and when he received the stroke that tore him, he +probably but felt the agonizing bodily laceration, but nothing more. +Yet, when by this collision forced to turn towards home, and for long +months of days and weeks, Ahab and anguish lay stretched together in one +hammock, rounding in mid winter that dreary, howling Patagonian Cape; +then it was, that his torn body and gashed soul bled into one another; +and so interfusing, made him mad. That it was only then, on the homeward +voyage, after the encounter, that the final monomania seized him, seems +all but certain from the fact that, at intervals during the passage, +he was a raving lunatic; and, though unlimbed of a leg, yet such vital +strength yet lurked in his Egyptian chest, and was moreover intensified +by his delirium, that his mates were forced to lace him fast, even +there, as he sailed, raving in his hammock. In a strait-jacket, he swung +to the mad rockings of the gales. And, when running into more sufferable +latitudes, the ship, with mild stun'sails spread, floated across the +tranquil tropics, and, to all appearances, the old man's delirium seemed +left behind him with the Cape Horn swells, and he came forth from his +dark den into the blessed light and air; even then, when he bore that +firm, collected front, however pale, and issued his calm orders once +again; and his mates thanked God the direful madness was now gone; even +then, Ahab, in his hidden self, raved on. Human madness is oftentimes a +cunning and most feline thing. When you think it fled, it may have but +become transfigured into some still subtler form. Ahab's full lunacy +subsided not, but deepeningly contracted; like the unabated Hudson, +when that noble Northman flows narrowly, but unfathomably through the +Highland gorge. But, as in his narrow-flowing monomania, not one jot of +Ahab's broad madness had been left behind; so in that broad madness, not +one jot of his great natural intellect had perished. That before living +agent, now became the living instrument. If such a furious trope may +stand, his special lunacy stormed his general sanity, and carried it, +and turned all its concentred cannon upon its own mad mark; so that far +from having lost his strength, Ahab, to that one end, did now possess a +thousand fold more potency than ever he had sanely brought to bear upon +any one reasonable object. + +This is much; yet Ahab's larger, darker, deeper part remains unhinted. +But vain to popularize profundities, and all truth is profound. Winding +far down from within the very heart of this spiked Hotel de Cluny where +we here stand--however grand and wonderful, now quit it;--and take your +way, ye nobler, sadder souls, to those vast Roman halls of Thermes; +where far beneath the fantastic towers of man's upper earth, his root +of grandeur, his whole awful essence sits in bearded state; an antique +buried beneath antiquities, and throned on torsoes! So with a broken +throne, the great gods mock that captive king; so like a Caryatid, he +patient sits, upholding on his frozen brow the piled entablatures of +ages. Wind ye down there, ye prouder, sadder souls! question that proud, +sad king! A family likeness! aye, he did beget ye, ye young exiled +royalties; and from your grim sire only will the old State-secret come. + +Now, in his heart, Ahab had some glimpse of this, namely: all my means +are sane, my motive and my object mad. Yet without power to kill, or +change, or shun the fact; he likewise knew that to mankind he did long +dissemble; in some sort, did still. But that thing of his dissembling +was only subject to his perceptibility, not to his will determinate. +Nevertheless, so well did he succeed in that dissembling, that when +with ivory leg he stepped ashore at last, no Nantucketer thought him +otherwise than but naturally grieved, and that to the quick, with the +terrible casualty which had overtaken him. + +The report of his undeniable delirium at sea was likewise popularly +ascribed to a kindred cause. And so too, all the added moodiness which +always afterwards, to the very day of sailing in the Pequod on the +present voyage, sat brooding on his brow. Nor is it so very unlikely, +that far from distrusting his fitness for another whaling voyage, on +account of such dark symptoms, the calculating people of that prudent +isle were inclined to harbor the conceit, that for those very reasons he +was all the better qualified and set on edge, for a pursuit so full +of rage and wildness as the bloody hunt of whales. Gnawed within and +scorched without, with the infixed, unrelenting fangs of some incurable +idea; such an one, could he be found, would seem the very man to dart +his iron and lift his lance against the most appalling of all brutes. +Or, if for any reason thought to be corporeally incapacitated for that, +yet such an one would seem superlatively competent to cheer and howl on +his underlings to the attack. But be all this as it may, certain it is, +that with the mad secret of his unabated rage bolted up and keyed in +him, Ahab had purposely sailed upon the present voyage with the one only +and all-engrossing object of hunting the White Whale. Had any one of his +old acquaintances on shore but half dreamed of what was lurking in him +then, how soon would their aghast and righteous souls have wrenched the +ship from such a fiendish man! They were bent on profitable cruises, the +profit to be counted down in dollars from the mint. He was intent on an +audacious, immitigable, and supernatural revenge. + +Here, then, was this grey-headed, ungodly old man, chasing with curses a +Job's whale round the world, at the head of a crew, too, chiefly made +up of mongrel renegades, and castaways, and cannibals--morally enfeebled +also, by the incompetence of mere unaided virtue or right-mindedness in +Starbuck, the invulnerable jollity of indifference and recklessness in +Stubb, and the pervading mediocrity in Flask. Such a crew, so officered, +seemed specially picked and packed by some infernal fatality to help him +to his monomaniac revenge. How it was that they so aboundingly responded +to the old man's ire--by what evil magic their souls were possessed, +that at times his hate seemed almost theirs; the White Whale as much +their insufferable foe as his; how all this came to be--what the White +Whale was to them, or how to their unconscious understandings, also, in +some dim, unsuspected way, he might have seemed the gliding great demon +of the seas of life,--all this to explain, would be to dive deeper than +Ishmael can go. The subterranean miner that works in us all, how can one +tell whither leads his shaft by the ever shifting, muffled sound of his +pick? Who does not feel the irresistible arm drag? What skiff in tow +of a seventy-four can stand still? For one, I gave myself up to the +abandonment of the time and the place; but while yet all a-rush to +encounter the whale, could see naught in that brute but the deadliest +ill. + + + +CHAPTER 42. The Whiteness of The Whale. + + +What the white whale was to Ahab, has been hinted; what, at times, he +was to me, as yet remains unsaid. + +Aside from those more obvious considerations touching Moby Dick, which +could not but occasionally awaken in any man's soul some alarm, there +was another thought, or rather vague, nameless horror concerning him, +which at times by its intensity completely overpowered all the rest; and +yet so mystical and well nigh ineffable was it, that I almost despair of +putting it in a comprehensible form. It was the whiteness of the whale +that above all things appalled me. But how can I hope to explain myself +here; and yet, in some dim, random way, explain myself I must, else all +these chapters might be naught. + +Though in many natural objects, whiteness refiningly enhances beauty, as +if imparting some special virtue of its own, as in marbles, japonicas, +and pearls; and though various nations have in some way recognised a +certain royal preeminence in this hue; even the barbaric, grand old +kings of Pegu placing the title "Lord of the White Elephants" above all +their other magniloquent ascriptions of dominion; and the modern kings +of Siam unfurling the same snow-white quadruped in the royal standard; +and the Hanoverian flag bearing the one figure of a snow-white charger; +and the great Austrian Empire, Caesarian, heir to overlording Rome, +having for the imperial colour the same imperial hue; and though this +pre-eminence in it applies to the human race itself, giving the white +man ideal mastership over every dusky tribe; and though, besides, all +this, whiteness has been even made significant of gladness, for among +the Romans a white stone marked a joyful day; and though in other mortal +sympathies and symbolizings, this same hue is made the emblem of many +touching, noble things--the innocence of brides, the benignity of age; +though among the Red Men of America the giving of the white belt +of wampum was the deepest pledge of honour; though in many climes, +whiteness typifies the majesty of Justice in the ermine of the Judge, +and contributes to the daily state of kings and queens drawn by +milk-white steeds; though even in the higher mysteries of the most +august religions it has been made the symbol of the divine spotlessness +and power; by the Persian fire worshippers, the white forked flame being +held the holiest on the altar; and in the Greek mythologies, Great Jove +himself being made incarnate in a snow-white bull; and though to the +noble Iroquois, the midwinter sacrifice of the sacred White Dog was +by far the holiest festival of their theology, that spotless, faithful +creature being held the purest envoy they could send to the Great Spirit +with the annual tidings of their own fidelity; and though directly from +the Latin word for white, all Christian priests derive the name of +one part of their sacred vesture, the alb or tunic, worn beneath the +cassock; and though among the holy pomps of the Romish faith, white is +specially employed in the celebration of the Passion of our Lord; though +in the Vision of St. John, white robes are given to the redeemed, and +the four-and-twenty elders stand clothed in white before the great-white +throne, and the Holy One that sitteth there white like wool; yet for all +these accumulated associations, with whatever is sweet, and honourable, +and sublime, there yet lurks an elusive something in the innermost idea +of this hue, which strikes more of panic to the soul than that redness +which affrights in blood. + +This elusive quality it is, which causes the thought of whiteness, when +divorced from more kindly associations, and coupled with any object +terrible in itself, to heighten that terror to the furthest bounds. +Witness the white bear of the poles, and the white shark of the tropics; +what but their smooth, flaky whiteness makes them the transcendent +horrors they are? That ghastly whiteness it is which imparts such an +abhorrent mildness, even more loathsome than terrific, to the dumb +gloating of their aspect. So that not the fierce-fanged tiger in his +heraldic coat can so stagger courage as the white-shrouded bear or +shark.* + + +*With reference to the Polar bear, it may possibly be urged by him +who would fain go still deeper into this matter, that it is not +the whiteness, separately regarded, which heightens the intolerable +hideousness of that brute; for, analysed, that heightened hideousness, +it might be said, only rises from the circumstance, that the +irresponsible ferociousness of the creature stands invested in the +fleece of celestial innocence and love; and hence, by bringing together +two such opposite emotions in our minds, the Polar bear frightens us +with so unnatural a contrast. But even assuming all this to be true; +yet, were it not for the whiteness, you would not have that intensified +terror. + +As for the white shark, the white gliding ghostliness of repose in that +creature, when beheld in his ordinary moods, strangely tallies with the +same quality in the Polar quadruped. This peculiarity is most vividly +hit by the French in the name they bestow upon that fish. The Romish +mass for the dead begins with "Requiem eternam" (eternal rest), whence +REQUIEM denominating the mass itself, and any other funeral music. Now, +in allusion to the white, silent stillness of death in this shark, and +the mild deadliness of his habits, the French call him REQUIN. + + +Bethink thee of the albatross, whence come those clouds of spiritual +wonderment and pale dread, in which that white phantom sails in all +imaginations? Not Coleridge first threw that spell; but God's great, +unflattering laureate, Nature.* + + +*I remember the first albatross I ever saw. It was during a prolonged +gale, in waters hard upon the Antarctic seas. From my forenoon watch +below, I ascended to the overclouded deck; and there, dashed upon the +main hatches, I saw a regal, feathery thing of unspotted whiteness, and +with a hooked, Roman bill sublime. At intervals, it arched forth +its vast archangel wings, as if to embrace some holy ark. Wondrous +flutterings and throbbings shook it. Though bodily unharmed, it uttered +cries, as some king's ghost in supernatural distress. Through its +inexpressible, strange eyes, methought I peeped to secrets which took +hold of God. As Abraham before the angels, I bowed myself; the white +thing was so white, its wings so wide, and in those for ever exiled +waters, I had lost the miserable warping memories of traditions and of +towns. Long I gazed at that prodigy of plumage. I cannot tell, can only +hint, the things that darted through me then. But at last I awoke; and +turning, asked a sailor what bird was this. A goney, he replied. Goney! +never had heard that name before; is it conceivable that this glorious +thing is utterly unknown to men ashore! never! But some time after, I +learned that goney was some seaman's name for albatross. So that by no +possibility could Coleridge's wild Rhyme have had aught to do with those +mystical impressions which were mine, when I saw that bird upon our +deck. For neither had I then read the Rhyme, nor knew the bird to be +an albatross. Yet, in saying this, I do but indirectly burnish a little +brighter the noble merit of the poem and the poet. + +I assert, then, that in the wondrous bodily whiteness of the bird +chiefly lurks the secret of the spell; a truth the more evinced in this, +that by a solecism of terms there are birds called grey albatrosses; +and these I have frequently seen, but never with such emotions as when I +beheld the Antarctic fowl. + +But how had the mystic thing been caught? Whisper it not, and I will +tell; with a treacherous hook and line, as the fowl floated on the sea. +At last the Captain made a postman of it; tying a lettered, leathern +tally round its neck, with the ship's time and place; and then letting +it escape. But I doubt not, that leathern tally, meant for man, was +taken off in Heaven, when the white fowl flew to join the wing-folding, +the invoking, and adoring cherubim! + + +Most famous in our Western annals and Indian traditions is that of +the White Steed of the Prairies; a magnificent milk-white charger, +large-eyed, small-headed, bluff-chested, and with the dignity of a +thousand monarchs in his lofty, overscorning carriage. He was the +elected Xerxes of vast herds of wild horses, whose pastures in those +days were only fenced by the Rocky Mountains and the Alleghanies. At +their flaming head he westward trooped it like that chosen star which +every evening leads on the hosts of light. The flashing cascade of his +mane, the curving comet of his tail, invested him with housings more +resplendent than gold and silver-beaters could have furnished him. A +most imperial and archangelical apparition of that unfallen, western +world, which to the eyes of the old trappers and hunters revived the +glories of those primeval times when Adam walked majestic as a god, +bluff-browed and fearless as this mighty steed. Whether marching amid +his aides and marshals in the van of countless cohorts that endlessly +streamed it over the plains, like an Ohio; or whether with his +circumambient subjects browsing all around at the horizon, the White +Steed gallopingly reviewed them with warm nostrils reddening through his +cool milkiness; in whatever aspect he presented himself, always to the +bravest Indians he was the object of trembling reverence and awe. Nor +can it be questioned from what stands on legendary record of this noble +horse, that it was his spiritual whiteness chiefly, which so clothed him +with divineness; and that this divineness had that in it which, though +commanding worship, at the same time enforced a certain nameless terror. + +But there are other instances where this whiteness loses all that +accessory and strange glory which invests it in the White Steed and +Albatross. + +What is it that in the Albino man so peculiarly repels and often shocks +the eye, as that sometimes he is loathed by his own kith and kin! It +is that whiteness which invests him, a thing expressed by the name +he bears. The Albino is as well made as other men--has no substantive +deformity--and yet this mere aspect of all-pervading whiteness makes him +more strangely hideous than the ugliest abortion. Why should this be so? + +Nor, in quite other aspects, does Nature in her least palpable but +not the less malicious agencies, fail to enlist among her forces +this crowning attribute of the terrible. From its snowy aspect, the +gauntleted ghost of the Southern Seas has been denominated the White +Squall. Nor, in some historic instances, has the art of human malice +omitted so potent an auxiliary. How wildly it heightens the effect of +that passage in Froissart, when, masked in the snowy symbol of their +faction, the desperate White Hoods of Ghent murder their bailiff in the +market-place! + +Nor, in some things, does the common, hereditary experience of all +mankind fail to bear witness to the supernaturalism of this hue. It +cannot well be doubted, that the one visible quality in the aspect of +the dead which most appals the gazer, is the marble pallor lingering +there; as if indeed that pallor were as much like the badge of +consternation in the other world, as of mortal trepidation here. And +from that pallor of the dead, we borrow the expressive hue of the shroud +in which we wrap them. Nor even in our superstitions do we fail to +throw the same snowy mantle round our phantoms; all ghosts rising in a +milk-white fog--Yea, while these terrors seize us, let us add, that even +the king of terrors, when personified by the evangelist, rides on his +pallid horse. + +Therefore, in his other moods, symbolize whatever grand or gracious +thing he will by whiteness, no man can deny that in its profoundest +idealized significance it calls up a peculiar apparition to the soul. + +But though without dissent this point be fixed, how is mortal man to +account for it? To analyse it, would seem impossible. Can we, then, +by the citation of some of those instances wherein this thing of +whiteness--though for the time either wholly or in great part stripped +of all direct associations calculated to impart to it aught fearful, +but nevertheless, is found to exert over us the same sorcery, however +modified;--can we thus hope to light upon some chance clue to conduct us +to the hidden cause we seek? + +Let us try. But in a matter like this, subtlety appeals to subtlety, +and without imagination no man can follow another into these halls. And +though, doubtless, some at least of the imaginative impressions about +to be presented may have been shared by most men, yet few perhaps were +entirely conscious of them at the time, and therefore may not be able to +recall them now. + +Why to the man of untutored ideality, who happens to be but loosely +acquainted with the peculiar character of the day, does the bare mention +of Whitsuntide marshal in the fancy such long, dreary, speechless +processions of slow-pacing pilgrims, down-cast and hooded with +new-fallen snow? Or, to the unread, unsophisticated Protestant of the +Middle American States, why does the passing mention of a White Friar or +a White Nun, evoke such an eyeless statue in the soul? + +Or what is there apart from the traditions of dungeoned warriors and +kings (which will not wholly account for it) that makes the White +Tower of London tell so much more strongly on the imagination of +an untravelled American, than those other storied structures, its +neighbors--the Byward Tower, or even the Bloody? And those sublimer +towers, the White Mountains of New Hampshire, whence, in peculiar moods, +comes that gigantic ghostliness over the soul at the bare mention of +that name, while the thought of Virginia's Blue Ridge is full of a soft, +dewy, distant dreaminess? Or why, irrespective of all latitudes and +longitudes, does the name of the White Sea exert such a spectralness +over the fancy, while that of the Yellow Sea lulls us with mortal +thoughts of long lacquered mild afternoons on the waves, followed by +the gaudiest and yet sleepiest of sunsets? Or, to choose a wholly +unsubstantial instance, purely addressed to the fancy, why, in reading +the old fairy tales of Central Europe, does "the tall pale man" of the +Hartz forests, whose changeless pallor unrustlingly glides through the +green of the groves--why is this phantom more terrible than all the +whooping imps of the Blocksburg? + +Nor is it, altogether, the remembrance of her cathedral-toppling +earthquakes; nor the stampedoes of her frantic seas; nor the +tearlessness of arid skies that never rain; nor the sight of her wide +field of leaning spires, wrenched cope-stones, and crosses all adroop +(like canted yards of anchored fleets); and her suburban avenues of +house-walls lying over upon each other, as a tossed pack of cards;--it +is not these things alone which make tearless Lima, the strangest, +saddest city thou can'st see. For Lima has taken the white veil; and +there is a higher horror in this whiteness of her woe. Old as Pizarro, +this whiteness keeps her ruins for ever new; admits not the cheerful +greenness of complete decay; spreads over her broken ramparts the rigid +pallor of an apoplexy that fixes its own distortions. + +I know that, to the common apprehension, this phenomenon of whiteness +is not confessed to be the prime agent in exaggerating the terror of +objects otherwise terrible; nor to the unimaginative mind is there aught +of terror in those appearances whose awfulness to another mind almost +solely consists in this one phenomenon, especially when exhibited under +any form at all approaching to muteness or universality. What I mean +by these two statements may perhaps be respectively elucidated by the +following examples. + +First: The mariner, when drawing nigh the coasts of foreign lands, if by +night he hear the roar of breakers, starts to vigilance, and feels just +enough of trepidation to sharpen all his faculties; but under precisely +similar circumstances, let him be called from his hammock to view his +ship sailing through a midnight sea of milky whiteness--as if from +encircling headlands shoals of combed white bears were swimming round +him, then he feels a silent, superstitious dread; the shrouded phantom +of the whitened waters is horrible to him as a real ghost; in vain the +lead assures him he is still off soundings; heart and helm they both go +down; he never rests till blue water is under him again. Yet where is +the mariner who will tell thee, "Sir, it was not so much the fear of +striking hidden rocks, as the fear of that hideous whiteness that so +stirred me?" + +Second: To the native Indian of Peru, the continual sight of the +snowhowdahed Andes conveys naught of dread, except, perhaps, in the +mere fancying of the eternal frosted desolateness reigning at such vast +altitudes, and the natural conceit of what a fearfulness it would be +to lose oneself in such inhuman solitudes. Much the same is it with the +backwoodsman of the West, who with comparative indifference views an +unbounded prairie sheeted with driven snow, no shadow of tree or twig +to break the fixed trance of whiteness. Not so the sailor, beholding the +scenery of the Antarctic seas; where at times, by some infernal trick +of legerdemain in the powers of frost and air, he, shivering and half +shipwrecked, instead of rainbows speaking hope and solace to his misery, +views what seems a boundless churchyard grinning upon him with its lean +ice monuments and splintered crosses. + +But thou sayest, methinks that white-lead chapter about whiteness is but +a white flag hung out from a craven soul; thou surrenderest to a hypo, +Ishmael. + +Tell me, why this strong young colt, foaled in some peaceful valley of +Vermont, far removed from all beasts of prey--why is it that upon the +sunniest day, if you but shake a fresh buffalo robe behind him, so that +he cannot even see it, but only smells its wild animal muskiness--why +will he start, snort, and with bursting eyes paw the ground in phrensies +of affright? There is no remembrance in him of any gorings of wild +creatures in his green northern home, so that the strange muskiness he +smells cannot recall to him anything associated with the experience of +former perils; for what knows he, this New England colt, of the black +bisons of distant Oregon? + +No; but here thou beholdest even in a dumb brute, the instinct of the +knowledge of the demonism in the world. Though thousands of miles from +Oregon, still when he smells that savage musk, the rending, goring bison +herds are as present as to the deserted wild foal of the prairies, which +this instant they may be trampling into dust. + +Thus, then, the muffled rollings of a milky sea; the bleak rustlings +of the festooned frosts of mountains; the desolate shiftings of the +windrowed snows of prairies; all these, to Ishmael, are as the shaking +of that buffalo robe to the frightened colt! + +Though neither knows where lie the nameless things of which the mystic +sign gives forth such hints; yet with me, as with the colt, somewhere +those things must exist. Though in many of its aspects this visible +world seems formed in love, the invisible spheres were formed in fright. + +But not yet have we solved the incantation of this whiteness, and +learned why it appeals with such power to the soul; and more strange +and far more portentous--why, as we have seen, it is at once the +most meaning symbol of spiritual things, nay, the very veil of the +Christian's Deity; and yet should be as it is, the intensifying agent in +things the most appalling to mankind. + +Is it that by its indefiniteness it shadows forth the heartless voids +and immensities of the universe, and thus stabs us from behind with the +thought of annihilation, when beholding the white depths of the milky +way? Or is it, that as in essence whiteness is not so much a colour as +the visible absence of colour; and at the same time the concrete of all +colours; is it for these reasons that there is such a dumb blankness, +full of meaning, in a wide landscape of snows--a colourless, all-colour +of atheism from which we shrink? And when we consider that other theory +of the natural philosophers, that all other earthly hues--every stately +or lovely emblazoning--the sweet tinges of sunset skies and woods; yea, +and the gilded velvets of butterflies, and the butterfly cheeks of +young girls; all these are but subtile deceits, not actually inherent +in substances, but only laid on from without; so that all deified Nature +absolutely paints like the harlot, whose allurements cover nothing but +the charnel-house within; and when we proceed further, and consider that +the mystical cosmetic which produces every one of her hues, the great +principle of light, for ever remains white or colourless in itself, and +if operating without medium upon matter, would touch all objects, even +tulips and roses, with its own blank tinge--pondering all this, the +palsied universe lies before us a leper; and like wilful travellers in +Lapland, who refuse to wear coloured and colouring glasses upon their +eyes, so the wretched infidel gazes himself blind at the monumental +white shroud that wraps all the prospect around him. And of all these +things the Albino whale was the symbol. Wonder ye then at the fiery +hunt? + + + +CHAPTER 43. Hark! + + +"HIST! Did you hear that noise, Cabaco?" + +It was the middle-watch; a fair moonlight; the seamen were standing in a +cordon, extending from one of the fresh-water butts in the waist, to the +scuttle-butt near the taffrail. In this manner, they passed the buckets +to fill the scuttle-butt. Standing, for the most part, on the hallowed +precincts of the quarter-deck, they were careful not to speak or rustle +their feet. From hand to hand, the buckets went in the deepest silence, +only broken by the occasional flap of a sail, and the steady hum of the +unceasingly advancing keel. + +It was in the midst of this repose, that Archy, one of the cordon, whose +post was near the after-hatches, whispered to his neighbor, a Cholo, the +words above. + +"Hist! did you hear that noise, Cabaco?" + +"Take the bucket, will ye, Archy? what noise d'ye mean?" + +"There it is again--under the hatches--don't you hear it--a cough--it +sounded like a cough." + +"Cough be damned! Pass along that return bucket." + +"There again--there it is!--it sounds like two or three sleepers turning +over, now!" + +"Caramba! have done, shipmate, will ye? It's the three soaked biscuits +ye eat for supper turning over inside of ye--nothing else. Look to the +bucket!" + +"Say what ye will, shipmate; I've sharp ears." + +"Aye, you are the chap, ain't ye, that heard the hum of the old +Quakeress's knitting-needles fifty miles at sea from Nantucket; you're +the chap." + +"Grin away; we'll see what turns up. Hark ye, Cabaco, there is somebody +down in the after-hold that has not yet been seen on deck; and I suspect +our old Mogul knows something of it too. I heard Stubb tell Flask, one +morning watch, that there was something of that sort in the wind." + +"Tish! the bucket!" + + + +CHAPTER 44. The Chart. + + +Had you followed Captain Ahab down into his cabin after the squall that +took place on the night succeeding that wild ratification of his purpose +with his crew, you would have seen him go to a locker in the transom, +and bringing out a large wrinkled roll of yellowish sea charts, spread +them before him on his screwed-down table. Then seating himself before +it, you would have seen him intently study the various lines and +shadings which there met his eye; and with slow but steady pencil trace +additional courses over spaces that before were blank. At intervals, he +would refer to piles of old log-books beside him, wherein were set down +the seasons and places in which, on various former voyages of various +ships, sperm whales had been captured or seen. + +While thus employed, the heavy pewter lamp suspended in chains over his +head, continually rocked with the motion of the ship, and for ever threw +shifting gleams and shadows of lines upon his wrinkled brow, till it +almost seemed that while he himself was marking out lines and courses +on the wrinkled charts, some invisible pencil was also tracing lines and +courses upon the deeply marked chart of his forehead. + +But it was not this night in particular that, in the solitude of his +cabin, Ahab thus pondered over his charts. Almost every night they were +brought out; almost every night some pencil marks were effaced, and +others were substituted. For with the charts of all four oceans before +him, Ahab was threading a maze of currents and eddies, with a view to +the more certain accomplishment of that monomaniac thought of his soul. + +Now, to any one not fully acquainted with the ways of the leviathans, +it might seem an absurdly hopeless task thus to seek out one solitary +creature in the unhooped oceans of this planet. But not so did it +seem to Ahab, who knew the sets of all tides and currents; and thereby +calculating the driftings of the sperm whale's food; and, also, calling +to mind the regular, ascertained seasons for hunting him in particular +latitudes; could arrive at reasonable surmises, almost approaching to +certainties, concerning the timeliest day to be upon this or that ground +in search of his prey. + +So assured, indeed, is the fact concerning the periodicalness of the +sperm whale's resorting to given waters, that many hunters believe that, +could he be closely observed and studied throughout the world; were the +logs for one voyage of the entire whale fleet carefully collated, +then the migrations of the sperm whale would be found to correspond in +invariability to those of the herring-shoals or the flights of swallows. +On this hint, attempts have been made to construct elaborate migratory +charts of the sperm whale.* + + *Since the above was written, the statement is happily borne + out by an official circular, issued by Lieutenant Maury, of + the National Observatory, Washington, April 16th, 1851. By + that circular, it appears that precisely such a chart is in + course of completion; and portions of it are presented in + the circular. "This chart divides the ocean into districts + of five degrees of latitude by five degrees of longitude; + perpendicularly through each of which districts are twelve + columns for the twelve months; and horizontally through each + of which districts are three lines; one to show the number + of days that have been spent in each month in every + district, and the two others to show the number of days in + which whales, sperm or right, have been seen." + +Besides, when making a passage from one feeding-ground to another, the +sperm whales, guided by some infallible instinct--say, rather, secret +intelligence from the Deity--mostly swim in VEINS, as they are called; +continuing their way along a given ocean-line with such undeviating +exactitude, that no ship ever sailed her course, by any chart, with +one tithe of such marvellous precision. Though, in these cases, the +direction taken by any one whale be straight as a surveyor's parallel, +and though the line of advance be strictly confined to its own +unavoidable, straight wake, yet the arbitrary VEIN in which at these +times he is said to swim, generally embraces some few miles in width +(more or less, as the vein is presumed to expand or contract); but +never exceeds the visual sweep from the whale-ship's mast-heads, +when circumspectly gliding along this magic zone. The sum is, that at +particular seasons within that breadth and along that path, migrating +whales may with great confidence be looked for. + +And hence not only at substantiated times, upon well known separate +feeding-grounds, could Ahab hope to encounter his prey; but in crossing +the widest expanses of water between those grounds he could, by his +art, so place and time himself on his way, as even then not to be wholly +without prospect of a meeting. + +There was a circumstance which at first sight seemed to entangle his +delirious but still methodical scheme. But not so in the reality, +perhaps. Though the gregarious sperm whales have their regular seasons +for particular grounds, yet in general you cannot conclude that the +herds which haunted such and such a latitude or longitude this year, +say, will turn out to be identically the same with those that were found +there the preceding season; though there are peculiar and unquestionable +instances where the contrary of this has proved true. In general, the +same remark, only within a less wide limit, applies to the solitaries +and hermits among the matured, aged sperm whales. So that though Moby +Dick had in a former year been seen, for example, on what is called the +Seychelle ground in the Indian ocean, or Volcano Bay on the Japanese +Coast; yet it did not follow, that were the Pequod to visit either of +those spots at any subsequent corresponding season, she would infallibly +encounter him there. So, too, with some other feeding grounds, where +he had at times revealed himself. But all these seemed only his casual +stopping-places and ocean-inns, so to speak, not his places of prolonged +abode. And where Ahab's chances of accomplishing his object have +hitherto been spoken of, allusion has only been made to whatever +way-side, antecedent, extra prospects were his, ere a particular +set time or place were attained, when all possibilities would become +probabilities, and, as Ahab fondly thought, every possibility the next +thing to a certainty. That particular set time and place were conjoined +in the one technical phrase--the Season-on-the-Line. For there and then, +for several consecutive years, Moby Dick had been periodically descried, +lingering in those waters for awhile, as the sun, in its annual round, +loiters for a predicted interval in any one sign of the Zodiac. There +it was, too, that most of the deadly encounters with the white whale had +taken place; there the waves were storied with his deeds; there also was +that tragic spot where the monomaniac old man had found the awful motive +to his vengeance. But in the cautious comprehensiveness and unloitering +vigilance with which Ahab threw his brooding soul into this unfaltering +hunt, he would not permit himself to rest all his hopes upon the one +crowning fact above mentioned, however flattering it might be to those +hopes; nor in the sleeplessness of his vow could he so tranquillize his +unquiet heart as to postpone all intervening quest. + +Now, the Pequod had sailed from Nantucket at the very beginning of the +Season-on-the-Line. No possible endeavor then could enable her commander +to make the great passage southwards, double Cape Horn, and then running +down sixty degrees of latitude arrive in the equatorial Pacific in time +to cruise there. Therefore, he must wait for the next ensuing season. +Yet the premature hour of the Pequod's sailing had, perhaps, been +correctly selected by Ahab, with a view to this very complexion of +things. Because, an interval of three hundred and sixty-five days +and nights was before him; an interval which, instead of impatiently +enduring ashore, he would spend in a miscellaneous hunt; if by chance +the White Whale, spending his vacation in seas far remote from his +periodical feeding-grounds, should turn up his wrinkled brow off the +Persian Gulf, or in the Bengal Bay, or China Seas, or in any other +waters haunted by his race. So that Monsoons, Pampas, Nor'-Westers, +Harmattans, Trades; any wind but the Levanter and Simoon, might +blow Moby Dick into the devious zig-zag world-circle of the Pequod's +circumnavigating wake. + +But granting all this; yet, regarded discreetly and coolly, seems it not +but a mad idea, this; that in the broad boundless ocean, one solitary +whale, even if encountered, should be thought capable of individual +recognition from his hunter, even as a white-bearded Mufti in the +thronged thoroughfares of Constantinople? Yes. For the peculiar +snow-white brow of Moby Dick, and his snow-white hump, could not but +be unmistakable. And have I not tallied the whale, Ahab would mutter +to himself, as after poring over his charts till long after midnight he +would throw himself back in reveries--tallied him, and shall he escape? +His broad fins are bored, and scalloped out like a lost sheep's ear! And +here, his mad mind would run on in a breathless race; till a weariness +and faintness of pondering came over him; and in the open air of the +deck he would seek to recover his strength. Ah, God! what trances +of torments does that man endure who is consumed with one unachieved +revengeful desire. He sleeps with clenched hands; and wakes with his own +bloody nails in his palms. + +Often, when forced from his hammock by exhausting and intolerably vivid +dreams of the night, which, resuming his own intense thoughts through +the day, carried them on amid a clashing of phrensies, and whirled them +round and round and round in his blazing brain, till the very throbbing +of his life-spot became insufferable anguish; and when, as was sometimes +the case, these spiritual throes in him heaved his being up from its +base, and a chasm seemed opening in him, from which forked flames and +lightnings shot up, and accursed fiends beckoned him to leap down among +them; when this hell in himself yawned beneath him, a wild cry would be +heard through the ship; and with glaring eyes Ahab would burst from his +state room, as though escaping from a bed that was on fire. Yet these, +perhaps, instead of being the unsuppressable symptoms of some latent +weakness, or fright at his own resolve, were but the plainest tokens +of its intensity. For, at such times, crazy Ahab, the scheming, +unappeasedly steadfast hunter of the white whale; this Ahab that had +gone to his hammock, was not the agent that so caused him to burst from +it in horror again. The latter was the eternal, living principle or +soul in him; and in sleep, being for the time dissociated from the +characterizing mind, which at other times employed it for its outer +vehicle or agent, it spontaneously sought escape from the scorching +contiguity of the frantic thing, of which, for the time, it was no +longer an integral. But as the mind does not exist unless leagued with +the soul, therefore it must have been that, in Ahab's case, yielding up +all his thoughts and fancies to his one supreme purpose; that purpose, +by its own sheer inveteracy of will, forced itself against gods and +devils into a kind of self-assumed, independent being of its own. Nay, +could grimly live and burn, while the common vitality to which it was +conjoined, fled horror-stricken from the unbidden and unfathered birth. +Therefore, the tormented spirit that glared out of bodily eyes, when +what seemed Ahab rushed from his room, was for the time but a vacated +thing, a formless somnambulistic being, a ray of living light, to be +sure, but without an object to colour, and therefore a blankness in +itself. God help thee, old man, thy thoughts have created a creature +in thee; and he whose intense thinking thus makes him a Prometheus; a +vulture feeds upon that heart for ever; that vulture the very creature +he creates. + + + +CHAPTER 45. The Affidavit. + + +So far as what there may be of a narrative in this book; and, indeed, as +indirectly touching one or two very interesting and curious particulars +in the habits of sperm whales, the foregoing chapter, in its earlier +part, is as important a one as will be found in this volume; but the +leading matter of it requires to be still further and more familiarly +enlarged upon, in order to be adequately understood, and moreover to +take away any incredulity which a profound ignorance of the entire +subject may induce in some minds, as to the natural verity of the main +points of this affair. + +I care not to perform this part of my task methodically; but shall +be content to produce the desired impression by separate citations of +items, practically or reliably known to me as a whaleman; and from these +citations, I take it--the conclusion aimed at will naturally follow of +itself. + +First: I have personally known three instances where a whale, after +receiving a harpoon, has effected a complete escape; and, after an +interval (in one instance of three years), has been again struck by +the same hand, and slain; when the two irons, both marked by the same +private cypher, have been taken from the body. In the instance where +three years intervened between the flinging of the two harpoons; and I +think it may have been something more than that; the man who darted +them happening, in the interval, to go in a trading ship on a voyage to +Africa, went ashore there, joined a discovery party, and penetrated far +into the interior, where he travelled for a period of nearly two years, +often endangered by serpents, savages, tigers, poisonous miasmas, +with all the other common perils incident to wandering in the heart of +unknown regions. Meanwhile, the whale he had struck must also have +been on its travels; no doubt it had thrice circumnavigated the globe, +brushing with its flanks all the coasts of Africa; but to no purpose. +This man and this whale again came together, and the one vanquished the +other. I say I, myself, have known three instances similar to this; that +is in two of them I saw the whales struck; and, upon the second attack, +saw the two irons with the respective marks cut in them, afterwards +taken from the dead fish. In the three-year instance, it so fell out +that I was in the boat both times, first and last, and the last time +distinctly recognised a peculiar sort of huge mole under the whale's +eye, which I had observed there three years previous. I say three years, +but I am pretty sure it was more than that. Here are three instances, +then, which I personally know the truth of; but I have heard of many +other instances from persons whose veracity in the matter there is no +good ground to impeach. + +Secondly: It is well known in the Sperm Whale Fishery, however ignorant +the world ashore may be of it, that there have been several memorable +historical instances where a particular whale in the ocean has been at +distant times and places popularly cognisable. Why such a whale became +thus marked was not altogether and originally owing to his bodily +peculiarities as distinguished from other whales; for however peculiar +in that respect any chance whale may be, they soon put an end to his +peculiarities by killing him, and boiling him down into a peculiarly +valuable oil. No: the reason was this: that from the fatal experiences +of the fishery there hung a terrible prestige of perilousness about +such a whale as there did about Rinaldo Rinaldini, insomuch that +most fishermen were content to recognise him by merely touching their +tarpaulins when he would be discovered lounging by them on the sea, +without seeking to cultivate a more intimate acquaintance. Like some +poor devils ashore that happen to know an irascible great man, they +make distant unobtrusive salutations to him in the street, lest if they +pursued the acquaintance further, they might receive a summary thump for +their presumption. + +But not only did each of these famous whales enjoy great individual +celebrity--Nay, you may call it an ocean-wide renown; not only was he +famous in life and now is immortal in forecastle stories after death, +but he was admitted into all the rights, privileges, and distinctions of +a name; had as much a name indeed as Cambyses or Caesar. Was it not so, +O Timor Tom! thou famed leviathan, scarred like an iceberg, who so long +did'st lurk in the Oriental straits of that name, whose spout was oft +seen from the palmy beach of Ombay? Was it not so, O New Zealand Jack! +thou terror of all cruisers that crossed their wakes in the vicinity of +the Tattoo Land? Was it not so, O Morquan! King of Japan, whose lofty +jet they say at times assumed the semblance of a snow-white cross +against the sky? Was it not so, O Don Miguel! thou Chilian whale, marked +like an old tortoise with mystic hieroglyphics upon the back! In plain +prose, here are four whales as well known to the students of Cetacean +History as Marius or Sylla to the classic scholar. + +But this is not all. New Zealand Tom and Don Miguel, after at various +times creating great havoc among the boats of different vessels, were +finally gone in quest of, systematically hunted out, chased and killed +by valiant whaling captains, who heaved up their anchors with +that express object as much in view, as in setting out through the +Narragansett Woods, Captain Butler of old had it in his mind to capture +that notorious murderous savage Annawon, the headmost warrior of the +Indian King Philip. + +I do not know where I can find a better place than just here, to make +mention of one or two other things, which to me seem important, as in +printed form establishing in all respects the reasonableness of the +whole story of the White Whale, more especially the catastrophe. For +this is one of those disheartening instances where truth requires full +as much bolstering as error. So ignorant are most landsmen of some of +the plainest and most palpable wonders of the world, that without +some hints touching the plain facts, historical and otherwise, of the +fishery, they might scout at Moby Dick as a monstrous fable, or still +worse and more detestable, a hideous and intolerable allegory. + +First: Though most men have some vague flitting ideas of the general +perils of the grand fishery, yet they have nothing like a fixed, vivid +conception of those perils, and the frequency with which they recur. +One reason perhaps is, that not one in fifty of the actual disasters and +deaths by casualties in the fishery, ever finds a public record at home, +however transient and immediately forgotten that record. Do you suppose +that that poor fellow there, who this moment perhaps caught by the +whale-line off the coast of New Guinea, is being carried down to the +bottom of the sea by the sounding leviathan--do you suppose that that +poor fellow's name will appear in the newspaper obituary you will read +to-morrow at your breakfast? No: because the mails are very irregular +between here and New Guinea. In fact, did you ever hear what might be +called regular news direct or indirect from New Guinea? Yet I tell you +that upon one particular voyage which I made to the Pacific, among many +others we spoke thirty different ships, every one of which had had a +death by a whale, some of them more than one, and three that had each +lost a boat's crew. For God's sake, be economical with your lamps and +candles! not a gallon you burn, but at least one drop of man's blood was +spilled for it. + +Secondly: People ashore have indeed some indefinite idea that a whale is +an enormous creature of enormous power; but I have ever found that when +narrating to them some specific example of this two-fold enormousness, +they have significantly complimented me upon my facetiousness; when, I +declare upon my soul, I had no more idea of being facetious than Moses, +when he wrote the history of the plagues of Egypt. + +But fortunately the special point I here seek can be established upon +testimony entirely independent of my own. That point is this: The Sperm +Whale is in some cases sufficiently powerful, knowing, and judiciously +malicious, as with direct aforethought to stave in, utterly destroy, and +sink a large ship; and what is more, the Sperm Whale HAS done it. + +First: In the year 1820 the ship Essex, Captain Pollard, of Nantucket, +was cruising in the Pacific Ocean. One day she saw spouts, lowered her +boats, and gave chase to a shoal of sperm whales. Ere long, several of +the whales were wounded; when, suddenly, a very large whale escaping +from the boats, issued from the shoal, and bore directly down upon the +ship. Dashing his forehead against her hull, he so stove her in, that in +less than "ten minutes" she settled down and fell over. Not a surviving +plank of her has been seen since. After the severest exposure, part of +the crew reached the land in their boats. Being returned home at last, +Captain Pollard once more sailed for the Pacific in command of another +ship, but the gods shipwrecked him again upon unknown rocks and +breakers; for the second time his ship was utterly lost, and forthwith +forswearing the sea, he has never tempted it since. At this day Captain +Pollard is a resident of Nantucket. I have seen Owen Chace, who was +chief mate of the Essex at the time of the tragedy; I have read his +plain and faithful narrative; I have conversed with his son; and all +this within a few miles of the scene of the catastrophe.* + + +*The following are extracts from Chace's narrative: "Every fact seemed +to warrant me in concluding that it was anything but chance which +directed his operations; he made two several attacks upon the ship, at +a short interval between them, both of which, according to their +direction, were calculated to do us the most injury, by being made +ahead, and thereby combining the speed of the two objects for the shock; +to effect which, the exact manoeuvres which he made were necessary. His +aspect was most horrible, and such as indicated resentment and fury. He +came directly from the shoal which we had just before entered, and in +which we had struck three of his companions, as if fired with revenge +for their sufferings." Again: "At all events, the whole circumstances +taken together, all happening before my own eyes, and producing, at the +time, impressions in my mind of decided, calculating mischief, on the +part of the whale (many of which impressions I cannot now recall), +induce me to be satisfied that I am correct in my opinion." + +Here are his reflections some time after quitting the ship, during +a black night in an open boat, when almost despairing of reaching any +hospitable shore. "The dark ocean and swelling waters were nothing; the +fears of being swallowed up by some dreadful tempest, or dashed +upon hidden rocks, with all the other ordinary subjects of fearful +contemplation, seemed scarcely entitled to a moment's thought; the +dismal looking wreck, and THE HORRID ASPECT AND REVENGE OF THE WHALE, +wholly engrossed my reflections, until day again made its appearance." + +In another place--p. 45,--he speaks of "THE MYSTERIOUS AND MORTAL ATTACK +OF THE ANIMAL." + + +Secondly: The ship Union, also of Nantucket, was in the year 1807 +totally lost off the Azores by a similar onset, but the authentic +particulars of this catastrophe I have never chanced to encounter, +though from the whale hunters I have now and then heard casual allusions +to it. + +Thirdly: Some eighteen or twenty years ago Commodore J---, then +commanding an American sloop-of-war of the first class, happened to be +dining with a party of whaling captains, on board a Nantucket ship in +the harbor of Oahu, Sandwich Islands. Conversation turning upon whales, +the Commodore was pleased to be sceptical touching the amazing strength +ascribed to them by the professional gentlemen present. He peremptorily +denied for example, that any whale could so smite his stout sloop-of-war +as to cause her to leak so much as a thimbleful. Very good; but there +is more coming. Some weeks after, the Commodore set sail in this +impregnable craft for Valparaiso. But he was stopped on the way by a +portly sperm whale, that begged a few moments' confidential business +with him. That business consisted in fetching the Commodore's craft such +a thwack, that with all his pumps going he made straight for the nearest +port to heave down and repair. I am not superstitious, but I consider +the Commodore's interview with that whale as providential. Was not Saul +of Tarsus converted from unbelief by a similar fright? I tell you, the +sperm whale will stand no nonsense. + +I will now refer you to Langsdorff's Voyages for a little circumstance +in point, peculiarly interesting to the writer hereof. Langsdorff, you +must know by the way, was attached to the Russian Admiral Krusenstern's +famous Discovery Expedition in the beginning of the present century. +Captain Langsdorff thus begins his seventeenth chapter: + +"By the thirteenth of May our ship was ready to sail, and the next day +we were out in the open sea, on our way to Ochotsh. The weather was very +clear and fine, but so intolerably cold that we were obliged to keep on +our fur clothing. For some days we had very little wind; it was not +till the nineteenth that a brisk gale from the northwest sprang up. An +uncommon large whale, the body of which was larger than the ship itself, +lay almost at the surface of the water, but was not perceived by any +one on board till the moment when the ship, which was in full sail, +was almost upon him, so that it was impossible to prevent its striking +against him. We were thus placed in the most imminent danger, as this +gigantic creature, setting up its back, raised the ship three feet at +least out of the water. The masts reeled, and the sails fell altogether, +while we who were below all sprang instantly upon the deck, concluding +that we had struck upon some rock; instead of this we saw the monster +sailing off with the utmost gravity and solemnity. Captain D'Wolf +applied immediately to the pumps to examine whether or not the vessel +had received any damage from the shock, but we found that very happily +it had escaped entirely uninjured." + +Now, the Captain D'Wolf here alluded to as commanding the ship in +question, is a New Englander, who, after a long life of unusual +adventures as a sea-captain, this day resides in the village of +Dorchester near Boston. I have the honour of being a nephew of his. I +have particularly questioned him concerning this passage in Langsdorff. +He substantiates every word. The ship, however, was by no means a large +one: a Russian craft built on the Siberian coast, and purchased by my +uncle after bartering away the vessel in which he sailed from home. + +In that up and down manly book of old-fashioned adventure, so full, too, +of honest wonders--the voyage of Lionel Wafer, one of ancient Dampier's +old chums--I found a little matter set down so like that just quoted +from Langsdorff, that I cannot forbear inserting it here for a +corroborative example, if such be needed. + +Lionel, it seems, was on his way to "John Ferdinando," as he calls +the modern Juan Fernandes. "In our way thither," he says, "about four +o'clock in the morning, when we were about one hundred and fifty leagues +from the Main of America, our ship felt a terrible shock, which put our +men in such consternation that they could hardly tell where they were +or what to think; but every one began to prepare for death. And, indeed, +the shock was so sudden and violent, that we took it for granted the +ship had struck against a rock; but when the amazement was a little +over, we cast the lead, and sounded, but found no ground..... The +suddenness of the shock made the guns leap in their carriages, and +several of the men were shaken out of their hammocks. Captain Davis, who +lay with his head on a gun, was thrown out of his cabin!" Lionel then +goes on to impute the shock to an earthquake, and seems to substantiate +the imputation by stating that a great earthquake, somewhere about +that time, did actually do great mischief along the Spanish land. But +I should not much wonder if, in the darkness of that early hour of the +morning, the shock was after all caused by an unseen whale vertically +bumping the hull from beneath. + +I might proceed with several more examples, one way or another known to +me, of the great power and malice at times of the sperm whale. In more +than one instance, he has been known, not only to chase the assailing +boats back to their ships, but to pursue the ship itself, and long +withstand all the lances hurled at him from its decks. The English ship +Pusie Hall can tell a story on that head; and, as for his strength, +let me say, that there have been examples where the lines attached to a +running sperm whale have, in a calm, been transferred to the ship, and +secured there; the whale towing her great hull through the water, as a +horse walks off with a cart. Again, it is very often observed that, if +the sperm whale, once struck, is allowed time to rally, he then acts, +not so often with blind rage, as with wilful, deliberate designs of +destruction to his pursuers; nor is it without conveying some eloquent +indication of his character, that upon being attacked he will frequently +open his mouth, and retain it in that dread expansion for several +consecutive minutes. But I must be content with only one more and a +concluding illustration; a remarkable and most significant one, by which +you will not fail to see, that not only is the most marvellous event in +this book corroborated by plain facts of the present day, but that these +marvels (like all marvels) are mere repetitions of the ages; so that for +the millionth time we say amen with Solomon--Verily there is nothing new +under the sun. + +In the sixth Christian century lived Procopius, a Christian magistrate +of Constantinople, in the days when Justinian was Emperor and Belisarius +general. As many know, he wrote the history of his own times, a work +every way of uncommon value. By the best authorities, he has always been +considered a most trustworthy and unexaggerating historian, except in +some one or two particulars, not at all affecting the matter presently +to be mentioned. + +Now, in this history of his, Procopius mentions that, during the term +of his prefecture at Constantinople, a great sea-monster was captured +in the neighboring Propontis, or Sea of Marmora, after having destroyed +vessels at intervals in those waters for a period of more than fifty +years. A fact thus set down in substantial history cannot easily be +gainsaid. Nor is there any reason it should be. Of what precise species +this sea-monster was, is not mentioned. But as he destroyed ships, as +well as for other reasons, he must have been a whale; and I am strongly +inclined to think a sperm whale. And I will tell you why. For a long +time I fancied that the sperm whale had been always unknown in the +Mediterranean and the deep waters connecting with it. Even now I am +certain that those seas are not, and perhaps never can be, in the +present constitution of things, a place for his habitual gregarious +resort. But further investigations have recently proved to me, that in +modern times there have been isolated instances of the presence of the +sperm whale in the Mediterranean. I am told, on good authority, that +on the Barbary coast, a Commodore Davis of the British navy found +the skeleton of a sperm whale. Now, as a vessel of war readily passes +through the Dardanelles, hence a sperm whale could, by the same route, +pass out of the Mediterranean into the Propontis. + +In the Propontis, as far as I can learn, none of that peculiar substance +called BRIT is to be found, the aliment of the right whale. But I have +every reason to believe that the food of the sperm whale--squid or +cuttle-fish--lurks at the bottom of that sea, because large creatures, +but by no means the largest of that sort, have been found at its +surface. If, then, you properly put these statements together, and +reason upon them a bit, you will clearly perceive that, according to all +human reasoning, Procopius's sea-monster, that for half a century stove +the ships of a Roman Emperor, must in all probability have been a sperm +whale. + + + +CHAPTER 46. Surmises. + + +Though, consumed with the hot fire of his purpose, Ahab in all his +thoughts and actions ever had in view the ultimate capture of Moby Dick; +though he seemed ready to sacrifice all mortal interests to that one +passion; nevertheless it may have been that he was by nature and long +habituation far too wedded to a fiery whaleman's ways, altogether to +abandon the collateral prosecution of the voyage. Or at least if +this were otherwise, there were not wanting other motives much more +influential with him. It would be refining too much, perhaps, even +considering his monomania, to hint that his vindictiveness towards the +White Whale might have possibly extended itself in some degree to all +sperm whales, and that the more monsters he slew by so much the more he +multiplied the chances that each subsequently encountered whale would +prove to be the hated one he hunted. But if such an hypothesis be indeed +exceptionable, there were still additional considerations which, though +not so strictly according with the wildness of his ruling passion, yet +were by no means incapable of swaying him. + +To accomplish his object Ahab must use tools; and of all tools used in +the shadow of the moon, men are most apt to get out of order. He knew, +for example, that however magnetic his ascendency in some respects was +over Starbuck, yet that ascendency did not cover the complete spiritual +man any more than mere corporeal superiority involves intellectual +mastership; for to the purely spiritual, the intellectual but stand in a +sort of corporeal relation. Starbuck's body and Starbuck's coerced will +were Ahab's, so long as Ahab kept his magnet at Starbuck's brain; still +he knew that for all this the chief mate, in his soul, abhorred his +captain's quest, and could he, would joyfully disintegrate himself from +it, or even frustrate it. It might be that a long interval would elapse +ere the White Whale was seen. During that long interval Starbuck +would ever be apt to fall into open relapses of rebellion against his +captain's leadership, unless some ordinary, prudential, circumstantial +influences were brought to bear upon him. Not only that, but the subtle +insanity of Ahab respecting Moby Dick was noways more significantly +manifested than in his superlative sense and shrewdness in foreseeing +that, for the present, the hunt should in some way be stripped of that +strange imaginative impiousness which naturally invested it; that +the full terror of the voyage must be kept withdrawn into the obscure +background (for few men's courage is proof against protracted meditation +unrelieved by action); that when they stood their long night watches, +his officers and men must have some nearer things to think of than Moby +Dick. For however eagerly and impetuously the savage crew had hailed the +announcement of his quest; yet all sailors of all sorts are more or less +capricious and unreliable--they live in the varying outer weather, and +they inhale its fickleness--and when retained for any object remote and +blank in the pursuit, however promissory of life and passion in the +end, it is above all things requisite that temporary interests and +employments should intervene and hold them healthily suspended for the +final dash. + +Nor was Ahab unmindful of another thing. In times of strong emotion +mankind disdain all base considerations; but such times are evanescent. +The permanent constitutional condition of the manufactured man, thought +Ahab, is sordidness. Granting that the White Whale fully incites the +hearts of this my savage crew, and playing round their savageness even +breeds a certain generous knight-errantism in them, still, while for the +love of it they give chase to Moby Dick, they must also have food +for their more common, daily appetites. For even the high lifted and +chivalric Crusaders of old times were not content to traverse two +thousand miles of land to fight for their holy sepulchre, without +committing burglaries, picking pockets, and gaining other pious +perquisites by the way. Had they been strictly held to their one final +and romantic object--that final and romantic object, too many would have +turned from in disgust. I will not strip these men, thought Ahab, of all +hopes of cash--aye, cash. They may scorn cash now; but let some months +go by, and no perspective promise of it to them, and then this same +quiescent cash all at once mutinying in them, this same cash would soon +cashier Ahab. + +Nor was there wanting still another precautionary motive more related +to Ahab personally. Having impulsively, it is probable, and perhaps +somewhat prematurely revealed the prime but private purpose of the +Pequod's voyage, Ahab was now entirely conscious that, in so doing, +he had indirectly laid himself open to the unanswerable charge of +usurpation; and with perfect impunity, both moral and legal, his crew +if so disposed, and to that end competent, could refuse all further +obedience to him, and even violently wrest from him the command. From +even the barely hinted imputation of usurpation, and the possible +consequences of such a suppressed impression gaining ground, Ahab must +of course have been most anxious to protect himself. That protection +could only consist in his own predominating brain and heart and hand, +backed by a heedful, closely calculating attention to every minute +atmospheric influence which it was possible for his crew to be subjected +to. + +For all these reasons then, and others perhaps too analytic to be +verbally developed here, Ahab plainly saw that he must still in a good +degree continue true to the natural, nominal purpose of the Pequod's +voyage; observe all customary usages; and not only that, but force +himself to evince all his well known passionate interest in the general +pursuit of his profession. + +Be all this as it may, his voice was now often heard hailing the three +mast-heads and admonishing them to keep a bright look-out, and not omit +reporting even a porpoise. This vigilance was not long without reward. + + + +CHAPTER 47. The Mat-Maker. + + +It was a cloudy, sultry afternoon; the seamen were lazily lounging +about the decks, or vacantly gazing over into the lead-coloured waters. +Queequeg and I were mildly employed weaving what is called a sword-mat, +for an additional lashing to our boat. So still and subdued and yet +somehow preluding was all the scene, and such an incantation of reverie +lurked in the air, that each silent sailor seemed resolved into his own +invisible self. + +I was the attendant or page of Queequeg, while busy at the mat. As I +kept passing and repassing the filling or woof of marline between +the long yarns of the warp, using my own hand for the shuttle, and as +Queequeg, standing sideways, ever and anon slid his heavy oaken sword +between the threads, and idly looking off upon the water, carelessly and +unthinkingly drove home every yarn: I say so strange a dreaminess did +there then reign all over the ship and all over the sea, only broken by +the intermitting dull sound of the sword, that it seemed as if this were +the Loom of Time, and I myself were a shuttle mechanically weaving +and weaving away at the Fates. There lay the fixed threads of the warp +subject to but one single, ever returning, unchanging vibration, and +that vibration merely enough to admit of the crosswise interblending +of other threads with its own. This warp seemed necessity; and here, +thought I, with my own hand I ply my own shuttle and weave my own +destiny into these unalterable threads. Meantime, Queequeg's impulsive, +indifferent sword, sometimes hitting the woof slantingly, or crookedly, +or strongly, or weakly, as the case might be; and by this difference +in the concluding blow producing a corresponding contrast in the final +aspect of the completed fabric; this savage's sword, thought I, +which thus finally shapes and fashions both warp and woof; this +easy, indifferent sword must be chance--aye, chance, free will, and +necessity--nowise incompatible--all interweavingly working together. +The straight warp of necessity, not to be swerved from its ultimate +course--its every alternating vibration, indeed, only tending to that; +free will still free to ply her shuttle between given threads; and +chance, though restrained in its play within the right lines of +necessity, and sideways in its motions directed by free will, though +thus prescribed to by both, chance by turns rules either, and has the +last featuring blow at events. + + +Thus we were weaving and weaving away when I started at a sound so +strange, long drawn, and musically wild and unearthly, that the ball +of free will dropped from my hand, and I stood gazing up at the clouds +whence that voice dropped like a wing. High aloft in the cross-trees was +that mad Gay-Header, Tashtego. His body was reaching eagerly forward, +his hand stretched out like a wand, and at brief sudden intervals he +continued his cries. To be sure the same sound was that very moment +perhaps being heard all over the seas, from hundreds of whalemen's +look-outs perched as high in the air; but from few of those lungs could +that accustomed old cry have derived such a marvellous cadence as from +Tashtego the Indian's. + +As he stood hovering over you half suspended in air, so wildly and +eagerly peering towards the horizon, you would have thought him some +prophet or seer beholding the shadows of Fate, and by those wild cries +announcing their coming. + +"There she blows! there! there! there! she blows! she blows!" + +"Where-away?" + +"On the lee-beam, about two miles off! a school of them!" + +Instantly all was commotion. + +The Sperm Whale blows as a clock ticks, with the same undeviating and +reliable uniformity. And thereby whalemen distinguish this fish from +other tribes of his genus. + +"There go flukes!" was now the cry from Tashtego; and the whales +disappeared. + +"Quick, steward!" cried Ahab. "Time! time!" + +Dough-Boy hurried below, glanced at the watch, and reported the exact +minute to Ahab. + +The ship was now kept away from the wind, and she went gently rolling +before it. Tashtego reporting that the whales had gone down heading to +leeward, we confidently looked to see them again directly in advance of +our bows. For that singular craft at times evinced by the Sperm Whale +when, sounding with his head in one direction, he nevertheless, while +concealed beneath the surface, mills round, and swiftly swims off in the +opposite quarter--this deceitfulness of his could not now be in action; +for there was no reason to suppose that the fish seen by Tashtego had +been in any way alarmed, or indeed knew at all of our vicinity. One of +the men selected for shipkeepers--that is, those not appointed to the +boats, by this time relieved the Indian at the main-mast head. The +sailors at the fore and mizzen had come down; the line tubs were fixed +in their places; the cranes were thrust out; the mainyard was backed, +and the three boats swung over the sea like three samphire baskets over +high cliffs. Outside of the bulwarks their eager crews with one hand +clung to the rail, while one foot was expectantly poised on the gunwale. +So look the long line of man-of-war's men about to throw themselves on +board an enemy's ship. + +But at this critical instant a sudden exclamation was heard that took +every eye from the whale. With a start all glared at dark Ahab, who was +surrounded by five dusky phantoms that seemed fresh formed out of air. + + + +CHAPTER 48. The First Lowering. + + +The phantoms, for so they then seemed, were flitting on the other side +of the deck, and, with a noiseless celerity, were casting loose the +tackles and bands of the boat which swung there. This boat had always +been deemed one of the spare boats, though technically called the +captain's, on account of its hanging from the starboard quarter. The +figure that now stood by its bows was tall and swart, with one white +tooth evilly protruding from its steel-like lips. A rumpled Chinese +jacket of black cotton funereally invested him, with wide black trowsers +of the same dark stuff. But strangely crowning this ebonness was a +glistening white plaited turban, the living hair braided and coiled +round and round upon his head. Less swart in aspect, the companions of +this figure were of that vivid, tiger-yellow complexion peculiar to +some of the aboriginal natives of the Manillas;--a race notorious for +a certain diabolism of subtilty, and by some honest white mariners +supposed to be the paid spies and secret confidential agents on the +water of the devil, their lord, whose counting-room they suppose to be +elsewhere. + +While yet the wondering ship's company were gazing upon these strangers, +Ahab cried out to the white-turbaned old man at their head, "All ready +there, Fedallah?" + +"Ready," was the half-hissed reply. + +"Lower away then; d'ye hear?" shouting across the deck. "Lower away +there, I say." + +Such was the thunder of his voice, that spite of their amazement the men +sprang over the rail; the sheaves whirled round in the blocks; with a +wallow, the three boats dropped into the sea; while, with a dexterous, +off-handed daring, unknown in any other vocation, the sailors, +goat-like, leaped down the rolling ship's side into the tossed boats +below. + +Hardly had they pulled out from under the ship's lee, when a fourth +keel, coming from the windward side, pulled round under the stern, and +showed the five strangers rowing Ahab, who, standing erect in the stern, +loudly hailed Starbuck, Stubb, and Flask, to spread themselves widely, +so as to cover a large expanse of water. But with all their eyes again +riveted upon the swart Fedallah and his crew, the inmates of the other +boats obeyed not the command. + +"Captain Ahab?--" said Starbuck. + +"Spread yourselves," cried Ahab; "give way, all four boats. Thou, Flask, +pull out more to leeward!" + +"Aye, aye, sir," cheerily cried little King-Post, sweeping round +his great steering oar. "Lay back!" addressing his crew. +"There!--there!--there again! There she blows right ahead, boys!--lay +back!" + +"Never heed yonder yellow boys, Archy." + +"Oh, I don't mind'em, sir," said Archy; "I knew it all before now. +Didn't I hear 'em in the hold? And didn't I tell Cabaco here of it? What +say ye, Cabaco? They are stowaways, Mr. Flask." + +"Pull, pull, my fine hearts-alive; pull, my children; pull, my little +ones," drawlingly and soothingly sighed Stubb to his crew, some of whom +still showed signs of uneasiness. "Why don't you break your backbones, +my boys? What is it you stare at? Those chaps in yonder boat? Tut! They +are only five more hands come to help us--never mind from where--the +more the merrier. Pull, then, do pull; never mind the brimstone--devils +are good fellows enough. So, so; there you are now; that's the stroke +for a thousand pounds; that's the stroke to sweep the stakes! Hurrah +for the gold cup of sperm oil, my heroes! Three cheers, men--all hearts +alive! Easy, easy; don't be in a hurry--don't be in a hurry. Why don't +you snap your oars, you rascals? Bite something, you dogs! So, so, so, +then:--softly, softly! That's it--that's it! long and strong. Give way +there, give way! The devil fetch ye, ye ragamuffin rapscallions; ye are +all asleep. Stop snoring, ye sleepers, and pull. Pull, will ye? pull, +can't ye? pull, won't ye? Why in the name of gudgeons and ginger-cakes +don't ye pull?--pull and break something! pull, and start your eyes out! +Here!" whipping out the sharp knife from his girdle; "every mother's son +of ye draw his knife, and pull with the blade between his teeth. That's +it--that's it. Now ye do something; that looks like it, my steel-bits. +Start her--start her, my silver-spoons! Start her, marling-spikes!" + +Stubb's exordium to his crew is given here at large, because he had +rather a peculiar way of talking to them in general, and especially in +inculcating the religion of rowing. But you must not suppose from this +specimen of his sermonizings that he ever flew into downright passions +with his congregation. Not at all; and therein consisted his chief +peculiarity. He would say the most terrific things to his crew, in a +tone so strangely compounded of fun and fury, and the fury seemed so +calculated merely as a spice to the fun, that no oarsman could hear such +queer invocations without pulling for dear life, and yet pulling for +the mere joke of the thing. Besides he all the time looked so easy and +indolent himself, so loungingly managed his steering-oar, and so broadly +gaped--open-mouthed at times--that the mere sight of such a yawning +commander, by sheer force of contrast, acted like a charm upon the crew. +Then again, Stubb was one of those odd sort of humorists, whose jollity +is sometimes so curiously ambiguous, as to put all inferiors on their +guard in the matter of obeying them. + +In obedience to a sign from Ahab, Starbuck was now pulling obliquely +across Stubb's bow; and when for a minute or so the two boats were +pretty near to each other, Stubb hailed the mate. + +"Mr. Starbuck! larboard boat there, ahoy! a word with ye, sir, if ye +please!" + +"Halloa!" returned Starbuck, turning round not a single inch as he +spoke; still earnestly but whisperingly urging his crew; his face set +like a flint from Stubb's. + +"What think ye of those yellow boys, sir!" + +"Smuggled on board, somehow, before the ship sailed. (Strong, strong, +boys!)" in a whisper to his crew, then speaking out loud again: "A sad +business, Mr. Stubb! (seethe her, seethe her, my lads!) but never mind, +Mr. Stubb, all for the best. Let all your crew pull strong, come what +will. (Spring, my men, spring!) There's hogsheads of sperm ahead, Mr. +Stubb, and that's what ye came for. (Pull, my boys!) Sperm, sperm's the +play! This at least is duty; duty and profit hand in hand." + +"Aye, aye, I thought as much," soliloquized Stubb, when the boats +diverged, "as soon as I clapt eye on 'em, I thought so. Aye, and that's +what he went into the after hold for, so often, as Dough-Boy long +suspected. They were hidden down there. The White Whale's at the bottom +of it. Well, well, so be it! Can't be helped! All right! Give way, men! +It ain't the White Whale to-day! Give way!" + +Now the advent of these outlandish strangers at such a critical instant +as the lowering of the boats from the deck, this had not unreasonably +awakened a sort of superstitious amazement in some of the ship's +company; but Archy's fancied discovery having some time previous got +abroad among them, though indeed not credited then, this had in some +small measure prepared them for the event. It took off the extreme edge +of their wonder; and so what with all this and Stubb's confident way +of accounting for their appearance, they were for the time freed from +superstitious surmisings; though the affair still left abundant room for +all manner of wild conjectures as to dark Ahab's precise agency in the +matter from the beginning. For me, I silently recalled the mysterious +shadows I had seen creeping on board the Pequod during the dim Nantucket +dawn, as well as the enigmatical hintings of the unaccountable Elijah. + +Meantime, Ahab, out of hearing of his officers, having sided the +furthest to windward, was still ranging ahead of the other boats; a +circumstance bespeaking how potent a crew was pulling him. Those tiger +yellow creatures of his seemed all steel and whalebone; like five +trip-hammers they rose and fell with regular strokes of strength, which +periodically started the boat along the water like a horizontal burst +boiler out of a Mississippi steamer. As for Fedallah, who was seen +pulling the harpooneer oar, he had thrown aside his black jacket, and +displayed his naked chest with the whole part of his body above the +gunwale, clearly cut against the alternating depressions of the watery +horizon; while at the other end of the boat Ahab, with one arm, like a +fencer's, thrown half backward into the air, as if to counterbalance any +tendency to trip; Ahab was seen steadily managing his steering oar as in +a thousand boat lowerings ere the White Whale had torn him. All at once +the outstretched arm gave a peculiar motion and then remained fixed, +while the boat's five oars were seen simultaneously peaked. Boat and +crew sat motionless on the sea. Instantly the three spread boats in the +rear paused on their way. The whales had irregularly settled bodily +down into the blue, thus giving no distantly discernible token of the +movement, though from his closer vicinity Ahab had observed it. + +"Every man look out along his oars!" cried Starbuck. "Thou, Queequeg, +stand up!" + +Nimbly springing up on the triangular raised box in the bow, the savage +stood erect there, and with intensely eager eyes gazed off towards the +spot where the chase had last been descried. Likewise upon the extreme +stern of the boat where it was also triangularly platformed level with +the gunwale, Starbuck himself was seen coolly and adroitly balancing +himself to the jerking tossings of his chip of a craft, and silently +eyeing the vast blue eye of the sea. + +Not very far distant Flask's boat was also lying breathlessly still; its +commander recklessly standing upon the top of the loggerhead, a stout +sort of post rooted in the keel, and rising some two feet above the +level of the stern platform. It is used for catching turns with the +whale line. Its top is not more spacious than the palm of a man's hand, +and standing upon such a base as that, Flask seemed perched at the +mast-head of some ship which had sunk to all but her trucks. But little +King-Post was small and short, and at the same time little King-Post was +full of a large and tall ambition, so that this loggerhead stand-point +of his did by no means satisfy King-Post. + +"I can't see three seas off; tip us up an oar there, and let me on to +that." + +Upon this, Daggoo, with either hand upon the gunwale to steady his +way, swiftly slid aft, and then erecting himself volunteered his lofty +shoulders for a pedestal. + +"Good a mast-head as any, sir. Will you mount?" + +"That I will, and thank ye very much, my fine fellow; only I wish you +fifty feet taller." + +Whereupon planting his feet firmly against two opposite planks of the +boat, the gigantic negro, stooping a little, presented his flat palm to +Flask's foot, and then putting Flask's hand on his hearse-plumed head +and bidding him spring as he himself should toss, with one dexterous +fling landed the little man high and dry on his shoulders. And here was +Flask now standing, Daggoo with one lifted arm furnishing him with a +breastband to lean against and steady himself by. + +At any time it is a strange sight to the tyro to see with what wondrous +habitude of unconscious skill the whaleman will maintain an erect +posture in his boat, even when pitched about by the most riotously +perverse and cross-running seas. Still more strange to see him giddily +perched upon the loggerhead itself, under such circumstances. But the +sight of little Flask mounted upon gigantic Daggoo was yet more curious; +for sustaining himself with a cool, indifferent, easy, unthought of, +barbaric majesty, the noble negro to every roll of the sea harmoniously +rolled his fine form. On his broad back, flaxen-haired Flask seemed +a snow-flake. The bearer looked nobler than the rider. Though truly +vivacious, tumultuous, ostentatious little Flask would now and then +stamp with impatience; but not one added heave did he thereby give to +the negro's lordly chest. So have I seen Passion and Vanity stamping the +living magnanimous earth, but the earth did not alter her tides and her +seasons for that. + +Meanwhile Stubb, the third mate, betrayed no such far-gazing +solicitudes. The whales might have made one of their regular soundings, +not a temporary dive from mere fright; and if that were the case, +Stubb, as his wont in such cases, it seems, was resolved to solace the +languishing interval with his pipe. He withdrew it from his hatband, +where he always wore it aslant like a feather. He loaded it, and rammed +home the loading with his thumb-end; but hardly had he ignited his match +across the rough sandpaper of his hand, when Tashtego, his harpooneer, +whose eyes had been setting to windward like two fixed stars, suddenly +dropped like light from his erect attitude to his seat, crying out in a +quick phrensy of hurry, "Down, down all, and give way!--there they are!" + +To a landsman, no whale, nor any sign of a herring, would have been +visible at that moment; nothing but a troubled bit of greenish white +water, and thin scattered puffs of vapour hovering over it, and +suffusingly blowing off to leeward, like the confused scud from white +rolling billows. The air around suddenly vibrated and tingled, as it +were, like the air over intensely heated plates of iron. Beneath this +atmospheric waving and curling, and partially beneath a thin layer of +water, also, the whales were swimming. Seen in advance of all the other +indications, the puffs of vapour they spouted, seemed their forerunning +couriers and detached flying outriders. + +All four boats were now in keen pursuit of that one spot of troubled +water and air. But it bade fair to outstrip them; it flew on and on, +as a mass of interblending bubbles borne down a rapid stream from the +hills. + +"Pull, pull, my good boys," said Starbuck, in the lowest possible but +intensest concentrated whisper to his men; while the sharp fixed glance +from his eyes darted straight ahead of the bow, almost seemed as two +visible needles in two unerring binnacle compasses. He did not say much +to his crew, though, nor did his crew say anything to him. Only the +silence of the boat was at intervals startlingly pierced by one of his +peculiar whispers, now harsh with command, now soft with entreaty. + +How different the loud little King-Post. "Sing out and say something, +my hearties. Roar and pull, my thunderbolts! Beach me, beach me on their +black backs, boys; only do that for me, and I'll sign over to you my +Martha's Vineyard plantation, boys; including wife and children, boys. +Lay me on--lay me on! O Lord, Lord! but I shall go stark, staring mad! +See! see that white water!" And so shouting, he pulled his hat from his +head, and stamped up and down on it; then picking it up, flirted it far +off upon the sea; and finally fell to rearing and plunging in the boat's +stern like a crazed colt from the prairie. + +"Look at that chap now," philosophically drawled Stubb, who, with his +unlighted short pipe, mechanically retained between his teeth, at a +short distance, followed after--"He's got fits, that Flask has. Fits? +yes, give him fits--that's the very word--pitch fits into 'em. Merrily, +merrily, hearts-alive. Pudding for supper, you know;--merry's the word. +Pull, babes--pull, sucklings--pull, all. But what the devil are you +hurrying about? Softly, softly, and steadily, my men. Only pull, and +keep pulling; nothing more. Crack all your backbones, and bite your +knives in two--that's all. Take it easy--why don't ye take it easy, I +say, and burst all your livers and lungs!" + +But what it was that inscrutable Ahab said to that tiger-yellow crew of +his--these were words best omitted here; for you live under the blessed +light of the evangelical land. Only the infidel sharks in the audacious +seas may give ear to such words, when, with tornado brow, and eyes of +red murder, and foam-glued lips, Ahab leaped after his prey. + +Meanwhile, all the boats tore on. The repeated specific allusions of +Flask to "that whale," as he called the fictitious monster which +he declared to be incessantly tantalizing his boat's bow with its +tail--these allusions of his were at times so vivid and life-like, that +they would cause some one or two of his men to snatch a fearful look +over the shoulder. But this was against all rule; for the oarsmen +must put out their eyes, and ram a skewer through their necks; usage +pronouncing that they must have no organs but ears, and no limbs but +arms, in these critical moments. + +It was a sight full of quick wonder and awe! The vast swells of the +omnipotent sea; the surging, hollow roar they made, as they rolled along +the eight gunwales, like gigantic bowls in a boundless bowling-green; +the brief suspended agony of the boat, as it would tip for an instant on +the knife-like edge of the sharper waves, that almost seemed threatening +to cut it in two; the sudden profound dip into the watery glens and +hollows; the keen spurrings and goadings to gain the top of the opposite +hill; the headlong, sled-like slide down its other side;--all these, +with the cries of the headsmen and harpooneers, and the shuddering gasps +of the oarsmen, with the wondrous sight of the ivory Pequod bearing +down upon her boats with outstretched sails, like a wild hen after her +screaming brood;--all this was thrilling. + +Not the raw recruit, marching from the bosom of his wife into the fever +heat of his first battle; not the dead man's ghost encountering the +first unknown phantom in the other world;--neither of these can feel +stranger and stronger emotions than that man does, who for the first +time finds himself pulling into the charmed, churned circle of the +hunted sperm whale. + +The dancing white water made by the chase was now becoming more and more +visible, owing to the increasing darkness of the dun cloud-shadows +flung upon the sea. The jets of vapour no longer blended, but tilted +everywhere to right and left; the whales seemed separating their wakes. +The boats were pulled more apart; Starbuck giving chase to three whales +running dead to leeward. Our sail was now set, and, with the still +rising wind, we rushed along; the boat going with such madness through +the water, that the lee oars could scarcely be worked rapidly enough to +escape being torn from the row-locks. + +Soon we were running through a suffusing wide veil of mist; neither ship +nor boat to be seen. + +"Give way, men," whispered Starbuck, drawing still further aft the sheet +of his sail; "there is time to kill a fish yet before the squall comes. +There's white water again!--close to! Spring!" + +Soon after, two cries in quick succession on each side of us denoted +that the other boats had got fast; but hardly were they overheard, when +with a lightning-like hurtling whisper Starbuck said: "Stand up!" and +Queequeg, harpoon in hand, sprang to his feet. + +Though not one of the oarsmen was then facing the life and death peril +so close to them ahead, yet with their eyes on the intense countenance +of the mate in the stern of the boat, they knew that the imminent +instant had come; they heard, too, an enormous wallowing sound as of +fifty elephants stirring in their litter. Meanwhile the boat was still +booming through the mist, the waves curling and hissing around us like +the erected crests of enraged serpents. + +"That's his hump. THERE, THERE, give it to him!" whispered Starbuck. + +A short rushing sound leaped out of the boat; it was the darted iron of +Queequeg. Then all in one welded commotion came an invisible push from +astern, while forward the boat seemed striking on a ledge; the sail +collapsed and exploded; a gush of scalding vapour shot up near by; +something rolled and tumbled like an earthquake beneath us. The whole +crew were half suffocated as they were tossed helter-skelter into the +white curdling cream of the squall. Squall, whale, and harpoon had all +blended together; and the whale, merely grazed by the iron, escaped. + +Though completely swamped, the boat was nearly unharmed. Swimming round +it we picked up the floating oars, and lashing them across the gunwale, +tumbled back to our places. There we sat up to our knees in the sea, the +water covering every rib and plank, so that to our downward gazing eyes +the suspended craft seemed a coral boat grown up to us from the bottom +of the ocean. + +The wind increased to a howl; the waves dashed their bucklers together; +the whole squall roared, forked, and crackled around us like a white +fire upon the prairie, in which, unconsumed, we were burning; immortal +in these jaws of death! In vain we hailed the other boats; as well roar +to the live coals down the chimney of a flaming furnace as hail those +boats in that storm. Meanwhile the driving scud, rack, and mist, grew +darker with the shadows of night; no sign of the ship could be seen. +The rising sea forbade all attempts to bale out the boat. The oars were +useless as propellers, performing now the office of life-preservers. +So, cutting the lashing of the waterproof match keg, after many failures +Starbuck contrived to ignite the lamp in the lantern; then stretching +it on a waif pole, handed it to Queequeg as the standard-bearer of this +forlorn hope. There, then, he sat, holding up that imbecile candle in +the heart of that almighty forlornness. There, then, he sat, the sign +and symbol of a man without faith, hopelessly holding up hope in the +midst of despair. + +Wet, drenched through, and shivering cold, despairing of ship or boat, +we lifted up our eyes as the dawn came on. The mist still spread over +the sea, the empty lantern lay crushed in the bottom of the boat. +Suddenly Queequeg started to his feet, hollowing his hand to his ear. +We all heard a faint creaking, as of ropes and yards hitherto muffled by +the storm. The sound came nearer and nearer; the thick mists were dimly +parted by a huge, vague form. Affrighted, we all sprang into the sea as +the ship at last loomed into view, bearing right down upon us within a +distance of not much more than its length. + +Floating on the waves we saw the abandoned boat, as for one instant it +tossed and gaped beneath the ship's bows like a chip at the base of a +cataract; and then the vast hull rolled over it, and it was seen no +more till it came up weltering astern. Again we swam for it, were dashed +against it by the seas, and were at last taken up and safely landed on +board. Ere the squall came close to, the other boats had cut loose from +their fish and returned to the ship in good time. The ship had given us +up, but was still cruising, if haply it might light upon some token of +our perishing,--an oar or a lance pole. + + + +CHAPTER 49. The Hyena. + + +There are certain queer times and occasions in this strange mixed affair +we call life when a man takes this whole universe for a vast practical +joke, though the wit thereof he but dimly discerns, and more than +suspects that the joke is at nobody's expense but his own. However, +nothing dispirits, and nothing seems worth while disputing. He bolts +down all events, all creeds, and beliefs, and persuasions, all hard +things visible and invisible, never mind how knobby; as an ostrich of +potent digestion gobbles down bullets and gun flints. And as for small +difficulties and worryings, prospects of sudden disaster, peril of +life and limb; all these, and death itself, seem to him only sly, +good-natured hits, and jolly punches in the side bestowed by the unseen +and unaccountable old joker. That odd sort of wayward mood I am speaking +of, comes over a man only in some time of extreme tribulation; it comes +in the very midst of his earnestness, so that what just before might +have seemed to him a thing most momentous, now seems but a part of the +general joke. There is nothing like the perils of whaling to breed this +free and easy sort of genial, desperado philosophy; and with it I now +regarded this whole voyage of the Pequod, and the great White Whale its +object. + +"Queequeg," said I, when they had dragged me, the last man, to the deck, +and I was still shaking myself in my jacket to fling off the water; +"Queequeg, my fine friend, does this sort of thing often happen?" +Without much emotion, though soaked through just like me, he gave me to +understand that such things did often happen. + +"Mr. Stubb," said I, turning to that worthy, who, buttoned up in his +oil-jacket, was now calmly smoking his pipe in the rain; "Mr. Stubb, I +think I have heard you say that of all whalemen you ever met, our chief +mate, Mr. Starbuck, is by far the most careful and prudent. I suppose +then, that going plump on a flying whale with your sail set in a foggy +squall is the height of a whaleman's discretion?" + +"Certain. I've lowered for whales from a leaking ship in a gale off Cape +Horn." + +"Mr. Flask," said I, turning to little King-Post, who was standing close +by; "you are experienced in these things, and I am not. Will you tell +me whether it is an unalterable law in this fishery, Mr. Flask, for an +oarsman to break his own back pulling himself back-foremost into death's +jaws?" + +"Can't you twist that smaller?" said Flask. "Yes, that's the law. +I should like to see a boat's crew backing water up to a whale face +foremost. Ha, ha! the whale would give them squint for squint, mind +that!" + +Here then, from three impartial witnesses, I had a deliberate statement +of the entire case. Considering, therefore, that squalls and capsizings +in the water and consequent bivouacks on the deep, were matters +of common occurrence in this kind of life; considering that at the +superlatively critical instant of going on to the whale I must resign my +life into the hands of him who steered the boat--oftentimes a fellow who +at that very moment is in his impetuousness upon the point of scuttling +the craft with his own frantic stampings; considering that the +particular disaster to our own particular boat was chiefly to be imputed +to Starbuck's driving on to his whale almost in the teeth of a squall, +and considering that Starbuck, notwithstanding, was famous for his +great heedfulness in the fishery; considering that I belonged to this +uncommonly prudent Starbuck's boat; and finally considering in what a +devil's chase I was implicated, touching the White Whale: taking all +things together, I say, I thought I might as well go below and make a +rough draft of my will. "Queequeg," said I, "come along, you shall be my +lawyer, executor, and legatee." + +It may seem strange that of all men sailors should be tinkering at their +last wills and testaments, but there are no people in the world more +fond of that diversion. This was the fourth time in my nautical life +that I had done the same thing. After the ceremony was concluded upon +the present occasion, I felt all the easier; a stone was rolled away +from my heart. Besides, all the days I should now live would be as good +as the days that Lazarus lived after his resurrection; a supplementary +clean gain of so many months or weeks as the case might be. I survived +myself; my death and burial were locked up in my chest. I looked +round me tranquilly and contentedly, like a quiet ghost with a clean +conscience sitting inside the bars of a snug family vault. + +Now then, thought I, unconsciously rolling up the sleeves of my frock, +here goes for a cool, collected dive at death and destruction, and the +devil fetch the hindmost. + + + +CHAPTER 50. Ahab's Boat and Crew. Fedallah. + + +"Who would have thought it, Flask!" cried Stubb; "if I had but one leg +you would not catch me in a boat, unless maybe to stop the plug-hole +with my timber toe. Oh! he's a wonderful old man!" + +"I don't think it so strange, after all, on that account," said Flask. +"If his leg were off at the hip, now, it would be a different thing. +That would disable him; but he has one knee, and good part of the other +left, you know." + +"I don't know that, my little man; I never yet saw him kneel." + + +Among whale-wise people it has often been argued whether, considering +the paramount importance of his life to the success of the voyage, it is +right for a whaling captain to jeopardize that life in the active perils +of the chase. So Tamerlane's soldiers often argued with tears in their +eyes, whether that invaluable life of his ought to be carried into the +thickest of the fight. + +But with Ahab the question assumed a modified aspect. Considering +that with two legs man is but a hobbling wight in all times of danger; +considering that the pursuit of whales is always under great and +extraordinary difficulties; that every individual moment, indeed, then +comprises a peril; under these circumstances is it wise for any +maimed man to enter a whale-boat in the hunt? As a general thing, the +joint-owners of the Pequod must have plainly thought not. + +Ahab well knew that although his friends at home would think little of +his entering a boat in certain comparatively harmless vicissitudes of +the chase, for the sake of being near the scene of action and giving +his orders in person, yet for Captain Ahab to have a boat actually +apportioned to him as a regular headsman in the hunt--above all for +Captain Ahab to be supplied with five extra men, as that same boat's +crew, he well knew that such generous conceits never entered the heads +of the owners of the Pequod. Therefore he had not solicited a boat's +crew from them, nor had he in any way hinted his desires on that head. +Nevertheless he had taken private measures of his own touching all +that matter. Until Cabaco's published discovery, the sailors had little +foreseen it, though to be sure when, after being a little while out +of port, all hands had concluded the customary business of fitting the +whaleboats for service; when some time after this Ahab was now and then +found bestirring himself in the matter of making thole-pins with his +own hands for what was thought to be one of the spare boats, and even +solicitously cutting the small wooden skewers, which when the line is +running out are pinned over the groove in the bow: when all this was +observed in him, and particularly his solicitude in having an extra +coat of sheathing in the bottom of the boat, as if to make it better +withstand the pointed pressure of his ivory limb; and also the anxiety +he evinced in exactly shaping the thigh board, or clumsy cleat, as it is +sometimes called, the horizontal piece in the boat's bow for bracing the +knee against in darting or stabbing at the whale; when it was observed +how often he stood up in that boat with his solitary knee fixed in the +semi-circular depression in the cleat, and with the carpenter's chisel +gouged out a little here and straightened it a little there; all these +things, I say, had awakened much interest and curiosity at the time. But +almost everybody supposed that this particular preparative heedfulness +in Ahab must only be with a view to the ultimate chase of Moby Dick; +for he had already revealed his intention to hunt that mortal monster +in person. But such a supposition did by no means involve the remotest +suspicion as to any boat's crew being assigned to that boat. + +Now, with the subordinate phantoms, what wonder remained soon waned +away; for in a whaler wonders soon wane. Besides, now and then such +unaccountable odds and ends of strange nations come up from the unknown +nooks and ash-holes of the earth to man these floating outlaws of +whalers; and the ships themselves often pick up such queer castaway +creatures found tossing about the open sea on planks, bits of wreck, +oars, whaleboats, canoes, blown-off Japanese junks, and what not; that +Beelzebub himself might climb up the side and step down into the cabin +to chat with the captain, and it would not create any unsubduable +excitement in the forecastle. + +But be all this as it may, certain it is that while the subordinate +phantoms soon found their place among the crew, though still as it were +somehow distinct from them, yet that hair-turbaned Fedallah remained +a muffled mystery to the last. Whence he came in a mannerly world like +this, by what sort of unaccountable tie he soon evinced himself to be +linked with Ahab's peculiar fortunes; nay, so far as to have some sort +of a half-hinted influence; Heaven knows, but it might have been even +authority over him; all this none knew. But one cannot sustain +an indifferent air concerning Fedallah. He was such a creature as +civilized, domestic people in the temperate zone only see in their +dreams, and that but dimly; but the like of whom now and then glide +among the unchanging Asiatic communities, especially the Oriental isles +to the east of the continent--those insulated, immemorial, unalterable +countries, which even in these modern days still preserve much of the +ghostly aboriginalness of earth's primal generations, when the memory of +the first man was a distinct recollection, and all men his descendants, +unknowing whence he came, eyed each other as real phantoms, and asked of +the sun and the moon why they were created and to what end; when though, +according to Genesis, the angels indeed consorted with the daughters of +men, the devils also, add the uncanonical Rabbins, indulged in mundane +amours. + + + +CHAPTER 51. The Spirit-Spout. + + +Days, weeks passed, and under easy sail, the ivory Pequod had slowly +swept across four several cruising-grounds; that off the Azores; off the +Cape de Verdes; on the Plate (so called), being off the mouth of the +Rio de la Plata; and the Carrol Ground, an unstaked, watery locality, +southerly from St. Helena. + +It was while gliding through these latter waters that one serene and +moonlight night, when all the waves rolled by like scrolls of silver; +and, by their soft, suffusing seethings, made what seemed a silvery +silence, not a solitude; on such a silent night a silvery jet was seen +far in advance of the white bubbles at the bow. Lit up by the moon, it +looked celestial; seemed some plumed and glittering god uprising from +the sea. Fedallah first descried this jet. For of these moonlight +nights, it was his wont to mount to the main-mast head, and stand a +look-out there, with the same precision as if it had been day. And yet, +though herds of whales were seen by night, not one whaleman in a hundred +would venture a lowering for them. You may think with what emotions, +then, the seamen beheld this old Oriental perched aloft at such unusual +hours; his turban and the moon, companions in one sky. But when, after +spending his uniform interval there for several successive nights +without uttering a single sound; when, after all this silence, his +unearthly voice was heard announcing that silvery, moon-lit jet, every +reclining mariner started to his feet as if some winged spirit had +lighted in the rigging, and hailed the mortal crew. "There she blows!" +Had the trump of judgment blown, they could not have quivered more; yet +still they felt no terror; rather pleasure. For though it was a most +unwonted hour, yet so impressive was the cry, and so deliriously +exciting, that almost every soul on board instinctively desired a +lowering. + +Walking the deck with quick, side-lunging strides, Ahab commanded the +t'gallant sails and royals to be set, and every stunsail spread. The +best man in the ship must take the helm. Then, with every mast-head +manned, the piled-up craft rolled down before the wind. The strange, +upheaving, lifting tendency of the taffrail breeze filling the hollows +of so many sails, made the buoyant, hovering deck to feel like air +beneath the feet; while still she rushed along, as if two antagonistic +influences were struggling in her--one to mount direct to heaven, the +other to drive yawingly to some horizontal goal. And had you watched +Ahab's face that night, you would have thought that in him also two +different things were warring. While his one live leg made lively echoes +along the deck, every stroke of his dead limb sounded like a coffin-tap. +On life and death this old man walked. But though the ship so swiftly +sped, and though from every eye, like arrows, the eager glances shot, +yet the silvery jet was no more seen that night. Every sailor swore he +saw it once, but not a second time. + +This midnight-spout had almost grown a forgotten thing, when, some days +after, lo! at the same silent hour, it was again announced: again it +was descried by all; but upon making sail to overtake it, once more it +disappeared as if it had never been. And so it served us night after +night, till no one heeded it but to wonder at it. Mysteriously +jetted into the clear moonlight, or starlight, as the case might be; +disappearing again for one whole day, or two days, or three; and somehow +seeming at every distinct repetition to be advancing still further and +further in our van, this solitary jet seemed for ever alluring us on. + +Nor with the immemorial superstition of their race, and in accordance +with the preternaturalness, as it seemed, which in many things invested +the Pequod, were there wanting some of the seamen who swore that +whenever and wherever descried; at however remote times, or in however +far apart latitudes and longitudes, that unnearable spout was cast +by one self-same whale; and that whale, Moby Dick. For a time, there +reigned, too, a sense of peculiar dread at this flitting apparition, +as if it were treacherously beckoning us on and on, in order that the +monster might turn round upon us, and rend us at last in the remotest +and most savage seas. + +These temporary apprehensions, so vague but so awful, derived a wondrous +potency from the contrasting serenity of the weather, in which, beneath +all its blue blandness, some thought there lurked a devilish charm, as +for days and days we voyaged along, through seas so wearily, lonesomely +mild, that all space, in repugnance to our vengeful errand, seemed +vacating itself of life before our urn-like prow. + +But, at last, when turning to the eastward, the Cape winds began howling +around us, and we rose and fell upon the long, troubled seas that are +there; when the ivory-tusked Pequod sharply bowed to the blast, and +gored the dark waves in her madness, till, like showers of silver chips, +the foam-flakes flew over her bulwarks; then all this desolate vacuity +of life went away, but gave place to sights more dismal than before. + +Close to our bows, strange forms in the water darted hither and thither +before us; while thick in our rear flew the inscrutable sea-ravens. And +every morning, perched on our stays, rows of these birds were seen; and +spite of our hootings, for a long time obstinately clung to the hemp, +as though they deemed our ship some drifting, uninhabited craft; a thing +appointed to desolation, and therefore fit roosting-place for their +homeless selves. And heaved and heaved, still unrestingly heaved the +black sea, as if its vast tides were a conscience; and the great mundane +soul were in anguish and remorse for the long sin and suffering it had +bred. + +Cape of Good Hope, do they call ye? Rather Cape Tormentoto, as called +of yore; for long allured by the perfidious silences that before had +attended us, we found ourselves launched into this tormented sea, +where guilty beings transformed into those fowls and these fish, seemed +condemned to swim on everlastingly without any haven in store, or beat +that black air without any horizon. But calm, snow-white, and unvarying; +still directing its fountain of feathers to the sky; still beckoning us +on from before, the solitary jet would at times be descried. + +During all this blackness of the elements, Ahab, though assuming for the +time the almost continual command of the drenched and dangerous deck, +manifested the gloomiest reserve; and more seldom than ever addressed +his mates. In tempestuous times like these, after everything above and +aloft has been secured, nothing more can be done but passively to await +the issue of the gale. Then Captain and crew become practical fatalists. +So, with his ivory leg inserted into its accustomed hole, and with one +hand firmly grasping a shroud, Ahab for hours and hours would stand +gazing dead to windward, while an occasional squall of sleet or snow +would all but congeal his very eyelashes together. Meantime, the crew +driven from the forward part of the ship by the perilous seas that +burstingly broke over its bows, stood in a line along the bulwarks in +the waist; and the better to guard against the leaping waves, each man +had slipped himself into a sort of bowline secured to the rail, in which +he swung as in a loosened belt. Few or no words were spoken; and the +silent ship, as if manned by painted sailors in wax, day after day tore +on through all the swift madness and gladness of the demoniac waves. +By night the same muteness of humanity before the shrieks of the +ocean prevailed; still in silence the men swung in the bowlines; still +wordless Ahab stood up to the blast. Even when wearied nature seemed +demanding repose he would not seek that repose in his hammock. Never +could Starbuck forget the old man's aspect, when one night going down +into the cabin to mark how the barometer stood, he saw him with +closed eyes sitting straight in his floor-screwed chair; the rain +and half-melted sleet of the storm from which he had some time before +emerged, still slowly dripping from the unremoved hat and coat. On the +table beside him lay unrolled one of those charts of tides and currents +which have previously been spoken of. His lantern swung from his tightly +clenched hand. Though the body was erect, the head was thrown back so +that the closed eyes were pointed towards the needle of the tell-tale +that swung from a beam in the ceiling.* + + +*The cabin-compass is called the tell-tale, because without going to the +compass at the helm, the Captain, while below, can inform himself of the +course of the ship. + + +Terrible old man! thought Starbuck with a shudder, sleeping in this +gale, still thou steadfastly eyest thy purpose. + + + +CHAPTER 52. The Albatross. + + +South-eastward from the Cape, off the distant Crozetts, a good cruising +ground for Right Whalemen, a sail loomed ahead, the Goney (Albatross) +by name. As she slowly drew nigh, from my lofty perch at the +fore-mast-head, I had a good view of that sight so remarkable to a tyro +in the far ocean fisheries--a whaler at sea, and long absent from home. + +As if the waves had been fullers, this craft was bleached like the +skeleton of a stranded walrus. All down her sides, this spectral +appearance was traced with long channels of reddened rust, while all her +spars and her rigging were like the thick branches of trees furred over +with hoar-frost. Only her lower sails were set. A wild sight it was to +see her long-bearded look-outs at those three mast-heads. They seemed +clad in the skins of beasts, so torn and bepatched the raiment that had +survived nearly four years of cruising. Standing in iron hoops nailed to +the mast, they swayed and swung over a fathomless sea; and though, when +the ship slowly glided close under our stern, we six men in the air +came so nigh to each other that we might almost have leaped from the +mast-heads of one ship to those of the other; yet, those forlorn-looking +fishermen, mildly eyeing us as they passed, said not one word to our own +look-outs, while the quarter-deck hail was being heard from below. + +"Ship ahoy! Have ye seen the White Whale?" + +But as the strange captain, leaning over the pallid bulwarks, was in the +act of putting his trumpet to his mouth, it somehow fell from his hand +into the sea; and the wind now rising amain, he in vain strove to make +himself heard without it. Meantime his ship was still increasing the +distance between. While in various silent ways the seamen of the Pequod +were evincing their observance of this ominous incident at the first +mere mention of the White Whale's name to another ship, Ahab for a +moment paused; it almost seemed as though he would have lowered a boat +to board the stranger, had not the threatening wind forbade. But taking +advantage of his windward position, he again seized his trumpet, and +knowing by her aspect that the stranger vessel was a Nantucketer and +shortly bound home, he loudly hailed--"Ahoy there! This is the Pequod, +bound round the world! Tell them to address all future letters to the +Pacific ocean! and this time three years, if I am not at home, tell them +to address them to--" + +At that moment the two wakes were fairly crossed, and instantly, then, +in accordance with their singular ways, shoals of small harmless fish, +that for some days before had been placidly swimming by our side, darted +away with what seemed shuddering fins, and ranged themselves fore and +aft with the stranger's flanks. Though in the course of his continual +voyagings Ahab must often before have noticed a similar sight, yet, to +any monomaniac man, the veriest trifles capriciously carry meanings. + +"Swim away from me, do ye?" murmured Ahab, gazing over into the water. +There seemed but little in the words, but the tone conveyed more of deep +helpless sadness than the insane old man had ever before evinced. But +turning to the steersman, who thus far had been holding the ship in the +wind to diminish her headway, he cried out in his old lion voice,--"Up +helm! Keep her off round the world!" + +Round the world! There is much in that sound to inspire proud feelings; +but whereto does all that circumnavigation conduct? Only through +numberless perils to the very point whence we started, where those that +we left behind secure, were all the time before us. + +Were this world an endless plain, and by sailing eastward we could for +ever reach new distances, and discover sights more sweet and strange +than any Cyclades or Islands of King Solomon, then there were promise +in the voyage. But in pursuit of those far mysteries we dream of, or in +tormented chase of that demon phantom that, some time or other, swims +before all human hearts; while chasing such over this round globe, they +either lead us on in barren mazes or midway leave us whelmed. + + + +CHAPTER 53. The Gam. + + +The ostensible reason why Ahab did not go on board of the whaler we had +spoken was this: the wind and sea betokened storms. But even had +this not been the case, he would not after all, perhaps, have boarded +her--judging by his subsequent conduct on similar occasions--if so it +had been that, by the process of hailing, he had obtained a negative +answer to the question he put. For, as it eventually turned out, he +cared not to consort, even for five minutes, with any stranger captain, +except he could contribute some of that information he so absorbingly +sought. But all this might remain inadequately estimated, were not +something said here of the peculiar usages of whaling-vessels when +meeting each other in foreign seas, and especially on a common +cruising-ground. + +If two strangers crossing the Pine Barrens in New York State, or the +equally desolate Salisbury Plain in England; if casually encountering +each other in such inhospitable wilds, these twain, for the life of +them, cannot well avoid a mutual salutation; and stopping for a moment +to interchange the news; and, perhaps, sitting down for a while +and resting in concert: then, how much more natural that upon the +illimitable Pine Barrens and Salisbury Plains of the sea, two whaling +vessels descrying each other at the ends of the earth--off lone +Fanning's Island, or the far away King's Mills; how much more natural, +I say, that under such circumstances these ships should not only +interchange hails, but come into still closer, more friendly and +sociable contact. And especially would this seem to be a matter of +course, in the case of vessels owned in one seaport, and whose captains, +officers, and not a few of the men are personally known to each other; +and consequently, have all sorts of dear domestic things to talk about. + +For the long absent ship, the outward-bounder, perhaps, has letters on +board; at any rate, she will be sure to let her have some papers of a +date a year or two later than the last one on her blurred and thumb-worn +files. And in return for that courtesy, the outward-bound ship would +receive the latest whaling intelligence from the cruising-ground to +which she may be destined, a thing of the utmost importance to her. And +in degree, all this will hold true concerning whaling vessels crossing +each other's track on the cruising-ground itself, even though they +are equally long absent from home. For one of them may have received a +transfer of letters from some third, and now far remote vessel; and +some of those letters may be for the people of the ship she now meets. +Besides, they would exchange the whaling news, and have an agreeable +chat. For not only would they meet with all the sympathies of sailors, +but likewise with all the peculiar congenialities arising from a common +pursuit and mutually shared privations and perils. + +Nor would difference of country make any very essential difference; +that is, so long as both parties speak one language, as is the case +with Americans and English. Though, to be sure, from the small number of +English whalers, such meetings do not very often occur, and when they +do occur there is too apt to be a sort of shyness between them; for your +Englishman is rather reserved, and your Yankee, he does not fancy that +sort of thing in anybody but himself. Besides, the English whalers +sometimes affect a kind of metropolitan superiority over the American +whalers; regarding the long, lean Nantucketer, with his nondescript +provincialisms, as a sort of sea-peasant. But where this superiority +in the English whalemen does really consist, it would be hard to say, +seeing that the Yankees in one day, collectively, kill more whales than +all the English, collectively, in ten years. But this is a harmless +little foible in the English whale-hunters, which the Nantucketer does +not take much to heart; probably, because he knows that he has a few +foibles himself. + +So, then, we see that of all ships separately sailing the sea, the +whalers have most reason to be sociable--and they are so. Whereas, some +merchant ships crossing each other's wake in the mid-Atlantic, will +oftentimes pass on without so much as a single word of recognition, +mutually cutting each other on the high seas, like a brace of dandies in +Broadway; and all the time indulging, perhaps, in finical criticism upon +each other's rig. As for Men-of-War, when they chance to meet at sea, +they first go through such a string of silly bowings and scrapings, such +a ducking of ensigns, that there does not seem to be much right-down +hearty good-will and brotherly love about it at all. As touching +Slave-ships meeting, why, they are in such a prodigious hurry, they run +away from each other as soon as possible. And as for Pirates, when they +chance to cross each other's cross-bones, the first hail is--"How many +skulls?"--the same way that whalers hail--"How many barrels?" And that +question once answered, pirates straightway steer apart, for they are +infernal villains on both sides, and don't like to see overmuch of each +other's villanous likenesses. + +But look at the godly, honest, unostentatious, hospitable, sociable, +free-and-easy whaler! What does the whaler do when she meets another +whaler in any sort of decent weather? She has a "GAM," a thing so +utterly unknown to all other ships that they never heard of the name +even; and if by chance they should hear of it, they only grin at it, and +repeat gamesome stuff about "spouters" and "blubber-boilers," and such +like pretty exclamations. Why it is that all Merchant-seamen, and also +all Pirates and Man-of-War's men, and Slave-ship sailors, cherish such +a scornful feeling towards Whale-ships; this is a question it would be +hard to answer. Because, in the case of pirates, say, I should like to +know whether that profession of theirs has any peculiar glory about +it. It sometimes ends in uncommon elevation, indeed; but only at the +gallows. And besides, when a man is elevated in that odd fashion, he has +no proper foundation for his superior altitude. Hence, I conclude, +that in boasting himself to be high lifted above a whaleman, in that +assertion the pirate has no solid basis to stand on. + +But what is a GAM? You might wear out your index-finger running up and +down the columns of dictionaries, and never find the word. Dr. Johnson +never attained to that erudition; Noah Webster's ark does not hold it. +Nevertheless, this same expressive word has now for many years been in +constant use among some fifteen thousand true born Yankees. Certainly, +it needs a definition, and should be incorporated into the Lexicon. With +that view, let me learnedly define it. + +GAM. NOUN--A SOCIAL MEETING OF TWO (OR MORE) WHALESHIPS, GENERALLY ON A +CRUISING-GROUND; WHEN, AFTER EXCHANGING HAILS, THEY EXCHANGE VISITS BY +BOATS' CREWS; THE TWO CAPTAINS REMAINING, FOR THE TIME, ON BOARD OF ONE +SHIP, AND THE TWO CHIEF MATES ON THE OTHER. + +There is another little item about Gamming which must not be forgotten +here. All professions have their own little peculiarities of detail; so +has the whale fishery. In a pirate, man-of-war, or slave ship, when +the captain is rowed anywhere in his boat, he always sits in the stern +sheets on a comfortable, sometimes cushioned seat there, and often +steers himself with a pretty little milliner's tiller decorated with +gay cords and ribbons. But the whale-boat has no seat astern, no sofa of +that sort whatever, and no tiller at all. High times indeed, if whaling +captains were wheeled about the water on castors like gouty old aldermen +in patent chairs. And as for a tiller, the whale-boat never admits of +any such effeminacy; and therefore as in gamming a complete boat's crew +must leave the ship, and hence as the boat steerer or harpooneer is of +the number, that subordinate is the steersman upon the occasion, and +the captain, having no place to sit in, is pulled off to his visit +all standing like a pine tree. And often you will notice that being +conscious of the eyes of the whole visible world resting on him from +the sides of the two ships, this standing captain is all alive to the +importance of sustaining his dignity by maintaining his legs. Nor is +this any very easy matter; for in his rear is the immense projecting +steering oar hitting him now and then in the small of his back, the +after-oar reciprocating by rapping his knees in front. He is thus +completely wedged before and behind, and can only expand himself +sideways by settling down on his stretched legs; but a sudden, violent +pitch of the boat will often go far to topple him, because length of +foundation is nothing without corresponding breadth. Merely make a +spread angle of two poles, and you cannot stand them up. Then, again, +it would never do in plain sight of the world's riveted eyes, it would +never do, I say, for this straddling captain to be seen steadying +himself the slightest particle by catching hold of anything with +his hands; indeed, as token of his entire, buoyant self-command, he +generally carries his hands in his trowsers' pockets; but perhaps being +generally very large, heavy hands, he carries them there for ballast. +Nevertheless there have occurred instances, well authenticated ones too, +where the captain has been known for an uncommonly critical moment or +two, in a sudden squall say--to seize hold of the nearest oarsman's +hair, and hold on there like grim death. + + + +CHAPTER 54. The Town-Ho's Story. + + +(AS TOLD AT THE GOLDEN INN) + + +The Cape of Good Hope, and all the watery region round about there, is +much like some noted four corners of a great highway, where you meet +more travellers than in any other part. + +It was not very long after speaking the Goney that another +homeward-bound whaleman, the Town-Ho,* was encountered. She was manned +almost wholly by Polynesians. In the short gam that ensued she gave +us strong news of Moby Dick. To some the general interest in the White +Whale was now wildly heightened by a circumstance of the Town-Ho's +story, which seemed obscurely to involve with the whale a certain +wondrous, inverted visitation of one of those so called judgments of God +which at times are said to overtake some men. This latter circumstance, +with its own particular accompaniments, forming what may be called the +secret part of the tragedy about to be narrated, never reached the ears +of Captain Ahab or his mates. For that secret part of the story was +unknown to the captain of the Town-Ho himself. It was the private +property of three confederate white seamen of that ship, one of whom, it +seems, communicated it to Tashtego with Romish injunctions of secrecy, +but the following night Tashtego rambled in his sleep, and revealed +so much of it in that way, that when he was wakened he could not well +withhold the rest. Nevertheless, so potent an influence did this thing +have on those seamen in the Pequod who came to the full knowledge of +it, and by such a strange delicacy, to call it so, were they governed in +this matter, that they kept the secret among themselves so that it never +transpired abaft the Pequod's main-mast. Interweaving in its proper +place this darker thread with the story as publicly narrated on the +ship, the whole of this strange affair I now proceed to put on lasting +record. + + +*The ancient whale-cry upon first sighting a whale from the mast-head, +still used by whalemen in hunting the famous Gallipagos terrapin. + + +For my humor's sake, I shall preserve the style in which I once narrated +it at Lima, to a lounging circle of my Spanish friends, one saint's eve, +smoking upon the thick-gilt tiled piazza of the Golden Inn. Of those +fine cavaliers, the young Dons, Pedro and Sebastian, were on the closer +terms with me; and hence the interluding questions they occasionally +put, and which are duly answered at the time. + +"Some two years prior to my first learning the events which I am about +rehearsing to you, gentlemen, the Town-Ho, Sperm Whaler of Nantucket, +was cruising in your Pacific here, not very many days' sail eastward +from the eaves of this good Golden Inn. She was somewhere to the +northward of the Line. One morning upon handling the pumps, according to +daily usage, it was observed that she made more water in her hold than +common. They supposed a sword-fish had stabbed her, gentlemen. But the +captain, having some unusual reason for believing that rare good luck +awaited him in those latitudes; and therefore being very averse to quit +them, and the leak not being then considered at all dangerous, though, +indeed, they could not find it after searching the hold as low down +as was possible in rather heavy weather, the ship still continued her +cruisings, the mariners working at the pumps at wide and easy intervals; +but no good luck came; more days went by, and not only was the leak yet +undiscovered, but it sensibly increased. So much so, that now taking +some alarm, the captain, making all sail, stood away for the nearest +harbor among the islands, there to have his hull hove out and repaired. + +"Though no small passage was before her, yet, if the commonest chance +favoured, he did not at all fear that his ship would founder by the way, +because his pumps were of the best, and being periodically relieved at +them, those six-and-thirty men of his could easily keep the ship free; +never mind if the leak should double on her. In truth, well nigh the +whole of this passage being attended by very prosperous breezes, the +Town-Ho had all but certainly arrived in perfect safety at her port +without the occurrence of the least fatality, had it not been for the +brutal overbearing of Radney, the mate, a Vineyarder, and the bitterly +provoked vengeance of Steelkilt, a Lakeman and desperado from Buffalo. + +"'Lakeman!--Buffalo! Pray, what is a Lakeman, and where is Buffalo?' +said Don Sebastian, rising in his swinging mat of grass. + +"On the eastern shore of our Lake Erie, Don; but--I crave your +courtesy--may be, you shall soon hear further of all that. Now, +gentlemen, in square-sail brigs and three-masted ships, well-nigh as +large and stout as any that ever sailed out of your old Callao to far +Manilla; this Lakeman, in the land-locked heart of our America, had yet +been nurtured by all those agrarian freebooting impressions popularly +connected with the open ocean. For in their interflowing aggregate, +those grand fresh-water seas of ours,--Erie, and Ontario, and Huron, and +Superior, and Michigan,--possess an ocean-like expansiveness, with many +of the ocean's noblest traits; with many of its rimmed varieties of +races and of climes. They contain round archipelagoes of romantic isles, +even as the Polynesian waters do; in large part, are shored by two great +contrasting nations, as the Atlantic is; they furnish long maritime +approaches to our numerous territorial colonies from the East, dotted +all round their banks; here and there are frowned upon by batteries, +and by the goat-like craggy guns of lofty Mackinaw; they have heard the +fleet thunderings of naval victories; at intervals, they yield their +beaches to wild barbarians, whose red painted faces flash from out +their peltry wigwams; for leagues and leagues are flanked by ancient +and unentered forests, where the gaunt pines stand like serried lines +of kings in Gothic genealogies; those same woods harboring wild Afric +beasts of prey, and silken creatures whose exported furs give robes +to Tartar Emperors; they mirror the paved capitals of Buffalo and +Cleveland, as well as Winnebago villages; they float alike the +full-rigged merchant ship, the armed cruiser of the State, the steamer, +and the beech canoe; they are swept by Borean and dismasting blasts as +direful as any that lash the salted wave; they know what shipwrecks are, +for out of sight of land, however inland, they have drowned full many +a midnight ship with all its shrieking crew. Thus, gentlemen, though +an inlander, Steelkilt was wild-ocean born, and wild-ocean nurtured; +as much of an audacious mariner as any. And for Radney, though in his +infancy he may have laid him down on the lone Nantucket beach, to nurse +at his maternal sea; though in after life he had long followed our +austere Atlantic and your contemplative Pacific; yet was he quite as +vengeful and full of social quarrel as the backwoods seaman, fresh +from the latitudes of buck-horn handled bowie-knives. Yet was this +Nantucketer a man with some good-hearted traits; and this Lakeman, a +mariner, who though a sort of devil indeed, might yet by inflexible +firmness, only tempered by that common decency of human recognition +which is the meanest slave's right; thus treated, this Steelkilt had +long been retained harmless and docile. At all events, he had proved +so thus far; but Radney was doomed and made mad, and Steelkilt--but, +gentlemen, you shall hear. + +"It was not more than a day or two at the furthest after pointing +her prow for her island haven, that the Town-Ho's leak seemed again +increasing, but only so as to require an hour or more at the pumps +every day. You must know that in a settled and civilized ocean like our +Atlantic, for example, some skippers think little of pumping their whole +way across it; though of a still, sleepy night, should the officer of +the deck happen to forget his duty in that respect, the probability +would be that he and his shipmates would never again remember it, on +account of all hands gently subsiding to the bottom. Nor in the +solitary and savage seas far from you to the westward, gentlemen, is it +altogether unusual for ships to keep clanging at their pump-handles in +full chorus even for a voyage of considerable length; that is, if it lie +along a tolerably accessible coast, or if any other reasonable retreat +is afforded them. It is only when a leaky vessel is in some very out of +the way part of those waters, some really landless latitude, that her +captain begins to feel a little anxious. + +"Much this way had it been with the Town-Ho; so when her leak was found +gaining once more, there was in truth some small concern manifested by +several of her company; especially by Radney the mate. He commanded +the upper sails to be well hoisted, sheeted home anew, and every way +expanded to the breeze. Now this Radney, I suppose, was as little of a +coward, and as little inclined to any sort of nervous apprehensiveness +touching his own person as any fearless, unthinking creature on land or +on sea that you can conveniently imagine, gentlemen. Therefore when +he betrayed this solicitude about the safety of the ship, some of the +seamen declared that it was only on account of his being a part owner in +her. So when they were working that evening at the pumps, there was on +this head no small gamesomeness slily going on among them, as they stood +with their feet continually overflowed by the rippling clear water; +clear as any mountain spring, gentlemen--that bubbling from the pumps +ran across the deck, and poured itself out in steady spouts at the lee +scupper-holes. + +"Now, as you well know, it is not seldom the case in this conventional +world of ours--watery or otherwise; that when a person placed in command +over his fellow-men finds one of them to be very significantly his +superior in general pride of manhood, straightway against that man he +conceives an unconquerable dislike and bitterness; and if he have a +chance he will pull down and pulverize that subaltern's tower, and +make a little heap of dust of it. Be this conceit of mine as it may, +gentlemen, at all events Steelkilt was a tall and noble animal with a +head like a Roman, and a flowing golden beard like the tasseled housings +of your last viceroy's snorting charger; and a brain, and a heart, and +a soul in him, gentlemen, which had made Steelkilt Charlemagne, had he +been born son to Charlemagne's father. But Radney, the mate, was ugly +as a mule; yet as hardy, as stubborn, as malicious. He did not love +Steelkilt, and Steelkilt knew it. + +"Espying the mate drawing near as he was toiling at the pump with the +rest, the Lakeman affected not to notice him, but unawed, went on with +his gay banterings. + +"'Aye, aye, my merry lads, it's a lively leak this; hold a cannikin, one +of ye, and let's have a taste. By the Lord, it's worth bottling! I tell +ye what, men, old Rad's investment must go for it! he had best cut away +his part of the hull and tow it home. The fact is, boys, that sword-fish +only began the job; he's come back again with a gang of ship-carpenters, +saw-fish, and file-fish, and what not; and the whole posse of 'em +are now hard at work cutting and slashing at the bottom; making +improvements, I suppose. If old Rad were here now, I'd tell him to jump +overboard and scatter 'em. They're playing the devil with his estate, I +can tell him. But he's a simple old soul,--Rad, and a beauty too. Boys, +they say the rest of his property is invested in looking-glasses. I +wonder if he'd give a poor devil like me the model of his nose.' + +"'Damn your eyes! what's that pump stopping for?' roared Radney, +pretending not to have heard the sailors' talk. 'Thunder away at it!' + +"'Aye, aye, sir,' said Steelkilt, merry as a cricket. 'Lively, boys, +lively, now!' And with that the pump clanged like fifty fire-engines; +the men tossed their hats off to it, and ere long that peculiar gasping +of the lungs was heard which denotes the fullest tension of life's +utmost energies. + +"Quitting the pump at last, with the rest of his band, the Lakeman went +forward all panting, and sat himself down on the windlass; his face +fiery red, his eyes bloodshot, and wiping the profuse sweat from his +brow. Now what cozening fiend it was, gentlemen, that possessed Radney +to meddle with such a man in that corporeally exasperated state, I know +not; but so it happened. Intolerably striding along the deck, the mate +commanded him to get a broom and sweep down the planks, and also a +shovel, and remove some offensive matters consequent upon allowing a pig +to run at large. + +"Now, gentlemen, sweeping a ship's deck at sea is a piece of household +work which in all times but raging gales is regularly attended to every +evening; it has been known to be done in the case of ships actually +foundering at the time. Such, gentlemen, is the inflexibility of +sea-usages and the instinctive love of neatness in seamen; some of whom +would not willingly drown without first washing their faces. But in all +vessels this broom business is the prescriptive province of the boys, +if boys there be aboard. Besides, it was the stronger men in the Town-Ho +that had been divided into gangs, taking turns at the pumps; and being +the most athletic seaman of them all, Steelkilt had been regularly +assigned captain of one of the gangs; consequently he should have +been freed from any trivial business not connected with truly nautical +duties, such being the case with his comrades. I mention all these +particulars so that you may understand exactly how this affair stood +between the two men. + +"But there was more than this: the order about the shovel was almost as +plainly meant to sting and insult Steelkilt, as though Radney had spat +in his face. Any man who has gone sailor in a whale-ship will +understand this; and all this and doubtless much more, the Lakeman fully +comprehended when the mate uttered his command. But as he sat still for +a moment, and as he steadfastly looked into the mate's malignant eye and +perceived the stacks of powder-casks heaped up in him and the slow-match +silently burning along towards them; as he instinctively saw all +this, that strange forbearance and unwillingness to stir up the deeper +passionateness in any already ireful being--a repugnance most felt, when +felt at all, by really valiant men even when aggrieved--this nameless +phantom feeling, gentlemen, stole over Steelkilt. + +"Therefore, in his ordinary tone, only a little broken by the bodily +exhaustion he was temporarily in, he answered him saying that sweeping +the deck was not his business, and he would not do it. And then, without +at all alluding to the shovel, he pointed to three lads as the customary +sweepers; who, not being billeted at the pumps, had done little or +nothing all day. To this, Radney replied with an oath, in a most +domineering and outrageous manner unconditionally reiterating his +command; meanwhile advancing upon the still seated Lakeman, with an +uplifted cooper's club hammer which he had snatched from a cask near by. + +"Heated and irritated as he was by his spasmodic toil at the pumps, for +all his first nameless feeling of forbearance the sweating Steelkilt +could but ill brook this bearing in the mate; but somehow still +smothering the conflagration within him, without speaking he remained +doggedly rooted to his seat, till at last the incensed Radney shook the +hammer within a few inches of his face, furiously commanding him to do +his bidding. + +"Steelkilt rose, and slowly retreating round the windlass, steadily +followed by the mate with his menacing hammer, deliberately repeated his +intention not to obey. Seeing, however, that his forbearance had not +the slightest effect, by an awful and unspeakable intimation with his +twisted hand he warned off the foolish and infatuated man; but it was to +no purpose. And in this way the two went once slowly round the windlass; +when, resolved at last no longer to retreat, bethinking him that he had +now forborne as much as comported with his humor, the Lakeman paused on +the hatches and thus spoke to the officer: + +"'Mr. Radney, I will not obey you. Take that hammer away, or look to +yourself.' But the predestinated mate coming still closer to him, where +the Lakeman stood fixed, now shook the heavy hammer within an inch of +his teeth; meanwhile repeating a string of insufferable maledictions. +Retreating not the thousandth part of an inch; stabbing him in the eye +with the unflinching poniard of his glance, Steelkilt, clenching +his right hand behind him and creepingly drawing it back, told his +persecutor that if the hammer but grazed his cheek he (Steelkilt) would +murder him. But, gentlemen, the fool had been branded for the slaughter +by the gods. Immediately the hammer touched the cheek; the next instant +the lower jaw of the mate was stove in his head; he fell on the hatch +spouting blood like a whale. + +"Ere the cry could go aft Steelkilt was shaking one of the backstays +leading far aloft to where two of his comrades were standing their +mastheads. They were both Canallers. + +"'Canallers!' cried Don Pedro. 'We have seen many whale-ships in our +harbours, but never heard of your Canallers. Pardon: who and what are +they?' + +"'Canallers, Don, are the boatmen belonging to our grand Erie Canal. You +must have heard of it.' + +"'Nay, Senor; hereabouts in this dull, warm, most lazy, and hereditary +land, we know but little of your vigorous North.' + +"'Aye? Well then, Don, refill my cup. Your chicha's very fine; and +ere proceeding further I will tell ye what our Canallers are; for such +information may throw side-light upon my story.' + +"For three hundred and sixty miles, gentlemen, through the entire +breadth of the state of New York; through numerous populous cities and +most thriving villages; through long, dismal, uninhabited swamps, and +affluent, cultivated fields, unrivalled for fertility; by billiard-room +and bar-room; through the holy-of-holies of great forests; on Roman +arches over Indian rivers; through sun and shade; by happy hearts or +broken; through all the wide contrasting scenery of those noble Mohawk +counties; and especially, by rows of snow-white chapels, whose spires +stand almost like milestones, flows one continual stream of Venetianly +corrupt and often lawless life. There's your true Ashantee, gentlemen; +there howl your pagans; where you ever find them, next door to you; +under the long-flung shadow, and the snug patronising lee of churches. +For by some curious fatality, as it is often noted of your metropolitan +freebooters that they ever encamp around the halls of justice, so +sinners, gentlemen, most abound in holiest vicinities. + +"'Is that a friar passing?' said Don Pedro, looking downwards into the +crowded plazza, with humorous concern. + +"'Well for our northern friend, Dame Isabella's Inquisition wanes in +Lima,' laughed Don Sebastian. 'Proceed, Senor.' + +"'A moment! Pardon!' cried another of the company. 'In the name of all +us Limeese, I but desire to express to you, sir sailor, that we have by +no means overlooked your delicacy in not substituting present Lima +for distant Venice in your corrupt comparison. Oh! do not bow and look +surprised; you know the proverb all along this coast--"Corrupt as +Lima." It but bears out your saying, too; churches more plentiful than +billiard-tables, and for ever open--and "Corrupt as Lima." So, too, +Venice; I have been there; the holy city of the blessed evangelist, St. +Mark!--St. Dominic, purge it! Your cup! Thanks: here I refill; now, you +pour out again.' + +"Freely depicted in his own vocation, gentlemen, the Canaller would make +a fine dramatic hero, so abundantly and picturesquely wicked is he. Like +Mark Antony, for days and days along his green-turfed, flowery Nile, +he indolently floats, openly toying with his red-cheeked Cleopatra, +ripening his apricot thigh upon the sunny deck. But ashore, all this +effeminacy is dashed. The brigandish guise which the Canaller so proudly +sports; his slouched and gaily-ribboned hat betoken his grand features. +A terror to the smiling innocence of the villages through which he +floats; his swart visage and bold swagger are not unshunned in cities. +Once a vagabond on his own canal, I have received good turns from one of +these Canallers; I thank him heartily; would fain be not ungrateful; +but it is often one of the prime redeeming qualities of your man of +violence, that at times he has as stiff an arm to back a poor stranger +in a strait, as to plunder a wealthy one. In sum, gentlemen, what the +wildness of this canal life is, is emphatically evinced by this; that +our wild whale-fishery contains so many of its most finished graduates, +and that scarce any race of mankind, except Sydney men, are so much +distrusted by our whaling captains. Nor does it at all diminish the +curiousness of this matter, that to many thousands of our rural boys and +young men born along its line, the probationary life of the Grand Canal +furnishes the sole transition between quietly reaping in a Christian +corn-field, and recklessly ploughing the waters of the most barbaric +seas. + +"'I see! I see!' impetuously exclaimed Don Pedro, spilling his chicha +upon his silvery ruffles. 'No need to travel! The world's one Lima. I +had thought, now, that at your temperate North the generations were cold +and holy as the hills.--But the story.' + +"I left off, gentlemen, where the Lakeman shook the backstay. Hardly +had he done so, when he was surrounded by the three junior mates and the +four harpooneers, who all crowded him to the deck. But sliding down the +ropes like baleful comets, the two Canallers rushed into the uproar, and +sought to drag their man out of it towards the forecastle. Others of the +sailors joined with them in this attempt, and a twisted turmoil ensued; +while standing out of harm's way, the valiant captain danced up and down +with a whale-pike, calling upon his officers to manhandle that atrocious +scoundrel, and smoke him along to the quarter-deck. At intervals, he ran +close up to the revolving border of the confusion, and prying into +the heart of it with his pike, sought to prick out the object of his +resentment. But Steelkilt and his desperadoes were too much for them +all; they succeeded in gaining the forecastle deck, where, hastily +slewing about three or four large casks in a line with the windlass, +these sea-Parisians entrenched themselves behind the barricade. + +"'Come out of that, ye pirates!' roared the captain, now menacing them +with a pistol in each hand, just brought to him by the steward. 'Come +out of that, ye cut-throats!' + +"Steelkilt leaped on the barricade, and striding up and down there, +defied the worst the pistols could do; but gave the captain to +understand distinctly, that his (Steelkilt's) death would be the signal +for a murderous mutiny on the part of all hands. Fearing in his heart +lest this might prove but too true, the captain a little desisted, but +still commanded the insurgents instantly to return to their duty. + +"'Will you promise not to touch us, if we do?' demanded their +ringleader. + +"'Turn to! turn to!--I make no promise;--to your duty! Do you want to +sink the ship, by knocking off at a time like this? Turn to!' and he +once more raised a pistol. + +"'Sink the ship?' cried Steelkilt. 'Aye, let her sink. Not a man of us +turns to, unless you swear not to raise a rope-yarn against us. What say +ye, men?' turning to his comrades. A fierce cheer was their response. + +"The Lakeman now patrolled the barricade, all the while keeping his eye +on the Captain, and jerking out such sentences as these:--'It's not our +fault; we didn't want it; I told him to take his hammer away; it was +boy's business; he might have known me before this; I told him not to +prick the buffalo; I believe I have broken a finger here against his +cursed jaw; ain't those mincing knives down in the forecastle there, +men? look to those handspikes, my hearties. Captain, by God, look to +yourself; say the word; don't be a fool; forget it all; we are ready +to turn to; treat us decently, and we're your men; but we won't be +flogged.' + +"'Turn to! I make no promises, turn to, I say!' + +"'Look ye, now,' cried the Lakeman, flinging out his arm towards him, +'there are a few of us here (and I am one of them) who have shipped +for the cruise, d'ye see; now as you well know, sir, we can claim our +discharge as soon as the anchor is down; so we don't want a row; it's +not our interest; we want to be peaceable; we are ready to work, but we +won't be flogged.' + +"'Turn to!' roared the Captain. + +"Steelkilt glanced round him a moment, and then said:--'I tell you what +it is now, Captain, rather than kill ye, and be hung for such a shabby +rascal, we won't lift a hand against ye unless ye attack us; but till +you say the word about not flogging us, we don't do a hand's turn.' + +"'Down into the forecastle then, down with ye, I'll keep ye there till +ye're sick of it. Down ye go.' + +"'Shall we?' cried the ringleader to his men. Most of them were against +it; but at length, in obedience to Steelkilt, they preceded him down +into their dark den, growlingly disappearing, like bears into a cave. + +"As the Lakeman's bare head was just level with the planks, the Captain +and his posse leaped the barricade, and rapidly drawing over the slide +of the scuttle, planted their group of hands upon it, and loudly called +for the steward to bring the heavy brass padlock belonging to the +companionway. + +"Then opening the slide a little, the Captain whispered something +down the crack, closed it, and turned the key upon them--ten in +number--leaving on deck some twenty or more, who thus far had remained +neutral. + +"All night a wide-awake watch was kept by all the officers, forward and +aft, especially about the forecastle scuttle and fore hatchway; at which +last place it was feared the insurgents might emerge, after breaking +through the bulkhead below. But the hours of darkness passed in peace; +the men who still remained at their duty toiling hard at the pumps, +whose clinking and clanking at intervals through the dreary night +dismally resounded through the ship. + +"At sunrise the Captain went forward, and knocking on the deck, summoned +the prisoners to work; but with a yell they refused. Water was then +lowered down to them, and a couple of handfuls of biscuit were tossed +after it; when again turning the key upon them and pocketing it, the +Captain returned to the quarter-deck. Twice every day for three days +this was repeated; but on the fourth morning a confused wrangling, and +then a scuffling was heard, as the customary summons was delivered; and +suddenly four men burst up from the forecastle, saying they were ready +to turn to. The fetid closeness of the air, and a famishing diet, united +perhaps to some fears of ultimate retribution, had constrained them to +surrender at discretion. Emboldened by this, the Captain reiterated his +demand to the rest, but Steelkilt shouted up to him a terrific hint to +stop his babbling and betake himself where he belonged. On the fifth +morning three others of the mutineers bolted up into the air from the +desperate arms below that sought to restrain them. Only three were left. + +"'Better turn to, now?' said the Captain with a heartless jeer. + +"'Shut us up again, will ye!' cried Steelkilt. + +"'Oh certainly,' said the Captain, and the key clicked. + +"It was at this point, gentlemen, that enraged by the defection of seven +of his former associates, and stung by the mocking voice that had last +hailed him, and maddened by his long entombment in a place as black as +the bowels of despair; it was then that Steelkilt proposed to the two +Canallers, thus far apparently of one mind with him, to burst out of +their hole at the next summoning of the garrison; and armed with their +keen mincing knives (long, crescentic, heavy implements with a handle +at each end) run amuck from the bowsprit to the taffrail; and if by any +devilishness of desperation possible, seize the ship. For himself, he +would do this, he said, whether they joined him or not. That was the +last night he should spend in that den. But the scheme met with no +opposition on the part of the other two; they swore they were ready for +that, or for any other mad thing, for anything in short but a surrender. +And what was more, they each insisted upon being the first man on deck, +when the time to make the rush should come. But to this their leader as +fiercely objected, reserving that priority for himself; particularly as +his two comrades would not yield, the one to the other, in the matter; +and both of them could not be first, for the ladder would but admit one +man at a time. And here, gentlemen, the foul play of these miscreants +must come out. + +"Upon hearing the frantic project of their leader, each in his own +separate soul had suddenly lighted, it would seem, upon the same piece +of treachery, namely: to be foremost in breaking out, in order to be +the first of the three, though the last of the ten, to surrender; and +thereby secure whatever small chance of pardon such conduct might merit. +But when Steelkilt made known his determination still to lead them to +the last, they in some way, by some subtle chemistry of villany, mixed +their before secret treacheries together; and when their leader +fell into a doze, verbally opened their souls to each other in three +sentences; and bound the sleeper with cords, and gagged him with cords; +and shrieked out for the Captain at midnight. + +"Thinking murder at hand, and smelling in the dark for the blood, he and +all his armed mates and harpooneers rushed for the forecastle. In a +few minutes the scuttle was opened, and, bound hand and foot, the still +struggling ringleader was shoved up into the air by his perfidious +allies, who at once claimed the honour of securing a man who had been +fully ripe for murder. But all these were collared, and dragged along +the deck like dead cattle; and, side by side, were seized up into the +mizzen rigging, like three quarters of meat, and there they hung till +morning. 'Damn ye,' cried the Captain, pacing to and fro before them, +'the vultures would not touch ye, ye villains!' + +"At sunrise he summoned all hands; and separating those who had rebelled +from those who had taken no part in the mutiny, he told the former that +he had a good mind to flog them all round--thought, upon the whole, +he would do so--he ought to--justice demanded it; but for the present, +considering their timely surrender, he would let them go with a +reprimand, which he accordingly administered in the vernacular. + +"'But as for you, ye carrion rogues,' turning to the three men in the +rigging--'for you, I mean to mince ye up for the try-pots;' and, +seizing a rope, he applied it with all his might to the backs of the +two traitors, till they yelled no more, but lifelessly hung their heads +sideways, as the two crucified thieves are drawn. + +"'My wrist is sprained with ye!' he cried, at last; 'but there is still +rope enough left for you, my fine bantam, that wouldn't give up. Take +that gag from his mouth, and let us hear what he can say for himself.' + +"For a moment the exhausted mutineer made a tremulous motion of his +cramped jaws, and then painfully twisting round his head, said in a sort +of hiss, 'What I say is this--and mind it well--if you flog me, I murder +you!' + +"'Say ye so? then see how ye frighten me'--and the Captain drew off with +the rope to strike. + +"'Best not,' hissed the Lakeman. + +"'But I must,'--and the rope was once more drawn back for the stroke. + +"Steelkilt here hissed out something, inaudible to all but the Captain; +who, to the amazement of all hands, started back, paced the deck rapidly +two or three times, and then suddenly throwing down his rope, said, 'I +won't do it--let him go--cut him down: d'ye hear?' + +"But as the junior mates were hurrying to execute the order, a pale man, +with a bandaged head, arrested them--Radney the chief mate. Ever since +the blow, he had lain in his berth; but that morning, hearing the tumult +on the deck, he had crept out, and thus far had watched the whole +scene. Such was the state of his mouth, that he could hardly speak; +but mumbling something about his being willing and able to do what the +captain dared not attempt, he snatched the rope and advanced to his +pinioned foe. + +"'You are a coward!' hissed the Lakeman. + +"'So I am, but take that.' The mate was in the very act of striking, +when another hiss stayed his uplifted arm. He paused: and then pausing +no more, made good his word, spite of Steelkilt's threat, whatever that +might have been. The three men were then cut down, all hands were turned +to, and, sullenly worked by the moody seamen, the iron pumps clanged as +before. + +"Just after dark that day, when one watch had retired below, a clamor +was heard in the forecastle; and the two trembling traitors running up, +besieged the cabin door, saying they durst not consort with the crew. +Entreaties, cuffs, and kicks could not drive them back, so at their own +instance they were put down in the ship's run for salvation. Still, no +sign of mutiny reappeared among the rest. On the contrary, it seemed, +that mainly at Steelkilt's instigation, they had resolved to maintain +the strictest peacefulness, obey all orders to the last, and, when the +ship reached port, desert her in a body. But in order to insure the +speediest end to the voyage, they all agreed to another thing--namely, +not to sing out for whales, in case any should be discovered. For, +spite of her leak, and spite of all her other perils, the Town-Ho still +maintained her mast-heads, and her captain was just as willing to +lower for a fish that moment, as on the day his craft first struck the +cruising ground; and Radney the mate was quite as ready to change his +berth for a boat, and with his bandaged mouth seek to gag in death the +vital jaw of the whale. + +"But though the Lakeman had induced the seamen to adopt this sort of +passiveness in their conduct, he kept his own counsel (at least till all +was over) concerning his own proper and private revenge upon the man who +had stung him in the ventricles of his heart. He was in Radney the chief +mate's watch; and as if the infatuated man sought to run more than +half way to meet his doom, after the scene at the rigging, he insisted, +against the express counsel of the captain, upon resuming the head +of his watch at night. Upon this, and one or two other circumstances, +Steelkilt systematically built the plan of his revenge. + +"During the night, Radney had an unseamanlike way of sitting on the +bulwarks of the quarter-deck, and leaning his arm upon the gunwale of +the boat which was hoisted up there, a little above the ship's side. +In this attitude, it was well known, he sometimes dozed. There was a +considerable vacancy between the boat and the ship, and down between +this was the sea. Steelkilt calculated his time, and found that his next +trick at the helm would come round at two o'clock, in the morning of the +third day from that in which he had been betrayed. At his leisure, +he employed the interval in braiding something very carefully in his +watches below. + +"'What are you making there?' said a shipmate. + +"'What do you think? what does it look like?' + +"'Like a lanyard for your bag; but it's an odd one, seems to me.' + +"'Yes, rather oddish,' said the Lakeman, holding it at arm's length +before him; 'but I think it will answer. Shipmate, I haven't enough +twine,--have you any?' + +"But there was none in the forecastle. + +"'Then I must get some from old Rad;' and he rose to go aft. + +"'You don't mean to go a begging to HIM!' said a sailor. + +"'Why not? Do you think he won't do me a turn, when it's to help himself +in the end, shipmate?' and going to the mate, he looked at him +quietly, and asked him for some twine to mend his hammock. It was given +him--neither twine nor lanyard were seen again; but the next night +an iron ball, closely netted, partly rolled from the pocket of the +Lakeman's monkey jacket, as he was tucking the coat into his hammock for +a pillow. Twenty-four hours after, his trick at the silent helm--nigh +to the man who was apt to doze over the grave always ready dug to +the seaman's hand--that fatal hour was then to come; and in the +fore-ordaining soul of Steelkilt, the mate was already stark and +stretched as a corpse, with his forehead crushed in. + +"But, gentlemen, a fool saved the would-be murderer from the bloody +deed he had planned. Yet complete revenge he had, and without being the +avenger. For by a mysterious fatality, Heaven itself seemed to step in +to take out of his hands into its own the damning thing he would have +done. + +"It was just between daybreak and sunrise of the morning of the second +day, when they were washing down the decks, that a stupid Teneriffe man, +drawing water in the main-chains, all at once shouted out, 'There she +rolls! there she rolls!' Jesu, what a whale! It was Moby Dick. + +"'Moby Dick!' cried Don Sebastian; 'St. Dominic! Sir sailor, but do +whales have christenings? Whom call you Moby Dick?' + +"'A very white, and famous, and most deadly immortal monster, Don;--but +that would be too long a story.' + +"'How? how?' cried all the young Spaniards, crowding. + +"'Nay, Dons, Dons--nay, nay! I cannot rehearse that now. Let me get more +into the air, Sirs.' + +"'The chicha! the chicha!' cried Don Pedro; 'our vigorous friend looks +faint;--fill up his empty glass!' + +"No need, gentlemen; one moment, and I proceed.--Now, gentlemen, +so suddenly perceiving the snowy whale within fifty yards of the +ship--forgetful of the compact among the crew--in the excitement of the +moment, the Teneriffe man had instinctively and involuntarily lifted +his voice for the monster, though for some little time past it had been +plainly beheld from the three sullen mast-heads. All was now a phrensy. +'The White Whale--the White Whale!' was the cry from captain, mates, +and harpooneers, who, undeterred by fearful rumours, were all anxious +to capture so famous and precious a fish; while the dogged crew eyed +askance, and with curses, the appalling beauty of the vast milky mass, +that lit up by a horizontal spangling sun, shifted and glistened like +a living opal in the blue morning sea. Gentlemen, a strange fatality +pervades the whole career of these events, as if verily mapped out +before the world itself was charted. The mutineer was the bowsman of the +mate, and when fast to a fish, it was his duty to sit next him, while +Radney stood up with his lance in the prow, and haul in or slacken +the line, at the word of command. Moreover, when the four boats were +lowered, the mate's got the start; and none howled more fiercely with +delight than did Steelkilt, as he strained at his oar. After a stiff +pull, their harpooneer got fast, and, spear in hand, Radney sprang to +the bow. He was always a furious man, it seems, in a boat. And now his +bandaged cry was, to beach him on the whale's topmost back. Nothing +loath, his bowsman hauled him up and up, through a blinding foam that +blent two whitenesses together; till of a sudden the boat struck as +against a sunken ledge, and keeling over, spilled out the standing mate. +That instant, as he fell on the whale's slippery back, the boat righted, +and was dashed aside by the swell, while Radney was tossed over into the +sea, on the other flank of the whale. He struck out through the spray, +and, for an instant, was dimly seen through that veil, wildly seeking to +remove himself from the eye of Moby Dick. But the whale rushed round +in a sudden maelstrom; seized the swimmer between his jaws; and rearing +high up with him, plunged headlong again, and went down. + +"Meantime, at the first tap of the boat's bottom, the Lakeman had +slackened the line, so as to drop astern from the whirlpool; calmly +looking on, he thought his own thoughts. But a sudden, terrific, +downward jerking of the boat, quickly brought his knife to the line. He +cut it; and the whale was free. But, at some distance, Moby Dick rose +again, with some tatters of Radney's red woollen shirt, caught in the +teeth that had destroyed him. All four boats gave chase again; but the +whale eluded them, and finally wholly disappeared. + +"In good time, the Town-Ho reached her port--a savage, solitary +place--where no civilized creature resided. There, headed by the +Lakeman, all but five or six of the foremastmen deliberately deserted +among the palms; eventually, as it turned out, seizing a large double +war-canoe of the savages, and setting sail for some other harbor. + +"The ship's company being reduced to but a handful, the captain called +upon the Islanders to assist him in the laborious business of heaving +down the ship to stop the leak. But to such unresting vigilance over +their dangerous allies was this small band of whites necessitated, both +by night and by day, and so extreme was the hard work they underwent, +that upon the vessel being ready again for sea, they were in such a +weakened condition that the captain durst not put off with them in so +heavy a vessel. After taking counsel with his officers, he anchored the +ship as far off shore as possible; loaded and ran out his two cannon +from the bows; stacked his muskets on the poop; and warning the +Islanders not to approach the ship at their peril, took one man with +him, and setting the sail of his best whale-boat, steered straight +before the wind for Tahiti, five hundred miles distant, to procure a +reinforcement to his crew. + +"On the fourth day of the sail, a large canoe was descried, which seemed +to have touched at a low isle of corals. He steered away from it; but +the savage craft bore down on him; and soon the voice of Steelkilt +hailed him to heave to, or he would run him under water. The captain +presented a pistol. With one foot on each prow of the yoked war-canoes, +the Lakeman laughed him to scorn; assuring him that if the pistol so +much as clicked in the lock, he would bury him in bubbles and foam. + +"'What do you want of me?' cried the captain. + +"'Where are you bound? and for what are you bound?' demanded Steelkilt; +'no lies.' + +"'I am bound to Tahiti for more men.' + +"'Very good. Let me board you a moment--I come in peace.' With that he +leaped from the canoe, swam to the boat; and climbing the gunwale, stood +face to face with the captain. + +"'Cross your arms, sir; throw back your head. Now, repeat after me. +As soon as Steelkilt leaves me, I swear to beach this boat on yonder +island, and remain there six days. If I do not, may lightning strike +me!' + +"'A pretty scholar,' laughed the Lakeman. 'Adios, Senor!' and leaping +into the sea, he swam back to his comrades. + +"Watching the boat till it was fairly beached, and drawn up to the +roots of the cocoa-nut trees, Steelkilt made sail again, and in due time +arrived at Tahiti, his own place of destination. There, luck befriended +him; two ships were about to sail for France, and were providentially +in want of precisely that number of men which the sailor headed. They +embarked; and so for ever got the start of their former captain, had he +been at all minded to work them legal retribution. + +"Some ten days after the French ships sailed, the whale-boat arrived, +and the captain was forced to enlist some of the more civilized +Tahitians, who had been somewhat used to the sea. Chartering a small +native schooner, he returned with them to his vessel; and finding all +right there, again resumed his cruisings. + +"Where Steelkilt now is, gentlemen, none know; but upon the island of +Nantucket, the widow of Radney still turns to the sea which refuses +to give up its dead; still in dreams sees the awful white whale that +destroyed him. + +"'Are you through?' said Don Sebastian, quietly. + +"'I am, Don.' + +"'Then I entreat you, tell me if to the best of your own convictions, +this your story is in substance really true? It is so passing wonderful! +Did you get it from an unquestionable source? Bear with me if I seem to +press.' + +"'Also bear with all of us, sir sailor; for we all join in Don +Sebastian's suit,' cried the company, with exceeding interest. + +"'Is there a copy of the Holy Evangelists in the Golden Inn, gentlemen?' + +"'Nay,' said Don Sebastian; 'but I know a worthy priest near by, who +will quickly procure one for me. I go for it; but are you well advised? +this may grow too serious.' + +"'Will you be so good as to bring the priest also, Don?' + +"'Though there are no Auto-da-Fe's in Lima now,' said one of the company +to another; 'I fear our sailor friend runs risk of the archiepiscopacy. +Let us withdraw more out of the moonlight. I see no need of this.' + +"'Excuse me for running after you, Don Sebastian; but may I also beg +that you will be particular in procuring the largest sized Evangelists +you can.' + +"'This is the priest, he brings you the Evangelists,' said Don Sebastian, +gravely, returning with a tall and solemn figure. + +"'Let me remove my hat. Now, venerable priest, further into the light, +and hold the Holy Book before me that I may touch it. + +"'So help me Heaven, and on my honour the story I have told ye, +gentlemen, is in substance and its great items, true. I know it to be +true; it happened on this ball; I trod the ship; I knew the crew; I have +seen and talked with Steelkilt since the death of Radney.'" + + + +CHAPTER 55. Of the Monstrous Pictures of Whales. + + +I shall ere long paint to you as well as one can without canvas, +something like the true form of the whale as he actually appears to the +eye of the whaleman when in his own absolute body the whale is moored +alongside the whale-ship so that he can be fairly stepped upon there. +It may be worth while, therefore, previously to advert to those +curious imaginary portraits of him which even down to the present day +confidently challenge the faith of the landsman. It is time to set the +world right in this matter, by proving such pictures of the whale all +wrong. + +It may be that the primal source of all those pictorial delusions will +be found among the oldest Hindoo, Egyptian, and Grecian sculptures. For +ever since those inventive but unscrupulous times when on the marble +panellings of temples, the pedestals of statues, and on shields, +medallions, cups, and coins, the dolphin was drawn in scales of +chain-armor like Saladin's, and a helmeted head like St. George's; ever +since then has something of the same sort of license prevailed, not +only in most popular pictures of the whale, but in many scientific +presentations of him. + +Now, by all odds, the most ancient extant portrait anyways purporting to +be the whale's, is to be found in the famous cavern-pagoda of Elephanta, +in India. The Brahmins maintain that in the almost endless sculptures of +that immemorial pagoda, all the trades and pursuits, every conceivable +avocation of man, were prefigured ages before any of them actually came +into being. No wonder then, that in some sort our noble profession of +whaling should have been there shadowed forth. The Hindoo whale +referred to, occurs in a separate department of the wall, depicting the +incarnation of Vishnu in the form of leviathan, learnedly known as the +Matse Avatar. But though this sculpture is half man and half whale, so +as only to give the tail of the latter, yet that small section of him is +all wrong. It looks more like the tapering tail of an anaconda, than the +broad palms of the true whale's majestic flukes. + +But go to the old Galleries, and look now at a great Christian painter's +portrait of this fish; for he succeeds no better than the antediluvian +Hindoo. It is Guido's picture of Perseus rescuing Andromeda from the +sea-monster or whale. Where did Guido get the model of such a strange +creature as that? Nor does Hogarth, in painting the same scene in his +own "Perseus Descending," make out one whit better. The huge corpulence +of that Hogarthian monster undulates on the surface, scarcely drawing +one inch of water. It has a sort of howdah on its back, and its +distended tusked mouth into which the billows are rolling, might be +taken for the Traitors' Gate leading from the Thames by water into the +Tower. Then, there are the Prodromus whales of old Scotch Sibbald, and +Jonah's whale, as depicted in the prints of old Bibles and the cuts of +old primers. What shall be said of these? As for the book-binder's whale +winding like a vine-stalk round the stock of a descending anchor--as +stamped and gilded on the backs and title-pages of many books both +old and new--that is a very picturesque but purely fabulous creature, +imitated, I take it, from the like figures on antique vases. +Though universally denominated a dolphin, I nevertheless call this +book-binder's fish an attempt at a whale; because it was so intended +when the device was first introduced. It was introduced by an old +Italian publisher somewhere about the 15th century, during the Revival +of Learning; and in those days, and even down to a comparatively +late period, dolphins were popularly supposed to be a species of the +Leviathan. + +In the vignettes and other embellishments of some ancient books you will +at times meet with very curious touches at the whale, where all manner +of spouts, jets d'eau, hot springs and cold, Saratoga and Baden-Baden, +come bubbling up from his unexhausted brain. In the title-page of the +original edition of the "Advancement of Learning" you will find some +curious whales. + +But quitting all these unprofessional attempts, let us glance at those +pictures of leviathan purporting to be sober, scientific delineations, +by those who know. In old Harris's collection of voyages there are some +plates of whales extracted from a Dutch book of voyages, A.D. 1671, +entitled "A Whaling Voyage to Spitzbergen in the ship Jonas in the +Whale, Peter Peterson of Friesland, master." In one of those plates the +whales, like great rafts of logs, are represented lying among ice-isles, +with white bears running over their living backs. In another plate, the +prodigious blunder is made of representing the whale with perpendicular +flukes. + +Then again, there is an imposing quarto, written by one Captain Colnett, +a Post Captain in the English navy, entitled "A Voyage round Cape Horn +into the South Seas, for the purpose of extending the Spermaceti Whale +Fisheries." In this book is an outline purporting to be a "Picture of +a Physeter or Spermaceti whale, drawn by scale from one killed on the +coast of Mexico, August, 1793, and hoisted on deck." I doubt not the +captain had this veracious picture taken for the benefit of his marines. +To mention but one thing about it, let me say that it has an eye which +applied, according to the accompanying scale, to a full grown sperm +whale, would make the eye of that whale a bow-window some five feet +long. Ah, my gallant captain, why did ye not give us Jonah looking out +of that eye! + +Nor are the most conscientious compilations of Natural History for +the benefit of the young and tender, free from the same heinousness of +mistake. Look at that popular work "Goldsmith's Animated Nature." In the +abridged London edition of 1807, there are plates of an alleged "whale" +and a "narwhale." I do not wish to seem inelegant, but this unsightly +whale looks much like an amputated sow; and, as for the narwhale, one +glimpse at it is enough to amaze one, that in this nineteenth century +such a hippogriff could be palmed for genuine upon any intelligent +public of schoolboys. + +Then, again, in 1825, Bernard Germain, Count de Lacepede, a great +naturalist, published a scientific systemized whale book, wherein are +several pictures of the different species of the Leviathan. All these +are not only incorrect, but the picture of the Mysticetus or Greenland +whale (that is to say, the Right whale), even Scoresby, a long +experienced man as touching that species, declares not to have its +counterpart in nature. + +But the placing of the cap-sheaf to all this blundering business was +reserved for the scientific Frederick Cuvier, brother to the famous +Baron. In 1836, he published a Natural History of Whales, in which he +gives what he calls a picture of the Sperm Whale. Before showing that +picture to any Nantucketer, you had best provide for your summary +retreat from Nantucket. In a word, Frederick Cuvier's Sperm Whale is not +a Sperm Whale, but a squash. Of course, he never had the benefit of +a whaling voyage (such men seldom have), but whence he derived that +picture, who can tell? Perhaps he got it as his scientific predecessor +in the same field, Desmarest, got one of his authentic abortions; that +is, from a Chinese drawing. And what sort of lively lads with the pencil +those Chinese are, many queer cups and saucers inform us. + +As for the sign-painters' whales seen in the streets hanging over the +shops of oil-dealers, what shall be said of them? They are generally +Richard III. whales, with dromedary humps, and very savage; breakfasting +on three or four sailor tarts, that is whaleboats full of mariners: +their deformities floundering in seas of blood and blue paint. + +But these manifold mistakes in depicting the whale are not so very +surprising after all. Consider! Most of the scientific drawings have +been taken from the stranded fish; and these are about as correct as a +drawing of a wrecked ship, with broken back, would correctly represent +the noble animal itself in all its undashed pride of hull and spars. +Though elephants have stood for their full-lengths, the living Leviathan +has never yet fairly floated himself for his portrait. The living whale, +in his full majesty and significance, is only to be seen at sea in +unfathomable waters; and afloat the vast bulk of him is out of sight, +like a launched line-of-battle ship; and out of that element it is a +thing eternally impossible for mortal man to hoist him bodily into the +air, so as to preserve all his mighty swells and undulations. And, not +to speak of the highly presumable difference of contour between a young +sucking whale and a full-grown Platonian Leviathan; yet, even in the +case of one of those young sucking whales hoisted to a ship's deck, such +is then the outlandish, eel-like, limbered, varying shape of him, that +his precise expression the devil himself could not catch. + +But it may be fancied, that from the naked skeleton of the stranded +whale, accurate hints may be derived touching his true form. Not at all. +For it is one of the more curious things about this Leviathan, that +his skeleton gives very little idea of his general shape. Though Jeremy +Bentham's skeleton, which hangs for candelabra in the library of one of +his executors, correctly conveys the idea of a burly-browed utilitarian +old gentleman, with all Jeremy's other leading personal characteristics; +yet nothing of this kind could be inferred from any leviathan's +articulated bones. In fact, as the great Hunter says, the mere skeleton +of the whale bears the same relation to the fully invested and padded +animal as the insect does to the chrysalis that so roundingly envelopes +it. This peculiarity is strikingly evinced in the head, as in some +part of this book will be incidentally shown. It is also very curiously +displayed in the side fin, the bones of which almost exactly answer to +the bones of the human hand, minus only the thumb. This fin has four +regular bone-fingers, the index, middle, ring, and little finger. But +all these are permanently lodged in their fleshy covering, as the human +fingers in an artificial covering. "However recklessly the whale may +sometimes serve us," said humorous Stubb one day, "he can never be truly +said to handle us without mittens." + +For all these reasons, then, any way you may look at it, you must needs +conclude that the great Leviathan is that one creature in the world +which must remain unpainted to the last. True, one portrait may hit +the mark much nearer than another, but none can hit it with any very +considerable degree of exactness. So there is no earthly way of finding +out precisely what the whale really looks like. And the only mode in +which you can derive even a tolerable idea of his living contour, is +by going a whaling yourself; but by so doing, you run no small risk of +being eternally stove and sunk by him. Wherefore, it seems to me you had +best not be too fastidious in your curiosity touching this Leviathan. + + + +CHAPTER 56. Of the Less Erroneous Pictures of Whales, and the True +Pictures of Whaling Scenes. + + +In connexion with the monstrous pictures of whales, I am strongly +tempted here to enter upon those still more monstrous stories of +them which are to be found in certain books, both ancient and modern, +especially in Pliny, Purchas, Hackluyt, Harris, Cuvier, etc. But I pass +that matter by. + +I know of only four published outlines of the great Sperm Whale; +Colnett's, Huggins's, Frederick Cuvier's, and Beale's. In the previous +chapter Colnett and Cuvier have been referred to. Huggins's is far +better than theirs; but, by great odds, Beale's is the best. All Beale's +drawings of this whale are good, excepting the middle figure in the +picture of three whales in various attitudes, capping his second +chapter. His frontispiece, boats attacking Sperm Whales, though no +doubt calculated to excite the civil scepticism of some parlor men, is +admirably correct and life-like in its general effect. Some of the Sperm +Whale drawings in J. Ross Browne are pretty correct in contour; but they +are wretchedly engraved. That is not his fault though. + +Of the Right Whale, the best outline pictures are in Scoresby; but they +are drawn on too small a scale to convey a desirable impression. He has +but one picture of whaling scenes, and this is a sad deficiency, because +it is by such pictures only, when at all well done, that you can derive +anything like a truthful idea of the living whale as seen by his living +hunters. + +But, taken for all in all, by far the finest, though in some details +not the most correct, presentations of whales and whaling scenes to +be anywhere found, are two large French engravings, well executed, +and taken from paintings by one Garnery. Respectively, they represent +attacks on the Sperm and Right Whale. In the first engraving a noble +Sperm Whale is depicted in full majesty of might, just risen beneath +the boat from the profundities of the ocean, and bearing high in the air +upon his back the terrific wreck of the stoven planks. The prow of +the boat is partially unbroken, and is drawn just balancing upon +the monster's spine; and standing in that prow, for that one single +incomputable flash of time, you behold an oarsman, half shrouded by the +incensed boiling spout of the whale, and in the act of leaping, as if +from a precipice. The action of the whole thing is wonderfully good and +true. The half-emptied line-tub floats on the whitened sea; the wooden +poles of the spilled harpoons obliquely bob in it; the heads of the +swimming crew are scattered about the whale in contrasting expressions +of affright; while in the black stormy distance the ship is bearing down +upon the scene. Serious fault might be found with the anatomical details +of this whale, but let that pass; since, for the life of me, I could not +draw so good a one. + +In the second engraving, the boat is in the act of drawing alongside +the barnacled flank of a large running Right Whale, that rolls his black +weedy bulk in the sea like some mossy rock-slide from the Patagonian +cliffs. His jets are erect, full, and black like soot; so that from so +abounding a smoke in the chimney, you would think there must be a brave +supper cooking in the great bowels below. Sea fowls are pecking at the +small crabs, shell-fish, and other sea candies and maccaroni, which the +Right Whale sometimes carries on his pestilent back. And all the while +the thick-lipped leviathan is rushing through the deep, leaving tons of +tumultuous white curds in his wake, and causing the slight boat to rock +in the swells like a skiff caught nigh the paddle-wheels of an ocean +steamer. Thus, the foreground is all raging commotion; but behind, in +admirable artistic contrast, is the glassy level of a sea becalmed, the +drooping unstarched sails of the powerless ship, and the inert mass of +a dead whale, a conquered fortress, with the flag of capture lazily +hanging from the whale-pole inserted into his spout-hole. + +Who Garnery the painter is, or was, I know not. But my life for it he +was either practically conversant with his subject, or else marvellously +tutored by some experienced whaleman. The French are the lads for +painting action. Go and gaze upon all the paintings of Europe, and +where will you find such a gallery of living and breathing commotion +on canvas, as in that triumphal hall at Versailles; where the beholder +fights his way, pell-mell, through the consecutive great battles of +France; where every sword seems a flash of the Northern Lights, and the +successive armed kings and Emperors dash by, like a charge of crowned +centaurs? Not wholly unworthy of a place in that gallery, are these sea +battle-pieces of Garnery. + +The natural aptitude of the French for seizing the picturesqueness of +things seems to be peculiarly evinced in what paintings and engravings +they have of their whaling scenes. With not one tenth of England's +experience in the fishery, and not the thousandth part of that of the +Americans, they have nevertheless furnished both nations with the only +finished sketches at all capable of conveying the real spirit of +the whale hunt. For the most part, the English and American whale +draughtsmen seem entirely content with presenting the mechanical outline +of things, such as the vacant profile of the whale; which, so far as +picturesqueness of effect is concerned, is about tantamount to sketching +the profile of a pyramid. Even Scoresby, the justly renowned Right +whaleman, after giving us a stiff full length of the Greenland whale, +and three or four delicate miniatures of narwhales and porpoises, treats +us to a series of classical engravings of boat hooks, chopping knives, +and grapnels; and with the microscopic diligence of a Leuwenhoeck +submits to the inspection of a shivering world ninety-six fac-similes of +magnified Arctic snow crystals. I mean no disparagement to the excellent +voyager (I honour him for a veteran), but in so important a matter it +was certainly an oversight not to have procured for every crystal a +sworn affidavit taken before a Greenland Justice of the Peace. + +In addition to those fine engravings from Garnery, there are two other +French engravings worthy of note, by some one who subscribes himself +"H. Durand." One of them, though not precisely adapted to our present +purpose, nevertheless deserves mention on other accounts. It is a quiet +noon-scene among the isles of the Pacific; a French whaler anchored, +inshore, in a calm, and lazily taking water on board; the loosened sails +of the ship, and the long leaves of the palms in the background, both +drooping together in the breezeless air. The effect is very fine, when +considered with reference to its presenting the hardy fishermen under +one of their few aspects of oriental repose. The other engraving is +quite a different affair: the ship hove-to upon the open sea, and in the +very heart of the Leviathanic life, with a Right Whale alongside; the +vessel (in the act of cutting-in) hove over to the monster as if to a +quay; and a boat, hurriedly pushing off from this scene of activity, is +about giving chase to whales in the distance. The harpoons and lances +lie levelled for use; three oarsmen are just setting the mast in its +hole; while from a sudden roll of the sea, the little craft stands +half-erect out of the water, like a rearing horse. From the ship, the +smoke of the torments of the boiling whale is going up like the smoke +over a village of smithies; and to windward, a black cloud, rising up +with earnest of squalls and rains, seems to quicken the activity of the +excited seamen. + + + +CHAPTER 57. Of Whales in Paint; in Teeth; in Wood; in Sheet-Iron; in +Stone; in Mountains; in Stars. + + +On Tower-hill, as you go down to the London docks, you may have seen a +crippled beggar (or KEDGER, as the sailors say) holding a painted board +before him, representing the tragic scene in which he lost his leg. +There are three whales and three boats; and one of the boats (presumed +to contain the missing leg in all its original integrity) is being +crunched by the jaws of the foremost whale. Any time these ten years, +they tell me, has that man held up that picture, and exhibited that +stump to an incredulous world. But the time of his justification has +now come. His three whales are as good whales as were ever published in +Wapping, at any rate; and his stump as unquestionable a stump as any you +will find in the western clearings. But, though for ever mounted on +that stump, never a stump-speech does the poor whaleman make; but, with +downcast eyes, stands ruefully contemplating his own amputation. + +Throughout the Pacific, and also in Nantucket, and New Bedford, and +Sag Harbor, you will come across lively sketches of whales and +whaling-scenes, graven by the fishermen themselves on Sperm Whale-teeth, +or ladies' busks wrought out of the Right Whale-bone, and other +like skrimshander articles, as the whalemen call the numerous little +ingenious contrivances they elaborately carve out of the rough material, +in their hours of ocean leisure. Some of them have little boxes +of dentistical-looking implements, specially intended for the +skrimshandering business. But, in general, they toil with their +jack-knives alone; and, with that almost omnipotent tool of the sailor, +they will turn you out anything you please, in the way of a mariner's +fancy. + +Long exile from Christendom and civilization inevitably restores a man +to that condition in which God placed him, i.e. what is called savagery. +Your true whale-hunter is as much a savage as an Iroquois. I myself am a +savage, owning no allegiance but to the King of the Cannibals; and ready +at any moment to rebel against him. + +Now, one of the peculiar characteristics of the savage in his domestic +hours, is his wonderful patience of industry. An ancient Hawaiian +war-club or spear-paddle, in its full multiplicity and elaboration of +carving, is as great a trophy of human perseverance as a Latin lexicon. +For, with but a bit of broken sea-shell or a shark's tooth, that +miraculous intricacy of wooden net-work has been achieved; and it has +cost steady years of steady application. + +As with the Hawaiian savage, so with the white sailor-savage. With the +same marvellous patience, and with the same single shark's tooth, of +his one poor jack-knife, he will carve you a bit of bone sculpture, not +quite as workmanlike, but as close packed in its maziness of design, +as the Greek savage, Achilles's shield; and full of barbaric spirit +and suggestiveness, as the prints of that fine old Dutch savage, Albert +Durer. + +Wooden whales, or whales cut in profile out of the small dark slabs of +the noble South Sea war-wood, are frequently met with in the forecastles +of American whalers. Some of them are done with much accuracy. + +At some old gable-roofed country houses you will see brass whales hung +by the tail for knockers to the road-side door. When the porter is +sleepy, the anvil-headed whale would be best. But these knocking +whales are seldom remarkable as faithful essays. On the spires of some +old-fashioned churches you will see sheet-iron whales placed there for +weather-cocks; but they are so elevated, and besides that are to all +intents and purposes so labelled with "HANDS OFF!" you cannot examine +them closely enough to decide upon their merit. + +In bony, ribby regions of the earth, where at the base of high broken +cliffs masses of rock lie strewn in fantastic groupings upon the +plain, you will often discover images as of the petrified forms of the +Leviathan partly merged in grass, which of a windy day breaks against +them in a surf of green surges. + +Then, again, in mountainous countries where the traveller is continually +girdled by amphitheatrical heights; here and there from some lucky +point of view you will catch passing glimpses of the profiles of +whales defined along the undulating ridges. But you must be a thorough +whaleman, to see these sights; and not only that, but if you wish +to return to such a sight again, you must be sure and take the exact +intersecting latitude and longitude of your first stand-point, else +so chance-like are such observations of the hills, that your precise, +previous stand-point would require a laborious re-discovery; like the +Soloma Islands, which still remain incognita, though once high-ruffed +Mendanna trod them and old Figuera chronicled them. + +Nor when expandingly lifted by your subject, can you fail to trace out +great whales in the starry heavens, and boats in pursuit of them; as +when long filled with thoughts of war the Eastern nations saw armies +locked in battle among the clouds. Thus at the North have I chased +Leviathan round and round the Pole with the revolutions of the bright +points that first defined him to me. And beneath the effulgent Antarctic +skies I have boarded the Argo-Navis, and joined the chase against the +starry Cetus far beyond the utmost stretch of Hydrus and the Flying +Fish. + +With a frigate's anchors for my bridle-bitts and fasces of harpoons for +spurs, would I could mount that whale and leap the topmost skies, to +see whether the fabled heavens with all their countless tents really lie +encamped beyond my mortal sight! + + + +CHAPTER 58. Brit. + + +Steering north-eastward from the Crozetts, we fell in with vast meadows +of brit, the minute, yellow substance, upon which the Right Whale +largely feeds. For leagues and leagues it undulated round us, so that we +seemed to be sailing through boundless fields of ripe and golden wheat. + +On the second day, numbers of Right Whales were seen, who, secure from +the attack of a Sperm Whaler like the Pequod, with open jaws sluggishly +swam through the brit, which, adhering to the fringing fibres of that +wondrous Venetian blind in their mouths, was in that manner separated +from the water that escaped at the lip. + +As morning mowers, who side by side slowly and seethingly advance +their scythes through the long wet grass of marshy meads; even so these +monsters swam, making a strange, grassy, cutting sound; and leaving +behind them endless swaths of blue upon the yellow sea.* + + +*That part of the sea known among whalemen as the "Brazil Banks" does +not bear that name as the Banks of Newfoundland do, because of there +being shallows and soundings there, but because of this remarkable +meadow-like appearance, caused by the vast drifts of brit continually +floating in those latitudes, where the Right Whale is often chased. + + +But it was only the sound they made as they parted the brit which at all +reminded one of mowers. Seen from the mast-heads, especially when they +paused and were stationary for a while, their vast black forms looked +more like lifeless masses of rock than anything else. And as in the +great hunting countries of India, the stranger at a distance will +sometimes pass on the plains recumbent elephants without knowing them +to be such, taking them for bare, blackened elevations of the soil; even +so, often, with him, who for the first time beholds this species of the +leviathans of the sea. And even when recognised at last, their immense +magnitude renders it very hard really to believe that such bulky masses +of overgrowth can possibly be instinct, in all parts, with the same sort +of life that lives in a dog or a horse. + +Indeed, in other respects, you can hardly regard any creatures of the +deep with the same feelings that you do those of the shore. For though +some old naturalists have maintained that all creatures of the land are +of their kind in the sea; and though taking a broad general view of +the thing, this may very well be; yet coming to specialties, where, for +example, does the ocean furnish any fish that in disposition answers to +the sagacious kindness of the dog? The accursed shark alone can in any +generic respect be said to bear comparative analogy to him. + +But though, to landsmen in general, the native inhabitants of the +seas have ever been regarded with emotions unspeakably unsocial and +repelling; though we know the sea to be an everlasting terra incognita, +so that Columbus sailed over numberless unknown worlds to discover his +one superficial western one; though, by vast odds, the most terrific +of all mortal disasters have immemorially and indiscriminately befallen +tens and hundreds of thousands of those who have gone upon the waters; +though but a moment's consideration will teach, that however baby man +may brag of his science and skill, and however much, in a flattering +future, that science and skill may augment; yet for ever and for ever, +to the crack of doom, the sea will insult and murder him, and pulverize +the stateliest, stiffest frigate he can make; nevertheless, by the +continual repetition of these very impressions, man has lost that sense +of the full awfulness of the sea which aboriginally belongs to it. + +The first boat we read of, floated on an ocean, that with Portuguese +vengeance had whelmed a whole world without leaving so much as a widow. +That same ocean rolls now; that same ocean destroyed the wrecked ships +of last year. Yea, foolish mortals, Noah's flood is not yet subsided; +two thirds of the fair world it yet covers. + +Wherein differ the sea and the land, that a miracle upon one is not a +miracle upon the other? Preternatural terrors rested upon the Hebrews, +when under the feet of Korah and his company the live ground opened +and swallowed them up for ever; yet not a modern sun ever sets, but in +precisely the same manner the live sea swallows up ships and crews. + +But not only is the sea such a foe to man who is an alien to it, but it +is also a fiend to its own off-spring; worse than the Persian host who +murdered his own guests; sparing not the creatures which itself hath +spawned. Like a savage tigress that tossing in the jungle overlays her +own cubs, so the sea dashes even the mightiest whales against the rocks, +and leaves them there side by side with the split wrecks of ships. No +mercy, no power but its own controls it. Panting and snorting like a mad +battle steed that has lost its rider, the masterless ocean overruns the +globe. + +Consider the subtleness of the sea; how its most dreaded creatures glide +under water, unapparent for the most part, and treacherously hidden +beneath the loveliest tints of azure. Consider also the devilish +brilliance and beauty of many of its most remorseless tribes, as the +dainty embellished shape of many species of sharks. Consider, once more, +the universal cannibalism of the sea; all whose creatures prey upon each +other, carrying on eternal war since the world began. + +Consider all this; and then turn to this green, gentle, and most docile +earth; consider them both, the sea and the land; and do you not find a +strange analogy to something in yourself? For as this appalling ocean +surrounds the verdant land, so in the soul of man there lies one insular +Tahiti, full of peace and joy, but encompassed by all the horrors of the +half known life. God keep thee! Push not off from that isle, thou canst +never return! + + +CHAPTER 59. Squid. + + +Slowly wading through the meadows of brit, the Pequod still held on her +way north-eastward towards the island of Java; a gentle air impelling +her keel, so that in the surrounding serenity her three tall tapering +masts mildly waved to that languid breeze, as three mild palms on a +plain. And still, at wide intervals in the silvery night, the lonely, +alluring jet would be seen. + +But one transparent blue morning, when a stillness almost preternatural +spread over the sea, however unattended with any stagnant calm; when +the long burnished sun-glade on the waters seemed a golden finger laid +across them, enjoining some secrecy; when the slippered waves whispered +together as they softly ran on; in this profound hush of the visible +sphere a strange spectre was seen by Daggoo from the main-mast-head. + +In the distance, a great white mass lazily rose, and rising higher and +higher, and disentangling itself from the azure, at last gleamed before +our prow like a snow-slide, new slid from the hills. Thus glistening +for a moment, as slowly it subsided, and sank. Then once more arose, +and silently gleamed. It seemed not a whale; and yet is this Moby Dick? +thought Daggoo. Again the phantom went down, but on re-appearing once +more, with a stiletto-like cry that startled every man from his nod, the +negro yelled out--"There! there again! there she breaches! right ahead! +The White Whale, the White Whale!" + +Upon this, the seamen rushed to the yard-arms, as in swarming-time the +bees rush to the boughs. Bare-headed in the sultry sun, Ahab stood on +the bowsprit, and with one hand pushed far behind in readiness to wave +his orders to the helmsman, cast his eager glance in the direction +indicated aloft by the outstretched motionless arm of Daggoo. + +Whether the flitting attendance of the one still and solitary jet had +gradually worked upon Ahab, so that he was now prepared to connect the +ideas of mildness and repose with the first sight of the particular +whale he pursued; however this was, or whether his eagerness betrayed +him; whichever way it might have been, no sooner did he distinctly +perceive the white mass, than with a quick intensity he instantly gave +orders for lowering. + +The four boats were soon on the water; Ahab's in advance, and all +swiftly pulling towards their prey. Soon it went down, and while, with +oars suspended, we were awaiting its reappearance, lo! in the same +spot where it sank, once more it slowly rose. Almost forgetting for +the moment all thoughts of Moby Dick, we now gazed at the most wondrous +phenomenon which the secret seas have hitherto revealed to mankind. +A vast pulpy mass, furlongs in length and breadth, of a glancing +cream-colour, lay floating on the water, innumerable long arms radiating +from its centre, and curling and twisting like a nest of anacondas, as +if blindly to clutch at any hapless object within reach. No perceptible +face or front did it have; no conceivable token of either sensation or +instinct; but undulated there on the billows, an unearthly, formless, +chance-like apparition of life. + +As with a low sucking sound it slowly disappeared again, Starbuck still +gazing at the agitated waters where it had sunk, with a wild voice +exclaimed--"Almost rather had I seen Moby Dick and fought him, than to +have seen thee, thou white ghost!" + +"What was it, Sir?" said Flask. + +"The great live squid, which, they say, few whale-ships ever beheld, and +returned to their ports to tell of it." + +But Ahab said nothing; turning his boat, he sailed back to the vessel; +the rest as silently following. + +Whatever superstitions the sperm whalemen in general have connected with +the sight of this object, certain it is, that a glimpse of it being +so very unusual, that circumstance has gone far to invest it with +portentousness. So rarely is it beheld, that though one and all of them +declare it to be the largest animated thing in the ocean, yet very few +of them have any but the most vague ideas concerning its true nature and +form; notwithstanding, they believe it to furnish to the sperm whale +his only food. For though other species of whales find their food above +water, and may be seen by man in the act of feeding, the spermaceti +whale obtains his whole food in unknown zones below the surface; and +only by inference is it that any one can tell of what, precisely, that +food consists. At times, when closely pursued, he will disgorge what +are supposed to be the detached arms of the squid; some of them thus +exhibited exceeding twenty and thirty feet in length. They fancy that +the monster to which these arms belonged ordinarily clings by them to +the bed of the ocean; and that the sperm whale, unlike other species, is +supplied with teeth in order to attack and tear it. + +There seems some ground to imagine that the great Kraken of Bishop +Pontoppodan may ultimately resolve itself into Squid. The manner in +which the Bishop describes it, as alternately rising and sinking, with +some other particulars he narrates, in all this the two correspond. +But much abatement is necessary with respect to the incredible bulk he +assigns it. + +By some naturalists who have vaguely heard rumors of the mysterious +creature, here spoken of, it is included among the class of cuttle-fish, +to which, indeed, in certain external respects it would seem to belong, +but only as the Anak of the tribe. + + + +CHAPTER 60. The Line. + + +With reference to the whaling scene shortly to be described, as well as +for the better understanding of all similar scenes elsewhere presented, +I have here to speak of the magical, sometimes horrible whale-line. + +The line originally used in the fishery was of the best hemp, slightly +vapoured with tar, not impregnated with it, as in the case of ordinary +ropes; for while tar, as ordinarily used, makes the hemp more pliable to +the rope-maker, and also renders the rope itself more convenient to the +sailor for common ship use; yet, not only would the ordinary quantity +too much stiffen the whale-line for the close coiling to which it must +be subjected; but as most seamen are beginning to learn, tar in general +by no means adds to the rope's durability or strength, however much it +may give it compactness and gloss. + +Of late years the Manilla rope has in the American fishery almost +entirely superseded hemp as a material for whale-lines; for, though not +so durable as hemp, it is stronger, and far more soft and elastic; and +I will add (since there is an aesthetics in all things), is much more +handsome and becoming to the boat, than hemp. Hemp is a dusky, dark +fellow, a sort of Indian; but Manilla is as a golden-haired Circassian +to behold. + +The whale-line is only two-thirds of an inch in thickness. At first +sight, you would not think it so strong as it really is. By experiment +its one and fifty yarns will each suspend a weight of one hundred and +twenty pounds; so that the whole rope will bear a strain nearly equal +to three tons. In length, the common sperm whale-line measures something +over two hundred fathoms. Towards the stern of the boat it is spirally +coiled away in the tub, not like the worm-pipe of a still though, but so +as to form one round, cheese-shaped mass of densely bedded "sheaves," or +layers of concentric spiralizations, without any hollow but the "heart," +or minute vertical tube formed at the axis of the cheese. As the least +tangle or kink in the coiling would, in running out, infallibly take +somebody's arm, leg, or entire body off, the utmost precaution is used +in stowing the line in its tub. Some harpooneers will consume almost an +entire morning in this business, carrying the line high aloft and then +reeving it downwards through a block towards the tub, so as in the act +of coiling to free it from all possible wrinkles and twists. + +In the English boats two tubs are used instead of one; the same line +being continuously coiled in both tubs. There is some advantage in this; +because these twin-tubs being so small they fit more readily into the +boat, and do not strain it so much; whereas, the American tub, nearly +three feet in diameter and of proportionate depth, makes a rather bulky +freight for a craft whose planks are but one half-inch in thickness; for +the bottom of the whale-boat is like critical ice, which will bear up +a considerable distributed weight, but not very much of a concentrated +one. When the painted canvas cover is clapped on the American line-tub, +the boat looks as if it were pulling off with a prodigious great +wedding-cake to present to the whales. + +Both ends of the line are exposed; the lower end terminating in an +eye-splice or loop coming up from the bottom against the side of the +tub, and hanging over its edge completely disengaged from everything. +This arrangement of the lower end is necessary on two accounts. First: +In order to facilitate the fastening to it of an additional line from a +neighboring boat, in case the stricken whale should sound so deep as +to threaten to carry off the entire line originally attached to the +harpoon. In these instances, the whale of course is shifted like a mug +of ale, as it were, from the one boat to the other; though the +first boat always hovers at hand to assist its consort. Second: This +arrangement is indispensable for common safety's sake; for were the +lower end of the line in any way attached to the boat, and were the +whale then to run the line out to the end almost in a single, smoking +minute as he sometimes does, he would not stop there, for the doomed +boat would infallibly be dragged down after him into the profundity of +the sea; and in that case no town-crier would ever find her again. + +Before lowering the boat for the chase, the upper end of the line is +taken aft from the tub, and passing round the loggerhead there, is again +carried forward the entire length of the boat, resting crosswise upon +the loom or handle of every man's oar, so that it jogs against his wrist +in rowing; and also passing between the men, as they alternately sit at +the opposite gunwales, to the leaded chocks or grooves in the extreme +pointed prow of the boat, where a wooden pin or skewer the size of a +common quill, prevents it from slipping out. From the chocks it hangs +in a slight festoon over the bows, and is then passed inside the boat +again; and some ten or twenty fathoms (called box-line) being coiled +upon the box in the bows, it continues its way to the gunwale still a +little further aft, and is then attached to the short-warp--the rope +which is immediately connected with the harpoon; but previous to that +connexion, the short-warp goes through sundry mystifications too tedious +to detail. + +Thus the whale-line folds the whole boat in its complicated coils, +twisting and writhing around it in almost every direction. All the +oarsmen are involved in its perilous contortions; so that to the timid +eye of the landsman, they seem as Indian jugglers, with the deadliest +snakes sportively festooning their limbs. Nor can any son of mortal +woman, for the first time, seat himself amid those hempen intricacies, +and while straining his utmost at the oar, bethink him that at any +unknown instant the harpoon may be darted, and all these horrible +contortions be put in play like ringed lightnings; he cannot be thus +circumstanced without a shudder that makes the very marrow in his bones +to quiver in him like a shaken jelly. Yet habit--strange thing! what +cannot habit accomplish?--Gayer sallies, more merry mirth, better jokes, +and brighter repartees, you never heard over your mahogany, than you +will hear over the half-inch white cedar of the whale-boat, when thus +hung in hangman's nooses; and, like the six burghers of Calais before +King Edward, the six men composing the crew pull into the jaws of death, +with a halter around every neck, as you may say. + +Perhaps a very little thought will now enable you to account for +those repeated whaling disasters--some few of which are casually +chronicled--of this man or that man being taken out of the boat by the +line, and lost. For, when the line is darting out, to be seated then in +the boat, is like being seated in the midst of the manifold whizzings +of a steam-engine in full play, when every flying beam, and shaft, and +wheel, is grazing you. It is worse; for you cannot sit motionless in the +heart of these perils, because the boat is rocking like a cradle, and +you are pitched one way and the other, without the slightest warning; +and only by a certain self-adjusting buoyancy and simultaneousness of +volition and action, can you escape being made a Mazeppa of, and run +away with where the all-seeing sun himself could never pierce you out. + +Again: as the profound calm which only apparently precedes and +prophesies of the storm, is perhaps more awful than the storm itself; +for, indeed, the calm is but the wrapper and envelope of the storm; and +contains it in itself, as the seemingly harmless rifle holds the fatal +powder, and the ball, and the explosion; so the graceful repose of the +line, as it silently serpentines about the oarsmen before being brought +into actual play--this is a thing which carries more of true terror than +any other aspect of this dangerous affair. But why say more? All men +live enveloped in whale-lines. All are born with halters round their +necks; but it is only when caught in the swift, sudden turn of death, +that mortals realize the silent, subtle, ever-present perils of life. +And if you be a philosopher, though seated in the whale-boat, you would +not at heart feel one whit more of terror, than though seated before +your evening fire with a poker, and not a harpoon, by your side. + + + +CHAPTER 61. Stubb Kills a Whale. + + +If to Starbuck the apparition of the Squid was a thing of portents, to +Queequeg it was quite a different object. + +"When you see him 'quid," said the savage, honing his harpoon in the bow +of his hoisted boat, "then you quick see him 'parm whale." + +The next day was exceedingly still and sultry, and with nothing special +to engage them, the Pequod's crew could hardly resist the spell of sleep +induced by such a vacant sea. For this part of the Indian Ocean through +which we then were voyaging is not what whalemen call a lively ground; +that is, it affords fewer glimpses of porpoises, dolphins, flying-fish, +and other vivacious denizens of more stirring waters, than those off the +Rio de la Plata, or the in-shore ground off Peru. + +It was my turn to stand at the foremast-head; and with my shoulders +leaning against the slackened royal shrouds, to and fro I idly swayed in +what seemed an enchanted air. No resolution could withstand it; in that +dreamy mood losing all consciousness, at last my soul went out of my +body; though my body still continued to sway as a pendulum will, long +after the power which first moved it is withdrawn. + +Ere forgetfulness altogether came over me, I had noticed that the seamen +at the main and mizzen-mast-heads were already drowsy. So that at last +all three of us lifelessly swung from the spars, and for every swing +that we made there was a nod from below from the slumbering helmsman. +The waves, too, nodded their indolent crests; and across the wide trance +of the sea, east nodded to west, and the sun over all. + +Suddenly bubbles seemed bursting beneath my closed eyes; like vices my +hands grasped the shrouds; some invisible, gracious agency preserved me; +with a shock I came back to life. And lo! close under our lee, not forty +fathoms off, a gigantic Sperm Whale lay rolling in the water like the +capsized hull of a frigate, his broad, glossy back, of an Ethiopian hue, +glistening in the sun's rays like a mirror. But lazily undulating in +the trough of the sea, and ever and anon tranquilly spouting his vapoury +jet, the whale looked like a portly burgher smoking his pipe of a warm +afternoon. But that pipe, poor whale, was thy last. As if struck by some +enchanter's wand, the sleepy ship and every sleeper in it all at once +started into wakefulness; and more than a score of voices from all parts +of the vessel, simultaneously with the three notes from aloft, shouted +forth the accustomed cry, as the great fish slowly and regularly spouted +the sparkling brine into the air. + +"Clear away the boats! Luff!" cried Ahab. And obeying his own order, he +dashed the helm down before the helmsman could handle the spokes. + +The sudden exclamations of the crew must have alarmed the whale; and ere +the boats were down, majestically turning, he swam away to the leeward, +but with such a steady tranquillity, and making so few ripples as he +swam, that thinking after all he might not as yet be alarmed, Ahab gave +orders that not an oar should be used, and no man must speak but in +whispers. So seated like Ontario Indians on the gunwales of the boats, +we swiftly but silently paddled along; the calm not admitting of the +noiseless sails being set. Presently, as we thus glided in chase, the +monster perpendicularly flitted his tail forty feet into the air, and +then sank out of sight like a tower swallowed up. + +"There go flukes!" was the cry, an announcement immediately followed by +Stubb's producing his match and igniting his pipe, for now a respite was +granted. After the full interval of his sounding had elapsed, the whale +rose again, and being now in advance of the smoker's boat, and much +nearer to it than to any of the others, Stubb counted upon the honour +of the capture. It was obvious, now, that the whale had at length become +aware of his pursuers. All silence of cautiousness was therefore no +longer of use. Paddles were dropped, and oars came loudly into play. And +still puffing at his pipe, Stubb cheered on his crew to the assault. + +Yes, a mighty change had come over the fish. All alive to his jeopardy, +he was going "head out"; that part obliquely projecting from the mad +yeast which he brewed.* + + +*It will be seen in some other place of what a very light substance +the entire interior of the sperm whale's enormous head consists. Though +apparently the most massive, it is by far the most buoyant part about +him. So that with ease he elevates it in the air, and invariably does +so when going at his utmost speed. Besides, such is the breadth of the +upper part of the front of his head, and such the tapering cut-water +formation of the lower part, that by obliquely elevating his head, he +thereby may be said to transform himself from a bluff-bowed sluggish +galliot into a sharppointed New York pilot-boat. + + +"Start her, start her, my men! Don't hurry yourselves; take plenty of +time--but start her; start her like thunder-claps, that's all," cried +Stubb, spluttering out the smoke as he spoke. "Start her, now; give 'em +the long and strong stroke, Tashtego. Start her, Tash, my boy--start +her, all; but keep cool, keep cool--cucumbers is the word--easy, +easy--only start her like grim death and grinning devils, and raise the +buried dead perpendicular out of their graves, boys--that's all. Start +her!" + +"Woo-hoo! Wa-hee!" screamed the Gay-Header in reply, raising some +old war-whoop to the skies; as every oarsman in the strained boat +involuntarily bounced forward with the one tremendous leading stroke +which the eager Indian gave. + +But his wild screams were answered by others quite as wild. "Kee-hee! +Kee-hee!" yelled Daggoo, straining forwards and backwards on his seat, +like a pacing tiger in his cage. + +"Ka-la! Koo-loo!" howled Queequeg, as if smacking his lips over a +mouthful of Grenadier's steak. And thus with oars and yells the keels +cut the sea. Meanwhile, Stubb retaining his place in the van, still +encouraged his men to the onset, all the while puffing the smoke from +his mouth. Like desperadoes they tugged and they strained, till the +welcome cry was heard--"Stand up, Tashtego!--give it to him!" The +harpoon was hurled. "Stern all!" The oarsmen backed water; the same +moment something went hot and hissing along every one of their wrists. +It was the magical line. An instant before, Stubb had swiftly caught two +additional turns with it round the loggerhead, whence, by reason of its +increased rapid circlings, a hempen blue smoke now jetted up and mingled +with the steady fumes from his pipe. As the line passed round and +round the loggerhead; so also, just before reaching that point, it +blisteringly passed through and through both of Stubb's hands, from +which the hand-cloths, or squares of quilted canvas sometimes worn at +these times, had accidentally dropped. It was like holding an enemy's +sharp two-edged sword by the blade, and that enemy all the time striving +to wrest it out of your clutch. + +"Wet the line! wet the line!" cried Stubb to the tub oarsman (him seated +by the tub) who, snatching off his hat, dashed sea-water into it.* More +turns were taken, so that the line began holding its place. The boat now +flew through the boiling water like a shark all fins. Stubb and Tashtego +here changed places--stem for stern--a staggering business truly in that +rocking commotion. + + +*Partly to show the indispensableness of this act, it may here be +stated, that, in the old Dutch fishery, a mop was used to dash the +running line with water; in many other ships, a wooden piggin, or +bailer, is set apart for that purpose. Your hat, however, is the most +convenient. + + +From the vibrating line extending the entire length of the upper part of +the boat, and from its now being more tight than a harpstring, you would +have thought the craft had two keels--one cleaving the water, the other +the air--as the boat churned on through both opposing elements at once. +A continual cascade played at the bows; a ceaseless whirling eddy in +her wake; and, at the slightest motion from within, even but of a little +finger, the vibrating, cracking craft canted over her spasmodic gunwale +into the sea. Thus they rushed; each man with might and main clinging +to his seat, to prevent being tossed to the foam; and the tall form of +Tashtego at the steering oar crouching almost double, in order to bring +down his centre of gravity. Whole Atlantics and Pacifics seemed passed +as they shot on their way, till at length the whale somewhat slackened +his flight. + +"Haul in--haul in!" cried Stubb to the bowsman! and, facing round +towards the whale, all hands began pulling the boat up to him, while yet +the boat was being towed on. Soon ranging up by his flank, Stubb, firmly +planting his knee in the clumsy cleat, darted dart after dart into the +flying fish; at the word of command, the boat alternately sterning +out of the way of the whale's horrible wallow, and then ranging up for +another fling. + +The red tide now poured from all sides of the monster like brooks down a +hill. His tormented body rolled not in brine but in blood, which bubbled +and seethed for furlongs behind in their wake. The slanting sun playing +upon this crimson pond in the sea, sent back its reflection into every +face, so that they all glowed to each other like red men. And all +the while, jet after jet of white smoke was agonizingly shot from the +spiracle of the whale, and vehement puff after puff from the mouth of +the excited headsman; as at every dart, hauling in upon his crooked +lance (by the line attached to it), Stubb straightened it again and +again, by a few rapid blows against the gunwale, then again and again +sent it into the whale. + +"Pull up--pull up!" he now cried to the bowsman, as the waning whale +relaxed in his wrath. "Pull up!--close to!" and the boat ranged along +the fish's flank. When reaching far over the bow, Stubb slowly churned +his long sharp lance into the fish, and kept it there, carefully +churning and churning, as if cautiously seeking to feel after some gold +watch that the whale might have swallowed, and which he was fearful of +breaking ere he could hook it out. But that gold watch he sought was the +innermost life of the fish. And now it is struck; for, starting from +his trance into that unspeakable thing called his "flurry," the monster +horribly wallowed in his blood, overwrapped himself in impenetrable, +mad, boiling spray, so that the imperilled craft, instantly dropping +astern, had much ado blindly to struggle out from that phrensied +twilight into the clear air of the day. + +And now abating in his flurry, the whale once more rolled out into view; +surging from side to side; spasmodically dilating and contracting his +spout-hole, with sharp, cracking, agonized respirations. At last, gush +after gush of clotted red gore, as if it had been the purple lees of red +wine, shot into the frighted air; and falling back again, ran dripping +down his motionless flanks into the sea. His heart had burst! + +"He's dead, Mr. Stubb," said Daggoo. + +"Yes; both pipes smoked out!" and withdrawing his own from his mouth, +Stubb scattered the dead ashes over the water; and, for a moment, stood +thoughtfully eyeing the vast corpse he had made. + + + +CHAPTER 62. The Dart. + + +A word concerning an incident in the last chapter. + +According to the invariable usage of the fishery, the whale-boat pushes +off from the ship, with the headsman or whale-killer as temporary +steersman, and the harpooneer or whale-fastener pulling the foremost +oar, the one known as the harpooneer-oar. Now it needs a strong, nervous +arm to strike the first iron into the fish; for often, in what is called +a long dart, the heavy implement has to be flung to the distance of +twenty or thirty feet. But however prolonged and exhausting the chase, +the harpooneer is expected to pull his oar meanwhile to the uttermost; +indeed, he is expected to set an example of superhuman activity to the +rest, not only by incredible rowing, but by repeated loud and intrepid +exclamations; and what it is to keep shouting at the top of one's +compass, while all the other muscles are strained and half started--what +that is none know but those who have tried it. For one, I cannot bawl +very heartily and work very recklessly at one and the same time. In this +straining, bawling state, then, with his back to the fish, all at once +the exhausted harpooneer hears the exciting cry--"Stand up, and give it +to him!" He now has to drop and secure his oar, turn round on his +centre half way, seize his harpoon from the crotch, and with what little +strength may remain, he essays to pitch it somehow into the whale. No +wonder, taking the whole fleet of whalemen in a body, that out of fifty +fair chances for a dart, not five are successful; no wonder that so many +hapless harpooneers are madly cursed and disrated; no wonder that some +of them actually burst their blood-vessels in the boat; no wonder that +some sperm whalemen are absent four years with four barrels; no wonder +that to many ship owners, whaling is but a losing concern; for it is the +harpooneer that makes the voyage, and if you take the breath out of his +body how can you expect to find it there when most wanted! + +Again, if the dart be successful, then at the second critical instant, +that is, when the whale starts to run, the boatheader and harpooneer +likewise start to running fore and aft, to the imminent jeopardy of +themselves and every one else. It is then they change places; and +the headsman, the chief officer of the little craft, takes his proper +station in the bows of the boat. + +Now, I care not who maintains the contrary, but all this is both foolish +and unnecessary. The headsman should stay in the bows from first to +last; he should both dart the harpoon and the lance, and no rowing +whatever should be expected of him, except under circumstances obvious +to any fisherman. I know that this would sometimes involve a slight loss +of speed in the chase; but long experience in various whalemen of more +than one nation has convinced me that in the vast majority of failures +in the fishery, it has not by any means been so much the speed of the +whale as the before described exhaustion of the harpooneer that has +caused them. + +To insure the greatest efficiency in the dart, the harpooneers of this +world must start to their feet from out of idleness, and not from out of +toil. + + + +CHAPTER 63. The Crotch. + + +Out of the trunk, the branches grow; out of them, the twigs. So, in +productive subjects, grow the chapters. + +The crotch alluded to on a previous page deserves independent mention. +It is a notched stick of a peculiar form, some two feet in length, which +is perpendicularly inserted into the starboard gunwale near the bow, +for the purpose of furnishing a rest for the wooden extremity of the +harpoon, whose other naked, barbed end slopingly projects from the prow. +Thereby the weapon is instantly at hand to its hurler, who snatches it +up as readily from its rest as a backwoodsman swings his rifle from +the wall. It is customary to have two harpoons reposing in the crotch, +respectively called the first and second irons. + +But these two harpoons, each by its own cord, are both connected with +the line; the object being this: to dart them both, if possible, one +instantly after the other into the same whale; so that if, in the coming +drag, one should draw out, the other may still retain a hold. It is a +doubling of the chances. But it very often happens that owing to the +instantaneous, violent, convulsive running of the whale upon receiving +the first iron, it becomes impossible for the harpooneer, however +lightning-like in his movements, to pitch the second iron into him. +Nevertheless, as the second iron is already connected with the line, +and the line is running, hence that weapon must, at all events, be +anticipatingly tossed out of the boat, somehow and somewhere; else the +most terrible jeopardy would involve all hands. Tumbled into the water, +it accordingly is in such cases; the spare coils of box line (mentioned +in a preceding chapter) making this feat, in most instances, prudently +practicable. But this critical act is not always unattended with the +saddest and most fatal casualties. + +Furthermore: you must know that when the second iron is thrown +overboard, it thenceforth becomes a dangling, sharp-edged terror, +skittishly curvetting about both boat and whale, entangling the lines, +or cutting them, and making a prodigious sensation in all directions. +Nor, in general, is it possible to secure it again until the whale is +fairly captured and a corpse. + +Consider, now, how it must be in the case of four boats all engaging +one unusually strong, active, and knowing whale; when owing to these +qualities in him, as well as to the thousand concurring accidents of +such an audacious enterprise, eight or ten loose second irons may be +simultaneously dangling about him. For, of course, each boat is supplied +with several harpoons to bend on to the line should the first one +be ineffectually darted without recovery. All these particulars are +faithfully narrated here, as they will not fail to elucidate several +most important, however intricate passages, in scenes hereafter to be +painted. + + + +CHAPTER 64. Stubb's Supper. + + +Stubb's whale had been killed some distance from the ship. It was +a calm; so, forming a tandem of three boats, we commenced the slow +business of towing the trophy to the Pequod. And now, as we eighteen men +with our thirty-six arms, and one hundred and eighty thumbs and fingers, +slowly toiled hour after hour upon that inert, sluggish corpse in the +sea; and it seemed hardly to budge at all, except at long intervals; +good evidence was hereby furnished of the enormousness of the mass we +moved. For, upon the great canal of Hang-Ho, or whatever they call +it, in China, four or five laborers on the foot-path will draw a bulky +freighted junk at the rate of a mile an hour; but this grand argosy we +towed heavily forged along, as if laden with pig-lead in bulk. + +Darkness came on; but three lights up and down in the Pequod's +main-rigging dimly guided our way; till drawing nearer we saw Ahab +dropping one of several more lanterns over the bulwarks. Vacantly eyeing +the heaving whale for a moment, he issued the usual orders for securing +it for the night, and then handing his lantern to a seaman, went his way +into the cabin, and did not come forward again until morning. + +Though, in overseeing the pursuit of this whale, Captain Ahab had +evinced his customary activity, to call it so; yet now that the creature +was dead, some vague dissatisfaction, or impatience, or despair, seemed +working in him; as if the sight of that dead body reminded him that +Moby Dick was yet to be slain; and though a thousand other whales were +brought to his ship, all that would not one jot advance his grand, +monomaniac object. Very soon you would have thought from the sound on +the Pequod's decks, that all hands were preparing to cast anchor in +the deep; for heavy chains are being dragged along the deck, and thrust +rattling out of the port-holes. But by those clanking links, the vast +corpse itself, not the ship, is to be moored. Tied by the head to the +stern, and by the tail to the bows, the whale now lies with its black +hull close to the vessel's and seen through the darkness of the night, +which obscured the spars and rigging aloft, the two--ship and whale, +seemed yoked together like colossal bullocks, whereof one reclines while +the other remains standing.* + + +*A little item may as well be related here. The strongest and most +reliable hold which the ship has upon the whale when moored alongside, +is by the flukes or tail; and as from its greater density that part +is relatively heavier than any other (excepting the side-fins), its +flexibility even in death, causes it to sink low beneath the surface; so +that with the hand you cannot get at it from the boat, in order to +put the chain round it. But this difficulty is ingeniously overcome: a +small, strong line is prepared with a wooden float at its outer end, and +a weight in its middle, while the other end is secured to the ship. By +adroit management the wooden float is made to rise on the other side +of the mass, so that now having girdled the whale, the chain is readily +made to follow suit; and being slipped along the body, is at last locked +fast round the smallest part of the tail, at the point of junction with +its broad flukes or lobes. + + +If moody Ahab was now all quiescence, at least so far as could be known +on deck, Stubb, his second mate, flushed with conquest, betrayed an +unusual but still good-natured excitement. Such an unwonted bustle was +he in that the staid Starbuck, his official superior, quietly resigned +to him for the time the sole management of affairs. One small, helping +cause of all this liveliness in Stubb, was soon made strangely manifest. +Stubb was a high liver; he was somewhat intemperately fond of the whale +as a flavorish thing to his palate. + +"A steak, a steak, ere I sleep! You, Daggoo! overboard you go, and cut +me one from his small!" + +Here be it known, that though these wild fishermen do not, as a general +thing, and according to the great military maxim, make the enemy defray +the current expenses of the war (at least before realizing the proceeds +of the voyage), yet now and then you find some of these Nantucketers +who have a genuine relish for that particular part of the Sperm Whale +designated by Stubb; comprising the tapering extremity of the body. + +About midnight that steak was cut and cooked; and lighted by two +lanterns of sperm oil, Stubb stoutly stood up to his spermaceti supper +at the capstan-head, as if that capstan were a sideboard. Nor was Stubb +the only banqueter on whale's flesh that night. Mingling their mumblings +with his own mastications, thousands on thousands of sharks, swarming +round the dead leviathan, smackingly feasted on its fatness. The few +sleepers below in their bunks were often startled by the sharp slapping +of their tails against the hull, within a few inches of the sleepers' +hearts. Peering over the side you could just see them (as before you +heard them) wallowing in the sullen, black waters, and turning over on +their backs as they scooped out huge globular pieces of the whale of the +bigness of a human head. This particular feat of the shark seems all +but miraculous. How at such an apparently unassailable surface, they +contrive to gouge out such symmetrical mouthfuls, remains a part of the +universal problem of all things. The mark they thus leave on the whale, +may best be likened to the hollow made by a carpenter in countersinking +for a screw. + +Though amid all the smoking horror and diabolism of a sea-fight, sharks +will be seen longingly gazing up to the ship's decks, like hungry dogs +round a table where red meat is being carved, ready to bolt down +every killed man that is tossed to them; and though, while the valiant +butchers over the deck-table are thus cannibally carving each other's +live meat with carving-knives all gilded and tasselled, the sharks, +also, with their jewel-hilted mouths, are quarrelsomely carving away +under the table at the dead meat; and though, were you to turn the whole +affair upside down, it would still be pretty much the same thing, that +is to say, a shocking sharkish business enough for all parties; and +though sharks also are the invariable outriders of all slave ships +crossing the Atlantic, systematically trotting alongside, to be handy in +case a parcel is to be carried anywhere, or a dead slave to be decently +buried; and though one or two other like instances might be set down, +touching the set terms, places, and occasions, when sharks do most +socially congregate, and most hilariously feast; yet is there no +conceivable time or occasion when you will find them in such countless +numbers, and in gayer or more jovial spirits, than around a dead sperm +whale, moored by night to a whaleship at sea. If you have never +seen that sight, then suspend your decision about the propriety of +devil-worship, and the expediency of conciliating the devil. + +But, as yet, Stubb heeded not the mumblings of the banquet that was +going on so nigh him, no more than the sharks heeded the smacking of his +own epicurean lips. + +"Cook, cook!--where's that old Fleece?" he cried at length, widening +his legs still further, as if to form a more secure base for his supper; +and, at the same time darting his fork into the dish, as if stabbing +with his lance; "cook, you cook!--sail this way, cook!" + +The old black, not in any very high glee at having been previously +roused from his warm hammock at a most unseasonable hour, came shambling +along from his galley, for, like many old blacks, there was something +the matter with his knee-pans, which he did not keep well scoured like +his other pans; this old Fleece, as they called him, came shuffling and +limping along, assisting his step with his tongs, which, after a clumsy +fashion, were made of straightened iron hoops; this old Ebony floundered +along, and in obedience to the word of command, came to a dead stop on +the opposite side of Stubb's sideboard; when, with both hands folded +before him, and resting on his two-legged cane, he bowed his arched back +still further over, at the same time sideways inclining his head, so as +to bring his best ear into play. + +"Cook," said Stubb, rapidly lifting a rather reddish morsel to his +mouth, "don't you think this steak is rather overdone? You've been +beating this steak too much, cook; it's too tender. Don't I always say +that to be good, a whale-steak must be tough? There are those sharks +now over the side, don't you see they prefer it tough and rare? What a +shindy they are kicking up! Cook, go and talk to 'em; tell 'em they are +welcome to help themselves civilly, and in moderation, but they must +keep quiet. Blast me, if I can hear my own voice. Away, cook, and +deliver my message. Here, take this lantern," snatching one from his +sideboard; "now then, go and preach to 'em!" + +Sullenly taking the offered lantern, old Fleece limped across the deck +to the bulwarks; and then, with one hand dropping his light low over the +sea, so as to get a good view of his congregation, with the other hand +he solemnly flourished his tongs, and leaning far over the side in a +mumbling voice began addressing the sharks, while Stubb, softly crawling +behind, overheard all that was said. + +"Fellow-critters: I'se ordered here to say dat you must stop dat dam +noise dare. You hear? Stop dat dam smackin' ob de lips! Massa Stubb say +dat you can fill your dam bellies up to de hatchings, but by Gor! you +must stop dat dam racket!" + +"Cook," here interposed Stubb, accompanying the word with a sudden slap +on the shoulder,--"Cook! why, damn your eyes, you mustn't swear that way +when you're preaching. That's no way to convert sinners, cook!" + +"Who dat? Den preach to him yourself," sullenly turning to go. + +"No, cook; go on, go on." + +"Well, den, Belubed fellow-critters:"-- + +"Right!" exclaimed Stubb, approvingly, "coax 'em to it; try that," and +Fleece continued. + +"Do you is all sharks, and by natur wery woracious, yet I zay to you, +fellow-critters, dat dat woraciousness--'top dat dam slappin' ob de +tail! How you tink to hear, spose you keep up such a dam slappin' and +bitin' dare?" + +"Cook," cried Stubb, collaring him, "I won't have that swearing. Talk to +'em gentlemanly." + +Once more the sermon proceeded. + +"Your woraciousness, fellow-critters, I don't blame ye so much for; dat +is natur, and can't be helped; but to gobern dat wicked natur, dat is de +pint. You is sharks, sartin; but if you gobern de shark in you, why den +you be angel; for all angel is not'ing more dan de shark well goberned. +Now, look here, bred'ren, just try wonst to be cibil, a helping +yourselbs from dat whale. Don't be tearin' de blubber out your +neighbour's mout, I say. Is not one shark dood right as toder to dat +whale? And, by Gor, none on you has de right to dat whale; dat whale +belong to some one else. I know some o' you has berry brig mout, brigger +dan oders; but den de brig mouts sometimes has de small bellies; so dat +de brigness of de mout is not to swaller wid, but to bit off de blubber +for de small fry ob sharks, dat can't get into de scrouge to help +demselves." + +"Well done, old Fleece!" cried Stubb, "that's Christianity; go on." + +"No use goin' on; de dam willains will keep a scougin' and slappin' each +oder, Massa Stubb; dey don't hear one word; no use a-preaching to +such dam g'uttons as you call 'em, till dare bellies is full, and dare +bellies is bottomless; and when dey do get 'em full, dey wont hear you +den; for den dey sink in the sea, go fast to sleep on de coral, and +can't hear noting at all, no more, for eber and eber." + +"Upon my soul, I am about of the same opinion; so give the benediction, +Fleece, and I'll away to my supper." + +Upon this, Fleece, holding both hands over the fishy mob, raised his +shrill voice, and cried-- + +"Cussed fellow-critters! Kick up de damndest row as ever you can; fill +your dam bellies 'till dey bust--and den die." + +"Now, cook," said Stubb, resuming his supper at the capstan; "stand +just where you stood before, there, over against me, and pay particular +attention." + +"All 'dention," said Fleece, again stooping over upon his tongs in the +desired position. + +"Well," said Stubb, helping himself freely meanwhile; "I shall now go +back to the subject of this steak. In the first place, how old are you, +cook?" + +"What dat do wid de 'teak," said the old black, testily. + +"Silence! How old are you, cook?" + +"'Bout ninety, dey say," he gloomily muttered. + +"And you have lived in this world hard upon one hundred years, cook, +and don't know yet how to cook a whale-steak?" rapidly bolting another +mouthful at the last word, so that morsel seemed a continuation of the +question. "Where were you born, cook?" + +"'Hind de hatchway, in ferry-boat, goin' ober de Roanoke." + +"Born in a ferry-boat! That's queer, too. But I want to know what +country you were born in, cook!" + +"Didn't I say de Roanoke country?" he cried sharply. + +"No, you didn't, cook; but I'll tell you what I'm coming to, cook. +You must go home and be born over again; you don't know how to cook a +whale-steak yet." + +"Bress my soul, if I cook noder one," he growled, angrily, turning round +to depart. + +"Come back here, cook;--here, hand me those tongs;--now take that bit of +steak there, and tell me if you think that steak cooked as it should be? +Take it, I say"--holding the tongs towards him--"take it, and taste it." + +Faintly smacking his withered lips over it for a moment, the old negro +muttered, "Best cooked 'teak I eber taste; joosy, berry joosy." + +"Cook," said Stubb, squaring himself once more; "do you belong to the +church?" + +"Passed one once in Cape-Down," said the old man sullenly. + +"And you have once in your life passed a holy church in Cape-Town, where +you doubtless overheard a holy parson addressing his hearers as his +beloved fellow-creatures, have you, cook! And yet you come here, and +tell me such a dreadful lie as you did just now, eh?" said Stubb. "Where +do you expect to go to, cook?" + +"Go to bed berry soon," he mumbled, half-turning as he spoke. + +"Avast! heave to! I mean when you die, cook. It's an awful question. Now +what's your answer?" + +"When dis old brack man dies," said the negro slowly, changing his whole +air and demeanor, "he hisself won't go nowhere; but some bressed angel +will come and fetch him." + +"Fetch him? How? In a coach and four, as they fetched Elijah? And fetch +him where?" + +"Up dere," said Fleece, holding his tongs straight over his head, and +keeping it there very solemnly. + +"So, then, you expect to go up into our main-top, do you, cook, when you +are dead? But don't you know the higher you climb, the colder it gets? +Main-top, eh?" + +"Didn't say dat t'all," said Fleece, again in the sulks. + +"You said up there, didn't you? and now look yourself, and see where +your tongs are pointing. But, perhaps you expect to get into heaven by +crawling through the lubber's hole, cook; but, no, no, cook, you don't +get there, except you go the regular way, round by the rigging. It's a +ticklish business, but must be done, or else it's no go. But none of +us are in heaven yet. Drop your tongs, cook, and hear my orders. Do ye +hear? Hold your hat in one hand, and clap t'other a'top of your heart, +when I'm giving my orders, cook. What! that your heart, there?--that's +your gizzard! Aloft! aloft!--that's it--now you have it. Hold it there +now, and pay attention." + +"All 'dention," said the old black, with both hands placed as desired, +vainly wriggling his grizzled head, as if to get both ears in front at +one and the same time. + +"Well then, cook, you see this whale-steak of yours was so very bad, +that I have put it out of sight as soon as possible; you see that, don't +you? Well, for the future, when you cook another whale-steak for my +private table here, the capstan, I'll tell you what to do so as not to +spoil it by overdoing. Hold the steak in one hand, and show a live coal +to it with the other; that done, dish it; d'ye hear? And now to-morrow, +cook, when we are cutting in the fish, be sure you stand by to get +the tips of his fins; have them put in pickle. As for the ends of the +flukes, have them soused, cook. There, now ye may go." + +But Fleece had hardly got three paces off, when he was recalled. + +"Cook, give me cutlets for supper to-morrow night in the mid-watch. +D'ye hear? away you sail, then.--Halloa! stop! make a bow before you +go.--Avast heaving again! Whale-balls for breakfast--don't forget." + +"Wish, by gor! whale eat him, 'stead of him eat whale. I'm bressed if +he ain't more of shark dan Massa Shark hisself," muttered the old man, +limping away; with which sage ejaculation he went to his hammock. + + + +CHAPTER 65. The Whale as a Dish. + + +That mortal man should feed upon the creature that feeds his lamp, and, +like Stubb, eat him by his own light, as you may say; this seems so +outlandish a thing that one must needs go a little into the history and +philosophy of it. + +It is upon record, that three centuries ago the tongue of the Right +Whale was esteemed a great delicacy in France, and commanded large +prices there. Also, that in Henry VIIIth's time, a certain cook of the +court obtained a handsome reward for inventing an admirable sauce to be +eaten with barbacued porpoises, which, you remember, are a species of +whale. Porpoises, indeed, are to this day considered fine eating. The +meat is made into balls about the size of billiard balls, and being well +seasoned and spiced might be taken for turtle-balls or veal balls. +The old monks of Dunfermline were very fond of them. They had a great +porpoise grant from the crown. + +The fact is, that among his hunters at least, the whale would by all +hands be considered a noble dish, were there not so much of him; but +when you come to sit down before a meat-pie nearly one hundred feet +long, it takes away your appetite. Only the most unprejudiced of men +like Stubb, nowadays partake of cooked whales; but the Esquimaux are not +so fastidious. We all know how they live upon whales, and have rare +old vintages of prime old train oil. Zogranda, one of their most famous +doctors, recommends strips of blubber for infants, as being exceedingly +juicy and nourishing. And this reminds me that certain Englishmen, who +long ago were accidentally left in Greenland by a whaling vessel--that +these men actually lived for several months on the mouldy scraps of +whales which had been left ashore after trying out the blubber. Among +the Dutch whalemen these scraps are called "fritters"; which, indeed, +they greatly resemble, being brown and crisp, and smelling something +like old Amsterdam housewives' dough-nuts or oly-cooks, when fresh. They +have such an eatable look that the most self-denying stranger can hardly +keep his hands off. + +But what further depreciates the whale as a civilized dish, is his +exceeding richness. He is the great prize ox of the sea, too fat to be +delicately good. Look at his hump, which would be as fine eating as +the buffalo's (which is esteemed a rare dish), were it not such a solid +pyramid of fat. But the spermaceti itself, how bland and creamy that +is; like the transparent, half-jellied, white meat of a cocoanut in the +third month of its growth, yet far too rich to supply a substitute for +butter. Nevertheless, many whalemen have a method of absorbing it into +some other substance, and then partaking of it. In the long try +watches of the night it is a common thing for the seamen to dip their +ship-biscuit into the huge oil-pots and let them fry there awhile. Many +a good supper have I thus made. + +In the case of a small Sperm Whale the brains are accounted a fine dish. +The casket of the skull is broken into with an axe, and the two plump, +whitish lobes being withdrawn (precisely resembling two large puddings), +they are then mixed with flour, and cooked into a most delectable mess, +in flavor somewhat resembling calves' head, which is quite a dish among +some epicures; and every one knows that some young bucks among the +epicures, by continually dining upon calves' brains, by and by get to +have a little brains of their own, so as to be able to tell a +calf's head from their own heads; which, indeed, requires uncommon +discrimination. And that is the reason why a young buck with an +intelligent looking calf's head before him, is somehow one of the +saddest sights you can see. The head looks a sort of reproachfully at +him, with an "Et tu Brute!" expression. + +It is not, perhaps, entirely because the whale is so excessively +unctuous that landsmen seem to regard the eating of him with abhorrence; +that appears to result, in some way, from the consideration before +mentioned: i.e. that a man should eat a newly murdered thing of the sea, +and eat it too by its own light. But no doubt the first man that ever +murdered an ox was regarded as a murderer; perhaps he was hung; and if +he had been put on his trial by oxen, he certainly would have been; and +he certainly deserved it if any murderer does. Go to the meat-market +of a Saturday night and see the crowds of live bipeds staring up at the +long rows of dead quadrupeds. Does not that sight take a tooth out of +the cannibal's jaw? Cannibals? who is not a cannibal? I tell you it will +be more tolerable for the Fejee that salted down a lean missionary in +his cellar against a coming famine; it will be more tolerable for that +provident Fejee, I say, in the day of judgment, than for thee, civilized +and enlightened gourmand, who nailest geese to the ground and feastest +on their bloated livers in thy pate-de-foie-gras. + +But Stubb, he eats the whale by its own light, does he? and that is +adding insult to injury, is it? Look at your knife-handle, there, my +civilized and enlightened gourmand dining off that roast beef, what is +that handle made of?--what but the bones of the brother of the very ox +you are eating? And what do you pick your teeth with, after devouring +that fat goose? With a feather of the same fowl. And with what quill did +the Secretary of the Society for the Suppression of Cruelty to Ganders +formally indite his circulars? It is only within the last month or two +that that society passed a resolution to patronise nothing but steel +pens. + + + +CHAPTER 66. The Shark Massacre. + + +When in the Southern Fishery, a captured Sperm Whale, after long and +weary toil, is brought alongside late at night, it is not, as a general +thing at least, customary to proceed at once to the business of cutting +him in. For that business is an exceedingly laborious one; is not very +soon completed; and requires all hands to set about it. Therefore, the +common usage is to take in all sail; lash the helm a'lee; and then send +every one below to his hammock till daylight, with the reservation that, +until that time, anchor-watches shall be kept; that is, two and two for +an hour, each couple, the crew in rotation shall mount the deck to see +that all goes well. + +But sometimes, especially upon the Line in the Pacific, this plan will +not answer at all; because such incalculable hosts of sharks gather +round the moored carcase, that were he left so for six hours, say, on a +stretch, little more than the skeleton would be visible by morning. +In most other parts of the ocean, however, where these fish do not so +largely abound, their wondrous voracity can be at times considerably +diminished, by vigorously stirring them up with sharp whaling-spades, +a procedure notwithstanding, which, in some instances, only seems to +tickle them into still greater activity. But it was not thus in the +present case with the Pequod's sharks; though, to be sure, any man +unaccustomed to such sights, to have looked over her side that night, +would have almost thought the whole round sea was one huge cheese, and +those sharks the maggots in it. + +Nevertheless, upon Stubb setting the anchor-watch after his supper was +concluded; and when, accordingly, Queequeg and a forecastle seaman +came on deck, no small excitement was created among the sharks; for +immediately suspending the cutting stages over the side, and lowering +three lanterns, so that they cast long gleams of light over the turbid +sea, these two mariners, darting their long whaling-spades, kept up an +incessant murdering of the sharks,* by striking the keen steel deep +into their skulls, seemingly their only vital part. But in the foamy +confusion of their mixed and struggling hosts, the marksmen could not +always hit their mark; and this brought about new revelations of the +incredible ferocity of the foe. They viciously snapped, not only at each +other's disembowelments, but like flexible bows, bent round, and bit +their own; till those entrails seemed swallowed over and over again by +the same mouth, to be oppositely voided by the gaping wound. Nor was +this all. It was unsafe to meddle with the corpses and ghosts of these +creatures. A sort of generic or Pantheistic vitality seemed to lurk in +their very joints and bones, after what might be called the individual +life had departed. Killed and hoisted on deck for the sake of his skin, +one of these sharks almost took poor Queequeg's hand off, when he tried +to shut down the dead lid of his murderous jaw. + + +*The whaling-spade used for cutting-in is made of the very best steel; +is about the bigness of a man's spread hand; and in general shape, +corresponds to the garden implement after which it is named; only its +sides are perfectly flat, and its upper end considerably narrower than +the lower. This weapon is always kept as sharp as possible; and when +being used is occasionally honed, just like a razor. In its socket, a +stiff pole, from twenty to thirty feet long, is inserted for a handle. + + +"Queequeg no care what god made him shark," said the savage, agonizingly +lifting his hand up and down; "wedder Fejee god or Nantucket god; but de +god wat made shark must be one dam Ingin." + + + +CHAPTER 67. Cutting In. + + +It was a Saturday night, and such a Sabbath as followed! Ex officio +professors of Sabbath breaking are all whalemen. The ivory Pequod was +turned into what seemed a shamble; every sailor a butcher. You would +have thought we were offering up ten thousand red oxen to the sea gods. + +In the first place, the enormous cutting tackles, among other ponderous +things comprising a cluster of blocks generally painted green, and which +no single man can possibly lift--this vast bunch of grapes was swayed up +to the main-top and firmly lashed to the lower mast-head, the strongest +point anywhere above a ship's deck. The end of the hawser-like rope +winding through these intricacies, was then conducted to the windlass, +and the huge lower block of the tackles was swung over the whale; to +this block the great blubber hook, weighing some one hundred pounds, was +attached. And now suspended in stages over the side, Starbuck and Stubb, +the mates, armed with their long spades, began cutting a hole in the +body for the insertion of the hook just above the nearest of the two +side-fins. This done, a broad, semicircular line is cut round the hole, +the hook is inserted, and the main body of the crew striking up a wild +chorus, now commence heaving in one dense crowd at the windlass. When +instantly, the entire ship careens over on her side; every bolt in +her starts like the nail-heads of an old house in frosty weather; she +trembles, quivers, and nods her frighted mast-heads to the sky. More +and more she leans over to the whale, while every gasping heave of the +windlass is answered by a helping heave from the billows; till at last, +a swift, startling snap is heard; with a great swash the ship rolls +upwards and backwards from the whale, and the triumphant tackle rises +into sight dragging after it the disengaged semicircular end of the +first strip of blubber. Now as the blubber envelopes the whale precisely +as the rind does an orange, so is it stripped off from the body +precisely as an orange is sometimes stripped by spiralizing it. For the +strain constantly kept up by the windlass continually keeps the whale +rolling over and over in the water, and as the blubber in one strip +uniformly peels off along the line called the "scarf," simultaneously +cut by the spades of Starbuck and Stubb, the mates; and just as fast as +it is thus peeled off, and indeed by that very act itself, it is all the +time being hoisted higher and higher aloft till its upper end grazes the +main-top; the men at the windlass then cease heaving, and for a moment +or two the prodigious blood-dripping mass sways to and fro as if let +down from the sky, and every one present must take good heed to dodge +it when it swings, else it may box his ears and pitch him headlong +overboard. + +One of the attending harpooneers now advances with a long, keen weapon +called a boarding-sword, and watching his chance he dexterously slices +out a considerable hole in the lower part of the swaying mass. Into this +hole, the end of the second alternating great tackle is then hooked +so as to retain a hold upon the blubber, in order to prepare for what +follows. Whereupon, this accomplished swordsman, warning all hands to +stand off, once more makes a scientific dash at the mass, and with a few +sidelong, desperate, lunging slicings, severs it completely in twain; +so that while the short lower part is still fast, the long upper strip, +called a blanket-piece, swings clear, and is all ready for lowering. +The heavers forward now resume their song, and while the one tackle is +peeling and hoisting a second strip from the whale, the other is slowly +slackened away, and down goes the first strip through the main hatchway +right beneath, into an unfurnished parlor called the blubber-room. Into +this twilight apartment sundry nimble hands keep coiling away the long +blanket-piece as if it were a great live mass of plaited serpents. +And thus the work proceeds; the two tackles hoisting and lowering +simultaneously; both whale and windlass heaving, the heavers singing, +the blubber-room gentlemen coiling, the mates scarfing, the ship +straining, and all hands swearing occasionally, by way of assuaging the +general friction. + + + +CHAPTER 68. The Blanket. + + +I have given no small attention to that not unvexed subject, the skin of +the whale. I have had controversies about it with experienced whalemen +afloat, and learned naturalists ashore. My original opinion remains +unchanged; but it is only an opinion. + +The question is, what and where is the skin of the whale? Already you +know what his blubber is. That blubber is something of the consistence +of firm, close-grained beef, but tougher, more elastic and compact, and +ranges from eight or ten to twelve and fifteen inches in thickness. + +Now, however preposterous it may at first seem to talk of any creature's +skin as being of that sort of consistence and thickness, yet in point +of fact these are no arguments against such a presumption; because you +cannot raise any other dense enveloping layer from the whale's body but +that same blubber; and the outermost enveloping layer of any animal, if +reasonably dense, what can that be but the skin? True, from the unmarred +dead body of the whale, you may scrape off with your hand an infinitely +thin, transparent substance, somewhat resembling the thinnest shreds +of isinglass, only it is almost as flexible and soft as satin; that is, +previous to being dried, when it not only contracts and thickens, but +becomes rather hard and brittle. I have several such dried bits, which +I use for marks in my whale-books. It is transparent, as I said before; +and being laid upon the printed page, I have sometimes pleased myself +with fancying it exerted a magnifying influence. At any rate, it is +pleasant to read about whales through their own spectacles, as you may +say. But what I am driving at here is this. That same infinitely thin, +isinglass substance, which, I admit, invests the entire body of the +whale, is not so much to be regarded as the skin of the creature, as +the skin of the skin, so to speak; for it were simply ridiculous to say, +that the proper skin of the tremendous whale is thinner and more tender +than the skin of a new-born child. But no more of this. + +Assuming the blubber to be the skin of the whale; then, when this skin, +as in the case of a very large Sperm Whale, will yield the bulk of one +hundred barrels of oil; and, when it is considered that, in quantity, or +rather weight, that oil, in its expressed state, is only three fourths, +and not the entire substance of the coat; some idea may hence be had +of the enormousness of that animated mass, a mere part of whose mere +integument yields such a lake of liquid as that. Reckoning ten barrels +to the ton, you have ten tons for the net weight of only three quarters +of the stuff of the whale's skin. + +In life, the visible surface of the Sperm Whale is not the least among +the many marvels he presents. Almost invariably it is all over obliquely +crossed and re-crossed with numberless straight marks in thick array, +something like those in the finest Italian line engravings. But these +marks do not seem to be impressed upon the isinglass substance above +mentioned, but seem to be seen through it, as if they were engraved +upon the body itself. Nor is this all. In some instances, to the quick, +observant eye, those linear marks, as in a veritable engraving, but +afford the ground for far other delineations. These are hieroglyphical; +that is, if you call those mysterious cyphers on the walls of pyramids +hieroglyphics, then that is the proper word to use in the present +connexion. By my retentive memory of the hieroglyphics upon one Sperm +Whale in particular, I was much struck with a plate representing the old +Indian characters chiselled on the famous hieroglyphic palisades on +the banks of the Upper Mississippi. Like those mystic rocks, too, the +mystic-marked whale remains undecipherable. This allusion to the Indian +rocks reminds me of another thing. Besides all the other phenomena which +the exterior of the Sperm Whale presents, he not seldom displays the +back, and more especially his flanks, effaced in great part of the +regular linear appearance, by reason of numerous rude scratches, +altogether of an irregular, random aspect. I should say that those New +England rocks on the sea-coast, which Agassiz imagines to bear the marks +of violent scraping contact with vast floating icebergs--I should say, +that those rocks must not a little resemble the Sperm Whale in this +particular. It also seems to me that such scratches in the whale are +probably made by hostile contact with other whales; for I have most +remarked them in the large, full-grown bulls of the species. + +A word or two more concerning this matter of the skin or blubber of +the whale. It has already been said, that it is stript from him in long +pieces, called blanket-pieces. Like most sea-terms, this one is very +happy and significant. For the whale is indeed wrapt up in his blubber +as in a real blanket or counterpane; or, still better, an Indian poncho +slipt over his head, and skirting his extremity. It is by reason of this +cosy blanketing of his body, that the whale is enabled to keep himself +comfortable in all weathers, in all seas, times, and tides. What would +become of a Greenland whale, say, in those shuddering, icy seas of the +North, if unsupplied with his cosy surtout? True, other fish are +found exceedingly brisk in those Hyperborean waters; but these, be it +observed, are your cold-blooded, lungless fish, whose very bellies +are refrigerators; creatures, that warm themselves under the lee of +an iceberg, as a traveller in winter would bask before an inn fire; +whereas, like man, the whale has lungs and warm blood. Freeze his blood, +and he dies. How wonderful is it then--except after explanation--that +this great monster, to whom corporeal warmth is as indispensable as it +is to man; how wonderful that he should be found at home, immersed +to his lips for life in those Arctic waters! where, when seamen fall +overboard, they are sometimes found, months afterwards, perpendicularly +frozen into the hearts of fields of ice, as a fly is found glued +in amber. But more surprising is it to know, as has been proved by +experiment, that the blood of a Polar whale is warmer than that of a +Borneo negro in summer. + +It does seem to me, that herein we see the rare virtue of a strong +individual vitality, and the rare virtue of thick walls, and the rare +virtue of interior spaciousness. Oh, man! admire and model thyself after +the whale! Do thou, too, remain warm among ice. Do thou, too, live in +this world without being of it. Be cool at the equator; keep thy blood +fluid at the Pole. Like the great dome of St. Peter's, and like the +great whale, retain, O man! in all seasons a temperature of thine own. + +But how easy and how hopeless to teach these fine things! Of erections, +how few are domed like St. Peter's! of creatures, how few vast as the +whale! + + + +CHAPTER 69. The Funeral. + + +Haul in the chains! Let the carcase go astern! + +The vast tackles have now done their duty. The peeled white body of the +beheaded whale flashes like a marble sepulchre; though changed in hue, +it has not perceptibly lost anything in bulk. It is still colossal. +Slowly it floats more and more away, the water round it torn and +splashed by the insatiate sharks, and the air above vexed with rapacious +flights of screaming fowls, whose beaks are like so many insulting +poniards in the whale. The vast white headless phantom floats further +and further from the ship, and every rod that it so floats, what seem +square roods of sharks and cubic roods of fowls, augment the murderous +din. For hours and hours from the almost stationary ship that hideous +sight is seen. Beneath the unclouded and mild azure sky, upon the fair +face of the pleasant sea, wafted by the joyous breezes, that great mass +of death floats on and on, till lost in infinite perspectives. + +There's a most doleful and most mocking funeral! The sea-vultures all in +pious mourning, the air-sharks all punctiliously in black or speckled. +In life but few of them would have helped the whale, I ween, if +peradventure he had needed it; but upon the banquet of his funeral they +most piously do pounce. Oh, horrible vultureism of earth! from which not +the mightiest whale is free. + +Nor is this the end. Desecrated as the body is, a vengeful ghost +survives and hovers over it to scare. Espied by some timid man-of-war or +blundering discovery-vessel from afar, when the distance obscuring the +swarming fowls, nevertheless still shows the white mass floating in +the sun, and the white spray heaving high against it; straightway the +whale's unharming corpse, with trembling fingers is set down in the +log--SHOALS, ROCKS, AND BREAKERS HEREABOUTS: BEWARE! And for years +afterwards, perhaps, ships shun the place; leaping over it as silly +sheep leap over a vacuum, because their leader originally leaped there +when a stick was held. There's your law of precedents; there's your +utility of traditions; there's the story of your obstinate survival of +old beliefs never bottomed on the earth, and now not even hovering in +the air! There's orthodoxy! + +Thus, while in life the great whale's body may have been a real terror +to his foes, in his death his ghost becomes a powerless panic to a +world. + +Are you a believer in ghosts, my friend? There are other ghosts than +the Cock-Lane one, and far deeper men than Doctor Johnson who believe in +them. + + + +CHAPTER 70. The Sphynx. + + +It should not have been omitted that previous to completely stripping +the body of the leviathan, he was beheaded. Now, the beheading of the +Sperm Whale is a scientific anatomical feat, upon which experienced +whale surgeons very much pride themselves: and not without reason. + +Consider that the whale has nothing that can properly be called a neck; +on the contrary, where his head and body seem to join, there, in that +very place, is the thickest part of him. Remember, also, that the +surgeon must operate from above, some eight or ten feet intervening +between him and his subject, and that subject almost hidden in a +discoloured, rolling, and oftentimes tumultuous and bursting sea. Bear +in mind, too, that under these untoward circumstances he has to cut many +feet deep in the flesh; and in that subterraneous manner, without so +much as getting one single peep into the ever-contracting gash thus +made, he must skilfully steer clear of all adjacent, interdicted parts, +and exactly divide the spine at a critical point hard by its insertion +into the skull. Do you not marvel, then, at Stubb's boast, that he +demanded but ten minutes to behead a sperm whale? + +When first severed, the head is dropped astern and held there by a cable +till the body is stripped. That done, if it belong to a small whale +it is hoisted on deck to be deliberately disposed of. But, with a full +grown leviathan this is impossible; for the sperm whale's head embraces +nearly one third of his entire bulk, and completely to suspend such a +burden as that, even by the immense tackles of a whaler, this were as +vain a thing as to attempt weighing a Dutch barn in jewellers' scales. + +The Pequod's whale being decapitated and the body stripped, the head was +hoisted against the ship's side--about half way out of the sea, so that +it might yet in great part be buoyed up by its native element. And there +with the strained craft steeply leaning over to it, by reason of the +enormous downward drag from the lower mast-head, and every yard-arm +on that side projecting like a crane over the waves; there, that +blood-dripping head hung to the Pequod's waist like the giant +Holofernes's from the girdle of Judith. + +When this last task was accomplished it was noon, and the seamen went +below to their dinner. Silence reigned over the before tumultuous but +now deserted deck. An intense copper calm, like a universal yellow +lotus, was more and more unfolding its noiseless measureless leaves upon +the sea. + +A short space elapsed, and up into this noiselessness came Ahab alone +from his cabin. Taking a few turns on the quarter-deck, he paused to +gaze over the side, then slowly getting into the main-chains he +took Stubb's long spade--still remaining there after the whale's +Decapitation--and striking it into the lower part of the half-suspended +mass, placed its other end crutch-wise under one arm, and so stood +leaning over with eyes attentively fixed on this head. + +It was a black and hooded head; and hanging there in the midst of so +intense a calm, it seemed the Sphynx's in the desert. "Speak, thou vast +and venerable head," muttered Ahab, "which, though ungarnished with a +beard, yet here and there lookest hoary with mosses; speak, mighty head, +and tell us the secret thing that is in thee. Of all divers, thou hast +dived the deepest. That head upon which the upper sun now gleams, has +moved amid this world's foundations. Where unrecorded names and navies +rust, and untold hopes and anchors rot; where in her murderous hold this +frigate earth is ballasted with bones of millions of the drowned; there, +in that awful water-land, there was thy most familiar home. Thou hast +been where bell or diver never went; hast slept by many a sailor's side, +where sleepless mothers would give their lives to lay them down. Thou +saw'st the locked lovers when leaping from their flaming ship; heart +to heart they sank beneath the exulting wave; true to each other, when +heaven seemed false to them. Thou saw'st the murdered mate when tossed +by pirates from the midnight deck; for hours he fell into the deeper +midnight of the insatiate maw; and his murderers still sailed on +unharmed--while swift lightnings shivered the neighboring ship that +would have borne a righteous husband to outstretched, longing arms. O +head! thou hast seen enough to split the planets and make an infidel of +Abraham, and not one syllable is thine!" + +"Sail ho!" cried a triumphant voice from the main-mast-head. + +"Aye? Well, now, that's cheering," cried Ahab, suddenly erecting +himself, while whole thunder-clouds swept aside from his brow. +"That lively cry upon this deadly calm might almost convert a better +man.--Where away?" + +"Three points on the starboard bow, sir, and bringing down her breeze to +us! + +"Better and better, man. Would now St. Paul would come along that way, +and to my breezelessness bring his breeze! O Nature, and O soul of man! +how far beyond all utterance are your linked analogies! not the smallest +atom stirs or lives on matter, but has its cunning duplicate in mind." + + + +CHAPTER 71. The Jeroboam's Story. + + +Hand in hand, ship and breeze blew on; but the breeze came faster than +the ship, and soon the Pequod began to rock. + +By and by, through the glass the stranger's boats and manned mast-heads +proved her a whale-ship. But as she was so far to windward, and shooting +by, apparently making a passage to some other ground, the Pequod could +not hope to reach her. So the signal was set to see what response would +be made. + +Here be it said, that like the vessels of military marines, the ships of +the American Whale Fleet have each a private signal; all which signals +being collected in a book with the names of the respective vessels +attached, every captain is provided with it. Thereby, the whale +commanders are enabled to recognise each other upon the ocean, even at +considerable distances and with no small facility. + +The Pequod's signal was at last responded to by the stranger's setting +her own; which proved the ship to be the Jeroboam of Nantucket. Squaring +her yards, she bore down, ranged abeam under the Pequod's lee, and +lowered a boat; it soon drew nigh; but, as the side-ladder was being +rigged by Starbuck's order to accommodate the visiting captain, the +stranger in question waved his hand from his boat's stern in token +of that proceeding being entirely unnecessary. It turned out that +the Jeroboam had a malignant epidemic on board, and that Mayhew, her +captain, was fearful of infecting the Pequod's company. For, though +himself and boat's crew remained untainted, and though his ship was half +a rifle-shot off, and an incorruptible sea and air rolling and flowing +between; yet conscientiously adhering to the timid quarantine of the +land, he peremptorily refused to come into direct contact with the +Pequod. + +But this did by no means prevent all communications. Preserving an +interval of some few yards between itself and the ship, the Jeroboam's +boat by the occasional use of its oars contrived to keep parallel to the +Pequod, as she heavily forged through the sea (for by this time it blew +very fresh), with her main-topsail aback; though, indeed, at times by +the sudden onset of a large rolling wave, the boat would be pushed some +way ahead; but would be soon skilfully brought to her proper bearings +again. Subject to this, and other the like interruptions now and then, a +conversation was sustained between the two parties; but at intervals not +without still another interruption of a very different sort. + +Pulling an oar in the Jeroboam's boat, was a man of a singular +appearance, even in that wild whaling life where individual notabilities +make up all totalities. He was a small, short, youngish man, sprinkled +all over his face with freckles, and wearing redundant yellow hair. A +long-skirted, cabalistically-cut coat of a faded walnut tinge enveloped +him; the overlapping sleeves of which were rolled up on his wrists. A +deep, settled, fanatic delirium was in his eyes. + +So soon as this figure had been first descried, Stubb had +exclaimed--"That's he! that's he!--the long-togged scaramouch the +Town-Ho's company told us of!" Stubb here alluded to a strange story +told of the Jeroboam, and a certain man among her crew, some time +previous when the Pequod spoke the Town-Ho. According to this account +and what was subsequently learned, it seemed that the scaramouch in +question had gained a wonderful ascendency over almost everybody in the +Jeroboam. His story was this: + +He had been originally nurtured among the crazy society of Neskyeuna +Shakers, where he had been a great prophet; in their cracked, secret +meetings having several times descended from heaven by the way of a +trap-door, announcing the speedy opening of the seventh vial, which he +carried in his vest-pocket; but, which, instead of containing gunpowder, +was supposed to be charged with laudanum. A strange, apostolic whim +having seized him, he had left Neskyeuna for Nantucket, where, with +that cunning peculiar to craziness, he assumed a steady, common-sense +exterior, and offered himself as a green-hand candidate for the +Jeroboam's whaling voyage. They engaged him; but straightway upon +the ship's getting out of sight of land, his insanity broke out in a +freshet. He announced himself as the archangel Gabriel, and commanded +the captain to jump overboard. He published his manifesto, whereby +he set himself forth as the deliverer of the isles of the sea and +vicar-general of all Oceanica. The unflinching earnestness with which he +declared these things;--the dark, daring play of his sleepless, excited +imagination, and all the preternatural terrors of real delirium, united +to invest this Gabriel in the minds of the majority of the ignorant +crew, with an atmosphere of sacredness. Moreover, they were afraid of +him. As such a man, however, was not of much practical use in the ship, +especially as he refused to work except when he pleased, the incredulous +captain would fain have been rid of him; but apprised that that +individual's intention was to land him in the first convenient port, the +archangel forthwith opened all his seals and vials--devoting the ship +and all hands to unconditional perdition, in case this intention was +carried out. So strongly did he work upon his disciples among the crew, +that at last in a body they went to the captain and told him if Gabriel +was sent from the ship, not a man of them would remain. He was therefore +forced to relinquish his plan. Nor would they permit Gabriel to be any +way maltreated, say or do what he would; so that it came to pass that +Gabriel had the complete freedom of the ship. The consequence of all +this was, that the archangel cared little or nothing for the captain and +mates; and since the epidemic had broken out, he carried a higher hand +than ever; declaring that the plague, as he called it, was at his sole +command; nor should it be stayed but according to his good pleasure. +The sailors, mostly poor devils, cringed, and some of them fawned before +him; in obedience to his instructions, sometimes rendering him personal +homage, as to a god. Such things may seem incredible; but, however +wondrous, they are true. Nor is the history of fanatics half so striking +in respect to the measureless self-deception of the fanatic himself, as +his measureless power of deceiving and bedevilling so many others. But +it is time to return to the Pequod. + +"I fear not thy epidemic, man," said Ahab from the bulwarks, to Captain +Mayhew, who stood in the boat's stern; "come on board." + +But now Gabriel started to his feet. + +"Think, think of the fevers, yellow and bilious! Beware of the horrible +plague!" + +"Gabriel! Gabriel!" cried Captain Mayhew; "thou must either--" But +that instant a headlong wave shot the boat far ahead, and its seethings +drowned all speech. + +"Hast thou seen the White Whale?" demanded Ahab, when the boat drifted +back. + +"Think, think of thy whale-boat, stoven and sunk! Beware of the horrible +tail!" + +"I tell thee again, Gabriel, that--" But again the boat tore ahead as if +dragged by fiends. Nothing was said for some moments, while a succession +of riotous waves rolled by, which by one of those occasional caprices +of the seas were tumbling, not heaving it. Meantime, the hoisted sperm +whale's head jogged about very violently, and Gabriel was seen eyeing +it with rather more apprehensiveness than his archangel nature seemed to +warrant. + +When this interlude was over, Captain Mayhew began a dark story +concerning Moby Dick; not, however, without frequent interruptions from +Gabriel, whenever his name was mentioned, and the crazy sea that seemed +leagued with him. + +It seemed that the Jeroboam had not long left home, when upon speaking +a whale-ship, her people were reliably apprised of the existence of Moby +Dick, and the havoc he had made. Greedily sucking in this intelligence, +Gabriel solemnly warned the captain against attacking the White +Whale, in case the monster should be seen; in his gibbering insanity, +pronouncing the White Whale to be no less a being than the Shaker God +incarnated; the Shakers receiving the Bible. But when, some year or two +afterwards, Moby Dick was fairly sighted from the mast-heads, Macey, the +chief mate, burned with ardour to encounter him; and the captain himself +being not unwilling to let him have the opportunity, despite all +the archangel's denunciations and forewarnings, Macey succeeded in +persuading five men to man his boat. With them he pushed off; and, after +much weary pulling, and many perilous, unsuccessful onsets, he at last +succeeded in getting one iron fast. Meantime, Gabriel, ascending to +the main-royal mast-head, was tossing one arm in frantic gestures, and +hurling forth prophecies of speedy doom to the sacrilegious assailants +of his divinity. Now, while Macey, the mate, was standing up in his +boat's bow, and with all the reckless energy of his tribe was venting +his wild exclamations upon the whale, and essaying to get a fair chance +for his poised lance, lo! a broad white shadow rose from the sea; by its +quick, fanning motion, temporarily taking the breath out of the bodies +of the oarsmen. Next instant, the luckless mate, so full of furious +life, was smitten bodily into the air, and making a long arc in his +descent, fell into the sea at the distance of about fifty yards. Not a +chip of the boat was harmed, nor a hair of any oarsman's head; but the +mate for ever sank. + +It is well to parenthesize here, that of the fatal accidents in the +Sperm-Whale Fishery, this kind is perhaps almost as frequent as any. +Sometimes, nothing is injured but the man who is thus annihilated; +oftener the boat's bow is knocked off, or the thigh-board, in which the +headsman stands, is torn from its place and accompanies the body. But +strangest of all is the circumstance, that in more instances than one, +when the body has been recovered, not a single mark of violence is +discernible; the man being stark dead. + +The whole calamity, with the falling form of Macey, was plainly descried +from the ship. Raising a piercing shriek--"The vial! the vial!" Gabriel +called off the terror-stricken crew from the further hunting of the +whale. This terrible event clothed the archangel with added influence; +because his credulous disciples believed that he had specifically +fore-announced it, instead of only making a general prophecy, which any +one might have done, and so have chanced to hit one of many marks in the +wide margin allowed. He became a nameless terror to the ship. + +Mayhew having concluded his narration, Ahab put such questions to +him, that the stranger captain could not forbear inquiring whether he +intended to hunt the White Whale, if opportunity should offer. To which +Ahab answered--"Aye." Straightway, then, Gabriel once more started +to his feet, glaring upon the old man, and vehemently exclaimed, with +downward pointed finger--"Think, think of the blasphemer--dead, and down +there!--beware of the blasphemer's end!" + +Ahab stolidly turned aside; then said to Mayhew, "Captain, I have +just bethought me of my letter-bag; there is a letter for one of thy +officers, if I mistake not. Starbuck, look over the bag." + +Every whale-ship takes out a goodly number of letters for various ships, +whose delivery to the persons to whom they may be addressed, depends +upon the mere chance of encountering them in the four oceans. Thus, +most letters never reach their mark; and many are only received after +attaining an age of two or three years or more. + +Soon Starbuck returned with a letter in his hand. It was sorely tumbled, +damp, and covered with a dull, spotted, green mould, in consequence +of being kept in a dark locker of the cabin. Of such a letter, Death +himself might well have been the post-boy. + +"Can'st not read it?" cried Ahab. "Give it me, man. Aye, aye, it's but +a dim scrawl;--what's this?" As he was studying it out, Starbuck took a +long cutting-spade pole, and with his knife slightly split the end, to +insert the letter there, and in that way, hand it to the boat, without +its coming any closer to the ship. + +Meantime, Ahab holding the letter, muttered, "Mr. Har--yes, Mr. +Harry--(a woman's pinny hand,--the man's wife, I'll wager)--Aye--Mr. +Harry Macey, Ship Jeroboam;--why it's Macey, and he's dead!" + +"Poor fellow! poor fellow! and from his wife," sighed Mayhew; "but let +me have it." + +"Nay, keep it thyself," cried Gabriel to Ahab; "thou art soon going that +way." + +"Curses throttle thee!" yelled Ahab. "Captain Mayhew, stand by now to +receive it"; and taking the fatal missive from Starbuck's hands, he +caught it in the slit of the pole, and reached it over towards the boat. +But as he did so, the oarsmen expectantly desisted from rowing; the boat +drifted a little towards the ship's stern; so that, as if by magic, the +letter suddenly ranged along with Gabriel's eager hand. He clutched it +in an instant, seized the boat-knife, and impaling the letter on it, +sent it thus loaded back into the ship. It fell at Ahab's feet. Then +Gabriel shrieked out to his comrades to give way with their oars, and in +that manner the mutinous boat rapidly shot away from the Pequod. + +As, after this interlude, the seamen resumed their work upon the jacket +of the whale, many strange things were hinted in reference to this wild +affair. + + + +CHAPTER 72. The Monkey-Rope. + + +In the tumultuous business of cutting-in and attending to a whale, there +is much running backwards and forwards among the crew. Now hands are +wanted here, and then again hands are wanted there. There is no staying +in any one place; for at one and the same time everything has to be done +everywhere. It is much the same with him who endeavors the description +of the scene. We must now retrace our way a little. It was mentioned +that upon first breaking ground in the whale's back, the blubber-hook +was inserted into the original hole there cut by the spades of the +mates. But how did so clumsy and weighty a mass as that same hook +get fixed in that hole? It was inserted there by my particular friend +Queequeg, whose duty it was, as harpooneer, to descend upon the +monster's back for the special purpose referred to. But in very many +cases, circumstances require that the harpooneer shall remain on the +whale till the whole flensing or stripping operation is concluded. The +whale, be it observed, lies almost entirely submerged, excepting the +immediate parts operated upon. So down there, some ten feet below the +level of the deck, the poor harpooneer flounders about, half on the +whale and half in the water, as the vast mass revolves like a tread-mill +beneath him. On the occasion in question, Queequeg figured in the +Highland costume--a shirt and socks--in which to my eyes, at least, +he appeared to uncommon advantage; and no one had a better chance to +observe him, as will presently be seen. + +Being the savage's bowsman, that is, the person who pulled the bow-oar +in his boat (the second one from forward), it was my cheerful duty to +attend upon him while taking that hard-scrabble scramble upon the dead +whale's back. You have seen Italian organ-boys holding a dancing-ape by +a long cord. Just so, from the ship's steep side, did I hold Queequeg +down there in the sea, by what is technically called in the fishery +a monkey-rope, attached to a strong strip of canvas belted round his +waist. + +It was a humorously perilous business for both of us. For, before we +proceed further, it must be said that the monkey-rope was fast at +both ends; fast to Queequeg's broad canvas belt, and fast to my narrow +leather one. So that for better or for worse, we two, for the time, were +wedded; and should poor Queequeg sink to rise no more, then both usage +and honour demanded, that instead of cutting the cord, it should drag +me down in his wake. So, then, an elongated Siamese ligature united us. +Queequeg was my own inseparable twin brother; nor could I any way get +rid of the dangerous liabilities which the hempen bond entailed. + +So strongly and metaphysically did I conceive of my situation then, that +while earnestly watching his motions, I seemed distinctly to perceive +that my own individuality was now merged in a joint stock company of +two; that my free will had received a mortal wound; and that another's +mistake or misfortune might plunge innocent me into unmerited disaster +and death. Therefore, I saw that here was a sort of interregnum in +Providence; for its even-handed equity never could have so gross an +injustice. And yet still further pondering--while I jerked him now +and then from between the whale and ship, which would threaten to jam +him--still further pondering, I say, I saw that this situation of mine +was the precise situation of every mortal that breathes; only, in most +cases, he, one way or other, has this Siamese connexion with a plurality +of other mortals. If your banker breaks, you snap; if your apothecary by +mistake sends you poison in your pills, you die. True, you may say +that, by exceeding caution, you may possibly escape these and the +multitudinous other evil chances of life. But handle Queequeg's +monkey-rope heedfully as I would, sometimes he jerked it so, that I came +very near sliding overboard. Nor could I possibly forget that, do what I +would, I only had the management of one end of it.* + + +*The monkey-rope is found in all whalers; but it was only in the Pequod +that the monkey and his holder were ever tied together. This improvement +upon the original usage was introduced by no less a man than Stubb, +in order to afford the imperilled harpooneer the strongest possible +guarantee for the faithfulness and vigilance of his monkey-rope holder. + + +I have hinted that I would often jerk poor Queequeg from between the +whale and the ship--where he would occasionally fall, from the incessant +rolling and swaying of both. But this was not the only jamming jeopardy +he was exposed to. Unappalled by the massacre made upon them during the +night, the sharks now freshly and more keenly allured by the before pent +blood which began to flow from the carcass--the rabid creatures swarmed +round it like bees in a beehive. + +And right in among those sharks was Queequeg; who often pushed them +aside with his floundering feet. A thing altogether incredible were +it not that attracted by such prey as a dead whale, the otherwise +miscellaneously carnivorous shark will seldom touch a man. + +Nevertheless, it may well be believed that since they have such a +ravenous finger in the pie, it is deemed but wise to look sharp to them. +Accordingly, besides the monkey-rope, with which I now and then jerked +the poor fellow from too close a vicinity to the maw of what seemed +a peculiarly ferocious shark--he was provided with still another +protection. Suspended over the side in one of the stages, Tashtego +and Daggoo continually flourished over his head a couple of keen +whale-spades, wherewith they slaughtered as many sharks as they could +reach. This procedure of theirs, to be sure, was very disinterested and +benevolent of them. They meant Queequeg's best happiness, I admit; but +in their hasty zeal to befriend him, and from the circumstance that both +he and the sharks were at times half hidden by the blood-muddled water, +those indiscreet spades of theirs would come nearer amputating a leg +than a tail. But poor Queequeg, I suppose, straining and gasping there +with that great iron hook--poor Queequeg, I suppose, only prayed to his +Yojo, and gave up his life into the hands of his gods. + +Well, well, my dear comrade and twin-brother, thought I, as I drew in +and then slacked off the rope to every swell of the sea--what matters +it, after all? Are you not the precious image of each and all of us men +in this whaling world? That unsounded ocean you gasp in, is Life; those +sharks, your foes; those spades, your friends; and what between sharks +and spades you are in a sad pickle and peril, poor lad. + +But courage! there is good cheer in store for you, Queequeg. For now, as +with blue lips and blood-shot eyes the exhausted savage at last climbs +up the chains and stands all dripping and involuntarily trembling over +the side; the steward advances, and with a benevolent, consolatory +glance hands him--what? Some hot Cognac? No! hands him, ye gods! hands +him a cup of tepid ginger and water! + +"Ginger? Do I smell ginger?" suspiciously asked Stubb, coming near. +"Yes, this must be ginger," peering into the as yet untasted cup. Then +standing as if incredulous for a while, he calmly walked towards the +astonished steward slowly saying, "Ginger? ginger? and will you have +the goodness to tell me, Mr. Dough-Boy, where lies the virtue of ginger? +Ginger! is ginger the sort of fuel you use, Dough-boy, to kindle a fire +in this shivering cannibal? Ginger!--what the devil is ginger? +Sea-coal? firewood?--lucifer matches?--tinder?--gunpowder?--what the +devil is ginger, I say, that you offer this cup to our poor Queequeg +here." + +"There is some sneaking Temperance Society movement about this +business," he suddenly added, now approaching Starbuck, who had just +come from forward. "Will you look at that kannakin, sir; smell of it, +if you please." Then watching the mate's countenance, he added, "The +steward, Mr. Starbuck, had the face to offer that calomel and jalap +to Queequeg, there, this instant off the whale. Is the steward an +apothecary, sir? and may I ask whether this is the sort of bitters by +which he blows back the life into a half-drowned man?" + +"I trust not," said Starbuck, "it is poor stuff enough." + +"Aye, aye, steward," cried Stubb, "we'll teach you to drug a +harpooneer; none of your apothecary's medicine here; you want to poison +us, do ye? You have got out insurances on our lives and want to murder +us all, and pocket the proceeds, do ye?" + +"It was not me," cried Dough-Boy, "it was Aunt Charity that brought the +ginger on board; and bade me never give the harpooneers any spirits, but +only this ginger-jub--so she called it." + +"Ginger-jub! you gingerly rascal! take that! and run along with ye +to the lockers, and get something better. I hope I do no wrong, Mr. +Starbuck. It is the captain's orders--grog for the harpooneer on a +whale." + +"Enough," replied Starbuck, "only don't hit him again, but--" + +"Oh, I never hurt when I hit, except when I hit a whale or something of +that sort; and this fellow's a weazel. What were you about saying, sir?" + +"Only this: go down with him, and get what thou wantest thyself." + +When Stubb reappeared, he came with a dark flask in one hand, and a sort +of tea-caddy in the other. The first contained strong spirits, and was +handed to Queequeg; the second was Aunt Charity's gift, and that was +freely given to the waves. + + + +CHAPTER 73. Stubb and Flask Kill a Right Whale; and Then Have a Talk +Over Him. + + +It must be borne in mind that all this time we have a Sperm Whale's +prodigious head hanging to the Pequod's side. But we must let it +continue hanging there a while till we can get a chance to attend to it. +For the present other matters press, and the best we can do now for the +head, is to pray heaven the tackles may hold. + +Now, during the past night and forenoon, the Pequod had gradually +drifted into a sea, which, by its occasional patches of yellow brit, +gave unusual tokens of the vicinity of Right Whales, a species of the +Leviathan that but few supposed to be at this particular time lurking +anywhere near. And though all hands commonly disdained the capture of +those inferior creatures; and though the Pequod was not commissioned to +cruise for them at all, and though she had passed numbers of them near +the Crozetts without lowering a boat; yet now that a Sperm Whale +had been brought alongside and beheaded, to the surprise of all, the +announcement was made that a Right Whale should be captured that day, if +opportunity offered. + +Nor was this long wanting. Tall spouts were seen to leeward; and two +boats, Stubb's and Flask's, were detached in pursuit. Pulling further +and further away, they at last became almost invisible to the men at +the mast-head. But suddenly in the distance, they saw a great heap of +tumultuous white water, and soon after news came from aloft that one or +both the boats must be fast. An interval passed and the boats were in +plain sight, in the act of being dragged right towards the ship by the +towing whale. So close did the monster come to the hull, that at +first it seemed as if he meant it malice; but suddenly going down in a +maelstrom, within three rods of the planks, he wholly disappeared from +view, as if diving under the keel. "Cut, cut!" was the cry from the +ship to the boats, which, for one instant, seemed on the point of being +brought with a deadly dash against the vessel's side. But having plenty +of line yet in the tubs, and the whale not sounding very rapidly, they +paid out abundance of rope, and at the same time pulled with all their +might so as to get ahead of the ship. For a few minutes the struggle was +intensely critical; for while they still slacked out the tightened line +in one direction, and still plied their oars in another, the contending +strain threatened to take them under. But it was only a few feet advance +they sought to gain. And they stuck to it till they did gain it; when +instantly, a swift tremor was felt running like lightning along the +keel, as the strained line, scraping beneath the ship, suddenly rose +to view under her bows, snapping and quivering; and so flinging off its +drippings, that the drops fell like bits of broken glass on the water, +while the whale beyond also rose to sight, and once more the boats were +free to fly. But the fagged whale abated his speed, and blindly altering +his course, went round the stern of the ship towing the two boats after +him, so that they performed a complete circuit. + +Meantime, they hauled more and more upon their lines, till close +flanking him on both sides, Stubb answered Flask with lance for +lance; and thus round and round the Pequod the battle went, while the +multitudes of sharks that had before swum round the Sperm Whale's body, +rushed to the fresh blood that was spilled, thirstily drinking at every +new gash, as the eager Israelites did at the new bursting fountains that +poured from the smitten rock. + +At last his spout grew thick, and with a frightful roll and vomit, he +turned upon his back a corpse. + +While the two headsmen were engaged in making fast cords to his flukes, +and in other ways getting the mass in readiness for towing, some +conversation ensued between them. + +"I wonder what the old man wants with this lump of foul lard," said +Stubb, not without some disgust at the thought of having to do with so +ignoble a leviathan. + +"Wants with it?" said Flask, coiling some spare line in the boat's bow, +"did you never hear that the ship which but once has a Sperm Whale's +head hoisted on her starboard side, and at the same time a Right Whale's +on the larboard; did you never hear, Stubb, that that ship can never +afterwards capsize?" + +"Why not? + +"I don't know, but I heard that gamboge ghost of a Fedallah saying so, +and he seems to know all about ships' charms. But I sometimes think +he'll charm the ship to no good at last. I don't half like that chap, +Stubb. Did you ever notice how that tusk of his is a sort of carved into +a snake's head, Stubb?" + +"Sink him! I never look at him at all; but if ever I get a chance of a +dark night, and he standing hard by the bulwarks, and no one by; look +down there, Flask"--pointing into the sea with a peculiar motion of +both hands--"Aye, will I! Flask, I take that Fedallah to be the devil in +disguise. Do you believe that cock and bull story about his having been +stowed away on board ship? He's the devil, I say. The reason why you +don't see his tail, is because he tucks it up out of sight; he carries +it coiled away in his pocket, I guess. Blast him! now that I think of +it, he's always wanting oakum to stuff into the toes of his boots." + +"He sleeps in his boots, don't he? He hasn't got any hammock; but I've +seen him lay of nights in a coil of rigging." + +"No doubt, and it's because of his cursed tail; he coils it down, do ye +see, in the eye of the rigging." + +"What's the old man have so much to do with him for?" + +"Striking up a swap or a bargain, I suppose." + +"Bargain?--about what?" + +"Why, do ye see, the old man is hard bent after that White Whale, and +the devil there is trying to come round him, and get him to swap away +his silver watch, or his soul, or something of that sort, and then he'll +surrender Moby Dick." + +"Pooh! Stubb, you are skylarking; how can Fedallah do that?" + +"I don't know, Flask, but the devil is a curious chap, and a wicked +one, I tell ye. Why, they say as how he went a sauntering into the +old flag-ship once, switching his tail about devilish easy and +gentlemanlike, and inquiring if the old governor was at home. Well, he +was at home, and asked the devil what he wanted. The devil, switching +his hoofs, up and says, 'I want John.' 'What for?' says the old +governor. 'What business is that of yours,' says the devil, getting +mad,--'I want to use him.' 'Take him,' says the governor--and by the +Lord, Flask, if the devil didn't give John the Asiatic cholera before +he got through with him, I'll eat this whale in one mouthful. But look +sharp--ain't you all ready there? Well, then, pull ahead, and let's get +the whale alongside." + +"I think I remember some such story as you were telling," said Flask, +when at last the two boats were slowly advancing with their burden +towards the ship, "but I can't remember where." + +"Three Spaniards? Adventures of those three bloody-minded soladoes? Did +ye read it there, Flask? I guess ye did?" + +"No: never saw such a book; heard of it, though. But now, tell me, +Stubb, do you suppose that that devil you was speaking of just now, was +the same you say is now on board the Pequod?" + +"Am I the same man that helped kill this whale? Doesn't the devil live +for ever; who ever heard that the devil was dead? Did you ever see +any parson a wearing mourning for the devil? And if the devil has a +latch-key to get into the admiral's cabin, don't you suppose he can +crawl into a porthole? Tell me that, Mr. Flask?" + +"How old do you suppose Fedallah is, Stubb?" + +"Do you see that mainmast there?" pointing to the ship; "well, that's +the figure one; now take all the hoops in the Pequod's hold, and string +along in a row with that mast, for oughts, do you see; well, that +wouldn't begin to be Fedallah's age. Nor all the coopers in creation +couldn't show hoops enough to make oughts enough." + +"But see here, Stubb, I thought you a little boasted just now, that you +meant to give Fedallah a sea-toss, if you got a good chance. Now, if +he's so old as all those hoops of yours come to, and if he is going +to live for ever, what good will it do to pitch him overboard--tell me +that? + +"Give him a good ducking, anyhow." + +"But he'd crawl back." + +"Duck him again; and keep ducking him." + +"Suppose he should take it into his head to duck you, though--yes, and +drown you--what then?" + +"I should like to see him try it; I'd give him such a pair of black eyes +that he wouldn't dare to show his face in the admiral's cabin again for +a long while, let alone down in the orlop there, where he lives, and +hereabouts on the upper decks where he sneaks so much. Damn the devil, +Flask; so you suppose I'm afraid of the devil? Who's afraid of +him, except the old governor who daresn't catch him and put him in +double-darbies, as he deserves, but lets him go about kidnapping +people; aye, and signed a bond with him, that all the people the devil +kidnapped, he'd roast for him? There's a governor!" + +"Do you suppose Fedallah wants to kidnap Captain Ahab?" + +"Do I suppose it? You'll know it before long, Flask. But I am going now +to keep a sharp look-out on him; and if I see anything very suspicious +going on, I'll just take him by the nape of his neck, and say--Look +here, Beelzebub, you don't do it; and if he makes any fuss, by the Lord +I'll make a grab into his pocket for his tail, take it to the capstan, +and give him such a wrenching and heaving, that his tail will come short +off at the stump--do you see; and then, I rather guess when he finds +himself docked in that queer fashion, he'll sneak off without the poor +satisfaction of feeling his tail between his legs." + +"And what will you do with the tail, Stubb?" + +"Do with it? Sell it for an ox whip when we get home;--what else?" + +"Now, do you mean what you say, and have been saying all along, Stubb?" + +"Mean or not mean, here we are at the ship." + +The boats were here hailed, to tow the whale on the larboard side, where +fluke chains and other necessaries were already prepared for securing +him. + +"Didn't I tell you so?" said Flask; "yes, you'll soon see this right +whale's head hoisted up opposite that parmacetti's." + +In good time, Flask's saying proved true. As before, the Pequod steeply +leaned over towards the sperm whale's head, now, by the counterpoise of +both heads, she regained her even keel; though sorely strained, you may +well believe. So, when on one side you hoist in Locke's head, you go +over that way; but now, on the other side, hoist in Kant's and you come +back again; but in very poor plight. Thus, some minds for ever keep +trimming boat. Oh, ye foolish! throw all these thunder-heads overboard, +and then you will float light and right. + +In disposing of the body of a right whale, when brought alongside the +ship, the same preliminary proceedings commonly take place as in the +case of a sperm whale; only, in the latter instance, the head is cut off +whole, but in the former the lips and tongue are separately removed and +hoisted on deck, with all the well known black bone attached to what is +called the crown-piece. But nothing like this, in the present case, +had been done. The carcases of both whales had dropped astern; and +the head-laden ship not a little resembled a mule carrying a pair of +overburdening panniers. + +Meantime, Fedallah was calmly eyeing the right whale's head, and ever +and anon glancing from the deep wrinkles there to the lines in his own +hand. And Ahab chanced so to stand, that the Parsee occupied his shadow; +while, if the Parsee's shadow was there at all it seemed only to +blend with, and lengthen Ahab's. As the crew toiled on, Laplandish +speculations were bandied among them, concerning all these passing +things. + + + +CHAPTER 74. The Sperm Whale's Head--Contrasted View. + + +Here, now, are two great whales, laying their heads together; let us +join them, and lay together our own. + +Of the grand order of folio leviathans, the Sperm Whale and the Right +Whale are by far the most noteworthy. They are the only whales regularly +hunted by man. To the Nantucketer, they present the two extremes of all +the known varieties of the whale. As the external difference between +them is mainly observable in their heads; and as a head of each is this +moment hanging from the Pequod's side; and as we may freely go from one +to the other, by merely stepping across the deck:--where, I should like +to know, will you obtain a better chance to study practical cetology +than here? + +In the first place, you are struck by the general contrast between these +heads. Both are massive enough in all conscience; but there is a certain +mathematical symmetry in the Sperm Whale's which the Right Whale's sadly +lacks. There is more character in the Sperm Whale's head. As you behold +it, you involuntarily yield the immense superiority to him, in point +of pervading dignity. In the present instance, too, this dignity is +heightened by the pepper and salt colour of his head at the summit, +giving token of advanced age and large experience. In short, he is what +the fishermen technically call a "grey-headed whale." + +Let us now note what is least dissimilar in these heads--namely, the two +most important organs, the eye and the ear. Far back on the side of +the head, and low down, near the angle of either whale's jaw, if you +narrowly search, you will at last see a lashless eye, which you would +fancy to be a young colt's eye; so out of all proportion is it to the +magnitude of the head. + +Now, from this peculiar sideway position of the whale's eyes, it is +plain that he can never see an object which is exactly ahead, no more +than he can one exactly astern. In a word, the position of the whale's +eyes corresponds to that of a man's ears; and you may fancy, for +yourself, how it would fare with you, did you sideways survey objects +through your ears. You would find that you could only command some +thirty degrees of vision in advance of the straight side-line of sight; +and about thirty more behind it. If your bitterest foe were walking +straight towards you, with dagger uplifted in broad day, you would not +be able to see him, any more than if he were stealing upon you from +behind. In a word, you would have two backs, so to speak; but, at the +same time, also, two fronts (side fronts): for what is it that makes the +front of a man--what, indeed, but his eyes? + +Moreover, while in most other animals that I can now think of, the eyes +are so planted as imperceptibly to blend their visual power, so as to +produce one picture and not two to the brain; the peculiar position of +the whale's eyes, effectually divided as they are by many cubic feet of +solid head, which towers between them like a great mountain separating +two lakes in valleys; this, of course, must wholly separate the +impressions which each independent organ imparts. The whale, therefore, +must see one distinct picture on this side, and another distinct +picture on that side; while all between must be profound darkness and +nothingness to him. Man may, in effect, be said to look out on the world +from a sentry-box with two joined sashes for his window. But with the +whale, these two sashes are separately inserted, making two distinct +windows, but sadly impairing the view. This peculiarity of the whale's +eyes is a thing always to be borne in mind in the fishery; and to be +remembered by the reader in some subsequent scenes. + +A curious and most puzzling question might be started concerning this +visual matter as touching the Leviathan. But I must be content with a +hint. So long as a man's eyes are open in the light, the act of seeing +is involuntary; that is, he cannot then help mechanically seeing +whatever objects are before him. Nevertheless, any one's experience +will teach him, that though he can take in an undiscriminating sweep of +things at one glance, it is quite impossible for him, attentively, +and completely, to examine any two things--however large or however +small--at one and the same instant of time; never mind if they lie side +by side and touch each other. But if you now come to separate these two +objects, and surround each by a circle of profound darkness; then, in +order to see one of them, in such a manner as to bring your mind to +bear on it, the other will be utterly excluded from your contemporary +consciousness. How is it, then, with the whale? True, both his eyes, +in themselves, must simultaneously act; but is his brain so much more +comprehensive, combining, and subtle than man's, that he can at the same +moment of time attentively examine two distinct prospects, one on one +side of him, and the other in an exactly opposite direction? If he +can, then is it as marvellous a thing in him, as if a man were able +simultaneously to go through the demonstrations of two distinct problems +in Euclid. Nor, strictly investigated, is there any incongruity in this +comparison. + +It may be but an idle whim, but it has always seemed to me, that the +extraordinary vacillations of movement displayed by some whales when +beset by three or four boats; the timidity and liability to queer +frights, so common to such whales; I think that all this indirectly +proceeds from the helpless perplexity of volition, in which their +divided and diametrically opposite powers of vision must involve them. + +But the ear of the whale is full as curious as the eye. If you are an +entire stranger to their race, you might hunt over these two heads +for hours, and never discover that organ. The ear has no external leaf +whatever; and into the hole itself you can hardly insert a quill, so +wondrously minute is it. It is lodged a little behind the eye. With +respect to their ears, this important difference is to be observed +between the sperm whale and the right. While the ear of the former has +an external opening, that of the latter is entirely and evenly covered +over with a membrane, so as to be quite imperceptible from without. + +Is it not curious, that so vast a being as the whale should see the +world through so small an eye, and hear the thunder through an ear which +is smaller than a hare's? But if his eyes were broad as the lens of +Herschel's great telescope; and his ears capacious as the porches of +cathedrals; would that make him any longer of sight, or sharper of +hearing? Not at all.--Why then do you try to "enlarge" your mind? +Subtilize it. + +Let us now with whatever levers and steam-engines we have at hand, cant +over the sperm whale's head, that it may lie bottom up; then, ascending +by a ladder to the summit, have a peep down the mouth; and were it not +that the body is now completely separated from it, with a lantern we +might descend into the great Kentucky Mammoth Cave of his stomach. But +let us hold on here by this tooth, and look about us where we are. What +a really beautiful and chaste-looking mouth! from floor to ceiling, +lined, or rather papered with a glistening white membrane, glossy as +bridal satins. + +But come out now, and look at this portentous lower jaw, which seems +like the long narrow lid of an immense snuff-box, with the hinge at one +end, instead of one side. If you pry it up, so as to get it overhead, +and expose its rows of teeth, it seems a terrific portcullis; and such, +alas! it proves to many a poor wight in the fishery, upon whom these +spikes fall with impaling force. But far more terrible is it to behold, +when fathoms down in the sea, you see some sulky whale, floating there +suspended, with his prodigious jaw, some fifteen feet long, hanging +straight down at right-angles with his body, for all the world like a +ship's jib-boom. This whale is not dead; he is only dispirited; out of +sorts, perhaps; hypochondriac; and so supine, that the hinges of his +jaw have relaxed, leaving him there in that ungainly sort of plight, a +reproach to all his tribe, who must, no doubt, imprecate lock-jaws upon +him. + +In most cases this lower jaw--being easily unhinged by a practised +artist--is disengaged and hoisted on deck for the purpose of extracting +the ivory teeth, and furnishing a supply of that hard white whalebone +with which the fishermen fashion all sorts of curious articles, +including canes, umbrella-stocks, and handles to riding-whips. + +With a long, weary hoist the jaw is dragged on board, as if it were an +anchor; and when the proper time comes--some few days after the other +work--Queequeg, Daggoo, and Tashtego, being all accomplished dentists, +are set to drawing teeth. With a keen cutting-spade, Queequeg lances +the gums; then the jaw is lashed down to ringbolts, and a tackle being +rigged from aloft, they drag out these teeth, as Michigan oxen drag +stumps of old oaks out of wild wood lands. There are generally forty-two +teeth in all; in old whales, much worn down, but undecayed; nor filled +after our artificial fashion. The jaw is afterwards sawn into slabs, and +piled away like joists for building houses. + + + +CHAPTER 75. The Right Whale's Head--Contrasted View. + + +Crossing the deck, let us now have a good long look at the Right Whale's +head. + +As in general shape the noble Sperm Whale's head may be compared to a +Roman war-chariot (especially in front, where it is so broadly rounded); +so, at a broad view, the Right Whale's head bears a rather inelegant +resemblance to a gigantic galliot-toed shoe. Two hundred years ago an +old Dutch voyager likened its shape to that of a shoemaker's last. And +in this same last or shoe, that old woman of the nursery tale, with +the swarming brood, might very comfortably be lodged, she and all her +progeny. + +But as you come nearer to this great head it begins to assume different +aspects, according to your point of view. If you stand on its summit and +look at these two F-shaped spoutholes, you would take the whole head +for an enormous bass-viol, and these spiracles, the apertures in its +sounding-board. Then, again, if you fix your eye upon this strange, +crested, comb-like incrustation on the top of the mass--this green, +barnacled thing, which the Greenlanders call the "crown," and the +Southern fishers the "bonnet" of the Right Whale; fixing your eyes +solely on this, you would take the head for the trunk of some huge oak, +with a bird's nest in its crotch. At any rate, when you watch those live +crabs that nestle here on this bonnet, such an idea will be almost +sure to occur to you; unless, indeed, your fancy has been fixed by the +technical term "crown" also bestowed upon it; in which case you will +take great interest in thinking how this mighty monster is actually a +diademed king of the sea, whose green crown has been put together for +him in this marvellous manner. But if this whale be a king, he is a very +sulky looking fellow to grace a diadem. Look at that hanging lower lip! +what a huge sulk and pout is there! a sulk and pout, by carpenter's +measurement, about twenty feet long and five feet deep; a sulk and pout +that will yield you some 500 gallons of oil and more. + +A great pity, now, that this unfortunate whale should be hare-lipped. +The fissure is about a foot across. Probably the mother during an +important interval was sailing down the Peruvian coast, when earthquakes +caused the beach to gape. Over this lip, as over a slippery threshold, +we now slide into the mouth. Upon my word were I at Mackinaw, I should +take this to be the inside of an Indian wigwam. Good Lord! is this the +road that Jonah went? The roof is about twelve feet high, and runs to a +pretty sharp angle, as if there were a regular ridge-pole there; while +these ribbed, arched, hairy sides, present us with those wondrous, half +vertical, scimetar-shaped slats of whalebone, say three hundred on a +side, which depending from the upper part of the head or crown +bone, form those Venetian blinds which have elsewhere been cursorily +mentioned. The edges of these bones are fringed with hairy fibres, +through which the Right Whale strains the water, and in whose +intricacies he retains the small fish, when openmouthed he goes through +the seas of brit in feeding time. In the central blinds of bone, as they +stand in their natural order, there are certain curious marks, curves, +hollows, and ridges, whereby some whalemen calculate the creature's age, +as the age of an oak by its circular rings. Though the certainty of this +criterion is far from demonstrable, yet it has the savor of analogical +probability. At any rate, if we yield to it, we must grant a far greater +age to the Right Whale than at first glance will seem reasonable. + +In old times, there seem to have prevailed the most curious fancies +concerning these blinds. One voyager in Purchas calls them the wondrous +"whiskers" inside of the whale's mouth;* another, "hogs' bristles"; a +third old gentleman in Hackluyt uses the following elegant language: +"There are about two hundred and fifty fins growing on each side of his +upper CHOP, which arch over his tongue on each side of his mouth." + + +*This reminds us that the Right Whale really has a sort of whisker, or +rather a moustache, consisting of a few scattered white hairs on the +upper part of the outer end of the lower jaw. Sometimes these +tufts impart a rather brigandish expression to his otherwise solemn +countenance. + + +As every one knows, these same "hogs' bristles," "fins," "whiskers," +"blinds," or whatever you please, furnish to the ladies their busks and +other stiffening contrivances. But in this particular, the demand has +long been on the decline. It was in Queen Anne's time that the bone was +in its glory, the farthingale being then all the fashion. And as those +ancient dames moved about gaily, though in the jaws of the whale, as +you may say; even so, in a shower, with the like thoughtlessness, do we +nowadays fly under the same jaws for protection; the umbrella being a +tent spread over the same bone. + +But now forget all about blinds and whiskers for a moment, and, standing +in the Right Whale's mouth, look around you afresh. Seeing all these +colonnades of bone so methodically ranged about, would you not think +you were inside of the great Haarlem organ, and gazing upon its +thousand pipes? For a carpet to the organ we have a rug of the softest +Turkey--the tongue, which is glued, as it were, to the floor of the +mouth. It is very fat and tender, and apt to tear in pieces in hoisting +it on deck. This particular tongue now before us; at a passing glance I +should say it was a six-barreler; that is, it will yield you about that +amount of oil. + +Ere this, you must have plainly seen the truth of what I started +with--that the Sperm Whale and the Right Whale have almost entirely +different heads. To sum up, then: in the Right Whale's there is no great +well of sperm; no ivory teeth at all; no long, slender mandible of a +lower jaw, like the Sperm Whale's. Nor in the Sperm Whale are there any +of those blinds of bone; no huge lower lip; and scarcely anything of a +tongue. Again, the Right Whale has two external spout-holes, the Sperm +Whale only one. + +Look your last, now, on these venerable hooded heads, while they yet lie +together; for one will soon sink, unrecorded, in the sea; the other will +not be very long in following. + +Can you catch the expression of the Sperm Whale's there? It is the same +he died with, only some of the longer wrinkles in the forehead seem +now faded away. I think his broad brow to be full of a prairie-like +placidity, born of a speculative indifference as to death. But mark the +other head's expression. See that amazing lower lip, pressed by accident +against the vessel's side, so as firmly to embrace the jaw. Does not +this whole head seem to speak of an enormous practical resolution in +facing death? This Right Whale I take to have been a Stoic; the Sperm +Whale, a Platonian, who might have taken up Spinoza in his latter years. + + + +CHAPTER 76. The Battering-Ram. + + +Ere quitting, for the nonce, the Sperm Whale's head, I would have +you, as a sensible physiologist, simply--particularly remark its front +aspect, in all its compacted collectedness. I would have you investigate +it now with the sole view of forming to yourself some unexaggerated, +intelligent estimate of whatever battering-ram power may be lodged +there. Here is a vital point; for you must either satisfactorily settle +this matter with yourself, or for ever remain an infidel as to one of +the most appalling, but not the less true events, perhaps anywhere to be +found in all recorded history. + +You observe that in the ordinary swimming position of the Sperm Whale, +the front of his head presents an almost wholly vertical plane to the +water; you observe that the lower part of that front slopes considerably +backwards, so as to furnish more of a retreat for the long socket which +receives the boom-like lower jaw; you observe that the mouth is entirely +under the head, much in the same way, indeed, as though your own mouth +were entirely under your chin. Moreover you observe that the whale has +no external nose; and that what nose he has--his spout hole--is on the +top of his head; you observe that his eyes and ears are at the sides +of his head, nearly one third of his entire length from the front. +Wherefore, you must now have perceived that the front of the Sperm +Whale's head is a dead, blind wall, without a single organ or tender +prominence of any sort whatsoever. Furthermore, you are now to consider +that only in the extreme, lower, backward sloping part of the front of +the head, is there the slightest vestige of bone; and not till you +get near twenty feet from the forehead do you come to the full cranial +development. So that this whole enormous boneless mass is as one wad. +Finally, though, as will soon be revealed, its contents partly comprise +the most delicate oil; yet, you are now to be apprised of the nature of +the substance which so impregnably invests all that apparent effeminacy. +In some previous place I have described to you how the blubber wraps the +body of the whale, as the rind wraps an orange. Just so with the head; +but with this difference: about the head this envelope, though not so +thick, is of a boneless toughness, inestimable by any man who has not +handled it. The severest pointed harpoon, the sharpest lance darted by +the strongest human arm, impotently rebounds from it. It is as though +the forehead of the Sperm Whale were paved with horses' hoofs. I do not +think that any sensation lurks in it. + +Bethink yourself also of another thing. When two large, loaded Indiamen +chance to crowd and crush towards each other in the docks, what do the +sailors do? They do not suspend between them, at the point of coming +contact, any merely hard substance, like iron or wood. No, they hold +there a large, round wad of tow and cork, enveloped in the thickest +and toughest of ox-hide. That bravely and uninjured takes the jam which +would have snapped all their oaken handspikes and iron crow-bars. By +itself this sufficiently illustrates the obvious fact I drive at. But +supplementary to this, it has hypothetically occurred to me, that +as ordinary fish possess what is called a swimming bladder in them, +capable, at will, of distension or contraction; and as the Sperm Whale, +as far as I know, has no such provision in him; considering, too, +the otherwise inexplicable manner in which he now depresses his head +altogether beneath the surface, and anon swims with it high elevated out +of the water; considering the unobstructed elasticity of its envelope; +considering the unique interior of his head; it has hypothetically +occurred to me, I say, that those mystical lung-celled honeycombs there +may possibly have some hitherto unknown and unsuspected connexion with +the outer air, so as to be susceptible to atmospheric distension and +contraction. If this be so, fancy the irresistibleness of that might, to +which the most impalpable and destructive of all elements contributes. + +Now, mark. Unerringly impelling this dead, impregnable, uninjurable +wall, and this most buoyant thing within; there swims behind it all a +mass of tremendous life, only to be adequately estimated as piled wood +is--by the cord; and all obedient to one volition, as the smallest +insect. So that when I shall hereafter detail to you all the +specialities and concentrations of potency everywhere lurking in this +expansive monster; when I shall show you some of his more inconsiderable +braining feats; I trust you will have renounced all ignorant +incredulity, and be ready to abide by this; that though the Sperm Whale +stove a passage through the Isthmus of Darien, and mixed the Atlantic +with the Pacific, you would not elevate one hair of your eye-brow. For +unless you own the whale, you are but a provincial and sentimentalist +in Truth. But clear Truth is a thing for salamander giants only to +encounter; how small the chances for the provincials then? What befell +the weakling youth lifting the dread goddess's veil at Lais? + + + +CHAPTER 77. The Great Heidelburgh Tun. + + +Now comes the Baling of the Case. But to comprehend it aright, you must +know something of the curious internal structure of the thing operated +upon. + +Regarding the Sperm Whale's head as a solid oblong, you may, on an +inclined plane, sideways divide it into two quoins,* whereof the lower +is the bony structure, forming the cranium and jaws, and the upper an +unctuous mass wholly free from bones; its broad forward end forming the +expanded vertical apparent forehead of the whale. At the middle of the +forehead horizontally subdivide this upper quoin, and then you have two +almost equal parts, which before were naturally divided by an internal +wall of a thick tendinous substance. + + +*Quoin is not a Euclidean term. It belongs to the pure nautical +mathematics. I know not that it has been defined before. A quoin is a +solid which differs from a wedge in having its sharp end formed by the +steep inclination of one side, instead of the mutual tapering of both +sides. + + +The lower subdivided part, called the junk, is one immense honeycomb +of oil, formed by the crossing and recrossing, into ten thousand +infiltrated cells, of tough elastic white fibres throughout its whole +extent. The upper part, known as the Case, may be regarded as the great +Heidelburgh Tun of the Sperm Whale. And as that famous great tierce is +mystically carved in front, so the whale's vast plaited forehead forms +innumerable strange devices for the emblematical adornment of his +wondrous tun. Moreover, as that of Heidelburgh was always replenished +with the most excellent of the wines of the Rhenish valleys, so the tun +of the whale contains by far the most precious of all his oily vintages; +namely, the highly-prized spermaceti, in its absolutely pure, limpid, +and odoriferous state. Nor is this precious substance found unalloyed +in any other part of the creature. Though in life it remains perfectly +fluid, yet, upon exposure to the air, after death, it soon begins to +concrete; sending forth beautiful crystalline shoots, as when the +first thin delicate ice is just forming in water. A large whale's +case generally yields about five hundred gallons of sperm, though from +unavoidable circumstances, considerable of it is spilled, leaks, and +dribbles away, or is otherwise irrevocably lost in the ticklish business +of securing what you can. + +I know not with what fine and costly material the Heidelburgh Tun +was coated within, but in superlative richness that coating could not +possibly have compared with the silken pearl-coloured membrane, like the +lining of a fine pelisse, forming the inner surface of the Sperm Whale's +case. + +It will have been seen that the Heidelburgh Tun of the Sperm Whale +embraces the entire length of the entire top of the head; and since--as +has been elsewhere set forth--the head embraces one third of the whole +length of the creature, then setting that length down at eighty feet for +a good sized whale, you have more than twenty-six feet for the depth +of the tun, when it is lengthwise hoisted up and down against a ship's +side. + +As in decapitating the whale, the operator's instrument is brought close +to the spot where an entrance is subsequently forced into the spermaceti +magazine; he has, therefore, to be uncommonly heedful, lest a careless, +untimely stroke should invade the sanctuary and wastingly let out its +invaluable contents. It is this decapitated end of the head, also, which +is at last elevated out of the water, and retained in that position by +the enormous cutting tackles, whose hempen combinations, on one side, +make quite a wilderness of ropes in that quarter. + +Thus much being said, attend now, I pray you, to that marvellous and--in +this particular instance--almost fatal operation whereby the Sperm +Whale's great Heidelburgh Tun is tapped. + + + +CHAPTER 78. Cistern and Buckets. + + +Nimble as a cat, Tashtego mounts aloft; and without altering his erect +posture, runs straight out upon the overhanging mainyard-arm, to the +part where it exactly projects over the hoisted Tun. He has carried +with him a light tackle called a whip, consisting of only two parts, +travelling through a single-sheaved block. Securing this block, so that +it hangs down from the yard-arm, he swings one end of the rope, till it +is caught and firmly held by a hand on deck. Then, hand-over-hand, down +the other part, the Indian drops through the air, till dexterously he +lands on the summit of the head. There--still high elevated above the +rest of the company, to whom he vivaciously cries--he seems some Turkish +Muezzin calling the good people to prayers from the top of a tower. A +short-handled sharp spade being sent up to him, he diligently searches +for the proper place to begin breaking into the Tun. In this business +he proceeds very heedfully, like a treasure-hunter in some old house, +sounding the walls to find where the gold is masoned in. By the time +this cautious search is over, a stout iron-bound bucket, precisely like +a well-bucket, has been attached to one end of the whip; while the other +end, being stretched across the deck, is there held by two or three +alert hands. These last now hoist the bucket within grasp of the Indian, +to whom another person has reached up a very long pole. Inserting this +pole into the bucket, Tashtego downward guides the bucket into the Tun, +till it entirely disappears; then giving the word to the seamen at the +whip, up comes the bucket again, all bubbling like a dairy-maid's pail +of new milk. Carefully lowered from its height, the full-freighted +vessel is caught by an appointed hand, and quickly emptied into a large +tub. Then remounting aloft, it again goes through the same round until +the deep cistern will yield no more. Towards the end, Tashtego has to +ram his long pole harder and harder, and deeper and deeper into the Tun, +until some twenty feet of the pole have gone down. + +Now, the people of the Pequod had been baling some time in this way; +several tubs had been filled with the fragrant sperm; when all at once a +queer accident happened. Whether it was that Tashtego, that wild Indian, +was so heedless and reckless as to let go for a moment his one-handed +hold on the great cabled tackles suspending the head; or whether the +place where he stood was so treacherous and oozy; or whether the Evil +One himself would have it to fall out so, without stating his particular +reasons; how it was exactly, there is no telling now; but, on a sudden, +as the eightieth or ninetieth bucket came suckingly up--my God! poor +Tashtego--like the twin reciprocating bucket in a veritable well, +dropped head-foremost down into this great Tun of Heidelburgh, and with +a horrible oily gurgling, went clean out of sight! + +"Man overboard!" cried Daggoo, who amid the general consternation first +came to his senses. "Swing the bucket this way!" and putting one foot +into it, so as the better to secure his slippery hand-hold on the whip +itself, the hoisters ran him high up to the top of the head, almost +before Tashtego could have reached its interior bottom. Meantime, +there was a terrible tumult. Looking over the side, they saw the before +lifeless head throbbing and heaving just below the surface of the sea, +as if that moment seized with some momentous idea; whereas it was only +the poor Indian unconsciously revealing by those struggles the perilous +depth to which he had sunk. + +At this instant, while Daggoo, on the summit of the head, was clearing +the whip--which had somehow got foul of the great cutting tackles--a +sharp cracking noise was heard; and to the unspeakable horror of all, +one of the two enormous hooks suspending the head tore out, and with +a vast vibration the enormous mass sideways swung, till the drunk ship +reeled and shook as if smitten by an iceberg. The one remaining hook, +upon which the entire strain now depended, seemed every instant to be +on the point of giving way; an event still more likely from the violent +motions of the head. + +"Come down, come down!" yelled the seamen to Daggoo, but with one hand +holding on to the heavy tackles, so that if the head should drop, he +would still remain suspended; the negro having cleared the foul line, +rammed down the bucket into the now collapsed well, meaning that the +buried harpooneer should grasp it, and so be hoisted out. + +"In heaven's name, man," cried Stubb, "are you ramming home a cartridge +there?--Avast! How will that help him; jamming that iron-bound bucket on +top of his head? Avast, will ye!" + +"Stand clear of the tackle!" cried a voice like the bursting of a +rocket. + +Almost in the same instant, with a thunder-boom, the enormous mass +dropped into the sea, like Niagara's Table-Rock into the whirlpool; the +suddenly relieved hull rolled away from it, to far down her glittering +copper; and all caught their breath, as half swinging--now over the +sailors' heads, and now over the water--Daggoo, through a thick mist of +spray, was dimly beheld clinging to the pendulous tackles, while poor, +buried-alive Tashtego was sinking utterly down to the bottom of the sea! +But hardly had the blinding vapour cleared away, when a naked figure +with a boarding-sword in his hand, was for one swift moment seen +hovering over the bulwarks. The next, a loud splash announced that my +brave Queequeg had dived to the rescue. One packed rush was made to the +side, and every eye counted every ripple, as moment followed moment, and +no sign of either the sinker or the diver could be seen. Some hands now +jumped into a boat alongside, and pushed a little off from the ship. + +"Ha! ha!" cried Daggoo, all at once, from his now quiet, swinging perch +overhead; and looking further off from the side, we saw an arm thrust +upright from the blue waves; a sight strange to see, as an arm thrust +forth from the grass over a grave. + +"Both! both!--it is both!"--cried Daggoo again with a joyful shout; and +soon after, Queequeg was seen boldly striking out with one hand, and +with the other clutching the long hair of the Indian. Drawn into the +waiting boat, they were quickly brought to the deck; but Tashtego was +long in coming to, and Queequeg did not look very brisk. + +Now, how had this noble rescue been accomplished? Why, diving after +the slowly descending head, Queequeg with his keen sword had made +side lunges near its bottom, so as to scuttle a large hole there; then +dropping his sword, had thrust his long arm far inwards and upwards, +and so hauled out poor Tash by the head. He averred, that upon first +thrusting in for him, a leg was presented; but well knowing that that +was not as it ought to be, and might occasion great trouble;--he had +thrust back the leg, and by a dexterous heave and toss, had wrought a +somerset upon the Indian; so that with the next trial, he came forth in +the good old way--head foremost. As for the great head itself, that was +doing as well as could be expected. + +And thus, through the courage and great skill in obstetrics of Queequeg, +the deliverance, or rather, delivery of Tashtego, was successfully +accomplished, in the teeth, too, of the most untoward and apparently +hopeless impediments; which is a lesson by no means to be forgotten. +Midwifery should be taught in the same course with fencing and boxing, +riding and rowing. + +I know that this queer adventure of the Gay-Header's will be sure to +seem incredible to some landsmen, though they themselves may have either +seen or heard of some one's falling into a cistern ashore; an accident +which not seldom happens, and with much less reason too than the +Indian's, considering the exceeding slipperiness of the curb of the +Sperm Whale's well. + +But, peradventure, it may be sagaciously urged, how is this? We thought +the tissued, infiltrated head of the Sperm Whale, was the lightest and +most corky part about him; and yet thou makest it sink in an element of +a far greater specific gravity than itself. We have thee there. Not at +all, but I have ye; for at the time poor Tash fell in, the case had been +nearly emptied of its lighter contents, leaving little but the dense +tendinous wall of the well--a double welded, hammered substance, as I +have before said, much heavier than the sea water, and a lump of which +sinks in it like lead almost. But the tendency to rapid sinking in this +substance was in the present instance materially counteracted by the +other parts of the head remaining undetached from it, so that it sank +very slowly and deliberately indeed, affording Queequeg a fair chance +for performing his agile obstetrics on the run, as you may say. Yes, it +was a running delivery, so it was. + +Now, had Tashtego perished in that head, it had been a very precious +perishing; smothered in the very whitest and daintiest of fragrant +spermaceti; coffined, hearsed, and tombed in the secret inner chamber +and sanctum sanctorum of the whale. Only one sweeter end can readily be +recalled--the delicious death of an Ohio honey-hunter, who seeking honey +in the crotch of a hollow tree, found such exceeding store of it, that +leaning too far over, it sucked him in, so that he died embalmed. +How many, think ye, have likewise fallen into Plato's honey head, and +sweetly perished there? + + + +CHAPTER 79. The Prairie. + + +To scan the lines of his face, or feel the bumps on the head of this +Leviathan; this is a thing which no Physiognomist or Phrenologist has as +yet undertaken. Such an enterprise would seem almost as hopeful as for +Lavater to have scrutinized the wrinkles on the Rock of Gibraltar, +or for Gall to have mounted a ladder and manipulated the Dome of the +Pantheon. Still, in that famous work of his, Lavater not only treats +of the various faces of men, but also attentively studies the faces +of horses, birds, serpents, and fish; and dwells in detail upon the +modifications of expression discernible therein. Nor have Gall and +his disciple Spurzheim failed to throw out some hints touching the +phrenological characteristics of other beings than man. Therefore, +though I am but ill qualified for a pioneer, in the application of these +two semi-sciences to the whale, I will do my endeavor. I try all things; +I achieve what I can. + +Physiognomically regarded, the Sperm Whale is an anomalous creature. +He has no proper nose. And since the nose is the central and most +conspicuous of the features; and since it perhaps most modifies and +finally controls their combined expression; hence it would seem that its +entire absence, as an external appendage, must very largely affect +the countenance of the whale. For as in landscape gardening, a spire, +cupola, monument, or tower of some sort, is deemed almost indispensable +to the completion of the scene; so no face can be physiognomically in +keeping without the elevated open-work belfry of the nose. Dash the nose +from Phidias's marble Jove, and what a sorry remainder! Nevertheless, +Leviathan is of so mighty a magnitude, all his proportions are so +stately, that the same deficiency which in the sculptured Jove were +hideous, in him is no blemish at all. Nay, it is an added grandeur. A +nose to the whale would have been impertinent. As on your physiognomical +voyage you sail round his vast head in your jolly-boat, your noble +conceptions of him are never insulted by the reflection that he has a +nose to be pulled. A pestilent conceit, which so often will insist upon +obtruding even when beholding the mightiest royal beadle on his throne. + +In some particulars, perhaps the most imposing physiognomical view to +be had of the Sperm Whale, is that of the full front of his head. This +aspect is sublime. + +In thought, a fine human brow is like the East when troubled with the +morning. In the repose of the pasture, the curled brow of the bull has a +touch of the grand in it. Pushing heavy cannon up mountain defiles, the +elephant's brow is majestic. Human or animal, the mystical brow is as +that great golden seal affixed by the German Emperors to their decrees. +It signifies--"God: done this day by my hand." But in most creatures, +nay in man himself, very often the brow is but a mere strip of alpine +land lying along the snow line. Few are the foreheads which like +Shakespeare's or Melancthon's rise so high, and descend so low, that the +eyes themselves seem clear, eternal, tideless mountain lakes; and all +above them in the forehead's wrinkles, you seem to track the antlered +thoughts descending there to drink, as the Highland hunters track the +snow prints of the deer. But in the great Sperm Whale, this high and +mighty god-like dignity inherent in the brow is so immensely amplified, +that gazing on it, in that full front view, you feel the Deity and the +dread powers more forcibly than in beholding any other object in living +nature. For you see no one point precisely; not one distinct feature is +revealed; no nose, eyes, ears, or mouth; no face; he has none, proper; +nothing but that one broad firmament of a forehead, pleated with +riddles; dumbly lowering with the doom of boats, and ships, and men. +Nor, in profile, does this wondrous brow diminish; though that way +viewed its grandeur does not domineer upon you so. In profile, you +plainly perceive that horizontal, semi-crescentic depression in the +forehead's middle, which, in man, is Lavater's mark of genius. + +But how? Genius in the Sperm Whale? Has the Sperm Whale ever written +a book, spoken a speech? No, his great genius is declared in his +doing nothing particular to prove it. It is moreover declared in his +pyramidical silence. And this reminds me that had the great Sperm Whale +been known to the young Orient World, he would have been deified by +their child-magian thoughts. They deified the crocodile of the Nile, +because the crocodile is tongueless; and the Sperm Whale has no +tongue, or at least it is so exceedingly small, as to be incapable of +protrusion. If hereafter any highly cultured, poetical nation shall lure +back to their birth-right, the merry May-day gods of old; and livingly +enthrone them again in the now egotistical sky; in the now unhaunted +hill; then be sure, exalted to Jove's high seat, the great Sperm Whale +shall lord it. + +Champollion deciphered the wrinkled granite hieroglyphics. But there is +no Champollion to decipher the Egypt of every man's and every being's +face. Physiognomy, like every other human science, is but a passing +fable. If then, Sir William Jones, who read in thirty languages, could +not read the simplest peasant's face in its profounder and more subtle +meanings, how may unlettered Ishmael hope to read the awful Chaldee of +the Sperm Whale's brow? I but put that brow before you. Read it if you +can. + + + +CHAPTER 80. The Nut. + + +If the Sperm Whale be physiognomically a Sphinx, to the phrenologist his +brain seems that geometrical circle which it is impossible to square. + +In the full-grown creature the skull will measure at least twenty feet +in length. Unhinge the lower jaw, and the side view of this skull is as +the side of a moderately inclined plane resting throughout on a level +base. But in life--as we have elsewhere seen--this inclined plane is +angularly filled up, and almost squared by the enormous superincumbent +mass of the junk and sperm. At the high end the skull forms a crater to +bed that part of the mass; while under the long floor of this crater--in +another cavity seldom exceeding ten inches in length and as many in +depth--reposes the mere handful of this monster's brain. The brain is at +least twenty feet from his apparent forehead in life; it is hidden +away behind its vast outworks, like the innermost citadel within the +amplified fortifications of Quebec. So like a choice casket is it +secreted in him, that I have known some whalemen who peremptorily deny +that the Sperm Whale has any other brain than that palpable semblance +of one formed by the cubic-yards of his sperm magazine. Lying in strange +folds, courses, and convolutions, to their apprehensions, it seems more +in keeping with the idea of his general might to regard that mystic part +of him as the seat of his intelligence. + +It is plain, then, that phrenologically the head of this Leviathan, in +the creature's living intact state, is an entire delusion. As for his +true brain, you can then see no indications of it, nor feel any. The +whale, like all things that are mighty, wears a false brow to the common +world. + +If you unload his skull of its spermy heaps and then take a rear view +of its rear end, which is the high end, you will be struck by its +resemblance to the human skull, beheld in the same situation, and from +the same point of view. Indeed, place this reversed skull (scaled down +to the human magnitude) among a plate of men's skulls, and you would +involuntarily confound it with them; and remarking the depressions on +one part of its summit, in phrenological phrase you would say--This +man had no self-esteem, and no veneration. And by those negations, +considered along with the affirmative fact of his prodigious bulk and +power, you can best form to yourself the truest, though not the most +exhilarating conception of what the most exalted potency is. + +But if from the comparative dimensions of the whale's proper brain, you +deem it incapable of being adequately charted, then I have another idea +for you. If you attentively regard almost any quadruped's spine, +you will be struck with the resemblance of its vertebrae to a strung +necklace of dwarfed skulls, all bearing rudimental resemblance to the +skull proper. It is a German conceit, that the vertebrae are absolutely +undeveloped skulls. But the curious external resemblance, I take it +the Germans were not the first men to perceive. A foreign friend once +pointed it out to me, in the skeleton of a foe he had slain, and with +the vertebrae of which he was inlaying, in a sort of basso-relievo, the +beaked prow of his canoe. Now, I consider that the phrenologists have +omitted an important thing in not pushing their investigations from the +cerebellum through the spinal canal. For I believe that much of a man's +character will be found betokened in his backbone. I would rather feel +your spine than your skull, whoever you are. A thin joist of a spine +never yet upheld a full and noble soul. I rejoice in my spine, as in the +firm audacious staff of that flag which I fling half out to the world. + +Apply this spinal branch of phrenology to the Sperm Whale. His cranial +cavity is continuous with the first neck-vertebra; and in that vertebra +the bottom of the spinal canal will measure ten inches across, being +eight in height, and of a triangular figure with the base downwards. As +it passes through the remaining vertebrae the canal tapers in size, but +for a considerable distance remains of large capacity. Now, of course, +this canal is filled with much the same strangely fibrous substance--the +spinal cord--as the brain; and directly communicates with the brain. +And what is still more, for many feet after emerging from the brain's +cavity, the spinal cord remains of an undecreasing girth, almost +equal to that of the brain. Under all these circumstances, would it be +unreasonable to survey and map out the whale's spine phrenologically? +For, viewed in this light, the wonderful comparative smallness of his +brain proper is more than compensated by the wonderful comparative +magnitude of his spinal cord. + +But leaving this hint to operate as it may with the phrenologists, I +would merely assume the spinal theory for a moment, in reference to the +Sperm Whale's hump. This august hump, if I mistake not, rises over one +of the larger vertebrae, and is, therefore, in some sort, the outer +convex mould of it. From its relative situation then, I should call this +high hump the organ of firmness or indomitableness in the Sperm Whale. +And that the great monster is indomitable, you will yet have reason to +know. + + + +CHAPTER 81. The Pequod Meets The Virgin. + + +The predestinated day arrived, and we duly met the ship Jungfrau, Derick +De Deer, master, of Bremen. + +At one time the greatest whaling people in the world, the Dutch and +Germans are now among the least; but here and there at very wide +intervals of latitude and longitude, you still occasionally meet with +their flag in the Pacific. + +For some reason, the Jungfrau seemed quite eager to pay her respects. +While yet some distance from the Pequod, she rounded to, and dropping a +boat, her captain was impelled towards us, impatiently standing in the +bows instead of the stern. + +"What has he in his hand there?" cried Starbuck, pointing to something +wavingly held by the German. "Impossible!--a lamp-feeder!" + +"Not that," said Stubb, "no, no, it's a coffee-pot, Mr. Starbuck; he's +coming off to make us our coffee, is the Yarman; don't you see that big +tin can there alongside of him?--that's his boiling water. Oh! he's all +right, is the Yarman." + +"Go along with you," cried Flask, "it's a lamp-feeder and an oil-can. +He's out of oil, and has come a-begging." + +However curious it may seem for an oil-ship to be borrowing oil on the +whale-ground, and however much it may invertedly contradict the old +proverb about carrying coals to Newcastle, yet sometimes such a thing +really happens; and in the present case Captain Derick De Deer did +indubitably conduct a lamp-feeder as Flask did declare. + +As he mounted the deck, Ahab abruptly accosted him, without at all +heeding what he had in his hand; but in his broken lingo, the German +soon evinced his complete ignorance of the White Whale; immediately +turning the conversation to his lamp-feeder and oil can, with some +remarks touching his having to turn into his hammock at night in +profound darkness--his last drop of Bremen oil being gone, and not a +single flying-fish yet captured to supply the deficiency; concluding +by hinting that his ship was indeed what in the Fishery is technically +called a CLEAN one (that is, an empty one), well deserving the name of +Jungfrau or the Virgin. + +His necessities supplied, Derick departed; but he had not gained his +ship's side, when whales were almost simultaneously raised from the +mast-heads of both vessels; and so eager for the chase was Derick, that +without pausing to put his oil-can and lamp-feeder aboard, he slewed +round his boat and made after the leviathan lamp-feeders. + +Now, the game having risen to leeward, he and the other three German +boats that soon followed him, had considerably the start of the Pequod's +keels. There were eight whales, an average pod. Aware of their danger, +they were going all abreast with great speed straight before the wind, +rubbing their flanks as closely as so many spans of horses in harness. +They left a great, wide wake, as though continually unrolling a great +wide parchment upon the sea. + +Full in this rapid wake, and many fathoms in the rear, swam a huge, +humped old bull, which by his comparatively slow progress, as well as +by the unusual yellowish incrustations overgrowing him, seemed afflicted +with the jaundice, or some other infirmity. Whether this whale belonged +to the pod in advance, seemed questionable; for it is not customary for +such venerable leviathans to be at all social. Nevertheless, he stuck +to their wake, though indeed their back water must have retarded him, +because the white-bone or swell at his broad muzzle was a dashed one, +like the swell formed when two hostile currents meet. His spout was +short, slow, and laborious; coming forth with a choking sort of gush, +and spending itself in torn shreds, followed by strange subterranean +commotions in him, which seemed to have egress at his other buried +extremity, causing the waters behind him to upbubble. + +"Who's got some paregoric?" said Stubb, "he has the stomach-ache, I'm +afraid. Lord, think of having half an acre of stomach-ache! Adverse +winds are holding mad Christmas in him, boys. It's the first foul wind +I ever knew to blow from astern; but look, did ever whale yaw so before? +it must be, he's lost his tiller." + +As an overladen Indiaman bearing down the Hindostan coast with a deck +load of frightened horses, careens, buries, rolls, and wallows on her +way; so did this old whale heave his aged bulk, and now and then partly +turning over on his cumbrous rib-ends, expose the cause of his devious +wake in the unnatural stump of his starboard fin. Whether he had lost +that fin in battle, or had been born without it, it were hard to say. + +"Only wait a bit, old chap, and I'll give ye a sling for that wounded +arm," cried cruel Flask, pointing to the whale-line near him. + +"Mind he don't sling thee with it," cried Starbuck. "Give way, or the +German will have him." + +With one intent all the combined rival boats were pointed for this +one fish, because not only was he the largest, and therefore the most +valuable whale, but he was nearest to them, and the other whales were +going with such great velocity, moreover, as almost to defy pursuit +for the time. At this juncture the Pequod's keels had shot by the three +German boats last lowered; but from the great start he had had, Derick's +boat still led the chase, though every moment neared by his foreign +rivals. The only thing they feared, was, that from being already so +nigh to his mark, he would be enabled to dart his iron before they +could completely overtake and pass him. As for Derick, he seemed quite +confident that this would be the case, and occasionally with a deriding +gesture shook his lamp-feeder at the other boats. + +"The ungracious and ungrateful dog!" cried Starbuck; "he mocks and dares +me with the very poor-box I filled for him not five minutes ago!"--then +in his old intense whisper--"Give way, greyhounds! Dog to it!" + +"I tell ye what it is, men"--cried Stubb to his crew--"it's against +my religion to get mad; but I'd like to eat that villainous +Yarman--Pull--won't ye? Are ye going to let that rascal beat ye? Do +ye love brandy? A hogshead of brandy, then, to the best man. Come, +why don't some of ye burst a blood-vessel? Who's that been dropping an +anchor overboard--we don't budge an inch--we're becalmed. Halloo, here's +grass growing in the boat's bottom--and by the Lord, the mast there's +budding. This won't do, boys. Look at that Yarman! The short and long of +it is, men, will ye spit fire or not?" + +"Oh! see the suds he makes!" cried Flask, dancing up and down--"What +a hump--Oh, DO pile on the beef--lays like a log! Oh! my lads, DO +spring--slap-jacks and quahogs for supper, you know, my lads--baked +clams and muffins--oh, DO, DO, spring,--he's a hundred barreller--don't +lose him now--don't oh, DON'T!--see that Yarman--Oh, won't ye pull for +your duff, my lads--such a sog! such a sogger! Don't ye love sperm? +There goes three thousand dollars, men!--a bank!--a whole bank! The bank +of England!--Oh, DO, DO, DO!--What's that Yarman about now?" + +At this moment Derick was in the act of pitching his lamp-feeder at the +advancing boats, and also his oil-can; perhaps with the double view +of retarding his rivals' way, and at the same time economically +accelerating his own by the momentary impetus of the backward toss. + +"The unmannerly Dutch dogger!" cried Stubb. "Pull now, men, like fifty +thousand line-of-battle-ship loads of red-haired devils. What d'ye say, +Tashtego; are you the man to snap your spine in two-and-twenty pieces +for the honour of old Gayhead? What d'ye say?" + +"I say, pull like god-dam,"--cried the Indian. + +Fiercely, but evenly incited by the taunts of the German, the Pequod's +three boats now began ranging almost abreast; and, so disposed, +momentarily neared him. In that fine, loose, chivalrous attitude of +the headsman when drawing near to his prey, the three mates stood up +proudly, occasionally backing the after oarsman with an exhilarating cry +of, "There she slides, now! Hurrah for the white-ash breeze! Down with +the Yarman! Sail over him!" + +But so decided an original start had Derick had, that spite of all +their gallantry, he would have proved the victor in this race, had not +a righteous judgment descended upon him in a crab which caught the blade +of his midship oarsman. While this clumsy lubber was striving to free +his white-ash, and while, in consequence, Derick's boat was nigh to +capsizing, and he thundering away at his men in a mighty rage;--that was +a good time for Starbuck, Stubb, and Flask. With a shout, they took a +mortal start forwards, and slantingly ranged up on the German's quarter. +An instant more, and all four boats were diagonically in the whale's +immediate wake, while stretching from them, on both sides, was the +foaming swell that he made. + +It was a terrific, most pitiable, and maddening sight. The whale was +now going head out, and sending his spout before him in a continual +tormented jet; while his one poor fin beat his side in an agony of +fright. Now to this hand, now to that, he yawed in his faltering flight, +and still at every billow that he broke, he spasmodically sank in the +sea, or sideways rolled towards the sky his one beating fin. So have I +seen a bird with clipped wing making affrighted broken circles in the +air, vainly striving to escape the piratical hawks. But the bird has a +voice, and with plaintive cries will make known her fear; but the fear +of this vast dumb brute of the sea, was chained up and enchanted in him; +he had no voice, save that choking respiration through his spiracle, +and this made the sight of him unspeakably pitiable; while still, in his +amazing bulk, portcullis jaw, and omnipotent tail, there was enough to +appal the stoutest man who so pitied. + +Seeing now that but a very few moments more would give the Pequod's +boats the advantage, and rather than be thus foiled of his game, Derick +chose to hazard what to him must have seemed a most unusually long dart, +ere the last chance would for ever escape. + +But no sooner did his harpooneer stand up for the stroke, than all three +tigers--Queequeg, Tashtego, Daggoo--instinctively sprang to their feet, +and standing in a diagonal row, simultaneously pointed their barbs; and +darted over the head of the German harpooneer, their three Nantucket +irons entered the whale. Blinding vapours of foam and white-fire! The +three boats, in the first fury of the whale's headlong rush, bumped +the German's aside with such force, that both Derick and his baffled +harpooneer were spilled out, and sailed over by the three flying keels. + +"Don't be afraid, my butter-boxes," cried Stubb, casting a passing +glance upon them as he shot by; "ye'll be picked up presently--all +right--I saw some sharks astern--St. Bernard's dogs, you know--relieve +distressed travellers. Hurrah! this is the way to sail now. Every keel a +sunbeam! Hurrah!--Here we go like three tin kettles at the tail of a mad +cougar! This puts me in mind of fastening to an elephant in a tilbury on +a plain--makes the wheel-spokes fly, boys, when you fasten to him that +way; and there's danger of being pitched out too, when you strike a +hill. Hurrah! this is the way a fellow feels when he's going to Davy +Jones--all a rush down an endless inclined plane! Hurrah! this whale +carries the everlasting mail!" + +But the monster's run was a brief one. Giving a sudden gasp, he +tumultuously sounded. With a grating rush, the three lines flew round +the loggerheads with such a force as to gouge deep grooves in them; +while so fearful were the harpooneers that this rapid sounding would +soon exhaust the lines, that using all their dexterous might, they +caught repeated smoking turns with the rope to hold on; till at +last--owing to the perpendicular strain from the lead-lined chocks of +the boats, whence the three ropes went straight down into the blue--the +gunwales of the bows were almost even with the water, while the three +sterns tilted high in the air. And the whale soon ceasing to sound, +for some time they remained in that attitude, fearful of expending more +line, though the position was a little ticklish. But though boats have +been taken down and lost in this way, yet it is this "holding on," as it +is called; this hooking up by the sharp barbs of his live flesh from +the back; this it is that often torments the Leviathan into soon rising +again to meet the sharp lance of his foes. Yet not to speak of the peril +of the thing, it is to be doubted whether this course is always the +best; for it is but reasonable to presume, that the longer the stricken +whale stays under water, the more he is exhausted. Because, owing to the +enormous surface of him--in a full grown sperm whale something less than +2000 square feet--the pressure of the water is immense. We all know +what an astonishing atmospheric weight we ourselves stand up under; even +here, above-ground, in the air; how vast, then, the burden of a whale, +bearing on his back a column of two hundred fathoms of ocean! It must at +least equal the weight of fifty atmospheres. One whaleman has estimated +it at the weight of twenty line-of-battle ships, with all their guns, +and stores, and men on board. + +As the three boats lay there on that gently rolling sea, gazing down +into its eternal blue noon; and as not a single groan or cry of any +sort, nay, not so much as a ripple or a bubble came up from its depths; +what landsman would have thought, that beneath all that silence and +placidity, the utmost monster of the seas was writhing and wrenching in +agony! Not eight inches of perpendicular rope were visible at the bows. +Seems it credible that by three such thin threads the great Leviathan +was suspended like the big weight to an eight day clock. Suspended? and +to what? To three bits of board. Is this the creature of whom it was +once so triumphantly said--"Canst thou fill his skin with barbed irons? +or his head with fish-spears? The sword of him that layeth at him cannot +hold, the spear, the dart, nor the habergeon: he esteemeth iron as +straw; the arrow cannot make him flee; darts are counted as stubble; +he laugheth at the shaking of a spear!" This the creature? this he? Oh! +that unfulfilments should follow the prophets. For with the strength +of a thousand thighs in his tail, Leviathan had run his head under the +mountains of the sea, to hide him from the Pequod's fish-spears! + +In that sloping afternoon sunlight, the shadows that the three boats +sent down beneath the surface, must have been long enough and broad +enough to shade half Xerxes' army. Who can tell how appalling to the +wounded whale must have been such huge phantoms flitting over his head! + +"Stand by, men; he stirs," cried Starbuck, as the three lines suddenly +vibrated in the water, distinctly conducting upwards to them, as by +magnetic wires, the life and death throbs of the whale, so that every +oarsman felt them in his seat. The next moment, relieved in great part +from the downward strain at the bows, the boats gave a sudden bounce +upwards, as a small icefield will, when a dense herd of white bears are +scared from it into the sea. + +"Haul in! Haul in!" cried Starbuck again; "he's rising." + +The lines, of which, hardly an instant before, not one hand's breadth +could have been gained, were now in long quick coils flung back all +dripping into the boats, and soon the whale broke water within two +ship's lengths of the hunters. + +His motions plainly denoted his extreme exhaustion. In most land animals +there are certain valves or flood-gates in many of their veins, whereby +when wounded, the blood is in some degree at least instantly shut off in +certain directions. Not so with the whale; one of whose peculiarities +it is to have an entire non-valvular structure of the blood-vessels, so +that when pierced even by so small a point as a harpoon, a deadly +drain is at once begun upon his whole arterial system; and when this is +heightened by the extraordinary pressure of water at a great distance +below the surface, his life may be said to pour from him in incessant +streams. Yet so vast is the quantity of blood in him, and so distant +and numerous its interior fountains, that he will keep thus bleeding and +bleeding for a considerable period; even as in a drought a river will +flow, whose source is in the well-springs of far-off and undiscernible +hills. Even now, when the boats pulled upon this whale, and perilously +drew over his swaying flukes, and the lances were darted into him, +they were followed by steady jets from the new made wound, which kept +continually playing, while the natural spout-hole in his head was only +at intervals, however rapid, sending its affrighted moisture into the +air. From this last vent no blood yet came, because no vital part of him +had thus far been struck. His life, as they significantly call it, was +untouched. + +As the boats now more closely surrounded him, the whole upper part of +his form, with much of it that is ordinarily submerged, was plainly +revealed. His eyes, or rather the places where his eyes had been, were +beheld. As strange misgrown masses gather in the knot-holes of the +noblest oaks when prostrate, so from the points which the whale's eyes +had once occupied, now protruded blind bulbs, horribly pitiable to see. +But pity there was none. For all his old age, and his one arm, and his +blind eyes, he must die the death and be murdered, in order to light the +gay bridals and other merry-makings of men, and also to illuminate the +solemn churches that preach unconditional inoffensiveness by all to all. +Still rolling in his blood, at last he partially disclosed a strangely +discoloured bunch or protuberance, the size of a bushel, low down on the +flank. + +"A nice spot," cried Flask; "just let me prick him there once." + +"Avast!" cried Starbuck, "there's no need of that!" + +But humane Starbuck was too late. At the instant of the dart an +ulcerous jet shot from this cruel wound, and goaded by it into more than +sufferable anguish, the whale now spouting thick blood, with swift fury +blindly darted at the craft, bespattering them and their glorying crews +all over with showers of gore, capsizing Flask's boat and marring the +bows. It was his death stroke. For, by this time, so spent was he by +loss of blood, that he helplessly rolled away from the wreck he had +made; lay panting on his side, impotently flapped with his stumped fin, +then over and over slowly revolved like a waning world; turned up +the white secrets of his belly; lay like a log, and died. It was most +piteous, that last expiring spout. As when by unseen hands the water +is gradually drawn off from some mighty fountain, and with half-stifled +melancholy gurglings the spray-column lowers and lowers to the +ground--so the last long dying spout of the whale. + +Soon, while the crews were awaiting the arrival of the ship, the body +showed symptoms of sinking with all its treasures unrifled. Immediately, +by Starbuck's orders, lines were secured to it at different points, so +that ere long every boat was a buoy; the sunken whale being suspended a +few inches beneath them by the cords. By very heedful management, when +the ship drew nigh, the whale was transferred to her side, and was +strongly secured there by the stiffest fluke-chains, for it was plain +that unless artificially upheld, the body would at once sink to the +bottom. + +It so chanced that almost upon first cutting into him with the spade, +the entire length of a corroded harpoon was found imbedded in his flesh, +on the lower part of the bunch before described. But as the stumps of +harpoons are frequently found in the dead bodies of captured whales, +with the flesh perfectly healed around them, and no prominence of any +kind to denote their place; therefore, there must needs have been +some other unknown reason in the present case fully to account for +the ulceration alluded to. But still more curious was the fact of a +lance-head of stone being found in him, not far from the buried iron, +the flesh perfectly firm about it. Who had darted that stone lance? And +when? It might have been darted by some Nor' West Indian long before +America was discovered. + +What other marvels might have been rummaged out of this monstrous +cabinet there is no telling. But a sudden stop was put to further +discoveries, by the ship's being unprecedentedly dragged over sideways +to the sea, owing to the body's immensely increasing tendency to sink. +However, Starbuck, who had the ordering of affairs, hung on to it to the +last; hung on to it so resolutely, indeed, that when at length the ship +would have been capsized, if still persisting in locking arms with the +body; then, when the command was given to break clear from it, such was +the immovable strain upon the timber-heads to which the fluke-chains and +cables were fastened, that it was impossible to cast them off. Meantime +everything in the Pequod was aslant. To cross to the other side of the +deck was like walking up the steep gabled roof of a house. The ship +groaned and gasped. Many of the ivory inlayings of her bulwarks and +cabins were started from their places, by the unnatural dislocation. +In vain handspikes and crows were brought to bear upon the immovable +fluke-chains, to pry them adrift from the timberheads; and so low +had the whale now settled that the submerged ends could not be at all +approached, while every moment whole tons of ponderosity seemed added to +the sinking bulk, and the ship seemed on the point of going over. + +"Hold on, hold on, won't ye?" cried Stubb to the body, "don't be in such +a devil of a hurry to sink! By thunder, men, we must do something or go +for it. No use prying there; avast, I say with your handspikes, and run +one of ye for a prayer book and a pen-knife, and cut the big chains." + +"Knife? Aye, aye," cried Queequeg, and seizing the carpenter's heavy +hatchet, he leaned out of a porthole, and steel to iron, began slashing +at the largest fluke-chains. But a few strokes, full of sparks, were +given, when the exceeding strain effected the rest. With a terrific +snap, every fastening went adrift; the ship righted, the carcase sank. + +Now, this occasional inevitable sinking of the recently killed Sperm +Whale is a very curious thing; nor has any fisherman yet adequately +accounted for it. Usually the dead Sperm Whale floats with great +buoyancy, with its side or belly considerably elevated above the +surface. If the only whales that thus sank were old, meagre, and +broken-hearted creatures, their pads of lard diminished and all their +bones heavy and rheumatic; then you might with some reason assert that +this sinking is caused by an uncommon specific gravity in the fish so +sinking, consequent upon this absence of buoyant matter in him. But it +is not so. For young whales, in the highest health, and swelling with +noble aspirations, prematurely cut off in the warm flush and May of +life, with all their panting lard about them; even these brawny, buoyant +heroes do sometimes sink. + +Be it said, however, that the Sperm Whale is far less liable to this +accident than any other species. Where one of that sort go down, twenty +Right Whales do. This difference in the species is no doubt imputable in +no small degree to the greater quantity of bone in the Right Whale; +his Venetian blinds alone sometimes weighing more than a ton; from this +incumbrance the Sperm Whale is wholly free. But there are instances +where, after the lapse of many hours or several days, the sunken whale +again rises, more buoyant than in life. But the reason of this +is obvious. Gases are generated in him; he swells to a prodigious +magnitude; becomes a sort of animal balloon. A line-of-battle ship could +hardly keep him under then. In the Shore Whaling, on soundings, among +the Bays of New Zealand, when a Right Whale gives token of sinking, they +fasten buoys to him, with plenty of rope; so that when the body has gone +down, they know where to look for it when it shall have ascended again. + +It was not long after the sinking of the body that a cry was heard from +the Pequod's mast-heads, announcing that the Jungfrau was again lowering +her boats; though the only spout in sight was that of a Fin-Back, +belonging to the species of uncapturable whales, because of its +incredible power of swimming. Nevertheless, the Fin-Back's spout is so +similar to the Sperm Whale's, that by unskilful fishermen it is often +mistaken for it. And consequently Derick and all his host were now in +valiant chase of this unnearable brute. The Virgin crowding all sail, +made after her four young keels, and thus they all disappeared far to +leeward, still in bold, hopeful chase. + +Oh! many are the Fin-Backs, and many are the Dericks, my friend. + + + +CHAPTER 82. The Honour and Glory of Whaling. + + +There are some enterprises in which a careful disorderliness is the true +method. + +The more I dive into this matter of whaling, and push my researches up +to the very spring-head of it so much the more am I impressed with its +great honourableness and antiquity; and especially when I find so many +great demi-gods and heroes, prophets of all sorts, who one way or other +have shed distinction upon it, I am transported with the reflection +that I myself belong, though but subordinately, to so emblazoned a +fraternity. + +The gallant Perseus, a son of Jupiter, was the first whaleman; and +to the eternal honour of our calling be it said, that the first whale +attacked by our brotherhood was not killed with any sordid intent. Those +were the knightly days of our profession, when we only bore arms to +succor the distressed, and not to fill men's lamp-feeders. Every one +knows the fine story of Perseus and Andromeda; how the lovely Andromeda, +the daughter of a king, was tied to a rock on the sea-coast, and as +Leviathan was in the very act of carrying her off, Perseus, the prince +of whalemen, intrepidly advancing, harpooned the monster, and delivered +and married the maid. It was an admirable artistic exploit, rarely +achieved by the best harpooneers of the present day; inasmuch as this +Leviathan was slain at the very first dart. And let no man doubt this +Arkite story; for in the ancient Joppa, now Jaffa, on the Syrian coast, +in one of the Pagan temples, there stood for many ages the vast skeleton +of a whale, which the city's legends and all the inhabitants asserted to +be the identical bones of the monster that Perseus slew. When the Romans +took Joppa, the same skeleton was carried to Italy in triumph. What +seems most singular and suggestively important in this story, is this: +it was from Joppa that Jonah set sail. + +Akin to the adventure of Perseus and Andromeda--indeed, by some supposed +to be indirectly derived from it--is that famous story of St. George and +the Dragon; which dragon I maintain to have been a whale; for in many +old chronicles whales and dragons are strangely jumbled together, and +often stand for each other. "Thou art as a lion of the waters, and as a +dragon of the sea," saith Ezekiel; hereby, plainly meaning a whale; +in truth, some versions of the Bible use that word itself. Besides, it +would much subtract from the glory of the exploit had St. George but +encountered a crawling reptile of the land, instead of doing battle +with the great monster of the deep. Any man may kill a snake, but only a +Perseus, a St. George, a Coffin, have the heart in them to march boldly +up to a whale. + +Let not the modern paintings of this scene mislead us; for though +the creature encountered by that valiant whaleman of old is vaguely +represented of a griffin-like shape, and though the battle is depicted +on land and the saint on horseback, yet considering the great ignorance +of those times, when the true form of the whale was unknown to artists; +and considering that as in Perseus' case, St. George's whale might have +crawled up out of the sea on the beach; and considering that the animal +ridden by St. George might have been only a large seal, or sea-horse; +bearing all this in mind, it will not appear altogether incompatible +with the sacred legend and the ancientest draughts of the scene, to +hold this so-called dragon no other than the great Leviathan himself. In +fact, placed before the strict and piercing truth, this whole story will +fare like that fish, flesh, and fowl idol of the Philistines, Dagon by +name; who being planted before the ark of Israel, his horse's head and +both the palms of his hands fell off from him, and only the stump or +fishy part of him remained. Thus, then, one of our own noble stamp, even +a whaleman, is the tutelary guardian of England; and by good rights, we +harpooneers of Nantucket should be enrolled in the most noble order +of St. George. And therefore, let not the knights of that honourable +company (none of whom, I venture to say, have ever had to do with a +whale like their great patron), let them never eye a Nantucketer with +disdain, since even in our woollen frocks and tarred trowsers we are +much better entitled to St. George's decoration than they. + +Whether to admit Hercules among us or not, concerning this I long +remained dubious: for though according to the Greek mythologies, that +antique Crockett and Kit Carson--that brawny doer of rejoicing good +deeds, was swallowed down and thrown up by a whale; still, whether +that strictly makes a whaleman of him, that might be mooted. It nowhere +appears that he ever actually harpooned his fish, unless, indeed, +from the inside. Nevertheless, he may be deemed a sort of involuntary +whaleman; at any rate the whale caught him, if he did not the whale. I +claim him for one of our clan. + +But, by the best contradictory authorities, this Grecian story of +Hercules and the whale is considered to be derived from the still more +ancient Hebrew story of Jonah and the whale; and vice versa; certainly +they are very similar. If I claim the demigod then, why not the prophet? + +Nor do heroes, saints, demigods, and prophets alone comprise the whole +roll of our order. Our grand master is still to be named; for like royal +kings of old times, we find the head waters of our fraternity in nothing +short of the great gods themselves. That wondrous oriental story is now +to be rehearsed from the Shaster, which gives us the dread Vishnoo, one +of the three persons in the godhead of the Hindoos; gives us this divine +Vishnoo himself for our Lord;--Vishnoo, who, by the first of his ten +earthly incarnations, has for ever set apart and sanctified the whale. +When Brahma, or the God of Gods, saith the Shaster, resolved to recreate +the world after one of its periodical dissolutions, he gave birth to +Vishnoo, to preside over the work; but the Vedas, or mystical books, +whose perusal would seem to have been indispensable to Vishnoo before +beginning the creation, and which therefore must have contained +something in the shape of practical hints to young architects, these +Vedas were lying at the bottom of the waters; so Vishnoo became +incarnate in a whale, and sounding down in him to the uttermost depths, +rescued the sacred volumes. Was not this Vishnoo a whaleman, then? even +as a man who rides a horse is called a horseman? + +Perseus, St. George, Hercules, Jonah, and Vishnoo! there's a member-roll +for you! What club but the whaleman's can head off like that? + + + +CHAPTER 83. Jonah Historically Regarded. + + +Reference was made to the historical story of Jonah and the whale in the +preceding chapter. Now some Nantucketers rather distrust this historical +story of Jonah and the whale. But then there were some sceptical Greeks +and Romans, who, standing out from the orthodox pagans of their times, +equally doubted the story of Hercules and the whale, and Arion and the +dolphin; and yet their doubting those traditions did not make those +traditions one whit the less facts, for all that. + +One old Sag-Harbor whaleman's chief reason for questioning the Hebrew +story was this:--He had one of those quaint old-fashioned Bibles, +embellished with curious, unscientific plates; one of which represented +Jonah's whale with two spouts in his head--a peculiarity only true +with respect to a species of the Leviathan (the Right Whale, and the +varieties of that order), concerning which the fishermen have this +saying, "A penny roll would choke him"; his swallow is so very small. +But, to this, Bishop Jebb's anticipative answer is ready. It is not +necessary, hints the Bishop, that we consider Jonah as tombed in the +whale's belly, but as temporarily lodged in some part of his mouth. And +this seems reasonable enough in the good Bishop. For truly, the +Right Whale's mouth would accommodate a couple of whist-tables, and +comfortably seat all the players. Possibly, too, Jonah might have +ensconced himself in a hollow tooth; but, on second thoughts, the Right +Whale is toothless. + +Another reason which Sag-Harbor (he went by that name) urged for his +want of faith in this matter of the prophet, was something obscurely in +reference to his incarcerated body and the whale's gastric juices. But +this objection likewise falls to the ground, because a German exegetist +supposes that Jonah must have taken refuge in the floating body of a +DEAD whale--even as the French soldiers in the Russian campaign turned +their dead horses into tents, and crawled into them. Besides, it has +been divined by other continental commentators, that when Jonah was +thrown overboard from the Joppa ship, he straightway effected his escape +to another vessel near by, some vessel with a whale for a figure-head; +and, I would add, possibly called "The Whale," as some craft are +nowadays christened the "Shark," the "Gull," the "Eagle." Nor have there +been wanting learned exegetists who have opined that the whale mentioned +in the book of Jonah merely meant a life-preserver--an inflated bag +of wind--which the endangered prophet swam to, and so was saved from a +watery doom. Poor Sag-Harbor, therefore, seems worsted all round. But +he had still another reason for his want of faith. It was this, if I +remember right: Jonah was swallowed by the whale in the Mediterranean +Sea, and after three days he was vomited up somewhere within three days' +journey of Nineveh, a city on the Tigris, very much more than three +days' journey across from the nearest point of the Mediterranean coast. +How is that? + +But was there no other way for the whale to land the prophet within that +short distance of Nineveh? Yes. He might have carried him round by the +way of the Cape of Good Hope. But not to speak of the passage through +the whole length of the Mediterranean, and another passage up the +Persian Gulf and Red Sea, such a supposition would involve the complete +circumnavigation of all Africa in three days, not to speak of the Tigris +waters, near the site of Nineveh, being too shallow for any whale to +swim in. Besides, this idea of Jonah's weathering the Cape of Good Hope +at so early a day would wrest the honour of the discovery of that great +headland from Bartholomew Diaz, its reputed discoverer, and so make +modern history a liar. + +But all these foolish arguments of old Sag-Harbor only evinced his +foolish pride of reason--a thing still more reprehensible in him, seeing +that he had but little learning except what he had picked up from the +sun and the sea. I say it only shows his foolish, impious pride, and +abominable, devilish rebellion against the reverend clergy. For by a +Portuguese Catholic priest, this very idea of Jonah's going to Nineveh +via the Cape of Good Hope was advanced as a signal magnification of +the general miracle. And so it was. Besides, to this day, the highly +enlightened Turks devoutly believe in the historical story of Jonah. And +some three centuries ago, an English traveller in old Harris's Voyages, +speaks of a Turkish Mosque built in honour of Jonah, in which Mosque was +a miraculous lamp that burnt without any oil. + + + +CHAPTER 84. Pitchpoling. + + +To make them run easily and swiftly, the axles of carriages are +anointed; and for much the same purpose, some whalers perform an +analogous operation upon their boat; they grease the bottom. Nor is it +to be doubted that as such a procedure can do no harm, it may possibly +be of no contemptible advantage; considering that oil and water are +hostile; that oil is a sliding thing, and that the object in view is to +make the boat slide bravely. Queequeg believed strongly in anointing +his boat, and one morning not long after the German ship Jungfrau +disappeared, took more than customary pains in that occupation; crawling +under its bottom, where it hung over the side, and rubbing in the +unctuousness as though diligently seeking to insure a crop of hair from +the craft's bald keel. He seemed to be working in obedience to some +particular presentiment. Nor did it remain unwarranted by the event. + +Towards noon whales were raised; but so soon as the ship sailed down to +them, they turned and fled with swift precipitancy; a disordered flight, +as of Cleopatra's barges from Actium. + +Nevertheless, the boats pursued, and Stubb's was foremost. By great +exertion, Tashtego at last succeeded in planting one iron; but the +stricken whale, without at all sounding, still continued his horizontal +flight, with added fleetness. Such unintermitted strainings upon the +planted iron must sooner or later inevitably extract it. It became +imperative to lance the flying whale, or be content to lose him. But +to haul the boat up to his flank was impossible, he swam so fast and +furious. What then remained? + +Of all the wondrous devices and dexterities, the sleights of hand and +countless subtleties, to which the veteran whaleman is so often forced, +none exceed that fine manoeuvre with the lance called pitchpoling. Small +sword, or broad sword, in all its exercises boasts nothing like it. It +is only indispensable with an inveterate running whale; its grand +fact and feature is the wonderful distance to which the long lance is +accurately darted from a violently rocking, jerking boat, under extreme +headway. Steel and wood included, the entire spear is some ten or twelve +feet in length; the staff is much slighter than that of the harpoon, +and also of a lighter material--pine. It is furnished with a small rope +called a warp, of considerable length, by which it can be hauled back to +the hand after darting. + +But before going further, it is important to mention here, that though +the harpoon may be pitchpoled in the same way with the lance, yet it +is seldom done; and when done, is still less frequently successful, +on account of the greater weight and inferior length of the harpoon as +compared with the lance, which in effect become serious drawbacks. As a +general thing, therefore, you must first get fast to a whale, before any +pitchpoling comes into play. + +Look now at Stubb; a man who from his humorous, deliberate coolness and +equanimity in the direst emergencies, was specially qualified to excel +in pitchpoling. Look at him; he stands upright in the tossed bow of the +flying boat; wrapt in fleecy foam, the towing whale is forty feet ahead. +Handling the long lance lightly, glancing twice or thrice along its +length to see if it be exactly straight, Stubb whistlingly gathers up +the coil of the warp in one hand, so as to secure its free end in his +grasp, leaving the rest unobstructed. Then holding the lance full before +his waistband's middle, he levels it at the whale; when, covering +him with it, he steadily depresses the butt-end in his hand, thereby +elevating the point till the weapon stands fairly balanced upon his +palm, fifteen feet in the air. He minds you somewhat of a juggler, +balancing a long staff on his chin. Next moment with a rapid, nameless +impulse, in a superb lofty arch the bright steel spans the foaming +distance, and quivers in the life spot of the whale. Instead of +sparkling water, he now spouts red blood. + +"That drove the spigot out of him!" cried Stubb. "'Tis July's immortal +Fourth; all fountains must run wine today! Would now, it were old +Orleans whiskey, or old Ohio, or unspeakable old Monongahela! Then, +Tashtego, lad, I'd have ye hold a canakin to the jet, and we'd drink +round it! Yea, verily, hearts alive, we'd brew choice punch in the +spread of his spout-hole there, and from that live punch-bowl quaff the +living stuff." + +Again and again to such gamesome talk, the dexterous dart is repeated, +the spear returning to its master like a greyhound held in skilful +leash. The agonized whale goes into his flurry; the tow-line is +slackened, and the pitchpoler dropping astern, folds his hands, and +mutely watches the monster die. + + + +CHAPTER 85. The Fountain. + + +That for six thousand years--and no one knows how many millions of ages +before--the great whales should have been spouting all over the sea, +and sprinkling and mistifying the gardens of the deep, as with so +many sprinkling or mistifying pots; and that for some centuries back, +thousands of hunters should have been close by the fountain of the +whale, watching these sprinklings and spoutings--that all this should +be, and yet, that down to this blessed minute (fifteen and a quarter +minutes past one o'clock P.M. of this sixteenth day of December, A.D. +1851), it should still remain a problem, whether these spoutings +are, after all, really water, or nothing but vapour--this is surely a +noteworthy thing. + +Let us, then, look at this matter, along with some interesting items +contingent. Every one knows that by the peculiar cunning of their +gills, the finny tribes in general breathe the air which at all times is +combined with the element in which they swim; hence, a herring or a cod +might live a century, and never once raise its head above the surface. +But owing to his marked internal structure which gives him regular +lungs, like a human being's, the whale can only live by inhaling the +disengaged air in the open atmosphere. Wherefore the necessity for +his periodical visits to the upper world. But he cannot in any degree +breathe through his mouth, for, in his ordinary attitude, the Sperm +Whale's mouth is buried at least eight feet beneath the surface; and +what is still more, his windpipe has no connexion with his mouth. No, he +breathes through his spiracle alone; and this is on the top of his head. + +If I say, that in any creature breathing is only a function +indispensable to vitality, inasmuch as it withdraws from the air a +certain element, which being subsequently brought into contact with the +blood imparts to the blood its vivifying principle, I do not think I +shall err; though I may possibly use some superfluous scientific words. +Assume it, and it follows that if all the blood in a man could be +aerated with one breath, he might then seal up his nostrils and not +fetch another for a considerable time. That is to say, he would then +live without breathing. Anomalous as it may seem, this is precisely the +case with the whale, who systematically lives, by intervals, his full +hour and more (when at the bottom) without drawing a single breath, or +so much as in any way inhaling a particle of air; for, remember, he has +no gills. How is this? Between his ribs and on each side of his spine +he is supplied with a remarkable involved Cretan labyrinth of +vermicelli-like vessels, which vessels, when he quits the surface, are +completely distended with oxygenated blood. So that for an hour or more, +a thousand fathoms in the sea, he carries a surplus stock of vitality in +him, just as the camel crossing the waterless desert carries a surplus +supply of drink for future use in its four supplementary stomachs. +The anatomical fact of this labyrinth is indisputable; and that the +supposition founded upon it is reasonable and true, seems the more +cogent to me, when I consider the otherwise inexplicable obstinacy of +that leviathan in HAVING HIS SPOUTINGS OUT, as the fishermen phrase +it. This is what I mean. If unmolested, upon rising to the surface, the +Sperm Whale will continue there for a period of time exactly uniform +with all his other unmolested risings. Say he stays eleven minutes, and +jets seventy times, that is, respires seventy breaths; then whenever he +rises again, he will be sure to have his seventy breaths over again, to +a minute. Now, if after he fetches a few breaths you alarm him, so that +he sounds, he will be always dodging up again to make good his regular +allowance of air. And not till those seventy breaths are told, will he +finally go down to stay out his full term below. Remark, however, that +in different individuals these rates are different; but in any one +they are alike. Now, why should the whale thus insist upon having his +spoutings out, unless it be to replenish his reservoir of air, ere +descending for good? How obvious is it, too, that this necessity for the +whale's rising exposes him to all the fatal hazards of the chase. For +not by hook or by net could this vast leviathan be caught, when sailing +a thousand fathoms beneath the sunlight. Not so much thy skill, then, O +hunter, as the great necessities that strike the victory to thee! + +In man, breathing is incessantly going on--one breath only serving +for two or three pulsations; so that whatever other business he has to +attend to, waking or sleeping, breathe he must, or die he will. But the +Sperm Whale only breathes about one seventh or Sunday of his time. + +It has been said that the whale only breathes through his spout-hole; if +it could truthfully be added that his spouts are mixed with water, then +I opine we should be furnished with the reason why his sense of smell +seems obliterated in him; for the only thing about him that at all +answers to his nose is that identical spout-hole; and being so clogged +with two elements, it could not be expected to have the power of +smelling. But owing to the mystery of the spout--whether it be water or +whether it be vapour--no absolute certainty can as yet be arrived at on +this head. Sure it is, nevertheless, that the Sperm Whale has no proper +olfactories. But what does he want of them? No roses, no violets, no +Cologne-water in the sea. + +Furthermore, as his windpipe solely opens into the tube of his spouting +canal, and as that long canal--like the grand Erie Canal--is furnished +with a sort of locks (that open and shut) for the downward retention of +air or the upward exclusion of water, therefore the whale has no voice; +unless you insult him by saying, that when he so strangely rumbles, +he talks through his nose. But then again, what has the whale to say? +Seldom have I known any profound being that had anything to say to +this world, unless forced to stammer out something by way of getting a +living. Oh! happy that the world is such an excellent listener! + +Now, the spouting canal of the Sperm Whale, chiefly intended as it +is for the conveyance of air, and for several feet laid along, +horizontally, just beneath the upper surface of his head, and a little +to one side; this curious canal is very much like a gas-pipe laid down +in a city on one side of a street. But the question returns whether this +gas-pipe is also a water-pipe; in other words, whether the spout of the +Sperm Whale is the mere vapour of the exhaled breath, or whether that +exhaled breath is mixed with water taken in at the mouth, and +discharged through the spiracle. It is certain that the mouth indirectly +communicates with the spouting canal; but it cannot be proved that this +is for the purpose of discharging water through the spiracle. Because +the greatest necessity for so doing would seem to be, when in feeding he +accidentally takes in water. But the Sperm Whale's food is far beneath +the surface, and there he cannot spout even if he would. Besides, if +you regard him very closely, and time him with your watch, you will find +that when unmolested, there is an undeviating rhyme between the periods +of his jets and the ordinary periods of respiration. + +But why pester one with all this reasoning on the subject? Speak out! +You have seen him spout; then declare what the spout is; can you not +tell water from air? My dear sir, in this world it is not so easy to +settle these plain things. I have ever found your plain things the +knottiest of all. And as for this whale spout, you might almost stand in +it, and yet be undecided as to what it is precisely. + +The central body of it is hidden in the snowy sparkling mist enveloping +it; and how can you certainly tell whether any water falls from it, +when, always, when you are close enough to a whale to get a close view +of his spout, he is in a prodigious commotion, the water cascading +all around him. And if at such times you should think that you really +perceived drops of moisture in the spout, how do you know that they are +not merely condensed from its vapour; or how do you know that they +are not those identical drops superficially lodged in the spout-hole +fissure, which is countersunk into the summit of the whale's head? For +even when tranquilly swimming through the mid-day sea in a calm, with +his elevated hump sun-dried as a dromedary's in the desert; even then, +the whale always carries a small basin of water on his head, as under +a blazing sun you will sometimes see a cavity in a rock filled up with +rain. + +Nor is it at all prudent for the hunter to be over curious touching the +precise nature of the whale spout. It will not do for him to be peering +into it, and putting his face in it. You cannot go with your pitcher to +this fountain and fill it, and bring it away. For even when coming into +slight contact with the outer, vapoury shreds of the jet, which will +often happen, your skin will feverishly smart, from the acridness of +the thing so touching it. And I know one, who coming into still closer +contact with the spout, whether with some scientific object in view, +or otherwise, I cannot say, the skin peeled off from his cheek and arm. +Wherefore, among whalemen, the spout is deemed poisonous; they try to +evade it. Another thing; I have heard it said, and I do not much doubt +it, that if the jet is fairly spouted into your eyes, it will blind you. +The wisest thing the investigator can do then, it seems to me, is to let +this deadly spout alone. + +Still, we can hypothesize, even if we cannot prove and establish. My +hypothesis is this: that the spout is nothing but mist. And besides +other reasons, to this conclusion I am impelled, by considerations +touching the great inherent dignity and sublimity of the Sperm Whale; +I account him no common, shallow being, inasmuch as it is an undisputed +fact that he is never found on soundings, or near shores; all other +whales sometimes are. He is both ponderous and profound. And I am +convinced that from the heads of all ponderous profound beings, such as +Plato, Pyrrho, the Devil, Jupiter, Dante, and so on, there always goes +up a certain semi-visible steam, while in the act of thinking deep +thoughts. While composing a little treatise on Eternity, I had the +curiosity to place a mirror before me; and ere long saw reflected there, +a curious involved worming and undulation in the atmosphere over my +head. The invariable moisture of my hair, while plunged in deep thought, +after six cups of hot tea in my thin shingled attic, of an August noon; +this seems an additional argument for the above supposition. + +And how nobly it raises our conceit of the mighty, misty monster, to +behold him solemnly sailing through a calm tropical sea; his vast, mild +head overhung by a canopy of vapour, engendered by his incommunicable +contemplations, and that vapour--as you will sometimes see it--glorified +by a rainbow, as if Heaven itself had put its seal upon his thoughts. +For, d'ye see, rainbows do not visit the clear air; they only irradiate +vapour. And so, through all the thick mists of the dim doubts in my +mind, divine intuitions now and then shoot, enkindling my fog with a +heavenly ray. And for this I thank God; for all have doubts; many deny; +but doubts or denials, few along with them, have intuitions. Doubts +of all things earthly, and intuitions of some things heavenly; this +combination makes neither believer nor infidel, but makes a man who +regards them both with equal eye. + + + +CHAPTER 86. The Tail. + + +Other poets have warbled the praises of the soft eye of the antelope, +and the lovely plumage of the bird that never alights; less celestial, I +celebrate a tail. + +Reckoning the largest sized Sperm Whale's tail to begin at that point of +the trunk where it tapers to about the girth of a man, it comprises +upon its upper surface alone, an area of at least fifty square feet. The +compact round body of its root expands into two broad, firm, flat palms +or flukes, gradually shoaling away to less than an inch in thickness. +At the crotch or junction, these flukes slightly overlap, then sideways +recede from each other like wings, leaving a wide vacancy between. In +no living thing are the lines of beauty more exquisitely defined than in +the crescentic borders of these flukes. At its utmost expansion in the +full grown whale, the tail will considerably exceed twenty feet across. + +The entire member seems a dense webbed bed of welded sinews; but cut +into it, and you find that three distinct strata compose it:--upper, +middle, and lower. The fibres in the upper and lower layers, are +long and horizontal; those of the middle one, very short, and running +crosswise between the outside layers. This triune structure, as much as +anything else, imparts power to the tail. To the student of old Roman +walls, the middle layer will furnish a curious parallel to the thin +course of tiles always alternating with the stone in those wonderful +relics of the antique, and which undoubtedly contribute so much to the +great strength of the masonry. + +But as if this vast local power in the tendinous tail were not enough, +the whole bulk of the leviathan is knit over with a warp and woof of +muscular fibres and filaments, which passing on either side the loins +and running down into the flukes, insensibly blend with them, and +largely contribute to their might; so that in the tail the confluent +measureless force of the whole whale seems concentrated to a point. +Could annihilation occur to matter, this were the thing to do it. + +Nor does this--its amazing strength, at all tend to cripple the graceful +flexion of its motions; where infantileness of ease undulates through +a Titanism of power. On the contrary, those motions derive their most +appalling beauty from it. Real strength never impairs beauty or harmony, +but it often bestows it; and in everything imposingly beautiful, +strength has much to do with the magic. Take away the tied tendons that +all over seem bursting from the marble in the carved Hercules, and its +charm would be gone. As devout Eckerman lifted the linen sheet from the +naked corpse of Goethe, he was overwhelmed with the massive chest of the +man, that seemed as a Roman triumphal arch. When Angelo paints even God +the Father in human form, mark what robustness is there. And whatever +they may reveal of the divine love in the Son, the soft, curled, +hermaphroditical Italian pictures, in which his idea has been most +successfully embodied; these pictures, so destitute as they are of all +brawniness, hint nothing of any power, but the mere negative, feminine +one of submission and endurance, which on all hands it is conceded, form +the peculiar practical virtues of his teachings. + +Such is the subtle elasticity of the organ I treat of, that whether +wielded in sport, or in earnest, or in anger, whatever be the mood it +be in, its flexions are invariably marked by exceeding grace. Therein no +fairy's arm can transcend it. + +Five great motions are peculiar to it. First, when used as a fin for +progression; Second, when used as a mace in battle; Third, in sweeping; +Fourth, in lobtailing; Fifth, in peaking flukes. + +First: Being horizontal in its position, the Leviathan's tail acts in +a different manner from the tails of all other sea creatures. It never +wriggles. In man or fish, wriggling is a sign of inferiority. To the +whale, his tail is the sole means of propulsion. Scroll-wise coiled +forwards beneath the body, and then rapidly sprung backwards, it is this +which gives that singular darting, leaping motion to the monster when +furiously swimming. His side-fins only serve to steer by. + +Second: It is a little significant, that while one sperm whale only +fights another sperm whale with his head and jaw, nevertheless, in his +conflicts with man, he chiefly and contemptuously uses his tail. In +striking at a boat, he swiftly curves away his flukes from it, and the +blow is only inflicted by the recoil. If it be made in the unobstructed +air, especially if it descend to its mark, the stroke is then simply +irresistible. No ribs of man or boat can withstand it. Your only +salvation lies in eluding it; but if it comes sideways through the +opposing water, then partly owing to the light buoyancy of the whale +boat, and the elasticity of its materials, a cracked rib or a dashed +plank or two, a sort of stitch in the side, is generally the most +serious result. These submerged side blows are so often received in the +fishery, that they are accounted mere child's play. Some one strips off +a frock, and the hole is stopped. + +Third: I cannot demonstrate it, but it seems to me, that in the whale +the sense of touch is concentrated in the tail; for in this respect +there is a delicacy in it only equalled by the daintiness of the +elephant's trunk. This delicacy is chiefly evinced in the action of +sweeping, when in maidenly gentleness the whale with a certain soft +slowness moves his immense flukes from side to side upon the surface +of the sea; and if he feel but a sailor's whisker, woe to that sailor, +whiskers and all. What tenderness there is in that preliminary touch! +Had this tail any prehensile power, I should straightway bethink me of +Darmonodes' elephant that so frequented the flower-market, and with +low salutations presented nosegays to damsels, and then caressed their +zones. On more accounts than one, a pity it is that the whale does not +possess this prehensile virtue in his tail; for I have heard of yet +another elephant, that when wounded in the fight, curved round his trunk +and extracted the dart. + +Fourth: Stealing unawares upon the whale in the fancied security of the +middle of solitary seas, you find him unbent from the vast corpulence +of his dignity, and kitten-like, he plays on the ocean as if it were a +hearth. But still you see his power in his play. The broad palms of +his tail are flirted high into the air; then smiting the surface, the +thunderous concussion resounds for miles. You would almost think a great +gun had been discharged; and if you noticed the light wreath of vapour +from the spiracle at his other extremity, you would think that that was +the smoke from the touch-hole. + +Fifth: As in the ordinary floating posture of the leviathan the flukes +lie considerably below the level of his back, they are then completely +out of sight beneath the surface; but when he is about to plunge into +the deeps, his entire flukes with at least thirty feet of his body are +tossed erect in the air, and so remain vibrating a moment, till they +downwards shoot out of view. Excepting the sublime BREACH--somewhere +else to be described--this peaking of the whale's flukes is perhaps the +grandest sight to be seen in all animated nature. Out of the bottomless +profundities the gigantic tail seems spasmodically snatching at the +highest heaven. So in dreams, have I seen majestic Satan thrusting forth +his tormented colossal claw from the flame Baltic of Hell. But in +gazing at such scenes, it is all in all what mood you are in; if in +the Dantean, the devils will occur to you; if in that of Isaiah, the +archangels. Standing at the mast-head of my ship during a sunrise that +crimsoned sky and sea, I once saw a large herd of whales in the east, +all heading towards the sun, and for a moment vibrating in concert with +peaked flukes. As it seemed to me at the time, such a grand embodiment +of adoration of the gods was never beheld, even in Persia, the home of +the fire worshippers. As Ptolemy Philopater testified of the African +elephant, I then testified of the whale, pronouncing him the most devout +of all beings. For according to King Juba, the military elephants of +antiquity often hailed the morning with their trunks uplifted in the +profoundest silence. + +The chance comparison in this chapter, between the whale and the +elephant, so far as some aspects of the tail of the one and the trunk +of the other are concerned, should not tend to place those two +opposite organs on an equality, much less the creatures to which they +respectively belong. For as the mightiest elephant is but a terrier +to Leviathan, so, compared with Leviathan's tail, his trunk is but the +stalk of a lily. The most direful blow from the elephant's trunk were as +the playful tap of a fan, compared with the measureless crush and crash +of the sperm whale's ponderous flukes, which in repeated instances have +one after the other hurled entire boats with all their oars and crews +into the air, very much as an Indian juggler tosses his balls.* + + +*Though all comparison in the way of general bulk between the whale +and the elephant is preposterous, inasmuch as in that particular the +elephant stands in much the same respect to the whale that a dog does to +the elephant; nevertheless, there are not wanting some points of curious +similitude; among these is the spout. It is well known that the elephant +will often draw up water or dust in his trunk, and then elevating it, +jet it forth in a stream. + + +The more I consider this mighty tail, the more do I deplore my inability +to express it. At times there are gestures in it, which, though they +would well grace the hand of man, remain wholly inexplicable. In an +extensive herd, so remarkable, occasionally, are these mystic gestures, +that I have heard hunters who have declared them akin to Free-Mason +signs and symbols; that the whale, indeed, by these methods +intelligently conversed with the world. Nor are there wanting other +motions of the whale in his general body, full of strangeness, and +unaccountable to his most experienced assailant. Dissect him how I may, +then, I but go skin deep; I know him not, and never will. But if I know +not even the tail of this whale, how understand his head? much more, +how comprehend his face, when face he has none? Thou shalt see my back +parts, my tail, he seems to say, but my face shall not be seen. But I +cannot completely make out his back parts; and hint what he will about +his face, I say again he has no face. + + + +CHAPTER 87. The Grand Armada. + + +The long and narrow peninsula of Malacca, extending south-eastward from +the territories of Birmah, forms the most southerly point of all Asia. +In a continuous line from that peninsula stretch the long islands of +Sumatra, Java, Bally, and Timor; which, with many others, form a +vast mole, or rampart, lengthwise connecting Asia with Australia, +and dividing the long unbroken Indian ocean from the thickly studded +oriental archipelagoes. This rampart is pierced by several sally-ports +for the convenience of ships and whales; conspicuous among which are the +straits of Sunda and Malacca. By the straits of Sunda, chiefly, vessels +bound to China from the west, emerge into the China seas. + +Those narrow straits of Sunda divide Sumatra from Java; and standing +midway in that vast rampart of islands, buttressed by that bold green +promontory, known to seamen as Java Head; they not a little correspond +to the central gateway opening into some vast walled empire: and +considering the inexhaustible wealth of spices, and silks, and jewels, +and gold, and ivory, with which the thousand islands of that oriental +sea are enriched, it seems a significant provision of nature, that such +treasures, by the very formation of the land, should at least bear the +appearance, however ineffectual, of being guarded from the all-grasping +western world. The shores of the Straits of Sunda are unsupplied +with those domineering fortresses which guard the entrances to the +Mediterranean, the Baltic, and the Propontis. Unlike the Danes, these +Orientals do not demand the obsequious homage of lowered top-sails from +the endless procession of ships before the wind, which for centuries +past, by night and by day, have passed between the islands of Sumatra +and Java, freighted with the costliest cargoes of the east. But while +they freely waive a ceremonial like this, they do by no means renounce +their claim to more solid tribute. + +Time out of mind the piratical proas of the Malays, lurking among +the low shaded coves and islets of Sumatra, have sallied out upon the +vessels sailing through the straits, fiercely demanding tribute at the +point of their spears. Though by the repeated bloody chastisements they +have received at the hands of European cruisers, the audacity of these +corsairs has of late been somewhat repressed; yet, even at the present +day, we occasionally hear of English and American vessels, which, in +those waters, have been remorselessly boarded and pillaged. + +With a fair, fresh wind, the Pequod was now drawing nigh to these +straits; Ahab purposing to pass through them into the Javan sea, and +thence, cruising northwards, over waters known to be frequented here and +there by the Sperm Whale, sweep inshore by the Philippine Islands, and +gain the far coast of Japan, in time for the great whaling season there. +By these means, the circumnavigating Pequod would sweep almost all the +known Sperm Whale cruising grounds of the world, previous to descending +upon the Line in the Pacific; where Ahab, though everywhere else foiled +in his pursuit, firmly counted upon giving battle to Moby Dick, in the +sea he was most known to frequent; and at a season when he might most +reasonably be presumed to be haunting it. + +But how now? in this zoned quest, does Ahab touch no land? does his crew +drink air? Surely, he will stop for water. Nay. For a long time, now, +the circus-running sun has raced within his fiery ring, and needs +no sustenance but what's in himself. So Ahab. Mark this, too, in the +whaler. While other hulls are loaded down with alien stuff, to be +transferred to foreign wharves; the world-wandering whale-ship carries +no cargo but herself and crew, their weapons and their wants. She has a +whole lake's contents bottled in her ample hold. She is ballasted with +utilities; not altogether with unusable pig-lead and kentledge. She +carries years' water in her. Clear old prime Nantucket water; which, +when three years afloat, the Nantucketer, in the Pacific, prefers to +drink before the brackish fluid, but yesterday rafted off in casks, from +the Peruvian or Indian streams. Hence it is, that, while other ships may +have gone to China from New York, and back again, touching at a score +of ports, the whale-ship, in all that interval, may not have sighted +one grain of soil; her crew having seen no man but floating seamen like +themselves. So that did you carry them the news that another flood had +come; they would only answer--"Well, boys, here's the ark!" + +Now, as many Sperm Whales had been captured off the western coast of +Java, in the near vicinity of the Straits of Sunda; indeed, as most of +the ground, roundabout, was generally recognised by the fishermen as an +excellent spot for cruising; therefore, as the Pequod gained more +and more upon Java Head, the look-outs were repeatedly hailed, and +admonished to keep wide awake. But though the green palmy cliffs of the +land soon loomed on the starboard bow, and with delighted nostrils +the fresh cinnamon was snuffed in the air, yet not a single jet was +descried. Almost renouncing all thought of falling in with any game +hereabouts, the ship had well nigh entered the straits, when the +customary cheering cry was heard from aloft, and ere long a spectacle of +singular magnificence saluted us. + +But here be it premised, that owing to the unwearied activity with which +of late they have been hunted over all four oceans, the Sperm Whales, +instead of almost invariably sailing in small detached companies, as in +former times, are now frequently met with in extensive herds, sometimes +embracing so great a multitude, that it would almost seem as if +numerous nations of them had sworn solemn league and covenant for mutual +assistance and protection. To this aggregation of the Sperm Whale into +such immense caravans, may be imputed the circumstance that even in the +best cruising grounds, you may now sometimes sail for weeks and months +together, without being greeted by a single spout; and then be suddenly +saluted by what sometimes seems thousands on thousands. + +Broad on both bows, at the distance of some two or three miles, and +forming a great semicircle, embracing one half of the level horizon, +a continuous chain of whale-jets were up-playing and sparkling in the +noon-day air. Unlike the straight perpendicular twin-jets of the Right +Whale, which, dividing at top, fall over in two branches, like the cleft +drooping boughs of a willow, the single forward-slanting spout of the +Sperm Whale presents a thick curled bush of white mist, continually +rising and falling away to leeward. + +Seen from the Pequod's deck, then, as she would rise on a high hill of +the sea, this host of vapoury spouts, individually curling up into the +air, and beheld through a blending atmosphere of bluish haze, showed +like the thousand cheerful chimneys of some dense metropolis, descried +of a balmy autumnal morning, by some horseman on a height. + +As marching armies approaching an unfriendly defile in the mountains, +accelerate their march, all eagerness to place that perilous passage in +their rear, and once more expand in comparative security upon the plain; +even so did this vast fleet of whales now seem hurrying forward through +the straits; gradually contracting the wings of their semicircle, and +swimming on, in one solid, but still crescentic centre. + +Crowding all sail the Pequod pressed after them; the harpooneers +handling their weapons, and loudly cheering from the heads of their +yet suspended boats. If the wind only held, little doubt had they, that +chased through these Straits of Sunda, the vast host would only deploy +into the Oriental seas to witness the capture of not a few of their +number. And who could tell whether, in that congregated caravan, Moby +Dick himself might not temporarily be swimming, like the worshipped +white-elephant in the coronation procession of the Siamese! So with +stun-sail piled on stun-sail, we sailed along, driving these leviathans +before us; when, of a sudden, the voice of Tashtego was heard, loudly +directing attention to something in our wake. + +Corresponding to the crescent in our van, we beheld another in our rear. +It seemed formed of detached white vapours, rising and falling something +like the spouts of the whales; only they did not so completely come and +go; for they constantly hovered, without finally disappearing. Levelling +his glass at this sight, Ahab quickly revolved in his pivot-hole, +crying, "Aloft there, and rig whips and buckets to wet the +sails;--Malays, sir, and after us!" + +As if too long lurking behind the headlands, till the Pequod should +fairly have entered the straits, these rascally Asiatics were now in hot +pursuit, to make up for their over-cautious delay. But when the swift +Pequod, with a fresh leading wind, was herself in hot chase; how very +kind of these tawny philanthropists to assist in speeding her on to +her own chosen pursuit,--mere riding-whips and rowels to her, that they +were. As with glass under arm, Ahab to-and-fro paced the deck; in his +forward turn beholding the monsters he chased, and in the after one the +bloodthirsty pirates chasing him; some such fancy as the above seemed +his. And when he glanced upon the green walls of the watery defile in +which the ship was then sailing, and bethought him that through that +gate lay the route to his vengeance, and beheld, how that through that +same gate he was now both chasing and being chased to his deadly end; +and not only that, but a herd of remorseless wild pirates and +inhuman atheistical devils were infernally cheering him on with their +curses;--when all these conceits had passed through his brain, Ahab's +brow was left gaunt and ribbed, like the black sand beach after some +stormy tide has been gnawing it, without being able to drag the firm +thing from its place. + +But thoughts like these troubled very few of the reckless crew; and +when, after steadily dropping and dropping the pirates astern, the +Pequod at last shot by the vivid green Cockatoo Point on the Sumatra +side, emerging at last upon the broad waters beyond; then, the +harpooneers seemed more to grieve that the swift whales had been gaining +upon the ship, than to rejoice that the ship had so victoriously gained +upon the Malays. But still driving on in the wake of the whales, at +length they seemed abating their speed; gradually the ship neared them; +and the wind now dying away, word was passed to spring to the boats. But +no sooner did the herd, by some presumed wonderful instinct of the Sperm +Whale, become notified of the three keels that were after them,--though +as yet a mile in their rear,--than they rallied again, and forming +in close ranks and battalions, so that their spouts all looked like +flashing lines of stacked bayonets, moved on with redoubled velocity. + +Stripped to our shirts and drawers, we sprang to the white-ash, and +after several hours' pulling were almost disposed to renounce the chase, +when a general pausing commotion among the whales gave animating +token that they were now at last under the influence of that strange +perplexity of inert irresolution, which, when the fishermen perceive +it in the whale, they say he is gallied. The compact martial columns +in which they had been hitherto rapidly and steadily swimming, were now +broken up in one measureless rout; and like King Porus' elephants in the +Indian battle with Alexander, they seemed going mad with consternation. +In all directions expanding in vast irregular circles, and aimlessly +swimming hither and thither, by their short thick spoutings, they +plainly betrayed their distraction of panic. This was still more +strangely evinced by those of their number, who, completely paralysed +as it were, helplessly floated like water-logged dismantled ships on the +sea. Had these Leviathans been but a flock of simple sheep, pursued over +the pasture by three fierce wolves, they could not possibly have evinced +such excessive dismay. But this occasional timidity is characteristic +of almost all herding creatures. Though banding together in tens of +thousands, the lion-maned buffaloes of the West have fled before a +solitary horseman. Witness, too, all human beings, how when herded +together in the sheepfold of a theatre's pit, they will, at the +slightest alarm of fire, rush helter-skelter for the outlets, crowding, +trampling, jamming, and remorselessly dashing each other to death. Best, +therefore, withhold any amazement at the strangely gallied whales +before us, for there is no folly of the beasts of the earth which is not +infinitely outdone by the madness of men. + +Though many of the whales, as has been said, were in violent motion, +yet it is to be observed that as a whole the herd neither advanced nor +retreated, but collectively remained in one place. As is customary in +those cases, the boats at once separated, each making for some one +lone whale on the outskirts of the shoal. In about three minutes' time, +Queequeg's harpoon was flung; the stricken fish darted blinding spray +in our faces, and then running away with us like light, steered straight +for the heart of the herd. Though such a movement on the part of the +whale struck under such circumstances, is in no wise unprecedented; and +indeed is almost always more or less anticipated; yet does it present +one of the more perilous vicissitudes of the fishery. For as the swift +monster drags you deeper and deeper into the frantic shoal, you bid +adieu to circumspect life and only exist in a delirious throb. + +As, blind and deaf, the whale plunged forward, as if by sheer power of +speed to rid himself of the iron leech that had fastened to him; as we +thus tore a white gash in the sea, on all sides menaced as we flew, by +the crazed creatures to and fro rushing about us; our beset boat was +like a ship mobbed by ice-isles in a tempest, and striving to steer +through their complicated channels and straits, knowing not at what +moment it may be locked in and crushed. + +But not a bit daunted, Queequeg steered us manfully; now sheering off +from this monster directly across our route in advance; now edging away +from that, whose colossal flukes were suspended overhead, while all the +time, Starbuck stood up in the bows, lance in hand, pricking out of our +way whatever whales he could reach by short darts, for there was no time +to make long ones. Nor were the oarsmen quite idle, though their wonted +duty was now altogether dispensed with. They chiefly attended to the +shouting part of the business. "Out of the way, Commodore!" cried one, +to a great dromedary that of a sudden rose bodily to the surface, +and for an instant threatened to swamp us. "Hard down with your tail, +there!" cried a second to another, which, close to our gunwale, seemed +calmly cooling himself with his own fan-like extremity. + +All whaleboats carry certain curious contrivances, originally invented +by the Nantucket Indians, called druggs. Two thick squares of wood +of equal size are stoutly clenched together, so that they cross each +other's grain at right angles; a line of considerable length is then +attached to the middle of this block, and the other end of the line +being looped, it can in a moment be fastened to a harpoon. It is chiefly +among gallied whales that this drugg is used. For then, more whales +are close round you than you can possibly chase at one time. But sperm +whales are not every day encountered; while you may, then, you must +kill all you can. And if you cannot kill them all at once, you must wing +them, so that they can be afterwards killed at your leisure. Hence it +is, that at times like these the drugg, comes into requisition. Our boat +was furnished with three of them. The first and second were successfully +darted, and we saw the whales staggeringly running off, fettered by the +enormous sidelong resistance of the towing drugg. They were cramped like +malefactors with the chain and ball. But upon flinging the third, in the +act of tossing overboard the clumsy wooden block, it caught under one +of the seats of the boat, and in an instant tore it out and carried it +away, dropping the oarsman in the boat's bottom as the seat slid from +under him. On both sides the sea came in at the wounded planks, but we +stuffed two or three drawers and shirts in, and so stopped the leaks for +the time. + +It had been next to impossible to dart these drugged-harpoons, were +it not that as we advanced into the herd, our whale's way greatly +diminished; moreover, that as we went still further and further from the +circumference of commotion, the direful disorders seemed waning. So that +when at last the jerking harpoon drew out, and the towing whale sideways +vanished; then, with the tapering force of his parting momentum, we +glided between two whales into the innermost heart of the shoal, as if +from some mountain torrent we had slid into a serene valley lake. Here +the storms in the roaring glens between the outermost whales, were heard +but not felt. In this central expanse the sea presented that smooth +satin-like surface, called a sleek, produced by the subtle moisture +thrown off by the whale in his more quiet moods. Yes, we were now +in that enchanted calm which they say lurks at the heart of every +commotion. And still in the distracted distance we beheld the tumults of +the outer concentric circles, and saw successive pods of whales, eight +or ten in each, swiftly going round and round, like multiplied spans of +horses in a ring; and so closely shoulder to shoulder, that a Titanic +circus-rider might easily have over-arched the middle ones, and so have +gone round on their backs. Owing to the density of the crowd of reposing +whales, more immediately surrounding the embayed axis of the herd, no +possible chance of escape was at present afforded us. We must watch for +a breach in the living wall that hemmed us in; the wall that had only +admitted us in order to shut us up. Keeping at the centre of the lake, +we were occasionally visited by small tame cows and calves; the women +and children of this routed host. + +Now, inclusive of the occasional wide intervals between the revolving +outer circles, and inclusive of the spaces between the various pods in +any one of those circles, the entire area at this juncture, embraced by +the whole multitude, must have contained at least two or three square +miles. At any rate--though indeed such a test at such a time might be +deceptive--spoutings might be discovered from our low boat that +seemed playing up almost from the rim of the horizon. I mention this +circumstance, because, as if the cows and calves had been purposely +locked up in this innermost fold; and as if the wide extent of the +herd had hitherto prevented them from learning the precise cause of its +stopping; or, possibly, being so young, unsophisticated, and every way +innocent and inexperienced; however it may have been, these smaller +whales--now and then visiting our becalmed boat from the margin of the +lake--evinced a wondrous fearlessness and confidence, or else a still +becharmed panic which it was impossible not to marvel at. Like household +dogs they came snuffling round us, right up to our gunwales, and +touching them; till it almost seemed that some spell had suddenly +domesticated them. Queequeg patted their foreheads; Starbuck scratched +their backs with his lance; but fearful of the consequences, for the +time refrained from darting it. + +But far beneath this wondrous world upon the surface, another and still +stranger world met our eyes as we gazed over the side. For, suspended +in those watery vaults, floated the forms of the nursing mothers of the +whales, and those that by their enormous girth seemed shortly to +become mothers. The lake, as I have hinted, was to a considerable depth +exceedingly transparent; and as human infants while suckling will calmly +and fixedly gaze away from the breast, as if leading two different +lives at the time; and while yet drawing mortal nourishment, be still +spiritually feasting upon some unearthly reminiscence;--even so did the +young of these whales seem looking up towards us, but not at us, as if +we were but a bit of Gulfweed in their new-born sight. Floating on their +sides, the mothers also seemed quietly eyeing us. One of these little +infants, that from certain queer tokens seemed hardly a day old, might +have measured some fourteen feet in length, and some six feet in +girth. He was a little frisky; though as yet his body seemed scarce yet +recovered from that irksome position it had so lately occupied in the +maternal reticule; where, tail to head, and all ready for the final +spring, the unborn whale lies bent like a Tartar's bow. The delicate +side-fins, and the palms of his flukes, still freshly retained the +plaited crumpled appearance of a baby's ears newly arrived from foreign +parts. + +"Line! line!" cried Queequeg, looking over the gunwale; "him fast! him +fast!--Who line him! Who struck?--Two whale; one big, one little!" + +"What ails ye, man?" cried Starbuck. + +"Look-e here," said Queequeg, pointing down. + +As when the stricken whale, that from the tub has reeled out hundreds of +fathoms of rope; as, after deep sounding, he floats up again, and shows +the slackened curling line buoyantly rising and spiralling towards the +air; so now, Starbuck saw long coils of the umbilical cord of Madame +Leviathan, by which the young cub seemed still tethered to its dam. Not +seldom in the rapid vicissitudes of the chase, this natural line, with +the maternal end loose, becomes entangled with the hempen one, so that +the cub is thereby trapped. Some of the subtlest secrets of the seas +seemed divulged to us in this enchanted pond. We saw young Leviathan +amours in the deep.* + + +*The sperm whale, as with all other species of the Leviathan, but unlike +most other fish, breeds indifferently at all seasons; after a gestation +which may probably be set down at nine months, producing but one at a +time; though in some few known instances giving birth to an Esau and +Jacob:--a contingency provided for in suckling by two teats, curiously +situated, one on each side of the anus; but the breasts themselves +extend upwards from that. When by chance these precious parts in a +nursing whale are cut by the hunter's lance, the mother's pouring milk +and blood rivallingly discolour the sea for rods. The milk is very sweet +and rich; it has been tasted by man; it might do well with strawberries. +When overflowing with mutual esteem, the whales salute MORE HOMINUM. + + +And thus, though surrounded by circle upon circle of consternations +and affrights, did these inscrutable creatures at the centre freely and +fearlessly indulge in all peaceful concernments; yea, serenely revelled +in dalliance and delight. But even so, amid the tornadoed Atlantic of +my being, do I myself still for ever centrally disport in mute calm; and +while ponderous planets of unwaning woe revolve round me, deep down and +deep inland there I still bathe me in eternal mildness of joy. + +Meanwhile, as we thus lay entranced, the occasional sudden frantic +spectacles in the distance evinced the activity of the other boats, +still engaged in drugging the whales on the frontier of the host; or +possibly carrying on the war within the first circle, where abundance of +room and some convenient retreats were afforded them. But the sight +of the enraged drugged whales now and then blindly darting to and fro +across the circles, was nothing to what at last met our eyes. It is +sometimes the custom when fast to a whale more than commonly powerful +and alert, to seek to hamstring him, as it were, by sundering or +maiming his gigantic tail-tendon. It is done by darting a short-handled +cutting-spade, to which is attached a rope for hauling it back again. +A whale wounded (as we afterwards learned) in this part, but not +effectually, as it seemed, had broken away from the boat, carrying along +with him half of the harpoon line; and in the extraordinary agony of +the wound, he was now dashing among the revolving circles like the lone +mounted desperado Arnold, at the battle of Saratoga, carrying dismay +wherever he went. + +But agonizing as was the wound of this whale, and an appalling spectacle +enough, any way; yet the peculiar horror with which he seemed to +inspire the rest of the herd, was owing to a cause which at first the +intervening distance obscured from us. But at length we perceived that +by one of the unimaginable accidents of the fishery, this whale had +become entangled in the harpoon-line that he towed; he had also run +away with the cutting-spade in him; and while the free end of the rope +attached to that weapon, had permanently caught in the coils of the +harpoon-line round his tail, the cutting-spade itself had worked loose +from his flesh. So that tormented to madness, he was now churning +through the water, violently flailing with his flexible tail, and +tossing the keen spade about him, wounding and murdering his own +comrades. + +This terrific object seemed to recall the whole herd from their +stationary fright. First, the whales forming the margin of our lake +began to crowd a little, and tumble against each other, as if lifted +by half spent billows from afar; then the lake itself began faintly to +heave and swell; the submarine bridal-chambers and nurseries vanished; +in more and more contracting orbits the whales in the more central +circles began to swim in thickening clusters. Yes, the long calm was +departing. A low advancing hum was soon heard; and then like to the +tumultuous masses of block-ice when the great river Hudson breaks up in +Spring, the entire host of whales came tumbling upon their inner centre, +as if to pile themselves up in one common mountain. Instantly Starbuck +and Queequeg changed places; Starbuck taking the stern. + +"Oars! Oars!" he intensely whispered, seizing the helm--"gripe your +oars, and clutch your souls, now! My God, men, stand by! Shove him off, +you Queequeg--the whale there!--prick him!--hit him! Stand up--stand +up, and stay so! Spring, men--pull, men; never mind their backs--scrape +them!--scrape away!" + +The boat was now all but jammed between two vast black bulks, leaving a +narrow Dardanelles between their long lengths. But by desperate endeavor +we at last shot into a temporary opening; then giving way rapidly, +and at the same time earnestly watching for another outlet. After many +similar hair-breadth escapes, we at last swiftly glided into what had +just been one of the outer circles, but now crossed by random whales, +all violently making for one centre. This lucky salvation was cheaply +purchased by the loss of Queequeg's hat, who, while standing in the bows +to prick the fugitive whales, had his hat taken clean from his head by +the air-eddy made by the sudden tossing of a pair of broad flukes close +by. + +Riotous and disordered as the universal commotion now was, it soon +resolved itself into what seemed a systematic movement; for having +clumped together at last in one dense body, they then renewed their +onward flight with augmented fleetness. Further pursuit was useless; but +the boats still lingered in their wake to pick up what drugged whales +might be dropped astern, and likewise to secure one which Flask had +killed and waifed. The waif is a pennoned pole, two or three of which +are carried by every boat; and which, when additional game is at hand, +are inserted upright into the floating body of a dead whale, both to +mark its place on the sea, and also as token of prior possession, should +the boats of any other ship draw near. + +The result of this lowering was somewhat illustrative of that sagacious +saying in the Fishery,--the more whales the less fish. Of all the +drugged whales only one was captured. The rest contrived to escape for +the time, but only to be taken, as will hereafter be seen, by some other +craft than the Pequod. + + + +CHAPTER 88. Schools and Schoolmasters. + + +The previous chapter gave account of an immense body or herd of Sperm +Whales, and there was also then given the probable cause inducing those +vast aggregations. + +Now, though such great bodies are at times encountered, yet, as must +have been seen, even at the present day, small detached bands are +occasionally observed, embracing from twenty to fifty individuals each. +Such bands are known as schools. They generally are of two sorts; those +composed almost entirely of females, and those mustering none but young +vigorous males, or bulls, as they are familiarly designated. + +In cavalier attendance upon the school of females, you invariably see a +male of full grown magnitude, but not old; who, upon any alarm, evinces +his gallantry by falling in the rear and covering the flight of his +ladies. In truth, this gentleman is a luxurious Ottoman, swimming about +over the watery world, surroundingly accompanied by all the solaces +and endearments of the harem. The contrast between this Ottoman and +his concubines is striking; because, while he is always of the largest +leviathanic proportions, the ladies, even at full growth, are not +more than one-third of the bulk of an average-sized male. They are +comparatively delicate, indeed; I dare say, not to exceed half a dozen +yards round the waist. Nevertheless, it cannot be denied, that upon the +whole they are hereditarily entitled to EMBONPOINT. + +It is very curious to watch this harem and its lord in their indolent +ramblings. Like fashionables, they are for ever on the move in leisurely +search of variety. You meet them on the Line in time for the full flower +of the Equatorial feeding season, having just returned, perhaps, from +spending the summer in the Northern seas, and so cheating summer of all +unpleasant weariness and warmth. By the time they have lounged up and +down the promenade of the Equator awhile, they start for the Oriental +waters in anticipation of the cool season there, and so evade the other +excessive temperature of the year. + +When serenely advancing on one of these journeys, if any strange +suspicious sights are seen, my lord whale keeps a wary eye on his +interesting family. Should any unwarrantably pert young Leviathan coming +that way, presume to draw confidentially close to one of the ladies, +with what prodigious fury the Bashaw assails him, and chases him away! +High times, indeed, if unprincipled young rakes like him are to be +permitted to invade the sanctity of domestic bliss; though do what the +Bashaw will, he cannot keep the most notorious Lothario out of his bed; +for, alas! all fish bed in common. As ashore, the ladies often cause the +most terrible duels among their rival admirers; just so with the whales, +who sometimes come to deadly battle, and all for love. They fence with +their long lower jaws, sometimes locking them together, and so striving +for the supremacy like elks that warringly interweave their antlers. Not +a few are captured having the deep scars of these encounters,--furrowed +heads, broken teeth, scolloped fins; and in some instances, wrenched and +dislocated mouths. + +But supposing the invader of domestic bliss to betake himself away at +the first rush of the harem's lord, then is it very diverting to watch +that lord. Gently he insinuates his vast bulk among them again and +revels there awhile, still in tantalizing vicinity to young Lothario, +like pious Solomon devoutly worshipping among his thousand concubines. +Granting other whales to be in sight, the fishermen will seldom give +chase to one of these Grand Turks; for these Grand Turks are too lavish +of their strength, and hence their unctuousness is small. As for the +sons and the daughters they beget, why, those sons and daughters must +take care of themselves; at least, with only the maternal help. For +like certain other omnivorous roving lovers that might be named, my Lord +Whale has no taste for the nursery, however much for the bower; and so, +being a great traveller, he leaves his anonymous babies all over the +world; every baby an exotic. In good time, nevertheless, as the ardour +of youth declines; as years and dumps increase; as reflection lends +her solemn pauses; in short, as a general lassitude overtakes the sated +Turk; then a love of ease and virtue supplants the love for maidens; our +Ottoman enters upon the impotent, repentant, admonitory stage of life, +forswears, disbands the harem, and grown to an exemplary, sulky old +soul, goes about all alone among the meridians and parallels saying his +prayers, and warning each young Leviathan from his amorous errors. + +Now, as the harem of whales is called by the fishermen a school, so +is the lord and master of that school technically known as the +schoolmaster. It is therefore not in strict character, however admirably +satirical, that after going to school himself, he should then go abroad +inculcating not what he learned there, but the folly of it. His title, +schoolmaster, would very naturally seem derived from the name bestowed +upon the harem itself, but some have surmised that the man who first +thus entitled this sort of Ottoman whale, must have read the memoirs of +Vidocq, and informed himself what sort of a country-schoolmaster that +famous Frenchman was in his younger days, and what was the nature of +those occult lessons he inculcated into some of his pupils. + +The same secludedness and isolation to which the schoolmaster whale +betakes himself in his advancing years, is true of all aged Sperm +Whales. Almost universally, a lone whale--as a solitary Leviathan is +called--proves an ancient one. Like venerable moss-bearded Daniel Boone, +he will have no one near him but Nature herself; and her he takes to +wife in the wilderness of waters, and the best of wives she is, though +she keeps so many moody secrets. + +The schools composing none but young and vigorous males, previously +mentioned, offer a strong contrast to the harem schools. For while +those female whales are characteristically timid, the young males, or +forty-barrel-bulls, as they call them, are by far the most pugnacious +of all Leviathans, and proverbially the most dangerous to encounter; +excepting those wondrous grey-headed, grizzled whales, sometimes met, +and these will fight you like grim fiends exasperated by a penal gout. + +The Forty-barrel-bull schools are larger than the harem schools. Like +a mob of young collegians, they are full of fight, fun, and wickedness, +tumbling round the world at such a reckless, rollicking rate, that no +prudent underwriter would insure them any more than he would a riotous +lad at Yale or Harvard. They soon relinquish this turbulence though, +and when about three-fourths grown, break up, and separately go about in +quest of settlements, that is, harems. + +Another point of difference between the male and female schools is +still more characteristic of the sexes. Say you strike a +Forty-barrel-bull--poor devil! all his comrades quit him. But strike +a member of the harem school, and her companions swim around her with +every token of concern, sometimes lingering so near her and so long, as +themselves to fall a prey. + + + +CHAPTER 89. Fast-Fish and Loose-Fish. + + +The allusion to the waif and waif-poles in the last chapter but one, +necessitates some account of the laws and regulations of the whale +fishery, of which the waif may be deemed the grand symbol and badge. + +It frequently happens that when several ships are cruising in company, +a whale may be struck by one vessel, then escape, and be finally killed +and captured by another vessel; and herein are indirectly comprised +many minor contingencies, all partaking of this one grand feature. For +example,--after a weary and perilous chase and capture of a whale, +the body may get loose from the ship by reason of a violent storm; and +drifting far away to leeward, be retaken by a second whaler, who, in a +calm, snugly tows it alongside, without risk of life or line. Thus +the most vexatious and violent disputes would often arise between +the fishermen, were there not some written or unwritten, universal, +undisputed law applicable to all cases. + +Perhaps the only formal whaling code authorized by legislative +enactment, was that of Holland. It was decreed by the States-General in +A.D. 1695. But though no other nation has ever had any written whaling +law, yet the American fishermen have been their own legislators and +lawyers in this matter. They have provided a system which for terse +comprehensiveness surpasses Justinian's Pandects and the By-laws of +the Chinese Society for the Suppression of Meddling with other People's +Business. Yes; these laws might be engraven on a Queen Anne's farthing, +or the barb of a harpoon, and worn round the neck, so small are they. + +I. A Fast-Fish belongs to the party fast to it. + +II. A Loose-Fish is fair game for anybody who can soonest catch it. + +But what plays the mischief with this masterly code is the admirable +brevity of it, which necessitates a vast volume of commentaries to +expound it. + +First: What is a Fast-Fish? Alive or dead a fish is technically fast, +when it is connected with an occupied ship or boat, by any medium at all +controllable by the occupant or occupants,--a mast, an oar, a nine-inch +cable, a telegraph wire, or a strand of cobweb, it is all the same. +Likewise a fish is technically fast when it bears a waif, or any other +recognised symbol of possession; so long as the party waifing it plainly +evince their ability at any time to take it alongside, as well as their +intention so to do. + +These are scientific commentaries; but the commentaries of the whalemen +themselves sometimes consist in hard words and harder knocks--the +Coke-upon-Littleton of the fist. True, among the more upright and +honourable whalemen allowances are always made for peculiar cases, +where it would be an outrageous moral injustice for one party to claim +possession of a whale previously chased or killed by another party. But +others are by no means so scrupulous. + +Some fifty years ago there was a curious case of whale-trover litigated +in England, wherein the plaintiffs set forth that after a hard chase of +a whale in the Northern seas; and when indeed they (the plaintiffs) had +succeeded in harpooning the fish; they were at last, through peril of +their lives, obliged to forsake not only their lines, but their boat +itself. Ultimately the defendants (the crew of another ship) came up +with the whale, struck, killed, seized, and finally appropriated it +before the very eyes of the plaintiffs. And when those defendants were +remonstrated with, their captain snapped his fingers in the plaintiffs' +teeth, and assured them that by way of doxology to the deed he had done, +he would now retain their line, harpoons, and boat, which had remained +attached to the whale at the time of the seizure. Wherefore the +plaintiffs now sued for the recovery of the value of their whale, line, +harpoons, and boat. + +Mr. Erskine was counsel for the defendants; Lord Ellenborough was +the judge. In the course of the defence, the witty Erskine went on +to illustrate his position, by alluding to a recent crim. con. +case, wherein a gentleman, after in vain trying to bridle his wife's +viciousness, had at last abandoned her upon the seas of life; but in +the course of years, repenting of that step, he instituted an action to +recover possession of her. Erskine was on the other side; and he +then supported it by saying, that though the gentleman had originally +harpooned the lady, and had once had her fast, and only by reason of the +great stress of her plunging viciousness, had at last abandoned her; yet +abandon her he did, so that she became a loose-fish; and therefore +when a subsequent gentleman re-harpooned her, the lady then became that +subsequent gentleman's property, along with whatever harpoon might have +been found sticking in her. + +Now in the present case Erskine contended that the examples of the whale +and the lady were reciprocally illustrative of each other. + +These pleadings, and the counter pleadings, being duly heard, the very +learned Judge in set terms decided, to wit,--That as for the boat, he +awarded it to the plaintiffs, because they had merely abandoned it +to save their lives; but that with regard to the controverted whale, +harpoons, and line, they belonged to the defendants; the whale, because +it was a Loose-Fish at the time of the final capture; and the harpoons +and line because when the fish made off with them, it (the fish) +acquired a property in those articles; and hence anybody who afterwards +took the fish had a right to them. Now the defendants afterwards took +the fish; ergo, the aforesaid articles were theirs. + +A common man looking at this decision of the very learned Judge, might +possibly object to it. But ploughed up to the primary rock of the +matter, the two great principles laid down in the twin whaling laws +previously quoted, and applied and elucidated by Lord Ellenborough in +the above cited case; these two laws touching Fast-Fish and Loose-Fish, +I say, will, on reflection, be found the fundamentals of all human +jurisprudence; for notwithstanding its complicated tracery of sculpture, +the Temple of the Law, like the Temple of the Philistines, has but two +props to stand on. + +Is it not a saying in every one's mouth, Possession is half of the law: +that is, regardless of how the thing came into possession? But often +possession is the whole of the law. What are the sinews and souls of +Russian serfs and Republican slaves but Fast-Fish, whereof possession is +the whole of the law? What to the rapacious landlord is the widow's last +mite but a Fast-Fish? What is yonder undetected villain's marble mansion +with a door-plate for a waif; what is that but a Fast-Fish? What is the +ruinous discount which Mordecai, the broker, gets from poor Woebegone, +the bankrupt, on a loan to keep Woebegone's family from starvation; +what is that ruinous discount but a Fast-Fish? What is the Archbishop of +Savesoul's income of L100,000 seized from the scant bread and cheese +of hundreds of thousands of broken-backed laborers (all sure of heaven +without any of Savesoul's help) what is that globular L100,000 but a +Fast-Fish? What are the Duke of Dunder's hereditary towns and hamlets +but Fast-Fish? What to that redoubted harpooneer, John Bull, is poor +Ireland, but a Fast-Fish? What to that apostolic lancer, Brother +Jonathan, is Texas but a Fast-Fish? And concerning all these, is not +Possession the whole of the law? + +But if the doctrine of Fast-Fish be pretty generally applicable, +the kindred doctrine of Loose-Fish is still more widely so. That is +internationally and universally applicable. + +What was America in 1492 but a Loose-Fish, in which Columbus struck the +Spanish standard by way of waifing it for his royal master and mistress? +What was Poland to the Czar? What Greece to the Turk? What India +to England? What at last will Mexico be to the United States? All +Loose-Fish. + +What are the Rights of Man and the Liberties of the World but +Loose-Fish? What all men's minds and opinions but Loose-Fish? What is +the principle of religious belief in them but a Loose-Fish? What to +the ostentatious smuggling verbalists are the thoughts of thinkers but +Loose-Fish? What is the great globe itself but a Loose-Fish? And what +are you, reader, but a Loose-Fish and a Fast-Fish, too? + + + +CHAPTER 90. Heads or Tails. + + +"De balena vero sufficit, si rex habeat caput, et regina caudam." +BRACTON, L. 3, C. 3. + + +Latin from the books of the Laws of England, which taken along with the +context, means, that of all whales captured by anybody on the coast of +that land, the King, as Honourary Grand Harpooneer, must have the head, +and the Queen be respectfully presented with the tail. A division which, +in the whale, is much like halving an apple; there is no intermediate +remainder. Now as this law, under a modified form, is to this day in +force in England; and as it offers in various respects a strange anomaly +touching the general law of Fast and Loose-Fish, it is here treated of +in a separate chapter, on the same courteous principle that prompts +the English railways to be at the expense of a separate car, specially +reserved for the accommodation of royalty. In the first place, in +curious proof of the fact that the above-mentioned law is still in +force, I proceed to lay before you a circumstance that happened within +the last two years. + +It seems that some honest mariners of Dover, or Sandwich, or some one +of the Cinque Ports, had after a hard chase succeeded in killing and +beaching a fine whale which they had originally descried afar off from +the shore. Now the Cinque Ports are partially or somehow under the +jurisdiction of a sort of policeman or beadle, called a Lord Warden. +Holding the office directly from the crown, I believe, all the royal +emoluments incident to the Cinque Port territories become by assignment +his. By some writers this office is called a sinecure. But not so. +Because the Lord Warden is busily employed at times in fobbing his +perquisites; which are his chiefly by virtue of that same fobbing of +them. + +Now when these poor sun-burnt mariners, bare-footed, and with their +trowsers rolled high up on their eely legs, had wearily hauled their fat +fish high and dry, promising themselves a good L150 from the precious +oil and bone; and in fantasy sipping rare tea with their wives, and good +ale with their cronies, upon the strength of their respective shares; up +steps a very learned and most Christian and charitable gentleman, with +a copy of Blackstone under his arm; and laying it upon the whale's head, +he says--"Hands off! this fish, my masters, is a Fast-Fish. I seize it +as the Lord Warden's." Upon this the poor mariners in their respectful +consternation--so truly English--knowing not what to say, fall to +vigorously scratching their heads all round; meanwhile ruefully glancing +from the whale to the stranger. But that did in nowise mend the matter, +or at all soften the hard heart of the learned gentleman with the copy +of Blackstone. At length one of them, after long scratching about for +his ideas, made bold to speak, + +"Please, sir, who is the Lord Warden?" + +"The Duke." + +"But the duke had nothing to do with taking this fish?" + +"It is his." + +"We have been at great trouble, and peril, and some expense, and is +all that to go to the Duke's benefit; we getting nothing at all for our +pains but our blisters?" + +"It is his." + +"Is the Duke so very poor as to be forced to this desperate mode of +getting a livelihood?" + +"It is his." + +"I thought to relieve my old bed-ridden mother by part of my share of +this whale." + +"It is his." + +"Won't the Duke be content with a quarter or a half?" + +"It is his." + +In a word, the whale was seized and sold, and his Grace the Duke of +Wellington received the money. Thinking that viewed in some particular +lights, the case might by a bare possibility in some small degree be +deemed, under the circumstances, a rather hard one, an honest clergyman +of the town respectfully addressed a note to his Grace, begging him to +take the case of those unfortunate mariners into full consideration. To +which my Lord Duke in substance replied (both letters were published) +that he had already done so, and received the money, and would be +obliged to the reverend gentleman if for the future he (the reverend +gentleman) would decline meddling with other people's business. Is +this the still militant old man, standing at the corners of the three +kingdoms, on all hands coercing alms of beggars? + +It will readily be seen that in this case the alleged right of the +Duke to the whale was a delegated one from the Sovereign. We must needs +inquire then on what principle the Sovereign is originally invested with +that right. The law itself has already been set forth. But Plowdon gives +us the reason for it. Says Plowdon, the whale so caught belongs to +the King and Queen, "because of its superior excellence." And by the +soundest commentators this has ever been held a cogent argument in such +matters. + +But why should the King have the head, and the Queen the tail? A reason +for that, ye lawyers! + +In his treatise on "Queen-Gold," or Queen-pinmoney, an old King's Bench +author, one William Prynne, thus discourseth: "Ye tail is ye Queen's, +that ye Queen's wardrobe may be supplied with ye whalebone." Now this +was written at a time when the black limber bone of the Greenland or +Right whale was largely used in ladies' bodices. But this same bone +is not in the tail; it is in the head, which is a sad mistake for +a sagacious lawyer like Prynne. But is the Queen a mermaid, to be +presented with a tail? An allegorical meaning may lurk here. + +There are two royal fish so styled by the English law writers--the whale +and the sturgeon; both royal property under certain limitations, and +nominally supplying the tenth branch of the crown's ordinary revenue. +I know not that any other author has hinted of the matter; but by +inference it seems to me that the sturgeon must be divided in the same +way as the whale, the King receiving the highly dense and elastic head +peculiar to that fish, which, symbolically regarded, may possibly be +humorously grounded upon some presumed congeniality. And thus there +seems a reason in all things, even in law. + + + +CHAPTER 91. The Pequod Meets The Rose-Bud. + + +"In vain it was to rake for Ambergriese in the paunch of this Leviathan, +insufferable fetor denying not inquiry." SIR T. BROWNE, V.E. + + +It was a week or two after the last whaling scene recounted, and when we +were slowly sailing over a sleepy, vapoury, mid-day sea, that the many +noses on the Pequod's deck proved more vigilant discoverers than the +three pairs of eyes aloft. A peculiar and not very pleasant smell was +smelt in the sea. + +"I will bet something now," said Stubb, "that somewhere hereabouts are +some of those drugged whales we tickled the other day. I thought they +would keel up before long." + +Presently, the vapours in advance slid aside; and there in the distance +lay a ship, whose furled sails betokened that some sort of whale must be +alongside. As we glided nearer, the stranger showed French colours from +his peak; and by the eddying cloud of vulture sea-fowl that circled, and +hovered, and swooped around him, it was plain that the whale alongside +must be what the fishermen call a blasted whale, that is, a whale that +has died unmolested on the sea, and so floated an unappropriated corpse. +It may well be conceived, what an unsavory odor such a mass must +exhale; worse than an Assyrian city in the plague, when the living are +incompetent to bury the departed. So intolerable indeed is it regarded +by some, that no cupidity could persuade them to moor alongside of it. +Yet are there those who will still do it; notwithstanding the fact that +the oil obtained from such subjects is of a very inferior quality, and +by no means of the nature of attar-of-rose. + +Coming still nearer with the expiring breeze, we saw that the Frenchman +had a second whale alongside; and this second whale seemed even more +of a nosegay than the first. In truth, it turned out to be one of +those problematical whales that seem to dry up and die with a sort +of prodigious dyspepsia, or indigestion; leaving their defunct bodies +almost entirely bankrupt of anything like oil. Nevertheless, in the +proper place we shall see that no knowing fisherman will ever turn +up his nose at such a whale as this, however much he may shun blasted +whales in general. + +The Pequod had now swept so nigh to the stranger, that Stubb vowed +he recognised his cutting spade-pole entangled in the lines that were +knotted round the tail of one of these whales. + +"There's a pretty fellow, now," he banteringly laughed, standing in the +ship's bows, "there's a jackal for ye! I well know that these Crappoes +of Frenchmen are but poor devils in the fishery; sometimes lowering +their boats for breakers, mistaking them for Sperm Whale spouts; yes, +and sometimes sailing from their port with their hold full of boxes of +tallow candles, and cases of snuffers, foreseeing that all the oil they +will get won't be enough to dip the Captain's wick into; aye, we all +know these things; but look ye, here's a Crappo that is content with our +leavings, the drugged whale there, I mean; aye, and is content too with +scraping the dry bones of that other precious fish he has there. Poor +devil! I say, pass round a hat, some one, and let's make him a present +of a little oil for dear charity's sake. For what oil he'll get from +that drugged whale there, wouldn't be fit to burn in a jail; no, not +in a condemned cell. And as for the other whale, why, I'll agree to get +more oil by chopping up and trying out these three masts of ours, than +he'll get from that bundle of bones; though, now that I think of it, it +may contain something worth a good deal more than oil; yes, ambergris. +I wonder now if our old man has thought of that. It's worth trying. Yes, +I'm for it;" and so saying he started for the quarter-deck. + +By this time the faint air had become a complete calm; so that whether +or no, the Pequod was now fairly entrapped in the smell, with no hope of +escaping except by its breezing up again. Issuing from the cabin, Stubb +now called his boat's crew, and pulled off for the stranger. Drawing +across her bow, he perceived that in accordance with the fanciful French +taste, the upper part of her stem-piece was carved in the likeness of a +huge drooping stalk, was painted green, and for thorns had copper +spikes projecting from it here and there; the whole terminating in a +symmetrical folded bulb of a bright red colour. Upon her head boards, in +large gilt letters, he read "Bouton de Rose,"--Rose-button, or Rose-bud; +and this was the romantic name of this aromatic ship. + +Though Stubb did not understand the BOUTON part of the inscription, yet +the word ROSE, and the bulbous figure-head put together, sufficiently +explained the whole to him. + +"A wooden rose-bud, eh?" he cried with his hand to his nose, "that will +do very well; but how like all creation it smells!" + +Now in order to hold direct communication with the people on deck, he +had to pull round the bows to the starboard side, and thus come close to +the blasted whale; and so talk over it. + +Arrived then at this spot, with one hand still to his nose, he +bawled--"Bouton-de-Rose, ahoy! are there any of you Bouton-de-Roses that +speak English?" + +"Yes," rejoined a Guernsey-man from the bulwarks, who turned out to be +the chief-mate. + +"Well, then, my Bouton-de-Rose-bud, have you seen the White Whale?" + +"WHAT whale?" + +"The WHITE Whale--a Sperm Whale--Moby Dick, have ye seen him? + +"Never heard of such a whale. Cachalot Blanche! White Whale--no." + +"Very good, then; good bye now, and I'll call again in a minute." + +Then rapidly pulling back towards the Pequod, and seeing Ahab leaning +over the quarter-deck rail awaiting his report, he moulded his two hands +into a trumpet and shouted--"No, Sir! No!" Upon which Ahab retired, and +Stubb returned to the Frenchman. + +He now perceived that the Guernsey-man, who had just got into the +chains, and was using a cutting-spade, had slung his nose in a sort of +bag. + +"What's the matter with your nose, there?" said Stubb. "Broke it?" + +"I wish it was broken, or that I didn't have any nose at all!" answered +the Guernsey-man, who did not seem to relish the job he was at very +much. "But what are you holding YOURS for?" + +"Oh, nothing! It's a wax nose; I have to hold it on. Fine day, ain't it? +Air rather gardenny, I should say; throw us a bunch of posies, will ye, +Bouton-de-Rose?" + +"What in the devil's name do you want here?" roared the Guernseyman, +flying into a sudden passion. + +"Oh! keep cool--cool? yes, that's the word! why don't you pack those +whales in ice while you're working at 'em? But joking aside, though; do +you know, Rose-bud, that it's all nonsense trying to get any oil out of +such whales? As for that dried up one, there, he hasn't a gill in his +whole carcase." + +"I know that well enough; but, d'ye see, the Captain here won't believe +it; this is his first voyage; he was a Cologne manufacturer before. But +come aboard, and mayhap he'll believe you, if he won't me; and so I'll +get out of this dirty scrape." + +"Anything to oblige ye, my sweet and pleasant fellow," rejoined Stubb, +and with that he soon mounted to the deck. There a queer scene presented +itself. The sailors, in tasselled caps of red worsted, were getting the +heavy tackles in readiness for the whales. But they worked rather slow +and talked very fast, and seemed in anything but a good humor. All their +noses upwardly projected from their faces like so many jib-booms. +Now and then pairs of them would drop their work, and run up to the +mast-head to get some fresh air. Some thinking they would catch the +plague, dipped oakum in coal-tar, and at intervals held it to their +nostrils. Others having broken the stems of their pipes almost short +off at the bowl, were vigorously puffing tobacco-smoke, so that it +constantly filled their olfactories. + +Stubb was struck by a shower of outcries and anathemas proceeding from +the Captain's round-house abaft; and looking in that direction saw a +fiery face thrust from behind the door, which was held ajar from within. +This was the tormented surgeon, who, after in vain remonstrating +against the proceedings of the day, had betaken himself to the Captain's +round-house (CABINET he called it) to avoid the pest; but still, could +not help yelling out his entreaties and indignations at times. + +Marking all this, Stubb argued well for his scheme, and turning to the +Guernsey-man had a little chat with him, during which the stranger mate +expressed his detestation of his Captain as a conceited ignoramus, +who had brought them all into so unsavory and unprofitable a pickle. +Sounding him carefully, Stubb further perceived that the Guernsey-man +had not the slightest suspicion concerning the ambergris. He therefore +held his peace on that head, but otherwise was quite frank and +confidential with him, so that the two quickly concocted a little plan +for both circumventing and satirizing the Captain, without his at all +dreaming of distrusting their sincerity. According to this little plan +of theirs, the Guernsey-man, under cover of an interpreter's office, was +to tell the Captain what he pleased, but as coming from Stubb; and as +for Stubb, he was to utter any nonsense that should come uppermost in +him during the interview. + +By this time their destined victim appeared from his cabin. He was a +small and dark, but rather delicate looking man for a sea-captain, with +large whiskers and moustache, however; and wore a red cotton velvet vest +with watch-seals at his side. To this gentleman, Stubb was now politely +introduced by the Guernsey-man, who at once ostentatiously put on the +aspect of interpreting between them. + +"What shall I say to him first?" said he. + +"Why," said Stubb, eyeing the velvet vest and the watch and seals, "you +may as well begin by telling him that he looks a sort of babyish to me, +though I don't pretend to be a judge." + +"He says, Monsieur," said the Guernsey-man, in French, turning to his +captain, "that only yesterday his ship spoke a vessel, whose captain +and chief-mate, with six sailors, had all died of a fever caught from a +blasted whale they had brought alongside." + +Upon this the captain started, and eagerly desired to know more. + +"What now?" said the Guernsey-man to Stubb. + +"Why, since he takes it so easy, tell him that now I have eyed him +carefully, I'm quite certain that he's no more fit to command a +whale-ship than a St. Jago monkey. In fact, tell him from me he's a +baboon." + +"He vows and declares, Monsieur, that the other whale, the dried one, is +far more deadly than the blasted one; in fine, Monsieur, he conjures us, +as we value our lives, to cut loose from these fish." + +Instantly the captain ran forward, and in a loud voice commanded his +crew to desist from hoisting the cutting-tackles, and at once cast loose +the cables and chains confining the whales to the ship. + +"What now?" said the Guernsey-man, when the Captain had returned to +them. + +"Why, let me see; yes, you may as well tell him now that--that--in +fact, tell him I've diddled him, and (aside to himself) perhaps somebody +else." + +"He says, Monsieur, that he's very happy to have been of any service to +us." + +Hearing this, the captain vowed that they were the grateful parties +(meaning himself and mate) and concluded by inviting Stubb down into his +cabin to drink a bottle of Bordeaux. + +"He wants you to take a glass of wine with him," said the interpreter. + +"Thank him heartily; but tell him it's against my principles to drink +with the man I've diddled. In fact, tell him I must go." + +"He says, Monsieur, that his principles won't admit of his drinking; but +that if Monsieur wants to live another day to drink, then Monsieur had +best drop all four boats, and pull the ship away from these whales, for +it's so calm they won't drift." + +By this time Stubb was over the side, and getting into his boat, hailed +the Guernsey-man to this effect,--that having a long tow-line in his +boat, he would do what he could to help them, by pulling out the lighter +whale of the two from the ship's side. While the Frenchman's boats, +then, were engaged in towing the ship one way, Stubb benevolently towed +away at his whale the other way, ostentatiously slacking out a most +unusually long tow-line. + +Presently a breeze sprang up; Stubb feigned to cast off from the whale; +hoisting his boats, the Frenchman soon increased his distance, while the +Pequod slid in between him and Stubb's whale. Whereupon Stubb quickly +pulled to the floating body, and hailing the Pequod to give notice of +his intentions, at once proceeded to reap the fruit of his unrighteous +cunning. Seizing his sharp boat-spade, he commenced an excavation in the +body, a little behind the side fin. You would almost have thought he was +digging a cellar there in the sea; and when at length his spade struck +against the gaunt ribs, it was like turning up old Roman tiles and +pottery buried in fat English loam. His boat's crew were all in high +excitement, eagerly helping their chief, and looking as anxious as +gold-hunters. + +And all the time numberless fowls were diving, and ducking, and +screaming, and yelling, and fighting around them. Stubb was beginning +to look disappointed, especially as the horrible nosegay increased, when +suddenly from out the very heart of this plague, there stole a faint +stream of perfume, which flowed through the tide of bad smells without +being absorbed by it, as one river will flow into and then along with +another, without at all blending with it for a time. + +"I have it, I have it," cried Stubb, with delight, striking something in +the subterranean regions, "a purse! a purse!" + +Dropping his spade, he thrust both hands in, and drew out handfuls +of something that looked like ripe Windsor soap, or rich mottled old +cheese; very unctuous and savory withal. You might easily dent it with +your thumb; it is of a hue between yellow and ash colour. And this, good +friends, is ambergris, worth a gold guinea an ounce to any druggist. +Some six handfuls were obtained; but more was unavoidably lost in the +sea, and still more, perhaps, might have been secured were it not for +impatient Ahab's loud command to Stubb to desist, and come on board, +else the ship would bid them good bye. + + + +CHAPTER 92. Ambergris. + + +Now this ambergris is a very curious substance, and so important as +an article of commerce, that in 1791 a certain Nantucket-born Captain +Coffin was examined at the bar of the English House of Commons on that +subject. For at that time, and indeed until a comparatively late day, +the precise origin of ambergris remained, like amber itself, a problem +to the learned. Though the word ambergris is but the French compound for +grey amber, yet the two substances are quite distinct. For amber, though +at times found on the sea-coast, is also dug up in some far inland +soils, whereas ambergris is never found except upon the sea. Besides, +amber is a hard, transparent, brittle, odorless substance, used for +mouth-pieces to pipes, for beads and ornaments; but ambergris is soft, +waxy, and so highly fragrant and spicy, that it is largely used in +perfumery, in pastiles, precious candles, hair-powders, and pomatum. +The Turks use it in cooking, and also carry it to Mecca, for the same +purpose that frankincense is carried to St. Peter's in Rome. Some wine +merchants drop a few grains into claret, to flavor it. + +Who would think, then, that such fine ladies and gentlemen should regale +themselves with an essence found in the inglorious bowels of a sick +whale! Yet so it is. By some, ambergris is supposed to be the cause, and +by others the effect, of the dyspepsia in the whale. How to cure such +a dyspepsia it were hard to say, unless by administering three or four +boat loads of Brandreth's pills, and then running out of harm's way, as +laborers do in blasting rocks. + +I have forgotten to say that there were found in this ambergris, certain +hard, round, bony plates, which at first Stubb thought might be sailors' +trowsers buttons; but it afterwards turned out that they were nothing +more than pieces of small squid bones embalmed in that manner. + +Now that the incorruption of this most fragrant ambergris should be +found in the heart of such decay; is this nothing? Bethink thee of that +saying of St. Paul in Corinthians, about corruption and incorruption; +how that we are sown in dishonour, but raised in glory. And likewise +call to mind that saying of Paracelsus about what it is that maketh +the best musk. Also forget not the strange fact that of all things of +ill-savor, Cologne-water, in its rudimental manufacturing stages, is the +worst. + +I should like to conclude the chapter with the above appeal, but cannot, +owing to my anxiety to repel a charge often made against whalemen, +and which, in the estimation of some already biased minds, might be +considered as indirectly substantiated by what has been said of +the Frenchman's two whales. Elsewhere in this volume the slanderous +aspersion has been disproved, that the vocation of whaling is throughout +a slatternly, untidy business. But there is another thing to rebut. They +hint that all whales always smell bad. Now how did this odious stigma +originate? + +I opine, that it is plainly traceable to the first arrival of the +Greenland whaling ships in London, more than two centuries ago. Because +those whalemen did not then, and do not now, try out their oil at sea as +the Southern ships have always done; but cutting up the fresh blubber in +small bits, thrust it through the bung holes of large casks, and carry +it home in that manner; the shortness of the season in those Icy Seas, +and the sudden and violent storms to which they are exposed, forbidding +any other course. The consequence is, that upon breaking into the hold, +and unloading one of these whale cemeteries, in the Greenland dock, a +savor is given forth somewhat similar to that arising from excavating an +old city grave-yard, for the foundations of a Lying-in-Hospital. + +I partly surmise also, that this wicked charge against whalers may be +likewise imputed to the existence on the coast of Greenland, in former +times, of a Dutch village called Schmerenburgh or Smeerenberg, which +latter name is the one used by the learned Fogo Von Slack, in his great +work on Smells, a text-book on that subject. As its name imports (smeer, +fat; berg, to put up), this village was founded in order to afford a +place for the blubber of the Dutch whale fleet to be tried out, without +being taken home to Holland for that purpose. It was a collection of +furnaces, fat-kettles, and oil sheds; and when the works were in full +operation certainly gave forth no very pleasant savor. But all this is +quite different with a South Sea Sperm Whaler; which in a voyage of four +years perhaps, after completely filling her hold with oil, does not, +perhaps, consume fifty days in the business of boiling out; and in the +state that it is casked, the oil is nearly scentless. The truth is, that +living or dead, if but decently treated, whales as a species are by +no means creatures of ill odor; nor can whalemen be recognised, as the +people of the middle ages affected to detect a Jew in the company, by +the nose. Nor indeed can the whale possibly be otherwise than fragrant, +when, as a general thing, he enjoys such high health; taking abundance +of exercise; always out of doors; though, it is true, seldom in the +open air. I say, that the motion of a Sperm Whale's flukes above water +dispenses a perfume, as when a musk-scented lady rustles her dress in a +warm parlor. What then shall I liken the Sperm Whale to for fragrance, +considering his magnitude? Must it not be to that famous elephant, with +jewelled tusks, and redolent with myrrh, which was led out of an Indian +town to do honour to Alexander the Great? + + + +CHAPTER 93. The Castaway. + + +It was but some few days after encountering the Frenchman, that a most +significant event befell the most insignificant of the Pequod's crew; an +event most lamentable; and which ended in providing the sometimes +madly merry and predestinated craft with a living and ever accompanying +prophecy of whatever shattered sequel might prove her own. + +Now, in the whale ship, it is not every one that goes in the boats. Some +few hands are reserved called ship-keepers, whose province it is to work +the vessel while the boats are pursuing the whale. As a general thing, +these ship-keepers are as hardy fellows as the men comprising the boats' +crews. But if there happen to be an unduly slender, clumsy, or timorous +wight in the ship, that wight is certain to be made a ship-keeper. It +was so in the Pequod with the little negro Pippin by nick-name, Pip by +abbreviation. Poor Pip! ye have heard of him before; ye must remember +his tambourine on that dramatic midnight, so gloomy-jolly. + +In outer aspect, Pip and Dough-Boy made a match, like a black pony and a +white one, of equal developments, though of dissimilar colour, driven in +one eccentric span. But while hapless Dough-Boy was by nature dull and +torpid in his intellects, Pip, though over tender-hearted, was at bottom +very bright, with that pleasant, genial, jolly brightness peculiar to +his tribe; a tribe, which ever enjoy all holidays and festivities with +finer, freer relish than any other race. For blacks, the year's calendar +should show naught but three hundred and sixty-five Fourth of Julys and +New Year's Days. Nor smile so, while I write that this little black was +brilliant, for even blackness has its brilliancy; behold yon lustrous +ebony, panelled in king's cabinets. But Pip loved life, and all life's +peaceable securities; so that the panic-striking business in which he +had somehow unaccountably become entrapped, had most sadly blurred his +brightness; though, as ere long will be seen, what was thus temporarily +subdued in him, in the end was destined to be luridly illumined by +strange wild fires, that fictitiously showed him off to ten times the +natural lustre with which in his native Tolland County in Connecticut, +he had once enlivened many a fiddler's frolic on the green; and at +melodious even-tide, with his gay ha-ha! had turned the round horizon +into one star-belled tambourine. So, though in the clear air of day, +suspended against a blue-veined neck, the pure-watered diamond drop +will healthful glow; yet, when the cunning jeweller would show you +the diamond in its most impressive lustre, he lays it against a gloomy +ground, and then lights it up, not by the sun, but by some unnatural +gases. Then come out those fiery effulgences, infernally superb; then +the evil-blazing diamond, once the divinest symbol of the crystal skies, +looks like some crown-jewel stolen from the King of Hell. But let us to +the story. + +It came to pass, that in the ambergris affair Stubb's after-oarsman +chanced so to sprain his hand, as for a time to become quite maimed; +and, temporarily, Pip was put into his place. + +The first time Stubb lowered with him, Pip evinced much nervousness; +but happily, for that time, escaped close contact with the whale; and +therefore came off not altogether discreditably; though Stubb observing +him, took care, afterwards, to exhort him to cherish his courageousness +to the utmost, for he might often find it needful. + +Now upon the second lowering, the boat paddled upon the whale; and as +the fish received the darted iron, it gave its customary rap, which +happened, in this instance, to be right under poor Pip's seat. The +involuntary consternation of the moment caused him to leap, paddle in +hand, out of the boat; and in such a way, that part of the slack whale +line coming against his chest, he breasted it overboard with him, so as +to become entangled in it, when at last plumping into the water. That +instant the stricken whale started on a fierce run, the line swiftly +straightened; and presto! poor Pip came all foaming up to the chocks +of the boat, remorselessly dragged there by the line, which had taken +several turns around his chest and neck. + +Tashtego stood in the bows. He was full of the fire of the hunt. He +hated Pip for a poltroon. Snatching the boat-knife from its sheath, +he suspended its sharp edge over the line, and turning towards Stubb, +exclaimed interrogatively, "Cut?" Meantime Pip's blue, choked face +plainly looked, Do, for God's sake! All passed in a flash. In less than +half a minute, this entire thing happened. + +"Damn him, cut!" roared Stubb; and so the whale was lost and Pip was +saved. + +So soon as he recovered himself, the poor little negro was assailed +by yells and execrations from the crew. Tranquilly permitting these +irregular cursings to evaporate, Stubb then in a plain, business-like, +but still half humorous manner, cursed Pip officially; and that done, +unofficially gave him much wholesome advice. The substance was, Never +jump from a boat, Pip, except--but all the rest was indefinite, as the +soundest advice ever is. Now, in general, STICK TO THE BOAT, is your +true motto in whaling; but cases will sometimes happen when LEAP FROM +THE BOAT, is still better. Moreover, as if perceiving at last that if he +should give undiluted conscientious advice to Pip, he would be leaving +him too wide a margin to jump in for the future; Stubb suddenly dropped +all advice, and concluded with a peremptory command, "Stick to the boat, +Pip, or by the Lord, I won't pick you up if you jump; mind that. We +can't afford to lose whales by the likes of you; a whale would sell for +thirty times what you would, Pip, in Alabama. Bear that in mind, and +don't jump any more." Hereby perhaps Stubb indirectly hinted, that +though man loved his fellow, yet man is a money-making animal, which +propensity too often interferes with his benevolence. + +But we are all in the hands of the Gods; and Pip jumped again. It was +under very similar circumstances to the first performance; but this time +he did not breast out the line; and hence, when the whale started to +run, Pip was left behind on the sea, like a hurried traveller's trunk. +Alas! Stubb was but too true to his word. It was a beautiful, bounteous, +blue day; the spangled sea calm and cool, and flatly stretching away, +all round, to the horizon, like gold-beater's skin hammered out to the +extremest. Bobbing up and down in that sea, Pip's ebon head showed +like a head of cloves. No boat-knife was lifted when he fell so rapidly +astern. Stubb's inexorable back was turned upon him; and the whale was +winged. In three minutes, a whole mile of shoreless ocean was between +Pip and Stubb. Out from the centre of the sea, poor Pip turned his +crisp, curling, black head to the sun, another lonely castaway, though +the loftiest and the brightest. + +Now, in calm weather, to swim in the open ocean is as easy to the +practised swimmer as to ride in a spring-carriage ashore. But the awful +lonesomeness is intolerable. The intense concentration of self in the +middle of such a heartless immensity, my God! who can tell it? Mark, how +when sailors in a dead calm bathe in the open sea--mark how closely they +hug their ship and only coast along her sides. + +But had Stubb really abandoned the poor little negro to his fate? No; he +did not mean to, at least. Because there were two boats in his wake, +and he supposed, no doubt, that they would of course come up to Pip very +quickly, and pick him up; though, indeed, such considerations towards +oarsmen jeopardized through their own timidity, is not always manifested +by the hunters in all similar instances; and such instances not +unfrequently occur; almost invariably in the fishery, a coward, so +called, is marked with the same ruthless detestation peculiar to +military navies and armies. + +But it so happened, that those boats, without seeing Pip, suddenly +spying whales close to them on one side, turned, and gave chase; and +Stubb's boat was now so far away, and he and all his crew so intent +upon his fish, that Pip's ringed horizon began to expand around him +miserably. By the merest chance the ship itself at last rescued him; but +from that hour the little negro went about the deck an idiot; such, at +least, they said he was. The sea had jeeringly kept his finite body +up, but drowned the infinite of his soul. Not drowned entirely, though. +Rather carried down alive to wondrous depths, where strange shapes of +the unwarped primal world glided to and fro before his passive eyes; +and the miser-merman, Wisdom, revealed his hoarded heaps; and among the +joyous, heartless, ever-juvenile eternities, Pip saw the multitudinous, +God-omnipresent, coral insects, that out of the firmament of waters +heaved the colossal orbs. He saw God's foot upon the treadle of the +loom, and spoke it; and therefore his shipmates called him mad. So man's +insanity is heaven's sense; and wandering from all mortal reason, man +comes at last to that celestial thought, which, to reason, is absurd and +frantic; and weal or woe, feels then uncompromised, indifferent as his +God. + +For the rest, blame not Stubb too hardly. The thing is common in that +fishery; and in the sequel of the narrative, it will then be seen what +like abandonment befell myself. + + + +CHAPTER 94. A Squeeze of the Hand. + + +That whale of Stubb's, so dearly purchased, was duly brought to +the Pequod's side, where all those cutting and hoisting operations +previously detailed, were regularly gone through, even to the baling of +the Heidelburgh Tun, or Case. + +While some were occupied with this latter duty, others were employed +in dragging away the larger tubs, so soon as filled with the sperm; and +when the proper time arrived, this same sperm was carefully manipulated +ere going to the try-works, of which anon. + +It had cooled and crystallized to such a degree, that when, with several +others, I sat down before a large Constantine's bath of it, I found +it strangely concreted into lumps, here and there rolling about in the +liquid part. It was our business to squeeze these lumps back into fluid. +A sweet and unctuous duty! No wonder that in old times this sperm was +such a favourite cosmetic. Such a clearer! such a sweetener! such a +softener! such a delicious molifier! After having my hands in it for +only a few minutes, my fingers felt like eels, and began, as it were, to +serpentine and spiralise. + +As I sat there at my ease, cross-legged on the deck; after the bitter +exertion at the windlass; under a blue tranquil sky; the ship under +indolent sail, and gliding so serenely along; as I bathed my hands among +those soft, gentle globules of infiltrated tissues, woven almost within +the hour; as they richly broke to my fingers, and discharged all their +opulence, like fully ripe grapes their wine; as I snuffed up that +uncontaminated aroma,--literally and truly, like the smell of spring +violets; I declare to you, that for the time I lived as in a musky +meadow; I forgot all about our horrible oath; in that inexpressible +sperm, I washed my hands and my heart of it; I almost began to credit +the old Paracelsan superstition that sperm is of rare virtue in allaying +the heat of anger; while bathing in that bath, I felt divinely free from +all ill-will, or petulance, or malice, of any sort whatsoever. + +Squeeze! squeeze! squeeze! all the morning long; I squeezed that sperm +till I myself almost melted into it; I squeezed that sperm till a +strange sort of insanity came over me; and I found myself unwittingly +squeezing my co-laborers' hands in it, mistaking their hands for the +gentle globules. Such an abounding, affectionate, friendly, loving +feeling did this avocation beget; that at last I was continually +squeezing their hands, and looking up into their eyes sentimentally; as +much as to say,--Oh! my dear fellow beings, why should we longer cherish +any social acerbities, or know the slightest ill-humor or envy! Come; +let us squeeze hands all round; nay, let us all squeeze ourselves into +each other; let us squeeze ourselves universally into the very milk and +sperm of kindness. + +Would that I could keep squeezing that sperm for ever! For now, since by +many prolonged, repeated experiences, I have perceived that in all cases +man must eventually lower, or at least shift, his conceit of attainable +felicity; not placing it anywhere in the intellect or the fancy; but in +the wife, the heart, the bed, the table, the saddle, the fireside, the +country; now that I have perceived all this, I am ready to squeeze case +eternally. In thoughts of the visions of the night, I saw long rows of +angels in paradise, each with his hands in a jar of spermaceti. + +Now, while discoursing of sperm, it behooves to speak of other things +akin to it, in the business of preparing the sperm whale for the +try-works. + +First comes white-horse, so called, which is obtained from the tapering +part of the fish, and also from the thicker portions of his flukes. It +is tough with congealed tendons--a wad of muscle--but still contains +some oil. After being severed from the whale, the white-horse is first +cut into portable oblongs ere going to the mincer. They look much like +blocks of Berkshire marble. + +Plum-pudding is the term bestowed upon certain fragmentary parts of the +whale's flesh, here and there adhering to the blanket of blubber, and +often participating to a considerable degree in its unctuousness. It is +a most refreshing, convivial, beautiful object to behold. As its name +imports, it is of an exceedingly rich, mottled tint, with a bestreaked +snowy and golden ground, dotted with spots of the deepest crimson and +purple. It is plums of rubies, in pictures of citron. Spite of reason, +it is hard to keep yourself from eating it. I confess, that once I stole +behind the foremast to try it. It tasted something as I should conceive +a royal cutlet from the thigh of Louis le Gros might have tasted, +supposing him to have been killed the first day after the venison +season, and that particular venison season contemporary with an +unusually fine vintage of the vineyards of Champagne. + +There is another substance, and a very singular one, which turns up in +the course of this business, but which I feel it to be very puzzling +adequately to describe. It is called slobgollion; an appellation +original with the whalemen, and even so is the nature of the substance. +It is an ineffably oozy, stringy affair, most frequently found in the +tubs of sperm, after a prolonged squeezing, and subsequent decanting. +I hold it to be the wondrously thin, ruptured membranes of the case, +coalescing. + +Gurry, so called, is a term properly belonging to right whalemen, but +sometimes incidentally used by the sperm fishermen. It designates the +dark, glutinous substance which is scraped off the back of the Greenland +or right whale, and much of which covers the decks of those inferior +souls who hunt that ignoble Leviathan. + +Nippers. Strictly this word is not indigenous to the whale's vocabulary. +But as applied by whalemen, it becomes so. A whaleman's nipper is +a short firm strip of tendinous stuff cut from the tapering part of +Leviathan's tail: it averages an inch in thickness, and for the rest, is +about the size of the iron part of a hoe. Edgewise moved along the +oily deck, it operates like a leathern squilgee; and by nameless +blandishments, as of magic, allures along with it all impurities. + +But to learn all about these recondite matters, your best way is at once +to descend into the blubber-room, and have a long talk with its inmates. +This place has previously been mentioned as the receptacle for the +blanket-pieces, when stript and hoisted from the whale. When the proper +time arrives for cutting up its contents, this apartment is a scene of +terror to all tyros, especially by night. On one side, lit by a dull +lantern, a space has been left clear for the workmen. They generally +go in pairs,--a pike-and-gaffman and a spade-man. The whaling-pike is +similar to a frigate's boarding-weapon of the same name. The gaff is +something like a boat-hook. With his gaff, the gaffman hooks on to a +sheet of blubber, and strives to hold it from slipping, as the ship +pitches and lurches about. Meanwhile, the spade-man stands on the sheet +itself, perpendicularly chopping it into the portable horse-pieces. This +spade is sharp as hone can make it; the spademan's feet are shoeless; +the thing he stands on will sometimes irresistibly slide away from +him, like a sledge. If he cuts off one of his own toes, or one of his +assistants', would you be very much astonished? Toes are scarce among +veteran blubber-room men. + + + +CHAPTER 95. The Cassock. + + +Had you stepped on board the Pequod at a certain juncture of this +post-mortemizing of the whale; and had you strolled forward nigh the +windlass, pretty sure am I that you would have scanned with no small +curiosity a very strange, enigmatical object, which you would have seen +there, lying along lengthwise in the lee scuppers. Not the wondrous +cistern in the whale's huge head; not the prodigy of his unhinged lower +jaw; not the miracle of his symmetrical tail; none of these would so +surprise you, as half a glimpse of that unaccountable cone,--longer than +a Kentuckian is tall, nigh a foot in diameter at the base, and jet-black +as Yojo, the ebony idol of Queequeg. And an idol, indeed, it is; or, +rather, in old times, its likeness was. Such an idol as that found in +the secret groves of Queen Maachah in Judea; and for worshipping which, +King Asa, her son, did depose her, and destroyed the idol, and burnt it +for an abomination at the brook Kedron, as darkly set forth in the 15th +chapter of the First Book of Kings. + +Look at the sailor, called the mincer, who now comes along, and assisted +by two allies, heavily backs the grandissimus, as the mariners call it, +and with bowed shoulders, staggers off with it as if he were a grenadier +carrying a dead comrade from the field. Extending it upon the forecastle +deck, he now proceeds cylindrically to remove its dark pelt, as an +African hunter the pelt of a boa. This done he turns the pelt inside +out, like a pantaloon leg; gives it a good stretching, so as almost to +double its diameter; and at last hangs it, well spread, in the rigging, +to dry. Ere long, it is taken down; when removing some three feet of it, +towards the pointed extremity, and then cutting two slits for arm-holes +at the other end, he lengthwise slips himself bodily into it. The mincer +now stands before you invested in the full canonicals of his calling. +Immemorial to all his order, this investiture alone will adequately +protect him, while employed in the peculiar functions of his office. + +That office consists in mincing the horse-pieces of blubber for the +pots; an operation which is conducted at a curious wooden horse, planted +endwise against the bulwarks, and with a capacious tub beneath it, into +which the minced pieces drop, fast as the sheets from a rapt orator's +desk. Arrayed in decent black; occupying a conspicuous pulpit; intent +on bible leaves; what a candidate for an archbishopric, what a lad for a +Pope were this mincer!* + + +*Bible leaves! Bible leaves! This is the invariable cry from the mates +to the mincer. It enjoins him to be careful, and cut his work into as +thin slices as possible, inasmuch as by so doing the business of +boiling out the oil is much accelerated, and its quantity considerably +increased, besides perhaps improving it in quality. + + + +CHAPTER 96. The Try-Works. + + +Besides her hoisted boats, an American whaler is outwardly distinguished +by her try-works. She presents the curious anomaly of the most solid +masonry joining with oak and hemp in constituting the completed ship. +It is as if from the open field a brick-kiln were transported to her +planks. + +The try-works are planted between the foremast and mainmast, the most +roomy part of the deck. The timbers beneath are of a peculiar strength, +fitted to sustain the weight of an almost solid mass of brick and +mortar, some ten feet by eight square, and five in height. The +foundation does not penetrate the deck, but the masonry is firmly +secured to the surface by ponderous knees of iron bracing it on all +sides, and screwing it down to the timbers. On the flanks it is cased +with wood, and at top completely covered by a large, sloping, battened +hatchway. Removing this hatch we expose the great try-pots, two in +number, and each of several barrels' capacity. When not in use, they are +kept remarkably clean. Sometimes they are polished with soapstone +and sand, till they shine within like silver punch-bowls. During the +night-watches some cynical old sailors will crawl into them and coil +themselves away there for a nap. While employed in polishing them--one +man in each pot, side by side--many confidential communications +are carried on, over the iron lips. It is a place also for profound +mathematical meditation. It was in the left hand try-pot of the Pequod, +with the soapstone diligently circling round me, that I was first +indirectly struck by the remarkable fact, that in geometry all bodies +gliding along the cycloid, my soapstone for example, will descend from +any point in precisely the same time. + +Removing the fire-board from the front of the try-works, the bare +masonry of that side is exposed, penetrated by the two iron mouths of +the furnaces, directly underneath the pots. These mouths are fitted +with heavy doors of iron. The intense heat of the fire is prevented +from communicating itself to the deck, by means of a shallow reservoir +extending under the entire inclosed surface of the works. By a tunnel +inserted at the rear, this reservoir is kept replenished with water as +fast as it evaporates. There are no external chimneys; they open direct +from the rear wall. And here let us go back for a moment. + +It was about nine o'clock at night that the Pequod's try-works were +first started on this present voyage. It belonged to Stubb to oversee +the business. + +"All ready there? Off hatch, then, and start her. You cook, fire the +works." This was an easy thing, for the carpenter had been thrusting his +shavings into the furnace throughout the passage. Here be it said that +in a whaling voyage the first fire in the try-works has to be fed for a +time with wood. After that no wood is used, except as a means of quick +ignition to the staple fuel. In a word, after being tried out, the +crisp, shrivelled blubber, now called scraps or fritters, still contains +considerable of its unctuous properties. These fritters feed the flames. +Like a plethoric burning martyr, or a self-consuming misanthrope, once +ignited, the whale supplies his own fuel and burns by his own body. +Would that he consumed his own smoke! for his smoke is horrible to +inhale, and inhale it you must, and not only that, but you must live in +it for the time. It has an unspeakable, wild, Hindoo odor about it, such +as may lurk in the vicinity of funereal pyres. It smells like the left +wing of the day of judgment; it is an argument for the pit. + +By midnight the works were in full operation. We were clear from the +carcase; sail had been made; the wind was freshening; the wild ocean +darkness was intense. But that darkness was licked up by the fierce +flames, which at intervals forked forth from the sooty flues, and +illuminated every lofty rope in the rigging, as with the famed Greek +fire. The burning ship drove on, as if remorselessly commissioned to +some vengeful deed. So the pitch and sulphur-freighted brigs of the +bold Hydriote, Canaris, issuing from their midnight harbors, with broad +sheets of flame for sails, bore down upon the Turkish frigates, and +folded them in conflagrations. + +The hatch, removed from the top of the works, now afforded a wide hearth +in front of them. Standing on this were the Tartarean shapes of the +pagan harpooneers, always the whale-ship's stokers. With huge pronged +poles they pitched hissing masses of blubber into the scalding pots, or +stirred up the fires beneath, till the snaky flames darted, curling, out +of the doors to catch them by the feet. The smoke rolled away in sullen +heaps. To every pitch of the ship there was a pitch of the boiling oil, +which seemed all eagerness to leap into their faces. Opposite the mouth +of the works, on the further side of the wide wooden hearth, was the +windlass. This served for a sea-sofa. Here lounged the watch, when not +otherwise employed, looking into the red heat of the fire, till their +eyes felt scorched in their heads. Their tawny features, now all +begrimed with smoke and sweat, their matted beards, and the contrasting +barbaric brilliancy of their teeth, all these were strangely revealed in +the capricious emblazonings of the works. As they narrated to each other +their unholy adventures, their tales of terror told in words of mirth; +as their uncivilized laughter forked upwards out of them, like the +flames from the furnace; as to and fro, in their front, the harpooneers +wildly gesticulated with their huge pronged forks and dippers; as the +wind howled on, and the sea leaped, and the ship groaned and dived, and +yet steadfastly shot her red hell further and further into the blackness +of the sea and the night, and scornfully champed the white bone in +her mouth, and viciously spat round her on all sides; then the rushing +Pequod, freighted with savages, and laden with fire, and burning +a corpse, and plunging into that blackness of darkness, seemed the +material counterpart of her monomaniac commander's soul. + +So seemed it to me, as I stood at her helm, and for long hours silently +guided the way of this fire-ship on the sea. Wrapped, for that interval, +in darkness myself, I but the better saw the redness, the madness, the +ghastliness of others. The continual sight of the fiend shapes before +me, capering half in smoke and half in fire, these at last begat kindred +visions in my soul, so soon as I began to yield to that unaccountable +drowsiness which ever would come over me at a midnight helm. + +But that night, in particular, a strange (and ever since inexplicable) +thing occurred to me. Starting from a brief standing sleep, I was +horribly conscious of something fatally wrong. The jaw-bone tiller smote +my side, which leaned against it; in my ears was the low hum of sails, +just beginning to shake in the wind; I thought my eyes were open; I +was half conscious of putting my fingers to the lids and mechanically +stretching them still further apart. But, spite of all this, I could see +no compass before me to steer by; though it seemed but a minute since I +had been watching the card, by the steady binnacle lamp illuminating it. +Nothing seemed before me but a jet gloom, now and then made ghastly by +flashes of redness. Uppermost was the impression, that whatever swift, +rushing thing I stood on was not so much bound to any haven ahead as +rushing from all havens astern. A stark, bewildered feeling, as of +death, came over me. Convulsively my hands grasped the tiller, but with +the crazy conceit that the tiller was, somehow, in some enchanted way, +inverted. My God! what is the matter with me? thought I. Lo! in my brief +sleep I had turned myself about, and was fronting the ship's stern, with +my back to her prow and the compass. In an instant I faced back, just +in time to prevent the vessel from flying up into the wind, and very +probably capsizing her. How glad and how grateful the relief from this +unnatural hallucination of the night, and the fatal contingency of being +brought by the lee! + +Look not too long in the face of the fire, O man! Never dream with thy +hand on the helm! Turn not thy back to the compass; accept the first +hint of the hitching tiller; believe not the artificial fire, when its +redness makes all things look ghastly. To-morrow, in the natural sun, +the skies will be bright; those who glared like devils in the forking +flames, the morn will show in far other, at least gentler, relief; the +glorious, golden, glad sun, the only true lamp--all others but liars! + +Nevertheless the sun hides not Virginia's Dismal Swamp, nor Rome's +accursed Campagna, nor wide Sahara, nor all the millions of miles of +deserts and of griefs beneath the moon. The sun hides not the ocean, +which is the dark side of this earth, and which is two thirds of this +earth. So, therefore, that mortal man who hath more of joy than sorrow +in him, that mortal man cannot be true--not true, or undeveloped. With +books the same. The truest of all men was the Man of Sorrows, and the +truest of all books is Solomon's, and Ecclesiastes is the fine hammered +steel of woe. "All is vanity." ALL. This wilful world hath not got hold +of unchristian Solomon's wisdom yet. But he who dodges hospitals and +jails, and walks fast crossing graveyards, and would rather talk of +operas than hell; calls Cowper, Young, Pascal, Rousseau, poor devils all +of sick men; and throughout a care-free lifetime swears by Rabelais as +passing wise, and therefore jolly;--not that man is fitted to sit +down on tomb-stones, and break the green damp mould with unfathomably +wondrous Solomon. + +But even Solomon, he says, "the man that wandereth out of the way +of understanding shall remain" (I.E., even while living) "in the +congregation of the dead." Give not thyself up, then, to fire, lest it +invert thee, deaden thee; as for the time it did me. There is a wisdom +that is woe; but there is a woe that is madness. And there is a Catskill +eagle in some souls that can alike dive down into the blackest gorges, +and soar out of them again and become invisible in the sunny spaces. +And even if he for ever flies within the gorge, that gorge is in the +mountains; so that even in his lowest swoop the mountain eagle is still +higher than other birds upon the plain, even though they soar. + + + +CHAPTER 97. The Lamp. + + +Had you descended from the Pequod's try-works to the Pequod's +forecastle, where the off duty watch were sleeping, for one single +moment you would have almost thought you were standing in some +illuminated shrine of canonized kings and counsellors. There they lay +in their triangular oaken vaults, each mariner a chiselled muteness; a +score of lamps flashing upon his hooded eyes. + +In merchantmen, oil for the sailor is more scarce than the milk of +queens. To dress in the dark, and eat in the dark, and stumble in +darkness to his pallet, this is his usual lot. But the whaleman, as he +seeks the food of light, so he lives in light. He makes his berth an +Aladdin's lamp, and lays him down in it; so that in the pitchiest night +the ship's black hull still houses an illumination. + +See with what entire freedom the whaleman takes his handful of +lamps--often but old bottles and vials, though--to the copper cooler at +the try-works, and replenishes them there, as mugs of ale at a vat. He +burns, too, the purest of oil, in its unmanufactured, and, therefore, +unvitiated state; a fluid unknown to solar, lunar, or astral +contrivances ashore. It is sweet as early grass butter in April. He +goes and hunts for his oil, so as to be sure of its freshness and +genuineness, even as the traveller on the prairie hunts up his own +supper of game. + + + +CHAPTER 98. Stowing Down and Clearing Up. + + +Already has it been related how the great leviathan is afar off +descried from the mast-head; how he is chased over the watery moors, and +slaughtered in the valleys of the deep; how he is then towed alongside +and beheaded; and how (on the principle which entitled the headsman of +old to the garments in which the beheaded was killed) his great padded +surtout becomes the property of his executioner; how, in due time, he +is condemned to the pots, and, like Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, his +spermaceti, oil, and bone pass unscathed through the fire;--but now it +remains to conclude the last chapter of this part of the description by +rehearsing--singing, if I may--the romantic proceeding of decanting off +his oil into the casks and striking them down into the hold, where +once again leviathan returns to his native profundities, sliding along +beneath the surface as before; but, alas! never more to rise and blow. + +While still warm, the oil, like hot punch, is received into the +six-barrel casks; and while, perhaps, the ship is pitching and rolling +this way and that in the midnight sea, the enormous casks are slewed +round and headed over, end for end, and sometimes perilously scoot +across the slippery deck, like so many land slides, till at last +man-handled and stayed in their course; and all round the hoops, rap, +rap, go as many hammers as can play upon them, for now, EX OFFICIO, +every sailor is a cooper. + +At length, when the last pint is casked, and all is cool, then the great +hatchways are unsealed, the bowels of the ship are thrown open, and down +go the casks to their final rest in the sea. This done, the hatches are +replaced, and hermetically closed, like a closet walled up. + +In the sperm fishery, this is perhaps one of the most remarkable +incidents in all the business of whaling. One day the planks stream with +freshets of blood and oil; on the sacred quarter-deck enormous masses of +the whale's head are profanely piled; great rusty casks lie about, as +in a brewery yard; the smoke from the try-works has besooted all the +bulwarks; the mariners go about suffused with unctuousness; the entire +ship seems great leviathan himself; while on all hands the din is +deafening. + +But a day or two after, you look about you, and prick your ears in this +self-same ship; and were it not for the tell-tale boats and try-works, +you would all but swear you trod some silent merchant vessel, with a +most scrupulously neat commander. The unmanufactured sperm oil possesses +a singularly cleansing virtue. This is the reason why the decks never +look so white as just after what they call an affair of oil. Besides, +from the ashes of the burned scraps of the whale, a potent lye is +readily made; and whenever any adhesiveness from the back of the whale +remains clinging to the side, that lye quickly exterminates it. Hands +go diligently along the bulwarks, and with buckets of water and rags +restore them to their full tidiness. The soot is brushed from the lower +rigging. All the numerous implements which have been in use are likewise +faithfully cleansed and put away. The great hatch is scrubbed and placed +upon the try-works, completely hiding the pots; every cask is out of +sight; all tackles are coiled in unseen nooks; and when by the combined +and simultaneous industry of almost the entire ship's company, the +whole of this conscientious duty is at last concluded, then the crew +themselves proceed to their own ablutions; shift themselves from top to +toe; and finally issue to the immaculate deck, fresh and all aglow, as +bridegrooms new-leaped from out the daintiest Holland. + +Now, with elated step, they pace the planks in twos and threes, and +humorously discourse of parlors, sofas, carpets, and fine cambrics; +propose to mat the deck; think of having hanging to the top; object not +to taking tea by moonlight on the piazza of the forecastle. To hint to +such musked mariners of oil, and bone, and blubber, were little short +of audacity. They know not the thing you distantly allude to. Away, and +bring us napkins! + +But mark: aloft there, at the three mast heads, stand three men intent +on spying out more whales, which, if caught, infallibly will again +soil the old oaken furniture, and drop at least one small grease-spot +somewhere. Yes; and many is the time, when, after the severest +uninterrupted labors, which know no night; continuing straight through +for ninety-six hours; when from the boat, where they have swelled their +wrists with all day rowing on the Line,--they only step to the deck to +carry vast chains, and heave the heavy windlass, and cut and slash, yea, +and in their very sweatings to be smoked and burned anew by the combined +fires of the equatorial sun and the equatorial try-works; when, on the +heel of all this, they have finally bestirred themselves to cleanse the +ship, and make a spotless dairy room of it; many is the time the poor +fellows, just buttoning the necks of their clean frocks, are startled by +the cry of "There she blows!" and away they fly to fight another whale, +and go through the whole weary thing again. Oh! my friends, but this +is man-killing! Yet this is life. For hardly have we mortals by long +toilings extracted from this world's vast bulk its small but valuable +sperm; and then, with weary patience, cleansed ourselves from its +defilements, and learned to live here in clean tabernacles of the soul; +hardly is this done, when--THERE SHE BLOWS!--the ghost is spouted up, +and away we sail to fight some other world, and go through young life's +old routine again. + +Oh! the metempsychosis! Oh! Pythagoras, that in bright Greece, two +thousand years ago, did die, so good, so wise, so mild; I sailed with +thee along the Peruvian coast last voyage--and, foolish as I am, taught +thee, a green simple boy, how to splice a rope! + + + +CHAPTER 99. The Doubloon. + + +Ere now it has been related how Ahab was wont to pace his quarter-deck, +taking regular turns at either limit, the binnacle and mainmast; but +in the multiplicity of other things requiring narration it has not been +added how that sometimes in these walks, when most plunged in his mood, +he was wont to pause in turn at each spot, and stand there strangely +eyeing the particular object before him. When he halted before the +binnacle, with his glance fastened on the pointed needle in the compass, +that glance shot like a javelin with the pointed intensity of his +purpose; and when resuming his walk he again paused before the mainmast, +then, as the same riveted glance fastened upon the riveted gold coin +there, he still wore the same aspect of nailed firmness, only dashed +with a certain wild longing, if not hopefulness. + +But one morning, turning to pass the doubloon, he seemed to be newly +attracted by the strange figures and inscriptions stamped on it, as +though now for the first time beginning to interpret for himself in +some monomaniac way whatever significance might lurk in them. And some +certain significance lurks in all things, else all things are little +worth, and the round world itself but an empty cipher, except to sell by +the cartload, as they do hills about Boston, to fill up some morass in +the Milky Way. + +Now this doubloon was of purest, virgin gold, raked somewhere out of the +heart of gorgeous hills, whence, east and west, over golden sands, the +head-waters of many a Pactolus flows. And though now nailed amidst all +the rustiness of iron bolts and the verdigris of copper spikes, yet, +untouchable and immaculate to any foulness, it still preserved its Quito +glow. Nor, though placed amongst a ruthless crew and every hour passed +by ruthless hands, and through the livelong nights shrouded with thick +darkness which might cover any pilfering approach, nevertheless every +sunrise found the doubloon where the sunset left it last. For it was +set apart and sanctified to one awe-striking end; and however wanton +in their sailor ways, one and all, the mariners revered it as the white +whale's talisman. Sometimes they talked it over in the weary watch by +night, wondering whose it was to be at last, and whether he would ever +live to spend it. + +Now those noble golden coins of South America are as medals of the sun +and tropic token-pieces. Here palms, alpacas, and volcanoes; sun's disks +and stars; ecliptics, horns-of-plenty, and rich banners waving, are in +luxuriant profusion stamped; so that the precious gold seems almost to +derive an added preciousness and enhancing glories, by passing through +those fancy mints, so Spanishly poetic. + +It so chanced that the doubloon of the Pequod was a most wealthy example +of these things. On its round border it bore the letters, REPUBLICA DEL +ECUADOR: QUITO. So this bright coin came from a country planted in the +middle of the world, and beneath the great equator, and named after it; +and it had been cast midway up the Andes, in the unwaning clime that +knows no autumn. Zoned by those letters you saw the likeness of three +Andes' summits; from one a flame; a tower on another; on the third a +crowing cock; while arching over all was a segment of the partitioned +zodiac, the signs all marked with their usual cabalistics, and the +keystone sun entering the equinoctial point at Libra. + +Before this equatorial coin, Ahab, not unobserved by others, was now +pausing. + +"There's something ever egotistical in mountain-tops and towers, and +all other grand and lofty things; look here,--three peaks as proud as +Lucifer. The firm tower, that is Ahab; the volcano, that is Ahab; the +courageous, the undaunted, and victorious fowl, that, too, is Ahab; all +are Ahab; and this round gold is but the image of the rounder globe, +which, like a magician's glass, to each and every man in turn but +mirrors back his own mysterious self. Great pains, small gains for those +who ask the world to solve them; it cannot solve itself. Methinks now +this coined sun wears a ruddy face; but see! aye, he enters the sign +of storms, the equinox! and but six months before he wheeled out of a +former equinox at Aries! From storm to storm! So be it, then. Born in +throes, 'tis fit that man should live in pains and die in pangs! So be +it, then! Here's stout stuff for woe to work on. So be it, then." + +"No fairy fingers can have pressed the gold, but devil's claws must +have left their mouldings there since yesterday," murmured Starbuck +to himself, leaning against the bulwarks. "The old man seems to read +Belshazzar's awful writing. I have never marked the coin inspectingly. +He goes below; let me read. A dark valley between three mighty, +heaven-abiding peaks, that almost seem the Trinity, in some faint +earthly symbol. So in this vale of Death, God girds us round; and over +all our gloom, the sun of Righteousness still shines a beacon and a +hope. If we bend down our eyes, the dark vale shows her mouldy soil; +but if we lift them, the bright sun meets our glance half way, to cheer. +Yet, oh, the great sun is no fixture; and if, at midnight, we would fain +snatch some sweet solace from him, we gaze for him in vain! This coin +speaks wisely, mildly, truly, but still sadly to me. I will quit it, +lest Truth shake me falsely." + +"There now's the old Mogul," soliloquized Stubb by the try-works, "he's +been twigging it; and there goes Starbuck from the same, and both with +faces which I should say might be somewhere within nine fathoms long. +And all from looking at a piece of gold, which did I have it now on +Negro Hill or in Corlaer's Hook, I'd not look at it very long ere +spending it. Humph! in my poor, insignificant opinion, I regard this as +queer. I have seen doubloons before now in my voyagings; your doubloons +of old Spain, your doubloons of Peru, your doubloons of Chili, your +doubloons of Bolivia, your doubloons of Popayan; with plenty of gold +moidores and pistoles, and joes, and half joes, and quarter joes. What +then should there be in this doubloon of the Equator that is so killing +wonderful? By Golconda! let me read it once. Halloa! here's signs and +wonders truly! That, now, is what old Bowditch in his Epitome calls the +zodiac, and what my almanac below calls ditto. I'll get the almanac and +as I have heard devils can be raised with Daboll's arithmetic, I'll try +my hand at raising a meaning out of these queer curvicues here with +the Massachusetts calendar. Here's the book. Let's see now. Signs and +wonders; and the sun, he's always among 'em. Hem, hem, hem; here they +are--here they go--all alive:--Aries, or the Ram; Taurus, or the Bull +and Jimimi! here's Gemini himself, or the Twins. Well; the sun he +wheels among 'em. Aye, here on the coin he's just crossing the threshold +between two of twelve sitting-rooms all in a ring. Book! you lie there; +the fact is, you books must know your places. You'll do to give us the +bare words and facts, but we come in to supply the thoughts. That's my +small experience, so far as the Massachusetts calendar, and Bowditch's +navigator, and Daboll's arithmetic go. Signs and wonders, eh? Pity if +there is nothing wonderful in signs, and significant in wonders! There's +a clue somewhere; wait a bit; hist--hark! By Jove, I have it! Look you, +Doubloon, your zodiac here is the life of man in one round chapter; +and now I'll read it off, straight out of the book. Come, Almanack! To +begin: there's Aries, or the Ram--lecherous dog, he begets us; then, +Taurus, or the Bull--he bumps us the first thing; then Gemini, or the +Twins--that is, Virtue and Vice; we try to reach Virtue, when lo! comes +Cancer the Crab, and drags us back; and here, going from Virtue, Leo, +a roaring Lion, lies in the path--he gives a few fierce bites and surly +dabs with his paw; we escape, and hail Virgo, the Virgin! that's our +first love; we marry and think to be happy for aye, when pop comes +Libra, or the Scales--happiness weighed and found wanting; and while we +are very sad about that, Lord! how we suddenly jump, as Scorpio, or the +Scorpion, stings us in the rear; we are curing the wound, when whang +come the arrows all round; Sagittarius, or the Archer, is amusing +himself. As we pluck out the shafts, stand aside! here's the +battering-ram, Capricornus, or the Goat; full tilt, he comes rushing, +and headlong we are tossed; when Aquarius, or the Water-bearer, pours +out his whole deluge and drowns us; and to wind up with Pisces, or the +Fishes, we sleep. There's a sermon now, writ in high heaven, and the +sun goes through it every year, and yet comes out of it all alive and +hearty. Jollily he, aloft there, wheels through toil and trouble; and +so, alow here, does jolly Stubb. Oh, jolly's the word for aye! Adieu, +Doubloon! But stop; here comes little King-Post; dodge round the +try-works, now, and let's hear what he'll have to say. There; he's +before it; he'll out with something presently. So, so; he's beginning." + +"I see nothing here, but a round thing made of gold, and whoever raises +a certain whale, this round thing belongs to him. So, what's all this +staring been about? It is worth sixteen dollars, that's true; and at +two cents the cigar, that's nine hundred and sixty cigars. I won't smoke +dirty pipes like Stubb, but I like cigars, and here's nine hundred and +sixty of them; so here goes Flask aloft to spy 'em out." + +"Shall I call that wise or foolish, now; if it be really wise it has a +foolish look to it; yet, if it be really foolish, then has it a sort +of wiseish look to it. But, avast; here comes our old Manxman--the old +hearse-driver, he must have been, that is, before he took to the sea. He +luffs up before the doubloon; halloa, and goes round on the other side +of the mast; why, there's a horse-shoe nailed on that side; and now he's +back again; what does that mean? Hark! he's muttering--voice like an old +worn-out coffee-mill. Prick ears, and listen!" + +"If the White Whale be raised, it must be in a month and a day, when +the sun stands in some one of these signs. I've studied signs, and know +their marks; they were taught me two score years ago, by the old witch +in Copenhagen. Now, in what sign will the sun then be? The horse-shoe +sign; for there it is, right opposite the gold. And what's the +horse-shoe sign? The lion is the horse-shoe sign--the roaring and +devouring lion. Ship, old ship! my old head shakes to think of thee." + +"There's another rendering now; but still one text. All sorts of men +in one kind of world, you see. Dodge again! here comes Queequeg--all +tattooing--looks like the signs of the Zodiac himself. What says the +Cannibal? As I live he's comparing notes; looking at his thigh bone; +thinks the sun is in the thigh, or in the calf, or in the bowels, I +suppose, as the old women talk Surgeon's Astronomy in the back country. +And by Jove, he's found something there in the vicinity of his thigh--I +guess it's Sagittarius, or the Archer. No: he don't know what to make +of the doubloon; he takes it for an old button off some king's trowsers. +But, aside again! here comes that ghost-devil, Fedallah; tail coiled out +of sight as usual, oakum in the toes of his pumps as usual. What does he +say, with that look of his? Ah, only makes a sign to the sign and bows +himself; there is a sun on the coin--fire worshipper, depend upon it. +Ho! more and more. This way comes Pip--poor boy! would he had died, +or I; he's half horrible to me. He too has been watching all of these +interpreters--myself included--and look now, he comes to read, with that +unearthly idiot face. Stand away again and hear him. Hark!" + +"I look, you look, he looks; we look, ye look, they look." + +"Upon my soul, he's been studying Murray's Grammar! Improving his mind, +poor fellow! But what's that he says now--hist!" + +"I look, you look, he looks; we look, ye look, they look." + +"Why, he's getting it by heart--hist! again." + +"I look, you look, he looks; we look, ye look, they look." + +"Well, that's funny." + +"And I, you, and he; and we, ye, and they, are all bats; and I'm a crow, +especially when I stand a'top of this pine tree here. Caw! caw! caw! +caw! caw! caw! Ain't I a crow? And where's the scare-crow? There he +stands; two bones stuck into a pair of old trowsers, and two more poked +into the sleeves of an old jacket." + +"Wonder if he means me?--complimentary!--poor lad!--I could go hang +myself. Any way, for the present, I'll quit Pip's vicinity. I can stand +the rest, for they have plain wits; but he's too crazy-witty for my +sanity. So, so, I leave him muttering." + +"Here's the ship's navel, this doubloon here, and they are all on fire +to unscrew it. But, unscrew your navel, and what's the consequence? Then +again, if it stays here, that is ugly, too, for when aught's nailed to +the mast it's a sign that things grow desperate. Ha, ha! old Ahab! +the White Whale; he'll nail ye! This is a pine tree. My father, in old +Tolland county, cut down a pine tree once, and found a silver ring grown +over in it; some old darkey's wedding ring. How did it get there? And +so they'll say in the resurrection, when they come to fish up this old +mast, and find a doubloon lodged in it, with bedded oysters for the +shaggy bark. Oh, the gold! the precious, precious, gold! the green +miser'll hoard ye soon! Hish! hish! God goes 'mong the worlds +blackberrying. Cook! ho, cook! and cook us! Jenny! hey, hey, hey, hey, +hey, Jenny, Jenny! and get your hoe-cake done!" + + + +CHAPTER 100. Leg and Arm. + +The Pequod, of Nantucket, Meets the Samuel Enderby, of London. + + +"Ship, ahoy! Hast seen the White Whale?" + +So cried Ahab, once more hailing a ship showing English colours, bearing +down under the stern. Trumpet to mouth, the old man was standing in his +hoisted quarter-boat, his ivory leg plainly revealed to the stranger +captain, who was carelessly reclining in his own boat's bow. He was +a darkly-tanned, burly, good-natured, fine-looking man, of sixty or +thereabouts, dressed in a spacious roundabout, that hung round him in +festoons of blue pilot-cloth; and one empty arm of this jacket streamed +behind him like the broidered arm of a hussar's surcoat. + +"Hast seen the White Whale!" + +"See you this?" and withdrawing it from the folds that had hidden it, +he held up a white arm of sperm whale bone, terminating in a wooden head +like a mallet. + +"Man my boat!" cried Ahab, impetuously, and tossing about the oars near +him--"Stand by to lower!" + +In less than a minute, without quitting his little craft, he and his +crew were dropped to the water, and were soon alongside of the stranger. +But here a curious difficulty presented itself. In the excitement of the +moment, Ahab had forgotten that since the loss of his leg he had never +once stepped on board of any vessel at sea but his own, and then it was +always by an ingenious and very handy mechanical contrivance peculiar to +the Pequod, and a thing not to be rigged and shipped in any other +vessel at a moment's warning. Now, it is no very easy matter +for anybody--except those who are almost hourly used to it, like +whalemen--to clamber up a ship's side from a boat on the open sea; for +the great swells now lift the boat high up towards the bulwarks, and +then instantaneously drop it half way down to the kelson. So, deprived +of one leg, and the strange ship of course being altogether unsupplied +with the kindly invention, Ahab now found himself abjectly reduced to a +clumsy landsman again; hopelessly eyeing the uncertain changeful height +he could hardly hope to attain. + +It has before been hinted, perhaps, that every little untoward +circumstance that befell him, and which indirectly sprang from his +luckless mishap, almost invariably irritated or exasperated Ahab. And +in the present instance, all this was heightened by the sight of the +two officers of the strange ship, leaning over the side, by the +perpendicular ladder of nailed cleets there, and swinging towards him a +pair of tastefully-ornamented man-ropes; for at first they did not seem +to bethink them that a one-legged man must be too much of a cripple to +use their sea bannisters. But this awkwardness only lasted a minute, +because the strange captain, observing at a glance how affairs stood, +cried out, "I see, I see!--avast heaving there! Jump, boys, and swing +over the cutting-tackle." + +As good luck would have it, they had had a whale alongside a day or two +previous, and the great tackles were still aloft, and the massive curved +blubber-hook, now clean and dry, was still attached to the end. This +was quickly lowered to Ahab, who at once comprehending it all, slid his +solitary thigh into the curve of the hook (it was like sitting in the +fluke of an anchor, or the crotch of an apple tree), and then giving the +word, held himself fast, and at the same time also helped to hoist his +own weight, by pulling hand-over-hand upon one of the running parts of +the tackle. Soon he was carefully swung inside the high bulwarks, and +gently landed upon the capstan head. With his ivory arm frankly thrust +forth in welcome, the other captain advanced, and Ahab, putting out his +ivory leg, and crossing the ivory arm (like two sword-fish blades) +cried out in his walrus way, "Aye, aye, hearty! let us shake bones +together!--an arm and a leg!--an arm that never can shrink, d'ye +see; and a leg that never can run. Where did'st thou see the White +Whale?--how long ago?" + +"The White Whale," said the Englishman, pointing his ivory arm towards +the East, and taking a rueful sight along it, as if it had been a +telescope; "there I saw him, on the Line, last season." + +"And he took that arm off, did he?" asked Ahab, now sliding down from +the capstan, and resting on the Englishman's shoulder, as he did so. + +"Aye, he was the cause of it, at least; and that leg, too?" + +"Spin me the yarn," said Ahab; "how was it?" + +"It was the first time in my life that I ever cruised on the Line," +began the Englishman. "I was ignorant of the White Whale at that time. +Well, one day we lowered for a pod of four or five whales, and my boat +fastened to one of them; a regular circus horse he was, too, that went +milling and milling round so, that my boat's crew could only trim dish, +by sitting all their sterns on the outer gunwale. Presently up breaches +from the bottom of the sea a bouncing great whale, with a milky-white +head and hump, all crows' feet and wrinkles." + +"It was he, it was he!" cried Ahab, suddenly letting out his suspended +breath. + +"And harpoons sticking in near his starboard fin." + +"Aye, aye--they were mine--MY irons," cried Ahab, exultingly--"but on!" + +"Give me a chance, then," said the Englishman, good-humoredly. "Well, +this old great-grandfather, with the white head and hump, runs all afoam +into the pod, and goes to snapping furiously at my fast-line! + +"Aye, I see!--wanted to part it; free the fast-fish--an old trick--I +know him." + +"How it was exactly," continued the one-armed commander, "I do not know; +but in biting the line, it got foul of his teeth, caught there somehow; +but we didn't know it then; so that when we afterwards pulled on the +line, bounce we came plump on to his hump! instead of the other whale's; +that went off to windward, all fluking. Seeing how matters stood, and +what a noble great whale it was--the noblest and biggest I ever saw, +sir, in my life--I resolved to capture him, spite of the boiling rage +he seemed to be in. And thinking the hap-hazard line would get loose, or +the tooth it was tangled to might draw (for I have a devil of a boat's +crew for a pull on a whale-line); seeing all this, I say, I jumped +into my first mate's boat--Mr. Mounttop's here (by the way, +Captain--Mounttop; Mounttop--the captain);--as I was saying, I jumped +into Mounttop's boat, which, d'ye see, was gunwale and gunwale +with mine, then; and snatching the first harpoon, let this old +great-grandfather have it. But, Lord, look you, sir--hearts and souls +alive, man--the next instant, in a jiff, I was blind as a bat--both +eyes out--all befogged and bedeadened with black foam--the whale's tail +looming straight up out of it, perpendicular in the air, like a marble +steeple. No use sterning all, then; but as I was groping at midday, with +a blinding sun, all crown-jewels; as I was groping, I say, after the +second iron, to toss it overboard--down comes the tail like a Lima +tower, cutting my boat in two, leaving each half in splinters; and, +flukes first, the white hump backed through the wreck, as though it was +all chips. We all struck out. To escape his terrible flailings, I seized +hold of my harpoon-pole sticking in him, and for a moment clung to that +like a sucking fish. But a combing sea dashed me off, and at the same +instant, the fish, taking one good dart forwards, went down like a +flash; and the barb of that cursed second iron towing along near me +caught me here" (clapping his hand just below his shoulder); "yes, +caught me just here, I say, and bore me down to Hell's flames, I was +thinking; when, when, all of a sudden, thank the good God, the barb ript +its way along the flesh--clear along the whole length of my arm--came +out nigh my wrist, and up I floated;--and that gentleman there will tell +you the rest (by the way, captain--Dr. Bunger, ship's surgeon: Bunger, +my lad,--the captain). Now, Bunger boy, spin your part of the yarn." + +The professional gentleman thus familiarly pointed out, had been all the +time standing near them, with nothing specific visible, to denote his +gentlemanly rank on board. His face was an exceedingly round but sober +one; he was dressed in a faded blue woollen frock or shirt, and patched +trowsers; and had thus far been dividing his attention between a +marlingspike he held in one hand, and a pill-box held in the other, +occasionally casting a critical glance at the ivory limbs of the two +crippled captains. But, at his superior's introduction of him to Ahab, +he politely bowed, and straightway went on to do his captain's bidding. + +"It was a shocking bad wound," began the whale-surgeon; "and, taking my +advice, Captain Boomer here, stood our old Sammy--" + +"Samuel Enderby is the name of my ship," interrupted the one-armed +captain, addressing Ahab; "go on, boy." + +"Stood our old Sammy off to the northward, to get out of the blazing hot +weather there on the Line. But it was no use--I did all I could; sat up +with him nights; was very severe with him in the matter of diet--" + +"Oh, very severe!" chimed in the patient himself; then suddenly altering +his voice, "Drinking hot rum toddies with me every night, till he +couldn't see to put on the bandages; and sending me to bed, half seas +over, about three o'clock in the morning. Oh, ye stars! he sat up with +me indeed, and was very severe in my diet. Oh! a great watcher, and very +dietetically severe, is Dr. Bunger. (Bunger, you dog, laugh out! why +don't ye? You know you're a precious jolly rascal.) But, heave ahead, +boy, I'd rather be killed by you than kept alive by any other man." + +"My captain, you must have ere this perceived, respected sir"--said the +imperturbable godly-looking Bunger, slightly bowing to Ahab--"is apt to +be facetious at times; he spins us many clever things of that sort. But +I may as well say--en passant, as the French remark--that I myself--that +is to say, Jack Bunger, late of the reverend clergy--am a strict total +abstinence man; I never drink--" + +"Water!" cried the captain; "he never drinks it; it's a sort of fits to +him; fresh water throws him into the hydrophobia; but go on--go on with +the arm story." + +"Yes, I may as well," said the surgeon, coolly. "I was about observing, +sir, before Captain Boomer's facetious interruption, that spite of my +best and severest endeavors, the wound kept getting worse and worse; the +truth was, sir, it was as ugly gaping wound as surgeon ever saw; more +than two feet and several inches long. I measured it with the lead line. +In short, it grew black; I knew what was threatened, and off it came. +But I had no hand in shipping that ivory arm there; that thing is +against all rule"--pointing at it with the marlingspike--"that is the +captain's work, not mine; he ordered the carpenter to make it; he had +that club-hammer there put to the end, to knock some one's brains +out with, I suppose, as he tried mine once. He flies into diabolical +passions sometimes. Do ye see this dent, sir"--removing his hat, and +brushing aside his hair, and exposing a bowl-like cavity in his skull, +but which bore not the slightest scarry trace, or any token of ever +having been a wound--"Well, the captain there will tell you how that +came here; he knows." + +"No, I don't," said the captain, "but his mother did; he was born with +it. Oh, you solemn rogue, you--you Bunger! was there ever such another +Bunger in the watery world? Bunger, when you die, you ought to die in +pickle, you dog; you should be preserved to future ages, you rascal." + +"What became of the White Whale?" now cried Ahab, who thus far had been +impatiently listening to this by-play between the two Englishmen. + +"Oh!" cried the one-armed captain, "oh, yes! Well; after he sounded, +we didn't see him again for some time; in fact, as I before hinted, I +didn't then know what whale it was that had served me such a trick, till +some time afterwards, when coming back to the Line, we heard about Moby +Dick--as some call him--and then I knew it was he." + +"Did'st thou cross his wake again?" + +"Twice." + +"But could not fasten?" + +"Didn't want to try to: ain't one limb enough? What should I do without +this other arm? And I'm thinking Moby Dick doesn't bite so much as he +swallows." + +"Well, then," interrupted Bunger, "give him your left arm for bait to +get the right. Do you know, gentlemen"--very gravely and mathematically +bowing to each Captain in succession--"Do you know, gentlemen, that the +digestive organs of the whale are so inscrutably constructed by Divine +Providence, that it is quite impossible for him to completely digest +even a man's arm? And he knows it too. So that what you take for the +White Whale's malice is only his awkwardness. For he never means +to swallow a single limb; he only thinks to terrify by feints. But +sometimes he is like the old juggling fellow, formerly a patient of mine +in Ceylon, that making believe swallow jack-knives, once upon a time let +one drop into him in good earnest, and there it stayed for a twelvemonth +or more; when I gave him an emetic, and he heaved it up in small tacks, +d'ye see. No possible way for him to digest that jack-knife, and fully +incorporate it into his general bodily system. Yes, Captain Boomer, if +you are quick enough about it, and have a mind to pawn one arm for the +sake of the privilege of giving decent burial to the other, why in that +case the arm is yours; only let the whale have another chance at you +shortly, that's all." + +"No, thank ye, Bunger," said the English Captain, "he's welcome to the +arm he has, since I can't help it, and didn't know him then; but not to +another one. No more White Whales for me; I've lowered for him once, and +that has satisfied me. There would be great glory in killing him, I know +that; and there is a ship-load of precious sperm in him, but, hark ye, +he's best let alone; don't you think so, Captain?"--glancing at the +ivory leg. + +"He is. But he will still be hunted, for all that. What is best let +alone, that accursed thing is not always what least allures. He's all a +magnet! How long since thou saw'st him last? Which way heading?" + +"Bless my soul, and curse the foul fiend's," cried Bunger, stoopingly +walking round Ahab, and like a dog, strangely snuffing; "this man's +blood--bring the thermometer!--it's at the boiling point!--his pulse +makes these planks beat!--sir!"--taking a lancet from his pocket, and +drawing near to Ahab's arm. + +"Avast!" roared Ahab, dashing him against the bulwarks--"Man the boat! +Which way heading?" + +"Good God!" cried the English Captain, to whom the question was put. +"What's the matter? He was heading east, I think.--Is your Captain +crazy?" whispering Fedallah. + +But Fedallah, putting a finger on his lip, slid over the bulwarks to +take the boat's steering oar, and Ahab, swinging the cutting-tackle +towards him, commanded the ship's sailors to stand by to lower. + +In a moment he was standing in the boat's stern, and the Manilla men +were springing to their oars. In vain the English Captain hailed him. +With back to the stranger ship, and face set like a flint to his own, +Ahab stood upright till alongside of the Pequod. + + + +CHAPTER 101. The Decanter. + + +Ere the English ship fades from sight, be it set down here, that +she hailed from London, and was named after the late Samuel Enderby, +merchant of that city, the original of the famous whaling house of +Enderby & Sons; a house which in my poor whaleman's opinion, comes not +far behind the united royal houses of the Tudors and Bourbons, in point +of real historical interest. How long, prior to the year of our +Lord 1775, this great whaling house was in existence, my numerous +fish-documents do not make plain; but in that year (1775) it fitted +out the first English ships that ever regularly hunted the Sperm Whale; +though for some score of years previous (ever since 1726) our valiant +Coffins and Maceys of Nantucket and the Vineyard had in large fleets +pursued that Leviathan, but only in the North and South Atlantic: not +elsewhere. Be it distinctly recorded here, that the Nantucketers were +the first among mankind to harpoon with civilized steel the great Sperm +Whale; and that for half a century they were the only people of the +whole globe who so harpooned him. + +In 1778, a fine ship, the Amelia, fitted out for the express purpose, +and at the sole charge of the vigorous Enderbys, boldly rounded Cape +Horn, and was the first among the nations to lower a whale-boat of any +sort in the great South Sea. The voyage was a skilful and lucky one; +and returning to her berth with her hold full of the precious sperm, the +Amelia's example was soon followed by other ships, English and American, +and thus the vast Sperm Whale grounds of the Pacific were thrown open. +But not content with this good deed, the indefatigable house again +bestirred itself: Samuel and all his Sons--how many, their mother only +knows--and under their immediate auspices, and partly, I think, at their +expense, the British government was induced to send the sloop-of-war +Rattler on a whaling voyage of discovery into the South Sea. Commanded +by a naval Post-Captain, the Rattler made a rattling voyage of it, and +did some service; how much does not appear. But this is not all. In +1819, the same house fitted out a discovery whale ship of their own, to +go on a tasting cruise to the remote waters of Japan. That ship--well +called the "Syren"--made a noble experimental cruise; and it was thus +that the great Japanese Whaling Ground first became generally known. +The Syren in this famous voyage was commanded by a Captain Coffin, a +Nantucketer. + +All honour to the Enderbies, therefore, whose house, I think, exists to +the present day; though doubtless the original Samuel must long ago have +slipped his cable for the great South Sea of the other world. + +The ship named after him was worthy of the honour, being a very fast +sailer and a noble craft every way. I boarded her once at midnight +somewhere off the Patagonian coast, and drank good flip down in the +forecastle. It was a fine gam we had, and they were all trumps--every +soul on board. A short life to them, and a jolly death. And that fine +gam I had--long, very long after old Ahab touched her planks with his +ivory heel--it minds me of the noble, solid, Saxon hospitality of that +ship; and may my parson forget me, and the devil remember me, if I ever +lose sight of it. Flip? Did I say we had flip? Yes, and we flipped it +at the rate of ten gallons the hour; and when the squall came (for it's +squally off there by Patagonia), and all hands--visitors and all--were +called to reef topsails, we were so top-heavy that we had to swing each +other aloft in bowlines; and we ignorantly furled the skirts of our +jackets into the sails, so that we hung there, reefed fast in the +howling gale, a warning example to all drunken tars. However, the masts +did not go overboard; and by and by we scrambled down, so sober, that we +had to pass the flip again, though the savage salt spray bursting down +the forecastle scuttle, rather too much diluted and pickled it to my +taste. + +The beef was fine--tough, but with body in it. They said it was +bull-beef; others, that it was dromedary beef; but I do not know, for +certain, how that was. They had dumplings too; small, but substantial, +symmetrically globular, and indestructible dumplings. I fancied that you +could feel them, and roll them about in you after they were swallowed. +If you stooped over too far forward, you risked their pitching out +of you like billiard-balls. The bread--but that couldn't be helped; +besides, it was an anti-scorbutic; in short, the bread contained the +only fresh fare they had. But the forecastle was not very light, and it +was very easy to step over into a dark corner when you ate it. But all +in all, taking her from truck to helm, considering the dimensions of the +cook's boilers, including his own live parchment boilers; fore and aft, +I say, the Samuel Enderby was a jolly ship; of good fare and plenty; +fine flip and strong; crack fellows all, and capital from boot heels to +hat-band. + +But why was it, think ye, that the Samuel Enderby, and some other +English whalers I know of--not all though--were such famous, hospitable +ships; that passed round the beef, and the bread, and the can, and the +joke; and were not soon weary of eating, and drinking, and laughing? +I will tell you. The abounding good cheer of these English whalers +is matter for historical research. Nor have I been at all sparing of +historical whale research, when it has seemed needed. + +The English were preceded in the whale fishery by the Hollanders, +Zealanders, and Danes; from whom they derived many terms still extant +in the fishery; and what is yet more, their fat old fashions, +touching plenty to eat and drink. For, as a general thing, the English +merchant-ship scrimps her crew; but not so the English whaler. Hence, in +the English, this thing of whaling good cheer is not normal and natural, +but incidental and particular; and, therefore, must have some special +origin, which is here pointed out, and will be still further elucidated. + +During my researches in the Leviathanic histories, I stumbled upon an +ancient Dutch volume, which, by the musty whaling smell of it, I +knew must be about whalers. The title was, "Dan Coopman," wherefore I +concluded that this must be the invaluable memoirs of some Amsterdam +cooper in the fishery, as every whale ship must carry its cooper. I was +reinforced in this opinion by seeing that it was the production of one +"Fitz Swackhammer." But my friend Dr. Snodhead, a very learned man, +professor of Low Dutch and High German in the college of Santa Claus and +St. Pott's, to whom I handed the work for translation, giving him a box +of sperm candles for his trouble--this same Dr. Snodhead, so soon as he +spied the book, assured me that "Dan Coopman" did not mean "The Cooper," +but "The Merchant." In short, this ancient and learned Low Dutch book +treated of the commerce of Holland; and, among other subjects, contained +a very interesting account of its whale fishery. And in this chapter it +was, headed, "Smeer," or "Fat," that I found a long detailed list of the +outfits for the larders and cellars of 180 sail of Dutch whalemen; from +which list, as translated by Dr. Snodhead, I transcribe the following: + +400,000 lbs. of beef. 60,000 lbs. Friesland pork. 150,000 lbs. of stock +fish. 550,000 lbs. of biscuit. 72,000 lbs. of soft bread. 2,800 firkins +of butter. 20,000 lbs. Texel & Leyden cheese. 144,000 lbs. cheese +(probably an inferior article). 550 ankers of Geneva. 10,800 barrels of +beer. + +Most statistical tables are parchingly dry in the reading; not so in +the present case, however, where the reader is flooded with whole pipes, +barrels, quarts, and gills of good gin and good cheer. + +At the time, I devoted three days to the studious digesting of all +this beer, beef, and bread, during which many profound thoughts were +incidentally suggested to me, capable of a transcendental and Platonic +application; and, furthermore, I compiled supplementary tables of my +own, touching the probable quantity of stock-fish, etc., consumed by +every Low Dutch harpooneer in that ancient Greenland and Spitzbergen +whale fishery. In the first place, the amount of butter, and Texel and +Leyden cheese consumed, seems amazing. I impute it, though, to their +naturally unctuous natures, being rendered still more unctuous by the +nature of their vocation, and especially by their pursuing their game +in those frigid Polar Seas, on the very coasts of that Esquimaux country +where the convivial natives pledge each other in bumpers of train oil. + +The quantity of beer, too, is very large, 10,800 barrels. Now, as those +polar fisheries could only be prosecuted in the short summer of that +climate, so that the whole cruise of one of these Dutch whalemen, +including the short voyage to and from the Spitzbergen sea, did not much +exceed three months, say, and reckoning 30 men to each of their fleet +of 180 sail, we have 5,400 Low Dutch seamen in all; therefore, I say, +we have precisely two barrels of beer per man, for a twelve weeks' +allowance, exclusive of his fair proportion of that 550 ankers of gin. +Now, whether these gin and beer harpooneers, so fuddled as one might +fancy them to have been, were the right sort of men to stand up in +a boat's head, and take good aim at flying whales; this would seem +somewhat improbable. Yet they did aim at them, and hit them too. But +this was very far North, be it remembered, where beer agrees well with +the constitution; upon the Equator, in our southern fishery, beer would +be apt to make the harpooneer sleepy at the mast-head and boozy in his +boat; and grievous loss might ensue to Nantucket and New Bedford. + +But no more; enough has been said to show that the old Dutch whalers +of two or three centuries ago were high livers; and that the English +whalers have not neglected so excellent an example. For, say they, when +cruising in an empty ship, if you can get nothing better out of the +world, get a good dinner out of it, at least. And this empties the +decanter. + + + +CHAPTER 102. A Bower in the Arsacides. + + +Hitherto, in descriptively treating of the Sperm Whale, I have chiefly +dwelt upon the marvels of his outer aspect; or separately and in detail +upon some few interior structural features. But to a large and thorough +sweeping comprehension of him, it behooves me now to unbutton him still +further, and untagging the points of his hose, unbuckling his garters, +and casting loose the hooks and the eyes of the joints of his innermost +bones, set him before you in his ultimatum; that is to say, in his +unconditional skeleton. + +But how now, Ishmael? How is it, that you, a mere oarsman in the +fishery, pretend to know aught about the subterranean parts of the +whale? Did erudite Stubb, mounted upon your capstan, deliver lectures +on the anatomy of the Cetacea; and by help of the windlass, hold up a +specimen rib for exhibition? Explain thyself, Ishmael. Can you land +a full-grown whale on your deck for examination, as a cook dishes a +roast-pig? Surely not. A veritable witness have you hitherto been, +Ishmael; but have a care how you seize the privilege of Jonah alone; +the privilege of discoursing upon the joists and beams; the rafters, +ridge-pole, sleepers, and under-pinnings, making up the frame-work of +leviathan; and belike of the tallow-vats, dairy-rooms, butteries, and +cheeseries in his bowels. + +I confess, that since Jonah, few whalemen have penetrated very far +beneath the skin of the adult whale; nevertheless, I have been blessed +with an opportunity to dissect him in miniature. In a ship I belonged +to, a small cub Sperm Whale was once bodily hoisted to the deck for his +poke or bag, to make sheaths for the barbs of the harpoons, and for the +heads of the lances. Think you I let that chance go, without using my +boat-hatchet and jack-knife, and breaking the seal and reading all the +contents of that young cub? + +And as for my exact knowledge of the bones of the leviathan in their +gigantic, full grown development, for that rare knowledge I am indebted +to my late royal friend Tranquo, king of Tranque, one of the Arsacides. +For being at Tranque, years ago, when attached to the trading-ship Dey +of Algiers, I was invited to spend part of the Arsacidean holidays with +the lord of Tranque, at his retired palm villa at Pupella; a sea-side +glen not very far distant from what our sailors called Bamboo-Town, his +capital. + +Among many other fine qualities, my royal friend Tranquo, being gifted +with a devout love for all matters of barbaric vertu, had brought +together in Pupella whatever rare things the more ingenious of his +people could invent; chiefly carved woods of wonderful devices, +chiselled shells, inlaid spears, costly paddles, aromatic canoes; +and all these distributed among whatever natural wonders, the +wonder-freighted, tribute-rendering waves had cast upon his shores. + +Chief among these latter was a great Sperm Whale, which, after an +unusually long raging gale, had been found dead and stranded, with his +head against a cocoa-nut tree, whose plumage-like, tufted droopings +seemed his verdant jet. When the vast body had at last been stripped of +its fathom-deep enfoldings, and the bones become dust dry in the sun, +then the skeleton was carefully transported up the Pupella glen, where a +grand temple of lordly palms now sheltered it. + +The ribs were hung with trophies; the vertebrae were carved with +Arsacidean annals, in strange hieroglyphics; in the skull, the priests +kept up an unextinguished aromatic flame, so that the mystic head +again sent forth its vapoury spout; while, suspended from a bough, the +terrific lower jaw vibrated over all the devotees, like the hair-hung +sword that so affrighted Damocles. + +It was a wondrous sight. The wood was green as mosses of the Icy +Glen; the trees stood high and haughty, feeling their living sap; the +industrious earth beneath was as a weaver's loom, with a gorgeous carpet +on it, whereof the ground-vine tendrils formed the warp and woof, and +the living flowers the figures. All the trees, with all their laden +branches; all the shrubs, and ferns, and grasses; the message-carrying +air; all these unceasingly were active. Through the lacings of the +leaves, the great sun seemed a flying shuttle weaving the unwearied +verdure. Oh, busy weaver! unseen weaver!--pause!--one word!--whither +flows the fabric? what palace may it deck? wherefore all these ceaseless +toilings? Speak, weaver!--stay thy hand!--but one single word with +thee! Nay--the shuttle flies--the figures float from forth the loom; the +freshet-rushing carpet for ever slides away. The weaver-god, he weaves; +and by that weaving is he deafened, that he hears no mortal voice; and +by that humming, we, too, who look on the loom are deafened; and only +when we escape it shall we hear the thousand voices that speak through +it. For even so it is in all material factories. The spoken words that +are inaudible among the flying spindles; those same words are plainly +heard without the walls, bursting from the opened casements. Thereby +have villainies been detected. Ah, mortal! then, be heedful; for so, in +all this din of the great world's loom, thy subtlest thinkings may be +overheard afar. + +Now, amid the green, life-restless loom of that Arsacidean wood, the +great, white, worshipped skeleton lay lounging--a gigantic idler! Yet, +as the ever-woven verdant warp and woof intermixed and hummed around +him, the mighty idler seemed the cunning weaver; himself all woven +over with the vines; every month assuming greener, fresher verdure; but +himself a skeleton. Life folded Death; Death trellised Life; the grim +god wived with youthful Life, and begat him curly-headed glories. + +Now, when with royal Tranquo I visited this wondrous whale, and saw the +skull an altar, and the artificial smoke ascending from where the real +jet had issued, I marvelled that the king should regard a chapel as +an object of vertu. He laughed. But more I marvelled that the priests +should swear that smoky jet of his was genuine. To and fro I paced +before this skeleton--brushed the vines aside--broke through the +ribs--and with a ball of Arsacidean twine, wandered, eddied long amid +its many winding, shaded colonnades and arbours. But soon my line was +out; and following it back, I emerged from the opening where I entered. +I saw no living thing within; naught was there but bones. + +Cutting me a green measuring-rod, I once more dived within the skeleton. +From their arrow-slit in the skull, the priests perceived me taking the +altitude of the final rib, "How now!" they shouted; "Dar'st thou measure +this our god! That's for us." "Aye, priests--well, how long do ye make +him, then?" But hereupon a fierce contest rose among them, concerning +feet and inches; they cracked each other's sconces with their +yard-sticks--the great skull echoed--and seizing that lucky chance, I +quickly concluded my own admeasurements. + +These admeasurements I now propose to set before you. But first, be +it recorded, that, in this matter, I am not free to utter any fancied +measurement I please. Because there are skeleton authorities you can +refer to, to test my accuracy. There is a Leviathanic Museum, they tell +me, in Hull, England, one of the whaling ports of that country, where +they have some fine specimens of fin-backs and other whales. Likewise, I +have heard that in the museum of Manchester, in New Hampshire, they have +what the proprietors call "the only perfect specimen of a Greenland or +River Whale in the United States." Moreover, at a place in Yorkshire, +England, Burton Constable by name, a certain Sir Clifford Constable has +in his possession the skeleton of a Sperm Whale, but of moderate size, +by no means of the full-grown magnitude of my friend King Tranquo's. + +In both cases, the stranded whales to which these two skeletons +belonged, were originally claimed by their proprietors upon similar +grounds. King Tranquo seizing his because he wanted it; and Sir +Clifford, because he was lord of the seignories of those parts. Sir +Clifford's whale has been articulated throughout; so that, like a +great chest of drawers, you can open and shut him, in all his bony +cavities--spread out his ribs like a gigantic fan--and swing all day +upon his lower jaw. Locks are to be put upon some of his trap-doors and +shutters; and a footman will show round future visitors with a bunch of +keys at his side. Sir Clifford thinks of charging twopence for a peep at +the whispering gallery in the spinal column; threepence to hear the echo +in the hollow of his cerebellum; and sixpence for the unrivalled view +from his forehead. + +The skeleton dimensions I shall now proceed to set down are copied +verbatim from my right arm, where I had them tattooed; as in my wild +wanderings at that period, there was no other secure way of preserving +such valuable statistics. But as I was crowded for space, and wished +the other parts of my body to remain a blank page for a poem I was +then composing--at least, what untattooed parts might remain--I did not +trouble myself with the odd inches; nor, indeed, should inches at all +enter into a congenial admeasurement of the whale. + + + +CHAPTER 103. Measurement of The Whale's Skeleton. + + +In the first place, I wish to lay before you a particular, plain +statement, touching the living bulk of this leviathan, whose skeleton we +are briefly to exhibit. Such a statement may prove useful here. + +According to a careful calculation I have made, and which I partly base +upon Captain Scoresby's estimate, of seventy tons for the largest +sized Greenland whale of sixty feet in length; according to my careful +calculation, I say, a Sperm Whale of the largest magnitude, between +eighty-five and ninety feet in length, and something less than forty +feet in its fullest circumference, such a whale will weigh at least +ninety tons; so that, reckoning thirteen men to a ton, he would +considerably outweigh the combined population of a whole village of one +thousand one hundred inhabitants. + +Think you not then that brains, like yoked cattle, should be put to this +leviathan, to make him at all budge to any landsman's imagination? + +Having already in various ways put before you his skull, spout-hole, +jaw, teeth, tail, forehead, fins, and divers other parts, I shall now +simply point out what is most interesting in the general bulk of his +unobstructed bones. But as the colossal skull embraces so very large +a proportion of the entire extent of the skeleton; as it is by far the +most complicated part; and as nothing is to be repeated concerning it in +this chapter, you must not fail to carry it in your mind, or under your +arm, as we proceed, otherwise you will not gain a complete notion of the +general structure we are about to view. + +In length, the Sperm Whale's skeleton at Tranque measured seventy-two +Feet; so that when fully invested and extended in life, he must have +been ninety feet long; for in the whale, the skeleton loses about one +fifth in length compared with the living body. Of this seventy-two feet, +his skull and jaw comprised some twenty feet, leaving some fifty feet of +plain back-bone. Attached to this back-bone, for something less than a +third of its length, was the mighty circular basket of ribs which once +enclosed his vitals. + +To me this vast ivory-ribbed chest, with the long, unrelieved spine, +extending far away from it in a straight line, not a little resembled +the hull of a great ship new-laid upon the stocks, when only some twenty +of her naked bow-ribs are inserted, and the keel is otherwise, for the +time, but a long, disconnected timber. + +The ribs were ten on a side. The first, to begin from the neck, +was nearly six feet long; the second, third, and fourth were each +successively longer, till you came to the climax of the fifth, or one +of the middle ribs, which measured eight feet and some inches. From +that part, the remaining ribs diminished, till the tenth and last only +spanned five feet and some inches. In general thickness, they all bore +a seemly correspondence to their length. The middle ribs were the most +arched. In some of the Arsacides they are used for beams whereon to lay +footpath bridges over small streams. + +In considering these ribs, I could not but be struck anew with the +circumstance, so variously repeated in this book, that the skeleton of +the whale is by no means the mould of his invested form. The largest of +the Tranque ribs, one of the middle ones, occupied that part of the fish +which, in life, is greatest in depth. Now, the greatest depth of the +invested body of this particular whale must have been at least sixteen +feet; whereas, the corresponding rib measured but little more than eight +feet. So that this rib only conveyed half of the true notion of the +living magnitude of that part. Besides, for some way, where I now saw +but a naked spine, all that had been once wrapped round with tons of +added bulk in flesh, muscle, blood, and bowels. Still more, for the +ample fins, I here saw but a few disordered joints; and in place of the +weighty and majestic, but boneless flukes, an utter blank! + +How vain and foolish, then, thought I, for timid untravelled man to try +to comprehend aright this wondrous whale, by merely poring over his dead +attenuated skeleton, stretched in this peaceful wood. No. Only in the +heart of quickest perils; only when within the eddyings of his angry +flukes; only on the profound unbounded sea, can the fully invested whale +be truly and livingly found out. + +But the spine. For that, the best way we can consider it is, with a +crane, to pile its bones high up on end. No speedy enterprise. But now +it's done, it looks much like Pompey's Pillar. + +There are forty and odd vertebrae in all, which in the skeleton are +not locked together. They mostly lie like the great knobbed blocks on +a Gothic spire, forming solid courses of heavy masonry. The largest, +a middle one, is in width something less than three feet, and in depth +more than four. The smallest, where the spine tapers away into the +tail, is only two inches in width, and looks something like a white +billiard-ball. I was told that there were still smaller ones, but they +had been lost by some little cannibal urchins, the priest's children, +who had stolen them to play marbles with. Thus we see how that the +spine of even the hugest of living things tapers off at last into simple +child's play. + + + +CHAPTER 104. The Fossil Whale. + + +From his mighty bulk the whale affords a most congenial theme whereon +to enlarge, amplify, and generally expatiate. Would you, you could not +compress him. By good rights he should only be treated of in imperial +folio. Not to tell over again his furlongs from spiracle to tail, +and the yards he measures about the waist; only think of the gigantic +involutions of his intestines, where they lie in him like great +cables and hawsers coiled away in the subterranean orlop-deck of a +line-of-battle-ship. + +Since I have undertaken to manhandle this Leviathan, it behooves me +to approve myself omnisciently exhaustive in the enterprise; not +overlooking the minutest seminal germs of his blood, and spinning him +out to the uttermost coil of his bowels. Having already described him +in most of his present habitatory and anatomical peculiarities, it +now remains to magnify him in an archaeological, fossiliferous, and +antediluvian point of view. Applied to any other creature than the +Leviathan--to an ant or a flea--such portly terms might justly be deemed +unwarrantably grandiloquent. But when Leviathan is the text, the case is +altered. Fain am I to stagger to this emprise under the weightiest +words of the dictionary. And here be it said, that whenever it has been +convenient to consult one in the course of these dissertations, I have +invariably used a huge quarto edition of Johnson, expressly purchased +for that purpose; because that famous lexicographer's uncommon personal +bulk more fitted him to compile a lexicon to be used by a whale author +like me. + +One often hears of writers that rise and swell with their subject, +though it may seem but an ordinary one. How, then, with me, writing +of this Leviathan? Unconsciously my chirography expands into placard +capitals. Give me a condor's quill! Give me Vesuvius' crater for an +inkstand! Friends, hold my arms! For in the mere act of penning my +thoughts of this Leviathan, they weary me, and make me faint with their +outreaching comprehensiveness of sweep, as if to include the whole +circle of the sciences, and all the generations of whales, and men, and +mastodons, past, present, and to come, with all the revolving panoramas +of empire on earth, and throughout the whole universe, not excluding its +suburbs. Such, and so magnifying, is the virtue of a large and liberal +theme! We expand to its bulk. To produce a mighty book, you must choose +a mighty theme. No great and enduring volume can ever be written on the +flea, though many there be who have tried it. + +Ere entering upon the subject of Fossil Whales, I present my credentials +as a geologist, by stating that in my miscellaneous time I have been +a stone-mason, and also a great digger of ditches, canals and wells, +wine-vaults, cellars, and cisterns of all sorts. Likewise, by way of +preliminary, I desire to remind the reader, that while in the earlier +geological strata there are found the fossils of monsters now almost +completely extinct; the subsequent relics discovered in what are called +the Tertiary formations seem the connecting, or at any rate intercepted +links, between the antichronical creatures, and those whose remote +posterity are said to have entered the Ark; all the Fossil Whales +hitherto discovered belong to the Tertiary period, which is the last +preceding the superficial formations. And though none of them +precisely answer to any known species of the present time, they are yet +sufficiently akin to them in general respects, to justify their taking +rank as Cetacean fossils. + +Detached broken fossils of pre-adamite whales, fragments of their bones +and skeletons, have within thirty years past, at various intervals, been +found at the base of the Alps, in Lombardy, in France, in England, in +Scotland, and in the States of Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama. +Among the more curious of such remains is part of a skull, which in the +year 1779 was disinterred in the Rue Dauphine in Paris, a short street +opening almost directly upon the palace of the Tuileries; and bones +disinterred in excavating the great docks of Antwerp, in Napoleon's +time. Cuvier pronounced these fragments to have belonged to some utterly +unknown Leviathanic species. + +But by far the most wonderful of all Cetacean relics was the almost +complete vast skeleton of an extinct monster, found in the year 1842, on +the plantation of Judge Creagh, in Alabama. The awe-stricken credulous +slaves in the vicinity took it for the bones of one of the fallen +angels. The Alabama doctors declared it a huge reptile, and bestowed +upon it the name of Basilosaurus. But some specimen bones of it being +taken across the sea to Owen, the English Anatomist, it turned out +that this alleged reptile was a whale, though of a departed species. A +significant illustration of the fact, again and again repeated in this +book, that the skeleton of the whale furnishes but little clue to the +shape of his fully invested body. So Owen rechristened the monster +Zeuglodon; and in his paper read before the London Geological Society, +pronounced it, in substance, one of the most extraordinary creatures +which the mutations of the globe have blotted out of existence. + +When I stand among these mighty Leviathan skeletons, skulls, tusks, +jaws, ribs, and vertebrae, all characterized by partial resemblances to +the existing breeds of sea-monsters; but at the same time bearing on +the other hand similar affinities to the annihilated antichronical +Leviathans, their incalculable seniors; I am, by a flood, borne back +to that wondrous period, ere time itself can be said to have begun; +for time began with man. Here Saturn's grey chaos rolls over me, and I +obtain dim, shuddering glimpses into those Polar eternities; when wedged +bastions of ice pressed hard upon what are now the Tropics; and in +all the 25,000 miles of this world's circumference, not an inhabitable +hand's breadth of land was visible. Then the whole world was the +whale's; and, king of creation, he left his wake along the present lines +of the Andes and the Himmalehs. Who can show a pedigree like Leviathan? +Ahab's harpoon had shed older blood than the Pharaoh's. Methuselah seems +a school-boy. I look round to shake hands with Shem. I am horror-struck +at this antemosaic, unsourced existence of the unspeakable terrors of +the whale, which, having been before all time, must needs exist after +all humane ages are over. + +But not alone has this Leviathan left his pre-adamite traces in the +stereotype plates of nature, and in limestone and marl bequeathed his +ancient bust; but upon Egyptian tablets, whose antiquity seems to claim +for them an almost fossiliferous character, we find the unmistakable +print of his fin. In an apartment of the great temple of Denderah, +some fifty years ago, there was discovered upon the granite ceiling a +sculptured and painted planisphere, abounding in centaurs, griffins, and +dolphins, similar to the grotesque figures on the celestial globe of the +moderns. Gliding among them, old Leviathan swam as of yore; was there +swimming in that planisphere, centuries before Solomon was cradled. + +Nor must there be omitted another strange attestation of the antiquity +of the whale, in his own osseous post-diluvian reality, as set down by +the venerable John Leo, the old Barbary traveller. + +"Not far from the Sea-side, they have a Temple, the Rafters and Beams +of which are made of Whale-Bones; for Whales of a monstrous size are +oftentimes cast up dead upon that shore. The Common People imagine, that +by a secret Power bestowed by God upon the temple, no Whale can pass it +without immediate death. But the truth of the Matter is, that on either +side of the Temple, there are Rocks that shoot two Miles into the Sea, +and wound the Whales when they light upon 'em. They keep a Whale's Rib +of an incredible length for a Miracle, which lying upon the Ground with +its convex part uppermost, makes an Arch, the Head of which cannot be +reached by a Man upon a Camel's Back. This Rib (says John Leo) is said +to have layn there a hundred Years before I saw it. Their Historians +affirm, that a Prophet who prophesy'd of Mahomet, came from this Temple, +and some do not stand to assert, that the Prophet Jonas was cast forth +by the Whale at the Base of the Temple." + +In this Afric Temple of the Whale I leave you, reader, and if you be a +Nantucketer, and a whaleman, you will silently worship there. + + + +CHAPTER 105. Does the Whale's Magnitude Diminish?--Will He Perish? + + +Inasmuch, then, as this Leviathan comes floundering down upon us from +the head-waters of the Eternities, it may be fitly inquired, whether, +in the long course of his generations, he has not degenerated from the +original bulk of his sires. + +But upon investigation we find, that not only are the whales of the +present day superior in magnitude to those whose fossil remains are +found in the Tertiary system (embracing a distinct geological period +prior to man), but of the whales found in that Tertiary system, those +belonging to its latter formations exceed in size those of its earlier +ones. + +Of all the pre-adamite whales yet exhumed, by far the largest is the +Alabama one mentioned in the last chapter, and that was less than +seventy feet in length in the skeleton. Whereas, we have already seen, +that the tape-measure gives seventy-two feet for the skeleton of a large +sized modern whale. And I have heard, on whalemen's authority, that +Sperm Whales have been captured near a hundred feet long at the time of +capture. + +But may it not be, that while the whales of the present hour are an +advance in magnitude upon those of all previous geological periods; may +it not be, that since Adam's time they have degenerated? + +Assuredly, we must conclude so, if we are to credit the accounts of such +gentlemen as Pliny, and the ancient naturalists generally. For Pliny +tells us of Whales that embraced acres of living bulk, and Aldrovandus +of others which measured eight hundred feet in length--Rope Walks and +Thames Tunnels of Whales! And even in the days of Banks and Solander, +Cooke's naturalists, we find a Danish member of the Academy of Sciences +setting down certain Iceland Whales (reydan-siskur, or Wrinkled Bellies) +at one hundred and twenty yards; that is, three hundred and sixty feet. +And Lacepede, the French naturalist, in his elaborate history of whales, +in the very beginning of his work (page 3), sets down the Right Whale at +one hundred metres, three hundred and twenty-eight feet. And this work +was published so late as A.D. 1825. + +But will any whaleman believe these stories? No. The whale of to-day is +as big as his ancestors in Pliny's time. And if ever I go where Pliny +is, I, a whaleman (more than he was), will make bold to tell him so. +Because I cannot understand how it is, that while the Egyptian mummies +that were buried thousands of years before even Pliny was born, do not +measure so much in their coffins as a modern Kentuckian in his socks; +and while the cattle and other animals sculptured on the oldest Egyptian +and Nineveh tablets, by the relative proportions in which they are +drawn, just as plainly prove that the high-bred, stall-fed, prize cattle +of Smithfield, not only equal, but far exceed in magnitude the fattest +of Pharaoh's fat kine; in the face of all this, I will not admit that of +all animals the whale alone should have degenerated. + +But still another inquiry remains; one often agitated by the more +recondite Nantucketers. Whether owing to the almost omniscient look-outs +at the mast-heads of the whaleships, now penetrating even through +Behring's straits, and into the remotest secret drawers and lockers +of the world; and the thousand harpoons and lances darted along all +continental coasts; the moot point is, whether Leviathan can long endure +so wide a chase, and so remorseless a havoc; whether he must not at last +be exterminated from the waters, and the last whale, like the last man, +smoke his last pipe, and then himself evaporate in the final puff. + +Comparing the humped herds of whales with the humped herds of buffalo, +which, not forty years ago, overspread by tens of thousands the prairies +of Illinois and Missouri, and shook their iron manes and scowled with +their thunder-clotted brows upon the sites of populous river-capitals, +where now the polite broker sells you land at a dollar an inch; in such +a comparison an irresistible argument would seem furnished, to show that +the hunted whale cannot now escape speedy extinction. + +But you must look at this matter in every light. Though so short a +period ago--not a good lifetime--the census of the buffalo in Illinois +exceeded the census of men now in London, and though at the present day +not one horn or hoof of them remains in all that region; and though the +cause of this wondrous extermination was the spear of man; yet the far +different nature of the whale-hunt peremptorily forbids so inglorious an +end to the Leviathan. Forty men in one ship hunting the Sperm Whales for +forty-eight months think they have done extremely well, and thank God, +if at last they carry home the oil of forty fish. Whereas, in the days +of the old Canadian and Indian hunters and trappers of the West, when +the far west (in whose sunset suns still rise) was a wilderness and +a virgin, the same number of moccasined men, for the same number of +months, mounted on horse instead of sailing in ships, would have slain +not forty, but forty thousand and more buffaloes; a fact that, if need +were, could be statistically stated. + +Nor, considered aright, does it seem any argument in favour of the +gradual extinction of the Sperm Whale, for example, that in former years +(the latter part of the last century, say) these Leviathans, in +small pods, were encountered much oftener than at present, and, in +consequence, the voyages were not so prolonged, and were also much more +remunerative. Because, as has been elsewhere noticed, those whales, +influenced by some views to safety, now swim the seas in immense +caravans, so that to a large degree the scattered solitaries, yokes, and +pods, and schools of other days are now aggregated into vast but widely +separated, unfrequent armies. That is all. And equally fallacious seems +the conceit, that because the so-called whale-bone whales no longer +haunt many grounds in former years abounding with them, hence that +species also is declining. For they are only being driven from +promontory to cape; and if one coast is no longer enlivened with +their jets, then, be sure, some other and remoter strand has been very +recently startled by the unfamiliar spectacle. + +Furthermore: concerning these last mentioned Leviathans, they have two +firm fortresses, which, in all human probability, will for ever remain +impregnable. And as upon the invasion of their valleys, the frosty Swiss +have retreated to their mountains; so, hunted from the savannas and +glades of the middle seas, the whale-bone whales can at last resort to +their Polar citadels, and diving under the ultimate glassy barriers and +walls there, come up among icy fields and floes; and in a charmed circle +of everlasting December, bid defiance to all pursuit from man. + +But as perhaps fifty of these whale-bone whales are harpooned for one +cachalot, some philosophers of the forecastle have concluded that this +positive havoc has already very seriously diminished their battalions. +But though for some time past a number of these whales, not less than +13,000, have been annually slain on the nor'-west coast by the Americans +alone; yet there are considerations which render even this circumstance +of little or no account as an opposing argument in this matter. + +Natural as it is to be somewhat incredulous concerning the populousness +of the more enormous creatures of the globe, yet what shall we say to +Harto, the historian of Goa, when he tells us that at one hunting the +King of Siam took 4,000 elephants; that in those regions elephants are +numerous as droves of cattle in the temperate climes. And there seems no +reason to doubt that if these elephants, which have now been hunted for +thousands of years, by Semiramis, by Porus, by Hannibal, and by all the +successive monarchs of the East--if they still survive there in great +numbers, much more may the great whale outlast all hunting, since he +has a pasture to expatiate in, which is precisely twice as large as all +Asia, both Americas, Europe and Africa, New Holland, and all the Isles +of the sea combined. + +Moreover: we are to consider, that from the presumed great longevity +of whales, their probably attaining the age of a century and more, +therefore at any one period of time, several distinct adult generations +must be contemporary. And what that is, we may soon gain some idea +of, by imagining all the grave-yards, cemeteries, and family vaults of +creation yielding up the live bodies of all the men, women, and children +who were alive seventy-five years ago; and adding this countless host to +the present human population of the globe. + +Wherefore, for all these things, we account the whale immortal in his +species, however perishable in his individuality. He swam the seas +before the continents broke water; he once swam over the site of the +Tuileries, and Windsor Castle, and the Kremlin. In Noah's flood he +despised Noah's Ark; and if ever the world is to be again flooded, like +the Netherlands, to kill off its rats, then the eternal whale will still +survive, and rearing upon the topmost crest of the equatorial flood, +spout his frothed defiance to the skies. + + + +CHAPTER 106. Ahab's Leg. + + +The precipitating manner in which Captain Ahab had quitted the Samuel +Enderby of London, had not been unattended with some small violence to +his own person. He had lighted with such energy upon a thwart of his +boat that his ivory leg had received a half-splintering shock. And +when after gaining his own deck, and his own pivot-hole there, he so +vehemently wheeled round with an urgent command to the steersman (it +was, as ever, something about his not steering inflexibly enough); then, +the already shaken ivory received such an additional twist and wrench, +that though it still remained entire, and to all appearances lusty, yet +Ahab did not deem it entirely trustworthy. + +And, indeed, it seemed small matter for wonder, that for all his +pervading, mad recklessness, Ahab did at times give careful heed to the +condition of that dead bone upon which he partly stood. For it had not +been very long prior to the Pequod's sailing from Nantucket, that he +had been found one night lying prone upon the ground, and insensible; +by some unknown, and seemingly inexplicable, unimaginable casualty, his +ivory limb having been so violently displaced, that it had stake-wise +smitten, and all but pierced his groin; nor was it without extreme +difficulty that the agonizing wound was entirely cured. + +Nor, at the time, had it failed to enter his monomaniac mind, that all +the anguish of that then present suffering was but the direct issue of a +former woe; and he too plainly seemed to see, that as the most poisonous +reptile of the marsh perpetuates his kind as inevitably as the sweetest +songster of the grove; so, equally with every felicity, all miserable +events do naturally beget their like. Yea, more than equally, thought +Ahab; since both the ancestry and posterity of Grief go further than the +ancestry and posterity of Joy. For, not to hint of this: that it is +an inference from certain canonic teachings, that while some natural +enjoyments here shall have no children born to them for the other world, +but, on the contrary, shall be followed by the joy-childlessness of +all hell's despair; whereas, some guilty mortal miseries shall still +fertilely beget to themselves an eternally progressive progeny of griefs +beyond the grave; not at all to hint of this, there still seems an +inequality in the deeper analysis of the thing. For, thought Ahab, while +even the highest earthly felicities ever have a certain unsignifying +pettiness lurking in them, but, at bottom, all heartwoes, a mystic +significance, and, in some men, an archangelic grandeur; so do their +diligent tracings-out not belie the obvious deduction. To trail the +genealogies of these high mortal miseries, carries us at last among the +sourceless primogenitures of the gods; so that, in the face of all the +glad, hay-making suns, and soft cymballing, round harvest-moons, we must +needs give in to this: that the gods themselves are not for ever glad. +The ineffaceable, sad birth-mark in the brow of man, is but the stamp of +sorrow in the signers. + +Unwittingly here a secret has been divulged, which perhaps might more +properly, in set way, have been disclosed before. With many other +particulars concerning Ahab, always had it remained a mystery to some, +why it was, that for a certain period, both before and after the sailing +of the Pequod, he had hidden himself away with such Grand-Lama-like +exclusiveness; and, for that one interval, sought speechless refuge, as +it were, among the marble senate of the dead. Captain Peleg's bruited +reason for this thing appeared by no means adequate; though, indeed, +as touching all Ahab's deeper part, every revelation partook more of +significant darkness than of explanatory light. But, in the end, it all +came out; this one matter did, at least. That direful mishap was at +the bottom of his temporary recluseness. And not only this, but to that +ever-contracting, dropping circle ashore, who, for any reason, possessed +the privilege of a less banned approach to him; to that timid circle the +above hinted casualty--remaining, as it did, moodily unaccounted for by +Ahab--invested itself with terrors, not entirely underived from the land +of spirits and of wails. So that, through their zeal for him, they had +all conspired, so far as in them lay, to muffle up the knowledge of +this thing from others; and hence it was, that not till a considerable +interval had elapsed, did it transpire upon the Pequod's decks. + +But be all this as it may; let the unseen, ambiguous synod in the air, +or the vindictive princes and potentates of fire, have to do or not +with earthly Ahab, yet, in this present matter of his leg, he took plain +practical procedures;--he called the carpenter. + +And when that functionary appeared before him, he bade him without delay +set about making a new leg, and directed the mates to see him supplied +with all the studs and joists of jaw-ivory (Sperm Whale) which had thus +far been accumulated on the voyage, in order that a careful selection +of the stoutest, clearest-grained stuff might be secured. This done, the +carpenter received orders to have the leg completed that night; and to +provide all the fittings for it, independent of those pertaining to +the distrusted one in use. Moreover, the ship's forge was ordered to be +hoisted out of its temporary idleness in the hold; and, to accelerate +the affair, the blacksmith was commanded to proceed at once to the +forging of whatever iron contrivances might be needed. + + + +CHAPTER 107. The Carpenter. + + +Seat thyself sultanically among the moons of Saturn, and take high +abstracted man alone; and he seems a wonder, a grandeur, and a woe. But +from the same point, take mankind in mass, and for the most part, they +seem a mob of unnecessary duplicates, both contemporary and hereditary. +But most humble though he was, and far from furnishing an example of +the high, humane abstraction; the Pequod's carpenter was no duplicate; +hence, he now comes in person on this stage. + +Like all sea-going ship carpenters, and more especially those belonging +to whaling vessels, he was, to a certain off-handed, practical extent, +alike experienced in numerous trades and callings collateral to his own; +the carpenter's pursuit being the ancient and outbranching trunk of all +those numerous handicrafts which more or less have to do with wood as an +auxiliary material. But, besides the application to him of the generic +remark above, this carpenter of the Pequod was singularly efficient in +those thousand nameless mechanical emergencies continually recurring +in a large ship, upon a three or four years' voyage, in uncivilized +and far-distant seas. For not to speak of his readiness in ordinary +duties:--repairing stove boats, sprung spars, reforming the shape of +clumsy-bladed oars, inserting bull's eyes in the deck, or new tree-nails +in the side planks, and other miscellaneous matters more directly +pertaining to his special business; he was moreover unhesitatingly +expert in all manner of conflicting aptitudes, both useful and +capricious. + +The one grand stage where he enacted all his various parts so manifold, +was his vice-bench; a long rude ponderous table furnished with several +vices, of different sizes, and both of iron and of wood. At all times +except when whales were alongside, this bench was securely lashed +athwartships against the rear of the Try-works. + +A belaying pin is found too large to be easily inserted into its hole: +the carpenter claps it into one of his ever-ready vices, and straightway +files it smaller. A lost land-bird of strange plumage strays on board, +and is made a captive: out of clean shaved rods of right-whale bone, and +cross-beams of sperm whale ivory, the carpenter makes a pagoda-looking +cage for it. An oarsman sprains his wrist: the carpenter concocts a +soothing lotion. Stubb longed for vermillion stars to be painted upon +the blade of his every oar; screwing each oar in his big vice of wood, +the carpenter symmetrically supplies the constellation. A sailor takes +a fancy to wear shark-bone ear-rings: the carpenter drills his ears. +Another has the toothache: the carpenter out pincers, and clapping +one hand upon his bench bids him be seated there; but the poor fellow +unmanageably winces under the unconcluded operation; whirling round the +handle of his wooden vice, the carpenter signs him to clap his jaw in +that, if he would have him draw the tooth. + +Thus, this carpenter was prepared at all points, and alike indifferent +and without respect in all. Teeth he accounted bits of ivory; heads he +deemed but top-blocks; men themselves he lightly held for capstans. But +while now upon so wide a field thus variously accomplished and with such +liveliness of expertness in him, too; all this would seem to argue some +uncommon vivacity of intelligence. But not precisely so. For nothing was +this man more remarkable, than for a certain impersonal stolidity as +it were; impersonal, I say; for it so shaded off into the surrounding +infinite of things, that it seemed one with the general stolidity +discernible in the whole visible world; which while pauselessly active +in uncounted modes, still eternally holds its peace, and ignores you, +though you dig foundations for cathedrals. Yet was this half-horrible +stolidity in him, involving, too, as it appeared, an all-ramifying +heartlessness;--yet was it oddly dashed at times, with an old, +crutch-like, antediluvian, wheezing humorousness, not unstreaked now +and then with a certain grizzled wittiness; such as might have served +to pass the time during the midnight watch on the bearded forecastle +of Noah's ark. Was it that this old carpenter had been a life-long +wanderer, whose much rolling, to and fro, not only had gathered no moss; +but what is more, had rubbed off whatever small outward clingings +might have originally pertained to him? He was a stript abstract; an +unfractioned integral; uncompromised as a new-born babe; living without +premeditated reference to this world or the next. You might almost +say, that this strange uncompromisedness in him involved a sort of +unintelligence; for in his numerous trades, he did not seem to work so +much by reason or by instinct, or simply because he had been tutored to +it, or by any intermixture of all these, even or uneven; but merely by +a kind of deaf and dumb, spontaneous literal process. He was a pure +manipulator; his brain, if he had ever had one, must have early +oozed along into the muscles of his fingers. He was like one of +those unreasoning but still highly useful, MULTUM IN PARVO, Sheffield +contrivances, assuming the exterior--though a little swelled--of a +common pocket knife; but containing, not only blades of various sizes, +but also screw-drivers, cork-screws, tweezers, awls, pens, rulers, +nail-filers, countersinkers. So, if his superiors wanted to use the +carpenter for a screw-driver, all they had to do was to open that part +of him, and the screw was fast: or if for tweezers, take him up by the +legs, and there they were. + +Yet, as previously hinted, this omnitooled, open-and-shut carpenter, +was, after all, no mere machine of an automaton. If he did not have a +common soul in him, he had a subtle something that somehow anomalously +did its duty. What that was, whether essence of quicksilver, or a few +drops of hartshorn, there is no telling. But there it was; and there it +had abided for now some sixty years or more. And this it was, this same +unaccountable, cunning life-principle in him; this it was, that kept +him a great part of the time soliloquizing; but only like an unreasoning +wheel, which also hummingly soliloquizes; or rather, his body was a +sentry-box and this soliloquizer on guard there, and talking all the +time to keep himself awake. + + + +CHAPTER 108. Ahab and the Carpenter. + +The Deck--First Night Watch. + + +(CARPENTER STANDING BEFORE HIS VICE-BENCH, AND BY THE LIGHT OF TWO +LANTERNS BUSILY FILING THE IVORY JOIST FOR THE LEG, WHICH JOIST IS +FIRMLY FIXED IN THE VICE. SLABS OF IVORY, LEATHER STRAPS, PADS, SCREWS, +AND VARIOUS TOOLS OF ALL SORTS LYING ABOUT THE BENCH. FORWARD, THE RED +FLAME OF THE FORGE IS SEEN, WHERE THE BLACKSMITH IS AT WORK.) + + +Drat the file, and drat the bone! That is hard which should be soft, +and that is soft which should be hard. So we go, who file old jaws and +shinbones. Let's try another. Aye, now, this works better (SNEEZES). +Halloa, this bone dust is (SNEEZES)--why it's (SNEEZES)--yes it's +(SNEEZES)--bless my soul, it won't let me speak! This is what an old +fellow gets now for working in dead lumber. Saw a live tree, and +you don't get this dust; amputate a live bone, and you don't get it +(SNEEZES). Come, come, you old Smut, there, bear a hand, and let's have +that ferule and buckle-screw; I'll be ready for them presently. Lucky +now (SNEEZES) there's no knee-joint to make; that might puzzle a little; +but a mere shinbone--why it's easy as making hop-poles; only I should +like to put a good finish on. Time, time; if I but only had the time, I +could turn him out as neat a leg now as ever (SNEEZES) scraped to a lady +in a parlor. Those buckskin legs and calves of legs I've seen in shop +windows wouldn't compare at all. They soak water, they do; and of +course get rheumatic, and have to be doctored (SNEEZES) with washes and +lotions, just like live legs. There; before I saw it off, now, I must +call his old Mogulship, and see whether the length will be all right; +too short, if anything, I guess. Ha! that's the heel; we are in luck; +here he comes, or it's somebody else, that's certain. + +AHAB (ADVANCING) + +(DURING THE ENSUING SCENE, THE CARPENTER CONTINUES SNEEZING AT TIMES) + + +Well, manmaker! + +Just in time, sir. If the captain pleases, I will now mark the length. +Let me measure, sir. + +Measured for a leg! good. Well, it's not the first time. About it! +There; keep thy finger on it. This is a cogent vice thou hast here, +carpenter; let me feel its grip once. So, so; it does pinch some. + +Oh, sir, it will break bones--beware, beware! + +No fear; I like a good grip; I like to feel something in this +slippery world that can hold, man. What's Prometheus about there?--the +blacksmith, I mean--what's he about? + +He must be forging the buckle-screw, sir, now. + +Right. It's a partnership; he supplies the muscle part. He makes a +fierce red flame there! + +Aye, sir; he must have the white heat for this kind of fine work. + +Um-m. So he must. I do deem it now a most meaning thing, that that +old Greek, Prometheus, who made men, they say, should have been a +blacksmith, and animated them with fire; for what's made in fire must +properly belong to fire; and so hell's probable. How the soot flies! +This must be the remainder the Greek made the Africans of. Carpenter, +when he's through with that buckle, tell him to forge a pair of steel +shoulder-blades; there's a pedlar aboard with a crushing pack. + +Sir? + +Hold; while Prometheus is about it, I'll order a complete man after a +desirable pattern. Imprimis, fifty feet high in his socks; then, chest +modelled after the Thames Tunnel; then, legs with roots to 'em, to stay +in one place; then, arms three feet through the wrist; no heart at all, +brass forehead, and about a quarter of an acre of fine brains; and let +me see--shall I order eyes to see outwards? No, but put a sky-light on +top of his head to illuminate inwards. There, take the order, and away. + +Now, what's he speaking about, and who's he speaking to, I should like +to know? Shall I keep standing here? (ASIDE). + +'Tis but indifferent architecture to make a blind dome; here's one. No, +no, no; I must have a lantern. + +Ho, ho! That's it, hey? Here are two, sir; one will serve my turn. + +What art thou thrusting that thief-catcher into my face for, man? +Thrusted light is worse than presented pistols. + +I thought, sir, that you spoke to carpenter. + + +Carpenter? why that's--but no;--a very tidy, and, I may say, +an extremely gentlemanlike sort of business thou art in here, +carpenter;--or would'st thou rather work in clay? + +Sir?--Clay? clay, sir? That's mud; we leave clay to ditchers, sir. + +The fellow's impious! What art thou sneezing about? + +Bone is rather dusty, sir. + +Take the hint, then; and when thou art dead, never bury thyself under +living people's noses. + +Sir?--oh! ah!--I guess so;--yes--dear! + +Look ye, carpenter, I dare say thou callest thyself a right good +workmanlike workman, eh? Well, then, will it speak thoroughly well +for thy work, if, when I come to mount this leg thou makest, I shall +nevertheless feel another leg in the same identical place with it; that +is, carpenter, my old lost leg; the flesh and blood one, I mean. Canst +thou not drive that old Adam away? + +Truly, sir, I begin to understand somewhat now. Yes, I have heard +something curious on that score, sir; how that a dismasted man never +entirely loses the feeling of his old spar, but it will be still +pricking him at times. May I humbly ask if it be really so, sir? + +It is, man. Look, put thy live leg here in the place where mine once +was; so, now, here is only one distinct leg to the eye, yet two to the +soul. Where thou feelest tingling life; there, exactly there, there to a +hair, do I. Is't a riddle? + +I should humbly call it a poser, sir. + +Hist, then. How dost thou know that some entire, living, thinking thing +may not be invisibly and uninterpenetratingly standing precisely where +thou now standest; aye, and standing there in thy spite? In thy most +solitary hours, then, dost thou not fear eavesdroppers? Hold, don't +speak! And if I still feel the smart of my crushed leg, though it be now +so long dissolved; then, why mayst not thou, carpenter, feel the fiery +pains of hell for ever, and without a body? Hah! + +Good Lord! Truly, sir, if it comes to that, I must calculate over again; +I think I didn't carry a small figure, sir. + +Look ye, pudding-heads should never grant premises.--How long before the +leg is done? + +Perhaps an hour, sir. + +Bungle away at it then, and bring it to me (TURNS TO GO). Oh, Life! Here +I am, proud as Greek god, and yet standing debtor to this blockhead for +a bone to stand on! Cursed be that mortal inter-indebtedness which will +not do away with ledgers. I would be free as air; and I'm down in the +whole world's books. I am so rich, I could have given bid for bid with +the wealthiest Praetorians at the auction of the Roman empire (which was +the world's); and yet I owe for the flesh in the tongue I brag with. By +heavens! I'll get a crucible, and into it, and dissolve myself down to +one small, compendious vertebra. So. + +CARPENTER (RESUMING HIS WORK). + + +Well, well, well! Stubb knows him best of all, and Stubb always says +he's queer; says nothing but that one sufficient little word queer; he's +queer, says Stubb; he's queer--queer, queer; and keeps dinning it into +Mr. Starbuck all the time--queer--sir--queer, queer, very queer. And +here's his leg! Yes, now that I think of it, here's his bedfellow! has +a stick of whale's jaw-bone for a wife! And this is his leg; he'll stand +on this. What was that now about one leg standing in three places, and +all three places standing in one hell--how was that? Oh! I don't wonder +he looked so scornful at me! I'm a sort of strange-thoughted sometimes, +they say; but that's only haphazard-like. Then, a short, little old body +like me, should never undertake to wade out into deep waters with tall, +heron-built captains; the water chucks you under the chin pretty quick, +and there's a great cry for life-boats. And here's the heron's leg! +long and slim, sure enough! Now, for most folks one pair of legs lasts +a lifetime, and that must be because they use them mercifully, as a +tender-hearted old lady uses her roly-poly old coach-horses. But Ahab; +oh he's a hard driver. Look, driven one leg to death, and spavined the +other for life, and now wears out bone legs by the cord. Halloa, there, +you Smut! bear a hand there with those screws, and let's finish it +before the resurrection fellow comes a-calling with his horn for +all legs, true or false, as brewery-men go round collecting old beer +barrels, to fill 'em up again. What a leg this is! It looks like a real +live leg, filed down to nothing but the core; he'll be standing on this +to-morrow; he'll be taking altitudes on it. Halloa! I almost forgot the +little oval slate, smoothed ivory, where he figures up the latitude. So, +so; chisel, file, and sand-paper, now! + + + +CHAPTER 109. Ahab and Starbuck in the Cabin. + + +According to usage they were pumping the ship next morning; and lo! no +inconsiderable oil came up with the water; the casks below must have +sprung a bad leak. Much concern was shown; and Starbuck went down into +the cabin to report this unfavourable affair.* + + +*In Sperm-whalemen with any considerable quantity of oil on board, it +is a regular semiweekly duty to conduct a hose into the hold, and drench +the casks with sea-water; which afterwards, at varying intervals, is +removed by the ship's pumps. Hereby the casks are sought to be kept +damply tight; while by the changed character of the withdrawn water, the +mariners readily detect any serious leakage in the precious cargo. + + +Now, from the South and West the Pequod was drawing nigh to Formosa and +the Bashee Isles, between which lies one of the tropical outlets from +the China waters into the Pacific. And so Starbuck found Ahab with +a general chart of the oriental archipelagoes spread before him; +and another separate one representing the long eastern coasts of the +Japanese islands--Niphon, Matsmai, and Sikoke. With his snow-white new +ivory leg braced against the screwed leg of his table, and with a long +pruning-hook of a jack-knife in his hand, the wondrous old man, with his +back to the gangway door, was wrinkling his brow, and tracing his old +courses again. + +"Who's there?" hearing the footstep at the door, but not turning round +to it. "On deck! Begone!" + +"Captain Ahab mistakes; it is I. The oil in the hold is leaking, sir. We +must up Burtons and break out." + +"Up Burtons and break out? Now that we are nearing Japan; heave-to here +for a week to tinker a parcel of old hoops?" + +"Either do that, sir, or waste in one day more oil than we may make good +in a year. What we come twenty thousand miles to get is worth saving, +sir." + +"So it is, so it is; if we get it." + +"I was speaking of the oil in the hold, sir." + +"And I was not speaking or thinking of that at all. Begone! Let it leak! +I'm all aleak myself. Aye! leaks in leaks! not only full of leaky casks, +but those leaky casks are in a leaky ship; and that's a far worse plight +than the Pequod's, man. Yet I don't stop to plug my leak; for who can +find it in the deep-loaded hull; or how hope to plug it, even if +found, in this life's howling gale? Starbuck! I'll not have the Burtons +hoisted." + +"What will the owners say, sir?" + +"Let the owners stand on Nantucket beach and outyell the Typhoons. What +cares Ahab? Owners, owners? Thou art always prating to me, Starbuck, +about those miserly owners, as if the owners were my conscience. But +look ye, the only real owner of anything is its commander; and hark ye, +my conscience is in this ship's keel.--On deck!" + +"Captain Ahab," said the reddening mate, moving further into the cabin, +with a daring so strangely respectful and cautious that it almost seemed +not only every way seeking to avoid the slightest outward manifestation +of itself, but within also seemed more than half distrustful of itself; +"A better man than I might well pass over in thee what he would quickly +enough resent in a younger man; aye, and in a happier, Captain Ahab." + +"Devils! Dost thou then so much as dare to critically think of me?--On +deck!" + +"Nay, sir, not yet; I do entreat. And I do dare, sir--to be forbearing! +Shall we not understand each other better than hitherto, Captain Ahab?" + +Ahab seized a loaded musket from the rack (forming part of most +South-Sea-men's cabin furniture), and pointing it towards Starbuck, +exclaimed: "There is one God that is Lord over the earth, and one +Captain that is lord over the Pequod.--On deck!" + +For an instant in the flashing eyes of the mate, and his fiery cheeks, +you would have almost thought that he had really received the blaze of +the levelled tube. But, mastering his emotion, he half calmly rose, +and as he quitted the cabin, paused for an instant and said: "Thou hast +outraged, not insulted me, sir; but for that I ask thee not to beware of +Starbuck; thou wouldst but laugh; but let Ahab beware of Ahab; beware of +thyself, old man." + +"He waxes brave, but nevertheless obeys; most careful bravery that!" +murmured Ahab, as Starbuck disappeared. "What's that he said--Ahab +beware of Ahab--there's something there!" Then unconsciously using the +musket for a staff, with an iron brow he paced to and fro in the little +cabin; but presently the thick plaits of his forehead relaxed, and +returning the gun to the rack, he went to the deck. + +"Thou art but too good a fellow, Starbuck," he said lowly to the mate; +then raising his voice to the crew: "Furl the t'gallant-sails, and +close-reef the top-sails, fore and aft; back the main-yard; up Burton, +and break out in the main-hold." + +It were perhaps vain to surmise exactly why it was, that as respecting +Starbuck, Ahab thus acted. It may have been a flash of honesty in him; +or mere prudential policy which, under the circumstance, imperiously +forbade the slightest symptom of open disaffection, however transient, +in the important chief officer of his ship. However it was, his orders +were executed; and the Burtons were hoisted. + + + +CHAPTER 110. Queequeg in His Coffin. + + +Upon searching, it was found that the casks last struck into the hold +were perfectly sound, and that the leak must be further off. So, it +being calm weather, they broke out deeper and deeper, disturbing the +slumbers of the huge ground-tier butts; and from that black midnight +sending those gigantic moles into the daylight above. So deep did they +go; and so ancient, and corroded, and weedy the aspect of the lowermost +puncheons, that you almost looked next for some mouldy corner-stone cask +containing coins of Captain Noah, with copies of the posted placards, +vainly warning the infatuated old world from the flood. Tierce after +tierce, too, of water, and bread, and beef, and shooks of staves, and +iron bundles of hoops, were hoisted out, till at last the piled decks +were hard to get about; and the hollow hull echoed under foot, as if +you were treading over empty catacombs, and reeled and rolled in the sea +like an air-freighted demijohn. Top-heavy was the ship as a dinnerless +student with all Aristotle in his head. Well was it that the Typhoons +did not visit them then. + +Now, at this time it was that my poor pagan companion, and fast +bosom-friend, Queequeg, was seized with a fever, which brought him nigh +to his endless end. + +Be it said, that in this vocation of whaling, sinecures are unknown; +dignity and danger go hand in hand; till you get to be Captain, the +higher you rise the harder you toil. So with poor Queequeg, who, as +harpooneer, must not only face all the rage of the living whale, but--as +we have elsewhere seen--mount his dead back in a rolling sea; and +finally descend into the gloom of the hold, and bitterly sweating +all day in that subterraneous confinement, resolutely manhandle the +clumsiest casks and see to their stowage. To be short, among whalemen, +the harpooneers are the holders, so called. + +Poor Queequeg! when the ship was about half disembowelled, you should +have stooped over the hatchway, and peered down upon him there; where, +stripped to his woollen drawers, the tattooed savage was crawling about +amid that dampness and slime, like a green spotted lizard at the bottom +of a well. And a well, or an ice-house, it somehow proved to him, poor +pagan; where, strange to say, for all the heat of his sweatings, he +caught a terrible chill which lapsed into a fever; and at last, after +some days' suffering, laid him in his hammock, close to the very sill +of the door of death. How he wasted and wasted away in those few +long-lingering days, till there seemed but little left of him but his +frame and tattooing. But as all else in him thinned, and his cheek-bones +grew sharper, his eyes, nevertheless, seemed growing fuller and fuller; +they became of a strange softness of lustre; and mildly but deeply +looked out at you there from his sickness, a wondrous testimony to that +immortal health in him which could not die, or be weakened. And like +circles on the water, which, as they grow fainter, expand; so his eyes +seemed rounding and rounding, like the rings of Eternity. An awe that +cannot be named would steal over you as you sat by the side of this +waning savage, and saw as strange things in his face, as any beheld who +were bystanders when Zoroaster died. For whatever is truly wondrous and +fearful in man, never yet was put into words or books. And the drawing +near of Death, which alike levels all, alike impresses all with a last +revelation, which only an author from the dead could adequately tell. +So that--let us say it again--no dying Chaldee or Greek had higher and +holier thoughts than those, whose mysterious shades you saw creeping +over the face of poor Queequeg, as he quietly lay in his swaying +hammock, and the rolling sea seemed gently rocking him to his final +rest, and the ocean's invisible flood-tide lifted him higher and higher +towards his destined heaven. + +Not a man of the crew but gave him up; and, as for Queequeg himself, +what he thought of his case was forcibly shown by a curious favour he +asked. He called one to him in the grey morning watch, when the day was +just breaking, and taking his hand, said that while in Nantucket he +had chanced to see certain little canoes of dark wood, like the rich +war-wood of his native isle; and upon inquiry, he had learned that all +whalemen who died in Nantucket, were laid in those same dark canoes, +and that the fancy of being so laid had much pleased him; for it was not +unlike the custom of his own race, who, after embalming a dead warrior, +stretched him out in his canoe, and so left him to be floated away to +the starry archipelagoes; for not only do they believe that the stars +are isles, but that far beyond all visible horizons, their own mild, +uncontinented seas, interflow with the blue heavens; and so form the +white breakers of the milky way. He added, that he shuddered at +the thought of being buried in his hammock, according to the usual +sea-custom, tossed like something vile to the death-devouring sharks. +No: he desired a canoe like those of Nantucket, all the more congenial +to him, being a whaleman, that like a whale-boat these coffin-canoes +were without a keel; though that involved but uncertain steering, and +much lee-way adown the dim ages. + +Now, when this strange circumstance was made known aft, the carpenter +was at once commanded to do Queequeg's bidding, whatever it might +include. There was some heathenish, coffin-coloured old lumber aboard, +which, upon a long previous voyage, had been cut from the aboriginal +groves of the Lackaday islands, and from these dark planks the coffin +was recommended to be made. No sooner was the carpenter apprised of +the order, than taking his rule, he forthwith with all the indifferent +promptitude of his character, proceeded into the forecastle and took +Queequeg's measure with great accuracy, regularly chalking Queequeg's +person as he shifted the rule. + +"Ah! poor fellow! he'll have to die now," ejaculated the Long Island +sailor. + +Going to his vice-bench, the carpenter for convenience sake and general +reference, now transferringly measured on it the exact length the coffin +was to be, and then made the transfer permanent by cutting two notches +at its extremities. This done, he marshalled the planks and his tools, +and to work. + +When the last nail was driven, and the lid duly planed and fitted, +he lightly shouldered the coffin and went forward with it, inquiring +whether they were ready for it yet in that direction. + +Overhearing the indignant but half-humorous cries with which the +people on deck began to drive the coffin away, Queequeg, to every one's +consternation, commanded that the thing should be instantly brought to +him, nor was there any denying him; seeing that, of all mortals, some +dying men are the most tyrannical; and certainly, since they will +shortly trouble us so little for evermore, the poor fellows ought to be +indulged. + +Leaning over in his hammock, Queequeg long regarded the coffin with +an attentive eye. He then called for his harpoon, had the wooden stock +drawn from it, and then had the iron part placed in the coffin along +with one of the paddles of his boat. All by his own request, also, +biscuits were then ranged round the sides within: a flask of fresh water +was placed at the head, and a small bag of woody earth scraped up in +the hold at the foot; and a piece of sail-cloth being rolled up for a +pillow, Queequeg now entreated to be lifted into his final bed, that he +might make trial of its comforts, if any it had. He lay without moving +a few minutes, then told one to go to his bag and bring out his little +god, Yojo. Then crossing his arms on his breast with Yojo between, he +called for the coffin lid (hatch he called it) to be placed over him. +The head part turned over with a leather hinge, and there lay Queequeg +in his coffin with little but his composed countenance in view. "Rarmai" +(it will do; it is easy), he murmured at last, and signed to be replaced +in his hammock. + +But ere this was done, Pip, who had been slily hovering near by all this +while, drew nigh to him where he lay, and with soft sobbings, took him +by the hand; in the other, holding his tambourine. + +"Poor rover! will ye never have done with all this weary roving? where +go ye now? But if the currents carry ye to those sweet Antilles where +the beaches are only beat with water-lilies, will ye do one little +errand for me? Seek out one Pip, who's now been missing long: I think +he's in those far Antilles. If ye find him, then comfort him; for he +must be very sad; for look! he's left his tambourine behind;--I found +it. Rig-a-dig, dig, dig! Now, Queequeg, die; and I'll beat ye your dying +march." + +"I have heard," murmured Starbuck, gazing down the scuttle, "that in +violent fevers, men, all ignorance, have talked in ancient tongues; +and that when the mystery is probed, it turns out always that in their +wholly forgotten childhood those ancient tongues had been really spoken +in their hearing by some lofty scholars. So, to my fond faith, poor Pip, +in this strange sweetness of his lunacy, brings heavenly vouchers of all +our heavenly homes. Where learned he that, but there?--Hark! he speaks +again: but more wildly now." + +"Form two and two! Let's make a General of him! Ho, where's his harpoon? +Lay it across here.--Rig-a-dig, dig, dig! huzza! Oh for a game cock +now to sit upon his head and crow! Queequeg dies game!--mind ye that; +Queequeg dies game!--take ye good heed of that; Queequeg dies game! I +say; game, game, game! but base little Pip, he died a coward; died all +a'shiver;--out upon Pip! Hark ye; if ye find Pip, tell all the Antilles +he's a runaway; a coward, a coward, a coward! Tell them he jumped from +a whale-boat! I'd never beat my tambourine over base Pip, and hail +him General, if he were once more dying here. No, no! shame upon all +cowards--shame upon them! Let 'em go drown like Pip, that jumped from a +whale-boat. Shame! shame!" + +During all this, Queequeg lay with closed eyes, as if in a dream. Pip +was led away, and the sick man was replaced in his hammock. + +But now that he had apparently made every preparation for death; now +that his coffin was proved a good fit, Queequeg suddenly rallied; soon +there seemed no need of the carpenter's box: and thereupon, when some +expressed their delighted surprise, he, in substance, said, that the +cause of his sudden convalescence was this;--at a critical moment, he +had just recalled a little duty ashore, which he was leaving undone; +and therefore had changed his mind about dying: he could not die yet, +he averred. They asked him, then, whether to live or die was a matter of +his own sovereign will and pleasure. He answered, certainly. In a word, +it was Queequeg's conceit, that if a man made up his mind to live, mere +sickness could not kill him: nothing but a whale, or a gale, or some +violent, ungovernable, unintelligent destroyer of that sort. + +Now, there is this noteworthy difference between savage and civilized; +that while a sick, civilized man may be six months convalescing, +generally speaking, a sick savage is almost half-well again in a day. +So, in good time my Queequeg gained strength; and at length after +sitting on the windlass for a few indolent days (but eating with a +vigorous appetite) he suddenly leaped to his feet, threw out his arms +and legs, gave himself a good stretching, yawned a little bit, and then +springing into the head of his hoisted boat, and poising a harpoon, +pronounced himself fit for a fight. + +With a wild whimsiness, he now used his coffin for a sea-chest; and +emptying into it his canvas bag of clothes, set them in order there. +Many spare hours he spent, in carving the lid with all manner of +grotesque figures and drawings; and it seemed that hereby he was +striving, in his rude way, to copy parts of the twisted tattooing on +his body. And this tattooing had been the work of a departed prophet and +seer of his island, who, by those hieroglyphic marks, had written out on +his body a complete theory of the heavens and the earth, and a mystical +treatise on the art of attaining truth; so that Queequeg in his own +proper person was a riddle to unfold; a wondrous work in one volume; but +whose mysteries not even himself could read, though his own live heart +beat against them; and these mysteries were therefore destined in +the end to moulder away with the living parchment whereon they were +inscribed, and so be unsolved to the last. And this thought it must +have been which suggested to Ahab that wild exclamation of his, when +one morning turning away from surveying poor Queequeg--"Oh, devilish +tantalization of the gods!" + + + +CHAPTER 111. The Pacific. + + +When gliding by the Bashee isles we emerged at last upon the great South +Sea; were it not for other things, I could have greeted my dear Pacific +with uncounted thanks, for now the long supplication of my youth was +answered; that serene ocean rolled eastwards from me a thousand leagues +of blue. + +There is, one knows not what sweet mystery about this sea, whose gently +awful stirrings seem to speak of some hidden soul beneath; like those +fabled undulations of the Ephesian sod over the buried Evangelist St. +John. And meet it is, that over these sea-pastures, wide-rolling watery +prairies and Potters' Fields of all four continents, the waves should +rise and fall, and ebb and flow unceasingly; for here, millions of mixed +shades and shadows, drowned dreams, somnambulisms, reveries; all that +we call lives and souls, lie dreaming, dreaming, still; tossing like +slumberers in their beds; the ever-rolling waves but made so by their +restlessness. + +To any meditative Magian rover, this serene Pacific, once beheld, must +ever after be the sea of his adoption. It rolls the midmost waters of +the world, the Indian ocean and Atlantic being but its arms. The same +waves wash the moles of the new-built Californian towns, but yesterday +planted by the recentest race of men, and lave the faded but still +gorgeous skirts of Asiatic lands, older than Abraham; while all between +float milky-ways of coral isles, and low-lying, endless, unknown +Archipelagoes, and impenetrable Japans. Thus this mysterious, divine +Pacific zones the world's whole bulk about; makes all coasts one bay +to it; seems the tide-beating heart of earth. Lifted by those eternal +swells, you needs must own the seductive god, bowing your head to Pan. + +But few thoughts of Pan stirred Ahab's brain, as standing like an +iron statue at his accustomed place beside the mizen rigging, with one +nostril he unthinkingly snuffed the sugary musk from the Bashee isles +(in whose sweet woods mild lovers must be walking), and with the other +consciously inhaled the salt breath of the new found sea; that sea in +which the hated White Whale must even then be swimming. Launched at +length upon these almost final waters, and gliding towards the Japanese +cruising-ground, the old man's purpose intensified itself. His firm lips +met like the lips of a vice; the Delta of his forehead's veins swelled +like overladen brooks; in his very sleep, his ringing cry ran through +the vaulted hull, "Stern all! the White Whale spouts thick blood!" + + + +CHAPTER 112. The Blacksmith. + + +Availing himself of the mild, summer-cool weather that now reigned in +these latitudes, and in preparation for the peculiarly active +pursuits shortly to be anticipated, Perth, the begrimed, blistered old +blacksmith, had not removed his portable forge to the hold again, after +concluding his contributory work for Ahab's leg, but still retained +it on deck, fast lashed to ringbolts by the foremast; being now almost +incessantly invoked by the headsmen, and harpooneers, and bowsmen to do +some little job for them; altering, or repairing, or new shaping their +various weapons and boat furniture. Often he would be surrounded by an +eager circle, all waiting to be served; holding boat-spades, pike-heads, +harpoons, and lances, and jealously watching his every sooty movement, +as he toiled. Nevertheless, this old man's was a patient hammer wielded +by a patient arm. No murmur, no impatience, no petulance did come from +him. Silent, slow, and solemn; bowing over still further his chronically +broken back, he toiled away, as if toil were life itself, and the +heavy beating of his hammer the heavy beating of his heart. And so it +was.--Most miserable! + +A peculiar walk in this old man, a certain slight but painful appearing +yawing in his gait, had at an early period of the voyage excited the +curiosity of the mariners. And to the importunity of their persisted +questionings he had finally given in; and so it came to pass that every +one now knew the shameful story of his wretched fate. + +Belated, and not innocently, one bitter winter's midnight, on the road +running between two country towns, the blacksmith half-stupidly felt +the deadly numbness stealing over him, and sought refuge in a leaning, +dilapidated barn. The issue was, the loss of the extremities of both +feet. Out of this revelation, part by part, at last came out the four +acts of the gladness, and the one long, and as yet uncatastrophied fifth +act of the grief of his life's drama. + +He was an old man, who, at the age of nearly sixty, had postponedly +encountered that thing in sorrow's technicals called ruin. He had been +an artisan of famed excellence, and with plenty to do; owned a house +and garden; embraced a youthful, daughter-like, loving wife, and three +blithe, ruddy children; every Sunday went to a cheerful-looking church, +planted in a grove. But one night, under cover of darkness, and further +concealed in a most cunning disguisement, a desperate burglar slid into +his happy home, and robbed them all of everything. And darker yet to +tell, the blacksmith himself did ignorantly conduct this burglar into +his family's heart. It was the Bottle Conjuror! Upon the opening of that +fatal cork, forth flew the fiend, and shrivelled up his home. Now, for +prudent, most wise, and economic reasons, the blacksmith's shop was in +the basement of his dwelling, but with a separate entrance to it; so +that always had the young and loving healthy wife listened with no +unhappy nervousness, but with vigorous pleasure, to the stout ringing of +her young-armed old husband's hammer; whose reverberations, muffled by +passing through the floors and walls, came up to her, not unsweetly, +in her nursery; and so, to stout Labor's iron lullaby, the blacksmith's +infants were rocked to slumber. + +Oh, woe on woe! Oh, Death, why canst thou not sometimes be timely? Hadst +thou taken this old blacksmith to thyself ere his full ruin came upon +him, then had the young widow had a delicious grief, and her orphans a +truly venerable, legendary sire to dream of in their after years; and +all of them a care-killing competency. But Death plucked down some +virtuous elder brother, on whose whistling daily toil solely hung the +responsibilities of some other family, and left the worse than useless +old man standing, till the hideous rot of life should make him easier to +harvest. + +Why tell the whole? The blows of the basement hammer every day grew more +and more between; and each blow every day grew fainter than the last; +the wife sat frozen at the window, with tearless eyes, glitteringly +gazing into the weeping faces of her children; the bellows fell; the +forge choked up with cinders; the house was sold; the mother dived +down into the long church-yard grass; her children twice followed her +thither; and the houseless, familyless old man staggered off a vagabond +in crape; his every woe unreverenced; his grey head a scorn to flaxen +curls! + +Death seems the only desirable sequel for a career like this; but Death +is only a launching into the region of the strange Untried; it is but +the first salutation to the possibilities of the immense Remote, the +Wild, the Watery, the Unshored; therefore, to the death-longing eyes of +such men, who still have left in them some interior compunctions against +suicide, does the all-contributed and all-receptive ocean alluringly +spread forth his whole plain of unimaginable, taking terrors, and +wonderful, new-life adventures; and from the hearts of infinite +Pacifics, the thousand mermaids sing to them--"Come hither, +broken-hearted; here is another life without the guilt of intermediate +death; here are wonders supernatural, without dying for them. Come +hither! bury thyself in a life which, to your now equally abhorred and +abhorring, landed world, is more oblivious than death. Come hither! put +up THY gravestone, too, within the churchyard, and come hither, till we +marry thee!" + +Hearkening to these voices, East and West, by early sunrise, and by fall +of eve, the blacksmith's soul responded, Aye, I come! And so Perth went +a-whaling. + + + +CHAPTER 113. The Forge. + + +With matted beard, and swathed in a bristling shark-skin apron, about +mid-day, Perth was standing between his forge and anvil, the latter +placed upon an iron-wood log, with one hand holding a pike-head in the +coals, and with the other at his forge's lungs, when Captain Ahab came +along, carrying in his hand a small rusty-looking leathern bag. While +yet a little distance from the forge, moody Ahab paused; till at last, +Perth, withdrawing his iron from the fire, began hammering it upon the +anvil--the red mass sending off the sparks in thick hovering flights, +some of which flew close to Ahab. + +"Are these thy Mother Carey's chickens, Perth? they are always flying +in thy wake; birds of good omen, too, but not to all;--look here, they +burn; but thou--thou liv'st among them without a scorch." + +"Because I am scorched all over, Captain Ahab," answered Perth, resting +for a moment on his hammer; "I am past scorching; not easily can'st thou +scorch a scar." + +"Well, well; no more. Thy shrunk voice sounds too calmly, sanely woeful +to me. In no Paradise myself, I am impatient of all misery in others +that is not mad. Thou should'st go mad, blacksmith; say, why dost thou +not go mad? How can'st thou endure without being mad? Do the heavens yet +hate thee, that thou can'st not go mad?--What wert thou making there?" + +"Welding an old pike-head, sir; there were seams and dents in it." + +"And can'st thou make it all smooth again, blacksmith, after such hard +usage as it had?" + +"I think so, sir." + +"And I suppose thou can'st smoothe almost any seams and dents; never +mind how hard the metal, blacksmith?" + +"Aye, sir, I think I can; all seams and dents but one." + +"Look ye here, then," cried Ahab, passionately advancing, and leaning +with both hands on Perth's shoulders; "look ye here--HERE--can ye +smoothe out a seam like this, blacksmith," sweeping one hand across his +ribbed brow; "if thou could'st, blacksmith, glad enough would I lay +my head upon thy anvil, and feel thy heaviest hammer between my eyes. +Answer! Can'st thou smoothe this seam?" + +"Oh! that is the one, sir! Said I not all seams and dents but one?" + +"Aye, blacksmith, it is the one; aye, man, it is unsmoothable; for +though thou only see'st it here in my flesh, it has worked down into the +bone of my skull--THAT is all wrinkles! But, away with child's play; no +more gaffs and pikes to-day. Look ye here!" jingling the leathern bag, +as if it were full of gold coins. "I, too, want a harpoon made; one that +a thousand yoke of fiends could not part, Perth; something that will +stick in a whale like his own fin-bone. There's the stuff," flinging +the pouch upon the anvil. "Look ye, blacksmith, these are the gathered +nail-stubbs of the steel shoes of racing horses." + +"Horse-shoe stubbs, sir? Why, Captain Ahab, thou hast here, then, the +best and stubbornest stuff we blacksmiths ever work." + +"I know it, old man; these stubbs will weld together like glue from the +melted bones of murderers. Quick! forge me the harpoon. And forge me +first, twelve rods for its shank; then wind, and twist, and hammer these +twelve together like the yarns and strands of a tow-line. Quick! I'll +blow the fire." + +When at last the twelve rods were made, Ahab tried them, one by one, by +spiralling them, with his own hand, round a long, heavy iron bolt. "A +flaw!" rejecting the last one. "Work that over again, Perth." + +This done, Perth was about to begin welding the twelve into one, when +Ahab stayed his hand, and said he would weld his own iron. As, then, +with regular, gasping hems, he hammered on the anvil, Perth passing to +him the glowing rods, one after the other, and the hard pressed forge +shooting up its intense straight flame, the Parsee passed silently, and +bowing over his head towards the fire, seemed invoking some curse or +some blessing on the toil. But, as Ahab looked up, he slid aside. + +"What's that bunch of lucifers dodging about there for?" muttered Stubb, +looking on from the forecastle. "That Parsee smells fire like a fusee; +and smells of it himself, like a hot musket's powder-pan." + +At last the shank, in one complete rod, received its final heat; and as +Perth, to temper it, plunged it all hissing into the cask of water near +by, the scalding steam shot up into Ahab's bent face. + +"Would'st thou brand me, Perth?" wincing for a moment with the pain; +"have I been but forging my own branding-iron, then?" + +"Pray God, not that; yet I fear something, Captain Ahab. Is not this +harpoon for the White Whale?" + +"For the white fiend! But now for the barbs; thou must make them +thyself, man. Here are my razors--the best of steel; here, and make the +barbs sharp as the needle-sleet of the Icy Sea." + +For a moment, the old blacksmith eyed the razors as though he would fain +not use them. + +"Take them, man, I have no need for them; for I now neither shave, sup, +nor pray till--but here--to work!" + +Fashioned at last into an arrowy shape, and welded by Perth to the +shank, the steel soon pointed the end of the iron; and as the blacksmith +was about giving the barbs their final heat, prior to tempering them, he +cried to Ahab to place the water-cask near. + +"No, no--no water for that; I want it of the true death-temper. Ahoy, +there! Tashtego, Queequeg, Daggoo! What say ye, pagans! Will ye give me +as much blood as will cover this barb?" holding it high up. A cluster of +dark nods replied, Yes. Three punctures were made in the heathen flesh, +and the White Whale's barbs were then tempered. + +"Ego non baptizo te in nomine patris, sed in nomine diaboli!" +deliriously howled Ahab, as the malignant iron scorchingly devoured the +baptismal blood. + +Now, mustering the spare poles from below, and selecting one of hickory, +with the bark still investing it, Ahab fitted the end to the socket of +the iron. A coil of new tow-line was then unwound, and some fathoms of +it taken to the windlass, and stretched to a great tension. Pressing +his foot upon it, till the rope hummed like a harp-string, then eagerly +bending over it, and seeing no strandings, Ahab exclaimed, "Good! and +now for the seizings." + +At one extremity the rope was unstranded, and the separate spread yarns +were all braided and woven round the socket of the harpoon; the pole +was then driven hard up into the socket; from the lower end the rope +was traced half-way along the pole's length, and firmly secured so, with +intertwistings of twine. This done, pole, iron, and rope--like the Three +Fates--remained inseparable, and Ahab moodily stalked away with the +weapon; the sound of his ivory leg, and the sound of the hickory pole, +both hollowly ringing along every plank. But ere he entered his cabin, +light, unnatural, half-bantering, yet most piteous sound was heard. Oh, +Pip! thy wretched laugh, thy idle but unresting eye; all thy strange +mummeries not unmeaningly blended with the black tragedy of the +melancholy ship, and mocked it! + + + +CHAPTER 114. The Gilder. + + +Penetrating further and further into the heart of the Japanese cruising +ground, the Pequod was soon all astir in the fishery. Often, in mild, +pleasant weather, for twelve, fifteen, eighteen, and twenty hours on the +stretch, they were engaged in the boats, steadily pulling, or sailing, +or paddling after the whales, or for an interlude of sixty or seventy +minutes calmly awaiting their uprising; though with but small success +for their pains. + +At such times, under an abated sun; afloat all day upon smooth, slow +heaving swells; seated in his boat, light as a birch canoe; and so +sociably mixing with the soft waves themselves, that like hearth-stone +cats they purr against the gunwale; these are the times of dreamy +quietude, when beholding the tranquil beauty and brilliancy of the +ocean's skin, one forgets the tiger heart that pants beneath it; and +would not willingly remember, that this velvet paw but conceals a +remorseless fang. + +These are the times, when in his whale-boat the rover softly feels a +certain filial, confident, land-like feeling towards the sea; that he +regards it as so much flowery earth; and the distant ship revealing +only the tops of her masts, seems struggling forward, not through high +rolling waves, but through the tall grass of a rolling prairie: as when +the western emigrants' horses only show their erected ears, while their +hidden bodies widely wade through the amazing verdure. + +The long-drawn virgin vales; the mild blue hill-sides; as over these +there steals the hush, the hum; you almost swear that play-wearied +children lie sleeping in these solitudes, in some glad May-time, when +the flowers of the woods are plucked. And all this mixes with your most +mystic mood; so that fact and fancy, half-way meeting, interpenetrate, +and form one seamless whole. + +Nor did such soothing scenes, however temporary, fail of at least as +temporary an effect on Ahab. But if these secret golden keys did seem +to open in him his own secret golden treasuries, yet did his breath upon +them prove but tarnishing. + +Oh, grassy glades! oh, ever vernal endless landscapes in the soul; in +ye,--though long parched by the dead drought of the earthy life,--in ye, +men yet may roll, like young horses in new morning clover; and for some +few fleeting moments, feel the cool dew of the life immortal on them. +Would to God these blessed calms would last. But the mingled, mingling +threads of life are woven by warp and woof: calms crossed by storms, a +storm for every calm. There is no steady unretracing progress in this +life; we do not advance through fixed gradations, and at the last one +pause:--through infancy's unconscious spell, boyhood's thoughtless +faith, adolescence' doubt (the common doom), then scepticism, then +disbelief, resting at last in manhood's pondering repose of If. But once +gone through, we trace the round again; and are infants, boys, and men, +and Ifs eternally. Where lies the final harbor, whence we unmoor no +more? In what rapt ether sails the world, of which the weariest will +never weary? Where is the foundling's father hidden? Our souls are like +those orphans whose unwedded mothers die in bearing them: the secret of +our paternity lies in their grave, and we must there to learn it. + +And that same day, too, gazing far down from his boat's side into that +same golden sea, Starbuck lowly murmured:-- + +"Loveliness unfathomable, as ever lover saw in his young bride's +eye!--Tell me not of thy teeth-tiered sharks, and thy kidnapping +cannibal ways. Let faith oust fact; let fancy oust memory; I look deep +down and do believe." + +And Stubb, fish-like, with sparkling scales, leaped up in that same +golden light:-- + +"I am Stubb, and Stubb has his history; but here Stubb takes oaths that +he has always been jolly!" + + + +CHAPTER 115. The Pequod Meets The Bachelor. + + +And jolly enough were the sights and the sounds that came bearing down +before the wind, some few weeks after Ahab's harpoon had been welded. + +It was a Nantucket ship, the Bachelor, which had just wedged in her +last cask of oil, and bolted down her bursting hatches; and now, in glad +holiday apparel, was joyously, though somewhat vain-gloriously, sailing +round among the widely-separated ships on the ground, previous to +pointing her prow for home. + +The three men at her mast-head wore long streamers of narrow red bunting +at their hats; from the stern, a whale-boat was suspended, bottom down; +and hanging captive from the bowsprit was seen the long lower jaw of the +last whale they had slain. Signals, ensigns, and jacks of all colours +were flying from her rigging, on every side. Sideways lashed in each of +her three basketed tops were two barrels of sperm; above which, in her +top-mast cross-trees, you saw slender breakers of the same precious +fluid; and nailed to her main truck was a brazen lamp. + +As was afterwards learned, the Bachelor had met with the most surprising +success; all the more wonderful, for that while cruising in the same +seas numerous other vessels had gone entire months without securing a +single fish. Not only had barrels of beef and bread been given away to +make room for the far more valuable sperm, but additional supplemental +casks had been bartered for, from the ships she had met; and these were +stowed along the deck, and in the captain's and officers' state-rooms. +Even the cabin table itself had been knocked into kindling-wood; and the +cabin mess dined off the broad head of an oil-butt, lashed down to the +floor for a centrepiece. In the forecastle, the sailors had actually +caulked and pitched their chests, and filled them; it was humorously +added, that the cook had clapped a head on his largest boiler, and +filled it; that the steward had plugged his spare coffee-pot and filled +it; that the harpooneers had headed the sockets of their irons and +filled them; that indeed everything was filled with sperm, except the +captain's pantaloons pockets, and those he reserved to thrust his hands +into, in self-complacent testimony of his entire satisfaction. + +As this glad ship of good luck bore down upon the moody Pequod, the +barbarian sound of enormous drums came from her forecastle; and drawing +still nearer, a crowd of her men were seen standing round her huge +try-pots, which, covered with the parchment-like POKE or stomach skin of +the black fish, gave forth a loud roar to every stroke of the clenched +hands of the crew. On the quarter-deck, the mates and harpooneers were +dancing with the olive-hued girls who had eloped with them from the +Polynesian Isles; while suspended in an ornamented boat, firmly secured +aloft between the foremast and mainmast, three Long Island negroes, with +glittering fiddle-bows of whale ivory, were presiding over the hilarious +jig. Meanwhile, others of the ship's company were tumultuously busy at +the masonry of the try-works, from which the huge pots had been +removed. You would have almost thought they were pulling down the cursed +Bastille, such wild cries they raised, as the now useless brick and +mortar were being hurled into the sea. + +Lord and master over all this scene, the captain stood erect on the +ship's elevated quarter-deck, so that the whole rejoicing drama was +full before him, and seemed merely contrived for his own individual +diversion. + +And Ahab, he too was standing on his quarter-deck, shaggy and black, +with a stubborn gloom; and as the two ships crossed each other's +wakes--one all jubilations for things passed, the other all forebodings +as to things to come--their two captains in themselves impersonated the +whole striking contrast of the scene. + +"Come aboard, come aboard!" cried the gay Bachelor's commander, lifting +a glass and a bottle in the air. + +"Hast seen the White Whale?" gritted Ahab in reply. + +"No; only heard of him; but don't believe in him at all," said the other +good-humoredly. "Come aboard!" + +"Thou art too damned jolly. Sail on. Hast lost any men?" + +"Not enough to speak of--two islanders, that's all;--but come aboard, +old hearty, come along. I'll soon take that black from your brow. Come +along, will ye (merry's the play); a full ship and homeward-bound." + +"How wondrous familiar is a fool!" muttered Ahab; then aloud, "Thou art +a full ship and homeward bound, thou sayst; well, then, call me an empty +ship, and outward-bound. So go thy ways, and I will mine. Forward there! +Set all sail, and keep her to the wind!" + +And thus, while the one ship went cheerily before the breeze, the other +stubbornly fought against it; and so the two vessels parted; the crew +of the Pequod looking with grave, lingering glances towards the receding +Bachelor; but the Bachelor's men never heeding their gaze for the lively +revelry they were in. And as Ahab, leaning over the taffrail, eyed the +homewardbound craft, he took from his pocket a small vial of sand, and +then looking from the ship to the vial, seemed thereby bringing two +remote associations together, for that vial was filled with Nantucket +soundings. + + + +CHAPTER 116. The Dying Whale. + + +Not seldom in this life, when, on the right side, fortune's favourites +sail close by us, we, though all adroop before, catch somewhat of the +rushing breeze, and joyfully feel our bagging sails fill out. So seemed +it with the Pequod. For next day after encountering the gay Bachelor, +whales were seen and four were slain; and one of them by Ahab. + +It was far down the afternoon; and when all the spearings of the crimson +fight were done: and floating in the lovely sunset sea and sky, sun +and whale both stilly died together; then, such a sweetness and such +plaintiveness, such inwreathing orisons curled up in that rosy air, that +it almost seemed as if far over from the deep green convent valleys of +the Manilla isles, the Spanish land-breeze, wantonly turned sailor, had +gone to sea, freighted with these vesper hymns. + +Soothed again, but only soothed to deeper gloom, Ahab, who had sterned +off from the whale, sat intently watching his final wanings from the now +tranquil boat. For that strange spectacle observable in all sperm whales +dying--the turning sunwards of the head, and so expiring--that strange +spectacle, beheld of such a placid evening, somehow to Ahab conveyed a +wondrousness unknown before. + +"He turns and turns him to it,--how slowly, but how steadfastly, his +homage-rendering and invoking brow, with his last dying motions. He too +worships fire; most faithful, broad, baronial vassal of the sun!--Oh +that these too-favouring eyes should see these too-favouring sights. +Look! here, far water-locked; beyond all hum of human weal or woe; +in these most candid and impartial seas; where to traditions no rocks +furnish tablets; where for long Chinese ages, the billows have still +rolled on speechless and unspoken to, as stars that shine upon the +Niger's unknown source; here, too, life dies sunwards full of faith; but +see! no sooner dead, than death whirls round the corpse, and it heads +some other way. + +"Oh, thou dark Hindoo half of nature, who of drowned bones hast builded +thy separate throne somewhere in the heart of these unverdured seas; +thou art an infidel, thou queen, and too truly speakest to me in the +wide-slaughtering Typhoon, and the hushed burial of its after calm. Nor +has this thy whale sunwards turned his dying head, and then gone round +again, without a lesson to me. + +"Oh, trebly hooped and welded hip of power! Oh, high aspiring, rainbowed +jet!--that one strivest, this one jettest all in vain! In vain, oh +whale, dost thou seek intercedings with yon all-quickening sun, that +only calls forth life, but gives it not again. Yet dost thou, darker +half, rock me with a prouder, if a darker faith. All thy unnamable +imminglings float beneath me here; I am buoyed by breaths of once living +things, exhaled as air, but water now. + +"Then hail, for ever hail, O sea, in whose eternal tossings the wild +fowl finds his only rest. Born of earth, yet suckled by the sea; though +hill and valley mothered me, ye billows are my foster-brothers!" + + + +CHAPTER 117. The Whale Watch. + + +The four whales slain that evening had died wide apart; one, far to +windward; one, less distant, to leeward; one ahead; one astern. These +last three were brought alongside ere nightfall; but the windward one +could not be reached till morning; and the boat that had killed it lay +by its side all night; and that boat was Ahab's. + +The waif-pole was thrust upright into the dead whale's spout-hole; and +the lantern hanging from its top, cast a troubled flickering glare +upon the black, glossy back, and far out upon the midnight waves, which +gently chafed the whale's broad flank, like soft surf upon a beach. + +Ahab and all his boat's crew seemed asleep but the Parsee; who crouching +in the bow, sat watching the sharks, that spectrally played round the +whale, and tapped the light cedar planks with their tails. A sound +like the moaning in squadrons over Asphaltites of unforgiven ghosts of +Gomorrah, ran shuddering through the air. + +Started from his slumbers, Ahab, face to face, saw the Parsee; and +hooped round by the gloom of the night they seemed the last men in a +flooded world. "I have dreamed it again," said he. + +"Of the hearses? Have I not said, old man, that neither hearse nor +coffin can be thine?" + +"And who are hearsed that die on the sea?" + +"But I said, old man, that ere thou couldst die on this voyage, two +hearses must verily be seen by thee on the sea; the first not made by +mortal hands; and the visible wood of the last one must be grown in +America." + +"Aye, aye! a strange sight that, Parsee:--a hearse and its plumes +floating over the ocean with the waves for the pall-bearers. Ha! Such a +sight we shall not soon see." + +"Believe it or not, thou canst not die till it be seen, old man." + +"And what was that saying about thyself?" + +"Though it come to the last, I shall still go before thee thy pilot." + +"And when thou art so gone before--if that ever befall--then ere I can +follow, thou must still appear to me, to pilot me still?--Was it not +so? Well, then, did I believe all ye say, oh my pilot! I have here two +pledges that I shall yet slay Moby Dick and survive it." + +"Take another pledge, old man," said the Parsee, as his eyes lighted up +like fire-flies in the gloom--"Hemp only can kill thee." + +"The gallows, ye mean.--I am immortal then, on land and on sea," cried +Ahab, with a laugh of derision;--"Immortal on land and on sea!" + +Both were silent again, as one man. The grey dawn came on, and the +slumbering crew arose from the boat's bottom, and ere noon the dead +whale was brought to the ship. + + + +CHAPTER 118. The Quadrant. + + +The season for the Line at length drew near; and every day when Ahab, +coming from his cabin, cast his eyes aloft, the vigilant helmsman would +ostentatiously handle his spokes, and the eager mariners quickly run to +the braces, and would stand there with all their eyes centrally fixed +on the nailed doubloon; impatient for the order to point the ship's +prow for the equator. In good time the order came. It was hard upon high +noon; and Ahab, seated in the bows of his high-hoisted boat, was +about taking his wonted daily observation of the sun to determine his +latitude. + +Now, in that Japanese sea, the days in summer are as freshets of +effulgences. That unblinkingly vivid Japanese sun seems the blazing +focus of the glassy ocean's immeasurable burning-glass. The sky looks +lacquered; clouds there are none; the horizon floats; and this nakedness +of unrelieved radiance is as the insufferable splendors of God's throne. +Well that Ahab's quadrant was furnished with coloured glasses, through +which to take sight of that solar fire. So, swinging his seated form +to the roll of the ship, and with his astrological-looking instrument +placed to his eye, he remained in that posture for some moments to +catch the precise instant when the sun should gain its precise meridian. +Meantime while his whole attention was absorbed, the Parsee was kneeling +beneath him on the ship's deck, and with face thrown up like Ahab's, +was eyeing the same sun with him; only the lids of his eyes half hooded +their orbs, and his wild face was subdued to an earthly passionlessness. +At length the desired observation was taken; and with his pencil upon +his ivory leg, Ahab soon calculated what his latitude must be at that +precise instant. Then falling into a moment's revery, he again looked up +towards the sun and murmured to himself: "Thou sea-mark! thou high and +mighty Pilot! thou tellest me truly where I AM--but canst thou cast the +least hint where I SHALL be? Or canst thou tell where some other thing +besides me is this moment living? Where is Moby Dick? This instant thou +must be eyeing him. These eyes of mine look into the very eye that is +even now beholding him; aye, and into the eye that is even now equally +beholding the objects on the unknown, thither side of thee, thou sun!" + +Then gazing at his quadrant, and handling, one after the other, its +numerous cabalistical contrivances, he pondered again, and muttered: +"Foolish toy! babies' plaything of haughty Admirals, and Commodores, and +Captains; the world brags of thee, of thy cunning and might; but what +after all canst thou do, but tell the poor, pitiful point, where thou +thyself happenest to be on this wide planet, and the hand that holds +thee: no! not one jot more! Thou canst not tell where one drop of water +or one grain of sand will be to-morrow noon; and yet with thy impotence +thou insultest the sun! Science! Curse thee, thou vain toy; and cursed +be all the things that cast man's eyes aloft to that heaven, whose live +vividness but scorches him, as these old eyes are even now scorched +with thy light, O sun! Level by nature to this earth's horizon are the +glances of man's eyes; not shot from the crown of his head, as if God +had meant him to gaze on his firmament. Curse thee, thou quadrant!" +dashing it to the deck, "no longer will I guide my earthly way by thee; +the level ship's compass, and the level deadreckoning, by log and by +line; THESE shall conduct me, and show me my place on the sea. Aye," +lighting from the boat to the deck, "thus I trample on thee, thou paltry +thing that feebly pointest on high; thus I split and destroy thee!" + +As the frantic old man thus spoke and thus trampled with his live +and dead feet, a sneering triumph that seemed meant for Ahab, and a +fatalistic despair that seemed meant for himself--these passed over +the mute, motionless Parsee's face. Unobserved he rose and glided away; +while, awestruck by the aspect of their commander, the seamen clustered +together on the forecastle, till Ahab, troubledly pacing the deck, +shouted out--"To the braces! Up helm!--square in!" + +In an instant the yards swung round; and as the ship half-wheeled upon +her heel, her three firm-seated graceful masts erectly poised upon +her long, ribbed hull, seemed as the three Horatii pirouetting on one +sufficient steed. + +Standing between the knight-heads, Starbuck watched the Pequod's +tumultuous way, and Ahab's also, as he went lurching along the deck. + +"I have sat before the dense coal fire and watched it all aglow, full of +its tormented flaming life; and I have seen it wane at last, down, down, +to dumbest dust. Old man of oceans! of all this fiery life of thine, +what will at length remain but one little heap of ashes!" + +"Aye," cried Stubb, "but sea-coal ashes--mind ye that, Mr. +Starbuck--sea-coal, not your common charcoal. Well, well; I heard Ahab +mutter, 'Here some one thrusts these cards into these old hands of mine; +swears that I must play them, and no others.' And damn me, Ahab, but +thou actest right; live in the game, and die in it!" + + + +CHAPTER 119. The Candles. + + +Warmest climes but nurse the cruellest fangs: the tiger of Bengal +crouches in spiced groves of ceaseless verdure. Skies the most effulgent +but basket the deadliest thunders: gorgeous Cuba knows tornadoes +that never swept tame northern lands. So, too, it is, that in these +resplendent Japanese seas the mariner encounters the direst of all +storms, the Typhoon. It will sometimes burst from out that cloudless +sky, like an exploding bomb upon a dazed and sleepy town. + +Towards evening of that day, the Pequod was torn of her canvas, and +bare-poled was left to fight a Typhoon which had struck her directly +ahead. When darkness came on, sky and sea roared and split with the +thunder, and blazed with the lightning, that showed the disabled masts +fluttering here and there with the rags which the first fury of the +tempest had left for its after sport. + +Holding by a shroud, Starbuck was standing on the quarter-deck; at every +flash of the lightning glancing aloft, to see what additional disaster +might have befallen the intricate hamper there; while Stubb and Flask +were directing the men in the higher hoisting and firmer lashing of the +boats. But all their pains seemed naught. Though lifted to the very +top of the cranes, the windward quarter boat (Ahab's) did not escape. +A great rolling sea, dashing high up against the reeling ship's high +teetering side, stove in the boat's bottom at the stern, and left it +again, all dripping through like a sieve. + +"Bad work, bad work! Mr. Starbuck," said Stubb, regarding the wreck, +"but the sea will have its way. Stubb, for one, can't fight it. You see, +Mr. Starbuck, a wave has such a great long start before it leaps, all +round the world it runs, and then comes the spring! But as for me, all +the start I have to meet it, is just across the deck here. But never +mind; it's all in fun: so the old song says;"--(SINGS.) + + Oh! jolly is the gale, + And a joker is the whale, + A' flourishin' his tail,-- + Such a funny, sporty, gamy, jesty, joky, hoky-poky lad, is the Ocean, oh! + + The scud all a flyin', + That's his flip only foamin'; + When he stirs in the spicin',-- + Such a funny, sporty, gamy, jesty, joky, hoky-poky lad, is the Ocean, oh! + + Thunder splits the ships, + But he only smacks his lips, + A tastin' of this flip,-- + Such a funny, sporty, gamy, jesty, joky, hoky-poky lad, is the Ocean, oh! + + +"Avast Stubb," cried Starbuck, "let the Typhoon sing, and strike his +harp here in our rigging; but if thou art a brave man thou wilt hold thy +peace." + +"But I am not a brave man; never said I was a brave man; I am a coward; +and I sing to keep up my spirits. And I tell you what it is, Mr. +Starbuck, there's no way to stop my singing in this world but to cut my +throat. And when that's done, ten to one I sing ye the doxology for a +wind-up." + +"Madman! look through my eyes if thou hast none of thine own." + +"What! how can you see better of a dark night than anybody else, never +mind how foolish?" + +"Here!" cried Starbuck, seizing Stubb by the shoulder, and pointing his +hand towards the weather bow, "markest thou not that the gale comes from +the eastward, the very course Ahab is to run for Moby Dick? the very +course he swung to this day noon? now mark his boat there; where is +that stove? In the stern-sheets, man; where he is wont to stand--his +stand-point is stove, man! Now jump overboard, and sing away, if thou +must! + +"I don't half understand ye: what's in the wind?" + +"Yes, yes, round the Cape of Good Hope is the shortest way to +Nantucket," soliloquized Starbuck suddenly, heedless of Stubb's +question. "The gale that now hammers at us to stave us, we can turn it +into a fair wind that will drive us towards home. Yonder, to windward, +all is blackness of doom; but to leeward, homeward--I see it lightens up +there; but not with the lightning." + +At that moment in one of the intervals of profound darkness, following +the flashes, a voice was heard at his side; and almost at the same +instant a volley of thunder peals rolled overhead. + +"Who's there?" + +"Old Thunder!" said Ahab, groping his way along the bulwarks to his +pivot-hole; but suddenly finding his path made plain to him by elbowed +lances of fire. + +Now, as the lightning rod to a spire on shore is intended to carry off +the perilous fluid into the soil; so the kindred rod which at sea some +ships carry to each mast, is intended to conduct it into the water. But +as this conductor must descend to considerable depth, that its end may +avoid all contact with the hull; and as moreover, if kept constantly +towing there, it would be liable to many mishaps, besides interfering +not a little with some of the rigging, and more or less impeding the +vessel's way in the water; because of all this, the lower parts of a +ship's lightning-rods are not always overboard; but are generally made +in long slender links, so as to be the more readily hauled up into the +chains outside, or thrown down into the sea, as occasion may require. + +"The rods! the rods!" cried Starbuck to the crew, suddenly admonished to +vigilance by the vivid lightning that had just been darting flambeaux, +to light Ahab to his post. "Are they overboard? drop them over, fore and +aft. Quick!" + +"Avast!" cried Ahab; "let's have fair play here, though we be the weaker +side. Yet I'll contribute to raise rods on the Himmalehs and Andes, that +all the world may be secured; but out on privileges! Let them be, sir." + +"Look aloft!" cried Starbuck. "The corpusants! the corpusants!" + +All the yard-arms were tipped with a pallid fire; and touched at each +tri-pointed lightning-rod-end with three tapering white flames, each of +the three tall masts was silently burning in that sulphurous air, like +three gigantic wax tapers before an altar. + +"Blast the boat! let it go!" cried Stubb at this instant, as a swashing +sea heaved up under his own little craft, so that its gunwale violently +jammed his hand, as he was passing a lashing. "Blast it!"--but +slipping backward on the deck, his uplifted eyes caught the flames; and +immediately shifting his tone he cried--"The corpusants have mercy on us +all!" + +To sailors, oaths are household words; they will swear in the trance of +the calm, and in the teeth of the tempest; they will imprecate curses +from the topsail-yard-arms, when most they teeter over to a seething +sea; but in all my voyagings, seldom have I heard a common oath when +God's burning finger has been laid on the ship; when His "Mene, Mene, +Tekel Upharsin" has been woven into the shrouds and the cordage. + +While this pallidness was burning aloft, few words were heard from the +enchanted crew; who in one thick cluster stood on the forecastle, +all their eyes gleaming in that pale phosphorescence, like a far away +constellation of stars. Relieved against the ghostly light, the gigantic +jet negro, Daggoo, loomed up to thrice his real stature, and seemed +the black cloud from which the thunder had come. The parted mouth of +Tashtego revealed his shark-white teeth, which strangely gleamed as +if they too had been tipped by corpusants; while lit up by the +preternatural light, Queequeg's tattooing burned like Satanic blue +flames on his body. + +The tableau all waned at last with the pallidness aloft; and once more +the Pequod and every soul on her decks were wrapped in a pall. A moment +or two passed, when Starbuck, going forward, pushed against some one. It +was Stubb. "What thinkest thou now, man; I heard thy cry; it was not the +same in the song." + +"No, no, it wasn't; I said the corpusants have mercy on us all; and I +hope they will, still. But do they only have mercy on long faces?--have +they no bowels for a laugh? And look ye, Mr. Starbuck--but it's too dark +to look. Hear me, then: I take that mast-head flame we saw for a sign +of good luck; for those masts are rooted in a hold that is going to be +chock a' block with sperm-oil, d'ye see; and so, all that sperm will +work up into the masts, like sap in a tree. Yes, our three masts will +yet be as three spermaceti candles--that's the good promise we saw." + +At that moment Starbuck caught sight of Stubb's face slowly beginning +to glimmer into sight. Glancing upwards, he cried: "See! see!" and once +more the high tapering flames were beheld with what seemed redoubled +supernaturalness in their pallor. + +"The corpusants have mercy on us all," cried Stubb, again. + +At the base of the mainmast, full beneath the doubloon and the flame, +the Parsee was kneeling in Ahab's front, but with his head bowed away +from him; while near by, from the arched and overhanging rigging, where +they had just been engaged securing a spar, a number of the seamen, +arrested by the glare, now cohered together, and hung pendulous, like a +knot of numbed wasps from a drooping, orchard twig. In various enchanted +attitudes, like the standing, or stepping, or running skeletons in +Herculaneum, others remained rooted to the deck; but all their eyes +upcast. + +"Aye, aye, men!" cried Ahab. "Look up at it; mark it well; the white +flame but lights the way to the White Whale! Hand me those mainmast +links there; I would fain feel this pulse, and let mine beat against it; +blood against fire! So." + +Then turning--the last link held fast in his left hand, he put his foot +upon the Parsee; and with fixed upward eye, and high-flung right arm, he +stood erect before the lofty tri-pointed trinity of flames. + +"Oh! thou clear spirit of clear fire, whom on these seas I as Persian +once did worship, till in the sacramental act so burned by thee, that to +this hour I bear the scar; I now know thee, thou clear spirit, and I now +know that thy right worship is defiance. To neither love nor reverence +wilt thou be kind; and e'en for hate thou canst but kill; and all +are killed. No fearless fool now fronts thee. I own thy speechless, +placeless power; but to the last gasp of my earthquake life will +dispute its unconditional, unintegral mastery in me. In the midst of the +personified impersonal, a personality stands here. Though but a point at +best; whencesoe'er I came; wheresoe'er I go; yet while I earthly live, +the queenly personality lives in me, and feels her royal rights. But war +is pain, and hate is woe. Come in thy lowest form of love, and I will +kneel and kiss thee; but at thy highest, come as mere supernal power; +and though thou launchest navies of full-freighted worlds, there's that +in here that still remains indifferent. Oh, thou clear spirit, of thy +fire thou madest me, and like a true child of fire, I breathe it back to +thee." + +[SUDDEN, REPEATED FLASHES OF LIGHTNING; THE NINE FLAMES LEAP LENGTHWISE +TO THRICE THEIR PREVIOUS HEIGHT; AHAB, WITH THE REST, CLOSES HIS EYES, +HIS RIGHT HAND PRESSED HARD UPON THEM.] + +"I own thy speechless, placeless power; said I not so? Nor was it wrung +from me; nor do I now drop these links. Thou canst blind; but I can then +grope. Thou canst consume; but I can then be ashes. Take the homage of +these poor eyes, and shutter-hands. I would not take it. The lightning +flashes through my skull; mine eye-balls ache and ache; my whole beaten +brain seems as beheaded, and rolling on some stunning ground. Oh, oh! +Yet blindfold, yet will I talk to thee. Light though thou be, thou +leapest out of darkness; but I am darkness leaping out of light, leaping +out of thee! The javelins cease; open eyes; see, or not? There burn the +flames! Oh, thou magnanimous! now I do glory in my genealogy. But thou +art but my fiery father; my sweet mother, I know not. Oh, cruel! what +hast thou done with her? There lies my puzzle; but thine is greater. +Thou knowest not how came ye, hence callest thyself unbegotten; +certainly knowest not thy beginning, hence callest thyself unbegun. I +know that of me, which thou knowest not of thyself, oh, thou omnipotent. +There is some unsuffusing thing beyond thee, thou clear spirit, to whom +all thy eternity is but time, all thy creativeness mechanical. Through +thee, thy flaming self, my scorched eyes do dimly see it. Oh, thou +foundling fire, thou hermit immemorial, thou too hast thy incommunicable +riddle, thy unparticipated grief. Here again with haughty agony, I read +my sire. Leap! leap up, and lick the sky! I leap with thee; I burn with +thee; would fain be welded with thee; defyingly I worship thee!" + +"The boat! the boat!" cried Starbuck, "look at thy boat, old man!" + +Ahab's harpoon, the one forged at Perth's fire, remained firmly lashed +in its conspicuous crotch, so that it projected beyond his whale-boat's +bow; but the sea that had stove its bottom had caused the loose leather +sheath to drop off; and from the keen steel barb there now came a +levelled flame of pale, forked fire. As the silent harpoon burned there +like a serpent's tongue, Starbuck grasped Ahab by the arm--"God, God +is against thee, old man; forbear! 'tis an ill voyage! ill begun, ill +continued; let me square the yards, while we may, old man, and make a +fair wind of it homewards, to go on a better voyage than this." + +Overhearing Starbuck, the panic-stricken crew instantly ran to the +braces--though not a sail was left aloft. For the moment all the aghast +mate's thoughts seemed theirs; they raised a half mutinous cry. But +dashing the rattling lightning links to the deck, and snatching the +burning harpoon, Ahab waved it like a torch among them; swearing to +transfix with it the first sailor that but cast loose a rope's end. +Petrified by his aspect, and still more shrinking from the fiery dart +that he held, the men fell back in dismay, and Ahab again spoke:-- + +"All your oaths to hunt the White Whale are as binding as mine; and +heart, soul, and body, lungs and life, old Ahab is bound. And that ye +may know to what tune this heart beats; look ye here; thus I blow out +the last fear!" And with one blast of his breath he extinguished the +flame. + +As in the hurricane that sweeps the plain, men fly the neighborhood of +some lone, gigantic elm, whose very height and strength but render it so +much the more unsafe, because so much the more a mark for thunderbolts; +so at those last words of Ahab's many of the mariners did run from him +in a terror of dismay. + + + +CHAPTER 120. The Deck Towards the End of the First Night Watch. + +AHAB STANDING BY THE HELM. STARBUCK APPROACHING HIM. + + +"We must send down the main-top-sail yard, sir. The band is working loose +and the lee lift is half-stranded. Shall I strike it, sir?" + +"Strike nothing; lash it. If I had sky-sail poles, I'd sway them up +now." + +"Sir!--in God's name!--sir?" + +"Well." + +"The anchors are working, sir. Shall I get them inboard?" + +"Strike nothing, and stir nothing, but lash everything. The wind rises, +but it has not got up to my table-lands yet. Quick, and see to it.--By +masts and keels! he takes me for the hunch-backed skipper of some +coasting smack. Send down my main-top-sail yard! Ho, gluepots! Loftiest +trucks were made for wildest winds, and this brain-truck of mine now +sails amid the cloud-scud. Shall I strike that? Oh, none but cowards +send down their brain-trucks in tempest time. What a hooroosh aloft +there! I would e'en take it for sublime, did I not know that the colic +is a noisy malady. Oh, take medicine, take medicine!" + + + +CHAPTER 121. Midnight.--The Forecastle Bulwarks. + + +STUBB AND FLASK MOUNTED ON THEM, AND PASSING ADDITIONAL LASHINGS OVER +THE ANCHORS THERE HANGING. + + +"No, Stubb; you may pound that knot there as much as you please, but you +will never pound into me what you were just now saying. And how long +ago is it since you said the very contrary? Didn't you once say that +whatever ship Ahab sails in, that ship should pay something extra on its +insurance policy, just as though it were loaded with powder barrels aft +and boxes of lucifers forward? Stop, now; didn't you say so?" + +"Well, suppose I did? What then? I've part changed my flesh since that +time, why not my mind? Besides, supposing we ARE loaded with powder +barrels aft and lucifers forward; how the devil could the lucifers get +afire in this drenching spray here? Why, my little man, you have +pretty red hair, but you couldn't get afire now. Shake yourself; you're +Aquarius, or the water-bearer, Flask; might fill pitchers at your coat +collar. Don't you see, then, that for these extra risks the Marine +Insurance companies have extra guarantees? Here are hydrants, Flask. But +hark, again, and I'll answer ye the other thing. First take your leg off +from the crown of the anchor here, though, so I can pass the rope; +now listen. What's the mighty difference between holding a mast's +lightning-rod in the storm, and standing close by a mast that hasn't +got any lightning-rod at all in a storm? Don't you see, you timber-head, +that no harm can come to the holder of the rod, unless the mast is first +struck? What are you talking about, then? Not one ship in a hundred +carries rods, and Ahab,--aye, man, and all of us,--were in no more +danger then, in my poor opinion, than all the crews in ten thousand +ships now sailing the seas. Why, you King-Post, you, I suppose you would +have every man in the world go about with a small lightning-rod running +up the corner of his hat, like a militia officer's skewered feather, +and trailing behind like his sash. Why don't ye be sensible, Flask? it's +easy to be sensible; why don't ye, then? any man with half an eye can be +sensible." + +"I don't know that, Stubb. You sometimes find it rather hard." + +"Yes, when a fellow's soaked through, it's hard to be sensible, that's +a fact. And I am about drenched with this spray. Never mind; catch the +turn there, and pass it. Seems to me we are lashing down these anchors +now as if they were never going to be used again. Tying these two +anchors here, Flask, seems like tying a man's hands behind him. And what +big generous hands they are, to be sure. These are your iron fists, +hey? What a hold they have, too! I wonder, Flask, whether the world is +anchored anywhere; if she is, she swings with an uncommon long cable, +though. There, hammer that knot down, and we've done. So; next to +touching land, lighting on deck is the most satisfactory. I say, just +wring out my jacket skirts, will ye? Thank ye. They laugh at long-togs +so, Flask; but seems to me, a Long tailed coat ought always to be worn +in all storms afloat. The tails tapering down that way, serve to carry +off the water, d'ye see. Same with cocked hats; the cocks form gable-end +eave-troughs, Flask. No more monkey-jackets and tarpaulins for me; I +must mount a swallow-tail, and drive down a beaver; so. Halloa! whew! +there goes my tarpaulin overboard; Lord, Lord, that the winds that come +from heaven should be so unmannerly! This is a nasty night, lad." + + + +CHAPTER 122. Midnight Aloft.--Thunder and Lightning. + + +THE MAIN-TOP-SAIL YARD.--TASHTEGO PASSING NEW LASHINGS AROUND IT. + + +"Um, um, um. Stop that thunder! Plenty too much thunder up here. What's +the use of thunder? Um, um, um. We don't want thunder; we want rum; give +us a glass of rum. Um, um, um!" + + + +CHAPTER 123. The Musket. + + +During the most violent shocks of the Typhoon, the man at the Pequod's +jaw-bone tiller had several times been reelingly hurled to the deck by +its spasmodic motions, even though preventer tackles had been attached +to it--for they were slack--because some play to the tiller was +indispensable. + +In a severe gale like this, while the ship is but a tossed shuttlecock +to the blast, it is by no means uncommon to see the needles in the +compasses, at intervals, go round and round. It was thus with the +Pequod's; at almost every shock the helmsman had not failed to notice +the whirling velocity with which they revolved upon the cards; it is +a sight that hardly anyone can behold without some sort of unwonted +emotion. + +Some hours after midnight, the Typhoon abated so much, that through the +strenuous exertions of Starbuck and Stubb--one engaged forward and the +other aft--the shivered remnants of the jib and fore and main-top-sails +were cut adrift from the spars, and went eddying away to leeward, like +the feathers of an albatross, which sometimes are cast to the winds when +that storm-tossed bird is on the wing. + +The three corresponding new sails were now bent and reefed, and a +storm-trysail was set further aft; so that the ship soon went through +the water with some precision again; and the course--for the present, +East-south-east--which he was to steer, if practicable, was once more +given to the helmsman. For during the violence of the gale, he had only +steered according to its vicissitudes. But as he was now bringing the +ship as near her course as possible, watching the compass meanwhile, lo! +a good sign! the wind seemed coming round astern; aye, the foul breeze +became fair! + +Instantly the yards were squared, to the lively song of "HO! THE +FAIR WIND! OH-YE-HO, CHEERLY MEN!" the crew singing for joy, that so +promising an event should so soon have falsified the evil portents +preceding it. + +In compliance with the standing order of his commander--to report +immediately, and at any one of the twenty-four hours, any decided change +in the affairs of the deck,--Starbuck had no sooner trimmed the yards to +the breeze--however reluctantly and gloomily,--than he mechanically went +below to apprise Captain Ahab of the circumstance. + +Ere knocking at his state-room, he involuntarily paused before it +a moment. The cabin lamp--taking long swings this way and that--was +burning fitfully, and casting fitful shadows upon the old man's bolted +door,--a thin one, with fixed blinds inserted, in place of upper panels. +The isolated subterraneousness of the cabin made a certain humming +silence to reign there, though it was hooped round by all the roar of +the elements. The loaded muskets in the rack were shiningly revealed, as +they stood upright against the forward bulkhead. Starbuck was an honest, +upright man; but out of Starbuck's heart, at that instant when he saw +the muskets, there strangely evolved an evil thought; but so blent with +its neutral or good accompaniments that for the instant he hardly knew +it for itself. + +"He would have shot me once," he murmured, "yes, there's the very musket +that he pointed at me;--that one with the studded stock; let me touch +it--lift it. Strange, that I, who have handled so many deadly lances, +strange, that I should shake so now. Loaded? I must see. Aye, aye; and +powder in the pan;--that's not good. Best spill it?--wait. I'll cure +myself of this. I'll hold the musket boldly while I think.--I come +to report a fair wind to him. But how fair? Fair for death and +doom,--THAT'S fair for Moby Dick. It's a fair wind that's only fair for +that accursed fish.--The very tube he pointed at me!--the very one; +THIS one--I hold it here; he would have killed me with the very thing I +handle now.--Aye and he would fain kill all his crew. Does he not say +he will not strike his spars to any gale? Has he not dashed his heavenly +quadrant? and in these same perilous seas, gropes he not his way by mere +dead reckoning of the error-abounding log? and in this very Typhoon, did +he not swear that he would have no lightning-rods? But shall this crazed +old man be tamely suffered to drag a whole ship's company down to doom +with him?--Yes, it would make him the wilful murderer of thirty men and +more, if this ship come to any deadly harm; and come to deadly harm, my +soul swears this ship will, if Ahab have his way. If, then, he were this +instant--put aside, that crime would not be his. Ha! is he muttering in +his sleep? Yes, just there,--in there, he's sleeping. Sleeping? aye, +but still alive, and soon awake again. I can't withstand thee, then, old +man. Not reasoning; not remonstrance; not entreaty wilt thou hearken to; +all this thou scornest. Flat obedience to thy own flat commands, this is +all thou breathest. Aye, and say'st the men have vow'd thy vow; say'st +all of us are Ahabs. Great God forbid!--But is there no other way? no +lawful way?--Make him a prisoner to be taken home? What! hope to wrest +this old man's living power from his own living hands? Only a fool +would try it. Say he were pinioned even; knotted all over with ropes +and hawsers; chained down to ring-bolts on this cabin floor; he would +be more hideous than a caged tiger, then. I could not endure the +sight; could not possibly fly his howlings; all comfort, sleep itself, +inestimable reason would leave me on the long intolerable voyage. What, +then, remains? The land is hundreds of leagues away, and locked Japan +the nearest. I stand alone here upon an open sea, with two oceans and +a whole continent between me and law.--Aye, aye, 'tis so.--Is heaven +a murderer when its lightning strikes a would-be murderer in his bed, +tindering sheets and skin together?--And would I be a murderer, then, +if"--and slowly, stealthily, and half sideways looking, he placed the +loaded musket's end against the door. + +"On this level, Ahab's hammock swings within; his head this way. A +touch, and Starbuck may survive to hug his wife and child again.--Oh +Mary! Mary!--boy! boy! boy!--But if I wake thee not to death, old man, +who can tell to what unsounded deeps Starbuck's body this day week +may sink, with all the crew! Great God, where art Thou? Shall I? shall +I?--The wind has gone down and shifted, sir; the fore and main topsails +are reefed and set; she heads her course." + +"Stern all! Oh Moby Dick, I clutch thy heart at last!" + +Such were the sounds that now came hurtling from out the old man's +tormented sleep, as if Starbuck's voice had caused the long dumb dream +to speak. + +The yet levelled musket shook like a drunkard's arm against the panel; +Starbuck seemed wrestling with an angel; but turning from the door, he +placed the death-tube in its rack, and left the place. + +"He's too sound asleep, Mr. Stubb; go thou down, and wake him, and tell +him. I must see to the deck here. Thou know'st what to say." + + + +CHAPTER 124. The Needle. + + +Next morning the not-yet-subsided sea rolled in long slow billows of +mighty bulk, and striving in the Pequod's gurgling track, pushed her on +like giants' palms outspread. The strong, unstaggering breeze abounded +so, that sky and air seemed vast outbellying sails; the whole world +boomed before the wind. Muffled in the full morning light, the invisible +sun was only known by the spread intensity of his place; where his +bayonet rays moved on in stacks. Emblazonings, as of crowned Babylonian +kings and queens, reigned over everything. The sea was as a crucible of +molten gold, that bubblingly leaps with light and heat. + +Long maintaining an enchanted silence, Ahab stood apart; and every time +the tetering ship loweringly pitched down her bowsprit, he turned to eye +the bright sun's rays produced ahead; and when she profoundly settled by +the stern, he turned behind, and saw the sun's rearward place, and how +the same yellow rays were blending with his undeviating wake. + +"Ha, ha, my ship! thou mightest well be taken now for the sea-chariot of +the sun. Ho, ho! all ye nations before my prow, I bring the sun to ye! +Yoke on the further billows; hallo! a tandem, I drive the sea!" + +But suddenly reined back by some counter thought, he hurried towards the +helm, huskily demanding how the ship was heading. + +"East-sou-east, sir," said the frightened steersman. + +"Thou liest!" smiting him with his clenched fist. "Heading East at this +hour in the morning, and the sun astern?" + +Upon this every soul was confounded; for the phenomenon just then +observed by Ahab had unaccountably escaped every one else; but its very +blinding palpableness must have been the cause. + +Thrusting his head half way into the binnacle, Ahab caught one glimpse +of the compasses; his uplifted arm slowly fell; for a moment he almost +seemed to stagger. Standing behind him Starbuck looked, and lo! the two +compasses pointed East, and the Pequod was as infallibly going West. + +But ere the first wild alarm could get out abroad among the crew, +the old man with a rigid laugh exclaimed, "I have it! It has happened +before. Mr. Starbuck, last night's thunder turned our compasses--that's +all. Thou hast before now heard of such a thing, I take it." + +"Aye; but never before has it happened to me, sir," said the pale mate, +gloomily. + +Here, it must needs be said, that accidents like this have in more than +one case occurred to ships in violent storms. The magnetic energy, as +developed in the mariner's needle, is, as all know, essentially one with +the electricity beheld in heaven; hence it is not to be much marvelled +at, that such things should be. Instances where the lightning has +actually struck the vessel, so as to smite down some of the spars and +rigging, the effect upon the needle has at times been still more fatal; +all its loadstone virtue being annihilated, so that the before magnetic +steel was of no more use than an old wife's knitting needle. But in +either case, the needle never again, of itself, recovers the original +virtue thus marred or lost; and if the binnacle compasses be affected, +the same fate reaches all the others that may be in the ship; even were +the lowermost one inserted into the kelson. + +Deliberately standing before the binnacle, and eyeing the transpointed +compasses, the old man, with the sharp of his extended hand, now took +the precise bearing of the sun, and satisfied that the needles were +exactly inverted, shouted out his orders for the ship's course to be +changed accordingly. The yards were hard up; and once more the Pequod +thrust her undaunted bows into the opposing wind, for the supposed fair +one had only been juggling her. + +Meanwhile, whatever were his own secret thoughts, Starbuck said nothing, +but quietly he issued all requisite orders; while Stubb and Flask--who +in some small degree seemed then to be sharing his feelings--likewise +unmurmuringly acquiesced. As for the men, though some of them lowly +rumbled, their fear of Ahab was greater than their fear of Fate. But as +ever before, the pagan harpooneers remained almost wholly unimpressed; +or if impressed, it was only with a certain magnetism shot into their +congenial hearts from inflexible Ahab's. + +For a space the old man walked the deck in rolling reveries. But +chancing to slip with his ivory heel, he saw the crushed copper +sight-tubes of the quadrant he had the day before dashed to the deck. + +"Thou poor, proud heaven-gazer and sun's pilot! yesterday I wrecked +thee, and to-day the compasses would fain have wrecked me. So, so. But +Ahab is lord over the level loadstone yet. Mr. Starbuck--a lance without +a pole; a top-maul, and the smallest of the sail-maker's needles. +Quick!" + +Accessory, perhaps, to the impulse dictating the thing he was now about +to do, were certain prudential motives, whose object might have been to +revive the spirits of his crew by a stroke of his subtile skill, in a +matter so wondrous as that of the inverted compasses. Besides, the old +man well knew that to steer by transpointed needles, though clumsily +practicable, was not a thing to be passed over by superstitious sailors, +without some shudderings and evil portents. + +"Men," said he, steadily turning upon the crew, as the mate handed +him the things he had demanded, "my men, the thunder turned old Ahab's +needles; but out of this bit of steel Ahab can make one of his own, that +will point as true as any." + +Abashed glances of servile wonder were exchanged by the sailors, as this +was said; and with fascinated eyes they awaited whatever magic might +follow. But Starbuck looked away. + +With a blow from the top-maul Ahab knocked off the steel head of the +lance, and then handing to the mate the long iron rod remaining, bade +him hold it upright, without its touching the deck. Then, with the maul, +after repeatedly smiting the upper end of this iron rod, he placed the +blunted needle endwise on the top of it, and less strongly hammered +that, several times, the mate still holding the rod as before. Then +going through some small strange motions with it--whether indispensable +to the magnetizing of the steel, or merely intended to augment the awe +of the crew, is uncertain--he called for linen thread; and moving to the +binnacle, slipped out the two reversed needles there, and horizontally +suspended the sail-needle by its middle, over one of the compass-cards. +At first, the steel went round and round, quivering and vibrating at +either end; but at last it settled to its place, when Ahab, who had +been intently watching for this result, stepped frankly back from the +binnacle, and pointing his stretched arm towards it, exclaimed,--"Look +ye, for yourselves, if Ahab be not lord of the level loadstone! The sun +is East, and that compass swears it!" + +One after another they peered in, for nothing but their own eyes could +persuade such ignorance as theirs, and one after another they slunk +away. + +In his fiery eyes of scorn and triumph, you then saw Ahab in all his +fatal pride. + + + +CHAPTER 125. The Log and Line. + + +While now the fated Pequod had been so long afloat this voyage, the log +and line had but very seldom been in use. Owing to a confident reliance +upon other means of determining the vessel's place, some merchantmen, +and many whalemen, especially when cruising, wholly neglect to heave the +log; though at the same time, and frequently more for form's sake than +anything else, regularly putting down upon the customary slate the +course steered by the ship, as well as the presumed average rate of +progression every hour. It had been thus with the Pequod. The wooden +reel and angular log attached hung, long untouched, just beneath the +railing of the after bulwarks. Rains and spray had damped it; sun and +wind had warped it; all the elements had combined to rot a thing that +hung so idly. But heedless of all this, his mood seized Ahab, as he +happened to glance upon the reel, not many hours after the magnet scene, +and he remembered how his quadrant was no more, and recalled his frantic +oath about the level log and line. The ship was sailing plungingly; +astern the billows rolled in riots. + +"Forward, there! Heave the log!" + +Two seamen came. The golden-hued Tahitian and the grizzly Manxman. "Take +the reel, one of ye, I'll heave." + +They went towards the extreme stern, on the ship's lee side, where the +deck, with the oblique energy of the wind, was now almost dipping into +the creamy, sidelong-rushing sea. + +The Manxman took the reel, and holding it high up, by the projecting +handle-ends of the spindle, round which the spool of line revolved, so +stood with the angular log hanging downwards, till Ahab advanced to him. + +Ahab stood before him, and was lightly unwinding some thirty or forty +turns to form a preliminary hand-coil to toss overboard, when the old +Manxman, who was intently eyeing both him and the line, made bold to +speak. + +"Sir, I mistrust it; this line looks far gone, long heat and wet have +spoiled it." + +"'Twill hold, old gentleman. Long heat and wet, have they spoiled thee? +Thou seem'st to hold. Or, truer perhaps, life holds thee; not thou it." + +"I hold the spool, sir. But just as my captain says. With these +grey hairs of mine 'tis not worth while disputing, 'specially with a +superior, who'll ne'er confess." + +"What's that? There now's a patched professor in Queen Nature's +granite-founded College; but methinks he's too subservient. Where wert +thou born?" + +"In the little rocky Isle of Man, sir." + +"Excellent! Thou'st hit the world by that." + +"I know not, sir, but I was born there." + +"In the Isle of Man, hey? Well, the other way, it's good. Here's a man +from Man; a man born in once independent Man, and now unmanned of Man; +which is sucked in--by what? Up with the reel! The dead, blind wall +butts all inquiring heads at last. Up with it! So." + +The log was heaved. The loose coils rapidly straightened out in a long +dragging line astern, and then, instantly, the reel began to whirl. In +turn, jerkingly raised and lowered by the rolling billows, the towing +resistance of the log caused the old reelman to stagger strangely. + +"Hold hard!" + +Snap! the overstrained line sagged down in one long festoon; the tugging +log was gone. + +"I crush the quadrant, the thunder turns the needles, and now the mad +sea parts the log-line. But Ahab can mend all. Haul in here, Tahitian; +reel up, Manxman. And look ye, let the carpenter make another log, and +mend thou the line. See to it." + +"There he goes now; to him nothing's happened; but to me, the skewer +seems loosening out of the middle of the world. Haul in, haul in, +Tahitian! These lines run whole, and whirling out: come in broken, and +dragging slow. Ha, Pip? come to help; eh, Pip?" + +"Pip? whom call ye Pip? Pip jumped from the whale-boat. Pip's missing. +Let's see now if ye haven't fished him up here, fisherman. It drags +hard; I guess he's holding on. Jerk him, Tahiti! Jerk him off; we haul +in no cowards here. Ho! there's his arm just breaking water. A hatchet! +a hatchet! cut it off--we haul in no cowards here. Captain Ahab! sir, +sir! here's Pip, trying to get on board again." + +"Peace, thou crazy loon," cried the Manxman, seizing him by the arm. +"Away from the quarter-deck!" + +"The greater idiot ever scolds the lesser," muttered Ahab, advancing. +"Hands off from that holiness! Where sayest thou Pip was, boy? + +"Astern there, sir, astern! Lo! lo!" + +"And who art thou, boy? I see not my reflection in the vacant pupils of +thy eyes. Oh God! that man should be a thing for immortal souls to sieve +through! Who art thou, boy?" + +"Bell-boy, sir; ship's-crier; ding, dong, ding! Pip! Pip! Pip! +One hundred pounds of clay reward for Pip; five feet high--looks +cowardly--quickest known by that! Ding, dong, ding! Who's seen Pip the +coward?" + +"There can be no hearts above the snow-line. Oh, ye frozen heavens! look +down here. Ye did beget this luckless child, and have abandoned him, +ye creative libertines. Here, boy; Ahab's cabin shall be Pip's home +henceforth, while Ahab lives. Thou touchest my inmost centre, boy; thou +art tied to me by cords woven of my heart-strings. Come, let's down." + +"What's this? here's velvet shark-skin," intently gazing at Ahab's hand, +and feeling it. "Ah, now, had poor Pip but felt so kind a thing as this, +perhaps he had ne'er been lost! This seems to me, sir, as a man-rope; +something that weak souls may hold by. Oh, sir, let old Perth now come +and rivet these two hands together; the black one with the white, for I +will not let this go." + +"Oh, boy, nor will I thee, unless I should thereby drag thee to worse +horrors than are here. Come, then, to my cabin. Lo! ye believers in +gods all goodness, and in man all ill, lo you! see the omniscient gods +oblivious of suffering man; and man, though idiotic, and knowing not +what he does, yet full of the sweet things of love and gratitude. Come! +I feel prouder leading thee by thy black hand, than though I grasped an +Emperor's!" + +"There go two daft ones now," muttered the old Manxman. "One daft with +strength, the other daft with weakness. But here's the end of the rotten +line--all dripping, too. Mend it, eh? I think we had best have a new +line altogether. I'll see Mr. Stubb about it." + + + +CHAPTER 126. The Life-Buoy. + + +Steering now south-eastward by Ahab's levelled steel, and her progress +solely determined by Ahab's level log and line; the Pequod held on +her path towards the Equator. Making so long a passage through such +unfrequented waters, descrying no ships, and ere long, sideways impelled +by unvarying trade winds, over waves monotonously mild; all these seemed +the strange calm things preluding some riotous and desperate scene. + +At last, when the ship drew near to the outskirts, as it were, of the +Equatorial fishing-ground, and in the deep darkness that goes before the +dawn, was sailing by a cluster of rocky islets; the watch--then headed +by Flask--was startled by a cry so plaintively wild and unearthly--like +half-articulated wailings of the ghosts of all Herod's murdered +Innocents--that one and all, they started from their reveries, and for +the space of some moments stood, or sat, or leaned all transfixedly +listening, like the carved Roman slave, while that wild cry remained +within hearing. The Christian or civilized part of the crew said it was +mermaids, and shuddered; but the pagan harpooneers remained unappalled. +Yet the grey Manxman--the oldest mariner of all--declared that the wild +thrilling sounds that were heard, were the voices of newly drowned men +in the sea. + +Below in his hammock, Ahab did not hear of this till grey dawn, when +he came to the deck; it was then recounted to him by Flask, not +unaccompanied with hinted dark meanings. He hollowly laughed, and thus +explained the wonder. + +Those rocky islands the ship had passed were the resort of great numbers +of seals, and some young seals that had lost their dams, or some dams +that had lost their cubs, must have risen nigh the ship and kept company +with her, crying and sobbing with their human sort of wail. But this +only the more affected some of them, because most mariners cherish a +very superstitious feeling about seals, arising not only from their +peculiar tones when in distress, but also from the human look of their +round heads and semi-intelligent faces, seen peeringly uprising from +the water alongside. In the sea, under certain circumstances, seals have +more than once been mistaken for men. + +But the bodings of the crew were destined to receive a most plausible +confirmation in the fate of one of their number that morning. At +sun-rise this man went from his hammock to his mast-head at the fore; +and whether it was that he was not yet half waked from his sleep (for +sailors sometimes go aloft in a transition state), whether it was thus +with the man, there is now no telling; but, be that as it may, he +had not been long at his perch, when a cry was heard--a cry and a +rushing--and looking up, they saw a falling phantom in the air; and +looking down, a little tossed heap of white bubbles in the blue of the +sea. + +The life-buoy--a long slender cask--was dropped from the stern, where it +always hung obedient to a cunning spring; but no hand rose to seize it, +and the sun having long beat upon this cask it had shrunken, so that it +slowly filled, and that parched wood also filled at its every pore; and +the studded iron-bound cask followed the sailor to the bottom, as if to +yield him his pillow, though in sooth but a hard one. + +And thus the first man of the Pequod that mounted the mast to look out +for the White Whale, on the White Whale's own peculiar ground; that man +was swallowed up in the deep. But few, perhaps, thought of that at the +time. Indeed, in some sort, they were not grieved at this event, at +least as a portent; for they regarded it, not as a foreshadowing of evil +in the future, but as the fulfilment of an evil already presaged. They +declared that now they knew the reason of those wild shrieks they had +heard the night before. But again the old Manxman said nay. + +The lost life-buoy was now to be replaced; Starbuck was directed to see +to it; but as no cask of sufficient lightness could be found, and as +in the feverish eagerness of what seemed the approaching crisis of +the voyage, all hands were impatient of any toil but what was directly +connected with its final end, whatever that might prove to be; +therefore, they were going to leave the ship's stern unprovided with a +buoy, when by certain strange signs and inuendoes Queequeg hinted a hint +concerning his coffin. + +"A life-buoy of a coffin!" cried Starbuck, starting. + +"Rather queer, that, I should say," said Stubb. + +"It will make a good enough one," said Flask, "the carpenter here can +arrange it easily." + +"Bring it up; there's nothing else for it," said Starbuck, after a +melancholy pause. "Rig it, carpenter; do not look at me so--the coffin, +I mean. Dost thou hear me? Rig it." + +"And shall I nail down the lid, sir?" moving his hand as with a hammer. + +"Aye." + +"And shall I caulk the seams, sir?" moving his hand as with a +caulking-iron. + +"Aye." + +"And shall I then pay over the same with pitch, sir?" moving his hand as +with a pitch-pot. + +"Away! what possesses thee to this? Make a life-buoy of the coffin, and +no more.--Mr. Stubb, Mr. Flask, come forward with me." + +"He goes off in a huff. The whole he can endure; at the parts he baulks. +Now I don't like this. I make a leg for Captain Ahab, and he wears it +like a gentleman; but I make a bandbox for Queequeg, and he won't put +his head into it. Are all my pains to go for nothing with that coffin? +And now I'm ordered to make a life-buoy of it. It's like turning an old +coat; going to bring the flesh on the other side now. I don't like this +cobbling sort of business--I don't like it at all; it's undignified; +it's not my place. Let tinkers' brats do tinkerings; we are their +betters. I like to take in hand none but clean, virgin, fair-and-square +mathematical jobs, something that regularly begins at the beginning, and +is at the middle when midway, and comes to an end at the conclusion; not +a cobbler's job, that's at an end in the middle, and at the beginning at +the end. It's the old woman's tricks to be giving cobbling jobs. Lord! +what an affection all old women have for tinkers. I know an old woman of +sixty-five who ran away with a bald-headed young tinker once. And that's +the reason I never would work for lonely widow old women ashore, when +I kept my job-shop in the Vineyard; they might have taken it into their +lonely old heads to run off with me. But heigh-ho! there are no caps at +sea but snow-caps. Let me see. Nail down the lid; caulk the seams; pay +over the same with pitch; batten them down tight, and hang it with the +snap-spring over the ship's stern. Were ever such things done before +with a coffin? Some superstitious old carpenters, now, would be tied +up in the rigging, ere they would do the job. But I'm made of knotty +Aroostook hemlock; I don't budge. Cruppered with a coffin! Sailing +about with a grave-yard tray! But never mind. We workers in woods make +bridal-bedsteads and card-tables, as well as coffins and hearses. We +work by the month, or by the job, or by the profit; not for us to ask +the why and wherefore of our work, unless it be too confounded cobbling, +and then we stash it if we can. Hem! I'll do the job, now, tenderly. +I'll have me--let's see--how many in the ship's company, all told? But +I've forgotten. Any way, I'll have me thirty separate, Turk's-headed +life-lines, each three feet long hanging all round to the coffin. Then, +if the hull go down, there'll be thirty lively fellows all fighting for +one coffin, a sight not seen very often beneath the sun! Come hammer, +caulking-iron, pitch-pot, and marling-spike! Let's to it." + + + +CHAPTER 127. The Deck. + + +THE COFFIN LAID UPON TWO LINE-TUBS, BETWEEN THE VICE-BENCH AND THE OPEN +HATCHWAY; THE CARPENTER CAULKING ITS SEAMS; THE STRING OF TWISTED OAKUM +SLOWLY UNWINDING FROM A LARGE ROLL OF IT PLACED IN THE BOSOM OF +HIS FROCK.--AHAB COMES SLOWLY FROM THE CABIN-GANGWAY, AND HEARS PIP +FOLLOWING HIM. + + +"Back, lad; I will be with ye again presently. He goes! Not this hand +complies with my humor more genially than that boy.--Middle aisle of a +church! What's here?" + +"Life-buoy, sir. Mr. Starbuck's orders. Oh, look, sir! Beware the +hatchway!" + +"Thank ye, man. Thy coffin lies handy to the vault." + +"Sir? The hatchway? oh! So it does, sir, so it does." + +"Art not thou the leg-maker? Look, did not this stump come from thy +shop?" + +"I believe it did, sir; does the ferrule stand, sir?" + +"Well enough. But art thou not also the undertaker?" + +"Aye, sir; I patched up this thing here as a coffin for Queequeg; but +they've set me now to turning it into something else." + +"Then tell me; art thou not an arrant, all-grasping, intermeddling, +monopolising, heathenish old scamp, to be one day making legs, and the +next day coffins to clap them in, and yet again life-buoys out of those +same coffins? Thou art as unprincipled as the gods, and as much of a +jack-of-all-trades." + +"But I do not mean anything, sir. I do as I do." + +"The gods again. Hark ye, dost thou not ever sing working about a +coffin? The Titans, they say, hummed snatches when chipping out the +craters for volcanoes; and the grave-digger in the play sings, spade in +hand. Dost thou never?" + +"Sing, sir? Do I sing? Oh, I'm indifferent enough, sir, for that; but +the reason why the grave-digger made music must have been because there +was none in his spade, sir. But the caulking mallet is full of it. Hark +to it." + +"Aye, and that's because the lid there's a sounding-board; and what in +all things makes the sounding-board is this--there's naught beneath. And +yet, a coffin with a body in it rings pretty much the same, Carpenter. +Hast thou ever helped carry a bier, and heard the coffin knock against +the churchyard gate, going in? + +"Faith, sir, I've--" + +"Faith? What's that?" + +"Why, faith, sir, it's only a sort of exclamation-like--that's all, +sir." + +"Um, um; go on." + +"I was about to say, sir, that--" + +"Art thou a silk-worm? Dost thou spin thy own shroud out of thyself? +Look at thy bosom! Despatch! and get these traps out of sight." + +"He goes aft. That was sudden, now; but squalls come sudden in hot +latitudes. I've heard that the Isle of Albemarle, one of the Gallipagos, +is cut by the Equator right in the middle. Seems to me some sort of +Equator cuts yon old man, too, right in his middle. He's always under +the Line--fiery hot, I tell ye! He's looking this way--come, oakum; +quick. Here we go again. This wooden mallet is the cork, and I'm the +professor of musical glasses--tap, tap!" + +(AHAB TO HIMSELF.) + +"There's a sight! There's a sound! The grey-headed woodpecker tapping +the hollow tree! Blind and dumb might well be envied now. See! that +thing rests on two line-tubs, full of tow-lines. A most malicious wag, +that fellow. Rat-tat! So man's seconds tick! Oh! how immaterial are all +materials! What things real are there, but imponderable thoughts? Here +now's the very dreaded symbol of grim death, by a mere hap, made +the expressive sign of the help and hope of most endangered life. +A life-buoy of a coffin! Does it go further? Can it be that in some +spiritual sense the coffin is, after all, but an immortality-preserver! +I'll think of that. But no. So far gone am I in the dark side of earth, +that its other side, the theoretic bright one, seems but uncertain +twilight to me. Will ye never have done, Carpenter, with that accursed +sound? I go below; let me not see that thing here when I return +again. Now, then, Pip, we'll talk this over; I do suck most wondrous +philosophies from thee! Some unknown conduits from the unknown worlds +must empty into thee!" + + + +CHAPTER 128. The Pequod Meets The Rachel. + + +Next day, a large ship, the Rachel, was descried, bearing directly down +upon the Pequod, all her spars thickly clustering with men. At the +time the Pequod was making good speed through the water; but as the +broad-winged windward stranger shot nigh to her, the boastful sails all +fell together as blank bladders that are burst, and all life fled from +the smitten hull. + +"Bad news; she brings bad news," muttered the old Manxman. But ere her +commander, who, with trumpet to mouth, stood up in his boat; ere he +could hopefully hail, Ahab's voice was heard. + +"Hast seen the White Whale?" + +"Aye, yesterday. Have ye seen a whale-boat adrift?" + +Throttling his joy, Ahab negatively answered this unexpected question; +and would then have fain boarded the stranger, when the stranger captain +himself, having stopped his vessel's way, was seen descending her +side. A few keen pulls, and his boat-hook soon clinched the Pequod's +main-chains, and he sprang to the deck. Immediately he was recognised by +Ahab for a Nantucketer he knew. But no formal salutation was exchanged. + +"Where was he?--not killed!--not killed!" cried Ahab, closely advancing. +"How was it?" + +It seemed that somewhat late on the afternoon of the day previous, while +three of the stranger's boats were engaged with a shoal of whales, which +had led them some four or five miles from the ship; and while they were +yet in swift chase to windward, the white hump and head of Moby Dick had +suddenly loomed up out of the water, not very far to leeward; whereupon, +the fourth rigged boat--a reserved one--had been instantly lowered in +chase. After a keen sail before the wind, this fourth boat--the swiftest +keeled of all--seemed to have succeeded in fastening--at least, as +well as the man at the mast-head could tell anything about it. In the +distance he saw the diminished dotted boat; and then a swift gleam +of bubbling white water; and after that nothing more; whence it was +concluded that the stricken whale must have indefinitely run away with +his pursuers, as often happens. There was some apprehension, but no +positive alarm, as yet. The recall signals were placed in the rigging; +darkness came on; and forced to pick up her three far to windward +boats--ere going in quest of the fourth one in the precisely opposite +direction--the ship had not only been necessitated to leave that boat to +its fate till near midnight, but, for the time, to increase her distance +from it. But the rest of her crew being at last safe aboard, she crowded +all sail--stunsail on stunsail--after the missing boat; kindling a fire +in her try-pots for a beacon; and every other man aloft on the look-out. +But though when she had thus sailed a sufficient distance to gain the +presumed place of the absent ones when last seen; though she then +paused to lower her spare boats to pull all around her; and not finding +anything, had again dashed on; again paused, and lowered her boats; and +though she had thus continued doing till daylight; yet not the least +glimpse of the missing keel had been seen. + +The story told, the stranger Captain immediately went on to reveal his +object in boarding the Pequod. He desired that ship to unite with his +own in the search; by sailing over the sea some four or five miles +apart, on parallel lines, and so sweeping a double horizon, as it were. + +"I will wager something now," whispered Stubb to Flask, "that some one +in that missing boat wore off that Captain's best coat; mayhap, his +watch--he's so cursed anxious to get it back. Who ever heard of two +pious whale-ships cruising after one missing whale-boat in the height of +the whaling season? See, Flask, only see how pale he looks--pale in the +very buttons of his eyes--look--it wasn't the coat--it must have been +the--" + +"My boy, my own boy is among them. For God's sake--I beg, I +conjure"--here exclaimed the stranger Captain to Ahab, who thus far +had but icily received his petition. "For eight-and-forty hours let me +charter your ship--I will gladly pay for it, and roundly pay for it--if +there be no other way--for eight-and-forty hours only--only that--you +must, oh, you must, and you SHALL do this thing." + +"His son!" cried Stubb, "oh, it's his son he's lost! I take back the +coat and watch--what says Ahab? We must save that boy." + +"He's drowned with the rest on 'em, last night," said the old Manx +sailor standing behind them; "I heard; all of ye heard their spirits." + +Now, as it shortly turned out, what made this incident of the Rachel's +the more melancholy, was the circumstance, that not only was one of the +Captain's sons among the number of the missing boat's crew; but among +the number of the other boat's crews, at the same time, but on the other +hand, separated from the ship during the dark vicissitudes of the chase, +there had been still another son; as that for a time, the wretched +father was plunged to the bottom of the cruellest perplexity; which +was only solved for him by his chief mate's instinctively adopting the +ordinary procedure of a whale-ship in such emergencies, that is, when +placed between jeopardized but divided boats, always to pick up the +majority first. But the captain, for some unknown constitutional reason, +had refrained from mentioning all this, and not till forced to it by +Ahab's iciness did he allude to his one yet missing boy; a little lad, +but twelve years old, whose father with the earnest but unmisgiving +hardihood of a Nantucketer's paternal love, had thus early sought to +initiate him in the perils and wonders of a vocation almost immemorially +the destiny of all his race. Nor does it unfrequently occur, that +Nantucket captains will send a son of such tender age away from them, +for a protracted three or four years' voyage in some other ship than +their own; so that their first knowledge of a whaleman's career shall +be unenervated by any chance display of a father's natural but untimely +partiality, or undue apprehensiveness and concern. + +Meantime, now the stranger was still beseeching his poor boon of Ahab; +and Ahab still stood like an anvil, receiving every shock, but without +the least quivering of his own. + +"I will not go," said the stranger, "till you say aye to me. Do to me +as you would have me do to you in the like case. For YOU too have a boy, +Captain Ahab--though but a child, and nestling safely at home now--a +child of your old age too--Yes, yes, you relent; I see it--run, run, +men, now, and stand by to square in the yards." + +"Avast," cried Ahab--"touch not a rope-yarn"; then in a voice that +prolongingly moulded every word--"Captain Gardiner, I will not do it. +Even now I lose time. Good-bye, good-bye. God bless ye, man, and may I +forgive myself, but I must go. Mr. Starbuck, look at the binnacle watch, +and in three minutes from this present instant warn off all strangers: +then brace forward again, and let the ship sail as before." + +Hurriedly turning, with averted face, he descended into his cabin, +leaving the strange captain transfixed at this unconditional and utter +rejection of his so earnest suit. But starting from his enchantment, +Gardiner silently hurried to the side; more fell than stepped into his +boat, and returned to his ship. + +Soon the two ships diverged their wakes; and long as the strange vessel +was in view, she was seen to yaw hither and thither at every dark spot, +however small, on the sea. This way and that her yards were swung round; +starboard and larboard, she continued to tack; now she beat against a +head sea; and again it pushed her before it; while all the while, her +masts and yards were thickly clustered with men, as three tall cherry +trees, when the boys are cherrying among the boughs. + +But by her still halting course and winding, woeful way, you plainly saw +that this ship that so wept with spray, still remained without comfort. +She was Rachel, weeping for her children, because they were not. + + + +CHAPTER 129. The Cabin. + + +(AHAB MOVING TO GO ON DECK; PIP CATCHES HIM BY THE HAND TO FOLLOW.) + +"Lad, lad, I tell thee thou must not follow Ahab now. The hour is coming +when Ahab would not scare thee from him, yet would not have thee by him. +There is that in thee, poor lad, which I feel too curing to my malady. +Like cures like; and for this hunt, my malady becomes my most desired +health. Do thou abide below here, where they shall serve thee, as if +thou wert the captain. Aye, lad, thou shalt sit here in my own screwed +chair; another screw to it, thou must be." + +"No, no, no! ye have not a whole body, sir; do ye but use poor me for +your one lost leg; only tread upon me, sir; I ask no more, so I remain a +part of ye." + +"Oh! spite of million villains, this makes me a bigot in the fadeless +fidelity of man!--and a black! and crazy!--but methinks like-cures-like +applies to him too; he grows so sane again." + +"They tell me, sir, that Stubb did once desert poor little Pip, whose +drowned bones now show white, for all the blackness of his living skin. +But I will never desert ye, sir, as Stubb did him. Sir, I must go with +ye." + +"If thou speakest thus to me much more, Ahab's purpose keels up in him. +I tell thee no; it cannot be." + +"Oh good master, master, master! + +"Weep so, and I will murder thee! have a care, for Ahab too is mad. +Listen, and thou wilt often hear my ivory foot upon the deck, and still +know that I am there. And now I quit thee. Thy hand!--Met! True art +thou, lad, as the circumference to its centre. So: God for ever bless +thee; and if it come to that,--God for ever save thee, let what will +befall." + +(AHAB GOES; PIP STEPS ONE STEP FORWARD.) + + +"Here he this instant stood; I stand in his air,--but I'm alone. Now +were even poor Pip here I could endure it, but he's missing. Pip! Pip! +Ding, dong, ding! Who's seen Pip? He must be up here; let's try the +door. What? neither lock, nor bolt, nor bar; and yet there's no opening +it. It must be the spell; he told me to stay here: Aye, and told me this +screwed chair was mine. Here, then, I'll seat me, against the transom, +in the ship's full middle, all her keel and her three masts before me. +Here, our old sailors say, in their black seventy-fours great +admirals sometimes sit at table, and lord it over rows of captains and +lieutenants. Ha! what's this? epaulets! epaulets! the epaulets all come +crowding! Pass round the decanters; glad to see ye; fill up, monsieurs! +What an odd feeling, now, when a black boy's host to white men with gold +lace upon their coats!--Monsieurs, have ye seen one Pip?--a little +negro lad, five feet high, hang-dog look, and cowardly! Jumped from a +whale-boat once;--seen him? No! Well then, fill up again, captains, and +let's drink shame upon all cowards! I name no names. Shame upon them! +Put one foot upon the table. Shame upon all cowards.--Hist! above there, +I hear ivory--Oh, master! master! I am indeed down-hearted when you walk +over me. But here I'll stay, though this stern strikes rocks; and they +bulge through; and oysters come to join me." + + + +CHAPTER 130. The Hat. + + +And now that at the proper time and place, after so long and wide a +preliminary cruise, Ahab,--all other whaling waters swept--seemed to +have chased his foe into an ocean-fold, to slay him the more securely +there; now, that he found himself hard by the very latitude and +longitude where his tormenting wound had been inflicted; now that a +vessel had been spoken which on the very day preceding had actually +encountered Moby Dick;--and now that all his successive meetings with +various ships contrastingly concurred to show the demoniac indifference +with which the white whale tore his hunters, whether sinning or sinned +against; now it was that there lurked a something in the old man's eyes, +which it was hardly sufferable for feeble souls to see. As the unsetting +polar star, which through the livelong, arctic, six months' night +sustains its piercing, steady, central gaze; so Ahab's purpose now +fixedly gleamed down upon the constant midnight of the gloomy crew. It +domineered above them so, that all their bodings, doubts, misgivings, +fears, were fain to hide beneath their souls, and not sprout forth a +single spear or leaf. + +In this foreshadowing interval too, all humor, forced or natural, +vanished. Stubb no more strove to raise a smile; Starbuck no more strove +to check one. Alike, joy and sorrow, hope and fear, seemed ground to +finest dust, and powdered, for the time, in the clamped mortar of +Ahab's iron soul. Like machines, they dumbly moved about the deck, ever +conscious that the old man's despot eye was on them. + +But did you deeply scan him in his more secret confidential hours; when +he thought no glance but one was on him; then you would have seen that +even as Ahab's eyes so awed the crew's, the inscrutable Parsee's glance +awed his; or somehow, at least, in some wild way, at times affected it. +Such an added, gliding strangeness began to invest the thin Fedallah +now; such ceaseless shudderings shook him; that the men looked dubious +at him; half uncertain, as it seemed, whether indeed he were a mortal +substance, or else a tremulous shadow cast upon the deck by some unseen +being's body. And that shadow was always hovering there. For not by +night, even, had Fedallah ever certainly been known to slumber, or go +below. He would stand still for hours: but never sat or leaned; his wan +but wondrous eyes did plainly say--We two watchmen never rest. + +Nor, at any time, by night or day could the mariners now step upon the +deck, unless Ahab was before them; either standing in his pivot-hole, or +exactly pacing the planks between two undeviating limits,--the main-mast +and the mizen; or else they saw him standing in the cabin-scuttle,--his +living foot advanced upon the deck, as if to step; his hat slouched +heavily over his eyes; so that however motionless he stood, however the +days and nights were added on, that he had not swung in his hammock; +yet hidden beneath that slouching hat, they could never tell unerringly +whether, for all this, his eyes were really closed at times; or whether +he was still intently scanning them; no matter, though he stood so in +the scuttle for a whole hour on the stretch, and the unheeded night-damp +gathered in beads of dew upon that stone-carved coat and hat. The +clothes that the night had wet, the next day's sunshine dried upon him; +and so, day after day, and night after night; he went no more beneath +the planks; whatever he wanted from the cabin that thing he sent for. + +He ate in the same open air; that is, his two only meals,--breakfast and +dinner: supper he never touched; nor reaped his beard; which darkly grew +all gnarled, as unearthed roots of trees blown over, which still grow +idly on at naked base, though perished in the upper verdure. But though +his whole life was now become one watch on deck; and though the Parsee's +mystic watch was without intermission as his own; yet these two never +seemed to speak--one man to the other--unless at long intervals some +passing unmomentous matter made it necessary. Though such a potent spell +seemed secretly to join the twain; openly, and to the awe-struck crew, +they seemed pole-like asunder. If by day they chanced to speak one word; +by night, dumb men were both, so far as concerned the slightest verbal +interchange. At times, for longest hours, without a single hail, they +stood far parted in the starlight; Ahab in his scuttle, the Parsee by +the mainmast; but still fixedly gazing upon each other; as if in the +Parsee Ahab saw his forethrown shadow, in Ahab the Parsee his abandoned +substance. + +And yet, somehow, did Ahab--in his own proper self, as daily, hourly, +and every instant, commandingly revealed to his subordinates,--Ahab +seemed an independent lord; the Parsee but his slave. Still again both +seemed yoked together, and an unseen tyrant driving them; the lean shade +siding the solid rib. For be this Parsee what he may, all rib and keel +was solid Ahab. + +At the first faintest glimmering of the dawn, his iron voice was heard +from aft,--"Man the mast-heads!"--and all through the day, till after +sunset and after twilight, the same voice every hour, at the striking of +the helmsman's bell, was heard--"What d'ye see?--sharp! sharp!" + +But when three or four days had slided by, after meeting the +children-seeking Rachel; and no spout had yet been seen; the monomaniac +old man seemed distrustful of his crew's fidelity; at least, of nearly +all except the Pagan harpooneers; he seemed to doubt, even, whether +Stubb and Flask might not willingly overlook the sight he sought. But if +these suspicions were really his, he sagaciously refrained from verbally +expressing them, however his actions might seem to hint them. + +"I will have the first sight of the whale myself,"--he said. "Aye! +Ahab must have the doubloon!" and with his own hands he rigged a nest +of basketed bowlines; and sending a hand aloft, with a single sheaved +block, to secure to the main-mast head, he received the two ends of the +downward-reeved rope; and attaching one to his basket prepared a pin for +the other end, in order to fasten it at the rail. This done, with that +end yet in his hand and standing beside the pin, he looked round upon +his crew, sweeping from one to the other; pausing his glance long upon +Daggoo, Queequeg, Tashtego; but shunning Fedallah; and then settling his +firm relying eye upon the chief mate, said,--"Take the rope, sir--I give +it into thy hands, Starbuck." Then arranging his person in the basket, +he gave the word for them to hoist him to his perch, Starbuck being +the one who secured the rope at last; and afterwards stood near it. And +thus, with one hand clinging round the royal mast, Ahab gazed abroad +upon the sea for miles and miles,--ahead, astern, this side, and +that,--within the wide expanded circle commanded at so great a height. + +When in working with his hands at some lofty almost isolated place in +the rigging, which chances to afford no foothold, the sailor at sea is +hoisted up to that spot, and sustained there by the rope; under these +circumstances, its fastened end on deck is always given in strict charge +to some one man who has the special watch of it. Because in such a +wilderness of running rigging, whose various different relations aloft +cannot always be infallibly discerned by what is seen of them at the +deck; and when the deck-ends of these ropes are being every few minutes +cast down from the fastenings, it would be but a natural fatality, if, +unprovided with a constant watchman, the hoisted sailor should by some +carelessness of the crew be cast adrift and fall all swooping to the +sea. So Ahab's proceedings in this matter were not unusual; the only +strange thing about them seemed to be, that Starbuck, almost the one +only man who had ever ventured to oppose him with anything in the +slightest degree approaching to decision--one of those too, whose +faithfulness on the look-out he had seemed to doubt somewhat;--it was +strange, that this was the very man he should select for his watchman; +freely giving his whole life into such an otherwise distrusted person's +hands. + +Now, the first time Ahab was perched aloft; ere he had been there ten +minutes; one of those red-billed savage sea-hawks which so often fly +incommodiously close round the manned mast-heads of whalemen in these +latitudes; one of these birds came wheeling and screaming round his head +in a maze of untrackably swift circlings. Then it darted a thousand feet +straight up into the air; then spiralized downwards, and went eddying +again round his head. + +But with his gaze fixed upon the dim and distant horizon, Ahab seemed +not to mark this wild bird; nor, indeed, would any one else have marked +it much, it being no uncommon circumstance; only now almost the least +heedful eye seemed to see some sort of cunning meaning in almost every +sight. + +"Your hat, your hat, sir!" suddenly cried the Sicilian seaman, who +being posted at the mizen-mast-head, stood directly behind Ahab, though +somewhat lower than his level, and with a deep gulf of air dividing +them. + +But already the sable wing was before the old man's eyes; the long +hooked bill at his head: with a scream, the black hawk darted away with +his prize. + +An eagle flew thrice round Tarquin's head, removing his cap to replace +it, and thereupon Tanaquil, his wife, declared that Tarquin would +be king of Rome. But only by the replacing of the cap was that omen +accounted good. Ahab's hat was never restored; the wild hawk flew on and +on with it; far in advance of the prow: and at last disappeared; while +from the point of that disappearance, a minute black spot was dimly +discerned, falling from that vast height into the sea. + + + +CHAPTER 131. The Pequod Meets The Delight. + + +The intense Pequod sailed on; the rolling waves and days went by; the +life-buoy-coffin still lightly swung; and another ship, most miserably +misnamed the Delight, was descried. As she drew nigh, all eyes were +fixed upon her broad beams, called shears, which, in some whaling-ships, +cross the quarter-deck at the height of eight or nine feet; serving to +carry the spare, unrigged, or disabled boats. + +Upon the stranger's shears were beheld the shattered, white ribs, and +some few splintered planks, of what had once been a whale-boat; but you +now saw through this wreck, as plainly as you see through the peeled, +half-unhinged, and bleaching skeleton of a horse. + +"Hast seen the White Whale?" + +"Look!" replied the hollow-cheeked captain from his taffrail; and with +his trumpet he pointed to the wreck. + +"Hast killed him?" + +"The harpoon is not yet forged that ever will do that," answered the +other, sadly glancing upon a rounded hammock on the deck, whose gathered +sides some noiseless sailors were busy in sewing together. + +"Not forged!" and snatching Perth's levelled iron from the crotch, Ahab +held it out, exclaiming--"Look ye, Nantucketer; here in this hand I hold +his death! Tempered in blood, and tempered by lightning are these barbs; +and I swear to temper them triply in that hot place behind the fin, +where the White Whale most feels his accursed life!" + +"Then God keep thee, old man--see'st thou that"--pointing to the +hammock--"I bury but one of five stout men, who were alive only +yesterday; but were dead ere night. Only THAT one I bury; the rest were +buried before they died; you sail upon their tomb." Then turning to his +crew--"Are ye ready there? place the plank then on the rail, and +lift the body; so, then--Oh! God"--advancing towards the hammock with +uplifted hands--"may the resurrection and the life--" + +"Brace forward! Up helm!" cried Ahab like lightning to his men. + +But the suddenly started Pequod was not quick enough to escape the sound +of the splash that the corpse soon made as it struck the sea; not so +quick, indeed, but that some of the flying bubbles might have sprinkled +her hull with their ghostly baptism. + +As Ahab now glided from the dejected Delight, the strange life-buoy +hanging at the Pequod's stern came into conspicuous relief. + +"Ha! yonder! look yonder, men!" cried a foreboding voice in her wake. +"In vain, oh, ye strangers, ye fly our sad burial; ye but turn us your +taffrail to show us your coffin!" + + + +CHAPTER 132. The Symphony. + + +It was a clear steel-blue day. The firmaments of air and sea were +hardly separable in that all-pervading azure; only, the pensive air was +transparently pure and soft, with a woman's look, and the robust and +man-like sea heaved with long, strong, lingering swells, as Samson's +chest in his sleep. + +Hither, and thither, on high, glided the snow-white wings of small, +unspeckled birds; these were the gentle thoughts of the feminine air; +but to and fro in the deeps, far down in the bottomless blue, rushed +mighty leviathans, sword-fish, and sharks; and these were the strong, +troubled, murderous thinkings of the masculine sea. + +But though thus contrasting within, the contrast was only in shades and +shadows without; those two seemed one; it was only the sex, as it were, +that distinguished them. + +Aloft, like a royal czar and king, the sun seemed giving this gentle +air to this bold and rolling sea; even as bride to groom. And at the +girdling line of the horizon, a soft and tremulous motion--most seen +here at the Equator--denoted the fond, throbbing trust, the loving +alarms, with which the poor bride gave her bosom away. + +Tied up and twisted; gnarled and knotted with wrinkles; haggardly firm +and unyielding; his eyes glowing like coals, that still glow in the +ashes of ruin; untottering Ahab stood forth in the clearness of the +morn; lifting his splintered helmet of a brow to the fair girl's +forehead of heaven. + +Oh, immortal infancy, and innocency of the azure! Invisible winged +creatures that frolic all round us! Sweet childhood of air and sky! how +oblivious were ye of old Ahab's close-coiled woe! But so have I seen +little Miriam and Martha, laughing-eyed elves, heedlessly gambol around +their old sire; sporting with the circle of singed locks which grew on +the marge of that burnt-out crater of his brain. + +Slowly crossing the deck from the scuttle, Ahab leaned over the side and +watched how his shadow in the water sank and sank to his gaze, the more +and the more that he strove to pierce the profundity. But the lovely +aromas in that enchanted air did at last seem to dispel, for a moment, +the cankerous thing in his soul. That glad, happy air, that winsome +sky, did at last stroke and caress him; the step-mother world, so long +cruel--forbidding--now threw affectionate arms round his stubborn neck, +and did seem to joyously sob over him, as if over one, that however +wilful and erring, she could yet find it in her heart to save and to +bless. From beneath his slouched hat Ahab dropped a tear into the sea; +nor did all the Pacific contain such wealth as that one wee drop. + +Starbuck saw the old man; saw him, how he heavily leaned over the side; +and he seemed to hear in his own true heart the measureless sobbing that +stole out of the centre of the serenity around. Careful not to touch +him, or be noticed by him, he yet drew near to him, and stood there. + +Ahab turned. + +"Starbuck!" + +"Sir." + +"Oh, Starbuck! it is a mild, mild wind, and a mild looking sky. On such +a day--very much such a sweetness as this--I struck my first whale--a +boy-harpooneer of eighteen! Forty--forty--forty years ago!--ago! Forty +years of continual whaling! forty years of privation, and peril, and +storm-time! forty years on the pitiless sea! for forty years has Ahab +forsaken the peaceful land, for forty years to make war on the horrors +of the deep! Aye and yes, Starbuck, out of those forty years I have not +spent three ashore. When I think of this life I have led; the desolation +of solitude it has been; the masoned, walled-town of a Captain's +exclusiveness, which admits but small entrance to any sympathy from the +green country without--oh, weariness! heaviness! Guinea-coast slavery of +solitary command!--when I think of all this; only half-suspected, not so +keenly known to me before--and how for forty years I have fed upon dry +salted fare--fit emblem of the dry nourishment of my soil!--when the +poorest landsman has had fresh fruit to his daily hand, and broken the +world's fresh bread to my mouldy crusts--away, whole oceans away, from +that young girl-wife I wedded past fifty, and sailed for Cape Horn +the next day, leaving but one dent in my marriage pillow--wife? +wife?--rather a widow with her husband alive! Aye, I widowed that poor +girl when I married her, Starbuck; and then, the madness, the frenzy, +the boiling blood and the smoking brow, with which, for a thousand +lowerings old Ahab has furiously, foamingly chased his prey--more a +demon than a man!--aye, aye! what a forty years' fool--fool--old fool, +has old Ahab been! Why this strife of the chase? why weary, and palsy +the arm at the oar, and the iron, and the lance? how the richer or +better is Ahab now? Behold. Oh, Starbuck! is it not hard, that with this +weary load I bear, one poor leg should have been snatched from under +me? Here, brush this old hair aside; it blinds me, that I seem to weep. +Locks so grey did never grow but from out some ashes! But do I look +very old, so very, very old, Starbuck? I feel deadly faint, bowed, and +humped, as though I were Adam, staggering beneath the piled +centuries since Paradise. God! God! God!--crack my heart!--stave my +brain!--mockery! mockery! bitter, biting mockery of grey hairs, have +I lived enough joy to wear ye; and seem and feel thus intolerably old? +Close! stand close to me, Starbuck; let me look into a human eye; it is +better than to gaze into sea or sky; better than to gaze upon God. By +the green land; by the bright hearth-stone! this is the magic glass, +man; I see my wife and my child in thine eye. No, no; stay on board, on +board!--lower not when I do; when branded Ahab gives chase to Moby Dick. +That hazard shall not be thine. No, no! not with the far away home I see +in that eye!" + +"Oh, my Captain! my Captain! noble soul! grand old heart, after all! why +should any one give chase to that hated fish! Away with me! let us +fly these deadly waters! let us home! Wife and child, too, are +Starbuck's--wife and child of his brotherly, sisterly, play-fellow +youth; even as thine, sir, are the wife and child of thy loving, +longing, paternal old age! Away! let us away!--this instant let me alter +the course! How cheerily, how hilariously, O my Captain, would we bowl +on our way to see old Nantucket again! I think, sir, they have some such +mild blue days, even as this, in Nantucket." + +"They have, they have. I have seen them--some summer days in the +morning. About this time--yes, it is his noon nap now--the boy +vivaciously wakes; sits up in bed; and his mother tells him of me, of +cannibal old me; how I am abroad upon the deep, but will yet come back +to dance him again." + +"'Tis my Mary, my Mary herself! She promised that my boy, every morning, +should be carried to the hill to catch the first glimpse of his father's +sail! Yes, yes! no more! it is done! we head for Nantucket! Come, my +Captain, study out the course, and let us away! See, see! the boy's face +from the window! the boy's hand on the hill!" + +But Ahab's glance was averted; like a blighted fruit tree he shook, and +cast his last, cindered apple to the soil. + +"What is it, what nameless, inscrutable, unearthly thing is it; what +cozening, hidden lord and master, and cruel, remorseless emperor +commands me; that against all natural lovings and longings, I so keep +pushing, and crowding, and jamming myself on all the time; recklessly +making me ready to do what in my own proper, natural heart, I durst not +so much as dare? Is Ahab, Ahab? Is it I, God, or who, that lifts this +arm? But if the great sun move not of himself; but is as an errand-boy +in heaven; nor one single star can revolve, but by some invisible power; +how then can this one small heart beat; this one small brain think +thoughts; unless God does that beating, does that thinking, does that +living, and not I. By heaven, man, we are turned round and round in +this world, like yonder windlass, and Fate is the handspike. And all +the time, lo! that smiling sky, and this unsounded sea! Look! see yon +Albicore! who put it into him to chase and fang that flying-fish? Where +do murderers go, man! Who's to doom, when the judge himself is dragged +to the bar? But it is a mild, mild wind, and a mild looking sky; and +the air smells now, as if it blew from a far-away meadow; they have been +making hay somewhere under the slopes of the Andes, Starbuck, and the +mowers are sleeping among the new-mown hay. Sleeping? Aye, toil we how +we may, we all sleep at last on the field. Sleep? Aye, and rust amid +greenness; as last year's scythes flung down, and left in the half-cut +swaths--Starbuck!" + +But blanched to a corpse's hue with despair, the Mate had stolen away. + +Ahab crossed the deck to gaze over on the other side; but started at +two reflected, fixed eyes in the water there. Fedallah was motionlessly +leaning over the same rail. + + + +CHAPTER 133. The Chase--First Day. + + +That night, in the mid-watch, when the old man--as his wont at +intervals--stepped forth from the scuttle in which he leaned, and went +to his pivot-hole, he suddenly thrust out his face fiercely, snuffing +up the sea air as a sagacious ship's dog will, in drawing nigh to +some barbarous isle. He declared that a whale must be near. Soon that +peculiar odor, sometimes to a great distance given forth by the +living sperm whale, was palpable to all the watch; nor was any mariner +surprised when, after inspecting the compass, and then the dog-vane, and +then ascertaining the precise bearing of the odor as nearly as possible, +Ahab rapidly ordered the ship's course to be slightly altered, and the +sail to be shortened. + +The acute policy dictating these movements was sufficiently vindicated +at daybreak, by the sight of a long sleek on the sea directly and +lengthwise ahead, smooth as oil, and resembling in the pleated watery +wrinkles bordering it, the polished metallic-like marks of some swift +tide-rip, at the mouth of a deep, rapid stream. + +"Man the mast-heads! Call all hands!" + +Thundering with the butts of three clubbed handspikes on the forecastle +deck, Daggoo roused the sleepers with such judgment claps that they +seemed to exhale from the scuttle, so instantaneously did they appear +with their clothes in their hands. + +"What d'ye see?" cried Ahab, flattening his face to the sky. + +"Nothing, nothing sir!" was the sound hailing down in reply. + +"T'gallant sails!--stunsails! alow and aloft, and on both sides!" + +All sail being set, he now cast loose the life-line, reserved for +swaying him to the main royal-mast head; and in a few moments they were +hoisting him thither, when, while but two thirds of the way aloft, +and while peering ahead through the horizontal vacancy between the +main-top-sail and top-gallant-sail, he raised a gull-like cry in the +air. "There she blows!--there she blows! A hump like a snow-hill! It is +Moby Dick!" + +Fired by the cry which seemed simultaneously taken up by the three +look-outs, the men on deck rushed to the rigging to behold the famous +whale they had so long been pursuing. Ahab had now gained his final +perch, some feet above the other look-outs, Tashtego standing just +beneath him on the cap of the top-gallant-mast, so that the Indian's +head was almost on a level with Ahab's heel. From this height the whale +was now seen some mile or so ahead, at every roll of the sea revealing +his high sparkling hump, and regularly jetting his silent spout into the +air. To the credulous mariners it seemed the same silent spout they had +so long ago beheld in the moonlit Atlantic and Indian Oceans. + +"And did none of ye see it before?" cried Ahab, hailing the perched men +all around him. + +"I saw him almost that same instant, sir, that Captain Ahab did, and I +cried out," said Tashtego. + +"Not the same instant; not the same--no, the doubloon is mine, Fate +reserved the doubloon for me. I only; none of ye could have raised the +White Whale first. There she blows!--there she blows!--there she blows! +There again!--there again!" he cried, in long-drawn, lingering, methodic +tones, attuned to the gradual prolongings of the whale's visible jets. +"He's going to sound! In stunsails! Down top-gallant-sails! Stand by +three boats. Mr. Starbuck, remember, stay on board, and keep the ship. +Helm there! Luff, luff a point! So; steady, man, steady! There go +flukes! No, no; only black water! All ready the boats there? Stand by, +stand by! Lower me, Mr. Starbuck; lower, lower,--quick, quicker!" and he +slid through the air to the deck. + +"He is heading straight to leeward, sir," cried Stubb, "right away from +us; cannot have seen the ship yet." + +"Be dumb, man! Stand by the braces! Hard down the helm!--brace up! +Shiver her!--shiver her!--So; well that! Boats, boats!" + +Soon all the boats but Starbuck's were dropped; all the boat-sails +set--all the paddles plying; with rippling swiftness, shooting to +leeward; and Ahab heading the onset. A pale, death-glimmer lit up +Fedallah's sunken eyes; a hideous motion gnawed his mouth. + +Like noiseless nautilus shells, their light prows sped through the sea; +but only slowly they neared the foe. As they neared him, the ocean grew +still more smooth; seemed drawing a carpet over its waves; seemed a +noon-meadow, so serenely it spread. At length the breathless hunter came +so nigh his seemingly unsuspecting prey, that his entire dazzling hump +was distinctly visible, sliding along the sea as if an isolated thing, +and continually set in a revolving ring of finest, fleecy, greenish +foam. He saw the vast, involved wrinkles of the slightly projecting head +beyond. Before it, far out on the soft Turkish-rugged waters, went +the glistening white shadow from his broad, milky forehead, a musical +rippling playfully accompanying the shade; and behind, the blue waters +interchangeably flowed over into the moving valley of his steady wake; +and on either hand bright bubbles arose and danced by his side. But +these were broken again by the light toes of hundreds of gay fowl softly +feathering the sea, alternate with their fitful flight; and like to +some flag-staff rising from the painted hull of an argosy, the tall but +shattered pole of a recent lance projected from the white whale's back; +and at intervals one of the cloud of soft-toed fowls hovering, and +to and fro skimming like a canopy over the fish, silently perched and +rocked on this pole, the long tail feathers streaming like pennons. + +A gentle joyousness--a mighty mildness of repose in swiftness, invested +the gliding whale. Not the white bull Jupiter swimming away with +ravished Europa clinging to his graceful horns; his lovely, leering +eyes sideways intent upon the maid; with smooth bewitching fleetness, +rippling straight for the nuptial bower in Crete; not Jove, not that +great majesty Supreme! did surpass the glorified White Whale as he so +divinely swam. + +On each soft side--coincident with the parted swell, that but once +leaving him, then flowed so wide away--on each bright side, the whale +shed off enticings. No wonder there had been some among the hunters who +namelessly transported and allured by all this serenity, had ventured +to assail it; but had fatally found that quietude but the vesture of +tornadoes. Yet calm, enticing calm, oh, whale! thou glidest on, to all +who for the first time eye thee, no matter how many in that same way +thou may'st have bejuggled and destroyed before. + +And thus, through the serene tranquillities of the tropical sea, among +waves whose hand-clappings were suspended by exceeding rapture, Moby +Dick moved on, still withholding from sight the full terrors of his +submerged trunk, entirely hiding the wrenched hideousness of his jaw. +But soon the fore part of him slowly rose from the water; for an instant +his whole marbleized body formed a high arch, like Virginia's Natural +Bridge, and warningly waving his bannered flukes in the air, the +grand god revealed himself, sounded, and went out of sight. Hoveringly +halting, and dipping on the wing, the white sea-fowls longingly lingered +over the agitated pool that he left. + +With oars apeak, and paddles down, the sheets of their sails adrift, the +three boats now stilly floated, awaiting Moby Dick's reappearance. + +"An hour," said Ahab, standing rooted in his boat's stern; and he gazed +beyond the whale's place, towards the dim blue spaces and wide wooing +vacancies to leeward. It was only an instant; for again his eyes seemed +whirling round in his head as he swept the watery circle. The breeze now +freshened; the sea began to swell. + +"The birds!--the birds!" cried Tashtego. + +In long Indian file, as when herons take wing, the white birds were +now all flying towards Ahab's boat; and when within a few yards began +fluttering over the water there, wheeling round and round, with joyous, +expectant cries. Their vision was keener than man's; Ahab could discover +no sign in the sea. But suddenly as he peered down and down into its +depths, he profoundly saw a white living spot no bigger than a white +weasel, with wonderful celerity uprising, and magnifying as it rose, +till it turned, and then there were plainly revealed two long crooked +rows of white, glistening teeth, floating up from the undiscoverable +bottom. It was Moby Dick's open mouth and scrolled jaw; his vast, +shadowed bulk still half blending with the blue of the sea. The +glittering mouth yawned beneath the boat like an open-doored marble +tomb; and giving one sidelong sweep with his steering oar, Ahab whirled +the craft aside from this tremendous apparition. Then, calling upon +Fedallah to change places with him, went forward to the bows, and +seizing Perth's harpoon, commanded his crew to grasp their oars and +stand by to stern. + +Now, by reason of this timely spinning round the boat upon its axis, its +bow, by anticipation, was made to face the whale's head while yet +under water. But as if perceiving this stratagem, Moby Dick, with that +malicious intelligence ascribed to him, sidelingly transplanted himself, +as it were, in an instant, shooting his pleated head lengthwise beneath +the boat. + +Through and through; through every plank and each rib, it thrilled for +an instant, the whale obliquely lying on his back, in the manner of +a biting shark, slowly and feelingly taking its bows full within his +mouth, so that the long, narrow, scrolled lower jaw curled high up into +the open air, and one of the teeth caught in a row-lock. The bluish +pearl-white of the inside of the jaw was within six inches of Ahab's +head, and reached higher than that. In this attitude the White Whale +now shook the slight cedar as a mildly cruel cat her mouse. With +unastonished eyes Fedallah gazed, and crossed his arms; but the +tiger-yellow crew were tumbling over each other's heads to gain the +uttermost stern. + +And now, while both elastic gunwales were springing in and out, as the +whale dallied with the doomed craft in this devilish way; and from his +body being submerged beneath the boat, he could not be darted at from +the bows, for the bows were almost inside of him, as it were; and +while the other boats involuntarily paused, as before a quick crisis +impossible to withstand, then it was that monomaniac Ahab, furious with +this tantalizing vicinity of his foe, which placed him all alive and +helpless in the very jaws he hated; frenzied with all this, he seized +the long bone with his naked hands, and wildly strove to wrench it from +its gripe. As now he thus vainly strove, the jaw slipped from him; the +frail gunwales bent in, collapsed, and snapped, as both jaws, like an +enormous shears, sliding further aft, bit the craft completely in twain, +and locked themselves fast again in the sea, midway between the two +floating wrecks. These floated aside, the broken ends drooping, the crew +at the stern-wreck clinging to the gunwales, and striving to hold fast +to the oars to lash them across. + +At that preluding moment, ere the boat was yet snapped, Ahab, the first +to perceive the whale's intent, by the crafty upraising of his head, a +movement that loosed his hold for the time; at that moment his hand +had made one final effort to push the boat out of the bite. But only +slipping further into the whale's mouth, and tilting over sideways as it +slipped, the boat had shaken off his hold on the jaw; spilled him out of +it, as he leaned to the push; and so he fell flat-faced upon the sea. + +Ripplingly withdrawing from his prey, Moby Dick now lay at a little +distance, vertically thrusting his oblong white head up and down in the +billows; and at the same time slowly revolving his whole spindled body; +so that when his vast wrinkled forehead rose--some twenty or more feet +out of the water--the now rising swells, with all their confluent waves, +dazzlingly broke against it; vindictively tossing their shivered spray +still higher into the air.* So, in a gale, the but half baffled Channel +billows only recoil from the base of the Eddystone, triumphantly to +overleap its summit with their scud. + + +*This motion is peculiar to the sperm whale. It receives its designation +(pitchpoling) from its being likened to that preliminary up-and-down +poise of the whale-lance, in the exercise called pitchpoling, previously +described. By this motion the whale must best and most comprehensively +view whatever objects may be encircling him. + + +But soon resuming his horizontal attitude, Moby Dick swam swiftly round +and round the wrecked crew; sideways churning the water in his vengeful +wake, as if lashing himself up to still another and more deadly assault. +The sight of the splintered boat seemed to madden him, as the blood of +grapes and mulberries cast before Antiochus's elephants in the book +of Maccabees. Meanwhile Ahab half smothered in the foam of the whale's +insolent tail, and too much of a cripple to swim,--though he could still +keep afloat, even in the heart of such a whirlpool as that; helpless +Ahab's head was seen, like a tossed bubble which the least chance shock +might burst. From the boat's fragmentary stern, Fedallah incuriously and +mildly eyed him; the clinging crew, at the other drifting end, could not +succor him; more than enough was it for them to look to themselves. +For so revolvingly appalling was the White Whale's aspect, and so +planetarily swift the ever-contracting circles he made, that he seemed +horizontally swooping upon them. And though the other boats, unharmed, +still hovered hard by; still they dared not pull into the eddy to +strike, lest that should be the signal for the instant destruction of +the jeopardized castaways, Ahab and all; nor in that case could they +themselves hope to escape. With straining eyes, then, they remained on +the outer edge of the direful zone, whose centre had now become the old +man's head. + +Meantime, from the beginning all this had been descried from the ship's +mast heads; and squaring her yards, she had borne down upon the scene; +and was now so nigh, that Ahab in the water hailed her!--"Sail on +the"--but that moment a breaking sea dashed on him from Moby Dick, and +whelmed him for the time. But struggling out of it again, and chancing +to rise on a towering crest, he shouted,--"Sail on the whale!--Drive him +off!" + +The Pequod's prows were pointed; and breaking up the charmed circle, she +effectually parted the white whale from his victim. As he sullenly swam +off, the boats flew to the rescue. + +Dragged into Stubb's boat with blood-shot, blinded eyes, the white brine +caking in his wrinkles; the long tension of Ahab's bodily strength did +crack, and helplessly he yielded to his body's doom: for a time, lying +all crushed in the bottom of Stubb's boat, like one trodden under foot +of herds of elephants. Far inland, nameless wails came from him, as +desolate sounds from out ravines. + +But this intensity of his physical prostration did but so much the more +abbreviate it. In an instant's compass, great hearts sometimes condense +to one deep pang, the sum total of those shallow pains kindly diffused +through feebler men's whole lives. And so, such hearts, though summary +in each one suffering; still, if the gods decree it, in their +life-time aggregate a whole age of woe, wholly made up of instantaneous +intensities; for even in their pointless centres, those noble natures +contain the entire circumferences of inferior souls. + +"The harpoon," said Ahab, half way rising, and draggingly leaning on one +bended arm--"is it safe?" + +"Aye, sir, for it was not darted; this is it," said Stubb, showing it. + +"Lay it before me;--any missing men?" + +"One, two, three, four, five;--there were five oars, sir, and here are +five men." + +"That's good.--Help me, man; I wish to stand. So, so, I see him! there! +there! going to leeward still; what a leaping spout!--Hands off from me! +The eternal sap runs up in Ahab's bones again! Set the sail; out oars; +the helm!" + +It is often the case that when a boat is stove, its crew, being picked +up by another boat, help to work that second boat; and the chase is thus +continued with what is called double-banked oars. It was thus now. But +the added power of the boat did not equal the added power of the whale, +for he seemed to have treble-banked his every fin; swimming with a +velocity which plainly showed, that if now, under these circumstances, +pushed on, the chase would prove an indefinitely prolonged, if not a +hopeless one; nor could any crew endure for so long a period, such an +unintermitted, intense straining at the oar; a thing barely tolerable +only in some one brief vicissitude. The ship itself, then, as it +sometimes happens, offered the most promising intermediate means of +overtaking the chase. Accordingly, the boats now made for her, and were +soon swayed up to their cranes--the two parts of the wrecked boat having +been previously secured by her--and then hoisting everything to her +side, and stacking her canvas high up, and sideways outstretching it +with stun-sails, like the double-jointed wings of an albatross; the +Pequod bore down in the leeward wake of Moby-Dick. At the well known, +methodic intervals, the whale's glittering spout was regularly announced +from the manned mast-heads; and when he would be reported as just gone +down, Ahab would take the time, and then pacing the deck, binnacle-watch +in hand, so soon as the last second of the allotted hour expired, his +voice was heard.--"Whose is the doubloon now? D'ye see him?" and if the +reply was, No, sir! straightway he commanded them to lift him to his +perch. In this way the day wore on; Ahab, now aloft and motionless; +anon, unrestingly pacing the planks. + +As he was thus walking, uttering no sound, except to hail the men aloft, +or to bid them hoist a sail still higher, or to spread one to a still +greater breadth--thus to and fro pacing, beneath his slouched hat, at +every turn he passed his own wrecked boat, which had been dropped upon +the quarter-deck, and lay there reversed; broken bow to shattered stern. +At last he paused before it; and as in an already over-clouded sky fresh +troops of clouds will sometimes sail across, so over the old man's face +there now stole some such added gloom as this. + +Stubb saw him pause; and perhaps intending, not vainly, though, to +evince his own unabated fortitude, and thus keep up a valiant place in +his Captain's mind, he advanced, and eyeing the wreck exclaimed--"The +thistle the ass refused; it pricked his mouth too keenly, sir; ha! ha!" + +"What soulless thing is this that laughs before a wreck? Man, man! did +I not know thee brave as fearless fire (and as mechanical) I could swear +thou wert a poltroon. Groan nor laugh should be heard before a wreck." + +"Aye, sir," said Starbuck drawing near, "'tis a solemn sight; an omen, +and an ill one." + +"Omen? omen?--the dictionary! If the gods think to speak outright to +man, they will honourably speak outright; not shake their heads, and +give an old wives' darkling hint.--Begone! Ye two are the opposite poles +of one thing; Starbuck is Stubb reversed, and Stubb is Starbuck; and +ye two are all mankind; and Ahab stands alone among the millions of +the peopled earth, nor gods nor men his neighbors! Cold, cold--I +shiver!--How now? Aloft there! D'ye see him? Sing out for every spout, +though he spout ten times a second!" + +The day was nearly done; only the hem of his golden robe was rustling. +Soon, it was almost dark, but the look-out men still remained unset. + +"Can't see the spout now, sir;--too dark"--cried a voice from the air. + +"How heading when last seen?" + +"As before, sir,--straight to leeward." + +"Good! he will travel slower now 'tis night. Down royals and top-gallant +stun-sails, Mr. Starbuck. We must not run over him before morning; he's +making a passage now, and may heave-to a while. Helm there! keep her +full before the wind!--Aloft! come down!--Mr. Stubb, send a fresh hand +to the fore-mast head, and see it manned till morning."--Then advancing +towards the doubloon in the main-mast--"Men, this gold is mine, for I +earned it; but I shall let it abide here till the White Whale is dead; +and then, whosoever of ye first raises him, upon the day he shall be +killed, this gold is that man's; and if on that day I shall again raise +him, then, ten times its sum shall be divided among all of ye! Away +now!--the deck is thine, sir!" + +And so saying, he placed himself half way within the scuttle, and +slouching his hat, stood there till dawn, except when at intervals +rousing himself to see how the night wore on. + + + +CHAPTER 134. The Chase--Second Day. + + +At day-break, the three mast-heads were punctually manned afresh. + +"D'ye see him?" cried Ahab after allowing a little space for the light +to spread. + +"See nothing, sir." + +"Turn up all hands and make sail! he travels faster than I thought +for;--the top-gallant sails!--aye, they should have been kept on her all +night. But no matter--'tis but resting for the rush." + +Here be it said, that this pertinacious pursuit of one particular whale, +continued through day into night, and through night into day, is a thing +by no means unprecedented in the South sea fishery. For such is the +wonderful skill, prescience of experience, and invincible confidence +acquired by some great natural geniuses among the Nantucket commanders; +that from the simple observation of a whale when last descried, they +will, under certain given circumstances, pretty accurately foretell both +the direction in which he will continue to swim for a time, while out of +sight, as well as his probable rate of progression during that period. +And, in these cases, somewhat as a pilot, when about losing sight of +a coast, whose general trending he well knows, and which he desires +shortly to return to again, but at some further point; like as this +pilot stands by his compass, and takes the precise bearing of the +cape at present visible, in order the more certainly to hit aright +the remote, unseen headland, eventually to be visited: so does the +fisherman, at his compass, with the whale; for after being chased, and +diligently marked, through several hours of daylight, then, when night +obscures the fish, the creature's future wake through the darkness +is almost as established to the sagacious mind of the hunter, as the +pilot's coast is to him. So that to this hunter's wondrous skill, the +proverbial evanescence of a thing writ in water, a wake, is to all +desired purposes well nigh as reliable as the steadfast land. And as the +mighty iron Leviathan of the modern railway is so familiarly known in +its every pace, that, with watches in their hands, men time his rate as +doctors that of a baby's pulse; and lightly say of it, the up train or +the down train will reach such or such a spot, at such or such an hour; +even so, almost, there are occasions when these Nantucketers time that +other Leviathan of the deep, according to the observed humor of his +speed; and say to themselves, so many hours hence this whale will have +gone two hundred miles, will have about reached this or that degree of +latitude or longitude. But to render this acuteness at all successful in +the end, the wind and the sea must be the whaleman's allies; for of what +present avail to the becalmed or windbound mariner is the skill that +assures him he is exactly ninety-three leagues and a quarter from his +port? Inferable from these statements, are many collateral subtile +matters touching the chase of whales. + +The ship tore on; leaving such a furrow in the sea as when a +cannon-ball, missent, becomes a plough-share and turns up the level +field. + +"By salt and hemp!" cried Stubb, "but this swift motion of the deck +creeps up one's legs and tingles at the heart. This ship and I are two +brave fellows!--Ha, ha! Some one take me up, and launch me, spine-wise, +on the sea,--for by live-oaks! my spine's a keel. Ha, ha! we go the gait +that leaves no dust behind!" + +"There she blows--she blows!--she blows!--right ahead!" was now the +mast-head cry. + +"Aye, aye!" cried Stubb, "I knew it--ye can't escape--blow on and +split your spout, O whale! the mad fiend himself is after ye! blow your +trump--blister your lungs!--Ahab will dam off your blood, as a miller +shuts his watergate upon the stream!" + +And Stubb did but speak out for well nigh all that crew. The frenzies +of the chase had by this time worked them bubblingly up, like old wine +worked anew. Whatever pale fears and forebodings some of them might +have felt before; these were not only now kept out of sight through the +growing awe of Ahab, but they were broken up, and on all sides routed, +as timid prairie hares that scatter before the bounding bison. The hand +of Fate had snatched all their souls; and by the stirring perils of +the previous day; the rack of the past night's suspense; the fixed, +unfearing, blind, reckless way in which their wild craft went plunging +towards its flying mark; by all these things, their hearts were bowled +along. The wind that made great bellies of their sails, and rushed the +vessel on by arms invisible as irresistible; this seemed the symbol of +that unseen agency which so enslaved them to the race. + +They were one man, not thirty. For as the one ship that held them all; +though it was put together of all contrasting things--oak, and maple, +and pine wood; iron, and pitch, and hemp--yet all these ran into each +other in the one concrete hull, which shot on its way, both balanced and +directed by the long central keel; even so, all the individualities of +the crew, this man's valor, that man's fear; guilt and guiltiness, all +varieties were welded into oneness, and were all directed to that fatal +goal which Ahab their one lord and keel did point to. + +The rigging lived. The mast-heads, like the tops of tall palms, were +outspreadingly tufted with arms and legs. Clinging to a spar with one +hand, some reached forth the other with impatient wavings; others, +shading their eyes from the vivid sunlight, sat far out on the rocking +yards; all the spars in full bearing of mortals, ready and ripe for +their fate. Ah! how they still strove through that infinite blueness to +seek out the thing that might destroy them! + +"Why sing ye not out for him, if ye see him?" cried Ahab, when, after +the lapse of some minutes since the first cry, no more had been heard. +"Sway me up, men; ye have been deceived; not Moby Dick casts one odd jet +that way, and then disappears." + +It was even so; in their headlong eagerness, the men had mistaken some +other thing for the whale-spout, as the event itself soon proved; for +hardly had Ahab reached his perch; hardly was the rope belayed to its +pin on deck, when he struck the key-note to an orchestra, that made the +air vibrate as with the combined discharges of rifles. The triumphant +halloo of thirty buckskin lungs was heard, as--much nearer to the ship +than the place of the imaginary jet, less than a mile ahead--Moby Dick +bodily burst into view! For not by any calm and indolent spoutings; not +by the peaceable gush of that mystic fountain in his head, did the White +Whale now reveal his vicinity; but by the far more wondrous phenomenon +of breaching. Rising with his utmost velocity from the furthest depths, +the Sperm Whale thus booms his entire bulk into the pure element of +air, and piling up a mountain of dazzling foam, shows his place to the +distance of seven miles and more. In those moments, the torn, enraged +waves he shakes off, seem his mane; in some cases, this breaching is his +act of defiance. + +"There she breaches! there she breaches!" was the cry, as in his +immeasurable bravadoes the White Whale tossed himself salmon-like to +Heaven. So suddenly seen in the blue plain of the sea, and relieved +against the still bluer margin of the sky, the spray that he raised, for +the moment, intolerably glittered and glared like a glacier; and +stood there gradually fading and fading away from its first sparkling +intensity, to the dim mistiness of an advancing shower in a vale. + +"Aye, breach your last to the sun, Moby Dick!" cried Ahab, "thy hour and +thy harpoon are at hand!--Down! down all of ye, but one man at the fore. +The boats!--stand by!" + +Unmindful of the tedious rope-ladders of the shrouds, the men, like +shooting stars, slid to the deck, by the isolated backstays and +halyards; while Ahab, less dartingly, but still rapidly was dropped from +his perch. + +"Lower away," he cried, so soon as he had reached his boat--a spare one, +rigged the afternoon previous. "Mr. Starbuck, the ship is thine--keep +away from the boats, but keep near them. Lower, all!" + +As if to strike a quick terror into them, by this time being the first +assailant himself, Moby Dick had turned, and was now coming for the +three crews. Ahab's boat was central; and cheering his men, he told them +he would take the whale head-and-head,--that is, pull straight up to his +forehead,--a not uncommon thing; for when within a certain limit, such +a course excludes the coming onset from the whale's sidelong vision. +But ere that close limit was gained, and while yet all three boats were +plain as the ship's three masts to his eye; the White Whale churning +himself into furious speed, almost in an instant as it were, rushing +among the boats with open jaws, and a lashing tail, offered appalling +battle on every side; and heedless of the irons darted at him from every +boat, seemed only intent on annihilating each separate plank of which +those boats were made. But skilfully manoeuvred, incessantly wheeling +like trained chargers in the field; the boats for a while eluded him; +though, at times, but by a plank's breadth; while all the time, Ahab's +unearthly slogan tore every other cry but his to shreds. + +But at last in his untraceable evolutions, the White Whale so crossed +and recrossed, and in a thousand ways entangled the slack of the three +lines now fast to him, that they foreshortened, and, of themselves, +warped the devoted boats towards the planted irons in him; though now +for a moment the whale drew aside a little, as if to rally for a more +tremendous charge. Seizing that opportunity, Ahab first paid out more +line: and then was rapidly hauling and jerking in upon it again--hoping +that way to disencumber it of some snarls--when lo!--a sight more savage +than the embattled teeth of sharks! + +Caught and twisted--corkscrewed in the mazes of the line, loose harpoons +and lances, with all their bristling barbs and points, came flashing +and dripping up to the chocks in the bows of Ahab's boat. Only one +thing could be done. Seizing the boat-knife, he critically reached +within--through--and then, without--the rays of steel; dragged in +the line beyond, passed it, inboard, to the bowsman, and then, twice +sundering the rope near the chocks--dropped the intercepted fagot of +steel into the sea; and was all fast again. That instant, the White +Whale made a sudden rush among the remaining tangles of the other lines; +by so doing, irresistibly dragged the more involved boats of Stubb and +Flask towards his flukes; dashed them together like two rolling husks on +a surf-beaten beach, and then, diving down into the sea, disappeared in +a boiling maelstrom, in which, for a space, the odorous cedar chips of +the wrecks danced round and round, like the grated nutmeg in a swiftly +stirred bowl of punch. + +While the two crews were yet circling in the waters, reaching out after +the revolving line-tubs, oars, and other floating furniture, while +aslope little Flask bobbed up and down like an empty vial, twitching his +legs upwards to escape the dreaded jaws of sharks; and Stubb was lustily +singing out for some one to ladle him up; and while the old man's +line--now parting--admitted of his pulling into the creamy pool to +rescue whom he could;--in that wild simultaneousness of a thousand +concreted perils,--Ahab's yet unstricken boat seemed drawn up towards +Heaven by invisible wires,--as, arrow-like, shooting perpendicularly +from the sea, the White Whale dashed his broad forehead against its +bottom, and sent it, turning over and over, into the air; till it fell +again--gunwale downwards--and Ahab and his men struggled out from under +it, like seals from a sea-side cave. + +The first uprising momentum of the whale--modifying its direction as +he struck the surface--involuntarily launched him along it, to a little +distance from the centre of the destruction he had made; and with his +back to it, he now lay for a moment slowly feeling with his flukes from +side to side; and whenever a stray oar, bit of plank, the least chip +or crumb of the boats touched his skin, his tail swiftly drew back, and +came sideways smiting the sea. But soon, as if satisfied that his work +for that time was done, he pushed his pleated forehead through the +ocean, and trailing after him the intertangled lines, continued his +leeward way at a traveller's methodic pace. + +As before, the attentive ship having descried the whole fight, again +came bearing down to the rescue, and dropping a boat, picked up the +floating mariners, tubs, oars, and whatever else could be caught at, and +safely landed them on her decks. Some sprained shoulders, wrists, and +ankles; livid contusions; wrenched harpoons and lances; inextricable +intricacies of rope; shattered oars and planks; all these were there; +but no fatal or even serious ill seemed to have befallen any one. As +with Fedallah the day before, so Ahab was now found grimly clinging to +his boat's broken half, which afforded a comparatively easy float; nor +did it so exhaust him as the previous day's mishap. + +But when he was helped to the deck, all eyes were fastened upon him; as +instead of standing by himself he still half-hung upon the shoulder of +Starbuck, who had thus far been the foremost to assist him. His ivory +leg had been snapped off, leaving but one short sharp splinter. + +"Aye, aye, Starbuck, 'tis sweet to lean sometimes, be the leaner who he +will; and would old Ahab had leaned oftener than he has." + +"The ferrule has not stood, sir," said the carpenter, now coming up; "I +put good work into that leg." + +"But no bones broken, sir, I hope," said Stubb with true concern. + +"Aye! and all splintered to pieces, Stubb!--d'ye see it.--But even with +a broken bone, old Ahab is untouched; and I account no living bone of +mine one jot more me, than this dead one that's lost. Nor white whale, +nor man, nor fiend, can so much as graze old Ahab in his own proper and +inaccessible being. Can any lead touch yonder floor, any mast scrape +yonder roof?--Aloft there! which way?" + +"Dead to leeward, sir." + +"Up helm, then; pile on the sail again, ship keepers! down the rest of +the spare boats and rig them--Mr. Starbuck away, and muster the boat's +crews." + +"Let me first help thee towards the bulwarks, sir." + +"Oh, oh, oh! how this splinter gores me now! Accursed fate! that the +unconquerable captain in the soul should have such a craven mate!" + +"Sir?" + +"My body, man, not thee. Give me something for a cane--there, that +shivered lance will do. Muster the men. Surely I have not seen him yet. +By heaven it cannot be!--missing?--quick! call them all." + +The old man's hinted thought was true. Upon mustering the company, the +Parsee was not there. + +"The Parsee!" cried Stubb--"he must have been caught in--" + +"The black vomit wrench thee!--run all of ye above, alow, cabin, +forecastle--find him--not gone--not gone!" + +But quickly they returned to him with the tidings that the Parsee was +nowhere to be found. + +"Aye, sir," said Stubb--"caught among the tangles of your line--I +thought I saw him dragging under." + +"MY line! MY line? Gone?--gone? What means that little word?--What +death-knell rings in it, that old Ahab shakes as if he were the belfry. +The harpoon, too!--toss over the litter there,--d'ye see it?--the forged +iron, men, the white whale's--no, no, no,--blistered fool! this hand did +dart it!--'tis in the fish!--Aloft there! Keep him nailed--Quick!--all +hands to the rigging of the boats--collect the oars--harpooneers! +the irons, the irons!--hoist the royals higher--a pull on all the +sheets!--helm there! steady, steady for your life! I'll ten times girdle +the unmeasured globe; yea and dive straight through it, but I'll slay +him yet!" + +"Great God! but for one single instant show thyself," cried Starbuck; +"never, never wilt thou capture him, old man--In Jesus' name no more of +this, that's worse than devil's madness. Two days chased; twice stove +to splinters; thy very leg once more snatched from under thee; thy evil +shadow gone--all good angels mobbing thee with warnings:-- + +"What more wouldst thou have?--Shall we keep chasing this murderous fish +till he swamps the last man? Shall we be dragged by him to the bottom +of the sea? Shall we be towed by him to the infernal world? Oh, +oh,--Impiety and blasphemy to hunt him more!" + +"Starbuck, of late I've felt strangely moved to thee; ever since that +hour we both saw--thou know'st what, in one another's eyes. But in this +matter of the whale, be the front of thy face to me as the palm of this +hand--a lipless, unfeatured blank. Ahab is for ever Ahab, man. This +whole act's immutably decreed. 'Twas rehearsed by thee and me a billion +years before this ocean rolled. Fool! I am the Fates' lieutenant; I act +under orders. Look thou, underling! that thou obeyest mine.--Stand round +me, men. Ye see an old man cut down to the stump; leaning on a shivered +lance; propped up on a lonely foot. 'Tis Ahab--his body's part; but +Ahab's soul's a centipede, that moves upon a hundred legs. I feel +strained, half stranded, as ropes that tow dismasted frigates in a gale; +and I may look so. But ere I break, ye'll hear me crack; and till ye hear +THAT, know that Ahab's hawser tows his purpose yet. Believe ye, men, in +the things called omens? Then laugh aloud, and cry encore! For ere they +drown, drowning things will twice rise to the surface; then rise again, +to sink for evermore. So with Moby Dick--two days he's floated--tomorrow +will be the third. Aye, men, he'll rise once more,--but only to spout +his last! D'ye feel brave men, brave?" + +"As fearless fire," cried Stubb. + +"And as mechanical," muttered Ahab. Then as the men went forward, he +muttered on: "The things called omens! And yesterday I talked the same +to Starbuck there, concerning my broken boat. Oh! how valiantly I seek +to drive out of others' hearts what's clinched so fast in mine!--The +Parsee--the Parsee!--gone, gone? and he was to go before:--but still was +to be seen again ere I could perish--How's that?--There's a riddle now +might baffle all the lawyers backed by the ghosts of the whole line +of judges:--like a hawk's beak it pecks my brain. I'LL, I'LL solve it, +though!" + +When dusk descended, the whale was still in sight to leeward. + +So once more the sail was shortened, and everything passed nearly as +on the previous night; only, the sound of hammers, and the hum of the +grindstone was heard till nearly daylight, as the men toiled by lanterns +in the complete and careful rigging of the spare boats and sharpening +their fresh weapons for the morrow. Meantime, of the broken keel of +Ahab's wrecked craft the carpenter made him another leg; while still as +on the night before, slouched Ahab stood fixed within his scuttle; his +hid, heliotrope glance anticipatingly gone backward on its dial; sat due +eastward for the earliest sun. + + + +CHAPTER 135. The Chase.--Third Day. + + +The morning of the third day dawned fair and fresh, and once more the +solitary night-man at the fore-mast-head was relieved by crowds of the +daylight look-outs, who dotted every mast and almost every spar. + +"D'ye see him?" cried Ahab; but the whale was not yet in sight. + +"In his infallible wake, though; but follow that wake, that's all. Helm +there; steady, as thou goest, and hast been going. What a lovely day +again! were it a new-made world, and made for a summer-house to the +angels, and this morning the first of its throwing open to them, a +fairer day could not dawn upon that world. Here's food for thought, had +Ahab time to think; but Ahab never thinks; he only feels, feels, feels; +THAT'S tingling enough for mortal man! to think's audacity. God only has +that right and privilege. Thinking is, or ought to be, a coolness and a +calmness; and our poor hearts throb, and our poor brains beat too much +for that. And yet, I've sometimes thought my brain was very calm--frozen +calm, this old skull cracks so, like a glass in which the contents +turned to ice, and shiver it. And still this hair is growing now; this +moment growing, and heat must breed it; but no, it's like that sort +of common grass that will grow anywhere, between the earthy clefts of +Greenland ice or in Vesuvius lava. How the wild winds blow it; they whip +it about me as the torn shreds of split sails lash the tossed ship they +cling to. A vile wind that has no doubt blown ere this through prison +corridors and cells, and wards of hospitals, and ventilated them, and +now comes blowing hither as innocent as fleeces. Out upon it!--it's +tainted. Were I the wind, I'd blow no more on such a wicked, miserable +world. I'd crawl somewhere to a cave, and slink there. And yet, 'tis a +noble and heroic thing, the wind! who ever conquered it? In every fight +it has the last and bitterest blow. Run tilting at it, and you but run +through it. Ha! a coward wind that strikes stark naked men, but will not +stand to receive a single blow. Even Ahab is a braver thing--a nobler +thing than THAT. Would now the wind but had a body; but all the things +that most exasperate and outrage mortal man, all these things are +bodiless, but only bodiless as objects, not as agents. There's a most +special, a most cunning, oh, a most malicious difference! And yet, I +say again, and swear it now, that there's something all glorious and +gracious in the wind. These warm Trade Winds, at least, that in the +clear heavens blow straight on, in strong and steadfast, vigorous +mildness; and veer not from their mark, however the baser currents of +the sea may turn and tack, and mightiest Mississippies of the land swift +and swerve about, uncertain where to go at last. And by the eternal +Poles! these same Trades that so directly blow my good ship on; these +Trades, or something like them--something so unchangeable, and full as +strong, blow my keeled soul along! To it! Aloft there! What d'ye see?" + +"Nothing, sir." + +"Nothing! and noon at hand! The doubloon goes a-begging! See the sun! +Aye, aye, it must be so. I've oversailed him. How, got the start? Aye, +he's chasing ME now; not I, HIM--that's bad; I might have known it, too. +Fool! the lines--the harpoons he's towing. Aye, aye, I have run him by +last night. About! about! Come down, all of ye, but the regular look +outs! Man the braces!" + +Steering as she had done, the wind had been somewhat on the Pequod's +quarter, so that now being pointed in the reverse direction, the braced +ship sailed hard upon the breeze as she rechurned the cream in her own +white wake. + +"Against the wind he now steers for the open jaw," murmured Starbuck to +himself, as he coiled the new-hauled main-brace upon the rail. "God keep +us, but already my bones feel damp within me, and from the inside wet my +flesh. I misdoubt me that I disobey my God in obeying him!" + +"Stand by to sway me up!" cried Ahab, advancing to the hempen basket. +"We should meet him soon." + +"Aye, aye, sir," and straightway Starbuck did Ahab's bidding, and once +more Ahab swung on high. + +A whole hour now passed; gold-beaten out to ages. Time itself now held +long breaths with keen suspense. But at last, some three points off the +weather bow, Ahab descried the spout again, and instantly from the three +mast-heads three shrieks went up as if the tongues of fire had voiced +it. + +"Forehead to forehead I meet thee, this third time, Moby Dick! On deck +there!--brace sharper up; crowd her into the wind's eye. He's too +far off to lower yet, Mr. Starbuck. The sails shake! Stand over that +helmsman with a top-maul! So, so; he travels fast, and I must down. But +let me have one more good round look aloft here at the sea; there's +time for that. An old, old sight, and yet somehow so young; aye, and +not changed a wink since I first saw it, a boy, from the sand-hills of +Nantucket! The same!--the same!--the same to Noah as to me. There's +a soft shower to leeward. Such lovely leewardings! They must lead +somewhere--to something else than common land, more palmy than the +palms. Leeward! the white whale goes that way; look to windward, +then; the better if the bitterer quarter. But good bye, good bye, old +mast-head! What's this?--green? aye, tiny mosses in these warped cracks. +No such green weather stains on Ahab's head! There's the difference now +between man's old age and matter's. But aye, old mast, we both grow old +together; sound in our hulls, though, are we not, my ship? Aye, minus +a leg, that's all. By heaven this dead wood has the better of my live +flesh every way. I can't compare with it; and I've known some ships made +of dead trees outlast the lives of men made of the most vital stuff of +vital fathers. What's that he said? he should still go before me, my +pilot; and yet to be seen again? But where? Will I have eyes at the +bottom of the sea, supposing I descend those endless stairs? and all +night I've been sailing from him, wherever he did sink to. Aye, aye, +like many more thou told'st direful truth as touching thyself, O Parsee; +but, Ahab, there thy shot fell short. Good-bye, mast-head--keep a good +eye upon the whale, the while I'm gone. We'll talk to-morrow, nay, +to-night, when the white whale lies down there, tied by head and tail." + +He gave the word; and still gazing round him, was steadily lowered +through the cloven blue air to the deck. + +In due time the boats were lowered; but as standing in his shallop's +stern, Ahab just hovered upon the point of the descent, he waved to the +mate,--who held one of the tackle-ropes on deck--and bade him pause. + +"Starbuck!" + +"Sir?" + +"For the third time my soul's ship starts upon this voyage, Starbuck." + +"Aye, sir, thou wilt have it so." + +"Some ships sail from their ports, and ever afterwards are missing, +Starbuck!" + +"Truth, sir: saddest truth." + +"Some men die at ebb tide; some at low water; some at the full of +the flood;--and I feel now like a billow that's all one crested comb, +Starbuck. I am old;--shake hands with me, man." + +Their hands met; their eyes fastened; Starbuck's tears the glue. + +"Oh, my captain, my captain!--noble heart--go not--go not!--see, it's a +brave man that weeps; how great the agony of the persuasion then!" + +"Lower away!"--cried Ahab, tossing the mate's arm from him. "Stand by +the crew!" + +In an instant the boat was pulling round close under the stern. + +"The sharks! the sharks!" cried a voice from the low cabin-window there; +"O master, my master, come back!" + +But Ahab heard nothing; for his own voice was high-lifted then; and the +boat leaped on. + +Yet the voice spake true; for scarce had he pushed from the ship, when +numbers of sharks, seemingly rising from out the dark waters beneath +the hull, maliciously snapped at the blades of the oars, every time they +dipped in the water; and in this way accompanied the boat with their +bites. It is a thing not uncommonly happening to the whale-boats in +those swarming seas; the sharks at times apparently following them in +the same prescient way that vultures hover over the banners of marching +regiments in the east. But these were the first sharks that had been +observed by the Pequod since the White Whale had been first descried; +and whether it was that Ahab's crew were all such tiger-yellow +barbarians, and therefore their flesh more musky to the senses of the +sharks--a matter sometimes well known to affect them,--however it was, +they seemed to follow that one boat without molesting the others. + +"Heart of wrought steel!" murmured Starbuck gazing over the side, and +following with his eyes the receding boat--"canst thou yet ring boldly +to that sight?--lowering thy keel among ravening sharks, and followed by +them, open-mouthed to the chase; and this the critical third day?--For +when three days flow together in one continuous intense pursuit; be sure +the first is the morning, the second the noon, and the third the evening +and the end of that thing--be that end what it may. Oh! my God! what +is this that shoots through me, and leaves me so deadly calm, yet +expectant,--fixed at the top of a shudder! Future things swim before me, +as in empty outlines and skeletons; all the past is somehow grown dim. +Mary, girl! thou fadest in pale glories behind me; boy! I seem to +see but thy eyes grown wondrous blue. Strangest problems of life seem +clearing; but clouds sweep between--Is my journey's end coming? My legs +feel faint; like his who has footed it all day. Feel thy heart,--beats +it yet? Stir thyself, Starbuck!--stave it off--move, move! +speak aloud!--Mast-head there! See ye my boy's hand on the +hill?--Crazed;--aloft there!--keep thy keenest eye upon the boats:-- + +"Mark well the whale!--Ho! again!--drive off that hawk! see! he pecks--he +tears the vane"--pointing to the red flag flying at the main-truck--"Ha! +he soars away with it!--Where's the old man now? see'st thou that sight, +oh Ahab!--shudder, shudder!" + +The boats had not gone very far, when by a signal from the mast-heads--a +downward pointed arm, Ahab knew that the whale had sounded; but +intending to be near him at the next rising, he held on his way a little +sideways from the vessel; the becharmed crew maintaining the profoundest +silence, as the head-beat waves hammered and hammered against the +opposing bow. + +"Drive, drive in your nails, oh ye waves! to their uttermost heads +drive them in! ye but strike a thing without a lid; and no coffin and no +hearse can be mine:--and hemp only can kill me! Ha! ha!" + +Suddenly the waters around them slowly swelled in broad circles; then +quickly upheaved, as if sideways sliding from a submerged berg of +ice, swiftly rising to the surface. A low rumbling sound was heard; a +subterraneous hum; and then all held their breaths; as bedraggled with +trailing ropes, and harpoons, and lances, a vast form shot lengthwise, +but obliquely from the sea. Shrouded in a thin drooping veil of mist, it +hovered for a moment in the rainbowed air; and then fell swamping back +into the deep. Crushed thirty feet upwards, the waters flashed for +an instant like heaps of fountains, then brokenly sank in a shower of +flakes, leaving the circling surface creamed like new milk round the +marble trunk of the whale. + +"Give way!" cried Ahab to the oarsmen, and the boats darted forward to +the attack; but maddened by yesterday's fresh irons that corroded in +him, Moby Dick seemed combinedly possessed by all the angels that fell +from heaven. The wide tiers of welded tendons overspreading his broad +white forehead, beneath the transparent skin, looked knitted together; +as head on, he came churning his tail among the boats; and once more +flailed them apart; spilling out the irons and lances from the two +mates' boats, and dashing in one side of the upper part of their bows, +but leaving Ahab's almost without a scar. + +While Daggoo and Queequeg were stopping the strained planks; and as the +whale swimming out from them, turned, and showed one entire flank as he +shot by them again; at that moment a quick cry went up. Lashed round +and round to the fish's back; pinioned in the turns upon turns in which, +during the past night, the whale had reeled the involutions of the lines +around him, the half torn body of the Parsee was seen; his sable raiment +frayed to shreds; his distended eyes turned full upon old Ahab. + +The harpoon dropped from his hand. + +"Befooled, befooled!"--drawing in a long lean breath--"Aye, Parsee! I +see thee again.--Aye, and thou goest before; and this, THIS then is the +hearse that thou didst promise. But I hold thee to the last letter of +thy word. Where is the second hearse? Away, mates, to the ship! those +boats are useless now; repair them if ye can in time, and return to +me; if not, Ahab is enough to die--Down, men! the first thing that but +offers to jump from this boat I stand in, that thing I harpoon. Ye are +not other men, but my arms and my legs; and so obey me.--Where's the +whale? gone down again?" + +But he looked too nigh the boat; for as if bent upon escaping with the +corpse he bore, and as if the particular place of the last encounter had +been but a stage in his leeward voyage, Moby Dick was now again steadily +swimming forward; and had almost passed the ship,--which thus far had +been sailing in the contrary direction to him, though for the present +her headway had been stopped. He seemed swimming with his utmost +velocity, and now only intent upon pursuing his own straight path in the +sea. + +"Oh! Ahab," cried Starbuck, "not too late is it, even now, the third +day, to desist. See! Moby Dick seeks thee not. It is thou, thou, that +madly seekest him!" + +Setting sail to the rising wind, the lonely boat was swiftly impelled to +leeward, by both oars and canvas. And at last when Ahab was sliding +by the vessel, so near as plainly to distinguish Starbuck's face as he +leaned over the rail, he hailed him to turn the vessel about, and follow +him, not too swiftly, at a judicious interval. Glancing upwards, he +saw Tashtego, Queequeg, and Daggoo, eagerly mounting to the three +mast-heads; while the oarsmen were rocking in the two staved boats +which had but just been hoisted to the side, and were busily at work in +repairing them. One after the other, through the port-holes, as he sped, +he also caught flying glimpses of Stubb and Flask, busying themselves +on deck among bundles of new irons and lances. As he saw all this; as he +heard the hammers in the broken boats; far other hammers seemed driving +a nail into his heart. But he rallied. And now marking that the vane or +flag was gone from the main-mast-head, he shouted to Tashtego, who had +just gained that perch, to descend again for another flag, and a hammer +and nails, and so nail it to the mast. + +Whether fagged by the three days' running chase, and the resistance +to his swimming in the knotted hamper he bore; or whether it was some +latent deceitfulness and malice in him: whichever was true, the White +Whale's way now began to abate, as it seemed, from the boat so rapidly +nearing him once more; though indeed the whale's last start had not been +so long a one as before. And still as Ahab glided over the waves the +unpitying sharks accompanied him; and so pertinaciously stuck to the +boat; and so continually bit at the plying oars, that the blades became +jagged and crunched, and left small splinters in the sea, at almost +every dip. + +"Heed them not! those teeth but give new rowlocks to your oars. Pull on! +'tis the better rest, the shark's jaw than the yielding water." + +"But at every bite, sir, the thin blades grow smaller and smaller!" + +"They will last long enough! pull on!--But who can tell"--he +muttered--"whether these sharks swim to feast on the whale or on +Ahab?--But pull on! Aye, all alive, now--we near him. The helm! take the +helm! let me pass,"--and so saying two of the oarsmen helped him forward +to the bows of the still flying boat. + +At length as the craft was cast to one side, and ran ranging along +with the White Whale's flank, he seemed strangely oblivious of its +advance--as the whale sometimes will--and Ahab was fairly within the +smoky mountain mist, which, thrown off from the whale's spout, curled +round his great, Monadnock hump; he was even thus close to him; when, +with body arched back, and both arms lengthwise high-lifted to the +poise, he darted his fierce iron, and his far fiercer curse into the +hated whale. As both steel and curse sank to the socket, as if sucked +into a morass, Moby Dick sideways writhed; spasmodically rolled his nigh +flank against the bow, and, without staving a hole in it, so suddenly +canted the boat over, that had it not been for the elevated part of the +gunwale to which he then clung, Ahab would once more have been tossed +into the sea. As it was, three of the oarsmen--who foreknew not the +precise instant of the dart, and were therefore unprepared for its +effects--these were flung out; but so fell, that, in an instant two of +them clutched the gunwale again, and rising to its level on a combing +wave, hurled themselves bodily inboard again; the third man helplessly +dropping astern, but still afloat and swimming. + +Almost simultaneously, with a mighty volition of ungraduated, +instantaneous swiftness, the White Whale darted through the weltering +sea. But when Ahab cried out to the steersman to take new turns with +the line, and hold it so; and commanded the crew to turn round on their +seats, and tow the boat up to the mark; the moment the treacherous line +felt that double strain and tug, it snapped in the empty air! + +"What breaks in me? Some sinew cracks!--'tis whole again; oars! oars! +Burst in upon him!" + +Hearing the tremendous rush of the sea-crashing boat, the whale wheeled +round to present his blank forehead at bay; but in that evolution, +catching sight of the nearing black hull of the ship; seemingly seeing +in it the source of all his persecutions; bethinking it--it may be--a +larger and nobler foe; of a sudden, he bore down upon its advancing +prow, smiting his jaws amid fiery showers of foam. + +Ahab staggered; his hand smote his forehead. "I grow blind; hands! +stretch out before me that I may yet grope my way. Is't night?" + +"The whale! The ship!" cried the cringing oarsmen. + +"Oars! oars! Slope downwards to thy depths, O sea, that ere it be for +ever too late, Ahab may slide this last, last time upon his mark! I see: +the ship! the ship! Dash on, my men! Will ye not save my ship?" + +But as the oarsmen violently forced their boat through the +sledge-hammering seas, the before whale-smitten bow-ends of two planks +burst through, and in an instant almost, the temporarily disabled boat +lay nearly level with the waves; its half-wading, splashing crew, trying +hard to stop the gap and bale out the pouring water. + +Meantime, for that one beholding instant, Tashtego's mast-head hammer +remained suspended in his hand; and the red flag, half-wrapping him as +with a plaid, then streamed itself straight out from him, as his own +forward-flowing heart; while Starbuck and Stubb, standing upon the +bowsprit beneath, caught sight of the down-coming monster just as soon +as he. + +"The whale, the whale! Up helm, up helm! Oh, all ye sweet powers of air, +now hug me close! Let not Starbuck die, if die he must, in a woman's +fainting fit. Up helm, I say--ye fools, the jaw! the jaw! Is this the +end of all my bursting prayers? all my life-long fidelities? Oh, Ahab, +Ahab, lo, thy work. Steady! helmsman, steady. Nay, nay! Up helm again! +He turns to meet us! Oh, his unappeasable brow drives on towards one, +whose duty tells him he cannot depart. My God, stand by me now!" + +"Stand not by me, but stand under me, whoever you are that will now help +Stubb; for Stubb, too, sticks here. I grin at thee, thou grinning whale! +Who ever helped Stubb, or kept Stubb awake, but Stubb's own unwinking +eye? And now poor Stubb goes to bed upon a mattrass that is all too +soft; would it were stuffed with brushwood! I grin at thee, thou +grinning whale! Look ye, sun, moon, and stars! I call ye assassins of +as good a fellow as ever spouted up his ghost. For all that, I would yet +ring glasses with ye, would ye but hand the cup! Oh, oh! oh, oh! thou +grinning whale, but there'll be plenty of gulping soon! Why fly ye +not, O Ahab! For me, off shoes and jacket to it; let Stubb die in +his drawers! A most mouldy and over salted death, though;--cherries! +cherries! cherries! Oh, Flask, for one red cherry ere we die!" + +"Cherries? I only wish that we were where they grow. Oh, Stubb, I hope +my poor mother's drawn my part-pay ere this; if not, few coppers will +now come to her, for the voyage is up." + +From the ship's bows, nearly all the seamen now hung inactive; hammers, +bits of plank, lances, and harpoons, mechanically retained in their +hands, just as they had darted from their various employments; all their +enchanted eyes intent upon the whale, which from side to side strangely +vibrating his predestinating head, sent a broad band of overspreading +semicircular foam before him as he rushed. Retribution, swift vengeance, +eternal malice were in his whole aspect, and spite of all that mortal +man could do, the solid white buttress of his forehead smote the ship's +starboard bow, till men and timbers reeled. Some fell flat upon their +faces. Like dislodged trucks, the heads of the harpooneers aloft shook +on their bull-like necks. Through the breach, they heard the waters +pour, as mountain torrents down a flume. + +"The ship! The hearse!--the second hearse!" cried Ahab from the boat; +"its wood could only be American!" + +Diving beneath the settling ship, the whale ran quivering along its +keel; but turning under water, swiftly shot to the surface again, far +off the other bow, but within a few yards of Ahab's boat, where, for a +time, he lay quiescent. + +"I turn my body from the sun. What ho, Tashtego! let me hear thy hammer. +Oh! ye three unsurrendered spires of mine; thou uncracked keel; and only +god-bullied hull; thou firm deck, and haughty helm, and Pole-pointed +prow,--death-glorious ship! must ye then perish, and without me? Am I +cut off from the last fond pride of meanest shipwrecked captains? Oh, +lonely death on lonely life! Oh, now I feel my topmost greatness lies in +my topmost grief. Ho, ho! from all your furthest bounds, pour ye now in, +ye bold billows of my whole foregone life, and top this one piled comber +of my death! Towards thee I roll, thou all-destroying but unconquering +whale; to the last I grapple with thee; from hell's heart I stab at +thee; for hate's sake I spit my last breath at thee. Sink all coffins +and all hearses to one common pool! and since neither can be mine, let +me then tow to pieces, while still chasing thee, though tied to thee, +thou damned whale! THUS, I give up the spear!" + +The harpoon was darted; the stricken whale flew forward; with igniting +velocity the line ran through the grooves;--ran foul. Ahab stooped to +clear it; he did clear it; but the flying turn caught him round the +neck, and voicelessly as Turkish mutes bowstring their victim, he was +shot out of the boat, ere the crew knew he was gone. Next instant, the +heavy eye-splice in the rope's final end flew out of the stark-empty +tub, knocked down an oarsman, and smiting the sea, disappeared in its +depths. + +For an instant, the tranced boat's crew stood still; then turned. "The +ship? Great God, where is the ship?" Soon they through dim, bewildering +mediums saw her sidelong fading phantom, as in the gaseous Fata Morgana; +only the uppermost masts out of water; while fixed by infatuation, or +fidelity, or fate, to their once lofty perches, the pagan harpooneers +still maintained their sinking lookouts on the sea. And now, concentric +circles seized the lone boat itself, and all its crew, and each floating +oar, and every lance-pole, and spinning, animate and inanimate, all +round and round in one vortex, carried the smallest chip of the Pequod +out of sight. + +But as the last whelmings intermixingly poured themselves over the +sunken head of the Indian at the mainmast, leaving a few inches of the +erect spar yet visible, together with long streaming yards of the flag, +which calmly undulated, with ironical coincidings, over the destroying +billows they almost touched;--at that instant, a red arm and a hammer +hovered backwardly uplifted in the open air, in the act of nailing +the flag faster and yet faster to the subsiding spar. A sky-hawk that +tauntingly had followed the main-truck downwards from its natural home +among the stars, pecking at the flag, and incommoding Tashtego there; +this bird now chanced to intercept its broad fluttering wing between the +hammer and the wood; and simultaneously feeling that etherial thrill, +the submerged savage beneath, in his death-gasp, kept his hammer frozen +there; and so the bird of heaven, with archangelic shrieks, and his +imperial beak thrust upwards, and his whole captive form folded in the +flag of Ahab, went down with his ship, which, like Satan, would not sink +to hell till she had dragged a living part of heaven along with her, and +helmeted herself with it. + +Now small fowls flew screaming over the yet yawning gulf; a sullen white +surf beat against its steep sides; then all collapsed, and the great +shroud of the sea rolled on as it rolled five thousand years ago. + + + + +Epilogue + +"AND I ONLY AM ESCAPED ALONE TO TELL THEE" Job. + +The drama's done. Why then here does any one step forth?--Because one +did survive the wreck. + +It so chanced, that after the Parsee's disappearance, I was he whom the +Fates ordained to take the place of Ahab's bowsman, when that bowsman +assumed the vacant post; the same, who, when on the last day the three +men were tossed from out of the rocking boat, was dropped astern. So, +floating on the margin of the ensuing scene, and in full sight of it, +when the halfspent suction of the sunk ship reached me, I was then, +but slowly, drawn towards the closing vortex. When I reached it, it had +subsided to a creamy pool. Round and round, then, and ever contracting +towards the button-like black bubble at the axis of that slowly wheeling +circle, like another Ixion I did revolve. Till, gaining that vital +centre, the black bubble upward burst; and now, liberated by reason of +its cunning spring, and, owing to its great buoyancy, rising with great +force, the coffin life-buoy shot lengthwise from the sea, fell over, and +floated by my side. Buoyed up by that coffin, for almost one whole day +and night, I floated on a soft and dirgelike main. The unharming sharks, +they glided by as if with padlocks on their mouths; the savage sea-hawks +sailed with sheathed beaks. On the second day, a sail drew near, nearer, +and picked me up at last. It was the devious-cruising Rachel, that in +her retracing search after her missing children, only found another +orphan. + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's Moby Dick; or The Whale, by Herman Melville + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MOBY DICK; OR THE WHALE *** + +***** This file should be named 2701.txt or 2701.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/2/7/0/2701/ + +Produced by Daniel Lazarus and Jonesey + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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Thus, we do not necessarily +keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition. + + +Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility: + + http://www.gutenberg.org + +This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm, +including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary +Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to +subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks. diff --git a/src/main/pg-sherlock_holmes.txt b/src/main/pg-sherlock_holmes.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..8a6d3f4 --- /dev/null +++ b/src/main/pg-sherlock_holmes.txt @@ -0,0 +1,13052 @@ +Project Gutenberg's The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, by Arthur Conan Doyle + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.net + + +Title: The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes + +Author: Arthur Conan Doyle + +Posting Date: April 18, 2011 [EBook #1661] +First Posted: November 29, 2002 + +Language: English + + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE ADVENTURES OF SHERLOCK HOLMES *** + + + + +Produced by an anonymous Project Gutenberg volunteer and Jose Menendez + + + + + + + + + +THE ADVENTURES OF SHERLOCK HOLMES + +by + +SIR ARTHUR CONAN DOYLE + + + + I. A Scandal in Bohemia + II. The Red-headed League + III. A Case of Identity + IV. The Boscombe Valley Mystery + V. The Five Orange Pips + VI. The Man with the Twisted Lip + VII. The Adventure of the Blue Carbuncle +VIII. The Adventure of the Speckled Band + IX. The Adventure of the Engineer's Thumb + X. The Adventure of the Noble Bachelor + XI. The Adventure of the Beryl Coronet + XII. The Adventure of the Copper Beeches + + + + +ADVENTURE I. A SCANDAL IN BOHEMIA + +I. + +To Sherlock Holmes she is always THE woman. I have seldom heard +him mention her under any other name. In his eyes she eclipses +and predominates the whole of her sex. It was not that he felt +any emotion akin to love for Irene Adler. All emotions, and that +one particularly, were abhorrent to his cold, precise but +admirably balanced mind. He was, I take it, the most perfect +reasoning and observing machine that the world has seen, but as a +lover he would have placed himself in a false position. He never +spoke of the softer passions, save with a gibe and a sneer. They +were admirable things for the observer--excellent for drawing the +veil from men's motives and actions. But for the trained reasoner +to admit such intrusions into his own delicate and finely +adjusted temperament was to introduce a distracting factor which +might throw a doubt upon all his mental results. Grit in a +sensitive instrument, or a crack in one of his own high-power +lenses, would not be more disturbing than a strong emotion in a +nature such as his. And yet there was but one woman to him, and +that woman was the late Irene Adler, of dubious and questionable +memory. + +I had seen little of Holmes lately. My marriage had drifted us +away from each other. My own complete happiness, and the +home-centred interests which rise up around the man who first +finds himself master of his own establishment, were sufficient to +absorb all my attention, while Holmes, who loathed every form of +society with his whole Bohemian soul, remained in our lodgings in +Baker Street, buried among his old books, and alternating from +week to week between cocaine and ambition, the drowsiness of the +drug, and the fierce energy of his own keen nature. He was still, +as ever, deeply attracted by the study of crime, and occupied his +immense faculties and extraordinary powers of observation in +following out those clues, and clearing up those mysteries which +had been abandoned as hopeless by the official police. From time +to time I heard some vague account of his doings: of his summons +to Odessa in the case of the Trepoff murder, of his clearing up +of the singular tragedy of the Atkinson brothers at Trincomalee, +and finally of the mission which he had accomplished so +delicately and successfully for the reigning family of Holland. +Beyond these signs of his activity, however, which I merely +shared with all the readers of the daily press, I knew little of +my former friend and companion. + +One night--it was on the twentieth of March, 1888--I was +returning from a journey to a patient (for I had now returned to +civil practice), when my way led me through Baker Street. As I +passed the well-remembered door, which must always be associated +in my mind with my wooing, and with the dark incidents of the +Study in Scarlet, I was seized with a keen desire to see Holmes +again, and to know how he was employing his extraordinary powers. +His rooms were brilliantly lit, and, even as I looked up, I saw +his tall, spare figure pass twice in a dark silhouette against +the blind. He was pacing the room swiftly, eagerly, with his head +sunk upon his chest and his hands clasped behind him. To me, who +knew his every mood and habit, his attitude and manner told their +own story. He was at work again. He had risen out of his +drug-created dreams and was hot upon the scent of some new +problem. I rang the bell and was shown up to the chamber which +had formerly been in part my own. + +His manner was not effusive. It seldom was; but he was glad, I +think, to see me. With hardly a word spoken, but with a kindly +eye, he waved me to an armchair, threw across his case of cigars, +and indicated a spirit case and a gasogene in the corner. Then he +stood before the fire and looked me over in his singular +introspective fashion. + +"Wedlock suits you," he remarked. "I think, Watson, that you have +put on seven and a half pounds since I saw you." + +"Seven!" I answered. + +"Indeed, I should have thought a little more. Just a trifle more, +I fancy, Watson. And in practice again, I observe. You did not +tell me that you intended to go into harness." + +"Then, how do you know?" + +"I see it, I deduce it. How do I know that you have been getting +yourself very wet lately, and that you have a most clumsy and +careless servant girl?" + +"My dear Holmes," said I, "this is too much. You would certainly +have been burned, had you lived a few centuries ago. It is true +that I had a country walk on Thursday and came home in a dreadful +mess, but as I have changed my clothes I can't imagine how you +deduce it. As to Mary Jane, she is incorrigible, and my wife has +given her notice, but there, again, I fail to see how you work it +out." + +He chuckled to himself and rubbed his long, nervous hands +together. + +"It is simplicity itself," said he; "my eyes tell me that on the +inside of your left shoe, just where the firelight strikes it, +the leather is scored by six almost parallel cuts. Obviously they +have been caused by someone who has very carelessly scraped round +the edges of the sole in order to remove crusted mud from it. +Hence, you see, my double deduction that you had been out in vile +weather, and that you had a particularly malignant boot-slitting +specimen of the London slavey. As to your practice, if a +gentleman walks into my rooms smelling of iodoform, with a black +mark of nitrate of silver upon his right forefinger, and a bulge +on the right side of his top-hat to show where he has secreted +his stethoscope, I must be dull, indeed, if I do not pronounce +him to be an active member of the medical profession." + +I could not help laughing at the ease with which he explained his +process of deduction. "When I hear you give your reasons," I +remarked, "the thing always appears to me to be so ridiculously +simple that I could easily do it myself, though at each +successive instance of your reasoning I am baffled until you +explain your process. And yet I believe that my eyes are as good +as yours." + +"Quite so," he answered, lighting a cigarette, and throwing +himself down into an armchair. "You see, but you do not observe. +The distinction is clear. For example, you have frequently seen +the steps which lead up from the hall to this room." + +"Frequently." + +"How often?" + +"Well, some hundreds of times." + +"Then how many are there?" + +"How many? I don't know." + +"Quite so! You have not observed. And yet you have seen. That is +just my point. Now, I know that there are seventeen steps, +because I have both seen and observed. By-the-way, since you are +interested in these little problems, and since you are good +enough to chronicle one or two of my trifling experiences, you +may be interested in this." He threw over a sheet of thick, +pink-tinted note-paper which had been lying open upon the table. +"It came by the last post," said he. "Read it aloud." + +The note was undated, and without either signature or address. + +"There will call upon you to-night, at a quarter to eight +o'clock," it said, "a gentleman who desires to consult you upon a +matter of the very deepest moment. Your recent services to one of +the royal houses of Europe have shown that you are one who may +safely be trusted with matters which are of an importance which +can hardly be exaggerated. This account of you we have from all +quarters received. Be in your chamber then at that hour, and do +not take it amiss if your visitor wear a mask." + +"This is indeed a mystery," I remarked. "What do you imagine that +it means?" + +"I have no data yet. It is a capital mistake to theorize before +one has data. Insensibly one begins to twist facts to suit +theories, instead of theories to suit facts. But the note itself. +What do you deduce from it?" + +I carefully examined the writing, and the paper upon which it was +written. + +"The man who wrote it was presumably well to do," I remarked, +endeavouring to imitate my companion's processes. "Such paper +could not be bought under half a crown a packet. It is peculiarly +strong and stiff." + +"Peculiar--that is the very word," said Holmes. "It is not an +English paper at all. Hold it up to the light." + +I did so, and saw a large "E" with a small "g," a "P," and a +large "G" with a small "t" woven into the texture of the paper. + +"What do you make of that?" asked Holmes. + +"The name of the maker, no doubt; or his monogram, rather." + +"Not at all. The 'G' with the small 't' stands for +'Gesellschaft,' which is the German for 'Company.' It is a +customary contraction like our 'Co.' 'P,' of course, stands for +'Papier.' Now for the 'Eg.' Let us glance at our Continental +Gazetteer." He took down a heavy brown volume from his shelves. +"Eglow, Eglonitz--here we are, Egria. It is in a German-speaking +country--in Bohemia, not far from Carlsbad. 'Remarkable as being +the scene of the death of Wallenstein, and for its numerous +glass-factories and paper-mills.' Ha, ha, my boy, what do you +make of that?" His eyes sparkled, and he sent up a great blue +triumphant cloud from his cigarette. + +"The paper was made in Bohemia," I said. + +"Precisely. And the man who wrote the note is a German. Do you +note the peculiar construction of the sentence--'This account of +you we have from all quarters received.' A Frenchman or Russian +could not have written that. It is the German who is so +uncourteous to his verbs. It only remains, therefore, to discover +what is wanted by this German who writes upon Bohemian paper and +prefers wearing a mask to showing his face. And here he comes, if +I am not mistaken, to resolve all our doubts." + +As he spoke there was the sharp sound of horses' hoofs and +grating wheels against the curb, followed by a sharp pull at the +bell. Holmes whistled. + +"A pair, by the sound," said he. "Yes," he continued, glancing +out of the window. "A nice little brougham and a pair of +beauties. A hundred and fifty guineas apiece. There's money in +this case, Watson, if there is nothing else." + +"I think that I had better go, Holmes." + +"Not a bit, Doctor. Stay where you are. I am lost without my +Boswell. And this promises to be interesting. It would be a pity +to miss it." + +"But your client--" + +"Never mind him. I may want your help, and so may he. Here he +comes. Sit down in that armchair, Doctor, and give us your best +attention." + +A slow and heavy step, which had been heard upon the stairs and +in the passage, paused immediately outside the door. Then there +was a loud and authoritative tap. + +"Come in!" said Holmes. + +A man entered who could hardly have been less than six feet six +inches in height, with the chest and limbs of a Hercules. His +dress was rich with a richness which would, in England, be looked +upon as akin to bad taste. Heavy bands of astrakhan were slashed +across the sleeves and fronts of his double-breasted coat, while +the deep blue cloak which was thrown over his shoulders was lined +with flame-coloured silk and secured at the neck with a brooch +which consisted of a single flaming beryl. Boots which extended +halfway up his calves, and which were trimmed at the tops with +rich brown fur, completed the impression of barbaric opulence +which was suggested by his whole appearance. He carried a +broad-brimmed hat in his hand, while he wore across the upper +part of his face, extending down past the cheekbones, a black +vizard mask, which he had apparently adjusted that very moment, +for his hand was still raised to it as he entered. From the lower +part of the face he appeared to be a man of strong character, +with a thick, hanging lip, and a long, straight chin suggestive +of resolution pushed to the length of obstinacy. + +"You had my note?" he asked with a deep harsh voice and a +strongly marked German accent. "I told you that I would call." He +looked from one to the other of us, as if uncertain which to +address. + +"Pray take a seat," said Holmes. "This is my friend and +colleague, Dr. Watson, who is occasionally good enough to help me +in my cases. Whom have I the honour to address?" + +"You may address me as the Count Von Kramm, a Bohemian nobleman. +I understand that this gentleman, your friend, is a man of honour +and discretion, whom I may trust with a matter of the most +extreme importance. If not, I should much prefer to communicate +with you alone." + +I rose to go, but Holmes caught me by the wrist and pushed me +back into my chair. "It is both, or none," said he. "You may say +before this gentleman anything which you may say to me." + +The Count shrugged his broad shoulders. "Then I must begin," said +he, "by binding you both to absolute secrecy for two years; at +the end of that time the matter will be of no importance. At +present it is not too much to say that it is of such weight it +may have an influence upon European history." + +"I promise," said Holmes. + +"And I." + +"You will excuse this mask," continued our strange visitor. "The +august person who employs me wishes his agent to be unknown to +you, and I may confess at once that the title by which I have +just called myself is not exactly my own." + +"I was aware of it," said Holmes dryly. + +"The circumstances are of great delicacy, and every precaution +has to be taken to quench what might grow to be an immense +scandal and seriously compromise one of the reigning families of +Europe. To speak plainly, the matter implicates the great House +of Ormstein, hereditary kings of Bohemia." + +"I was also aware of that," murmured Holmes, settling himself +down in his armchair and closing his eyes. + +Our visitor glanced with some apparent surprise at the languid, +lounging figure of the man who had been no doubt depicted to him +as the most incisive reasoner and most energetic agent in Europe. +Holmes slowly reopened his eyes and looked impatiently at his +gigantic client. + +"If your Majesty would condescend to state your case," he +remarked, "I should be better able to advise you." + +The man sprang from his chair and paced up and down the room in +uncontrollable agitation. Then, with a gesture of desperation, he +tore the mask from his face and hurled it upon the ground. "You +are right," he cried; "I am the King. Why should I attempt to +conceal it?" + +"Why, indeed?" murmured Holmes. "Your Majesty had not spoken +before I was aware that I was addressing Wilhelm Gottsreich +Sigismond von Ormstein, Grand Duke of Cassel-Felstein, and +hereditary King of Bohemia." + +"But you can understand," said our strange visitor, sitting down +once more and passing his hand over his high white forehead, "you +can understand that I am not accustomed to doing such business in +my own person. Yet the matter was so delicate that I could not +confide it to an agent without putting myself in his power. I +have come incognito from Prague for the purpose of consulting +you." + +"Then, pray consult," said Holmes, shutting his eyes once more. + +"The facts are briefly these: Some five years ago, during a +lengthy visit to Warsaw, I made the acquaintance of the well-known +adventuress, Irene Adler. The name is no doubt familiar to you." + +"Kindly look her up in my index, Doctor," murmured Holmes without +opening his eyes. For many years he had adopted a system of +docketing all paragraphs concerning men and things, so that it +was difficult to name a subject or a person on which he could not +at once furnish information. In this case I found her biography +sandwiched in between that of a Hebrew rabbi and that of a +staff-commander who had written a monograph upon the deep-sea +fishes. + +"Let me see!" said Holmes. "Hum! Born in New Jersey in the year +1858. Contralto--hum! La Scala, hum! Prima donna Imperial Opera +of Warsaw--yes! Retired from operatic stage--ha! Living in +London--quite so! Your Majesty, as I understand, became entangled +with this young person, wrote her some compromising letters, and +is now desirous of getting those letters back." + +"Precisely so. But how--" + +"Was there a secret marriage?" + +"None." + +"No legal papers or certificates?" + +"None." + +"Then I fail to follow your Majesty. If this young person should +produce her letters for blackmailing or other purposes, how is +she to prove their authenticity?" + +"There is the writing." + +"Pooh, pooh! Forgery." + +"My private note-paper." + +"Stolen." + +"My own seal." + +"Imitated." + +"My photograph." + +"Bought." + +"We were both in the photograph." + +"Oh, dear! That is very bad! Your Majesty has indeed committed an +indiscretion." + +"I was mad--insane." + +"You have compromised yourself seriously." + +"I was only Crown Prince then. I was young. I am but thirty now." + +"It must be recovered." + +"We have tried and failed." + +"Your Majesty must pay. It must be bought." + +"She will not sell." + +"Stolen, then." + +"Five attempts have been made. Twice burglars in my pay ransacked +her house. Once we diverted her luggage when she travelled. Twice +she has been waylaid. There has been no result." + +"No sign of it?" + +"Absolutely none." + +Holmes laughed. "It is quite a pretty little problem," said he. + +"But a very serious one to me," returned the King reproachfully. + +"Very, indeed. And what does she propose to do with the +photograph?" + +"To ruin me." + +"But how?" + +"I am about to be married." + +"So I have heard." + +"To Clotilde Lothman von Saxe-Meningen, second daughter of the +King of Scandinavia. You may know the strict principles of her +family. She is herself the very soul of delicacy. A shadow of a +doubt as to my conduct would bring the matter to an end." + +"And Irene Adler?" + +"Threatens to send them the photograph. And she will do it. I +know that she will do it. You do not know her, but she has a soul +of steel. She has the face of the most beautiful of women, and +the mind of the most resolute of men. Rather than I should marry +another woman, there are no lengths to which she would not +go--none." + +"You are sure that she has not sent it yet?" + +"I am sure." + +"And why?" + +"Because she has said that she would send it on the day when the +betrothal was publicly proclaimed. That will be next Monday." + +"Oh, then we have three days yet," said Holmes with a yawn. "That +is very fortunate, as I have one or two matters of importance to +look into just at present. Your Majesty will, of course, stay in +London for the present?" + +"Certainly. You will find me at the Langham under the name of the +Count Von Kramm." + +"Then I shall drop you a line to let you know how we progress." + +"Pray do so. I shall be all anxiety." + +"Then, as to money?" + +"You have carte blanche." + +"Absolutely?" + +"I tell you that I would give one of the provinces of my kingdom +to have that photograph." + +"And for present expenses?" + +The King took a heavy chamois leather bag from under his cloak +and laid it on the table. + +"There are three hundred pounds in gold and seven hundred in +notes," he said. + +Holmes scribbled a receipt upon a sheet of his note-book and +handed it to him. + +"And Mademoiselle's address?" he asked. + +"Is Briony Lodge, Serpentine Avenue, St. John's Wood." + +Holmes took a note of it. "One other question," said he. "Was the +photograph a cabinet?" + +"It was." + +"Then, good-night, your Majesty, and I trust that we shall soon +have some good news for you. And good-night, Watson," he added, +as the wheels of the royal brougham rolled down the street. "If +you will be good enough to call to-morrow afternoon at three +o'clock I should like to chat this little matter over with you." + + +II. + +At three o'clock precisely I was at Baker Street, but Holmes had +not yet returned. The landlady informed me that he had left the +house shortly after eight o'clock in the morning. I sat down +beside the fire, however, with the intention of awaiting him, +however long he might be. I was already deeply interested in his +inquiry, for, though it was surrounded by none of the grim and +strange features which were associated with the two crimes which +I have already recorded, still, the nature of the case and the +exalted station of his client gave it a character of its own. +Indeed, apart from the nature of the investigation which my +friend had on hand, there was something in his masterly grasp of +a situation, and his keen, incisive reasoning, which made it a +pleasure to me to study his system of work, and to follow the +quick, subtle methods by which he disentangled the most +inextricable mysteries. So accustomed was I to his invariable +success that the very possibility of his failing had ceased to +enter into my head. + +It was close upon four before the door opened, and a +drunken-looking groom, ill-kempt and side-whiskered, with an +inflamed face and disreputable clothes, walked into the room. +Accustomed as I was to my friend's amazing powers in the use of +disguises, I had to look three times before I was certain that it +was indeed he. With a nod he vanished into the bedroom, whence he +emerged in five minutes tweed-suited and respectable, as of old. +Putting his hands into his pockets, he stretched out his legs in +front of the fire and laughed heartily for some minutes. + +"Well, really!" he cried, and then he choked and laughed again +until he was obliged to lie back, limp and helpless, in the +chair. + +"What is it?" + +"It's quite too funny. I am sure you could never guess how I +employed my morning, or what I ended by doing." + +"I can't imagine. I suppose that you have been watching the +habits, and perhaps the house, of Miss Irene Adler." + +"Quite so; but the sequel was rather unusual. I will tell you, +however. I left the house a little after eight o'clock this +morning in the character of a groom out of work. There is a +wonderful sympathy and freemasonry among horsey men. Be one of +them, and you will know all that there is to know. I soon found +Briony Lodge. It is a bijou villa, with a garden at the back, but +built out in front right up to the road, two stories. Chubb lock +to the door. Large sitting-room on the right side, well +furnished, with long windows almost to the floor, and those +preposterous English window fasteners which a child could open. +Behind there was nothing remarkable, save that the passage window +could be reached from the top of the coach-house. I walked round +it and examined it closely from every point of view, but without +noting anything else of interest. + +"I then lounged down the street and found, as I expected, that +there was a mews in a lane which runs down by one wall of the +garden. I lent the ostlers a hand in rubbing down their horses, +and received in exchange twopence, a glass of half and half, two +fills of shag tobacco, and as much information as I could desire +about Miss Adler, to say nothing of half a dozen other people in +the neighbourhood in whom I was not in the least interested, but +whose biographies I was compelled to listen to." + +"And what of Irene Adler?" I asked. + +"Oh, she has turned all the men's heads down in that part. She is +the daintiest thing under a bonnet on this planet. So say the +Serpentine-mews, to a man. She lives quietly, sings at concerts, +drives out at five every day, and returns at seven sharp for +dinner. Seldom goes out at other times, except when she sings. +Has only one male visitor, but a good deal of him. He is dark, +handsome, and dashing, never calls less than once a day, and +often twice. He is a Mr. Godfrey Norton, of the Inner Temple. See +the advantages of a cabman as a confidant. They had driven him +home a dozen times from Serpentine-mews, and knew all about him. +When I had listened to all they had to tell, I began to walk up +and down near Briony Lodge once more, and to think over my plan +of campaign. + +"This Godfrey Norton was evidently an important factor in the +matter. He was a lawyer. That sounded ominous. What was the +relation between them, and what the object of his repeated +visits? Was she his client, his friend, or his mistress? If the +former, she had probably transferred the photograph to his +keeping. If the latter, it was less likely. On the issue of this +question depended whether I should continue my work at Briony +Lodge, or turn my attention to the gentleman's chambers in the +Temple. It was a delicate point, and it widened the field of my +inquiry. I fear that I bore you with these details, but I have to +let you see my little difficulties, if you are to understand the +situation." + +"I am following you closely," I answered. + +"I was still balancing the matter in my mind when a hansom cab +drove up to Briony Lodge, and a gentleman sprang out. He was a +remarkably handsome man, dark, aquiline, and moustached--evidently +the man of whom I had heard. He appeared to be in a +great hurry, shouted to the cabman to wait, and brushed past the +maid who opened the door with the air of a man who was thoroughly +at home. + +"He was in the house about half an hour, and I could catch +glimpses of him in the windows of the sitting-room, pacing up and +down, talking excitedly, and waving his arms. Of her I could see +nothing. Presently he emerged, looking even more flurried than +before. As he stepped up to the cab, he pulled a gold watch from +his pocket and looked at it earnestly, 'Drive like the devil,' he +shouted, 'first to Gross & Hankey's in Regent Street, and then to +the Church of St. Monica in the Edgeware Road. Half a guinea if +you do it in twenty minutes!' + +"Away they went, and I was just wondering whether I should not do +well to follow them when up the lane came a neat little landau, +the coachman with his coat only half-buttoned, and his tie under +his ear, while all the tags of his harness were sticking out of +the buckles. It hadn't pulled up before she shot out of the hall +door and into it. I only caught a glimpse of her at the moment, +but she was a lovely woman, with a face that a man might die for. + +"'The Church of St. Monica, John,' she cried, 'and half a +sovereign if you reach it in twenty minutes.' + +"This was quite too good to lose, Watson. I was just balancing +whether I should run for it, or whether I should perch behind her +landau when a cab came through the street. The driver looked +twice at such a shabby fare, but I jumped in before he could +object. 'The Church of St. Monica,' said I, 'and half a sovereign +if you reach it in twenty minutes.' It was twenty-five minutes to +twelve, and of course it was clear enough what was in the wind. + +"My cabby drove fast. I don't think I ever drove faster, but the +others were there before us. The cab and the landau with their +steaming horses were in front of the door when I arrived. I paid +the man and hurried into the church. There was not a soul there +save the two whom I had followed and a surpliced clergyman, who +seemed to be expostulating with them. They were all three +standing in a knot in front of the altar. I lounged up the side +aisle like any other idler who has dropped into a church. +Suddenly, to my surprise, the three at the altar faced round to +me, and Godfrey Norton came running as hard as he could towards +me. + +"'Thank God,' he cried. 'You'll do. Come! Come!' + +"'What then?' I asked. + +"'Come, man, come, only three minutes, or it won't be legal.' + +"I was half-dragged up to the altar, and before I knew where I was +I found myself mumbling responses which were whispered in my ear, +and vouching for things of which I knew nothing, and generally +assisting in the secure tying up of Irene Adler, spinster, to +Godfrey Norton, bachelor. It was all done in an instant, and +there was the gentleman thanking me on the one side and the lady +on the other, while the clergyman beamed on me in front. It was +the most preposterous position in which I ever found myself in my +life, and it was the thought of it that started me laughing just +now. It seems that there had been some informality about their +license, that the clergyman absolutely refused to marry them +without a witness of some sort, and that my lucky appearance +saved the bridegroom from having to sally out into the streets in +search of a best man. The bride gave me a sovereign, and I mean +to wear it on my watch-chain in memory of the occasion." + +"This is a very unexpected turn of affairs," said I; "and what +then?" + +"Well, I found my plans very seriously menaced. It looked as if +the pair might take an immediate departure, and so necessitate +very prompt and energetic measures on my part. At the church +door, however, they separated, he driving back to the Temple, and +she to her own house. 'I shall drive out in the park at five as +usual,' she said as she left him. I heard no more. They drove +away in different directions, and I went off to make my own +arrangements." + +"Which are?" + +"Some cold beef and a glass of beer," he answered, ringing the +bell. "I have been too busy to think of food, and I am likely to +be busier still this evening. By the way, Doctor, I shall want +your co-operation." + +"I shall be delighted." + +"You don't mind breaking the law?" + +"Not in the least." + +"Nor running a chance of arrest?" + +"Not in a good cause." + +"Oh, the cause is excellent!" + +"Then I am your man." + +"I was sure that I might rely on you." + +"But what is it you wish?" + +"When Mrs. Turner has brought in the tray I will make it clear to +you. Now," he said as he turned hungrily on the simple fare that +our landlady had provided, "I must discuss it while I eat, for I +have not much time. It is nearly five now. In two hours we must +be on the scene of action. Miss Irene, or Madame, rather, returns +from her drive at seven. We must be at Briony Lodge to meet her." + +"And what then?" + +"You must leave that to me. I have already arranged what is to +occur. There is only one point on which I must insist. You must +not interfere, come what may. You understand?" + +"I am to be neutral?" + +"To do nothing whatever. There will probably be some small +unpleasantness. Do not join in it. It will end in my being +conveyed into the house. Four or five minutes afterwards the +sitting-room window will open. You are to station yourself close +to that open window." + +"Yes." + +"You are to watch me, for I will be visible to you." + +"Yes." + +"And when I raise my hand--so--you will throw into the room what +I give you to throw, and will, at the same time, raise the cry of +fire. You quite follow me?" + +"Entirely." + +"It is nothing very formidable," he said, taking a long cigar-shaped +roll from his pocket. "It is an ordinary plumber's smoke-rocket, +fitted with a cap at either end to make it self-lighting. +Your task is confined to that. When you raise your cry of fire, +it will be taken up by quite a number of people. You may then +walk to the end of the street, and I will rejoin you in ten +minutes. I hope that I have made myself clear?" + +"I am to remain neutral, to get near the window, to watch you, +and at the signal to throw in this object, then to raise the cry +of fire, and to wait you at the corner of the street." + +"Precisely." + +"Then you may entirely rely on me." + +"That is excellent. I think, perhaps, it is almost time that I +prepare for the new role I have to play." + +He disappeared into his bedroom and returned in a few minutes in +the character of an amiable and simple-minded Nonconformist +clergyman. His broad black hat, his baggy trousers, his white +tie, his sympathetic smile, and general look of peering and +benevolent curiosity were such as Mr. John Hare alone could have +equalled. It was not merely that Holmes changed his costume. His +expression, his manner, his very soul seemed to vary with every +fresh part that he assumed. The stage lost a fine actor, even as +science lost an acute reasoner, when he became a specialist in +crime. + +It was a quarter past six when we left Baker Street, and it still +wanted ten minutes to the hour when we found ourselves in +Serpentine Avenue. It was already dusk, and the lamps were just +being lighted as we paced up and down in front of Briony Lodge, +waiting for the coming of its occupant. The house was just such +as I had pictured it from Sherlock Holmes' succinct description, +but the locality appeared to be less private than I expected. On +the contrary, for a small street in a quiet neighbourhood, it was +remarkably animated. There was a group of shabbily dressed men +smoking and laughing in a corner, a scissors-grinder with his +wheel, two guardsmen who were flirting with a nurse-girl, and +several well-dressed young men who were lounging up and down with +cigars in their mouths. + +"You see," remarked Holmes, as we paced to and fro in front of +the house, "this marriage rather simplifies matters. The +photograph becomes a double-edged weapon now. The chances are +that she would be as averse to its being seen by Mr. Godfrey +Norton, as our client is to its coming to the eyes of his +princess. Now the question is, Where are we to find the +photograph?" + +"Where, indeed?" + +"It is most unlikely that she carries it about with her. It is +cabinet size. Too large for easy concealment about a woman's +dress. She knows that the King is capable of having her waylaid +and searched. Two attempts of the sort have already been made. We +may take it, then, that she does not carry it about with her." + +"Where, then?" + +"Her banker or her lawyer. There is that double possibility. But +I am inclined to think neither. Women are naturally secretive, +and they like to do their own secreting. Why should she hand it +over to anyone else? She could trust her own guardianship, but +she could not tell what indirect or political influence might be +brought to bear upon a business man. Besides, remember that she +had resolved to use it within a few days. It must be where she +can lay her hands upon it. It must be in her own house." + +"But it has twice been burgled." + +"Pshaw! They did not know how to look." + +"But how will you look?" + +"I will not look." + +"What then?" + +"I will get her to show me." + +"But she will refuse." + +"She will not be able to. But I hear the rumble of wheels. It is +her carriage. Now carry out my orders to the letter." + +As he spoke the gleam of the side-lights of a carriage came round +the curve of the avenue. It was a smart little landau which +rattled up to the door of Briony Lodge. As it pulled up, one of +the loafing men at the corner dashed forward to open the door in +the hope of earning a copper, but was elbowed away by another +loafer, who had rushed up with the same intention. A fierce +quarrel broke out, which was increased by the two guardsmen, who +took sides with one of the loungers, and by the scissors-grinder, +who was equally hot upon the other side. A blow was struck, and +in an instant the lady, who had stepped from her carriage, was +the centre of a little knot of flushed and struggling men, who +struck savagely at each other with their fists and sticks. Holmes +dashed into the crowd to protect the lady; but just as he reached +her he gave a cry and dropped to the ground, with the blood +running freely down his face. At his fall the guardsmen took to +their heels in one direction and the loungers in the other, while +a number of better-dressed people, who had watched the scuffle +without taking part in it, crowded in to help the lady and to +attend to the injured man. Irene Adler, as I will still call her, +had hurried up the steps; but she stood at the top with her +superb figure outlined against the lights of the hall, looking +back into the street. + +"Is the poor gentleman much hurt?" she asked. + +"He is dead," cried several voices. + +"No, no, there's life in him!" shouted another. "But he'll be +gone before you can get him to hospital." + +"He's a brave fellow," said a woman. "They would have had the +lady's purse and watch if it hadn't been for him. They were a +gang, and a rough one, too. Ah, he's breathing now." + +"He can't lie in the street. May we bring him in, marm?" + +"Surely. Bring him into the sitting-room. There is a comfortable +sofa. This way, please!" + +Slowly and solemnly he was borne into Briony Lodge and laid out +in the principal room, while I still observed the proceedings +from my post by the window. The lamps had been lit, but the +blinds had not been drawn, so that I could see Holmes as he lay +upon the couch. I do not know whether he was seized with +compunction at that moment for the part he was playing, but I +know that I never felt more heartily ashamed of myself in my life +than when I saw the beautiful creature against whom I was +conspiring, or the grace and kindliness with which she waited +upon the injured man. And yet it would be the blackest treachery +to Holmes to draw back now from the part which he had intrusted +to me. I hardened my heart, and took the smoke-rocket from under +my ulster. After all, I thought, we are not injuring her. We are +but preventing her from injuring another. + +Holmes had sat up upon the couch, and I saw him motion like a man +who is in need of air. A maid rushed across and threw open the +window. At the same instant I saw him raise his hand and at the +signal I tossed my rocket into the room with a cry of "Fire!" The +word was no sooner out of my mouth than the whole crowd of +spectators, well dressed and ill--gentlemen, ostlers, and +servant-maids--joined in a general shriek of "Fire!" Thick clouds +of smoke curled through the room and out at the open window. I +caught a glimpse of rushing figures, and a moment later the voice +of Holmes from within assuring them that it was a false alarm. +Slipping through the shouting crowd I made my way to the corner +of the street, and in ten minutes was rejoiced to find my +friend's arm in mine, and to get away from the scene of uproar. +He walked swiftly and in silence for some few minutes until we +had turned down one of the quiet streets which lead towards the +Edgeware Road. + +"You did it very nicely, Doctor," he remarked. "Nothing could +have been better. It is all right." + +"You have the photograph?" + +"I know where it is." + +"And how did you find out?" + +"She showed me, as I told you she would." + +"I am still in the dark." + +"I do not wish to make a mystery," said he, laughing. "The matter +was perfectly simple. You, of course, saw that everyone in the +street was an accomplice. They were all engaged for the evening." + +"I guessed as much." + +"Then, when the row broke out, I had a little moist red paint in +the palm of my hand. I rushed forward, fell down, clapped my hand +to my face, and became a piteous spectacle. It is an old trick." + +"That also I could fathom." + +"Then they carried me in. She was bound to have me in. What else +could she do? And into her sitting-room, which was the very room +which I suspected. It lay between that and her bedroom, and I was +determined to see which. They laid me on a couch, I motioned for +air, they were compelled to open the window, and you had your +chance." + +"How did that help you?" + +"It was all-important. When a woman thinks that her house is on +fire, her instinct is at once to rush to the thing which she +values most. It is a perfectly overpowering impulse, and I have +more than once taken advantage of it. In the case of the +Darlington substitution scandal it was of use to me, and also in +the Arnsworth Castle business. A married woman grabs at her baby; +an unmarried one reaches for her jewel-box. Now it was clear to +me that our lady of to-day had nothing in the house more precious +to her than what we are in quest of. She would rush to secure it. +The alarm of fire was admirably done. The smoke and shouting were +enough to shake nerves of steel. She responded beautifully. The +photograph is in a recess behind a sliding panel just above the +right bell-pull. She was there in an instant, and I caught a +glimpse of it as she half-drew it out. When I cried out that it +was a false alarm, she replaced it, glanced at the rocket, rushed +from the room, and I have not seen her since. I rose, and, making +my excuses, escaped from the house. I hesitated whether to +attempt to secure the photograph at once; but the coachman had +come in, and as he was watching me narrowly it seemed safer to +wait. A little over-precipitance may ruin all." + +"And now?" I asked. + +"Our quest is practically finished. I shall call with the King +to-morrow, and with you, if you care to come with us. We will be +shown into the sitting-room to wait for the lady, but it is +probable that when she comes she may find neither us nor the +photograph. It might be a satisfaction to his Majesty to regain +it with his own hands." + +"And when will you call?" + +"At eight in the morning. She will not be up, so that we shall +have a clear field. Besides, we must be prompt, for this marriage +may mean a complete change in her life and habits. I must wire to +the King without delay." + +We had reached Baker Street and had stopped at the door. He was +searching his pockets for the key when someone passing said: + +"Good-night, Mister Sherlock Holmes." + +There were several people on the pavement at the time, but the +greeting appeared to come from a slim youth in an ulster who had +hurried by. + +"I've heard that voice before," said Holmes, staring down the +dimly lit street. "Now, I wonder who the deuce that could have +been." + + +III. + +I slept at Baker Street that night, and we were engaged upon our +toast and coffee in the morning when the King of Bohemia rushed +into the room. + +"You have really got it!" he cried, grasping Sherlock Holmes by +either shoulder and looking eagerly into his face. + +"Not yet." + +"But you have hopes?" + +"I have hopes." + +"Then, come. I am all impatience to be gone." + +"We must have a cab." + +"No, my brougham is waiting." + +"Then that will simplify matters." We descended and started off +once more for Briony Lodge. + +"Irene Adler is married," remarked Holmes. + +"Married! When?" + +"Yesterday." + +"But to whom?" + +"To an English lawyer named Norton." + +"But she could not love him." + +"I am in hopes that she does." + +"And why in hopes?" + +"Because it would spare your Majesty all fear of future +annoyance. If the lady loves her husband, she does not love your +Majesty. If she does not love your Majesty, there is no reason +why she should interfere with your Majesty's plan." + +"It is true. And yet--Well! I wish she had been of my own +station! What a queen she would have made!" He relapsed into a +moody silence, which was not broken until we drew up in +Serpentine Avenue. + +The door of Briony Lodge was open, and an elderly woman stood +upon the steps. She watched us with a sardonic eye as we stepped +from the brougham. + +"Mr. Sherlock Holmes, I believe?" said she. + +"I am Mr. Holmes," answered my companion, looking at her with a +questioning and rather startled gaze. + +"Indeed! My mistress told me that you were likely to call. She +left this morning with her husband by the 5:15 train from Charing +Cross for the Continent." + +"What!" Sherlock Holmes staggered back, white with chagrin and +surprise. "Do you mean that she has left England?" + +"Never to return." + +"And the papers?" asked the King hoarsely. "All is lost." + +"We shall see." He pushed past the servant and rushed into the +drawing-room, followed by the King and myself. The furniture was +scattered about in every direction, with dismantled shelves and +open drawers, as if the lady had hurriedly ransacked them before +her flight. Holmes rushed at the bell-pull, tore back a small +sliding shutter, and, plunging in his hand, pulled out a +photograph and a letter. The photograph was of Irene Adler +herself in evening dress, the letter was superscribed to +"Sherlock Holmes, Esq. To be left till called for." My friend +tore it open and we all three read it together. It was dated at +midnight of the preceding night and ran in this way: + +"MY DEAR MR. SHERLOCK HOLMES,--You really did it very well. You +took me in completely. Until after the alarm of fire, I had not a +suspicion. But then, when I found how I had betrayed myself, I +began to think. I had been warned against you months ago. I had +been told that if the King employed an agent it would certainly +be you. And your address had been given me. Yet, with all this, +you made me reveal what you wanted to know. Even after I became +suspicious, I found it hard to think evil of such a dear, kind +old clergyman. But, you know, I have been trained as an actress +myself. Male costume is nothing new to me. I often take advantage +of the freedom which it gives. I sent John, the coachman, to +watch you, ran up stairs, got into my walking-clothes, as I call +them, and came down just as you departed. + +"Well, I followed you to your door, and so made sure that I was +really an object of interest to the celebrated Mr. Sherlock +Holmes. Then I, rather imprudently, wished you good-night, and +started for the Temple to see my husband. + +"We both thought the best resource was flight, when pursued by +so formidable an antagonist; so you will find the nest empty when +you call to-morrow. As to the photograph, your client may rest in +peace. I love and am loved by a better man than he. The King may +do what he will without hindrance from one whom he has cruelly +wronged. I keep it only to safeguard myself, and to preserve a +weapon which will always secure me from any steps which he might +take in the future. I leave a photograph which he might care to +possess; and I remain, dear Mr. Sherlock Holmes, + + "Very truly yours, + "IRENE NORTON, nee ADLER." + +"What a woman--oh, what a woman!" cried the King of Bohemia, when +we had all three read this epistle. "Did I not tell you how quick +and resolute she was? Would she not have made an admirable queen? +Is it not a pity that she was not on my level?" + +"From what I have seen of the lady she seems indeed to be on a +very different level to your Majesty," said Holmes coldly. "I am +sorry that I have not been able to bring your Majesty's business +to a more successful conclusion." + +"On the contrary, my dear sir," cried the King; "nothing could be +more successful. I know that her word is inviolate. The +photograph is now as safe as if it were in the fire." + +"I am glad to hear your Majesty say so." + +"I am immensely indebted to you. Pray tell me in what way I can +reward you. This ring--" He slipped an emerald snake ring from +his finger and held it out upon the palm of his hand. + +"Your Majesty has something which I should value even more +highly," said Holmes. + +"You have but to name it." + +"This photograph!" + +The King stared at him in amazement. + +"Irene's photograph!" he cried. "Certainly, if you wish it." + +"I thank your Majesty. Then there is no more to be done in the +matter. I have the honour to wish you a very good-morning." He +bowed, and, turning away without observing the hand which the +King had stretched out to him, he set off in my company for his +chambers. + +And that was how a great scandal threatened to affect the kingdom +of Bohemia, and how the best plans of Mr. Sherlock Holmes were +beaten by a woman's wit. He used to make merry over the +cleverness of women, but I have not heard him do it of late. And +when he speaks of Irene Adler, or when he refers to her +photograph, it is always under the honourable title of the woman. + + + +ADVENTURE II. THE RED-HEADED LEAGUE + +I had called upon my friend, Mr. Sherlock Holmes, one day in the +autumn of last year and found him in deep conversation with a +very stout, florid-faced, elderly gentleman with fiery red hair. +With an apology for my intrusion, I was about to withdraw when +Holmes pulled me abruptly into the room and closed the door +behind me. + +"You could not possibly have come at a better time, my dear +Watson," he said cordially. + +"I was afraid that you were engaged." + +"So I am. Very much so." + +"Then I can wait in the next room." + +"Not at all. This gentleman, Mr. Wilson, has been my partner and +helper in many of my most successful cases, and I have no +doubt that he will be of the utmost use to me in yours also." + +The stout gentleman half rose from his chair and gave a bob of +greeting, with a quick little questioning glance from his small +fat-encircled eyes. + +"Try the settee," said Holmes, relapsing into his armchair and +putting his fingertips together, as was his custom when in +judicial moods. "I know, my dear Watson, that you share my love +of all that is bizarre and outside the conventions and humdrum +routine of everyday life. You have shown your relish for it by +the enthusiasm which has prompted you to chronicle, and, if you +will excuse my saying so, somewhat to embellish so many of my own +little adventures." + +"Your cases have indeed been of the greatest interest to me," I +observed. + +"You will remember that I remarked the other day, just before we +went into the very simple problem presented by Miss Mary +Sutherland, that for strange effects and extraordinary +combinations we must go to life itself, which is always far more +daring than any effort of the imagination." + +"A proposition which I took the liberty of doubting." + +"You did, Doctor, but none the less you must come round to my +view, for otherwise I shall keep on piling fact upon fact on you +until your reason breaks down under them and acknowledges me to +be right. Now, Mr. Jabez Wilson here has been good enough to call +upon me this morning, and to begin a narrative which promises to +be one of the most singular which I have listened to for some +time. You have heard me remark that the strangest and most unique +things are very often connected not with the larger but with the +smaller crimes, and occasionally, indeed, where there is room for +doubt whether any positive crime has been committed. As far as I +have heard it is impossible for me to say whether the present +case is an instance of crime or not, but the course of events is +certainly among the most singular that I have ever listened to. +Perhaps, Mr. Wilson, you would have the great kindness to +recommence your narrative. I ask you not merely because my friend +Dr. Watson has not heard the opening part but also because the +peculiar nature of the story makes me anxious to have every +possible detail from your lips. As a rule, when I have heard some +slight indication of the course of events, I am able to guide +myself by the thousands of other similar cases which occur to my +memory. In the present instance I am forced to admit that the +facts are, to the best of my belief, unique." + +The portly client puffed out his chest with an appearance of some +little pride and pulled a dirty and wrinkled newspaper from the +inside pocket of his greatcoat. As he glanced down the +advertisement column, with his head thrust forward and the paper +flattened out upon his knee, I took a good look at the man and +endeavoured, after the fashion of my companion, to read the +indications which might be presented by his dress or appearance. + +I did not gain very much, however, by my inspection. Our visitor +bore every mark of being an average commonplace British +tradesman, obese, pompous, and slow. He wore rather baggy grey +shepherd's check trousers, a not over-clean black frock-coat, +unbuttoned in the front, and a drab waistcoat with a heavy brassy +Albert chain, and a square pierced bit of metal dangling down as +an ornament. A frayed top-hat and a faded brown overcoat with a +wrinkled velvet collar lay upon a chair beside him. Altogether, +look as I would, there was nothing remarkable about the man save +his blazing red head, and the expression of extreme chagrin and +discontent upon his features. + +Sherlock Holmes' quick eye took in my occupation, and he shook +his head with a smile as he noticed my questioning glances. +"Beyond the obvious facts that he has at some time done manual +labour, that he takes snuff, that he is a Freemason, that he has +been in China, and that he has done a considerable amount of +writing lately, I can deduce nothing else." + +Mr. Jabez Wilson started up in his chair, with his forefinger +upon the paper, but his eyes upon my companion. + +"How, in the name of good-fortune, did you know all that, Mr. +Holmes?" he asked. "How did you know, for example, that I did +manual labour. It's as true as gospel, for I began as a ship's +carpenter." + +"Your hands, my dear sir. Your right hand is quite a size larger +than your left. You have worked with it, and the muscles are more +developed." + +"Well, the snuff, then, and the Freemasonry?" + +"I won't insult your intelligence by telling you how I read that, +especially as, rather against the strict rules of your order, you +use an arc-and-compass breastpin." + +"Ah, of course, I forgot that. But the writing?" + +"What else can be indicated by that right cuff so very shiny for +five inches, and the left one with the smooth patch near the +elbow where you rest it upon the desk?" + +"Well, but China?" + +"The fish that you have tattooed immediately above your right +wrist could only have been done in China. I have made a small +study of tattoo marks and have even contributed to the literature +of the subject. That trick of staining the fishes' scales of a +delicate pink is quite peculiar to China. When, in addition, I +see a Chinese coin hanging from your watch-chain, the matter +becomes even more simple." + +Mr. Jabez Wilson laughed heavily. "Well, I never!" said he. "I +thought at first that you had done something clever, but I see +that there was nothing in it, after all." + +"I begin to think, Watson," said Holmes, "that I make a mistake +in explaining. 'Omne ignotum pro magnifico,' you know, and my +poor little reputation, such as it is, will suffer shipwreck if I +am so candid. Can you not find the advertisement, Mr. Wilson?" + +"Yes, I have got it now," he answered with his thick red finger +planted halfway down the column. "Here it is. This is what began +it all. You just read it for yourself, sir." + +I took the paper from him and read as follows: + +"TO THE RED-HEADED LEAGUE: On account of the bequest of the late +Ezekiah Hopkins, of Lebanon, Pennsylvania, U. S. A., there is now +another vacancy open which entitles a member of the League to a +salary of 4 pounds a week for purely nominal services. All +red-headed men who are sound in body and mind and above the age +of twenty-one years, are eligible. Apply in person on Monday, at +eleven o'clock, to Duncan Ross, at the offices of the League, 7 +Pope's Court, Fleet Street." + +"What on earth does this mean?" I ejaculated after I had twice +read over the extraordinary announcement. + +Holmes chuckled and wriggled in his chair, as was his habit when +in high spirits. "It is a little off the beaten track, isn't it?" +said he. "And now, Mr. Wilson, off you go at scratch and tell us +all about yourself, your household, and the effect which this +advertisement had upon your fortunes. You will first make a note, +Doctor, of the paper and the date." + +"It is The Morning Chronicle of April 27, 1890. Just two months +ago." + +"Very good. Now, Mr. Wilson?" + +"Well, it is just as I have been telling you, Mr. Sherlock +Holmes," said Jabez Wilson, mopping his forehead; "I have a small +pawnbroker's business at Coburg Square, near the City. It's not a +very large affair, and of late years it has not done more than +just give me a living. I used to be able to keep two assistants, +but now I only keep one; and I would have a job to pay him but +that he is willing to come for half wages so as to learn the +business." + +"What is the name of this obliging youth?" asked Sherlock Holmes. + +"His name is Vincent Spaulding, and he's not such a youth, +either. It's hard to say his age. I should not wish a smarter +assistant, Mr. Holmes; and I know very well that he could better +himself and earn twice what I am able to give him. But, after +all, if he is satisfied, why should I put ideas in his head?" + +"Why, indeed? You seem most fortunate in having an employe who +comes under the full market price. It is not a common experience +among employers in this age. I don't know that your assistant is +not as remarkable as your advertisement." + +"Oh, he has his faults, too," said Mr. Wilson. "Never was such a +fellow for photography. Snapping away with a camera when he ought +to be improving his mind, and then diving down into the cellar +like a rabbit into its hole to develop his pictures. That is his +main fault, but on the whole he's a good worker. There's no vice +in him." + +"He is still with you, I presume?" + +"Yes, sir. He and a girl of fourteen, who does a bit of simple +cooking and keeps the place clean--that's all I have in the +house, for I am a widower and never had any family. We live very +quietly, sir, the three of us; and we keep a roof over our heads +and pay our debts, if we do nothing more. + +"The first thing that put us out was that advertisement. +Spaulding, he came down into the office just this day eight +weeks, with this very paper in his hand, and he says: + +"'I wish to the Lord, Mr. Wilson, that I was a red-headed man.' + +"'Why that?' I asks. + +"'Why,' says he, 'here's another vacancy on the League of the +Red-headed Men. It's worth quite a little fortune to any man who +gets it, and I understand that there are more vacancies than +there are men, so that the trustees are at their wits' end what +to do with the money. If my hair would only change colour, here's +a nice little crib all ready for me to step into.' + +"'Why, what is it, then?' I asked. You see, Mr. Holmes, I am a +very stay-at-home man, and as my business came to me instead of +my having to go to it, I was often weeks on end without putting +my foot over the door-mat. In that way I didn't know much of what +was going on outside, and I was always glad of a bit of news. + +"'Have you never heard of the League of the Red-headed Men?' he +asked with his eyes open. + +"'Never.' + +"'Why, I wonder at that, for you are eligible yourself for one +of the vacancies.' + +"'And what are they worth?' I asked. + +"'Oh, merely a couple of hundred a year, but the work is slight, +and it need not interfere very much with one's other +occupations.' + +"Well, you can easily think that that made me prick up my ears, +for the business has not been over-good for some years, and an +extra couple of hundred would have been very handy. + +"'Tell me all about it,' said I. + +"'Well,' said he, showing me the advertisement, 'you can see for +yourself that the League has a vacancy, and there is the address +where you should apply for particulars. As far as I can make out, +the League was founded by an American millionaire, Ezekiah +Hopkins, who was very peculiar in his ways. He was himself +red-headed, and he had a great sympathy for all red-headed men; +so when he died it was found that he had left his enormous +fortune in the hands of trustees, with instructions to apply the +interest to the providing of easy berths to men whose hair is of +that colour. From all I hear it is splendid pay and very little to +do.' + +"'But,' said I, 'there would be millions of red-headed men who +would apply.' + +"'Not so many as you might think,' he answered. 'You see it is +really confined to Londoners, and to grown men. This American had +started from London when he was young, and he wanted to do the +old town a good turn. Then, again, I have heard it is no use your +applying if your hair is light red, or dark red, or anything but +real bright, blazing, fiery red. Now, if you cared to apply, Mr. +Wilson, you would just walk in; but perhaps it would hardly be +worth your while to put yourself out of the way for the sake of a +few hundred pounds.' + +"Now, it is a fact, gentlemen, as you may see for yourselves, +that my hair is of a very full and rich tint, so that it seemed +to me that if there was to be any competition in the matter I +stood as good a chance as any man that I had ever met. Vincent +Spaulding seemed to know so much about it that I thought he might +prove useful, so I just ordered him to put up the shutters for +the day and to come right away with me. He was very willing to +have a holiday, so we shut the business up and started off for +the address that was given us in the advertisement. + +"I never hope to see such a sight as that again, Mr. Holmes. From +north, south, east, and west every man who had a shade of red in +his hair had tramped into the city to answer the advertisement. +Fleet Street was choked with red-headed folk, and Pope's Court +looked like a coster's orange barrow. I should not have thought +there were so many in the whole country as were brought together +by that single advertisement. Every shade of colour they +were--straw, lemon, orange, brick, Irish-setter, liver, clay; +but, as Spaulding said, there were not many who had the real +vivid flame-coloured tint. When I saw how many were waiting, I +would have given it up in despair; but Spaulding would not hear +of it. How he did it I could not imagine, but he pushed and +pulled and butted until he got me through the crowd, and right up +to the steps which led to the office. There was a double stream +upon the stair, some going up in hope, and some coming back +dejected; but we wedged in as well as we could and soon found +ourselves in the office." + +"Your experience has been a most entertaining one," remarked +Holmes as his client paused and refreshed his memory with a huge +pinch of snuff. "Pray continue your very interesting statement." + +"There was nothing in the office but a couple of wooden chairs +and a deal table, behind which sat a small man with a head that +was even redder than mine. He said a few words to each candidate +as he came up, and then he always managed to find some fault in +them which would disqualify them. Getting a vacancy did not seem +to be such a very easy matter, after all. However, when our turn +came the little man was much more favourable to me than to any of +the others, and he closed the door as we entered, so that he +might have a private word with us. + +"'This is Mr. Jabez Wilson,' said my assistant, 'and he is +willing to fill a vacancy in the League.' + +"'And he is admirably suited for it,' the other answered. 'He has +every requirement. I cannot recall when I have seen anything so +fine.' He took a step backward, cocked his head on one side, and +gazed at my hair until I felt quite bashful. Then suddenly he +plunged forward, wrung my hand, and congratulated me warmly on my +success. + +"'It would be injustice to hesitate,' said he. 'You will, +however, I am sure, excuse me for taking an obvious precaution.' +With that he seized my hair in both his hands, and tugged until I +yelled with the pain. 'There is water in your eyes,' said he as +he released me. 'I perceive that all is as it should be. But we +have to be careful, for we have twice been deceived by wigs and +once by paint. I could tell you tales of cobbler's wax which +would disgust you with human nature.' He stepped over to the +window and shouted through it at the top of his voice that the +vacancy was filled. A groan of disappointment came up from below, +and the folk all trooped away in different directions until there +was not a red-head to be seen except my own and that of the +manager. + +"'My name,' said he, 'is Mr. Duncan Ross, and I am myself one of +the pensioners upon the fund left by our noble benefactor. Are +you a married man, Mr. Wilson? Have you a family?' + +"I answered that I had not. + +"His face fell immediately. + +"'Dear me!' he said gravely, 'that is very serious indeed! I am +sorry to hear you say that. The fund was, of course, for the +propagation and spread of the red-heads as well as for their +maintenance. It is exceedingly unfortunate that you should be a +bachelor.' + +"My face lengthened at this, Mr. Holmes, for I thought that I was +not to have the vacancy after all; but after thinking it over for +a few minutes he said that it would be all right. + +"'In the case of another,' said he, 'the objection might be +fatal, but we must stretch a point in favour of a man with such a +head of hair as yours. When shall you be able to enter upon your +new duties?' + +"'Well, it is a little awkward, for I have a business already,' +said I. + +"'Oh, never mind about that, Mr. Wilson!' said Vincent Spaulding. +'I should be able to look after that for you.' + +"'What would be the hours?' I asked. + +"'Ten to two.' + +"Now a pawnbroker's business is mostly done of an evening, Mr. +Holmes, especially Thursday and Friday evening, which is just +before pay-day; so it would suit me very well to earn a little in +the mornings. Besides, I knew that my assistant was a good man, +and that he would see to anything that turned up. + +"'That would suit me very well,' said I. 'And the pay?' + +"'Is 4 pounds a week.' + +"'And the work?' + +"'Is purely nominal.' + +"'What do you call purely nominal?' + +"'Well, you have to be in the office, or at least in the +building, the whole time. If you leave, you forfeit your whole +position forever. The will is very clear upon that point. You +don't comply with the conditions if you budge from the office +during that time.' + +"'It's only four hours a day, and I should not think of leaving,' +said I. + +"'No excuse will avail,' said Mr. Duncan Ross; 'neither sickness +nor business nor anything else. There you must stay, or you lose +your billet.' + +"'And the work?' + +"'Is to copy out the "Encyclopaedia Britannica." There is the first +volume of it in that press. You must find your own ink, pens, and +blotting-paper, but we provide this table and chair. Will you be +ready to-morrow?' + +"'Certainly,' I answered. + +"'Then, good-bye, Mr. Jabez Wilson, and let me congratulate you +once more on the important position which you have been fortunate +enough to gain.' He bowed me out of the room and I went home with +my assistant, hardly knowing what to say or do, I was so pleased +at my own good fortune. + +"Well, I thought over the matter all day, and by evening I was in +low spirits again; for I had quite persuaded myself that the +whole affair must be some great hoax or fraud, though what its +object might be I could not imagine. It seemed altogether past +belief that anyone could make such a will, or that they would pay +such a sum for doing anything so simple as copying out the +'Encyclopaedia Britannica.' Vincent Spaulding did what he could to +cheer me up, but by bedtime I had reasoned myself out of the +whole thing. However, in the morning I determined to have a look +at it anyhow, so I bought a penny bottle of ink, and with a +quill-pen, and seven sheets of foolscap paper, I started off for +Pope's Court. + +"Well, to my surprise and delight, everything was as right as +possible. The table was set out ready for me, and Mr. Duncan Ross +was there to see that I got fairly to work. He started me off +upon the letter A, and then he left me; but he would drop in from +time to time to see that all was right with me. At two o'clock he +bade me good-day, complimented me upon the amount that I had +written, and locked the door of the office after me. + +"This went on day after day, Mr. Holmes, and on Saturday the +manager came in and planked down four golden sovereigns for my +week's work. It was the same next week, and the same the week +after. Every morning I was there at ten, and every afternoon I +left at two. By degrees Mr. Duncan Ross took to coming in only +once of a morning, and then, after a time, he did not come in at +all. Still, of course, I never dared to leave the room for an +instant, for I was not sure when he might come, and the billet +was such a good one, and suited me so well, that I would not risk +the loss of it. + +"Eight weeks passed away like this, and I had written about +Abbots and Archery and Armour and Architecture and Attica, and +hoped with diligence that I might get on to the B's before very +long. It cost me something in foolscap, and I had pretty nearly +filled a shelf with my writings. And then suddenly the whole +business came to an end." + +"To an end?" + +"Yes, sir. And no later than this morning. I went to my work as +usual at ten o'clock, but the door was shut and locked, with a +little square of cardboard hammered on to the middle of the +panel with a tack. Here it is, and you can read for yourself." + +He held up a piece of white cardboard about the size of a sheet +of note-paper. It read in this fashion: + + THE RED-HEADED LEAGUE + + IS + + DISSOLVED. + + October 9, 1890. + +Sherlock Holmes and I surveyed this curt announcement and the +rueful face behind it, until the comical side of the affair so +completely overtopped every other consideration that we both +burst out into a roar of laughter. + +"I cannot see that there is anything very funny," cried our +client, flushing up to the roots of his flaming head. "If you can +do nothing better than laugh at me, I can go elsewhere." + +"No, no," cried Holmes, shoving him back into the chair from +which he had half risen. "I really wouldn't miss your case for +the world. It is most refreshingly unusual. But there is, if you +will excuse my saying so, something just a little funny about it. +Pray what steps did you take when you found the card upon the +door?" + +"I was staggered, sir. I did not know what to do. Then I called +at the offices round, but none of them seemed to know anything +about it. Finally, I went to the landlord, who is an accountant +living on the ground-floor, and I asked him if he could tell me +what had become of the Red-headed League. He said that he had +never heard of any such body. Then I asked him who Mr. Duncan +Ross was. He answered that the name was new to him. + +"'Well,' said I, 'the gentleman at No. 4.' + +"'What, the red-headed man?' + +"'Yes.' + +"'Oh,' said he, 'his name was William Morris. He was a solicitor +and was using my room as a temporary convenience until his new +premises were ready. He moved out yesterday.' + +"'Where could I find him?' + +"'Oh, at his new offices. He did tell me the address. Yes, 17 +King Edward Street, near St. Paul's.' + +"I started off, Mr. Holmes, but when I got to that address it was +a manufactory of artificial knee-caps, and no one in it had ever +heard of either Mr. William Morris or Mr. Duncan Ross." + +"And what did you do then?" asked Holmes. + +"I went home to Saxe-Coburg Square, and I took the advice of my +assistant. But he could not help me in any way. He could only say +that if I waited I should hear by post. But that was not quite +good enough, Mr. Holmes. I did not wish to lose such a place +without a struggle, so, as I had heard that you were good enough +to give advice to poor folk who were in need of it, I came right +away to you." + +"And you did very wisely," said Holmes. "Your case is an +exceedingly remarkable one, and I shall be happy to look into it. +From what you have told me I think that it is possible that +graver issues hang from it than might at first sight appear." + +"Grave enough!" said Mr. Jabez Wilson. "Why, I have lost four +pound a week." + +"As far as you are personally concerned," remarked Holmes, "I do +not see that you have any grievance against this extraordinary +league. On the contrary, you are, as I understand, richer by some +30 pounds, to say nothing of the minute knowledge which you have +gained on every subject which comes under the letter A. You have +lost nothing by them." + +"No, sir. But I want to find out about them, and who they are, +and what their object was in playing this prank--if it was a +prank--upon me. It was a pretty expensive joke for them, for it +cost them two and thirty pounds." + +"We shall endeavour to clear up these points for you. And, first, +one or two questions, Mr. Wilson. This assistant of yours who +first called your attention to the advertisement--how long had he +been with you?" + +"About a month then." + +"How did he come?" + +"In answer to an advertisement." + +"Was he the only applicant?" + +"No, I had a dozen." + +"Why did you pick him?" + +"Because he was handy and would come cheap." + +"At half-wages, in fact." + +"Yes." + +"What is he like, this Vincent Spaulding?" + +"Small, stout-built, very quick in his ways, no hair on his face, +though he's not short of thirty. Has a white splash of acid upon +his forehead." + +Holmes sat up in his chair in considerable excitement. "I thought +as much," said he. "Have you ever observed that his ears are +pierced for earrings?" + +"Yes, sir. He told me that a gipsy had done it for him when he +was a lad." + +"Hum!" said Holmes, sinking back in deep thought. "He is still +with you?" + +"Oh, yes, sir; I have only just left him." + +"And has your business been attended to in your absence?" + +"Nothing to complain of, sir. There's never very much to do of a +morning." + +"That will do, Mr. Wilson. I shall be happy to give you an +opinion upon the subject in the course of a day or two. To-day is +Saturday, and I hope that by Monday we may come to a conclusion." + +"Well, Watson," said Holmes when our visitor had left us, "what +do you make of it all?" + +"I make nothing of it," I answered frankly. "It is a most +mysterious business." + +"As a rule," said Holmes, "the more bizarre a thing is the less +mysterious it proves to be. It is your commonplace, featureless +crimes which are really puzzling, just as a commonplace face is +the most difficult to identify. But I must be prompt over this +matter." + +"What are you going to do, then?" I asked. + +"To smoke," he answered. "It is quite a three pipe problem, and I +beg that you won't speak to me for fifty minutes." He curled +himself up in his chair, with his thin knees drawn up to his +hawk-like nose, and there he sat with his eyes closed and his +black clay pipe thrusting out like the bill of some strange bird. +I had come to the conclusion that he had dropped asleep, and +indeed was nodding myself, when he suddenly sprang out of his +chair with the gesture of a man who has made up his mind and put +his pipe down upon the mantelpiece. + +"Sarasate plays at the St. James's Hall this afternoon," he +remarked. "What do you think, Watson? Could your patients spare +you for a few hours?" + +"I have nothing to do to-day. My practice is never very +absorbing." + +"Then put on your hat and come. I am going through the City +first, and we can have some lunch on the way. I observe that +there is a good deal of German music on the programme, which is +rather more to my taste than Italian or French. It is +introspective, and I want to introspect. Come along!" + +We travelled by the Underground as far as Aldersgate; and a short +walk took us to Saxe-Coburg Square, the scene of the singular +story which we had listened to in the morning. It was a poky, +little, shabby-genteel place, where four lines of dingy +two-storied brick houses looked out into a small railed-in +enclosure, where a lawn of weedy grass and a few clumps of faded +laurel-bushes made a hard fight against a smoke-laden and +uncongenial atmosphere. Three gilt balls and a brown board with +"JABEZ WILSON" in white letters, upon a corner house, announced +the place where our red-headed client carried on his business. +Sherlock Holmes stopped in front of it with his head on one side +and looked it all over, with his eyes shining brightly between +puckered lids. Then he walked slowly up the street, and then down +again to the corner, still looking keenly at the houses. Finally +he returned to the pawnbroker's, and, having thumped vigorously +upon the pavement with his stick two or three times, he went up +to the door and knocked. It was instantly opened by a +bright-looking, clean-shaven young fellow, who asked him to step +in. + +"Thank you," said Holmes, "I only wished to ask you how you would +go from here to the Strand." + +"Third right, fourth left," answered the assistant promptly, +closing the door. + +"Smart fellow, that," observed Holmes as we walked away. "He is, +in my judgment, the fourth smartest man in London, and for daring +I am not sure that he has not a claim to be third. I have known +something of him before." + +"Evidently," said I, "Mr. Wilson's assistant counts for a good +deal in this mystery of the Red-headed League. I am sure that you +inquired your way merely in order that you might see him." + +"Not him." + +"What then?" + +"The knees of his trousers." + +"And what did you see?" + +"What I expected to see." + +"Why did you beat the pavement?" + +"My dear doctor, this is a time for observation, not for talk. We +are spies in an enemy's country. We know something of Saxe-Coburg +Square. Let us now explore the parts which lie behind it." + +The road in which we found ourselves as we turned round the +corner from the retired Saxe-Coburg Square presented as great a +contrast to it as the front of a picture does to the back. It was +one of the main arteries which conveyed the traffic of the City +to the north and west. The roadway was blocked with the immense +stream of commerce flowing in a double tide inward and outward, +while the footpaths were black with the hurrying swarm of +pedestrians. It was difficult to realise as we looked at the line +of fine shops and stately business premises that they really +abutted on the other side upon the faded and stagnant square +which we had just quitted. + +"Let me see," said Holmes, standing at the corner and glancing +along the line, "I should like just to remember the order of the +houses here. It is a hobby of mine to have an exact knowledge of +London. There is Mortimer's, the tobacconist, the little +newspaper shop, the Coburg branch of the City and Suburban Bank, +the Vegetarian Restaurant, and McFarlane's carriage-building +depot. That carries us right on to the other block. And now, +Doctor, we've done our work, so it's time we had some play. A +sandwich and a cup of coffee, and then off to violin-land, where +all is sweetness and delicacy and harmony, and there are no +red-headed clients to vex us with their conundrums." + +My friend was an enthusiastic musician, being himself not only a +very capable performer but a composer of no ordinary merit. All +the afternoon he sat in the stalls wrapped in the most perfect +happiness, gently waving his long, thin fingers in time to the +music, while his gently smiling face and his languid, dreamy eyes +were as unlike those of Holmes the sleuth-hound, Holmes the +relentless, keen-witted, ready-handed criminal agent, as it was +possible to conceive. In his singular character the dual nature +alternately asserted itself, and his extreme exactness and +astuteness represented, as I have often thought, the reaction +against the poetic and contemplative mood which occasionally +predominated in him. The swing of his nature took him from +extreme languor to devouring energy; and, as I knew well, he was +never so truly formidable as when, for days on end, he had been +lounging in his armchair amid his improvisations and his +black-letter editions. Then it was that the lust of the chase +would suddenly come upon him, and that his brilliant reasoning +power would rise to the level of intuition, until those who were +unacquainted with his methods would look askance at him as on a +man whose knowledge was not that of other mortals. When I saw him +that afternoon so enwrapped in the music at St. James's Hall I +felt that an evil time might be coming upon those whom he had set +himself to hunt down. + +"You want to go home, no doubt, Doctor," he remarked as we +emerged. + +"Yes, it would be as well." + +"And I have some business to do which will take some hours. This +business at Coburg Square is serious." + +"Why serious?" + +"A considerable crime is in contemplation. I have every reason to +believe that we shall be in time to stop it. But to-day being +Saturday rather complicates matters. I shall want your help +to-night." + +"At what time?" + +"Ten will be early enough." + +"I shall be at Baker Street at ten." + +"Very well. And, I say, Doctor, there may be some little danger, +so kindly put your army revolver in your pocket." He waved his +hand, turned on his heel, and disappeared in an instant among the +crowd. + +I trust that I am not more dense than my neighbours, but I was +always oppressed with a sense of my own stupidity in my dealings +with Sherlock Holmes. Here I had heard what he had heard, I had +seen what he had seen, and yet from his words it was evident that +he saw clearly not only what had happened but what was about to +happen, while to me the whole business was still confused and +grotesque. As I drove home to my house in Kensington I thought +over it all, from the extraordinary story of the red-headed +copier of the "Encyclopaedia" down to the visit to Saxe-Coburg +Square, and the ominous words with which he had parted from me. +What was this nocturnal expedition, and why should I go armed? +Where were we going, and what were we to do? I had the hint from +Holmes that this smooth-faced pawnbroker's assistant was a +formidable man--a man who might play a deep game. I tried to +puzzle it out, but gave it up in despair and set the matter aside +until night should bring an explanation. + +It was a quarter-past nine when I started from home and made my +way across the Park, and so through Oxford Street to Baker +Street. Two hansoms were standing at the door, and as I entered +the passage I heard the sound of voices from above. On entering +his room I found Holmes in animated conversation with two men, +one of whom I recognised as Peter Jones, the official police +agent, while the other was a long, thin, sad-faced man, with a +very shiny hat and oppressively respectable frock-coat. + +"Ha! Our party is complete," said Holmes, buttoning up his +pea-jacket and taking his heavy hunting crop from the rack. +"Watson, I think you know Mr. Jones, of Scotland Yard? Let me +introduce you to Mr. Merryweather, who is to be our companion in +to-night's adventure." + +"We're hunting in couples again, Doctor, you see," said Jones in +his consequential way. "Our friend here is a wonderful man for +starting a chase. All he wants is an old dog to help him to do +the running down." + +"I hope a wild goose may not prove to be the end of our chase," +observed Mr. Merryweather gloomily. + +"You may place considerable confidence in Mr. Holmes, sir," said +the police agent loftily. "He has his own little methods, which +are, if he won't mind my saying so, just a little too theoretical +and fantastic, but he has the makings of a detective in him. It +is not too much to say that once or twice, as in that business of +the Sholto murder and the Agra treasure, he has been more nearly +correct than the official force." + +"Oh, if you say so, Mr. Jones, it is all right," said the +stranger with deference. "Still, I confess that I miss my rubber. +It is the first Saturday night for seven-and-twenty years that I +have not had my rubber." + +"I think you will find," said Sherlock Holmes, "that you will +play for a higher stake to-night than you have ever done yet, and +that the play will be more exciting. For you, Mr. Merryweather, +the stake will be some 30,000 pounds; and for you, Jones, it will +be the man upon whom you wish to lay your hands." + +"John Clay, the murderer, thief, smasher, and forger. He's a +young man, Mr. Merryweather, but he is at the head of his +profession, and I would rather have my bracelets on him than on +any criminal in London. He's a remarkable man, is young John +Clay. His grandfather was a royal duke, and he himself has been +to Eton and Oxford. His brain is as cunning as his fingers, and +though we meet signs of him at every turn, we never know where to +find the man himself. He'll crack a crib in Scotland one week, +and be raising money to build an orphanage in Cornwall the next. +I've been on his track for years and have never set eyes on him +yet." + +"I hope that I may have the pleasure of introducing you to-night. +I've had one or two little turns also with Mr. John Clay, and I +agree with you that he is at the head of his profession. It is +past ten, however, and quite time that we started. If you two +will take the first hansom, Watson and I will follow in the +second." + +Sherlock Holmes was not very communicative during the long drive +and lay back in the cab humming the tunes which he had heard in +the afternoon. We rattled through an endless labyrinth of gas-lit +streets until we emerged into Farrington Street. + +"We are close there now," my friend remarked. "This fellow +Merryweather is a bank director, and personally interested in the +matter. I thought it as well to have Jones with us also. He is +not a bad fellow, though an absolute imbecile in his profession. +He has one positive virtue. He is as brave as a bulldog and as +tenacious as a lobster if he gets his claws upon anyone. Here we +are, and they are waiting for us." + +We had reached the same crowded thoroughfare in which we had +found ourselves in the morning. Our cabs were dismissed, and, +following the guidance of Mr. Merryweather, we passed down a +narrow passage and through a side door, which he opened for us. +Within there was a small corridor, which ended in a very massive +iron gate. This also was opened, and led down a flight of winding +stone steps, which terminated at another formidable gate. Mr. +Merryweather stopped to light a lantern, and then conducted us +down a dark, earth-smelling passage, and so, after opening a +third door, into a huge vault or cellar, which was piled all +round with crates and massive boxes. + +"You are not very vulnerable from above," Holmes remarked as he +held up the lantern and gazed about him. + +"Nor from below," said Mr. Merryweather, striking his stick upon +the flags which lined the floor. "Why, dear me, it sounds quite +hollow!" he remarked, looking up in surprise. + +"I must really ask you to be a little more quiet!" said Holmes +severely. "You have already imperilled the whole success of our +expedition. Might I beg that you would have the goodness to sit +down upon one of those boxes, and not to interfere?" + +The solemn Mr. Merryweather perched himself upon a crate, with a +very injured expression upon his face, while Holmes fell upon his +knees upon the floor and, with the lantern and a magnifying lens, +began to examine minutely the cracks between the stones. A few +seconds sufficed to satisfy him, for he sprang to his feet again +and put his glass in his pocket. + +"We have at least an hour before us," he remarked, "for they can +hardly take any steps until the good pawnbroker is safely in bed. +Then they will not lose a minute, for the sooner they do their +work the longer time they will have for their escape. We are at +present, Doctor--as no doubt you have divined--in the cellar of +the City branch of one of the principal London banks. Mr. +Merryweather is the chairman of directors, and he will explain to +you that there are reasons why the more daring criminals of +London should take a considerable interest in this cellar at +present." + +"It is our French gold," whispered the director. "We have had +several warnings that an attempt might be made upon it." + +"Your French gold?" + +"Yes. We had occasion some months ago to strengthen our resources +and borrowed for that purpose 30,000 napoleons from the Bank of +France. It has become known that we have never had occasion to +unpack the money, and that it is still lying in our cellar. The +crate upon which I sit contains 2,000 napoleons packed between +layers of lead foil. Our reserve of bullion is much larger at +present than is usually kept in a single branch office, and the +directors have had misgivings upon the subject." + +"Which were very well justified," observed Holmes. "And now it is +time that we arranged our little plans. I expect that within an +hour matters will come to a head. In the meantime Mr. +Merryweather, we must put the screen over that dark lantern." + +"And sit in the dark?" + +"I am afraid so. I had brought a pack of cards in my pocket, and +I thought that, as we were a partie carree, you might have your +rubber after all. But I see that the enemy's preparations have +gone so far that we cannot risk the presence of a light. And, +first of all, we must choose our positions. These are daring men, +and though we shall take them at a disadvantage, they may do us +some harm unless we are careful. I shall stand behind this crate, +and do you conceal yourselves behind those. Then, when I flash a +light upon them, close in swiftly. If they fire, Watson, have no +compunction about shooting them down." + +I placed my revolver, cocked, upon the top of the wooden case +behind which I crouched. Holmes shot the slide across the front +of his lantern and left us in pitch darkness--such an absolute +darkness as I have never before experienced. The smell of hot +metal remained to assure us that the light was still there, ready +to flash out at a moment's notice. To me, with my nerves worked +up to a pitch of expectancy, there was something depressing and +subduing in the sudden gloom, and in the cold dank air of the +vault. + +"They have but one retreat," whispered Holmes. "That is back +through the house into Saxe-Coburg Square. I hope that you have +done what I asked you, Jones?" + +"I have an inspector and two officers waiting at the front door." + +"Then we have stopped all the holes. And now we must be silent +and wait." + +What a time it seemed! From comparing notes afterwards it was but +an hour and a quarter, yet it appeared to me that the night must +have almost gone and the dawn be breaking above us. My limbs +were weary and stiff, for I feared to change my position; yet my +nerves were worked up to the highest pitch of tension, and my +hearing was so acute that I could not only hear the gentle +breathing of my companions, but I could distinguish the deeper, +heavier in-breath of the bulky Jones from the thin, sighing note +of the bank director. From my position I could look over the case +in the direction of the floor. Suddenly my eyes caught the glint +of a light. + +At first it was but a lurid spark upon the stone pavement. Then +it lengthened out until it became a yellow line, and then, +without any warning or sound, a gash seemed to open and a hand +appeared, a white, almost womanly hand, which felt about in the +centre of the little area of light. For a minute or more the +hand, with its writhing fingers, protruded out of the floor. Then +it was withdrawn as suddenly as it appeared, and all was dark +again save the single lurid spark which marked a chink between +the stones. + +Its disappearance, however, was but momentary. With a rending, +tearing sound, one of the broad, white stones turned over upon +its side and left a square, gaping hole, through which streamed +the light of a lantern. Over the edge there peeped a clean-cut, +boyish face, which looked keenly about it, and then, with a hand +on either side of the aperture, drew itself shoulder-high and +waist-high, until one knee rested upon the edge. In another +instant he stood at the side of the hole and was hauling after +him a companion, lithe and small like himself, with a pale face +and a shock of very red hair. + +"It's all clear," he whispered. "Have you the chisel and the +bags? Great Scott! Jump, Archie, jump, and I'll swing for it!" + +Sherlock Holmes had sprung out and seized the intruder by the +collar. The other dived down the hole, and I heard the sound of +rending cloth as Jones clutched at his skirts. The light flashed +upon the barrel of a revolver, but Holmes' hunting crop came +down on the man's wrist, and the pistol clinked upon the stone +floor. + +"It's no use, John Clay," said Holmes blandly. "You have no +chance at all." + +"So I see," the other answered with the utmost coolness. "I fancy +that my pal is all right, though I see you have got his +coat-tails." + +"There are three men waiting for him at the door," said Holmes. + +"Oh, indeed! You seem to have done the thing very completely. I +must compliment you." + +"And I you," Holmes answered. "Your red-headed idea was very new +and effective." + +"You'll see your pal again presently," said Jones. "He's quicker +at climbing down holes than I am. Just hold out while I fix the +derbies." + +"I beg that you will not touch me with your filthy hands," +remarked our prisoner as the handcuffs clattered upon his wrists. +"You may not be aware that I have royal blood in my veins. Have +the goodness, also, when you address me always to say 'sir' and +'please.'" + +"All right," said Jones with a stare and a snigger. "Well, would +you please, sir, march upstairs, where we can get a cab to carry +your Highness to the police-station?" + +"That is better," said John Clay serenely. He made a sweeping bow +to the three of us and walked quietly off in the custody of the +detective. + +"Really, Mr. Holmes," said Mr. Merryweather as we followed them +from the cellar, "I do not know how the bank can thank you or +repay you. There is no doubt that you have detected and defeated +in the most complete manner one of the most determined attempts +at bank robbery that have ever come within my experience." + +"I have had one or two little scores of my own to settle with Mr. +John Clay," said Holmes. "I have been at some small expense over +this matter, which I shall expect the bank to refund, but beyond +that I am amply repaid by having had an experience which is in +many ways unique, and by hearing the very remarkable narrative of +the Red-headed League." + + +"You see, Watson," he explained in the early hours of the morning +as we sat over a glass of whisky and soda in Baker Street, "it +was perfectly obvious from the first that the only possible +object of this rather fantastic business of the advertisement of +the League, and the copying of the 'Encyclopaedia,' must be to get +this not over-bright pawnbroker out of the way for a number of +hours every day. It was a curious way of managing it, but, +really, it would be difficult to suggest a better. The method was +no doubt suggested to Clay's ingenious mind by the colour of his +accomplice's hair. The 4 pounds a week was a lure which must draw +him, and what was it to them, who were playing for thousands? +They put in the advertisement, one rogue has the temporary +office, the other rogue incites the man to apply for it, and +together they manage to secure his absence every morning in the +week. From the time that I heard of the assistant having come for +half wages, it was obvious to me that he had some strong motive +for securing the situation." + +"But how could you guess what the motive was?" + +"Had there been women in the house, I should have suspected a +mere vulgar intrigue. That, however, was out of the question. The +man's business was a small one, and there was nothing in his +house which could account for such elaborate preparations, and +such an expenditure as they were at. It must, then, be something +out of the house. What could it be? I thought of the assistant's +fondness for photography, and his trick of vanishing into the +cellar. The cellar! There was the end of this tangled clue. Then +I made inquiries as to this mysterious assistant and found that I +had to deal with one of the coolest and most daring criminals in +London. He was doing something in the cellar--something which +took many hours a day for months on end. What could it be, once +more? I could think of nothing save that he was running a tunnel +to some other building. + +"So far I had got when we went to visit the scene of action. I +surprised you by beating upon the pavement with my stick. I was +ascertaining whether the cellar stretched out in front or behind. +It was not in front. Then I rang the bell, and, as I hoped, the +assistant answered it. We have had some skirmishes, but we had +never set eyes upon each other before. I hardly looked at his +face. His knees were what I wished to see. You must yourself have +remarked how worn, wrinkled, and stained they were. They spoke of +those hours of burrowing. The only remaining point was what they +were burrowing for. I walked round the corner, saw the City and +Suburban Bank abutted on our friend's premises, and felt that I +had solved my problem. When you drove home after the concert I +called upon Scotland Yard and upon the chairman of the bank +directors, with the result that you have seen." + +"And how could you tell that they would make their attempt +to-night?" I asked. + +"Well, when they closed their League offices that was a sign that +they cared no longer about Mr. Jabez Wilson's presence--in other +words, that they had completed their tunnel. But it was essential +that they should use it soon, as it might be discovered, or the +bullion might be removed. Saturday would suit them better than +any other day, as it would give them two days for their escape. +For all these reasons I expected them to come to-night." + +"You reasoned it out beautifully," I exclaimed in unfeigned +admiration. "It is so long a chain, and yet every link rings +true." + +"It saved me from ennui," he answered, yawning. "Alas! I already +feel it closing in upon me. My life is spent in one long effort +to escape from the commonplaces of existence. These little +problems help me to do so." + +"And you are a benefactor of the race," said I. + +He shrugged his shoulders. "Well, perhaps, after all, it is of +some little use," he remarked. "'L'homme c'est rien--l'oeuvre +c'est tout,' as Gustave Flaubert wrote to George Sand." + + + +ADVENTURE III. A CASE OF IDENTITY + +"My dear fellow," said Sherlock Holmes as we sat on either side +of the fire in his lodgings at Baker Street, "life is infinitely +stranger than anything which the mind of man could invent. We +would not dare to conceive the things which are really mere +commonplaces of existence. If we could fly out of that window +hand in hand, hover over this great city, gently remove the +roofs, and peep in at the queer things which are going on, the +strange coincidences, the plannings, the cross-purposes, the +wonderful chains of events, working through generations, and +leading to the most outre results, it would make all fiction with +its conventionalities and foreseen conclusions most stale and +unprofitable." + +"And yet I am not convinced of it," I answered. "The cases which +come to light in the papers are, as a rule, bald enough, and +vulgar enough. We have in our police reports realism pushed to +its extreme limits, and yet the result is, it must be confessed, +neither fascinating nor artistic." + +"A certain selection and discretion must be used in producing a +realistic effect," remarked Holmes. "This is wanting in the +police report, where more stress is laid, perhaps, upon the +platitudes of the magistrate than upon the details, which to an +observer contain the vital essence of the whole matter. Depend +upon it, there is nothing so unnatural as the commonplace." + +I smiled and shook my head. "I can quite understand your thinking +so," I said. "Of course, in your position of unofficial adviser +and helper to everybody who is absolutely puzzled, throughout +three continents, you are brought in contact with all that is +strange and bizarre. But here"--I picked up the morning paper +from the ground--"let us put it to a practical test. Here is the +first heading upon which I come. 'A husband's cruelty to his +wife.' There is half a column of print, but I know without +reading it that it is all perfectly familiar to me. There is, of +course, the other woman, the drink, the push, the blow, the +bruise, the sympathetic sister or landlady. The crudest of +writers could invent nothing more crude." + +"Indeed, your example is an unfortunate one for your argument," +said Holmes, taking the paper and glancing his eye down it. "This +is the Dundas separation case, and, as it happens, I was engaged +in clearing up some small points in connection with it. The +husband was a teetotaler, there was no other woman, and the +conduct complained of was that he had drifted into the habit of +winding up every meal by taking out his false teeth and hurling +them at his wife, which, you will allow, is not an action likely +to occur to the imagination of the average story-teller. Take a +pinch of snuff, Doctor, and acknowledge that I have scored over +you in your example." + +He held out his snuffbox of old gold, with a great amethyst in +the centre of the lid. Its splendour was in such contrast to his +homely ways and simple life that I could not help commenting upon +it. + +"Ah," said he, "I forgot that I had not seen you for some weeks. +It is a little souvenir from the King of Bohemia in return for my +assistance in the case of the Irene Adler papers." + +"And the ring?" I asked, glancing at a remarkable brilliant which +sparkled upon his finger. + +"It was from the reigning family of Holland, though the matter in +which I served them was of such delicacy that I cannot confide it +even to you, who have been good enough to chronicle one or two of +my little problems." + +"And have you any on hand just now?" I asked with interest. + +"Some ten or twelve, but none which present any feature of +interest. They are important, you understand, without being +interesting. Indeed, I have found that it is usually in +unimportant matters that there is a field for the observation, +and for the quick analysis of cause and effect which gives the +charm to an investigation. The larger crimes are apt to be the +simpler, for the bigger the crime the more obvious, as a rule, is +the motive. In these cases, save for one rather intricate matter +which has been referred to me from Marseilles, there is nothing +which presents any features of interest. It is possible, however, +that I may have something better before very many minutes are +over, for this is one of my clients, or I am much mistaken." + +He had risen from his chair and was standing between the parted +blinds gazing down into the dull neutral-tinted London street. +Looking over his shoulder, I saw that on the pavement opposite +there stood a large woman with a heavy fur boa round her neck, +and a large curling red feather in a broad-brimmed hat which was +tilted in a coquettish Duchess of Devonshire fashion over her +ear. From under this great panoply she peeped up in a nervous, +hesitating fashion at our windows, while her body oscillated +backward and forward, and her fingers fidgeted with her glove +buttons. Suddenly, with a plunge, as of the swimmer who leaves +the bank, she hurried across the road, and we heard the sharp +clang of the bell. + +"I have seen those symptoms before," said Holmes, throwing his +cigarette into the fire. "Oscillation upon the pavement always +means an affaire de coeur. She would like advice, but is not sure +that the matter is not too delicate for communication. And yet +even here we may discriminate. When a woman has been seriously +wronged by a man she no longer oscillates, and the usual symptom +is a broken bell wire. Here we may take it that there is a love +matter, but that the maiden is not so much angry as perplexed, or +grieved. But here she comes in person to resolve our doubts." + +As he spoke there was a tap at the door, and the boy in buttons +entered to announce Miss Mary Sutherland, while the lady herself +loomed behind his small black figure like a full-sailed +merchant-man behind a tiny pilot boat. Sherlock Holmes welcomed +her with the easy courtesy for which he was remarkable, and, +having closed the door and bowed her into an armchair, he looked +her over in the minute and yet abstracted fashion which was +peculiar to him. + +"Do you not find," he said, "that with your short sight it is a +little trying to do so much typewriting?" + +"I did at first," she answered, "but now I know where the letters +are without looking." Then, suddenly realising the full purport +of his words, she gave a violent start and looked up, with fear +and astonishment upon her broad, good-humoured face. "You've +heard about me, Mr. Holmes," she cried, "else how could you know +all that?" + +"Never mind," said Holmes, laughing; "it is my business to know +things. Perhaps I have trained myself to see what others +overlook. If not, why should you come to consult me?" + +"I came to you, sir, because I heard of you from Mrs. Etherege, +whose husband you found so easy when the police and everyone had +given him up for dead. Oh, Mr. Holmes, I wish you would do as +much for me. I'm not rich, but still I have a hundred a year in +my own right, besides the little that I make by the machine, and +I would give it all to know what has become of Mr. Hosmer Angel." + +"Why did you come away to consult me in such a hurry?" asked +Sherlock Holmes, with his finger-tips together and his eyes to +the ceiling. + +Again a startled look came over the somewhat vacuous face of Miss +Mary Sutherland. "Yes, I did bang out of the house," she said, +"for it made me angry to see the easy way in which Mr. +Windibank--that is, my father--took it all. He would not go to +the police, and he would not go to you, and so at last, as he +would do nothing and kept on saying that there was no harm done, +it made me mad, and I just on with my things and came right away +to you." + +"Your father," said Holmes, "your stepfather, surely, since the +name is different." + +"Yes, my stepfather. I call him father, though it sounds funny, +too, for he is only five years and two months older than myself." + +"And your mother is alive?" + +"Oh, yes, mother is alive and well. I wasn't best pleased, Mr. +Holmes, when she married again so soon after father's death, and +a man who was nearly fifteen years younger than herself. Father +was a plumber in the Tottenham Court Road, and he left a tidy +business behind him, which mother carried on with Mr. Hardy, the +foreman; but when Mr. Windibank came he made her sell the +business, for he was very superior, being a traveller in wines. +They got 4700 pounds for the goodwill and interest, which wasn't +near as much as father could have got if he had been alive." + +I had expected to see Sherlock Holmes impatient under this +rambling and inconsequential narrative, but, on the contrary, he +had listened with the greatest concentration of attention. + +"Your own little income," he asked, "does it come out of the +business?" + +"Oh, no, sir. It is quite separate and was left me by my uncle +Ned in Auckland. It is in New Zealand stock, paying 4 1/2 per +cent. Two thousand five hundred pounds was the amount, but I can +only touch the interest." + +"You interest me extremely," said Holmes. "And since you draw so +large a sum as a hundred a year, with what you earn into the +bargain, you no doubt travel a little and indulge yourself in +every way. I believe that a single lady can get on very nicely +upon an income of about 60 pounds." + +"I could do with much less than that, Mr. Holmes, but you +understand that as long as I live at home I don't wish to be a +burden to them, and so they have the use of the money just while +I am staying with them. Of course, that is only just for the +time. Mr. Windibank draws my interest every quarter and pays it +over to mother, and I find that I can do pretty well with what I +earn at typewriting. It brings me twopence a sheet, and I can +often do from fifteen to twenty sheets in a day." + +"You have made your position very clear to me," said Holmes. +"This is my friend, Dr. Watson, before whom you can speak as +freely as before myself. Kindly tell us now all about your +connection with Mr. Hosmer Angel." + +A flush stole over Miss Sutherland's face, and she picked +nervously at the fringe of her jacket. "I met him first at the +gasfitters' ball," she said. "They used to send father tickets +when he was alive, and then afterwards they remembered us, and +sent them to mother. Mr. Windibank did not wish us to go. He +never did wish us to go anywhere. He would get quite mad if I +wanted so much as to join a Sunday-school treat. But this time I +was set on going, and I would go; for what right had he to +prevent? He said the folk were not fit for us to know, when all +father's friends were to be there. And he said that I had nothing +fit to wear, when I had my purple plush that I had never so much +as taken out of the drawer. At last, when nothing else would do, +he went off to France upon the business of the firm, but we went, +mother and I, with Mr. Hardy, who used to be our foreman, and it +was there I met Mr. Hosmer Angel." + +"I suppose," said Holmes, "that when Mr. Windibank came back from +France he was very annoyed at your having gone to the ball." + +"Oh, well, he was very good about it. He laughed, I remember, and +shrugged his shoulders, and said there was no use denying +anything to a woman, for she would have her way." + +"I see. Then at the gasfitters' ball you met, as I understand, a +gentleman called Mr. Hosmer Angel." + +"Yes, sir. I met him that night, and he called next day to ask if +we had got home all safe, and after that we met him--that is to +say, Mr. Holmes, I met him twice for walks, but after that father +came back again, and Mr. Hosmer Angel could not come to the house +any more." + +"No?" + +"Well, you know father didn't like anything of the sort. He +wouldn't have any visitors if he could help it, and he used to +say that a woman should be happy in her own family circle. But +then, as I used to say to mother, a woman wants her own circle to +begin with, and I had not got mine yet." + +"But how about Mr. Hosmer Angel? Did he make no attempt to see +you?" + +"Well, father was going off to France again in a week, and Hosmer +wrote and said that it would be safer and better not to see each +other until he had gone. We could write in the meantime, and he +used to write every day. I took the letters in in the morning, so +there was no need for father to know." + +"Were you engaged to the gentleman at this time?" + +"Oh, yes, Mr. Holmes. We were engaged after the first walk that +we took. Hosmer--Mr. Angel--was a cashier in an office in +Leadenhall Street--and--" + +"What office?" + +"That's the worst of it, Mr. Holmes, I don't know." + +"Where did he live, then?" + +"He slept on the premises." + +"And you don't know his address?" + +"No--except that it was Leadenhall Street." + +"Where did you address your letters, then?" + +"To the Leadenhall Street Post Office, to be left till called +for. He said that if they were sent to the office he would be +chaffed by all the other clerks about having letters from a lady, +so I offered to typewrite them, like he did his, but he wouldn't +have that, for he said that when I wrote them they seemed to come +from me, but when they were typewritten he always felt that the +machine had come between us. That will just show you how fond he +was of me, Mr. Holmes, and the little things that he would think +of." + +"It was most suggestive," said Holmes. "It has long been an axiom +of mine that the little things are infinitely the most important. +Can you remember any other little things about Mr. Hosmer Angel?" + +"He was a very shy man, Mr. Holmes. He would rather walk with me +in the evening than in the daylight, for he said that he hated to +be conspicuous. Very retiring and gentlemanly he was. Even his +voice was gentle. He'd had the quinsy and swollen glands when he +was young, he told me, and it had left him with a weak throat, +and a hesitating, whispering fashion of speech. He was always +well dressed, very neat and plain, but his eyes were weak, just +as mine are, and he wore tinted glasses against the glare." + +"Well, and what happened when Mr. Windibank, your stepfather, +returned to France?" + +"Mr. Hosmer Angel came to the house again and proposed that we +should marry before father came back. He was in dreadful earnest +and made me swear, with my hands on the Testament, that whatever +happened I would always be true to him. Mother said he was quite +right to make me swear, and that it was a sign of his passion. +Mother was all in his favour from the first and was even fonder +of him than I was. Then, when they talked of marrying within the +week, I began to ask about father; but they both said never to +mind about father, but just to tell him afterwards, and mother +said she would make it all right with him. I didn't quite like +that, Mr. Holmes. It seemed funny that I should ask his leave, as +he was only a few years older than me; but I didn't want to do +anything on the sly, so I wrote to father at Bordeaux, where the +company has its French offices, but the letter came back to me on +the very morning of the wedding." + +"It missed him, then?" + +"Yes, sir; for he had started to England just before it arrived." + +"Ha! that was unfortunate. Your wedding was arranged, then, for +the Friday. Was it to be in church?" + +"Yes, sir, but very quietly. It was to be at St. Saviour's, near +King's Cross, and we were to have breakfast afterwards at the St. +Pancras Hotel. Hosmer came for us in a hansom, but as there were +two of us he put us both into it and stepped himself into a +four-wheeler, which happened to be the only other cab in the +street. We got to the church first, and when the four-wheeler +drove up we waited for him to step out, but he never did, and +when the cabman got down from the box and looked there was no one +there! The cabman said that he could not imagine what had become +of him, for he had seen him get in with his own eyes. That was +last Friday, Mr. Holmes, and I have never seen or heard anything +since then to throw any light upon what became of him." + +"It seems to me that you have been very shamefully treated," said +Holmes. + +"Oh, no, sir! He was too good and kind to leave me so. Why, all +the morning he was saying to me that, whatever happened, I was to +be true; and that even if something quite unforeseen occurred to +separate us, I was always to remember that I was pledged to him, +and that he would claim his pledge sooner or later. It seemed +strange talk for a wedding-morning, but what has happened since +gives a meaning to it." + +"Most certainly it does. Your own opinion is, then, that some +unforeseen catastrophe has occurred to him?" + +"Yes, sir. I believe that he foresaw some danger, or else he +would not have talked so. And then I think that what he foresaw +happened." + +"But you have no notion as to what it could have been?" + +"None." + +"One more question. How did your mother take the matter?" + +"She was angry, and said that I was never to speak of the matter +again." + +"And your father? Did you tell him?" + +"Yes; and he seemed to think, with me, that something had +happened, and that I should hear of Hosmer again. As he said, +what interest could anyone have in bringing me to the doors of +the church, and then leaving me? Now, if he had borrowed my +money, or if he had married me and got my money settled on him, +there might be some reason, but Hosmer was very independent about +money and never would look at a shilling of mine. And yet, what +could have happened? And why could he not write? Oh, it drives me +half-mad to think of it, and I can't sleep a wink at night." She +pulled a little handkerchief out of her muff and began to sob +heavily into it. + +"I shall glance into the case for you," said Holmes, rising, "and +I have no doubt that we shall reach some definite result. Let the +weight of the matter rest upon me now, and do not let your mind +dwell upon it further. Above all, try to let Mr. Hosmer Angel +vanish from your memory, as he has done from your life." + +"Then you don't think I'll see him again?" + +"I fear not." + +"Then what has happened to him?" + +"You will leave that question in my hands. I should like an +accurate description of him and any letters of his which you can +spare." + +"I advertised for him in last Saturday's Chronicle," said she. +"Here is the slip and here are four letters from him." + +"Thank you. And your address?" + +"No. 31 Lyon Place, Camberwell." + +"Mr. Angel's address you never had, I understand. Where is your +father's place of business?" + +"He travels for Westhouse & Marbank, the great claret importers +of Fenchurch Street." + +"Thank you. You have made your statement very clearly. You will +leave the papers here, and remember the advice which I have given +you. Let the whole incident be a sealed book, and do not allow it +to affect your life." + +"You are very kind, Mr. Holmes, but I cannot do that. I shall be +true to Hosmer. He shall find me ready when he comes back." + +For all the preposterous hat and the vacuous face, there was +something noble in the simple faith of our visitor which +compelled our respect. She laid her little bundle of papers upon +the table and went her way, with a promise to come again whenever +she might be summoned. + +Sherlock Holmes sat silent for a few minutes with his fingertips +still pressed together, his legs stretched out in front of him, +and his gaze directed upward to the ceiling. Then he took down +from the rack the old and oily clay pipe, which was to him as a +counsellor, and, having lit it, he leaned back in his chair, with +the thick blue cloud-wreaths spinning up from him, and a look of +infinite languor in his face. + +"Quite an interesting study, that maiden," he observed. "I found +her more interesting than her little problem, which, by the way, +is rather a trite one. You will find parallel cases, if you +consult my index, in Andover in '77, and there was something of +the sort at The Hague last year. Old as is the idea, however, +there were one or two details which were new to me. But the +maiden herself was most instructive." + +"You appeared to read a good deal upon her which was quite +invisible to me," I remarked. + +"Not invisible but unnoticed, Watson. You did not know where to +look, and so you missed all that was important. I can never bring +you to realise the importance of sleeves, the suggestiveness of +thumb-nails, or the great issues that may hang from a boot-lace. +Now, what did you gather from that woman's appearance? Describe +it." + +"Well, she had a slate-coloured, broad-brimmed straw hat, with a +feather of a brickish red. Her jacket was black, with black beads +sewn upon it, and a fringe of little black jet ornaments. Her +dress was brown, rather darker than coffee colour, with a little +purple plush at the neck and sleeves. Her gloves were greyish and +were worn through at the right forefinger. Her boots I didn't +observe. She had small round, hanging gold earrings, and a +general air of being fairly well-to-do in a vulgar, comfortable, +easy-going way." + +Sherlock Holmes clapped his hands softly together and chuckled. + +"'Pon my word, Watson, you are coming along wonderfully. You have +really done very well indeed. It is true that you have missed +everything of importance, but you have hit upon the method, and +you have a quick eye for colour. Never trust to general +impressions, my boy, but concentrate yourself upon details. My +first glance is always at a woman's sleeve. In a man it is +perhaps better first to take the knee of the trouser. As you +observe, this woman had plush upon her sleeves, which is a most +useful material for showing traces. The double line a little +above the wrist, where the typewritist presses against the table, +was beautifully defined. The sewing-machine, of the hand type, +leaves a similar mark, but only on the left arm, and on the side +of it farthest from the thumb, instead of being right across the +broadest part, as this was. I then glanced at her face, and, +observing the dint of a pince-nez at either side of her nose, I +ventured a remark upon short sight and typewriting, which seemed +to surprise her." + +"It surprised me." + +"But, surely, it was obvious. I was then much surprised and +interested on glancing down to observe that, though the boots +which she was wearing were not unlike each other, they were +really odd ones; the one having a slightly decorated toe-cap, and +the other a plain one. One was buttoned only in the two lower +buttons out of five, and the other at the first, third, and +fifth. Now, when you see that a young lady, otherwise neatly +dressed, has come away from home with odd boots, half-buttoned, +it is no great deduction to say that she came away in a hurry." + +"And what else?" I asked, keenly interested, as I always was, by +my friend's incisive reasoning. + +"I noted, in passing, that she had written a note before leaving +home but after being fully dressed. You observed that her right +glove was torn at the forefinger, but you did not apparently see +that both glove and finger were stained with violet ink. She had +written in a hurry and dipped her pen too deep. It must have been +this morning, or the mark would not remain clear upon the finger. +All this is amusing, though rather elementary, but I must go back +to business, Watson. Would you mind reading me the advertised +description of Mr. Hosmer Angel?" + +I held the little printed slip to the light. + +"Missing," it said, "on the morning of the fourteenth, a gentleman +named Hosmer Angel. About five ft. seven in. in height; +strongly built, sallow complexion, black hair, a little bald in +the centre, bushy, black side-whiskers and moustache; tinted +glasses, slight infirmity of speech. Was dressed, when last seen, +in black frock-coat faced with silk, black waistcoat, gold Albert +chain, and grey Harris tweed trousers, with brown gaiters over +elastic-sided boots. Known to have been employed in an office in +Leadenhall Street. Anybody bringing--" + +"That will do," said Holmes. "As to the letters," he continued, +glancing over them, "they are very commonplace. Absolutely no +clue in them to Mr. Angel, save that he quotes Balzac once. There +is one remarkable point, however, which will no doubt strike +you." + +"They are typewritten," I remarked. + +"Not only that, but the signature is typewritten. Look at the +neat little 'Hosmer Angel' at the bottom. There is a date, you +see, but no superscription except Leadenhall Street, which is +rather vague. The point about the signature is very suggestive--in +fact, we may call it conclusive." + +"Of what?" + +"My dear fellow, is it possible you do not see how strongly it +bears upon the case?" + +"I cannot say that I do unless it were that he wished to be able +to deny his signature if an action for breach of promise were +instituted." + +"No, that was not the point. However, I shall write two letters, +which should settle the matter. One is to a firm in the City, the +other is to the young lady's stepfather, Mr. Windibank, asking +him whether he could meet us here at six o'clock tomorrow +evening. It is just as well that we should do business with the +male relatives. And now, Doctor, we can do nothing until the +answers to those letters come, so we may put our little problem +upon the shelf for the interim." + +I had had so many reasons to believe in my friend's subtle powers +of reasoning and extraordinary energy in action that I felt that +he must have some solid grounds for the assured and easy +demeanour with which he treated the singular mystery which he had +been called upon to fathom. Once only had I known him to fail, in +the case of the King of Bohemia and of the Irene Adler +photograph; but when I looked back to the weird business of the +Sign of Four, and the extraordinary circumstances connected with +the Study in Scarlet, I felt that it would be a strange tangle +indeed which he could not unravel. + +I left him then, still puffing at his black clay pipe, with the +conviction that when I came again on the next evening I would +find that he held in his hands all the clues which would lead up +to the identity of the disappearing bridegroom of Miss Mary +Sutherland. + +A professional case of great gravity was engaging my own +attention at the time, and the whole of next day I was busy at +the bedside of the sufferer. It was not until close upon six +o'clock that I found myself free and was able to spring into a +hansom and drive to Baker Street, half afraid that I might be too +late to assist at the denouement of the little mystery. I found +Sherlock Holmes alone, however, half asleep, with his long, thin +form curled up in the recesses of his armchair. A formidable +array of bottles and test-tubes, with the pungent cleanly smell +of hydrochloric acid, told me that he had spent his day in the +chemical work which was so dear to him. + +"Well, have you solved it?" I asked as I entered. + +"Yes. It was the bisulphate of baryta." + +"No, no, the mystery!" I cried. + +"Oh, that! I thought of the salt that I have been working upon. +There was never any mystery in the matter, though, as I said +yesterday, some of the details are of interest. The only drawback +is that there is no law, I fear, that can touch the scoundrel." + +"Who was he, then, and what was his object in deserting Miss +Sutherland?" + +The question was hardly out of my mouth, and Holmes had not yet +opened his lips to reply, when we heard a heavy footfall in the +passage and a tap at the door. + +"This is the girl's stepfather, Mr. James Windibank," said +Holmes. "He has written to me to say that he would be here at +six. Come in!" + +The man who entered was a sturdy, middle-sized fellow, some +thirty years of age, clean-shaven, and sallow-skinned, with a +bland, insinuating manner, and a pair of wonderfully sharp and +penetrating grey eyes. He shot a questioning glance at each of +us, placed his shiny top-hat upon the sideboard, and with a +slight bow sidled down into the nearest chair. + +"Good-evening, Mr. James Windibank," said Holmes. "I think that +this typewritten letter is from you, in which you made an +appointment with me for six o'clock?" + +"Yes, sir. I am afraid that I am a little late, but I am not +quite my own master, you know. I am sorry that Miss Sutherland +has troubled you about this little matter, for I think it is far +better not to wash linen of the sort in public. It was quite +against my wishes that she came, but she is a very excitable, +impulsive girl, as you may have noticed, and she is not easily +controlled when she has made up her mind on a point. Of course, I +did not mind you so much, as you are not connected with the +official police, but it is not pleasant to have a family +misfortune like this noised abroad. Besides, it is a useless +expense, for how could you possibly find this Hosmer Angel?" + +"On the contrary," said Holmes quietly; "I have every reason to +believe that I will succeed in discovering Mr. Hosmer Angel." + +Mr. Windibank gave a violent start and dropped his gloves. "I am +delighted to hear it," he said. + +"It is a curious thing," remarked Holmes, "that a typewriter has +really quite as much individuality as a man's handwriting. Unless +they are quite new, no two of them write exactly alike. Some +letters get more worn than others, and some wear only on one +side. Now, you remark in this note of yours, Mr. Windibank, that +in every case there is some little slurring over of the 'e,' and +a slight defect in the tail of the 'r.' There are fourteen other +characteristics, but those are the more obvious." + +"We do all our correspondence with this machine at the office, +and no doubt it is a little worn," our visitor answered, glancing +keenly at Holmes with his bright little eyes. + +"And now I will show you what is really a very interesting study, +Mr. Windibank," Holmes continued. "I think of writing another +little monograph some of these days on the typewriter and its +relation to crime. It is a subject to which I have devoted some +little attention. I have here four letters which purport to come +from the missing man. They are all typewritten. In each case, not +only are the 'e's' slurred and the 'r's' tailless, but you will +observe, if you care to use my magnifying lens, that the fourteen +other characteristics to which I have alluded are there as well." + +Mr. Windibank sprang out of his chair and picked up his hat. "I +cannot waste time over this sort of fantastic talk, Mr. Holmes," +he said. "If you can catch the man, catch him, and let me know +when you have done it." + +"Certainly," said Holmes, stepping over and turning the key in +the door. "I let you know, then, that I have caught him!" + +"What! where?" shouted Mr. Windibank, turning white to his lips +and glancing about him like a rat in a trap. + +"Oh, it won't do--really it won't," said Holmes suavely. "There +is no possible getting out of it, Mr. Windibank. It is quite too +transparent, and it was a very bad compliment when you said that +it was impossible for me to solve so simple a question. That's +right! Sit down and let us talk it over." + +Our visitor collapsed into a chair, with a ghastly face and a +glitter of moisture on his brow. "It--it's not actionable," he +stammered. + +"I am very much afraid that it is not. But between ourselves, +Windibank, it was as cruel and selfish and heartless a trick in a +petty way as ever came before me. Now, let me just run over the +course of events, and you will contradict me if I go wrong." + +The man sat huddled up in his chair, with his head sunk upon his +breast, like one who is utterly crushed. Holmes stuck his feet up +on the corner of the mantelpiece and, leaning back with his hands +in his pockets, began talking, rather to himself, as it seemed, +than to us. + +"The man married a woman very much older than himself for her +money," said he, "and he enjoyed the use of the money of the +daughter as long as she lived with them. It was a considerable +sum, for people in their position, and the loss of it would have +made a serious difference. It was worth an effort to preserve it. +The daughter was of a good, amiable disposition, but affectionate +and warm-hearted in her ways, so that it was evident that with +her fair personal advantages, and her little income, she would +not be allowed to remain single long. Now her marriage would +mean, of course, the loss of a hundred a year, so what does her +stepfather do to prevent it? He takes the obvious course of +keeping her at home and forbidding her to seek the company of +people of her own age. But soon he found that that would not +answer forever. She became restive, insisted upon her rights, and +finally announced her positive intention of going to a certain +ball. What does her clever stepfather do then? He conceives an +idea more creditable to his head than to his heart. With the +connivance and assistance of his wife he disguised himself, +covered those keen eyes with tinted glasses, masked the face with +a moustache and a pair of bushy whiskers, sunk that clear voice +into an insinuating whisper, and doubly secure on account of the +girl's short sight, he appears as Mr. Hosmer Angel, and keeps off +other lovers by making love himself." + +"It was only a joke at first," groaned our visitor. "We never +thought that she would have been so carried away." + +"Very likely not. However that may be, the young lady was very +decidedly carried away, and, having quite made up her mind that +her stepfather was in France, the suspicion of treachery never +for an instant entered her mind. She was flattered by the +gentleman's attentions, and the effect was increased by the +loudly expressed admiration of her mother. Then Mr. Angel began +to call, for it was obvious that the matter should be pushed as +far as it would go if a real effect were to be produced. There +were meetings, and an engagement, which would finally secure the +girl's affections from turning towards anyone else. But the +deception could not be kept up forever. These pretended journeys +to France were rather cumbrous. The thing to do was clearly to +bring the business to an end in such a dramatic manner that it +would leave a permanent impression upon the young lady's mind and +prevent her from looking upon any other suitor for some time to +come. Hence those vows of fidelity exacted upon a Testament, and +hence also the allusions to a possibility of something happening +on the very morning of the wedding. James Windibank wished Miss +Sutherland to be so bound to Hosmer Angel, and so uncertain as to +his fate, that for ten years to come, at any rate, she would not +listen to another man. As far as the church door he brought her, +and then, as he could go no farther, he conveniently vanished +away by the old trick of stepping in at one door of a +four-wheeler and out at the other. I think that was the chain of +events, Mr. Windibank!" + +Our visitor had recovered something of his assurance while Holmes +had been talking, and he rose from his chair now with a cold +sneer upon his pale face. + +"It may be so, or it may not, Mr. Holmes," said he, "but if you +are so very sharp you ought to be sharp enough to know that it is +you who are breaking the law now, and not me. I have done nothing +actionable from the first, but as long as you keep that door +locked you lay yourself open to an action for assault and illegal +constraint." + +"The law cannot, as you say, touch you," said Holmes, unlocking +and throwing open the door, "yet there never was a man who +deserved punishment more. If the young lady has a brother or a +friend, he ought to lay a whip across your shoulders. By Jove!" +he continued, flushing up at the sight of the bitter sneer upon +the man's face, "it is not part of my duties to my client, but +here's a hunting crop handy, and I think I shall just treat +myself to--" He took two swift steps to the whip, but before he +could grasp it there was a wild clatter of steps upon the stairs, +the heavy hall door banged, and from the window we could see Mr. +James Windibank running at the top of his speed down the road. + +"There's a cold-blooded scoundrel!" said Holmes, laughing, as he +threw himself down into his chair once more. "That fellow will +rise from crime to crime until he does something very bad, and +ends on a gallows. The case has, in some respects, been not +entirely devoid of interest." + +"I cannot now entirely see all the steps of your reasoning," I +remarked. + +"Well, of course it was obvious from the first that this Mr. +Hosmer Angel must have some strong object for his curious +conduct, and it was equally clear that the only man who really +profited by the incident, as far as we could see, was the +stepfather. Then the fact that the two men were never together, +but that the one always appeared when the other was away, was +suggestive. So were the tinted spectacles and the curious voice, +which both hinted at a disguise, as did the bushy whiskers. My +suspicions were all confirmed by his peculiar action in +typewriting his signature, which, of course, inferred that his +handwriting was so familiar to her that she would recognise even +the smallest sample of it. You see all these isolated facts, +together with many minor ones, all pointed in the same +direction." + +"And how did you verify them?" + +"Having once spotted my man, it was easy to get corroboration. I +knew the firm for which this man worked. Having taken the printed +description. I eliminated everything from it which could be the +result of a disguise--the whiskers, the glasses, the voice, and I +sent it to the firm, with a request that they would inform me +whether it answered to the description of any of their +travellers. I had already noticed the peculiarities of the +typewriter, and I wrote to the man himself at his business +address asking him if he would come here. As I expected, his +reply was typewritten and revealed the same trivial but +characteristic defects. The same post brought me a letter from +Westhouse & Marbank, of Fenchurch Street, to say that the +description tallied in every respect with that of their employe, +James Windibank. Voila tout!" + +"And Miss Sutherland?" + +"If I tell her she will not believe me. You may remember the old +Persian saying, 'There is danger for him who taketh the tiger +cub, and danger also for whoso snatches a delusion from a woman.' +There is as much sense in Hafiz as in Horace, and as much +knowledge of the world." + + + +ADVENTURE IV. THE BOSCOMBE VALLEY MYSTERY + +We were seated at breakfast one morning, my wife and I, when the +maid brought in a telegram. It was from Sherlock Holmes and ran +in this way: + +"Have you a couple of days to spare? Have just been wired for from +the west of England in connection with Boscombe Valley tragedy. +Shall be glad if you will come with me. Air and scenery perfect. +Leave Paddington by the 11:15." + +"What do you say, dear?" said my wife, looking across at me. +"Will you go?" + +"I really don't know what to say. I have a fairly long list at +present." + +"Oh, Anstruther would do your work for you. You have been looking +a little pale lately. I think that the change would do you good, +and you are always so interested in Mr. Sherlock Holmes' cases." + +"I should be ungrateful if I were not, seeing what I gained +through one of them," I answered. "But if I am to go, I must pack +at once, for I have only half an hour." + +My experience of camp life in Afghanistan had at least had the +effect of making me a prompt and ready traveller. My wants were +few and simple, so that in less than the time stated I was in a +cab with my valise, rattling away to Paddington Station. Sherlock +Holmes was pacing up and down the platform, his tall, gaunt +figure made even gaunter and taller by his long grey +travelling-cloak and close-fitting cloth cap. + +"It is really very good of you to come, Watson," said he. "It +makes a considerable difference to me, having someone with me on +whom I can thoroughly rely. Local aid is always either worthless +or else biassed. If you will keep the two corner seats I shall +get the tickets." + +We had the carriage to ourselves save for an immense litter of +papers which Holmes had brought with him. Among these he rummaged +and read, with intervals of note-taking and of meditation, until +we were past Reading. Then he suddenly rolled them all into a +gigantic ball and tossed them up onto the rack. + +"Have you heard anything of the case?" he asked. + +"Not a word. I have not seen a paper for some days." + +"The London press has not had very full accounts. I have just +been looking through all the recent papers in order to master the +particulars. It seems, from what I gather, to be one of those +simple cases which are so extremely difficult." + +"That sounds a little paradoxical." + +"But it is profoundly true. Singularity is almost invariably a +clue. The more featureless and commonplace a crime is, the more +difficult it is to bring it home. In this case, however, they +have established a very serious case against the son of the +murdered man." + +"It is a murder, then?" + +"Well, it is conjectured to be so. I shall take nothing for +granted until I have the opportunity of looking personally into +it. I will explain the state of things to you, as far as I have +been able to understand it, in a very few words. + +"Boscombe Valley is a country district not very far from Ross, in +Herefordshire. The largest landed proprietor in that part is a +Mr. John Turner, who made his money in Australia and returned +some years ago to the old country. One of the farms which he +held, that of Hatherley, was let to Mr. Charles McCarthy, who was +also an ex-Australian. The men had known each other in the +colonies, so that it was not unnatural that when they came to +settle down they should do so as near each other as possible. +Turner was apparently the richer man, so McCarthy became his +tenant but still remained, it seems, upon terms of perfect +equality, as they were frequently together. McCarthy had one son, +a lad of eighteen, and Turner had an only daughter of the same +age, but neither of them had wives living. They appear to have +avoided the society of the neighbouring English families and to +have led retired lives, though both the McCarthys were fond of +sport and were frequently seen at the race-meetings of the +neighbourhood. McCarthy kept two servants--a man and a girl. +Turner had a considerable household, some half-dozen at the +least. That is as much as I have been able to gather about the +families. Now for the facts. + +"On June 3rd, that is, on Monday last, McCarthy left his house at +Hatherley about three in the afternoon and walked down to the +Boscombe Pool, which is a small lake formed by the spreading out +of the stream which runs down the Boscombe Valley. He had been +out with his serving-man in the morning at Ross, and he had told +the man that he must hurry, as he had an appointment of +importance to keep at three. From that appointment he never came +back alive. + +"From Hatherley Farm-house to the Boscombe Pool is a quarter of a +mile, and two people saw him as he passed over this ground. One +was an old woman, whose name is not mentioned, and the other was +William Crowder, a game-keeper in the employ of Mr. Turner. Both +these witnesses depose that Mr. McCarthy was walking alone. The +game-keeper adds that within a few minutes of his seeing Mr. +McCarthy pass he had seen his son, Mr. James McCarthy, going the +same way with a gun under his arm. To the best of his belief, the +father was actually in sight at the time, and the son was +following him. He thought no more of the matter until he heard in +the evening of the tragedy that had occurred. + +"The two McCarthys were seen after the time when William Crowder, +the game-keeper, lost sight of them. The Boscombe Pool is thickly +wooded round, with just a fringe of grass and of reeds round the +edge. A girl of fourteen, Patience Moran, who is the daughter of +the lodge-keeper of the Boscombe Valley estate, was in one of the +woods picking flowers. She states that while she was there she +saw, at the border of the wood and close by the lake, Mr. +McCarthy and his son, and that they appeared to be having a +violent quarrel. She heard Mr. McCarthy the elder using very +strong language to his son, and she saw the latter raise up his +hand as if to strike his father. She was so frightened by their +violence that she ran away and told her mother when she reached +home that she had left the two McCarthys quarrelling near +Boscombe Pool, and that she was afraid that they were going to +fight. She had hardly said the words when young Mr. McCarthy came +running up to the lodge to say that he had found his father dead +in the wood, and to ask for the help of the lodge-keeper. He was +much excited, without either his gun or his hat, and his right +hand and sleeve were observed to be stained with fresh blood. On +following him they found the dead body stretched out upon the +grass beside the pool. The head had been beaten in by repeated +blows of some heavy and blunt weapon. The injuries were such as +might very well have been inflicted by the butt-end of his son's +gun, which was found lying on the grass within a few paces of the +body. Under these circumstances the young man was instantly +arrested, and a verdict of 'wilful murder' having been returned +at the inquest on Tuesday, he was on Wednesday brought before the +magistrates at Ross, who have referred the case to the next +Assizes. Those are the main facts of the case as they came out +before the coroner and the police-court." + +"I could hardly imagine a more damning case," I remarked. "If +ever circumstantial evidence pointed to a criminal it does so +here." + +"Circumstantial evidence is a very tricky thing," answered Holmes +thoughtfully. "It may seem to point very straight to one thing, +but if you shift your own point of view a little, you may find it +pointing in an equally uncompromising manner to something +entirely different. It must be confessed, however, that the case +looks exceedingly grave against the young man, and it is very +possible that he is indeed the culprit. There are several people +in the neighbourhood, however, and among them Miss Turner, the +daughter of the neighbouring landowner, who believe in his +innocence, and who have retained Lestrade, whom you may recollect +in connection with the Study in Scarlet, to work out the case in +his interest. Lestrade, being rather puzzled, has referred the +case to me, and hence it is that two middle-aged gentlemen are +flying westward at fifty miles an hour instead of quietly +digesting their breakfasts at home." + +"I am afraid," said I, "that the facts are so obvious that you +will find little credit to be gained out of this case." + +"There is nothing more deceptive than an obvious fact," he +answered, laughing. "Besides, we may chance to hit upon some +other obvious facts which may have been by no means obvious to +Mr. Lestrade. You know me too well to think that I am boasting +when I say that I shall either confirm or destroy his theory by +means which he is quite incapable of employing, or even of +understanding. To take the first example to hand, I very clearly +perceive that in your bedroom the window is upon the right-hand +side, and yet I question whether Mr. Lestrade would have noted +even so self-evident a thing as that." + +"How on earth--" + +"My dear fellow, I know you well. I know the military neatness +which characterises you. You shave every morning, and in this +season you shave by the sunlight; but since your shaving is less +and less complete as we get farther back on the left side, until +it becomes positively slovenly as we get round the angle of the +jaw, it is surely very clear that that side is less illuminated +than the other. I could not imagine a man of your habits looking +at himself in an equal light and being satisfied with such a +result. I only quote this as a trivial example of observation and +inference. Therein lies my metier, and it is just possible that +it may be of some service in the investigation which lies before +us. There are one or two minor points which were brought out in +the inquest, and which are worth considering." + +"What are they?" + +"It appears that his arrest did not take place at once, but after +the return to Hatherley Farm. On the inspector of constabulary +informing him that he was a prisoner, he remarked that he was not +surprised to hear it, and that it was no more than his deserts. +This observation of his had the natural effect of removing any +traces of doubt which might have remained in the minds of the +coroner's jury." + +"It was a confession," I ejaculated. + +"No, for it was followed by a protestation of innocence." + +"Coming on the top of such a damning series of events, it was at +least a most suspicious remark." + +"On the contrary," said Holmes, "it is the brightest rift which I +can at present see in the clouds. However innocent he might be, +he could not be such an absolute imbecile as not to see that the +circumstances were very black against him. Had he appeared +surprised at his own arrest, or feigned indignation at it, I +should have looked upon it as highly suspicious, because such +surprise or anger would not be natural under the circumstances, +and yet might appear to be the best policy to a scheming man. His +frank acceptance of the situation marks him as either an innocent +man, or else as a man of considerable self-restraint and +firmness. As to his remark about his deserts, it was also not +unnatural if you consider that he stood beside the dead body of +his father, and that there is no doubt that he had that very day +so far forgotten his filial duty as to bandy words with him, and +even, according to the little girl whose evidence is so +important, to raise his hand as if to strike him. The +self-reproach and contrition which are displayed in his remark +appear to me to be the signs of a healthy mind rather than of a +guilty one." + +I shook my head. "Many men have been hanged on far slighter +evidence," I remarked. + +"So they have. And many men have been wrongfully hanged." + +"What is the young man's own account of the matter?" + +"It is, I am afraid, not very encouraging to his supporters, +though there are one or two points in it which are suggestive. +You will find it here, and may read it for yourself." + +He picked out from his bundle a copy of the local Herefordshire +paper, and having turned down the sheet he pointed out the +paragraph in which the unfortunate young man had given his own +statement of what had occurred. I settled myself down in the +corner of the carriage and read it very carefully. It ran in this +way: + +"Mr. James McCarthy, the only son of the deceased, was then called +and gave evidence as follows: 'I had been away from home for +three days at Bristol, and had only just returned upon the +morning of last Monday, the 3rd. My father was absent from home at +the time of my arrival, and I was informed by the maid that he +had driven over to Ross with John Cobb, the groom. Shortly after +my return I heard the wheels of his trap in the yard, and, +looking out of my window, I saw him get out and walk rapidly out +of the yard, though I was not aware in which direction he was +going. I then took my gun and strolled out in the direction of +the Boscombe Pool, with the intention of visiting the rabbit +warren which is upon the other side. On my way I saw William +Crowder, the game-keeper, as he had stated in his evidence; but +he is mistaken in thinking that I was following my father. I had +no idea that he was in front of me. When about a hundred yards +from the pool I heard a cry of "Cooee!" which was a usual signal +between my father and myself. I then hurried forward, and found +him standing by the pool. He appeared to be much surprised at +seeing me and asked me rather roughly what I was doing there. A +conversation ensued which led to high words and almost to blows, +for my father was a man of a very violent temper. Seeing that his +passion was becoming ungovernable, I left him and returned +towards Hatherley Farm. I had not gone more than 150 yards, +however, when I heard a hideous outcry behind me, which caused me +to run back again. I found my father expiring upon the ground, +with his head terribly injured. I dropped my gun and held him in +my arms, but he almost instantly expired. I knelt beside him for +some minutes, and then made my way to Mr. Turner's lodge-keeper, +his house being the nearest, to ask for assistance. I saw no one +near my father when I returned, and I have no idea how he came by +his injuries. He was not a popular man, being somewhat cold and +forbidding in his manners, but he had, as far as I know, no +active enemies. I know nothing further of the matter.' + +"The Coroner: Did your father make any statement to you before +he died? + +"Witness: He mumbled a few words, but I could only catch some +allusion to a rat. + +"The Coroner: What did you understand by that? + +"Witness: It conveyed no meaning to me. I thought that he was +delirious. + +"The Coroner: What was the point upon which you and your father +had this final quarrel? + +"Witness: I should prefer not to answer. + +"The Coroner: I am afraid that I must press it. + +"Witness: It is really impossible for me to tell you. I can +assure you that it has nothing to do with the sad tragedy which +followed. + +"The Coroner: That is for the court to decide. I need not point +out to you that your refusal to answer will prejudice your case +considerably in any future proceedings which may arise. + +"Witness: I must still refuse. + +"The Coroner: I understand that the cry of 'Cooee' was a common +signal between you and your father? + +"Witness: It was. + +"The Coroner: How was it, then, that he uttered it before he saw +you, and before he even knew that you had returned from Bristol? + +"Witness (with considerable confusion): I do not know. + +"A Juryman: Did you see nothing which aroused your suspicions +when you returned on hearing the cry and found your father +fatally injured? + +"Witness: Nothing definite. + +"The Coroner: What do you mean? + +"Witness: I was so disturbed and excited as I rushed out into +the open, that I could think of nothing except of my father. Yet +I have a vague impression that as I ran forward something lay +upon the ground to the left of me. It seemed to me to be +something grey in colour, a coat of some sort, or a plaid perhaps. +When I rose from my father I looked round for it, but it was +gone. + +"'Do you mean that it disappeared before you went for help?' + +"'Yes, it was gone.' + +"'You cannot say what it was?' + +"'No, I had a feeling something was there.' + +"'How far from the body?' + +"'A dozen yards or so.' + +"'And how far from the edge of the wood?' + +"'About the same.' + +"'Then if it was removed it was while you were within a dozen +yards of it?' + +"'Yes, but with my back towards it.' + +"This concluded the examination of the witness." + +"I see," said I as I glanced down the column, "that the coroner +in his concluding remarks was rather severe upon young McCarthy. +He calls attention, and with reason, to the discrepancy about his +father having signalled to him before seeing him, also to his +refusal to give details of his conversation with his father, and +his singular account of his father's dying words. They are all, +as he remarks, very much against the son." + +Holmes laughed softly to himself and stretched himself out upon +the cushioned seat. "Both you and the coroner have been at some +pains," said he, "to single out the very strongest points in the +young man's favour. Don't you see that you alternately give him +credit for having too much imagination and too little? Too +little, if he could not invent a cause of quarrel which would +give him the sympathy of the jury; too much, if he evolved from +his own inner consciousness anything so outre as a dying +reference to a rat, and the incident of the vanishing cloth. No, +sir, I shall approach this case from the point of view that what +this young man says is true, and we shall see whither that +hypothesis will lead us. And now here is my pocket Petrarch, and +not another word shall I say of this case until we are on the +scene of action. We lunch at Swindon, and I see that we shall be +there in twenty minutes." + +It was nearly four o'clock when we at last, after passing through +the beautiful Stroud Valley, and over the broad gleaming Severn, +found ourselves at the pretty little country-town of Ross. A +lean, ferret-like man, furtive and sly-looking, was waiting for +us upon the platform. In spite of the light brown dustcoat and +leather-leggings which he wore in deference to his rustic +surroundings, I had no difficulty in recognising Lestrade, of +Scotland Yard. With him we drove to the Hereford Arms where a +room had already been engaged for us. + +"I have ordered a carriage," said Lestrade as we sat over a cup +of tea. "I knew your energetic nature, and that you would not be +happy until you had been on the scene of the crime." + +"It was very nice and complimentary of you," Holmes answered. "It +is entirely a question of barometric pressure." + +Lestrade looked startled. "I do not quite follow," he said. + +"How is the glass? Twenty-nine, I see. No wind, and not a cloud +in the sky. I have a caseful of cigarettes here which need +smoking, and the sofa is very much superior to the usual country +hotel abomination. I do not think that it is probable that I +shall use the carriage to-night." + +Lestrade laughed indulgently. "You have, no doubt, already formed +your conclusions from the newspapers," he said. "The case is as +plain as a pikestaff, and the more one goes into it the plainer +it becomes. Still, of course, one can't refuse a lady, and such a +very positive one, too. She has heard of you, and would have your +opinion, though I repeatedly told her that there was nothing +which you could do which I had not already done. Why, bless my +soul! here is her carriage at the door." + +He had hardly spoken before there rushed into the room one of the +most lovely young women that I have ever seen in my life. Her +violet eyes shining, her lips parted, a pink flush upon her +cheeks, all thought of her natural reserve lost in her +overpowering excitement and concern. + +"Oh, Mr. Sherlock Holmes!" she cried, glancing from one to the +other of us, and finally, with a woman's quick intuition, +fastening upon my companion, "I am so glad that you have come. I +have driven down to tell you so. I know that James didn't do it. +I know it, and I want you to start upon your work knowing it, +too. Never let yourself doubt upon that point. We have known each +other since we were little children, and I know his faults as no +one else does; but he is too tender-hearted to hurt a fly. Such a +charge is absurd to anyone who really knows him." + +"I hope we may clear him, Miss Turner," said Sherlock Holmes. +"You may rely upon my doing all that I can." + +"But you have read the evidence. You have formed some conclusion? +Do you not see some loophole, some flaw? Do you not yourself +think that he is innocent?" + +"I think that it is very probable." + +"There, now!" she cried, throwing back her head and looking +defiantly at Lestrade. "You hear! He gives me hopes." + +Lestrade shrugged his shoulders. "I am afraid that my colleague +has been a little quick in forming his conclusions," he said. + +"But he is right. Oh! I know that he is right. James never did +it. And about his quarrel with his father, I am sure that the +reason why he would not speak about it to the coroner was because +I was concerned in it." + +"In what way?" asked Holmes. + +"It is no time for me to hide anything. James and his father had +many disagreements about me. Mr. McCarthy was very anxious that +there should be a marriage between us. James and I have always +loved each other as brother and sister; but of course he is young +and has seen very little of life yet, and--and--well, he +naturally did not wish to do anything like that yet. So there +were quarrels, and this, I am sure, was one of them." + +"And your father?" asked Holmes. "Was he in favour of such a +union?" + +"No, he was averse to it also. No one but Mr. McCarthy was in +favour of it." A quick blush passed over her fresh young face as +Holmes shot one of his keen, questioning glances at her. + +"Thank you for this information," said he. "May I see your father +if I call to-morrow?" + +"I am afraid the doctor won't allow it." + +"The doctor?" + +"Yes, have you not heard? Poor father has never been strong for +years back, but this has broken him down completely. He has taken +to his bed, and Dr. Willows says that he is a wreck and that his +nervous system is shattered. Mr. McCarthy was the only man alive +who had known dad in the old days in Victoria." + +"Ha! In Victoria! That is important." + +"Yes, at the mines." + +"Quite so; at the gold-mines, where, as I understand, Mr. Turner +made his money." + +"Yes, certainly." + +"Thank you, Miss Turner. You have been of material assistance to +me." + +"You will tell me if you have any news to-morrow. No doubt you +will go to the prison to see James. Oh, if you do, Mr. Holmes, do +tell him that I know him to be innocent." + +"I will, Miss Turner." + +"I must go home now, for dad is very ill, and he misses me so if +I leave him. Good-bye, and God help you in your undertaking." She +hurried from the room as impulsively as she had entered, and we +heard the wheels of her carriage rattle off down the street. + +"I am ashamed of you, Holmes," said Lestrade with dignity after a +few minutes' silence. "Why should you raise up hopes which you +are bound to disappoint? I am not over-tender of heart, but I +call it cruel." + +"I think that I see my way to clearing James McCarthy," said +Holmes. "Have you an order to see him in prison?" + +"Yes, but only for you and me." + +"Then I shall reconsider my resolution about going out. We have +still time to take a train to Hereford and see him to-night?" + +"Ample." + +"Then let us do so. Watson, I fear that you will find it very +slow, but I shall only be away a couple of hours." + +I walked down to the station with them, and then wandered through +the streets of the little town, finally returning to the hotel, +where I lay upon the sofa and tried to interest myself in a +yellow-backed novel. The puny plot of the story was so thin, +however, when compared to the deep mystery through which we were +groping, and I found my attention wander so continually from the +action to the fact, that I at last flung it across the room and +gave myself up entirely to a consideration of the events of the +day. Supposing that this unhappy young man's story were +absolutely true, then what hellish thing, what absolutely +unforeseen and extraordinary calamity could have occurred between +the time when he parted from his father, and the moment when, +drawn back by his screams, he rushed into the glade? It was +something terrible and deadly. What could it be? Might not the +nature of the injuries reveal something to my medical instincts? +I rang the bell and called for the weekly county paper, which +contained a verbatim account of the inquest. In the surgeon's +deposition it was stated that the posterior third of the left +parietal bone and the left half of the occipital bone had been +shattered by a heavy blow from a blunt weapon. I marked the spot +upon my own head. Clearly such a blow must have been struck from +behind. That was to some extent in favour of the accused, as when +seen quarrelling he was face to face with his father. Still, it +did not go for very much, for the older man might have turned his +back before the blow fell. Still, it might be worth while to call +Holmes' attention to it. Then there was the peculiar dying +reference to a rat. What could that mean? It could not be +delirium. A man dying from a sudden blow does not commonly become +delirious. No, it was more likely to be an attempt to explain how +he met his fate. But what could it indicate? I cudgelled my +brains to find some possible explanation. And then the incident +of the grey cloth seen by young McCarthy. If that were true the +murderer must have dropped some part of his dress, presumably his +overcoat, in his flight, and must have had the hardihood to +return and to carry it away at the instant when the son was +kneeling with his back turned not a dozen paces off. What a +tissue of mysteries and improbabilities the whole thing was! I +did not wonder at Lestrade's opinion, and yet I had so much faith +in Sherlock Holmes' insight that I could not lose hope as long +as every fresh fact seemed to strengthen his conviction of young +McCarthy's innocence. + +It was late before Sherlock Holmes returned. He came back alone, +for Lestrade was staying in lodgings in the town. + +"The glass still keeps very high," he remarked as he sat down. +"It is of importance that it should not rain before we are able +to go over the ground. On the other hand, a man should be at his +very best and keenest for such nice work as that, and I did not +wish to do it when fagged by a long journey. I have seen young +McCarthy." + +"And what did you learn from him?" + +"Nothing." + +"Could he throw no light?" + +"None at all. I was inclined to think at one time that he knew +who had done it and was screening him or her, but I am convinced +now that he is as puzzled as everyone else. He is not a very +quick-witted youth, though comely to look at and, I should think, +sound at heart." + +"I cannot admire his taste," I remarked, "if it is indeed a fact +that he was averse to a marriage with so charming a young lady as +this Miss Turner." + +"Ah, thereby hangs a rather painful tale. This fellow is madly, +insanely, in love with her, but some two years ago, when he was +only a lad, and before he really knew her, for she had been away +five years at a boarding-school, what does the idiot do but get +into the clutches of a barmaid in Bristol and marry her at a +registry office? No one knows a word of the matter, but you can +imagine how maddening it must be to him to be upbraided for not +doing what he would give his very eyes to do, but what he knows +to be absolutely impossible. It was sheer frenzy of this sort +which made him throw his hands up into the air when his father, +at their last interview, was goading him on to propose to Miss +Turner. On the other hand, he had no means of supporting himself, +and his father, who was by all accounts a very hard man, would +have thrown him over utterly had he known the truth. It was with +his barmaid wife that he had spent the last three days in +Bristol, and his father did not know where he was. Mark that +point. It is of importance. Good has come out of evil, however, +for the barmaid, finding from the papers that he is in serious +trouble and likely to be hanged, has thrown him over utterly and +has written to him to say that she has a husband already in the +Bermuda Dockyard, so that there is really no tie between them. I +think that that bit of news has consoled young McCarthy for all +that he has suffered." + +"But if he is innocent, who has done it?" + +"Ah! who? I would call your attention very particularly to two +points. One is that the murdered man had an appointment with +someone at the pool, and that the someone could not have been his +son, for his son was away, and he did not know when he would +return. The second is that the murdered man was heard to cry +'Cooee!' before he knew that his son had returned. Those are the +crucial points upon which the case depends. And now let us talk +about George Meredith, if you please, and we shall leave all +minor matters until to-morrow." + +There was no rain, as Holmes had foretold, and the morning broke +bright and cloudless. At nine o'clock Lestrade called for us with +the carriage, and we set off for Hatherley Farm and the Boscombe +Pool. + +"There is serious news this morning," Lestrade observed. "It is +said that Mr. Turner, of the Hall, is so ill that his life is +despaired of." + +"An elderly man, I presume?" said Holmes. + +"About sixty; but his constitution has been shattered by his life +abroad, and he has been in failing health for some time. This +business has had a very bad effect upon him. He was an old friend +of McCarthy's, and, I may add, a great benefactor to him, for I +have learned that he gave him Hatherley Farm rent free." + +"Indeed! That is interesting," said Holmes. + +"Oh, yes! In a hundred other ways he has helped him. Everybody +about here speaks of his kindness to him." + +"Really! Does it not strike you as a little singular that this +McCarthy, who appears to have had little of his own, and to have +been under such obligations to Turner, should still talk of +marrying his son to Turner's daughter, who is, presumably, +heiress to the estate, and that in such a very cocksure manner, +as if it were merely a case of a proposal and all else would +follow? It is the more strange, since we know that Turner himself +was averse to the idea. The daughter told us as much. Do you not +deduce something from that?" + +"We have got to the deductions and the inferences," said +Lestrade, winking at me. "I find it hard enough to tackle facts, +Holmes, without flying away after theories and fancies." + +"You are right," said Holmes demurely; "you do find it very hard +to tackle the facts." + +"Anyhow, I have grasped one fact which you seem to find it +difficult to get hold of," replied Lestrade with some warmth. + +"And that is--" + +"That McCarthy senior met his death from McCarthy junior and that +all theories to the contrary are the merest moonshine." + +"Well, moonshine is a brighter thing than fog," said Holmes, +laughing. "But I am very much mistaken if this is not Hatherley +Farm upon the left." + +"Yes, that is it." It was a widespread, comfortable-looking +building, two-storied, slate-roofed, with great yellow blotches +of lichen upon the grey walls. The drawn blinds and the smokeless +chimneys, however, gave it a stricken look, as though the weight +of this horror still lay heavy upon it. We called at the door, +when the maid, at Holmes' request, showed us the boots which her +master wore at the time of his death, and also a pair of the +son's, though not the pair which he had then had. Having measured +these very carefully from seven or eight different points, Holmes +desired to be led to the court-yard, from which we all followed +the winding track which led to Boscombe Pool. + +Sherlock Holmes was transformed when he was hot upon such a scent +as this. Men who had only known the quiet thinker and logician of +Baker Street would have failed to recognise him. His face flushed +and darkened. His brows were drawn into two hard black lines, +while his eyes shone out from beneath them with a steely glitter. +His face was bent downward, his shoulders bowed, his lips +compressed, and the veins stood out like whipcord in his long, +sinewy neck. His nostrils seemed to dilate with a purely animal +lust for the chase, and his mind was so absolutely concentrated +upon the matter before him that a question or remark fell +unheeded upon his ears, or, at the most, only provoked a quick, +impatient snarl in reply. Swiftly and silently he made his way +along the track which ran through the meadows, and so by way of +the woods to the Boscombe Pool. It was damp, marshy ground, as is +all that district, and there were marks of many feet, both upon +the path and amid the short grass which bounded it on either +side. Sometimes Holmes would hurry on, sometimes stop dead, and +once he made quite a little detour into the meadow. Lestrade and +I walked behind him, the detective indifferent and contemptuous, +while I watched my friend with the interest which sprang from the +conviction that every one of his actions was directed towards a +definite end. + +The Boscombe Pool, which is a little reed-girt sheet of water +some fifty yards across, is situated at the boundary between the +Hatherley Farm and the private park of the wealthy Mr. Turner. +Above the woods which lined it upon the farther side we could see +the red, jutting pinnacles which marked the site of the rich +landowner's dwelling. On the Hatherley side of the pool the woods +grew very thick, and there was a narrow belt of sodden grass +twenty paces across between the edge of the trees and the reeds +which lined the lake. Lestrade showed us the exact spot at which +the body had been found, and, indeed, so moist was the ground, +that I could plainly see the traces which had been left by the +fall of the stricken man. To Holmes, as I could see by his eager +face and peering eyes, very many other things were to be read +upon the trampled grass. He ran round, like a dog who is picking +up a scent, and then turned upon my companion. + +"What did you go into the pool for?" he asked. + +"I fished about with a rake. I thought there might be some weapon +or other trace. But how on earth--" + +"Oh, tut, tut! I have no time! That left foot of yours with its +inward twist is all over the place. A mole could trace it, and +there it vanishes among the reeds. Oh, how simple it would all +have been had I been here before they came like a herd of buffalo +and wallowed all over it. Here is where the party with the +lodge-keeper came, and they have covered all tracks for six or +eight feet round the body. But here are three separate tracks of +the same feet." He drew out a lens and lay down upon his +waterproof to have a better view, talking all the time rather to +himself than to us. "These are young McCarthy's feet. Twice he +was walking, and once he ran swiftly, so that the soles are +deeply marked and the heels hardly visible. That bears out his +story. He ran when he saw his father on the ground. Then here are +the father's feet as he paced up and down. What is this, then? It +is the butt-end of the gun as the son stood listening. And this? +Ha, ha! What have we here? Tiptoes! tiptoes! Square, too, quite +unusual boots! They come, they go, they come again--of course +that was for the cloak. Now where did they come from?" He ran up +and down, sometimes losing, sometimes finding the track until we +were well within the edge of the wood and under the shadow of a +great beech, the largest tree in the neighbourhood. Holmes traced +his way to the farther side of this and lay down once more upon +his face with a little cry of satisfaction. For a long time he +remained there, turning over the leaves and dried sticks, +gathering up what seemed to me to be dust into an envelope and +examining with his lens not only the ground but even the bark of +the tree as far as he could reach. A jagged stone was lying among +the moss, and this also he carefully examined and retained. Then +he followed a pathway through the wood until he came to the +highroad, where all traces were lost. + +"It has been a case of considerable interest," he remarked, +returning to his natural manner. "I fancy that this grey house on +the right must be the lodge. I think that I will go in and have a +word with Moran, and perhaps write a little note. Having done +that, we may drive back to our luncheon. You may walk to the cab, +and I shall be with you presently." + +It was about ten minutes before we regained our cab and drove +back into Ross, Holmes still carrying with him the stone which he +had picked up in the wood. + +"This may interest you, Lestrade," he remarked, holding it out. +"The murder was done with it." + +"I see no marks." + +"There are none." + +"How do you know, then?" + +"The grass was growing under it. It had only lain there a few +days. There was no sign of a place whence it had been taken. It +corresponds with the injuries. There is no sign of any other +weapon." + +"And the murderer?" + +"Is a tall man, left-handed, limps with the right leg, wears +thick-soled shooting-boots and a grey cloak, smokes Indian +cigars, uses a cigar-holder, and carries a blunt pen-knife in his +pocket. There are several other indications, but these may be +enough to aid us in our search." + +Lestrade laughed. "I am afraid that I am still a sceptic," he +said. "Theories are all very well, but we have to deal with a +hard-headed British jury." + +"Nous verrons," answered Holmes calmly. "You work your own +method, and I shall work mine. I shall be busy this afternoon, +and shall probably return to London by the evening train." + +"And leave your case unfinished?" + +"No, finished." + +"But the mystery?" + +"It is solved." + +"Who was the criminal, then?" + +"The gentleman I describe." + +"But who is he?" + +"Surely it would not be difficult to find out. This is not such a +populous neighbourhood." + +Lestrade shrugged his shoulders. "I am a practical man," he said, +"and I really cannot undertake to go about the country looking +for a left-handed gentleman with a game leg. I should become the +laughing-stock of Scotland Yard." + +"All right," said Holmes quietly. "I have given you the chance. +Here are your lodgings. Good-bye. I shall drop you a line before +I leave." + +Having left Lestrade at his rooms, we drove to our hotel, where +we found lunch upon the table. Holmes was silent and buried in +thought with a pained expression upon his face, as one who finds +himself in a perplexing position. + +"Look here, Watson," he said when the cloth was cleared "just sit +down in this chair and let me preach to you for a little. I don't +know quite what to do, and I should value your advice. Light a +cigar and let me expound." + + "Pray do so." + +"Well, now, in considering this case there are two points about +young McCarthy's narrative which struck us both instantly, +although they impressed me in his favour and you against him. One +was the fact that his father should, according to his account, +cry 'Cooee!' before seeing him. The other was his singular dying +reference to a rat. He mumbled several words, you understand, but +that was all that caught the son's ear. Now from this double +point our research must commence, and we will begin it by +presuming that what the lad says is absolutely true." + +"What of this 'Cooee!' then?" + +"Well, obviously it could not have been meant for the son. The +son, as far as he knew, was in Bristol. It was mere chance that +he was within earshot. The 'Cooee!' was meant to attract the +attention of whoever it was that he had the appointment with. But +'Cooee' is a distinctly Australian cry, and one which is used +between Australians. There is a strong presumption that the +person whom McCarthy expected to meet him at Boscombe Pool was +someone who had been in Australia." + +"What of the rat, then?" + +Sherlock Holmes took a folded paper from his pocket and flattened +it out on the table. "This is a map of the Colony of Victoria," +he said. "I wired to Bristol for it last night." He put his hand +over part of the map. "What do you read?" + +"ARAT," I read. + +"And now?" He raised his hand. + +"BALLARAT." + +"Quite so. That was the word the man uttered, and of which his +son only caught the last two syllables. He was trying to utter +the name of his murderer. So and so, of Ballarat." + +"It is wonderful!" I exclaimed. + +"It is obvious. And now, you see, I had narrowed the field down +considerably. The possession of a grey garment was a third point +which, granting the son's statement to be correct, was a +certainty. We have come now out of mere vagueness to the definite +conception of an Australian from Ballarat with a grey cloak." + +"Certainly." + +"And one who was at home in the district, for the pool can only +be approached by the farm or by the estate, where strangers could +hardly wander." + +"Quite so." + +"Then comes our expedition of to-day. By an examination of the +ground I gained the trifling details which I gave to that +imbecile Lestrade, as to the personality of the criminal." + +"But how did you gain them?" + +"You know my method. It is founded upon the observation of +trifles." + +"His height I know that you might roughly judge from the length +of his stride. His boots, too, might be told from their traces." + +"Yes, they were peculiar boots." + +"But his lameness?" + +"The impression of his right foot was always less distinct than +his left. He put less weight upon it. Why? Because he limped--he +was lame." + +"But his left-handedness." + +"You were yourself struck by the nature of the injury as recorded +by the surgeon at the inquest. The blow was struck from +immediately behind, and yet was upon the left side. Now, how can +that be unless it were by a left-handed man? He had stood behind +that tree during the interview between the father and son. He had +even smoked there. I found the ash of a cigar, which my special +knowledge of tobacco ashes enables me to pronounce as an Indian +cigar. I have, as you know, devoted some attention to this, and +written a little monograph on the ashes of 140 different +varieties of pipe, cigar, and cigarette tobacco. Having found the +ash, I then looked round and discovered the stump among the moss +where he had tossed it. It was an Indian cigar, of the variety +which are rolled in Rotterdam." + +"And the cigar-holder?" + +"I could see that the end had not been in his mouth. Therefore he +used a holder. The tip had been cut off, not bitten off, but the +cut was not a clean one, so I deduced a blunt pen-knife." + +"Holmes," I said, "you have drawn a net round this man from which +he cannot escape, and you have saved an innocent human life as +truly as if you had cut the cord which was hanging him. I see the +direction in which all this points. The culprit is--" + +"Mr. John Turner," cried the hotel waiter, opening the door of +our sitting-room, and ushering in a visitor. + +The man who entered was a strange and impressive figure. His +slow, limping step and bowed shoulders gave the appearance of +decrepitude, and yet his hard, deep-lined, craggy features, and +his enormous limbs showed that he was possessed of unusual +strength of body and of character. His tangled beard, grizzled +hair, and outstanding, drooping eyebrows combined to give an air +of dignity and power to his appearance, but his face was of an +ashen white, while his lips and the corners of his nostrils were +tinged with a shade of blue. It was clear to me at a glance that +he was in the grip of some deadly and chronic disease. + +"Pray sit down on the sofa," said Holmes gently. "You had my +note?" + +"Yes, the lodge-keeper brought it up. You said that you wished to +see me here to avoid scandal." + +"I thought people would talk if I went to the Hall." + +"And why did you wish to see me?" He looked across at my +companion with despair in his weary eyes, as though his question +was already answered. + +"Yes," said Holmes, answering the look rather than the words. "It +is so. I know all about McCarthy." + +The old man sank his face in his hands. "God help me!" he cried. +"But I would not have let the young man come to harm. I give you +my word that I would have spoken out if it went against him at +the Assizes." + +"I am glad to hear you say so," said Holmes gravely. + +"I would have spoken now had it not been for my dear girl. It +would break her heart--it will break her heart when she hears +that I am arrested." + +"It may not come to that," said Holmes. + +"What?" + +"I am no official agent. I understand that it was your daughter +who required my presence here, and I am acting in her interests. +Young McCarthy must be got off, however." + +"I am a dying man," said old Turner. "I have had diabetes for +years. My doctor says it is a question whether I shall live a +month. Yet I would rather die under my own roof than in a gaol." + +Holmes rose and sat down at the table with his pen in his hand +and a bundle of paper before him. "Just tell us the truth," he +said. "I shall jot down the facts. You will sign it, and Watson +here can witness it. Then I could produce your confession at the +last extremity to save young McCarthy. I promise you that I shall +not use it unless it is absolutely needed." + +"It's as well," said the old man; "it's a question whether I +shall live to the Assizes, so it matters little to me, but I +should wish to spare Alice the shock. And now I will make the +thing clear to you; it has been a long time in the acting, but +will not take me long to tell. + +"You didn't know this dead man, McCarthy. He was a devil +incarnate. I tell you that. God keep you out of the clutches of +such a man as he. His grip has been upon me these twenty years, +and he has blasted my life. I'll tell you first how I came to be +in his power. + +"It was in the early '60's at the diggings. I was a young chap +then, hot-blooded and reckless, ready to turn my hand at +anything; I got among bad companions, took to drink, had no luck +with my claim, took to the bush, and in a word became what you +would call over here a highway robber. There were six of us, and +we had a wild, free life of it, sticking up a station from time +to time, or stopping the wagons on the road to the diggings. +Black Jack of Ballarat was the name I went under, and our party +is still remembered in the colony as the Ballarat Gang. + +"One day a gold convoy came down from Ballarat to Melbourne, and +we lay in wait for it and attacked it. There were six troopers +and six of us, so it was a close thing, but we emptied four of +their saddles at the first volley. Three of our boys were killed, +however, before we got the swag. I put my pistol to the head of +the wagon-driver, who was this very man McCarthy. I wish to the +Lord that I had shot him then, but I spared him, though I saw his +wicked little eyes fixed on my face, as though to remember every +feature. We got away with the gold, became wealthy men, and made +our way over to England without being suspected. There I parted +from my old pals and determined to settle down to a quiet and +respectable life. I bought this estate, which chanced to be in +the market, and I set myself to do a little good with my money, +to make up for the way in which I had earned it. I married, too, +and though my wife died young she left me my dear little Alice. +Even when she was just a baby her wee hand seemed to lead me down +the right path as nothing else had ever done. In a word, I turned +over a new leaf and did my best to make up for the past. All was +going well when McCarthy laid his grip upon me. + +"I had gone up to town about an investment, and I met him in +Regent Street with hardly a coat to his back or a boot to his +foot. + +"'Here we are, Jack,' says he, touching me on the arm; 'we'll be +as good as a family to you. There's two of us, me and my son, and +you can have the keeping of us. If you don't--it's a fine, +law-abiding country is England, and there's always a policeman +within hail.' + +"Well, down they came to the west country, there was no shaking +them off, and there they have lived rent free on my best land +ever since. There was no rest for me, no peace, no forgetfulness; +turn where I would, there was his cunning, grinning face at my +elbow. It grew worse as Alice grew up, for he soon saw I was more +afraid of her knowing my past than of the police. Whatever he +wanted he must have, and whatever it was I gave him without +question, land, money, houses, until at last he asked a thing +which I could not give. He asked for Alice. + +"His son, you see, had grown up, and so had my girl, and as I was +known to be in weak health, it seemed a fine stroke to him that +his lad should step into the whole property. But there I was +firm. I would not have his cursed stock mixed with mine; not that +I had any dislike to the lad, but his blood was in him, and that +was enough. I stood firm. McCarthy threatened. I braved him to do +his worst. We were to meet at the pool midway between our houses +to talk it over. + +"When I went down there I found him talking with his son, so I +smoked a cigar and waited behind a tree until he should be alone. +But as I listened to his talk all that was black and bitter in +me seemed to come uppermost. He was urging his son to marry my +daughter with as little regard for what she might think as if she +were a slut from off the streets. It drove me mad to think that I +and all that I held most dear should be in the power of such a +man as this. Could I not snap the bond? I was already a dying and +a desperate man. Though clear of mind and fairly strong of limb, +I knew that my own fate was sealed. But my memory and my girl! +Both could be saved if I could but silence that foul tongue. I +did it, Mr. Holmes. I would do it again. Deeply as I have sinned, +I have led a life of martyrdom to atone for it. But that my girl +should be entangled in the same meshes which held me was more +than I could suffer. I struck him down with no more compunction +than if he had been some foul and venomous beast. His cry brought +back his son; but I had gained the cover of the wood, though I +was forced to go back to fetch the cloak which I had dropped in +my flight. That is the true story, gentlemen, of all that +occurred." + +"Well, it is not for me to judge you," said Holmes as the old man +signed the statement which had been drawn out. "I pray that we +may never be exposed to such a temptation." + +"I pray not, sir. And what do you intend to do?" + +"In view of your health, nothing. You are yourself aware that you +will soon have to answer for your deed at a higher court than the +Assizes. I will keep your confession, and if McCarthy is +condemned I shall be forced to use it. If not, it shall never be +seen by mortal eye; and your secret, whether you be alive or +dead, shall be safe with us." + +"Farewell, then," said the old man solemnly. "Your own deathbeds, +when they come, will be the easier for the thought of the peace +which you have given to mine." Tottering and shaking in all his +giant frame, he stumbled slowly from the room. + +"God help us!" said Holmes after a long silence. "Why does fate +play such tricks with poor, helpless worms? I never hear of such +a case as this that I do not think of Baxter's words, and say, +'There, but for the grace of God, goes Sherlock Holmes.'" + +James McCarthy was acquitted at the Assizes on the strength of a +number of objections which had been drawn out by Holmes and +submitted to the defending counsel. Old Turner lived for seven +months after our interview, but he is now dead; and there is +every prospect that the son and daughter may come to live happily +together in ignorance of the black cloud which rests upon their +past. + + + +ADVENTURE V. THE FIVE ORANGE PIPS + +When I glance over my notes and records of the Sherlock Holmes +cases between the years '82 and '90, I am faced by so many which +present strange and interesting features that it is no easy +matter to know which to choose and which to leave. Some, however, +have already gained publicity through the papers, and others have +not offered a field for those peculiar qualities which my friend +possessed in so high a degree, and which it is the object of +these papers to illustrate. Some, too, have baffled his +analytical skill, and would be, as narratives, beginnings without +an ending, while others have been but partially cleared up, and +have their explanations founded rather upon conjecture and +surmise than on that absolute logical proof which was so dear to +him. There is, however, one of these last which was so remarkable +in its details and so startling in its results that I am tempted +to give some account of it in spite of the fact that there are +points in connection with it which never have been, and probably +never will be, entirely cleared up. + +The year '87 furnished us with a long series of cases of greater +or less interest, of which I retain the records. Among my +headings under this one twelve months I find an account of the +adventure of the Paradol Chamber, of the Amateur Mendicant +Society, who held a luxurious club in the lower vault of a +furniture warehouse, of the facts connected with the loss of the +British barque "Sophy Anderson", of the singular adventures of the +Grice Patersons in the island of Uffa, and finally of the +Camberwell poisoning case. In the latter, as may be remembered, +Sherlock Holmes was able, by winding up the dead man's watch, to +prove that it had been wound up two hours before, and that +therefore the deceased had gone to bed within that time--a +deduction which was of the greatest importance in clearing up the +case. All these I may sketch out at some future date, but none of +them present such singular features as the strange train of +circumstances which I have now taken up my pen to describe. + +It was in the latter days of September, and the equinoctial gales +had set in with exceptional violence. All day the wind had +screamed and the rain had beaten against the windows, so that +even here in the heart of great, hand-made London we were forced +to raise our minds for the instant from the routine of life and +to recognise the presence of those great elemental forces which +shriek at mankind through the bars of his civilisation, like +untamed beasts in a cage. As evening drew in, the storm grew +higher and louder, and the wind cried and sobbed like a child in +the chimney. Sherlock Holmes sat moodily at one side of the +fireplace cross-indexing his records of crime, while I at the +other was deep in one of Clark Russell's fine sea-stories until +the howl of the gale from without seemed to blend with the text, +and the splash of the rain to lengthen out into the long swash of +the sea waves. My wife was on a visit to her mother's, and for a +few days I was a dweller once more in my old quarters at Baker +Street. + +"Why," said I, glancing up at my companion, "that was surely the +bell. Who could come to-night? Some friend of yours, perhaps?" + +"Except yourself I have none," he answered. "I do not encourage +visitors." + +"A client, then?" + +"If so, it is a serious case. Nothing less would bring a man out +on such a day and at such an hour. But I take it that it is more +likely to be some crony of the landlady's." + +Sherlock Holmes was wrong in his conjecture, however, for there +came a step in the passage and a tapping at the door. He +stretched out his long arm to turn the lamp away from himself and +towards the vacant chair upon which a newcomer must sit. + +"Come in!" said he. + +The man who entered was young, some two-and-twenty at the +outside, well-groomed and trimly clad, with something of +refinement and delicacy in his bearing. The streaming umbrella +which he held in his hand, and his long shining waterproof told +of the fierce weather through which he had come. He looked about +him anxiously in the glare of the lamp, and I could see that his +face was pale and his eyes heavy, like those of a man who is +weighed down with some great anxiety. + +"I owe you an apology," he said, raising his golden pince-nez to +his eyes. "I trust that I am not intruding. I fear that I have +brought some traces of the storm and rain into your snug +chamber." + +"Give me your coat and umbrella," said Holmes. "They may rest +here on the hook and will be dry presently. You have come up from +the south-west, I see." + +"Yes, from Horsham." + +"That clay and chalk mixture which I see upon your toe caps is +quite distinctive." + +"I have come for advice." + +"That is easily got." + +"And help." + +"That is not always so easy." + +"I have heard of you, Mr. Holmes. I heard from Major Prendergast +how you saved him in the Tankerville Club scandal." + +"Ah, of course. He was wrongfully accused of cheating at cards." + +"He said that you could solve anything." + +"He said too much." + +"That you are never beaten." + +"I have been beaten four times--three times by men, and once by a +woman." + +"But what is that compared with the number of your successes?" + +"It is true that I have been generally successful." + +"Then you may be so with me." + +"I beg that you will draw your chair up to the fire and favour me +with some details as to your case." + +"It is no ordinary one." + +"None of those which come to me are. I am the last court of +appeal." + +"And yet I question, sir, whether, in all your experience, you +have ever listened to a more mysterious and inexplicable chain of +events than those which have happened in my own family." + +"You fill me with interest," said Holmes. "Pray give us the +essential facts from the commencement, and I can afterwards +question you as to those details which seem to me to be most +important." + +The young man pulled his chair up and pushed his wet feet out +towards the blaze. + +"My name," said he, "is John Openshaw, but my own affairs have, +as far as I can understand, little to do with this awful +business. It is a hereditary matter; so in order to give you an +idea of the facts, I must go back to the commencement of the +affair. + +"You must know that my grandfather had two sons--my uncle Elias +and my father Joseph. My father had a small factory at Coventry, +which he enlarged at the time of the invention of bicycling. He +was a patentee of the Openshaw unbreakable tire, and his business +met with such success that he was able to sell it and to retire +upon a handsome competence. + +"My uncle Elias emigrated to America when he was a young man and +became a planter in Florida, where he was reported to have done +very well. At the time of the war he fought in Jackson's army, +and afterwards under Hood, where he rose to be a colonel. When +Lee laid down his arms my uncle returned to his plantation, where +he remained for three or four years. About 1869 or 1870 he came +back to Europe and took a small estate in Sussex, near Horsham. +He had made a very considerable fortune in the States, and his +reason for leaving them was his aversion to the negroes, and his +dislike of the Republican policy in extending the franchise to +them. He was a singular man, fierce and quick-tempered, very +foul-mouthed when he was angry, and of a most retiring +disposition. During all the years that he lived at Horsham, I +doubt if ever he set foot in the town. He had a garden and two or +three fields round his house, and there he would take his +exercise, though very often for weeks on end he would never leave +his room. He drank a great deal of brandy and smoked very +heavily, but he would see no society and did not want any +friends, not even his own brother. + +"He didn't mind me; in fact, he took a fancy to me, for at the +time when he saw me first I was a youngster of twelve or so. This +would be in the year 1878, after he had been eight or nine years +in England. He begged my father to let me live with him and he +was very kind to me in his way. When he was sober he used to be +fond of playing backgammon and draughts with me, and he would +make me his representative both with the servants and with the +tradespeople, so that by the time that I was sixteen I was quite +master of the house. I kept all the keys and could go where I +liked and do what I liked, so long as I did not disturb him in +his privacy. There was one singular exception, however, for he +had a single room, a lumber-room up among the attics, which was +invariably locked, and which he would never permit either me or +anyone else to enter. With a boy's curiosity I have peeped +through the keyhole, but I was never able to see more than such a +collection of old trunks and bundles as would be expected in such +a room. + +"One day--it was in March, 1883--a letter with a foreign stamp +lay upon the table in front of the colonel's plate. It was not a +common thing for him to receive letters, for his bills were all +paid in ready money, and he had no friends of any sort. 'From +India!' said he as he took it up, 'Pondicherry postmark! What can +this be?' Opening it hurriedly, out there jumped five little +dried orange pips, which pattered down upon his plate. I began to +laugh at this, but the laugh was struck from my lips at the sight +of his face. His lip had fallen, his eyes were protruding, his +skin the colour of putty, and he glared at the envelope which he +still held in his trembling hand, 'K. K. K.!' he shrieked, and +then, 'My God, my God, my sins have overtaken me!' + +"'What is it, uncle?' I cried. + +"'Death,' said he, and rising from the table he retired to his +room, leaving me palpitating with horror. I took up the envelope +and saw scrawled in red ink upon the inner flap, just above the +gum, the letter K three times repeated. There was nothing else +save the five dried pips. What could be the reason of his +overpowering terror? I left the breakfast-table, and as I +ascended the stair I met him coming down with an old rusty key, +which must have belonged to the attic, in one hand, and a small +brass box, like a cashbox, in the other. + +"'They may do what they like, but I'll checkmate them still,' +said he with an oath. 'Tell Mary that I shall want a fire in my +room to-day, and send down to Fordham, the Horsham lawyer.' + +"I did as he ordered, and when the lawyer arrived I was asked to +step up to the room. The fire was burning brightly, and in the +grate there was a mass of black, fluffy ashes, as of burned +paper, while the brass box stood open and empty beside it. As I +glanced at the box I noticed, with a start, that upon the lid was +printed the treble K which I had read in the morning upon the +envelope. + +"'I wish you, John,' said my uncle, 'to witness my will. I leave +my estate, with all its advantages and all its disadvantages, to +my brother, your father, whence it will, no doubt, descend to +you. If you can enjoy it in peace, well and good! If you find you +cannot, take my advice, my boy, and leave it to your deadliest +enemy. I am sorry to give you such a two-edged thing, but I can't +say what turn things are going to take. Kindly sign the paper +where Mr. Fordham shows you.' + +"I signed the paper as directed, and the lawyer took it away with +him. The singular incident made, as you may think, the deepest +impression upon me, and I pondered over it and turned it every +way in my mind without being able to make anything of it. Yet I +could not shake off the vague feeling of dread which it left +behind, though the sensation grew less keen as the weeks passed +and nothing happened to disturb the usual routine of our lives. I +could see a change in my uncle, however. He drank more than ever, +and he was less inclined for any sort of society. Most of his +time he would spend in his room, with the door locked upon the +inside, but sometimes he would emerge in a sort of drunken frenzy +and would burst out of the house and tear about the garden with a +revolver in his hand, screaming out that he was afraid of no man, +and that he was not to be cooped up, like a sheep in a pen, by +man or devil. When these hot fits were over, however, he would +rush tumultuously in at the door and lock and bar it behind him, +like a man who can brazen it out no longer against the terror +which lies at the roots of his soul. At such times I have seen +his face, even on a cold day, glisten with moisture, as though it +were new raised from a basin. + +"Well, to come to an end of the matter, Mr. Holmes, and not to +abuse your patience, there came a night when he made one of those +drunken sallies from which he never came back. We found him, when +we went to search for him, face downward in a little +green-scummed pool, which lay at the foot of the garden. There +was no sign of any violence, and the water was but two feet deep, +so that the jury, having regard to his known eccentricity, +brought in a verdict of 'suicide.' But I, who knew how he winced +from the very thought of death, had much ado to persuade myself +that he had gone out of his way to meet it. The matter passed, +however, and my father entered into possession of the estate, and +of some 14,000 pounds, which lay to his credit at the bank." + +"One moment," Holmes interposed, "your statement is, I foresee, +one of the most remarkable to which I have ever listened. Let me +have the date of the reception by your uncle of the letter, and +the date of his supposed suicide." + +"The letter arrived on March 10, 1883. His death was seven weeks +later, upon the night of May 2nd." + +"Thank you. Pray proceed." + +"When my father took over the Horsham property, he, at my +request, made a careful examination of the attic, which had been +always locked up. We found the brass box there, although its +contents had been destroyed. On the inside of the cover was a +paper label, with the initials of K. K. K. repeated upon it, and +'Letters, memoranda, receipts, and a register' written beneath. +These, we presume, indicated the nature of the papers which had +been destroyed by Colonel Openshaw. For the rest, there was +nothing of much importance in the attic save a great many +scattered papers and note-books bearing upon my uncle's life in +America. Some of them were of the war time and showed that he had +done his duty well and had borne the repute of a brave soldier. +Others were of a date during the reconstruction of the Southern +states, and were mostly concerned with politics, for he had +evidently taken a strong part in opposing the carpet-bag +politicians who had been sent down from the North. + +"Well, it was the beginning of '84 when my father came to live at +Horsham, and all went as well as possible with us until the +January of '85. On the fourth day after the new year I heard my +father give a sharp cry of surprise as we sat together at the +breakfast-table. There he was, sitting with a newly opened +envelope in one hand and five dried orange pips in the +outstretched palm of the other one. He had always laughed at what +he called my cock-and-bull story about the colonel, but he looked +very scared and puzzled now that the same thing had come upon +himself. + +"'Why, what on earth does this mean, John?' he stammered. + +"My heart had turned to lead. 'It is K. K. K.,' said I. + +"He looked inside the envelope. 'So it is,' he cried. 'Here are +the very letters. But what is this written above them?' + +"'Put the papers on the sundial,' I read, peeping over his +shoulder. + +"'What papers? What sundial?' he asked. + +"'The sundial in the garden. There is no other,' said I; 'but the +papers must be those that are destroyed.' + +"'Pooh!' said he, gripping hard at his courage. 'We are in a +civilised land here, and we can't have tomfoolery of this kind. +Where does the thing come from?' + +"'From Dundee,' I answered, glancing at the postmark. + +"'Some preposterous practical joke,' said he. 'What have I to do +with sundials and papers? I shall take no notice of such +nonsense.' + +"'I should certainly speak to the police,' I said. + +"'And be laughed at for my pains. Nothing of the sort.' + +"'Then let me do so?' + +"'No, I forbid you. I won't have a fuss made about such +nonsense.' + +"It was in vain to argue with him, for he was a very obstinate +man. I went about, however, with a heart which was full of +forebodings. + +"On the third day after the coming of the letter my father went +from home to visit an old friend of his, Major Freebody, who is +in command of one of the forts upon Portsdown Hill. I was glad +that he should go, for it seemed to me that he was farther from +danger when he was away from home. In that, however, I was in +error. Upon the second day of his absence I received a telegram +from the major, imploring me to come at once. My father had +fallen over one of the deep chalk-pits which abound in the +neighbourhood, and was lying senseless, with a shattered skull. I +hurried to him, but he passed away without having ever recovered +his consciousness. He had, as it appears, been returning from +Fareham in the twilight, and as the country was unknown to him, +and the chalk-pit unfenced, the jury had no hesitation in +bringing in a verdict of 'death from accidental causes.' +Carefully as I examined every fact connected with his death, I +was unable to find anything which could suggest the idea of +murder. There were no signs of violence, no footmarks, no +robbery, no record of strangers having been seen upon the roads. +And yet I need not tell you that my mind was far from at ease, +and that I was well-nigh certain that some foul plot had been +woven round him. + +"In this sinister way I came into my inheritance. You will ask me +why I did not dispose of it? I answer, because I was well +convinced that our troubles were in some way dependent upon an +incident in my uncle's life, and that the danger would be as +pressing in one house as in another. + +"It was in January, '85, that my poor father met his end, and two +years and eight months have elapsed since then. During that time +I have lived happily at Horsham, and I had begun to hope that +this curse had passed away from the family, and that it had ended +with the last generation. I had begun to take comfort too soon, +however; yesterday morning the blow fell in the very shape in +which it had come upon my father." + +The young man took from his waistcoat a crumpled envelope, and +turning to the table he shook out upon it five little dried +orange pips. + +"This is the envelope," he continued. "The postmark is +London--eastern division. Within are the very words which were +upon my father's last message: 'K. K. K.'; and then 'Put the +papers on the sundial.'" + +"What have you done?" asked Holmes. + +"Nothing." + +"Nothing?" + +"To tell the truth"--he sank his face into his thin, white +hands--"I have felt helpless. I have felt like one of those poor +rabbits when the snake is writhing towards it. I seem to be in +the grasp of some resistless, inexorable evil, which no foresight +and no precautions can guard against." + +"Tut! tut!" cried Sherlock Holmes. "You must act, man, or you are +lost. Nothing but energy can save you. This is no time for +despair." + +"I have seen the police." + +"Ah!" + +"But they listened to my story with a smile. I am convinced that +the inspector has formed the opinion that the letters are all +practical jokes, and that the deaths of my relations were really +accidents, as the jury stated, and were not to be connected with +the warnings." + +Holmes shook his clenched hands in the air. "Incredible +imbecility!" he cried. + +"They have, however, allowed me a policeman, who may remain in +the house with me." + +"Has he come with you to-night?" + +"No. His orders were to stay in the house." + +Again Holmes raved in the air. + +"Why did you come to me," he cried, "and, above all, why did you +not come at once?" + +"I did not know. It was only to-day that I spoke to Major +Prendergast about my troubles and was advised by him to come to +you." + +"It is really two days since you had the letter. We should have +acted before this. You have no further evidence, I suppose, than +that which you have placed before us--no suggestive detail which +might help us?" + +"There is one thing," said John Openshaw. He rummaged in his coat +pocket, and, drawing out a piece of discoloured, blue-tinted +paper, he laid it out upon the table. "I have some remembrance," +said he, "that on the day when my uncle burned the papers I +observed that the small, unburned margins which lay amid the +ashes were of this particular colour. I found this single sheet +upon the floor of his room, and I am inclined to think that it +may be one of the papers which has, perhaps, fluttered out from +among the others, and in that way has escaped destruction. Beyond +the mention of pips, I do not see that it helps us much. I think +myself that it is a page from some private diary. The writing is +undoubtedly my uncle's." + +Holmes moved the lamp, and we both bent over the sheet of paper, +which showed by its ragged edge that it had indeed been torn from +a book. It was headed, "March, 1869," and beneath were the +following enigmatical notices: + +"4th. Hudson came. Same old platform. + +"7th. Set the pips on McCauley, Paramore, and + John Swain, of St. Augustine. + +"9th. McCauley cleared. + +"10th. John Swain cleared. + +"12th. Visited Paramore. All well." + +"Thank you!" said Holmes, folding up the paper and returning it +to our visitor. "And now you must on no account lose another +instant. We cannot spare time even to discuss what you have told +me. You must get home instantly and act." + +"What shall I do?" + +"There is but one thing to do. It must be done at once. You must +put this piece of paper which you have shown us into the brass +box which you have described. You must also put in a note to say +that all the other papers were burned by your uncle, and that +this is the only one which remains. You must assert that in such +words as will carry conviction with them. Having done this, you +must at once put the box out upon the sundial, as directed. Do +you understand?" + +"Entirely." + +"Do not think of revenge, or anything of the sort, at present. I +think that we may gain that by means of the law; but we have our +web to weave, while theirs is already woven. The first +consideration is to remove the pressing danger which threatens +you. The second is to clear up the mystery and to punish the +guilty parties." + +"I thank you," said the young man, rising and pulling on his +overcoat. "You have given me fresh life and hope. I shall +certainly do as you advise." + +"Do not lose an instant. And, above all, take care of yourself in +the meanwhile, for I do not think that there can be a doubt that +you are threatened by a very real and imminent danger. How do you +go back?" + +"By train from Waterloo." + +"It is not yet nine. The streets will be crowded, so I trust that +you may be in safety. And yet you cannot guard yourself too +closely." + +"I am armed." + +"That is well. To-morrow I shall set to work upon your case." + +"I shall see you at Horsham, then?" + +"No, your secret lies in London. It is there that I shall seek +it." + +"Then I shall call upon you in a day, or in two days, with news +as to the box and the papers. I shall take your advice in every +particular." He shook hands with us and took his leave. Outside +the wind still screamed and the rain splashed and pattered +against the windows. This strange, wild story seemed to have come +to us from amid the mad elements--blown in upon us like a sheet +of sea-weed in a gale--and now to have been reabsorbed by them +once more. + +Sherlock Holmes sat for some time in silence, with his head sunk +forward and his eyes bent upon the red glow of the fire. Then he +lit his pipe, and leaning back in his chair he watched the blue +smoke-rings as they chased each other up to the ceiling. + +"I think, Watson," he remarked at last, "that of all our cases we +have had none more fantastic than this." + +"Save, perhaps, the Sign of Four." + +"Well, yes. Save, perhaps, that. And yet this John Openshaw seems +to me to be walking amid even greater perils than did the +Sholtos." + +"But have you," I asked, "formed any definite conception as to +what these perils are?" + +"There can be no question as to their nature," he answered. + +"Then what are they? Who is this K. K. K., and why does he pursue +this unhappy family?" + +Sherlock Holmes closed his eyes and placed his elbows upon the +arms of his chair, with his finger-tips together. "The ideal +reasoner," he remarked, "would, when he had once been shown a +single fact in all its bearings, deduce from it not only all the +chain of events which led up to it but also all the results which +would follow from it. As Cuvier could correctly describe a whole +animal by the contemplation of a single bone, so the observer who +has thoroughly understood one link in a series of incidents +should be able to accurately state all the other ones, both +before and after. We have not yet grasped the results which the +reason alone can attain to. Problems may be solved in the study +which have baffled all those who have sought a solution by the +aid of their senses. To carry the art, however, to its highest +pitch, it is necessary that the reasoner should be able to +utilise all the facts which have come to his knowledge; and this +in itself implies, as you will readily see, a possession of all +knowledge, which, even in these days of free education and +encyclopaedias, is a somewhat rare accomplishment. It is not so +impossible, however, that a man should possess all knowledge +which is likely to be useful to him in his work, and this I have +endeavoured in my case to do. If I remember rightly, you on one +occasion, in the early days of our friendship, defined my limits +in a very precise fashion." + +"Yes," I answered, laughing. "It was a singular document. +Philosophy, astronomy, and politics were marked at zero, I +remember. Botany variable, geology profound as regards the +mud-stains from any region within fifty miles of town, chemistry +eccentric, anatomy unsystematic, sensational literature and crime +records unique, violin-player, boxer, swordsman, lawyer, and +self-poisoner by cocaine and tobacco. Those, I think, were the +main points of my analysis." + +Holmes grinned at the last item. "Well," he said, "I say now, as +I said then, that a man should keep his little brain-attic +stocked with all the furniture that he is likely to use, and the +rest he can put away in the lumber-room of his library, where he +can get it if he wants it. Now, for such a case as the one which +has been submitted to us to-night, we need certainly to muster +all our resources. Kindly hand me down the letter K of the +'American Encyclopaedia' which stands upon the shelf beside you. +Thank you. Now let us consider the situation and see what may be +deduced from it. In the first place, we may start with a strong +presumption that Colonel Openshaw had some very strong reason for +leaving America. Men at his time of life do not change all their +habits and exchange willingly the charming climate of Florida for +the lonely life of an English provincial town. His extreme love +of solitude in England suggests the idea that he was in fear of +someone or something, so we may assume as a working hypothesis +that it was fear of someone or something which drove him from +America. As to what it was he feared, we can only deduce that by +considering the formidable letters which were received by himself +and his successors. Did you remark the postmarks of those +letters?" + +"The first was from Pondicherry, the second from Dundee, and the +third from London." + +"From East London. What do you deduce from that?" + +"They are all seaports. That the writer was on board of a ship." + +"Excellent. We have already a clue. There can be no doubt that +the probability--the strong probability--is that the writer was +on board of a ship. And now let us consider another point. In the +case of Pondicherry, seven weeks elapsed between the threat and +its fulfilment, in Dundee it was only some three or four days. +Does that suggest anything?" + +"A greater distance to travel." + +"But the letter had also a greater distance to come." + +"Then I do not see the point." + +"There is at least a presumption that the vessel in which the man +or men are is a sailing-ship. It looks as if they always send +their singular warning or token before them when starting upon +their mission. You see how quickly the deed followed the sign +when it came from Dundee. If they had come from Pondicherry in a +steamer they would have arrived almost as soon as their letter. +But, as a matter of fact, seven weeks elapsed. I think that those +seven weeks represented the difference between the mail-boat which +brought the letter and the sailing vessel which brought the +writer." + +"It is possible." + +"More than that. It is probable. And now you see the deadly +urgency of this new case, and why I urged young Openshaw to +caution. The blow has always fallen at the end of the time which +it would take the senders to travel the distance. But this one +comes from London, and therefore we cannot count upon delay." + +"Good God!" I cried. "What can it mean, this relentless +persecution?" + +"The papers which Openshaw carried are obviously of vital +importance to the person or persons in the sailing-ship. I think +that it is quite clear that there must be more than one of them. +A single man could not have carried out two deaths in such a way +as to deceive a coroner's jury. There must have been several in +it, and they must have been men of resource and determination. +Their papers they mean to have, be the holder of them who it may. +In this way you see K. K. K. ceases to be the initials of an +individual and becomes the badge of a society." + +"But of what society?" + +"Have you never--" said Sherlock Holmes, bending forward and +sinking his voice--"have you never heard of the Ku Klux Klan?" + +"I never have." + +Holmes turned over the leaves of the book upon his knee. "Here it +is," said he presently: + +"'Ku Klux Klan. A name derived from the fanciful resemblance to +the sound produced by cocking a rifle. This terrible secret +society was formed by some ex-Confederate soldiers in the +Southern states after the Civil War, and it rapidly formed local +branches in different parts of the country, notably in Tennessee, +Louisiana, the Carolinas, Georgia, and Florida. Its power was +used for political purposes, principally for the terrorising of +the negro voters and the murdering and driving from the country +of those who were opposed to its views. Its outrages were usually +preceded by a warning sent to the marked man in some fantastic +but generally recognised shape--a sprig of oak-leaves in some +parts, melon seeds or orange pips in others. On receiving this +the victim might either openly abjure his former ways, or might +fly from the country. If he braved the matter out, death would +unfailingly come upon him, and usually in some strange and +unforeseen manner. So perfect was the organisation of the +society, and so systematic its methods, that there is hardly a +case upon record where any man succeeded in braving it with +impunity, or in which any of its outrages were traced home to the +perpetrators. For some years the organisation flourished in spite +of the efforts of the United States government and of the better +classes of the community in the South. Eventually, in the year +1869, the movement rather suddenly collapsed, although there have +been sporadic outbreaks of the same sort since that date.' + +"You will observe," said Holmes, laying down the volume, "that +the sudden breaking up of the society was coincident with the +disappearance of Openshaw from America with their papers. It may +well have been cause and effect. It is no wonder that he and his +family have some of the more implacable spirits upon their track. +You can understand that this register and diary may implicate +some of the first men in the South, and that there may be many +who will not sleep easy at night until it is recovered." + +"Then the page we have seen--" + +"Is such as we might expect. It ran, if I remember right, 'sent +the pips to A, B, and C'--that is, sent the society's warning to +them. Then there are successive entries that A and B cleared, or +left the country, and finally that C was visited, with, I fear, a +sinister result for C. Well, I think, Doctor, that we may let +some light into this dark place, and I believe that the only +chance young Openshaw has in the meantime is to do what I have +told him. There is nothing more to be said or to be done +to-night, so hand me over my violin and let us try to forget for +half an hour the miserable weather and the still more miserable +ways of our fellow-men." + + +It had cleared in the morning, and the sun was shining with a +subdued brightness through the dim veil which hangs over the +great city. Sherlock Holmes was already at breakfast when I came +down. + +"You will excuse me for not waiting for you," said he; "I have, I +foresee, a very busy day before me in looking into this case of +young Openshaw's." + +"What steps will you take?" I asked. + +"It will very much depend upon the results of my first inquiries. +I may have to go down to Horsham, after all." + +"You will not go there first?" + +"No, I shall commence with the City. Just ring the bell and the +maid will bring up your coffee." + +As I waited, I lifted the unopened newspaper from the table and +glanced my eye over it. It rested upon a heading which sent a +chill to my heart. + +"Holmes," I cried, "you are too late." + +"Ah!" said he, laying down his cup, "I feared as much. How was it +done?" He spoke calmly, but I could see that he was deeply moved. + +"My eye caught the name of Openshaw, and the heading 'Tragedy +Near Waterloo Bridge.' Here is the account: + +"Between nine and ten last night Police-Constable Cook, of the H +Division, on duty near Waterloo Bridge, heard a cry for help and +a splash in the water. The night, however, was extremely dark and +stormy, so that, in spite of the help of several passers-by, it +was quite impossible to effect a rescue. The alarm, however, was +given, and, by the aid of the water-police, the body was +eventually recovered. It proved to be that of a young gentleman +whose name, as it appears from an envelope which was found in his +pocket, was John Openshaw, and whose residence is near Horsham. +It is conjectured that he may have been hurrying down to catch +the last train from Waterloo Station, and that in his haste and +the extreme darkness he missed his path and walked over the edge +of one of the small landing-places for river steamboats. The body +exhibited no traces of violence, and there can be no doubt that +the deceased had been the victim of an unfortunate accident, +which should have the effect of calling the attention of the +authorities to the condition of the riverside landing-stages." + +We sat in silence for some minutes, Holmes more depressed and +shaken than I had ever seen him. + +"That hurts my pride, Watson," he said at last. "It is a petty +feeling, no doubt, but it hurts my pride. It becomes a personal +matter with me now, and, if God sends me health, I shall set my +hand upon this gang. That he should come to me for help, and that +I should send him away to his death--!" He sprang from his chair +and paced about the room in uncontrollable agitation, with a +flush upon his sallow cheeks and a nervous clasping and +unclasping of his long thin hands. + +"They must be cunning devils," he exclaimed at last. "How could +they have decoyed him down there? The Embankment is not on the +direct line to the station. The bridge, no doubt, was too +crowded, even on such a night, for their purpose. Well, Watson, +we shall see who will win in the long run. I am going out now!" + +"To the police?" + +"No; I shall be my own police. When I have spun the web they may +take the flies, but not before." + +All day I was engaged in my professional work, and it was late in +the evening before I returned to Baker Street. Sherlock Holmes +had not come back yet. It was nearly ten o'clock before he +entered, looking pale and worn. He walked up to the sideboard, +and tearing a piece from the loaf he devoured it voraciously, +washing it down with a long draught of water. + +"You are hungry," I remarked. + +"Starving. It had escaped my memory. I have had nothing since +breakfast." + +"Nothing?" + +"Not a bite. I had no time to think of it." + +"And how have you succeeded?" + +"Well." + +"You have a clue?" + +"I have them in the hollow of my hand. Young Openshaw shall not +long remain unavenged. Why, Watson, let us put their own devilish +trade-mark upon them. It is well thought of!" + +"What do you mean?" + +He took an orange from the cupboard, and tearing it to pieces he +squeezed out the pips upon the table. Of these he took five and +thrust them into an envelope. On the inside of the flap he wrote +"S. H. for J. O." Then he sealed it and addressed it to "Captain +James Calhoun, Barque 'Lone Star,' Savannah, Georgia." + +"That will await him when he enters port," said he, chuckling. +"It may give him a sleepless night. He will find it as sure a +precursor of his fate as Openshaw did before him." + +"And who is this Captain Calhoun?" + +"The leader of the gang. I shall have the others, but he first." + +"How did you trace it, then?" + +He took a large sheet of paper from his pocket, all covered with +dates and names. + +"I have spent the whole day," said he, "over Lloyd's registers +and files of the old papers, following the future career of every +vessel which touched at Pondicherry in January and February in +'83. There were thirty-six ships of fair tonnage which were +reported there during those months. Of these, one, the 'Lone Star,' +instantly attracted my attention, since, although it was reported +as having cleared from London, the name is that which is given to +one of the states of the Union." + +"Texas, I think." + +"I was not and am not sure which; but I knew that the ship must +have an American origin." + +"What then?" + +"I searched the Dundee records, and when I found that the barque +'Lone Star' was there in January, '85, my suspicion became a +certainty. I then inquired as to the vessels which lay at present +in the port of London." + +"Yes?" + +"The 'Lone Star' had arrived here last week. I went down to the +Albert Dock and found that she had been taken down the river by +the early tide this morning, homeward bound to Savannah. I wired +to Gravesend and learned that she had passed some time ago, and +as the wind is easterly I have no doubt that she is now past the +Goodwins and not very far from the Isle of Wight." + +"What will you do, then?" + +"Oh, I have my hand upon him. He and the two mates, are as I +learn, the only native-born Americans in the ship. The others are +Finns and Germans. I know, also, that they were all three away +from the ship last night. I had it from the stevedore who has +been loading their cargo. By the time that their sailing-ship +reaches Savannah the mail-boat will have carried this letter, and +the cable will have informed the police of Savannah that these +three gentlemen are badly wanted here upon a charge of murder." + +There is ever a flaw, however, in the best laid of human plans, +and the murderers of John Openshaw were never to receive the +orange pips which would show them that another, as cunning and as +resolute as themselves, was upon their track. Very long and very +severe were the equinoctial gales that year. We waited long for +news of the "Lone Star" of Savannah, but none ever reached us. We +did at last hear that somewhere far out in the Atlantic a +shattered stern-post of a boat was seen swinging in the trough +of a wave, with the letters "L. S." carved upon it, and that is +all which we shall ever know of the fate of the "Lone Star." + + + +ADVENTURE VI. THE MAN WITH THE TWISTED LIP + +Isa Whitney, brother of the late Elias Whitney, D.D., Principal +of the Theological College of St. George's, was much addicted to +opium. The habit grew upon him, as I understand, from some +foolish freak when he was at college; for having read De +Quincey's description of his dreams and sensations, he had +drenched his tobacco with laudanum in an attempt to produce the +same effects. He found, as so many more have done, that the +practice is easier to attain than to get rid of, and for many +years he continued to be a slave to the drug, an object of +mingled horror and pity to his friends and relatives. I can see +him now, with yellow, pasty face, drooping lids, and pin-point +pupils, all huddled in a chair, the wreck and ruin of a noble +man. + +One night--it was in June, '89--there came a ring to my bell, +about the hour when a man gives his first yawn and glances at the +clock. I sat up in my chair, and my wife laid her needle-work +down in her lap and made a little face of disappointment. + +"A patient!" said she. "You'll have to go out." + +I groaned, for I was newly come back from a weary day. + +We heard the door open, a few hurried words, and then quick steps +upon the linoleum. Our own door flew open, and a lady, clad in +some dark-coloured stuff, with a black veil, entered the room. + +"You will excuse my calling so late," she began, and then, +suddenly losing her self-control, she ran forward, threw her arms +about my wife's neck, and sobbed upon her shoulder. "Oh, I'm in +such trouble!" she cried; "I do so want a little help." + +"Why," said my wife, pulling up her veil, "it is Kate Whitney. +How you startled me, Kate! I had not an idea who you were when +you came in." + +"I didn't know what to do, so I came straight to you." That was +always the way. Folk who were in grief came to my wife like birds +to a light-house. + +"It was very sweet of you to come. Now, you must have some wine +and water, and sit here comfortably and tell us all about it. Or +should you rather that I sent James off to bed?" + +"Oh, no, no! I want the doctor's advice and help, too. It's about +Isa. He has not been home for two days. I am so frightened about +him!" + +It was not the first time that she had spoken to us of her +husband's trouble, to me as a doctor, to my wife as an old friend +and school companion. We soothed and comforted her by such words +as we could find. Did she know where her husband was? Was it +possible that we could bring him back to her? + +It seems that it was. She had the surest information that of late +he had, when the fit was on him, made use of an opium den in the +farthest east of the City. Hitherto his orgies had always been +confined to one day, and he had come back, twitching and +shattered, in the evening. But now the spell had been upon him +eight-and-forty hours, and he lay there, doubtless among the +dregs of the docks, breathing in the poison or sleeping off the +effects. There he was to be found, she was sure of it, at the Bar +of Gold, in Upper Swandam Lane. But what was she to do? How could +she, a young and timid woman, make her way into such a place and +pluck her husband out from among the ruffians who surrounded him? + +There was the case, and of course there was but one way out of +it. Might I not escort her to this place? And then, as a second +thought, why should she come at all? I was Isa Whitney's medical +adviser, and as such I had influence over him. I could manage it +better if I were alone. I promised her on my word that I would +send him home in a cab within two hours if he were indeed at the +address which she had given me. And so in ten minutes I had left +my armchair and cheery sitting-room behind me, and was speeding +eastward in a hansom on a strange errand, as it seemed to me at +the time, though the future only could show how strange it was to +be. + +But there was no great difficulty in the first stage of my +adventure. Upper Swandam Lane is a vile alley lurking behind the +high wharves which line the north side of the river to the east +of London Bridge. Between a slop-shop and a gin-shop, approached +by a steep flight of steps leading down to a black gap like the +mouth of a cave, I found the den of which I was in search. +Ordering my cab to wait, I passed down the steps, worn hollow in +the centre by the ceaseless tread of drunken feet; and by the +light of a flickering oil-lamp above the door I found the latch +and made my way into a long, low room, thick and heavy with the +brown opium smoke, and terraced with wooden berths, like the +forecastle of an emigrant ship. + +Through the gloom one could dimly catch a glimpse of bodies lying +in strange fantastic poses, bowed shoulders, bent knees, heads +thrown back, and chins pointing upward, with here and there a +dark, lack-lustre eye turned upon the newcomer. Out of the black +shadows there glimmered little red circles of light, now bright, +now faint, as the burning poison waxed or waned in the bowls of +the metal pipes. The most lay silent, but some muttered to +themselves, and others talked together in a strange, low, +monotonous voice, their conversation coming in gushes, and then +suddenly tailing off into silence, each mumbling out his own +thoughts and paying little heed to the words of his neighbour. At +the farther end was a small brazier of burning charcoal, beside +which on a three-legged wooden stool there sat a tall, thin old +man, with his jaw resting upon his two fists, and his elbows upon +his knees, staring into the fire. + +As I entered, a sallow Malay attendant had hurried up with a pipe +for me and a supply of the drug, beckoning me to an empty berth. + +"Thank you. I have not come to stay," said I. "There is a friend +of mine here, Mr. Isa Whitney, and I wish to speak with him." + +There was a movement and an exclamation from my right, and +peering through the gloom, I saw Whitney, pale, haggard, and +unkempt, staring out at me. + +"My God! It's Watson," said he. He was in a pitiable state of +reaction, with every nerve in a twitter. "I say, Watson, what +o'clock is it?" + +"Nearly eleven." + +"Of what day?" + +"Of Friday, June 19th." + +"Good heavens! I thought it was Wednesday. It is Wednesday. What +d'you want to frighten a chap for?" He sank his face onto his +arms and began to sob in a high treble key. + +"I tell you that it is Friday, man. Your wife has been waiting +this two days for you. You should be ashamed of yourself!" + +"So I am. But you've got mixed, Watson, for I have only been here +a few hours, three pipes, four pipes--I forget how many. But I'll +go home with you. I wouldn't frighten Kate--poor little Kate. +Give me your hand! Have you a cab?" + +"Yes, I have one waiting." + +"Then I shall go in it. But I must owe something. Find what I +owe, Watson. I am all off colour. I can do nothing for myself." + +I walked down the narrow passage between the double row of +sleepers, holding my breath to keep out the vile, stupefying +fumes of the drug, and looking about for the manager. As I passed +the tall man who sat by the brazier I felt a sudden pluck at my +skirt, and a low voice whispered, "Walk past me, and then look +back at me." The words fell quite distinctly upon my ear. I +glanced down. They could only have come from the old man at my +side, and yet he sat now as absorbed as ever, very thin, very +wrinkled, bent with age, an opium pipe dangling down from between +his knees, as though it had dropped in sheer lassitude from his +fingers. I took two steps forward and looked back. It took all my +self-control to prevent me from breaking out into a cry of +astonishment. He had turned his back so that none could see him +but I. His form had filled out, his wrinkles were gone, the dull +eyes had regained their fire, and there, sitting by the fire and +grinning at my surprise, was none other than Sherlock Holmes. He +made a slight motion to me to approach him, and instantly, as he +turned his face half round to the company once more, subsided +into a doddering, loose-lipped senility. + +"Holmes!" I whispered, "what on earth are you doing in this den?" + +"As low as you can," he answered; "I have excellent ears. If you +would have the great kindness to get rid of that sottish friend +of yours I should be exceedingly glad to have a little talk with +you." + +"I have a cab outside." + +"Then pray send him home in it. You may safely trust him, for he +appears to be too limp to get into any mischief. I should +recommend you also to send a note by the cabman to your wife to +say that you have thrown in your lot with me. If you will wait +outside, I shall be with you in five minutes." + +It was difficult to refuse any of Sherlock Holmes' requests, for +they were always so exceedingly definite, and put forward with +such a quiet air of mastery. I felt, however, that when Whitney +was once confined in the cab my mission was practically +accomplished; and for the rest, I could not wish anything better +than to be associated with my friend in one of those singular +adventures which were the normal condition of his existence. In a +few minutes I had written my note, paid Whitney's bill, led him +out to the cab, and seen him driven through the darkness. In a +very short time a decrepit figure had emerged from the opium den, +and I was walking down the street with Sherlock Holmes. For two +streets he shuffled along with a bent back and an uncertain foot. +Then, glancing quickly round, he straightened himself out and +burst into a hearty fit of laughter. + +"I suppose, Watson," said he, "that you imagine that I have added +opium-smoking to cocaine injections, and all the other little +weaknesses on which you have favoured me with your medical +views." + +"I was certainly surprised to find you there." + +"But not more so than I to find you." + +"I came to find a friend." + +"And I to find an enemy." + +"An enemy?" + +"Yes; one of my natural enemies, or, shall I say, my natural +prey. Briefly, Watson, I am in the midst of a very remarkable +inquiry, and I have hoped to find a clue in the incoherent +ramblings of these sots, as I have done before now. Had I been +recognised in that den my life would not have been worth an +hour's purchase; for I have used it before now for my own +purposes, and the rascally Lascar who runs it has sworn to have +vengeance upon me. There is a trap-door at the back of that +building, near the corner of Paul's Wharf, which could tell some +strange tales of what has passed through it upon the moonless +nights." + +"What! You do not mean bodies?" + +"Ay, bodies, Watson. We should be rich men if we had 1000 pounds +for every poor devil who has been done to death in that den. It +is the vilest murder-trap on the whole riverside, and I fear that +Neville St. Clair has entered it never to leave it more. But our +trap should be here." He put his two forefingers between his +teeth and whistled shrilly--a signal which was answered by a +similar whistle from the distance, followed shortly by the rattle +of wheels and the clink of horses' hoofs. + +"Now, Watson," said Holmes, as a tall dog-cart dashed up through +the gloom, throwing out two golden tunnels of yellow light from +its side lanterns. "You'll come with me, won't you?" + +"If I can be of use." + +"Oh, a trusty comrade is always of use; and a chronicler still +more so. My room at The Cedars is a double-bedded one." + +"The Cedars?" + +"Yes; that is Mr. St. Clair's house. I am staying there while I +conduct the inquiry." + +"Where is it, then?" + +"Near Lee, in Kent. We have a seven-mile drive before us." + +"But I am all in the dark." + +"Of course you are. You'll know all about it presently. Jump up +here. All right, John; we shall not need you. Here's half a +crown. Look out for me to-morrow, about eleven. Give her her +head. So long, then!" + +He flicked the horse with his whip, and we dashed away through +the endless succession of sombre and deserted streets, which +widened gradually, until we were flying across a broad +balustraded bridge, with the murky river flowing sluggishly +beneath us. Beyond lay another dull wilderness of bricks and +mortar, its silence broken only by the heavy, regular footfall of +the policeman, or the songs and shouts of some belated party of +revellers. A dull wrack was drifting slowly across the sky, and a +star or two twinkled dimly here and there through the rifts of +the clouds. Holmes drove in silence, with his head sunk upon his +breast, and the air of a man who is lost in thought, while I sat +beside him, curious to learn what this new quest might be which +seemed to tax his powers so sorely, and yet afraid to break in +upon the current of his thoughts. We had driven several miles, +and were beginning to get to the fringe of the belt of suburban +villas, when he shook himself, shrugged his shoulders, and lit up +his pipe with the air of a man who has satisfied himself that he +is acting for the best. + +"You have a grand gift of silence, Watson," said he. "It makes +you quite invaluable as a companion. 'Pon my word, it is a great +thing for me to have someone to talk to, for my own thoughts are +not over-pleasant. I was wondering what I should say to this dear +little woman to-night when she meets me at the door." + +"You forget that I know nothing about it." + +"I shall just have time to tell you the facts of the case before +we get to Lee. It seems absurdly simple, and yet, somehow I can +get nothing to go upon. There's plenty of thread, no doubt, but I +can't get the end of it into my hand. Now, I'll state the case +clearly and concisely to you, Watson, and maybe you can see a +spark where all is dark to me." + +"Proceed, then." + +"Some years ago--to be definite, in May, 1884--there came to Lee +a gentleman, Neville St. Clair by name, who appeared to have +plenty of money. He took a large villa, laid out the grounds very +nicely, and lived generally in good style. By degrees he made +friends in the neighbourhood, and in 1887 he married the daughter +of a local brewer, by whom he now has two children. He had no +occupation, but was interested in several companies and went into +town as a rule in the morning, returning by the 5:14 from Cannon +Street every night. Mr. St. Clair is now thirty-seven years of +age, is a man of temperate habits, a good husband, a very +affectionate father, and a man who is popular with all who know +him. I may add that his whole debts at the present moment, as far +as we have been able to ascertain, amount to 88 pounds 10s., while +he has 220 pounds standing to his credit in the Capital and +Counties Bank. There is no reason, therefore, to think that money +troubles have been weighing upon his mind. + +"Last Monday Mr. Neville St. Clair went into town rather earlier +than usual, remarking before he started that he had two important +commissions to perform, and that he would bring his little boy +home a box of bricks. Now, by the merest chance, his wife +received a telegram upon this same Monday, very shortly after his +departure, to the effect that a small parcel of considerable +value which she had been expecting was waiting for her at the +offices of the Aberdeen Shipping Company. Now, if you are well up +in your London, you will know that the office of the company is +in Fresno Street, which branches out of Upper Swandam Lane, where +you found me to-night. Mrs. St. Clair had her lunch, started for +the City, did some shopping, proceeded to the company's office, +got her packet, and found herself at exactly 4:35 walking through +Swandam Lane on her way back to the station. Have you followed me +so far?" + +"It is very clear." + +"If you remember, Monday was an exceedingly hot day, and Mrs. St. +Clair walked slowly, glancing about in the hope of seeing a cab, +as she did not like the neighbourhood in which she found herself. +While she was walking in this way down Swandam Lane, she suddenly +heard an ejaculation or cry, and was struck cold to see her +husband looking down at her and, as it seemed to her, beckoning +to her from a second-floor window. The window was open, and she +distinctly saw his face, which she describes as being terribly +agitated. He waved his hands frantically to her, and then +vanished from the window so suddenly that it seemed to her that +he had been plucked back by some irresistible force from behind. +One singular point which struck her quick feminine eye was that +although he wore some dark coat, such as he had started to town +in, he had on neither collar nor necktie. + +"Convinced that something was amiss with him, she rushed down the +steps--for the house was none other than the opium den in which +you found me to-night--and running through the front room she +attempted to ascend the stairs which led to the first floor. At +the foot of the stairs, however, she met this Lascar scoundrel of +whom I have spoken, who thrust her back and, aided by a Dane, who +acts as assistant there, pushed her out into the street. Filled +with the most maddening doubts and fears, she rushed down the +lane and, by rare good-fortune, met in Fresno Street a number of +constables with an inspector, all on their way to their beat. The +inspector and two men accompanied her back, and in spite of the +continued resistance of the proprietor, they made their way to +the room in which Mr. St. Clair had last been seen. There was no +sign of him there. In fact, in the whole of that floor there was +no one to be found save a crippled wretch of hideous aspect, who, +it seems, made his home there. Both he and the Lascar stoutly +swore that no one else had been in the front room during the +afternoon. So determined was their denial that the inspector was +staggered, and had almost come to believe that Mrs. St. Clair had +been deluded when, with a cry, she sprang at a small deal box +which lay upon the table and tore the lid from it. Out there fell +a cascade of children's bricks. It was the toy which he had +promised to bring home. + +"This discovery, and the evident confusion which the cripple +showed, made the inspector realise that the matter was serious. +The rooms were carefully examined, and results all pointed to an +abominable crime. The front room was plainly furnished as a +sitting-room and led into a small bedroom, which looked out upon +the back of one of the wharves. Between the wharf and the bedroom +window is a narrow strip, which is dry at low tide but is covered +at high tide with at least four and a half feet of water. The +bedroom window was a broad one and opened from below. On +examination traces of blood were to be seen upon the windowsill, +and several scattered drops were visible upon the wooden floor of +the bedroom. Thrust away behind a curtain in the front room were +all the clothes of Mr. Neville St. Clair, with the exception of +his coat. His boots, his socks, his hat, and his watch--all were +there. There were no signs of violence upon any of these +garments, and there were no other traces of Mr. Neville St. +Clair. Out of the window he must apparently have gone for no +other exit could be discovered, and the ominous bloodstains upon +the sill gave little promise that he could save himself by +swimming, for the tide was at its very highest at the moment of +the tragedy. + +"And now as to the villains who seemed to be immediately +implicated in the matter. The Lascar was known to be a man of the +vilest antecedents, but as, by Mrs. St. Clair's story, he was +known to have been at the foot of the stair within a very few +seconds of her husband's appearance at the window, he could +hardly have been more than an accessory to the crime. His defence +was one of absolute ignorance, and he protested that he had no +knowledge as to the doings of Hugh Boone, his lodger, and that he +could not account in any way for the presence of the missing +gentleman's clothes. + +"So much for the Lascar manager. Now for the sinister cripple who +lives upon the second floor of the opium den, and who was +certainly the last human being whose eyes rested upon Neville St. +Clair. His name is Hugh Boone, and his hideous face is one which +is familiar to every man who goes much to the City. He is a +professional beggar, though in order to avoid the police +regulations he pretends to a small trade in wax vestas. Some +little distance down Threadneedle Street, upon the left-hand +side, there is, as you may have remarked, a small angle in the +wall. Here it is that this creature takes his daily seat, +cross-legged with his tiny stock of matches on his lap, and as he +is a piteous spectacle a small rain of charity descends into the +greasy leather cap which lies upon the pavement beside him. I +have watched the fellow more than once before ever I thought of +making his professional acquaintance, and I have been surprised +at the harvest which he has reaped in a short time. His +appearance, you see, is so remarkable that no one can pass him +without observing him. A shock of orange hair, a pale face +disfigured by a horrible scar, which, by its contraction, has +turned up the outer edge of his upper lip, a bulldog chin, and a +pair of very penetrating dark eyes, which present a singular +contrast to the colour of his hair, all mark him out from amid +the common crowd of mendicants and so, too, does his wit, for he +is ever ready with a reply to any piece of chaff which may be +thrown at him by the passers-by. This is the man whom we now +learn to have been the lodger at the opium den, and to have been +the last man to see the gentleman of whom we are in quest." + +"But a cripple!" said I. "What could he have done single-handed +against a man in the prime of life?" + +"He is a cripple in the sense that he walks with a limp; but in +other respects he appears to be a powerful and well-nurtured man. +Surely your medical experience would tell you, Watson, that +weakness in one limb is often compensated for by exceptional +strength in the others." + +"Pray continue your narrative." + +"Mrs. St. Clair had fainted at the sight of the blood upon the +window, and she was escorted home in a cab by the police, as her +presence could be of no help to them in their investigations. +Inspector Barton, who had charge of the case, made a very careful +examination of the premises, but without finding anything which +threw any light upon the matter. One mistake had been made in not +arresting Boone instantly, as he was allowed some few minutes +during which he might have communicated with his friend the +Lascar, but this fault was soon remedied, and he was seized and +searched, without anything being found which could incriminate +him. There were, it is true, some blood-stains upon his right +shirt-sleeve, but he pointed to his ring-finger, which had been +cut near the nail, and explained that the bleeding came from +there, adding that he had been to the window not long before, and +that the stains which had been observed there came doubtless from +the same source. He denied strenuously having ever seen Mr. +Neville St. Clair and swore that the presence of the clothes in +his room was as much a mystery to him as to the police. As to +Mrs. St. Clair's assertion that she had actually seen her husband +at the window, he declared that she must have been either mad or +dreaming. He was removed, loudly protesting, to the +police-station, while the inspector remained upon the premises in +the hope that the ebbing tide might afford some fresh clue. + +"And it did, though they hardly found upon the mud-bank what they +had feared to find. It was Neville St. Clair's coat, and not +Neville St. Clair, which lay uncovered as the tide receded. And +what do you think they found in the pockets?" + +"I cannot imagine." + +"No, I don't think you would guess. Every pocket stuffed with +pennies and half-pennies--421 pennies and 270 half-pennies. It +was no wonder that it had not been swept away by the tide. But a +human body is a different matter. There is a fierce eddy between +the wharf and the house. It seemed likely enough that the +weighted coat had remained when the stripped body had been sucked +away into the river." + +"But I understand that all the other clothes were found in the +room. Would the body be dressed in a coat alone?" + +"No, sir, but the facts might be met speciously enough. Suppose +that this man Boone had thrust Neville St. Clair through the +window, there is no human eye which could have seen the deed. +What would he do then? It would of course instantly strike him +that he must get rid of the tell-tale garments. He would seize +the coat, then, and be in the act of throwing it out, when it +would occur to him that it would swim and not sink. He has little +time, for he has heard the scuffle downstairs when the wife tried +to force her way up, and perhaps he has already heard from his +Lascar confederate that the police are hurrying up the street. +There is not an instant to be lost. He rushes to some secret +hoard, where he has accumulated the fruits of his beggary, and he +stuffs all the coins upon which he can lay his hands into the +pockets to make sure of the coat's sinking. He throws it out, and +would have done the same with the other garments had not he heard +the rush of steps below, and only just had time to close the +window when the police appeared." + +"It certainly sounds feasible." + +"Well, we will take it as a working hypothesis for want of a +better. Boone, as I have told you, was arrested and taken to the +station, but it could not be shown that there had ever before +been anything against him. He had for years been known as a +professional beggar, but his life appeared to have been a very +quiet and innocent one. There the matter stands at present, and +the questions which have to be solved--what Neville St. Clair was +doing in the opium den, what happened to him when there, where is +he now, and what Hugh Boone had to do with his disappearance--are +all as far from a solution as ever. I confess that I cannot +recall any case within my experience which looked at the first +glance so simple and yet which presented such difficulties." + +While Sherlock Holmes had been detailing this singular series of +events, we had been whirling through the outskirts of the great +town until the last straggling houses had been left behind, and +we rattled along with a country hedge upon either side of us. +Just as he finished, however, we drove through two scattered +villages, where a few lights still glimmered in the windows. + +"We are on the outskirts of Lee," said my companion. "We have +touched on three English counties in our short drive, starting in +Middlesex, passing over an angle of Surrey, and ending in Kent. +See that light among the trees? That is The Cedars, and beside +that lamp sits a woman whose anxious ears have already, I have +little doubt, caught the clink of our horse's feet." + +"But why are you not conducting the case from Baker Street?" I +asked. + +"Because there are many inquiries which must be made out here. +Mrs. St. Clair has most kindly put two rooms at my disposal, and +you may rest assured that she will have nothing but a welcome for +my friend and colleague. I hate to meet her, Watson, when I have +no news of her husband. Here we are. Whoa, there, whoa!" + +We had pulled up in front of a large villa which stood within its +own grounds. A stable-boy had run out to the horse's head, and +springing down, I followed Holmes up the small, winding +gravel-drive which led to the house. As we approached, the door +flew open, and a little blonde woman stood in the opening, clad +in some sort of light mousseline de soie, with a touch of fluffy +pink chiffon at her neck and wrists. She stood with her figure +outlined against the flood of light, one hand upon the door, one +half-raised in her eagerness, her body slightly bent, her head +and face protruded, with eager eyes and parted lips, a standing +question. + +"Well?" she cried, "well?" And then, seeing that there were two +of us, she gave a cry of hope which sank into a groan as she saw +that my companion shook his head and shrugged his shoulders. + +"No good news?" + +"None." + +"No bad?" + +"No." + +"Thank God for that. But come in. You must be weary, for you have +had a long day." + +"This is my friend, Dr. Watson. He has been of most vital use to +me in several of my cases, and a lucky chance has made it +possible for me to bring him out and associate him with this +investigation." + +"I am delighted to see you," said she, pressing my hand warmly. +"You will, I am sure, forgive anything that may be wanting in our +arrangements, when you consider the blow which has come so +suddenly upon us." + +"My dear madam," said I, "I am an old campaigner, and if I were +not I can very well see that no apology is needed. If I can be of +any assistance, either to you or to my friend here, I shall be +indeed happy." + +"Now, Mr. Sherlock Holmes," said the lady as we entered a +well-lit dining-room, upon the table of which a cold supper had +been laid out, "I should very much like to ask you one or two +plain questions, to which I beg that you will give a plain +answer." + +"Certainly, madam." + +"Do not trouble about my feelings. I am not hysterical, nor given +to fainting. I simply wish to hear your real, real opinion." + +"Upon what point?" + +"In your heart of hearts, do you think that Neville is alive?" + +Sherlock Holmes seemed to be embarrassed by the question. +"Frankly, now!" she repeated, standing upon the rug and looking +keenly down at him as he leaned back in a basket-chair. + +"Frankly, then, madam, I do not." + +"You think that he is dead?" + +"I do." + +"Murdered?" + +"I don't say that. Perhaps." + +"And on what day did he meet his death?" + +"On Monday." + +"Then perhaps, Mr. Holmes, you will be good enough to explain how +it is that I have received a letter from him to-day." + +Sherlock Holmes sprang out of his chair as if he had been +galvanised. + +"What!" he roared. + +"Yes, to-day." She stood smiling, holding up a little slip of +paper in the air. + +"May I see it?" + +"Certainly." + +He snatched it from her in his eagerness, and smoothing it out +upon the table he drew over the lamp and examined it intently. I +had left my chair and was gazing at it over his shoulder. The +envelope was a very coarse one and was stamped with the Gravesend +postmark and with the date of that very day, or rather of the day +before, for it was considerably after midnight. + +"Coarse writing," murmured Holmes. "Surely this is not your +husband's writing, madam." + +"No, but the enclosure is." + +"I perceive also that whoever addressed the envelope had to go +and inquire as to the address." + +"How can you tell that?" + +"The name, you see, is in perfectly black ink, which has dried +itself. The rest is of the greyish colour, which shows that +blotting-paper has been used. If it had been written straight +off, and then blotted, none would be of a deep black shade. This +man has written the name, and there has then been a pause before +he wrote the address, which can only mean that he was not +familiar with it. It is, of course, a trifle, but there is +nothing so important as trifles. Let us now see the letter. Ha! +there has been an enclosure here!" + +"Yes, there was a ring. His signet-ring." + +"And you are sure that this is your husband's hand?" + +"One of his hands." + +"One?" + +"His hand when he wrote hurriedly. It is very unlike his usual +writing, and yet I know it well." + +"'Dearest do not be frightened. All will come well. There is a +huge error which it may take some little time to rectify. +Wait in patience.--NEVILLE.' Written in pencil upon the fly-leaf +of a book, octavo size, no water-mark. Hum! Posted to-day in +Gravesend by a man with a dirty thumb. Ha! And the flap has been +gummed, if I am not very much in error, by a person who had been +chewing tobacco. And you have no doubt that it is your husband's +hand, madam?" + +"None. Neville wrote those words." + +"And they were posted to-day at Gravesend. Well, Mrs. St. Clair, +the clouds lighten, though I should not venture to say that the +danger is over." + +"But he must be alive, Mr. Holmes." + +"Unless this is a clever forgery to put us on the wrong scent. +The ring, after all, proves nothing. It may have been taken from +him." + +"No, no; it is, it is his very own writing!" + +"Very well. It may, however, have been written on Monday and only +posted to-day." + +"That is possible." + +"If so, much may have happened between." + +"Oh, you must not discourage me, Mr. Holmes. I know that all is +well with him. There is so keen a sympathy between us that I +should know if evil came upon him. On the very day that I saw him +last he cut himself in the bedroom, and yet I in the dining-room +rushed upstairs instantly with the utmost certainty that +something had happened. Do you think that I would respond to such +a trifle and yet be ignorant of his death?" + +"I have seen too much not to know that the impression of a woman +may be more valuable than the conclusion of an analytical +reasoner. And in this letter you certainly have a very strong +piece of evidence to corroborate your view. But if your husband +is alive and able to write letters, why should he remain away +from you?" + +"I cannot imagine. It is unthinkable." + +"And on Monday he made no remarks before leaving you?" + +"No." + +"And you were surprised to see him in Swandam Lane?" + +"Very much so." + +"Was the window open?" + +"Yes." + +"Then he might have called to you?" + +"He might." + +"He only, as I understand, gave an inarticulate cry?" + +"Yes." + +"A call for help, you thought?" + +"Yes. He waved his hands." + +"But it might have been a cry of surprise. Astonishment at the +unexpected sight of you might cause him to throw up his hands?" + +"It is possible." + +"And you thought he was pulled back?" + +"He disappeared so suddenly." + +"He might have leaped back. You did not see anyone else in the +room?" + +"No, but this horrible man confessed to having been there, and +the Lascar was at the foot of the stairs." + +"Quite so. Your husband, as far as you could see, had his +ordinary clothes on?" + +"But without his collar or tie. I distinctly saw his bare +throat." + +"Had he ever spoken of Swandam Lane?" + +"Never." + +"Had he ever showed any signs of having taken opium?" + +"Never." + +"Thank you, Mrs. St. Clair. Those are the principal points about +which I wished to be absolutely clear. We shall now have a little +supper and then retire, for we may have a very busy day +to-morrow." + +A large and comfortable double-bedded room had been placed at our +disposal, and I was quickly between the sheets, for I was weary +after my night of adventure. Sherlock Holmes was a man, however, +who, when he had an unsolved problem upon his mind, would go for +days, and even for a week, without rest, turning it over, +rearranging his facts, looking at it from every point of view +until he had either fathomed it or convinced himself that his +data were insufficient. It was soon evident to me that he was now +preparing for an all-night sitting. He took off his coat and +waistcoat, put on a large blue dressing-gown, and then wandered +about the room collecting pillows from his bed and cushions from +the sofa and armchairs. With these he constructed a sort of +Eastern divan, upon which he perched himself cross-legged, with +an ounce of shag tobacco and a box of matches laid out in front +of him. In the dim light of the lamp I saw him sitting there, an +old briar pipe between his lips, his eyes fixed vacantly upon the +corner of the ceiling, the blue smoke curling up from him, +silent, motionless, with the light shining upon his strong-set +aquiline features. So he sat as I dropped off to sleep, and so he +sat when a sudden ejaculation caused me to wake up, and I found +the summer sun shining into the apartment. The pipe was still +between his lips, the smoke still curled upward, and the room was +full of a dense tobacco haze, but nothing remained of the heap of +shag which I had seen upon the previous night. + +"Awake, Watson?" he asked. + +"Yes." + +"Game for a morning drive?" + +"Certainly." + +"Then dress. No one is stirring yet, but I know where the +stable-boy sleeps, and we shall soon have the trap out." He +chuckled to himself as he spoke, his eyes twinkled, and he seemed +a different man to the sombre thinker of the previous night. + +As I dressed I glanced at my watch. It was no wonder that no one +was stirring. It was twenty-five minutes past four. I had hardly +finished when Holmes returned with the news that the boy was +putting in the horse. + +"I want to test a little theory of mine," said he, pulling on his +boots. "I think, Watson, that you are now standing in the +presence of one of the most absolute fools in Europe. I deserve +to be kicked from here to Charing Cross. But I think I have the +key of the affair now." + +"And where is it?" I asked, smiling. + +"In the bathroom," he answered. "Oh, yes, I am not joking," he +continued, seeing my look of incredulity. "I have just been +there, and I have taken it out, and I have got it in this +Gladstone bag. Come on, my boy, and we shall see whether it will +not fit the lock." + +We made our way downstairs as quietly as possible, and out into +the bright morning sunshine. In the road stood our horse and +trap, with the half-clad stable-boy waiting at the head. We both +sprang in, and away we dashed down the London Road. A few country +carts were stirring, bearing in vegetables to the metropolis, but +the lines of villas on either side were as silent and lifeless as +some city in a dream. + +"It has been in some points a singular case," said Holmes, +flicking the horse on into a gallop. "I confess that I have been +as blind as a mole, but it is better to learn wisdom late than +never to learn it at all." + +In town the earliest risers were just beginning to look sleepily +from their windows as we drove through the streets of the Surrey +side. Passing down the Waterloo Bridge Road we crossed over the +river, and dashing up Wellington Street wheeled sharply to the +right and found ourselves in Bow Street. Sherlock Holmes was well +known to the force, and the two constables at the door saluted +him. One of them held the horse's head while the other led us in. + +"Who is on duty?" asked Holmes. + +"Inspector Bradstreet, sir." + +"Ah, Bradstreet, how are you?" A tall, stout official had come +down the stone-flagged passage, in a peaked cap and frogged +jacket. "I wish to have a quiet word with you, Bradstreet." +"Certainly, Mr. Holmes. Step into my room here." It was a small, +office-like room, with a huge ledger upon the table, and a +telephone projecting from the wall. The inspector sat down at his +desk. + +"What can I do for you, Mr. Holmes?" + +"I called about that beggarman, Boone--the one who was charged +with being concerned in the disappearance of Mr. Neville St. +Clair, of Lee." + +"Yes. He was brought up and remanded for further inquiries." + +"So I heard. You have him here?" + +"In the cells." + +"Is he quiet?" + +"Oh, he gives no trouble. But he is a dirty scoundrel." + +"Dirty?" + +"Yes, it is all we can do to make him wash his hands, and his +face is as black as a tinker's. Well, when once his case has been +settled, he will have a regular prison bath; and I think, if you +saw him, you would agree with me that he needed it." + +"I should like to see him very much." + +"Would you? That is easily done. Come this way. You can leave +your bag." + +"No, I think that I'll take it." + +"Very good. Come this way, if you please." He led us down a +passage, opened a barred door, passed down a winding stair, and +brought us to a whitewashed corridor with a line of doors on each +side. + +"The third on the right is his," said the inspector. "Here it +is!" He quietly shot back a panel in the upper part of the door +and glanced through. + +"He is asleep," said he. "You can see him very well." + +We both put our eyes to the grating. The prisoner lay with his +face towards us, in a very deep sleep, breathing slowly and +heavily. He was a middle-sized man, coarsely clad as became his +calling, with a coloured shirt protruding through the rent in his +tattered coat. He was, as the inspector had said, extremely +dirty, but the grime which covered his face could not conceal its +repulsive ugliness. A broad wheal from an old scar ran right +across it from eye to chin, and by its contraction had turned up +one side of the upper lip, so that three teeth were exposed in a +perpetual snarl. A shock of very bright red hair grew low over +his eyes and forehead. + +"He's a beauty, isn't he?" said the inspector. + +"He certainly needs a wash," remarked Holmes. "I had an idea that +he might, and I took the liberty of bringing the tools with me." +He opened the Gladstone bag as he spoke, and took out, to my +astonishment, a very large bath-sponge. + +"He! he! You are a funny one," chuckled the inspector. + +"Now, if you will have the great goodness to open that door very +quietly, we will soon make him cut a much more respectable +figure." + +"Well, I don't know why not," said the inspector. "He doesn't +look a credit to the Bow Street cells, does he?" He slipped his +key into the lock, and we all very quietly entered the cell. The +sleeper half turned, and then settled down once more into a deep +slumber. Holmes stooped to the water-jug, moistened his sponge, +and then rubbed it twice vigorously across and down the +prisoner's face. + +"Let me introduce you," he shouted, "to Mr. Neville St. Clair, of +Lee, in the county of Kent." + +Never in my life have I seen such a sight. The man's face peeled +off under the sponge like the bark from a tree. Gone was the +coarse brown tint! Gone, too, was the horrid scar which had +seamed it across, and the twisted lip which had given the +repulsive sneer to the face! A twitch brought away the tangled +red hair, and there, sitting up in his bed, was a pale, +sad-faced, refined-looking man, black-haired and smooth-skinned, +rubbing his eyes and staring about him with sleepy bewilderment. +Then suddenly realising the exposure, he broke into a scream and +threw himself down with his face to the pillow. + +"Great heavens!" cried the inspector, "it is, indeed, the missing +man. I know him from the photograph." + +The prisoner turned with the reckless air of a man who abandons +himself to his destiny. "Be it so," said he. "And pray what am I +charged with?" + +"With making away with Mr. Neville St.-- Oh, come, you can't be +charged with that unless they make a case of attempted suicide of +it," said the inspector with a grin. "Well, I have been +twenty-seven years in the force, but this really takes the cake." + +"If I am Mr. Neville St. Clair, then it is obvious that no crime +has been committed, and that, therefore, I am illegally +detained." + +"No crime, but a very great error has been committed," said +Holmes. "You would have done better to have trusted your wife." + +"It was not the wife; it was the children," groaned the prisoner. +"God help me, I would not have them ashamed of their father. My +God! What an exposure! What can I do?" + +Sherlock Holmes sat down beside him on the couch and patted him +kindly on the shoulder. + +"If you leave it to a court of law to clear the matter up," said +he, "of course you can hardly avoid publicity. On the other hand, +if you convince the police authorities that there is no possible +case against you, I do not know that there is any reason that the +details should find their way into the papers. Inspector +Bradstreet would, I am sure, make notes upon anything which you +might tell us and submit it to the proper authorities. The case +would then never go into court at all." + +"God bless you!" cried the prisoner passionately. "I would have +endured imprisonment, ay, even execution, rather than have left +my miserable secret as a family blot to my children. + +"You are the first who have ever heard my story. My father was a +schoolmaster in Chesterfield, where I received an excellent +education. I travelled in my youth, took to the stage, and +finally became a reporter on an evening paper in London. One day +my editor wished to have a series of articles upon begging in the +metropolis, and I volunteered to supply them. There was the point +from which all my adventures started. It was only by trying +begging as an amateur that I could get the facts upon which to +base my articles. When an actor I had, of course, learned all the +secrets of making up, and had been famous in the green-room for +my skill. I took advantage now of my attainments. I painted my +face, and to make myself as pitiable as possible I made a good +scar and fixed one side of my lip in a twist by the aid of a +small slip of flesh-coloured plaster. Then with a red head of +hair, and an appropriate dress, I took my station in the business +part of the city, ostensibly as a match-seller but really as a +beggar. For seven hours I plied my trade, and when I returned +home in the evening I found to my surprise that I had received no +less than 26s. 4d. + +"I wrote my articles and thought little more of the matter until, +some time later, I backed a bill for a friend and had a writ +served upon me for 25 pounds. I was at my wit's end where to get +the money, but a sudden idea came to me. I begged a fortnight's +grace from the creditor, asked for a holiday from my employers, +and spent the time in begging in the City under my disguise. In +ten days I had the money and had paid the debt. + +"Well, you can imagine how hard it was to settle down to arduous +work at 2 pounds a week when I knew that I could earn as much in +a day by smearing my face with a little paint, laying my cap on +the ground, and sitting still. It was a long fight between my +pride and the money, but the dollars won at last, and I threw up +reporting and sat day after day in the corner which I had first +chosen, inspiring pity by my ghastly face and filling my pockets +with coppers. Only one man knew my secret. He was the keeper of a +low den in which I used to lodge in Swandam Lane, where I could +every morning emerge as a squalid beggar and in the evenings +transform myself into a well-dressed man about town. This fellow, +a Lascar, was well paid by me for his rooms, so that I knew that +my secret was safe in his possession. + +"Well, very soon I found that I was saving considerable sums of +money. I do not mean that any beggar in the streets of London +could earn 700 pounds a year--which is less than my average +takings--but I had exceptional advantages in my power of making +up, and also in a facility of repartee, which improved by +practice and made me quite a recognised character in the City. +All day a stream of pennies, varied by silver, poured in upon me, +and it was a very bad day in which I failed to take 2 pounds. + +"As I grew richer I grew more ambitious, took a house in the +country, and eventually married, without anyone having a +suspicion as to my real occupation. My dear wife knew that I had +business in the City. She little knew what. + +"Last Monday I had finished for the day and was dressing in my +room above the opium den when I looked out of my window and saw, +to my horror and astonishment, that my wife was standing in the +street, with her eyes fixed full upon me. I gave a cry of +surprise, threw up my arms to cover my face, and, rushing to my +confidant, the Lascar, entreated him to prevent anyone from +coming up to me. I heard her voice downstairs, but I knew that +she could not ascend. Swiftly I threw off my clothes, pulled on +those of a beggar, and put on my pigments and wig. Even a wife's +eyes could not pierce so complete a disguise. But then it +occurred to me that there might be a search in the room, and that +the clothes might betray me. I threw open the window, reopening +by my violence a small cut which I had inflicted upon myself in +the bedroom that morning. Then I seized my coat, which was +weighted by the coppers which I had just transferred to it from +the leather bag in which I carried my takings. I hurled it out of +the window, and it disappeared into the Thames. The other clothes +would have followed, but at that moment there was a rush of +constables up the stair, and a few minutes after I found, rather, +I confess, to my relief, that instead of being identified as Mr. +Neville St. Clair, I was arrested as his murderer. + +"I do not know that there is anything else for me to explain. I +was determined to preserve my disguise as long as possible, and +hence my preference for a dirty face. Knowing that my wife would +be terribly anxious, I slipped off my ring and confided it to the +Lascar at a moment when no constable was watching me, together +with a hurried scrawl, telling her that she had no cause to +fear." + +"That note only reached her yesterday," said Holmes. + +"Good God! What a week she must have spent!" + +"The police have watched this Lascar," said Inspector Bradstreet, +"and I can quite understand that he might find it difficult to +post a letter unobserved. Probably he handed it to some sailor +customer of his, who forgot all about it for some days." + +"That was it," said Holmes, nodding approvingly; "I have no doubt +of it. But have you never been prosecuted for begging?" + +"Many times; but what was a fine to me?" + +"It must stop here, however," said Bradstreet. "If the police are +to hush this thing up, there must be no more of Hugh Boone." + +"I have sworn it by the most solemn oaths which a man can take." + +"In that case I think that it is probable that no further steps +may be taken. But if you are found again, then all must come out. +I am sure, Mr. Holmes, that we are very much indebted to you for +having cleared the matter up. I wish I knew how you reach your +results." + +"I reached this one," said my friend, "by sitting upon five +pillows and consuming an ounce of shag. I think, Watson, that if +we drive to Baker Street we shall just be in time for breakfast." + + + +VII. THE ADVENTURE OF THE BLUE CARBUNCLE + +I had called upon my friend Sherlock Holmes upon the second +morning after Christmas, with the intention of wishing him the +compliments of the season. He was lounging upon the sofa in a +purple dressing-gown, a pipe-rack within his reach upon the +right, and a pile of crumpled morning papers, evidently newly +studied, near at hand. Beside the couch was a wooden chair, and +on the angle of the back hung a very seedy and disreputable +hard-felt hat, much the worse for wear, and cracked in several +places. A lens and a forceps lying upon the seat of the chair +suggested that the hat had been suspended in this manner for the +purpose of examination. + +"You are engaged," said I; "perhaps I interrupt you." + +"Not at all. I am glad to have a friend with whom I can discuss +my results. The matter is a perfectly trivial one"--he jerked his +thumb in the direction of the old hat--"but there are points in +connection with it which are not entirely devoid of interest and +even of instruction." + +I seated myself in his armchair and warmed my hands before his +crackling fire, for a sharp frost had set in, and the windows +were thick with the ice crystals. "I suppose," I remarked, "that, +homely as it looks, this thing has some deadly story linked on to +it--that it is the clue which will guide you in the solution of +some mystery and the punishment of some crime." + +"No, no. No crime," said Sherlock Holmes, laughing. "Only one of +those whimsical little incidents which will happen when you have +four million human beings all jostling each other within the +space of a few square miles. Amid the action and reaction of so +dense a swarm of humanity, every possible combination of events +may be expected to take place, and many a little problem will be +presented which may be striking and bizarre without being +criminal. We have already had experience of such." + +"So much so," I remarked, "that of the last six cases which I +have added to my notes, three have been entirely free of any +legal crime." + +"Precisely. You allude to my attempt to recover the Irene Adler +papers, to the singular case of Miss Mary Sutherland, and to the +adventure of the man with the twisted lip. Well, I have no doubt +that this small matter will fall into the same innocent category. +You know Peterson, the commissionaire?" + +"Yes." + +"It is to him that this trophy belongs." + +"It is his hat." + +"No, no, he found it. Its owner is unknown. I beg that you will +look upon it not as a battered billycock but as an intellectual +problem. And, first, as to how it came here. It arrived upon +Christmas morning, in company with a good fat goose, which is, I +have no doubt, roasting at this moment in front of Peterson's +fire. The facts are these: about four o'clock on Christmas +morning, Peterson, who, as you know, is a very honest fellow, was +returning from some small jollification and was making his way +homeward down Tottenham Court Road. In front of him he saw, in +the gaslight, a tallish man, walking with a slight stagger, and +carrying a white goose slung over his shoulder. As he reached the +corner of Goodge Street, a row broke out between this stranger +and a little knot of roughs. One of the latter knocked off the +man's hat, on which he raised his stick to defend himself and, +swinging it over his head, smashed the shop window behind him. +Peterson had rushed forward to protect the stranger from his +assailants; but the man, shocked at having broken the window, and +seeing an official-looking person in uniform rushing towards him, +dropped his goose, took to his heels, and vanished amid the +labyrinth of small streets which lie at the back of Tottenham +Court Road. The roughs had also fled at the appearance of +Peterson, so that he was left in possession of the field of +battle, and also of the spoils of victory in the shape of this +battered hat and a most unimpeachable Christmas goose." + +"Which surely he restored to their owner?" + +"My dear fellow, there lies the problem. It is true that 'For +Mrs. Henry Baker' was printed upon a small card which was tied to +the bird's left leg, and it is also true that the initials 'H. +B.' are legible upon the lining of this hat, but as there are +some thousands of Bakers, and some hundreds of Henry Bakers in +this city of ours, it is not easy to restore lost property to any +one of them." + +"What, then, did Peterson do?" + +"He brought round both hat and goose to me on Christmas morning, +knowing that even the smallest problems are of interest to me. +The goose we retained until this morning, when there were signs +that, in spite of the slight frost, it would be well that it +should be eaten without unnecessary delay. Its finder has carried +it off, therefore, to fulfil the ultimate destiny of a goose, +while I continue to retain the hat of the unknown gentleman who +lost his Christmas dinner." + +"Did he not advertise?" + +"No." + +"Then, what clue could you have as to his identity?" + +"Only as much as we can deduce." + +"From his hat?" + +"Precisely." + +"But you are joking. What can you gather from this old battered +felt?" + +"Here is my lens. You know my methods. What can you gather +yourself as to the individuality of the man who has worn this +article?" + +I took the tattered object in my hands and turned it over rather +ruefully. It was a very ordinary black hat of the usual round +shape, hard and much the worse for wear. The lining had been of +red silk, but was a good deal discoloured. There was no maker's +name; but, as Holmes had remarked, the initials "H. B." were +scrawled upon one side. It was pierced in the brim for a +hat-securer, but the elastic was missing. For the rest, it was +cracked, exceedingly dusty, and spotted in several places, +although there seemed to have been some attempt to hide the +discoloured patches by smearing them with ink. + +"I can see nothing," said I, handing it back to my friend. + +"On the contrary, Watson, you can see everything. You fail, +however, to reason from what you see. You are too timid in +drawing your inferences." + +"Then, pray tell me what it is that you can infer from this hat?" + +He picked it up and gazed at it in the peculiar introspective +fashion which was characteristic of him. "It is perhaps less +suggestive than it might have been," he remarked, "and yet there +are a few inferences which are very distinct, and a few others +which represent at least a strong balance of probability. That +the man was highly intellectual is of course obvious upon the +face of it, and also that he was fairly well-to-do within the +last three years, although he has now fallen upon evil days. He +had foresight, but has less now than formerly, pointing to a +moral retrogression, which, when taken with the decline of his +fortunes, seems to indicate some evil influence, probably drink, +at work upon him. This may account also for the obvious fact that +his wife has ceased to love him." + +"My dear Holmes!" + +"He has, however, retained some degree of self-respect," he +continued, disregarding my remonstrance. "He is a man who leads a +sedentary life, goes out little, is out of training entirely, is +middle-aged, has grizzled hair which he has had cut within the +last few days, and which he anoints with lime-cream. These are +the more patent facts which are to be deduced from his hat. Also, +by the way, that it is extremely improbable that he has gas laid +on in his house." + +"You are certainly joking, Holmes." + +"Not in the least. Is it possible that even now, when I give you +these results, you are unable to see how they are attained?" + +"I have no doubt that I am very stupid, but I must confess that I +am unable to follow you. For example, how did you deduce that +this man was intellectual?" + +For answer Holmes clapped the hat upon his head. It came right +over the forehead and settled upon the bridge of his nose. "It is +a question of cubic capacity," said he; "a man with so large a +brain must have something in it." + +"The decline of his fortunes, then?" + +"This hat is three years old. These flat brims curled at the edge +came in then. It is a hat of the very best quality. Look at the +band of ribbed silk and the excellent lining. If this man could +afford to buy so expensive a hat three years ago, and has had no +hat since, then he has assuredly gone down in the world." + +"Well, that is clear enough, certainly. But how about the +foresight and the moral retrogression?" + +Sherlock Holmes laughed. "Here is the foresight," said he putting +his finger upon the little disc and loop of the hat-securer. +"They are never sold upon hats. If this man ordered one, it is a +sign of a certain amount of foresight, since he went out of his +way to take this precaution against the wind. But since we see +that he has broken the elastic and has not troubled to replace +it, it is obvious that he has less foresight now than formerly, +which is a distinct proof of a weakening nature. On the other +hand, he has endeavoured to conceal some of these stains upon the +felt by daubing them with ink, which is a sign that he has not +entirely lost his self-respect." + +"Your reasoning is certainly plausible." + +"The further points, that he is middle-aged, that his hair is +grizzled, that it has been recently cut, and that he uses +lime-cream, are all to be gathered from a close examination of the +lower part of the lining. The lens discloses a large number of +hair-ends, clean cut by the scissors of the barber. They all +appear to be adhesive, and there is a distinct odour of +lime-cream. This dust, you will observe, is not the gritty, grey +dust of the street but the fluffy brown dust of the house, +showing that it has been hung up indoors most of the time, while +the marks of moisture upon the inside are proof positive that the +wearer perspired very freely, and could therefore, hardly be in +the best of training." + +"But his wife--you said that she had ceased to love him." + +"This hat has not been brushed for weeks. When I see you, my dear +Watson, with a week's accumulation of dust upon your hat, and +when your wife allows you to go out in such a state, I shall fear +that you also have been unfortunate enough to lose your wife's +affection." + +"But he might be a bachelor." + +"Nay, he was bringing home the goose as a peace-offering to his +wife. Remember the card upon the bird's leg." + +"You have an answer to everything. But how on earth do you deduce +that the gas is not laid on in his house?" + +"One tallow stain, or even two, might come by chance; but when I +see no less than five, I think that there can be little doubt +that the individual must be brought into frequent contact with +burning tallow--walks upstairs at night probably with his hat in +one hand and a guttering candle in the other. Anyhow, he never +got tallow-stains from a gas-jet. Are you satisfied?" + +"Well, it is very ingenious," said I, laughing; "but since, as +you said just now, there has been no crime committed, and no harm +done save the loss of a goose, all this seems to be rather a +waste of energy." + +Sherlock Holmes had opened his mouth to reply, when the door flew +open, and Peterson, the commissionaire, rushed into the apartment +with flushed cheeks and the face of a man who is dazed with +astonishment. + +"The goose, Mr. Holmes! The goose, sir!" he gasped. + +"Eh? What of it, then? Has it returned to life and flapped off +through the kitchen window?" Holmes twisted himself round upon +the sofa to get a fairer view of the man's excited face. + +"See here, sir! See what my wife found in its crop!" He held out +his hand and displayed upon the centre of the palm a brilliantly +scintillating blue stone, rather smaller than a bean in size, but +of such purity and radiance that it twinkled like an electric +point in the dark hollow of his hand. + +Sherlock Holmes sat up with a whistle. "By Jove, Peterson!" said +he, "this is treasure trove indeed. I suppose you know what you +have got?" + +"A diamond, sir? A precious stone. It cuts into glass as though +it were putty." + +"It's more than a precious stone. It is the precious stone." + +"Not the Countess of Morcar's blue carbuncle!" I ejaculated. + +"Precisely so. I ought to know its size and shape, seeing that I +have read the advertisement about it in The Times every day +lately. It is absolutely unique, and its value can only be +conjectured, but the reward offered of 1000 pounds is certainly +not within a twentieth part of the market price." + +"A thousand pounds! Great Lord of mercy!" The commissionaire +plumped down into a chair and stared from one to the other of us. + +"That is the reward, and I have reason to know that there are +sentimental considerations in the background which would induce +the Countess to part with half her fortune if she could but +recover the gem." + +"It was lost, if I remember aright, at the Hotel Cosmopolitan," I +remarked. + +"Precisely so, on December 22nd, just five days ago. John Horner, +a plumber, was accused of having abstracted it from the lady's +jewel-case. The evidence against him was so strong that the case +has been referred to the Assizes. I have some account of the +matter here, I believe." He rummaged amid his newspapers, +glancing over the dates, until at last he smoothed one out, +doubled it over, and read the following paragraph: + +"Hotel Cosmopolitan Jewel Robbery. John Horner, 26, plumber, was +brought up upon the charge of having upon the 22nd inst., +abstracted from the jewel-case of the Countess of Morcar the +valuable gem known as the blue carbuncle. James Ryder, +upper-attendant at the hotel, gave his evidence to the effect +that he had shown Horner up to the dressing-room of the Countess +of Morcar upon the day of the robbery in order that he might +solder the second bar of the grate, which was loose. He had +remained with Horner some little time, but had finally been +called away. On returning, he found that Horner had disappeared, +that the bureau had been forced open, and that the small morocco +casket in which, as it afterwards transpired, the Countess was +accustomed to keep her jewel, was lying empty upon the +dressing-table. Ryder instantly gave the alarm, and Horner was +arrested the same evening; but the stone could not be found +either upon his person or in his rooms. Catherine Cusack, maid to +the Countess, deposed to having heard Ryder's cry of dismay on +discovering the robbery, and to having rushed into the room, +where she found matters as described by the last witness. +Inspector Bradstreet, B division, gave evidence as to the arrest +of Horner, who struggled frantically, and protested his innocence +in the strongest terms. Evidence of a previous conviction for +robbery having been given against the prisoner, the magistrate +refused to deal summarily with the offence, but referred it to +the Assizes. Horner, who had shown signs of intense emotion +during the proceedings, fainted away at the conclusion and was +carried out of court." + +"Hum! So much for the police-court," said Holmes thoughtfully, +tossing aside the paper. "The question for us now to solve is the +sequence of events leading from a rifled jewel-case at one end to +the crop of a goose in Tottenham Court Road at the other. You +see, Watson, our little deductions have suddenly assumed a much +more important and less innocent aspect. Here is the stone; the +stone came from the goose, and the goose came from Mr. Henry +Baker, the gentleman with the bad hat and all the other +characteristics with which I have bored you. So now we must set +ourselves very seriously to finding this gentleman and +ascertaining what part he has played in this little mystery. To +do this, we must try the simplest means first, and these lie +undoubtedly in an advertisement in all the evening papers. If +this fail, I shall have recourse to other methods." + +"What will you say?" + +"Give me a pencil and that slip of paper. Now, then: 'Found at +the corner of Goodge Street, a goose and a black felt hat. Mr. +Henry Baker can have the same by applying at 6:30 this evening at +221B, Baker Street.' That is clear and concise." + +"Very. But will he see it?" + +"Well, he is sure to keep an eye on the papers, since, to a poor +man, the loss was a heavy one. He was clearly so scared by his +mischance in breaking the window and by the approach of Peterson +that he thought of nothing but flight, but since then he must +have bitterly regretted the impulse which caused him to drop his +bird. Then, again, the introduction of his name will cause him to +see it, for everyone who knows him will direct his attention to +it. Here you are, Peterson, run down to the advertising agency +and have this put in the evening papers." + +"In which, sir?" + +"Oh, in the Globe, Star, Pall Mall, St. James's, Evening News, +Standard, Echo, and any others that occur to you." + +"Very well, sir. And this stone?" + +"Ah, yes, I shall keep the stone. Thank you. And, I say, +Peterson, just buy a goose on your way back and leave it here +with me, for we must have one to give to this gentleman in place +of the one which your family is now devouring." + +When the commissionaire had gone, Holmes took up the stone and +held it against the light. "It's a bonny thing," said he. "Just +see how it glints and sparkles. Of course it is a nucleus and +focus of crime. Every good stone is. They are the devil's pet +baits. In the larger and older jewels every facet may stand for a +bloody deed. This stone is not yet twenty years old. It was found +in the banks of the Amoy River in southern China and is remarkable +in having every characteristic of the carbuncle, save that it is +blue in shade instead of ruby red. In spite of its youth, it has +already a sinister history. There have been two murders, a +vitriol-throwing, a suicide, and several robberies brought about +for the sake of this forty-grain weight of crystallised charcoal. +Who would think that so pretty a toy would be a purveyor to the +gallows and the prison? I'll lock it up in my strong box now and +drop a line to the Countess to say that we have it." + +"Do you think that this man Horner is innocent?" + +"I cannot tell." + +"Well, then, do you imagine that this other one, Henry Baker, had +anything to do with the matter?" + +"It is, I think, much more likely that Henry Baker is an +absolutely innocent man, who had no idea that the bird which he +was carrying was of considerably more value than if it were made +of solid gold. That, however, I shall determine by a very simple +test if we have an answer to our advertisement." + +"And you can do nothing until then?" + +"Nothing." + +"In that case I shall continue my professional round. But I shall +come back in the evening at the hour you have mentioned, for I +should like to see the solution of so tangled a business." + +"Very glad to see you. I dine at seven. There is a woodcock, I +believe. By the way, in view of recent occurrences, perhaps I +ought to ask Mrs. Hudson to examine its crop." + +I had been delayed at a case, and it was a little after half-past +six when I found myself in Baker Street once more. As I +approached the house I saw a tall man in a Scotch bonnet with a +coat which was buttoned up to his chin waiting outside in the +bright semicircle which was thrown from the fanlight. Just as I +arrived the door was opened, and we were shown up together to +Holmes' room. + +"Mr. Henry Baker, I believe," said he, rising from his armchair +and greeting his visitor with the easy air of geniality which he +could so readily assume. "Pray take this chair by the fire, Mr. +Baker. It is a cold night, and I observe that your circulation is +more adapted for summer than for winter. Ah, Watson, you have +just come at the right time. Is that your hat, Mr. Baker?" + +"Yes, sir, that is undoubtedly my hat." + +He was a large man with rounded shoulders, a massive head, and a +broad, intelligent face, sloping down to a pointed beard of +grizzled brown. A touch of red in nose and cheeks, with a slight +tremor of his extended hand, recalled Holmes' surmise as to his +habits. His rusty black frock-coat was buttoned right up in +front, with the collar turned up, and his lank wrists protruded +from his sleeves without a sign of cuff or shirt. He spoke in a +slow staccato fashion, choosing his words with care, and gave the +impression generally of a man of learning and letters who had had +ill-usage at the hands of fortune. + +"We have retained these things for some days," said Holmes, +"because we expected to see an advertisement from you giving your +address. I am at a loss to know now why you did not advertise." + +Our visitor gave a rather shamefaced laugh. "Shillings have not +been so plentiful with me as they once were," he remarked. "I had +no doubt that the gang of roughs who assaulted me had carried off +both my hat and the bird. I did not care to spend more money in a +hopeless attempt at recovering them." + +"Very naturally. By the way, about the bird, we were compelled to +eat it." + +"To eat it!" Our visitor half rose from his chair in his +excitement. + +"Yes, it would have been of no use to anyone had we not done so. +But I presume that this other goose upon the sideboard, which is +about the same weight and perfectly fresh, will answer your +purpose equally well?" + +"Oh, certainly, certainly," answered Mr. Baker with a sigh of +relief. + +"Of course, we still have the feathers, legs, crop, and so on of +your own bird, so if you wish--" + +The man burst into a hearty laugh. "They might be useful to me as +relics of my adventure," said he, "but beyond that I can hardly +see what use the disjecta membra of my late acquaintance are +going to be to me. No, sir, I think that, with your permission, I +will confine my attentions to the excellent bird which I perceive +upon the sideboard." + +Sherlock Holmes glanced sharply across at me with a slight shrug +of his shoulders. + +"There is your hat, then, and there your bird," said he. "By the +way, would it bore you to tell me where you got the other one +from? I am somewhat of a fowl fancier, and I have seldom seen a +better grown goose." + +"Certainly, sir," said Baker, who had risen and tucked his newly +gained property under his arm. "There are a few of us who +frequent the Alpha Inn, near the Museum--we are to be found in +the Museum itself during the day, you understand. This year our +good host, Windigate by name, instituted a goose club, by which, +on consideration of some few pence every week, we were each to +receive a bird at Christmas. My pence were duly paid, and the +rest is familiar to you. I am much indebted to you, sir, for a +Scotch bonnet is fitted neither to my years nor my gravity." With +a comical pomposity of manner he bowed solemnly to both of us and +strode off upon his way. + +"So much for Mr. Henry Baker," said Holmes when he had closed the +door behind him. "It is quite certain that he knows nothing +whatever about the matter. Are you hungry, Watson?" + +"Not particularly." + +"Then I suggest that we turn our dinner into a supper and follow +up this clue while it is still hot." + +"By all means." + +It was a bitter night, so we drew on our ulsters and wrapped +cravats about our throats. Outside, the stars were shining coldly +in a cloudless sky, and the breath of the passers-by blew out +into smoke like so many pistol shots. Our footfalls rang out +crisply and loudly as we swung through the doctors' quarter, +Wimpole Street, Harley Street, and so through Wigmore Street into +Oxford Street. In a quarter of an hour we were in Bloomsbury at +the Alpha Inn, which is a small public-house at the corner of one +of the streets which runs down into Holborn. Holmes pushed open +the door of the private bar and ordered two glasses of beer from +the ruddy-faced, white-aproned landlord. + +"Your beer should be excellent if it is as good as your geese," +said he. + +"My geese!" The man seemed surprised. + +"Yes. I was speaking only half an hour ago to Mr. Henry Baker, +who was a member of your goose club." + +"Ah! yes, I see. But you see, sir, them's not our geese." + +"Indeed! Whose, then?" + +"Well, I got the two dozen from a salesman in Covent Garden." + +"Indeed? I know some of them. Which was it?" + +"Breckinridge is his name." + +"Ah! I don't know him. Well, here's your good health landlord, +and prosperity to your house. Good-night." + +"Now for Mr. Breckinridge," he continued, buttoning up his coat +as we came out into the frosty air. "Remember, Watson that though +we have so homely a thing as a goose at one end of this chain, we +have at the other a man who will certainly get seven years' penal +servitude unless we can establish his innocence. It is possible +that our inquiry may but confirm his guilt; but, in any case, we +have a line of investigation which has been missed by the police, +and which a singular chance has placed in our hands. Let us +follow it out to the bitter end. Faces to the south, then, and +quick march!" + +We passed across Holborn, down Endell Street, and so through a +zigzag of slums to Covent Garden Market. One of the largest +stalls bore the name of Breckinridge upon it, and the proprietor +a horsey-looking man, with a sharp face and trim side-whiskers was +helping a boy to put up the shutters. + +"Good-evening. It's a cold night," said Holmes. + +The salesman nodded and shot a questioning glance at my +companion. + +"Sold out of geese, I see," continued Holmes, pointing at the +bare slabs of marble. + +"Let you have five hundred to-morrow morning." + +"That's no good." + +"Well, there are some on the stall with the gas-flare." + +"Ah, but I was recommended to you." + +"Who by?" + +"The landlord of the Alpha." + +"Oh, yes; I sent him a couple of dozen." + +"Fine birds they were, too. Now where did you get them from?" + +To my surprise the question provoked a burst of anger from the +salesman. + +"Now, then, mister," said he, with his head cocked and his arms +akimbo, "what are you driving at? Let's have it straight, now." + +"It is straight enough. I should like to know who sold you the +geese which you supplied to the Alpha." + +"Well then, I shan't tell you. So now!" + +"Oh, it is a matter of no importance; but I don't know why you +should be so warm over such a trifle." + +"Warm! You'd be as warm, maybe, if you were as pestered as I am. +When I pay good money for a good article there should be an end +of the business; but it's 'Where are the geese?' and 'Who did you +sell the geese to?' and 'What will you take for the geese?' One +would think they were the only geese in the world, to hear the +fuss that is made over them." + +"Well, I have no connection with any other people who have been +making inquiries," said Holmes carelessly. "If you won't tell us +the bet is off, that is all. But I'm always ready to back my +opinion on a matter of fowls, and I have a fiver on it that the +bird I ate is country bred." + +"Well, then, you've lost your fiver, for it's town bred," snapped +the salesman. + +"It's nothing of the kind." + +"I say it is." + +"I don't believe it." + +"D'you think you know more about fowls than I, who have handled +them ever since I was a nipper? I tell you, all those birds that +went to the Alpha were town bred." + +"You'll never persuade me to believe that." + +"Will you bet, then?" + +"It's merely taking your money, for I know that I am right. But +I'll have a sovereign on with you, just to teach you not to be +obstinate." + +The salesman chuckled grimly. "Bring me the books, Bill," said +he. + +The small boy brought round a small thin volume and a great +greasy-backed one, laying them out together beneath the hanging +lamp. + +"Now then, Mr. Cocksure," said the salesman, "I thought that I +was out of geese, but before I finish you'll find that there is +still one left in my shop. You see this little book?" + +"Well?" + +"That's the list of the folk from whom I buy. D'you see? Well, +then, here on this page are the country folk, and the numbers +after their names are where their accounts are in the big ledger. +Now, then! You see this other page in red ink? Well, that is a +list of my town suppliers. Now, look at that third name. Just +read it out to me." + +"Mrs. Oakshott, 117, Brixton Road--249," read Holmes. + +"Quite so. Now turn that up in the ledger." + +Holmes turned to the page indicated. "Here you are, 'Mrs. +Oakshott, 117, Brixton Road, egg and poultry supplier.'" + +"Now, then, what's the last entry?" + +"'December 22nd. Twenty-four geese at 7s. 6d.'" + +"Quite so. There you are. And underneath?" + +"'Sold to Mr. Windigate of the Alpha, at 12s.'" + +"What have you to say now?" + +Sherlock Holmes looked deeply chagrined. He drew a sovereign from +his pocket and threw it down upon the slab, turning away with the +air of a man whose disgust is too deep for words. A few yards off +he stopped under a lamp-post and laughed in the hearty, noiseless +fashion which was peculiar to him. + +"When you see a man with whiskers of that cut and the 'Pink 'un' +protruding out of his pocket, you can always draw him by a bet," +said he. "I daresay that if I had put 100 pounds down in front of +him, that man would not have given me such complete information +as was drawn from him by the idea that he was doing me on a +wager. Well, Watson, we are, I fancy, nearing the end of our +quest, and the only point which remains to be determined is +whether we should go on to this Mrs. Oakshott to-night, or +whether we should reserve it for to-morrow. It is clear from what +that surly fellow said that there are others besides ourselves +who are anxious about the matter, and I should--" + +His remarks were suddenly cut short by a loud hubbub which broke +out from the stall which we had just left. Turning round we saw a +little rat-faced fellow standing in the centre of the circle of +yellow light which was thrown by the swinging lamp, while +Breckinridge, the salesman, framed in the door of his stall, was +shaking his fists fiercely at the cringing figure. + +"I've had enough of you and your geese," he shouted. "I wish you +were all at the devil together. If you come pestering me any more +with your silly talk I'll set the dog at you. You bring Mrs. +Oakshott here and I'll answer her, but what have you to do with +it? Did I buy the geese off you?" + +"No; but one of them was mine all the same," whined the little +man. + +"Well, then, ask Mrs. Oakshott for it." + +"She told me to ask you." + +"Well, you can ask the King of Proosia, for all I care. I've had +enough of it. Get out of this!" He rushed fiercely forward, and +the inquirer flitted away into the darkness. + +"Ha! this may save us a visit to Brixton Road," whispered Holmes. +"Come with me, and we will see what is to be made of this +fellow." Striding through the scattered knots of people who +lounged round the flaring stalls, my companion speedily overtook +the little man and touched him upon the shoulder. He sprang +round, and I could see in the gas-light that every vestige of +colour had been driven from his face. + +"Who are you, then? What do you want?" he asked in a quavering +voice. + +"You will excuse me," said Holmes blandly, "but I could not help +overhearing the questions which you put to the salesman just now. +I think that I could be of assistance to you." + +"You? Who are you? How could you know anything of the matter?" + +"My name is Sherlock Holmes. It is my business to know what other +people don't know." + +"But you can know nothing of this?" + +"Excuse me, I know everything of it. You are endeavouring to +trace some geese which were sold by Mrs. Oakshott, of Brixton +Road, to a salesman named Breckinridge, by him in turn to Mr. +Windigate, of the Alpha, and by him to his club, of which Mr. +Henry Baker is a member." + +"Oh, sir, you are the very man whom I have longed to meet," cried +the little fellow with outstretched hands and quivering fingers. +"I can hardly explain to you how interested I am in this matter." + +Sherlock Holmes hailed a four-wheeler which was passing. "In that +case we had better discuss it in a cosy room rather than in this +wind-swept market-place," said he. "But pray tell me, before we +go farther, who it is that I have the pleasure of assisting." + +The man hesitated for an instant. "My name is John Robinson," he +answered with a sidelong glance. + +"No, no; the real name," said Holmes sweetly. "It is always +awkward doing business with an alias." + +A flush sprang to the white cheeks of the stranger. "Well then," +said he, "my real name is James Ryder." + +"Precisely so. Head attendant at the Hotel Cosmopolitan. Pray +step into the cab, and I shall soon be able to tell you +everything which you would wish to know." + +The little man stood glancing from one to the other of us with +half-frightened, half-hopeful eyes, as one who is not sure +whether he is on the verge of a windfall or of a catastrophe. +Then he stepped into the cab, and in half an hour we were back in +the sitting-room at Baker Street. Nothing had been said during +our drive, but the high, thin breathing of our new companion, and +the claspings and unclaspings of his hands, spoke of the nervous +tension within him. + +"Here we are!" said Holmes cheerily as we filed into the room. +"The fire looks very seasonable in this weather. You look cold, +Mr. Ryder. Pray take the basket-chair. I will just put on my +slippers before we settle this little matter of yours. Now, then! +You want to know what became of those geese?" + +"Yes, sir." + +"Or rather, I fancy, of that goose. It was one bird, I imagine in +which you were interested--white, with a black bar across the +tail." + +Ryder quivered with emotion. "Oh, sir," he cried, "can you tell +me where it went to?" + +"It came here." + +"Here?" + +"Yes, and a most remarkable bird it proved. I don't wonder that +you should take an interest in it. It laid an egg after it was +dead--the bonniest, brightest little blue egg that ever was seen. +I have it here in my museum." + +Our visitor staggered to his feet and clutched the mantelpiece +with his right hand. Holmes unlocked his strong-box and held up +the blue carbuncle, which shone out like a star, with a cold, +brilliant, many-pointed radiance. Ryder stood glaring with a +drawn face, uncertain whether to claim or to disown it. + +"The game's up, Ryder," said Holmes quietly. "Hold up, man, or +you'll be into the fire! Give him an arm back into his chair, +Watson. He's not got blood enough to go in for felony with +impunity. Give him a dash of brandy. So! Now he looks a little +more human. What a shrimp it is, to be sure!" + +For a moment he had staggered and nearly fallen, but the brandy +brought a tinge of colour into his cheeks, and he sat staring +with frightened eyes at his accuser. + +"I have almost every link in my hands, and all the proofs which I +could possibly need, so there is little which you need tell me. +Still, that little may as well be cleared up to make the case +complete. You had heard, Ryder, of this blue stone of the +Countess of Morcar's?" + +"It was Catherine Cusack who told me of it," said he in a +crackling voice. + +"I see--her ladyship's waiting-maid. Well, the temptation of +sudden wealth so easily acquired was too much for you, as it has +been for better men before you; but you were not very scrupulous +in the means you used. It seems to me, Ryder, that there is the +making of a very pretty villain in you. You knew that this man +Horner, the plumber, had been concerned in some such matter +before, and that suspicion would rest the more readily upon him. +What did you do, then? You made some small job in my lady's +room--you and your confederate Cusack--and you managed that he +should be the man sent for. Then, when he had left, you rifled +the jewel-case, raised the alarm, and had this unfortunate man +arrested. You then--" + +Ryder threw himself down suddenly upon the rug and clutched at my +companion's knees. "For God's sake, have mercy!" he shrieked. +"Think of my father! Of my mother! It would break their hearts. I +never went wrong before! I never will again. I swear it. I'll +swear it on a Bible. Oh, don't bring it into court! For Christ's +sake, don't!" + +"Get back into your chair!" said Holmes sternly. "It is very well +to cringe and crawl now, but you thought little enough of this +poor Horner in the dock for a crime of which he knew nothing." + +"I will fly, Mr. Holmes. I will leave the country, sir. Then the +charge against him will break down." + +"Hum! We will talk about that. And now let us hear a true account +of the next act. How came the stone into the goose, and how came +the goose into the open market? Tell us the truth, for there lies +your only hope of safety." + +Ryder passed his tongue over his parched lips. "I will tell you +it just as it happened, sir," said he. "When Horner had been +arrested, it seemed to me that it would be best for me to get +away with the stone at once, for I did not know at what moment +the police might not take it into their heads to search me and my +room. There was no place about the hotel where it would be safe. +I went out, as if on some commission, and I made for my sister's +house. She had married a man named Oakshott, and lived in Brixton +Road, where she fattened fowls for the market. All the way there +every man I met seemed to me to be a policeman or a detective; +and, for all that it was a cold night, the sweat was pouring down +my face before I came to the Brixton Road. My sister asked me +what was the matter, and why I was so pale; but I told her that I +had been upset by the jewel robbery at the hotel. Then I went +into the back yard and smoked a pipe and wondered what it would +be best to do. + +"I had a friend once called Maudsley, who went to the bad, and +has just been serving his time in Pentonville. One day he had met +me, and fell into talk about the ways of thieves, and how they +could get rid of what they stole. I knew that he would be true to +me, for I knew one or two things about him; so I made up my mind +to go right on to Kilburn, where he lived, and take him into my +confidence. He would show me how to turn the stone into money. +But how to get to him in safety? I thought of the agonies I had +gone through in coming from the hotel. I might at any moment be +seized and searched, and there would be the stone in my waistcoat +pocket. I was leaning against the wall at the time and looking at +the geese which were waddling about round my feet, and suddenly +an idea came into my head which showed me how I could beat the +best detective that ever lived. + +"My sister had told me some weeks before that I might have the +pick of her geese for a Christmas present, and I knew that she +was always as good as her word. I would take my goose now, and in +it I would carry my stone to Kilburn. There was a little shed in +the yard, and behind this I drove one of the birds--a fine big +one, white, with a barred tail. I caught it, and prying its bill +open, I thrust the stone down its throat as far as my finger +could reach. The bird gave a gulp, and I felt the stone pass +along its gullet and down into its crop. But the creature flapped +and struggled, and out came my sister to know what was the +matter. As I turned to speak to her the brute broke loose and +fluttered off among the others. + +"'Whatever were you doing with that bird, Jem?' says she. + +"'Well,' said I, 'you said you'd give me one for Christmas, and I +was feeling which was the fattest.' + +"'Oh,' says she, 'we've set yours aside for you--Jem's bird, we +call it. It's the big white one over yonder. There's twenty-six +of them, which makes one for you, and one for us, and two dozen +for the market.' + +"'Thank you, Maggie,' says I; 'but if it is all the same to you, +I'd rather have that one I was handling just now.' + +"'The other is a good three pound heavier,' said she, 'and we +fattened it expressly for you.' + +"'Never mind. I'll have the other, and I'll take it now,' said I. + +"'Oh, just as you like,' said she, a little huffed. 'Which is it +you want, then?' + +"'That white one with the barred tail, right in the middle of the +flock.' + +"'Oh, very well. Kill it and take it with you.' + +"Well, I did what she said, Mr. Holmes, and I carried the bird +all the way to Kilburn. I told my pal what I had done, for he was +a man that it was easy to tell a thing like that to. He laughed +until he choked, and we got a knife and opened the goose. My +heart turned to water, for there was no sign of the stone, and I +knew that some terrible mistake had occurred. I left the bird, +rushed back to my sister's, and hurried into the back yard. There +was not a bird to be seen there. + +"'Where are they all, Maggie?' I cried. + +"'Gone to the dealer's, Jem.' + +"'Which dealer's?' + +"'Breckinridge, of Covent Garden.' + +"'But was there another with a barred tail?' I asked, 'the same +as the one I chose?' + +"'Yes, Jem; there were two barred-tailed ones, and I could never +tell them apart.' + +"Well, then, of course I saw it all, and I ran off as hard as my +feet would carry me to this man Breckinridge; but he had sold the +lot at once, and not one word would he tell me as to where they +had gone. You heard him yourselves to-night. Well, he has always +answered me like that. My sister thinks that I am going mad. +Sometimes I think that I am myself. And now--and now I am myself +a branded thief, without ever having touched the wealth for which +I sold my character. God help me! God help me!" He burst into +convulsive sobbing, with his face buried in his hands. + +There was a long silence, broken only by his heavy breathing and +by the measured tapping of Sherlock Holmes' finger-tips upon the +edge of the table. Then my friend rose and threw open the door. + +"Get out!" said he. + +"What, sir! Oh, Heaven bless you!" + +"No more words. Get out!" + +And no more words were needed. There was a rush, a clatter upon +the stairs, the bang of a door, and the crisp rattle of running +footfalls from the street. + +"After all, Watson," said Holmes, reaching up his hand for his +clay pipe, "I am not retained by the police to supply their +deficiencies. If Horner were in danger it would be another thing; +but this fellow will not appear against him, and the case must +collapse. I suppose that I am commuting a felony, but it is just +possible that I am saving a soul. This fellow will not go wrong +again; he is too terribly frightened. Send him to gaol now, and +you make him a gaol-bird for life. Besides, it is the season of +forgiveness. Chance has put in our way a most singular and +whimsical problem, and its solution is its own reward. If you +will have the goodness to touch the bell, Doctor, we will begin +another investigation, in which, also a bird will be the chief +feature." + + + +VIII. THE ADVENTURE OF THE SPECKLED BAND + +On glancing over my notes of the seventy odd cases in which I +have during the last eight years studied the methods of my friend +Sherlock Holmes, I find many tragic, some comic, a large number +merely strange, but none commonplace; for, working as he did +rather for the love of his art than for the acquirement of +wealth, he refused to associate himself with any investigation +which did not tend towards the unusual, and even the fantastic. +Of all these varied cases, however, I cannot recall any which +presented more singular features than that which was associated +with the well-known Surrey family of the Roylotts of Stoke Moran. +The events in question occurred in the early days of my +association with Holmes, when we were sharing rooms as bachelors +in Baker Street. It is possible that I might have placed them +upon record before, but a promise of secrecy was made at the +time, from which I have only been freed during the last month by +the untimely death of the lady to whom the pledge was given. It +is perhaps as well that the facts should now come to light, for I +have reasons to know that there are widespread rumours as to the +death of Dr. Grimesby Roylott which tend to make the matter even +more terrible than the truth. + +It was early in April in the year '83 that I woke one morning to +find Sherlock Holmes standing, fully dressed, by the side of my +bed. He was a late riser, as a rule, and as the clock on the +mantelpiece showed me that it was only a quarter-past seven, I +blinked up at him in some surprise, and perhaps just a little +resentment, for I was myself regular in my habits. + +"Very sorry to knock you up, Watson," said he, "but it's the +common lot this morning. Mrs. Hudson has been knocked up, she +retorted upon me, and I on you." + +"What is it, then--a fire?" + +"No; a client. It seems that a young lady has arrived in a +considerable state of excitement, who insists upon seeing me. She +is waiting now in the sitting-room. Now, when young ladies wander +about the metropolis at this hour of the morning, and knock +sleepy people up out of their beds, I presume that it is +something very pressing which they have to communicate. Should it +prove to be an interesting case, you would, I am sure, wish to +follow it from the outset. I thought, at any rate, that I should +call you and give you the chance." + +"My dear fellow, I would not miss it for anything." + +I had no keener pleasure than in following Holmes in his +professional investigations, and in admiring the rapid +deductions, as swift as intuitions, and yet always founded on a +logical basis with which he unravelled the problems which were +submitted to him. I rapidly threw on my clothes and was ready in +a few minutes to accompany my friend down to the sitting-room. A +lady dressed in black and heavily veiled, who had been sitting in +the window, rose as we entered. + +"Good-morning, madam," said Holmes cheerily. "My name is Sherlock +Holmes. This is my intimate friend and associate, Dr. Watson, +before whom you can speak as freely as before myself. Ha! I am +glad to see that Mrs. Hudson has had the good sense to light the +fire. Pray draw up to it, and I shall order you a cup of hot +coffee, for I observe that you are shivering." + +"It is not cold which makes me shiver," said the woman in a low +voice, changing her seat as requested. + +"What, then?" + +"It is fear, Mr. Holmes. It is terror." She raised her veil as +she spoke, and we could see that she was indeed in a pitiable +state of agitation, her face all drawn and grey, with restless +frightened eyes, like those of some hunted animal. Her features +and figure were those of a woman of thirty, but her hair was shot +with premature grey, and her expression was weary and haggard. +Sherlock Holmes ran her over with one of his quick, +all-comprehensive glances. + +"You must not fear," said he soothingly, bending forward and +patting her forearm. "We shall soon set matters right, I have no +doubt. You have come in by train this morning, I see." + +"You know me, then?" + +"No, but I observe the second half of a return ticket in the palm +of your left glove. You must have started early, and yet you had +a good drive in a dog-cart, along heavy roads, before you reached +the station." + +The lady gave a violent start and stared in bewilderment at my +companion. + +"There is no mystery, my dear madam," said he, smiling. "The left +arm of your jacket is spattered with mud in no less than seven +places. The marks are perfectly fresh. There is no vehicle save a +dog-cart which throws up mud in that way, and then only when you +sit on the left-hand side of the driver." + +"Whatever your reasons may be, you are perfectly correct," said +she. "I started from home before six, reached Leatherhead at +twenty past, and came in by the first train to Waterloo. Sir, I +can stand this strain no longer; I shall go mad if it continues. +I have no one to turn to--none, save only one, who cares for me, +and he, poor fellow, can be of little aid. I have heard of you, +Mr. Holmes; I have heard of you from Mrs. Farintosh, whom you +helped in the hour of her sore need. It was from her that I had +your address. Oh, sir, do you not think that you could help me, +too, and at least throw a little light through the dense darkness +which surrounds me? At present it is out of my power to reward +you for your services, but in a month or six weeks I shall be +married, with the control of my own income, and then at least you +shall not find me ungrateful." + +Holmes turned to his desk and, unlocking it, drew out a small +case-book, which he consulted. + +"Farintosh," said he. "Ah yes, I recall the case; it was +concerned with an opal tiara. I think it was before your time, +Watson. I can only say, madam, that I shall be happy to devote +the same care to your case as I did to that of your friend. As to +reward, my profession is its own reward; but you are at liberty +to defray whatever expenses I may be put to, at the time which +suits you best. And now I beg that you will lay before us +everything that may help us in forming an opinion upon the +matter." + +"Alas!" replied our visitor, "the very horror of my situation +lies in the fact that my fears are so vague, and my suspicions +depend so entirely upon small points, which might seem trivial to +another, that even he to whom of all others I have a right to +look for help and advice looks upon all that I tell him about it +as the fancies of a nervous woman. He does not say so, but I can +read it from his soothing answers and averted eyes. But I have +heard, Mr. Holmes, that you can see deeply into the manifold +wickedness of the human heart. You may advise me how to walk amid +the dangers which encompass me." + +"I am all attention, madam." + +"My name is Helen Stoner, and I am living with my stepfather, who +is the last survivor of one of the oldest Saxon families in +England, the Roylotts of Stoke Moran, on the western border of +Surrey." + +Holmes nodded his head. "The name is familiar to me," said he. + +"The family was at one time among the richest in England, and the +estates extended over the borders into Berkshire in the north, +and Hampshire in the west. In the last century, however, four +successive heirs were of a dissolute and wasteful disposition, +and the family ruin was eventually completed by a gambler in the +days of the Regency. Nothing was left save a few acres of ground, +and the two-hundred-year-old house, which is itself crushed under +a heavy mortgage. The last squire dragged out his existence +there, living the horrible life of an aristocratic pauper; but +his only son, my stepfather, seeing that he must adapt himself to +the new conditions, obtained an advance from a relative, which +enabled him to take a medical degree and went out to Calcutta, +where, by his professional skill and his force of character, he +established a large practice. In a fit of anger, however, caused +by some robberies which had been perpetrated in the house, he +beat his native butler to death and narrowly escaped a capital +sentence. As it was, he suffered a long term of imprisonment and +afterwards returned to England a morose and disappointed man. + +"When Dr. Roylott was in India he married my mother, Mrs. Stoner, +the young widow of Major-General Stoner, of the Bengal Artillery. +My sister Julia and I were twins, and we were only two years old +at the time of my mother's re-marriage. She had a considerable +sum of money--not less than 1000 pounds a year--and this she +bequeathed to Dr. Roylott entirely while we resided with him, +with a provision that a certain annual sum should be allowed to +each of us in the event of our marriage. Shortly after our return +to England my mother died--she was killed eight years ago in a +railway accident near Crewe. Dr. Roylott then abandoned his +attempts to establish himself in practice in London and took us +to live with him in the old ancestral house at Stoke Moran. The +money which my mother had left was enough for all our wants, and +there seemed to be no obstacle to our happiness. + +"But a terrible change came over our stepfather about this time. +Instead of making friends and exchanging visits with our +neighbours, who had at first been overjoyed to see a Roylott of +Stoke Moran back in the old family seat, he shut himself up in +his house and seldom came out save to indulge in ferocious +quarrels with whoever might cross his path. Violence of temper +approaching to mania has been hereditary in the men of the +family, and in my stepfather's case it had, I believe, been +intensified by his long residence in the tropics. A series of +disgraceful brawls took place, two of which ended in the +police-court, until at last he became the terror of the village, +and the folks would fly at his approach, for he is a man of +immense strength, and absolutely uncontrollable in his anger. + +"Last week he hurled the local blacksmith over a parapet into a +stream, and it was only by paying over all the money which I +could gather together that I was able to avert another public +exposure. He had no friends at all save the wandering gipsies, +and he would give these vagabonds leave to encamp upon the few +acres of bramble-covered land which represent the family estate, +and would accept in return the hospitality of their tents, +wandering away with them sometimes for weeks on end. He has a +passion also for Indian animals, which are sent over to him by a +correspondent, and he has at this moment a cheetah and a baboon, +which wander freely over his grounds and are feared by the +villagers almost as much as their master. + +"You can imagine from what I say that my poor sister Julia and I +had no great pleasure in our lives. No servant would stay with +us, and for a long time we did all the work of the house. She was +but thirty at the time of her death, and yet her hair had already +begun to whiten, even as mine has." + +"Your sister is dead, then?" + +"She died just two years ago, and it is of her death that I wish +to speak to you. You can understand that, living the life which I +have described, we were little likely to see anyone of our own +age and position. We had, however, an aunt, my mother's maiden +sister, Miss Honoria Westphail, who lives near Harrow, and we +were occasionally allowed to pay short visits at this lady's +house. Julia went there at Christmas two years ago, and met there +a half-pay major of marines, to whom she became engaged. My +stepfather learned of the engagement when my sister returned and +offered no objection to the marriage; but within a fortnight of +the day which had been fixed for the wedding, the terrible event +occurred which has deprived me of my only companion." + +Sherlock Holmes had been leaning back in his chair with his eyes +closed and his head sunk in a cushion, but he half opened his +lids now and glanced across at his visitor. + +"Pray be precise as to details," said he. + +"It is easy for me to be so, for every event of that dreadful +time is seared into my memory. The manor-house is, as I have +already said, very old, and only one wing is now inhabited. The +bedrooms in this wing are on the ground floor, the sitting-rooms +being in the central block of the buildings. Of these bedrooms +the first is Dr. Roylott's, the second my sister's, and the third +my own. There is no communication between them, but they all open +out into the same corridor. Do I make myself plain?" + +"Perfectly so." + +"The windows of the three rooms open out upon the lawn. That +fatal night Dr. Roylott had gone to his room early, though we +knew that he had not retired to rest, for my sister was troubled +by the smell of the strong Indian cigars which it was his custom +to smoke. She left her room, therefore, and came into mine, where +she sat for some time, chatting about her approaching wedding. At +eleven o'clock she rose to leave me, but she paused at the door +and looked back. + +"'Tell me, Helen,' said she, 'have you ever heard anyone whistle +in the dead of the night?' + +"'Never,' said I. + +"'I suppose that you could not possibly whistle, yourself, in +your sleep?' + +"'Certainly not. But why?' + +"'Because during the last few nights I have always, about three +in the morning, heard a low, clear whistle. I am a light sleeper, +and it has awakened me. I cannot tell where it came from--perhaps +from the next room, perhaps from the lawn. I thought that I would +just ask you whether you had heard it.' + +"'No, I have not. It must be those wretched gipsies in the +plantation.' + +"'Very likely. And yet if it were on the lawn, I wonder that you +did not hear it also.' + +"'Ah, but I sleep more heavily than you.' + +"'Well, it is of no great consequence, at any rate.' She smiled +back at me, closed my door, and a few moments later I heard her +key turn in the lock." + +"Indeed," said Holmes. "Was it your custom always to lock +yourselves in at night?" + +"Always." + +"And why?" + +"I think that I mentioned to you that the doctor kept a cheetah +and a baboon. We had no feeling of security unless our doors were +locked." + +"Quite so. Pray proceed with your statement." + +"I could not sleep that night. A vague feeling of impending +misfortune impressed me. My sister and I, you will recollect, +were twins, and you know how subtle are the links which bind two +souls which are so closely allied. It was a wild night. The wind +was howling outside, and the rain was beating and splashing +against the windows. Suddenly, amid all the hubbub of the gale, +there burst forth the wild scream of a terrified woman. I knew +that it was my sister's voice. I sprang from my bed, wrapped a +shawl round me, and rushed into the corridor. As I opened my door +I seemed to hear a low whistle, such as my sister described, and +a few moments later a clanging sound, as if a mass of metal had +fallen. As I ran down the passage, my sister's door was unlocked, +and revolved slowly upon its hinges. I stared at it +horror-stricken, not knowing what was about to issue from it. By +the light of the corridor-lamp I saw my sister appear at the +opening, her face blanched with terror, her hands groping for +help, her whole figure swaying to and fro like that of a +drunkard. I ran to her and threw my arms round her, but at that +moment her knees seemed to give way and she fell to the ground. +She writhed as one who is in terrible pain, and her limbs were +dreadfully convulsed. At first I thought that she had not +recognised me, but as I bent over her she suddenly shrieked out +in a voice which I shall never forget, 'Oh, my God! Helen! It was +the band! The speckled band!' There was something else which she +would fain have said, and she stabbed with her finger into the +air in the direction of the doctor's room, but a fresh convulsion +seized her and choked her words. I rushed out, calling loudly for +my stepfather, and I met him hastening from his room in his +dressing-gown. When he reached my sister's side she was +unconscious, and though he poured brandy down her throat and sent +for medical aid from the village, all efforts were in vain, for +she slowly sank and died without having recovered her +consciousness. Such was the dreadful end of my beloved sister." + +"One moment," said Holmes, "are you sure about this whistle and +metallic sound? Could you swear to it?" + +"That was what the county coroner asked me at the inquiry. It is +my strong impression that I heard it, and yet, among the crash of +the gale and the creaking of an old house, I may possibly have +been deceived." + +"Was your sister dressed?" + +"No, she was in her night-dress. In her right hand was found the +charred stump of a match, and in her left a match-box." + +"Showing that she had struck a light and looked about her when +the alarm took place. That is important. And what conclusions did +the coroner come to?" + +"He investigated the case with great care, for Dr. Roylott's +conduct had long been notorious in the county, but he was unable +to find any satisfactory cause of death. My evidence showed that +the door had been fastened upon the inner side, and the windows +were blocked by old-fashioned shutters with broad iron bars, +which were secured every night. The walls were carefully sounded, +and were shown to be quite solid all round, and the flooring was +also thoroughly examined, with the same result. The chimney is +wide, but is barred up by four large staples. It is certain, +therefore, that my sister was quite alone when she met her end. +Besides, there were no marks of any violence upon her." + +"How about poison?" + +"The doctors examined her for it, but without success." + +"What do you think that this unfortunate lady died of, then?" + +"It is my belief that she died of pure fear and nervous shock, +though what it was that frightened her I cannot imagine." + +"Were there gipsies in the plantation at the time?" + +"Yes, there are nearly always some there." + +"Ah, and what did you gather from this allusion to a band--a +speckled band?" + +"Sometimes I have thought that it was merely the wild talk of +delirium, sometimes that it may have referred to some band of +people, perhaps to these very gipsies in the plantation. I do not +know whether the spotted handkerchiefs which so many of them wear +over their heads might have suggested the strange adjective which +she used." + +Holmes shook his head like a man who is far from being satisfied. + +"These are very deep waters," said he; "pray go on with your +narrative." + +"Two years have passed since then, and my life has been until +lately lonelier than ever. A month ago, however, a dear friend, +whom I have known for many years, has done me the honour to ask +my hand in marriage. His name is Armitage--Percy Armitage--the +second son of Mr. Armitage, of Crane Water, near Reading. My +stepfather has offered no opposition to the match, and we are to +be married in the course of the spring. Two days ago some repairs +were started in the west wing of the building, and my bedroom +wall has been pierced, so that I have had to move into the +chamber in which my sister died, and to sleep in the very bed in +which she slept. Imagine, then, my thrill of terror when last +night, as I lay awake, thinking over her terrible fate, I +suddenly heard in the silence of the night the low whistle which +had been the herald of her own death. I sprang up and lit the +lamp, but nothing was to be seen in the room. I was too shaken to +go to bed again, however, so I dressed, and as soon as it was +daylight I slipped down, got a dog-cart at the Crown Inn, which +is opposite, and drove to Leatherhead, from whence I have come on +this morning with the one object of seeing you and asking your +advice." + +"You have done wisely," said my friend. "But have you told me +all?" + +"Yes, all." + +"Miss Roylott, you have not. You are screening your stepfather." + +"Why, what do you mean?" + +For answer Holmes pushed back the frill of black lace which +fringed the hand that lay upon our visitor's knee. Five little +livid spots, the marks of four fingers and a thumb, were printed +upon the white wrist. + +"You have been cruelly used," said Holmes. + +The lady coloured deeply and covered over her injured wrist. "He +is a hard man," she said, "and perhaps he hardly knows his own +strength." + +There was a long silence, during which Holmes leaned his chin +upon his hands and stared into the crackling fire. + +"This is a very deep business," he said at last. "There are a +thousand details which I should desire to know before I decide +upon our course of action. Yet we have not a moment to lose. If +we were to come to Stoke Moran to-day, would it be possible for +us to see over these rooms without the knowledge of your +stepfather?" + +"As it happens, he spoke of coming into town to-day upon some +most important business. It is probable that he will be away all +day, and that there would be nothing to disturb you. We have a +housekeeper now, but she is old and foolish, and I could easily +get her out of the way." + +"Excellent. You are not averse to this trip, Watson?" + +"By no means." + +"Then we shall both come. What are you going to do yourself?" + +"I have one or two things which I would wish to do now that I am +in town. But I shall return by the twelve o'clock train, so as to +be there in time for your coming." + +"And you may expect us early in the afternoon. I have myself some +small business matters to attend to. Will you not wait and +breakfast?" + +"No, I must go. My heart is lightened already since I have +confided my trouble to you. I shall look forward to seeing you +again this afternoon." She dropped her thick black veil over her +face and glided from the room. + +"And what do you think of it all, Watson?" asked Sherlock Holmes, +leaning back in his chair. + +"It seems to me to be a most dark and sinister business." + +"Dark enough and sinister enough." + +"Yet if the lady is correct in saying that the flooring and walls +are sound, and that the door, window, and chimney are impassable, +then her sister must have been undoubtedly alone when she met her +mysterious end." + +"What becomes, then, of these nocturnal whistles, and what of the +very peculiar words of the dying woman?" + +"I cannot think." + +"When you combine the ideas of whistles at night, the presence of +a band of gipsies who are on intimate terms with this old doctor, +the fact that we have every reason to believe that the doctor has +an interest in preventing his stepdaughter's marriage, the dying +allusion to a band, and, finally, the fact that Miss Helen Stoner +heard a metallic clang, which might have been caused by one of +those metal bars that secured the shutters falling back into its +place, I think that there is good ground to think that the +mystery may be cleared along those lines." + +"But what, then, did the gipsies do?" + +"I cannot imagine." + +"I see many objections to any such theory." + +"And so do I. It is precisely for that reason that we are going +to Stoke Moran this day. I want to see whether the objections are +fatal, or if they may be explained away. But what in the name of +the devil!" + +The ejaculation had been drawn from my companion by the fact that +our door had been suddenly dashed open, and that a huge man had +framed himself in the aperture. His costume was a peculiar +mixture of the professional and of the agricultural, having a +black top-hat, a long frock-coat, and a pair of high gaiters, +with a hunting-crop swinging in his hand. So tall was he that his +hat actually brushed the cross bar of the doorway, and his +breadth seemed to span it across from side to side. A large face, +seared with a thousand wrinkles, burned yellow with the sun, and +marked with every evil passion, was turned from one to the other +of us, while his deep-set, bile-shot eyes, and his high, thin, +fleshless nose, gave him somewhat the resemblance to a fierce old +bird of prey. + +"Which of you is Holmes?" asked this apparition. + +"My name, sir; but you have the advantage of me," said my +companion quietly. + +"I am Dr. Grimesby Roylott, of Stoke Moran." + +"Indeed, Doctor," said Holmes blandly. "Pray take a seat." + +"I will do nothing of the kind. My stepdaughter has been here. I +have traced her. What has she been saying to you?" + +"It is a little cold for the time of the year," said Holmes. + +"What has she been saying to you?" screamed the old man +furiously. + +"But I have heard that the crocuses promise well," continued my +companion imperturbably. + +"Ha! You put me off, do you?" said our new visitor, taking a step +forward and shaking his hunting-crop. "I know you, you scoundrel! +I have heard of you before. You are Holmes, the meddler." + +My friend smiled. + +"Holmes, the busybody!" + +His smile broadened. + +"Holmes, the Scotland Yard Jack-in-office!" + +Holmes chuckled heartily. "Your conversation is most +entertaining," said he. "When you go out close the door, for +there is a decided draught." + +"I will go when I have said my say. Don't you dare to meddle with +my affairs. I know that Miss Stoner has been here. I traced her! +I am a dangerous man to fall foul of! See here." He stepped +swiftly forward, seized the poker, and bent it into a curve with +his huge brown hands. + +"See that you keep yourself out of my grip," he snarled, and +hurling the twisted poker into the fireplace he strode out of the +room. + +"He seems a very amiable person," said Holmes, laughing. "I am +not quite so bulky, but if he had remained I might have shown him +that my grip was not much more feeble than his own." As he spoke +he picked up the steel poker and, with a sudden effort, +straightened it out again. + +"Fancy his having the insolence to confound me with the official +detective force! This incident gives zest to our investigation, +however, and I only trust that our little friend will not suffer +from her imprudence in allowing this brute to trace her. And now, +Watson, we shall order breakfast, and afterwards I shall walk +down to Doctors' Commons, where I hope to get some data which may +help us in this matter." + + +It was nearly one o'clock when Sherlock Holmes returned from his +excursion. He held in his hand a sheet of blue paper, scrawled +over with notes and figures. + +"I have seen the will of the deceased wife," said he. "To +determine its exact meaning I have been obliged to work out the +present prices of the investments with which it is concerned. The +total income, which at the time of the wife's death was little +short of 1100 pounds, is now, through the fall in agricultural +prices, not more than 750 pounds. Each daughter can claim an +income of 250 pounds, in case of marriage. It is evident, +therefore, that if both girls had married, this beauty would have +had a mere pittance, while even one of them would cripple him to +a very serious extent. My morning's work has not been wasted, +since it has proved that he has the very strongest motives for +standing in the way of anything of the sort. And now, Watson, +this is too serious for dawdling, especially as the old man is +aware that we are interesting ourselves in his affairs; so if you +are ready, we shall call a cab and drive to Waterloo. I should be +very much obliged if you would slip your revolver into your +pocket. An Eley's No. 2 is an excellent argument with gentlemen +who can twist steel pokers into knots. That and a tooth-brush +are, I think, all that we need." + +At Waterloo we were fortunate in catching a train for +Leatherhead, where we hired a trap at the station inn and drove +for four or five miles through the lovely Surrey lanes. It was a +perfect day, with a bright sun and a few fleecy clouds in the +heavens. The trees and wayside hedges were just throwing out +their first green shoots, and the air was full of the pleasant +smell of the moist earth. To me at least there was a strange +contrast between the sweet promise of the spring and this +sinister quest upon which we were engaged. My companion sat in +the front of the trap, his arms folded, his hat pulled down over +his eyes, and his chin sunk upon his breast, buried in the +deepest thought. Suddenly, however, he started, tapped me on the +shoulder, and pointed over the meadows. + +"Look there!" said he. + +A heavily timbered park stretched up in a gentle slope, +thickening into a grove at the highest point. From amid the +branches there jutted out the grey gables and high roof-tree of a +very old mansion. + +"Stoke Moran?" said he. + +"Yes, sir, that be the house of Dr. Grimesby Roylott," remarked +the driver. + +"There is some building going on there," said Holmes; "that is +where we are going." + +"There's the village," said the driver, pointing to a cluster of +roofs some distance to the left; "but if you want to get to the +house, you'll find it shorter to get over this stile, and so by +the foot-path over the fields. There it is, where the lady is +walking." + +"And the lady, I fancy, is Miss Stoner," observed Holmes, shading +his eyes. "Yes, I think we had better do as you suggest." + +We got off, paid our fare, and the trap rattled back on its way +to Leatherhead. + +"I thought it as well," said Holmes as we climbed the stile, +"that this fellow should think we had come here as architects, or +on some definite business. It may stop his gossip. +Good-afternoon, Miss Stoner. You see that we have been as good as +our word." + +Our client of the morning had hurried forward to meet us with a +face which spoke her joy. "I have been waiting so eagerly for +you," she cried, shaking hands with us warmly. "All has turned +out splendidly. Dr. Roylott has gone to town, and it is unlikely +that he will be back before evening." + +"We have had the pleasure of making the doctor's acquaintance," +said Holmes, and in a few words he sketched out what had +occurred. Miss Stoner turned white to the lips as she listened. + +"Good heavens!" she cried, "he has followed me, then." + +"So it appears." + +"He is so cunning that I never know when I am safe from him. What +will he say when he returns?" + +"He must guard himself, for he may find that there is someone +more cunning than himself upon his track. You must lock yourself +up from him to-night. If he is violent, we shall take you away to +your aunt's at Harrow. Now, we must make the best use of our +time, so kindly take us at once to the rooms which we are to +examine." + +The building was of grey, lichen-blotched stone, with a high +central portion and two curving wings, like the claws of a crab, +thrown out on each side. In one of these wings the windows were +broken and blocked with wooden boards, while the roof was partly +caved in, a picture of ruin. The central portion was in little +better repair, but the right-hand block was comparatively modern, +and the blinds in the windows, with the blue smoke curling up +from the chimneys, showed that this was where the family resided. +Some scaffolding had been erected against the end wall, and the +stone-work had been broken into, but there were no signs of any +workmen at the moment of our visit. Holmes walked slowly up and +down the ill-trimmed lawn and examined with deep attention the +outsides of the windows. + +"This, I take it, belongs to the room in which you used to sleep, +the centre one to your sister's, and the one next to the main +building to Dr. Roylott's chamber?" + +"Exactly so. But I am now sleeping in the middle one." + +"Pending the alterations, as I understand. By the way, there does +not seem to be any very pressing need for repairs at that end +wall." + +"There were none. I believe that it was an excuse to move me from +my room." + +"Ah! that is suggestive. Now, on the other side of this narrow +wing runs the corridor from which these three rooms open. There +are windows in it, of course?" + +"Yes, but very small ones. Too narrow for anyone to pass +through." + +"As you both locked your doors at night, your rooms were +unapproachable from that side. Now, would you have the kindness +to go into your room and bar your shutters?" + +Miss Stoner did so, and Holmes, after a careful examination +through the open window, endeavoured in every way to force the +shutter open, but without success. There was no slit through +which a knife could be passed to raise the bar. Then with his +lens he tested the hinges, but they were of solid iron, built +firmly into the massive masonry. "Hum!" said he, scratching his +chin in some perplexity, "my theory certainly presents some +difficulties. No one could pass these shutters if they were +bolted. Well, we shall see if the inside throws any light upon +the matter." + +A small side door led into the whitewashed corridor from which +the three bedrooms opened. Holmes refused to examine the third +chamber, so we passed at once to the second, that in which Miss +Stoner was now sleeping, and in which her sister had met with her +fate. It was a homely little room, with a low ceiling and a +gaping fireplace, after the fashion of old country-houses. A +brown chest of drawers stood in one corner, a narrow +white-counterpaned bed in another, and a dressing-table on the +left-hand side of the window. These articles, with two small +wicker-work chairs, made up all the furniture in the room save +for a square of Wilton carpet in the centre. The boards round and +the panelling of the walls were of brown, worm-eaten oak, so old +and discoloured that it may have dated from the original building +of the house. Holmes drew one of the chairs into a corner and sat +silent, while his eyes travelled round and round and up and down, +taking in every detail of the apartment. + +"Where does that bell communicate with?" he asked at last +pointing to a thick bell-rope which hung down beside the bed, the +tassel actually lying upon the pillow. + +"It goes to the housekeeper's room." + +"It looks newer than the other things?" + +"Yes, it was only put there a couple of years ago." + +"Your sister asked for it, I suppose?" + +"No, I never heard of her using it. We used always to get what we +wanted for ourselves." + +"Indeed, it seemed unnecessary to put so nice a bell-pull there. +You will excuse me for a few minutes while I satisfy myself as to +this floor." He threw himself down upon his face with his lens in +his hand and crawled swiftly backward and forward, examining +minutely the cracks between the boards. Then he did the same with +the wood-work with which the chamber was panelled. Finally he +walked over to the bed and spent some time in staring at it and +in running his eye up and down the wall. Finally he took the +bell-rope in his hand and gave it a brisk tug. + +"Why, it's a dummy," said he. + +"Won't it ring?" + +"No, it is not even attached to a wire. This is very interesting. +You can see now that it is fastened to a hook just above where +the little opening for the ventilator is." + +"How very absurd! I never noticed that before." + +"Very strange!" muttered Holmes, pulling at the rope. "There are +one or two very singular points about this room. For example, +what a fool a builder must be to open a ventilator into another +room, when, with the same trouble, he might have communicated +with the outside air!" + +"That is also quite modern," said the lady. + +"Done about the same time as the bell-rope?" remarked Holmes. + +"Yes, there were several little changes carried out about that +time." + +"They seem to have been of a most interesting character--dummy +bell-ropes, and ventilators which do not ventilate. With your +permission, Miss Stoner, we shall now carry our researches into +the inner apartment." + +Dr. Grimesby Roylott's chamber was larger than that of his +step-daughter, but was as plainly furnished. A camp-bed, a small +wooden shelf full of books, mostly of a technical character, an +armchair beside the bed, a plain wooden chair against the wall, a +round table, and a large iron safe were the principal things +which met the eye. Holmes walked slowly round and examined each +and all of them with the keenest interest. + +"What's in here?" he asked, tapping the safe. + +"My stepfather's business papers." + +"Oh! you have seen inside, then?" + +"Only once, some years ago. I remember that it was full of +papers." + +"There isn't a cat in it, for example?" + +"No. What a strange idea!" + +"Well, look at this!" He took up a small saucer of milk which +stood on the top of it. + +"No; we don't keep a cat. But there is a cheetah and a baboon." + +"Ah, yes, of course! Well, a cheetah is just a big cat, and yet a +saucer of milk does not go very far in satisfying its wants, I +daresay. There is one point which I should wish to determine." He +squatted down in front of the wooden chair and examined the seat +of it with the greatest attention. + +"Thank you. That is quite settled," said he, rising and putting +his lens in his pocket. "Hullo! Here is something interesting!" + +The object which had caught his eye was a small dog lash hung on +one corner of the bed. The lash, however, was curled upon itself +and tied so as to make a loop of whipcord. + +"What do you make of that, Watson?" + +"It's a common enough lash. But I don't know why it should be +tied." + +"That is not quite so common, is it? Ah, me! it's a wicked world, +and when a clever man turns his brains to crime it is the worst +of all. I think that I have seen enough now, Miss Stoner, and +with your permission we shall walk out upon the lawn." + +I had never seen my friend's face so grim or his brow so dark as +it was when we turned from the scene of this investigation. We +had walked several times up and down the lawn, neither Miss +Stoner nor myself liking to break in upon his thoughts before he +roused himself from his reverie. + +"It is very essential, Miss Stoner," said he, "that you should +absolutely follow my advice in every respect." + +"I shall most certainly do so." + +"The matter is too serious for any hesitation. Your life may +depend upon your compliance." + +"I assure you that I am in your hands." + +"In the first place, both my friend and I must spend the night in +your room." + +Both Miss Stoner and I gazed at him in astonishment. + +"Yes, it must be so. Let me explain. I believe that that is the +village inn over there?" + +"Yes, that is the Crown." + +"Very good. Your windows would be visible from there?" + +"Certainly." + +"You must confine yourself to your room, on pretence of a +headache, when your stepfather comes back. Then when you hear him +retire for the night, you must open the shutters of your window, +undo the hasp, put your lamp there as a signal to us, and then +withdraw quietly with everything which you are likely to want +into the room which you used to occupy. I have no doubt that, in +spite of the repairs, you could manage there for one night." + +"Oh, yes, easily." + +"The rest you will leave in our hands." + +"But what will you do?" + +"We shall spend the night in your room, and we shall investigate +the cause of this noise which has disturbed you." + +"I believe, Mr. Holmes, that you have already made up your mind," +said Miss Stoner, laying her hand upon my companion's sleeve. + +"Perhaps I have." + +"Then, for pity's sake, tell me what was the cause of my sister's +death." + +"I should prefer to have clearer proofs before I speak." + +"You can at least tell me whether my own thought is correct, and +if she died from some sudden fright." + +"No, I do not think so. I think that there was probably some more +tangible cause. And now, Miss Stoner, we must leave you for if +Dr. Roylott returned and saw us our journey would be in vain. +Good-bye, and be brave, for if you will do what I have told you, +you may rest assured that we shall soon drive away the dangers +that threaten you." + +Sherlock Holmes and I had no difficulty in engaging a bedroom and +sitting-room at the Crown Inn. They were on the upper floor, and +from our window we could command a view of the avenue gate, and +of the inhabited wing of Stoke Moran Manor House. At dusk we saw +Dr. Grimesby Roylott drive past, his huge form looming up beside +the little figure of the lad who drove him. The boy had some +slight difficulty in undoing the heavy iron gates, and we heard +the hoarse roar of the doctor's voice and saw the fury with which +he shook his clinched fists at him. The trap drove on, and a few +minutes later we saw a sudden light spring up among the trees as +the lamp was lit in one of the sitting-rooms. + +"Do you know, Watson," said Holmes as we sat together in the +gathering darkness, "I have really some scruples as to taking you +to-night. There is a distinct element of danger." + +"Can I be of assistance?" + +"Your presence might be invaluable." + +"Then I shall certainly come." + +"It is very kind of you." + +"You speak of danger. You have evidently seen more in these rooms +than was visible to me." + +"No, but I fancy that I may have deduced a little more. I imagine +that you saw all that I did." + +"I saw nothing remarkable save the bell-rope, and what purpose +that could answer I confess is more than I can imagine." + +"You saw the ventilator, too?" + +"Yes, but I do not think that it is such a very unusual thing to +have a small opening between two rooms. It was so small that a +rat could hardly pass through." + +"I knew that we should find a ventilator before ever we came to +Stoke Moran." + +"My dear Holmes!" + +"Oh, yes, I did. You remember in her statement she said that her +sister could smell Dr. Roylott's cigar. Now, of course that +suggested at once that there must be a communication between the +two rooms. It could only be a small one, or it would have been +remarked upon at the coroner's inquiry. I deduced a ventilator." + +"But what harm can there be in that?" + +"Well, there is at least a curious coincidence of dates. A +ventilator is made, a cord is hung, and a lady who sleeps in the +bed dies. Does not that strike you?" + +"I cannot as yet see any connection." + +"Did you observe anything very peculiar about that bed?" + +"No." + +"It was clamped to the floor. Did you ever see a bed fastened +like that before?" + +"I cannot say that I have." + +"The lady could not move her bed. It must always be in the same +relative position to the ventilator and to the rope--or so we may +call it, since it was clearly never meant for a bell-pull." + +"Holmes," I cried, "I seem to see dimly what you are hinting at. +We are only just in time to prevent some subtle and horrible +crime." + +"Subtle enough and horrible enough. When a doctor does go wrong +he is the first of criminals. He has nerve and he has knowledge. +Palmer and Pritchard were among the heads of their profession. +This man strikes even deeper, but I think, Watson, that we shall +be able to strike deeper still. But we shall have horrors enough +before the night is over; for goodness' sake let us have a quiet +pipe and turn our minds for a few hours to something more +cheerful." + + +About nine o'clock the light among the trees was extinguished, +and all was dark in the direction of the Manor House. Two hours +passed slowly away, and then, suddenly, just at the stroke of +eleven, a single bright light shone out right in front of us. + +"That is our signal," said Holmes, springing to his feet; "it +comes from the middle window." + +As we passed out he exchanged a few words with the landlord, +explaining that we were going on a late visit to an acquaintance, +and that it was possible that we might spend the night there. A +moment later we were out on the dark road, a chill wind blowing +in our faces, and one yellow light twinkling in front of us +through the gloom to guide us on our sombre errand. + +There was little difficulty in entering the grounds, for +unrepaired breaches gaped in the old park wall. Making our way +among the trees, we reached the lawn, crossed it, and were about +to enter through the window when out from a clump of laurel +bushes there darted what seemed to be a hideous and distorted +child, who threw itself upon the grass with writhing limbs and +then ran swiftly across the lawn into the darkness. + +"My God!" I whispered; "did you see it?" + +Holmes was for the moment as startled as I. His hand closed like +a vice upon my wrist in his agitation. Then he broke into a low +laugh and put his lips to my ear. + +"It is a nice household," he murmured. "That is the baboon." + +I had forgotten the strange pets which the doctor affected. There +was a cheetah, too; perhaps we might find it upon our shoulders +at any moment. I confess that I felt easier in my mind when, +after following Holmes' example and slipping off my shoes, I +found myself inside the bedroom. My companion noiselessly closed +the shutters, moved the lamp onto the table, and cast his eyes +round the room. All was as we had seen it in the daytime. Then +creeping up to me and making a trumpet of his hand, he whispered +into my ear again so gently that it was all that I could do to +distinguish the words: + +"The least sound would be fatal to our plans." + +I nodded to show that I had heard. + +"We must sit without light. He would see it through the +ventilator." + +I nodded again. + +"Do not go asleep; your very life may depend upon it. Have your +pistol ready in case we should need it. I will sit on the side of +the bed, and you in that chair." + +I took out my revolver and laid it on the corner of the table. + +Holmes had brought up a long thin cane, and this he placed upon +the bed beside him. By it he laid the box of matches and the +stump of a candle. Then he turned down the lamp, and we were left +in darkness. + +How shall I ever forget that dreadful vigil? I could not hear a +sound, not even the drawing of a breath, and yet I knew that my +companion sat open-eyed, within a few feet of me, in the same +state of nervous tension in which I was myself. The shutters cut +off the least ray of light, and we waited in absolute darkness. + +From outside came the occasional cry of a night-bird, and once at +our very window a long drawn catlike whine, which told us that +the cheetah was indeed at liberty. Far away we could hear the +deep tones of the parish clock, which boomed out every quarter of +an hour. How long they seemed, those quarters! Twelve struck, and +one and two and three, and still we sat waiting silently for +whatever might befall. + +Suddenly there was the momentary gleam of a light up in the +direction of the ventilator, which vanished immediately, but was +succeeded by a strong smell of burning oil and heated metal. +Someone in the next room had lit a dark-lantern. I heard a gentle +sound of movement, and then all was silent once more, though the +smell grew stronger. For half an hour I sat with straining ears. +Then suddenly another sound became audible--a very gentle, +soothing sound, like that of a small jet of steam escaping +continually from a kettle. The instant that we heard it, Holmes +sprang from the bed, struck a match, and lashed furiously with +his cane at the bell-pull. + +"You see it, Watson?" he yelled. "You see it?" + +But I saw nothing. At the moment when Holmes struck the light I +heard a low, clear whistle, but the sudden glare flashing into my +weary eyes made it impossible for me to tell what it was at which +my friend lashed so savagely. I could, however, see that his face +was deadly pale and filled with horror and loathing. He had +ceased to strike and was gazing up at the ventilator when +suddenly there broke from the silence of the night the most +horrible cry to which I have ever listened. It swelled up louder +and louder, a hoarse yell of pain and fear and anger all mingled +in the one dreadful shriek. They say that away down in the +village, and even in the distant parsonage, that cry raised the +sleepers from their beds. It struck cold to our hearts, and I +stood gazing at Holmes, and he at me, until the last echoes of it +had died away into the silence from which it rose. + +"What can it mean?" I gasped. + +"It means that it is all over," Holmes answered. "And perhaps, +after all, it is for the best. Take your pistol, and we will +enter Dr. Roylott's room." + +With a grave face he lit the lamp and led the way down the +corridor. Twice he struck at the chamber door without any reply +from within. Then he turned the handle and entered, I at his +heels, with the cocked pistol in my hand. + +It was a singular sight which met our eyes. On the table stood a +dark-lantern with the shutter half open, throwing a brilliant +beam of light upon the iron safe, the door of which was ajar. +Beside this table, on the wooden chair, sat Dr. Grimesby Roylott +clad in a long grey dressing-gown, his bare ankles protruding +beneath, and his feet thrust into red heelless Turkish slippers. +Across his lap lay the short stock with the long lash which we +had noticed during the day. His chin was cocked upward and his +eyes were fixed in a dreadful, rigid stare at the corner of the +ceiling. Round his brow he had a peculiar yellow band, with +brownish speckles, which seemed to be bound tightly round his +head. As we entered he made neither sound nor motion. + +"The band! the speckled band!" whispered Holmes. + +I took a step forward. In an instant his strange headgear began +to move, and there reared itself from among his hair the squat +diamond-shaped head and puffed neck of a loathsome serpent. + +"It is a swamp adder!" cried Holmes; "the deadliest snake in +India. He has died within ten seconds of being bitten. Violence +does, in truth, recoil upon the violent, and the schemer falls +into the pit which he digs for another. Let us thrust this +creature back into its den, and we can then remove Miss Stoner to +some place of shelter and let the county police know what has +happened." + +As he spoke he drew the dog-whip swiftly from the dead man's lap, +and throwing the noose round the reptile's neck he drew it from +its horrid perch and, carrying it at arm's length, threw it into +the iron safe, which he closed upon it. + +Such are the true facts of the death of Dr. Grimesby Roylott, of +Stoke Moran. It is not necessary that I should prolong a +narrative which has already run to too great a length by telling +how we broke the sad news to the terrified girl, how we conveyed +her by the morning train to the care of her good aunt at Harrow, +of how the slow process of official inquiry came to the +conclusion that the doctor met his fate while indiscreetly +playing with a dangerous pet. The little which I had yet to learn +of the case was told me by Sherlock Holmes as we travelled back +next day. + +"I had," said he, "come to an entirely erroneous conclusion which +shows, my dear Watson, how dangerous it always is to reason from +insufficient data. The presence of the gipsies, and the use of +the word 'band,' which was used by the poor girl, no doubt, to +explain the appearance which she had caught a hurried glimpse of +by the light of her match, were sufficient to put me upon an +entirely wrong scent. I can only claim the merit that I instantly +reconsidered my position when, however, it became clear to me +that whatever danger threatened an occupant of the room could not +come either from the window or the door. My attention was +speedily drawn, as I have already remarked to you, to this +ventilator, and to the bell-rope which hung down to the bed. The +discovery that this was a dummy, and that the bed was clamped to +the floor, instantly gave rise to the suspicion that the rope was +there as a bridge for something passing through the hole and +coming to the bed. The idea of a snake instantly occurred to me, +and when I coupled it with my knowledge that the doctor was +furnished with a supply of creatures from India, I felt that I +was probably on the right track. The idea of using a form of +poison which could not possibly be discovered by any chemical +test was just such a one as would occur to a clever and ruthless +man who had had an Eastern training. The rapidity with which such +a poison would take effect would also, from his point of view, be +an advantage. It would be a sharp-eyed coroner, indeed, who could +distinguish the two little dark punctures which would show where +the poison fangs had done their work. Then I thought of the +whistle. Of course he must recall the snake before the morning +light revealed it to the victim. He had trained it, probably by +the use of the milk which we saw, to return to him when summoned. +He would put it through this ventilator at the hour that he +thought best, with the certainty that it would crawl down the +rope and land on the bed. It might or might not bite the +occupant, perhaps she might escape every night for a week, but +sooner or later she must fall a victim. + +"I had come to these conclusions before ever I had entered his +room. An inspection of his chair showed me that he had been in +the habit of standing on it, which of course would be necessary +in order that he should reach the ventilator. The sight of the +safe, the saucer of milk, and the loop of whipcord were enough to +finally dispel any doubts which may have remained. The metallic +clang heard by Miss Stoner was obviously caused by her stepfather +hastily closing the door of his safe upon its terrible occupant. +Having once made up my mind, you know the steps which I took in +order to put the matter to the proof. I heard the creature hiss +as I have no doubt that you did also, and I instantly lit the +light and attacked it." + +"With the result of driving it through the ventilator." + +"And also with the result of causing it to turn upon its master +at the other side. Some of the blows of my cane came home and +roused its snakish temper, so that it flew upon the first person +it saw. In this way I am no doubt indirectly responsible for Dr. +Grimesby Roylott's death, and I cannot say that it is likely to +weigh very heavily upon my conscience." + + + +IX. THE ADVENTURE OF THE ENGINEER'S THUMB + +Of all the problems which have been submitted to my friend, Mr. +Sherlock Holmes, for solution during the years of our intimacy, +there were only two which I was the means of introducing to his +notice--that of Mr. Hatherley's thumb, and that of Colonel +Warburton's madness. Of these the latter may have afforded a +finer field for an acute and original observer, but the other was +so strange in its inception and so dramatic in its details that +it may be the more worthy of being placed upon record, even if it +gave my friend fewer openings for those deductive methods of +reasoning by which he achieved such remarkable results. The story +has, I believe, been told more than once in the newspapers, but, +like all such narratives, its effect is much less striking when +set forth en bloc in a single half-column of print than when the +facts slowly evolve before your own eyes, and the mystery clears +gradually away as each new discovery furnishes a step which leads +on to the complete truth. At the time the circumstances made a +deep impression upon me, and the lapse of two years has hardly +served to weaken the effect. + +It was in the summer of '89, not long after my marriage, that the +events occurred which I am now about to summarise. I had returned +to civil practice and had finally abandoned Holmes in his Baker +Street rooms, although I continually visited him and occasionally +even persuaded him to forgo his Bohemian habits so far as to come +and visit us. My practice had steadily increased, and as I +happened to live at no very great distance from Paddington +Station, I got a few patients from among the officials. One of +these, whom I had cured of a painful and lingering disease, was +never weary of advertising my virtues and of endeavouring to send +me on every sufferer over whom he might have any influence. + +One morning, at a little before seven o'clock, I was awakened by +the maid tapping at the door to announce that two men had come +from Paddington and were waiting in the consulting-room. I +dressed hurriedly, for I knew by experience that railway cases +were seldom trivial, and hastened downstairs. As I descended, my +old ally, the guard, came out of the room and closed the door +tightly behind him. + +"I've got him here," he whispered, jerking his thumb over his +shoulder; "he's all right." + +"What is it, then?" I asked, for his manner suggested that it was +some strange creature which he had caged up in my room. + +"It's a new patient," he whispered. "I thought I'd bring him +round myself; then he couldn't slip away. There he is, all safe +and sound. I must go now, Doctor; I have my dooties, just the +same as you." And off he went, this trusty tout, without even +giving me time to thank him. + +I entered my consulting-room and found a gentleman seated by the +table. He was quietly dressed in a suit of heather tweed with a +soft cloth cap which he had laid down upon my books. Round one of +his hands he had a handkerchief wrapped, which was mottled all +over with bloodstains. He was young, not more than +five-and-twenty, I should say, with a strong, masculine face; but +he was exceedingly pale and gave me the impression of a man who +was suffering from some strong agitation, which it took all his +strength of mind to control. + +"I am sorry to knock you up so early, Doctor," said he, "but I +have had a very serious accident during the night. I came in by +train this morning, and on inquiring at Paddington as to where I +might find a doctor, a worthy fellow very kindly escorted me +here. I gave the maid a card, but I see that she has left it upon +the side-table." + +I took it up and glanced at it. "Mr. Victor Hatherley, hydraulic +engineer, 16A, Victoria Street (3rd floor)." That was the name, +style, and abode of my morning visitor. "I regret that I have +kept you waiting," said I, sitting down in my library-chair. "You +are fresh from a night journey, I understand, which is in itself +a monotonous occupation." + +"Oh, my night could not be called monotonous," said he, and +laughed. He laughed very heartily, with a high, ringing note, +leaning back in his chair and shaking his sides. All my medical +instincts rose up against that laugh. + +"Stop it!" I cried; "pull yourself together!" and I poured out +some water from a caraffe. + +It was useless, however. He was off in one of those hysterical +outbursts which come upon a strong nature when some great crisis +is over and gone. Presently he came to himself once more, very +weary and pale-looking. + +"I have been making a fool of myself," he gasped. + +"Not at all. Drink this." I dashed some brandy into the water, +and the colour began to come back to his bloodless cheeks. + +"That's better!" said he. "And now, Doctor, perhaps you would +kindly attend to my thumb, or rather to the place where my thumb +used to be." + +He unwound the handkerchief and held out his hand. It gave even +my hardened nerves a shudder to look at it. There were four +protruding fingers and a horrid red, spongy surface where the +thumb should have been. It had been hacked or torn right out from +the roots. + +"Good heavens!" I cried, "this is a terrible injury. It must have +bled considerably." + +"Yes, it did. I fainted when it was done, and I think that I must +have been senseless for a long time. When I came to I found that +it was still bleeding, so I tied one end of my handkerchief very +tightly round the wrist and braced it up with a twig." + +"Excellent! You should have been a surgeon." + +"It is a question of hydraulics, you see, and came within my own +province." + +"This has been done," said I, examining the wound, "by a very +heavy and sharp instrument." + +"A thing like a cleaver," said he. + +"An accident, I presume?" + +"By no means." + +"What! a murderous attack?" + +"Very murderous indeed." + +"You horrify me." + +I sponged the wound, cleaned it, dressed it, and finally covered +it over with cotton wadding and carbolised bandages. He lay back +without wincing, though he bit his lip from time to time. + +"How is that?" I asked when I had finished. + +"Capital! Between your brandy and your bandage, I feel a new man. +I was very weak, but I have had a good deal to go through." + +"Perhaps you had better not speak of the matter. It is evidently +trying to your nerves." + +"Oh, no, not now. I shall have to tell my tale to the police; +but, between ourselves, if it were not for the convincing +evidence of this wound of mine, I should be surprised if they +believed my statement, for it is a very extraordinary one, and I +have not much in the way of proof with which to back it up; and, +even if they believe me, the clues which I can give them are so +vague that it is a question whether justice will be done." + +"Ha!" cried I, "if it is anything in the nature of a problem +which you desire to see solved, I should strongly recommend you +to come to my friend, Mr. Sherlock Holmes, before you go to the +official police." + +"Oh, I have heard of that fellow," answered my visitor, "and I +should be very glad if he would take the matter up, though of +course I must use the official police as well. Would you give me +an introduction to him?" + +"I'll do better. I'll take you round to him myself." + +"I should be immensely obliged to you." + +"We'll call a cab and go together. We shall just be in time to +have a little breakfast with him. Do you feel equal to it?" + +"Yes; I shall not feel easy until I have told my story." + +"Then my servant will call a cab, and I shall be with you in an +instant." I rushed upstairs, explained the matter shortly to my +wife, and in five minutes was inside a hansom, driving with my +new acquaintance to Baker Street. + +Sherlock Holmes was, as I expected, lounging about his +sitting-room in his dressing-gown, reading the agony column of The +Times and smoking his before-breakfast pipe, which was composed +of all the plugs and dottles left from his smokes of the day +before, all carefully dried and collected on the corner of the +mantelpiece. He received us in his quietly genial fashion, +ordered fresh rashers and eggs, and joined us in a hearty meal. +When it was concluded he settled our new acquaintance upon the +sofa, placed a pillow beneath his head, and laid a glass of +brandy and water within his reach. + +"It is easy to see that your experience has been no common one, +Mr. Hatherley," said he. "Pray, lie down there and make yourself +absolutely at home. Tell us what you can, but stop when you are +tired and keep up your strength with a little stimulant." + +"Thank you," said my patient, "but I have felt another man since +the doctor bandaged me, and I think that your breakfast has +completed the cure. I shall take up as little of your valuable +time as possible, so I shall start at once upon my peculiar +experiences." + +Holmes sat in his big armchair with the weary, heavy-lidded +expression which veiled his keen and eager nature, while I sat +opposite to him, and we listened in silence to the strange story +which our visitor detailed to us. + +"You must know," said he, "that I am an orphan and a bachelor, +residing alone in lodgings in London. By profession I am a +hydraulic engineer, and I have had considerable experience of my +work during the seven years that I was apprenticed to Venner & +Matheson, the well-known firm, of Greenwich. Two years ago, +having served my time, and having also come into a fair sum of +money through my poor father's death, I determined to start in +business for myself and took professional chambers in Victoria +Street. + +"I suppose that everyone finds his first independent start in +business a dreary experience. To me it has been exceptionally so. +During two years I have had three consultations and one small +job, and that is absolutely all that my profession has brought +me. My gross takings amount to 27 pounds 10s. Every day, from +nine in the morning until four in the afternoon, I waited in my +little den, until at last my heart began to sink, and I came to +believe that I should never have any practice at all. + +"Yesterday, however, just as I was thinking of leaving the +office, my clerk entered to say there was a gentleman waiting who +wished to see me upon business. He brought up a card, too, with +the name of 'Colonel Lysander Stark' engraved upon it. Close at +his heels came the colonel himself, a man rather over the middle +size, but of an exceeding thinness. I do not think that I have +ever seen so thin a man. His whole face sharpened away into nose +and chin, and the skin of his cheeks was drawn quite tense over +his outstanding bones. Yet this emaciation seemed to be his +natural habit, and due to no disease, for his eye was bright, his +step brisk, and his bearing assured. He was plainly but neatly +dressed, and his age, I should judge, would be nearer forty than +thirty. + +"'Mr. Hatherley?' said he, with something of a German accent. +'You have been recommended to me, Mr. Hatherley, as being a man +who is not only proficient in his profession but is also discreet +and capable of preserving a secret.' + +"I bowed, feeling as flattered as any young man would at such an +address. 'May I ask who it was who gave me so good a character?' + +"'Well, perhaps it is better that I should not tell you that just +at this moment. I have it from the same source that you are both +an orphan and a bachelor and are residing alone in London.' + +"'That is quite correct,' I answered; 'but you will excuse me if +I say that I cannot see how all this bears upon my professional +qualifications. I understand that it was on a professional matter +that you wished to speak to me?' + +"'Undoubtedly so. But you will find that all I say is really to +the point. I have a professional commission for you, but absolute +secrecy is quite essential--absolute secrecy, you understand, and +of course we may expect that more from a man who is alone than +from one who lives in the bosom of his family.' + +"'If I promise to keep a secret,' said I, 'you may absolutely +depend upon my doing so.' + +"He looked very hard at me as I spoke, and it seemed to me that I +had never seen so suspicious and questioning an eye. + +"'Do you promise, then?' said he at last. + +"'Yes, I promise.' + +"'Absolute and complete silence before, during, and after? No +reference to the matter at all, either in word or writing?' + +"'I have already given you my word.' + +"'Very good.' He suddenly sprang up, and darting like lightning +across the room he flung open the door. The passage outside was +empty. + +"'That's all right,' said he, coming back. 'I know that clerks are +sometimes curious as to their master's affairs. Now we can talk +in safety.' He drew up his chair very close to mine and began to +stare at me again with the same questioning and thoughtful look. + +"A feeling of repulsion, and of something akin to fear had begun +to rise within me at the strange antics of this fleshless man. +Even my dread of losing a client could not restrain me from +showing my impatience. + +"'I beg that you will state your business, sir,' said I; 'my time +is of value.' Heaven forgive me for that last sentence, but the +words came to my lips. + +"'How would fifty guineas for a night's work suit you?' he asked. + +"'Most admirably.' + +"'I say a night's work, but an hour's would be nearer the mark. I +simply want your opinion about a hydraulic stamping machine which +has got out of gear. If you show us what is wrong we shall soon +set it right ourselves. What do you think of such a commission as +that?' + +"'The work appears to be light and the pay munificent.' + +"'Precisely so. We shall want you to come to-night by the last +train.' + +"'Where to?' + +"'To Eyford, in Berkshire. It is a little place near the borders +of Oxfordshire, and within seven miles of Reading. There is a +train from Paddington which would bring you there at about +11:15.' + +"'Very good.' + +"'I shall come down in a carriage to meet you.' + +"'There is a drive, then?' + +"'Yes, our little place is quite out in the country. It is a good +seven miles from Eyford Station.' + +"'Then we can hardly get there before midnight. I suppose there +would be no chance of a train back. I should be compelled to stop +the night.' + +"'Yes, we could easily give you a shake-down.' + +"'That is very awkward. Could I not come at some more convenient +hour?' + +"'We have judged it best that you should come late. It is to +recompense you for any inconvenience that we are paying to you, a +young and unknown man, a fee which would buy an opinion from the +very heads of your profession. Still, of course, if you would +like to draw out of the business, there is plenty of time to do +so.' + +"I thought of the fifty guineas, and of how very useful they +would be to me. 'Not at all,' said I, 'I shall be very happy to +accommodate myself to your wishes. I should like, however, to +understand a little more clearly what it is that you wish me to +do.' + +"'Quite so. It is very natural that the pledge of secrecy which +we have exacted from you should have aroused your curiosity. I +have no wish to commit you to anything without your having it all +laid before you. I suppose that we are absolutely safe from +eavesdroppers?' + +"'Entirely.' + +"'Then the matter stands thus. You are probably aware that +fuller's-earth is a valuable product, and that it is only found +in one or two places in England?' + +"'I have heard so.' + +"'Some little time ago I bought a small place--a very small +place--within ten miles of Reading. I was fortunate enough to +discover that there was a deposit of fuller's-earth in one of my +fields. On examining it, however, I found that this deposit was a +comparatively small one, and that it formed a link between two +very much larger ones upon the right and left--both of them, +however, in the grounds of my neighbours. These good people were +absolutely ignorant that their land contained that which was +quite as valuable as a gold-mine. Naturally, it was to my +interest to buy their land before they discovered its true value, +but unfortunately I had no capital by which I could do this. I +took a few of my friends into the secret, however, and they +suggested that we should quietly and secretly work our own little +deposit and that in this way we should earn the money which would +enable us to buy the neighbouring fields. This we have now been +doing for some time, and in order to help us in our operations we +erected a hydraulic press. This press, as I have already +explained, has got out of order, and we wish your advice upon the +subject. We guard our secret very jealously, however, and if it +once became known that we had hydraulic engineers coming to our +little house, it would soon rouse inquiry, and then, if the facts +came out, it would be good-bye to any chance of getting these +fields and carrying out our plans. That is why I have made you +promise me that you will not tell a human being that you are +going to Eyford to-night. I hope that I make it all plain?' + +"'I quite follow you,' said I. 'The only point which I could not +quite understand was what use you could make of a hydraulic press +in excavating fuller's-earth, which, as I understand, is dug out +like gravel from a pit.' + +"'Ah!' said he carelessly, 'we have our own process. We compress +the earth into bricks, so as to remove them without revealing +what they are. But that is a mere detail. I have taken you fully +into my confidence now, Mr. Hatherley, and I have shown you how I +trust you.' He rose as he spoke. 'I shall expect you, then, at +Eyford at 11:15.' + +"'I shall certainly be there.' + +"'And not a word to a soul.' He looked at me with a last long, +questioning gaze, and then, pressing my hand in a cold, dank +grasp, he hurried from the room. + +"Well, when I came to think it all over in cool blood I was very +much astonished, as you may both think, at this sudden commission +which had been intrusted to me. On the one hand, of course, I was +glad, for the fee was at least tenfold what I should have asked +had I set a price upon my own services, and it was possible that +this order might lead to other ones. On the other hand, the face +and manner of my patron had made an unpleasant impression upon +me, and I could not think that his explanation of the +fuller's-earth was sufficient to explain the necessity for my +coming at midnight, and his extreme anxiety lest I should tell +anyone of my errand. However, I threw all fears to the winds, ate +a hearty supper, drove to Paddington, and started off, having +obeyed to the letter the injunction as to holding my tongue. + +"At Reading I had to change not only my carriage but my station. +However, I was in time for the last train to Eyford, and I +reached the little dim-lit station after eleven o'clock. I was the +only passenger who got out there, and there was no one upon the +platform save a single sleepy porter with a lantern. As I passed +out through the wicket gate, however, I found my acquaintance of +the morning waiting in the shadow upon the other side. Without a +word he grasped my arm and hurried me into a carriage, the door +of which was standing open. He drew up the windows on either +side, tapped on the wood-work, and away we went as fast as the +horse could go." + +"One horse?" interjected Holmes. + +"Yes, only one." + +"Did you observe the colour?" + +"Yes, I saw it by the side-lights when I was stepping into the +carriage. It was a chestnut." + +"Tired-looking or fresh?" + +"Oh, fresh and glossy." + +"Thank you. I am sorry to have interrupted you. Pray continue +your most interesting statement." + +"Away we went then, and we drove for at least an hour. Colonel +Lysander Stark had said that it was only seven miles, but I +should think, from the rate that we seemed to go, and from the +time that we took, that it must have been nearer twelve. He sat +at my side in silence all the time, and I was aware, more than +once when I glanced in his direction, that he was looking at me +with great intensity. The country roads seem to be not very good +in that part of the world, for we lurched and jolted terribly. I +tried to look out of the windows to see something of where we +were, but they were made of frosted glass, and I could make out +nothing save the occasional bright blur of a passing light. Now +and then I hazarded some remark to break the monotony of the +journey, but the colonel answered only in monosyllables, and the +conversation soon flagged. At last, however, the bumping of the +road was exchanged for the crisp smoothness of a gravel-drive, +and the carriage came to a stand. Colonel Lysander Stark sprang +out, and, as I followed after him, pulled me swiftly into a porch +which gaped in front of us. We stepped, as it were, right out of +the carriage and into the hall, so that I failed to catch the +most fleeting glance of the front of the house. The instant that +I had crossed the threshold the door slammed heavily behind us, +and I heard faintly the rattle of the wheels as the carriage +drove away. + +"It was pitch dark inside the house, and the colonel fumbled +about looking for matches and muttering under his breath. +Suddenly a door opened at the other end of the passage, and a +long, golden bar of light shot out in our direction. It grew +broader, and a woman appeared with a lamp in her hand, which she +held above her head, pushing her face forward and peering at us. +I could see that she was pretty, and from the gloss with which +the light shone upon her dark dress I knew that it was a rich +material. She spoke a few words in a foreign tongue in a tone as +though asking a question, and when my companion answered in a +gruff monosyllable she gave such a start that the lamp nearly +fell from her hand. Colonel Stark went up to her, whispered +something in her ear, and then, pushing her back into the room +from whence she had come, he walked towards me again with the +lamp in his hand. + +"'Perhaps you will have the kindness to wait in this room for a +few minutes,' said he, throwing open another door. It was a +quiet, little, plainly furnished room, with a round table in the +centre, on which several German books were scattered. Colonel +Stark laid down the lamp on the top of a harmonium beside the +door. 'I shall not keep you waiting an instant,' said he, and +vanished into the darkness. + +"I glanced at the books upon the table, and in spite of my +ignorance of German I could see that two of them were treatises +on science, the others being volumes of poetry. Then I walked +across to the window, hoping that I might catch some glimpse of +the country-side, but an oak shutter, heavily barred, was folded +across it. It was a wonderfully silent house. There was an old +clock ticking loudly somewhere in the passage, but otherwise +everything was deadly still. A vague feeling of uneasiness began +to steal over me. Who were these German people, and what were +they doing living in this strange, out-of-the-way place? And +where was the place? I was ten miles or so from Eyford, that was +all I knew, but whether north, south, east, or west I had no +idea. For that matter, Reading, and possibly other large towns, +were within that radius, so the place might not be so secluded, +after all. Yet it was quite certain, from the absolute stillness, +that we were in the country. I paced up and down the room, +humming a tune under my breath to keep up my spirits and feeling +that I was thoroughly earning my fifty-guinea fee. + +"Suddenly, without any preliminary sound in the midst of the +utter stillness, the door of my room swung slowly open. The woman +was standing in the aperture, the darkness of the hall behind +her, the yellow light from my lamp beating upon her eager and +beautiful face. I could see at a glance that she was sick with +fear, and the sight sent a chill to my own heart. She held up one +shaking finger to warn me to be silent, and she shot a few +whispered words of broken English at me, her eyes glancing back, +like those of a frightened horse, into the gloom behind her. + +"'I would go,' said she, trying hard, as it seemed to me, to +speak calmly; 'I would go. I should not stay here. There is no +good for you to do.' + +"'But, madam,' said I, 'I have not yet done what I came for. I +cannot possibly leave until I have seen the machine.' + +"'It is not worth your while to wait,' she went on. 'You can pass +through the door; no one hinders.' And then, seeing that I smiled +and shook my head, she suddenly threw aside her constraint and +made a step forward, with her hands wrung together. 'For the love +of Heaven!' she whispered, 'get away from here before it is too +late!' + +"But I am somewhat headstrong by nature, and the more ready to +engage in an affair when there is some obstacle in the way. I +thought of my fifty-guinea fee, of my wearisome journey, and of +the unpleasant night which seemed to be before me. Was it all to +go for nothing? Why should I slink away without having carried +out my commission, and without the payment which was my due? This +woman might, for all I knew, be a monomaniac. With a stout +bearing, therefore, though her manner had shaken me more than I +cared to confess, I still shook my head and declared my intention +of remaining where I was. She was about to renew her entreaties +when a door slammed overhead, and the sound of several footsteps +was heard upon the stairs. She listened for an instant, threw up +her hands with a despairing gesture, and vanished as suddenly and +as noiselessly as she had come. + +"The newcomers were Colonel Lysander Stark and a short thick man +with a chinchilla beard growing out of the creases of his double +chin, who was introduced to me as Mr. Ferguson. + +"'This is my secretary and manager,' said the colonel. 'By the +way, I was under the impression that I left this door shut just +now. I fear that you have felt the draught.' + +"'On the contrary,' said I, 'I opened the door myself because I +felt the room to be a little close.' + +"He shot one of his suspicious looks at me. 'Perhaps we had +better proceed to business, then,' said he. 'Mr. Ferguson and I +will take you up to see the machine.' + +"'I had better put my hat on, I suppose.' + +"'Oh, no, it is in the house.' + +"'What, you dig fuller's-earth in the house?' + +"'No, no. This is only where we compress it. But never mind that. +All we wish you to do is to examine the machine and to let us +know what is wrong with it.' + +"We went upstairs together, the colonel first with the lamp, the +fat manager and I behind him. It was a labyrinth of an old house, +with corridors, passages, narrow winding staircases, and little +low doors, the thresholds of which were hollowed out by the +generations who had crossed them. There were no carpets and no +signs of any furniture above the ground floor, while the plaster +was peeling off the walls, and the damp was breaking through in +green, unhealthy blotches. I tried to put on as unconcerned an +air as possible, but I had not forgotten the warnings of the +lady, even though I disregarded them, and I kept a keen eye upon +my two companions. Ferguson appeared to be a morose and silent +man, but I could see from the little that he said that he was at +least a fellow-countryman. + +"Colonel Lysander Stark stopped at last before a low door, which +he unlocked. Within was a small, square room, in which the three +of us could hardly get at one time. Ferguson remained outside, +and the colonel ushered me in. + +"'We are now,' said he, 'actually within the hydraulic press, and +it would be a particularly unpleasant thing for us if anyone were +to turn it on. The ceiling of this small chamber is really the +end of the descending piston, and it comes down with the force of +many tons upon this metal floor. There are small lateral columns +of water outside which receive the force, and which transmit and +multiply it in the manner which is familiar to you. The machine +goes readily enough, but there is some stiffness in the working +of it, and it has lost a little of its force. Perhaps you will +have the goodness to look it over and to show us how we can set +it right.' + +"I took the lamp from him, and I examined the machine very +thoroughly. It was indeed a gigantic one, and capable of +exercising enormous pressure. When I passed outside, however, and +pressed down the levers which controlled it, I knew at once by +the whishing sound that there was a slight leakage, which allowed +a regurgitation of water through one of the side cylinders. An +examination showed that one of the india-rubber bands which was +round the head of a driving-rod had shrunk so as not quite to +fill the socket along which it worked. This was clearly the cause +of the loss of power, and I pointed it out to my companions, who +followed my remarks very carefully and asked several practical +questions as to how they should proceed to set it right. When I +had made it clear to them, I returned to the main chamber of the +machine and took a good look at it to satisfy my own curiosity. +It was obvious at a glance that the story of the fuller's-earth +was the merest fabrication, for it would be absurd to suppose +that so powerful an engine could be designed for so inadequate a +purpose. The walls were of wood, but the floor consisted of a +large iron trough, and when I came to examine it I could see a +crust of metallic deposit all over it. I had stooped and was +scraping at this to see exactly what it was when I heard a +muttered exclamation in German and saw the cadaverous face of the +colonel looking down at me. + +"'What are you doing there?' he asked. + +"I felt angry at having been tricked by so elaborate a story as +that which he had told me. 'I was admiring your fuller's-earth,' +said I; 'I think that I should be better able to advise you as to +your machine if I knew what the exact purpose was for which it +was used.' + +"The instant that I uttered the words I regretted the rashness of +my speech. His face set hard, and a baleful light sprang up in +his grey eyes. + +"'Very well,' said he, 'you shall know all about the machine.' He +took a step backward, slammed the little door, and turned the key +in the lock. I rushed towards it and pulled at the handle, but it +was quite secure, and did not give in the least to my kicks and +shoves. 'Hullo!' I yelled. 'Hullo! Colonel! Let me out!' + +"And then suddenly in the silence I heard a sound which sent my +heart into my mouth. It was the clank of the levers and the swish +of the leaking cylinder. He had set the engine at work. The lamp +still stood upon the floor where I had placed it when examining +the trough. By its light I saw that the black ceiling was coming +down upon me, slowly, jerkily, but, as none knew better than +myself, with a force which must within a minute grind me to a +shapeless pulp. I threw myself, screaming, against the door, and +dragged with my nails at the lock. I implored the colonel to let +me out, but the remorseless clanking of the levers drowned my +cries. The ceiling was only a foot or two above my head, and with +my hand upraised I could feel its hard, rough surface. Then it +flashed through my mind that the pain of my death would depend +very much upon the position in which I met it. If I lay on my +face the weight would come upon my spine, and I shuddered to +think of that dreadful snap. Easier the other way, perhaps; and +yet, had I the nerve to lie and look up at that deadly black +shadow wavering down upon me? Already I was unable to stand +erect, when my eye caught something which brought a gush of hope +back to my heart. + +"I have said that though the floor and ceiling were of iron, the +walls were of wood. As I gave a last hurried glance around, I saw +a thin line of yellow light between two of the boards, which +broadened and broadened as a small panel was pushed backward. For +an instant I could hardly believe that here was indeed a door +which led away from death. The next instant I threw myself +through, and lay half-fainting upon the other side. The panel had +closed again behind me, but the crash of the lamp, and a few +moments afterwards the clang of the two slabs of metal, told me +how narrow had been my escape. + +"I was recalled to myself by a frantic plucking at my wrist, and +I found myself lying upon the stone floor of a narrow corridor, +while a woman bent over me and tugged at me with her left hand, +while she held a candle in her right. It was the same good friend +whose warning I had so foolishly rejected. + +"'Come! come!' she cried breathlessly. 'They will be here in a +moment. They will see that you are not there. Oh, do not waste +the so-precious time, but come!' + +"This time, at least, I did not scorn her advice. I staggered to +my feet and ran with her along the corridor and down a winding +stair. The latter led to another broad passage, and just as we +reached it we heard the sound of running feet and the shouting of +two voices, one answering the other from the floor on which we +were and from the one beneath. My guide stopped and looked about +her like one who is at her wit's end. Then she threw open a door +which led into a bedroom, through the window of which the moon +was shining brightly. + +"'It is your only chance,' said she. 'It is high, but it may be +that you can jump it.' + +"As she spoke a light sprang into view at the further end of the +passage, and I saw the lean figure of Colonel Lysander Stark +rushing forward with a lantern in one hand and a weapon like a +butcher's cleaver in the other. I rushed across the bedroom, +flung open the window, and looked out. How quiet and sweet and +wholesome the garden looked in the moonlight, and it could not be +more than thirty feet down. I clambered out upon the sill, but I +hesitated to jump until I should have heard what passed between +my saviour and the ruffian who pursued me. If she were ill-used, +then at any risks I was determined to go back to her assistance. +The thought had hardly flashed through my mind before he was at +the door, pushing his way past her; but she threw her arms round +him and tried to hold him back. + +"'Fritz! Fritz!' she cried in English, 'remember your promise +after the last time. You said it should not be again. He will be +silent! Oh, he will be silent!' + +"'You are mad, Elise!' he shouted, struggling to break away from +her. 'You will be the ruin of us. He has seen too much. Let me +pass, I say!' He dashed her to one side, and, rushing to the +window, cut at me with his heavy weapon. I had let myself go, and +was hanging by the hands to the sill, when his blow fell. I was +conscious of a dull pain, my grip loosened, and I fell into the +garden below. + +"I was shaken but not hurt by the fall; so I picked myself up and +rushed off among the bushes as hard as I could run, for I +understood that I was far from being out of danger yet. Suddenly, +however, as I ran, a deadly dizziness and sickness came over me. +I glanced down at my hand, which was throbbing painfully, and +then, for the first time, saw that my thumb had been cut off and +that the blood was pouring from my wound. I endeavoured to tie my +handkerchief round it, but there came a sudden buzzing in my +ears, and next moment I fell in a dead faint among the +rose-bushes. + +"How long I remained unconscious I cannot tell. It must have been +a very long time, for the moon had sunk, and a bright morning was +breaking when I came to myself. My clothes were all sodden with +dew, and my coat-sleeve was drenched with blood from my wounded +thumb. The smarting of it recalled in an instant all the +particulars of my night's adventure, and I sprang to my feet with +the feeling that I might hardly yet be safe from my pursuers. But +to my astonishment, when I came to look round me, neither house +nor garden were to be seen. I had been lying in an angle of the +hedge close by the highroad, and just a little lower down was a +long building, which proved, upon my approaching it, to be the +very station at which I had arrived upon the previous night. Were +it not for the ugly wound upon my hand, all that had passed +during those dreadful hours might have been an evil dream. + +"Half dazed, I went into the station and asked about the morning +train. There would be one to Reading in less than an hour. The +same porter was on duty, I found, as had been there when I +arrived. I inquired of him whether he had ever heard of Colonel +Lysander Stark. The name was strange to him. Had he observed a +carriage the night before waiting for me? No, he had not. Was +there a police-station anywhere near? There was one about three +miles off. + +"It was too far for me to go, weak and ill as I was. I determined +to wait until I got back to town before telling my story to the +police. It was a little past six when I arrived, so I went first +to have my wound dressed, and then the doctor was kind enough to +bring me along here. I put the case into your hands and shall do +exactly what you advise." + +We both sat in silence for some little time after listening to +this extraordinary narrative. Then Sherlock Holmes pulled down +from the shelf one of the ponderous commonplace books in which he +placed his cuttings. + +"Here is an advertisement which will interest you," said he. "It +appeared in all the papers about a year ago. Listen to this: +'Lost, on the 9th inst., Mr. Jeremiah Hayling, aged +twenty-six, a hydraulic engineer. Left his lodgings at ten +o'clock at night, and has not been heard of since. Was +dressed in,' etc., etc. Ha! That represents the last time that +the colonel needed to have his machine overhauled, I fancy." + +"Good heavens!" cried my patient. "Then that explains what the +girl said." + +"Undoubtedly. It is quite clear that the colonel was a cool and +desperate man, who was absolutely determined that nothing should +stand in the way of his little game, like those out-and-out +pirates who will leave no survivor from a captured ship. Well, +every moment now is precious, so if you feel equal to it we shall +go down to Scotland Yard at once as a preliminary to starting for +Eyford." + +Some three hours or so afterwards we were all in the train +together, bound from Reading to the little Berkshire village. +There were Sherlock Holmes, the hydraulic engineer, Inspector +Bradstreet, of Scotland Yard, a plain-clothes man, and myself. +Bradstreet had spread an ordnance map of the county out upon the +seat and was busy with his compasses drawing a circle with Eyford +for its centre. + +"There you are," said he. "That circle is drawn at a radius of +ten miles from the village. The place we want must be somewhere +near that line. You said ten miles, I think, sir." + +"It was an hour's good drive." + +"And you think that they brought you back all that way when you +were unconscious?" + +"They must have done so. I have a confused memory, too, of having +been lifted and conveyed somewhere." + +"What I cannot understand," said I, "is why they should have +spared you when they found you lying fainting in the garden. +Perhaps the villain was softened by the woman's entreaties." + +"I hardly think that likely. I never saw a more inexorable face +in my life." + +"Oh, we shall soon clear up all that," said Bradstreet. "Well, I +have drawn my circle, and I only wish I knew at what point upon +it the folk that we are in search of are to be found." + +"I think I could lay my finger on it," said Holmes quietly. + +"Really, now!" cried the inspector, "you have formed your +opinion! Come, now, we shall see who agrees with you. I say it is +south, for the country is more deserted there." + +"And I say east," said my patient. + +"I am for west," remarked the plain-clothes man. "There are +several quiet little villages up there." + +"And I am for north," said I, "because there are no hills there, +and our friend says that he did not notice the carriage go up +any." + +"Come," cried the inspector, laughing; "it's a very pretty +diversity of opinion. We have boxed the compass among us. Who do +you give your casting vote to?" + +"You are all wrong." + +"But we can't all be." + +"Oh, yes, you can. This is my point." He placed his finger in the +centre of the circle. "This is where we shall find them." + +"But the twelve-mile drive?" gasped Hatherley. + +"Six out and six back. Nothing simpler. You say yourself that the +horse was fresh and glossy when you got in. How could it be that +if it had gone twelve miles over heavy roads?" + +"Indeed, it is a likely ruse enough," observed Bradstreet +thoughtfully. "Of course there can be no doubt as to the nature +of this gang." + +"None at all," said Holmes. "They are coiners on a large scale, +and have used the machine to form the amalgam which has taken the +place of silver." + +"We have known for some time that a clever gang was at work," +said the inspector. "They have been turning out half-crowns by +the thousand. We even traced them as far as Reading, but could +get no farther, for they had covered their traces in a way that +showed that they were very old hands. But now, thanks to this +lucky chance, I think that we have got them right enough." + +But the inspector was mistaken, for those criminals were not +destined to fall into the hands of justice. As we rolled into +Eyford Station we saw a gigantic column of smoke which streamed +up from behind a small clump of trees in the neighbourhood and +hung like an immense ostrich feather over the landscape. + +"A house on fire?" asked Bradstreet as the train steamed off +again on its way. + +"Yes, sir!" said the station-master. + +"When did it break out?" + +"I hear that it was during the night, sir, but it has got worse, +and the whole place is in a blaze." + +"Whose house is it?" + +"Dr. Becher's." + +"Tell me," broke in the engineer, "is Dr. Becher a German, very +thin, with a long, sharp nose?" + +The station-master laughed heartily. "No, sir, Dr. Becher is an +Englishman, and there isn't a man in the parish who has a +better-lined waistcoat. But he has a gentleman staying with him, +a patient, as I understand, who is a foreigner, and he looks as +if a little good Berkshire beef would do him no harm." + +The station-master had not finished his speech before we were all +hastening in the direction of the fire. The road topped a low +hill, and there was a great widespread whitewashed building in +front of us, spouting fire at every chink and window, while in +the garden in front three fire-engines were vainly striving to +keep the flames under. + +"That's it!" cried Hatherley, in intense excitement. "There is +the gravel-drive, and there are the rose-bushes where I lay. That +second window is the one that I jumped from." + +"Well, at least," said Holmes, "you have had your revenge upon +them. There can be no question that it was your oil-lamp which, +when it was crushed in the press, set fire to the wooden walls, +though no doubt they were too excited in the chase after you to +observe it at the time. Now keep your eyes open in this crowd for +your friends of last night, though I very much fear that they are +a good hundred miles off by now." + +And Holmes' fears came to be realised, for from that day to this +no word has ever been heard either of the beautiful woman, the +sinister German, or the morose Englishman. Early that morning a +peasant had met a cart containing several people and some very +bulky boxes driving rapidly in the direction of Reading, but +there all traces of the fugitives disappeared, and even Holmes' +ingenuity failed ever to discover the least clue as to their +whereabouts. + +The firemen had been much perturbed at the strange arrangements +which they had found within, and still more so by discovering a +newly severed human thumb upon a window-sill of the second floor. +About sunset, however, their efforts were at last successful, and +they subdued the flames, but not before the roof had fallen in, +and the whole place been reduced to such absolute ruin that, save +some twisted cylinders and iron piping, not a trace remained of +the machinery which had cost our unfortunate acquaintance so +dearly. Large masses of nickel and of tin were discovered stored +in an out-house, but no coins were to be found, which may have +explained the presence of those bulky boxes which have been +already referred to. + +How our hydraulic engineer had been conveyed from the garden to +the spot where he recovered his senses might have remained +forever a mystery were it not for the soft mould, which told us a +very plain tale. He had evidently been carried down by two +persons, one of whom had remarkably small feet and the other +unusually large ones. On the whole, it was most probable that the +silent Englishman, being less bold or less murderous than his +companion, had assisted the woman to bear the unconscious man out +of the way of danger. + +"Well," said our engineer ruefully as we took our seats to return +once more to London, "it has been a pretty business for me! I +have lost my thumb and I have lost a fifty-guinea fee, and what +have I gained?" + +"Experience," said Holmes, laughing. "Indirectly it may be of +value, you know; you have only to put it into words to gain the +reputation of being excellent company for the remainder of your +existence." + + + +X. THE ADVENTURE OF THE NOBLE BACHELOR + +The Lord St. Simon marriage, and its curious termination, have +long ceased to be a subject of interest in those exalted circles +in which the unfortunate bridegroom moves. Fresh scandals have +eclipsed it, and their more piquant details have drawn the +gossips away from this four-year-old drama. As I have reason to +believe, however, that the full facts have never been revealed to +the general public, and as my friend Sherlock Holmes had a +considerable share in clearing the matter up, I feel that no +memoir of him would be complete without some little sketch of +this remarkable episode. + +It was a few weeks before my own marriage, during the days when I +was still sharing rooms with Holmes in Baker Street, that he came +home from an afternoon stroll to find a letter on the table +waiting for him. I had remained indoors all day, for the weather +had taken a sudden turn to rain, with high autumnal winds, and +the Jezail bullet which I had brought back in one of my limbs as +a relic of my Afghan campaign throbbed with dull persistence. +With my body in one easy-chair and my legs upon another, I had +surrounded myself with a cloud of newspapers until at last, +saturated with the news of the day, I tossed them all aside and +lay listless, watching the huge crest and monogram upon the +envelope upon the table and wondering lazily who my friend's +noble correspondent could be. + +"Here is a very fashionable epistle," I remarked as he entered. +"Your morning letters, if I remember right, were from a +fish-monger and a tide-waiter." + +"Yes, my correspondence has certainly the charm of variety," he +answered, smiling, "and the humbler are usually the more +interesting. This looks like one of those unwelcome social +summonses which call upon a man either to be bored or to lie." + +He broke the seal and glanced over the contents. + +"Oh, come, it may prove to be something of interest, after all." + +"Not social, then?" + +"No, distinctly professional." + +"And from a noble client?" + +"One of the highest in England." + +"My dear fellow, I congratulate you." + +"I assure you, Watson, without affectation, that the status of my +client is a matter of less moment to me than the interest of his +case. It is just possible, however, that that also may not be +wanting in this new investigation. You have been reading the +papers diligently of late, have you not?" + +"It looks like it," said I ruefully, pointing to a huge bundle in +the corner. "I have had nothing else to do." + +"It is fortunate, for you will perhaps be able to post me up. I +read nothing except the criminal news and the agony column. The +latter is always instructive. But if you have followed recent +events so closely you must have read about Lord St. Simon and his +wedding?" + +"Oh, yes, with the deepest interest." + +"That is well. The letter which I hold in my hand is from Lord +St. Simon. I will read it to you, and in return you must turn +over these papers and let me have whatever bears upon the matter. +This is what he says: + +"'MY DEAR MR. SHERLOCK HOLMES:--Lord Backwater tells me that I +may place implicit reliance upon your judgment and discretion. I +have determined, therefore, to call upon you and to consult you +in reference to the very painful event which has occurred in +connection with my wedding. Mr. Lestrade, of Scotland Yard, is +acting already in the matter, but he assures me that he sees no +objection to your co-operation, and that he even thinks that +it might be of some assistance. I will call at four o'clock in +the afternoon, and, should you have any other engagement at that +time, I hope that you will postpone it, as this matter is of +paramount importance. Yours faithfully, ST. SIMON.' + +"It is dated from Grosvenor Mansions, written with a quill pen, +and the noble lord has had the misfortune to get a smear of ink +upon the outer side of his right little finger," remarked Holmes +as he folded up the epistle. + +"He says four o'clock. It is three now. He will be here in an +hour." + +"Then I have just time, with your assistance, to get clear upon +the subject. Turn over those papers and arrange the extracts in +their order of time, while I take a glance as to who our client +is." He picked a red-covered volume from a line of books of +reference beside the mantelpiece. "Here he is," said he, sitting +down and flattening it out upon his knee. "'Lord Robert Walsingham +de Vere St. Simon, second son of the Duke of Balmoral.' Hum! 'Arms: +Azure, three caltrops in chief over a fess sable. Born in 1846.' +He's forty-one years of age, which is mature for marriage. Was +Under-Secretary for the colonies in a late administration. The +Duke, his father, was at one time Secretary for Foreign Affairs. +They inherit Plantagenet blood by direct descent, and Tudor on +the distaff side. Ha! Well, there is nothing very instructive in +all this. I think that I must turn to you Watson, for something +more solid." + +"I have very little difficulty in finding what I want," said I, +"for the facts are quite recent, and the matter struck me as +remarkable. I feared to refer them to you, however, as I knew +that you had an inquiry on hand and that you disliked the +intrusion of other matters." + +"Oh, you mean the little problem of the Grosvenor Square +furniture van. That is quite cleared up now--though, indeed, it +was obvious from the first. Pray give me the results of your +newspaper selections." + +"Here is the first notice which I can find. It is in the personal +column of the Morning Post, and dates, as you see, some weeks +back: 'A marriage has been arranged,' it says, 'and will, if +rumour is correct, very shortly take place, between Lord Robert +St. Simon, second son of the Duke of Balmoral, and Miss Hatty +Doran, the only daughter of Aloysius Doran. Esq., of San +Francisco, Cal., U.S.A.' That is all." + +"Terse and to the point," remarked Holmes, stretching his long, +thin legs towards the fire. + +"There was a paragraph amplifying this in one of the society +papers of the same week. Ah, here it is: 'There will soon be a +call for protection in the marriage market, for the present +free-trade principle appears to tell heavily against our home +product. One by one the management of the noble houses of Great +Britain is passing into the hands of our fair cousins from across +the Atlantic. An important addition has been made during the last +week to the list of the prizes which have been borne away by +these charming invaders. Lord St. Simon, who has shown himself +for over twenty years proof against the little god's arrows, has +now definitely announced his approaching marriage with Miss Hatty +Doran, the fascinating daughter of a California millionaire. Miss +Doran, whose graceful figure and striking face attracted much +attention at the Westbury House festivities, is an only child, +and it is currently reported that her dowry will run to +considerably over the six figures, with expectancies for the +future. As it is an open secret that the Duke of Balmoral has +been compelled to sell his pictures within the last few years, +and as Lord St. Simon has no property of his own save the small +estate of Birchmoor, it is obvious that the Californian heiress +is not the only gainer by an alliance which will enable her to +make the easy and common transition from a Republican lady to a +British peeress.'" + +"Anything else?" asked Holmes, yawning. + +"Oh, yes; plenty. Then there is another note in the Morning Post +to say that the marriage would be an absolutely quiet one, that it +would be at St. George's, Hanover Square, that only half a dozen +intimate friends would be invited, and that the party would +return to the furnished house at Lancaster Gate which has been +taken by Mr. Aloysius Doran. Two days later--that is, on +Wednesday last--there is a curt announcement that the wedding had +taken place, and that the honeymoon would be passed at Lord +Backwater's place, near Petersfield. Those are all the notices +which appeared before the disappearance of the bride." + +"Before the what?" asked Holmes with a start. + +"The vanishing of the lady." + +"When did she vanish, then?" + +"At the wedding breakfast." + +"Indeed. This is more interesting than it promised to be; quite +dramatic, in fact." + +"Yes; it struck me as being a little out of the common." + +"They often vanish before the ceremony, and occasionally during +the honeymoon; but I cannot call to mind anything quite so prompt +as this. Pray let me have the details." + +"I warn you that they are very incomplete." + +"Perhaps we may make them less so." + +"Such as they are, they are set forth in a single article of a +morning paper of yesterday, which I will read to you. It is +headed, 'Singular Occurrence at a Fashionable Wedding': + +"'The family of Lord Robert St. Simon has been thrown into the +greatest consternation by the strange and painful episodes which +have taken place in connection with his wedding. The ceremony, as +shortly announced in the papers of yesterday, occurred on the +previous morning; but it is only now that it has been possible to +confirm the strange rumours which have been so persistently +floating about. In spite of the attempts of the friends to hush +the matter up, so much public attention has now been drawn to it +that no good purpose can be served by affecting to disregard what +is a common subject for conversation. + +"'The ceremony, which was performed at St. George's, Hanover +Square, was a very quiet one, no one being present save the +father of the bride, Mr. Aloysius Doran, the Duchess of Balmoral, +Lord Backwater, Lord Eustace and Lady Clara St. Simon (the +younger brother and sister of the bridegroom), and Lady Alicia +Whittington. The whole party proceeded afterwards to the house of +Mr. Aloysius Doran, at Lancaster Gate, where breakfast had been +prepared. It appears that some little trouble was caused by a +woman, whose name has not been ascertained, who endeavoured to +force her way into the house after the bridal party, alleging +that she had some claim upon Lord St. Simon. It was only after a +painful and prolonged scene that she was ejected by the butler +and the footman. The bride, who had fortunately entered the house +before this unpleasant interruption, had sat down to breakfast +with the rest, when she complained of a sudden indisposition and +retired to her room. Her prolonged absence having caused some +comment, her father followed her, but learned from her maid that +she had only come up to her chamber for an instant, caught up an +ulster and bonnet, and hurried down to the passage. One of the +footmen declared that he had seen a lady leave the house thus +apparelled, but had refused to credit that it was his mistress, +believing her to be with the company. On ascertaining that his +daughter had disappeared, Mr. Aloysius Doran, in conjunction with +the bridegroom, instantly put themselves in communication with +the police, and very energetic inquiries are being made, which +will probably result in a speedy clearing up of this very +singular business. Up to a late hour last night, however, nothing +had transpired as to the whereabouts of the missing lady. There +are rumours of foul play in the matter, and it is said that the +police have caused the arrest of the woman who had caused the +original disturbance, in the belief that, from jealousy or some +other motive, she may have been concerned in the strange +disappearance of the bride.'" + +"And is that all?" + +"Only one little item in another of the morning papers, but it is +a suggestive one." + +"And it is--" + +"That Miss Flora Millar, the lady who had caused the disturbance, +has actually been arrested. It appears that she was formerly a +danseuse at the Allegro, and that she has known the bridegroom +for some years. There are no further particulars, and the whole +case is in your hands now--so far as it has been set forth in the +public press." + +"And an exceedingly interesting case it appears to be. I would +not have missed it for worlds. But there is a ring at the bell, +Watson, and as the clock makes it a few minutes after four, I +have no doubt that this will prove to be our noble client. Do not +dream of going, Watson, for I very much prefer having a witness, +if only as a check to my own memory." + +"Lord Robert St. Simon," announced our page-boy, throwing open +the door. A gentleman entered, with a pleasant, cultured face, +high-nosed and pale, with something perhaps of petulance about +the mouth, and with the steady, well-opened eye of a man whose +pleasant lot it had ever been to command and to be obeyed. His +manner was brisk, and yet his general appearance gave an undue +impression of age, for he had a slight forward stoop and a little +bend of the knees as he walked. His hair, too, as he swept off +his very curly-brimmed hat, was grizzled round the edges and thin +upon the top. As to his dress, it was careful to the verge of +foppishness, with high collar, black frock-coat, white waistcoat, +yellow gloves, patent-leather shoes, and light-coloured gaiters. +He advanced slowly into the room, turning his head from left to +right, and swinging in his right hand the cord which held his +golden eyeglasses. + +"Good-day, Lord St. Simon," said Holmes, rising and bowing. "Pray +take the basket-chair. This is my friend and colleague, Dr. +Watson. Draw up a little to the fire, and we will talk this +matter over." + +"A most painful matter to me, as you can most readily imagine, +Mr. Holmes. I have been cut to the quick. I understand that you +have already managed several delicate cases of this sort, sir, +though I presume that they were hardly from the same class of +society." + +"No, I am descending." + +"I beg pardon." + +"My last client of the sort was a king." + +"Oh, really! I had no idea. And which king?" + +"The King of Scandinavia." + +"What! Had he lost his wife?" + +"You can understand," said Holmes suavely, "that I extend to the +affairs of my other clients the same secrecy which I promise to +you in yours." + +"Of course! Very right! very right! I'm sure I beg pardon. As to +my own case, I am ready to give you any information which may +assist you in forming an opinion." + +"Thank you. I have already learned all that is in the public +prints, nothing more. I presume that I may take it as correct--this +article, for example, as to the disappearance of the bride." + +Lord St. Simon glanced over it. "Yes, it is correct, as far as it +goes." + +"But it needs a great deal of supplementing before anyone could +offer an opinion. I think that I may arrive at my facts most +directly by questioning you." + +"Pray do so." + +"When did you first meet Miss Hatty Doran?" + +"In San Francisco, a year ago." + +"You were travelling in the States?" + +"Yes." + +"Did you become engaged then?" + +"No." + +"But you were on a friendly footing?" + +"I was amused by her society, and she could see that I was +amused." + +"Her father is very rich?" + +"He is said to be the richest man on the Pacific slope." + +"And how did he make his money?" + +"In mining. He had nothing a few years ago. Then he struck gold, +invested it, and came up by leaps and bounds." + +"Now, what is your own impression as to the young lady's--your +wife's character?" + +The nobleman swung his glasses a little faster and stared down +into the fire. "You see, Mr. Holmes," said he, "my wife was +twenty before her father became a rich man. During that time she +ran free in a mining camp and wandered through woods or +mountains, so that her education has come from Nature rather than +from the schoolmaster. She is what we call in England a tomboy, +with a strong nature, wild and free, unfettered by any sort of +traditions. She is impetuous--volcanic, I was about to say. She +is swift in making up her mind and fearless in carrying out her +resolutions. On the other hand, I would not have given her the +name which I have the honour to bear"--he gave a little stately +cough--"had not I thought her to be at bottom a noble woman. I +believe that she is capable of heroic self-sacrifice and that +anything dishonourable would be repugnant to her." + +"Have you her photograph?" + +"I brought this with me." He opened a locket and showed us the +full face of a very lovely woman. It was not a photograph but an +ivory miniature, and the artist had brought out the full effect +of the lustrous black hair, the large dark eyes, and the +exquisite mouth. Holmes gazed long and earnestly at it. Then he +closed the locket and handed it back to Lord St. Simon. + +"The young lady came to London, then, and you renewed your +acquaintance?" + +"Yes, her father brought her over for this last London season. I +met her several times, became engaged to her, and have now +married her." + +"She brought, I understand, a considerable dowry?" + +"A fair dowry. Not more than is usual in my family." + +"And this, of course, remains to you, since the marriage is a +fait accompli?" + +"I really have made no inquiries on the subject." + +"Very naturally not. Did you see Miss Doran on the day before the +wedding?" + +"Yes." + +"Was she in good spirits?" + +"Never better. She kept talking of what we should do in our +future lives." + +"Indeed! That is very interesting. And on the morning of the +wedding?" + +"She was as bright as possible--at least until after the +ceremony." + +"And did you observe any change in her then?" + +"Well, to tell the truth, I saw then the first signs that I had +ever seen that her temper was just a little sharp. The incident +however, was too trivial to relate and can have no possible +bearing upon the case." + +"Pray let us have it, for all that." + +"Oh, it is childish. She dropped her bouquet as we went towards +the vestry. She was passing the front pew at the time, and it +fell over into the pew. There was a moment's delay, but the +gentleman in the pew handed it up to her again, and it did not +appear to be the worse for the fall. Yet when I spoke to her of +the matter, she answered me abruptly; and in the carriage, on our +way home, she seemed absurdly agitated over this trifling cause." + +"Indeed! You say that there was a gentleman in the pew. Some of +the general public were present, then?" + +"Oh, yes. It is impossible to exclude them when the church is +open." + +"This gentleman was not one of your wife's friends?" + +"No, no; I call him a gentleman by courtesy, but he was quite a +common-looking person. I hardly noticed his appearance. But +really I think that we are wandering rather far from the point." + +"Lady St. Simon, then, returned from the wedding in a less +cheerful frame of mind than she had gone to it. What did she do +on re-entering her father's house?" + +"I saw her in conversation with her maid." + +"And who is her maid?" + +"Alice is her name. She is an American and came from California +with her." + +"A confidential servant?" + +"A little too much so. It seemed to me that her mistress allowed +her to take great liberties. Still, of course, in America they +look upon these things in a different way." + +"How long did she speak to this Alice?" + +"Oh, a few minutes. I had something else to think of." + +"You did not overhear what they said?" + +"Lady St. Simon said something about 'jumping a claim.' She was +accustomed to use slang of the kind. I have no idea what she +meant." + +"American slang is very expressive sometimes. And what did your +wife do when she finished speaking to her maid?" + +"She walked into the breakfast-room." + +"On your arm?" + +"No, alone. She was very independent in little matters like that. +Then, after we had sat down for ten minutes or so, she rose +hurriedly, muttered some words of apology, and left the room. She +never came back." + +"But this maid, Alice, as I understand, deposes that she went to +her room, covered her bride's dress with a long ulster, put on a +bonnet, and went out." + +"Quite so. And she was afterwards seen walking into Hyde Park in +company with Flora Millar, a woman who is now in custody, and who +had already made a disturbance at Mr. Doran's house that +morning." + +"Ah, yes. I should like a few particulars as to this young lady, +and your relations to her." + +Lord St. Simon shrugged his shoulders and raised his eyebrows. +"We have been on a friendly footing for some years--I may say on +a very friendly footing. She used to be at the Allegro. I have +not treated her ungenerously, and she had no just cause of +complaint against me, but you know what women are, Mr. Holmes. +Flora was a dear little thing, but exceedingly hot-headed and +devotedly attached to me. She wrote me dreadful letters when she +heard that I was about to be married, and, to tell the truth, the +reason why I had the marriage celebrated so quietly was that I +feared lest there might be a scandal in the church. She came to +Mr. Doran's door just after we returned, and she endeavoured to +push her way in, uttering very abusive expressions towards my +wife, and even threatening her, but I had foreseen the +possibility of something of the sort, and I had two police +fellows there in private clothes, who soon pushed her out again. +She was quiet when she saw that there was no good in making a +row." + +"Did your wife hear all this?" + +"No, thank goodness, she did not." + +"And she was seen walking with this very woman afterwards?" + +"Yes. That is what Mr. Lestrade, of Scotland Yard, looks upon as +so serious. It is thought that Flora decoyed my wife out and laid +some terrible trap for her." + +"Well, it is a possible supposition." + +"You think so, too?" + +"I did not say a probable one. But you do not yourself look upon +this as likely?" + +"I do not think Flora would hurt a fly." + +"Still, jealousy is a strange transformer of characters. Pray +what is your own theory as to what took place?" + +"Well, really, I came to seek a theory, not to propound one. I +have given you all the facts. Since you ask me, however, I may +say that it has occurred to me as possible that the excitement of +this affair, the consciousness that she had made so immense a +social stride, had the effect of causing some little nervous +disturbance in my wife." + +"In short, that she had become suddenly deranged?" + +"Well, really, when I consider that she has turned her back--I +will not say upon me, but upon so much that many have aspired to +without success--I can hardly explain it in any other fashion." + +"Well, certainly that is also a conceivable hypothesis," said +Holmes, smiling. "And now, Lord St. Simon, I think that I have +nearly all my data. May I ask whether you were seated at the +breakfast-table so that you could see out of the window?" + +"We could see the other side of the road and the Park." + +"Quite so. Then I do not think that I need to detain you longer. +I shall communicate with you." + +"Should you be fortunate enough to solve this problem," said our +client, rising. + +"I have solved it." + +"Eh? What was that?" + +"I say that I have solved it." + +"Where, then, is my wife?" + +"That is a detail which I shall speedily supply." + +Lord St. Simon shook his head. "I am afraid that it will take +wiser heads than yours or mine," he remarked, and bowing in a +stately, old-fashioned manner he departed. + +"It is very good of Lord St. Simon to honour my head by putting +it on a level with his own," said Sherlock Holmes, laughing. "I +think that I shall have a whisky and soda and a cigar after all +this cross-questioning. I had formed my conclusions as to the +case before our client came into the room." + +"My dear Holmes!" + +"I have notes of several similar cases, though none, as I +remarked before, which were quite as prompt. My whole examination +served to turn my conjecture into a certainty. Circumstantial +evidence is occasionally very convincing, as when you find a +trout in the milk, to quote Thoreau's example." + +"But I have heard all that you have heard." + +"Without, however, the knowledge of pre-existing cases which +serves me so well. There was a parallel instance in Aberdeen some +years back, and something on very much the same lines at Munich +the year after the Franco-Prussian War. It is one of these +cases--but, hullo, here is Lestrade! Good-afternoon, Lestrade! +You will find an extra tumbler upon the sideboard, and there are +cigars in the box." + +The official detective was attired in a pea-jacket and cravat, +which gave him a decidedly nautical appearance, and he carried a +black canvas bag in his hand. With a short greeting he seated +himself and lit the cigar which had been offered to him. + +"What's up, then?" asked Holmes with a twinkle in his eye. "You +look dissatisfied." + +"And I feel dissatisfied. It is this infernal St. Simon marriage +case. I can make neither head nor tail of the business." + +"Really! You surprise me." + +"Who ever heard of such a mixed affair? Every clue seems to slip +through my fingers. I have been at work upon it all day." + +"And very wet it seems to have made you," said Holmes laying his +hand upon the arm of the pea-jacket. + +"Yes, I have been dragging the Serpentine." + +"In heaven's name, what for?" + +"In search of the body of Lady St. Simon." + +Sherlock Holmes leaned back in his chair and laughed heartily. + +"Have you dragged the basin of Trafalgar Square fountain?" he +asked. + +"Why? What do you mean?" + +"Because you have just as good a chance of finding this lady in +the one as in the other." + +Lestrade shot an angry glance at my companion. "I suppose you +know all about it," he snarled. + +"Well, I have only just heard the facts, but my mind is made up." + +"Oh, indeed! Then you think that the Serpentine plays no part in +the matter?" + +"I think it very unlikely." + +"Then perhaps you will kindly explain how it is that we found +this in it?" He opened his bag as he spoke, and tumbled onto the +floor a wedding-dress of watered silk, a pair of white satin +shoes and a bride's wreath and veil, all discoloured and soaked +in water. "There," said he, putting a new wedding-ring upon the +top of the pile. "There is a little nut for you to crack, Master +Holmes." + +"Oh, indeed!" said my friend, blowing blue rings into the air. +"You dragged them from the Serpentine?" + +"No. They were found floating near the margin by a park-keeper. +They have been identified as her clothes, and it seemed to me +that if the clothes were there the body would not be far off." + +"By the same brilliant reasoning, every man's body is to be found +in the neighbourhood of his wardrobe. And pray what did you hope +to arrive at through this?" + +"At some evidence implicating Flora Millar in the disappearance." + +"I am afraid that you will find it difficult." + +"Are you, indeed, now?" cried Lestrade with some bitterness. "I +am afraid, Holmes, that you are not very practical with your +deductions and your inferences. You have made two blunders in as +many minutes. This dress does implicate Miss Flora Millar." + +"And how?" + +"In the dress is a pocket. In the pocket is a card-case. In the +card-case is a note. And here is the very note." He slapped it +down upon the table in front of him. "Listen to this: 'You will +see me when all is ready. Come at once. F.H.M.' Now my theory all +along has been that Lady St. Simon was decoyed away by Flora +Millar, and that she, with confederates, no doubt, was +responsible for her disappearance. Here, signed with her +initials, is the very note which was no doubt quietly slipped +into her hand at the door and which lured her within their +reach." + +"Very good, Lestrade," said Holmes, laughing. "You really are +very fine indeed. Let me see it." He took up the paper in a +listless way, but his attention instantly became riveted, and he +gave a little cry of satisfaction. "This is indeed important," +said he. + +"Ha! you find it so?" + +"Extremely so. I congratulate you warmly." + +Lestrade rose in his triumph and bent his head to look. "Why," he +shrieked, "you're looking at the wrong side!" + +"On the contrary, this is the right side." + +"The right side? You're mad! Here is the note written in pencil +over here." + +"And over here is what appears to be the fragment of a hotel +bill, which interests me deeply." + +"There's nothing in it. I looked at it before," said Lestrade. +"'Oct. 4th, rooms 8s., breakfast 2s. 6d., cocktail 1s., lunch 2s. +6d., glass sherry, 8d.' I see nothing in that." + +"Very likely not. It is most important, all the same. As to the +note, it is important also, or at least the initials are, so I +congratulate you again." + +"I've wasted time enough," said Lestrade, rising. "I believe in +hard work and not in sitting by the fire spinning fine theories. +Good-day, Mr. Holmes, and we shall see which gets to the bottom +of the matter first." He gathered up the garments, thrust them +into the bag, and made for the door. + +"Just one hint to you, Lestrade," drawled Holmes before his rival +vanished; "I will tell you the true solution of the matter. Lady +St. Simon is a myth. There is not, and there never has been, any +such person." + +Lestrade looked sadly at my companion. Then he turned to me, +tapped his forehead three times, shook his head solemnly, and +hurried away. + +He had hardly shut the door behind him when Holmes rose to put on +his overcoat. "There is something in what the fellow says about +outdoor work," he remarked, "so I think, Watson, that I must +leave you to your papers for a little." + +It was after five o'clock when Sherlock Holmes left me, but I had +no time to be lonely, for within an hour there arrived a +confectioner's man with a very large flat box. This he unpacked +with the help of a youth whom he had brought with him, and +presently, to my very great astonishment, a quite epicurean +little cold supper began to be laid out upon our humble +lodging-house mahogany. There were a couple of brace of cold +woodcock, a pheasant, a pate de foie gras pie with a group of +ancient and cobwebby bottles. Having laid out all these luxuries, +my two visitors vanished away, like the genii of the Arabian +Nights, with no explanation save that the things had been paid +for and were ordered to this address. + +Just before nine o'clock Sherlock Holmes stepped briskly into the +room. His features were gravely set, but there was a light in his +eye which made me think that he had not been disappointed in his +conclusions. + +"They have laid the supper, then," he said, rubbing his hands. + +"You seem to expect company. They have laid for five." + +"Yes, I fancy we may have some company dropping in," said he. "I +am surprised that Lord St. Simon has not already arrived. Ha! I +fancy that I hear his step now upon the stairs." + +It was indeed our visitor of the afternoon who came bustling in, +dangling his glasses more vigorously than ever, and with a very +perturbed expression upon his aristocratic features. + +"My messenger reached you, then?" asked Holmes. + +"Yes, and I confess that the contents startled me beyond measure. +Have you good authority for what you say?" + +"The best possible." + +Lord St. Simon sank into a chair and passed his hand over his +forehead. + +"What will the Duke say," he murmured, "when he hears that one of +the family has been subjected to such humiliation?" + +"It is the purest accident. I cannot allow that there is any +humiliation." + +"Ah, you look on these things from another standpoint." + +"I fail to see that anyone is to blame. I can hardly see how the +lady could have acted otherwise, though her abrupt method of +doing it was undoubtedly to be regretted. Having no mother, she +had no one to advise her at such a crisis." + +"It was a slight, sir, a public slight," said Lord St. Simon, +tapping his fingers upon the table. + +"You must make allowance for this poor girl, placed in so +unprecedented a position." + +"I will make no allowance. I am very angry indeed, and I have +been shamefully used." + +"I think that I heard a ring," said Holmes. "Yes, there are steps +on the landing. If I cannot persuade you to take a lenient view +of the matter, Lord St. Simon, I have brought an advocate here +who may be more successful." He opened the door and ushered in a +lady and gentleman. "Lord St. Simon," said he "allow me to +introduce you to Mr. and Mrs. Francis Hay Moulton. The lady, I +think, you have already met." + +At the sight of these newcomers our client had sprung from his +seat and stood very erect, with his eyes cast down and his hand +thrust into the breast of his frock-coat, a picture of offended +dignity. The lady had taken a quick step forward and had held out +her hand to him, but he still refused to raise his eyes. It was +as well for his resolution, perhaps, for her pleading face was +one which it was hard to resist. + +"You're angry, Robert," said she. "Well, I guess you have every +cause to be." + +"Pray make no apology to me," said Lord St. Simon bitterly. + +"Oh, yes, I know that I have treated you real bad and that I +should have spoken to you before I went; but I was kind of +rattled, and from the time when I saw Frank here again I just +didn't know what I was doing or saying. I only wonder I didn't +fall down and do a faint right there before the altar." + +"Perhaps, Mrs. Moulton, you would like my friend and me to leave +the room while you explain this matter?" + +"If I may give an opinion," remarked the strange gentleman, +"we've had just a little too much secrecy over this business +already. For my part, I should like all Europe and America to +hear the rights of it." He was a small, wiry, sunburnt man, +clean-shaven, with a sharp face and alert manner. + +"Then I'll tell our story right away," said the lady. "Frank here +and I met in '84, in McQuire's camp, near the Rockies, where pa +was working a claim. We were engaged to each other, Frank and I; +but then one day father struck a rich pocket and made a pile, +while poor Frank here had a claim that petered out and came to +nothing. The richer pa grew the poorer was Frank; so at last pa +wouldn't hear of our engagement lasting any longer, and he took +me away to 'Frisco. Frank wouldn't throw up his hand, though; so +he followed me there, and he saw me without pa knowing anything +about it. It would only have made him mad to know, so we just +fixed it all up for ourselves. Frank said that he would go and +make his pile, too, and never come back to claim me until he had +as much as pa. So then I promised to wait for him to the end of +time and pledged myself not to marry anyone else while he lived. +'Why shouldn't we be married right away, then,' said he, 'and +then I will feel sure of you; and I won't claim to be your +husband until I come back?' Well, we talked it over, and he had +fixed it all up so nicely, with a clergyman all ready in waiting, +that we just did it right there; and then Frank went off to seek +his fortune, and I went back to pa. + +"The next I heard of Frank was that he was in Montana, and then +he went prospecting in Arizona, and then I heard of him from New +Mexico. After that came a long newspaper story about how a +miners' camp had been attacked by Apache Indians, and there was +my Frank's name among the killed. I fainted dead away, and I was +very sick for months after. Pa thought I had a decline and took +me to half the doctors in 'Frisco. Not a word of news came for a +year and more, so that I never doubted that Frank was really +dead. Then Lord St. Simon came to 'Frisco, and we came to London, +and a marriage was arranged, and pa was very pleased, but I felt +all the time that no man on this earth would ever take the place +in my heart that had been given to my poor Frank. + +"Still, if I had married Lord St. Simon, of course I'd have done +my duty by him. We can't command our love, but we can our +actions. I went to the altar with him with the intention to make +him just as good a wife as it was in me to be. But you may +imagine what I felt when, just as I came to the altar rails, I +glanced back and saw Frank standing and looking at me out of the +first pew. I thought it was his ghost at first; but when I looked +again there he was still, with a kind of question in his eyes, as +if to ask me whether I were glad or sorry to see him. I wonder I +didn't drop. I know that everything was turning round, and the +words of the clergyman were just like the buzz of a bee in my +ear. I didn't know what to do. Should I stop the service and make +a scene in the church? I glanced at him again, and he seemed to +know what I was thinking, for he raised his finger to his lips to +tell me to be still. Then I saw him scribble on a piece of paper, +and I knew that he was writing me a note. As I passed his pew on +the way out I dropped my bouquet over to him, and he slipped the +note into my hand when he returned me the flowers. It was only a +line asking me to join him when he made the sign to me to do so. +Of course I never doubted for a moment that my first duty was now +to him, and I determined to do just whatever he might direct. + +"When I got back I told my maid, who had known him in California, +and had always been his friend. I ordered her to say nothing, but +to get a few things packed and my ulster ready. I know I ought to +have spoken to Lord St. Simon, but it was dreadful hard before +his mother and all those great people. I just made up my mind to +run away and explain afterwards. I hadn't been at the table ten +minutes before I saw Frank out of the window at the other side of +the road. He beckoned to me and then began walking into the Park. +I slipped out, put on my things, and followed him. Some woman +came talking something or other about Lord St. Simon to +me--seemed to me from the little I heard as if he had a little +secret of his own before marriage also--but I managed to get away +from her and soon overtook Frank. We got into a cab together, and +away we drove to some lodgings he had taken in Gordon Square, and +that was my true wedding after all those years of waiting. Frank +had been a prisoner among the Apaches, had escaped, came on to +'Frisco, found that I had given him up for dead and had gone to +England, followed me there, and had come upon me at last on the +very morning of my second wedding." + +"I saw it in a paper," explained the American. "It gave the name +and the church but not where the lady lived." + +"Then we had a talk as to what we should do, and Frank was all +for openness, but I was so ashamed of it all that I felt as if I +should like to vanish away and never see any of them again--just +sending a line to pa, perhaps, to show him that I was alive. It +was awful to me to think of all those lords and ladies sitting +round that breakfast-table and waiting for me to come back. So +Frank took my wedding-clothes and things and made a bundle of +them, so that I should not be traced, and dropped them away +somewhere where no one could find them. It is likely that we +should have gone on to Paris to-morrow, only that this good +gentleman, Mr. Holmes, came round to us this evening, though how +he found us is more than I can think, and he showed us very +clearly and kindly that I was wrong and that Frank was right, and +that we should be putting ourselves in the wrong if we were so +secret. Then he offered to give us a chance of talking to Lord +St. Simon alone, and so we came right away round to his rooms at +once. Now, Robert, you have heard it all, and I am very sorry if +I have given you pain, and I hope that you do not think very +meanly of me." + +Lord St. Simon had by no means relaxed his rigid attitude, but +had listened with a frowning brow and a compressed lip to this +long narrative. + +"Excuse me," he said, "but it is not my custom to discuss my most +intimate personal affairs in this public manner." + +"Then you won't forgive me? You won't shake hands before I go?" + +"Oh, certainly, if it would give you any pleasure." He put out +his hand and coldly grasped that which she extended to him. + +"I had hoped," suggested Holmes, "that you would have joined us +in a friendly supper." + +"I think that there you ask a little too much," responded his +Lordship. "I may be forced to acquiesce in these recent +developments, but I can hardly be expected to make merry over +them. I think that with your permission I will now wish you all a +very good-night." He included us all in a sweeping bow and +stalked out of the room. + +"Then I trust that you at least will honour me with your +company," said Sherlock Holmes. "It is always a joy to meet an +American, Mr. Moulton, for I am one of those who believe that the +folly of a monarch and the blundering of a minister in far-gone +years will not prevent our children from being some day citizens +of the same world-wide country under a flag which shall be a +quartering of the Union Jack with the Stars and Stripes." + +"The case has been an interesting one," remarked Holmes when our +visitors had left us, "because it serves to show very clearly how +simple the explanation may be of an affair which at first sight +seems to be almost inexplicable. Nothing could be more natural +than the sequence of events as narrated by this lady, and nothing +stranger than the result when viewed, for instance, by Mr. +Lestrade of Scotland Yard." + +"You were not yourself at fault at all, then?" + +"From the first, two facts were very obvious to me, the one that +the lady had been quite willing to undergo the wedding ceremony, +the other that she had repented of it within a few minutes of +returning home. Obviously something had occurred during the +morning, then, to cause her to change her mind. What could that +something be? She could not have spoken to anyone when she was +out, for she had been in the company of the bridegroom. Had she +seen someone, then? If she had, it must be someone from America +because she had spent so short a time in this country that she +could hardly have allowed anyone to acquire so deep an influence +over her that the mere sight of him would induce her to change +her plans so completely. You see we have already arrived, by a +process of exclusion, at the idea that she might have seen an +American. Then who could this American be, and why should he +possess so much influence over her? It might be a lover; it might +be a husband. Her young womanhood had, I knew, been spent in +rough scenes and under strange conditions. So far I had got +before I ever heard Lord St. Simon's narrative. When he told us +of a man in a pew, of the change in the bride's manner, of so +transparent a device for obtaining a note as the dropping of a +bouquet, of her resort to her confidential maid, and of her very +significant allusion to claim-jumping--which in miners' parlance +means taking possession of that which another person has a prior +claim to--the whole situation became absolutely clear. She had +gone off with a man, and the man was either a lover or was a +previous husband--the chances being in favour of the latter." + +"And how in the world did you find them?" + +"It might have been difficult, but friend Lestrade held +information in his hands the value of which he did not himself +know. The initials were, of course, of the highest importance, +but more valuable still was it to know that within a week he had +settled his bill at one of the most select London hotels." + +"How did you deduce the select?" + +"By the select prices. Eight shillings for a bed and eightpence +for a glass of sherry pointed to one of the most expensive +hotels. There are not many in London which charge at that rate. +In the second one which I visited in Northumberland Avenue, I +learned by an inspection of the book that Francis H. Moulton, an +American gentleman, had left only the day before, and on looking +over the entries against him, I came upon the very items which I +had seen in the duplicate bill. His letters were to be forwarded +to 226 Gordon Square; so thither I travelled, and being fortunate +enough to find the loving couple at home, I ventured to give them +some paternal advice and to point out to them that it would be +better in every way that they should make their position a little +clearer both to the general public and to Lord St. Simon in +particular. I invited them to meet him here, and, as you see, I +made him keep the appointment." + +"But with no very good result," I remarked. "His conduct was +certainly not very gracious." + +"Ah, Watson," said Holmes, smiling, "perhaps you would not be +very gracious either, if, after all the trouble of wooing and +wedding, you found yourself deprived in an instant of wife and of +fortune. I think that we may judge Lord St. Simon very mercifully +and thank our stars that we are never likely to find ourselves in +the same position. Draw your chair up and hand me my violin, for +the only problem we have still to solve is how to while away +these bleak autumnal evenings." + + + +XI. THE ADVENTURE OF THE BERYL CORONET + +"Holmes," said I as I stood one morning in our bow-window looking +down the street, "here is a madman coming along. It seems rather +sad that his relatives should allow him to come out alone." + +My friend rose lazily from his armchair and stood with his hands +in the pockets of his dressing-gown, looking over my shoulder. It +was a bright, crisp February morning, and the snow of the day +before still lay deep upon the ground, shimmering brightly in the +wintry sun. Down the centre of Baker Street it had been ploughed +into a brown crumbly band by the traffic, but at either side and +on the heaped-up edges of the foot-paths it still lay as white as +when it fell. The grey pavement had been cleaned and scraped, but +was still dangerously slippery, so that there were fewer +passengers than usual. Indeed, from the direction of the +Metropolitan Station no one was coming save the single gentleman +whose eccentric conduct had drawn my attention. + +He was a man of about fifty, tall, portly, and imposing, with a +massive, strongly marked face and a commanding figure. He was +dressed in a sombre yet rich style, in black frock-coat, shining +hat, neat brown gaiters, and well-cut pearl-grey trousers. Yet +his actions were in absurd contrast to the dignity of his dress +and features, for he was running hard, with occasional little +springs, such as a weary man gives who is little accustomed to +set any tax upon his legs. As he ran he jerked his hands up and +down, waggled his head, and writhed his face into the most +extraordinary contortions. + +"What on earth can be the matter with him?" I asked. "He is +looking up at the numbers of the houses." + +"I believe that he is coming here," said Holmes, rubbing his +hands. + +"Here?" + +"Yes; I rather think he is coming to consult me professionally. I +think that I recognise the symptoms. Ha! did I not tell you?" As +he spoke, the man, puffing and blowing, rushed at our door and +pulled at our bell until the whole house resounded with the +clanging. + +A few moments later he was in our room, still puffing, still +gesticulating, but with so fixed a look of grief and despair in +his eyes that our smiles were turned in an instant to horror and +pity. For a while he could not get his words out, but swayed his +body and plucked at his hair like one who has been driven to the +extreme limits of his reason. Then, suddenly springing to his +feet, he beat his head against the wall with such force that we +both rushed upon him and tore him away to the centre of the room. +Sherlock Holmes pushed him down into the easy-chair and, sitting +beside him, patted his hand and chatted with him in the easy, +soothing tones which he knew so well how to employ. + +"You have come to me to tell your story, have you not?" said he. +"You are fatigued with your haste. Pray wait until you have +recovered yourself, and then I shall be most happy to look into +any little problem which you may submit to me." + +The man sat for a minute or more with a heaving chest, fighting +against his emotion. Then he passed his handkerchief over his +brow, set his lips tight, and turned his face towards us. + +"No doubt you think me mad?" said he. + +"I see that you have had some great trouble," responded Holmes. + +"God knows I have!--a trouble which is enough to unseat my +reason, so sudden and so terrible is it. Public disgrace I might +have faced, although I am a man whose character has never yet +borne a stain. Private affliction also is the lot of every man; +but the two coming together, and in so frightful a form, have +been enough to shake my very soul. Besides, it is not I alone. +The very noblest in the land may suffer unless some way be found +out of this horrible affair." + +"Pray compose yourself, sir," said Holmes, "and let me have a +clear account of who you are and what it is that has befallen +you." + +"My name," answered our visitor, "is probably familiar to your +ears. I am Alexander Holder, of the banking firm of Holder & +Stevenson, of Threadneedle Street." + +The name was indeed well known to us as belonging to the senior +partner in the second largest private banking concern in the City +of London. What could have happened, then, to bring one of the +foremost citizens of London to this most pitiable pass? We +waited, all curiosity, until with another effort he braced +himself to tell his story. + +"I feel that time is of value," said he; "that is why I hastened +here when the police inspector suggested that I should secure +your co-operation. I came to Baker Street by the Underground and +hurried from there on foot, for the cabs go slowly through this +snow. That is why I was so out of breath, for I am a man who +takes very little exercise. I feel better now, and I will put the +facts before you as shortly and yet as clearly as I can. + +"It is, of course, well known to you that in a successful banking +business as much depends upon our being able to find remunerative +investments for our funds as upon our increasing our connection +and the number of our depositors. One of our most lucrative means +of laying out money is in the shape of loans, where the security +is unimpeachable. We have done a good deal in this direction +during the last few years, and there are many noble families to +whom we have advanced large sums upon the security of their +pictures, libraries, or plate. + +"Yesterday morning I was seated in my office at the bank when a +card was brought in to me by one of the clerks. I started when I +saw the name, for it was that of none other than--well, perhaps +even to you I had better say no more than that it was a name +which is a household word all over the earth--one of the highest, +noblest, most exalted names in England. I was overwhelmed by the +honour and attempted, when he entered, to say so, but he plunged +at once into business with the air of a man who wishes to hurry +quickly through a disagreeable task. + +"'Mr. Holder,' said he, 'I have been informed that you are in the +habit of advancing money.' + +"'The firm does so when the security is good.' I answered. + +"'It is absolutely essential to me,' said he, 'that I should have +50,000 pounds at once. I could, of course, borrow so trifling a +sum ten times over from my friends, but I much prefer to make it +a matter of business and to carry out that business myself. In my +position you can readily understand that it is unwise to place +one's self under obligations.' + +"'For how long, may I ask, do you want this sum?' I asked. + +"'Next Monday I have a large sum due to me, and I shall then most +certainly repay what you advance, with whatever interest you +think it right to charge. But it is very essential to me that the +money should be paid at once.' + +"'I should be happy to advance it without further parley from my +own private purse,' said I, 'were it not that the strain would be +rather more than it could bear. If, on the other hand, I am to do +it in the name of the firm, then in justice to my partner I must +insist that, even in your case, every businesslike precaution +should be taken.' + +"'I should much prefer to have it so,' said he, raising up a +square, black morocco case which he had laid beside his chair. +'You have doubtless heard of the Beryl Coronet?' + +"'One of the most precious public possessions of the empire,' +said I. + +"'Precisely.' He opened the case, and there, imbedded in soft, +flesh-coloured velvet, lay the magnificent piece of jewellery +which he had named. 'There are thirty-nine enormous beryls,' said +he, 'and the price of the gold chasing is incalculable. The +lowest estimate would put the worth of the coronet at double the +sum which I have asked. I am prepared to leave it with you as my +security.' + +"I took the precious case into my hands and looked in some +perplexity from it to my illustrious client. + +"'You doubt its value?' he asked. + +"'Not at all. I only doubt--' + +"'The propriety of my leaving it. You may set your mind at rest +about that. I should not dream of doing so were it not absolutely +certain that I should be able in four days to reclaim it. It is a +pure matter of form. Is the security sufficient?' + +"'Ample.' + +"'You understand, Mr. Holder, that I am giving you a strong proof +of the confidence which I have in you, founded upon all that I +have heard of you. I rely upon you not only to be discreet and to +refrain from all gossip upon the matter but, above all, to +preserve this coronet with every possible precaution because I +need not say that a great public scandal would be caused if any +harm were to befall it. Any injury to it would be almost as +serious as its complete loss, for there are no beryls in the +world to match these, and it would be impossible to replace them. +I leave it with you, however, with every confidence, and I shall +call for it in person on Monday morning.' + +"Seeing that my client was anxious to leave, I said no more but, +calling for my cashier, I ordered him to pay over fifty 1000 +pound notes. When I was alone once more, however, with the +precious case lying upon the table in front of me, I could not +but think with some misgivings of the immense responsibility +which it entailed upon me. There could be no doubt that, as it +was a national possession, a horrible scandal would ensue if any +misfortune should occur to it. I already regretted having ever +consented to take charge of it. However, it was too late to alter +the matter now, so I locked it up in my private safe and turned +once more to my work. + +"When evening came I felt that it would be an imprudence to leave +so precious a thing in the office behind me. Bankers' safes had +been forced before now, and why should not mine be? If so, how +terrible would be the position in which I should find myself! I +determined, therefore, that for the next few days I would always +carry the case backward and forward with me, so that it might +never be really out of my reach. With this intention, I called a +cab and drove out to my house at Streatham, carrying the jewel +with me. I did not breathe freely until I had taken it upstairs +and locked it in the bureau of my dressing-room. + +"And now a word as to my household, Mr. Holmes, for I wish you to +thoroughly understand the situation. My groom and my page sleep +out of the house, and may be set aside altogether. I have three +maid-servants who have been with me a number of years and whose +absolute reliability is quite above suspicion. Another, Lucy +Parr, the second waiting-maid, has only been in my service a few +months. She came with an excellent character, however, and has +always given me satisfaction. She is a very pretty girl and has +attracted admirers who have occasionally hung about the place. +That is the only drawback which we have found to her, but we +believe her to be a thoroughly good girl in every way. + +"So much for the servants. My family itself is so small that it +will not take me long to describe it. I am a widower and have an +only son, Arthur. He has been a disappointment to me, Mr. +Holmes--a grievous disappointment. I have no doubt that I am +myself to blame. People tell me that I have spoiled him. Very +likely I have. When my dear wife died I felt that he was all I +had to love. I could not bear to see the smile fade even for a +moment from his face. I have never denied him a wish. Perhaps it +would have been better for both of us had I been sterner, but I +meant it for the best. + +"It was naturally my intention that he should succeed me in my +business, but he was not of a business turn. He was wild, +wayward, and, to speak the truth, I could not trust him in the +handling of large sums of money. When he was young he became a +member of an aristocratic club, and there, having charming +manners, he was soon the intimate of a number of men with long +purses and expensive habits. He learned to play heavily at cards +and to squander money on the turf, until he had again and again +to come to me and implore me to give him an advance upon his +allowance, that he might settle his debts of honour. He tried +more than once to break away from the dangerous company which he +was keeping, but each time the influence of his friend, Sir +George Burnwell, was enough to draw him back again. + +"And, indeed, I could not wonder that such a man as Sir George +Burnwell should gain an influence over him, for he has frequently +brought him to my house, and I have found myself that I could +hardly resist the fascination of his manner. He is older than +Arthur, a man of the world to his finger-tips, one who had been +everywhere, seen everything, a brilliant talker, and a man of +great personal beauty. Yet when I think of him in cold blood, far +away from the glamour of his presence, I am convinced from his +cynical speech and the look which I have caught in his eyes that +he is one who should be deeply distrusted. So I think, and so, +too, thinks my little Mary, who has a woman's quick insight into +character. + +"And now there is only she to be described. She is my niece; but +when my brother died five years ago and left her alone in the +world I adopted her, and have looked upon her ever since as my +daughter. She is a sunbeam in my house--sweet, loving, beautiful, +a wonderful manager and housekeeper, yet as tender and quiet and +gentle as a woman could be. She is my right hand. I do not know +what I could do without her. In only one matter has she ever gone +against my wishes. Twice my boy has asked her to marry him, for +he loves her devotedly, but each time she has refused him. I +think that if anyone could have drawn him into the right path it +would have been she, and that his marriage might have changed his +whole life; but now, alas! it is too late--forever too late! + +"Now, Mr. Holmes, you know the people who live under my roof, and +I shall continue with my miserable story. + +"When we were taking coffee in the drawing-room that night after +dinner, I told Arthur and Mary my experience, and of the precious +treasure which we had under our roof, suppressing only the name +of my client. Lucy Parr, who had brought in the coffee, had, I am +sure, left the room; but I cannot swear that the door was closed. +Mary and Arthur were much interested and wished to see the famous +coronet, but I thought it better not to disturb it. + +"'Where have you put it?' asked Arthur. + +"'In my own bureau.' + +"'Well, I hope to goodness the house won't be burgled during the +night.' said he. + +"'It is locked up,' I answered. + +"'Oh, any old key will fit that bureau. When I was a youngster I +have opened it myself with the key of the box-room cupboard.' + +"He often had a wild way of talking, so that I thought little of +what he said. He followed me to my room, however, that night with +a very grave face. + +"'Look here, dad,' said he with his eyes cast down, 'can you let +me have 200 pounds?' + +"'No, I cannot!' I answered sharply. 'I have been far too +generous with you in money matters.' + +"'You have been very kind,' said he, 'but I must have this money, +or else I can never show my face inside the club again.' + +"'And a very good thing, too!' I cried. + +"'Yes, but you would not have me leave it a dishonoured man,' +said he. 'I could not bear the disgrace. I must raise the money +in some way, and if you will not let me have it, then I must try +other means.' + +"I was very angry, for this was the third demand during the +month. 'You shall not have a farthing from me,' I cried, on which +he bowed and left the room without another word. + +"When he was gone I unlocked my bureau, made sure that my +treasure was safe, and locked it again. Then I started to go +round the house to see that all was secure--a duty which I +usually leave to Mary but which I thought it well to perform +myself that night. As I came down the stairs I saw Mary herself +at the side window of the hall, which she closed and fastened as +I approached. + +"'Tell me, dad,' said she, looking, I thought, a little +disturbed, 'did you give Lucy, the maid, leave to go out +to-night?' + +"'Certainly not.' + +"'She came in just now by the back door. I have no doubt that she +has only been to the side gate to see someone, but I think that +it is hardly safe and should be stopped.' + +"'You must speak to her in the morning, or I will if you prefer +it. Are you sure that everything is fastened?' + +"'Quite sure, dad.' + +"'Then, good-night.' I kissed her and went up to my bedroom +again, where I was soon asleep. + +"I am endeavouring to tell you everything, Mr. Holmes, which may +have any bearing upon the case, but I beg that you will question +me upon any point which I do not make clear." + +"On the contrary, your statement is singularly lucid." + +"I come to a part of my story now in which I should wish to be +particularly so. I am not a very heavy sleeper, and the anxiety +in my mind tended, no doubt, to make me even less so than usual. +About two in the morning, then, I was awakened by some sound in +the house. It had ceased ere I was wide awake, but it had left an +impression behind it as though a window had gently closed +somewhere. I lay listening with all my ears. Suddenly, to my +horror, there was a distinct sound of footsteps moving softly in +the next room. I slipped out of bed, all palpitating with fear, +and peeped round the corner of my dressing-room door. + +"'Arthur!' I screamed, 'you villain! you thief! How dare you +touch that coronet?' + +"The gas was half up, as I had left it, and my unhappy boy, +dressed only in his shirt and trousers, was standing beside the +light, holding the coronet in his hands. He appeared to be +wrenching at it, or bending it with all his strength. At my cry +he dropped it from his grasp and turned as pale as death. I +snatched it up and examined it. One of the gold corners, with +three of the beryls in it, was missing. + +"'You blackguard!' I shouted, beside myself with rage. 'You have +destroyed it! You have dishonoured me forever! Where are the +jewels which you have stolen?' + +"'Stolen!' he cried. + +"'Yes, thief!' I roared, shaking him by the shoulder. + +"'There are none missing. There cannot be any missing,' said he. + +"'There are three missing. And you know where they are. Must I +call you a liar as well as a thief? Did I not see you trying to +tear off another piece?' + +"'You have called me names enough,' said he, 'I will not stand it +any longer. I shall not say another word about this business, +since you have chosen to insult me. I will leave your house in +the morning and make my own way in the world.' + +"'You shall leave it in the hands of the police!' I cried +half-mad with grief and rage. 'I shall have this matter probed to +the bottom.' + +"'You shall learn nothing from me,' said he with a passion such +as I should not have thought was in his nature. 'If you choose to +call the police, let the police find what they can.' + +"By this time the whole house was astir, for I had raised my +voice in my anger. Mary was the first to rush into my room, and, +at the sight of the coronet and of Arthur's face, she read the +whole story and, with a scream, fell down senseless on the +ground. I sent the house-maid for the police and put the +investigation into their hands at once. When the inspector and a +constable entered the house, Arthur, who had stood sullenly with +his arms folded, asked me whether it was my intention to charge +him with theft. I answered that it had ceased to be a private +matter, but had become a public one, since the ruined coronet was +national property. I was determined that the law should have its +way in everything. + +"'At least,' said he, 'you will not have me arrested at once. It +would be to your advantage as well as mine if I might leave the +house for five minutes.' + +"'That you may get away, or perhaps that you may conceal what you +have stolen,' said I. And then, realising the dreadful position +in which I was placed, I implored him to remember that not only +my honour but that of one who was far greater than I was at +stake; and that he threatened to raise a scandal which would +convulse the nation. He might avert it all if he would but tell +me what he had done with the three missing stones. + +"'You may as well face the matter,' said I; 'you have been caught +in the act, and no confession could make your guilt more heinous. +If you but make such reparation as is in your power, by telling +us where the beryls are, all shall be forgiven and forgotten.' + +"'Keep your forgiveness for those who ask for it,' he answered, +turning away from me with a sneer. I saw that he was too hardened +for any words of mine to influence him. There was but one way for +it. I called in the inspector and gave him into custody. A search +was made at once not only of his person but of his room and of +every portion of the house where he could possibly have concealed +the gems; but no trace of them could be found, nor would the +wretched boy open his mouth for all our persuasions and our +threats. This morning he was removed to a cell, and I, after +going through all the police formalities, have hurried round to +you to implore you to use your skill in unravelling the matter. +The police have openly confessed that they can at present make +nothing of it. You may go to any expense which you think +necessary. I have already offered a reward of 1000 pounds. My +God, what shall I do! I have lost my honour, my gems, and my son +in one night. Oh, what shall I do!" + +He put a hand on either side of his head and rocked himself to +and fro, droning to himself like a child whose grief has got +beyond words. + +Sherlock Holmes sat silent for some few minutes, with his brows +knitted and his eyes fixed upon the fire. + +"Do you receive much company?" he asked. + +"None save my partner with his family and an occasional friend of +Arthur's. Sir George Burnwell has been several times lately. No +one else, I think." + +"Do you go out much in society?" + +"Arthur does. Mary and I stay at home. We neither of us care for +it." + +"That is unusual in a young girl." + +"She is of a quiet nature. Besides, she is not so very young. She +is four-and-twenty." + +"This matter, from what you say, seems to have been a shock to +her also." + +"Terrible! She is even more affected than I." + +"You have neither of you any doubt as to your son's guilt?" + +"How can we have when I saw him with my own eyes with the coronet +in his hands." + +"I hardly consider that a conclusive proof. Was the remainder of +the coronet at all injured?" + +"Yes, it was twisted." + +"Do you not think, then, that he might have been trying to +straighten it?" + +"God bless you! You are doing what you can for him and for me. +But it is too heavy a task. What was he doing there at all? If +his purpose were innocent, why did he not say so?" + +"Precisely. And if it were guilty, why did he not invent a lie? +His silence appears to me to cut both ways. There are several +singular points about the case. What did the police think of the +noise which awoke you from your sleep?" + +"They considered that it might be caused by Arthur's closing his +bedroom door." + +"A likely story! As if a man bent on felony would slam his door +so as to wake a household. What did they say, then, of the +disappearance of these gems?" + +"They are still sounding the planking and probing the furniture +in the hope of finding them." + +"Have they thought of looking outside the house?" + +"Yes, they have shown extraordinary energy. The whole garden has +already been minutely examined." + +"Now, my dear sir," said Holmes, "is it not obvious to you now +that this matter really strikes very much deeper than either you +or the police were at first inclined to think? It appeared to you +to be a simple case; to me it seems exceedingly complex. Consider +what is involved by your theory. You suppose that your son came +down from his bed, went, at great risk, to your dressing-room, +opened your bureau, took out your coronet, broke off by main +force a small portion of it, went off to some other place, +concealed three gems out of the thirty-nine, with such skill that +nobody can find them, and then returned with the other thirty-six +into the room in which he exposed himself to the greatest danger +of being discovered. I ask you now, is such a theory tenable?" + +"But what other is there?" cried the banker with a gesture of +despair. "If his motives were innocent, why does he not explain +them?" + +"It is our task to find that out," replied Holmes; "so now, if +you please, Mr. Holder, we will set off for Streatham together, +and devote an hour to glancing a little more closely into +details." + +My friend insisted upon my accompanying them in their expedition, +which I was eager enough to do, for my curiosity and sympathy +were deeply stirred by the story to which we had listened. I +confess that the guilt of the banker's son appeared to me to be +as obvious as it did to his unhappy father, but still I had such +faith in Holmes' judgment that I felt that there must be some +grounds for hope as long as he was dissatisfied with the accepted +explanation. He hardly spoke a word the whole way out to the +southern suburb, but sat with his chin upon his breast and his +hat drawn over his eyes, sunk in the deepest thought. Our client +appeared to have taken fresh heart at the little glimpse of hope +which had been presented to him, and he even broke into a +desultory chat with me over his business affairs. A short railway +journey and a shorter walk brought us to Fairbank, the modest +residence of the great financier. + +Fairbank was a good-sized square house of white stone, standing +back a little from the road. A double carriage-sweep, with a +snow-clad lawn, stretched down in front to two large iron gates +which closed the entrance. On the right side was a small wooden +thicket, which led into a narrow path between two neat hedges +stretching from the road to the kitchen door, and forming the +tradesmen's entrance. On the left ran a lane which led to the +stables, and was not itself within the grounds at all, being a +public, though little used, thoroughfare. Holmes left us standing +at the door and walked slowly all round the house, across the +front, down the tradesmen's path, and so round by the garden +behind into the stable lane. So long was he that Mr. Holder and I +went into the dining-room and waited by the fire until he should +return. We were sitting there in silence when the door opened and +a young lady came in. She was rather above the middle height, +slim, with dark hair and eyes, which seemed the darker against +the absolute pallor of her skin. I do not think that I have ever +seen such deadly paleness in a woman's face. Her lips, too, were +bloodless, but her eyes were flushed with crying. As she swept +silently into the room she impressed me with a greater sense of +grief than the banker had done in the morning, and it was the +more striking in her as she was evidently a woman of strong +character, with immense capacity for self-restraint. Disregarding +my presence, she went straight to her uncle and passed her hand +over his head with a sweet womanly caress. + +"You have given orders that Arthur should be liberated, have you +not, dad?" she asked. + +"No, no, my girl, the matter must be probed to the bottom." + +"But I am so sure that he is innocent. You know what woman's +instincts are. I know that he has done no harm and that you will +be sorry for having acted so harshly." + +"Why is he silent, then, if he is innocent?" + +"Who knows? Perhaps because he was so angry that you should +suspect him." + +"How could I help suspecting him, when I actually saw him with +the coronet in his hand?" + +"Oh, but he had only picked it up to look at it. Oh, do, do take +my word for it that he is innocent. Let the matter drop and say +no more. It is so dreadful to think of our dear Arthur in +prison!" + +"I shall never let it drop until the gems are found--never, Mary! +Your affection for Arthur blinds you as to the awful consequences +to me. Far from hushing the thing up, I have brought a gentleman +down from London to inquire more deeply into it." + +"This gentleman?" she asked, facing round to me. + +"No, his friend. He wished us to leave him alone. He is round in +the stable lane now." + +"The stable lane?" She raised her dark eyebrows. "What can he +hope to find there? Ah! this, I suppose, is he. I trust, sir, +that you will succeed in proving, what I feel sure is the truth, +that my cousin Arthur is innocent of this crime." + +"I fully share your opinion, and I trust, with you, that we may +prove it," returned Holmes, going back to the mat to knock the +snow from his shoes. "I believe I have the honour of addressing +Miss Mary Holder. Might I ask you a question or two?" + +"Pray do, sir, if it may help to clear this horrible affair up." + +"You heard nothing yourself last night?" + +"Nothing, until my uncle here began to speak loudly. I heard +that, and I came down." + +"You shut up the windows and doors the night before. Did you +fasten all the windows?" + +"Yes." + +"Were they all fastened this morning?" + +"Yes." + +"You have a maid who has a sweetheart? I think that you remarked +to your uncle last night that she had been out to see him?" + +"Yes, and she was the girl who waited in the drawing-room, and +who may have heard uncle's remarks about the coronet." + +"I see. You infer that she may have gone out to tell her +sweetheart, and that the two may have planned the robbery." + +"But what is the good of all these vague theories," cried the +banker impatiently, "when I have told you that I saw Arthur with +the coronet in his hands?" + +"Wait a little, Mr. Holder. We must come back to that. About this +girl, Miss Holder. You saw her return by the kitchen door, I +presume?" + +"Yes; when I went to see if the door was fastened for the night I +met her slipping in. I saw the man, too, in the gloom." + +"Do you know him?" + +"Oh, yes! he is the green-grocer who brings our vegetables round. +His name is Francis Prosper." + +"He stood," said Holmes, "to the left of the door--that is to +say, farther up the path than is necessary to reach the door?" + +"Yes, he did." + +"And he is a man with a wooden leg?" + +Something like fear sprang up in the young lady's expressive +black eyes. "Why, you are like a magician," said she. "How do you +know that?" She smiled, but there was no answering smile in +Holmes' thin, eager face. + +"I should be very glad now to go upstairs," said he. "I shall +probably wish to go over the outside of the house again. Perhaps +I had better take a look at the lower windows before I go up." + +He walked swiftly round from one to the other, pausing only at +the large one which looked from the hall onto the stable lane. +This he opened and made a very careful examination of the sill +with his powerful magnifying lens. "Now we shall go upstairs," +said he at last. + +The banker's dressing-room was a plainly furnished little +chamber, with a grey carpet, a large bureau, and a long mirror. +Holmes went to the bureau first and looked hard at the lock. + +"Which key was used to open it?" he asked. + +"That which my son himself indicated--that of the cupboard of the +lumber-room." + +"Have you it here?" + +"That is it on the dressing-table." + +Sherlock Holmes took it up and opened the bureau. + +"It is a noiseless lock," said he. "It is no wonder that it did +not wake you. This case, I presume, contains the coronet. We must +have a look at it." He opened the case, and taking out the diadem +he laid it upon the table. It was a magnificent specimen of the +jeweller's art, and the thirty-six stones were the finest that I +have ever seen. At one side of the coronet was a cracked edge, +where a corner holding three gems had been torn away. + +"Now, Mr. Holder," said Holmes, "here is the corner which +corresponds to that which has been so unfortunately lost. Might I +beg that you will break it off." + +The banker recoiled in horror. "I should not dream of trying," +said he. + +"Then I will." Holmes suddenly bent his strength upon it, but +without result. "I feel it give a little," said he; "but, though +I am exceptionally strong in the fingers, it would take me all my +time to break it. An ordinary man could not do it. Now, what do +you think would happen if I did break it, Mr. Holder? There would +be a noise like a pistol shot. Do you tell me that all this +happened within a few yards of your bed and that you heard +nothing of it?" + +"I do not know what to think. It is all dark to me." + +"But perhaps it may grow lighter as we go. What do you think, +Miss Holder?" + +"I confess that I still share my uncle's perplexity." + +"Your son had no shoes or slippers on when you saw him?" + +"He had nothing on save only his trousers and shirt." + +"Thank you. We have certainly been favoured with extraordinary +luck during this inquiry, and it will be entirely our own fault +if we do not succeed in clearing the matter up. With your +permission, Mr. Holder, I shall now continue my investigations +outside." + +He went alone, at his own request, for he explained that any +unnecessary footmarks might make his task more difficult. For an +hour or more he was at work, returning at last with his feet +heavy with snow and his features as inscrutable as ever. + +"I think that I have seen now all that there is to see, Mr. +Holder," said he; "I can serve you best by returning to my +rooms." + +"But the gems, Mr. Holmes. Where are they?" + +"I cannot tell." + +The banker wrung his hands. "I shall never see them again!" he +cried. "And my son? You give me hopes?" + +"My opinion is in no way altered." + +"Then, for God's sake, what was this dark business which was +acted in my house last night?" + +"If you can call upon me at my Baker Street rooms to-morrow +morning between nine and ten I shall be happy to do what I can to +make it clearer. I understand that you give me carte blanche to +act for you, provided only that I get back the gems, and that you +place no limit on the sum I may draw." + +"I would give my fortune to have them back." + +"Very good. I shall look into the matter between this and then. +Good-bye; it is just possible that I may have to come over here +again before evening." + +It was obvious to me that my companion's mind was now made up +about the case, although what his conclusions were was more than +I could even dimly imagine. Several times during our homeward +journey I endeavoured to sound him upon the point, but he always +glided away to some other topic, until at last I gave it over in +despair. It was not yet three when we found ourselves in our +rooms once more. He hurried to his chamber and was down again in +a few minutes dressed as a common loafer. With his collar turned +up, his shiny, seedy coat, his red cravat, and his worn boots, he +was a perfect sample of the class. + +"I think that this should do," said he, glancing into the glass +above the fireplace. "I only wish that you could come with me, +Watson, but I fear that it won't do. I may be on the trail in +this matter, or I may be following a will-o'-the-wisp, but I +shall soon know which it is. I hope that I may be back in a few +hours." He cut a slice of beef from the joint upon the sideboard, +sandwiched it between two rounds of bread, and thrusting this +rude meal into his pocket he started off upon his expedition. + +I had just finished my tea when he returned, evidently in +excellent spirits, swinging an old elastic-sided boot in his +hand. He chucked it down into a corner and helped himself to a +cup of tea. + +"I only looked in as I passed," said he. "I am going right on." + +"Where to?" + +"Oh, to the other side of the West End. It may be some time +before I get back. Don't wait up for me in case I should be +late." + +"How are you getting on?" + +"Oh, so so. Nothing to complain of. I have been out to Streatham +since I saw you last, but I did not call at the house. It is a +very sweet little problem, and I would not have missed it for a +good deal. However, I must not sit gossiping here, but must get +these disreputable clothes off and return to my highly +respectable self." + +I could see by his manner that he had stronger reasons for +satisfaction than his words alone would imply. His eyes twinkled, +and there was even a touch of colour upon his sallow cheeks. He +hastened upstairs, and a few minutes later I heard the slam of +the hall door, which told me that he was off once more upon his +congenial hunt. + +I waited until midnight, but there was no sign of his return, so +I retired to my room. It was no uncommon thing for him to be away +for days and nights on end when he was hot upon a scent, so that +his lateness caused me no surprise. I do not know at what hour he +came in, but when I came down to breakfast in the morning there +he was with a cup of coffee in one hand and the paper in the +other, as fresh and trim as possible. + +"You will excuse my beginning without you, Watson," said he, "but +you remember that our client has rather an early appointment this +morning." + +"Why, it is after nine now," I answered. "I should not be +surprised if that were he. I thought I heard a ring." + +It was, indeed, our friend the financier. I was shocked by the +change which had come over him, for his face which was naturally +of a broad and massive mould, was now pinched and fallen in, +while his hair seemed to me at least a shade whiter. He entered +with a weariness and lethargy which was even more painful than +his violence of the morning before, and he dropped heavily into +the armchair which I pushed forward for him. + +"I do not know what I have done to be so severely tried," said +he. "Only two days ago I was a happy and prosperous man, without +a care in the world. Now I am left to a lonely and dishonoured +age. One sorrow comes close upon the heels of another. My niece, +Mary, has deserted me." + +"Deserted you?" + +"Yes. Her bed this morning had not been slept in, her room was +empty, and a note for me lay upon the hall table. I had said to +her last night, in sorrow and not in anger, that if she had +married my boy all might have been well with him. Perhaps it was +thoughtless of me to say so. It is to that remark that she refers +in this note: + +"'MY DEAREST UNCLE:--I feel that I have brought trouble upon you, +and that if I had acted differently this terrible misfortune +might never have occurred. I cannot, with this thought in my +mind, ever again be happy under your roof, and I feel that I must +leave you forever. Do not worry about my future, for that is +provided for; and, above all, do not search for me, for it will +be fruitless labour and an ill-service to me. In life or in +death, I am ever your loving,--MARY.' + +"What could she mean by that note, Mr. Holmes? Do you think it +points to suicide?" + +"No, no, nothing of the kind. It is perhaps the best possible +solution. I trust, Mr. Holder, that you are nearing the end of +your troubles." + +"Ha! You say so! You have heard something, Mr. Holmes; you have +learned something! Where are the gems?" + +"You would not think 1000 pounds apiece an excessive sum for +them?" + +"I would pay ten." + +"That would be unnecessary. Three thousand will cover the matter. +And there is a little reward, I fancy. Have you your check-book? +Here is a pen. Better make it out for 4000 pounds." + +With a dazed face the banker made out the required check. Holmes +walked over to his desk, took out a little triangular piece of +gold with three gems in it, and threw it down upon the table. + +With a shriek of joy our client clutched it up. + +"You have it!" he gasped. "I am saved! I am saved!" + +The reaction of joy was as passionate as his grief had been, and +he hugged his recovered gems to his bosom. + +"There is one other thing you owe, Mr. Holder," said Sherlock +Holmes rather sternly. + +"Owe!" He caught up a pen. "Name the sum, and I will pay it." + +"No, the debt is not to me. You owe a very humble apology to that +noble lad, your son, who has carried himself in this matter as I +should be proud to see my own son do, should I ever chance to +have one." + +"Then it was not Arthur who took them?" + +"I told you yesterday, and I repeat to-day, that it was not." + +"You are sure of it! Then let us hurry to him at once to let him +know that the truth is known." + +"He knows it already. When I had cleared it all up I had an +interview with him, and finding that he would not tell me the +story, I told it to him, on which he had to confess that I was +right and to add the very few details which were not yet quite +clear to me. Your news of this morning, however, may open his +lips." + +"For heaven's sake, tell me, then, what is this extraordinary +mystery!" + +"I will do so, and I will show you the steps by which I reached +it. And let me say to you, first, that which it is hardest for me +to say and for you to hear: there has been an understanding +between Sir George Burnwell and your niece Mary. They have now +fled together." + +"My Mary? Impossible!" + +"It is unfortunately more than possible; it is certain. Neither +you nor your son knew the true character of this man when you +admitted him into your family circle. He is one of the most +dangerous men in England--a ruined gambler, an absolutely +desperate villain, a man without heart or conscience. Your niece +knew nothing of such men. When he breathed his vows to her, as he +had done to a hundred before her, she flattered herself that she +alone had touched his heart. The devil knows best what he said, +but at least she became his tool and was in the habit of seeing +him nearly every evening." + +"I cannot, and I will not, believe it!" cried the banker with an +ashen face. + +"I will tell you, then, what occurred in your house last night. +Your niece, when you had, as she thought, gone to your room, +slipped down and talked to her lover through the window which +leads into the stable lane. His footmarks had pressed right +through the snow, so long had he stood there. She told him of the +coronet. His wicked lust for gold kindled at the news, and he +bent her to his will. I have no doubt that she loved you, but +there are women in whom the love of a lover extinguishes all +other loves, and I think that she must have been one. She had +hardly listened to his instructions when she saw you coming +downstairs, on which she closed the window rapidly and told you +about one of the servants' escapade with her wooden-legged lover, +which was all perfectly true. + +"Your boy, Arthur, went to bed after his interview with you but +he slept badly on account of his uneasiness about his club debts. +In the middle of the night he heard a soft tread pass his door, +so he rose and, looking out, was surprised to see his cousin +walking very stealthily along the passage until she disappeared +into your dressing-room. Petrified with astonishment, the lad +slipped on some clothes and waited there in the dark to see what +would come of this strange affair. Presently she emerged from the +room again, and in the light of the passage-lamp your son saw +that she carried the precious coronet in her hands. She passed +down the stairs, and he, thrilling with horror, ran along and +slipped behind the curtain near your door, whence he could see +what passed in the hall beneath. He saw her stealthily open the +window, hand out the coronet to someone in the gloom, and then +closing it once more hurry back to her room, passing quite close +to where he stood hid behind the curtain. + +"As long as she was on the scene he could not take any action +without a horrible exposure of the woman whom he loved. But the +instant that she was gone he realised how crushing a misfortune +this would be for you, and how all-important it was to set it +right. He rushed down, just as he was, in his bare feet, opened +the window, sprang out into the snow, and ran down the lane, +where he could see a dark figure in the moonlight. Sir George +Burnwell tried to get away, but Arthur caught him, and there was +a struggle between them, your lad tugging at one side of the +coronet, and his opponent at the other. In the scuffle, your son +struck Sir George and cut him over the eye. Then something +suddenly snapped, and your son, finding that he had the coronet +in his hands, rushed back, closed the window, ascended to your +room, and had just observed that the coronet had been twisted in +the struggle and was endeavouring to straighten it when you +appeared upon the scene." + +"Is it possible?" gasped the banker. + +"You then roused his anger by calling him names at a moment when +he felt that he had deserved your warmest thanks. He could not +explain the true state of affairs without betraying one who +certainly deserved little enough consideration at his hands. He +took the more chivalrous view, however, and preserved her +secret." + +"And that was why she shrieked and fainted when she saw the +coronet," cried Mr. Holder. "Oh, my God! what a blind fool I have +been! And his asking to be allowed to go out for five minutes! +The dear fellow wanted to see if the missing piece were at the +scene of the struggle. How cruelly I have misjudged him!" + +"When I arrived at the house," continued Holmes, "I at once went +very carefully round it to observe if there were any traces in +the snow which might help me. I knew that none had fallen since +the evening before, and also that there had been a strong frost +to preserve impressions. I passed along the tradesmen's path, but +found it all trampled down and indistinguishable. Just beyond it, +however, at the far side of the kitchen door, a woman had stood +and talked with a man, whose round impressions on one side showed +that he had a wooden leg. I could even tell that they had been +disturbed, for the woman had run back swiftly to the door, as was +shown by the deep toe and light heel marks, while Wooden-leg had +waited a little, and then had gone away. I thought at the time +that this might be the maid and her sweetheart, of whom you had +already spoken to me, and inquiry showed it was so. I passed +round the garden without seeing anything more than random tracks, +which I took to be the police; but when I got into the stable +lane a very long and complex story was written in the snow in +front of me. + +"There was a double line of tracks of a booted man, and a second +double line which I saw with delight belonged to a man with naked +feet. I was at once convinced from what you had told me that the +latter was your son. The first had walked both ways, but the +other had run swiftly, and as his tread was marked in places over +the depression of the boot, it was obvious that he had passed +after the other. I followed them up and found they led to the +hall window, where Boots had worn all the snow away while +waiting. Then I walked to the other end, which was a hundred +yards or more down the lane. I saw where Boots had faced round, +where the snow was cut up as though there had been a struggle, +and, finally, where a few drops of blood had fallen, to show me +that I was not mistaken. Boots had then run down the lane, and +another little smudge of blood showed that it was he who had been +hurt. When he came to the highroad at the other end, I found that +the pavement had been cleared, so there was an end to that clue. + +"On entering the house, however, I examined, as you remember, the +sill and framework of the hall window with my lens, and I could +at once see that someone had passed out. I could distinguish the +outline of an instep where the wet foot had been placed in coming +in. I was then beginning to be able to form an opinion as to what +had occurred. A man had waited outside the window; someone had +brought the gems; the deed had been overseen by your son; he had +pursued the thief; had struggled with him; they had each tugged +at the coronet, their united strength causing injuries which +neither alone could have effected. He had returned with the +prize, but had left a fragment in the grasp of his opponent. So +far I was clear. The question now was, who was the man and who +was it brought him the coronet? + +"It is an old maxim of mine that when you have excluded the +impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the +truth. Now, I knew that it was not you who had brought it down, +so there only remained your niece and the maids. But if it were +the maids, why should your son allow himself to be accused in +their place? There could be no possible reason. As he loved his +cousin, however, there was an excellent explanation why he should +retain her secret--the more so as the secret was a disgraceful +one. When I remembered that you had seen her at that window, and +how she had fainted on seeing the coronet again, my conjecture +became a certainty. + +"And who could it be who was her confederate? A lover evidently, +for who else could outweigh the love and gratitude which she must +feel to you? I knew that you went out little, and that your +circle of friends was a very limited one. But among them was Sir +George Burnwell. I had heard of him before as being a man of evil +reputation among women. It must have been he who wore those boots +and retained the missing gems. Even though he knew that Arthur +had discovered him, he might still flatter himself that he was +safe, for the lad could not say a word without compromising his +own family. + +"Well, your own good sense will suggest what measures I took +next. I went in the shape of a loafer to Sir George's house, +managed to pick up an acquaintance with his valet, learned that +his master had cut his head the night before, and, finally, at +the expense of six shillings, made all sure by buying a pair of +his cast-off shoes. With these I journeyed down to Streatham and +saw that they exactly fitted the tracks." + +"I saw an ill-dressed vagabond in the lane yesterday evening," +said Mr. Holder. + +"Precisely. It was I. I found that I had my man, so I came home +and changed my clothes. It was a delicate part which I had to +play then, for I saw that a prosecution must be avoided to avert +scandal, and I knew that so astute a villain would see that our +hands were tied in the matter. I went and saw him. At first, of +course, he denied everything. But when I gave him every +particular that had occurred, he tried to bluster and took down a +life-preserver from the wall. I knew my man, however, and I +clapped a pistol to his head before he could strike. Then he +became a little more reasonable. I told him that we would give +him a price for the stones he held--1000 pounds apiece. That +brought out the first signs of grief that he had shown. 'Why, +dash it all!' said he, 'I've let them go at six hundred for the +three!' I soon managed to get the address of the receiver who had +them, on promising him that there would be no prosecution. Off I +set to him, and after much chaffering I got our stones at 1000 +pounds apiece. Then I looked in upon your son, told him that all +was right, and eventually got to my bed about two o'clock, after +what I may call a really hard day's work." + +"A day which has saved England from a great public scandal," said +the banker, rising. "Sir, I cannot find words to thank you, but +you shall not find me ungrateful for what you have done. Your +skill has indeed exceeded all that I have heard of it. And now I +must fly to my dear boy to apologise to him for the wrong which I +have done him. As to what you tell me of poor Mary, it goes to my +very heart. Not even your skill can inform me where she is now." + +"I think that we may safely say," returned Holmes, "that she is +wherever Sir George Burnwell is. It is equally certain, too, that +whatever her sins are, they will soon receive a more than +sufficient punishment." + + + +XII. THE ADVENTURE OF THE COPPER BEECHES + +"To the man who loves art for its own sake," remarked Sherlock +Holmes, tossing aside the advertisement sheet of the Daily +Telegraph, "it is frequently in its least important and lowliest +manifestations that the keenest pleasure is to be derived. It is +pleasant to me to observe, Watson, that you have so far grasped +this truth that in these little records of our cases which you +have been good enough to draw up, and, I am bound to say, +occasionally to embellish, you have given prominence not so much +to the many causes celebres and sensational trials in which I +have figured but rather to those incidents which may have been +trivial in themselves, but which have given room for those +faculties of deduction and of logical synthesis which I have made +my special province." + +"And yet," said I, smiling, "I cannot quite hold myself absolved +from the charge of sensationalism which has been urged against my +records." + +"You have erred, perhaps," he observed, taking up a glowing +cinder with the tongs and lighting with it the long cherry-wood +pipe which was wont to replace his clay when he was in a +disputatious rather than a meditative mood--"you have erred +perhaps in attempting to put colour and life into each of your +statements instead of confining yourself to the task of placing +upon record that severe reasoning from cause to effect which is +really the only notable feature about the thing." + +"It seems to me that I have done you full justice in the matter," +I remarked with some coldness, for I was repelled by the egotism +which I had more than once observed to be a strong factor in my +friend's singular character. + +"No, it is not selfishness or conceit," said he, answering, as +was his wont, my thoughts rather than my words. "If I claim full +justice for my art, it is because it is an impersonal thing--a +thing beyond myself. Crime is common. Logic is rare. Therefore it +is upon the logic rather than upon the crime that you should +dwell. You have degraded what should have been a course of +lectures into a series of tales." + +It was a cold morning of the early spring, and we sat after +breakfast on either side of a cheery fire in the old room at +Baker Street. A thick fog rolled down between the lines of +dun-coloured houses, and the opposing windows loomed like dark, +shapeless blurs through the heavy yellow wreaths. Our gas was lit +and shone on the white cloth and glimmer of china and metal, for +the table had not been cleared yet. Sherlock Holmes had been +silent all the morning, dipping continuously into the +advertisement columns of a succession of papers until at last, +having apparently given up his search, he had emerged in no very +sweet temper to lecture me upon my literary shortcomings. + +"At the same time," he remarked after a pause, during which he +had sat puffing at his long pipe and gazing down into the fire, +"you can hardly be open to a charge of sensationalism, for out of +these cases which you have been so kind as to interest yourself +in, a fair proportion do not treat of crime, in its legal sense, +at all. The small matter in which I endeavoured to help the King +of Bohemia, the singular experience of Miss Mary Sutherland, the +problem connected with the man with the twisted lip, and the +incident of the noble bachelor, were all matters which are +outside the pale of the law. But in avoiding the sensational, I +fear that you may have bordered on the trivial." + +"The end may have been so," I answered, "but the methods I hold +to have been novel and of interest." + +"Pshaw, my dear fellow, what do the public, the great unobservant +public, who could hardly tell a weaver by his tooth or a +compositor by his left thumb, care about the finer shades of +analysis and deduction! But, indeed, if you are trivial, I cannot +blame you, for the days of the great cases are past. Man, or at +least criminal man, has lost all enterprise and originality. As +to my own little practice, it seems to be degenerating into an +agency for recovering lost lead pencils and giving advice to +young ladies from boarding-schools. I think that I have touched +bottom at last, however. This note I had this morning marks my +zero-point, I fancy. Read it!" He tossed a crumpled letter across +to me. + +It was dated from Montague Place upon the preceding evening, and +ran thus: + +"DEAR MR. HOLMES:--I am very anxious to consult you as to whether +I should or should not accept a situation which has been offered +to me as governess. I shall call at half-past ten to-morrow if I +do not inconvenience you. Yours faithfully, + "VIOLET HUNTER." + +"Do you know the young lady?" I asked. + +"Not I." + +"It is half-past ten now." + +"Yes, and I have no doubt that is her ring." + +"It may turn out to be of more interest than you think. You +remember that the affair of the blue carbuncle, which appeared to +be a mere whim at first, developed into a serious investigation. +It may be so in this case, also." + +"Well, let us hope so. But our doubts will very soon be solved, +for here, unless I am much mistaken, is the person in question." + +As he spoke the door opened and a young lady entered the room. +She was plainly but neatly dressed, with a bright, quick face, +freckled like a plover's egg, and with the brisk manner of a +woman who has had her own way to make in the world. + +"You will excuse my troubling you, I am sure," said she, as my +companion rose to greet her, "but I have had a very strange +experience, and as I have no parents or relations of any sort +from whom I could ask advice, I thought that perhaps you would be +kind enough to tell me what I should do." + +"Pray take a seat, Miss Hunter. I shall be happy to do anything +that I can to serve you." + +I could see that Holmes was favourably impressed by the manner +and speech of his new client. He looked her over in his searching +fashion, and then composed himself, with his lids drooping and +his finger-tips together, to listen to her story. + +"I have been a governess for five years," said she, "in the +family of Colonel Spence Munro, but two months ago the colonel +received an appointment at Halifax, in Nova Scotia, and took his +children over to America with him, so that I found myself without +a situation. I advertised, and I answered advertisements, but +without success. At last the little money which I had saved began +to run short, and I was at my wit's end as to what I should do. + +"There is a well-known agency for governesses in the West End +called Westaway's, and there I used to call about once a week in +order to see whether anything had turned up which might suit me. +Westaway was the name of the founder of the business, but it is +really managed by Miss Stoper. She sits in her own little office, +and the ladies who are seeking employment wait in an anteroom, +and are then shown in one by one, when she consults her ledgers +and sees whether she has anything which would suit them. + +"Well, when I called last week I was shown into the little office +as usual, but I found that Miss Stoper was not alone. A +prodigiously stout man with a very smiling face and a great heavy +chin which rolled down in fold upon fold over his throat sat at +her elbow with a pair of glasses on his nose, looking very +earnestly at the ladies who entered. As I came in he gave quite a +jump in his chair and turned quickly to Miss Stoper. + +"'That will do,' said he; 'I could not ask for anything better. +Capital! capital!' He seemed quite enthusiastic and rubbed his +hands together in the most genial fashion. He was such a +comfortable-looking man that it was quite a pleasure to look at +him. + +"'You are looking for a situation, miss?' he asked. + +"'Yes, sir.' + +"'As governess?' + +"'Yes, sir.' + +"'And what salary do you ask?' + +"'I had 4 pounds a month in my last place with Colonel Spence +Munro.' + +"'Oh, tut, tut! sweating--rank sweating!' he cried, throwing his +fat hands out into the air like a man who is in a boiling +passion. 'How could anyone offer so pitiful a sum to a lady with +such attractions and accomplishments?' + +"'My accomplishments, sir, may be less than you imagine,' said I. +'A little French, a little German, music, and drawing--' + +"'Tut, tut!' he cried. 'This is all quite beside the question. +The point is, have you or have you not the bearing and deportment +of a lady? There it is in a nutshell. If you have not, you are +not fitted for the rearing of a child who may some day play a +considerable part in the history of the country. But if you have +why, then, how could any gentleman ask you to condescend to +accept anything under the three figures? Your salary with me, +madam, would commence at 100 pounds a year.' + +"You may imagine, Mr. Holmes, that to me, destitute as I was, +such an offer seemed almost too good to be true. The gentleman, +however, seeing perhaps the look of incredulity upon my face, +opened a pocket-book and took out a note. + +"'It is also my custom,' said he, smiling in the most pleasant +fashion until his eyes were just two little shining slits amid +the white creases of his face, 'to advance to my young ladies +half their salary beforehand, so that they may meet any little +expenses of their journey and their wardrobe.' + +"It seemed to me that I had never met so fascinating and so +thoughtful a man. As I was already in debt to my tradesmen, the +advance was a great convenience, and yet there was something +unnatural about the whole transaction which made me wish to know +a little more before I quite committed myself. + +"'May I ask where you live, sir?' said I. + +"'Hampshire. Charming rural place. The Copper Beeches, five miles +on the far side of Winchester. It is the most lovely country, my +dear young lady, and the dearest old country-house.' + +"'And my duties, sir? I should be glad to know what they would +be.' + +"'One child--one dear little romper just six years old. Oh, if +you could see him killing cockroaches with a slipper! Smack! +smack! smack! Three gone before you could wink!' He leaned back +in his chair and laughed his eyes into his head again. + +"I was a little startled at the nature of the child's amusement, +but the father's laughter made me think that perhaps he was +joking. + +"'My sole duties, then,' I asked, 'are to take charge of a single +child?' + +"'No, no, not the sole, not the sole, my dear young lady,' he +cried. 'Your duty would be, as I am sure your good sense would +suggest, to obey any little commands my wife might give, provided +always that they were such commands as a lady might with +propriety obey. You see no difficulty, heh?' + +"'I should be happy to make myself useful.' + +"'Quite so. In dress now, for example. We are faddy people, you +know--faddy but kind-hearted. If you were asked to wear any dress +which we might give you, you would not object to our little whim. +Heh?' + +"'No,' said I, considerably astonished at his words. + +"'Or to sit here, or sit there, that would not be offensive to +you?' + +"'Oh, no.' + +"'Or to cut your hair quite short before you come to us?' + +"I could hardly believe my ears. As you may observe, Mr. Holmes, +my hair is somewhat luxuriant, and of a rather peculiar tint of +chestnut. It has been considered artistic. I could not dream of +sacrificing it in this offhand fashion. + +"'I am afraid that that is quite impossible,' said I. He had been +watching me eagerly out of his small eyes, and I could see a +shadow pass over his face as I spoke. + +"'I am afraid that it is quite essential,' said he. 'It is a +little fancy of my wife's, and ladies' fancies, you know, madam, +ladies' fancies must be consulted. And so you won't cut your +hair?' + +"'No, sir, I really could not,' I answered firmly. + +"'Ah, very well; then that quite settles the matter. It is a +pity, because in other respects you would really have done very +nicely. In that case, Miss Stoper, I had best inspect a few more +of your young ladies.' + +"The manageress had sat all this while busy with her papers +without a word to either of us, but she glanced at me now with so +much annoyance upon her face that I could not help suspecting +that she had lost a handsome commission through my refusal. + +"'Do you desire your name to be kept upon the books?' she asked. + +"'If you please, Miss Stoper.' + +"'Well, really, it seems rather useless, since you refuse the +most excellent offers in this fashion,' said she sharply. 'You +can hardly expect us to exert ourselves to find another such +opening for you. Good-day to you, Miss Hunter.' She struck a gong +upon the table, and I was shown out by the page. + +"Well, Mr. Holmes, when I got back to my lodgings and found +little enough in the cupboard, and two or three bills upon the +table, I began to ask myself whether I had not done a very +foolish thing. After all, if these people had strange fads and +expected obedience on the most extraordinary matters, they were +at least ready to pay for their eccentricity. Very few +governesses in England are getting 100 pounds a year. Besides, +what use was my hair to me? Many people are improved by wearing +it short and perhaps I should be among the number. Next day I was +inclined to think that I had made a mistake, and by the day after +I was sure of it. I had almost overcome my pride so far as to go +back to the agency and inquire whether the place was still open +when I received this letter from the gentleman himself. I have it +here and I will read it to you: + + "'The Copper Beeches, near Winchester. +"'DEAR MISS HUNTER:--Miss Stoper has very kindly given me your +address, and I write from here to ask you whether you have +reconsidered your decision. My wife is very anxious that you +should come, for she has been much attracted by my description of +you. We are willing to give 30 pounds a quarter, or 120 pounds a +year, so as to recompense you for any little inconvenience which +our fads may cause you. They are not very exacting, after all. My +wife is fond of a particular shade of electric blue and would +like you to wear such a dress indoors in the morning. You need +not, however, go to the expense of purchasing one, as we have one +belonging to my dear daughter Alice (now in Philadelphia), which +would, I should think, fit you very well. Then, as to sitting +here or there, or amusing yourself in any manner indicated, that +need cause you no inconvenience. As regards your hair, it is no +doubt a pity, especially as I could not help remarking its beauty +during our short interview, but I am afraid that I must remain +firm upon this point, and I only hope that the increased salary +may recompense you for the loss. Your duties, as far as the child +is concerned, are very light. Now do try to come, and I shall +meet you with the dog-cart at Winchester. Let me know your train. +Yours faithfully, JEPHRO RUCASTLE.' + +"That is the letter which I have just received, Mr. Holmes, and +my mind is made up that I will accept it. I thought, however, +that before taking the final step I should like to submit the +whole matter to your consideration." + +"Well, Miss Hunter, if your mind is made up, that settles the +question," said Holmes, smiling. + +"But you would not advise me to refuse?" + +"I confess that it is not the situation which I should like to +see a sister of mine apply for." + +"What is the meaning of it all, Mr. Holmes?" + +"Ah, I have no data. I cannot tell. Perhaps you have yourself +formed some opinion?" + +"Well, there seems to me to be only one possible solution. Mr. +Rucastle seemed to be a very kind, good-natured man. Is it not +possible that his wife is a lunatic, that he desires to keep the +matter quiet for fear she should be taken to an asylum, and that +he humours her fancies in every way in order to prevent an +outbreak?" + +"That is a possible solution--in fact, as matters stand, it is +the most probable one. But in any case it does not seem to be a +nice household for a young lady." + +"But the money, Mr. Holmes, the money!" + +"Well, yes, of course the pay is good--too good. That is what +makes me uneasy. Why should they give you 120 pounds a year, when +they could have their pick for 40 pounds? There must be some +strong reason behind." + +"I thought that if I told you the circumstances you would +understand afterwards if I wanted your help. I should feel so +much stronger if I felt that you were at the back of me." + +"Oh, you may carry that feeling away with you. I assure you that +your little problem promises to be the most interesting which has +come my way for some months. There is something distinctly novel +about some of the features. If you should find yourself in doubt +or in danger--" + +"Danger! What danger do you foresee?" + +Holmes shook his head gravely. "It would cease to be a danger if +we could define it," said he. "But at any time, day or night, a +telegram would bring me down to your help." + +"That is enough." She rose briskly from her chair with the +anxiety all swept from her face. "I shall go down to Hampshire +quite easy in my mind now. I shall write to Mr. Rucastle at once, +sacrifice my poor hair to-night, and start for Winchester +to-morrow." With a few grateful words to Holmes she bade us both +good-night and bustled off upon her way. + +"At least," said I as we heard her quick, firm steps descending +the stairs, "she seems to be a young lady who is very well able +to take care of herself." + +"And she would need to be," said Holmes gravely. "I am much +mistaken if we do not hear from her before many days are past." + +It was not very long before my friend's prediction was fulfilled. +A fortnight went by, during which I frequently found my thoughts +turning in her direction and wondering what strange side-alley of +human experience this lonely woman had strayed into. The unusual +salary, the curious conditions, the light duties, all pointed to +something abnormal, though whether a fad or a plot, or whether +the man were a philanthropist or a villain, it was quite beyond +my powers to determine. As to Holmes, I observed that he sat +frequently for half an hour on end, with knitted brows and an +abstracted air, but he swept the matter away with a wave of his +hand when I mentioned it. "Data! data! data!" he cried +impatiently. "I can't make bricks without clay." And yet he would +always wind up by muttering that no sister of his should ever +have accepted such a situation. + +The telegram which we eventually received came late one night +just as I was thinking of turning in and Holmes was settling down +to one of those all-night chemical researches which he frequently +indulged in, when I would leave him stooping over a retort and a +test-tube at night and find him in the same position when I came +down to breakfast in the morning. He opened the yellow envelope, +and then, glancing at the message, threw it across to me. + +"Just look up the trains in Bradshaw," said he, and turned back +to his chemical studies. + +The summons was a brief and urgent one. + +"Please be at the Black Swan Hotel at Winchester at midday +to-morrow," it said. "Do come! I am at my wit's end. HUNTER." + +"Will you come with me?" asked Holmes, glancing up. + +"I should wish to." + +"Just look it up, then." + +"There is a train at half-past nine," said I, glancing over my +Bradshaw. "It is due at Winchester at 11:30." + +"That will do very nicely. Then perhaps I had better postpone my +analysis of the acetones, as we may need to be at our best in the +morning." + +By eleven o'clock the next day we were well upon our way to the +old English capital. Holmes had been buried in the morning papers +all the way down, but after we had passed the Hampshire border he +threw them down and began to admire the scenery. It was an ideal +spring day, a light blue sky, flecked with little fleecy white +clouds drifting across from west to east. The sun was shining +very brightly, and yet there was an exhilarating nip in the air, +which set an edge to a man's energy. All over the countryside, +away to the rolling hills around Aldershot, the little red and +grey roofs of the farm-steadings peeped out from amid the light +green of the new foliage. + +"Are they not fresh and beautiful?" I cried with all the +enthusiasm of a man fresh from the fogs of Baker Street. + +But Holmes shook his head gravely. + +"Do you know, Watson," said he, "that it is one of the curses of +a mind with a turn like mine that I must look at everything with +reference to my own special subject. You look at these scattered +houses, and you are impressed by their beauty. I look at them, +and the only thought which comes to me is a feeling of their +isolation and of the impunity with which crime may be committed +there." + +"Good heavens!" I cried. "Who would associate crime with these +dear old homesteads?" + +"They always fill me with a certain horror. It is my belief, +Watson, founded upon my experience, that the lowest and vilest +alleys in London do not present a more dreadful record of sin +than does the smiling and beautiful countryside." + +"You horrify me!" + +"But the reason is very obvious. The pressure of public opinion +can do in the town what the law cannot accomplish. There is no +lane so vile that the scream of a tortured child, or the thud of +a drunkard's blow, does not beget sympathy and indignation among +the neighbours, and then the whole machinery of justice is ever +so close that a word of complaint can set it going, and there is +but a step between the crime and the dock. But look at these +lonely houses, each in its own fields, filled for the most part +with poor ignorant folk who know little of the law. Think of the +deeds of hellish cruelty, the hidden wickedness which may go on, +year in, year out, in such places, and none the wiser. Had this +lady who appeals to us for help gone to live in Winchester, I +should never have had a fear for her. It is the five miles of +country which makes the danger. Still, it is clear that she is +not personally threatened." + +"No. If she can come to Winchester to meet us she can get away." + +"Quite so. She has her freedom." + +"What CAN be the matter, then? Can you suggest no explanation?" + +"I have devised seven separate explanations, each of which would +cover the facts as far as we know them. But which of these is +correct can only be determined by the fresh information which we +shall no doubt find waiting for us. Well, there is the tower of +the cathedral, and we shall soon learn all that Miss Hunter has +to tell." + +The Black Swan is an inn of repute in the High Street, at no +distance from the station, and there we found the young lady +waiting for us. She had engaged a sitting-room, and our lunch +awaited us upon the table. + +"I am so delighted that you have come," she said earnestly. "It +is so very kind of you both; but indeed I do not know what I +should do. Your advice will be altogether invaluable to me." + +"Pray tell us what has happened to you." + +"I will do so, and I must be quick, for I have promised Mr. +Rucastle to be back before three. I got his leave to come into +town this morning, though he little knew for what purpose." + +"Let us have everything in its due order." Holmes thrust his long +thin legs out towards the fire and composed himself to listen. + +"In the first place, I may say that I have met, on the whole, +with no actual ill-treatment from Mr. and Mrs. Rucastle. It is +only fair to them to say that. But I cannot understand them, and +I am not easy in my mind about them." + +"What can you not understand?" + +"Their reasons for their conduct. But you shall have it all just +as it occurred. When I came down, Mr. Rucastle met me here and +drove me in his dog-cart to the Copper Beeches. It is, as he +said, beautifully situated, but it is not beautiful in itself, +for it is a large square block of a house, whitewashed, but all +stained and streaked with damp and bad weather. There are grounds +round it, woods on three sides, and on the fourth a field which +slopes down to the Southampton highroad, which curves past about +a hundred yards from the front door. This ground in front belongs +to the house, but the woods all round are part of Lord +Southerton's preserves. A clump of copper beeches immediately in +front of the hall door has given its name to the place. + +"I was driven over by my employer, who was as amiable as ever, +and was introduced by him that evening to his wife and the child. +There was no truth, Mr. Holmes, in the conjecture which seemed to +us to be probable in your rooms at Baker Street. Mrs. Rucastle is +not mad. I found her to be a silent, pale-faced woman, much +younger than her husband, not more than thirty, I should think, +while he can hardly be less than forty-five. From their +conversation I have gathered that they have been married about +seven years, that he was a widower, and that his only child by +the first wife was the daughter who has gone to Philadelphia. Mr. +Rucastle told me in private that the reason why she had left them +was that she had an unreasoning aversion to her stepmother. As +the daughter could not have been less than twenty, I can quite +imagine that her position must have been uncomfortable with her +father's young wife. + +"Mrs. Rucastle seemed to me to be colourless in mind as well as +in feature. She impressed me neither favourably nor the reverse. +She was a nonentity. It was easy to see that she was passionately +devoted both to her husband and to her little son. Her light grey +eyes wandered continually from one to the other, noting every +little want and forestalling it if possible. He was kind to her +also in his bluff, boisterous fashion, and on the whole they +seemed to be a happy couple. And yet she had some secret sorrow, +this woman. She would often be lost in deep thought, with the +saddest look upon her face. More than once I have surprised her +in tears. I have thought sometimes that it was the disposition of +her child which weighed upon her mind, for I have never met so +utterly spoiled and so ill-natured a little creature. He is small +for his age, with a head which is quite disproportionately large. +His whole life appears to be spent in an alternation between +savage fits of passion and gloomy intervals of sulking. Giving +pain to any creature weaker than himself seems to be his one idea +of amusement, and he shows quite remarkable talent in planning +the capture of mice, little birds, and insects. But I would +rather not talk about the creature, Mr. Holmes, and, indeed, he +has little to do with my story." + +"I am glad of all details," remarked my friend, "whether they +seem to you to be relevant or not." + +"I shall try not to miss anything of importance. The one +unpleasant thing about the house, which struck me at once, was +the appearance and conduct of the servants. There are only two, a +man and his wife. Toller, for that is his name, is a rough, +uncouth man, with grizzled hair and whiskers, and a perpetual +smell of drink. Twice since I have been with them he has been +quite drunk, and yet Mr. Rucastle seemed to take no notice of it. +His wife is a very tall and strong woman with a sour face, as +silent as Mrs. Rucastle and much less amiable. They are a most +unpleasant couple, but fortunately I spend most of my time in the +nursery and my own room, which are next to each other in one +corner of the building. + +"For two days after my arrival at the Copper Beeches my life was +very quiet; on the third, Mrs. Rucastle came down just after +breakfast and whispered something to her husband. + +"'Oh, yes,' said he, turning to me, 'we are very much obliged to +you, Miss Hunter, for falling in with our whims so far as to cut +your hair. I assure you that it has not detracted in the tiniest +iota from your appearance. We shall now see how the electric-blue +dress will become you. You will find it laid out upon the bed in +your room, and if you would be so good as to put it on we should +both be extremely obliged.' + +"The dress which I found waiting for me was of a peculiar shade +of blue. It was of excellent material, a sort of beige, but it +bore unmistakable signs of having been worn before. It could not +have been a better fit if I had been measured for it. Both Mr. +and Mrs. Rucastle expressed a delight at the look of it, which +seemed quite exaggerated in its vehemence. They were waiting for +me in the drawing-room, which is a very large room, stretching +along the entire front of the house, with three long windows +reaching down to the floor. A chair had been placed close to the +central window, with its back turned towards it. In this I was +asked to sit, and then Mr. Rucastle, walking up and down on the +other side of the room, began to tell me a series of the funniest +stories that I have ever listened to. You cannot imagine how +comical he was, and I laughed until I was quite weary. Mrs. +Rucastle, however, who has evidently no sense of humour, never so +much as smiled, but sat with her hands in her lap, and a sad, +anxious look upon her face. After an hour or so, Mr. Rucastle +suddenly remarked that it was time to commence the duties of the +day, and that I might change my dress and go to little Edward in +the nursery. + +"Two days later this same performance was gone through under +exactly similar circumstances. Again I changed my dress, again I +sat in the window, and again I laughed very heartily at the funny +stories of which my employer had an immense repertoire, and which +he told inimitably. Then he handed me a yellow-backed novel, and +moving my chair a little sideways, that my own shadow might not +fall upon the page, he begged me to read aloud to him. I read for +about ten minutes, beginning in the heart of a chapter, and then +suddenly, in the middle of a sentence, he ordered me to cease and +to change my dress. + +"You can easily imagine, Mr. Holmes, how curious I became as to +what the meaning of this extraordinary performance could possibly +be. They were always very careful, I observed, to turn my face +away from the window, so that I became consumed with the desire +to see what was going on behind my back. At first it seemed to be +impossible, but I soon devised a means. My hand-mirror had been +broken, so a happy thought seized me, and I concealed a piece of +the glass in my handkerchief. On the next occasion, in the midst +of my laughter, I put my handkerchief up to my eyes, and was able +with a little management to see all that there was behind me. I +confess that I was disappointed. There was nothing. At least that +was my first impression. At the second glance, however, I +perceived that there was a man standing in the Southampton Road, +a small bearded man in a grey suit, who seemed to be looking in +my direction. The road is an important highway, and there are +usually people there. This man, however, was leaning against the +railings which bordered our field and was looking earnestly up. I +lowered my handkerchief and glanced at Mrs. Rucastle to find her +eyes fixed upon me with a most searching gaze. She said nothing, +but I am convinced that she had divined that I had a mirror in my +hand and had seen what was behind me. She rose at once. + +"'Jephro,' said she, 'there is an impertinent fellow upon the +road there who stares up at Miss Hunter.' + +"'No friend of yours, Miss Hunter?' he asked. + +"'No, I know no one in these parts.' + +"'Dear me! How very impertinent! Kindly turn round and motion to +him to go away.' + +"'Surely it would be better to take no notice.' + +"'No, no, we should have him loitering here always. Kindly turn +round and wave him away like that.' + +"I did as I was told, and at the same instant Mrs. Rucastle drew +down the blind. That was a week ago, and from that time I have +not sat again in the window, nor have I worn the blue dress, nor +seen the man in the road." + +"Pray continue," said Holmes. "Your narrative promises to be a +most interesting one." + +"You will find it rather disconnected, I fear, and there may +prove to be little relation between the different incidents of +which I speak. On the very first day that I was at the Copper +Beeches, Mr. Rucastle took me to a small outhouse which stands +near the kitchen door. As we approached it I heard the sharp +rattling of a chain, and the sound as of a large animal moving +about. + +"'Look in here!' said Mr. Rucastle, showing me a slit between two +planks. 'Is he not a beauty?' + +"I looked through and was conscious of two glowing eyes, and of a +vague figure huddled up in the darkness. + +"'Don't be frightened,' said my employer, laughing at the start +which I had given. 'It's only Carlo, my mastiff. I call him mine, +but really old Toller, my groom, is the only man who can do +anything with him. We feed him once a day, and not too much then, +so that he is always as keen as mustard. Toller lets him loose +every night, and God help the trespasser whom he lays his fangs +upon. For goodness' sake don't you ever on any pretext set your +foot over the threshold at night, for it's as much as your life +is worth.' + +"The warning was no idle one, for two nights later I happened to +look out of my bedroom window about two o'clock in the morning. +It was a beautiful moonlight night, and the lawn in front of the +house was silvered over and almost as bright as day. I was +standing, rapt in the peaceful beauty of the scene, when I was +aware that something was moving under the shadow of the copper +beeches. As it emerged into the moonshine I saw what it was. It +was a giant dog, as large as a calf, tawny tinted, with hanging +jowl, black muzzle, and huge projecting bones. It walked slowly +across the lawn and vanished into the shadow upon the other side. +That dreadful sentinel sent a chill to my heart which I do not +think that any burglar could have done. + +"And now I have a very strange experience to tell you. I had, as +you know, cut off my hair in London, and I had placed it in a +great coil at the bottom of my trunk. One evening, after the +child was in bed, I began to amuse myself by examining the +furniture of my room and by rearranging my own little things. +There was an old chest of drawers in the room, the two upper ones +empty and open, the lower one locked. I had filled the first two +with my linen, and as I had still much to pack away I was +naturally annoyed at not having the use of the third drawer. It +struck me that it might have been fastened by a mere oversight, +so I took out my bunch of keys and tried to open it. The very +first key fitted to perfection, and I drew the drawer open. There +was only one thing in it, but I am sure that you would never +guess what it was. It was my coil of hair. + +"I took it up and examined it. It was of the same peculiar tint, +and the same thickness. But then the impossibility of the thing +obtruded itself upon me. How could my hair have been locked in +the drawer? With trembling hands I undid my trunk, turned out the +contents, and drew from the bottom my own hair. I laid the two +tresses together, and I assure you that they were identical. Was +it not extraordinary? Puzzle as I would, I could make nothing at +all of what it meant. I returned the strange hair to the drawer, +and I said nothing of the matter to the Rucastles as I felt that +I had put myself in the wrong by opening a drawer which they had +locked. + +"I am naturally observant, as you may have remarked, Mr. Holmes, +and I soon had a pretty good plan of the whole house in my head. +There was one wing, however, which appeared not to be inhabited +at all. A door which faced that which led into the quarters of +the Tollers opened into this suite, but it was invariably locked. +One day, however, as I ascended the stair, I met Mr. Rucastle +coming out through this door, his keys in his hand, and a look on +his face which made him a very different person to the round, +jovial man to whom I was accustomed. His cheeks were red, his +brow was all crinkled with anger, and the veins stood out at his +temples with passion. He locked the door and hurried past me +without a word or a look. + +"This aroused my curiosity, so when I went out for a walk in the +grounds with my charge, I strolled round to the side from which I +could see the windows of this part of the house. There were four +of them in a row, three of which were simply dirty, while the +fourth was shuttered up. They were evidently all deserted. As I +strolled up and down, glancing at them occasionally, Mr. Rucastle +came out to me, looking as merry and jovial as ever. + +"'Ah!' said he, 'you must not think me rude if I passed you +without a word, my dear young lady. I was preoccupied with +business matters.' + +"I assured him that I was not offended. 'By the way,' said I, +'you seem to have quite a suite of spare rooms up there, and one +of them has the shutters up.' + +"He looked surprised and, as it seemed to me, a little startled +at my remark. + +"'Photography is one of my hobbies,' said he. 'I have made my +dark room up there. But, dear me! what an observant young lady we +have come upon. Who would have believed it? Who would have ever +believed it?' He spoke in a jesting tone, but there was no jest +in his eyes as he looked at me. I read suspicion there and +annoyance, but no jest. + +"Well, Mr. Holmes, from the moment that I understood that there +was something about that suite of rooms which I was not to know, +I was all on fire to go over them. It was not mere curiosity, +though I have my share of that. It was more a feeling of duty--a +feeling that some good might come from my penetrating to this +place. They talk of woman's instinct; perhaps it was woman's +instinct which gave me that feeling. At any rate, it was there, +and I was keenly on the lookout for any chance to pass the +forbidden door. + +"It was only yesterday that the chance came. I may tell you that, +besides Mr. Rucastle, both Toller and his wife find something to +do in these deserted rooms, and I once saw him carrying a large +black linen bag with him through the door. Recently he has been +drinking hard, and yesterday evening he was very drunk; and when +I came upstairs there was the key in the door. I have no doubt at +all that he had left it there. Mr. and Mrs. Rucastle were both +downstairs, and the child was with them, so that I had an +admirable opportunity. I turned the key gently in the lock, +opened the door, and slipped through. + +"There was a little passage in front of me, unpapered and +uncarpeted, which turned at a right angle at the farther end. +Round this corner were three doors in a line, the first and third +of which were open. They each led into an empty room, dusty and +cheerless, with two windows in the one and one in the other, so +thick with dirt that the evening light glimmered dimly through +them. The centre door was closed, and across the outside of it +had been fastened one of the broad bars of an iron bed, padlocked +at one end to a ring in the wall, and fastened at the other with +stout cord. The door itself was locked as well, and the key was +not there. This barricaded door corresponded clearly with the +shuttered window outside, and yet I could see by the glimmer from +beneath it that the room was not in darkness. Evidently there was +a skylight which let in light from above. As I stood in the +passage gazing at the sinister door and wondering what secret it +might veil, I suddenly heard the sound of steps within the room +and saw a shadow pass backward and forward against the little +slit of dim light which shone out from under the door. A mad, +unreasoning terror rose up in me at the sight, Mr. Holmes. My +overstrung nerves failed me suddenly, and I turned and ran--ran +as though some dreadful hand were behind me clutching at the +skirt of my dress. I rushed down the passage, through the door, +and straight into the arms of Mr. Rucastle, who was waiting +outside. + +"'So,' said he, smiling, 'it was you, then. I thought that it +must be when I saw the door open.' + +"'Oh, I am so frightened!' I panted. + +"'My dear young lady! my dear young lady!'--you cannot think how +caressing and soothing his manner was--'and what has frightened +you, my dear young lady?' + +"But his voice was just a little too coaxing. He overdid it. I +was keenly on my guard against him. + +"'I was foolish enough to go into the empty wing,' I answered. +'But it is so lonely and eerie in this dim light that I was +frightened and ran out again. Oh, it is so dreadfully still in +there!' + +"'Only that?' said he, looking at me keenly. + +"'Why, what did you think?' I asked. + +"'Why do you think that I lock this door?' + +"'I am sure that I do not know.' + +"'It is to keep people out who have no business there. Do you +see?' He was still smiling in the most amiable manner. + +"'I am sure if I had known--' + +"'Well, then, you know now. And if you ever put your foot over +that threshold again'--here in an instant the smile hardened into +a grin of rage, and he glared down at me with the face of a +demon--'I'll throw you to the mastiff.' + +"I was so terrified that I do not know what I did. I suppose that +I must have rushed past him into my room. I remember nothing +until I found myself lying on my bed trembling all over. Then I +thought of you, Mr. Holmes. I could not live there longer without +some advice. I was frightened of the house, of the man, of the +woman, of the servants, even of the child. They were all horrible +to me. If I could only bring you down all would be well. Of +course I might have fled from the house, but my curiosity was +almost as strong as my fears. My mind was soon made up. I would +send you a wire. I put on my hat and cloak, went down to the +office, which is about half a mile from the house, and then +returned, feeling very much easier. A horrible doubt came into my +mind as I approached the door lest the dog might be loose, but I +remembered that Toller had drunk himself into a state of +insensibility that evening, and I knew that he was the only one +in the household who had any influence with the savage creature, +or who would venture to set him free. I slipped in in safety and +lay awake half the night in my joy at the thought of seeing you. +I had no difficulty in getting leave to come into Winchester this +morning, but I must be back before three o'clock, for Mr. and +Mrs. Rucastle are going on a visit, and will be away all the +evening, so that I must look after the child. Now I have told you +all my adventures, Mr. Holmes, and I should be very glad if you +could tell me what it all means, and, above all, what I should +do." + +Holmes and I had listened spellbound to this extraordinary story. +My friend rose now and paced up and down the room, his hands in +his pockets, and an expression of the most profound gravity upon +his face. + +"Is Toller still drunk?" he asked. + +"Yes. I heard his wife tell Mrs. Rucastle that she could do +nothing with him." + +"That is well. And the Rucastles go out to-night?" + +"Yes." + +"Is there a cellar with a good strong lock?" + +"Yes, the wine-cellar." + +"You seem to me to have acted all through this matter like a very +brave and sensible girl, Miss Hunter. Do you think that you could +perform one more feat? I should not ask it of you if I did not +think you a quite exceptional woman." + +"I will try. What is it?" + +"We shall be at the Copper Beeches by seven o'clock, my friend +and I. The Rucastles will be gone by that time, and Toller will, +we hope, be incapable. There only remains Mrs. Toller, who might +give the alarm. If you could send her into the cellar on some +errand, and then turn the key upon her, you would facilitate +matters immensely." + +"I will do it." + +"Excellent! We shall then look thoroughly into the affair. Of +course there is only one feasible explanation. You have been +brought there to personate someone, and the real person is +imprisoned in this chamber. That is obvious. As to who this +prisoner is, I have no doubt that it is the daughter, Miss Alice +Rucastle, if I remember right, who was said to have gone to +America. You were chosen, doubtless, as resembling her in height, +figure, and the colour of your hair. Hers had been cut off, very +possibly in some illness through which she has passed, and so, of +course, yours had to be sacrificed also. By a curious chance you +came upon her tresses. The man in the road was undoubtedly some +friend of hers--possibly her fiance--and no doubt, as you wore +the girl's dress and were so like her, he was convinced from your +laughter, whenever he saw you, and afterwards from your gesture, +that Miss Rucastle was perfectly happy, and that she no longer +desired his attentions. The dog is let loose at night to prevent +him from endeavouring to communicate with her. So much is fairly +clear. The most serious point in the case is the disposition of +the child." + +"What on earth has that to do with it?" I ejaculated. + +"My dear Watson, you as a medical man are continually gaining +light as to the tendencies of a child by the study of the +parents. Don't you see that the converse is equally valid. I have +frequently gained my first real insight into the character of +parents by studying their children. This child's disposition is +abnormally cruel, merely for cruelty's sake, and whether he +derives this from his smiling father, as I should suspect, or +from his mother, it bodes evil for the poor girl who is in their +power." + +"I am sure that you are right, Mr. Holmes," cried our client. "A +thousand things come back to me which make me certain that you +have hit it. Oh, let us lose not an instant in bringing help to +this poor creature." + +"We must be circumspect, for we are dealing with a very cunning +man. We can do nothing until seven o'clock. At that hour we shall +be with you, and it will not be long before we solve the +mystery." + +We were as good as our word, for it was just seven when we +reached the Copper Beeches, having put up our trap at a wayside +public-house. The group of trees, with their dark leaves shining +like burnished metal in the light of the setting sun, were +sufficient to mark the house even had Miss Hunter not been +standing smiling on the door-step. + +"Have you managed it?" asked Holmes. + +A loud thudding noise came from somewhere downstairs. "That is +Mrs. Toller in the cellar," said she. "Her husband lies snoring +on the kitchen rug. Here are his keys, which are the duplicates +of Mr. Rucastle's." + +"You have done well indeed!" cried Holmes with enthusiasm. "Now +lead the way, and we shall soon see the end of this black +business." + +We passed up the stair, unlocked the door, followed on down a +passage, and found ourselves in front of the barricade which Miss +Hunter had described. Holmes cut the cord and removed the +transverse bar. Then he tried the various keys in the lock, but +without success. No sound came from within, and at the silence +Holmes' face clouded over. + +"I trust that we are not too late," said he. "I think, Miss +Hunter, that we had better go in without you. Now, Watson, put +your shoulder to it, and we shall see whether we cannot make our +way in." + +It was an old rickety door and gave at once before our united +strength. Together we rushed into the room. It was empty. There +was no furniture save a little pallet bed, a small table, and a +basketful of linen. The skylight above was open, and the prisoner +gone. + +"There has been some villainy here," said Holmes; "this beauty +has guessed Miss Hunter's intentions and has carried his victim +off." + +"But how?" + +"Through the skylight. We shall soon see how he managed it." He +swung himself up onto the roof. "Ah, yes," he cried, "here's the +end of a long light ladder against the eaves. That is how he did +it." + +"But it is impossible," said Miss Hunter; "the ladder was not +there when the Rucastles went away." + +"He has come back and done it. I tell you that he is a clever and +dangerous man. I should not be very much surprised if this were +he whose step I hear now upon the stair. I think, Watson, that it +would be as well for you to have your pistol ready." + +The words were hardly out of his mouth before a man appeared at +the door of the room, a very fat and burly man, with a heavy +stick in his hand. Miss Hunter screamed and shrunk against the +wall at the sight of him, but Sherlock Holmes sprang forward and +confronted him. + +"You villain!" said he, "where's your daughter?" + +The fat man cast his eyes round, and then up at the open +skylight. + +"It is for me to ask you that," he shrieked, "you thieves! Spies +and thieves! I have caught you, have I? You are in my power. I'll +serve you!" He turned and clattered down the stairs as hard as he +could go. + +"He's gone for the dog!" cried Miss Hunter. + +"I have my revolver," said I. + +"Better close the front door," cried Holmes, and we all rushed +down the stairs together. We had hardly reached the hall when we +heard the baying of a hound, and then a scream of agony, with a +horrible worrying sound which it was dreadful to listen to. An +elderly man with a red face and shaking limbs came staggering out +at a side door. + +"My God!" he cried. "Someone has loosed the dog. It's not been +fed for two days. Quick, quick, or it'll be too late!" + +Holmes and I rushed out and round the angle of the house, with +Toller hurrying behind us. There was the huge famished brute, its +black muzzle buried in Rucastle's throat, while he writhed and +screamed upon the ground. Running up, I blew its brains out, and +it fell over with its keen white teeth still meeting in the great +creases of his neck. With much labour we separated them and +carried him, living but horribly mangled, into the house. We laid +him upon the drawing-room sofa, and having dispatched the sobered +Toller to bear the news to his wife, I did what I could to +relieve his pain. We were all assembled round him when the door +opened, and a tall, gaunt woman entered the room. + +"Mrs. Toller!" cried Miss Hunter. + +"Yes, miss. Mr. Rucastle let me out when he came back before he +went up to you. Ah, miss, it is a pity you didn't let me know +what you were planning, for I would have told you that your pains +were wasted." + +"Ha!" said Holmes, looking keenly at her. "It is clear that Mrs. +Toller knows more about this matter than anyone else." + +"Yes, sir, I do, and I am ready enough to tell what I know." + +"Then, pray, sit down, and let us hear it for there are several +points on which I must confess that I am still in the dark." + +"I will soon make it clear to you," said she; "and I'd have done +so before now if I could ha' got out from the cellar. If there's +police-court business over this, you'll remember that I was the +one that stood your friend, and that I was Miss Alice's friend +too. + +"She was never happy at home, Miss Alice wasn't, from the time +that her father married again. She was slighted like and had no +say in anything, but it never really became bad for her until +after she met Mr. Fowler at a friend's house. As well as I could +learn, Miss Alice had rights of her own by will, but she was so +quiet and patient, she was, that she never said a word about them +but just left everything in Mr. Rucastle's hands. He knew he was +safe with her; but when there was a chance of a husband coming +forward, who would ask for all that the law would give him, then +her father thought it time to put a stop on it. He wanted her to +sign a paper, so that whether she married or not, he could use +her money. When she wouldn't do it, he kept on worrying her until +she got brain-fever, and for six weeks was at death's door. Then +she got better at last, all worn to a shadow, and with her +beautiful hair cut off; but that didn't make no change in her +young man, and he stuck to her as true as man could be." + +"Ah," said Holmes, "I think that what you have been good enough +to tell us makes the matter fairly clear, and that I can deduce +all that remains. Mr. Rucastle then, I presume, took to this +system of imprisonment?" + +"Yes, sir." + +"And brought Miss Hunter down from London in order to get rid of +the disagreeable persistence of Mr. Fowler." + +"That was it, sir." + +"But Mr. Fowler being a persevering man, as a good seaman should +be, blockaded the house, and having met you succeeded by certain +arguments, metallic or otherwise, in convincing you that your +interests were the same as his." + +"Mr. Fowler was a very kind-spoken, free-handed gentleman," said +Mrs. Toller serenely. + +"And in this way he managed that your good man should have no +want of drink, and that a ladder should be ready at the moment +when your master had gone out." + +"You have it, sir, just as it happened." + +"I am sure we owe you an apology, Mrs. Toller," said Holmes, "for +you have certainly cleared up everything which puzzled us. And +here comes the country surgeon and Mrs. Rucastle, so I think, +Watson, that we had best escort Miss Hunter back to Winchester, +as it seems to me that our locus standi now is rather a +questionable one." + +And thus was solved the mystery of the sinister house with the +copper beeches in front of the door. Mr. Rucastle survived, but +was always a broken man, kept alive solely through the care of +his devoted wife. They still live with their old servants, who +probably know so much of Rucastle's past life that he finds it +difficult to part from them. Mr. Fowler and Miss Rucastle were +married, by special license, in Southampton the day after their +flight, and he is now the holder of a government appointment in +the island of Mauritius. As to Miss Violet Hunter, my friend +Holmes, rather to my disappointment, manifested no further +interest in her when once she had ceased to be the centre of one +of his problems, and she is now the head of a private school at +Walsall, where I believe that she has met with considerable success. + + + + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, by +Arthur Conan Doyle + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE ADVENTURES OF SHERLOCK HOLMES *** + +***** This file should be named 1661-8.txt or 1661-8.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/1/6/6/1661/ + +Produced by an anonymous Project Gutenberg volunteer and Jose Menendez + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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Thus, we do not necessarily +keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition. + + +Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility: + + http://www.gutenberg.net + +This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm, +including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary +Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to +subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks. diff --git a/src/main/pg-tale_of_two_cities.txt b/src/main/pg-tale_of_two_cities.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..b11e180 --- /dev/null +++ b/src/main/pg-tale_of_two_cities.txt @@ -0,0 +1,16271 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of A Tale of Two Cities, by Charles Dickens + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: A Tale of Two Cities + A Story of the French Revolution + +Author: Charles Dickens + +Release Date: January, 1994 [EBook #98] +Posting Date: November 28, 2009 +[Last updated: November 27, 2013] + +Language: English + + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A TALE OF TWO CITIES *** + + + + +Produced by Judith Boss + + + + + + + + +A TALE OF TWO CITIES + +A STORY OF THE FRENCH REVOLUTION + +By Charles Dickens + + +CONTENTS + + + Book the First--Recalled to Life + + Chapter I The Period + Chapter II The Mail + Chapter III The Night Shadows + Chapter IV The Preparation + Chapter V The Wine-shop + Chapter VI The Shoemaker + + + Book the Second--the Golden Thread + + Chapter I Five Years Later + Chapter II A Sight + Chapter III A Disappointment + Chapter IV Congratulatory + Chapter V The Jackal + Chapter VI Hundreds of People + Chapter VII Monseigneur in Town + Chapter VIII Monseigneur in the Country + Chapter IX The Gorgon's Head + Chapter X Two Promises + Chapter XI A Companion Picture + Chapter XII The Fellow of Delicacy + Chapter XIII The Fellow of no Delicacy + Chapter XIV The Honest Tradesman + Chapter XV Knitting + Chapter XVI Still Knitting + Chapter XVII One Night + Chapter XVIII Nine Days + Chapter XIX An Opinion + Chapter XX A Plea + Chapter XXI Echoing Footsteps + Chapter XXII The Sea Still Rises + Chapter XXIII Fire Rises + Chapter XXIV Drawn to the Loadstone Rock + + + Book the Third--the Track of a Storm + + Chapter I In Secret + Chapter II The Grindstone + Chapter III The Shadow + Chapter IV Calm in Storm + Chapter V The Wood-sawyer + Chapter VI Triumph + Chapter VII A Knock at the Door + Chapter VIII A Hand at Cards + Chapter IX The Game Made + Chapter X The Substance of the Shadow + Chapter XI Dusk + Chapter XII Darkness + Chapter XIII Fifty-two + Chapter XIV The Knitting Done + Chapter XV The Footsteps Die Out For Ever + + + + + +Book the First--Recalled to Life + + + + +I. The Period + + +It was the best of times, +it was the worst of times, +it was the age of wisdom, +it was the age of foolishness, +it was the epoch of belief, +it was the epoch of incredulity, +it was the season of Light, +it was the season of Darkness, +it was the spring of hope, +it was the winter of despair, +we had everything before us, +we had nothing before us, +we were all going direct to Heaven, +we were all going direct the other way-- +in short, the period was so far like the present period, that some of +its noisiest authorities insisted on its being received, for good or for +evil, in the superlative degree of comparison only. + +There were a king with a large jaw and a queen with a plain face, on the +throne of England; there were a king with a large jaw and a queen with +a fair face, on the throne of France. In both countries it was clearer +than crystal to the lords of the State preserves of loaves and fishes, +that things in general were settled for ever. + +It was the year of Our Lord one thousand seven hundred and seventy-five. +Spiritual revelations were conceded to England at that favoured period, +as at this. Mrs. Southcott had recently attained her five-and-twentieth +blessed birthday, of whom a prophetic private in the Life Guards had +heralded the sublime appearance by announcing that arrangements were +made for the swallowing up of London and Westminster. Even the Cock-lane +ghost had been laid only a round dozen of years, after rapping out its +messages, as the spirits of this very year last past (supernaturally +deficient in originality) rapped out theirs. Mere messages in the +earthly order of events had lately come to the English Crown and People, +from a congress of British subjects in America: which, strange +to relate, have proved more important to the human race than any +communications yet received through any of the chickens of the Cock-lane +brood. + +France, less favoured on the whole as to matters spiritual than her +sister of the shield and trident, rolled with exceeding smoothness down +hill, making paper money and spending it. Under the guidance of her +Christian pastors, she entertained herself, besides, with such humane +achievements as sentencing a youth to have his hands cut off, his tongue +torn out with pincers, and his body burned alive, because he had not +kneeled down in the rain to do honour to a dirty procession of monks +which passed within his view, at a distance of some fifty or sixty +yards. It is likely enough that, rooted in the woods of France and +Norway, there were growing trees, when that sufferer was put to death, +already marked by the Woodman, Fate, to come down and be sawn into +boards, to make a certain movable framework with a sack and a knife in +it, terrible in history. It is likely enough that in the rough outhouses +of some tillers of the heavy lands adjacent to Paris, there were +sheltered from the weather that very day, rude carts, bespattered with +rustic mire, snuffed about by pigs, and roosted in by poultry, which +the Farmer, Death, had already set apart to be his tumbrils of +the Revolution. But that Woodman and that Farmer, though they work +unceasingly, work silently, and no one heard them as they went about +with muffled tread: the rather, forasmuch as to entertain any suspicion +that they were awake, was to be atheistical and traitorous. + +In England, there was scarcely an amount of order and protection to +justify much national boasting. Daring burglaries by armed men, and +highway robberies, took place in the capital itself every night; +families were publicly cautioned not to go out of town without removing +their furniture to upholsterers' warehouses for security; the highwayman +in the dark was a City tradesman in the light, and, being recognised and +challenged by his fellow-tradesman whom he stopped in his character of +"the Captain," gallantly shot him through the head and rode away; the +mail was waylaid by seven robbers, and the guard shot three dead, and +then got shot dead himself by the other four, "in consequence of the +failure of his ammunition:" after which the mail was robbed in peace; +that magnificent potentate, the Lord Mayor of London, was made to stand +and deliver on Turnham Green, by one highwayman, who despoiled the +illustrious creature in sight of all his retinue; prisoners in London +gaols fought battles with their turnkeys, and the majesty of the law +fired blunderbusses in among them, loaded with rounds of shot and ball; +thieves snipped off diamond crosses from the necks of noble lords at +Court drawing-rooms; musketeers went into St. Giles's, to search +for contraband goods, and the mob fired on the musketeers, and the +musketeers fired on the mob, and nobody thought any of these occurrences +much out of the common way. In the midst of them, the hangman, ever busy +and ever worse than useless, was in constant requisition; now, stringing +up long rows of miscellaneous criminals; now, hanging a housebreaker on +Saturday who had been taken on Tuesday; now, burning people in the +hand at Newgate by the dozen, and now burning pamphlets at the door of +Westminster Hall; to-day, taking the life of an atrocious murderer, +and to-morrow of a wretched pilferer who had robbed a farmer's boy of +sixpence. + +All these things, and a thousand like them, came to pass in and close +upon the dear old year one thousand seven hundred and seventy-five. +Environed by them, while the Woodman and the Farmer worked unheeded, +those two of the large jaws, and those other two of the plain and the +fair faces, trod with stir enough, and carried their divine rights +with a high hand. Thus did the year one thousand seven hundred +and seventy-five conduct their Greatnesses, and myriads of small +creatures--the creatures of this chronicle among the rest--along the +roads that lay before them. + + + + +II. The Mail + + +It was the Dover road that lay, on a Friday night late in November, +before the first of the persons with whom this history has business. +The Dover road lay, as to him, beyond the Dover mail, as it lumbered up +Shooter's Hill. He walked up hill in the mire by the side of the mail, +as the rest of the passengers did; not because they had the least relish +for walking exercise, under the circumstances, but because the hill, +and the harness, and the mud, and the mail, were all so heavy, that the +horses had three times already come to a stop, besides once drawing the +coach across the road, with the mutinous intent of taking it back +to Blackheath. Reins and whip and coachman and guard, however, in +combination, had read that article of war which forbade a purpose +otherwise strongly in favour of the argument, that some brute animals +are endued with Reason; and the team had capitulated and returned to +their duty. + +With drooping heads and tremulous tails, they mashed their way through +the thick mud, floundering and stumbling between whiles, as if they were +falling to pieces at the larger joints. As often as the driver rested +them and brought them to a stand, with a wary "Wo-ho! so-ho-then!" the +near leader violently shook his head and everything upon it--like an +unusually emphatic horse, denying that the coach could be got up the +hill. Whenever the leader made this rattle, the passenger started, as a +nervous passenger might, and was disturbed in mind. + +There was a steaming mist in all the hollows, and it had roamed in its +forlornness up the hill, like an evil spirit, seeking rest and finding +none. A clammy and intensely cold mist, it made its slow way through the +air in ripples that visibly followed and overspread one another, as the +waves of an unwholesome sea might do. It was dense enough to shut out +everything from the light of the coach-lamps but these its own workings, +and a few yards of road; and the reek of the labouring horses steamed +into it, as if they had made it all. + +Two other passengers, besides the one, were plodding up the hill by the +side of the mail. All three were wrapped to the cheekbones and over the +ears, and wore jack-boots. Not one of the three could have said, from +anything he saw, what either of the other two was like; and each was +hidden under almost as many wrappers from the eyes of the mind, as from +the eyes of the body, of his two companions. In those days, travellers +were very shy of being confidential on a short notice, for anybody on +the road might be a robber or in league with robbers. As to the latter, +when every posting-house and ale-house could produce somebody in +"the Captain's" pay, ranging from the landlord to the lowest stable +non-descript, it was the likeliest thing upon the cards. So the guard +of the Dover mail thought to himself, that Friday night in November, one +thousand seven hundred and seventy-five, lumbering up Shooter's Hill, as +he stood on his own particular perch behind the mail, beating his feet, +and keeping an eye and a hand on the arm-chest before him, where a +loaded blunderbuss lay at the top of six or eight loaded horse-pistols, +deposited on a substratum of cutlass. + +The Dover mail was in its usual genial position that the guard suspected +the passengers, the passengers suspected one another and the guard, they +all suspected everybody else, and the coachman was sure of nothing but +the horses; as to which cattle he could with a clear conscience have +taken his oath on the two Testaments that they were not fit for the +journey. + +"Wo-ho!" said the coachman. "So, then! One more pull and you're at the +top and be damned to you, for I have had trouble enough to get you to +it!--Joe!" + +"Halloa!" the guard replied. + +"What o'clock do you make it, Joe?" + +"Ten minutes, good, past eleven." + +"My blood!" ejaculated the vexed coachman, "and not atop of Shooter's +yet! Tst! Yah! Get on with you!" + +The emphatic horse, cut short by the whip in a most decided negative, +made a decided scramble for it, and the three other horses followed +suit. Once more, the Dover mail struggled on, with the jack-boots of its +passengers squashing along by its side. They had stopped when the coach +stopped, and they kept close company with it. If any one of the three +had had the hardihood to propose to another to walk on a little ahead +into the mist and darkness, he would have put himself in a fair way of +getting shot instantly as a highwayman. + +The last burst carried the mail to the summit of the hill. The horses +stopped to breathe again, and the guard got down to skid the wheel for +the descent, and open the coach-door to let the passengers in. + +"Tst! Joe!" cried the coachman in a warning voice, looking down from his +box. + +"What do you say, Tom?" + +They both listened. + +"I say a horse at a canter coming up, Joe." + +"_I_ say a horse at a gallop, Tom," returned the guard, leaving his hold +of the door, and mounting nimbly to his place. "Gentlemen! In the king's +name, all of you!" + +With this hurried adjuration, he cocked his blunderbuss, and stood on +the offensive. + +The passenger booked by this history, was on the coach-step, getting in; +the two other passengers were close behind him, and about to follow. He +remained on the step, half in the coach and half out of; they remained +in the road below him. They all looked from the coachman to the guard, +and from the guard to the coachman, and listened. The coachman looked +back and the guard looked back, and even the emphatic leader pricked up +his ears and looked back, without contradicting. + +The stillness consequent on the cessation of the rumbling and labouring +of the coach, added to the stillness of the night, made it very quiet +indeed. The panting of the horses communicated a tremulous motion to +the coach, as if it were in a state of agitation. The hearts of the +passengers beat loud enough perhaps to be heard; but at any rate, the +quiet pause was audibly expressive of people out of breath, and holding +the breath, and having the pulses quickened by expectation. + +The sound of a horse at a gallop came fast and furiously up the hill. + +"So-ho!" the guard sang out, as loud as he could roar. "Yo there! Stand! +I shall fire!" + +The pace was suddenly checked, and, with much splashing and floundering, +a man's voice called from the mist, "Is that the Dover mail?" + +"Never you mind what it is!" the guard retorted. "What are you?" + +"_Is_ that the Dover mail?" + +"Why do you want to know?" + +"I want a passenger, if it is." + +"What passenger?" + +"Mr. Jarvis Lorry." + +Our booked passenger showed in a moment that it was his name. The guard, +the coachman, and the two other passengers eyed him distrustfully. + +"Keep where you are," the guard called to the voice in the mist, +"because, if I should make a mistake, it could never be set right in +your lifetime. Gentleman of the name of Lorry answer straight." + +"What is the matter?" asked the passenger, then, with mildly quavering +speech. "Who wants me? Is it Jerry?" + +("I don't like Jerry's voice, if it is Jerry," growled the guard to +himself. "He's hoarser than suits me, is Jerry.") + +"Yes, Mr. Lorry." + +"What is the matter?" + +"A despatch sent after you from over yonder. T. and Co." + +"I know this messenger, guard," said Mr. Lorry, getting down into the +road--assisted from behind more swiftly than politely by the other two +passengers, who immediately scrambled into the coach, shut the door, and +pulled up the window. "He may come close; there's nothing wrong." + +"I hope there ain't, but I can't make so 'Nation sure of that," said the +guard, in gruff soliloquy. "Hallo you!" + +"Well! And hallo you!" said Jerry, more hoarsely than before. + +"Come on at a footpace! d'ye mind me? And if you've got holsters to that +saddle o' yourn, don't let me see your hand go nigh 'em. For I'm a devil +at a quick mistake, and when I make one it takes the form of Lead. So +now let's look at you." + +The figures of a horse and rider came slowly through the eddying mist, +and came to the side of the mail, where the passenger stood. The rider +stooped, and, casting up his eyes at the guard, handed the passenger +a small folded paper. The rider's horse was blown, and both horse and +rider were covered with mud, from the hoofs of the horse to the hat of +the man. + +"Guard!" said the passenger, in a tone of quiet business confidence. + +The watchful guard, with his right hand at the stock of his raised +blunderbuss, his left at the barrel, and his eye on the horseman, +answered curtly, "Sir." + +"There is nothing to apprehend. I belong to Tellson's Bank. You must +know Tellson's Bank in London. I am going to Paris on business. A crown +to drink. I may read this?" + +"If so be as you're quick, sir." + +He opened it in the light of the coach-lamp on that side, and +read--first to himself and then aloud: "'Wait at Dover for Mam'selle.' +It's not long, you see, guard. Jerry, say that my answer was, RECALLED +TO LIFE." + +Jerry started in his saddle. "That's a Blazing strange answer, too," +said he, at his hoarsest. + +"Take that message back, and they will know that I received this, as +well as if I wrote. Make the best of your way. Good night." + +With those words the passenger opened the coach-door and got in; not at +all assisted by his fellow-passengers, who had expeditiously secreted +their watches and purses in their boots, and were now making a general +pretence of being asleep. With no more definite purpose than to escape +the hazard of originating any other kind of action. + +The coach lumbered on again, with heavier wreaths of mist closing round +it as it began the descent. The guard soon replaced his blunderbuss +in his arm-chest, and, having looked to the rest of its contents, and +having looked to the supplementary pistols that he wore in his belt, +looked to a smaller chest beneath his seat, in which there were a +few smith's tools, a couple of torches, and a tinder-box. For he was +furnished with that completeness that if the coach-lamps had been blown +and stormed out, which did occasionally happen, he had only to shut +himself up inside, keep the flint and steel sparks well off the straw, +and get a light with tolerable safety and ease (if he were lucky) in +five minutes. + +"Tom!" softly over the coach roof. + +"Hallo, Joe." + +"Did you hear the message?" + +"I did, Joe." + +"What did you make of it, Tom?" + +"Nothing at all, Joe." + +"That's a coincidence, too," the guard mused, "for I made the same of it +myself." + +Jerry, left alone in the mist and darkness, dismounted meanwhile, not +only to ease his spent horse, but to wipe the mud from his face, and +shake the wet out of his hat-brim, which might be capable of +holding about half a gallon. After standing with the bridle over his +heavily-splashed arm, until the wheels of the mail were no longer within +hearing and the night was quite still again, he turned to walk down the +hill. + +"After that there gallop from Temple Bar, old lady, I won't trust your +fore-legs till I get you on the level," said this hoarse messenger, +glancing at his mare. "'Recalled to life.' That's a Blazing strange +message. Much of that wouldn't do for you, Jerry! I say, Jerry! You'd +be in a Blazing bad way, if recalling to life was to come into fashion, +Jerry!" + + + + +III. The Night Shadows + + +A wonderful fact to reflect upon, that every human creature is +constituted to be that profound secret and mystery to every other. A +solemn consideration, when I enter a great city by night, that every +one of those darkly clustered houses encloses its own secret; that every +room in every one of them encloses its own secret; that every beating +heart in the hundreds of thousands of breasts there, is, in some of +its imaginings, a secret to the heart nearest it! Something of the +awfulness, even of Death itself, is referable to this. No more can I +turn the leaves of this dear book that I loved, and vainly hope in time +to read it all. No more can I look into the depths of this unfathomable +water, wherein, as momentary lights glanced into it, I have had glimpses +of buried treasure and other things submerged. It was appointed that the +book should shut with a spring, for ever and for ever, when I had read +but a page. It was appointed that the water should be locked in an +eternal frost, when the light was playing on its surface, and I stood +in ignorance on the shore. My friend is dead, my neighbour is dead, +my love, the darling of my soul, is dead; it is the inexorable +consolidation and perpetuation of the secret that was always in that +individuality, and which I shall carry in mine to my life's end. In +any of the burial-places of this city through which I pass, is there +a sleeper more inscrutable than its busy inhabitants are, in their +innermost personality, to me, or than I am to them? + +As to this, his natural and not to be alienated inheritance, the +messenger on horseback had exactly the same possessions as the King, the +first Minister of State, or the richest merchant in London. So with the +three passengers shut up in the narrow compass of one lumbering old mail +coach; they were mysteries to one another, as complete as if each had +been in his own coach and six, or his own coach and sixty, with the +breadth of a county between him and the next. + +The messenger rode back at an easy trot, stopping pretty often at +ale-houses by the way to drink, but evincing a tendency to keep his +own counsel, and to keep his hat cocked over his eyes. He had eyes that +assorted very well with that decoration, being of a surface black, with +no depth in the colour or form, and much too near together--as if they +were afraid of being found out in something, singly, if they kept too +far apart. They had a sinister expression, under an old cocked-hat like +a three-cornered spittoon, and over a great muffler for the chin and +throat, which descended nearly to the wearer's knees. When he stopped +for drink, he moved this muffler with his left hand, only while he +poured his liquor in with his right; as soon as that was done, he +muffled again. + +"No, Jerry, no!" said the messenger, harping on one theme as he rode. +"It wouldn't do for you, Jerry. Jerry, you honest tradesman, it wouldn't +suit _your_ line of business! Recalled--! Bust me if I don't think he'd +been a drinking!" + +His message perplexed his mind to that degree that he was fain, several +times, to take off his hat to scratch his head. Except on the crown, +which was raggedly bald, he had stiff, black hair, standing jaggedly all +over it, and growing down hill almost to his broad, blunt nose. It was +so like Smith's work, so much more like the top of a strongly spiked +wall than a head of hair, that the best of players at leap-frog might +have declined him, as the most dangerous man in the world to go over. + +While he trotted back with the message he was to deliver to the night +watchman in his box at the door of Tellson's Bank, by Temple Bar, who +was to deliver it to greater authorities within, the shadows of the +night took such shapes to him as arose out of the message, and took such +shapes to the mare as arose out of _her_ private topics of uneasiness. +They seemed to be numerous, for she shied at every shadow on the road. + +What time, the mail-coach lumbered, jolted, rattled, and bumped upon +its tedious way, with its three fellow-inscrutables inside. To whom, +likewise, the shadows of the night revealed themselves, in the forms +their dozing eyes and wandering thoughts suggested. + +Tellson's Bank had a run upon it in the mail. As the bank +passenger--with an arm drawn through the leathern strap, which did what +lay in it to keep him from pounding against the next passenger, +and driving him into his corner, whenever the coach got a special +jolt--nodded in his place, with half-shut eyes, the little +coach-windows, and the coach-lamp dimly gleaming through them, and the +bulky bundle of opposite passenger, became the bank, and did a great +stroke of business. The rattle of the harness was the chink of money, +and more drafts were honoured in five minutes than even Tellson's, with +all its foreign and home connection, ever paid in thrice the time. Then +the strong-rooms underground, at Tellson's, with such of their valuable +stores and secrets as were known to the passenger (and it was not a +little that he knew about them), opened before him, and he went in among +them with the great keys and the feebly-burning candle, and found them +safe, and strong, and sound, and still, just as he had last seen them. + +But, though the bank was almost always with him, and though the coach +(in a confused way, like the presence of pain under an opiate) was +always with him, there was another current of impression that never +ceased to run, all through the night. He was on his way to dig some one +out of a grave. + +Now, which of the multitude of faces that showed themselves before him +was the true face of the buried person, the shadows of the night did +not indicate; but they were all the faces of a man of five-and-forty by +years, and they differed principally in the passions they expressed, +and in the ghastliness of their worn and wasted state. Pride, contempt, +defiance, stubbornness, submission, lamentation, succeeded one another; +so did varieties of sunken cheek, cadaverous colour, emaciated hands +and figures. But the face was in the main one face, and every head was +prematurely white. A hundred times the dozing passenger inquired of this +spectre: + +"Buried how long?" + +The answer was always the same: "Almost eighteen years." + +"You had abandoned all hope of being dug out?" + +"Long ago." + +"You know that you are recalled to life?" + +"They tell me so." + +"I hope you care to live?" + +"I can't say." + +"Shall I show her to you? Will you come and see her?" + +The answers to this question were various and contradictory. Sometimes +the broken reply was, "Wait! It would kill me if I saw her too soon." +Sometimes, it was given in a tender rain of tears, and then it was, +"Take me to her." Sometimes it was staring and bewildered, and then it +was, "I don't know her. I don't understand." + +After such imaginary discourse, the passenger in his fancy would dig, +and dig, dig--now with a spade, now with a great key, now with his +hands--to dig this wretched creature out. Got out at last, with earth +hanging about his face and hair, he would suddenly fan away to dust. The +passenger would then start to himself, and lower the window, to get the +reality of mist and rain on his cheek. + +Yet even when his eyes were opened on the mist and rain, on the moving +patch of light from the lamps, and the hedge at the roadside retreating +by jerks, the night shadows outside the coach would fall into the train +of the night shadows within. The real Banking-house by Temple Bar, the +real business of the past day, the real strong rooms, the real express +sent after him, and the real message returned, would all be there. Out +of the midst of them, the ghostly face would rise, and he would accost +it again. + +"Buried how long?" + +"Almost eighteen years." + +"I hope you care to live?" + +"I can't say." + +Dig--dig--dig--until an impatient movement from one of the two +passengers would admonish him to pull up the window, draw his arm +securely through the leathern strap, and speculate upon the two +slumbering forms, until his mind lost its hold of them, and they again +slid away into the bank and the grave. + +"Buried how long?" + +"Almost eighteen years." + +"You had abandoned all hope of being dug out?" + +"Long ago." + +The words were still in his hearing as just spoken--distinctly in +his hearing as ever spoken words had been in his life--when the weary +passenger started to the consciousness of daylight, and found that the +shadows of the night were gone. + +He lowered the window, and looked out at the rising sun. There was a +ridge of ploughed land, with a plough upon it where it had been left +last night when the horses were unyoked; beyond, a quiet coppice-wood, +in which many leaves of burning red and golden yellow still remained +upon the trees. Though the earth was cold and wet, the sky was clear, +and the sun rose bright, placid, and beautiful. + +"Eighteen years!" said the passenger, looking at the sun. "Gracious +Creator of day! To be buried alive for eighteen years!" + + + + +IV. The Preparation + + +When the mail got successfully to Dover, in the course of the forenoon, +the head drawer at the Royal George Hotel opened the coach-door as his +custom was. He did it with some flourish of ceremony, for a mail journey +from London in winter was an achievement to congratulate an adventurous +traveller upon. + +By that time, there was only one adventurous traveller left be +congratulated: for the two others had been set down at their respective +roadside destinations. The mildewy inside of the coach, with its damp +and dirty straw, its disagreeable smell, and its obscurity, was rather +like a larger dog-kennel. Mr. Lorry, the passenger, shaking himself out +of it in chains of straw, a tangle of shaggy wrapper, flapping hat, and +muddy legs, was rather like a larger sort of dog. + +"There will be a packet to Calais, tomorrow, drawer?" + +"Yes, sir, if the weather holds and the wind sets tolerable fair. The +tide will serve pretty nicely at about two in the afternoon, sir. Bed, +sir?" + +"I shall not go to bed till night; but I want a bedroom, and a barber." + +"And then breakfast, sir? Yes, sir. That way, sir, if you please. +Show Concord! Gentleman's valise and hot water to Concord. Pull off +gentleman's boots in Concord. (You will find a fine sea-coal fire, sir.) +Fetch barber to Concord. Stir about there, now, for Concord!" + +The Concord bed-chamber being always assigned to a passenger by the +mail, and passengers by the mail being always heavily wrapped up from +head to foot, the room had the odd interest for the establishment of the +Royal George, that although but one kind of man was seen to go into it, +all kinds and varieties of men came out of it. Consequently, another +drawer, and two porters, and several maids and the landlady, were all +loitering by accident at various points of the road between the Concord +and the coffee-room, when a gentleman of sixty, formally dressed in a +brown suit of clothes, pretty well worn, but very well kept, with large +square cuffs and large flaps to the pockets, passed along on his way to +his breakfast. + +The coffee-room had no other occupant, that forenoon, than the gentleman +in brown. His breakfast-table was drawn before the fire, and as he sat, +with its light shining on him, waiting for the meal, he sat so still, +that he might have been sitting for his portrait. + +Very orderly and methodical he looked, with a hand on each knee, and a +loud watch ticking a sonorous sermon under his flapped waist-coat, +as though it pitted its gravity and longevity against the levity and +evanescence of the brisk fire. He had a good leg, and was a little vain +of it, for his brown stockings fitted sleek and close, and were of a +fine texture; his shoes and buckles, too, though plain, were trim. He +wore an odd little sleek crisp flaxen wig, setting very close to his +head: which wig, it is to be presumed, was made of hair, but which +looked far more as though it were spun from filaments of silk or glass. +His linen, though not of a fineness in accordance with his stockings, +was as white as the tops of the waves that broke upon the neighbouring +beach, or the specks of sail that glinted in the sunlight far at sea. A +face habitually suppressed and quieted, was still lighted up under the +quaint wig by a pair of moist bright eyes that it must have cost +their owner, in years gone by, some pains to drill to the composed and +reserved expression of Tellson's Bank. He had a healthy colour in his +cheeks, and his face, though lined, bore few traces of anxiety. +But, perhaps the confidential bachelor clerks in Tellson's Bank were +principally occupied with the cares of other people; and perhaps +second-hand cares, like second-hand clothes, come easily off and on. + +Completing his resemblance to a man who was sitting for his portrait, +Mr. Lorry dropped off to sleep. The arrival of his breakfast roused him, +and he said to the drawer, as he moved his chair to it: + +"I wish accommodation prepared for a young lady who may come here at any +time to-day. She may ask for Mr. Jarvis Lorry, or she may only ask for a +gentleman from Tellson's Bank. Please to let me know." + +"Yes, sir. Tellson's Bank in London, sir?" + +"Yes." + +"Yes, sir. We have oftentimes the honour to entertain your gentlemen in +their travelling backwards and forwards betwixt London and Paris, sir. A +vast deal of travelling, sir, in Tellson and Company's House." + +"Yes. We are quite a French House, as well as an English one." + +"Yes, sir. Not much in the habit of such travelling yourself, I think, +sir?" + +"Not of late years. It is fifteen years since we--since I--came last +from France." + +"Indeed, sir? That was before my time here, sir. Before our people's +time here, sir. The George was in other hands at that time, sir." + +"I believe so." + +"But I would hold a pretty wager, sir, that a House like Tellson and +Company was flourishing, a matter of fifty, not to speak of fifteen +years ago?" + +"You might treble that, and say a hundred and fifty, yet not be far from +the truth." + +"Indeed, sir!" + +Rounding his mouth and both his eyes, as he stepped backward from the +table, the waiter shifted his napkin from his right arm to his left, +dropped into a comfortable attitude, and stood surveying the guest while +he ate and drank, as from an observatory or watchtower. According to the +immemorial usage of waiters in all ages. + +When Mr. Lorry had finished his breakfast, he went out for a stroll on +the beach. The little narrow, crooked town of Dover hid itself away +from the beach, and ran its head into the chalk cliffs, like a marine +ostrich. The beach was a desert of heaps of sea and stones tumbling +wildly about, and the sea did what it liked, and what it liked was +destruction. It thundered at the town, and thundered at the cliffs, and +brought the coast down, madly. The air among the houses was of so strong +a piscatory flavour that one might have supposed sick fish went up to be +dipped in it, as sick people went down to be dipped in the sea. A little +fishing was done in the port, and a quantity of strolling about by +night, and looking seaward: particularly at those times when the tide +made, and was near flood. Small tradesmen, who did no business whatever, +sometimes unaccountably realised large fortunes, and it was remarkable +that nobody in the neighbourhood could endure a lamplighter. + +As the day declined into the afternoon, and the air, which had been +at intervals clear enough to allow the French coast to be seen, became +again charged with mist and vapour, Mr. Lorry's thoughts seemed to cloud +too. When it was dark, and he sat before the coffee-room fire, awaiting +his dinner as he had awaited his breakfast, his mind was busily digging, +digging, digging, in the live red coals. + +A bottle of good claret after dinner does a digger in the red coals no +harm, otherwise than as it has a tendency to throw him out of work. +Mr. Lorry had been idle a long time, and had just poured out his last +glassful of wine with as complete an appearance of satisfaction as is +ever to be found in an elderly gentleman of a fresh complexion who has +got to the end of a bottle, when a rattling of wheels came up the narrow +street, and rumbled into the inn-yard. + +He set down his glass untouched. "This is Mam'selle!" said he. + +In a very few minutes the waiter came in to announce that Miss Manette +had arrived from London, and would be happy to see the gentleman from +Tellson's. + +"So soon?" + +Miss Manette had taken some refreshment on the road, and required none +then, and was extremely anxious to see the gentleman from Tellson's +immediately, if it suited his pleasure and convenience. + +The gentleman from Tellson's had nothing left for it but to empty his +glass with an air of stolid desperation, settle his odd little flaxen +wig at the ears, and follow the waiter to Miss Manette's apartment. +It was a large, dark room, furnished in a funereal manner with black +horsehair, and loaded with heavy dark tables. These had been oiled and +oiled, until the two tall candles on the table in the middle of the room +were gloomily reflected on every leaf; as if _they_ were buried, in deep +graves of black mahogany, and no light to speak of could be expected +from them until they were dug out. + +The obscurity was so difficult to penetrate that Mr. Lorry, picking his +way over the well-worn Turkey carpet, supposed Miss Manette to be, for +the moment, in some adjacent room, until, having got past the two tall +candles, he saw standing to receive him by the table between them and +the fire, a young lady of not more than seventeen, in a riding-cloak, +and still holding her straw travelling-hat by its ribbon in her hand. As +his eyes rested on a short, slight, pretty figure, a quantity of golden +hair, a pair of blue eyes that met his own with an inquiring look, and +a forehead with a singular capacity (remembering how young and smooth +it was), of rifting and knitting itself into an expression that was +not quite one of perplexity, or wonder, or alarm, or merely of a bright +fixed attention, though it included all the four expressions--as his +eyes rested on these things, a sudden vivid likeness passed before him, +of a child whom he had held in his arms on the passage across that very +Channel, one cold time, when the hail drifted heavily and the sea ran +high. The likeness passed away, like a breath along the surface of +the gaunt pier-glass behind her, on the frame of which, a hospital +procession of negro cupids, several headless and all cripples, were +offering black baskets of Dead Sea fruit to black divinities of the +feminine gender--and he made his formal bow to Miss Manette. + +"Pray take a seat, sir." In a very clear and pleasant young voice; a +little foreign in its accent, but a very little indeed. + +"I kiss your hand, miss," said Mr. Lorry, with the manners of an earlier +date, as he made his formal bow again, and took his seat. + +"I received a letter from the Bank, sir, yesterday, informing me that +some intelligence--or discovery--" + +"The word is not material, miss; either word will do." + +"--respecting the small property of my poor father, whom I never saw--so +long dead--" + +Mr. Lorry moved in his chair, and cast a troubled look towards the +hospital procession of negro cupids. As if _they_ had any help for +anybody in their absurd baskets! + +"--rendered it necessary that I should go to Paris, there to communicate +with a gentleman of the Bank, so good as to be despatched to Paris for +the purpose." + +"Myself." + +"As I was prepared to hear, sir." + +She curtseyed to him (young ladies made curtseys in those days), with a +pretty desire to convey to him that she felt how much older and wiser he +was than she. He made her another bow. + +"I replied to the Bank, sir, that as it was considered necessary, by +those who know, and who are so kind as to advise me, that I should go to +France, and that as I am an orphan and have no friend who could go with +me, I should esteem it highly if I might be permitted to place myself, +during the journey, under that worthy gentleman's protection. The +gentleman had left London, but I think a messenger was sent after him to +beg the favour of his waiting for me here." + +"I was happy," said Mr. Lorry, "to be entrusted with the charge. I shall +be more happy to execute it." + +"Sir, I thank you indeed. I thank you very gratefully. It was told me +by the Bank that the gentleman would explain to me the details of the +business, and that I must prepare myself to find them of a surprising +nature. I have done my best to prepare myself, and I naturally have a +strong and eager interest to know what they are." + +"Naturally," said Mr. Lorry. "Yes--I--" + +After a pause, he added, again settling the crisp flaxen wig at the +ears, "It is very difficult to begin." + +He did not begin, but, in his indecision, met her glance. The young +forehead lifted itself into that singular expression--but it was pretty +and characteristic, besides being singular--and she raised her hand, +as if with an involuntary action she caught at, or stayed some passing +shadow. + +"Are you quite a stranger to me, sir?" + +"Am I not?" Mr. Lorry opened his hands, and extended them outwards with +an argumentative smile. + +Between the eyebrows and just over the little feminine nose, the line of +which was as delicate and fine as it was possible to be, the expression +deepened itself as she took her seat thoughtfully in the chair by which +she had hitherto remained standing. He watched her as she mused, and the +moment she raised her eyes again, went on: + +"In your adopted country, I presume, I cannot do better than address you +as a young English lady, Miss Manette?" + +"If you please, sir." + +"Miss Manette, I am a man of business. I have a business charge to +acquit myself of. In your reception of it, don't heed me any more than +if I was a speaking machine--truly, I am not much else. I will, with +your leave, relate to you, miss, the story of one of our customers." + +"Story!" + +He seemed wilfully to mistake the word she had repeated, when he added, +in a hurry, "Yes, customers; in the banking business we usually call +our connection our customers. He was a French gentleman; a scientific +gentleman; a man of great acquirements--a Doctor." + +"Not of Beauvais?" + +"Why, yes, of Beauvais. Like Monsieur Manette, your father, the +gentleman was of Beauvais. Like Monsieur Manette, your father, the +gentleman was of repute in Paris. I had the honour of knowing him there. +Our relations were business relations, but confidential. I was at that +time in our French House, and had been--oh! twenty years." + +"At that time--I may ask, at what time, sir?" + +"I speak, miss, of twenty years ago. He married--an English lady--and +I was one of the trustees. His affairs, like the affairs of many other +French gentlemen and French families, were entirely in Tellson's hands. +In a similar way I am, or I have been, trustee of one kind or other for +scores of our customers. These are mere business relations, miss; +there is no friendship in them, no particular interest, nothing like +sentiment. I have passed from one to another, in the course of my +business life, just as I pass from one of our customers to another in +the course of my business day; in short, I have no feelings; I am a mere +machine. To go on--" + +"But this is my father's story, sir; and I begin to think"--the +curiously roughened forehead was very intent upon him--"that when I was +left an orphan through my mother's surviving my father only two years, +it was you who brought me to England. I am almost sure it was you." + +Mr. Lorry took the hesitating little hand that confidingly advanced +to take his, and he put it with some ceremony to his lips. He then +conducted the young lady straightway to her chair again, and, holding +the chair-back with his left hand, and using his right by turns to rub +his chin, pull his wig at the ears, or point what he said, stood looking +down into her face while she sat looking up into his. + +"Miss Manette, it _was_ I. And you will see how truly I spoke of myself +just now, in saying I had no feelings, and that all the relations I hold +with my fellow-creatures are mere business relations, when you reflect +that I have never seen you since. No; you have been the ward of +Tellson's House since, and I have been busy with the other business of +Tellson's House since. Feelings! I have no time for them, no chance +of them. I pass my whole life, miss, in turning an immense pecuniary +Mangle." + +After this odd description of his daily routine of employment, Mr. Lorry +flattened his flaxen wig upon his head with both hands (which was most +unnecessary, for nothing could be flatter than its shining surface was +before), and resumed his former attitude. + +"So far, miss (as you have remarked), this is the story of your +regretted father. Now comes the difference. If your father had not died +when he did--Don't be frightened! How you start!" + +She did, indeed, start. And she caught his wrist with both her hands. + +"Pray," said Mr. Lorry, in a soothing tone, bringing his left hand from +the back of the chair to lay it on the supplicatory fingers that clasped +him in so violent a tremble: "pray control your agitation--a matter of +business. As I was saying--" + +Her look so discomposed him that he stopped, wandered, and began anew: + +"As I was saying; if Monsieur Manette had not died; if he had suddenly +and silently disappeared; if he had been spirited away; if it had not +been difficult to guess to what dreadful place, though no art could +trace him; if he had an enemy in some compatriot who could exercise a +privilege that I in my own time have known the boldest people afraid +to speak of in a whisper, across the water there; for instance, the +privilege of filling up blank forms for the consignment of any one +to the oblivion of a prison for any length of time; if his wife had +implored the king, the queen, the court, the clergy, for any tidings of +him, and all quite in vain;--then the history of your father would have +been the history of this unfortunate gentleman, the Doctor of Beauvais." + +"I entreat you to tell me more, sir." + +"I will. I am going to. You can bear it?" + +"I can bear anything but the uncertainty you leave me in at this +moment." + +"You speak collectedly, and you--_are_ collected. That's good!" (Though +his manner was less satisfied than his words.) "A matter of business. +Regard it as a matter of business--business that must be done. Now +if this doctor's wife, though a lady of great courage and spirit, +had suffered so intensely from this cause before her little child was +born--" + +"The little child was a daughter, sir." + +"A daughter. A-a-matter of business--don't be distressed. Miss, if the +poor lady had suffered so intensely before her little child was born, +that she came to the determination of sparing the poor child the +inheritance of any part of the agony she had known the pains of, by +rearing her in the belief that her father was dead--No, don't kneel! In +Heaven's name why should you kneel to me!" + +"For the truth. O dear, good, compassionate sir, for the truth!" + +"A--a matter of business. You confuse me, and how can I transact +business if I am confused? Let us be clear-headed. If you could kindly +mention now, for instance, what nine times ninepence are, or how many +shillings in twenty guineas, it would be so encouraging. I should be so +much more at my ease about your state of mind." + +Without directly answering to this appeal, she sat so still when he had +very gently raised her, and the hands that had not ceased to clasp +his wrists were so much more steady than they had been, that she +communicated some reassurance to Mr. Jarvis Lorry. + +"That's right, that's right. Courage! Business! You have business before +you; useful business. Miss Manette, your mother took this course with +you. And when she died--I believe broken-hearted--having never slackened +her unavailing search for your father, she left you, at two years old, +to grow to be blooming, beautiful, and happy, without the dark cloud +upon you of living in uncertainty whether your father soon wore his +heart out in prison, or wasted there through many lingering years." + +As he said the words he looked down, with an admiring pity, on the +flowing golden hair; as if he pictured to himself that it might have +been already tinged with grey. + +"You know that your parents had no great possession, and that what +they had was secured to your mother and to you. There has been no new +discovery, of money, or of any other property; but--" + +He felt his wrist held closer, and he stopped. The expression in the +forehead, which had so particularly attracted his notice, and which was +now immovable, had deepened into one of pain and horror. + +"But he has been--been found. He is alive. Greatly changed, it is too +probable; almost a wreck, it is possible; though we will hope the best. +Still, alive. Your father has been taken to the house of an old servant +in Paris, and we are going there: I, to identify him if I can: you, to +restore him to life, love, duty, rest, comfort." + +A shiver ran through her frame, and from it through his. She said, in a +low, distinct, awe-stricken voice, as if she were saying it in a dream, + +"I am going to see his Ghost! It will be his Ghost--not him!" + +Mr. Lorry quietly chafed the hands that held his arm. "There, there, +there! See now, see now! The best and the worst are known to you, now. +You are well on your way to the poor wronged gentleman, and, with a fair +sea voyage, and a fair land journey, you will be soon at his dear side." + +She repeated in the same tone, sunk to a whisper, "I have been free, I +have been happy, yet his Ghost has never haunted me!" + +"Only one thing more," said Mr. Lorry, laying stress upon it as a +wholesome means of enforcing her attention: "he has been found under +another name; his own, long forgotten or long concealed. It would be +worse than useless now to inquire which; worse than useless to seek to +know whether he has been for years overlooked, or always designedly +held prisoner. It would be worse than useless now to make any inquiries, +because it would be dangerous. Better not to mention the subject, +anywhere or in any way, and to remove him--for a while at all +events--out of France. Even I, safe as an Englishman, and even +Tellson's, important as they are to French credit, avoid all naming of +the matter. I carry about me, not a scrap of writing openly referring +to it. This is a secret service altogether. My credentials, entries, +and memoranda, are all comprehended in the one line, 'Recalled to Life;' +which may mean anything. But what is the matter! She doesn't notice a +word! Miss Manette!" + +Perfectly still and silent, and not even fallen back in her chair, she +sat under his hand, utterly insensible; with her eyes open and fixed +upon him, and with that last expression looking as if it were carved or +branded into her forehead. So close was her hold upon his arm, that he +feared to detach himself lest he should hurt her; therefore he called +out loudly for assistance without moving. + +A wild-looking woman, whom even in his agitation, Mr. Lorry observed to +be all of a red colour, and to have red hair, and to be dressed in some +extraordinary tight-fitting fashion, and to have on her head a most +wonderful bonnet like a Grenadier wooden measure, and good measure too, +or a great Stilton cheese, came running into the room in advance of the +inn servants, and soon settled the question of his detachment from the +poor young lady, by laying a brawny hand upon his chest, and sending him +flying back against the nearest wall. + +("I really think this must be a man!" was Mr. Lorry's breathless +reflection, simultaneously with his coming against the wall.) + +"Why, look at you all!" bawled this figure, addressing the inn servants. +"Why don't you go and fetch things, instead of standing there staring +at me? I am not so much to look at, am I? Why don't you go and fetch +things? I'll let you know, if you don't bring smelling-salts, cold +water, and vinegar, quick, I will." + +There was an immediate dispersal for these restoratives, and she +softly laid the patient on a sofa, and tended her with great skill and +gentleness: calling her "my precious!" and "my bird!" and spreading her +golden hair aside over her shoulders with great pride and care. + +"And you in brown!" she said, indignantly turning to Mr. Lorry; +"couldn't you tell her what you had to tell her, without frightening her +to death? Look at her, with her pretty pale face and her cold hands. Do +you call _that_ being a Banker?" + +Mr. Lorry was so exceedingly disconcerted by a question so hard to +answer, that he could only look on, at a distance, with much feebler +sympathy and humility, while the strong woman, having banished the inn +servants under the mysterious penalty of "letting them know" something +not mentioned if they stayed there, staring, recovered her charge by a +regular series of gradations, and coaxed her to lay her drooping head +upon her shoulder. + +"I hope she will do well now," said Mr. Lorry. + +"No thanks to you in brown, if she does. My darling pretty!" + +"I hope," said Mr. Lorry, after another pause of feeble sympathy and +humility, "that you accompany Miss Manette to France?" + +"A likely thing, too!" replied the strong woman. "If it was ever +intended that I should go across salt water, do you suppose Providence +would have cast my lot in an island?" + +This being another question hard to answer, Mr. Jarvis Lorry withdrew to +consider it. + + + + +V. The Wine-shop + + +A large cask of wine had been dropped and broken, in the street. The +accident had happened in getting it out of a cart; the cask had tumbled +out with a run, the hoops had burst, and it lay on the stones just +outside the door of the wine-shop, shattered like a walnut-shell. + +All the people within reach had suspended their business, or their +idleness, to run to the spot and drink the wine. The rough, irregular +stones of the street, pointing every way, and designed, one might have +thought, expressly to lame all living creatures that approached them, +had dammed it into little pools; these were surrounded, each by its own +jostling group or crowd, according to its size. Some men kneeled down, +made scoops of their two hands joined, and sipped, or tried to help +women, who bent over their shoulders, to sip, before the wine had all +run out between their fingers. Others, men and women, dipped in +the puddles with little mugs of mutilated earthenware, or even with +handkerchiefs from women's heads, which were squeezed dry into infants' +mouths; others made small mud-embankments, to stem the wine as it ran; +others, directed by lookers-on up at high windows, darted here and +there, to cut off little streams of wine that started away in new +directions; others devoted themselves to the sodden and lee-dyed +pieces of the cask, licking, and even champing the moister wine-rotted +fragments with eager relish. There was no drainage to carry off the +wine, and not only did it all get taken up, but so much mud got taken up +along with it, that there might have been a scavenger in the street, +if anybody acquainted with it could have believed in such a miraculous +presence. + +A shrill sound of laughter and of amused voices--voices of men, women, +and children--resounded in the street while this wine game lasted. There +was little roughness in the sport, and much playfulness. There was a +special companionship in it, an observable inclination on the part +of every one to join some other one, which led, especially among the +luckier or lighter-hearted, to frolicsome embraces, drinking of healths, +shaking of hands, and even joining of hands and dancing, a dozen +together. When the wine was gone, and the places where it had been +most abundant were raked into a gridiron-pattern by fingers, these +demonstrations ceased, as suddenly as they had broken out. The man who +had left his saw sticking in the firewood he was cutting, set it in +motion again; the women who had left on a door-step the little pot of +hot ashes, at which she had been trying to soften the pain in her own +starved fingers and toes, or in those of her child, returned to it; men +with bare arms, matted locks, and cadaverous faces, who had emerged into +the winter light from cellars, moved away, to descend again; and a gloom +gathered on the scene that appeared more natural to it than sunshine. + +The wine was red wine, and had stained the ground of the narrow street +in the suburb of Saint Antoine, in Paris, where it was spilled. It had +stained many hands, too, and many faces, and many naked feet, and many +wooden shoes. The hands of the man who sawed the wood, left red marks +on the billets; and the forehead of the woman who nursed her baby, was +stained with the stain of the old rag she wound about her head again. +Those who had been greedy with the staves of the cask, had acquired a +tigerish smear about the mouth; and one tall joker so besmirched, his +head more out of a long squalid bag of a nightcap than in it, scrawled +upon a wall with his finger dipped in muddy wine-lees--BLOOD. + +The time was to come, when that wine too would be spilled on the +street-stones, and when the stain of it would be red upon many there. + +And now that the cloud settled on Saint Antoine, which a momentary +gleam had driven from his sacred countenance, the darkness of it was +heavy--cold, dirt, sickness, ignorance, and want, were the lords in +waiting on the saintly presence--nobles of great power all of them; +but, most especially the last. Samples of a people that had undergone a +terrible grinding and regrinding in the mill, and certainly not in the +fabulous mill which ground old people young, shivered at every corner, +passed in and out at every doorway, looked from every window, fluttered +in every vestige of a garment that the wind shook. The mill which +had worked them down, was the mill that grinds young people old; the +children had ancient faces and grave voices; and upon them, and upon the +grown faces, and ploughed into every furrow of age and coming up afresh, +was the sigh, Hunger. It was prevalent everywhere. Hunger was pushed out +of the tall houses, in the wretched clothing that hung upon poles and +lines; Hunger was patched into them with straw and rag and wood and +paper; Hunger was repeated in every fragment of the small modicum of +firewood that the man sawed off; Hunger stared down from the smokeless +chimneys, and started up from the filthy street that had no offal, +among its refuse, of anything to eat. Hunger was the inscription on the +baker's shelves, written in every small loaf of his scanty stock of +bad bread; at the sausage-shop, in every dead-dog preparation that +was offered for sale. Hunger rattled its dry bones among the roasting +chestnuts in the turned cylinder; Hunger was shred into atomics in every +farthing porringer of husky chips of potato, fried with some reluctant +drops of oil. + +Its abiding place was in all things fitted to it. A narrow winding +street, full of offence and stench, with other narrow winding streets +diverging, all peopled by rags and nightcaps, and all smelling of rags +and nightcaps, and all visible things with a brooding look upon them +that looked ill. In the hunted air of the people there was yet some +wild-beast thought of the possibility of turning at bay. Depressed and +slinking though they were, eyes of fire were not wanting among them; nor +compressed lips, white with what they suppressed; nor foreheads knitted +into the likeness of the gallows-rope they mused about enduring, or +inflicting. The trade signs (and they were almost as many as the shops) +were, all, grim illustrations of Want. The butcher and the porkman +painted up, only the leanest scrags of meat; the baker, the coarsest of +meagre loaves. The people rudely pictured as drinking in the wine-shops, +croaked over their scanty measures of thin wine and beer, and were +gloweringly confidential together. Nothing was represented in a +flourishing condition, save tools and weapons; but, the cutler's knives +and axes were sharp and bright, the smith's hammers were heavy, and the +gunmaker's stock was murderous. The crippling stones of the pavement, +with their many little reservoirs of mud and water, had no footways, but +broke off abruptly at the doors. The kennel, to make amends, ran down +the middle of the street--when it ran at all: which was only after heavy +rains, and then it ran, by many eccentric fits, into the houses. Across +the streets, at wide intervals, one clumsy lamp was slung by a rope and +pulley; at night, when the lamplighter had let these down, and lighted, +and hoisted them again, a feeble grove of dim wicks swung in a sickly +manner overhead, as if they were at sea. Indeed they were at sea, and +the ship and crew were in peril of tempest. + +For, the time was to come, when the gaunt scarecrows of that region +should have watched the lamplighter, in their idleness and hunger, so +long, as to conceive the idea of improving on his method, and hauling +up men by those ropes and pulleys, to flare upon the darkness of their +condition. But, the time was not come yet; and every wind that blew over +France shook the rags of the scarecrows in vain, for the birds, fine of +song and feather, took no warning. + +The wine-shop was a corner shop, better than most others in its +appearance and degree, and the master of the wine-shop had stood outside +it, in a yellow waistcoat and green breeches, looking on at the struggle +for the lost wine. "It's not my affair," said he, with a final shrug +of the shoulders. "The people from the market did it. Let them bring +another." + +There, his eyes happening to catch the tall joker writing up his joke, +he called to him across the way: + +"Say, then, my Gaspard, what do you do there?" + +The fellow pointed to his joke with immense significance, as is often +the way with his tribe. It missed its mark, and completely failed, as is +often the way with his tribe too. + +"What now? Are you a subject for the mad hospital?" said the wine-shop +keeper, crossing the road, and obliterating the jest with a handful of +mud, picked up for the purpose, and smeared over it. "Why do you write +in the public streets? Is there--tell me thou--is there no other place +to write such words in?" + +In his expostulation he dropped his cleaner hand (perhaps accidentally, +perhaps not) upon the joker's heart. The joker rapped it with his +own, took a nimble spring upward, and came down in a fantastic dancing +attitude, with one of his stained shoes jerked off his foot into his +hand, and held out. A joker of an extremely, not to say wolfishly +practical character, he looked, under those circumstances. + +"Put it on, put it on," said the other. "Call wine, wine; and finish +there." With that advice, he wiped his soiled hand upon the joker's +dress, such as it was--quite deliberately, as having dirtied the hand on +his account; and then recrossed the road and entered the wine-shop. + +This wine-shop keeper was a bull-necked, martial-looking man of thirty, +and he should have been of a hot temperament, for, although it was a +bitter day, he wore no coat, but carried one slung over his shoulder. +His shirt-sleeves were rolled up, too, and his brown arms were bare to +the elbows. Neither did he wear anything more on his head than his own +crisply-curling short dark hair. He was a dark man altogether, with good +eyes and a good bold breadth between them. Good-humoured looking on +the whole, but implacable-looking, too; evidently a man of a strong +resolution and a set purpose; a man not desirable to be met, rushing +down a narrow pass with a gulf on either side, for nothing would turn +the man. + +Madame Defarge, his wife, sat in the shop behind the counter as he +came in. Madame Defarge was a stout woman of about his own age, with +a watchful eye that seldom seemed to look at anything, a large hand +heavily ringed, a steady face, strong features, and great composure of +manner. There was a character about Madame Defarge, from which one might +have predicated that she did not often make mistakes against herself +in any of the reckonings over which she presided. Madame Defarge being +sensitive to cold, was wrapped in fur, and had a quantity of bright +shawl twined about her head, though not to the concealment of her large +earrings. Her knitting was before her, but she had laid it down to pick +her teeth with a toothpick. Thus engaged, with her right elbow supported +by her left hand, Madame Defarge said nothing when her lord came in, but +coughed just one grain of cough. This, in combination with the lifting +of her darkly defined eyebrows over her toothpick by the breadth of a +line, suggested to her husband that he would do well to look round the +shop among the customers, for any new customer who had dropped in while +he stepped over the way. + +The wine-shop keeper accordingly rolled his eyes about, until they +rested upon an elderly gentleman and a young lady, who were seated in +a corner. Other company were there: two playing cards, two playing +dominoes, three standing by the counter lengthening out a short supply +of wine. As he passed behind the counter, he took notice that the +elderly gentleman said in a look to the young lady, "This is our man." + +"What the devil do _you_ do in that galley there?" said Monsieur Defarge +to himself; "I don't know you." + +But, he feigned not to notice the two strangers, and fell into discourse +with the triumvirate of customers who were drinking at the counter. + +"How goes it, Jacques?" said one of these three to Monsieur Defarge. "Is +all the spilt wine swallowed?" + +"Every drop, Jacques," answered Monsieur Defarge. + +When this interchange of Christian name was effected, Madame Defarge, +picking her teeth with her toothpick, coughed another grain of cough, +and raised her eyebrows by the breadth of another line. + +"It is not often," said the second of the three, addressing Monsieur +Defarge, "that many of these miserable beasts know the taste of wine, or +of anything but black bread and death. Is it not so, Jacques?" + +"It is so, Jacques," Monsieur Defarge returned. + +At this second interchange of the Christian name, Madame Defarge, still +using her toothpick with profound composure, coughed another grain of +cough, and raised her eyebrows by the breadth of another line. + +The last of the three now said his say, as he put down his empty +drinking vessel and smacked his lips. + +"Ah! So much the worse! A bitter taste it is that such poor cattle +always have in their mouths, and hard lives they live, Jacques. Am I +right, Jacques?" + +"You are right, Jacques," was the response of Monsieur Defarge. + +This third interchange of the Christian name was completed at the moment +when Madame Defarge put her toothpick by, kept her eyebrows up, and +slightly rustled in her seat. + +"Hold then! True!" muttered her husband. "Gentlemen--my wife!" + +The three customers pulled off their hats to Madame Defarge, with three +flourishes. She acknowledged their homage by bending her head, and +giving them a quick look. Then she glanced in a casual manner round the +wine-shop, took up her knitting with great apparent calmness and repose +of spirit, and became absorbed in it. + +"Gentlemen," said her husband, who had kept his bright eye observantly +upon her, "good day. The chamber, furnished bachelor-fashion, that you +wished to see, and were inquiring for when I stepped out, is on the +fifth floor. The doorway of the staircase gives on the little courtyard +close to the left here," pointing with his hand, "near to the window of +my establishment. But, now that I remember, one of you has already been +there, and can show the way. Gentlemen, adieu!" + +They paid for their wine, and left the place. The eyes of Monsieur +Defarge were studying his wife at her knitting when the elderly +gentleman advanced from his corner, and begged the favour of a word. + +"Willingly, sir," said Monsieur Defarge, and quietly stepped with him to +the door. + +Their conference was very short, but very decided. Almost at the first +word, Monsieur Defarge started and became deeply attentive. It had +not lasted a minute, when he nodded and went out. The gentleman then +beckoned to the young lady, and they, too, went out. Madame Defarge +knitted with nimble fingers and steady eyebrows, and saw nothing. + +Mr. Jarvis Lorry and Miss Manette, emerging from the wine-shop thus, +joined Monsieur Defarge in the doorway to which he had directed his own +company just before. It opened from a stinking little black courtyard, +and was the general public entrance to a great pile of houses, inhabited +by a great number of people. In the gloomy tile-paved entry to the +gloomy tile-paved staircase, Monsieur Defarge bent down on one knee +to the child of his old master, and put her hand to his lips. It was +a gentle action, but not at all gently done; a very remarkable +transformation had come over him in a few seconds. He had no good-humour +in his face, nor any openness of aspect left, but had become a secret, +angry, dangerous man. + +"It is very high; it is a little difficult. Better to begin slowly." +Thus, Monsieur Defarge, in a stern voice, to Mr. Lorry, as they began +ascending the stairs. + +"Is he alone?" the latter whispered. + +"Alone! God help him, who should be with him!" said the other, in the +same low voice. + +"Is he always alone, then?" + +"Yes." + +"Of his own desire?" + +"Of his own necessity. As he was, when I first saw him after they +found me and demanded to know if I would take him, and, at my peril be +discreet--as he was then, so he is now." + +"He is greatly changed?" + +"Changed!" + +The keeper of the wine-shop stopped to strike the wall with his hand, +and mutter a tremendous curse. No direct answer could have been half so +forcible. Mr. Lorry's spirits grew heavier and heavier, as he and his +two companions ascended higher and higher. + +Such a staircase, with its accessories, in the older and more crowded +parts of Paris, would be bad enough now; but, at that time, it was vile +indeed to unaccustomed and unhardened senses. Every little habitation +within the great foul nest of one high building--that is to say, +the room or rooms within every door that opened on the general +staircase--left its own heap of refuse on its own landing, besides +flinging other refuse from its own windows. The uncontrollable and +hopeless mass of decomposition so engendered, would have polluted +the air, even if poverty and deprivation had not loaded it with their +intangible impurities; the two bad sources combined made it almost +insupportable. Through such an atmosphere, by a steep dark shaft of dirt +and poison, the way lay. Yielding to his own disturbance of mind, and to +his young companion's agitation, which became greater every instant, Mr. +Jarvis Lorry twice stopped to rest. Each of these stoppages was made +at a doleful grating, by which any languishing good airs that were left +uncorrupted, seemed to escape, and all spoilt and sickly vapours seemed +to crawl in. Through the rusted bars, tastes, rather than glimpses, were +caught of the jumbled neighbourhood; and nothing within range, nearer +or lower than the summits of the two great towers of Notre-Dame, had any +promise on it of healthy life or wholesome aspirations. + +At last, the top of the staircase was gained, and they stopped for the +third time. There was yet an upper staircase, of a steeper inclination +and of contracted dimensions, to be ascended, before the garret story +was reached. The keeper of the wine-shop, always going a little in +advance, and always going on the side which Mr. Lorry took, as though he +dreaded to be asked any question by the young lady, turned himself about +here, and, carefully feeling in the pockets of the coat he carried over +his shoulder, took out a key. + +"The door is locked then, my friend?" said Mr. Lorry, surprised. + +"Ay. Yes," was the grim reply of Monsieur Defarge. + +"You think it necessary to keep the unfortunate gentleman so retired?" + +"I think it necessary to turn the key." Monsieur Defarge whispered it +closer in his ear, and frowned heavily. + +"Why?" + +"Why! Because he has lived so long, locked up, that he would be +frightened--rave--tear himself to pieces--die--come to I know not what +harm--if his door was left open." + +"Is it possible!" exclaimed Mr. Lorry. + +"Is it possible!" repeated Defarge, bitterly. "Yes. And a beautiful +world we live in, when it _is_ possible, and when many other such things +are possible, and not only possible, but done--done, see you!--under +that sky there, every day. Long live the Devil. Let us go on." + +This dialogue had been held in so very low a whisper, that not a word +of it had reached the young lady's ears. But, by this time she trembled +under such strong emotion, and her face expressed such deep anxiety, +and, above all, such dread and terror, that Mr. Lorry felt it incumbent +on him to speak a word or two of reassurance. + +"Courage, dear miss! Courage! Business! The worst will be over in a +moment; it is but passing the room-door, and the worst is over. Then, +all the good you bring to him, all the relief, all the happiness you +bring to him, begin. Let our good friend here, assist you on that side. +That's well, friend Defarge. Come, now. Business, business!" + +They went up slowly and softly. The staircase was short, and they were +soon at the top. There, as it had an abrupt turn in it, they came all at +once in sight of three men, whose heads were bent down close together at +the side of a door, and who were intently looking into the room to which +the door belonged, through some chinks or holes in the wall. On hearing +footsteps close at hand, these three turned, and rose, and showed +themselves to be the three of one name who had been drinking in the +wine-shop. + +"I forgot them in the surprise of your visit," explained Monsieur +Defarge. "Leave us, good boys; we have business here." + +The three glided by, and went silently down. + +There appearing to be no other door on that floor, and the keeper of +the wine-shop going straight to this one when they were left alone, Mr. +Lorry asked him in a whisper, with a little anger: + +"Do you make a show of Monsieur Manette?" + +"I show him, in the way you have seen, to a chosen few." + +"Is that well?" + +"_I_ think it is well." + +"Who are the few? How do you choose them?" + +"I choose them as real men, of my name--Jacques is my name--to whom the +sight is likely to do good. Enough; you are English; that is another +thing. Stay there, if you please, a little moment." + +With an admonitory gesture to keep them back, he stooped, and looked in +through the crevice in the wall. Soon raising his head again, he struck +twice or thrice upon the door--evidently with no other object than to +make a noise there. With the same intention, he drew the key across it, +three or four times, before he put it clumsily into the lock, and turned +it as heavily as he could. + +The door slowly opened inward under his hand, and he looked into the +room and said something. A faint voice answered something. Little more +than a single syllable could have been spoken on either side. + +He looked back over his shoulder, and beckoned them to enter. Mr. Lorry +got his arm securely round the daughter's waist, and held her; for he +felt that she was sinking. + +"A-a-a-business, business!" he urged, with a moisture that was not of +business shining on his cheek. "Come in, come in!" + +"I am afraid of it," she answered, shuddering. + +"Of it? What?" + +"I mean of him. Of my father." + +Rendered in a manner desperate, by her state and by the beckoning of +their conductor, he drew over his neck the arm that shook upon his +shoulder, lifted her a little, and hurried her into the room. He sat her +down just within the door, and held her, clinging to him. + +Defarge drew out the key, closed the door, locked it on the inside, +took out the key again, and held it in his hand. All this he did, +methodically, and with as loud and harsh an accompaniment of noise as he +could make. Finally, he walked across the room with a measured tread to +where the window was. He stopped there, and faced round. + +The garret, built to be a depository for firewood and the like, was dim +and dark: for, the window of dormer shape, was in truth a door in the +roof, with a little crane over it for the hoisting up of stores from +the street: unglazed, and closing up the middle in two pieces, like any +other door of French construction. To exclude the cold, one half of this +door was fast closed, and the other was opened but a very little way. +Such a scanty portion of light was admitted through these means, that it +was difficult, on first coming in, to see anything; and long habit +alone could have slowly formed in any one, the ability to do any work +requiring nicety in such obscurity. Yet, work of that kind was being +done in the garret; for, with his back towards the door, and his face +towards the window where the keeper of the wine-shop stood looking at +him, a white-haired man sat on a low bench, stooping forward and very +busy, making shoes. + + + + +VI. The Shoemaker + + +"Good day!" said Monsieur Defarge, looking down at the white head that +bent low over the shoemaking. + +It was raised for a moment, and a very faint voice responded to the +salutation, as if it were at a distance: + +"Good day!" + +"You are still hard at work, I see?" + +After a long silence, the head was lifted for another moment, and the +voice replied, "Yes--I am working." This time, a pair of haggard eyes +had looked at the questioner, before the face had dropped again. + +The faintness of the voice was pitiable and dreadful. It was not the +faintness of physical weakness, though confinement and hard fare no +doubt had their part in it. Its deplorable peculiarity was, that it was +the faintness of solitude and disuse. It was like the last feeble echo +of a sound made long and long ago. So entirely had it lost the life and +resonance of the human voice, that it affected the senses like a once +beautiful colour faded away into a poor weak stain. So sunken and +suppressed it was, that it was like a voice underground. So expressive +it was, of a hopeless and lost creature, that a famished traveller, +wearied out by lonely wandering in a wilderness, would have remembered +home and friends in such a tone before lying down to die. + +Some minutes of silent work had passed: and the haggard eyes had looked +up again: not with any interest or curiosity, but with a dull mechanical +perception, beforehand, that the spot where the only visitor they were +aware of had stood, was not yet empty. + +"I want," said Defarge, who had not removed his gaze from the shoemaker, +"to let in a little more light here. You can bear a little more?" + +The shoemaker stopped his work; looked with a vacant air of listening, +at the floor on one side of him; then similarly, at the floor on the +other side of him; then, upward at the speaker. + +"What did you say?" + +"You can bear a little more light?" + +"I must bear it, if you let it in." (Laying the palest shadow of a +stress upon the second word.) + +The opened half-door was opened a little further, and secured at that +angle for the time. A broad ray of light fell into the garret, and +showed the workman with an unfinished shoe upon his lap, pausing in his +labour. His few common tools and various scraps of leather were at his +feet and on his bench. He had a white beard, raggedly cut, but not very +long, a hollow face, and exceedingly bright eyes. The hollowness and +thinness of his face would have caused them to look large, under his yet +dark eyebrows and his confused white hair, though they had been really +otherwise; but, they were naturally large, and looked unnaturally so. +His yellow rags of shirt lay open at the throat, and showed his body +to be withered and worn. He, and his old canvas frock, and his loose +stockings, and all his poor tatters of clothes, had, in a long seclusion +from direct light and air, faded down to such a dull uniformity of +parchment-yellow, that it would have been hard to say which was which. + +He had put up a hand between his eyes and the light, and the very bones +of it seemed transparent. So he sat, with a steadfastly vacant gaze, +pausing in his work. He never looked at the figure before him, without +first looking down on this side of himself, then on that, as if he had +lost the habit of associating place with sound; he never spoke, without +first wandering in this manner, and forgetting to speak. + +"Are you going to finish that pair of shoes to-day?" asked Defarge, +motioning to Mr. Lorry to come forward. + +"What did you say?" + +"Do you mean to finish that pair of shoes to-day?" + +"I can't say that I mean to. I suppose so. I don't know." + +But, the question reminded him of his work, and he bent over it again. + +Mr. Lorry came silently forward, leaving the daughter by the door. When +he had stood, for a minute or two, by the side of Defarge, the shoemaker +looked up. He showed no surprise at seeing another figure, but the +unsteady fingers of one of his hands strayed to his lips as he looked at +it (his lips and his nails were of the same pale lead-colour), and then +the hand dropped to his work, and he once more bent over the shoe. The +look and the action had occupied but an instant. + +"You have a visitor, you see," said Monsieur Defarge. + +"What did you say?" + +"Here is a visitor." + +The shoemaker looked up as before, but without removing a hand from his +work. + +"Come!" said Defarge. "Here is monsieur, who knows a well-made shoe when +he sees one. Show him that shoe you are working at. Take it, monsieur." + +Mr. Lorry took it in his hand. + +"Tell monsieur what kind of shoe it is, and the maker's name." + +There was a longer pause than usual, before the shoemaker replied: + +"I forget what it was you asked me. What did you say?" + +"I said, couldn't you describe the kind of shoe, for monsieur's +information?" + +"It is a lady's shoe. It is a young lady's walking-shoe. It is in the +present mode. I never saw the mode. I have had a pattern in my hand." He +glanced at the shoe with some little passing touch of pride. + +"And the maker's name?" said Defarge. + +Now that he had no work to hold, he laid the knuckles of the right hand +in the hollow of the left, and then the knuckles of the left hand in the +hollow of the right, and then passed a hand across his bearded chin, and +so on in regular changes, without a moment's intermission. The task of +recalling him from the vagrancy into which he always sank when he +had spoken, was like recalling some very weak person from a swoon, or +endeavouring, in the hope of some disclosure, to stay the spirit of a +fast-dying man. + +"Did you ask me for my name?" + +"Assuredly I did." + +"One Hundred and Five, North Tower." + +"Is that all?" + +"One Hundred and Five, North Tower." + +With a weary sound that was not a sigh, nor a groan, he bent to work +again, until the silence was again broken. + +"You are not a shoemaker by trade?" said Mr. Lorry, looking steadfastly +at him. + +His haggard eyes turned to Defarge as if he would have transferred the +question to him: but as no help came from that quarter, they turned back +on the questioner when they had sought the ground. + +"I am not a shoemaker by trade? No, I was not a shoemaker by trade. I-I +learnt it here. I taught myself. I asked leave to--" + +He lapsed away, even for minutes, ringing those measured changes on his +hands the whole time. His eyes came slowly back, at last, to the face +from which they had wandered; when they rested on it, he started, and +resumed, in the manner of a sleeper that moment awake, reverting to a +subject of last night. + +"I asked leave to teach myself, and I got it with much difficulty after +a long while, and I have made shoes ever since." + +As he held out his hand for the shoe that had been taken from him, Mr. +Lorry said, still looking steadfastly in his face: + +"Monsieur Manette, do you remember nothing of me?" + +The shoe dropped to the ground, and he sat looking fixedly at the +questioner. + +"Monsieur Manette"; Mr. Lorry laid his hand upon Defarge's arm; "do you +remember nothing of this man? Look at him. Look at me. Is there no old +banker, no old business, no old servant, no old time, rising in your +mind, Monsieur Manette?" + +As the captive of many years sat looking fixedly, by turns, at Mr. +Lorry and at Defarge, some long obliterated marks of an actively intent +intelligence in the middle of the forehead, gradually forced themselves +through the black mist that had fallen on him. They were overclouded +again, they were fainter, they were gone; but they had been there. And +so exactly was the expression repeated on the fair young face of her who +had crept along the wall to a point where she could see him, and where +she now stood looking at him, with hands which at first had been only +raised in frightened compassion, if not even to keep him off and +shut out the sight of him, but which were now extending towards him, +trembling with eagerness to lay the spectral face upon her warm young +breast, and love it back to life and hope--so exactly was the expression +repeated (though in stronger characters) on her fair young face, that it +looked as though it had passed like a moving light, from him to her. + +Darkness had fallen on him in its place. He looked at the two, less and +less attentively, and his eyes in gloomy abstraction sought the ground +and looked about him in the old way. Finally, with a deep long sigh, he +took the shoe up, and resumed his work. + +"Have you recognised him, monsieur?" asked Defarge in a whisper. + +"Yes; for a moment. At first I thought it quite hopeless, but I have +unquestionably seen, for a single moment, the face that I once knew so +well. Hush! Let us draw further back. Hush!" + +She had moved from the wall of the garret, very near to the bench on +which he sat. There was something awful in his unconsciousness of the +figure that could have put out its hand and touched him as he stooped +over his labour. + +Not a word was spoken, not a sound was made. She stood, like a spirit, +beside him, and he bent over his work. + +It happened, at length, that he had occasion to change the instrument +in his hand, for his shoemaker's knife. It lay on that side of him +which was not the side on which she stood. He had taken it up, and was +stooping to work again, when his eyes caught the skirt of her dress. He +raised them, and saw her face. The two spectators started forward, +but she stayed them with a motion of her hand. She had no fear of his +striking at her with the knife, though they had. + +He stared at her with a fearful look, and after a while his lips began +to form some words, though no sound proceeded from them. By degrees, in +the pauses of his quick and laboured breathing, he was heard to say: + +"What is this?" + +With the tears streaming down her face, she put her two hands to her +lips, and kissed them to him; then clasped them on her breast, as if she +laid his ruined head there. + +"You are not the gaoler's daughter?" + +She sighed "No." + +"Who are you?" + +Not yet trusting the tones of her voice, she sat down on the bench +beside him. He recoiled, but she laid her hand upon his arm. A strange +thrill struck him when she did so, and visibly passed over his frame; he +laid the knife down softly, as he sat staring at her. + +Her golden hair, which she wore in long curls, had been hurriedly pushed +aside, and fell down over her neck. Advancing his hand by little and +little, he took it up and looked at it. In the midst of the action +he went astray, and, with another deep sigh, fell to work at his +shoemaking. + +But not for long. Releasing his arm, she laid her hand upon his +shoulder. After looking doubtfully at it, two or three times, as if to +be sure that it was really there, he laid down his work, put his hand +to his neck, and took off a blackened string with a scrap of folded rag +attached to it. He opened this, carefully, on his knee, and it contained +a very little quantity of hair: not more than one or two long golden +hairs, which he had, in some old day, wound off upon his finger. + +He took her hair into his hand again, and looked closely at it. "It is +the same. How can it be! When was it! How was it!" + +As the concentrated expression returned to his forehead, he seemed to +become conscious that it was in hers too. He turned her full to the +light, and looked at her. + +"She had laid her head upon my shoulder, that night when I was summoned +out--she had a fear of my going, though I had none--and when I was +brought to the North Tower they found these upon my sleeve. 'You will +leave me them? They can never help me to escape in the body, though they +may in the spirit.' Those were the words I said. I remember them very +well." + +He formed this speech with his lips many times before he could utter it. +But when he did find spoken words for it, they came to him coherently, +though slowly. + +"How was this?--_Was it you_?" + +Once more, the two spectators started, as he turned upon her with a +frightful suddenness. But she sat perfectly still in his grasp, and only +said, in a low voice, "I entreat you, good gentlemen, do not come near +us, do not speak, do not move!" + +"Hark!" he exclaimed. "Whose voice was that?" + +His hands released her as he uttered this cry, and went up to his white +hair, which they tore in a frenzy. It died out, as everything but his +shoemaking did die out of him, and he refolded his little packet and +tried to secure it in his breast; but he still looked at her, and +gloomily shook his head. + +"No, no, no; you are too young, too blooming. It can't be. See what the +prisoner is. These are not the hands she knew, this is not the face +she knew, this is not a voice she ever heard. No, no. She was--and He +was--before the slow years of the North Tower--ages ago. What is your +name, my gentle angel?" + +Hailing his softened tone and manner, his daughter fell upon her knees +before him, with her appealing hands upon his breast. + +"O, sir, at another time you shall know my name, and who my mother was, +and who my father, and how I never knew their hard, hard history. But I +cannot tell you at this time, and I cannot tell you here. All that I may +tell you, here and now, is, that I pray to you to touch me and to bless +me. Kiss me, kiss me! O my dear, my dear!" + +His cold white head mingled with her radiant hair, which warmed and +lighted it as though it were the light of Freedom shining on him. + +"If you hear in my voice--I don't know that it is so, but I hope it +is--if you hear in my voice any resemblance to a voice that once was +sweet music in your ears, weep for it, weep for it! If you touch, in +touching my hair, anything that recalls a beloved head that lay on your +breast when you were young and free, weep for it, weep for it! If, when +I hint to you of a Home that is before us, where I will be true to you +with all my duty and with all my faithful service, I bring back the +remembrance of a Home long desolate, while your poor heart pined away, +weep for it, weep for it!" + +She held him closer round the neck, and rocked him on her breast like a +child. + +"If, when I tell you, dearest dear, that your agony is over, and that I +have come here to take you from it, and that we go to England to be at +peace and at rest, I cause you to think of your useful life laid waste, +and of our native France so wicked to you, weep for it, weep for it! And +if, when I shall tell you of my name, and of my father who is living, +and of my mother who is dead, you learn that I have to kneel to my +honoured father, and implore his pardon for having never for his sake +striven all day and lain awake and wept all night, because the love of +my poor mother hid his torture from me, weep for it, weep for it! Weep +for her, then, and for me! Good gentlemen, thank God! I feel his sacred +tears upon my face, and his sobs strike against my heart. O, see! Thank +God for us, thank God!" + +He had sunk in her arms, and his face dropped on her breast: a sight so +touching, yet so terrible in the tremendous wrong and suffering which +had gone before it, that the two beholders covered their faces. + +When the quiet of the garret had been long undisturbed, and his heaving +breast and shaken form had long yielded to the calm that must follow all +storms--emblem to humanity, of the rest and silence into which the storm +called Life must hush at last--they came forward to raise the father and +daughter from the ground. He had gradually dropped to the floor, and lay +there in a lethargy, worn out. She had nestled down with him, that his +head might lie upon her arm; and her hair drooping over him curtained +him from the light. + +"If, without disturbing him," she said, raising her hand to Mr. Lorry as +he stooped over them, after repeated blowings of his nose, "all could be +arranged for our leaving Paris at once, so that, from the very door, he +could be taken away--" + +"But, consider. Is he fit for the journey?" asked Mr. Lorry. + +"More fit for that, I think, than to remain in this city, so dreadful to +him." + +"It is true," said Defarge, who was kneeling to look on and hear. "More +than that; Monsieur Manette is, for all reasons, best out of France. +Say, shall I hire a carriage and post-horses?" + +"That's business," said Mr. Lorry, resuming on the shortest notice his +methodical manners; "and if business is to be done, I had better do it." + +"Then be so kind," urged Miss Manette, "as to leave us here. You see how +composed he has become, and you cannot be afraid to leave him with me +now. Why should you be? If you will lock the door to secure us from +interruption, I do not doubt that you will find him, when you come back, +as quiet as you leave him. In any case, I will take care of him until +you return, and then we will remove him straight." + +Both Mr. Lorry and Defarge were rather disinclined to this course, and +in favour of one of them remaining. But, as there were not only carriage +and horses to be seen to, but travelling papers; and as time pressed, +for the day was drawing to an end, it came at last to their hastily +dividing the business that was necessary to be done, and hurrying away +to do it. + +Then, as the darkness closed in, the daughter laid her head down on the +hard ground close at the father's side, and watched him. The darkness +deepened and deepened, and they both lay quiet, until a light gleamed +through the chinks in the wall. + +Mr. Lorry and Monsieur Defarge had made all ready for the journey, and +had brought with them, besides travelling cloaks and wrappers, bread and +meat, wine, and hot coffee. Monsieur Defarge put this provender, and the +lamp he carried, on the shoemaker's bench (there was nothing else in the +garret but a pallet bed), and he and Mr. Lorry roused the captive, and +assisted him to his feet. + +No human intelligence could have read the mysteries of his mind, in +the scared blank wonder of his face. Whether he knew what had happened, +whether he recollected what they had said to him, whether he knew that +he was free, were questions which no sagacity could have solved. They +tried speaking to him; but, he was so confused, and so very slow to +answer, that they took fright at his bewilderment, and agreed for +the time to tamper with him no more. He had a wild, lost manner of +occasionally clasping his head in his hands, that had not been seen +in him before; yet, he had some pleasure in the mere sound of his +daughter's voice, and invariably turned to it when she spoke. + +In the submissive way of one long accustomed to obey under coercion, he +ate and drank what they gave him to eat and drink, and put on the cloak +and other wrappings, that they gave him to wear. He readily responded to +his daughter's drawing her arm through his, and took--and kept--her hand +in both his own. + +They began to descend; Monsieur Defarge going first with the lamp, Mr. +Lorry closing the little procession. They had not traversed many steps +of the long main staircase when he stopped, and stared at the roof and +round at the walls. + +"You remember the place, my father? You remember coming up here?" + +"What did you say?" + +But, before she could repeat the question, he murmured an answer as if +she had repeated it. + +"Remember? No, I don't remember. It was so very long ago." + +That he had no recollection whatever of his having been brought from his +prison to that house, was apparent to them. They heard him mutter, +"One Hundred and Five, North Tower;" and when he looked about him, it +evidently was for the strong fortress-walls which had long encompassed +him. On their reaching the courtyard he instinctively altered his +tread, as being in expectation of a drawbridge; and when there was +no drawbridge, and he saw the carriage waiting in the open street, he +dropped his daughter's hand and clasped his head again. + +No crowd was about the door; no people were discernible at any of the +many windows; not even a chance passerby was in the street. An unnatural +silence and desertion reigned there. Only one soul was to be seen, and +that was Madame Defarge--who leaned against the door-post, knitting, and +saw nothing. + +The prisoner had got into a coach, and his daughter had followed +him, when Mr. Lorry's feet were arrested on the step by his asking, +miserably, for his shoemaking tools and the unfinished shoes. Madame +Defarge immediately called to her husband that she would get them, and +went, knitting, out of the lamplight, through the courtyard. She quickly +brought them down and handed them in;--and immediately afterwards leaned +against the door-post, knitting, and saw nothing. + +Defarge got upon the box, and gave the word "To the Barrier!" The +postilion cracked his whip, and they clattered away under the feeble +over-swinging lamps. + +Under the over-swinging lamps--swinging ever brighter in the better +streets, and ever dimmer in the worse--and by lighted shops, gay crowds, +illuminated coffee-houses, and theatre-doors, to one of the city +gates. Soldiers with lanterns, at the guard-house there. "Your papers, +travellers!" "See here then, Monsieur the Officer," said Defarge, +getting down, and taking him gravely apart, "these are the papers of +monsieur inside, with the white head. They were consigned to me, with +him, at the--" He dropped his voice, there was a flutter among the +military lanterns, and one of them being handed into the coach by an arm +in uniform, the eyes connected with the arm looked, not an every day +or an every night look, at monsieur with the white head. "It is well. +Forward!" from the uniform. "Adieu!" from Defarge. And so, under a short +grove of feebler and feebler over-swinging lamps, out under the great +grove of stars. + +Beneath that arch of unmoved and eternal lights; some, so remote from +this little earth that the learned tell us it is doubtful whether their +rays have even yet discovered it, as a point in space where anything +is suffered or done: the shadows of the night were broad and black. +All through the cold and restless interval, until dawn, they once more +whispered in the ears of Mr. Jarvis Lorry--sitting opposite the buried +man who had been dug out, and wondering what subtle powers were for ever +lost to him, and what were capable of restoration--the old inquiry: + +"I hope you care to be recalled to life?" + +And the old answer: + +"I can't say." + + +The end of the first book. + + + + + +Book the Second--the Golden Thread + + + + +I. Five Years Later + + +Tellson's Bank by Temple Bar was an old-fashioned place, even in the +year one thousand seven hundred and eighty. It was very small, very +dark, very ugly, very incommodious. It was an old-fashioned place, +moreover, in the moral attribute that the partners in the House were +proud of its smallness, proud of its darkness, proud of its ugliness, +proud of its incommodiousness. They were even boastful of its eminence +in those particulars, and were fired by an express conviction that, if +it were less objectionable, it would be less respectable. This was +no passive belief, but an active weapon which they flashed at more +convenient places of business. Tellson's (they said) wanted +no elbow-room, Tellson's wanted no light, Tellson's wanted no +embellishment. Noakes and Co.'s might, or Snooks Brothers' might; but +Tellson's, thank Heaven--! + +Any one of these partners would have disinherited his son on the +question of rebuilding Tellson's. In this respect the House was much +on a par with the Country; which did very often disinherit its sons for +suggesting improvements in laws and customs that had long been highly +objectionable, but were only the more respectable. + +Thus it had come to pass, that Tellson's was the triumphant perfection +of inconvenience. After bursting open a door of idiotic obstinacy with +a weak rattle in its throat, you fell into Tellson's down two steps, +and came to your senses in a miserable little shop, with two little +counters, where the oldest of men made your cheque shake as if the +wind rustled it, while they examined the signature by the dingiest of +windows, which were always under a shower-bath of mud from Fleet-street, +and which were made the dingier by their own iron bars proper, and the +heavy shadow of Temple Bar. If your business necessitated your seeing +"the House," you were put into a species of Condemned Hold at the back, +where you meditated on a misspent life, until the House came with its +hands in its pockets, and you could hardly blink at it in the dismal +twilight. Your money came out of, or went into, wormy old wooden +drawers, particles of which flew up your nose and down your throat when +they were opened and shut. Your bank-notes had a musty odour, as if they +were fast decomposing into rags again. Your plate was stowed away among +the neighbouring cesspools, and evil communications corrupted its good +polish in a day or two. Your deeds got into extemporised strong-rooms +made of kitchens and sculleries, and fretted all the fat out of their +parchments into the banking-house air. Your lighter boxes of family +papers went up-stairs into a Barmecide room, that always had a great +dining-table in it and never had a dinner, and where, even in the year +one thousand seven hundred and eighty, the first letters written to you +by your old love, or by your little children, were but newly released +from the horror of being ogled through the windows, by the heads +exposed on Temple Bar with an insensate brutality and ferocity worthy of +Abyssinia or Ashantee. + +But indeed, at that time, putting to death was a recipe much in vogue +with all trades and professions, and not least of all with Tellson's. +Death is Nature's remedy for all things, and why not Legislation's? +Accordingly, the forger was put to Death; the utterer of a bad note +was put to Death; the unlawful opener of a letter was put to Death; the +purloiner of forty shillings and sixpence was put to Death; the holder +of a horse at Tellson's door, who made off with it, was put to +Death; the coiner of a bad shilling was put to Death; the sounders of +three-fourths of the notes in the whole gamut of Crime, were put to +Death. Not that it did the least good in the way of prevention--it +might almost have been worth remarking that the fact was exactly the +reverse--but, it cleared off (as to this world) the trouble of each +particular case, and left nothing else connected with it to be looked +after. Thus, Tellson's, in its day, like greater places of business, +its contemporaries, had taken so many lives, that, if the heads laid +low before it had been ranged on Temple Bar instead of being privately +disposed of, they would probably have excluded what little light the +ground floor had, in a rather significant manner. + +Cramped in all kinds of dim cupboards and hutches at Tellson's, the +oldest of men carried on the business gravely. When they took a young +man into Tellson's London house, they hid him somewhere till he was +old. They kept him in a dark place, like a cheese, until he had the full +Tellson flavour and blue-mould upon him. Then only was he permitted to +be seen, spectacularly poring over large books, and casting his breeches +and gaiters into the general weight of the establishment. + +Outside Tellson's--never by any means in it, unless called in--was an +odd-job-man, an occasional porter and messenger, who served as the live +sign of the house. He was never absent during business hours, unless +upon an errand, and then he was represented by his son: a grisly urchin +of twelve, who was his express image. People understood that Tellson's, +in a stately way, tolerated the odd-job-man. The house had always +tolerated some person in that capacity, and time and tide had drifted +this person to the post. His surname was Cruncher, and on the youthful +occasion of his renouncing by proxy the works of darkness, in the +easterly parish church of Hounsditch, he had received the added +appellation of Jerry. + +The scene was Mr. Cruncher's private lodging in Hanging-sword-alley, +Whitefriars: the time, half-past seven of the clock on a windy March +morning, Anno Domini seventeen hundred and eighty. (Mr. Cruncher himself +always spoke of the year of our Lord as Anna Dominoes: apparently under +the impression that the Christian era dated from the invention of a +popular game, by a lady who had bestowed her name upon it.) + +Mr. Cruncher's apartments were not in a savoury neighbourhood, and were +but two in number, even if a closet with a single pane of glass in it +might be counted as one. But they were very decently kept. Early as +it was, on the windy March morning, the room in which he lay abed was +already scrubbed throughout; and between the cups and saucers arranged +for breakfast, and the lumbering deal table, a very clean white cloth +was spread. + +Mr. Cruncher reposed under a patchwork counterpane, like a Harlequin +at home. At first, he slept heavily, but, by degrees, began to roll +and surge in bed, until he rose above the surface, with his spiky hair +looking as if it must tear the sheets to ribbons. At which juncture, he +exclaimed, in a voice of dire exasperation: + +"Bust me, if she ain't at it agin!" + +A woman of orderly and industrious appearance rose from her knees in a +corner, with sufficient haste and trepidation to show that she was the +person referred to. + +"What!" said Mr. Cruncher, looking out of bed for a boot. "You're at it +agin, are you?" + +After hailing the morn with this second salutation, he threw a boot at +the woman as a third. It was a very muddy boot, and may introduce the +odd circumstance connected with Mr. Cruncher's domestic economy, that, +whereas he often came home after banking hours with clean boots, he +often got up next morning to find the same boots covered with clay. + +"What," said Mr. Cruncher, varying his apostrophe after missing his +mark--"what are you up to, Aggerawayter?" + +"I was only saying my prayers." + +"Saying your prayers! You're a nice woman! What do you mean by flopping +yourself down and praying agin me?" + +"I was not praying against you; I was praying for you." + +"You weren't. And if you were, I won't be took the liberty with. Here! +your mother's a nice woman, young Jerry, going a praying agin your +father's prosperity. You've got a dutiful mother, you have, my son. +You've got a religious mother, you have, my boy: going and flopping +herself down, and praying that the bread-and-butter may be snatched out +of the mouth of her only child." + +Master Cruncher (who was in his shirt) took this very ill, and, turning +to his mother, strongly deprecated any praying away of his personal +board. + +"And what do you suppose, you conceited female," said Mr. Cruncher, with +unconscious inconsistency, "that the worth of _your_ prayers may be? +Name the price that you put _your_ prayers at!" + +"They only come from the heart, Jerry. They are worth no more than +that." + +"Worth no more than that," repeated Mr. Cruncher. "They ain't worth +much, then. Whether or no, I won't be prayed agin, I tell you. I can't +afford it. I'm not a going to be made unlucky by _your_ sneaking. If +you must go flopping yourself down, flop in favour of your husband and +child, and not in opposition to 'em. If I had had any but a unnat'ral +wife, and this poor boy had had any but a unnat'ral mother, I might +have made some money last week instead of being counter-prayed and +countermined and religiously circumwented into the worst of luck. +B-u-u-ust me!" said Mr. Cruncher, who all this time had been putting +on his clothes, "if I ain't, what with piety and one blowed thing and +another, been choused this last week into as bad luck as ever a poor +devil of a honest tradesman met with! Young Jerry, dress yourself, my +boy, and while I clean my boots keep a eye upon your mother now and +then, and if you see any signs of more flopping, give me a call. For, I +tell you," here he addressed his wife once more, "I won't be gone agin, +in this manner. I am as rickety as a hackney-coach, I'm as sleepy as +laudanum, my lines is strained to that degree that I shouldn't know, if +it wasn't for the pain in 'em, which was me and which somebody else, yet +I'm none the better for it in pocket; and it's my suspicion that you've +been at it from morning to night to prevent me from being the better for +it in pocket, and I won't put up with it, Aggerawayter, and what do you +say now!" + +Growling, in addition, such phrases as "Ah! yes! You're religious, too. +You wouldn't put yourself in opposition to the interests of your husband +and child, would you? Not you!" and throwing off other sarcastic sparks +from the whirling grindstone of his indignation, Mr. Cruncher betook +himself to his boot-cleaning and his general preparation for business. +In the meantime, his son, whose head was garnished with tenderer spikes, +and whose young eyes stood close by one another, as his father's did, +kept the required watch upon his mother. He greatly disturbed that poor +woman at intervals, by darting out of his sleeping closet, where he made +his toilet, with a suppressed cry of "You are going to flop, mother. +--Halloa, father!" and, after raising this fictitious alarm, darting in +again with an undutiful grin. + +Mr. Cruncher's temper was not at all improved when he came to his +breakfast. He resented Mrs. Cruncher's saying grace with particular +animosity. + +"Now, Aggerawayter! What are you up to? At it again?" + +His wife explained that she had merely "asked a blessing." + +"Don't do it!" said Mr. Crunches looking about, as if he rather expected +to see the loaf disappear under the efficacy of his wife's petitions. "I +ain't a going to be blest out of house and home. I won't have my wittles +blest off my table. Keep still!" + +Exceedingly red-eyed and grim, as if he had been up all night at a party +which had taken anything but a convivial turn, Jerry Cruncher worried +his breakfast rather than ate it, growling over it like any four-footed +inmate of a menagerie. Towards nine o'clock he smoothed his ruffled +aspect, and, presenting as respectable and business-like an exterior as +he could overlay his natural self with, issued forth to the occupation +of the day. + +It could scarcely be called a trade, in spite of his favourite +description of himself as "a honest tradesman." His stock consisted of +a wooden stool, made out of a broken-backed chair cut down, which stool, +young Jerry, walking at his father's side, carried every morning to +beneath the banking-house window that was nearest Temple Bar: where, +with the addition of the first handful of straw that could be gleaned +from any passing vehicle to keep the cold and wet from the odd-job-man's +feet, it formed the encampment for the day. On this post of his, Mr. +Cruncher was as well known to Fleet-street and the Temple, as the Bar +itself,--and was almost as in-looking. + +Encamped at a quarter before nine, in good time to touch his +three-cornered hat to the oldest of men as they passed in to Tellson's, +Jerry took up his station on this windy March morning, with young Jerry +standing by him, when not engaged in making forays through the Bar, to +inflict bodily and mental injuries of an acute description on passing +boys who were small enough for his amiable purpose. Father and son, +extremely like each other, looking silently on at the morning traffic +in Fleet-street, with their two heads as near to one another as the two +eyes of each were, bore a considerable resemblance to a pair of monkeys. +The resemblance was not lessened by the accidental circumstance, that +the mature Jerry bit and spat out straw, while the twinkling eyes of the +youthful Jerry were as restlessly watchful of him as of everything else +in Fleet-street. + +The head of one of the regular indoor messengers attached to Tellson's +establishment was put through the door, and the word was given: + +"Porter wanted!" + +"Hooray, father! Here's an early job to begin with!" + +Having thus given his parent God speed, young Jerry seated himself on +the stool, entered on his reversionary interest in the straw his father +had been chewing, and cogitated. + +"Al-ways rusty! His fingers is al-ways rusty!" muttered young Jerry. +"Where does my father get all that iron rust from? He don't get no iron +rust here!" + + + + +II. A Sight + + +"You know the Old Bailey well, no doubt?" said one of the oldest of +clerks to Jerry the messenger. + +"Ye-es, sir," returned Jerry, in something of a dogged manner. "I _do_ +know the Bailey." + +"Just so. And you know Mr. Lorry." + +"I know Mr. Lorry, sir, much better than I know the Bailey. Much +better," said Jerry, not unlike a reluctant witness at the establishment +in question, "than I, as a honest tradesman, wish to know the Bailey." + +"Very well. Find the door where the witnesses go in, and show the +door-keeper this note for Mr. Lorry. He will then let you in." + +"Into the court, sir?" + +"Into the court." + +Mr. Cruncher's eyes seemed to get a little closer to one another, and to +interchange the inquiry, "What do you think of this?" + +"Am I to wait in the court, sir?" he asked, as the result of that +conference. + +"I am going to tell you. The door-keeper will pass the note to Mr. +Lorry, and do you make any gesture that will attract Mr. Lorry's +attention, and show him where you stand. Then what you have to do, is, +to remain there until he wants you." + +"Is that all, sir?" + +"That's all. He wishes to have a messenger at hand. This is to tell him +you are there." + +As the ancient clerk deliberately folded and superscribed the note, +Mr. Cruncher, after surveying him in silence until he came to the +blotting-paper stage, remarked: + +"I suppose they'll be trying Forgeries this morning?" + +"Treason!" + +"That's quartering," said Jerry. "Barbarous!" + +"It is the law," remarked the ancient clerk, turning his surprised +spectacles upon him. "It is the law." + +"It's hard in the law to spile a man, I think. It's hard enough to kill +him, but it's wery hard to spile him, sir." + +"Not at all," retained the ancient clerk. "Speak well of the law. Take +care of your chest and voice, my good friend, and leave the law to take +care of itself. I give you that advice." + +"It's the damp, sir, what settles on my chest and voice," said Jerry. "I +leave you to judge what a damp way of earning a living mine is." + +"Well, well," said the old clerk; "we all have our various ways of +gaining a livelihood. Some of us have damp ways, and some of us have dry +ways. Here is the letter. Go along." + +Jerry took the letter, and, remarking to himself with less internal +deference than he made an outward show of, "You are a lean old one, +too," made his bow, informed his son, in passing, of his destination, +and went his way. + +They hanged at Tyburn, in those days, so the street outside Newgate had +not obtained one infamous notoriety that has since attached to it. +But, the gaol was a vile place, in which most kinds of debauchery and +villainy were practised, and where dire diseases were bred, that came +into court with the prisoners, and sometimes rushed straight from the +dock at my Lord Chief Justice himself, and pulled him off the bench. It +had more than once happened, that the Judge in the black cap pronounced +his own doom as certainly as the prisoner's, and even died before him. +For the rest, the Old Bailey was famous as a kind of deadly inn-yard, +from which pale travellers set out continually, in carts and coaches, on +a violent passage into the other world: traversing some two miles and a +half of public street and road, and shaming few good citizens, if any. +So powerful is use, and so desirable to be good use in the beginning. It +was famous, too, for the pillory, a wise old institution, that inflicted +a punishment of which no one could foresee the extent; also, for +the whipping-post, another dear old institution, very humanising and +softening to behold in action; also, for extensive transactions in +blood-money, another fragment of ancestral wisdom, systematically +leading to the most frightful mercenary crimes that could be committed +under Heaven. Altogether, the Old Bailey, at that date, was a choice +illustration of the precept, that "Whatever is is right;" an aphorism +that would be as final as it is lazy, did it not include the troublesome +consequence, that nothing that ever was, was wrong. + +Making his way through the tainted crowd, dispersed up and down this +hideous scene of action, with the skill of a man accustomed to make his +way quietly, the messenger found out the door he sought, and handed in +his letter through a trap in it. For, people then paid to see the play +at the Old Bailey, just as they paid to see the play in Bedlam--only the +former entertainment was much the dearer. Therefore, all the Old Bailey +doors were well guarded--except, indeed, the social doors by which the +criminals got there, and those were always left wide open. + +After some delay and demur, the door grudgingly turned on its hinges a +very little way, and allowed Mr. Jerry Cruncher to squeeze himself into +court. + +"What's on?" he asked, in a whisper, of the man he found himself next +to. + +"Nothing yet." + +"What's coming on?" + +"The Treason case." + +"The quartering one, eh?" + +"Ah!" returned the man, with a relish; "he'll be drawn on a hurdle to +be half hanged, and then he'll be taken down and sliced before his own +face, and then his inside will be taken out and burnt while he looks on, +and then his head will be chopped off, and he'll be cut into quarters. +That's the sentence." + +"If he's found Guilty, you mean to say?" Jerry added, by way of proviso. + +"Oh! they'll find him guilty," said the other. "Don't you be afraid of +that." + +Mr. Cruncher's attention was here diverted to the door-keeper, whom he +saw making his way to Mr. Lorry, with the note in his hand. Mr. Lorry +sat at a table, among the gentlemen in wigs: not far from a wigged +gentleman, the prisoner's counsel, who had a great bundle of papers +before him: and nearly opposite another wigged gentleman with his hands +in his pockets, whose whole attention, when Mr. Cruncher looked at him +then or afterwards, seemed to be concentrated on the ceiling of the +court. After some gruff coughing and rubbing of his chin and signing +with his hand, Jerry attracted the notice of Mr. Lorry, who had stood up +to look for him, and who quietly nodded and sat down again. + +"What's _he_ got to do with the case?" asked the man he had spoken with. + +"Blest if I know," said Jerry. + +"What have _you_ got to do with it, then, if a person may inquire?" + +"Blest if I know that either," said Jerry. + +The entrance of the Judge, and a consequent great stir and settling +down in the court, stopped the dialogue. Presently, the dock became the +central point of interest. Two gaolers, who had been standing there, +went out, and the prisoner was brought in, and put to the bar. + +Everybody present, except the one wigged gentleman who looked at the +ceiling, stared at him. All the human breath in the place, rolled +at him, like a sea, or a wind, or a fire. Eager faces strained round +pillars and corners, to get a sight of him; spectators in back rows +stood up, not to miss a hair of him; people on the floor of the court, +laid their hands on the shoulders of the people before them, to help +themselves, at anybody's cost, to a view of him--stood a-tiptoe, got +upon ledges, stood upon next to nothing, to see every inch of him. +Conspicuous among these latter, like an animated bit of the spiked wall +of Newgate, Jerry stood: aiming at the prisoner the beery breath of a +whet he had taken as he came along, and discharging it to mingle with +the waves of other beer, and gin, and tea, and coffee, and what not, +that flowed at him, and already broke upon the great windows behind him +in an impure mist and rain. + +The object of all this staring and blaring, was a young man of about +five-and-twenty, well-grown and well-looking, with a sunburnt cheek and +a dark eye. His condition was that of a young gentleman. He was plainly +dressed in black, or very dark grey, and his hair, which was long and +dark, was gathered in a ribbon at the back of his neck; more to be out +of his way than for ornament. As an emotion of the mind will express +itself through any covering of the body, so the paleness which his +situation engendered came through the brown upon his cheek, showing the +soul to be stronger than the sun. He was otherwise quite self-possessed, +bowed to the Judge, and stood quiet. + +The sort of interest with which this man was stared and breathed at, +was not a sort that elevated humanity. Had he stood in peril of a less +horrible sentence--had there been a chance of any one of its savage +details being spared--by just so much would he have lost in his +fascination. The form that was to be doomed to be so shamefully mangled, +was the sight; the immortal creature that was to be so butchered +and torn asunder, yielded the sensation. Whatever gloss the various +spectators put upon the interest, according to their several arts and +powers of self-deceit, the interest was, at the root of it, Ogreish. + +Silence in the court! Charles Darnay had yesterday pleaded Not Guilty to +an indictment denouncing him (with infinite jingle and jangle) for that +he was a false traitor to our serene, illustrious, excellent, and so +forth, prince, our Lord the King, by reason of his having, on divers +occasions, and by divers means and ways, assisted Lewis, the French +King, in his wars against our said serene, illustrious, excellent, and +so forth; that was to say, by coming and going, between the dominions of +our said serene, illustrious, excellent, and so forth, and those of the +said French Lewis, and wickedly, falsely, traitorously, and otherwise +evil-adverbiously, revealing to the said French Lewis what forces our +said serene, illustrious, excellent, and so forth, had in preparation +to send to Canada and North America. This much, Jerry, with his head +becoming more and more spiky as the law terms bristled it, made out with +huge satisfaction, and so arrived circuitously at the understanding that +the aforesaid, and over and over again aforesaid, Charles Darnay, stood +there before him upon his trial; that the jury were swearing in; and +that Mr. Attorney-General was making ready to speak. + +The accused, who was (and who knew he was) being mentally hanged, +beheaded, and quartered, by everybody there, neither flinched from +the situation, nor assumed any theatrical air in it. He was quiet and +attentive; watched the opening proceedings with a grave interest; +and stood with his hands resting on the slab of wood before him, so +composedly, that they had not displaced a leaf of the herbs with which +it was strewn. The court was all bestrewn with herbs and sprinkled with +vinegar, as a precaution against gaol air and gaol fever. + +Over the prisoner's head there was a mirror, to throw the light down +upon him. Crowds of the wicked and the wretched had been reflected in +it, and had passed from its surface and this earth's together. Haunted +in a most ghastly manner that abominable place would have been, if the +glass could ever have rendered back its reflections, as the ocean is one +day to give up its dead. Some passing thought of the infamy and disgrace +for which it had been reserved, may have struck the prisoner's mind. Be +that as it may, a change in his position making him conscious of a bar +of light across his face, he looked up; and when he saw the glass his +face flushed, and his right hand pushed the herbs away. + +It happened, that the action turned his face to that side of the court +which was on his left. About on a level with his eyes, there sat, +in that corner of the Judge's bench, two persons upon whom his look +immediately rested; so immediately, and so much to the changing of his +aspect, that all the eyes that were turned upon him, turned to them. + +The spectators saw in the two figures, a young lady of little more than +twenty, and a gentleman who was evidently her father; a man of a very +remarkable appearance in respect of the absolute whiteness of his hair, +and a certain indescribable intensity of face: not of an active kind, +but pondering and self-communing. When this expression was upon him, he +looked as if he were old; but when it was stirred and broken up--as +it was now, in a moment, on his speaking to his daughter--he became a +handsome man, not past the prime of life. + +His daughter had one of her hands drawn through his arm, as she sat by +him, and the other pressed upon it. She had drawn close to him, in her +dread of the scene, and in her pity for the prisoner. Her forehead had +been strikingly expressive of an engrossing terror and compassion +that saw nothing but the peril of the accused. This had been so very +noticeable, so very powerfully and naturally shown, that starers who +had had no pity for him were touched by her; and the whisper went about, +"Who are they?" + +Jerry, the messenger, who had made his own observations, in his own +manner, and who had been sucking the rust off his fingers in his +absorption, stretched his neck to hear who they were. The crowd about +him had pressed and passed the inquiry on to the nearest attendant, and +from him it had been more slowly pressed and passed back; at last it got +to Jerry: + +"Witnesses." + +"For which side?" + +"Against." + +"Against what side?" + +"The prisoner's." + +The Judge, whose eyes had gone in the general direction, recalled them, +leaned back in his seat, and looked steadily at the man whose life was +in his hand, as Mr. Attorney-General rose to spin the rope, grind the +axe, and hammer the nails into the scaffold. + + + + +III. A Disappointment + + +Mr. Attorney-General had to inform the jury, that the prisoner before +them, though young in years, was old in the treasonable practices which +claimed the forfeit of his life. That this correspondence with the +public enemy was not a correspondence of to-day, or of yesterday, or +even of last year, or of the year before. That, it was certain the +prisoner had, for longer than that, been in the habit of passing and +repassing between France and England, on secret business of which +he could give no honest account. That, if it were in the nature of +traitorous ways to thrive (which happily it never was), the real +wickedness and guilt of his business might have remained undiscovered. +That Providence, however, had put it into the heart of a person who +was beyond fear and beyond reproach, to ferret out the nature of the +prisoner's schemes, and, struck with horror, to disclose them to his +Majesty's Chief Secretary of State and most honourable Privy Council. +That, this patriot would be produced before them. That, his position and +attitude were, on the whole, sublime. That, he had been the prisoner's +friend, but, at once in an auspicious and an evil hour detecting his +infamy, had resolved to immolate the traitor he could no longer cherish +in his bosom, on the sacred altar of his country. That, if statues +were decreed in Britain, as in ancient Greece and Rome, to public +benefactors, this shining citizen would assuredly have had one. That, as +they were not so decreed, he probably would not have one. That, Virtue, +as had been observed by the poets (in many passages which he well +knew the jury would have, word for word, at the tips of their tongues; +whereat the jury's countenances displayed a guilty consciousness that +they knew nothing about the passages), was in a manner contagious; more +especially the bright virtue known as patriotism, or love of country. +That, the lofty example of this immaculate and unimpeachable witness +for the Crown, to refer to whom however unworthily was an honour, had +communicated itself to the prisoner's servant, and had engendered in him +a holy determination to examine his master's table-drawers and pockets, +and secrete his papers. That, he (Mr. Attorney-General) was prepared to +hear some disparagement attempted of this admirable servant; but that, +in a general way, he preferred him to his (Mr. Attorney-General's) +brothers and sisters, and honoured him more than his (Mr. +Attorney-General's) father and mother. That, he called with confidence +on the jury to come and do likewise. That, the evidence of these two +witnesses, coupled with the documents of their discovering that would be +produced, would show the prisoner to have been furnished with lists of +his Majesty's forces, and of their disposition and preparation, both by +sea and land, and would leave no doubt that he had habitually conveyed +such information to a hostile power. That, these lists could not be +proved to be in the prisoner's handwriting; but that it was all the +same; that, indeed, it was rather the better for the prosecution, as +showing the prisoner to be artful in his precautions. That, the proof +would go back five years, and would show the prisoner already engaged +in these pernicious missions, within a few weeks before the date of the +very first action fought between the British troops and the Americans. +That, for these reasons, the jury, being a loyal jury (as he knew they +were), and being a responsible jury (as _they_ knew they were), must +positively find the prisoner Guilty, and make an end of him, whether +they liked it or not. That, they never could lay their heads upon their +pillows; that, they never could tolerate the idea of their wives laying +their heads upon their pillows; that, they never could endure the notion +of their children laying their heads upon their pillows; in short, that +there never more could be, for them or theirs, any laying of heads upon +pillows at all, unless the prisoner's head was taken off. That head +Mr. Attorney-General concluded by demanding of them, in the name of +everything he could think of with a round turn in it, and on the faith +of his solemn asseveration that he already considered the prisoner as +good as dead and gone. + +When the Attorney-General ceased, a buzz arose in the court as if +a cloud of great blue-flies were swarming about the prisoner, in +anticipation of what he was soon to become. When toned down again, the +unimpeachable patriot appeared in the witness-box. + +Mr. Solicitor-General then, following his leader's lead, examined the +patriot: John Barsad, gentleman, by name. The story of his pure soul was +exactly what Mr. Attorney-General had described it to be--perhaps, if +it had a fault, a little too exactly. Having released his noble bosom +of its burden, he would have modestly withdrawn himself, but that the +wigged gentleman with the papers before him, sitting not far from Mr. +Lorry, begged to ask him a few questions. The wigged gentleman sitting +opposite, still looking at the ceiling of the court. + +Had he ever been a spy himself? No, he scorned the base insinuation. +What did he live upon? His property. Where was his property? He didn't +precisely remember where it was. What was it? No business of anybody's. +Had he inherited it? Yes, he had. From whom? Distant relation. Very +distant? Rather. Ever been in prison? Certainly not. Never in a debtors' +prison? Didn't see what that had to do with it. Never in a debtors' +prison?--Come, once again. Never? Yes. How many times? Two or three +times. Not five or six? Perhaps. Of what profession? Gentleman. Ever +been kicked? Might have been. Frequently? No. Ever kicked downstairs? +Decidedly not; once received a kick on the top of a staircase, and fell +downstairs of his own accord. Kicked on that occasion for cheating at +dice? Something to that effect was said by the intoxicated liar who +committed the assault, but it was not true. Swear it was not true? +Positively. Ever live by cheating at play? Never. Ever live by play? Not +more than other gentlemen do. Ever borrow money of the prisoner? Yes. +Ever pay him? No. Was not this intimacy with the prisoner, in reality a +very slight one, forced upon the prisoner in coaches, inns, and packets? +No. Sure he saw the prisoner with these lists? Certain. Knew no more +about the lists? No. Had not procured them himself, for instance? No. +Expect to get anything by this evidence? No. Not in regular government +pay and employment, to lay traps? Oh dear no. Or to do anything? Oh dear +no. Swear that? Over and over again. No motives but motives of sheer +patriotism? None whatever. + +The virtuous servant, Roger Cly, swore his way through the case at a +great rate. He had taken service with the prisoner, in good faith and +simplicity, four years ago. He had asked the prisoner, aboard the Calais +packet, if he wanted a handy fellow, and the prisoner had engaged him. +He had not asked the prisoner to take the handy fellow as an act of +charity--never thought of such a thing. He began to have suspicions of +the prisoner, and to keep an eye upon him, soon afterwards. In arranging +his clothes, while travelling, he had seen similar lists to these in the +prisoner's pockets, over and over again. He had taken these lists from +the drawer of the prisoner's desk. He had not put them there first. He +had seen the prisoner show these identical lists to French gentlemen +at Calais, and similar lists to French gentlemen, both at Calais and +Boulogne. He loved his country, and couldn't bear it, and had given +information. He had never been suspected of stealing a silver tea-pot; +he had been maligned respecting a mustard-pot, but it turned out to be +only a plated one. He had known the last witness seven or eight years; +that was merely a coincidence. He didn't call it a particularly curious +coincidence; most coincidences were curious. Neither did he call it a +curious coincidence that true patriotism was _his_ only motive too. He +was a true Briton, and hoped there were many like him. + +The blue-flies buzzed again, and Mr. Attorney-General called Mr. Jarvis +Lorry. + +"Mr. Jarvis Lorry, are you a clerk in Tellson's bank?" + +"I am." + +"On a certain Friday night in November one thousand seven hundred and +seventy-five, did business occasion you to travel between London and +Dover by the mail?" + +"It did." + +"Were there any other passengers in the mail?" + +"Two." + +"Did they alight on the road in the course of the night?" + +"They did." + +"Mr. Lorry, look upon the prisoner. Was he one of those two passengers?" + +"I cannot undertake to say that he was." + +"Does he resemble either of these two passengers?" + +"Both were so wrapped up, and the night was so dark, and we were all so +reserved, that I cannot undertake to say even that." + +"Mr. Lorry, look again upon the prisoner. Supposing him wrapped up as +those two passengers were, is there anything in his bulk and stature to +render it unlikely that he was one of them?" + +"No." + +"You will not swear, Mr. Lorry, that he was not one of them?" + +"No." + +"So at least you say he may have been one of them?" + +"Yes. Except that I remember them both to have been--like +myself--timorous of highwaymen, and the prisoner has not a timorous +air." + +"Did you ever see a counterfeit of timidity, Mr. Lorry?" + +"I certainly have seen that." + +"Mr. Lorry, look once more upon the prisoner. Have you seen him, to your +certain knowledge, before?" + +"I have." + +"When?" + +"I was returning from France a few days afterwards, and, at Calais, the +prisoner came on board the packet-ship in which I returned, and made the +voyage with me." + +"At what hour did he come on board?" + +"At a little after midnight." + +"In the dead of the night. Was he the only passenger who came on board +at that untimely hour?" + +"He happened to be the only one." + +"Never mind about 'happening,' Mr. Lorry. He was the only passenger who +came on board in the dead of the night?" + +"He was." + +"Were you travelling alone, Mr. Lorry, or with any companion?" + +"With two companions. A gentleman and lady. They are here." + +"They are here. Had you any conversation with the prisoner?" + +"Hardly any. The weather was stormy, and the passage long and rough, and +I lay on a sofa, almost from shore to shore." + +"Miss Manette!" + +The young lady, to whom all eyes had been turned before, and were now +turned again, stood up where she had sat. Her father rose with her, and +kept her hand drawn through his arm. + +"Miss Manette, look upon the prisoner." + +To be confronted with such pity, and such earnest youth and beauty, was +far more trying to the accused than to be confronted with all the crowd. +Standing, as it were, apart with her on the edge of his grave, not all +the staring curiosity that looked on, could, for the moment, nerve him +to remain quite still. His hurried right hand parcelled out the herbs +before him into imaginary beds of flowers in a garden; and his efforts +to control and steady his breathing shook the lips from which the colour +rushed to his heart. The buzz of the great flies was loud again. + +"Miss Manette, have you seen the prisoner before?" + +"Yes, sir." + +"Where?" + +"On board of the packet-ship just now referred to, sir, and on the same +occasion." + +"You are the young lady just now referred to?" + +"O! most unhappily, I am!" + +The plaintive tone of her compassion merged into the less musical voice +of the Judge, as he said something fiercely: "Answer the questions put +to you, and make no remark upon them." + +"Miss Manette, had you any conversation with the prisoner on that +passage across the Channel?" + +"Yes, sir." + +"Recall it." + +In the midst of a profound stillness, she faintly began: "When the +gentleman came on board--" + +"Do you mean the prisoner?" inquired the Judge, knitting his brows. + +"Yes, my Lord." + +"Then say the prisoner." + +"When the prisoner came on board, he noticed that my father," turning +her eyes lovingly to him as he stood beside her, "was much fatigued +and in a very weak state of health. My father was so reduced that I was +afraid to take him out of the air, and I had made a bed for him on the +deck near the cabin steps, and I sat on the deck at his side to take +care of him. There were no other passengers that night, but we four. +The prisoner was so good as to beg permission to advise me how I could +shelter my father from the wind and weather, better than I had done. I +had not known how to do it well, not understanding how the wind would +set when we were out of the harbour. He did it for me. He expressed +great gentleness and kindness for my father's state, and I am sure he +felt it. That was the manner of our beginning to speak together." + +"Let me interrupt you for a moment. Had he come on board alone?" + +"No." + +"How many were with him?" + +"Two French gentlemen." + +"Had they conferred together?" + +"They had conferred together until the last moment, when it was +necessary for the French gentlemen to be landed in their boat." + +"Had any papers been handed about among them, similar to these lists?" + +"Some papers had been handed about among them, but I don't know what +papers." + +"Like these in shape and size?" + +"Possibly, but indeed I don't know, although they stood whispering very +near to me: because they stood at the top of the cabin steps to have the +light of the lamp that was hanging there; it was a dull lamp, and they +spoke very low, and I did not hear what they said, and saw only that +they looked at papers." + +"Now, to the prisoner's conversation, Miss Manette." + +"The prisoner was as open in his confidence with me--which arose out +of my helpless situation--as he was kind, and good, and useful to my +father. I hope," bursting into tears, "I may not repay him by doing him +harm to-day." + +Buzzing from the blue-flies. + +"Miss Manette, if the prisoner does not perfectly understand that +you give the evidence which it is your duty to give--which you must +give--and which you cannot escape from giving--with great unwillingness, +he is the only person present in that condition. Please to go on." + +"He told me that he was travelling on business of a delicate and +difficult nature, which might get people into trouble, and that he was +therefore travelling under an assumed name. He said that this business +had, within a few days, taken him to France, and might, at intervals, +take him backwards and forwards between France and England for a long +time to come." + +"Did he say anything about America, Miss Manette? Be particular." + +"He tried to explain to me how that quarrel had arisen, and he said +that, so far as he could judge, it was a wrong and foolish one on +England's part. He added, in a jesting way, that perhaps George +Washington might gain almost as great a name in history as George the +Third. But there was no harm in his way of saying this: it was said +laughingly, and to beguile the time." + +Any strongly marked expression of face on the part of a chief actor in +a scene of great interest to whom many eyes are directed, will be +unconsciously imitated by the spectators. Her forehead was painfully +anxious and intent as she gave this evidence, and, in the pauses when +she stopped for the Judge to write it down, watched its effect upon +the counsel for and against. Among the lookers-on there was the same +expression in all quarters of the court; insomuch, that a great majority +of the foreheads there, might have been mirrors reflecting the witness, +when the Judge looked up from his notes to glare at that tremendous +heresy about George Washington. + +Mr. Attorney-General now signified to my Lord, that he deemed it +necessary, as a matter of precaution and form, to call the young lady's +father, Doctor Manette. Who was called accordingly. + +"Doctor Manette, look upon the prisoner. Have you ever seen him before?" + +"Once. When he called at my lodgings in London. Some three years, or +three years and a half ago." + +"Can you identify him as your fellow-passenger on board the packet, or +speak to his conversation with your daughter?" + +"Sir, I can do neither." + +"Is there any particular and special reason for your being unable to do +either?" + +He answered, in a low voice, "There is." + +"Has it been your misfortune to undergo a long imprisonment, without +trial, or even accusation, in your native country, Doctor Manette?" + +He answered, in a tone that went to every heart, "A long imprisonment." + +"Were you newly released on the occasion in question?" + +"They tell me so." + +"Have you no remembrance of the occasion?" + +"None. My mind is a blank, from some time--I cannot even say what +time--when I employed myself, in my captivity, in making shoes, to the +time when I found myself living in London with my dear daughter +here. She had become familiar to me, when a gracious God restored +my faculties; but, I am quite unable even to say how she had become +familiar. I have no remembrance of the process." + +Mr. Attorney-General sat down, and the father and daughter sat down +together. + +A singular circumstance then arose in the case. The object in hand being +to show that the prisoner went down, with some fellow-plotter untracked, +in the Dover mail on that Friday night in November five years ago, and +got out of the mail in the night, as a blind, at a place where he did +not remain, but from which he travelled back some dozen miles or more, +to a garrison and dockyard, and there collected information; a witness +was called to identify him as having been at the precise time required, +in the coffee-room of an hotel in that garrison-and-dockyard town, +waiting for another person. The prisoner's counsel was cross-examining +this witness with no result, except that he had never seen the prisoner +on any other occasion, when the wigged gentleman who had all this time +been looking at the ceiling of the court, wrote a word or two on a +little piece of paper, screwed it up, and tossed it to him. Opening +this piece of paper in the next pause, the counsel looked with great +attention and curiosity at the prisoner. + +"You say again you are quite sure that it was the prisoner?" + +The witness was quite sure. + +"Did you ever see anybody very like the prisoner?" + +Not so like (the witness said) as that he could be mistaken. + +"Look well upon that gentleman, my learned friend there," pointing +to him who had tossed the paper over, "and then look well upon the +prisoner. How say you? Are they very like each other?" + +Allowing for my learned friend's appearance being careless and slovenly +if not debauched, they were sufficiently like each other to surprise, +not only the witness, but everybody present, when they were thus brought +into comparison. My Lord being prayed to bid my learned friend lay aside +his wig, and giving no very gracious consent, the likeness became +much more remarkable. My Lord inquired of Mr. Stryver (the prisoner's +counsel), whether they were next to try Mr. Carton (name of my learned +friend) for treason? But, Mr. Stryver replied to my Lord, no; but he +would ask the witness to tell him whether what happened once, might +happen twice; whether he would have been so confident if he had seen +this illustration of his rashness sooner, whether he would be so +confident, having seen it; and more. The upshot of which, was, to smash +this witness like a crockery vessel, and shiver his part of the case to +useless lumber. + +Mr. Cruncher had by this time taken quite a lunch of rust off his +fingers in his following of the evidence. He had now to attend while Mr. +Stryver fitted the prisoner's case on the jury, like a compact suit +of clothes; showing them how the patriot, Barsad, was a hired spy and +traitor, an unblushing trafficker in blood, and one of the greatest +scoundrels upon earth since accursed Judas--which he certainly did look +rather like. How the virtuous servant, Cly, was his friend and partner, +and was worthy to be; how the watchful eyes of those forgers and false +swearers had rested on the prisoner as a victim, because some family +affairs in France, he being of French extraction, did require his making +those passages across the Channel--though what those affairs were, a +consideration for others who were near and dear to him, forbade him, +even for his life, to disclose. How the evidence that had been warped +and wrested from the young lady, whose anguish in giving it they +had witnessed, came to nothing, involving the mere little innocent +gallantries and politenesses likely to pass between any young gentleman +and young lady so thrown together;--with the exception of that +reference to George Washington, which was altogether too extravagant and +impossible to be regarded in any other light than as a monstrous joke. +How it would be a weakness in the government to break down in this +attempt to practise for popularity on the lowest national antipathies +and fears, and therefore Mr. Attorney-General had made the most of it; +how, nevertheless, it rested upon nothing, save that vile and infamous +character of evidence too often disfiguring such cases, and of which the +State Trials of this country were full. But, there my Lord interposed +(with as grave a face as if it had not been true), saying that he could +not sit upon that Bench and suffer those allusions. + +Mr. Stryver then called his few witnesses, and Mr. Cruncher had next to +attend while Mr. Attorney-General turned the whole suit of clothes Mr. +Stryver had fitted on the jury, inside out; showing how Barsad and +Cly were even a hundred times better than he had thought them, and the +prisoner a hundred times worse. Lastly, came my Lord himself, turning +the suit of clothes, now inside out, now outside in, but on the whole +decidedly trimming and shaping them into grave-clothes for the prisoner. + +And now, the jury turned to consider, and the great flies swarmed again. + +Mr. Carton, who had so long sat looking at the ceiling of the court, +changed neither his place nor his attitude, even in this excitement. +While his learned friend, Mr. Stryver, massing his papers before him, +whispered with those who sat near, and from time to time glanced +anxiously at the jury; while all the spectators moved more or less, and +grouped themselves anew; while even my Lord himself arose from his seat, +and slowly paced up and down his platform, not unattended by a suspicion +in the minds of the audience that his state was feverish; this one man +sat leaning back, with his torn gown half off him, his untidy wig put +on just as it had happened to light on his head after its removal, his +hands in his pockets, and his eyes on the ceiling as they had been all +day. Something especially reckless in his demeanour, not only gave him +a disreputable look, but so diminished the strong resemblance he +undoubtedly bore to the prisoner (which his momentary earnestness, +when they were compared together, had strengthened), that many of the +lookers-on, taking note of him now, said to one another they would +hardly have thought the two were so alike. Mr. Cruncher made the +observation to his next neighbour, and added, "I'd hold half a guinea +that _he_ don't get no law-work to do. Don't look like the sort of one +to get any, do he?" + +Yet, this Mr. Carton took in more of the details of the scene than he +appeared to take in; for now, when Miss Manette's head dropped upon +her father's breast, he was the first to see it, and to say audibly: +"Officer! look to that young lady. Help the gentleman to take her out. +Don't you see she will fall!" + +There was much commiseration for her as she was removed, and much +sympathy with her father. It had evidently been a great distress to +him, to have the days of his imprisonment recalled. He had shown +strong internal agitation when he was questioned, and that pondering or +brooding look which made him old, had been upon him, like a heavy cloud, +ever since. As he passed out, the jury, who had turned back and paused a +moment, spoke, through their foreman. + +They were not agreed, and wished to retire. My Lord (perhaps with George +Washington on his mind) showed some surprise that they were not agreed, +but signified his pleasure that they should retire under watch and ward, +and retired himself. The trial had lasted all day, and the lamps in +the court were now being lighted. It began to be rumoured that the +jury would be out a long while. The spectators dropped off to get +refreshment, and the prisoner withdrew to the back of the dock, and sat +down. + +Mr. Lorry, who had gone out when the young lady and her father went out, +now reappeared, and beckoned to Jerry: who, in the slackened interest, +could easily get near him. + +"Jerry, if you wish to take something to eat, you can. But, keep in the +way. You will be sure to hear when the jury come in. Don't be a moment +behind them, for I want you to take the verdict back to the bank. You +are the quickest messenger I know, and will get to Temple Bar long +before I can." + +Jerry had just enough forehead to knuckle, and he knuckled it in +acknowledgment of this communication and a shilling. Mr. Carton came up +at the moment, and touched Mr. Lorry on the arm. + +"How is the young lady?" + +"She is greatly distressed; but her father is comforting her, and she +feels the better for being out of court." + +"I'll tell the prisoner so. It won't do for a respectable bank gentleman +like you, to be seen speaking to him publicly, you know." + +Mr. Lorry reddened as if he were conscious of having debated the point +in his mind, and Mr. Carton made his way to the outside of the bar. +The way out of court lay in that direction, and Jerry followed him, all +eyes, ears, and spikes. + +"Mr. Darnay!" + +The prisoner came forward directly. + +"You will naturally be anxious to hear of the witness, Miss Manette. She +will do very well. You have seen the worst of her agitation." + +"I am deeply sorry to have been the cause of it. Could you tell her so +for me, with my fervent acknowledgments?" + +"Yes, I could. I will, if you ask it." + +Mr. Carton's manner was so careless as to be almost insolent. He stood, +half turned from the prisoner, lounging with his elbow against the bar. + +"I do ask it. Accept my cordial thanks." + +"What," said Carton, still only half turned towards him, "do you expect, +Mr. Darnay?" + +"The worst." + +"It's the wisest thing to expect, and the likeliest. But I think their +withdrawing is in your favour." + +Loitering on the way out of court not being allowed, Jerry heard no +more: but left them--so like each other in feature, so unlike each other +in manner--standing side by side, both reflected in the glass above +them. + +An hour and a half limped heavily away in the thief-and-rascal crowded +passages below, even though assisted off with mutton pies and ale. +The hoarse messenger, uncomfortably seated on a form after taking that +refection, had dropped into a doze, when a loud murmur and a rapid tide +of people setting up the stairs that led to the court, carried him along +with them. + +"Jerry! Jerry!" Mr. Lorry was already calling at the door when he got +there. + +"Here, sir! It's a fight to get back again. Here I am, sir!" + +Mr. Lorry handed him a paper through the throng. "Quick! Have you got +it?" + +"Yes, sir." + +Hastily written on the paper was the word "ACQUITTED." + +"If you had sent the message, 'Recalled to Life,' again," muttered +Jerry, as he turned, "I should have known what you meant, this time." + +He had no opportunity of saying, or so much as thinking, anything else, +until he was clear of the Old Bailey; for, the crowd came pouring out +with a vehemence that nearly took him off his legs, and a loud buzz +swept into the street as if the baffled blue-flies were dispersing in +search of other carrion. + + + + +IV. Congratulatory + + +From the dimly-lighted passages of the court, the last sediment of the +human stew that had been boiling there all day, was straining off, when +Doctor Manette, Lucie Manette, his daughter, Mr. Lorry, the solicitor +for the defence, and its counsel, Mr. Stryver, stood gathered round Mr. +Charles Darnay--just released--congratulating him on his escape from +death. + +It would have been difficult by a far brighter light, to recognise +in Doctor Manette, intellectual of face and upright of bearing, the +shoemaker of the garret in Paris. Yet, no one could have looked at him +twice, without looking again: even though the opportunity of observation +had not extended to the mournful cadence of his low grave voice, and +to the abstraction that overclouded him fitfully, without any apparent +reason. While one external cause, and that a reference to his long +lingering agony, would always--as on the trial--evoke this condition +from the depths of his soul, it was also in its nature to arise of +itself, and to draw a gloom over him, as incomprehensible to those +unacquainted with his story as if they had seen the shadow of the actual +Bastille thrown upon him by a summer sun, when the substance was three +hundred miles away. + +Only his daughter had the power of charming this black brooding from +his mind. She was the golden thread that united him to a Past beyond his +misery, and to a Present beyond his misery: and the sound of her voice, +the light of her face, the touch of her hand, had a strong beneficial +influence with him almost always. Not absolutely always, for she could +recall some occasions on which her power had failed; but they were few +and slight, and she believed them over. + +Mr. Darnay had kissed her hand fervently and gratefully, and had turned +to Mr. Stryver, whom he warmly thanked. Mr. Stryver, a man of little +more than thirty, but looking twenty years older than he was, stout, +loud, red, bluff, and free from any drawback of delicacy, had a pushing +way of shouldering himself (morally and physically) into companies and +conversations, that argued well for his shouldering his way up in life. + +He still had his wig and gown on, and he said, squaring himself at his +late client to that degree that he squeezed the innocent Mr. Lorry clean +out of the group: "I am glad to have brought you off with honour, Mr. +Darnay. It was an infamous prosecution, grossly infamous; but not the +less likely to succeed on that account." + +"You have laid me under an obligation to you for life--in two senses," +said his late client, taking his hand. + +"I have done my best for you, Mr. Darnay; and my best is as good as +another man's, I believe." + +It clearly being incumbent on some one to say, "Much better," Mr. Lorry +said it; perhaps not quite disinterestedly, but with the interested +object of squeezing himself back again. + +"You think so?" said Mr. Stryver. "Well! you have been present all day, +and you ought to know. You are a man of business, too." + +"And as such," quoth Mr. Lorry, whom the counsel learned in the law had +now shouldered back into the group, just as he had previously shouldered +him out of it--"as such I will appeal to Doctor Manette, to break up +this conference and order us all to our homes. Miss Lucie looks ill, Mr. +Darnay has had a terrible day, we are worn out." + +"Speak for yourself, Mr. Lorry," said Stryver; "I have a night's work to +do yet. Speak for yourself." + +"I speak for myself," answered Mr. Lorry, "and for Mr. Darnay, and for +Miss Lucie, and--Miss Lucie, do you not think I may speak for us all?" +He asked her the question pointedly, and with a glance at her father. + +His face had become frozen, as it were, in a very curious look at +Darnay: an intent look, deepening into a frown of dislike and distrust, +not even unmixed with fear. With this strange expression on him his +thoughts had wandered away. + +"My father," said Lucie, softly laying her hand on his. + +He slowly shook the shadow off, and turned to her. + +"Shall we go home, my father?" + +With a long breath, he answered "Yes." + +The friends of the acquitted prisoner had dispersed, under the +impression--which he himself had originated--that he would not be +released that night. The lights were nearly all extinguished in the +passages, the iron gates were being closed with a jar and a rattle, +and the dismal place was deserted until to-morrow morning's interest of +gallows, pillory, whipping-post, and branding-iron, should repeople it. +Walking between her father and Mr. Darnay, Lucie Manette passed into +the open air. A hackney-coach was called, and the father and daughter +departed in it. + +Mr. Stryver had left them in the passages, to shoulder his way back +to the robing-room. Another person, who had not joined the group, or +interchanged a word with any one of them, but who had been leaning +against the wall where its shadow was darkest, had silently strolled +out after the rest, and had looked on until the coach drove away. He now +stepped up to where Mr. Lorry and Mr. Darnay stood upon the pavement. + +"So, Mr. Lorry! Men of business may speak to Mr. Darnay now?" + +Nobody had made any acknowledgment of Mr. Carton's part in the day's +proceedings; nobody had known of it. He was unrobed, and was none the +better for it in appearance. + +"If you knew what a conflict goes on in the business mind, when the +business mind is divided between good-natured impulse and business +appearances, you would be amused, Mr. Darnay." + +Mr. Lorry reddened, and said, warmly, "You have mentioned that before, +sir. We men of business, who serve a House, are not our own masters. We +have to think of the House more than ourselves." + +"_I_ know, _I_ know," rejoined Mr. Carton, carelessly. "Don't be +nettled, Mr. Lorry. You are as good as another, I have no doubt: better, +I dare say." + +"And indeed, sir," pursued Mr. Lorry, not minding him, "I really don't +know what you have to do with the matter. If you'll excuse me, as very +much your elder, for saying so, I really don't know that it is your +business." + +"Business! Bless you, _I_ have no business," said Mr. Carton. + +"It is a pity you have not, sir." + +"I think so, too." + +"If you had," pursued Mr. Lorry, "perhaps you would attend to it." + +"Lord love you, no!--I shouldn't," said Mr. Carton. + +"Well, sir!" cried Mr. Lorry, thoroughly heated by his indifference, +"business is a very good thing, and a very respectable thing. And, sir, +if business imposes its restraints and its silences and impediments, Mr. +Darnay as a young gentleman of generosity knows how to make allowance +for that circumstance. Mr. Darnay, good night, God bless you, sir! +I hope you have been this day preserved for a prosperous and happy +life.--Chair there!" + +Perhaps a little angry with himself, as well as with the barrister, Mr. +Lorry bustled into the chair, and was carried off to Tellson's. Carton, +who smelt of port wine, and did not appear to be quite sober, laughed +then, and turned to Darnay: + +"This is a strange chance that throws you and me together. This must +be a strange night to you, standing alone here with your counterpart on +these street stones?" + +"I hardly seem yet," returned Charles Darnay, "to belong to this world +again." + +"I don't wonder at it; it's not so long since you were pretty far +advanced on your way to another. You speak faintly." + +"I begin to think I _am_ faint." + +"Then why the devil don't you dine? I dined, myself, while those +numskulls were deliberating which world you should belong to--this, or +some other. Let me show you the nearest tavern to dine well at." + +Drawing his arm through his own, he took him down Ludgate-hill to +Fleet-street, and so, up a covered way, into a tavern. Here, they were +shown into a little room, where Charles Darnay was soon recruiting +his strength with a good plain dinner and good wine: while Carton sat +opposite to him at the same table, with his separate bottle of port +before him, and his fully half-insolent manner upon him. + +"Do you feel, yet, that you belong to this terrestrial scheme again, Mr. +Darnay?" + +"I am frightfully confused regarding time and place; but I am so far +mended as to feel that." + +"It must be an immense satisfaction!" + +He said it bitterly, and filled up his glass again: which was a large +one. + +"As to me, the greatest desire I have, is to forget that I belong to it. +It has no good in it for me--except wine like this--nor I for it. So we +are not much alike in that particular. Indeed, I begin to think we are +not much alike in any particular, you and I." + +Confused by the emotion of the day, and feeling his being there with +this Double of coarse deportment, to be like a dream, Charles Darnay was +at a loss how to answer; finally, answered not at all. + +"Now your dinner is done," Carton presently said, "why don't you call a +health, Mr. Darnay; why don't you give your toast?" + +"What health? What toast?" + +"Why, it's on the tip of your tongue. It ought to be, it must be, I'll +swear it's there." + +"Miss Manette, then!" + +"Miss Manette, then!" + +Looking his companion full in the face while he drank the toast, Carton +flung his glass over his shoulder against the wall, where it shivered to +pieces; then, rang the bell, and ordered in another. + +"That's a fair young lady to hand to a coach in the dark, Mr. Darnay!" +he said, filling his new goblet. + +A slight frown and a laconic "Yes," were the answer. + +"That's a fair young lady to be pitied by and wept for by! How does it +feel? Is it worth being tried for one's life, to be the object of such +sympathy and compassion, Mr. Darnay?" + +Again Darnay answered not a word. + +"She was mightily pleased to have your message, when I gave it her. Not +that she showed she was pleased, but I suppose she was." + +The allusion served as a timely reminder to Darnay that this +disagreeable companion had, of his own free will, assisted him in the +strait of the day. He turned the dialogue to that point, and thanked him +for it. + +"I neither want any thanks, nor merit any," was the careless rejoinder. +"It was nothing to do, in the first place; and I don't know why I did +it, in the second. Mr. Darnay, let me ask you a question." + +"Willingly, and a small return for your good offices." + +"Do you think I particularly like you?" + +"Really, Mr. Carton," returned the other, oddly disconcerted, "I have +not asked myself the question." + +"But ask yourself the question now." + +"You have acted as if you do; but I don't think you do." + +"_I_ don't think I do," said Carton. "I begin to have a very good +opinion of your understanding." + +"Nevertheless," pursued Darnay, rising to ring the bell, "there is +nothing in that, I hope, to prevent my calling the reckoning, and our +parting without ill-blood on either side." + +Carton rejoining, "Nothing in life!" Darnay rang. "Do you call the whole +reckoning?" said Carton. On his answering in the affirmative, "Then +bring me another pint of this same wine, drawer, and come and wake me at +ten." + +The bill being paid, Charles Darnay rose and wished him good night. +Without returning the wish, Carton rose too, with something of a threat +of defiance in his manner, and said, "A last word, Mr. Darnay: you think +I am drunk?" + +"I think you have been drinking, Mr. Carton." + +"Think? You know I have been drinking." + +"Since I must say so, I know it." + +"Then you shall likewise know why. I am a disappointed drudge, sir. I +care for no man on earth, and no man on earth cares for me." + +"Much to be regretted. You might have used your talents better." + +"May be so, Mr. Darnay; may be not. Don't let your sober face elate you, +however; you don't know what it may come to. Good night!" + +When he was left alone, this strange being took up a candle, went to a +glass that hung against the wall, and surveyed himself minutely in it. + +"Do you particularly like the man?" he muttered, at his own image; "why +should you particularly like a man who resembles you? There is nothing +in you to like; you know that. Ah, confound you! What a change you have +made in yourself! A good reason for taking to a man, that he shows you +what you have fallen away from, and what you might have been! Change +places with him, and would you have been looked at by those blue eyes as +he was, and commiserated by that agitated face as he was? Come on, and +have it out in plain words! You hate the fellow." + +He resorted to his pint of wine for consolation, drank it all in a few +minutes, and fell asleep on his arms, with his hair straggling over the +table, and a long winding-sheet in the candle dripping down upon him. + + + + +V. The Jackal + + +Those were drinking days, and most men drank hard. So very great is +the improvement Time has brought about in such habits, that a moderate +statement of the quantity of wine and punch which one man would swallow +in the course of a night, without any detriment to his reputation as a +perfect gentleman, would seem, in these days, a ridiculous exaggeration. +The learned profession of the law was certainly not behind any other +learned profession in its Bacchanalian propensities; neither was Mr. +Stryver, already fast shouldering his way to a large and lucrative +practice, behind his compeers in this particular, any more than in the +drier parts of the legal race. + +A favourite at the Old Bailey, and eke at the Sessions, Mr. Stryver had +begun cautiously to hew away the lower staves of the ladder on which +he mounted. Sessions and Old Bailey had now to summon their favourite, +specially, to their longing arms; and shouldering itself towards the +visage of the Lord Chief Justice in the Court of King's Bench, the +florid countenance of Mr. Stryver might be daily seen, bursting out of +the bed of wigs, like a great sunflower pushing its way at the sun from +among a rank garden-full of flaring companions. + +It had once been noted at the Bar, that while Mr. Stryver was a glib +man, and an unscrupulous, and a ready, and a bold, he had not that +faculty of extracting the essence from a heap of statements, which is +among the most striking and necessary of the advocate's accomplishments. +But, a remarkable improvement came upon him as to this. The more +business he got, the greater his power seemed to grow of getting at its +pith and marrow; and however late at night he sat carousing with Sydney +Carton, he always had his points at his fingers' ends in the morning. + +Sydney Carton, idlest and most unpromising of men, was Stryver's great +ally. What the two drank together, between Hilary Term and Michaelmas, +might have floated a king's ship. Stryver never had a case in hand, +anywhere, but Carton was there, with his hands in his pockets, staring +at the ceiling of the court; they went the same Circuit, and even there +they prolonged their usual orgies late into the night, and Carton was +rumoured to be seen at broad day, going home stealthily and unsteadily +to his lodgings, like a dissipated cat. At last, it began to get about, +among such as were interested in the matter, that although Sydney Carton +would never be a lion, he was an amazingly good jackal, and that he +rendered suit and service to Stryver in that humble capacity. + +"Ten o'clock, sir," said the man at the tavern, whom he had charged to +wake him--"ten o'clock, sir." + +"_What's_ the matter?" + +"Ten o'clock, sir." + +"What do you mean? Ten o'clock at night?" + +"Yes, sir. Your honour told me to call you." + +"Oh! I remember. Very well, very well." + +After a few dull efforts to get to sleep again, which the man +dexterously combated by stirring the fire continuously for five minutes, +he got up, tossed his hat on, and walked out. He turned into the Temple, +and, having revived himself by twice pacing the pavements of King's +Bench-walk and Paper-buildings, turned into the Stryver chambers. + +The Stryver clerk, who never assisted at these conferences, had gone +home, and the Stryver principal opened the door. He had his slippers on, +and a loose bed-gown, and his throat was bare for his greater ease. He +had that rather wild, strained, seared marking about the eyes, which +may be observed in all free livers of his class, from the portrait of +Jeffries downward, and which can be traced, under various disguises of +Art, through the portraits of every Drinking Age. + +"You are a little late, Memory," said Stryver. + +"About the usual time; it may be a quarter of an hour later." + +They went into a dingy room lined with books and littered with papers, +where there was a blazing fire. A kettle steamed upon the hob, and in +the midst of the wreck of papers a table shone, with plenty of wine upon +it, and brandy, and rum, and sugar, and lemons. + +"You have had your bottle, I perceive, Sydney." + +"Two to-night, I think. I have been dining with the day's client; or +seeing him dine--it's all one!" + +"That was a rare point, Sydney, that you brought to bear upon the +identification. How did you come by it? When did it strike you?" + +"I thought he was rather a handsome fellow, and I thought I should have +been much the same sort of fellow, if I had had any luck." + +Mr. Stryver laughed till he shook his precocious paunch. + +"You and your luck, Sydney! Get to work, get to work." + +Sullenly enough, the jackal loosened his dress, went into an adjoining +room, and came back with a large jug of cold water, a basin, and a towel +or two. Steeping the towels in the water, and partially wringing them +out, he folded them on his head in a manner hideous to behold, sat down +at the table, and said, "Now I am ready!" + +"Not much boiling down to be done to-night, Memory," said Mr. Stryver, +gaily, as he looked among his papers. + +"How much?" + +"Only two sets of them." + +"Give me the worst first." + +"There they are, Sydney. Fire away!" + +The lion then composed himself on his back on a sofa on one side of the +drinking-table, while the jackal sat at his own paper-bestrewn table +proper, on the other side of it, with the bottles and glasses ready to +his hand. Both resorted to the drinking-table without stint, but each in +a different way; the lion for the most part reclining with his hands in +his waistband, looking at the fire, or occasionally flirting with some +lighter document; the jackal, with knitted brows and intent face, +so deep in his task, that his eyes did not even follow the hand he +stretched out for his glass--which often groped about, for a minute or +more, before it found the glass for his lips. Two or three times, the +matter in hand became so knotty, that the jackal found it imperative on +him to get up, and steep his towels anew. From these pilgrimages to the +jug and basin, he returned with such eccentricities of damp headgear as +no words can describe; which were made the more ludicrous by his anxious +gravity. + +At length the jackal had got together a compact repast for the lion, and +proceeded to offer it to him. The lion took it with care and caution, +made his selections from it, and his remarks upon it, and the jackal +assisted both. When the repast was fully discussed, the lion put his +hands in his waistband again, and lay down to meditate. The jackal then +invigorated himself with a bumper for his throttle, and a fresh application +to his head, and applied himself to the collection of a second meal; +this was administered to the lion in the same manner, and was not +disposed of until the clocks struck three in the morning. + +"And now we have done, Sydney, fill a bumper of punch," said Mr. +Stryver. + +The jackal removed the towels from his head, which had been steaming +again, shook himself, yawned, shivered, and complied. + +"You were very sound, Sydney, in the matter of those crown witnesses +to-day. Every question told." + +"I always am sound; am I not?" + +"I don't gainsay it. What has roughened your temper? Put some punch to +it and smooth it again." + +With a deprecatory grunt, the jackal again complied. + +"The old Sydney Carton of old Shrewsbury School," said Stryver, nodding +his head over him as he reviewed him in the present and the past, "the +old seesaw Sydney. Up one minute and down the next; now in spirits and +now in despondency!" + +"Ah!" returned the other, sighing: "yes! The same Sydney, with the same +luck. Even then, I did exercises for other boys, and seldom did my own." + +"And why not?" + +"God knows. It was my way, I suppose." + +He sat, with his hands in his pockets and his legs stretched out before +him, looking at the fire. + +"Carton," said his friend, squaring himself at him with a bullying air, +as if the fire-grate had been the furnace in which sustained endeavour +was forged, and the one delicate thing to be done for the old Sydney +Carton of old Shrewsbury School was to shoulder him into it, "your way +is, and always was, a lame way. You summon no energy and purpose. Look +at me." + +"Oh, botheration!" returned Sydney, with a lighter and more +good-humoured laugh, "don't _you_ be moral!" + +"How have I done what I have done?" said Stryver; "how do I do what I +do?" + +"Partly through paying me to help you, I suppose. But it's not worth +your while to apostrophise me, or the air, about it; what you want to +do, you do. You were always in the front rank, and I was always behind." + +"I had to get into the front rank; I was not born there, was I?" + +"I was not present at the ceremony; but my opinion is you were," said +Carton. At this, he laughed again, and they both laughed. + +"Before Shrewsbury, and at Shrewsbury, and ever since Shrewsbury," +pursued Carton, "you have fallen into your rank, and I have fallen into +mine. Even when we were fellow-students in the Student-Quarter of Paris, +picking up French, and French law, and other French crumbs that we +didn't get much good of, you were always somewhere, and I was always +nowhere." + +"And whose fault was that?" + +"Upon my soul, I am not sure that it was not yours. You were always +driving and riving and shouldering and passing, to that restless degree +that I had no chance for my life but in rust and repose. It's a gloomy +thing, however, to talk about one's own past, with the day breaking. +Turn me in some other direction before I go." + +"Well then! Pledge me to the pretty witness," said Stryver, holding up +his glass. "Are you turned in a pleasant direction?" + +Apparently not, for he became gloomy again. + +"Pretty witness," he muttered, looking down into his glass. "I have had +enough of witnesses to-day and to-night; who's your pretty witness?" + +"The picturesque doctor's daughter, Miss Manette." + +"_She_ pretty?" + +"Is she not?" + +"No." + +"Why, man alive, she was the admiration of the whole Court!" + +"Rot the admiration of the whole Court! Who made the Old Bailey a judge +of beauty? She was a golden-haired doll!" + +"Do you know, Sydney," said Mr. Stryver, looking at him with sharp eyes, +and slowly drawing a hand across his florid face: "do you know, I rather +thought, at the time, that you sympathised with the golden-haired doll, +and were quick to see what happened to the golden-haired doll?" + +"Quick to see what happened! If a girl, doll or no doll, swoons within a +yard or two of a man's nose, he can see it without a perspective-glass. +I pledge you, but I deny the beauty. And now I'll have no more drink; +I'll get to bed." + +When his host followed him out on the staircase with a candle, to light +him down the stairs, the day was coldly looking in through its grimy +windows. When he got out of the house, the air was cold and sad, the +dull sky overcast, the river dark and dim, the whole scene like a +lifeless desert. And wreaths of dust were spinning round and round +before the morning blast, as if the desert-sand had risen far away, and +the first spray of it in its advance had begun to overwhelm the city. + +Waste forces within him, and a desert all around, this man stood still +on his way across a silent terrace, and saw for a moment, lying in the +wilderness before him, a mirage of honourable ambition, self-denial, and +perseverance. In the fair city of this vision, there were airy galleries +from which the loves and graces looked upon him, gardens in which the +fruits of life hung ripening, waters of Hope that sparkled in his sight. +A moment, and it was gone. Climbing to a high chamber in a well of +houses, he threw himself down in his clothes on a neglected bed, and its +pillow was wet with wasted tears. + +Sadly, sadly, the sun rose; it rose upon no sadder sight than the man of +good abilities and good emotions, incapable of their directed exercise, +incapable of his own help and his own happiness, sensible of the blight +on him, and resigning himself to let it eat him away. + + + + +VI. Hundreds of People + + +The quiet lodgings of Doctor Manette were in a quiet street-corner not +far from Soho-square. On the afternoon of a certain fine Sunday when the +waves of four months had rolled over the trial for treason, and carried +it, as to the public interest and memory, far out to sea, Mr. Jarvis +Lorry walked along the sunny streets from Clerkenwell where he lived, +on his way to dine with the Doctor. After several relapses into +business-absorption, Mr. Lorry had become the Doctor's friend, and the +quiet street-corner was the sunny part of his life. + +On this certain fine Sunday, Mr. Lorry walked towards Soho, early in +the afternoon, for three reasons of habit. Firstly, because, on fine +Sundays, he often walked out, before dinner, with the Doctor and Lucie; +secondly, because, on unfavourable Sundays, he was accustomed to be with +them as the family friend, talking, reading, looking out of window, and +generally getting through the day; thirdly, because he happened to have +his own little shrewd doubts to solve, and knew how the ways of the +Doctor's household pointed to that time as a likely time for solving +them. + +A quainter corner than the corner where the Doctor lived, was not to be +found in London. There was no way through it, and the front windows of +the Doctor's lodgings commanded a pleasant little vista of street that +had a congenial air of retirement on it. There were few buildings then, +north of the Oxford-road, and forest-trees flourished, and wild flowers +grew, and the hawthorn blossomed, in the now vanished fields. As a +consequence, country airs circulated in Soho with vigorous freedom, +instead of languishing into the parish like stray paupers without a +settlement; and there was many a good south wall, not far off, on which +the peaches ripened in their season. + +The summer light struck into the corner brilliantly in the earlier part +of the day; but, when the streets grew hot, the corner was in shadow, +though not in shadow so remote but that you could see beyond it into a +glare of brightness. It was a cool spot, staid but cheerful, a wonderful +place for echoes, and a very harbour from the raging streets. + +There ought to have been a tranquil bark in such an anchorage, and +there was. The Doctor occupied two floors of a large stiff house, where +several callings purported to be pursued by day, but whereof little was +audible any day, and which was shunned by all of them at night. In +a building at the back, attainable by a courtyard where a plane-tree +rustled its green leaves, church-organs claimed to be made, and silver +to be chased, and likewise gold to be beaten by some mysterious giant +who had a golden arm starting out of the wall of the front hall--as if +he had beaten himself precious, and menaced a similar conversion of all +visitors. Very little of these trades, or of a lonely lodger rumoured +to live up-stairs, or of a dim coach-trimming maker asserted to have +a counting-house below, was ever heard or seen. Occasionally, a stray +workman putting his coat on, traversed the hall, or a stranger peered +about there, or a distant clink was heard across the courtyard, or a +thump from the golden giant. These, however, were only the exceptions +required to prove the rule that the sparrows in the plane-tree behind +the house, and the echoes in the corner before it, had their own way +from Sunday morning unto Saturday night. + +Doctor Manette received such patients here as his old reputation, and +its revival in the floating whispers of his story, brought him. +His scientific knowledge, and his vigilance and skill in conducting +ingenious experiments, brought him otherwise into moderate request, and +he earned as much as he wanted. + +These things were within Mr. Jarvis Lorry's knowledge, thoughts, and +notice, when he rang the door-bell of the tranquil house in the corner, +on the fine Sunday afternoon. + +"Doctor Manette at home?" + +Expected home. + +"Miss Lucie at home?" + +Expected home. + +"Miss Pross at home?" + +Possibly at home, but of a certainty impossible for handmaid to +anticipate intentions of Miss Pross, as to admission or denial of the +fact. + +"As I am at home myself," said Mr. Lorry, "I'll go upstairs." + +Although the Doctor's daughter had known nothing of the country of her +birth, she appeared to have innately derived from it that ability to +make much of little means, which is one of its most useful and most +agreeable characteristics. Simple as the furniture was, it was set off +by so many little adornments, of no value but for their taste and fancy, +that its effect was delightful. The disposition of everything in the +rooms, from the largest object to the least; the arrangement of colours, +the elegant variety and contrast obtained by thrift in trifles, by +delicate hands, clear eyes, and good sense; were at once so pleasant in +themselves, and so expressive of their originator, that, as Mr. Lorry +stood looking about him, the very chairs and tables seemed to ask him, +with something of that peculiar expression which he knew so well by this +time, whether he approved? + +There were three rooms on a floor, and, the doors by which they +communicated being put open that the air might pass freely through them +all, Mr. Lorry, smilingly observant of that fanciful resemblance which +he detected all around him, walked from one to another. The first was +the best room, and in it were Lucie's birds, and flowers, and books, +and desk, and work-table, and box of water-colours; the second was +the Doctor's consulting-room, used also as the dining-room; the third, +changingly speckled by the rustle of the plane-tree in the yard, was the +Doctor's bedroom, and there, in a corner, stood the disused shoemaker's +bench and tray of tools, much as it had stood on the fifth floor of the +dismal house by the wine-shop, in the suburb of Saint Antoine in Paris. + +"I wonder," said Mr. Lorry, pausing in his looking about, "that he keeps +that reminder of his sufferings about him!" + +"And why wonder at that?" was the abrupt inquiry that made him start. + +It proceeded from Miss Pross, the wild red woman, strong of hand, whose +acquaintance he had first made at the Royal George Hotel at Dover, and +had since improved. + +"I should have thought--" Mr. Lorry began. + +"Pooh! You'd have thought!" said Miss Pross; and Mr. Lorry left off. + +"How do you do?" inquired that lady then--sharply, and yet as if to +express that she bore him no malice. + +"I am pretty well, I thank you," answered Mr. Lorry, with meekness; "how +are you?" + +"Nothing to boast of," said Miss Pross. + +"Indeed?" + +"Ah! indeed!" said Miss Pross. "I am very much put out about my +Ladybird." + +"Indeed?" + +"For gracious sake say something else besides 'indeed,' or you'll +fidget me to death," said Miss Pross: whose character (dissociated from +stature) was shortness. + +"Really, then?" said Mr. Lorry, as an amendment. + +"Really, is bad enough," returned Miss Pross, "but better. Yes, I am +very much put out." + +"May I ask the cause?" + +"I don't want dozens of people who are not at all worthy of Ladybird, to +come here looking after her," said Miss Pross. + +"_Do_ dozens come for that purpose?" + +"Hundreds," said Miss Pross. + +It was characteristic of this lady (as of some other people before her +time and since) that whenever her original proposition was questioned, +she exaggerated it. + +"Dear me!" said Mr. Lorry, as the safest remark he could think of. + +"I have lived with the darling--or the darling has lived with me, and +paid me for it; which she certainly should never have done, you may take +your affidavit, if I could have afforded to keep either myself or her +for nothing--since she was ten years old. And it's really very hard," +said Miss Pross. + +Not seeing with precision what was very hard, Mr. Lorry shook his head; +using that important part of himself as a sort of fairy cloak that would +fit anything. + +"All sorts of people who are not in the least degree worthy of the pet, +are always turning up," said Miss Pross. "When you began it--" + +"_I_ began it, Miss Pross?" + +"Didn't you? Who brought her father to life?" + +"Oh! If _that_ was beginning it--" said Mr. Lorry. + +"It wasn't ending it, I suppose? I say, when you began it, it was hard +enough; not that I have any fault to find with Doctor Manette, except +that he is not worthy of such a daughter, which is no imputation on +him, for it was not to be expected that anybody should be, under any +circumstances. But it really is doubly and trebly hard to have crowds +and multitudes of people turning up after him (I could have forgiven +him), to take Ladybird's affections away from me." + +Mr. Lorry knew Miss Pross to be very jealous, but he also knew her by +this time to be, beneath the service of her eccentricity, one of those +unselfish creatures--found only among women--who will, for pure love and +admiration, bind themselves willing slaves, to youth when they have lost +it, to beauty that they never had, to accomplishments that they were +never fortunate enough to gain, to bright hopes that never shone upon +their own sombre lives. He knew enough of the world to know that there +is nothing in it better than the faithful service of the heart; so +rendered and so free from any mercenary taint, he had such an exalted +respect for it, that in the retributive arrangements made by his own +mind--we all make such arrangements, more or less--he stationed Miss +Pross much nearer to the lower Angels than many ladies immeasurably +better got up both by Nature and Art, who had balances at Tellson's. + +"There never was, nor will be, but one man worthy of Ladybird," said +Miss Pross; "and that was my brother Solomon, if he hadn't made a +mistake in life." + +Here again: Mr. Lorry's inquiries into Miss Pross's personal history had +established the fact that her brother Solomon was a heartless scoundrel +who had stripped her of everything she possessed, as a stake to +speculate with, and had abandoned her in her poverty for evermore, with +no touch of compunction. Miss Pross's fidelity of belief in Solomon +(deducting a mere trifle for this slight mistake) was quite a serious +matter with Mr. Lorry, and had its weight in his good opinion of her. + +"As we happen to be alone for the moment, and are both people of +business," he said, when they had got back to the drawing-room and had +sat down there in friendly relations, "let me ask you--does the Doctor, +in talking with Lucie, never refer to the shoemaking time, yet?" + +"Never." + +"And yet keeps that bench and those tools beside him?" + +"Ah!" returned Miss Pross, shaking her head. "But I don't say he don't +refer to it within himself." + +"Do you believe that he thinks of it much?" + +"I do," said Miss Pross. + +"Do you imagine--" Mr. Lorry had begun, when Miss Pross took him up +short with: + +"Never imagine anything. Have no imagination at all." + +"I stand corrected; do you suppose--you go so far as to suppose, +sometimes?" + +"Now and then," said Miss Pross. + +"Do you suppose," Mr. Lorry went on, with a laughing twinkle in his +bright eye, as it looked kindly at her, "that Doctor Manette has any +theory of his own, preserved through all those years, relative to +the cause of his being so oppressed; perhaps, even to the name of his +oppressor?" + +"I don't suppose anything about it but what Ladybird tells me." + +"And that is--?" + +"That she thinks he has." + +"Now don't be angry at my asking all these questions; because I am a +mere dull man of business, and you are a woman of business." + +"Dull?" Miss Pross inquired, with placidity. + +Rather wishing his modest adjective away, Mr. Lorry replied, "No, no, +no. Surely not. To return to business:--Is it not remarkable that Doctor +Manette, unquestionably innocent of any crime as we are all well assured +he is, should never touch upon that question? I will not say with me, +though he had business relations with me many years ago, and we are now +intimate; I will say with the fair daughter to whom he is so devotedly +attached, and who is so devotedly attached to him? Believe me, Miss +Pross, I don't approach the topic with you, out of curiosity, but out of +zealous interest." + +"Well! To the best of my understanding, and bad's the best, you'll tell +me," said Miss Pross, softened by the tone of the apology, "he is afraid +of the whole subject." + +"Afraid?" + +"It's plain enough, I should think, why he may be. It's a dreadful +remembrance. Besides that, his loss of himself grew out of it. Not +knowing how he lost himself, or how he recovered himself, he may never +feel certain of not losing himself again. That alone wouldn't make the +subject pleasant, I should think." + +It was a profounder remark than Mr. Lorry had looked for. "True," said +he, "and fearful to reflect upon. Yet, a doubt lurks in my mind, Miss +Pross, whether it is good for Doctor Manette to have that suppression +always shut up within him. Indeed, it is this doubt and the uneasiness +it sometimes causes me that has led me to our present confidence." + +"Can't be helped," said Miss Pross, shaking her head. "Touch that +string, and he instantly changes for the worse. Better leave it alone. +In short, must leave it alone, like or no like. Sometimes, he gets up in +the dead of the night, and will be heard, by us overhead there, walking +up and down, walking up and down, in his room. Ladybird has learnt to +know then that his mind is walking up and down, walking up and down, in +his old prison. She hurries to him, and they go on together, walking up +and down, walking up and down, until he is composed. But he never says +a word of the true reason of his restlessness, to her, and she finds it +best not to hint at it to him. In silence they go walking up and down +together, walking up and down together, till her love and company have +brought him to himself." + +Notwithstanding Miss Pross's denial of her own imagination, there was a +perception of the pain of being monotonously haunted by one sad idea, +in her repetition of the phrase, walking up and down, which testified to +her possessing such a thing. + +The corner has been mentioned as a wonderful corner for echoes; it +had begun to echo so resoundingly to the tread of coming feet, that it +seemed as though the very mention of that weary pacing to and fro had +set it going. + +"Here they are!" said Miss Pross, rising to break up the conference; +"and now we shall have hundreds of people pretty soon!" + +It was such a curious corner in its acoustical properties, such a +peculiar Ear of a place, that as Mr. Lorry stood at the open window, +looking for the father and daughter whose steps he heard, he fancied +they would never approach. Not only would the echoes die away, as though +the steps had gone; but, echoes of other steps that never came would be +heard in their stead, and would die away for good when they seemed close +at hand. However, father and daughter did at last appear, and Miss Pross +was ready at the street door to receive them. + +Miss Pross was a pleasant sight, albeit wild, and red, and grim, taking +off her darling's bonnet when she came up-stairs, and touching it up +with the ends of her handkerchief, and blowing the dust off it, and +folding her mantle ready for laying by, and smoothing her rich hair with +as much pride as she could possibly have taken in her own hair if she +had been the vainest and handsomest of women. Her darling was a pleasant +sight too, embracing her and thanking her, and protesting against +her taking so much trouble for her--which last she only dared to do +playfully, or Miss Pross, sorely hurt, would have retired to her own +chamber and cried. The Doctor was a pleasant sight too, looking on at +them, and telling Miss Pross how she spoilt Lucie, in accents and with +eyes that had as much spoiling in them as Miss Pross had, and would +have had more if it were possible. Mr. Lorry was a pleasant sight too, +beaming at all this in his little wig, and thanking his bachelor +stars for having lighted him in his declining years to a Home. But, no +Hundreds of people came to see the sights, and Mr. Lorry looked in vain +for the fulfilment of Miss Pross's prediction. + +Dinner-time, and still no Hundreds of people. In the arrangements of +the little household, Miss Pross took charge of the lower regions, and +always acquitted herself marvellously. Her dinners, of a very modest +quality, were so well cooked and so well served, and so neat in their +contrivances, half English and half French, that nothing could be +better. Miss Pross's friendship being of the thoroughly practical +kind, she had ravaged Soho and the adjacent provinces, in search of +impoverished French, who, tempted by shillings and half-crowns, would +impart culinary mysteries to her. From these decayed sons and daughters +of Gaul, she had acquired such wonderful arts, that the woman and girl +who formed the staff of domestics regarded her as quite a Sorceress, +or Cinderella's Godmother: who would send out for a fowl, a rabbit, +a vegetable or two from the garden, and change them into anything she +pleased. + +On Sundays, Miss Pross dined at the Doctor's table, but on other days +persisted in taking her meals at unknown periods, either in the lower +regions, or in her own room on the second floor--a blue chamber, to +which no one but her Ladybird ever gained admittance. On this occasion, +Miss Pross, responding to Ladybird's pleasant face and pleasant efforts +to please her, unbent exceedingly; so the dinner was very pleasant, too. + +It was an oppressive day, and, after dinner, Lucie proposed that the +wine should be carried out under the plane-tree, and they should sit +there in the air. As everything turned upon her, and revolved about her, +they went out under the plane-tree, and she carried the wine down for +the special benefit of Mr. Lorry. She had installed herself, some +time before, as Mr. Lorry's cup-bearer; and while they sat under the +plane-tree, talking, she kept his glass replenished. Mysterious backs +and ends of houses peeped at them as they talked, and the plane-tree +whispered to them in its own way above their heads. + +Still, the Hundreds of people did not present themselves. Mr. Darnay +presented himself while they were sitting under the plane-tree, but he +was only One. + +Doctor Manette received him kindly, and so did Lucie. But, Miss Pross +suddenly became afflicted with a twitching in the head and body, and +retired into the house. She was not unfrequently the victim of this +disorder, and she called it, in familiar conversation, "a fit of the +jerks." + +The Doctor was in his best condition, and looked specially young. The +resemblance between him and Lucie was very strong at such times, and as +they sat side by side, she leaning on his shoulder, and he resting +his arm on the back of her chair, it was very agreeable to trace the +likeness. + +He had been talking all day, on many subjects, and with unusual +vivacity. "Pray, Doctor Manette," said Mr. Darnay, as they sat under the +plane-tree--and he said it in the natural pursuit of the topic in hand, +which happened to be the old buildings of London--"have you seen much of +the Tower?" + +"Lucie and I have been there; but only casually. We have seen enough of +it, to know that it teems with interest; little more." + +"_I_ have been there, as you remember," said Darnay, with a smile, +though reddening a little angrily, "in another character, and not in a +character that gives facilities for seeing much of it. They told me a +curious thing when I was there." + +"What was that?" Lucie asked. + +"In making some alterations, the workmen came upon an old dungeon, which +had been, for many years, built up and forgotten. Every stone of +its inner wall was covered by inscriptions which had been carved by +prisoners--dates, names, complaints, and prayers. Upon a corner stone +in an angle of the wall, one prisoner, who seemed to have gone to +execution, had cut as his last work, three letters. They were done with +some very poor instrument, and hurriedly, with an unsteady hand. +At first, they were read as D. I. C.; but, on being more carefully +examined, the last letter was found to be G. There was no record or +legend of any prisoner with those initials, and many fruitless guesses +were made what the name could have been. At length, it was suggested +that the letters were not initials, but the complete word, DIG. The +floor was examined very carefully under the inscription, and, in the +earth beneath a stone, or tile, or some fragment of paving, were found +the ashes of a paper, mingled with the ashes of a small leathern case +or bag. What the unknown prisoner had written will never be read, but he +had written something, and hidden it away to keep it from the gaoler." + +"My father," exclaimed Lucie, "you are ill!" + +He had suddenly started up, with his hand to his head. His manner and +his look quite terrified them all. + +"No, my dear, not ill. There are large drops of rain falling, and they +made me start. We had better go in." + +He recovered himself almost instantly. Rain was really falling in large +drops, and he showed the back of his hand with rain-drops on it. But, he +said not a single word in reference to the discovery that had been told +of, and, as they went into the house, the business eye of Mr. Lorry +either detected, or fancied it detected, on his face, as it turned +towards Charles Darnay, the same singular look that had been upon it +when it turned towards him in the passages of the Court House. + +He recovered himself so quickly, however, that Mr. Lorry had doubts of +his business eye. The arm of the golden giant in the hall was not more +steady than he was, when he stopped under it to remark to them that he +was not yet proof against slight surprises (if he ever would be), and +that the rain had startled him. + +Tea-time, and Miss Pross making tea, with another fit of the jerks upon +her, and yet no Hundreds of people. Mr. Carton had lounged in, but he +made only Two. + +The night was so very sultry, that although they sat with doors and +windows open, they were overpowered by heat. When the tea-table was +done with, they all moved to one of the windows, and looked out into the +heavy twilight. Lucie sat by her father; Darnay sat beside her; Carton +leaned against a window. The curtains were long and white, and some of +the thunder-gusts that whirled into the corner, caught them up to the +ceiling, and waved them like spectral wings. + +"The rain-drops are still falling, large, heavy, and few," said Doctor +Manette. "It comes slowly." + +"It comes surely," said Carton. + +They spoke low, as people watching and waiting mostly do; as people in a +dark room, watching and waiting for Lightning, always do. + +There was a great hurry in the streets of people speeding away to +get shelter before the storm broke; the wonderful corner for echoes +resounded with the echoes of footsteps coming and going, yet not a +footstep was there. + +"A multitude of people, and yet a solitude!" said Darnay, when they had +listened for a while. + +"Is it not impressive, Mr. Darnay?" asked Lucie. "Sometimes, I have +sat here of an evening, until I have fancied--but even the shade of +a foolish fancy makes me shudder to-night, when all is so black and +solemn--" + +"Let us shudder too. We may know what it is." + +"It will seem nothing to you. Such whims are only impressive as we +originate them, I think; they are not to be communicated. I have +sometimes sat alone here of an evening, listening, until I have made +the echoes out to be the echoes of all the footsteps that are coming +by-and-bye into our lives." + +"There is a great crowd coming one day into our lives, if that be so," +Sydney Carton struck in, in his moody way. + +The footsteps were incessant, and the hurry of them became more and more +rapid. The corner echoed and re-echoed with the tread of feet; some, +as it seemed, under the windows; some, as it seemed, in the room; some +coming, some going, some breaking off, some stopping altogether; all in +the distant streets, and not one within sight. + +"Are all these footsteps destined to come to all of us, Miss Manette, or +are we to divide them among us?" + +"I don't know, Mr. Darnay; I told you it was a foolish fancy, but you +asked for it. When I have yielded myself to it, I have been alone, and +then I have imagined them the footsteps of the people who are to come +into my life, and my father's." + +"I take them into mine!" said Carton. "_I_ ask no questions and make no +stipulations. There is a great crowd bearing down upon us, Miss Manette, +and I see them--by the Lightning." He added the last words, after there +had been a vivid flash which had shown him lounging in the window. + +"And I hear them!" he added again, after a peal of thunder. "Here they +come, fast, fierce, and furious!" + +It was the rush and roar of rain that he typified, and it stopped him, +for no voice could be heard in it. A memorable storm of thunder and +lightning broke with that sweep of water, and there was not a moment's +interval in crash, and fire, and rain, until after the moon rose at +midnight. + +The great bell of Saint Paul's was striking one in the cleared air, when +Mr. Lorry, escorted by Jerry, high-booted and bearing a lantern, set +forth on his return-passage to Clerkenwell. There were solitary patches +of road on the way between Soho and Clerkenwell, and Mr. Lorry, mindful +of foot-pads, always retained Jerry for this service: though it was +usually performed a good two hours earlier. + +"What a night it has been! Almost a night, Jerry," said Mr. Lorry, "to +bring the dead out of their graves." + +"I never see the night myself, master--nor yet I don't expect to--what +would do that," answered Jerry. + +"Good night, Mr. Carton," said the man of business. "Good night, Mr. +Darnay. Shall we ever see such a night again, together!" + +Perhaps. Perhaps, see the great crowd of people with its rush and roar, +bearing down upon them, too. + + + + +VII. Monseigneur in Town + + +Monseigneur, one of the great lords in power at the Court, held his +fortnightly reception in his grand hotel in Paris. Monseigneur was in +his inner room, his sanctuary of sanctuaries, the Holiest of Holiests to +the crowd of worshippers in the suite of rooms without. Monseigneur +was about to take his chocolate. Monseigneur could swallow a great many +things with ease, and was by some few sullen minds supposed to be rather +rapidly swallowing France; but, his morning's chocolate could not so +much as get into the throat of Monseigneur, without the aid of four +strong men besides the Cook. + +Yes. It took four men, all four ablaze with gorgeous decoration, and the +Chief of them unable to exist with fewer than two gold watches in his +pocket, emulative of the noble and chaste fashion set by Monseigneur, to +conduct the happy chocolate to Monseigneur's lips. One lacquey carried +the chocolate-pot into the sacred presence; a second, milled and frothed +the chocolate with the little instrument he bore for that function; +a third, presented the favoured napkin; a fourth (he of the two gold +watches), poured the chocolate out. It was impossible for Monseigneur to +dispense with one of these attendants on the chocolate and hold his high +place under the admiring Heavens. Deep would have been the blot upon +his escutcheon if his chocolate had been ignobly waited on by only three +men; he must have died of two. + +Monseigneur had been out at a little supper last night, where the Comedy +and the Grand Opera were charmingly represented. Monseigneur was out at +a little supper most nights, with fascinating company. So polite and so +impressible was Monseigneur, that the Comedy and the Grand Opera had far +more influence with him in the tiresome articles of state affairs and +state secrets, than the needs of all France. A happy circumstance +for France, as the like always is for all countries similarly +favoured!--always was for England (by way of example), in the regretted +days of the merry Stuart who sold it. + +Monseigneur had one truly noble idea of general public business, which +was, to let everything go on in its own way; of particular public +business, Monseigneur had the other truly noble idea that it must all go +his way--tend to his own power and pocket. Of his pleasures, general and +particular, Monseigneur had the other truly noble idea, that the world +was made for them. The text of his order (altered from the original +by only a pronoun, which is not much) ran: "The earth and the fulness +thereof are mine, saith Monseigneur." + +Yet, Monseigneur had slowly found that vulgar embarrassments crept into +his affairs, both private and public; and he had, as to both classes of +affairs, allied himself perforce with a Farmer-General. As to finances +public, because Monseigneur could not make anything at all of them, and +must consequently let them out to somebody who could; as to finances +private, because Farmer-Generals were rich, and Monseigneur, after +generations of great luxury and expense, was growing poor. Hence +Monseigneur had taken his sister from a convent, while there was yet +time to ward off the impending veil, the cheapest garment she could +wear, and had bestowed her as a prize upon a very rich Farmer-General, +poor in family. Which Farmer-General, carrying an appropriate cane with +a golden apple on the top of it, was now among the company in the outer +rooms, much prostrated before by mankind--always excepting superior +mankind of the blood of Monseigneur, who, his own wife included, looked +down upon him with the loftiest contempt. + +A sumptuous man was the Farmer-General. Thirty horses stood in his +stables, twenty-four male domestics sat in his halls, six body-women +waited on his wife. As one who pretended to do nothing but plunder and +forage where he could, the Farmer-General--howsoever his matrimonial +relations conduced to social morality--was at least the greatest reality +among the personages who attended at the hotel of Monseigneur that day. + +For, the rooms, though a beautiful scene to look at, and adorned with +every device of decoration that the taste and skill of the time could +achieve, were, in truth, not a sound business; considered with any +reference to the scarecrows in the rags and nightcaps elsewhere (and not +so far off, either, but that the watching towers of Notre Dame, almost +equidistant from the two extremes, could see them both), they would +have been an exceedingly uncomfortable business--if that could have +been anybody's business, at the house of Monseigneur. Military officers +destitute of military knowledge; naval officers with no idea of a ship; +civil officers without a notion of affairs; brazen ecclesiastics, of the +worst world worldly, with sensual eyes, loose tongues, and looser lives; +all totally unfit for their several callings, all lying horribly in +pretending to belong to them, but all nearly or remotely of the order of +Monseigneur, and therefore foisted on all public employments from which +anything was to be got; these were to be told off by the score and the +score. People not immediately connected with Monseigneur or the State, +yet equally unconnected with anything that was real, or with lives +passed in travelling by any straight road to any true earthly end, were +no less abundant. Doctors who made great fortunes out of dainty remedies +for imaginary disorders that never existed, smiled upon their courtly +patients in the ante-chambers of Monseigneur. Projectors who had +discovered every kind of remedy for the little evils with which the +State was touched, except the remedy of setting to work in earnest to +root out a single sin, poured their distracting babble into any ears +they could lay hold of, at the reception of Monseigneur. Unbelieving +Philosophers who were remodelling the world with words, and making +card-towers of Babel to scale the skies with, talked with Unbelieving +Chemists who had an eye on the transmutation of metals, at this +wonderful gathering accumulated by Monseigneur. Exquisite gentlemen of +the finest breeding, which was at that remarkable time--and has been +since--to be known by its fruits of indifference to every natural +subject of human interest, were in the most exemplary state of +exhaustion, at the hotel of Monseigneur. Such homes had these various +notabilities left behind them in the fine world of Paris, that the spies +among the assembled devotees of Monseigneur--forming a goodly half +of the polite company--would have found it hard to discover among +the angels of that sphere one solitary wife, who, in her manners and +appearance, owned to being a Mother. Indeed, except for the mere act of +bringing a troublesome creature into this world--which does not go far +towards the realisation of the name of mother--there was no such thing +known to the fashion. Peasant women kept the unfashionable babies close, +and brought them up, and charming grandmammas of sixty dressed and +supped as at twenty. + +The leprosy of unreality disfigured every human creature in attendance +upon Monseigneur. In the outermost room were half a dozen exceptional +people who had had, for a few years, some vague misgiving in them that +things in general were going rather wrong. As a promising way of setting +them right, half of the half-dozen had become members of a fantastic +sect of Convulsionists, and were even then considering within themselves +whether they should foam, rage, roar, and turn cataleptic on the +spot--thereby setting up a highly intelligible finger-post to the +Future, for Monseigneur's guidance. Besides these Dervishes, were other +three who had rushed into another sect, which mended matters with a +jargon about "the Centre of Truth:" holding that Man had got out of the +Centre of Truth--which did not need much demonstration--but had not got +out of the Circumference, and that he was to be kept from flying out of +the Circumference, and was even to be shoved back into the Centre, +by fasting and seeing of spirits. Among these, accordingly, much +discoursing with spirits went on--and it did a world of good which never +became manifest. + +But, the comfort was, that all the company at the grand hotel of +Monseigneur were perfectly dressed. If the Day of Judgment had only been +ascertained to be a dress day, everybody there would have been eternally +correct. Such frizzling and powdering and sticking up of hair, such +delicate complexions artificially preserved and mended, such gallant +swords to look at, and such delicate honour to the sense of smell, would +surely keep anything going, for ever and ever. The exquisite gentlemen +of the finest breeding wore little pendent trinkets that chinked as they +languidly moved; these golden fetters rang like precious little bells; +and what with that ringing, and with the rustle of silk and brocade and +fine linen, there was a flutter in the air that fanned Saint Antoine and +his devouring hunger far away. + +Dress was the one unfailing talisman and charm used for keeping all +things in their places. Everybody was dressed for a Fancy Ball that +was never to leave off. From the Palace of the Tuileries, through +Monseigneur and the whole Court, through the Chambers, the Tribunals +of Justice, and all society (except the scarecrows), the Fancy Ball +descended to the Common Executioner: who, in pursuance of the charm, was +required to officiate "frizzled, powdered, in a gold-laced coat, pumps, +and white silk stockings." At the gallows and the wheel--the axe was a +rarity--Monsieur Paris, as it was the episcopal mode among his brother +Professors of the provinces, Monsieur Orleans, and the rest, to call +him, presided in this dainty dress. And who among the company at +Monseigneur's reception in that seventeen hundred and eightieth year +of our Lord, could possibly doubt, that a system rooted in a frizzled +hangman, powdered, gold-laced, pumped, and white-silk stockinged, would +see the very stars out! + +Monseigneur having eased his four men of their burdens and taken his +chocolate, caused the doors of the Holiest of Holiests to be thrown +open, and issued forth. Then, what submission, what cringing and +fawning, what servility, what abject humiliation! As to bowing down in +body and spirit, nothing in that way was left for Heaven--which may have +been one among other reasons why the worshippers of Monseigneur never +troubled it. + +Bestowing a word of promise here and a smile there, a whisper on one +happy slave and a wave of the hand on another, Monseigneur affably +passed through his rooms to the remote region of the Circumference of +Truth. There, Monseigneur turned, and came back again, and so in due +course of time got himself shut up in his sanctuary by the chocolate +sprites, and was seen no more. + +The show being over, the flutter in the air became quite a little storm, +and the precious little bells went ringing downstairs. There was soon +but one person left of all the crowd, and he, with his hat under his arm +and his snuff-box in his hand, slowly passed among the mirrors on his +way out. + +"I devote you," said this person, stopping at the last door on his way, +and turning in the direction of the sanctuary, "to the Devil!" + +With that, he shook the snuff from his fingers as if he had shaken the +dust from his feet, and quietly walked downstairs. + +He was a man of about sixty, handsomely dressed, haughty in manner, and +with a face like a fine mask. A face of a transparent paleness; every +feature in it clearly defined; one set expression on it. The nose, +beautifully formed otherwise, was very slightly pinched at the top +of each nostril. In those two compressions, or dints, the only little +change that the face ever showed, resided. They persisted in changing +colour sometimes, and they would be occasionally dilated and contracted +by something like a faint pulsation; then, they gave a look of +treachery, and cruelty, to the whole countenance. Examined with +attention, its capacity of helping such a look was to be found in the +line of the mouth, and the lines of the orbits of the eyes, being much +too horizontal and thin; still, in the effect of the face made, it was a +handsome face, and a remarkable one. + +Its owner went downstairs into the courtyard, got into his carriage, and +drove away. Not many people had talked with him at the reception; he had +stood in a little space apart, and Monseigneur might have been warmer +in his manner. It appeared, under the circumstances, rather agreeable +to him to see the common people dispersed before his horses, and +often barely escaping from being run down. His man drove as if he were +charging an enemy, and the furious recklessness of the man brought no +check into the face, or to the lips, of the master. The complaint had +sometimes made itself audible, even in that deaf city and dumb age, +that, in the narrow streets without footways, the fierce patrician +custom of hard driving endangered and maimed the mere vulgar in a +barbarous manner. But, few cared enough for that to think of it a second +time, and, in this matter, as in all others, the common wretches were +left to get out of their difficulties as they could. + +With a wild rattle and clatter, and an inhuman abandonment of +consideration not easy to be understood in these days, the carriage +dashed through streets and swept round corners, with women screaming +before it, and men clutching each other and clutching children out of +its way. At last, swooping at a street corner by a fountain, one of its +wheels came to a sickening little jolt, and there was a loud cry from a +number of voices, and the horses reared and plunged. + +But for the latter inconvenience, the carriage probably would not have +stopped; carriages were often known to drive on, and leave their wounded +behind, and why not? But the frightened valet had got down in a hurry, +and there were twenty hands at the horses' bridles. + +"What has gone wrong?" said Monsieur, calmly looking out. + +A tall man in a nightcap had caught up a bundle from among the feet of +the horses, and had laid it on the basement of the fountain, and was +down in the mud and wet, howling over it like a wild animal. + +"Pardon, Monsieur the Marquis!" said a ragged and submissive man, "it is +a child." + +"Why does he make that abominable noise? Is it his child?" + +"Excuse me, Monsieur the Marquis--it is a pity--yes." + +The fountain was a little removed; for the street opened, where it was, +into a space some ten or twelve yards square. As the tall man suddenly +got up from the ground, and came running at the carriage, Monsieur the +Marquis clapped his hand for an instant on his sword-hilt. + +"Killed!" shrieked the man, in wild desperation, extending both arms at +their length above his head, and staring at him. "Dead!" + +The people closed round, and looked at Monsieur the Marquis. There was +nothing revealed by the many eyes that looked at him but watchfulness +and eagerness; there was no visible menacing or anger. Neither did the +people say anything; after the first cry, they had been silent, and they +remained so. The voice of the submissive man who had spoken, was flat +and tame in its extreme submission. Monsieur the Marquis ran his eyes +over them all, as if they had been mere rats come out of their holes. + +He took out his purse. + +"It is extraordinary to me," said he, "that you people cannot take care +of yourselves and your children. One or the other of you is for ever in +the way. How do I know what injury you have done my horses. See! Give +him that." + +He threw out a gold coin for the valet to pick up, and all the heads +craned forward that all the eyes might look down at it as it fell. The +tall man called out again with a most unearthly cry, "Dead!" + +He was arrested by the quick arrival of another man, for whom the rest +made way. On seeing him, the miserable creature fell upon his shoulder, +sobbing and crying, and pointing to the fountain, where some women were +stooping over the motionless bundle, and moving gently about it. They +were as silent, however, as the men. + +"I know all, I know all," said the last comer. "Be a brave man, my +Gaspard! It is better for the poor little plaything to die so, than to +live. It has died in a moment without pain. Could it have lived an hour +as happily?" + +"You are a philosopher, you there," said the Marquis, smiling. "How do +they call you?" + +"They call me Defarge." + +"Of what trade?" + +"Monsieur the Marquis, vendor of wine." + +"Pick up that, philosopher and vendor of wine," said the Marquis, +throwing him another gold coin, "and spend it as you will. The horses +there; are they right?" + +Without deigning to look at the assemblage a second time, Monsieur the +Marquis leaned back in his seat, and was just being driven away with the +air of a gentleman who had accidentally broke some common thing, and had +paid for it, and could afford to pay for it; when his ease was suddenly +disturbed by a coin flying into his carriage, and ringing on its floor. + +"Hold!" said Monsieur the Marquis. "Hold the horses! Who threw that?" + +He looked to the spot where Defarge the vendor of wine had stood, a +moment before; but the wretched father was grovelling on his face on +the pavement in that spot, and the figure that stood beside him was the +figure of a dark stout woman, knitting. + +"You dogs!" said the Marquis, but smoothly, and with an unchanged front, +except as to the spots on his nose: "I would ride over any of you very +willingly, and exterminate you from the earth. If I knew which rascal +threw at the carriage, and if that brigand were sufficiently near it, he +should be crushed under the wheels." + +So cowed was their condition, and so long and hard their experience of +what such a man could do to them, within the law and beyond it, that not +a voice, or a hand, or even an eye was raised. Among the men, not one. +But the woman who stood knitting looked up steadily, and looked the +Marquis in the face. It was not for his dignity to notice it; his +contemptuous eyes passed over her, and over all the other rats; and he +leaned back in his seat again, and gave the word "Go on!" + +He was driven on, and other carriages came whirling by in quick +succession; the Minister, the State-Projector, the Farmer-General, the +Doctor, the Lawyer, the Ecclesiastic, the Grand Opera, the Comedy, the +whole Fancy Ball in a bright continuous flow, came whirling by. The rats +had crept out of their holes to look on, and they remained looking +on for hours; soldiers and police often passing between them and the +spectacle, and making a barrier behind which they slunk, and through +which they peeped. The father had long ago taken up his bundle and +bidden himself away with it, when the women who had tended the bundle +while it lay on the base of the fountain, sat there watching the running +of the water and the rolling of the Fancy Ball--when the one woman who +had stood conspicuous, knitting, still knitted on with the steadfastness +of Fate. The water of the fountain ran, the swift river ran, the day ran +into evening, so much life in the city ran into death according to rule, +time and tide waited for no man, the rats were sleeping close together +in their dark holes again, the Fancy Ball was lighted up at supper, all +things ran their course. + + + + +VIII. Monseigneur in the Country + + +A beautiful landscape, with the corn bright in it, but not abundant. +Patches of poor rye where corn should have been, patches of poor peas +and beans, patches of most coarse vegetable substitutes for wheat. On +inanimate nature, as on the men and women who cultivated it, a prevalent +tendency towards an appearance of vegetating unwillingly--a dejected +disposition to give up, and wither away. + +Monsieur the Marquis in his travelling carriage (which might have been +lighter), conducted by four post-horses and two postilions, fagged up +a steep hill. A blush on the countenance of Monsieur the Marquis was +no impeachment of his high breeding; it was not from within; it was +occasioned by an external circumstance beyond his control--the setting +sun. + +The sunset struck so brilliantly into the travelling carriage when it +gained the hill-top, that its occupant was steeped in crimson. "It will +die out," said Monsieur the Marquis, glancing at his hands, "directly." + +In effect, the sun was so low that it dipped at the moment. When the +heavy drag had been adjusted to the wheel, and the carriage slid down +hill, with a cinderous smell, in a cloud of dust, the red glow departed +quickly; the sun and the Marquis going down together, there was no glow +left when the drag was taken off. + +But, there remained a broken country, bold and open, a little village +at the bottom of the hill, a broad sweep and rise beyond it, a +church-tower, a windmill, a forest for the chase, and a crag with a +fortress on it used as a prison. Round upon all these darkening objects +as the night drew on, the Marquis looked, with the air of one who was +coming near home. + +The village had its one poor street, with its poor brewery, poor +tannery, poor tavern, poor stable-yard for relays of post-horses, poor +fountain, all usual poor appointments. It had its poor people too. All +its people were poor, and many of them were sitting at their doors, +shredding spare onions and the like for supper, while many were at the +fountain, washing leaves, and grasses, and any such small yieldings of +the earth that could be eaten. Expressive signs of what made them poor, +were not wanting; the tax for the state, the tax for the church, the tax +for the lord, tax local and tax general, were to be paid here and to be +paid there, according to solemn inscription in the little village, until +the wonder was, that there was any village left unswallowed. + +Few children were to be seen, and no dogs. As to the men and women, +their choice on earth was stated in the prospect--Life on the lowest +terms that could sustain it, down in the little village under the mill; +or captivity and Death in the dominant prison on the crag. + +Heralded by a courier in advance, and by the cracking of his postilions' +whips, which twined snake-like about their heads in the evening air, as +if he came attended by the Furies, Monsieur the Marquis drew up in +his travelling carriage at the posting-house gate. It was hard by the +fountain, and the peasants suspended their operations to look at him. +He looked at them, and saw in them, without knowing it, the slow +sure filing down of misery-worn face and figure, that was to make the +meagreness of Frenchmen an English superstition which should survive the +truth through the best part of a hundred years. + +Monsieur the Marquis cast his eyes over the submissive faces that +drooped before him, as the like of himself had drooped before +Monseigneur of the Court--only the difference was, that these faces +drooped merely to suffer and not to propitiate--when a grizzled mender +of the roads joined the group. + +"Bring me hither that fellow!" said the Marquis to the courier. + +The fellow was brought, cap in hand, and the other fellows closed round +to look and listen, in the manner of the people at the Paris fountain. + +"I passed you on the road?" + +"Monseigneur, it is true. I had the honour of being passed on the road." + +"Coming up the hill, and at the top of the hill, both?" + +"Monseigneur, it is true." + +"What did you look at, so fixedly?" + +"Monseigneur, I looked at the man." + +He stooped a little, and with his tattered blue cap pointed under the +carriage. All his fellows stooped to look under the carriage. + +"What man, pig? And why look there?" + +"Pardon, Monseigneur; he swung by the chain of the shoe--the drag." + +"Who?" demanded the traveller. + +"Monseigneur, the man." + +"May the Devil carry away these idiots! How do you call the man? You +know all the men of this part of the country. Who was he?" + +"Your clemency, Monseigneur! He was not of this part of the country. Of +all the days of my life, I never saw him." + +"Swinging by the chain? To be suffocated?" + +"With your gracious permission, that was the wonder of it, Monseigneur. +His head hanging over--like this!" + +He turned himself sideways to the carriage, and leaned back, with his +face thrown up to the sky, and his head hanging down; then recovered +himself, fumbled with his cap, and made a bow. + +"What was he like?" + +"Monseigneur, he was whiter than the miller. All covered with dust, +white as a spectre, tall as a spectre!" + +The picture produced an immense sensation in the little crowd; but all +eyes, without comparing notes with other eyes, looked at Monsieur +the Marquis. Perhaps, to observe whether he had any spectre on his +conscience. + +"Truly, you did well," said the Marquis, felicitously sensible that such +vermin were not to ruffle him, "to see a thief accompanying my carriage, +and not open that great mouth of yours. Bah! Put him aside, Monsieur +Gabelle!" + +Monsieur Gabelle was the Postmaster, and some other taxing functionary +united; he had come out with great obsequiousness to assist at this +examination, and had held the examined by the drapery of his arm in an +official manner. + +"Bah! Go aside!" said Monsieur Gabelle. + +"Lay hands on this stranger if he seeks to lodge in your village +to-night, and be sure that his business is honest, Gabelle." + +"Monseigneur, I am flattered to devote myself to your orders." + +"Did he run away, fellow?--where is that Accursed?" + +The accursed was already under the carriage with some half-dozen +particular friends, pointing out the chain with his blue cap. Some +half-dozen other particular friends promptly hauled him out, and +presented him breathless to Monsieur the Marquis. + +"Did the man run away, Dolt, when we stopped for the drag?" + +"Monseigneur, he precipitated himself over the hill-side, head first, as +a person plunges into the river." + +"See to it, Gabelle. Go on!" + +The half-dozen who were peering at the chain were still among the +wheels, like sheep; the wheels turned so suddenly that they were lucky +to save their skins and bones; they had very little else to save, or +they might not have been so fortunate. + +The burst with which the carriage started out of the village and up the +rise beyond, was soon checked by the steepness of the hill. Gradually, +it subsided to a foot pace, swinging and lumbering upward among the many +sweet scents of a summer night. The postilions, with a thousand gossamer +gnats circling about them in lieu of the Furies, quietly mended the +points to the lashes of their whips; the valet walked by the horses; the +courier was audible, trotting on ahead into the dull distance. + +At the steepest point of the hill there was a little burial-ground, +with a Cross and a new large figure of Our Saviour on it; it was a poor +figure in wood, done by some inexperienced rustic carver, but he had +studied the figure from the life--his own life, maybe--for it was +dreadfully spare and thin. + +To this distressful emblem of a great distress that had long been +growing worse, and was not at its worst, a woman was kneeling. She +turned her head as the carriage came up to her, rose quickly, and +presented herself at the carriage-door. + +"It is you, Monseigneur! Monseigneur, a petition." + +With an exclamation of impatience, but with his unchangeable face, +Monseigneur looked out. + +"How, then! What is it? Always petitions!" + +"Monseigneur. For the love of the great God! My husband, the forester." + +"What of your husband, the forester? Always the same with you people. He +cannot pay something?" + +"He has paid all, Monseigneur. He is dead." + +"Well! He is quiet. Can I restore him to you?" + +"Alas, no, Monseigneur! But he lies yonder, under a little heap of poor +grass." + +"Well?" + +"Monseigneur, there are so many little heaps of poor grass?" + +"Again, well?" + +She looked an old woman, but was young. Her manner was one of passionate +grief; by turns she clasped her veinous and knotted hands together +with wild energy, and laid one of them on the carriage-door--tenderly, +caressingly, as if it had been a human breast, and could be expected to +feel the appealing touch. + +"Monseigneur, hear me! Monseigneur, hear my petition! My husband died of +want; so many die of want; so many more will die of want." + +"Again, well? Can I feed them?" + +"Monseigneur, the good God knows; but I don't ask it. My petition is, +that a morsel of stone or wood, with my husband's name, may be placed +over him to show where he lies. Otherwise, the place will be quickly +forgotten, it will never be found when I am dead of the same malady, I +shall be laid under some other heap of poor grass. Monseigneur, they +are so many, they increase so fast, there is so much want. Monseigneur! +Monseigneur!" + +The valet had put her away from the door, the carriage had broken into +a brisk trot, the postilions had quickened the pace, she was left far +behind, and Monseigneur, again escorted by the Furies, was rapidly +diminishing the league or two of distance that remained between him and +his chateau. + +The sweet scents of the summer night rose all around him, and rose, as +the rain falls, impartially, on the dusty, ragged, and toil-worn group +at the fountain not far away; to whom the mender of roads, with the aid +of the blue cap without which he was nothing, still enlarged upon his +man like a spectre, as long as they could bear it. By degrees, as they +could bear no more, they dropped off one by one, and lights twinkled +in little casements; which lights, as the casements darkened, and more +stars came out, seemed to have shot up into the sky instead of having +been extinguished. + +The shadow of a large high-roofed house, and of many over-hanging trees, +was upon Monsieur the Marquis by that time; and the shadow was exchanged +for the light of a flambeau, as his carriage stopped, and the great door +of his chateau was opened to him. + +"Monsieur Charles, whom I expect; is he arrived from England?" + +"Monseigneur, not yet." + + + + +IX. The Gorgon's Head + + +It was a heavy mass of building, that chateau of Monsieur the Marquis, +with a large stone courtyard before it, and two stone sweeps of +staircase meeting in a stone terrace before the principal door. A stony +business altogether, with heavy stone balustrades, and stone urns, and +stone flowers, and stone faces of men, and stone heads of lions, in +all directions. As if the Gorgon's head had surveyed it, when it was +finished, two centuries ago. + +Up the broad flight of shallow steps, Monsieur the Marquis, flambeau +preceded, went from his carriage, sufficiently disturbing the darkness +to elicit loud remonstrance from an owl in the roof of the great pile +of stable building away among the trees. All else was so quiet, that the +flambeau carried up the steps, and the other flambeau held at the great +door, burnt as if they were in a close room of state, instead of being +in the open night-air. Other sound than the owl's voice there was none, +save the falling of a fountain into its stone basin; for, it was one of +those dark nights that hold their breath by the hour together, and then +heave a long low sigh, and hold their breath again. + +The great door clanged behind him, and Monsieur the Marquis crossed a +hall grim with certain old boar-spears, swords, and knives of the chase; +grimmer with certain heavy riding-rods and riding-whips, of which many a +peasant, gone to his benefactor Death, had felt the weight when his lord +was angry. + +Avoiding the larger rooms, which were dark and made fast for the night, +Monsieur the Marquis, with his flambeau-bearer going on before, went up +the staircase to a door in a corridor. This thrown open, admitted him +to his own private apartment of three rooms: his bed-chamber and two +others. High vaulted rooms with cool uncarpeted floors, great dogs upon +the hearths for the burning of wood in winter time, and all luxuries +befitting the state of a marquis in a luxurious age and country. +The fashion of the last Louis but one, of the line that was never to +break--the fourteenth Louis--was conspicuous in their rich furniture; +but, it was diversified by many objects that were illustrations of old +pages in the history of France. + +A supper-table was laid for two, in the third of the rooms; a round +room, in one of the chateau's four extinguisher-topped towers. A small +lofty room, with its window wide open, and the wooden jalousie-blinds +closed, so that the dark night only showed in slight horizontal lines of +black, alternating with their broad lines of stone colour. + +"My nephew," said the Marquis, glancing at the supper preparation; "they +said he was not arrived." + +Nor was he; but, he had been expected with Monseigneur. + +"Ah! It is not probable he will arrive to-night; nevertheless, leave the +table as it is. I shall be ready in a quarter of an hour." + +In a quarter of an hour Monseigneur was ready, and sat down alone to his +sumptuous and choice supper. His chair was opposite to the window, and +he had taken his soup, and was raising his glass of Bordeaux to his +lips, when he put it down. + +"What is that?" he calmly asked, looking with attention at the +horizontal lines of black and stone colour. + +"Monseigneur? That?" + +"Outside the blinds. Open the blinds." + +It was done. + +"Well?" + +"Monseigneur, it is nothing. The trees and the night are all that are +here." + +The servant who spoke, had thrown the blinds wide, had looked out into +the vacant darkness, and stood with that blank behind him, looking round +for instructions. + +"Good," said the imperturbable master. "Close them again." + +That was done too, and the Marquis went on with his supper. He was +half way through it, when he again stopped with his glass in his hand, +hearing the sound of wheels. It came on briskly, and came up to the +front of the chateau. + +"Ask who is arrived." + +It was the nephew of Monseigneur. He had been some few leagues behind +Monseigneur, early in the afternoon. He had diminished the distance +rapidly, but not so rapidly as to come up with Monseigneur on the road. +He had heard of Monseigneur, at the posting-houses, as being before him. + +He was to be told (said Monseigneur) that supper awaited him then and +there, and that he was prayed to come to it. In a little while he came. +He had been known in England as Charles Darnay. + +Monseigneur received him in a courtly manner, but they did not shake +hands. + +"You left Paris yesterday, sir?" he said to Monseigneur, as he took his +seat at table. + +"Yesterday. And you?" + +"I come direct." + +"From London?" + +"Yes." + +"You have been a long time coming," said the Marquis, with a smile. + +"On the contrary; I come direct." + +"Pardon me! I mean, not a long time on the journey; a long time +intending the journey." + +"I have been detained by"--the nephew stopped a moment in his +answer--"various business." + +"Without doubt," said the polished uncle. + +So long as a servant was present, no other words passed between them. +When coffee had been served and they were alone together, the nephew, +looking at the uncle and meeting the eyes of the face that was like a +fine mask, opened a conversation. + +"I have come back, sir, as you anticipate, pursuing the object that +took me away. It carried me into great and unexpected peril; but it is +a sacred object, and if it had carried me to death I hope it would have +sustained me." + +"Not to death," said the uncle; "it is not necessary to say, to death." + +"I doubt, sir," returned the nephew, "whether, if it had carried me to +the utmost brink of death, you would have cared to stop me there." + +The deepened marks in the nose, and the lengthening of the fine straight +lines in the cruel face, looked ominous as to that; the uncle made a +graceful gesture of protest, which was so clearly a slight form of good +breeding that it was not reassuring. + +"Indeed, sir," pursued the nephew, "for anything I know, you may have +expressly worked to give a more suspicious appearance to the suspicious +circumstances that surrounded me." + +"No, no, no," said the uncle, pleasantly. + +"But, however that may be," resumed the nephew, glancing at him with +deep distrust, "I know that your diplomacy would stop me by any means, +and would know no scruple as to means." + +"My friend, I told you so," said the uncle, with a fine pulsation in the +two marks. "Do me the favour to recall that I told you so, long ago." + +"I recall it." + +"Thank you," said the Marquis--very sweetly indeed. + +His tone lingered in the air, almost like the tone of a musical +instrument. + +"In effect, sir," pursued the nephew, "I believe it to be at once your +bad fortune, and my good fortune, that has kept me out of a prison in +France here." + +"I do not quite understand," returned the uncle, sipping his coffee. +"Dare I ask you to explain?" + +"I believe that if you were not in disgrace with the Court, and had not +been overshadowed by that cloud for years past, a letter de cachet would +have sent me to some fortress indefinitely." + +"It is possible," said the uncle, with great calmness. "For the honour +of the family, I could even resolve to incommode you to that extent. +Pray excuse me!" + +"I perceive that, happily for me, the Reception of the day before +yesterday was, as usual, a cold one," observed the nephew. + +"I would not say happily, my friend," returned the uncle, with refined +politeness; "I would not be sure of that. A good opportunity for +consideration, surrounded by the advantages of solitude, might influence +your destiny to far greater advantage than you influence it for +yourself. But it is useless to discuss the question. I am, as you say, +at a disadvantage. These little instruments of correction, these gentle +aids to the power and honour of families, these slight favours that +might so incommode you, are only to be obtained now by interest +and importunity. They are sought by so many, and they are granted +(comparatively) to so few! It used not to be so, but France in all such +things is changed for the worse. Our not remote ancestors held the right +of life and death over the surrounding vulgar. From this room, many such +dogs have been taken out to be hanged; in the next room (my bedroom), +one fellow, to our knowledge, was poniarded on the spot for professing +some insolent delicacy respecting his daughter--_his_ daughter? We have +lost many privileges; a new philosophy has become the mode; and the +assertion of our station, in these days, might (I do not go so far as +to say would, but might) cause us real inconvenience. All very bad, very +bad!" + +The Marquis took a gentle little pinch of snuff, and shook his head; +as elegantly despondent as he could becomingly be of a country still +containing himself, that great means of regeneration. + +"We have so asserted our station, both in the old time and in the modern +time also," said the nephew, gloomily, "that I believe our name to be +more detested than any name in France." + +"Let us hope so," said the uncle. "Detestation of the high is the +involuntary homage of the low." + +"There is not," pursued the nephew, in his former tone, "a face I can +look at, in all this country round about us, which looks at me with any +deference on it but the dark deference of fear and slavery." + +"A compliment," said the Marquis, "to the grandeur of the family, +merited by the manner in which the family has sustained its grandeur. +Hah!" And he took another gentle little pinch of snuff, and lightly +crossed his legs. + +But, when his nephew, leaning an elbow on the table, covered his eyes +thoughtfully and dejectedly with his hand, the fine mask looked at +him sideways with a stronger concentration of keenness, closeness, +and dislike, than was comportable with its wearer's assumption of +indifference. + +"Repression is the only lasting philosophy. The dark deference of fear +and slavery, my friend," observed the Marquis, "will keep the dogs +obedient to the whip, as long as this roof," looking up to it, "shuts +out the sky." + +That might not be so long as the Marquis supposed. If a picture of the +chateau as it was to be a very few years hence, and of fifty like it as +they too were to be a very few years hence, could have been shown to +him that night, he might have been at a loss to claim his own from +the ghastly, fire-charred, plunder-wrecked rains. As for the roof +he vaunted, he might have found _that_ shutting out the sky in a new +way--to wit, for ever, from the eyes of the bodies into which its lead +was fired, out of the barrels of a hundred thousand muskets. + +"Meanwhile," said the Marquis, "I will preserve the honour and repose +of the family, if you will not. But you must be fatigued. Shall we +terminate our conference for the night?" + +"A moment more." + +"An hour, if you please." + +"Sir," said the nephew, "we have done wrong, and are reaping the fruits +of wrong." + +"_We_ have done wrong?" repeated the Marquis, with an inquiring smile, +and delicately pointing, first to his nephew, then to himself. + +"Our family; our honourable family, whose honour is of so much account +to both of us, in such different ways. Even in my father's time, we did +a world of wrong, injuring every human creature who came between us and +our pleasure, whatever it was. Why need I speak of my father's time, +when it is equally yours? Can I separate my father's twin-brother, joint +inheritor, and next successor, from himself?" + +"Death has done that!" said the Marquis. + +"And has left me," answered the nephew, "bound to a system that is +frightful to me, responsible for it, but powerless in it; seeking to +execute the last request of my dear mother's lips, and obey the last +look of my dear mother's eyes, which implored me to have mercy and to +redress; and tortured by seeking assistance and power in vain." + +"Seeking them from me, my nephew," said the Marquis, touching him on the +breast with his forefinger--they were now standing by the hearth--"you +will for ever seek them in vain, be assured." + +Every fine straight line in the clear whiteness of his face, was +cruelly, craftily, and closely compressed, while he stood looking +quietly at his nephew, with his snuff-box in his hand. Once again he +touched him on the breast, as though his finger were the fine point of +a small sword, with which, in delicate finesse, he ran him through the +body, and said, + +"My friend, I will die, perpetuating the system under which I have +lived." + +When he had said it, he took a culminating pinch of snuff, and put his +box in his pocket. + +"Better to be a rational creature," he added then, after ringing a small +bell on the table, "and accept your natural destiny. But you are lost, +Monsieur Charles, I see." + +"This property and France are lost to me," said the nephew, sadly; "I +renounce them." + +"Are they both yours to renounce? France may be, but is the property? It +is scarcely worth mentioning; but, is it yet?" + +"I had no intention, in the words I used, to claim it yet. If it passed +to me from you, to-morrow--" + +"Which I have the vanity to hope is not probable." + +"--or twenty years hence--" + +"You do me too much honour," said the Marquis; "still, I prefer that +supposition." + +"--I would abandon it, and live otherwise and elsewhere. It is little to +relinquish. What is it but a wilderness of misery and ruin!" + +"Hah!" said the Marquis, glancing round the luxurious room. + +"To the eye it is fair enough, here; but seen in its integrity, +under the sky, and by the daylight, it is a crumbling tower of waste, +mismanagement, extortion, debt, mortgage, oppression, hunger, nakedness, +and suffering." + +"Hah!" said the Marquis again, in a well-satisfied manner. + +"If it ever becomes mine, it shall be put into some hands better +qualified to free it slowly (if such a thing is possible) from the +weight that drags it down, so that the miserable people who cannot leave +it and who have been long wrung to the last point of endurance, may, in +another generation, suffer less; but it is not for me. There is a curse +on it, and on all this land." + +"And you?" said the uncle. "Forgive my curiosity; do you, under your new +philosophy, graciously intend to live?" + +"I must do, to live, what others of my countrymen, even with nobility at +their backs, may have to do some day--work." + +"In England, for example?" + +"Yes. The family honour, sir, is safe from me in this country. The +family name can suffer from me in no other, for I bear it in no other." + +The ringing of the bell had caused the adjoining bed-chamber to be +lighted. It now shone brightly, through the door of communication. The +Marquis looked that way, and listened for the retreating step of his +valet. + +"England is very attractive to you, seeing how indifferently you have +prospered there," he observed then, turning his calm face to his nephew +with a smile. + +"I have already said, that for my prospering there, I am sensible I may +be indebted to you, sir. For the rest, it is my Refuge." + +"They say, those boastful English, that it is the Refuge of many. You +know a compatriot who has found a Refuge there? A Doctor?" + +"Yes." + +"With a daughter?" + +"Yes." + +"Yes," said the Marquis. "You are fatigued. Good night!" + +As he bent his head in his most courtly manner, there was a secrecy +in his smiling face, and he conveyed an air of mystery to those words, +which struck the eyes and ears of his nephew forcibly. At the same +time, the thin straight lines of the setting of the eyes, and the thin +straight lips, and the markings in the nose, curved with a sarcasm that +looked handsomely diabolic. + +"Yes," repeated the Marquis. "A Doctor with a daughter. Yes. So +commences the new philosophy! You are fatigued. Good night!" + +It would have been of as much avail to interrogate any stone face +outside the chateau as to interrogate that face of his. The nephew +looked at him, in vain, in passing on to the door. + +"Good night!" said the uncle. "I look to the pleasure of seeing you +again in the morning. Good repose! Light Monsieur my nephew to his +chamber there!--And burn Monsieur my nephew in his bed, if you will," he +added to himself, before he rang his little bell again, and summoned his +valet to his own bedroom. + +The valet come and gone, Monsieur the Marquis walked to and fro in his +loose chamber-robe, to prepare himself gently for sleep, that hot still +night. Rustling about the room, his softly-slippered feet making no +noise on the floor, he moved like a refined tiger:--looked like some +enchanted marquis of the impenitently wicked sort, in story, whose +periodical change into tiger form was either just going off, or just +coming on. + +He moved from end to end of his voluptuous bedroom, looking again at the +scraps of the day's journey that came unbidden into his mind; the slow +toil up the hill at sunset, the setting sun, the descent, the mill, the +prison on the crag, the little village in the hollow, the peasants at +the fountain, and the mender of roads with his blue cap pointing out the +chain under the carriage. That fountain suggested the Paris fountain, +the little bundle lying on the step, the women bending over it, and the +tall man with his arms up, crying, "Dead!" + +"I am cool now," said Monsieur the Marquis, "and may go to bed." + +So, leaving only one light burning on the large hearth, he let his thin +gauze curtains fall around him, and heard the night break its silence +with a long sigh as he composed himself to sleep. + +The stone faces on the outer walls stared blindly at the black night +for three heavy hours; for three heavy hours, the horses in the stables +rattled at their racks, the dogs barked, and the owl made a noise with +very little resemblance in it to the noise conventionally assigned to +the owl by men-poets. But it is the obstinate custom of such creatures +hardly ever to say what is set down for them. + +For three heavy hours, the stone faces of the chateau, lion and human, +stared blindly at the night. Dead darkness lay on all the landscape, +dead darkness added its own hush to the hushing dust on all the roads. +The burial-place had got to the pass that its little heaps of poor grass +were undistinguishable from one another; the figure on the Cross might +have come down, for anything that could be seen of it. In the village, +taxers and taxed were fast asleep. Dreaming, perhaps, of banquets, as +the starved usually do, and of ease and rest, as the driven slave and +the yoked ox may, its lean inhabitants slept soundly, and were fed and +freed. + +The fountain in the village flowed unseen and unheard, and the fountain +at the chateau dropped unseen and unheard--both melting away, like the +minutes that were falling from the spring of Time--through three dark +hours. Then, the grey water of both began to be ghostly in the light, +and the eyes of the stone faces of the chateau were opened. + +Lighter and lighter, until at last the sun touched the tops of the still +trees, and poured its radiance over the hill. In the glow, the water +of the chateau fountain seemed to turn to blood, and the stone faces +crimsoned. The carol of the birds was loud and high, and, on the +weather-beaten sill of the great window of the bed-chamber of Monsieur +the Marquis, one little bird sang its sweetest song with all its might. +At this, the nearest stone face seemed to stare amazed, and, with open +mouth and dropped under-jaw, looked awe-stricken. + +Now, the sun was full up, and movement began in the village. Casement +windows opened, crazy doors were unbarred, and people came forth +shivering--chilled, as yet, by the new sweet air. Then began the rarely +lightened toil of the day among the village population. Some, to the +fountain; some, to the fields; men and women here, to dig and delve; men +and women there, to see to the poor live stock, and lead the bony cows +out, to such pasture as could be found by the roadside. In the church +and at the Cross, a kneeling figure or two; attendant on the latter +prayers, the led cow, trying for a breakfast among the weeds at its +foot. + +The chateau awoke later, as became its quality, but awoke gradually and +surely. First, the lonely boar-spears and knives of the chase had been +reddened as of old; then, had gleamed trenchant in the morning sunshine; +now, doors and windows were thrown open, horses in their stables looked +round over their shoulders at the light and freshness pouring in at +doorways, leaves sparkled and rustled at iron-grated windows, dogs +pulled hard at their chains, and reared impatient to be loosed. + +All these trivial incidents belonged to the routine of life, and the +return of morning. Surely, not so the ringing of the great bell of the +chateau, nor the running up and down the stairs; nor the hurried +figures on the terrace; nor the booting and tramping here and there and +everywhere, nor the quick saddling of horses and riding away? + +What winds conveyed this hurry to the grizzled mender of roads, already +at work on the hill-top beyond the village, with his day's dinner (not +much to carry) lying in a bundle that it was worth no crow's while to +peck at, on a heap of stones? Had the birds, carrying some grains of it +to a distance, dropped one over him as they sow chance seeds? Whether or +no, the mender of roads ran, on the sultry morning, as if for his life, +down the hill, knee-high in dust, and never stopped till he got to the +fountain. + +All the people of the village were at the fountain, standing about +in their depressed manner, and whispering low, but showing no other +emotions than grim curiosity and surprise. The led cows, hastily brought +in and tethered to anything that would hold them, were looking stupidly +on, or lying down chewing the cud of nothing particularly repaying their +trouble, which they had picked up in their interrupted saunter. Some of +the people of the chateau, and some of those of the posting-house, and +all the taxing authorities, were armed more or less, and were crowded +on the other side of the little street in a purposeless way, that was +highly fraught with nothing. Already, the mender of roads had penetrated +into the midst of a group of fifty particular friends, and was smiting +himself in the breast with his blue cap. What did all this portend, +and what portended the swift hoisting-up of Monsieur Gabelle behind +a servant on horseback, and the conveying away of the said Gabelle +(double-laden though the horse was), at a gallop, like a new version of +the German ballad of Leonora? + +It portended that there was one stone face too many, up at the chateau. + +The Gorgon had surveyed the building again in the night, and had added +the one stone face wanting; the stone face for which it had waited +through about two hundred years. + +It lay back on the pillow of Monsieur the Marquis. It was like a fine +mask, suddenly startled, made angry, and petrified. Driven home into the +heart of the stone figure attached to it, was a knife. Round its hilt +was a frill of paper, on which was scrawled: + +"Drive him fast to his tomb. This, from Jacques." + + + + +X. Two Promises + + +More months, to the number of twelve, had come and gone, and Mr. Charles +Darnay was established in England as a higher teacher of the French +language who was conversant with French literature. In this age, he +would have been a Professor; in that age, he was a Tutor. He read with +young men who could find any leisure and interest for the study of a +living tongue spoken all over the world, and he cultivated a taste for +its stores of knowledge and fancy. He could write of them, besides, in +sound English, and render them into sound English. Such masters were not +at that time easily found; Princes that had been, and Kings that were +to be, were not yet of the Teacher class, and no ruined nobility had +dropped out of Tellson's ledgers, to turn cooks and carpenters. As a +tutor, whose attainments made the student's way unusually pleasant and +profitable, and as an elegant translator who brought something to his +work besides mere dictionary knowledge, young Mr. Darnay soon became +known and encouraged. He was well acquainted, more-over, with the +circumstances of his country, and those were of ever-growing interest. +So, with great perseverance and untiring industry, he prospered. + +In London, he had expected neither to walk on pavements of gold, nor +to lie on beds of roses; if he had had any such exalted expectation, he +would not have prospered. He had expected labour, and he found it, and +did it and made the best of it. In this, his prosperity consisted. + +A certain portion of his time was passed at Cambridge, where he +read with undergraduates as a sort of tolerated smuggler who drove a +contraband trade in European languages, instead of conveying Greek +and Latin through the Custom-house. The rest of his time he passed in +London. + +Now, from the days when it was always summer in Eden, to these days +when it is mostly winter in fallen latitudes, the world of a man has +invariably gone one way--Charles Darnay's way--the way of the love of a +woman. + +He had loved Lucie Manette from the hour of his danger. He had never +heard a sound so sweet and dear as the sound of her compassionate voice; +he had never seen a face so tenderly beautiful, as hers when it was +confronted with his own on the edge of the grave that had been dug for +him. But, he had not yet spoken to her on the subject; the assassination +at the deserted chateau far away beyond the heaving water and the long, +long, dusty roads--the solid stone chateau which had itself become the +mere mist of a dream--had been done a year, and he had never yet, by so +much as a single spoken word, disclosed to her the state of his heart. + +That he had his reasons for this, he knew full well. It was again a +summer day when, lately arrived in London from his college occupation, +he turned into the quiet corner in Soho, bent on seeking an opportunity +of opening his mind to Doctor Manette. It was the close of the summer +day, and he knew Lucie to be out with Miss Pross. + +He found the Doctor reading in his arm-chair at a window. The energy +which had at once supported him under his old sufferings and aggravated +their sharpness, had been gradually restored to him. He was now a +very energetic man indeed, with great firmness of purpose, strength +of resolution, and vigour of action. In his recovered energy he was +sometimes a little fitful and sudden, as he had at first been in the +exercise of his other recovered faculties; but, this had never been +frequently observable, and had grown more and more rare. + +He studied much, slept little, sustained a great deal of fatigue with +ease, and was equably cheerful. To him, now entered Charles Darnay, at +sight of whom he laid aside his book and held out his hand. + +"Charles Darnay! I rejoice to see you. We have been counting on your +return these three or four days past. Mr. Stryver and Sydney Carton were +both here yesterday, and both made you out to be more than due." + +"I am obliged to them for their interest in the matter," he answered, +a little coldly as to them, though very warmly as to the Doctor. "Miss +Manette--" + +"Is well," said the Doctor, as he stopped short, "and your return will +delight us all. She has gone out on some household matters, but will +soon be home." + +"Doctor Manette, I knew she was from home. I took the opportunity of her +being from home, to beg to speak to you." + +There was a blank silence. + +"Yes?" said the Doctor, with evident constraint. "Bring your chair here, +and speak on." + +He complied as to the chair, but appeared to find the speaking on less +easy. + +"I have had the happiness, Doctor Manette, of being so intimate here," +so he at length began, "for some year and a half, that I hope the topic +on which I am about to touch may not--" + +He was stayed by the Doctor's putting out his hand to stop him. When he +had kept it so a little while, he said, drawing it back: + +"Is Lucie the topic?" + +"She is." + +"It is hard for me to speak of her at any time. It is very hard for me +to hear her spoken of in that tone of yours, Charles Darnay." + +"It is a tone of fervent admiration, true homage, and deep love, Doctor +Manette!" he said deferentially. + +There was another blank silence before her father rejoined: + +"I believe it. I do you justice; I believe it." + +His constraint was so manifest, and it was so manifest, too, that it +originated in an unwillingness to approach the subject, that Charles +Darnay hesitated. + +"Shall I go on, sir?" + +Another blank. + +"Yes, go on." + +"You anticipate what I would say, though you cannot know how earnestly +I say it, how earnestly I feel it, without knowing my secret heart, and +the hopes and fears and anxieties with which it has long been +laden. Dear Doctor Manette, I love your daughter fondly, dearly, +disinterestedly, devotedly. If ever there were love in the world, I love +her. You have loved yourself; let your old love speak for me!" + +The Doctor sat with his face turned away, and his eyes bent on the +ground. At the last words, he stretched out his hand again, hurriedly, +and cried: + +"Not that, sir! Let that be! I adjure you, do not recall that!" + +His cry was so like a cry of actual pain, that it rang in Charles +Darnay's ears long after he had ceased. He motioned with the hand he had +extended, and it seemed to be an appeal to Darnay to pause. The latter +so received it, and remained silent. + +"I ask your pardon," said the Doctor, in a subdued tone, after some +moments. "I do not doubt your loving Lucie; you may be satisfied of it." + +He turned towards him in his chair, but did not look at him, or +raise his eyes. His chin dropped upon his hand, and his white hair +overshadowed his face: + +"Have you spoken to Lucie?" + +"No." + +"Nor written?" + +"Never." + +"It would be ungenerous to affect not to know that your self-denial is +to be referred to your consideration for her father. Her father thanks +you." + +He offered his hand; but his eyes did not go with it. + +"I know," said Darnay, respectfully, "how can I fail to know, Doctor +Manette, I who have seen you together from day to day, that between +you and Miss Manette there is an affection so unusual, so touching, so +belonging to the circumstances in which it has been nurtured, that it +can have few parallels, even in the tenderness between a father and +child. I know, Doctor Manette--how can I fail to know--that, mingled +with the affection and duty of a daughter who has become a woman, there +is, in her heart, towards you, all the love and reliance of infancy +itself. I know that, as in her childhood she had no parent, so she is +now devoted to you with all the constancy and fervour of her present +years and character, united to the trustfulness and attachment of the +early days in which you were lost to her. I know perfectly well that if +you had been restored to her from the world beyond this life, you could +hardly be invested, in her sight, with a more sacred character than that +in which you are always with her. I know that when she is clinging to +you, the hands of baby, girl, and woman, all in one, are round your +neck. I know that in loving you she sees and loves her mother at her +own age, sees and loves you at my age, loves her mother broken-hearted, +loves you through your dreadful trial and in your blessed restoration. I +have known this, night and day, since I have known you in your home." + +Her father sat silent, with his face bent down. His breathing was a +little quickened; but he repressed all other signs of agitation. + +"Dear Doctor Manette, always knowing this, always seeing her and you +with this hallowed light about you, I have forborne, and forborne, as +long as it was in the nature of man to do it. I have felt, and do even +now feel, that to bring my love--even mine--between you, is to touch +your history with something not quite so good as itself. But I love her. +Heaven is my witness that I love her!" + +"I believe it," answered her father, mournfully. "I have thought so +before now. I believe it." + +"But, do not believe," said Darnay, upon whose ear the mournful voice +struck with a reproachful sound, "that if my fortune were so cast as +that, being one day so happy as to make her my wife, I must at any time +put any separation between her and you, I could or would breathe a +word of what I now say. Besides that I should know it to be hopeless, I +should know it to be a baseness. If I had any such possibility, even at +a remote distance of years, harboured in my thoughts, and hidden in my +heart--if it ever had been there--if it ever could be there--I could not +now touch this honoured hand." + +He laid his own upon it as he spoke. + +"No, dear Doctor Manette. Like you, a voluntary exile from France; like +you, driven from it by its distractions, oppressions, and miseries; like +you, striving to live away from it by my own exertions, and trusting +in a happier future; I look only to sharing your fortunes, sharing your +life and home, and being faithful to you to the death. Not to divide +with Lucie her privilege as your child, companion, and friend; but to +come in aid of it, and bind her closer to you, if such a thing can be." + +His touch still lingered on her father's hand. Answering the touch for a +moment, but not coldly, her father rested his hands upon the arms of +his chair, and looked up for the first time since the beginning of the +conference. A struggle was evidently in his face; a struggle with that +occasional look which had a tendency in it to dark doubt and dread. + +"You speak so feelingly and so manfully, Charles Darnay, that I thank +you with all my heart, and will open all my heart--or nearly so. Have +you any reason to believe that Lucie loves you?" + +"None. As yet, none." + +"Is it the immediate object of this confidence, that you may at once +ascertain that, with my knowledge?" + +"Not even so. I might not have the hopefulness to do it for weeks; I +might (mistaken or not mistaken) have that hopefulness to-morrow." + +"Do you seek any guidance from me?" + +"I ask none, sir. But I have thought it possible that you might have it +in your power, if you should deem it right, to give me some." + +"Do you seek any promise from me?" + +"I do seek that." + +"What is it?" + +"I well understand that, without you, I could have no hope. I well +understand that, even if Miss Manette held me at this moment in her +innocent heart--do not think I have the presumption to assume so much--I +could retain no place in it against her love for her father." + +"If that be so, do you see what, on the other hand, is involved in it?" + +"I understand equally well, that a word from her father in any suitor's +favour, would outweigh herself and all the world. For which reason, +Doctor Manette," said Darnay, modestly but firmly, "I would not ask that +word, to save my life." + +"I am sure of it. Charles Darnay, mysteries arise out of close love, as +well as out of wide division; in the former case, they are subtle and +delicate, and difficult to penetrate. My daughter Lucie is, in this one +respect, such a mystery to me; I can make no guess at the state of her +heart." + +"May I ask, sir, if you think she is--" As he hesitated, her father +supplied the rest. + +"Is sought by any other suitor?" + +"It is what I meant to say." + +Her father considered a little before he answered: + +"You have seen Mr. Carton here, yourself. Mr. Stryver is here too, +occasionally. If it be at all, it can only be by one of these." + +"Or both," said Darnay. + +"I had not thought of both; I should not think either, likely. You want +a promise from me. Tell me what it is." + +"It is, that if Miss Manette should bring to you at any time, on her own +part, such a confidence as I have ventured to lay before you, you will +bear testimony to what I have said, and to your belief in it. I hope you +may be able to think so well of me, as to urge no influence against +me. I say nothing more of my stake in this; this is what I ask. The +condition on which I ask it, and which you have an undoubted right to +require, I will observe immediately." + +"I give the promise," said the Doctor, "without any condition. I believe +your object to be, purely and truthfully, as you have stated it. I +believe your intention is to perpetuate, and not to weaken, the ties +between me and my other and far dearer self. If she should ever tell me +that you are essential to her perfect happiness, I will give her to you. +If there were--Charles Darnay, if there were--" + +The young man had taken his hand gratefully; their hands were joined as +the Doctor spoke: + +"--any fancies, any reasons, any apprehensions, anything whatsoever, +new or old, against the man she really loved--the direct responsibility +thereof not lying on his head--they should all be obliterated for her +sake. She is everything to me; more to me than suffering, more to me +than wrong, more to me--Well! This is idle talk." + +So strange was the way in which he faded into silence, and so strange +his fixed look when he had ceased to speak, that Darnay felt his own +hand turn cold in the hand that slowly released and dropped it. + +"You said something to me," said Doctor Manette, breaking into a smile. +"What was it you said to me?" + +He was at a loss how to answer, until he remembered having spoken of a +condition. Relieved as his mind reverted to that, he answered: + +"Your confidence in me ought to be returned with full confidence on my +part. My present name, though but slightly changed from my mother's, is +not, as you will remember, my own. I wish to tell you what that is, and +why I am in England." + +"Stop!" said the Doctor of Beauvais. + +"I wish it, that I may the better deserve your confidence, and have no +secret from you." + +"Stop!" + +For an instant, the Doctor even had his two hands at his ears; for +another instant, even had his two hands laid on Darnay's lips. + +"Tell me when I ask you, not now. If your suit should prosper, if Lucie +should love you, you shall tell me on your marriage morning. Do you +promise?" + +"Willingly. + +"Give me your hand. She will be home directly, and it is better she +should not see us together to-night. Go! God bless you!" + +It was dark when Charles Darnay left him, and it was an hour later and +darker when Lucie came home; she hurried into the room alone--for +Miss Pross had gone straight up-stairs--and was surprised to find his +reading-chair empty. + +"My father!" she called to him. "Father dear!" + +Nothing was said in answer, but she heard a low hammering sound in his +bedroom. Passing lightly across the intermediate room, she looked in at +his door and came running back frightened, crying to herself, with her +blood all chilled, "What shall I do! What shall I do!" + +Her uncertainty lasted but a moment; she hurried back, and tapped at +his door, and softly called to him. The noise ceased at the sound of +her voice, and he presently came out to her, and they walked up and down +together for a long time. + +She came down from her bed, to look at him in his sleep that night. He +slept heavily, and his tray of shoemaking tools, and his old unfinished +work, were all as usual. + + + + +XI. A Companion Picture + + +"Sydney," said Mr. Stryver, on that self-same night, or morning, to his +jackal; "mix another bowl of punch; I have something to say to you." + +Sydney had been working double tides that night, and the night before, +and the night before that, and a good many nights in succession, making +a grand clearance among Mr. Stryver's papers before the setting in +of the long vacation. The clearance was effected at last; the Stryver +arrears were handsomely fetched up; everything was got rid of until +November should come with its fogs atmospheric, and fogs legal, and +bring grist to the mill again. + +Sydney was none the livelier and none the soberer for so much +application. It had taken a deal of extra wet-towelling to pull him +through the night; a correspondingly extra quantity of wine had preceded +the towelling; and he was in a very damaged condition, as he now pulled +his turban off and threw it into the basin in which he had steeped it at +intervals for the last six hours. + +"Are you mixing that other bowl of punch?" said Stryver the portly, with +his hands in his waistband, glancing round from the sofa where he lay on +his back. + +"I am." + +"Now, look here! I am going to tell you something that will rather +surprise you, and that perhaps will make you think me not quite as +shrewd as you usually do think me. I intend to marry." + +"_Do_ you?" + +"Yes. And not for money. What do you say now?" + +"I don't feel disposed to say much. Who is she?" + +"Guess." + +"Do I know her?" + +"Guess." + +"I am not going to guess, at five o'clock in the morning, with my brains +frying and sputtering in my head. If you want me to guess, you must ask +me to dinner." + +"Well then, I'll tell you," said Stryver, coming slowly into a sitting +posture. "Sydney, I rather despair of making myself intelligible to you, +because you are such an insensible dog." + +"And you," returned Sydney, busy concocting the punch, "are such a +sensitive and poetical spirit--" + +"Come!" rejoined Stryver, laughing boastfully, "though I don't prefer +any claim to being the soul of Romance (for I hope I know better), still +I am a tenderer sort of fellow than _you_." + +"You are a luckier, if you mean that." + +"I don't mean that. I mean I am a man of more--more--" + +"Say gallantry, while you are about it," suggested Carton. + +"Well! I'll say gallantry. My meaning is that I am a man," said Stryver, +inflating himself at his friend as he made the punch, "who cares more to +be agreeable, who takes more pains to be agreeable, who knows better how +to be agreeable, in a woman's society, than you do." + +"Go on," said Sydney Carton. + +"No; but before I go on," said Stryver, shaking his head in his bullying +way, "I'll have this out with you. You've been at Doctor Manette's house +as much as I have, or more than I have. Why, I have been ashamed of your +moroseness there! Your manners have been of that silent and sullen and +hangdog kind, that, upon my life and soul, I have been ashamed of you, +Sydney!" + +"It should be very beneficial to a man in your practice at the bar, to +be ashamed of anything," returned Sydney; "you ought to be much obliged +to me." + +"You shall not get off in that way," rejoined Stryver, shouldering the +rejoinder at him; "no, Sydney, it's my duty to tell you--and I tell you +to your face to do you good--that you are a devilish ill-conditioned +fellow in that sort of society. You are a disagreeable fellow." + +Sydney drank a bumper of the punch he had made, and laughed. + +"Look at me!" said Stryver, squaring himself; "I have less need to make +myself agreeable than you have, being more independent in circumstances. +Why do I do it?" + +"I never saw you do it yet," muttered Carton. + +"I do it because it's politic; I do it on principle. And look at me! I +get on." + +"You don't get on with your account of your matrimonial intentions," +answered Carton, with a careless air; "I wish you would keep to that. As +to me--will you never understand that I am incorrigible?" + +He asked the question with some appearance of scorn. + +"You have no business to be incorrigible," was his friend's answer, +delivered in no very soothing tone. + +"I have no business to be, at all, that I know of," said Sydney Carton. +"Who is the lady?" + +"Now, don't let my announcement of the name make you uncomfortable, +Sydney," said Mr. Stryver, preparing him with ostentatious friendliness +for the disclosure he was about to make, "because I know you don't mean +half you say; and if you meant it all, it would be of no importance. I +make this little preface, because you once mentioned the young lady to +me in slighting terms." + +"I did?" + +"Certainly; and in these chambers." + +Sydney Carton looked at his punch and looked at his complacent friend; +drank his punch and looked at his complacent friend. + +"You made mention of the young lady as a golden-haired doll. The young +lady is Miss Manette. If you had been a fellow of any sensitiveness or +delicacy of feeling in that kind of way, Sydney, I might have been a +little resentful of your employing such a designation; but you are not. +You want that sense altogether; therefore I am no more annoyed when I +think of the expression, than I should be annoyed by a man's opinion of +a picture of mine, who had no eye for pictures: or of a piece of music +of mine, who had no ear for music." + +Sydney Carton drank the punch at a great rate; drank it by bumpers, +looking at his friend. + +"Now you know all about it, Syd," said Mr. Stryver. "I don't care about +fortune: she is a charming creature, and I have made up my mind to +please myself: on the whole, I think I can afford to please myself. She +will have in me a man already pretty well off, and a rapidly rising man, +and a man of some distinction: it is a piece of good fortune for her, +but she is worthy of good fortune. Are you astonished?" + +Carton, still drinking the punch, rejoined, "Why should I be +astonished?" + +"You approve?" + +Carton, still drinking the punch, rejoined, "Why should I not approve?" + +"Well!" said his friend Stryver, "you take it more easily than I fancied +you would, and are less mercenary on my behalf than I thought you would +be; though, to be sure, you know well enough by this time that your +ancient chum is a man of a pretty strong will. Yes, Sydney, I have had +enough of this style of life, with no other as a change from it; I +feel that it is a pleasant thing for a man to have a home when he feels +inclined to go to it (when he doesn't, he can stay away), and I feel +that Miss Manette will tell well in any station, and will always do me +credit. So I have made up my mind. And now, Sydney, old boy, I want to +say a word to _you_ about _your_ prospects. You are in a bad way, you +know; you really are in a bad way. You don't know the value of money, +you live hard, you'll knock up one of these days, and be ill and poor; +you really ought to think about a nurse." + +The prosperous patronage with which he said it, made him look twice as +big as he was, and four times as offensive. + +"Now, let me recommend you," pursued Stryver, "to look it in the face. +I have looked it in the face, in my different way; look it in the face, +you, in your different way. Marry. Provide somebody to take care of +you. Never mind your having no enjoyment of women's society, nor +understanding of it, nor tact for it. Find out somebody. Find out some +respectable woman with a little property--somebody in the landlady way, +or lodging-letting way--and marry her, against a rainy day. That's the +kind of thing for _you_. Now think of it, Sydney." + +"I'll think of it," said Sydney. + + + + +XII. The Fellow of Delicacy + + +Mr. Stryver having made up his mind to that magnanimous bestowal of good +fortune on the Doctor's daughter, resolved to make her happiness known +to her before he left town for the Long Vacation. After some mental +debating of the point, he came to the conclusion that it would be as +well to get all the preliminaries done with, and they could then arrange +at their leisure whether he should give her his hand a week or two +before Michaelmas Term, or in the little Christmas vacation between it +and Hilary. + +As to the strength of his case, he had not a doubt about it, but clearly +saw his way to the verdict. Argued with the jury on substantial worldly +grounds--the only grounds ever worth taking into account--it was a +plain case, and had not a weak spot in it. He called himself for the +plaintiff, there was no getting over his evidence, the counsel for +the defendant threw up his brief, and the jury did not even turn to +consider. After trying it, Stryver, C. J., was satisfied that no plainer +case could be. + +Accordingly, Mr. Stryver inaugurated the Long Vacation with a formal +proposal to take Miss Manette to Vauxhall Gardens; that failing, to +Ranelagh; that unaccountably failing too, it behoved him to present +himself in Soho, and there declare his noble mind. + +Towards Soho, therefore, Mr. Stryver shouldered his way from the Temple, +while the bloom of the Long Vacation's infancy was still upon it. +Anybody who had seen him projecting himself into Soho while he was yet +on Saint Dunstan's side of Temple Bar, bursting in his full-blown way +along the pavement, to the jostlement of all weaker people, might have +seen how safe and strong he was. + +His way taking him past Tellson's, and he both banking at Tellson's and +knowing Mr. Lorry as the intimate friend of the Manettes, it entered Mr. +Stryver's mind to enter the bank, and reveal to Mr. Lorry the brightness +of the Soho horizon. So, he pushed open the door with the weak rattle +in its throat, stumbled down the two steps, got past the two ancient +cashiers, and shouldered himself into the musty back closet where Mr. +Lorry sat at great books ruled for figures, with perpendicular iron +bars to his window as if that were ruled for figures too, and everything +under the clouds were a sum. + +"Halloa!" said Mr. Stryver. "How do you do? I hope you are well!" + +It was Stryver's grand peculiarity that he always seemed too big for any +place, or space. He was so much too big for Tellson's, that old clerks +in distant corners looked up with looks of remonstrance, as though he +squeezed them against the wall. The House itself, magnificently reading +the paper quite in the far-off perspective, lowered displeased, as if +the Stryver head had been butted into its responsible waistcoat. + +The discreet Mr. Lorry said, in a sample tone of the voice he would +recommend under the circumstances, "How do you do, Mr. Stryver? How do +you do, sir?" and shook hands. There was a peculiarity in his manner +of shaking hands, always to be seen in any clerk at Tellson's who shook +hands with a customer when the House pervaded the air. He shook in a +self-abnegating way, as one who shook for Tellson and Co. + +"Can I do anything for you, Mr. Stryver?" asked Mr. Lorry, in his +business character. + +"Why, no, thank you; this is a private visit to yourself, Mr. Lorry; I +have come for a private word." + +"Oh indeed!" said Mr. Lorry, bending down his ear, while his eye strayed +to the House afar off. + +"I am going," said Mr. Stryver, leaning his arms confidentially on the +desk: whereupon, although it was a large double one, there appeared to +be not half desk enough for him: "I am going to make an offer of myself +in marriage to your agreeable little friend, Miss Manette, Mr. Lorry." + +"Oh dear me!" cried Mr. Lorry, rubbing his chin, and looking at his +visitor dubiously. + +"Oh dear me, sir?" repeated Stryver, drawing back. "Oh dear you, sir? +What may your meaning be, Mr. Lorry?" + +"My meaning," answered the man of business, "is, of course, friendly and +appreciative, and that it does you the greatest credit, and--in short, +my meaning is everything you could desire. But--really, you know, Mr. +Stryver--" Mr. Lorry paused, and shook his head at him in the oddest +manner, as if he were compelled against his will to add, internally, +"you know there really is so much too much of you!" + +"Well!" said Stryver, slapping the desk with his contentious hand, +opening his eyes wider, and taking a long breath, "if I understand you, +Mr. Lorry, I'll be hanged!" + +Mr. Lorry adjusted his little wig at both ears as a means towards that +end, and bit the feather of a pen. + +"D--n it all, sir!" said Stryver, staring at him, "am I not eligible?" + +"Oh dear yes! Yes. Oh yes, you're eligible!" said Mr. Lorry. "If you say +eligible, you are eligible." + +"Am I not prosperous?" asked Stryver. + +"Oh! if you come to prosperous, you are prosperous," said Mr. Lorry. + +"And advancing?" + +"If you come to advancing you know," said Mr. Lorry, delighted to be +able to make another admission, "nobody can doubt that." + +"Then what on earth is your meaning, Mr. Lorry?" demanded Stryver, +perceptibly crestfallen. + +"Well! I--Were you going there now?" asked Mr. Lorry. + +"Straight!" said Stryver, with a plump of his fist on the desk. + +"Then I think I wouldn't, if I was you." + +"Why?" said Stryver. "Now, I'll put you in a corner," forensically +shaking a forefinger at him. "You are a man of business and bound to +have a reason. State your reason. Why wouldn't you go?" + +"Because," said Mr. Lorry, "I wouldn't go on such an object without +having some cause to believe that I should succeed." + +"D--n _me_!" cried Stryver, "but this beats everything." + +Mr. Lorry glanced at the distant House, and glanced at the angry +Stryver. + +"Here's a man of business--a man of years--a man of experience--_in_ +a Bank," said Stryver; "and having summed up three leading reasons for +complete success, he says there's no reason at all! Says it with his +head on!" Mr. Stryver remarked upon the peculiarity as if it would have +been infinitely less remarkable if he had said it with his head off. + +"When I speak of success, I speak of success with the young lady; and +when I speak of causes and reasons to make success probable, I speak of +causes and reasons that will tell as such with the young lady. The young +lady, my good sir," said Mr. Lorry, mildly tapping the Stryver arm, "the +young lady. The young lady goes before all." + +"Then you mean to tell me, Mr. Lorry," said Stryver, squaring his +elbows, "that it is your deliberate opinion that the young lady at +present in question is a mincing Fool?" + +"Not exactly so. I mean to tell you, Mr. Stryver," said Mr. Lorry, +reddening, "that I will hear no disrespectful word of that young lady +from any lips; and that if I knew any man--which I hope I do not--whose +taste was so coarse, and whose temper was so overbearing, that he could +not restrain himself from speaking disrespectfully of that young lady at +this desk, not even Tellson's should prevent my giving him a piece of my +mind." + +The necessity of being angry in a suppressed tone had put Mr. Stryver's +blood-vessels into a dangerous state when it was his turn to be angry; +Mr. Lorry's veins, methodical as their courses could usually be, were in +no better state now it was his turn. + +"That is what I mean to tell you, sir," said Mr. Lorry. "Pray let there +be no mistake about it." + +Mr. Stryver sucked the end of a ruler for a little while, and then stood +hitting a tune out of his teeth with it, which probably gave him the +toothache. He broke the awkward silence by saying: + +"This is something new to me, Mr. Lorry. You deliberately advise me not +to go up to Soho and offer myself--_my_self, Stryver of the King's Bench +bar?" + +"Do you ask me for my advice, Mr. Stryver?" + +"Yes, I do." + +"Very good. Then I give it, and you have repeated it correctly." + +"And all I can say of it is," laughed Stryver with a vexed laugh, "that +this--ha, ha!--beats everything past, present, and to come." + +"Now understand me," pursued Mr. Lorry. "As a man of business, I am +not justified in saying anything about this matter, for, as a man of +business, I know nothing of it. But, as an old fellow, who has carried +Miss Manette in his arms, who is the trusted friend of Miss Manette and +of her father too, and who has a great affection for them both, I have +spoken. The confidence is not of my seeking, recollect. Now, you think I +may not be right?" + +"Not I!" said Stryver, whistling. "I can't undertake to find third +parties in common sense; I can only find it for myself. I suppose sense +in certain quarters; you suppose mincing bread-and-butter nonsense. It's +new to me, but you are right, I dare say." + +"What I suppose, Mr. Stryver, I claim to characterise for myself--And +understand me, sir," said Mr. Lorry, quickly flushing again, "I +will not--not even at Tellson's--have it characterised for me by any +gentleman breathing." + +"There! I beg your pardon!" said Stryver. + +"Granted. Thank you. Well, Mr. Stryver, I was about to say:--it might be +painful to you to find yourself mistaken, it might be painful to Doctor +Manette to have the task of being explicit with you, it might be very +painful to Miss Manette to have the task of being explicit with you. You +know the terms upon which I have the honour and happiness to stand with +the family. If you please, committing you in no way, representing you +in no way, I will undertake to correct my advice by the exercise of a +little new observation and judgment expressly brought to bear upon +it. If you should then be dissatisfied with it, you can but test its +soundness for yourself; if, on the other hand, you should be satisfied +with it, and it should be what it now is, it may spare all sides what is +best spared. What do you say?" + +"How long would you keep me in town?" + +"Oh! It is only a question of a few hours. I could go to Soho in the +evening, and come to your chambers afterwards." + +"Then I say yes," said Stryver: "I won't go up there now, I am not so +hot upon it as that comes to; I say yes, and I shall expect you to look +in to-night. Good morning." + +Then Mr. Stryver turned and burst out of the Bank, causing such a +concussion of air on his passage through, that to stand up against it +bowing behind the two counters, required the utmost remaining strength +of the two ancient clerks. Those venerable and feeble persons were +always seen by the public in the act of bowing, and were popularly +believed, when they had bowed a customer out, still to keep on bowing in +the empty office until they bowed another customer in. + +The barrister was keen enough to divine that the banker would not have +gone so far in his expression of opinion on any less solid ground than +moral certainty. Unprepared as he was for the large pill he had to +swallow, he got it down. "And now," said Mr. Stryver, shaking his +forensic forefinger at the Temple in general, when it was down, "my way +out of this, is, to put you all in the wrong." + +It was a bit of the art of an Old Bailey tactician, in which he found +great relief. "You shall not put me in the wrong, young lady," said Mr. +Stryver; "I'll do that for you." + +Accordingly, when Mr. Lorry called that night as late as ten o'clock, +Mr. Stryver, among a quantity of books and papers littered out for the +purpose, seemed to have nothing less on his mind than the subject of +the morning. He even showed surprise when he saw Mr. Lorry, and was +altogether in an absent and preoccupied state. + +"Well!" said that good-natured emissary, after a full half-hour of +bootless attempts to bring him round to the question. "I have been to +Soho." + +"To Soho?" repeated Mr. Stryver, coldly. "Oh, to be sure! What am I +thinking of!" + +"And I have no doubt," said Mr. Lorry, "that I was right in the +conversation we had. My opinion is confirmed, and I reiterate my +advice." + +"I assure you," returned Mr. Stryver, in the friendliest way, "that I +am sorry for it on your account, and sorry for it on the poor father's +account. I know this must always be a sore subject with the family; let +us say no more about it." + +"I don't understand you," said Mr. Lorry. + +"I dare say not," rejoined Stryver, nodding his head in a smoothing and +final way; "no matter, no matter." + +"But it does matter," Mr. Lorry urged. + +"No it doesn't; I assure you it doesn't. Having supposed that there was +sense where there is no sense, and a laudable ambition where there is +not a laudable ambition, I am well out of my mistake, and no harm is +done. Young women have committed similar follies often before, and have +repented them in poverty and obscurity often before. In an unselfish +aspect, I am sorry that the thing is dropped, because it would have been +a bad thing for me in a worldly point of view; in a selfish aspect, I am +glad that the thing has dropped, because it would have been a bad thing +for me in a worldly point of view--it is hardly necessary to say I could +have gained nothing by it. There is no harm at all done. I have not +proposed to the young lady, and, between ourselves, I am by no means +certain, on reflection, that I ever should have committed myself to +that extent. Mr. Lorry, you cannot control the mincing vanities and +giddinesses of empty-headed girls; you must not expect to do it, or you +will always be disappointed. Now, pray say no more about it. I tell you, +I regret it on account of others, but I am satisfied on my own account. +And I am really very much obliged to you for allowing me to sound you, +and for giving me your advice; you know the young lady better than I do; +you were right, it never would have done." + +Mr. Lorry was so taken aback, that he looked quite stupidly at Mr. +Stryver shouldering him towards the door, with an appearance of +showering generosity, forbearance, and goodwill, on his erring head. +"Make the best of it, my dear sir," said Stryver; "say no more about it; +thank you again for allowing me to sound you; good night!" + +Mr. Lorry was out in the night, before he knew where he was. Mr. Stryver +was lying back on his sofa, winking at his ceiling. + + + + +XIII. The Fellow of No Delicacy + + +If Sydney Carton ever shone anywhere, he certainly never shone in the +house of Doctor Manette. He had been there often, during a whole year, +and had always been the same moody and morose lounger there. When he +cared to talk, he talked well; but, the cloud of caring for nothing, +which overshadowed him with such a fatal darkness, was very rarely +pierced by the light within him. + +And yet he did care something for the streets that environed that house, +and for the senseless stones that made their pavements. Many a night +he vaguely and unhappily wandered there, when wine had brought no +transitory gladness to him; many a dreary daybreak revealed his solitary +figure lingering there, and still lingering there when the first beams +of the sun brought into strong relief, removed beauties of architecture +in spires of churches and lofty buildings, as perhaps the quiet time +brought some sense of better things, else forgotten and unattainable, +into his mind. Of late, the neglected bed in the Temple Court had known +him more scantily than ever; and often when he had thrown himself upon +it no longer than a few minutes, he had got up again, and haunted that +neighbourhood. + +On a day in August, when Mr. Stryver (after notifying to his jackal +that "he had thought better of that marrying matter") had carried his +delicacy into Devonshire, and when the sight and scent of flowers in the +City streets had some waifs of goodness in them for the worst, of health +for the sickliest, and of youth for the oldest, Sydney's feet still trod +those stones. From being irresolute and purposeless, his feet became +animated by an intention, and, in the working out of that intention, +they took him to the Doctor's door. + +He was shown up-stairs, and found Lucie at her work, alone. She had +never been quite at her ease with him, and received him with some little +embarrassment as he seated himself near her table. But, looking up at +his face in the interchange of the first few common-places, she observed +a change in it. + +"I fear you are not well, Mr. Carton!" + +"No. But the life I lead, Miss Manette, is not conducive to health. What +is to be expected of, or by, such profligates?" + +"Is it not--forgive me; I have begun the question on my lips--a pity to +live no better life?" + +"God knows it is a shame!" + +"Then why not change it?" + +Looking gently at him again, she was surprised and saddened to see that +there were tears in his eyes. There were tears in his voice too, as he +answered: + +"It is too late for that. I shall never be better than I am. I shall +sink lower, and be worse." + +He leaned an elbow on her table, and covered his eyes with his hand. The +table trembled in the silence that followed. + +She had never seen him softened, and was much distressed. He knew her to +be so, without looking at her, and said: + +"Pray forgive me, Miss Manette. I break down before the knowledge of +what I want to say to you. Will you hear me?" + +"If it will do you any good, Mr. Carton, if it would make you happier, +it would make me very glad!" + +"God bless you for your sweet compassion!" + +He unshaded his face after a little while, and spoke steadily. + +"Don't be afraid to hear me. Don't shrink from anything I say. I am like +one who died young. All my life might have been." + +"No, Mr. Carton. I am sure that the best part of it might still be; I am +sure that you might be much, much worthier of yourself." + +"Say of you, Miss Manette, and although I know better--although in the +mystery of my own wretched heart I know better--I shall never forget +it!" + +She was pale and trembling. He came to her relief with a fixed despair +of himself which made the interview unlike any other that could have +been holden. + +"If it had been possible, Miss Manette, that you could have returned the +love of the man you see before yourself--flung away, wasted, drunken, +poor creature of misuse as you know him to be--he would have been +conscious this day and hour, in spite of his happiness, that he would +bring you to misery, bring you to sorrow and repentance, blight you, +disgrace you, pull you down with him. I know very well that you can have +no tenderness for me; I ask for none; I am even thankful that it cannot +be." + +"Without it, can I not save you, Mr. Carton? Can I not recall +you--forgive me again!--to a better course? Can I in no way repay your +confidence? I know this is a confidence," she modestly said, after a +little hesitation, and in earnest tears, "I know you would say this to +no one else. Can I turn it to no good account for yourself, Mr. Carton?" + +He shook his head. + +"To none. No, Miss Manette, to none. If you will hear me through a very +little more, all you can ever do for me is done. I wish you to know that +you have been the last dream of my soul. In my degradation I have not +been so degraded but that the sight of you with your father, and of this +home made such a home by you, has stirred old shadows that I thought had +died out of me. Since I knew you, I have been troubled by a remorse that +I thought would never reproach me again, and have heard whispers from +old voices impelling me upward, that I thought were silent for ever. I +have had unformed ideas of striving afresh, beginning anew, shaking off +sloth and sensuality, and fighting out the abandoned fight. A dream, all +a dream, that ends in nothing, and leaves the sleeper where he lay down, +but I wish you to know that you inspired it." + +"Will nothing of it remain? O Mr. Carton, think again! Try again!" + +"No, Miss Manette; all through it, I have known myself to be quite +undeserving. And yet I have had the weakness, and have still the +weakness, to wish you to know with what a sudden mastery you kindled me, +heap of ashes that I am, into fire--a fire, however, inseparable in +its nature from myself, quickening nothing, lighting nothing, doing no +service, idly burning away." + +"Since it is my misfortune, Mr. Carton, to have made you more unhappy +than you were before you knew me--" + +"Don't say that, Miss Manette, for you would have reclaimed me, if +anything could. You will not be the cause of my becoming worse." + +"Since the state of your mind that you describe, is, at all events, +attributable to some influence of mine--this is what I mean, if I can +make it plain--can I use no influence to serve you? Have I no power for +good, with you, at all?" + +"The utmost good that I am capable of now, Miss Manette, I have come +here to realise. Let me carry through the rest of my misdirected life, +the remembrance that I opened my heart to you, last of all the world; +and that there was something left in me at this time which you could +deplore and pity." + +"Which I entreated you to believe, again and again, most fervently, with +all my heart, was capable of better things, Mr. Carton!" + +"Entreat me to believe it no more, Miss Manette. I have proved myself, +and I know better. I distress you; I draw fast to an end. Will you let +me believe, when I recall this day, that the last confidence of my life +was reposed in your pure and innocent breast, and that it lies there +alone, and will be shared by no one?" + +"If that will be a consolation to you, yes." + +"Not even by the dearest one ever to be known to you?" + +"Mr. Carton," she answered, after an agitated pause, "the secret is +yours, not mine; and I promise to respect it." + +"Thank you. And again, God bless you." + +He put her hand to his lips, and moved towards the door. + +"Be under no apprehension, Miss Manette, of my ever resuming this +conversation by so much as a passing word. I will never refer to it +again. If I were dead, that could not be surer than it is henceforth. In +the hour of my death, I shall hold sacred the one good remembrance--and +shall thank and bless you for it--that my last avowal of myself was made +to you, and that my name, and faults, and miseries were gently carried +in your heart. May it otherwise be light and happy!" + +He was so unlike what he had ever shown himself to be, and it was so +sad to think how much he had thrown away, and how much he every day kept +down and perverted, that Lucie Manette wept mournfully for him as he +stood looking back at her. + +"Be comforted!" he said, "I am not worth such feeling, Miss Manette. An +hour or two hence, and the low companions and low habits that I scorn +but yield to, will render me less worth such tears as those, than any +wretch who creeps along the streets. Be comforted! But, within myself, I +shall always be, towards you, what I am now, though outwardly I shall be +what you have heretofore seen me. The last supplication but one I make +to you, is, that you will believe this of me." + +"I will, Mr. Carton." + +"My last supplication of all, is this; and with it, I will relieve +you of a visitor with whom I well know you have nothing in unison, and +between whom and you there is an impassable space. It is useless to say +it, I know, but it rises out of my soul. For you, and for any dear to +you, I would do anything. If my career were of that better kind that +there was any opportunity or capacity of sacrifice in it, I would +embrace any sacrifice for you and for those dear to you. Try to hold +me in your mind, at some quiet times, as ardent and sincere in this one +thing. The time will come, the time will not be long in coming, when new +ties will be formed about you--ties that will bind you yet more tenderly +and strongly to the home you so adorn--the dearest ties that will ever +grace and gladden you. O Miss Manette, when the little picture of a +happy father's face looks up in yours, when you see your own bright +beauty springing up anew at your feet, think now and then that there is +a man who would give his life, to keep a life you love beside you!" + +He said, "Farewell!" said a last "God bless you!" and left her. + + + + +XIV. The Honest Tradesman + + +To the eyes of Mr. Jeremiah Cruncher, sitting on his stool in +Fleet-street with his grisly urchin beside him, a vast number and +variety of objects in movement were every day presented. Who could sit +upon anything in Fleet-street during the busy hours of the day, and +not be dazed and deafened by two immense processions, one ever tending +westward with the sun, the other ever tending eastward from the sun, +both ever tending to the plains beyond the range of red and purple where +the sun goes down! + +With his straw in his mouth, Mr. Cruncher sat watching the two streams, +like the heathen rustic who has for several centuries been on duty +watching one stream--saving that Jerry had no expectation of their ever +running dry. Nor would it have been an expectation of a hopeful kind, +since a small part of his income was derived from the pilotage of timid +women (mostly of a full habit and past the middle term of life) from +Tellson's side of the tides to the opposite shore. Brief as such +companionship was in every separate instance, Mr. Cruncher never failed +to become so interested in the lady as to express a strong desire to +have the honour of drinking her very good health. And it was from +the gifts bestowed upon him towards the execution of this benevolent +purpose, that he recruited his finances, as just now observed. + +Time was, when a poet sat upon a stool in a public place, and mused in +the sight of men. Mr. Cruncher, sitting on a stool in a public place, +but not being a poet, mused as little as possible, and looked about him. + +It fell out that he was thus engaged in a season when crowds were +few, and belated women few, and when his affairs in general were so +unprosperous as to awaken a strong suspicion in his breast that Mrs. +Cruncher must have been "flopping" in some pointed manner, when an +unusual concourse pouring down Fleet-street westward, attracted his +attention. Looking that way, Mr. Cruncher made out that some kind of +funeral was coming along, and that there was popular objection to this +funeral, which engendered uproar. + +"Young Jerry," said Mr. Cruncher, turning to his offspring, "it's a +buryin'." + +"Hooroar, father!" cried Young Jerry. + +The young gentleman uttered this exultant sound with mysterious +significance. The elder gentleman took the cry so ill, that he watched +his opportunity, and smote the young gentleman on the ear. + +"What d'ye mean? What are you hooroaring at? What do you want to conwey +to your own father, you young Rip? This boy is a getting too many for +_me_!" said Mr. Cruncher, surveying him. "Him and his hooroars! Don't +let me hear no more of you, or you shall feel some more of me. D'ye +hear?" + +"I warn't doing no harm," Young Jerry protested, rubbing his cheek. + +"Drop it then," said Mr. Cruncher; "I won't have none of _your_ no +harms. Get a top of that there seat, and look at the crowd." + +His son obeyed, and the crowd approached; they were bawling and hissing +round a dingy hearse and dingy mourning coach, in which mourning coach +there was only one mourner, dressed in the dingy trappings that were +considered essential to the dignity of the position. The position +appeared by no means to please him, however, with an increasing rabble +surrounding the coach, deriding him, making grimaces at him, and +incessantly groaning and calling out: "Yah! Spies! Tst! Yaha! Spies!" +with many compliments too numerous and forcible to repeat. + +Funerals had at all times a remarkable attraction for Mr. Cruncher; he +always pricked up his senses, and became excited, when a funeral passed +Tellson's. Naturally, therefore, a funeral with this uncommon attendance +excited him greatly, and he asked of the first man who ran against him: + +"What is it, brother? What's it about?" + +"_I_ don't know," said the man. "Spies! Yaha! Tst! Spies!" + +He asked another man. "Who is it?" + +"_I_ don't know," returned the man, clapping his hands to his mouth +nevertheless, and vociferating in a surprising heat and with the +greatest ardour, "Spies! Yaha! Tst, tst! Spi--ies!" + +At length, a person better informed on the merits of the case, tumbled +against him, and from this person he learned that the funeral was the +funeral of one Roger Cly. + +"Was He a spy?" asked Mr. Cruncher. + +"Old Bailey spy," returned his informant. "Yaha! Tst! Yah! Old Bailey +Spi--i--ies!" + +"Why, to be sure!" exclaimed Jerry, recalling the Trial at which he had +assisted. "I've seen him. Dead, is he?" + +"Dead as mutton," returned the other, "and can't be too dead. Have 'em +out, there! Spies! Pull 'em out, there! Spies!" + +The idea was so acceptable in the prevalent absence of any idea, +that the crowd caught it up with eagerness, and loudly repeating the +suggestion to have 'em out, and to pull 'em out, mobbed the two vehicles +so closely that they came to a stop. On the crowd's opening the coach +doors, the one mourner scuffled out of himself and was in their hands +for a moment; but he was so alert, and made such good use of his time, +that in another moment he was scouring away up a bye-street, after +shedding his cloak, hat, long hatband, white pocket-handkerchief, and +other symbolical tears. + +These, the people tore to pieces and scattered far and wide with great +enjoyment, while the tradesmen hurriedly shut up their shops; for a +crowd in those times stopped at nothing, and was a monster much dreaded. +They had already got the length of opening the hearse to take the coffin +out, when some brighter genius proposed instead, its being escorted to +its destination amidst general rejoicing. Practical suggestions being +much needed, this suggestion, too, was received with acclamation, and +the coach was immediately filled with eight inside and a dozen out, +while as many people got on the roof of the hearse as could by any +exercise of ingenuity stick upon it. Among the first of these volunteers +was Jerry Cruncher himself, who modestly concealed his spiky head from +the observation of Tellson's, in the further corner of the mourning +coach. + +The officiating undertakers made some protest against these changes in +the ceremonies; but, the river being alarmingly near, and several voices +remarking on the efficacy of cold immersion in bringing refractory +members of the profession to reason, the protest was faint and brief. +The remodelled procession started, with a chimney-sweep driving the +hearse--advised by the regular driver, who was perched beside him, under +close inspection, for the purpose--and with a pieman, also attended +by his cabinet minister, driving the mourning coach. A bear-leader, a +popular street character of the time, was impressed as an additional +ornament, before the cavalcade had gone far down the Strand; and his +bear, who was black and very mangy, gave quite an Undertaking air to +that part of the procession in which he walked. + +Thus, with beer-drinking, pipe-smoking, song-roaring, and infinite +caricaturing of woe, the disorderly procession went its way, recruiting +at every step, and all the shops shutting up before it. Its destination +was the old church of Saint Pancras, far off in the fields. It got there +in course of time; insisted on pouring into the burial-ground; finally, +accomplished the interment of the deceased Roger Cly in its own way, and +highly to its own satisfaction. + +The dead man disposed of, and the crowd being under the necessity of +providing some other entertainment for itself, another brighter +genius (or perhaps the same) conceived the humour of impeaching casual +passers-by, as Old Bailey spies, and wreaking vengeance on them. Chase +was given to some scores of inoffensive persons who had never been near +the Old Bailey in their lives, in the realisation of this fancy, and +they were roughly hustled and maltreated. The transition to the sport of +window-breaking, and thence to the plundering of public-houses, was easy +and natural. At last, after several hours, when sundry summer-houses had +been pulled down, and some area-railings had been torn up, to arm +the more belligerent spirits, a rumour got about that the Guards were +coming. Before this rumour, the crowd gradually melted away, and perhaps +the Guards came, and perhaps they never came, and this was the usual +progress of a mob. + +Mr. Cruncher did not assist at the closing sports, but had remained +behind in the churchyard, to confer and condole with the undertakers. +The place had a soothing influence on him. He procured a pipe from a +neighbouring public-house, and smoked it, looking in at the railings and +maturely considering the spot. + +"Jerry," said Mr. Cruncher, apostrophising himself in his usual way, +"you see that there Cly that day, and you see with your own eyes that he +was a young 'un and a straight made 'un." + +Having smoked his pipe out, and ruminated a little longer, he turned +himself about, that he might appear, before the hour of closing, on his +station at Tellson's. Whether his meditations on mortality had touched +his liver, or whether his general health had been previously at all +amiss, or whether he desired to show a little attention to an eminent +man, is not so much to the purpose, as that he made a short call upon +his medical adviser--a distinguished surgeon--on his way back. + +Young Jerry relieved his father with dutiful interest, and reported No +job in his absence. The bank closed, the ancient clerks came out, the +usual watch was set, and Mr. Cruncher and his son went home to tea. + +"Now, I tell you where it is!" said Mr. Cruncher to his wife, on +entering. "If, as a honest tradesman, my wenturs goes wrong to-night, I +shall make sure that you've been praying again me, and I shall work you +for it just the same as if I seen you do it." + +The dejected Mrs. Cruncher shook her head. + +"Why, you're at it afore my face!" said Mr. Cruncher, with signs of +angry apprehension. + +"I am saying nothing." + +"Well, then; don't meditate nothing. You might as well flop as meditate. +You may as well go again me one way as another. Drop it altogether." + +"Yes, Jerry." + +"Yes, Jerry," repeated Mr. Cruncher sitting down to tea. "Ah! It _is_ +yes, Jerry. That's about it. You may say yes, Jerry." + +Mr. Cruncher had no particular meaning in these sulky corroborations, +but made use of them, as people not unfrequently do, to express general +ironical dissatisfaction. + +"You and your yes, Jerry," said Mr. Cruncher, taking a bite out of his +bread-and-butter, and seeming to help it down with a large invisible +oyster out of his saucer. "Ah! I think so. I believe you." + +"You are going out to-night?" asked his decent wife, when he took +another bite. + +"Yes, I am." + +"May I go with you, father?" asked his son, briskly. + +"No, you mayn't. I'm a going--as your mother knows--a fishing. That's +where I'm going to. Going a fishing." + +"Your fishing-rod gets rayther rusty; don't it, father?" + +"Never you mind." + +"Shall you bring any fish home, father?" + +"If I don't, you'll have short commons, to-morrow," returned that +gentleman, shaking his head; "that's questions enough for you; I ain't a +going out, till you've been long abed." + +He devoted himself during the remainder of the evening to keeping a +most vigilant watch on Mrs. Cruncher, and sullenly holding her in +conversation that she might be prevented from meditating any petitions +to his disadvantage. With this view, he urged his son to hold her in +conversation also, and led the unfortunate woman a hard life by dwelling +on any causes of complaint he could bring against her, rather than +he would leave her for a moment to her own reflections. The devoutest +person could have rendered no greater homage to the efficacy of an +honest prayer than he did in this distrust of his wife. It was as if a +professed unbeliever in ghosts should be frightened by a ghost story. + +"And mind you!" said Mr. Cruncher. "No games to-morrow! If I, as a +honest tradesman, succeed in providing a jinte of meat or two, none +of your not touching of it, and sticking to bread. If I, as a honest +tradesman, am able to provide a little beer, none of your declaring +on water. When you go to Rome, do as Rome does. Rome will be a ugly +customer to you, if you don't. _I_'m your Rome, you know." + +Then he began grumbling again: + +"With your flying into the face of your own wittles and drink! I don't +know how scarce you mayn't make the wittles and drink here, by your +flopping tricks and your unfeeling conduct. Look at your boy: he _is_ +your'n, ain't he? He's as thin as a lath. Do you call yourself a mother, +and not know that a mother's first duty is to blow her boy out?" + +This touched Young Jerry on a tender place; who adjured his mother to +perform her first duty, and, whatever else she did or neglected, above +all things to lay especial stress on the discharge of that maternal +function so affectingly and delicately indicated by his other parent. + +Thus the evening wore away with the Cruncher family, until Young Jerry +was ordered to bed, and his mother, laid under similar injunctions, +obeyed them. Mr. Cruncher beguiled the earlier watches of the night with +solitary pipes, and did not start upon his excursion until nearly one +o'clock. Towards that small and ghostly hour, he rose up from his chair, +took a key out of his pocket, opened a locked cupboard, and brought +forth a sack, a crowbar of convenient size, a rope and chain, and other +fishing tackle of that nature. Disposing these articles about him +in skilful manner, he bestowed a parting defiance on Mrs. Cruncher, +extinguished the light, and went out. + +Young Jerry, who had only made a feint of undressing when he went to +bed, was not long after his father. Under cover of the darkness he +followed out of the room, followed down the stairs, followed down the +court, followed out into the streets. He was in no uneasiness concerning +his getting into the house again, for it was full of lodgers, and the +door stood ajar all night. + +Impelled by a laudable ambition to study the art and mystery of his +father's honest calling, Young Jerry, keeping as close to house fronts, +walls, and doorways, as his eyes were close to one another, held his +honoured parent in view. The honoured parent steering Northward, had not +gone far, when he was joined by another disciple of Izaak Walton, and +the two trudged on together. + +Within half an hour from the first starting, they were beyond the +winking lamps, and the more than winking watchmen, and were out upon a +lonely road. Another fisherman was picked up here--and that so silently, +that if Young Jerry had been superstitious, he might have supposed the +second follower of the gentle craft to have, all of a sudden, split +himself into two. + +The three went on, and Young Jerry went on, until the three stopped +under a bank overhanging the road. Upon the top of the bank was a low +brick wall, surmounted by an iron railing. In the shadow of bank and +wall the three turned out of the road, and up a blind lane, of which +the wall--there, risen to some eight or ten feet high--formed one side. +Crouching down in a corner, peeping up the lane, the next object that +Young Jerry saw, was the form of his honoured parent, pretty well +defined against a watery and clouded moon, nimbly scaling an iron gate. +He was soon over, and then the second fisherman got over, and then the +third. They all dropped softly on the ground within the gate, and lay +there a little--listening perhaps. Then, they moved away on their hands +and knees. + +It was now Young Jerry's turn to approach the gate: which he did, +holding his breath. Crouching down again in a corner there, and looking +in, he made out the three fishermen creeping through some rank grass! +and all the gravestones in the churchyard--it was a large churchyard +that they were in--looking on like ghosts in white, while the church +tower itself looked on like the ghost of a monstrous giant. They did not +creep far, before they stopped and stood upright. And then they began to +fish. + +They fished with a spade, at first. Presently the honoured parent +appeared to be adjusting some instrument like a great corkscrew. +Whatever tools they worked with, they worked hard, until the awful +striking of the church clock so terrified Young Jerry, that he made off, +with his hair as stiff as his father's. + +But, his long-cherished desire to know more about these matters, not +only stopped him in his running away, but lured him back again. They +were still fishing perseveringly, when he peeped in at the gate for +the second time; but, now they seemed to have got a bite. There was a +screwing and complaining sound down below, and their bent figures were +strained, as if by a weight. By slow degrees the weight broke away the +earth upon it, and came to the surface. Young Jerry very well knew what +it would be; but, when he saw it, and saw his honoured parent about to +wrench it open, he was so frightened, being new to the sight, that he +made off again, and never stopped until he had run a mile or more. + +He would not have stopped then, for anything less necessary than breath, +it being a spectral sort of race that he ran, and one highly desirable +to get to the end of. He had a strong idea that the coffin he had seen +was running after him; and, pictured as hopping on behind him, bolt +upright, upon its narrow end, always on the point of overtaking him +and hopping on at his side--perhaps taking his arm--it was a pursuer to +shun. It was an inconsistent and ubiquitous fiend too, for, while it +was making the whole night behind him dreadful, he darted out into the +roadway to avoid dark alleys, fearful of its coming hopping out of them +like a dropsical boy's Kite without tail and wings. It hid in doorways +too, rubbing its horrible shoulders against doors, and drawing them up +to its ears, as if it were laughing. It got into shadows on the road, +and lay cunningly on its back to trip him up. All this time it was +incessantly hopping on behind and gaining on him, so that when the boy +got to his own door he had reason for being half dead. And even then +it would not leave him, but followed him upstairs with a bump on every +stair, scrambled into bed with him, and bumped down, dead and heavy, on +his breast when he fell asleep. + +From his oppressed slumber, Young Jerry in his closet was awakened after +daybreak and before sunrise, by the presence of his father in the +family room. Something had gone wrong with him; at least, so Young Jerry +inferred, from the circumstance of his holding Mrs. Cruncher by the +ears, and knocking the back of her head against the head-board of the +bed. + +"I told you I would," said Mr. Cruncher, "and I did." + +"Jerry, Jerry, Jerry!" his wife implored. + +"You oppose yourself to the profit of the business," said Jerry, "and me +and my partners suffer. You was to honour and obey; why the devil don't +you?" + +"I try to be a good wife, Jerry," the poor woman protested, with tears. + +"Is it being a good wife to oppose your husband's business? Is it +honouring your husband to dishonour his business? Is it obeying your +husband to disobey him on the wital subject of his business?" + +"You hadn't taken to the dreadful business then, Jerry." + +"It's enough for you," retorted Mr. Cruncher, "to be the wife of a +honest tradesman, and not to occupy your female mind with calculations +when he took to his trade or when he didn't. A honouring and obeying +wife would let his trade alone altogether. Call yourself a religious +woman? If you're a religious woman, give me a irreligious one! You have +no more nat'ral sense of duty than the bed of this here Thames river has +of a pile, and similarly it must be knocked into you." + +The altercation was conducted in a low tone of voice, and terminated in +the honest tradesman's kicking off his clay-soiled boots, and lying down +at his length on the floor. After taking a timid peep at him lying on +his back, with his rusty hands under his head for a pillow, his son lay +down too, and fell asleep again. + +There was no fish for breakfast, and not much of anything else. Mr. +Cruncher was out of spirits, and out of temper, and kept an iron pot-lid +by him as a projectile for the correction of Mrs. Cruncher, in case +he should observe any symptoms of her saying Grace. He was brushed +and washed at the usual hour, and set off with his son to pursue his +ostensible calling. + +Young Jerry, walking with the stool under his arm at his father's side +along sunny and crowded Fleet-street, was a very different Young Jerry +from him of the previous night, running home through darkness and +solitude from his grim pursuer. His cunning was fresh with the day, +and his qualms were gone with the night--in which particulars it is not +improbable that he had compeers in Fleet-street and the City of London, +that fine morning. + +"Father," said Young Jerry, as they walked along: taking care to keep +at arm's length and to have the stool well between them: "what's a +Resurrection-Man?" + +Mr. Cruncher came to a stop on the pavement before he answered, "How +should I know?" + +"I thought you knowed everything, father," said the artless boy. + +"Hem! Well," returned Mr. Cruncher, going on again, and lifting off his +hat to give his spikes free play, "he's a tradesman." + +"What's his goods, father?" asked the brisk Young Jerry. + +"His goods," said Mr. Cruncher, after turning it over in his mind, "is a +branch of Scientific goods." + +"Persons' bodies, ain't it, father?" asked the lively boy. + +"I believe it is something of that sort," said Mr. Cruncher. + +"Oh, father, I should so like to be a Resurrection-Man when I'm quite +growed up!" + +Mr. Cruncher was soothed, but shook his head in a dubious and moral way. +"It depends upon how you dewelop your talents. Be careful to dewelop +your talents, and never to say no more than you can help to nobody, and +there's no telling at the present time what you may not come to be fit +for." As Young Jerry, thus encouraged, went on a few yards in advance, +to plant the stool in the shadow of the Bar, Mr. Cruncher added to +himself: "Jerry, you honest tradesman, there's hopes wot that boy will +yet be a blessing to you, and a recompense to you for his mother!" + + + + +XV. Knitting + + +There had been earlier drinking than usual in the wine-shop of Monsieur +Defarge. As early as six o'clock in the morning, sallow faces peeping +through its barred windows had descried other faces within, bending over +measures of wine. Monsieur Defarge sold a very thin wine at the best +of times, but it would seem to have been an unusually thin wine that +he sold at this time. A sour wine, moreover, or a souring, for its +influence on the mood of those who drank it was to make them gloomy. No +vivacious Bacchanalian flame leaped out of the pressed grape of Monsieur +Defarge: but, a smouldering fire that burnt in the dark, lay hidden in +the dregs of it. + +This had been the third morning in succession, on which there had been +early drinking at the wine-shop of Monsieur Defarge. It had begun +on Monday, and here was Wednesday come. There had been more of early +brooding than drinking; for, many men had listened and whispered and +slunk about there from the time of the opening of the door, who could +not have laid a piece of money on the counter to save their souls. These +were to the full as interested in the place, however, as if they could +have commanded whole barrels of wine; and they glided from seat to seat, +and from corner to corner, swallowing talk in lieu of drink, with greedy +looks. + +Notwithstanding an unusual flow of company, the master of the wine-shop +was not visible. He was not missed; for, nobody who crossed the +threshold looked for him, nobody asked for him, nobody wondered to see +only Madame Defarge in her seat, presiding over the distribution of +wine, with a bowl of battered small coins before her, as much defaced +and beaten out of their original impress as the small coinage of +humanity from whose ragged pockets they had come. + +A suspended interest and a prevalent absence of mind, were perhaps +observed by the spies who looked in at the wine-shop, as they looked in +at every place, high and low, from the king's palace to the criminal's +gaol. Games at cards languished, players at dominoes musingly built +towers with them, drinkers drew figures on the tables with spilt drops +of wine, Madame Defarge herself picked out the pattern on her sleeve +with her toothpick, and saw and heard something inaudible and invisible +a long way off. + +Thus, Saint Antoine in this vinous feature of his, until midday. It was +high noontide, when two dusty men passed through his streets and under +his swinging lamps: of whom, one was Monsieur Defarge: the other a +mender of roads in a blue cap. All adust and athirst, the two entered +the wine-shop. Their arrival had lighted a kind of fire in the breast +of Saint Antoine, fast spreading as they came along, which stirred and +flickered in flames of faces at most doors and windows. Yet, no one had +followed them, and no man spoke when they entered the wine-shop, though +the eyes of every man there were turned upon them. + +"Good day, gentlemen!" said Monsieur Defarge. + +It may have been a signal for loosening the general tongue. It elicited +an answering chorus of "Good day!" + +"It is bad weather, gentlemen," said Defarge, shaking his head. + +Upon which, every man looked at his neighbour, and then all cast down +their eyes and sat silent. Except one man, who got up and went out. + +"My wife," said Defarge aloud, addressing Madame Defarge: "I have +travelled certain leagues with this good mender of roads, called +Jacques. I met him--by accident--a day and half's journey out of Paris. +He is a good child, this mender of roads, called Jacques. Give him to +drink, my wife!" + +A second man got up and went out. Madame Defarge set wine before the +mender of roads called Jacques, who doffed his blue cap to the company, +and drank. In the breast of his blouse he carried some coarse dark +bread; he ate of this between whiles, and sat munching and drinking near +Madame Defarge's counter. A third man got up and went out. + +Defarge refreshed himself with a draught of wine--but, he took less +than was given to the stranger, as being himself a man to whom it was no +rarity--and stood waiting until the countryman had made his breakfast. +He looked at no one present, and no one now looked at him; not even +Madame Defarge, who had taken up her knitting, and was at work. + +"Have you finished your repast, friend?" he asked, in due season. + +"Yes, thank you." + +"Come, then! You shall see the apartment that I told you you could +occupy. It will suit you to a marvel." + +Out of the wine-shop into the street, out of the street into a +courtyard, out of the courtyard up a steep staircase, out of the +staircase into a garret--formerly the garret where a white-haired man +sat on a low bench, stooping forward and very busy, making shoes. + +No white-haired man was there now; but, the three men were there who had +gone out of the wine-shop singly. And between them and the white-haired +man afar off, was the one small link, that they had once looked in at +him through the chinks in the wall. + +Defarge closed the door carefully, and spoke in a subdued voice: + +"Jacques One, Jacques Two, Jacques Three! This is the witness +encountered by appointment, by me, Jacques Four. He will tell you all. +Speak, Jacques Five!" + +The mender of roads, blue cap in hand, wiped his swarthy forehead with +it, and said, "Where shall I commence, monsieur?" + +"Commence," was Monsieur Defarge's not unreasonable reply, "at the +commencement." + +"I saw him then, messieurs," began the mender of roads, "a year ago this +running summer, underneath the carriage of the Marquis, hanging by the +chain. Behold the manner of it. I leaving my work on the road, the sun +going to bed, the carriage of the Marquis slowly ascending the hill, he +hanging by the chain--like this." + +Again the mender of roads went through the whole performance; in which +he ought to have been perfect by that time, seeing that it had been +the infallible resource and indispensable entertainment of his village +during a whole year. + +Jacques One struck in, and asked if he had ever seen the man before? + +"Never," answered the mender of roads, recovering his perpendicular. + +Jacques Three demanded how he afterwards recognised him then? + +"By his tall figure," said the mender of roads, softly, and with his +finger at his nose. "When Monsieur the Marquis demands that evening, +'Say, what is he like?' I make response, 'Tall as a spectre.'" + +"You should have said, short as a dwarf," returned Jacques Two. + +"But what did I know? The deed was not then accomplished, neither did he +confide in me. Observe! Under those circumstances even, I do not +offer my testimony. Monsieur the Marquis indicates me with his finger, +standing near our little fountain, and says, 'To me! Bring that rascal!' +My faith, messieurs, I offer nothing." + +"He is right there, Jacques," murmured Defarge, to him who had +interrupted. "Go on!" + +"Good!" said the mender of roads, with an air of mystery. "The tall man +is lost, and he is sought--how many months? Nine, ten, eleven?" + +"No matter, the number," said Defarge. "He is well hidden, but at last +he is unluckily found. Go on!" + +"I am again at work upon the hill-side, and the sun is again about to +go to bed. I am collecting my tools to descend to my cottage down in the +village below, where it is already dark, when I raise my eyes, and see +coming over the hill six soldiers. In the midst of them is a tall man +with his arms bound--tied to his sides--like this!" + +With the aid of his indispensable cap, he represented a man with his +elbows bound fast at his hips, with cords that were knotted behind him. + +"I stand aside, messieurs, by my heap of stones, to see the soldiers +and their prisoner pass (for it is a solitary road, that, where any +spectacle is well worth looking at), and at first, as they approach, I +see no more than that they are six soldiers with a tall man bound, and +that they are almost black to my sight--except on the side of the sun +going to bed, where they have a red edge, messieurs. Also, I see that +their long shadows are on the hollow ridge on the opposite side of the +road, and are on the hill above it, and are like the shadows of giants. +Also, I see that they are covered with dust, and that the dust moves +with them as they come, tramp, tramp! But when they advance quite near +to me, I recognise the tall man, and he recognises me. Ah, but he would +be well content to precipitate himself over the hill-side once again, as +on the evening when he and I first encountered, close to the same spot!" + +He described it as if he were there, and it was evident that he saw it +vividly; perhaps he had not seen much in his life. + +"I do not show the soldiers that I recognise the tall man; he does not +show the soldiers that he recognises me; we do it, and we know it, with +our eyes. 'Come on!' says the chief of that company, pointing to the +village, 'bring him fast to his tomb!' and they bring him faster. I +follow. His arms are swelled because of being bound so tight, his wooden +shoes are large and clumsy, and he is lame. Because he is lame, and +consequently slow, they drive him with their guns--like this!" + +He imitated the action of a man's being impelled forward by the +butt-ends of muskets. + +"As they descend the hill like madmen running a race, he falls. They +laugh and pick him up again. His face is bleeding and covered with dust, +but he cannot touch it; thereupon they laugh again. They bring him into +the village; all the village runs to look; they take him past the mill, +and up to the prison; all the village sees the prison gate open in the +darkness of the night, and swallow him--like this!" + +He opened his mouth as wide as he could, and shut it with a sounding +snap of his teeth. Observant of his unwillingness to mar the effect by +opening it again, Defarge said, "Go on, Jacques." + +"All the village," pursued the mender of roads, on tiptoe and in a low +voice, "withdraws; all the village whispers by the fountain; all the +village sleeps; all the village dreams of that unhappy one, within the +locks and bars of the prison on the crag, and never to come out of it, +except to perish. In the morning, with my tools upon my shoulder, eating +my morsel of black bread as I go, I make a circuit by the prison, on +my way to my work. There I see him, high up, behind the bars of a lofty +iron cage, bloody and dusty as last night, looking through. He has no +hand free, to wave to me; I dare not call to him; he regards me like a +dead man." + +Defarge and the three glanced darkly at one another. The looks of all +of them were dark, repressed, and revengeful, as they listened to the +countryman's story; the manner of all of them, while it was secret, was +authoritative too. They had the air of a rough tribunal; Jacques One +and Two sitting on the old pallet-bed, each with his chin resting on +his hand, and his eyes intent on the road-mender; Jacques Three, equally +intent, on one knee behind them, with his agitated hand always gliding +over the network of fine nerves about his mouth and nose; Defarge +standing between them and the narrator, whom he had stationed in the +light of the window, by turns looking from him to them, and from them to +him. + +"Go on, Jacques," said Defarge. + +"He remains up there in his iron cage some days. The village looks +at him by stealth, for it is afraid. But it always looks up, from a +distance, at the prison on the crag; and in the evening, when the work +of the day is achieved and it assembles to gossip at the fountain, all +faces are turned towards the prison. Formerly, they were turned towards +the posting-house; now, they are turned towards the prison. They +whisper at the fountain, that although condemned to death he will not be +executed; they say that petitions have been presented in Paris, showing +that he was enraged and made mad by the death of his child; they say +that a petition has been presented to the King himself. What do I know? +It is possible. Perhaps yes, perhaps no." + +"Listen then, Jacques," Number One of that name sternly interposed. +"Know that a petition was presented to the King and Queen. All here, +yourself excepted, saw the King take it, in his carriage in the street, +sitting beside the Queen. It is Defarge whom you see here, who, at the +hazard of his life, darted out before the horses, with the petition in +his hand." + +"And once again listen, Jacques!" said the kneeling Number Three: +his fingers ever wandering over and over those fine nerves, with a +strikingly greedy air, as if he hungered for something--that was neither +food nor drink; "the guard, horse and foot, surrounded the petitioner, +and struck him blows. You hear?" + +"I hear, messieurs." + +"Go on then," said Defarge. + +"Again; on the other hand, they whisper at the fountain," resumed the +countryman, "that he is brought down into our country to be executed on +the spot, and that he will very certainly be executed. They even whisper +that because he has slain Monseigneur, and because Monseigneur was the +father of his tenants--serfs--what you will--he will be executed as a +parricide. One old man says at the fountain, that his right hand, armed +with the knife, will be burnt off before his face; that, into wounds +which will be made in his arms, his breast, and his legs, there will be +poured boiling oil, melted lead, hot resin, wax, and sulphur; finally, +that he will be torn limb from limb by four strong horses. That old man +says, all this was actually done to a prisoner who made an attempt on +the life of the late King, Louis Fifteen. But how do I know if he lies? +I am not a scholar." + +"Listen once again then, Jacques!" said the man with the restless hand +and the craving air. "The name of that prisoner was Damiens, and it was +all done in open day, in the open streets of this city of Paris; and +nothing was more noticed in the vast concourse that saw it done, than +the crowd of ladies of quality and fashion, who were full of eager +attention to the last--to the last, Jacques, prolonged until nightfall, +when he had lost two legs and an arm, and still breathed! And it was +done--why, how old are you?" + +"Thirty-five," said the mender of roads, who looked sixty. + +"It was done when you were more than ten years old; you might have seen +it." + +"Enough!" said Defarge, with grim impatience. "Long live the Devil! Go +on." + +"Well! Some whisper this, some whisper that; they speak of nothing else; +even the fountain appears to fall to that tune. At length, on Sunday +night when all the village is asleep, come soldiers, winding down from +the prison, and their guns ring on the stones of the little street. +Workmen dig, workmen hammer, soldiers laugh and sing; in the morning, by +the fountain, there is raised a gallows forty feet high, poisoning the +water." + +The mender of roads looked _through_ rather than _at_ the low ceiling, +and pointed as if he saw the gallows somewhere in the sky. + +"All work is stopped, all assemble there, nobody leads the cows out, +the cows are there with the rest. At midday, the roll of drums. Soldiers +have marched into the prison in the night, and he is in the midst +of many soldiers. He is bound as before, and in his mouth there is +a gag--tied so, with a tight string, making him look almost as if he +laughed." He suggested it, by creasing his face with his two thumbs, +from the corners of his mouth to his ears. "On the top of the gallows is +fixed the knife, blade upwards, with its point in the air. He is hanged +there forty feet high--and is left hanging, poisoning the water." + +They looked at one another, as he used his blue cap to wipe his face, +on which the perspiration had started afresh while he recalled the +spectacle. + +"It is frightful, messieurs. How can the women and the children draw +water! Who can gossip of an evening, under that shadow! Under it, have +I said? When I left the village, Monday evening as the sun was going to +bed, and looked back from the hill, the shadow struck across the church, +across the mill, across the prison--seemed to strike across the earth, +messieurs, to where the sky rests upon it!" + +The hungry man gnawed one of his fingers as he looked at the other +three, and his finger quivered with the craving that was on him. + +"That's all, messieurs. I left at sunset (as I had been warned to do), +and I walked on, that night and half next day, until I met (as I was +warned I should) this comrade. With him, I came on, now riding and now +walking, through the rest of yesterday and through last night. And here +you see me!" + +After a gloomy silence, the first Jacques said, "Good! You have acted +and recounted faithfully. Will you wait for us a little, outside the +door?" + +"Very willingly," said the mender of roads. Whom Defarge escorted to the +top of the stairs, and, leaving seated there, returned. + +The three had risen, and their heads were together when he came back to +the garret. + +"How say you, Jacques?" demanded Number One. "To be registered?" + +"To be registered, as doomed to destruction," returned Defarge. + +"Magnificent!" croaked the man with the craving. + +"The chateau, and all the race?" inquired the first. + +"The chateau and all the race," returned Defarge. "Extermination." + +The hungry man repeated, in a rapturous croak, "Magnificent!" and began +gnawing another finger. + +"Are you sure," asked Jacques Two, of Defarge, "that no embarrassment +can arise from our manner of keeping the register? Without doubt it is +safe, for no one beyond ourselves can decipher it; but shall we always +be able to decipher it--or, I ought to say, will she?" + +"Jacques," returned Defarge, drawing himself up, "if madame my wife +undertook to keep the register in her memory alone, she would not lose +a word of it--not a syllable of it. Knitted, in her own stitches and her +own symbols, it will always be as plain to her as the sun. Confide in +Madame Defarge. It would be easier for the weakest poltroon that lives, +to erase himself from existence, than to erase one letter of his name or +crimes from the knitted register of Madame Defarge." + +There was a murmur of confidence and approval, and then the man who +hungered, asked: "Is this rustic to be sent back soon? I hope so. He is +very simple; is he not a little dangerous?" + +"He knows nothing," said Defarge; "at least nothing more than would +easily elevate himself to a gallows of the same height. I charge myself +with him; let him remain with me; I will take care of him, and set him +on his road. He wishes to see the fine world--the King, the Queen, and +Court; let him see them on Sunday." + +"What?" exclaimed the hungry man, staring. "Is it a good sign, that he +wishes to see Royalty and Nobility?" + +"Jacques," said Defarge; "judiciously show a cat milk, if you wish her +to thirst for it. Judiciously show a dog his natural prey, if you wish +him to bring it down one day." + +Nothing more was said, and the mender of roads, being found already +dozing on the topmost stair, was advised to lay himself down on the +pallet-bed and take some rest. He needed no persuasion, and was soon +asleep. + +Worse quarters than Defarge's wine-shop, could easily have been found +in Paris for a provincial slave of that degree. Saving for a mysterious +dread of madame by which he was constantly haunted, his life was very +new and agreeable. But, madame sat all day at her counter, so expressly +unconscious of him, and so particularly determined not to perceive that +his being there had any connection with anything below the surface, that +he shook in his wooden shoes whenever his eye lighted on her. For, he +contended with himself that it was impossible to foresee what that lady +might pretend next; and he felt assured that if she should take it +into her brightly ornamented head to pretend that she had seen him do a +murder and afterwards flay the victim, she would infallibly go through +with it until the play was played out. + +Therefore, when Sunday came, the mender of roads was not enchanted +(though he said he was) to find that madame was to accompany monsieur +and himself to Versailles. It was additionally disconcerting to have +madame knitting all the way there, in a public conveyance; it was +additionally disconcerting yet, to have madame in the crowd in the +afternoon, still with her knitting in her hands as the crowd waited to +see the carriage of the King and Queen. + +"You work hard, madame," said a man near her. + +"Yes," answered Madame Defarge; "I have a good deal to do." + +"What do you make, madame?" + +"Many things." + +"For instance--" + +"For instance," returned Madame Defarge, composedly, "shrouds." + +The man moved a little further away, as soon as he could, and the mender +of roads fanned himself with his blue cap: feeling it mightily close +and oppressive. If he needed a King and Queen to restore him, he was +fortunate in having his remedy at hand; for, soon the large-faced King +and the fair-faced Queen came in their golden coach, attended by the +shining Bull's Eye of their Court, a glittering multitude of laughing +ladies and fine lords; and in jewels and silks and powder and splendour +and elegantly spurning figures and handsomely disdainful faces of both +sexes, the mender of roads bathed himself, so much to his temporary +intoxication, that he cried Long live the King, Long live the Queen, +Long live everybody and everything! as if he had never heard of +ubiquitous Jacques in his time. Then, there were gardens, courtyards, +terraces, fountains, green banks, more King and Queen, more Bull's Eye, +more lords and ladies, more Long live they all! until he absolutely wept +with sentiment. During the whole of this scene, which lasted some three +hours, he had plenty of shouting and weeping and sentimental company, +and throughout Defarge held him by the collar, as if to restrain him +from flying at the objects of his brief devotion and tearing them to +pieces. + +"Bravo!" said Defarge, clapping him on the back when it was over, like a +patron; "you are a good boy!" + +The mender of roads was now coming to himself, and was mistrustful of +having made a mistake in his late demonstrations; but no. + +"You are the fellow we want," said Defarge, in his ear; "you make +these fools believe that it will last for ever. Then, they are the more +insolent, and it is the nearer ended." + +"Hey!" cried the mender of roads, reflectively; "that's true." + +"These fools know nothing. While they despise your breath, and would +stop it for ever and ever, in you or in a hundred like you rather than +in one of their own horses or dogs, they only know what your breath +tells them. Let it deceive them, then, a little longer; it cannot +deceive them too much." + +Madame Defarge looked superciliously at the client, and nodded in +confirmation. + +"As to you," said she, "you would shout and shed tears for anything, if +it made a show and a noise. Say! Would you not?" + +"Truly, madame, I think so. For the moment." + +"If you were shown a great heap of dolls, and were set upon them to +pluck them to pieces and despoil them for your own advantage, you would +pick out the richest and gayest. Say! Would you not?" + +"Truly yes, madame." + +"Yes. And if you were shown a flock of birds, unable to fly, and were +set upon them to strip them of their feathers for your own advantage, +you would set upon the birds of the finest feathers; would you not?" + +"It is true, madame." + +"You have seen both dolls and birds to-day," said Madame Defarge, with +a wave of her hand towards the place where they had last been apparent; +"now, go home!" + + + + +XVI. Still Knitting + + +Madame Defarge and monsieur her husband returned amicably to the +bosom of Saint Antoine, while a speck in a blue cap toiled through the +darkness, and through the dust, and down the weary miles of avenue by +the wayside, slowly tending towards that point of the compass where +the chateau of Monsieur the Marquis, now in his grave, listened to +the whispering trees. Such ample leisure had the stone faces, now, +for listening to the trees and to the fountain, that the few village +scarecrows who, in their quest for herbs to eat and fragments of dead +stick to burn, strayed within sight of the great stone courtyard and +terrace staircase, had it borne in upon their starved fancy that +the expression of the faces was altered. A rumour just lived in the +village--had a faint and bare existence there, as its people had--that +when the knife struck home, the faces changed, from faces of pride to +faces of anger and pain; also, that when that dangling figure was hauled +up forty feet above the fountain, they changed again, and bore a cruel +look of being avenged, which they would henceforth bear for ever. In the +stone face over the great window of the bed-chamber where the murder +was done, two fine dints were pointed out in the sculptured nose, which +everybody recognised, and which nobody had seen of old; and on the +scarce occasions when two or three ragged peasants emerged from the +crowd to take a hurried peep at Monsieur the Marquis petrified, a +skinny finger would not have pointed to it for a minute, before they all +started away among the moss and leaves, like the more fortunate hares +who could find a living there. + +Chateau and hut, stone face and dangling figure, the red stain on the +stone floor, and the pure water in the village well--thousands of acres +of land--a whole province of France--all France itself--lay under the +night sky, concentrated into a faint hair-breadth line. So does a whole +world, with all its greatnesses and littlenesses, lie in a twinkling +star. And as mere human knowledge can split a ray of light and analyse +the manner of its composition, so, sublimer intelligences may read in +the feeble shining of this earth of ours, every thought and act, every +vice and virtue, of every responsible creature on it. + +The Defarges, husband and wife, came lumbering under the starlight, +in their public vehicle, to that gate of Paris whereunto their +journey naturally tended. There was the usual stoppage at the barrier +guardhouse, and the usual lanterns came glancing forth for the usual +examination and inquiry. Monsieur Defarge alighted; knowing one or two +of the soldiery there, and one of the police. The latter he was intimate +with, and affectionately embraced. + +When Saint Antoine had again enfolded the Defarges in his dusky wings, +and they, having finally alighted near the Saint's boundaries, were +picking their way on foot through the black mud and offal of his +streets, Madame Defarge spoke to her husband: + +"Say then, my friend; what did Jacques of the police tell thee?" + +"Very little to-night, but all he knows. There is another spy +commissioned for our quarter. There may be many more, for all that he +can say, but he knows of one." + +"Eh well!" said Madame Defarge, raising her eyebrows with a cool +business air. "It is necessary to register him. How do they call that +man?" + +"He is English." + +"So much the better. His name?" + +"Barsad," said Defarge, making it French by pronunciation. But, he had +been so careful to get it accurately, that he then spelt it with perfect +correctness. + +"Barsad," repeated madame. "Good. Christian name?" + +"John." + +"John Barsad," repeated madame, after murmuring it once to herself. +"Good. His appearance; is it known?" + +"Age, about forty years; height, about five feet nine; black hair; +complexion dark; generally, rather handsome visage; eyes dark, face +thin, long, and sallow; nose aquiline, but not straight, having a +peculiar inclination towards the left cheek; expression, therefore, +sinister." + +"Eh my faith. It is a portrait!" said madame, laughing. "He shall be +registered to-morrow." + +They turned into the wine-shop, which was closed (for it was midnight), +and where Madame Defarge immediately took her post at her desk, counted +the small moneys that had been taken during her absence, examined the +stock, went through the entries in the book, made other entries of +her own, checked the serving man in every possible way, and finally +dismissed him to bed. Then she turned out the contents of the bowl +of money for the second time, and began knotting them up in her +handkerchief, in a chain of separate knots, for safe keeping through the +night. All this while, Defarge, with his pipe in his mouth, walked +up and down, complacently admiring, but never interfering; in which +condition, indeed, as to the business and his domestic affairs, he +walked up and down through life. + +The night was hot, and the shop, close shut and surrounded by so foul a +neighbourhood, was ill-smelling. Monsieur Defarge's olfactory sense was +by no means delicate, but the stock of wine smelt much stronger than +it ever tasted, and so did the stock of rum and brandy and aniseed. He +whiffed the compound of scents away, as he put down his smoked-out pipe. + +"You are fatigued," said madame, raising her glance as she knotted the +money. "There are only the usual odours." + +"I am a little tired," her husband acknowledged. + +"You are a little depressed, too," said madame, whose quick eyes had +never been so intent on the accounts, but they had had a ray or two for +him. "Oh, the men, the men!" + +"But my dear!" began Defarge. + +"But my dear!" repeated madame, nodding firmly; "but my dear! You are +faint of heart to-night, my dear!" + +"Well, then," said Defarge, as if a thought were wrung out of his +breast, "it _is_ a long time." + +"It is a long time," repeated his wife; "and when is it not a long time? +Vengeance and retribution require a long time; it is the rule." + +"It does not take a long time to strike a man with Lightning," said +Defarge. + +"How long," demanded madame, composedly, "does it take to make and store +the lightning? Tell me." + +Defarge raised his head thoughtfully, as if there were something in that +too. + +"It does not take a long time," said madame, "for an earthquake to +swallow a town. Eh well! Tell me how long it takes to prepare the +earthquake?" + +"A long time, I suppose," said Defarge. + +"But when it is ready, it takes place, and grinds to pieces everything +before it. In the meantime, it is always preparing, though it is not +seen or heard. That is your consolation. Keep it." + +She tied a knot with flashing eyes, as if it throttled a foe. + +"I tell thee," said madame, extending her right hand, for emphasis, +"that although it is a long time on the road, it is on the road and +coming. I tell thee it never retreats, and never stops. I tell thee it +is always advancing. Look around and consider the lives of all the world +that we know, consider the faces of all the world that we know, consider +the rage and discontent to which the Jacquerie addresses itself with +more and more of certainty every hour. Can such things last? Bah! I mock +you." + +"My brave wife," returned Defarge, standing before her with his head +a little bent, and his hands clasped at his back, like a docile and +attentive pupil before his catechist, "I do not question all this. But +it has lasted a long time, and it is possible--you know well, my wife, +it is possible--that it may not come, during our lives." + +"Eh well! How then?" demanded madame, tying another knot, as if there +were another enemy strangled. + +"Well!" said Defarge, with a half complaining and half apologetic shrug. +"We shall not see the triumph." + +"We shall have helped it," returned madame, with her extended hand in +strong action. "Nothing that we do, is done in vain. I believe, with all +my soul, that we shall see the triumph. But even if not, even if I knew +certainly not, show me the neck of an aristocrat and tyrant, and still I +would--" + +Then madame, with her teeth set, tied a very terrible knot indeed. + +"Hold!" cried Defarge, reddening a little as if he felt charged with +cowardice; "I too, my dear, will stop at nothing." + +"Yes! But it is your weakness that you sometimes need to see your victim +and your opportunity, to sustain you. Sustain yourself without that. +When the time comes, let loose a tiger and a devil; but wait for the +time with the tiger and the devil chained--not shown--yet always ready." + +Madame enforced the conclusion of this piece of advice by striking her +little counter with her chain of money as if she knocked its brains +out, and then gathering the heavy handkerchief under her arm in a serene +manner, and observing that it was time to go to bed. + +Next noontide saw the admirable woman in her usual place in the +wine-shop, knitting away assiduously. A rose lay beside her, and if she +now and then glanced at the flower, it was with no infraction of her +usual preoccupied air. There were a few customers, drinking or not +drinking, standing or seated, sprinkled about. The day was very hot, +and heaps of flies, who were extending their inquisitive and adventurous +perquisitions into all the glutinous little glasses near madame, fell +dead at the bottom. Their decease made no impression on the other flies +out promenading, who looked at them in the coolest manner (as if they +themselves were elephants, or something as far removed), until they met +the same fate. Curious to consider how heedless flies are!--perhaps they +thought as much at Court that sunny summer day. + +A figure entering at the door threw a shadow on Madame Defarge which she +felt to be a new one. She laid down her knitting, and began to pin her +rose in her head-dress, before she looked at the figure. + +It was curious. The moment Madame Defarge took up the rose, the +customers ceased talking, and began gradually to drop out of the +wine-shop. + +"Good day, madame," said the new-comer. + +"Good day, monsieur." + +She said it aloud, but added to herself, as she resumed her knitting: +"Hah! Good day, age about forty, height about five feet nine, black +hair, generally rather handsome visage, complexion dark, eyes dark, +thin, long and sallow face, aquiline nose but not straight, having a +peculiar inclination towards the left cheek which imparts a sinister +expression! Good day, one and all!" + +"Have the goodness to give me a little glass of old cognac, and a +mouthful of cool fresh water, madame." + +Madame complied with a polite air. + +"Marvellous cognac this, madame!" + +It was the first time it had ever been so complimented, and Madame +Defarge knew enough of its antecedents to know better. She said, +however, that the cognac was flattered, and took up her knitting. The +visitor watched her fingers for a few moments, and took the opportunity +of observing the place in general. + +"You knit with great skill, madame." + +"I am accustomed to it." + +"A pretty pattern too!" + +"_You_ think so?" said madame, looking at him with a smile. + +"Decidedly. May one ask what it is for?" + +"Pastime," said madame, still looking at him with a smile while her +fingers moved nimbly. + +"Not for use?" + +"That depends. I may find a use for it one day. If I do--Well," said +madame, drawing a breath and nodding her head with a stern kind of +coquetry, "I'll use it!" + +It was remarkable; but, the taste of Saint Antoine seemed to be +decidedly opposed to a rose on the head-dress of Madame Defarge. Two +men had entered separately, and had been about to order drink, when, +catching sight of that novelty, they faltered, made a pretence of +looking about as if for some friend who was not there, and went away. +Nor, of those who had been there when this visitor entered, was there +one left. They had all dropped off. The spy had kept his eyes open, +but had been able to detect no sign. They had lounged away in a +poverty-stricken, purposeless, accidental manner, quite natural and +unimpeachable. + +"_John_," thought madame, checking off her work as her fingers knitted, +and her eyes looked at the stranger. "Stay long enough, and I shall knit +'BARSAD' before you go." + +"You have a husband, madame?" + +"I have." + +"Children?" + +"No children." + +"Business seems bad?" + +"Business is very bad; the people are so poor." + +"Ah, the unfortunate, miserable people! So oppressed, too--as you say." + +"As _you_ say," madame retorted, correcting him, and deftly knitting an +extra something into his name that boded him no good. + +"Pardon me; certainly it was I who said so, but you naturally think so. +Of course." + +"_I_ think?" returned madame, in a high voice. "I and my husband have +enough to do to keep this wine-shop open, without thinking. All we +think, here, is how to live. That is the subject _we_ think of, and +it gives us, from morning to night, enough to think about, without +embarrassing our heads concerning others. _I_ think for others? No, no." + +The spy, who was there to pick up any crumbs he could find or make, did +not allow his baffled state to express itself in his sinister face; but, +stood with an air of gossiping gallantry, leaning his elbow on Madame +Defarge's little counter, and occasionally sipping his cognac. + +"A bad business this, madame, of Gaspard's execution. Ah! the poor +Gaspard!" With a sigh of great compassion. + +"My faith!" returned madame, coolly and lightly, "if people use knives +for such purposes, they have to pay for it. He knew beforehand what the +price of his luxury was; he has paid the price." + +"I believe," said the spy, dropping his soft voice to a tone +that invited confidence, and expressing an injured revolutionary +susceptibility in every muscle of his wicked face: "I believe there +is much compassion and anger in this neighbourhood, touching the poor +fellow? Between ourselves." + +"Is there?" asked madame, vacantly. + +"Is there not?" + +"--Here is my husband!" said Madame Defarge. + +As the keeper of the wine-shop entered at the door, the spy saluted +him by touching his hat, and saying, with an engaging smile, "Good day, +Jacques!" Defarge stopped short, and stared at him. + +"Good day, Jacques!" the spy repeated; with not quite so much +confidence, or quite so easy a smile under the stare. + +"You deceive yourself, monsieur," returned the keeper of the wine-shop. +"You mistake me for another. That is not my name. I am Ernest Defarge." + +"It is all the same," said the spy, airily, but discomfited too: "good +day!" + +"Good day!" answered Defarge, drily. + +"I was saying to madame, with whom I had the pleasure of chatting when +you entered, that they tell me there is--and no wonder!--much sympathy +and anger in Saint Antoine, touching the unhappy fate of poor Gaspard." + +"No one has told me so," said Defarge, shaking his head. "I know nothing +of it." + +Having said it, he passed behind the little counter, and stood with his +hand on the back of his wife's chair, looking over that barrier at the +person to whom they were both opposed, and whom either of them would +have shot with the greatest satisfaction. + +The spy, well used to his business, did not change his unconscious +attitude, but drained his little glass of cognac, took a sip of fresh +water, and asked for another glass of cognac. Madame Defarge poured it +out for him, took to her knitting again, and hummed a little song over +it. + +"You seem to know this quarter well; that is to say, better than I do?" +observed Defarge. + +"Not at all, but I hope to know it better. I am so profoundly interested +in its miserable inhabitants." + +"Hah!" muttered Defarge. + +"The pleasure of conversing with you, Monsieur Defarge, recalls to me," +pursued the spy, "that I have the honour of cherishing some interesting +associations with your name." + +"Indeed!" said Defarge, with much indifference. + +"Yes, indeed. When Doctor Manette was released, you, his old domestic, +had the charge of him, I know. He was delivered to you. You see I am +informed of the circumstances?" + +"Such is the fact, certainly," said Defarge. He had had it conveyed +to him, in an accidental touch of his wife's elbow as she knitted and +warbled, that he would do best to answer, but always with brevity. + +"It was to you," said the spy, "that his daughter came; and it was +from your care that his daughter took him, accompanied by a neat brown +monsieur; how is he called?--in a little wig--Lorry--of the bank of +Tellson and Company--over to England." + +"Such is the fact," repeated Defarge. + +"Very interesting remembrances!" said the spy. "I have known Doctor +Manette and his daughter, in England." + +"Yes?" said Defarge. + +"You don't hear much about them now?" said the spy. + +"No," said Defarge. + +"In effect," madame struck in, looking up from her work and her little +song, "we never hear about them. We received the news of their safe +arrival, and perhaps another letter, or perhaps two; but, since then, +they have gradually taken their road in life--we, ours--and we have held +no correspondence." + +"Perfectly so, madame," replied the spy. "She is going to be married." + +"Going?" echoed madame. "She was pretty enough to have been married long +ago. You English are cold, it seems to me." + +"Oh! You know I am English." + +"I perceive your tongue is," returned madame; "and what the tongue is, I +suppose the man is." + +He did not take the identification as a compliment; but he made the best +of it, and turned it off with a laugh. After sipping his cognac to the +end, he added: + +"Yes, Miss Manette is going to be married. But not to an Englishman; to +one who, like herself, is French by birth. And speaking of Gaspard (ah, +poor Gaspard! It was cruel, cruel!), it is a curious thing that she is +going to marry the nephew of Monsieur the Marquis, for whom Gaspard +was exalted to that height of so many feet; in other words, the present +Marquis. But he lives unknown in England, he is no Marquis there; he is +Mr. Charles Darnay. D'Aulnais is the name of his mother's family." + +Madame Defarge knitted steadily, but the intelligence had a palpable +effect upon her husband. Do what he would, behind the little counter, +as to the striking of a light and the lighting of his pipe, he was +troubled, and his hand was not trustworthy. The spy would have been no +spy if he had failed to see it, or to record it in his mind. + +Having made, at least, this one hit, whatever it might prove to be +worth, and no customers coming in to help him to any other, Mr. Barsad +paid for what he had drunk, and took his leave: taking occasion to say, +in a genteel manner, before he departed, that he looked forward to the +pleasure of seeing Monsieur and Madame Defarge again. For some minutes +after he had emerged into the outer presence of Saint Antoine, the +husband and wife remained exactly as he had left them, lest he should +come back. + +"Can it be true," said Defarge, in a low voice, looking down at his wife +as he stood smoking with his hand on the back of her chair: "what he has +said of Ma'amselle Manette?" + +"As he has said it," returned madame, lifting her eyebrows a little, "it +is probably false. But it may be true." + +"If it is--" Defarge began, and stopped. + +"If it is?" repeated his wife. + +"--And if it does come, while we live to see it triumph--I hope, for her +sake, Destiny will keep her husband out of France." + +"Her husband's destiny," said Madame Defarge, with her usual composure, +"will take him where he is to go, and will lead him to the end that is +to end him. That is all I know." + +"But it is very strange--now, at least, is it not very strange"--said +Defarge, rather pleading with his wife to induce her to admit it, +"that, after all our sympathy for Monsieur her father, and herself, her +husband's name should be proscribed under your hand at this moment, by +the side of that infernal dog's who has just left us?" + +"Stranger things than that will happen when it does come," answered +madame. "I have them both here, of a certainty; and they are both here +for their merits; that is enough." + +She rolled up her knitting when she had said those words, and presently +took the rose out of the handkerchief that was wound about her head. +Either Saint Antoine had an instinctive sense that the objectionable +decoration was gone, or Saint Antoine was on the watch for its +disappearance; howbeit, the Saint took courage to lounge in, very +shortly afterwards, and the wine-shop recovered its habitual aspect. + +In the evening, at which season of all others Saint Antoine turned +himself inside out, and sat on door-steps and window-ledges, and came +to the corners of vile streets and courts, for a breath of air, Madame +Defarge with her work in her hand was accustomed to pass from place +to place and from group to group: a Missionary--there were many like +her--such as the world will do well never to breed again. All the women +knitted. They knitted worthless things; but, the mechanical work was a +mechanical substitute for eating and drinking; the hands moved for the +jaws and the digestive apparatus: if the bony fingers had been still, +the stomachs would have been more famine-pinched. + +But, as the fingers went, the eyes went, and the thoughts. And as Madame +Defarge moved on from group to group, all three went quicker and fiercer +among every little knot of women that she had spoken with, and left +behind. + +Her husband smoked at his door, looking after her with admiration. "A +great woman," said he, "a strong woman, a grand woman, a frightfully +grand woman!" + +Darkness closed around, and then came the ringing of church bells and +the distant beating of the military drums in the Palace Courtyard, as +the women sat knitting, knitting. Darkness encompassed them. Another +darkness was closing in as surely, when the church bells, then ringing +pleasantly in many an airy steeple over France, should be melted into +thundering cannon; when the military drums should be beating to drown a +wretched voice, that night all potent as the voice of Power and Plenty, +Freedom and Life. So much was closing in about the women who sat +knitting, knitting, that they their very selves were closing in around +a structure yet unbuilt, where they were to sit knitting, knitting, +counting dropping heads. + + + + +XVII. One Night + + +Never did the sun go down with a brighter glory on the quiet corner in +Soho, than one memorable evening when the Doctor and his daughter sat +under the plane-tree together. Never did the moon rise with a milder +radiance over great London, than on that night when it found them still +seated under the tree, and shone upon their faces through its leaves. + +Lucie was to be married to-morrow. She had reserved this last evening +for her father, and they sat alone under the plane-tree. + +"You are happy, my dear father?" + +"Quite, my child." + +They had said little, though they had been there a long time. When it +was yet light enough to work and read, she had neither engaged herself +in her usual work, nor had she read to him. She had employed herself in +both ways, at his side under the tree, many and many a time; but, this +time was not quite like any other, and nothing could make it so. + +"And I am very happy to-night, dear father. I am deeply happy in the +love that Heaven has so blessed--my love for Charles, and Charles's love +for me. But, if my life were not to be still consecrated to you, or +if my marriage were so arranged as that it would part us, even by +the length of a few of these streets, I should be more unhappy and +self-reproachful now than I can tell you. Even as it is--" + +Even as it was, she could not command her voice. + +In the sad moonlight, she clasped him by the neck, and laid her face +upon his breast. In the moonlight which is always sad, as the light of +the sun itself is--as the light called human life is--at its coming and +its going. + +"Dearest dear! Can you tell me, this last time, that you feel quite, +quite sure, no new affections of mine, and no new duties of mine, will +ever interpose between us? _I_ know it well, but do you know it? In your +own heart, do you feel quite certain?" + +Her father answered, with a cheerful firmness of conviction he could +scarcely have assumed, "Quite sure, my darling! More than that," he +added, as he tenderly kissed her: "my future is far brighter, Lucie, +seen through your marriage, than it could have been--nay, than it ever +was--without it." + +"If I could hope _that_, my father!--" + +"Believe it, love! Indeed it is so. Consider how natural and how plain +it is, my dear, that it should be so. You, devoted and young, cannot +fully appreciate the anxiety I have felt that your life should not be +wasted--" + +She moved her hand towards his lips, but he took it in his, and repeated +the word. + +"--wasted, my child--should not be wasted, struck aside from the +natural order of things--for my sake. Your unselfishness cannot entirely +comprehend how much my mind has gone on this; but, only ask yourself, +how could my happiness be perfect, while yours was incomplete?" + +"If I had never seen Charles, my father, I should have been quite happy +with you." + +He smiled at her unconscious admission that she would have been unhappy +without Charles, having seen him; and replied: + +"My child, you did see him, and it is Charles. If it had not been +Charles, it would have been another. Or, if it had been no other, I +should have been the cause, and then the dark part of my life would have +cast its shadow beyond myself, and would have fallen on you." + +It was the first time, except at the trial, of her ever hearing him +refer to the period of his suffering. It gave her a strange and new +sensation while his words were in her ears; and she remembered it long +afterwards. + +"See!" said the Doctor of Beauvais, raising his hand towards the moon. +"I have looked at her from my prison-window, when I could not bear her +light. I have looked at her when it has been such torture to me to think +of her shining upon what I had lost, that I have beaten my head against +my prison-walls. I have looked at her, in a state so dull and lethargic, +that I have thought of nothing but the number of horizontal lines I +could draw across her at the full, and the number of perpendicular lines +with which I could intersect them." He added in his inward and pondering +manner, as he looked at the moon, "It was twenty either way, I remember, +and the twentieth was difficult to squeeze in." + +The strange thrill with which she heard him go back to that time, +deepened as he dwelt upon it; but, there was nothing to shock her in +the manner of his reference. He only seemed to contrast his present +cheerfulness and felicity with the dire endurance that was over. + +"I have looked at her, speculating thousands of times upon the unborn +child from whom I had been rent. Whether it was alive. Whether it had +been born alive, or the poor mother's shock had killed it. Whether it +was a son who would some day avenge his father. (There was a time in my +imprisonment, when my desire for vengeance was unbearable.) Whether it +was a son who would never know his father's story; who might even live +to weigh the possibility of his father's having disappeared of his own +will and act. Whether it was a daughter who would grow to be a woman." + +She drew closer to him, and kissed his cheek and his hand. + +"I have pictured my daughter, to myself, as perfectly forgetful of +me--rather, altogether ignorant of me, and unconscious of me. I have +cast up the years of her age, year after year. I have seen her married +to a man who knew nothing of my fate. I have altogether perished from +the remembrance of the living, and in the next generation my place was a +blank." + +"My father! Even to hear that you had such thoughts of a daughter who +never existed, strikes to my heart as if I had been that child." + +"You, Lucie? It is out of the Consolation and restoration you have +brought to me, that these remembrances arise, and pass between us and +the moon on this last night.--What did I say just now?" + +"She knew nothing of you. She cared nothing for you." + +"So! But on other moonlight nights, when the sadness and the silence +have touched me in a different way--have affected me with something as +like a sorrowful sense of peace, as any emotion that had pain for its +foundations could--I have imagined her as coming to me in my cell, and +leading me out into the freedom beyond the fortress. I have seen her +image in the moonlight often, as I now see you; except that I never held +her in my arms; it stood between the little grated window and the door. +But, you understand that that was not the child I am speaking of?" + +"The figure was not; the--the--image; the fancy?" + +"No. That was another thing. It stood before my disturbed sense of +sight, but it never moved. The phantom that my mind pursued, was another +and more real child. Of her outward appearance I know no more than +that she was like her mother. The other had that likeness too--as you +have--but was not the same. Can you follow me, Lucie? Hardly, I think? +I doubt you must have been a solitary prisoner to understand these +perplexed distinctions." + +His collected and calm manner could not prevent her blood from running +cold, as he thus tried to anatomise his old condition. + +"In that more peaceful state, I have imagined her, in the moonlight, +coming to me and taking me out to show me that the home of her married +life was full of her loving remembrance of her lost father. My picture +was in her room, and I was in her prayers. Her life was active, +cheerful, useful; but my poor history pervaded it all." + +"I was that child, my father, I was not half so good, but in my love +that was I." + +"And she showed me her children," said the Doctor of Beauvais, "and +they had heard of me, and had been taught to pity me. When they passed +a prison of the State, they kept far from its frowning walls, and looked +up at its bars, and spoke in whispers. She could never deliver me; I +imagined that she always brought me back after showing me such things. +But then, blessed with the relief of tears, I fell upon my knees, and +blessed her." + +"I am that child, I hope, my father. O my dear, my dear, will you bless +me as fervently to-morrow?" + +"Lucie, I recall these old troubles in the reason that I have to-night +for loving you better than words can tell, and thanking God for my great +happiness. My thoughts, when they were wildest, never rose near the +happiness that I have known with you, and that we have before us." + +He embraced her, solemnly commended her to Heaven, and humbly thanked +Heaven for having bestowed her on him. By-and-bye, they went into the +house. + +There was no one bidden to the marriage but Mr. Lorry; there was even to +be no bridesmaid but the gaunt Miss Pross. The marriage was to make no +change in their place of residence; they had been able to extend it, +by taking to themselves the upper rooms formerly belonging to the +apocryphal invisible lodger, and they desired nothing more. + +Doctor Manette was very cheerful at the little supper. They were only +three at table, and Miss Pross made the third. He regretted that Charles +was not there; was more than half disposed to object to the loving +little plot that kept him away; and drank to him affectionately. + +So, the time came for him to bid Lucie good night, and they separated. +But, in the stillness of the third hour of the morning, Lucie came +downstairs again, and stole into his room; not free from unshaped fears, +beforehand. + +All things, however, were in their places; all was quiet; and he lay +asleep, his white hair picturesque on the untroubled pillow, and his +hands lying quiet on the coverlet. She put her needless candle in the +shadow at a distance, crept up to his bed, and put her lips to his; +then, leaned over him, and looked at him. + +Into his handsome face, the bitter waters of captivity had worn; but, he +covered up their tracks with a determination so strong, that he held the +mastery of them even in his sleep. A more remarkable face in its quiet, +resolute, and guarded struggle with an unseen assailant, was not to be +beheld in all the wide dominions of sleep, that night. + +She timidly laid her hand on his dear breast, and put up a prayer that +she might ever be as true to him as her love aspired to be, and as his +sorrows deserved. Then, she withdrew her hand, and kissed his lips once +more, and went away. So, the sunrise came, and the shadows of the leaves +of the plane-tree moved upon his face, as softly as her lips had moved +in praying for him. + + + + +XVIII. Nine Days + + +The marriage-day was shining brightly, and they were ready outside the +closed door of the Doctor's room, where he was speaking with Charles +Darnay. They were ready to go to church; the beautiful bride, Mr. +Lorry, and Miss Pross--to whom the event, through a gradual process of +reconcilement to the inevitable, would have been one of absolute bliss, +but for the yet lingering consideration that her brother Solomon should +have been the bridegroom. + +"And so," said Mr. Lorry, who could not sufficiently admire the bride, +and who had been moving round her to take in every point of her quiet, +pretty dress; "and so it was for this, my sweet Lucie, that I brought +you across the Channel, such a baby! Lord bless me! How little I thought +what I was doing! How lightly I valued the obligation I was conferring +on my friend Mr. Charles!" + +"You didn't mean it," remarked the matter-of-fact Miss Pross, "and +therefore how could you know it? Nonsense!" + +"Really? Well; but don't cry," said the gentle Mr. Lorry. + +"I am not crying," said Miss Pross; "_you_ are." + +"I, my Pross?" (By this time, Mr. Lorry dared to be pleasant with her, +on occasion.) + +"You were, just now; I saw you do it, and I don't wonder at it. Such +a present of plate as you have made 'em, is enough to bring tears into +anybody's eyes. There's not a fork or a spoon in the collection," said +Miss Pross, "that I didn't cry over, last night after the box came, till +I couldn't see it." + +"I am highly gratified," said Mr. Lorry, "though, upon my honour, I +had no intention of rendering those trifling articles of remembrance +invisible to any one. Dear me! This is an occasion that makes a man +speculate on all he has lost. Dear, dear, dear! To think that there +might have been a Mrs. Lorry, any time these fifty years almost!" + +"Not at all!" From Miss Pross. + +"You think there never might have been a Mrs. Lorry?" asked the +gentleman of that name. + +"Pooh!" rejoined Miss Pross; "you were a bachelor in your cradle." + +"Well!" observed Mr. Lorry, beamingly adjusting his little wig, "that +seems probable, too." + +"And you were cut out for a bachelor," pursued Miss Pross, "before you +were put in your cradle." + +"Then, I think," said Mr. Lorry, "that I was very unhandsomely dealt +with, and that I ought to have had a voice in the selection of my +pattern. Enough! Now, my dear Lucie," drawing his arm soothingly round +her waist, "I hear them moving in the next room, and Miss Pross and +I, as two formal folks of business, are anxious not to lose the final +opportunity of saying something to you that you wish to hear. You leave +your good father, my dear, in hands as earnest and as loving as your +own; he shall be taken every conceivable care of; during the next +fortnight, while you are in Warwickshire and thereabouts, even Tellson's +shall go to the wall (comparatively speaking) before him. And when, at +the fortnight's end, he comes to join you and your beloved husband, on +your other fortnight's trip in Wales, you shall say that we have sent +him to you in the best health and in the happiest frame. Now, I hear +Somebody's step coming to the door. Let me kiss my dear girl with an +old-fashioned bachelor blessing, before Somebody comes to claim his +own." + +For a moment, he held the fair face from him to look at the +well-remembered expression on the forehead, and then laid the bright +golden hair against his little brown wig, with a genuine tenderness and +delicacy which, if such things be old-fashioned, were as old as Adam. + +The door of the Doctor's room opened, and he came out with Charles +Darnay. He was so deadly pale--which had not been the case when they +went in together--that no vestige of colour was to be seen in his face. +But, in the composure of his manner he was unaltered, except that to the +shrewd glance of Mr. Lorry it disclosed some shadowy indication that the +old air of avoidance and dread had lately passed over him, like a cold +wind. + +He gave his arm to his daughter, and took her down-stairs to the chariot +which Mr. Lorry had hired in honour of the day. The rest followed in +another carriage, and soon, in a neighbouring church, where no strange +eyes looked on, Charles Darnay and Lucie Manette were happily married. + +Besides the glancing tears that shone among the smiles of the little +group when it was done, some diamonds, very bright and sparkling, +glanced on the bride's hand, which were newly released from the +dark obscurity of one of Mr. Lorry's pockets. They returned home to +breakfast, and all went well, and in due course the golden hair that had +mingled with the poor shoemaker's white locks in the Paris garret, were +mingled with them again in the morning sunlight, on the threshold of the +door at parting. + +It was a hard parting, though it was not for long. But her father +cheered her, and said at last, gently disengaging himself from her +enfolding arms, "Take her, Charles! She is yours!" + +And her agitated hand waved to them from a chaise window, and she was +gone. + +The corner being out of the way of the idle and curious, and the +preparations having been very simple and few, the Doctor, Mr. Lorry, +and Miss Pross, were left quite alone. It was when they turned into +the welcome shade of the cool old hall, that Mr. Lorry observed a great +change to have come over the Doctor; as if the golden arm uplifted +there, had struck him a poisoned blow. + +He had naturally repressed much, and some revulsion might have been +expected in him when the occasion for repression was gone. But, it was +the old scared lost look that troubled Mr. Lorry; and through his absent +manner of clasping his head and drearily wandering away into his own +room when they got up-stairs, Mr. Lorry was reminded of Defarge the +wine-shop keeper, and the starlight ride. + +"I think," he whispered to Miss Pross, after anxious consideration, "I +think we had best not speak to him just now, or at all disturb him. +I must look in at Tellson's; so I will go there at once and come back +presently. Then, we will take him a ride into the country, and dine +there, and all will be well." + +It was easier for Mr. Lorry to look in at Tellson's, than to look out of +Tellson's. He was detained two hours. When he came back, he ascended the +old staircase alone, having asked no question of the servant; going thus +into the Doctor's rooms, he was stopped by a low sound of knocking. + +"Good God!" he said, with a start. "What's that?" + +Miss Pross, with a terrified face, was at his ear. "O me, O me! All is +lost!" cried she, wringing her hands. "What is to be told to Ladybird? +He doesn't know me, and is making shoes!" + +Mr. Lorry said what he could to calm her, and went himself into the +Doctor's room. The bench was turned towards the light, as it had been +when he had seen the shoemaker at his work before, and his head was bent +down, and he was very busy. + +"Doctor Manette. My dear friend, Doctor Manette!" + +The Doctor looked at him for a moment--half inquiringly, half as if he +were angry at being spoken to--and bent over his work again. + +He had laid aside his coat and waistcoat; his shirt was open at the +throat, as it used to be when he did that work; and even the old +haggard, faded surface of face had come back to him. He worked +hard--impatiently--as if in some sense of having been interrupted. + +Mr. Lorry glanced at the work in his hand, and observed that it was a +shoe of the old size and shape. He took up another that was lying by +him, and asked what it was. + +"A young lady's walking shoe," he muttered, without looking up. "It +ought to have been finished long ago. Let it be." + +"But, Doctor Manette. Look at me!" + +He obeyed, in the old mechanically submissive manner, without pausing in +his work. + +"You know me, my dear friend? Think again. This is not your proper +occupation. Think, dear friend!" + +Nothing would induce him to speak more. He looked up, for an instant at +a time, when he was requested to do so; but, no persuasion would extract +a word from him. He worked, and worked, and worked, in silence, and +words fell on him as they would have fallen on an echoless wall, or on +the air. The only ray of hope that Mr. Lorry could discover, was, that +he sometimes furtively looked up without being asked. In that, there +seemed a faint expression of curiosity or perplexity--as though he were +trying to reconcile some doubts in his mind. + +Two things at once impressed themselves on Mr. Lorry, as important above +all others; the first, that this must be kept secret from Lucie; +the second, that it must be kept secret from all who knew him. In +conjunction with Miss Pross, he took immediate steps towards the latter +precaution, by giving out that the Doctor was not well, and required a +few days of complete rest. In aid of the kind deception to be practised +on his daughter, Miss Pross was to write, describing his having been +called away professionally, and referring to an imaginary letter of +two or three hurried lines in his own hand, represented to have been +addressed to her by the same post. + +These measures, advisable to be taken in any case, Mr. Lorry took in +the hope of his coming to himself. If that should happen soon, he kept +another course in reserve; which was, to have a certain opinion that he +thought the best, on the Doctor's case. + +In the hope of his recovery, and of resort to this third course +being thereby rendered practicable, Mr. Lorry resolved to watch him +attentively, with as little appearance as possible of doing so. He +therefore made arrangements to absent himself from Tellson's for the +first time in his life, and took his post by the window in the same +room. + +He was not long in discovering that it was worse than useless to speak +to him, since, on being pressed, he became worried. He abandoned that +attempt on the first day, and resolved merely to keep himself always +before him, as a silent protest against the delusion into which he had +fallen, or was falling. He remained, therefore, in his seat near the +window, reading and writing, and expressing in as many pleasant and +natural ways as he could think of, that it was a free place. + +Doctor Manette took what was given him to eat and drink, and worked on, +that first day, until it was too dark to see--worked on, half an hour +after Mr. Lorry could not have seen, for his life, to read or write. +When he put his tools aside as useless, until morning, Mr. Lorry rose +and said to him: + +"Will you go out?" + +He looked down at the floor on either side of him in the old manner, +looked up in the old manner, and repeated in the old low voice: + +"Out?" + +"Yes; for a walk with me. Why not?" + +He made no effort to say why not, and said not a word more. But, Mr. +Lorry thought he saw, as he leaned forward on his bench in the dusk, +with his elbows on his knees and his head in his hands, that he was in +some misty way asking himself, "Why not?" The sagacity of the man of +business perceived an advantage here, and determined to hold it. + +Miss Pross and he divided the night into two watches, and observed him +at intervals from the adjoining room. He paced up and down for a long +time before he lay down; but, when he did finally lay himself down, he +fell asleep. In the morning, he was up betimes, and went straight to his +bench and to work. + +On this second day, Mr. Lorry saluted him cheerfully by his name, +and spoke to him on topics that had been of late familiar to them. He +returned no reply, but it was evident that he heard what was said, and +that he thought about it, however confusedly. This encouraged Mr. Lorry +to have Miss Pross in with her work, several times during the day; +at those times, they quietly spoke of Lucie, and of her father then +present, precisely in the usual manner, and as if there were nothing +amiss. This was done without any demonstrative accompaniment, not long +enough, or often enough to harass him; and it lightened Mr. Lorry's +friendly heart to believe that he looked up oftener, and that he +appeared to be stirred by some perception of inconsistencies surrounding +him. + +When it fell dark again, Mr. Lorry asked him as before: + +"Dear Doctor, will you go out?" + +As before, he repeated, "Out?" + +"Yes; for a walk with me. Why not?" + +This time, Mr. Lorry feigned to go out when he could extract no answer +from him, and, after remaining absent for an hour, returned. In the +meanwhile, the Doctor had removed to the seat in the window, and had +sat there looking down at the plane-tree; but, on Mr. Lorry's return, he +slipped away to his bench. + +The time went very slowly on, and Mr. Lorry's hope darkened, and his +heart grew heavier again, and grew yet heavier and heavier every day. +The third day came and went, the fourth, the fifth. Five days, six days, +seven days, eight days, nine days. + +With a hope ever darkening, and with a heart always growing heavier and +heavier, Mr. Lorry passed through this anxious time. The secret was +well kept, and Lucie was unconscious and happy; but he could not fail to +observe that the shoemaker, whose hand had been a little out at first, +was growing dreadfully skilful, and that he had never been so intent on +his work, and that his hands had never been so nimble and expert, as in +the dusk of the ninth evening. + + + + +XIX. An Opinion + + +Worn out by anxious watching, Mr. Lorry fell asleep at his post. On the +tenth morning of his suspense, he was startled by the shining of the sun +into the room where a heavy slumber had overtaken him when it was dark +night. + +He rubbed his eyes and roused himself; but he doubted, when he had +done so, whether he was not still asleep. For, going to the door of the +Doctor's room and looking in, he perceived that the shoemaker's bench +and tools were put aside again, and that the Doctor himself sat reading +at the window. He was in his usual morning dress, and his face (which +Mr. Lorry could distinctly see), though still very pale, was calmly +studious and attentive. + +Even when he had satisfied himself that he was awake, Mr. Lorry felt +giddily uncertain for some few moments whether the late shoemaking might +not be a disturbed dream of his own; for, did not his eyes show him his +friend before him in his accustomed clothing and aspect, and employed +as usual; and was there any sign within their range, that the change of +which he had so strong an impression had actually happened? + +It was but the inquiry of his first confusion and astonishment, the +answer being obvious. If the impression were not produced by a real +corresponding and sufficient cause, how came he, Jarvis Lorry, there? +How came he to have fallen asleep, in his clothes, on the sofa in Doctor +Manette's consulting-room, and to be debating these points outside the +Doctor's bedroom door in the early morning? + +Within a few minutes, Miss Pross stood whispering at his side. If he +had had any particle of doubt left, her talk would of necessity have +resolved it; but he was by that time clear-headed, and had none. +He advised that they should let the time go by until the regular +breakfast-hour, and should then meet the Doctor as if nothing unusual +had occurred. If he appeared to be in his customary state of mind, Mr. +Lorry would then cautiously proceed to seek direction and guidance from +the opinion he had been, in his anxiety, so anxious to obtain. + +Miss Pross, submitting herself to his judgment, the scheme was worked +out with care. Having abundance of time for his usual methodical +toilette, Mr. Lorry presented himself at the breakfast-hour in his usual +white linen, and with his usual neat leg. The Doctor was summoned in the +usual way, and came to breakfast. + +So far as it was possible to comprehend him without overstepping those +delicate and gradual approaches which Mr. Lorry felt to be the only safe +advance, he at first supposed that his daughter's marriage had taken +place yesterday. An incidental allusion, purposely thrown out, to +the day of the week, and the day of the month, set him thinking and +counting, and evidently made him uneasy. In all other respects, however, +he was so composedly himself, that Mr. Lorry determined to have the aid +he sought. And that aid was his own. + +Therefore, when the breakfast was done and cleared away, and he and the +Doctor were left together, Mr. Lorry said, feelingly: + +"My dear Manette, I am anxious to have your opinion, in confidence, on a +very curious case in which I am deeply interested; that is to say, it is +very curious to me; perhaps, to your better information it may be less +so." + +Glancing at his hands, which were discoloured by his late work, the +Doctor looked troubled, and listened attentively. He had already glanced +at his hands more than once. + +"Doctor Manette," said Mr. Lorry, touching him affectionately on the +arm, "the case is the case of a particularly dear friend of mine. Pray +give your mind to it, and advise me well for his sake--and above all, +for his daughter's--his daughter's, my dear Manette." + +"If I understand," said the Doctor, in a subdued tone, "some mental +shock--?" + +"Yes!" + +"Be explicit," said the Doctor. "Spare no detail." + +Mr. Lorry saw that they understood one another, and proceeded. + +"My dear Manette, it is the case of an old and a prolonged shock, +of great acuteness and severity to the affections, the feelings, +the--the--as you express it--the mind. The mind. It is the case of a +shock under which the sufferer was borne down, one cannot say for how +long, because I believe he cannot calculate the time himself, and there +are no other means of getting at it. It is the case of a shock from +which the sufferer recovered, by a process that he cannot trace +himself--as I once heard him publicly relate in a striking manner. It is +the case of a shock from which he has recovered, so completely, as to +be a highly intelligent man, capable of close application of mind, and +great exertion of body, and of constantly making fresh additions to his +stock of knowledge, which was already very large. But, unfortunately, +there has been," he paused and took a deep breath--"a slight relapse." + +The Doctor, in a low voice, asked, "Of how long duration?" + +"Nine days and nights." + +"How did it show itself? I infer," glancing at his hands again, "in the +resumption of some old pursuit connected with the shock?" + +"That is the fact." + +"Now, did you ever see him," asked the Doctor, distinctly and +collectedly, though in the same low voice, "engaged in that pursuit +originally?" + +"Once." + +"And when the relapse fell on him, was he in most respects--or in all +respects--as he was then?" + +"I think in all respects." + +"You spoke of his daughter. Does his daughter know of the relapse?" + +"No. It has been kept from her, and I hope will always be kept from her. +It is known only to myself, and to one other who may be trusted." + +The Doctor grasped his hand, and murmured, "That was very kind. That was +very thoughtful!" Mr. Lorry grasped his hand in return, and neither of +the two spoke for a little while. + +"Now, my dear Manette," said Mr. Lorry, at length, in his most +considerate and most affectionate way, "I am a mere man of business, +and unfit to cope with such intricate and difficult matters. I do not +possess the kind of information necessary; I do not possess the kind of +intelligence; I want guiding. There is no man in this world on whom +I could so rely for right guidance, as on you. Tell me, how does this +relapse come about? Is there danger of another? Could a repetition of it +be prevented? How should a repetition of it be treated? How does it come +about at all? What can I do for my friend? No man ever can have been +more desirous in his heart to serve a friend, than I am to serve mine, +if I knew how. + +"But I don't know how to originate, in such a case. If your sagacity, +knowledge, and experience, could put me on the right track, I might be +able to do so much; unenlightened and undirected, I can do so little. +Pray discuss it with me; pray enable me to see it a little more clearly, +and teach me how to be a little more useful." + +Doctor Manette sat meditating after these earnest words were spoken, and +Mr. Lorry did not press him. + +"I think it probable," said the Doctor, breaking silence with an effort, +"that the relapse you have described, my dear friend, was not quite +unforeseen by its subject." + +"Was it dreaded by him?" Mr. Lorry ventured to ask. + +"Very much." He said it with an involuntary shudder. + +"You have no idea how such an apprehension weighs on the sufferer's +mind, and how difficult--how almost impossible--it is, for him to force +himself to utter a word upon the topic that oppresses him." + +"Would he," asked Mr. Lorry, "be sensibly relieved if he could prevail +upon himself to impart that secret brooding to any one, when it is on +him?" + +"I think so. But it is, as I have told you, next to impossible. I even +believe it--in some cases--to be quite impossible." + +"Now," said Mr. Lorry, gently laying his hand on the Doctor's arm again, +after a short silence on both sides, "to what would you refer this +attack?" + +"I believe," returned Doctor Manette, "that there had been a strong and +extraordinary revival of the train of thought and remembrance that +was the first cause of the malady. Some intense associations of a most +distressing nature were vividly recalled, I think. It is probable that +there had long been a dread lurking in his mind, that those associations +would be recalled--say, under certain circumstances--say, on a +particular occasion. He tried to prepare himself in vain; perhaps the +effort to prepare himself made him less able to bear it." + +"Would he remember what took place in the relapse?" asked Mr. Lorry, +with natural hesitation. + +The Doctor looked desolately round the room, shook his head, and +answered, in a low voice, "Not at all." + +"Now, as to the future," hinted Mr. Lorry. + +"As to the future," said the Doctor, recovering firmness, "I should have +great hope. As it pleased Heaven in its mercy to restore him so soon, I +should have great hope. He, yielding under the pressure of a complicated +something, long dreaded and long vaguely foreseen and contended against, +and recovering after the cloud had burst and passed, I should hope that +the worst was over." + +"Well, well! That's good comfort. I am thankful!" said Mr. Lorry. + +"I am thankful!" repeated the Doctor, bending his head with reverence. + +"There are two other points," said Mr. Lorry, "on which I am anxious to +be instructed. I may go on?" + +"You cannot do your friend a better service." The Doctor gave him his +hand. + +"To the first, then. He is of a studious habit, and unusually energetic; +he applies himself with great ardour to the acquisition of professional +knowledge, to the conducting of experiments, to many things. Now, does +he do too much?" + +"I think not. It may be the character of his mind, to be always in +singular need of occupation. That may be, in part, natural to it; in +part, the result of affliction. The less it was occupied with healthy +things, the more it would be in danger of turning in the unhealthy +direction. He may have observed himself, and made the discovery." + +"You are sure that he is not under too great a strain?" + +"I think I am quite sure of it." + +"My dear Manette, if he were overworked now--" + +"My dear Lorry, I doubt if that could easily be. There has been a +violent stress in one direction, and it needs a counterweight." + +"Excuse me, as a persistent man of business. Assuming for a moment, +that he _was_ overworked; it would show itself in some renewal of this +disorder?" + +"I do not think so. I do not think," said Doctor Manette with the +firmness of self-conviction, "that anything but the one train of +association would renew it. I think that, henceforth, nothing but some +extraordinary jarring of that chord could renew it. After what has +happened, and after his recovery, I find it difficult to imagine any +such violent sounding of that string again. I trust, and I almost +believe, that the circumstances likely to renew it are exhausted." + +He spoke with the diffidence of a man who knew how slight a thing +would overset the delicate organisation of the mind, and yet with the +confidence of a man who had slowly won his assurance out of personal +endurance and distress. It was not for his friend to abate that +confidence. He professed himself more relieved and encouraged than he +really was, and approached his second and last point. He felt it to +be the most difficult of all; but, remembering his old Sunday morning +conversation with Miss Pross, and remembering what he had seen in the +last nine days, he knew that he must face it. + +"The occupation resumed under the influence of this passing affliction +so happily recovered from," said Mr. Lorry, clearing his throat, "we +will call--Blacksmith's work, Blacksmith's work. We will say, to put a +case and for the sake of illustration, that he had been used, in his bad +time, to work at a little forge. We will say that he was unexpectedly +found at his forge again. Is it not a pity that he should keep it by +him?" + +The Doctor shaded his forehead with his hand, and beat his foot +nervously on the ground. + +"He has always kept it by him," said Mr. Lorry, with an anxious look at +his friend. "Now, would it not be better that he should let it go?" + +Still, the Doctor, with shaded forehead, beat his foot nervously on the +ground. + +"You do not find it easy to advise me?" said Mr. Lorry. "I quite +understand it to be a nice question. And yet I think--" And there he +shook his head, and stopped. + +"You see," said Doctor Manette, turning to him after an uneasy pause, +"it is very hard to explain, consistently, the innermost workings +of this poor man's mind. He once yearned so frightfully for that +occupation, and it was so welcome when it came; no doubt it relieved +his pain so much, by substituting the perplexity of the fingers for +the perplexity of the brain, and by substituting, as he became more +practised, the ingenuity of the hands, for the ingenuity of the mental +torture; that he has never been able to bear the thought of putting it +quite out of his reach. Even now, when I believe he is more hopeful of +himself than he has ever been, and even speaks of himself with a kind +of confidence, the idea that he might need that old employment, and not +find it, gives him a sudden sense of terror, like that which one may +fancy strikes to the heart of a lost child." + +He looked like his illustration, as he raised his eyes to Mr. Lorry's +face. + +"But may not--mind! I ask for information, as a plodding man of business +who only deals with such material objects as guineas, shillings, and +bank-notes--may not the retention of the thing involve the retention of +the idea? If the thing were gone, my dear Manette, might not the fear go +with it? In short, is it not a concession to the misgiving, to keep the +forge?" + +There was another silence. + +"You see, too," said the Doctor, tremulously, "it is such an old +companion." + +"I would not keep it," said Mr. Lorry, shaking his head; for he gained +in firmness as he saw the Doctor disquieted. "I would recommend him to +sacrifice it. I only want your authority. I am sure it does no good. +Come! Give me your authority, like a dear good man. For his daughter's +sake, my dear Manette!" + +Very strange to see what a struggle there was within him! + +"In her name, then, let it be done; I sanction it. But, I would not take +it away while he was present. Let it be removed when he is not there; +let him miss his old companion after an absence." + +Mr. Lorry readily engaged for that, and the conference was ended. They +passed the day in the country, and the Doctor was quite restored. On the +three following days he remained perfectly well, and on the fourteenth +day he went away to join Lucie and her husband. The precaution that +had been taken to account for his silence, Mr. Lorry had previously +explained to him, and he had written to Lucie in accordance with it, and +she had no suspicions. + +On the night of the day on which he left the house, Mr. Lorry went into +his room with a chopper, saw, chisel, and hammer, attended by Miss Pross +carrying a light. There, with closed doors, and in a mysterious and +guilty manner, Mr. Lorry hacked the shoemaker's bench to pieces, while +Miss Pross held the candle as if she were assisting at a murder--for +which, indeed, in her grimness, she was no unsuitable figure. The +burning of the body (previously reduced to pieces convenient for the +purpose) was commenced without delay in the kitchen fire; and the tools, +shoes, and leather, were buried in the garden. So wicked do destruction +and secrecy appear to honest minds, that Mr. Lorry and Miss Pross, +while engaged in the commission of their deed and in the removal of its +traces, almost felt, and almost looked, like accomplices in a horrible +crime. + + + + +XX. A Plea + + +When the newly-married pair came home, the first person who appeared, to +offer his congratulations, was Sydney Carton. They had not been at home +many hours, when he presented himself. He was not improved in habits, or +in looks, or in manner; but there was a certain rugged air of fidelity +about him, which was new to the observation of Charles Darnay. + +He watched his opportunity of taking Darnay aside into a window, and of +speaking to him when no one overheard. + +"Mr. Darnay," said Carton, "I wish we might be friends." + +"We are already friends, I hope." + +"You are good enough to say so, as a fashion of speech; but, I don't +mean any fashion of speech. Indeed, when I say I wish we might be +friends, I scarcely mean quite that, either." + +Charles Darnay--as was natural--asked him, in all good-humour and +good-fellowship, what he did mean? + +"Upon my life," said Carton, smiling, "I find that easier to comprehend +in my own mind, than to convey to yours. However, let me try. You +remember a certain famous occasion when I was more drunk than--than +usual?" + +"I remember a certain famous occasion when you forced me to confess that +you had been drinking." + +"I remember it too. The curse of those occasions is heavy upon me, for I +always remember them. I hope it may be taken into account one day, +when all days are at an end for me! Don't be alarmed; I am not going to +preach." + +"I am not at all alarmed. Earnestness in you, is anything but alarming +to me." + +"Ah!" said Carton, with a careless wave of his hand, as if he waved that +away. "On the drunken occasion in question (one of a large number, as +you know), I was insufferable about liking you, and not liking you. I +wish you would forget it." + +"I forgot it long ago." + +"Fashion of speech again! But, Mr. Darnay, oblivion is not so easy to +me, as you represent it to be to you. I have by no means forgotten it, +and a light answer does not help me to forget it." + +"If it was a light answer," returned Darnay, "I beg your forgiveness +for it. I had no other object than to turn a slight thing, which, to my +surprise, seems to trouble you too much, aside. I declare to you, on the +faith of a gentleman, that I have long dismissed it from my mind. Good +Heaven, what was there to dismiss! Have I had nothing more important to +remember, in the great service you rendered me that day?" + +"As to the great service," said Carton, "I am bound to avow to you, when +you speak of it in that way, that it was mere professional claptrap, I +don't know that I cared what became of you, when I rendered it.--Mind! I +say when I rendered it; I am speaking of the past." + +"You make light of the obligation," returned Darnay, "but I will not +quarrel with _your_ light answer." + +"Genuine truth, Mr. Darnay, trust me! I have gone aside from my purpose; +I was speaking about our being friends. Now, you know me; you know I am +incapable of all the higher and better flights of men. If you doubt it, +ask Stryver, and he'll tell you so." + +"I prefer to form my own opinion, without the aid of his." + +"Well! At any rate you know me as a dissolute dog, who has never done +any good, and never will." + +"I don't know that you 'never will.'" + +"But I do, and you must take my word for it. Well! If you could endure +to have such a worthless fellow, and a fellow of such indifferent +reputation, coming and going at odd times, I should ask that I might be +permitted to come and go as a privileged person here; that I might +be regarded as an useless (and I would add, if it were not for the +resemblance I detected between you and me, an unornamental) piece of +furniture, tolerated for its old service, and taken no notice of. I +doubt if I should abuse the permission. It is a hundred to one if I +should avail myself of it four times in a year. It would satisfy me, I +dare say, to know that I had it." + +"Will you try?" + +"That is another way of saying that I am placed on the footing I have +indicated. I thank you, Darnay. I may use that freedom with your name?" + +"I think so, Carton, by this time." + +They shook hands upon it, and Sydney turned away. Within a minute +afterwards, he was, to all outward appearance, as unsubstantial as ever. + +When he was gone, and in the course of an evening passed with Miss +Pross, the Doctor, and Mr. Lorry, Charles Darnay made some mention of +this conversation in general terms, and spoke of Sydney Carton as a +problem of carelessness and recklessness. He spoke of him, in short, not +bitterly or meaning to bear hard upon him, but as anybody might who saw +him as he showed himself. + +He had no idea that this could dwell in the thoughts of his fair young +wife; but, when he afterwards joined her in their own rooms, he found +her waiting for him with the old pretty lifting of the forehead strongly +marked. + +"We are thoughtful to-night!" said Darnay, drawing his arm about her. + +"Yes, dearest Charles," with her hands on his breast, and the inquiring +and attentive expression fixed upon him; "we are rather thoughtful +to-night, for we have something on our mind to-night." + +"What is it, my Lucie?" + +"Will you promise not to press one question on me, if I beg you not to +ask it?" + +"Will I promise? What will I not promise to my Love?" + +What, indeed, with his hand putting aside the golden hair from the +cheek, and his other hand against the heart that beat for him! + +"I think, Charles, poor Mr. Carton deserves more consideration and +respect than you expressed for him to-night." + +"Indeed, my own? Why so?" + +"That is what you are not to ask me. But I think--I know--he does." + +"If you know it, it is enough. What would you have me do, my Life?" + +"I would ask you, dearest, to be very generous with him always, and very +lenient on his faults when he is not by. I would ask you to believe that +he has a heart he very, very seldom reveals, and that there are deep +wounds in it. My dear, I have seen it bleeding." + +"It is a painful reflection to me," said Charles Darnay, quite +astounded, "that I should have done him any wrong. I never thought this +of him." + +"My husband, it is so. I fear he is not to be reclaimed; there is +scarcely a hope that anything in his character or fortunes is reparable +now. But, I am sure that he is capable of good things, gentle things, +even magnanimous things." + +She looked so beautiful in the purity of her faith in this lost man, +that her husband could have looked at her as she was for hours. + +"And, O my dearest Love!" she urged, clinging nearer to him, laying her +head upon his breast, and raising her eyes to his, "remember how strong +we are in our happiness, and how weak he is in his misery!" + +The supplication touched him home. "I will always remember it, dear +Heart! I will remember it as long as I live." + +He bent over the golden head, and put the rosy lips to his, and folded +her in his arms. If one forlorn wanderer then pacing the dark streets, +could have heard her innocent disclosure, and could have seen the drops +of pity kissed away by her husband from the soft blue eyes so loving of +that husband, he might have cried to the night--and the words would not +have parted from his lips for the first time-- + +"God bless her for her sweet compassion!" + + + + +XXI. Echoing Footsteps + + +A wonderful corner for echoes, it has been remarked, that corner where +the Doctor lived. Ever busily winding the golden thread which bound +her husband, and her father, and herself, and her old directress and +companion, in a life of quiet bliss, Lucie sat in the still house in +the tranquilly resounding corner, listening to the echoing footsteps of +years. + +At first, there were times, though she was a perfectly happy young wife, +when her work would slowly fall from her hands, and her eyes would be +dimmed. For, there was something coming in the echoes, something light, +afar off, and scarcely audible yet, that stirred her heart too much. +Fluttering hopes and doubts--hopes, of a love as yet unknown to her: +doubts, of her remaining upon earth, to enjoy that new delight--divided +her breast. Among the echoes then, there would arise the sound of +footsteps at her own early grave; and thoughts of the husband who would +be left so desolate, and who would mourn for her so much, swelled to her +eyes, and broke like waves. + +That time passed, and her little Lucie lay on her bosom. Then, among the +advancing echoes, there was the tread of her tiny feet and the sound of +her prattling words. Let greater echoes resound as they would, the young +mother at the cradle side could always hear those coming. They came, and +the shady house was sunny with a child's laugh, and the Divine friend of +children, to whom in her trouble she had confided hers, seemed to take +her child in his arms, as He took the child of old, and made it a sacred +joy to her. + +Ever busily winding the golden thread that bound them all together, +weaving the service of her happy influence through the tissue of all +their lives, and making it predominate nowhere, Lucie heard in the +echoes of years none but friendly and soothing sounds. Her husband's +step was strong and prosperous among them; her father's firm and equal. +Lo, Miss Pross, in harness of string, awakening the echoes, as an +unruly charger, whip-corrected, snorting and pawing the earth under the +plane-tree in the garden! + +Even when there were sounds of sorrow among the rest, they were not +harsh nor cruel. Even when golden hair, like her own, lay in a halo on a +pillow round the worn face of a little boy, and he said, with a radiant +smile, "Dear papa and mamma, I am very sorry to leave you both, and to +leave my pretty sister; but I am called, and I must go!" those were not +tears all of agony that wetted his young mother's cheek, as the spirit +departed from her embrace that had been entrusted to it. Suffer them and +forbid them not. They see my Father's face. O Father, blessed words! + +Thus, the rustling of an Angel's wings got blended with the other +echoes, and they were not wholly of earth, but had in them that breath +of Heaven. Sighs of the winds that blew over a little garden-tomb were +mingled with them also, and both were audible to Lucie, in a hushed +murmur--like the breathing of a summer sea asleep upon a sandy shore--as +the little Lucie, comically studious at the task of the morning, or +dressing a doll at her mother's footstool, chattered in the tongues of +the Two Cities that were blended in her life. + +The Echoes rarely answered to the actual tread of Sydney Carton. Some +half-dozen times a year, at most, he claimed his privilege of coming in +uninvited, and would sit among them through the evening, as he had once +done often. He never came there heated with wine. And one other thing +regarding him was whispered in the echoes, which has been whispered by +all true echoes for ages and ages. + +No man ever really loved a woman, lost her, and knew her with a +blameless though an unchanged mind, when she was a wife and a mother, +but her children had a strange sympathy with him--an instinctive +delicacy of pity for him. What fine hidden sensibilities are touched in +such a case, no echoes tell; but it is so, and it was so here. Carton +was the first stranger to whom little Lucie held out her chubby arms, +and he kept his place with her as she grew. The little boy had spoken of +him, almost at the last. "Poor Carton! Kiss him for me!" + +Mr. Stryver shouldered his way through the law, like some great engine +forcing itself through turbid water, and dragged his useful friend in +his wake, like a boat towed astern. As the boat so favoured is usually +in a rough plight, and mostly under water, so, Sydney had a swamped +life of it. But, easy and strong custom, unhappily so much easier and +stronger in him than any stimulating sense of desert or disgrace, made +it the life he was to lead; and he no more thought of emerging from his +state of lion's jackal, than any real jackal may be supposed to think of +rising to be a lion. Stryver was rich; had married a florid widow with +property and three boys, who had nothing particularly shining about them +but the straight hair of their dumpling heads. + +These three young gentlemen, Mr. Stryver, exuding patronage of the most +offensive quality from every pore, had walked before him like three +sheep to the quiet corner in Soho, and had offered as pupils to +Lucie's husband: delicately saying "Halloa! here are three lumps of +bread-and-cheese towards your matrimonial picnic, Darnay!" The polite +rejection of the three lumps of bread-and-cheese had quite bloated Mr. +Stryver with indignation, which he afterwards turned to account in the +training of the young gentlemen, by directing them to beware of the +pride of Beggars, like that tutor-fellow. He was also in the habit of +declaiming to Mrs. Stryver, over his full-bodied wine, on the arts +Mrs. Darnay had once put in practice to "catch" him, and on the +diamond-cut-diamond arts in himself, madam, which had rendered him "not +to be caught." Some of his King's Bench familiars, who were occasionally +parties to the full-bodied wine and the lie, excused him for the +latter by saying that he had told it so often, that he believed +it himself--which is surely such an incorrigible aggravation of an +originally bad offence, as to justify any such offender's being carried +off to some suitably retired spot, and there hanged out of the way. + +These were among the echoes to which Lucie, sometimes pensive, sometimes +amused and laughing, listened in the echoing corner, until her little +daughter was six years old. How near to her heart the echoes of her +child's tread came, and those of her own dear father's, always active +and self-possessed, and those of her dear husband's, need not be told. +Nor, how the lightest echo of their united home, directed by herself +with such a wise and elegant thrift that it was more abundant than any +waste, was music to her. Nor, how there were echoes all about her, sweet +in her ears, of the many times her father had told her that he found her +more devoted to him married (if that could be) than single, and of the +many times her husband had said to her that no cares and duties seemed +to divide her love for him or her help to him, and asked her "What is +the magic secret, my darling, of your being everything to all of us, +as if there were only one of us, yet never seeming to be hurried, or to +have too much to do?" + +But, there were other echoes, from a distance, that rumbled menacingly +in the corner all through this space of time. And it was now, about +little Lucie's sixth birthday, that they began to have an awful sound, +as of a great storm in France with a dreadful sea rising. + +On a night in mid-July, one thousand seven hundred and eighty-nine, Mr. +Lorry came in late, from Tellson's, and sat himself down by Lucie and +her husband in the dark window. It was a hot, wild night, and they were +all three reminded of the old Sunday night when they had looked at the +lightning from the same place. + +"I began to think," said Mr. Lorry, pushing his brown wig back, "that +I should have to pass the night at Tellson's. We have been so full of +business all day, that we have not known what to do first, or which way +to turn. There is such an uneasiness in Paris, that we have actually a +run of confidence upon us! Our customers over there, seem not to be able +to confide their property to us fast enough. There is positively a mania +among some of them for sending it to England." + +"That has a bad look," said Darnay-- + +"A bad look, you say, my dear Darnay? Yes, but we don't know what reason +there is in it. People are so unreasonable! Some of us at Tellson's are +getting old, and we really can't be troubled out of the ordinary course +without due occasion." + +"Still," said Darnay, "you know how gloomy and threatening the sky is." + +"I know that, to be sure," assented Mr. Lorry, trying to persuade +himself that his sweet temper was soured, and that he grumbled, "but I +am determined to be peevish after my long day's botheration. Where is +Manette?" + +"Here he is," said the Doctor, entering the dark room at the moment. + +"I am quite glad you are at home; for these hurries and forebodings by +which I have been surrounded all day long, have made me nervous without +reason. You are not going out, I hope?" + +"No; I am going to play backgammon with you, if you like," said the +Doctor. + +"I don't think I do like, if I may speak my mind. I am not fit to be +pitted against you to-night. Is the teaboard still there, Lucie? I can't +see." + +"Of course, it has been kept for you." + +"Thank ye, my dear. The precious child is safe in bed?" + +"And sleeping soundly." + +"That's right; all safe and well! I don't know why anything should be +otherwise than safe and well here, thank God; but I have been so put out +all day, and I am not as young as I was! My tea, my dear! Thank ye. Now, +come and take your place in the circle, and let us sit quiet, and hear +the echoes about which you have your theory." + +"Not a theory; it was a fancy." + +"A fancy, then, my wise pet," said Mr. Lorry, patting her hand. "They +are very numerous and very loud, though, are they not? Only hear them!" + +Headlong, mad, and dangerous footsteps to force their way into anybody's +life, footsteps not easily made clean again if once stained red, the +footsteps raging in Saint Antoine afar off, as the little circle sat in +the dark London window. + +Saint Antoine had been, that morning, a vast dusky mass of scarecrows +heaving to and fro, with frequent gleams of light above the billowy +heads, where steel blades and bayonets shone in the sun. A tremendous +roar arose from the throat of Saint Antoine, and a forest of naked arms +struggled in the air like shrivelled branches of trees in a winter wind: +all the fingers convulsively clutching at every weapon or semblance of a +weapon that was thrown up from the depths below, no matter how far off. + +Who gave them out, whence they last came, where they began, through what +agency they crookedly quivered and jerked, scores at a time, over the +heads of the crowd, like a kind of lightning, no eye in the throng could +have told; but, muskets were being distributed--so were cartridges, +powder, and ball, bars of iron and wood, knives, axes, pikes, every +weapon that distracted ingenuity could discover or devise. People who +could lay hold of nothing else, set themselves with bleeding hands to +force stones and bricks out of their places in walls. Every pulse and +heart in Saint Antoine was on high-fever strain and at high-fever heat. +Every living creature there held life as of no account, and was demented +with a passionate readiness to sacrifice it. + +As a whirlpool of boiling waters has a centre point, so, all this raging +circled round Defarge's wine-shop, and every human drop in the caldron +had a tendency to be sucked towards the vortex where Defarge himself, +already begrimed with gunpowder and sweat, issued orders, issued arms, +thrust this man back, dragged this man forward, disarmed one to arm +another, laboured and strove in the thickest of the uproar. + +"Keep near to me, Jacques Three," cried Defarge; "and do you, Jacques +One and Two, separate and put yourselves at the head of as many of these +patriots as you can. Where is my wife?" + +"Eh, well! Here you see me!" said madame, composed as ever, but not +knitting to-day. Madame's resolute right hand was occupied with an axe, +in place of the usual softer implements, and in her girdle were a pistol +and a cruel knife. + +"Where do you go, my wife?" + +"I go," said madame, "with you at present. You shall see me at the head +of women, by-and-bye." + +"Come, then!" cried Defarge, in a resounding voice. "Patriots and +friends, we are ready! The Bastille!" + +With a roar that sounded as if all the breath in France had been shaped +into the detested word, the living sea rose, wave on wave, depth on +depth, and overflowed the city to that point. Alarm-bells ringing, drums +beating, the sea raging and thundering on its new beach, the attack +began. + +Deep ditches, double drawbridge, massive stone walls, eight great +towers, cannon, muskets, fire and smoke. Through the fire and through +the smoke--in the fire and in the smoke, for the sea cast him up against +a cannon, and on the instant he became a cannonier--Defarge of the +wine-shop worked like a manful soldier, Two fierce hours. + +Deep ditch, single drawbridge, massive stone walls, eight great towers, +cannon, muskets, fire and smoke. One drawbridge down! "Work, comrades +all, work! Work, Jacques One, Jacques Two, Jacques One Thousand, Jacques +Two Thousand, Jacques Five-and-Twenty Thousand; in the name of all +the Angels or the Devils--which you prefer--work!" Thus Defarge of the +wine-shop, still at his gun, which had long grown hot. + +"To me, women!" cried madame his wife. "What! We can kill as well as +the men when the place is taken!" And to her, with a shrill thirsty +cry, trooping women variously armed, but all armed alike in hunger and +revenge. + +Cannon, muskets, fire and smoke; but, still the deep ditch, the single +drawbridge, the massive stone walls, and the eight great towers. Slight +displacements of the raging sea, made by the falling wounded. Flashing +weapons, blazing torches, smoking waggonloads of wet straw, hard work +at neighbouring barricades in all directions, shrieks, volleys, +execrations, bravery without stint, boom smash and rattle, and the +furious sounding of the living sea; but, still the deep ditch, and the +single drawbridge, and the massive stone walls, and the eight great +towers, and still Defarge of the wine-shop at his gun, grown doubly hot +by the service of Four fierce hours. + +A white flag from within the fortress, and a parley--this dimly +perceptible through the raging storm, nothing audible in it--suddenly +the sea rose immeasurably wider and higher, and swept Defarge of the +wine-shop over the lowered drawbridge, past the massive stone outer +walls, in among the eight great towers surrendered! + +So resistless was the force of the ocean bearing him on, that even to +draw his breath or turn his head was as impracticable as if he had been +struggling in the surf at the South Sea, until he was landed in the +outer courtyard of the Bastille. There, against an angle of a wall, he +made a struggle to look about him. Jacques Three was nearly at his side; +Madame Defarge, still heading some of her women, was visible in the +inner distance, and her knife was in her hand. Everywhere was tumult, +exultation, deafening and maniacal bewilderment, astounding noise, yet +furious dumb-show. + +"The Prisoners!" + +"The Records!" + +"The secret cells!" + +"The instruments of torture!" + +"The Prisoners!" + +Of all these cries, and ten thousand incoherences, "The Prisoners!" was +the cry most taken up by the sea that rushed in, as if there were an +eternity of people, as well as of time and space. When the foremost +billows rolled past, bearing the prison officers with them, and +threatening them all with instant death if any secret nook remained +undisclosed, Defarge laid his strong hand on the breast of one of +these men--a man with a grey head, who had a lighted torch in his +hand--separated him from the rest, and got him between himself and the +wall. + +"Show me the North Tower!" said Defarge. "Quick!" + +"I will faithfully," replied the man, "if you will come with me. But +there is no one there." + +"What is the meaning of One Hundred and Five, North Tower?" asked +Defarge. "Quick!" + +"The meaning, monsieur?" + +"Does it mean a captive, or a place of captivity? Or do you mean that I +shall strike you dead?" + +"Kill him!" croaked Jacques Three, who had come close up. + +"Monsieur, it is a cell." + +"Show it me!" + +"Pass this way, then." + +Jacques Three, with his usual craving on him, and evidently disappointed +by the dialogue taking a turn that did not seem to promise bloodshed, +held by Defarge's arm as he held by the turnkey's. Their three heads had +been close together during this brief discourse, and it had been as much +as they could do to hear one another, even then: so tremendous was the +noise of the living ocean, in its irruption into the Fortress, and +its inundation of the courts and passages and staircases. All around +outside, too, it beat the walls with a deep, hoarse roar, from which, +occasionally, some partial shouts of tumult broke and leaped into the +air like spray. + +Through gloomy vaults where the light of day had never shone, past +hideous doors of dark dens and cages, down cavernous flights of steps, +and again up steep rugged ascents of stone and brick, more like dry +waterfalls than staircases, Defarge, the turnkey, and Jacques Three, +linked hand and arm, went with all the speed they could make. Here and +there, especially at first, the inundation started on them and swept by; +but when they had done descending, and were winding and climbing up a +tower, they were alone. Hemmed in here by the massive thickness of walls +and arches, the storm within the fortress and without was only audible +to them in a dull, subdued way, as if the noise out of which they had +come had almost destroyed their sense of hearing. + +The turnkey stopped at a low door, put a key in a clashing lock, swung +the door slowly open, and said, as they all bent their heads and passed +in: + +"One hundred and five, North Tower!" + +There was a small, heavily-grated, unglazed window high in the wall, +with a stone screen before it, so that the sky could be only seen by +stooping low and looking up. There was a small chimney, heavily barred +across, a few feet within. There was a heap of old feathery wood-ashes +on the hearth. There was a stool, and table, and a straw bed. There were +the four blackened walls, and a rusted iron ring in one of them. + +"Pass that torch slowly along these walls, that I may see them," said +Defarge to the turnkey. + +The man obeyed, and Defarge followed the light closely with his eyes. + +"Stop!--Look here, Jacques!" + +"A. M.!" croaked Jacques Three, as he read greedily. + +"Alexandre Manette," said Defarge in his ear, following the letters +with his swart forefinger, deeply engrained with gunpowder. "And here he +wrote 'a poor physician.' And it was he, without doubt, who scratched +a calendar on this stone. What is that in your hand? A crowbar? Give it +me!" + +He had still the linstock of his gun in his own hand. He made a sudden +exchange of the two instruments, and turning on the worm-eaten stool and +table, beat them to pieces in a few blows. + +"Hold the light higher!" he said, wrathfully, to the turnkey. "Look +among those fragments with care, Jacques. And see! Here is my knife," +throwing it to him; "rip open that bed, and search the straw. Hold the +light higher, you!" + +With a menacing look at the turnkey he crawled upon the hearth, and, +peering up the chimney, struck and prised at its sides with the crowbar, +and worked at the iron grating across it. In a few minutes, some mortar +and dust came dropping down, which he averted his face to avoid; and +in it, and in the old wood-ashes, and in a crevice in the chimney +into which his weapon had slipped or wrought itself, he groped with a +cautious touch. + +"Nothing in the wood, and nothing in the straw, Jacques?" + +"Nothing." + +"Let us collect them together, in the middle of the cell. So! Light +them, you!" + +The turnkey fired the little pile, which blazed high and hot. Stooping +again to come out at the low-arched door, they left it burning, and +retraced their way to the courtyard; seeming to recover their sense +of hearing as they came down, until they were in the raging flood once +more. + +They found it surging and tossing, in quest of Defarge himself. Saint +Antoine was clamorous to have its wine-shop keeper foremost in the guard +upon the governor who had defended the Bastille and shot the people. +Otherwise, the governor would not be marched to the Hotel de Ville for +judgment. Otherwise, the governor would escape, and the people's +blood (suddenly of some value, after many years of worthlessness) be +unavenged. + +In the howling universe of passion and contention that seemed to +encompass this grim old officer conspicuous in his grey coat and red +decoration, there was but one quite steady figure, and that was a +woman's. "See, there is my husband!" she cried, pointing him out. +"See Defarge!" She stood immovable close to the grim old officer, and +remained immovable close to him; remained immovable close to him through +the streets, as Defarge and the rest bore him along; remained immovable +close to him when he was got near his destination, and began to +be struck at from behind; remained immovable close to him when the +long-gathering rain of stabs and blows fell heavy; was so close to him +when he dropped dead under it, that, suddenly animated, she put her foot +upon his neck, and with her cruel knife--long ready--hewed off his head. + +The hour was come, when Saint Antoine was to execute his horrible idea +of hoisting up men for lamps to show what he could be and do. Saint +Antoine's blood was up, and the blood of tyranny and domination by the +iron hand was down--down on the steps of the Hotel de Ville where the +governor's body lay--down on the sole of the shoe of Madame Defarge +where she had trodden on the body to steady it for mutilation. "Lower +the lamp yonder!" cried Saint Antoine, after glaring round for a new +means of death; "here is one of his soldiers to be left on guard!" The +swinging sentinel was posted, and the sea rushed on. + +The sea of black and threatening waters, and of destructive upheaving +of wave against wave, whose depths were yet unfathomed and whose forces +were yet unknown. The remorseless sea of turbulently swaying shapes, +voices of vengeance, and faces hardened in the furnaces of suffering +until the touch of pity could make no mark on them. + +But, in the ocean of faces where every fierce and furious expression was +in vivid life, there were two groups of faces--each seven in number--so +fixedly contrasting with the rest, that never did sea roll which bore +more memorable wrecks with it. Seven faces of prisoners, suddenly +released by the storm that had burst their tomb, were carried high +overhead: all scared, all lost, all wondering and amazed, as if the Last +Day were come, and those who rejoiced around them were lost spirits. +Other seven faces there were, carried higher, seven dead faces, whose +drooping eyelids and half-seen eyes awaited the Last Day. Impassive +faces, yet with a suspended--not an abolished--expression on them; +faces, rather, in a fearful pause, as having yet to raise the dropped +lids of the eyes, and bear witness with the bloodless lips, "THOU DIDST +IT!" + +Seven prisoners released, seven gory heads on pikes, the keys of the +accursed fortress of the eight strong towers, some discovered letters +and other memorials of prisoners of old time, long dead of broken +hearts,--such, and such--like, the loudly echoing footsteps of Saint +Antoine escort through the Paris streets in mid-July, one thousand seven +hundred and eighty-nine. Now, Heaven defeat the fancy of Lucie Darnay, +and keep these feet far out of her life! For, they are headlong, mad, +and dangerous; and in the years so long after the breaking of the cask +at Defarge's wine-shop door, they are not easily purified when once +stained red. + + + + +XXII. The Sea Still Rises + + +Haggard Saint Antoine had had only one exultant week, in which to soften +his modicum of hard and bitter bread to such extent as he could, with +the relish of fraternal embraces and congratulations, when Madame +Defarge sat at her counter, as usual, presiding over the customers. +Madame Defarge wore no rose in her head, for the great brotherhood of +Spies had become, even in one short week, extremely chary of trusting +themselves to the saint's mercies. The lamps across his streets had a +portentously elastic swing with them. + +Madame Defarge, with her arms folded, sat in the morning light and heat, +contemplating the wine-shop and the street. In both, there were several +knots of loungers, squalid and miserable, but now with a manifest sense +of power enthroned on their distress. The raggedest nightcap, awry on +the wretchedest head, had this crooked significance in it: "I know how +hard it has grown for me, the wearer of this, to support life in myself; +but do you know how easy it has grown for me, the wearer of this, to +destroy life in you?" Every lean bare arm, that had been without work +before, had this work always ready for it now, that it could strike. +The fingers of the knitting women were vicious, with the experience that +they could tear. There was a change in the appearance of Saint Antoine; +the image had been hammering into this for hundreds of years, and the +last finishing blows had told mightily on the expression. + +Madame Defarge sat observing it, with such suppressed approval as was +to be desired in the leader of the Saint Antoine women. One of her +sisterhood knitted beside her. The short, rather plump wife of a starved +grocer, and the mother of two children withal, this lieutenant had +already earned the complimentary name of The Vengeance. + +"Hark!" said The Vengeance. "Listen, then! Who comes?" + +As if a train of powder laid from the outermost bound of Saint Antoine +Quarter to the wine-shop door, had been suddenly fired, a fast-spreading +murmur came rushing along. + +"It is Defarge," said madame. "Silence, patriots!" + +Defarge came in breathless, pulled off a red cap he wore, and looked +around him! "Listen, everywhere!" said madame again. "Listen to him!" +Defarge stood, panting, against a background of eager eyes and open +mouths, formed outside the door; all those within the wine-shop had +sprung to their feet. + +"Say then, my husband. What is it?" + +"News from the other world!" + +"How, then?" cried madame, contemptuously. "The other world?" + +"Does everybody here recall old Foulon, who told the famished people +that they might eat grass, and who died, and went to Hell?" + +"Everybody!" from all throats. + +"The news is of him. He is among us!" + +"Among us!" from the universal throat again. "And dead?" + +"Not dead! He feared us so much--and with reason--that he caused himself +to be represented as dead, and had a grand mock-funeral. But they have +found him alive, hiding in the country, and have brought him in. I have +seen him but now, on his way to the Hotel de Ville, a prisoner. I have +said that he had reason to fear us. Say all! _Had_ he reason?" + +Wretched old sinner of more than threescore years and ten, if he had +never known it yet, he would have known it in his heart of hearts if he +could have heard the answering cry. + +A moment of profound silence followed. Defarge and his wife looked +steadfastly at one another. The Vengeance stooped, and the jar of a drum +was heard as she moved it at her feet behind the counter. + +"Patriots!" said Defarge, in a determined voice, "are we ready?" + +Instantly Madame Defarge's knife was in her girdle; the drum was beating +in the streets, as if it and a drummer had flown together by magic; and +The Vengeance, uttering terrific shrieks, and flinging her arms about +her head like all the forty Furies at once, was tearing from house to +house, rousing the women. + +The men were terrible, in the bloody-minded anger with which they looked +from windows, caught up what arms they had, and came pouring down into +the streets; but, the women were a sight to chill the boldest. From +such household occupations as their bare poverty yielded, from their +children, from their aged and their sick crouching on the bare ground +famished and naked, they ran out with streaming hair, urging one +another, and themselves, to madness with the wildest cries and actions. +Villain Foulon taken, my sister! Old Foulon taken, my mother! Miscreant +Foulon taken, my daughter! Then, a score of others ran into the midst of +these, beating their breasts, tearing their hair, and screaming, Foulon +alive! Foulon who told the starving people they might eat grass! Foulon +who told my old father that he might eat grass, when I had no bread +to give him! Foulon who told my baby it might suck grass, when these +breasts were dry with want! O mother of God, this Foulon! O Heaven our +suffering! Hear me, my dead baby and my withered father: I swear on my +knees, on these stones, to avenge you on Foulon! Husbands, and brothers, +and young men, Give us the blood of Foulon, Give us the head of Foulon, +Give us the heart of Foulon, Give us the body and soul of Foulon, Rend +Foulon to pieces, and dig him into the ground, that grass may grow from +him! With these cries, numbers of the women, lashed into blind frenzy, +whirled about, striking and tearing at their own friends until they +dropped into a passionate swoon, and were only saved by the men +belonging to them from being trampled under foot. + +Nevertheless, not a moment was lost; not a moment! This Foulon was at +the Hotel de Ville, and might be loosed. Never, if Saint Antoine knew +his own sufferings, insults, and wrongs! Armed men and women flocked out +of the Quarter so fast, and drew even these last dregs after them with +such a force of suction, that within a quarter of an hour there was not +a human creature in Saint Antoine's bosom but a few old crones and the +wailing children. + +No. They were all by that time choking the Hall of Examination where +this old man, ugly and wicked, was, and overflowing into the adjacent +open space and streets. The Defarges, husband and wife, The Vengeance, +and Jacques Three, were in the first press, and at no great distance +from him in the Hall. + +"See!" cried madame, pointing with her knife. "See the old villain bound +with ropes. That was well done to tie a bunch of grass upon his back. +Ha, ha! That was well done. Let him eat it now!" Madame put her knife +under her arm, and clapped her hands as at a play. + +The people immediately behind Madame Defarge, explaining the cause of +her satisfaction to those behind them, and those again explaining to +others, and those to others, the neighbouring streets resounded with the +clapping of hands. Similarly, during two or three hours of drawl, +and the winnowing of many bushels of words, Madame Defarge's frequent +expressions of impatience were taken up, with marvellous quickness, at +a distance: the more readily, because certain men who had by some +wonderful exercise of agility climbed up the external architecture +to look in from the windows, knew Madame Defarge well, and acted as a +telegraph between her and the crowd outside the building. + +At length the sun rose so high that it struck a kindly ray as of hope or +protection, directly down upon the old prisoner's head. The favour was +too much to bear; in an instant the barrier of dust and chaff that had +stood surprisingly long, went to the winds, and Saint Antoine had got +him! + +It was known directly, to the furthest confines of the crowd. Defarge +had but sprung over a railing and a table, and folded the miserable +wretch in a deadly embrace--Madame Defarge had but followed and turned +her hand in one of the ropes with which he was tied--The Vengeance and +Jacques Three were not yet up with them, and the men at the windows +had not yet swooped into the Hall, like birds of prey from their high +perches--when the cry seemed to go up, all over the city, "Bring him +out! Bring him to the lamp!" + +Down, and up, and head foremost on the steps of the building; now, on +his knees; now, on his feet; now, on his back; dragged, and struck at, +and stifled by the bunches of grass and straw that were thrust into his +face by hundreds of hands; torn, bruised, panting, bleeding, yet always +entreating and beseeching for mercy; now full of vehement agony of +action, with a small clear space about him as the people drew one +another back that they might see; now, a log of dead wood drawn through +a forest of legs; he was hauled to the nearest street corner where one +of the fatal lamps swung, and there Madame Defarge let him go--as a cat +might have done to a mouse--and silently and composedly looked at him +while they made ready, and while he besought her: the women passionately +screeching at him all the time, and the men sternly calling out to have +him killed with grass in his mouth. Once, he went aloft, and the rope +broke, and they caught him shrieking; twice, he went aloft, and the rope +broke, and they caught him shrieking; then, the rope was merciful, and +held him, and his head was soon upon a pike, with grass enough in the +mouth for all Saint Antoine to dance at the sight of. + +Nor was this the end of the day's bad work, for Saint Antoine so shouted +and danced his angry blood up, that it boiled again, on hearing when +the day closed in that the son-in-law of the despatched, another of the +people's enemies and insulters, was coming into Paris under a guard +five hundred strong, in cavalry alone. Saint Antoine wrote his crimes +on flaring sheets of paper, seized him--would have torn him out of the +breast of an army to bear Foulon company--set his head and heart on +pikes, and carried the three spoils of the day, in Wolf-procession +through the streets. + +Not before dark night did the men and women come back to the children, +wailing and breadless. Then, the miserable bakers' shops were beset by +long files of them, patiently waiting to buy bad bread; and while +they waited with stomachs faint and empty, they beguiled the time by +embracing one another on the triumphs of the day, and achieving them +again in gossip. Gradually, these strings of ragged people shortened and +frayed away; and then poor lights began to shine in high windows, and +slender fires were made in the streets, at which neighbours cooked in +common, afterwards supping at their doors. + +Scanty and insufficient suppers those, and innocent of meat, as of +most other sauce to wretched bread. Yet, human fellowship infused +some nourishment into the flinty viands, and struck some sparks of +cheerfulness out of them. Fathers and mothers who had had their full +share in the worst of the day, played gently with their meagre children; +and lovers, with such a world around them and before them, loved and +hoped. + +It was almost morning, when Defarge's wine-shop parted with its last +knot of customers, and Monsieur Defarge said to madame his wife, in +husky tones, while fastening the door: + +"At last it is come, my dear!" + +"Eh well!" returned madame. "Almost." + +Saint Antoine slept, the Defarges slept: even The Vengeance slept with +her starved grocer, and the drum was at rest. The drum's was the +only voice in Saint Antoine that blood and hurry had not changed. The +Vengeance, as custodian of the drum, could have wakened him up and had +the same speech out of him as before the Bastille fell, or old Foulon +was seized; not so with the hoarse tones of the men and women in Saint +Antoine's bosom. + + + + +XXIII. Fire Rises + + +There was a change on the village where the fountain fell, and where +the mender of roads went forth daily to hammer out of the stones on the +highway such morsels of bread as might serve for patches to hold his +poor ignorant soul and his poor reduced body together. The prison on the +crag was not so dominant as of yore; there were soldiers to guard it, +but not many; there were officers to guard the soldiers, but not one of +them knew what his men would do--beyond this: that it would probably not +be what he was ordered. + +Far and wide lay a ruined country, yielding nothing but desolation. +Every green leaf, every blade of grass and blade of grain, was as +shrivelled and poor as the miserable people. Everything was bowed down, +dejected, oppressed, and broken. Habitations, fences, domesticated +animals, men, women, children, and the soil that bore them--all worn +out. + +Monseigneur (often a most worthy individual gentleman) was a national +blessing, gave a chivalrous tone to things, was a polite example of +luxurious and shining life, and a great deal more to equal purpose; +nevertheless, Monseigneur as a class had, somehow or other, brought +things to this. Strange that Creation, designed expressly for +Monseigneur, should be so soon wrung dry and squeezed out! There must +be something short-sighted in the eternal arrangements, surely! Thus it +was, however; and the last drop of blood having been extracted from the +flints, and the last screw of the rack having been turned so often that +its purchase crumbled, and it now turned and turned with nothing +to bite, Monseigneur began to run away from a phenomenon so low and +unaccountable. + +But, this was not the change on the village, and on many a village like +it. For scores of years gone by, Monseigneur had squeezed it and wrung +it, and had seldom graced it with his presence except for the pleasures +of the chase--now, found in hunting the people; now, found in hunting +the beasts, for whose preservation Monseigneur made edifying spaces +of barbarous and barren wilderness. No. The change consisted in +the appearance of strange faces of low caste, rather than in the +disappearance of the high caste, chiselled, and otherwise beautified and +beautifying features of Monseigneur. + +For, in these times, as the mender of roads worked, solitary, in the +dust, not often troubling himself to reflect that dust he was and +to dust he must return, being for the most part too much occupied in +thinking how little he had for supper and how much more he would eat if +he had it--in these times, as he raised his eyes from his lonely labour, +and viewed the prospect, he would see some rough figure approaching on +foot, the like of which was once a rarity in those parts, but was now +a frequent presence. As it advanced, the mender of roads would discern +without surprise, that it was a shaggy-haired man, of almost barbarian +aspect, tall, in wooden shoes that were clumsy even to the eyes of a +mender of roads, grim, rough, swart, steeped in the mud and dust of many +highways, dank with the marshy moisture of many low grounds, sprinkled +with the thorns and leaves and moss of many byways through woods. + +Such a man came upon him, like a ghost, at noon in the July weather, +as he sat on his heap of stones under a bank, taking such shelter as he +could get from a shower of hail. + +The man looked at him, looked at the village in the hollow, at the mill, +and at the prison on the crag. When he had identified these objects +in what benighted mind he had, he said, in a dialect that was just +intelligible: + +"How goes it, Jacques?" + +"All well, Jacques." + +"Touch then!" + +They joined hands, and the man sat down on the heap of stones. + +"No dinner?" + +"Nothing but supper now," said the mender of roads, with a hungry face. + +"It is the fashion," growled the man. "I meet no dinner anywhere." + +He took out a blackened pipe, filled it, lighted it with flint and +steel, pulled at it until it was in a bright glow: then, suddenly held +it from him and dropped something into it from between his finger and +thumb, that blazed and went out in a puff of smoke. + +"Touch then." It was the turn of the mender of roads to say it this +time, after observing these operations. They again joined hands. + +"To-night?" said the mender of roads. + +"To-night," said the man, putting the pipe in his mouth. + +"Where?" + +"Here." + +He and the mender of roads sat on the heap of stones looking silently at +one another, with the hail driving in between them like a pigmy charge +of bayonets, until the sky began to clear over the village. + +"Show me!" said the traveller then, moving to the brow of the hill. + +"See!" returned the mender of roads, with extended finger. "You go down +here, and straight through the street, and past the fountain--" + +"To the Devil with all that!" interrupted the other, rolling his eye +over the landscape. "_I_ go through no streets and past no fountains. +Well?" + +"Well! About two leagues beyond the summit of that hill above the +village." + +"Good. When do you cease to work?" + +"At sunset." + +"Will you wake me, before departing? I have walked two nights without +resting. Let me finish my pipe, and I shall sleep like a child. Will you +wake me?" + +"Surely." + +The wayfarer smoked his pipe out, put it in his breast, slipped off his +great wooden shoes, and lay down on his back on the heap of stones. He +was fast asleep directly. + +As the road-mender plied his dusty labour, and the hail-clouds, rolling +away, revealed bright bars and streaks of sky which were responded to +by silver gleams upon the landscape, the little man (who wore a red cap +now, in place of his blue one) seemed fascinated by the figure on the +heap of stones. His eyes were so often turned towards it, that he used +his tools mechanically, and, one would have said, to very poor account. +The bronze face, the shaggy black hair and beard, the coarse woollen +red cap, the rough medley dress of home-spun stuff and hairy skins of +beasts, the powerful frame attenuated by spare living, and the sullen +and desperate compression of the lips in sleep, inspired the mender +of roads with awe. The traveller had travelled far, and his feet were +footsore, and his ankles chafed and bleeding; his great shoes, stuffed +with leaves and grass, had been heavy to drag over the many long +leagues, and his clothes were chafed into holes, as he himself was into +sores. Stooping down beside him, the road-mender tried to get a peep at +secret weapons in his breast or where not; but, in vain, for he slept +with his arms crossed upon him, and set as resolutely as his lips. +Fortified towns with their stockades, guard-houses, gates, trenches, and +drawbridges, seemed to the mender of roads, to be so much air as against +this figure. And when he lifted his eyes from it to the horizon and +looked around, he saw in his small fancy similar figures, stopped by no +obstacle, tending to centres all over France. + +The man slept on, indifferent to showers of hail and intervals of +brightness, to sunshine on his face and shadow, to the paltering lumps +of dull ice on his body and the diamonds into which the sun changed +them, until the sun was low in the west, and the sky was glowing. Then, +the mender of roads having got his tools together and all things ready +to go down into the village, roused him. + +"Good!" said the sleeper, rising on his elbow. "Two leagues beyond the +summit of the hill?" + +"About." + +"About. Good!" + +The mender of roads went home, with the dust going on before him +according to the set of the wind, and was soon at the fountain, +squeezing himself in among the lean kine brought there to drink, and +appearing even to whisper to them in his whispering to all the village. +When the village had taken its poor supper, it did not creep to bed, +as it usually did, but came out of doors again, and remained there. A +curious contagion of whispering was upon it, and also, when it gathered +together at the fountain in the dark, another curious contagion of +looking expectantly at the sky in one direction only. Monsieur Gabelle, +chief functionary of the place, became uneasy; went out on his house-top +alone, and looked in that direction too; glanced down from behind his +chimneys at the darkening faces by the fountain below, and sent word to +the sacristan who kept the keys of the church, that there might be need +to ring the tocsin by-and-bye. + +The night deepened. The trees environing the old chateau, keeping its +solitary state apart, moved in a rising wind, as though they threatened +the pile of building massive and dark in the gloom. Up the two terrace +flights of steps the rain ran wildly, and beat at the great door, like a +swift messenger rousing those within; uneasy rushes of wind went through +the hall, among the old spears and knives, and passed lamenting up the +stairs, and shook the curtains of the bed where the last Marquis +had slept. East, West, North, and South, through the woods, four +heavy-treading, unkempt figures crushed the high grass and cracked the +branches, striding on cautiously to come together in the courtyard. Four +lights broke out there, and moved away in different directions, and all +was black again. + +But, not for long. Presently, the chateau began to make itself strangely +visible by some light of its own, as though it were growing luminous. +Then, a flickering streak played behind the architecture of the front, +picking out transparent places, and showing where balustrades, arches, +and windows were. Then it soared higher, and grew broader and brighter. +Soon, from a score of the great windows, flames burst forth, and the +stone faces awakened, stared out of fire. + +A faint murmur arose about the house from the few people who were left +there, and there was a saddling of a horse and riding away. There was +spurring and splashing through the darkness, and bridle was drawn in the +space by the village fountain, and the horse in a foam stood at Monsieur +Gabelle's door. "Help, Gabelle! Help, every one!" The tocsin rang +impatiently, but other help (if that were any) there was none. The +mender of roads, and two hundred and fifty particular friends, stood +with folded arms at the fountain, looking at the pillar of fire in the +sky. "It must be forty feet high," said they, grimly; and never moved. + +The rider from the chateau, and the horse in a foam, clattered away +through the village, and galloped up the stony steep, to the prison on +the crag. At the gate, a group of officers were looking at the fire; +removed from them, a group of soldiers. "Help, gentlemen--officers! The +chateau is on fire; valuable objects may be saved from the flames by +timely aid! Help, help!" The officers looked towards the soldiers who +looked at the fire; gave no orders; and answered, with shrugs and biting +of lips, "It must burn." + +As the rider rattled down the hill again and through the street, the +village was illuminating. The mender of roads, and the two hundred and +fifty particular friends, inspired as one man and woman by the idea of +lighting up, had darted into their houses, and were putting candles in +every dull little pane of glass. The general scarcity of everything, +occasioned candles to be borrowed in a rather peremptory manner of +Monsieur Gabelle; and in a moment of reluctance and hesitation on +that functionary's part, the mender of roads, once so submissive to +authority, had remarked that carriages were good to make bonfires with, +and that post-horses would roast. + +The chateau was left to itself to flame and burn. In the roaring and +raging of the conflagration, a red-hot wind, driving straight from the +infernal regions, seemed to be blowing the edifice away. With the rising +and falling of the blaze, the stone faces showed as if they were in +torment. When great masses of stone and timber fell, the face with the +two dints in the nose became obscured: anon struggled out of the smoke +again, as if it were the face of the cruel Marquis, burning at the stake +and contending with the fire. + +The chateau burned; the nearest trees, laid hold of by the fire, +scorched and shrivelled; trees at a distance, fired by the four fierce +figures, begirt the blazing edifice with a new forest of smoke. Molten +lead and iron boiled in the marble basin of the fountain; the water ran +dry; the extinguisher tops of the towers vanished like ice before the +heat, and trickled down into four rugged wells of flame. Great rents and +splits branched out in the solid walls, like crystallisation; stupefied +birds wheeled about and dropped into the furnace; four fierce figures +trudged away, East, West, North, and South, along the night-enshrouded +roads, guided by the beacon they had lighted, towards their next +destination. The illuminated village had seized hold of the tocsin, and, +abolishing the lawful ringer, rang for joy. + +Not only that; but the village, light-headed with famine, fire, and +bell-ringing, and bethinking itself that Monsieur Gabelle had to do with +the collection of rent and taxes--though it was but a small instalment +of taxes, and no rent at all, that Gabelle had got in those latter +days--became impatient for an interview with him, and, surrounding his +house, summoned him to come forth for personal conference. Whereupon, +Monsieur Gabelle did heavily bar his door, and retire to hold counsel +with himself. The result of that conference was, that Gabelle again +withdrew himself to his housetop behind his stack of chimneys; this time +resolved, if his door were broken in (he was a small Southern man +of retaliative temperament), to pitch himself head foremost over the +parapet, and crush a man or two below. + +Probably, Monsieur Gabelle passed a long night up there, with the +distant chateau for fire and candle, and the beating at his door, +combined with the joy-ringing, for music; not to mention his having an +ill-omened lamp slung across the road before his posting-house gate, +which the village showed a lively inclination to displace in his favour. +A trying suspense, to be passing a whole summer night on the brink of +the black ocean, ready to take that plunge into it upon which Monsieur +Gabelle had resolved! But, the friendly dawn appearing at last, and the +rush-candles of the village guttering out, the people happily dispersed, +and Monsieur Gabelle came down bringing his life with him for that +while. + +Within a hundred miles, and in the light of other fires, there were +other functionaries less fortunate, that night and other nights, whom +the rising sun found hanging across once-peaceful streets, where they +had been born and bred; also, there were other villagers and townspeople +less fortunate than the mender of roads and his fellows, upon whom the +functionaries and soldiery turned with success, and whom they strung up +in their turn. But, the fierce figures were steadily wending East, West, +North, and South, be that as it would; and whosoever hung, fire burned. +The altitude of the gallows that would turn to water and quench it, +no functionary, by any stretch of mathematics, was able to calculate +successfully. + + + + +XXIV. Drawn to the Loadstone Rock + + +In such risings of fire and risings of sea--the firm earth shaken by +the rushes of an angry ocean which had now no ebb, but was always on the +flow, higher and higher, to the terror and wonder of the beholders on +the shore--three years of tempest were consumed. Three more birthdays +of little Lucie had been woven by the golden thread into the peaceful +tissue of the life of her home. + +Many a night and many a day had its inmates listened to the echoes in +the corner, with hearts that failed them when they heard the thronging +feet. For, the footsteps had become to their minds as the footsteps of +a people, tumultuous under a red flag and with their country declared in +danger, changed into wild beasts, by terrible enchantment long persisted +in. + +Monseigneur, as a class, had dissociated himself from the phenomenon of +his not being appreciated: of his being so little wanted in France, as +to incur considerable danger of receiving his dismissal from it, and +this life together. Like the fabled rustic who raised the Devil with +infinite pains, and was so terrified at the sight of him that he could +ask the Enemy no question, but immediately fled; so, Monseigneur, after +boldly reading the Lord's Prayer backwards for a great number of years, +and performing many other potent spells for compelling the Evil One, no +sooner beheld him in his terrors than he took to his noble heels. + +The shining Bull's Eye of the Court was gone, or it would have been the +mark for a hurricane of national bullets. It had never been a good +eye to see with--had long had the mote in it of Lucifer's pride, +Sardanapalus's luxury, and a mole's blindness--but it had dropped +out and was gone. The Court, from that exclusive inner circle to its +outermost rotten ring of intrigue, corruption, and dissimulation, was +all gone together. Royalty was gone; had been besieged in its Palace and +"suspended," when the last tidings came over. + +The August of the year one thousand seven hundred and ninety-two was +come, and Monseigneur was by this time scattered far and wide. + +As was natural, the head-quarters and great gathering-place of +Monseigneur, in London, was Tellson's Bank. Spirits are supposed to +haunt the places where their bodies most resorted, and Monseigneur +without a guinea haunted the spot where his guineas used to be. +Moreover, it was the spot to which such French intelligence as was most +to be relied upon, came quickest. Again: Tellson's was a munificent +house, and extended great liberality to old customers who had fallen +from their high estate. Again: those nobles who had seen the coming +storm in time, and anticipating plunder or confiscation, had made +provident remittances to Tellson's, were always to be heard of there +by their needy brethren. To which it must be added that every new-comer +from France reported himself and his tidings at Tellson's, almost as +a matter of course. For such variety of reasons, Tellson's was at that +time, as to French intelligence, a kind of High Exchange; and this +was so well known to the public, and the inquiries made there were in +consequence so numerous, that Tellson's sometimes wrote the latest news +out in a line or so and posted it in the Bank windows, for all who ran +through Temple Bar to read. + +On a steaming, misty afternoon, Mr. Lorry sat at his desk, and Charles +Darnay stood leaning on it, talking with him in a low voice. The +penitential den once set apart for interviews with the House, was now +the news-Exchange, and was filled to overflowing. It was within half an +hour or so of the time of closing. + +"But, although you are the youngest man that ever lived," said Charles +Darnay, rather hesitating, "I must still suggest to you--" + +"I understand. That I am too old?" said Mr. Lorry. + +"Unsettled weather, a long journey, uncertain means of travelling, a +disorganised country, a city that may not be even safe for you." + +"My dear Charles," said Mr. Lorry, with cheerful confidence, "you touch +some of the reasons for my going: not for my staying away. It is safe +enough for me; nobody will care to interfere with an old fellow of hard +upon fourscore when there are so many people there much better worth +interfering with. As to its being a disorganised city, if it were not a +disorganised city there would be no occasion to send somebody from our +House here to our House there, who knows the city and the business, of +old, and is in Tellson's confidence. As to the uncertain travelling, the +long journey, and the winter weather, if I were not prepared to submit +myself to a few inconveniences for the sake of Tellson's, after all +these years, who ought to be?" + +"I wish I were going myself," said Charles Darnay, somewhat restlessly, +and like one thinking aloud. + +"Indeed! You are a pretty fellow to object and advise!" exclaimed Mr. +Lorry. "You wish you were going yourself? And you a Frenchman born? You +are a wise counsellor." + +"My dear Mr. Lorry, it is because I am a Frenchman born, that the +thought (which I did not mean to utter here, however) has passed through +my mind often. One cannot help thinking, having had some sympathy for +the miserable people, and having abandoned something to them," he spoke +here in his former thoughtful manner, "that one might be listened to, +and might have the power to persuade to some restraint. Only last night, +after you had left us, when I was talking to Lucie--" + +"When you were talking to Lucie," Mr. Lorry repeated. "Yes. I wonder you +are not ashamed to mention the name of Lucie! Wishing you were going to +France at this time of day!" + +"However, I am not going," said Charles Darnay, with a smile. "It is +more to the purpose that you say you are." + +"And I am, in plain reality. The truth is, my dear Charles," Mr. Lorry +glanced at the distant House, and lowered his voice, "you can have no +conception of the difficulty with which our business is transacted, and +of the peril in which our books and papers over yonder are involved. The +Lord above knows what the compromising consequences would be to numbers +of people, if some of our documents were seized or destroyed; and they +might be, at any time, you know, for who can say that Paris is not set +afire to-day, or sacked to-morrow! Now, a judicious selection from these +with the least possible delay, and the burying of them, or otherwise +getting of them out of harm's way, is within the power (without loss of +precious time) of scarcely any one but myself, if any one. And shall +I hang back, when Tellson's knows this and says this--Tellson's, whose +bread I have eaten these sixty years--because I am a little stiff about +the joints? Why, I am a boy, sir, to half a dozen old codgers here!" + +"How I admire the gallantry of your youthful spirit, Mr. Lorry." + +"Tut! Nonsense, sir!--And, my dear Charles," said Mr. Lorry, glancing at +the House again, "you are to remember, that getting things out of +Paris at this present time, no matter what things, is next to an +impossibility. Papers and precious matters were this very day brought +to us here (I speak in strict confidence; it is not business-like to +whisper it, even to you), by the strangest bearers you can imagine, +every one of whom had his head hanging on by a single hair as he passed +the Barriers. At another time, our parcels would come and go, as easily +as in business-like Old England; but now, everything is stopped." + +"And do you really go to-night?" + +"I really go to-night, for the case has become too pressing to admit of +delay." + +"And do you take no one with you?" + +"All sorts of people have been proposed to me, but I will have nothing +to say to any of them. I intend to take Jerry. Jerry has been my +bodyguard on Sunday nights for a long time past and I am used to him. +Nobody will suspect Jerry of being anything but an English bull-dog, or +of having any design in his head but to fly at anybody who touches his +master." + +"I must say again that I heartily admire your gallantry and +youthfulness." + +"I must say again, nonsense, nonsense! When I have executed this little +commission, I shall, perhaps, accept Tellson's proposal to retire and +live at my ease. Time enough, then, to think about growing old." + +This dialogue had taken place at Mr. Lorry's usual desk, with +Monseigneur swarming within a yard or two of it, boastful of what he +would do to avenge himself on the rascal-people before long. It was too +much the way of Monseigneur under his reverses as a refugee, and it +was much too much the way of native British orthodoxy, to talk of this +terrible Revolution as if it were the only harvest ever known under +the skies that had not been sown--as if nothing had ever been done, or +omitted to be done, that had led to it--as if observers of the wretched +millions in France, and of the misused and perverted resources that +should have made them prosperous, had not seen it inevitably coming, +years before, and had not in plain words recorded what they saw. Such +vapouring, combined with the extravagant plots of Monseigneur for the +restoration of a state of things that had utterly exhausted itself, +and worn out Heaven and earth as well as itself, was hard to be endured +without some remonstrance by any sane man who knew the truth. And it was +such vapouring all about his ears, like a troublesome confusion of blood +in his own head, added to a latent uneasiness in his mind, which had +already made Charles Darnay restless, and which still kept him so. + +Among the talkers, was Stryver, of the King's Bench Bar, far on his +way to state promotion, and, therefore, loud on the theme: broaching +to Monseigneur, his devices for blowing the people up and exterminating +them from the face of the earth, and doing without them: and for +accomplishing many similar objects akin in their nature to the abolition +of eagles by sprinkling salt on the tails of the race. Him, Darnay heard +with a particular feeling of objection; and Darnay stood divided between +going away that he might hear no more, and remaining to interpose his +word, when the thing that was to be, went on to shape itself out. + +The House approached Mr. Lorry, and laying a soiled and unopened letter +before him, asked if he had yet discovered any traces of the person to +whom it was addressed? The House laid the letter down so close to Darnay +that he saw the direction--the more quickly because it was his own right +name. The address, turned into English, ran: + +"Very pressing. To Monsieur heretofore the Marquis St. Evremonde, of +France. Confided to the cares of Messrs. Tellson and Co., Bankers, +London, England." + +On the marriage morning, Doctor Manette had made it his one urgent and +express request to Charles Darnay, that the secret of this name should +be--unless he, the Doctor, dissolved the obligation--kept inviolate +between them. Nobody else knew it to be his name; his own wife had no +suspicion of the fact; Mr. Lorry could have none. + +"No," said Mr. Lorry, in reply to the House; "I have referred it, +I think, to everybody now here, and no one can tell me where this +gentleman is to be found." + +The hands of the clock verging upon the hour of closing the Bank, there +was a general set of the current of talkers past Mr. Lorry's desk. He +held the letter out inquiringly; and Monseigneur looked at it, in the +person of this plotting and indignant refugee; and Monseigneur looked at +it in the person of that plotting and indignant refugee; and This, That, +and The Other, all had something disparaging to say, in French or in +English, concerning the Marquis who was not to be found. + +"Nephew, I believe--but in any case degenerate successor--of the +polished Marquis who was murdered," said one. "Happy to say, I never +knew him." + +"A craven who abandoned his post," said another--this Monseigneur had +been got out of Paris, legs uppermost and half suffocated, in a load of +hay--"some years ago." + +"Infected with the new doctrines," said a third, eyeing the direction +through his glass in passing; "set himself in opposition to the last +Marquis, abandoned the estates when he inherited them, and left them to +the ruffian herd. They will recompense him now, I hope, as he deserves." + +"Hey?" cried the blatant Stryver. "Did he though? Is that the sort of +fellow? Let us look at his infamous name. D--n the fellow!" + +Darnay, unable to restrain himself any longer, touched Mr. Stryver on +the shoulder, and said: + +"I know the fellow." + +"Do you, by Jupiter?" said Stryver. "I am sorry for it." + +"Why?" + +"Why, Mr. Darnay? D'ye hear what he did? Don't ask, why, in these +times." + +"But I do ask why?" + +"Then I tell you again, Mr. Darnay, I am sorry for it. I am sorry to +hear you putting any such extraordinary questions. Here is a fellow, +who, infected by the most pestilent and blasphemous code of devilry that +ever was known, abandoned his property to the vilest scum of the earth +that ever did murder by wholesale, and you ask me why I am sorry that a +man who instructs youth knows him? Well, but I'll answer you. I am sorry +because I believe there is contamination in such a scoundrel. That's +why." + +Mindful of the secret, Darnay with great difficulty checked himself, and +said: "You may not understand the gentleman." + +"I understand how to put _you_ in a corner, Mr. Darnay," said Bully +Stryver, "and I'll do it. If this fellow is a gentleman, I _don't_ +understand him. You may tell him so, with my compliments. You may also +tell him, from me, that after abandoning his worldly goods and position +to this butcherly mob, I wonder he is not at the head of them. But, no, +gentlemen," said Stryver, looking all round, and snapping his fingers, +"I know something of human nature, and I tell you that you'll never +find a fellow like this fellow, trusting himself to the mercies of such +precious _proteges_. No, gentlemen; he'll always show 'em a clean pair +of heels very early in the scuffle, and sneak away." + +With those words, and a final snap of his fingers, Mr. Stryver +shouldered himself into Fleet-street, amidst the general approbation of +his hearers. Mr. Lorry and Charles Darnay were left alone at the desk, +in the general departure from the Bank. + +"Will you take charge of the letter?" said Mr. Lorry. "You know where to +deliver it?" + +"I do." + +"Will you undertake to explain, that we suppose it to have been +addressed here, on the chance of our knowing where to forward it, and +that it has been here some time?" + +"I will do so. Do you start for Paris from here?" + +"From here, at eight." + +"I will come back, to see you off." + +Very ill at ease with himself, and with Stryver and most other men, +Darnay made the best of his way into the quiet of the Temple, opened the +letter, and read it. These were its contents: + + +"Prison of the Abbaye, Paris. + +"June 21, 1792. "MONSIEUR HERETOFORE THE MARQUIS. + +"After having long been in danger of my life at the hands of the +village, I have been seized, with great violence and indignity, and +brought a long journey on foot to Paris. On the road I have suffered a +great deal. Nor is that all; my house has been destroyed--razed to the +ground. + +"The crime for which I am imprisoned, Monsieur heretofore the Marquis, +and for which I shall be summoned before the tribunal, and shall lose my +life (without your so generous help), is, they tell me, treason against +the majesty of the people, in that I have acted against them for an +emigrant. It is in vain I represent that I have acted for them, and not +against, according to your commands. It is in vain I represent that, +before the sequestration of emigrant property, I had remitted the +imposts they had ceased to pay; that I had collected no rent; that I had +had recourse to no process. The only response is, that I have acted for +an emigrant, and where is that emigrant? + +"Ah! most gracious Monsieur heretofore the Marquis, where is that +emigrant? I cry in my sleep where is he? I demand of Heaven, will he +not come to deliver me? No answer. Ah Monsieur heretofore the Marquis, +I send my desolate cry across the sea, hoping it may perhaps reach your +ears through the great bank of Tilson known at Paris! + +"For the love of Heaven, of justice, of generosity, of the honour of +your noble name, I supplicate you, Monsieur heretofore the Marquis, to +succour and release me. My fault is, that I have been true to you. Oh +Monsieur heretofore the Marquis, I pray you be you true to me! + +"From this prison here of horror, whence I every hour tend nearer and +nearer to destruction, I send you, Monsieur heretofore the Marquis, the +assurance of my dolorous and unhappy service. + +"Your afflicted, + +"Gabelle." + + +The latent uneasiness in Darnay's mind was roused to vigourous life +by this letter. The peril of an old servant and a good one, whose +only crime was fidelity to himself and his family, stared him so +reproachfully in the face, that, as he walked to and fro in the Temple +considering what to do, he almost hid his face from the passersby. + +He knew very well, that in his horror of the deed which had culminated +the bad deeds and bad reputation of the old family house, in his +resentful suspicions of his uncle, and in the aversion with which his +conscience regarded the crumbling fabric that he was supposed to uphold, +he had acted imperfectly. He knew very well, that in his love for Lucie, +his renunciation of his social place, though by no means new to his own +mind, had been hurried and incomplete. He knew that he ought to have +systematically worked it out and supervised it, and that he had meant to +do it, and that it had never been done. + +The happiness of his own chosen English home, the necessity of being +always actively employed, the swift changes and troubles of the time +which had followed on one another so fast, that the events of this week +annihilated the immature plans of last week, and the events of the week +following made all new again; he knew very well, that to the force of +these circumstances he had yielded:--not without disquiet, but still +without continuous and accumulating resistance. That he had watched +the times for a time of action, and that they had shifted and struggled +until the time had gone by, and the nobility were trooping from +France by every highway and byway, and their property was in course of +confiscation and destruction, and their very names were blotting out, +was as well known to himself as it could be to any new authority in +France that might impeach him for it. + +But, he had oppressed no man, he had imprisoned no man; he was so +far from having harshly exacted payment of his dues, that he had +relinquished them of his own will, thrown himself on a world with no +favour in it, won his own private place there, and earned his own +bread. Monsieur Gabelle had held the impoverished and involved estate +on written instructions, to spare the people, to give them what little +there was to give--such fuel as the heavy creditors would let them have +in the winter, and such produce as could be saved from the same grip in +the summer--and no doubt he had put the fact in plea and proof, for his +own safety, so that it could not but appear now. + +This favoured the desperate resolution Charles Darnay had begun to make, +that he would go to Paris. + +Yes. Like the mariner in the old story, the winds and streams had driven +him within the influence of the Loadstone Rock, and it was drawing him +to itself, and he must go. Everything that arose before his mind drifted +him on, faster and faster, more and more steadily, to the terrible +attraction. His latent uneasiness had been, that bad aims were being +worked out in his own unhappy land by bad instruments, and that he who +could not fail to know that he was better than they, was not there, +trying to do something to stay bloodshed, and assert the claims of mercy +and humanity. With this uneasiness half stifled, and half reproaching +him, he had been brought to the pointed comparison of himself with the +brave old gentleman in whom duty was so strong; upon that comparison +(injurious to himself) had instantly followed the sneers of Monseigneur, +which had stung him bitterly, and those of Stryver, which above all were +coarse and galling, for old reasons. Upon those, had followed Gabelle's +letter: the appeal of an innocent prisoner, in danger of death, to his +justice, honour, and good name. + +His resolution was made. He must go to Paris. + +Yes. The Loadstone Rock was drawing him, and he must sail on, until he +struck. He knew of no rock; he saw hardly any danger. The intention +with which he had done what he had done, even although he had left +it incomplete, presented it before him in an aspect that would be +gratefully acknowledged in France on his presenting himself to assert +it. Then, that glorious vision of doing good, which is so often the +sanguine mirage of so many good minds, arose before him, and he even +saw himself in the illusion with some influence to guide this raging +Revolution that was running so fearfully wild. + +As he walked to and fro with his resolution made, he considered that +neither Lucie nor her father must know of it until he was gone. +Lucie should be spared the pain of separation; and her father, always +reluctant to turn his thoughts towards the dangerous ground of old, +should come to the knowledge of the step, as a step taken, and not in +the balance of suspense and doubt. How much of the incompleteness of his +situation was referable to her father, through the painful anxiety +to avoid reviving old associations of France in his mind, he did not +discuss with himself. But, that circumstance too, had had its influence +in his course. + +He walked to and fro, with thoughts very busy, until it was time to +return to Tellson's and take leave of Mr. Lorry. As soon as he arrived +in Paris he would present himself to this old friend, but he must say +nothing of his intention now. + +A carriage with post-horses was ready at the Bank door, and Jerry was +booted and equipped. + +"I have delivered that letter," said Charles Darnay to Mr. Lorry. "I +would not consent to your being charged with any written answer, but +perhaps you will take a verbal one?" + +"That I will, and readily," said Mr. Lorry, "if it is not dangerous." + +"Not at all. Though it is to a prisoner in the Abbaye." + +"What is his name?" said Mr. Lorry, with his open pocket-book in his +hand. + +"Gabelle." + +"Gabelle. And what is the message to the unfortunate Gabelle in prison?" + +"Simply, 'that he has received the letter, and will come.'" + +"Any time mentioned?" + +"He will start upon his journey to-morrow night." + +"Any person mentioned?" + +"No." + +He helped Mr. Lorry to wrap himself in a number of coats and cloaks, +and went out with him from the warm atmosphere of the old Bank, into the +misty air of Fleet-street. "My love to Lucie, and to little Lucie," said +Mr. Lorry at parting, "and take precious care of them till I come back." +Charles Darnay shook his head and doubtfully smiled, as the carriage +rolled away. + +That night--it was the fourteenth of August--he sat up late, and wrote +two fervent letters; one was to Lucie, explaining the strong obligation +he was under to go to Paris, and showing her, at length, the reasons +that he had, for feeling confident that he could become involved in no +personal danger there; the other was to the Doctor, confiding Lucie and +their dear child to his care, and dwelling on the same topics with the +strongest assurances. To both, he wrote that he would despatch letters +in proof of his safety, immediately after his arrival. + +It was a hard day, that day of being among them, with the first +reservation of their joint lives on his mind. It was a hard matter to +preserve the innocent deceit of which they were profoundly unsuspicious. +But, an affectionate glance at his wife, so happy and busy, made him +resolute not to tell her what impended (he had been half moved to do it, +so strange it was to him to act in anything without her quiet aid), and +the day passed quickly. Early in the evening he embraced her, and her +scarcely less dear namesake, pretending that he would return by-and-bye +(an imaginary engagement took him out, and he had secreted a valise +of clothes ready), and so he emerged into the heavy mist of the heavy +streets, with a heavier heart. + +The unseen force was drawing him fast to itself, now, and all the tides +and winds were setting straight and strong towards it. He left his +two letters with a trusty porter, to be delivered half an hour before +midnight, and no sooner; took horse for Dover; and began his journey. +"For the love of Heaven, of justice, of generosity, of the honour of +your noble name!" was the poor prisoner's cry with which he strengthened +his sinking heart, as he left all that was dear on earth behind him, and +floated away for the Loadstone Rock. + + +The end of the second book. + + + + + +Book the Third--the Track of a Storm + + + + +I. In Secret + + +The traveller fared slowly on his way, who fared towards Paris from +England in the autumn of the year one thousand seven hundred and +ninety-two. More than enough of bad roads, bad equipages, and bad +horses, he would have encountered to delay him, though the fallen and +unfortunate King of France had been upon his throne in all his glory; +but, the changed times were fraught with other obstacles than +these. Every town-gate and village taxing-house had its band of +citizen-patriots, with their national muskets in a most explosive state +of readiness, who stopped all comers and goers, cross-questioned them, +inspected their papers, looked for their names in lists of their own, +turned them back, or sent them on, or stopped them and laid them in +hold, as their capricious judgment or fancy deemed best for the dawning +Republic One and Indivisible, of Liberty, Equality, Fraternity, or +Death. + +A very few French leagues of his journey were accomplished, when Charles +Darnay began to perceive that for him along these country roads there +was no hope of return until he should have been declared a good citizen +at Paris. Whatever might befall now, he must on to his journey's end. +Not a mean village closed upon him, not a common barrier dropped across +the road behind him, but he knew it to be another iron door in +the series that was barred between him and England. The universal +watchfulness so encompassed him, that if he had been taken in a net, +or were being forwarded to his destination in a cage, he could not have +felt his freedom more completely gone. + +This universal watchfulness not only stopped him on the highway twenty +times in a stage, but retarded his progress twenty times in a day, by +riding after him and taking him back, riding before him and stopping him +by anticipation, riding with him and keeping him in charge. He had been +days upon his journey in France alone, when he went to bed tired out, in +a little town on the high road, still a long way from Paris. + +Nothing but the production of the afflicted Gabelle's letter from his +prison of the Abbaye would have got him on so far. His difficulty at the +guard-house in this small place had been such, that he felt his journey +to have come to a crisis. And he was, therefore, as little surprised as +a man could be, to find himself awakened at the small inn to which he +had been remitted until morning, in the middle of the night. + +Awakened by a timid local functionary and three armed patriots in rough +red caps and with pipes in their mouths, who sat down on the bed. + +"Emigrant," said the functionary, "I am going to send you on to Paris, +under an escort." + +"Citizen, I desire nothing more than to get to Paris, though I could +dispense with the escort." + +"Silence!" growled a red-cap, striking at the coverlet with the butt-end +of his musket. "Peace, aristocrat!" + +"It is as the good patriot says," observed the timid functionary. "You +are an aristocrat, and must have an escort--and must pay for it." + +"I have no choice," said Charles Darnay. + +"Choice! Listen to him!" cried the same scowling red-cap. "As if it was +not a favour to be protected from the lamp-iron!" + +"It is always as the good patriot says," observed the functionary. "Rise +and dress yourself, emigrant." + +Darnay complied, and was taken back to the guard-house, where other +patriots in rough red caps were smoking, drinking, and sleeping, by +a watch-fire. Here he paid a heavy price for his escort, and hence he +started with it on the wet, wet roads at three o'clock in the morning. + +The escort were two mounted patriots in red caps and tri-coloured +cockades, armed with national muskets and sabres, who rode one on either +side of him. + +The escorted governed his own horse, but a loose line was attached to +his bridle, the end of which one of the patriots kept girded round his +wrist. In this state they set forth with the sharp rain driving in their +faces: clattering at a heavy dragoon trot over the uneven town pavement, +and out upon the mire-deep roads. In this state they traversed without +change, except of horses and pace, all the mire-deep leagues that lay +between them and the capital. + +They travelled in the night, halting an hour or two after daybreak, and +lying by until the twilight fell. The escort were so wretchedly clothed, +that they twisted straw round their bare legs, and thatched their ragged +shoulders to keep the wet off. Apart from the personal discomfort of +being so attended, and apart from such considerations of present danger +as arose from one of the patriots being chronically drunk, and carrying +his musket very recklessly, Charles Darnay did not allow the restraint +that was laid upon him to awaken any serious fears in his breast; for, +he reasoned with himself that it could have no reference to the merits +of an individual case that was not yet stated, and of representations, +confirmable by the prisoner in the Abbaye, that were not yet made. + +But when they came to the town of Beauvais--which they did at eventide, +when the streets were filled with people--he could not conceal from +himself that the aspect of affairs was very alarming. An ominous crowd +gathered to see him dismount of the posting-yard, and many voices called +out loudly, "Down with the emigrant!" + +He stopped in the act of swinging himself out of his saddle, and, +resuming it as his safest place, said: + +"Emigrant, my friends! Do you not see me here, in France, of my own +will?" + +"You are a cursed emigrant," cried a farrier, making at him in a +furious manner through the press, hammer in hand; "and you are a cursed +aristocrat!" + +The postmaster interposed himself between this man and the rider's +bridle (at which he was evidently making), and soothingly said, "Let him +be; let him be! He will be judged at Paris." + +"Judged!" repeated the farrier, swinging his hammer. "Ay! and condemned +as a traitor." At this the crowd roared approval. + +Checking the postmaster, who was for turning his horse's head to the +yard (the drunken patriot sat composedly in his saddle looking on, with +the line round his wrist), Darnay said, as soon as he could make his +voice heard: + +"Friends, you deceive yourselves, or you are deceived. I am not a +traitor." + +"He lies!" cried the smith. "He is a traitor since the decree. His life +is forfeit to the people. His cursed life is not his own!" + +At the instant when Darnay saw a rush in the eyes of the crowd, which +another instant would have brought upon him, the postmaster turned his +horse into the yard, the escort rode in close upon his horse's flanks, +and the postmaster shut and barred the crazy double gates. The farrier +struck a blow upon them with his hammer, and the crowd groaned; but, no +more was done. + +"What is this decree that the smith spoke of?" Darnay asked the +postmaster, when he had thanked him, and stood beside him in the yard. + +"Truly, a decree for selling the property of emigrants." + +"When passed?" + +"On the fourteenth." + +"The day I left England!" + +"Everybody says it is but one of several, and that there will be +others--if there are not already--banishing all emigrants, and +condemning all to death who return. That is what he meant when he said +your life was not your own." + +"But there are no such decrees yet?" + +"What do I know!" said the postmaster, shrugging his shoulders; "there +may be, or there will be. It is all the same. What would you have?" + +They rested on some straw in a loft until the middle of the night, and +then rode forward again when all the town was asleep. Among the many +wild changes observable on familiar things which made this wild ride +unreal, not the least was the seeming rarity of sleep. After long and +lonely spurring over dreary roads, they would come to a cluster of poor +cottages, not steeped in darkness, but all glittering with lights, and +would find the people, in a ghostly manner in the dead of the night, +circling hand in hand round a shrivelled tree of Liberty, or all drawn +up together singing a Liberty song. Happily, however, there was sleep in +Beauvais that night to help them out of it and they passed on once more +into solitude and loneliness: jingling through the untimely cold and +wet, among impoverished fields that had yielded no fruits of the earth +that year, diversified by the blackened remains of burnt houses, and by +the sudden emergence from ambuscade, and sharp reining up across their +way, of patriot patrols on the watch on all the roads. + +Daylight at last found them before the wall of Paris. The barrier was +closed and strongly guarded when they rode up to it. + +"Where are the papers of this prisoner?" demanded a resolute-looking man +in authority, who was summoned out by the guard. + +Naturally struck by the disagreeable word, Charles Darnay requested the +speaker to take notice that he was a free traveller and French citizen, +in charge of an escort which the disturbed state of the country had +imposed upon him, and which he had paid for. + +"Where," repeated the same personage, without taking any heed of him +whatever, "are the papers of this prisoner?" + +The drunken patriot had them in his cap, and produced them. Casting his +eyes over Gabelle's letter, the same personage in authority showed some +disorder and surprise, and looked at Darnay with a close attention. + +He left escort and escorted without saying a word, however, and went +into the guard-room; meanwhile, they sat upon their horses outside the +gate. Looking about him while in this state of suspense, Charles +Darnay observed that the gate was held by a mixed guard of soldiers and +patriots, the latter far outnumbering the former; and that while ingress +into the city for peasants' carts bringing in supplies, and for similar +traffic and traffickers, was easy enough, egress, even for the homeliest +people, was very difficult. A numerous medley of men and women, not +to mention beasts and vehicles of various sorts, was waiting to issue +forth; but, the previous identification was so strict, that they +filtered through the barrier very slowly. Some of these people knew +their turn for examination to be so far off, that they lay down on the +ground to sleep or smoke, while others talked together, or loitered +about. The red cap and tri-colour cockade were universal, both among men +and women. + +When he had sat in his saddle some half-hour, taking note of these +things, Darnay found himself confronted by the same man in authority, +who directed the guard to open the barrier. Then he delivered to the +escort, drunk and sober, a receipt for the escorted, and requested him +to dismount. He did so, and the two patriots, leading his tired horse, +turned and rode away without entering the city. + +He accompanied his conductor into a guard-room, smelling of common wine +and tobacco, where certain soldiers and patriots, asleep and awake, +drunk and sober, and in various neutral states between sleeping and +waking, drunkenness and sobriety, were standing and lying about. The +light in the guard-house, half derived from the waning oil-lamps of +the night, and half from the overcast day, was in a correspondingly +uncertain condition. Some registers were lying open on a desk, and an +officer of a coarse, dark aspect, presided over these. + +"Citizen Defarge," said he to Darnay's conductor, as he took a slip of +paper to write on. "Is this the emigrant Evremonde?" + +"This is the man." + +"Your age, Evremonde?" + +"Thirty-seven." + +"Married, Evremonde?" + +"Yes." + +"Where married?" + +"In England." + +"Without doubt. Where is your wife, Evremonde?" + +"In England." + +"Without doubt. You are consigned, Evremonde, to the prison of La +Force." + +"Just Heaven!" exclaimed Darnay. "Under what law, and for what offence?" + +The officer looked up from his slip of paper for a moment. + +"We have new laws, Evremonde, and new offences, since you were here." He +said it with a hard smile, and went on writing. + +"I entreat you to observe that I have come here voluntarily, in response +to that written appeal of a fellow-countryman which lies before you. I +demand no more than the opportunity to do so without delay. Is not that +my right?" + +"Emigrants have no rights, Evremonde," was the stolid reply. The officer +wrote until he had finished, read over to himself what he had written, +sanded it, and handed it to Defarge, with the words "In secret." + +Defarge motioned with the paper to the prisoner that he must accompany +him. The prisoner obeyed, and a guard of two armed patriots attended +them. + +"Is it you," said Defarge, in a low voice, as they went down the +guardhouse steps and turned into Paris, "who married the daughter of +Doctor Manette, once a prisoner in the Bastille that is no more?" + +"Yes," replied Darnay, looking at him with surprise. + +"My name is Defarge, and I keep a wine-shop in the Quarter Saint +Antoine. Possibly you have heard of me." + +"My wife came to your house to reclaim her father? Yes!" + +The word "wife" seemed to serve as a gloomy reminder to Defarge, to say +with sudden impatience, "In the name of that sharp female newly-born, +and called La Guillotine, why did you come to France?" + +"You heard me say why, a minute ago. Do you not believe it is the +truth?" + +"A bad truth for you," said Defarge, speaking with knitted brows, and +looking straight before him. + +"Indeed I am lost here. All here is so unprecedented, so changed, so +sudden and unfair, that I am absolutely lost. Will you render me a +little help?" + +"None." Defarge spoke, always looking straight before him. + +"Will you answer me a single question?" + +"Perhaps. According to its nature. You can say what it is." + +"In this prison that I am going to so unjustly, shall I have some free +communication with the world outside?" + +"You will see." + +"I am not to be buried there, prejudged, and without any means of +presenting my case?" + +"You will see. But, what then? Other people have been similarly buried +in worse prisons, before now." + +"But never by me, Citizen Defarge." + +Defarge glanced darkly at him for answer, and walked on in a steady +and set silence. The deeper he sank into this silence, the fainter hope +there was--or so Darnay thought--of his softening in any slight degree. +He, therefore, made haste to say: + +"It is of the utmost importance to me (you know, Citizen, even better +than I, of how much importance), that I should be able to communicate to +Mr. Lorry of Tellson's Bank, an English gentleman who is now in Paris, +the simple fact, without comment, that I have been thrown into the +prison of La Force. Will you cause that to be done for me?" + +"I will do," Defarge doggedly rejoined, "nothing for you. My duty is to +my country and the People. I am the sworn servant of both, against you. +I will do nothing for you." + +Charles Darnay felt it hopeless to entreat him further, and his pride +was touched besides. As they walked on in silence, he could not but see +how used the people were to the spectacle of prisoners passing along the +streets. The very children scarcely noticed him. A few passers turned +their heads, and a few shook their fingers at him as an aristocrat; +otherwise, that a man in good clothes should be going to prison, was no +more remarkable than that a labourer in working clothes should be +going to work. In one narrow, dark, and dirty street through which they +passed, an excited orator, mounted on a stool, was addressing an excited +audience on the crimes against the people, of the king and the royal +family. The few words that he caught from this man's lips, first made +it known to Charles Darnay that the king was in prison, and that the +foreign ambassadors had one and all left Paris. On the road (except at +Beauvais) he had heard absolutely nothing. The escort and the universal +watchfulness had completely isolated him. + +That he had fallen among far greater dangers than those which had +developed themselves when he left England, he of course knew now. That +perils had thickened about him fast, and might thicken faster and faster +yet, he of course knew now. He could not but admit to himself that he +might not have made this journey, if he could have foreseen the events +of a few days. And yet his misgivings were not so dark as, imagined by +the light of this later time, they would appear. Troubled as the future +was, it was the unknown future, and in its obscurity there was ignorant +hope. The horrible massacre, days and nights long, which, within a few +rounds of the clock, was to set a great mark of blood upon the blessed +garnering time of harvest, was as far out of his knowledge as if it had +been a hundred thousand years away. The "sharp female newly-born, and +called La Guillotine," was hardly known to him, or to the generality +of people, by name. The frightful deeds that were to be soon done, were +probably unimagined at that time in the brains of the doers. How could +they have a place in the shadowy conceptions of a gentle mind? + +Of unjust treatment in detention and hardship, and in cruel separation +from his wife and child, he foreshadowed the likelihood, or the +certainty; but, beyond this, he dreaded nothing distinctly. With this on +his mind, which was enough to carry into a dreary prison courtyard, he +arrived at the prison of La Force. + +A man with a bloated face opened the strong wicket, to whom Defarge +presented "The Emigrant Evremonde." + +"What the Devil! How many more of them!" exclaimed the man with the +bloated face. + +Defarge took his receipt without noticing the exclamation, and withdrew, +with his two fellow-patriots. + +"What the Devil, I say again!" exclaimed the gaoler, left with his wife. +"How many more!" + +The gaoler's wife, being provided with no answer to the question, merely +replied, "One must have patience, my dear!" Three turnkeys who entered +responsive to a bell she rang, echoed the sentiment, and one added, "For +the love of Liberty;" which sounded in that place like an inappropriate +conclusion. + +The prison of La Force was a gloomy prison, dark and filthy, and with a +horrible smell of foul sleep in it. Extraordinary how soon the noisome +flavour of imprisoned sleep, becomes manifest in all such places that +are ill cared for! + +"In secret, too," grumbled the gaoler, looking at the written paper. "As +if I was not already full to bursting!" + +He stuck the paper on a file, in an ill-humour, and Charles Darnay +awaited his further pleasure for half an hour: sometimes, pacing to and +fro in the strong arched room: sometimes, resting on a stone seat: in +either case detained to be imprinted on the memory of the chief and his +subordinates. + +"Come!" said the chief, at length taking up his keys, "come with me, +emigrant." + +Through the dismal prison twilight, his new charge accompanied him by +corridor and staircase, many doors clanging and locking behind them, +until they came into a large, low, vaulted chamber, crowded with +prisoners of both sexes. The women were seated at a long table, reading +and writing, knitting, sewing, and embroidering; the men were for the +most part standing behind their chairs, or lingering up and down the +room. + +In the instinctive association of prisoners with shameful crime and +disgrace, the new-comer recoiled from this company. But the crowning +unreality of his long unreal ride, was, their all at once rising to +receive him, with every refinement of manner known to the time, and with +all the engaging graces and courtesies of life. + +So strangely clouded were these refinements by the prison manners and +gloom, so spectral did they become in the inappropriate squalor and +misery through which they were seen, that Charles Darnay seemed to stand +in a company of the dead. Ghosts all! The ghost of beauty, the ghost +of stateliness, the ghost of elegance, the ghost of pride, the ghost of +frivolity, the ghost of wit, the ghost of youth, the ghost of age, all +waiting their dismissal from the desolate shore, all turning on him eyes +that were changed by the death they had died in coming there. + +It struck him motionless. The gaoler standing at his side, and the other +gaolers moving about, who would have been well enough as to appearance +in the ordinary exercise of their functions, looked so extravagantly +coarse contrasted with sorrowing mothers and blooming daughters who were +there--with the apparitions of the coquette, the young beauty, and the +mature woman delicately bred--that the inversion of all experience and +likelihood which the scene of shadows presented, was heightened to its +utmost. Surely, ghosts all. Surely, the long unreal ride some progress +of disease that had brought him to these gloomy shades! + +"In the name of the assembled companions in misfortune," said a +gentleman of courtly appearance and address, coming forward, "I have the +honour of giving you welcome to La Force, and of condoling with you +on the calamity that has brought you among us. May it soon terminate +happily! It would be an impertinence elsewhere, but it is not so here, +to ask your name and condition?" + +Charles Darnay roused himself, and gave the required information, in +words as suitable as he could find. + +"But I hope," said the gentleman, following the chief gaoler with his +eyes, who moved across the room, "that you are not in secret?" + +"I do not understand the meaning of the term, but I have heard them say +so." + +"Ah, what a pity! We so much regret it! But take courage; several +members of our society have been in secret, at first, and it has lasted +but a short time." Then he added, raising his voice, "I grieve to inform +the society--in secret." + +There was a murmur of commiseration as Charles Darnay crossed the room +to a grated door where the gaoler awaited him, and many voices--among +which, the soft and compassionate voices of women were conspicuous--gave +him good wishes and encouragement. He turned at the grated door, to +render the thanks of his heart; it closed under the gaoler's hand; and +the apparitions vanished from his sight forever. + +The wicket opened on a stone staircase, leading upward. When they had +ascended forty steps (the prisoner of half an hour already counted +them), the gaoler opened a low black door, and they passed into a +solitary cell. It struck cold and damp, but was not dark. + +"Yours," said the gaoler. + +"Why am I confined alone?" + +"How do I know!" + +"I can buy pen, ink, and paper?" + +"Such are not my orders. You will be visited, and can ask then. At +present, you may buy your food, and nothing more." + +There were in the cell, a chair, a table, and a straw mattress. As +the gaoler made a general inspection of these objects, and of the four +walls, before going out, a wandering fancy wandered through the mind of +the prisoner leaning against the wall opposite to him, that this gaoler +was so unwholesomely bloated, both in face and person, as to look like +a man who had been drowned and filled with water. When the gaoler was +gone, he thought in the same wandering way, "Now am I left, as if I were +dead." Stopping then, to look down at the mattress, he turned from it +with a sick feeling, and thought, "And here in these crawling creatures +is the first condition of the body after death." + +"Five paces by four and a half, five paces by four and a half, five +paces by four and a half." The prisoner walked to and fro in his cell, +counting its measurement, and the roar of the city arose like muffled +drums with a wild swell of voices added to them. "He made shoes, he made +shoes, he made shoes." The prisoner counted the measurement again, and +paced faster, to draw his mind with him from that latter repetition. +"The ghosts that vanished when the wicket closed. There was one among +them, the appearance of a lady dressed in black, who was leaning in the +embrasure of a window, and she had a light shining upon her golden +hair, and she looked like * * * * Let us ride on again, for God's sake, +through the illuminated villages with the people all awake! * * * * He +made shoes, he made shoes, he made shoes. * * * * Five paces by four and +a half." With such scraps tossing and rolling upward from the depths of +his mind, the prisoner walked faster and faster, obstinately counting +and counting; and the roar of the city changed to this extent--that it +still rolled in like muffled drums, but with the wail of voices that he +knew, in the swell that rose above them. + + + + +II. The Grindstone + + +Tellson's Bank, established in the Saint Germain Quarter of Paris, was +in a wing of a large house, approached by a courtyard and shut off from +the street by a high wall and a strong gate. The house belonged to +a great nobleman who had lived in it until he made a flight from the +troubles, in his own cook's dress, and got across the borders. A +mere beast of the chase flying from hunters, he was still in his +metempsychosis no other than the same Monseigneur, the preparation +of whose chocolate for whose lips had once occupied three strong men +besides the cook in question. + +Monseigneur gone, and the three strong men absolving themselves from the +sin of having drawn his high wages, by being more than ready and +willing to cut his throat on the altar of the dawning Republic one and +indivisible of Liberty, Equality, Fraternity, or Death, Monseigneur's +house had been first sequestrated, and then confiscated. For, all +things moved so fast, and decree followed decree with that fierce +precipitation, that now upon the third night of the autumn month +of September, patriot emissaries of the law were in possession of +Monseigneur's house, and had marked it with the tri-colour, and were +drinking brandy in its state apartments. + +A place of business in London like Tellson's place of business in Paris, +would soon have driven the House out of its mind and into the Gazette. +For, what would staid British responsibility and respectability have +said to orange-trees in boxes in a Bank courtyard, and even to a Cupid +over the counter? Yet such things were. Tellson's had whitewashed the +Cupid, but he was still to be seen on the ceiling, in the coolest +linen, aiming (as he very often does) at money from morning to +night. Bankruptcy must inevitably have come of this young Pagan, in +Lombard-street, London, and also of a curtained alcove in the rear of +the immortal boy, and also of a looking-glass let into the wall, and +also of clerks not at all old, who danced in public on the slightest +provocation. Yet, a French Tellson's could get on with these things +exceedingly well, and, as long as the times held together, no man had +taken fright at them, and drawn out his money. + +What money would be drawn out of Tellson's henceforth, and what would +lie there, lost and forgotten; what plate and jewels would tarnish in +Tellson's hiding-places, while the depositors rusted in prisons, +and when they should have violently perished; how many accounts with +Tellson's never to be balanced in this world, must be carried over into +the next; no man could have said, that night, any more than Mr. Jarvis +Lorry could, though he thought heavily of these questions. He sat by +a newly-lighted wood fire (the blighted and unfruitful year was +prematurely cold), and on his honest and courageous face there was a +deeper shade than the pendent lamp could throw, or any object in the +room distortedly reflect--a shade of horror. + +He occupied rooms in the Bank, in his fidelity to the House of which +he had grown to be a part, like strong root-ivy. It chanced that they +derived a kind of security from the patriotic occupation of the main +building, but the true-hearted old gentleman never calculated about +that. All such circumstances were indifferent to him, so that he did +his duty. On the opposite side of the courtyard, under a colonnade, +was extensive standing--for carriages--where, indeed, some carriages +of Monseigneur yet stood. Against two of the pillars were fastened two +great flaring flambeaux, and in the light of these, standing out in the +open air, was a large grindstone: a roughly mounted thing which appeared +to have hurriedly been brought there from some neighbouring smithy, +or other workshop. Rising and looking out of window at these harmless +objects, Mr. Lorry shivered, and retired to his seat by the fire. He had +opened, not only the glass window, but the lattice blind outside it, and +he had closed both again, and he shivered through his frame. + +From the streets beyond the high wall and the strong gate, there came +the usual night hum of the city, with now and then an indescribable ring +in it, weird and unearthly, as if some unwonted sounds of a terrible +nature were going up to Heaven. + +"Thank God," said Mr. Lorry, clasping his hands, "that no one near and +dear to me is in this dreadful town to-night. May He have mercy on all +who are in danger!" + +Soon afterwards, the bell at the great gate sounded, and he thought, +"They have come back!" and sat listening. But, there was no loud +irruption into the courtyard, as he had expected, and he heard the gate +clash again, and all was quiet. + +The nervousness and dread that were upon him inspired that vague +uneasiness respecting the Bank, which a great change would naturally +awaken, with such feelings roused. It was well guarded, and he got up to +go among the trusty people who were watching it, when his door suddenly +opened, and two figures rushed in, at sight of which he fell back in +amazement. + +Lucie and her father! Lucie with her arms stretched out to him, and with +that old look of earnestness so concentrated and intensified, that it +seemed as though it had been stamped upon her face expressly to give +force and power to it in this one passage of her life. + +"What is this?" cried Mr. Lorry, breathless and confused. "What is the +matter? Lucie! Manette! What has happened? What has brought you here? +What is it?" + +With the look fixed upon him, in her paleness and wildness, she panted +out in his arms, imploringly, "O my dear friend! My husband!" + +"Your husband, Lucie?" + +"Charles." + +"What of Charles?" + +"Here. + +"Here, in Paris?" + +"Has been here some days--three or four--I don't know how many--I can't +collect my thoughts. An errand of generosity brought him here unknown to +us; he was stopped at the barrier, and sent to prison." + +The old man uttered an irrepressible cry. Almost at the same moment, the +bell of the great gate rang again, and a loud noise of feet and voices +came pouring into the courtyard. + +"What is that noise?" said the Doctor, turning towards the window. + +"Don't look!" cried Mr. Lorry. "Don't look out! Manette, for your life, +don't touch the blind!" + +The Doctor turned, with his hand upon the fastening of the window, and +said, with a cool, bold smile: + +"My dear friend, I have a charmed life in this city. I have been +a Bastille prisoner. There is no patriot in Paris--in Paris? In +France--who, knowing me to have been a prisoner in the Bastille, would +touch me, except to overwhelm me with embraces, or carry me in triumph. +My old pain has given me a power that has brought us through the +barrier, and gained us news of Charles there, and brought us here. I +knew it would be so; I knew I could help Charles out of all danger; I +told Lucie so.--What is that noise?" His hand was again upon the window. + +"Don't look!" cried Mr. Lorry, absolutely desperate. "No, Lucie, my +dear, nor you!" He got his arm round her, and held her. "Don't be so +terrified, my love. I solemnly swear to you that I know of no harm +having happened to Charles; that I had no suspicion even of his being in +this fatal place. What prison is he in?" + +"La Force!" + +"La Force! Lucie, my child, if ever you were brave and serviceable in +your life--and you were always both--you will compose yourself now, to +do exactly as I bid you; for more depends upon it than you can think, or +I can say. There is no help for you in any action on your part to-night; +you cannot possibly stir out. I say this, because what I must bid you +to do for Charles's sake, is the hardest thing to do of all. You must +instantly be obedient, still, and quiet. You must let me put you in a +room at the back here. You must leave your father and me alone for +two minutes, and as there are Life and Death in the world you must not +delay." + +"I will be submissive to you. I see in your face that you know I can do +nothing else than this. I know you are true." + +The old man kissed her, and hurried her into his room, and turned the +key; then, came hurrying back to the Doctor, and opened the window and +partly opened the blind, and put his hand upon the Doctor's arm, and +looked out with him into the courtyard. + +Looked out upon a throng of men and women: not enough in number, or near +enough, to fill the courtyard: not more than forty or fifty in all. The +people in possession of the house had let them in at the gate, and they +had rushed in to work at the grindstone; it had evidently been set up +there for their purpose, as in a convenient and retired spot. + +But, such awful workers, and such awful work! + +The grindstone had a double handle, and, turning at it madly were two +men, whose faces, as their long hair flapped back when the whirlings of +the grindstone brought their faces up, were more horrible and cruel than +the visages of the wildest savages in their most barbarous disguise. +False eyebrows and false moustaches were stuck upon them, and their +hideous countenances were all bloody and sweaty, and all awry with +howling, and all staring and glaring with beastly excitement and want of +sleep. As these ruffians turned and turned, their matted locks now flung +forward over their eyes, now flung backward over their necks, some women +held wine to their mouths that they might drink; and what with dropping +blood, and what with dropping wine, and what with the stream of sparks +struck out of the stone, all their wicked atmosphere seemed gore and +fire. The eye could not detect one creature in the group free from +the smear of blood. Shouldering one another to get next at the +sharpening-stone, were men stripped to the waist, with the stain all +over their limbs and bodies; men in all sorts of rags, with the stain +upon those rags; men devilishly set off with spoils of women's lace +and silk and ribbon, with the stain dyeing those trifles through +and through. Hatchets, knives, bayonets, swords, all brought to be +sharpened, were all red with it. Some of the hacked swords were tied to +the wrists of those who carried them, with strips of linen and fragments +of dress: ligatures various in kind, but all deep of the one colour. And +as the frantic wielders of these weapons snatched them from the stream +of sparks and tore away into the streets, the same red hue was red in +their frenzied eyes;--eyes which any unbrutalised beholder would have +given twenty years of life, to petrify with a well-directed gun. + +All this was seen in a moment, as the vision of a drowning man, or of +any human creature at any very great pass, could see a world if it +were there. They drew back from the window, and the Doctor looked for +explanation in his friend's ashy face. + +"They are," Mr. Lorry whispered the words, glancing fearfully round at +the locked room, "murdering the prisoners. If you are sure of what you +say; if you really have the power you think you have--as I believe you +have--make yourself known to these devils, and get taken to La Force. It +may be too late, I don't know, but let it not be a minute later!" + +Doctor Manette pressed his hand, hastened bareheaded out of the room, +and was in the courtyard when Mr. Lorry regained the blind. + +His streaming white hair, his remarkable face, and the impetuous +confidence of his manner, as he put the weapons aside like water, +carried him in an instant to the heart of the concourse at the stone. +For a few moments there was a pause, and a hurry, and a murmur, and +the unintelligible sound of his voice; and then Mr. Lorry saw him, +surrounded by all, and in the midst of a line of twenty men long, all +linked shoulder to shoulder, and hand to shoulder, hurried out with +cries of--"Live the Bastille prisoner! Help for the Bastille prisoner's +kindred in La Force! Room for the Bastille prisoner in front there! Save +the prisoner Evremonde at La Force!" and a thousand answering shouts. + +He closed the lattice again with a fluttering heart, closed the window +and the curtain, hastened to Lucie, and told her that her father was +assisted by the people, and gone in search of her husband. He found +her child and Miss Pross with her; but, it never occurred to him to be +surprised by their appearance until a long time afterwards, when he sat +watching them in such quiet as the night knew. + +Lucie had, by that time, fallen into a stupor on the floor at his feet, +clinging to his hand. Miss Pross had laid the child down on his own +bed, and her head had gradually fallen on the pillow beside her pretty +charge. O the long, long night, with the moans of the poor wife! And O +the long, long night, with no return of her father and no tidings! + +Twice more in the darkness the bell at the great gate sounded, and the +irruption was repeated, and the grindstone whirled and spluttered. +"What is it?" cried Lucie, affrighted. "Hush! The soldiers' swords are +sharpened there," said Mr. Lorry. "The place is national property now, +and used as a kind of armoury, my love." + +Twice more in all; but, the last spell of work was feeble and fitful. +Soon afterwards the day began to dawn, and he softly detached himself +from the clasping hand, and cautiously looked out again. A man, so +besmeared that he might have been a sorely wounded soldier creeping back +to consciousness on a field of slain, was rising from the pavement by +the side of the grindstone, and looking about him with a vacant air. +Shortly, this worn-out murderer descried in the imperfect light one of +the carriages of Monseigneur, and, staggering to that gorgeous vehicle, +climbed in at the door, and shut himself up to take his rest on its +dainty cushions. + +The great grindstone, Earth, had turned when Mr. Lorry looked out again, +and the sun was red on the courtyard. But, the lesser grindstone stood +alone there in the calm morning air, with a red upon it that the sun had +never given, and would never take away. + + + + +III. The Shadow + + +One of the first considerations which arose in the business mind of Mr. +Lorry when business hours came round, was this:--that he had no right to +imperil Tellson's by sheltering the wife of an emigrant prisoner under +the Bank roof. His own possessions, safety, life, he would have hazarded +for Lucie and her child, without a moment's demur; but the great trust +he held was not his own, and as to that business charge he was a strict +man of business. + +At first, his mind reverted to Defarge, and he thought of finding out +the wine-shop again and taking counsel with its master in reference to +the safest dwelling-place in the distracted state of the city. But, the +same consideration that suggested him, repudiated him; he lived in the +most violent Quarter, and doubtless was influential there, and deep in +its dangerous workings. + +Noon coming, and the Doctor not returning, and every minute's delay +tending to compromise Tellson's, Mr. Lorry advised with Lucie. She said +that her father had spoken of hiring a lodging for a short term, in that +Quarter, near the Banking-house. As there was no business objection to +this, and as he foresaw that even if it were all well with Charles, and +he were to be released, he could not hope to leave the city, Mr. Lorry +went out in quest of such a lodging, and found a suitable one, high up +in a removed by-street where the closed blinds in all the other windows +of a high melancholy square of buildings marked deserted homes. + +To this lodging he at once removed Lucie and her child, and Miss Pross: +giving them what comfort he could, and much more than he had himself. +He left Jerry with them, as a figure to fill a doorway that would bear +considerable knocking on the head, and returned to his own occupations. +A disturbed and doleful mind he brought to bear upon them, and slowly +and heavily the day lagged on with him. + +It wore itself out, and wore him out with it, until the Bank closed. He +was again alone in his room of the previous night, considering what to +do next, when he heard a foot upon the stair. In a few moments, a +man stood in his presence, who, with a keenly observant look at him, +addressed him by his name. + +"Your servant," said Mr. Lorry. "Do you know me?" + +He was a strongly made man with dark curling hair, from forty-five +to fifty years of age. For answer he repeated, without any change of +emphasis, the words: + +"Do you know me?" + +"I have seen you somewhere." + +"Perhaps at my wine-shop?" + +Much interested and agitated, Mr. Lorry said: "You come from Doctor +Manette?" + +"Yes. I come from Doctor Manette." + +"And what says he? What does he send me?" + +Defarge gave into his anxious hand, an open scrap of paper. It bore the +words in the Doctor's writing: + + "Charles is safe, but I cannot safely leave this place yet. + I have obtained the favour that the bearer has a short note + from Charles to his wife. Let the bearer see his wife." + +It was dated from La Force, within an hour. + +"Will you accompany me," said Mr. Lorry, joyfully relieved after reading +this note aloud, "to where his wife resides?" + +"Yes," returned Defarge. + +Scarcely noticing as yet, in what a curiously reserved and mechanical +way Defarge spoke, Mr. Lorry put on his hat and they went down into the +courtyard. There, they found two women; one, knitting. + +"Madame Defarge, surely!" said Mr. Lorry, who had left her in exactly +the same attitude some seventeen years ago. + +"It is she," observed her husband. + +"Does Madame go with us?" inquired Mr. Lorry, seeing that she moved as +they moved. + +"Yes. That she may be able to recognise the faces and know the persons. +It is for their safety." + +Beginning to be struck by Defarge's manner, Mr. Lorry looked dubiously +at him, and led the way. Both the women followed; the second woman being +The Vengeance. + +They passed through the intervening streets as quickly as they might, +ascended the staircase of the new domicile, were admitted by Jerry, +and found Lucie weeping, alone. She was thrown into a transport by the +tidings Mr. Lorry gave her of her husband, and clasped the hand that +delivered his note--little thinking what it had been doing near him in +the night, and might, but for a chance, have done to him. + + "DEAREST,--Take courage. I am well, and your father has + influence around me. You cannot answer this. + Kiss our child for me." + +That was all the writing. It was so much, however, to her who received +it, that she turned from Defarge to his wife, and kissed one of the +hands that knitted. It was a passionate, loving, thankful, womanly +action, but the hand made no response--dropped cold and heavy, and took +to its knitting again. + +There was something in its touch that gave Lucie a check. She stopped in +the act of putting the note in her bosom, and, with her hands yet at her +neck, looked terrified at Madame Defarge. Madame Defarge met the lifted +eyebrows and forehead with a cold, impassive stare. + +"My dear," said Mr. Lorry, striking in to explain; "there are frequent +risings in the streets; and, although it is not likely they will ever +trouble you, Madame Defarge wishes to see those whom she has the power +to protect at such times, to the end that she may know them--that she +may identify them. I believe," said Mr. Lorry, rather halting in his +reassuring words, as the stony manner of all the three impressed itself +upon him more and more, "I state the case, Citizen Defarge?" + +Defarge looked gloomily at his wife, and gave no other answer than a +gruff sound of acquiescence. + +"You had better, Lucie," said Mr. Lorry, doing all he could to +propitiate, by tone and manner, "have the dear child here, and our +good Pross. Our good Pross, Defarge, is an English lady, and knows no +French." + +The lady in question, whose rooted conviction that she was more than a +match for any foreigner, was not to be shaken by distress and, danger, +appeared with folded arms, and observed in English to The Vengeance, +whom her eyes first encountered, "Well, I am sure, Boldface! I hope +_you_ are pretty well!" She also bestowed a British cough on Madame +Defarge; but, neither of the two took much heed of her. + +"Is that his child?" said Madame Defarge, stopping in her work for the +first time, and pointing her knitting-needle at little Lucie as if it +were the finger of Fate. + +"Yes, madame," answered Mr. Lorry; "this is our poor prisoner's darling +daughter, and only child." + +The shadow attendant on Madame Defarge and her party seemed to fall so +threatening and dark on the child, that her mother instinctively +kneeled on the ground beside her, and held her to her breast. The +shadow attendant on Madame Defarge and her party seemed then to fall, +threatening and dark, on both the mother and the child. + +"It is enough, my husband," said Madame Defarge. "I have seen them. We +may go." + +But, the suppressed manner had enough of menace in it--not visible and +presented, but indistinct and withheld--to alarm Lucie into saying, as +she laid her appealing hand on Madame Defarge's dress: + +"You will be good to my poor husband. You will do him no harm. You will +help me to see him if you can?" + +"Your husband is not my business here," returned Madame Defarge, looking +down at her with perfect composure. "It is the daughter of your father +who is my business here." + +"For my sake, then, be merciful to my husband. For my child's sake! She +will put her hands together and pray you to be merciful. We are more +afraid of you than of these others." + +Madame Defarge received it as a compliment, and looked at her husband. +Defarge, who had been uneasily biting his thumb-nail and looking at her, +collected his face into a sterner expression. + +"What is it that your husband says in that little letter?" asked Madame +Defarge, with a lowering smile. "Influence; he says something touching +influence?" + +"That my father," said Lucie, hurriedly taking the paper from her +breast, but with her alarmed eyes on her questioner and not on it, "has +much influence around him." + +"Surely it will release him!" said Madame Defarge. "Let it do so." + +"As a wife and mother," cried Lucie, most earnestly, "I implore you to +have pity on me and not to exercise any power that you possess, against +my innocent husband, but to use it in his behalf. O sister-woman, think +of me. As a wife and mother!" + +Madame Defarge looked, coldly as ever, at the suppliant, and said, +turning to her friend The Vengeance: + +"The wives and mothers we have been used to see, since we were as little +as this child, and much less, have not been greatly considered? We have +known _their_ husbands and fathers laid in prison and kept from them, +often enough? All our lives, we have seen our sister-women suffer, in +themselves and in their children, poverty, nakedness, hunger, thirst, +sickness, misery, oppression and neglect of all kinds?" + +"We have seen nothing else," returned The Vengeance. + +"We have borne this a long time," said Madame Defarge, turning her eyes +again upon Lucie. "Judge you! Is it likely that the trouble of one wife +and mother would be much to us now?" + +She resumed her knitting and went out. The Vengeance followed. Defarge +went last, and closed the door. + +"Courage, my dear Lucie," said Mr. Lorry, as he raised her. "Courage, +courage! So far all goes well with us--much, much better than it has of +late gone with many poor souls. Cheer up, and have a thankful heart." + +"I am not thankless, I hope, but that dreadful woman seems to throw a +shadow on me and on all my hopes." + +"Tut, tut!" said Mr. Lorry; "what is this despondency in the brave +little breast? A shadow indeed! No substance in it, Lucie." + +But the shadow of the manner of these Defarges was dark upon himself, +for all that, and in his secret mind it troubled him greatly. + + + + +IV. Calm in Storm + + +Doctor Manette did not return until the morning of the fourth day of his +absence. So much of what had happened in that dreadful time as could be +kept from the knowledge of Lucie was so well concealed from her, that +not until long afterwards, when France and she were far apart, did she +know that eleven hundred defenceless prisoners of both sexes and all +ages had been killed by the populace; that four days and nights had been +darkened by this deed of horror; and that the air around her had been +tainted by the slain. She only knew that there had been an attack upon +the prisons, that all political prisoners had been in danger, and that +some had been dragged out by the crowd and murdered. + +To Mr. Lorry, the Doctor communicated under an injunction of secrecy on +which he had no need to dwell, that the crowd had taken him through a +scene of carnage to the prison of La Force. That, in the prison he had +found a self-appointed Tribunal sitting, before which the prisoners were +brought singly, and by which they were rapidly ordered to be put forth +to be massacred, or to be released, or (in a few cases) to be sent back +to their cells. That, presented by his conductors to this Tribunal, he +had announced himself by name and profession as having been for eighteen +years a secret and unaccused prisoner in the Bastille; that, one of the +body so sitting in judgment had risen and identified him, and that this +man was Defarge. + +That, hereupon he had ascertained, through the registers on the table, +that his son-in-law was among the living prisoners, and had pleaded hard +to the Tribunal--of whom some members were asleep and some awake, some +dirty with murder and some clean, some sober and some not--for his life +and liberty. That, in the first frantic greetings lavished on himself as +a notable sufferer under the overthrown system, it had been accorded +to him to have Charles Darnay brought before the lawless Court, and +examined. That, he seemed on the point of being at once released, when +the tide in his favour met with some unexplained check (not intelligible +to the Doctor), which led to a few words of secret conference. That, +the man sitting as President had then informed Doctor Manette that +the prisoner must remain in custody, but should, for his sake, be held +inviolate in safe custody. That, immediately, on a signal, the prisoner +was removed to the interior of the prison again; but, that he, the +Doctor, had then so strongly pleaded for permission to remain and +assure himself that his son-in-law was, through no malice or mischance, +delivered to the concourse whose murderous yells outside the gate had +often drowned the proceedings, that he had obtained the permission, and +had remained in that Hall of Blood until the danger was over. + +The sights he had seen there, with brief snatches of food and sleep by +intervals, shall remain untold. The mad joy over the prisoners who were +saved, had astounded him scarcely less than the mad ferocity against +those who were cut to pieces. One prisoner there was, he said, who had +been discharged into the street free, but at whom a mistaken savage had +thrust a pike as he passed out. Being besought to go to him and dress +the wound, the Doctor had passed out at the same gate, and had found him +in the arms of a company of Samaritans, who were seated on the bodies +of their victims. With an inconsistency as monstrous as anything in this +awful nightmare, they had helped the healer, and tended the wounded man +with the gentlest solicitude--had made a litter for him and escorted him +carefully from the spot--had then caught up their weapons and plunged +anew into a butchery so dreadful, that the Doctor had covered his eyes +with his hands, and swooned away in the midst of it. + +As Mr. Lorry received these confidences, and as he watched the face of +his friend now sixty-two years of age, a misgiving arose within him that +such dread experiences would revive the old danger. + +But, he had never seen his friend in his present aspect: he had never +at all known him in his present character. For the first time the Doctor +felt, now, that his suffering was strength and power. For the first time +he felt that in that sharp fire, he had slowly forged the iron which +could break the prison door of his daughter's husband, and deliver him. +"It all tended to a good end, my friend; it was not mere waste and ruin. +As my beloved child was helpful in restoring me to myself, I will be +helpful now in restoring the dearest part of herself to her; by the aid +of Heaven I will do it!" Thus, Doctor Manette. And when Jarvis Lorry saw +the kindled eyes, the resolute face, the calm strong look and bearing +of the man whose life always seemed to him to have been stopped, like a +clock, for so many years, and then set going again with an energy which +had lain dormant during the cessation of its usefulness, he believed. + +Greater things than the Doctor had at that time to contend with, would +have yielded before his persevering purpose. While he kept himself +in his place, as a physician, whose business was with all degrees +of mankind, bond and free, rich and poor, bad and good, he used his +personal influence so wisely, that he was soon the inspecting physician +of three prisons, and among them of La Force. He could now assure Lucie +that her husband was no longer confined alone, but was mixed with the +general body of prisoners; he saw her husband weekly, and brought sweet +messages to her, straight from his lips; sometimes her husband himself +sent a letter to her (though never by the Doctor's hand), but she was +not permitted to write to him: for, among the many wild suspicions of +plots in the prisons, the wildest of all pointed at emigrants who were +known to have made friends or permanent connections abroad. + +This new life of the Doctor's was an anxious life, no doubt; still, the +sagacious Mr. Lorry saw that there was a new sustaining pride in it. +Nothing unbecoming tinged the pride; it was a natural and worthy one; +but he observed it as a curiosity. The Doctor knew, that up to that +time, his imprisonment had been associated in the minds of his daughter +and his friend, with his personal affliction, deprivation, and weakness. +Now that this was changed, and he knew himself to be invested through +that old trial with forces to which they both looked for Charles's +ultimate safety and deliverance, he became so far exalted by the change, +that he took the lead and direction, and required them as the weak, to +trust to him as the strong. The preceding relative positions of himself +and Lucie were reversed, yet only as the liveliest gratitude and +affection could reverse them, for he could have had no pride but in +rendering some service to her who had rendered so much to him. "All +curious to see," thought Mr. Lorry, in his amiably shrewd way, "but all +natural and right; so, take the lead, my dear friend, and keep it; it +couldn't be in better hands." + +But, though the Doctor tried hard, and never ceased trying, to get +Charles Darnay set at liberty, or at least to get him brought to trial, +the public current of the time set too strong and fast for him. The new +era began; the king was tried, doomed, and beheaded; the Republic of +Liberty, Equality, Fraternity, or Death, declared for victory or death +against the world in arms; the black flag waved night and day from the +great towers of Notre Dame; three hundred thousand men, summoned to rise +against the tyrants of the earth, rose from all the varying soils +of France, as if the dragon's teeth had been sown broadcast, and +had yielded fruit equally on hill and plain, on rock, in gravel, and +alluvial mud, under the bright sky of the South and under the clouds of +the North, in fell and forest, in the vineyards and the olive-grounds +and among the cropped grass and the stubble of the corn, along the +fruitful banks of the broad rivers, and in the sand of the sea-shore. +What private solicitude could rear itself against the deluge of the Year +One of Liberty--the deluge rising from below, not falling from above, +and with the windows of Heaven shut, not opened! + +There was no pause, no pity, no peace, no interval of relenting rest, no +measurement of time. Though days and nights circled as regularly as when +time was young, and the evening and morning were the first day, other +count of time there was none. Hold of it was lost in the raging fever +of a nation, as it is in the fever of one patient. Now, breaking the +unnatural silence of a whole city, the executioner showed the people the +head of the king--and now, it seemed almost in the same breath, the +head of his fair wife which had had eight weary months of imprisoned +widowhood and misery, to turn it grey. + +And yet, observing the strange law of contradiction which obtains in +all such cases, the time was long, while it flamed by so fast. A +revolutionary tribunal in the capital, and forty or fifty thousand +revolutionary committees all over the land; a law of the Suspected, +which struck away all security for liberty or life, and delivered over +any good and innocent person to any bad and guilty one; prisons gorged +with people who had committed no offence, and could obtain no hearing; +these things became the established order and nature of appointed +things, and seemed to be ancient usage before they were many weeks old. +Above all, one hideous figure grew as familiar as if it had been before +the general gaze from the foundations of the world--the figure of the +sharp female called La Guillotine. + +It was the popular theme for jests; it was the best cure for headache, +it infallibly prevented the hair from turning grey, it imparted a +peculiar delicacy to the complexion, it was the National Razor which +shaved close: who kissed La Guillotine, looked through the little window +and sneezed into the sack. It was the sign of the regeneration of the +human race. It superseded the Cross. Models of it were worn on breasts +from which the Cross was discarded, and it was bowed down to and +believed in where the Cross was denied. + +It sheared off heads so many, that it, and the ground it most polluted, +were a rotten red. It was taken to pieces, like a toy-puzzle for a young +Devil, and was put together again when the occasion wanted it. It hushed +the eloquent, struck down the powerful, abolished the beautiful and +good. Twenty-two friends of high public mark, twenty-one living and one +dead, it had lopped the heads off, in one morning, in as many minutes. +The name of the strong man of Old Scripture had descended to the chief +functionary who worked it; but, so armed, he was stronger than his +namesake, and blinder, and tore away the gates of God's own Temple every +day. + +Among these terrors, and the brood belonging to them, the Doctor walked +with a steady head: confident in his power, cautiously persistent in his +end, never doubting that he would save Lucie's husband at last. Yet the +current of the time swept by, so strong and deep, and carried the time +away so fiercely, that Charles had lain in prison one year and three +months when the Doctor was thus steady and confident. So much more +wicked and distracted had the Revolution grown in that December month, +that the rivers of the South were encumbered with the bodies of the +violently drowned by night, and prisoners were shot in lines and squares +under the southern wintry sun. Still, the Doctor walked among the +terrors with a steady head. No man better known than he, in Paris at +that day; no man in a stranger situation. Silent, humane, indispensable +in hospital and prison, using his art equally among assassins and +victims, he was a man apart. In the exercise of his skill, the +appearance and the story of the Bastille Captive removed him from all +other men. He was not suspected or brought in question, any more than if +he had indeed been recalled to life some eighteen years before, or were +a Spirit moving among mortals. + + + + +V. The Wood-Sawyer + + +One year and three months. During all that time Lucie was never +sure, from hour to hour, but that the Guillotine would strike off her +husband's head next day. Every day, through the stony streets, the +tumbrils now jolted heavily, filled with Condemned. Lovely girls; bright +women, brown-haired, black-haired, and grey; youths; stalwart men and +old; gentle born and peasant born; all red wine for La Guillotine, all +daily brought into light from the dark cellars of the loathsome prisons, +and carried to her through the streets to slake her devouring thirst. +Liberty, equality, fraternity, or death;--the last, much the easiest to +bestow, O Guillotine! + +If the suddenness of her calamity, and the whirling wheels of the time, +had stunned the Doctor's daughter into awaiting the result in idle +despair, it would but have been with her as it was with many. But, from +the hour when she had taken the white head to her fresh young bosom in +the garret of Saint Antoine, she had been true to her duties. She was +truest to them in the season of trial, as all the quietly loyal and good +will always be. + +As soon as they were established in their new residence, and her father +had entered on the routine of his avocations, she arranged the little +household as exactly as if her husband had been there. Everything had +its appointed place and its appointed time. Little Lucie she taught, +as regularly, as if they had all been united in their English home. The +slight devices with which she cheated herself into the show of a belief +that they would soon be reunited--the little preparations for his speedy +return, the setting aside of his chair and his books--these, and the +solemn prayer at night for one dear prisoner especially, among the many +unhappy souls in prison and the shadow of death--were almost the only +outspoken reliefs of her heavy mind. + +She did not greatly alter in appearance. The plain dark dresses, akin to +mourning dresses, which she and her child wore, were as neat and as well +attended to as the brighter clothes of happy days. She lost her colour, +and the old and intent expression was a constant, not an occasional, +thing; otherwise, she remained very pretty and comely. Sometimes, at +night on kissing her father, she would burst into the grief she had +repressed all day, and would say that her sole reliance, under Heaven, +was on him. He always resolutely answered: "Nothing can happen to him +without my knowledge, and I know that I can save him, Lucie." + +They had not made the round of their changed life many weeks, when her +father said to her, on coming home one evening: + +"My dear, there is an upper window in the prison, to which Charles can +sometimes gain access at three in the afternoon. When he can get to +it--which depends on many uncertainties and incidents--he might see you +in the street, he thinks, if you stood in a certain place that I can +show you. But you will not be able to see him, my poor child, and even +if you could, it would be unsafe for you to make a sign of recognition." + +"O show me the place, my father, and I will go there every day." + +From that time, in all weathers, she waited there two hours. As the +clock struck two, she was there, and at four she turned resignedly away. +When it was not too wet or inclement for her child to be with her, they +went together; at other times she was alone; but, she never missed a +single day. + +It was the dark and dirty corner of a small winding street. The hovel +of a cutter of wood into lengths for burning, was the only house at that +end; all else was wall. On the third day of her being there, he noticed +her. + +"Good day, citizeness." + +"Good day, citizen." + +This mode of address was now prescribed by decree. It had been +established voluntarily some time ago, among the more thorough patriots; +but, was now law for everybody. + +"Walking here again, citizeness?" + +"You see me, citizen!" + +The wood-sawyer, who was a little man with a redundancy of gesture (he +had once been a mender of roads), cast a glance at the prison, pointed +at the prison, and putting his ten fingers before his face to represent +bars, peeped through them jocosely. + +"But it's not my business," said he. And went on sawing his wood. + +Next day he was looking out for her, and accosted her the moment she +appeared. + +"What? Walking here again, citizeness?" + +"Yes, citizen." + +"Ah! A child too! Your mother, is it not, my little citizeness?" + +"Do I say yes, mamma?" whispered little Lucie, drawing close to her. + +"Yes, dearest." + +"Yes, citizen." + +"Ah! But it's not my business. My work is my business. See my saw! I +call it my Little Guillotine. La, la, la; La, la, la! And off his head +comes!" + +The billet fell as he spoke, and he threw it into a basket. + +"I call myself the Samson of the firewood guillotine. See here again! +Loo, loo, loo; Loo, loo, loo! And off _her_ head comes! Now, a child. +Tickle, tickle; Pickle, pickle! And off _its_ head comes. All the +family!" + +Lucie shuddered as he threw two more billets into his basket, but it was +impossible to be there while the wood-sawyer was at work, and not be in +his sight. Thenceforth, to secure his good will, she always spoke to him +first, and often gave him drink-money, which he readily received. + +He was an inquisitive fellow, and sometimes when she had quite forgotten +him in gazing at the prison roof and grates, and in lifting her heart +up to her husband, she would come to herself to find him looking at her, +with his knee on his bench and his saw stopped in its work. "But it's +not my business!" he would generally say at those times, and would +briskly fall to his sawing again. + +In all weathers, in the snow and frost of winter, in the bitter winds of +spring, in the hot sunshine of summer, in the rains of autumn, and again +in the snow and frost of winter, Lucie passed two hours of every day at +this place; and every day on leaving it, she kissed the prison wall. +Her husband saw her (so she learned from her father) it might be once in +five or six times: it might be twice or thrice running: it might be, not +for a week or a fortnight together. It was enough that he could and did +see her when the chances served, and on that possibility she would have +waited out the day, seven days a week. + +These occupations brought her round to the December month, wherein her +father walked among the terrors with a steady head. On a lightly-snowing +afternoon she arrived at the usual corner. It was a day of some wild +rejoicing, and a festival. She had seen the houses, as she came along, +decorated with little pikes, and with little red caps stuck upon them; +also, with tricoloured ribbons; also, with the standard inscription +(tricoloured letters were the favourite), Republic One and Indivisible. +Liberty, Equality, Fraternity, or Death! + +The miserable shop of the wood-sawyer was so small, that its whole +surface furnished very indifferent space for this legend. He had got +somebody to scrawl it up for him, however, who had squeezed Death in +with most inappropriate difficulty. On his house-top, he displayed pike +and cap, as a good citizen must, and in a window he had stationed his +saw inscribed as his "Little Sainte Guillotine"--for the great sharp +female was by that time popularly canonised. His shop was shut and he +was not there, which was a relief to Lucie, and left her quite alone. + +But, he was not far off, for presently she heard a troubled movement +and a shouting coming along, which filled her with fear. A moment +afterwards, and a throng of people came pouring round the corner by the +prison wall, in the midst of whom was the wood-sawyer hand in hand with +The Vengeance. There could not be fewer than five hundred people, and +they were dancing like five thousand demons. There was no other music +than their own singing. They danced to the popular Revolution song, +keeping a ferocious time that was like a gnashing of teeth in unison. +Men and women danced together, women danced together, men danced +together, as hazard had brought them together. At first, they were a +mere storm of coarse red caps and coarse woollen rags; but, as they +filled the place, and stopped to dance about Lucie, some ghastly +apparition of a dance-figure gone raving mad arose among them. They +advanced, retreated, struck at one another's hands, clutched at one +another's heads, spun round alone, caught one another and spun round +in pairs, until many of them dropped. While those were down, the rest +linked hand in hand, and all spun round together: then the ring broke, +and in separate rings of two and four they turned and turned until they +all stopped at once, began again, struck, clutched, and tore, and then +reversed the spin, and all spun round another way. Suddenly they stopped +again, paused, struck out the time afresh, formed into lines the width +of the public way, and, with their heads low down and their hands high +up, swooped screaming off. No fight could have been half so terrible +as this dance. It was so emphatically a fallen sport--a something, once +innocent, delivered over to all devilry--a healthy pastime changed into +a means of angering the blood, bewildering the senses, and steeling the +heart. Such grace as was visible in it, made it the uglier, showing how +warped and perverted all things good by nature were become. The maidenly +bosom bared to this, the pretty almost-child's head thus distracted, the +delicate foot mincing in this slough of blood and dirt, were types of +the disjointed time. + +This was the Carmagnole. As it passed, leaving Lucie frightened and +bewildered in the doorway of the wood-sawyer's house, the feathery snow +fell as quietly and lay as white and soft, as if it had never been. + +"O my father!" for he stood before her when she lifted up the eyes she +had momentarily darkened with her hand; "such a cruel, bad sight." + +"I know, my dear, I know. I have seen it many times. Don't be +frightened! Not one of them would harm you." + +"I am not frightened for myself, my father. But when I think of my +husband, and the mercies of these people--" + +"We will set him above their mercies very soon. I left him climbing to +the window, and I came to tell you. There is no one here to see. You may +kiss your hand towards that highest shelving roof." + +"I do so, father, and I send him my Soul with it!" + +"You cannot see him, my poor dear?" + +"No, father," said Lucie, yearning and weeping as she kissed her hand, +"no." + +A footstep in the snow. Madame Defarge. "I salute you, citizeness," +from the Doctor. "I salute you, citizen." This in passing. Nothing more. +Madame Defarge gone, like a shadow over the white road. + +"Give me your arm, my love. Pass from here with an air of cheerfulness +and courage, for his sake. That was well done;" they had left the spot; +"it shall not be in vain. Charles is summoned for to-morrow." + +"For to-morrow!" + +"There is no time to lose. I am well prepared, but there are precautions +to be taken, that could not be taken until he was actually summoned +before the Tribunal. He has not received the notice yet, but I know +that he will presently be summoned for to-morrow, and removed to the +Conciergerie; I have timely information. You are not afraid?" + +She could scarcely answer, "I trust in you." + +"Do so, implicitly. Your suspense is nearly ended, my darling; he shall +be restored to you within a few hours; I have encompassed him with every +protection. I must see Lorry." + +He stopped. There was a heavy lumbering of wheels within hearing. They +both knew too well what it meant. One. Two. Three. Three tumbrils faring +away with their dread loads over the hushing snow. + +"I must see Lorry," the Doctor repeated, turning her another way. + +The staunch old gentleman was still in his trust; had never left it. He +and his books were in frequent requisition as to property confiscated +and made national. What he could save for the owners, he saved. No +better man living to hold fast by what Tellson's had in keeping, and to +hold his peace. + +A murky red and yellow sky, and a rising mist from the Seine, denoted +the approach of darkness. It was almost dark when they arrived at the +Bank. The stately residence of Monseigneur was altogether blighted and +deserted. Above a heap of dust and ashes in the court, ran the letters: +National Property. Republic One and Indivisible. Liberty, Equality, +Fraternity, or Death! + +Who could that be with Mr. Lorry--the owner of the riding-coat upon the +chair--who must not be seen? From whom newly arrived, did he come out, +agitated and surprised, to take his favourite in his arms? To whom did +he appear to repeat her faltering words, when, raising his voice and +turning his head towards the door of the room from which he had issued, +he said: "Removed to the Conciergerie, and summoned for to-morrow?" + + + + +VI. Triumph + + +The dread tribunal of five Judges, Public Prosecutor, and determined +Jury, sat every day. Their lists went forth every evening, and were +read out by the gaolers of the various prisons to their prisoners. The +standard gaoler-joke was, "Come out and listen to the Evening Paper, you +inside there!" + +"Charles Evremonde, called Darnay!" + +So at last began the Evening Paper at La Force. + +When a name was called, its owner stepped apart into a spot reserved +for those who were announced as being thus fatally recorded. Charles +Evremonde, called Darnay, had reason to know the usage; he had seen +hundreds pass away so. + +His bloated gaoler, who wore spectacles to read with, glanced over them +to assure himself that he had taken his place, and went through the +list, making a similar short pause at each name. There were twenty-three +names, but only twenty were responded to; for one of the prisoners so +summoned had died in gaol and been forgotten, and two had already been +guillotined and forgotten. The list was read, in the vaulted chamber +where Darnay had seen the associated prisoners on the night of his +arrival. Every one of those had perished in the massacre; every human +creature he had since cared for and parted with, had died on the +scaffold. + +There were hurried words of farewell and kindness, but the parting was +soon over. It was the incident of every day, and the society of La Force +were engaged in the preparation of some games of forfeits and a little +concert, for that evening. They crowded to the grates and shed tears +there; but, twenty places in the projected entertainments had to be +refilled, and the time was, at best, short to the lock-up hour, when the +common rooms and corridors would be delivered over to the great dogs +who kept watch there through the night. The prisoners were far from +insensible or unfeeling; their ways arose out of the condition of the +time. Similarly, though with a subtle difference, a species of fervour +or intoxication, known, without doubt, to have led some persons to +brave the guillotine unnecessarily, and to die by it, was not mere +boastfulness, but a wild infection of the wildly shaken public mind. In +seasons of pestilence, some of us will have a secret attraction to the +disease--a terrible passing inclination to die of it. And all of us have +like wonders hidden in our breasts, only needing circumstances to evoke +them. + +The passage to the Conciergerie was short and dark; the night in its +vermin-haunted cells was long and cold. Next day, fifteen prisoners were +put to the bar before Charles Darnay's name was called. All the fifteen +were condemned, and the trials of the whole occupied an hour and a half. + +"Charles Evremonde, called Darnay," was at length arraigned. + +His judges sat upon the Bench in feathered hats; but the rough red cap +and tricoloured cockade was the head-dress otherwise prevailing. Looking +at the Jury and the turbulent audience, he might have thought that the +usual order of things was reversed, and that the felons were trying the +honest men. The lowest, cruelest, and worst populace of a city, never +without its quantity of low, cruel, and bad, were the directing +spirits of the scene: noisily commenting, applauding, disapproving, +anticipating, and precipitating the result, without a check. Of the men, +the greater part were armed in various ways; of the women, some wore +knives, some daggers, some ate and drank as they looked on, many +knitted. Among these last, was one, with a spare piece of knitting under +her arm as she worked. She was in a front row, by the side of a man whom +he had never seen since his arrival at the Barrier, but whom he directly +remembered as Defarge. He noticed that she once or twice whispered in +his ear, and that she seemed to be his wife; but, what he most noticed +in the two figures was, that although they were posted as close to +himself as they could be, they never looked towards him. They seemed to +be waiting for something with a dogged determination, and they looked at +the Jury, but at nothing else. Under the President sat Doctor Manette, +in his usual quiet dress. As well as the prisoner could see, he and Mr. +Lorry were the only men there, unconnected with the Tribunal, who +wore their usual clothes, and had not assumed the coarse garb of the +Carmagnole. + +Charles Evremonde, called Darnay, was accused by the public prosecutor +as an emigrant, whose life was forfeit to the Republic, under the decree +which banished all emigrants on pain of Death. It was nothing that the +decree bore date since his return to France. There he was, and there was +the decree; he had been taken in France, and his head was demanded. + +"Take off his head!" cried the audience. "An enemy to the Republic!" + +The President rang his bell to silence those cries, and asked the +prisoner whether it was not true that he had lived many years in +England? + +Undoubtedly it was. + +Was he not an emigrant then? What did he call himself? + +Not an emigrant, he hoped, within the sense and spirit of the law. + +Why not? the President desired to know. + +Because he had voluntarily relinquished a title that was distasteful +to him, and a station that was distasteful to him, and had left +his country--he submitted before the word emigrant in the present +acceptation by the Tribunal was in use--to live by his own industry in +England, rather than on the industry of the overladen people of France. + +What proof had he of this? + +He handed in the names of two witnesses; Theophile Gabelle, and +Alexandre Manette. + +But he had married in England? the President reminded him. + +True, but not an English woman. + +A citizeness of France? + +Yes. By birth. + +Her name and family? + +"Lucie Manette, only daughter of Doctor Manette, the good physician who +sits there." + +This answer had a happy effect upon the audience. Cries in exaltation +of the well-known good physician rent the hall. So capriciously were +the people moved, that tears immediately rolled down several ferocious +countenances which had been glaring at the prisoner a moment before, as +if with impatience to pluck him out into the streets and kill him. + +On these few steps of his dangerous way, Charles Darnay had set his foot +according to Doctor Manette's reiterated instructions. The same cautious +counsel directed every step that lay before him, and had prepared every +inch of his road. + +The President asked, why had he returned to France when he did, and not +sooner? + +He had not returned sooner, he replied, simply because he had no means +of living in France, save those he had resigned; whereas, in England, +he lived by giving instruction in the French language and literature. +He had returned when he did, on the pressing and written entreaty of +a French citizen, who represented that his life was endangered by his +absence. He had come back, to save a citizen's life, and to bear his +testimony, at whatever personal hazard, to the truth. Was that criminal +in the eyes of the Republic? + +The populace cried enthusiastically, "No!" and the President rang his +bell to quiet them. Which it did not, for they continued to cry "No!" +until they left off, of their own will. + +The President required the name of that citizen. The accused explained +that the citizen was his first witness. He also referred with confidence +to the citizen's letter, which had been taken from him at the Barrier, +but which he did not doubt would be found among the papers then before +the President. + +The Doctor had taken care that it should be there--had assured him that +it would be there--and at this stage of the proceedings it was produced +and read. Citizen Gabelle was called to confirm it, and did so. Citizen +Gabelle hinted, with infinite delicacy and politeness, that in the +pressure of business imposed on the Tribunal by the multitude of +enemies of the Republic with which it had to deal, he had been slightly +overlooked in his prison of the Abbaye--in fact, had rather passed out +of the Tribunal's patriotic remembrance--until three days ago; when he +had been summoned before it, and had been set at liberty on the Jury's +declaring themselves satisfied that the accusation against him was +answered, as to himself, by the surrender of the citizen Evremonde, +called Darnay. + +Doctor Manette was next questioned. His high personal popularity, +and the clearness of his answers, made a great impression; but, as he +proceeded, as he showed that the Accused was his first friend on his +release from his long imprisonment; that, the accused had remained in +England, always faithful and devoted to his daughter and himself in +their exile; that, so far from being in favour with the Aristocrat +government there, he had actually been tried for his life by it, as +the foe of England and friend of the United States--as he brought these +circumstances into view, with the greatest discretion and with the +straightforward force of truth and earnestness, the Jury and the +populace became one. At last, when he appealed by name to Monsieur +Lorry, an English gentleman then and there present, who, like himself, +had been a witness on that English trial and could corroborate his +account of it, the Jury declared that they had heard enough, and that +they were ready with their votes if the President were content to +receive them. + +At every vote (the Jurymen voted aloud and individually), the populace +set up a shout of applause. All the voices were in the prisoner's +favour, and the President declared him free. + +Then, began one of those extraordinary scenes with which the populace +sometimes gratified their fickleness, or their better impulses towards +generosity and mercy, or which they regarded as some set-off against +their swollen account of cruel rage. No man can decide now to which of +these motives such extraordinary scenes were referable; it is probable, +to a blending of all the three, with the second predominating. No sooner +was the acquittal pronounced, than tears were shed as freely as blood +at another time, and such fraternal embraces were bestowed upon the +prisoner by as many of both sexes as could rush at him, that after +his long and unwholesome confinement he was in danger of fainting from +exhaustion; none the less because he knew very well, that the very same +people, carried by another current, would have rushed at him with +the very same intensity, to rend him to pieces and strew him over the +streets. + +His removal, to make way for other accused persons who were to be tried, +rescued him from these caresses for the moment. Five were to be tried +together, next, as enemies of the Republic, forasmuch as they had not +assisted it by word or deed. So quick was the Tribunal to compensate +itself and the nation for a chance lost, that these five came down to +him before he left the place, condemned to die within twenty-four +hours. The first of them told him so, with the customary prison sign +of Death--a raised finger--and they all added in words, "Long live the +Republic!" + +The five had had, it is true, no audience to lengthen their proceedings, +for when he and Doctor Manette emerged from the gate, there was a great +crowd about it, in which there seemed to be every face he had seen in +Court--except two, for which he looked in vain. On his coming out, the +concourse made at him anew, weeping, embracing, and shouting, all by +turns and all together, until the very tide of the river on the bank of +which the mad scene was acted, seemed to run mad, like the people on the +shore. + +They put him into a great chair they had among them, and which they had +taken either out of the Court itself, or one of its rooms or passages. +Over the chair they had thrown a red flag, and to the back of it they +had bound a pike with a red cap on its top. In this car of triumph, not +even the Doctor's entreaties could prevent his being carried to his home +on men's shoulders, with a confused sea of red caps heaving about him, +and casting up to sight from the stormy deep such wrecks of faces, that +he more than once misdoubted his mind being in confusion, and that he +was in the tumbril on his way to the Guillotine. + +In wild dreamlike procession, embracing whom they met and pointing +him out, they carried him on. Reddening the snowy streets with the +prevailing Republican colour, in winding and tramping through them, as +they had reddened them below the snow with a deeper dye, they carried +him thus into the courtyard of the building where he lived. Her father +had gone on before, to prepare her, and when her husband stood upon his +feet, she dropped insensible in his arms. + +As he held her to his heart and turned her beautiful head between his +face and the brawling crowd, so that his tears and her lips might come +together unseen, a few of the people fell to dancing. Instantly, all the +rest fell to dancing, and the courtyard overflowed with the Carmagnole. +Then, they elevated into the vacant chair a young woman from the +crowd to be carried as the Goddess of Liberty, and then swelling and +overflowing out into the adjacent streets, and along the river's bank, +and over the bridge, the Carmagnole absorbed them every one and whirled +them away. + +After grasping the Doctor's hand, as he stood victorious and proud +before him; after grasping the hand of Mr. Lorry, who came panting in +breathless from his struggle against the waterspout of the Carmagnole; +after kissing little Lucie, who was lifted up to clasp her arms round +his neck; and after embracing the ever zealous and faithful Pross who +lifted her; he took his wife in his arms, and carried her up to their +rooms. + +"Lucie! My own! I am safe." + +"O dearest Charles, let me thank God for this on my knees as I have +prayed to Him." + +They all reverently bowed their heads and hearts. When she was again in +his arms, he said to her: + +"And now speak to your father, dearest. No other man in all this France +could have done what he has done for me." + +She laid her head upon her father's breast, as she had laid his poor +head on her own breast, long, long ago. He was happy in the return he +had made her, he was recompensed for his suffering, he was proud of his +strength. "You must not be weak, my darling," he remonstrated; "don't +tremble so. I have saved him." + + + + +VII. A Knock at the Door + + +"I have saved him." It was not another of the dreams in which he had +often come back; he was really here. And yet his wife trembled, and a +vague but heavy fear was upon her. + +All the air round was so thick and dark, the people were so passionately +revengeful and fitful, the innocent were so constantly put to death on +vague suspicion and black malice, it was so impossible to forget that +many as blameless as her husband and as dear to others as he was to +her, every day shared the fate from which he had been clutched, that her +heart could not be as lightened of its load as she felt it ought to be. +The shadows of the wintry afternoon were beginning to fall, and even now +the dreadful carts were rolling through the streets. Her mind pursued +them, looking for him among the Condemned; and then she clung closer to +his real presence and trembled more. + +Her father, cheering her, showed a compassionate superiority to this +woman's weakness, which was wonderful to see. No garret, no shoemaking, +no One Hundred and Five, North Tower, now! He had accomplished the task +he had set himself, his promise was redeemed, he had saved Charles. Let +them all lean upon him. + +Their housekeeping was of a very frugal kind: not only because that was +the safest way of life, involving the least offence to the people, but +because they were not rich, and Charles, throughout his imprisonment, +had had to pay heavily for his bad food, and for his guard, and towards +the living of the poorer prisoners. Partly on this account, and +partly to avoid a domestic spy, they kept no servant; the citizen and +citizeness who acted as porters at the courtyard gate, rendered them +occasional service; and Jerry (almost wholly transferred to them by +Mr. Lorry) had become their daily retainer, and had his bed there every +night. + +It was an ordinance of the Republic One and Indivisible of Liberty, +Equality, Fraternity, or Death, that on the door or doorpost of every +house, the name of every inmate must be legibly inscribed in letters +of a certain size, at a certain convenient height from the ground. Mr. +Jerry Cruncher's name, therefore, duly embellished the doorpost down +below; and, as the afternoon shadows deepened, the owner of that name +himself appeared, from overlooking a painter whom Doctor Manette had +employed to add to the list the name of Charles Evremonde, called +Darnay. + +In the universal fear and distrust that darkened the time, all the usual +harmless ways of life were changed. In the Doctor's little household, as +in very many others, the articles of daily consumption that were wanted +were purchased every evening, in small quantities and at various small +shops. To avoid attracting notice, and to give as little occasion as +possible for talk and envy, was the general desire. + +For some months past, Miss Pross and Mr. Cruncher had discharged the +office of purveyors; the former carrying the money; the latter, the +basket. Every afternoon at about the time when the public lamps were +lighted, they fared forth on this duty, and made and brought home +such purchases as were needful. Although Miss Pross, through her long +association with a French family, might have known as much of their +language as of her own, if she had had a mind, she had no mind in that +direction; consequently she knew no more of that "nonsense" (as she was +pleased to call it) than Mr. Cruncher did. So her manner of marketing +was to plump a noun-substantive at the head of a shopkeeper without any +introduction in the nature of an article, and, if it happened not to be +the name of the thing she wanted, to look round for that thing, lay hold +of it, and hold on by it until the bargain was concluded. She always +made a bargain for it, by holding up, as a statement of its just price, +one finger less than the merchant held up, whatever his number might be. + +"Now, Mr. Cruncher," said Miss Pross, whose eyes were red with felicity; +"if you are ready, I am." + +Jerry hoarsely professed himself at Miss Pross's service. He had worn +all his rust off long ago, but nothing would file his spiky head down. + +"There's all manner of things wanted," said Miss Pross, "and we shall +have a precious time of it. We want wine, among the rest. Nice toasts +these Redheads will be drinking, wherever we buy it." + +"It will be much the same to your knowledge, miss, I should think," +retorted Jerry, "whether they drink your health or the Old Un's." + +"Who's he?" said Miss Pross. + +Mr. Cruncher, with some diffidence, explained himself as meaning "Old +Nick's." + +"Ha!" said Miss Pross, "it doesn't need an interpreter to explain the +meaning of these creatures. They have but one, and it's Midnight Murder, +and Mischief." + +"Hush, dear! Pray, pray, be cautious!" cried Lucie. + +"Yes, yes, yes, I'll be cautious," said Miss Pross; "but I may say +among ourselves, that I do hope there will be no oniony and tobaccoey +smotherings in the form of embracings all round, going on in the +streets. Now, Ladybird, never you stir from that fire till I come back! +Take care of the dear husband you have recovered, and don't move your +pretty head from his shoulder as you have it now, till you see me again! +May I ask a question, Doctor Manette, before I go?" + +"I think you may take that liberty," the Doctor answered, smiling. + +"For gracious sake, don't talk about Liberty; we have quite enough of +that," said Miss Pross. + +"Hush, dear! Again?" Lucie remonstrated. + +"Well, my sweet," said Miss Pross, nodding her head emphatically, "the +short and the long of it is, that I am a subject of His Most Gracious +Majesty King George the Third;" Miss Pross curtseyed at the name; "and +as such, my maxim is, Confound their politics, Frustrate their knavish +tricks, On him our hopes we fix, God save the King!" + +Mr. Cruncher, in an access of loyalty, growlingly repeated the words +after Miss Pross, like somebody at church. + +"I am glad you have so much of the Englishman in you, though I wish you +had never taken that cold in your voice," said Miss Pross, approvingly. +"But the question, Doctor Manette. Is there"--it was the good creature's +way to affect to make light of anything that was a great anxiety +with them all, and to come at it in this chance manner--"is there any +prospect yet, of our getting out of this place?" + +"I fear not yet. It would be dangerous for Charles yet." + +"Heigh-ho-hum!" said Miss Pross, cheerfully repressing a sigh as she +glanced at her darling's golden hair in the light of the fire, "then we +must have patience and wait: that's all. We must hold up our heads and +fight low, as my brother Solomon used to say. Now, Mr. Cruncher!--Don't +you move, Ladybird!" + +They went out, leaving Lucie, and her husband, her father, and the +child, by a bright fire. Mr. Lorry was expected back presently from the +Banking House. Miss Pross had lighted the lamp, but had put it aside in +a corner, that they might enjoy the fire-light undisturbed. Little Lucie +sat by her grandfather with her hands clasped through his arm: and he, +in a tone not rising much above a whisper, began to tell her a story of +a great and powerful Fairy who had opened a prison-wall and let out +a captive who had once done the Fairy a service. All was subdued and +quiet, and Lucie was more at ease than she had been. + +"What is that?" she cried, all at once. + +"My dear!" said her father, stopping in his story, and laying his hand +on hers, "command yourself. What a disordered state you are in! The +least thing--nothing--startles you! _You_, your father's daughter!" + +"I thought, my father," said Lucie, excusing herself, with a pale face +and in a faltering voice, "that I heard strange feet upon the stairs." + +"My love, the staircase is as still as Death." + +As he said the word, a blow was struck upon the door. + +"Oh father, father. What can this be! Hide Charles. Save him!" + +"My child," said the Doctor, rising, and laying his hand upon her +shoulder, "I _have_ saved him. What weakness is this, my dear! Let me go +to the door." + +He took the lamp in his hand, crossed the two intervening outer rooms, +and opened it. A rude clattering of feet over the floor, and four rough +men in red caps, armed with sabres and pistols, entered the room. + +"The Citizen Evremonde, called Darnay," said the first. + +"Who seeks him?" answered Darnay. + +"I seek him. We seek him. I know you, Evremonde; I saw you before the +Tribunal to-day. You are again the prisoner of the Republic." + +The four surrounded him, where he stood with his wife and child clinging +to him. + +"Tell me how and why am I again a prisoner?" + +"It is enough that you return straight to the Conciergerie, and will +know to-morrow. You are summoned for to-morrow." + +Doctor Manette, whom this visitation had so turned into stone, that he +stood with the lamp in his hand, as if he were a statue made to hold it, +moved after these words were spoken, put the lamp down, and confronting +the speaker, and taking him, not ungently, by the loose front of his red +woollen shirt, said: + +"You know him, you have said. Do you know me?" + +"Yes, I know you, Citizen Doctor." + +"We all know you, Citizen Doctor," said the other three. + +He looked abstractedly from one to another, and said, in a lower voice, +after a pause: + +"Will you answer his question to me then? How does this happen?" + +"Citizen Doctor," said the first, reluctantly, "he has been denounced to +the Section of Saint Antoine. This citizen," pointing out the second who +had entered, "is from Saint Antoine." + +The citizen here indicated nodded his head, and added: + +"He is accused by Saint Antoine." + +"Of what?" asked the Doctor. + +"Citizen Doctor," said the first, with his former reluctance, "ask no +more. If the Republic demands sacrifices from you, without doubt you as +a good patriot will be happy to make them. The Republic goes before all. +The People is supreme. Evremonde, we are pressed." + +"One word," the Doctor entreated. "Will you tell me who denounced him?" + +"It is against rule," answered the first; "but you can ask Him of Saint +Antoine here." + +The Doctor turned his eyes upon that man. Who moved uneasily on his +feet, rubbed his beard a little, and at length said: + +"Well! Truly it is against rule. But he is denounced--and gravely--by +the Citizen and Citizeness Defarge. And by one other." + +"What other?" + +"Do _you_ ask, Citizen Doctor?" + +"Yes." + +"Then," said he of Saint Antoine, with a strange look, "you will be +answered to-morrow. Now, I am dumb!" + + + + +VIII. A Hand at Cards + + +Happily unconscious of the new calamity at home, Miss Pross threaded her +way along the narrow streets and crossed the river by the bridge of the +Pont-Neuf, reckoning in her mind the number of indispensable purchases +she had to make. Mr. Cruncher, with the basket, walked at her side. They +both looked to the right and to the left into most of the shops they +passed, had a wary eye for all gregarious assemblages of people, and +turned out of their road to avoid any very excited group of talkers. It +was a raw evening, and the misty river, blurred to the eye with blazing +lights and to the ear with harsh noises, showed where the barges were +stationed in which the smiths worked, making guns for the Army of the +Republic. Woe to the man who played tricks with _that_ Army, or got +undeserved promotion in it! Better for him that his beard had never +grown, for the National Razor shaved him close. + +Having purchased a few small articles of grocery, and a measure of oil +for the lamp, Miss Pross bethought herself of the wine they wanted. +After peeping into several wine-shops, she stopped at the sign of the +Good Republican Brutus of Antiquity, not far from the National Palace, +once (and twice) the Tuileries, where the aspect of things rather +took her fancy. It had a quieter look than any other place of the same +description they had passed, and, though red with patriotic caps, was +not so red as the rest. Sounding Mr. Cruncher, and finding him of her +opinion, Miss Pross resorted to the Good Republican Brutus of Antiquity, +attended by her cavalier. + +Slightly observant of the smoky lights; of the people, pipe in mouth, +playing with limp cards and yellow dominoes; of the one bare-breasted, +bare-armed, soot-begrimed workman reading a journal aloud, and of +the others listening to him; of the weapons worn, or laid aside to be +resumed; of the two or three customers fallen forward asleep, who in the +popular high-shouldered shaggy black spencer looked, in that attitude, +like slumbering bears or dogs; the two outlandish customers approached +the counter, and showed what they wanted. + +As their wine was measuring out, a man parted from another man in a +corner, and rose to depart. In going, he had to face Miss Pross. No +sooner did he face her, than Miss Pross uttered a scream, and clapped +her hands. + +In a moment, the whole company were on their feet. That somebody was +assassinated by somebody vindicating a difference of opinion was the +likeliest occurrence. Everybody looked to see somebody fall, but only +saw a man and a woman standing staring at each other; the man with all +the outward aspect of a Frenchman and a thorough Republican; the woman, +evidently English. + +What was said in this disappointing anti-climax, by the disciples of the +Good Republican Brutus of Antiquity, except that it was something very +voluble and loud, would have been as so much Hebrew or Chaldean to Miss +Pross and her protector, though they had been all ears. But, they had no +ears for anything in their surprise. For, it must be recorded, that +not only was Miss Pross lost in amazement and agitation, but, +Mr. Cruncher--though it seemed on his own separate and individual +account--was in a state of the greatest wonder. + +"What is the matter?" said the man who had caused Miss Pross to scream; +speaking in a vexed, abrupt voice (though in a low tone), and in +English. + +"Oh, Solomon, dear Solomon!" cried Miss Pross, clapping her hands again. +"After not setting eyes upon you or hearing of you for so long a time, +do I find you here!" + +"Don't call me Solomon. Do you want to be the death of me?" asked the +man, in a furtive, frightened way. + +"Brother, brother!" cried Miss Pross, bursting into tears. "Have I ever +been so hard with you that you ask me such a cruel question?" + +"Then hold your meddlesome tongue," said Solomon, "and come out, if you +want to speak to me. Pay for your wine, and come out. Who's this man?" + +Miss Pross, shaking her loving and dejected head at her by no means +affectionate brother, said through her tears, "Mr. Cruncher." + +"Let him come out too," said Solomon. "Does he think me a ghost?" + +Apparently, Mr. Cruncher did, to judge from his looks. He said not a +word, however, and Miss Pross, exploring the depths of her reticule +through her tears with great difficulty paid for her wine. As she did +so, Solomon turned to the followers of the Good Republican Brutus +of Antiquity, and offered a few words of explanation in the French +language, which caused them all to relapse into their former places and +pursuits. + +"Now," said Solomon, stopping at the dark street corner, "what do you +want?" + +"How dreadfully unkind in a brother nothing has ever turned my love away +from!" cried Miss Pross, "to give me such a greeting, and show me no +affection." + +"There. Confound it! There," said Solomon, making a dab at Miss Pross's +lips with his own. "Now are you content?" + +Miss Pross only shook her head and wept in silence. + +"If you expect me to be surprised," said her brother Solomon, "I am not +surprised; I knew you were here; I know of most people who are here. If +you really don't want to endanger my existence--which I half believe you +do--go your ways as soon as possible, and let me go mine. I am busy. I +am an official." + +"My English brother Solomon," mourned Miss Pross, casting up her +tear-fraught eyes, "that had the makings in him of one of the best and +greatest of men in his native country, an official among foreigners, and +such foreigners! I would almost sooner have seen the dear boy lying in +his--" + +"I said so!" cried her brother, interrupting. "I knew it. You want to be +the death of me. I shall be rendered Suspected, by my own sister. Just +as I am getting on!" + +"The gracious and merciful Heavens forbid!" cried Miss Pross. "Far +rather would I never see you again, dear Solomon, though I have ever +loved you truly, and ever shall. Say but one affectionate word to me, +and tell me there is nothing angry or estranged between us, and I will +detain you no longer." + +Good Miss Pross! As if the estrangement between them had come of any +culpability of hers. As if Mr. Lorry had not known it for a fact, years +ago, in the quiet corner in Soho, that this precious brother had spent +her money and left her! + +He was saying the affectionate word, however, with a far more grudging +condescension and patronage than he could have shown if their relative +merits and positions had been reversed (which is invariably the case, +all the world over), when Mr. Cruncher, touching him on the shoulder, +hoarsely and unexpectedly interposed with the following singular +question: + +"I say! Might I ask the favour? As to whether your name is John Solomon, +or Solomon John?" + +The official turned towards him with sudden distrust. He had not +previously uttered a word. + +"Come!" said Mr. Cruncher. "Speak out, you know." (Which, by the way, +was more than he could do himself.) "John Solomon, or Solomon John? She +calls you Solomon, and she must know, being your sister. And _I_ know +you're John, you know. Which of the two goes first? And regarding that +name of Pross, likewise. That warn't your name over the water." + +"What do you mean?" + +"Well, I don't know all I mean, for I can't call to mind what your name +was, over the water." + +"No?" + +"No. But I'll swear it was a name of two syllables." + +"Indeed?" + +"Yes. T'other one's was one syllable. I know you. You was a spy--witness +at the Bailey. What, in the name of the Father of Lies, own father to +yourself, was you called at that time?" + +"Barsad," said another voice, striking in. + +"That's the name for a thousand pound!" cried Jerry. + +The speaker who struck in, was Sydney Carton. He had his hands behind +him under the skirts of his riding-coat, and he stood at Mr. Cruncher's +elbow as negligently as he might have stood at the Old Bailey itself. + +"Don't be alarmed, my dear Miss Pross. I arrived at Mr. Lorry's, to his +surprise, yesterday evening; we agreed that I would not present myself +elsewhere until all was well, or unless I could be useful; I present +myself here, to beg a little talk with your brother. I wish you had a +better employed brother than Mr. Barsad. I wish for your sake Mr. Barsad +was not a Sheep of the Prisons." + +Sheep was a cant word of the time for a spy, under the gaolers. The spy, +who was pale, turned paler, and asked him how he dared-- + +"I'll tell you," said Sydney. "I lighted on you, Mr. Barsad, coming out +of the prison of the Conciergerie while I was contemplating the walls, +an hour or more ago. You have a face to be remembered, and I remember +faces well. Made curious by seeing you in that connection, and having +a reason, to which you are no stranger, for associating you with +the misfortunes of a friend now very unfortunate, I walked in your +direction. I walked into the wine-shop here, close after you, and +sat near you. I had no difficulty in deducing from your unreserved +conversation, and the rumour openly going about among your admirers, the +nature of your calling. And gradually, what I had done at random, seemed +to shape itself into a purpose, Mr. Barsad." + +"What purpose?" the spy asked. + +"It would be troublesome, and might be dangerous, to explain in the +street. Could you favour me, in confidence, with some minutes of your +company--at the office of Tellson's Bank, for instance?" + +"Under a threat?" + +"Oh! Did I say that?" + +"Then, why should I go there?" + +"Really, Mr. Barsad, I can't say, if you can't." + +"Do you mean that you won't say, sir?" the spy irresolutely asked. + +"You apprehend me very clearly, Mr. Barsad. I won't." + +Carton's negligent recklessness of manner came powerfully in aid of his +quickness and skill, in such a business as he had in his secret mind, +and with such a man as he had to do with. His practised eye saw it, and +made the most of it. + +"Now, I told you so," said the spy, casting a reproachful look at his +sister; "if any trouble comes of this, it's your doing." + +"Come, come, Mr. Barsad!" exclaimed Sydney. "Don't be ungrateful. +But for my great respect for your sister, I might not have led up so +pleasantly to a little proposal that I wish to make for our mutual +satisfaction. Do you go with me to the Bank?" + +"I'll hear what you have got to say. Yes, I'll go with you." + +"I propose that we first conduct your sister safely to the corner of her +own street. Let me take your arm, Miss Pross. This is not a good city, +at this time, for you to be out in, unprotected; and as your escort +knows Mr. Barsad, I will invite him to Mr. Lorry's with us. Are we +ready? Come then!" + +Miss Pross recalled soon afterwards, and to the end of her life +remembered, that as she pressed her hands on Sydney's arm and looked up +in his face, imploring him to do no hurt to Solomon, there was a braced +purpose in the arm and a kind of inspiration in the eyes, which not only +contradicted his light manner, but changed and raised the man. She was +too much occupied then with fears for the brother who so little deserved +her affection, and with Sydney's friendly reassurances, adequately to +heed what she observed. + +They left her at the corner of the street, and Carton led the way to Mr. +Lorry's, which was within a few minutes' walk. John Barsad, or Solomon +Pross, walked at his side. + +Mr. Lorry had just finished his dinner, and was sitting before a cheery +little log or two of fire--perhaps looking into their blaze for the +picture of that younger elderly gentleman from Tellson's, who had looked +into the red coals at the Royal George at Dover, now a good many years +ago. He turned his head as they entered, and showed the surprise with +which he saw a stranger. + +"Miss Pross's brother, sir," said Sydney. "Mr. Barsad." + +"Barsad?" repeated the old gentleman, "Barsad? I have an association +with the name--and with the face." + +"I told you you had a remarkable face, Mr. Barsad," observed Carton, +coolly. "Pray sit down." + +As he took a chair himself, he supplied the link that Mr. Lorry wanted, +by saying to him with a frown, "Witness at that trial." Mr. Lorry +immediately remembered, and regarded his new visitor with an undisguised +look of abhorrence. + +"Mr. Barsad has been recognised by Miss Pross as the affectionate +brother you have heard of," said Sydney, "and has acknowledged the +relationship. I pass to worse news. Darnay has been arrested again." + +Struck with consternation, the old gentleman exclaimed, "What do you +tell me! I left him safe and free within these two hours, and am about +to return to him!" + +"Arrested for all that. When was it done, Mr. Barsad?" + +"Just now, if at all." + +"Mr. Barsad is the best authority possible, sir," said Sydney, "and I +have it from Mr. Barsad's communication to a friend and brother Sheep +over a bottle of wine, that the arrest has taken place. He left the +messengers at the gate, and saw them admitted by the porter. There is no +earthly doubt that he is retaken." + +Mr. Lorry's business eye read in the speaker's face that it was loss +of time to dwell upon the point. Confused, but sensible that something +might depend on his presence of mind, he commanded himself, and was +silently attentive. + +"Now, I trust," said Sydney to him, "that the name and influence of +Doctor Manette may stand him in as good stead to-morrow--you said he +would be before the Tribunal again to-morrow, Mr. Barsad?--" + +"Yes; I believe so." + +"--In as good stead to-morrow as to-day. But it may not be so. I own +to you, I am shaken, Mr. Lorry, by Doctor Manette's not having had the +power to prevent this arrest." + +"He may not have known of it beforehand," said Mr. Lorry. + +"But that very circumstance would be alarming, when we remember how +identified he is with his son-in-law." + +"That's true," Mr. Lorry acknowledged, with his troubled hand at his +chin, and his troubled eyes on Carton. + +"In short," said Sydney, "this is a desperate time, when desperate games +are played for desperate stakes. Let the Doctor play the winning game; I +will play the losing one. No man's life here is worth purchase. Any one +carried home by the people to-day, may be condemned tomorrow. Now, the +stake I have resolved to play for, in case of the worst, is a friend +in the Conciergerie. And the friend I purpose to myself to win, is Mr. +Barsad." + +"You need have good cards, sir," said the spy. + +"I'll run them over. I'll see what I hold,--Mr. Lorry, you know what a +brute I am; I wish you'd give me a little brandy." + +It was put before him, and he drank off a glassful--drank off another +glassful--pushed the bottle thoughtfully away. + +"Mr. Barsad," he went on, in the tone of one who really was looking +over a hand at cards: "Sheep of the prisons, emissary of Republican +committees, now turnkey, now prisoner, always spy and secret informer, +so much the more valuable here for being English that an Englishman +is less open to suspicion of subornation in those characters than a +Frenchman, represents himself to his employers under a false name. +That's a very good card. Mr. Barsad, now in the employ of the republican +French government, was formerly in the employ of the aristocratic +English government, the enemy of France and freedom. That's an excellent +card. Inference clear as day in this region of suspicion, that Mr. +Barsad, still in the pay of the aristocratic English government, is the +spy of Pitt, the treacherous foe of the Republic crouching in its bosom, +the English traitor and agent of all mischief so much spoken of and so +difficult to find. That's a card not to be beaten. Have you followed my +hand, Mr. Barsad?" + +"Not to understand your play," returned the spy, somewhat uneasily. + +"I play my Ace, Denunciation of Mr. Barsad to the nearest Section +Committee. Look over your hand, Mr. Barsad, and see what you have. Don't +hurry." + +He drew the bottle near, poured out another glassful of brandy, and +drank it off. He saw that the spy was fearful of his drinking himself +into a fit state for the immediate denunciation of him. Seeing it, he +poured out and drank another glassful. + +"Look over your hand carefully, Mr. Barsad. Take time." + +It was a poorer hand than he suspected. Mr. Barsad saw losing cards +in it that Sydney Carton knew nothing of. Thrown out of his honourable +employment in England, through too much unsuccessful hard swearing +there--not because he was not wanted there; our English reasons for +vaunting our superiority to secrecy and spies are of very modern +date--he knew that he had crossed the Channel, and accepted service in +France: first, as a tempter and an eavesdropper among his own countrymen +there: gradually, as a tempter and an eavesdropper among the natives. He +knew that under the overthrown government he had been a spy upon Saint +Antoine and Defarge's wine-shop; had received from the watchful police +such heads of information concerning Doctor Manette's imprisonment, +release, and history, as should serve him for an introduction to +familiar conversation with the Defarges; and tried them on Madame +Defarge, and had broken down with them signally. He always remembered +with fear and trembling, that that terrible woman had knitted when he +talked with her, and had looked ominously at him as her fingers moved. +He had since seen her, in the Section of Saint Antoine, over and over +again produce her knitted registers, and denounce people whose lives the +guillotine then surely swallowed up. He knew, as every one employed as +he was did, that he was never safe; that flight was impossible; that +he was tied fast under the shadow of the axe; and that in spite of +his utmost tergiversation and treachery in furtherance of the reigning +terror, a word might bring it down upon him. Once denounced, and on such +grave grounds as had just now been suggested to his mind, he foresaw +that the dreadful woman of whose unrelenting character he had seen many +proofs, would produce against him that fatal register, and would quash +his last chance of life. Besides that all secret men are men soon +terrified, here were surely cards enough of one black suit, to justify +the holder in growing rather livid as he turned them over. + +"You scarcely seem to like your hand," said Sydney, with the greatest +composure. "Do you play?" + +"I think, sir," said the spy, in the meanest manner, as he turned to Mr. +Lorry, "I may appeal to a gentleman of your years and benevolence, to +put it to this other gentleman, so much your junior, whether he can +under any circumstances reconcile it to his station to play that Ace +of which he has spoken. I admit that _I_ am a spy, and that it is +considered a discreditable station--though it must be filled by +somebody; but this gentleman is no spy, and why should he so demean +himself as to make himself one?" + +"I play my Ace, Mr. Barsad," said Carton, taking the answer on himself, +and looking at his watch, "without any scruple, in a very few minutes." + +"I should have hoped, gentlemen both," said the spy, always striving to +hook Mr. Lorry into the discussion, "that your respect for my sister--" + +"I could not better testify my respect for your sister than by finally +relieving her of her brother," said Sydney Carton. + +"You think not, sir?" + +"I have thoroughly made up my mind about it." + +The smooth manner of the spy, curiously in dissonance with his +ostentatiously rough dress, and probably with his usual demeanour, +received such a check from the inscrutability of Carton,--who was a +mystery to wiser and honester men than he,--that it faltered here and +failed him. While he was at a loss, Carton said, resuming his former air +of contemplating cards: + +"And indeed, now I think again, I have a strong impression that I +have another good card here, not yet enumerated. That friend and +fellow-Sheep, who spoke of himself as pasturing in the country prisons; +who was he?" + +"French. You don't know him," said the spy, quickly. + +"French, eh?" repeated Carton, musing, and not appearing to notice him +at all, though he echoed his word. "Well; he may be." + +"Is, I assure you," said the spy; "though it's not important." + +"Though it's not important," repeated Carton, in the same mechanical +way--"though it's not important--No, it's not important. No. Yet I know +the face." + +"I think not. I am sure not. It can't be," said the spy. + +"It-can't-be," muttered Sydney Carton, retrospectively, and idling his +glass (which fortunately was a small one) again. "Can't-be. Spoke good +French. Yet like a foreigner, I thought?" + +"Provincial," said the spy. + +"No. Foreign!" cried Carton, striking his open hand on the table, as a +light broke clearly on his mind. "Cly! Disguised, but the same man. We +had that man before us at the Old Bailey." + +"Now, there you are hasty, sir," said Barsad, with a smile that gave his +aquiline nose an extra inclination to one side; "there you really give +me an advantage over you. Cly (who I will unreservedly admit, at this +distance of time, was a partner of mine) has been dead several years. I +attended him in his last illness. He was buried in London, at the church +of Saint Pancras-in-the-Fields. His unpopularity with the blackguard +multitude at the moment prevented my following his remains, but I helped +to lay him in his coffin." + +Here, Mr. Lorry became aware, from where he sat, of a most remarkable +goblin shadow on the wall. Tracing it to its source, he discovered it +to be caused by a sudden extraordinary rising and stiffening of all the +risen and stiff hair on Mr. Cruncher's head. + +"Let us be reasonable," said the spy, "and let us be fair. To show you +how mistaken you are, and what an unfounded assumption yours is, I will +lay before you a certificate of Cly's burial, which I happened to have +carried in my pocket-book," with a hurried hand he produced and opened +it, "ever since. There it is. Oh, look at it, look at it! You may take +it in your hand; it's no forgery." + +Here, Mr. Lorry perceived the reflection on the wall to elongate, and +Mr. Cruncher rose and stepped forward. His hair could not have been more +violently on end, if it had been that moment dressed by the Cow with the +crumpled horn in the house that Jack built. + +Unseen by the spy, Mr. Cruncher stood at his side, and touched him on +the shoulder like a ghostly bailiff. + +"That there Roger Cly, master," said Mr. Cruncher, with a taciturn and +iron-bound visage. "So _you_ put him in his coffin?" + +"I did." + +"Who took him out of it?" + +Barsad leaned back in his chair, and stammered, "What do you mean?" + +"I mean," said Mr. Cruncher, "that he warn't never in it. No! Not he! +I'll have my head took off, if he was ever in it." + +The spy looked round at the two gentlemen; they both looked in +unspeakable astonishment at Jerry. + +"I tell you," said Jerry, "that you buried paving-stones and earth in +that there coffin. Don't go and tell me that you buried Cly. It was a +take in. Me and two more knows it." + +"How do you know it?" + +"What's that to you? Ecod!" growled Mr. Cruncher, "it's you I have got a +old grudge again, is it, with your shameful impositions upon tradesmen! +I'd catch hold of your throat and choke you for half a guinea." + +Sydney Carton, who, with Mr. Lorry, had been lost in amazement at +this turn of the business, here requested Mr. Cruncher to moderate and +explain himself. + +"At another time, sir," he returned, evasively, "the present time is +ill-conwenient for explainin'. What I stand to, is, that he knows well +wot that there Cly was never in that there coffin. Let him say he was, +in so much as a word of one syllable, and I'll either catch hold of his +throat and choke him for half a guinea;" Mr. Cruncher dwelt upon this as +quite a liberal offer; "or I'll out and announce him." + +"Humph! I see one thing," said Carton. "I hold another card, Mr. Barsad. +Impossible, here in raging Paris, with Suspicion filling the air, for +you to outlive denunciation, when you are in communication with another +aristocratic spy of the same antecedents as yourself, who, moreover, has +the mystery about him of having feigned death and come to life again! +A plot in the prisons, of the foreigner against the Republic. A strong +card--a certain Guillotine card! Do you play?" + +"No!" returned the spy. "I throw up. I confess that we were so unpopular +with the outrageous mob, that I only got away from England at the risk +of being ducked to death, and that Cly was so ferreted up and down, that +he never would have got away at all but for that sham. Though how this +man knows it was a sham, is a wonder of wonders to me." + +"Never you trouble your head about this man," retorted the contentious +Mr. Cruncher; "you'll have trouble enough with giving your attention to +that gentleman. And look here! Once more!"--Mr. Cruncher could not +be restrained from making rather an ostentatious parade of his +liberality--"I'd catch hold of your throat and choke you for half a +guinea." + +The Sheep of the prisons turned from him to Sydney Carton, and said, +with more decision, "It has come to a point. I go on duty soon, and +can't overstay my time. You told me you had a proposal; what is it? +Now, it is of no use asking too much of me. Ask me to do anything in my +office, putting my head in great extra danger, and I had better trust my +life to the chances of a refusal than the chances of consent. In short, +I should make that choice. You talk of desperation. We are all desperate +here. Remember! I may denounce you if I think proper, and I can swear my +way through stone walls, and so can others. Now, what do you want with +me?" + +"Not very much. You are a turnkey at the Conciergerie?" + +"I tell you once for all, there is no such thing as an escape possible," +said the spy, firmly. + +"Why need you tell me what I have not asked? You are a turnkey at the +Conciergerie?" + +"I am sometimes." + +"You can be when you choose?" + +"I can pass in and out when I choose." + +Sydney Carton filled another glass with brandy, poured it slowly out +upon the hearth, and watched it as it dropped. It being all spent, he +said, rising: + +"So far, we have spoken before these two, because it was as well that +the merits of the cards should not rest solely between you and me. Come +into the dark room here, and let us have one final word alone." + + + + +IX. The Game Made + + +While Sydney Carton and the Sheep of the prisons were in the adjoining +dark room, speaking so low that not a sound was heard, Mr. Lorry looked +at Jerry in considerable doubt and mistrust. That honest tradesman's +manner of receiving the look, did not inspire confidence; he changed the +leg on which he rested, as often as if he had fifty of those limbs, +and were trying them all; he examined his finger-nails with a very +questionable closeness of attention; and whenever Mr. Lorry's eye caught +his, he was taken with that peculiar kind of short cough requiring the +hollow of a hand before it, which is seldom, if ever, known to be an +infirmity attendant on perfect openness of character. + +"Jerry," said Mr. Lorry. "Come here." + +Mr. Cruncher came forward sideways, with one of his shoulders in advance +of him. + +"What have you been, besides a messenger?" + +After some cogitation, accompanied with an intent look at his patron, +Mr. Cruncher conceived the luminous idea of replying, "Agicultooral +character." + +"My mind misgives me much," said Mr. Lorry, angrily shaking a forefinger +at him, "that you have used the respectable and great house of Tellson's +as a blind, and that you have had an unlawful occupation of an infamous +description. If you have, don't expect me to befriend you when you +get back to England. If you have, don't expect me to keep your secret. +Tellson's shall not be imposed upon." + +"I hope, sir," pleaded the abashed Mr. Cruncher, "that a gentleman like +yourself wot I've had the honour of odd jobbing till I'm grey at it, +would think twice about harming of me, even if it wos so--I don't say it +is, but even if it wos. And which it is to be took into account that if +it wos, it wouldn't, even then, be all o' one side. There'd be two sides +to it. There might be medical doctors at the present hour, a picking +up their guineas where a honest tradesman don't pick up his +fardens--fardens! no, nor yet his half fardens--half fardens! no, nor +yet his quarter--a banking away like smoke at Tellson's, and a cocking +their medical eyes at that tradesman on the sly, a going in and going +out to their own carriages--ah! equally like smoke, if not more so. +Well, that 'ud be imposing, too, on Tellson's. For you cannot sarse the +goose and not the gander. And here's Mrs. Cruncher, or leastways wos +in the Old England times, and would be to-morrow, if cause given, +a floppin' again the business to that degree as is ruinating--stark +ruinating! Whereas them medical doctors' wives don't flop--catch 'em at +it! Or, if they flop, their floppings goes in favour of more patients, +and how can you rightly have one without t'other? Then, wot with +undertakers, and wot with parish clerks, and wot with sextons, and wot +with private watchmen (all awaricious and all in it), a man wouldn't get +much by it, even if it wos so. And wot little a man did get, would never +prosper with him, Mr. Lorry. He'd never have no good of it; he'd want +all along to be out of the line, if he, could see his way out, being +once in--even if it wos so." + +"Ugh!" cried Mr. Lorry, rather relenting, nevertheless, "I am shocked at +the sight of you." + +"Now, what I would humbly offer to you, sir," pursued Mr. Cruncher, +"even if it wos so, which I don't say it is--" + +"Don't prevaricate," said Mr. Lorry. + +"No, I will _not_, sir," returned Mr. Crunches as if nothing were +further from his thoughts or practice--"which I don't say it is--wot I +would humbly offer to you, sir, would be this. Upon that there stool, at +that there Bar, sets that there boy of mine, brought up and growed up to +be a man, wot will errand you, message you, general-light-job you, till +your heels is where your head is, if such should be your wishes. If it +wos so, which I still don't say it is (for I will not prewaricate to +you, sir), let that there boy keep his father's place, and take care of +his mother; don't blow upon that boy's father--do not do it, sir--and +let that father go into the line of the reg'lar diggin', and make amends +for what he would have undug--if it wos so--by diggin' of 'em in with +a will, and with conwictions respectin' the futur' keepin' of 'em safe. +That, Mr. Lorry," said Mr. Cruncher, wiping his forehead with his +arm, as an announcement that he had arrived at the peroration of his +discourse, "is wot I would respectfully offer to you, sir. A man don't +see all this here a goin' on dreadful round him, in the way of Subjects +without heads, dear me, plentiful enough fur to bring the price down +to porterage and hardly that, without havin' his serious thoughts of +things. And these here would be mine, if it wos so, entreatin' of you +fur to bear in mind that wot I said just now, I up and said in the good +cause when I might have kep' it back." + +"That at least is true," said Mr. Lorry. "Say no more now. It may be +that I shall yet stand your friend, if you deserve it, and repent in +action--not in words. I want no more words." + +Mr. Cruncher knuckled his forehead, as Sydney Carton and the spy +returned from the dark room. "Adieu, Mr. Barsad," said the former; "our +arrangement thus made, you have nothing to fear from me." + +He sat down in a chair on the hearth, over against Mr. Lorry. When they +were alone, Mr. Lorry asked him what he had done? + +"Not much. If it should go ill with the prisoner, I have ensured access +to him, once." + +Mr. Lorry's countenance fell. + +"It is all I could do," said Carton. "To propose too much, would be +to put this man's head under the axe, and, as he himself said, nothing +worse could happen to him if he were denounced. It was obviously the +weakness of the position. There is no help for it." + +"But access to him," said Mr. Lorry, "if it should go ill before the +Tribunal, will not save him." + +"I never said it would." + +Mr. Lorry's eyes gradually sought the fire; his sympathy with his +darling, and the heavy disappointment of his second arrest, gradually +weakened them; he was an old man now, overborne with anxiety of late, +and his tears fell. + +"You are a good man and a true friend," said Carton, in an altered +voice. "Forgive me if I notice that you are affected. I could not see my +father weep, and sit by, careless. And I could not respect your +sorrow more, if you were my father. You are free from that misfortune, +however." + +Though he said the last words, with a slip into his usual manner, there +was a true feeling and respect both in his tone and in his touch, +that Mr. Lorry, who had never seen the better side of him, was wholly +unprepared for. He gave him his hand, and Carton gently pressed it. + +"To return to poor Darnay," said Carton. "Don't tell Her of this +interview, or this arrangement. It would not enable Her to go to see +him. She might think it was contrived, in case of the worse, to convey +to him the means of anticipating the sentence." + +Mr. Lorry had not thought of that, and he looked quickly at Carton to +see if it were in his mind. It seemed to be; he returned the look, and +evidently understood it. + +"She might think a thousand things," Carton said, "and any of them would +only add to her trouble. Don't speak of me to her. As I said to you when +I first came, I had better not see her. I can put my hand out, to do any +little helpful work for her that my hand can find to do, without that. +You are going to her, I hope? She must be very desolate to-night." + +"I am going now, directly." + +"I am glad of that. She has such a strong attachment to you and reliance +on you. How does she look?" + +"Anxious and unhappy, but very beautiful." + +"Ah!" + +It was a long, grieving sound, like a sigh--almost like a sob. It +attracted Mr. Lorry's eyes to Carton's face, which was turned to the +fire. A light, or a shade (the old gentleman could not have said which), +passed from it as swiftly as a change will sweep over a hill-side on a +wild bright day, and he lifted his foot to put back one of the little +flaming logs, which was tumbling forward. He wore the white riding-coat +and top-boots, then in vogue, and the light of the fire touching their +light surfaces made him look very pale, with his long brown hair, +all untrimmed, hanging loose about him. His indifference to fire was +sufficiently remarkable to elicit a word of remonstrance from Mr. Lorry; +his boot was still upon the hot embers of the flaming log, when it had +broken under the weight of his foot. + +"I forgot it," he said. + +Mr. Lorry's eyes were again attracted to his face. Taking note of the +wasted air which clouded the naturally handsome features, and having +the expression of prisoners' faces fresh in his mind, he was strongly +reminded of that expression. + +"And your duties here have drawn to an end, sir?" said Carton, turning +to him. + +"Yes. As I was telling you last night when Lucie came in so +unexpectedly, I have at length done all that I can do here. I hoped to +have left them in perfect safety, and then to have quitted Paris. I have +my Leave to Pass. I was ready to go." + +They were both silent. + +"Yours is a long life to look back upon, sir?" said Carton, wistfully. + +"I am in my seventy-eighth year." + +"You have been useful all your life; steadily and constantly occupied; +trusted, respected, and looked up to?" + +"I have been a man of business, ever since I have been a man. Indeed, I +may say that I was a man of business when a boy." + +"See what a place you fill at seventy-eight. How many people will miss +you when you leave it empty!" + +"A solitary old bachelor," answered Mr. Lorry, shaking his head. "There +is nobody to weep for me." + +"How can you say that? Wouldn't She weep for you? Wouldn't her child?" + +"Yes, yes, thank God. I didn't quite mean what I said." + +"It _is_ a thing to thank God for; is it not?" + +"Surely, surely." + +"If you could say, with truth, to your own solitary heart, to-night, +'I have secured to myself the love and attachment, the gratitude or +respect, of no human creature; I have won myself a tender place in no +regard; I have done nothing good or serviceable to be remembered by!' +your seventy-eight years would be seventy-eight heavy curses; would they +not?" + +"You say truly, Mr. Carton; I think they would be." + +Sydney turned his eyes again upon the fire, and, after a silence of a +few moments, said: + +"I should like to ask you:--Does your childhood seem far off? Do the +days when you sat at your mother's knee, seem days of very long ago?" + +Responding to his softened manner, Mr. Lorry answered: + +"Twenty years back, yes; at this time of my life, no. For, as I draw +closer and closer to the end, I travel in the circle, nearer and +nearer to the beginning. It seems to be one of the kind smoothings and +preparings of the way. My heart is touched now, by many remembrances +that had long fallen asleep, of my pretty young mother (and I so old!), +and by many associations of the days when what we call the World was not +so real with me, and my faults were not confirmed in me." + +"I understand the feeling!" exclaimed Carton, with a bright flush. "And +you are the better for it?" + +"I hope so." + +Carton terminated the conversation here, by rising to help him on with +his outer coat; "But you," said Mr. Lorry, reverting to the theme, "you +are young." + +"Yes," said Carton. "I am not old, but my young way was never the way to +age. Enough of me." + +"And of me, I am sure," said Mr. Lorry. "Are you going out?" + +"I'll walk with you to her gate. You know my vagabond and restless +habits. If I should prowl about the streets a long time, don't be +uneasy; I shall reappear in the morning. You go to the Court to-morrow?" + +"Yes, unhappily." + +"I shall be there, but only as one of the crowd. My Spy will find a +place for me. Take my arm, sir." + +Mr. Lorry did so, and they went down-stairs and out in the streets. A +few minutes brought them to Mr. Lorry's destination. Carton left him +there; but lingered at a little distance, and turned back to the gate +again when it was shut, and touched it. He had heard of her going to +the prison every day. "She came out here," he said, looking about him, +"turned this way, must have trod on these stones often. Let me follow in +her steps." + +It was ten o'clock at night when he stood before the prison of La Force, +where she had stood hundreds of times. A little wood-sawyer, having +closed his shop, was smoking his pipe at his shop-door. + +"Good night, citizen," said Sydney Carton, pausing in going by; for, the +man eyed him inquisitively. + +"Good night, citizen." + +"How goes the Republic?" + +"You mean the Guillotine. Not ill. Sixty-three to-day. We shall mount +to a hundred soon. Samson and his men complain sometimes, of being +exhausted. Ha, ha, ha! He is so droll, that Samson. Such a Barber!" + +"Do you often go to see him--" + +"Shave? Always. Every day. What a barber! You have seen him at work?" + +"Never." + +"Go and see him when he has a good batch. Figure this to yourself, +citizen; he shaved the sixty-three to-day, in less than two pipes! Less +than two pipes. Word of honour!" + +As the grinning little man held out the pipe he was smoking, to explain +how he timed the executioner, Carton was so sensible of a rising desire +to strike the life out of him, that he turned away. + +"But you are not English," said the wood-sawyer, "though you wear +English dress?" + +"Yes," said Carton, pausing again, and answering over his shoulder. + +"You speak like a Frenchman." + +"I am an old student here." + +"Aha, a perfect Frenchman! Good night, Englishman." + +"Good night, citizen." + +"But go and see that droll dog," the little man persisted, calling after +him. "And take a pipe with you!" + +Sydney had not gone far out of sight, when he stopped in the middle of +the street under a glimmering lamp, and wrote with his pencil on a scrap +of paper. Then, traversing with the decided step of one who remembered +the way well, several dark and dirty streets--much dirtier than usual, +for the best public thoroughfares remained uncleansed in those times of +terror--he stopped at a chemist's shop, which the owner was closing with +his own hands. A small, dim, crooked shop, kept in a tortuous, up-hill +thoroughfare, by a small, dim, crooked man. + +Giving this citizen, too, good night, as he confronted him at his +counter, he laid the scrap of paper before him. "Whew!" the chemist +whistled softly, as he read it. "Hi! hi! hi!" + +Sydney Carton took no heed, and the chemist said: + +"For you, citizen?" + +"For me." + +"You will be careful to keep them separate, citizen? You know the +consequences of mixing them?" + +"Perfectly." + +Certain small packets were made and given to him. He put them, one by +one, in the breast of his inner coat, counted out the money for them, +and deliberately left the shop. "There is nothing more to do," said he, +glancing upward at the moon, "until to-morrow. I can't sleep." + +It was not a reckless manner, the manner in which he said these words +aloud under the fast-sailing clouds, nor was it more expressive of +negligence than defiance. It was the settled manner of a tired man, who +had wandered and struggled and got lost, but who at length struck into +his road and saw its end. + +Long ago, when he had been famous among his earliest competitors as a +youth of great promise, he had followed his father to the grave. His +mother had died, years before. These solemn words, which had been +read at his father's grave, arose in his mind as he went down the dark +streets, among the heavy shadows, with the moon and the clouds sailing +on high above him. "I am the resurrection and the life, saith the Lord: +he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live: and +whosoever liveth and believeth in me, shall never die." + +In a city dominated by the axe, alone at night, with natural sorrow +rising in him for the sixty-three who had been that day put to death, +and for to-morrow's victims then awaiting their doom in the prisons, +and still of to-morrow's and to-morrow's, the chain of association that +brought the words home, like a rusty old ship's anchor from the deep, +might have been easily found. He did not seek it, but repeated them and +went on. + +With a solemn interest in the lighted windows where the people were +going to rest, forgetful through a few calm hours of the horrors +surrounding them; in the towers of the churches, where no prayers +were said, for the popular revulsion had even travelled that length +of self-destruction from years of priestly impostors, plunderers, and +profligates; in the distant burial-places, reserved, as they wrote upon +the gates, for Eternal Sleep; in the abounding gaols; and in the streets +along which the sixties rolled to a death which had become so common and +material, that no sorrowful story of a haunting Spirit ever arose among +the people out of all the working of the Guillotine; with a solemn +interest in the whole life and death of the city settling down to its +short nightly pause in fury; Sydney Carton crossed the Seine again for +the lighter streets. + +Few coaches were abroad, for riders in coaches were liable to be +suspected, and gentility hid its head in red nightcaps, and put on heavy +shoes, and trudged. But, the theatres were all well filled, and the +people poured cheerfully out as he passed, and went chatting home. At +one of the theatre doors, there was a little girl with a mother, looking +for a way across the street through the mud. He carried the child over, +and before the timid arm was loosed from his neck asked her for a kiss. + +"I am the resurrection and the life, saith the Lord: he that believeth +in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live: and whosoever liveth and +believeth in me, shall never die." + +Now, that the streets were quiet, and the night wore on, the words +were in the echoes of his feet, and were in the air. Perfectly calm +and steady, he sometimes repeated them to himself as he walked; but, he +heard them always. + +The night wore out, and, as he stood upon the bridge listening to the +water as it splashed the river-walls of the Island of Paris, where the +picturesque confusion of houses and cathedral shone bright in the light +of the moon, the day came coldly, looking like a dead face out of the +sky. Then, the night, with the moon and the stars, turned pale and died, +and for a little while it seemed as if Creation were delivered over to +Death's dominion. + +But, the glorious sun, rising, seemed to strike those words, that burden +of the night, straight and warm to his heart in its long bright rays. +And looking along them, with reverently shaded eyes, a bridge of light +appeared to span the air between him and the sun, while the river +sparkled under it. + +The strong tide, so swift, so deep, and certain, was like a congenial +friend, in the morning stillness. He walked by the stream, far from the +houses, and in the light and warmth of the sun fell asleep on the +bank. When he awoke and was afoot again, he lingered there yet a little +longer, watching an eddy that turned and turned purposeless, until the +stream absorbed it, and carried it on to the sea.--"Like me." + +A trading-boat, with a sail of the softened colour of a dead leaf, then +glided into his view, floated by him, and died away. As its silent track +in the water disappeared, the prayer that had broken up out of his heart +for a merciful consideration of all his poor blindnesses and errors, +ended in the words, "I am the resurrection and the life." + +Mr. Lorry was already out when he got back, and it was easy to surmise +where the good old man was gone. Sydney Carton drank nothing but a +little coffee, ate some bread, and, having washed and changed to refresh +himself, went out to the place of trial. + +The court was all astir and a-buzz, when the black sheep--whom many fell +away from in dread--pressed him into an obscure corner among the crowd. +Mr. Lorry was there, and Doctor Manette was there. She was there, +sitting beside her father. + +When her husband was brought in, she turned a look upon him, so +sustaining, so encouraging, so full of admiring love and pitying +tenderness, yet so courageous for his sake, that it called the healthy +blood into his face, brightened his glance, and animated his heart. If +there had been any eyes to notice the influence of her look, on Sydney +Carton, it would have been seen to be the same influence exactly. + +Before that unjust Tribunal, there was little or no order of procedure, +ensuring to any accused person any reasonable hearing. There could have +been no such Revolution, if all laws, forms, and ceremonies, had not +first been so monstrously abused, that the suicidal vengeance of the +Revolution was to scatter them all to the winds. + +Every eye was turned to the jury. The same determined patriots and good +republicans as yesterday and the day before, and to-morrow and the day +after. Eager and prominent among them, one man with a craving face, and +his fingers perpetually hovering about his lips, whose appearance +gave great satisfaction to the spectators. A life-thirsting, +cannibal-looking, bloody-minded juryman, the Jacques Three of St. +Antoine. The whole jury, as a jury of dogs empannelled to try the deer. + +Every eye then turned to the five judges and the public prosecutor. +No favourable leaning in that quarter to-day. A fell, uncompromising, +murderous business-meaning there. Every eye then sought some other eye +in the crowd, and gleamed at it approvingly; and heads nodded at one +another, before bending forward with a strained attention. + +Charles Evremonde, called Darnay. Released yesterday. Reaccused and +retaken yesterday. Indictment delivered to him last night. Suspected and +Denounced enemy of the Republic, Aristocrat, one of a family of tyrants, +one of a race proscribed, for that they had used their abolished +privileges to the infamous oppression of the people. Charles Evremonde, +called Darnay, in right of such proscription, absolutely Dead in Law. + +To this effect, in as few or fewer words, the Public Prosecutor. + +The President asked, was the Accused openly denounced or secretly? + +"Openly, President." + +"By whom?" + +"Three voices. Ernest Defarge, wine-vendor of St. Antoine." + +"Good." + +"Therese Defarge, his wife." + +"Good." + +"Alexandre Manette, physician." + +A great uproar took place in the court, and in the midst of it, Doctor +Manette was seen, pale and trembling, standing where he had been seated. + +"President, I indignantly protest to you that this is a forgery and +a fraud. You know the accused to be the husband of my daughter. My +daughter, and those dear to her, are far dearer to me than my life. Who +and where is the false conspirator who says that I denounce the husband +of my child!" + +"Citizen Manette, be tranquil. To fail in submission to the authority of +the Tribunal would be to put yourself out of Law. As to what is dearer +to you than life, nothing can be so dear to a good citizen as the +Republic." + +Loud acclamations hailed this rebuke. The President rang his bell, and +with warmth resumed. + +"If the Republic should demand of you the sacrifice of your child +herself, you would have no duty but to sacrifice her. Listen to what is +to follow. In the meanwhile, be silent!" + +Frantic acclamations were again raised. Doctor Manette sat down, with +his eyes looking around, and his lips trembling; his daughter drew +closer to him. The craving man on the jury rubbed his hands together, +and restored the usual hand to his mouth. + +Defarge was produced, when the court was quiet enough to admit of his +being heard, and rapidly expounded the story of the imprisonment, and of +his having been a mere boy in the Doctor's service, and of the release, +and of the state of the prisoner when released and delivered to him. +This short examination followed, for the court was quick with its work. + +"You did good service at the taking of the Bastille, citizen?" + +"I believe so." + +Here, an excited woman screeched from the crowd: "You were one of the +best patriots there. Why not say so? You were a cannonier that day +there, and you were among the first to enter the accursed fortress when +it fell. Patriots, I speak the truth!" + +It was The Vengeance who, amidst the warm commendations of the audience, +thus assisted the proceedings. The President rang his bell; but, The +Vengeance, warming with encouragement, shrieked, "I defy that bell!" +wherein she was likewise much commended. + +"Inform the Tribunal of what you did that day within the Bastille, +citizen." + +"I knew," said Defarge, looking down at his wife, who stood at the +bottom of the steps on which he was raised, looking steadily up at him; +"I knew that this prisoner, of whom I speak, had been confined in a cell +known as One Hundred and Five, North Tower. I knew it from himself. He +knew himself by no other name than One Hundred and Five, North Tower, +when he made shoes under my care. As I serve my gun that day, I resolve, +when the place shall fall, to examine that cell. It falls. I mount to +the cell, with a fellow-citizen who is one of the Jury, directed by a +gaoler. I examine it, very closely. In a hole in the chimney, where a +stone has been worked out and replaced, I find a written paper. This is +that written paper. I have made it my business to examine some specimens +of the writing of Doctor Manette. This is the writing of Doctor Manette. +I confide this paper, in the writing of Doctor Manette, to the hands of +the President." + +"Let it be read." + +In a dead silence and stillness--the prisoner under trial looking +lovingly at his wife, his wife only looking from him to look with +solicitude at her father, Doctor Manette keeping his eyes fixed on the +reader, Madame Defarge never taking hers from the prisoner, Defarge +never taking his from his feasting wife, and all the other eyes there +intent upon the Doctor, who saw none of them--the paper was read, as +follows. + + + + +X. The Substance of the Shadow + + +"I, Alexandre Manette, unfortunate physician, native of Beauvais, and +afterwards resident in Paris, write this melancholy paper in my doleful +cell in the Bastille, during the last month of the year, 1767. I write +it at stolen intervals, under every difficulty. I design to secrete it +in the wall of the chimney, where I have slowly and laboriously made a +place of concealment for it. Some pitying hand may find it there, when I +and my sorrows are dust. + +"These words are formed by the rusty iron point with which I write with +difficulty in scrapings of soot and charcoal from the chimney, mixed +with blood, in the last month of the tenth year of my captivity. Hope +has quite departed from my breast. I know from terrible warnings I have +noted in myself that my reason will not long remain unimpaired, but I +solemnly declare that I am at this time in the possession of my right +mind--that my memory is exact and circumstantial--and that I write the +truth as I shall answer for these my last recorded words, whether they +be ever read by men or not, at the Eternal Judgment-seat. + +"One cloudy moonlight night, in the third week of December (I think the +twenty-second of the month) in the year 1757, I was walking on a retired +part of the quay by the Seine for the refreshment of the frosty air, +at an hour's distance from my place of residence in the Street of the +School of Medicine, when a carriage came along behind me, driven very +fast. As I stood aside to let that carriage pass, apprehensive that it +might otherwise run me down, a head was put out at the window, and a +voice called to the driver to stop. + +"The carriage stopped as soon as the driver could rein in his horses, +and the same voice called to me by my name. I answered. The carriage +was then so far in advance of me that two gentlemen had time to open the +door and alight before I came up with it. + +"I observed that they were both wrapped in cloaks, and appeared to +conceal themselves. As they stood side by side near the carriage door, +I also observed that they both looked of about my own age, or rather +younger, and that they were greatly alike, in stature, manner, voice, +and (as far as I could see) face too. + +"'You are Doctor Manette?' said one. + +"I am." + +"'Doctor Manette, formerly of Beauvais,' said the other; 'the young +physician, originally an expert surgeon, who within the last year or two +has made a rising reputation in Paris?' + +"'Gentlemen,' I returned, 'I am that Doctor Manette of whom you speak so +graciously.' + +"'We have been to your residence,' said the first, 'and not being +so fortunate as to find you there, and being informed that you were +probably walking in this direction, we followed, in the hope of +overtaking you. Will you please to enter the carriage?' + +"The manner of both was imperious, and they both moved, as these words +were spoken, so as to place me between themselves and the carriage door. +They were armed. I was not. + +"'Gentlemen,' said I, 'pardon me; but I usually inquire who does me +the honour to seek my assistance, and what is the nature of the case to +which I am summoned.' + +"The reply to this was made by him who had spoken second. 'Doctor, +your clients are people of condition. As to the nature of the case, +our confidence in your skill assures us that you will ascertain it for +yourself better than we can describe it. Enough. Will you please to +enter the carriage?' + +"I could do nothing but comply, and I entered it in silence. They both +entered after me--the last springing in, after putting up the steps. The +carriage turned about, and drove on at its former speed. + +"I repeat this conversation exactly as it occurred. I have no doubt that +it is, word for word, the same. I describe everything exactly as it took +place, constraining my mind not to wander from the task. Where I make +the broken marks that follow here, I leave off for the time, and put my +paper in its hiding-place. + + ***** + +"The carriage left the streets behind, passed the North Barrier, and +emerged upon the country road. At two-thirds of a league from the +Barrier--I did not estimate the distance at that time, but afterwards +when I traversed it--it struck out of the main avenue, and presently +stopped at a solitary house, We all three alighted, and walked, by +a damp soft footpath in a garden where a neglected fountain had +overflowed, to the door of the house. It was not opened immediately, in +answer to the ringing of the bell, and one of my two conductors struck +the man who opened it, with his heavy riding glove, across the face. + +"There was nothing in this action to attract my particular attention, +for I had seen common people struck more commonly than dogs. But, the +other of the two, being angry likewise, struck the man in like manner +with his arm; the look and bearing of the brothers were then so exactly +alike, that I then first perceived them to be twin brothers. + +"From the time of our alighting at the outer gate (which we found +locked, and which one of the brothers had opened to admit us, and had +relocked), I had heard cries proceeding from an upper chamber. I was +conducted to this chamber straight, the cries growing louder as we +ascended the stairs, and I found a patient in a high fever of the brain, +lying on a bed. + +"The patient was a woman of great beauty, and young; assuredly not much +past twenty. Her hair was torn and ragged, and her arms were bound to +her sides with sashes and handkerchiefs. I noticed that these bonds were +all portions of a gentleman's dress. On one of them, which was a fringed +scarf for a dress of ceremony, I saw the armorial bearings of a Noble, +and the letter E. + +"I saw this, within the first minute of my contemplation of the patient; +for, in her restless strivings she had turned over on her face on the +edge of the bed, had drawn the end of the scarf into her mouth, and was +in danger of suffocation. My first act was to put out my hand to relieve +her breathing; and in moving the scarf aside, the embroidery in the +corner caught my sight. + +"I turned her gently over, placed my hands upon her breast to calm her +and keep her down, and looked into her face. Her eyes were dilated and +wild, and she constantly uttered piercing shrieks, and repeated the +words, 'My husband, my father, and my brother!' and then counted up to +twelve, and said, 'Hush!' For an instant, and no more, she would pause +to listen, and then the piercing shrieks would begin again, and she +would repeat the cry, 'My husband, my father, and my brother!' and +would count up to twelve, and say, 'Hush!' There was no variation in the +order, or the manner. There was no cessation, but the regular moment's +pause, in the utterance of these sounds. + +"'How long,' I asked, 'has this lasted?' + +"To distinguish the brothers, I will call them the elder and the +younger; by the elder, I mean him who exercised the most authority. It +was the elder who replied, 'Since about this hour last night.' + +"'She has a husband, a father, and a brother?' + +"'A brother.' + +"'I do not address her brother?' + +"He answered with great contempt, 'No.' + +"'She has some recent association with the number twelve?' + +"The younger brother impatiently rejoined, 'With twelve o'clock?' + +"'See, gentlemen,' said I, still keeping my hands upon her breast, 'how +useless I am, as you have brought me! If I had known what I was coming +to see, I could have come provided. As it is, time must be lost. There +are no medicines to be obtained in this lonely place.' + +"The elder brother looked to the younger, who said haughtily, 'There is +a case of medicines here;' and brought it from a closet, and put it on +the table. + + ***** + +"I opened some of the bottles, smelt them, and put the stoppers to my +lips. If I had wanted to use anything save narcotic medicines that were +poisons in themselves, I would not have administered any of those. + +"'Do you doubt them?' asked the younger brother. + +"'You see, monsieur, I am going to use them,' I replied, and said no +more. + +"I made the patient swallow, with great difficulty, and after many +efforts, the dose that I desired to give. As I intended to repeat it +after a while, and as it was necessary to watch its influence, I then +sat down by the side of the bed. There was a timid and suppressed woman +in attendance (wife of the man down-stairs), who had retreated into +a corner. The house was damp and decayed, indifferently +furnished--evidently, recently occupied and temporarily used. Some thick +old hangings had been nailed up before the windows, to deaden the +sound of the shrieks. They continued to be uttered in their regular +succession, with the cry, 'My husband, my father, and my brother!' the +counting up to twelve, and 'Hush!' The frenzy was so violent, that I had +not unfastened the bandages restraining the arms; but, I had looked to +them, to see that they were not painful. The only spark of encouragement +in the case, was, that my hand upon the sufferer's breast had this much +soothing influence, that for minutes at a time it tranquillised the +figure. It had no effect upon the cries; no pendulum could be more +regular. + +"For the reason that my hand had this effect (I assume), I had sat by +the side of the bed for half an hour, with the two brothers looking on, +before the elder said: + +"'There is another patient.' + +"I was startled, and asked, 'Is it a pressing case?' + +"'You had better see,' he carelessly answered; and took up a light. + + ***** + +"The other patient lay in a back room across a second staircase, which +was a species of loft over a stable. There was a low plastered ceiling +to a part of it; the rest was open, to the ridge of the tiled roof, and +there were beams across. Hay and straw were stored in that portion of +the place, fagots for firing, and a heap of apples in sand. I had to +pass through that part, to get at the other. My memory is circumstantial +and unshaken. I try it with these details, and I see them all, in +this my cell in the Bastille, near the close of the tenth year of my +captivity, as I saw them all that night. + +"On some hay on the ground, with a cushion thrown under his head, lay a +handsome peasant boy--a boy of not more than seventeen at the most. +He lay on his back, with his teeth set, his right hand clenched on his +breast, and his glaring eyes looking straight upward. I could not see +where his wound was, as I kneeled on one knee over him; but, I could see +that he was dying of a wound from a sharp point. + +"'I am a doctor, my poor fellow,' said I. 'Let me examine it.' + +"'I do not want it examined,' he answered; 'let it be.' + +"It was under his hand, and I soothed him to let me move his hand away. +The wound was a sword-thrust, received from twenty to twenty-four hours +before, but no skill could have saved him if it had been looked to +without delay. He was then dying fast. As I turned my eyes to the elder +brother, I saw him looking down at this handsome boy whose life was +ebbing out, as if he were a wounded bird, or hare, or rabbit; not at all +as if he were a fellow-creature. + +"'How has this been done, monsieur?' said I. + +"'A crazed young common dog! A serf! Forced my brother to draw upon him, +and has fallen by my brother's sword--like a gentleman.' + +"There was no touch of pity, sorrow, or kindred humanity, in this +answer. The speaker seemed to acknowledge that it was inconvenient to +have that different order of creature dying there, and that it would +have been better if he had died in the usual obscure routine of his +vermin kind. He was quite incapable of any compassionate feeling about +the boy, or about his fate. + +"The boy's eyes had slowly moved to him as he had spoken, and they now +slowly moved to me. + +"'Doctor, they are very proud, these Nobles; but we common dogs are +proud too, sometimes. They plunder us, outrage us, beat us, kill us; but +we have a little pride left, sometimes. She--have you seen her, Doctor?' + +"The shrieks and the cries were audible there, though subdued by the +distance. He referred to them, as if she were lying in our presence. + +"I said, 'I have seen her.' + +"'She is my sister, Doctor. They have had their shameful rights, these +Nobles, in the modesty and virtue of our sisters, many years, but we +have had good girls among us. I know it, and have heard my father say +so. She was a good girl. She was betrothed to a good young man, too: a +tenant of his. We were all tenants of his--that man's who stands there. +The other is his brother, the worst of a bad race.' + +"It was with the greatest difficulty that the boy gathered bodily force +to speak; but, his spirit spoke with a dreadful emphasis. + +"'We were so robbed by that man who stands there, as all we common dogs +are by those superior Beings--taxed by him without mercy, obliged to +work for him without pay, obliged to grind our corn at his mill, obliged +to feed scores of his tame birds on our wretched crops, and forbidden +for our lives to keep a single tame bird of our own, pillaged and +plundered to that degree that when we chanced to have a bit of meat, we +ate it in fear, with the door barred and the shutters closed, that his +people should not see it and take it from us--I say, we were so robbed, +and hunted, and were made so poor, that our father told us it was a +dreadful thing to bring a child into the world, and that what we should +most pray for, was, that our women might be barren and our miserable +race die out!' + +"I had never before seen the sense of being oppressed, bursting forth +like a fire. I had supposed that it must be latent in the people +somewhere; but, I had never seen it break out, until I saw it in the +dying boy. + +"'Nevertheless, Doctor, my sister married. He was ailing at that time, +poor fellow, and she married her lover, that she might tend and comfort +him in our cottage--our dog-hut, as that man would call it. She had not +been married many weeks, when that man's brother saw her and admired +her, and asked that man to lend her to him--for what are husbands among +us! He was willing enough, but my sister was good and virtuous, and +hated his brother with a hatred as strong as mine. What did the two +then, to persuade her husband to use his influence with her, to make her +willing?' + +"The boy's eyes, which had been fixed on mine, slowly turned to the +looker-on, and I saw in the two faces that all he said was true. The two +opposing kinds of pride confronting one another, I can see, even in this +Bastille; the gentleman's, all negligent indifference; the peasant's, all +trodden-down sentiment, and passionate revenge. + +"'You know, Doctor, that it is among the Rights of these Nobles to +harness us common dogs to carts, and drive us. They so harnessed him and +drove him. You know that it is among their Rights to keep us in their +grounds all night, quieting the frogs, in order that their noble sleep +may not be disturbed. They kept him out in the unwholesome mists at +night, and ordered him back into his harness in the day. But he was +not persuaded. No! Taken out of harness one day at noon, to feed--if he +could find food--he sobbed twelve times, once for every stroke of the +bell, and died on her bosom.' + +"Nothing human could have held life in the boy but his determination to +tell all his wrong. He forced back the gathering shadows of death, as +he forced his clenched right hand to remain clenched, and to cover his +wound. + +"'Then, with that man's permission and even with his aid, his +brother took her away; in spite of what I know she must have told his +brother--and what that is, will not be long unknown to you, Doctor, if +it is now--his brother took her away--for his pleasure and diversion, +for a little while. I saw her pass me on the road. When I took the +tidings home, our father's heart burst; he never spoke one of the words +that filled it. I took my young sister (for I have another) to a place +beyond the reach of this man, and where, at least, she will never be +_his_ vassal. Then, I tracked the brother here, and last night climbed +in--a common dog, but sword in hand.--Where is the loft window? It was +somewhere here?' + +"The room was darkening to his sight; the world was narrowing around +him. I glanced about me, and saw that the hay and straw were trampled +over the floor, as if there had been a struggle. + +"'She heard me, and ran in. I told her not to come near us till he was +dead. He came in and first tossed me some pieces of money; then struck +at me with a whip. But I, though a common dog, so struck at him as to +make him draw. Let him break into as many pieces as he will, the sword +that he stained with my common blood; he drew to defend himself--thrust +at me with all his skill for his life.' + +"My glance had fallen, but a few moments before, on the fragments of +a broken sword, lying among the hay. That weapon was a gentleman's. In +another place, lay an old sword that seemed to have been a soldier's. + +"'Now, lift me up, Doctor; lift me up. Where is he?' + +"'He is not here,' I said, supporting the boy, and thinking that he +referred to the brother. + +"'He! Proud as these nobles are, he is afraid to see me. Where is the +man who was here? Turn my face to him.' + +"I did so, raising the boy's head against my knee. But, invested for the +moment with extraordinary power, he raised himself completely: obliging +me to rise too, or I could not have still supported him. + +"'Marquis,' said the boy, turned to him with his eyes opened wide, and +his right hand raised, 'in the days when all these things are to be +answered for, I summon you and yours, to the last of your bad race, to +answer for them. I mark this cross of blood upon you, as a sign that +I do it. In the days when all these things are to be answered for, +I summon your brother, the worst of the bad race, to answer for them +separately. I mark this cross of blood upon him, as a sign that I do +it.' + +"Twice, he put his hand to the wound in his breast, and with his +forefinger drew a cross in the air. He stood for an instant with the +finger yet raised, and as it dropped, he dropped with it, and I laid him +down dead. + + ***** + +"When I returned to the bedside of the young woman, I found her raving +in precisely the same order of continuity. I knew that this might last +for many hours, and that it would probably end in the silence of the +grave. + +"I repeated the medicines I had given her, and I sat at the side of +the bed until the night was far advanced. She never abated the piercing +quality of her shrieks, never stumbled in the distinctness or the order +of her words. They were always 'My husband, my father, and my brother! +One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven, +twelve. Hush!' + +"This lasted twenty-six hours from the time when I first saw her. I had +come and gone twice, and was again sitting by her, when she began to +falter. I did what little could be done to assist that opportunity, and +by-and-bye she sank into a lethargy, and lay like the dead. + +"It was as if the wind and rain had lulled at last, after a long and +fearful storm. I released her arms, and called the woman to assist me to +compose her figure and the dress she had torn. It was then that I knew +her condition to be that of one in whom the first expectations of being +a mother have arisen; and it was then that I lost the little hope I had +had of her. + +"'Is she dead?' asked the Marquis, whom I will still describe as the +elder brother, coming booted into the room from his horse. + +"'Not dead,' said I; 'but like to die.' + +"'What strength there is in these common bodies!' he said, looking down +at her with some curiosity. + +"'There is prodigious strength,' I answered him, 'in sorrow and +despair.' + +"He first laughed at my words, and then frowned at them. He moved a +chair with his foot near to mine, ordered the woman away, and said in a +subdued voice, + +"'Doctor, finding my brother in this difficulty with these hinds, I +recommended that your aid should be invited. Your reputation is high, +and, as a young man with your fortune to make, you are probably mindful +of your interest. The things that you see here, are things to be seen, +and not spoken of.' + +"I listened to the patient's breathing, and avoided answering. + +"'Do you honour me with your attention, Doctor?' + +"'Monsieur,' said I, 'in my profession, the communications of patients +are always received in confidence.' I was guarded in my answer, for I +was troubled in my mind with what I had heard and seen. + +"Her breathing was so difficult to trace, that I carefully tried the +pulse and the heart. There was life, and no more. Looking round as I +resumed my seat, I found both the brothers intent upon me. + + ***** + +"I write with so much difficulty, the cold is so severe, I am so +fearful of being detected and consigned to an underground cell and total +darkness, that I must abridge this narrative. There is no confusion or +failure in my memory; it can recall, and could detail, every word that +was ever spoken between me and those brothers. + +"She lingered for a week. Towards the last, I could understand some few +syllables that she said to me, by placing my ear close to her lips. She +asked me where she was, and I told her; who I was, and I told her. It +was in vain that I asked her for her family name. She faintly shook her +head upon the pillow, and kept her secret, as the boy had done. + +"I had no opportunity of asking her any question, until I had told the +brothers she was sinking fast, and could not live another day. Until +then, though no one was ever presented to her consciousness save the +woman and myself, one or other of them had always jealously sat behind +the curtain at the head of the bed when I was there. But when it came to +that, they seemed careless what communication I might hold with her; as +if--the thought passed through my mind--I were dying too. + +"I always observed that their pride bitterly resented the younger +brother's (as I call him) having crossed swords with a peasant, and that +peasant a boy. The only consideration that appeared to affect the mind +of either of them was the consideration that this was highly degrading +to the family, and was ridiculous. As often as I caught the younger +brother's eyes, their expression reminded me that he disliked me deeply, +for knowing what I knew from the boy. He was smoother and more polite to +me than the elder; but I saw this. I also saw that I was an incumbrance +in the mind of the elder, too. + +"My patient died, two hours before midnight--at a time, by my watch, +answering almost to the minute when I had first seen her. I was alone +with her, when her forlorn young head drooped gently on one side, and +all her earthly wrongs and sorrows ended. + +"The brothers were waiting in a room down-stairs, impatient to ride +away. I had heard them, alone at the bedside, striking their boots with +their riding-whips, and loitering up and down. + +"'At last she is dead?' said the elder, when I went in. + +"'She is dead,' said I. + +"'I congratulate you, my brother,' were his words as he turned round. + +"He had before offered me money, which I had postponed taking. He now +gave me a rouleau of gold. I took it from his hand, but laid it on +the table. I had considered the question, and had resolved to accept +nothing. + +"'Pray excuse me,' said I. 'Under the circumstances, no.' + +"They exchanged looks, but bent their heads to me as I bent mine to +them, and we parted without another word on either side. + + ***** + +"I am weary, weary, weary--worn down by misery. I cannot read what I +have written with this gaunt hand. + +"Early in the morning, the rouleau of gold was left at my door in a +little box, with my name on the outside. From the first, I had anxiously +considered what I ought to do. I decided, that day, to write privately +to the Minister, stating the nature of the two cases to which I had been +summoned, and the place to which I had gone: in effect, stating all the +circumstances. I knew what Court influence was, and what the immunities +of the Nobles were, and I expected that the matter would never be +heard of; but, I wished to relieve my own mind. I had kept the matter a +profound secret, even from my wife; and this, too, I resolved to state +in my letter. I had no apprehension whatever of my real danger; but +I was conscious that there might be danger for others, if others were +compromised by possessing the knowledge that I possessed. + +"I was much engaged that day, and could not complete my letter that +night. I rose long before my usual time next morning to finish it. +It was the last day of the year. The letter was lying before me just +completed, when I was told that a lady waited, who wished to see me. + + ***** + +"I am growing more and more unequal to the task I have set myself. It is +so cold, so dark, my senses are so benumbed, and the gloom upon me is so +dreadful. + +"The lady was young, engaging, and handsome, but not marked for long +life. She was in great agitation. She presented herself to me as the +wife of the Marquis St. Evremonde. I connected the title by which the +boy had addressed the elder brother, with the initial letter embroidered +on the scarf, and had no difficulty in arriving at the conclusion that I +had seen that nobleman very lately. + +"My memory is still accurate, but I cannot write the words of our +conversation. I suspect that I am watched more closely than I was, and I +know not at what times I may be watched. She had in part suspected, and +in part discovered, the main facts of the cruel story, of her husband's +share in it, and my being resorted to. She did not know that the girl +was dead. Her hope had been, she said in great distress, to show her, +in secret, a woman's sympathy. Her hope had been to avert the wrath of +Heaven from a House that had long been hateful to the suffering many. + +"She had reasons for believing that there was a young sister living, and +her greatest desire was, to help that sister. I could tell her nothing +but that there was such a sister; beyond that, I knew nothing. Her +inducement to come to me, relying on my confidence, had been the hope +that I could tell her the name and place of abode. Whereas, to this +wretched hour I am ignorant of both. + + ***** + +"These scraps of paper fail me. One was taken from me, with a warning, +yesterday. I must finish my record to-day. + +"She was a good, compassionate lady, and not happy in her marriage. How +could she be! The brother distrusted and disliked her, and his influence +was all opposed to her; she stood in dread of him, and in dread of her +husband too. When I handed her down to the door, there was a child, a +pretty boy from two to three years old, in her carriage. + +"'For his sake, Doctor,' she said, pointing to him in tears, 'I would do +all I can to make what poor amends I can. He will never prosper in his +inheritance otherwise. I have a presentiment that if no other innocent +atonement is made for this, it will one day be required of him. What +I have left to call my own--it is little beyond the worth of a few +jewels--I will make it the first charge of his life to bestow, with the +compassion and lamenting of his dead mother, on this injured family, if +the sister can be discovered.' + +"She kissed the boy, and said, caressing him, 'It is for thine own dear +sake. Thou wilt be faithful, little Charles?' The child answered her +bravely, 'Yes!' I kissed her hand, and she took him in her arms, and +went away caressing him. I never saw her more. + +"As she had mentioned her husband's name in the faith that I knew it, +I added no mention of it to my letter. I sealed my letter, and, not +trusting it out of my own hands, delivered it myself that day. + +"That night, the last night of the year, towards nine o'clock, a man in +a black dress rang at my gate, demanded to see me, and softly followed +my servant, Ernest Defarge, a youth, up-stairs. When my servant came +into the room where I sat with my wife--O my wife, beloved of my heart! +My fair young English wife!--we saw the man, who was supposed to be at +the gate, standing silent behind him. + +"An urgent case in the Rue St. Honore, he said. It would not detain me, +he had a coach in waiting. + +"It brought me here, it brought me to my grave. When I was clear of the +house, a black muffler was drawn tightly over my mouth from behind, and +my arms were pinioned. The two brothers crossed the road from a dark +corner, and identified me with a single gesture. The Marquis took from +his pocket the letter I had written, showed it me, burnt it in the light +of a lantern that was held, and extinguished the ashes with his foot. +Not a word was spoken. I was brought here, I was brought to my living +grave. + +"If it had pleased _God_ to put it in the hard heart of either of the +brothers, in all these frightful years, to grant me any tidings of +my dearest wife--so much as to let me know by a word whether alive or +dead--I might have thought that He had not quite abandoned them. But, +now I believe that the mark of the red cross is fatal to them, and that +they have no part in His mercies. And them and their descendants, to the +last of their race, I, Alexandre Manette, unhappy prisoner, do this last +night of the year 1767, in my unbearable agony, denounce to the times +when all these things shall be answered for. I denounce them to Heaven +and to earth." + +A terrible sound arose when the reading of this document was done. A +sound of craving and eagerness that had nothing articulate in it but +blood. The narrative called up the most revengeful passions of the time, +and there was not a head in the nation but must have dropped before it. + +Little need, in presence of that tribunal and that auditory, to show +how the Defarges had not made the paper public, with the other captured +Bastille memorials borne in procession, and had kept it, biding their +time. Little need to show that this detested family name had long been +anathematised by Saint Antoine, and was wrought into the fatal register. +The man never trod ground whose virtues and services would have +sustained him in that place that day, against such denunciation. + +And all the worse for the doomed man, that the denouncer was a +well-known citizen, his own attached friend, the father of his wife. One +of the frenzied aspirations of the populace was, for imitations of +the questionable public virtues of antiquity, and for sacrifices and +self-immolations on the people's altar. Therefore when the President +said (else had his own head quivered on his shoulders), that the good +physician of the Republic would deserve better still of the Republic by +rooting out an obnoxious family of Aristocrats, and would doubtless feel +a sacred glow and joy in making his daughter a widow and her child an +orphan, there was wild excitement, patriotic fervour, not a touch of +human sympathy. + +"Much influence around him, has that Doctor?" murmured Madame Defarge, +smiling to The Vengeance. "Save him now, my Doctor, save him!" + +At every juryman's vote, there was a roar. Another and another. Roar and +roar. + +Unanimously voted. At heart and by descent an Aristocrat, an enemy +of the Republic, a notorious oppressor of the People. Back to the +Conciergerie, and Death within four-and-twenty hours! + + + + +XI. Dusk + + +The wretched wife of the innocent man thus doomed to die, fell under +the sentence, as if she had been mortally stricken. But, she uttered no +sound; and so strong was the voice within her, representing that it was +she of all the world who must uphold him in his misery and not augment +it, that it quickly raised her, even from that shock. + +The Judges having to take part in a public demonstration out of doors, +the Tribunal adjourned. The quick noise and movement of the court's +emptying itself by many passages had not ceased, when Lucie stood +stretching out her arms towards her husband, with nothing in her face +but love and consolation. + +"If I might touch him! If I might embrace him once! O, good citizens, if +you would have so much compassion for us!" + +There was but a gaoler left, along with two of the four men who had +taken him last night, and Barsad. The people had all poured out to the +show in the streets. Barsad proposed to the rest, "Let her embrace +him then; it is but a moment." It was silently acquiesced in, and they +passed her over the seats in the hall to a raised place, where he, by +leaning over the dock, could fold her in his arms. + +"Farewell, dear darling of my soul. My parting blessing on my love. We +shall meet again, where the weary are at rest!" + +They were her husband's words, as he held her to his bosom. + +"I can bear it, dear Charles. I am supported from above: don't suffer +for me. A parting blessing for our child." + +"I send it to her by you. I kiss her by you. I say farewell to her by +you." + +"My husband. No! A moment!" He was tearing himself apart from her. +"We shall not be separated long. I feel that this will break my heart +by-and-bye; but I will do my duty while I can, and when I leave her, God +will raise up friends for her, as He did for me." + +Her father had followed her, and would have fallen on his knees to both +of them, but that Darnay put out a hand and seized him, crying: + +"No, no! What have you done, what have you done, that you should kneel +to us! We know now, what a struggle you made of old. We know, now what +you underwent when you suspected my descent, and when you knew it. We +know now, the natural antipathy you strove against, and conquered, for +her dear sake. We thank you with all our hearts, and all our love and +duty. Heaven be with you!" + +Her father's only answer was to draw his hands through his white hair, +and wring them with a shriek of anguish. + +"It could not be otherwise," said the prisoner. "All things have worked +together as they have fallen out. It was the always-vain endeavour to +discharge my poor mother's trust that first brought my fatal presence +near you. Good could never come of such evil, a happier end was not in +nature to so unhappy a beginning. Be comforted, and forgive me. Heaven +bless you!" + +As he was drawn away, his wife released him, and stood looking after him +with her hands touching one another in the attitude of prayer, and +with a radiant look upon her face, in which there was even a comforting +smile. As he went out at the prisoners' door, she turned, laid her head +lovingly on her father's breast, tried to speak to him, and fell at his +feet. + +Then, issuing from the obscure corner from which he had never moved, +Sydney Carton came and took her up. Only her father and Mr. Lorry were +with her. His arm trembled as it raised her, and supported her head. +Yet, there was an air about him that was not all of pity--that had a +flush of pride in it. + +"Shall I take her to a coach? I shall never feel her weight." + +He carried her lightly to the door, and laid her tenderly down in a +coach. Her father and their old friend got into it, and he took his seat +beside the driver. + +When they arrived at the gateway where he had paused in the dark not +many hours before, to picture to himself on which of the rough stones of +the street her feet had trodden, he lifted her again, and carried her up +the staircase to their rooms. There, he laid her down on a couch, where +her child and Miss Pross wept over her. + +"Don't recall her to herself," he said, softly, to the latter, "she is +better so. Don't revive her to consciousness, while she only faints." + +"Oh, Carton, Carton, dear Carton!" cried little Lucie, springing up and +throwing her arms passionately round him, in a burst of grief. "Now that +you have come, I think you will do something to help mamma, something to +save papa! O, look at her, dear Carton! Can you, of all the people who +love her, bear to see her so?" + +He bent over the child, and laid her blooming cheek against his face. He +put her gently from him, and looked at her unconscious mother. + +"Before I go," he said, and paused--"I may kiss her?" + +It was remembered afterwards that when he bent down and touched her face +with his lips, he murmured some words. The child, who was nearest to +him, told them afterwards, and told her grandchildren when she was a +handsome old lady, that she heard him say, "A life you love." + +When he had gone out into the next room, he turned suddenly on Mr. Lorry +and her father, who were following, and said to the latter: + +"You had great influence but yesterday, Doctor Manette; let it at least +be tried. These judges, and all the men in power, are very friendly to +you, and very recognisant of your services; are they not?" + +"Nothing connected with Charles was concealed from me. I had the +strongest assurances that I should save him; and I did." He returned the +answer in great trouble, and very slowly. + +"Try them again. The hours between this and to-morrow afternoon are few +and short, but try." + +"I intend to try. I will not rest a moment." + +"That's well. I have known such energy as yours do great things before +now--though never," he added, with a smile and a sigh together, "such +great things as this. But try! Of little worth as life is when we misuse +it, it is worth that effort. It would cost nothing to lay down if it +were not." + +"I will go," said Doctor Manette, "to the Prosecutor and the President +straight, and I will go to others whom it is better not to name. I will +write too, and--But stay! There is a Celebration in the streets, and no +one will be accessible until dark." + +"That's true. Well! It is a forlorn hope at the best, and not much the +forlorner for being delayed till dark. I should like to know how you +speed; though, mind! I expect nothing! When are you likely to have seen +these dread powers, Doctor Manette?" + +"Immediately after dark, I should hope. Within an hour or two from +this." + +"It will be dark soon after four. Let us stretch the hour or two. If I +go to Mr. Lorry's at nine, shall I hear what you have done, either from +our friend or from yourself?" + +"Yes." + +"May you prosper!" + +Mr. Lorry followed Sydney to the outer door, and, touching him on the +shoulder as he was going away, caused him to turn. + +"I have no hope," said Mr. Lorry, in a low and sorrowful whisper. + +"Nor have I." + +"If any one of these men, or all of these men, were disposed to spare +him--which is a large supposition; for what is his life, or any man's +to them!--I doubt if they durst spare him after the demonstration in the +court." + +"And so do I. I heard the fall of the axe in that sound." + +Mr. Lorry leaned his arm upon the door-post, and bowed his face upon it. + +"Don't despond," said Carton, very gently; "don't grieve. I encouraged +Doctor Manette in this idea, because I felt that it might one day be +consolatory to her. Otherwise, she might think 'his life was wantonly +thrown away or wasted,' and that might trouble her." + +"Yes, yes, yes," returned Mr. Lorry, drying his eyes, "you are right. +But he will perish; there is no real hope." + +"Yes. He will perish: there is no real hope," echoed Carton. + +And walked with a settled step, down-stairs. + + + + +XII. Darkness + + +Sydney Carton paused in the street, not quite decided where to go. "At +Tellson's banking-house at nine," he said, with a musing face. "Shall I +do well, in the mean time, to show myself? I think so. It is best that +these people should know there is such a man as I here; it is a sound +precaution, and may be a necessary preparation. But care, care, care! +Let me think it out!" + +Checking his steps which had begun to tend towards an object, he took a +turn or two in the already darkening street, and traced the thought +in his mind to its possible consequences. His first impression was +confirmed. "It is best," he said, finally resolved, "that these people +should know there is such a man as I here." And he turned his face +towards Saint Antoine. + +Defarge had described himself, that day, as the keeper of a wine-shop in +the Saint Antoine suburb. It was not difficult for one who knew the city +well, to find his house without asking any question. Having ascertained +its situation, Carton came out of those closer streets again, and dined +at a place of refreshment and fell sound asleep after dinner. For the +first time in many years, he had no strong drink. Since last night he +had taken nothing but a little light thin wine, and last night he had +dropped the brandy slowly down on Mr. Lorry's hearth like a man who had +done with it. + +It was as late as seven o'clock when he awoke refreshed, and went out +into the streets again. As he passed along towards Saint Antoine, he +stopped at a shop-window where there was a mirror, and slightly altered +the disordered arrangement of his loose cravat, and his coat-collar, and +his wild hair. This done, he went on direct to Defarge's, and went in. + +There happened to be no customer in the shop but Jacques Three, of the +restless fingers and the croaking voice. This man, whom he had seen upon +the Jury, stood drinking at the little counter, in conversation with the +Defarges, man and wife. The Vengeance assisted in the conversation, like +a regular member of the establishment. + +As Carton walked in, took his seat and asked (in very indifferent +French) for a small measure of wine, Madame Defarge cast a careless +glance at him, and then a keener, and then a keener, and then advanced +to him herself, and asked him what it was he had ordered. + +He repeated what he had already said. + +"English?" asked Madame Defarge, inquisitively raising her dark +eyebrows. + +After looking at her, as if the sound of even a single French word were +slow to express itself to him, he answered, in his former strong foreign +accent. "Yes, madame, yes. I am English!" + +Madame Defarge returned to her counter to get the wine, and, as he +took up a Jacobin journal and feigned to pore over it puzzling out its +meaning, he heard her say, "I swear to you, like Evremonde!" + +Defarge brought him the wine, and gave him Good Evening. + +"How?" + +"Good evening." + +"Oh! Good evening, citizen," filling his glass. "Ah! and good wine. I +drink to the Republic." + +Defarge went back to the counter, and said, "Certainly, a little like." +Madame sternly retorted, "I tell you a good deal like." Jacques Three +pacifically remarked, "He is so much in your mind, see you, madame." +The amiable Vengeance added, with a laugh, "Yes, my faith! And you +are looking forward with so much pleasure to seeing him once more +to-morrow!" + +Carton followed the lines and words of his paper, with a slow +forefinger, and with a studious and absorbed face. They were all leaning +their arms on the counter close together, speaking low. After a silence +of a few moments, during which they all looked towards him without +disturbing his outward attention from the Jacobin editor, they resumed +their conversation. + +"It is true what madame says," observed Jacques Three. "Why stop? There +is great force in that. Why stop?" + +"Well, well," reasoned Defarge, "but one must stop somewhere. After all, +the question is still where?" + +"At extermination," said madame. + +"Magnificent!" croaked Jacques Three. The Vengeance, also, highly +approved. + +"Extermination is good doctrine, my wife," said Defarge, rather +troubled; "in general, I say nothing against it. But this Doctor has +suffered much; you have seen him to-day; you have observed his face when +the paper was read." + +"I have observed his face!" repeated madame, contemptuously and angrily. +"Yes. I have observed his face. I have observed his face to be not the +face of a true friend of the Republic. Let him take care of his face!" + +"And you have observed, my wife," said Defarge, in a deprecatory manner, +"the anguish of his daughter, which must be a dreadful anguish to him!" + +"I have observed his daughter," repeated madame; "yes, I have observed +his daughter, more times than one. I have observed her to-day, and I +have observed her other days. I have observed her in the court, and +I have observed her in the street by the prison. Let me but lift my +finger--!" She seemed to raise it (the listener's eyes were always on +his paper), and to let it fall with a rattle on the ledge before her, as +if the axe had dropped. + +"The citizeness is superb!" croaked the Juryman. + +"She is an Angel!" said The Vengeance, and embraced her. + +"As to thee," pursued madame, implacably, addressing her husband, "if it +depended on thee--which, happily, it does not--thou wouldst rescue this +man even now." + +"No!" protested Defarge. "Not if to lift this glass would do it! But I +would leave the matter there. I say, stop there." + +"See you then, Jacques," said Madame Defarge, wrathfully; "and see you, +too, my little Vengeance; see you both! Listen! For other crimes as +tyrants and oppressors, I have this race a long time on my register, +doomed to destruction and extermination. Ask my husband, is that so." + +"It is so," assented Defarge, without being asked. + +"In the beginning of the great days, when the Bastille falls, he finds +this paper of to-day, and he brings it home, and in the middle of the +night when this place is clear and shut, we read it, here on this spot, +by the light of this lamp. Ask him, is that so." + +"It is so," assented Defarge. + +"That night, I tell him, when the paper is read through, and the lamp is +burnt out, and the day is gleaming in above those shutters and between +those iron bars, that I have now a secret to communicate. Ask him, is +that so." + +"It is so," assented Defarge again. + +"I communicate to him that secret. I smite this bosom with these two +hands as I smite it now, and I tell him, 'Defarge, I was brought up +among the fishermen of the sea-shore, and that peasant family so injured +by the two Evremonde brothers, as that Bastille paper describes, is my +family. Defarge, that sister of the mortally wounded boy upon the ground +was my sister, that husband was my sister's husband, that unborn child +was their child, that brother was my brother, that father was my father, +those dead are my dead, and that summons to answer for those things +descends to me!' Ask him, is that so." + +"It is so," assented Defarge once more. + +"Then tell Wind and Fire where to stop," returned madame; "but don't +tell me." + +Both her hearers derived a horrible enjoyment from the deadly nature +of her wrath--the listener could feel how white she was, without seeing +her--and both highly commended it. Defarge, a weak minority, interposed +a few words for the memory of the compassionate wife of the Marquis; but +only elicited from his own wife a repetition of her last reply. "Tell +the Wind and the Fire where to stop; not me!" + +Customers entered, and the group was broken up. The English customer +paid for what he had had, perplexedly counted his change, and asked, as +a stranger, to be directed towards the National Palace. Madame Defarge +took him to the door, and put her arm on his, in pointing out the road. +The English customer was not without his reflections then, that it might +be a good deed to seize that arm, lift it, and strike under it sharp and +deep. + +But, he went his way, and was soon swallowed up in the shadow of the +prison wall. At the appointed hour, he emerged from it to present +himself in Mr. Lorry's room again, where he found the old gentleman +walking to and fro in restless anxiety. He said he had been with Lucie +until just now, and had only left her for a few minutes, to come and +keep his appointment. Her father had not been seen, since he quitted the +banking-house towards four o'clock. She had some faint hopes that his +mediation might save Charles, but they were very slight. He had been +more than five hours gone: where could he be? + +Mr. Lorry waited until ten; but, Doctor Manette not returning, and +he being unwilling to leave Lucie any longer, it was arranged that he +should go back to her, and come to the banking-house again at midnight. +In the meanwhile, Carton would wait alone by the fire for the Doctor. + +He waited and waited, and the clock struck twelve; but Doctor Manette +did not come back. Mr. Lorry returned, and found no tidings of him, and +brought none. Where could he be? + +They were discussing this question, and were almost building up some +weak structure of hope on his prolonged absence, when they heard him on +the stairs. The instant he entered the room, it was plain that all was +lost. + +Whether he had really been to any one, or whether he had been all that +time traversing the streets, was never known. As he stood staring at +them, they asked him no question, for his face told them everything. + +"I cannot find it," said he, "and I must have it. Where is it?" + +His head and throat were bare, and, as he spoke with a helpless look +straying all around, he took his coat off, and let it drop on the floor. + +"Where is my bench? I have been looking everywhere for my bench, and I +can't find it. What have they done with my work? Time presses: I must +finish those shoes." + +They looked at one another, and their hearts died within them. + +"Come, come!" said he, in a whimpering miserable way; "let me get to +work. Give me my work." + +Receiving no answer, he tore his hair, and beat his feet upon the +ground, like a distracted child. + +"Don't torture a poor forlorn wretch," he implored them, with a dreadful +cry; "but give me my work! What is to become of us, if those shoes are +not done to-night?" + +Lost, utterly lost! + +It was so clearly beyond hope to reason with him, or try to restore him, +that--as if by agreement--they each put a hand upon his shoulder, and +soothed him to sit down before the fire, with a promise that he should +have his work presently. He sank into the chair, and brooded over the +embers, and shed tears. As if all that had happened since the garret +time were a momentary fancy, or a dream, Mr. Lorry saw him shrink into +the exact figure that Defarge had had in keeping. + +Affected, and impressed with terror as they both were, by this spectacle +of ruin, it was not a time to yield to such emotions. His lonely +daughter, bereft of her final hope and reliance, appealed to them both +too strongly. Again, as if by agreement, they looked at one another with +one meaning in their faces. Carton was the first to speak: + +"The last chance is gone: it was not much. Yes; he had better be taken +to her. But, before you go, will you, for a moment, steadily attend to +me? Don't ask me why I make the stipulations I am going to make, and +exact the promise I am going to exact; I have a reason--a good one." + +"I do not doubt it," answered Mr. Lorry. "Say on." + +The figure in the chair between them, was all the time monotonously +rocking itself to and fro, and moaning. They spoke in such a tone as +they would have used if they had been watching by a sick-bed in the +night. + +Carton stooped to pick up the coat, which lay almost entangling his +feet. As he did so, a small case in which the Doctor was accustomed to +carry the lists of his day's duties, fell lightly on the floor. Carton +took it up, and there was a folded paper in it. "We should look +at this!" he said. Mr. Lorry nodded his consent. He opened it, and +exclaimed, "Thank _God!_" + +"What is it?" asked Mr. Lorry, eagerly. + +"A moment! Let me speak of it in its place. First," he put his hand in +his coat, and took another paper from it, "that is the certificate which +enables me to pass out of this city. Look at it. You see--Sydney Carton, +an Englishman?" + +Mr. Lorry held it open in his hand, gazing in his earnest face. + +"Keep it for me until to-morrow. I shall see him to-morrow, you +remember, and I had better not take it into the prison." + +"Why not?" + +"I don't know; I prefer not to do so. Now, take this paper that Doctor +Manette has carried about him. It is a similar certificate, enabling him +and his daughter and her child, at any time, to pass the barrier and the +frontier! You see?" + +"Yes!" + +"Perhaps he obtained it as his last and utmost precaution against evil, +yesterday. When is it dated? But no matter; don't stay to look; put it +up carefully with mine and your own. Now, observe! I never doubted until +within this hour or two, that he had, or could have such a paper. It is +good, until recalled. But it may be soon recalled, and, I have reason to +think, will be." + +"They are not in danger?" + +"They are in great danger. They are in danger of denunciation by Madame +Defarge. I know it from her own lips. I have overheard words of that +woman's, to-night, which have presented their danger to me in strong +colours. I have lost no time, and since then, I have seen the spy. He +confirms me. He knows that a wood-sawyer, living by the prison wall, +is under the control of the Defarges, and has been rehearsed by +Madame Defarge as to his having seen Her"--he never mentioned Lucie's +name--"making signs and signals to prisoners. It is easy to foresee that +the pretence will be the common one, a prison plot, and that it will +involve her life--and perhaps her child's--and perhaps her father's--for +both have been seen with her at that place. Don't look so horrified. You +will save them all." + +"Heaven grant I may, Carton! But how?" + +"I am going to tell you how. It will depend on you, and it could depend +on no better man. This new denunciation will certainly not take place +until after to-morrow; probably not until two or three days afterwards; +more probably a week afterwards. You know it is a capital crime, to +mourn for, or sympathise with, a victim of the Guillotine. She and her +father would unquestionably be guilty of this crime, and this woman (the +inveteracy of whose pursuit cannot be described) would wait to add that +strength to her case, and make herself doubly sure. You follow me?" + +"So attentively, and with so much confidence in what you say, that for +the moment I lose sight," touching the back of the Doctor's chair, "even +of this distress." + +"You have money, and can buy the means of travelling to the seacoast +as quickly as the journey can be made. Your preparations have been +completed for some days, to return to England. Early to-morrow have your +horses ready, so that they may be in starting trim at two o'clock in the +afternoon." + +"It shall be done!" + +His manner was so fervent and inspiring, that Mr. Lorry caught the +flame, and was as quick as youth. + +"You are a noble heart. Did I say we could depend upon no better man? +Tell her, to-night, what you know of her danger as involving her child +and her father. Dwell upon that, for she would lay her own fair head +beside her husband's cheerfully." He faltered for an instant; then went +on as before. "For the sake of her child and her father, press upon her +the necessity of leaving Paris, with them and you, at that hour. Tell +her that it was her husband's last arrangement. Tell her that more +depends upon it than she dare believe, or hope. You think that her +father, even in this sad state, will submit himself to her; do you not?" + +"I am sure of it." + +"I thought so. Quietly and steadily have all these arrangements made in +the courtyard here, even to the taking of your own seat in the carriage. +The moment I come to you, take me in, and drive away." + +"I understand that I wait for you under all circumstances?" + +"You have my certificate in your hand with the rest, you know, and will +reserve my place. Wait for nothing but to have my place occupied, and +then for England!" + +"Why, then," said Mr. Lorry, grasping his eager but so firm and steady +hand, "it does not all depend on one old man, but I shall have a young +and ardent man at my side." + +"By the help of Heaven you shall! Promise me solemnly that nothing will +influence you to alter the course on which we now stand pledged to one +another." + +"Nothing, Carton." + +"Remember these words to-morrow: change the course, or delay in it--for +any reason--and no life can possibly be saved, and many lives must +inevitably be sacrificed." + +"I will remember them. I hope to do my part faithfully." + +"And I hope to do mine. Now, good bye!" + +Though he said it with a grave smile of earnestness, and though he even +put the old man's hand to his lips, he did not part from him then. He +helped him so far to arouse the rocking figure before the dying embers, +as to get a cloak and hat put upon it, and to tempt it forth to find +where the bench and work were hidden that it still moaningly besought +to have. He walked on the other side of it and protected it to the +courtyard of the house where the afflicted heart--so happy in +the memorable time when he had revealed his own desolate heart to +it--outwatched the awful night. He entered the courtyard and remained +there for a few moments alone, looking up at the light in the window of +her room. Before he went away, he breathed a blessing towards it, and a +Farewell. + + + + +XIII. Fifty-two + + +In the black prison of the Conciergerie, the doomed of the day awaited +their fate. They were in number as the weeks of the year. Fifty-two were +to roll that afternoon on the life-tide of the city to the boundless +everlasting sea. Before their cells were quit of them, new occupants +were appointed; before their blood ran into the blood spilled yesterday, +the blood that was to mingle with theirs to-morrow was already set +apart. + +Two score and twelve were told off. From the farmer-general of seventy, +whose riches could not buy his life, to the seamstress of twenty, whose +poverty and obscurity could not save her. Physical diseases, engendered +in the vices and neglects of men, will seize on victims of all degrees; +and the frightful moral disorder, born of unspeakable suffering, +intolerable oppression, and heartless indifference, smote equally +without distinction. + +Charles Darnay, alone in a cell, had sustained himself with no +flattering delusion since he came to it from the Tribunal. In every line +of the narrative he had heard, he had heard his condemnation. He had +fully comprehended that no personal influence could possibly save him, +that he was virtually sentenced by the millions, and that units could +avail him nothing. + +Nevertheless, it was not easy, with the face of his beloved wife fresh +before him, to compose his mind to what it must bear. His hold on life +was strong, and it was very, very hard, to loosen; by gradual efforts +and degrees unclosed a little here, it clenched the tighter there; and +when he brought his strength to bear on that hand and it yielded, +this was closed again. There was a hurry, too, in all his thoughts, +a turbulent and heated working of his heart, that contended against +resignation. If, for a moment, he did feel resigned, then his wife and +child who had to live after him, seemed to protest and to make it a +selfish thing. + +But, all this was at first. Before long, the consideration that there +was no disgrace in the fate he must meet, and that numbers went the same +road wrongfully, and trod it firmly every day, sprang up to stimulate +him. Next followed the thought that much of the future peace of mind +enjoyable by the dear ones, depended on his quiet fortitude. So, +by degrees he calmed into the better state, when he could raise his +thoughts much higher, and draw comfort down. + +Before it had set in dark on the night of his condemnation, he had +travelled thus far on his last way. Being allowed to purchase the means +of writing, and a light, he sat down to write until such time as the +prison lamps should be extinguished. + +He wrote a long letter to Lucie, showing her that he had known nothing +of her father's imprisonment, until he had heard of it from herself, +and that he had been as ignorant as she of his father's and uncle's +responsibility for that misery, until the paper had been read. He had +already explained to her that his concealment from herself of the name +he had relinquished, was the one condition--fully intelligible now--that +her father had attached to their betrothal, and was the one promise he +had still exacted on the morning of their marriage. He entreated her, +for her father's sake, never to seek to know whether her father had +become oblivious of the existence of the paper, or had had it recalled +to him (for the moment, or for good), by the story of the Tower, on +that old Sunday under the dear old plane-tree in the garden. If he had +preserved any definite remembrance of it, there could be no doubt that +he had supposed it destroyed with the Bastille, when he had found no +mention of it among the relics of prisoners which the populace had +discovered there, and which had been described to all the world. He +besought her--though he added that he knew it was needless--to console +her father, by impressing him through every tender means she could think +of, with the truth that he had done nothing for which he could justly +reproach himself, but had uniformly forgotten himself for their joint +sakes. Next to her preservation of his own last grateful love and +blessing, and her overcoming of her sorrow, to devote herself to their +dear child, he adjured her, as they would meet in Heaven, to comfort her +father. + +To her father himself, he wrote in the same strain; but, he told her +father that he expressly confided his wife and child to his care. And +he told him this, very strongly, with the hope of rousing him from any +despondency or dangerous retrospect towards which he foresaw he might be +tending. + +To Mr. Lorry, he commended them all, and explained his worldly affairs. +That done, with many added sentences of grateful friendship and warm +attachment, all was done. He never thought of Carton. His mind was so +full of the others, that he never once thought of him. + +He had time to finish these letters before the lights were put out. When +he lay down on his straw bed, he thought he had done with this world. + +But, it beckoned him back in his sleep, and showed itself in shining +forms. Free and happy, back in the old house in Soho (though it had +nothing in it like the real house), unaccountably released and light of +heart, he was with Lucie again, and she told him it was all a dream, and +he had never gone away. A pause of forgetfulness, and then he had even +suffered, and had come back to her, dead and at peace, and yet there +was no difference in him. Another pause of oblivion, and he awoke in the +sombre morning, unconscious where he was or what had happened, until it +flashed upon his mind, "this is the day of my death!" + +Thus, had he come through the hours, to the day when the fifty-two heads +were to fall. And now, while he was composed, and hoped that he could +meet the end with quiet heroism, a new action began in his waking +thoughts, which was very difficult to master. + +He had never seen the instrument that was to terminate his life. How +high it was from the ground, how many steps it had, where he would be +stood, how he would be touched, whether the touching hands would be dyed +red, which way his face would be turned, whether he would be the first, +or might be the last: these and many similar questions, in nowise +directed by his will, obtruded themselves over and over again, countless +times. Neither were they connected with fear: he was conscious of no +fear. Rather, they originated in a strange besetting desire to know what +to do when the time came; a desire gigantically disproportionate to the +few swift moments to which it referred; a wondering that was more like +the wondering of some other spirit within his, than his own. + +The hours went on as he walked to and fro, and the clocks struck the +numbers he would never hear again. Nine gone for ever, ten gone for +ever, eleven gone for ever, twelve coming on to pass away. After a hard +contest with that eccentric action of thought which had last perplexed +him, he had got the better of it. He walked up and down, softly +repeating their names to himself. The worst of the strife was over. +He could walk up and down, free from distracting fancies, praying for +himself and for them. + +Twelve gone for ever. + +He had been apprised that the final hour was Three, and he knew he would +be summoned some time earlier, inasmuch as the tumbrils jolted heavily +and slowly through the streets. Therefore, he resolved to keep Two +before his mind, as the hour, and so to strengthen himself in the +interval that he might be able, after that time, to strengthen others. + +Walking regularly to and fro with his arms folded on his breast, a very +different man from the prisoner, who had walked to and fro at La Force, +he heard One struck away from him, without surprise. The hour had +measured like most other hours. Devoutly thankful to Heaven for his +recovered self-possession, he thought, "There is but another now," and +turned to walk again. + +Footsteps in the stone passage outside the door. He stopped. + +The key was put in the lock, and turned. Before the door was opened, or +as it opened, a man said in a low voice, in English: "He has never seen +me here; I have kept out of his way. Go you in alone; I wait near. Lose +no time!" + +The door was quickly opened and closed, and there stood before him +face to face, quiet, intent upon him, with the light of a smile on his +features, and a cautionary finger on his lip, Sydney Carton. + +There was something so bright and remarkable in his look, that, for the +first moment, the prisoner misdoubted him to be an apparition of his own +imagining. But, he spoke, and it was his voice; he took the prisoner's +hand, and it was his real grasp. + +"Of all the people upon earth, you least expected to see me?" he said. + +"I could not believe it to be you. I can scarcely believe it now. You +are not"--the apprehension came suddenly into his mind--"a prisoner?" + +"No. I am accidentally possessed of a power over one of the keepers +here, and in virtue of it I stand before you. I come from her--your +wife, dear Darnay." + +The prisoner wrung his hand. + +"I bring you a request from her." + +"What is it?" + +"A most earnest, pressing, and emphatic entreaty, addressed to you +in the most pathetic tones of the voice so dear to you, that you well +remember." + +The prisoner turned his face partly aside. + +"You have no time to ask me why I bring it, or what it means; I have +no time to tell you. You must comply with it--take off those boots you +wear, and draw on these of mine." + +There was a chair against the wall of the cell, behind the prisoner. +Carton, pressing forward, had already, with the speed of lightning, got +him down into it, and stood over him, barefoot. + +"Draw on these boots of mine. Put your hands to them; put your will to +them. Quick!" + +"Carton, there is no escaping from this place; it never can be done. You +will only die with me. It is madness." + +"It would be madness if I asked you to escape; but do I? When I ask you +to pass out at that door, tell me it is madness and remain here. Change +that cravat for this of mine, that coat for this of mine. While you do +it, let me take this ribbon from your hair, and shake out your hair like +this of mine!" + +With wonderful quickness, and with a strength both of will and action, +that appeared quite supernatural, he forced all these changes upon him. +The prisoner was like a young child in his hands. + +"Carton! Dear Carton! It is madness. It cannot be accomplished, it never +can be done, it has been attempted, and has always failed. I implore you +not to add your death to the bitterness of mine." + +"Do I ask you, my dear Darnay, to pass the door? When I ask that, +refuse. There are pen and ink and paper on this table. Is your hand +steady enough to write?" + +"It was when you came in." + +"Steady it again, and write what I shall dictate. Quick, friend, quick!" + +Pressing his hand to his bewildered head, Darnay sat down at the table. +Carton, with his right hand in his breast, stood close beside him. + +"Write exactly as I speak." + +"To whom do I address it?" + +"To no one." Carton still had his hand in his breast. + +"Do I date it?" + +"No." + +The prisoner looked up, at each question. Carton, standing over him with +his hand in his breast, looked down. + +"'If you remember,'" said Carton, dictating, "'the words that passed +between us, long ago, you will readily comprehend this when you see it. +You do remember them, I know. It is not in your nature to forget them.'" + +He was drawing his hand from his breast; the prisoner chancing to look +up in his hurried wonder as he wrote, the hand stopped, closing upon +something. + +"Have you written 'forget them'?" Carton asked. + +"I have. Is that a weapon in your hand?" + +"No; I am not armed." + +"What is it in your hand?" + +"You shall know directly. Write on; there are but a few words more." He +dictated again. "'I am thankful that the time has come, when I can prove +them. That I do so is no subject for regret or grief.'" As he said these +words with his eyes fixed on the writer, his hand slowly and softly +moved down close to the writer's face. + +The pen dropped from Darnay's fingers on the table, and he looked about +him vacantly. + +"What vapour is that?" he asked. + +"Vapour?" + +"Something that crossed me?" + +"I am conscious of nothing; there can be nothing here. Take up the pen +and finish. Hurry, hurry!" + +As if his memory were impaired, or his faculties disordered, the +prisoner made an effort to rally his attention. As he looked at Carton +with clouded eyes and with an altered manner of breathing, Carton--his +hand again in his breast--looked steadily at him. + +"Hurry, hurry!" + +The prisoner bent over the paper, once more. + +"'If it had been otherwise;'" Carton's hand was again watchfully and +softly stealing down; "'I never should have used the longer opportunity. +If it had been otherwise;'" the hand was at the prisoner's face; "'I +should but have had so much the more to answer for. If it had been +otherwise--'" Carton looked at the pen and saw it was trailing off into +unintelligible signs. + +Carton's hand moved back to his breast no more. The prisoner sprang up +with a reproachful look, but Carton's hand was close and firm at his +nostrils, and Carton's left arm caught him round the waist. For a few +seconds he faintly struggled with the man who had come to lay down his +life for him; but, within a minute or so, he was stretched insensible on +the ground. + +Quickly, but with hands as true to the purpose as his heart was, Carton +dressed himself in the clothes the prisoner had laid aside, combed back +his hair, and tied it with the ribbon the prisoner had worn. Then, he +softly called, "Enter there! Come in!" and the Spy presented himself. + +"You see?" said Carton, looking up, as he kneeled on one knee beside the +insensible figure, putting the paper in the breast: "is your hazard very +great?" + +"Mr. Carton," the Spy answered, with a timid snap of his fingers, "my +hazard is not _that_, in the thick of business here, if you are true to +the whole of your bargain." + +"Don't fear me. I will be true to the death." + +"You must be, Mr. Carton, if the tale of fifty-two is to be right. Being +made right by you in that dress, I shall have no fear." + +"Have no fear! I shall soon be out of the way of harming you, and the +rest will soon be far from here, please God! Now, get assistance and +take me to the coach." + +"You?" said the Spy nervously. + +"Him, man, with whom I have exchanged. You go out at the gate by which +you brought me in?" + +"Of course." + +"I was weak and faint when you brought me in, and I am fainter now you +take me out. The parting interview has overpowered me. Such a thing has +happened here, often, and too often. Your life is in your own hands. +Quick! Call assistance!" + +"You swear not to betray me?" said the trembling Spy, as he paused for a +last moment. + +"Man, man!" returned Carton, stamping his foot; "have I sworn by no +solemn vow already, to go through with this, that you waste the precious +moments now? Take him yourself to the courtyard you know of, place +him yourself in the carriage, show him yourself to Mr. Lorry, tell him +yourself to give him no restorative but air, and to remember my words of +last night, and his promise of last night, and drive away!" + +The Spy withdrew, and Carton seated himself at the table, resting his +forehead on his hands. The Spy returned immediately, with two men. + +"How, then?" said one of them, contemplating the fallen figure. "So +afflicted to find that his friend has drawn a prize in the lottery of +Sainte Guillotine?" + +"A good patriot," said the other, "could hardly have been more afflicted +if the Aristocrat had drawn a blank." + +They raised the unconscious figure, placed it on a litter they had +brought to the door, and bent to carry it away. + +"The time is short, Evremonde," said the Spy, in a warning voice. + +"I know it well," answered Carton. "Be careful of my friend, I entreat +you, and leave me." + +"Come, then, my children," said Barsad. "Lift him, and come away!" + +The door closed, and Carton was left alone. Straining his powers of +listening to the utmost, he listened for any sound that might denote +suspicion or alarm. There was none. Keys turned, doors clashed, +footsteps passed along distant passages: no cry was raised, or hurry +made, that seemed unusual. Breathing more freely in a little while, he +sat down at the table, and listened again until the clock struck Two. + +Sounds that he was not afraid of, for he divined their meaning, then +began to be audible. Several doors were opened in succession, and +finally his own. A gaoler, with a list in his hand, looked in, merely +saying, "Follow me, Evremonde!" and he followed into a large dark room, +at a distance. It was a dark winter day, and what with the shadows +within, and what with the shadows without, he could but dimly discern +the others who were brought there to have their arms bound. Some were +standing; some seated. Some were lamenting, and in restless motion; +but, these were few. The great majority were silent and still, looking +fixedly at the ground. + +As he stood by the wall in a dim corner, while some of the fifty-two +were brought in after him, one man stopped in passing, to embrace him, +as having a knowledge of him. It thrilled him with a great dread of +discovery; but the man went on. A very few moments after that, a young +woman, with a slight girlish form, a sweet spare face in which there was +no vestige of colour, and large widely opened patient eyes, rose from +the seat where he had observed her sitting, and came to speak to him. + +"Citizen Evremonde," she said, touching him with her cold hand. "I am a +poor little seamstress, who was with you in La Force." + +He murmured for answer: "True. I forget what you were accused of?" + +"Plots. Though the just Heaven knows that I am innocent of any. Is it +likely? Who would think of plotting with a poor little weak creature +like me?" + +The forlorn smile with which she said it, so touched him, that tears +started from his eyes. + +"I am not afraid to die, Citizen Evremonde, but I have done nothing. I +am not unwilling to die, if the Republic which is to do so much good +to us poor, will profit by my death; but I do not know how that can be, +Citizen Evremonde. Such a poor weak little creature!" + +As the last thing on earth that his heart was to warm and soften to, it +warmed and softened to this pitiable girl. + +"I heard you were released, Citizen Evremonde. I hoped it was true?" + +"It was. But, I was again taken and condemned." + +"If I may ride with you, Citizen Evremonde, will you let me hold your +hand? I am not afraid, but I am little and weak, and it will give me +more courage." + +As the patient eyes were lifted to his face, he saw a sudden doubt in +them, and then astonishment. He pressed the work-worn, hunger-worn young +fingers, and touched his lips. + +"Are you dying for him?" she whispered. + +"And his wife and child. Hush! Yes." + +"O you will let me hold your brave hand, stranger?" + +"Hush! Yes, my poor sister; to the last." + + ***** + +The same shadows that are falling on the prison, are falling, in that +same hour of the early afternoon, on the Barrier with the crowd about +it, when a coach going out of Paris drives up to be examined. + +"Who goes here? Whom have we within? Papers!" + +The papers are handed out, and read. + +"Alexandre Manette. Physician. French. Which is he?" + +This is he; this helpless, inarticulately murmuring, wandering old man +pointed out. + +"Apparently the Citizen-Doctor is not in his right mind? The +Revolution-fever will have been too much for him?" + +Greatly too much for him. + +"Hah! Many suffer with it. Lucie. His daughter. French. Which is she?" + +This is she. + +"Apparently it must be. Lucie, the wife of Evremonde; is it not?" + +It is. + +"Hah! Evremonde has an assignation elsewhere. Lucie, her child. English. +This is she?" + +She and no other. + +"Kiss me, child of Evremonde. Now, thou hast kissed a good Republican; +something new in thy family; remember it! Sydney Carton. Advocate. +English. Which is he?" + +He lies here, in this corner of the carriage. He, too, is pointed out. + +"Apparently the English advocate is in a swoon?" + +It is hoped he will recover in the fresher air. It is represented that +he is not in strong health, and has separated sadly from a friend who is +under the displeasure of the Republic. + +"Is that all? It is not a great deal, that! Many are under the +displeasure of the Republic, and must look out at the little window. +Jarvis Lorry. Banker. English. Which is he?" + +"I am he. Necessarily, being the last." + +It is Jarvis Lorry who has replied to all the previous questions. It +is Jarvis Lorry who has alighted and stands with his hand on the coach +door, replying to a group of officials. They leisurely walk round the +carriage and leisurely mount the box, to look at what little luggage it +carries on the roof; the country-people hanging about, press nearer to +the coach doors and greedily stare in; a little child, carried by its +mother, has its short arm held out for it, that it may touch the wife of +an aristocrat who has gone to the Guillotine. + +"Behold your papers, Jarvis Lorry, countersigned." + +"One can depart, citizen?" + +"One can depart. Forward, my postilions! A good journey!" + +"I salute you, citizens.--And the first danger passed!" + +These are again the words of Jarvis Lorry, as he clasps his hands, and +looks upward. There is terror in the carriage, there is weeping, there +is the heavy breathing of the insensible traveller. + +"Are we not going too slowly? Can they not be induced to go faster?" +asks Lucie, clinging to the old man. + +"It would seem like flight, my darling. I must not urge them too much; +it would rouse suspicion." + +"Look back, look back, and see if we are pursued!" + +"The road is clear, my dearest. So far, we are not pursued." + +Houses in twos and threes pass by us, solitary farms, ruinous buildings, +dye-works, tanneries, and the like, open country, avenues of leafless +trees. The hard uneven pavement is under us, the soft deep mud is on +either side. Sometimes, we strike into the skirting mud, to avoid the +stones that clatter us and shake us; sometimes, we stick in ruts and +sloughs there. The agony of our impatience is then so great, that in our +wild alarm and hurry we are for getting out and running--hiding--doing +anything but stopping. + +Out of the open country, in again among ruinous buildings, solitary +farms, dye-works, tanneries, and the like, cottages in twos and threes, +avenues of leafless trees. Have these men deceived us, and taken us back +by another road? Is not this the same place twice over? Thank Heaven, +no. A village. Look back, look back, and see if we are pursued! Hush! +the posting-house. + +Leisurely, our four horses are taken out; leisurely, the coach stands in +the little street, bereft of horses, and with no likelihood upon it +of ever moving again; leisurely, the new horses come into visible +existence, one by one; leisurely, the new postilions follow, sucking and +plaiting the lashes of their whips; leisurely, the old postilions count +their money, make wrong additions, and arrive at dissatisfied results. +All the time, our overfraught hearts are beating at a rate that would +far outstrip the fastest gallop of the fastest horses ever foaled. + +At length the new postilions are in their saddles, and the old are left +behind. We are through the village, up the hill, and down the hill, and +on the low watery grounds. Suddenly, the postilions exchange speech with +animated gesticulation, and the horses are pulled up, almost on their +haunches. We are pursued? + +"Ho! Within the carriage there. Speak then!" + +"What is it?" asks Mr. Lorry, looking out at window. + +"How many did they say?" + +"I do not understand you." + +"--At the last post. How many to the Guillotine to-day?" + +"Fifty-two." + +"I said so! A brave number! My fellow-citizen here would have it +forty-two; ten more heads are worth having. The Guillotine goes +handsomely. I love it. Hi forward. Whoop!" + +The night comes on dark. He moves more; he is beginning to revive, and +to speak intelligibly; he thinks they are still together; he asks him, +by his name, what he has in his hand. O pity us, kind Heaven, and help +us! Look out, look out, and see if we are pursued. + +The wind is rushing after us, and the clouds are flying after us, and +the moon is plunging after us, and the whole wild night is in pursuit of +us; but, so far, we are pursued by nothing else. + + + + +XIV. The Knitting Done + + +In that same juncture of time when the Fifty-Two awaited their fate +Madame Defarge held darkly ominous council with The Vengeance and +Jacques Three of the Revolutionary Jury. Not in the wine-shop did Madame +Defarge confer with these ministers, but in the shed of the wood-sawyer, +erst a mender of roads. The sawyer himself did not participate in the +conference, but abided at a little distance, like an outer satellite who +was not to speak until required, or to offer an opinion until invited. + +"But our Defarge," said Jacques Three, "is undoubtedly a good +Republican? Eh?" + +"There is no better," the voluble Vengeance protested in her shrill +notes, "in France." + +"Peace, little Vengeance," said Madame Defarge, laying her hand with +a slight frown on her lieutenant's lips, "hear me speak. My husband, +fellow-citizen, is a good Republican and a bold man; he has deserved +well of the Republic, and possesses its confidence. But my husband has +his weaknesses, and he is so weak as to relent towards this Doctor." + +"It is a great pity," croaked Jacques Three, dubiously shaking his head, +with his cruel fingers at his hungry mouth; "it is not quite like a good +citizen; it is a thing to regret." + +"See you," said madame, "I care nothing for this Doctor, I. He may wear +his head or lose it, for any interest I have in him; it is all one to +me. But, the Evremonde people are to be exterminated, and the wife and +child must follow the husband and father." + +"She has a fine head for it," croaked Jacques Three. "I have seen blue +eyes and golden hair there, and they looked charming when Samson held +them up." Ogre that he was, he spoke like an epicure. + +Madame Defarge cast down her eyes, and reflected a little. + +"The child also," observed Jacques Three, with a meditative enjoyment +of his words, "has golden hair and blue eyes. And we seldom have a child +there. It is a pretty sight!" + +"In a word," said Madame Defarge, coming out of her short abstraction, +"I cannot trust my husband in this matter. Not only do I feel, since +last night, that I dare not confide to him the details of my projects; +but also I feel that if I delay, there is danger of his giving warning, +and then they might escape." + +"That must never be," croaked Jacques Three; "no one must escape. We +have not half enough as it is. We ought to have six score a day." + +"In a word," Madame Defarge went on, "my husband has not my reason for +pursuing this family to annihilation, and I have not his reason for +regarding this Doctor with any sensibility. I must act for myself, +therefore. Come hither, little citizen." + +The wood-sawyer, who held her in the respect, and himself in the +submission, of mortal fear, advanced with his hand to his red cap. + +"Touching those signals, little citizen," said Madame Defarge, sternly, +"that she made to the prisoners; you are ready to bear witness to them +this very day?" + +"Ay, ay, why not!" cried the sawyer. "Every day, in all weathers, from +two to four, always signalling, sometimes with the little one, sometimes +without. I know what I know. I have seen with my eyes." + +He made all manner of gestures while he spoke, as if in incidental +imitation of some few of the great diversity of signals that he had +never seen. + +"Clearly plots," said Jacques Three. "Transparently!" + +"There is no doubt of the Jury?" inquired Madame Defarge, letting her +eyes turn to him with a gloomy smile. + +"Rely upon the patriotic Jury, dear citizeness. I answer for my +fellow-Jurymen." + +"Now, let me see," said Madame Defarge, pondering again. "Yet once more! +Can I spare this Doctor to my husband? I have no feeling either way. Can +I spare him?" + +"He would count as one head," observed Jacques Three, in a low voice. +"We really have not heads enough; it would be a pity, I think." + +"He was signalling with her when I saw her," argued Madame Defarge; "I +cannot speak of one without the other; and I must not be silent, and +trust the case wholly to him, this little citizen here. For, I am not a +bad witness." + +The Vengeance and Jacques Three vied with each other in their fervent +protestations that she was the most admirable and marvellous of +witnesses. The little citizen, not to be outdone, declared her to be a +celestial witness. + +"He must take his chance," said Madame Defarge. "No, I cannot spare +him! You are engaged at three o'clock; you are going to see the batch of +to-day executed.--You?" + +The question was addressed to the wood-sawyer, who hurriedly replied in +the affirmative: seizing the occasion to add that he was the most ardent +of Republicans, and that he would be in effect the most desolate of +Republicans, if anything prevented him from enjoying the pleasure of +smoking his afternoon pipe in the contemplation of the droll national +barber. He was so very demonstrative herein, that he might have been +suspected (perhaps was, by the dark eyes that looked contemptuously at +him out of Madame Defarge's head) of having his small individual fears +for his own personal safety, every hour in the day. + +"I," said madame, "am equally engaged at the same place. After it is +over--say at eight to-night--come you to me, in Saint Antoine, and we +will give information against these people at my Section." + +The wood-sawyer said he would be proud and flattered to attend the +citizeness. The citizeness looking at him, he became embarrassed, evaded +her glance as a small dog would have done, retreated among his wood, and +hid his confusion over the handle of his saw. + +Madame Defarge beckoned the Juryman and The Vengeance a little nearer to +the door, and there expounded her further views to them thus: + +"She will now be at home, awaiting the moment of his death. She will +be mourning and grieving. She will be in a state of mind to impeach the +justice of the Republic. She will be full of sympathy with its enemies. +I will go to her." + +"What an admirable woman; what an adorable woman!" exclaimed Jacques +Three, rapturously. "Ah, my cherished!" cried The Vengeance; and +embraced her. + +"Take you my knitting," said Madame Defarge, placing it in her +lieutenant's hands, "and have it ready for me in my usual seat. Keep +me my usual chair. Go you there, straight, for there will probably be a +greater concourse than usual, to-day." + +"I willingly obey the orders of my Chief," said The Vengeance with +alacrity, and kissing her cheek. "You will not be late?" + +"I shall be there before the commencement." + +"And before the tumbrils arrive. Be sure you are there, my soul," said +The Vengeance, calling after her, for she had already turned into the +street, "before the tumbrils arrive!" + +Madame Defarge slightly waved her hand, to imply that she heard, and +might be relied upon to arrive in good time, and so went through the +mud, and round the corner of the prison wall. The Vengeance and the +Juryman, looking after her as she walked away, were highly appreciative +of her fine figure, and her superb moral endowments. + +There were many women at that time, upon whom the time laid a dreadfully +disfiguring hand; but, there was not one among them more to be dreaded +than this ruthless woman, now taking her way along the streets. Of a +strong and fearless character, of shrewd sense and readiness, of great +determination, of that kind of beauty which not only seems to impart +to its possessor firmness and animosity, but to strike into others an +instinctive recognition of those qualities; the troubled time would have +heaved her up, under any circumstances. But, imbued from her childhood +with a brooding sense of wrong, and an inveterate hatred of a class, +opportunity had developed her into a tigress. She was absolutely without +pity. If she had ever had the virtue in her, it had quite gone out of +her. + +It was nothing to her, that an innocent man was to die for the sins of +his forefathers; she saw, not him, but them. It was nothing to her, that +his wife was to be made a widow and his daughter an orphan; that was +insufficient punishment, because they were her natural enemies and +her prey, and as such had no right to live. To appeal to her, was made +hopeless by her having no sense of pity, even for herself. If she had +been laid low in the streets, in any of the many encounters in which +she had been engaged, she would not have pitied herself; nor, if she had +been ordered to the axe to-morrow, would she have gone to it with any +softer feeling than a fierce desire to change places with the man who +sent her there. + +Such a heart Madame Defarge carried under her rough robe. Carelessly +worn, it was a becoming robe enough, in a certain weird way, and her +dark hair looked rich under her coarse red cap. Lying hidden in her +bosom, was a loaded pistol. Lying hidden at her waist, was a sharpened +dagger. Thus accoutred, and walking with the confident tread of such +a character, and with the supple freedom of a woman who had habitually +walked in her girlhood, bare-foot and bare-legged, on the brown +sea-sand, Madame Defarge took her way along the streets. + +Now, when the journey of the travelling coach, at that very moment +waiting for the completion of its load, had been planned out last night, +the difficulty of taking Miss Pross in it had much engaged Mr. Lorry's +attention. It was not merely desirable to avoid overloading the coach, +but it was of the highest importance that the time occupied in examining +it and its passengers, should be reduced to the utmost; since their +escape might depend on the saving of only a few seconds here and there. +Finally, he had proposed, after anxious consideration, that Miss Pross +and Jerry, who were at liberty to leave the city, should leave it at +three o'clock in the lightest-wheeled conveyance known to that period. +Unencumbered with luggage, they would soon overtake the coach, and, +passing it and preceding it on the road, would order its horses in +advance, and greatly facilitate its progress during the precious hours +of the night, when delay was the most to be dreaded. + +Seeing in this arrangement the hope of rendering real service in that +pressing emergency, Miss Pross hailed it with joy. She and Jerry had +beheld the coach start, had known who it was that Solomon brought, had +passed some ten minutes in tortures of suspense, and were now concluding +their arrangements to follow the coach, even as Madame Defarge, +taking her way through the streets, now drew nearer and nearer to the +else-deserted lodging in which they held their consultation. + +"Now what do you think, Mr. Cruncher," said Miss Pross, whose agitation +was so great that she could hardly speak, or stand, or move, or live: +"what do you think of our not starting from this courtyard? Another +carriage having already gone from here to-day, it might awaken +suspicion." + +"My opinion, miss," returned Mr. Cruncher, "is as you're right. Likewise +wot I'll stand by you, right or wrong." + +"I am so distracted with fear and hope for our precious creatures," said +Miss Pross, wildly crying, "that I am incapable of forming any plan. Are +_you_ capable of forming any plan, my dear good Mr. Cruncher?" + +"Respectin' a future spear o' life, miss," returned Mr. Cruncher, "I +hope so. Respectin' any present use o' this here blessed old head o' +mine, I think not. Would you do me the favour, miss, to take notice o' +two promises and wows wot it is my wishes fur to record in this here +crisis?" + +"Oh, for gracious sake!" cried Miss Pross, still wildly crying, "record +them at once, and get them out of the way, like an excellent man." + +"First," said Mr. Cruncher, who was all in a tremble, and who spoke with +an ashy and solemn visage, "them poor things well out o' this, never no +more will I do it, never no more!" + +"I am quite sure, Mr. Cruncher," returned Miss Pross, "that you +never will do it again, whatever it is, and I beg you not to think it +necessary to mention more particularly what it is." + +"No, miss," returned Jerry, "it shall not be named to you. Second: them +poor things well out o' this, and never no more will I interfere with +Mrs. Cruncher's flopping, never no more!" + +"Whatever housekeeping arrangement that may be," said Miss Pross, +striving to dry her eyes and compose herself, "I have no doubt it +is best that Mrs. Cruncher should have it entirely under her own +superintendence.--O my poor darlings!" + +"I go so far as to say, miss, moreover," proceeded Mr. Cruncher, with a +most alarming tendency to hold forth as from a pulpit--"and let my words +be took down and took to Mrs. Cruncher through yourself--that wot my +opinions respectin' flopping has undergone a change, and that wot I only +hope with all my heart as Mrs. Cruncher may be a flopping at the present +time." + +"There, there, there! I hope she is, my dear man," cried the distracted +Miss Pross, "and I hope she finds it answering her expectations." + +"Forbid it," proceeded Mr. Cruncher, with additional solemnity, +additional slowness, and additional tendency to hold forth and hold +out, "as anything wot I have ever said or done should be wisited on my +earnest wishes for them poor creeturs now! Forbid it as we shouldn't all +flop (if it was anyways conwenient) to get 'em out o' this here dismal +risk! Forbid it, miss! Wot I say, for-_bid_ it!" This was Mr. Cruncher's +conclusion after a protracted but vain endeavour to find a better one. + +And still Madame Defarge, pursuing her way along the streets, came +nearer and nearer. + +"If we ever get back to our native land," said Miss Pross, "you may rely +upon my telling Mrs. Cruncher as much as I may be able to remember and +understand of what you have so impressively said; and at all events +you may be sure that I shall bear witness to your being thoroughly in +earnest at this dreadful time. Now, pray let us think! My esteemed Mr. +Cruncher, let us think!" + +Still, Madame Defarge, pursuing her way along the streets, came nearer +and nearer. + +"If you were to go before," said Miss Pross, "and stop the vehicle and +horses from coming here, and were to wait somewhere for me; wouldn't +that be best?" + +Mr. Cruncher thought it might be best. + +"Where could you wait for me?" asked Miss Pross. + +Mr. Cruncher was so bewildered that he could think of no locality but +Temple Bar. Alas! Temple Bar was hundreds of miles away, and Madame +Defarge was drawing very near indeed. + +"By the cathedral door," said Miss Pross. "Would it be much out of +the way, to take me in, near the great cathedral door between the two +towers?" + +"No, miss," answered Mr. Cruncher. + +"Then, like the best of men," said Miss Pross, "go to the posting-house +straight, and make that change." + +"I am doubtful," said Mr. Cruncher, hesitating and shaking his head, +"about leaving of you, you see. We don't know what may happen." + +"Heaven knows we don't," returned Miss Pross, "but have no fear for me. +Take me in at the cathedral, at Three o'Clock, or as near it as you can, +and I am sure it will be better than our going from here. I feel certain +of it. There! Bless you, Mr. Cruncher! Think-not of me, but of the lives +that may depend on both of us!" + +This exordium, and Miss Pross's two hands in quite agonised entreaty +clasping his, decided Mr. Cruncher. With an encouraging nod or two, he +immediately went out to alter the arrangements, and left her by herself +to follow as she had proposed. + +The having originated a precaution which was already in course of +execution, was a great relief to Miss Pross. The necessity of composing +her appearance so that it should attract no special notice in the +streets, was another relief. She looked at her watch, and it was twenty +minutes past two. She had no time to lose, but must get ready at once. + +Afraid, in her extreme perturbation, of the loneliness of the deserted +rooms, and of half-imagined faces peeping from behind every open door +in them, Miss Pross got a basin of cold water and began laving her eyes, +which were swollen and red. Haunted by her feverish apprehensions, she +could not bear to have her sight obscured for a minute at a time by the +dripping water, but constantly paused and looked round to see that there +was no one watching her. In one of those pauses she recoiled and cried +out, for she saw a figure standing in the room. + +The basin fell to the ground broken, and the water flowed to the feet of +Madame Defarge. By strange stern ways, and through much staining blood, +those feet had come to meet that water. + +Madame Defarge looked coldly at her, and said, "The wife of Evremonde; +where is she?" + +It flashed upon Miss Pross's mind that the doors were all standing open, +and would suggest the flight. Her first act was to shut them. There were +four in the room, and she shut them all. She then placed herself before +the door of the chamber which Lucie had occupied. + +Madame Defarge's dark eyes followed her through this rapid movement, +and rested on her when it was finished. Miss Pross had nothing beautiful +about her; years had not tamed the wildness, or softened the grimness, +of her appearance; but, she too was a determined woman in her different +way, and she measured Madame Defarge with her eyes, every inch. + +"You might, from your appearance, be the wife of Lucifer," said Miss +Pross, in her breathing. "Nevertheless, you shall not get the better of +me. I am an Englishwoman." + +Madame Defarge looked at her scornfully, but still with something of +Miss Pross's own perception that they two were at bay. She saw a tight, +hard, wiry woman before her, as Mr. Lorry had seen in the same figure a +woman with a strong hand, in the years gone by. She knew full well that +Miss Pross was the family's devoted friend; Miss Pross knew full well +that Madame Defarge was the family's malevolent enemy. + +"On my way yonder," said Madame Defarge, with a slight movement of +her hand towards the fatal spot, "where they reserve my chair and my +knitting for me, I am come to make my compliments to her in passing. I +wish to see her." + +"I know that your intentions are evil," said Miss Pross, "and you may +depend upon it, I'll hold my own against them." + +Each spoke in her own language; neither understood the other's words; +both were very watchful, and intent to deduce from look and manner, what +the unintelligible words meant. + +"It will do her no good to keep herself concealed from me at this +moment," said Madame Defarge. "Good patriots will know what that means. +Let me see her. Go tell her that I wish to see her. Do you hear?" + +"If those eyes of yours were bed-winches," returned Miss Pross, "and I +was an English four-poster, they shouldn't loose a splinter of me. No, +you wicked foreign woman; I am your match." + +Madame Defarge was not likely to follow these idiomatic remarks in +detail; but, she so far understood them as to perceive that she was set +at naught. + +"Woman imbecile and pig-like!" said Madame Defarge, frowning. "I take no +answer from you. I demand to see her. Either tell her that I demand +to see her, or stand out of the way of the door and let me go to her!" +This, with an angry explanatory wave of her right arm. + +"I little thought," said Miss Pross, "that I should ever want to +understand your nonsensical language; but I would give all I have, +except the clothes I wear, to know whether you suspect the truth, or any +part of it." + +Neither of them for a single moment released the other's eyes. Madame +Defarge had not moved from the spot where she stood when Miss Pross +first became aware of her; but, she now advanced one step. + +"I am a Briton," said Miss Pross, "I am desperate. I don't care an +English Twopence for myself. I know that the longer I keep you here, the +greater hope there is for my Ladybird. I'll not leave a handful of that +dark hair upon your head, if you lay a finger on me!" + +Thus Miss Pross, with a shake of her head and a flash of her eyes +between every rapid sentence, and every rapid sentence a whole breath. +Thus Miss Pross, who had never struck a blow in her life. + +But, her courage was of that emotional nature that it brought the +irrepressible tears into her eyes. This was a courage that Madame +Defarge so little comprehended as to mistake for weakness. "Ha, ha!" she +laughed, "you poor wretch! What are you worth! I address myself to that +Doctor." Then she raised her voice and called out, "Citizen Doctor! Wife +of Evremonde! Child of Evremonde! Any person but this miserable fool, +answer the Citizeness Defarge!" + +Perhaps the following silence, perhaps some latent disclosure in the +expression of Miss Pross's face, perhaps a sudden misgiving apart from +either suggestion, whispered to Madame Defarge that they were gone. +Three of the doors she opened swiftly, and looked in. + +"Those rooms are all in disorder, there has been hurried packing, there +are odds and ends upon the ground. There is no one in that room behind +you! Let me look." + +"Never!" said Miss Pross, who understood the request as perfectly as +Madame Defarge understood the answer. + +"If they are not in that room, they are gone, and can be pursued and +brought back," said Madame Defarge to herself. + +"As long as you don't know whether they are in that room or not, you are +uncertain what to do," said Miss Pross to herself; "and you shall not +know that, if I can prevent your knowing it; and know that, or not know +that, you shall not leave here while I can hold you." + +"I have been in the streets from the first, nothing has stopped me, +I will tear you to pieces, but I will have you from that door," said +Madame Defarge. + +"We are alone at the top of a high house in a solitary courtyard, we are +not likely to be heard, and I pray for bodily strength to keep you here, +while every minute you are here is worth a hundred thousand guineas to +my darling," said Miss Pross. + +Madame Defarge made at the door. Miss Pross, on the instinct of the +moment, seized her round the waist in both her arms, and held her tight. +It was in vain for Madame Defarge to struggle and to strike; Miss Pross, +with the vigorous tenacity of love, always so much stronger than hate, +clasped her tight, and even lifted her from the floor in the struggle +that they had. The two hands of Madame Defarge buffeted and tore her +face; but, Miss Pross, with her head down, held her round the waist, and +clung to her with more than the hold of a drowning woman. + +Soon, Madame Defarge's hands ceased to strike, and felt at her encircled +waist. "It is under my arm," said Miss Pross, in smothered tones, "you +shall not draw it. I am stronger than you, I bless Heaven for it. I hold +you till one or other of us faints or dies!" + +Madame Defarge's hands were at her bosom. Miss Pross looked up, saw +what it was, struck at it, struck out a flash and a crash, and stood +alone--blinded with smoke. + +All this was in a second. As the smoke cleared, leaving an awful +stillness, it passed out on the air, like the soul of the furious woman +whose body lay lifeless on the ground. + +In the first fright and horror of her situation, Miss Pross passed the +body as far from it as she could, and ran down the stairs to call for +fruitless help. Happily, she bethought herself of the consequences of +what she did, in time to check herself and go back. It was dreadful to +go in at the door again; but, she did go in, and even went near it, to +get the bonnet and other things that she must wear. These she put on, +out on the staircase, first shutting and locking the door and taking +away the key. She then sat down on the stairs a few moments to breathe +and to cry, and then got up and hurried away. + +By good fortune she had a veil on her bonnet, or she could hardly have +gone along the streets without being stopped. By good fortune, too, she +was naturally so peculiar in appearance as not to show disfigurement +like any other woman. She needed both advantages, for the marks of +gripping fingers were deep in her face, and her hair was torn, and her +dress (hastily composed with unsteady hands) was clutched and dragged a +hundred ways. + +In crossing the bridge, she dropped the door key in the river. Arriving +at the cathedral some few minutes before her escort, and waiting there, +she thought, what if the key were already taken in a net, what if +it were identified, what if the door were opened and the remains +discovered, what if she were stopped at the gate, sent to prison, and +charged with murder! In the midst of these fluttering thoughts, the +escort appeared, took her in, and took her away. + +"Is there any noise in the streets?" she asked him. + +"The usual noises," Mr. Cruncher replied; and looked surprised by the +question and by her aspect. + +"I don't hear you," said Miss Pross. "What do you say?" + +It was in vain for Mr. Cruncher to repeat what he said; Miss Pross could +not hear him. "So I'll nod my head," thought Mr. Cruncher, amazed, "at +all events she'll see that." And she did. + +"Is there any noise in the streets now?" asked Miss Pross again, +presently. + +Again Mr. Cruncher nodded his head. + +"I don't hear it." + +"Gone deaf in an hour?" said Mr. Cruncher, ruminating, with his mind +much disturbed; "wot's come to her?" + +"I feel," said Miss Pross, "as if there had been a flash and a crash, +and that crash was the last thing I should ever hear in this life." + +"Blest if she ain't in a queer condition!" said Mr. Cruncher, more and +more disturbed. "Wot can she have been a takin', to keep her courage up? +Hark! There's the roll of them dreadful carts! You can hear that, miss?" + +"I can hear," said Miss Pross, seeing that he spoke to her, "nothing. O, +my good man, there was first a great crash, and then a great stillness, +and that stillness seems to be fixed and unchangeable, never to be +broken any more as long as my life lasts." + +"If she don't hear the roll of those dreadful carts, now very nigh their +journey's end," said Mr. Cruncher, glancing over his shoulder, "it's my +opinion that indeed she never will hear anything else in this world." + +And indeed she never did. + + + + +XV. The Footsteps Die Out For Ever + + +Along the Paris streets, the death-carts rumble, hollow and harsh. Six +tumbrils carry the day's wine to La Guillotine. All the devouring and +insatiate Monsters imagined since imagination could record itself, +are fused in the one realisation, Guillotine. And yet there is not in +France, with its rich variety of soil and climate, a blade, a leaf, +a root, a sprig, a peppercorn, which will grow to maturity under +conditions more certain than those that have produced this horror. Crush +humanity out of shape once more, under similar hammers, and it will +twist itself into the same tortured forms. Sow the same seed of +rapacious license and oppression over again, and it will surely yield +the same fruit according to its kind. + +Six tumbrils roll along the streets. Change these back again to what +they were, thou powerful enchanter, Time, and they shall be seen to be +the carriages of absolute monarchs, the equipages of feudal nobles, the +toilettes of flaring Jezebels, the churches that are not my father's +house but dens of thieves, the huts of millions of starving peasants! +No; the great magician who majestically works out the appointed order +of the Creator, never reverses his transformations. "If thou be changed +into this shape by the will of God," say the seers to the enchanted, in +the wise Arabian stories, "then remain so! But, if thou wear this +form through mere passing conjuration, then resume thy former aspect!" +Changeless and hopeless, the tumbrils roll along. + +As the sombre wheels of the six carts go round, they seem to plough up +a long crooked furrow among the populace in the streets. Ridges of faces +are thrown to this side and to that, and the ploughs go steadily onward. +So used are the regular inhabitants of the houses to the spectacle, that +in many windows there are no people, and in some the occupation of the +hands is not so much as suspended, while the eyes survey the faces in +the tumbrils. Here and there, the inmate has visitors to see the sight; +then he points his finger, with something of the complacency of a +curator or authorised exponent, to this cart and to this, and seems to +tell who sat here yesterday, and who there the day before. + +Of the riders in the tumbrils, some observe these things, and all +things on their last roadside, with an impassive stare; others, with +a lingering interest in the ways of life and men. Some, seated with +drooping heads, are sunk in silent despair; again, there are some so +heedful of their looks that they cast upon the multitude such glances as +they have seen in theatres, and in pictures. Several close their eyes, +and think, or try to get their straying thoughts together. Only one, and +he a miserable creature, of a crazed aspect, is so shattered and made +drunk by horror, that he sings, and tries to dance. Not one of the whole +number appeals by look or gesture, to the pity of the people. + +There is a guard of sundry horsemen riding abreast of the tumbrils, +and faces are often turned up to some of them, and they are asked some +question. It would seem to be always the same question, for, it is +always followed by a press of people towards the third cart. The +horsemen abreast of that cart, frequently point out one man in it with +their swords. The leading curiosity is, to know which is he; he stands +at the back of the tumbril with his head bent down, to converse with a +mere girl who sits on the side of the cart, and holds his hand. He has +no curiosity or care for the scene about him, and always speaks to the +girl. Here and there in the long street of St. Honore, cries are raised +against him. If they move him at all, it is only to a quiet smile, as he +shakes his hair a little more loosely about his face. He cannot easily +touch his face, his arms being bound. + +On the steps of a church, awaiting the coming-up of the tumbrils, stands +the Spy and prison-sheep. He looks into the first of them: not there. +He looks into the second: not there. He already asks himself, "Has he +sacrificed me?" when his face clears, as he looks into the third. + +"Which is Evremonde?" says a man behind him. + +"That. At the back there." + +"With his hand in the girl's?" + +"Yes." + +The man cries, "Down, Evremonde! To the Guillotine all aristocrats! +Down, Evremonde!" + +"Hush, hush!" the Spy entreats him, timidly. + +"And why not, citizen?" + +"He is going to pay the forfeit: it will be paid in five minutes more. +Let him be at peace." + +But the man continuing to exclaim, "Down, Evremonde!" the face of +Evremonde is for a moment turned towards him. Evremonde then sees the +Spy, and looks attentively at him, and goes his way. + +The clocks are on the stroke of three, and the furrow ploughed among the +populace is turning round, to come on into the place of execution, and +end. The ridges thrown to this side and to that, now crumble in and +close behind the last plough as it passes on, for all are following +to the Guillotine. In front of it, seated in chairs, as in a garden of +public diversion, are a number of women, busily knitting. On one of the +fore-most chairs, stands The Vengeance, looking about for her friend. + +"Therese!" she cries, in her shrill tones. "Who has seen her? Therese +Defarge!" + +"She never missed before," says a knitting-woman of the sisterhood. + +"No; nor will she miss now," cries The Vengeance, petulantly. "Therese." + +"Louder," the woman recommends. + +Ay! Louder, Vengeance, much louder, and still she will scarcely hear +thee. Louder yet, Vengeance, with a little oath or so added, and yet +it will hardly bring her. Send other women up and down to seek her, +lingering somewhere; and yet, although the messengers have done dread +deeds, it is questionable whether of their own wills they will go far +enough to find her! + +"Bad Fortune!" cries The Vengeance, stamping her foot in the chair, "and +here are the tumbrils! And Evremonde will be despatched in a wink, and +she not here! See her knitting in my hand, and her empty chair ready for +her. I cry with vexation and disappointment!" + +As The Vengeance descends from her elevation to do it, the tumbrils +begin to discharge their loads. The ministers of Sainte Guillotine are +robed and ready. Crash!--A head is held up, and the knitting-women who +scarcely lifted their eyes to look at it a moment ago when it could +think and speak, count One. + +The second tumbril empties and moves on; the third comes up. Crash!--And +the knitting-women, never faltering or pausing in their Work, count Two. + +The supposed Evremonde descends, and the seamstress is lifted out next +after him. He has not relinquished her patient hand in getting out, but +still holds it as he promised. He gently places her with her back to the +crashing engine that constantly whirrs up and falls, and she looks into +his face and thanks him. + +"But for you, dear stranger, I should not be so composed, for I am +naturally a poor little thing, faint of heart; nor should I have been +able to raise my thoughts to Him who was put to death, that we might +have hope and comfort here to-day. I think you were sent to me by +Heaven." + +"Or you to me," says Sydney Carton. "Keep your eyes upon me, dear child, +and mind no other object." + +"I mind nothing while I hold your hand. I shall mind nothing when I let +it go, if they are rapid." + +"They will be rapid. Fear not!" + +The two stand in the fast-thinning throng of victims, but they speak as +if they were alone. Eye to eye, voice to voice, hand to hand, heart to +heart, these two children of the Universal Mother, else so wide apart +and differing, have come together on the dark highway, to repair home +together, and to rest in her bosom. + +"Brave and generous friend, will you let me ask you one last question? I +am very ignorant, and it troubles me--just a little." + +"Tell me what it is." + +"I have a cousin, an only relative and an orphan, like myself, whom I +love very dearly. She is five years younger than I, and she lives in a +farmer's house in the south country. Poverty parted us, and she knows +nothing of my fate--for I cannot write--and if I could, how should I +tell her! It is better as it is." + +"Yes, yes: better as it is." + +"What I have been thinking as we came along, and what I am still +thinking now, as I look into your kind strong face which gives me so +much support, is this:--If the Republic really does good to the poor, +and they come to be less hungry, and in all ways to suffer less, she may +live a long time: she may even live to be old." + +"What then, my gentle sister?" + +"Do you think:" the uncomplaining eyes in which there is so much +endurance, fill with tears, and the lips part a little more and tremble: +"that it will seem long to me, while I wait for her in the better land +where I trust both you and I will be mercifully sheltered?" + +"It cannot be, my child; there is no Time there, and no trouble there." + +"You comfort me so much! I am so ignorant. Am I to kiss you now? Is the +moment come?" + +"Yes." + +She kisses his lips; he kisses hers; they solemnly bless each other. +The spare hand does not tremble as he releases it; nothing worse than +a sweet, bright constancy is in the patient face. She goes next before +him--is gone; the knitting-women count Twenty-Two. + +"I am the Resurrection and the Life, saith the Lord: he that believeth +in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live: and whosoever liveth and +believeth in me shall never die." + +The murmuring of many voices, the upturning of many faces, the pressing +on of many footsteps in the outskirts of the crowd, so that it swells +forward in a mass, like one great heave of water, all flashes away. +Twenty-Three. + + ***** + +They said of him, about the city that night, that it was the +peacefullest man's face ever beheld there. Many added that he looked +sublime and prophetic. + +One of the most remarkable sufferers by the same axe--a woman--had asked +at the foot of the same scaffold, not long before, to be allowed to +write down the thoughts that were inspiring her. If he had given any +utterance to his, and they were prophetic, they would have been these: + +"I see Barsad, and Cly, Defarge, The Vengeance, the Juryman, the Judge, +long ranks of the new oppressors who have risen on the destruction of +the old, perishing by this retributive instrument, before it shall cease +out of its present use. I see a beautiful city and a brilliant people +rising from this abyss, and, in their struggles to be truly free, in +their triumphs and defeats, through long years to come, I see the evil +of this time and of the previous time of which this is the natural +birth, gradually making expiation for itself and wearing out. + +"I see the lives for which I lay down my life, peaceful, useful, +prosperous and happy, in that England which I shall see no more. I see +Her with a child upon her bosom, who bears my name. I see her father, +aged and bent, but otherwise restored, and faithful to all men in his +healing office, and at peace. I see the good old man, so long their +friend, in ten years' time enriching them with all he has, and passing +tranquilly to his reward. + +"I see that I hold a sanctuary in their hearts, and in the hearts of +their descendants, generations hence. I see her, an old woman, weeping +for me on the anniversary of this day. I see her and her husband, their +course done, lying side by side in their last earthly bed, and I know +that each was not more honoured and held sacred in the other's soul, +than I was in the souls of both. + +"I see that child who lay upon her bosom and who bore my name, a man +winning his way up in that path of life which once was mine. I see him +winning it so well, that my name is made illustrious there by the +light of his. I see the blots I threw upon it, faded away. I see him, +fore-most of just judges and honoured men, bringing a boy of my name, +with a forehead that I know and golden hair, to this place--then fair to +look upon, with not a trace of this day's disfigurement--and I hear him +tell the child my story, with a tender and a faltering voice. + +"It is a far, far better thing that I do, than I have ever done; it is a +far, far better rest that I go to than I have ever known." + + + + + + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of A Tale of Two Cities, by Charles Dickens + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A TALE OF TWO CITIES *** + +***** This file should be named 98-8.txt or 98-8.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/9/98/ + +Produced by Judith Boss + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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Thus, we do not necessarily +keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition. + + +Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility: + + http://www.gutenberg.org + +This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm, +including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary +Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to +subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks. diff --git a/src/main/pg-tom_sawyer.txt b/src/main/pg-tom_sawyer.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..f21b2a1 --- /dev/null +++ b/src/main/pg-tom_sawyer.txt @@ -0,0 +1,9206 @@ + +The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, Complete by +Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens) + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost +no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use +it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this +eBook or online at www.gutenberg.net + +Title: The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, Complete + +Author: Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens) + +Release Date: August 20, 2006 [EBook #74] Last updated: October 20, 2012 + +Language: English + + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK TOM SAWYER *** + +Produced by David Widger + + + + + +THE ADVENTURES OF TOM SAWYER + +By Mark Twain + +(Samuel Langhorne Clemens) + + + + +CONTENTS + +CHAPTER I. Y-o-u-u Tom-Aunt Polly Decides Upon her Duty--Tom Practices +Music--The Challenge--A Private Entrance + +CHAPTER II. Strong Temptations--Strategic Movements--The Innocents +Beguiled + +CHAPTER III. Tom as a General--Triumph and Reward--Dismal +Felicity--Commission and Omission + +CHAPTER IV. Mental Acrobatics--Attending Sunday--School--The +Superintendent--"Showing off"--Tom Lionized + +CHAPTER V. A Useful Minister--In Church--The Climax + +CHAPTER VI. Self-Examination--Dentistry--The Midnight Charm--Witches and +Devils--Cautious Approaches--Happy Hours + +CHAPTER VII. A Treaty Entered Into--Early Lessons--A Mistake Made + +CHAPTER VIII. Tom Decides on his Course--Old Scenes Re-enacted + +CHAPTER IX. A Solemn Situation--Grave Subjects Introduced--Injun Joe +Explains + +CHAPTER X. The Solemn Oath--Terror Brings Repentance--Mental Punishment + +CHAPTER XI. Muff Potter Comes Himself--Tom's Conscience at Work + +CHAPTER XII. Tom Shows his Generosity--Aunt Polly Weakens + +CHAPTER XIII. The Young Pirates--Going to the Rendezvous--The Camp--Fire +Talk + +CHAPTER XIV. Camp-Life--A Sensation--Tom Steals Away from Camp + +CHAPTER XV. Tom Reconnoiters--Learns the Situation--Reports at Camp + +CHAPTER XVI. A Day's Amusements--Tom Reveals a Secret--The Pirates take a +Lesson--A Night Surprise--An Indian War + +CHAPTER XVII. Memories of the Lost Heroes--The Point in Tom's Secret + +CHAPTER XVIII. Tom's Feelings Investigated--Wonderful Dream--Becky +Thatcher Overshadowed--Tom Becomes Jealous--Black Revenge + +CHAPTER XIX. Tom Tells the Truth + +CHAPTER XX. Becky in a Dilemma--Tom's Nobility Asserts Itself + +CHAPTER XXI. Youthful Eloquence--Compositions by the Young Ladies--A +Lengthy Vision--The Boy's Vengeance Satisfied + +CHAPTER XXII. Tom's Confidence Betrayed--Expects Signal Punishment + +CHAPTER XXIII. Old Muff's Friends--Muff Potter in Court--Muff Potter +Saved + +CHAPTER XXIV. Tom as the Village Hero--Days of Splendor and Nights of +Horror--Pursuit of Injun Joe + +CHAPTER XXV. About Kings and Diamonds--Search for the Treasure--Dead +People and Ghosts + +CHAPTER XXVI. The Haunted House--Sleepy Ghosts--A Box of Gold--Bitter Luck + +CHAPTER XXVII. Doubts to be Settled--The Young Detectives + +CHAPTER XXVIII. An Attempt at No. Two--Huck Mounts Guard + +CHAPTER XXIX. The Pic-nic--Huck on Injun Joe's Track--The "Revenge" +Job--Aid for the Widow + +CHAPTER XXX. The Welchman Reports--Huck Under Fire--The Story Circulated +--A New Sensation--Hope Giving Way to Despair + +CHAPTER XXXI. An Exploring Expedition--Trouble Commences--Lost in the +Cave--Total Darkness--Found but not Saved + +CHAPTER XXXII. Tom tells the Story of their Escape--Tom's Enemy in Safe +Quarters + +CHAPTER XXXIII. The Fate of Injun Joe--Huck and Tom Compare Notes +--An Expedition to the Cave--Protection Against Ghosts--"An Awful Snug +Place"--A Reception at the Widow Douglas's + +CHAPTER XXXIV. Springing a Secret--Mr. Jones' Surprise a Failure + +CHAPTER XXXV. A New Order of Things--Poor Huck--New Adventures Planned + + + + +ILLUSTRATIONS + +Tom Sawyer + +Tom at Home + +Aunt Polly Beguiled + +A Good Opportunity + +Who's Afraid + +Late Home + +Jim + +'Tendin' to Business + +Ain't that Work? + +Cat and Toys + +Amusement + +Becky Thatcher + +Paying Off + +After the Battle + +"Showing Off" + +Not Amiss + +Mary + +Tom Contemplating + +Dampened Ardor + +Youth + +Boyhood + +Using the "Barlow" + +The Church + +Necessities + +Tom as a Sunday-School Hero + +The Prize + +At Church + +The Model Boy + +The Church Choir + +A Side Show + +Result of Playing in Church + +The Pinch-Bug + +Sid + +Dentistry + +Huckleberry Finn + +Mother Hopkins + +Result of Tom's Truthfulness + +Tom as an Artist + +Interrupted Courtship + +The Master + +Vain Pleading + +Tail Piece + +The Grave in the Woods + +Tom Meditates + +Robin Hood and his Foe + +Death of Robin Hood + +Midnight + +Tom's Mode of Egress + +Tom's Effort at Prayer + +Muff Potter Outwitted + +The Graveyard + +Forewarnings + +Disturbing Muff's Sleep + +Tom's Talk with his Aunt + +Muff Potter + +A Suspicious Incident + +Injun Joe's two Victims + +In the Coils + +Peter + +Aunt Polly seeks Information + +A General Good Time + +Demoralized + +Joe Harper + +On Board Their First Prize + +The Pirates Ashore + +Wild Life + +The Pirate's Bath + +The Pleasant Stroll + +The Search for the Drowned + +The Mysterious Writing + +River View + +What Tom Saw + +Tom Swims the River + +Taking Lessons + +The Pirates' Egg Market + +Tom Looking for Joe's Knife + +The Thunder Storm + +Terrible Slaughter + +The Mourner + +Tom's Proudest Moment + +Amy Lawrence + +Tom tries to Remember + +The Hero + +A Flirtation + +Becky Retaliates + +A Sudden Frost + +Counter-irritation + +Aunt Polly + +Tom justified + +The Discovery + +Caught in the Act + +Tom Astonishes the School + +Literature + +Tom Declaims + +Examination Evening + +On Exhibition + +Prize Authors + +The Master's Dilemma + +The School House + +The Cadet + +Happy for Two Days + +Enjoying the Vacation + +The Stolen Melons + +The Judge + +Visiting the Prisoner + +Tom Swears + +The Court Room + +The Detective + +Tom Dreams + +The Treasure + +The Private Conference + +A King; Poor Fellow! + +Business + +The Ha'nted House + +Injun Joe + +The Greatest and Best + +Hidden Treasures Unearthed + +The Boy's Salvation + +Room No. 2 + +The Next Day's Conference + +Treasures + +Uncle Jake + +Buck at Home + +The Haunted Room + +"Run for Your Life" + +McDougal's Cave + +Inside the Cave + +Huck on Duty + +A Rousing Act + +Tail Piece + +The Welchman + +Result of a Sneeze + +Cornered + +Alarming Discoveries + +Tom and Becky stir up the Town + +Tom's Marks + +Huck Questions the Widow + +Vampires + +Wonders of the Cave + +Attacked by Natives + +Despair + +The Wedding Cake + +A New Terror + +Daylight + +"Turn Out" to Receive Tom and Becky + +The Escape from the Cave + +Fate of the Ragged Man + +The Treasures Found + +Caught at Last + +Drop after Drop + +Having a Good Time + +A Business Trip + +"Got it at Last!" + +Tail Piece + +Widow Douglas + +Tom Backs his Statement + +Tail Piece + +Huck Transformed + +Comfortable Once More + +High up in Society + +Contentment + + + + +PREFACE + +Most of the adventures recorded in this book really occurred; one or two +were experiences of my own, the rest those of boys who were schoolmates +of mine. Huck Finn is drawn from life; Tom Sawyer also, but not from an +individual--he is a combination of the characteristics of three boys whom +I knew, and therefore belongs to the composite order of architecture. + +The odd superstitions touched upon were all prevalent among children and +slaves in the West at the period of this story--that is to say, thirty or +forty years ago. + +Although my book is intended mainly for the entertainment of boys and +girls, I hope it will not be shunned by men and women on that account, +for part of my plan has been to try to pleasantly remind adults of what +they once were themselves, and of how they felt and thought and talked, +and what queer enterprises they sometimes engaged in. + +THE AUTHOR. + +HARTFORD, 1876. + + + + +CHAPTER I + +"TOM!" + +No answer. + +"TOM!" + +No answer. + +"What's gone with that boy, I wonder? You TOM!" + +No answer. + +The old lady pulled her spectacles down and looked over them about the +room; then she put them up and looked out under them. She seldom or +never looked _through_ them for so small a thing as a boy; they were +her state pair, the pride of her heart, and were built for "style," not +service--she could have seen through a pair of stove-lids just as well. +She looked perplexed for a moment, and then said, not fiercely, but +still loud enough for the furniture to hear: + +"Well, I lay if I get hold of you I'll--" + +She did not finish, for by this time she was bending down and punching +under the bed with the broom, and so she needed breath to punctuate the +punches with. She resurrected nothing but the cat. + +"I never did see the beat of that boy!" + +She went to the open door and stood in it and looked out among the +tomato vines and "jimpson" weeds that constituted the garden. No Tom. So +she lifted up her voice at an angle calculated for distance and shouted: + +"Y-o-u-u TOM!" + +There was a slight noise behind her and she turned just in time to seize +a small boy by the slack of his roundabout and arrest his flight. + +"There! I might 'a' thought of that closet. What you been doing in +there?" + +"Nothing." + +"Nothing! Look at your hands. And look at your mouth. What _is_ that +truck?" + +"I don't know, aunt." + +"Well, I know. It's jam--that's what it is. Forty times I've said if you +didn't let that jam alone I'd skin you. Hand me that switch." + +The switch hovered in the air--the peril was desperate-- + +"My! Look behind you, aunt!" + +The old lady whirled round, and snatched her skirts out of danger. +The lad fled on the instant, scrambled up the high board-fence, and +disappeared over it. + +His aunt Polly stood surprised a moment, and then broke into a gentle +laugh. + +"Hang the boy, can't I never learn anything? Ain't he played me tricks +enough like that for me to be looking out for him by this time? But old +fools is the biggest fools there is. Can't learn an old dog new tricks, +as the saying is. But my goodness, he never plays them alike, two days, +and how is a body to know what's coming? He 'pears to know just how long +he can torment me before I get my dander up, and he knows if he can make +out to put me off for a minute or make me laugh, it's all down again and +I can't hit him a lick. I ain't doing my duty by that boy, and that's +the Lord's truth, goodness knows. Spare the rod and spile the child, +as the Good Book says. I'm a laying up sin and suffering for us both, +I know. He's full of the Old Scratch, but laws-a-me! he's my own +dead sister's boy, poor thing, and I ain't got the heart to lash him, +somehow. Every time I let him off, my conscience does hurt me so, and +every time I hit him my old heart most breaks. Well-a-well, man that is +born of woman is of few days and full of trouble, as the Scripture +says, and I reckon it's so. He'll play hookey this evening, * and [* +Southwestern for "afternoon"] I'll just be obleeged to make him work, +tomorrow, to punish him. It's mighty hard to make him work Saturdays, +when all the boys is having holiday, but he hates work more than he +hates anything else, and I've _got_ to do some of my duty by him, or +I'll be the ruination of the child." + +Tom did play hookey, and he had a very good time. He got back home +barely in season to help Jim, the small colored boy, saw next-day's wood +and split the kindlings before supper--at least he was there in time +to tell his adventures to Jim while Jim did three-fourths of the work. +Tom's younger brother (or rather half-brother) Sid was already through +with his part of the work (picking up chips), for he was a quiet boy, +and had no adventurous, trouble-some ways. + +While Tom was eating his supper, and stealing sugar as opportunity +offered, Aunt Polly asked him questions that were full of guile, and +very deep--for she wanted to trap him into damaging revealments. Like +many other simple-hearted souls, it was her pet vanity to believe she +was endowed with a talent for dark and mysterious diplomacy, and she +loved to contemplate her most transparent devices as marvels of low +cunning. Said she: + +"Tom, it was middling warm in school, warn't it?" + +"Yes'm." + +"Powerful warm, warn't it?" + +"Yes'm." + +"Didn't you want to go in a-swimming, Tom?" + +A bit of a scare shot through Tom--a touch of uncomfortable suspicion. He +searched Aunt Polly's face, but it told him nothing. So he said: + +"No'm--well, not very much." + +The old lady reached out her hand and felt Tom's shirt, and said: + +"But you ain't too warm now, though." And it flattered her to reflect +that she had discovered that the shirt was dry without anybody knowing +that that was what she had in her mind. But in spite of her, Tom knew +where the wind lay, now. So he forestalled what might be the next move: + +"Some of us pumped on our heads--mine's damp yet. See?" + +Aunt Polly was vexed to think she had overlooked that bit of +circumstantial evidence, and missed a trick. Then she had a new +inspiration: + +"Tom, you didn't have to undo your shirt collar where I sewed it, to +pump on your head, did you? Unbutton your jacket!" + +The trouble vanished out of Tom's face. He opened his jacket. His shirt +collar was securely sewed. + +"Bother! Well, go 'long with you. I'd made sure you'd played hookey +and been a-swimming. But I forgive ye, Tom. I reckon you're a kind of a +singed cat, as the saying is--better'n you look. _This_ time." + +She was half sorry her sagacity had miscarried, and half glad that Tom +had stumbled into obedient conduct for once. + +But Sidney said: + +"Well, now, if I didn't think you sewed his collar with white thread, +but it's black." + +"Why, I did sew it with white! Tom!" + +But Tom did not wait for the rest. As he went out at the door he said: + +"Siddy, I'll lick you for that." + +In a safe place Tom examined two large needles which were thrust into +the lapels of his jacket, and had thread bound about them--one needle +carried white thread and the other black. He said: + +"She'd never noticed if it hadn't been for Sid. Confound it! sometimes +she sews it with white, and sometimes she sews it with black. I wish to +gee-miny she'd stick to one or t'other--I can't keep the run of 'em. But +I bet you I'll lam Sid for that. I'll learn him!" + +He was not the Model Boy of the village. He knew the model boy very well +though--and loathed him. + +Within two minutes, or even less, he had forgotten all his troubles. Not +because his troubles were one whit less heavy and bitter to him than a +man's are to a man, but because a new and powerful interest bore +them down and drove them out of his mind for the time--just as men's +misfortunes are forgotten in the excitement of new enterprises. This new +interest was a valued novelty in whistling, which he had just acquired +from a negro, and he was suffering to practise it un-disturbed. It +consisted in a peculiar bird-like turn, a sort of liquid warble, +produced by touching the tongue to the roof of the mouth at short +intervals in the midst of the music--the reader probably remembers how to +do it, if he has ever been a boy. Diligence and attention soon gave him +the knack of it, and he strode down the street with his mouth full of +harmony and his soul full of gratitude. He felt much as an astronomer +feels who has discovered a new planet--no doubt, as far as strong, deep, +unalloyed pleasure is concerned, the advantage was with the boy, not the +astronomer. + +The summer evenings were long. It was not dark, yet. Presently Tom +checked his whistle. A stranger was before him--a boy a shade larger +than himself. A new-comer of any age or either sex was an im-pressive +curiosity in the poor little shabby village of St. Petersburg. This boy +was well dressed, too--well dressed on a week-day. This was simply as +astounding. His cap was a dainty thing, his close-buttoned blue cloth +roundabout was new and natty, and so were his pantaloons. He had shoes +on--and it was only Friday. He even wore a necktie, a bright bit of +ribbon. He had a citified air about him that ate into Tom's vitals. The +more Tom stared at the splendid marvel, the higher he turned up his nose +at his finery and the shabbier and shabbier his own outfit seemed to +him to grow. Neither boy spoke. If one moved, the other moved--but only +sidewise, in a circle; they kept face to face and eye to eye all the +time. Finally Tom said: + +"I can lick you!" + +"I'd like to see you try it." + +"Well, I can do it." + +"No you can't, either." + +"Yes I can." + +"No you can't." + +"I can." + +"You can't." + +"Can!" + +"Can't!" + +An uncomfortable pause. Then Tom said: + +"What's your name?" + +"'Tisn't any of your business, maybe." + +"Well I 'low I'll _make_ it my business." + +"Well why don't you?" + +"If you say much, I will." + +"Much--much--_much_. There now." + +"Oh, you think you're mighty smart, _don't_ you? I could lick you with +one hand tied behind me, if I wanted to." + +"Well why don't you _do_ it? You _say_ you can do it." + +"Well I _will_, if you fool with me." + +"Oh yes--I've seen whole families in the same fix." + +"Smarty! You think you're _some_, now, _don't_ you? Oh, what a hat!" + +"You can lump that hat if you don't like it. I dare you to knock it +off--and anybody that'll take a dare will suck eggs." + +"You're a liar!" + +"You're another." + +"You're a fighting liar and dasn't take it up." + +"Aw--take a walk!" + +"Say--if you give me much more of your sass I'll take and bounce a rock +off'n your head." + +"Oh, of _course_ you will." + +"Well I _will_." + +"Well why don't you _do_ it then? What do you keep _saying_ you will +for? Why don't you _do_ it? It's because you're afraid." + +"I _ain't_ afraid." + +"You are." + +"I ain't." + +"You are." + +Another pause, and more eying and sidling around each other. Presently +they were shoulder to shoulder. Tom said: + +"Get away from here!" + +"Go away yourself!" + +"I won't." + +"I won't either." + +So they stood, each with a foot placed at an angle as a brace, and both +shoving with might and main, and glowering at each other with hate. But +neither could get an advantage. After struggling till both were hot and +flushed, each relaxed his strain with watchful caution, and Tom said: + +"You're a coward and a pup. I'll tell my big brother on you, and he can +thrash you with his little finger, and I'll make him do it, too." + +"What do I care for your big brother? I've got a brother that's bigger +than he is--and what's more, he can throw him over that fence, too." +[Both brothers were imaginary.] + +"That's a lie." + +"_Your_ saying so don't make it so." + +Tom drew a line in the dust with his big toe, and said: + +"I dare you to step over that, and I'll lick you till you can't stand +up. Anybody that'll take a dare will steal sheep." + +The new boy stepped over promptly, and said: + +"Now you said you'd do it, now let's see you do it." + +"Don't you crowd me now; you better look out." + +"Well, you _said_ you'd do it--why don't you do it?" + +"By jingo! for two cents I _will_ do it." + +The new boy took two broad coppers out of his pocket and held them out +with derision. Tom struck them to the ground. In an instant both boys +were rolling and tumbling in the dirt, gripped together like cats; and +for the space of a minute they tugged and tore at each other's hair and +clothes, punched and scratched each other's nose, and covered themselves +with dust and glory. Presently the confusion took form, and through the +fog of battle Tom appeared, seated astride the new boy, and pounding him +with his fists. "Holler 'nuff!" said he. + +The boy only struggled to free himself. He was crying--mainly from rage. + +"Holler 'nuff!"--and the pounding went on. + +At last the stranger got out a smothered "'Nuff!" and Tom let him up and +said: + +"Now that'll learn you. Better look out who you're fooling with next +time." + +The new boy went off brushing the dust from his clothes, sobbing, +snuffling, and occasionally looking back and shaking his head and +threatening what he would do to Tom the "next time he caught him out." +To which Tom responded with jeers, and started off in high feather, and +as soon as his back was turned the new boy snatched up a stone, threw it +and hit him between the shoulders and then turned tail and ran like +an antelope. Tom chased the traitor home, and thus found out where he +lived. He then held a position at the gate for some time, daring the +enemy to come outside, but the enemy only made faces at him through the +window and declined. At last the enemy's mother appeared, and called Tom +a bad, vicious, vulgar child, and ordered him away. So he went away; but +he said he "'lowed" to "lay" for that boy. + +He got home pretty late that night, and when he climbed cautiously in +at the window, he uncovered an ambuscade, in the person of his aunt; and +when she saw the state his clothes were in her resolution to turn his +Saturday holiday into captivity at hard labor became adamantine in its +firmness. + + + + +CHAPTER II + +SATURDAY morning was come, and all the summer world was bright and +fresh, and brimming with life. There was a song in every heart; and if +the heart was young the music issued at the lips. There was cheer in +every face and a spring in every step. The locust-trees were in bloom +and the fragrance of the blossoms filled the air. Cardiff Hill, beyond +the village and above it, was green with vegetation and it lay just far +enough away to seem a Delectable Land, dreamy, reposeful, and inviting. + +Tom appeared on the sidewalk with a bucket of whitewash and a +long-handled brush. He surveyed the fence, and all gladness left him and +a deep melancholy settled down upon his spirit. Thirty yards of board +fence nine feet high. Life to him seemed hollow, and existence but a +burden. Sighing, he dipped his brush and passed it along the topmost +plank; repeated the operation; did it again; compared the insignificant +whitewashed streak with the far-reaching continent of unwhitewashed +fence, and sat down on a tree-box discouraged. Jim came skipping out at +the gate with a tin pail, and singing Buffalo Gals. Bringing water from +the town pump had always been hateful work in Tom's eyes, before, but +now it did not strike him so. He remembered that there was company at +the pump. White, mulatto, and negro boys and girls were always there +waiting their turns, resting, trading playthings, quarrelling, fighting, +skylarking. And he remembered that although the pump was only a hundred +and fifty yards off, Jim never got back with a bucket of water under an +hour--and even then somebody generally had to go after him. Tom said: + +"Say, Jim, I'll fetch the water if you'll whitewash some." + +Jim shook his head and said: + +"Can't, Mars Tom. Ole missis, she tole me I got to go an' git dis water +an' not stop foolin' roun' wid anybody. She say she spec' Mars Tom gwine +to ax me to whitewash, an' so she tole me go 'long an' 'tend to my own +business--she 'lowed _she'd_ 'tend to de whitewashin'." + +"Oh, never you mind what she said, Jim. That's the way she always talks. +Gimme the bucket--I won't be gone only a a minute. _She_ won't ever +know." + +"Oh, I dasn't, Mars Tom. Ole missis she'd take an' tar de head off'n me. +'Deed she would." + +"_She_! She never licks anybody--whacks 'em over the head with her +thimble--and who cares for that, I'd like to know. She talks awful, but +talk don't hurt--anyways it don't if she don't cry. Jim, I'll give you a +marvel. I'll give you a white alley!" + +Jim began to waver. + +"White alley, Jim! And it's a bully taw." + +"My! Dat's a mighty gay marvel, I tell you! But Mars Tom I's powerful +'fraid ole missis--" + +"And besides, if you will I'll show you my sore toe." + +Jim was only human--this attraction was too much for him. He put down +his pail, took the white alley, and bent over the toe with absorbing +interest while the bandage was being unwound. In another moment he +was flying down the street with his pail and a tingling rear, Tom was +whitewashing with vigor, and Aunt Polly was retiring from the field with +a slipper in her hand and triumph in her eye. + +But Tom's energy did not last. He began to think of the fun he had +planned for this day, and his sorrows multiplied. Soon the free boys +would come tripping along on all sorts of delicious expeditions, and +they would make a world of fun of him for having to work--the very +thought of it burnt him like fire. He got out his worldly wealth and +examined it--bits of toys, marbles, and trash; enough to buy an exchange +of _work_, maybe, but not half enough to buy so much as half an hour +of pure freedom. So he returned his straitened means to his pocket, and +gave up the idea of trying to buy the boys. At this dark and hopeless +moment an inspiration burst upon him! Nothing less than a great, +magnificent inspiration. + +He took up his brush and went tranquilly to work. Ben Rogers hove in +sight presently--the very boy, of all boys, whose ridicule he had been +dreading. Ben's gait was the hop-skip-and-jump--proof enough that his +heart was light and his anticipations high. He was eating an apple, and +giving a long, melodious whoop, at intervals, followed by a deep-toned +ding-dong-dong, ding-dong-dong, for he was personating a steamboat. As +he drew near, he slackened speed, took the middle of the street, leaned +far over to starboard and rounded to ponderously and with laborious pomp +and circumstance--for he was personating the Big Missouri, and considered +himself to be drawing nine feet of water. He was boat and captain and +engine-bells combined, so he had to imagine himself standing on his own +hurricane-deck giving the orders and executing them: + +"Stop her, sir! Ting-a-ling-ling!" The headway ran almost out, and he +drew up slowly toward the sidewalk. + +"Ship up to back! Ting-a-ling-ling!" His arms straightened and stiffened +down his sides. + +"Set her back on the stabboard! Ting-a-ling-ling! Chow! ch-chow-wow! +Chow!" His right hand, mean-time, describing stately circles--for it was +representing a forty-foot wheel. + +"Let her go back on the labboard! Ting-a-ling-ling! Chow-ch-chow-chow!" +The left hand began to describe circles. + +"Stop the stabboard! Ting-a-ling-ling! Stop the labboard! Come ahead on +the stabboard! Stop her! Let your outside turn over slow! Ting-a-ling-ling! +Chow-ow-ow! Get out that head-line! _lively_ now! Come--out with +your spring-line--what're you about there! Take a turn round that stump +with the bight of it! Stand by that stage, now--let her go! Done with +the engines, sir! Ting-a-ling-ling! SH'T! S'H'T! SH'T!" (trying the +gauge-cocks). + +Tom went on whitewashing--paid no attention to the steamboat. Ben stared +a moment and then said: "_Hi-Yi! You're_ up a stump, ain't you!" + +No answer. Tom surveyed his last touch with the eye of an artist, then +he gave his brush another gentle sweep and surveyed the result, as +before. Ben ranged up alongside of him. Tom's mouth watered for the +apple, but he stuck to his work. Ben said: + +"Hello, old chap, you got to work, hey?" + +Tom wheeled suddenly and said: + +"Why, it's you, Ben! I warn't noticing." + +"Say--I'm going in a-swimming, I am. Don't you wish you could? But of +course you'd druther _work_--wouldn't you? Course you would!" + +Tom contemplated the boy a bit, and said: + +"What do you call work?" + +"Why, ain't _that_ work?" + +Tom resumed his whitewashing, and answered carelessly: + +"Well, maybe it is, and maybe it ain't. All I know, is, it suits Tom +Sawyer." + +"Oh come, now, you don't mean to let on that you _like_ it?" + +The brush continued to move. + +"Like it? Well, I don't see why I oughtn't to like it. Does a boy get a +chance to whitewash a fence every day?" + +That put the thing in a new light. Ben stopped nibbling his apple. +Tom swept his brush daintily back and forth--stepped back to note the +effect--added a touch here and there--criticised the effect again--Ben +watching every move and getting more and more interested, more and more +absorbed. Presently he said: + +"Say, Tom, let _me_ whitewash a little." + +Tom considered, was about to consent; but he altered his mind: + +"No--no--I reckon it wouldn't hardly do, Ben. You see, Aunt Polly's awful +particular about this fence--right here on the street, you know--but if it +was the back fence I wouldn't mind and _she_ wouldn't. Yes, she's awful +particular about this fence; it's got to be done very careful; I reckon +there ain't one boy in a thousand, maybe two thousand, that can do it +the way it's got to be done." + +"No--is that so? Oh come, now--lemme just try. Only just a little--I'd let +_you_, if you was me, Tom." + +"Ben, I'd like to, honest injun; but Aunt Polly--well, Jim wanted to do +it, but she wouldn't let him; Sid wanted to do it, and she wouldn't let +Sid. Now don't you see how I'm fixed? If you was to tackle this fence +and anything was to happen to it--" + +"Oh, shucks, I'll be just as careful. Now lemme try. Say--I'll give you +the core of my apple." + +"Well, here--No, Ben, now don't. I'm afeard--" + +"I'll give you _all_ of it!" + +Tom gave up the brush with reluctance in his face, but alacrity in his +heart. And while the late steamer Big Missouri worked and sweated in the +sun, the retired artist sat on a barrel in the shade close by, +dangled his legs, munched his apple, and planned the slaughter of more +innocents. There was no lack of material; boys happened along every +little while; they came to jeer, but remained to whitewash. By the time +Ben was fagged out, Tom had traded the next chance to Billy Fisher for +a kite, in good repair; and when he played out, Johnny Miller bought in +for a dead rat and a string to swing it with--and so on, and so on, hour +after hour. And when the middle of the afternoon came, from being a +poor poverty-stricken boy in the morning, Tom was literally rolling in +wealth. He had besides the things before mentioned, twelve marbles, part +of a jews-harp, a piece of blue bottle-glass to look through, a spool +cannon, a key that wouldn't unlock anything, a fragment of chalk, a +glass stopper of a decanter, a tin soldier, a couple of tadpoles, +six fire-crackers, a kitten with only one eye, a brass door-knob, a +dog-collar--but no dog--the handle of a knife, four pieces of orange-peel, +and a dilapidated old window sash. + +He had had a nice, good, idle time all the while--plenty of company--and +the fence had three coats of whitewash on it! If he hadn't run out of +whitewash he would have bankrupted every boy in the village. + +Tom said to himself that it was not such a hollow world, after all. He +had discovered a great law of human action, without knowing it--namely, +that in order to make a man or a boy covet a thing, it is only necessary +to make the thing difficult to attain. If he had been a great and +wise philosopher, like the writer of this book, he would now have +comprehended that Work consists of whatever a body is _obliged_ to do, +and that Play consists of whatever a body is not obliged to do. And +this would help him to understand why constructing artificial flowers or +performing on a tread-mill is work, while rolling ten-pins or climbing +Mont Blanc is only amusement. There are wealthy gentlemen in England +who drive four-horse passenger-coaches twenty or thirty miles on a +daily line, in the summer, because the privilege costs them considerable +money; but if they were offered wages for the service, that would turn +it into work and then they would resign. + +The boy mused awhile over the substantial change which had taken place +in his worldly circumstances, and then wended toward headquarters to +report. + + + + +CHAPTER III + +TOM presented himself before Aunt Polly, who was sitting by an +open window in a pleasant rearward apartment, which was bedroom, +breakfast-room, dining-room, and library, combined. The balmy summer +air, the restful quiet, the odor of the flowers, and the drowsing +murmur of the bees had had their effect, and she was nodding over her +knitting--for she had no company but the cat, and it was asleep in her +lap. Her spectacles were propped up on her gray head for safety. She had +thought that of course Tom had deserted long ago, and she wondered at +seeing him place himself in her power again in this intrepid way. He +said: "Mayn't I go and play now, aunt?" + +"What, a'ready? How much have you done?" + +"It's all done, aunt." + +"Tom, don't lie to me--I can't bear it." + +"I ain't, aunt; it _is_ all done." + +Aunt Polly placed small trust in such evidence. She went out to see for +herself; and she would have been content to find twenty per cent. of +Tom's statement true. When she found the entire fence white-washed, and +not only whitewashed but elaborately coated and recoated, and even a +streak added to the ground, her astonishment was almost unspeakable. She +said: + +"Well, I never! There's no getting round it, you can work when you're a +mind to, Tom." And then she diluted the compliment by adding, "But it's +powerful seldom you're a mind to, I'm bound to say. Well, go 'long and +play; but mind you get back some time in a week, or I'll tan you." + +She was so overcome by the splendor of his achievement that she took +him into the closet and selected a choice apple and delivered it to him, +along with an improving lecture upon the added value and flavor a treat +took to itself when it came without sin through virtuous effort. +And while she closed with a happy Scriptural flourish, he "hooked" a +doughnut. + +Then he skipped out, and saw Sid just starting up the outside stairway +that led to the back rooms on the second floor. Clods were handy and +the air was full of them in a twinkling. They raged around Sid like a +hail-storm; and before Aunt Polly could collect her surprised faculties +and sally to the rescue, six or seven clods had taken personal effect, +and Tom was over the fence and gone. There was a gate, but as a general +thing he was too crowded for time to make use of it. His soul was at +peace, now that he had settled with Sid for calling attention to his +black thread and getting him into trouble. + +Tom skirted the block, and came round into a muddy alley that led by the +back of his aunt's cow-stable. He presently got safely beyond the reach +of capture and punishment, and hastened toward the public square of the +village, where two "military" companies of boys had met for conflict, +according to previous appointment. Tom was General of one of these +armies, Joe Harper (a bosom friend) General of the other. These two +great commanders did not condescend to fight in person--that being better +suited to the still smaller fry--but sat together on an eminence +and conducted the field operations by orders delivered through +aides-de-camp. Tom's army won a great victory, after a long and +hard-fought battle. Then the dead were counted, prisoners exchanged, +the terms of the next disagreement agreed upon, and the day for the +necessary battle appointed; after which the armies fell into line and +marched away, and Tom turned homeward alone. + +As he was passing by the house where Jeff Thatcher lived, he saw a new +girl in the garden--a lovely little blue-eyed creature with yellow +hair plaited into two long-tails, white summer frock and embroidered +pan-talettes. The fresh-crowned hero fell without firing a shot. A +certain Amy Lawrence vanished out of his heart and left not even a +memory of herself behind. He had thought he loved her to distraction; +he had regarded his passion as adoration; and behold it was only a poor +little evanescent partiality. He had been months winning her; she had +confessed hardly a week ago; he had been the happiest and the proudest +boy in the world only seven short days, and here in one instant of time +she had gone out of his heart like a casual stranger whose visit is +done. + +He worshipped this new angel with furtive eye, till he saw that she had +discovered him; then he pretended he did not know she was present, and +began to "show off" in all sorts of absurd boyish ways, in order to win +her admiration. He kept up this grotesque foolishness for some time; +but by-and-by, while he was in the midst of some dangerous gymnastic +performances, he glanced aside and saw that the little girl was wending +her way toward the house. Tom came up to the fence and leaned on it, +grieving, and hoping she would tarry yet awhile longer. She halted a +moment on the steps and then moved toward the door. Tom heaved a great +sigh as she put her foot on the threshold. But his face lit up, +right away, for she tossed a pansy over the fence a moment before she +disappeared. + +The boy ran around and stopped within a foot or two of the flower, and +then shaded his eyes with his hand and began to look down street as +if he had discovered something of interest going on in that direction. +Presently he picked up a straw and began trying to balance it on his +nose, with his head tilted far back; and as he moved from side to side, +in his efforts, he edged nearer and nearer toward the pansy; finally his +bare foot rested upon it, his pliant toes closed upon it, and he hopped +away with the treasure and disappeared round the corner. But only for a +minute--only while he could button the flower inside his jacket, next +his heart--or next his stomach, possibly, for he was not much posted in +anatomy, and not hypercritical, anyway. + +He returned, now, and hung about the fence till nightfall, "showing +off," as before; but the girl never exhibited herself again, though Tom +comforted himself a little with the hope that she had been near some +window, meantime, and been aware of his attentions. Finally he strode +home reluctantly, with his poor head full of visions. + +All through supper his spirits were so high that his aunt wondered "what +had got into the child." He took a good scolding about clodding Sid, and +did not seem to mind it in the least. He tried to steal sugar under his +aunt's very nose, and got his knuckles rapped for it. He said: + +"Aunt, you don't whack Sid when he takes it." + +"Well, Sid don't torment a body the way you do. You'd be always into +that sugar if I warn't watching you." + +Presently she stepped into the kitchen, and Sid, happy in his immunity, +reached for the sugar-bowl--a sort of glorying over Tom which was +wellnigh unbearable. But Sid's fingers slipped and the bowl dropped and +broke. Tom was in ecstasies. In such ecstasies that he even controlled +his tongue and was silent. He said to himself that he would not speak a +word, even when his aunt came in, but would sit perfectly still till she +asked who did the mischief; and then he would tell, and there would be +nothing so good in the world as to see that pet model "catch it." He was +so brimful of exultation that he could hardly hold himself when the old +lady came back and stood above the wreck discharging lightnings of wrath +from over her spectacles. He said to himself, "Now it's coming!" And the +next instant he was sprawling on the floor! The potent palm was uplifted +to strike again when Tom cried out: + +"Hold on, now, what 'er you belting _me_ for?--Sid broke it!" + +Aunt Polly paused, perplexed, and Tom looked for healing pity. But when +she got her tongue again, she only said: + +"Umf! Well, you didn't get a lick amiss, I reckon. You been into some +other audacious mischief when I wasn't around, like enough." + +Then her conscience reproached her, and she yearned to say something +kind and loving; but she judged that this would be construed into a +confession that she had been in the wrong, and discipline forbade that. +So she kept silence, and went about her affairs with a troubled heart. +Tom sulked in a corner and exalted his woes. He knew that in her heart +his aunt was on her knees to him, and he was morosely gratified by the +consciousness of it. He would hang out no signals, he would take notice +of none. He knew that a yearning glance fell upon him, now and then, +through a film of tears, but he refused recognition of it. He pictured +himself lying sick unto death and his aunt bending over him beseeching +one little forgiving word, but he would turn his face to the wall, and +die with that word unsaid. Ah, how would she feel then? And he pictured +himself brought home from the river, dead, with his curls all wet, and +his sore heart at rest. How she would throw herself upon him, and how +her tears would fall like rain, and her lips pray God to give her back +her boy and she would never, never abuse him any more! But he would +lie there cold and white and make no sign--a poor little sufferer, whose +griefs were at an end. He so worked upon his feelings with the pathos of +these dreams, that he had to keep swallowing, he was so like to choke; +and his eyes swam in a blur of water, which overflowed when he winked, +and ran down and trickled from the end of his nose. And such a luxury to +him was this petting of his sorrows, that he could not bear to have any +worldly cheeriness or any grating delight intrude upon it; it was too +sacred for such contact; and so, presently, when his cousin Mary danced +in, all alive with the joy of seeing home again after an age-long visit +of one week to the country, he got up and moved in clouds and darkness +out at one door as she brought song and sunshine in at the other. + +He wandered far from the accustomed haunts of boys, and sought desolate +places that were in harmony with his spirit. A log raft in the river +invited him, and he seated himself on its outer edge and contemplated +the dreary vastness of the stream, wishing, the while, that he could +only be drowned, all at once and unconsciously, without undergoing the +uncomfortable routine devised by nature. Then he thought of his flower. +He got it out, rumpled and wilted, and it mightily increased his dismal +felicity. He wondered if she would pity him if she knew? Would she +cry, and wish that she had a right to put her arms around his neck and +comfort him? Or would she turn coldly away like all the hollow world? +This picture brought such an agony of pleasurable suffering that he +worked it over and over again in his mind and set it up in new and +varied lights, till he wore it threadbare. At last he rose up sighing +and departed in the darkness. + +About half-past nine or ten o'clock he came along the deserted street to +where the Adored Unknown lived; he paused a moment; no sound fell upon +his listening ear; a candle was casting a dull glow upon the curtain +of a second-story window. Was the sacred presence there? He climbed the +fence, threaded his stealthy way through the plants, till he stood under +that window; he looked up at it long, and with emotion; then he laid him +down on the ground under it, disposing himself upon his back, with his +hands clasped upon his breast and holding his poor wilted flower. +And thus he would die--out in the cold world, with no shelter over his +homeless head, no friendly hand to wipe the death-damps from his brow, +no loving face to bend pityingly over him when the great agony came. And +thus _she_ would see him when she looked out upon the glad morning, and +oh! would she drop one little tear upon his poor, lifeless form, would +she heave one little sigh to see a bright young life so rudely blighted, +so untimely cut down? + +The window went up, a maid-servant's discordant voice profaned the holy +calm, and a deluge of water drenched the prone martyr's remains! + +The strangling hero sprang up with a relieving snort. There was a whiz +as of a missile in the air, mingled with the murmur of a curse, a sound +as of shivering glass followed, and a small, vague form went over the +fence and shot away in the gloom. + +Not long after, as Tom, all undressed for bed, was surveying his +drenched garments by the light of a tallow dip, Sid woke up; but if he +had any dim idea of making any "references to allusions," he thought +better of it and held his peace, for there was danger in Tom's eye. + +Tom turned in without the added vexation of prayers, and Sid made mental +note of the omission. + + + + +CHAPTER IV + +THE sun rose upon a tranquil world, and beamed down upon the peaceful +village like a benediction. Breakfast over, Aunt Polly had family +worship: it began with a prayer built from the ground up of solid +courses of Scriptural quotations, welded together with a thin mortar of +originality; and from the summit of this she delivered a grim chapter of +the Mosaic Law, as from Sinai. + +Then Tom girded up his loins, so to speak, and went to work to "get +his verses." Sid had learned his lesson days before. Tom bent all his +energies to the memorizing of five verses, and he chose part of the +Sermon on the Mount, because he could find no verses that were shorter. +At the end of half an hour Tom had a vague general idea of his lesson, +but no more, for his mind was traversing the whole field of human +thought, and his hands were busy with distracting recreations. Mary took +his book to hear him recite, and he tried to find his way through the +fog: + +"Blessed are the--a--a--" + +"Poor"-- + +"Yes--poor; blessed are the poor--a--a--" + +"In spirit--" + +"In spirit; blessed are the poor in spirit, for they--they--" + +"_Theirs_--" + +"For _theirs_. Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom +of heaven. Blessed are they that mourn, for they--they--" + +"Sh--" + +"For they--a--" + +"S, H, A--" + +"For they S, H--Oh, I don't know what it is!" + +"_Shall_!" + +"Oh, _shall_! for they shall--for they shall--a--a--shall mourn--a--a--blessed +are they that shall--they that--a--they that shall mourn, for they +shall--a--shall _what_? Why don't you tell me, Mary?--what do you want to +be so mean for?" + +"Oh, Tom, you poor thick-headed thing, I'm not teasing you. I wouldn't +do that. You must go and learn it again. Don't you be discouraged, Tom, +you'll manage it--and if you do, I'll give you something ever so nice. +There, now, that's a good boy." + +"All right! What is it, Mary, tell me what it is." + +"Never you mind, Tom. You know if I say it's nice, it is nice." + +"You bet you that's so, Mary. All right, I'll tackle it again." + +And he did "tackle it again"--and under the double pressure of curiosity +and prospective gain he did it with such spirit that he accomplished a +shining success. Mary gave him a brand-new "Barlow" knife worth twelve +and a half cents; and the convulsion of delight that swept his system +shook him to his foundations. True, the knife would not cut anything, +but it was a "sure-enough" Barlow, and there was inconceivable grandeur +in that--though where the Western boys ever got the idea that such a +weapon could possibly be counterfeited to its injury is an imposing +mystery and will always remain so, perhaps. Tom contrived to scarify the +cupboard with it, and was arranging to begin on the bureau, when he was +called off to dress for Sunday-school. + +Mary gave him a tin basin of water and a piece of soap, and he went +outside the door and set the basin on a little bench there; then he +dipped the soap in the water and laid it down; turned up his sleeves; +poured out the water on the ground, gently, and then entered the kitchen +and began to wipe his face diligently on the towel behind the door. But +Mary removed the towel and said: + +"Now ain't you ashamed, Tom. You mustn't be so bad. Water won't hurt +you." + +Tom was a trifle disconcerted. The basin was refilled, and this time he +stood over it a little while, gathering resolution; took in a big breath +and began. When he entered the kitchen presently, with both eyes shut +and groping for the towel with his hands, an honorable testimony of +suds and water was dripping from his face. But when he emerged from +the towel, he was not yet satisfactory, for the clean territory stopped +short at his chin and his jaws, like a mask; below and beyond this line +there was a dark expanse of unirrigated soil that spread downward in +front and backward around his neck. Mary took him in hand, and when she +was done with him he was a man and a brother, without distinction of +color, and his saturated hair was neatly brushed, and its short curls +wrought into a dainty and symmetrical general effect. [He privately +smoothed out the curls, with labor and difficulty, and plastered his +hair close down to his head; for he held curls to be effeminate, and his +own filled his life with bitterness.] Then Mary got out a suit of his +clothing that had been used only on Sundays during two years--they were +simply called his "other clothes"--and so by that we know the size of his +wardrobe. The girl "put him to rights" after he had dressed himself; +she buttoned his neat roundabout up to his chin, turned his vast shirt +collar down over his shoulders, brushed him off and crowned him with +his speckled straw hat. He now looked exceedingly improved and +uncomfortable. He was fully as uncomfortable as he looked; for there +was a restraint about whole clothes and cleanliness that galled him. He +hoped that Mary would forget his shoes, but the hope was blighted; she +coated them thoroughly with tallow, as was the custom, and brought +them out. He lost his temper and said he was always being made to do +everything he didn't want to do. But Mary said, persuasively: + +"Please, Tom--that's a good boy." + +So he got into the shoes snarling. Mary was soon ready, and the three +children set out for Sunday-school--a place that Tom hated with his whole +heart; but Sid and Mary were fond of it. + +Sabbath-school hours were from nine to half-past ten; and then church +service. Two of the children always remained for the sermon voluntarily, +and the other always remained too--for stronger reasons. The church's +high-backed, uncushioned pews would seat about three hundred persons; +the edifice was but a small, plain affair, with a sort of pine board +tree-box on top of it for a steeple. At the door Tom dropped back a step +and accosted a Sunday-dressed comrade: + +"Say, Billy, got a yaller ticket?" + +"Yes." + +"What'll you take for her?" + +"What'll you give?" + +"Piece of lickrish and a fish-hook." + +"Less see 'em." + +Tom exhibited. They were satisfactory, and the property changed hands. +Then Tom traded a couple of white alleys for three red tickets, and some +small trifle or other for a couple of blue ones. He waylaid other +boys as they came, and went on buying tickets of various colors ten +or fifteen minutes longer. He entered the church, now, with a swarm +of clean and noisy boys and girls, proceeded to his seat and started +a quarrel with the first boy that came handy. The teacher, a grave, +elderly man, interfered; then turned his back a moment and Tom pulled a +boy's hair in the next bench, and was absorbed in his book when the boy +turned around; stuck a pin in another boy, presently, in order to hear +him say "Ouch!" and got a new reprimand from his teacher. Tom's whole +class were of a pattern--restless, noisy, and troublesome. When they came +to recite their lessons, not one of them knew his verses perfectly, but +had to be prompted all along. However, they worried through, and each +got his reward--in small blue tickets, each with a passage of Scripture +on it; each blue ticket was pay for two verses of the recitation. Ten +blue tickets equalled a red one, and could be exchanged for it; ten red +tickets equalled a yellow one; for ten yellow tickets the superintendent +gave a very plainly bound Bible (worth forty cents in those easy +times) to the pupil. How many of my readers would have the industry and +application to memorize two thousand verses, even for a Dore Bible? And +yet Mary had acquired two Bibles in this way--it was the patient work of +two years--and a boy of German parentage had won four or five. He once +recited three thousand verses without stopping; but the strain upon his +mental faculties was too great, and he was little better than an idiot +from that day forth--a grievous misfortune for the school, for on great +occasions, before company, the superintendent (as Tom expressed it) +had always made this boy come out and "spread himself." Only the older +pupils managed to keep their tickets and stick to their tedious work +long enough to get a Bible, and so the delivery of one of these prizes +was a rare and noteworthy circumstance; the successful pupil was so +great and conspicuous for that day that on the spot every scholar's +heart was fired with a fresh ambition that often lasted a couple +of weeks. It is possible that Tom's mental stomach had never really +hungered for one of those prizes, but unquestionably his entire being +had for many a day longed for the glory and the eclat that came with it. + +In due course the superintendent stood up in front of the pulpit, with +a closed hymn-book in his hand and his forefinger inserted between its +leaves, and commanded attention. When a Sunday-school superintendent +makes his customary little speech, a hymn-book in the hand is as +necessary as is the inevitable sheet of music in the hand of a singer +who stands forward on the platform and sings a solo at a concert--though +why, is a mystery: for neither the hymn-book nor the sheet of music +is ever referred to by the sufferer. This superintendent was a slim +creature of thirty-five, with a sandy goatee and short sandy hair; he +wore a stiff standing-collar whose upper edge almost reached his ears +and whose sharp points curved forward abreast the corners of his mouth--a +fence that compelled a straight lookout ahead, and a turning of the +whole body when a side view was required; his chin was propped on a +spreading cravat which was as broad and as long as a bank-note, and had +fringed ends; his boot toes were turned sharply up, in the fashion +of the day, like sleigh-runners--an effect patiently and laboriously +produced by the young men by sitting with their toes pressed against a +wall for hours together. Mr. Walters was very earnest of mien, and very +sincere and honest at heart; and he held sacred things and places +in such reverence, and so separated them from worldly matters, that +unconsciously to himself his Sunday-school voice had acquired a peculiar +intonation which was wholly absent on week-days. He began after this +fashion: + +"Now, children, I want you all to sit up just as straight and pretty as +you can and give me all your attention for a minute or two. There--that +is it. That is the way good little boys and girls should do. I see one +little girl who is looking out of the window--I am afraid she thinks I +am out there somewhere--perhaps up in one of the trees making a speech +to the little birds. [Applausive titter.] I want to tell you how good it +makes me feel to see so many bright, clean little faces assembled in a +place like this, learning to do right and be good." And so forth and so +on. It is not necessary to set down the rest of the oration. It was of a +pattern which does not vary, and so it is familiar to us all. + +The latter third of the speech was marred by the resumption of fights +and other recreations among certain of the bad boys, and by fidgetings +and whisperings that extended far and wide, washing even to the bases of +isolated and incorruptible rocks like Sid and Mary. But now every sound +ceased suddenly, with the subsidence of Mr. Walters' voice, and the +conclusion of the speech was received with a burst of silent gratitude. + +A good part of the whispering had been occasioned by an event which was +more or less rare--the entrance of visitors: lawyer Thatcher, accompanied +by a very feeble and aged man; a fine, portly, middle-aged gentleman +with iron-gray hair; and a dignified lady who was doubtless the latter's +wife. The lady was leading a child. Tom had been restless and full of +chafings and repinings; conscience-smitten, too--he could not meet Amy +Lawrence's eye, he could not brook her loving gaze. But when he saw this +small newcomer his soul was all ablaze with bliss in a moment. The next +moment he was "showing off" with all his might--cuffing boys, pulling +hair, making faces--in a word, using every art that seemed likely to +fascinate a girl and win her applause. His exaltation had but one +alloy--the memory of his humiliation in this angel's garden--and that +record in sand was fast washing out, under the waves of happiness that +were sweeping over it now. + +The visitors were given the highest seat of honor, and as soon as Mr. +Walters' speech was finished, he introduced them to the school. The +middle-aged man turned out to be a prodigious personage--no less a one +than the county judge--altogether the most august creation these children +had ever looked upon--and they wondered what kind of material he was made +of--and they half wanted to hear him roar, and were half afraid he might, +too. He was from Constantinople, twelve miles away--so he had travelled, +and seen the world--these very eyes had looked upon the county +court-house--which was said to have a tin roof. The awe which these +reflections inspired was attested by the impressive silence and the +ranks of staring eyes. This was the great Judge Thatcher, brother of +their own lawyer. Jeff Thatcher immediately went forward, to be familiar +with the great man and be envied by the school. It would have been music +to his soul to hear the whisperings: + +"Look at him, Jim! He's a going up there. Say--look! he's a going to +shake hands with him--he _is_ shaking hands with him! By jings, don't you +wish you was Jeff?" + +Mr. Walters fell to "showing off," with all sorts of official bustlings +and activities, giving orders, delivering judgments, discharging +directions here, there, everywhere that he could find a target. The +librarian "showed off"--running hither and thither with his arms full of +books and making a deal of the splutter and fuss that insect authority +delights in. The young lady teachers "showed off"--bending sweetly over +pupils that were lately being boxed, lifting pretty warning fingers +at bad little boys and patting good ones lovingly. The young gentlemen +teachers "showed off" with small scoldings and other little displays of +authority and fine attention to discipline--and most of the teachers, of +both sexes, found business up at the library, by the pulpit; and it was +business that frequently had to be done over again two or three times +(with much seeming vexation). The little girls "showed off" in various +ways, and the little boys "showed off" with such diligence that the air +was thick with paper wads and the murmur of scufflings. And above it +all the great man sat and beamed a majestic judicial smile upon all +the house, and warmed himself in the sun of his own grandeur--for he was +"showing off," too. + +There was only one thing wanting to make Mr. Walters' ecstasy complete, +and that was a chance to deliver a Bible-prize and exhibit a prodigy. +Several pupils had a few yellow tickets, but none had enough--he had been +around among the star pupils inquiring. He would have given worlds, now, +to have that German lad back again with a sound mind. + +And now at this moment, when hope was dead, Tom Sawyer came forward with +nine yellow tickets, nine red tickets, and ten blue ones, and demanded +a Bible. This was a thunderbolt out of a clear sky. Walters was not +expecting an application from this source for the next ten years. But +there was no getting around it--here were the certified checks, and they +were good for their face. Tom was therefore elevated to a place with +the Judge and the other elect, and the great news was announced from +headquarters. It was the most stunning surprise of the decade, and +so profound was the sensation that it lifted the new hero up to the +judicial one's altitude, and the school had two marvels to gaze upon +in place of one. The boys were all eaten up with envy--but those that +suffered the bitterest pangs were those who perceived too late that they +themselves had contributed to this hated splendor by trading tickets to +Tom for the wealth he had amassed in selling whitewashing privileges. +These despised themselves, as being the dupes of a wily fraud, a +guileful snake in the grass. + +The prize was delivered to Tom with as much effusion as the +superintendent could pump up under the circumstances; but it lacked +somewhat of the true gush, for the poor fellow's instinct taught him +that there was a mystery here that could not well bear the light, +perhaps; it was simply preposterous that this boy had warehoused two +thousand sheaves of Scriptural wisdom on his premises--a dozen would +strain his capacity, without a doubt. + +Amy Lawrence was proud and glad, and she tried to make Tom see it in +her face--but he wouldn't look. She wondered; then she was just a grain +troubled; next a dim suspicion came and went--came again; she watched; +a furtive glance told her worlds--and then her heart broke, and she was +jealous, and angry, and the tears came and she hated everybody. Tom most +of all (she thought). + +Tom was introduced to the Judge; but his tongue was tied, his breath +would hardly come, his heart quaked--partly because of the awful +greatness of the man, but mainly because he was her parent. He would +have liked to fall down and worship him, if it were in the dark. The +Judge put his hand on Tom's head and called him a fine little man, and +asked him what his name was. The boy stammered, gasped, and got it out: + +"Tom." + +"Oh, no, not Tom--it is--" + +"Thomas." + +"Ah, that's it. I thought there was more to it, maybe. That's very well. +But you've another one I daresay, and you'll tell it to me, won't you?" + +"Tell the gentleman your other name, Thomas," said Walters, "and say +sir. You mustn't forget your manners." + +"Thomas Sawyer--sir." + +"That's it! That's a good boy. Fine boy. Fine, manly little fellow. Two +thousand verses is a great many--very, very great many. And you never can +be sorry for the trouble you took to learn them; for knowledge is worth +more than anything there is in the world; it's what makes great men +and good men; you'll be a great man and a good man yourself, some +day, Thomas, and then you'll look back and say, It's all owing to the +precious Sunday-school privileges of my boyhood--it's all owing to +my dear teachers that taught me to learn--it's all owing to the good +superintendent, who encouraged me, and watched over me, and gave me a +beautiful Bible--a splendid elegant Bible--to keep and have it all for my +own, always--it's all owing to right bringing up! That is what you will +say, Thomas--and you wouldn't take any money for those two thousand +verses--no indeed you wouldn't. And now you wouldn't mind telling me and +this lady some of the things you've learned--no, I know you wouldn't--for +we are proud of little boys that learn. Now, no doubt you know the names +of all the twelve disciples. Won't you tell us the names of the first +two that were appointed?" + +Tom was tugging at a button-hole and looking sheepish. He blushed, +now, and his eyes fell. Mr. Walters' heart sank within him. He said +to himself, it is not possible that the boy can answer the simplest +question--why _did_ the Judge ask him? Yet he felt obliged to speak up +and say: + +"Answer the gentleman, Thomas--don't be afraid." + +Tom still hung fire. + +"Now I know you'll tell me," said the lady. "The names of the first two +disciples were--" + +"_David And Goliah!_" + +Let us draw the curtain of charity over the rest of the scene. + + + + +CHAPTER V + +ABOUT half-past ten the cracked bell of the small church began to ring, +and presently the people began to gather for the morning sermon. The +Sunday-school children distributed themselves about the house and +occupied pews with their parents, so as to be under supervision. Aunt +Polly came, and Tom and Sid and Mary sat with her--Tom being placed next +the aisle, in order that he might be as far away from the open window +and the seductive outside summer scenes as possible. The crowd filed up +the aisles: the aged and needy postmaster, who had seen better days; +the mayor and his wife--for they had a mayor there, among other +unnecessaries; the justice of the peace; the widow Douglass, fair, +smart, and forty, a generous, good-hearted soul and well-to-do, her hill +mansion the only palace in the town, and the most hospitable and much +the most lavish in the matter of festivities that St. Petersburg could +boast; the bent and venerable Major and Mrs. Ward; lawyer Riverson, the +new notable from a distance; next the belle of the village, followed by +a troop of lawn-clad and ribbon-decked young heart-breakers; then all +the young clerks in town in a body--for they had stood in the vestibule +sucking their cane-heads, a circling wall of oiled and simpering +admirers, till the last girl had run their gantlet; and last of all came +the Model Boy, Willie Mufferson, taking as heedful care of his mother as +if she were cut glass. He always brought his mother to church, and was +the pride of all the matrons. The boys all hated him, he was so +good. And besides, he had been "thrown up to them" so much. His +white handkerchief was hanging out of his pocket behind, as usual on +Sundays--accidentally. Tom had no handkerchief, and he looked upon boys +who had as snobs. + +The congregation being fully assembled, now, the bell rang once more, +to warn laggards and stragglers, and then a solemn hush fell upon the +church which was only broken by the tittering and whispering of the +choir in the gallery. The choir always tittered and whispered all +through service. There was once a church choir that was not ill-bred, +but I have forgotten where it was, now. It was a great many years ago, +and I can scarcely remember anything about it, but I think it was in +some foreign country. + +The minister gave out the hymn, and read it through with a relish, in a +peculiar style which was much admired in that part of the country. His +voice began on a medium key and climbed steadily up till it reached a +certain point, where it bore with strong emphasis upon the topmost word +and then plunged down as if from a spring-board: + +Shall I be car-ri-ed toe the skies, on flow'ry _beds_ of ease, + +Whilst others fight to win the prize, and sail thro' _blood_-y seas? + +He was regarded as a wonderful reader. At church "sociables" he was +always called upon to read poetry; and when he was through, the ladies +would lift up their hands and let them fall helplessly in their laps, +and "wall" their eyes, and shake their heads, as much as to say, "Words +cannot express it; it is too beautiful, TOO beautiful for this mortal +earth." + +After the hymn had been sung, the Rev. Mr. Sprague turned himself into +a bulletin-board, and read off "notices" of meetings and societies and +things till it seemed that the list would stretch out to the crack of +doom--a queer custom which is still kept up in America, even in cities, +away here in this age of abundant newspapers. Often, the less there is +to justify a traditional custom, the harder it is to get rid of it. + +And now the minister prayed. A good, generous prayer it was, and went +into details: it pleaded for the church, and the little children of the +church; for the other churches of the village; for the village itself; +for the county; for the State; for the State officers; for the United +States; for the churches of the United States; for Congress; for the +President; for the officers of the Government; for poor sailors, tossed +by stormy seas; for the oppressed millions groaning under the heel of +European monarchies and Oriental despotisms; for such as have the light +and the good tidings, and yet have not eyes to see nor ears to hear +withal; for the heathen in the far islands of the sea; and closed with +a supplication that the words he was about to speak might find grace +and favor, and be as seed sown in fertile ground, yielding in time a +grateful harvest of good. Amen. + +There was a rustling of dresses, and the standing congregation sat down. +The boy whose history this book relates did not enjoy the prayer, he +only endured it--if he even did that much. He was restive all through it; +he kept tally of the details of the prayer, unconsciously--for he was not +listening, but he knew the ground of old, and the clergyman's regular +route over it--and when a little trifle of new matter was interlarded, +his ear detected it and his whole nature resented it; he considered +additions unfair, and scoundrelly. In the midst of the prayer a fly had +lit on the back of the pew in front of him and tortured his spirit by +calmly rubbing its hands together, embracing its head with its arms, and +polishing it so vigorously that it seemed to almost part company with +the body, and the slender thread of a neck was exposed to view; scraping +its wings with its hind legs and smoothing them to its body as if they +had been coat-tails; going through its whole toilet as tranquilly as if +it knew it was perfectly safe. As indeed it was; for as sorely as Tom's +hands itched to grab for it they did not dare--he believed his soul would +be instantly destroyed if he did such a thing while the prayer was going +on. But with the closing sentence his hand began to curve and steal +forward; and the instant the "Amen" was out the fly was a prisoner of +war. His aunt detected the act and made him let it go. + +The minister gave out his text and droned along monotonously through an +argument that was so prosy that many a head by and by began to nod--and +yet it was an argument that dealt in limitless fire and brimstone and +thinned the predestined elect down to a company so small as to be hardly +worth the saving. Tom counted the pages of the sermon; after church he +always knew how many pages there had been, but he seldom knew anything +else about the discourse. However, this time he was really interested +for a little while. The minister made a grand and moving picture of the +assembling together of the world's hosts at the millennium when the lion +and the lamb should lie down together and a little child should lead +them. But the pathos, the lesson, the moral of the great spectacle +were lost upon the boy; he only thought of the conspicuousness of the +principal character before the on-looking nations; his face lit with the +thought, and he said to himself that he wished he could be that child, +if it was a tame lion. + +Now he lapsed into suffering again, as the dry argument was resumed. +Presently he bethought him of a treasure he had and got it out. It was +a large black beetle with formidable jaws--a "pinchbug," he called it. It +was in a percussion-cap box. The first thing the beetle did was to +take him by the finger. A natural fillip followed, the beetle went +floundering into the aisle and lit on its back, and the hurt finger went +into the boy's mouth. The beetle lay there working its helpless legs, +unable to turn over. Tom eyed it, and longed for it; but it was safe out +of his reach. Other people uninterested in the sermon found relief in +the beetle, and they eyed it too. Presently a vagrant poodle dog came +idling along, sad at heart, lazy with the summer softness and the +quiet, weary of captivity, sighing for change. He spied the beetle; the +drooping tail lifted and wagged. He surveyed the prize; walked around +it; smelt at it from a safe distance; walked around it again; grew +bolder, and took a closer smell; then lifted his lip and made a gingerly +snatch at it, just missing it; made another, and another; began to enjoy +the diversion; subsided to his stomach with the beetle between his paws, +and continued his experiments; grew weary at last, and then indifferent +and absent-minded. His head nodded, and little by little his chin +descended and touched the enemy, who seized it. There was a sharp yelp, +a flirt of the poodle's head, and the beetle fell a couple of yards +away, and lit on its back once more. The neighboring spectators +shook with a gentle inward joy, several faces went behind fans and +hand-kerchiefs, and Tom was entirely happy. The dog looked foolish, +and probably felt so; but there was resentment in his heart, too, and a +craving for revenge. So he went to the beetle and began a wary attack on +it again; jumping at it from every point of a circle, lighting with his +fore-paws within an inch of the creature, making even closer snatches at +it with his teeth, and jerking his head till his ears flapped again. But +he grew tired once more, after a while; tried to amuse himself with a +fly but found no relief; followed an ant around, with his nose close +to the floor, and quickly wearied of that; yawned, sighed, forgot the +beetle entirely, and sat down on it. Then there was a wild yelp of agony +and the poodle went sailing up the aisle; the yelps continued, and so +did the dog; he crossed the house in front of the altar; he flew +down the other aisle; he crossed before the doors; he clamored up the +home-stretch; his anguish grew with his progress, till presently he was +but a woolly comet moving in its orbit with the gleam and the speed of +light. At last the frantic sufferer sheered from its course, and sprang +into its master's lap; he flung it out of the window, and the voice of +distress quickly thinned away and died in the distance. + +By this time the whole church was red-faced and suffocating with +suppressed laughter, and the sermon had come to a dead standstill. +The discourse was resumed presently, but it went lame and halting, all +possibility of impressiveness being at an end; for even the gravest +sentiments were constantly being received with a smothered burst of +unholy mirth, under cover of some remote pew-back, as if the poor parson +had said a rarely facetious thing. It was a genuine relief to the whole +congregation when the ordeal was over and the benediction pronounced. + +Tom Sawyer went home quite cheerful, thinking to himself that there was +some satisfaction about divine service when there was a bit of variety +in it. He had but one marring thought; he was willing that the dog +should play with his pinchbug, but he did not think it was upright in +him to carry it off. + + + + +CHAPTER VI + +MONDAY morning found Tom Sawyer miserable. Monday morning always found +him so--because it began another week's slow suffering in school. He +generally began that day with wishing he had had no intervening holiday, +it made the going into captivity and fetters again so much more odious. + +Tom lay thinking. Presently it occurred to him that he wished he was +sick; then he could stay home from school. Here was a vague possibility. +He canvassed his system. No ailment was found, and he investigated +again. This time he thought he could detect colicky symptoms, and he +began to encourage them with considerable hope. But they soon grew +feeble, and presently died wholly away. He reflected further. Suddenly +he discovered something. One of his upper front teeth was loose. This +was lucky; he was about to begin to groan, as a "starter," as he +called it, when it occurred to him that if he came into court with that +argument, his aunt would pull it out, and that would hurt. So he thought +he would hold the tooth in reserve for the present, and seek further. +Nothing offered for some little time, and then he remembered hearing +the doctor tell about a certain thing that laid up a patient for two or +three weeks and threatened to make him lose a finger. So the boy eagerly +drew his sore toe from under the sheet and held it up for inspection. +But now he did not know the necessary symptoms. However, it seemed +well worth while to chance it, so he fell to groaning with considerable +spirit. + +But Sid slept on unconscious. + +Tom groaned louder, and fancied that he began to feel pain in the toe. + +No result from Sid. + +Tom was panting with his exertions by this time. He took a rest and then +swelled himself up and fetched a succession of admirable groans. + +Sid snored on. + +Tom was aggravated. He said, "Sid, Sid!" and shook him. This course +worked well, and Tom began to groan again. Sid yawned, stretched, then +brought himself up on his elbow with a snort, and began to stare at Tom. +Tom went on groaning. Sid said: + +"Tom! Say, Tom!" [No response.] "Here, Tom! TOM! What is the matter, +Tom?" And he shook him and looked in his face anxiously. + +Tom moaned out: + +"Oh, don't, Sid. Don't joggle me." + +"Why, what's the matter, Tom? I must call auntie." + +"No--never mind. It'll be over by and by, maybe. Don't call anybody." + +"But I must! _Don't_ groan so, Tom, it's awful. How long you been this +way?" + +"Hours. Ouch! Oh, don't stir so, Sid, you'll kill me." + +"Tom, why didn't you wake me sooner? Oh, Tom, _don't!_ It makes my flesh +crawl to hear you. Tom, what is the matter?" + +"I forgive you everything, Sid. [Groan.] Everything you've ever done to +me. When I'm gone--" + +"Oh, Tom, you ain't dying, are you? Don't, Tom--oh, don't. Maybe--" + +"I forgive everybody, Sid. [Groan.] Tell 'em so, Sid. And Sid, you give +my window-sash and my cat with one eye to that new girl that's come to +town, and tell her--" + +But Sid had snatched his clothes and gone. Tom was suffering in reality, +now, so handsomely was his imagination working, and so his groans had +gathered quite a genuine tone. + +Sid flew downstairs and said: + +"Oh, Aunt Polly, come! Tom's dying!" + +"Dying!" + +"Yes'm. Don't wait--come quick!" + +"Rubbage! I don't believe it!" + +But she fled upstairs, nevertheless, with Sid and Mary at her heels. +And her face grew white, too, and her lip trembled. When she reached the +bedside she gasped out: + +"You, Tom! Tom, what's the matter with you?" + +"Oh, auntie, I'm--" + +"What's the matter with you--what is the matter with you, child?" + +"Oh, auntie, my sore toe's mortified!" + +The old lady sank down into a chair and laughed a little, then cried a +little, then did both together. This restored her and she said: + +"Tom, what a turn you did give me. Now you shut up that nonsense and +climb out of this." + +The groans ceased and the pain vanished from the toe. The boy felt a +little foolish, and he said: + +"Aunt Polly, it _seemed_ mortified, and it hurt so I never minded my +tooth at all." + +"Your tooth, indeed! What's the matter with your tooth?" + +"One of them's loose, and it aches perfectly awful." + +"There, there, now, don't begin that groaning again. Open your mouth. +Well--your tooth _is_ loose, but you're not going to die about that. +Mary, get me a silk thread, and a chunk of fire out of the kitchen." + +Tom said: + +"Oh, please, auntie, don't pull it out. It don't hurt any more. I wish +I may never stir if it does. Please don't, auntie. I don't want to stay +home from school." + +"Oh, you don't, don't you? So all this row was because you thought you'd +get to stay home from school and go a-fishing? Tom, Tom, I love you so, +and you seem to try every way you can to break my old heart with your +outrageousness." By this time the dental instruments were ready. The old +lady made one end of the silk thread fast to Tom's tooth with a loop +and tied the other to the bedpost. Then she seized the chunk of fire and +suddenly thrust it almost into the boy's face. The tooth hung dangling +by the bedpost, now. + +But all trials bring their compensations. As Tom wended to school after +breakfast, he was the envy of every boy he met because the gap in his +upper row of teeth enabled him to expectorate in a new and admirable +way. He gathered quite a following of lads interested in the exhibition; +and one that had cut his finger and had been a centre of fascination and +homage up to this time, now found himself suddenly without an adherent, +and shorn of his glory. His heart was heavy, and he said with a disdain +which he did not feel that it wasn't anything to spit like Tom Sawyer; +but another boy said, "Sour grapes!" and he wandered away a dismantled +hero. + +Shortly Tom came upon the juvenile pariah of the village, Huckleberry +Finn, son of the town drunkard. Huckleberry was cordially hated and +dreaded by all the mothers of the town, because he was idle and lawless +and vulgar and bad--and because all their children admired him so, and +delighted in his forbidden society, and wished they dared to be like +him. Tom was like the rest of the respectable boys, in that he envied +Huckleberry his gaudy outcast condition, and was under strict orders +not to play with him. So he played with him every time he got a chance. +Huckleberry was always dressed in the cast-off clothes of full-grown +men, and they were in perennial bloom and fluttering with rags. His hat +was a vast ruin with a wide crescent lopped out of its brim; his coat, +when he wore one, hung nearly to his heels and had the rearward buttons +far down the back; but one suspender supported his trousers; the seat of +the trousers bagged low and contained nothing, the fringed legs dragged +in the dirt when not rolled up. + +Huckleberry came and went, at his own free will. He slept on doorsteps +in fine weather and in empty hogsheads in wet; he did not have to go to +school or to church, or call any being master or obey anybody; he could +go fishing or swimming when and where he chose, and stay as long as it +suited him; nobody forbade him to fight; he could sit up as late as he +pleased; he was always the first boy that went barefoot in the spring +and the last to resume leather in the fall; he never had to wash, nor +put on clean clothes; he could swear wonderfully. In a word, everything +that goes to make life precious that boy had. So thought every harassed, +hampered, respectable boy in St. Petersburg. + +Tom hailed the romantic outcast: + +"Hello, Huckleberry!" + +"Hello yourself, and see how you like it." + +"What's that you got?" + +"Dead cat." + +"Lemme see him, Huck. My, he's pretty stiff. Where'd you get him?" + +"Bought him off'n a boy." + +"What did you give?" + +"I give a blue ticket and a bladder that I got at the slaughter-house." + +"Where'd you get the blue ticket?" + +"Bought it off'n Ben Rogers two weeks ago for a hoop-stick." + +"Say--what is dead cats good for, Huck?" + +"Good for? Cure warts with." + +"No! Is that so? I know something that's better." + +"I bet you don't. What is it?" + +"Why, spunk-water." + +"Spunk-water! I wouldn't give a dern for spunk-water." + +"You wouldn't, wouldn't you? D'you ever try it?" + +"No, I hain't. But Bob Tanner did." + +"Who told you so!" + +"Why, he told Jeff Thatcher, and Jeff told Johnny Baker, and Johnny +told Jim Hollis, and Jim told Ben Rogers, and Ben told a nigger, and the +nigger told me. There now!" + +"Well, what of it? They'll all lie. Leastways all but the nigger. I +don't know _him_. But I never see a nigger that _wouldn't_ lie. Shucks! +Now you tell me how Bob Tanner done it, Huck." + +"Why, he took and dipped his hand in a rotten stump where the rain-water +was." + +"In the daytime?" + +"Certainly." + +"With his face to the stump?" + +"Yes. Least I reckon so." + +"Did he say anything?" + +"I don't reckon he did. I don't know." + +"Aha! Talk about trying to cure warts with spunk-water such a blame fool +way as that! Why, that ain't a-going to do any good. You got to go all +by yourself, to the middle of the woods, where you know there's a +spunk-water stump, and just as it's midnight you back up against the stump +and jam your hand in and say: + +'Barley-corn, barley-corn, injun-meal shorts, Spunk-water, spunk-water, +swaller these warts,' + +and then walk away quick, eleven steps, with your eyes shut, and then +turn around three times and walk home without speaking to anybody. +Because if you speak the charm's busted." + +"Well, that sounds like a good way; but that ain't the way Bob Tanner +done." + +"No, sir, you can bet he didn't, becuz he's the wartiest boy in this +town; and he wouldn't have a wart on him if he'd knowed how to work +spunk-water. I've took off thousands of warts off of my hands that way, +Huck. I play with frogs so much that I've always got considerable many +warts. Sometimes I take 'em off with a bean." + +"Yes, bean's good. I've done that." + +"Have you? What's your way?" + +"You take and split the bean, and cut the wart so as to get some blood, +and then you put the blood on one piece of the bean and take and dig +a hole and bury it 'bout midnight at the crossroads in the dark of the +moon, and then you burn up the rest of the bean. You see that piece +that's got the blood on it will keep drawing and drawing, trying to +fetch the other piece to it, and so that helps the blood to draw the +wart, and pretty soon off she comes." + +"Yes, that's it, Huck--that's it; though when you're burying it if you +say 'Down bean; off wart; come no more to bother me!' it's better. +That's the way Joe Harper does, and he's been nearly to Coonville and +most everywheres. But say--how do you cure 'em with dead cats?" + +"Why, you take your cat and go and get in the grave-yard 'long about +midnight when somebody that was wicked has been buried; and when it's +midnight a devil will come, or maybe two or three, but you can't see +'em, you can only hear something like the wind, or maybe hear 'em talk; +and when they're taking that feller away, you heave your cat after 'em +and say, 'Devil follow corpse, cat follow devil, warts follow cat, I'm +done with ye!' That'll fetch _any_ wart." + +"Sounds right. D'you ever try it, Huck?" + +"No, but old Mother Hopkins told me." + +"Well, I reckon it's so, then. Becuz they say she's a witch." + +"Say! Why, Tom, I _know_ she is. She witched pap. Pap says so his own +self. He come along one day, and he see she was a-witching him, so he +took up a rock, and if she hadn't dodged, he'd a got her. Well, that +very night he rolled off'n a shed wher' he was a layin drunk, and broke +his arm." + +"Why, that's awful. How did he know she was a-witching him?" + +"Lord, pap can tell, easy. Pap says when they keep looking at you right +stiddy, they're a-witching you. Specially if they mumble. Becuz when +they mumble they're saying the Lord's Prayer backards." + +"Say, Hucky, when you going to try the cat?" + +"To-night. I reckon they'll come after old Hoss Williams to-night." + +"But they buried him Saturday. Didn't they get him Saturday night?" + +"Why, how you talk! How could their charms work till midnight?--and +_then_ it's Sunday. Devils don't slosh around much of a Sunday, I don't +reckon." + +"I never thought of that. That's so. Lemme go with you?" + +"Of course--if you ain't afeard." + +"Afeard! 'Tain't likely. Will you meow?" + +"Yes--and you meow back, if you get a chance. Last time, you kep' me +a-meowing around till old Hays went to throwing rocks at me and says +'Dern that cat!' and so I hove a brick through his window--but don't you +tell." + +"I won't. I couldn't meow that night, becuz auntie was watching me, but +I'll meow this time. Say--what's that?" + +"Nothing but a tick." + +"Where'd you get him?" + +"Out in the woods." + +"What'll you take for him?" + +"I don't know. I don't want to sell him." + +"All right. It's a mighty small tick, anyway." + +"Oh, anybody can run a tick down that don't belong to them. I'm +satisfied with it. It's a good enough tick for me." + +"Sho, there's ticks a plenty. I could have a thousand of 'em if I wanted +to." + +"Well, why don't you? Becuz you know mighty well you can't. This is a +pretty early tick, I reckon. It's the first one I've seen this year." + +"Say, Huck--I'll give you my tooth for him." + +"Less see it." + +Tom got out a bit of paper and carefully unrolled it. Huckleberry viewed +it wistfully. The temptation was very strong. At last he said: + +"Is it genuwyne?" + +Tom lifted his lip and showed the vacancy. + +"Well, all right," said Huckleberry, "it's a trade." + +Tom enclosed the tick in the percussion-cap box that had lately been the +pinchbug's prison, and the boys separated, each feeling wealthier than +before. + +When Tom reached the little isolated frame school-house, he strode in +briskly, with the manner of one who had come with all honest speed. He +hung his hat on a peg and flung himself into his seat with business-like +alacrity. The master, throned on high in his great splint-bottom +arm-chair, was dozing, lulled by the drowsy hum of study. The +interruption roused him. + +"Thomas Sawyer!" + +Tom knew that when his name was pronounced in full, it meant trouble. + +"Sir!" + +"Come up here. Now, sir, why are you late again, as usual?" + +Tom was about to take refuge in a lie, when he saw two long tails of +yellow hair hanging down a back that he recognized by the electric +sympathy of love; and by that form was _the only vacant place_ on the +girls' side of the school-house. He instantly said: + +"_I stopped to talk with Huckleberry Finn!_" + +The master's pulse stood still, and he stared helplessly. The buzz of +study ceased. The pupils wondered if this foolhardy boy had lost his +mind. The master said: + +"You--you did what?" + +"Stopped to talk with Huckleberry Finn." + +There was no mistaking the words. + +"Thomas Sawyer, this is the most astounding confession I have ever +listened to. No mere ferule will answer for this offence. Take off your +jacket." + +The master's arm performed until it was tired and the stock of switches +notably diminished. Then the order followed: + +"Now, sir, go and sit with the girls! And let this be a warning to you." + +The titter that rippled around the room appeared to abash the boy, but +in reality that result was caused rather more by his worshipful awe +of his unknown idol and the dread pleasure that lay in his high good +fortune. He sat down upon the end of the pine bench and the girl hitched +herself away from him with a toss of her head. Nudges and winks and +whispers traversed the room, but Tom sat still, with his arms upon the +long, low desk before him, and seemed to study his book. + +By and by attention ceased from him, and the accustomed school murmur +rose upon the dull air once more. Presently the boy began to steal +furtive glances at the girl. She observed it, "made a mouth" at him +and gave him the back of her head for the space of a minute. When she +cautiously faced around again, a peach lay before her. She thrust it +away. Tom gently put it back. She thrust it away again, but with less +animosity. Tom patiently returned it to its place. Then she let it +remain. Tom scrawled on his slate, "Please take it--I got more." The +girl glanced at the words, but made no sign. Now the boy began to draw +something on the slate, hiding his work with his left hand. For a time +the girl refused to notice; but her human curiosity presently began +to manifest itself by hardly perceptible signs. The boy worked on, +apparently unconscious. The girl made a sort of non-committal attempt +to see, but the boy did not betray that he was aware of it. At last she +gave in and hesitatingly whispered: + +"Let me see it." + +Tom partly uncovered a dismal caricature of a house with two gable ends +to it and a corkscrew of smoke issuing from the chimney. Then the girl's +interest began to fasten itself upon the work and she forgot everything +else. When it was finished, she gazed a moment, then whispered: + +"It's nice--make a man." + +The artist erected a man in the front yard, that resembled a derrick. He +could have stepped over the house; but the girl was not hypercritical; +she was satisfied with the monster, and whispered: + +"It's a beautiful man--now make me coming along." + +Tom drew an hour-glass with a full moon and straw limbs to it and armed +the spreading fingers with a portentous fan. The girl said: + +"It's ever so nice--I wish I could draw." + +"It's easy," whispered Tom, "I'll learn you." + +"Oh, will you? When?" + +"At noon. Do you go home to dinner?" + +"I'll stay if you will." + +"Good--that's a whack. What's your name?" + +"Becky Thatcher. What's yours? Oh, I know. It's Thomas Sawyer." + +"That's the name they lick me by. I'm Tom when I'm good. You call me +Tom, will you?" + +"Yes." + +Now Tom began to scrawl something on the slate, hiding the words from +the girl. But she was not backward this time. She begged to see. Tom +said: + +"Oh, it ain't anything." + +"Yes it is." + +"No it ain't. You don't want to see." + +"Yes I do, indeed I do. Please let me." + +"You'll tell." + +"No I won't--deed and deed and double deed won't." + +"You won't tell anybody at all? Ever, as long as you live?" + +"No, I won't ever tell _any_body. Now let me." + +"Oh, _you_ don't want to see!" + +"Now that you treat me so, I _will_ see." And she put her small hand +upon his and a little scuffle ensued, Tom pretending to resist in +earnest but letting his hand slip by degrees till these words were +revealed: "_I love you_." + +"Oh, you bad thing!" And she hit his hand a smart rap, but reddened and +looked pleased, nevertheless. + +Just at this juncture the boy felt a slow, fateful grip closing on his +ear, and a steady lifting impulse. In that wise he was borne across the +house and deposited in his own seat, under a peppering fire of giggles +from the whole school. Then the master stood over him during a few awful +moments, and finally moved away to his throne without saying a word. But +although Tom's ear tingled, his heart was jubilant. + +As the school quieted down Tom made an honest effort to study, but +the turmoil within him was too great. In turn he took his place in the +reading class and made a botch of it; then in the geography class and +turned lakes into mountains, mountains into rivers, and rivers into +continents, till chaos was come again; then in the spelling class, and +got "turned down," by a succession of mere baby words, till he brought +up at the foot and yielded up the pewter medal which he had worn with +ostentation for months. + + + + +CHAPTER VII + +THE harder Tom tried to fasten his mind on his book, the more his ideas +wandered. So at last, with a sigh and a yawn, he gave it up. It seemed +to him that the noon recess would never come. The air was utterly dead. +There was not a breath stirring. It was the sleepiest of sleepy days. +The drowsing murmur of the five and twenty studying scholars soothed +the soul like the spell that is in the murmur of bees. Away off in the +flaming sunshine, Cardiff Hill lifted its soft green sides through a +shimmering veil of heat, tinted with the purple of distance; a few birds +floated on lazy wing high in the air; no other living thing was visible +but some cows, and they were asleep. Tom's heart ached to be free, or +else to have something of interest to do to pass the dreary time. +His hand wandered into his pocket and his face lit up with a glow of +gratitude that was prayer, though he did not know it. Then furtively +the percussion-cap box came out. He released the tick and put him on +the long flat desk. The creature probably glowed with a gratitude that +amounted to prayer, too, at this moment, but it was premature: for when +he started thankfully to travel off, Tom turned him aside with a pin and +made him take a new direction. + +Tom's bosom friend sat next him, suffering just as Tom had been, and +now he was deeply and gratefully interested in this entertainment in +an instant. This bosom friend was Joe Harper. The two boys were sworn +friends all the week, and embattled enemies on Saturdays. Joe took a +pin out of his lapel and began to assist in exercising the prisoner. +The sport grew in interest momently. Soon Tom said that they were +interfering with each other, and neither getting the fullest benefit +of the tick. So he put Joe's slate on the desk and drew a line down the +middle of it from top to bottom. + +"Now," said he, "as long as he is on your side you can stir him up and +I'll let him alone; but if you let him get away and get on my side, +you're to leave him alone as long as I can keep him from crossing over." + +"All right, go ahead; start him up." + +The tick escaped from Tom, presently, and crossed the equator. Joe +harassed him awhile, and then he got away and crossed back again. This +change of base occurred often. While one boy was worrying the tick with +absorbing interest, the other would look on with interest as strong, the +two heads bowed together over the slate, and the two souls dead to all +things else. At last luck seemed to settle and abide with Joe. The +tick tried this, that, and the other course, and got as excited and as +anxious as the boys themselves, but time and again just as he would +have victory in his very grasp, so to speak, and Tom's fingers would +be twitching to begin, Joe's pin would deftly head him off, and keep +possession. At last Tom could stand it no longer. The temptation was too +strong. So he reached out and lent a hand with his pin. Joe was angry in +a moment. Said he: + +"Tom, you let him alone." + +"I only just want to stir him up a little, Joe." + +"No, sir, it ain't fair; you just let him alone." + +"Blame it, I ain't going to stir him much." + +"Let him alone, I tell you." + +"I won't!" + +"You shall--he's on my side of the line." + +"Look here, Joe Harper, whose is that tick?" + +"I don't care whose tick he is--he's on my side of the line, and you +sha'n't touch him." + +"Well, I'll just bet I will, though. He's my tick and I'll do what I +blame please with him, or die!" + +A tremendous whack came down on Tom's shoulders, and its duplicate on +Joe's; and for the space of two minutes the dust continued to fly from +the two jackets and the whole school to enjoy it. The boys had been +too absorbed to notice the hush that had stolen upon the school awhile +before when the master came tiptoeing down the room and stood over them. +He had contemplated a good part of the performance before he contributed +his bit of variety to it. + +When school broke up at noon, Tom flew to Becky Thatcher, and whispered +in her ear: + +"Put on your bonnet and let on you're going home; and when you get to +the corner, give the rest of 'em the slip, and turn down through the +lane and come back. I'll go the other way and come it over 'em the same +way." + +So the one went off with one group of scholars, and the other with +another. In a little while the two met at the bottom of the lane, and +when they reached the school they had it all to themselves. Then they +sat together, with a slate before them, and Tom gave Becky the pencil +and held her hand in his, guiding it, and so created another surprising +house. When the interest in art began to wane, the two fell to talking. +Tom was swimming in bliss. He said: + +"Do you love rats?" + +"No! I hate them!" + +"Well, I do, too--_live_ ones. But I mean dead ones, to swing round your +head with a string." + +"No, I don't care for rats much, anyway. What I like is chewing-gum." + +"Oh, I should say so! I wish I had some now." + +"Do you? I've got some. I'll let you chew it awhile, but you must give +it back to me." + +That was agreeable, so they chewed it turn about, and dangled their legs +against the bench in excess of contentment. + +"Was you ever at a circus?" said Tom. + +"Yes, and my pa's going to take me again some time, if I'm good." + +"I been to the circus three or four times--lots of times. Church ain't +shucks to a circus. There's things going on at a circus all the time. +I'm going to be a clown in a circus when I grow up." + +"Oh, are you! That will be nice. They're so lovely, all spotted up." + +"Yes, that's so. And they get slathers of money--most a dollar a day, Ben +Rogers says. Say, Becky, was you ever engaged?" + +"What's that?" + +"Why, engaged to be married." + +"No." + +"Would you like to?" + +"I reckon so. I don't know. What is it like?" + +"Like? Why it ain't like anything. You only just tell a boy you won't +ever have anybody but him, ever ever ever, and then you kiss and that's +all. Anybody can do it." + +"Kiss? What do you kiss for?" + +"Why, that, you know, is to--well, they always do that." + +"Everybody?" + +"Why, yes, everybody that's in love with each other. Do you remember +what I wrote on the slate?" + +"Ye--yes." + +"What was it?" + +"I sha'n't tell you." + +"Shall I tell _you_?" + +"Ye--yes--but some other time." + +"No, now." + +"No, not now--to-morrow." + +"Oh, no, _now_. Please, Becky--I'll whisper it, I'll whisper it ever so +easy." + +Becky hesitating, Tom took silence for consent, and passed his arm about +her waist and whispered the tale ever so softly, with his mouth close to +her ear. And then he added: + +"Now you whisper it to me--just the same." + +She resisted, for a while, and then said: + +"You turn your face away so you can't see, and then I will. But you +mustn't ever tell anybody--_will_ you, Tom? Now you won't, _will_ you?" + +"No, indeed, indeed I won't. Now, Becky." + +He turned his face away. She bent timidly around till her breath stirred +his curls and whispered, "I--love--you!" + +Then she sprang away and ran around and around the desks and benches, +with Tom after her, and took refuge in a corner at last, with her little +white apron to her face. Tom clasped her about her neck and pleaded: + +"Now, Becky, it's all done--all over but the kiss. Don't you be afraid +of that--it ain't anything at all. Please, Becky." And he tugged at her +apron and the hands. + +By and by she gave up, and let her hands drop; her face, all glowing +with the struggle, came up and submitted. Tom kissed the red lips and +said: + +"Now it's all done, Becky. And always after this, you know, you ain't +ever to love anybody but me, and you ain't ever to marry anybody but me, +ever never and forever. Will you?" + +"No, I'll never love anybody but you, Tom, and I'll never marry anybody +but you--and you ain't to ever marry anybody but me, either." + +"Certainly. Of course. That's _part_ of it. And always coming to school +or when we're going home, you're to walk with me, when there ain't +anybody looking--and you choose me and I choose you at parties, because +that's the way you do when you're engaged." + +"It's so nice. I never heard of it before." + +"Oh, it's ever so gay! Why, me and Amy Lawrence--" + +The big eyes told Tom his blunder and he stopped, confused. + +"Oh, Tom! Then I ain't the first you've ever been engaged to!" + +The child began to cry. Tom said: + +"Oh, don't cry, Becky, I don't care for her any more." + +"Yes, you do, Tom--you know you do." + +Tom tried to put his arm about her neck, but she pushed him away and +turned her face to the wall, and went on crying. Tom tried again, with +soothing words in his mouth, and was repulsed again. Then his pride was +up, and he strode away and went outside. He stood about, restless and +uneasy, for a while, glancing at the door, every now and then, hoping +she would repent and come to find him. But she did not. Then he began +to feel badly and fear that he was in the wrong. It was a hard struggle +with him to make new advances, now, but he nerved himself to it and +entered. She was still standing back there in the corner, sobbing, with +her face to the wall. Tom's heart smote him. He went to her and stood a +moment, not knowing exactly how to proceed. Then he said hesitatingly: + +"Becky, I--I don't care for anybody but you." + +No reply--but sobs. + +"Becky"--pleadingly. "Becky, won't you say something?" + +More sobs. + +Tom got out his chiefest jewel, a brass knob from the top of an andiron, +and passed it around her so that she could see it, and said: + +"Please, Becky, won't you take it?" + +She struck it to the floor. Then Tom marched out of the house and over +the hills and far away, to return to school no more that day. Presently +Becky began to suspect. She ran to the door; he was not in sight; she +flew around to the play-yard; he was not there. Then she called: + +"Tom! Come back, Tom!" + +She listened intently, but there was no answer. She had no companions +but silence and loneliness. So she sat down to cry again and upbraid +herself; and by this time the scholars began to gather again, and she +had to hide her griefs and still her broken heart and take up the cross +of a long, dreary, aching afternoon, with none among the strangers about +her to exchange sorrows with. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII + +TOM dodged hither and thither through lanes until he was well out of the +track of returning scholars, and then fell into a moody jog. He crossed +a small "branch" two or three times, because of a prevailing juvenile +superstition that to cross water baffled pursuit. Half an hour later +he was disappearing behind the Douglas mansion on the summit of Cardiff +Hill, and the school-house was hardly distinguishable away off in the +valley behind him. He entered a dense wood, picked his pathless way to +the centre of it, and sat down on a mossy spot under a spreading oak. +There was not even a zephyr stirring; the dead noonday heat had even +stilled the songs of the birds; nature lay in a trance that was broken +by no sound but the occasional far-off hammering of a wood-pecker, and +this seemed to render the pervading silence and sense of loneliness the +more profound. The boy's soul was steeped in melancholy; his feelings +were in happy accord with his surroundings. He sat long with his elbows +on his knees and his chin in his hands, meditating. It seemed to him +that life was but a trouble, at best, and he more than half envied Jimmy +Hodges, so lately released; it must be very peaceful, he thought, to lie +and slumber and dream forever and ever, with the wind whispering through +the trees and caressing the grass and the flowers over the grave, and +nothing to bother and grieve about, ever any more. If he only had a +clean Sunday-school record he could be willing to go, and be done with +it all. Now as to this girl. What had he done? Nothing. He had meant +the best in the world, and been treated like a dog--like a very dog. She +would be sorry some day--maybe when it was too late. Ah, if he could only +die _temporarily_! + +But the elastic heart of youth cannot be compressed into one constrained +shape long at a time. Tom presently began to drift insensibly back into +the concerns of this life again. What if he turned his back, now, and +disappeared mysteriously? What if he went away--ever so far away, into +unknown countries beyond the seas--and never came back any more! How +would she feel then! The idea of being a clown recurred to him now, only +to fill him with disgust. For frivolity and jokes and spotted tights +were an offense, when they intruded themselves upon a spirit that was +exalted into the vague august realm of the romantic. No, he would be +a soldier, and return after long years, all war-worn and illustrious. +No--better still, he would join the Indians, and hunt buffaloes and go on +the warpath in the mountain ranges and the trackless great plains of the +Far West, and away in the future come back a great chief, bristling with +feathers, hideous with paint, and prance into Sunday-school, some drowsy +summer morning, with a blood-curdling war-whoop, and sear the eyeballs +of all his companions with unappeasable envy. But no, there was +something gaudier even than this. He would be a pirate! That was it! +_now_ his future lay plain before him, and glowing with unimaginable +splendor. How his name would fill the world, and make people shudder! +How gloriously he would go plowing the dancing seas, in his long, low, +black-hulled racer, the Spirit of the Storm, with his grisly flag flying +at the fore! And at the zenith of his fame, how he would suddenly appear +at the old village and stalk into church, brown and weather-beaten, in +his black velvet doublet and trunks, his great jack-boots, his crimson +sash, his belt bristling with horse-pistols, his crime-rusted cutlass +at his side, his slouch hat with waving plumes, his black flag unfurled, +with the skull and crossbones on it, and hear with swelling ecstasy +the whisperings, "It's Tom Sawyer the Pirate!--the Black Avenger of the +Spanish Main!" + +Yes, it was settled; his career was determined. He would run away from +home and enter upon it. He would start the very next morning. Therefore +he must now begin to get ready. He would collect his resources together. +He went to a rotten log near at hand and began to dig under one end of +it with his Barlow knife. He soon struck wood that sounded hollow. He +put his hand there and uttered this incantation impressively: + +"What hasn't come here, come! What's here, stay here!" + +Then he scraped away the dirt, and exposed a pine shingle. He took it +up and disclosed a shapely little treasure-house whose bottom and sides +were of shingles. In it lay a marble. Tom's astonishment was bound-less! +He scratched his head with a perplexed air, and said: + +"Well, that beats anything!" + +Then he tossed the marble away pettishly, and stood cogitating. The +truth was, that a superstition of his had failed, here, which he and +all his comrades had always looked upon as infallible. If you buried +a marble with certain necessary incantations, and left it alone a +fortnight, and then opened the place with the incantation he had just +used, you would find that all the marbles you had ever lost had gathered +themselves together there, meantime, no matter how widely they had been +separated. But now, this thing had actually and unquestionably failed. +Tom's whole structure of faith was shaken to its foundations. He had +many a time heard of this thing succeeding but never of its failing +before. It did not occur to him that he had tried it several times +before, himself, but could never find the hiding-places afterward. He +puzzled over the matter some time, and finally decided that some witch +had interfered and broken the charm. He thought he would satisfy himself +on that point; so he searched around till he found a small sandy spot +with a little funnel-shaped depression in it. He laid himself down and +put his mouth close to this depression and called-- + +"Doodle-bug, doodle-bug, tell me what I want to know! Doodle-bug, +doodle-bug, tell me what I want to know!" + +The sand began to work, and presently a small black bug appeared for a +second and then darted under again in a fright. + +"He dasn't tell! So it _was_ a witch that done it. I just knowed it." + +He well knew the futility of trying to contend against witches, so he +gave up discouraged. But it occurred to him that he might as well have +the marble he had just thrown away, and therefore he went and made a +patient search for it. But he could not find it. Now he went back to his +treasure-house and carefully placed himself just as he had been standing +when he tossed the marble away; then he took another marble from his +pocket and tossed it in the same way, saying: + +"Brother, go find your brother!" + +He watched where it stopped, and went there and looked. But it must +have fallen short or gone too far; so he tried twice more. The last +repetition was successful. The two marbles lay within a foot of each +other. + +Just here the blast of a toy tin trumpet came faintly down the green +aisles of the forest. Tom flung off his jacket and trousers, turned +a suspender into a belt, raked away some brush behind the rotten log, +disclosing a rude bow and arrow, a lath sword and a tin trumpet, and +in a moment had seized these things and bounded away, barelegged, +with fluttering shirt. He presently halted under a great elm, blew an +answering blast, and then began to tiptoe and look warily out, this way +and that. He said cautiously--to an imaginary company: + +"Hold, my merry men! Keep hid till I blow." + +Now appeared Joe Harper, as airily clad and elaborately armed as Tom. +Tom called: + +"Hold! Who comes here into Sherwood Forest without my pass?" + +"Guy of Guisborne wants no man's pass. Who art thou that--that--" + +"Dares to hold such language," said Tom, prompting--for they talked "by +the book," from memory. + +"Who art thou that dares to hold such language?" + +"I, indeed! I am Robin Hood, as thy caitiff carcase soon shall know." + +"Then art thou indeed that famous outlaw? Right gladly will I dispute +with thee the passes of the merry wood. Have at thee!" + +They took their lath swords, dumped their other traps on the ground, +struck a fencing attitude, foot to foot, and began a grave, careful +combat, "two up and two down." Presently Tom said: + +"Now, if you've got the hang, go it lively!" + +So they "went it lively," panting and perspiring with the work. By and +by Tom shouted: + +"Fall! fall! Why don't you fall?" + +"I sha'n't! Why don't you fall yourself? You're getting the worst of +it." + +"Why, that ain't anything. I can't fall; that ain't the way it is in the +book. The book says, 'Then with one back-handed stroke he slew poor Guy +of Guisborne.' You're to turn around and let me hit you in the back." + +There was no getting around the authorities, so Joe turned, received the +whack and fell. + +"Now," said Joe, getting up, "you got to let me kill _you_. That's +fair." + +"Why, I can't do that, it ain't in the book." + +"Well, it's blamed mean--that's all." + +"Well, say, Joe, you can be Friar Tuck or Much the miller's son, and lam +me with a quarter-staff; or I'll be the Sheriff of Nottingham and you be +Robin Hood a little while and kill me." + +This was satisfactory, and so these adventures were carried out. Then +Tom became Robin Hood again, and was allowed by the treacherous nun to +bleed his strength away through his neglected wound. And at last Joe, +representing a whole tribe of weeping outlaws, dragged him sadly forth, +gave his bow into his feeble hands, and Tom said, "Where this arrow +falls, there bury poor Robin Hood under the greenwood tree." Then he +shot the arrow and fell back and would have died, but he lit on a nettle +and sprang up too gaily for a corpse. + +The boys dressed themselves, hid their accoutrements, and went off +grieving that there were no outlaws any more, and wondering what modern +civilization could claim to have done to compensate for their loss. +They said they would rather be outlaws a year in Sherwood Forest than +President of the United States forever. + + + + +CHAPTER IX + +AT half-past nine, that night, Tom and Sid were sent to bed, as usual. +They said their prayers, and Sid was soon asleep. Tom lay awake and +waited, in restless impatience. When it seemed to him that it must be +nearly daylight, he heard the clock strike ten! This was despair. He +would have tossed and fidgeted, as his nerves demanded, but he was +afraid he might wake Sid. So he lay still, and stared up into the dark. +Everything was dismally still. By and by, out of the stillness, little, +scarcely perceptible noises began to emphasize themselves. The ticking +of the clock began to bring itself into notice. Old beams began to crack +mysteriously. The stairs creaked faintly. Evidently spirits were abroad. +A measured, muffled snore issued from Aunt Polly's chamber. And now the +tiresome chirping of a cricket that no human ingenuity could locate, +began. Next the ghastly ticking of a death-watch in the wall at the +bed's head made Tom shudder--it meant that somebody's days were numbered. +Then the howl of a far-off dog rose on the night air, and was answered +by a fainter howl from a remoter distance. Tom was in an agony. At last +he was satisfied that time had ceased and eternity begun; he began to +doze, in spite of himself; the clock chimed eleven, but he did not hear +it. And then there came, mingling with his half-formed dreams, a most +melancholy caterwauling. The raising of a neighboring window disturbed +him. A cry of "Scat! you devil!" and the crash of an empty bottle +against the back of his aunt's woodshed brought him wide awake, and a +single minute later he was dressed and out of the window and creeping +along the roof of the "ell" on all fours. He "meow'd" with caution once +or twice, as he went; then jumped to the roof of the woodshed and thence +to the ground. Huckleberry Finn was there, with his dead cat. The boys +moved off and disappeared in the gloom. At the end of half an hour they +were wading through the tall grass of the graveyard. + +It was a graveyard of the old-fashioned Western kind. It was on a hill, +about a mile and a half from the village. It had a crazy board fence +around it, which leaned inward in places, and outward the rest of the +time, but stood upright nowhere. Grass and weeds grew rank over the +whole cemetery. All the old graves were sunken in, there was not a +tombstone on the place; round-topped, worm-eaten boards staggered over +the graves, leaning for support and finding none. "Sacred to the memory +of" So-and-So had been painted on them once, but it could no longer have +been read, on the most of them, now, even if there had been light. + +A faint wind moaned through the trees, and Tom feared it might be the +spirits of the dead, complaining at being disturbed. The boys talked +little, and only under their breath, for the time and the place and the +pervading solemnity and silence oppressed their spirits. They found the +sharp new heap they were seeking, and ensconced themselves within the +protection of three great elms that grew in a bunch within a few feet of +the grave. + +Then they waited in silence for what seemed a long time. The hooting of +a distant owl was all the sound that troubled the dead stillness. Tom's +reflections grew oppressive. He must force some talk. So he said in a +whisper: + +"Hucky, do you believe the dead people like it for us to be here?" + +Huckleberry whispered: + +"I wisht I knowed. It's awful solemn like, _ain't_ it?" + +"I bet it is." + +There was a considerable pause, while the boys canvassed this matter +inwardly. Then Tom whispered: + +"Say, Hucky--do you reckon Hoss Williams hears us talking?" + +"O' course he does. Least his sperrit does." + +Tom, after a pause: + +"I wish I'd said Mister Williams. But I never meant any harm. Everybody +calls him Hoss." + +"A body can't be too partic'lar how they talk 'bout these-yer dead +people, Tom." + +This was a damper, and conversation died again. + +Presently Tom seized his comrade's arm and said: + +"Sh!" + +"What is it, Tom?" And the two clung together with beating hearts. + +"Sh! There 'tis again! Didn't you hear it?" + +"I--" + +"There! Now you hear it." + +"Lord, Tom, they're coming! They're coming, sure. What'll we do?" + +"I dono. Think they'll see us?" + +"Oh, Tom, they can see in the dark, same as cats. I wisht I hadn't +come." + +"Oh, don't be afeard. I don't believe they'll bother us. We ain't doing +any harm. If we keep perfectly still, maybe they won't notice us at +all." + +"I'll try to, Tom, but, Lord, I'm all of a shiver." + +"Listen!" + +The boys bent their heads together and scarcely breathed. A muffled +sound of voices floated up from the far end of the graveyard. + +"Look! See there!" whispered Tom. "What is it?" + +"It's devil-fire. Oh, Tom, this is awful." + +Some vague figures approached through the gloom, swinging an +old-fashioned tin lantern that freckled the ground with innumerable +little spangles of light. Presently Huckleberry whispered with a +shudder: + +"It's the devils sure enough. Three of 'em! Lordy, Tom, we're goners! +Can you pray?" + +"I'll try, but don't you be afeard. They ain't going to hurt us. 'Now I +lay me down to sleep, I--'" + +"Sh!" + +"What is it, Huck?" + +"They're _humans_! One of 'em is, anyway. One of 'em's old Muff Potter's +voice." + +"No--'tain't so, is it?" + +"I bet I know it. Don't you stir nor budge. He ain't sharp enough to +notice us. Drunk, the same as usual, likely--blamed old rip!" + +"All right, I'll keep still. Now they're stuck. Can't find it. Here they +come again. Now they're hot. Cold again. Hot again. Red hot! They're +p'inted right, this time. Say, Huck, I know another o' them voices; it's +Injun Joe." + +"That's so--that murderin' half-breed! I'd druther they was devils a dern +sight. What kin they be up to?" + +The whisper died wholly out, now, for the three men had reached the +grave and stood within a few feet of the boys' hiding-place. + +"Here it is," said the third voice; and the owner of it held the lantern +up and revealed the face of young Doctor Robinson. + +Potter and Injun Joe were carrying a handbarrow with a rope and a couple +of shovels on it. They cast down their load and began to open the grave. +The doctor put the lantern at the head of the grave and came and sat +down with his back against one of the elm trees. He was so close the +boys could have touched him. + +"Hurry, men!" he said, in a low voice; "the moon might come out at any +moment." + +They growled a response and went on digging. For some time there was no +noise but the grating sound of the spades discharging their freight of +mould and gravel. It was very monotonous. Finally a spade struck upon +the coffin with a dull woody accent, and within another minute or two +the men had hoisted it out on the ground. They pried off the lid with +their shovels, got out the body and dumped it rudely on the ground. The +moon drifted from behind the clouds and exposed the pallid face. +The barrow was got ready and the corpse placed on it, covered with a +blanket, and bound to its place with the rope. Potter took out a large +spring-knife and cut off the dangling end of the rope and then said: + +"Now the cussed thing's ready, Sawbones, and you'll just out with +another five, or here she stays." + +"That's the talk!" said Injun Joe. + +"Look here, what does this mean?" said the doctor. "You required your +pay in advance, and I've paid you." + +"Yes, and you done more than that," said Injun Joe, approaching the +doctor, who was now standing. "Five years ago you drove me away from +your father's kitchen one night, when I come to ask for something to +eat, and you said I warn't there for any good; and when I swore I'd get +even with you if it took a hundred years, your father had me jailed for +a vagrant. Did you think I'd forget? The Injun blood ain't in me for +nothing. And now I've _got_ you, and you got to _settle_, you know!" + +He was threatening the doctor, with his fist in his face, by this time. +The doctor struck out suddenly and stretched the ruffian on the ground. +Potter dropped his knife, and exclaimed: + +"Here, now, don't you hit my pard!" and the next moment he had grappled +with the doctor and the two were struggling with might and main, +trampling the grass and tearing the ground with their heels. Injun Joe +sprang to his feet, his eyes flaming with passion, snatched up Potter's +knife, and went creeping, catlike and stooping, round and round about +the combatants, seeking an opportunity. All at once the doctor flung +himself free, seized the heavy headboard of Williams' grave and felled +Potter to the earth with it--and in the same instant the half-breed saw +his chance and drove the knife to the hilt in the young man's breast. He +reeled and fell partly upon Potter, flooding him with his blood, and in +the same moment the clouds blotted out the dreadful spectacle and the +two frightened boys went speeding away in the dark. + +Presently, when the moon emerged again, Injun Joe was standing over the +two forms, contemplating them. The doctor murmured inarticulately, gave +a long gasp or two and was still. The half-breed muttered: + +"_That_ score is settled--damn you." + +Then he robbed the body. After which he put the fatal knife in Potter's +open right hand, and sat down on the dismantled coffin. Three--four--five +minutes passed, and then Potter began to stir and moan. His hand closed +upon the knife; he raised it, glanced at it, and let it fall, with a +shudder. Then he sat up, pushing the body from him, and gazed at it, and +then around him, confusedly. His eyes met Joe's. + +"Lord, how is this, Joe?" he said. + +"It's a dirty business," said Joe, without moving. + +"What did you do it for?" + +"I! I never done it!" + +"Look here! That kind of talk won't wash." + +Potter trembled and grew white. + +"I thought I'd got sober. I'd no business to drink to-night. But it's +in my head yet--worse'n when we started here. I'm all in a muddle; +can't recollect anything of it, hardly. Tell me, Joe--_honest_, now, +old feller--did I do it? Joe, I never meant to--'pon my soul and honor, I +never meant to, Joe. Tell me how it was, Joe. Oh, it's awful--and him so +young and promising." + +"Why, you two was scuffling, and he fetched you one with the headboard +and you fell flat; and then up you come, all reeling and staggering +like, and snatched the knife and jammed it into him, just as he fetched +you another awful clip--and here you've laid, as dead as a wedge til +now." + +"Oh, I didn't know what I was a-doing. I wish I may die this minute if I +did. It was all on account of the whiskey and the excitement, I reckon. +I never used a weepon in my life before, Joe. I've fought, but never +with weepons. They'll all say that. Joe, don't tell! Say you won't tell, +Joe--that's a good feller. I always liked you, Joe, and stood up for you, +too. Don't you remember? You _won't_ tell, _will_ you, Joe?" And the +poor creature dropped on his knees before the stolid murderer, and +clasped his appealing hands. + +"No, you've always been fair and square with me, Muff Potter, and I +won't go back on you. There, now, that's as fair as a man can say." + +"Oh, Joe, you're an angel. I'll bless you for this the longest day I +live." And Potter began to cry. + +"Come, now, that's enough of that. This ain't any time for blubbering. +You be off yonder way and I'll go this. Move, now, and don't leave any +tracks behind you." + +Potter started on a trot that quickly increased to a run. The half-breed +stood looking after him. He muttered: + +"If he's as much stunned with the lick and fuddled with the rum as he +had the look of being, he won't think of the knife till he's gone so +far he'll be afraid to come back after it to such a place by +himself--chicken-heart!" + +Two or three minutes later the murdered man, the blanketed corpse, the +lidless coffin, and the open grave were under no inspection but the +moon's. The stillness was complete again, too. + + + + +CHAPTER X + +THE two boys flew on and on, toward the village, speechless with +horror. They glanced backward over their shoulders from time to time, +apprehensively, as if they feared they might be followed. Every stump +that started up in their path seemed a man and an enemy, and made them +catch their breath; and as they sped by some outlying cottages that lay +near the village, the barking of the aroused watch-dogs seemed to give +wings to their feet. + +"If we can only get to the old tannery before we break down!" whispered +Tom, in short catches between breaths. "I can't stand it much longer." + +Huckleberry's hard pantings were his only reply, and the boys fixed +their eyes on the goal of their hopes and bent to their work to win it. +They gained steadily on it, and at last, breast to breast, they burst +through the open door and fell grateful and exhausted in the sheltering +shadows beyond. By and by their pulses slowed down, and Tom whispered: + +"Huckleberry, what do you reckon'll come of this?" + +"If Doctor Robinson dies, I reckon hanging'll come of it." + +"Do you though?" + +"Why, I _know_ it, Tom." + +Tom thought a while, then he said: + +"Who'll tell? We?" + +"What are you talking about? S'pose something happened and Injun Joe +_didn't_ hang? Why, he'd kill us some time or other, just as dead sure +as we're a laying here." + +"That's just what I was thinking to myself, Huck." + +"If anybody tells, let Muff Potter do it, if he's fool enough. He's +generally drunk enough." + +Tom said nothing--went on thinking. Presently he whispered: + +"Huck, Muff Potter don't know it. How can he tell?" + +"What's the reason he don't know it?" + +"Because he'd just got that whack when Injun Joe done it. D'you reckon +he could see anything? D'you reckon he knowed anything?" + +"By hokey, that's so, Tom!" + +"And besides, look-a-here--maybe that whack done for _him_!" + +"No, 'taint likely, Tom. He had liquor in him; I could see that; and +besides, he always has. Well, when pap's full, you might take and belt +him over the head with a church and you couldn't phase him. He says so, +his own self. So it's the same with Muff Potter, of course. But if a man +was dead sober, I reckon maybe that whack might fetch him; I dono." + +After another reflective silence, Tom said: + +"Hucky, you sure you can keep mum?" + +"Tom, we _got_ to keep mum. You know that. That Injun devil wouldn't +make any more of drownding us than a couple of cats, if we was to squeak +'bout this and they didn't hang him. Now, look-a-here, Tom, less take +and swear to one another--that's what we got to do--swear to keep mum." + +"I'm agreed. It's the best thing. Would you just hold hands and swear +that we--" + +"Oh no, that wouldn't do for this. That's good enough for little +rubbishy common things--specially with gals, cuz _they_ go back on you +anyway, and blab if they get in a huff--but there orter be writing 'bout +a big thing like this. And blood." + +Tom's whole being applauded this idea. It was deep, and dark, and awful; +the hour, the circumstances, the surroundings, were in keeping with it. +He picked up a clean pine shingle that lay in the moon-light, took a +little fragment of "red keel" out of his pocket, got the moon on +his work, and painfully scrawled these lines, emphasizing each slow +down-stroke by clamping his tongue between his teeth, and letting up the +pressure on the up-strokes. [See next page.] + +"Huck Finn and Tom Sawyer swears they will keep mum about This and They +wish They may Drop down dead in Their Tracks if They ever Tell and Rot." + +Huckleberry was filled with admiration of Tom's facility in writing, and +the sublimity of his language. He at once took a pin from his lapel and +was going to prick his flesh, but Tom said: + +"Hold on! Don't do that. A pin's brass. It might have verdigrease on +it." + +"What's verdigrease?" + +"It's p'ison. That's what it is. You just swaller some of it once--you'll +see." + +So Tom unwound the thread from one of his needles, and each boy pricked +the ball of his thumb and squeezed out a drop of blood. In time, after +many squeezes, Tom managed to sign his initials, using the ball of his +little finger for a pen. Then he showed Huckleberry how to make an H and +an F, and the oath was complete. They buried the shingle close to the +wall, with some dismal ceremonies and incantations, and the fetters +that bound their tongues were considered to be locked and the key thrown +away. + +A figure crept stealthily through a break in the other end of the ruined +building, now, but they did not notice it. + +"Tom," whispered Huckleberry, "does this keep us from _ever_ +telling--_always_?" + +"Of course it does. It don't make any difference _what_ happens, we got +to keep mum. We'd drop down dead--don't _you_ know that?" + +"Yes, I reckon that's so." + +They continued to whisper for some little time. Presently a dog set up +a long, lugubrious howl just outside--within ten feet of them. The boys +clasped each other suddenly, in an agony of fright. + +"Which of us does he mean?" gasped Huckleberry. + +"I dono--peep through the crack. Quick!" + +"No, _you_, Tom!" + +"I can't--I can't _do_ it, Huck!" + +"Please, Tom. There 'tis again!" + +"Oh, lordy, I'm thankful!" whispered Tom. "I know his voice. It's Bull +Harbison." * + +[* If Mr. Harbison owned a slave named Bull, Tom would have spoken of +him as "Harbison's Bull," but a son or a dog of that name was "Bull +Harbison."] + +"Oh, that's good--I tell you, Tom, I was most scared to death; I'd a bet +anything it was a _stray_ dog." + +The dog howled again. The boys' hearts sank once more. + +"Oh, my! that ain't no Bull Harbison!" whispered Huckleberry. "_Do_, +Tom!" + +Tom, quaking with fear, yielded, and put his eye to the crack. His +whisper was hardly audible when he said: + +"Oh, Huck, _its a stray dog_!" + +"Quick, Tom, quick! Who does he mean?" + +"Huck, he must mean us both--we're right together." + +"Oh, Tom, I reckon we're goners. I reckon there ain't no mistake 'bout +where _I'll_ go to. I been so wicked." + +"Dad fetch it! This comes of playing hookey and doing everything a +feller's told _not_ to do. I might a been good, like Sid, if I'd a +tried--but no, I wouldn't, of course. But if ever I get off this time, +I lay I'll just _waller_ in Sunday-schools!" And Tom began to snuffle a +little. + +"_You_ bad!" and Huckleberry began to snuffle too. "Consound it, Tom +Sawyer, you're just old pie, 'long-side o' what I am. Oh, _lordy_, +lordy, lordy, I wisht I only had half your chance." + +Tom choked off and whispered: + +"Look, Hucky, look! He's got his _back_ to us!" + +Hucky looked, with joy in his heart. + +"Well, he has, by jingoes! Did he before?" + +"Yes, he did. But I, like a fool, never thought. Oh, this is bully, you +know. _Now_ who can he mean?" + +The howling stopped. Tom pricked up his ears. + +"Sh! What's that?" he whispered. + +"Sounds like--like hogs grunting. No--it's somebody snoring, Tom." + +"That _is_ it! Where 'bouts is it, Huck?" + +"I bleeve it's down at 'tother end. Sounds so, anyway. Pap used to sleep +there, sometimes, 'long with the hogs, but laws bless you, he just lifts +things when _he_ snores. Besides, I reckon he ain't ever coming back to +this town any more." + +The spirit of adventure rose in the boys' souls once more. + +"Hucky, do you das't to go if I lead?" + +"I don't like to, much. Tom, s'pose it's Injun Joe!" + +Tom quailed. But presently the temptation rose up strong again and the +boys agreed to try, with the understanding that they would take to their +heels if the snoring stopped. So they went tiptoeing stealthily down, +the one behind the other. When they had got to within five steps of the +snorer, Tom stepped on a stick, and it broke with a sharp snap. The man +moaned, writhed a little, and his face came into the moonlight. It was +Muff Potter. The boys' hearts had stood still, and their hopes too, +when the man moved, but their fears passed away now. They tip-toed out, +through the broken weather-boarding, and stopped at a little distance +to exchange a parting word. That long, lugubrious howl rose on the night +air again! They turned and saw the strange dog standing within a few +feet of where Potter was lying, and _facing_ Potter, with his nose +pointing heavenward. + +"Oh, geeminy, it's _him_!" exclaimed both boys, in a breath. + +"Say, Tom--they say a stray dog come howling around Johnny Miller's +house, 'bout midnight, as much as two weeks ago; and a whippoorwill come +in and lit on the banisters and sung, the very same evening; and there +ain't anybody dead there yet." + +"Well, I know that. And suppose there ain't. Didn't Gracie Miller fall +in the kitchen fire and burn herself terrible the very next Saturday?" + +"Yes, but she ain't _dead_. And what's more, she's getting better, too." + +"All right, you wait and see. She's a goner, just as dead sure as Muff +Potter's a goner. That's what the niggers say, and they know all about +these kind of things, Huck." + +Then they separated, cogitating. When Tom crept in at his bedroom window +the night was almost spent. He undressed with excessive caution, and +fell asleep congratulating himself that nobody knew of his escapade. He +was not aware that the gently-snoring Sid was awake, and had been so for +an hour. + +When Tom awoke, Sid was dressed and gone. There was a late look in the +light, a late sense in the atmosphere. He was startled. Why had he not +been called--persecuted till he was up, as usual? The thought filled +him with bodings. Within five minutes he was dressed and down-stairs, +feeling sore and drowsy. The family were still at table, but they had +finished breakfast. There was no voice of rebuke; but there were averted +eyes; there was a silence and an air of solemnity that struck a chill +to the culprit's heart. He sat down and tried to seem gay, but it +was up-hill work; it roused no smile, no response, and he lapsed into +silence and let his heart sink down to the depths. + +After breakfast his aunt took him aside, and Tom almost brightened in +the hope that he was going to be flogged; but it was not so. His aunt +wept over him and asked him how he could go and break her old heart so; +and finally told him to go on, and ruin himself and bring her gray hairs +with sorrow to the grave, for it was no use for her to try any more. +This was worse than a thousand whippings, and Tom's heart was sorer now +than his body. He cried, he pleaded for forgiveness, promised to reform +over and over again, and then received his dismissal, feeling that +he had won but an imperfect forgiveness and established but a feeble +confidence. + +He left the presence too miserable to even feel revengeful toward +Sid; and so the latter's prompt retreat through the back gate was +unnecessary. He moped to school gloomy and sad, and took his flogging, +along with Joe Harper, for playing hookey the day before, with the +air of one whose heart was busy with heavier woes and wholly dead to +trifles. Then he betook himself to his seat, rested his elbows on his +desk and his jaws in his hands, and stared at the wall with the stony +stare of suffering that has reached the limit and can no further go. +His elbow was pressing against some hard substance. After a long time +he slowly and sadly changed his position, and took up this object with +a sigh. It was in a paper. He unrolled it. A long, lingering, colossal +sigh followed, and his heart broke. It was his brass andiron knob! + +This final feather broke the camel's back. + + + + +CHAPTER XI + +CLOSE upon the hour of noon the whole village was suddenly electrified +with the ghastly news. No need of the as yet un-dreamed-of telegraph; +the tale flew from man to man, from group to group, from house to house, +with little less than telegraphic speed. Of course the schoolmaster gave +holi-day for that afternoon; the town would have thought strangely of +him if he had not. + +A gory knife had been found close to the murdered man, and it had been +recognized by somebody as belonging to Muff Potter--so the story ran. And +it was said that a belated citizen had come upon Potter washing himself +in the "branch" about one or two o'clock in the morning, and that Potter +had at once sneaked off--suspicious circumstances, especially the washing +which was not a habit with Potter. It was also said that the town had +been ransacked for this "murderer" (the public are not slow in the +matter of sifting evidence and arriving at a verdict), but that he +could not be found. Horsemen had departed down all the roads in every +direction, and the Sheriff "was confident" that he would be captured +before night. + +All the town was drifting toward the graveyard. Tom's heartbreak +vanished and he joined the procession, not because he would not +a thousand times rather go anywhere else, but because an awful, +unaccountable fascination drew him on. Arrived at the dreadful place, he +wormed his small body through the crowd and saw the dismal spectacle. +It seemed to him an age since he was there before. Somebody pinched +his arm. He turned, and his eyes met Huckleberry's. Then both looked +elsewhere at once, and wondered if anybody had noticed anything in their +mutual glance. But everybody was talking, and intent upon the grisly +spectacle before them. + +"Poor fellow!" "Poor young fellow!" "This ought to be a lesson to grave +robbers!" "Muff Potter'll hang for this if they catch him!" This was the +drift of remark; and the minister said, "It was a judgment; His hand is +here." + +Now Tom shivered from head to heel; for his eye fell upon the stolid +face of Injun Joe. At this moment the crowd began to sway and struggle, +and voices shouted, "It's him! it's him! he's coming himself!" + +"Who? Who?" from twenty voices. + +"Muff Potter!" + +"Hallo, he's stopped!--Look out, he's turning! Don't let him get away!" + +People in the branches of the trees over Tom's head said he wasn't +trying to get away--he only looked doubtful and perplexed. + +"Infernal impudence!" said a bystander; "wanted to come and take a quiet +look at his work, I reckon--didn't expect any company." + +The crowd fell apart, now, and the Sheriff came through, ostentatiously +leading Potter by the arm. The poor fellow's face was haggard, and +his eyes showed the fear that was upon him. When he stood before the +murdered man, he shook as with a palsy, and he put his face in his hands +and burst into tears. + +"I didn't do it, friends," he sobbed; "'pon my word and honor I never +done it." + +"Who's accused you?" shouted a voice. + +This shot seemed to carry home. Potter lifted his face and looked around +him with a pathetic hopelessness in his eyes. He saw Injun Joe, and +exclaimed: + +"Oh, Injun Joe, you promised me you'd never--" + +"Is that your knife?" and it was thrust before him by the Sheriff. + +Potter would have fallen if they had not caught him and eased him to the +ground. Then he said: + +"Something told me 't if I didn't come back and get--" He shuddered; then +waved his nerveless hand with a vanquished gesture and said, "Tell 'em, +Joe, tell 'em--it ain't any use any more." + +Then Huckleberry and Tom stood dumb and staring, and heard the +stony-hearted liar reel off his serene statement, they expecting every +moment that the clear sky would deliver God's lightnings upon his head, +and wondering to see how long the stroke was delayed. And when he had +finished and still stood alive and whole, their wavering impulse to +break their oath and save the poor betrayed prisoner's life faded and +vanished away, for plainly this miscreant had sold himself to Satan and +it would be fatal to meddle with the property of such a power as that. + +"Why didn't you leave? What did you want to come here for?" somebody +said. + +"I couldn't help it--I couldn't help it," Potter moaned. "I wanted to +run away, but I couldn't seem to come anywhere but here." And he fell to +sobbing again. + +Injun Joe repeated his statement, just as calmly, a few minutes +afterward on the inquest, under oath; and the boys, seeing that the +lightnings were still withheld, were confirmed in their belief that +Joe had sold himself to the devil. He was now become, to them, the most +balefully interesting object they had ever looked upon, and they could +not take their fascinated eyes from his face. + +They inwardly resolved to watch him nights, when opportunity should +offer, in the hope of getting a glimpse of his dread master. + +Injun Joe helped to raise the body of the murdered man and put it in +a wagon for removal; and it was whispered through the shuddering +crowd that the wound bled a little! The boys thought that this happy +circumstance would turn suspicion in the right direction; but they were +disappointed, for more than one villager remarked: + +"It was within three feet of Muff Potter when it done it." + +Tom's fearful secret and gnawing conscience disturbed his sleep for as +much as a week after this; and at breakfast one morning Sid said: + +"Tom, you pitch around and talk in your sleep so much that you keep me +awake half the time." + +Tom blanched and dropped his eyes. + +"It's a bad sign," said Aunt Polly, gravely. "What you got on your mind, +Tom?" + +"Nothing. Nothing 't I know of." But the boy's hand shook so that he +spilled his coffee. + +"And you do talk such stuff," Sid said. "Last night you said, 'It's +blood, it's blood, that's what it is!' You said that over and over. +And you said, 'Don't torment me so--I'll tell!' Tell _what_? What is it +you'll tell?" + +Everything was swimming before Tom. There is no telling what might have +happened, now, but luckily the concern passed out of Aunt Polly's face +and she came to Tom's relief without knowing it. She said: + +"Sho! It's that dreadful murder. I dream about it most every night +myself. Sometimes I dream it's me that done it." + +Mary said she had been affected much the same way. Sid seemed satisfied. +Tom got out of the presence as quick as he plausibly could, and after +that he complained of toothache for a week, and tied up his jaws every +night. He never knew that Sid lay nightly watching, and frequently +slipped the bandage free and then leaned on his elbow listening a good +while at a time, and afterward slipped the bandage back to its place +again. Tom's distress of mind wore off gradually and the toothache grew +irksome and was discarded. If Sid really managed to make anything out of +Tom's disjointed mutterings, he kept it to himself. + +It seemed to Tom that his schoolmates never would get done holding +inquests on dead cats, and thus keeping his trouble present to his mind. +Sid noticed that Tom never was coroner at one of these inquiries, +though it had been his habit to take the lead in all new enterprises; +he noticed, too, that Tom never acted as a witness--and that was strange; +and Sid did not overlook the fact that Tom even showed a marked aversion +to these inquests, and always avoided them when he could. Sid marvelled, +but said nothing. However, even inquests went out of vogue at last, and +ceased to torture Tom's conscience. + +Every day or two, during this time of sorrow, Tom watched his +opportunity and went to the little grated jail-window and smuggled such +small comforts through to the "murderer" as he could get hold of. The +jail was a trifling little brick den that stood in a marsh at the edge +of the village, and no guards were afforded for it; indeed, it +was seldom occupied. These offerings greatly helped to ease Tom's +conscience. + +The villagers had a strong desire to tar-and-feather Injun Joe and ride +him on a rail, for body-snatching, but so formidable was his character +that nobody could be found who was willing to take the lead in the +matter, so it was dropped. He had been careful to begin both of his +inquest-statements with the fight, without confessing the grave-robbery +that preceded it; therefore it was deemed wisest not to try the case in +the courts at present. + + + + +CHAPTER XII + +ONE of the reasons why Tom's mind had drifted away from its secret +troubles was, that it had found a new and weighty matter to interest +itself about. Becky Thatcher had stopped coming to school. Tom had +struggled with his pride a few days, and tried to "whistle her down the +wind," but failed. He began to find himself hanging around her father's +house, nights, and feeling very miserable. She was ill. What if she +should die! There was distraction in the thought. He no longer took an +interest in war, nor even in piracy. The charm of life was gone; there +was nothing but dreariness left. He put his hoop away, and his bat; +there was no joy in them any more. His aunt was concerned. She began to +try all manner of remedies on him. She was one of those people who +are infatuated with patent medicines and all new-fangled methods of +producing health or mending it. She was an inveterate experimenter in +these things. When something fresh in this line came out she was in a +fever, right away, to try it; not on herself, for she was never ailing, +but on anybody else that came handy. She was a subscriber for all the +"Health" periodicals and phrenological frauds; and the solemn ignorance +they were inflated with was breath to her nostrils. All the "rot" they +contained about ventilation, and how to go to bed, and how to get up, +and what to eat, and what to drink, and how much exercise to take, and +what frame of mind to keep one's self in, and what sort of clothing +to wear, was all gospel to her, and she never observed that her +health-journals of the current month customarily upset everything they +had recommended the month before. She was as simple-hearted and honest +as the day was long, and so she was an easy victim. She gathered +together her quack periodicals and her quack medicines, and thus armed +with death, went about on her pale horse, metaphorically speaking, with +"hell following after." But she never suspected that she was not an +angel of healing and the balm of Gilead in disguise, to the suffering +neighbors. + +The water treatment was new, now, and Tom's low condition was a windfall +to her. She had him out at daylight every morning, stood him up in the +wood-shed and drowned him with a deluge of cold water; then she scrubbed +him down with a towel like a file, and so brought him to; then she +rolled him up in a wet sheet and put him away under blankets till she +sweated his soul clean and "the yellow stains of it came through his +pores"--as Tom said. + +Yet notwithstanding all this, the boy grew more and more melancholy and +pale and dejected. She added hot baths, sitz baths, shower baths, and +plunges. The boy remained as dismal as a hearse. She began to assist the +water with a slim oatmeal diet and blister-plasters. She calculated his +capacity as she would a jug's, and filled him up every day with quack +cure-alls. + +Tom had become indifferent to persecution by this time. This phase +filled the old lady's heart with consternation. This indifference must +be broken up at any cost. Now she heard of Pain-killer for the first +time. She ordered a lot at once. She tasted it and was filled with +gratitude. It was simply fire in a liquid form. She dropped the water +treatment and everything else, and pinned her faith to Pain-killer. +She gave Tom a teaspoonful and watched with the deepest anxiety for the +result. Her troubles were instantly at rest, her soul at peace again; +for the "indifference" was broken up. The boy could not have shown a +wilder, heartier interest, if she had built a fire under him. + +Tom felt that it was time to wake up; this sort of life might be +romantic enough, in his blighted condition, but it was getting to have +too little sentiment and too much distracting variety about it. So he +thought over various plans for relief, and finally hit upon that of +professing to be fond of Pain-killer. He asked for it so often that he +became a nuisance, and his aunt ended by telling him to help himself and +quit bothering her. If it had been Sid, she would have had no misgivings +to alloy her delight; but since it was Tom, she watched the bottle +clandestinely. She found that the medicine did really diminish, but it +did not occur to her that the boy was mending the health of a crack in +the sitting-room floor with it. + +One day Tom was in the act of dosing the crack when his aunt's yellow +cat came along, purring, eyeing the teaspoon avariciously, and begging +for a taste. Tom said: + +"Don't ask for it unless you want it, Peter." + +But Peter signified that he did want it. + +"You better make sure." + +Peter was sure. + +"Now you've asked for it, and I'll give it to you, because there ain't +anything mean about me; but if you find you don't like it, you mustn't +blame anybody but your own self." + +Peter was agreeable. So Tom pried his mouth open and poured down +the Pain-killer. Peter sprang a couple of yards in the air, and then +delivered a war-whoop and set off round and round the room, banging +against furniture, upsetting flower-pots, and making general havoc. Next +he rose on his hind feet and pranced around, in a frenzy of enjoyment, +with his head over his shoulder and his voice proclaiming his +unappeasable happiness. Then he went tearing around the house again +spreading chaos and destruction in his path. Aunt Polly entered in time +to see him throw a few double summersets, deliver a final mighty hurrah, +and sail through the open window, carrying the rest of the flower-pots +with him. The old lady stood petrified with astonishment, peering over +her glasses; Tom lay on the floor expiring with laughter. + +"Tom, what on earth ails that cat?" + +"I don't know, aunt," gasped the boy. + +"Why, I never see anything like it. What did make him act so?" + +"Deed I don't know, Aunt Polly; cats always act so when they're having a +good time." + +"They do, do they?" There was something in the tone that made Tom +apprehensive. + +"Yes'm. That is, I believe they do." + +"You _do_?" + +"Yes'm." + +The old lady was bending down, Tom watching, with interest emphasized +by anxiety. Too late he divined her "drift." The handle of the telltale +tea-spoon was visible under the bed-valance. Aunt Polly took it, held it +up. Tom winced, and dropped his eyes. Aunt Polly raised him by the usual +handle--his ear--and cracked his head soundly with her thimble. + +"Now, sir, what did you want to treat that poor dumb beast so, for?" + +"I done it out of pity for him--because he hadn't any aunt." + +"Hadn't any aunt!--you numskull. What has that got to do with it?" + +"Heaps. Because if he'd had one she'd a burnt him out herself! She'd a +roasted his bowels out of him 'thout any more feeling than if he was a +human!" + +Aunt Polly felt a sudden pang of remorse. This was putting the thing in +a new light; what was cruelty to a cat _might_ be cruelty to a boy, too. +She began to soften; she felt sorry. Her eyes watered a little, and she +put her hand on Tom's head and said gently: + +"I was meaning for the best, Tom. And, Tom, it _did_ do you good." + +Tom looked up in her face with just a perceptible twinkle peeping +through his gravity. + +"I know you was meaning for the best, aunty, and so was I with Peter. It +done _him_ good, too. I never see him get around so since--" + +"Oh, go 'long with you, Tom, before you aggravate me again. And you try +and see if you can't be a good boy, for once, and you needn't take any +more medicine." + +Tom reached school ahead of time. It was noticed that this strange thing +had been occurring every day latterly. And now, as usual of late, +he hung about the gate of the schoolyard instead of playing with his +comrades. He was sick, he said, and he looked it. He tried to seem to +be looking everywhere but whither he really was looking--down the road. +Presently Jeff Thatcher hove in sight, and Tom's face lighted; he gazed +a moment, and then turned sorrowfully away. When Jeff arrived, Tom +accosted him; and "led up" warily to opportunities for remark about +Becky, but the giddy lad never could see the bait. Tom watched and +watched, hoping whenever a frisking frock came in sight, and hating the +owner of it as soon as he saw she was not the right one. At last frocks +ceased to appear, and he dropped hopelessly into the dumps; he entered +the empty schoolhouse and sat down to suffer. Then one more frock passed +in at the gate, and Tom's heart gave a great bound. The next instant he +was out, and "going on" like an Indian; yelling, laughing, chasing boys, +jumping over the fence at risk of life and limb, throwing handsprings, +standing on his head--doing all the heroic things he could conceive of, +and keeping a furtive eye out, all the while, to see if Becky Thatcher +was noticing. But she seemed to be unconscious of it all; she never +looked. Could it be possible that she was not aware that he was there? +He carried his exploits to her immediate vicinity; came war-whooping +around, snatched a boy's cap, hurled it to the roof of the schoolhouse, +broke through a group of boys, tumbling them in every direction, and +fell sprawling, himself, under Becky's nose, almost upsetting her--and +she turned, with her nose in the air, and he heard her say: "Mf! some +people think they're mighty smart--always showing off!" + +Tom's cheeks burned. He gathered himself up and sneaked off, crushed and +crestfallen. + + + + +CHAPTER XIII + +TOM'S mind was made up now. He was gloomy and desperate. He was a +forsaken, friendless boy, he said; nobody loved him; when they found out +what they had driven him to, perhaps they would be sorry; he had tried +to do right and get along, but they would not let him; since nothing +would do them but to be rid of him, let it be so; and let them blame +_him_ for the consequences--why shouldn't they? What right had the +friendless to complain? Yes, they had forced him to it at last: he would +lead a life of crime. There was no choice. + +By this time he was far down Meadow Lane, and the bell for school to +"take up" tinkled faintly upon his ear. He sobbed, now, to think he +should never, never hear that old familiar sound any more--it was very +hard, but it was forced on him; since he was driven out into the cold +world, he must submit--but he forgave them. Then the sobs came thick and +fast. + +Just at this point he met his soul's sworn comrade, Joe +Harper--hard-eyed, and with evidently a great and dismal purpose in his +heart. Plainly here were "two souls with but a single thought." Tom, +wiping his eyes with his sleeve, began to blubber out something about +a resolution to escape from hard usage and lack of sympathy at home by +roaming abroad into the great world never to return; and ended by hoping +that Joe would not forget him. + +But it transpired that this was a request which Joe had just been going +to make of Tom, and had come to hunt him up for that purpose. His mother +had whipped him for drinking some cream which he had never tasted and +knew nothing about; it was plain that she was tired of him and wished +him to go; if she felt that way, there was nothing for him to do but +succumb; he hoped she would be happy, and never regret having driven her +poor boy out into the unfeeling world to suffer and die. + +As the two boys walked sorrowing along, they made a new compact to stand +by each other and be brothers and never separate till death relieved +them of their troubles. Then they began to lay their plans. Joe was for +being a hermit, and living on crusts in a remote cave, and dying, +some time, of cold and want and grief; but after listening to Tom, he +conceded that there were some conspicuous advantages about a life of +crime, and so he consented to be a pirate. + +Three miles below St. Petersburg, at a point where the Mississippi River +was a trifle over a mile wide, there was a long, narrow, wooded island, +with a shallow bar at the head of it, and this offered well as a +rendezvous. It was not inhabited; it lay far over toward the further +shore, abreast a dense and almost wholly unpeopled forest. So Jackson's +Island was chosen. Who were to be the subjects of their piracies was a +matter that did not occur to them. Then they hunted up Huckleberry Finn, +and he joined them promptly, for all careers were one to him; he was +indifferent. They presently separated to meet at a lonely spot on the +river-bank two miles above the village at the favorite hour--which was +midnight. There was a small log raft there which they meant to capture. +Each would bring hooks and lines, and such provision as he could steal +in the most dark and mysterious way--as became outlaws. And before the +afternoon was done, they had all managed to enjoy the sweet glory of +spreading the fact that pretty soon the town would "hear something." All +who got this vague hint were cautioned to "be mum and wait." + +About midnight Tom arrived with a boiled ham and a few trifles, +and stopped in a dense undergrowth on a small bluff overlooking the +meeting-place. It was starlight, and very still. The mighty river lay +like an ocean at rest. Tom listened a moment, but no sound disturbed the +quiet. Then he gave a low, distinct whistle. It was answered from under +the bluff. Tom whistled twice more; these signals were answered in the +same way. Then a guarded voice said: + +"Who goes there?" + +"Tom Sawyer, the Black Avenger of the Spanish Main. Name your names." + +"Huck Finn the Red-Handed, and Joe Harper the Terror of the Seas." Tom +had furnished these titles, from his favorite literature. + +"'Tis well. Give the countersign." + +Two hoarse whispers delivered the same awful word simultaneously to the +brooding night: + +"_Blood_!" + +Then Tom tumbled his ham over the bluff and let himself down after it, +tearing both skin and clothes to some extent in the effort. There was +an easy, comfortable path along the shore under the bluff, but it lacked +the advantages of difficulty and danger so valued by a pirate. + +The Terror of the Seas had brought a side of bacon, and had about worn +himself out with getting it there. Finn the Red-Handed had stolen a +skillet and a quantity of half-cured leaf tobacco, and had also brought +a few corn-cobs to make pipes with. But none of the pirates smoked or +"chewed" but himself. The Black Avenger of the Spanish Main said it +would never do to start without some fire. That was a wise thought; +matches were hardly known there in that day. They saw a fire smouldering +upon a great raft a hundred yards above, and they went stealthily +thither and helped themselves to a chunk. They made an imposing +adventure of it, saying, "Hist!" every now and then, and suddenly +halting with finger on lip; moving with hands on imaginary dagger-hilts; +and giving orders in dismal whispers that if "the foe" stirred, to "let +him have it to the hilt," because "dead men tell no tales." They knew +well enough that the raftsmen were all down at the village laying +in stores or having a spree, but still that was no excuse for their +conducting this thing in an unpiratical way. + +They shoved off, presently, Tom in command, Huck at the after oar and +Joe at the forward. Tom stood amidships, gloomy-browed, and with folded +arms, and gave his orders in a low, stern whisper: + +"Luff, and bring her to the wind!" + +"Aye-aye, sir!" + +"Steady, steady-y-y-y!" + +"Steady it is, sir!" + +"Let her go off a point!" + +"Point it is, sir!" + +As the boys steadily and monotonously drove the raft toward mid-stream +it was no doubt understood that these orders were given only for +"style," and were not intended to mean anything in particular. + +"What sail's she carrying?" + +"Courses, tops'ls, and flying-jib, sir." + +"Send the r'yals up! Lay out aloft, there, half a dozen of +ye--foretopmaststuns'l! Lively, now!" + +"Aye-aye, sir!" + +"Shake out that maintogalans'l! Sheets and braces! _now_ my hearties!" + +"Aye-aye, sir!" + +"Hellum-a-lee--hard a port! Stand by to meet her when she comes! Port, +port! _Now_, men! With a will! Stead-y-y-y!" + +"Steady it is, sir!" + +The raft drew beyond the middle of the river; the boys pointed her head +right, and then lay on their oars. The river was not high, so there was +not more than a two or three mile current. Hardly a word was said during +the next three-quarters of an hour. Now the raft was passing before +the distant town. Two or three glimmering lights showed where it lay, +peacefully sleeping, beyond the vague vast sweep of star-gemmed water, +unconscious of the tremendous event that was happening. The Black +Avenger stood still with folded arms, "looking his last" upon the scene +of his former joys and his later sufferings, and wishing "she" could see +him now, abroad on the wild sea, facing peril and death with dauntless +heart, going to his doom with a grim smile on his lips. It was but +a small strain on his imagination to remove Jackson's Island beyond +eye-shot of the village, and so he "looked his last" with a broken and +satisfied heart. The other pirates were looking their last, too; and +they all looked so long that they came near letting the current drift +them out of the range of the island. But they discovered the danger in +time, and made shift to avert it. About two o'clock in the morning the +raft grounded on the bar two hundred yards above the head of the island, +and they waded back and forth until they had landed their freight. Part +of the little raft's belongings consisted of an old sail, and this they +spread over a nook in the bushes for a tent to shelter their provisions; +but they themselves would sleep in the open air in good weather, as +became outlaws. + +They built a fire against the side of a great log twenty or thirty steps +within the sombre depths of the forest, and then cooked some bacon in +the frying-pan for supper, and used up half of the corn "pone" stock +they had brought. It seemed glorious sport to be feasting in that wild, +free way in the virgin forest of an unexplored and uninhabited island, +far from the haunts of men, and they said they never would return to +civilization. The climbing fire lit up their faces and threw its ruddy +glare upon the pillared tree-trunks of their forest temple, and upon the +varnished foliage and festooning vines. + +When the last crisp slice of bacon was gone, and the last allowance +of corn pone devoured, the boys stretched themselves out on the grass, +filled with contentment. They could have found a cooler place, but +they would not deny themselves such a romantic feature as the roasting +campfire. + +"_Ain't_ it gay?" said Joe. + +"It's _nuts_!" said Tom. "What would the boys say if they could see us?" + +"Say? Well, they'd just die to be here--hey, Hucky!" + +"I reckon so," said Huckleberry; "anyways, I'm suited. I don't want +nothing better'n this. I don't ever get enough to eat, gen'ally--and here +they can't come and pick at a feller and bullyrag him so." + +"It's just the life for me," said Tom. "You don't have to get up, +mornings, and you don't have to go to school, and wash, and all that +blame foolishness. You see a pirate don't have to do _anything_, Joe, +when he's ashore, but a hermit _he_ has to be praying considerable, and +then he don't have any fun, anyway, all by himself that way." + +"Oh yes, that's so," said Joe, "but I hadn't thought much about it, you +know. I'd a good deal rather be a pirate, now that I've tried it." + +"You see," said Tom, "people don't go much on hermits, nowadays, like +they used to in old times, but a pirate's always respected. And +a hermit's got to sleep on the hardest place he can find, and put +sackcloth and ashes on his head, and stand out in the rain, and--" + +"What does he put sackcloth and ashes on his head for?" inquired Huck. + +"I dono. But they've _got_ to do it. Hermits always do. You'd have to do +that if you was a hermit." + +"Dern'd if I would," said Huck. + +"Well, what would you do?" + +"I dono. But I wouldn't do that." + +"Why, Huck, you'd _have_ to. How'd you get around it?" + +"Why, I just wouldn't stand it. I'd run away." + +"Run away! Well, you _would_ be a nice old slouch of a hermit. You'd be +a disgrace." + +The Red-Handed made no response, being better employed. He had finished +gouging out a cob, and now he fitted a weed stem to it, loaded it with +tobacco, and was pressing a coal to the charge and blowing a cloud of +fragrant smoke--he was in the full bloom of luxurious contentment. The +other pirates envied him this majestic vice, and secretly resolved to +acquire it shortly. Presently Huck said: + +"What does pirates have to do?" + +Tom said: + +"Oh, they have just a bully time--take ships and burn them, and get the +money and bury it in awful places in their island where there's ghosts +and things to watch it, and kill everybody in the ships--make 'em walk a +plank." + +"And they carry the women to the island," said Joe; "they don't kill the +women." + +"No," assented Tom, "they don't kill the women--they're too noble. And +the women's always beautiful, too. + +"And don't they wear the bulliest clothes! Oh no! All gold and silver +and di'monds," said Joe, with enthusiasm. + +"Who?" said Huck. + +"Why, the pirates." + +Huck scanned his own clothing forlornly. + +"I reckon I ain't dressed fitten for a pirate," said he, with a +regretful pathos in his voice; "but I ain't got none but these." + +But the other boys told him the fine clothes would come fast enough, +after they should have begun their adventures. They made him understand +that his poor rags would do to begin with, though it was customary for +wealthy pirates to start with a proper wardrobe. + +Gradually their talk died out and drowsiness began to steal upon the +eyelids of the little waifs. The pipe dropped from the fingers of the +Red-Handed, and he slept the sleep of the conscience-free and the weary. +The Terror of the Seas and the Black Avenger of the Spanish Main had +more difficulty in getting to sleep. They said their prayers inwardly, +and lying down, since there was nobody there with authority to make them +kneel and recite aloud; in truth, they had a mind not to say them at +all, but they were afraid to proceed to such lengths as that, lest they +might call down a sudden and special thunderbolt from heaven. Then at +once they reached and hovered upon the imminent verge of sleep--but an +intruder came, now, that would not "down." It was conscience. They began +to feel a vague fear that they had been doing wrong to run away; and +next they thought of the stolen meat, and then the real torture came. +They tried to argue it away by reminding conscience that they had +purloined sweetmeats and apples scores of times; but conscience was not +to be appeased by such thin plausibilities; it seemed to them, in the +end, that there was no getting around the stubborn fact that taking +sweetmeats was only "hooking," while taking bacon and hams and such +valuables was plain simple stealing--and there was a command against that +in the Bible. So they inwardly resolved that so long as they remained in +the business, their piracies should not again be sullied with the +crime of stealing. Then conscience granted a truce, and these curiously +inconsistent pirates fell peacefully to sleep. + + + + +CHAPTER XIV + +WHEN Tom awoke in the morning, he wondered where he was. He sat up and +rubbed his eyes and looked around. Then he comprehended. It was the cool +gray dawn, and there was a delicious sense of repose and peace in the +deep pervading calm and silence of the woods. Not a leaf stirred; not +a sound obtruded upon great Nature's meditation. Beaded dewdrops stood +upon the leaves and grasses. A white layer of ashes covered the fire, +and a thin blue breath of smoke rose straight into the air. Joe and Huck +still slept. + +Now, far away in the woods a bird called; another answered; presently +the hammering of a woodpecker was heard. Gradually the cool dim gray +of the morning whitened, and as gradually sounds multiplied and life +manifested itself. The marvel of Nature shaking off sleep and going +to work unfolded itself to the musing boy. A little green worm came +crawling over a dewy leaf, lifting two-thirds of his body into the air +from time to time and "sniffing around," then proceeding again--for he +was measuring, Tom said; and when the worm approached him, of its own +accord, he sat as still as a stone, with his hopes rising and falling, +by turns, as the creature still came toward him or seemed inclined to +go elsewhere; and when at last it considered a painful moment with its +curved body in the air and then came decisively down upon Tom's leg and +began a journey over him, his whole heart was glad--for that meant that +he was going to have a new suit of clothes--without the shadow of a +doubt a gaudy piratical uniform. Now a procession of ants appeared, +from nowhere in particular, and went about their labors; one struggled +manfully by with a dead spider five times as big as itself in its arms, +and lugged it straight up a tree-trunk. A brown spotted lady-bug climbed +the dizzy height of a grass blade, and Tom bent down close to it and +said, "Lady-bug, lady-bug, fly away home, your house is on fire, your +children's alone," and she took wing and went off to see about it--which +did not surprise the boy, for he knew of old that this insect was +credulous about conflagrations, and he had practised upon its simplicity +more than once. A tumblebug came next, heaving sturdily at its ball, and +Tom touched the creature, to see it shut its legs against its body +and pretend to be dead. The birds were fairly rioting by this time. A +catbird, the Northern mocker, lit in a tree over Tom's head, and trilled +out her imitations of her neighbors in a rapture of enjoyment; then +a shrill jay swept down, a flash of blue flame, and stopped on a twig +almost within the boy's reach, cocked his head to one side and eyed the +strangers with a consuming curiosity; a gray squirrel and a big fellow +of the "fox" kind came skurrying along, sitting up at intervals to +inspect and chatter at the boys, for the wild things had probably never +seen a human being before and scarcely knew whether to be afraid or not. +All Nature was wide awake and stirring, now; long lances of sunlight +pierced down through the dense foliage far and near, and a few +butterflies came fluttering upon the scene. + +Tom stirred up the other pirates and they all clattered away with +a shout, and in a minute or two were stripped and chasing after and +tumbling over each other in the shallow limpid water of the white +sandbar. They felt no longing for the little village sleeping in the +distance beyond the majestic waste of water. A vagrant current or a +slight rise in the river had carried off their raft, but this only +gratified them, since its going was something like burning the bridge +between them and civilization. + +They came back to camp wonderfully refreshed, glad-hearted, and +ravenous; and they soon had the camp-fire blazing up again. Huck found a +spring of clear cold water close by, and the boys made cups of broad oak +or hickory leaves, and felt that water, sweetened with such a wildwood +charm as that, would be a good enough substitute for coffee. While Joe +was slicing bacon for breakfast, Tom and Huck asked him to hold on a +minute; they stepped to a promising nook in the river-bank and threw in +their lines; almost immediately they had reward. Joe had not had time +to get impatient before they were back again with some handsome bass, +a couple of sun-perch and a small catfish--provisions enough for quite a +family. They fried the fish with the bacon, and were astonished; for +no fish had ever seemed so delicious before. They did not know that the +quicker a fresh-water fish is on the fire after he is caught the better +he is; and they reflected little upon what a sauce open-air sleeping, +open-air exercise, bathing, and a large ingredient of hunger make, too. + +They lay around in the shade, after breakfast, while Huck had a smoke, +and then went off through the woods on an exploring expedition. They +tramped gayly along, over decaying logs, through tangled underbrush, +among solemn monarchs of the forest, hung from their crowns to the +ground with a drooping regalia of grape-vines. Now and then they came +upon snug nooks carpeted with grass and jeweled with flowers. + +They found plenty of things to be delighted with, but nothing to be +astonished at. They discovered that the island was about three miles +long and a quarter of a mile wide, and that the shore it lay closest to +was only separated from it by a narrow channel hardly two hundred yards +wide. They took a swim about every hour, so it was close upon the middle +of the afternoon when they got back to camp. They were too hungry to +stop to fish, but they fared sumptuously upon cold ham, and then threw +themselves down in the shade to talk. But the talk soon began to drag, +and then died. The stillness, the solemnity that brooded in the woods, +and the sense of loneliness, began to tell upon the spirits of the boys. +They fell to thinking. A sort of undefined longing crept upon them. This +took dim shape, presently--it was budding homesickness. Even Finn the +Red-Handed was dreaming of his doorsteps and empty hogsheads. But they +were all ashamed of their weakness, and none was brave enough to speak +his thought. + +For some time, now, the boys had been dully conscious of a peculiar +sound in the distance, just as one sometimes is of the ticking of a +clock which he takes no distinct note of. But now this mysterious sound +became more pronounced, and forced a recognition. The boys started, +glanced at each other, and then each assumed a listening attitude. There +was a long silence, profound and unbroken; then a deep, sullen boom came +floating down out of the distance. + +"What is it!" exclaimed Joe, under his breath. + +"I wonder," said Tom in a whisper. + +"'Tain't thunder," said Huckleberry, in an awed tone, "becuz thunder--" + +"Hark!" said Tom. "Listen--don't talk." + +They waited a time that seemed an age, and then the same muffled boom +troubled the solemn hush. + +"Let's go and see." + +They sprang to their feet and hurried to the shore toward the town. They +parted the bushes on the bank and peered out over the water. The little +steam ferry-boat was about a mile below the village, drifting with the +current. Her broad deck seemed crowded with people. There were a great +many skiffs rowing about or floating with the stream in the neighborhood +of the ferryboat, but the boys could not determine what the men in +them were doing. Presently a great jet of white smoke burst from the +ferryboat's side, and as it expanded and rose in a lazy cloud, that same +dull throb of sound was borne to the listeners again. + +"I know now!" exclaimed Tom; "somebody's drownded!" + +"That's it!" said Huck; "they done that last summer, when Bill Turner +got drownded; they shoot a cannon over the water, and that makes +him come up to the top. Yes, and they take loaves of bread and put +quicksilver in 'em and set 'em afloat, and wherever there's anybody +that's drownded, they'll float right there and stop." + +"Yes, I've heard about that," said Joe. "I wonder what makes the bread +do that." + +"Oh, it ain't the bread, so much," said Tom; "I reckon it's mostly what +they _say_ over it before they start it out." + +"But they don't say anything over it," said Huck. "I've seen 'em and +they don't." + +"Well, that's funny," said Tom. "But maybe they say it to themselves. Of +_course_ they do. Anybody might know that." + +The other boys agreed that there was reason in what Tom said, because +an ignorant lump of bread, uninstructed by an incantation, could not +be expected to act very intelligently when set upon an errand of such +gravity. + +"By jings, I wish I was over there, now," said Joe. + +"I do too" said Huck "I'd give heaps to know who it is." + +The boys still listened and watched. Presently a revealing thought +flashed through Tom's mind, and he exclaimed: + +"Boys, I know who's drownded--it's us!" + +They felt like heroes in an instant. Here was a gorgeous triumph; they +were missed; they were mourned; hearts were breaking on their account; +tears were being shed; accusing memories of unkindness to these poor +lost lads were rising up, and unavailing regrets and remorse were being +indulged; and best of all, the departed were the talk of the whole town, +and the envy of all the boys, as far as this dazzling notoriety was +concerned. This was fine. It was worth while to be a pirate, after all. + +As twilight drew on, the ferryboat went back to her accustomed business +and the skiffs disappeared. The pirates returned to camp. They were +jubilant with vanity over their new grandeur and the illustrious trouble +they were making. They caught fish, cooked supper and ate it, and then +fell to guessing at what the village was thinking and saying about them; +and the pictures they drew of the public distress on their account were +gratifying to look upon--from their point of view. But when the shadows +of night closed them in, they gradually ceased to talk, and sat gazing +into the fire, with their minds evidently wandering elsewhere. The +excitement was gone, now, and Tom and Joe could not keep back thoughts +of certain persons at home who were not enjoying this fine frolic as +much as they were. Misgivings came; they grew troubled and unhappy; a +sigh or two escaped, unawares. By and by Joe timidly ventured upon a +roundabout "feeler" as to how the others might look upon a return to +civilization--not right now, but-- + +Tom withered him with derision! Huck, being uncommitted as yet, joined +in with Tom, and the waverer quickly "explained," and was glad to get +out of the scrape with as little taint of chicken-hearted home-sickness +clinging to his garments as he could. Mutiny was effectually laid to +rest for the moment. + +As the night deepened, Huck began to nod, and presently to snore. +Joe followed next. Tom lay upon his elbow motionless, for some time, +watching the two intently. At last he got up cautiously, on his knees, +and went searching among the grass and the flickering reflections flung +by the campfire. He picked up and inspected several large semi-cylinders +of the thin white bark of a sycamore, and finally chose two which seemed +to suit him. Then he knelt by the fire and painfully wrote something +upon each of these with his "red keel"; one he rolled up and put in his +jacket pocket, and the other he put in Joe's hat and removed it to a +little distance from the owner. And he also put into the hat certain +schoolboy treasures of almost inestimable value--among them a lump of +chalk, an India-rubber ball, three fishhooks, and one of that kind +of marbles known as a "sure 'nough crystal." Then he tiptoed his way +cautiously among the trees till he felt that he was out of hearing, and +straightway broke into a keen run in the direction of the sandbar. + + + + +CHAPTER XV + +A few minutes later Tom was in the shoal water of the bar, wading toward +the Illinois shore. Before the depth reached his middle he was halfway +over; the current would permit no more wading, now, so he struck out +confidently to swim the remaining hundred yards. He swam quartering +upstream, but still was swept downward rather faster than he had +expected. However, he reached the shore finally, and drifted along till +he found a low place and drew himself out. He put his hand on his jacket +pocket, found his piece of bark safe, and then struck through the woods, +following the shore, with streaming garments. Shortly before ten +o'clock he came out into an open place opposite the village, and saw the +ferryboat lying in the shadow of the trees and the high bank. Everything +was quiet under the blinking stars. He crept down the bank, watching +with all his eyes, slipped into the water, swam three or four strokes +and climbed into the skiff that did "yawl" duty at the boat's stern. He +laid himself down under the thwarts and waited, panting. + +Presently the cracked bell tapped and a voice gave the order to "cast +off." A minute or two later the skiff's head was standing high up, +against the boat's swell, and the voyage was begun. Tom felt happy in +his success, for he knew it was the boat's last trip for the night. At +the end of a long twelve or fifteen minutes the wheels stopped, and +Tom slipped overboard and swam ashore in the dusk, landing fifty yards +downstream, out of danger of possible stragglers. + +He flew along unfrequented alleys, and shortly found himself at his +aunt's back fence. He climbed over, approached the "ell," and looked +in at the sitting-room window, for a light was burning there. There +sat Aunt Polly, Sid, Mary, and Joe Harper's mother, grouped together, +talking. They were by the bed, and the bed was between them and the +door. Tom went to the door and began to softly lift the latch; then +he pressed gently and the door yielded a crack; he continued pushing +cautiously, and quaking every time it creaked, till he judged he might +squeeze through on his knees; so he put his head through and began, +warily. + +"What makes the candle blow so?" said Aunt Polly. Tom hurried up. "Why, +that door's open, I believe. Why, of course it is. No end of strange +things now. Go 'long and shut it, Sid." + +Tom disappeared under the bed just in time. He lay and "breathed" +himself for a time, and then crept to where he could almost touch his +aunt's foot. + +"But as I was saying," said Aunt Polly, "he warn't _bad_, so to say--only +misch_ee_vous. Only just giddy, and harum-scarum, you know. He warn't +any more responsible than a colt. _He_ never meant any harm, and he was +the best-hearted boy that ever was"--and she began to cry. + +"It was just so with my Joe--always full of his devilment, and up to +every kind of mischief, but he was just as unselfish and kind as he +could be--and laws bless me, to think I went and whipped him for taking +that cream, never once recollecting that I throwed it out myself because +it was sour, and I never to see him again in this world, never, never, +never, poor abused boy!" And Mrs. Harper sobbed as if her heart would +break. + +"I hope Tom's better off where he is," said Sid, "but if he'd been +better in some ways--" + +"_Sid!_" Tom felt the glare of the old lady's eye, though he could not +see it. "Not a word against my Tom, now that he's gone! God'll take care +of _him_--never you trouble _your_self, sir! Oh, Mrs. Harper, I don't +know how to give him up! I don't know how to give him up! He was such a +comfort to me, although he tormented my old heart out of me, 'most." + +"The Lord giveth and the Lord hath taken away--Blessed be the name of +the Lord! But it's so hard--Oh, it's so hard! Only last Saturday my Joe +busted a firecracker right under my nose and I knocked him sprawling. +Little did I know then, how soon--Oh, if it was to do over again I'd hug +him and bless him for it." + +"Yes, yes, yes, I know just how you feel, Mrs. Harper, I know just +exactly how you feel. No longer ago than yesterday noon, my Tom took +and filled the cat full of Pain-killer, and I did think the cretur would +tear the house down. And God forgive me, I cracked Tom's head with my +thimble, poor boy, poor dead boy. But he's out of all his troubles now. +And the last words I ever heard him say was to reproach--" + +But this memory was too much for the old lady, and she broke entirely +down. Tom was snuffling, now, himself--and more in pity of himself than +anybody else. He could hear Mary crying, and putting in a kindly word +for him from time to time. He began to have a nobler opinion of himself +than ever before. Still, he was sufficiently touched by his aunt's grief +to long to rush out from under the bed and overwhelm her with joy--and +the theatrical gorgeousness of the thing appealed strongly to his +nature, too, but he resisted and lay still. + +He went on listening, and gathered by odds and ends that it was +conjectured at first that the boys had got drowned while taking a swim; +then the small raft had been missed; next, certain boys said the missing +lads had promised that the village should "hear something" soon; the +wise-heads had "put this and that together" and decided that the lads +had gone off on that raft and would turn up at the next town below, +presently; but toward noon the raft had been found, lodged against the +Missouri shore some five or six miles below the village--and then hope +perished; they must be drowned, else hunger would have driven them home +by nightfall if not sooner. It was believed that the search for the +bodies had been a fruitless effort merely because the drowning must +have occurred in mid-channel, since the boys, being good swimmers, would +otherwise have escaped to shore. This was Wednesday night. If the bodies +continued missing until Sunday, all hope would be given over, and the +funerals would be preached on that morning. Tom shuddered. + +Mrs. Harper gave a sobbing goodnight and turned to go. Then with a +mutual impulse the two bereaved women flung themselves into each other's +arms and had a good, consoling cry, and then parted. Aunt Polly was +tender far beyond her wont, in her goodnight to Sid and Mary. Sid +snuffled a bit and Mary went off crying with all her heart. + +Aunt Polly knelt down and prayed for Tom so touchingly, so appealingly, +and with such measureless love in her words and her old trembling voice, +that he was weltering in tears again, long before she was through. + +He had to keep still long after she went to bed, for she kept making +broken-hearted ejaculations from time to time, tossing unrestfully, and +turning over. But at last she was still, only moaning a little in her +sleep. Now the boy stole out, rose gradually by the bedside, shaded the +candle-light with his hand, and stood regarding her. His heart was full +of pity for her. He took out his sycamore scroll and placed it by the +candle. But something occurred to him, and he lingered considering. +His face lighted with a happy solution of his thought; he put the bark +hastily in his pocket. Then he bent over and kissed the faded lips, and +straightway made his stealthy exit, latching the door behind him. + +He threaded his way back to the ferry landing, found nobody at large +there, and walked boldly on board the boat, for he knew she was +tenantless except that there was a watchman, who always turned in and +slept like a graven image. He untied the skiff at the stern, slipped +into it, and was soon rowing cautiously upstream. When he had pulled a +mile above the village, he started quartering across and bent himself +stoutly to his work. He hit the landing on the other side neatly, for +this was a familiar bit of work to him. He was moved to capture +the skiff, arguing that it might be considered a ship and therefore +legitimate prey for a pirate, but he knew a thorough search would be +made for it and that might end in revelations. So he stepped ashore and +entered the woods. + +He sat down and took a long rest, torturing himself meanwhile to keep +awake, and then started warily down the home-stretch. The night was far +spent. It was broad daylight before he found himself fairly abreast the +island bar. He rested again until the sun was well up and gilding the +great river with its splendor, and then he plunged into the stream. A +little later he paused, dripping, upon the threshold of the camp, and +heard Joe say: + +"No, Tom's true-blue, Huck, and he'll come back. He won't desert. He +knows that would be a disgrace to a pirate, and Tom's too proud for that +sort of thing. He's up to something or other. Now I wonder what?" + +"Well, the things is ours, anyway, ain't they?" + +"Pretty near, but not yet, Huck. The writing says they are if he ain't +back here to breakfast." + +"Which he is!" exclaimed Tom, with fine dramatic effect, stepping +grandly into camp. + +A sumptuous breakfast of bacon and fish was shortly provided, and as the +boys set to work upon it, Tom recounted (and adorned) his adventures. +They were a vain and boastful company of heroes when the tale was done. +Then Tom hid himself away in a shady nook to sleep till noon, and the +other pirates got ready to fish and explore. + + + + +CHAPTER XVI + +AFTER dinner all the gang turned out to hunt for turtle eggs on the bar. +They went about poking sticks into the sand, and when they found a soft +place they went down on their knees and dug with their hands. Sometimes +they would take fifty or sixty eggs out of one hole. They were perfectly +round white things a trifle smaller than an English walnut. They had a +famous fried-egg feast that night, and another on Friday morning. + +After breakfast they went whooping and prancing out on the bar, and +chased each other round and round, shedding clothes as they went, until +they were naked, and then continued the frolic far away up the shoal +water of the bar, against the stiff current, which latter tripped their +legs from under them from time to time and greatly increased the fun. +And now and then they stooped in a group and splashed water in each +other's faces with their palms, gradually approaching each other, with +averted faces to avoid the strangling sprays, and finally gripping and +struggling till the best man ducked his neighbor, and then they all +went under in a tangle of white legs and arms and came up blowing, +sputtering, laughing, and gasping for breath at one and the same time. + +When they were well exhausted, they would run out and sprawl on the dry, +hot sand, and lie there and cover themselves up with it, and by and by +break for the water again and go through the original performance once +more. Finally it occurred to them that their naked skin represented +flesh-colored "tights" very fairly; so they drew a ring in the sand and +had a circus--with three clowns in it, for none would yield this proudest +post to his neighbor. + +Next they got their marbles and played "knucks" and "ringtaw" and +"keeps" till that amusement grew stale. Then Joe and Huck had another +swim, but Tom would not venture, because he found that in kicking off +his trousers he had kicked his string of rattlesnake rattles off his +ankle, and he wondered how he had escaped cramp so long without the +protection of this mysterious charm. He did not venture again until he +had found it, and by that time the other boys were tired and ready to +rest. They gradually wandered apart, dropped into the "dumps," and +fell to gazing longingly across the wide river to where the village lay +drowsing in the sun. Tom found himself writing "BECKY" in the sand with +his big toe; he scratched it out, and was angry with himself for his +weakness. But he wrote it again, nevertheless; he could not help it. He +erased it once more and then took himself out of temptation by driving +the other boys together and joining them. + +But Joe's spirits had gone down almost beyond resurrection. He was so +homesick that he could hardly endure the misery of it. The tears lay +very near the surface. Huck was melancholy, too. Tom was downhearted, +but tried hard not to show it. He had a secret which he was not ready +to tell, yet, but if this mutinous depression was not broken up soon, he +would have to bring it out. He said, with a great show of cheerfulness: + +"I bet there's been pirates on this island before, boys. We'll explore +it again. They've hid treasures here somewhere. How'd you feel to light +on a rotten chest full of gold and silver--hey?" + +But it roused only faint enthusiasm, which faded out, with no reply. +Tom tried one or two other seductions; but they failed, too. It was +discouraging work. Joe sat poking up the sand with a stick and looking +very gloomy. Finally he said: + +"Oh, boys, let's give it up. I want to go home. It's so lonesome." + +"Oh no, Joe, you'll feel better by and by," said Tom. "Just think of the +fishing that's here." + +"I don't care for fishing. I want to go home." + +"But, Joe, there ain't such another swimming-place anywhere." + +"Swimming's no good. I don't seem to care for it, somehow, when there +ain't anybody to say I sha'n't go in. I mean to go home." + +"Oh, shucks! Baby! You want to see your mother, I reckon." + +"Yes, I _do_ want to see my mother--and you would, too, if you had one. I +ain't any more baby than you are." And Joe snuffled a little. + +"Well, we'll let the crybaby go home to his mother, won't we, Huck? Poor +thing--does it want to see its mother? And so it shall. You like it here, +don't you, Huck? We'll stay, won't we?" + +Huck said, "Y-e-s"--without any heart in it. + +"I'll never speak to you again as long as I live," said Joe, rising. +"There now!" And he moved moodily away and began to dress himself. + +"Who cares!" said Tom. "Nobody wants you to. Go 'long home and get +laughed at. Oh, you're a nice pirate. Huck and me ain't crybabies. We'll +stay, won't we, Huck? Let him go if he wants to. I reckon we can get +along without him, per'aps." + +But Tom was uneasy, nevertheless, and was alarmed to see Joe go sullenly +on with his dressing. And then it was discomforting to see Huck eying +Joe's preparations so wistfully, and keeping up such an ominous silence. +Presently, without a parting word, Joe began to wade off toward the +Illinois shore. Tom's heart began to sink. He glanced at Huck. Huck +could not bear the look, and dropped his eyes. Then he said: + +"I want to go, too, Tom. It was getting so lonesome anyway, and now +it'll be worse. Let's us go, too, Tom." + +"I won't! You can all go, if you want to. I mean to stay." + +"Tom, I better go." + +"Well, go 'long--who's hendering you." + +Huck began to pick up his scattered clothes. He said: + +"Tom, I wisht you'd come, too. Now you think it over. We'll wait for you +when we get to shore." + +"Well, you'll wait a blame long time, that's all." + +Huck started sorrowfully away, and Tom stood looking after him, with a +strong desire tugging at his heart to yield his pride and go along +too. He hoped the boys would stop, but they still waded slowly on. It +suddenly dawned on Tom that it was become very lonely and still. He made +one final struggle with his pride, and then darted after his comrades, +yelling: + +"Wait! Wait! I want to tell you something!" + +They presently stopped and turned around. When he got to where they +were, he began unfolding his secret, and they listened moodily till +at last they saw the "point" he was driving at, and then they set up a +warwhoop of applause and said it was "splendid!" and said if he had +told them at first, they wouldn't have started away. He made a plausible +excuse; but his real reason had been the fear that not even the secret +would keep them with him any very great length of time, and so he had +meant to hold it in reserve as a last seduction. + +The lads came gayly back and went at their sports again with a will, +chattering all the time about Tom's stupendous plan and admiring the +genius of it. After a dainty egg and fish dinner, Tom said he wanted to +learn to smoke, now. Joe caught at the idea and said he would like to +try, too. So Huck made pipes and filled them. These novices had never +smoked anything before but cigars made of grapevine, and they "bit" the +tongue, and were not considered manly anyway. + +Now they stretched themselves out on their elbows and began to puff, +charily, and with slender confidence. The smoke had an unpleasant taste, +and they gagged a little, but Tom said: + +"Why, it's just as easy! If I'd a knowed this was all, I'd a learnt long +ago." + +"So would I," said Joe. "It's just nothing." + +"Why, many a time I've looked at people smoking, and thought well I wish +I could do that; but I never thought I could," said Tom. + +"That's just the way with me, hain't it, Huck? You've heard me talk just +that way--haven't you, Huck? I'll leave it to Huck if I haven't." + +"Yes--heaps of times," said Huck. + +"Well, I have too," said Tom; "oh, hundreds of times. Once down by the +slaughter-house. Don't you remember, Huck? Bob Tanner was there, and +Johnny Miller, and Jeff Thatcher, when I said it. Don't you remember, +Huck, 'bout me saying that?" + +"Yes, that's so," said Huck. "That was the day after I lost a white +alley. No, 'twas the day before." + +"There--I told you so," said Tom. "Huck recollects it." + +"I bleeve I could smoke this pipe all day," said Joe. "I don't feel +sick." + +"Neither do I," said Tom. "I could smoke it all day. But I bet you Jeff +Thatcher couldn't." + +"Jeff Thatcher! Why, he'd keel over just with two draws. Just let him +try it once. _He'd_ see!" + +"I bet he would. And Johnny Miller--I wish could see Johnny Miller tackle +it once." + +"Oh, don't I!" said Joe. "Why, I bet you Johnny Miller couldn't any more +do this than nothing. Just one little snifter would fetch _him_." + +"'Deed it would, Joe. Say--I wish the boys could see us now." + +"So do I." + +"Say--boys, don't say anything about it, and some time when they're +around, I'll come up to you and say, 'Joe, got a pipe? I want a smoke.' +And you'll say, kind of careless like, as if it warn't anything, you'll +say, 'Yes, I got my _old_ pipe, and another one, but my tobacker ain't +very good.' And I'll say, 'Oh, that's all right, if it's _strong_ +enough.' And then you'll out with the pipes, and we'll light up just as +ca'm, and then just see 'em look!" + +"By jings, that'll be gay, Tom! I wish it was _now_!" + +"So do I! And when we tell 'em we learned when we was off pirating, +won't they wish they'd been along?" + +"Oh, I reckon not! I'll just _bet_ they will!" + +So the talk ran on. But presently it began to flag a trifle, and +grow disjointed. The silences widened; the expectoration marvellously +increased. Every pore inside the boys' cheeks became a spouting +fountain; they could scarcely bail out the cellars under their tongues +fast enough to prevent an inundation; little overflowings down their +throats occurred in spite of all they could do, and sudden retchings +followed every time. Both boys were looking very pale and miserable, +now. Joe's pipe dropped from his nerveless fingers. Tom's followed. Both +fountains were going furiously and both pumps bailing with might and +main. Joe said feebly: + +"I've lost my knife. I reckon I better go and find it." + +Tom said, with quivering lips and halting utterance: + +"I'll help you. You go over that way and I'll hunt around by the spring. +No, you needn't come, Huck--we can find it." + +So Huck sat down again, and waited an hour. Then he found it lonesome, +and went to find his comrades. They were wide apart in the woods, both +very pale, both fast asleep. But something informed him that if they had +had any trouble they had got rid of it. + +They were not talkative at supper that night. They had a humble look, +and when Huck prepared his pipe after the meal and was going to prepare +theirs, they said no, they were not feeling very well--something they ate +at dinner had disagreed with them. + +About midnight Joe awoke, and called the boys. There was a brooding +oppressiveness in the air that seemed to bode something. The boys +huddled themselves together and sought the friendly companionship of +the fire, though the dull dead heat of the breathless atmosphere was +stifling. They sat still, intent and waiting. The solemn hush continued. +Beyond the light of the fire everything was swallowed up in the +blackness of darkness. Presently there came a quivering glow that +vaguely revealed the foliage for a moment and then vanished. By and by +another came, a little stronger. Then another. Then a faint moan came +sighing through the branches of the forest and the boys felt a fleeting +breath upon their cheeks, and shuddered with the fancy that the Spirit +of the Night had gone by. There was a pause. Now a weird flash turned +night into day and showed every little grassblade, separate and +distinct, that grew about their feet. And it showed three white, +startled faces, too. A deep peal of thunder went rolling and tumbling +down the heavens and lost itself in sullen rumblings in the distance. A +sweep of chilly air passed by, rustling all the leaves and snowing the +flaky ashes broadcast about the fire. Another fierce glare lit up the +forest and an instant crash followed that seemed to rend the treetops +right over the boys' heads. They clung together in terror, in the thick +gloom that followed. A few big raindrops fell pattering upon the leaves. + +"Quick! boys, go for the tent!" exclaimed Tom. + +They sprang away, stumbling over roots and among vines in the dark, no +two plunging in the same direction. A furious blast roared through +the trees, making everything sing as it went. One blinding flash after +another came, and peal on peal of deafening thunder. And now a drenching +rain poured down and the rising hurricane drove it in sheets along the +ground. The boys cried out to each other, but the roaring wind and the +booming thunderblasts drowned their voices utterly. However, one by one +they straggled in at last and took shelter under the tent, cold, scared, +and streaming with water; but to have company in misery seemed something +to be grateful for. They could not talk, the old sail flapped so +furiously, even if the other noises would have allowed them. The tempest +rose higher and higher, and presently the sail tore loose from its +fastenings and went winging away on the blast. The boys seized each +others' hands and fled, with many tumblings and bruises, to the shelter +of a great oak that stood upon the riverbank. Now the battle was at its +highest. Under the ceaseless conflagration of lightning that flamed +in the skies, everything below stood out in cleancut and shadowless +distinctness: the bending trees, the billowy river, white with foam, the +driving spray of spumeflakes, the dim outlines of the high bluffs on +the other side, glimpsed through the drifting cloudrack and the slanting +veil of rain. Every little while some giant tree yielded the fight +and fell crashing through the younger growth; and the unflagging +thunderpeals came now in ear-splitting explosive bursts, keen and sharp, +and unspeakably appalling. The storm culminated in one matchless effort +that seemed likely to tear the island to pieces, burn it up, drown it to +the treetops, blow it away, and deafen every creature in it, all at one +and the same moment. It was a wild night for homeless young heads to be +out in. + +But at last the battle was done, and the forces retired with weaker and +weaker threatenings and grumblings, and peace resumed her sway. The +boys went back to camp, a good deal awed; but they found there was still +something to be thankful for, because the great sycamore, the shelter +of their beds, was a ruin, now, blasted by the lightnings, and they were +not under it when the catastrophe happened. + +Everything in camp was drenched, the campfire as well; for they were but +heedless lads, like their generation, and had made no provision against +rain. Here was matter for dismay, for they were soaked through and +chilled. They were eloquent in their distress; but they presently +discovered that the fire had eaten so far up under the great log it had +been built against (where it curved upward and separated itself from +the ground), that a handbreadth or so of it had escaped wetting; so they +patiently wrought until, with shreds and bark gathered from the under +sides of sheltered logs, they coaxed the fire to burn again. Then they +piled on great dead boughs till they had a roaring furnace, and were +gladhearted once more. They dried their boiled ham and had a feast, +and after that they sat by the fire and expanded and glorified their +midnight adventure until morning, for there was not a dry spot to sleep +on, anywhere around. + +As the sun began to steal in upon the boys, drowsiness came over +them, and they went out on the sandbar and lay down to sleep. They got +scorched out by and by, and drearily set about getting breakfast. After +the meal they felt rusty, and stiff-jointed, and a little homesick once +more. Tom saw the signs, and fell to cheering up the pirates as well as +he could. But they cared nothing for marbles, or circus, or swimming, or +anything. He reminded them of the imposing secret, and raised a ray of +cheer. While it lasted, he got them interested in a new device. This was +to knock off being pirates, for a while, and be Indians for a change. +They were attracted by this idea; so it was not long before they were +stripped, and striped from head to heel with black mud, like so many +zebras--all of them chiefs, of course--and then they went tearing through +the woods to attack an English settlement. + +By and by they separated into three hostile tribes, and darted upon each +other from ambush with dreadful warwhoops, and killed and scalped each +other by thousands. It was a gory day. Consequently it was an extremely +satisfactory one. + +They assembled in camp toward suppertime, hungry and happy; but now +a difficulty arose--hostile Indians could not break the bread of +hospitality together without first making peace, and this was a simple +impossibility without smoking a pipe of peace. There was no other +process that ever they had heard of. Two of the savages almost wished +they had remained pirates. However, there was no other way; so with such +show of cheerfulness as they could muster they called for the pipe and +took their whiff as it passed, in due form. + +And behold, they were glad they had gone into savagery, for they had +gained something; they found that they could now smoke a little without +having to go and hunt for a lost knife; they did not get sick enough to +be seriously uncomfortable. They were not likely to fool away this high +promise for lack of effort. No, they practised cautiously, after supper, +with right fair success, and so they spent a jubilant evening. They were +prouder and happier in their new acquirement than they would have been +in the scalping and skinning of the Six Nations. We will leave them to +smoke and chatter and brag, since we have no further use for them at +present. + + + + +CHAPTER XVII + +BUT there was no hilarity in the little town that same tranquil Saturday +afternoon. The Harpers, and Aunt Polly's family, were being put into +mourning, with great grief and many tears. An unusual quiet possessed +the village, although it was ordinarily quiet enough, in all conscience. +The villagers conducted their concerns with an absent air, and talked +little; but they sighed often. The Saturday holiday seemed a burden to +the children. They had no heart in their sports, and gradually gave them +up. + +In the afternoon Becky Thatcher found herself moping about the deserted +schoolhouse yard, and feeling very melancholy. But she found nothing +there to comfort her. She soliloquized: + +"Oh, if I only had a brass andiron-knob again! But I haven't got +anything now to remember him by." And she choked back a little sob. + +Presently she stopped, and said to herself: + +"It was right here. Oh, if it was to do over again, I wouldn't say +that--I wouldn't say it for the whole world. But he's gone now; I'll +never, never, never see him any more." + +This thought broke her down, and she wandered away, with tears rolling +down her cheeks. Then quite a group of boys and girls--playmates of Tom's +and Joe's--came by, and stood looking over the paling fence and talking +in reverent tones of how Tom did so-and-so the last time they saw +him, and how Joe said this and that small trifle (pregnant with awful +prophecy, as they could easily see now!)--and each speaker pointed out +the exact spot where the lost lads stood at the time, and then added +something like "and I was a-standing just so--just as I am now, and as if +you was him--I was as close as that--and he smiled, just this way--and then +something seemed to go all over me, like--awful, you know--and I never +thought what it meant, of course, but I can see now!" + +Then there was a dispute about who saw the dead boys last in life, and +many claimed that dismal distinction, and offered evidences, more or +less tampered with by the witness; and when it was ultimately decided +who _did_ see the departed last, and exchanged the last words with them, +the lucky parties took upon themselves a sort of sacred importance, +and were gaped at and envied by all the rest. One poor chap, who had +no other grandeur to offer, said with tolerably manifest pride in the +remembrance: + +"Well, Tom Sawyer he licked me once." + +But that bid for glory was a failure. Most of the boys could say that, +and so that cheapened the distinction too much. The group loitered away, +still recalling memories of the lost heroes, in awed voices. + +When the Sunday-school hour was finished, the next morning, the bell +began to toll, instead of ringing in the usual way. It was a very still +Sabbath, and the mournful sound seemed in keeping with the musing hush +that lay upon nature. The villagers began to gather, loitering a moment +in the vestibule to converse in whispers about the sad event. But there +was no whispering in the house; only the funereal rustling of dresses +as the women gathered to their seats disturbed the silence there. None +could remember when the little church had been so full before. There +was finally a waiting pause, an expectant dumbness, and then Aunt Polly +entered, followed by Sid and Mary, and they by the Harper family, all in +deep black, and the whole congregation, the old minister as well, rose +reverently and stood until the mourners were seated in the front pew. +There was another communing silence, broken at intervals by muffled +sobs, and then the minister spread his hands abroad and prayed. A moving +hymn was sung, and the text followed: "I am the Resurrection and the +Life." + +As the service proceeded, the clergyman drew such pictures of the +graces, the winning ways, and the rare promise of the lost lads that +every soul there, thinking he recognized these pictures, felt a pang +in remembering that he had persistently blinded himself to them always +before, and had as persistently seen only faults and flaws in the poor +boys. The minister related many a touching incident in the lives of the +departed, too, which illustrated their sweet, generous natures, and the +people could easily see, now, how noble and beautiful those episodes +were, and remembered with grief that at the time they occurred they had +seemed rank rascalities, well deserving of the cowhide. The congregation +became more and more moved, as the pathetic tale went on, till at last +the whole company broke down and joined the weeping mourners in a chorus +of anguished sobs, the preacher himself giving way to his feelings, and +crying in the pulpit. + +There was a rustle in the gallery, which nobody noticed; a moment later +the church door creaked; the minister raised his streaming eyes above +his handkerchief, and stood transfixed! First one and then another pair +of eyes followed the minister's, and then almost with one impulse the +congregation rose and stared while the three dead boys came marching up +the aisle, Tom in the lead, Joe next, and Huck, a ruin of drooping rags, +sneaking sheepishly in the rear! They had been hid in the unused gallery +listening to their own funeral sermon! + +Aunt Polly, Mary, and the Harpers threw themselves upon their restored +ones, smothered them with kisses and poured out thanksgivings, while +poor Huck stood abashed and uncomfortable, not knowing exactly what +to do or where to hide from so many unwelcoming eyes. He wavered, and +started to slink away, but Tom seized him and said: + +"Aunt Polly, it ain't fair. Somebody's got to be glad to see Huck." + +"And so they shall. I'm glad to see him, poor motherless thing!" And +the loving attentions Aunt Polly lavished upon him were the one thing +capable of making him more uncomfortable than he was before. + +Suddenly the minister shouted at the top of his voice: "Praise God from +whom all blessings flow--_sing_!--and put your hearts in it!" + +And they did. Old Hundred swelled up with a triumphant burst, and +while it shook the rafters Tom Sawyer the Pirate looked around upon the +envying juveniles about him and confessed in his heart that this was the +proudest moment of his life. + +As the "sold" congregation trooped out they said they would almost be +willing to be made ridiculous again to hear Old Hundred sung like that +once more. + +Tom got more cuffs and kisses that day--according to Aunt Polly's varying +moods--than he had earned before in a year; and he hardly knew which +expressed the most gratefulness to God and affection for himself. + + + + +CHAPTER XVIII + +THAT was Tom's great secret--the scheme to return home with his brother +pirates and attend their own funerals. They had paddled over to the +Missouri shore on a log, at dusk on Saturday, landing five or six miles +below the village; they had slept in the woods at the edge of the town +till nearly daylight, and had then crept through back lanes and alleys +and finished their sleep in the gallery of the church among a chaos of +invalided benches. + +At breakfast, Monday morning, Aunt Polly and Mary were very loving to +Tom, and very attentive to his wants. There was an unusual amount of +talk. In the course of it Aunt Polly said: + +"Well, I don't say it wasn't a fine joke, Tom, to keep everybody +suffering 'most a week so you boys had a good time, but it is a pity you +could be so hard-hearted as to let me suffer so. If you could come over +on a log to go to your funeral, you could have come over and give me a +hint some way that you warn't dead, but only run off." + +"Yes, you could have done that, Tom," said Mary; "and I believe you +would if you had thought of it." + +"Would you, Tom?" said Aunt Polly, her face lighting wistfully. "Say, +now, would you, if you'd thought of it?" + +"I--well, I don't know. 'Twould 'a' spoiled everything." + +"Tom, I hoped you loved me that much," said Aunt Polly, with a grieved +tone that discomforted the boy. "It would have been something if you'd +cared enough to _think_ of it, even if you didn't _do_ it." + +"Now, auntie, that ain't any harm," pleaded Mary; "it's only Tom's giddy +way--he is always in such a rush that he never thinks of anything." + +"More's the pity. Sid would have thought. And Sid would have come and +_done_ it, too. Tom, you'll look back, some day, when it's too late, +and wish you'd cared a little more for me when it would have cost you so +little." + +"Now, auntie, you know I do care for you," said Tom. + +"I'd know it better if you acted more like it." + +"I wish now I'd thought," said Tom, with a repentant tone; "but I dreamt +about you, anyway. That's something, ain't it?" + +"It ain't much--a cat does that much--but it's better than nothing. What +did you dream?" + +"Why, Wednesday night I dreamt that you was sitting over there by the +bed, and Sid was sitting by the woodbox, and Mary next to him." + +"Well, so we did. So we always do. I'm glad your dreams could take even +that much trouble about us." + +"And I dreamt that Joe Harper's mother was here." + +"Why, she was here! Did you dream any more?" + +"Oh, lots. But it's so dim, now." + +"Well, try to recollect--can't you?" + +"Somehow it seems to me that the wind--the wind blowed the--the--" + +"Try harder, Tom! The wind did blow something. Come!" + +Tom pressed his fingers on his forehead an anxious minute, and then +said: + +"I've got it now! I've got it now! It blowed the candle!" + +"Mercy on us! Go on, Tom--go on!" + +"And it seems to me that you said, 'Why, I believe that that door--'" + +"Go _on_, Tom!" + +"Just let me study a moment--just a moment. Oh, yes--you said you believed +the door was open." + +"As I'm sitting here, I did! Didn't I, Mary! Go on!" + +"And then--and then--well I won't be certain, but it seems like as if you +made Sid go and--and--" + +"Well? Well? What did I make him do, Tom? What did I make him do?" + +"You made him--you--Oh, you made him shut it." + +"Well, for the land's sake! I never heard the beat of that in all my +days! Don't tell _me_ there ain't anything in dreams, any more. Sereny +Harper shall know of this before I'm an hour older. I'd like to see her +get around _this_ with her rubbage 'bout superstition. Go on, Tom!" + +"Oh, it's all getting just as bright as day, now. Next you said I warn't +_bad_, only mischeevous and harum-scarum, and not any more responsible +than--than--I think it was a colt, or something." + +"And so it was! Well, goodness gracious! Go on, Tom!" + +"And then you began to cry." + +"So I did. So I did. Not the first time, neither. And then--" + +"Then Mrs. Harper she began to cry, and said Joe was just the same, and +she wished she hadn't whipped him for taking cream when she'd throwed it +out her own self--" + +"Tom! The sperrit was upon you! You was a prophesying--that's what you +was doing! Land alive, go on, Tom!" + +"Then Sid he said--he said--" + +"I don't think I said anything," said Sid. + +"Yes you did, Sid," said Mary. + +"Shut your heads and let Tom go on! What did he say, Tom?" + +"He said--I _think_ he said he hoped I was better off where I was gone +to, but if I'd been better sometimes--" + +"_There_, d'you hear that! It was his very words!" + +"And you shut him up sharp." + +"I lay I did! There must 'a' been an angel there. There _was_ an angel +there, somewheres!" + +"And Mrs. Harper told about Joe scaring her with a firecracker, and you +told about Peter and the Pain-killer--" + +"Just as true as I live!" + +"And then there was a whole lot of talk 'bout dragging the river for us, +and 'bout having the funeral Sunday, and then you and old Miss Harper +hugged and cried, and she went." + +"It happened just so! It happened just so, as sure as I'm a-sitting in +these very tracks. Tom, you couldn't told it more like if you'd 'a' seen +it! And then what? Go on, Tom!" + +"Then I thought you prayed for me--and I could see you and hear every +word you said. And you went to bed, and I was so sorry that I took and +wrote on a piece of sycamore bark, 'We ain't dead--we are only off being +pirates,' and put it on the table by the candle; and then you looked +so good, laying there asleep, that I thought I went and leaned over and +kissed you on the lips." + +"Did you, Tom, _did_ you! I just forgive you everything for that!" And +she seized the boy in a crushing embrace that made him feel like the +guiltiest of villains. + +"It was very kind, even though it was only a--dream," Sid soliloquized +just audibly. + +"Shut up, Sid! A body does just the same in a dream as he'd do if he was +awake. Here's a big Milum apple I've been saving for you, Tom, if you +was ever found again--now go 'long to school. I'm thankful to the good +God and Father of us all I've got you back, that's long-suffering and +merciful to them that believe on Him and keep His word, though goodness +knows I'm unworthy of it, but if only the worthy ones got His blessings +and had His hand to help them over the rough places, there's few enough +would smile here or ever enter into His rest when the long night comes. +Go 'long Sid, Mary, Tom--take yourselves off--you've hendered me long +enough." + +The children left for school, and the old lady to call on Mrs. Harper +and vanquish her realism with Tom's marvellous dream. Sid had better +judgment than to utter the thought that was in his mind as he left the +house. It was this: "Pretty thin--as long a dream as that, without any +mistakes in it!" + +What a hero Tom was become, now! He did not go skipping and prancing, +but moved with a dignified swagger as became a pirate who felt that the +public eye was on him. And indeed it was; he tried not to seem to see +the looks or hear the remarks as he passed along, but they were food and +drink to him. Smaller boys than himself flocked at his heels, as proud +to be seen with him, and tolerated by him, as if he had been the drummer +at the head of a procession or the elephant leading a menagerie into +town. Boys of his own size pretended not to know he had been away at +all; but they were consuming with envy, nevertheless. They would have +given anything to have that swarthy sun-tanned skin of his, and his +glittering notoriety; and Tom would not have parted with either for a +circus. + +At school the children made so much of him and of Joe, and delivered +such eloquent admiration from their eyes, that the two heroes were +not long in becoming insufferably "stuck-up." They began to tell their +adventures to hungry listeners--but they only began; it was not a +thing likely to have an end, with imaginations like theirs to furnish +material. And finally, when they got out their pipes and went serenely +puffing around, the very summit of glory was reached. + +Tom decided that he could be independent of Becky Thatcher now. Glory +was sufficient. He would live for glory. Now that he was distinguished, +maybe she would be wanting to "make up." Well, let her--she should see +that he could be as indifferent as some other people. Presently she +arrived. Tom pretended not to see her. He moved away and joined a group +of boys and girls and began to talk. Soon he observed that she was +tripping gayly back and forth with flushed face and dancing eyes, +pretending to be busy chasing schoolmates, and screaming with laughter +when she made a capture; but he noticed that she always made her +captures in his vicinity, and that she seemed to cast a conscious eye +in his direction at such times, too. It gratified all the vicious vanity +that was in him; and so, instead of winning him, it only "set him up" +the more and made him the more diligent to avoid betraying that he +knew she was about. Presently she gave over skylarking, and moved +irresolutely about, sighing once or twice and glancing furtively and +wistfully toward Tom. Then she observed that now Tom was talking more +particularly to Amy Lawrence than to any one else. She felt a sharp pang +and grew disturbed and uneasy at once. She tried to go away, but her +feet were treacherous, and carried her to the group instead. She said to +a girl almost at Tom's elbow--with sham vivacity: + +"Why, Mary Austin! you bad girl, why didn't you come to Sunday-school?" + +"I did come--didn't you see me?" + +"Why, no! Did you? Where did you sit?" + +"I was in Miss Peters' class, where I always go. I saw _you_." + +"Did you? Why, it's funny I didn't see you. I wanted to tell you about +the picnic." + +"Oh, that's jolly. Who's going to give it?" + +"My ma's going to let me have one." + +"Oh, goody; I hope she'll let _me_ come." + +"Well, she will. The picnic's for me. She'll let anybody come that I +want, and I want you." + +"That's ever so nice. When is it going to be?" + +"By and by. Maybe about vacation." + +"Oh, won't it be fun! You going to have all the girls and boys?" + +"Yes, every one that's friends to me--or wants to be"; and she glanced +ever so furtively at Tom, but he talked right along to Amy Lawrence +about the terrible storm on the island, and how the lightning tore the +great sycamore tree "all to flinders" while he was "standing within +three feet of it." + +"Oh, may I come?" said Grace Miller. + +"Yes." + +"And me?" said Sally Rogers. + +"Yes." + +"And me, too?" said Susy Harper. "And Joe?" + +"Yes." + +And so on, with clapping of joyful hands till all the group had begged +for invitations but Tom and Amy. Then Tom turned coolly away, still +talking, and took Amy with him. Becky's lips trembled and the tears +came to her eyes; she hid these signs with a forced gayety and went on +chattering, but the life had gone out of the picnic, now, and out of +everything else; she got away as soon as she could and hid herself and +had what her sex call "a good cry." Then she sat moody, with wounded +pride, till the bell rang. She roused up, now, with a vindictive cast +in her eye, and gave her plaited tails a shake and said she knew what +_she'd_ do. + +At recess Tom continued his flirtation with Amy with jubilant +self-satisfaction. And he kept drifting about to find Becky and lacerate +her with the performance. At last he spied her, but there was a sudden +falling of his mercury. She was sitting cosily on a little bench behind +the schoolhouse looking at a picture-book with Alfred Temple--and so +absorbed were they, and their heads so close together over the book, +that they did not seem to be conscious of anything in the world besides. +Jealousy ran red-hot through Tom's veins. He began to hate himself for +throwing away the chance Becky had offered for a reconciliation. He +called himself a fool, and all the hard names he could think of. He +wanted to cry with vexation. Amy chatted happily along, as they walked, +for her heart was singing, but Tom's tongue had lost its function. He +did not hear what Amy was saying, and whenever she paused expectantly +he could only stammer an awkward assent, which was as often misplaced +as otherwise. He kept drifting to the rear of the schoolhouse, again and +again, to sear his eyeballs with the hateful spectacle there. He could +not help it. And it maddened him to see, as he thought he saw, that +Becky Thatcher never once suspected that he was even in the land of the +living. But she did see, nevertheless; and she knew she was winning her +fight, too, and was glad to see him suffer as she had suffered. + +Amy's happy prattle became intolerable. Tom hinted at things he had +to attend to; things that must be done; and time was fleeting. But in +vain--the girl chirped on. Tom thought, "Oh, hang her, ain't I ever going +to get rid of her?" At last he must be attending to those things--and she +said artlessly that she would be "around" when school let out. And he +hastened away, hating her for it. + +"Any other boy!" Tom thought, grating his teeth. "Any boy in the whole +town but that Saint Louis smarty that thinks he dresses so fine and is +aristocracy! Oh, all right, I licked you the first day you ever saw this +town, mister, and I'll lick you again! You just wait till I catch you +out! I'll just take and--" + +And he went through the motions of thrashing an imaginary boy--pummelling +the air, and kicking and gouging. "Oh, you do, do you? You holler +'nough, do you? Now, then, let that learn you!" And so the imaginary +flogging was finished to his satisfaction. + +Tom fled home at noon. His conscience could not endure any more of Amy's +grateful happiness, and his jealousy could bear no more of the other +distress. Becky resumed her picture inspections with Alfred, but as the +minutes dragged along and no Tom came to suffer, her triumph began to +cloud and she lost interest; gravity and absentmindedness followed, +and then melancholy; two or three times she pricked up her ear at +a footstep, but it was a false hope; no Tom came. At last she grew +entirely miserable and wished she hadn't carried it so far. When +poor Alfred, seeing that he was losing her, he did not know how, kept +exclaiming: "Oh, here's a jolly one! look at this!" she lost patience at +last, and said, "Oh, don't bother me! I don't care for them!" and burst +into tears, and got up and walked away. + +Alfred dropped alongside and was going to try to comfort her, but she +said: + +"Go away and leave me alone, can't you! I hate you!" + +So the boy halted, wondering what he could have done--for she had said +she would look at pictures all through the nooning--and she walked on, +crying. Then Alfred went musing into the deserted schoolhouse. He was +humiliated and angry. He easily guessed his way to the truth--the girl +had simply made a convenience of him to vent her spite upon Tom Sawyer. +He was far from hating Tom the less when this thought occurred to him. +He wished there was some way to get that boy into trouble without much +risk to himself. Tom's spelling-book fell under his eye. Here was his +opportunity. He gratefully opened to the lesson for the afternoon and +poured ink upon the page. + +Becky, glancing in at a window behind him at the moment, saw the act, +and moved on, without discovering herself. She started homeward, now, +intending to find Tom and tell him; Tom would be thankful and their +troubles would be healed. Before she was half way home, however, she +had changed her mind. The thought of Tom's treatment of her when she was +talking about her picnic came scorching back and filled her with shame. +She resolved to let him get whipped on the damaged spelling-book's +account, and to hate him forever, into the bargain. + + + + +CHAPTER XIX + +TOM arrived at home in a dreary mood, and the first thing his aunt said +to him showed him that he had brought his sorrows to an unpromising +market: + +"Tom, I've a notion to skin you alive!" + +"Auntie, what have I done?" + +"Well, you've done enough. Here I go over to Sereny Harper, like an old +softy, expecting I'm going to make her believe all that rubbage about +that dream, when lo and behold you she'd found out from Joe that you was +over here and heard all the talk we had that night. Tom, I don't know +what is to become of a boy that will act like that. It makes me feel so +bad to think you could let me go to Sereny Harper and make such a fool +of myself and never say a word." + +This was a new aspect of the thing. His smartness of the morning had +seemed to Tom a good joke before, and very ingenious. It merely looked +mean and shabby now. He hung his head and could not think of anything to +say for a moment. Then he said: + +"Auntie, I wish I hadn't done it--but I didn't think." + +"Oh, child, you never think. You never think of anything but your +own selfishness. You could think to come all the way over here from +Jackson's Island in the night to laugh at our troubles, and you could +think to fool me with a lie about a dream; but you couldn't ever think +to pity us and save us from sorrow." + +"Auntie, I know now it was mean, but I didn't mean to be mean. I didn't, +honest. And besides, I didn't come over here to laugh at you that +night." + +"What did you come for, then?" + +"It was to tell you not to be uneasy about us, because we hadn't got +drownded." + +"Tom, Tom, I would be the thankfullest soul in this world if I could +believe you ever had as good a thought as that, but you know you never +did--and I know it, Tom." + +"Indeed and 'deed I did, auntie--I wish I may never stir if I didn't." + +"Oh, Tom, don't lie--don't do it. It only makes things a hundred times +worse." + +"It ain't a lie, auntie; it's the truth. I wanted to keep you from +grieving--that was all that made me come." + +"I'd give the whole world to believe that--it would cover up a power +of sins, Tom. I'd 'most be glad you'd run off and acted so bad. But it +ain't reasonable; because, why didn't you tell me, child?" + +"Why, you see, when you got to talking about the funeral, I just got all +full of the idea of our coming and hiding in the church, and I couldn't +somehow bear to spoil it. So I just put the bark back in my pocket and +kept mum." + +"What bark?" + +"The bark I had wrote on to tell you we'd gone pirating. I wish, now, +you'd waked up when I kissed you--I do, honest." + +The hard lines in his aunt's face relaxed and a sudden tenderness dawned +in her eyes. + +"_Did_ you kiss me, Tom?" + +"Why, yes, I did." + +"Are you sure you did, Tom?" + +"Why, yes, I did, auntie--certain sure." + +"What did you kiss me for, Tom?" + +"Because I loved you so, and you laid there moaning and I was so sorry." + +The words sounded like truth. The old lady could not hide a tremor in +her voice when she said: + +"Kiss me again, Tom!--and be off with you to school, now, and don't +bother me any more." + +The moment he was gone, she ran to a closet and got out the ruin of a +jacket which Tom had gone pirating in. Then she stopped, with it in her +hand, and said to herself: + +"No, I don't dare. Poor boy, I reckon he's lied about it--but it's a +blessed, blessed lie, there's such a comfort come from it. I hope +the Lord--I _know_ the Lord will forgive him, because it was such +good-heartedness in him to tell it. But I don't want to find out it's a +lie. I won't look." + +She put the jacket away, and stood by musing a minute. Twice she put out +her hand to take the garment again, and twice she refrained. Once more +she ventured, and this time she fortified herself with the thought: +"It's a good lie--it's a good lie--I won't let it grieve me." So she +sought the jacket pocket. A moment later she was reading Tom's piece of +bark through flowing tears and saying: "I could forgive the boy, now, if +he'd committed a million sins!" + + + + +CHAPTER XX + +THERE was something about Aunt Polly's manner, when she kissed Tom, that +swept away his low spirits and made him lighthearted and happy again. He +started to school and had the luck of coming upon Becky Thatcher at the +head of Meadow Lane. His mood always determined his manner. Without a +moment's hesitation he ran to her and said: + +"I acted mighty mean today, Becky, and I'm so sorry. I won't ever, ever +do that way again, as long as ever I live--please make up, won't you?" + +The girl stopped and looked him scornfully in the face: + +"I'll thank you to keep yourself _to_ yourself, Mr. Thomas Sawyer. I'll +never speak to you again." + +She tossed her head and passed on. Tom was so stunned that he had not +even presence of mind enough to say "Who cares, Miss Smarty?" until the +right time to say it had gone by. So he said nothing. But he was in a +fine rage, nevertheless. He moped into the schoolyard wishing she were +a boy, and imagining how he would trounce her if she were. He presently +encountered her and delivered a stinging remark as he passed. She hurled +one in return, and the angry breach was complete. It seemed to Becky, in +her hot resentment, that she could hardly wait for school to "take in," +she was so impatient to see Tom flogged for the injured spelling-book. +If she had had any lingering notion of exposing Alfred Temple, Tom's +offensive fling had driven it entirely away. + +Poor girl, she did not know how fast she was nearing trouble herself. +The master, Mr. Dobbins, had reached middle age with an unsatisfied +ambition. The darling of his desires was, to be a doctor, but +poverty had decreed that he should be nothing higher than a village +schoolmaster. Every day he took a mysterious book out of his desk and +absorbed himself in it at times when no classes were reciting. He kept +that book under lock and key. There was not an urchin in school but was +perishing to have a glimpse of it, but the chance never came. Every boy +and girl had a theory about the nature of that book; but no two theories +were alike, and there was no way of getting at the facts in the case. +Now, as Becky was passing by the desk, which stood near the door, she +noticed that the key was in the lock! It was a precious moment. She +glanced around; found herself alone, and the next instant she had the +book in her hands. The titlepage--Professor Somebody's _Anatomy_--carried +no information to her mind; so she began to turn the leaves. She came at +once upon a handsomely engraved and colored frontispiece--a human figure, +stark naked. At that moment a shadow fell on the page and Tom Sawyer +stepped in at the door and caught a glimpse of the picture. Becky +snatched at the book to close it, and had the hard luck to tear the +pictured page half down the middle. She thrust the volume into the desk, +turned the key, and burst out crying with shame and vexation. + +"Tom Sawyer, you are just as mean as you can be, to sneak up on a person +and look at what they're looking at." + +"How could I know you was looking at anything?" + +"You ought to be ashamed of yourself, Tom Sawyer; you know you're +going to tell on me, and oh, what shall I do, what shall I do! I'll be +whipped, and I never was whipped in school." + +Then she stamped her little foot and said: + +"_Be_ so mean if you want to! I know something that's going to happen. +You just wait and you'll see! Hateful, hateful, hateful!"--and she flung +out of the house with a new explosion of crying. + +Tom stood still, rather flustered by this onslaught. Presently he said +to himself: + +"What a curious kind of a fool a girl is! Never been licked in +school! Shucks! What's a licking! That's just like a girl--they're so +thin-skinned and chicken-hearted. Well, of course I ain't going to tell +old Dobbins on this little fool, because there's other ways of getting +even on her, that ain't so mean; but what of it? Old Dobbins will ask +who it was tore his book. Nobody'll answer. Then he'll do just the way +he always does--ask first one and then t'other, and when he comes to the +right girl he'll know it, without any telling. Girls' faces always tell +on them. They ain't got any backbone. She'll get licked. Well, it's a +kind of a tight place for Becky Thatcher, because there ain't any way +out of it." Tom conned the thing a moment longer, and then added: "All +right, though; she'd like to see me in just such a fix--let her sweat it +out!" + +Tom joined the mob of skylarking scholars outside. In a few moments the +master arrived and school "took in." Tom did not feel a strong interest +in his studies. Every time he stole a glance at the girls' side of the +room Becky's face troubled him. Considering all things, he did not want +to pity her, and yet it was all he could do to help it. He could get +up no exultation that was really worthy the name. Presently the +spelling-book discovery was made, and Tom's mind was entirely full +of his own matters for a while after that. Becky roused up from her +lethargy of distress and showed good interest in the proceedings. She +did not expect that Tom could get out of his trouble by denying that he +spilt the ink on the book himself; and she was right. The denial only +seemed to make the thing worse for Tom. Becky supposed she would be glad +of that, and she tried to believe she was glad of it, but she found she +was not certain. When the worst came to the worst, she had an impulse +to get up and tell on Alfred Temple, but she made an effort and forced +herself to keep still--because, said she to herself, "he'll tell about me +tearing the picture sure. I wouldn't say a word, not to save his life!" + +Tom took his whipping and went back to his seat not at all +broken-hearted, for he thought it was possible that he had unknowingly +upset the ink on the spelling-book himself, in some skylarking bout--he +had denied it for form's sake and because it was custom, and had stuck +to the denial from principle. + +A whole hour drifted by, the master sat nodding in his throne, the air +was drowsy with the hum of study. By and by, Mr. Dobbins straightened +himself up, yawned, then unlocked his desk, and reached for his book, +but seemed undecided whether to take it out or leave it. Most of the +pupils glanced up languidly, but there were two among them that watched +his movements with intent eyes. Mr. Dobbins fingered his book absently +for a while, then took it out and settled himself in his chair to read! +Tom shot a glance at Becky. He had seen a hunted and helpless rabbit +look as she did, with a gun levelled at its head. Instantly he forgot +his quarrel with her. Quick--something must be done! done in a flash, +too! But the very imminence of the emergency paralyzed his invention. +Good!--he had an inspiration! He would run and snatch the book, spring +through the door and fly. But his resolution shook for one little +instant, and the chance was lost--the master opened the volume. If Tom +only had the wasted opportunity back again! Too late. There was no help +for Becky now, he said. The next moment the master faced the school. +Every eye sank under his gaze. There was that in it which smote even +the innocent with fear. There was silence while one might count ten--the +master was gathering his wrath. Then he spoke: "Who tore this book?" + +There was not a sound. One could have heard a pin drop. The stillness +continued; the master searched face after face for signs of guilt. + +"Benjamin Rogers, did you tear this book?" + +A denial. Another pause. + +"Joseph Harper, did you?" + +Another denial. Tom's uneasiness grew more and more intense under the +slow torture of these proceedings. The master scanned the ranks of +boys--considered a while, then turned to the girls: + +"Amy Lawrence?" + +A shake of the head. + +"Gracie Miller?" + +The same sign. + +"Susan Harper, did you do this?" + +Another negative. The next girl was Becky Thatcher. Tom was trembling +from head to foot with excitement and a sense of the hopelessness of the +situation. + +"Rebecca Thatcher" [Tom glanced at her face--it was white with +terror]--"did you tear--no, look me in the face" [her hands rose in +appeal]--"did you tear this book?" + +A thought shot like lightning through Tom's brain. He sprang to his feet +and shouted--"I done it!" + +The school stared in perplexity at this incredible folly. Tom stood a +moment, to gather his dismembered faculties; and when he stepped forward +to go to his punishment the surprise, the gratitude, the adoration that +shone upon him out of poor Becky's eyes seemed pay enough for a hundred +floggings. Inspired by the splendor of his own act, he took without +an outcry the most merciless flaying that even Mr. Dobbins had ever +administered; and also received with indifference the added cruelty of a +command to remain two hours after school should be dismissed--for he +knew who would wait for him outside till his captivity was done, and not +count the tedious time as loss, either. + +Tom went to bed that night planning vengeance against Alfred Temple; for +with shame and repentance Becky had told him all, not forgetting her own +treachery; but even the longing for vengeance had to give way, soon, to +pleasanter musings, and he fell asleep at last with Becky's latest words +lingering dreamily in his ear-- + +"Tom, how _could_ you be so noble!" + + + + +CHAPTER XXI + +VACATION was approaching. The schoolmaster, always severe, grew severer +and more exacting than ever, for he wanted the school to make a good +showing on "Examination" day. His rod and his ferule were seldom idle +now--at least among the smaller pupils. Only the biggest boys, and young +ladies of eighteen and twenty, escaped lashing. Mr. Dobbins' lashings +were very vigorous ones, too; for although he carried, under his wig, a +perfectly bald and shiny head, he had only reached middle age, and there +was no sign of feebleness in his muscle. As the great day approached, +all the tyranny that was in him came to the surface; he seemed to take a +vindictive pleasure in punishing the least shortcomings. The consequence +was, that the smaller boys spent their days in terror and suffering and +their nights in plotting revenge. They threw away no opportunity to do +the master a mischief. But he kept ahead all the time. The retribution +that followed every vengeful success was so sweeping and majestic that +the boys always retired from the field badly worsted. At last they +conspired together and hit upon a plan that promised a dazzling victory. +They swore in the signpainter's boy, told him the scheme, and asked his +help. He had his own reasons for being delighted, for the master boarded +in his father's family and had given the boy ample cause to hate him. +The master's wife would go on a visit to the country in a few days, and +there would be nothing to interfere with the plan; the master always +prepared himself for great occasions by getting pretty well fuddled, and +the signpainter's boy said that when the dominie had reached the proper +condition on Examination Evening he would "manage the thing" while he +napped in his chair; then he would have him awakened at the right time +and hurried away to school. + +In the fulness of time the interesting occasion arrived. At eight in +the evening the schoolhouse was brilliantly lighted, and adorned with +wreaths and festoons of foliage and flowers. The master sat throned in +his great chair upon a raised platform, with his blackboard behind him. +He was looking tolerably mellow. Three rows of benches on each side and +six rows in front of him were occupied by the dignitaries of the town +and by the parents of the pupils. To his left, back of the rows of +citizens, was a spacious temporary platform upon which were seated the +scholars who were to take part in the exercises of the evening; rows of +small boys, washed and dressed to an intolerable state of discomfort; +rows of gawky big boys; snowbanks of girls and young ladies clad in +lawn and muslin and conspicuously conscious of their bare arms, their +grandmothers' ancient trinkets, their bits of pink and blue ribbon and +the flowers in their hair. All the rest of the house was filled with +non-participating scholars. + +The exercises began. A very little boy stood up and sheepishly recited, +"You'd scarce expect one of my age to speak in public on the stage," +etc.--accompanying himself with the painfully exact and spasmodic +gestures which a machine might have used--supposing the machine to be a +trifle out of order. But he got through safely, though cruelly scared, +and got a fine round of applause when he made his manufactured bow and +retired. + +A little shamefaced girl lisped, "Mary had a little lamb," etc., +performed a compassion-inspiring curtsy, got her meed of applause, and +sat down flushed and happy. + +Tom Sawyer stepped forward with conceited confidence and soared into +the unquenchable and indestructible "Give me liberty or give me death" +speech, with fine fury and frantic gesticulation, and broke down in the +middle of it. A ghastly stage-fright seized him, his legs quaked under +him and he was like to choke. True, he had the manifest sympathy of the +house but he had the house's silence, too, which was even worse than +its sympathy. The master frowned, and this completed the disaster. Tom +struggled awhile and then retired, utterly defeated. There was a weak +attempt at applause, but it died early. + +"The Boy Stood on the Burning Deck" followed; also "The Assyrian Came +Down," and other declamatory gems. Then there were reading exercises, +and a spelling fight. The meagre Latin class recited with honor. The +prime feature of the evening was in order, now--original "compositions" +by the young ladies. Each in her turn stepped forward to the edge of the +platform, cleared her throat, held up her manuscript (tied with dainty +ribbon), and proceeded to read, with labored attention to "expression" +and punctuation. The themes were the same that had been illuminated upon +similar occasions by their mothers before them, their grandmothers, +and doubtless all their ancestors in the female line clear back to the +Crusades. "Friendship" was one; "Memories of Other Days"; "Religion in +History"; "Dream Land"; "The Advantages of Culture"; "Forms of Political +Government Compared and Contrasted"; "Melancholy"; "Filial Love"; "Heart +Longings," etc., etc. + +A prevalent feature in these compositions was a nursed and petted +melancholy; another was a wasteful and opulent gush of "fine language"; +another was a tendency to lug in by the ears particularly prized words +and phrases until they were worn entirely out; and a peculiarity that +conspicuously marked and marred them was the inveterate and intolerable +sermon that wagged its crippled tail at the end of each and every one +of them. No matter what the subject might be, a brainracking effort was +made to squirm it into some aspect or other that the moral and religious +mind could contemplate with edification. The glaring insincerity of +these sermons was not sufficient to compass the banishment of the +fashion from the schools, and it is not sufficient today; it never will +be sufficient while the world stands, perhaps. There is no school in +all our land where the young ladies do not feel obliged to close their +compositions with a sermon; and you will find that the sermon of the +most frivolous and the least religious girl in the school is always +the longest and the most relentlessly pious. But enough of this. Homely +truth is unpalatable. + +Let us return to the "Examination." The first composition that was read +was one entitled "Is this, then, Life?" Perhaps the reader can endure an +extract from it: + +"In the common walks of life, with what delightful emotions does the +youthful mind look forward to some anticipated scene of festivity! +Imagination is busy sketching rose-tinted pictures of joy. In fancy, the +voluptuous votary of fashion sees herself amid the festive throng, 'the +observed of all observers.' Her graceful form, arrayed in snowy robes, +is whirling through the mazes of the joyous dance; her eye is brightest, +her step is lightest in the gay assembly. + +"In such delicious fancies time quickly glides by, and the welcome hour +arrives for her entrance into the Elysian world, of which she has +had such bright dreams. How fairy-like does everything appear to her +enchanted vision! Each new scene is more charming than the last. But +after a while she finds that beneath this goodly exterior, all is +vanity, the flattery which once charmed her soul, now grates harshly +upon her ear; the ballroom has lost its charms; and with wasted health +and imbittered heart, she turns away with the conviction that earthly +pleasures cannot satisfy the longings of the soul!" + +And so forth and so on. There was a buzz of gratification from time to +time during the reading, accompanied by whispered ejaculations of "How +sweet!" "How eloquent!" "So true!" etc., and after the thing had closed +with a peculiarly afflicting sermon the applause was enthusiastic. + +Then arose a slim, melancholy girl, whose face had the "interesting" +paleness that comes of pills and indigestion, and read a "poem." Two +stanzas of it will do: + +"A MISSOURI MAIDEN'S FAREWELL TO ALABAMA + +"Alabama, goodbye! I love thee well! But yet for a while do I leave thee +now! Sad, yes, sad thoughts of thee my heart doth swell, And burning +recollections throng my brow! For I have wandered through thy flowery +woods; Have roamed and read near Tallapoosa's stream; Have listened to +Tallassee's warring floods, And wooed on Coosa's side Aurora's beam. + +"Yet shame I not to bear an o'erfull heart, Nor blush to turn behind +my tearful eyes; 'Tis from no stranger land I now must part, 'Tis to no +strangers left I yield these sighs. Welcome and home were mine within +this State, Whose vales I leave--whose spires fade fast from me And cold +must be mine eyes, and heart, and tete, When, dear Alabama! they turn +cold on thee!" There were very few there who knew what "tete" meant, but +the poem was very satisfactory, nevertheless. + +Next appeared a dark-complexioned, black-eyed, black-haired young lady, +who paused an impressive moment, assumed a tragic expression, and began +to read in a measured, solemn tone: + +"A VISION + +"Dark and tempestuous was night. Around the throne on high not a single +star quivered; but the deep intonations of the heavy thunder constantly +vibrated upon the ear; whilst the terrific lightning revelled in angry +mood through the cloudy chambers of heaven, seeming to scorn the power +exerted over its terror by the illustrious Franklin! Even the boisterous +winds unanimously came forth from their mystic homes, and blustered +about as if to enhance by their aid the wildness of the scene. + +"At such a time, so dark, so dreary, for human sympathy my very spirit +sighed; but instead thereof, + +"'My dearest friend, my counsellor, my comforter and guide--My joy in +grief, my second bliss in joy,' came to my side. She moved like one of +those bright beings pictured in the sunny walks of fancy's Eden by +the romantic and young, a queen of beauty unadorned save by her own +transcendent loveliness. So soft was her step, it failed to make even a +sound, and but for the magical thrill imparted by her genial touch, +as other unobtrusive beauties, she would have glided away +unperceived--unsought. A strange sadness rested upon her features, like +icy tears upon the robe of December, as she pointed to the contending +elements without, and bade me contemplate the two beings presented." + +This nightmare occupied some ten pages of manuscript and wound up with a +sermon so destructive of all hope to non-Presbyterians that it took +the first prize. This composition was considered to be the very finest +effort of the evening. The mayor of the village, in delivering the prize +to the author of it, made a warm speech in which he said that it was by +far the most "eloquent" thing he had ever listened to, and that Daniel +Webster himself might well be proud of it. + +It may be remarked, in passing, that the number of compositions in which +the word "beauteous" was over-fondled, and human experience referred to +as "life's page," was up to the usual average. + +Now the master, mellow almost to the verge of geniality, put his chair +aside, turned his back to the audience, and began to draw a map of +America on the blackboard, to exercise the geography class upon. But he +made a sad business of it with his unsteady hand, and a smothered titter +rippled over the house. He knew what the matter was, and set himself to +right it. He sponged out lines and remade them; but he only distorted +them more than ever, and the tittering was more pronounced. He threw his +entire attention upon his work, now, as if determined not to be put down +by the mirth. He felt that all eyes were fastened upon him; he imagined +he was succeeding, and yet the tittering continued; it even manifestly +increased. And well it might. There was a garret above, pierced with +a scuttle over his head; and down through this scuttle came a cat, +suspended around the haunches by a string; she had a rag tied about +her head and jaws to keep her from mewing; as she slowly descended she +curved upward and clawed at the string, she swung downward and clawed +at the intangible air. The tittering rose higher and higher--the cat was +within six inches of the absorbed teacher's head--down, down, a little +lower, and she grabbed his wig with her desperate claws, clung to it, +and was snatched up into the garret in an instant with her trophy still +in her possession! And how the light did blaze abroad from the master's +bald pate--for the signpainter's boy had _gilded_ it! + +That broke up the meeting. The boys were avenged. Vacation had come. + +NOTE:--The pretended "compositions" quoted in this chapter are taken +without alteration from a volume entitled "Prose and Poetry, by a +Western Lady"--but they are exactly and precisely after the schoolgirl +pattern, and hence are much happier than any mere imitations could be. + + + + +CHAPTER XXII + +TOM joined the new order of Cadets of Temperance, being attracted by the +showy character of their "regalia." He promised to abstain from smoking, +chewing, and profanity as long as he remained a member. Now he found out +a new thing--namely, that to promise not to do a thing is the surest way +in the world to make a body want to go and do that very thing. Tom soon +found himself tormented with a desire to drink and swear; the desire +grew to be so intense that nothing but the hope of a chance to display +himself in his red sash kept him from withdrawing from the order. Fourth +of July was coming; but he soon gave that up--gave it up before he had +worn his shackles over forty-eight hours--and fixed his hopes upon old +Judge Frazer, justice of the peace, who was apparently on his deathbed +and would have a big public funeral, since he was so high an official. +During three days Tom was deeply concerned about the Judge's condition +and hungry for news of it. Sometimes his hopes ran high--so high that +he would venture to get out his regalia and practise before the +looking-glass. But the Judge had a most discouraging way of fluctuating. +At last he was pronounced upon the mend--and then convalescent. Tom was +disgusted; and felt a sense of injury, too. He handed in his resignation +at once--and that night the Judge suffered a relapse and died. Tom +resolved that he would never trust a man like that again. + +The funeral was a fine thing. The Cadets paraded in a style calculated +to kill the late member with envy. Tom was a free boy again, +however--there was something in that. He could drink and swear, now--but +found to his surprise that he did not want to. The simple fact that he +could, took the desire away, and the charm of it. + +Tom presently wondered to find that his coveted vacation was beginning +to hang a little heavily on his hands. + +He attempted a diary--but nothing happened during three days, and so he +abandoned it. + +The first of all the negro minstrel shows came to town, and made a +sensation. Tom and Joe Harper got up a band of performers and were happy +for two days. + +Even the Glorious Fourth was in some sense a failure, for it rained +hard, there was no procession in consequence, and the greatest man +in the world (as Tom supposed), Mr. Benton, an actual United States +Senator, proved an overwhelming disappointment--for he was not +twenty-five feet high, nor even anywhere in the neighborhood of it. + +A circus came. The boys played circus for three days afterward in tents +made of rag carpeting--admission, three pins for boys, two for girls--and +then circusing was abandoned. + +A phrenologist and a mesmerizer came--and went again and left the village +duller and drearier than ever. + +There were some boys-and-girls' parties, but they were so few and so +delightful that they only made the aching voids between ache the harder. + +Becky Thatcher was gone to her Constantinople home to stay with her +parents during vacation--so there was no bright side to life anywhere. + +The dreadful secret of the murder was a chronic misery. It was a very +cancer for permanency and pain. + +Then came the measles. + +During two long weeks Tom lay a prisoner, dead to the world and its +happenings. He was very ill, he was interested in nothing. When he got +upon his feet at last and moved feebly downtown, a melancholy change had +come over everything and every creature. There had been a "revival," and +everybody had "got religion," not only the adults, but even the boys and +girls. Tom went about, hoping against hope for the sight of one blessed +sinful face, but disappointment crossed him everywhere. He found Joe +Harper studying a Testament, and turned sadly away from the depressing +spectacle. He sought Ben Rogers, and found him visiting the poor with a +basket of tracts. He hunted up Jim Hollis, who called his attention to +the precious blessing of his late measles as a warning. Every boy +he encountered added another ton to his depression; and when, in +desperation, he flew for refuge at last to the bosom of Huckleberry Finn +and was received with a Scriptural quotation, his heart broke and he +crept home and to bed realizing that he alone of all the town was lost, +forever and forever. + +And that night there came on a terrific storm, with driving rain, awful +claps of thunder and blinding sheets of lightning. He covered his head +with the bedclothes and waited in a horror of suspense for his doom; for +he had not the shadow of a doubt that all this hubbub was about him. +He believed he had taxed the forbearance of the powers above to the +extremity of endurance and that this was the result. It might have +seemed to him a waste of pomp and ammunition to kill a bug with a +battery of artillery, but there seemed nothing incongruous about the +getting up such an expensive thunderstorm as this to knock the turf from +under an insect like himself. + +By and by the tempest spent itself and died without accomplishing its +object. The boy's first impulse was to be grateful, and reform. His +second was to wait--for there might not be any more storms. + +The next day the doctors were back; Tom had relapsed. The three weeks he +spent on his back this time seemed an entire age. When he got abroad +at last he was hardly grateful that he had been spared, remembering how +lonely was his estate, how companionless and forlorn he was. He drifted +listlessly down the street and found Jim Hollis acting as judge in a +juvenile court that was trying a cat for murder, in the presence of her +victim, a bird. He found Joe Harper and Huck Finn up an alley eating a +stolen melon. Poor lads! they--like Tom--had suffered a relapse. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIII + +AT last the sleepy atmosphere was stirred--and vigorously: the murder +trial came on in the court. It became the absorbing topic of village +talk immediately. Tom could not get away from it. Every reference to +the murder sent a shudder to his heart, for his troubled conscience +and fears almost persuaded him that these remarks were put forth in +his hearing as "feelers"; he did not see how he could be suspected of +knowing anything about the murder, but still he could not be comfortable +in the midst of this gossip. It kept him in a cold shiver all the time. +He took Huck to a lonely place to have a talk with him. It would be some +relief to unseal his tongue for a little while; to divide his burden of +distress with another sufferer. Moreover, he wanted to assure himself +that Huck had remained discreet. + +"Huck, have you ever told anybody about--that?" + +"'Bout what?" + +"You know what." + +"Oh--'course I haven't." + +"Never a word?" + +"Never a solitary word, so help me. What makes you ask?" + +"Well, I was afeard." + +"Why, Tom Sawyer, we wouldn't be alive two days if that got found out. +_You_ know that." + +Tom felt more comfortable. After a pause: + +"Huck, they couldn't anybody get you to tell, could they?" + +"Get me to tell? Why, if I wanted that halfbreed devil to drownd me they +could get me to tell. They ain't no different way." + +"Well, that's all right, then. I reckon we're safe as long as we keep +mum. But let's swear again, anyway. It's more surer." + +"I'm agreed." + +So they swore again with dread solemnities. + +"What is the talk around, Huck? I've heard a power of it." + +"Talk? Well, it's just Muff Potter, Muff Potter, Muff Potter all the +time. It keeps me in a sweat, constant, so's I want to hide som'ers." + +"That's just the same way they go on round me. I reckon he's a goner. +Don't you feel sorry for him, sometimes?" + +"Most always--most always. He ain't no account; but then he hain't ever +done anything to hurt anybody. Just fishes a little, to get money to +get drunk on--and loafs around considerable; but lord, we all do +that--leastways most of us--preachers and such like. But he's kind of +good--he give me half a fish, once, when there warn't enough for two; and +lots of times he's kind of stood by me when I was out of luck." + +"Well, he's mended kites for me, Huck, and knitted hooks on to my line. +I wish we could get him out of there." + +"My! we couldn't get him out, Tom. And besides, 'twouldn't do any good; +they'd ketch him again." + +"Yes--so they would. But I hate to hear 'em abuse him so like the dickens +when he never done--that." + +"I do too, Tom. Lord, I hear 'em say he's the bloodiest looking villain +in this country, and they wonder he wasn't ever hung before." + +"Yes, they talk like that, all the time. I've heard 'em say that if he +was to get free they'd lynch him." + +"And they'd do it, too." + +The boys had a long talk, but it brought them little comfort. As the +twilight drew on, they found themselves hanging about the neighborhood +of the little isolated jail, perhaps with an undefined hope that +something would happen that might clear away their difficulties. But +nothing happened; there seemed to be no angels or fairies interested in +this luckless captive. + +The boys did as they had often done before--went to the cell grating and +gave Potter some tobacco and matches. He was on the ground floor and +there were no guards. + +His gratitude for their gifts had always smote their consciences +before--it cut deeper than ever, this time. They felt cowardly and +treacherous to the last degree when Potter said: + +"You've been mighty good to me, boys--better'n anybody else in this town. +And I don't forget it, I don't. Often I says to myself, says I, 'I used +to mend all the boys' kites and things, and show 'em where the good +fishin' places was, and befriend 'em what I could, and now they've +all forgot old Muff when he's in trouble; but Tom don't, and Huck +don't--_they_ don't forget him, says I, 'and I don't forget them.' Well, +boys, I done an awful thing--drunk and crazy at the time--that's the only +way I account for it--and now I got to swing for it, and it's right. +Right, and _best_, too, I reckon--hope so, anyway. Well, we won't talk +about that. I don't want to make _you_ feel bad; you've befriended me. +But what I want to say, is, don't _you_ ever get drunk--then you won't +ever get here. Stand a litter furder west--so--that's it; it's a prime +comfort to see faces that's friendly when a body's in such a muck +of trouble, and there don't none come here but yourn. Good friendly +faces--good friendly faces. Git up on one another's backs and let me +touch 'em. That's it. Shake hands--yourn'll come through the bars, but +mine's too big. Little hands, and weak--but they've helped Muff Potter a +power, and they'd help him more if they could." + +Tom went home miserable, and his dreams that night were full of horrors. +The next day and the day after, he hung about the courtroom, drawn by an +almost irresistible impulse to go in, but forcing himself to stay out. +Huck was having the same experience. They studiously avoided each other. +Each wandered away, from time to time, but the same dismal fascination +always brought them back presently. Tom kept his ears open when idlers +sauntered out of the courtroom, but invariably heard distressing +news--the toils were closing more and more relentlessly around poor +Potter. At the end of the second day the village talk was to the effect +that Injun Joe's evidence stood firm and unshaken, and that there was +not the slightest question as to what the jury's verdict would be. + +Tom was out late, that night, and came to bed through the window. He +was in a tremendous state of excitement. It was hours before he got to +sleep. All the village flocked to the courthouse the next morning, for +this was to be the great day. Both sexes were about equally represented +in the packed audience. After a long wait the jury filed in and took +their places; shortly afterward, Potter, pale and haggard, timid and +hopeless, was brought in, with chains upon him, and seated where all +the curious eyes could stare at him; no less conspicuous was Injun Joe, +stolid as ever. There was another pause, and then the judge arrived and +the sheriff proclaimed the opening of the court. The usual whisperings +among the lawyers and gathering together of papers followed. These +details and accompanying delays worked up an atmosphere of preparation +that was as impressive as it was fascinating. + +Now a witness was called who testified that he found Muff Potter washing +in the brook, at an early hour of the morning that the murder was +discovered, and that he immediately sneaked away. After some further +questioning, counsel for the prosecution said: + +"Take the witness." + +The prisoner raised his eyes for a moment, but dropped them again when +his own counsel said: + +"I have no questions to ask him." + +The next witness proved the finding of the knife near the corpse. +Counsel for the prosecution said: + +"Take the witness." + +"I have no questions to ask him," Potter's lawyer replied. + +A third witness swore he had often seen the knife in Potter's +possession. + +"Take the witness." + +Counsel for Potter declined to question him. The faces of the audience +began to betray annoyance. Did this attorney mean to throw away his +client's life without an effort? + +Several witnesses deposed concerning Potter's guilty behavior when +brought to the scene of the murder. They were allowed to leave the stand +without being cross-questioned. + +Every detail of the damaging circumstances that occurred in the +graveyard upon that morning which all present remembered so well was +brought out by credible witnesses, but none of them were cross-examined +by Potter's lawyer. The perplexity and dissatisfaction of the house +expressed itself in murmurs and provoked a reproof from the bench. +Counsel for the prosecution now said: + +"By the oaths of citizens whose simple word is above suspicion, we have +fastened this awful crime, beyond all possibility of question, upon the +unhappy prisoner at the bar. We rest our case here." + +A groan escaped from poor Potter, and he put his face in his hands and +rocked his body softly to and fro, while a painful silence reigned +in the courtroom. Many men were moved, and many women's compassion +testified itself in tears. Counsel for the defence rose and said: + +"Your honor, in our remarks at the opening of this trial, we +foreshadowed our purpose to prove that our client did this fearful deed +while under the influence of a blind and irresponsible delirium produced +by drink. We have changed our mind. We shall not offer that plea." [Then +to the clerk:] "Call Thomas Sawyer!" + +A puzzled amazement awoke in every face in the house, not even excepting +Potter's. Every eye fastened itself with wondering interest upon Tom as +he rose and took his place upon the stand. The boy looked wild enough, +for he was badly scared. The oath was administered. + +"Thomas Sawyer, where were you on the seventeenth of June, about the +hour of midnight?" + +Tom glanced at Injun Joe's iron face and his tongue failed him. The +audience listened breathless, but the words refused to come. After a few +moments, however, the boy got a little of his strength back, and managed +to put enough of it into his voice to make part of the house hear: + +"In the graveyard!" + +"A little bit louder, please. Don't be afraid. You were--" + +"In the graveyard." + +A contemptuous smile flitted across Injun Joe's face. + +"Were you anywhere near Horse Williams' grave?" + +"Yes, sir." + +"Speak up--just a trifle louder. How near were you?" + +"Near as I am to you." + +"Were you hidden, or not?" + +"I was hid." + +"Where?" + +"Behind the elms that's on the edge of the grave." + +Injun Joe gave a barely perceptible start. + +"Any one with you?" + +"Yes, sir. I went there with--" + +"Wait--wait a moment. Never mind mentioning your companion's name. We +will produce him at the proper time. Did you carry anything there with +you." + +Tom hesitated and looked confused. + +"Speak out, my boy--don't be diffident. The truth is always respectable. +What did you take there?" + +"Only a--a--dead cat." + +There was a ripple of mirth, which the court checked. + +"We will produce the skeleton of that cat. Now, my boy, tell us +everything that occurred--tell it in your own way--don't skip anything, +and don't be afraid." + +Tom began--hesitatingly at first, but as he warmed to his subject his +words flowed more and more easily; in a little while every sound ceased +but his own voice; every eye fixed itself upon him; with parted lips and +bated breath the audience hung upon his words, taking no note of time, +rapt in the ghastly fascinations of the tale. The strain upon pent +emotion reached its climax when the boy said: + +"--and as the doctor fetched the board around and Muff Potter fell, Injun +Joe jumped with the knife and--" + +Crash! Quick as lightning the halfbreed sprang for a window, tore his +way through all opposers, and was gone! + + + + +CHAPTER XXIV + +TOM was a glittering hero once more--the pet of the old, the envy of the +young. His name even went into immortal print, for the village paper +magnified him. There were some that believed he would be President, yet, +if he escaped hanging. + +As usual, the fickle, unreasoning world took Muff Potter to its bosom +and fondled him as lavishly as it had abused him before. But that sort +of conduct is to the world's credit; therefore it is not well to find +fault with it. + +Tom's days were days of splendor and exultation to him, but his nights +were seasons of horror. Injun Joe infested all his dreams, and always +with doom in his eye. Hardly any temptation could persuade the boy +to stir abroad after nightfall. Poor Huck was in the same state of +wretchedness and terror, for Tom had told the whole story to the lawyer +the night before the great day of the trial, and Huck was sore afraid +that his share in the business might leak out, yet, notwithstanding +Injun Joe's flight had saved him the suffering of testifying in court. +The poor fellow had got the attorney to promise secrecy, but what of +that? Since Tom's harassed conscience had managed to drive him to the +lawyer's house by night and wring a dread tale from lips that had +been sealed with the dismalest and most formidable of oaths, Huck's +confidence in the human race was wellnigh obliterated. + +Daily Muff Potter's gratitude made Tom glad he had spoken; but nightly +he wished he had sealed up his tongue. + +Half the time Tom was afraid Injun Joe would never be captured; the +other half he was afraid he would be. He felt sure he never could draw a +safe breath again until that man was dead and he had seen the corpse. + +Rewards had been offered, the country had been scoured, but no Injun +Joe was found. One of those omniscient and aweinspiring marvels, a +detective, came up from St. Louis, moused around, shook his head, looked +wise, and made that sort of astounding success which members of that +craft usually achieve. That is to say, he "found a clew." But you can't +hang a "clew" for murder, and so after that detective had got through +and gone home, Tom felt just as insecure as he was before. + +The slow days drifted on, and each left behind it a slightly lightened +weight of apprehension. + + + + +CHAPTER XXV + +THERE comes a time in every rightly-constructed boy's life when he has +a raging desire to go somewhere and dig for hidden treasure. This desire +suddenly came upon Tom one day. He sallied out to find Joe Harper, +but failed of success. Next he sought Ben Rogers; he had gone fishing. +Presently he stumbled upon Huck Finn the Red-Handed. Huck would +answer. Tom took him to a private place and opened the matter to him +confidentially. Huck was willing. Huck was always willing to take a hand +in any enterprise that offered entertainment and required no capital, +for he had a troublesome superabundance of that sort of time which is +not money. "Where'll we dig?" said Huck. + +"Oh, most anywhere." + +"Why, is it hid all around?" + +"No, indeed it ain't. It's hid in mighty particular places, +Huck--sometimes on islands, sometimes in rotten chests under the end of +a limb of an old dead tree, just where the shadow falls at midnight; but +mostly under the floor in ha'nted houses." + +"Who hides it?" + +"Why, robbers, of course--who'd you reckon? Sunday-school +sup'rintendents?" + +"I don't know. If 'twas mine I wouldn't hide it; I'd spend it and have a +good time." + +"So would I. But robbers don't do that way. They always hide it and +leave it there." + +"Don't they come after it any more?" + +"No, they think they will, but they generally forget the marks, or else +they die. Anyway, it lays there a long time and gets rusty; and by and +by somebody finds an old yellow paper that tells how to find the marks--a +paper that's got to be ciphered over about a week because it's mostly +signs and hy'roglyphics." + +"Hyro--which?" + +"Hy'roglyphics--pictures and things, you know, that don't seem to mean +anything." + +"Have you got one of them papers, Tom?" + +"No." + +"Well then, how you going to find the marks?" + +"I don't want any marks. They always bury it under a ha'nted house or on +an island, or under a dead tree that's got one limb sticking out. Well, +we've tried Jackson's Island a little, and we can try it again some +time; and there's the old ha'nted house up the Still-House branch, and +there's lots of dead-limb trees--dead loads of 'em." + +"Is it under all of them?" + +"How you talk! No!" + +"Then how you going to know which one to go for?" + +"Go for all of 'em!" + +"Why, Tom, it'll take all summer." + +"Well, what of that? Suppose you find a brass pot with a hundred dollars +in it, all rusty and gray, or rotten chest full of di'monds. How's +that?" + +Huck's eyes glowed. + +"That's bully. Plenty bully enough for me. Just you gimme the hundred +dollars and I don't want no di'monds." + +"All right. But I bet you I ain't going to throw off on di'monds. Some +of 'em's worth twenty dollars apiece--there ain't any, hardly, but's +worth six bits or a dollar." + +"No! Is that so?" + +"Cert'nly--anybody'll tell you so. Hain't you ever seen one, Huck?" + +"Not as I remember." + +"Oh, kings have slathers of them." + +"Well, I don' know no kings, Tom." + +"I reckon you don't. But if you was to go to Europe you'd see a raft of +'em hopping around." + +"Do they hop?" + +"Hop?--your granny! No!" + +"Well, what did you say they did, for?" + +"Shucks, I only meant you'd _see_ 'em--not hopping, of course--what do +they want to hop for?--but I mean you'd just see 'em--scattered around, +you know, in a kind of a general way. Like that old humpbacked Richard." + +"Richard? What's his other name?" + +"He didn't have any other name. Kings don't have any but a given name." + +"No?" + +"But they don't." + +"Well, if they like it, Tom, all right; but I don't want to be a king +and have only just a given name, like a nigger. But say--where you going +to dig first?" + +"Well, I don't know. S'pose we tackle that old dead-limb tree on the +hill t'other side of Still-House branch?" + +"I'm agreed." + +So they got a crippled pick and a shovel, and set out on their +three-mile tramp. They arrived hot and panting, and threw themselves +down in the shade of a neighboring elm to rest and have a smoke. + +"I like this," said Tom. + +"So do I." + +"Say, Huck, if we find a treasure here, what you going to do with your +share?" + +"Well, I'll have pie and a glass of soda every day, and I'll go to every +circus that comes along. I bet I'll have a gay time." + +"Well, ain't you going to save any of it?" + +"Save it? What for?" + +"Why, so as to have something to live on, by and by." + +"Oh, that ain't any use. Pap would come back to thish-yer town some day +and get his claws on it if I didn't hurry up, and I tell you he'd clean +it out pretty quick. What you going to do with yourn, Tom?" + +"I'm going to buy a new drum, and a sure'nough sword, and a red necktie +and a bull pup, and get married." + +"Married!" + +"That's it." + +"Tom, you--why, you ain't in your right mind." + +"Wait--you'll see." + +"Well, that's the foolishest thing you could do. Look at pap and my +mother. Fight! Why, they used to fight all the time. I remember, mighty +well." + +"That ain't anything. The girl I'm going to marry won't fight." + +"Tom, I reckon they're all alike. They'll all comb a body. Now you +better think 'bout this awhile. I tell you you better. What's the name +of the gal?" + +"It ain't a gal at all--it's a girl." + +"It's all the same, I reckon; some says gal, some says girl--both's +right, like enough. Anyway, what's her name, Tom?" + +"I'll tell you some time--not now." + +"All right--that'll do. Only if you get married I'll be more lonesomer +than ever." + +"No you won't. You'll come and live with me. Now stir out of this and +we'll go to digging." + +They worked and sweated for half an hour. No result. They toiled another +halfhour. Still no result. Huck said: + +"Do they always bury it as deep as this?" + +"Sometimes--not always. Not generally. I reckon we haven't got the right +place." + +So they chose a new spot and began again. The labor dragged a little, +but still they made progress. They pegged away in silence for some time. +Finally Huck leaned on his shovel, swabbed the beaded drops from his +brow with his sleeve, and said: + +"Where you going to dig next, after we get this one?" + +"I reckon maybe we'll tackle the old tree that's over yonder on Cardiff +Hill back of the widow's." + +"I reckon that'll be a good one. But won't the widow take it away from +us, Tom? It's on her land." + +"_She_ take it away! Maybe she'd like to try it once. Whoever finds one +of these hid treasures, it belongs to him. It don't make any difference +whose land it's on." + +That was satisfactory. The work went on. By and by Huck said: + +"Blame it, we must be in the wrong place again. What do you think?" + +"It is mighty curious, Huck. I don't understand it. Sometimes witches +interfere. I reckon maybe that's what's the trouble now." + +"Shucks! Witches ain't got no power in the daytime." + +"Well, that's so. I didn't think of that. Oh, I know what the matter is! +What a blamed lot of fools we are! You got to find out where the shadow +of the limb falls at midnight, and that's where you dig!" + +"Then consound it, we've fooled away all this work for nothing. Now hang +it all, we got to come back in the night. It's an awful long way. Can +you get out?" + +"I bet I will. We've got to do it tonight, too, because if somebody sees +these holes they'll know in a minute what's here and they'll go for it." + +"Well, I'll come around and maow tonight." + +"All right. Let's hide the tools in the bushes." + +The boys were there that night, about the appointed time. They sat in +the shadow waiting. It was a lonely place, and an hour made solemn by +old traditions. Spirits whispered in the rustling leaves, ghosts lurked +in the murky nooks, the deep baying of a hound floated up out of the +distance, an owl answered with his sepulchral note. The boys were +subdued by these solemnities, and talked little. By and by they judged +that twelve had come; they marked where the shadow fell, and began to +dig. Their hopes commenced to rise. Their interest grew stronger, and +their industry kept pace with it. The hole deepened and still deepened, +but every time their hearts jumped to hear the pick strike upon +something, they only suffered a new disappointment. It was only a stone +or a chunk. At last Tom said: + +"It ain't any use, Huck, we're wrong again." + +"Well, but we _can't_ be wrong. We spotted the shadder to a dot." + +"I know it, but then there's another thing." + +"What's that?". + +"Why, we only guessed at the time. Like enough it was too late or too +early." + +Huck dropped his shovel. + +"That's it," said he. "That's the very trouble. We got to give this one +up. We can't ever tell the right time, and besides this kind of thing's +too awful, here this time of night with witches and ghosts a-fluttering +around so. I feel as if something's behind me all the time; and I'm +afeard to turn around, becuz maybe there's others in front a-waiting for +a chance. I been creeping all over, ever since I got here." + +"Well, I've been pretty much so, too, Huck. They most always put in a +dead man when they bury a treasure under a tree, to look out for it." + +"Lordy!" + +"Yes, they do. I've always heard that." + +"Tom, I don't like to fool around much where there's dead people. A +body's bound to get into trouble with 'em, sure." + +"I don't like to stir 'em up, either. S'pose this one here was to stick +his skull out and say something!" + +"Don't Tom! It's awful." + +"Well, it just is. Huck, I don't feel comfortable a bit." + +"Say, Tom, let's give this place up, and try somewheres else." + +"All right, I reckon we better." + +"What'll it be?" + +Tom considered awhile; and then said: + +"The ha'nted house. That's it!" + +"Blame it, I don't like ha'nted houses, Tom. Why, they're a dern sight +worse'n dead people. Dead people might talk, maybe, but they don't come +sliding around in a shroud, when you ain't noticing, and peep over your +shoulder all of a sudden and grit their teeth, the way a ghost does. I +couldn't stand such a thing as that, Tom--nobody could." + +"Yes, but, Huck, ghosts don't travel around only at night. They won't +hender us from digging there in the daytime." + +"Well, that's so. But you know mighty well people don't go about that +ha'nted house in the day nor the night." + +"Well, that's mostly because they don't like to go where a man's been +murdered, anyway--but nothing's ever been seen around that house except +in the night--just some blue lights slipping by the windows--no regular +ghosts." + +"Well, where you see one of them blue lights flickering around, Tom, +you can bet there's a ghost mighty close behind it. It stands to reason. +Becuz you know that they don't anybody but ghosts use 'em." + +"Yes, that's so. But anyway they don't come around in the daytime, so +what's the use of our being afeard?" + +"Well, all right. We'll tackle the ha'nted house if you say so--but I +reckon it's taking chances." + +They had started down the hill by this time. There in the middle of the +moonlit valley below them stood the "ha'nted" house, utterly isolated, +its fences gone long ago, rank weeds smothering the very doorsteps, the +chimney crumbled to ruin, the window-sashes vacant, a corner of the roof +caved in. The boys gazed awhile, half expecting to see a blue light flit +past a window; then talking in a low tone, as befitted the time and the +circumstances, they struck far off to the right, to give the haunted +house a wide berth, and took their way homeward through the woods that +adorned the rearward side of Cardiff Hill. + + + + +CHAPTER XVI + +ABOUT noon the next day the boys arrived at the dead tree; they had come +for their tools. Tom was impatient to go to the haunted house; Huck was +measurably so, also--but suddenly said: + +"Lookyhere, Tom, do you know what day it is?" + +Tom mentally ran over the days of the week, and then quickly lifted his +eyes with a startled look in them-- + +"My! I never once thought of it, Huck!" + +"Well, I didn't neither, but all at once it popped onto me that it was +Friday." + +"Blame it, a body can't be too careful, Huck. We might 'a' got into an +awful scrape, tackling such a thing on a Friday." + +"_Might_! Better say we _would_! There's some lucky days, maybe, but +Friday ain't." + +"Any fool knows that. I don't reckon _you_ was the first that found it +out, Huck." + +"Well, I never said I was, did I? And Friday ain't all, neither. I had a +rotten bad dream last night--dreampt about rats." + +"No! Sure sign of trouble. Did they fight?" + +"No." + +"Well, that's good, Huck. When they don't fight it's only a sign that +there's trouble around, you know. All we got to do is to look mighty +sharp and keep out of it. We'll drop this thing for today, and play. Do +you know Robin Hood, Huck?" + +"No. Who's Robin Hood?" + +"Why, he was one of the greatest men that was ever in England--and the +best. He was a robber." + +"Cracky, I wisht I was. Who did he rob?" + +"Only sheriffs and bishops and rich people and kings, and such like. But +he never bothered the poor. He loved 'em. He always divided up with 'em +perfectly square." + +"Well, he must 'a' been a brick." + +"I bet you he was, Huck. Oh, he was the noblest man that ever was. +They ain't any such men now, I can tell you. He could lick any man in +England, with one hand tied behind him; and he could take his yew bow +and plug a ten-cent piece every time, a mile and a half." + +"What's a _yew_ bow?" + +"I don't know. It's some kind of a bow, of course. And if he hit that +dime only on the edge he would set down and cry--and curse. But we'll +play Robin Hood--it's nobby fun. I'll learn you." + +"I'm agreed." + +So they played Robin Hood all the afternoon, now and then casting a +yearning eye down upon the haunted house and passing a remark about the +morrow's prospects and possibilities there. As the sun began to sink +into the west they took their way homeward athwart the long shadows +of the trees and soon were buried from sight in the forests of Cardiff +Hill. + +On Saturday, shortly after noon, the boys were at the dead tree again. +They had a smoke and a chat in the shade, and then dug a little in their +last hole, not with great hope, but merely because Tom said there were +so many cases where people had given up a treasure after getting down +within six inches of it, and then somebody else had come along and +turned it up with a single thrust of a shovel. The thing failed this +time, however, so the boys shouldered their tools and went away feeling +that they had not trifled with fortune, but had fulfilled all the +requirements that belong to the business of treasure-hunting. + +When they reached the haunted house there was something so weird and +grisly about the dead silence that reigned there under the baking sun, +and something so depressing about the loneliness and desolation of the +place, that they were afraid, for a moment, to venture in. Then they +crept to the door and took a trembling peep. They saw a weedgrown, +floorless room, unplastered, an ancient fireplace, vacant windows, +a ruinous staircase; and here, there, and everywhere hung ragged and +abandoned cobwebs. They presently entered, softly, with quickened +pulses, talking in whispers, ears alert to catch the slightest sound, +and muscles tense and ready for instant retreat. + +In a little while familiarity modified their fears and they gave the +place a critical and interested examination, rather admiring their own +boldness, and wondering at it, too. Next they wanted to look upstairs. +This was something like cutting off retreat, but they got to daring +each other, and of course there could be but one result--they threw their +tools into a corner and made the ascent. Up there were the same signs of +decay. In one corner they found a closet that promised mystery, but the +promise was a fraud--there was nothing in it. Their courage was up now +and well in hand. They were about to go down and begin work when-- + +"Sh!" said Tom. + +"What is it?" whispered Huck, blanching with fright. + +"Sh!... There!... Hear it?" + +"Yes!... Oh, my! Let's run!" + +"Keep still! Don't you budge! They're coming right toward the door." + +The boys stretched themselves upon the floor with their eyes to +knotholes in the planking, and lay waiting, in a misery of fear. + +"They've stopped.... No--coming.... Here they are. Don't whisper another +word, Huck. My goodness, I wish I was out of this!" + +Two men entered. Each boy said to himself: "There's the old deaf and +dumb Spaniard that's been about town once or twice lately--never saw +t'other man before." + +"T'other" was a ragged, unkempt creature, with nothing very pleasant +in his face. The Spaniard was wrapped in a serape; he had bushy white +whiskers; long white hair flowed from under his sombrero, and he wore +green goggles. When they came in, "t'other" was talking in a low voice; +they sat down on the ground, facing the door, with their backs to the +wall, and the speaker continued his remarks. His manner became less +guarded and his words more distinct as he proceeded: + +"No," said he, "I've thought it all over, and I don't like it. It's +dangerous." + +"Dangerous!" grunted the "deaf and dumb" Spaniard--to the vast surprise +of the boys. "Milksop!" + +This voice made the boys gasp and quake. It was Injun Joe's! There was +silence for some time. Then Joe said: + +"What's any more dangerous than that job up yonder--but nothing's come of +it." + +"That's different. Away up the river so, and not another house about. +'Twon't ever be known that we tried, anyway, long as we didn't succeed." + +"Well, what's more dangerous than coming here in the daytime!--anybody +would suspicion us that saw us." + +"I know that. But there warn't any other place as handy after that fool +of a job. I want to quit this shanty. I wanted to yesterday, only it +warn't any use trying to stir out of here, with those infernal boys +playing over there on the hill right in full view." + +"Those infernal boys" quaked again under the inspiration of this remark, +and thought how lucky it was that they had remembered it was Friday and +concluded to wait a day. They wished in their hearts they had waited a +year. + +The two men got out some food and made a luncheon. After a long and +thoughtful silence, Injun Joe said: + +"Look here, lad--you go back up the river where you belong. Wait there +till you hear from me. I'll take the chances on dropping into this town +just once more, for a look. We'll do that 'dangerous' job after I've +spied around a little and think things look well for it. Then for Texas! +We'll leg it together!" + +This was satisfactory. Both men presently fell to yawning, and Injun Joe +said: + +"I'm dead for sleep! It's your turn to watch." + +He curled down in the weeds and soon began to snore. His comrade stirred +him once or twice and he became quiet. Presently the watcher began to +nod; his head drooped lower and lower, both men began to snore now. + +The boys drew a long, grateful breath. Tom whispered: + +"Now's our chance--come!" + +Huck said: + +"I can't--I'd die if they was to wake." + +Tom urged--Huck held back. At last Tom rose slowly and softly, and +started alone. But the first step he made wrung such a hideous creak +from the crazy floor that he sank down almost dead with fright. He never +made a second attempt. The boys lay there counting the dragging moments +till it seemed to them that time must be done and eternity growing gray; +and then they were grateful to note that at last the sun was setting. + +Now one snore ceased. Injun Joe sat up, stared around--smiled grimly upon +his comrade, whose head was drooping upon his knees--stirred him up with +his foot and said: + +"Here! _You're_ a watchman, ain't you! All right, though--nothing's +happened." + +"My! have I been asleep?" + +"Oh, partly, partly. Nearly time for us to be moving, pard. What'll we +do with what little swag we've got left?" + +"I don't know--leave it here as we've always done, I reckon. No use to +take it away till we start south. Six hundred and fifty in silver's +something to carry." + +"Well--all right--it won't matter to come here once more." + +"No--but I'd say come in the night as we used to do--it's better." + +"Yes: but look here; it may be a good while before I get the right +chance at that job; accidents might happen; 'tain't in such a very good +place; we'll just regularly bury it--and bury it deep." + +"Good idea," said the comrade, who walked across the room, knelt down, +raised one of the rearward hearth-stones and took out a bag that jingled +pleasantly. He subtracted from it twenty or thirty dollars for himself +and as much for Injun Joe, and passed the bag to the latter, who was on +his knees in the corner, now, digging with his bowie-knife. + +The boys forgot all their fears, all their miseries in an instant. With +gloating eyes they watched every movement. Luck!--the splendor of it was +beyond all imagination! Six hundred dollars was money enough to make +half a dozen boys rich! Here was treasure-hunting under the happiest +auspices--there would not be any bothersome uncertainty as to where to +dig. They nudged each other every moment--eloquent nudges and easily +understood, for they simply meant--"Oh, but ain't you glad _now_ we're +here!" + +Joe's knife struck upon something. + +"Hello!" said he. + +"What is it?" said his comrade. + +"Half-rotten plank--no, it's a box, I believe. Here--bear a hand and we'll +see what it's here for. Never mind, I've broke a hole." + +He reached his hand in and drew it out-- + +"Man, it's money!" + +The two men examined the handful of coins. They were gold. The boys +above were as excited as themselves, and as delighted. + +Joe's comrade said: + +"We'll make quick work of this. There's an old rusty pick over amongst +the weeds in the corner the other side of the fireplace--I saw it a +minute ago." + +He ran and brought the boys' pick and shovel. Injun Joe took the +pick, looked it over critically, shook his head, muttered something to +himself, and then began to use it. The box was soon unearthed. It was +not very large; it was iron bound and had been very strong before the +slow years had injured it. The men contemplated the treasure awhile in +blissful silence. + +"Pard, there's thousands of dollars here," said Injun Joe. + +"'Twas always said that Murrel's gang used to be around here one +summer," the stranger observed. + +"I know it," said Injun Joe; "and this looks like it, I should say." + +"Now you won't need to do that job." + +The halfbreed frowned. Said he: + +"You don't know me. Least you don't know all about that thing. 'Tain't +robbery altogether--it's _revenge_!" and a wicked light flamed in his +eyes. "I'll need your help in it. When it's finished--then Texas. Go home +to your Nance and your kids, and stand by till you hear from me." + +"Well--if you say so; what'll we do with this--bury it again?" + +"Yes. [Ravishing delight overhead.] _No_! by the great Sachem, no! +[Profound distress overhead.] I'd nearly forgot. That pick had fresh +earth on it! [The boys were sick with terror in a moment.] What business +has a pick and a shovel here? What business with fresh earth on +them? Who brought them here--and where are they gone? Have you heard +anybody?--seen anybody? What! bury it again and leave them to come and +see the ground disturbed? Not exactly--not exactly. We'll take it to my +den." + +"Why, of course! Might have thought of that before. You mean Number +One?" + +"No--Number Two--under the cross. The other place is bad--too common." + +"All right. It's nearly dark enough to start." + +Injun Joe got up and went about from window to window cautiously peeping +out. Presently he said: + +"Who could have brought those tools here? Do you reckon they can be +upstairs?" + +The boys' breath forsook them. Injun Joe put his hand on his knife, +halted a moment, undecided, and then turned toward the stairway. The +boys thought of the closet, but their strength was gone. The steps came +creaking up the stairs--the intolerable distress of the situation woke +the stricken resolution of the lads--they were about to spring for the +closet, when there was a crash of rotten timbers and Injun Joe landed on +the ground amid the debris of the ruined stairway. He gathered himself +up cursing, and his comrade said: + +"Now what's the use of all that? If it's anybody, and they're up there, +let them _stay_ there--who cares? If they want to jump down, now, and get +into trouble, who objects? It will be dark in fifteen minutes--and then +let them follow us if they want to. I'm willing. In my opinion, whoever +hove those things in here caught a sight of us and took us for ghosts or +devils or something. I'll bet they're running yet." + +Joe grumbled awhile; then he agreed with his friend that what daylight +was left ought to be economized in getting things ready for leaving. +Shortly afterward they slipped out of the house in the deepening +twilight, and moved toward the river with their precious box. + +Tom and Huck rose up, weak but vastly relieved, and stared after them +through the chinks between the logs of the house. Follow? Not they. They +were content to reach ground again without broken necks, and take the +townward track over the hill. They did not talk much. They were too much +absorbed in hating themselves--hating the ill luck that made them take +the spade and the pick there. But for that, Injun Joe never would have +suspected. He would have hidden the silver with the gold to wait +there till his "revenge" was satisfied, and then he would have had the +misfortune to find that money turn up missing. Bitter, bitter luck that +the tools were ever brought there! + +They resolved to keep a lookout for that Spaniard when he should come to +town spying out for chances to do his revengeful job, and follow him to +"Number Two," wherever that might be. Then a ghastly thought occurred to +Tom. + +"Revenge? What if he means _us_, Huck!" + +"Oh, don't!" said Huck, nearly fainting. + +They talked it all over, and as they entered town they agreed to believe +that he might possibly mean somebody else--at least that he might at +least mean nobody but Tom, since only Tom had testified. + +Very, very small comfort it was to Tom to be alone in danger! Company +would be a palpable improvement, he thought. + + + + +CHAPTER XXVII + +THE adventure of the day mightily tormented Tom's dreams that night. +Four times he had his hands on that rich treasure and four times +it wasted to nothingness in his fingers as sleep forsook him and +wakefulness brought back the hard reality of his misfortune. As he lay +in the early morning recalling the incidents of his great adventure, he +noticed that they seemed curiously subdued and far away--somewhat as if +they had happened in another world, or in a time long gone by. Then it +occurred to him that the great adventure itself must be a dream! There +was one very strong argument in favor of this idea--namely, that the +quantity of coin he had seen was too vast to be real. He had never seen +as much as fifty dollars in one mass before, and he was like all boys of +his age and station in life, in that he imagined that all references to +"hundreds" and "thousands" were mere fanciful forms of speech, and that +no such sums really existed in the world. He never had supposed for +a moment that so large a sum as a hundred dollars was to be found in +actual money in any one's possession. If his notions of hidden treasure +had been analyzed, they would have been found to consist of a handful of +real dimes and a bushel of vague, splendid, ungraspable dollars. + +But the incidents of his adventure grew sensibly sharper and clearer +under the attrition of thinking them over, and so he presently found +himself leaning to the impression that the thing might not have been a +dream, after all. This uncertainty must be swept away. He would snatch a +hurried breakfast and go and find Huck. Huck was sitting on the gunwale +of a flatboat, listlessly dangling his feet in the water and looking +very melancholy. Tom concluded to let Huck lead up to the subject. If +he did not do it, then the adventure would be proved to have been only a +dream. + +"Hello, Huck!" + +"Hello, yourself." + +Silence, for a minute. + +"Tom, if we'd 'a' left the blame tools at the dead tree, we'd 'a' got +the money. Oh, ain't it awful!" + +"'Tain't a dream, then, 'tain't a dream! Somehow I most wish it was. +Dog'd if I don't, Huck." + +"What ain't a dream?" + +"Oh, that thing yesterday. I been half thinking it was." + +"Dream! If them stairs hadn't broke down you'd 'a' seen how much dream +it was! I've had dreams enough all night--with that patch-eyed Spanish +devil going for me all through 'em--rot him!" + +"No, not rot him. _Find_ him! Track the money!" + +"Tom, we'll never find him. A feller don't have only one chance for such +a pile--and that one's lost. I'd feel mighty shaky if I was to see him, +anyway." + +"Well, so'd I; but I'd like to see him, anyway--and track him out--to his +Number Two." + +"Number Two--yes, that's it. I been thinking 'bout that. But I can't make +nothing out of it. What do you reckon it is?" + +"I dono. It's too deep. Say, Huck--maybe it's the number of a house!" + +"Goody!... No, Tom, that ain't it. If it is, it ain't in this one-horse +town. They ain't no numbers here." + +"Well, that's so. Lemme think a minute. Here--it's the number of a +room--in a tavern, you know!" + +"Oh, that's the trick! They ain't only two taverns. We can find out +quick." + +"You stay here, Huck, till I come." + +Tom was off at once. He did not care to have Huck's company in public +places. He was gone half an hour. He found that in the best tavern, No. +2 had long been occupied by a young lawyer, and was still so occupied. +In the less ostentatious house, No. 2 was a mystery. The tavern-keeper's +young son said it was kept locked all the time, and he never saw anybody +go into it or come out of it except at night; he did not know any +particular reason for this state of things; had had some little +curiosity, but it was rather feeble; had made the most of the mystery +by entertaining himself with the idea that that room was "ha'nted"; had +noticed that there was a light in there the night before. + +"That's what I've found out, Huck. I reckon that's the very No. 2 we're +after." + +"I reckon it is, Tom. Now what you going to do?" + +"Lemme think." + +Tom thought a long time. Then he said: + +"I'll tell you. The back door of that No. 2 is the door that comes out +into that little close alley between the tavern and the old rattle trap +of a brick store. Now you get hold of all the doorkeys you can find, and +I'll nip all of auntie's, and the first dark night we'll go there and +try 'em. And mind you, keep a lookout for Injun Joe, because he said he +was going to drop into town and spy around once more for a chance to get +his revenge. If you see him, you just follow him; and if he don't go to +that No. 2, that ain't the place." + +"Lordy, I don't want to foller him by myself!" + +"Why, it'll be night, sure. He mightn't ever see you--and if he did, +maybe he'd never think anything." + +"Well, if it's pretty dark I reckon I'll track him. I dono--I dono. I'll +try." + +"You bet I'll follow him, if it's dark, Huck. Why, he might 'a' found +out he couldn't get his revenge, and be going right after that money." + +"It's so, Tom, it's so. I'll foller him; I will, by jingoes!" + +"Now you're _talking_! Don't you ever weaken, Huck, and I won't." + + + + +CHAPTER XXVIII + +THAT night Tom and Huck were ready for their adventure. They hung about +the neighborhood of the tavern until after nine, one watching the alley +at a distance and the other the tavern door. Nobody entered the alley or +left it; nobody resembling the Spaniard entered or left the tavern +door. The night promised to be a fair one; so Tom went home with the +understanding that if a considerable degree of darkness came on, Huck +was to come and "maow," whereupon he would slip out and try the keys. +But the night remained clear, and Huck closed his watch and retired to +bed in an empty sugar hogshead about twelve. + +Tuesday the boys had the same ill luck. Also Wednesday. But Thursday +night promised better. Tom slipped out in good season with his aunt's +old tin lantern, and a large towel to blindfold it with. He hid the +lantern in Huck's sugar hogshead and the watch began. An hour before +midnight the tavern closed up and its lights (the only ones thereabouts) +were put out. No Spaniard had been seen. Nobody had entered or left the +alley. Everything was auspicious. The blackness of darkness reigned, +the perfect stillness was interrupted only by occasional mutterings of +distant thunder. + +Tom got his lantern, lit it in the hogshead, wrapped it closely in the +towel, and the two adventurers crept in the gloom toward the tavern. +Huck stood sentry and Tom felt his way into the alley. Then there was +a season of waiting anxiety that weighed upon Huck's spirits like a +mountain. He began to wish he could see a flash from the lantern--it +would frighten him, but it would at least tell him that Tom was alive +yet. It seemed hours since Tom had disappeared. Surely he must have +fainted; maybe he was dead; maybe his heart had burst under terror and +excitement. In his uneasiness Huck found himself drawing closer +and closer to the alley; fearing all sorts of dreadful things, and +momentarily expecting some catastrophe to happen that would take away +his breath. There was not much to take away, for he seemed only able to +inhale it by thimblefuls, and his heart would soon wear itself out, the +way it was beating. Suddenly there was a flash of light and Tom came +tearing by him: "Run!" said he; "run, for your life!" + +He needn't have repeated it; once was enough; Huck was making thirty or +forty miles an hour before the repetition was uttered. The boys never +stopped till they reached the shed of a deserted slaughter-house at the +lower end of the village. Just as they got within its shelter the storm +burst and the rain poured down. As soon as Tom got his breath he said: + +"Huck, it was awful! I tried two of the keys, just as soft as I could; +but they seemed to make such a power of racket that I couldn't hardly +get my breath I was so scared. They wouldn't turn in the lock, either. +Well, without noticing what I was doing, I took hold of the knob, and +open comes the door! It warn't locked! I hopped in, and shook off the +towel, and, _Great Caesar's Ghost!_" + +"What!--what'd you see, Tom?" + +"Huck, I most stepped onto Injun Joe's hand!" + +"No!" + +"Yes! He was lying there, sound asleep on the floor, with his old patch +on his eye and his arms spread out." + +"Lordy, what did you do? Did he wake up?" + +"No, never budged. Drunk, I reckon. I just grabbed that towel and +started!" + +"I'd never 'a' thought of the towel, I bet!" + +"Well, I would. My aunt would make me mighty sick if I lost it." + +"Say, Tom, did you see that box?" + +"Huck, I didn't wait to look around. I didn't see the box, I didn't see +the cross. I didn't see anything but a bottle and a tin cup on the floor +by Injun Joe; yes, I saw two barrels and lots more bottles in the room. +Don't you see, now, what's the matter with that ha'nted room?" + +"How?" + +"Why, it's ha'nted with whiskey! Maybe _all_ the Temperance Taverns have +got a ha'nted room, hey, Huck?" + +"Well, I reckon maybe that's so. Who'd 'a' thought such a thing? But +say, Tom, now's a mighty good time to get that box, if Injun Joe's +drunk." + +"It is, that! You try it!" + +Huck shuddered. + +"Well, no--I reckon not." + +"And I reckon not, Huck. Only one bottle alongside of Injun Joe ain't +enough. If there'd been three, he'd be drunk enough and I'd do it." + +There was a long pause for reflection, and then Tom said: + +"Lookyhere, Huck, less not try that thing any more till we know Injun +Joe's not in there. It's too scary. Now, if we watch every night, we'll +be dead sure to see him go out, some time or other, and then we'll +snatch that box quicker'n lightning." + +"Well, I'm agreed. I'll watch the whole night long, and I'll do it every +night, too, if you'll do the other part of the job." + +"All right, I will. All you got to do is to trot up Hooper Street a +block and maow--and if I'm asleep, you throw some gravel at the window +and that'll fetch me." + +"Agreed, and good as wheat!" + +"Now, Huck, the storm's over, and I'll go home. It'll begin to be +daylight in a couple of hours. You go back and watch that long, will +you?" + +"I said I would, Tom, and I will. I'll ha'nt that tavern every night for +a year! I'll sleep all day and I'll stand watch all night." + +"That's all right. Now, where you going to sleep?" + +"In Ben Rogers' hayloft. He lets me, and so does his pap's nigger man, +Uncle Jake. I tote water for Uncle Jake whenever he wants me to, and any +time I ask him he gives me a little something to eat if he can spare it. +That's a mighty good nigger, Tom. He likes me, becuz I don't ever act as +if I was above him. Sometime I've set right down and eat _with_ him. But +you needn't tell that. A body's got to do things when he's awful hungry +he wouldn't want to do as a steady thing." + +"Well, if I don't want you in the daytime, I'll let you sleep. I won't +come bothering around. Any time you see something's up, in the night, +just skip right around and maow." + + + + +CHAPTER XXIX + +THE first thing Tom heard on Friday morning was a glad piece of +news--Judge Thatcher's family had come back to town the night before. +Both Injun Joe and the treasure sunk into secondary importance for a +moment, and Becky took the chief place in the boy's interest. He saw her +and they had an exhausting good time playing "hispy" and "gully-keeper" +with a crowd of their schoolmates. The day was completed and crowned in +a peculiarly satisfactory way: Becky teased her mother to appoint +the next day for the long-promised and long-delayed picnic, and she +consented. The child's delight was boundless; and Tom's not more +moderate. The invitations were sent out before sunset, and straightway +the young folks of the village were thrown into a fever of preparation +and pleasurable anticipation. Tom's excitement enabled him to keep +awake until a pretty late hour, and he had good hopes of hearing Huck's +"maow," and of having his treasure to astonish Becky and the picnickers +with, next day; but he was disappointed. No signal came that night. + +Morning came, eventually, and by ten or eleven o'clock a giddy and +rollicking company were gathered at Judge Thatcher's, and everything was +ready for a start. It was not the custom for elderly people to mar the +picnics with their presence. The children were considered safe enough +under the wings of a few young ladies of eighteen and a few young +gentlemen of twenty-three or thereabouts. The old steam ferry-boat was +chartered for the occasion; presently the gay throng filed up the main +street laden with provision-baskets. Sid was sick and had to miss +the fun; Mary remained at home to entertain him. The last thing Mrs. +Thatcher said to Becky, was: + +"You'll not get back till late. Perhaps you'd better stay all night with +some of the girls that live near the ferry-landing, child." + +"Then I'll stay with Susy Harper, mamma." + +"Very well. And mind and behave yourself and don't be any trouble." + +Presently, as they tripped along, Tom said to Becky: + +"Say--I'll tell you what we'll do. 'Stead of going to Joe Harper's we'll +climb right up the hill and stop at the Widow Douglas'. She'll have +ice-cream! She has it most every day--dead loads of it. And she'll be +awful glad to have us." + +"Oh, that will be fun!" + +Then Becky reflected a moment and said: + +"But what will mamma say?" + +"How'll she ever know?" + +The girl turned the idea over in her mind, and said reluctantly: + +"I reckon it's wrong--but--" + +"But shucks! Your mother won't know, and so what's the harm? All she +wants is that you'll be safe; and I bet you she'd 'a' said go there if +she'd 'a' thought of it. I know she would!" + +The Widow Douglas' splendid hospitality was a tempting bait. It and +Tom's persuasions presently carried the day. So it was decided to say +nothing to anybody about the night's programme. Presently it occurred to +Tom that maybe Huck might come this very night and give the signal. The +thought took a deal of the spirit out of his anticipations. Still he +could not bear to give up the fun at Widow Douglas'. And why should he +give it up, he reasoned--the signal did not come the night before, so +why should it be any more likely to come tonight? The sure fun of the +evening outweighed the uncertain treasure; and, boy-like, he determined +to yield to the stronger inclination and not allow himself to think of +the box of money another time that day. + +Three miles below town the ferryboat stopped at the mouth of a woody +hollow and tied up. The crowd swarmed ashore and soon the forest +distances and craggy heights echoed far and near with shoutings and +laughter. All the different ways of getting hot and tired were gone +through with, and by-and-by the rovers straggled back to camp fortified +with responsible appetites, and then the destruction of the good things +began. After the feast there was a refreshing season of rest and chat in +the shade of spreading oaks. By-and-by somebody shouted: + +"Who's ready for the cave?" + +Everybody was. Bundles of candles were procured, and straightway there +was a general scamper up the hill. The mouth of the cave was up the +hillside--an opening shaped like a letter A. Its massive oaken door stood +unbarred. Within was a small chamber, chilly as an icehouse, and walled +by Nature with solid limestone that was dewy with a cold sweat. It was +romantic and mysterious to stand here in the deep gloom and look out +upon the green valley shining in the sun. But the impressiveness of the +situation quickly wore off, and the romping began again. The moment +a candle was lighted there was a general rush upon the owner of it; a +struggle and a gallant defence followed, but the candle was soon knocked +down or blown out, and then there was a glad clamor of laughter and a +new chase. But all things have an end. By-and-by the procession went +filing down the steep descent of the main avenue, the flickering rank of +lights dimly revealing the lofty walls of rock almost to their point of +junction sixty feet overhead. This main avenue was not more than +eight or ten feet wide. Every few steps other lofty and still narrower +crevices branched from it on either hand--for McDougal's cave was but a +vast labyrinth of crooked aisles that ran into each other and out again +and led nowhere. It was said that one might wander days and nights +together through its intricate tangle of rifts and chasms, and never +find the end of the cave; and that he might go down, and down, and +still down, into the earth, and it was just the same--labyrinth under +labyrinth, and no end to any of them. No man "knew" the cave. That was +an impossible thing. Most of the young men knew a portion of it, and it +was not customary to venture much beyond this known portion. Tom Sawyer +knew as much of the cave as any one. + +The procession moved along the main avenue some three-quarters of +a mile, and then groups and couples began to slip aside into branch +avenues, fly along the dismal corridors, and take each other by surprise +at points where the corridors joined again. Parties were able to elude +each other for the space of half an hour without going beyond the +"known" ground. + +By-and-by, one group after another came straggling back to the mouth +of the cave, panting, hilarious, smeared from head to foot with tallow +drippings, daubed with clay, and entirely delighted with the success of +the day. Then they were astonished to find that they had been taking +no note of time and that night was about at hand. The clanging bell had +been calling for half an hour. However, this sort of close to the day's +adventures was romantic and therefore satisfactory. When the ferryboat +with her wild freight pushed into the stream, nobody cared sixpence for +the wasted time but the captain of the craft. + +Huck was already upon his watch when the ferryboat's lights went +glinting past the wharf. He heard no noise on board, for the young +people were as subdued and still as people usually are who are nearly +tired to death. He wondered what boat it was, and why she did not +stop at the wharf--and then he dropped her out of his mind and put his +attention upon his business. The night was growing cloudy and dark. Ten +o'clock came, and the noise of vehicles ceased, scattered lights began +to wink out, all straggling foot-passengers disappeared, the village +betook itself to its slumbers and left the small watcher alone with the +silence and the ghosts. Eleven o'clock came, and the tavern lights were +put out; darkness everywhere, now. Huck waited what seemed a weary long +time, but nothing happened. His faith was weakening. Was there any use? +Was there really any use? Why not give it up and turn in? + +A noise fell upon his ear. He was all attention in an instant. The alley +door closed softly. He sprang to the corner of the brick store. The next +moment two men brushed by him, and one seemed to have something under +his arm. It must be that box! So they were going to remove the treasure. +Why call Tom now? It would be absurd--the men would get away with the box +and never be found again. No, he would stick to their wake and follow +them; he would trust to the darkness for security from discovery. So +communing with himself, Huck stepped out and glided along behind the +men, cat-like, with bare feet, allowing them to keep just far enough +ahead not to be invisible. + +They moved up the river street three blocks, then turned to the left up +a crossstreet. They went straight ahead, then, until they came to the +path that led up Cardiff Hill; this they took. They passed by the old +Welshman's house, halfway up the hill, without hesitating, and still +climbed upward. Good, thought Huck, they will bury it in the old quarry. +But they never stopped at the quarry. They passed on, up the summit. +They plunged into the narrow path between the tall sumach bushes, and +were at once hidden in the gloom. Huck closed up and shortened his +distance, now, for they would never be able to see him. He trotted along +awhile; then slackened his pace, fearing he was gaining too fast; moved +on a piece, then stopped altogether; listened; no sound; none, save that +he seemed to hear the beating of his own heart. The hooting of an +owl came over the hill--ominous sound! But no footsteps. Heavens, was +everything lost! He was about to spring with winged feet, when a man +cleared his throat not four feet from him! Huck's heart shot into his +throat, but he swallowed it again; and then he stood there shaking as +if a dozen agues had taken charge of him at once, and so weak that he +thought he must surely fall to the ground. He knew where he was. He +knew he was within five steps of the stile leading into Widow Douglas' +grounds. Very well, he thought, let them bury it there; it won't be hard +to find. + +Now there was a voice--a very low voice--Injun Joe's: + +"Damn her, maybe she's got company--there's lights, late as it is." + +"I can't see any." + +This was that stranger's voice--the stranger of the haunted house. A +deadly chill went to Huck's heart--this, then, was the "revenge" job! His +thought was, to fly. Then he remembered that the Widow Douglas had been +kind to him more than once, and maybe these men were going to murder +her. He wished he dared venture to warn her; but he knew he didn't +dare--they might come and catch him. He thought all this and more in +the moment that elapsed between the stranger's remark and Injun Joe's +next--which was-- + +"Because the bush is in your way. Now--this way--now you see, don't you?" + +"Yes. Well, there _is_ company there, I reckon. Better give it up." + +"Give it up, and I just leaving this country forever! Give it up and +maybe never have another chance. I tell you again, as I've told you +before, I don't care for her swag--you may have it. But her husband was +rough on me--many times he was rough on me--and mainly he was the justice +of the peace that jugged me for a vagrant. And that ain't all. It ain't +a millionth part of it! He had me _horsewhipped_!--horsewhipped in +front of the jail, like a nigger!--with all the town looking on! +_Horsewhipped_!--do you understand? He took advantage of me and died. But +I'll take it out of _her_." + +"Oh, don't kill her! Don't do that!" + +"Kill? Who said anything about killing? I would kill _him_ if he was +here; but not her. When you want to get revenge on a woman you don't +kill her--bosh! you go for her looks. You slit her nostrils--you notch her +ears like a sow!" + +"By God, that's--" + +"Keep your opinion to yourself! It will be safest for you. I'll tie her +to the bed. If she bleeds to death, is that my fault? I'll not cry, if +she does. My friend, you'll help me in this thing--for _my_ sake--that's +why you're here--I mightn't be able alone. If you flinch, I'll kill you. +Do you understand that? And if I have to kill you, I'll kill her--and +then I reckon nobody'll ever know much about who done this business." + +"Well, if it's got to be done, let's get at it. The quicker the +better--I'm all in a shiver." + +"Do it _now_? And company there? Look here--I'll get suspicious of you, +first thing you know. No--we'll wait till the lights are out--there's no +hurry." + +Huck felt that a silence was going to ensue--a thing still more awful +than any amount of murderous talk; so he held his breath and stepped +gingerly back; planted his foot carefully and firmly, after balancing, +one-legged, in a precarious way and almost toppling over, first on one +side and then on the other. He took another step back, with the same +elaboration and the same risks; then another and another, and--a twig +snapped under his foot! His breath stopped and he listened. There was no +sound--the stillness was perfect. His gratitude was measureless. Now he +turned in his tracks, between the walls of sumach bushes--turned +himself as carefully as if he were a ship--and then stepped quickly but +cautiously along. When he emerged at the quarry he felt secure, and +so he picked up his nimble heels and flew. Down, down he sped, till he +reached the Welshman's. He banged at the door, and presently the heads +of the old man and his two stalwart sons were thrust from windows. + +"What's the row there? Who's banging? What do you want?" + +"Let me in--quick! I'll tell everything." + +"Why, who are you?" + +"Huckleberry Finn--quick, let me in!" + +"Huckleberry Finn, indeed! It ain't a name to open many doors, I judge! +But let him in, lads, and let's see what's the trouble." + +"Please don't ever tell I told you," were Huck's first words when he got +in. "Please don't--I'd be killed, sure--but the widow's been good friends +to me sometimes, and I want to tell--I _will_ tell if you'll promise you +won't ever say it was me." + +"By George, he _has_ got something to tell, or he wouldn't act so!" +exclaimed the old man; "out with it and nobody here'll ever tell, lad." + +Three minutes later the old man and his sons, well armed, were up the +hill, and just entering the sumach path on tiptoe, their weapons in +their hands. Huck accompanied them no further. He hid behind a great +bowlder and fell to listening. There was a lagging, anxious silence, and +then all of a sudden there was an explosion of firearms and a cry. + +Huck waited for no particulars. He sprang away and sped down the hill as +fast as his legs could carry him. + + + + +CHAPTER XXX + +AS the earliest suspicion of dawn appeared on Sunday morning, Huck came +groping up the hill and rapped gently at the old Welshman's door. The +inmates were asleep, but it was a sleep that was set on a hair-trigger, +on account of the exciting episode of the night. A call came from a +window: + +"Who's there!" + +Huck's scared voice answered in a low tone: + +"Please let me in! It's only Huck Finn!" + +"It's a name that can open this door night or day, lad!--and welcome!" + +These were strange words to the vagabond boy's ears, and the pleasantest +he had ever heard. He could not recollect that the closing word had ever +been applied in his case before. The door was quickly unlocked, and he +entered. Huck was given a seat and the old man and his brace of tall +sons speedily dressed themselves. + +"Now, my boy, I hope you're good and hungry, because breakfast will be +ready as soon as the sun's up, and we'll have a piping hot one, too--make +yourself easy about that! I and the boys hoped you'd turn up and stop +here last night." + +"I was awful scared," said Huck, "and I run. I took out when the pistols +went off, and I didn't stop for three mile. I've come now becuz I wanted +to know about it, you know; and I come before daylight becuz I didn't +want to run across them devils, even if they was dead." + +"Well, poor chap, you do look as if you'd had a hard night of it--but +there's a bed here for you when you've had your breakfast. No, they +ain't dead, lad--we are sorry enough for that. You see we knew right +where to put our hands on them, by your description; so we crept along +on tiptoe till we got within fifteen feet of them--dark as a cellar that +sumach path was--and just then I found I was going to sneeze. It was the +meanest kind of luck! I tried to keep it back, but no use--'twas bound to +come, and it did come! I was in the lead with my pistol raised, and when +the sneeze started those scoundrels a-rustling to get out of the path, +I sung out, 'Fire boys!' and blazed away at the place where the rustling +was. So did the boys. But they were off in a jiffy, those villains, and +we after them, down through the woods. I judge we never touched them. +They fired a shot apiece as they started, but their bullets whizzed by +and didn't do us any harm. As soon as we lost the sound of their feet +we quit chasing, and went down and stirred up the constables. They got a +posse together, and went off to guard the river bank, and as soon as it +is light the sheriff and a gang are going to beat up the woods. My boys +will be with them presently. I wish we had some sort of description of +those rascals--'twould help a good deal. But you couldn't see what they +were like, in the dark, lad, I suppose?" + +"Oh yes; I saw them downtown and follered them." + +"Splendid! Describe them--describe them, my boy!" + +"One's the old deaf and dumb Spaniard that's ben around here once or +twice, and t'other's a mean-looking, ragged--" + +"That's enough, lad, we know the men! Happened on them in the woods back +of the widow's one day, and they slunk away. Off with you, boys, and +tell the sheriff--get your breakfast tomorrow morning!" + +The Welshman's sons departed at once. As they were leaving the room Huck +sprang up and exclaimed: + +"Oh, please don't tell _any_body it was me that blowed on them! Oh, +please!" + +"All right if you say it, Huck, but you ought to have the credit of what +you did." + +"Oh no, no! Please don't tell!" + +When the young men were gone, the old Welshman said: + +"They won't tell--and I won't. But why don't you want it known?" + +Huck would not explain, further than to say that he already knew too +much about one of those men and would not have the man know that he knew +anything against him for the whole world--he would be killed for knowing +it, sure. + +The old man promised secrecy once more, and said: + +"How did you come to follow these fellows, lad? Were they looking +suspicious?" + +Huck was silent while he framed a duly cautious reply. Then he said: + +"Well, you see, I'm a kind of a hard lot,--least everybody says so, and +I don't see nothing agin it--and sometimes I can't sleep much, on account +of thinking about it and sort of trying to strike out a new way of +doing. That was the way of it last night. I couldn't sleep, and so I +come along upstreet 'bout midnight, a-turning it all over, and when I +got to that old shackly brick store by the Temperance Tavern, I backed +up agin the wall to have another think. Well, just then along comes +these two chaps slipping along close by me, with something under their +arm, and I reckoned they'd stole it. One was a-smoking, and t'other one +wanted a light; so they stopped right before me and the cigars lit up +their faces and I see that the big one was the deaf and dumb Spaniard, +by his white whiskers and the patch on his eye, and t'other one was a +rusty, ragged-looking devil." + +"Could you see the rags by the light of the cigars?" + +This staggered Huck for a moment. Then he said: + +"Well, I don't know--but somehow it seems as if I did." + +"Then they went on, and you--" + +"Follered 'em--yes. That was it. I wanted to see what was up--they sneaked +along so. I dogged 'em to the widder's stile, and stood in the dark and +heard the ragged one beg for the widder, and the Spaniard swear he'd +spile her looks just as I told you and your two--" + +"What! The _deaf and dumb_ man said all that!" + +Huck had made another terrible mistake! He was trying his best to keep +the old man from getting the faintest hint of who the Spaniard might be, +and yet his tongue seemed determined to get him into trouble in spite of +all he could do. He made several efforts to creep out of his scrape, +but the old man's eye was upon him and he made blunder after blunder. +Presently the Welshman said: + +"My boy, don't be afraid of me. I wouldn't hurt a hair of your head for +all the world. No--I'd protect you--I'd protect you. This Spaniard is +not deaf and dumb; you've let that slip without intending it; you can't +cover that up now. You know something about that Spaniard that you want +to keep dark. Now trust me--tell me what it is, and trust me--I won't +betray you." + +Huck looked into the old man's honest eyes a moment, then bent over and +whispered in his ear: + +"'Tain't a Spaniard--it's Injun Joe!" + +The Welshman almost jumped out of his chair. In a moment he said: + +"It's all plain enough, now. When you talked about notching ears and +slitting noses I judged that that was your own embellishment, because +white men don't take that sort of revenge. But an Injun! That's a +different matter altogether." + +During breakfast the talk went on, and in the course of it the old man +said that the last thing which he and his sons had done, before going +to bed, was to get a lantern and examine the stile and its vicinity for +marks of blood. They found none, but captured a bulky bundle of-- + +"Of _what_?" + +If the words had been lightning they could not have leaped with a more +stunning suddenness from Huck's blanched lips. His eyes were staring +wide, now, and his breath suspended--waiting for the answer. The Welshman +started--stared in return--three seconds--five seconds--ten--then replied: + +"Of burglar's tools. Why, what's the _matter_ with you?" + +Huck sank back, panting gently, but deeply, unutterably grateful. The +Welshman eyed him gravely, curiously--and presently said: + +"Yes, burglar's tools. That appears to relieve you a good deal. But what +did give you that turn? What were _you_ expecting we'd found?" + +Huck was in a close place--the inquiring eye was upon him--he would have +given anything for material for a plausible answer--nothing suggested +itself--the inquiring eye was boring deeper and deeper--a senseless +reply offered--there was no time to weigh it, so at a venture he uttered +it--feebly: + +"Sunday-school books, maybe." + +Poor Huck was too distressed to smile, but the old man laughed loud and +joyously, shook up the details of his anatomy from head to foot, and +ended by saying that such a laugh was money in a-man's pocket, because +it cut down the doctor's bill like everything. Then he added: + +"Poor old chap, you're white and jaded--you ain't well a bit--no wonder +you're a little flighty and off your balance. But you'll come out of it. +Rest and sleep will fetch you out all right, I hope." + +Huck was irritated to think he had been such a goose and betrayed such +a suspicious excitement, for he had dropped the idea that the parcel +brought from the tavern was the treasure, as soon as he had heard the +talk at the widow's stile. He had only thought it was not the treasure, +however--he had not known that it wasn't--and so the suggestion of a +captured bundle was too much for his self-possession. But on the whole +he felt glad the little episode had happened, for now he knew beyond all +question that that bundle was not _the_ bundle, and so his mind was +at rest and exceedingly comfortable. In fact, everything seemed to be +drifting just in the right direction, now; the treasure must be still +in No. 2, the men would be captured and jailed that day, and he and +Tom could seize the gold that night without any trouble or any fear of +interruption. + +Just as breakfast was completed there was a knock at the door. Huck +jumped for a hiding-place, for he had no mind to be connected even +remotely with the late event. The Welshman admitted several ladies and +gentlemen, among them the Widow Douglas, and noticed that groups of +citizens were climbing up the hill--to stare at the stile. So the news +had spread. The Welshman had to tell the story of the night to the +visitors. The widow's gratitude for her preservation was outspoken. + +"Don't say a word about it, madam. There's another that you're more +beholden to than you are to me and my boys, maybe, but he don't allow me +to tell his name. We wouldn't have been there but for him." + +Of course this excited a curiosity so vast that it almost belittled the +main matter--but the Welshman allowed it to eat into the vitals of his +visitors, and through them be transmitted to the whole town, for he +refused to part with his secret. When all else had been learned, the +widow said: + +"I went to sleep reading in bed and slept straight through all that +noise. Why didn't you come and wake me?" + +"We judged it warn't worth while. Those fellows warn't likely to come +again--they hadn't any tools left to work with, and what was the use of +waking you up and scaring you to death? My three negro men stood guard +at your house all the rest of the night. They've just come back." + +More visitors came, and the story had to be told and retold for a couple +of hours more. + +There was no Sabbath-school during day-school vacation, but everybody +was early at church. The stirring event was well canvassed. News came +that not a sign of the two villains had been yet discovered. When the +sermon was finished, Judge Thatcher's wife dropped alongside of Mrs. +Harper as she moved down the aisle with the crowd and said: + +"Is my Becky going to sleep all day? I just expected she would be tired +to death." + +"Your Becky?" + +"Yes," with a startled look--"didn't she stay with you last night?" + +"Why, no." + +Mrs. Thatcher turned pale, and sank into a pew, just as Aunt Polly, +talking briskly with a friend, passed by. Aunt Polly said: + +"Goodmorning, Mrs. Thatcher. Goodmorning, Mrs. Harper. I've got a boy +that's turned up missing. I reckon my Tom stayed at your house last +night--one of you. And now he's afraid to come to church. I've got to +settle with him." + +Mrs. Thatcher shook her head feebly and turned paler than ever. + +"He didn't stay with us," said Mrs. Harper, beginning to look uneasy. A +marked anxiety came into Aunt Polly's face. + +"Joe Harper, have you seen my Tom this morning?" + +"No'm." + +"When did you see him last?" + +Joe tried to remember, but was not sure he could say. The people had +stopped moving out of church. Whispers passed along, and a boding +uneasiness took possession of every countenance. Children were anxiously +questioned, and young teachers. They all said they had not noticed +whether Tom and Becky were on board the ferryboat on the homeward trip; +it was dark; no one thought of inquiring if any one was missing. One +young man finally blurted out his fear that they were still in the cave! +Mrs. Thatcher swooned away. Aunt Polly fell to crying and wringing her +hands. + +The alarm swept from lip to lip, from group to group, from street to +street, and within five minutes the bells were wildly clanging and +the whole town was up! The Cardiff Hill episode sank into instant +insignificance, the burglars were forgotten, horses were saddled, skiffs +were manned, the ferryboat ordered out, and before the horror was half +an hour old, two hundred men were pouring down highroad and river toward +the cave. + +All the long afternoon the village seemed empty and dead. Many women +visited Aunt Polly and Mrs. Thatcher and tried to comfort them. They +cried with them, too, and that was still better than words. All the +tedious night the town waited for news; but when the morning dawned at +last, all the word that came was, "Send more candles--and send food." +Mrs. Thatcher was almost crazed; and Aunt Polly, also. Judge Thatcher +sent messages of hope and encouragement from the cave, but they conveyed +no real cheer. + +The old Welshman came home toward daylight, spattered with +candle-grease, smeared with clay, and almost worn out. He found Huck +still in the bed that had been provided for him, and delirious with +fever. The physicians were all at the cave, so the Widow Douglas came +and took charge of the patient. She said she would do her best by him, +because, whether he was good, bad, or indifferent, he was the Lord's, +and nothing that was the Lord's was a thing to be neglected. The +Welshman said Huck had good spots in him, and the widow said: + +"You can depend on it. That's the Lord's mark. He don't leave it off. +He never does. Puts it somewhere on every creature that comes from his +hands." + +Early in the forenoon parties of jaded men began to straggle into the +village, but the strongest of the citizens continued searching. All the +news that could be gained was that remotenesses of the cavern were being +ransacked that had never been visited before; that every corner and +crevice was going to be thoroughly searched; that wherever one wandered +through the maze of passages, lights were to be seen flitting hither +and thither in the distance, and shoutings and pistol-shots sent their +hollow reverberations to the ear down the sombre aisles. In one place, +far from the section usually traversed by tourists, the names "BECKY & +TOM" had been found traced upon the rocky wall with candle-smoke, and +near at hand a grease-soiled bit of ribbon. Mrs. Thatcher recognized the +ribbon and cried over it. She said it was the last relic she should ever +have of her child; and that no other memorial of her could ever be so +precious, because this one parted latest from the living body before the +awful death came. Some said that now and then, in the cave, a far-away +speck of light would glimmer, and then a glorious shout would burst +forth and a score of men go trooping down the echoing aisle--and then a +sickening disappointment always followed; the children were not there; +it was only a searcher's light. + +Three dreadful days and nights dragged their tedious hours along, and +the village sank into a hopeless stupor. No one had heart for anything. +The accidental discovery, just made, that the proprietor of the +Temperance Tavern kept liquor on his premises, scarcely fluttered the +public pulse, tremendous as the fact was. In a lucid interval, Huck +feebly led up to the subject of taverns, and finally asked--dimly +dreading the worst--if anything had been discovered at the Temperance +Tavern since he had been ill. + +"Yes," said the widow. + +Huck started up in bed, wildeyed: + +"What? What was it?" + +"Liquor!--and the place has been shut up. Lie down, child--what a turn you +did give me!" + +"Only tell me just one thing--only just one--please! Was it Tom Sawyer +that found it?" + +The widow burst into tears. "Hush, hush, child, hush! I've told you +before, you must _not_ talk. You are very, very sick!" + +Then nothing but liquor had been found; there would have been a great +powwow if it had been the gold. So the treasure was gone forever--gone +forever! But what could she be crying about? Curious that she should +cry. + +These thoughts worked their dim way through Huck's mind, and under the +weariness they gave him he fell asleep. The widow said to herself: + +"There--he's asleep, poor wreck. Tom Sawyer find it! Pity but somebody +could find Tom Sawyer! Ah, there ain't many left, now, that's got hope +enough, or strength enough, either, to go on searching." + + + + +CHAPTER XXXI + +NOW to return to Tom and Becky's share in the picnic. They tripped along +the murky aisles with the rest of the company, visiting the familiar +wonders of the cave--wonders dubbed with rather over-descriptive names, +such as "The Drawing-Room," "The Cathedral," "Aladdin's Palace," and +so on. Presently the hide-and-seek frolicking began, and Tom and Becky +engaged in it with zeal until the exertion began to grow a trifle +wearisome; then they wandered down a sinuous avenue holding their +candles aloft and reading the tangled webwork of names, dates, +postoffice addresses, and mottoes with which the rocky walls had been +frescoed (in candle-smoke). Still drifting along and talking, they +scarcely noticed that they were now in a part of the cave whose walls +were not frescoed. They smoked their own names under an overhanging +shelf and moved on. Presently they came to a place where a little stream +of water, trickling over a ledge and carrying a limestone sediment with +it, had, in the slow-dragging ages, formed a laced and ruffled Niagara +in gleaming and imperishable stone. Tom squeezed his small body behind +it in order to illuminate it for Becky's gratification. He found that +it curtained a sort of steep natural stairway which was enclosed between +narrow walls, and at once the ambition to be a discoverer seized him. + +Becky responded to his call, and they made a smoke-mark for future +guidance, and started upon their quest. They wound this way and that, +far down into the secret depths of the cave, made another mark, and +branched off in search of novelties to tell the upper world about. In +one place they found a spacious cavern, from whose ceiling depended a +multitude of shining stalactites of the length and circumference of +a man's leg; they walked all about it, wondering and admiring, and +presently left it by one of the numerous passages that opened into +it. This shortly brought them to a bewitching spring, whose basin was +incrusted with a frostwork of glittering crystals; it was in the midst +of a cavern whose walls were supported by many fantastic pillars which +had been formed by the joining of great stalactites and stalagmites +together, the result of the ceaseless water-drip of centuries. Under the +roof vast knots of bats had packed themselves together, thousands in a +bunch; the lights disturbed the creatures and they came flocking down by +hundreds, squeaking and darting furiously at the candles. Tom knew their +ways and the danger of this sort of conduct. He seized Becky's hand and +hurried her into the first corridor that offered; and none too soon, for +a bat struck Becky's light out with its wing while she was passing out +of the cavern. The bats chased the children a good distance; but the +fugitives plunged into every new passage that offered, and at last got +rid of the perilous things. Tom found a subterranean lake, shortly, +which stretched its dim length away until its shape was lost in the +shadows. He wanted to explore its borders, but concluded that it would +be best to sit down and rest awhile, first. Now, for the first time, the +deep stillness of the place laid a clammy hand upon the spirits of the +children. Becky said: + +"Why, I didn't notice, but it seems ever so long since I heard any of +the others." + +"Come to think, Becky, we are away down below them--and I don't know how +far away north, or south, or east, or whichever it is. We couldn't hear +them here." + +Becky grew apprehensive. + +"I wonder how long we've been down here, Tom? We better start back." + +"Yes, I reckon we better. P'raps we better." + +"Can you find the way, Tom? It's all a mixed-up crookedness to me." + +"I reckon I could find it--but then the bats. If they put our candles +out it will be an awful fix. Let's try some other way, so as not to go +through there." + +"Well. But I hope we won't get lost. It would be so awful!" and the girl +shuddered at the thought of the dreadful possibilities. + +They started through a corridor, and traversed it in silence a long +way, glancing at each new opening, to see if there was anything familiar +about the look of it; but they were all strange. Every time Tom made an +examination, Becky would watch his face for an encouraging sign, and he +would say cheerily: + +"Oh, it's all right. This ain't the one, but we'll come to it right +away!" + +But he felt less and less hopeful with each failure, and presently began +to turn off into diverging avenues at sheer random, in desperate hope of +finding the one that was wanted. He still said it was "all right," but +there was such a leaden dread at his heart that the words had lost their +ring and sounded just as if he had said, "All is lost!" Becky clung to +his side in an anguish of fear, and tried hard to keep back the tears, +but they would come. At last she said: + +"Oh, Tom, never mind the bats, let's go back that way! We seem to get +worse and worse off all the time." + +"Listen!" said he. + +Profound silence; silence so deep that even their breathings were +conspicuous in the hush. Tom shouted. The call went echoing down +the empty aisles and died out in the distance in a faint sound that +resembled a ripple of mocking laughter. + +"Oh, don't do it again, Tom, it is too horrid," said Becky. + +"It is horrid, but I better, Becky; they might hear us, you know," and +he shouted again. + +The "might" was even a chillier horror than the ghostly laughter, it so +confessed a perishing hope. The children stood still and listened; but +there was no result. Tom turned upon the back track at once, and hurried +his steps. It was but a little while before a certain indecision in his +manner revealed another fearful fact to Becky--he could not find his way +back! + +"Oh, Tom, you didn't make any marks!" + +"Becky, I was such a fool! Such a fool! I never thought we might want to +come back! No--I can't find the way. It's all mixed up." + +"Tom, Tom, we're lost! we're lost! We never can get out of this awful +place! Oh, why _did_ we ever leave the others!" + +She sank to the ground and burst into such a frenzy of crying that Tom +was appalled with the idea that she might die, or lose her reason. He +sat down by her and put his arms around her; she buried her face in +his bosom, she clung to him, she poured out her terrors, her unavailing +regrets, and the far echoes turned them all to jeering laughter. Tom +begged her to pluck up hope again, and she said she could not. He fell +to blaming and abusing himself for getting her into this miserable +situation; this had a better effect. She said she would try to hope +again, she would get up and follow wherever he might lead if only he +would not talk like that any more. For he was no more to blame than she, +she said. + +So they moved on again--aimlessly--simply at random--all they could do +was to move, keep moving. For a little while, hope made a show of +reviving--not with any reason to back it, but only because it is its +nature to revive when the spring has not been taken out of it by age and +familiarity with failure. + +By-and-by Tom took Becky's candle and blew it out. This economy meant so +much! Words were not needed. Becky understood, and her hope died again. +She knew that Tom had a whole candle and three or four pieces in his +pockets--yet he must economize. + +By-and-by, fatigue began to assert its claims; the children tried to pay +attention, for it was dreadful to think of sitting down when time was +grown to be so precious, moving, in some direction, in any direction, +was at least progress and might bear fruit; but to sit down was to +invite death and shorten its pursuit. + +At last Becky's frail limbs refused to carry her farther. She sat down. +Tom rested with her, and they talked of home, and the friends there, +and the comfortable beds and, above all, the light! Becky cried, and Tom +tried to think of some way of comforting her, but all his encouragements +were grown thread-bare with use, and sounded like sarcasms. Fatigue bore +so heavily upon Becky that she drowsed off to sleep. Tom was grateful. +He sat looking into her drawn face and saw it grow smooth and natural +under the influence of pleasant dreams; and by-and-by a smile dawned and +rested there. The peaceful face reflected somewhat of peace and healing +into his own spirit, and his thoughts wandered away to bygone times and +dreamy memories. While he was deep in his musings, Becky woke up with a +breezy little laugh--but it was stricken dead upon her lips, and a groan +followed it. + +"Oh, how _could_ I sleep! I wish I never, never had waked! No! No, I +don't, Tom! Don't look so! I won't say it again." + +"I'm glad you've slept, Becky; you'll feel rested, now, and we'll find +the way out." + +"We can try, Tom; but I've seen such a beautiful country in my dream. I +reckon we are going there." + +"Maybe not, maybe not. Cheer up, Becky, and let's go on trying." + +They rose up and wandered along, hand in hand and hopeless. They tried +to estimate how long they had been in the cave, but all they knew was +that it seemed days and weeks, and yet it was plain that this could not +be, for their candles were not gone yet. A long time after this--they +could not tell how long--Tom said they must go softly and listen for +dripping water--they must find a spring. They found one presently, and +Tom said it was time to rest again. Both were cruelly tired, yet Becky +said she thought she could go a little farther. She was surprised to +hear Tom dissent. She could not understand it. They sat down, and Tom +fastened his candle to the wall in front of them with some clay. Thought +was soon busy; nothing was said for some time. Then Becky broke the +silence: + +"Tom, I am so hungry!" + +Tom took something out of his pocket. + +"Do you remember this?" said he. + +Becky almost smiled. + +"It's our wedding-cake, Tom." + +"Yes--I wish it was as big as a barrel, for it's all we've got." + +"I saved it from the picnic for us to dream on, Tom, the way grownup +people do with wedding-cake--but it'll be our--" + +She dropped the sentence where it was. Tom divided the cake and Becky +ate with good appetite, while Tom nibbled at his moiety. There was +abundance of cold water to finish the feast with. By-and-by Becky +suggested that they move on again. Tom was silent a moment. Then he +said: + +"Becky, can you bear it if I tell you something?" + +Becky's face paled, but she thought she could. + +"Well, then, Becky, we must stay here, where there's water to drink. +That little piece is our last candle!" + +Becky gave loose to tears and wailings. Tom did what he could to comfort +her, but with little effect. At length Becky said: + +"Tom!" + +"Well, Becky?" + +"They'll miss us and hunt for us!" + +"Yes, they will! Certainly they will!" + +"Maybe they're hunting for us now, Tom." + +"Why, I reckon maybe they are. I hope they are." + +"When would they miss us, Tom?" + +"When they get back to the boat, I reckon." + +"Tom, it might be dark then--would they notice we hadn't come?" + +"I don't know. But anyway, your mother would miss you as soon as they +got home." + +A frightened look in Becky's face brought Tom to his senses and he saw +that he had made a blunder. Becky was not to have gone home that night! +The children became silent and thoughtful. In a moment a new burst of +grief from Becky showed Tom that the thing in his mind had struck hers +also--that the Sabbath morning might be half spent before Mrs. Thatcher +discovered that Becky was not at Mrs. Harper's. + +The children fastened their eyes upon their bit of candle and watched it +melt slowly and pitilessly away; saw the half inch of wick stand alone +at last; saw the feeble flame rise and fall, climb the thin column of +smoke, linger at its top a moment, and then--the horror of utter darkness +reigned! + +How long afterward it was that Becky came to a slow consciousness that +she was crying in Tom's arms, neither could tell. All that they knew +was, that after what seemed a mighty stretch of time, both awoke out of +a dead stupor of sleep and resumed their miseries once more. Tom said +it might be Sunday, now--maybe Monday. He tried to get Becky to talk, but +her sorrows were too oppressive, all her hopes were gone. Tom said that +they must have been missed long ago, and no doubt the search was going +on. He would shout and maybe some one would come. He tried it; but in +the darkness the distant echoes sounded so hideously that he tried it no +more. + +The hours wasted away, and hunger came to torment the captives again. A +portion of Tom's half of the cake was left; they divided and ate it. But +they seemed hungrier than before. The poor morsel of food only whetted +desire. + +By-and-by Tom said: + +"SH! Did you hear that?" + +Both held their breath and listened. There was a sound like the +faintest, far-off shout. Instantly Tom answered it, and leading Becky by +the hand, started groping down the corridor in its direction. Presently +he listened again; again the sound was heard, and apparently a little +nearer. + +"It's them!" said Tom; "they're coming! Come along, Becky--we're all +right now!" + +The joy of the prisoners was almost overwhelming. Their speed was slow, +however, because pitfalls were somewhat common, and had to be guarded +against. They shortly came to one and had to stop. It might be three +feet deep, it might be a hundred--there was no passing it at any rate. +Tom got down on his breast and reached as far down as he could. No +bottom. They must stay there and wait until the searchers came. They +listened; evidently the distant shoutings were growing more distant! +a moment or two more and they had gone altogether. The heart-sinking +misery of it! Tom whooped until he was hoarse, but it was of no use. He +talked hopefully to Becky; but an age of anxious waiting passed and no +sounds came again. + +The children groped their way back to the spring. The weary time dragged +on; they slept again, and awoke famished and woe-stricken. Tom believed +it must be Tuesday by this time. + +Now an idea struck him. There were some side passages near at hand. It +would be better to explore some of these than bear the weight of the +heavy time in idleness. He took a kite-line from his pocket, tied it to +a projection, and he and Becky started, Tom in the lead, unwinding the +line as he groped along. At the end of twenty steps the corridor ended +in a "jumping-off place." Tom got down on his knees and felt below, +and then as far around the corner as he could reach with his hands +conveniently; he made an effort to stretch yet a little farther to the +right, and at that moment, not twenty yards away, a human hand, holding +a candle, appeared from behind a rock! Tom lifted up a glorious shout, +and instantly that hand was followed by the body it belonged to--Injun +Joe's! Tom was paralyzed; he could not move. He was vastly gratified the +next moment, to see the "Spaniard" take to his heels and get himself out +of sight. Tom wondered that Joe had not recognized his voice and come +over and killed him for testifying in court. But the echoes must have +disguised the voice. Without doubt, that was it, he reasoned. Tom's +fright weakened every muscle in his body. He said to himself that if he +had strength enough to get back to the spring he would stay there, and +nothing should tempt him to run the risk of meeting Injun Joe again. He +was careful to keep from Becky what it was he had seen. He told her he +had only shouted "for luck." + +But hunger and wretchedness rise superior to fears in the long run. +Another tedious wait at the spring and another long sleep brought +changes. The children awoke tortured with a raging hunger. Tom believed +that it must be Wednesday or Thursday or even Friday or Saturday, now, +and that the search had been given over. He proposed to explore another +passage. He felt willing to risk Injun Joe and all other terrors. But +Becky was very weak. She had sunk into a dreary apathy and would not be +roused. She said she would wait, now, where she was, and die--it would +not be long. She told Tom to go with the kite-line and explore if he +chose; but she implored him to come back every little while and speak +to her; and she made him promise that when the awful time came, he would +stay by her and hold her hand until all was over. + +Tom kissed her, with a choking sensation in his throat, and made a show +of being confident of finding the searchers or an escape from the cave; +then he took the kite-line in his hand and went groping down one of the +passages on his hands and knees, distressed with hunger and sick with +bodings of coming doom. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXII + +TUESDAY afternoon came, and waned to the twilight. The village of St. +Petersburg still mourned. The lost children had not been found. Public +prayers had been offered up for them, and many and many a private prayer +that had the petitioner's whole heart in it; but still no good news came +from the cave. The majority of the searchers had given up the quest +and gone back to their daily avocations, saying that it was plain the +children could never be found. Mrs. Thatcher was very ill, and a great +part of the time delirious. People said it was heartbreaking to hear her +call her child, and raise her head and listen a whole minute at a time, +then lay it wearily down again with a moan. Aunt Polly had drooped into +a settled melancholy, and her gray hair had grown almost white. The +village went to its rest on Tuesday night, sad and forlorn. + +Away in the middle of the night a wild peal burst from the village +bells, and in a moment the streets were swarming with frantic half-clad +people, who shouted, "Turn out! turn out! they're found! they're found!" +Tin pans and horns were added to the din, the population massed itself +and moved toward the river, met the children coming in an open carriage +drawn by shouting citizens, thronged around it, joined its homeward +march, and swept magnificently up the main street roaring huzzah after +huzzah! + +The village was illuminated; nobody went to bed again; it was the +greatest night the little town had ever seen. During the first half-hour +a procession of villagers filed through Judge Thatcher's house, seized +the saved ones and kissed them, squeezed Mrs. Thatcher's hand, tried to +speak but couldn't--and drifted out raining tears all over the place. + +Aunt Polly's happiness was complete, and Mrs. Thatcher's nearly so. It +would be complete, however, as soon as the messenger dispatched with the +great news to the cave should get the word to her husband. Tom lay upon +a sofa with an eager auditory about him and told the history of the +wonderful adventure, putting in many striking additions to adorn it +withal; and closed with a description of how he left Becky and went +on an exploring expedition; how he followed two avenues as far as his +kite-line would reach; how he followed a third to the fullest stretch +of the kite-line, and was about to turn back when he glimpsed a far-off +speck that looked like daylight; dropped the line and groped toward it, +pushed his head and shoulders through a small hole, and saw the broad +Mississippi rolling by! + +And if it had only happened to be night he would not have seen that +speck of daylight and would not have explored that passage any more! He +told how he went back for Becky and broke the good news and she told +him not to fret her with such stuff, for she was tired, and knew she was +going to die, and wanted to. He described how he labored with her and +convinced her; and how she almost died for joy when she had groped to +where she actually saw the blue speck of daylight; how he pushed his way +out at the hole and then helped her out; how they sat there and cried +for gladness; how some men came along in a skiff and Tom hailed them +and told them their situation and their famished condition; how the men +didn't believe the wild tale at first, "because," said they, "you are +five miles down the river below the valley the cave is in"--then took +them aboard, rowed to a house, gave them supper, made them rest till two +or three hours after dark and then brought them home. + +Before day-dawn, Judge Thatcher and the handful of searchers with him +were tracked out, in the cave, by the twine clews they had strung behind +them, and informed of the great news. + +Three days and nights of toil and hunger in the cave were not to +be shaken off at once, as Tom and Becky soon discovered. They were +bedridden all of Wednesday and Thursday, and seemed to grow more and +more tired and worn, all the time. Tom got about, a little, on Thursday, +was downtown Friday, and nearly as whole as ever Saturday; but Becky +did not leave her room until Sunday, and then she looked as if she had +passed through a wasting illness. + +Tom learned of Huck's sickness and went to see him on Friday, but could +not be admitted to the bedroom; neither could he on Saturday or Sunday. +He was admitted daily after that, but was warned to keep still about his +adventure and introduce no exciting topic. The Widow Douglas stayed by +to see that he obeyed. At home Tom learned of the Cardiff Hill event; +also that the "ragged man's" body had eventually been found in the river +near the ferry-landing; he had been drowned while trying to escape, +perhaps. + +About a fortnight after Tom's rescue from the cave, he started off to +visit Huck, who had grown plenty strong enough, now, to hear exciting +talk, and Tom had some that would interest him, he thought. Judge +Thatcher's house was on Tom's way, and he stopped to see Becky. The +Judge and some friends set Tom to talking, and some one asked him +ironically if he wouldn't like to go to the cave again. Tom said he +thought he wouldn't mind it. The Judge said: + +"Well, there are others just like you, Tom, I've not the least doubt. +But we have taken care of that. Nobody will get lost in that cave any +more." + +"Why?" + +"Because I had its big door sheathed with boiler iron two weeks ago, and +triple-locked--and I've got the keys." + +Tom turned as white as a sheet. + +"What's the matter, boy! Here, run, somebody! Fetch a glass of water!" + +The water was brought and thrown into Tom's face. + +"Ah, now you're all right. What was the matter with you, Tom?" + +"Oh, Judge, Injun Joe's in the cave!" + + + + +CHAPTER XXXIII + +WITHIN a few minutes the news had spread, and a dozen skiff-loads of +men were on their way to McDougal's cave, and the ferryboat, well filled +with passengers, soon followed. Tom Sawyer was in the skiff that bore +Judge Thatcher. + +When the cave door was unlocked, a sorrowful sight presented itself in +the dim twilight of the place. Injun Joe lay stretched upon the ground, +dead, with his face close to the crack of the door, as if his longing +eyes had been fixed, to the latest moment, upon the light and the cheer +of the free world outside. Tom was touched, for he knew by his own +experience how this wretch had suffered. His pity was moved, but +nevertheless he felt an abounding sense of relief and security, now, +which revealed to him in a degree which he had not fully appreciated +before how vast a weight of dread had been lying upon him since the day +he lifted his voice against this bloody-minded outcast. + +Injun Joe's bowie-knife lay close by, its blade broken in two. The great +foundation-beam of the door had been chipped and hacked through, with +tedious labor; useless labor, too, it was, for the native rock formed a +sill outside it, and upon that stubborn material the knife had wrought +no effect; the only damage done was to the knife itself. But if there +had been no stony obstruction there the labor would have been useless +still, for if the beam had been wholly cut away Injun Joe could not have +squeezed his body under the door, and he knew it. So he had only hacked +that place in order to be doing something--in order to pass the weary +time--in order to employ his tortured faculties. Ordinarily one could +find half a dozen bits of candle stuck around in the crevices of this +vestibule, left there by tourists; but there were none now. The prisoner +had searched them out and eaten them. He had also contrived to catch a +few bats, and these, also, he had eaten, leaving only their claws. The +poor unfortunate had starved to death. In one place, near at hand, a +stalagmite had been slowly growing up from the ground for ages, builded +by the water-drip from a stalactite overhead. The captive had broken off +the stalagmite, and upon the stump had placed a stone, wherein he had +scooped a shallow hollow to catch the precious drop that fell once +in every three minutes with the dreary regularity of a clock-tick--a +dessertspoonful once in four and twenty hours. That drop was falling +when the Pyramids were new; when Troy fell; when the foundations of Rome +were laid; when Christ was crucified; when the Conqueror created the +British empire; when Columbus sailed; when the massacre at Lexington was +"news." + +It is falling now; it will still be falling when all these things shall +have sunk down the afternoon of history, and the twilight of tradition, +and been swallowed up in the thick night of oblivion. Has everything a +purpose and a mission? Did this drop fall patiently during five thousand +years to be ready for this flitting human insect's need? and has it +another important object to accomplish ten thousand years to come? No +matter. It is many and many a year since the hapless half-breed scooped +out the stone to catch the priceless drops, but to this day the tourist +stares longest at that pathetic stone and that slow-dropping water when +he comes to see the wonders of McDougal's cave. Injun Joe's cup stands +first in the list of the cavern's marvels; even "Aladdin's Palace" +cannot rival it. + +Injun Joe was buried near the mouth of the cave; and people flocked +there in boats and wagons from the towns and from all the farms and +hamlets for seven miles around; they brought their children, and +all sorts of provisions, and confessed that they had had almost as +satisfactory a time at the funeral as they could have had at the +hanging. + +This funeral stopped the further growth of one thing--the petition to the +governor for Injun Joe's pardon. The petition had been largely signed; +many tearful and eloquent meetings had been held, and a committee of +sappy women been appointed to go in deep mourning and wail around the +governor, and implore him to be a merciful ass and trample his duty +under foot. Injun Joe was believed to have killed five citizens of the +village, but what of that? If he had been Satan himself there would +have been plenty of weaklings ready to scribble their names to a +pardon-petition, and drip a tear on it from their permanently impaired +and leaky water-works. + +The morning after the funeral Tom took Huck to a private place to have +an important talk. Huck had learned all about Tom's adventure from the +Welshman and the Widow Douglas, by this time, but Tom said he reckoned +there was one thing they had not told him; that thing was what he wanted +to talk about now. Huck's face saddened. He said: + +"I know what it is. You got into No. 2 and never found anything but +whiskey. Nobody told me it was you; but I just knowed it must 'a' ben +you, soon as I heard 'bout that whiskey business; and I knowed you +hadn't got the money becuz you'd 'a' got at me some way or other and +told me even if you was mum to everybody else. Tom, something's always +told me we'd never get holt of that swag." + +"Why, Huck, I never told on that tavern-keeper. _You_ know his tavern +was all right the Saturday I went to the picnic. Don't you remember you +was to watch there that night?" + +"Oh yes! Why, it seems 'bout a year ago. It was that very night that I +follered Injun Joe to the widder's." + +"_You_ followed him?" + +"Yes--but you keep mum. I reckon Injun Joe's left friends behind him, and +I don't want 'em souring on me and doing me mean tricks. If it hadn't +ben for me he'd be down in Texas now, all right." + +Then Huck told his entire adventure in confidence to Tom, who had only +heard of the Welshman's part of it before. + +"Well," said Huck, presently, coming back to the main question, "whoever +nipped the whiskey in No. 2, nipped the money, too, I reckon--anyways +it's a goner for us, Tom." + +"Huck, that money wasn't ever in No. 2!" + +"What!" Huck searched his comrade's face keenly. "Tom, have you got on +the track of that money again?" + +"Huck, it's in the cave!" + +Huck's eyes blazed. + +"Say it again, Tom." + +"The money's in the cave!" + +"Tom--honest injun, now--is it fun, or earnest?" + +"Earnest, Huck--just as earnest as ever I was in my life. Will you go in +there with me and help get it out?" + +"I bet I will! I will if it's where we can blaze our way to it and not +get lost." + +"Huck, we can do that without the least little bit of trouble in the +world." + +"Good as wheat! What makes you think the money's--" + +"Huck, you just wait till we get in there. If we don't find it I'll +agree to give you my drum and every thing I've got in the world. I will, +by jings." + +"All right--it's a whiz. When do you say?" + +"Right now, if you say it. Are you strong enough?" + +"Is it far in the cave? I ben on my pins a little, three or four days, +now, but I can't walk more'n a mile, Tom--least I don't think I could." + +"It's about five mile into there the way anybody but me would go, Huck, +but there's a mighty short cut that they don't anybody but me know +about. Huck, I'll take you right to it in a skiff. I'll float the skiff +down there, and I'll pull it back again all by myself. You needn't ever +turn your hand over." + +"Less start right off, Tom." + +"All right. We want some bread and meat, and our pipes, and a little +bag or two, and two or three kite-strings, and some of these new-fangled +things they call lucifer matches. I tell you, many's the time I wished I +had some when I was in there before." + +A trifle after noon the boys borrowed a small skiff from a citizen who +was absent, and got under way at once. When they were several miles +below "Cave Hollow," Tom said: + +"Now you see this bluff here looks all alike all the way down from the +cave hollow--no houses, no wood-yards, bushes all alike. But do you see +that white place up yonder where there's been a landslide? Well, that's +one of my marks. We'll get ashore, now." + +They landed. + +"Now, Huck, where we're a-standing you could touch that hole I got out +of with a fishing-pole. See if you can find it." + +Huck searched all the place about, and found nothing. Tom proudly +marched into a thick clump of sumach bushes and said: + +"Here you are! Look at it, Huck; it's the snuggest hole in this country. +You just keep mum about it. All along I've been wanting to be a robber, +but I knew I'd got to have a thing like this, and where to run across +it was the bother. We've got it now, and we'll keep it quiet, only we'll +let Joe Harper and Ben Rogers in--because of course there's got to be a +Gang, or else there wouldn't be any style about it. Tom Sawyer's Gang--it +sounds splendid, don't it, Huck?" + +"Well, it just does, Tom. And who'll we rob?" + +"Oh, most anybody. Waylay people--that's mostly the way." + +"And kill them?" + +"No, not always. Hive them in the cave till they raise a ransom." + +"What's a ransom?" + +"Money. You make them raise all they can, off'n their friends; and after +you've kept them a year, if it ain't raised then you kill them. That's +the general way. Only you don't kill the women. You shut up the women, +but you don't kill them. They're always beautiful and rich, and awfully +scared. You take their watches and things, but you always take your hat +off and talk polite. They ain't anybody as polite as robbers--you'll see +that in any book. Well, the women get to loving you, and after they've +been in the cave a week or two weeks they stop crying and after that +you couldn't get them to leave. If you drove them out they'd turn right +around and come back. It's so in all the books." + +"Why, it's real bully, Tom. I believe it's better'n to be a pirate." + +"Yes, it's better in some ways, because it's close to home and circuses +and all that." + +By this time everything was ready and the boys entered the hole, Tom in +the lead. They toiled their way to the farther end of the tunnel, then +made their spliced kite-strings fast and moved on. A few steps brought +them to the spring, and Tom felt a shudder quiver all through him. +He showed Huck the fragment of candle-wick perched on a lump of clay +against the wall, and described how he and Becky had watched the flame +struggle and expire. + +The boys began to quiet down to whispers, now, for the stillness and +gloom of the place oppressed their spirits. They went on, and presently +entered and followed Tom's other corridor until they reached the +"jumping-off place." The candles revealed the fact that it was not +really a precipice, but only a steep clay hill twenty or thirty feet +high. Tom whispered: + +"Now I'll show you something, Huck." + +He held his candle aloft and said: + +"Look as far around the corner as you can. Do you see that? There--on the +big rock over yonder--done with candle-smoke." + +"Tom, it's a _cross_!" + +"_Now_ where's your Number Two? '_under the cross_,' hey? Right yonder's +where I saw Injun Joe poke up his candle, Huck!" + +Huck stared at the mystic sign awhile, and then said with a shaky voice: + +"Tom, less git out of here!" + +"What! and leave the treasure?" + +"Yes--leave it. Injun Joe's ghost is round about there, certain." + +"No it ain't, Huck, no it ain't. It would ha'nt the place where he +died--away out at the mouth of the cave--five mile from here." + +"No, Tom, it wouldn't. It would hang round the money. I know the ways of +ghosts, and so do you." + +Tom began to fear that Huck was right. Mis-givings gathered in his mind. +But presently an idea occurred to him-- + +"Lookyhere, Huck, what fools we're making of ourselves! Injun Joe's +ghost ain't a going to come around where there's a cross!" + +The point was well taken. It had its effect. + +"Tom, I didn't think of that. But that's so. It's luck for us, that +cross is. I reckon we'll climb down there and have a hunt for that box." + +Tom went first, cutting rude steps in the clay hill as he descended. +Huck followed. Four avenues opened out of the small cavern which the +great rock stood in. The boys examined three of them with no result. +They found a small recess in the one nearest the base of the rock, with +a pallet of blankets spread down in it; also an old suspender, some +bacon rind, and the well-gnawed bones of two or three fowls. But there +was no moneybox. The lads searched and researched this place, but in +vain. Tom said: + +"He said _under_ the cross. Well, this comes nearest to being under the +cross. It can't be under the rock itself, because that sets solid on the +ground." + +They searched everywhere once more, and then sat down discouraged. Huck +could suggest nothing. By-and-by Tom said: + +"Lookyhere, Huck, there's footprints and some candle-grease on the clay +about one side of this rock, but not on the other sides. Now, what's +that for? I bet you the money _is_ under the rock. I'm going to dig in +the clay." + +"That ain't no bad notion, Tom!" said Huck with animation. + +Tom's "real Barlow" was out at once, and he had not dug four inches +before he struck wood. + +"Hey, Huck!--you hear that?" + +Huck began to dig and scratch now. Some boards were soon uncovered and +removed. They had concealed a natural chasm which led under the rock. +Tom got into this and held his candle as far under the rock as he +could, but said he could not see to the end of the rift. He proposed +to explore. He stooped and passed under; the narrow way descended +gradually. He followed its winding course, first to the right, then to +the left, Huck at his heels. Tom turned a short curve, by-and-by, and +exclaimed: + +"My goodness, Huck, lookyhere!" + +It was the treasure-box, sure enough, occupying a snug little cavern, +along with an empty powder-keg, a couple of guns in leather cases, two +or three pairs of old moccasins, a leather belt, and some other rubbish +well soaked with the water-drip. + +"Got it at last!" said Huck, ploughing among the tarnished coins with +his hand. "My, but we're rich, Tom!" + +"Huck, I always reckoned we'd get it. It's just too good to believe, but +we _have_ got it, sure! Say--let's not fool around here. Let's snake it +out. Lemme see if I can lift the box." + +It weighed about fifty pounds. Tom could lift it, after an awkward +fashion, but could not carry it conveniently. + +"I thought so," he said; "_They_ carried it like it was heavy, that day +at the ha'nted house. I noticed that. I reckon I was right to think of +fetching the little bags along." + +The money was soon in the bags and the boys took it up to the cross +rock. + +"Now less fetch the guns and things," said Huck. + +"No, Huck--leave them there. They're just the tricks to have when we +go to robbing. We'll keep them there all the time, and we'll hold our +orgies there, too. It's an awful snug place for orgies." + +"What orgies?" + +"I dono. But robbers always have orgies, and of course we've got to +have them, too. Come along, Huck, we've been in here a long time. It's +getting late, I reckon. I'm hungry, too. We'll eat and smoke when we get +to the skiff." + +They presently emerged into the clump of sumach bushes, looked warily +out, found the coast clear, and were soon lunching and smoking in the +skiff. As the sun dipped toward the horizon they pushed out and got +under way. Tom skimmed up the shore through the long twilight, chatting +cheerily with Huck, and landed shortly after dark. + +"Now, Huck," said Tom, "we'll hide the money in the loft of the widow's +woodshed, and I'll come up in the morning and we'll count it and divide, +and then we'll hunt up a place out in the woods for it where it will be +safe. Just you lay quiet here and watch the stuff till I run and hook +Benny Taylor's little wagon; I won't be gone a minute." + +He disappeared, and presently returned with the wagon, put the two small +sacks into it, threw some old rags on top of them, and started off, +dragging his cargo behind him. When the boys reached the Welshman's +house, they stopped to rest. Just as they were about to move on, the +Welshman stepped out and said: + +"Hallo, who's that?" + +"Huck and Tom Sawyer." + +"Good! Come along with me, boys, you are keeping everybody waiting. +Here--hurry up, trot ahead--I'll haul the wagon for you. Why, it's not as +light as it might be. Got bricks in it?--or old metal?" + +"Old metal," said Tom. + +"I judged so; the boys in this town will take more trouble and fool away +more time hunting up six bits' worth of old iron to sell to the foundry +than they would to make twice the money at regular work. But that's +human nature--hurry along, hurry along!" + +The boys wanted to know what the hurry was about. + +"Never mind; you'll see, when we get to the Widow Douglas'." + +Huck said with some apprehension--for he was long used to being falsely +accused: + +"Mr. Jones, we haven't been doing nothing." + +The Welshman laughed. + +"Well, I don't know, Huck, my boy. I don't know about that. Ain't you +and the widow good friends?" + +"Yes. Well, she's ben good friends to me, anyway." + +"All right, then. What do you want to be afraid for?" + +This question was not entirely answered in Huck's slow mind before he +found himself pushed, along with Tom, into Mrs. Douglas' drawing-room. +Mr. Jones left the wagon near the door and followed. + +The place was grandly lighted, and everybody that was of any consequence +in the village was there. The Thatchers were there, the Harpers, the +Rogerses, Aunt Polly, Sid, Mary, the minister, the editor, and a great +many more, and all dressed in their best. The widow received the boys +as heartily as any one could well receive two such looking beings. They +were covered with clay and candle-grease. Aunt Polly blushed crimson +with humiliation, and frowned and shook her head at Tom. Nobody suffered +half as much as the two boys did, however. Mr. Jones said: + +"Tom wasn't at home, yet, so I gave him up; but I stumbled on him and +Huck right at my door, and so I just brought them along in a hurry." + +"And you did just right," said the widow. "Come with me, boys." + +She took them to a bedchamber and said: + +"Now wash and dress yourselves. Here are two new suits of +clothes--shirts, socks, everything complete. They're Huck's--no, no +thanks, Huck--Mr. Jones bought one and I the other. But they'll fit both +of you. Get into them. We'll wait--come down when you are slicked up +enough." + +Then she left. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXIV + +HUCK said: "Tom, we can slope, if we can find a rope. The window ain't +high from the ground." + +"Shucks! what do you want to slope for?" + +"Well, I ain't used to that kind of a crowd. I can't stand it. I ain't +going down there, Tom." + +"Oh, bother! It ain't anything. I don't mind it a bit. I'll take care of +you." + +Sid appeared. + +"Tom," said he, "auntie has been waiting for you all the afternoon. Mary +got your Sunday clothes ready, and everybody's been fretting about you. +Say--ain't this grease and clay, on your clothes?" + +"Now, Mr. Siddy, you jist 'tend to your own business. What's all this +blowout about, anyway?" + +"It's one of the widow's parties that she's always having. This time +it's for the Welshman and his sons, on account of that scrape they +helped her out of the other night. And say--I can tell you something, if +you want to know." + +"Well, what?" + +"Why, old Mr. Jones is going to try to spring something on the people +here tonight, but I overheard him tell auntie today about it, as a +secret, but I reckon it's not much of a secret now. Everybody knows--the +widow, too, for all she tries to let on she don't. Mr. Jones was bound +Huck should be here--couldn't get along with his grand secret without +Huck, you know!" + +"Secret about what, Sid?" + +"About Huck tracking the robbers to the widow's. I reckon Mr. Jones was +going to make a grand time over his surprise, but I bet you it will drop +pretty flat." + +Sid chuckled in a very contented and satisfied way. + +"Sid, was it you that told?" + +"Oh, never mind who it was. _Somebody_ told--that's enough." + +"Sid, there's only one person in this town mean enough to do that, and +that's you. If you had been in Huck's place you'd 'a' sneaked down the +hill and never told anybody on the robbers. You can't do any but mean +things, and you can't bear to see anybody praised for doing good ones. +There--no thanks, as the widow says"--and Tom cuffed Sid's ears and helped +him to the door with several kicks. "Now go and tell auntie if you +dare--and tomorrow you'll catch it!" + +Some minutes later the widow's guests were at the supper-table, and a +dozen children were propped up at little side-tables in the same room, +after the fashion of that country and that day. At the proper time Mr. +Jones made his little speech, in which he thanked the widow for the +honor she was doing himself and his sons, but said that there was +another person whose modesty-- + +And so forth and so on. He sprung his secret about Huck's share in +the adventure in the finest dramatic manner he was master of, but the +surprise it occasioned was largely counterfeit and not as clamorous and +effusive as it might have been under happier circumstances. However, +the widow made a pretty fair show of astonishment, and heaped so many +compliments and so much gratitude upon Huck that he almost forgot +the nearly intolerable discomfort of his new clothes in the entirely +intolerable discomfort of being set up as a target for everybody's gaze +and everybody's laudations. + +The widow said she meant to give Huck a home under her roof and have him +educated; and that when she could spare the money she would start him in +business in a modest way. Tom's chance was come. He said: + +"Huck don't need it. Huck's rich." + +Nothing but a heavy strain upon the good manners of the company kept +back the due and proper complimentary laugh at this pleasant joke. But +the silence was a little awkward. Tom broke it: + +"Huck's got money. Maybe you don't believe it, but he's got lots of it. +Oh, you needn't smile--I reckon I can show you. You just wait a minute." + +Tom ran out of doors. The company looked at each other with a perplexed +interest--and inquiringly at Huck, who was tongue-tied. + +"Sid, what ails Tom?" said Aunt Polly. "He--well, there ain't ever any +making of that boy out. I never--" + +Tom entered, struggling with the weight of his sacks, and Aunt Polly +did not finish her sentence. Tom poured the mass of yellow coin upon the +table and said: + +"There--what did I tell you? Half of it's Huck's and half of it's mine!" + +The spectacle took the general breath away. All gazed, nobody spoke for +a moment. Then there was a unanimous call for an explanation. Tom said +he could furnish it, and he did. The tale was long, but brimful of +interest. There was scarcely an interruption from any one to break the +charm of its flow. When he had finished, Mr. Jones said: + +"I thought I had fixed up a little surprise for this occasion, but it +don't amount to anything now. This one makes it sing mighty small, I'm +willing to allow." + +The money was counted. The sum amounted to a little over twelve thousand +dollars. It was more than any one present had ever seen at one time +before, though several persons were there who were worth considerably +more than that in property. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXV + +THE reader may rest satisfied that Tom's and Huck's windfall made a +mighty stir in the poor little village of St. Petersburg. So vast a +sum, all in actual cash, seemed next to incredible. It was talked +about, gloated over, glorified, until the reason of many of the citizens +tottered under the strain of the unhealthy excitement. Every "haunted" +house in St. Petersburg and the neighboring villages was dissected, +plank by plank, and its foundations dug up and ransacked for hidden +treasure--and not by boys, but men--pretty grave, unromantic men, too, +some of them. Wherever Tom and Huck appeared they were courted, admired, +stared at. The boys were not able to remember that their remarks had +possessed weight before; but now their sayings were treasured and +repeated; everything they did seemed somehow to be regarded as +remarkable; they had evidently lost the power of doing and saying +commonplace things; moreover, their past history was raked up and +discovered to bear marks of conspicuous originality. The village paper +published biographical sketches of the boys. + +The Widow Douglas put Huck's money out at six per cent., and Judge +Thatcher did the same with Tom's at Aunt Polly's request. Each lad had +an income, now, that was simply prodigious--a dollar for every weekday in +the year and half of the Sundays. It was just what the minister got--no, +it was what he was promised--he generally couldn't collect it. A dollar +and a quarter a week would board, lodge, and school a boy in those old +simple days--and clothe him and wash him, too, for that matter. + +Judge Thatcher had conceived a great opinion of Tom. He said that no +commonplace boy would ever have got his daughter out of the cave. When +Becky told her father, in strict confidence, how Tom had taken her +whipping at school, the Judge was visibly moved; and when she pleaded +grace for the mighty lie which Tom had told in order to shift that +whipping from her shoulders to his own, the Judge said with a fine +outburst that it was a noble, a generous, a magnanimous lie--a lie that +was worthy to hold up its head and march down through history breast to +breast with George Washington's lauded Truth about the hatchet! Becky +thought her father had never looked so tall and so superb as when he +walked the floor and stamped his foot and said that. She went straight +off and told Tom about it. + +Judge Thatcher hoped to see Tom a great lawyer or a great soldier some +day. He said he meant to look to it that Tom should be admitted to the +National Military Academy and afterward trained in the best law school +in the country, in order that he might be ready for either career or +both. + +Huck Finn's wealth and the fact that he was now under the Widow Douglas' +protection introduced him into society--no, dragged him into it, hurled +him into it--and his sufferings were almost more than he could bear. The +widow's servants kept him clean and neat, combed and brushed, and they +bedded him nightly in unsympathetic sheets that had not one little spot +or stain which he could press to his heart and know for a friend. He had +to eat with a knife and fork; he had to use napkin, cup, and plate; +he had to learn his book, he had to go to church; he had to talk so +properly that speech was become insipid in his mouth; whithersoever he +turned, the bars and shackles of civilization shut him in and bound him +hand and foot. + +He bravely bore his miseries three weeks, and then one day turned up +missing. For forty-eight hours the widow hunted for him everywhere in +great distress. The public were profoundly concerned; they searched high +and low, they dragged the river for his body. Early the third morning +Tom Sawyer wisely went poking among some old empty hogsheads down behind +the abandoned slaughter-house, and in one of them he found the refugee. +Huck had slept there; he had just breakfasted upon some stolen odds and +ends of food, and was lying off, now, in comfort, with his pipe. He was +unkempt, uncombed, and clad in the same old ruin of rags that had made +him picturesque in the days when he was free and happy. Tom routed him +out, told him the trouble he had been causing, and urged him to go home. +Huck's face lost its tranquil content, and took a melancholy cast. He +said: + +"Don't talk about it, Tom. I've tried it, and it don't work; it don't +work, Tom. It ain't for me; I ain't used to it. The widder's good to me, +and friendly; but I can't stand them ways. She makes me get up just +at the same time every morning; she makes me wash, they comb me all +to thunder; she won't let me sleep in the woodshed; I got to wear them +blamed clothes that just smothers me, Tom; they don't seem to any air +git through 'em, somehow; and they're so rotten nice that I can't +set down, nor lay down, nor roll around anywher's; I hain't slid on a +cellar-door for--well, it 'pears to be years; I got to go to church +and sweat and sweat--I hate them ornery sermons! I can't ketch a fly in +there, I can't chaw. I got to wear shoes all Sunday. The widder eats by +a bell; she goes to bed by a bell; she gits up by a bell--everything's so +awful reg'lar a body can't stand it." + +"Well, everybody does that way, Huck." + +"Tom, it don't make no difference. I ain't everybody, and I can't +_stand_ it. It's awful to be tied up so. And grub comes too easy--I don't +take no interest in vittles, that way. I got to ask to go a-fishing; +I got to ask to go in a-swimming--dern'd if I hain't got to ask to do +everything. Well, I'd got to talk so nice it wasn't no comfort--I'd got +to go up in the attic and rip out awhile, every day, to git a taste +in my mouth, or I'd a died, Tom. The widder wouldn't let me smoke; +she wouldn't let me yell, she wouldn't let me gape, nor stretch, nor +scratch, before folks--" [Then with a spasm of special irritation and +injury]--"And dad fetch it, she prayed all the time! I never see such a +woman! I _had_ to shove, Tom--I just had to. And besides, that school's +going to open, and I'd a had to go to it--well, I wouldn't stand _that_, +Tom. Looky-here, Tom, being rich ain't what it's cracked up to be. It's +just worry and worry, and sweat and sweat, and a-wishing you was dead +all the time. Now these clothes suits me, and this bar'l suits me, and +I ain't ever going to shake 'em any more. Tom, I wouldn't ever got into +all this trouble if it hadn't 'a' ben for that money; now you just take +my sheer of it along with your'n, and gimme a ten-center sometimes--not +many times, becuz I don't give a dern for a thing 'thout it's tollable +hard to git--and you go and beg off for me with the widder." + +"Oh, Huck, you know I can't do that. 'Tain't fair; and besides if you'll +try this thing just a while longer you'll come to like it." + +"Like it! Yes--the way I'd like a hot stove if I was to set on it long +enough. No, Tom, I won't be rich, and I won't live in them cussed +smothery houses. I like the woods, and the river, and hogsheads, and +I'll stick to 'em, too. Blame it all! just as we'd got guns, and a cave, +and all just fixed to rob, here this dern foolishness has got to come up +and spile it all!" + +Tom saw his opportunity-- + +"Lookyhere, Huck, being rich ain't going to keep me back from turning +robber." + +"No! Oh, good-licks; are you in real dead-wood earnest, Tom?" + +"Just as dead earnest as I'm sitting here. But Huck, we can't let you +into the gang if you ain't respectable, you know." + +Huck's joy was quenched. + +"Can't let me in, Tom? Didn't you let me go for a pirate?" + +"Yes, but that's different. A robber is more high-toned than what a +pirate is--as a general thing. In most countries they're awful high up in +the nobility--dukes and such." + +"Now, Tom, hain't you always ben friendly to me? You wouldn't shet me +out, would you, Tom? You wouldn't do that, now, _would_ you, Tom?" + +"Huck, I wouldn't want to, and I _don't_ want to--but what would people +say? Why, they'd say, 'Mph! Tom Sawyer's Gang! pretty low characters in +it!' They'd mean you, Huck. You wouldn't like that, and I wouldn't." + +Huck was silent for some time, engaged in a mental struggle. Finally he +said: + +"Well, I'll go back to the widder for a month and tackle it and see if I +can come to stand it, if you'll let me b'long to the gang, Tom." + +"All right, Huck, it's a whiz! Come along, old chap, and I'll ask the +widow to let up on you a little, Huck." + +"Will you, Tom--now will you? That's good. If she'll let up on some of +the roughest things, I'll smoke private and cuss private, and crowd +through or bust. When you going to start the gang and turn robbers?" + +"Oh, right off. We'll get the boys together and have the initiation +tonight, maybe." + +"Have the which?" + +"Have the initiation." + +"What's that?" + +"It's to swear to stand by one another, and never tell the gang's +secrets, even if you're chopped all to flinders, and kill anybody and +all his family that hurts one of the gang." + +"That's gay--that's mighty gay, Tom, I tell you." + +"Well, I bet it is. And all that swearing's got to be done at midnight, +in the lonesomest, awfulest place you can find--a ha'nted house is the +best, but they're all ripped up now." + +"Well, midnight's good, anyway, Tom." + +"Yes, so it is. And you've got to swear on a coffin, and sign it with +blood." + +"Now, that's something _like_! Why, it's a million times bullier than +pirating. I'll stick to the widder till I rot, Tom; and if I git to be +a reg'lar ripper of a robber, and everybody talking 'bout it, I reckon +she'll be proud she snaked me in out of the wet." + +CONCLUSION + +SO endeth this chronicle. It being strictly a history of a _boy_, it +must stop here; the story could not go much further without becoming the +history of a _man_. When one writes a novel about grown people, he knows +exactly where to stop--that is, with a marriage; but when he writes of +juveniles, he must stop where he best can. + +Most of the characters that perform in this book still live, and are +prosperous and happy. Some day it may seem worth while to take up the +story of the younger ones again and see what sort of men and women they +turned out to be; therefore it will be wisest not to reveal any of that +part of their lives at present. + +End of the Project Gutenberg Ebook of Adventures of Tom Sawyer, +Complete, by Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens) + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK TOM SAWYER *** + +***** This file should be named 74-h.htm or 74-h.zip ***** This and +all associated files of various formats will be found in: +http://www.gutenberg.net/7/74/ + +Produced by David Widger. 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Thus, we do not necessarily keep eBooks +in compliance with any particular paper edition. + +Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility: + +http://www.gutenberg.net + +This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm, including +how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive +Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to subscribe to +our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks. + diff --git a/src/main/pg-ulysses.txt b/src/main/pg-ulysses.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..aa5ce9a --- /dev/null +++ b/src/main/pg-ulysses.txt @@ -0,0 +1,33055 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Ulysses, by James Joyce + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Ulysses + +Author: James Joyce + +Posting Date: August 1, 2008 [EBook #4300] +Release Date: July, 2003 +[Last updated: November 17, 2011] + +Language: English + + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ULYSSES *** + + + + +Produced by Col Choat + + + + + +ULYSSES + +by James Joyce + + + + +-- I -- + +Stately, plump Buck Mulligan came from the stairhead, bearing a bowl of +lather on which a mirror and a razor lay crossed. A yellow dressinggown, +ungirdled, was sustained gently behind him on the mild morning air. He +held the bowl aloft and intoned: + +--_Introibo ad altare Dei_. + +Halted, he peered down the dark winding stairs and called out coarsely: + +--Come up, Kinch! Come up, you fearful jesuit! + +Solemnly he came forward and mounted the round gunrest. He faced about +and blessed gravely thrice the tower, the surrounding land and the +awaking mountains. Then, catching sight of Stephen Dedalus, he bent +towards him and made rapid crosses in the air, gurgling in his throat +and shaking his head. Stephen Dedalus, displeased and sleepy, leaned +his arms on the top of the staircase and looked coldly at the shaking +gurgling face that blessed him, equine in its length, and at the light +untonsured hair, grained and hued like pale oak. + +Buck Mulligan peeped an instant under the mirror and then covered the +bowl smartly. + +--Back to barracks! he said sternly. + +He added in a preacher's tone: + +--For this, O dearly beloved, is the genuine Christine: body and soul +and blood and ouns. Slow music, please. Shut your eyes, gents. One +moment. A little trouble about those white corpuscles. Silence, all. + +He peered sideways up and gave a long slow whistle of call, then paused +awhile in rapt attention, his even white teeth glistening here and there +with gold points. Chrysostomos. Two strong shrill whistles answered +through the calm. + +--Thanks, old chap, he cried briskly. That will do nicely. Switch off +the current, will you? + +He skipped off the gunrest and looked gravely at his watcher, gathering +about his legs the loose folds of his gown. The plump shadowed face and +sullen oval jowl recalled a prelate, patron of arts in the middle ages. +A pleasant smile broke quietly over his lips. + +--The mockery of it! he said gaily. Your absurd name, an ancient Greek! + +He pointed his finger in friendly jest and went over to the parapet, +laughing to himself. Stephen Dedalus stepped up, followed him wearily +halfway and sat down on the edge of the gunrest, watching him still as +he propped his mirror on the parapet, dipped the brush in the bowl and +lathered cheeks and neck. + +Buck Mulligan's gay voice went on. + +--My name is absurd too: Malachi Mulligan, two dactyls. But it has a +Hellenic ring, hasn't it? Tripping and sunny like the buck himself. +We must go to Athens. Will you come if I can get the aunt to fork out +twenty quid? + +He laid the brush aside and, laughing with delight, cried: + +--Will he come? The jejune jesuit! + +Ceasing, he began to shave with care. + +--Tell me, Mulligan, Stephen said quietly. + +--Yes, my love? + +--How long is Haines going to stay in this tower? + +Buck Mulligan showed a shaven cheek over his right shoulder. + +--God, isn't he dreadful? he said frankly. A ponderous Saxon. He thinks +you're not a gentleman. God, these bloody English! Bursting with money +and indigestion. Because he comes from Oxford. You know, Dedalus, you +have the real Oxford manner. He can't make you out. O, my name for you +is the best: Kinch, the knife-blade. + +He shaved warily over his chin. + +--He was raving all night about a black panther, Stephen said. Where is +his guncase? + +--A woful lunatic! Mulligan said. Were you in a funk? + +--I was, Stephen said with energy and growing fear. Out here in the dark +with a man I don't know raving and moaning to himself about shooting a +black panther. You saved men from drowning. I'm not a hero, however. If +he stays on here I am off. + +Buck Mulligan frowned at the lather on his razorblade. He hopped down +from his perch and began to search his trouser pockets hastily. + +--Scutter! he cried thickly. + +He came over to the gunrest and, thrusting a hand into Stephen's upper +pocket, said: + +--Lend us a loan of your noserag to wipe my razor. + +Stephen suffered him to pull out and hold up on show by its corner a +dirty crumpled handkerchief. Buck Mulligan wiped the razorblade neatly. +Then, gazing over the handkerchief, he said: + +--The bard's noserag! A new art colour for our Irish poets: snotgreen. +You can almost taste it, can't you? + +He mounted to the parapet again and gazed out over Dublin bay, his fair +oakpale hair stirring slightly. + +--God! he said quietly. Isn't the sea what Algy calls it: a grey +sweet mother? The snotgreen sea. The scrotumtightening sea. _Epi oinopa +ponton_. Ah, Dedalus, the Greeks! I must teach you. You must read them +in the original. _Thalatta! Thalatta_! She is our great sweet mother. +Come and look. + +Stephen stood up and went over to the parapet. Leaning on it he looked +down on the water and on the mailboat clearing the harbourmouth of +Kingstown. + +--Our mighty mother! Buck Mulligan said. + +He turned abruptly his grey searching eyes from the sea to Stephen's +face. + +--The aunt thinks you killed your mother, he said. That's why she won't +let me have anything to do with you. + +--Someone killed her, Stephen said gloomily. + +--You could have knelt down, damn it, Kinch, when your dying mother +asked you, Buck Mulligan said. I'm hyperborean as much as you. But to +think of your mother begging you with her last breath to kneel down and +pray for her. And you refused. There is something sinister in you... + +He broke off and lathered again lightly his farther cheek. A tolerant +smile curled his lips. + +--But a lovely mummer! he murmured to himself. Kinch, the loveliest +mummer of them all! + +He shaved evenly and with care, in silence, seriously. + +Stephen, an elbow rested on the jagged granite, leaned his palm against +his brow and gazed at the fraying edge of his shiny black coat-sleeve. +Pain, that was not yet the pain of love, fretted his heart. Silently, in +a dream she had come to him after her death, her wasted body within its +loose brown graveclothes giving off an odour of wax and rosewood, her +breath, that had bent upon him, mute, reproachful, a faint odour of +wetted ashes. Across the threadbare cuffedge he saw the sea hailed as a +great sweet mother by the wellfed voice beside him. The ring of bay +and skyline held a dull green mass of liquid. A bowl of white china had +stood beside her deathbed holding the green sluggish bile which she had +torn up from her rotting liver by fits of loud groaning vomiting. + +Buck Mulligan wiped again his razorblade. + +--Ah, poor dogsbody! he said in a kind voice. I must give you a shirt +and a few noserags. How are the secondhand breeks? + +--They fit well enough, Stephen answered. + +Buck Mulligan attacked the hollow beneath his underlip. + +--The mockery of it, he said contentedly. Secondleg they should be. God +knows what poxy bowsy left them off. I have a lovely pair with a hair +stripe, grey. You'll look spiffing in them. I'm not joking, Kinch. You +look damn well when you're dressed. + +--Thanks, Stephen said. I can't wear them if they are grey. + +--He can't wear them, Buck Mulligan told his face in the mirror. +Etiquette is etiquette. He kills his mother but he can't wear grey +trousers. + +He folded his razor neatly and with stroking palps of fingers felt the +smooth skin. + +Stephen turned his gaze from the sea and to the plump face with its +smokeblue mobile eyes. + +--That fellow I was with in the Ship last night, said Buck Mulligan, +says you have g.p.i. He's up in Dottyville with Connolly Norman. General +paralysis of the insane! + +He swept the mirror a half circle in the air to flash the tidings abroad +in sunlight now radiant on the sea. His curling shaven lips laughed and +the edges of his white glittering teeth. Laughter seized all his strong +wellknit trunk. + +--Look at yourself, he said, you dreadful bard! + +Stephen bent forward and peered at the mirror held out to him, cleft by +a crooked crack. Hair on end. As he and others see me. Who chose this +face for me? This dogsbody to rid of vermin. It asks me too. + +--I pinched it out of the skivvy's room, Buck Mulligan said. It does her +all right. The aunt always keeps plainlooking servants for Malachi. Lead +him not into temptation. And her name is Ursula. + +Laughing again, he brought the mirror away from Stephen's peering eyes. + +--The rage of Caliban at not seeing his face in a mirror, he said. If +Wilde were only alive to see you! + +Drawing back and pointing, Stephen said with bitterness: + +--It is a symbol of Irish art. The cracked looking-glass of a servant. + +Buck Mulligan suddenly linked his arm in Stephen's and walked with him +round the tower, his razor and mirror clacking in the pocket where he +had thrust them. + +--It's not fair to tease you like that, Kinch, is it? he said kindly. +God knows you have more spirit than any of them. + +Parried again. He fears the lancet of my art as I fear that of his. The +cold steelpen. + +--Cracked lookingglass of a servant! Tell that to the oxy chap +downstairs and touch him for a guinea. He's stinking with money and +thinks you're not a gentleman. His old fellow made his tin by selling +jalap to Zulus or some bloody swindle or other. God, Kinch, if you and I +could only work together we might do something for the island. Hellenise +it. + +Cranly's arm. His arm. + +--And to think of your having to beg from these swine. I'm the only one +that knows what you are. Why don't you trust me more? What have you +up your nose against me? Is it Haines? If he makes any noise here I'll +bring down Seymour and we'll give him a ragging worse than they gave +Clive Kempthorpe. + +Young shouts of moneyed voices in Clive Kempthorpe's rooms. Palefaces: +they hold their ribs with laughter, one clasping another. O, I shall +expire! Break the news to her gently, Aubrey! I shall die! With slit +ribbons of his shirt whipping the air he hops and hobbles round the +table, with trousers down at heels, chased by Ades of Magdalen with the +tailor's shears. A scared calf's face gilded with marmalade. I don't +want to be debagged! Don't you play the giddy ox with me! + +Shouts from the open window startling evening in the quadrangle. A deaf +gardener, aproned, masked with Matthew Arnold's face, pushes his mower +on the sombre lawn watching narrowly the dancing motes of grasshalms. + +To ourselves... new paganism... omphalos. + +--Let him stay, Stephen said. There's nothing wrong with him except at +night. + +--Then what is it? Buck Mulligan asked impatiently. Cough it up. I'm +quite frank with you. What have you against me now? + +They halted, looking towards the blunt cape of Bray Head that lay on the +water like the snout of a sleeping whale. Stephen freed his arm quietly. + +--Do you wish me to tell you? he asked. + +--Yes, what is it? Buck Mulligan answered. I don't remember anything. + +He looked in Stephen's face as he spoke. A light wind passed his brow, +fanning softly his fair uncombed hair and stirring silver points of +anxiety in his eyes. + +Stephen, depressed by his own voice, said: + +--Do you remember the first day I went to your house after my mother's +death? + +Buck Mulligan frowned quickly and said: + +--What? Where? I can't remember anything. I remember only ideas and +sensations. Why? What happened in the name of God? + +--You were making tea, Stephen said, and went across the landing to +get more hot water. Your mother and some visitor came out of the +drawingroom. She asked you who was in your room. + +--Yes? Buck Mulligan said. What did I say? I forget. + +--You said, Stephen answered, _O, it's only Dedalus whose mother is +beastly dead._ + +A flush which made him seem younger and more engaging rose to Buck +Mulligan's cheek. + +--Did I say that? he asked. Well? What harm is that? + +He shook his constraint from him nervously. + +--And what is death, he asked, your mother's or yours or my own? You +saw only your mother die. I see them pop off every day in the Mater and +Richmond and cut up into tripes in the dissectingroom. It's a beastly +thing and nothing else. It simply doesn't matter. You wouldn't kneel +down to pray for your mother on her deathbed when she asked you. Why? +Because you have the cursed jesuit strain in you, only it's injected the +wrong way. To me it's all a mockery and beastly. Her cerebral lobes +are not functioning. She calls the doctor sir Peter Teazle and picks +buttercups off the quilt. Humour her till it's over. You crossed her +last wish in death and yet you sulk with me because I don't whinge like +some hired mute from Lalouette's. Absurd! I suppose I did say it. I +didn't mean to offend the memory of your mother. + +He had spoken himself into boldness. Stephen, shielding the gaping +wounds which the words had left in his heart, said very coldly: + +--I am not thinking of the offence to my mother. + +--Of what then? Buck Mulligan asked. + +--Of the offence to me, Stephen answered. + +Buck Mulligan swung round on his heel. + +--O, an impossible person! he exclaimed. + +He walked off quickly round the parapet. Stephen stood at his post, +gazing over the calm sea towards the headland. Sea and headland now grew +dim. Pulses were beating in his eyes, veiling their sight, and he felt +the fever of his cheeks. + +A voice within the tower called loudly: + +--Are you up there, Mulligan? + +--I'm coming, Buck Mulligan answered. + +He turned towards Stephen and said: + +--Look at the sea. What does it care about offences? Chuck Loyola, +Kinch, and come on down. The Sassenach wants his morning rashers. + +His head halted again for a moment at the top of the staircase, level +with the roof: + +--Don't mope over it all day, he said. I'm inconsequent. Give up the +moody brooding. + +His head vanished but the drone of his descending voice boomed out of +the stairhead: + + _And no more turn aside and brood + Upon love's bitter mystery + For Fergus rules the brazen cars._ + + +Woodshadows floated silently by through the morning peace from the +stairhead seaward where he gazed. Inshore and farther out the mirror of +water whitened, spurned by lightshod hurrying feet. White breast of +the dim sea. The twining stresses, two by two. A hand plucking the +harpstrings, merging their twining chords. Wavewhite wedded words +shimmering on the dim tide. + +A cloud began to cover the sun slowly, wholly, shadowing the bay in +deeper green. It lay beneath him, a bowl of bitter waters. Fergus' song: +I sang it alone in the house, holding down the long dark chords. Her +door was open: she wanted to hear my music. Silent with awe and pity +I went to her bedside. She was crying in her wretched bed. For those +words, Stephen: love's bitter mystery. + +Where now? + +Her secrets: old featherfans, tasselled dancecards, powdered with musk, +a gaud of amber beads in her locked drawer. A birdcage hung in the sunny +window of her house when she was a girl. She heard old Royce sing in the +pantomime of Turko the Terrible and laughed with others when he sang: + + _I am the boy + That can enjoy + Invisibility._ + + +Phantasmal mirth, folded away: muskperfumed. + +_And no more turn aside and brood._ + + +Folded away in the memory of nature with her toys. Memories beset his +brooding brain. Her glass of water from the kitchen tap when she had +approached the sacrament. A cored apple, filled with brown sugar, +roasting for her at the hob on a dark autumn evening. Her shapely +fingernails reddened by the blood of squashed lice from the children's +shirts. + +In a dream, silently, she had come to him, her wasted body within its +loose graveclothes giving off an odour of wax and rosewood, her breath, +bent over him with mute secret words, a faint odour of wetted ashes. + +Her glazing eyes, staring out of death, to shake and bend my soul. On me +alone. The ghostcandle to light her agony. Ghostly light on the tortured +face. Her hoarse loud breath rattling in horror, while all prayed on +their knees. Her eyes on me to strike me down. _Liliata rutilantium te +confessorum turma circumdet: iubilantium te virginum chorus excipiat._ + +Ghoul! Chewer of corpses! + +No, mother! Let me be and let me live. + +--Kinch ahoy! + +Buck Mulligan's voice sang from within the tower. It came nearer up the +staircase, calling again. Stephen, still trembling at his soul's cry, +heard warm running sunlight and in the air behind him friendly words. + +--Dedalus, come down, like a good mosey. Breakfast is ready. Haines is +apologising for waking us last night. It's all right. + +--I'm coming, Stephen said, turning. + +--Do, for Jesus' sake, Buck Mulligan said. For my sake and for all our +sakes. + +His head disappeared and reappeared. + +--I told him your symbol of Irish art. He says it's very clever. Touch +him for a quid, will you? A guinea, I mean. + +--I get paid this morning, Stephen said. + +--The school kip? Buck Mulligan said. How much? Four quid? Lend us one. + +--If you want it, Stephen said. + +--Four shining sovereigns, Buck Mulligan cried with delight. We'll +have a glorious drunk to astonish the druidy druids. Four omnipotent +sovereigns. + +He flung up his hands and tramped down the stone stairs, singing out of +tune with a Cockney accent: + + _O, won't we have a merry time, + Drinking whisky, beer and wine! + On coronation, + Coronation day! + O, won't we have a merry time + On coronation day!_ + + +Warm sunshine merrying over the sea. The nickel shavingbowl shone, +forgotten, on the parapet. Why should I bring it down? Or leave it there +all day, forgotten friendship? + +He went over to it, held it in his hands awhile, feeling its coolness, +smelling the clammy slaver of the lather in which the brush was stuck. +So I carried the boat of incense then at Clongowes. I am another now and +yet the same. A servant too. A server of a servant. + +In the gloomy domed livingroom of the tower Buck Mulligan's gowned form +moved briskly to and fro about the hearth, hiding and revealing its +yellow glow. Two shafts of soft daylight fell across the flagged floor +from the high barbacans: and at the meeting of their rays a cloud of +coalsmoke and fumes of fried grease floated, turning. + +--We'll be choked, Buck Mulligan said. Haines, open that door, will you? + +Stephen laid the shavingbowl on the locker. A tall figure rose from the +hammock where it had been sitting, went to the doorway and pulled open +the inner doors. + +--Have you the key? a voice asked. + +--Dedalus has it, Buck Mulligan said. Janey Mack, I'm choked! + +He howled, without looking up from the fire: + +--Kinch! + +--It's in the lock, Stephen said, coming forward. + +The key scraped round harshly twice and, when the heavy door had been +set ajar, welcome light and bright air entered. Haines stood at the +doorway, looking out. Stephen haled his upended valise to the table and +sat down to wait. Buck Mulligan tossed the fry on to the dish beside +him. Then he carried the dish and a large teapot over to the table, set +them down heavily and sighed with relief. + +--I'm melting, he said, as the candle remarked when... But, hush! Not a +word more on that subject! Kinch, wake up! Bread, butter, honey. Haines, +come in. The grub is ready. Bless us, O Lord, and these thy gifts. +Where's the sugar? O, jay, there's no milk. + +Stephen fetched the loaf and the pot of honey and the buttercooler from +the locker. Buck Mulligan sat down in a sudden pet. + +--What sort of a kip is this? he said. I told her to come after eight. + +--We can drink it black, Stephen said thirstily. There's a lemon in the +locker. + +--O, damn you and your Paris fads! Buck Mulligan said. I want Sandycove +milk. + +Haines came in from the doorway and said quietly: + +--That woman is coming up with the milk. + +--The blessings of God on you! Buck Mulligan cried, jumping up from his +chair. Sit down. Pour out the tea there. The sugar is in the bag. Here, +I can't go fumbling at the damned eggs. + +He hacked through the fry on the dish and slapped it out on three +plates, saying: + +--_In nomine Patris et Filii et Spiritus Sancti._ + +Haines sat down to pour out the tea. + +--I'm giving you two lumps each, he said. But, I say, Mulligan, you do +make strong tea, don't you? + +Buck Mulligan, hewing thick slices from the loaf, said in an old woman's +wheedling voice: + +--When I makes tea I makes tea, as old mother Grogan said. And when I +makes water I makes water. + +--By Jove, it is tea, Haines said. + +Buck Mulligan went on hewing and wheedling: + +--_So I do, Mrs Cahill,_ says she. _Begob, ma'am,_ says Mrs Cahill, _God +send you don't make them in the one pot._ + +He lunged towards his messmates in turn a thick slice of bread, impaled +on his knife. + +--That's folk, he said very earnestly, for your book, Haines. Five +lines of text and ten pages of notes about the folk and the fishgods of +Dundrum. Printed by the weird sisters in the year of the big wind. + +He turned to Stephen and asked in a fine puzzled voice, lifting his +brows: + +--Can you recall, brother, is mother Grogan's tea and water pot spoken +of in the Mabinogion or is it in the Upanishads? + +--I doubt it, said Stephen gravely. + +--Do you now? Buck Mulligan said in the same tone. Your reasons, pray? + +--I fancy, Stephen said as he ate, it did not exist in or out of the +Mabinogion. Mother Grogan was, one imagines, a kinswoman of Mary Ann. + +Buck Mulligan's face smiled with delight. + +--Charming! he said in a finical sweet voice, showing his white teeth +and blinking his eyes pleasantly. Do you think she was? Quite charming! + +Then, suddenly overclouding all his features, he growled in a hoarsened +rasping voice as he hewed again vigorously at the loaf: + + _--For old Mary Ann + She doesn't care a damn. + But, hising up her petticoats..._ + + +He crammed his mouth with fry and munched and droned. + +The doorway was darkened by an entering form. + +--The milk, sir! + +--Come in, ma'am, Mulligan said. Kinch, get the jug. + +An old woman came forward and stood by Stephen's elbow. + +--That's a lovely morning, sir, she said. Glory be to God. + +--To whom? Mulligan said, glancing at her. Ah, to be sure! + +Stephen reached back and took the milkjug from the locker. + +--The islanders, Mulligan said to Haines casually, speak frequently of +the collector of prepuces. + +--How much, sir? asked the old woman. + +--A quart, Stephen said. + +He watched her pour into the measure and thence into the jug rich white +milk, not hers. Old shrunken paps. She poured again a measureful and +a tilly. Old and secret she had entered from a morning world, maybe +a messenger. She praised the goodness of the milk, pouring it out. +Crouching by a patient cow at daybreak in the lush field, a witch on her +toadstool, her wrinkled fingers quick at the squirting dugs. They lowed +about her whom they knew, dewsilky cattle. Silk of the kine and poor old +woman, names given her in old times. A wandering crone, lowly form of +an immortal serving her conqueror and her gay betrayer, their common +cuckquean, a messenger from the secret morning. To serve or to upbraid, +whether he could not tell: but scorned to beg her favour. + +--It is indeed, ma'am, Buck Mulligan said, pouring milk into their cups. + +--Taste it, sir, she said. + +He drank at her bidding. + +--If we could live on good food like that, he said to her somewhat +loudly, we wouldn't have the country full of rotten teeth and rotten +guts. Living in a bogswamp, eating cheap food and the streets paved with +dust, horsedung and consumptives' spits. + +--Are you a medical student, sir? the old woman asked. + +--I am, ma'am, Buck Mulligan answered. + +--Look at that now, she said. + +Stephen listened in scornful silence. She bows her old head to a voice +that speaks to her loudly, her bonesetter, her medicineman: me she +slights. To the voice that will shrive and oil for the grave all there +is of her but her woman's unclean loins, of man's flesh made not in +God's likeness, the serpent's prey. And to the loud voice that now bids +her be silent with wondering unsteady eyes. + +--Do you understand what he says? Stephen asked her. + +--Is it French you are talking, sir? the old woman said to Haines. + +Haines spoke to her again a longer speech, confidently. + +--Irish, Buck Mulligan said. Is there Gaelic on you? + +--I thought it was Irish, she said, by the sound of it. Are you from the +west, sir? + +--I am an Englishman, Haines answered. + +--He's English, Buck Mulligan said, and he thinks we ought to speak +Irish in Ireland. + +--Sure we ought to, the old woman said, and I'm ashamed I don't speak +the language myself. I'm told it's a grand language by them that knows. + +--Grand is no name for it, said Buck Mulligan. Wonderful entirely. Fill +us out some more tea, Kinch. Would you like a cup, ma'am? + +--No, thank you, sir, the old woman said, slipping the ring of the +milkcan on her forearm and about to go. + +Haines said to her: + +--Have you your bill? We had better pay her, Mulligan, hadn't we? + +Stephen filled again the three cups. + +--Bill, sir? she said, halting. Well, it's seven mornings a pint at +twopence is seven twos is a shilling and twopence over and these three +mornings a quart at fourpence is three quarts is a shilling. That's a +shilling and one and two is two and two, sir. + +Buck Mulligan sighed and, having filled his mouth with a crust thickly +buttered on both sides, stretched forth his legs and began to search his +trouser pockets. + +--Pay up and look pleasant, Haines said to him, smiling. + +Stephen filled a third cup, a spoonful of tea colouring faintly the +thick rich milk. Buck Mulligan brought up a florin, twisted it round in +his fingers and cried: + +--A miracle! + +He passed it along the table towards the old woman, saying: + +--Ask nothing more of me, sweet. All I can give you I give. + +Stephen laid the coin in her uneager hand. + +--We'll owe twopence, he said. + +--Time enough, sir, she said, taking the coin. Time enough. Good +morning, sir. + +She curtseyed and went out, followed by Buck Mulligan's tender chant: + + _--Heart of my heart, were it more, + More would be laid at your feet._ + + +He turned to Stephen and said: + +--Seriously, Dedalus. I'm stony. Hurry out to your school kip and bring +us back some money. Today the bards must drink and junket. Ireland +expects that every man this day will do his duty. + +--That reminds me, Haines said, rising, that I have to visit your +national library today. + +--Our swim first, Buck Mulligan said. + +He turned to Stephen and asked blandly: + +--Is this the day for your monthly wash, Kinch? + +Then he said to Haines: + +--The unclean bard makes a point of washing once a month. + +--All Ireland is washed by the gulfstream, Stephen said as he let honey +trickle over a slice of the loaf. + +Haines from the corner where he was knotting easily a scarf about the +loose collar of his tennis shirt spoke: + +--I intend to make a collection of your sayings if you will let me. + +Speaking to me. They wash and tub and scrub. Agenbite of inwit. +Conscience. Yet here's a spot. + +--That one about the cracked lookingglass of a servant being the symbol +of Irish art is deuced good. + +Buck Mulligan kicked Stephen's foot under the table and said with warmth +of tone: + +--Wait till you hear him on Hamlet, Haines. + +--Well, I mean it, Haines said, still speaking to Stephen. I was just +thinking of it when that poor old creature came in. + +--Would I make any money by it? Stephen asked. + +Haines laughed and, as he took his soft grey hat from the holdfast of +the hammock, said: + +--I don't know, I'm sure. + +He strolled out to the doorway. Buck Mulligan bent across to Stephen and +said with coarse vigour: + +--You put your hoof in it now. What did you say that for? + +--Well? Stephen said. The problem is to get money. From whom? From the +milkwoman or from him. It's a toss up, I think. + +--I blow him out about you, Buck Mulligan said, and then you come along +with your lousy leer and your gloomy jesuit jibes. + +--I see little hope, Stephen said, from her or from him. + +Buck Mulligan sighed tragically and laid his hand on Stephen's arm. + +--From me, Kinch, he said. + +In a suddenly changed tone he added: + +--To tell you the God's truth I think you're right. Damn all else they +are good for. Why don't you play them as I do? To hell with them all. +Let us get out of the kip. + +He stood up, gravely ungirdled and disrobed himself of his gown, saying +resignedly: + +--Mulligan is stripped of his garments. + +He emptied his pockets on to the table. + +--There's your snotrag, he said. + +And putting on his stiff collar and rebellious tie he spoke to them, +chiding them, and to his dangling watchchain. His hands plunged and +rummaged in his trunk while he called for a clean handkerchief. God, +we'll simply have to dress the character. I want puce gloves and +green boots. Contradiction. Do I contradict myself? Very well then, I +contradict myself. Mercurial Malachi. A limp black missile flew out of +his talking hands. + +--And there's your Latin quarter hat, he said. + +Stephen picked it up and put it on. Haines called to them from the +doorway: + +--Are you coming, you fellows? + +--I'm ready, Buck Mulligan answered, going towards the door. Come out, +Kinch. You have eaten all we left, I suppose. Resigned he passed out +with grave words and gait, saying, wellnigh with sorrow: + +--And going forth he met Butterly. + +Stephen, taking his ashplant from its leaningplace, followed them out +and, as they went down the ladder, pulled to the slow iron door and +locked it. He put the huge key in his inner pocket. + +At the foot of the ladder Buck Mulligan asked: + +--Did you bring the key? + +--I have it, Stephen said, preceding them. + +He walked on. Behind him he heard Buck Mulligan club with his heavy +bathtowel the leader shoots of ferns or grasses. + +--Down, sir! How dare you, sir! + +Haines asked: + +--Do you pay rent for this tower? + +--Twelve quid, Buck Mulligan said. + +--To the secretary of state for war, Stephen added over his shoulder. + +They halted while Haines surveyed the tower and said at last: + +--Rather bleak in wintertime, I should say. Martello you call it? + +--Billy Pitt had them built, Buck Mulligan said, when the French were on +the sea. But ours is the _omphalos_. + +--What is your idea of Hamlet? Haines asked Stephen. + +--No, no, Buck Mulligan shouted in pain. I'm not equal to Thomas Aquinas +and the fiftyfive reasons he has made out to prop it up. Wait till I +have a few pints in me first. + +He turned to Stephen, saying, as he pulled down neatly the peaks of his +primrose waistcoat: + +--You couldn't manage it under three pints, Kinch, could you? + +--It has waited so long, Stephen said listlessly, it can wait longer. + +--You pique my curiosity, Haines said amiably. Is it some paradox? + +--Pooh! Buck Mulligan said. We have grown out of Wilde and paradoxes. +It's quite simple. He proves by algebra that Hamlet's grandson is +Shakespeare's grandfather and that he himself is the ghost of his own +father. + +--What? Haines said, beginning to point at Stephen. He himself? + +Buck Mulligan slung his towel stolewise round his neck and, bending in +loose laughter, said to Stephen's ear: + +--O, shade of Kinch the elder! Japhet in search of a father! + +--We're always tired in the morning, Stephen said to Haines. And it is +rather long to tell. + +Buck Mulligan, walking forward again, raised his hands. + +--The sacred pint alone can unbind the tongue of Dedalus, he said. + +--I mean to say, Haines explained to Stephen as they followed, this +tower and these cliffs here remind me somehow of Elsinore. _That beetles +o'er his base into the sea,_ isn't it? + +Buck Mulligan turned suddenly for an instant towards Stephen but did +not speak. In the bright silent instant Stephen saw his own image in +cheap dusty mourning between their gay attires. + +--It's a wonderful tale, Haines said, bringing them to halt again. + +Eyes, pale as the sea the wind had freshened, paler, firm and prudent. +The seas' ruler, he gazed southward over the bay, empty save for the +smokeplume of the mailboat vague on the bright skyline and a sail +tacking by the Muglins. + +--I read a theological interpretation of it somewhere, he said bemused. +The Father and the Son idea. The Son striving to be atoned with the +Father. + +Buck Mulligan at once put on a blithe broadly smiling face. He looked +at them, his wellshaped mouth open happily, his eyes, from which he had +suddenly withdrawn all shrewd sense, blinking with mad gaiety. He moved +a doll's head to and fro, the brims of his Panama hat quivering, and +began to chant in a quiet happy foolish voice: + + _--I'm the queerest young fellow that ever you heard. + My mother's a jew, my father's a bird. + With Joseph the joiner I cannot agree. + So here's to disciples and Calvary._ + + +He held up a forefinger of warning. + + _--If anyone thinks that I amn't divine + He'll get no free drinks when I'm making the wine + But have to drink water and wish it were plain + That i make when the wine becomes water again._ + + +He tugged swiftly at Stephen's ashplant in farewell and, running forward +to a brow of the cliff, fluttered his hands at his sides like fins or +wings of one about to rise in the air, and chanted: + + _--Goodbye, now, goodbye! Write down all I said + And tell Tom, Dick and Harry I rose from the dead. + What's bred in the bone cannot fail me to fly + And Olivet's breezy... Goodbye, now, goodbye!_ + + +He capered before them down towards the fortyfoot hole, fluttering his +winglike hands, leaping nimbly, Mercury's hat quivering in the fresh +wind that bore back to them his brief birdsweet cries. + +Haines, who had been laughing guardedly, walked on beside Stephen and +said: + +--We oughtn't to laugh, I suppose. He's rather blasphemous. I'm not a +believer myself, that is to say. Still his gaiety takes the harm out of +it somehow, doesn't it? What did he call it? Joseph the Joiner? + +--The ballad of joking Jesus, Stephen answered. + +--O, Haines said, you have heard it before? + +--Three times a day, after meals, Stephen said drily. + +--You're not a believer, are you? Haines asked. I mean, a believer in +the narrow sense of the word. Creation from nothing and miracles and a +personal God. + +--There's only one sense of the word, it seems to me, Stephen said. + +Haines stopped to take out a smooth silver case in which twinkled a +green stone. He sprang it open with his thumb and offered it. + +--Thank you, Stephen said, taking a cigarette. + +Haines helped himself and snapped the case to. He put it back in his +sidepocket and took from his waistcoatpocket a nickel tinderbox, sprang +it open too, and, having lit his cigarette, held the flaming spunk +towards Stephen in the shell of his hands. + +--Yes, of course, he said, as they went on again. Either you believe +or you don't, isn't it? Personally I couldn't stomach that idea of a +personal God. You don't stand for that, I suppose? + +--You behold in me, Stephen said with grim displeasure, a horrible +example of free thought. + +He walked on, waiting to be spoken to, trailing his ashplant by his +side. Its ferrule followed lightly on the path, squealing at his heels. +My familiar, after me, calling, Steeeeeeeeeeeephen! A wavering line +along the path. They will walk on it tonight, coming here in the dark. +He wants that key. It is mine. I paid the rent. Now I eat his salt +bread. Give him the key too. All. He will ask for it. That was in his +eyes. + +--After all, Haines began... + +Stephen turned and saw that the cold gaze which had measured him was not +all unkind. + +--After all, I should think you are able to free yourself. You are your +own master, it seems to me. + +--I am a servant of two masters, Stephen said, an English and an +Italian. + +--Italian? Haines said. + +A crazy queen, old and jealous. Kneel down before me. + +--And a third, Stephen said, there is who wants me for odd jobs. + +--Italian? Haines said again. What do you mean? + +--The imperial British state, Stephen answered, his colour rising, and +the holy Roman catholic and apostolic church. + +Haines detached from his underlip some fibres of tobacco before he +spoke. + +--I can quite understand that, he said calmly. An Irishman must think +like that, I daresay. We feel in England that we have treated you rather +unfairly. It seems history is to blame. + +The proud potent titles clanged over Stephen's memory the triumph +of their brazen bells: _et unam sanctam catholicam et apostolicam +ecclesiam:_ the slow growth and change of rite and dogma like his own +rare thoughts, a chemistry of stars. Symbol of the apostles in the +mass for pope Marcellus, the voices blended, singing alone loud in +affirmation: and behind their chant the vigilant angel of the church +militant disarmed and menaced her heresiarchs. A horde of heresies +fleeing with mitres awry: Photius and the brood of mockers of +whom Mulligan was one, and Arius, warring his life long upon the +consubstantiality of the Son with the Father, and Valentine, spurning +Christ's terrene body, and the subtle African heresiarch Sabellius who +held that the Father was Himself His own Son. Words Mulligan had spoken +a moment since in mockery to the stranger. Idle mockery. The void +awaits surely all them that weave the wind: a menace, a disarming and a +worsting from those embattled angels of the church, Michael's host, +who defend her ever in the hour of conflict with their lances and their +shields. + +Hear, hear! Prolonged applause. _Zut! Nom de Dieu!_ + +--Of course I'm a Britisher, Haines's voice said, and I feel as one. I +don't want to see my country fall into the hands of German jews either. +That's our national problem, I'm afraid, just now. + +Two men stood at the verge of the cliff, watching: businessman, boatman. + +--She's making for Bullock harbour. + +The boatman nodded towards the north of the bay with some disdain. + +--There's five fathoms out there, he said. It'll be swept up that way +when the tide comes in about one. It's nine days today. + +The man that was drowned. A sail veering about the blank bay waiting +for a swollen bundle to bob up, roll over to the sun a puffy face, +saltwhite. Here I am. + +They followed the winding path down to the creek. Buck Mulligan stood on +a stone, in shirtsleeves, his unclipped tie rippling over his shoulder. +A young man clinging to a spur of rock near him, moved slowly frogwise +his green legs in the deep jelly of the water. + +--Is the brother with you, Malachi? + +--Down in Westmeath. With the Bannons. + +--Still there? I got a card from Bannon. Says he found a sweet young +thing down there. Photo girl he calls her. + +--Snapshot, eh? Brief exposure. + +Buck Mulligan sat down to unlace his boots. An elderly man shot up near +the spur of rock a blowing red face. He scrambled up by the stones, +water glistening on his pate and on its garland of grey hair, water +rilling over his chest and paunch and spilling jets out of his black +sagging loincloth. + +Buck Mulligan made way for him to scramble past and, glancing at Haines +and Stephen, crossed himself piously with his thumbnail at brow and lips +and breastbone. + +--Seymour's back in town, the young man said, grasping again his spur of +rock. Chucked medicine and going in for the army. + +--Ah, go to God! Buck Mulligan said. + +--Going over next week to stew. You know that red Carlisle girl, Lily? + +--Yes. + +--Spooning with him last night on the pier. The father is rotto with +money. + +--Is she up the pole? + +--Better ask Seymour that. + +--Seymour a bleeding officer! Buck Mulligan said. + +He nodded to himself as he drew off his trousers and stood up, saying +tritely: + +--Redheaded women buck like goats. + +He broke off in alarm, feeling his side under his flapping shirt. + +--My twelfth rib is gone, he cried. I'm the _Uebermensch._ Toothless +Kinch and I, the supermen. + +He struggled out of his shirt and flung it behind him to where his +clothes lay. + +--Are you going in here, Malachi? + +--Yes. Make room in the bed. + +The young man shoved himself backward through the water and reached +the middle of the creek in two long clean strokes. Haines sat down on a +stone, smoking. + +--Are you not coming in? Buck Mulligan asked. + +--Later on, Haines said. Not on my breakfast. + +Stephen turned away. + +--I'm going, Mulligan, he said. + +--Give us that key, Kinch, Buck Mulligan said, to keep my chemise flat. + +Stephen handed him the key. Buck Mulligan laid it across his heaped +clothes. + +--And twopence, he said, for a pint. Throw it there. + +Stephen threw two pennies on the soft heap. Dressing, undressing. Buck +Mulligan erect, with joined hands before him, said solemnly: + +--He who stealeth from the poor lendeth to the Lord. Thus spake +Zarathustra. + +His plump body plunged. + +--We'll see you again, Haines said, turning as Stephen walked up the +path and smiling at wild Irish. + +Horn of a bull, hoof of a horse, smile of a Saxon. + +--The Ship, Buck Mulligan cried. Half twelve. + +--Good, Stephen said. + +He walked along the upwardcurving path. + + _Liliata rutilantium. + Turma circumdet. + Iubilantium te virginum._ + + +The priest's grey nimbus in a niche where he dressed discreetly. I will +not sleep here tonight. Home also I cannot go. + +A voice, sweettoned and sustained, called to him from the sea. Turning +the curve he waved his hand. It called again. A sleek brown head, a +seal's, far out on the water, round. + +Usurper. + + + +--You, Cochrane, what city sent for him? + +--Tarentum, sir. + +--Very good. Well? + +--There was a battle, sir. + +--Very good. Where? + +The boy's blank face asked the blank window. + +Fabled by the daughters of memory. And yet it was in some way if not as +memory fabled it. A phrase, then, of impatience, thud of Blake's wings +of excess. I hear the ruin of all space, shattered glass and toppling +masonry, and time one livid final flame. What's left us then? + +--I forget the place, sir. 279 B. C. + +--Asculum, Stephen said, glancing at the name and date in the +gorescarred book. + +--Yes, sir. And he said: _Another victory like that and we are done +for._ + +That phrase the world had remembered. A dull ease of the mind. From +a hill above a corpsestrewn plain a general speaking to his officers, +leaned upon his spear. Any general to any officers. They lend ear. + +--You, Armstrong, Stephen said. What was the end of Pyrrhus? + +--End of Pyrrhus, sir? + +--I know, sir. Ask me, sir, Comyn said. + +--Wait. You, Armstrong. Do you know anything about Pyrrhus? + +A bag of figrolls lay snugly in Armstrong's satchel. He curled them +between his palms at whiles and swallowed them softly. Crumbs adhered to +the tissue of his lips. A sweetened boy's breath. Welloff people, proud +that their eldest son was in the navy. Vico road, Dalkey. + +--Pyrrhus, sir? Pyrrhus, a pier. + +All laughed. Mirthless high malicious laughter. Armstrong looked round +at his classmates, silly glee in profile. In a moment they will laugh +more loudly, aware of my lack of rule and of the fees their papas pay. + +--Tell me now, Stephen said, poking the boy's shoulder with the book, +what is a pier. + +--A pier, sir, Armstrong said. A thing out in the water. A kind of a +bridge. Kingstown pier, sir. + +Some laughed again: mirthless but with meaning. Two in the back bench +whispered. Yes. They knew: had never learned nor ever been innocent. +All. With envy he watched their faces: Edith, Ethel, Gerty, Lily. Their +likes: their breaths, too, sweetened with tea and jam, their bracelets +tittering in the struggle. + +--Kingstown pier, Stephen said. Yes, a disappointed bridge. + +The words troubled their gaze. + +--How, sir? Comyn asked. A bridge is across a river. + +For Haines's chapbook. No-one here to hear. Tonight deftly amid wild +drink and talk, to pierce the polished mail of his mind. What then? A +jester at the court of his master, indulged and disesteemed, winning a +clement master's praise. Why had they chosen all that part? Not wholly +for the smooth caress. For them too history was a tale like any other +too often heard, their land a pawnshop. + +Had Pyrrhus not fallen by a beldam's hand in Argos or Julius Caesar not +been knifed to death. They are not to be thought away. Time has +branded them and fettered they are lodged in the room of the infinite +possibilities they have ousted. But can those have been possible seeing +that they never were? Or was that only possible which came to pass? +Weave, weaver of the wind. + +--Tell us a story, sir. + +--O, do, sir. A ghoststory. + +--Where do you begin in this? Stephen asked, opening another book. + +-_-Weep no more,_ Comyn said. + +--Go on then, Talbot. + +--And the story, sir? + +--After, Stephen said. Go on, Talbot. + +A swarthy boy opened a book and propped it nimbly under the breastwork +of his satchel. He recited jerks of verse with odd glances at the text: + + _--Weep no more, woful shepherds, weep no more + For Lycidas, your sorrow, is not dead, + Sunk though he be beneath the watery floor..._ + + +It must be a movement then, an actuality of the possible as possible. +Aristotle's phrase formed itself within the gabbled verses and floated +out into the studious silence of the library of Saint Genevieve where he +had read, sheltered from the sin of Paris, night by night. By his elbow +a delicate Siamese conned a handbook of strategy. Fed and feeding brains +about me: under glowlamps, impaled, with faintly beating feelers: and +in my mind's darkness a sloth of the underworld, reluctant, shy of +brightness, shifting her dragon scaly folds. Thought is the thought of +thought. Tranquil brightness. The soul is in a manner all that is: the +soul is the form of forms. Tranquility sudden, vast, candescent: form of +forms. + +Talbot repeated: + + _--Through the dear might of Him that walked the waves, + Through the dear might..._ + + +--Turn over, Stephen said quietly. I don't see anything. + +--What, sir? Talbot asked simply, bending forward. + +His hand turned the page over. He leaned back and went on again, having +just remembered. Of him that walked the waves. Here also over these +craven hearts his shadow lies and on the scoffer's heart and lips and +on mine. It lies upon their eager faces who offered him a coin of the +tribute. To Caesar what is Caesar's, to God what is God's. A long +look from dark eyes, a riddling sentence to be woven and woven on the +church's looms. Ay. + + _Riddle me, riddle me, randy ro. + My father gave me seeds to sow._ + + +Talbot slid his closed book into his satchel. + +--Have I heard all? Stephen asked. + +--Yes, sir. Hockey at ten, sir. + +--Half day, sir. Thursday. + +--Who can answer a riddle? Stephen asked. + +They bundled their books away, pencils clacking, pages rustling. +Crowding together they strapped and buckled their satchels, all gabbling +gaily: + +--A riddle, sir? Ask me, sir. + +--O, ask me, sir. + +--A hard one, sir. + +--This is the riddle, Stephen said: + + _The cock crew, + The sky was blue: + The bells in heaven + Were striking eleven. + 'Tis time for this poor soul + To go to heaven._ + + +What is that? + +--What, sir? + +--Again, sir. We didn't hear. + +Their eyes grew bigger as the lines were repeated. After a silence +Cochrane said: + +--What is it, sir? We give it up. + +Stephen, his throat itching, answered: + +--The fox burying his grandmother under a hollybush. + +He stood up and gave a shout of nervous laughter to which their cries +echoed dismay. + +A stick struck the door and a voice in the corridor called: + +--Hockey! + +They broke asunder, sidling out of their benches, leaping them. Quickly +they were gone and from the lumberroom came the rattle of sticks and +clamour of their boots and tongues. + +Sargent who alone had lingered came forward slowly, showing an open +copybook. His thick hair and scraggy neck gave witness of unreadiness +and through his misty glasses weak eyes looked up pleading. On his +cheek, dull and bloodless, a soft stain of ink lay, dateshaped, recent +and damp as a snail's bed. + +He held out his copybook. The word _Sums_ was written on the headline. +Beneath were sloping figures and at the foot a crooked signature with +blind loops and a blot. Cyril Sargent: his name and seal. + +--Mr Deasy told me to write them out all again, he said, and show them +to you, sir. + +Stephen touched the edges of the book. Futility. + +--Do you understand how to do them now? he asked. + +--Numbers eleven to fifteen, Sargent answered. Mr Deasy said I was to +copy them off the board, sir. + +--Can you do them yourself? Stephen asked. + +--No, sir. + +Ugly and futile: lean neck and thick hair and a stain of ink, a snail's +bed. Yet someone had loved him, borne him in her arms and in her heart. +But for her the race of the world would have trampled him underfoot, +a squashed boneless snail. She had loved his weak watery blood drained +from her own. Was that then real? The only true thing in life? His +mother's prostrate body the fiery Columbanus in holy zeal bestrode. +She was no more: the trembling skeleton of a twig burnt in the fire, +an odour of rosewood and wetted ashes. She had saved him from being +trampled underfoot and had gone, scarcely having been. A poor soul +gone to heaven: and on a heath beneath winking stars a fox, red reek +of rapine in his fur, with merciless bright eyes scraped in the earth, +listened, scraped up the earth, listened, scraped and scraped. + +Sitting at his side Stephen solved out the problem. He proves by algebra +that Shakespeare's ghost is Hamlet's grandfather. Sargent peered askance +through his slanted glasses. Hockeysticks rattled in the lumberroom: the +hollow knock of a ball and calls from the field. + +Across the page the symbols moved in grave morrice, in the mummery of +their letters, wearing quaint caps of squares and cubes. Give hands, +traverse, bow to partner: so: imps of fancy of the Moors. Gone too from +the world, Averroes and Moses Maimonides, dark men in mien and movement, +flashing in their mocking mirrors the obscure soul of the world, a +darkness shining in brightness which brightness could not comprehend. + +--Do you understand now? Can you work the second for yourself? + +--Yes, sir. + +In long shaky strokes Sargent copied the data. Waiting always for a word +of help his hand moved faithfully the unsteady symbols, a faint hue of +shame flickering behind his dull skin. _Amor matris:_ subjective and +objective genitive. With her weak blood and wheysour milk she had fed +him and hid from sight of others his swaddling bands. + +Like him was I, these sloping shoulders, this gracelessness. My +childhood bends beside me. Too far for me to lay a hand there once or +lightly. Mine is far and his secret as our eyes. Secrets, silent, stony +sit in the dark palaces of both our hearts: secrets weary of their +tyranny: tyrants, willing to be dethroned. + +The sum was done. + +--It is very simple, Stephen said as he stood up. + +--Yes, sir. Thanks, Sargent answered. + +He dried the page with a sheet of thin blottingpaper and carried his +copybook back to his bench. + +--You had better get your stick and go out to the others, Stephen said +as he followed towards the door the boy's graceless form. + +--Yes, sir. + +In the corridor his name was heard, called from the playfield. + +--Sargent! + +--Run on, Stephen said. Mr Deasy is calling you. + +He stood in the porch and watched the laggard hurry towards the scrappy +field where sharp voices were in strife. They were sorted in teams and +Mr Deasy came away stepping over wisps of grass with gaitered feet. When +he had reached the schoolhouse voices again contending called to him. He +turned his angry white moustache. + +--What is it now? he cried continually without listening. + +--Cochrane and Halliday are on the same side, sir, Stephen said. + +--Will you wait in my study for a moment, Mr Deasy said, till I restore +order here. + +And as he stepped fussily back across the field his old man's voice +cried sternly: + +--What is the matter? What is it now? + +Their sharp voices cried about him on all sides: their many forms closed +round him, the garish sunshine bleaching the honey of his illdyed head. + +Stale smoky air hung in the study with the smell of drab abraded leather +of its chairs. As on the first day he bargained with me here. As it was +in the beginning, is now. On the sideboard the tray of Stuart coins, +base treasure of a bog: and ever shall be. And snug in their spooncase +of purple plush, faded, the twelve apostles having preached to all the +gentiles: world without end. + +A hasty step over the stone porch and in the corridor. Blowing out his +rare moustache Mr Deasy halted at the table. + +--First, our little financial settlement, he said. + +He brought out of his coat a pocketbook bound by a leather thong. It +slapped open and he took from it two notes, one of joined halves, and +laid them carefully on the table. + +--Two, he said, strapping and stowing his pocketbook away. + +And now his strongroom for the gold. Stephen's embarrassed hand moved +over the shells heaped in the cold stone mortar: whelks and money +cowries and leopard shells: and this, whorled as an emir's turban, and +this, the scallop of saint James. An old pilgrim's hoard, dead treasure, +hollow shells. + +A sovereign fell, bright and new, on the soft pile of the tablecloth. + +--Three, Mr Deasy said, turning his little savingsbox about in his hand. +These are handy things to have. See. This is for sovereigns. This is for +shillings. Sixpences, halfcrowns. And here crowns. See. + +He shot from it two crowns and two shillings. + +--Three twelve, he said. I think you'll find that's right. + +--Thank you, sir, Stephen said, gathering the money together with shy +haste and putting it all in a pocket of his trousers. + +--No thanks at all, Mr Deasy said. You have earned it. + +Stephen's hand, free again, went back to the hollow shells. Symbols too +of beauty and of power. A lump in my pocket: symbols soiled by greed and +misery. + +--Don't carry it like that, Mr Deasy said. You'll pull it out somewhere +and lose it. You just buy one of these machines. You'll find them very +handy. + +Answer something. + +--Mine would be often empty, Stephen said. + +The same room and hour, the same wisdom: and I the same. Three times +now. Three nooses round me here. Well? I can break them in this instant +if I will. + +--Because you don't save, Mr Deasy said, pointing his finger. You don't +know yet what money is. Money is power. When you have lived as long as I +have. I know, I know. If youth but knew. But what does Shakespeare say? +_Put but money in thy purse._ + +--Iago, Stephen murmured. + +He lifted his gaze from the idle shells to the old man's stare. + +--He knew what money was, Mr Deasy said. He made money. A poet, yes, but +an Englishman too. Do you know what is the pride of the English? Do you +know what is the proudest word you will ever hear from an Englishman's +mouth? + +The seas' ruler. His seacold eyes looked on the empty bay: it seems +history is to blame: on me and on my words, unhating. + +--That on his empire, Stephen said, the sun never sets. + +--Ba! Mr Deasy cried. That's not English. A French Celt said that. He +tapped his savingsbox against his thumbnail. + +--I will tell you, he said solemnly, what is his proudest boast. _I paid +my way._ + +Good man, good man. + +_--I paid my way. I never borrowed a shilling in my life._ Can you feel +that? _I owe nothing._ Can you? + +Mulligan, nine pounds, three pairs of socks, one pair brogues, ties. +Curran, ten guineas. McCann, one guinea. Fred Ryan, two shillings. +Temple, two lunches. Russell, one guinea, Cousins, ten shillings, Bob +Reynolds, half a guinea, Koehler, three guineas, Mrs MacKernan, five +weeks' board. The lump I have is useless. + +--For the moment, no, Stephen answered. + +Mr Deasy laughed with rich delight, putting back his savingsbox. + +--I knew you couldn't, he said joyously. But one day you must feel it. +We are a generous people but we must also be just. + +--I fear those big words, Stephen said, which make us so unhappy. + +Mr Deasy stared sternly for some moments over the mantelpiece at the +shapely bulk of a man in tartan filibegs: Albert Edward, prince of +Wales. + +--You think me an old fogey and an old tory, his thoughtful voice said. +I saw three generations since O'Connell's time. I remember the famine in +'46. Do you know that the orange lodges agitated for repeal of the +union twenty years before O'Connell did or before the prelates of your +communion denounced him as a demagogue? You fenians forget some things. + +Glorious, pious and immortal memory. The lodge of Diamond in Armagh the +splendid behung with corpses of papishes. Hoarse, masked and armed, the +planters' covenant. The black north and true blue bible. Croppies lie +down. + +Stephen sketched a brief gesture. + +--I have rebel blood in me too, Mr Deasy said. On the spindle side. But +I am descended from sir John Blackwood who voted for the union. We are +all Irish, all kings' sons. + +--Alas, Stephen said. + +--_Per vias rectas_, Mr Deasy said firmly, was his motto. He voted for +it and put on his topboots to ride to Dublin from the Ards of Down to do +so. + + _Lal the ral the ra + The rocky road to Dublin._ + + +A gruff squire on horseback with shiny topboots. Soft day, sir John! +Soft day, your honour!... Day!... Day!... Two topboots jog dangling +on to Dublin. Lal the ral the ra. Lal the ral the raddy. + +--That reminds me, Mr Deasy said. You can do me a favour, Mr Dedalus, +with some of your literary friends. I have a letter here for the press. +Sit down a moment. I have just to copy the end. + +He went to the desk near the window, pulled in his chair twice and read +off some words from the sheet on the drum of his typewriter. + +--Sit down. Excuse me, he said over his shoulder, _the dictates of +common sense._ Just a moment. + +He peered from under his shaggy brows at the manuscript by his elbow +and, muttering, began to prod the stiff buttons of the keyboard slowly, +sometimes blowing as he screwed up the drum to erase an error. + +Stephen seated himself noiselessly before the princely presence. Framed +around the walls images of vanished horses stood in homage, their meek +heads poised in air: lord Hastings' Repulse, the duke of Westminster's +Shotover, the duke of Beaufort's Ceylon, _prix de Paris_, 1866. Elfin +riders sat them, watchful of a sign. He saw their speeds, backing king's +colours, and shouted with the shouts of vanished crowds. + +--Full stop, Mr Deasy bade his keys. But prompt ventilation of this +allimportant question... + +Where Cranly led me to get rich quick, hunting his winners among the +mudsplashed brakes, amid the bawls of bookies on their pitches and reek +of the canteen, over the motley slush. Fair Rebel! Fair Rebel! Even +money the favourite: ten to one the field. Dicers and thimbleriggers +we hurried by after the hoofs, the vying caps and jackets and past +the meatfaced woman, a butcher's dame, nuzzling thirstily her clove of +orange. + +Shouts rang shrill from the boys' playfield and a whirring whistle. + +Again: a goal. I am among them, among their battling bodies in a medley, +the joust of life. You mean that knockkneed mother's darling who seems +to be slightly crawsick? Jousts. Time shocked rebounds, shock by shock. +Jousts, slush and uproar of battles, the frozen deathspew of the slain, +a shout of spearspikes baited with men's bloodied guts. + +--Now then, Mr Deasy said, rising. + +He came to the table, pinning together his sheets. Stephen stood up. + +--I have put the matter into a nutshell, Mr Deasy said. It's about +the foot and mouth disease. Just look through it. There can be no two +opinions on the matter. + +May I trespass on your valuable space. That doctrine of _laissez faire_ +which so often in our history. Our cattle trade. The way of all our old +industries. Liverpool ring which jockeyed the Galway harbour scheme. +European conflagration. Grain supplies through the narrow waters of +the channel. The pluterperfect imperturbability of the department of +agriculture. Pardoned a classical allusion. Cassandra. By a woman who +was no better than she should be. To come to the point at issue. + +--I don't mince words, do I? Mr Deasy asked as Stephen read on. + +Foot and mouth disease. Known as Koch's preparation. Serum and virus. +Percentage of salted horses. Rinderpest. Emperor's horses at Murzsteg, +lower Austria. Veterinary surgeons. Mr Henry Blackwood Price. Courteous +offer a fair trial. Dictates of common sense. Allimportant question. In +every sense of the word take the bull by the horns. Thanking you for the +hospitality of your columns. + +--I want that to be printed and read, Mr Deasy said. You will see at the +next outbreak they will put an embargo on Irish cattle. And it can +be cured. It is cured. My cousin, Blackwood Price, writes to me it is +regularly treated and cured in Austria by cattledoctors there. They +offer to come over here. I am trying to work up influence with +the department. Now I'm going to try publicity. I am surrounded by +difficulties, by... intrigues by... backstairs influence by... + +He raised his forefinger and beat the air oldly before his voice spoke. + +--Mark my words, Mr Dedalus, he said. England is in the hands of the +jews. In all the highest places: her finance, her press. And they are +the signs of a nation's decay. Wherever they gather they eat up the +nation's vital strength. I have seen it coming these years. As sure +as we are standing here the jew merchants are already at their work of +destruction. Old England is dying. + +He stepped swiftly off, his eyes coming to blue life as they passed a +broad sunbeam. He faced about and back again. + +--Dying, he said again, if not dead by now. + + _The harlot's cry from street to street + Shall weave old England's windingsheet._ + + +His eyes open wide in vision stared sternly across the sunbeam in which +he halted. + +--A merchant, Stephen said, is one who buys cheap and sells dear, jew or +gentile, is he not? + +--They sinned against the light, Mr Deasy said gravely. And you can see +the darkness in their eyes. And that is why they are wanderers on the +earth to this day. + +On the steps of the Paris stock exchange the goldskinned men quoting +prices on their gemmed fingers. Gabble of geese. They swarmed loud, +uncouth about the temple, their heads thickplotting under maladroit silk +hats. Not theirs: these clothes, this speech, these gestures. Their full +slow eyes belied the words, the gestures eager and unoffending, but +knew the rancours massed about them and knew their zeal was vain. Vain +patience to heap and hoard. Time surely would scatter all. A hoard +heaped by the roadside: plundered and passing on. Their eyes knew their +years of wandering and, patient, knew the dishonours of their flesh. + +--Who has not? Stephen said. + +--What do you mean? Mr Deasy asked. + +He came forward a pace and stood by the table. His underjaw fell +sideways open uncertainly. Is this old wisdom? He waits to hear from me. + +--History, Stephen said, is a nightmare from which I am trying to awake. + +From the playfield the boys raised a shout. A whirring whistle: goal. +What if that nightmare gave you a back kick? + +--The ways of the Creator are not our ways, Mr Deasy said. All human +history moves towards one great goal, the manifestation of God. + +Stephen jerked his thumb towards the window, saying: + +--That is God. + +Hooray! Ay! Whrrwhee! + +--What? Mr Deasy asked. + +--A shout in the street, Stephen answered, shrugging his shoulders. + +Mr Deasy looked down and held for awhile the wings of his nose tweaked +between his fingers. Looking up again he set them free. + +--I am happier than you are, he said. We have committed many errors and +many sins. A woman brought sin into the world. For a woman who was no +better than she should be, Helen, the runaway wife of Menelaus, ten +years the Greeks made war on Troy. A faithless wife first brought the +strangers to our shore here, MacMurrough's wife and her leman, O'Rourke, +prince of Breffni. A woman too brought Parnell low. Many errors, many +failures but not the one sin. I am a struggler now at the end of my +days. But I will fight for the right till the end. + + _For Ulster will fight + And Ulster will be right._ + + +Stephen raised the sheets in his hand. + +--Well, sir, he began... + +--I foresee, Mr Deasy said, that you will not remain here very long +at this work. You were not born to be a teacher, I think. Perhaps I am +wrong. + +--A learner rather, Stephen said. + +And here what will you learn more? + +Mr Deasy shook his head. + +--Who knows? he said. To learn one must be humble. But life is the great +teacher. + +Stephen rustled the sheets again. + +--As regards these, he began. + +--Yes, Mr Deasy said. You have two copies there. If you can have them +published at once. + +_ Telegraph. Irish Homestead._ + +--I will try, Stephen said, and let you know tomorrow. I know two +editors slightly. + +--That will do, Mr Deasy said briskly. I wrote last night to Mr Field, +M.P. There is a meeting of the cattletraders' association today at the +City Arms hotel. I asked him to lay my letter before the meeting. You +see if you can get it into your two papers. What are they? + +_--The Evening Telegraph..._ + +--That will do, Mr Deasy said. There is no time to lose. Now I have to +answer that letter from my cousin. + +--Good morning, sir, Stephen said, putting the sheets in his pocket. +Thank you. + +--Not at all, Mr Deasy said as he searched the papers on his desk. I +like to break a lance with you, old as I am. + +--Good morning, sir, Stephen said again, bowing to his bent back. + +He went out by the open porch and down the gravel path under the trees, +hearing the cries of voices and crack of sticks from the playfield. +The lions couchant on the pillars as he passed out through the gate: +toothless terrors. Still I will help him in his fight. Mulligan will dub +me a new name: the bullockbefriending bard. + +--Mr Dedalus! + +Running after me. No more letters, I hope. + +--Just one moment. + +--Yes, sir, Stephen said, turning back at the gate. + +Mr Deasy halted, breathing hard and swallowing his breath. + +--I just wanted to say, he said. Ireland, they say, has the honour of +being the only country which never persecuted the jews. Do you know +that? No. And do you know why? + +He frowned sternly on the bright air. + +--Why, sir? Stephen asked, beginning to smile. + +--Because she never let them in, Mr Deasy said solemnly. + +A coughball of laughter leaped from his throat dragging after it a +rattling chain of phlegm. He turned back quickly, coughing, laughing, +his lifted arms waving to the air. + +--She never let them in, he cried again through his laughter as he +stamped on gaitered feet over the gravel of the path. That's why. + +On his wise shoulders through the checkerwork of leaves the sun flung +spangles, dancing coins. + + +Ineluctable modality of the visible: at least that if no more, thought +through my eyes. Signatures of all things I am here to read, seaspawn +and seawrack, the nearing tide, that rusty boot. Snotgreen, bluesilver, +rust: coloured signs. Limits of the diaphane. But he adds: in bodies. +Then he was aware of them bodies before of them coloured. How? By +knocking his sconce against them, sure. Go easy. Bald he was and a +millionaire, _maestro di color che sanno_. Limit of the diaphane in. Why +in? Diaphane, adiaphane. If you can put your five fingers through it it +is a gate, if not a door. Shut your eyes and see. + + +Stephen closed his eyes to hear his boots crush crackling wrack and +shells. You are walking through it howsomever. I am, a stride at a time. +A very short space of time through very short times of space. Five, six: +the _nacheinander_. Exactly: and that is the ineluctable modality of the +audible. Open your eyes. No. Jesus! If I fell over a cliff that beetles +o'er his base, fell through the _nebeneinander_ ineluctably! I am +getting on nicely in the dark. My ash sword hangs at my side. Tap with +it: they do. My two feet in his boots are at the ends of his legs, +_nebeneinander_. Sounds solid: made by the mallet of _Los Demiurgos_. +Am I walking into eternity along Sandymount strand? Crush, crack, crick, +crick. Wild sea money. Dominie Deasy kens them a'. Won't you come to +Sandymount, Madeline the mare? + + +Rhythm begins, you see. I hear. Acatalectic tetrameter of iambs +marching. No, agallop: _deline the mare_. + +Open your eyes now. I will. One moment. Has all vanished since? If I +open and am for ever in the black adiaphane. _Basta_! I will see if I +can see. + +See now. There all the time without you: and ever shall be, world +without end. + +They came down the steps from Leahy's terrace prudently, _Frauenzimmer_: +and down the shelving shore flabbily, their splayed feet sinking in +the silted sand. Like me, like Algy, coming down to our mighty mother. +Number one swung lourdily her midwife's bag, the other's gamp poked in +the beach. From the liberties, out for the day. Mrs Florence MacCabe, +relict of the late Patk MacCabe, deeply lamented, of Bride Street. One +of her sisterhood lugged me squealing into life. Creation from nothing. +What has she in the bag? A misbirth with a trailing navelcord, hushed +in ruddy wool. The cords of all link back, strandentwining cable of +all flesh. That is why mystic monks. Will you be as gods? Gaze in your +omphalos. Hello! Kinch here. Put me on to Edenville. Aleph, alpha: +nought, nought, one. + +Spouse and helpmate of Adam Kadmon: Heva, naked Eve. She had no navel. +Gaze. Belly without blemish, bulging big, a buckler of taut vellum, +no, whiteheaped corn, orient and immortal, standing from everlasting to +everlasting. Womb of sin. + +Wombed in sin darkness I was too, made not begotten. By them, the man +with my voice and my eyes and a ghostwoman with ashes on her breath. +They clasped and sundered, did the coupler's will. From before the ages +He willed me and now may not will me away or ever. A _lex eterna_ stays +about Him. Is that then the divine substance wherein Father and Son are +consubstantial? Where is poor dear Arius to try conclusions? Warring +his life long upon the contransmagnificandjewbangtantiality. Illstarred +heresiarch' In a Greek watercloset he breathed his last: euthanasia. +With beaded mitre and with crozier, stalled upon his throne, widower of +a widowed see, with upstiffed omophorion, with clotted hinderparts. + +Airs romped round him, nipping and eager airs. They are coming, waves. +The whitemaned seahorses, champing, brightwindbridled, the steeds of +Mananaan. + +I mustn't forget his letter for the press. And after? The Ship, half +twelve. By the way go easy with that money like a good young imbecile. + +Yes, I must. + +His pace slackened. Here. Am I going to aunt Sara's or not? My +consubstantial father's voice. Did you see anything of your artist +brother Stephen lately? No? Sure he's not down in Strasburg terrace with +his aunt Sally? Couldn't he fly a bit higher than that, eh? And and and +and tell us, Stephen, how is uncle Si? O, weeping God, the things I +married into! De boys up in de hayloft. The drunken little costdrawer +and his brother, the cornet player. Highly respectable gondoliers! And +skeweyed Walter sirring his father, no less! Sir. Yes, sir. No, sir. +Jesus wept: and no wonder, by Christ! + +I pull the wheezy bell of their shuttered cottage: and wait. They take +me for a dun, peer out from a coign of vantage. + +--It's Stephen, sir. + +--Let him in. Let Stephen in. + +A bolt drawn back and Walter welcomes me. + +--We thought you were someone else. + +In his broad bed nuncle Richie, pillowed and blanketed, extends over the +hillock of his knees a sturdy forearm. Cleanchested. He has washed the +upper moiety. + +--Morrow, nephew. + +He lays aside the lapboard whereon he drafts his bills of costs for +the eyes of master Goff and master Shapland Tandy, filing consents and +common searches and a writ of _Duces Tecum_. A bogoak frame over his +bald head: Wilde's _Requiescat_. The drone of his misleading whistle +brings Walter back. + +--Yes, sir? + +--Malt for Richie and Stephen, tell mother. Where is she? + +--Bathing Crissie, sir. + +Papa's little bedpal. Lump of love. + +--No, uncle Richie... + +--Call me Richie. Damn your lithia water. It lowers. Whusky! + +--Uncle Richie, really... + +--Sit down or by the law Harry I'll knock you down. + +Walter squints vainly for a chair. + +--He has nothing to sit down on, sir. + +--He has nowhere to put it, you mug. Bring in our chippendale chair. +Would you like a bite of something? None of your damned lawdeedaw airs +here. The rich of a rasher fried with a herring? Sure? So much the +better. We have nothing in the house but backache pills. + +_All'erta_! + +He drones bars of Ferrando's _aria di sortita_. The grandest number, +Stephen, in the whole opera. Listen. + +His tuneful whistle sounds again, finely shaded, with rushes of the air, +his fists bigdrumming on his padded knees. + +This wind is sweeter. + +Houses of decay, mine, his and all. You told the Clongowes gentry you +had an uncle a judge and an uncle a general in the army. Come out of +them, Stephen. Beauty is not there. Nor in the stagnant bay of Marsh's +library where you read the fading prophecies of Joachim Abbas. For whom? +The hundredheaded rabble of the cathedral close. A hater of his kind +ran from them to the wood of madness, his mane foaming in the moon, +his eyeballs stars. Houyhnhnm, horsenostrilled. The oval equine +faces, Temple, Buck Mulligan, Foxy Campbell, Lanternjaws. Abbas +father,--furious dean, what offence laid fire to their brains? Paff! +_Descende, calve, ut ne amplius decalveris_. A garland of grey hair +on his comminated head see him me clambering down to the footpace +(_descende_!), clutching a monstrance, basiliskeyed. Get down, baldpoll! +A choir gives back menace and echo, assisting about the altar's horns, +the snorted Latin of jackpriests moving burly in their albs, tonsured +and oiled and gelded, fat with the fat of kidneys of wheat. + +And at the same instant perhaps a priest round the corner is elevating +it. Dringdring! And two streets off another locking it into a pyx. +Dringadring! And in a ladychapel another taking housel all to his own +cheek. Dringdring! Down, up, forward, back. Dan Occam thought of that, +invincible doctor. A misty English morning the imp hypostasis tickled +his brain. Bringing his host down and kneeling he heard twine with his +second bell the first bell in the transept (he is lifting his) and, +rising, heard (now I am lifting) their two bells (he is kneeling) twang +in diphthong. + +Cousin Stephen, you will never be a saint. Isle of saints. You were +awfully holy, weren't you? You prayed to the Blessed Virgin that you +might not have a red nose. You prayed to the devil in Serpentine avenue +that the fubsy widow in front might lift her clothes still more from the +wet street. _O si, certo_! Sell your soul for that, do, dyed rags pinned +round a squaw. More tell me, more still!! On the top of the Howth tram +alone crying to the rain: Naked women! _naked women_! What about that, +eh? + +What about what? What else were they invented for? + +Reading two pages apiece of seven books every night, eh? I was young. +You bowed to yourself in the mirror, stepping forward to applause +earnestly, striking face. Hurray for the Goddamned idiot! Hray! No-one +saw: tell no-one. Books you were going to write with letters for titles. +Have you read his F? O yes, but I prefer Q. Yes, but W is wonderful. O +yes, W. Remember your epiphanies written on green oval leaves, deeply +deep, copies to be sent if you died to all the great libraries of the +world, including Alexandria? Someone was to read them there after a few +thousand years, a mahamanvantara. Pico della Mirandola like. Ay, very +like a whale. When one reads these strange pages of one long gone one +feels that one is at one with one who once... + +The grainy sand had gone from under his feet. His boots trod again +a damp crackling mast, razorshells, squeaking pebbles, that on the +unnumbered pebbles beats, wood sieved by the shipworm, lost Armada. +Unwholesome sandflats waited to suck his treading soles, breathing +upward sewage breath, a pocket of seaweed smouldered in seafire under a +midden of man's ashes. He coasted them, walking warily. A porterbottle +stood up, stogged to its waist, in the cakey sand dough. A sentinel: +isle of dreadful thirst. Broken hoops on the shore; at the land a maze +of dark cunning nets; farther away chalkscrawled backdoors and on the +higher beach a dryingline with two crucified shirts. Ringsend: wigwams +of brown steersmen and master mariners. Human shells. + +He halted. I have passed the way to aunt Sara's. Am I not going there? +Seems not. No-one about. He turned northeast and crossed the firmer sand +towards the Pigeonhouse. + +_--Qui vous a mis dans cette fichue position?_ + +_--c'est le pigeon, Joseph._ + +Patrice, home on furlough, lapped warm milk with me in the bar MacMahon. +Son of the wild goose, Kevin Egan of Paris. My father's a bird, he +lapped the sweet _lait chaud_ with pink young tongue, plump bunny's +face. Lap, _lapin._ He hopes to win in the _gros lots_. About the nature +of women he read in Michelet. But he must send me _La Vie de Jesus_ by +M. Leo Taxil. Lent it to his friend. + +_--C'est tordant, vous savez. Moi, je suis socialiste. Je ne crois pas +en l'existence de Dieu. Faut pas le dire a mon p-re._ + +_--Il croit?_ + +_--Mon pere, oui._ + +_Schluss_. He laps. + +My Latin quarter hat. God, we simply must dress the character. I want +puce gloves. You were a student, weren't you? Of what in the other +devil's name? Paysayenn. P. C. N., you know: _physiques, chimiques et +naturelles_. Aha. Eating your groatsworth of _mou en civet_, fleshpots +of Egypt, elbowed by belching cabmen. Just say in the most natural +tone: when I was in Paris; _boul' Mich'_, I used to. Yes, used to +carry punched tickets to prove an alibi if they arrested you for murder +somewhere. Justice. On the night of the seventeenth of February 1904 the +prisoner was seen by two witnesses. Other fellow did it: other me. +Hat, tie, overcoat, nose. _Lui, c'est moi_. You seem to have enjoyed +yourself. + +Proudly walking. Whom were you trying to walk like? Forget: a +dispossessed. With mother's money order, eight shillings, the banging +door of the post office slammed in your face by the usher. Hunger +toothache. _Encore deux minutes_. Look clock. Must get. _Ferme_. Hired +dog! Shoot him to bloody bits with a bang shotgun, bits man spattered +walls all brass buttons. Bits all khrrrrklak in place clack back. Not +hurt? O, that's all right. Shake hands. See what I meant, see? O, that's +all right. Shake a shake. O, that's all only all right. + +You were going to do wonders, what? Missionary to Europe after fiery +Columbanus. Fiacre and Scotus on their creepystools in heaven spilt from +their pintpots, loudlatinlaughing: _Euge! Euge_! Pretending to speak +broken English as you dragged your valise, porter threepence, across +the slimy pier at Newhaven. _Comment?_ Rich booty you brought back; _Le +Tutu_, five tattered numbers of _Pantalon Blanc et Culotte Rouge_; a +blue French telegram, curiosity to show: + +--Mother dying come home father. + +The aunt thinks you killed your mother. That's why she won't. + + _Then here's a health to Mulligan's aunt + And I'll tell you the reason why. + She always kept things decent in + The Hannigan famileye._ + + +His feet marched in sudden proud rhythm over the sand furrows, along by +the boulders of the south wall. He stared at them proudly, piled stone +mammoth skulls. Gold light on sea, on sand, on boulders. The sun is +there, the slender trees, the lemon houses. + +Paris rawly waking, crude sunlight on her lemon streets. Moist pith of +farls of bread, the froggreen wormwood, her matin incense, court +the air. Belluomo rises from the bed of his wife's lover's wife, the +kerchiefed housewife is astir, a saucer of acetic acid in her hand. In +Rodot's Yvonne and Madeleine newmake their tumbled beauties, shattering +with gold teeth _chaussons_ of pastry, their mouths yellowed with the +_pus_ of _flan breton_. Faces of Paris men go by, their wellpleased +pleasers, curled conquistadores. + +Noon slumbers. Kevin Egan rolls gunpowder cigarettes through fingers +smeared with printer's ink, sipping his green fairy as Patrice his +white. About us gobblers fork spiced beans down their gullets. _Un demi +setier!_ A jet of coffee steam from the burnished caldron. She serves me +at his beck. _Il est irlandais. Hollandais? Non fromage. Deux irlandais, +nous, Irlande, vous savez ah, oui!_ She thought you wanted a cheese +_hollandais_. Your postprandial, do you know that word? Postprandial. +There was a fellow I knew once in Barcelona, queer fellow, used to call +it his postprandial. Well: _slainte_! Around the slabbed tables the +tangle of wined breaths and grumbling gorges. His breath hangs over our +saucestained plates, the green fairy's fang thrusting between his lips. +Of Ireland, the Dalcassians, of hopes, conspiracies, of Arthur Griffith +now, A E, pimander, good shepherd of men. To yoke me as his yokefellow, +our crimes our common cause. You're your father's son. I know the voice. +His fustian shirt, sanguineflowered, trembles its Spanish tassels at +his secrets. M. Drumont, famous journalist, Drumont, know what he called +queen Victoria? Old hag with the yellow teeth. _Vieille ogresse_ +with the _dents jaunes_. Maud Gonne, beautiful woman, _La Patrie_, M. +Millevoye, Felix Faure, know how he died? Licentious men. The froeken, +_bonne a tout faire_, who rubs male nakedness in the bath at Upsala. +_Moi faire_, she said, _Tous les messieurs_. Not this _Monsieur_, I +said. Most licentious custom. Bath a most private thing. I wouldn't let +my brother, not even my own brother, most lascivious thing. Green eyes, +I see you. Fang, I feel. Lascivious people. + +The blue fuse burns deadly between hands and burns clear. Loose +tobaccoshreds catch fire: a flame and acrid smoke light our corner. Raw +facebones under his peep of day boy's hat. How the head centre got away, +authentic version. Got up as a young bride, man, veil, orangeblossoms, +drove out the road to Malahide. Did, faith. Of lost leaders, the +betrayed, wild escapes. Disguises, clutched at, gone, not here. + +Spurned lover. I was a strapping young gossoon at that time, I tell you. +I'll show you my likeness one day. I was, faith. Lover, for her love he +prowled with colonel Richard Burke, tanist of his sept, under the walls +of Clerkenwell and, crouching, saw a flame of vengeance hurl them upward +in the fog. Shattered glass and toppling masonry. In gay Paree he hides, +Egan of Paris, unsought by any save by me. Making his day's stations, +the dingy printingcase, his three taverns, the Montmartre lair he sleeps +short night in, rue de la Goutte-d'Or, damascened with flyblown faces of +the gone. Loveless, landless, wifeless. She is quite nicey comfy +without her outcast man, madame in rue Git-le-Coeur, canary and two +buck lodgers. Peachy cheeks, a zebra skirt, frisky as a young thing's. +Spurned and undespairing. Tell Pat you saw me, won't you? I wanted to +get poor Pat a job one time. _Mon fils_, soldier of France. I taught him +to sing _The boys of Kilkenny are stout roaring blades_. Know that old +lay? I taught Patrice that. Old Kilkenny: saint Canice, Strongbow's +castle on the Nore. Goes like this. O, O. He takes me, Napper Tandy, by +the hand. + + _O, O THE BOYS OF + KILKENNY..._ + + +Weak wasting hand on mine. They have forgotten Kevin Egan, not he them. +Remembering thee, O Sion. + +He had come nearer the edge of the sea and wet sand slapped his boots. +The new air greeted him, harping in wild nerves, wind of wild air of +seeds of brightness. Here, I am not walking out to the Kish lightship, +am I? He stood suddenly, his feet beginning to sink slowly in the +quaking soil. Turn back. + +Turning, he scanned the shore south, his feet sinking again slowly +in new sockets. The cold domed room of the tower waits. Through the +barbacans the shafts of light are moving ever, slowly ever as my +feet are sinking, creeping duskward over the dial floor. Blue dusk, +nightfall, deep blue night. In the darkness of the dome they wait, +their pushedback chairs, my obelisk valise, around a board of abandoned +platters. Who to clear it? He has the key. I will not sleep there when +this night comes. A shut door of a silent tower, entombing their--blind +bodies, the panthersahib and his pointer. Call: no answer. He lifted his +feet up from the suck and turned back by the mole of boulders. Take +all, keep all. My soul walks with me, form of forms. So in the moon's +midwatches I pace the path above the rocks, in sable silvered, hearing +Elsinore's tempting flood. + +The flood is following me. I can watch it flow past from here. Get back +then by the Poolbeg road to the strand there. He climbed over the sedge +and eely oarweeds and sat on a stool of rock, resting his ashplant in a +grike. + +A bloated carcass of a dog lay lolled on bladderwrack. Before him the +gunwale of a boat, sunk in sand. _Un coche ensable_ Louis Veuillot +called Gautier's prose. These heavy sands are language tide and wind +have silted here. And these, the stoneheaps of dead builders, a warren +of weasel rats. Hide gold there. Try it. You have some. Sands and +stones. Heavy of the past. Sir Lout's toys. Mind you don't get one +bang on the ear. I'm the bloody well gigant rolls all them bloody well +boulders, bones for my steppingstones. Feefawfum. I zmellz de bloodz odz +an Iridzman. + +A point, live dog, grew into sight running across the sweep of sand. +Lord, is he going to attack me? Respect his liberty. You will not +be master of others or their slave. I have my stick. Sit tight. From +farther away, walking shoreward across from the crested tide, figures, +two. The two maries. They have tucked it safe mong the bulrushes. +Peekaboo. I see you. No, the dog. He is running back to them. Who? + +Galleys of the Lochlanns ran here to beach, in quest of prey, their +bloodbeaked prows riding low on a molten pewter surf. Dane vikings, +torcs of tomahawks aglitter on their breasts when Malachi wore the +collar of gold. A school of turlehide whales stranded in hot noon, +spouting, hobbling in the shallows. Then from the starving cagework city +a horde of jerkined dwarfs, my people, with flayers' knives, running, +scaling, hacking in green blubbery whalemeat. Famine, plague and +slaughters. Their blood is in me, their lusts my waves. I moved among +them on the frozen Liffey, that I, a changeling, among the spluttering +resin fires. I spoke to no-one: none to me. + +The dog's bark ran towards him, stopped, ran back. Dog of my enemy. I +just simply stood pale, silent, bayed about. _Terribilia meditans_. A +primrose doublet, fortune's knave, smiled on my fear. For that are you +pining, the bark of their applause? Pretenders: live their lives. The +Bruce's brother, Thomas Fitzgerald, silken knight, Perkin Warbeck, +York's false scion, in breeches of silk of whiterose ivory, wonder of +a day, and Lambert Simnel, with a tail of nans and sutlers, a scullion +crowned. All kings' sons. Paradise of pretenders then and now. He saved +men from drowning and you shake at a cur's yelping. But the courtiers +who mocked Guido in Or san Michele were in their own house. House of... +We don't want any of your medieval abstrusiosities. Would you do what he +did? A boat would be near, a lifebuoy. _Naturlich_, put there for you. +Would you or would you not? The man that was drowned nine days ago off +Maiden's rock. They are waiting for him now. The truth, spit it out. I +would want to. I would try. I am not a strong swimmer. Water cold soft. +When I put my face into it in the basin at Clongowes. Can't see! Who's +behind me? Out quickly, quickly! Do you see the tide flowing quickly in +on all sides, sheeting the lows of sand quickly, shellcocoacoloured? If +I had land under my feet. I want his life still to be his, mine to be +mine. A drowning man. His human eyes scream to me out of horror of his +death. I... With him together down... I could not save her. Waters: +bitter death: lost. + +A woman and a man. I see her skirties. Pinned up, I bet. + +Their dog ambled about a bank of dwindling sand, trotting, sniffing on +all sides. Looking for something lost in a past life. Suddenly he made +off like a bounding hare, ears flung back, chasing the shadow of a +lowskimming gull. The man's shrieked whistle struck his limp ears. He +turned, bounded back, came nearer, trotted on twinkling shanks. On a +field tenney a buck, trippant, proper, unattired. At the lacefringe of +the tide he halted with stiff forehoofs, seawardpointed ears. His +snout lifted barked at the wavenoise, herds of seamorse. They serpented +towards his feet, curling, unfurling many crests, every ninth, breaking, +plashing, from far, from farther out, waves and waves. + +Cocklepickers. They waded a little way in the water and, stooping, +soused their bags and, lifting them again, waded out. The dog yelped +running to them, reared up and pawed them, dropping on all fours, again +reared up at them with mute bearish fawning. Unheeded he kept by them as +they came towards the drier sand, a rag of wolf's tongue redpanting from +his jaws. His speckled body ambled ahead of them and then loped off at a +calf's gallop. The carcass lay on his path. He stopped, sniffed, stalked +round it, brother, nosing closer, went round it, sniffling rapidly like +a dog all over the dead dog's bedraggled fell. Dogskull, dogsniff, eyes +on the ground, moves to one great goal. Ah, poor dogsbody! Here lies +poor dogsbody's body. + +--Tatters! Out of that, you mongrel! + +The cry brought him skulking back to his master and a blunt bootless +kick sent him unscathed across a spit of sand, crouched in flight. He +slunk back in a curve. Doesn't see me. Along by the edge of the mole he +lolloped, dawdled, smelt a rock and from under a cocked hindleg pissed +against it. He trotted forward and, lifting again his hindleg, pissed +quick short at an unsmelt rock. The simple pleasures of the poor. His +hindpaws then scattered the sand: then his forepaws dabbled and delved. +Something he buried there, his grandmother. He rooted in the sand, +dabbling, delving and stopped to listen to the air, scraped up the sand +again with a fury of his claws, soon ceasing, a pard, a panther, got in +spousebreach, vulturing the dead. + +After he woke me last night same dream or was it? Wait. Open hallway. +Street of harlots. Remember. Haroun al Raschid. I am almosting it. That +man led me, spoke. I was not afraid. The melon he had he held against my +face. Smiled: creamfruit smell. That was the rule, said. In. Come. Red +carpet spread. You will see who. + +Shouldering their bags they trudged, the red Egyptians. His blued feet +out of turnedup trousers slapped the clammy sand, a dull brick muffler +strangling his unshaven neck. With woman steps she followed: the +ruffian and his strolling mort. Spoils slung at her back. Loose sand and +shellgrit crusted her bare feet. About her windraw face hair trailed. +Behind her lord, his helpmate, bing awast to Romeville. When night hides +her body's flaws calling under her brown shawl from an archway +where dogs have mired. Her fancyman is treating two Royal Dublins in +O'Loughlin's of Blackpitts. Buss her, wap in rogues' rum lingo, for, O, +my dimber wapping dell! A shefiend's whiteness under her rancid rags. +Fumbally's lane that night: the tanyard smells. + + _White thy fambles, red thy gan + And thy quarrons dainty is. + Couch a hogshead with me then. + In the darkmans clip and kiss._ + + +Morose delectation Aquinas tunbelly calls this, _frate porcospino_. +Unfallen Adam rode and not rutted. Call away let him: _thy quarrons +dainty is_. Language no whit worse than his. Monkwords, marybeads jabber +on their girdles: roguewords, tough nuggets patter in their pockets. + +Passing now. + +A side eye at my Hamlet hat. If I were suddenly naked here as I sit? I +am not. Across the sands of all the world, followed by the sun's flaming +sword, to the west, trekking to evening lands. She trudges, schlepps, +trains, drags, trascines her load. A tide westering, moondrawn, in +her wake. Tides, myriadislanded, within her, blood not mine, _oinopa +ponton_, a winedark sea. Behold the handmaid of the moon. In sleep +the wet sign calls her hour, bids her rise. Bridebed, childbed, bed of +death, ghostcandled. _Omnis caro ad te veniet_. He comes, pale vampire, +through storm his eyes, his bat sails bloodying the sea, mouth to her +mouth's kiss. + +Here. Put a pin in that chap, will you? My tablets. Mouth to her kiss. + +No. Must be two of em. Glue em well. Mouth to her mouth's kiss. + +His lips lipped and mouthed fleshless lips of air: mouth to her moomb. +Oomb, allwombing tomb. His mouth moulded issuing breath, unspeeched: +ooeeehah: roar of cataractic planets, globed, blazing, roaring +wayawayawayawayaway. Paper. The banknotes, blast them. Old Deasy's +letter. Here. Thanking you for the hospitality tear the blank end off. +Turning his back to the sun he bent over far to a table of rock and +scribbled words. That's twice I forgot to take slips from the library +counter. + +His shadow lay over the rocks as he bent, ending. Why not endless till +the farthest star? Darkly they are there behind this light, darkness +shining in the brightness, delta of Cassiopeia, worlds. Me sits there +with his augur's rod of ash, in borrowed sandals, by day beside a livid +sea, unbeheld, in violet night walking beneath a reign of uncouth stars. +I throw this ended shadow from me, manshape ineluctable, call it back. +Endless, would it be mine, form of my form? Who watches me here? Who +ever anywhere will read these written words? Signs on a white field. +Somewhere to someone in your flutiest voice. The good bishop of Cloyne +took the veil of the temple out of his shovel hat: veil of space with +coloured emblems hatched on its field. Hold hard. Coloured on a flat: +yes, that's right. Flat I see, then think distance, near, far, flat +I see, east, back. Ah, see now! Falls back suddenly, frozen in +stereoscope. Click does the trick. You find my words dark. Darkness is +in our souls do you not think? Flutier. Our souls, shamewounded by our +sins, cling to us yet more, a woman to her lover clinging, the more the +more. + +She trusts me, her hand gentle, the longlashed eyes. Now where the blue +hell am I bringing her beyond the veil? Into the ineluctable modality of +the ineluctable visuality. She, she, she. What she? The virgin at Hodges +Figgis' window on Monday looking in for one of the alphabet books you +were going to write. Keen glance you gave her. Wrist through the +braided jesse of her sunshade. She lives in Leeson park with a grief +and kickshaws, a lady of letters. Talk that to someone else, Stevie: a +pickmeup. Bet she wears those curse of God stays suspenders and +yellow stockings, darned with lumpy wool. Talk about apple dumplings, +_piuttosto_. Where are your wits? + +Touch me. Soft eyes. Soft soft soft hand. I am lonely here. O, touch me +soon, now. What is that word known to all men? I am quiet here alone. +Sad too. Touch, touch me. + +He lay back at full stretch over the sharp rocks, cramming the scribbled +note and pencil into a pock his hat. His hat down on his eyes. That is +Kevin Egan's movement I made, nodding for his nap, sabbath sleep. _Et +vidit Deus. Et erant valde bona_. Alo! _Bonjour_. Welcome as the flowers +in May. Under its leaf he watched through peacocktwittering lashes the +southing sun. I am caught in this burning scene. Pan's hour, the faunal +noon. Among gumheavy serpentplants, milkoozing fruits, where on the +tawny waters leaves lie wide. Pain is far. + + _And no more turn aside and brood._ + +His gaze brooded on his broadtoed boots, a buck's castoffs, +_nebeneinander_. He counted the creases of rucked leather wherein +another's foot had nested warm. The foot that beat the ground in +tripudium, foot I dislove. But you were delighted when Esther Osvalt's +shoe went on you: girl I knew in Paris. _Tiens, quel petit pied!_ +Staunch friend, a brother soul: Wilde's love that dare not speak its +name. His arm: Cranly's arm. He now will leave me. And the blame? As I +am. As I am. All or not at all. + +In long lassoes from the Cock lake the water flowed full, covering +greengoldenly lagoons of sand, rising, flowing. My ashplant will float +away. I shall wait. No, they will pass on, passing, chafing against the +low rocks, swirling, passing. Better get this job over quick. Listen: a +fourworded wavespeech: seesoo, hrss, rsseeiss, ooos. Vehement breath of +waters amid seasnakes, rearing horses, rocks. In cups of rocks it slops: +flop, slop, slap: bounded in barrels. And, spent, its speech ceases. It +flows purling, widely flowing, floating foampool, flower unfurling. + +Under the upswelling tide he saw the writhing weeds lift languidly and +sway reluctant arms, hising up their petticoats, in whispering water +swaying and upturning coy silver fronds. Day by day: night by night: +lifted, flooded and let fall. Lord, they are weary; and, whispered to, +they sigh. Saint Ambrose heard it, sigh of leaves and waves, waiting, +awaiting the fullness of their times, _diebus ac noctibus iniurias +patiens ingemiscit_. To no end gathered; vainly then released, +forthflowing, wending back: loom of the moon. Weary too in sight of +lovers, lascivious men, a naked woman shining in her courts, she draws a +toil of waters. + +Five fathoms out there. Full fathom five thy father lies. At one, he +said. Found drowned. High water at Dublin bar. Driving before it a loose +drift of rubble, fanshoals of fishes, silly shells. A corpse rising +saltwhite from the undertow, bobbing a pace a pace a porpoise landward. +There he is. Hook it quick. Pull. Sunk though he be beneath the watery +floor. We have him. Easy now. + +Bag of corpsegas sopping in foul brine. A quiver of minnows, fat of a +spongy titbit, flash through the slits of his buttoned trouserfly. +God becomes man becomes fish becomes barnacle goose becomes featherbed +mountain. Dead breaths I living breathe, tread dead dust, devour a +urinous offal from all dead. Hauled stark over the gunwale he breathes +upward the stench of his green grave, his leprous nosehole snoring to +the sun. + +A seachange this, brown eyes saltblue. Seadeath, mildest of all deaths +known to man. Old Father Ocean. _Prix de paris_: beware of imitations. +Just you give it a fair trial. We enjoyed ourselves immensely. + +Come. I thirst. Clouding over. No black clouds anywhere, are there? +Thunderstorm. Allbright he falls, proud lightning of the intellect, +_Lucifer, dico, qui nescit occasum_. No. My cockle hat and staff and +hismy sandal shoon. Where? To evening lands. Evening will find itself. + +He took the hilt of his ashplant, lunging with it softly, dallying +still. Yes, evening will find itself in me, without me. All days make +their end. By the way next when is it Tuesday will be the longest +day. Of all the glad new year, mother, the rum tum tiddledy tum. Lawn +Tennyson, gentleman poet. _Gia_. For the old hag with the yellow teeth. +And Monsieur Drumont, gentleman journalist. _Gia_. My teeth are very +bad. Why, I wonder. Feel. That one is going too. Shells. Ought I go to a +dentist, I wonder, with that money? That one. This. Toothless Kinch, the +superman. Why is that, I wonder, or does it mean something perhaps? + +My handkerchief. He threw it. I remember. Did I not take it up? + +His hand groped vainly in his pockets. No, I didn't. Better buy one. + +He laid the dry snot picked from his nostril on a ledge of rock, +carefully. For the rest let look who will. + +Behind. Perhaps there is someone. + +He turned his face over a shoulder, rere regardant. Moving through the +air high spars of a threemaster, her sails brailed up on the crosstrees, +homing, upstream, silently moving, a silent ship. + + + + + +-- II -- + +Mr Leopold Bloom ate with relish the inner organs of beasts and fowls. +He liked thick giblet soup, nutty gizzards, a stuffed roast heart, +liverslices fried with crustcrumbs, fried hencods' roes. Most of all +he liked grilled mutton kidneys which gave to his palate a fine tang of +faintly scented urine. + +Kidneys were in his mind as he moved about the kitchen softly, righting +her breakfast things on the humpy tray. Gelid light and air were in the +kitchen but out of doors gentle summer morning everywhere. Made him feel +a bit peckish. + +The coals were reddening. + +Another slice of bread and butter: three, four: right. She didn't like +her plate full. Right. He turned from the tray, lifted the kettle off +the hob and set it sideways on the fire. It sat there, dull and squat, +its spout stuck out. Cup of tea soon. Good. Mouth dry. The cat walked +stiffly round a leg of the table with tail on high. + +--Mkgnao! + +--O, there you are, Mr Bloom said, turning from the fire. + +The cat mewed in answer and stalked again stiffly round a leg of the +table, mewing. Just how she stalks over my writingtable. Prr. Scratch my +head. Prr. + +Mr Bloom watched curiously, kindly the lithe black form. Clean to see: +the gloss of her sleek hide, the white button under the butt of her +tail, the green flashing eyes. He bent down to her, his hands on his +knees. + +--Milk for the pussens, he said. + +--Mrkgnao! the cat cried. + +They call them stupid. They understand what we say better than we +understand them. She understands all she wants to. Vindictive too. +Cruel. Her nature. Curious mice never squeal. Seem to like it. Wonder +what I look like to her. Height of a tower? No, she can jump me. + +--Afraid of the chickens she is, he said mockingly. Afraid of the +chookchooks. I never saw such a stupid pussens as the pussens. + +Cruel. Her nature. Curious mice never squeal. Seem to like it. + +--Mrkrgnao! the cat said loudly. + +She blinked up out of her avid shameclosing eyes, mewing plaintively +and long, showing him her milkwhite teeth. He watched the dark eyeslits +narrowing with greed till her eyes were green stones. Then he went to +the dresser, took the jug Hanlon's milkman had just filled for him, +poured warmbubbled milk on a saucer and set it slowly on the floor. + +--Gurrhr! she cried, running to lap. + +He watched the bristles shining wirily in the weak light as she tipped +three times and licked lightly. Wonder is it true if you clip them they +can't mouse after. Why? They shine in the dark, perhaps, the tips. Or +kind of feelers in the dark, perhaps. + +He listened to her licking lap. Ham and eggs, no. No good eggs with this +drouth. Want pure fresh water. Thursday: not a good day either for a +mutton kidney at Buckley's. Fried with butter, a shake of pepper. Better +a pork kidney at Dlugacz's. While the kettle is boiling. She lapped +slower, then licking the saucer clean. Why are their tongues so rough? +To lap better, all porous holes. Nothing she can eat? He glanced round +him. No. + +On quietly creaky boots he went up the staircase to the hall, paused by +the bedroom door. She might like something tasty. Thin bread and butter +she likes in the morning. Still perhaps: once in a way. + +He said softly in the bare hall: + +--I'm going round the corner. Be back in a minute. + +And when he had heard his voice say it he added: + +--You don't want anything for breakfast? + +A sleepy soft grunt answered: + +--Mn. + +No. She didn't want anything. He heard then a warm heavy sigh, softer, +as she turned over and the loose brass quoits of the bedstead jingled. +Must get those settled really. Pity. All the way from Gibraltar. +Forgotten any little Spanish she knew. Wonder what her father gave for +it. Old style. Ah yes! of course. Bought it at the governor's auction. +Got a short knock. Hard as nails at a bargain, old Tweedy. Yes, sir. At +Plevna that was. I rose from the ranks, sir, and I'm proud of it. +Still he had brains enough to make that corner in stamps. Now that was +farseeing. + +His hand took his hat from the peg over his initialled heavy overcoat +and his lost property office secondhand waterproof. Stamps: stickyback +pictures. Daresay lots of officers are in the swim too. Course they do. +The sweated legend in the crown of his hat told him mutely: Plasto's +high grade ha. He peeped quickly inside the leather headband. White slip +of paper. Quite safe. + +On the doorstep he felt in his hip pocket for the latchkey. Not there. +In the trousers I left off. Must get it. Potato I have. Creaky wardrobe. +No use disturbing her. She turned over sleepily that time. He pulled +the halldoor to after him very quietly, more, till the footleaf dropped +gently over the threshold, a limp lid. Looked shut. All right till I +come back anyhow. + +He crossed to the bright side, avoiding the loose cellarflap of number +seventyfive. The sun was nearing the steeple of George's church. Be a +warm day I fancy. Specially in these black clothes feel it more. Black +conducts, reflects, (refracts is it?), the heat. But I couldn't go in +that light suit. Make a picnic of it. His eyelids sank quietly often as +he walked in happy warmth. Boland's breadvan delivering with trays our +daily but she prefers yesterday's loaves turnovers crisp crowns hot. +Makes you feel young. Somewhere in the east: early morning: set off at +dawn. Travel round in front of the sun, steal a day's march on him. Keep +it up for ever never grow a day older technically. Walk along a strand, +strange land, come to a city gate, sentry there, old ranker too, old +Tweedy's big moustaches, leaning on a long kind of a spear. Wander +through awned streets. Turbaned faces going by. Dark caves of carpet +shops, big man, Turko the terrible, seated crosslegged, smoking a coiled +pipe. Cries of sellers in the streets. Drink water scented with fennel, +sherbet. Dander along all day. Might meet a robber or two. Well, +meet him. Getting on to sundown. The shadows of the mosques among the +pillars: priest with a scroll rolled up. A shiver of the trees, signal, +the evening wind. I pass on. Fading gold sky. A mother watches me from +her doorway. She calls her children home in their dark language. High +wall: beyond strings twanged. Night sky, moon, violet, colour of Molly's +new garters. Strings. Listen. A girl playing one of those instruments +what do you call them: dulcimers. I pass. + +Probably not a bit like it really. Kind of stuff you read: in the track +of the sun. Sunburst on the titlepage. He smiled, pleasing himself. What +Arthur Griffith said about the headpiece over the _Freeman_ leader: a +homerule sun rising up in the northwest from the laneway behind the bank +of Ireland. He prolonged his pleased smile. Ikey touch that: homerule +sun rising up in the north-west. + +He approached Larry O'Rourke's. From the cellar grating floated up the +flabby gush of porter. Through the open doorway the bar squirted out +whiffs of ginger, teadust, biscuitmush. Good house, however: just the +end of the city traffic. For instance M'Auley's down there: n. g. as +position. Of course if they ran a tramline along the North Circular from +the cattlemarket to the quays value would go up like a shot. + +Baldhead over the blind. Cute old codger. No use canvassing him for an +ad. Still he knows his own business best. There he is, sure enough, my +bold Larry, leaning against the sugarbin in his shirtsleeves watching +the aproned curate swab up with mop and bucket. Simon Dedalus takes him +off to a tee with his eyes screwed up. Do you know what I'm going to +tell you? What's that, Mr O'Rourke? Do you know what? The Russians, +they'd only be an eight o'clock breakfast for the Japanese. + +Stop and say a word: about the funeral perhaps. Sad thing about poor +Dignam, Mr O'Rourke. + +Turning into Dorset street he said freshly in greeting through the +doorway: + +--Good day, Mr O'Rourke. + +--Good day to you. + +--Lovely weather, sir. + +--'Tis all that. + +Where do they get the money? Coming up redheaded curates from the county +Leitrim, rinsing empties and old man in the cellar. Then, lo and behold, +they blossom out as Adam Findlaters or Dan Tallons. Then thin of the +competition. General thirst. Good puzzle would be cross Dublin without +passing a pub. Save it they can't. Off the drunks perhaps. Put down +three and carry five. What is that, a bob here and there, dribs and +drabs. On the wholesale orders perhaps. Doing a double shuffle with the +town travellers. Square it you with the boss and we'll split the job, +see? + +How much would that tot to off the porter in the month? Say ten barrels +of stuff. Say he got ten per cent off. O more. Fifteen. He passed Saint +Joseph's National school. Brats' clamour. Windows open. Fresh air +helps memory. Or a lilt. Ahbeesee defeegee kelomen opeecue rustyouvee +doubleyou. Boys are they? Yes. Inishturk. Inishark. Inishboffin. At +their joggerfry. Mine. Slieve Bloom. + +He halted before Dlugacz's window, staring at the hanks of sausages, +polonies, black and white. Fifteen multiplied by. The figures whitened +in his mind, unsolved: displeased, he let them fade. The shiny links, +packed with forcemeat, fed his gaze and he breathed in tranquilly the +lukewarm breath of cooked spicy pigs' blood. + +A kidney oozed bloodgouts on the willowpatterned dish: the last. He +stood by the nextdoor girl at the counter. Would she buy it too, calling +the items from a slip in her hand? Chapped: washingsoda. And a pound and +a half of Denny's sausages. His eyes rested on her vigorous hips. +Woods his name is. Wonder what he does. Wife is oldish. New blood. +No followers allowed. Strong pair of arms. Whacking a carpet on the +clothesline. She does whack it, by George. The way her crooked skirt +swings at each whack. + +The ferreteyed porkbutcher folded the sausages he had snipped off with +blotchy fingers, sausagepink. Sound meat there: like a stallfed heifer. + +He took a page up from the pile of cut sheets: the model farm at +Kinnereth on the lakeshore of Tiberias. Can become ideal winter +sanatorium. Moses Montefiore. I thought he was. Farmhouse, wall round +it, blurred cattle cropping. He held the page from him: interesting: +read it nearer, the title, the blurred cropping cattle, the page +rustling. A young white heifer. Those mornings in the cattlemarket, the +beasts lowing in their pens, branded sheep, flop and fall of dung, the +breeders in hobnailed boots trudging through the litter, slapping a palm +on a ripemeated hindquarter, there's a prime one, unpeeled switches in +their hands. He held the page aslant patiently, bending his senses and +his will, his soft subject gaze at rest. The crooked skirt swinging, +whack by whack by whack. + +The porkbutcher snapped two sheets from the pile, wrapped up her prime +sausages and made a red grimace. + +--Now, my miss, he said. + +She tendered a coin, smiling boldly, holding her thick wrist out. + +--Thank you, my miss. And one shilling threepence change. For you, +please? + +Mr Bloom pointed quickly. To catch up and walk behind her if she went +slowly, behind her moving hams. Pleasant to see first thing in the +morning. Hurry up, damn it. Make hay while the sun shines. She stood +outside the shop in sunlight and sauntered lazily to the right. He +sighed down his nose: they never understand. Sodachapped hands. Crusted +toenails too. Brown scapulars in tatters, defending her both ways. +The sting of disregard glowed to weak pleasure within his breast. For +another: a constable off duty cuddling her in Eccles lane. They like +them sizeable. Prime sausage. O please, Mr Policeman, I'm lost in the +wood. + +--Threepence, please. + +His hand accepted the moist tender gland and slid it into a sidepocket. +Then it fetched up three coins from his trousers' pocket and laid them +on the rubber prickles. They lay, were read quickly and quickly slid, +disc by disc, into the till. + +--Thank you, sir. Another time. + +A speck of eager fire from foxeyes thanked him. He withdrew his gaze +after an instant. No: better not: another time. + +--Good morning, he said, moving away. + +--Good morning, sir. + +No sign. Gone. What matter? + +He walked back along Dorset street, reading gravely. Agendath Netaim: +planters' company. To purchase waste sandy tracts from Turkish +government and plant with eucalyptus trees. Excellent for shade, fuel +and construction. Orangegroves and immense melonfields north of Jaffa. +You pay eighty marks and they plant a dunam of land for you with olives, +oranges, almonds or citrons. Olives cheaper: oranges need artificial +irrigation. Every year you get a sending of the crop. Your name entered +for life as owner in the book of the union. Can pay ten down and the +balance in yearly instalments. Bleibtreustrasse 34, Berlin, W. 15. + +Nothing doing. Still an idea behind it. + +He looked at the cattle, blurred in silver heat. Silverpowdered +olivetrees. Quiet long days: pruning, ripening. Olives are packed in +jars, eh? I have a few left from Andrews. Molly spitting them out. Knows +the taste of them now. Oranges in tissue paper packed in crates. Citrons +too. Wonder is poor Citron still in Saint Kevin's parade. And Mastiansky +with the old cither. Pleasant evenings we had then. Molly in Citron's +basketchair. Nice to hold, cool waxen fruit, hold in the hand, lift it +to the nostrils and smell the perfume. Like that, heavy, sweet, wild +perfume. Always the same, year after year. They fetched high prices too, +Moisel told me. Arbutus place: Pleasants street: pleasant old times. +Must be without a flaw, he said. Coming all that way: Spain, Gibraltar, +Mediterranean, the Levant. Crates lined up on the quayside at Jaffa, +chap ticking them off in a book, navvies handling them barefoot in +soiled dungarees. There's whatdoyoucallhim out of. How do you? Doesn't +see. Chap you know just to salute bit of a bore. His back is like that +Norwegian captain's. Wonder if I'll meet him today. Watering cart. To +provoke the rain. On earth as it is in heaven. + +A cloud began to cover the sun slowly, wholly. Grey. Far. + +No, not like that. A barren land, bare waste. Vulcanic lake, the dead +sea: no fish, weedless, sunk deep in the earth. No wind could lift those +waves, grey metal, poisonous foggy waters. Brimstone they called it +raining down: the cities of the plain: Sodom, Gomorrah, Edom. All dead +names. A dead sea in a dead land, grey and old. Old now. It bore the +oldest, the first race. A bent hag crossed from Cassidy's, clutching a +naggin bottle by the neck. The oldest people. Wandered far away over +all the earth, captivity to captivity, multiplying, dying, being born +everywhere. It lay there now. Now it could bear no more. Dead: an old +woman's: the grey sunken cunt of the world. + +Desolation. + +Grey horror seared his flesh. Folding the page into his pocket he turned +into Eccles street, hurrying homeward. Cold oils slid along his veins, +chilling his blood: age crusting him with a salt cloak. Well, I am here +now. Yes, I am here now. Morning mouth bad images. Got up wrong side of +the bed. Must begin again those Sandow's exercises. On the hands down. +Blotchy brown brick houses. Number eighty still unlet. Why is that? +Valuation is only twenty-eight. Towers, Battersby, North, MacArthur: +parlour windows plastered with bills. Plasters on a sore eye. To smell +the gentle smoke of tea, fume of the pan, sizzling butter. Be near her +ample bedwarmed flesh. Yes, yes. + +Quick warm sunlight came running from Berkeley road, swiftly, in slim +sandals, along the brightening footpath. Runs, she runs to meet me, a +girl with gold hair on the wind. + +Two letters and a card lay on the hallfloor. He stooped and gathered +them. Mrs Marion Bloom. His quickened heart slowed at once. Bold hand. +Mrs Marion. + +--Poldy! + +Entering the bedroom he halfclosed his eyes and walked through warm +yellow twilight towards her tousled head. + +--Who are the letters for? + +He looked at them. Mullingar. Milly. + +--A letter for me from Milly, he said carefully, and a card to you. And +a letter for you. + +He laid her card and letter on the twill bedspread near the curve of her +knees. + +--Do you want the blind up? + +Letting the blind up by gentle tugs halfway his backward eye saw her +glance at the letter and tuck it under her pillow. + +--That do? he asked, turning. + +She was reading the card, propped on her elbow. + +--She got the things, she said. + +He waited till she had laid the card aside and curled herself back +slowly with a snug sigh. + +--Hurry up with that tea, she said. I'm parched. + +--The kettle is boiling, he said. + +But he delayed to clear the chair: her striped petticoat, tossed soiled +linen: and lifted all in an armful on to the foot of the bed. + +As he went down the kitchen stairs she called: + +--Poldy! + +--What? + +--Scald the teapot. + +On the boil sure enough: a plume of steam from the spout. He scalded and +rinsed out the teapot and put in four full spoons of tea, tilting the +kettle then to let the water flow in. Having set it to draw he took off +the kettle, crushed the pan flat on the live coals and watched the lump +of butter slide and melt. While he unwrapped the kidney the cat mewed +hungrily against him. Give her too much meat she won't mouse. Say they +won't eat pork. Kosher. Here. He let the bloodsmeared paper fall to +her and dropped the kidney amid the sizzling butter sauce. Pepper. He +sprinkled it through his fingers ringwise from the chipped eggcup. + +Then he slit open his letter, glancing down the page and over. Thanks: +new tam: Mr Coghlan: lough Owel picnic: young student: Blazes Boylan's +seaside girls. + +The tea was drawn. He filled his own moustachecup, sham crown + +Derby, smiling. Silly Milly's birthday gift. Only five she was then. No, +wait: four. I gave her the amberoid necklace she broke. Putting pieces +of folded brown paper in the letterbox for her. He smiled, pouring. + + _O, Milly Bloom, you are my darling. + You are my lookingglass from night to morning. + I'd rather have you without a farthing + Than Katey Keogh with her ass and garden._ + + +Poor old professor Goodwin. Dreadful old case. Still he was a courteous +old chap. Oldfashioned way he used to bow Molly off the platform. And +the little mirror in his silk hat. The night Milly brought it into +the parlour. O, look what I found in professor Goodwin's hat! All we +laughed. Sex breaking out even then. Pert little piece she was. + +He prodded a fork into the kidney and slapped it over: then fitted the +teapot on the tray. Its hump bumped as he took it up. Everything on +it? Bread and butter, four, sugar, spoon, her cream. Yes. He carried it +upstairs, his thumb hooked in the teapot handle. + +Nudging the door open with his knee he carried the tray in and set it on +the chair by the bedhead. + +--What a time you were! she said. + +She set the brasses jingling as she raised herself briskly, an elbow on +the pillow. He looked calmly down on her bulk and between her large soft +bubs, sloping within her nightdress like a shegoat's udder. The warmth +of her couched body rose on the air, mingling with the fragrance of the +tea she poured. + +A strip of torn envelope peeped from under the dimpled pillow. In the +act of going he stayed to straighten the bedspread. + +--Who was the letter from? he asked. + +Bold hand. Marion. + +--O, Boylan, she said. He's bringing the programme. + +--What are you singing? + +--_La ci darem_ with J. C. Doyle, she said, and _Love's Old Sweet Song_. + +Her full lips, drinking, smiled. Rather stale smell that incense leaves +next day. Like foul flowerwater. + +--Would you like the window open a little? + +She doubled a slice of bread into her mouth, asking: + +--What time is the funeral? + +--Eleven, I think, he answered. I didn't see the paper. + +Following the pointing of her finger he took up a leg of her soiled +drawers from the bed. No? Then, a twisted grey garter looped round a +stocking: rumpled, shiny sole. + +--No: that book. + +Other stocking. Her petticoat. + +--It must have fell down, she said. + +He felt here and there. _Voglio e non vorrei_. Wonder if she pronounces +that right: _voglio_. Not in the bed. Must have slid down. He stooped +and lifted the valance. The book, fallen, sprawled against the bulge of +the orangekeyed chamberpot. + +--Show here, she said. I put a mark in it. There's a word I wanted to +ask you. + +She swallowed a draught of tea from her cup held by nothandle and, +having wiped her fingertips smartly on the blanket, began to search the +text with the hairpin till she reached the word. + +--Met him what? he asked. + +--Here, she said. What does that mean? + +He leaned downward and read near her polished thumbnail. + +--Metempsychosis? + +--Yes. Who's he when he's at home? + +--Metempsychosis, he said, frowning. It's Greek: from the Greek. That +means the transmigration of souls. + +--O, rocks! she said. Tell us in plain words. + +He smiled, glancing askance at her mocking eyes. The same young eyes. +The first night after the charades. Dolphin's Barn. He turned over +the smudged pages. _Ruby: the Pride of the Ring_. Hello. Illustration. +Fierce Italian with carriagewhip. Must be Ruby pride of the on the floor +naked. Sheet kindly lent. _The monster Maffei desisted and flung his +victim from him with an oath_. Cruelty behind it all. Doped animals. +Trapeze at Hengler's. Had to look the other way. Mob gaping. Break your +neck and we'll break our sides. Families of them. Bone them young so +they metamspychosis. That we live after death. Our souls. That a man's +soul after he dies. Dignam's soul... + +--Did you finish it? he asked. + +--Yes, she said. There's nothing smutty in it. Is she in love with the +first fellow all the time? + +--Never read it. Do you want another? + +--Yes. Get another of Paul de Kock's. Nice name he has. + +She poured more tea into her cup, watching it flow sideways. + +Must get that Capel street library book renewed or they'll write to +Kearney, my guarantor. Reincarnation: that's the word. + +--Some people believe, he said, that we go on living in another body +after death, that we lived before. They call it reincarnation. That +we all lived before on the earth thousands of years ago or some other +planet. They say we have forgotten it. Some say they remember their past +lives. + +The sluggish cream wound curdling spirals through her tea. Better remind +her of the word: metempsychosis. An example would be better. An example? + +The _Bath of the Nymph_ over the bed. Given away with the Easter number +of _Photo Bits_: Splendid masterpiece in art colours. Tea before you +put milk in. Not unlike her with her hair down: slimmer. Three and six +I gave for the frame. She said it would look nice over the bed. Naked +nymphs: Greece: and for instance all the people that lived then. + +He turned the pages back. + +--Metempsychosis, he said, is what the ancient Greeks called it. They +used to believe you could be changed into an animal or a tree, for +instance. What they called nymphs, for example. + +Her spoon ceased to stir up the sugar. She gazed straight before her, +inhaling through her arched nostrils. + +--There's a smell of burn, she said. Did you leave anything on the fire? + +--The kidney! he cried suddenly. + +He fitted the book roughly into his inner pocket and, stubbing his toes +against the broken commode, hurried out towards the smell, stepping +hastily down the stairs with a flurried stork's legs. Pungent smoke shot +up in an angry jet from a side of the pan. By prodding a prong of the +fork under the kidney he detached it and turned it turtle on its back. +Only a little burnt. He tossed it off the pan on to a plate and let the +scanty brown gravy trickle over it. + +Cup of tea now. He sat down, cut and buttered a slice of the loaf. +He shore away the burnt flesh and flung it to the cat. Then he put a +forkful into his mouth, chewing with discernment the toothsome pliant +meat. Done to a turn. A mouthful of tea. Then he cut away dies of bread, +sopped one in the gravy and put it in his mouth. What was that about +some young student and a picnic? He creased out the letter at his side, +reading it slowly as he chewed, sopping another die of bread in the +gravy and raising it to his mouth. + +Dearest Papli + +Thanks ever so much for the lovely birthday present. It suits me +splendid. Everyone says I am quite the belle in my new tam. I got +mummy's Iovely box of creams and am writing. They are lovely. I am +getting on swimming in the photo business now. Mr Coghlan took one of me +and Mrs. Will send when developed. We did great biz yesterday. Fair day +and all the beef to the heels were in. We are going to lough Owel on +Monday with a few friends to make a scrap picnic. Give my love to +mummy and to yourself a big kiss and thanks. I hear them at the piano +downstairs. There is to be a concert in the Greville Arms on Saturday. +There is a young student comes here some evenings named Bannon his +cousins or something are big swells and he sings Boylan's (I was on the +pop of writing Blazes Boylan's) song about those seaside girls. Tell him +silly Milly sends my best respects. I must now close with fondest love + +Your fond daughter, MILLY. + +P. S. Excuse bad writing am in hurry. Byby. M. + +Fifteen yesterday. Curious, fifteenth of the month too. Her first +birthday away from home. Separation. Remember the summer morning she +was born, running to knock up Mrs Thornton in Denzille street. Jolly old +woman. Lot of babies she must have helped into the world. She knew from +the first poor little Rudy wouldn't live. Well, God is good, sir. She +knew at once. He would be eleven now if he had lived. + +His vacant face stared pityingly at the postscript. Excuse bad writing. +Hurry. Piano downstairs. Coming out of her shell. Row with her in the +XL Cafe about the bracelet. Wouldn't eat her cakes or speak or look. +Saucebox. He sopped other dies of bread in the gravy and ate piece after +piece of kidney. Twelve and six a week. Not much. Still, she might do +worse. Music hall stage. Young student. He drank a draught of cooler tea +to wash down his meal. Then he read the letter again: twice. + +O, well: she knows how to mind herself. But if not? No, nothing has +happened. Of course it might. Wait in any case till it does. A wild +piece of goods. Her slim legs running up the staircase. Destiny. +Ripening now. + +Vain: very. + +He smiled with troubled affection at the kitchen window. Day I caught +her in the street pinching her cheeks to make them red. Anemic a little. +Was given milk too long. On the ERIN'S KING that day round the Kish. +Damned old tub pitching about. Not a bit funky. Her pale blue scarf +loose in the wind with her hair. _All dimpled cheeks and curls, Your +head it simply swirls._ + + +Seaside girls. Torn envelope. Hands stuck in his trousers' pockets, +jarvey off for the day, singing. Friend of the family. Swurls, he says. +Pier with lamps, summer evening, band, + + _Those girls, those girls, + Those lovely seaside girls._ + + +Milly too. Young kisses: the first. Far away now past. Mrs Marion. +Reading, lying back now, counting the strands of her hair, smiling, +braiding. + +A soft qualm, regret, flowed down his backbone, increasing. Will happen, +yes. Prevent. Useless: can't move. Girl's sweet light lips. Will happen +too. He felt the flowing qualm spread over him. Useless to move now. +Lips kissed, kissing, kissed. Full gluey woman's lips. + +Better where she is down there: away. Occupy her. Wanted a dog to pass +the time. Might take a trip down there. August bank holiday, only two +and six return. Six weeks off, however. Might work a press pass. Or +through M'Coy. + +The cat, having cleaned all her fur, returned to the meatstained paper, +nosed at it and stalked to the door. She looked back at him, mewing. +Wants to go out. Wait before a door sometime it will open. Let her wait. +Has the fidgets. Electric. Thunder in the air. Was washing at her ear +with her back to the fire too. + +He felt heavy, full: then a gentle loosening of his bowels. He stood up, +undoing the waistband of his trousers. The cat mewed to him. + +--Miaow! he said in answer. Wait till I'm ready. + +Heaviness: hot day coming. Too much trouble to fag up the stairs to the +landing. + +A paper. He liked to read at stool. Hope no ape comes knocking just as +I'm. + +In the tabledrawer he found an old number of _Titbits_. He folded it +under his armpit, went to the door and opened it. The cat went up in +soft bounds. Ah, wanted to go upstairs, curl up in a ball on the bed. + +Listening, he heard her voice: + +--Come, come, pussy. Come. + +He went out through the backdoor into the garden: stood to listen +towards the next garden. No sound. Perhaps hanging clothes out to dry. +The maid was in the garden. Fine morning. + +He bent down to regard a lean file of spearmint growing by the wall. +Make a summerhouse here. Scarlet runners. Virginia creepers. Want to +manure the whole place over, scabby soil. A coat of liver of sulphur. +All soil like that without dung. Household slops. Loam, what is this +that is? The hens in the next garden: their droppings are very good top +dressing. Best of all though are the cattle, especially when they are +fed on those oilcakes. Mulch of dung. Best thing to clean ladies' kid +gloves. Dirty cleans. Ashes too. Reclaim the whole place. Grow peas in +that corner there. Lettuce. Always have fresh greens then. Still gardens +have their drawbacks. That bee or bluebottle here Whitmonday. + +He walked on. Where is my hat, by the way? Must have put it back on the +peg. Or hanging up on the floor. Funny I don't remember that. Hallstand +too full. Four umbrellas, her raincloak. Picking up the letters. +Drago's shopbell ringing. Queer I was just thinking that moment. Brown +brillantined hair over his collar. Just had a wash and brushup. Wonder +have I time for a bath this morning. Tara street. Chap in the paybox +there got away James Stephens, they say. O'Brien. + +Deep voice that fellow Dlugacz has. Agendath what is it? Now, my miss. +Enthusiast. + +He kicked open the crazy door of the jakes. Better be careful not to get +these trousers dirty for the funeral. He went in, bowing his head +under the low lintel. Leaving the door ajar, amid the stench of mouldy +limewash and stale cobwebs he undid his braces. Before sitting down he +peered through a chink up at the nextdoor windows. The king was in his +countinghouse. Nobody. + +Asquat on the cuckstool he folded out his paper, turning its pages over +on his bared knees. Something new and easy. No great hurry. Keep it a +bit. Our prize titbit: _Matcham's Masterstroke_. Written by Mr Philip +Beaufoy, Playgoers' Club, London. Payment at the rate of one guinea +a column has been made to the writer. Three and a half. Three pounds +three. Three pounds, thirteen and six. + +Quietly he read, restraining himself, the first column and, yielding but +resisting, began the second. Midway, his last resistance yielding, he +allowed his bowels to ease themselves quietly as he read, reading still +patiently that slight constipation of yesterday quite gone. Hope it's +not too big bring on piles again. No, just right. So. Ah! Costive. One +tabloid of cascara sagrada. Life might be so. It did not move or touch +him but it was something quick and neat. Print anything now. Silly +season. He read on, seated calm above his own rising smell. Neat +certainly. _Matcham often thinks of the masterstroke by which he won the +laughing witch who now_. Begins and ends morally. _Hand in hand_. Smart. +He glanced back through what he had read and, while feeling his water +flow quietly, he envied kindly Mr Beaufoy who had written it and +received payment of three pounds, thirteen and six. + +Might manage a sketch. By Mr and Mrs L. M. Bloom. Invent a story for +some proverb. Which? Time I used to try jotting down on my cuff what she +said dressing. Dislike dressing together. Nicked myself shaving. Biting +her nether lip, hooking the placket of her skirt. Timing her. 9.l5. +Did Roberts pay you yet? 9.20. What had Gretta Conroy on? 9.23. What +possessed me to buy this comb? 9.24. I'm swelled after that cabbage. A +speck of dust on the patent leather of her boot. + +Rubbing smartly in turn each welt against her stockinged calf. Morning +after the bazaar dance when May's band played Ponchielli's dance of the +hours. Explain that: morning hours, noon, then evening coming on, then +night hours. Washing her teeth. That was the first night. Her head +dancing. Her fansticks clicking. Is that Boylan well off? He has money. +Why? I noticed he had a good rich smell off his breath dancing. No use +humming then. Allude to it. Strange kind of music that last night. The +mirror was in shadow. She rubbed her handglass briskly on her woollen +vest against her full wagging bub. Peering into it. Lines in her eyes. +It wouldn't pan out somehow. + +Evening hours, girls in grey gauze. Night hours then: black with daggers +and eyemasks. Poetical idea: pink, then golden, then grey, then black. +Still, true to life also. Day: then the night. + +He tore away half the prize story sharply and wiped himself with it. +Then he girded up his trousers, braced and buttoned himself. He pulled +back the jerky shaky door of the jakes and came forth from the gloom +into the air. + +In the bright light, lightened and cooled in limb, he eyed carefully his +black trousers: the ends, the knees, the houghs of the knees. What time +is the funeral? Better find out in the paper. + +A creak and a dark whirr in the air high up. The bells of George's +church. They tolled the hour: loud dark iron. + + _Heigho! Heigho! + Heigho! Heigho! + Heigho! Heigho!_ + + +Quarter to. There again: the overtone following through the air, third. + +Poor Dignam! + + +By lorries along sir John Rogerson's quay Mr Bloom walked soberly, past +Windmill lane, Leask's the linseed crusher, the postal telegraph office. +Could have given that address too. And past the sailors' home. He turned +from the morning noises of the quayside and walked through Lime street. +By Brady's cottages a boy for the skins lolled, his bucket of offal +linked, smoking a chewed fagbutt. A smaller girl with scars of eczema +on her forehead eyed him, listlessly holding her battered caskhoop. Tell +him if he smokes he won't grow. O let him! His life isn't such a bed of +roses. Waiting outside pubs to bring da home. Come home to ma, da. +Slack hour: won't be many there. He crossed Townsend street, passed +the frowning face of Bethel. El, yes: house of: Aleph, Beth. And past +Nichols' the undertaker. At eleven it is. Time enough. Daresay Corny +Kelleher bagged the job for O'Neill's. Singing with his eyes shut. +Corny. Met her once in the park. In the dark. What a lark. Police tout. +Her name and address she then told with my tooraloom tooraloom tay. +O, surely he bagged it. Bury him cheap in a whatyoumaycall. With my +tooraloom, tooraloom, tooraloom, tooraloom. + + +In Westland row he halted before the window of the Belfast and Oriental +Tea Company and read the legends of leadpapered packets: choice blend, +finest quality, family tea. Rather warm. Tea. Must get some from Tom +Kernan. Couldn't ask him at a funeral, though. While his eyes still read +blandly he took off his hat quietly inhaling his hairoil and sent his +right hand with slow grace over his brow and hair. Very warm morning. +Under their dropped lids his eyes found the tiny bow of the leather +headband inside his high grade ha. Just there. His right hand came down +into the bowl of his hat. His fingers found quickly a card behind the +headband and transferred it to his waistcoat pocket. + +So warm. His right hand once more more slowly went over his brow and +hair. Then he put on his hat again, relieved: and read again: choice +blend, made of the finest Ceylon brands. The far east. Lovely spot it +must be: the garden of the world, big lazy leaves to float about on, +cactuses, flowery meads, snaky lianas they call them. Wonder is it like +that. Those Cinghalese lobbing about in the sun in _dolce far niente_, +not doing a hand's turn all day. Sleep six months out of twelve. Too hot +to quarrel. Influence of the climate. Lethargy. Flowers of idleness. The +air feeds most. Azotes. Hothouse in Botanic gardens. Sensitive plants. +Waterlilies. Petals too tired to. Sleeping sickness in the air. Walk on +roseleaves. Imagine trying to eat tripe and cowheel. Where was the chap +I saw in that picture somewhere? Ah yes, in the dead sea floating on his +back, reading a book with a parasol open. Couldn't sink if you tried: so +thick with salt. Because the weight of the water, no, the weight of +the body in the water is equal to the weight of the what? Or is it the +volume is equal to the weight? It's a law something like that. Vance in +High school cracking his fingerjoints, teaching. The college curriculum. +Cracking curriculum. What is weight really when you say the weight? +Thirtytwo feet per second per second. Law of falling bodies: per second +per second. They all fall to the ground. The earth. It's the force of +gravity of the earth is the weight. + +He turned away and sauntered across the road. How did she walk with her +sausages? Like that something. As he walked he took the folded _Freeman_ +from his sidepocket, unfolded it, rolled it lengthwise in a baton and +tapped it at each sauntering step against his trouserleg. Careless air: +just drop in to see. Per second per second. Per second for every second +it means. From the curbstone he darted a keen glance through the door of +the postoffice. Too late box. Post here. No-one. In. + +He handed the card through the brass grill. + +--Are there any letters for me? he asked. + +While the postmistress searched a pigeonhole he gazed at the recruiting +poster with soldiers of all arms on parade: and held the tip of his +baton against his nostrils, smelling freshprinted rag paper. No answer +probably. Went too far last time. + +The postmistress handed him back through the grill his card with a +letter. He thanked her and glanced rapidly at the typed envelope. + +Henry Flower Esq, c/o P. O. Westland Row, City. + +Answered anyhow. He slipped card and letter into his sidepocket, +reviewing again the soldiers on parade. Where's old Tweedy's regiment? +Castoff soldier. There: bearskin cap and hackle plume. No, he's a +grenadier. Pointed cuffs. There he is: royal Dublin fusiliers. Redcoats. +Too showy. That must be why the women go after them. Uniform. Easier to +enlist and drill. Maud Gonne's letter about taking them off O'Connell +street at night: disgrace to our Irish capital. Griffith's paper is on +the same tack now: an army rotten with venereal disease: overseas or +halfseasover empire. Half baked they look: hypnotised like. Eyes front. +Mark time. Table: able. Bed: ed. The King's own. Never see him dressed +up as a fireman or a bobby. A mason, yes. + +He strolled out of the postoffice and turned to the right. Talk: as if +that would mend matters. His hand went into his pocket and a forefinger +felt its way under the flap of the envelope, ripping it open in jerks. +Women will pay a lot of heed, I don't think. His fingers drew forth the +letter the letter and crumpled the envelope in his pocket. Something +pinned on: photo perhaps. Hair? No. + +M'Coy. Get rid of him quickly. Take me out of my way. Hate company when +you. + +--Hello, Bloom. Where are you off to? + +--Hello, M'Coy. Nowhere in particular. + +--How's the body? + +--Fine. How are you? + +--Just keeping alive, M'Coy said. + +His eyes on the black tie and clothes he asked with low respect: + +--Is there any... no trouble I hope? I see you're... + +--O, no, Mr Bloom said. Poor Dignam, you know. The funeral is today. + +--To be sure, poor fellow. So it is. What time? + +A photo it isn't. A badge maybe. + +--E... eleven, Mr Bloom answered. + +--I must try to get out there, M'Coy said. Eleven, is it? I only heard +it last night. Who was telling me? Holohan. You know Hoppy? + +--I know. + +Mr Bloom gazed across the road at the outsider drawn up before the door +of the Grosvenor. The porter hoisted the valise up on the well. She +stood still, waiting, while the man, husband, brother, like her, +searched his pockets for change. Stylish kind of coat with that roll +collar, warm for a day like this, looks like blanketcloth. Careless +stand of her with her hands in those patch pockets. Like that haughty +creature at the polo match. Women all for caste till you touch the spot. +Handsome is and handsome does. Reserved about to yield. The honourable +Mrs and Brutus is an honourable man. Possess her once take the starch +out of her. + +--I was with Bob Doran, he's on one of his periodical bends, and what do +you call him Bantam Lyons. Just down there in Conway's we were. + +Doran Lyons in Conway's. She raised a gloved hand to her hair. In came +Hoppy. Having a wet. Drawing back his head and gazing far from beneath +his vailed eyelids he saw the bright fawn skin shine in the glare, the +braided drums. Clearly I can see today. Moisture about gives long sight +perhaps. Talking of one thing or another. Lady's hand. Which side will +she get up? + +--And he said: _Sad thing about our poor friend Paddy! What Paddy?_ I +said. _Poor little Paddy Dignam_, he said. + +Off to the country: Broadstone probably. High brown boots with laces +dangling. Wellturned foot. What is he foostering over that change for? +Sees me looking. Eye out for other fellow always. Good fallback. Two +strings to her bow. + +--_Why?_ I said. _What's wrong with him?_ I said. + +Proud: rich: silk stockings. + +--Yes, Mr Bloom said. + +He moved a little to the side of M'Coy's talking head. Getting up in a +minute. + +--_What's wrong with him_? He said. _He's dead_, he said. And, faith, +he filled up. _Is it Paddy Dignam_? I said. I couldn't believe it when I +heard it. I was with him no later than Friday last or Thursday was it in +the Arch. _Yes,_ he said. _He's gone. He died on Monday, poor fellow_. +Watch! Watch! Silk flash rich stockings white. Watch! + +A heavy tramcar honking its gong slewed between. + +Lost it. Curse your noisy pugnose. Feels locked out of it. Paradise and +the peri. Always happening like that. The very moment. Girl in Eustace +street hallway Monday was it settling her garter. Her friend covering +the display of _esprit de corps_. Well, what are you gaping at? + +--Yes, yes, Mr Bloom said after a dull sigh. Another gone. + +--One of the best, M'Coy said. + +The tram passed. They drove off towards the Loop Line bridge, her rich +gloved hand on the steel grip. Flicker, flicker: the laceflare of her +hat in the sun: flicker, flick. + +--Wife well, I suppose? M'Coy's changed voice said. + +--O, yes, Mr Bloom said. Tiptop, thanks. + +He unrolled the newspaper baton idly and read idly: + +_What is home without Plumtree's Potted Meat? Incomplete With it an +abode of bliss._ + +--My missus has just got an engagement. At least it's not settled yet. + +Valise tack again. By the way no harm. I'm off that, thanks. + +Mr Bloom turned his largelidded eyes with unhasty friendliness. + +--My wife too, he said. She's going to sing at a swagger affair in the +Ulster Hall, Belfast, on the twenty-fifth. + +--That so? M'Coy said. Glad to hear that, old man. Who's getting it up? + +Mrs Marion Bloom. Not up yet. Queen was in her bedroom eating bread and. +No book. Blackened court cards laid along her thigh by sevens. Dark lady +and fair man. Letter. Cat furry black ball. Torn strip of envelope. + + _Love's + Old + Sweet + Song + Comes lo-ove's old..._ + +--It's a kind of a tour, don't you see, Mr Bloom said thoughtfully. +_Sweeeet song_. There's a committee formed. Part shares and part +profits. + +M'Coy nodded, picking at his moustache stubble. + +--O, well, he said. That's good news. + +He moved to go. + +--Well, glad to see you looking fit, he said. Meet you knocking around. + +--Yes, Mr Bloom said. + +--Tell you what, M'Coy said. You might put down my name at the funeral, +will you? I'd like to go but I mightn't be able, you see. There's a +drowning case at Sandycove may turn up and then the coroner and myself +would have to go down if the body is found. You just shove in my name if +I'm not there, will you? + +--I'll do that, Mr Bloom said, moving to get off. That'll be all right. + +--Right, M'Coy said brightly. Thanks, old man. I'd go if I possibly +could. Well, tolloll. Just C. P. M'Coy will do. + +--That will be done, Mr Bloom answered firmly. + +Didn't catch me napping that wheeze. The quick touch. Soft mark. I'd +like my job. Valise I have a particular fancy for. Leather. Capped +corners, rivetted edges, double action lever lock. Bob Cowley lent him +his for the Wicklow regatta concert last year and never heard tidings of +it from that good day to this. + +Mr Bloom, strolling towards Brunswick street, smiled. My missus has just +got an. Reedy freckled soprano. Cheeseparing nose. Nice enough in its +way: for a little ballad. No guts in it. You and me, don't you know: +in the same boat. Softsoaping. Give you the needle that would. Can't +he hear the difference? Think he's that way inclined a bit. Against +my grain somehow. Thought that Belfast would fetch him. I hope that +smallpox up there doesn't get worse. Suppose she wouldn't let herself be +vaccinated again. Your wife and my wife. + +Wonder is he pimping after me? + +Mr Bloom stood at the corner, his eyes wandering over the multicoloured +hoardings. Cantrell and Cochrane's Ginger Ale (Aromatic). Clery's Summer +Sale. No, he's going on straight. Hello. _Leah_ tonight. Mrs Bandmann +Palmer. Like to see her again in that. _Hamlet_ she played last night. +Male impersonator. Perhaps he was a woman. Why Ophelia committed +suicide. Poor papa! How he used to talk of Kate Bateman in that. Outside +the Adelphi in London waited all the afternoon to get in. Year before +I was born that was: sixtyfive. And Ristori in Vienna. What is this the +right name is? By Mosenthal it is. Rachel, is it? No. The scene he was +always talking about where the old blind Abraham recognises the voice +and puts his fingers on his face. + +Nathan's voice! His son's voice! I hear the voice of Nathan who left his +father to die of grief and misery in my arms, who left the house of his +father and left the God of his father. + +Every word is so deep, Leopold. + +Poor papa! Poor man! I'm glad I didn't go into the room to look at his +face. That day! O, dear! O, dear! Ffoo! Well, perhaps it was best for +him. + +Mr Bloom went round the corner and passed the drooping nags of the +hazard. No use thinking of it any more. Nosebag time. Wish I hadn't met +that M'Coy fellow. + +He came nearer and heard a crunching of gilded oats, the gently champing +teeth. Their full buck eyes regarded him as he went by, amid the sweet +oaten reek of horsepiss. Their Eldorado. Poor jugginses! Damn all they +know or care about anything with their long noses stuck in nosebags. +Too full for words. Still they get their feed all right and their doss. +Gelded too: a stump of black guttapercha wagging limp between their +haunches. Might be happy all the same that way. Good poor brutes they +look. Still their neigh can be very irritating. + +He drew the letter from his pocket and folded it into the newspaper he +carried. Might just walk into her here. The lane is safer. + +He passed the cabman's shelter. Curious the life of drifting cabbies. +All weathers, all places, time or setdown, no will of their own. _Voglio +e non_. Like to give them an odd cigarette. Sociable. Shout a few flying +syllables as they pass. He hummed: + + _La ci darem la mano + La la lala la la._ + +He turned into Cumberland street and, going on some paces, halted in the +lee of the station wall. No-one. Meade's timberyard. Piled balks. Ruins +and tenements. With careful tread he passed over a hopscotch court with +its forgotten pickeystone. Not a sinner. Near the timberyard a squatted +child at marbles, alone, shooting the taw with a cunnythumb. A wise +tabby, a blinking sphinx, watched from her warm sill. Pity to disturb +them. Mohammed cut a piece out of his mantle not to wake her. Open it. +And once I played marbles when I went to that old dame's school. She +liked mignonette. Mrs Ellis's. And Mr? He opened the letter within the +newspaper. + +A flower. I think it's a. A yellow flower with flattened petals. Not +annoyed then? What does she say? + +Dear Henry + +I got your last letter to me and thank you very much for it. I am sorry +you did not like my last letter. Why did you enclose the stamps? I am +awfully angry with you. I do wish I could punish you for that. I called +you naughty boy because I do not like that other world. Please tell me +what is the real meaning of that word? Are you not happy in your home +you poor little naughty boy? I do wish I could do something for you. +Please tell me what you think of poor me. I often think of the beautiful +name you have. Dear Henry, when will we meet? I think of you so often +you have no idea. I have never felt myself so much drawn to a man as +you. I feel so bad about. Please write me a long letter and tell me +more. Remember if you do not I will punish you. So now you know what I +will do to you, you naughty boy, if you do not wrote. O how I long to +meet you. Henry dear, do not deny my request before my patience are +exhausted. Then I will tell you all. Goodbye now, naughty darling, I +have such a bad headache. today. and write _by return_ to your longing + +Martha + +P. S. Do tell me what kind of perfume does your wife use. I want to +know. + +He tore the flower gravely from its pinhold smelt its almost no smell +and placed it in his heart pocket. Language of flowers. They like it +because no-one can hear. Or a poison bouquet to strike him down. Then +walking slowly forward he read the letter again, murmuring here and +there a word. Angry tulips with you darling manflower punish your cactus +if you don't please poor forgetmenot how I long violets to dear roses +when we soon anemone meet all naughty nightstalk wife Martha's perfume. +Having read it all he took it from the newspaper and put it back in his +sidepocket. + +Weak joy opened his lips. Changed since the first letter. Wonder did she +wrote it herself. Doing the indignant: a girl of good family like me, +respectable character. Could meet one Sunday after the rosary. Thank +you: not having any. Usual love scrimmage. Then running round corners. +Bad as a row with Molly. Cigar has a cooling effect. Narcotic. Go +further next time. Naughty boy: punish: afraid of words, of course. +Brutal, why not? Try it anyhow. A bit at a time. + +Fingering still the letter in his pocket he drew the pin out of it. +Common pin, eh? He threw it on the road. Out of her clothes somewhere: +pinned together. Queer the number of pins they always have. No roses +without thorns. + +Flat Dublin voices bawled in his head. Those two sluts that night in the +Coombe, linked together in the rain. + + _O, Mary lost the pin of her drawers. + She didn't know what to do + To keep it up + To keep it up._ + +It? Them. Such a bad headache. Has her roses probably. Or sitting all +day typing. Eyefocus bad for stomach nerves. What perfume does your wife +use. Now could you make out a thing like that? + + _To keep it up._ + +Martha, Mary. I saw that picture somewhere I forget now old master or +faked for money. He is sitting in their house, talking. Mysterious. Also +the two sluts in the Coombe would listen. + + _To keep it up._ + +Nice kind of evening feeling. No more wandering about. Just loll there: +quiet dusk: let everything rip. Forget. Tell about places you have been, +strange customs. The other one, jar on her head, was getting the supper: +fruit, olives, lovely cool water out of a well, stonecold like the hole +in the wall at Ashtown. Must carry a paper goblet next time I go to the +trottingmatches. She listens with big dark soft eyes. Tell her: more and +more: all. Then a sigh: silence. Long long long rest. + +Going under the railway arch he took out the envelope, tore it swiftly +in shreds and scattered them towards the road. The shreds fluttered +away, sank in the dank air: a white flutter, then all sank. + +Henry Flower. You could tear up a cheque for a hundred pounds in the +same way. Simple bit of paper. Lord Iveagh once cashed a sevenfigure +cheque for a million in the bank of Ireland. Shows you the money to be +made out of porter. Still the other brother lord Ardilaun has to change +his shirt four times a day, they say. Skin breeds lice or vermin. A +million pounds, wait a moment. Twopence a pint, fourpence a quart, +eightpence a gallon of porter, no, one and fourpence a gallon of porter. +One and four into twenty: fifteen about. Yes, exactly. Fifteen millions +of barrels of porter. + +What am I saying barrels? Gallons. About a million barrels all the same. + +An incoming train clanked heavily above his head, coach after coach. +Barrels bumped in his head: dull porter slopped and churned inside. +The bungholes sprang open and a huge dull flood leaked out, flowing +together, winding through mudflats all over the level land, a lazy +pooling swirl of liquor bearing along wideleaved flowers of its froth. + +He had reached the open backdoor of All Hallows. Stepping into the porch +he doffed his hat, took the card from his pocket and tucked it again +behind the leather headband. Damn it. I might have tried to work M'Coy +for a pass to Mullingar. + +Same notice on the door. Sermon by the very reverend John Conmee S.J. +on saint Peter Claver S.J. and the African Mission. Prayers for the +conversion of Gladstone they had too when he was almost unconscious. The +protestants are the same. Convert Dr William J. Walsh D.D. to the true +religion. Save China's millions. Wonder how they explain it to the +heathen Chinee. Prefer an ounce of opium. Celestials. Rank heresy for +them. Buddha their god lying on his side in the museum. Taking it easy +with hand under his cheek. Josssticks burning. Not like Ecce Homo. Crown +of thorns and cross. Clever idea Saint Patrick the shamrock. Chopsticks? +Conmee: Martin Cunningham knows him: distinguishedlooking. Sorry I +didn't work him about getting Molly into the choir instead of that +Father Farley who looked a fool but wasn't. They're taught that. He's +not going out in bluey specs with the sweat rolling off him to baptise +blacks, is he? The glasses would take their fancy, flashing. Like to see +them sitting round in a ring with blub lips, entranced, listening. Still +life. Lap it up like milk, I suppose. + +The cold smell of sacred stone called him. He trod the worn steps, +pushed the swingdoor and entered softly by the rere. + +Something going on: some sodality. Pity so empty. Nice discreet place +to be next some girl. Who is my neighbour? Jammed by the hour to slow +music. That woman at midnight mass. Seventh heaven. Women knelt in the +benches with crimson halters round their necks, heads bowed. A batch +knelt at the altarrails. The priest went along by them, murmuring, +holding the thing in his hands. He stopped at each, took out a +communion, shook a drop or two (are they in water?) off it and put it +neatly into her mouth. Her hat and head sank. Then the next one. Her hat +sank at once. Then the next one: a small old woman. The priest bent down +to put it into her mouth, murmuring all the time. Latin. The next one. +Shut your eyes and open your mouth. What? _Corpus:_ body. Corpse. Good +idea the Latin. Stupefies them first. Hospice for the dying. They +don't seem to chew it: only swallow it down. Rum idea: eating bits of a +corpse. Why the cannibals cotton to it. + +He stood aside watching their blind masks pass down the aisle, one by +one, and seek their places. He approached a bench and seated himself in +its corner, nursing his hat and newspaper. These pots we have to wear. +We ought to have hats modelled on our heads. They were about him here +and there, with heads still bowed in their crimson halters, waiting for +it to melt in their stomachs. Something like those mazzoth: it's that +sort of bread: unleavened shewbread. Look at them. Now I bet it makes +them feel happy. Lollipop. It does. Yes, bread of angels it's called. +There's a big idea behind it, kind of kingdom of God is within you feel. +First communicants. Hokypoky penny a lump. Then feel all like one family +party, same in the theatre, all in the same swim. They do. I'm sure of +that. Not so lonely. In our confraternity. Then come out a bit spreeish. +Let off steam. Thing is if you really believe in it. Lourdes cure, +waters of oblivion, and the Knock apparition, statues bleeding. Old +fellow asleep near that confessionbox. Hence those snores. Blind faith. +Safe in the arms of kingdom come. Lulls all pain. Wake this time next +year. + +He saw the priest stow the communion cup away, well in, and kneel an +instant before it, showing a large grey bootsole from under the lace +affair he had on. Suppose he lost the pin of his. He wouldn't know what +to do to. Bald spot behind. Letters on his back: I.N.R.I? No: I.H.S. +Molly told me one time I asked her. I have sinned: or no: I have +suffered, it is. And the other one? Iron nails ran in. + +Meet one Sunday after the rosary. Do not deny my request. Turn up with +a veil and black bag. Dusk and the light behind her. She might be here +with a ribbon round her neck and do the other thing all the same on the +sly. Their character. That fellow that turned queen's evidence on the +invincibles he used to receive the, Carey was his name, the communion +every morning. This very church. Peter Carey, yes. No, Peter Claver I am +thinking of. Denis Carey. And just imagine that. Wife and six children +at home. And plotting that murder all the time. Those crawthumpers, +now that's a good name for them, there's always something shiftylooking +about them. They're not straight men of business either. O, no, she's +not here: the flower: no, no. By the way, did I tear up that envelope? +Yes: under the bridge. + +The priest was rinsing out the chalice: then he tossed off the dregs +smartly. Wine. Makes it more aristocratic than for example if he drank +what they are used to Guinness's porter or some temperance beverage +Wheatley's Dublin hop bitters or Cantrell and Cochrane's ginger ale +(aromatic). Doesn't give them any of it: shew wine: only the other. +Cold comfort. Pious fraud but quite right: otherwise they'd have one old +booser worse than another coming along, cadging for a drink. Queer the +whole atmosphere of the. Quite right. Perfectly right that is. + +Mr Bloom looked back towards the choir. Not going to be any music. Pity. +Who has the organ here I wonder? Old Glynn he knew how to make that +instrument talk, the _vibrato_: fifty pounds a year they say he had in +Gardiner street. Molly was in fine voice that day, the _Stabat Mater_ +of Rossini. Father Bernard Vaughan's sermon first. Christ or Pilate? +Christ, but don't keep us all night over it. Music they wanted. +Footdrill stopped. Could hear a pin drop. I told her to pitch her voice +against that corner. I could feel the thrill in the air, the full, the +people looking up: + +_Quis est homo._ + +Some of that old sacred music splendid. Mercadante: seven last words. +Mozart's twelfth mass: _Gloria_ in that. Those old popes keen on music, +on art and statues and pictures of all kinds. Palestrina for example +too. They had a gay old time while it lasted. Healthy too, chanting, +regular hours, then brew liqueurs. Benedictine. Green Chartreuse. Still, +having eunuchs in their choir that was coming it a bit thick. What kind +of voice is it? Must be curious to hear after their own strong basses. +Connoisseurs. Suppose they wouldn't feel anything after. Kind of a +placid. No worry. Fall into flesh, don't they? Gluttons, tall, long +legs. Who knows? Eunuch. One way out of it. + +He saw the priest bend down and kiss the altar and then face about and +bless all the people. All crossed themselves and stood up. Mr Bloom +glanced about him and then stood up, looking over the risen hats. Stand +up at the gospel of course. Then all settled down on their knees again +and he sat back quietly in his bench. The priest came down from the +altar, holding the thing out from him, and he and the massboy answered +each other in Latin. Then the priest knelt down and began to read off a +card: + +--O God, our refuge and our strength... + +Mr Bloom put his face forward to catch the words. English. Throw them +the bone. I remember slightly. How long since your last mass? Glorious +and immaculate virgin. Joseph, her spouse. Peter and Paul. More +interesting if you understood what it was all about. Wonderful +organisation certainly, goes like clockwork. Confession. Everyone wants +to. Then I will tell you all. Penance. Punish me, please. Great weapon +in their hands. More than doctor or solicitor. Woman dying to. And I +schschschschschsch. And did you chachachachacha? And why did you? Look +down at her ring to find an excuse. Whispering gallery walls have ears. +Husband learn to his surprise. God's little joke. Then out she comes. +Repentance skindeep. Lovely shame. Pray at an altar. Hail Mary and Holy +Mary. Flowers, incense, candles melting. Hide her blushes. Salvation +army blatant imitation. Reformed prostitute will address the meeting. +How I found the Lord. Squareheaded chaps those must be in Rome: they +work the whole show. And don't they rake in the money too? Bequests +also: to the P.P. for the time being in his absolute discretion. +Masses for the repose of my soul to be said publicly with open doors. +Monasteries and convents. The priest in that Fermanagh will case in the +witnessbox. No browbeating him. He had his answer pat for everything. +Liberty and exaltation of our holy mother the church. The doctors of the +church: they mapped out the whole theology of it. + +The priest prayed: + +--Blessed Michael, archangel, defend us in the hour of conflict. Be +our safeguard against the wickedness and snares of the devil (may God +restrain him, we humbly pray!): and do thou, O prince of the heavenly +host, by the power of God thrust Satan down to hell and with him those +other wicked spirits who wander through the world for the ruin of souls. + +The priest and the massboy stood up and walked off. All over. The women +remained behind: thanksgiving. + +Better be shoving along. Brother Buzz. Come around with the plate +perhaps. Pay your Easter duty. + +He stood up. Hello. Were those two buttons of my waistcoat open all the +time? Women enjoy it. Never tell you. But we. Excuse, miss, there's a +(whh!) just a (whh!) fluff. Or their skirt behind, placket unhooked. +Glimpses of the moon. Annoyed if you don't. Why didn't you tell me +before. Still like you better untidy. Good job it wasn't farther south. +He passed, discreetly buttoning, down the aisle and out through the main +door into the light. He stood a moment unseeing by the cold black marble +bowl while before him and behind two worshippers dipped furtive hands in +the low tide of holy water. Trams: a car of Prescott's dyeworks: a widow +in her weeds. Notice because I'm in mourning myself. He covered himself. +How goes the time? Quarter past. Time enough yet. Better get that lotion +made up. Where is this? Ah yes, the last time. Sweny's in Lincoln place. +Chemists rarely move. Their green and gold beaconjars too heavy to stir. +Hamilton Long's, founded in the year of the flood. Huguenot churchyard +near there. Visit some day. + +He walked southward along Westland row. But the recipe is in the other +trousers. O, and I forgot that latchkey too. Bore this funeral affair. +O well, poor fellow, it's not his fault. When was it I got it made up +last? Wait. I changed a sovereign I remember. First of the month it must +have been or the second. O, he can look it up in the prescriptions book. + +The chemist turned back page after page. Sandy shrivelled smell he seems +to have. Shrunken skull. And old. Quest for the philosopher's stone. The +alchemists. Drugs age you after mental excitement. Lethargy then. Why? +Reaction. A lifetime in a night. Gradually changes your character. +Living all the day among herbs, ointments, disinfectants. All his +alabaster lilypots. Mortar and pestle. Aq. Dist. Fol. Laur. Te Virid. +Smell almost cure you like the dentist's doorbell. Doctor Whack. He +ought to physic himself a bit. Electuary or emulsion. The first fellow +that picked an herb to cure himself had a bit of pluck. Simples. Want to +be careful. Enough stuff here to chloroform you. Test: turns blue +litmus paper red. Chloroform. Overdose of laudanum. Sleeping draughts. +Lovephiltres. Paragoric poppysyrup bad for cough. Clogs the pores or the +phlegm. Poisons the only cures. Remedy where you least expect it. Clever +of nature. + +--About a fortnight ago, sir? + +--Yes, Mr Bloom said. + +He waited by the counter, inhaling slowly the keen reek of drugs, the +dusty dry smell of sponges and loofahs. Lot of time taken up telling +your aches and pains. + +--Sweet almond oil and tincture of benzoin, Mr Bloom said, and then +orangeflower water... + +It certainly did make her skin so delicate white like wax. + +--And white wax also, he said. + +Brings out the darkness of her eyes. Looking at me, the sheet up to +her eyes, Spanish, smelling herself, when I was fixing the links in my +cuffs. Those homely recipes are often the best: strawberries for the +teeth: nettles and rainwater: oatmeal they say steeped in buttermilk. +Skinfood. One of the old queen's sons, duke of Albany was it? had only +one skin. Leopold, yes. Three we have. Warts, bunions and pimples to +make it worse. But you want a perfume too. What perfume does your? _Peau +d'Espagne_. That orangeflower water is so fresh. Nice smell these soaps +have. Pure curd soap. Time to get a bath round the corner. Hammam. +Turkish. Massage. Dirt gets rolled up in your navel. Nicer if a nice +girl did it. Also I think I. Yes I. Do it in the bath. Curious longing +I. Water to water. Combine business with pleasure. Pity no time for +massage. Feel fresh then all the day. Funeral be rather glum. + +--Yes, sir, the chemist said. That was two and nine. Have you brought a +bottle? + +--No, Mr Bloom said. Make it up, please. I'll call later in the day and +I'll take one of these soaps. How much are they? + +--Fourpence, sir. + +Mr Bloom raised a cake to his nostrils. Sweet lemony wax. + +--I'll take this one, he said. That makes three and a penny. + +--Yes, sir, the chemist said. You can pay all together, sir, when you +come back. + +--Good, Mr Bloom said. + +He strolled out of the shop, the newspaper baton under his armpit, the +coolwrappered soap in his left hand. + +At his armpit Bantam Lyons' voice and hand said: + +--Hello, Bloom. What's the best news? Is that today's? Show us a minute. + +Shaved off his moustache again, by Jove! Long cold upper lip. To look +younger. He does look balmy. Younger than I am. + +Bantam Lyons's yellow blacknailed fingers unrolled the baton. Wants a +wash too. Take off the rough dirt. Good morning, have you used Pears' +soap? Dandruff on his shoulders. Scalp wants oiling. + +--I want to see about that French horse that's running today, Bantam +Lyons said. Where the bugger is it? + +He rustled the pleated pages, jerking his chin on his high collar. +Barber's itch. Tight collar he'll lose his hair. Better leave him the +paper and get shut of him. + +--You can keep it, Mr Bloom said. + +--Ascot. Gold cup. Wait, Bantam Lyons muttered. Half a mo. Maximum the +second. + +--I was just going to throw it away, Mr Bloom said. + +Bantam Lyons raised his eyes suddenly and leered weakly. + +--What's that? his sharp voice said. + +--I say you can keep it, Mr Bloom answered. I was going to throw it away +that moment. + +Bantam Lyons doubted an instant, leering: then thrust the outspread +sheets back on Mr Bloom's arms. + +--I'll risk it, he said. Here, thanks. + +He sped off towards Conway's corner. God speed scut. + +Mr Bloom folded the sheets again to a neat square and lodged the soap +in it, smiling. Silly lips of that chap. Betting. Regular hotbed of it +lately. Messenger boys stealing to put on sixpence. Raffle for large +tender turkey. Your Christmas dinner for threepence. Jack Fleming +embezzling to gamble then smuggled off to America. Keeps a hotel now. +They never come back. Fleshpots of Egypt. + +He walked cheerfully towards the mosque of the baths. Remind you of a +mosque, redbaked bricks, the minarets. College sports today I see. He +eyed the horseshoe poster over the gate of college park: cyclist doubled +up like a cod in a pot. Damn bad ad. Now if they had made it round +like a wheel. Then the spokes: sports, sports, sports: and the hub big: +college. Something to catch the eye. + +There's Hornblower standing at the porter's lodge. Keep him on hands: +might take a turn in there on the nod. How do you do, Mr Hornblower? How +do you do, sir? + +Heavenly weather really. If life was always like that. Cricket weather. +Sit around under sunshades. Over after over. Out. They can't play it +here. Duck for six wickets. Still Captain Culler broke a window in the +Kildare street club with a slog to square leg. Donnybrook fair more +in their line. And the skulls we were acracking when M'Carthy took the +floor. Heatwave. Won't last. Always passing, the stream of life, which +in the stream of life we trace is dearer than them all. + +Enjoy a bath now: clean trough of water, cool enamel, the gentle tepid +stream. This is my body. + +He foresaw his pale body reclined in it at full, naked, in a womb of +warmth, oiled by scented melting soap, softly laved. He saw his +trunk and limbs riprippled over and sustained, buoyed lightly upward, +lemonyellow: his navel, bud of flesh: and saw the dark tangled curls of +his bush floating, floating hair of the stream around the limp father of +thousands, a languid floating flower. + + + +Martin Cunningham, first, poked his silkhatted head into the creaking +carriage and, entering deftly, seated himself. Mr Power stepped in after +him, curving his height with care. + +--Come on, Simon. + +--After you, Mr Bloom said. + +Mr Dedalus covered himself quickly and got in, saying: + +Yes, yes. + +--Are we all here now? Martin Cunningham asked. Come along, Bloom. + +Mr Bloom entered and sat in the vacant place. He pulled the door to +after him and slammed it twice till it shut tight. He passed an arm +through the armstrap and looked seriously from the open carriagewindow +at the lowered blinds of the avenue. One dragged aside: an old woman +peeping. Nose whiteflattened against the pane. Thanking her stars she +was passed over. Extraordinary the interest they take in a corpse. Glad +to see us go we give them such trouble coming. Job seems to suit them. +Huggermugger in corners. Slop about in slipperslappers for fear he'd +wake. Then getting it ready. Laying it out. Molly and Mrs Fleming making +the bed. Pull it more to your side. Our windingsheet. Never know who +will touch you dead. Wash and shampoo. I believe they clip the nails and +the hair. Keep a bit in an envelope. Grows all the same after. Unclean +job. + +All waited. Nothing was said. Stowing in the wreaths probably. I am +sitting on something hard. Ah, that soap: in my hip pocket. Better shift +it out of that. Wait for an opportunity. + +All waited. Then wheels were heard from in front, turning: then nearer: +then horses' hoofs. A jolt. Their carriage began to move, creaking and +swaying. Other hoofs and creaking wheels started behind. The blinds of +the avenue passed and number nine with its craped knocker, door ajar. At +walking pace. + +They waited still, their knees jogging, till they had turned and were +passing along the tramtracks. Tritonville road. Quicker. The wheels +rattled rolling over the cobbled causeway and the crazy glasses shook +rattling in the doorframes. + +--What way is he taking us? Mr Power asked through both windows. + +--Irishtown, Martin Cunningham said. Ringsend. Brunswick street. + +Mr Dedalus nodded, looking out. + +--That's a fine old custom, he said. I am glad to see it has not died +out. + +All watched awhile through their windows caps and hats lifted by +passers. Respect. The carriage swerved from the tramtrack to the +smoother road past Watery lane. Mr Bloom at gaze saw a lithe young man, +clad in mourning, a wide hat. + +--There's a friend of yours gone by, Dedalus, he said. + +--Who is that? + +--Your son and heir. + +--Where is he? Mr Dedalus said, stretching over across. + +The carriage, passing the open drains and mounds of rippedup roadway +before the tenement houses, lurched round the corner and, swerving back +to the tramtrack, rolled on noisily with chattering wheels. Mr Dedalus +fell back, saying: + +--Was that Mulligan cad with him? His _fidus Achates_! + +--No, Mr Bloom said. He was alone. + +--Down with his aunt Sally, I suppose, Mr Dedalus said, the Goulding +faction, the drunken little costdrawer and Crissie, papa's little lump +of dung, the wise child that knows her own father. + +Mr Bloom smiled joylessly on Ringsend road. Wallace Bros: the +bottleworks: Dodder bridge. + +Richie Goulding and the legal bag. Goulding, Collis and Ward he calls +the firm. His jokes are getting a bit damp. Great card he was. Waltzing +in Stamer street with Ignatius Gallaher on a Sunday morning, the +landlady's two hats pinned on his head. Out on the rampage all night. +Beginning to tell on him now: that backache of his, I fear. Wife ironing +his back. Thinks he'll cure it with pills. All breadcrumbs they are. +About six hundred per cent profit. + +--He's in with a lowdown crowd, Mr Dedalus snarled. That Mulligan is a +contaminated bloody doubledyed ruffian by all accounts. His name stinks +all over Dublin. But with the help of God and His blessed mother I'll +make it my business to write a letter one of those days to his mother +or his aunt or whatever she is that will open her eye as wide as a gate. +I'll tickle his catastrophe, believe you me. + +He cried above the clatter of the wheels: + +--I won't have her bastard of a nephew ruin my son. A counterjumper's +son. Selling tapes in my cousin, Peter Paul M'Swiney's. Not likely. + +He ceased. Mr Bloom glanced from his angry moustache to Mr Power's mild +face and Martin Cunningham's eyes and beard, gravely shaking. Noisy +selfwilled man. Full of his son. He is right. Something to hand on. If +little Rudy had lived. See him grow up. Hear his voice in the house. +Walking beside Molly in an Eton suit. My son. Me in his eyes. Strange +feeling it would be. From me. Just a chance. Must have been that morning +in Raymond terrace she was at the window watching the two dogs at it by +the wall of the cease to do evil. And the sergeant grinning up. She had +that cream gown on with the rip she never stitched. Give us a touch, +Poldy. God, I'm dying for it. How life begins. + +Got big then. Had to refuse the Greystones concert. My son inside her. +I could have helped him on in life. I could. Make him independent. Learn +German too. + +--Are we late? Mr Power asked. + +--Ten minutes, Martin Cunningham said, looking at his watch. + +Molly. Milly. Same thing watered down. Her tomboy oaths. O jumping +Jupiter! Ye gods and little fishes! Still, she's a dear girl. Soon be a +woman. Mullingar. Dearest Papli. Young student. Yes, yes: a woman too. +Life, life. + +The carriage heeled over and back, their four trunks swaying. + +--Corny might have given us a more commodious yoke, Mr Power said. + +--He might, Mr Dedalus said, if he hadn't that squint troubling him. Do +you follow me? + +He closed his left eye. Martin Cunningham began to brush away +crustcrumbs from under his thighs. + +--What is this, he said, in the name of God? Crumbs? + +--Someone seems to have been making a picnic party here lately, Mr Power +said. + +All raised their thighs and eyed with disfavour the mildewed buttonless +leather of the seats. Mr Dedalus, twisting his nose, frowned downward +and said: + +--Unless I'm greatly mistaken. What do you think, Martin? + +--It struck me too, Martin Cunningham said. + +Mr Bloom set his thigh down. Glad I took that bath. Feel my feet quite +clean. But I wish Mrs Fleming had darned these socks better. + +Mr Dedalus sighed resignedly. + +--After all, he said, it's the most natural thing in the world. + +--Did Tom Kernan turn up? Martin Cunningham asked, twirling the peak of +his beard gently. + +--Yes, Mr Bloom answered. He's behind with Ned Lambert and Hynes. + +--And Corny Kelleher himself? Mr Power asked. + +--At the cemetery, Martin Cunningham said. + +--I met M'Coy this morning, Mr Bloom said. He said he'd try to come. + +The carriage halted short. + +--What's wrong? + +--We're stopped. + +--Where are we? + +Mr Bloom put his head out of the window. + +--The grand canal, he said. + +Gasworks. Whooping cough they say it cures. Good job Milly never got +it. Poor children! Doubles them up black and blue in convulsions. Shame +really. Got off lightly with illnesses compared. Only measles. Flaxseed +tea. Scarlatina, influenza epidemics. Canvassing for death. Don't miss +this chance. Dogs' home over there. Poor old Athos! Be good to Athos, +Leopold, is my last wish. Thy will be done. We obey them in the grave. +A dying scrawl. He took it to heart, pined away. Quiet brute. Old men's +dogs usually are. + +A raindrop spat on his hat. He drew back and saw an instant of shower +spray dots over the grey flags. Apart. Curious. Like through a colander. +I thought it would. My boots were creaking I remember now. + +--The weather is changing, he said quietly. + +--A pity it did not keep up fine, Martin Cunningham said. + +--Wanted for the country, Mr Power said. There's the sun again coming +out. + +Mr Dedalus, peering through his glasses towards the veiled sun, hurled a +mute curse at the sky. + +--It's as uncertain as a child's bottom, he said. + +--We're off again. + +The carriage turned again its stiff wheels and their trunks swayed +gently. Martin Cunningham twirled more quickly the peak of his beard. + +--Tom Kernan was immense last night, he said. And Paddy Leonard taking +him off to his face. + +--O, draw him out, Martin, Mr Power said eagerly. Wait till you hear +him, Simon, on Ben Dollard's singing of _The Croppy Boy_. + +--Immense, Martin Cunningham said pompously. _His singing of that simple +ballad, Martin, is the most trenchant rendering I ever heard in the +whole course of my experience._ + +--Trenchant, Mr Power said laughing. He's dead nuts on that. And the +retrospective arrangement. + +--Did you read Dan Dawson's speech? Martin Cunningham asked. + +--I did not then, Mr Dedalus said. Where is it? + +--In the paper this morning. + +Mr Bloom took the paper from his inside pocket. That book I must change +for her. + +--No, no, Mr Dedalus said quickly. Later on please. + +Mr Bloom's glance travelled down the edge of the paper, scanning the +deaths: Callan, Coleman, Dignam, Fawcett, Lowry, Naumann, Peake, what +Peake is that? is it the chap was in Crosbie and Alleyne's? no, Sexton, +Urbright. Inked characters fast fading on the frayed breaking paper. +Thanks to the Little Flower. Sadly missed. To the inexpressible grief of +his. Aged 88 after a long and tedious illness. Month's mind: Quinlan. On +whose soul Sweet Jesus have mercy. + +_It is now a month since dear Henry fled To his home up above in the sky +While his family weeps and mourns his loss Hoping some day to meet him +on high._ + +I tore up the envelope? Yes. Where did I put her letter after I read it +in the bath? He patted his waistcoatpocket. There all right. Dear Henry +fled. Before my patience are exhausted. + +National school. Meade's yard. The hazard. Only two there now. Nodding. +Full as a tick. Too much bone in their skulls. The other trotting round +with a fare. An hour ago I was passing there. The jarvies raised their +hats. + +A pointsman's back straightened itself upright suddenly against a +tramway standard by Mr Bloom's window. Couldn't they invent something +automatic so that the wheel itself much handier? Well but that fellow +would lose his job then? Well but then another fellow would get a job +making the new invention? + +Antient concert rooms. Nothing on there. A man in a buff suit with a +crape armlet. Not much grief there. Quarter mourning. People in law +perhaps. + +They went past the bleak pulpit of saint Mark's, under the railway +bridge, past the Queen's theatre: in silence. Hoardings: Eugene +Stratton, Mrs Bandmann Palmer. Could I go to see LEAH tonight, I wonder. +I said I. Or the _Lily of Killarney_? Elster Grimes Opera Company. Big +powerful change. Wet bright bills for next week. _Fun on the Bristol_. +Martin Cunningham could work a pass for the Gaiety. Have to stand a +drink or two. As broad as it's long. + +He's coming in the afternoon. Her songs. + +Plasto's. Sir Philip Crampton's memorial fountain bust. Who was he? + +--How do you do? Martin Cunningham said, raising his palm to his brow in +salute. + +--He doesn't see us, Mr Power said. Yes, he does. How do you do? + +--Who? Mr Dedalus asked. + +--Blazes Boylan, Mr Power said. There he is airing his quiff. + +Just that moment I was thinking. + +Mr Dedalus bent across to salute. From the door of the Red Bank the +white disc of a straw hat flashed reply: spruce figure: passed. + +Mr Bloom reviewed the nails of his left hand, then those of his right +hand. The nails, yes. Is there anything more in him that they she sees? +Fascination. Worst man in Dublin. That keeps him alive. They sometimes +feel what a person is. Instinct. But a type like that. My nails. I +am just looking at them: well pared. And after: thinking alone. Body +getting a bit softy. I would notice that: from remembering. What causes +that? I suppose the skin can't contract quickly enough when the flesh +falls off. But the shape is there. The shape is there still. Shoulders. +Hips. Plump. Night of the dance dressing. Shift stuck between the cheeks +behind. + +He clasped his hands between his knees and, satisfied, sent his vacant +glance over their faces. + +Mr Power asked: + +--How is the concert tour getting on, Bloom? + +--O, very well, Mr Bloom said. I hear great accounts of it. It's a good +idea, you see... + +--Are you going yourself? + +--Well no, Mr Bloom said. In point of fact I have to go down to the +county Clare on some private business. You see the idea is to tour the +chief towns. What you lose on one you can make up on the other. + +--Quite so, Martin Cunningham said. Mary Anderson is up there now. + +Have you good artists? + +--Louis Werner is touring her, Mr Bloom said. O yes, we'll have all +topnobbers. J. C. Doyle and John MacCormack I hope and. The best, in +fact. + +--And _Madame_, Mr Power said smiling. Last but not least. + +Mr Bloom unclasped his hands in a gesture of soft politeness and clasped +them. Smith O'Brien. Someone has laid a bunch of flowers there. Woman. +Must be his deathday. For many happy returns. The carriage wheeling by +Farrell's statue united noiselessly their unresisting knees. + +Oot: a dullgarbed old man from the curbstone tendered his wares, his +mouth opening: oot. + +--Four bootlaces for a penny. + +Wonder why he was struck off the rolls. Had his office in Hume street. +Same house as Molly's namesake, Tweedy, crown solicitor for Waterford. +Has that silk hat ever since. Relics of old decency. Mourning too. +Terrible comedown, poor wretch! Kicked about like snuff at a wake. +O'Callaghan on his last legs. + +And _Madame_. Twenty past eleven. Up. Mrs Fleming is in to clean. Doing +her hair, humming. _voglio e non vorrei_. No. _vorrei e non_. Looking at +the tips of her hairs to see if they are split. _Mi trema un poco +il_. Beautiful on that _tre_ her voice is: weeping tone. A thrush. A +throstle. There is a word throstle that expresses that. + +His eyes passed lightly over Mr Power's goodlooking face. Greyish over +the ears. _Madame_: smiling. I smiled back. A smile goes a long way. +Only politeness perhaps. Nice fellow. Who knows is that true about the +woman he keeps? Not pleasant for the wife. Yet they say, who was it +told me, there is no carnal. You would imagine that would get played +out pretty quick. Yes, it was Crofton met him one evening bringing her +a pound of rumpsteak. What is this she was? Barmaid in Jury's. Or the +Moira, was it? + +They passed under the hugecloaked Liberator's form. + +Martin Cunningham nudged Mr Power. + +--Of the tribe of Reuben, he said. + +A tall blackbearded figure, bent on a stick, stumping round the corner +of Elvery's Elephant house, showed them a curved hand open on his spine. + +--In all his pristine beauty, Mr Power said. + +Mr Dedalus looked after the stumping figure and said mildly: + +--The devil break the hasp of your back! + +Mr Power, collapsing in laughter, shaded his face from the window as the +carriage passed Gray's statue. + +--We have all been there, Martin Cunningham said broadly. + +His eyes met Mr Bloom's eyes. He caressed his beard, adding: + +--Well, nearly all of us. + +Mr Bloom began to speak with sudden eagerness to his companions' faces. + +--That's an awfully good one that's going the rounds about Reuben J and +the son. + +--About the boatman? Mr Power asked. + +--Yes. Isn't it awfully good? + +--What is that? Mr Dedalus asked. I didn't hear it. + +--There was a girl in the case, Mr Bloom began, and he determined to +send him to the Isle of Man out of harm's way but when they were both +... + +--What? Mr Dedalus asked. That confirmed bloody hobbledehoy is it? + +--Yes, Mr Bloom said. They were both on the way to the boat and he tried +to drown... + +--Drown Barabbas! Mr Dedalus cried. I wish to Christ he did! + +Mr Power sent a long laugh down his shaded nostrils. + +--No, Mr Bloom said, the son himself... + +Martin Cunningham thwarted his speech rudely: + +--Reuben and the son were piking it down the quay next the river on +their way to the Isle of Man boat and the young chiseller suddenly got +loose and over the wall with him into the Liffey. + +--For God's sake! Mr Dedalus exclaimed in fright. Is he dead? + +--Dead! Martin Cunningham cried. Not he! A boatman got a pole and fished +him out by the slack of the breeches and he was landed up to the father +on the quay more dead than alive. Half the town was there. + +--Yes, Mr Bloom said. But the funny part is... + +--And Reuben J, Martin Cunningham said, gave the boatman a florin for +saving his son's life. + +A stifled sigh came from under Mr Power's hand. + +--O, he did, Martin Cunningham affirmed. Like a hero. A silver florin. + +--Isn't it awfully good? Mr Bloom said eagerly. + +--One and eightpence too much, Mr Dedalus said drily. + +Mr Power's choked laugh burst quietly in the carriage. + +Nelson's pillar. + +--Eight plums a penny! Eight for a penny! + +--We had better look a little serious, Martin Cunningham said. + +Mr Dedalus sighed. + +--Ah then indeed, he said, poor little Paddy wouldn't grudge us a laugh. +Many a good one he told himself. + +--The Lord forgive me! Mr Power said, wiping his wet eyes with his +fingers. Poor Paddy! I little thought a week ago when I saw him last and +he was in his usual health that I'd be driving after him like this. He's +gone from us. + +--As decent a little man as ever wore a hat, Mr Dedalus said. He went +very suddenly. + +--Breakdown, Martin Cunningham said. Heart. + +He tapped his chest sadly. + +Blazing face: redhot. Too much John Barleycorn. Cure for a red nose. +Drink like the devil till it turns adelite. A lot of money he spent +colouring it. + +Mr Power gazed at the passing houses with rueful apprehension. + +--He had a sudden death, poor fellow, he said. + +--The best death, Mr Bloom said. + +Their wide open eyes looked at him. + +--No suffering, he said. A moment and all is over. Like dying in sleep. + +No-one spoke. + +Dead side of the street this. Dull business by day, land agents, +temperance hotel, Falconer's railway guide, civil service college, +Gill's, catholic club, the industrious blind. Why? Some reason. Sun or +wind. At night too. Chummies and slaveys. Under the patronage of the +late Father Mathew. Foundation stone for Parnell. Breakdown. Heart. + +White horses with white frontlet plumes came round the Rotunda corner, +galloping. A tiny coffin flashed by. In a hurry to bury. A mourning +coach. Unmarried. Black for the married. Piebald for bachelors. Dun for +a nun. + +--Sad, Martin Cunningham said. A child. + +A dwarf's face, mauve and wrinkled like little Rudy's was. Dwarf's body, +weak as putty, in a whitelined deal box. Burial friendly society +pays. Penny a week for a sod of turf. Our. Little. Beggar. Baby. Meant +nothing. Mistake of nature. If it's healthy it's from the mother. If not +from the man. Better luck next time. + +--Poor little thing, Mr Dedalus said. It's well out of it. + +The carriage climbed more slowly the hill of Rutland square. Rattle his +bones. Over the stones. Only a pauper. Nobody owns. + +--In the midst of life, Martin Cunningham said. + +--But the worst of all, Mr Power said, is the man who takes his own +life. + +Martin Cunningham drew out his watch briskly, coughed and put it back. + +--The greatest disgrace to have in the family, Mr Power added. + +--Temporary insanity, of course, Martin Cunningham said decisively. We +must take a charitable view of it. + +--They say a man who does it is a coward, Mr Dedalus said. + +--It is not for us to judge, Martin Cunningham said. + +Mr Bloom, about to speak, closed his lips again. Martin Cunningham's +large eyes. Looking away now. Sympathetic human man he is. Intelligent. +Like Shakespeare's face. Always a good word to say. They have no mercy +on that here or infanticide. Refuse christian burial. They used to drive +a stake of wood through his heart in the grave. As if it wasn't broken +already. Yet sometimes they repent too late. Found in the riverbed +clutching rushes. He looked at me. And that awful drunkard of a wife +of his. Setting up house for her time after time and then pawning the +furniture on him every Saturday almost. Leading him the life of the +damned. Wear the heart out of a stone, that. Monday morning. Start +afresh. Shoulder to the wheel. Lord, she must have looked a sight +that night Dedalus told me he was in there. Drunk about the place and +capering with Martin's umbrella. + + _And they call me the jewel of Asia, + Of Asia, + The Geisha._ + +He looked away from me. He knows. Rattle his bones. + +That afternoon of the inquest. The redlabelled bottle on the table. The +room in the hotel with hunting pictures. Stuffy it was. Sunlight through +the slats of the Venetian blind. The coroner's sunlit ears, big and +hairy. Boots giving evidence. Thought he was asleep first. Then saw like +yellow streaks on his face. Had slipped down to the foot of the bed. +Verdict: overdose. Death by misadventure. The letter. For my son +Leopold. + +No more pain. Wake no more. Nobody owns. + +The carriage rattled swiftly along Blessington street. Over the stones. + +--We are going the pace, I think, Martin Cunningham said. + +--God grant he doesn't upset us on the road, Mr Power said. + +--I hope not, Martin Cunningham said. That will be a great race tomorrow +in Germany. The Gordon Bennett. + +--Yes, by Jove, Mr Dedalus said. That will be worth seeing, faith. + +As they turned into Berkeley street a streetorgan near the Basin sent +over and after them a rollicking rattling song of the halls. Has anybody +here seen Kelly? Kay ee double ell wy. Dead March from _Saul._ He's +as bad as old Antonio. He left me on my ownio. Pirouette! The _Mater +Misericordiae_. Eccles street. My house down there. Big place. Ward for +incurables there. Very encouraging. Our Lady's Hospice for the dying. +Deadhouse handy underneath. Where old Mrs Riordan died. They look +terrible the women. Her feeding cup and rubbing her mouth with the +spoon. Then the screen round her bed for her to die. Nice young student +that was dressed that bite the bee gave me. He's gone over to the +lying-in hospital they told me. From one extreme to the other. The +carriage galloped round a corner: stopped. + +--What's wrong now? + +A divided drove of branded cattle passed the windows, lowing, slouching +by on padded hoofs, whisking their tails slowly on their clotted bony +croups. Outside them and through them ran raddled sheep bleating their +fear. + +--Emigrants, Mr Power said. + +--Huuuh! the drover's voice cried, his switch sounding on their flanks. + +Huuuh! out of that! + +Thursday, of course. Tomorrow is killing day. Springers. Cuffe sold them +about twentyseven quid each. For Liverpool probably. Roastbeef for old +England. They buy up all the juicy ones. And then the fifth quarter +lost: all that raw stuff, hide, hair, horns. Comes to a big thing in a +year. Dead meat trade. Byproducts of the slaughterhouses for tanneries, +soap, margarine. Wonder if that dodge works now getting dicky meat off +the train at Clonsilla. + +The carriage moved on through the drove. + +--I can't make out why the corporation doesn't run a tramline from the +parkgate to the quays, Mr Bloom said. All those animals could be taken +in trucks down to the boats. + +--Instead of blocking up the thoroughfare, Martin Cunningham said. Quite +right. They ought to. + +--Yes, Mr Bloom said, and another thing I often thought, is to have +municipal funeral trams like they have in Milan, you know. Run the line +out to the cemetery gates and have special trams, hearse and carriage +and all. Don't you see what I mean? + +--O, that be damned for a story, Mr Dedalus said. Pullman car and saloon +diningroom. + +--A poor lookout for Corny, Mr Power added. + +--Why? Mr Bloom asked, turning to Mr Dedalus. Wouldn't it be more decent +than galloping two abreast? + +--Well, there's something in that, Mr Dedalus granted. + +--And, Martin Cunningham said, we wouldn't have scenes like that when +the hearse capsized round Dunphy's and upset the coffin on to the road. + +--That was terrible, Mr Power's shocked face said, and the corpse fell +about the road. Terrible! + +--First round Dunphy's, Mr Dedalus said, nodding. Gordon Bennett cup. + +--Praises be to God! Martin Cunningham said piously. + +Bom! Upset. A coffin bumped out on to the road. Burst open. Paddy Dignam +shot out and rolling over stiff in the dust in a brown habit too large +for him. Red face: grey now. Mouth fallen open. Asking what's up now. +Quite right to close it. Looks horrid open. Then the insides decompose +quickly. Much better to close up all the orifices. Yes, also. With wax. +The sphincter loose. Seal up all. + +--Dunphy's, Mr Power announced as the carriage turned right. + +Dunphy's corner. Mourning coaches drawn up, drowning their grief. A +pause by the wayside. Tiptop position for a pub. Expect we'll pull up +here on the way back to drink his health. Pass round the consolation. +Elixir of life. + +But suppose now it did happen. Would he bleed if a nail say cut him +in the knocking about? He would and he wouldn't, I suppose. Depends on +where. The circulation stops. Still some might ooze out of an artery. It +would be better to bury them in red: a dark red. + +In silence they drove along Phibsborough road. An empty hearse trotted +by, coming from the cemetery: looks relieved. + +Crossguns bridge: the royal canal. + +Water rushed roaring through the sluices. A man stood on his +dropping barge, between clamps of turf. On the towpath by the lock a +slacktethered horse. Aboard of the _Bugabu._ + +Their eyes watched him. On the slow weedy waterway he had floated on his +raft coastward over Ireland drawn by a haulage rope past beds of +reeds, over slime, mudchoked bottles, carrion dogs. Athlone, Mullingar, +Moyvalley, I could make a walking tour to see Milly by the canal. Or +cycle down. Hire some old crock, safety. Wren had one the other day at +the auction but a lady's. Developing waterways. James M'Cann's hobby +to row me o'er the ferry. Cheaper transit. By easy stages. Houseboats. +Camping out. Also hearses. To heaven by water. Perhaps I will without +writing. Come as a surprise, Leixlip, Clonsilla. Dropping down lock by +lock to Dublin. With turf from the midland bogs. Salute. He lifted his +brown straw hat, saluting Paddy Dignam. + +They drove on past Brian Boroimhe house. Near it now. + +--I wonder how is our friend Fogarty getting on, Mr Power said. + +--Better ask Tom Kernan, Mr Dedalus said. + +--How is that? Martin Cunningham said. Left him weeping, I suppose? + +--Though lost to sight, Mr Dedalus said, to memory dear. + +The carriage steered left for Finglas road. + +The stonecutter's yard on the right. Last lap. Crowded on the spit of +land silent shapes appeared, white, sorrowful, holding out calm hands, +knelt in grief, pointing. Fragments of shapes, hewn. In white silence: +appealing. The best obtainable. Thos. H. Dennany, monumental builder and +sculptor. + +Passed. + +On the curbstone before Jimmy Geary, the sexton's, an old tramp sat, +grumbling, emptying the dirt and stones out of his huge dustbrown +yawning boot. After life's journey. + +Gloomy gardens then went by: one by one: gloomy houses. + +Mr Power pointed. + +--That is where Childs was murdered, he said. The last house. + +--So it is, Mr Dedalus said. A gruesome case. Seymour Bushe got him off. +Murdered his brother. Or so they said. + +--The crown had no evidence, Mr Power said. + +--Only circumstantial, Martin Cunningham added. That's the maxim of the +law. Better for ninetynine guilty to escape than for one innocent person +to be wrongfully condemned. + +They looked. Murderer's ground. It passed darkly. Shuttered, tenantless, +unweeded garden. Whole place gone to hell. Wrongfully condemned. Murder. +The murderer's image in the eye of the murdered. They love reading about +it. Man's head found in a garden. Her clothing consisted of. How she met +her death. Recent outrage. The weapon used. Murderer is still at large. +Clues. A shoelace. The body to be exhumed. Murder will out. + +Cramped in this carriage. She mightn't like me to come that way without +letting her know. Must be careful about women. Catch them once with +their pants down. Never forgive you after. Fifteen. + +The high railings of Prospect rippled past their gaze. Dark poplars, +rare white forms. Forms more frequent, white shapes thronged amid the +trees, white forms and fragments streaming by mutely, sustaining vain +gestures on the air. + +The felly harshed against the curbstone: stopped. Martin Cunningham put +out his arm and, wrenching back the handle, shoved the door open with +his knee. He stepped out. Mr Power and Mr Dedalus followed. + +Change that soap now. Mr Bloom's hand unbuttoned his hip pocket swiftly +and transferred the paperstuck soap to his inner handkerchief pocket. +He stepped out of the carriage, replacing the newspaper his other hand +still held. + +Paltry funeral: coach and three carriages. It's all the same. +Pallbearers, gold reins, requiem mass, firing a volley. Pomp of death. +Beyond the hind carriage a hawker stood by his barrow of cakes and +fruit. Simnel cakes those are, stuck together: cakes for the dead. +Dogbiscuits. Who ate them? Mourners coming out. + +He followed his companions. Mr Kernan and Ned Lambert followed, Hynes +walking after them. Corny Kelleher stood by the opened hearse and took +out the two wreaths. He handed one to the boy. + +Where is that child's funeral disappeared to? + +A team of horses passed from Finglas with toiling plodding tread, +dragging through the funereal silence a creaking waggon on which lay a +granite block. The waggoner marching at their head saluted. + +Coffin now. Got here before us, dead as he is. Horse looking round at it +with his plume skeowways. Dull eye: collar tight on his neck, pressing +on a bloodvessel or something. Do they know what they cart out here +every day? Must be twenty or thirty funerals every day. Then Mount +Jerome for the protestants. Funerals all over the world everywhere every +minute. Shovelling them under by the cartload doublequick. Thousands +every hour. Too many in the world. + +Mourners came out through the gates: woman and a girl. Leanjawed harpy, +hard woman at a bargain, her bonnet awry. Girl's face stained with dirt +and tears, holding the woman's arm, looking up at her for a sign to cry. +Fish's face, bloodless and livid. + +The mutes shouldered the coffin and bore it in through the gates. So +much dead weight. Felt heavier myself stepping out of that bath. First +the stiff: then the friends of the stiff. Corny Kelleher and the +boy followed with their wreaths. Who is that beside them? Ah, the +brother-in-law. + +All walked after. + +Martin Cunningham whispered: + +--I was in mortal agony with you talking of suicide before Bloom. + +--What? Mr Power whispered. How so? + +--His father poisoned himself, Martin Cunningham whispered. Had the +Queen's hotel in Ennis. You heard him say he was going to Clare. +Anniversary. + +--O God! Mr Power whispered. First I heard of it. Poisoned himself? + +He glanced behind him to where a face with dark thinking eyes followed +towards the cardinal's mausoleum. Speaking. + +--Was he insured? Mr Bloom asked. + +--I believe so, Mr Kernan answered. But the policy was heavily +mortgaged. Martin is trying to get the youngster into Artane. + +--How many children did he leave? + +--Five. Ned Lambert says he'll try to get one of the girls into Todd's. + +--A sad case, Mr Bloom said gently. Five young children. + +--A great blow to the poor wife, Mr Kernan added. + +--Indeed yes, Mr Bloom agreed. + +Has the laugh at him now. + +He looked down at the boots he had blacked and polished. She had +outlived him. Lost her husband. More dead for her than for me. One must +outlive the other. Wise men say. There are more women than men in the +world. Condole with her. Your terrible loss. I hope you'll soon follow +him. For Hindu widows only. She would marry another. Him? No. Yet who +knows after. Widowhood not the thing since the old queen died. Drawn on +a guncarriage. Victoria and Albert. Frogmore memorial mourning. But +in the end she put a few violets in her bonnet. Vain in her heart of +hearts. All for a shadow. Consort not even a king. Her son was the +substance. Something new to hope for not like the past she wanted back, +waiting. It never comes. One must go first: alone, under the ground: and +lie no more in her warm bed. + +--How are you, Simon? Ned Lambert said softly, clasping hands. Haven't +seen you for a month of Sundays. + +--Never better. How are all in Cork's own town? + +--I was down there for the Cork park races on Easter Monday, Ned Lambert +said. Same old six and eightpence. Stopped with Dick Tivy. + +--And how is Dick, the solid man? + +--Nothing between himself and heaven, Ned Lambert answered. + +--By the holy Paul! Mr Dedalus said in subdued wonder. Dick Tivy bald? + +--Martin is going to get up a whip for the youngsters, Ned Lambert said, +pointing ahead. A few bob a skull. Just to keep them going till the +insurance is cleared up. + +--Yes, yes, Mr Dedalus said dubiously. Is that the eldest boy in front? + +--Yes, Ned Lambert said, with the wife's brother. John Henry Menton is +behind. He put down his name for a quid. + +--I'll engage he did, Mr Dedalus said. I often told poor Paddy he ought +to mind that job. John Henry is not the worst in the world. + +--How did he lose it? Ned Lambert asked. Liquor, what? + +--Many a good man's fault, Mr Dedalus said with a sigh. + +They halted about the door of the mortuary chapel. Mr Bloom stood behind +the boy with the wreath looking down at his sleekcombed hair and at the +slender furrowed neck inside his brandnew collar. Poor boy! Was he there +when the father? Both unconscious. Lighten up at the last moment +and recognise for the last time. All he might have done. I owe three +shillings to O'Grady. Would he understand? The mutes bore the coffin +into the chapel. Which end is his head? + +After a moment he followed the others in, blinking in the screened +light. The coffin lay on its bier before the chancel, four tall yellow +candles at its corners. Always in front of us. Corny Kelleher, laying a +wreath at each fore corner, beckoned to the boy to kneel. The mourners +knelt here and there in prayingdesks. Mr Bloom stood behind near the +font and, when all had knelt, dropped carefully his unfolded newspaper +from his pocket and knelt his right knee upon it. He fitted his black +hat gently on his left knee and, holding its brim, bent over piously. + +A server bearing a brass bucket with something in it came out through a +door. The whitesmocked priest came after him, tidying his stole with one +hand, balancing with the other a little book against his toad's belly. +Who'll read the book? I, said the rook. + +They halted by the bier and the priest began to read out of his book +with a fluent croak. + +Father Coffey. I knew his name was like a coffin. _Domine-namine._ Bully +about the muzzle he looks. Bosses the show. Muscular christian. Woe +betide anyone that looks crooked at him: priest. Thou art Peter. Burst +sideways like a sheep in clover Dedalus says he will. With a belly on +him like a poisoned pup. Most amusing expressions that man finds. Hhhn: +burst sideways. + +_--Non intres in judicium cum servo tuo, Domine._ + +Makes them feel more important to be prayed over in Latin. Requiem mass. +Crape weepers. Blackedged notepaper. Your name on the altarlist. Chilly +place this. Want to feed well, sitting in there all the morning in the +gloom kicking his heels waiting for the next please. Eyes of a toad too. +What swells him up that way? Molly gets swelled after cabbage. Air of +the place maybe. Looks full up of bad gas. Must be an infernal lot +of bad gas round the place. Butchers, for instance: they get like raw +beefsteaks. Who was telling me? Mervyn Browne. Down in the vaults of +saint Werburgh's lovely old organ hundred and fifty they have to bore a +hole in the coffins sometimes to let out the bad gas and burn it. Out it +rushes: blue. One whiff of that and you're a goner. + +My kneecap is hurting me. Ow. That's better. + +The priest took a stick with a knob at the end of it out of the boy's +bucket and shook it over the coffin. Then he walked to the other end and +shook it again. Then he came back and put it back in the bucket. As you +were before you rested. It's all written down: he has to do it. + +_--Et ne nos inducas in tentationem._ + +The server piped the answers in the treble. I often thought it would be +better to have boy servants. Up to fifteen or so. After that, of course +... + +Holy water that was, I expect. Shaking sleep out of it. He must be fed +up with that job, shaking that thing over all the corpses they trot up. +What harm if he could see what he was shaking it over. Every mortal +day a fresh batch: middleaged men, old women, children, women dead in +childbirth, men with beards, baldheaded businessmen, consumptive girls +with little sparrows' breasts. All the year round he prayed the same +thing over them all and shook water on top of them: sleep. On Dignam +now. + +_--In paradisum._ + +Said he was going to paradise or is in paradise. Says that over +everybody. Tiresome kind of a job. But he has to say something. + +The priest closed his book and went off, followed by the server. Corny +Kelleher opened the sidedoors and the gravediggers came in, hoisted the +coffin again, carried it out and shoved it on their cart. Corny Kelleher +gave one wreath to the boy and one to the brother-in-law. All followed +them out of the sidedoors into the mild grey air. Mr Bloom came last +folding his paper again into his pocket. He gazed gravely at the ground +till the coffincart wheeled off to the left. The metal wheels ground the +gravel with a sharp grating cry and the pack of blunt boots followed the +trundled barrow along a lane of sepulchres. + +The ree the ra the ree the ra the roo. Lord, I mustn't lilt here. + +--The O'Connell circle, Mr Dedalus said about him. + +Mr Power's soft eyes went up to the apex of the lofty cone. + +--He's at rest, he said, in the middle of his people, old Dan O'. But +his heart is buried in Rome. How many broken hearts are buried here, +Simon! + +--Her grave is over there, Jack, Mr Dedalus said. I'll soon be stretched +beside her. Let Him take me whenever He likes. + +Breaking down, he began to weep to himself quietly, stumbling a little +in his walk. Mr Power took his arm. + +--She's better where she is, he said kindly. + +--I suppose so, Mr Dedalus said with a weak gasp. I suppose she is in +heaven if there is a heaven. + +Corny Kelleher stepped aside from his rank and allowed the mourners to +plod by. + +--Sad occasions, Mr Kernan began politely. + +Mr Bloom closed his eyes and sadly twice bowed his head. + +--The others are putting on their hats, Mr Kernan said. I suppose we can +do so too. We are the last. This cemetery is a treacherous place. + +They covered their heads. + +--The reverend gentleman read the service too quickly, don't you think? +Mr Kernan said with reproof. + +Mr Bloom nodded gravely looking in the quick bloodshot eyes. Secret +eyes, secretsearching. Mason, I think: not sure. Beside him again. We +are the last. In the same boat. Hope he'll say something else. + +Mr Kernan added: + +--The service of the Irish church used in Mount Jerome is simpler, more +impressive I must say. + +Mr Bloom gave prudent assent. The language of course was another thing. + +Mr Kernan said with solemnity: + +--_I am the resurrection and the life_. That touches a man's inmost +heart. + +--It does, Mr Bloom said. + +Your heart perhaps but what price the fellow in the six feet by two +with his toes to the daisies? No touching that. Seat of the affections. +Broken heart. A pump after all, pumping thousands of gallons of blood +every day. One fine day it gets bunged up: and there you are. Lots of +them lying around here: lungs, hearts, livers. Old rusty pumps: damn +the thing else. The resurrection and the life. Once you are dead you are +dead. That last day idea. Knocking them all up out of their graves. Come +forth, Lazarus! And he came fifth and lost the job. Get up! Last day! +Then every fellow mousing around for his liver and his lights and the +rest of his traps. Find damn all of himself that morning. Pennyweight of +powder in a skull. Twelve grammes one pennyweight. Troy measure. + +Corny Kelleher fell into step at their side. + +--Everything went off A1, he said. What? + +He looked on them from his drawling eye. Policeman's shoulders. With +your tooraloom tooraloom. + +--As it should be, Mr Kernan said. + +--What? Eh? Corny Kelleher said. + +Mr Kernan assured him. + +--Who is that chap behind with Tom Kernan? John Henry Menton asked. I +know his face. + +Ned Lambert glanced back. + +--Bloom, he said, Madame Marion Tweedy that was, is, I mean, the +soprano. She's his wife. + +--O, to be sure, John Henry Menton said. I haven't seen her for some +time. He was a finelooking woman. I danced with her, wait, fifteen +seventeen golden years ago, at Mat Dillon's in Roundtown. And a good +armful she was. + +He looked behind through the others. + +--What is he? he asked. What does he do? Wasn't he in the stationery +line? I fell foul of him one evening, I remember, at bowls. + +Ned Lambert smiled. + +--Yes, he was, he said, in Wisdom Hely's. A traveller for blottingpaper. + +--In God's name, John Henry Menton said, what did she marry a coon like +that for? She had plenty of game in her then. + +--Has still, Ned Lambert said. He does some canvassing for ads. + +John Henry Menton's large eyes stared ahead. + +The barrow turned into a side lane. A portly man, ambushed among the +grasses, raised his hat in homage. The gravediggers touched their caps. + +--John O'Connell, Mr Power said pleased. He never forgets a friend. + +Mr O'Connell shook all their hands in silence. Mr Dedalus said: + +--I am come to pay you another visit. + +--My dear Simon, the caretaker answered in a low voice. I don't want +your custom at all. + +Saluting Ned Lambert and John Henry Menton he walked on at Martin +Cunningham's side puzzling two long keys at his back. + +--Did you hear that one, he asked them, about Mulcahy from the Coombe? + +--I did not, Martin Cunningham said. + +They bent their silk hats in concert and Hynes inclined his ear. The +caretaker hung his thumbs in the loops of his gold watchchain and spoke +in a discreet tone to their vacant smiles. + +--They tell the story, he said, that two drunks came out here one foggy +evening to look for the grave of a friend of theirs. They asked for +Mulcahy from the Coombe and were told where he was buried. After +traipsing about in the fog they found the grave sure enough. One of the +drunks spelt out the name: Terence Mulcahy. The other drunk was blinking +up at a statue of Our Saviour the widow had got put up. + +The caretaker blinked up at one of the sepulchres they passed. He +resumed: + +--And, after blinking up at the sacred figure, _Not a bloody bit like +the man_, says he. _That's not Mulcahy_, says he, _whoever done it_. + +Rewarded by smiles he fell back and spoke with Corny Kelleher, accepting +the dockets given him, turning them over and scanning them as he walked. + +--That's all done with a purpose, Martin Cunningham explained to Hynes. + +--I know, Hynes said. I know that. + +--To cheer a fellow up, Martin Cunningham said. It's pure +goodheartedness: damn the thing else. + +Mr Bloom admired the caretaker's prosperous bulk. All want to be on good +terms with him. Decent fellow, John O'Connell, real good sort. Keys: +like Keyes's ad: no fear of anyone getting out. No passout checks. +_Habeas corpus_. I must see about that ad after the funeral. Did I +write Ballsbridge on the envelope I took to cover when she disturbed me +writing to Martha? Hope it's not chucked in the dead letter office. Be +the better of a shave. Grey sprouting beard. That's the first sign when +the hairs come out grey. And temper getting cross. Silver threads among +the grey. Fancy being his wife. Wonder he had the gumption to propose to +any girl. Come out and live in the graveyard. Dangle that before her. It +might thrill her first. Courting death... Shades of night hovering +here with all the dead stretched about. The shadows of the tombs when +churchyards yawn and Daniel O'Connell must be a descendant I suppose +who is this used to say he was a queer breedy man great catholic all the +same like a big giant in the dark. Will o' the wisp. Gas of graves. +Want to keep her mind off it to conceive at all. Women especially are so +touchy. Tell her a ghost story in bed to make her sleep. Have you ever +seen a ghost? Well, I have. It was a pitchdark night. The clock was on +the stroke of twelve. Still they'd kiss all right if properly keyed up. +Whores in Turkish graveyards. Learn anything if taken young. You might +pick up a young widow here. Men like that. Love among the tombstones. +Romeo. Spice of pleasure. In the midst of death we are in life. Both +ends meet. Tantalising for the poor dead. Smell of grilled beefsteaks to +the starving. Gnawing their vitals. Desire to grig people. Molly wanting +to do it at the window. Eight children he has anyway. + +He has seen a fair share go under in his time, lying around him field +after field. Holy fields. More room if they buried them standing. +Sitting or kneeling you couldn't. Standing? His head might come up some +day above ground in a landslip with his hand pointing. All honeycombed +the ground must be: oblong cells. And very neat he keeps it too: trim +grass and edgings. His garden Major Gamble calls Mount Jerome. Well, +so it is. Ought to be flowers of sleep. Chinese cemeteries with giant +poppies growing produce the best opium Mastiansky told me. The Botanic +Gardens are just over there. It's the blood sinking in the earth gives +new life. Same idea those jews they said killed the christian boy. Every +man his price. Well preserved fat corpse, gentleman, epicure, invaluable +for fruit garden. A bargain. By carcass of William Wilkinson, auditor +and accountant, lately deceased, three pounds thirteen and six. With +thanks. + +I daresay the soil would be quite fat with corpsemanure, bones, flesh, +nails. Charnelhouses. Dreadful. Turning green and pink decomposing. Rot +quick in damp earth. The lean old ones tougher. Then a kind of a tallowy +kind of a cheesy. Then begin to get black, black treacle oozing out of +them. Then dried up. Deathmoths. Of course the cells or whatever they +are go on living. Changing about. Live for ever practically. Nothing to +feed on feed on themselves. + +But they must breed a devil of a lot of maggots. Soil must be simply +swirling with them. Your head it simply swurls. Those pretty little +seaside gurls. He looks cheerful enough over it. Gives him a sense of +power seeing all the others go under first. Wonder how he looks at life. +Cracking his jokes too: warms the cockles of his heart. The one about +the bulletin. Spurgeon went to heaven 4 a.m. this morning. 11 p.m. +(closing time). Not arrived yet. Peter. The dead themselves the men +anyhow would like to hear an odd joke or the women to know what's in +fashion. A juicy pear or ladies' punch, hot, strong and sweet. Keep +out the damp. You must laugh sometimes so better do it that way. +Gravediggers in _Hamlet_. Shows the profound knowledge of the human +heart. Daren't joke about the dead for two years at least. _De mortuis +nil nisi prius_. Go out of mourning first. Hard to imagine his funeral. +Seems a sort of a joke. Read your own obituary notice they say you live +longer. Gives you second wind. New lease of life. + +--How many have-you for tomorrow? the caretaker asked. + +--Two, Corny Kelleher said. Half ten and eleven. + +The caretaker put the papers in his pocket. The barrow had ceased to +trundle. The mourners split and moved to each side of the hole, stepping +with care round the graves. The gravediggers bore the coffin and set its +nose on the brink, looping the bands round it. + +Burying him. We come to bury Caesar. His ides of March or June. He +doesn't know who is here nor care. Now who is that lankylooking galoot +over there in the macintosh? Now who is he I'd like to know? Now I'd +give a trifle to know who he is. Always someone turns up you never +dreamt of. A fellow could live on his lonesome all his life. Yes, he +could. Still he'd have to get someone to sod him after he died though he +could dig his own grave. We all do. Only man buries. No, ants too. First +thing strikes anybody. Bury the dead. Say Robinson Crusoe was true to +life. Well then Friday buried him. Every Friday buries a Thursday if you +come to look at it. + + _O, poor Robinson Crusoe! + How could you possibly do so?_ + +Poor Dignam! His last lie on the earth in his box. When you think of +them all it does seem a waste of wood. All gnawed through. They could +invent a handsome bier with a kind of panel sliding, let it down that +way. Ay but they might object to be buried out of another fellow's. +They're so particular. Lay me in my native earth. Bit of clay from +the holy land. Only a mother and deadborn child ever buried in the one +coffin. I see what it means. I see. To protect him as long as possible +even in the earth. The Irishman's house is his coffin. Embalming in +catacombs, mummies the same idea. + +Mr Bloom stood far back, his hat in his hand, counting the bared heads. +Twelve. I'm thirteen. No. The chap in the macintosh is thirteen. Death's +number. Where the deuce did he pop out of? He wasn't in the chapel, that +I'll swear. Silly superstition that about thirteen. + +Nice soft tweed Ned Lambert has in that suit. Tinge of purple. I had +one like that when we lived in Lombard street west. Dressy fellow he was +once. Used to change three suits in the day. Must get that grey suit +of mine turned by Mesias. Hello. It's dyed. His wife I forgot he's not +married or his landlady ought to have picked out those threads for him. + +The coffin dived out of sight, eased down by the men straddled on the +gravetrestles. They struggled up and out: and all uncovered. Twenty. + +Pause. + +If we were all suddenly somebody else. + +Far away a donkey brayed. Rain. No such ass. Never see a dead one, they +say. Shame of death. They hide. Also poor papa went away. + +Gentle sweet air blew round the bared heads in a whisper. Whisper. The +boy by the gravehead held his wreath with both hands staring quietly in +the black open space. Mr Bloom moved behind the portly kindly caretaker. +Wellcut frockcoat. Weighing them up perhaps to see which will go next. +Well, it is a long rest. Feel no more. It's the moment you feel. Must be +damned unpleasant. Can't believe it at first. Mistake must be: someone +else. Try the house opposite. Wait, I wanted to. I haven't yet. Then +darkened deathchamber. Light they want. Whispering around you. Would you +like to see a priest? Then rambling and wandering. Delirium all you hid +all your life. The death struggle. His sleep is not natural. Press his +lower eyelid. Watching is his nose pointed is his jaw sinking are the +soles of his feet yellow. Pull the pillow away and finish it off on the +floor since he's doomed. Devil in that picture of sinner's death showing +him a woman. Dying to embrace her in his shirt. Last act of _Lucia. +Shall i nevermore behold thee_? Bam! He expires. Gone at last. People +talk about you a bit: forget you. Don't forget to pray for him. Remember +him in your prayers. Even Parnell. Ivy day dying out. Then they follow: +dropping into a hole, one after the other. + +We are praying now for the repose of his soul. Hoping you're well and +not in hell. Nice change of air. Out of the fryingpan of life into the +fire of purgatory. + +Does he ever think of the hole waiting for himself? They say you do when +you shiver in the sun. Someone walking over it. Callboy's warning. Near +you. Mine over there towards Finglas, the plot I bought. Mamma, poor +mamma, and little Rudy. + +The gravediggers took up their spades and flung heavy clods of clay in +on the coffin. Mr Bloom turned away his face. And if he was alive all +the time? Whew! By jingo, that would be awful! No, no: he is dead, of +course. Of course he is dead. Monday he died. They ought to have +some law to pierce the heart and make sure or an electric clock or +a telephone in the coffin and some kind of a canvas airhole. Flag of +distress. Three days. Rather long to keep them in summer. Just as well +to get shut of them as soon as you are sure there's no. + +The clay fell softer. Begin to be forgotten. Out of sight, out of mind. + +The caretaker moved away a few paces and put on his hat. Had enough of +it. The mourners took heart of grace, one by one, covering themselves +without show. Mr Bloom put on his hat and saw the portly figure make its +way deftly through the maze of graves. Quietly, sure of his ground, he +traversed the dismal fields. + +Hynes jotting down something in his notebook. Ah, the names. But he +knows them all. No: coming to me. + +--I am just taking the names, Hynes said below his breath. What is your +christian name? I'm not sure. + +--L, Mr Bloom said. Leopold. And you might put down M'Coy's name too. He +asked me to. + +--Charley, Hynes said writing. I know. He was on the _Freeman_ once. + +So he was before he got the job in the morgue under Louis Byrne. Good +idea a postmortem for doctors. Find out what they imagine they know. +He died of a Tuesday. Got the run. Levanted with the cash of a few ads. +Charley, you're my darling. That was why he asked me to. O well, does +no harm. I saw to that, M'Coy. Thanks, old chap: much obliged. Leave him +under an obligation: costs nothing. + +--And tell us, Hynes said, do you know that fellow in the, fellow was +over there in the... + +He looked around. + +--Macintosh. Yes, I saw him, Mr Bloom said. Where is he now? + +--M'Intosh, Hynes said scribbling. I don't know who he is. Is that his +name? + +He moved away, looking about him. + +--No, Mr Bloom began, turning and stopping. I say, Hynes! + +Didn't hear. What? Where has he disappeared to? Not a sign. Well of all +the. Has anybody here seen? Kay ee double ell. Become invisible. Good +Lord, what became of him? + +A seventh gravedigger came beside Mr Bloom to take up an idle spade. + +--O, excuse me! + +He stepped aside nimbly. + +Clay, brown, damp, began to be seen in the hole. It rose. Nearly over. +A mound of damp clods rose more, rose, and the gravediggers rested their +spades. All uncovered again for a few instants. The boy propped +his wreath against a corner: the brother-in-law his on a lump. The +gravediggers put on their caps and carried their earthy spades towards +the barrow. Then knocked the blades lightly on the turf: clean. One bent +to pluck from the haft a long tuft of grass. One, leaving his mates, +walked slowly on with shouldered weapon, its blade blueglancing. +Silently at the gravehead another coiled the coffinband. His navelcord. +The brother-in-law, turning away, placed something in his free hand. +Thanks in silence. Sorry, sir: trouble. Headshake. I know that. For +yourselves just. + +The mourners moved away slowly without aim, by devious paths, staying at +whiles to read a name on a tomb. + +--Let us go round by the chief's grave, Hynes said. We have time. + +--Let us, Mr Power said. + +They turned to the right, following their slow thoughts. With awe Mr +Power's blank voice spoke: + +--Some say he is not in that grave at all. That the coffin was filled +with stones. That one day he will come again. + +Hynes shook his head. + +--Parnell will never come again, he said. He's there, all that was +mortal of him. Peace to his ashes. + +Mr Bloom walked unheeded along his grove by saddened angels, crosses, +broken pillars, family vaults, stone hopes praying with upcast eyes, +old Ireland's hearts and hands. More sensible to spend the money on some +charity for the living. Pray for the repose of the soul of. Does anybody +really? Plant him and have done with him. Like down a coalshoot. Then +lump them together to save time. All souls' day. Twentyseventh I'll be +at his grave. Ten shillings for the gardener. He keeps it free of weeds. +Old man himself. Bent down double with his shears clipping. Near death's +door. Who passed away. Who departed this life. As if they did it of +their own accord. Got the shove, all of them. Who kicked the +bucket. More interesting if they told you what they were. So and So, +wheelwright. I travelled for cork lino. I paid five shillings in the +pound. Or a woman's with her saucepan. I cooked good Irish stew. +Eulogy in a country churchyard it ought to be that poem of whose is it +Wordsworth or Thomas Campbell. Entered into rest the protestants put it. +Old Dr Murren's. The great physician called him home. Well it's God's +acre for them. Nice country residence. Newly plastered and painted. +Ideal spot to have a quiet smoke and read the _Church Times._ Marriage +ads they never try to beautify. Rusty wreaths hung on knobs, garlands of +bronzefoil. Better value that for the money. Still, the flowers are more +poetical. The other gets rather tiresome, never withering. Expresses +nothing. Immortelles. + +A bird sat tamely perched on a poplar branch. Like stuffed. Like the +wedding present alderman Hooper gave us. Hoo! Not a budge out of him. +Knows there are no catapults to let fly at him. Dead animal even sadder. +Silly-Milly burying the little dead bird in the kitchen matchbox, a +daisychain and bits of broken chainies on the grave. + +The Sacred Heart that is: showing it. Heart on his sleeve. Ought to be +sideways and red it should be painted like a real heart. Ireland was +dedicated to it or whatever that. Seems anything but pleased. Why this +infliction? Would birds come then and peck like the boy with the basket +of fruit but he said no because they ought to have been afraid of the +boy. Apollo that was. + +How many! All these here once walked round Dublin. Faithful departed. As +you are now so once were we. + +Besides how could you remember everybody? Eyes, walk, voice. Well, the +voice, yes: gramophone. Have a gramophone in every grave or keep it in +the house. After dinner on a Sunday. Put on poor old greatgrandfather. +Kraahraark! Hellohellohello amawfullyglad kraark awfullygladaseeagain +hellohello amawf krpthsth. Remind you of the voice like the photograph +reminds you of the face. Otherwise you couldn't remember the face after +fifteen years, say. For instance who? For instance some fellow that died +when I was in Wisdom Hely's. + +Rtststr! A rattle of pebbles. Wait. Stop! + +He looked down intently into a stone crypt. Some animal. Wait. There he +goes. + +An obese grey rat toddled along the side of the crypt, moving the +pebbles. An old stager: greatgrandfather: he knows the ropes. The grey +alive crushed itself in under the plinth, wriggled itself in under it. +Good hidingplace for treasure. + +Who lives there? Are laid the remains of Robert Emery. Robert Emmet was +buried here by torchlight, wasn't he? Making his rounds. + +Tail gone now. + +One of those chaps would make short work of a fellow. Pick the bones +clean no matter who it was. Ordinary meat for them. A corpse is meat +gone bad. Well and what's cheese? Corpse of milk. I read in that +_Voyages in China_ that the Chinese say a white man smells like a +corpse. Cremation better. Priests dead against it. Devilling for the +other firm. Wholesale burners and Dutch oven dealers. Time of the +plague. Quicklime feverpits to eat them. Lethal chamber. Ashes to ashes. +Or bury at sea. Where is that Parsee tower of silence? Eaten by birds. +Earth, fire, water. Drowning they say is the pleasantest. See your whole +life in a flash. But being brought back to life no. Can't bury in the +air however. Out of a flying machine. Wonder does the news go about +whenever a fresh one is let down. Underground communication. We learned +that from them. Wouldn't be surprised. Regular square feed for them. +Flies come before he's well dead. Got wind of Dignam. They wouldn't care +about the smell of it. Saltwhite crumbling mush of corpse: smell, taste +like raw white turnips. + +The gates glimmered in front: still open. Back to the world again. +Enough of this place. Brings you a bit nearer every time. Last time I +was here was Mrs Sinico's funeral. Poor papa too. The love that kills. +And even scraping up the earth at night with a lantern like that case +I read of to get at fresh buried females or even putrefied with running +gravesores. Give you the creeps after a bit. I will appear to you after +death. You will see my ghost after death. My ghost will haunt you after +death. There is another world after death named hell. I do not like that +other world she wrote. No more do I. Plenty to see and hear and feel +yet. Feel live warm beings near you. Let them sleep in their maggoty +beds. They are not going to get me this innings. Warm beds: warm +fullblooded life. + +Martin Cunningham emerged from a sidepath, talking gravely. + +Solicitor, I think. I know his face. Menton, John Henry, solicitor, +commissioner for oaths and affidavits. Dignam used to be in his office. +Mat Dillon's long ago. Jolly Mat. Convivial evenings. Cold fowl, cigars, +the Tantalus glasses. Heart of gold really. Yes, Menton. Got his rag out +that evening on the bowlinggreen because I sailed inside him. Pure fluke +of mine: the bias. Why he took such a rooted dislike to me. Hate +at first sight. Molly and Floey Dillon linked under the lilactree, +laughing. Fellow always like that, mortified if women are by. + +Got a dinge in the side of his hat. Carriage probably. + +--Excuse me, sir, Mr Bloom said beside them. + +They stopped. + +--Your hat is a little crushed, Mr Bloom said pointing. + +John Henry Menton stared at him for an instant without moving. + +--There, Martin Cunningham helped, pointing also. John Henry Menton took +off his hat, bulged out the dinge and smoothed the nap with care on his +coatsleeve. He clapped the hat on his head again. + +--It's all right now, Martin Cunningham said. + +John Henry Menton jerked his head down in acknowledgment. + +--Thank you, he said shortly. + +They walked on towards the gates. Mr Bloom, chapfallen, drew behind +a few paces so as not to overhear. Martin laying down the law. Martin +could wind a sappyhead like that round his little finger, without his +seeing it. + +Oyster eyes. Never mind. Be sorry after perhaps when it dawns on him. +Get the pull over him that way. + +Thank you. How grand we are this morning! + + +IN THE HEART OF THE HIBERNIAN METROPOLIS + + +Before Nelson's pillar trams slowed, shunted, changed trolley, started +for Blackrock, Kingstown and Dalkey, Clonskea, Rathgar and Terenure, +Palmerston Park and upper Rathmines, Sandymount Green, Rathmines, +Ringsend and Sandymount Tower, Harold's Cross. The hoarse Dublin United +Tramway Company's timekeeper bawled them off: + +--Rathgar and Terenure! + +--Come on, Sandymount Green! + +Right and left parallel clanging ringing a doubledecker and a singledeck +moved from their railheads, swerved to the down line, glided parallel. + +--Start, Palmerston Park! + + +THE WEARER OF THE CROWN + + +Under the porch of the general post office shoeblacks called and +polished. Parked in North Prince's street His Majesty's vermilion +mailcars, bearing on their sides the royal initials, E. R., received +loudly flung sacks of letters, postcards, lettercards, parcels, insured +and paid, for local, provincial, British and overseas delivery. + +GENTLEMEN OF THE PRESS + + +Grossbooted draymen rolled barrels dullthudding out of Prince's stores +and bumped them up on the brewery float. On the brewery float bumped +dullthudding barrels rolled by grossbooted draymen out of Prince's +stores. + +--There it is, Red Murray said. Alexander Keyes. + +--Just cut it out, will you? Mr Bloom said, and I'll take it round to +the _Telegraph_ office. + +The door of Ruttledge's office creaked again. Davy Stephens, minute in a +large capecoat, a small felt hat crowning his ringlets, passed out with +a roll of papers under his cape, a king's courier. + +Red Murray's long shears sliced out the advertisement from the newspaper +in four clean strokes. Scissors and paste. + +--I'll go through the printingworks, Mr Bloom said, taking the cut +square. + +--Of course, if he wants a par, Red Murray said earnestly, a pen behind +his ear, we can do him one. + +--Right, Mr Bloom said with a nod. I'll rub that in. + +We. + +WILLIAM BRAYDEN, ESQUIRE, OF OAKLANDS, SANDYMOUNT + + +Red Murray touched Mr Bloom's arm with the shears and whispered: + +--Brayden. + +Mr Bloom turned and saw the liveried porter raise his lettered cap as a +stately figure entered between the newsboards of the _Weekly Freeman +and National Press_ and the _Freeman's Journal and National Press_. +Dullthudding Guinness's barrels. It passed statelily up the staircase, +steered by an umbrella, a solemn beardframed face. The broadcloth back +ascended each step: back. All his brains are in the nape of his neck, +Simon Dedalus says. Welts of flesh behind on him. Fat folds of neck, +fat, neck, fat, neck. + +--Don't you think his face is like Our Saviour? Red Murray whispered. + +The door of Ruttledge's office whispered: ee: cree. They always build +one door opposite another for the wind to. Way in. Way out. + +Our Saviour: beardframed oval face: talking in the dusk. Mary, Martha. +Steered by an umbrella sword to the footlights: Mario the tenor. + +--Or like Mario, Mr Bloom said. + +--Yes, Red Murray agreed. But Mario was said to be the picture of Our +Saviour. + +Jesusmario with rougy cheeks, doublet and spindle legs. Hand on his +heart. In _Martha._ + + _Co-ome thou lost one, + Co-ome thou dear one!_ + +THE CROZIER AND THE PEN + + +--His grace phoned down twice this morning, Red Murray said gravely. + +They watched the knees, legs, boots vanish. Neck. + +A telegram boy stepped in nimbly, threw an envelope on the counter and +stepped off posthaste with a word: + +_--Freeman!_ + +Mr Bloom said slowly: + +--Well, he is one of our saviours also. + +A meek smile accompanied him as he lifted the counterflap, as he passed +in through a sidedoor and along the warm dark stairs and passage, +along the now reverberating boards. But will he save the circulation? +Thumping. Thumping. + +He pushed in the glass swingdoor and entered, stepping over strewn +packing paper. Through a lane of clanking drums he made his way towards +Nannetti's reading closet. + +WITH UNFEIGNED REGRET IT IS WE ANNOUNCE THE DISSOLUTION OF A MOST +RESPECTED DUBLIN BURGESS + + +Hynes here too: account of the funeral probably. Thumping. Thump. This +morning the remains of the late Mr Patrick Dignam. Machines. Smash a man +to atoms if they got him caught. Rule the world today. His machineries +are pegging away too. Like these, got out of hand: fermenting. Working +away, tearing away. And that old grey rat tearing to get in. + +HOW A GREAT DAILY ORGAN IS TURNED OUT + + +Mr Bloom halted behind the foreman's spare body, admiring a glossy +crown. + +Strange he never saw his real country. Ireland my country. Member for +College green. He boomed that workaday worker tack for all it was worth. +It's the ads and side features sell a weekly, not the stale news in the +official gazette. Queen Anne is dead. Published by authority in the year +one thousand and. Demesne situate in the townland of Rosenallis, barony +of Tinnahinch. To all whom it may concern schedule pursuant to statute +showing return of number of mules and jennets exported from Ballina. +Nature notes. Cartoons. Phil Blake's weekly Pat and Bull story. Uncle +Toby's page for tiny tots. Country bumpkin's queries. Dear Mr Editor, +what is a good cure for flatulence? I'd like that part. Learn a lot +teaching others. The personal note. M. A. P. Mainly all pictures. +Shapely bathers on golden strand. World's biggest balloon. Double +marriage of sisters celebrated. Two bridegrooms laughing heartily at +each other. Cuprani too, printer. More Irish than the Irish. + +The machines clanked in threefour time. Thump, thump, thump. Now if he +got paralysed there and no-one knew how to stop them they'd clank on and +on the same, print it over and over and up and back. Monkeydoodle the +whole thing. Want a cool head. + +--Well, get it into the evening edition, councillor, Hynes said. + +Soon be calling him my lord mayor. Long John is backing him, they say. + +The foreman, without answering, scribbled press on a corner of the sheet +and made a sign to a typesetter. He handed the sheet silently over the +dirty glass screen. + +--Right: thanks, Hynes said moving off. + +Mr Bloom stood in his way. + +--If you want to draw the cashier is just going to lunch, he said, +pointing backward with his thumb. + +--Did you? Hynes asked. + +--Mm, Mr Bloom said. Look sharp and you'll catch him. + +--Thanks, old man, Hynes said. I'll tap him too. + +He hurried on eagerly towards the _Freeman's Journal_. + +Three bob I lent him in Meagher's. Three weeks. Third hint. + +WE SEE THE CANVASSER AT WORK + + +Mr Bloom laid his cutting on Mr Nannetti's desk. + +--Excuse me, councillor, he said. This ad, you see. Keyes, you remember? + +Mr Nannetti considered the cutting awhile and nodded. + +--He wants it in for July, Mr Bloom said. + +The foreman moved his pencil towards it. + +--But wait, Mr Bloom said. He wants it changed. Keyes, you see. He wants +two keys at the top. + +Hell of a racket they make. He doesn't hear it. Nannan. Iron nerves. +Maybe he understands what I. + +The foreman turned round to hear patiently and, lifting an elbow, began +to scratch slowly in the armpit of his alpaca jacket. + +--Like that, Mr Bloom said, crossing his forefingers at the top. + +Let him take that in first. + +Mr Bloom, glancing sideways up from the cross he had made, saw the +foreman's sallow face, think he has a touch of jaundice, and beyond the +obedient reels feeding in huge webs of paper. Clank it. Clank it. Miles +of it unreeled. What becomes of it after? O, wrap up meat, parcels: +various uses, thousand and one things. + +Slipping his words deftly into the pauses of the clanking he drew +swiftly on the scarred woodwork. + +HOUSE OF KEY(E)S + + +--Like that, see. Two crossed keys here. A circle. Then here the name. +Alexander Keyes, tea, wine and spirit merchant. So on. + +Better not teach him his own business. + +--You know yourself, councillor, just what he wants. Then round the top +in leaded: the house of keys. You see? Do you think that's a good idea? + +The foreman moved his scratching hand to his lower ribs and scratched +there quietly. + +--The idea, Mr Bloom said, is the house of keys. You know, councillor, +the Manx parliament. Innuendo of home rule. Tourists, you know, from the +isle of Man. Catches the eye, you see. Can you do that? + +I could ask him perhaps about how to pronounce that _voglio._ But then +if he didn't know only make it awkward for him. Better not. + +--We can do that, the foreman said. Have you the design? + +--I can get it, Mr Bloom said. It was in a Kilkenny paper. He has a +house there too. I'll just run out and ask him. Well, you can do that +and just a little par calling attention. You know the usual. Highclass +licensed premises. Longfelt want. So on. + +The foreman thought for an instant. + +--We can do that, he said. Let him give us a three months' renewal. + +A typesetter brought him a limp galleypage. He began to check it +silently. Mr Bloom stood by, hearing the loud throbs of cranks, watching +the silent typesetters at their cases. + +ORTHOGRAPHICAL + + +Want to be sure of his spelling. Proof fever. Martin Cunningham forgot +to give us his spellingbee conundrum this morning. It is amusing to view +the unpar one ar alleled embarra two ars is it? double ess ment of a +harassed pedlar while gauging au the symmetry with a y of a peeled pear +under a cemetery wall. Silly, isn't it? Cemetery put in of course on +account of the symmetry. + +I should have said when he clapped on his topper. Thank you. I ought +to have said something about an old hat or something. No. I could have +said. Looks as good as new now. See his phiz then. + +Sllt. The nethermost deck of the first machine jogged forward its +flyboard with sllt the first batch of quirefolded papers. Sllt. Almost +human the way it sllt to call attention. Doing its level best to speak. +That door too sllt creaking, asking to be shut. Everything speaks in its +own way. Sllt. + +NOTED CHURCHMAN AN OCCASIONAL CONTRIBUTOR + + +The foreman handed back the galleypage suddenly, saying: + +--Wait. Where's the archbishop's letter? It's to be repeated in the +_Telegraph._ Where's what's his name? + +He looked about him round his loud unanswering machines. + +--Monks, sir? a voice asked from the castingbox. + +--Ay. Where's Monks? + +--Monks! + +Mr Bloom took up his cutting. Time to get out. + +--Then I'll get the design, Mr Nannetti, he said, and you'll give it a +good place I know. + +--Monks! + +--Yes, sir. + +Three months' renewal. Want to get some wind off my chest first. Try it +anyhow. Rub in August: good idea: horseshow month. Ballsbridge. Tourists +over for the show. + +A DAYFATHER + + +He walked on through the caseroom passing an old man, bowed, spectacled, +aproned. Old Monks, the dayfather. Queer lot of stuff he must have put +through his hands in his time: obituary notices, pubs' ads, speeches, +divorce suits, found drowned. Nearing the end of his tether now. Sober +serious man with a bit in the savingsbank I'd say. Wife a good cook and +washer. Daughter working the machine in the parlour. Plain Jane, no damn +nonsense. AND IT WAS THE FEAST OF THE PASSOVER + + +He stayed in his walk to watch a typesetter neatly distributing type. +Reads it backwards first. Quickly he does it. Must require some practice +that. mangiD kcirtaP. Poor papa with his hagadah book, reading backwards +with his finger to me. Pessach. Next year in Jerusalem. Dear, O dear! +All that long business about that brought us out of the land of Egypt +and into the house of bondage _Alleluia. Shema Israel Adonai Elohenu_. +No, that's the other. Then the twelve brothers, Jacob's sons. And then +the lamb and the cat and the dog and the stick and the water and the +butcher. And then the angel of death kills the butcher and he kills the +ox and the dog kills the cat. Sounds a bit silly till you come to look +into it well. Justice it means but it's everybody eating everyone else. +That's what life is after all. How quickly he does that job. Practice +makes perfect. Seems to see with his fingers. + +Mr Bloom passed on out of the clanking noises through the gallery on to +the landing. Now am I going to tram it out all the way and then catch +him out perhaps. Better phone him up first. Number? Yes. Same as +Citron's house. Twentyeight. Twentyeight double four. + +ONLY ONCE MORE THAT SOAP + + +He went down the house staircase. Who the deuce scrawled all over those +walls with matches? Looks as if they did it for a bet. Heavy greasy +smell there always is in those works. Lukewarm glue in Thom's next door +when I was there. + +He took out his handkerchief to dab his nose. Citronlemon? Ah, the soap +I put there. Lose it out of that pocket. Putting back his handkerchief +he took out the soap and stowed it away, buttoned, into the hip pocket +of his trousers. + +What perfume does your wife use? I could go home still: tram: something +I forgot. Just to see: before: dressing. No. Here. No. + +A sudden screech of laughter came from the _Evening Telegraph_ office. +Know who that is. What's up? Pop in a minute to phone. Ned Lambert it +is. + +He entered softly. + +ERIN, GREEN GEM OF THE SILVER SEA + + +--The ghost walks, professor MacHugh murmured softly, biscuitfully to +the dusty windowpane. + +Mr Dedalus, staring from the empty fireplace at Ned Lambert's quizzing +face, asked of it sourly: + +--Agonising Christ, wouldn't it give you a heartburn on your arse? + +Ned Lambert, seated on the table, read on: + +--_Or again, note the meanderings of some purling rill as it babbles +on its way, tho' quarrelling with the stony obstacles, to the tumbling +waters of Neptune's blue domain, 'mid mossy banks, fanned by gentlest +zephyrs, played on by the glorious sunlight or 'neath the shadows cast +o'er its pensive bosom by the overarching leafage of the giants of +the forest_. What about that, Simon? he asked over the fringe of his +newspaper. How's that for high? + +--Changing his drink, Mr Dedalus said. + +Ned Lambert, laughing, struck the newspaper on his knees, repeating: + +--_The pensive bosom and the overarsing leafage_. O boys! O boys! + +--And Xenophon looked upon Marathon, Mr Dedalus said, looking again on +the fireplace and to the window, and Marathon looked on the sea. + +--That will do, professor MacHugh cried from the window. I don't want to +hear any more of the stuff. + +He ate off the crescent of water biscuit he had been nibbling and, +hungered, made ready to nibble the biscuit in his other hand. + +High falutin stuff. Bladderbags. Ned Lambert is taking a day off I see. +Rather upsets a man's day, a funeral does. He has influence they +say. Old Chatterton, the vicechancellor, is his granduncle or his +greatgranduncle. Close on ninety they say. Subleader for his death +written this long time perhaps. Living to spite them. Might go first +himself. Johnny, make room for your uncle. The right honourable Hedges +Eyre Chatterton. Daresay he writes him an odd shaky cheque or two on +gale days. Windfall when he kicks out. Alleluia. + +--Just another spasm, Ned Lambert said. + +--What is it? Mr Bloom asked. + +--A recently discovered fragment of Cicero, professor MacHugh answered +with pomp of tone. _Our lovely land_. SHORT BUT TO THE POINT + + +--Whose land? Mr Bloom said simply. + +--Most pertinent question, the professor said between his chews. With an +accent on the whose. + +--Dan Dawson's land Mr Dedalus said. + +--Is it his speech last night? Mr Bloom asked. + +Ned Lambert nodded. + +--But listen to this, he said. + +The doorknob hit Mr Bloom in the small of the back as the door was +pushed in. + +--Excuse me, J. J. O'Molloy said, entering. + +Mr Bloom moved nimbly aside. + +--I beg yours, he said. + +--Good day, Jack. + +--Come in. Come in. + +--Good day. + +--How are you, Dedalus? + +--Well. And yourself? + +J. J. O'Molloy shook his head. + +SAD + + +Cleverest fellow at the junior bar he used to be. Decline, poor chap. +That hectic flush spells finis for a man. Touch and go with him. What's +in the wind, I wonder. Money worry. + +--_Or again if we but climb the serried mountain peaks._ + +--You're looking extra. + +--Is the editor to be seen? J. J. O'Molloy asked, looking towards the +inner door. + +--Very much so, professor MacHugh said. To be seen and heard. He's in +his sanctum with Lenehan. + +J. J. O'Molloy strolled to the sloping desk and began to turn back the +pink pages of the file. + +Practice dwindling. A mighthavebeen. Losing heart. Gambling. Debts of +honour. Reaping the whirlwind. Used to get good retainers from D. and T. +Fitzgerald. Their wigs to show the grey matter. Brains on their sleeve +like the statue in Glasnevin. Believe he does some literary work for the +_Express_ with Gabriel Conroy. Wellread fellow. Myles Crawford began +on the _Independent._ Funny the way those newspaper men veer about when +they get wind of a new opening. Weathercocks. Hot and cold in the same +breath. Wouldn't know which to believe. One story good till you hear +the next. Go for one another baldheaded in the papers and then all blows +over. Hail fellow well met the next moment. + +--Ah, listen to this for God' sake, Ned Lambert pleaded. _Or again if we +but climb the serried mountain peaks..._ + +--Bombast! the professor broke in testily. Enough of the inflated +windbag! + +--_Peaks_, Ned Lambert went on, _towering high on high, to bathe our +souls, as it were..._ + +--Bathe his lips, Mr Dedalus said. Blessed and eternal God! Yes? Is he +taking anything for it? + +_--As 'twere, in the peerless panorama of Ireland's portfolio, +unmatched, despite their wellpraised prototypes in other vaunted prize +regions, for very beauty, of bosky grove and undulating plain and +luscious pastureland of vernal green, steeped in the transcendent +translucent glow of our mild mysterious Irish twilight..._ + +HIS NATIVE DORIC + + +--The moon, professor MacHugh said. He forgot Hamlet. + +_--That mantles the vista far and wide and wait till the glowing orb of +the moon shine forth to irradiate her silver effulgence..._ + +--O! Mr Dedalus cried, giving vent to a hopeless groan. Shite and +onions! That'll do, Ned. Life is too short. + +He took off his silk hat and, blowing out impatiently his bushy +moustache, welshcombed his hair with raking fingers. + +Ned Lambert tossed the newspaper aside, chuckling with delight. An +instant after a hoarse bark of laughter burst over professor MacHugh's +unshaven blackspectacled face. + +--Doughy Daw! he cried. + +WHAT WETHERUP SAID + + +All very fine to jeer at it now in cold print but it goes down like hot +cake that stuff. He was in the bakery line too, wasn't he? Why they call +him Doughy Daw. Feathered his nest well anyhow. Daughter engaged to that +chap in the inland revenue office with the motor. Hooked that nicely. +Entertainments. Open house. Big blowout. Wetherup always said that. Get +a grip of them by the stomach. + +The inner door was opened violently and a scarlet beaked face, crested +by a comb of feathery hair, thrust itself in. The bold blue eyes stared +about them and the harsh voice asked: + +--What is it? + +--And here comes the sham squire himself! professor MacHugh said +grandly. + +--Getonouthat, you bloody old pedagogue! the editor said in recognition. + +--Come, Ned, Mr Dedalus said, putting on his hat. I must get a drink +after that. + +--Drink! the editor cried. No drinks served before mass. + +--Quite right too, Mr Dedalus said, going out. Come on, Ned. + +Ned Lambert sidled down from the table. The editor's blue eyes roved +towards Mr Bloom's face, shadowed by a smile. + +--Will you join us, Myles? Ned Lambert asked. + +MEMORABLE BATTLES RECALLED + + +--North Cork militia! the editor cried, striding to the mantelpiece. We +won every time! North Cork and Spanish officers! + +--Where was that, Myles? Ned Lambert asked with a reflective glance at +his toecaps. + +--In Ohio! the editor shouted. + +--So it was, begad, Ned Lambert agreed. + +Passing out he whispered to J. J. O'Molloy: + +--Incipient jigs. Sad case. + +--Ohio! the editor crowed in high treble from his uplifted scarlet face. +My Ohio! + +--A perfect cretic! the professor said. Long, short and long. + +O, HARP EOLIAN! + + +He took a reel of dental floss from his waistcoat pocket and, breaking +off a piece, twanged it smartly between two and two of his resonant +unwashed teeth. + +--Bingbang, bangbang. + +Mr Bloom, seeing the coast clear, made for the inner door. + +--Just a moment, Mr Crawford, he said. I just want to phone about an ad. + +He went in. + +--What about that leader this evening? professor MacHugh asked, coming +to the editor and laying a firm hand on his shoulder. + +--That'll be all right, Myles Crawford said more calmly. Never you fret. +Hello, Jack. That's all right. + +--Good day, Myles, J. J. O'Molloy said, letting the pages he held slip +limply back on the file. Is that Canada swindle case on today? + +The telephone whirred inside. + +--Twentyeight... No, twenty... Double four... Yes. + +SPOT THE WINNER + + +Lenehan came out of the inner office with SPORT'S tissues. + +--Who wants a dead cert for the Gold cup? he asked. Sceptre with O. +Madden up. + +He tossed the tissues on to the table. + +Screams of newsboys barefoot in the hall rushed near and the door was +flung open. + +--Hush, Lenehan said. I hear feetstoops. + +Professor MacHugh strode across the room and seized the cringing urchin +by the collar as the others scampered out of the hall and down the +steps. The tissues rustled up in the draught, floated softly in the air +blue scrawls and under the table came to earth. + +--It wasn't me, sir. It was the big fellow shoved me, sir. + +--Throw him out and shut the door, the editor said. There's a hurricane +blowing. + +Lenehan began to paw the tissues up from the floor, grunting as he +stooped twice. + +--Waiting for the racing special, sir, the newsboy said. It was Pat +Farrell shoved me, sir. + +He pointed to two faces peering in round the doorframe. + +--Him, sir. + +--Out of this with you, professor MacHugh said gruffly. + +He hustled the boy out and banged the door to. + +J. J. O'Molloy turned the files crackingly over, murmuring, seeking: + +--Continued on page six, column four. + +--Yes, _Evening Telegraph_ here, Mr Bloom phoned from the inner office. +Is the boss...? Yes, _Telegraph_... To where? Aha! Which auction rooms +?... Aha! I see... Right. I'll catch him. + +A COLLISION ENSUES + + +The bell whirred again as he rang off. He came in quickly and bumped +against Lenehan who was struggling up with the second tissue. + +--_Pardon, monsieur_, Lenehan said, clutching him for an instant and +making a grimace. + +--My fault, Mr Bloom said, suffering his grip. Are you hurt? I'm in a +hurry. + +--Knee, Lenehan said. + +He made a comic face and whined, rubbing his knee: + +--The accumulation of the _anno Domini_. + +--Sorry, Mr Bloom said. + +He went to the door and, holding it ajar, paused. J. J. O'Molloy slapped +the heavy pages over. The noise of two shrill voices, a mouthorgan, +echoed in the bare hallway from the newsboys squatted on the doorsteps: + + _--We are the boys of Wexford + Who fought with heart and hand._ + +EXIT BLOOM + + +--I'm just running round to Bachelor's walk, Mr Bloom said, about this +ad of Keyes's. Want to fix it up. They tell me he's round there in +Dillon's. + +He looked indecisively for a moment at their faces. The editor who, +leaning against the mantelshelf, had propped his head on his hand, +suddenly stretched forth an arm amply. + +--Begone! he said. The world is before you. + +--Back in no time, Mr Bloom said, hurrying out. + +J. J. O'Molloy took the tissues from Lenehan's hand and read them, +blowing them apart gently, without comment. + +--He'll get that advertisement, the professor said, staring through his +blackrimmed spectacles over the crossblind. Look at the young scamps +after him. + +--Show. Where? Lenehan cried, running to the window. + +A STREET CORTEGE + + +Both smiled over the crossblind at the file of capering newsboys in Mr +Bloom's wake, the last zigzagging white on the breeze a mocking kite, a +tail of white bowknots. + +--Look at the young guttersnipe behind him hue and cry, Lenehan said, +and you'll kick. O, my rib risible! Taking off his flat spaugs and the +walk. Small nines. Steal upon larks. + +He began to mazurka in swift caricature across the floor on sliding +feet past the fireplace to J. J. O'Molloy who placed the tissues in his +receiving hands. + +--What's that? Myles Crawford said with a start. Where are the other two +gone? + +--Who? the professor said, turning. They're gone round to the Oval for a +drink. Paddy Hooper is there with Jack Hall. Came over last night. + +--Come on then, Myles Crawford said. Where's my hat? + +He walked jerkily into the office behind, parting the vent of his +jacket, jingling his keys in his back pocket. They jingled then in the +air and against the wood as he locked his desk drawer. + +--He's pretty well on, professor MacHugh said in a low voice. + +--Seems to be, J. J. O'Molloy said, taking out a cigarettecase in +murmuring meditation, but it is not always as it seems. Who has the most +matches? + +THE CALUMET OF PEACE + + +He offered a cigarette to the professor and took one himself. Lenehan +promptly struck a match for them and lit their cigarettes in turn. J. J. +O'Molloy opened his case again and offered it. + +--_Thanky vous_, Lenehan said, helping himself. + +The editor came from the inner office, a straw hat awry on his brow. He +declaimed in song, pointing sternly at professor MacHugh: + +_--'Twas rank and fame that tempted thee, 'Twas empire charmed thy +heart._ + +The professor grinned, locking his long lips. + +--Eh? You bloody old Roman empire? Myles Crawford said. + +He took a cigarette from the open case. Lenehan, lighting it for him +with quick grace, said: + +--Silence for my brandnew riddle! + +--_Imperium romanum_, J. J. O'Molloy said gently. It sounds nobler than +British or Brixton. The word reminds one somehow of fat in the fire. + +Myles Crawford blew his first puff violently towards the ceiling. + +--That's it, he said. We are the fat. You and I are the fat in the fire. +We haven't got the chance of a snowball in hell. + +THE GRANDEUR THAT WAS ROME + + +--Wait a moment, professor MacHugh said, raising two quiet claws. We +mustn't be led away by words, by sounds of words. We think of Rome, +imperial, imperious, imperative. + +He extended elocutionary arms from frayed stained shirtcuffs, pausing: + +--What was their civilisation? Vast, I allow: but vile. Cloacae: sewers. +The Jews in the wilderness and on the mountaintop said: _It is meet +to be here. Let us build an altar to Jehovah_. The Roman, like the +Englishman who follows in his footsteps, brought to every new shore on +which he set his foot (on our shore he never set it) only his cloacal +obsession. He gazed about him in his toga and he said: _It is meet to be +here. Let us construct a watercloset._ + +--Which they accordingly did do, Lenehan said. Our old ancient +ancestors, as we read in the first chapter of Guinness's, were partial +to the running stream. + +--They were nature's gentlemen, J. J. O'Molloy murmured. But we have +also Roman law. + +--And Pontius Pilate is its prophet, professor MacHugh responded. + +--Do you know that story about chief baron Palles? J. J. O'Molloy asked. +It was at the royal university dinner. Everything was going swimmingly +... + +--First my riddle, Lenehan said. Are you ready? + +Mr O'Madden Burke, tall in copious grey of Donegal tweed, came in from +the hallway. Stephen Dedalus, behind him, uncovered as he entered. + +--_Entrez, mes enfants!_ Lenehan cried. + +--I escort a suppliant, Mr O'Madden Burke said melodiously. Youth led by +Experience visits Notoriety. + +--How do you do? the editor said, holding out a hand. Come in. Your +governor is just gone.??? + + +Lenehan said to all: + +--Silence! What opera resembles a railwayline? Reflect, ponder, +excogitate, reply. + +Stephen handed over the typed sheets, pointing to the title and +signature. + +--Who? the editor asked. + +Bit torn off. + +--Mr Garrett Deasy, Stephen said. + +--That old pelters, the editor said. Who tore it? Was he short taken? + + _On swift sail flaming + From storm and south + He comes, pale vampire, + Mouth to my mouth._ + +--Good day, Stephen, the professor said, coming to peer over their +shoulders. Foot and mouth? Are you turned...? + +Bullockbefriending bard. + +SHINDY IN WELLKNOWN RESTAURANT + + +--Good day, sir, Stephen answered blushing. The letter is not mine. Mr +Garrett Deasy asked me to... + +--O, I know him, Myles Crawford said, and I knew his wife too. The +bloodiest old tartar God ever made. By Jesus, she had the foot and mouth +disease and no mistake! The night she threw the soup in the waiter's +face in the Star and Garter. Oho! + +A woman brought sin into the world. For Helen, the runaway wife of +Menelaus, ten years the Greeks. O'Rourke, prince of Breffni. + +--Is he a widower? Stephen asked. + +--Ay, a grass one, Myles Crawford said, his eye running down the +typescript. Emperor's horses. Habsburg. An Irishman saved his life on +the ramparts of Vienna. Don't you forget! Maximilian Karl O'Donnell, +graf von Tirconnell in Ireland. Sent his heir over to make the king +an Austrian fieldmarshal now. Going to be trouble there one day. Wild +geese. O yes, every time. Don't you forget that! + +--The moot point is did he forget it, J. J. O'Molloy said quietly, +turning a horseshoe paperweight. Saving princes is a thank you job. + +Professor MacHugh turned on him. + +--And if not? he said. + +--I'll tell you how it was, Myles Crawford began. A Hungarian it was one +day... LOST CAUSES + +NOBLE MARQUESS MENTIONED + + +--We were always loyal to lost causes, the professor said. Success for +us is the death of the intellect and of the imagination. We were never +loyal to the successful. We serve them. I teach the blatant Latin +language. I speak the tongue of a race the acme of whose mentality is +the maxim: time is money. Material domination. _Dominus!_ Lord! Where is +the spirituality? Lord Jesus? Lord Salisbury? A sofa in a westend club. +But the Greek! + +KYRIE ELEISON! + + +A smile of light brightened his darkrimmed eyes, lengthened his long +lips. + +--The Greek! he said again. _Kyrios!_ Shining word! The vowels the +Semite and the Saxon know not. _Kyrie!_ The radiance of the intellect. +I ought to profess Greek, the language of the mind. _Kyrie eleison!_ The +closetmaker and the cloacamaker will never be lords of our spirit. We +are liege subjects of the catholic chivalry of Europe that foundered at +Trafalgar and of the empire of the spirit, not an _imperium,_ that +went under with the Athenian fleets at Aegospotami. Yes, yes. They went +under. Pyrrhus, misled by an oracle, made a last attempt to retrieve the +fortunes of Greece. Loyal to a lost cause. + +He strode away from them towards the window. + +--They went forth to battle, Mr O'Madden Burke said greyly, but they +always fell. + +--Boohoo! Lenehan wept with a little noise. Owing to a brick received in +the latter half of the _matinee_. Poor, poor, poor Pyrrhus! + +He whispered then near Stephen's ear: + +LENEHAN'S LIMERICK + + + _There's a ponderous pundit MacHugh + Who wears goggles of ebony hue. + As he mostly sees double + To wear them why trouble? + I can't see the Joe Miller. Can you?_ + +In mourning for Sallust, Mulligan says. Whose mother is beastly dead. + +Myles Crawford crammed the sheets into a sidepocket. + +--That'll be all right, he said. I'll read the rest after. That'll be +all right. + +Lenehan extended his hands in protest. + +--But my riddle! he said. What opera is like a railwayline? + +--Opera? Mr O'Madden Burke's sphinx face reriddled. + +Lenehan announced gladly: + +--_The Rose of Castile_. See the wheeze? Rows of cast steel. Gee! + +He poked Mr O'Madden Burke mildly in the spleen. Mr O'Madden Burke fell +back with grace on his umbrella, feigning a gasp. + +--Help! he sighed. I feel a strong weakness. + +Lenehan, rising to tiptoe, fanned his face rapidly with the rustling +tissues. + +The professor, returning by way of the files, swept his hand across +Stephen's and Mr O'Madden Burke's loose ties. + +--Paris, past and present, he said. You look like communards. + +--Like fellows who had blown up the Bastile, J. J. O'Molloy said in +quiet mockery. Or was it you shot the lord lieutenant of Finland between +you? You look as though you had done the deed. General Bobrikoff. + +OMNIUM GATHERUM + + +--We were only thinking about it, Stephen said. + +--All the talents, Myles Crawford said. Law, the classics... + +--The turf, Lenehan put in. + +--Literature, the press. + +--If Bloom were here, the professor said. The gentle art of +advertisement. + +--And Madam Bloom, Mr O'Madden Burke added. The vocal muse. Dublin's +prime favourite. + +Lenehan gave a loud cough. + +--Ahem! he said very softly. O, for a fresh of breath air! I caught a +cold in the park. The gate was open. + +YOU CAN DO IT! + + +The editor laid a nervous hand on Stephen's shoulder. + +--I want you to write something for me, he said. Something with a bite +in it. You can do it. I see it in your face. _In the lexicon of youth_ +... + +See it in your face. See it in your eye. Lazy idle little schemer. + +--Foot and mouth disease! the editor cried in scornful invective. Great +nationalist meeting in Borris-in-Ossory. All balls! Bulldosing the +public! Give them something with a bite in it. Put us all into it, damn +its soul. Father, Son and Holy Ghost and Jakes M'Carthy. + +--We can all supply mental pabulum, Mr O'Madden Burke said. + +Stephen raised his eyes to the bold unheeding stare. + +--He wants you for the pressgang, J. J. O'Molloy said. + +THE GREAT GALLAHER + + +--You can do it, Myles Crawford repeated, clenching his hand in +emphasis. Wait a minute. We'll paralyse Europe as Ignatius Gallaher +used to say when he was on the shaughraun, doing billiardmarking in the +Clarence. Gallaher, that was a pressman for you. That was a pen. You +know how he made his mark? I'll tell you. That was the smartest piece of +journalism ever known. That was in eightyone, sixth of May, time of +the invincibles, murder in the Phoenix park, before you were born, I +suppose. I'll show you. + +He pushed past them to the files. + +--Look at here, he said turning. The _New York World_ cabled for a +special. Remember that time? + +Professor MacHugh nodded. + +--_New York World_, the editor said, excitedly pushing back his straw +hat. Where it took place. Tim Kelly, or Kavanagh I mean. Joe Brady and +the rest of them. Where Skin-the-Goat drove the car. Whole route, see? + +--Skin-the-Goat, Mr O'Madden Burke said. Fitzharris. He has that +cabman's shelter, they say, down there at Butt bridge. Holohan told me. +You know Holohan? + +--Hop and carry one, is it? Myles Crawford said. + +--And poor Gumley is down there too, so he told me, minding stones for +the corporation. A night watchman. + +Stephen turned in surprise. + +--Gumley? he said. You don't say so? A friend of my father's, is it? + +--Never mind Gumley, Myles Crawford cried angrily. Let Gumley mind +the stones, see they don't run away. Look at here. What did Ignatius +Gallaher do? I'll tell you. Inspiration of genius. Cabled right away. +Have you _Weekly Freeman_ of 17 March? Right. Have you got that? + +He flung back pages of the files and stuck his finger on a point. + +--Take page four, advertisement for Bransome's coffee, let us say. Have +you got that? Right. + +The telephone whirred. + +A DISTANT VOICE + + +--I'll answer it, the professor said, going. + +--B is parkgate. Good. + +His finger leaped and struck point after point, vibrating. + +--T is viceregal lodge. C is where murder took place. K is Knockmaroon +gate. + +The loose flesh of his neck shook like a cock's wattles. An illstarched +dicky jutted up and with a rude gesture he thrust it back into his +waistcoat. + +--Hello? _Evening Telegraph_ here... Hello?... Who's there?... Yes... +Yes... Yes. + +--F to P is the route Skin-the-Goat drove the car for an alibi, +Inchicore, Roundtown, Windy Arbour, Palmerston Park, Ranelagh. F.A.B.P. +Got that? X is Davy's publichouse in upper Leeson street. + +The professor came to the inner door. + +--Bloom is at the telephone, he said. + +--Tell him go to hell, the editor said promptly. X is Davy's +publichouse, see? CLEVER, VERY + + +--Clever, Lenehan said. Very. + +--Gave it to them on a hot plate, Myles Crawford said, the whole bloody +history. + +Nightmare from which you will never awake. + +--I saw it, the editor said proudly. I was present. Dick Adams, the +besthearted bloody Corkman the Lord ever put the breath of life in, and +myself. + +Lenehan bowed to a shape of air, announcing: + +--Madam, I'm Adam. And Able was I ere I saw Elba. + +--History! Myles Crawford cried. The Old Woman of Prince's street was +there first. There was weeping and gnashing of teeth over that. Out of +an advertisement. Gregor Grey made the design for it. That gave him the +leg up. Then Paddy Hooper worked Tay Pay who took him on to the _Star._ +Now he's got in with Blumenfeld. That's press. That's talent. Pyatt! He +was all their daddies! + +--The father of scare journalism, Lenehan confirmed, and the +brother-in-law of Chris Callinan. + +--Hello?... Are you there?... Yes, he's here still. Come across +yourself. + +--Where do you find a pressman like that now, eh? the editor cried. He +flung the pages down. + +--Clamn dever, Lenehan said to Mr O'Madden Burke. + +--Very smart, Mr O'Madden Burke said. + +Professor MacHugh came from the inner office. + +--Talking about the invincibles, he said, did you see that some hawkers +were up before the recorder? + +--O yes, J. J. O'Molloy said eagerly. Lady Dudley was walking home +through the park to see all the trees that were blown down by that +cyclone last year and thought she'd buy a view of Dublin. And it +turned out to be a commemoration postcard of Joe Brady or Number One or +Skin-the-Goat. Right outside the viceregal lodge, imagine! + +--They're only in the hook and eye department, Myles Crawford said. +Psha! Press and the bar! Where have you a man now at the bar like those +fellows, like Whiteside, like Isaac Butt, like silvertongued O'Hagan. +Eh? Ah, bloody nonsense. Psha! Only in the halfpenny place. + +His mouth continued to twitch unspeaking in nervous curls of disdain. + +Would anyone wish that mouth for her kiss? How do you know? Why did you +write it then? + +RHYMES AND REASONS + + +Mouth, south. Is the mouth south someway? Or the south a mouth? Must be +some. South, pout, out, shout, drouth. Rhymes: two men dressed the same, +looking the same, two by two. + + _........................ la tua pace + .................. che parlar ti piace + .... mentreche il vento, come fa, si tace._ + +He saw them three by three, approaching girls, in green, in rose, in +russet, entwining, _per l'aer perso_, in mauve, in purple, _quella +pacifica oriafiamma_, gold of oriflamme, _di rimirar fe piu ardenti._ +But I old men, penitent, leadenfooted, underdarkneath the night: mouth +south: tomb womb. + +--Speak up for yourself, Mr O'Madden Burke said. + +SUFFICIENT FOR THE DAY... + + +J. J. O'Molloy, smiling palely, took up the gage. + +--My dear Myles, he said, flinging his cigarette aside, you put a false +construction on my words. I hold no brief, as at present advised, for +the third profession qua profession but your Cork legs are running away +with you. Why not bring in Henry Grattan and Flood and Demosthenes and +Edmund Burke? Ignatius Gallaher we all know and his Chapelizod boss, +Harmsworth of the farthing press, and his American cousin of the Bowery +guttersheet not to mention _Paddy Kelly's Budget, Pue's Occurrences_ +and our watchful friend _The Skibbereen Eagle_. Why bring in a master +of forensic eloquence like Whiteside? Sufficient for the day is the +newspaper thereof. LINKS WITH BYGONE DAYS OF YORE + + +--Grattan and Flood wrote for this very paper, the editor cried in his +face. Irish volunteers. Where are you now? Established 1763. Dr Lucas. +Who have you now like John Philpot Curran? Psha! + +--Well, J. J. O'Molloy said, Bushe K.C., for example. + +--Bushe? the editor said. Well, yes: Bushe, yes. He has a strain of it +in his blood. Kendal Bushe or I mean Seymour Bushe. + +--He would have been on the bench long ago, the professor said, only for +... But no matter. + +J. J. O'Molloy turned to Stephen and said quietly and slowly: + +--One of the most polished periods I think I ever listened to in my life +fell from the lips of Seymour Bushe. It was in that case of fratricide, +the Childs murder case. Bushe defended him. _And in the porches of mine +ear did pour._ + + +By the way how did he find that out? He died in his sleep. Or the other +story, beast with two backs? + +--What was that? the professor asked. + +ITALIA, MAGISTRA ARTIUM + + +--He spoke on the law of evidence, J. J. O'Molloy said, of Roman justice +as contrasted with the earlier Mosaic code, the _lex talionis_. And he +cited the Moses of Michelangelo in the vatican. + +--Ha. + +--A few wellchosen words, Lenehan prefaced. Silence! + +Pause. J. J. O'Molloy took out his cigarettecase. + +False lull. Something quite ordinary. + +Messenger took out his matchbox thoughtfully and lit his cigar. + +I have often thought since on looking back over that strange time that +it was that small act, trivial in itself, that striking of that match, +that determined the whole aftercourse of both our lives. A POLISHED +PERIOD + + +J. J. O'Molloy resumed, moulding his words: + +--He said of it: _that stony effigy in frozen music, horned and +terrible, of the human form divine, that eternal symbol of wisdom and +of prophecy which, if aught that the imagination or the hand of sculptor +has wrought in marble of soultransfigured and of soultransfiguring +deserves to live, deserves to live._ + +His slim hand with a wave graced echo and fall. + +--Fine! Myles Crawford said at once. + +--The divine afflatus, Mr O'Madden Burke said. + +--You like it? J. J. O'Molloy asked Stephen. + +Stephen, his blood wooed by grace of language and gesture, blushed. He +took a cigarette from the case. J. J. O'Molloy offered his case to Myles +Crawford. Lenehan lit their cigarettes as before and took his trophy, +saying: + +--Muchibus thankibus. + +A MAN OF HIGH MORALE + + +--Professor Magennis was speaking to me about you, J. J. O'Molloy said +to Stephen. What do you think really of that hermetic crowd, the opal +hush poets: A. E. the mastermystic? That Blavatsky woman started it. +She was a nice old bag of tricks. A. E. has been telling some yankee +interviewer that you came to him in the small hours of the morning to +ask him about planes of consciousness. Magennis thinks you must have +been pulling A. E.'s leg. He is a man of the very highest morale, +Magennis. + +Speaking about me. What did he say? What did he say? What did he say +about me? Don't ask. + +--No, thanks, professor MacHugh said, waving the cigarettecase aside. +Wait a moment. Let me say one thing. The finest display of oratory I +ever heard was a speech made by John F Taylor at the college historical +society. Mr Justice Fitzgibbon, the present lord justice of appeal, had +spoken and the paper under debate was an essay (new for those days), +advocating the revival of the Irish tongue. + +He turned towards Myles Crawford and said: + +--You know Gerald Fitzgibbon. Then you can imagine the style of his +discourse. + +--He is sitting with Tim Healy, J. J. O'Molloy said, rumour has it, on +the Trinity college estates commission. + +--He is sitting with a sweet thing, Myles Crawford said, in a child's +frock. Go on. Well? + +--It was the speech, mark you, the professor said, of a finished orator, +full of courteous haughtiness and pouring in chastened diction I will +not say the vials of his wrath but pouring the proud man's contumely +upon the new movement. It was then a new movement. We were weak, +therefore worthless. + +He closed his long thin lips an instant but, eager to be on, raised +an outspanned hand to his spectacles and, with trembling thumb and +ringfinger touching lightly the black rims, steadied them to a new +focus. + +IMPROMPTU + + +In ferial tone he addressed J. J. O'Molloy: + +--Taylor had come there, you must know, from a sickbed. That he +had prepared his speech I do not believe for there was not even one +shorthandwriter in the hall. His dark lean face had a growth of shaggy +beard round it. He wore a loose white silk neckcloth and altogether he +looked (though he was not) a dying man. + +His gaze turned at once but slowly from J. J. O'Molloy's towards +Stephen's face and then bent at once to the ground, seeking. His +unglazed linen collar appeared behind his bent head, soiled by his +withering hair. Still seeking, he said: + +--When Fitzgibbon's speech had ended John F Taylor rose to reply. +Briefly, as well as I can bring them to mind, his words were these. + +He raised his head firmly. His eyes bethought themselves once more. +Witless shellfish swam in the gross lenses to and fro, seeking outlet. + +He began: + +_--Mr Chairman, ladies and gentlemen: Great was my admiration in +listening to the remarks addressed to the youth of Ireland a moment +since by my learned friend. It seemed to me that I had been transported +into a country far away from this country, into an age remote from +this age, that I stood in ancient Egypt and that I was listening to the +speech of some highpriest of that land addressed to the youthful Moses._ + +His listeners held their cigarettes poised to hear, their smokes +ascending in frail stalks that flowered with his speech. _And let our +crooked smokes._ Noble words coming. Look out. Could you try your hand +at it yourself? + +_--And it seemed to me that I heard the voice of that Egyptian +highpriest raised in a tone of like haughtiness and like pride. I heard +his words and their meaning was revealed to me._ + +FROM THE FATHERS + + +It was revealed to me that those things are good which yet are corrupted +which neither if they were supremely good nor unless they were good +could be corrupted. Ah, curse you! That's saint Augustine. + +_--Why will you jews not accept our culture, our religion and our +language? You are a tribe of nomad herdsmen: we are a mighty people. You +have no cities nor no wealth: our cities are hives of humanity and +our galleys, trireme and quadrireme, laden with all manner merchandise +furrow the waters of the known globe. You have but emerged from +primitive conditions: we have a literature, a priesthood, an agelong +history and a polity._ + +Nile. + +Child, man, effigy. + +By the Nilebank the babemaries kneel, cradle of bulrushes: a man supple +in combat: stonehorned, stonebearded, heart of stone. + +_--You pray to a local and obscure idol: our temples, majestic and +mysterious, are the abodes of Isis and Osiris, of Horus and Ammon Ra. +Yours serfdom, awe and humbleness: ours thunder and the seas. Israel +is weak and few are her children: Egypt is an host and terrible are her +arms. Vagrants and daylabourers are you called: the world trembles at +our name._ + +A dumb belch of hunger cleft his speech. He lifted his voice above it +boldly: + +_--But, ladies and gentlemen, had the youthful Moses listened to and +accepted that view of life, had he bowed his head and bowed his will +and bowed his spirit before that arrogant admonition he would never have +brought the chosen people out of their house of bondage, nor followed +the pillar of the cloud by day. He would never have spoken with the +Eternal amid lightnings on Sinai's mountaintop nor ever have come down +with the light of inspiration shining in his countenance and bearing in +his arms the tables of the law, graven in the language of the outlaw._ + +He ceased and looked at them, enjoying a silence. + +OMINOUS--FOR HIM! + +J. J. O'Molloy said not without regret: + +--And yet he died without having entered the land of promise. + +--A sudden--at--the--moment--though--from--lingering--illness--often-- +previously--expectorated--demise, Lenehan added. And with a great future +behind him. + +The troop of bare feet was heard rushing along the hallway and pattering +up the staircase. + +--That is oratory, the professor said uncontradicted. Gone with the +wind. Hosts at Mullaghmast and Tara of the kings. Miles of ears of +porches. The tribune's words, howled and scattered to the four winds. +A people sheltered within his voice. Dead noise. Akasic records of all +that ever anywhere wherever was. Love and laud him: me no more. + +I have money. + +--Gentlemen, Stephen said. As the next motion on the agenda paper may I +suggest that the house do now adjourn? + +--You take my breath away. It is not perchance a French compliment? +Mr O'Madden Burke asked. 'Tis the hour, methinks, when the winejug, +metaphorically speaking, is most grateful in Ye ancient hostelry. + +--That it be and hereby is resolutely resolved. All that are in favour +say ay, Lenehan announced. The contrary no. I declare it carried. To +which particular boosing shed?... My casting vote is: Mooney's! + +He led the way, admonishing: + +--We will sternly refuse to partake of strong waters, will we not? Yes, +we will not. By no manner of means. + +Mr O'Madden Burke, following close, said with an ally's lunge of his +umbrella: + +--Lay on, Macduff! + +--Chip of the old block! the editor cried, clapping Stephen on the +shoulder. Let us go. Where are those blasted keys? + +He fumbled in his pocket pulling out the crushed typesheets. + +--Foot and mouth. I know. That'll be all right. That'll go in. Where are +they? That's all right. + +He thrust the sheets back and went into the inner office. LET US HOPE + + +J. J. O'Molloy, about to follow him in, said quietly to Stephen: + +--I hope you will live to see it published. Myles, one moment. + +He went into the inner office, closing the door behind him. + +--Come along, Stephen, the professor said. That is fine, isn't it? It +has the prophetic vision. _Fuit Ilium!_ The sack of windy Troy. Kingdoms +of this world. The masters of the Mediterranean are fellaheen today. + +The first newsboy came pattering down the stairs at their heels and +rushed out into the street, yelling: + +--Racing special! + +Dublin. I have much, much to learn. + +They turned to the left along Abbey street. + +--I have a vision too, Stephen said. + +--Yes? the professor said, skipping to get into step. Crawford will +follow. + +Another newsboy shot past them, yelling as he ran: + +--Racing special! + +DEAR DIRTY DUBLIN + + +Dubliners. + +--Two Dublin vestals, Stephen said, elderly and pious, have lived fifty +and fiftythree years in Fumbally's lane. + +--Where is that? the professor asked. + +--Off Blackpitts, Stephen said. + +Damp night reeking of hungry dough. Against the wall. Face glistering +tallow under her fustian shawl. Frantic hearts. Akasic records. Quicker, +darlint! + +On now. Dare it. Let there be life. + +--They want to see the views of Dublin from the top of Nelson's pillar. +They save up three and tenpence in a red tin letterbox moneybox. They +shake out the threepenny bits and sixpences and coax out the pennies +with the blade of a knife. Two and three in silver and one and seven +in coppers. They put on their bonnets and best clothes and take their +umbrellas for fear it may come on to rain. + +--Wise virgins, professor MacHugh said. + +LIFE ON THE RAW + + +--They buy one and fourpenceworth of brawn and four slices of panloaf at +the north city diningrooms in Marlborough street from Miss Kate Collins, +proprietress... They purchase four and twenty ripe plums from a girl +at the foot of Nelson's pillar to take off the thirst of the brawn. They +give two threepenny bits to the gentleman at the turnstile and begin +to waddle slowly up the winding staircase, grunting, encouraging each +other, afraid of the dark, panting, one asking the other have you the +brawn, praising God and the Blessed Virgin, threatening to come down, +peeping at the airslits. Glory be to God. They had no idea it was that +high. + +Their names are Anne Kearns and Florence MacCabe. Anne Kearns has the +lumbago for which she rubs on Lourdes water, given her by a lady who got +a bottleful from a passionist father. Florence MacCabe takes a crubeen +and a bottle of double X for supper every Saturday. + +--Antithesis, the professor said nodding twice. Vestal virgins. I can +see them. What's keeping our friend? + +He turned. + +A bevy of scampering newsboys rushed down the steps, scattering in all +directions, yelling, their white papers fluttering. Hard after them +Myles Crawford appeared on the steps, his hat aureoling his scarlet +face, talking with J. J. O'Molloy. + +--Come along, the professor cried, waving his arm. + +He set off again to walk by Stephen's side. RETURN OF BLOOM + + +--Yes, he said. I see them. + +Mr Bloom, breathless, caught in a whirl of wild newsboys near the +offices of the _Irish Catholic and Dublin Penny Journal_, called: + +--Mr Crawford! A moment! + +--_Telegraph_! Racing special! + +--What is it? Myles Crawford said, falling back a pace. + +A newsboy cried in Mr Bloom's face: + +--Terrible tragedy in Rathmines! A child bit by a bellows! + +INTERVIEW WITH THE EDITOR + + +--Just this ad, Mr Bloom said, pushing through towards the steps, +puffing, and taking the cutting from his pocket. I spoke with Mr Keyes +just now. He'll give a renewal for two months, he says. After he'll +see. But he wants a par to call attention in the _Telegraph_ too, +the Saturday pink. And he wants it copied if it's not too late I told +councillor Nannetti from the _Kilkenny People_. I can have access to +it in the national library. House of keys, don't you see? His name is +Keyes. It's a play on the name. But he practically promised he'd give +the renewal. But he wants just a little puff. What will I tell him, Mr +Crawford? K.M.A. + + +--Will you tell him he can kiss my arse? Myles Crawford said throwing +out his arm for emphasis. Tell him that straight from the stable. + +A bit nervy. Look out for squalls. All off for a drink. Arm in arm. +Lenehan's yachting cap on the cadge beyond. Usual blarney. Wonder is +that young Dedalus the moving spirit. Has a good pair of boots on him +today. Last time I saw him he had his heels on view. Been walking in +muck somewhere. Careless chap. What was he doing in Irishtown? + +--Well, Mr Bloom said, his eyes returning, if I can get the design I +suppose it's worth a short par. He'd give the ad, I think. I'll tell him +... K.M.R.I.A. + + +--He can kiss my royal Irish arse, Myles Crawford cried loudly over his +shoulder. Any time he likes, tell him. + +While Mr Bloom stood weighing the point and about to smile he strode on +jerkily. + +RAISING THE WIND + + +--_Nulla bona_, Jack, he said, raising his hand to his chin. I'm up to +here. I've been through the hoop myself. I was looking for a fellow to +back a bill for me no later than last week. Sorry, Jack. You must take +the will for the deed. With a heart and a half if I could raise the wind +anyhow. + +J. J. O'Molloy pulled a long face and walked on silently. They caught up +on the others and walked abreast. + +--When they have eaten the brawn and the bread and wiped their twenty +fingers in the paper the bread was wrapped in they go nearer to the +railings. + +--Something for you, the professor explained to Myles Crawford. Two old +Dublin women on the top of Nelson's pillar. + +SOME COLUMN!--THAT'S WHAT WADDLER ONE SAID + + +--That's new, Myles Crawford said. That's copy. Out for the waxies +Dargle. Two old trickies, what? + +--But they are afraid the pillar will fall, Stephen went on. They see +the roofs and argue about where the different churches are: Rathmines' +blue dome, Adam and Eve's, saint Laurence O'Toole's. But it makes them +giddy to look so they pull up their skirts... + +THOSE SLIGHTLY RAMBUNCTIOUS FEMALES + + +--Easy all, Myles Crawford said. No poetic licence. We're in the +archdiocese here. + +--And settle down on their striped petticoats, peering up at the statue +of the onehandled adulterer. + +--Onehandled adulterer! the professor cried. I like that. I see the +idea. I see what you mean. + +DAMES DONATE DUBLIN'S CITS SPEEDPILLS VELOCITOUS AEROLITHS, BELIEF + + +--It gives them a crick in their necks, Stephen said, and they are too +tired to look up or down or to speak. They put the bag of plums between +them and eat the plums out of it, one after another, wiping off with +their handkerchiefs the plumjuice that dribbles out of their mouths and +spitting the plumstones slowly out between the railings. + +He gave a sudden loud young laugh as a close. Lenehan and Mr O'Madden +Burke, hearing, turned, beckoned and led on across towards Mooney's. + +--Finished? Myles Crawford said. So long as they do no worse. + +SOPHIST WALLOPS HAUGHTY HELEN SQUARE ON PROBOSCIS. SPARTANS GNASH +MOLARS. ITHACANS VOW PEN IS CHAMP. + + +--You remind me of Antisthenes, the professor said, a disciple of +Gorgias, the sophist. It is said of him that none could tell if he were +bitterer against others or against himself. He was the son of a noble +and a bondwoman. And he wrote a book in which he took away the palm of +beauty from Argive Helen and handed it to poor Penelope. + +Poor Penelope. Penelope Rich. + +They made ready to cross O'Connell street. + +HELLO THERE, CENTRAL! + + +At various points along the eight lines tramcars with motionless +trolleys stood in their tracks, bound for or from Rathmines, +Rathfarnham, Blackrock, Kingstown and Dalkey, Sandymount Green, Ringsend +and Sandymount Tower, Donnybrook, Palmerston Park and Upper Rathmines, +all still, becalmed in short circuit. Hackney cars, cabs, delivery +waggons, mailvans, private broughams, aerated mineral water floats with +rattling crates of bottles, rattled, rolled, horsedrawn, rapidly. + +WHAT?--AND LIKEWISE--WHERE? + + +--But what do you call it? Myles Crawford asked. Where did they get the +plums? + +VIRGILIAN, SAYS PEDAGOGUE. SOPHOMORE PLUMPS FOR OLD MAN MOSES. + + +--Call it, wait, the professor said, opening his long lips wide to +reflect. Call it, let me see. Call it: _deus nobis haec otia fecit._ + +--No, Stephen said. I call it _A Pisgah Sight of Palestine or the +Parable of The Plums._ + +--I see, the professor said. + +He laughed richly. + +--I see, he said again with new pleasure. Moses and the promised land. +We gave him that idea, he added to J. J. O'Molloy. + +HORATIO IS CYNOSURE THIS FAIR JUNE DAY + + +J. J. O'Molloy sent a weary sidelong glance towards the statue and held +his peace. + +--I see, the professor said. + +He halted on sir John Gray's pavement island and peered aloft at Nelson +through the meshes of his wry smile. + +DIMINISHED DIGITS PROVE TOO TITILLATING FOR FRISKY FRUMPS. ANNE WIMBLES, +FLO WANGLES--YET CAN YOU BLAME THEM? + + +--Onehandled adulterer, he said smiling grimly. That tickles me, I must +say. + +--Tickled the old ones too, Myles Crawford said, if the God Almighty's +truth was known. + + +Pineapple rock, lemon platt, butter scotch. A sugarsticky girl +shovelling scoopfuls of creams for a christian brother. Some school +treat. Bad for their tummies. Lozenge and comfit manufacturer to His +Majesty the King. God. Save. Our. Sitting on his throne sucking red +jujubes white. + + +A sombre Y.M.C.A. young man, watchful among the warm sweet fumes of +Graham Lemon's, placed a throwaway in a hand of Mr Bloom. + +Heart to heart talks. + +Bloo... Me? No. + +Blood of the Lamb. + +His slow feet walked him riverward, reading. Are you saved? All are +washed in the blood of the lamb. God wants blood victim. Birth, hymen, +martyr, war, foundation of a building, sacrifice, kidney burntoffering, +druids' altars. Elijah is coming. Dr John Alexander Dowie restorer of +the church in Zion is coming. + +_Is coming! Is coming!! Is coming!!! All heartily welcome._ Paying game. +Torry and Alexander last year. Polygamy. His wife will put the stopper +on that. Where was that ad some Birmingham firm the luminous crucifix. +Our Saviour. Wake up in the dead of night and see him on the wall, +hanging. Pepper's ghost idea. Iron nails ran in. + + +Phosphorus it must be done with. If you leave a bit of codfish for +instance. I could see the bluey silver over it. Night I went down to the +pantry in the kitchen. Don't like all the smells in it waiting to rush +out. What was it she wanted? The Malaga raisins. Thinking of Spain. +Before Rudy was born. The phosphorescence, that bluey greeny. Very good +for the brain. + +From Butler's monument house corner he glanced along Bachelor's walk. +Dedalus' daughter there still outside Dillon's auctionrooms. Must be +selling off some old furniture. Knew her eyes at once from the father. +Lobbing about waiting for him. Home always breaks up when the mother +goes. Fifteen children he had. Birth every year almost. That's in their +theology or the priest won't give the poor woman the confession, the +absolution. Increase and multiply. Did you ever hear such an idea? Eat +you out of house and home. No families themselves to feed. Living on the +fat of the land. Their butteries and larders. I'd like to see them do +the black fast Yom Kippur. Crossbuns. One meal and a collation for fear +he'd collapse on the altar. A housekeeper of one of those fellows if you +could pick it out of her. Never pick it out of her. Like getting l.s.d. +out of him. Does himself well. No guests. All for number one. Watching +his water. Bring your own bread and butter. His reverence: mum's the +word. + +Good Lord, that poor child's dress is in flitters. Underfed she looks +too. Potatoes and marge, marge and potatoes. It's after they feel it. +Proof of the pudding. Undermines the constitution. + +As he set foot on O'Connell bridge a puffball of smoke plumed up from +the parapet. Brewery barge with export stout. England. Sea air sours it, +I heard. Be interesting some day get a pass through Hancock to see the +brewery. Regular world in itself. Vats of porter wonderful. Rats get in +too. Drink themselves bloated as big as a collie floating. Dead drunk on +the porter. Drink till they puke again like christians. Imagine drinking +that! Rats: vats. Well, of course, if we knew all the things. + +Looking down he saw flapping strongly, wheeling between the gaunt +quaywalls, gulls. Rough weather outside. If I threw myself down? Reuben +J's son must have swallowed a good bellyful of that sewage. One and +eightpence too much. Hhhhm. It's the droll way he comes out with the +things. Knows how to tell a story too. + +They wheeled lower. Looking for grub. Wait. + +He threw down among them a crumpled paper ball. Elijah thirtytwo feet +per sec is com. Not a bit. The ball bobbed unheeded on the wake of +swells, floated under by the bridgepiers. Not such damn fools. Also the +day I threw that stale cake out of the Erin's King picked it up in the +wake fifty yards astern. Live by their wits. They wheeled, flapping. + + _The hungry famished gull + Flaps o'er the waters dull._ + +That is how poets write, the similar sounds. But then Shakespeare has +no rhymes: blank verse. The flow of the language it is. The thoughts. +Solemn. + + + _Hamlet, I am thy father's spirit + Doomed for a certain time to walk the earth._ + --Two apples a penny! Two for a penny! + + +His gaze passed over the glazed apples serried on her stand. Australians +they must be this time of year. Shiny peels: polishes them up with a rag +or a handkerchief. + +Wait. Those poor birds. + +He halted again and bought from the old applewoman two Banbury cakes for +a penny and broke the brittle paste and threw its fragments down into +the Liffey. See that? The gulls swooped silently, two, then all from +their heights, pouncing on prey. Gone. Every morsel. + +Aware of their greed and cunning he shook the powdery crumb from his +hands. They never expected that. Manna. Live on fish, fishy flesh they +have, all seabirds, gulls, seagoose. Swans from Anna Liffey swim down +here sometimes to preen themselves. No accounting for tastes. Wonder +what kind is swanmeat. Robinson Crusoe had to live on them. + +They wheeled flapping weakly. I'm not going to throw any more. Penny +quite enough. Lot of thanks I get. Not even a caw. They spread foot and +mouth disease too. If you cram a turkey say on chestnutmeal it tastes +like that. Eat pig like pig. But then why is it that saltwater fish are +not salty? How is that? + +His eyes sought answer from the river and saw a rowboat rock at anchor +on the treacly swells lazily its plastered board. + +_Kino's_ 11/- _Trousers_ + +Good idea that. Wonder if he pays rent to the corporation. How can you +own water really? It's always flowing in a stream, never the same, which +in the stream of life we trace. Because life is a stream. All kinds of +places are good for ads. That quack doctor for the clap used to be stuck +up in all the greenhouses. Never see it now. Strictly confidential. Dr +Hy Franks. Didn't cost him a red like Maginni the dancing master self +advertisement. Got fellows to stick them up or stick them up himself for +that matter on the q. t. running in to loosen a button. Flybynight. +Just the place too. POST NO BILLS. POST 110 PILLS. Some chap with a dose +burning him. + +If he...? + +O! + +Eh? + +No... No. + +No, no. I don't believe it. He wouldn't surely? + +No, no. + +Mr Bloom moved forward, raising his troubled eyes. Think no more about +that. After one. Timeball on the ballastoffice is down. Dunsink time. +Fascinating little book that is of sir Robert Ball's. Parallax. I never +exactly understood. There's a priest. Could ask him. Par it's Greek: +parallel, parallax. Met him pike hoses she called it till I told her +about the transmigration. O rocks! + +Mr Bloom smiled O rocks at two windows of the ballastoffice. She's right +after all. Only big words for ordinary things on account of the sound. +She's not exactly witty. Can be rude too. Blurt out what I was thinking. +Still, I don't know. She used to say Ben Dollard had a base barreltone +voice. He has legs like barrels and you'd think he was singing into a +barrel. Now, isn't that wit. They used to call him big Ben. Not half as +witty as calling him base barreltone. Appetite like an albatross. Get +outside of a baron of beef. Powerful man he was at stowing away number +one Bass. Barrel of Bass. See? It all works out. + +A procession of whitesmocked sandwichmen marched slowly towards him +along the gutter, scarlet sashes across their boards. Bargains. Like +that priest they are this morning: we have sinned: we have suffered. He +read the scarlet letters on their five tall white hats: H. E. L. Y. S. +Wisdom Hely's. Y lagging behind drew a chunk of bread from under his +foreboard, crammed it into his mouth and munched as he walked. Our +staple food. Three bob a day, walking along the gutters, street after +street. Just keep skin and bone together, bread and skilly. They are +not Boyl: no, M Glade's men. Doesn't bring in any business either. +I suggested to him about a transparent showcart with two smart girls +sitting inside writing letters, copybooks, envelopes, blottingpaper. I +bet that would have caught on. Smart girls writing something catch the +eye at once. Everyone dying to know what she's writing. Get twenty of +them round you if you stare at nothing. Have a finger in the pie. Women +too. Curiosity. Pillar of salt. Wouldn't have it of course because he +didn't think of it himself first. Or the inkbottle I suggested with a +false stain of black celluloid. His ideas for ads like Plumtree's potted +under the obituaries, cold meat department. You can't lick 'em. What? +Our envelopes. Hello, Jones, where are you going? Can't stop, Robinson, +I am hastening to purchase the only reliable inkeraser _Kansell,_ sold +by Hely's Ltd, 85 Dame street. Well out of that ruck I am. Devil of a +job it was collecting accounts of those convents. Tranquilla convent. +That was a nice nun there, really sweet face. Wimple suited her small +head. Sister? Sister? I am sure she was crossed in love by her eyes. +Very hard to bargain with that sort of a woman. I disturbed her at her +devotions that morning. But glad to communicate with the outside world. +Our great day, she said. Feast of Our Lady of Mount Carmel. Sweet name +too: caramel. She knew I, I think she knew by the way she. If she had +married she would have changed. I suppose they really were short of +money. Fried everything in the best butter all the same. No lard for +them. My heart's broke eating dripping. They like buttering themselves +in and out. Molly tasting it, her veil up. Sister? Pat Claffey, the +pawnbroker's daughter. It was a nun they say invented barbed wire. + +He crossed Westmoreland street when apostrophe S had plodded by. Rover +cycleshop. Those races are on today. How long ago is that? Year Phil +Gilligan died. We were in Lombard street west. Wait: was in Thom's. +Got the job in Wisdom Hely's year we married. Six years. Ten years ago: +ninetyfour he died yes that's right the big fire at Arnott's. Val Dillon +was lord mayor. The Glencree dinner. Alderman Robert O'Reilly emptying +the port into his soup before the flag fell. Bobbob lapping it for the +inner alderman. Couldn't hear what the band played. For what we have +already received may the Lord make us. Milly was a kiddy then. Molly +had that elephantgrey dress with the braided frogs. Mantailored with +selfcovered buttons. She didn't like it because I sprained my ankle +first day she wore choir picnic at the Sugarloaf. As if that. Old +Goodwin's tall hat done up with some sticky stuff. Flies' picnic +too. Never put a dress on her back like it. Fitted her like a glove, +shoulders and hips. Just beginning to plump it out well. Rabbitpie we +had that day. People looking after her. + +Happy. Happier then. Snug little room that was with the red wallpaper. +Dockrell's, one and ninepence a dozen. Milly's tubbing night. American +soap I bought: elderflower. Cosy smell of her bathwater. Funny she +looked soaped all over. Shapely too. Now photography. Poor papa's +daguerreotype atelier he told me of. Hereditary taste. + +He walked along the curbstone. + +Stream of life. What was the name of that priestylooking chap was always +squinting in when he passed? Weak eyes, woman. Stopped in Citron's saint +Kevin's parade. Pen something. Pendennis? My memory is getting. Pen +...? Of course it's years ago. Noise of the trams probably. Well, if he +couldn't remember the dayfather's name that he sees every day. + +Bartell d'Arcy was the tenor, just coming out then. Seeing her home +after practice. Conceited fellow with his waxedup moustache. Gave her +that song _Winds that blow from the south_. + +Windy night that was I went to fetch her there was that lodge meeting on +about those lottery tickets after Goodwin's concert in the supperroom or +oakroom of the Mansion house. He and I behind. Sheet of her music blew +out of my hand against the High school railings. Lucky it didn't. +Thing like that spoils the effect of a night for her. Professor Goodwin +linking her in front. Shaky on his pins, poor old sot. His farewell +concerts. Positively last appearance on any stage. May be for months and +may be for never. Remember her laughing at the wind, her blizzard collar +up. Corner of Harcourt road remember that gust. Brrfoo! Blew up all her +skirts and her boa nearly smothered old Goodwin. She did get flushed +in the wind. Remember when we got home raking up the fire and frying up +those pieces of lap of mutton for her supper with the Chutney sauce she +liked. And the mulled rum. Could see her in the bedroom from the hearth +unclamping the busk of her stays: white. + +Swish and soft flop her stays made on the bed. Always warm from her. +Always liked to let her self out. Sitting there after till near two +taking out her hairpins. Milly tucked up in beddyhouse. Happy. Happy. +That was the night... + +--O, Mr Bloom, how do you do? + +--O, how do you do, Mrs Breen? + +--No use complaining. How is Molly those times? Haven't seen her for +ages. + +--In the pink, Mr Bloom said gaily. Milly has a position down in +Mullingar, you know. + +--Go away! Isn't that grand for her? + +--Yes. In a photographer's there. Getting on like a house on fire. How +are all your charges? + +--All on the baker's list, Mrs Breen said. + +How many has she? No other in sight. + +--You're in black, I see. You have no... + +--No, Mr Bloom said. I have just come from a funeral. + +Going to crop up all day, I foresee. Who's dead, when and what did he +die of? Turn up like a bad penny. + +--O, dear me, Mrs Breen said. I hope it wasn't any near relation. + +May as well get her sympathy. + +--Dignam, Mr Bloom said. An old friend of mine. He died quite suddenly, +poor fellow. Heart trouble, I believe. Funeral was this morning. + +_Your funeral's tomorrow While you're coming through the rye. +Diddlediddle dumdum Diddlediddle..._ + +--Sad to lose the old friends, Mrs Breen's womaneyes said melancholily. + +Now that's quite enough about that. Just: quietly: husband. + +--And your lord and master? + +Mrs Breen turned up her two large eyes. Hasn't lost them anyhow. + +--O, don't be talking! she said. He's a caution to rattlesnakes. He's +in there now with his lawbooks finding out the law of libel. He has me +heartscalded. Wait till I show you. + +Hot mockturtle vapour and steam of newbaked jampuffs rolypoly poured +out from Harrison's. The heavy noonreek tickled the top of Mr Bloom's +gullet. Want to make good pastry, butter, best flour, Demerara sugar, +or they'd taste it with the hot tea. Or is it from her? A barefoot +arab stood over the grating, breathing in the fumes. Deaden the gnaw of +hunger that way. Pleasure or pain is it? Penny dinner. Knife and fork +chained to the table. + +Opening her handbag, chipped leather. Hatpin: ought to have a guard on +those things. Stick it in a chap's eye in the tram. Rummaging. Open. +Money. Please take one. Devils if they lose sixpence. Raise Cain. +Husband barging. Where's the ten shillings I gave you on Monday? Are +you feeding your little brother's family? Soiled handkerchief: +medicinebottle. Pastille that was fell. What is she?... + +--There must be a new moon out, she said. He's always bad then. Do you +know what he did last night? + +Her hand ceased to rummage. Her eyes fixed themselves on him, wide in +alarm, yet smiling. + +--What? Mr Bloom asked. + +Let her speak. Look straight in her eyes. I believe you. Trust me. + +--Woke me up in the night, she said. Dream he had, a nightmare. + +Indiges. + +--Said the ace of spades was walking up the stairs. + +--The ace of spades! Mr Bloom said. + +She took a folded postcard from her handbag. + +--Read that, she said. He got it this morning. + +--What is it? Mr Bloom asked, taking the card. U.P.? + +--U.P.: up, she said. Someone taking a rise out of him. It's a great +shame for them whoever he is. + +--Indeed it is, Mr Bloom said. + +She took back the card, sighing. + +--And now he's going round to Mr Menton's office. He's going to take an +action for ten thousand pounds, he says. + +She folded the card into her untidy bag and snapped the catch. + +Same blue serge dress she had two years ago, the nap bleaching. Seen its +best days. Wispish hair over her ears. And that dowdy toque: three old +grapes to take the harm out of it. Shabby genteel. She used to be a +tasty dresser. Lines round her mouth. Only a year or so older than +Molly. + +See the eye that woman gave her, passing. Cruel. The unfair sex. + +He looked still at her, holding back behind his look his discontent. +Pungent mockturtle oxtail mulligatawny. I'm hungry too. Flakes of pastry +on the gusset of her dress: daub of sugary flour stuck to her cheek. +Rhubarb tart with liberal fillings, rich fruit interior. Josie Powell +that was. In Luke Doyle's long ago. Dolphin's Barn, the charades. U.P.: +up. + +Change the subject. + +--Do you ever see anything of Mrs Beaufoy? Mr Bloom asked. + +--Mina Purefoy? she said. + +Philip Beaufoy I was thinking. Playgoers' Club. Matcham often thinks of +the masterstroke. Did I pull the chain? Yes. The last act. + +--Yes. + +--I just called to ask on the way in is she over it. She's in the +lying-in hospital in Holles street. Dr Horne got her in. She's three +days bad now. + +--O, Mr Bloom said. I'm sorry to hear that. + +--Yes, Mrs Breen said. And a houseful of kids at home. It's a very stiff +birth, the nurse told me. + +---O, Mr Bloom said. + +His heavy pitying gaze absorbed her news. His tongue clacked in +compassion. Dth! Dth! + +--I'm sorry to hear that, he said. Poor thing! Three days! That's +terrible for her. + +Mrs Breen nodded. + +--She was taken bad on the Tuesday... + +Mr Bloom touched her funnybone gently, warning her: + +--Mind! Let this man pass. + +A bony form strode along the curbstone from the river staring with a +rapt gaze into the sunlight through a heavystringed glass. Tight as a +skullpiece a tiny hat gripped his head. From his arm a folded dustcoat, +a stick and an umbrella dangled to his stride. + +--Watch him, Mr Bloom said. He always walks outside the lampposts. +Watch! + +--Who is he if it's a fair question? Mrs Breen asked. Is he dotty? + +--His name is Cashel Boyle O'Connor Fitzmaurice Tisdall Farrell, Mr +Bloom said smiling. Watch! + +--He has enough of them, she said. Denis will be like that one of these +days. + +She broke off suddenly. + +--There he is, she said. I must go after him. Goodbye. Remember me to +Molly, won't you? + +--I will, Mr Bloom said. + +He watched her dodge through passers towards the shopfronts. Denis Breen +in skimpy frockcoat and blue canvas shoes shuffled out of Harrison's +hugging two heavy tomes to his ribs. Blown in from the bay. Like old +times. He suffered her to overtake him without surprise and thrust +his dull grey beard towards her, his loose jaw wagging as he spoke +earnestly. + +Meshuggah. Off his chump. + +Mr Bloom walked on again easily, seeing ahead of him in sunlight the +tight skullpiece, the dangling stickumbrelladustcoat. Going the two +days. Watch him! Out he goes again. One way of getting on in the world. +And that other old mosey lunatic in those duds. Hard time she must have +with him. + +U.P.: up. I'll take my oath that's Alf Bergan or Richie Goulding. Wrote +it for a lark in the Scotch house I bet anything. Round to Menton's +office. His oyster eyes staring at the postcard. Be a feast for the +gods. + +He passed the _Irish Times_. There might be other answers Iying there. +Like to answer them all. Good system for criminals. Code. At their lunch +now. Clerk with the glasses there doesn't know me. O, leave them there +to simmer. Enough bother wading through fortyfour of them. Wanted, smart +lady typist to aid gentleman in literary work. I called you naughty +darling because I do not like that other world. Please tell me what is +the meaning. Please tell me what perfume does your wife. Tell me who +made the world. The way they spring those questions on you. And the +other one Lizzie Twigg. My literary efforts have had the good fortune to +meet with the approval of the eminent poet A. E. (Mr Geo. Russell). No +time to do her hair drinking sloppy tea with a book of poetry. + +Best paper by long chalks for a small ad. Got the provinces now. Cook +and general, exc. cuisine, housemaid kept. Wanted live man for spirit +counter. Resp. girl (R.C.) wishes to hear of post in fruit or pork shop. +James Carlisle made that. Six and a half per cent dividend. Made a big +deal on Coates's shares. Ca' canny. Cunning old Scotch hunks. All the +toady news. Our gracious and popular vicereine. Bought the _Irish Field_ +now. Lady Mountcashel has quite recovered after her confinement and +rode out with the Ward Union staghounds at the enlargement yesterday +at Rathoath. Uneatable fox. Pothunters too. Fear injects juices make +it tender enough for them. Riding astride. Sit her horse like a man. +Weightcarrying huntress. No sidesaddle or pillion for her, not for Joe. +First to the meet and in at the death. Strong as a brood mare some of +those horsey women. Swagger around livery stables. Toss off a glass +of brandy neat while you'd say knife. That one at the Grosvenor this +morning. Up with her on the car: wishswish. Stonewall or fivebarred gate +put her mount to it. Think that pugnosed driver did it out of spite. Who +is this she was like? O yes! Mrs Miriam Dandrade that sold me her old +wraps and black underclothes in the Shelbourne hotel. Divorced Spanish +American. Didn't take a feather out of her my handling them. As if I was +her clotheshorse. Saw her in the viceregal party when Stubbs the park +ranger got me in with Whelan of the _Express._ Scavenging what the +quality left. High tea. Mayonnaise I poured on the plums thinking it was +custard. Her ears ought to have tingled for a few weeks after. Want to +be a bull for her. Born courtesan. No nursery work for her, thanks. + +Poor Mrs Purefoy! Methodist husband. Method in his madness. Saffron bun +and milk and soda lunch in the educational dairy. Y. M. C. A. Eating +with a stopwatch, thirtytwo chews to the minute. And still his +muttonchop whiskers grew. Supposed to be well connected. Theodore's +cousin in Dublin Castle. One tony relative in every family. Hardy +annuals he presents her with. Saw him out at the Three Jolly Topers +marching along bareheaded and his eldest boy carrying one in a +marketnet. The squallers. Poor thing! Then having to give the breast +year after year all hours of the night. Selfish those t.t's are. Dog in +the manger. Only one lump of sugar in my tea, if you please. + +He stood at Fleet street crossing. Luncheon interval. A sixpenny at +Rowe's? Must look up that ad in the national library. An eightpenny in +the Burton. Better. On my way. + +He walked on past Bolton's Westmoreland house. Tea. Tea. Tea. I forgot +to tap Tom Kernan. + +Sss. Dth, dth, dth! Three days imagine groaning on a bed with a +vinegared handkerchief round her forehead, her belly swollen out. Phew! +Dreadful simply! Child's head too big: forceps. Doubled up inside her +trying to butt its way out blindly, groping for the way out. Kill me +that would. Lucky Molly got over hers lightly. They ought to invent +something to stop that. Life with hard labour. Twilight sleep idea: +queen Victoria was given that. Nine she had. A good layer. Old +woman that lived in a shoe she had so many children. Suppose he was +consumptive. Time someone thought about it instead of gassing about the +what was it the pensive bosom of the silver effulgence. Flapdoodle to +feed fools on. They could easily have big establishments whole thing +quite painless out of all the taxes give every child born five quid at +compound interest up to twentyone five per cent is a hundred shillings +and five tiresome pounds multiply by twenty decimal system encourage +people to put by money save hundred and ten and a bit twentyone years +want to work it out on paper come to a tidy sum more than you think. + +Not stillborn of course. They are not even registered. Trouble for +nothing. + +Funny sight two of them together, their bellies out. Molly and Mrs +Moisel. Mothers' meeting. Phthisis retires for the time being, then +returns. How flat they look all of a sudden after. Peaceful eyes. Weight +off their mind. Old Mrs Thornton was a jolly old soul. All my babies, +she said. The spoon of pap in her mouth before she fed them. O, that's +nyumnyum. Got her hand crushed by old Tom Wall's son. His first bow to +the public. Head like a prize pumpkin. Snuffy Dr Murren. People knocking +them up at all hours. For God' sake, doctor. Wife in her throes. Then +keep them waiting months for their fee. To attendance on your wife. No +gratitude in people. Humane doctors, most of them. + +Before the huge high door of the Irish house of parliament a flock of +pigeons flew. Their little frolic after meals. Who will we do it on? I +pick the fellow in black. Here goes. Here's good luck. Must be thrilling +from the air. Apjohn, myself and Owen Goldberg up in the trees near +Goose green playing the monkeys. Mackerel they called me. + +A squad of constables debouched from College street, marching in Indian +file. Goosestep. Foodheated faces, sweating helmets, patting their +truncheons. After their feed with a good load of fat soup under their +belts. Policeman's lot is oft a happy one. They split up in groups and +scattered, saluting, towards their beats. Let out to graze. Best moment +to attack one in pudding time. A punch in his dinner. A squad of others, +marching irregularly, rounded Trinity railings making for the station. +Bound for their troughs. Prepare to receive cavalry. Prepare to receive +soup. + +He crossed under Tommy Moore's roguish finger. They did right to put him +up over a urinal: meeting of the waters. Ought to be places for women. +Running into cakeshops. Settle my hat straight. _There is not in this +wide world a vallee_. Great song of Julia Morkan's. Kept her voice up to +the very last. Pupil of Michael Balfe's, wasn't she? + +He gazed after the last broad tunic. Nasty customers to tackle. Jack +Power could a tale unfold: father a G man. If a fellow gave them trouble +being lagged they let him have it hot and heavy in the bridewell. +Can't blame them after all with the job they have especially the young +hornies. That horsepoliceman the day Joe Chamberlain was given his +degree in Trinity he got a run for his money. My word he did! His +horse's hoofs clattering after us down Abbey street. Lucky I had the +presence of mind to dive into Manning's or I was souped. He did come a +wallop, by George. Must have cracked his skull on the cobblestones. I +oughtn't to have got myself swept along with those medicals. And the +Trinity jibs in their mortarboards. Looking for trouble. Still I got to +know that young Dixon who dressed that sting for me in the Mater and now +he's in Holles street where Mrs Purefoy. Wheels within wheels. Police +whistle in my ears still. All skedaddled. Why he fixed on me. Give me in +charge. Right here it began. + +--Up the Boers! + +--Three cheers for De Wet! + +--We'll hang Joe Chamberlain on a sourapple tree. + +Silly billies: mob of young cubs yelling their guts out. Vinegar hill. +The Butter exchange band. Few years' time half of them magistrates and +civil servants. War comes on: into the army helterskelter: same fellows +used to. Whether on the scaffold high. + +Never know who you're talking to. Corny Kelleher he has Harvey Duff in +his eye. Like that Peter or Denis or James Carey that blew the gaff on +the invincibles. Member of the corporation too. Egging raw youths on to +get in the know all the time drawing secret service pay from the castle. +Drop him like a hot potato. Why those plainclothes men are always +courting slaveys. Easily twig a man used to uniform. Squarepushing up +against a backdoor. Maul her a bit. Then the next thing on the menu. And +who is the gentleman does be visiting there? Was the young master saying +anything? Peeping Tom through the keyhole. Decoy duck. Hotblooded young +student fooling round her fat arms ironing. + +--Are those yours, Mary? + +--I don't wear such things... Stop or I'll tell the missus on you. Out +half the night. + +--There are great times coming, Mary. Wait till you see. + +--Ah, gelong with your great times coming. + +Barmaids too. Tobaccoshopgirls. + +James Stephens' idea was the best. He knew them. Circles of ten so that +a fellow couldn't round on more than his own ring. Sinn Fein. Back out +you get the knife. Hidden hand. Stay in. The firing squad. Turnkey's +daughter got him out of Richmond, off from Lusk. Putting up in the +Buckingham Palace hotel under their very noses. Garibaldi. + +You must have a certain fascination: Parnell. Arthur Griffith is a +squareheaded fellow but he has no go in him for the mob. Or gas about +our lovely land. Gammon and spinach. Dublin Bakery Company's tearoom. +Debating societies. That republicanism is the best form of government. +That the language question should take precedence of the economic +question. Have your daughters inveigling them to your house. Stuff them +up with meat and drink. Michaelmas goose. Here's a good lump of thyme +seasoning under the apron for you. Have another quart of goosegrease +before it gets too cold. Halffed enthusiasts. Penny roll and a walk with +the band. No grace for the carver. The thought that the other chap pays +best sauce in the world. Make themselves thoroughly at home. Show us +over those apricots, meaning peaches. The not far distant day. Homerule +sun rising up in the northwest. + +His smile faded as he walked, a heavy cloud hiding the sun slowly, +shadowing Trinity's surly front. Trams passed one another, ingoing, +outgoing, clanging. Useless words. Things go on same, day after day: +squads of police marching out, back: trams in, out. Those two loonies +mooching about. Dignam carted off. Mina Purefoy swollen belly on a +bed groaning to have a child tugged out of her. One born every second +somewhere. Other dying every second. Since I fed the birds five minutes. +Three hundred kicked the bucket. Other three hundred born, washing the +blood off, all are washed in the blood of the lamb, bawling maaaaaa. + +Cityful passing away, other cityful coming, passing away too: other +coming on, passing on. Houses, lines of houses, streets, miles of +pavements, piledup bricks, stones. Changing hands. This owner, that. +Landlord never dies they say. Other steps into his shoes when he gets +his notice to quit. They buy the place up with gold and still they have +all the gold. Swindle in it somewhere. Piled up in cities, worn away age +after age. Pyramids in sand. Built on bread and onions. Slaves Chinese +wall. Babylon. Big stones left. Round towers. Rest rubble, sprawling +suburbs, jerrybuilt. Kerwan's mushroom houses built of breeze. Shelter, +for the night. + +No-one is anything. + +This is the very worst hour of the day. Vitality. Dull, gloomy: hate +this hour. Feel as if I had been eaten and spewed. + +Provost's house. The reverend Dr Salmon: tinned salmon. Well tinned in +there. Like a mortuary chapel. Wouldn't live in it if they paid me. Hope +they have liver and bacon today. Nature abhors a vacuum. + +The sun freed itself slowly and lit glints of light among the silverware +opposite in Walter Sexton's window by which John Howard Parnell passed, +unseeing. + +There he is: the brother. Image of him. Haunting face. Now that's a +coincidence. Course hundreds of times you think of a person and don't +meet him. Like a man walking in his sleep. No-one knows him. Must be a +corporation meeting today. They say he never put on the city marshal's +uniform since he got the job. Charley Kavanagh used to come out on +his high horse, cocked hat, puffed, powdered and shaved. Look at the +woebegone walk of him. Eaten a bad egg. Poached eyes on ghost. I have a +pain. Great man's brother: his brother's brother. He'd look nice on the +city charger. Drop into the D.B.C. probably for his coffee, play chess +there. His brother used men as pawns. Let them all go to pot. Afraid to +pass a remark on him. Freeze them up with that eye of his. That's the +fascination: the name. All a bit touched. Mad Fanny and his other sister +Mrs Dickinson driving about with scarlet harness. Bolt upright lik +surgeon M'Ardle. Still David Sheehy beat him for south Meath. Apply +for the Chiltern Hundreds and retire into public life. The patriot's +banquet. Eating orangepeels in the park. Simon Dedalus said when they +put him in parliament that Parnell would come back from the grave and +lead him out of the house of commons by the arm. + +--Of the twoheaded octopus, one of whose heads is the head upon which +the ends of the world have forgotten to come while the other speaks with +a Scotch accent. The tentacles... + +They passed from behind Mr Bloom along the curbstone. Beard and bicycle. +Young woman. + +And there he is too. Now that's really a coincidence: second time. +Coming events cast their shadows before. With the approval of the +eminent poet, Mr Geo. Russell. That might be Lizzie Twigg with him. A. +E.: what does that mean? Initials perhaps. Albert Edward, Arthur Edmund, +Alphonsus Eb Ed El Esquire. What was he saying? The ends of the world +with a Scotch accent. Tentacles: octopus. Something occult: symbolism. +Holding forth. She's taking it all in. Not saying a word. To aid +gentleman in literary work. + +His eyes followed the high figure in homespun, beard and bicycle, +a listening woman at his side. Coming from the vegetarian. Only +weggebobbles and fruit. Don't eat a beefsteak. If you do the eyes of +that cow will pursue you through all eternity. They say it's healthier. +Windandwatery though. Tried it. Keep you on the run all day. Bad as +a bloater. Dreams all night. Why do they call that thing they gave me +nutsteak? Nutarians. Fruitarians. To give you the idea you are eating +rumpsteak. Absurd. Salty too. They cook in soda. Keep you sitting by the +tap all night. + +Her stockings are loose over her ankles. I detest that: so tasteless. +Those literary etherial people they are all. Dreamy, cloudy, +symbolistic. Esthetes they are. I wouldn't be surprised if it was that +kind of food you see produces the like waves of the brain the poetical. +For example one of those policemen sweating Irish stew into their shirts +you couldn't squeeze a line of poetry out of him. Don't know what poetry +is even. Must be in a certain mood. + + _The dreamy cloudy gull + Waves o'er the waters dull._ + +He crossed at Nassau street corner and stood before the window of Yeates +and Son, pricing the fieldglasses. Or will I drop into old Harris's and +have a chat with young Sinclair? Wellmannered fellow. Probably at his +lunch. Must get those old glasses of mine set right. Goerz lenses six +guineas. Germans making their way everywhere. Sell on easy terms to +capture trade. Undercutting. Might chance on a pair in the railway lost +property office. Astonishing the things people leave behind them in +trains and cloakrooms. What do they be thinking about? Women too. +Incredible. Last year travelling to Ennis had to pick up that farmer's +daughter's ba and hand it to her at Limerick junction. Unclaimed money +too. There's a little watch up there on the roof of the bank to test +those glasses by. + + +His lids came down on the lower rims of his irides. Can't see it. If you +imagine it's there you can almost see it. Can't see it. + +He faced about and, standing between the awnings, held out his right +hand at arm's length towards the sun. Wanted to try that often. Yes: +completely. The tip of his little finger blotted out the sun's disk. +Must be the focus where the rays cross. If I had black glasses. +Interesting. There was a lot of talk about those sunspots when we +were in Lombard street west. Looking up from the back garden. Terrific +explosions they are. There will be a total eclipse this year: autumn +some time. + +Now that I come to think of it that ball falls at Greenwich time. It's +the clock is worked by an electric wire from Dunsink. Must go out there +some first Saturday of the month. If I could get an introduction to +professor Joly or learn up something about his family. That would do to: +man always feels complimented. Flattery where least expected. Nobleman +proud to be descended from some king's mistress. His foremother. Lay it +on with a trowel. Cap in hand goes through the land. Not go in and blurt +out what you know you're not to: what's parallax? Show this gentleman +the door. + +Ah. + +His hand fell to his side again. + +Never know anything about it. Waste of time. Gasballs spinning about, +crossing each other, passing. Same old dingdong always. Gas: then solid: +then world: then cold: then dead shell drifting around, frozen rock, +like that pineapple rock. The moon. Must be a new moon out, she said. I +believe there is. + +He went on by la maison Claire. + +Wait. The full moon was the night we were Sunday fortnight exactly there +is a new moon. Walking down by the Tolka. Not bad for a Fairview moon. +She was humming. The young May moon she's beaming, love. He other side +of her. Elbow, arm. He. Glowworm's la-amp is gleaming, love. Touch. +Fingers. Asking. Answer. Yes. + +Stop. Stop. If it was it was. Must. + +Mr Bloom, quickbreathing, slowlier walking passed Adam court. + +With a keep quiet relief his eyes took note this is the street here +middle of the day of Bob Doran's bottle shoulders. On his annual bend, +M Coy said. They drink in order to say or do something or _cherchez la +femme_. Up in the Coombe with chummies and streetwalkers and then the +rest of the year sober as a judge. + +Yes. Thought so. Sloping into the Empire. Gone. Plain soda would do him +good. Where Pat Kinsella had his Harp theatre before Whitbred ran the +Queen's. Broth of a boy. Dion Boucicault business with his harvestmoon +face in a poky bonnet. Three Purty Maids from School. How time flies, +eh? Showing long red pantaloons under his skirts. Drinkers, drinking, +laughed spluttering, their drink against their breath. More power, Pat. +Coarse red: fun for drunkards: guffaw and smoke. Take off that white +hat. His parboiled eyes. Where is he now? Beggar somewhere. The harp +that once did starve us all. + +I was happier then. Or was that I? Or am I now I? Twentyeight I was. She +twentythree. When we left Lombard street west something changed. Could +never like it again after Rudy. Can't bring back time. Like holding +water in your hand. Would you go back to then? Just beginning then. +Would you? Are you not happy in your home you poor little naughty boy? +Wants to sew on buttons for me. I must answer. Write it in the library. + +Grafton street gay with housed awnings lured his senses. Muslin prints, +silkdames and dowagers, jingle of harnesses, hoofthuds lowringing in the +baking causeway. Thick feet that woman has in the white stockings. Hope +the rain mucks them up on her. Countrybred chawbacon. All the beef to +the heels were in. Always gives a woman clumsy feet. Molly looks out of +plumb. + +He passed, dallying, the windows of Brown Thomas, silk mercers. Cascades +of ribbons. Flimsy China silks. A tilted urn poured from its mouth a +flood of bloodhued poplin: lustrous blood. The huguenots brought that +here. _La causa e santa_! Tara tara. Great chorus that. Taree tara. Must +be washed in rainwater. Meyerbeer. Tara: bom bom bom. + +Pincushions. I'm a long time threatening to buy one. Sticking them all +over the place. Needles in window curtains. + +He bared slightly his left forearm. Scrape: nearly gone. Not today +anyhow. Must go back for that lotion. For her birthday perhaps. +Junejulyaugseptember eighth. Nearly three months off. Then she mightn't +like it. Women won't pick up pins. Say it cuts lo. + +Gleaming silks, petticoats on slim brass rails, rays of flat silk +stockings. + +Useless to go back. Had to be. Tell me all. + +High voices. Sunwarm silk. Jingling harnesses. All for a woman, home and +houses, silkwebs, silver, rich fruits spicy from Jaffa. Agendath Netaim. +Wealth of the world. + +A warm human plumpness settled down on his brain. His brain yielded. +Perfume of embraces all him assailed. With hungered flesh obscurely, he +mutely craved to adore. + +Duke street. Here we are. Must eat. The Burton. Feel better then. + +He turned Combridge's corner, still pursued. Jingling, hoofthuds. +Perfumed bodies, warm, full. All kissed, yielded: in deep summer fields, +tangled pressed grass, in trickling hallways of tenements, along sofas, +creaking beds. + +--Jack, love! + +--Darling! + +--Kiss me, Reggy! + +--My boy! + +--Love! + +His heart astir he pushed in the door of the Burton restaurant. Stink +gripped his trembling breath: pungent meatjuice, slush of greens. See +the animals feed. + +Men, men, men. + +Perched on high stools by the bar, hats shoved back, at the tables +calling for more bread no charge, swilling, wolfing gobfuls of sloppy +food, their eyes bulging, wiping wetted moustaches. A pallid suetfaced +young man polished his tumbler knife fork and spoon with his napkin. New +set of microbes. A man with an infant's saucestained napkin tucked round +him shovelled gurgling soup down his gullet. A man spitting back on his +plate: halfmasticated gristle: gums: no teeth to chewchewchew it. Chump +chop from the grill. Bolting to get it over. Sad booser's eyes. Bitten +off more than he can chew. Am I like that? See ourselves as others see +us. Hungry man is an angry man. Working tooth and jaw. Don't! O! A bone! +That last pagan king of Ireland Cormac in the schoolpoem choked himself +at Sletty southward of the Boyne. Wonder what he was eating. Something +galoptious. Saint Patrick converted him to Christianity. Couldn't +swallow it all however. + +--Roast beef and cabbage. + +--One stew. + +Smells of men. His gorge rose. Spaton sawdust, sweetish warmish +cigarette smoke, reek of plug, spilt beer, men's beery piss, the stale +of ferment. + +Couldn't eat a morsel here. Fellow sharpening knife and fork to eat all +before him, old chap picking his tootles. Slight spasm, full, chewing +the cud. Before and after. Grace after meals. Look on this picture then +on that. Scoffing up stewgravy with sopping sippets of bread. Lick it +off the plate, man! Get out of this. + +He gazed round the stooled and tabled eaters, tightening the wings of +his nose. + +--Two stouts here. + +--One corned and cabbage. + +That fellow ramming a knifeful of cabbage down as if his life depended +on it. Good stroke. Give me the fidgets to look. Safer to eat from his +three hands. Tear it limb from limb. Second nature to him. Born with a +silver knife in his mouth. That's witty, I think. Or no. Silver means +born rich. Born with a knife. But then the allusion is lost. + +An illgirt server gathered sticky clattering plates. Rock, the head +bailiff, standing at the bar blew the foamy crown from his tankard. Well +up: it splashed yellow near his boot. A diner, knife and fork upright, +elbows on table, ready for a second helping stared towards the foodlift +across his stained square of newspaper. Other chap telling him something +with his mouth full. Sympathetic listener. Table talk. I munched hum un +thu Unchster Bunk un Munchday. Ha? Did you, faith? + +Mr Bloom raised two fingers doubtfully to his lips. His eyes said: + +--Not here. Don't see him. + +Out. I hate dirty eaters. + +He backed towards the door. Get a light snack in Davy Byrne's. Stopgap. +Keep me going. Had a good breakfast. + +--Roast and mashed here. + +--Pint of stout. + +Every fellow for his own, tooth and nail. Gulp. Grub. Gulp. Gobstuff. + +He came out into clearer air and turned back towards Grafton street. Eat +or be eaten. Kill! Kill! + +Suppose that communal kitchen years to come perhaps. All trotting down +with porringers and tommycans to be filled. Devour contents in the +street. John Howard Parnell example the provost of Trinity every +mother's son don't talk of your provosts and provost of Trinity women +and children cabmen priests parsons fieldmarshals archbishops. From +Ailesbury road, Clyde road, artisans' dwellings, north Dublin union, +lord mayor in his gingerbread coach, old queen in a bathchair. My +plate's empty. After you with our incorporated drinkingcup. Like sir +Philip Crampton's fountain. Rub off the microbes with your handkerchief. +Next chap rubs on a new batch with his. Father O'Flynn would make +hares of them all. Have rows all the same. All for number one. Children +fighting for the scrapings of the pot. Want a souppot as big as the +Phoenix park. Harpooning flitches and hindquarters out of it. Hate +people all round you. City Arms hotel _table d'hote_ she called it. +Soup, joint and sweet. Never know whose thoughts you're chewing. Then +who'd wash up all the plates and forks? Might be all feeding on tabloids +that time. Teeth getting worse and worse. + +After all there's a lot in that vegetarian fine flavour of things from +the earth garlic of course it stinks after Italian organgrinders crisp +of onions mushrooms truffles. Pain to the animal too. Pluck and draw +fowl. Wretched brutes there at the cattlemarket waiting for the poleaxe +to split their skulls open. Moo. Poor trembling calves. Meh. Staggering +bob. Bubble and squeak. Butchers' buckets wobbly lights. Give us that +brisket off the hook. Plup. Rawhead and bloody bones. Flayed glasseyed +sheep hung from their haunches, sheepsnouts bloodypapered snivelling +nosejam on sawdust. Top and lashers going out. Don't maul them pieces, +young one. + +Hot fresh blood they prescribe for decline. Blood always needed. +Insidious. Lick it up smokinghot, thick sugary. Famished ghosts. + +Ah, I'm hungry. + +He entered Davy Byrne's. Moral pub. He doesn't chat. Stands a drink now +and then. But in leapyear once in four. Cashed a cheque for me once. + +What will I take now? He drew his watch. Let me see now. Shandygaff? + +--Hello, Bloom, Nosey Flynn said from his nook. + +--Hello, Flynn. + +--How's things? + +--Tiptop... Let me see. I'll take a glass of burgundy and... let me +see. + +Sardines on the shelves. Almost taste them by looking. Sandwich? Ham +and his descendants musterred and bred there. Potted meats. What is home +without Plumtree's potted meat? Incomplete. What a stupid ad! Under the +obituary notices they stuck it. All up a plumtree. Dignam's potted meat. +Cannibals would with lemon and rice. White missionary too salty. Like +pickled pork. Expect the chief consumes the parts of honour. Ought to be +tough from exercise. His wives in a row to watch the effect. _There was +a right royal old nigger. Who ate or something the somethings of the +reverend Mr MacTrigger_. With it an abode of bliss. Lord knows what +concoction. Cauls mouldy tripes windpipes faked and minced up. Puzzle +find the meat. Kosher. No meat and milk together. Hygiene that was what +they call now. Yom Kippur fast spring cleaning of inside. Peace and +war depend on some fellow's digestion. Religions. Christmas turkeys and +geese. Slaughter of innocents. Eat drink and be merry. Then casual wards +full after. Heads bandaged. Cheese digests all but itself. Mity cheese. + +--Have you a cheese sandwich? + +--Yes, sir. + +Like a few olives too if they had them. Italian I prefer. Good glass of +burgundy take away that. Lubricate. A nice salad, cool as a cucumber, +Tom Kernan can dress. Puts gusto into it. Pure olive oil. Milly served +me that cutlet with a sprig of parsley. Take one Spanish onion. God made +food, the devil the cooks. Devilled crab. + +--Wife well? + +--Quite well, thanks... A cheese sandwich, then. Gorgonzola, have you? + +--Yes, sir. + +Nosey Flynn sipped his grog. + +--Doing any singing those times? + +Look at his mouth. Could whistle in his own ear. Flap ears to match. +Music. Knows as much about it as my coachman. Still better tell him. +Does no harm. Free ad. + +--She's engaged for a big tour end of this month. You may have heard +perhaps. + +--No. O, that's the style. Who's getting it up? + +The curate served. + +--How much is that? + +--Seven d., sir... Thank you, sir. + +Mr Bloom cut his sandwich into slender strips. _Mr MacTrigger_. Easier +than the dreamy creamy stuff. _His five hundred wives. Had the time of +their lives._ + +--Mustard, sir? + +--Thank you. + +He studded under each lifted strip yellow blobs. _Their lives_. I have +it. _It grew bigger and bigger and bigger_. + +--Getting it up? he said. Well, it's like a company idea, you see. Part +shares and part profits. + +--Ay, now I remember, Nosey Flynn said, putting his hand in his pocket +to scratch his groin. Who is this was telling me? Isn't Blazes Boylan +mixed up in it? + +A warm shock of air heat of mustard hanched on Mr Bloom's heart. He +raised his eyes and met the stare of a bilious clock. Two. Pub clock +five minutes fast. Time going on. Hands moving. Two. Not yet. + +His midriff yearned then upward, sank within him, yearned more longly, +longingly. + +Wine. + +He smellsipped the cordial juice and, bidding his throat strongly to +speed it, set his wineglass delicately down. + +--Yes, he said. He's the organiser in point of fact. + +No fear: no brains. + +Nosey Flynn snuffled and scratched. Flea having a good square meal. + +--He had a good slice of luck, Jack Mooney was telling me, over that +boxingmatch Myler Keogh won again that soldier in the Portobello +barracks. By God, he had the little kipper down in the county Carlow he +was telling me... + +Hope that dewdrop doesn't come down into his glass. No, snuffled it up. + +--For near a month, man, before it came off. Sucking duck eggs by God +till further orders. Keep him off the boose, see? O, by God, Blazes is a +hairy chap. + +Davy Byrne came forward from the hindbar in tuckstitched shirtsleeves, +cleaning his lips with two wipes of his napkin. Herring's blush. Whose +smile upon each feature plays with such and such replete. Too much fat +on the parsnips. + +--And here's himself and pepper on him, Nosey Flynn said. Can you give +us a good one for the Gold cup? + +--I'm off that, Mr Flynn, Davy Byrne answered. I never put anything on a +horse. + +--You're right there, Nosey Flynn said. + +Mr Bloom ate his strips of sandwich, fresh clean bread, with relish of +disgust pungent mustard, the feety savour of green cheese. Sips of his +wine soothed his palate. Not logwood that. Tastes fuller this weather +with the chill off. + +Nice quiet bar. Nice piece of wood in that counter. Nicely planed. Like +the way it curves there. + +--I wouldn't do anything at all in that line, Davy Byrne said. It ruined +many a man, the same horses. + +Vintners' sweepstake. Licensed for the sale of beer, wine and spirits +for consumption on the premises. Heads I win tails you lose. + +--True for you, Nosey Flynn said. Unless you're in the know. There's +no straight sport going now. Lenehan gets some good ones. He's giving +Sceptre today. Zinfandel's the favourite, lord Howard de Walden's, won +at Epsom. Morny Cannon is riding him. I could have got seven to one +against Saint Amant a fortnight before. + +--That so? Davy Byrne said... + +He went towards the window and, taking up the pettycash book, scanned +its pages. + +--I could, faith, Nosey Flynn said, snuffling. That was a rare bit of +horseflesh. Saint Frusquin was her sire. She won in a thunderstorm, +Rothschild's filly, with wadding in her ears. Blue jacket and yellow +cap. Bad luck to big Ben Dollard and his John O'Gaunt. He put me off it. +Ay. + +He drank resignedly from his tumbler, running his fingers down the +flutes. + +--Ay, he said, sighing. + +Mr Bloom, champing, standing, looked upon his sigh. Nosey numbskull. +Will I tell him that horse Lenehan? He knows already. Better let him +forget. Go and lose more. Fool and his money. Dewdrop coming down again. +Cold nose he'd have kissing a woman. Still they might like. Prickly +beards they like. Dogs' cold noses. Old Mrs Riordan with the rumbling +stomach's Skye terrier in the City Arms hotel. Molly fondling him in her +lap. O, the big doggybowwowsywowsy! + +Wine soaked and softened rolled pith of bread mustard a moment mawkish +cheese. Nice wine it is. Taste it better because I'm not thirsty. Bath +of course does that. Just a bite or two. Then about six o'clock I can. +Six. Six. Time will be gone then. She... + +Mild fire of wine kindled his veins. I wanted that badly. Felt so +off colour. His eyes unhungrily saw shelves of tins: sardines, gaudy +lobsters' claws. All the odd things people pick up for food. Out of +shells, periwinkles with a pin, off trees, snails out of the ground the +French eat, out of the sea with bait on a hook. Silly fish learn nothing +in a thousand years. If you didn't know risky putting anything into your +mouth. Poisonous berries. Johnny Magories. Roundness you think good. +Gaudy colour warns you off. One fellow told another and so on. Try it +on the dog first. Led on by the smell or the look. Tempting fruit. +Ice cones. Cream. Instinct. Orangegroves for instance. Need artificial +irrigation. Bleibtreustrasse. Yes but what about oysters. Unsightly like +a clot of phlegm. Filthy shells. Devil to open them too. Who found them +out? Garbage, sewage they feed on. Fizz and Red bank oysters. Effect +on the sexual. Aphrodis. He was in the Red Bank this morning. Was he +oysters old fish at table perhaps he young flesh in bed no June has +no ar no oysters. But there are people like things high. Tainted game. +Jugged hare. First catch your hare. Chinese eating eggs fifty years old, +blue and green again. Dinner of thirty courses. Each dish harmless might +mix inside. Idea for a poison mystery. That archduke Leopold was it no +yes or was it Otto one of those Habsburgs? Or who was it used to eat the +scruff off his own head? Cheapest lunch in town. Of course aristocrats, +then the others copy to be in the fashion. Milly too rock oil and flour. +Raw pastry I like myself. Half the catch of oysters they throw back in +the sea to keep up the price. Cheap no-one would buy. Caviare. Do the +grand. Hock in green glasses. Swell blowout. Lady this. Powdered bosom +pearls. The _elite. Creme de la creme_. They want special dishes to +pretend they're. Hermit with a platter of pulse keep down the stings +of the flesh. Know me come eat with me. Royal sturgeon high sheriff, +Coffey, the butcher, right to venisons of the forest from his ex. Send +him back the half of a cow. Spread I saw down in the Master of the +Rolls' kitchen area. Whitehatted _chef_ like a rabbi. Combustible duck. +Curly cabbage _a la duchesse de Parme_. Just as well to write it on the +bill of fare so you can know what you've eaten. Too many drugs spoil the +broth. I know it myself. Dosing it with Edwards' desiccated soup. Geese +stuffed silly for them. Lobsters boiled alive. Do ptake some ptarmigan. +Wouldn't mind being a waiter in a swell hotel. Tips, evening dress, +halfnaked ladies. May I tempt you to a little more filleted lemon sole, +miss Dubedat? Yes, do bedad. And she did bedad. Huguenot name I expect +that. A miss Dubedat lived in Killiney, I remember. _Du, de la_ French. +Still it's the same fish perhaps old Micky Hanlon of Moore street ripped +the guts out of making money hand over fist finger in fishes' gills +can't write his name on a cheque think he was painting the landscape +with his mouth twisted. Moooikill A Aitcha Ha ignorant as a kish of +brogues, worth fifty thousand pounds. + +Stuck on the pane two flies buzzed, stuck. + +Glowing wine on his palate lingered swallowed. Crushing in the winepress +grapes of Burgundy. Sun's heat it is. Seems to a secret touch telling me +memory. Touched his sense moistened remembered. Hidden under wild ferns +on Howth below us bay sleeping: sky. No sound. The sky. The bay purple +by the Lion's head. Green by Drumleck. Yellowgreen towards Sutton. +Fields of undersea, the lines faint brown in grass, buried cities. +Pillowed on my coat she had her hair, earwigs in the heather scrub +my hand under her nape, you'll toss me all. O wonder! Coolsoft with +ointments her hand touched me, caressed: her eyes upon me did not turn +away. Ravished over her I lay, full lips full open, kissed her mouth. +Yum. Softly she gave me in my mouth the seedcake warm and chewed. +Mawkish pulp her mouth had mumbled sweetsour of her spittle. Joy: I ate +it: joy. Young life, her lips that gave me pouting. Soft warm sticky +gumjelly lips. Flowers her eyes were, take me, willing eyes. Pebbles +fell. She lay still. A goat. No-one. High on Ben Howth rhododendrons a +nannygoat walking surefooted, dropping currants. Screened under ferns +she laughed warmfolded. Wildly I lay on her, kissed her: eyes, her lips, +her stretched neck beating, woman's breasts full in her blouse of nun's +veiling, fat nipples upright. Hot I tongued her. She kissed me. I was +kissed. All yielding she tossed my hair. Kissed, she kissed me. + +Me. And me now. + +Stuck, the flies buzzed. + +His downcast eyes followed the silent veining of the oaken slab. Beauty: +it curves: curves are beauty. Shapely goddesses, Venus, Juno: curves the +world admires. Can see them library museum standing in the round hall, +naked goddesses. Aids to digestion. They don't care what man looks. All +to see. Never speaking. I mean to say to fellows like Flynn. Suppose she +did Pygmalion and Galatea what would she say first? Mortal! Put you in +your proper place. Quaffing nectar at mess with gods golden dishes, all +ambrosial. Not like a tanner lunch we have, boiled mutton, carrots and +turnips, bottle of Allsop. Nectar imagine it drinking electricity: gods' +food. Lovely forms of women sculped Junonian. Immortal lovely. And we +stuffing food in one hole and out behind: food, chyle, blood, dung, +earth, food: have to feed it like stoking an engine. They have no. Never +looked. I'll look today. Keeper won't see. Bend down let something drop +see if she. + +Dribbling a quiet message from his bladder came to go to do not to +do there to do. A man and ready he drained his glass to the lees and +walked, to men too they gave themselves, manly conscious, lay with men +lovers, a youth enjoyed her, to the yard. + +When the sound of his boots had ceased Davy Byrne said from his book: + +--What is this he is? Isn't he in the insurance line? + +--He's out of that long ago, Nosey Flynn said. He does canvassing for +the _Freeman._ + +--I know him well to see, Davy Byrne said. Is he in trouble? + +--Trouble? Nosey Flynn said. Not that I heard of. Why? + +--I noticed he was in mourning. + +--Was he? Nosey Flynn said. So he was, faith. I asked him how was all at +home. You're right, by God. So he was. + +--I never broach the subject, Davy Byrne said humanely, if I see a +gentleman is in trouble that way. It only brings it up fresh in their +minds. + +--It's not the wife anyhow, Nosey Flynn said. I met him the day before +yesterday and he coming out of that Irish farm dairy John Wyse Nolan's +wife has in Henry street with a jar of cream in his hand taking it home +to his better half. She's well nourished, I tell you. Plovers on toast. + +--And is he doing for the _Freeman?_ Davy Byrne said. + +Nosey Flynn pursed his lips. + +---He doesn't buy cream on the ads he picks up. You can make bacon of +that. + +--How so? Davy Byrne asked, coming from his book. + +Nosey Flynn made swift passes in the air with juggling fingers. He +winked. + +--He's in the craft, he said. + +---Do you tell me so? Davy Byrne said. + +--Very much so, Nosey Flynn said. Ancient free and accepted order. He's +an excellent brother. Light, life and love, by God. They give him a leg +up. I was told that by a--well, I won't say who. + +--Is that a fact? + +--O, it's a fine order, Nosey Flynn said. They stick to you when you're +down. I know a fellow was trying to get into it. But they're as close as +damn it. By God they did right to keep the women out of it. + +Davy Byrne smiledyawnednodded all in one: + +--Iiiiiichaaaaaaach! + +--There was one woman, Nosey Flynn said, hid herself in a clock to find +out what they do be doing. But be damned but they smelt her out and +swore her in on the spot a master mason. That was one of the saint +Legers of Doneraile. + +Davy Byrne, sated after his yawn, said with tearwashed eyes: + +--And is that a fact? Decent quiet man he is. I often saw him in here +and I never once saw him--you know, over the line. + +--God Almighty couldn't make him drunk, Nosey Flynn said firmly. Slips +off when the fun gets too hot. Didn't you see him look at his watch? Ah, +you weren't there. If you ask him to have a drink first thing he does +he outs with the watch to see what he ought to imbibe. Declare to God he +does. + +--There are some like that, Davy Byrne said. He's a safe man, I'd say. + +--He's not too bad, Nosey Flynn said, snuffling it up. He's been known +to put his hand down too to help a fellow. Give the devil his due. O, +Bloom has his good points. But there's one thing he'll never do. + +His hand scrawled a dry pen signature beside his grog. + +--I know, Davy Byrne said. + +--Nothing in black and white, Nosey Flynn said. + +Paddy Leonard and Bantam Lyons came in. Tom Rochford followed frowning, +a plaining hand on his claret waistcoat. + +--Day, Mr Byrne. + +--Day, gentlemen. + +They paused at the counter. + +--Who's standing? Paddy Leonard asked. + +--I'm sitting anyhow, Nosey Flynn answered. + +--Well, what'll it be? Paddy Leonard asked. + +--I'll take a stone ginger, Bantam Lyons said. + +--How much? Paddy Leonard cried. Since when, for God' sake? What's +yours, Tom? + +--How is the main drainage? Nosey Flynn asked, sipping. + +For answer Tom Rochford pressed his hand to his breastbone and +hiccupped. + +--Would I trouble you for a glass of fresh water, Mr Byrne? he said. + +--Certainly, sir. + +Paddy Leonard eyed his alemates. + +--Lord love a duck, he said. Look at what I'm standing drinks to! Cold +water and gingerpop! Two fellows that would suck whisky off a sore leg. +He has some bloody horse up his sleeve for the Gold cup. A dead snip. + +--Zinfandel is it? Nosey Flynn asked. + +Tom Rochford spilt powder from a twisted paper into the water set before +him. + +--That cursed dyspepsia, he said before drinking. + +--Breadsoda is very good, Davy Byrne said. + +Tom Rochford nodded and drank. + +--Is it Zinfandel? + +--Say nothing! Bantam Lyons winked. I'm going to plunge five bob on my +own. + +--Tell us if you're worth your salt and be damned to you, Paddy Leonard +said. Who gave it to you? + +Mr Bloom on his way out raised three fingers in greeting. + +--So long! Nosey Flynn said. + +The others turned. + +--That's the man now that gave it to me, Bantam Lyons whispered. + +--Prrwht! Paddy Leonard said with scorn. Mr Byrne, sir, we'll take two +of your small Jamesons after that and a... + +--Stone ginger, Davy Byrne added civilly. + +--Ay, Paddy Leonard said. A suckingbottle for the baby. + +Mr Bloom walked towards Dawson street, his tongue brushing his teeth +smooth. Something green it would have to be: spinach, say. Then with +those Rontgen rays searchlight you could. + +At Duke lane a ravenous terrier choked up a sick knuckly cud on the +cobblestones and lapped it with new zest. Surfeit. Returned with thanks +having fully digested the contents. First sweet then savoury. Mr Bloom +coasted warily. Ruminants. His second course. Their upper jaw they move. +Wonder if Tom Rochford will do anything with that invention of his? +Wasting time explaining it to Flynn's mouth. Lean people long mouths. +Ought to be a hall or a place where inventors could go in and invent +free. Course then you'd have all the cranks pestering. + +He hummed, prolonging in solemn echo the closes of the bars: + +_Don Giovanni, a cenar teco M'invitasti._ + +Feel better. Burgundy. Good pick me up. Who distilled first? Some chap +in the blues. Dutch courage. That _Kilkenny People_ in the national +library now I must. + +Bare clean closestools waiting in the window of William Miller, plumber, +turned back his thoughts. They could: and watch it all the way down, +swallow a pin sometimes come out of the ribs years after, tour round the +body changing biliary duct spleen squirting liver gastric juice coils of +intestines like pipes. But the poor buffer would have to stand all the +time with his insides entrails on show. Science. + +--_A cenar teco._ + +What does that _teco_ mean? Tonight perhaps. + + _Don Giovanni, thou hast me invited + To come to supper tonight, + The rum the rumdum._ + +Doesn't go properly. + +Keyes: two months if I get Nannetti to. That'll be two pounds ten about +two pounds eight. Three Hynes owes me. Two eleven. Prescott's dyeworks +van over there. If I get Billy Prescott's ad: two fifteen. Five guineas +about. On the pig's back. + +Could buy one of those silk petticoats for Molly, colour of her new +garters. + +Today. Today. Not think. + +Tour the south then. What about English wateringplaces? Brighton, +Margate. Piers by moonlight. Her voice floating out. Those lovely +seaside girls. Against John Long's a drowsing loafer lounged in heavy +thought, gnawing a crusted knuckle. Handy man wants job. Small wages. +Will eat anything. + +Mr Bloom turned at Gray's confectioner's window of unbought tarts and +passed the reverend Thomas Connellan's bookstore. _Why I left the church +of Rome? Birds' Nest._ Women run him. They say they used to give pauper +children soup to change to protestants in the time of the potato blight. +Society over the way papa went to for the conversion of poor jews. Same +bait. Why we left the church of Rome. + +A blind stripling stood tapping the curbstone with his slender cane. No +tram in sight. Wants to cross. + +--Do you want to cross? Mr Bloom asked. + +The blind stripling did not answer. His wallface frowned weakly. He +moved his head uncertainly. + +--You're in Dawson street, Mr Bloom said. Molesworth street is opposite. +Do you want to cross? There's nothing in the way. + +The cane moved out trembling to the left. Mr Bloom's eye followed its +line and saw again the dyeworks' van drawn up before Drago's. Where I +saw his brillantined hair just when I was. Horse drooping. Driver in +John Long's. Slaking his drouth. + +--There's a van there, Mr Bloom said, but it's not moving. I'll see you +across. Do you want to go to Molesworth street? + +--Yes, the stripling answered. South Frederick street. + +--Come, Mr Bloom said. + +He touched the thin elbow gently: then took the limp seeing hand to +guide it forward. + +Say something to him. Better not do the condescending. They mistrust +what you tell them. Pass a common remark. + +--The rain kept off. + +No answer. + +Stains on his coat. Slobbers his food, I suppose. Tastes all different +for him. Have to be spoonfed first. Like a child's hand, his hand. Like +Milly's was. Sensitive. Sizing me up I daresay from my hand. Wonder +if he has a name. Van. Keep his cane clear of the horse's legs: tired +drudge get his doze. That's right. Clear. Behind a bull: in front of a +horse. + +--Thanks, sir. + +Knows I'm a man. Voice. + +--Right now? First turn to the left. + +The blind stripling tapped the curbstone and went on his way, drawing +his cane back, feeling again. + +Mr Bloom walked behind the eyeless feet, a flatcut suit of herringbone +tweed. Poor young fellow! How on earth did he know that van was there? +Must have felt it. See things in their forehead perhaps: kind of sense +of volume. Weight or size of it, something blacker than the dark. Wonder +would he feel it if something was removed. Feel a gap. Queer idea of +Dublin he must have, tapping his way round by the stones. Could he walk +in a beeline if he hadn't that cane? Bloodless pious face like a fellow +going in to be a priest. + +Penrose! That was that chap's name. + +Look at all the things they can learn to do. Read with their fingers. +Tune pianos. Or we are surprised they have any brains. Why we think a +deformed person or a hunchback clever if he says something we might say. +Of course the other senses are more. Embroider. Plait baskets. People +ought to help. Workbasket I could buy for Molly's birthday. Hates +sewing. Might take an objection. Dark men they call them. + +Sense of smell must be stronger too. Smells on all sides, bunched +together. Each street different smell. Each person too. Then the spring, +the summer: smells. Tastes? They say you can't taste wines with your +eyes shut or a cold in the head. Also smoke in the dark they say get no +pleasure. + +And with a woman, for instance. More shameless not seeing. That girl +passing the Stewart institution, head in the air. Look at me. I have +them all on. Must be strange not to see her. Kind of a form in his +mind's eye. The voice, temperatures: when he touches her with his +fingers must almost see the lines, the curves. His hands on her hair, +for instance. Say it was black, for instance. Good. We call it black. +Then passing over her white skin. Different feel perhaps. Feeling of +white. + +Postoffice. Must answer. Fag today. Send her a postal order two +shillings, half a crown. Accept my little present. Stationer's just here +too. Wait. Think over it. + +With a gentle finger he felt ever so slowly the hair combed back above +his ears. Again. Fibres of fine fine straw. Then gently his finger felt +the skin of his right cheek. Downy hair there too. Not smooth enough. +The belly is the smoothest. No-one about. There he goes into Frederick +street. Perhaps to Levenston's dancing academy piano. Might be settling +my braces. + +Walking by Doran's publichouse he slid his hand between his waistcoat +and trousers and, pulling aside his shirt gently, felt a slack fold of +his belly. But I know it's whitey yellow. Want to try in the dark to +see. + +He withdrew his hand and pulled his dress to. + +Poor fellow! Quite a boy. Terrible. Really terrible. What dreams would +he have, not seeing? Life a dream for him. Where is the justice being +born that way? All those women and children excursion beanfeast burned +and drowned in New York. Holocaust. Karma they call that transmigration +for sins you did in a past life the reincarnation met him pike hoses. +Dear, dear, dear. Pity, of course: but somehow you can't cotton on to +them someway. + +Sir Frederick Falkiner going into the freemasons' hall. Solemn as Troy. +After his good lunch in Earlsfort terrace. Old legal cronies cracking +a magnum. Tales of the bench and assizes and annals of the bluecoat +school. I sentenced him to ten years. I suppose he'd turn up his nose +at that stuff I drank. Vintage wine for them, the year marked on a +dusty bottle. Has his own ideas of justice in the recorder's court. +Wellmeaning old man. Police chargesheets crammed with cases get their +percentage manufacturing crime. Sends them to the rightabout. The devil +on moneylenders. Gave Reuben J. a great strawcalling. Now he's really +what they call a dirty jew. Power those judges have. Crusty old topers +in wigs. Bear with a sore paw. And may the Lord have mercy on your soul. + +Hello, placard. Mirus bazaar. His Excellency the lord lieutenant. +Sixteenth. Today it is. In aid of funds for Mercer's hospital. _The +Messiah_ was first given for that. Yes. Handel. What about going out +there: Ballsbridge. Drop in on Keyes. No use sticking to him like a +leech. Wear out my welcome. Sure to know someone on the gate. + +Mr Bloom came to Kildare street. First I must. Library. + +Straw hat in sunlight. Tan shoes. Turnedup trousers. It is. It is. + +His heart quopped softly. To the right. Museum. Goddesses. He swerved to +the right. + +Is it? Almost certain. Won't look. Wine in my face. Why did I? Too +heady. Yes, it is. The walk. Not see. Get on. + +Making for the museum gate with long windy steps he lifted his eyes. +Handsome building. Sir Thomas Deane designed. Not following me? + +Didn't see me perhaps. Light in his eyes. + +The flutter of his breath came forth in short sighs. Quick. Cold +statues: quiet there. Safe in a minute. + +No. Didn't see me. After two. Just at the gate. + +My heart! + +His eyes beating looked steadfastly at cream curves of stone. Sir Thomas +Deane was the Greek architecture. + +Look for something I. + +His hasty hand went quick into a pocket, took out, read unfolded +Agendath Netaim. Where did I? + +Busy looking. + +He thrust back quick Agendath. + +Afternoon she said. + +I am looking for that. Yes, that. Try all pockets. Handker. _Freeman._ +Where did I? Ah, yes. Trousers. Potato. Purse. Where? + +Hurry. Walk quietly. Moment more. My heart. + +His hand looking for the where did I put found in his hip pocket soap +lotion have to call tepid paper stuck. Ah soap there I yes. Gate. + +Safe! + + +Urbane, to comfort them, the quaker librarian purred: + + +--And we have, have we not, those priceless pages of _Wilhelm Meister_. +A great poet on a great brother poet. A hesitating soul taking arms +against a sea of troubles, torn by conflicting doubts, as one sees in +real life. + +He came a step a sinkapace forward on neatsleather creaking and a step +backward a sinkapace on the solemn floor. + +A noiseless attendant setting open the door but slightly made him a +noiseless beck. + +--Directly, said he, creaking to go, albeit lingering. The beautiful +ineffectual dreamer who comes to grief against hard facts. One always +feels that Goethe's judgments are so true. True in the larger analysis. + +Twicreakingly analysis he corantoed off. Bald, most zealous by the door +he gave his large ear all to the attendant's words: heard them: and was +gone. + +Two left. + +--Monsieur de la Palice, Stephen sneered, was alive fifteen minutes +before his death. + +--Have you found those six brave medicals, John Eglinton asked with +elder's gall, to write _Paradise Lost_ at your dictation? _The Sorrows +of Satan_ he calls it. + +Smile. Smile Cranly's smile. + + _First he tickled her + Then he patted her + Then he passed the female catheter. + For he was a medical + Jolly old medi..._ + +--I feel you would need one more for _Hamlet._ Seven is dear to the +mystic mind. The shining seven W.B. calls them. + +Glittereyed his rufous skull close to his greencapped desklamp sought +the face bearded amid darkgreener shadow, an ollav, holyeyed. He laughed +low: a sizar's laugh of Trinity: unanswered. + + _Orchestral Satan, weeping many a rood + Tears such as angels weep. + Ed egli avea del cul fatto trombetta._ + +He holds my follies hostage. + +Cranly's eleven true Wicklowmen to free their sireland. Gaptoothed +Kathleen, her four beautiful green fields, the stranger in her house. +And one more to hail him: _ave, rabbi_: the Tinahely twelve. In the +shadow of the glen he cooees for them. My soul's youth I gave him, night +by night. God speed. Good hunting. + +Mulligan has my telegram. + +Folly. Persist. + +--Our young Irish bards, John Eglinton censured, have yet to create a +figure which the world will set beside Saxon Shakespeare's Hamlet though +I admire him, as old Ben did, on this side idolatry. + +--All these questions are purely academic, Russell oracled out of his +shadow. I mean, whether Hamlet is Shakespeare or James I or Essex. +Clergymen's discussions of the historicity of Jesus. Art has to reveal +to us ideas, formless spiritual essences. The supreme question about a +work of art is out of how deep a life does it spring. The painting of +Gustave Moreau is the painting of ideas. The deepest poetry of Shelley, +the words of Hamlet bring our minds into contact with the eternal +wisdom, Plato's world of ideas. All the rest is the speculation of +schoolboys for schoolboys. + +A. E. has been telling some yankee interviewer. Wall, tarnation strike +me! + +--The schoolmen were schoolboys first, Stephen said superpolitely. +Aristotle was once Plato's schoolboy. + +--And has remained so, one should hope, John Eglinton sedately said. One +can see him, a model schoolboy with his diploma under his arm. + +He laughed again at the now smiling bearded face. + +Formless spiritual. Father, Word and Holy Breath. Allfather, the +heavenly man. Hiesos Kristos, magician of the beautiful, the Logos who +suffers in us at every moment. This verily is that. I am the fire upon +the altar. I am the sacrificial butter. + +Dunlop, Judge, the noblest Roman of them all, A.E., Arval, the Name +Ineffable, in heaven hight: K.H., their master, whose identity is no +secret to adepts. Brothers of the great white lodge always watching +to see if they can help. The Christ with the bridesister, moisture of +light, born of an ensouled virgin, repentant sophia, departed to the +plane of buddhi. The life esoteric is not for ordinary person. O.P. +must work off bad karma first. Mrs Cooper Oakley once glimpsed our very +illustrious sister H.P.B.'s elemental. + +O, fie! Out on't! _Pfuiteufel!_ You naughtn't to look, missus, so you +naughtn't when a lady's ashowing of her elemental. + +Mr Best entered, tall, young, mild, light. He bore in his hand with +grace a notebook, new, large, clean, bright. + +--That model schoolboy, Stephen said, would find Hamlet's musings about +the afterlife of his princely soul, the improbable, insignificant and +undramatic monologue, as shallow as Plato's. + +John Eglinton, frowning, said, waxing wroth: + +--Upon my word it makes my blood boil to hear anyone compare Aristotle +with Plato. + +--Which of the two, Stephen asked, would have banished me from his +commonwealth? + +Unsheathe your dagger definitions. Horseness is the whatness of +allhorse. Streams of tendency and eons they worship. God: noise in the +street: very peripatetic. Space: what you damn well have to see. Through +spaces smaller than red globules of man's blood they creepycrawl after +Blake's buttocks into eternity of which this vegetable world is but a +shadow. Hold to the now, the here, through which all future plunges to +the past. + +Mr Best came forward, amiable, towards his colleague. + +--Haines is gone, he said. + +--Is he? + +--I was showing him Jubainville's book. He's quite enthusiastic, don't +you know, about Hyde's _Lovesongs of Connacht._ I couldn't bring him in +to hear the discussion. He's gone to Gill's to buy it. + + _Bound thee forth, my booklet, quick + To greet the callous public. + Writ, I ween, 'twas not my wish + In lean unlovely English._ + +--The peatsmoke is going to his head, John Eglinton opined. + +We feel in England. Penitent thief. Gone. I smoked his baccy. Green +twinkling stone. An emerald set in the ring of the sea. + +--People do not know how dangerous lovesongs can be, the auric egg of +Russell warned occultly. The movements which work revolutions in the +world are born out of the dreams and visions in a peasant's heart on the +hillside. For them the earth is not an exploitable ground but the +living mother. The rarefied air of the academy and the arena produce the +sixshilling novel, the musichall song. France produces the finest flower +of corruption in Mallarme but the desirable life is revealed only to the +poor of heart, the life of Homer's Phaeacians. + +From these words Mr Best turned an unoffending face to Stephen. + +--Mallarme, don't you know, he said, has written those wonderful prose +poems Stephen MacKenna used to read to me in Paris. The one about +_Hamlet._ He says: _il se promene, lisant au livre de lui-meme_, don't +you know, _reading the book of himself_. He describes _Hamlet_ given in +a French town, don't you know, a provincial town. They advertised it. + +His free hand graciously wrote tiny signs in air. + + _HAMLET + ou + LE DISTRAIT + Piece de Shakespeare_ + +He repeated to John Eglinton's newgathered frown: + +--_Piece de Shakespeare_, don't you know. It's so French. The French +point of view. _Hamlet ou_... + +--The absentminded beggar, Stephen ended. + +John Eglinton laughed. + +--Yes, I suppose it would be, he said. Excellent people, no doubt, but +distressingly shortsighted in some matters. + +Sumptuous and stagnant exaggeration of murder. + +--A deathsman of the soul Robert Greene called him, Stephen said. Not +for nothing was he a butcher's son, wielding the sledded poleaxe and +spitting in his palms. Nine lives are taken off for his father's one. +Our Father who art in purgatory. Khaki Hamlets don't hesitate to +shoot. The bloodboltered shambles in act five is a forecast of the +concentration camp sung by Mr Swinburne. + +Cranly, I his mute orderly, following battles from afar. + +_Whelps and dams of murderous foes whom none But we had spared..._ + +Between the Saxon smile and yankee yawp. The devil and the deep sea. + +--He will have it that _Hamlet_ is a ghoststory, John Eglinton said +for Mr Best's behoof. Like the fat boy in Pickwick he wants to make our +flesh creep. + +_List! List! O List!_ + +My flesh hears him: creeping, hears. + +_If thou didst ever..._ + +--What is a ghost? Stephen said with tingling energy. One who has faded +into impalpability through death, through absence, through change of +manners. Elizabethan London lay as far from Stratford as corrupt Paris +lies from virgin Dublin. Who is the ghost from _limbo patrum_, returning +to the world that has forgotten him? Who is King Hamlet? + +John Eglinton shifted his spare body, leaning back to judge. + +Lifted. + +--It is this hour of a day in mid June, Stephen said, begging with +a swift glance their hearing. The flag is up on the playhouse by the +bankside. The bear Sackerson growls in the pit near it, Paris garden. +Canvasclimbers who sailed with Drake chew their sausages among the +groundlings. + +Local colour. Work in all you know. Make them accomplices. + +--Shakespeare has left the huguenot's house in Silver street and walks +by the swanmews along the riverbank. But he does not stay to feed the +pen chivying her game of cygnets towards the rushes. The swan of Avon +has other thoughts. + +Composition of place. Ignatius Loyola, make haste to help me! + +--The play begins. A player comes on under the shadow, made up in the +castoff mail of a court buck, a wellset man with a bass voice. It is the +ghost, the king, a king and no king, and the player is Shakespeare who +has studied _Hamlet_ all the years of his life which were not vanity in +order to play the part of the spectre. He speaks the words to Burbage, +the young player who stands before him beyond the rack of cerecloth, +calling him by a name: + +_Hamlet, I am thy father's spirit,_ + +bidding him list. To a son he speaks, the son of his soul, the prince, +young Hamlet and to the son of his body, Hamnet Shakespeare, who has +died in Stratford that his namesake may live for ever. + +Is it possible that that player Shakespeare, a ghost by absence, and in +the vesture of buried Denmark, a ghost by death, speaking his own words +to his own son's name (had Hamnet Shakespeare lived he would have been +prince Hamlet's twin), is it possible, I want to know, or probable that +he did not draw or foresee the logical conclusion of those premises: you +are the dispossessed son: I am the murdered father: your mother is the +guilty queen, Ann Shakespeare, born Hathaway? + +--But this prying into the family life of a great man, Russell began +impatiently. + +Art thou there, truepenny? + +--Interesting only to the parish clerk. I mean, we have the plays. I +mean when we read the poetry of _King Lear_ what is it to us how the +poet lived? As for living our servants can do that for us, Villiers de +l'Isle has said. Peeping and prying into greenroom gossip of the day, +the poet's drinking, the poet's debts. We have _King Lear_: and it is +immortal. + +Mr Best's face, appealed to, agreed. + +_Flow over them with your waves and with your waters, Mananaan, Mananaan +MacLir..._ + +How now, sirrah, that pound he lent you when you were hungry? + +Marry, I wanted it. + +Take thou this noble. + +Go to! You spent most of it in Georgina Johnson's bed, clergyman's +daughter. Agenbite of inwit. + +Do you intend to pay it back? + +O, yes. + +When? Now? + +Well... No. + +When, then? + +I paid my way. I paid my way. + +Steady on. He's from beyant Boyne water. The northeast corner. You owe +it. + +Wait. Five months. Molecules all change. I am other I now. Other I got +pound. + +Buzz. Buzz. + +But I, entelechy, form of forms, am I by memory because under +everchanging forms. + +I that sinned and prayed and fasted. + +A child Conmee saved from pandies. + +I, I and I. I. + +A.E.I.O.U. + +--Do you mean to fly in the face of the tradition of three centuries? +John Eglinton's carping voice asked. Her ghost at least has been laid +for ever. She died, for literature at least, before she was born. + +--She died, Stephen retorted, sixtyseven years after she was born. She +saw him into and out of the world. She took his first embraces. She bore +his children and she laid pennies on his eyes to keep his eyelids closed +when he lay on his deathbed. + +Mother's deathbed. Candle. The sheeted mirror. Who brought me into +this world lies there, bronzelidded, under few cheap flowers. _Liliata +rutilantium._ + +I wept alone. + +John Eglinton looked in the tangled glowworm of his lamp. + +--The world believes that Shakespeare made a mistake, he said, and got +out of it as quickly and as best he could. + +--Bosh! Stephen said rudely. A man of genius makes no mistakes. His +errors are volitional and are the portals of discovery. + +Portals of discovery opened to let in the quaker librarian, +softcreakfooted, bald, eared and assiduous. + +--A shrew, John Eglinton said shrewdly, is not a useful portal of +discovery, one should imagine. What useful discovery did Socrates learn +from Xanthippe? + +--Dialectic, Stephen answered: and from his mother how to bring thoughts +into the world. What he learnt from his other wife Myrto (_absit +nomen!_), Socratididion's Epipsychidion, no man, not a woman, will ever +know. But neither the midwife's lore nor the caudlelectures saved him +from the archons of Sinn Fein and their naggin of hemlock. + +--But Ann Hathaway? Mr Best's quiet voice said forgetfully. Yes, we seem +to be forgetting her as Shakespeare himself forgot her. + +His look went from brooder's beard to carper's skull, to remind, to +chide them not unkindly, then to the baldpink lollard costard, guiltless +though maligned. + +--He had a good groatsworth of wit, Stephen said, and no truant memory. +He carried a memory in his wallet as he trudged to Romeville whistling +_The girl I left behind me._ If the earthquake did not time it we should +know where to place poor Wat, sitting in his form, the cry of hounds, +the studded bridle and her blue windows. That memory, _Venus and +Adonis_, lay in the bedchamber of every light-of-love in London. +Is Katharine the shrew illfavoured? Hortensio calls her young and +beautiful. Do you think the writer of _Antony and Cleopatra_, a +passionate pilgrim, had his eyes in the back of his head that he chose +the ugliest doxy in all Warwickshire to lie withal? Good: he left her +and gained the world of men. But his boywomen are the women of a boy. +Their life, thought, speech are lent them by males. He chose badly? He +was chosen, it seems to me. If others have their will Ann hath a way. +By cock, she was to blame. She put the comether on him, sweet and +twentysix. The greyeyed goddess who bends over the boy Adonis, stooping +to conquer, as prologue to the swelling act, is a boldfaced Stratford +wench who tumbles in a cornfield a lover younger than herself. + +And my turn? When? + +Come! + +--Ryefield, Mr Best said brightly, gladly, raising his new book, gladly, +brightly. + +He murmured then with blond delight for all: + +_Between the acres of the rye These pretty countryfolk would lie._ + +Paris: the wellpleased pleaser. + +A tall figure in bearded homespun rose from shadow and unveiled its +cooperative watch. + +--I am afraid I am due at the _Homestead._ + +Whither away? Exploitable ground. + +--Are you going? John Eglinton's active eyebrows asked. Shall we see you +at Moore's tonight? Piper is coming. + +--Piper! Mr Best piped. Is Piper back? + +Peter Piper pecked a peck of pick of peck of pickled pepper. + +--I don't know if I can. Thursday. We have our meeting. If I can get +away in time. + +Yogibogeybox in Dawson chambers. _Isis Unveiled._ Their Pali book we +tried to pawn. Crosslegged under an umbrel umbershoot he thrones an +Aztec logos, functioning on astral levels, their oversoul, mahamahatma. +The faithful hermetists await the light, ripe for chelaship, +ringroundabout him. Louis H. Victory. T. Caulfield Irwin. Lotus ladies +tend them i'the eyes, their pineal glands aglow. Filled with his god, +he thrones, Buddh under plantain. Gulfer of souls, engulfer. Hesouls, +shesouls, shoals of souls. Engulfed with wailing creecries, whirled, +whirling, they bewail. + + _In quintessential triviality + For years in this fleshcase a shesoul dwelt._ + +--They say we are to have a literary surprise, the quaker librarian +said, friendly and earnest. Mr Russell, rumour has it, is gathering +together a sheaf of our younger poets' verses. We are all looking +forward anxiously. + +Anxiously he glanced in the cone of lamplight where three faces, +lighted, shone. + +See this. Remember. + +Stephen looked down on a wide headless caubeen, hung on his +ashplanthandle over his knee. My casque and sword. Touch lightly with +two index fingers. Aristotle's experiment. One or two? Necessity is that +in virtue of which it is impossible that one can be otherwise. Argal, +one hat is one hat. + +Listen. + +Young Colum and Starkey. George Roberts is doing the commercial part. +Longworth will give it a good puff in the _Express._ O, will he? I liked +Colum's _Drover._ Yes, I think he has that queer thing genius. Do you +think he has genius really? Yeats admired his line: _As in wild earth +a Grecian vase_. Did he? I hope you'll be able to come tonight. Malachi +Mulligan is coming too. Moore asked him to bring Haines. Did you hear +Miss Mitchell's joke about Moore and Martyn? That Moore is Martyn's +wild oats? Awfully clever, isn't it? They remind one of Don Quixote and +Sancho Panza. Our national epic has yet to be written, Dr Sigerson says. +Moore is the man for it. A knight of the rueful countenance here in +Dublin. With a saffron kilt? O'Neill Russell? O, yes, he must speak the +grand old tongue. And his Dulcinea? James Stephens is doing some clever +sketches. We are becoming important, it seems. + +Cordelia. _Cordoglio._ Lir's loneliest daughter. + +Nookshotten. Now your best French polish. + +--Thank you very much, Mr Russell, Stephen said, rising. If you will be +so kind as to give the letter to Mr Norman... + +--O, yes. If he considers it important it will go in. We have so much +correspondence. + +--I understand, Stephen said. Thanks. + +God ild you. The pigs' paper. Bullockbefriending. + +Synge has promised me an article for _Dana_ too. Are we going to be +read? I feel we are. The Gaelic league wants something in Irish. I hope +you will come round tonight. Bring Starkey. + +Stephen sat down. + +The quaker librarian came from the leavetakers. Blushing, his mask said: + +--Mr Dedalus, your views are most illuminating. + +He creaked to and fro, tiptoing up nearer heaven by the altitude of a +chopine, and, covered by the noise of outgoing, said low: + +--Is it your view, then, that she was not faithful to the poet? + +Alarmed face asks me. Why did he come? Courtesy or an inward light? + +--Where there is a reconciliation, Stephen said, there must have been +first a sundering. + +--Yes. + +Christfox in leather trews, hiding, a runaway in blighted treeforks, +from hue and cry. Knowing no vixen, walking lonely in the chase. Women +he won to him, tender people, a whore of Babylon, ladies of justices, +bully tapsters' wives. Fox and geese. And in New Place a slack +dishonoured body that once was comely, once as sweet, as fresh as +cinnamon, now her leaves falling, all, bare, frighted of the narrow +grave and unforgiven. + +--Yes. So you think... + +The door closed behind the outgoer. + +Rest suddenly possessed the discreet vaulted cell, rest of warm and +brooding air. + +A vestal's lamp. + +Here he ponders things that were not: what Caesar would have lived to do +had he believed the soothsayer: what might have been: possibilities of +the possible as possible: things not known: what name Achilles bore when +he lived among women. + +Coffined thoughts around me, in mummycases, embalmed in spice of words. +Thoth, god of libraries, a birdgod, moonycrowned. And I heard the +voice of that Egyptian highpriest. _In painted chambers loaded with +tilebooks._ + +They are still. Once quick in the brains of men. Still: but an itch of +death is in them, to tell me in my ear a maudlin tale, urge me to wreak +their will. + +--Certainly, John Eglinton mused, of all great men he is the most +enigmatic. We know nothing but that he lived and suffered. Not even so +much. Others abide our question. A shadow hangs over all the rest. + +--But _Hamlet_ is so personal, isn't it? Mr Best pleaded. I mean, a kind +of private paper, don't you know, of his private life. I mean, I don't +care a button, don't you know, who is killed or who is guilty... + +He rested an innocent book on the edge of the desk, smiling his +defiance. His private papers in the original. _Ta an bad ar an tir. Taim +in mo shagart_. Put beurla on it, littlejohn. + +Quoth littlejohn Eglinton: + +--I was prepared for paradoxes from what Malachi Mulligan told us but +I may as well warn you that if you want to shake my belief that +Shakespeare is Hamlet you have a stern task before you. + +Bear with me. + +Stephen withstood the bane of miscreant eyes glinting stern under +wrinkled brows. A basilisk. _E quando vede l'uomo l'attosca_. Messer +Brunetto, I thank thee for the word. + +--As we, or mother Dana, weave and unweave our bodies, Stephen said, +from day to day, their molecules shuttled to and fro, so does the artist +weave and unweave his image. And as the mole on my right breast is where +it was when I was born, though all my body has been woven of new stuff +time after time, so through the ghost of the unquiet father the image +of the unliving son looks forth. In the intense instant of imagination, +when the mind, Shelley says, is a fading coal, that which I was is that +which I am and that which in possibility I may come to be. So in the +future, the sister of the past, I may see myself as I sit here now but +by reflection from that which then I shall be. + +Drummond of Hawthornden helped you at that stile. + +--Yes, Mr Best said youngly. I feel Hamlet quite young. The bitterness +might be from the father but the passages with Ophelia are surely from +the son. + +Has the wrong sow by the lug. He is in my father. I am in his son. + +--That mole is the last to go, Stephen said, laughing. + +John Eglinton made a nothing pleasing mow. + +--If that were the birthmark of genius, he said, genius would be a +drug in the market. The plays of Shakespeare's later years which Renan +admired so much breathe another spirit. + +--The spirit of reconciliation, the quaker librarian breathed. + +--There can be no reconciliation, Stephen said, if there has not been a +sundering. + +Said that. + +--If you want to know what are the events which cast their shadow over +the hell of time of _King Lear, Othello, Hamlet, Troilus and Cressida,_ +look to see when and how the shadow lifts. What softens the heart of a +man, shipwrecked in storms dire, Tried, like another Ulysses, Pericles, +prince of Tyre? + +Head, redconecapped, buffeted, brineblinded. + +--A child, a girl, placed in his arms, Marina. + +--The leaning of sophists towards the bypaths of apocrypha is a constant +quantity, John Eglinton detected. The highroads are dreary but they lead +to the town. + +Good Bacon: gone musty. Shakespeare Bacon's wild oats. Cypherjugglers +going the highroads. Seekers on the great quest. What town, good +masters? Mummed in names: A. E., eon: Magee, John Eglinton. East of the +sun, west of the moon: _Tir na n-og_. Booted the twain and staved. + +_How many miles to Dublin? Three score and ten, sir. Will we be there by +candlelight?_ + +--Mr Brandes accepts it, Stephen said, as the first play of the closing +period. + +--Does he? What does Mr Sidney Lee, or Mr Simon Lazarus as some aver his +name is, say of it? + +--Marina, Stephen said, a child of storm, Miranda, a wonder, Perdita, +that which was lost. What was lost is given back to him: his daughter's +child. _My dearest wife_, Pericles says, _was like this maid._ Will any +man love the daughter if he has not loved the mother? + +--The art of being a grandfather, Mr Best gan murmur. _l'art d'etre +grand_... + +--Will he not see reborn in her, with the memory of his own youth added, +another image? + +Do you know what you are talking about? Love, yes. Word known to all +men. Amor vero aliquid alicui bonum vult unde et ea quae concupiscimus +... + +--His own image to a man with that queer thing genius is the standard of +all experience, material and moral. Such an appeal will touch him. The +images of other males of his blood will repel him. He will see in them +grotesque attempts of nature to foretell or to repeat himself. + +The benign forehead of the quaker librarian enkindled rosily with hope. + +--I hope Mr Dedalus will work out his theory for the enlightenment of +the public. And we ought to mention another Irish commentator, Mr George +Bernard Shaw. Nor should we forget Mr Frank Harris. His articles on +Shakespeare in the _Saturday Review_ were surely brilliant. Oddly +enough he too draws for us an unhappy relation with the dark lady of the +sonnets. The favoured rival is William Herbert, earl of Pembroke. I own +that if the poet must be rejected such a rejection would seem more in +harmony with--what shall I say?--our notions of what ought not to have +been. + +Felicitously he ceased and held a meek head among them, auk's egg, prize +of their fray. + +He thous and thees her with grave husbandwords. Dost love, Miriam? Dost +love thy man? + +--That may be too, Stephen said. There's a saying of Goethe's which Mr +Magee likes to quote. Beware of what you wish for in youth because +you will get it in middle life. Why does he send to one who is +a _buonaroba,_ a bay where all men ride, a maid of honour with a +scandalous girlhood, a lordling to woo for him? He was himself a lord +of language and had made himself a coistrel gentleman and he had written +_Romeo and Juliet_. Why? Belief in himself has been untimely killed. He +was overborne in a cornfield first (ryefield, I should say) and he will +never be a victor in his own eyes after nor play victoriously the game +of laugh and lie down. Assumed dongiovannism will not save him. No later +undoing will undo the first undoing. The tusk of the boar has wounded +him there where love lies ableeding. If the shrew is worsted yet there +remains to her woman's invisible weapon. There is, I feel in the words, +some goad of the flesh driving him into a new passion, a darker shadow +of the first, darkening even his own understanding of himself. A like +fate awaits him and the two rages commingle in a whirlpool. + +They list. And in the porches of their ears I pour. + +--The soul has been before stricken mortally, a poison poured in the +porch of a sleeping ear. But those who are done to death in sleep cannot +know the manner of their quell unless their Creator endow their souls +with that knowledge in the life to come. The poisoning and the beast +with two backs that urged it King Hamlet's ghost could not know of were +he not endowed with knowledge by his creator. That is why the speech +(his lean unlovely English) is always turned elsewhere, backward. +Ravisher and ravished, what he would but would not, go with him from +Lucrece's bluecircled ivory globes to Imogen's breast, bare, with its +mole cinquespotted. He goes back, weary of the creation he has piled up +to hide him from himself, an old dog licking an old sore. But, because +loss is his gain, he passes on towards eternity in undiminished +personality, untaught by the wisdom he has written or by the laws he +has revealed. His beaver is up. He is a ghost, a shadow now, the wind by +Elsinore's rocks or what you will, the sea's voice, a voice heard +only in the heart of him who is the substance of his shadow, the son +consubstantial with the father. + +--Amen! was responded from the doorway. + +Hast thou found me, O mine enemy? + +_Entr'acte_. + +A ribald face, sullen as a dean's, Buck Mulligan came forward, then +blithe in motley, towards the greeting of their smiles. My telegram. + +--You were speaking of the gaseous vertebrate, if I mistake not? he +asked of Stephen. + +Primrosevested he greeted gaily with his doffed Panama as with a bauble. + +They make him welcome. _Was Du verlachst wirst Du noch dienen._ + +Brood of mockers: Photius, pseudomalachi, Johann Most. + +He Who Himself begot middler the Holy Ghost and Himself sent Himself, +Agenbuyer, between Himself and others, Who, put upon by His fiends, +stripped and whipped, was nailed like bat to barndoor, starved on +crosstree, Who let Him bury, stood up, harrowed hell, fared into heaven +and there these nineteen hundred years sitteth on the right hand of His +Own Self but yet shall come in the latter day to doom the quick and dead +when all the quick shall be dead already. + +Glo--o--ri--a in ex--cel--sis De--o. + +He lifts his hands. Veils fall. O, flowers! Bells with bells with bells +aquiring. + +--Yes, indeed, the quaker librarian said. A most instructive discussion. +Mr Mulligan, I'll be bound, has his theory too of the play and of +Shakespeare. All sides of life should be represented. + +He smiled on all sides equally. + +Buck Mulligan thought, puzzled: + +--Shakespeare? he said. I seem to know the name. + +A flying sunny smile rayed in his loose features. + +--To be sure, he said, remembering brightly. The chap that writes like +Synge. + +Mr Best turned to him. + +--Haines missed you, he said. Did you meet him? He'll see you after at +the D. B. C. He's gone to Gill's to buy Hyde's _Lovesongs of Connacht_. + +--I came through the museum, Buck Mulligan said. Was he here? + +--The bard's fellowcountrymen, John Eglinton answered, are rather tired +perhaps of our brilliancies of theorising. I hear that an actress played +Hamlet for the fourhundredandeighth time last night in Dublin. Vining +held that the prince was a woman. Has no-one made him out to be an +Irishman? Judge Barton, I believe, is searching for some clues. He +swears (His Highness not His Lordship) by saint Patrick. + +--The most brilliant of all is that story of Wilde's, Mr Best said, +lifting his brilliant notebook. That _Portrait of Mr W. H._ where he +proves that the sonnets were written by a Willie Hughes, a man all hues. + +--For Willie Hughes, is it not? the quaker librarian asked. + +Or Hughie Wills? Mr William Himself. W. H.: who am I? + +--I mean, for Willie Hughes, Mr Best said, amending his gloss easily. Of +course it's all paradox, don't you know, Hughes and hews and hues, +the colour, but it's so typical the way he works it out. It's the very +essence of Wilde, don't you know. The light touch. + +His glance touched their faces lightly as he smiled, a blond ephebe. +Tame essence of Wilde. + +You're darned witty. Three drams of usquebaugh you drank with Dan +Deasy's ducats. + +How much did I spend? O, a few shillings. + +For a plump of pressmen. Humour wet and dry. + +Wit. You would give your five wits for youth's proud livery he pranks +in. Lineaments of gratified desire. + +There be many mo. Take her for me. In pairing time. Jove, a cool ruttime +send them. Yea, turtledove her. + +Eve. Naked wheatbellied sin. A snake coils her, fang in's kiss. + +--Do you think it is only a paradox? the quaker librarian was asking. +The mocker is never taken seriously when he is most serious. + +They talked seriously of mocker's seriousness. + +Buck Mulligan's again heavy face eyed Stephen awhile. Then, his head +wagging, he came near, drew a folded telegram from his pocket. His +mobile lips read, smiling with new delight. + +--Telegram! he said. Wonderful inspiration! Telegram! A papal bull! + +He sat on a corner of the unlit desk, reading aloud joyfully: + +--_The sentimentalist is he who would enjoy without incurring the +immense debtorship for a thing done._ Signed: Dedalus. Where did you +launch it from? The kips? No. College Green. Have you drunk the four +quid? The aunt is going to call on your unsubstantial father. Telegram! +Malachi Mulligan, The Ship, lower Abbey street. O, you peerless mummer! +O, you priestified Kinchite! + +Joyfully he thrust message and envelope into a pocket but keened in a +querulous brogue: + +--It's what I'm telling you, mister honey, it's queer and sick we were, +Haines and myself, the time himself brought it in. 'Twas murmur we did +for a gallus potion would rouse a friar, I'm thinking, and he limp with +leching. And we one hour and two hours and three hours in Connery's +sitting civil waiting for pints apiece. + +He wailed: + +--And we to be there, mavrone, and you to be unbeknownst sending us your +conglomerations the way we to have our tongues out a yard long like the +drouthy clerics do be fainting for a pussful. + +Stephen laughed. + +Quickly, warningfully Buck Mulligan bent down. + +--The tramper Synge is looking for you, he said, to murder you. He +heard you pissed on his halldoor in Glasthule. He's out in pampooties to +murder you. + +--Me! Stephen exclaimed. That was your contribution to literature. + +Buck Mulligan gleefully bent back, laughing to the dark eavesdropping +ceiling. + +--Murder you! he laughed. + +Harsh gargoyle face that warred against me over our mess of hash +of lights in rue Saint-Andre-des-Arts. In words of words for words, +palabras. Oisin with Patrick. Faunman he met in Clamart woods, +brandishing a winebottle. _C'est vendredi saint!_ Murthering Irish. His +image, wandering, he met. I mine. I met a fool i'the forest. + +--Mr Lyster, an attendant said from the door ajar. + +--... in which everyone can find his own. So Mr Justice Madden in his +_Diary of Master William Silence_ has found the hunting terms... Yes? +What is it? + +--There's a gentleman here, sir, the attendant said, coming forward and +offering a card. From the _Freeman._ He wants to see the files of the +_Kilkenny People_ for last year. + +--Certainly, certainly, certainly. Is the gentleman?... + +He took the eager card, glanced, not saw, laid down unglanced, looked, +asked, creaked, asked: + +--Is he?... O, there! + +Brisk in a galliard he was off, out. In the daylit corridor he talked +with voluble pains of zeal, in duty bound, most fair, most kind, most +honest broadbrim. + +--This gentleman? _Freeman's Journal? Kilkenny People?_ To be sure. Good +day, sir. _Kilkenny_... We have certainly... + +A patient silhouette waited, listening. + +--All the leading provincial... _Northern Whig, Cork Examiner, +Enniscorthy Guardian,_ 1903... Will you please?... Evans, conduct this +gentleman... If you just follow the atten... Or, please allow me... +This way... Please, sir... + +Voluble, dutiful, he led the way to all the provincial papers, a bowing +dark figure following his hasty heels. + +The door closed. + +--The sheeny! Buck Mulligan cried. + +He jumped up and snatched the card. + +--What's his name? Ikey Moses? Bloom. + +He rattled on: + +--Jehovah, collector of prepuces, is no more. I found him over in the +museum where I went to hail the foamborn Aphrodite. The Greek mouth that +has never been twisted in prayer. Every day we must do homage to her. +_Life of life, thy lips enkindle._ + +Suddenly he turned to Stephen: + +--He knows you. He knows your old fellow. O, I fear me, he is Greeker +than the Greeks. His pale Galilean eyes were upon her mesial groove. +Venus Kallipyge. O, the thunder of those loins! _The god pursuing the +maiden hid_. + +--We want to hear more, John Eglinton decided with Mr Best's approval. +We begin to be interested in Mrs S. Till now we had thought of her, if +at all, as a patient Griselda, a Penelope stayathome. + +--Antisthenes, pupil of Gorgias, Stephen said, took the palm of beauty +from Kyrios Menelaus' brooddam, Argive Helen, the wooden mare of Troy +in whom a score of heroes slept, and handed it to poor Penelope. Twenty +years he lived in London and, during part of that time, he drew a salary +equal to that of the lord chancellor of Ireland. His life was rich. His +art, more than the art of feudalism as Walt Whitman called it, is the +art of surfeit. Hot herringpies, green mugs of sack, honeysauces, sugar +of roses, marchpane, gooseberried pigeons, ringocandies. Sir Walter +Raleigh, when they arrested him, had half a million francs on his +back including a pair of fancy stays. The gombeenwoman Eliza Tudor had +underlinen enough to vie with her of Sheba. Twenty years he dallied +there between conjugial love and its chaste delights and scortatory love +and its foul pleasures. You know Manningham's story of the burgher's +wife who bade Dick Burbage to her bed after she had seen him in _Richard +III_ and how Shakespeare, overhearing, without more ado about nothing, +took the cow by the horns and, when Burbage came knocking at the gate, +answered from the capon's blankets: _William the conqueror came before +Richard III_. And the gay lakin, mistress Fitton, mount and cry O, +and his dainty birdsnies, lady Penelope Rich, a clean quality woman is +suited for a player, and the punks of the bankside, a penny a time. + +Cours la Reine. _Encore vingt sous. Nous ferons de petites cochonneries. +Minette? Tu veux?_ + +--The height of fine society. And sir William Davenant of oxford's +mother with her cup of canary for any cockcanary. + +Buck Mulligan, his pious eyes upturned, prayed: + +--Blessed Margaret Mary Anycock! + +--And Harry of six wives' daughter. And other lady friends from +neighbour seats as Lawn Tennyson, gentleman poet, sings. But all those +twenty years what do you suppose poor Penelope in Stratford was doing +behind the diamond panes? + +Do and do. Thing done. In a rosery of Fetter lane of Gerard, herbalist, +he walks, greyedauburn. An azured harebell like her veins. Lids of +Juno's eyes, violets. He walks. One life is all. One body. Do. But do. +Afar, in a reek of lust and squalor, hands are laid on whiteness. + +Buck Mulligan rapped John Eglinton's desk sharply. + +--Whom do you suspect? he challenged. + +--Say that he is the spurned lover in the sonnets. Once spurned twice +spurned. But the court wanton spurned him for a lord, his dearmylove. + +Love that dare not speak its name. + +--As an Englishman, you mean, John sturdy Eglinton put in, he loved a +lord. + +Old wall where sudden lizards flash. At Charenton I watched them. + +--It seems so, Stephen said, when he wants to do for him, and for all +other and singular uneared wombs, the holy office an ostler does for the +stallion. Maybe, like Socrates, he had a midwife to mother as he had a +shrew to wife. But she, the giglot wanton, did not break a bedvow. Two +deeds are rank in that ghost's mind: a broken vow and the dullbrained +yokel on whom her favour has declined, deceased husband's brother. Sweet +Ann, I take it, was hot in the blood. Once a wooer, twice a wooer. + +Stephen turned boldly in his chair. + +--The burden of proof is with you not with me, he said frowning. If you +deny that in the fifth scene of _Hamlet_ he has branded her with infamy +tell me why there is no mention of her during the thirtyfour years +between the day she married him and the day she buried him. All those +women saw their men down and under: Mary, her goodman John, Ann, her +poor dear Willun, when he went and died on her, raging that he was the +first to go, Joan, her four brothers, Judith, her husband and all her +sons, Susan, her husband too, while Susan's daughter, Elizabeth, to use +granddaddy's words, wed her second, having killed her first. + +O, yes, mention there is. In the years when he was living richly in +royal London to pay a debt she had to borrow forty shillings from her +father's shepherd. Explain you then. Explain the swansong too wherein he +has commended her to posterity. + +He faced their silence. + + To whom thus Eglinton: + You mean the will. + But that has been explained, I believe, by jurists. + She was entitled to her widow's dower + At common law. His legal knowledge was great + Our judges tell us. + Him Satan fleers, + Mocker: + And therefore he left out her name + From the first draft but he did not leave out + The presents for his granddaughter, for his daughters, + For his sister, for his old cronies in Stratford + And in London. And therefore when he was urged, + As I believe, to name her + He left her his + Secondbest + Bed. + _Punkt._ + Leftherhis + Secondbest + Leftherhis + Bestabed + Secabest + Leftabed. + + +Woa! + +--Pretty countryfolk had few chattels then, John Eglinton observed, as +they have still if our peasant plays are true to type. + +--He was a rich country gentleman, Stephen said, with a coat of arms +and landed estate at Stratford and a house in Ireland yard, a capitalist +shareholder, a bill promoter, a tithefarmer. Why did he not leave her +his best bed if he wished her to snore away the rest of her nights in +peace? + +--It is clear that there were two beds, a best and a secondbest, Mr +Secondbest Best said finely. + +--_Separatio a mensa et a thalamo_, bettered Buck Mulligan and was +smiled on. + +--Antiquity mentions famous beds, Second Eglinton puckered, bedsmiling. +Let me think. + +--Antiquity mentions that Stagyrite schoolurchin and bald heathen sage, +Stephen said, who when dying in exile frees and endows his slaves, pays +tribute to his elders, wills to be laid in earth near the bones of his +dead wife and bids his friends be kind to an old mistress (don't forget +Nell Gwynn Herpyllis) and let her live in his villa. + +--Do you mean he died so? Mr Best asked with slight concern. I mean... + +--He died dead drunk, Buck Mulligan capped. A quart of ale is a dish for +a king. O, I must tell you what Dowden said! + +--What? asked Besteglinton. + +William Shakespeare and company, limited. The people's William. For +terms apply: E. Dowden, Highfield house... + +--Lovely! Buck Mulligan suspired amorously. I asked him what he thought +of the charge of pederasty brought against the bard. He lifted his hands +and said: _All we can say is that life ran very high in those days._ +Lovely! + +Catamite. + +--The sense of beauty leads us astray, said beautifulinsadness Best to +ugling Eglinton. + +Steadfast John replied severe: + +--The doctor can tell us what those words mean. You cannot eat your cake +and have it. + +Sayest thou so? Will they wrest from us, from me, the palm of beauty? + +--And the sense of property, Stephen said. He drew Shylock out of his +own long pocket. The son of a maltjobber and moneylender he was himself +a cornjobber and moneylender, with ten tods of corn hoarded in the +famine riots. His borrowers are no doubt those divers of worship +mentioned by Chettle Falstaff who reported his uprightness of dealing. +He sued a fellowplayer for the price of a few bags of malt and exacted +his pound of flesh in interest for every money lent. How else could +Aubrey's ostler and callboy get rich quick? All events brought grist to +his mill. Shylock chimes with the jewbaiting that followed the hanging +and quartering of the queen's leech Lopez, his jew's heart being plucked +forth while the sheeny was yet alive: _Hamlet_ and _Macbeth_ with +the coming to the throne of a Scotch philosophaster with a turn for +witchroasting. The lost armada is his jeer in _Love's Labour Lost_. +His pageants, the histories, sail fullbellied on a tide of Mafeking +enthusiasm. Warwickshire jesuits are tried and we have a porter's theory +of equivocation. The _Sea Venture_ comes home from Bermudas and the play +Renan admired is written with Patsy Caliban, our American cousin. +The sugared sonnets follow Sidney's. As for fay Elizabeth, otherwise +carrotty Bess, the gross virgin who inspired _The Merry Wives of +Windsor_, let some meinherr from Almany grope his life long for deephid +meanings in the depths of the buckbasket. + +I think you're getting on very nicely. Just mix up a mixture of +theolologicophilolological. _Mingo, minxi, mictum, mingere._ + +--Prove that he was a jew, John Eglinton dared,'expectantly. Your dean +of studies holds he was a holy Roman. + +_Sufflaminandus sum._ + +--He was made in Germany, Stephen replied, as the champion French +polisher of Italian scandals. + +--A myriadminded man, Mr Best reminded. Coleridge called him +myriadminded. + +_Amplius. In societate humana hoc est maxime necessarium ut sit amicitia +inter multos._ + +--Saint Thomas, Stephen began... + +--_Ora pro nobis_, Monk Mulligan groaned, sinking to a chair. + +There he keened a wailing rune. + +--_Pogue mahone! Acushla machree!_ It's destroyed we are from this day! +It's destroyed we are surely! + +All smiled their smiles. + +--Saint Thomas, Stephen smiling said, whose gorbellied works I enjoy +reading in the original, writing of incest from a standpoint different +from that of the new Viennese school Mr Magee spoke of, likens it in his +wise and curious way to an avarice of the emotions. He means that the +love so given to one near in blood is covetously withheld from some +stranger who, it may be, hungers for it. Jews, whom christians tax with +avarice, are of all races the most given to intermarriage. Accusations +are made in anger. The christian laws which built up the hoards of the +jews (for whom, as for the lollards, storm was shelter) bound their +affections too with hoops of steel. Whether these be sins or virtues old +Nobodaddy will tell us at doomsday leet. But a man who holds so tightly +to what he calls his rights over what he calls his debts will hold +tightly also to what he calls his rights over her whom he calls his +wife. No sir smile neighbour shall covet his ox or his wife or his +manservant or his maidservant or his jackass. + +--Or his jennyass, Buck Mulligan antiphoned. + +--Gentle Will is being roughly handled, gentle Mr Best said gently. + +--Which will? gagged sweetly Buck Mulligan. We are getting mixed. + +--The will to live, John Eglinton philosophised, for poor Ann, Will's +widow, is the will to die. + +_--Requiescat!_ Stephen prayed. + + _What of all the will to do? + It has vanished long ago..._ + +--She lies laid out in stark stiffness in that secondbest bed, the +mobled queen, even though you prove that a bed in those days was as +rare as a motorcar is now and that its carvings were the wonder of seven +parishes. In old age she takes up with gospellers (one stayed with her +at New Place and drank a quart of sack the town council paid for but in +which bed he slept it skills not to ask) and heard she had a soul. She +read or had read to her his chapbooks preferring them to the _Merry +Wives_ and, loosing her nightly waters on the jordan, she thought +over _Hooks and Eyes for Believers' Breeches_ and _The most Spiritual +Snuffbox to Make the Most Devout Souls Sneeze_. Venus has twisted her +lips in prayer. Agenbite of inwit: remorse of conscience. It is an age +of exhausted whoredom groping for its god. + +--History shows that to be true, _inquit Eglintonus Chronolologos_. The +ages succeed one another. But we have it on high authority that a man's +worst enemies shall be those of his own house and family. I feel that +Russell is right. What do we care for his wife or father? I should say +that only family poets have family lives. Falstaff was not a family man. +I feel that the fat knight is his supreme creation. + +Lean, he lay back. Shy, deny thy kindred, the unco guid. Shy, supping +with the godless, he sneaks the cup. A sire in Ultonian Antrim bade it +him. Visits him here on quarter days. Mr Magee, sir, there's a gentleman +to see you. Me? Says he's your father, sir. Give me my Wordsworth. Enter +Magee Mor Matthew, a rugged rough rugheaded kern, in strossers with +a buttoned codpiece, his nether stocks bemired with clauber of ten +forests, a wand of wilding in his hand. + +Your own? He knows your old fellow. The widower. + +Hurrying to her squalid deathlair from gay Paris on the quayside I +touched his hand. The voice, new warmth, speaking. Dr Bob Kenny is +attending her. The eyes that wish me well. But do not know me. + +--A father, Stephen said, battling against hopelessness, is a necessary +evil. He wrote the play in the months that followed his father's death. +If you hold that he, a greying man with two marriageable daughters, with +thirtyfive years of life, _nel mezzo del cammin di nostra vita_, with +fifty of experience, is the beardless undergraduate from Wittenberg then +you must hold that his seventyyear old mother is the lustful queen. No. +The corpse of John Shakespeare does not walk the night. From hour to +hour it rots and rots. He rests, disarmed of fatherhood, having devised +that mystical estate upon his son. Boccaccio's Calandrino was the first +and last man who felt himself with child. Fatherhood, in the sense of +conscious begetting, is unknown to man. It is a mystical estate, an +apostolic succession, from only begetter to only begotten. On that +mystery and not on the madonna which the cunning Italian intellect +flung to the mob of Europe the church is founded and founded irremovably +because founded, like the world, macro and microcosm, upon the void. +Upon incertitude, upon unlikelihood. _Amor matris_, subjective and +objective genitive, may be the only true thing in life. Paternity may be +a legal fiction. Who is the father of any son that any son should love +him or he any son? + +What the hell are you driving at? + +I know. Shut up. Blast you. I have reasons. + +_Amplius. Adhuc. Iterum. Postea._ + +Are you condemned to do this? + +--They are sundered by a bodily shame so steadfast that the criminal +annals of the world, stained with all other incests and bestialities, +hardly record its breach. Sons with mothers, sires with daughters, +lesbic sisters, loves that dare not speak their name, nephews with +grandmothers, jailbirds with keyholes, queens with prize bulls. The son +unborn mars beauty: born, he brings pain, divides affection, increases +care. He is a new male: his growth is his father's decline, his youth +his father's envy, his friend his father's enemy. + +In rue Monsieur-le-Prince I thought it. + +--What links them in nature? An instant of blind rut. + +Am I a father? If I were? + +Shrunken uncertain hand. + +--Sabellius, the African, subtlest heresiarch of all the beasts of the +field, held that the Father was Himself His Own Son. The bulldog of +Aquin, with whom no word shall be impossible, refutes him. Well: if +the father who has not a son be not a father can the son who has not a +father be a son? When Rutlandbaconsouthamptonshakespeare or another poet +of the same name in the comedy of errors wrote _Hamlet_ he was not the +father of his own son merely but, being no more a son, he was and felt +himself the father of all his race, the father of his own grandfather, +the father of his unborn grandson who, by the same token, never was +born, for nature, as Mr Magee understands her, abhors perfection. + +Eglintoneyes, quick with pleasure, looked up shybrightly. Gladly +glancing, a merry puritan, through the twisted eglantine. + +Flatter. Rarely. But flatter. + +--Himself his own father, Sonmulligan told himself. Wait. I am big with +child. I have an unborn child in my brain. Pallas Athena! A play! The +play's the thing! Let me parturiate! + +He clasped his paunchbrow with both birthaiding hands. + +--As for his family, Stephen said, his mother's name lives in the +forest of Arden. Her death brought from him the scene with Volumnia in +_Coriolanus._ His boyson's death is the deathscene of young Arthur in +_King John._ Hamlet, the black prince, is Hamnet Shakespeare. Who the +girls in _The Tempest_, in _Pericles,_ in _Winter's Tale_ are we know. +Who Cleopatra, fleshpot of Egypt, and Cressid and Venus are we may +guess. But there is another member of his family who is recorded. + +--The plot thickens, John Eglinton said. + +The quaker librarian, quaking, tiptoed in, quake, his mask, quake, with +haste, quake, quack. + +Door closed. Cell. Day. + +They list. Three. They. + +I you he they. + +Come, mess. + +STEPHEN: He had three brothers, Gilbert, Edmund, Richard. Gilbert in his +old age told some cavaliers he got a pass for nowt from Maister Gatherer +one time mass he did and he seen his brud Maister Wull the playwriter up +in Lunnon in a wrastling play wud a man on's back. The playhouse sausage +filled Gilbert's soul. He is nowhere: but an Edmund and a Richard are +recorded in the works of sweet William. + +MAGEEGLINJOHN: Names! What's in a name? + +BEST: That is my name, Richard, don't you know. I hope you are going to +say a good word for Richard, don't you know, for my sake. _(Laughter)_ + + +BUCKMULLIGAN: (_Piano, diminuendo_) + + _Then outspoke medical Dick + To his comrade medical Davy..._ + +STEPHEN: In his trinity of black Wills, the villain shakebags, Iago, +Richard Crookback, Edmund in _King Lear_, two bear the wicked uncles' +names. Nay, that last play was written or being written while his +brother Edmund lay dying in Southwark. + +BEST: I hope Edmund is going to catch it. I don't want Richard, my name +... + +_(Laughter)_ + +QUAKERLYSTER: (_A tempo_) But he that filches from me my good name... + +STEPHEN: _(Stringendo)_ He has hidden his own name, a fair name, +William, in the plays, a super here, a clown there, as a painter of old +Italy set his face in a dark corner of his canvas. He has revealed it in +the sonnets where there is Will in overplus. Like John o'Gaunt his name +is dear to him, as dear as the coat and crest he toadied for, on a bend +sable a spear or steeled argent, honorificabilitudinitatibus, dearer +than his glory of greatest shakescene in the country. What's in a name? +That is what we ask ourselves in childhood when we write the name that +we are told is ours. A star, a daystar, a firedrake, rose at his birth. +It shone by day in the heavens alone, brighter than Venus in the +night, and by night it shone over delta in Cassiopeia, the recumbent +constellation which is the signature of his initial among the stars. His +eyes watched it, lowlying on the horizon, eastward of the bear, as +he walked by the slumberous summer fields at midnight returning from +Shottery and from her arms. + +Both satisfied. I too. + +Don't tell them he was nine years old when it was quenched. + +And from her arms. + +Wait to be wooed and won. Ay, meacock. Who will woo you? + +Read the skies. _Autontimorumenos. Bous Stephanoumenos._ Where's your +configuration? Stephen, Stephen, cut the bread even. S. D: _sua donna. +Gia: di lui. gelindo risolve di non amare_ S. D. + +--What is that, Mr Dedalus? the quaker librarian asked. Was it a +celestial phenomenon? + +--A star by night, Stephen said. A pillar of the cloud by day. + +What more's to speak? + +Stephen looked on his hat, his stick, his boots. + +_Stephanos,_ my crown. My sword. His boots are spoiling the shape of my +feet. Buy a pair. Holes in my socks. Handkerchief too. + +--You make good use of the name, John Eglinton allowed. Your own name is +strange enough. I suppose it explains your fantastical humour. + +Me, Magee and Mulligan. + +Fabulous artificer. The hawklike man. You flew. Whereto? +Newhaven-Dieppe, steerage passenger. Paris and back. Lapwing. Icarus. +_Pater, ait._ Seabedabbled, fallen, weltering. Lapwing you are. Lapwing +be. + +Mr Best eagerquietly lifted his book to say: + +--That's very interesting because that brother motive, don't you know, +we find also in the old Irish myths. Just what you say. The three +brothers Shakespeare. In Grimm too, don't you know, the fairytales. The +third brother that always marries the sleeping beauty and wins the best +prize. + +Best of Best brothers. Good, better, best. + +The quaker librarian springhalted near. + +--I should like to know, he said, which brother you... I understand you +to suggest there was misconduct with one of the brothers... But perhaps +I am anticipating? + +He caught himself in the act: looked at all: refrained. + +An attendant from the doorway called: + +--Mr Lyster! Father Dineen wants... + +--O, Father Dineen! Directly. + +Swiftly rectly creaking rectly rectly he was rectly gone. + +John Eglinton touched the foil. + +--Come, he said. Let us hear what you have to say of Richard and Edmund. +You kept them for the last, didn't you? + +--In asking you to remember those two noble kinsmen nuncle Richie and +nuncle Edmund, Stephen answered, I feel I am asking too much perhaps. A +brother is as easily forgotten as an umbrella. + +Lapwing. + +Where is your brother? Apothecaries' hall. My whetstone. Him, then +Cranly, Mulligan: now these. Speech, speech. But act. Act speech. They +mock to try you. Act. Be acted on. + +Lapwing. + +I am tired of my voice, the voice of Esau. My kingdom for a drink. + +On. + +--You will say those names were already in the chronicles from which he +took the stuff of his plays. Why did he take them rather than others? +Richard, a whoreson crookback, misbegotten, makes love to a widowed Ann +(what's in a name?), woos and wins her, a whoreson merry widow. Richard +the conqueror, third brother, came after William the conquered. The +other four acts of that play hang limply from that first. Of all his +kings Richard is the only king unshielded by Shakespeare's reverence, +the angel of the world. Why is the underplot of _King Lear_ in which +Edmund figures lifted out of Sidney's _Arcadia_ and spatchcocked on to a +Celtic legend older than history? + +--That was Will's way, John Eglinton defended. We should not now combine +a Norse saga with an excerpt from a novel by George Meredith. _Que +voulez-vous?_ Moore would say. He puts Bohemia on the seacoast and makes +Ulysses quote Aristotle. + +--Why? Stephen answered himself. Because the theme of the false or +the usurping or the adulterous brother or all three in one is to +Shakespeare, what the poor are not, always with him. The note of +banishment, banishment from the heart, banishment from home, sounds +uninterruptedly from _The Two Gentlemen of Verona_ onward till Prospero +breaks his staff, buries it certain fathoms in the earth and drowns his +book. It doubles itself in the middle of his life, reflects itself in +another, repeats itself, protasis, epitasis, catastasis, catastrophe. +It repeats itself again when he is near the grave, when his married +daughter Susan, chip of the old block, is accused of adultery. But it +was the original sin that darkened his understanding, weakened his will +and left in him a strong inclination to evil. The words are those of +my lords bishops of Maynooth. An original sin and, like original sin, +committed by another in whose sin he too has sinned. It is between the +lines of his last written words, it is petrified on his tombstone under +which her four bones are not to be laid. Age has not withered it. Beauty +and peace have not done it away. It is in infinite variety everywhere in +the world he has created, in _Much Ado about Nothing_, twice in _As you +like It_, in _The Tempest_, in _Hamlet,_ in _Measure for Measure_--and +in all the other plays which I have not read. + +He laughed to free his mind from his mind's bondage. + +Judge Eglinton summed up. + +--The truth is midway, he affirmed. He is the ghost and the prince. He +is all in all. + +--He is, Stephen said. The boy of act one is the mature man of act five. +All in all. In _Cymbeline,_ in _Othello_ he is bawd and cuckold. He acts +and is acted on. Lover of an ideal or a perversion, like Jose he +kills the real Carmen. His unremitting intellect is the hornmad Iago +ceaselessly willing that the moor in him shall suffer. + +--Cuckoo! Cuckoo! Cuck Mulligan clucked lewdly. O word of fear! + +Dark dome received, reverbed. + +--And what a character is Iago! undaunted John Eglinton exclaimed. When +all is said Dumas _fils_ (or is it Dumas _pere?)_ is right. After God +Shakespeare has created most. + +--Man delights him not nor woman neither, Stephen said. He returns after +a life of absence to that spot of earth where he was born, where he has +always been, man and boy, a silent witness and there, his journey of +life ended, he plants his mulberrytree in the earth. Then dies. The +motion is ended. Gravediggers bury Hamlet _(pere?)_ and Hamlet _fils._ +A king and a prince at last in death, with incidental music. And, what +though murdered and betrayed, bewept by all frail tender hearts for, +Dane or Dubliner, sorrow for the dead is the only husband from whom +they refuse to be divorced. If you like the epilogue look long on it: +prosperous Prospero, the good man rewarded, Lizzie, grandpa's lump of +love, and nuncle Richie, the bad man taken off by poetic justice to the +place where the bad niggers go. Strong curtain. He found in the world +without as actual what was in his world within as possible. Maeterlinck +says: _If Socrates leave his house today he will find the sage seated +on his doorstep. If Judas go forth tonight it is to Judas his steps +will tend._ Every life is many days, day after day. We walk through +ourselves, meeting robbers, ghosts, giants, old men, young men, wives, +widows, brothers-in-love, but always meeting ourselves. The playwright +who wrote the folio of this world and wrote it badly (He gave us light +first and the sun two days later), the lord of things as they are whom +the most Roman of catholics call _dio boia_, hangman god, is doubtless +all in all in all of us, ostler and butcher, and would be bawd and +cuckold too but that in the economy of heaven, foretold by Hamlet, there +are no more marriages, glorified man, an androgynous angel, being a wife +unto himself. + +_--Eureka!_ Buck Mulligan cried. _Eureka!_ + +Suddenly happied he jumped up and reached in a stride John Eglinton's +desk. + +--May I? he said. The Lord has spoken to Malachi. + +He began to scribble on a slip of paper. + +Take some slips from the counter going out. + +--Those who are married, Mr Best, douce herald, said, all save one, +shall live. The rest shall keep as they are. + +He laughed, unmarried, at Eglinton Johannes, of arts a bachelor. + +Unwed, unfancied, ware of wiles, they fingerponder nightly each his +variorum edition of _The Taming of the Shrew._ + +--You are a delusion, said roundly John Eglinton to Stephen. You have +brought us all this way to show us a French triangle. Do you believe +your own theory? + +--No, Stephen said promptly. + +--Are you going to write it? Mr Best asked. You ought to make it a +dialogue, don't you know, like the Platonic dialogues Wilde wrote. + +John Eclecticon doubly smiled. + +--Well, in that case, he said, I don't see why you should expect payment +for it since you don't believe it yourself. Dowden believes there is +some mystery in _Hamlet_ but will say no more. Herr Bleibtreu, the man +Piper met in Berlin, who is working up that Rutland theory, believes +that the secret is hidden in the Stratford monument. He is going to +visit the present duke, Piper says, and prove to him that his ancestor +wrote the plays. It will come as a surprise to his grace. But he +believes his theory. + +I believe, O Lord, help my unbelief. That is, help me to believe or help +me to unbelieve? Who helps to believe? _Egomen._ Who to unbelieve? Other +chap. + +--You are the only contributor to _Dana_ who asks for pieces of silver. +Then I don't know about the next number. Fred Ryan wants space for an +article on economics. + +Fraidrine. Two pieces of silver he lent me. Tide you over. Economics. + +--For a guinea, Stephen said, you can publish this interview. + +Buck Mulligan stood up from his laughing scribbling, laughing: and then +gravely said, honeying malice: + +--I called upon the bard Kinch at his summer residence in upper +Mecklenburgh street and found him deep in the study of the _Summa contra +Gentiles_ in the company of two gonorrheal ladies, Fresh Nelly and +Rosalie, the coalquay whore. + +He broke away. + +--Come, Kinch. Come, wandering Aengus of the birds. + +Come, Kinch. You have eaten all we left. Ay. I will serve you your orts +and offals. + +Stephen rose. + +Life is many days. This will end. + +--We shall see you tonight, John Eglinton said. _Notre ami_ Moore says +Malachi Mulligan must be there. + +Buck Mulligan flaunted his slip and panama. + +--Monsieur Moore, he said, lecturer on French letters to the youth of +Ireland. I'll be there. Come, Kinch, the bards must drink. Can you walk +straight? + +Laughing, he... + +Swill till eleven. Irish nights entertainment. + +Lubber... + +Stephen followed a lubber... + +One day in the national library we had a discussion. Shakes. After. His +lub back: I followed. I gall his kibe. + +Stephen, greeting, then all amort, followed a lubber jester, a wellkempt +head, newbarbered, out of the vaulted cell into a shattering daylight of +no thought. + +What have I learned? Of them? Of me? + +Walk like Haines now. + +The constant readers' room. In the readers' book Cashel Boyle O'Connor +Fitzmaurice Tisdall Farrell parafes his polysyllables. Item: was Hamlet +mad? The quaker's pate godlily with a priesteen in booktalk. + +--O please do, sir... I shall be most pleased... + +Amused Buck Mulligan mused in pleasant murmur with himself, selfnodding: + +--A pleased bottom. + +The turnstile. + +Is that?... Blueribboned hat... Idly writing... What? Looked?... + +The curving balustrade: smoothsliding Mincius. + +Puck Mulligan, panamahelmeted, went step by step, iambing, trolling: + +_John Eglinton, my jo, John, Why won't you wed a wife?_ + +He spluttered to the air: + +--O, the chinless Chinaman! Chin Chon Eg Lin Ton. We went over to their +playbox, Haines and I, the plumbers' hall. Our players are creating a +new art for Europe like the Greeks or M. Maeterlinck. Abbey Theatre! I +smell the pubic sweat of monks. + +He spat blank. + +Forgot: any more than he forgot the whipping lousy Lucy gave him. And +left the _femme de trente ans._ And why no other children born? And his +first child a girl? + +Afterwit. Go back. + +The dour recluse still there (he has his cake) and the douce youngling, +minion of pleasure, Phedo's toyable fair hair. + +Eh... I just eh... wanted... I forgot... he... + +--Longworth and M'Curdy Atkinson were there... + +Puck Mulligan footed featly, trilling: + + _I hardly hear the purlieu cry + Or a tommy talk as I pass one by + Before my thoughts begin to run + On F. M'Curdy Atkinson, + The same that had the wooden leg + And that filibustering filibeg + That never dared to slake his drouth, + Magee that had the chinless mouth. + Being afraid to marry on earth + They masturbated for all they were worth._ + + +Jest on. Know thyself. + +Halted, below me, a quizzer looks at me. I halt. + +--Mournful mummer, Buck Mulligan moaned. Synge has left off wearing +black to be like nature. Only crows, priests and English coal are black. + +A laugh tripped over his lips. + +--Longworth is awfully sick, he said, after what you wrote about that +old hake Gregory. O you inquisitional drunken jewjesuit! She gets you +a job on the paper and then you go and slate her drivel to Jaysus. +Couldn't you do the Yeats touch? + +He went on and down, mopping, chanting with waving graceful arms: + +--The most beautiful book that has come out of our country in my time. +One thinks of Homer. + +He stopped at the stairfoot. + +--I have conceived a play for the mummers, he said solemnly. + +The pillared Moorish hall, shadows entwined. Gone the nine men's morrice +with caps of indices. + +In sweetly varying voices Buck Mulligan read his tablet: _Everyman His +own Wife or A Honeymoon in the Hand (a national immorality in three +orgasms) by Ballocky Mulligan._ + + +He turned a happy patch's smirk to Stephen, saying: + +--The disguise, I fear, is thin. But listen. + +He read, _marcato:_ + +--Characters: + + TODY TOSTOFF (a ruined Pole) + CRAB (a bushranger) + MEDICAL DICK ) + and ) (two birds with one stone) + MEDICAL DAVY ) + MOTHER GROGAN (a watercarrier) + FRESH NELLY + and + ROSALIE (the coalquay whore). + +He laughed, lolling a to and fro head, walking on, followed by Stephen: +and mirthfully he told the shadows, souls of men: + +--O, the night in the Camden hall when the daughters of Erin had to +lift their skirts to step over you as you lay in your mulberrycoloured, +multicoloured, multitudinous vomit! + +--The most innocent son of Erin, Stephen said, for whom they ever lifted +them. + +About to pass through the doorway, feeling one behind, he stood aside. + +Part. The moment is now. Where then? If Socrates leave his house today, +if Judas go forth tonight. Why? That lies in space which I in time must +come to, ineluctably. + +My will: his will that fronts me. Seas between. + +A man passed out between them, bowing, greeting. + +--Good day again, Buck Mulligan said. + +The portico. + +Here I watched the birds for augury. Aengus of the birds. They go, they +come. Last night I flew. Easily flew. Men wondered. Street of harlots +after. A creamfruit melon he held to me. In. You will see. + +--The wandering jew, Buck Mulligan whispered with clown's awe. Did you +see his eye? He looked upon you to lust after you. I fear thee, ancient +mariner. O, Kinch, thou art in peril. Get thee a breechpad. + +Manner of Oxenford. + +Day. Wheelbarrow sun over arch of bridge. + +A dark back went before them, step of a pard, down, out by the gateway, +under portcullis barbs. + +They followed. + +Offend me still. Speak on. + +Kind air defined the coigns of houses in Kildare street. No birds. Frail +from the housetops two plumes of smoke ascended, pluming, and in a flaw +of softness softly were blown. + +Cease to strive. Peace of the druid priests of Cymbeline: hierophantic: +from wide earth an altar. + + _Laud we the gods + And let our crooked smokes climb to their nostrils + From our bless'd altars._ + + +The superior, the very reverend John Conmee S.J. reset his smooth watch +in his interior pocket as he came down the presbytery steps. Five to +three. Just nice time to walk to Artane. What was that boy's name again? +Dignam. Yes. _Vere dignum et iustum est._ Brother Swan was the person +to see. Mr Cunningham's letter. Yes. Oblige him, if possible. Good +practical catholic: useful at mission time. + +A onelegged sailor, swinging himself onward by lazy jerks of his +crutches, growled some notes. He jerked short before the convent of the +sisters of charity and held out a peaked cap for alms towards the very +reverend John Conmee S. J. Father Conmee blessed him in the sun for his +purse held, he knew, one silver crown. + +Father Conmee crossed to Mountjoy square. He thought, but not for long, +of soldiers and sailors, whose legs had been shot off by cannonballs, +ending their days in some pauper ward, and of cardinal Wolsey's words: +_If I had served my God as I have served my king He would not have +abandoned me in my old days._ He walked by the treeshade of sunnywinking +leaves: and towards him came the wife of Mr David Sheehy M.P. + +--Very well, indeed, father. And you, father? + +Father Conmee was wonderfully well indeed. He would go to Buxton +probably for the waters. And her boys, were they getting on well at +Belvedere? Was that so? Father Conmee was very glad indeed to hear that. +And Mr Sheehy himself? Still in London. The house was still sitting, to +be sure it was. Beautiful weather it was, delightful indeed. Yes, it was +very probable that Father Bernard Vaughan would come again to preach. O, +yes: a very great success. A wonderful man really. + +Father Conmee was very glad to see the wife of Mr David Sheehy M.P. +Iooking so well and he begged to be remembered to Mr David Sheehy M.P. +Yes, he would certainly call. + +--Good afternoon, Mrs Sheehy. + +Father Conmee doffed his silk hat and smiled, as he took leave, at the +jet beads of her mantilla inkshining in the sun. And smiled yet again, +in going. He had cleaned his teeth, he knew, with arecanut paste. + +Father Conmee walked and, walking, smiled for he thought on Father +Bernard Vaughan's droll eyes and cockney voice. + +--Pilate! Wy don't you old back that owlin mob? + +A zealous man, however. Really he was. And really did great good in his +way. Beyond a doubt. He loved Ireland, he said, and he loved the Irish. +Of good family too would one think it? Welsh, were they not? + +O, lest he forget. That letter to father provincial. + +Father Conmee stopped three little schoolboys at the corner of Mountjoy +square. Yes: they were from Belvedere. The little house. Aha. And were +they good boys at school? O. That was very good now. And what was his +name? Jack Sohan. And his name? Ger. Gallaher. And the other little man? +His name was Brunny Lynam. O, that was a very nice name to have. + +Father Conmee gave a letter from his breast to Master Brunny Lynam and +pointed to the red pillarbox at the corner of Fitzgibbon street. + +--But mind you don't post yourself into the box, little man, he said. + +The boys sixeyed Father Conmee and laughed: + +--O, sir. + +--Well, let me see if you can post a letter, Father Conmee said. + +Master Brunny Lynam ran across the road and put Father Conmee's letter +to father provincial into the mouth of the bright red letterbox. Father +Conmee smiled and nodded and smiled and walked along Mountjoy square +east. + +Mr Denis J Maginni, professor of dancing &c, in silk hat, slate +frockcoat with silk facings, white kerchief tie, tight lavender +trousers, canary gloves and pointed patent boots, walking with grave +deportment most respectfully took the curbstone as he passed lady +Maxwell at the corner of Dignam's court. + +Was that not Mrs M'Guinness? + +Mrs M'Guinness, stately, silverhaired, bowed to Father Conmee from the +farther footpath along which she sailed. And Father Conmee smiled and +saluted. How did she do? + +A fine carriage she had. Like Mary, queen of Scots, something. And to +think that she was a pawnbroker! Well, now! Such a... what should he +say?... such a queenly mien. + +Father Conmee walked down Great Charles street and glanced at the shutup +free church on his left. The reverend T. R. Greene B.A. will (D.V.) +speak. The incumbent they called him. He felt it incumbent on him to say +a few words. But one should be charitable. Invincible ignorance. They +acted according to their lights. + +Father Conmee turned the corner and walked along the North Circular +road. It was a wonder that there was not a tramline in such an important +thoroughfare. Surely, there ought to be. + +A band of satchelled schoolboys crossed from Richmond street. All +raised untidy caps. Father Conmee greeted them more than once benignly. +Christian brother boys. + +Father Conmee smelt incense on his right hand as he walked. Saint +Joseph's church, Portland row. For aged and virtuous females. +Father Conmee raised his hat to the Blessed Sacrament. Virtuous: but +occasionally they were also badtempered. + +Near Aldborough house Father Conmee thought of that spendthrift +nobleman. And now it was an office or something. + +Father Conmee began to walk along the North Strand road and was saluted +by Mr William Gallagher who stood in the doorway of his shop. Father +Conmee saluted Mr William Gallagher and perceived the odours that came +from baconflitches and ample cools of butter. He passed Grogan's the +Tobacconist against which newsboards leaned and told of a dreadful +catastrophe in New York. In America those things were continually +happening. Unfortunate people to die like that, unprepared. Still, an +act of perfect contrition. + +Father Conmee went by Daniel Bergin's publichouse against the window of +which two unlabouring men lounged. They saluted him and were saluted. + +Father Conmee passed H. J. O'Neill's funeral establishment where Corny +Kelleher totted figures in the daybook while he chewed a blade of hay. +A constable on his beat saluted Father Conmee and Father Conmee saluted +the constable. In Youkstetter's, the porkbutcher's, Father Conmee +observed pig's puddings, white and black and red, lie neatly curled in +tubes. + +Moored under the trees of Charleville Mall Father Conmee saw a +turfbarge, a towhorse with pendent head, a bargeman with a hat of dirty +straw seated amidships, smoking and staring at a branch of poplar above +him. It was idyllic: and Father Conmee reflected on the providence of +the Creator who had made turf to be in bogs whence men might dig it +out and bring it to town and hamlet to make fires in the houses of poor +people. + +On Newcomen bridge the very reverend John Conmee S.J. of saint Francis +Xavier's church, upper Gardiner street, stepped on to an outward bound +tram. + +Off an inward bound tram stepped the reverend Nicholas Dudley C. C. of +saint Agatha's church, north William street, on to Newcomen bridge. + +At Newcomen bridge Father Conmee stepped into an outward bound tram for +he disliked to traverse on foot the dingy way past Mud Island. + +Father Conmee sat in a corner of the tramcar, a blue ticket tucked with +care in the eye of one plump kid glove, while four shillings, a sixpence +and five pennies chuted from his other plump glovepalm into his purse. +Passing the ivy church he reflected that the ticket inspector usually +made his visit when one had carelessly thrown away the ticket. The +solemnity of the occupants of the car seemed to Father Conmee excessive +for a journey so short and cheap. Father Conmee liked cheerful decorum. + +It was a peaceful day. The gentleman with the glasses opposite Father +Conmee had finished explaining and looked down. His wife, Father Conmee +supposed. A tiny yawn opened the mouth of the wife of the gentleman with +the glasses. She raised her small gloved fist, yawned ever so gently, +tiptapping her small gloved fist on her opening mouth and smiled tinily, +sweetly. + +Father Conmee perceived her perfume in the car. He perceived also that +the awkward man at the other side of her was sitting on the edge of the +seat. + +Father Conmee at the altarrails placed the host with difficulty in the +mouth of the awkward old man who had the shaky head. + +At Annesley bridge the tram halted and, when it was about to go, an old +woman rose suddenly from her place to alight. The conductor pulled the +bellstrap to stay the car for her. She passed out with her basket and +a marketnet: and Father Conmee saw the conductor help her and net and +basket down: and Father Conmee thought that, as she had nearly passed +the end of the penny fare, she was one of those good souls who had +always to be told twice _bless you, my child,_ that they have been +absolved, _pray for me._ But they had so many worries in life, so many +cares, poor creatures. + +From the hoardings Mr Eugene Stratton grimaced with thick niggerlips at +Father Conmee. + +Father Conmee thought of the souls of black and brown and yellow men and +of his sermon on saint Peter Claver S.J. and the African mission and of +the propagation of the faith and of the millions of black and brown and +yellow souls that had not received the baptism of water when their last +hour came like a thief in the night. That book by the Belgian jesuit, +_Le Nombre des Elus,_ seemed to Father Conmee a reasonable plea. Those +were millions of human souls created by God in His Own likeness to +whom the faith had not (D.V.) been brought. But they were God's souls, +created by God. It seemed to Father Conmee a pity that they should all +be lost, a waste, if one might say. + +At the Howth road stop Father Conmee alighted, was saluted by the +conductor and saluted in his turn. + +The Malahide road was quiet. It pleased Father Conmee, road and name. +The joybells were ringing in gay Malahide. Lord Talbot de Malahide, +immediate hereditary lord admiral of Malahide and the seas adjoining. +Then came the call to arms and she was maid, wife and widow in one day. +Those were old worldish days, loyal times in joyous townlands, old times +in the barony. + +Father Conmee, walking, thought of his little book _Old Times in the +Barony_ and of the book that might be written about jesuit houses and of +Mary Rochfort, daughter of lord Molesworth, first countess of Belvedere. + +A listless lady, no more young, walked alone the shore of lough Ennel, +Mary, first countess of Belvedere, listlessly walking in the evening, +not startled when an otter plunged. Who could know the truth? Not the +jealous lord Belvedere and not her confessor if she had not committed +adultery fully, _eiaculatio seminis inter vas naturale mulieris,_ with +her husband's brother? She would half confess if she had not all sinned +as women did. Only God knew and she and he, her husband's brother. + +Father Conmee thought of that tyrannous incontinence, needed however for +man's race on earth, and of the ways of God which were not our ways. + +Don John Conmee walked and moved in times of yore. He was humane and +honoured there. He bore in mind secrets confessed and he smiled at +smiling noble faces in a beeswaxed drawingroom, ceiled with full fruit +clusters. And the hands of a bride and of a bridegroom, noble to noble, +were impalmed by Don John Conmee. + +It was a charming day. + +The lychgate of a field showed Father Conmee breadths of cabbages, +curtseying to him with ample underleaves. The sky showed him a flock of +small white clouds going slowly down the wind. _Moutonner,_ the French +said. A just and homely word. + +Father Conmee, reading his office, watched a flock of muttoning clouds +over Rathcoffey. His thinsocked ankles were tickled by the stubble of +Clongowes field. He walked there, reading in the evening, and heard +the cries of the boys' lines at their play, young cries in the quiet +evening. He was their rector: his reign was mild. + +Father Conmee drew off his gloves and took his rededged breviary out. An +ivory bookmark told him the page. + +Nones. He should have read that before lunch. But lady Maxwell had come. + +Father Conmee read in secret _Pater_ and _Ave_ and crossed his breast. +_Deus in adiutorium._ + +He walked calmly and read mutely the nones, walking and reading till he +came to _Res_ in _Beati immaculati: Principium verborum tuorum veritas: +in eternum omnia indicia iustitiae tuae._ + +A flushed young man came from a gap of a hedge and after him came a +young woman with wild nodding daisies in her hand. The young man raised +his cap abruptly: the young woman abruptly bent and with slow care +detached from her light skirt a clinging twig. + +Father Conmee blessed both gravely and turned a thin page of his +breviary. _Sin: Principes persecuti sunt me gratis: et a verbis tuis +formidavit cor meum._ + +* * * * * + +Corny Kelleher closed his long daybook and glanced with his drooping eye +at a pine coffinlid sentried in a corner. He pulled himself erect, +went to it and, spinning it on its axle, viewed its shape and brass +furnishings. Chewing his blade of hay he laid the coffinlid by and came +to the doorway. There he tilted his hatbrim to give shade to his eyes +and leaned against the doorcase, looking idly out. + +Father John Conmee stepped into the Dollymount tram on Newcomen bridge. + +Corny Kelleher locked his largefooted boots and gazed, his hat +downtilted, chewing his blade of hay. + +Constable 57C, on his beat, stood to pass the time of day. + +--That's a fine day, Mr Kelleher. + +--Ay, Corny Kelleher said. + +--It's very close, the constable said. + +Corny Kelleher sped a silent jet of hayjuice arching from his mouth +while a generous white arm from a window in Eccles street flung forth a +coin. + +--What's the best news? he asked. + +--I seen that particular party last evening, the constable said with +bated breath. + +* * * * * + +A onelegged sailor crutched himself round MacConnell's corner, skirting +Rabaiotti's icecream car, and jerked himself up Eccles street. Towards +Larry O'Rourke, in shirtsleeves in his doorway, he growled unamiably: + +--_For England_... + +He swung himself violently forward past Katey and Boody Dedalus, halted +and growled: + +--_home and beauty._ + +J. J. O'Molloy's white careworn face was told that Mr Lambert was in the +warehouse with a visitor. + +A stout lady stopped, took a copper coin from her purse and dropped it +into the cap held out to her. The sailor grumbled thanks, glanced sourly +at the unheeding windows, sank his head and swung himself forward four +strides. + +He halted and growled angrily: + +--_For England_... + +Two barefoot urchins, sucking long liquorice laces, halted near him, +gaping at his stump with their yellowslobbered mouths. + +He swung himself forward in vigorous jerks, halted, lifted his head +towards a window and bayed deeply: + +--_home and beauty._ + +The gay sweet chirping whistling within went on a bar or two, ceased. +The blind of the window was drawn aside. A card _Unfurnished Apartments_ +slipped from the sash and fell. A plump bare generous arm shone, was +seen, held forth from a white petticoatbodice and taut shiftstraps. A +woman's hand flung forth a coin over the area railings. It fell on the +path. + +One of the urchins ran to it, picked it up and dropped it into the +minstrel's cap, saying: + +--There, sir. + +* * * * * + +Katey and Boody Dedalus shoved in the door of the closesteaming kitchen. + +--Did you put in the books? Boody asked. + +Maggy at the range rammed down a greyish mass beneath bubbling suds +twice with her potstick and wiped her brow. + +--They wouldn't give anything on them, she said. + +Father Conmee walked through Clongowes fields, his thinsocked ankles +tickled by stubble. + +--Where did you try? Boody asked. + +--M'Guinness's. + +Boody stamped her foot and threw her satchel on the table. + +--Bad cess to her big face! she cried. + +Katey went to the range and peered with squinting eyes. + +--What's in the pot? she asked. + +--Shirts, Maggy said. + +Boody cried angrily: + +--Crickey, is there nothing for us to eat? + +Katey, lifting the kettlelid in a pad of her stained skirt, asked: + +--And what's in this? + +A heavy fume gushed in answer. + +--Peasoup, Maggy said. + +--Where did you get it? Katey asked. + +--Sister Mary Patrick, Maggy said. + +The lacquey rang his bell. + +--Barang! + +Boody sat down at the table and said hungrily: + +--Give us it here. + +Maggy poured yellow thick soup from the kettle into a bowl. Katey, +sitting opposite Boody, said quietly, as her fingertip lifted to her +mouth random crumbs: + +--A good job we have that much. Where's Dilly? + +--Gone to meet father, Maggy said. + +Boody, breaking big chunks of bread into the yellow soup, added: + +--Our father who art not in heaven. + +Maggy, pouring yellow soup in Katey's bowl, exclaimed: + +--Boody! For shame! + +A skiff, a crumpled throwaway, Elijah is coming, rode lightly down the +Liffey, under Loopline bridge, shooting the rapids where water chafed +around the bridgepiers, sailing eastward past hulls and anchorchains, +between the Customhouse old dock and George's quay. + +* * * * * + +The blond girl in Thornton's bedded the wicker basket with rustling +fibre. Blazes Boylan handed her the bottle swathed in pink tissue paper +and a small jar. + +--Put these in first, will you? he said. + +--Yes, sir, the blond girl said. And the fruit on top. + +--That'll do, game ball, Blazes Boylan said. + +She bestowed fat pears neatly, head by tail, and among them ripe +shamefaced peaches. + +Blazes Boylan walked here and there in new tan shoes about the +fruitsmelling shop, lifting fruits, young juicy crinkled and plump red +tomatoes, sniffing smells. + +H. E. L. Y.'S filed before him, tallwhitehatted, past Tangier lane, +plodding towards their goal. + +He turned suddenly from a chip of strawberries, drew a gold watch from +his fob and held it at its chain's length. + +--Can you send them by tram? Now? + +A darkbacked figure under Merchants' arch scanned books on the hawker's +cart. + +--Certainly, sir. Is it in the city? + +--O, yes, Blazes Boylan said. Ten minutes. + +The blond girl handed him a docket and pencil. + +--Will you write the address, sir? + +Blazes Boylan at the counter wrote and pushed the docket to her. + +--Send it at once, will you? he said. It's for an invalid. + +--Yes, sir. I will, sir. + +Blazes Boylan rattled merry money in his trousers' pocket. + +--What's the damage? he asked. + +The blond girl's slim fingers reckoned the fruits. + +Blazes Boylan looked into the cut of her blouse. A young pullet. He took +a red carnation from the tall stemglass. + +--This for me? he asked gallantly. + +The blond girl glanced sideways at him, got up regardless, with his tie +a bit crooked, blushing. + +--Yes, sir, she said. + +Bending archly she reckoned again fat pears and blushing peaches. + +Blazes Boylan looked in her blouse with more favour, the stalk of the +red flower between his smiling teeth. + +--May I say a word to your telephone, missy? he asked roguishly. + +* * * * * + +_--Ma!_ Almidano Artifoni said. + +He gazed over Stephen's shoulder at Goldsmith's knobby poll. + +Two carfuls of tourists passed slowly, their women sitting fore, +gripping the handrests. Palefaces. Men's arms frankly round their +stunted forms. They looked from Trinity to the blind columned porch of +the bank of Ireland where pigeons roocoocooed. + +--_Anch'io ho avuto di queste idee, ALMIDANO ARTIFONI SAID, quand' ero +giovine come Lei. Eppoi mi sono convinto che il mondo e una bestia. +E peccato. Perche la sua voce... sarebbe un cespite di rendita, via. +Invece, Lei si sacrifica._ + +--_Sacrifizio incruento,_ Stephen said smiling, swaying his ashplant in +slow swingswong from its midpoint, lightly. + +_--Speriamo,_ the round mustachioed face said pleasantly. _Ma, dia retta +a me. Ci rifletta_. + +By the stern stone hand of Grattan, bidding halt, an Inchicore tram +unloaded straggling Highland soldiers of a band. + +--_Ci riflettero,_ Stephen said, glancing down the solid trouserleg. + +--_Ma, sul serio, eh?_ Almidano Artifoni said. + +His heavy hand took Stephen's firmly. Human eyes. They gazed curiously +an instant and turned quickly towards a Dalkey tram. + +_--Eccolo,_ Almidano Artifoni said in friendly haste. _Venga a trovarmi +e ci pensi. Addio, caro._ + +--_Arrivederla, maestro,_ Stephen said, raising his hat when his hand +was freed. _E grazie._ + +--_Di che?_ Almidano Artifoni said. _Scusi, eh? Tante belle cose!_ + +Almidano Artifoni, holding up a baton of rolled music as a signal, +trotted on stout trousers after the Dalkey tram. In vain he trotted, +signalling in vain among the rout of barekneed gillies smuggling +implements of music through Trinity gates. + +* * * * * + +Miss Dunne hid the Capel street library copy of _The Woman in White_ +far back in her drawer and rolled a sheet of gaudy notepaper into her +typewriter. + +Too much mystery business in it. Is he in love with that one, Marion? +Change it and get another by Mary Cecil Haye. + +The disk shot down the groove, wobbled a while, ceased and ogled them: +six. + +Miss Dunne clicked on the keyboard: + +--16 June 1904. + +Five tallwhitehatted sandwichmen between Monypeny's corner and the slab +where Wolfe Tone's statue was not, eeled themselves turning H. E. L. +Y.'S and plodded back as they had come. + +Then she stared at the large poster of Marie Kendall, charming +soubrette, and, listlessly lolling, scribbled on the jotter sixteens and +capital esses. Mustard hair and dauby cheeks. She's not nicelooking, +is she? The way she's holding up her bit of a skirt. Wonder will that +fellow be at the band tonight. If I could get that dressmaker to make a +concertina skirt like Susy Nagle's. They kick out grand. Shannon and +all the boatclub swells never took his eyes off her. Hope to goodness he +won't keep me here till seven. + +The telephone rang rudely by her ear. + +--Hello. Yes, sir. No, sir. Yes, sir. I'll ring them up after five. Only +those two, sir, for Belfast and Liverpool. All right, sir. Then I can go +after six if you're not back. A quarter after. Yes, sir. Twentyseven and +six. I'll tell him. Yes: one, seven, six. + +She scribbled three figures on an envelope. + +--Mr Boylan! Hello! That gentleman from SPORT was in looking for you. Mr +Lenehan, yes. He said he'll be in the Ormond at four. No, sir. Yes, sir. +I'll ring them up after five. + +* * * * * + +Two pink faces turned in the flare of the tiny torch. + +--Who's that? Ned Lambert asked. Is that Crotty? + +--Ringabella and Crosshaven, a voice replied groping for foothold. + +--Hello, Jack, is that yourself? Ned Lambert said, raising in salute his +pliant lath among the flickering arches. Come on. Mind your steps there. + +The vesta in the clergyman's uplifted hand consumed itself in a long +soft flame and was let fall. At their feet its red speck died: and +mouldy air closed round them. + +--How interesting! a refined accent said in the gloom. + +--Yes, sir, Ned Lambert said heartily. We are standing in the historic +council chamber of saint Mary's abbey where silken Thomas proclaimed +himself a rebel in 1534. This is the most historic spot in all Dublin. +O'Madden Burke is going to write something about it one of these days. +The old bank of Ireland was over the way till the time of the union and +the original jews' temple was here too before they built their synagogue +over in Adelaide road. You were never here before, Jack, were you? + +--No, Ned. + +--He rode down through Dame walk, the refined accent said, if my memory +serves me. The mansion of the Kildares was in Thomas court. + +--That's right, Ned Lambert said. That's quite right, sir. + +--If you will be so kind then, the clergyman said, the next time to +allow me perhaps... + +--Certainly, Ned Lambert said. Bring the camera whenever you like. I'll +get those bags cleared away from the windows. You can take it from here +or from here. + +In the still faint light he moved about, tapping with his lath the piled +seedbags and points of vantage on the floor. + +From a long face a beard and gaze hung on a chessboard. + +--I'm deeply obliged, Mr Lambert, the clergyman said. I won't trespass +on your valuable time... + +--You're welcome, sir, Ned Lambert said. Drop in whenever you like. Next +week, say. Can you see? + +--Yes, yes. Good afternoon, Mr Lambert. Very pleased to have met you. + +--Pleasure is mine, sir, Ned Lambert answered. + +He followed his guest to the outlet and then whirled his lath away among +the pillars. With J. J. O'Molloy he came forth slowly into Mary's abbey +where draymen were loading floats with sacks of carob and palmnut meal, +O'Connor, Wexford. + +He stood to read the card in his hand. + +--The reverend Hugh C. Love, Rathcoffey. Present address: Saint +Michael's, Sallins. Nice young chap he is. He's writing a book about the +Fitzgeralds he told me. He's well up in history, faith. + +The young woman with slow care detached from her light skirt a clinging +twig. + +--I thought you were at a new gunpowder plot, J. J. O'Molloy said. + +Ned Lambert cracked his fingers in the air. + +--God! he cried. I forgot to tell him that one about the earl of Kildare +after he set fire to Cashel cathedral. You know that one? _I'm bloody +sorry I did it,_ says he, _but I declare to God I thought the archbishop +was inside._ He mightn't like it, though. What? God, I'll tell him +anyhow. That was the great earl, the Fitzgerald Mor. Hot members they +were all of them, the Geraldines. + +The horses he passed started nervously under their slack harness. He +slapped a piebald haunch quivering near him and cried: + +--Woa, sonny! + +He turned to J. J. O'Molloy and asked: + +--Well, Jack. What is it? What's the trouble? Wait awhile. Hold hard. + +With gaping mouth and head far back he stood still and, after an +instant, sneezed loudly. + +--Chow! he said. Blast you! + +--The dust from those sacks, J. J. O'Molloy said politely. + +--No, Ned Lambert gasped, I caught a... cold night before... blast +your soul... night before last... and there was a hell of a lot of +draught... + +He held his handkerchief ready for the coming... + +--I was... Glasnevin this morning... poor little... what do you call +him... Chow!... Mother of Moses! + +* * * * * + +Tom Rochford took the top disk from the pile he clasped against his +claret waistcoat. + +--See? he said. Say it's turn six. In here, see. Turn Now On. + +He slid it into the left slot for them. It shot down the groove, wobbled +a while, ceased, ogling them: six. + +Lawyers of the past, haughty, pleading, beheld pass from the +consolidated taxing office to Nisi Prius court Richie Goulding carrying +the costbag of Goulding, Collis and Ward and heard rustling from the +admiralty division of king's bench to the court of appeal an elderly +female with false teeth smiling incredulously and a black silk skirt of +great amplitude. + +--See? he said. See now the last one I put in is over here: Turns Over. +The impact. Leverage, see? + +He showed them the rising column of disks on the right. + +--Smart idea, Nosey Flynn said, snuffling. So a fellow coming in late +can see what turn is on and what turns are over. + +--See? Tom Rochford said. + +He slid in a disk for himself: and watched it shoot, wobble, ogle, stop: +four. Turn Now On. + +--I'll see him now in the Ormond, Lenehan said, and sound him. One good +turn deserves another. + +--Do, Tom Rochford said. Tell him I'm Boylan with impatience. + +--Goodnight, M'Coy said abruptly. When you two begin + +Nosey Flynn stooped towards the lever, snuffling at it. + +--But how does it work here, Tommy? he asked. + +--Tooraloo, Lenehan said. See you later. + +He followed M'Coy out across the tiny square of Crampton court. + +--He's a hero, he said simply. + +--I know, M'Coy said. The drain, you mean. + +--Drain? Lenehan said. It was down a manhole. + +They passed Dan Lowry's musichall where Marie Kendall, charming +soubrette, smiled on them from a poster a dauby smile. + +Going down the path of Sycamore street beside the Empire musichall +Lenehan showed M'Coy how the whole thing was. One of those manholes like +a bloody gaspipe and there was the poor devil stuck down in it, half +choked with sewer gas. Down went Tom Rochford anyhow, booky's vest and +all, with the rope round him. And be damned but he got the rope round +the poor devil and the two were hauled up. + +--The act of a hero, he said. + +At the Dolphin they halted to allow the ambulance car to gallop past +them for Jervis street. + +--This way, he said, walking to the right. I want to pop into Lynam's +to see Sceptre's starting price. What's the time by your gold watch and +chain? + +M'Coy peered into Marcus Tertius Moses' sombre office, then at O'Neill's +clock. + +--After three, he said. Who's riding her? + +--O. Madden, Lenehan said. And a game filly she is. + +While he waited in Temple bar M'Coy dodged a banana peel with gentle +pushes of his toe from the path to the gutter. Fellow might damn easy +get a nasty fall there coming along tight in the dark. + +The gates of the drive opened wide to give egress to the viceregal +cavalcade. + +--Even money, Lenehan said returning. I knocked against Bantam Lyons +in there going to back a bloody horse someone gave him that hasn't an +earthly. Through here. + +They went up the steps and under Merchants' arch. A darkbacked figure +scanned books on the hawker's cart. + +--There he is, Lenehan said. + +--Wonder what he's buying, M'Coy said, glancing behind. + +--_Leopoldo or the Bloom is on the Rye,_ Lenehan said. + +--He's dead nuts on sales, M'Coy said. I was with him one day and he +bought a book from an old one in Liffey street for two bob. There were +fine plates in it worth double the money, the stars and the moon and +comets with long tails. Astronomy it was about. + +Lenehan laughed. + +--I'll tell you a damn good one about comets' tails, he said. Come over +in the sun. + +They crossed to the metal bridge and went along Wellington quay by the +riverwall. + +Master Patrick Aloysius Dignam came out of Mangan's, late Fehrenbach's, +carrying a pound and a half of porksteaks. + +--There was a long spread out at Glencree reformatory, Lenehan said +eagerly. The annual dinner, you know. Boiled shirt affair. The lord +mayor was there, Val Dillon it was, and sir Charles Cameron and Dan +Dawson spoke and there was music. Bartell d'Arcy sang and Benjamin +Dollard... + +--I know, M'Coy broke in. My missus sang there once. + +--Did she? Lenehan said. + +A card _Unfurnished Apartments_ reappeared on the windowsash of number 7 +Eccles street. + +He checked his tale a moment but broke out in a wheezy laugh. + +--But wait till I tell you, he said. Delahunt of Camden street had the +catering and yours truly was chief bottlewasher. Bloom and the wife were +there. Lashings of stuff we put up: port wine and sherry and curacao to +which we did ample justice. Fast and furious it was. After liquids came +solids. Cold joints galore and mince pies... + +--I know, M'Coy said. The year the missus was there... + +Lenehan linked his arm warmly. + +--But wait till I tell you, he said. We had a midnight lunch too after +all the jollification and when we sallied forth it was blue o'clock the +morning after the night before. Coming home it was a gorgeous winter's +night on the Featherbed Mountain. Bloom and Chris Callinan were on one +side of the car and I was with the wife on the other. We started singing +glees and duets: _Lo, the early beam of morning_. She was well primed +with a good load of Delahunt's port under her bellyband. Every jolt the +bloody car gave I had her bumping up against me. Hell's delights! She +has a fine pair, God bless her. Like that. + +He held his caved hands a cubit from him, frowning: + +--I was tucking the rug under her and settling her boa all the time. +Know what I mean? + +His hands moulded ample curves of air. He shut his eyes tight in +delight, his body shrinking, and blew a sweet chirp from his lips. + +--The lad stood to attention anyhow, he said with a sigh. She's a gamey +mare and no mistake. Bloom was pointing out all the stars and the comets +in the heavens to Chris Callinan and the jarvey: the great bear and +Hercules and the dragon, and the whole jingbang lot. But, by God, I was +lost, so to speak, in the milky way. He knows them all, faith. At last +she spotted a weeny weeshy one miles away. _And what star is that, +Poldy?_ says she. By God, she had Bloom cornered. _That one, is it?_ +says Chris Callinan, _sure that's only what you might call a pinprick._ +By God, he wasn't far wide of the mark. + +Lenehan stopped and leaned on the riverwall, panting with soft laughter. + +--I'm weak, he gasped. + +M'Coy's white face smiled about it at instants and grew grave. Lenehan +walked on again. He lifted his yachtingcap and scratched his hindhead +rapidly. He glanced sideways in the sunlight at M'Coy. + +--He's a cultured allroundman, Bloom is, he said seriously. He's not one +of your common or garden... you know... There's a touch of the artist +about old Bloom. + +* * * * * + +Mr Bloom turned over idly pages of _The Awful Disclosures of Maria +Monk,_ then of Aristotle's _Masterpiece._ Crooked botched print. Plates: +infants cuddled in a ball in bloodred wombs like livers of slaughtered +cows. Lots of them like that at this moment all over the world. All +butting with their skulls to get out of it. Child born every minute +somewhere. Mrs Purefoy. + +He laid both books aside and glanced at the third: _Tales of the Ghetto_ +by Leopold von Sacher Masoch. + +--That I had, he said, pushing it by. + +The shopman let two volumes fall on the counter. + +--Them are two good ones, he said. + +Onions of his breath came across the counter out of his ruined mouth. +He bent to make a bundle of the other books, hugged them against his +unbuttoned waistcoat and bore them off behind the dingy curtain. + +On O'Connell bridge many persons observed the grave deportment and gay +apparel of Mr Denis J Maginni, professor of dancing &c. + +Mr Bloom, alone, looked at the titles. _Fair Tyrants_ by James +Lovebirch. Know the kind that is. Had it? Yes. + +He opened it. Thought so. + +A woman's voice behind the dingy curtain. Listen: the man. + +No: she wouldn't like that much. Got her it once. + +He read the other title: _Sweets of Sin_. More in her line. Let us see. + +He read where his finger opened. + +_--All the dollarbills her husband gave her were spent in the stores on +wondrous gowns and costliest frillies. For him! For raoul!_ + +Yes. This. Here. Try. + +--_Her mouth glued on his in a luscious voluptuous kiss while his hands +felt for the opulent curves inside her deshabille._ + +Yes. Take this. The end. + +--_You are late, he spoke hoarsely, eying her with a suspicious glare. +The beautiful woman threw off her sabletrimmed wrap, displaying her +queenly shoulders and heaving embonpoint. An imperceptible smile played +round her perfect lips as she turned to him calmly._ + +Mr Bloom read again: _The beautiful woman._ + +Warmth showered gently over him, cowing his flesh. Flesh yielded amply +amid rumpled clothes: whites of eyes swooning up. His nostrils arched +themselves for prey. Melting breast ointments (_for Him! For Raoul!_). +Armpits' oniony sweat. Fishgluey slime (_her heaving embonpoint!_). +Feel! Press! Crushed! Sulphur dung of lions! + +Young! Young! + +An elderly female, no more young, left the building of the courts of +chancery, king's bench, exchequer and common pleas, having heard in +the lord chancellor's court the case in lunacy of Potterton, in the +admiralty division the summons, exparte motion, of the owners of the +Lady Cairns versus the owners of the barque Mona, in the court of appeal +reservation of judgment in the case of Harvey versus the Ocean Accident +and Guarantee Corporation. + +Phlegmy coughs shook the air of the bookshop, bulging out the dingy +curtains. The shopman's uncombed grey head came out and his unshaven +reddened face, coughing. He raked his throat rudely, puked phlegm on the +floor. He put his boot on what he had spat, wiping his sole along it, +and bent, showing a rawskinned crown, scantily haired. + +Mr Bloom beheld it. + +Mastering his troubled breath, he said: + +--I'll take this one. + +The shopman lifted eyes bleared with old rheum. + +--_Sweets of Sin,_ he said, tapping on it. That's a good one. + +* * * * * + +The lacquey by the door of Dillon's auctionrooms shook his handbell +twice again and viewed himself in the chalked mirror of the cabinet. + +Dilly Dedalus, loitering by the curbstone, heard the beats of the +bell, the cries of the auctioneer within. Four and nine. Those lovely +curtains. Five shillings. Cosy curtains. Selling new at two guineas. Any +advance on five shillings? Going for five shillings. + +The lacquey lifted his handbell and shook it: + +--Barang! + +Bang of the lastlap bell spurred the halfmile wheelmen to their sprint. +J. A. Jackson, W. E. Wylie, A. Munro and H. T. Gahan, their stretched +necks wagging, negotiated the curve by the College library. + +Mr Dedalus, tugging a long moustache, came round from Williams's row. He +halted near his daughter. + +--It's time for you, she said. + +--Stand up straight for the love of the lord Jesus, Mr Dedalus said. +Are you trying to imitate your uncle John, the cornetplayer, head upon +shoulder? Melancholy God! + +Dilly shrugged her shoulders. Mr Dedalus placed his hands on them and +held them back. + +--Stand up straight, girl, he said. You'll get curvature of the spine. +Do you know what you look like? + +He let his head sink suddenly down and forward, hunching his shoulders +and dropping his underjaw. + +--Give it up, father, Dilly said. All the people are looking at you. + +Mr Dedalus drew himself upright and tugged again at his moustache. + +--Did you get any money? Dilly asked. + +--Where would I get money? Mr Dedalus said. There is no-one in Dublin +would lend me fourpence. + +--You got some, Dilly said, looking in his eyes. + +--How do you know that? Mr Dedalus asked, his tongue in his cheek. + +Mr Kernan, pleased with the order he had booked, walked boldly along +James's street. + +--I know you did, Dilly answered. Were you in the Scotch house now? + +--I was not, then, Mr Dedalus said, smiling. Was it the little nuns +taught you to be so saucy? Here. + +He handed her a shilling. + +--See if you can do anything with that, he said. + +--I suppose you got five, Dilly said. Give me more than that. + +--Wait awhile, Mr Dedalus said threateningly. You're like the rest of +them, are you? An insolent pack of little bitches since your poor mother +died. But wait awhile. You'll all get a short shrift and a long day from +me. Low blackguardism! I'm going to get rid of you. Wouldn't care if I +was stretched out stiff. He's dead. The man upstairs is dead. + +He left her and walked on. Dilly followed quickly and pulled his coat. + +--Well, what is it? he said, stopping. + +The lacquey rang his bell behind their backs. + +--Barang! + +--Curse your bloody blatant soul, Mr Dedalus cried, turning on him. + +The lacquey, aware of comment, shook the lolling clapper of his bell but +feebly: + +--Bang! + +Mr Dedalus stared at him. + +--Watch him, he said. It's instructive. I wonder will he allow us to +talk. + +--You got more than that, father, Dilly said. + +--I'm going to show you a little trick, Mr Dedalus said. I'll leave +you all where Jesus left the jews. Look, there's all I have. I got +two shillings from Jack Power and I spent twopence for a shave for the +funeral. + +He drew forth a handful of copper coins, nervously. + +--Can't you look for some money somewhere? Dilly said. + +Mr Dedalus thought and nodded. + +--I will, he said gravely. I looked all along the gutter in O'Connell +street. I'll try this one now. + +--You're very funny, Dilly said, grinning. + +--Here, Mr Dedalus said, handing her two pennies. Get a glass of milk +for yourself and a bun or a something. I'll be home shortly. + +He put the other coins in his pocket and started to walk on. + +The viceregal cavalcade passed, greeted by obsequious policemen, out of +Parkgate. + +--I'm sure you have another shilling, Dilly said. + +The lacquey banged loudly. + +Mr Dedalus amid the din walked off, murmuring to himself with a pursing +mincing mouth gently: + +--The little nuns! Nice little things! O, sure they wouldn't do +anything! O, sure they wouldn't really! Is it little sister Monica! + +* * * * * + +From the sundial towards James's gate walked Mr Kernan, pleased with the +order he had booked for Pulbrook Robertson, boldly along James's street, +past Shackleton's offices. Got round him all right. How do you do, Mr +Crimmins? First rate, sir. I was afraid you might be up in your other +establishment in Pimlico. How are things going? Just keeping alive. +Lovely weather we're having. Yes, indeed. Good for the country. Those +farmers are always grumbling. I'll just take a thimbleful of your best +gin, Mr Crimmins. A small gin, sir. Yes, sir. Terrible affair that +General Slocum explosion. Terrible, terrible! A thousand casualties. And +heartrending scenes. Men trampling down women and children. Most brutal +thing. What do they say was the cause? Spontaneous combustion. Most +scandalous revelation. Not a single lifeboat would float and the +firehose all burst. What I can't understand is how the inspectors ever +allowed a boat like that... Now, you're talking straight, Mr Crimmins. +You know why? Palm oil. Is that a fact? Without a doubt. Well now, look +at that. And America they say is the land of the free. I thought we were +bad here. + +I smiled at him. _America,_ I said quietly, just like that. _What is +it? The sweepings of every country including our own. Isn't that true?_ +That's a fact. + +Graft, my dear sir. Well, of course, where there's money going there's +always someone to pick it up. + +Saw him looking at my frockcoat. Dress does it. Nothing like a dressy +appearance. Bowls them over. + +--Hello, Simon, Father Cowley said. How are things? + +--Hello, Bob, old man, Mr Dedalus answered, stopping. + +Mr Kernan halted and preened himself before the sloping mirror of Peter +Kennedy, hairdresser. Stylish coat, beyond a doubt. Scott of Dawson +street. Well worth the half sovereign I gave Neary for it. Never built +under three guineas. Fits me down to the ground. Some Kildare street +club toff had it probably. John Mulligan, the manager of the Hibernian +bank, gave me a very sharp eye yesterday on Carlisle bridge as if he +remembered me. + +Aham! Must dress the character for those fellows. Knight of the road. +Gentleman. And now, Mr Crimmins, may we have the honour of your custom +again, sir. The cup that cheers but not inebriates, as the old saying +has it. + +North wall and sir John Rogerson's quay, with hulls and anchorchains, +sailing westward, sailed by a skiff, a crumpled throwaway, rocked on the +ferrywash, Elijah is coming. + +Mr Kernan glanced in farewell at his image. High colour, of course. +Grizzled moustache. Returned Indian officer. Bravely he bore his stumpy +body forward on spatted feet, squaring his shoulders. Is that Ned +Lambert's brother over the way, Sam? What? Yes. He's as like it as damn +it. No. The windscreen of that motorcar in the sun there. Just a flash +like that. Damn like him. + +Aham! Hot spirit of juniper juice warmed his vitals and his breath. Good +drop of gin, that was. His frocktails winked in bright sunshine to his +fat strut. + +Down there Emmet was hanged, drawn and quartered. Greasy black rope. +Dogs licking the blood off the street when the lord lieutenant's wife +drove by in her noddy. + +Bad times those were. Well, well. Over and done with. Great topers too. +Fourbottle men. + +Let me see. Is he buried in saint Michan's? Or no, there was a midnight +burial in Glasnevin. Corpse brought in through a secret door in the +wall. Dignam is there now. Went out in a puff. Well, well. Better turn +down here. Make a detour. + +Mr Kernan turned and walked down the slope of Watling street by +the corner of Guinness's visitors' waitingroom. Outside the Dublin +Distillers Company's stores an outside car without fare or jarvey stood, +the reins knotted to the wheel. Damn dangerous thing. Some Tipperary +bosthoon endangering the lives of the citizens. Runaway horse. + +Denis Breen with his tomes, weary of having waited an hour in John +Henry Menton's office, led his wife over O'Connell bridge, bound for the +office of Messrs Collis and Ward. + +Mr Kernan approached Island street. + +Times of the troubles. Must ask Ned Lambert to lend me those +reminiscences of sir Jonah Barrington. When you look back on it all +now in a kind of retrospective arrangement. Gaming at Daly's. No +cardsharping then. One of those fellows got his hand nailed to the table +by a dagger. Somewhere here lord Edward Fitzgerald escaped from major +Sirr. Stables behind Moira house. + +Damn good gin that was. + +Fine dashing young nobleman. Good stock, of course. That ruffian, that +sham squire, with his violet gloves gave him away. Course they were +on the wrong side. They rose in dark and evil days. Fine poem that +is: Ingram. They were gentlemen. Ben Dollard does sing that ballad +touchingly. Masterly rendition. + +_At the siege of Ross did my father fall._ + +A cavalcade in easy trot along Pembroke quay passed, outriders leaping, +leaping in their, in their saddles. Frockcoats. Cream sunshades. + +Mr Kernan hurried forward, blowing pursily. + +His Excellency! Too bad! Just missed that by a hair. Damn it! What a +pity! + +* * * * * + +Stephen Dedalus watched through the webbed window the lapidary's fingers +prove a timedulled chain. Dust webbed the window and the showtrays. Dust +darkened the toiling fingers with their vulture nails. Dust slept +on dull coils of bronze and silver, lozenges of cinnabar, on rubies, +leprous and winedark stones. + +Born all in the dark wormy earth, cold specks of fire, evil, lights +shining in the darkness. Where fallen archangels flung the stars of +their brows. Muddy swinesnouts, hands, root and root, gripe and wrest +them. + +She dances in a foul gloom where gum bums with garlic. A sailorman, +rustbearded, sips from a beaker rum and eyes her. A long and seafed +silent rut. She dances, capers, wagging her sowish haunches and her +hips, on her gross belly flapping a ruby egg. + +Old Russell with a smeared shammy rag burnished again his gem, turned it +and held it at the point of his Moses' beard. Grandfather ape gloating +on a stolen hoard. + +And you who wrest old images from the burial earth? The brainsick words +of sophists: Antisthenes. A lore of drugs. Orient and immortal wheat +standing from everlasting to everlasting. + +Two old women fresh from their whiff of the briny trudged through +Irishtown along London bridge road, one with a sanded tired umbrella, +one with a midwife's bag in which eleven cockles rolled. + +The whirr of flapping leathern bands and hum of dynamos from the +powerhouse urged Stephen to be on. Beingless beings. Stop! Throb always +without you and the throb always within. Your heart you sing of. I +between them. Where? Between two roaring worlds where they swirl, I. +Shatter them, one and both. But stun myself too in the blow. Shatter me +you who can. Bawd and butcher were the words. I say! Not yet awhile. A +look around. + +Yes, quite true. Very large and wonderful and keeps famous time. You say +right, sir. A Monday morning, 'twas so, indeed. + +Stephen went down Bedford row, the handle of the ash clacking against +his shoulderblade. In Clohissey's window a faded 1860 print of Heenan +boxing Sayers held his eye. Staring backers with square hats stood +round the roped prizering. The heavyweights in tight loincloths proposed +gently each to other his bulbous fists. And they are throbbing: heroes' +hearts. + +He turned and halted by the slanted bookcart. + +--Twopence each, the huckster said. Four for sixpence. + +Tattered pages. _The Irish Beekeeper. Life and Miracles of the Cure of +Ars. Pocket Guide to Killarney._ + +I might find here one of my pawned schoolprizes. _Stephano Dedalo, +alumno optimo, palmam ferenti._ + +Father Conmee, having read his little hours, walked through the hamlet +of Donnycarney, murmuring vespers. + +Binding too good probably. What is this? Eighth and ninth book of Moses. +Secret of all secrets. Seal of King David. Thumbed pages: read and read. +Who has passed here before me? How to soften chapped hands. Recipe for +white wine vinegar. How to win a woman's love. For me this. Say the +following talisman three times with hands folded: + +--_Se el yilo nebrakada femininum! Amor me solo! Sanktus! Amen._ + +Who wrote this? Charms and invocations of the most blessed abbot Peter +Salanka to all true believers divulged. As good as any other abbot's +charms, as mumbling Joachim's. Down, baldynoddle, or we'll wool your +wool. + +--What are you doing here, Stephen? + +Dilly's high shoulders and shabby dress. + +Shut the book quick. Don't let see. + +--What are you doing? Stephen said. + +A Stuart face of nonesuch Charles, lank locks falling at its sides. It +glowed as she crouched feeding the fire with broken boots. I told her +of Paris. Late lieabed under a quilt of old overcoats, fingering a +pinchbeck bracelet, Dan Kelly's token. _Nebrakada femininum._ + +--What have you there? Stephen asked. + +--I bought it from the other cart for a penny, Dilly said, laughing +nervously. Is it any good? + +My eyes they say she has. Do others see me so? Quick, far and daring. +Shadow of my mind. + +He took the coverless book from her hand. Chardenal's French primer. + +--What did you buy that for? he asked. To learn French? + +She nodded, reddening and closing tight her lips. + +Show no surprise. Quite natural. + +--Here, Stephen said. It's all right. Mind Maggy doesn't pawn it on you. +I suppose all my books are gone. + +--Some, Dilly said. We had to. + +She is drowning. Agenbite. Save her. Agenbite. All against us. She will +drown me with her, eyes and hair. Lank coils of seaweed hair around me, +my heart, my soul. Salt green death. + +We. + +Agenbite of inwit. Inwit's agenbite. + +Misery! Misery! + +* * * * * + +--Hello, Simon, Father Cowley said. How are things? + +--Hello, Bob, old man, Mr Dedalus answered, stopping. + +They clasped hands loudly outside Reddy and Daughter's. Father Cowley +brushed his moustache often downward with a scooping hand. + +--What's the best news? Mr Dedalus said. + +--Why then not much, Father Cowley said. I'm barricaded up, Simon, with +two men prowling around the house trying to effect an entrance. + +--Jolly, Mr Dedalus said. Who is it? + +--O, Father Cowley said. A certain gombeen man of our acquaintance. + +--With a broken back, is it? Mr Dedalus asked. + +--The same, Simon, Father Cowley answered. Reuben of that ilk. I'm just +waiting for Ben Dollard. He's going to say a word to long John to get +him to take those two men off. All I want is a little time. + +He looked with vague hope up and down the quay, a big apple bulging in +his neck. + +--I know, Mr Dedalus said, nodding. Poor old bockedy Ben! He's always +doing a good turn for someone. Hold hard! + +He put on his glasses and gazed towards the metal bridge an instant. + +--There he is, by God, he said, arse and pockets. + +Ben Dollard's loose blue cutaway and square hat above large slops +crossed the quay in full gait from the metal bridge. He came towards +them at an amble, scratching actively behind his coattails. + +As he came near Mr Dedalus greeted: + +--Hold that fellow with the bad trousers. + +--Hold him now, Ben Dollard said. + +Mr Dedalus eyed with cold wandering scorn various points of Ben +Dollard's figure. Then, turning to Father Cowley with a nod, he muttered +sneeringly: + +--That's a pretty garment, isn't it, for a summer's day? + +--Why, God eternally curse your soul, Ben Dollard growled furiously, I +threw out more clothes in my time than you ever saw. + +He stood beside them beaming, on them first and on his roomy clothes +from points of which Mr Dedalus flicked fluff, saying: + +--They were made for a man in his health, Ben, anyhow. + +--Bad luck to the jewman that made them, Ben Dollard said. Thanks be to +God he's not paid yet. + +--And how is that _basso profondo_, Benjamin? Father Cowley asked. + +Cashel Boyle O'Connor Fitzmaurice Tisdall Farrell, murmuring, +glassyeyed, strode past the Kildare street club. + +Ben Dollard frowned and, making suddenly a chanter's mouth, gave forth a +deep note. + +--Aw! he said. + +--That's the style, Mr Dedalus said, nodding to its drone. + +--What about that? Ben Dollard said. Not too dusty? What? + +He turned to both. + +--That'll do, Father Cowley said, nodding also. + +The reverend Hugh C. Love walked from the old chapterhouse of saint +Mary's abbey past James and Charles Kennedy's, rectifiers, attended by +Geraldines tall and personable, towards the Tholsel beyond the ford of +hurdles. + +Ben Dollard with a heavy list towards the shopfronts led them forward, +his joyful fingers in the air. + +--Come along with me to the subsheriff's office, he said. I want to +show you the new beauty Rock has for a bailiff. He's a cross between +Lobengula and Lynchehaun. He's well worth seeing, mind you. Come along. +I saw John Henry Menton casually in the Bodega just now and it will cost +me a fall if I don't... Wait awhile... We're on the right lay, Bob, +believe you me. + +--For a few days tell him, Father Cowley said anxiously. + +Ben Dollard halted and stared, his loud orifice open, a dangling button +of his coat wagging brightbacked from its thread as he wiped away the +heavy shraums that clogged his eyes to hear aright. + +--What few days? he boomed. Hasn't your landlord distrained for rent? + +--He has, Father Cowley said. + +--Then our friend's writ is not worth the paper it's printed on, Ben +Dollard said. The landlord has the prior claim. I gave him all the +particulars. 29 Windsor avenue. Love is the name? + +--That's right, Father Cowley said. The reverend Mr Love. He's a +minister in the country somewhere. But are you sure of that? + +--You can tell Barabbas from me, Ben Dollard said, that he can put that +writ where Jacko put the nuts. + +He led Father Cowley boldly forward, linked to his bulk. + +--Filberts I believe they were, Mr Dedalus said, as he dropped his +glasses on his coatfront, following them. + +* * * * * + +--The youngster will be all right, Martin Cunningham said, as they +passed out of the Castleyard gate. + +The policeman touched his forehead. + +--God bless you, Martin Cunningham said, cheerily. + +He signed to the waiting jarvey who chucked at the reins and set on +towards Lord Edward street. + +Bronze by gold, Miss Kennedy's head by Miss Douce's head, appeared above +the crossblind of the Ormond hotel. + +--Yes, Martin Cunningham said, fingering his beard. I wrote to Father +Conmee and laid the whole case before him. + +--You could try our friend, Mr Power suggested backward. + +--Boyd? Martin Cunningham said shortly. Touch me not. + +John Wyse Nolan, lagging behind, reading the list, came after them +quickly down Cork hill. + +On the steps of the City hall Councillor Nannetti, descending, hailed +Alderman Cowley and Councillor Abraham Lyon ascending. + +The castle car wheeled empty into upper Exchange street. + +--Look here, Martin, John Wyse Nolan said, overtaking them at the _Mail_ +office. I see Bloom put his name down for five shillings. + +--Quite right, Martin Cunningham said, taking the list. And put down the +five shillings too. + +--Without a second word either, Mr Power said. + +--Strange but true, Martin Cunningham added. + +John Wyse Nolan opened wide eyes. + +--I'll say there is much kindness in the jew, he quoted, elegantly. + +They went down Parliament street. + +--There's Jimmy Henry, Mr Power said, just heading for Kavanagh's. + +--Righto, Martin Cunningham said. Here goes. + +Outside _la Maison Claire_ Blazes Boylan waylaid Jack Mooney's +brother-in-law, humpy, tight, making for the liberties. + +John Wyse Nolan fell back with Mr Power, while Martin Cunningham took +the elbow of a dapper little man in a shower of hail suit, who walked +uncertainly, with hasty steps past Micky Anderson's watches. + +--The assistant town clerk's corns are giving him some trouble, John +Wyse Nolan told Mr Power. + +They followed round the corner towards James Kavanagh's winerooms. The +empty castle car fronted them at rest in Essex gate. Martin Cunningham, +speaking always, showed often the list at which Jimmy Henry did not +glance. + +--And long John Fanning is here too, John Wyse Nolan said, as large as +life. + +The tall form of long John Fanning filled the doorway where he stood. + +--Good day, Mr Subsheriff, Martin Cunningham said, as all halted and +greeted. + +Long John Fanning made no way for them. He removed his large Henry Clay +decisively and his large fierce eyes scowled intelligently over all +their faces. + +--Are the conscript fathers pursuing their peaceful deliberations? he +said with rich acrid utterance to the assistant town clerk. + +Hell open to christians they were having, Jimmy Henry said pettishly, +about their damned Irish language. Where was the marshal, he wanted +to know, to keep order in the council chamber. And old Barlow the +macebearer laid up with asthma, no mace on the table, nothing in order, +no quorum even, and Hutchinson, the lord mayor, in Llandudno and little +Lorcan Sherlock doing _locum tenens_ for him. Damned Irish language, +language of our forefathers. + +Long John Fanning blew a plume of smoke from his lips. + +Martin Cunningham spoke by turns, twirling the peak of his beard, to the +assistant town clerk and the subsheriff, while John Wyse Nolan held his +peace. + +--What Dignam was that? long John Fanning asked. + +Jimmy Henry made a grimace and lifted his left foot. + +--O, my corns! he said plaintively. Come upstairs for goodness' sake +till I sit down somewhere. Uff! Ooo! Mind! + +Testily he made room for himself beside long John Fanning's flank and +passed in and up the stairs. + +--Come on up, Martin Cunningham said to the subsheriff. I don't think +you knew him or perhaps you did, though. + +With John Wyse Nolan Mr Power followed them in. + +--Decent little soul he was, Mr Power said to the stalwart back of long +John Fanning ascending towards long John Fanning in the mirror. + +--Rather lowsized. Dignam of Menton's office that was, Martin Cunningham +said. + +Long John Fanning could not remember him. + +Clatter of horsehoofs sounded from the air. + +--What's that? Martin Cunningham said. + +All turned where they stood. John Wyse Nolan came down again. From the +cool shadow of the doorway he saw the horses pass Parliament street, +harness and glossy pasterns in sunlight shimmering. Gaily they went past +before his cool unfriendly eyes, not quickly. In saddles of the leaders, +leaping leaders, rode outriders. + +--What was it? Martin Cunningham asked, as they went on up the +staircase. + +--The lord lieutenantgeneral and general governor of Ireland, John Wyse +Nolan answered from the stairfoot. + +* * * * * + +As they trod across the thick carpet Buck Mulligan whispered behind his +Panama to Haines: + +--Parnell's brother. There in the corner. + +They chose a small table near the window, opposite a longfaced man whose +beard and gaze hung intently down on a chessboard. + +--Is that he? Haines asked, twisting round in his seat. + +--Yes, Mulligan said. That's John Howard, his brother, our city marshal. + +John Howard Parnell translated a white bishop quietly and his grey claw +went up again to his forehead whereat it rested. An instant after, under +its screen, his eyes looked quickly, ghostbright, at his foe and fell +once more upon a working corner. + +--I'll take a _melange,_ Haines said to the waitress. + +--Two _melanges,_ Buck Mulligan said. And bring us some scones and +butter and some cakes as well. + +When she had gone he said, laughing: + +--We call it D.B.C. because they have damn bad cakes. O, but you missed +Dedalus on _Hamlet._ + +Haines opened his newbought book. + +--I'm sorry, he said. Shakespeare is the happy huntingground of all +minds that have lost their balance. + +The onelegged sailor growled at the area of 14 Nelson street: + +--_England expects_... + +Buck Mulligan's primrose waistcoat shook gaily to his laughter. + +--You should see him, he said, when his body loses its balance. +Wandering Aengus I call him. + +--I am sure he has an _idee fixe,_ Haines said, pinching his chin +thoughtfully with thumb and forefinger. Now I am speculating what it +would be likely to be. Such persons always have. + +Buck Mulligan bent across the table gravely. + +--They drove his wits astray, he said, by visions of hell. He will never +capture the Attic note. The note of Swinburne, of all poets, the white +death and the ruddy birth. That is his tragedy. He can never be a poet. +The joy of creation... + +--Eternal punishment, Haines said, nodding curtly. I see. I tackled him +this morning on belief. There was something on his mind, I saw. +It's rather interesting because professor Pokorny of Vienna makes an +interesting point out of that. + +Buck Mulligan's watchful eyes saw the waitress come. He helped her to +unload her tray. + +--He can find no trace of hell in ancient Irish myth, Haines said, amid +the cheerful cups. The moral idea seems lacking, the sense of destiny, +of retribution. Rather strange he should have just that fixed idea. Does +he write anything for your movement? + +He sank two lumps of sugar deftly longwise through the whipped cream. +Buck Mulligan slit a steaming scone in two and plastered butter over its +smoking pith. He bit off a soft piece hungrily. + +--Ten years, he said, chewing and laughing. He is going to write +something in ten years. + +--Seems a long way off, Haines said, thoughtfully lifting his spoon. +Still, I shouldn't wonder if he did after all. + +He tasted a spoonful from the creamy cone of his cup. + +--This is real Irish cream I take it, he said with forbearance. I don't +want to be imposed on. + +Elijah, skiff, light crumpled throwaway, sailed eastward by flanks of +ships and trawlers, amid an archipelago of corks, beyond new Wapping +street past Benson's ferry, and by the threemasted schooner _Rosevean_ +from Bridgwater with bricks. + +* * * * * + +Almidano Artifoni walked past Holles street, past Sewell's yard. +Behind him Cashel Boyle O'Connor Fitzmaurice Tisdall Farrell, with +stickumbrelladustcoat dangling, shunned the lamp before Mr Law Smith's +house and, crossing, walked along Merrion square. Distantly behind him a +blind stripling tapped his way by the wall of College park. + +Cashel Boyle O'Connor Fitzmaurice Tisdall Farrell walked as far as +Mr Lewis Werner's cheerful windows, then turned and strode back along +Merrion square, his stickumbrelladustcoat dangling. + +At the corner of Wilde's house he halted, frowned at Elijah's name +announced on the Metropolitan hall, frowned at the distant pleasance of +duke's lawn. His eyeglass flashed frowning in the sun. With ratsteeth +bared he muttered: + +--_Coactus volui._ + +He strode on for Clare street, grinding his fierce word. + +As he strode past Mr Bloom's dental windows the sway of his dustcoat +brushed rudely from its angle a slender tapping cane and swept onwards, +having buffeted a thewless body. The blind stripling turned his sickly +face after the striding form. + +--God's curse on you, he said sourly, whoever you are! You're blinder +nor I am, you bitch's bastard! + +* * * * * + +Opposite Ruggy O'Donohoe's Master Patrick Aloysius Dignam, pawing the +pound and a half of Mangan's, late Fehrenbach's, porksteaks he had been +sent for, went along warm Wicklow street dawdling. It was too blooming +dull sitting in the parlour with Mrs Stoer and Mrs Quigley and Mrs +MacDowell and the blind down and they all at their sniffles and sipping +sups of the superior tawny sherry uncle Barney brought from Tunney's. +And they eating crumbs of the cottage fruitcake, jawing the whole +blooming time and sighing. + +After Wicklow lane the window of Madame Doyle, courtdress milliner, +stopped him. He stood looking in at the two puckers stripped to their +pelts and putting up their props. From the sidemirrors two mourning +Masters Dignam gaped silently. Myler Keogh, Dublin's pet lamb, will +meet sergeantmajor Bennett, the Portobello bruiser, for a purse of fifty +sovereigns. Gob, that'd be a good pucking match to see. Myler Keogh, +that's the chap sparring out to him with the green sash. Two bar +entrance, soldiers half price. I could easy do a bunk on ma. Master +Dignam on his left turned as he turned. That's me in mourning. When +is it? May the twentysecond. Sure, the blooming thing is all over. He +turned to the right and on his right Master Dignam turned, his cap awry, +his collar sticking up. Buttoning it down, his chin lifted, he saw the +image of Marie Kendall, charming soubrette, beside the two puckers. One +of them mots that do be in the packets of fags Stoer smokes that his old +fellow welted hell out of him for one time he found out. + +Master Dignam got his collar down and dawdled on. The best pucker going +for strength was Fitzsimons. One puck in the wind from that fellow would +knock you into the middle of next week, man. But the best pucker for +science was Jem Corbet before Fitzsimons knocked the stuffings out of +him, dodging and all. + +In Grafton street Master Dignam saw a red flower in a toff's mouth and +a swell pair of kicks on him and he listening to what the drunk was +telling him and grinning all the time. + +No Sandymount tram. + +Master Dignam walked along Nassau street, shifted the porksteaks to +his other hand. His collar sprang up again and he tugged it down. The +blooming stud was too small for the buttonhole of the shirt, blooming +end to it. He met schoolboys with satchels. I'm not going tomorrow +either, stay away till Monday. He met other schoolboys. Do they notice +I'm in mourning? Uncle Barney said he'd get it into the paper tonight. +Then they'll all see it in the paper and read my name printed and pa's +name. + +His face got all grey instead of being red like it was and there was a +fly walking over it up to his eye. The scrunch that was when they +were screwing the screws into the coffin: and the bumps when they were +bringing it downstairs. + +Pa was inside it and ma crying in the parlour and uncle Barney telling +the men how to get it round the bend. A big coffin it was, and high and +heavylooking. How was that? The last night pa was boosed he was standing +on the landing there bawling out for his boots to go out to Tunney's for +to boose more and he looked butty and short in his shirt. Never see him +again. Death, that is. Pa is dead. My father is dead. He told me to be +a good son to ma. I couldn't hear the other things he said but I saw +his tongue and his teeth trying to say it better. Poor pa. That was +Mr Dignam, my father. I hope he's in purgatory now because he went to +confession to Father Conroy on Saturday night. + +* * * * * + +William Humble, earl of Dudley, and lady Dudley, accompanied by +lieutenantcolonel Heseltine, drove out after luncheon from the viceregal +lodge. In the following carriage were the honourable Mrs Paget, Miss de +Courcy and the honourable Gerald Ward A.D.C. in attendance. + +The cavalcade passed out by the lower gate of Phoenix park saluted by +obsequious policemen and proceeded past Kingsbridge along the northern +quays. The viceroy was most cordially greeted on his way through the +metropolis. At Bloody bridge Mr Thomas Kernan beyond the river greeted +him vainly from afar Between Queen's and Whitworth bridges lord Dudley's +viceregal carriages passed and were unsaluted by Mr Dudley White, B. +L., M. A., who stood on Arran quay outside Mrs M. E. White's, the +pawnbroker's, at the corner of Arran street west stroking his nose with +his forefinger, undecided whether he should arrive at Phibsborough +more quickly by a triple change of tram or by hailing a car or on foot +through Smithfield, Constitution hill and Broadstone terminus. In the +porch of Four Courts Richie Goulding with the costbag of Goulding, +Collis and Ward saw him with surprise. Past Richmond bridge at the +doorstep of the office of Reuben J Dodd, solicitor, agent for the +Patriotic Insurance Company, an elderly female about to enter changed +her plan and retracing her steps by King's windows smiled credulously +on the representative of His Majesty. From its sluice in Wood quay wall +under Tom Devan's office Poddle river hung out in fealty a tongue of +liquid sewage. Above the crossblind of the Ormond hotel, gold by bronze, +Miss Kennedy's head by Miss Douce's head watched and admired. On Ormond +quay Mr Simon Dedalus, steering his way from the greenhouse for the +subsheriff's office, stood still in midstreet and brought his hat low. +His Excellency graciously returned Mr Dedalus' greeting. From Cahill's +corner the reverend Hugh C. Love, M.A., made obeisance unperceived, +mindful of lords deputies whose hands benignant had held of yore rich +advowsons. On Grattan bridge Lenehan and M'Coy, taking leave of each +other, watched the carriages go by. Passing by Roger Greene's office and +Dollard's big red printinghouse Gerty MacDowell, carrying the Catesby's +cork lino letters for her father who was laid up, knew by the style +it was the lord and lady lieutenant but she couldn't see what Her +Excellency had on because the tram and Spring's big yellow furniture van +had to stop in front of her on account of its being the lord lieutenant. +Beyond Lundy Foot's from the shaded door of Kavanagh's winerooms +John Wyse Nolan smiled with unseen coldness towards the lord +lieutenantgeneral and general governor of Ireland. The Right Honourable +William Humble, earl of Dudley, G. C. V. O., passed Micky Anderson's all +times ticking watches and Henry and James's wax smartsuited freshcheeked +models, the gentleman Henry, _dernier cri_ James. Over against Dame gate +Tom Rochford and Nosey Flynn watched the approach of the cavalcade. Tom +Rochford, seeing the eyes of lady Dudley fixed on him, took his thumbs +quickly out of the pockets of his claret waistcoat and doffed his cap to +her. A charming _soubrette,_ great Marie Kendall, with dauby cheeks and +lifted skirt smiled daubily from her poster upon William Humble, earl +of Dudley, and upon lieutenantcolonel H. G. Heseltine, and also upon +the honourable Gerald Ward A. D. C. From the window of the D. B. C. Buck +Mulligan gaily, and Haines gravely, gazed down on the viceregal equipage +over the shoulders of eager guests, whose mass of forms darkened the +chessboard whereon John Howard Parnell looked intently. In Fownes's +street Dilly Dedalus, straining her sight upward from Chardenal's first +French primer, saw sunshades spanned and wheelspokes spinning in the +glare. John Henry Menton, filling the doorway of Commercial Buildings, +stared from winebig oyster eyes, holding a fat gold hunter watch not +looked at in his fat left hand not feeling it. Where the foreleg of King +Billy's horse pawed the air Mrs Breen plucked her hastening husband +back from under the hoofs of the outriders. She shouted in his ear the +tidings. Understanding, he shifted his tomes to his left breast +and saluted the second carriage. The honourable Gerald Ward A.D.C., +agreeably surprised, made haste to reply. At Ponsonby's corner a jaded +white flagon H. halted and four tallhatted white flagons halted behind +him, E.L.Y'S, while outriders pranced past and carriages. Opposite +Pigott's music warerooms Mr Denis J Maginni, professor of dancing &c, +gaily apparelled, gravely walked, outpassed by a viceroy and unobserved. +By the provost's wall came jauntily Blazes Boylan, stepping in tan shoes +and socks with skyblue clocks to the refrain of _My girl's a Yorkshire +girl._ + +Blazes Boylan presented to the leaders' skyblue frontlets and high +action a skyblue tie, a widebrimmed straw hat at a rakish angle and a +suit of indigo serge. His hands in his jacket pockets forgot to salute +but he offered to the three ladies the bold admiration of his eyes and +the red flower between his lips. As they drove along Nassau street His +Excellency drew the attention of his bowing consort to the programme of +music which was being discoursed in College park. Unseen brazen highland +laddies blared and drumthumped after the _cortege_: + + _But though she's a factory lass + And wears no fancy clothes. + Baraabum. + Yet I've a sort of a + Yorkshire relish for + My little Yorkshire rose. + Baraabum._ + +Thither of the wall the quartermile flat handicappers, M. C. Green, H. +Shrift, T. M. Patey, C. Scaife, J. B. Jeffs, G. N. Morphy, F. Stevenson, +C. Adderly and W. C. Huggard, started in pursuit. Striding past Finn's +hotel Cashel Boyle O'Connor Fitzmaurice Tisdall Farrell stared through a +fierce eyeglass across the carriages at the head of Mr M. E. Solomons +in the window of the Austro-Hungarian viceconsulate. Deep in Leinster +street by Trinity's postern a loyal king's man, Hornblower, touched +his tallyho cap. As the glossy horses pranced by Merrion square Master +Patrick Aloysius Dignam, waiting, saw salutes being given to the gent +with the topper and raised also his new black cap with fingers greased +by porksteak paper. His collar too sprang up. The viceroy, on his way to +inaugurate the Mirus bazaar in aid of funds for Mercer's hospital, +drove with his following towards Lower Mount street. He passed a blind +stripling opposite Broadbent's. In Lower Mount street a pedestrian in a +brown macintosh, eating dry bread, passed swiftly and unscathed across +the viceroy's path. At the Royal Canal bridge, from his hoarding, +Mr Eugene Stratton, his blub lips agrin, bade all comers welcome to +Pembroke township. At Haddington road corner two sanded women halted +themselves, an umbrella and a bag in which eleven cockles rolled to view +with wonder the lord mayor and lady mayoress without his golden chain. +On Northumberland and Lansdowne roads His Excellency acknowledged +punctually salutes from rare male walkers, the salute of two small +schoolboys at the garden gate of the house said to have been admired +by the late queen when visiting the Irish capital with her husband, the +prince consort, in 1849 and the salute of Almidano Artifoni's sturdy +trousers swallowed by a closing door. + + + +Bronze by gold heard the hoofirons, steelyringing Imperthnthn thnthnthn. + +Chips, picking chips off rocky thumbnail, chips. + +Horrid! And gold flushed more. + +A husky fifenote blew. + +Blew. Blue bloom is on the. + +Goldpinnacled hair. + +A jumping rose on satiny breast of satin, rose of Castile. + +Trilling, trilling: Idolores. + +Peep! Who's in the... peepofgold? + +Tink cried to bronze in pity. + +And a call, pure, long and throbbing. Longindying call. + +Decoy. Soft word. But look: the bright stars fade. Notes chirruping +answer. + +O rose! Castile. The morn is breaking. + +Jingle jingle jaunted jingling. + +Coin rang. Clock clacked. + +Avowal. _Sonnez._ I could. Rebound of garter. Not leave thee. Smack. _La +cloche!_ Thigh smack. Avowal. Warm. Sweetheart, goodbye! + +Jingle. Bloo. + +Boomed crashing chords. When love absorbs. War! War! The tympanum. + +A sail! A veil awave upon the waves. + +Lost. Throstle fluted. All is lost now. + +Horn. Hawhorn. + +When first he saw. Alas! + +Full tup. Full throb. + +Warbling. Ah, lure! Alluring. + +Martha! Come! + +Clapclap. Clipclap. Clappyclap. + +Goodgod henev erheard inall. + +Deaf bald Pat brought pad knife took up. + +A moonlit nightcall: far, far. + +I feel so sad. P. S. So lonely blooming. + +Listen! + +The spiked and winding cold seahorn. Have you the? Each, and for other, +plash and silent roar. + +Pearls: when she. Liszt's rhapsodies. Hissss. + +You don't? + +Did not: no, no: believe: Lidlyd. With a cock with a carra. + +Black. Deepsounding. Do, Ben, do. + +Wait while you wait. Hee hee. Wait while you hee. + +But wait! + +Low in dark middle earth. Embedded ore. + +Naminedamine. Preacher is he: + +All gone. All fallen. + +Tiny, her tremulous fernfoils of maidenhair. + +Amen! He gnashed in fury. + +Fro. To, fro. A baton cool protruding. + +Bronzelydia by Minagold. + +By bronze, by gold, in oceangreen of shadow. Bloom. Old Bloom. + +One rapped, one tapped, with a carra, with a cock. + +Pray for him! Pray, good people! + +His gouty fingers nakkering. + +Big Benaben. Big Benben. + +Last rose Castile of summer left bloom I feel so sad alone. + +Pwee! Little wind piped wee. + +True men. Lid Ker Cow De and Doll. Ay, ay. Like you men. Will lift your +tschink with tschunk. + +Fff! Oo! + +Where bronze from anear? Where gold from afar? Where hoofs? + +Rrrpr. Kraa. Kraandl. + +Then not till then. My eppripfftaph. Be pfrwritt. + +Done. + +Begin! + +Bronze by gold, miss Douce's head by miss Kennedy's head, over the +crossblind of the Ormond bar heard the viceregal hoofs go by, ringing +steel. + +--Is that her? asked miss Kennedy. + +Miss Douce said yes, sitting with his ex, pearl grey and _eau de Nil._ + +--Exquisite contrast, miss Kennedy said. + +When all agog miss Douce said eagerly: + +--Look at the fellow in the tall silk. + +--Who? Where? gold asked more eagerly. + +--In the second carriage, miss Douce's wet lips said, laughing in the +sun. + +He's looking. Mind till I see. + +She darted, bronze, to the backmost corner, flattening her face against +the pane in a halo of hurried breath. + +Her wet lips tittered: + +--He's killed looking back. + +She laughed: + +--O wept! Aren't men frightful idiots? + +With sadness. + +Miss Kennedy sauntered sadly from bright light, twining a loose hair +behind an ear. Sauntering sadly, gold no more, she twisted twined a +hair. + +Sadly she twined in sauntering gold hair behind a curving ear. + +--It's them has the fine times, sadly then she said. + +A man. + +Bloowho went by by Moulang's pipes bearing in his breast the sweets +of sin, by Wine's antiques, in memory bearing sweet sinful words, by +Carroll's dusky battered plate, for Raoul. + +The boots to them, them in the bar, them barmaids came. For them +unheeding him he banged on the counter his tray of chattering china. And + +--There's your teas, he said. + +Miss Kennedy with manners transposed the teatray down to an upturned +lithia crate, safe from eyes, low. + +--What is it? loud boots unmannerly asked. + +--Find out, miss Douce retorted, leaving her spyingpoint. + +--Your _beau,_ is it? + +A haughty bronze replied: + +--I'll complain to Mrs de Massey on you if I hear any more of your +impertinent insolence. + +--Imperthnthn thnthnthn, bootssnout sniffed rudely, as he retreated as +she threatened as he had come. + +Bloom. + +On her flower frowning miss Douce said: + +--Most aggravating that young brat is. If he doesn't conduct himself +I'll wring his ear for him a yard long. + +Ladylike in exquisite contrast. + +--Take no notice, miss Kennedy rejoined. + +She poured in a teacup tea, then back in the teapot tea. They cowered +under their reef of counter, waiting on footstools, crates upturned, +waiting for their teas to draw. They pawed their blouses, both of black +satin, two and nine a yard, waiting for their teas to draw, and two and +seven. + +Yes, bronze from anear, by gold from afar, heard steel from anear, hoofs +ring from afar, and heard steelhoofs ringhoof ringsteel. + +--Am I awfully sunburnt? + +Miss bronze unbloused her neck. + +--No, said miss Kennedy. It gets brown after. Did you try the borax with +the cherry laurel water? + +Miss Douce halfstood to see her skin askance in the barmirror +gildedlettered where hock and claret glasses shimmered and in their +midst a shell. + +--And leave it to my hands, she said. + +--Try it with the glycerine, miss Kennedy advised. + +Bidding her neck and hands adieu miss Douce + +--Those things only bring out a rash, replied, reseated. I asked that +old fogey in Boyd's for something for my skin. + +Miss Kennedy, pouring now a fulldrawn tea, grimaced and prayed: + +--O, don't remind me of him for mercy' sake! + +--But wait till I tell you, miss Douce entreated. + +Sweet tea miss Kennedy having poured with milk plugged both two ears +with little fingers. + +--No, don't, she cried. + +--I won't listen, she cried. + +But Bloom? + +Miss Douce grunted in snuffy fogey's tone: + +--For your what? says he. + +Miss Kennedy unplugged her ears to hear, to speak: but said, but prayed +again: + +--Don't let me think of him or I'll expire. The hideous old wretch! That +night in the Antient Concert Rooms. + +She sipped distastefully her brew, hot tea, a sip, sipped, sweet tea. + +--Here he was, miss Douce said, cocking her bronze head three quarters, +ruffling her nosewings. Hufa! Hufa! + +Shrill shriek of laughter sprang from miss Kennedy's throat. Miss Douce +huffed and snorted down her nostrils that quivered imperthnthn like a +snout in quest. + +--O! shrieking, miss Kennedy cried. Will you ever forget his goggle eye? + +Miss Douce chimed in in deep bronze laughter, shouting: + +--And your other eye! + +Bloowhose dark eye read Aaron Figatner's name. Why do I always think +Figather? Gathering figs, I think. And Prosper Lore's huguenot name. +By Bassi's blessed virgins Bloom's dark eyes went by. Bluerobed, white +under, come to me. God they believe she is: or goddess. Those today. I +could not see. That fellow spoke. A student. After with Dedalus' son. +He might be Mulligan. All comely virgins. That brings those rakes of +fellows in: her white. + +By went his eyes. The sweets of sin. Sweet are the sweets. + +Of sin. + +In a giggling peal young goldbronze voices blended, Douce with Kennedy +your other eye. They threw young heads back, bronze gigglegold, to let +freefly their laughter, screaming, your other, signals to each other, +high piercing notes. + +Ah, panting, sighing, sighing, ah, fordone, their mirth died down. + +Miss Kennedy lipped her cup again, raised, drank a sip and +gigglegiggled. Miss Douce, bending over the teatray, ruffled again her +nose and rolled droll fattened eyes. Again Kennygiggles, stooping, +her fair pinnacles of hair, stooping, her tortoise napecomb showed, +spluttered out of her mouth her tea, choking in tea and laughter, +coughing with choking, crying: + +--O greasy eyes! Imagine being married to a man like that! she cried. +With his bit of beard! + +Douce gave full vent to a splendid yell, a full yell of full woman, +delight, joy, indignation. + +--Married to the greasy nose! she yelled. + +Shrill, with deep laughter, after, gold after bronze, they urged each +each to peal after peal, ringing in changes, bronzegold, goldbronze, +shrilldeep, to laughter after laughter. And then laughed more. Greasy I +knows. Exhausted, breathless, their shaken heads they laid, braided and +pinnacled by glossycombed, against the counterledge. All flushed (O!), +panting, sweating (O!), all breathless. + +Married to Bloom, to greaseabloom. + +--O saints above! miss Douce said, sighed above her jumping rose. I +wished + +I hadn't laughed so much. I feel all wet. + +--O, miss Douce! miss Kennedy protested. You horrid thing! + +And flushed yet more (you horrid!), more goldenly. + +By Cantwell's offices roved Greaseabloom, by Ceppi's virgins, bright of +their oils. Nannetti's father hawked those things about, wheedling at +doors as I. Religion pays. Must see him for that par. Eat first. I want. +Not yet. At four, she said. Time ever passing. Clockhands turning. On. +Where eat? The Clarence, Dolphin. On. For Raoul. Eat. If I net five +guineas with those ads. The violet silk petticoats. Not yet. The sweets +of sin. + +Flushed less, still less, goldenly paled. + +Into their bar strolled Mr Dedalus. Chips, picking chips off one of his +rocky thumbnails. Chips. He strolled. + +--O, welcome back, miss Douce. + +He held her hand. Enjoyed her holidays? + +--Tiptop. + +He hoped she had nice weather in Rostrevor. + +--Gorgeous, she said. Look at the holy show I am. Lying out on the +strand all day. + +Bronze whiteness. + +--That was exceedingly naughty of you, Mr Dedalus told her and pressed +her hand indulgently. Tempting poor simple males. + +Miss Douce of satin douced her arm away. + +--O go away! she said. You're very simple, I don't think. + +He was. + +--Well now I am, he mused. I looked so simple in the cradle they +christened me simple Simon. + +--You must have been a doaty, miss Douce made answer. And what did the +doctor order today? + +--Well now, he mused, whatever you say yourself. I think I'll trouble +you for some fresh water and a half glass of whisky. + +Jingle. + +--With the greatest alacrity, miss Douce agreed. + +With grace of alacrity towards the mirror gilt Cantrell and Cochrane's +she turned herself. With grace she tapped a measure of gold whisky from +her crystal keg. Forth from the skirt of his coat Mr Dedalus brought +pouch and pipe. Alacrity she served. He blew through the flue two husky +fifenotes. + +--By Jove, he mused, I often wanted to see the Mourne mountains. Must +be a great tonic in the air down there. But a long threatening comes at +last, they say. Yes. Yes. + +Yes. He fingered shreds of hair, her maidenhair, her mermaid's, into the +bowl. Chips. Shreds. Musing. Mute. + +None nought said nothing. Yes. + +Gaily miss Douce polished a tumbler, trilling: + +--_O, Idolores, queen of the eastern seas!_ + +--Was Mr Lidwell in today? + +In came Lenehan. Round him peered Lenehan. Mr Bloom reached Essex +bridge. Yes, Mr Bloom crossed bridge of Yessex. To Martha I must write. +Buy paper. Daly's. Girl there civil. Bloom. Old Bloom. Blue bloom is on +the rye. + +--He was in at lunchtime, miss Douce said. + +Lenehan came forward. + +--Was Mr Boylan looking for me? + +He asked. She answered: + +--Miss Kennedy, was Mr Boylan in while I was upstairs? + +She asked. Miss voice of Kennedy answered, a second teacup poised, her +gaze upon a page: + +--No. He was not. + +Miss gaze of Kennedy, heard, not seen, read on. Lenehan round the +sandwichbell wound his round body round. + +--Peep! Who's in the corner? + +No glance of Kennedy rewarding him he yet made overtures. To mind her +stops. To read only the black ones: round o and crooked ess. + +Jingle jaunty jingle. + +Girlgold she read and did not glance. Take no notice. She took no notice +while he read by rote a solfa fable for her, plappering flatly: + +--Ah fox met ah stork. Said thee fox too thee stork: Will you put your +bill down inn my troath and pull upp ah bone? + +He droned in vain. Miss Douce turned to her tea aside. + +He sighed aside: + +--Ah me! O my! + +He greeted Mr Dedalus and got a nod. + +--Greetings from the famous son of a famous father. + +--Who may he be? Mr Dedalus asked. + +Lenehan opened most genial arms. Who? + +--Who may he be? he asked. Can you ask? Stephen, the youthful bard. + +Dry. + +Mr Dedalus, famous father, laid by his dry filled pipe. + +--I see, he said. I didn't recognise him for the moment. I hear he is +keeping very select company. Have you seen him lately? + +He had. + +--I quaffed the nectarbowl with him this very day, said Lenehan. In +Mooney's _en ville_ and in Mooney's _sur mer._ He had received the rhino +for the labour of his muse. + +He smiled at bronze's teabathed lips, at listening lips and eyes: + +--The _elite_ of Erin hung upon his lips. The ponderous pundit, Hugh + +MacHugh, Dublin's most brilliant scribe and editor and that minstrel boy +of the wild wet west who is known by the euphonious appellation of the +O'Madden Burke. + +After an interval Mr Dedalus raised his grog and + +--That must have been highly diverting, said he. I see. + +He see. He drank. With faraway mourning mountain eye. Set down his +glass. + +He looked towards the saloon door. + +--I see you have moved the piano. + +--The tuner was in today, miss Douce replied, tuning it for the smoking +concert and I never heard such an exquisite player. + +--Is that a fact? + +--Didn't he, miss Kennedy? The real classical, you know. And blind too, +poor fellow. Not twenty I'm sure he was. + +--Is that a fact? Mr Dedalus said. + +He drank and strayed away. + +--So sad to look at his face, miss Douce condoled. + +God's curse on bitch's bastard. + +Tink to her pity cried a diner's bell. To the door of the bar and +diningroom came bald Pat, came bothered Pat, came Pat, waiter of Ormond. +Lager for diner. Lager without alacrity she served. + +With patience Lenehan waited for Boylan with impatience, for +jinglejaunty blazes boy. + +Upholding the lid he (who?) gazed in the coffin (coffin?) at the oblique +triple (piano!) wires. He pressed (the same who pressed indulgently her +hand), soft pedalling, a triple of keys to see the thicknesses of felt +advancing, to hear the muffled hammerfall in action. + +Two sheets cream vellum paper one reserve two envelopes when I was in +Wisdom Hely's wise Bloom in Daly's Henry Flower bought. Are you not +happy in your home? Flower to console me and a pin cuts lo. Means +something, language of flow. Was it a daisy? Innocence that is. +Respectable girl meet after mass. Thanks awfully muchly. Wise Bloom eyed +on the door a poster, a swaying mermaid smoking mid nice waves. Smoke +mermaids, coolest whiff of all. Hair streaming: lovelorn. For some man. +For Raoul. He eyed and saw afar on Essex bridge a gay hat riding on a +jaunting car. It is. Again. Third time. Coincidence. + +Jingling on supple rubbers it jaunted from the bridge to Ormond quay. +Follow. Risk it. Go quick. At four. Near now. Out. + +--Twopence, sir, the shopgirl dared to say. + +--Aha... I was forgetting... Excuse... + +--And four. + +At four she. Winsomely she on Bloohimwhom smiled. Bloo smi qui go. +Ternoon. Think you're the only pebble on the beach? Does that to all. + +For men. + +In drowsy silence gold bent on her page. + +From the saloon a call came, long in dying. That was a tuningfork the +tuner had that he forgot that he now struck. A call again. That he now +poised that it now throbbed. You hear? It throbbed, pure, purer, softly +and softlier, its buzzing prongs. Longer in dying call. + +Pat paid for diner's popcorked bottle: and over tumbler, tray and +popcorked bottle ere he went he whispered, bald and bothered, with miss + +Douce. + +--_The bright stars fade_... + +A voiceless song sang from within, singing: + +--... _the morn is breaking._ + +A duodene of birdnotes chirruped bright treble answer under sensitive +hands. Brightly the keys, all twinkling, linked, all harpsichording, +called to a voice to sing the strain of dewy morn, of youth, of love's +leavetaking, life's, love's morn. + +--_The dewdrops pearl_... + +Lenehan's lips over the counter lisped a low whistle of decoy. + +--But look this way, he said, rose of Castile. + +Jingle jaunted by the curb and stopped. + +She rose and closed her reading, rose of Castile: fretted, forlorn, +dreamily rose. + +--Did she fall or was she pushed? he asked her. + +She answered, slighting: + +--Ask no questions and you'll hear no lies. + +Like lady, ladylike. + +Blazes Boylan's smart tan shoes creaked on the barfloor where he strode. +Yes, gold from anear by bronze from afar. Lenehan heard and knew and +hailed him: + +--See the conquering hero comes. + +Between the car and window, warily walking, went Bloom, unconquered +hero. See me he might. The seat he sat on: warm. Black wary hecat walked +towards Richie Goulding's legal bag, lifted aloft, saluting. + +--_And I from thee_... + +--I heard you were round, said Blazes Boylan. + +He touched to fair miss Kennedy a rim of his slanted straw. She smiled +on him. But sister bronze outsmiled her, preening for him her richer +hair, a bosom and a rose. + +Smart Boylan bespoke potions. + +--What's your cry? Glass of bitter? Glass of bitter, please, and a +sloegin for me. Wire in yet? + +Not yet. At four she. Who said four? + +Cowley's red lugs and bulging apple in the door of the sheriff's office. + +Avoid. Goulding a chance. What is he doing in the Ormond? Car waiting. + +Wait. + +Hello. Where off to? Something to eat? I too was just. In here. What, +Ormond? Best value in Dublin. Is that so? Diningroom. Sit tight there. +See, not be seen. I think I'll join you. Come on. Richie led on. Bloom +followed bag. Dinner fit for a prince. + +Miss Douce reached high to take a flagon, stretching her satin arm, her +bust, that all but burst, so high. + +--O! O! jerked Lenehan, gasping at each stretch. O! + +But easily she seized her prey and led it low in triumph. + +--Why don't you grow? asked Blazes Boylan. + +Shebronze, dealing from her oblique jar thick syrupy liquor for his +lips, looked as it flowed (flower in his coat: who gave him?), and +syrupped with her voice: + +--Fine goods in small parcels. + +That is to say she. Neatly she poured slowsyrupy sloe. + +--Here's fortune, Blazes said. + +He pitched a broad coin down. Coin rang. + +--Hold on, said Lenehan, till I... + +--Fortune, he wished, lifting his bubbled ale. + +--Sceptre will win in a canter, he said. + +--I plunged a bit, said Boylan winking and drinking. Not on my own, you +know. Fancy of a friend of mine. + +Lenehan still drank and grinned at his tilted ale and at miss Douce's +lips that all but hummed, not shut, the oceansong her lips had trilled. + +Idolores. The eastern seas. + +Clock whirred. Miss Kennedy passed their way (flower, wonder who gave), +bearing away teatray. Clock clacked. + +Miss Douce took Boylan's coin, struck boldly the cashregister. It +clanged. Clock clacked. Fair one of Egypt teased and sorted in the till +and hummed and handed coins in change. Look to the west. A clack. For +me. + +--What time is that? asked Blazes Boylan. Four? + +O'clock. + +Lenehan, small eyes ahunger on her humming, bust ahumming, tugged Blazes +Boylan's elbowsleeve. + +--Let's hear the time, he said. + +The bag of Goulding, Collis, Ward led Bloom by ryebloom flowered tables. +Aimless he chose with agitated aim, bald Pat attending, a table near +the door. Be near. At four. Has he forgotten? Perhaps a trick. Not come: +whet appetite. I couldn't do. Wait, wait. Pat, waiter, waited. + +Sparkling bronze azure eyed Blazure's skyblue bow and eyes. + +--Go on, pressed Lenehan. There's no-one. He never heard. + +--... _to Flora's lips did hie._ + +High, a high note pealed in the treble clear. + +Bronzedouce communing with her rose that sank and rose sought + +Blazes Boylan's flower and eyes. + +--Please, please. + +He pleaded over returning phrases of avowal. + +--_I could not leave thee_... + +--Afterwits, miss Douce promised coyly. + +--No, now, urged Lenehan. _Sonnezlacloche!_ O do! There's no-one. + +She looked. Quick. Miss Kenn out of earshot. Sudden bent. Two kindling +faces watched her bend. + +Quavering the chords strayed from the air, found it again, lost chord, +and lost and found it, faltering. + +--Go on! Do! _Sonnez!_ + +Bending, she nipped a peak of skirt above her knee. Delayed. Taunted +them still, bending, suspending, with wilful eyes. + +_--Sonnez!_ + +Smack. She set free sudden in rebound her nipped elastic garter +smackwarm against her smackable a woman's warmhosed thigh. + +--_La Cloche!_ cried gleeful Lenehan. Trained by owner. No sawdust +there. + +She smilesmirked supercilious (wept! aren't men?), but, lightward +gliding, mild she smiled on Boylan. + +--You're the essence of vulgarity, she in gliding said. + +Boylan, eyed, eyed. Tossed to fat lips his chalice, drank off his +chalice tiny, sucking the last fat violet syrupy drops. His spellbound +eyes went after, after her gliding head as it went down the bar by +mirrors, gilded arch for ginger ale, hock and claret glasses shimmering, +a spiky shell, where it concerted, mirrored, bronze with sunnier bronze. + +Yes, bronze from anearby. + +--... _Sweetheart, goodbye!_ + +--I'm off, said Boylan with impatience. + +He slid his chalice brisk away, grasped his change. + +--Wait a shake, begged Lenehan, drinking quickly. I wanted to tell you. + +Tom Rochford... + +--Come on to blazes, said Blazes Boylan, going. + +Lenehan gulped to go. + +--Got the horn or what? he said. Wait. I'm coming. + +He followed the hasty creaking shoes but stood by nimbly by the +threshold, saluting forms, a bulky with a slender. + +--How do you do, Mr Dollard? + +--Eh? How do? How do? Ben Dollard's vague bass answered, turning an +instant from Father Cowley's woe. He won't give you any trouble, Bob. +Alf Bergan will speak to the long fellow. We'll put a barleystraw in +that Judas Iscariot's ear this time. + +Sighing Mr Dedalus came through the saloon, a finger soothing an eyelid. + +--Hoho, we will, Ben Dollard yodled jollily. Come on, Simon. Give us a +ditty. We heard the piano. + +Bald Pat, bothered waiter, waited for drink orders. Power for Richie. +And Bloom? Let me see. Not make him walk twice. His corns. Four now. How +warm this black is. Course nerves a bit. Refracts (is it?) heat. Let me +see. Cider. Yes, bottle of cider. + +--What's that? Mr Dedalus said. I was only vamping, man. + +--Come on, come on, Ben Dollard called. Begone dull care. Come, Bob. + +He ambled Dollard, bulky slops, before them (hold that fellow with the: +hold him now) into the saloon. He plumped him Dollard on the stool. His +gouty paws plumped chords. Plumped, stopped abrupt. + +Bald Pat in the doorway met tealess gold returning. Bothered, he wanted +Power and cider. Bronze by the window, watched, bronze from afar. + +Jingle a tinkle jaunted. + +Bloom heard a jing, a little sound. He's off. Light sob of breath Bloom +sighed on the silent bluehued flowers. Jingling. He's gone. Jingle. +Hear. + +--Love and War, Ben, Mr Dedalus said. God be with old times. + +Miss Douce's brave eyes, unregarded, turned from the crossblind, smitten +by sunlight. Gone. Pensive (who knows?), smitten (the smiting light), +she lowered the dropblind with a sliding cord. She drew down pensive +(why did he go so quick when I?) about her bronze, over the bar where +bald stood by sister gold, inexquisite contrast, contrast inexquisite +nonexquisite, slow cool dim seagreen sliding depth of shadow, _eau de +Nil._ + +--Poor old Goodwin was the pianist that night, Father Cowley reminded +them. There was a slight difference of opinion between himself and the +Collard grand. + +There was. + +--A symposium all his own, Mr Dedalus said. The devil wouldn't stop him. +He was a crotchety old fellow in the primary stage of drink. + +--God, do you remember? Ben bulky Dollard said, turning from the +punished keyboard. And by Japers I had no wedding garment. + +They laughed all three. He had no wed. All trio laughed. No wedding +garment. + +--Our friend Bloom turned in handy that night, Mr Dedalus said. Where's +my pipe, by the way? + +He wandered back to the bar to the lost chord pipe. Bald Pat carried two +diners' drinks, Richie and Poldy. And Father Cowley laughed again. + +--I saved the situation, Ben, I think. + +--You did, averred Ben Dollard. I remember those tight trousers too. +That was a brilliant idea, Bob. + +Father Cowley blushed to his brilliant purply lobes. He saved the situa. +Tight trou. Brilliant ide. + +--I knew he was on the rocks, he said. The wife was playing the piano in +the coffee palace on Saturdays for a very trifling consideration and +who was it gave me the wheeze she was doing the other business? Do you +remember? We had to search all Holles street to find them till the +chap in Keogh's gave us the number. Remember? Ben remembered, his broad +visage wondering. + +--By God, she had some luxurious operacloaks and things there. + +Mr Dedalus wandered back, pipe in hand. + +--Merrion square style. Balldresses, by God, and court dresses. He +wouldn't take any money either. What? Any God's quantity of cocked hats +and boleros and trunkhose. What? + +--Ay, ay, Mr Dedalus nodded. Mrs Marion Bloom has left off clothes of +all descriptions. + +Jingle jaunted down the quays. Blazes sprawled on bounding tyres. + +Liver and bacon. Steak and kidney pie. Right, sir. Right, Pat. + +Mrs Marion. Met him pike hoses. Smell of burn. Of Paul de Kock. Nice +name he. + +--What's this her name was? A buxom lassy. Marion... + +--Tweedy. + +--Yes. Is she alive? + +--And kicking. + +--She was a daughter of... + +--Daughter of the regiment. + +--Yes, begad. I remember the old drummajor. + +Mr Dedalus struck, whizzed, lit, puffed savoury puff after + +--Irish? I don't know, faith. Is she, Simon? + +Puff after stiff, a puff, strong, savoury, crackling. + +--Buccinator muscle is... What?... Bit rusty... O, she is... My +Irish Molly, O. + +He puffed a pungent plumy blast. + +--From the rock of Gibraltar... all the way. + +They pined in depth of ocean shadow, gold by the beerpull, bronze +by maraschino, thoughtful all two. Mina Kennedy, 4 Lismore terrace, +Drumcondra with Idolores, a queen, Dolores, silent. + +Pat served, uncovered dishes. Leopold cut liverslices. As said before he +ate with relish the inner organs, nutty gizzards, fried cods' roes while +Richie Goulding, Collis, Ward ate steak and kidney, steak then kidney, +bite by bite of pie he ate Bloom ate they ate. + +Bloom with Goulding, married in silence, ate. Dinners fit for princes. + +By Bachelor's walk jogjaunty jingled Blazes Boylan, bachelor, in sun in +heat, mare's glossy rump atrot, with flick of whip, on bounding tyres: +sprawled, warmseated, Boylan impatience, ardentbold. Horn. Have you the? +Horn. Have you the? Haw haw horn. + +Over their voices Dollard bassooned attack, booming over bombarding +chords: + +--_When love absorbs my ardent soul_... + +Roll of Bensoulbenjamin rolled to the quivery loveshivery roofpanes. + +--War! War! cried Father Cowley. You're the warrior. + +--So I am, Ben Warrior laughed. I was thinking of your landlord. Love or +money. + +He stopped. He wagged huge beard, huge face over his blunder huge. + +--Sure, you'd burst the tympanum of her ear, man, Mr Dedalus said +through smoke aroma, with an organ like yours. + +In bearded abundant laughter Dollard shook upon the keyboard. He would. + +--Not to mention another membrane, Father Cowley added. Half time, Ben. +_Amoroso ma non troppo._ Let me there. + +Miss Kennedy served two gentlemen with tankards of cool stout. She +passed a remark. It was indeed, first gentleman said, beautiful weather. +They drank cool stout. Did she know where the lord lieutenant was going? +And heard steelhoofs ringhoof ring. No, she couldn't say. But it would +be in the paper. O, she need not trouble. No trouble. She waved about +her outspread _Independent,_ searching, the lord lieutenant, her +pinnacles of hair slowmoving, lord lieuten. Too much trouble, +first gentleman said. O, not in the least. Way he looked that. Lord +lieutenant. Gold by bronze heard iron steel. + + --............ _my ardent soul_ + _I care not foror the morrow._ + +In liver gravy Bloom mashed mashed potatoes. Love and War someone is. +Ben Dollard's famous. Night he ran round to us to borrow a dress suit +for that concert. Trousers tight as a drum on him. Musical porkers. +Molly did laugh when he went out. Threw herself back across the bed, +screaming, kicking. With all his belongings on show. O saints above, +I'm drenched! O, the women in the front row! O, I never laughed so many! +Well, of course that's what gives him the base barreltone. For instance +eunuchs. Wonder who's playing. Nice touch. Must be Cowley. Musical. +Knows whatever note you play. Bad breath he has, poor chap. Stopped. + +Miss Douce, engaging, Lydia Douce, bowed to suave solicitor, George +Lidwell, gentleman, entering. Good afternoon. She gave her moist (a +lady's) hand to his firm clasp. Afternoon. Yes, she was back. To the old +dingdong again. + +--Your friends are inside, Mr Lidwell. + +George Lidwell, suave, solicited, held a lydiahand. + +Bloom ate liv as said before. Clean here at least. That chap in the +Burton, gummy with gristle. No-one here: Goulding and I. Clean tables, +flowers, mitres of napkins. Pat to and fro. Bald Pat. Nothing to do. +Best value in Dub. + +Piano again. Cowley it is. Way he sits in to it, like one together, +mutual understanding. Tiresome shapers scraping fiddles, eye on the +bowend, sawing the cello, remind you of toothache. Her high long snore. +Night we were in the box. Trombone under blowing like a grampus, between +the acts, other brass chap unscrewing, emptying spittle. Conductor's +legs too, bagstrousers, jiggedy jiggedy. Do right to hide them. + +Jiggedy jingle jaunty jaunty. + +Only the harp. Lovely. Gold glowering light. Girl touched it. Poop of a +lovely. Gravy's rather good fit for a. Golden ship. Erin. The harp that +once or twice. Cool hands. Ben Howth, the rhododendrons. We are their +harps. I. He. Old. Young. + +--Ah, I couldn't, man, Mr Dedalus said, shy, listless. + +Strongly. + +--Go on, blast you! Ben Dollard growled. Get it out in bits. + +--_M'appari,_ Simon, Father Cowley said. + +Down stage he strode some paces, grave, tall in affliction, his long +arms outheld. Hoarsely the apple of his throat hoarsed softly. Softly he +sang to a dusty seascape there: _A Last Farewell._ A headland, a ship, a +sail upon the billows. Farewell. A lovely girl, her veil awave upon the +wind upon the headland, wind around her. + +Cowley sang: + + _--M'appari tutt'amor: + Il mio sguardo l'incontr..._ + +She waved, unhearing Cowley, her veil, to one departing, dear one, to +wind, love, speeding sail, return. + +--Go on, Simon. + +--Ah, sure, my dancing days are done, Ben... Well... + +Mr Dedalus laid his pipe to rest beside the tuningfork and, sitting, +touched the obedient keys. + +--No, Simon, Father Cowley turned. Play it in the original. One flat. + +The keys, obedient, rose higher, told, faltered, confessed, confused. + +Up stage strode Father Cowley. + +--Here, Simon, I'll accompany you, he said. Get up. + +By Graham Lemon's pineapple rock, by Elvery's elephant jingly jogged. +Steak, kidney, liver, mashed, at meat fit for princes sat princes Bloom +and Goulding. Princes at meat they raised and drank, Power and cider. + +Most beautiful tenor air ever written, Richie said: _Sonnambula._ He +heard Joe Maas sing that one night. Ah, what M'Guckin! Yes. In his way. +Choirboy style. Maas was the boy. Massboy. A lyrical tenor if you like. +Never forget it. Never. + +Tenderly Bloom over liverless bacon saw the tightened features strain. +Backache he. Bright's bright eye. Next item on the programme. Paying the +piper. Pills, pounded bread, worth a guinea a box. Stave it off awhile. +Sings too: _Down among the dead men._ Appropriate. Kidney pie. Sweets to +the. Not making much hand of it. Best value in. Characteristic of him. +Power. Particular about his drink. Flaw in the glass, fresh Vartry +water. Fecking matches from counters to save. Then squander a sovereign +in dribs and drabs. And when he's wanted not a farthing. Screwed +refusing to pay his fare. Curious types. + +Never would Richie forget that night. As long as he lived: never. In the +gods of the old Royal with little Peake. And when the first note. + +Speech paused on Richie's lips. + +Coming out with a whopper now. Rhapsodies about damn all. + +Believes his own lies. Does really. Wonderful liar. But want a good +memory. + +--Which air is that? asked Leopold Bloom. + +--_All is lost now_. + +Richie cocked his lips apout. A low incipient note sweet banshee +murmured: all. A thrush. A throstle. His breath, birdsweet, good teeth +he's proud of, fluted with plaintive woe. Is lost. Rich sound. Two +notes in one there. Blackbird I heard in the hawthorn valley. Taking my +motives he twined and turned them. All most too new call is lost in all. +Echo. How sweet the answer. How is that done? All lost now. Mournful he +whistled. Fall, surrender, lost. + +Bloom bent leopold ear, turning a fringe of doyley down under the vase. +Order. Yes, I remember. Lovely air. In sleep she went to him. Innocence +in the moon. Brave. Don't know their danger. Still hold her back. Call +name. Touch water. Jingle jaunty. Too late. She longed to go. That's +why. Woman. As easy stop the sea. Yes: all is lost. + +--A beautiful air, said Bloom lost Leopold. I know it well. + +Never in all his life had Richie Goulding. + +He knows it well too. Or he feels. Still harping on his daughter. Wise +child that knows her father, Dedalus said. Me? + +Bloom askance over liverless saw. Face of the all is lost. Rollicking +Richie once. Jokes old stale now. Wagging his ear. Napkinring in his +eye. Now begging letters he sends his son with. Crosseyed Walter sir I +did sir. Wouldn't trouble only I was expecting some money. Apologise. + +Piano again. Sounds better than last time I heard. Tuned probably. +Stopped again. + +Dollard and Cowley still urged the lingering singer out with it. + +--With it, Simon. + +--It, Simon. + +--Ladies and gentlemen, I am most deeply obliged by your kind +solicitations. + +--It, Simon. + +--I have no money but if you will lend me your attention I shall +endeavour to sing to you of a heart bowed down. + +By the sandwichbell in screening shadow Lydia, her bronze and rose, a +lady's grace, gave and withheld: as in cool glaucous _eau de Nil_ Mina +to tankards two her pinnacles of gold. + +The harping chords of prelude closed. A chord, longdrawn, expectant, +drew a voice away. + +--_When first I saw that form endearing_... + +Richie turned. + +--Si Dedalus' voice, he said. + +Braintipped, cheek touched with flame, they listened feeling that flow +endearing flow over skin limbs human heart soul spine. Bloom signed to +Pat, bald Pat is a waiter hard of hearing, to set ajar the door of the +bar. The door of the bar. So. That will do. Pat, waiter, waited, waiting +to hear, for he was hard of hear by the door. + +--_Sorrow from me seemed to depart._ + +Through the hush of air a voice sang to them, low, not rain, not leaves +in murmur, like no voice of strings or reeds or whatdoyoucallthem +dulcimers touching their still ears with words, still hearts of their +each his remembered lives. Good, good to hear: sorrow from them each +seemed to from both depart when first they heard. When first they saw, +lost Richie Poldy, mercy of beauty, heard from a person wouldn't expect +it in the least, her first merciful lovesoft oftloved word. + +Love that is singing: love's old sweet song. Bloom unwound slowly the +elastic band of his packet. Love's old sweet _sonnez la_ gold. Bloom +wound a skein round four forkfingers, stretched it, relaxed, and wound +it round his troubled double, fourfold, in octave, gyved them fast. + +--_Full of hope and all delighted_... + +Tenors get women by the score. Increase their flow. Throw flower at his +feet. When will we meet? My head it simply. Jingle all delighted. He +can't sing for tall hats. Your head it simply swurls. Perfumed for him. +What perfume does your wife? I want to know. Jing. Stop. Knock. Last +look at mirror always before she answers the door. The hall. There? How +do you? I do well. There? What? Or? Phial of cachous, kissing comfits, +in her satchel. Yes? Hands felt for the opulent. + +Alas the voice rose, sighing, changed: loud, full, shining, proud. + +--_But alas, 'twas idle dreaming_... + +Glorious tone he has still. Cork air softer also their brogue. Silly +man! Could have made oceans of money. Singing wrong words. Wore out +his wife: now sings. But hard to tell. Only the two themselves. If he +doesn't break down. Keep a trot for the avenue. His hands and feet sing +too. Drink. Nerves overstrung. Must be abstemious to sing. Jenny Lind +soup: stock, sage, raw eggs, half pint of cream. For creamy dreamy. + +Tenderness it welled: slow, swelling, full it throbbed. That's the chat. +Ha, give! Take! Throb, a throb, a pulsing proud erect. + +Words? Music? No: it's what's behind. + +Bloom looped, unlooped, noded, disnoded. + +Bloom. Flood of warm jamjam lickitup secretness flowed to flow in music +out, in desire, dark to lick flow invading. Tipping her tepping her +tapping her topping her. Tup. Pores to dilate dilating. Tup. The joy +the feel the warm the. Tup. To pour o'er sluices pouring gushes. Flood, +gush, flow, joygush, tupthrob. Now! Language of love. + +--... _ray of hope is_... + +Beaming. Lydia for Lidwell squeak scarcely hear so ladylike the muse +unsqueaked a ray of hopk. + +_Martha_ it is. Coincidence. Just going to write. Lionel's song. +Lovely name you have. Can't write. Accept my little pres. Play on her +heartstrings pursestrings too. She's a. I called you naughty boy. Still +the name: Martha. How strange! Today. + +The voice of Lionel returned, weaker but unwearied. It sang again to +Richie Poldy Lydia Lidwell also sang to Pat open mouth ear waiting to +wait. How first he saw that form endearing, how sorrow seemed to part, +how look, form, word charmed him Gould Lidwell, won Pat Bloom's heart. + +Wish I could see his face, though. Explain better. Why the barber in +Drago's always looked my face when I spoke his face in the glass. Still +hear it better here than in the bar though farther. + +--_Each graceful look_... + +First night when first I saw her at Mat Dillon's in Terenure. Yellow, +black lace she wore. Musical chairs. We two the last. Fate. After her. +Fate. + +Round and round slow. Quick round. We two. All looked. Halt. Down she +sat. All ousted looked. Lips laughing. Yellow knees. + +--_Charmed my eye_... + +Singing. _Waiting_ she sang. I turned her music. Full voice of perfume +of what perfume does your lilactrees. Bosom I saw, both full, throat +warbling. First I saw. She thanked me. Why did she me? Fate. Spanishy +eyes. Under a peartree alone patio this hour in old Madrid one side in +shadow Dolores shedolores. At me. Luring. Ah, alluring. + +--_Martha! Ah, Martha!_ + +Quitting all languor Lionel cried in grief, in cry of passion dominant +to love to return with deepening yet with rising chords of harmony. In +cry of lionel loneliness that she should know, must martha feel. For +only her he waited. Where? Here there try there here all try where. +Somewhere. + + --_Co-ome, thou lost one! + Co-ome, thou dear one!_ + +Alone. One love. One hope. One comfort me. Martha, chestnote, return! + +_--Come!_ + +It soared, a bird, it held its flight, a swift pure cry, soar silver orb +it leaped serene, speeding, sustained, to come, don't spin it out too +long long breath he breath long life, soaring high, high resplendent, +aflame, crowned, high in the effulgence symbolistic, high, of the +etherial bosom, high, of the high vast irradiation everywhere all +soaring all around about the all, the endlessnessnessness... + +--_To me!_ + +Siopold! + +Consumed. + +Come. Well sung. All clapped. She ought to. Come. To me, to him, to her, +you too, me, us. + +--Bravo! Clapclap. Good man, Simon. Clappyclapclap. Encore! Clapclipclap +clap. Sound as a bell. Bravo, Simon! Clapclopclap. Encore, enclap, said, +cried, clapped all, Ben Dollard, Lydia Douce, George Lidwell, Pat, Mina +Kennedy, two gentlemen with two tankards, Cowley, first gent with tank +and bronze miss Douce and gold MJiss Mina. + +Blazes Boylan's smart tan shoes creaked on the barfloor, said before. +Jingle by monuments of sir John Gray, Horatio onehandled Nelson, +reverend father Theobald Mathew, jaunted, as said before just now. +Atrot, in heat, heatseated. _Cloche. Sonnez la. Cloche. Sonnez la._ +Slower the mare went up the hill by the Rotunda, Rutland square. Too +slow for Boylan, blazes Boylan, impatience Boylan, joggled the mare. + +An afterclang of Cowley's chords closed, died on the air made richer. + +And Richie Goulding drank his Power and Leopold Bloom his cider drank, +Lidwell his Guinness, second gentleman said they would partake of two +more tankards if she did not mind. Miss Kennedy smirked, disserving, +coral lips, at first, at second. She did not mind. + +--Seven days in jail, Ben Dollard said, on bread and water. Then you'd +sing, Simon, like a garden thrush. + +Lionel Simon, singer, laughed. Father Bob Cowley played. Mina Kennedy +served. Second gentleman paid. Tom Kernan strutted in. Lydia, admired, +admired. But Bloom sang dumb. + +Admiring. + +Richie, admiring, descanted on that man's glorious voice. He remembered +one night long ago. Never forget that night. Si sang _'Twas rank and +fame_: in Ned Lambert's 'twas. Good God he never heard in all his life a +note like that he never did _then false one we had better part_ so clear +so God he never heard _since love lives not_ a clinking voice lives not +ask Lambert he can tell you too. + +Goulding, a flush struggling in his pale, told Mr Bloom, face of the +night, Si in Ned Lambert's, Dedalus house, sang _'Twas rank and fame._ + +He, Mr Bloom, listened while he, Richie Goulding, told him, Mr Bloom, of +the night he, Richie, heard him, Si Dedalus, sing 'TWAS RANK AND FAME in +his, Ned Lambert's, house. + +Brothers-in-law: relations. We never speak as we pass by. Rift in the +lute I think. Treats him with scorn. See. He admires him all the more. +The night Si sang. The human voice, two tiny silky chords, wonderful, +more than all others. + +That voice was a lamentation. Calmer now. It's in the silence after you +feel you hear. Vibrations. Now silent air. + +Bloom ungyved his crisscrossed hands and with slack fingers plucked the +slender catgut thong. He drew and plucked. It buzz, it twanged. While +Goulding talked of Barraclough's voice production, while Tom Kernan, +harking back in a retrospective sort of arrangement talked to listening +Father Cowley, who played a voluntary, who nodded as he played. While +big Ben Dollard talked with Simon Dedalus, lighting, who nodded as he +smoked, who smoked. + +Thou lost one. All songs on that theme. Yet more Bloom stretched his +string. Cruel it seems. Let people get fond of each other: lure them on. +Then tear asunder. Death. Explos. Knock on the head. Outtohelloutofthat. +Human life. Dignam. Ugh, that rat's tail wriggling! Five bob I gave. +_Corpus paradisum._ Corncrake croaker: belly like a poisoned pup. Gone. +They sing. Forgotten. I too; And one day she with. Leave her: get +tired. Suffer then. Snivel. Big spanishy eyes goggling at nothing. Her +wavyavyeavyheavyeavyevyevyhair un comb:'d. + +Yet too much happy bores. He stretched more, more. Are you not happy in +your? Twang. It snapped. + +Jingle into Dorset street. + +Miss Douce withdrew her satiny arm, reproachful, pleased. + +--Don't make half so free, said she, till we are better acquainted. + +George Lidwell told her really and truly: but she did not believe. + +First gentleman told Mina that was so. She asked him was that so. And +second tankard told her so. That that was so. + +Miss Douce, miss Lydia, did not believe: miss Kennedy, Mina, did not +believe: George Lidwell, no: miss Dou did not: the first, the first: +gent with the tank: believe, no, no: did not, miss Kenn: Lidlydiawell: +the tank. + +Better write it here. Quills in the postoffice chewed and twisted. + +Bald Pat at a sign drew nigh. A pen and ink. He went. A pad. He went. A +pad to blot. He heard, deaf Pat. + +--Yes, Mr Bloom said, teasing the curling catgut line. It certainly is. +Few lines will do. My present. All that Italian florid music is. Who +is this wrote? Know the name you know better. Take out sheet notepaper, +envelope: unconcerned. It's so characteristic. + +--Grandest number in the whole opera, Goulding said. + +--It is, Bloom said. + +Numbers it is. All music when you come to think. Two multiplied by two +divided by half is twice one. Vibrations: chords those are. One plus two +plus six is seven. Do anything you like with figures juggling. Always +find out this equal to that. Symmetry under a cemetery wall. He doesn't +see my mourning. Callous: all for his own gut. Musemathematics. And you +think you're listening to the etherial. But suppose you said it like: +Martha, seven times nine minus x is thirtyfive thousand. Fall quite +flat. It's on account of the sounds it is. + +Instance he's playing now. Improvising. Might be what you like, till you +hear the words. Want to listen sharp. Hard. Begin all right: then hear +chords a bit off: feel lost a bit. In and out of sacks, over barrels, +through wirefences, obstacle race. Time makes the tune. Question of mood +you're in. Still always nice to hear. Except scales up and down, girls +learning. Two together nextdoor neighbours. Ought to invent dummy pianos +for that. _Blumenlied_ I bought for her. The name. Playing it slow, +a girl, night I came home, the girl. Door of the stables near Cecilia +street. Milly no taste. Queer because we both, I mean. + +Bald deaf Pat brought quite flat pad ink. Pat set with ink pen quite +flat pad. Pat took plate dish knife fork. Pat went. + +It was the only language Mr Dedalus said to Ben. He heard them as a +boy in Ringabella, Crosshaven, Ringabella, singing their barcaroles. +Queenstown harbour full of Italian ships. Walking, you know, Ben, in the +moonlight with those earthquake hats. Blending their voices. God, such +music, Ben. Heard as a boy. Cross Ringabella haven mooncarole. + +Sour pipe removed he held a shield of hand beside his lips that cooed a +moonlight nightcall, clear from anear, a call from afar, replying. + +Down the edge of his _Freeman_ baton ranged Bloom's, your other eye, +scanning for where did I see that. Callan, Coleman, Dignam Patrick. +Heigho! Heigho! Fawcett. Aha! Just I was looking... + +Hope he's not looking, cute as a rat. He held unfurled his _Freeman._ +Can't see now. Remember write Greek ees. Bloom dipped, Bloo mur: dear +sir. Dear Henry wrote: dear Mady. Got your lett and flow. Hell did I +put? Some pock or oth. It is utterl imposs. Underline _imposs._ To write +today. + +Bore this. Bored Bloom tambourined gently with I am just reflecting +fingers on flat pad Pat brought. + +On. Know what I mean. No, change that ee. Accep my poor litt pres +enclos. Ask her no answ. Hold on. Five Dig. Two about here. Penny the +gulls. Elijah is com. Seven Davy Byrne's. Is eight about. Say half a +crown. My poor little pres: p. o. two and six. Write me a long. Do you +despise? Jingle, have you the? So excited. Why do you call me naught? +You naughty too? O, Mairy lost the string of her. Bye for today. Yes, +yes, will tell you. Want to. To keep it up. Call me that other. Other +world she wrote. My patience are exhaust. To keep it up. You must +believe. Believe. The tank. It. Is. True. + +Folly am I writing? Husbands don't. That's marriage does, their wives. +Because I'm away from. Suppose. But how? She must. Keep young. If she +found out. Card in my high grade ha. No, not tell all. Useless pain. If +they don't see. Woman. Sauce for the gander. + +A hackney car, number three hundred and twentyfour, driver Barton James +of number one Harmony avenue, Donnybrook, on which sat a fare, a young +gentleman, stylishly dressed in an indigoblue serge suit made by George +Robert Mesias, tailor and cutter, of number five Eden quay, and wearing +a straw hat very dressy, bought of John Plasto of number one Great +Brunswick street, hatter. Eh? This is the jingle that joggled and +jingled. By Dlugacz' porkshop bright tubes of Agendath trotted a +gallantbuttocked mare. + +--Answering an ad? keen Richie's eyes asked Bloom. + +--Yes, Mr Bloom said. Town traveller. Nothing doing, I expect. + +Bloom mur: best references. But Henry wrote: it will excite me. You +know how. In haste. Henry. Greek ee. Better add postscript. What is he +playing now? Improvising. Intermezzo. P. S. The rum tum tum. How will +you pun? You punish me? Crooked skirt swinging, whack by. Tell me I want +to. Know. O. Course if I didn't I wouldn't ask. La la la ree. Trails off +there sad in minor. Why minor sad? Sign H. They like sad tail at end. P. +P. S. La la la ree. I feel so sad today. La ree. So lonely. Dee. + +He blotted quick on pad of Pat. Envel. Address. Just copy out of paper. +Murmured: Messrs Callan, Coleman and Co, limited. Henry wrote: + +Miss Martha Clifford c/o P. O. Dolphin's Barn Lane Dublin + +Blot over the other so he can't read. There. Right. Idea prize titbit. +Something detective read off blottingpad. Payment at the rate of guinea +per col. Matcham often thinks the laughing witch. Poor Mrs Purefoy. U. +P: up. + +Too poetical that about the sad. Music did that. Music hath charms. +Shakespeare said. Quotations every day in the year. To be or not to be. +Wisdom while you wait. + +In Gerard's rosery of Fetter lane he walks, greyedauburn. One life is +all. One body. Do. But do. + +Done anyhow. Postal order, stamp. Postoffice lower down. Walk now. +Enough. Barney Kiernan's I promised to meet them. Dislike that job. + +House of mourning. Walk. Pat! Doesn't hear. Deaf beetle he is. + +Car near there now. Talk. Talk. Pat! Doesn't. Settling those napkins. +Lot of ground he must cover in the day. Paint face behind on him then +he'd be two. Wish they'd sing more. Keep my mind off. + +Bald Pat who is bothered mitred the napkins. Pat is a waiter hard of his +hearing. Pat is a waiter who waits while you wait. Hee hee hee hee. He +waits while you wait. Hee hee. A waiter is he. Hee hee hee hee. He waits +while you wait. While you wait if you wait he will wait while you wait. +Hee hee hee hee. Hoh. Wait while you wait. + +Douce now. Douce Lydia. Bronze and rose. + +She had a gorgeous, simply gorgeous, time. And look at the lovely shell +she brought. + +To the end of the bar to him she bore lightly the spiked and winding +seahorn that he, George Lidwell, solicitor, might hear. + +--Listen! she bade him. + +Under Tom Kernan's ginhot words the accompanist wove music slow. +Authentic fact. How Walter Bapty lost his voice. Well, sir, the husband +took him by the throat. _Scoundrel,_ said he, _You'll sing no more +lovesongs._ He did, faith, sir Tom. Bob Cowley wove. Tenors get wom. +Cowley lay back. + +Ah, now he heard, she holding it to his ear. Hear! He heard. + +Wonderful. She held it to her own. And through the sifted light pale +gold in contrast glided. To hear. + +Tap. + +Bloom through the bardoor saw a shell held at their ears. He heard more +faintly that that they heard, each for herself alone, then each for +other, hearing the plash of waves, loudly, a silent roar. + +Bronze by a weary gold, anear, afar, they listened. + +Her ear too is a shell, the peeping lobe there. Been to the seaside. +Lovely seaside girls. Skin tanned raw. Should have put on coldcream +first make it brown. Buttered toast. O and that lotion mustn't forget. +Fever near her mouth. Your head it simply. Hair braided over: shell with +seaweed. Why do they hide their ears with seaweed hair? And Turks the +mouth, why? Her eyes over the sheet. Yashmak. Find the way in. A cave. +No admittance except on business. + +The sea they think they hear. Singing. A roar. The blood it is. Souse in +the ear sometimes. Well, it's a sea. Corpuscle islands. + +Wonderful really. So distinct. Again. George Lidwell held its murmur, +hearing: then laid it by, gently. + +--What are the wild waves saying? he asked her, smiled. + +Charming, seasmiling and unanswering Lydia on Lidwell smiled. + +Tap. + +By Larry O'Rourke's, by Larry, bold Larry O', Boylan swayed and Boylan +turned. + +From the forsaken shell miss Mina glided to her tankards waiting. No, +she was not so lonely archly miss Douce's head let Mr Lidwell know. +Walks in the moonlight by the sea. No, not alone. With whom? She nobly +answered: with a gentleman friend. + +Bob Cowley's twinkling fingers in the treble played again. The landlord +has the prior. A little time. Long John. Big Ben. Lightly he played a +light bright tinkling measure for tripping ladies, arch and smiling, +and for their gallants, gentlemen friends. One: one, one, one, one, one: +two, one, three, four. + +Sea, wind, leaves, thunder, waters, cows lowing, the cattlemarket, +cocks, hens don't crow, snakes hissss. There's music everywhere. +Ruttledge's door: ee creaking. No, that's noise. Minuet of _Don +Giovanni_ he's playing now. Court dresses of all descriptions in castle +chambers dancing. Misery. Peasants outside. Green starving faces eating +dockleaves. Nice that is. Look: look, look, look, look, look: you look +at us. + +That's joyful I can feel. Never have written it. Why? My joy is other +joy. But both are joys. Yes, joy it must be. Mere fact of music shows +you are. Often thought she was in the dumps till she began to lilt. Then +know. + +M'Coy valise. My wife and your wife. Squealing cat. Like tearing silk. +Tongue when she talks like the clapper of a bellows. They can't manage +men's intervals. Gap in their voices too. Fill me. I'm warm, dark, open. +Molly in _quis est homo_: Mercadante. My ear against the wall to hear. +Want a woman who can deliver the goods. + +Jog jig jogged stopped. Dandy tan shoe of dandy Boylan socks skyblue +clocks came light to earth. + +O, look we are so! Chamber music. Could make a kind of pun on that. +It is a kind of music I often thought when she. Acoustics that is. +Tinkling. Empty vessels make most noise. Because the acoustics, the +resonance changes according as the weight of the water is equal to +the law of falling water. Like those rhapsodies of Liszt's, Hungarian, +gipsyeyed. Pearls. Drops. Rain. Diddleiddle addleaddle ooddleooddle. +Hissss. Now. Maybe now. Before. + +One rapped on a door, one tapped with a knock, did he knock Paul de Kock +with a loud proud knocker with a cock carracarracarra cock. Cockcock. + +Tap. + +--_Qui sdegno,_ Ben, said Father Cowley. + +--No, Ben, Tom Kernan interfered. _The Croppy Boy._ Our native Doric. + +--Ay do, Ben, Mr Dedalus said. Good men and true. + +--Do, do, they begged in one. + +I'll go. Here, Pat, return. Come. He came, he came, he did not stay. To +me. How much? + +--What key? Six sharps? + +--F sharp major, Ben Dollard said. + +Bob Cowley's outstretched talons griped the black deepsounding chords. + +Must go prince Bloom told Richie prince. No, Richie said. Yes, must. Got +money somewhere. He's on for a razzle backache spree. Much? He seehears +lipspeech. One and nine. Penny for yourself. Here. Give him twopence +tip. Deaf, bothered. But perhaps he has wife and family waiting, waiting +Patty come home. Hee hee hee hee. Deaf wait while they wait. + +But wait. But hear. Chords dark. Lugugugubrious. Low. In a cave of the +dark middle earth. Embedded ore. Lumpmusic. + +The voice of dark age, of unlove, earth's fatigue made grave approach +and painful, come from afar, from hoary mountains, called on good men +and true. The priest he sought. With him would he speak a word. + +Tap. + +Ben Dollard's voice. Base barreltone. Doing his level best to say it. +Croak of vast manless moonless womoonless marsh. Other comedown. Big +ships' chandler's business he did once. Remember: rosiny ropes, ships' +lanterns. Failed to the tune of ten thousand pounds. Now in the Iveagh +home. Cubicle number so and so. Number one Bass did that for him. + +The priest's at home. A false priest's servant bade him welcome. Step +in. The holy father. With bows a traitor servant. Curlycues of chords. + +Ruin them. Wreck their lives. Then build them cubicles to end their days +in. Hushaby. Lullaby. Die, dog. Little dog, die. + +The voice of warning, solemn warning, told them the youth had entered +a lonely hall, told them how solemn fell his footsteps there, told them +the gloomy chamber, the vested priest sitting to shrive. + +Decent soul. Bit addled now. Thinks he'll win in _Answers,_ poets' +picture puzzle. We hand you crisp five pound note. Bird sitting hatching +in a nest. Lay of the last minstrel he thought it was. See blank tee +what domestic animal? Tee dash ar most courageous mariner. Good voice he +has still. No eunuch yet with all his belongings. + +Listen. Bloom listened. Richie Goulding listened. And by the door deaf +Pat, bald Pat, tipped Pat, listened. The chords harped slower. + +The voice of penance and of grief came slow, embellished, tremulous. +Ben's contrite beard confessed. _in nomine Domini,_ in God's name he +knelt. He beat his hand upon his breast, confessing: _mea culpa._ + +Latin again. That holds them like birdlime. Priest with the communion +corpus for those women. Chap in the mortuary, coffin or coffey, +_corpusnomine._ Wonder where that rat is by now. Scrape. + +Tap. + +They listened. Tankards and miss Kennedy. George Lidwell, eyelid well +expressive, fullbusted satin. Kernan. Si. + +The sighing voice of sorrow sang. His sins. Since Easter he had cursed +three times. You bitch's bast. And once at masstime he had gone to play. +Once by the churchyard he had passed and for his mother's rest he had +not prayed. A boy. A croppy boy. + +Bronze, listening, by the beerpull gazed far away. Soulfully. Doesn't +half know I'm. Molly great dab at seeing anyone looking. + +Bronze gazed far sideways. Mirror there. Is that best side of her face? +They always know. Knock at the door. Last tip to titivate. + +Cockcarracarra. + +What do they think when they hear music? Way to catch rattlesnakes. +Night Michael Gunn gave us the box. Tuning up. Shah of Persia liked +that best. Remind him of home sweet home. Wiped his nose in curtain too. +Custom his country perhaps. That's music too. Not as bad as it sounds. +Tootling. Brasses braying asses through uptrunks. Doublebasses helpless, +gashes in their sides. Woodwinds mooing cows. Semigrand open crocodile +music hath jaws. Woodwind like Goodwin's name. + +She looked fine. Her crocus dress she wore lowcut, belongings on show. +Clove her breath was always in theatre when she bent to ask a question. +Told her what Spinoza says in that book of poor papa's. Hypnotised, +listening. Eyes like that. She bent. Chap in dresscircle staring down +into her with his operaglass for all he was worth. Beauty of music you +must hear twice. Nature woman half a look. God made the country man the +tune. Met him pike hoses. Philosophy. O rocks! + +All gone. All fallen. At the siege of Ross his father, at Gorey all his +brothers fell. To Wexford, we are the boys of Wexford, he would. Last of +his name and race. + +I too. Last of my race. Milly young student. Well, my fault perhaps. No +son. Rudy. Too late now. Or if not? If not? If still? + +He bore no hate. + +Hate. Love. Those are names. Rudy. Soon I am old. Big Ben his voice +unfolded. Great voice Richie Goulding said, a flush struggling in his +pale, to Bloom soon old. But when was young? + +Ireland comes now. My country above the king. She listens. Who fears to +speak of nineteen four? Time to be shoving. Looked enough. + +--_Bless me, father,_ Dollard the croppy cried. _Bless me and let me +go._ + +Tap. + +Bloom looked, unblessed to go. Got up to kill: on eighteen bob a week. +Fellows shell out the dibs. Want to keep your weathereye open. Those +girls, those lovely. By the sad sea waves. Chorusgirl's romance. Letters +read out for breach of promise. From Chickabiddy's owny Mumpsypum. +Laughter in court. Henry. I never signed it. The lovely name you. + +Low sank the music, air and words. Then hastened. The false priest +rustling soldier from his cassock. A yeoman captain. They know it all by +heart. The thrill they itch for. Yeoman cap. + +Tap. Tap. + +Thrilled she listened, bending in sympathy to hear. + +Blank face. Virgin should say: or fingered only. Write something on it: +page. If not what becomes of them? Decline, despair. Keeps them young. +Even admire themselves. See. Play on her. Lip blow. Body of white woman, +a flute alive. Blow gentle. Loud. Three holes, all women. Goddess I +didn't see. They want it. Not too much polite. That's why he gets them. +Gold in your pocket, brass in your face. Say something. Make her hear. +With look to look. Songs without words. Molly, that hurdygurdy boy. +She knew he meant the monkey was sick. Or because so like the Spanish. +Understand animals too that way. Solomon did. Gift of nature. + +Ventriloquise. My lips closed. Think in my stom. What? + +Will? You? I. Want. You. To. + +With hoarse rude fury the yeoman cursed, swelling in apoplectic bitch's +bastard. A good thought, boy, to come. One hour's your time to live, +your last. + +Tap. Tap. + +Thrill now. Pity they feel. To wipe away a tear for martyrs that want +to, dying to, die. For all things dying, for all things born. Poor Mrs +Purefoy. Hope she's over. Because their wombs. + +A liquid of womb of woman eyeball gazed under a fence of lashes, calmly, +hearing. See real beauty of the eye when she not speaks. On yonder +river. At each slow satiny heaving bosom's wave (her heaving embon) red +rose rose slowly sank red rose. Heartbeats: her breath: breath that is +life. And all the tiny tiny fernfoils trembled of maidenhair. + +But look. The bright stars fade. O rose! Castile. The morn. Ha. Lidwell. +For him then not for. Infatuated. I like that? See her from here though. +Popped corks, splashes of beerfroth, stacks of empties. + +On the smooth jutting beerpull laid Lydia hand, lightly, plumply, leave +it to my hands. All lost in pity for croppy. Fro, to: to, fro: over +the polished knob (she knows his eyes, my eyes, her eyes) her thumb and +finger passed in pity: passed, reposed and, gently touching, then slid +so smoothly, slowly down, a cool firm white enamel baton protruding +through their sliding ring. + +With a cock with a carra. + +Tap. Tap. Tap. + +I hold this house. Amen. He gnashed in fury. Traitors swing. + +The chords consented. Very sad thing. But had to be. Get out before the +end. Thanks, that was heavenly. Where's my hat. Pass by her. Can leave +that Freeman. Letter I have. Suppose she were the? No. Walk, walk, +walk. Like Cashel Boylo Connoro Coylo Tisdall Maurice Tisntdall Farrell. +Waaaaaaalk. + +Well, I must be. Are you off? Yrfmstbyes. Blmstup. O'er ryehigh blue. +Ow. Bloom stood up. Soap feeling rather sticky behind. Must have +sweated: music. That lotion, remember. Well, so long. High grade. Card +inside. Yes. + +By deaf Pat in the doorway straining ear Bloom passed. + +At Geneva barrack that young man died. At Passage was his body laid. +Dolor! O, he dolores! The voice of the mournful chanter called to +dolorous prayer. + +By rose, by satiny bosom, by the fondling hand, by slops, by empties, +by popped corks, greeting in going, past eyes and maidenhair, bronze and +faint gold in deepseashadow, went Bloom, soft Bloom, I feel so lonely +Bloom. + +Tap. Tap. Tap. + +Pray for him, prayed the bass of Dollard. You who hear in peace. Breathe +a prayer, drop a tear, good men, good people. He was the croppy boy. + +Scaring eavesdropping boots croppy bootsboy Bloom in the Ormond hallway +heard the growls and roars of bravo, fat backslapping, their boots all +treading, boots not the boots the boy. General chorus off for a swill to +wash it down. Glad I avoided. + +--Come on, Ben, Simon Dedalus cried. By God, you're as good as ever you +were. + +--Better, said Tomgin Kernan. Most trenchant rendition of that ballad, +upon my soul and honour It is. + +--Lablache, said Father Cowley. + +Ben Dollard bulkily cachuchad towards the bar, mightily praisefed +and all big roseate, on heavyfooted feet, his gouty fingers nakkering +castagnettes in the air. + +Big Benaben Dollard. Big Benben. Big Benben. + +Rrr. + +And deepmoved all, Simon trumping compassion from foghorn nose, all +laughing they brought him forth, Ben Dollard, in right good cheer. + +--You're looking rubicund, George Lidwell said. + +Miss Douce composed her rose to wait. + +--Ben machree, said Mr Dedalus, clapping Ben's fat back shoulderblade. +Fit as a fiddle only he has a lot of adipose tissue concealed about his +person. + +Rrrrrrrsss. + +--Fat of death, Simon, Ben Dollard growled. + +Richie rift in the lute alone sat: Goulding, Collis, Ward. Uncertainly +he waited. Unpaid Pat too. + +Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap. + +Miss Mina Kennedy brought near her lips to ear of tankard one. + +--Mr Dollard, they murmured low. + +--Dollard, murmured tankard. + +Tank one believed: miss Kenn when she: that doll he was: she doll: the +tank. + +He murmured that he knew the name. The name was familiar to him, that +is to say. That was to say he had heard the name of. Dollard, was it? +Dollard, yes. + +Yes, her lips said more loudly, Mr Dollard. He sang that song lovely, +murmured Mina. Mr Dollard. And _The last rose of summer_ was a lovely +song. Mina loved that song. Tankard loved the song that Mina. + +'Tis the last rose of summer dollard left bloom felt wind wound round +inside. + +Gassy thing that cider: binding too. Wait. Postoffice near Reuben J's +one and eightpence too. Get shut of it. Dodge round by Greek street. +Wish I hadn't promised to meet. Freer in air. Music. Gets on your +nerves. Beerpull. Her hand that rocks the cradle rules the. Ben Howth. +That rules the world. + +Far. Far. Far. Far. + +Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap. + +Up the quay went Lionelleopold, naughty Henry with letter for Mady, with +sweets of sin with frillies for Raoul with met him pike hoses went Poldy +on. + +Tap blind walked tapping by the tap the curbstone tapping, tap by tap. + +Cowley, he stuns himself with it: kind of drunkenness. Better give way +only half way the way of a man with a maid. Instance enthusiasts. All +ears. Not lose a demisemiquaver. Eyes shut. Head nodding in time. Dotty. +You daren't budge. Thinking strictly prohibited. Always talking shop. +Fiddlefaddle about notes. + +All a kind of attempt to talk. Unpleasant when it stops because you +never know exac. Organ in Gardiner street. Old Glynn fifty quid a year. +Queer up there in the cockloft, alone, with stops and locks and keys. +Seated all day at the organ. Maunder on for hours, talking to himself or +the other fellow blowing the bellows. Growl angry, then shriek cursing +(want to have wadding or something in his no don't she cried), then all +of a soft sudden wee little wee little pipy wind. + +Pwee! A wee little wind piped eeee. In Bloom's little wee. + +--Was he? Mr Dedalus said, returning with fetched pipe. I was with him +this morning at poor little Paddy Dignam's... + +--Ay, the Lord have mercy on him. + +--By the bye there's a tuningfork in there on the... + +Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap. + +--The wife has a fine voice. Or had. What? Lidwell asked. + +--O, that must be the tuner, Lydia said to Simonlionel first I saw, +forgot it when he was here. + +Blind he was she told George Lidwell second I saw. And played so +exquisitely, treat to hear. Exquisite contrast: bronzelid, minagold. + +--Shout! Ben Dollard shouted, pouring. Sing out! + +--'lldo! cried Father Cowley. + +Rrrrrr. + +I feel I want... + +Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap + +--Very, Mr Dedalus said, staring hard at a headless sardine. + +Under the sandwichbell lay on a bier of bread one last, one lonely, last +sardine of summer. Bloom alone. + +--Very, he stared. The lower register, for choice. + +Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap. + +Bloom went by Barry's. Wish I could. Wait. That wonderworker if I had. +Twentyfour solicitors in that one house. Counted them. Litigation. Love +one another. Piles of parchment. Messrs Pick and Pocket have power of +attorney. Goulding, Collis, Ward. + +But for example the chap that wallops the big drum. His vocation: Mickey +Rooney's band. Wonder how it first struck him. Sitting at home after +pig's cheek and cabbage nursing it in the armchair. Rehearsing his band +part. Pom. Pompedy. Jolly for the wife. Asses' skins. Welt them through +life, then wallop after death. Pom. Wallop. Seems to be what you call +yashmak or I mean kismet. Fate. + +Tap. Tap. A stripling, blind, with a tapping cane came taptaptapping by +Daly's window where a mermaid hair all streaming (but he couldn't see) +blew whiffs of a mermaid (blind couldn't), mermaid, coolest whiff of +all. + +Instruments. A blade of grass, shell of her hands, then blow. Even +comb and tissuepaper you can knock a tune out of. Molly in her shift in +Lombard street west, hair down. I suppose each kind of trade made its +own, don't you see? Hunter with a horn. Haw. Have you the? _Cloche. +Sonnez la._ Shepherd his pipe. Pwee little wee. Policeman a whistle. +Locks and keys! Sweep! Four o'clock's all's well! Sleep! All is lost +now. Drum? Pompedy. Wait. I know. Towncrier, bumbailiff. Long John. +Waken the dead. Pom. Dignam. Poor little _nominedomine._ Pom. It is +music. I mean of course it's all pom pom pom very much what they call +_da capo._ Still you can hear. As we march, we march along, march along. +Pom. + +I must really. Fff. Now if I did that at a banquet. Just a question of +custom shah of Persia. Breathe a prayer, drop a tear. All the same +he must have been a bit of a natural not to see it was a yeoman cap. +Muffled up. Wonder who was that chap at the grave in the brown macin. O, +the whore of the lane! + +A frowsy whore with black straw sailor hat askew came glazily in the day +along the quay towards Mr Bloom. When first he saw that form endearing? +Yes, it is. I feel so lonely. Wet night in the lane. Horn. Who had +the? Heehaw shesaw. Off her beat here. What is she? Hope she. Psst! Any +chance of your wash. Knew Molly. Had me decked. Stout lady does be with +you in the brown costume. Put you off your stroke, that. Appointment +we made knowing we'd never, well hardly ever. Too dear too near to home +sweet home. Sees me, does she? Looks a fright in the day. Face like dip. +Damn her. O, well, she has to live like the rest. Look in here. + +In Lionel Marks's antique saleshop window haughty Henry Lionel Leopold +dear Henry Flower earnestly Mr Leopold Bloom envisaged battered +candlesticks melodeon oozing maggoty blowbags. Bargain: six bob. Might +learn to play. Cheap. Let her pass. Course everything is dear if you +don't want it. That's what good salesman is. Make you buy what he wants +to sell. Chap sold me the Swedish razor he shaved me with. Wanted to +charge me for the edge he gave it. She's passing now. Six bob. + +Must be the cider or perhaps the burgund. + +Near bronze from anear near gold from afar they chinked their clinking +glasses all, brighteyed and gallant, before bronze Lydia's tempting last +rose of summer, rose of Castile. First Lid, De, Cow, Ker, Doll, a fifth: +Lidwell, Si Dedalus, Bob Cowley, Kernan and big Ben Dollard. + +Tap. A youth entered a lonely Ormond hall. + +Bloom viewed a gallant pictured hero in Lionel Marks's window. Robert +Emmet's last words. Seven last words. Of Meyerbeer that is. + +--True men like you men. + +--Ay, ay, Ben. + +--Will lift your glass with us. + +They lifted. + +Tschink. Tschunk. + +Tip. An unseeing stripling stood in the door. He saw not bronze. He saw +not gold. Nor Ben nor Bob nor Tom nor Si nor George nor tanks nor Richie +nor Pat. Hee hee hee hee. He did not see. + +Seabloom, greaseabloom viewed last words. Softly. _When my country takes +her place among._ + +Prrprr. + +Must be the bur. + +Fff! Oo. Rrpr. + +_Nations of the earth._ No-one behind. She's passed. _Then and not till +then._ Tram kran kran kran. Good oppor. Coming. Krandlkrankran. I'm +sure it's the burgund. Yes. One, two. _Let my epitaph be._ Kraaaaaa. +_Written. I have._ + +Pprrpffrrppffff. + +_Done._ + + + +I was just passing the time of day with old Troy of the D. M. P. at the +corner of Arbour hill there and be damned but a bloody sweep came along +and he near drove his gear into my eye. I turned around to let him have +the weight of my tongue when who should I see dodging along Stony Batter +only Joe Hynes. + +--Lo, Joe, says I. How are you blowing? Did you see that bloody +chimneysweep near shove my eye out with his brush? + +--Soot's luck, says Joe. Who's the old ballocks you were talking to? + +--Old Troy, says I, was in the force. I'm on two minds not to give that +fellow in charge for obstructing the thoroughfare with his brooms and +ladders. + +--What are you doing round those parts? says Joe. + +--Devil a much, says I. There's a bloody big foxy thief beyond by the +garrison church at the corner of Chicken lane--old Troy was just giving +me a wrinkle about him--lifted any God's quantity of tea and sugar +to pay three bob a week said he had a farm in the county Down off a +hop-of-my-thumb by the name of Moses Herzog over there near Heytesbury +street. + +--Circumcised? says Joe. + +--Ay, says I. A bit off the top. An old plumber named Geraghty. I'm +hanging on to his taw now for the past fortnight and I can't get a penny +out of him. + +--That the lay you're on now? says Joe. + +--Ay, says I. How are the mighty fallen! Collector of bad and doubtful +debts. But that's the most notorious bloody robber you'd meet in a day's +walk and the face on him all pockmarks would hold a shower of rain. +_Tell him,_ says he, _I dare him,_ says he, _and I doubledare him +to send you round here again or if he does,_ says he, _I'll have +him summonsed up before the court, so I will, for trading without a +licence._ And he after stuffing himself till he's fit to burst. Jesus, +I had to laugh at the little jewy getting his shirt out. _He drink me my +teas. He eat me my sugars. Because he no pay me my moneys?_ + +For nonperishable goods bought of Moses Herzog, of 13 Saint Kevin's +parade in the city of Dublin, Wood quay ward, merchant, hereinafter +called the vendor, and sold and delivered to Michael E. Geraghty, +esquire, of 29 Arbour hill in the city of Dublin, Arran quay ward, +gentleman, hereinafter called the purchaser, videlicet, five pounds +avoirdupois of first choice tea at three shillings and no pence per +pound avoirdupois and three stone avoirdupois of sugar, crushed crystal, +at threepence per pound avoirdupois, the said purchaser debtor to the +said vendor of one pound five shillings and sixpence sterling for value +received which amount shall be paid by said purchaser to said vendor in +weekly instalments every seven calendar days of three shillings and no +pence sterling: and the said nonperishable goods shall not be pawned or +pledged or sold or otherwise alienated by the said purchaser but shall +be and remain and be held to be the sole and exclusive property of the +said vendor to be disposed of at his good will and pleasure until the +said amount shall have been duly paid by the said purchaser to the said +vendor in the manner herein set forth as this day hereby agreed between +the said vendor, his heirs, successors, trustees and assigns of the one +part and the said purchaser, his heirs, successors, trustees and assigns +of the other part. + +--Are you a strict t.t.? says Joe. + +--Not taking anything between drinks, says I. + +--What about paying our respects to our friend? says Joe. + +--Who? says I. Sure, he's out in John of God's off his head, poor man. + +--Drinking his own stuff? says Joe. + +--Ay, says I. Whisky and water on the brain. + +--Come around to Barney Kiernan's, says Joe. I want to see the citizen. + +--Barney mavourneen's be it, says I. Anything strange or wonderful, Joe? + +--Not a word, says Joe. I was up at that meeting in the City Arms. + +---What was that, Joe? says I. + +--Cattle traders, says Joe, about the foot and mouth disease. I want to +give the citizen the hard word about it. + +So we went around by the Linenhall barracks and the back of the +courthouse talking of one thing or another. Decent fellow Joe when he +has it but sure like that he never has it. Jesus, I couldn't get over +that bloody foxy Geraghty, the daylight robber. For trading without a +licence, says he. + +In Inisfail the fair there lies a land, the land of holy Michan. There +rises a watchtower beheld of men afar. There sleep the mighty dead as in +life they slept, warriors and princes of high renown. A pleasant land +it is in sooth of murmuring waters, fishful streams where sport the +gurnard, the plaice, the roach, the halibut, the gibbed haddock, the +grilse, the dab, the brill, the flounder, the pollock, the mixed coarse +fish generally and other denizens of the aqueous kingdom too numerous to +be enumerated. In the mild breezes of the west and of the east the lofty +trees wave in different directions their firstclass foliage, the wafty +sycamore, the Lebanonian cedar, the exalted planetree, the eugenic +eucalyptus and other ornaments of the arboreal world with which +that region is thoroughly well supplied. Lovely maidens sit in close +proximity to the roots of the lovely trees singing the most lovely songs +while they play with all kinds of lovely objects as for example golden +ingots, silvery fishes, crans of herrings, drafts of eels, codlings, +creels of fingerlings, purple seagems and playful insects. And heroes +voyage from afar to woo them, from Eblana to Slievemargy, the peerless +princes of unfettered Munster and of Connacht the just and of smooth +sleek Leinster and of Cruahan's land and of Armagh the splendid and of +the noble district of Boyle, princes, the sons of kings. + +And there rises a shining palace whose crystal glittering roof is seen +by mariners who traverse the extensive sea in barks built expressly for +that purpose, and thither come all herds and fatlings and firstfruits +of that land for O'Connell Fitzsimon takes toll of them, a chieftain +descended from chieftains. Thither the extremely large wains bring +foison of the fields, flaskets of cauliflowers, floats of spinach, +pineapple chunks, Rangoon beans, strikes of tomatoes, drums of figs, +drills of Swedes, spherical potatoes and tallies of iridescent kale, +York and Savoy, and trays of onions, pearls of the earth, and punnets of +mushrooms and custard marrows and fat vetches and bere and rape and red +green yellow brown russet sweet big bitter ripe pomellated apples and +chips of strawberries and sieves of gooseberries, pulpy and pelurious, +and strawberries fit for princes and raspberries from their canes. + +I dare him, says he, and I doubledare him. Come out here, Geraghty, you +notorious bloody hill and dale robber! + +And by that way wend the herds innumerable of bellwethers and flushed +ewes and shearling rams and lambs and stubble geese and medium steers +and roaring mares and polled calves and longwoods and storesheep and +Cuffe's prime springers and culls and sowpigs and baconhogs and the +various different varieties of highly distinguished swine and Angus +heifers and polly bulllocks of immaculate pedigree together with prime +premiated milchcows and beeves: and there is ever heard a trampling, +cackling, roaring, lowing, bleating, bellowing, rumbling, grunting, +champing, chewing, of sheep and pigs and heavyhooved kine from +pasturelands of Lusk and Rush and Carrickmines and from the streamy +vales of Thomond, from the M'Gillicuddy's reeks the inaccessible and +lordly Shannon the unfathomable, and from the gentle declivities of the +place of the race of Kiar, their udders distended with superabundance of +milk and butts of butter and rennets of cheese and farmer's firkins and +targets of lamb and crannocks of corn and oblong eggs in great hundreds, +various in size, the agate with this dun. + +So we turned into Barney Kiernan's and there, sure enough, was the +citizen up in the corner having a great confab with himself and that +bloody mangy mongrel, Garryowen, and he waiting for what the sky would +drop in the way of drink. + +--There he is, says I, in his gloryhole, with his cruiskeen lawn and his +load of papers, working for the cause. + +The bloody mongrel let a grouse out of him would give you the creeps. Be +a corporal work of mercy if someone would take the life of that bloody +dog. I'm told for a fact he ate a good part of the breeches off a +constabulary man in Santry that came round one time with a blue paper +about a licence. + +--Stand and deliver, says he. + +--That's all right, citizen, says Joe. Friends here. + +--Pass, friends, says he. + +Then he rubs his hand in his eye and says he: + +--What's your opinion of the times? + +Doing the rapparee and Rory of the hill. But, begob, Joe was equal to +the occasion. + +--I think the markets are on a rise, says he, sliding his hand down his +fork. + +So begob the citizen claps his paw on his knee and he says: + +--Foreign wars is the cause of it. + +And says Joe, sticking his thumb in his pocket: + +--It's the Russians wish to tyrannise. + +--Arrah, give over your bloody codding, Joe, says I. I've a thirst on me +I wouldn't sell for half a crown. + +--Give it a name, citizen, says Joe. + +--Wine of the country, says he. + +--What's yours? says Joe. + +--Ditto MacAnaspey, says I. + +--Three pints, Terry, says Joe. And how's the old heart, citizen? says +he. + +--Never better, _a chara_, says he. What Garry? Are we going to win? Eh? + +And with that he took the bloody old towser by the scruff of the neck +and, by Jesus, he near throttled him. + +The figure seated on a large boulder at the foot of a round tower was +that of a broadshouldered deepchested stronglimbed frankeyed redhaired +freelyfreckled shaggybearded widemouthed largenosed longheaded +deepvoiced barekneed brawnyhanded hairylegged ruddyfaced sinewyarmed +hero. From shoulder to shoulder he measured several ells and his +rocklike mountainous knees were covered, as was likewise the rest of his +body wherever visible, with a strong growth of tawny prickly hair in +hue and toughness similar to the mountain gorse (_Ulex Europeus_). +The widewinged nostrils, from which bristles of the same tawny hue +projected, were of such capaciousness that within their cavernous +obscurity the fieldlark might easily have lodged her nest. The eyes +in which a tear and a smile strove ever for the mastery were of the +dimensions of a goodsized cauliflower. A powerful current of warm breath +issued at regular intervals from the profound cavity of his mouth +while in rhythmic resonance the loud strong hale reverberations of his +formidable heart thundered rumblingly causing the ground, the summit of +the lofty tower and the still loftier walls of the cave to vibrate and +tremble. + +He wore a long unsleeved garment of recently flayed oxhide reaching +to the knees in a loose kilt and this was bound about his middle by +a girdle of plaited straw and rushes. Beneath this he wore trews of +deerskin, roughly stitched with gut. His nether extremities were encased +in high Balbriggan buskins dyed in lichen purple, the feet being shod +with brogues of salted cowhide laced with the windpipe of the same +beast. From his girdle hung a row of seastones which jangled at every +movement of his portentous frame and on these were graven with rude +yet striking art the tribal images of many Irish heroes and heroines of +antiquity, Cuchulin, Conn of hundred battles, Niall of nine hostages, +Brian of Kincora, the ardri Malachi, Art MacMurragh, Shane O'Neill, +Father John Murphy, Owen Roe, Patrick Sarsfield, Red Hugh O'Donnell, +Red Jim MacDermott, Soggarth Eoghan O'Growney, Michael Dwyer, Francy +Higgins, Henry Joy M'Cracken, Goliath, Horace Wheatley, Thomas Conneff, +Peg Woffington, the Village Blacksmith, Captain Moonlight, Captain +Boycott, Dante Alighieri, Christopher Columbus, S. Fursa, S. Brendan, +Marshal MacMahon, Charlemagne, Theobald Wolfe Tone, the Mother of the +Maccabees, the Last of the Mohicans, the Rose of Castile, the Man for +Galway, The Man that Broke the Bank at Monte Carlo, The Man in the Gap, +The Woman Who Didn't, Benjamin Franklin, Napoleon Bonaparte, John L. +Sullivan, Cleopatra, Savourneen Deelish, Julius Caesar, Paracelsus, sir +Thomas Lipton, William Tell, Michelangelo Hayes, Muhammad, the Bride of +Lammermoor, Peter the Hermit, Peter the Packer, Dark Rosaleen, Patrick +W. Shakespeare, Brian Confucius, Murtagh Gutenberg, Patricio Velasquez, +Captain Nemo, Tristan and Isolde, the first Prince of Wales, Thomas +Cook and Son, the Bold Soldier Boy, Arrah na Pogue, Dick Turpin, Ludwig +Beethoven, the Colleen Bawn, Waddler Healy, Angus the Culdee, Dolly +Mount, Sidney Parade, Ben Howth, Valentine Greatrakes, Adam and Eve, +Arthur Wellesley, Boss Croker, Herodotus, Jack the Giantkiller, Gautama +Buddha, Lady Godiva, The Lily of Killarney, Balor of the Evil Eye, +the Queen of Sheba, Acky Nagle, Joe Nagle, Alessandro Volta, Jeremiah +O'Donovan Rossa, Don Philip O'Sullivan Beare. A couched spear of +acuminated granite rested by him while at his feet reposed a savage +animal of the canine tribe whose stertorous gasps announced that he was +sunk in uneasy slumber, a supposition confirmed by hoarse growls and +spasmodic movements which his master repressed from time to time +by tranquilising blows of a mighty cudgel rudely fashioned out of +paleolithic stone. + +So anyhow Terry brought the three pints Joe was standing and begob the +sight nearly left my eyes when I saw him land out a quid O, as true as +I'm telling you. A goodlooking sovereign. + +--And there's more where that came from, says he. + +--Were you robbing the poorbox, Joe? says I. + +--Sweat of my brow, says Joe. 'Twas the prudent member gave me the +wheeze. + +--I saw him before I met you, says I, sloping around by Pill lane and +Greek street with his cod's eye counting up all the guts of the fish. + +Who comes through Michan's land, bedight in sable armour? O'Bloom, +the son of Rory: it is he. Impervious to fear is Rory's son: he of the +prudent soul. + +--For the old woman of Prince's street, says the citizen, the subsidised +organ. The pledgebound party on the floor of the house. And look at this +blasted rag, says he. Look at this, says he. _The Irish Independent,_ if +you please, founded by Parnell to be the workingman's friend. Listen to +the births and deaths in the _Irish all for Ireland Independent,_ and +I'll thank you and the marriages. + +And he starts reading them out: + +--Gordon, Barnfield crescent, Exeter; Redmayne of Iffley, Saint Anne's +on Sea: the wife of William T Redmayne of a son. How's that, eh? Wright +and Flint, Vincent and Gillett to Rotha Marion daughter of Rosa and the +late George Alfred Gillett, 179 Clapham road, Stockwell, Playwood and +Ridsdale at Saint Jude's, Kensington by the very reverend Dr Forrest, +dean of Worcester. Eh? Deaths. Bristow, at Whitehall lane, London: Carr, +Stoke Newington, of gastritis and heart disease: Cockburn, at the Moat +house, Chepstow... + +--I know that fellow, says Joe, from bitter experience. + +--Cockburn. Dimsey, wife of David Dimsey, late of the admiralty: Miller, +Tottenham, aged eightyfive: Welsh, June 12, at 35 Canning street, +Liverpool, Isabella Helen. How's that for a national press, eh, my brown +son! How's that for Martin Murphy, the Bantry jobber? + +--Ah, well, says Joe, handing round the boose. Thanks be to God they had +the start of us. Drink that, citizen. + +--I will, says he, honourable person. + +--Health, Joe, says I. And all down the form. + +Ah! Ow! Don't be talking! I was blue mouldy for the want of that pint. +Declare to God I could hear it hit the pit of my stomach with a click. + +And lo, as they quaffed their cup of joy, a godlike messenger came +swiftly in, radiant as the eye of heaven, a comely youth and behind him +there passed an elder of noble gait and countenance, bearing the sacred +scrolls of law and with him his lady wife a dame of peerless lineage, +fairest of her race. + +Little Alf Bergan popped in round the door and hid behind Barney's +snug, squeezed up with the laughing. And who was sitting up there in +the corner that I hadn't seen snoring drunk blind to the world only Bob +Doran. I didn't know what was up and Alf kept making signs out of the +door. And begob what was it only that bloody old pantaloon Denis Breen +in his bathslippers with two bloody big books tucked under his oxter and +the wife hotfoot after him, unfortunate wretched woman, trotting like a +poodle. I thought Alf would split. + +--Look at him, says he. Breen. He's traipsing all round Dublin with a +postcard someone sent him with U. p: up on it to take a li... + +And he doubled up. + +--Take a what? says I. + +--Libel action, says he, for ten thousand pounds. + +--O hell! says I. + +The bloody mongrel began to growl that'd put the fear of God in you +seeing something was up but the citizen gave him a kick in the ribs. + +_--Bi i dho husht,_ says he. + +--Who? says Joe. + +--Breen, says Alf. He was in John Henry Menton's and then he went round +to Collis and Ward's and then Tom Rochford met him and sent him round to +the subsheriff's for a lark. O God, I've a pain laughing. U. p: up. The +long fellow gave him an eye as good as a process and now the bloody old +lunatic is gone round to Green street to look for a G man. + +--When is long John going to hang that fellow in Mountjoy? says Joe. + +--Bergan, says Bob Doran, waking up. Is that Alf Bergan? + +--Yes, says Alf. Hanging? Wait till I show you. Here, Terry, give us a +pony. That bloody old fool! Ten thousand pounds. You should have seen +long John's eye. U. p... + +And he started laughing. + +--Who are you laughing at? says Bob Doran. Is that Bergan? + +--Hurry up, Terry boy, says Alf. + +Terence O'Ryan heard him and straightway brought him a crystal cup +full of the foamy ebon ale which the noble twin brothers Bungiveagh and +Bungardilaun brew ever in their divine alevats, cunning as the sons of +deathless Leda. For they garner the succulent berries of the hop and +mass and sift and bruise and brew them and they mix therewith sour +juices and bring the must to the sacred fire and cease not night or day +from their toil, those cunning brothers, lords of the vat. + +Then did you, chivalrous Terence, hand forth, as to the manner born, +that nectarous beverage and you offered the crystal cup to him that +thirsted, the soul of chivalry, in beauty akin to the immortals. + +But he, the young chief of the O'Bergan's, could ill brook to be outdone +in generous deeds but gave therefor with gracious gesture a testoon of +costliest bronze. Thereon embossed in excellent smithwork was seen +the image of a queen of regal port, scion of the house of Brunswick, +Victoria her name, Her Most Excellent Majesty, by grace of God of the +United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland and of the British dominions +beyond the sea, queen, defender of the faith, Empress of India, even +she, who bore rule, a victress over many peoples, the wellbeloved, for +they knew and loved her from the rising of the sun to the going down +thereof, the pale, the dark, the ruddy and the ethiop. + +--What's that bloody freemason doing, says the citizen, prowling up and +down outside? + +--What's that? says Joe. + +--Here you are, says Alf, chucking out the rhino. Talking about hanging, +I'll show you something you never saw. Hangmen's letters. Look at here. + +So he took a bundle of wisps of letters and envelopes out of his pocket. + +--Are you codding? says I. + +--Honest injun, says Alf. Read them. + +So Joe took up the letters. + +--Who are you laughing at? says Bob Doran. + +So I saw there was going to be a bit of a dust Bob's a queer chap when +the porter's up in him so says I just to make talk: + +--How's Willy Murray those times, Alf? + +--I don't know, says Alf I saw him just now in Capel street with Paddy +Dignam. Only I was running after that... + +--You what? says Joe, throwing down the letters. With who? + +--With Dignam, says Alf. + +--Is it Paddy? says Joe. + +--Yes, says Alf. Why? + +--Don't you know he's dead? says Joe. + +--Paddy Dignam dead! says Alf. + +--Ay, says Joe. + +--Sure I'm after seeing him not five minutes ago, says Alf, as plain as +a pikestaff. + +--Who's dead? says Bob Doran. + +--You saw his ghost then, says Joe, God between us and harm. + +--What? says Alf. Good Christ, only five... What?... And Willy Murray +with him, the two of them there near whatdoyoucallhim's... What? Dignam +dead? + +--What about Dignam? says Bob Doran. Who's talking about...? + +--Dead! says Alf. He's no more dead than you are. + +--Maybe so, says Joe. They took the liberty of burying him this morning +anyhow. + +--Paddy? says Alf. + +--Ay, says Joe. He paid the debt of nature, God be merciful to him. + +--Good Christ! says Alf. + +Begob he was what you might call flabbergasted. + +In the darkness spirit hands were felt to flutter and when prayer by +tantras had been directed to the proper quarter a faint but increasing +luminosity of ruby light became gradually visible, the apparition of +the etheric double being particularly lifelike owing to the discharge +of jivic rays from the crown of the head and face. Communication was +effected through the pituitary body and also by means of the orangefiery +and scarlet rays emanating from the sacral region and solar plexus. +Questioned by his earthname as to his whereabouts in the heavenworld he +stated that he was now on the path of pr l ya or return but was still +submitted to trial at the hands of certain bloodthirsty entities on the +lower astral levels. In reply to a question as to his first sensations +in the great divide beyond he stated that previously he had seen as in a +glass darkly but that those who had passed over had summit possibilities +of atmic development opened up to them. Interrogated as to whether life +there resembled our experience in the flesh he stated that he had heard +from more favoured beings now in the spirit that their abodes were +equipped with every modern home comfort such as talafana, alavatar, +hatakalda, wataklasat and that the highest adepts were steeped in +waves of volupcy of the very purest nature. Having requested a quart of +buttermilk this was brought and evidently afforded relief. Asked if he +had any message for the living he exhorted all who were still at the +wrong side of Maya to acknowledge the true path for it was reported +in devanic circles that Mars and Jupiter were out for mischief on the +eastern angle where the ram has power. It was then queried whether there +were any special desires on the part of the defunct and the reply was: +_We greet you, friends of earth, who are still in the body. Mind C. K. +doesn't pile it on._ It was ascertained that the reference was to Mr +Cornelius Kelleher, manager of Messrs H. J. O'Neill's popular +funeral establishment, a personal friend of the defunct, who had been +responsible for the carrying out of the interment arrangements. Before +departing he requested that it should be told to his dear son Patsy that +the other boot which he had been looking for was at present under the +commode in the return room and that the pair should be sent to Cullen's +to be soled only as the heels were still good. He stated that this had +greatly perturbed his peace of mind in the other region and earnestly +requested that his desire should be made known. + +Assurances were given that the matter would be attended to and it was +intimated that this had given satisfaction. + +He is gone from mortal haunts: O'Dignam, sun of our morning. Fleet was +his foot on the bracken: Patrick of the beamy brow. Wail, Banba, with +your wind: and wail, O ocean, with your whirlwind. + +--There he is again, says the citizen, staring out. + +--Who? says I. + +--Bloom, says he. He's on point duty up and down there for the last ten +minutes. + +And, begob, I saw his physog do a peep in and then slidder off again. + +Little Alf was knocked bawways. Faith, he was. + +--Good Christ! says he. I could have sworn it was him. + +And says Bob Doran, with the hat on the back of his poll, lowest +blackguard in Dublin when he's under the influence: + +--Who said Christ is good? + +--I beg your parsnips, says Alf. + +--Is that a good Christ, says Bob Doran, to take away poor little Willy +Dignam? + +--Ah, well, says Alf, trying to pass it off. He's over all his troubles. + +But Bob Doran shouts out of him. + +--He's a bloody ruffian, I say, to take away poor little Willy Dignam. + +Terry came down and tipped him the wink to keep quiet, that they didn't +want that kind of talk in a respectable licensed premises. And Bob Doran +starts doing the weeps about Paddy Dignam, true as you're there. + +--The finest man, says he, snivelling, the finest purest character. + +The tear is bloody near your eye. Talking through his bloody hat. Fitter +for him go home to the little sleepwalking bitch he married, Mooney, the +bumbailiff's daughter, mother kept a kip in Hardwicke street, that +used to be stravaging about the landings Bantam Lyons told me that was +stopping there at two in the morning without a stitch on her, exposing +her person, open to all comers, fair field and no favour. + +--The noblest, the truest, says he. And he's gone, poor little Willy, +poor little Paddy Dignam. + +And mournful and with a heavy heart he bewept the extinction of that +beam of heaven. + +Old Garryowen started growling again at Bloom that was skeezing round +the door. + +--Come in, come on, he won't eat you, says the citizen. + +So Bloom slopes in with his cod's eye on the dog and he asks Terry was +Martin Cunningham there. + +--O, Christ M'Keown, says Joe, reading one of the letters. Listen to +this, will you? + +And he starts reading out one. + +_7 Hunter Street, Liverpool. To the High Sheriff of Dublin, Dublin._ + +_Honoured sir i beg to offer my services in the abovementioned painful +case i hanged Joe Gann in Bootle jail on the 12 of Febuary 1900 and i +hanged..._ + +--Show us, Joe, says I. + +--_... private Arthur Chace for fowl murder of Jessie Tilsit in +Pentonville prison and i was assistant when..._ + +--Jesus, says I. + +--_... Billington executed the awful murderer Toad Smith..._ + +The citizen made a grab at the letter. + +--Hold hard, says Joe, _i have a special nack of putting the noose once +in he can't get out hoping to be favoured i remain, honoured sir, my +terms is five ginnees._ + +_H. RUMBOLD, MASTER BARBER._ + +--And a barbarous bloody barbarian he is too, says the citizen. + +--And the dirty scrawl of the wretch, says Joe. Here, says he, take them +to hell out of my sight, Alf. Hello, Bloom, says he, what will you have? + +So they started arguing about the point, Bloom saying he wouldn't and he +couldn't and excuse him no offence and all to that and then he said well +he'd just take a cigar. Gob, he's a prudent member and no mistake. + +--Give us one of your prime stinkers, Terry, says Joe. + +And Alf was telling us there was one chap sent in a mourning card with a +black border round it. + +--They're all barbers, says he, from the black country that would hang +their own fathers for five quid down and travelling expenses. + +And he was telling us there's two fellows waiting below to pull his +heels down when he gets the drop and choke him properly and then they +chop up the rope after and sell the bits for a few bob a skull. + +In the dark land they bide, the vengeful knights of the razor. Their +deadly coil they grasp: yea, and therein they lead to Erebus whatsoever +wight hath done a deed of blood for I will on nowise suffer it even so +saith the Lord. + +So they started talking about capital punishment and of course Bloom +comes out with the why and the wherefore and all the codology of the +business and the old dog smelling him all the time I'm told those jewies +does have a sort of a queer odour coming off them for dogs about I don't +know what all deterrent effect and so forth and so on. + +--There's one thing it hasn't a deterrent effect on, says Alf. + +--What's that? says Joe. + +--The poor bugger's tool that's being hanged, says Alf. + +--That so? says Joe. + +--God's truth, says Alf. I heard that from the head warder that was in + +Kilmainham when they hanged Joe Brady, the invincible. He told me when +they cut him down after the drop it was standing up in their faces like +a poker. + +--Ruling passion strong in death, says Joe, as someone said. + +--That can be explained by science, says Bloom. It's only a natural +phenomenon, don't you see, because on account of the... + +And then he starts with his jawbreakers about phenomenon and science and +this phenomenon and the other phenomenon. + +The distinguished scientist Herr Professor Luitpold Blumenduft tendered +medical evidence to the effect that the instantaneous fracture of the +cervical vertebrae and consequent scission of the spinal cord would, +according to the best approved tradition of medical science, be +calculated to inevitably produce in the human subject a violent +ganglionic stimulus of the nerve centres of the genital apparatus, +thereby causing the elastic pores of the _corpora cavernosa_ to rapidly +dilate in such a way as to instantaneously facilitate the flow of blood +to that part of the human anatomy known as the penis or male organ +resulting in the phenomenon which has been denominated by the faculty +a morbid upwards and outwards philoprogenitive erection _in articulo +mortis per diminutionem capitis._ + +So of course the citizen was only waiting for the wink of the word and +he starts gassing out of him about the invincibles and the old guard and +the men of sixtyseven and who fears to speak of ninetyeight and Joe with +him about all the fellows that were hanged, drawn and transported for +the cause by drumhead courtmartial and a new Ireland and new this, that +and the other. Talking about new Ireland he ought to go and get a new +dog so he ought. Mangy ravenous brute sniffing and sneezing all round +the place and scratching his scabs. And round he goes to Bob Doran that +was standing Alf a half one sucking up for what he could get. So of +course Bob Doran starts doing the bloody fool with him: + +--Give us the paw! Give the paw, doggy! Good old doggy! Give the paw +here! Give us the paw! + +Arrah, bloody end to the paw he'd paw and Alf trying to keep him from +tumbling off the bloody stool atop of the bloody old dog and he talking +all kinds of drivel about training by kindness and thoroughbred dog and +intelligent dog: give you the bloody pip. Then he starts scraping a few +bits of old biscuit out of the bottom of a Jacobs' tin he told Terry to +bring. Gob, he golloped it down like old boots and his tongue hanging +out of him a yard long for more. Near ate the tin and all, hungry bloody +mongrel. + +And the citizen and Bloom having an argument about the point, the +brothers Sheares and Wolfe Tone beyond on Arbour Hill and Robert Emmet +and die for your country, the Tommy Moore touch about Sara Curran and +she's far from the land. And Bloom, of course, with his knockmedown +cigar putting on swank with his lardy face. Phenomenon! The fat heap he +married is a nice old phenomenon with a back on her like a ballalley. +Time they were stopping up in the _City Arms_ pisser Burke told me there +was an old one there with a cracked loodheramaun of a nephew and Bloom +trying to get the soft side of her doing the mollycoddle playing bezique +to come in for a bit of the wampum in her will and not eating meat of a +Friday because the old one was always thumping her craw and taking the +lout out for a walk. And one time he led him the rounds of Dublin and, +by the holy farmer, he never cried crack till he brought him home as +drunk as a boiled owl and he said he did it to teach him the evils of +alcohol and by herrings, if the three women didn't near roast him, it's +a queer story, the old one, Bloom's wife and Mrs O'Dowd that kept the +hotel. Jesus, I had to laugh at pisser Burke taking them off chewing +the fat. And Bloom with his _but don't you see?_ and _but on the other +hand_. And sure, more be token, the lout I'm told was in Power's after, +the blender's, round in Cope street going home footless in a cab five +times in the week after drinking his way through all the samples in the +bloody establishment. Phenomenon! + +--The memory of the dead, says the citizen taking up his pintglass and +glaring at Bloom. + +--Ay, ay, says Joe. + +--You don't grasp my point, says Bloom. What I mean is... + +--_Sinn Fein!_ says the citizen. _Sinn Fein amhain!_ The friends we love +are by our side and the foes we hate before us. + +The last farewell was affecting in the extreme. From the belfries far +and near the funereal deathbell tolled unceasingly while all around the +gloomy precincts rolled the ominous warning of a hundred muffled drums +punctuated by the hollow booming of pieces of ordnance. The deafening +claps of thunder and the dazzling flashes of lightning which lit up +the ghastly scene testified that the artillery of heaven had lent its +supernatural pomp to the already gruesome spectacle. A torrential rain +poured down from the floodgates of the angry heavens upon the +bared heads of the assembled multitude which numbered at the +lowest computation five hundred thousand persons. A posse of Dublin +Metropolitan police superintended by the Chief Commissioner in person +maintained order in the vast throng for whom the York street brass and +reed band whiled away the intervening time by admirably rendering on +their blackdraped instruments the matchless melody endeared to us from +the cradle by Speranza's plaintive muse. Special quick excursion trains +and upholstered charabancs had been provided for the comfort of our +country cousins of whom there were large contingents. Considerable +amusement was caused by the favourite Dublin streetsingers L-n-h-n and +M-ll-g-n who sang _The Night before Larry was stretched_ in their usual +mirth-provoking fashion. Our two inimitable drolls did a roaring trade +with their broadsheets among lovers of the comedy element and nobody +who has a corner in his heart for real Irish fun without vulgarity +will grudge them their hardearned pennies. The children of the Male and +Female Foundling Hospital who thronged the windows overlooking the scene +were delighted with this unexpected addition to the day's entertainment +and a word of praise is due to the Little Sisters of the Poor for their +excellent idea of affording the poor fatherless and motherless children +a genuinely instructive treat. The viceregal houseparty which included +many wellknown ladies was chaperoned by Their Excellencies to the most +favourable positions on the grandstand while the picturesque foreign +delegation known as the Friends of the Emerald Isle was accommodated +on a tribune directly opposite. The delegation, present in full force, +consisted of Commendatore Bacibaci Beninobenone (the semiparalysed +_doyen_ of the party who had to be assisted to his seat by the aid of a +powerful steam crane), Monsieur Pierrepaul Petitepatant, the Grandjoker +Vladinmire Pokethankertscheff, the Archjoker Leopold Rudolph von +Schwanzenbad-Hodenthaler, Countess Marha Viraga Kisaszony Putrapesthi, +Hiram Y. Bomboost, Count Athanatos Karamelopulos, Ali Baba Backsheesh +Rahat Lokum Effendi, Senor Hidalgo Caballero Don Pecadillo y Palabras +y Paternoster de la Malora de la Malaria, Hokopoko Harakiri, Hi Hung +Chang, Olaf Kobberkeddelsen, Mynheer Trik van Trumps, Pan Poleaxe +Paddyrisky, Goosepond Prhklstr Kratchinabritchisitch, Borus +Hupinkoff, Herr Hurhausdirektorpresident Hans Chuechli-Steuerli, +Nationalgymnasiummuseumsanatoriumandsuspensoriumsordinaryprivatdocent +-generalhistoryspecialprofessordoctor Kriegfried Ueberallgemein. All the +delegates without exception expressed themselves in the strongest +possible heterogeneous terms concerning the nameless barbarity which +they had been called upon to witness. An animated altercation (in which +all took part) ensued among the F. O. T. E. I. as to whether the eighth +or the ninth of March was the correct date of the birth of Ireland's +patron saint. In the course of the argument cannonballs, scimitars, +boomerangs, blunderbusses, stinkpots, meatchoppers, umbrellas, +catapults, knuckledusters, sandbags, lumps of pig iron were resorted to +and blows were freely exchanged. The baby policeman, Constable +MacFadden, summoned by special courier from Booterstown, quickly +restored order and with lightning promptitude proposed the seventeenth +of the month as a solution equally honourable for both contending +parties. The readywitted ninefooter's suggestion at once appealed to all +and was unanimously accepted. Constable MacFadden was heartily +congratulated by all the F.O.T.E.I., several of whom were bleeding +profusely. Commendatore Beninobenone having been extricated from +underneath the presidential armchair, it was explained by his legal +adviser Avvocato Pagamimi that the various articles secreted in his +thirtytwo pockets had been abstracted by him during the affray from the +pockets of his junior colleagues in the hope of bringing them to their +senses. The objects (which included several hundred ladies' and +gentlemen's gold and silver watches) were promptly restored to their +rightful owners and general harmony reigned supreme. + +Quietly, unassumingly Rumbold stepped on to the scaffold in faultless +morning dress and wearing his favourite flower, the _Gladiolus +Cruentus_. He announced his presence by that gentle Rumboldian cough +which so many have tried (unsuccessfully) to imitate--short, +painstaking yet withal so characteristic of the man. The arrival of the +worldrenowned headsman was greeted by a roar of acclamation from the +huge concourse, the viceregal ladies waving their handkerchiefs in +their excitement while the even more excitable foreign delegates +cheered vociferously in a medley of cries, _hoch, banzai, eljen, zivio, +chinchin, polla kronia, hiphip, vive, Allah_, amid which the ringing +_evviva_ of the delegate of the land of song (a high double F recalling +those piercingly lovely notes with which the eunuch Catalani beglamoured +our greatgreatgrandmothers) was easily distinguishable. It was exactly +seventeen o'clock. The signal for prayer was then promptly given by +megaphone and in an instant all heads were bared, the commendatore's +patriarchal sombrero, which has been in the possession of his family +since the revolution of Rienzi, being removed by his medical adviser +in attendance, Dr Pippi. The learned prelate who administered the last +comforts of holy religion to the hero martyr when about to pay the death +penalty knelt in a most christian spirit in a pool of rainwater, his +cassock above his hoary head, and offered up to the throne of grace +fervent prayers of supplication. Hand by the block stood the grim figure +of the executioner, his visage being concealed in a tengallon pot +with two circular perforated apertures through which his eyes glowered +furiously. As he awaited the fatal signal he tested the edge of his +horrible weapon by honing it upon his brawny forearm or decapitated +in rapid succession a flock of sheep which had been provided by the +admirers of his fell but necessary office. On a handsome mahogany table +near him were neatly arranged the quartering knife, the various +finely tempered disembowelling appliances (specially supplied by the +worldfamous firm of cutlers, Messrs John Round and Sons, Sheffield), +a terra cotta saucepan for the reception of the duodenum, colon, +blind intestine and appendix etc when successfully extracted and two +commodious milkjugs destined to receive the most precious blood of the +most precious victim. The housesteward of the amalgamated cats' and +dogs' home was in attendance to convey these vessels when replenished +to that beneficent institution. Quite an excellent repast consisting of +rashers and eggs, fried steak and onions, done to a nicety, delicious +hot breakfast rolls and invigorating tea had been considerately provided +by the authorities for the consumption of the central figure of the +tragedy who was in capital spirits when prepared for death and evinced +the keenest interest in the proceedings from beginning to end but he, +with an abnegation rare in these our times, rose nobly to the occasion +and expressed the dying wish (immediately acceded to) that the meal +should be divided in aliquot parts among the members of the sick and +indigent roomkeepers' association as a token of his regard and esteem. +The _nec_ and _non plus ultra_ of emotion were reached when the blushing +bride elect burst her way through the serried ranks of the bystanders +and flung herself upon the muscular bosom of him who was about to be +launched into eternity for her sake. The hero folded her willowy form in +a loving embrace murmuring fondly _Sheila, my own_. Encouraged by +this use of her christian name she kissed passionately all the various +suitable areas of his person which the decencies of prison garb +permitted her ardour to reach. She swore to him as they mingled the salt +streams of their tears that she would ever cherish his memory, that she +would never forget her hero boy who went to his death with a song on his +lips as if he were but going to a hurling match in Clonturk park. She +brought back to his recollection the happy days of blissful childhood +together on the banks of Anna Liffey when they had indulged in the +innocent pastimes of the young and, oblivious of the dreadful present, +they both laughed heartily, all the spectators, including the venerable +pastor, joining in the general merriment. That monster audience simply +rocked with delight. But anon they were overcome with grief and clasped +their hands for the last time. A fresh torrent of tears burst from their +lachrymal ducts and the vast concourse of people, touched to the inmost +core, broke into heartrending sobs, not the least affected being the +aged prebendary himself. Big strong men, officers of the peace and +genial giants of the royal Irish constabulary, were making frank use of +their handkerchiefs and it is safe to say that there was not a dry eye +in that record assemblage. A most romantic incident occurred when a +handsome young Oxford graduate, noted for his chivalry towards the fair +sex, stepped forward and, presenting his visiting card, bankbook +and genealogical tree, solicited the hand of the hapless young lady, +requesting her to name the day, and was accepted on the spot. Every lady +in the audience was presented with a tasteful souvenir of the occasion +in the shape of a skull and crossbones brooch, a timely and generous +act which evoked a fresh outburst of emotion: and when the gallant young +Oxonian (the bearer, by the way, of one of the most timehonoured names +in Albion's history) placed on the finger of his blushing _fiancee_ an +expensive engagement ring with emeralds set in the form of a +fourleaved shamrock the excitement knew no bounds. Nay, even the +ster provostmarshal, lieutenantcolonel Tomkin-Maxwell ffrenchmullan +Tomlinson, who presided on the sad occasion, he who had blown a +considerable number of sepoys from the cannonmouth without flinching, +could not now restrain his natural emotion. With his mailed gauntlet +he brushed away a furtive tear and was overheard, by those privileged +burghers who happened to be in his immediate _entourage,_ to murmur to +himself in a faltering undertone: + +--God blimey if she aint a clinker, that there bleeding tart. Blimey it +makes me kind of bleeding cry, straight, it does, when I sees her cause +I thinks of my old mashtub what's waiting for me down Limehouse way. + +So then the citizen begins talking about the Irish language and the +corporation meeting and all to that and the shoneens that can't speak +their own language and Joe chipping in because he stuck someone for a +quid and Bloom putting in his old goo with his twopenny stump that +he cadged off of Joe and talking about the Gaelic league and the +antitreating league and drink, the curse of Ireland. Antitreating is +about the size of it. Gob, he'd let you pour all manner of drink down +his throat till the Lord would call him before you'd ever see the froth +of his pint. And one night I went in with a fellow into one of their +musical evenings, song and dance about she could get up on a truss of +hay she could my Maureen Lay and there was a fellow with a Ballyhooly +blue ribbon badge spiffing out of him in Irish and a lot of colleen +bawns going about with temperance beverages and selling medals +and oranges and lemonade and a few old dry buns, gob, flahoolagh +entertainment, don't be talking. Ireland sober is Ireland free. And +then an old fellow starts blowing into his bagpipes and all the gougers +shuffling their feet to the tune the old cow died of. And one or two +sky pilots having an eye around that there was no goings on with the +females, hitting below the belt. + +So howandever, as I was saying, the old dog seeing the tin was empty +starts mousing around by Joe and me. I'd train him by kindness, so I +would, if he was my dog. Give him a rousing fine kick now and again +where it wouldn't blind him. + +--Afraid he'll bite you? says the citizen, jeering. + +--No, says I. But he might take my leg for a lamppost. + +So he calls the old dog over. + +--What's on you, Garry? says he. + +Then he starts hauling and mauling and talking to him in Irish and the +old towser growling, letting on to answer, like a duet in the opera. +Such growling you never heard as they let off between them. Someone that +has nothing better to do ought to write a letter _pro bono publico_ to +the papers about the muzzling order for a dog the like of that. Growling +and grousing and his eye all bloodshot from the drouth is in it and the +hydrophobia dropping out of his jaws. + +All those who are interested in the spread of human culture among the +lower animals (and their name is legion) should make a point of not +missing the really marvellous exhibition of cynanthropy given by the +famous old Irish red setter wolfdog formerly known by the _sobriquet_ of +Garryowen and recently rechristened by his large circle of friends and +acquaintances Owen Garry. The exhibition, which is the result of years +of training by kindness and a carefully thoughtout dietary system, +comprises, among other achievements, the recitation of verse. Our +greatest living phonetic expert (wild horses shall not drag it from us!) +has left no stone unturned in his efforts to delucidate and compare +the verse recited and has found it bears a _striking_ resemblance (the +italics are ours) to the ranns of ancient Celtic bards. We are not +speaking so much of those delightful lovesongs with which the writer who +conceals his identity under the graceful pseudonym of the Little +Sweet Branch has familiarised the bookloving world but rather (as +a contributor D. O. C. points out in an interesting communication +published by an evening contemporary) of the harsher and more personal +note which is found in the satirical effusions of the famous Raftery and +of Donal MacConsidine to say nothing of a more modern lyrist at present +very much in the public eye. We subjoin a specimen which has been +rendered into English by an eminent scholar whose name for the moment we +are not at liberty to disclose though we believe that our readers will +find the topical allusion rather more than an indication. The metrical +system of the canine original, which recalls the intricate alliterative +and isosyllabic rules of the Welsh englyn, is infinitely more +complicated but we believe our readers will agree that the spirit has +been well caught. Perhaps it should be added that the effect is greatly +increased if Owen's verse be spoken somewhat slowly and indistinctly in +a tone suggestive of suppressed rancour. + + _The curse of my curses + Seven days every day + And seven dry Thursdays + On you, Barney Kiernan, + Has no sup of water + To cool my courage, + And my guts red roaring + After Lowry's lights._ + +So he told Terry to bring some water for the dog and, gob, you could +hear him lapping it up a mile off. And Joe asked him would he have +another. + +--I will, says he, _a chara_, to show there's no ill feeling. + +Gob, he's not as green as he's cabbagelooking. Arsing around from one +pub to another, leaving it to your own honour, with old Giltrap's dog +and getting fed up by the ratepayers and corporators. Entertainment for +man and beast. And says Joe: + +--Could you make a hole in another pint? + +--Could a swim duck? says I. + +--Same again, Terry, says Joe. Are you sure you won't have anything in +the way of liquid refreshment? says he. + +--Thank you, no, says Bloom. As a matter of fact I just wanted to meet +Martin Cunningham, don't you see, about this insurance of poor Dignam's. +Martin asked me to go to the house. You see, he, Dignam, I mean, didn't +serve any notice of the assignment on the company at the time and +nominally under the act the mortgagee can't recover on the policy. + +--Holy Wars, says Joe, laughing, that's a good one if old Shylock is +landed. So the wife comes out top dog, what? + +--Well, that's a point, says Bloom, for the wife's admirers. + +--Whose admirers? says Joe. + +--The wife's advisers, I mean, says Bloom. + +Then he starts all confused mucking it up about mortgagor under the act +like the lord chancellor giving it out on the bench and for the benefit +of the wife and that a trust is created but on the other hand that +Dignam owed Bridgeman the money and if now the wife or the widow +contested the mortgagee's right till he near had the head of me addled +with his mortgagor under the act. He was bloody safe he wasn't run in +himself under the act that time as a rogue and vagabond only he had a +friend in court. Selling bazaar tickets or what do you call it royal +Hungarian privileged lottery. True as you're there. O, commend me to an +israelite! Royal and privileged Hungarian robbery. + +So Bob Doran comes lurching around asking Bloom to tell Mrs Dignam he +was sorry for her trouble and he was very sorry about the funeral and +to tell her that he said and everyone who knew him said that there was +never a truer, a finer than poor little Willy that's dead to tell her. +Choking with bloody foolery. And shaking Bloom's hand doing the tragic +to tell her that. Shake hands, brother. You're a rogue and I'm another. + +--Let me, said he, so far presume upon our acquaintance which, however +slight it may appear if judged by the standard of mere time, is founded, +as I hope and believe, on a sentiment of mutual esteem as to request of +you this favour. But, should I have overstepped the limits of reserve +let the sincerity of my feelings be the excuse for my boldness. + +--No, rejoined the other, I appreciate to the full the motives which +actuate your conduct and I shall discharge the office you entrust to +me consoled by the reflection that, though the errand be one of sorrow, +this proof of your confidence sweetens in some measure the bitterness of +the cup. + +--Then suffer me to take your hand, said he. The goodness of your heart, +I feel sure, will dictate to you better than my inadequate words +the expressions which are most suitable to convey an emotion whose +poignancy, were I to give vent to my feelings, would deprive me even of +speech. + +And off with him and out trying to walk straight. Boosed at five +o'clock. Night he was near being lagged only Paddy Leonard knew the +bobby, 14A. Blind to the world up in a shebeen in Bride street after +closing time, fornicating with two shawls and a bully on guard, drinking +porter out of teacups. And calling himself a Frenchy for the shawls, +Joseph Manuo, and talking against the Catholic religion, and he serving +mass in Adam and Eve's when he was young with his eyes shut, who wrote +the new testament, and the old testament, and hugging and smugging. And +the two shawls killed with the laughing, picking his pockets, the bloody +fool and he spilling the porter all over the bed and the two shawls +screeching laughing at one another. _How is your testament? Have you got +an old testament?_ Only Paddy was passing there, I tell you what. Then +see him of a Sunday with his little concubine of a wife, and she wagging +her tail up the aisle of the chapel with her patent boots on her, no +less, and her violets, nice as pie, doing the little lady. Jack Mooney's +sister. And the old prostitute of a mother procuring rooms to street +couples. Gob, Jack made him toe the line. Told him if he didn't patch up +the pot, Jesus, he'd kick the shite out of him. + +So Terry brought the three pints. + +--Here, says Joe, doing the honours. Here, citizen. + +--_Slan leat_, says he. + +--Fortune, Joe, says I. Good health, citizen. + +Gob, he had his mouth half way down the tumbler already. Want a small +fortune to keep him in drinks. + +--Who is the long fellow running for the mayoralty, Alf? says Joe. + +--Friend of yours, says Alf. + +--Nannan? says Joe. The mimber? + +--I won't mention any names, says Alf. + +--I thought so, says Joe. I saw him up at that meeting now with William +Field, M. P., the cattle traders. + +--Hairy Iopas, says the citizen, that exploded volcano, the darling of +all countries and the idol of his own. + +So Joe starts telling the citizen about the foot and mouth disease +and the cattle traders and taking action in the matter and the citizen +sending them all to the rightabout and Bloom coming out with his +sheepdip for the scab and a hoose drench for coughing calves and the +guaranteed remedy for timber tongue. Because he was up one time in a +knacker's yard. Walking about with his book and pencil here's my head +and my heels are coming till Joe Cuffe gave him the order of the boot +for giving lip to a grazier. Mister Knowall. Teach your grandmother how +to milk ducks. Pisser Burke was telling me in the hotel the wife used +to be in rivers of tears some times with Mrs O'Dowd crying her eyes out +with her eight inches of fat all over her. Couldn't loosen her farting +strings but old cod's eye was waltzing around her showing her how to do +it. What's your programme today? Ay. Humane methods. Because the poor +animals suffer and experts say and the best known remedy that doesn't +cause pain to the animal and on the sore spot administer gently. Gob, +he'd have a soft hand under a hen. + +Ga Ga Gara. Klook Klook Klook. Black Liz is our hen. She lays eggs for +us. When she lays her egg she is so glad. Gara. Klook Klook Klook. Then +comes good uncle Leo. He puts his hand under black Liz and takes her +fresh egg. Ga ga ga ga Gara. Klook Klook Klook. + +--Anyhow, says Joe, Field and Nannetti are going over tonight to London +to ask about it on the floor of the house of commons. + +--Are you sure, says Bloom, the councillor is going? I wanted to see +him, as it happens. + +--Well, he's going off by the mailboat, says Joe, tonight. + +--That's too bad, says Bloom. I wanted particularly. Perhaps only Mr +Field is going. I couldn't phone. No. You're sure? + +--Nannan's going too, says Joe. The league told him to ask a question +tomorrow about the commissioner of police forbidding Irish games in the +park. What do you think of that, citizen? _The Sluagh na h-Eireann_. + +Mr Cowe Conacre (Multifarnham. Nat.): Arising out of the question of +my honourable friend, the member for Shillelagh, may I ask the right +honourable gentleman whether the government has issued orders that these +animals shall be slaughtered though no medical evidence is forthcoming +as to their pathological condition? + +Mr Allfours (Tamoshant. Con.): Honourable members are already in +possession of the evidence produced before a committee of the whole +house. I feel I cannot usefully add anything to that. The answer to the +honourable member's question is in the affirmative. + +Mr Orelli O'Reilly (Montenotte. Nat.): Have similar orders been issued +for the slaughter of human animals who dare to play Irish games in the +Phoenix park? + +Mr Allfours: The answer is in the negative. + +Mr Cowe Conacre: Has the right honourable gentleman's famous +Mitchelstown telegram inspired the policy of gentlemen on the Treasury +bench? (O! O!) + +Mr Allfours: I must have notice of that question. + +Mr Staylewit (Buncombe. Ind.): Don't hesitate to shoot. + +(Ironical opposition cheers.) + +The speaker: Order! Order! + +(The house rises. Cheers.) + +--There's the man, says Joe, that made the Gaelic sports revival. There +he is sitting there. The man that got away James Stephens. The champion +of all Ireland at putting the sixteen pound shot. What was your best +throw, citizen? + +--_Na bacleis_, says the citizen, letting on to be modest. There was a +time I was as good as the next fellow anyhow. + +--Put it there, citizen, says Joe. You were and a bloody sight better. + +--Is that really a fact? says Alf. + +--Yes, says Bloom. That's well known. Did you not know that? + +So off they started about Irish sports and shoneen games the like of +lawn tennis and about hurley and putting the stone and racy of the soil +and building up a nation once again and all to that. And of course Bloom +had to have his say too about if a fellow had a rower's heart violent +exercise was bad. I declare to my antimacassar if you took up a straw +from the bloody floor and if you said to Bloom: _Look at, Bloom. Do you +see that straw? That's a straw_. Declare to my aunt he'd talk about it +for an hour so he would and talk steady. + +A most interesting discussion took place in the ancient hall of _Brian +O'ciarnain's_ in _Sraid na Bretaine Bheag_, under the auspices of +_Sluagh na h-Eireann_, on the revival of ancient Gaelic sports and the +importance of physical culture, as understood in ancient Greece and +ancient Rome and ancient Ireland, for the development of the race. +The venerable president of the noble order was in the chair and the +attendance was of large dimensions. After an instructive discourse by +the chairman, a magnificent oration eloquently and forcibly expressed, +a most interesting and instructive discussion of the usual high standard +of excellence ensued as to the desirability of the revivability of +the ancient games and sports of our ancient Panceltic forefathers. The +wellknown and highly respected worker in the cause of our old tongue, Mr +Joseph M'Carthy Hynes, made an eloquent appeal for the resuscitation of +the ancient Gaelic sports and pastimes, practised morning and evening +by Finn MacCool, as calculated to revive the best traditions of manly +strength and prowess handed down to us from ancient ages. L. Bloom, who +met with a mixed reception of applause and hisses, having espoused the +negative the vocalist chairman brought the discussion to a close, in +response to repeated requests and hearty plaudits from all parts of +a bumper house, by a remarkably noteworthy rendering of the immortal +Thomas Osborne Davis' evergreen verses (happily too familiar to need +recalling here) _A nation once again_ in the execution of which the +veteran patriot champion may be said without fear of contradiction +to have fairly excelled himself. The Irish Caruso-Garibaldi was in +superlative form and his stentorian notes were heard to the greatest +advantage in the timehonoured anthem sung as only our citizen can sing +it. His superb highclass vocalism, which by its superquality greatly +enhanced his already international reputation, was vociferously +applauded by the large audience among which were to be noticed many +prominent members of the clergy as well as representatives of the press +and the bar and the other learned professions. The proceedings then +terminated. + +Amongst the clergy present were the very rev. William Delany, S. J., L. +L. D.; the rt rev. Gerald Molloy, D. D.; the rev. P. J. Kavanagh, C. S. +Sp.; the rev. T. Waters, C. C.; the rev. John M. Ivers, P. P.; the rev. +P. J. Cleary, O. S. F.; the rev. L. J. Hickey, O. P.; the very rev. Fr. +Nicholas, O. S. F. C.; the very rev. B. Gorman, O. D. C.; the rev. T. +Maher, S. J.; the very rev. James Murphy, S. J.; the rev. John Lavery, +V. F.; the very rev. William Doherty, D. D.; the rev. Peter Fagan, O. +M.; the rev. T. Brangan, O. S. A.; the rev. J. Flavin, C. C.; the +rev. M. A. Hackett, C. C.; the rev. W. Hurley, C. C.; the rt rev. Mgr +M'Manus, V. G.; the rev. B. R. Slattery, O. M. I.; the very rev. M. +D. Scally, P. P.; the rev. F. T. Purcell, O. P.; the very rev. Timothy +canon Gorman, P. P.; the rev. J. Flanagan, C. C. The laity included P. +Fay, T. Quirke, etc., etc. + +--Talking about violent exercise, says Alf, were you at that +Keogh-Bennett match? + +--No, says Joe. + +--I heard So and So made a cool hundred quid over it, says Alf. + +--Who? Blazes? says Joe. + +And says Bloom: + +--What I meant about tennis, for example, is the agility and training +the eye. + +--Ay, Blazes, says Alf. He let out that Myler was on the beer to run up +the odds and he swatting all the time. + +--We know him, says the citizen. The traitor's son. We know what put +English gold in his pocket. + +---True for you, says Joe. + +And Bloom cuts in again about lawn tennis and the circulation of the +blood, asking Alf: + +--Now, don't you think, Bergan? + +--Myler dusted the floor with him, says Alf. Heenan and Sayers was only +a bloody fool to it. Handed him the father and mother of a beating. See +the little kipper not up to his navel and the big fellow swiping. God, +he gave him one last puck in the wind, Queensberry rules and all, made +him puke what he never ate. + +It was a historic and a hefty battle when Myler and Percy were scheduled +to don the gloves for the purse of fifty sovereigns. Handicapped as he +was by lack of poundage, Dublin's pet lamb made up for it by superlative +skill in ringcraft. The final bout of fireworks was a gruelling for both +champions. The welterweight sergeantmajor had tapped some lively claret +in the previous mixup during which Keogh had been receivergeneral of +rights and lefts, the artilleryman putting in some neat work on the +pet's nose, and Myler came on looking groggy. The soldier got to +business, leading off with a powerful left jab to which the Irish +gladiator retaliated by shooting out a stiff one flush to the point of +Bennett's jaw. The redcoat ducked but the Dubliner lifted him with a +left hook, the body punch being a fine one. The men came to handigrips. +Myler quickly became busy and got his man under, the bout ending with +the bulkier man on the ropes, Myler punishing him. The Englishman, whose +right eye was nearly closed, took his corner where he was liberally +drenched with water and when the bell went came on gamey and brimful of +pluck, confident of knocking out the fistic Eblanite in jigtime. It was +a fight to a finish and the best man for it. The two fought like tigers +and excitement ran fever high. The referee twice cautioned Pucking Percy +for holding but the pet was tricky and his footwork a treat to watch. +After a brisk exchange of courtesies during which a smart upper cut of +the military man brought blood freely from his opponent's mouth the +lamb suddenly waded in all over his man and landed a terrific left to +Battling Bennett's stomach, flooring him flat. It was a knockout clean +and clever. Amid tense expectation the Portobello bruiser was being +counted out when Bennett's second Ole Pfotts Wettstein threw in the +towel and the Santry boy was declared victor to the frenzied cheers of +the public who broke through the ringropes and fairly mobbed him with +delight. + +--He knows which side his bread is buttered, says Alf. I hear he's +running a concert tour now up in the north. + +--He is, says Joe. Isn't he? + +--Who? says Bloom. Ah, yes. That's quite true. Yes, a kind of summer +tour, you see. Just a holiday. + +--Mrs B. is the bright particular star, isn't she? says Joe. + +--My wife? says Bloom. She's singing, yes. I think it will be a success +too. + +He's an excellent man to organise. Excellent. + +Hoho begob says I to myself says I. That explains the milk in the +cocoanut and absence of hair on the animal's chest. Blazes doing the +tootle on the flute. Concert tour. Dirty Dan the dodger's son off Island +bridge that sold the same horses twice over to the government to fight +the Boers. Old Whatwhat. I called about the poor and water rate, Mr +Boylan. You what? The water rate, Mr Boylan. You whatwhat? That's the +bucko that'll organise her, take my tip. 'Twixt me and you Caddareesh. + +Pride of Calpe's rocky mount, the ravenhaired daughter of Tweedy. There +grew she to peerless beauty where loquat and almond scent the air. The +gardens of Alameda knew her step: the garths of olives knew and bowed. +The chaste spouse of Leopold is she: Marion of the bountiful bosoms. + +And lo, there entered one of the clan of the O'Molloy's, a comely hero +of white face yet withal somewhat ruddy, his majesty's counsel learned +in the law, and with him the prince and heir of the noble line of +Lambert. + +--Hello, Ned. + +--Hello, Alf. + +--Hello, Jack. + +--Hello, Joe. + +--God save you, says the citizen. + +--Save you kindly, says J. J. What'll it be, Ned? + +--Half one, says Ned. + +So J. J. ordered the drinks. + +--Were you round at the court? says Joe. + +--Yes, says J. J. He'll square that, Ned, says he. + +--Hope so, says Ned. + +Now what were those two at? J. J. getting him off the grand jury list +and the other give him a leg over the stile. With his name in Stubbs's. +Playing cards, hobnobbing with flash toffs with a swank glass in their +eye, adrinking fizz and he half smothered in writs and garnishee orders. +Pawning his gold watch in Cummins of Francis street where no-one would +know him in the private office when I was there with Pisser releasing +his boots out of the pop. What's your name, sir? Dunne, says he. Ay, and +done says I. Gob, he'll come home by weeping cross one of those days, +I'm thinking. + +--Did you see that bloody lunatic Breen round there? says Alf. U. p: up. + +--Yes, says J. J. Looking for a private detective. + +--Ay, says Ned. And he wanted right go wrong to address the court only +Corny Kelleher got round him telling him to get the handwriting examined +first. + +--Ten thousand pounds, says Alf, laughing. God, I'd give anything to +hear him before a judge and jury. + +--Was it you did it, Alf? says Joe. The truth, the whole truth and +nothing but the truth, so help you Jimmy Johnson. + +--Me? says Alf. Don't cast your nasturtiums on my character. + +--Whatever statement you make, says Joe, will be taken down in evidence +against you. + +--Of course an action would lie, says J. J. It implies that he is not +_compos mentis_. U. p: up. + +_--Compos_ your eye! says Alf, laughing. Do you know that he's balmy? +Look at his head. Do you know that some mornings he has to get his hat +on with a shoehorn. + +--Yes, says J. J., but the truth of a libel is no defence to an +indictment for publishing it in the eyes of the law. + +--Ha ha, Alf, says Joe. + +--Still, says Bloom, on account of the poor woman, I mean his wife. + +--Pity about her, says the citizen. Or any other woman marries a half +and half. + +--How half and half? says Bloom. Do you mean he... + +--Half and half I mean, says the citizen. A fellow that's neither fish +nor flesh. + +--Nor good red herring, says Joe. + +--That what's I mean, says the citizen. A pishogue, if you know what +that is. + +Begob I saw there was trouble coming. And Bloom explaining he meant on +account of it being cruel for the wife having to go round after the +old stuttering fool. Cruelty to animals so it is to let that bloody +povertystricken Breen out on grass with his beard out tripping him, +bringing down the rain. And she with her nose cockahoop after she +married him because a cousin of his old fellow's was pewopener to the +pope. Picture of him on the wall with his Smashall Sweeney's moustaches, +the signior Brini from Summerhill, the eyetallyano, papal Zouave to the +Holy Father, has left the quay and gone to Moss street. And who was +he, tell us? A nobody, two pair back and passages, at seven shillings a +week, and he covered with all kinds of breastplates bidding defiance to +the world. + +--And moreover, says J. J., a postcard is publication. It was held to +be sufficient evidence of malice in the testcase Sadgrove v. Hole. In my +opinion an action might lie. + +Six and eightpence, please. Who wants your opinion? Let us drink our +pints in peace. Gob, we won't be let even do that much itself. + +--Well, good health, Jack, says Ned. + +--Good health, Ned, says J. J. + +---There he is again, says Joe. + +--Where? says Alf. + +And begob there he was passing the door with his books under his oxter +and the wife beside him and Corny Kelleher with his wall eye looking in +as they went past, talking to him like a father, trying to sell him a +secondhand coffin. + +--How did that Canada swindle case go off? says Joe. + +--Remanded, says J. J. + +One of the bottlenosed fraternity it was went by the name of James +Wought alias Saphiro alias Spark and Spiro, put an ad in the papers +saying he'd give a passage to Canada for twenty bob. What? Do you see +any green in the white of my eye? Course it was a bloody barney. What? +Swindled them all, skivvies and badhachs from the county Meath, ay, and +his own kidney too. J. J. was telling us there was an ancient Hebrew +Zaretsky or something weeping in the witnessbox with his hat on him, +swearing by the holy Moses he was stuck for two quid. + +--Who tried the case? says Joe. + +--Recorder, says Ned. + +--Poor old sir Frederick, says Alf, you can cod him up to the two eyes. + +--Heart as big as a lion, says Ned. Tell him a tale of woe about arrears +of rent and a sick wife and a squad of kids and, faith, he'll dissolve +in tears on the bench. + +--Ay, says Alf. Reuben J was bloody lucky he didn't clap him in the dock +the other day for suing poor little Gumley that's minding stones, for +the corporation there near Butt bridge. + +And he starts taking off the old recorder letting on to cry: + +--A most scandalous thing! This poor hardworking man! How many children? +Ten, did you say? + +--Yes, your worship. And my wife has the typhoid. + +--And the wife with typhoid fever! Scandalous! Leave the court +immediately, sir. No, sir, I'll make no order for payment. How dare you, +sir, come up before me and ask me to make an order! A poor hardworking +industrious man! I dismiss the case. + +And whereas on the sixteenth day of the month of the oxeyed goddess and +in the third week after the feastday of the Holy and Undivided Trinity, +the daughter of the skies, the virgin moon being then in her first +quarter, it came to pass that those learned judges repaired them to the +halls of law. There master Courtenay, sitting in his own chamber, gave +his rede and master Justice Andrews, sitting without a jury in the +probate court, weighed well and pondered the claim of the first +chargeant upon the property in the matter of the will propounded and +final testamentary disposition _in re_ the real and personal estate of +the late lamented Jacob Halliday, vintner, deceased, versus Livingstone, +an infant, of unsound mind, and another. And to the solemn court of +Green street there came sir Frederick the Falconer. And he sat him there +about the hour of five o'clock to administer the law of the brehons at +the commission for all that and those parts to be holden in and for the +county of the city of Dublin. And there sat with him the high sinhedrim +of the twelve tribes of Iar, for every tribe one man, of the tribe of +Patrick and of the tribe of Hugh and of the tribe of Owen and of the +tribe of Conn and of the tribe of Oscar and of the tribe of Fergus and +of the tribe of Finn and of the tribe of Dermot and of the tribe of +Cormac and of the tribe of Kevin and of the tribe of Caolte and of the +tribe of Ossian, there being in all twelve good men and true. And he +conjured them by Him who died on rood that they should well and +truly try and true deliverance make in the issue joined between their +sovereign lord the king and the prisoner at the bar and true verdict +give according to the evidence so help them God and kiss the book. And +they rose in their seats, those twelve of Iar, and they swore by +the name of Him Who is from everlasting that they would do His +rightwiseness. And straightway the minions of the law led forth from +their donjon keep one whom the sleuthhounds of justice had apprehended +in consequence of information received. And they shackled him hand and +foot and would take of him ne bail ne mainprise but preferred a charge +against him for he was a malefactor. + +--Those are nice things, says the citizen, coming over here to Ireland +filling the country with bugs. + +So Bloom lets on he heard nothing and he starts talking with Joe, +telling him he needn't trouble about that little matter till the first +but if he would just say a word to Mr Crawford. And so Joe swore high +and holy by this and by that he'd do the devil and all. + +--Because, you see, says Bloom, for an advertisement you must have +repetition. That's the whole secret. + +--Rely on me, says Joe. + +--Swindling the peasants, says the citizen, and the poor of Ireland. We +want no more strangers in our house. + +--O, I'm sure that will be all right, Hynes, says Bloom. It's just that +Keyes, you see. + +--Consider that done, says Joe. + +--Very kind of you, says Bloom. + +--The strangers, says the citizen. Our own fault. We let them come in. +We brought them in. The adulteress and her paramour brought the Saxon +robbers here. + +--Decree _nisi,_ says J. J. + +And Bloom letting on to be awfully deeply interested in nothing, a +spider's web in the corner behind the barrel, and the citizen scowling +after him and the old dog at his feet looking up to know who to bite and +when. + +--A dishonoured wife, says the citizen, that's what's the cause of all +our misfortunes. + +--And here she is, says Alf, that was giggling over the _Police Gazette_ +with Terry on the counter, in all her warpaint. + +--Give us a squint at her, says I. + +And what was it only one of the smutty yankee pictures Terry borrows off +of Corny Kelleher. Secrets for enlarging your private parts. Misconduct +of society belle. Norman W. Tupper, wealthy Chicago contractor, finds +pretty but faithless wife in lap of officer Taylor. Belle in her +bloomers misconducting herself, and her fancyman feeling for her tickles +and Norman W. Tupper bouncing in with his peashooter just in time to be +late after she doing the trick of the loop with officer Taylor. + +--O jakers, Jenny, says Joe, how short your shirt is! + +--There's hair, Joe, says I. Get a queer old tailend of corned beef off +of that one, what? + +So anyhow in came John Wyse Nolan and Lenehan with him with a face on +him as long as a late breakfast. + +--Well, says the citizen, what's the latest from the scene of action? +What did those tinkers in the city hall at their caucus meeting decide +about the Irish language? + +O'Nolan, clad in shining armour, low bending made obeisance to the +puissant and high and mighty chief of all Erin and did him to wit of +that which had befallen, how that the grave elders of the most obedient +city, second of the realm, had met them in the tholsel, and there, after +due prayers to the gods who dwell in ether supernal, had taken solemn +counsel whereby they might, if so be it might be, bring once more into +honour among mortal men the winged speech of the seadivided Gael. + +--It's on the march, says the citizen. To hell with the bloody brutal +Sassenachs and their _patois._ + +So J. J. puts in a word, doing the toff about one story was good till +you heard another and blinking facts and the Nelson policy, putting your +blind eye to the telescope and drawing up a bill of attainder to impeach +a nation, and Bloom trying to back him up moderation and botheration and +their colonies and their civilisation. + +--Their syphilisation, you mean, says the citizen. To hell with +them! The curse of a goodfornothing God light sideways on the bloody +thicklugged sons of whores' gets! No music and no art and no literature +worthy of the name. Any civilisation they have they stole from us. +Tonguetied sons of bastards' ghosts. + +--The European family, says J. J.... + +--They're not European, says the citizen. I was in Europe with Kevin +Egan of Paris. You wouldn't see a trace of them or their language +anywhere in Europe except in a _cabinet d'aisance._ + +And says John Wyse: + +--Full many a flower is born to blush unseen. + +And says Lenehan that knows a bit of the lingo: + +--_Conspuez les Anglais! Perfide Albion!_ + +He said and then lifted he in his rude great brawny strengthy hands the +medher of dark strong foamy ale and, uttering his tribal slogan _Lamh +Dearg Abu_, he drank to the undoing of his foes, a race of mighty +valorous heroes, rulers of the waves, who sit on thrones of alabaster +silent as the deathless gods. + +--What's up with you, says I to Lenehan. You look like a fellow that had +lost a bob and found a tanner. + +--Gold cup, says he. + +--Who won, Mr Lenehan? says Terry. + +_--Throwaway,_ says he, at twenty to one. A rank outsider. And the rest +nowhere. + +--And Bass's mare? says Terry. + +--Still running, says he. We're all in a cart. Boylan plunged two quid +on my tip _Sceptre_ for himself and a lady friend. + +--I had half a crown myself, says Terry, on _Zinfandel_ that Mr Flynn +gave me. Lord Howard de Walden's. + +--Twenty to one, says Lenehan. Such is life in an outhouse. _Throwaway,_ +says he. Takes the biscuit, and talking about bunions. Frailty, thy name +is _Sceptre._ + +So he went over to the biscuit tin Bob Doran left to see if there was +anything he could lift on the nod, the old cur after him backing his +luck with his mangy snout up. Old Mother Hubbard went to the cupboard. + +--Not there, my child, says he. + +--Keep your pecker up, says Joe. She'd have won the money only for the +other dog. + +And J. J. and the citizen arguing about law and history with Bloom +sticking in an odd word. + +--Some people, says Bloom, can see the mote in others' eyes but they +can't see the beam in their own. + +--_Raimeis_, says the citizen. There's no-one as blind as the fellow +that won't see, if you know what that means. Where are our missing +twenty millions of Irish should be here today instead of four, our lost +tribes? And our potteries and textiles, the finest in the whole world! +And our wool that was sold in Rome in the time of Juvenal and our flax +and our damask from the looms of Antrim and our Limerick lace, our +tanneries and our white flint glass down there by Ballybough and our +Huguenot poplin that we have since Jacquard de Lyon and our woven silk +and our Foxford tweeds and ivory raised point from the Carmelite convent +in New Ross, nothing like it in the whole wide world. Where are the +Greek merchants that came through the pillars of Hercules, the Gibraltar +now grabbed by the foe of mankind, with gold and Tyrian purple to +sell in Wexford at the fair of Carmen? Read Tacitus and Ptolemy, even +Giraldus Cambrensis. Wine, peltries, Connemara marble, silver from +Tipperary, second to none, our farfamed horses even today, the Irish +hobbies, with king Philip of Spain offering to pay customs duties for +the right to fish in our waters. What do the yellowjohns of Anglia owe +us for our ruined trade and our ruined hearths? And the beds of the +Barrow and Shannon they won't deepen with millions of acres of marsh and +bog to make us all die of consumption? + +--As treeless as Portugal we'll be soon, says John Wyse, or Heligoland +with its one tree if something is not done to reafforest the land. +Larches, firs, all the trees of the conifer family are going fast. I was +reading a report of lord Castletown's... + +--Save them, says the citizen, the giant ash of Galway and the chieftain +elm of Kildare with a fortyfoot bole and an acre of foliage. Save the +trees of Ireland for the future men of Ireland on the fair hills of +Eire, O. + +--Europe has its eyes on you, says Lenehan. + +The fashionable international world attended EN MASSE this afternoon +at the wedding of the chevalier Jean Wyse de Neaulan, grand high chief +ranger of the Irish National Foresters, with Miss Fir Conifer of Pine +Valley. Lady Sylvester Elmshade, Mrs Barbara Lovebirch, Mrs Poll Ash, +Mrs Holly Hazeleyes, Miss Daphne Bays, Miss Dorothy Canebrake, Mrs Clyde +Twelvetrees, Mrs Rowan Greene, Mrs Helen Vinegadding, Miss Virginia +Creeper, Miss Gladys Beech, Miss Olive Garth, Miss Blanche Maple, Mrs +Maud Mahogany, Miss Myra Myrtle, Miss Priscilla Elderflower, Miss +Bee Honeysuckle, Miss Grace Poplar, Miss O Mimosa San, Miss Rachel +Cedarfrond, the Misses Lilian and Viola Lilac, Miss Timidity Aspenall, +Mrs Kitty Dewey-Mosse, Miss May Hawthorne, Mrs Gloriana Palme, Mrs Liana +Forrest, Mrs Arabella Blackwood and Mrs Norma Holyoake of Oakholme Regis +graced the ceremony by their presence. The bride who was given away by +her father, the M'Conifer of the Glands, looked exquisitely charming in +a creation carried out in green mercerised silk, moulded on an underslip +of gloaming grey, sashed with a yoke of broad emerald and finished with +a triple flounce of darkerhued fringe, the scheme being relieved by +bretelles and hip insertions of acorn bronze. The maids of honour, Miss +Larch Conifer and Miss Spruce Conifer, sisters of the bride, wore very +becoming costumes in the same tone, a dainty _motif_ of plume rose being +worked into the pleats in a pinstripe and repeated capriciously in the +jadegreen toques in the form of heron feathers of paletinted coral. +Senhor Enrique Flor presided at the organ with his wellknown ability +and, in addition to the prescribed numbers of the nuptial mass, played +a new and striking arrangement of _Woodman, spare that tree_ at the +conclusion of the service. On leaving the church of Saint Fiacre _in +Horto_ after the papal blessing the happy pair were subjected to a +playful crossfire of hazelnuts, beechmast, bayleaves, catkins of willow, +ivytod, hollyberries, mistletoe sprigs and quicken shoots. Mr and Mrs +Wyse Conifer Neaulan will spend a quiet honeymoon in the Black Forest. + +--And our eyes are on Europe, says the citizen. We had our trade with +Spain and the French and with the Flemings before those mongrels were +pupped, Spanish ale in Galway, the winebark on the winedark waterway. + +--And will again, says Joe. + +--And with the help of the holy mother of God we will again, says the +citizen, clapping his thigh, our harbours that are empty will be full +again, Queenstown, Kinsale, Galway, Blacksod Bay, Ventry in the kingdom +of Kerry, Killybegs, the third largest harbour in the wide world with +a fleet of masts of the Galway Lynches and the Cavan O'Reillys and the +O'Kennedys of Dublin when the earl of Desmond could make a treaty with +the emperor Charles the Fifth himself. And will again, says he, when the +first Irish battleship is seen breasting the waves with our own flag to +the fore, none of your Henry Tudor's harps, no, the oldest flag afloat, +the flag of the province of Desmond and Thomond, three crowns on a blue +field, the three sons of Milesius. + +And he took the last swig out of the pint. Moya. All wind and piss like +a tanyard cat. Cows in Connacht have long horns. As much as his bloody +life is worth to go down and address his tall talk to the assembled +multitude in Shanagolden where he daren't show his nose with the Molly +Maguires looking for him to let daylight through him for grabbing the +holding of an evicted tenant. + +--Hear, hear to that, says John Wyse. What will you have? + +--An imperial yeomanry, says Lenehan, to celebrate the occasion. + +--Half one, Terry, says John Wyse, and a hands up. Terry! Are you +asleep? + +--Yes, sir, says Terry. Small whisky and bottle of Allsop. Right, sir. + +Hanging over the bloody paper with Alf looking for spicy bits instead of +attending to the general public. Picture of a butting match, trying to +crack their bloody skulls, one chap going for the other with his head +down like a bull at a gate. And another one: _Black Beast Burned in +Omaha, Ga_. A lot of Deadwood Dicks in slouch hats and they firing at a +Sambo strung up in a tree with his tongue out and a bonfire under +him. Gob, they ought to drown him in the sea after and electrocute and +crucify him to make sure of their job. + +--But what about the fighting navy, says Ned, that keeps our foes at +bay? + +--I'll tell you what about it, says the citizen. Hell upon earth it is. +Read the revelations that's going on in the papers about flogging on +the training ships at Portsmouth. A fellow writes that calls himself +_Disgusted One_. + +So he starts telling us about corporal punishment and about the crew +of tars and officers and rearadmirals drawn up in cocked hats and the +parson with his protestant bible to witness punishment and a young lad +brought out, howling for his ma, and they tie him down on the buttend of +a gun. + +--A rump and dozen, says the citizen, was what that old ruffian sir John +Beresford called it but the modern God's Englishman calls it caning on +the breech. + +And says John Wyse: + +--'Tis a custom more honoured in the breach than in the observance. + +Then he was telling us the master at arms comes along with a long cane +and he draws out and he flogs the bloody backside off of the poor lad +till he yells meila murder. + +--That's your glorious British navy, says the citizen, that bosses the +earth. + +The fellows that never will be slaves, with the only hereditary chamber +on the face of God's earth and their land in the hands of a dozen +gamehogs and cottonball barons. That's the great empire they boast about +of drudges and whipped serfs. + +--On which the sun never rises, says Joe. + +--And the tragedy of it is, says the citizen, they believe it. The +unfortunate yahoos believe it. + +They believe in rod, the scourger almighty, creator of hell upon earth, +and in Jacky Tar, the son of a gun, who was conceived of unholy boast, +born of the fighting navy, suffered under rump and dozen, was scarified, +flayed and curried, yelled like bloody hell, the third day he arose +again from the bed, steered into haven, sitteth on his beamend till +further orders whence he shall come to drudge for a living and be paid. + +--But, says Bloom, isn't discipline the same everywhere. I mean wouldn't +it be the same here if you put force against force? + +Didn't I tell you? As true as I'm drinking this porter if he was at his +last gasp he'd try to downface you that dying was living. + +--We'll put force against force, says the citizen. We have our greater +Ireland beyond the sea. They were driven out of house and home in the +black 47. Their mudcabins and their shielings by the roadside were laid +low by the batteringram and the _Times_ rubbed its hands and told the +whitelivered Saxons there would soon be as few Irish in Ireland as +redskins in America. Even the Grand Turk sent us his piastres. But the +Sassenach tried to starve the nation at home while the land was full +of crops that the British hyenas bought and sold in Rio de Janeiro. Ay, +they drove out the peasants in hordes. Twenty thousand of them died in +the coffinships. But those that came to the land of the free remember +the land of bondage. And they will come again and with a vengeance, no +cravens, the sons of Granuaile, the champions of Kathleen ni Houlihan. + +--Perfectly true, says Bloom. But my point was... + +--We are a long time waiting for that day, citizen, says Ned. Since the +poor old woman told us that the French were on the sea and landed at +Killala. + +--Ay, says John Wyse. We fought for the royal Stuarts that reneged us +against the Williamites and they betrayed us. Remember Limerick and the +broken treatystone. We gave our best blood to France and Spain, the +wild geese. Fontenoy, eh? And Sarsfield and O'Donnell, duke of Tetuan +in Spain, and Ulysses Browne of Camus that was fieldmarshal to Maria +Teresa. But what did we ever get for it? + +--The French! says the citizen. Set of dancing masters! Do you know +what it is? They were never worth a roasted fart to Ireland. Aren't they +trying to make an _Entente cordiale_ now at Tay Pay's dinnerparty with +perfidious Albion? Firebrands of Europe and they always were. + +--_Conspuez les Francais_, says Lenehan, nobbling his beer. + +--And as for the Prooshians and the Hanoverians, says Joe, haven't we +had enough of those sausageeating bastards on the throne from George the +elector down to the German lad and the flatulent old bitch that's dead? + +Jesus, I had to laugh at the way he came out with that about the old one +with the winkers on her, blind drunk in her royal palace every night of +God, old Vic, with her jorum of mountain dew and her coachman carting +her up body and bones to roll into bed and she pulling him by the +whiskers and singing him old bits of songs about _Ehren on the Rhine_ +and come where the boose is cheaper. + +--Well, says J. J. We have Edward the peacemaker now. + +--Tell that to a fool, says the citizen. There's a bloody sight more pox +than pax about that boyo. Edward Guelph-Wettin! + +--And what do you think, says Joe, of the holy boys, the priests +and bishops of Ireland doing up his room in Maynooth in His Satanic +Majesty's racing colours and sticking up pictures of all the horses his +jockeys rode. The earl of Dublin, no less. + +--They ought to have stuck up all the women he rode himself, says little +Alf. + +And says J. J.: + +--Considerations of space influenced their lordships' decision. + +--Will you try another, citizen? says Joe. + +--Yes, sir, says he. I will. + +--You? says Joe. + +--Beholden to you, Joe, says I. May your shadow never grow less. + +--Repeat that dose, says Joe. + +Bloom was talking and talking with John Wyse and he quite excited with +his dunducketymudcoloured mug on him and his old plumeyes rolling about. + +--Persecution, says he, all the history of the world is full of it. +Perpetuating national hatred among nations. + +--But do you know what a nation means? says John Wyse. + +--Yes, says Bloom. + +--What is it? says John Wyse. + +--A nation? says Bloom. A nation is the same people living in the same +place. + +--By God, then, says Ned, laughing, if that's so I'm a nation for I'm +living in the same place for the past five years. + +So of course everyone had the laugh at Bloom and says he, trying to muck +out of it: + +--Or also living in different places. + +--That covers my case, says Joe. + +--What is your nation if I may ask? says the citizen. + +--Ireland, says Bloom. I was born here. Ireland. + +The citizen said nothing only cleared the spit out of his gullet and, +gob, he spat a Red bank oyster out of him right in the corner. + +--After you with the push, Joe, says he, taking out his handkerchief to +swab himself dry. + +--Here you are, citizen, says Joe. Take that in your right hand and +repeat after me the following words. + +The muchtreasured and intricately embroidered ancient Irish facecloth +attributed to Solomon of Droma and Manus Tomaltach og MacDonogh, authors +of the Book of Ballymote, was then carefully produced and called forth +prolonged admiration. No need to dwell on the legendary beauty of the +cornerpieces, the acme of art, wherein one can distinctly discern each +of the four evangelists in turn presenting to each of the four masters +his evangelical symbol, a bogoak sceptre, a North American puma (a far +nobler king of beasts than the British article, be it said in passing), +a Kerry calf and a golden eagle from Carrantuohill. The scenes depicted +on the emunctory field, showing our ancient duns and raths and cromlechs +and grianauns and seats of learning and maledictive stones, are as +wonderfully beautiful and the pigments as delicate as when the Sligo +illuminators gave free rein to their artistic fantasy long long ago in +the time of the Barmecides. Glendalough, the lovely lakes of Killarney, +the ruins of Clonmacnois, Cong Abbey, Glen Inagh and the Twelve Pins, +Ireland's Eye, the Green Hills of Tallaght, Croagh Patrick, the brewery +of Messrs Arthur Guinness, Son and Company (Limited), Lough Neagh's +banks, the vale of Ovoca, Isolde's tower, the Mapas obelisk, Sir Patrick +Dun's hospital, Cape Clear, the glen of Aherlow, Lynch's castle, the +Scotch house, Rathdown Union Workhouse at Loughlinstown, Tullamore jail, +Castleconnel rapids, Kilballymacshonakill, the cross at Monasterboice, +Jury's Hotel, S. Patrick's Purgatory, the Salmon Leap, Maynooth college +refectory, Curley's hole, the three birthplaces of the first duke of +Wellington, the rock of Cashel, the bog of Allen, the Henry Street +Warehouse, Fingal's Cave--all these moving scenes are still there for us +today rendered more beautiful still by the waters of sorrow which have +passed over them and by the rich incrustations of time. + +--Show us over the drink, says I. Which is which? + +--That's mine, says Joe, as the devil said to the dead policeman. + +--And I belong to a race too, says Bloom, that is hated and persecuted. +Also now. This very moment. This very instant. + +Gob, he near burnt his fingers with the butt of his old cigar. + +--Robbed, says he. Plundered. Insulted. Persecuted. Taking what belongs +to us by right. At this very moment, says he, putting up his fist, sold +by auction in Morocco like slaves or cattle. + +--Are you talking about the new Jerusalem? says the citizen. + +--I'm talking about injustice, says Bloom. + +--Right, says John Wyse. Stand up to it then with force like men. + +That's an almanac picture for you. Mark for a softnosed bullet. Old +lardyface standing up to the business end of a gun. Gob, he'd adorn a +sweepingbrush, so he would, if he only had a nurse's apron on him. And +then he collapses all of a sudden, twisting around all the opposite, as +limp as a wet rag. + +--But it's no use, says he. Force, hatred, history, all that. That's not +life for men and women, insult and hatred. And everybody knows that it's +the very opposite of that that is really life. + +--What? says Alf. + +--Love, says Bloom. I mean the opposite of hatred. I must go now, says +he to John Wyse. Just round to the court a moment to see if Martin is +there. If he comes just say I'll be back in a second. Just a moment. + +Who's hindering you? And off he pops like greased lightning. + +--A new apostle to the gentiles, says the citizen. Universal love. + +--Well, says John Wyse. Isn't that what we're told. Love your neighbour. + +--That chap? says the citizen. Beggar my neighbour is his motto. Love, +moya! He's a nice pattern of a Romeo and Juliet. + +Love loves to love love. Nurse loves the new chemist. Constable 14A +loves Mary Kelly. Gerty MacDowell loves the boy that has the bicycle. M. +B. loves a fair gentleman. Li Chi Han lovey up kissy Cha Pu Chow. Jumbo, +the elephant, loves Alice, the elephant. Old Mr Verschoyle with the ear +trumpet loves old Mrs Verschoyle with the turnedin eye. The man in the +brown macintosh loves a lady who is dead. His Majesty the King loves Her +Majesty the Queen. Mrs Norman W. Tupper loves officer Taylor. You love +a certain person. And this person loves that other person because +everybody loves somebody but God loves everybody. + +--Well, Joe, says I, your very good health and song. More power, +citizen. + +--Hurrah, there, says Joe. + +--The blessing of God and Mary and Patrick on you, says the citizen. + +And he ups with his pint to wet his whistle. + +--We know those canters, says he, preaching and picking your pocket. +What about sanctimonious Cromwell and his ironsides that put the women +and children of Drogheda to the sword with the bible text _God is love_ +pasted round the mouth of his cannon? The bible! Did you read that skit +in the _United Irishman_ today about that Zulu chief that's visiting +England? + +--What's that? says Joe. + +So the citizen takes up one of his paraphernalia papers and he starts +reading out: + +--A delegation of the chief cotton magnates of Manchester was presented +yesterday to His Majesty the Alaki of Abeakuta by Gold Stick in Waiting, +Lord Walkup of Walkup on Eggs, to tender to His Majesty the heartfelt +thanks of British traders for the facilities afforded them in his +dominions. The delegation partook of luncheon at the conclusion of which +the dusky potentate, in the course of a happy speech, freely translated +by the British chaplain, the reverend Ananias Praisegod Barebones, +tendered his best thanks to Massa Walkup and emphasised the cordial +relations existing between Abeakuta and the British empire, stating that +he treasured as one of his dearest possessions an illuminated bible, +the volume of the word of God and the secret of England's greatness, +graciously presented to him by the white chief woman, the great squaw +Victoria, with a personal dedication from the august hand of the Royal +Donor. The Alaki then drank a lovingcup of firstshot usquebaugh to the +toast _Black and White_ from the skull of his immediate predecessor in +the dynasty Kakachakachak, surnamed Forty Warts, after which he visited +the chief factory of Cottonopolis and signed his mark in the visitors' +book, subsequently executing a charming old Abeakutic wardance, in the +course of which he swallowed several knives and forks, amid hilarious +applause from the girl hands. + +--Widow woman, says Ned. I wouldn't doubt her. Wonder did he put that +bible to the same use as I would. + +--Same only more so, says Lenehan. And thereafter in that fruitful land +the broadleaved mango flourished exceedingly. + +--Is that by Griffith? says John Wyse. + +--No, says the citizen. It's not signed Shanganagh. It's only +initialled: P. + +--And a very good initial too, says Joe. + +--That's how it's worked, says the citizen. Trade follows the flag. + +--Well, says J. J., if they're any worse than those Belgians in the +Congo Free State they must be bad. Did you read that report by a man +what's this his name is? + +--Casement, says the citizen. He's an Irishman. + +--Yes, that's the man, says J. J. Raping the women and girls and +flogging the natives on the belly to squeeze all the red rubber they can +out of them. + +--I know where he's gone, says Lenehan, cracking his fingers. + +--Who? says I. + +--Bloom, says he. The courthouse is a blind. He had a few bob on +_Throwaway_ and he's gone to gather in the shekels. + +--Is it that whiteeyed kaffir? says the citizen, that never backed a +horse in anger in his life? + +--That's where he's gone, says Lenehan. I met Bantam Lyons going to back +that horse only I put him off it and he told me Bloom gave him the tip. +Bet you what you like he has a hundred shillings to five on. He's the +only man in Dublin has it. A dark horse. + +--He's a bloody dark horse himself, says Joe. + +--Mind, Joe, says I. Show us the entrance out. + +--There you are, says Terry. + +Goodbye Ireland I'm going to Gort. So I just went round the back of +the yard to pumpship and begob (hundred shillings to five) while I was +letting off my _(Throwaway_ twenty to) letting off my load gob says I +to myself I knew he was uneasy in his (two pints off of Joe and one in +Slattery's off) in his mind to get off the mark to (hundred shillings +is five quid) and when they were in the (dark horse) pisser Burke was +telling me card party and letting on the child was sick (gob, must have +done about a gallon) flabbyarse of a wife speaking down the tube _she's +better_ or _she's_ (ow!) all a plan so he could vamoose with the pool if +he won or (Jesus, full up I was) trading without a licence (ow!) Ireland +my nation says he (hoik! phthook!) never be up to those bloody (there's +the last of it) Jerusalem (ah!) cuckoos. + +So anyhow when I got back they were at it dingdong, John Wyse saying it +was Bloom gave the ideas for Sinn Fein to Griffith to put in his paper +all kinds of jerrymandering, packed juries and swindling the taxes off +of the government and appointing consuls all over the world to walk +about selling Irish industries. Robbing Peter to pay Paul. Gob, that +puts the bloody kybosh on it if old sloppy eyes is mucking up the show. +Give us a bloody chance. God save Ireland from the likes of that bloody +mouseabout. Mr Bloom with his argol bargol. And his old fellow before +him perpetrating frauds, old Methusalem Bloom, the robbing bagman, that +poisoned himself with the prussic acid after he swamping the country +with his baubles and his penny diamonds. Loans by post on easy terms. +Any amount of money advanced on note of hand. Distance no object. No +security. Gob, he's like Lanty MacHale's goat that'd go a piece of the +road with every one. + +--Well, it's a fact, says John Wyse. And there's the man now that'll +tell you all about it, Martin Cunningham. + +Sure enough the castle car drove up with Martin on it and Jack Power +with him and a fellow named Crofter or Crofton, pensioner out of +the collector general's, an orangeman Blackburn does have on the +registration and he drawing his pay or Crawford gallivanting around the +country at the king's expense. + +Our travellers reached the rustic hostelry and alighted from their +palfreys. + +--Ho, varlet! cried he, who by his mien seemed the leader of the party. +Saucy knave! To us! + +So saying he knocked loudly with his swordhilt upon the open lattice. + +Mine host came forth at the summons, girding him with his tabard. + +--Give you good den, my masters, said he with an obsequious bow. + +--Bestir thyself, sirrah! cried he who had knocked. Look to our steeds. +And for ourselves give us of your best for ifaith we need it. + +--Lackaday, good masters, said the host, my poor house has but a bare +larder. I know not what to offer your lordships. + +--How now, fellow? cried the second of the party, a man of pleasant +countenance, So servest thou the king's messengers, master Taptun? + +An instantaneous change overspread the landlord's visage. + +--Cry you mercy, gentlemen, he said humbly. An you be the king's +messengers (God shield His Majesty!) you shall not want for aught. The +king's friends (God bless His Majesty!) shall not go afasting in my +house I warrant me. + +--Then about! cried the traveller who had not spoken, a lusty +trencherman by his aspect. Hast aught to give us? + +Mine host bowed again as he made answer: + +--What say you, good masters, to a squab pigeon pasty, some collops of +venison, a saddle of veal, widgeon with crisp hog's bacon, a boar's head +with pistachios, a bason of jolly custard, a medlar tansy and a flagon +of old Rhenish? + +--Gadzooks! cried the last speaker. That likes me well. Pistachios! + +--Aha! cried he of the pleasant countenance. A poor house and a bare +larder, quotha! 'Tis a merry rogue. + +So in comes Martin asking where was Bloom. + +--Where is he? says Lenehan. Defrauding widows and orphans. + +--Isn't that a fact, says John Wyse, what I was telling the citizen +about Bloom and the Sinn Fein? + +--That's so, says Martin. Or so they allege. + +--Who made those allegations? says Alf. + +--I, says Joe. I'm the alligator. + +--And after all, says John Wyse, why can't a jew love his country like +the next fellow? + +--Why not? says J. J., when he's quite sure which country it is. + +--Is he a jew or a gentile or a holy Roman or a swaddler or what the +hell is he? says Ned. Or who is he? No offence, Crofton. + +--Who is Junius? says J. J. + +--We don't want him, says Crofter the Orangeman or presbyterian. + +--He's a perverted jew, says Martin, from a place in Hungary and it was +he drew up all the plans according to the Hungarian system. We know that +in the castle. + +--Isn't he a cousin of Bloom the dentist? says Jack Power. + +--Not at all, says Martin. Only namesakes. His name was Virag, the +father's name that poisoned himself. He changed it by deedpoll, the +father did. + +--That's the new Messiah for Ireland! says the citizen. Island of saints +and sages! + +--Well, they're still waiting for their redeemer, says Martin. For that +matter so are we. + +--Yes, says J. J., and every male that's born they think it may be their +Messiah. And every jew is in a tall state of excitement, I believe, till +he knows if he's a father or a mother. + +--Expecting every moment will be his next, says Lenehan. + +--O, by God, says Ned, you should have seen Bloom before that son of his +that died was born. I met him one day in the south city markets buying a +tin of Neave's food six weeks before the wife was delivered. + +--_En ventre sa mere_, says J. J. + +--Do you call that a man? says the citizen. + +--I wonder did he ever put it out of sight, says Joe. + +--Well, there were two children born anyhow, says Jack Power. + +--And who does he suspect? says the citizen. + +Gob, there's many a true word spoken in jest. One of those mixed +middlings he is. Lying up in the hotel Pisser was telling me once a +month with headache like a totty with her courses. Do you know what I'm +telling you? It'd be an act of God to take a hold of a fellow the like +of that and throw him in the bloody sea. Justifiable homicide, so it +would. Then sloping off with his five quid without putting up a pint of +stuff like a man. Give us your blessing. Not as much as would blind your +eye. + +--Charity to the neighbour, says Martin. But where is he? We can't wait. + +--A wolf in sheep's clothing, says the citizen. That's what he is. Virag +from Hungary! Ahasuerus I call him. Cursed by God. + +--Have you time for a brief libation, Martin? says Ned. + +--Only one, says Martin. We must be quick. J. J. and S. + +--You, Jack? Crofton? Three half ones, Terry. + +--Saint Patrick would want to land again at Ballykinlar and convert us, +says the citizen, after allowing things like that to contaminate our +shores. + +--Well, says Martin, rapping for his glass. God bless all here is my +prayer. + +--Amen, says the citizen. + +--And I'm sure He will, says Joe. + +And at the sound of the sacring bell, headed by a crucifer with +acolytes, thurifers, boatbearers, readers, ostiarii, deacons and +subdeacons, the blessed company drew nigh of mitred abbots and priors +and guardians and monks and friars: the monks of Benedict of Spoleto, +Carthusians and Camaldolesi, Cistercians and Olivetans, Oratorians +and Vallombrosans, and the friars of Augustine, Brigittines, +Premonstratensians, Servi, Trinitarians, and the children of Peter +Nolasco: and therewith from Carmel mount the children of Elijah prophet +led by Albert bishop and by Teresa of Avila, calced and other: and +friars, brown and grey, sons of poor Francis, capuchins, cordeliers, +minimes and observants and the daughters of Clara: and the sons of +Dominic, the friars preachers, and the sons of Vincent: and the monks +of S. Wolstan: and Ignatius his children: and the confraternity of the +christian brothers led by the reverend brother Edmund Ignatius Rice. And +after came all saints and martyrs, virgins and confessors: S. Cyr and +S. Isidore Arator and S. James the Less and S. Phocas of Sinope and S. +Julian Hospitator and S. Felix de Cantalice and S. Simon Stylites and +S. Stephen Protomartyr and S. John of God and S. Ferreol and S. Leugarde +and S. Theodotus and S. Vulmar and S. Richard and S. Vincent de Paul and +S. Martin of Todi and S. Martin of Tours and S. Alfred and S. Joseph and +S. Denis and S. Cornelius and S. Leopold and S. Bernard and S. Terence +and S. Edward and S. Owen Caniculus and S. Anonymous and S. Eponymous +and S. Pseudonymous and S. Homonymous and S. Paronymous and S. +Synonymous and S. Laurence O'Toole and S. James of Dingle and +Compostella and S. Columcille and S. Columba and S. Celestine and S. +Colman and S. Kevin and S. Brendan and S. Frigidian and S. Senan and S. +Fachtna and S. Columbanus and S. Gall and S. Fursey and S. Fintan and S. +Fiacre and S. John Nepomuc and S. Thomas Aquinas and S. Ives of Brittany +and S. Michan and S. Herman-Joseph and the three patrons of holy youth +S. Aloysius Gonzaga and S. Stanislaus Kostka and S. John Berchmans +and the saints Gervasius, Servasius and Bonifacius and S. Bride and S. +Kieran and S. Canice of Kilkenny and S. Jarlath of Tuam and S. Finbarr +and S. Pappin of Ballymun and Brother Aloysius Pacificus and Brother +Louis Bellicosus and the saints Rose of Lima and of Viterbo and S. +Martha of Bethany and S. Mary of Egypt and S. Lucy and S. Brigid and +S. Attracta and S. Dympna and S. Ita and S. Marion Calpensis and +the Blessed Sister Teresa of the Child Jesus and S. Barbara and S. +Scholastica and S. Ursula with eleven thousand virgins. And all came +with nimbi and aureoles and gloriae, bearing palms and harps and swords +and olive crowns, in robes whereon were woven the blessed symbols of +their efficacies, inkhorns, arrows, loaves, cruses, fetters, axes, +trees, bridges, babes in a bathtub, shells, wallets, shears, keys, +dragons, lilies, buckshot, beards, hogs, lamps, bellows, beehives, +soupladles, stars, snakes, anvils, boxes of vaseline, bells, crutches, +forceps, stags' horns, watertight boots, hawks, millstones, eyes on a +dish, wax candles, aspergills, unicorns. And as they wended their way by +Nelson's Pillar, Henry street, Mary street, Capel street, Little Britain +street chanting the introit in _Epiphania Domini_ which beginneth +_Surge, illuminare_ and thereafter most sweetly the gradual _Omnes_ +which saith _de Saba venient_ they did divers wonders such as casting +out devils, raising the dead to life, multiplying fishes, healing the +halt and the blind, discovering various articles which had been mislaid, +interpreting and fulfilling the scriptures, blessing and prophesying. +And last, beneath a canopy of cloth of gold came the reverend Father +O'Flynn attended by Malachi and Patrick. And when the good fathers +had reached the appointed place, the house of Bernard Kiernan and Co, +limited, 8, 9 and 10 little Britain street, wholesale grocers, wine +and brandy shippers, licensed fo the sale of beer, wine and spirits for +consumption on the premises, the celebrant blessed the house and censed +the mullioned windows and the groynes and the vaults and the arrises and +the capitals and the pediments and the cornices and the engrailed arches +and the spires and the cupolas and sprinkled the lintels thereof with +blessed water and prayed that God might bless that house as he had +blessed the house of Abraham and Isaac and Jacob and make the angels of +His light to inhabit therein. And entering he blessed the viands and the +beverages and the company of all the blessed answered his prayers. + +--_Adiutorium nostrum in nomine Domini._ + +--_Qui fecit coelum et terram._ + +--_Dominus vobiscum._ + +--_Et cum spiritu tuo._ + +And he laid his hands upon that he blessed and gave thanks and he prayed +and they all with him prayed: + +--_Deus, cuius verbo sanctificantur omnia, benedictionem tuam effunde +super creaturas istas: et praesta ut quisquis eis secundum legem et +voluntatem Tuam cum gratiarum actione usus fuerit per invocationem +sanctissimi nominis Tui corporis sanitatem et animae tutelam Te auctore +percipiat per Christum Dominum nostrum._ + +--And so say all of us, says Jack. + +--Thousand a year, Lambert, says Crofton or Crawford. + +--Right, says Ned, taking up his John Jameson. And butter for fish. + +I was just looking around to see who the happy thought would strike when +be damned but in he comes again letting on to be in a hell of a hurry. + +--I was just round at the courthouse, says he, looking for you. I hope +I'm not... + +--No, says Martin, we're ready. + +Courthouse my eye and your pockets hanging down with gold and silver. +Mean bloody scut. Stand us a drink itself. Devil a sweet fear! There's +a jew for you! All for number one. Cute as a shithouse rat. Hundred to +five. + +--Don't tell anyone, says the citizen, + +--Beg your pardon, says he. + +--Come on boys, says Martin, seeing it was looking blue. Come along now. + +--Don't tell anyone, says the citizen, letting a bawl out of him. It's a +secret. + +And the bloody dog woke up and let a growl. + +--Bye bye all, says Martin. + +And he got them out as quick as he could, Jack Power and Crofton or +whatever you call him and him in the middle of them letting on to be all +at sea and up with them on the bloody jaunting car. + +---Off with you, says + +Martin to the jarvey. + +The milkwhite dolphin tossed his mane and, rising in the golden poop the +helmsman spread the bellying sail upon the wind and stood off forward +with all sail set, the spinnaker to larboard. A many comely nymphs drew +nigh to starboard and to larboard and, clinging to the sides of +the noble bark, they linked their shining forms as doth the cunning +wheelwright when he fashions about the heart of his wheel the +equidistant rays whereof each one is sister to another and he binds them +all with an outer ring and giveth speed to the feet of men whenas they +ride to a hosting or contend for the smile of ladies fair. Even so did +they come and set them, those willing nymphs, the undying sisters. And +they laughed, sporting in a circle of their foam: and the bark clave the +waves. + +But begob I was just lowering the heel of the pint when I saw the +citizen getting up to waddle to the door, puffing and blowing with the +dropsy, and he cursing the curse of Cromwell on him, bell, book and +candle in Irish, spitting and spatting out of him and Joe and little Alf +round him like a leprechaun trying to peacify him. + +--Let me alone, says he. + +And begob he got as far as the door and they holding him and he bawls +out of him: + +--Three cheers for Israel! + +Arrah, sit down on the parliamentary side of your arse for Christ' sake +and don't be making a public exhibition of yourself. Jesus, there's +always some bloody clown or other kicking up a bloody murder about +bloody nothing. Gob, it'd turn the porter sour in your guts, so it +would. + +And all the ragamuffins and sluts of the nation round the door and +Martin telling the jarvey to drive ahead and the citizen bawling and Alf +and Joe at him to whisht and he on his high horse about the jews and +the loafers calling for a speech and Jack Power trying to get him to sit +down on the car and hold his bloody jaw and a loafer with a patch over +his eye starts singing _If the man in the moon was a jew, jew, jew_ and +a slut shouts out of her: + +--Eh, mister! Your fly is open, mister! + +And says he: + +--Mendelssohn was a jew and Karl Marx and Mercadante and Spinoza. And +the Saviour was a jew and his father was a jew. Your God. + +--He had no father, says Martin. That'll do now. Drive ahead. + +--Whose God? says the citizen. + +--Well, his uncle was a jew, says he. Your God was a jew. Christ was a +jew like me. + +Gob, the citizen made a plunge back into the shop. + +--By Jesus, says he, I'll brain that bloody jewman for using the holy +name. + +By Jesus, I'll crucify him so I will. Give us that biscuitbox here. + +--Stop! Stop! says Joe. + +A large and appreciative gathering of friends and acquaintances from +the metropolis and greater Dublin assembled in their thousands to bid +farewell to Nagyasagos uram Lipoti Virag, late of Messrs Alexander +Thom's, printers to His Majesty, on the occasion of his departure +for the distant clime of Szazharminczbrojugulyas-Dugulas (Meadow of +Murmuring Waters). The ceremony which went off with great _eclat_ was +characterised by the most affecting cordiality. An illuminated scroll +of ancient Irish vellum, the work of Irish artists, was presented to +the distinguished phenomenologist on behalf of a large section of the +community and was accompanied by the gift of a silver casket, tastefully +executed in the style of ancient Celtic ornament, a work which reflects +every credit on the makers, Messrs Jacob _agus_ Jacob. The departing +guest was the recipient of a hearty ovation, many of those who were +present being visibly moved when the select orchestra of Irish pipes +struck up the wellknown strains of _Come back to Erin_, followed +immediately by _Rakoczsy's March_. Tarbarrels and bonfires were lighted +along the coastline of the four seas on the summits of the Hill of +Howth, Three Rock Mountain, Sugarloaf, Bray Head, the mountains of +Mourne, the Galtees, the Ox and Donegal and Sperrin peaks, the Nagles +and the Bograghs, the Connemara hills, the reeks of M Gillicuddy, Slieve +Aughty, Slieve Bernagh and Slieve Bloom. Amid cheers that rent the +welkin, responded to by answering cheers from a big muster of +henchmen on the distant Cambrian and Caledonian hills, the mastodontic +pleasureship slowly moved away saluted by a final floral tribute from +the representatives of the fair sex who were present in large numbers +while, as it proceeded down the river, escorted by a flotilla of barges, +the flags of the Ballast office and Custom House were dipped in salute +as were also those of the electrical power station at the +Pigeonhouse and the Poolbeg Light. _Visszontlatasra, kedves baraton! +Visszontlatasra!_ Gone but not forgotten. + +Gob, the devil wouldn't stop him till he got hold of the bloody tin +anyhow and out with him and little Alf hanging on to his elbow and he +shouting like a stuck pig, as good as any bloody play in the Queen's +royal theatre: + +--Where is he till I murder him? + +And Ned and J. J. paralysed with the laughing. + +--Bloody wars, says I, I'll be in for the last gospel. + +But as luck would have it the jarvey got the nag's head round the other +way and off with him. + +--Hold on, citizen, says Joe. Stop! + +Begob he drew his hand and made a swipe and let fly. Mercy of God the +sun was in his eyes or he'd have left him for dead. Gob, he near sent it +into the county Longford. The bloody nag took fright and the old +mongrel after the car like bloody hell and all the populace shouting and +laughing and the old tinbox clattering along the street. + +The catastrophe was terrific and instantaneous in its effect. The +observatory of Dunsink registered in all eleven shocks, all of the fifth +grade of Mercalli's scale, and there is no record extant of a similar +seismic disturbance in our island since the earthquake of 1534, the year +of the rebellion of Silken Thomas. The epicentre appears to have been +that part of the metropolis which constitutes the Inn's Quay ward and +parish of Saint Michan covering a surface of fortyone acres, two roods +and one square pole or perch. All the lordly residences in the vicinity +of the palace of justice were demolished and that noble edifice itself, +in which at the time of the catastrophe important legal debates were in +progress, is literally a mass of ruins beneath which it is to be +feared all the occupants have been buried alive. From the reports of +eyewitnesses it transpires that the seismic waves were accompanied by +a violent atmospheric perturbation of cyclonic character. An article of +headgear since ascertained to belong to the much respected clerk of the +crown and peace Mr George Fottrell and a silk umbrella with gold handle +with the engraved initials, crest, coat of arms and house number of +the erudite and worshipful chairman of quarter sessions sir Frederick +Falkiner, recorder of Dublin, have been discovered by search parties +in remote parts of the island respectively, the former on the third +basaltic ridge of the giant's causeway, the latter embedded to the +extent of one foot three inches in the sandy beach of Holeopen bay near +the old head of Kinsale. Other eyewitnesses depose that they observed +an incandescent object of enormous proportions hurtling through the +atmosphere at a terrifying velocity in a trajectory directed southwest +by west. Messages of condolence and sympathy are being hourly received +from all parts of the different continents and the sovereign pontiff has +been graciously pleased to decree that a special _missa pro defunctis_ +shall be celebrated simultaneously by the ordinaries of each and every +cathedral church of all the episcopal dioceses subject to the spiritual +authority of the Holy See in suffrage of the souls of those faithful +departed who have been so unexpectedly called away from our midst. +The work of salvage, removal of _debris,_ human remains etc has been +entrusted to Messrs Michael Meade and Son, 159 Great Brunswick street, +and Messrs T. and C. Martin, 77, 78, 79 and 80 North Wall, assisted by +the men and officers of the Duke of Cornwall's light infantry under the +general supervision of H. R. H., rear admiral, the right honourable sir +Hercules Hannibal Habeas Corpus Anderson, K. G., K. P., K. T., P. C., K. +C. B., M. P, J. P., M. B., D. S. O., S. O. D., M. F. H., M. R. I. A., B. +L., Mus. Doc., P. L. G., F. T. C. D., F. R. U. I., F. R. C. P. I. and F. +R. C. S. I. + +You never saw the like of it in all your born puff. Gob, if he got that +lottery ticket on the side of his poll he'd remember the gold cup, he +would so, but begob the citizen would have been lagged for assault and +battery and Joe for aiding and abetting. The jarvey saved his life by +furious driving as sure as God made Moses. What? O, Jesus, he did. And +he let a volley of oaths after him. + +--Did I kill him, says he, or what? + +And he shouting to the bloody dog: + +--After him, Garry! After him, boy! + +And the last we saw was the bloody car rounding the corner and old +sheepsface on it gesticulating and the bloody mongrel after it with his +lugs back for all he was bloody well worth to tear him limb from limb. +Hundred to five! Jesus, he took the value of it out of him, I promise +you. + +When, lo, there came about them all a great brightness and they beheld +the chariot wherein He stood ascend to heaven. And they beheld Him in +the chariot, clothed upon in the glory of the brightness, having raiment +as of the sun, fair as the moon and terrible that for awe they durst not +look upon Him. And there came a voice out of heaven, calling: _Elijah! +Elijah!_ And He answered with a main cry: _Abba! Adonai!_ And they +beheld Him even Him, ben Bloom Elijah, amid clouds of angels ascend +to the glory of the brightness at an angle of fortyfive degrees over +Donohoe's in Little Green street like a shot off a shovel. + + + +The summer evening had begun to fold the world in its mysterious +embrace. Far away in the west the sun was setting and the last glow of +all too fleeting day lingered lovingly on sea and strand, on the proud +promontory of dear old Howth guarding as ever the waters of the bay, on +the weedgrown rocks along Sandymount shore and, last but not least, on +the quiet church whence there streamed forth at times upon the stillness +the voice of prayer to her who is in her pure radiance a beacon ever to +the stormtossed heart of man, Mary, star of the sea. + +The three girl friends were seated on the rocks, enjoying the evening +scene and the air which was fresh but not too chilly. Many a time and +oft were they wont to come there to that favourite nook to have a cosy +chat beside the sparkling waves and discuss matters feminine, Cissy +Caffrey and Edy Boardman with the baby in the pushcar and Tommy and +Jacky Caffrey, two little curlyheaded boys, dressed in sailor suits with +caps to match and the name H.M.S. Belleisle printed on both. For Tommy +and Jacky Caffrey were twins, scarce four years old and very noisy and +spoiled twins sometimes but for all that darling little fellows with +bright merry faces and endearing ways about them. They were dabbling in +the sand with their spades and buckets, building castles as children do, +or playing with their big coloured ball, happy as the day was long. And +Edy Boardman was rocking the chubby baby to and fro in the pushcar while +that young gentleman fairly chuckled with delight. He was but eleven +months and nine days old and, though still a tiny toddler, was just +beginning to lisp his first babyish words. Cissy Caffrey bent over to +him to tease his fat little plucks and the dainty dimple in his chin. + +--Now, baby, Cissy Caffrey said. Say out big, big. I want a drink of +water. + +And baby prattled after her: + +--A jink a jink a jawbo. + +Cissy Caffrey cuddled the wee chap for she was awfully fond of children, +so patient with little sufferers and Tommy Caffrey could never be got to +take his castor oil unless it was Cissy Caffrey that held his nose and +promised him the scatty heel of the loaf or brown bread with golden +syrup on. What a persuasive power that girl had! But to be sure baby +Boardman was as good as gold, a perfect little dote in his new fancy +bib. None of your spoilt beauties, Flora MacFlimsy sort, was Cissy +Caffrey. A truerhearted lass never drew the breath of life, always with +a laugh in her gipsylike eyes and a frolicsome word on her cherryripe +red lips, a girl lovable in the extreme. And Edy Boardman laughed too at +the quaint language of little brother. + +But just then there was a slight altercation between Master Tommy and +Master Jacky. Boys will be boys and our two twins were no exception +to this golden rule. The apple of discord was a certain castle of sand +which Master Jacky had built and Master Tommy would have it right go +wrong that it was to be architecturally improved by a frontdoor like the +Martello tower had. But if Master Tommy was headstrong Master Jacky was +selfwilled too and, true to the maxim that every little Irishman's house +is his castle, he fell upon his hated rival and to such purpose that the +wouldbe assailant came to grief and (alas to relate!) the coveted castle +too. Needless to say the cries of discomfited Master Tommy drew the +attention of the girl friends. + +--Come here, Tommy, his sister called imperatively. At once! And you, +Jacky, for shame to throw poor Tommy in the dirty sand. Wait till I +catch you for that. + +His eyes misty with unshed tears Master Tommy came at her call for their +big sister's word was law with the twins. And in a sad plight he was +too after his misadventure. His little man-o'-war top and unmentionables +were full of sand but Cissy was a past mistress in the art of smoothing +over life's tiny troubles and very quickly not one speck of sand was to +be seen on his smart little suit. Still the blue eyes were glistening +with hot tears that would well up so she kissed away the hurtness and +shook her hand at Master Jacky the culprit and said if she was near him +she wouldn't be far from him, her eyes dancing in admonition. + +--Nasty bold Jacky! she cried. + +She put an arm round the little mariner and coaxed winningly: + +--What's your name? Butter and cream? + +--Tell us who is your sweetheart, spoke Edy Boardman. Is Cissy your +sweetheart? + +--Nao, tearful Tommy said. + +--Is Edy Boardman your sweetheart? Cissy queried. + +--Nao, Tommy said. + +--I know, Edy Boardman said none too amiably with an arch glance from +her shortsighted eyes. I know who is Tommy's sweetheart. Gerty is +Tommy's sweetheart. + +--Nao, Tommy said on the verge of tears. + +Cissy's quick motherwit guessed what was amiss and she whispered to +Edy Boardman to take him there behind the pushcar where the gentleman +couldn't see and to mind he didn't wet his new tan shoes. + +But who was Gerty? + +Gerty MacDowell who was seated near her companions, lost in thought, +gazing far away into the distance was, in very truth, as fair a specimen +of winsome Irish girlhood as one could wish to see. She was pronounced +beautiful by all who knew her though, as folks often said, she was +more a Giltrap than a MacDowell. Her figure was slight and graceful, +inclining even to fragility but those iron jelloids she had been taking +of late had done her a world of good much better than the Widow Welch's +female pills and she was much better of those discharges she used to +get and that tired feeling. The waxen pallor of her face was almost +spiritual in its ivorylike purity though her rosebud mouth was a genuine +Cupid's bow, Greekly perfect. Her hands were of finely veined alabaster +with tapering fingers and as white as lemonjuice and queen of ointments +could make them though it was not true that she used to wear kid gloves +in bed or take a milk footbath either. Bertha Supple told that once to +Edy Boardman, a deliberate lie, when she was black out at daggers drawn +with Gerty (the girl chums had of course their little tiffs from time to +time like the rest of mortals) and she told her not to let on whatever +she did that it was her that told her or she'd never speak to her +again. No. Honour where honour is due. There was an innate refinement, +a languid queenly _hauteur_ about Gerty which was unmistakably evidenced +in her delicate hands and higharched instep. Had kind fate but willed +her to be born a gentlewoman of high degree in her own right and had +she only received the benefit of a good education Gerty MacDowell might +easily have held her own beside any lady in the land and have seen +herself exquisitely gowned with jewels on her brow and patrician suitors +at her feet vying with one another to pay their devoirs to her. +Mayhap it was this, the love that might have been, that lent to her +softlyfeatured face at whiles a look, tense with suppressed meaning, +that imparted a strange yearning tendency to the beautiful eyes, a charm +few could resist. Why have women such eyes of witchery? Gerty's were of +the bluest Irish blue, set off by lustrous lashes and dark expressive +brows. Time was when those brows were not so silkily seductive. It +was Madame Vera Verity, directress of the Woman Beautiful page of the +Princess Novelette, who had first advised her to try eyebrowleine which +gave that haunting expression to the eyes, so becoming in leaders +of fashion, and she had never regretted it. Then there was blushing +scientifically cured and how to be tall increase your height and you +have a beautiful face but your nose? That would suit Mrs Dignam because +she had a button one. But Gerty's crowning glory was her wealth of +wonderful hair. It was dark brown with a natural wave in it. She had cut +it that very morning on account of the new moon and it nestled about +her pretty head in a profusion of luxuriant clusters and pared her nails +too, Thursday for wealth. And just now at Edy's words as a telltale +flush, delicate as the faintest rosebloom, crept into her cheeks she +looked so lovely in her sweet girlish shyness that of a surety God's +fair land of Ireland did not hold her equal. + +For an instant she was silent with rather sad downcast eyes. She +was about to retort but something checked the words on her tongue. +Inclination prompted her to speak out: dignity told her to be silent. +The pretty lips pouted awhile but then she glanced up and broke out into +a joyous little laugh which had in it all the freshness of a young May +morning. She knew right well, no-one better, what made squinty Edy +say that because of him cooling in his attentions when it was simply a +lovers' quarrel. As per usual somebody's nose was out of joint about the +boy that had the bicycle off the London bridge road always riding up +and down in front of her window. Only now his father kept him in in the +evenings studying hard to get an exhibition in the intermediate that was +on and he was going to go to Trinity college to study for a doctor when +he left the high school like his brother W. E. Wylie who was racing +in the bicycle races in Trinity college university. Little recked he +perhaps for what she felt, that dull aching void in her heart sometimes, +piercing to the core. Yet he was young and perchance he might learn +to love her in time. They were protestants in his family and of course +Gerty knew Who came first and after Him the Blessed Virgin and then +Saint Joseph. But he was undeniably handsome with an exquisite nose and +he was what he looked, every inch a gentleman, the shape of his head too +at the back without his cap on that she would know anywhere something +off the common and the way he turned the bicycle at the lamp with his +hands off the bars and also the nice perfume of those good cigarettes +and besides they were both of a size too he and she and that was why Edy +Boardman thought she was so frightfully clever because he didn't go and +ride up and down in front of her bit of a garden. + +Gerty was dressed simply but with the instinctive taste of a votary of +Dame Fashion for she felt that there was just a might that he might be +out. A neat blouse of electric blue selftinted by dolly dyes (because it +was expected in the _Lady's Pictorial_ that electric blue would be worn) +with a smart vee opening down to the division and kerchief pocket (in +which she always kept a piece of cottonwool scented with her +favourite perfume because the handkerchief spoiled the sit) and a navy +threequarter skirt cut to the stride showed off her slim graceful figure +to perfection. She wore a coquettish little love of a hat of wideleaved +nigger straw contrast trimmed with an underbrim of eggblue chenille and +at the side a butterfly bow of silk to tone. All Tuesday week afternoon +she was hunting to match that chenille but at last she found what she +wanted at Clery's summer sales, the very it, slightly shopsoiled but you +would never notice, seven fingers two and a penny. She did it up all by +herself and what joy was hers when she tried it on then, smiling at the +lovely reflection which the mirror gave back to her! And when she put +it on the waterjug to keep the shape she knew that that would take the +shine out of some people she knew. Her shoes were the newest thing in +footwear (Edy Boardman prided herself that she was very _petite_ but she +never had a foot like Gerty MacDowell, a five, and never would ash, +oak or elm) with patent toecaps and just one smart buckle over +her higharched instep. Her wellturned ankle displayed its perfect +proportions beneath her skirt and just the proper amount and no more of +her shapely limbs encased in finespun hose with highspliced heels and +wide garter tops. As for undies they were Gerty's chief care and who +that knows the fluttering hopes and fears of sweet seventeen (though +Gerty would never see seventeen again) can find it in his heart to +blame her? She had four dinky sets with awfully pretty stitchery, +three garments and nighties extra, and each set slotted with different +coloured ribbons, rosepink, pale blue, mauve and peagreen, and she aired +them herself and blued them when they came home from the wash and ironed +them and she had a brickbat to keep the iron on because she wouldn't +trust those washerwomen as far as she'd see them scorching the things. +She was wearing the blue for luck, hoping against hope, her own colour +and lucky too for a bride to have a bit of blue somewhere on her because +the green she wore that day week brought grief because his father +brought him in to study for the intermediate exhibition and because +she thought perhaps he might be out because when she was dressing that +morning she nearly slipped up the old pair on her inside out and that +was for luck and lovers' meeting if you put those things on inside +out or if they got untied that he was thinking about you so long as it +wasn't of a Friday. + +And yet and yet! That strained look on her face! A gnawing sorrow is +there all the time. Her very soul is in her eyes and she would give +worlds to be in the privacy of her own familiar chamber where, +giving way to tears, she could have a good cry and relieve her pentup +feelingsthough not too much because she knew how to cry nicely before +the mirror. You are lovely, Gerty, it said. The paly light of evening +falls upon a face infinitely sad and wistful. Gerty MacDowell yearns +in vain. Yes, she had known from the very first that her daydream of a +marriage has been arranged and the weddingbells ringing for Mrs Reggy +Wylie T. C. D. (because the one who married the elder brother would be +Mrs Wylie) and in the fashionable intelligence Mrs Gertrude Wylie was +wearing a sumptuous confection of grey trimmed with expensive blue fox +was not to be. He was too young to understand. He would not believe in +love, a woman's birthright. The night of the party long ago in Stoer's +(he was still in short trousers) when they were alone and he stole +an arm round her waist she went white to the very lips. He called her +little one in a strangely husky voice and snatched a half kiss (the +first!) but it was only the end of her nose and then he hastened from +the room with a remark about refreshments. Impetuous fellow! Strength of +character had never been Reggy Wylie's strong point and he who would +woo and win Gerty MacDowell must be a man among men. But waiting, always +waiting to be asked and it was leap year too and would soon be over. No +prince charming is her beau ideal to lay a rare and wondrous love at her +feet but rather a manly man with a strong quiet face who had not found +his ideal, perhaps his hair slightly flecked with grey, and who would +understand, take her in his sheltering arms, strain her to him in all +the strength of his deep passionate nature and comfort her with a long +long kiss. It would be like heaven. For such a one she yearns this balmy +summer eve. With all the heart of her she longs to be his only, his +affianced bride for riches for poor, in sickness in health, till death +us two part, from this to this day forward. + +And while Edy Boardman was with little Tommy behind the pushcar she was +just thinking would the day ever come when she could call herself his +little wife to be. Then they could talk about her till they went blue in +the face, Bertha Supple too, and Edy, little spitfire, because she would +be twentytwo in November. She would care for him with creature comforts +too for Gerty was womanly wise and knew that a mere man liked that +feeling of hominess. Her griddlecakes done to a goldenbrown hue and +queen Ann's pudding of delightful creaminess had won golden opinions +from all because she had a lucky hand also for lighting a fire, dredge +in the fine selfraising flour and always stir in the same direction, +then cream the milk and sugar and whisk well the white of eggs though +she didn't like the eating part when there were any people that made her +shy and often she wondered why you couldn't eat something poetical like +violets or roses and they would have a beautifully appointed drawingroom +with pictures and engravings and the photograph of grandpapa Giltrap's +lovely dog Garryowen that almost talked it was so human and chintz +covers for the chairs and that silver toastrack in Clery's summer +jumble sales like they have in rich houses. He would be tall with +broad shoulders (she had always admired tall men for a husband) with +glistening white teeth under his carefully trimmed sweeping moustache +and they would go on the continent for their honeymoon (three wonderful +weeks!) and then, when they settled down in a nice snug and cosy little +homely house, every morning they would both have brekky, simple but +perfectly served, for their own two selves and before he went out to +business he would give his dear little wifey a good hearty hug and gaze +for a moment deep down into her eyes. + +Edy Boardman asked Tommy Caffrey was he done and he said yes so then she +buttoned up his little knickerbockers for him and told him to run off +and play with Jacky and to be good now and not to fight. But Tommy said +he wanted the ball and Edy told him no that baby was playing with the +ball and if he took it there'd be wigs on the green but Tommy said it +was his ball and he wanted his ball and he pranced on the ground, if +you please. The temper of him! O, he was a man already was little Tommy +Caffrey since he was out of pinnies. Edy told him no, no and to be off +now with him and she told Cissy Caffrey not to give in to him. + +--You're not my sister, naughty Tommy said. It's my ball. + +But Cissy Caffrey told baby Boardman to look up, look up high at her +finger and she snatched the ball quickly and threw it along the sand and +Tommy after it in full career, having won the day. + +--Anything for a quiet life, laughed Ciss. + +And she tickled tiny tot's two cheeks to make him forget and played +here's the lord mayor, here's his two horses, here's his gingerbread +carriage and here he walks in, chinchopper, chinchopper, chinchopper +chin. But Edy got as cross as two sticks about him getting his own way +like that from everyone always petting him. + +--I'd like to give him something, she said, so I would, where I won't +say. + +--On the beeoteetom, laughed Cissy merrily. + +Gerty MacDowell bent down her head and crimsoned at the idea of Cissy +saying an unladylike thing like that out loud she'd be ashamed of her +life to say, flushing a deep rosy red, and Edy Boardman said she was +sure the gentleman opposite heard what she said. But not a pin cared +Ciss. + +--Let him! she said with a pert toss of her head and a piquant tilt of +her nose. Give it to him too on the same place as quick as I'd look at +him. + +Madcap Ciss with her golliwog curls. You had to laugh at her sometimes. +For instance when she asked you would you have some more Chinese tea and +jaspberry ram and when she drew the jugs too and the men's faces on her +nails with red ink make you split your sides or when she wanted to go +where you know she said she wanted to run and pay a visit to the Miss +White. That was just like Cissycums. O, and will you ever forget her the +evening she dressed up in her father's suit and hat and the burned cork +moustache and walked down Tritonville road, smoking a cigarette. There +was none to come up to her for fun. But she was sincerity itself, one of +the bravest and truest hearts heaven ever made, not one of your twofaced +things, too sweet to be wholesome. + +And then there came out upon the air the sound of voices and the pealing +anthem of the organ. It was the men's temperance retreat conducted +by the missioner, the reverend John Hughes S. J., rosary, sermon and +benediction of the Most Blessed Sacrament. They were there gathered +together without distinction of social class (and a most edifying +spectacle it was to see) in that simple fane beside the waves, after the +storms of this weary world, kneeling before the feet of the immaculate, +reciting the litany of Our Lady of Loreto, beseeching her to intercede +for them, the old familiar words, holy Mary, holy virgin of virgins. How +sad to poor Gerty's ears! Had her father only avoided the clutches of +the demon drink, by taking the pledge or those powders the drink habit +cured in Pearson's Weekly, she might now be rolling in her carriage, +second to none. Over and over had she told herself that as she mused by +the dying embers in a brown study without the lamp because she hated two +lights or oftentimes gazing out of the window dreamily by the hour at +the rain falling on the rusty bucket, thinking. But that vile decoction +which has ruined so many hearths and homes had cist its shadow over her +childhood days. Nay, she had even witnessed in the home circle deeds of +violence caused by intemperance and had seen her own father, a prey to +the fumes of intoxication, forget himself completely for if there was +one thing of all things that Gerty knew it was that the man who lifts +his hand to a woman save in the way of kindness, deserves to be branded +as the lowest of the low. + +And still the voices sang in supplication to the Virgin most powerful, +Virgin most merciful. And Gerty, rapt in thought, scarce saw or heard +her companions or the twins at their boyish gambols or the gentleman +off Sandymount green that Cissy Caffrey called the man that was so like +himself passing along the strand taking a short walk. You never saw him +any way screwed but still and for all that she would not like him for a +father because he was too old or something or on account of his face +(it was a palpable case of Doctor Fell) or his carbuncly nose with the +pimples on it and his sandy moustache a bit white under his nose. Poor +father! With all his faults she loved him still when he sang _Tell me, +Mary, how to woo thee_ or _My love and cottage near Rochelle_ and they +had stewed cockles and lettuce with Lazenby's salad dressing for +supper and when he sang _The moon hath raised_ with Mr Dignam that +died suddenly and was buried, God have mercy on him, from a stroke. Her +mother's birthday that was and Charley was home on his holidays and Tom +and Mr Dignam and Mrs and Patsy and Freddy Dignam and they were to have +had a group taken. No-one would have thought the end was so near. Now he +was laid to rest. And her mother said to him to let that be a warning to +him for the rest of his days and he couldn't even go to the funeral on +account of the gout and she had to go into town to bring him the +letters and samples from his office about Catesby's cork lino, artistic, +standard designs, fit for a palace, gives tiptop wear and always bright +and cheery in the home. + +A sterling good daughter was Gerty just like a second mother in the +house, a ministering angel too with a little heart worth its weight in +gold. And when her mother had those raging splitting headaches who was +it rubbed the menthol cone on her forehead but Gerty though she didn't +like her mother's taking pinches of snuff and that was the only single +thing they ever had words about, taking snuff. Everyone thought the +world of her for her gentle ways. It was Gerty who turned off the gas at +the main every night and it was Gerty who tacked up on the wall of that +place where she never forgot every fortnight the chlorate of lime Mr +Tunney the grocer's christmas almanac, the picture of halcyon days +where a young gentleman in the costume they used to wear then with a +threecornered hat was offering a bunch of flowers to his ladylove with +oldtime chivalry through her lattice window. You could see there was a +story behind it. The colours were done something lovely. She was in +a soft clinging white in a studied attitude and the gentleman was in +chocolate and he looked a thorough aristocrat. She often looked at them +dreamily when she went there for a certain purpose and felt her own +arms that were white and soft just like hers with the sleeves back +and thought about those times because she had found out in Walker's +pronouncing dictionary that belonged to grandpapa Giltrap about the +halcyon days what they meant. + +The twins were now playing in the most approved brotherly fashion +till at last Master Jacky who was really as bold as brass there was +no getting behind that deliberately kicked the ball as hard as ever he +could down towards the seaweedy rocks. Needless to say poor Tommy was +not slow to voice his dismay but luckily the gentleman in black who was +sitting there by himself came gallantly to the rescue and intercepted +the ball. Our two champions claimed their plaything with lusty cries and +to avoid trouble Cissy Caffrey called to the gentleman to throw it to +her please. The gentleman aimed the ball once or twice and then threw +it up the strand towards Cissy Caffrey but it rolled down the slope and +stopped right under Gerty's skirt near the little pool by the rock. The +twins clamoured again for it and Cissy told her to kick it away and +let them fight for it so Gerty drew back her foot but she wished their +stupid ball hadn't come rolling down to her and she gave a kick but she +missed and Edy and Cissy laughed. + +--If you fail try again, Edy Boardman said. + +Gerty smiled assent and bit her lip. A delicate pink crept into her +pretty cheek but she was determined to let them see so she just lifted +her skirt a little but just enough and took good aim and gave the ball a +jolly good kick and it went ever so far and the two twins after it down +towards the shingle. Pure jealousy of course it was nothing else to draw +attention on account of the gentleman opposite looking. She felt the +warm flush, a danger signal always with Gerty MacDowell, surging and +flaming into her cheeks. Till then they had only exchanged glances of +the most casual but now under the brim of her new hat she ventured a +look at him and the face that met her gaze there in the twilight, wan +and strangely drawn, seemed to her the saddest she had ever seen. + +Through the open window of the church the fragrant incense was wafted +and with it the fragrant names of her who was conceived without stain of +original sin, spiritual vessel, pray for us, honourable vessel, pray +for us, vessel of singular devotion, pray for us, mystical rose. And +careworn hearts were there and toilers for their daily bread and many +who had erred and wandered, their eyes wet with contrition but for all +that bright with hope for the reverend father Father Hughes had told +them what the great saint Bernard said in his famous prayer of Mary, the +most pious Virgin's intercessory power that it was not recorded in any +age that those who implored her powerful protection were ever abandoned +by her. + +The twins were now playing again right merrily for the troubles of +childhood are but as fleeting summer showers. Cissy Caffrey played with +baby Boardman till he crowed with glee, clapping baby hands in air. Peep +she cried behind the hood of the pushcar and Edy asked where was Cissy +gone and then Cissy popped up her head and cried ah! and, my word, +didn't the little chap enjoy that! And then she told him to say papa. + +--Say papa, baby. Say pa pa pa pa pa pa pa. + +And baby did his level best to say it for he was very intelligent for +eleven months everyone said and big for his age and the picture of +health, a perfect little bunch of love, and he would certainly turn out +to be something great, they said. + +--Haja ja ja haja. + +Cissy wiped his little mouth with the dribbling bib and wanted him to +sit up properly and say pa pa pa but when she undid the strap she cried +out, holy saint Denis, that he was possing wet and to double the half +blanket the other way under him. Of course his infant majesty was most +obstreperous at such toilet formalities and he let everyone know it: + +--Habaa baaaahabaaa baaaa. + +And two great big lovely big tears coursing down his cheeks. It was all +no use soothering him with no, nono, baby, no and telling him about the +geegee and where was the puffpuff but Ciss, always readywitted, gave +him in his mouth the teat of the suckingbottle and the young heathen was +quickly appeased. + +Gerty wished to goodness they would take their squalling baby home out +of that and not get on her nerves, no hour to be out, and the little +brats of twins. She gazed out towards the distant sea. It was like the +paintings that man used to do on the pavement with all the coloured +chalks and such a pity too leaving them there to be all blotted out, the +evening and the clouds coming out and the Bailey light on Howth and to +hear the music like that and the perfume of those incense they burned +in the church like a kind of waft. And while she gazed her heart went +pitapat. Yes, it was her he was looking at, and there was meaning in his +look. His eyes burned into her as though they would search her through +and through, read her very soul. Wonderful eyes they were, superbly +expressive, but could you trust them? People were so queer. She could +see at once by his dark eyes and his pale intellectual face that he +was a foreigner, the image of the photo she had of Martin Harvey, the +matinee idol, only for the moustache which she preferred because she +wasn't stagestruck like Winny Rippingham that wanted they two to always +dress the same on account of a play but she could not see whether he had +an aquiline nose or a slightly _retrousse_ from where he was sitting. +He was in deep mourning, she could see that, and the story of a haunting +sorrow was written on his face. She would have given worlds to know what +it was. He was looking up so intently, so still, and he saw her kick the +ball and perhaps he could see the bright steel buckles of her shoes if +she swung them like that thoughtfully with the toes down. She was glad +that something told her to put on the transparent stockings thinking +Reggy Wylie might be out but that was far away. Here was that of which +she had so often dreamed. It was he who mattered and there was joy on +her face because she wanted him because she felt instinctively that he +was like no-one else. The very heart of the girlwoman went out to him, +her dreamhusband, because she knew on the instant it was him. If he had +suffered, more sinned against than sinning, or even, even, if he had +been himself a sinner, a wicked man, she cared not. Even if he was a +protestant or methodist she could convert him easily if he truly loved +her. There were wounds that wanted healing with heartbalm. She was a +womanly woman not like other flighty girls unfeminine he had known, +those cyclists showing off what they hadn't got and she just yearned to +know all, to forgive all if she could make him fall in love with her, +make him forget the memory of the past. Then mayhap he would embrace her +gently, like a real man, crushing her soft body to him, and love her, +his ownest girlie, for herself alone. + +Refuge of sinners. Comfortress of the afflicted. _Ora pro nobis_. Well +has it been said that whosoever prays to her with faith and constancy +can never be lost or cast away: and fitly is she too a haven of refuge +for the afflicted because of the seven dolours which transpierced +her own heart. Gerty could picture the whole scene in the church, the +stained glass windows lighted up, the candles, the flowers and the blue +banners of the blessed Virgin's sodality and Father Conroy was helping +Canon O'Hanlon at the altar, carrying things in and out with his eyes +cast down. He looked almost a saint and his confessionbox was so quiet +and clean and dark and his hands were just like white wax and if ever +she became a Dominican nun in their white habit perhaps he might come to +the convent for the novena of Saint Dominic. He told her that time when +she told him about that in confession, crimsoning up to the roots of her +hair for fear he could see, not to be troubled because that was only the +voice of nature and we were all subject to nature's laws, he said, in +this life and that that was no sin because that came from the nature of +woman instituted by God, he said, and that Our Blessed Lady herself said +to the archangel Gabriel be it done unto me according to Thy Word. He +was so kind and holy and often and often she thought and thought could +she work a ruched teacosy with embroidered floral design for him as a +present or a clock but they had a clock she noticed on the mantelpiece +white and gold with a canarybird that came out of a little house to tell +the time the day she went there about the flowers for the forty hours' +adoration because it was hard to know what sort of a present to give or +perhaps an album of illuminated views of Dublin or some place. + +The exasperating little brats of twins began to quarrel again and Jacky +threw the ball out towards the sea and they both ran after it. Little +monkeys common as ditchwater. Someone ought to take them and give them +a good hiding for themselves to keep them in their places, the both of +them. And Cissy and Edy shouted after them to come back because they +were afraid the tide might come in on them and be drowned. + +--Jacky! Tommy! + +Not they! What a great notion they had! So Cissy said it was the very +last time she'd ever bring them out. She jumped up and called them and +she ran down the slope past him, tossing her hair behind her which had +a good enough colour if there had been more of it but with all the +thingamerry she was always rubbing into it she couldn't get it to grow +long because it wasn't natural so she could just go and throw her hat at +it. She ran with long gandery strides it was a wonder she didn't rip up +her skirt at the side that was too tight on her because there was a lot +of the tomboy about Cissy Caffrey and she was a forward piece whenever +she thought she had a good opportunity to show and just because she was +a good runner she ran like that so that he could see all the end of her +petticoat running and her skinny shanks up as far as possible. It +would have served her just right if she had tripped up over something +accidentally on purpose with her high crooked French heels on her to +make her look tall and got a fine tumble. _Tableau!_ That would have +been a very charming expose for a gentleman like that to witness. + +Queen of angels, queen of patriarchs, queen of prophets, of all saints, +they prayed, queen of the most holy rosary and then Father Conroy handed +the thurible to Canon O'Hanlon and he put in the incense and censed the +Blessed Sacrament and Cissy Caffrey caught the two twins and she was +itching to give them a ringing good clip on the ear but she didn't +because she thought he might be watching but she never made a bigger +mistake in all her life because Gerty could see without looking that +he never took his eyes off of her and then Canon O'Hanlon handed the +thurible back to Father Conroy and knelt down looking up at the Blessed +Sacrament and the choir began to sing the _Tantum ergo_ and she just +swung her foot in and out in time as the music rose and fell to +the _Tantumer gosa cramen tum_. Three and eleven she paid for those +stockings in Sparrow's of George's street on the Tuesday, no the Monday +before Easter and there wasn't a brack on them and that was what he +was looking at, transparent, and not at her insignificant ones that had +neither shape nor form (the cheek of her!) because he had eyes in his +head to see the difference for himself. + +Cissy came up along the strand with the two twins and their ball with +her hat anyhow on her to one side after her run and she did look a +streel tugging the two kids along with the flimsy blouse she bought only +a fortnight before like a rag on her back and a bit of her petticoat +hanging like a caricature. Gerty just took off her hat for a moment to +settle her hair and a prettier, a daintier head of nutbrown tresses was +never seen on a girl's shoulders--a radiant little vision, in sooth, +almost maddening in its sweetness. You would have to travel many a long +mile before you found a head of hair the like of that. She could almost +see the swift answering flash of admiration in his eyes that set her +tingling in every nerve. She put on her hat so that she could see from +underneath the brim and swung her buckled shoe faster for her breath +caught as she caught the expression in his eyes. He was eying her as a +snake eyes its prey. Her woman's instinct told her that she had raised +the devil in him and at the thought a burning scarlet swept from throat +to brow till the lovely colour of her face became a glorious rose. + +Edy Boardman was noticing it too because she was squinting at Gerty, +half smiling, with her specs like an old maid, pretending to nurse the +baby. Irritable little gnat she was and always would be and that was why +no-one could get on with her poking her nose into what was no concern of +hers. And she said to Gerty: + +--A penny for your thoughts. + +--What? replied Gerty with a smile reinforced by the whitest of teeth. I +was only wondering was it late. + +Because she wished to goodness they'd take the snottynosed twins and +their babby home to the mischief out of that so that was why she just +gave a gentle hint about its being late. And when Cissy came up Edy +asked her the time and Miss Cissy, as glib as you like, said it was half +past kissing time, time to kiss again. But Edy wanted to know because +they were told to be in early. + +--Wait, said Cissy, I'll run ask my uncle Peter over there what's the +time by his conundrum. + +So over she went and when he saw her coming she could see him take his +hand out of his pocket, getting nervous, and beginning to play with his +watchchain, looking up at the church. Passionate nature though he was +Gerty could see that he had enormous control over himself. One moment he +had been there, fascinated by a loveliness that made him gaze, and the +next moment it was the quiet gravefaced gentleman, selfcontrol expressed +in every line of his distinguishedlooking figure. + +Cissy said to excuse her would he mind please telling her what was the +right time and Gerty could see him taking out his watch, listening to it +and looking up and clearing his throat and he said he was very sorry his +watch was stopped but he thought it must be after eight because the +sun was set. His voice had a cultured ring in it and though he spoke in +measured accents there was a suspicion of a quiver in the mellow tones. +Cissy said thanks and came back with her tongue out and said uncle said +his waterworks were out of order. + +Then they sang the second verse of the _Tantum ergo_ and Canon O'Hanlon +got up again and censed the Blessed Sacrament and knelt down and he told +Father Conroy that one of the candles was just going to set fire to the +flowers and Father Conroy got up and settled it all right and she could +see the gentleman winding his watch and listening to the works and she +swung her leg more in and out in time. It was getting darker but he +could see and he was looking all the time that he was winding the watch +or whatever he was doing to it and then he put it back and put his hands +back into his pockets. She felt a kind of a sensation rushing all over +her and she knew by the feel of her scalp and that irritation against +her stays that that thing must be coming on because the last time too +was when she clipped her hair on account of the moon. His dark eyes +fixed themselves on her again drinking in her every contour, literally +worshipping at her shrine. If ever there was undisguised admiration in a +man's passionate gaze it was there plain to be seen on that man's face. +It is for you, Gertrude MacDowell, and you know it. + +Edy began to get ready to go and it was high time for her and Gerty +noticed that that little hint she gave had had the desired effect +because it was a long way along the strand to where there was the place +to push up the pushcar and Cissy took off the twins' caps and tidied +their hair to make herself attractive of course and Canon O'Hanlon stood +up with his cope poking up at his neck and Father Conroy handed him the +card to read off and he read out _Panem de coelo praestitisti eis_ and +Edy and Cissy were talking about the time all the time and asking her +but Gerty could pay them back in their own coin and she just answered +with scathing politeness when Edy asked her was she heartbroken about +her best boy throwing her over. Gerty winced sharply. A brief cold blaze +shone from her eyes that spoke volumes of scorn immeasurable. It hurt--O +yes, it cut deep because Edy had her own quiet way of saying things +like that she knew would wound like the confounded little cat she was. +Gerty's lips parted swiftly to frame the word but she fought back +the sob that rose to her throat, so slim, so flawless, so beautifully +moulded it seemed one an artist might have dreamed of. She had loved him +better than he knew. Lighthearted deceiver and fickle like all his sex +he would never understand what he had meant to her and for an instant +there was in the blue eyes a quick stinging of tears. Their eyes were +probing her mercilessly but with a brave effort she sparkled back in +sympathy as she glanced at her new conquest for them to see. + +--O, responded Gerty, quick as lightning, laughing, and the proud head +flashed up. I can throw my cap at who I like because it's leap year. + +Her words rang out crystalclear, more musical than the cooing of the +ringdove, but they cut the silence icily. There was that in her young +voice that told that she was not a one to be lightly trifled with. As +for Mr Reggy with his swank and his bit of money she could just chuck +him aside as if he was so much filth and never again would she cast as +much as a second thought on him and tear his silly postcard into a dozen +pieces. And if ever after he dared to presume she could give him one +look of measured scorn that would make him shrivel up on the spot. Miss +puny little Edy's countenance fell to no slight extent and Gerty could +see by her looking as black as thunder that she was simply in a towering +rage though she hid it, the little kinnatt, because that shaft had +struck home for her petty jealousy and they both knew that she was +something aloof, apart, in another sphere, that she was not of them and +never would be and there was somebody else too that knew it and saw it +so they could put that in their pipe and smoke it. + +Edy straightened up baby Boardman to get ready to go and Cissy tucked in +the ball and the spades and buckets and it was high time too because the +sandman was on his way for Master Boardman junior. And Cissy told him +too that billy winks was coming and that baby was to go deedaw and baby +looked just too ducky, laughing up out of his gleeful eyes, and Cissy +poked him like that out of fun in his wee fat tummy and baby, without as +much as by your leave, sent up his compliments to all and sundry on to +his brandnew dribbling bib. + +--O my! Puddeny pie! protested Ciss. He has his bib destroyed. + +The slight _contretemps_ claimed her attention but in two twos she set +that little matter to rights. + +Gerty stifled a smothered exclamation and gave a nervous cough and Edy +asked what and she was just going to tell her to catch it while it was +flying but she was ever ladylike in her deportment so she simply passed +it off with consummate tact by saying that that was the benediction +because just then the bell rang out from the steeple over the quiet +seashore because Canon O'Hanlon was up on the altar with the veil that +Father Conroy put round his shoulders giving the benediction with the +Blessed Sacrament in his hands. + +How moving the scene there in the gathering twilight, the last glimpse +of Erin, the touching chime of those evening bells and at the same +time a bat flew forth from the ivied belfry through the dusk, hither, +thither, with a tiny lost cry. And she could see far away the lights of +the lighthouses so picturesque she would have loved to do with a box of +paints because it was easier than to make a man and soon the lamplighter +would be going his rounds past the presbyterian church grounds and along +by shady Tritonville avenue where the couples walked and lighting the +lamp near her window where Reggy Wylie used to turn his freewheel like +she read in that book _The Lamplighter_ by Miss Cummins, author of +_Mabel Vaughan_ and other tales. For Gerty had her dreams that no-one +knew of. She loved to read poetry and when she got a keepsake from +Bertha Supple of that lovely confession album with the coralpink cover +to write her thoughts in she laid it in the drawer of her toilettable +which, though it did not err on the side of luxury, was scrupulously +neat and clean. It was there she kept her girlish treasure trove, the +tortoiseshell combs, her child of Mary badge, the whiterose scent, the +eyebrowleine, her alabaster pouncetbox and the ribbons to change +when her things came home from the wash and there were some beautiful +thoughts written in it in violet ink that she bought in Hely's of Dame +Street for she felt that she too could write poetry if she could only +express herself like that poem that appealed to her so deeply that +she had copied out of the newspaper she found one evening round the +potherbs. _Art thou real, my ideal?_ it was called by Louis J Walsh, +Magherafelt, and after there was something about _twilight, wilt thou +ever?_ and ofttimes the beauty of poetry, so sad in its transient +loveliness, had misted her eyes with silent tears for she felt that +the years were slipping by for her, one by one, and but for that one +shortcoming she knew she need fear no competition and that was an +accident coming down Dalkey hill and she always tried to conceal it. +But it must end, she felt. If she saw that magic lure in his eyes there +would be no holding back for her. Love laughs at locksmiths. She +would make the great sacrifice. Her every effort would be to share his +thoughts. Dearer than the whole world would she be to him and gild his +days with happiness. There was the allimportant question and she was +dying to know was he a married man or a widower who had lost his wife +or some tragedy like the nobleman with the foreign name from the land +of song had to have her put into a madhouse, cruel only to be kind. +But even if--what then? Would it make a very great difference? From +everything in the least indelicate her finebred nature instinctively +recoiled. She loathed that sort of person, the fallen women off the +accommodation walk beside the Dodder that went with the soldiers and +coarse men with no respect for a girl's honour, degrading the sex and +being taken up to the police station. No, no: not that. They would be +just good friends like a big brother and sister without all that other +in spite of the conventions of Society with a big ess. Perhaps it was +an old flame he was in mourning for from the days beyond recall. She +thought she understood. She would try to understand him because men were +so different. The old love was waiting, waiting with little white +hands stretched out, with blue appealing eyes. Heart of mine! She would +follow, her dream of love, the dictates of her heart that told her he +was her all in all, the only man in all the world for her for love was +the master guide. Nothing else mattered. Come what might she would be +wild, untrammelled, free. + +Canon O'Hanlon put the Blessed Sacrament back into the tabernacle and +genuflected and the choir sang _Laudate Dominum omnes gentes_ and then +he locked the tabernacle door because the benediction was over and +Father Conroy handed him his hat to put on and crosscat Edy asked wasn't +she coming but Jacky Caffrey called out: + +--O, look, Cissy! + +And they all looked was it sheet lightning but Tommy saw it too over the +trees beside the church, blue and then green and purple. + +--It's fireworks, Cissy Caffrey said. + +And they all ran down the strand to see over the houses and the church, +helterskelter, Edy with the pushcar with baby Boardman in it and Cissy +holding Tommy and Jacky by the hand so they wouldn't fall running. + +--Come on, Gerty, Cissy called. It's the bazaar fireworks. + +But Gerty was adamant. She had no intention of being at their beck and +call. If they could run like rossies she could sit so she said she could +see from where she was. The eyes that were fastened upon her set her +pulses tingling. She looked at him a moment, meeting his glance, and +a light broke in upon her. Whitehot passion was in that face, passion +silent as the grave, and it had made her his. At last they were left +alone without the others to pry and pass remarks and she knew he could +be trusted to the death, steadfast, a sterling man, a man of inflexible +honour to his fingertips. His hands and face were working and a tremour +went over her. She leaned back far to look up where the fireworks were +and she caught her knee in her hands so as not to fall back looking up +and there was no-one to see only him and her when she revealed all her +graceful beautifully shaped legs like that, supply soft and delicately +rounded, and she seemed to hear the panting of his heart, his hoarse +breathing, because she knew too about the passion of men like that, +hotblooded, because Bertha Supple told her once in dead secret and made +her swear she'd never about the gentleman lodger that was staying with +them out of the Congested Districts Board that had pictures cut out of +papers of those skirtdancers and highkickers and she said he used to do +something not very nice that you could imagine sometimes in the bed. But +this was altogether different from a thing like that because there was +all the difference because she could almost feel him draw her face to +his and the first quick hot touch of his handsome lips. Besides there +was absolution so long as you didn't do the other thing before being +married and there ought to be women priests that would understand +without your telling out and Cissy Caffrey too sometimes had that dreamy +kind of dreamy look in her eyes so that she too, my dear, and Winny +Rippingham so mad about actors' photographs and besides it was on +account of that other thing coming on the way it did. + +And Jacky Caffrey shouted to look, there was another and she leaned back +and the garters were blue to match on account of the transparent and +they all saw it and they all shouted to look, look, there it was and +she leaned back ever so far to see the fireworks and something queer was +flying through the air, a soft thing, to and fro, dark. And she saw a +long Roman candle going up over the trees, up, up, and, in the tense +hush, they were all breathless with excitement as it went higher and +higher and she had to lean back more and more to look up after it, high, +high, almost out of sight, and her face was suffused with a divine, an +entrancing blush from straining back and he could see her other things +too, nainsook knickers, the fabric that caresses the skin, better than +those other pettiwidth, the green, four and eleven, on account of being +white and she let him and she saw that he saw and then it went so high +it went out of sight a moment and she was trembling in every limb from +being bent so far back that he had a full view high up above her knee +where no-one ever not even on the swing or wading and she wasn't ashamed +and he wasn't either to look in that immodest way like that because he +couldn't resist the sight of the wondrous revealment half offered like +those skirtdancers behaving so immodest before gentlemen looking and he +kept on looking, looking. She would fain have cried to him chokingly, +held out her snowy slender arms to him to come, to feel his lips laid on +her white brow, the cry of a young girl's love, a little strangled cry, +wrung from her, that cry that has rung through the ages. And then a +rocket sprang and bang shot blind blank and O! then the Roman candle +burst and it was like a sigh of O! and everyone cried O! O! in raptures +and it gushed out of it a stream of rain gold hair threads and they +shed and ah! they were all greeny dewy stars falling with golden, O so +lovely, O, soft, sweet, soft! + +Then all melted away dewily in the grey air: all was silent. Ah! She +glanced at him as she bent forward quickly, a pathetic little glance of +piteous protest, of shy reproach under which he coloured like a girl He +was leaning back against the rock behind. Leopold Bloom (for it is he) +stands silent, with bowed head before those young guileless eyes. What a +brute he had been! At it again? A fair unsullied soul had called to him +and, wretch that he was, how had he answered? An utter cad he had been! +He of all men! But there was an infinite store of mercy in those eyes, +for him too a word of pardon even though he had erred and sinned and +wandered. Should a girl tell? No, a thousand times no. That was their +secret, only theirs, alone in the hiding twilight and there was none to +know or tell save the little bat that flew so softly through the evening +to and fro and little bats don't tell. + +Cissy Caffrey whistled, imitating the boys in the football field to show +what a great person she was: and then she cried: + +--Gerty! Gerty! We're going. Come on. We can see from farther up. + +Gerty had an idea, one of love's little ruses. She slipped a hand into +her kerchief pocket and took out the wadding and waved in reply of +course without letting him and then slipped it back. Wonder if he's too +far to. She rose. Was it goodbye? No. She had to go but they would meet +again, there, and she would dream of that till then, tomorrow, of her +dream of yester eve. She drew herself up to her full height. Their souls +met in a last lingering glance and the eyes that reached her heart, full +of a strange shining, hung enraptured on her sweet flowerlike face. She +half smiled at him wanly, a sweet forgiving smile, a smile that verged +on tears, and then they parted. + +Slowly, without looking back she went down the uneven strand to Cissy, +to Edy to Jacky and Tommy Caffrey, to little baby Boardman. It was +darker now and there were stones and bits of wood on the strand and +slippy seaweed. She walked with a certain quiet dignity characteristic +of her but with care and very slowly because--because Gerty MacDowell +was... + +Tight boots? No. She's lame! O! + +Mr Bloom watched her as she limped away. Poor girl! That's why she's +left on the shelf and the others did a sprint. Thought something was +wrong by the cut of her jib. Jilted beauty. A defect is ten times worse +in a woman. But makes them polite. Glad I didn't know it when she was on +show. Hot little devil all the same. I wouldn't mind. Curiosity like a +nun or a negress or a girl with glasses. That squinty one is delicate. +Near her monthlies, I expect, makes them feel ticklish. I have such +a bad headache today. Where did I put the letter? Yes, all right. All +kinds of crazy longings. Licking pennies. Girl in Tranquilla convent +that nun told me liked to smell rock oil. Virgins go mad in the end I +suppose. Sister? How many women in Dublin have it today? Martha, she. +Something in the air. That's the moon. But then why don't all women +menstruate at the same time with the same moon, I mean? Depends on the +time they were born I suppose. Or all start scratch then get out of +step. Sometimes Molly and Milly together. Anyhow I got the best of that. +Damned glad I didn't do it in the bath this morning over her silly I +will punish you letter. Made up for that tramdriver this morning. That +gouger M'Coy stopping me to say nothing. And his wife engagement in the +country valise, voice like a pickaxe. Thankful for small mercies. +Cheap too. Yours for the asking. Because they want it themselves. Their +natural craving. Shoals of them every evening poured out of offices. +Reserve better. Don't want it they throw it at you. Catch em alive, O. +Pity they can't see themselves. A dream of wellfilled hose. Where was +that? Ah, yes. Mutoscope pictures in Capel street: for men only. Peeping +Tom. Willy's hat and what the girls did with it. Do they snapshot those +girls or is it all a fake? _Lingerie_ does it. Felt for the curves +inside her _deshabille._ Excites them also when they're. I'm all clean +come and dirty me. And they like dressing one another for the sacrifice. +Milly delighted with Molly's new blouse. At first. Put them all on to +take them all off. Molly. Why I bought her the violet garters. Us too: +the tie he wore, his lovely socks and turnedup trousers. He wore a pair +of gaiters the night that first we met. His lovely shirt was shining +beneath his what? of jet. Say a woman loses a charm with every pin she +takes out. Pinned together. O, Mairy lost the pin of her. Dressed up to +the nines for somebody. Fashion part of their charm. Just changes when +you're on the track of the secret. Except the east: Mary, Martha: now as +then. No reasonable offer refused. She wasn't in a hurry either. Always +off to a fellow when they are. They never forget an appointment. Out on +spec probably. They believe in chance because like themselves. And the +others inclined to give her an odd dig. Girl friends at school, arms +round each other's necks or with ten fingers locked, kissing and +whispering secrets about nothing in the convent garden. Nuns with +whitewashed faces, cool coifs and their rosaries going up and down, +vindictive too for what they can't get. Barbed wire. Be sure now and +write to me. And I'll write to you. Now won't you? Molly and Josie +Powell. Till Mr Right comes along, then meet once in a blue moon. +_Tableau!_ O, look who it is for the love of God! How are you at all? +What have you been doing with yourself? Kiss and delighted to, kiss, +to see you. Picking holes in each other's appearance. You're looking +splendid. Sister souls. Showing their teeth at one another. How many +have you left? Wouldn't lend each other a pinch of salt. + +Ah! + +Devils they are when that's coming on them. Dark devilish appearance. +Molly often told me feel things a ton weight. Scratch the sole of my +foot. O that way! O, that's exquisite! Feel it myself too. Good to rest +once in a way. Wonder if it's bad to go with them then. Safe in one way. +Turns milk, makes fiddlestrings snap. Something about withering plants I +read in a garden. Besides they say if the flower withers she wears she's +a flirt. All are. Daresay she felt 1. When you feel like that you often +meet what you feel. Liked me or what? Dress they look at. Always know a +fellow courting: collars and cuffs. Well cocks and lions do the same +and stags. Same time might prefer a tie undone or something. Trousers? +Suppose I when I was? No. Gently does it. Dislike rough and tumble. Kiss +in the dark and never tell. Saw something in me. Wonder what. Sooner +have me as I am than some poet chap with bearsgrease plastery hair, +lovelock over his dexter optic. To aid gentleman in literary. Ought to +attend to my appearance my age. Didn't let her see me in profile. Still, +you never know. Pretty girls and ugly men marrying. Beauty and the +beast. Besides I can't be so if Molly. Took off her hat to show her +hair. Wide brim. Bought to hide her face, meeting someone might know +her, bend down or carry a bunch of flowers to smell. Hair strong in rut. +Ten bob I got for Molly's combings when we were on the rocks in Holles +street. Why not? Suppose he gave her money. Why not? All a prejudice. +She's worth ten, fifteen, more, a pound. What? I think so. All that for +nothing. Bold hand: Mrs Marion. Did I forget to write address on +that letter like the postcard I sent to Flynn? And the day I went to +Drimmie's without a necktie. Wrangle with Molly it was put me off. No, +I remember. Richie Goulding: he's another. Weighs on his mind. Funny +my watch stopped at half past four. Dust. Shark liver oil they use to +clean. Could do it myself. Save. Was that just when he, she? + +O, he did. Into her. She did. Done. + +Ah! + +Mr Bloom with careful hand recomposed his wet shirt. O Lord, that little +limping devil. Begins to feel cold and clammy. Aftereffect not pleasant. +Still you have to get rid of it someway. They don't care. Complimented +perhaps. Go home to nicey bread and milky and say night prayers with the +kiddies. Well, aren't they? See her as she is spoil all. Must have +the stage setting, the rouge, costume, position, music. The name too. +_Amours_ of actresses. Nell Gwynn, Mrs Bracegirdle, Maud Branscombe. +Curtain up. Moonlight silver effulgence. Maiden discovered with pensive +bosom. Little sweetheart come and kiss me. Still, I feel. The strength +it gives a man. That's the secret of it. Good job I let off there behind +the wall coming out of Dignam's. Cider that was. Otherwise I couldn't +have. Makes you want to sing after. _Lacaus esant taratara_. Suppose I +spoke to her. What about? Bad plan however if you don't know how to end +the conversation. Ask them a question they ask you another. Good idea if +you're stuck. Gain time. But then you're in a cart. Wonderful of course +if you say: good evening, and you see she's on for it: good evening. O +but the dark evening in the Appian way I nearly spoke to Mrs Clinch O +thinking she was. Whew! Girl in Meath street that night. All the dirty +things I made her say. All wrong of course. My arks she called it. It's +so hard to find one who. Aho! If you don't answer when they solicit must +be horrible for them till they harden. And kissed my hand when I gave +her the extra two shillings. Parrots. Press the button and the bird will +squeak. Wish she hadn't called me sir. O, her mouth in the dark! And you +a married man with a single girl! That's what they enjoy. Taking a man +from another woman. Or even hear of it. Different with me. Glad to get +away from other chap's wife. Eating off his cold plate. Chap in the +Burton today spitting back gumchewed gristle. French letter still in +my pocketbook. Cause of half the trouble. But might happen sometime, +I don't think. Come in, all is prepared. I dreamt. What? Worst is +beginning. How they change the venue when it's not what they like. Ask +you do you like mushrooms because she once knew a gentleman who. Or ask +you what someone was going to say when he changed his mind and stopped. +Yet if I went the whole hog, say: I want to, something like that. +Because I did. She too. Offend her. Then make it up. Pretend to want +something awfully, then cry off for her sake. Flatters them. She must +have been thinking of someone else all the time. What harm? Must since +she came to the use of reason, he, he and he. First kiss does the trick. +The propitious moment. Something inside them goes pop. Mushy like, tell +by their eye, on the sly. First thoughts are best. Remember that till +their dying day. Molly, lieutenant Mulvey that kissed her under the +Moorish wall beside the gardens. Fifteen she told me. But her breasts +were developed. Fell asleep then. After Glencree dinner that was when we +drove home. Featherbed mountain. Gnashing her teeth in sleep. Lord mayor +had his eye on her too. Val Dillon. Apoplectic. + +There she is with them down there for the fireworks. My fireworks. Up +like a rocket, down like a stick. And the children, twins they must +be, waiting for something to happen. Want to be grownups. Dressing in +mother's clothes. Time enough, understand all the ways of the world. And +the dark one with the mop head and the nigger mouth. I knew she could +whistle. Mouth made for that. Like Molly. Why that highclass whore in +Jammet's wore her veil only to her nose. Would you mind, please, telling +me the right time? I'll tell you the right time up a dark lane. +Say prunes and prisms forty times every morning, cure for fat lips. +Caressing the little boy too. Onlookers see most of the game. Of course +they understand birds, animals, babies. In their line. + +Didn't look back when she was going down the strand. Wouldn't give that +satisfaction. Those girls, those girls, those lovely seaside girls. Fine +eyes she had, clear. It's the white of the eye brings that out not so +much the pupil. Did she know what I? Course. Like a cat sitting beyond +a dog's jump. Women never meet one like that Wilkins in the high school +drawing a picture of Venus with all his belongings on show. Call that +innocence? Poor idiot! His wife has her work cut out for her. Never see +them sit on a bench marked _Wet Paint_. Eyes all over them. Look under +the bed for what's not there. Longing to get the fright of their lives. +Sharp as needles they are. When I said to Molly the man at the corner of +Cuffe street was goodlooking, thought she might like, twigged at once he +had a false arm. Had, too. Where do they get that? Typist going up Roger +Greene's stairs two at a time to show her understandings. Handed down +from father to, mother to daughter, I mean. Bred in the bone. Milly for +example drying her handkerchief on the mirror to save the ironing. Best +place for an ad to catch a woman's eye on a mirror. And when I sent +her for Molly's Paisley shawl to Prescott's by the way that ad I must, +carrying home the change in her stocking! Clever little minx. I never +told her. Neat way she carries parcels too. Attract men, small thing +like that. Holding up her hand, shaking it, to let the blood flow back +when it was red. Who did you learn that from? Nobody. Something the +nurse taught me. O, don't they know! Three years old she was in front of +Molly's dressingtable, just before we left Lombard street west. Me have +a nice pace. Mullingar. Who knows? Ways of the world. Young student. +Straight on her pins anyway not like the other. Still she was game. +Lord, I am wet. Devil you are. Swell of her calf. Transparent stockings, +stretched to breaking point. Not like that frump today. A. E. Rumpled +stockings. Or the one in Grafton street. White. Wow! Beef to the heel. + +A monkey puzzle rocket burst, spluttering in darting crackles. Zrads and +zrads, zrads, zrads. And Cissy and Tommy and Jacky ran out to see and +Edy after with the pushcar and then Gerty beyond the curve of the rocks. +Will she? Watch! Watch! See! Looked round. She smelt an onion. Darling, +I saw, your. I saw all. + +Lord! + +Did me good all the same. Off colour after Kiernan's, Dignam's. For +this relief much thanks. In _Hamlet,_ that is. Lord! It was all things +combined. Excitement. When she leaned back, felt an ache at the butt +of my tongue. Your head it simply swirls. He's right. Might have made a +worse fool of myself however. Instead of talking about nothing. Then +I will tell you all. Still it was a kind of language between us. It +couldn't be? No, Gerty they called her. Might be false name however like +my name and the address Dolphin's barn a blind. + +_Her maiden name was Jemina Brown And she lived with her mother in +Irishtown._ + +Place made me think of that I suppose. All tarred with the same brush +Wiping pens in their stockings. But the ball rolled down to her as if +it understood. Every bullet has its billet. Course I never could throw +anything straight at school. Crooked as a ram's horn. Sad however +because it lasts only a few years till they settle down to potwalloping +and papa's pants will soon fit Willy and fuller's earth for the baby +when they hold him out to do ah ah. No soft job. Saves them. Keeps +them out of harm's way. Nature. Washing child, washing corpse. Dignam. +Children's hands always round them. Cocoanut skulls, monkeys, not even +closed at first, sour milk in their swaddles and tainted curds. Oughtn't +to have given that child an empty teat to suck. Fill it up with wind. +Mrs Beaufoy, Purefoy. Must call to the hospital. Wonder is nurse Callan +there still. She used to look over some nights when Molly was in the +Coffee Palace. That young doctor O'Hare I noticed her brushing his coat. +And Mrs Breen and Mrs Dignam once like that too, marriageable. Worst +of all at night Mrs Duggan told me in the City Arms. Husband rolling in +drunk, stink of pub off him like a polecat. Have that in your nose in +the dark, whiff of stale boose. Then ask in the morning: was I drunk +last night? Bad policy however to fault the husband. Chickens come home +to roost. They stick by one another like glue. Maybe the women's fault +also. That's where Molly can knock spots off them. It's the blood of the +south. Moorish. Also the form, the figure. Hands felt for the opulent. +Just compare for instance those others. Wife locked up at home, skeleton +in the cupboard. Allow me to introduce my. Then they trot you out some +kind of a nondescript, wouldn't know what to call her. Always see a +fellow's weak point in his wife. Still there's destiny in it, falling +in love. Have their own secrets between them. Chaps that would go to the +dogs if some woman didn't take them in hand. Then little chits of girls, +height of a shilling in coppers, with little hubbies. As God made them +he matched them. Sometimes children turn out well enough. Twice nought +makes one. Or old rich chap of seventy and blushing bride. Marry in May +and repent in December. This wet is very unpleasant. Stuck. Well the +foreskin is not back. Better detach. + +Ow! + +Other hand a sixfooter with a wifey up to his watchpocket. Long and +the short of it. Big he and little she. Very strange about my watch. +Wristwatches are always going wrong. Wonder is there any magnetic +influence between the person because that was about the time he. Yes, I +suppose, at once. Cat's away, the mice will play. I remember looking +in Pill lane. Also that now is magnetism. Back of everything magnetism. +Earth for instance pulling this and being pulled. That causes movement. +And time, well that's the time the movement takes. Then if one thing +stopped the whole ghesabo would stop bit by bit. Because it's all +arranged. Magnetic needle tells you what's going on in the sun, the +stars. Little piece of steel iron. When you hold out the fork. Come. +Come. Tip. Woman and man that is. Fork and steel. Molly, he. Dress up +and look and suggest and let you see and see more and defy you if you're +a man to see that and, like a sneeze coming, legs, look, look and if you +have any guts in you. Tip. Have to let fly. + +Wonder how is she feeling in that region. Shame all put on before third +person. More put out about a hole in her stocking. Molly, her underjaw +stuck out, head back, about the farmer in the ridingboots and spurs at +the horse show. And when the painters were in Lombard street west. +Fine voice that fellow had. How Giuglini began. Smell that I did. Like +flowers. It was too. Violets. Came from the turpentine probably in the +paint. Make their own use of everything. Same time doing it scraped her +slipper on the floor so they wouldn't hear. But lots of them can't kick +the beam, I think. Keep that thing up for hours. Kind of a general all +round over me and half down my back. + +Wait. Hm. Hm. Yes. That's her perfume. Why she waved her hand. I leave +you this to think of me when I'm far away on the pillow. What is it? +Heliotrope? No. Hyacinth? Hm. Roses, I think. She'd like scent of that +kind. Sweet and cheap: soon sour. Why Molly likes opoponax. Suits her, +with a little jessamine mixed. Her high notes and her low notes. At the +dance night she met him, dance of the hours. Heat brought it out. She +was wearing her black and it had the perfume of the time before. Good +conductor, is it? Or bad? Light too. Suppose there's some connection. +For instance if you go into a cellar where it's dark. Mysterious thing +too. Why did I smell it only now? Took its time in coming like herself, +slow but sure. Suppose it's ever so many millions of tiny grains +blown across. Yes, it is. Because those spice islands, Cinghalese this +morning, smell them leagues off. Tell you what it is. It's like a fine +fine veil or web they have all over the skin, fine like what do you +call it gossamer, and they're always spinning it out of them, fine as +anything, like rainbow colours without knowing it. Clings to everything +she takes off. Vamp of her stockings. Warm shoe. Stays. Drawers: little +kick, taking them off. Byby till next time. Also the cat likes to sniff +in her shift on the bed. Know her smell in a thousand. Bathwater too. +Reminds me of strawberries and cream. Wonder where it is really. There +or the armpits or under the neck. Because you get it out of all holes +and corners. Hyacinth perfume made of oil of ether or something. +Muskrat. Bag under their tails. One grain pour off odour for years. Dogs +at each other behind. Good evening. Evening. How do you sniff? Hm. Hm. +Very well, thank you. Animals go by that. Yes now, look at it that way. +We're the same. Some women, instance, warn you off when they have their +period. Come near. Then get a hogo you could hang your hat on. Like +what? Potted herrings gone stale or. Boof! Please keep off the grass. + +Perhaps they get a man smell off us. What though? Cigary gloves long +John had on his desk the other day. Breath? What you eat and drink gives +that. No. Mansmell, I mean. Must be connected with that because priests +that are supposed to be are different. Women buzz round it like flies +round treacle. Railed off the altar get on to it at any cost. The tree +of forbidden priest. O, father, will you? Let me be the first to. That +diffuses itself all through the body, permeates. Source of life. And +it's extremely curious the smell. Celery sauce. Let me. + +Mr Bloom inserted his nose. Hm. Into the. Hm. Opening of his waistcoat. +Almonds or. No. Lemons it is. Ah no, that's the soap. + +O by the by that lotion. I knew there was something on my mind. Never +went back and the soap not paid. Dislike carrying bottles like that hag +this morning. Hynes might have paid me that three shillings. I could +mention Meagher's just to remind him. Still if he works that paragraph. +Two and nine. Bad opinion of me he'll have. Call tomorrow. How much do +I owe you? Three and nine? Two and nine, sir. Ah. Might stop him giving +credit another time. Lose your customers that way. Pubs do. Fellows run +up a bill on the slate and then slinking around the back streets into +somewhere else. + +Here's this nobleman passed before. Blown in from the bay. Just went as +far as turn back. Always at home at dinnertime. Looks mangled out: had a +good tuck in. Enjoying nature now. Grace after meals. After supper walk +a mile. Sure he has a small bank balance somewhere, government sit. Walk +after him now make him awkward like those newsboys me today. Still you +learn something. See ourselves as others see us. So long as women don't +mock what matter? That's the way to find out. Ask yourself who is he +now. _The Mystery Man on the Beach_, prize titbit story by Mr Leopold +Bloom. Payment at the rate of one guinea per column. And that fellow +today at the graveside in the brown macintosh. Corns on his kismet +however. Healthy perhaps absorb all the. Whistle brings rain they say. +Must be some somewhere. Salt in the Ormond damp. The body feels the +atmosphere. Old Betty's joints are on the rack. Mother Shipton's +prophecy that is about ships around they fly in the twinkling. No. Signs +of rain it is. The royal reader. And distant hills seem coming nigh. + +Howth. Bailey light. Two, four, six, eight, nine. See. Has to change or +they might think it a house. Wreckers. Grace Darling. People afraid of +the dark. Also glowworms, cyclists: lightingup time. Jewels diamonds +flash better. Women. Light is a kind of reassuring. Not going to hurt +you. Better now of course than long ago. Country roads. Run you through +the small guts for nothing. Still two types there are you bob against. +Scowl or smile. Pardon! Not at all. Best time to spray plants too in +the shade after the sun. Some light still. Red rays are longest. Roygbiv +Vance taught us: red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, violet. A +star I see. Venus? Can't tell yet. Two. When three it's night. Were +those nightclouds there all the time? Looks like a phantom ship. No. +Wait. Trees are they? An optical illusion. Mirage. Land of the setting +sun this. Homerule sun setting in the southeast. My native land, +goodnight. + +Dew falling. Bad for you, dear, to sit on that stone. Brings on white +fluxions. Never have little baby then less he was big strong fight his +way up through. Might get piles myself. Sticks too like a summer cold, +sore on the mouth. Cut with grass or paper worst. Friction of the +position. Like to be that rock she sat on. O sweet little, you don't +know how nice you looked. I begin to like them at that age. Green +apples. Grab at all that offer. Suppose it's the only time we cross +legs, seated. Also the library today: those girl graduates. Happy chairs +under them. But it's the evening influence. They feel all that. Open +like flowers, know their hours, sunflowers, Jerusalem artichokes, in +ballrooms, chandeliers, avenues under the lamps. Nightstock in Mat +Dillon's garden where I kissed her shoulder. Wish I had a full length +oilpainting of her then. June that was too I wooed. The year returns. +History repeats itself. Ye crags and peaks I'm with you once again. +Life, love, voyage round your own little world. And now? Sad about her +lame of course but must be on your guard not to feel too much pity. They +take advantage. + +All quiet on Howth now. The distant hills seem. Where we. The +rhododendrons. I am a fool perhaps. He gets the plums, and I the +plumstones. Where I come in. All that old hill has seen. Names change: +that's all. Lovers: yum yum. + +Tired I feel now. Will I get up? O wait. Drained all the manhood out of +me, little wretch. She kissed me. Never again. My youth. Only once it +comes. Or hers. Take the train there tomorrow. No. Returning not the +same. Like kids your second visit to a house. The new I want. Nothing +new under the sun. Care of P. O. Dolphin's Barn. Are you not happy in +your? Naughty darling. At Dolphin's barn charades in Luke Doyle's house. +Mat Dillon and his bevy of daughters: Tiny, Atty, Floey, Maimy, Louy, +Hetty. Molly too. Eightyseven that was. Year before we. And the old +major, partial to his drop of spirits. Curious she an only child, I an +only child. So it returns. Think you're escaping and run into yourself. +Longest way round is the shortest way home. And just when he and she. +Circus horse walking in a ring. Rip van Winkle we played. Rip: tear in +Henny Doyle's overcoat. Van: breadvan delivering. Winkle: cockles and +periwinkles. Then I did Rip van Winkle coming back. She leaned on the +sideboard watching. Moorish eyes. Twenty years asleep in Sleepy Hollow. +All changed. Forgotten. The young are old. His gun rusty from the dew. + +Ba. What is that flying about? Swallow? Bat probably. Thinks I'm a tree, +so blind. Have birds no smell? Metempsychosis. They believed you could +be changed into a tree from grief. Weeping willow. Ba. There he goes. +Funny little beggar. Wonder where he lives. Belfry up there. Very +likely. Hanging by his heels in the odour of sanctity. Bell scared him +out, I suppose. Mass seems to be over. Could hear them all at it. Pray +for us. And pray for us. And pray for us. Good idea the repetition. Same +thing with ads. Buy from us. And buy from us. Yes, there's the light in +the priest's house. Their frugal meal. Remember about the mistake in the +valuation when I was in Thom's. Twentyeight it is. Two houses they have. +Gabriel Conroy's brother is curate. Ba. Again. Wonder why they come out +at night like mice. They're a mixed breed. Birds are like hopping mice. +What frightens them, light or noise? Better sit still. All instinct +like the bird in drouth got water out of the end of a jar by throwing +in pebbles. Like a little man in a cloak he is with tiny hands. Weeny +bones. Almost see them shimmering, kind of a bluey white. Colours depend +on the light you see. Stare the sun for example like the eagle then look +at a shoe see a blotch blob yellowish. Wants to stamp his trademark on +everything. Instance, that cat this morning on the staircase. Colour of +brown turf. Say you never see them with three colours. Not true. That +half tabbywhite tortoiseshell in the _City Arms_ with the letter em on +her forehead. Body fifty different colours. Howth a while ago amethyst. +Glass flashing. That's how that wise man what's his name with the +burning glass. Then the heather goes on fire. It can't be tourists' +matches. What? Perhaps the sticks dry rub together in the wind and +light. Or broken bottles in the furze act as a burning glass in the sun. +Archimedes. I have it! My memory's not so bad. + +Ba. Who knows what they're always flying for. Insects? That bee last +week got into the room playing with his shadow on the ceiling. Might +be the one bit me, come back to see. Birds too. Never find out. Or what +they say. Like our small talk. And says she and says he. Nerve they have +to fly over the ocean and back. Lots must be killed in storms, telegraph +wires. Dreadful life sailors have too. Big brutes of oceangoing steamers +floundering along in the dark, lowing out like seacows. _Faugh a +Ballagh!_ Out of that, bloody curse to you! Others in vessels, bit of +a handkerchief sail, pitched about like snuff at a wake when the stormy +winds do blow. Married too. Sometimes away for years at the ends of the +earth somewhere. No ends really because it's round. Wife in every port +they say. She has a good job if she minds it till Johnny comes marching +home again. If ever he does. Smelling the tail end of ports. How can +they like the sea? Yet they do. The anchor's weighed. Off he sails with +a scapular or a medal on him for luck. Well. And the tephilim no what's +this they call it poor papa's father had on his door to touch. That +brought us out of the land of Egypt and into the house of bondage. +Something in all those superstitions because when you go out never know +what dangers. Hanging on to a plank or astride of a beam for grim life, +lifebelt round him, gulping salt water, and that's the last of his nibs +till the sharks catch hold of him. Do fish ever get seasick? + +Then you have a beautiful calm without a cloud, smooth sea, placid, +crew and cargo in smithereens, Davy Jones' locker, moon looking down so +peaceful. Not my fault, old cockalorum. + +A last lonely candle wandered up the sky from Mirus bazaar in search of +funds for Mercer's hospital and broke, drooping, and shed a cluster +of violet but one white stars. They floated, fell: they faded. The +shepherd's hour: the hour of folding: hour of tryst. From house to +house, giving his everwelcome double knock, went the nine o'clock +postman, the glowworm's lamp at his belt gleaming here and there through +the laurel hedges. And among the five young trees a hoisted lintstock +lit the lamp at Leahy's terrace. By screens of lighted windows, by equal +gardens a shrill voice went crying, wailing: _Evening Telegraph, stop +press edition! Result of the Gold Cup race!_ and from the door of +Dignam's house a boy ran out and called. Twittering the bat flew here, +flew there. Far out over the sands the coming surf crept, grey. Howth +settled for slumber, tired of long days, of yumyum rhododendrons (he was +old) and felt gladly the night breeze lift, ruffle his fell of ferns. +He lay but opened a red eye unsleeping, deep and slowly breathing, +slumberous but awake. And far on Kish bank the anchored lightship +twinkled, winked at Mr Bloom. + +Life those chaps out there must have, stuck in the same spot. Irish +Lights board. Penance for their sins. Coastguards too. Rocket and +breeches buoy and lifeboat. Day we went out for the pleasure cruise in +the Erin's King, throwing them the sack of old papers. Bears in the zoo. +Filthy trip. Drunkards out to shake up their livers. Puking overboard +to feed the herrings. Nausea. And the women, fear of God in their faces. +Milly, no sign of funk. Her blue scarf loose, laughing. Don't know what +death is at that age. And then their stomachs clean. But being lost they +fear. When we hid behind the tree at Crumlin. I didn't want to. Mamma! +Mamma! Babes in the wood. Frightening them with masks too. Throwing them +up in the air to catch them. I'll murder you. Is it only half fun? Or +children playing battle. Whole earnest. How can people aim guns at each +other. Sometimes they go off. Poor kids! Only troubles wildfire and +nettlerash. Calomel purge I got her for that. After getting better +asleep with Molly. Very same teeth she has. What do they love? Another +themselves? But the morning she chased her with the umbrella. Perhaps so +as not to hurt. I felt her pulse. Ticking. Little hand it was: now big. +Dearest Papli. All that the hand says when you touch. Loved to count +my waistcoat buttons. Her first stays I remember. Made me laugh to see. +Little paps to begin with. Left one is more sensitive, I think. Mine +too. Nearer the heart? Padding themselves out if fat is in fashion. Her +growing pains at night, calling, wakening me. Frightened she was when +her nature came on her first. Poor child! Strange moment for the mother +too. Brings back her girlhood. Gibraltar. Looking from Buena Vista. +O'Hara's tower. The seabirds screaming. Old Barbary ape that gobbled all +his family. Sundown, gunfire for the men to cross the lines. Looking +out over the sea she told me. Evening like this, but clear, no clouds. +I always thought I'd marry a lord or a rich gentleman coming with a +private yacht. _Buenas noches, senorita. El hombre ama la muchacha +hermosa_. Why me? Because you were so foreign from the others. + +Better not stick here all night like a limpet. This weather makes you +dull. Must be getting on for nine by the light. Go home. Too late for +_Leah, Lily of Killarney._ No. Might be still up. Call to the hospital +to see. Hope she's over. Long day I've had. Martha, the bath, funeral, +house of Keyes, museum with those goddesses, Dedalus' song. Then that +bawler in Barney Kiernan's. Got my own back there. Drunken ranters what +I said about his God made him wince. Mistake to hit back. Or? No. +Ought to go home and laugh at themselves. Always want to be swilling in +company. Afraid to be alone like a child of two. Suppose he hit me. Look +at it other way round. Not so bad then. Perhaps not to hurt he meant. +Three cheers for Israel. Three cheers for the sister-in-law he hawked +about, three fangs in her mouth. Same style of beauty. Particularly nice +old party for a cup of tea. The sister of the wife of the wild man of +Borneo has just come to town. Imagine that in the early morning at close +range. Everyone to his taste as Morris said when he kissed the cow. But +Dignam's put the boots on it. Houses of mourning so depressing because +you never know. Anyhow she wants the money. Must call to those Scottish +Widows as I promised. Strange name. Takes it for granted we're going to +pop off first. That widow on Monday was it outside Cramer's that +looked at me. Buried the poor husband but progressing favourably on +the premium. Her widow's mite. Well? What do you expect her to do? Must +wheedle her way along. Widower I hate to see. Looks so forlorn. Poor man +O'Connor wife and five children poisoned by mussels here. The sewage. +Hopeless. Some good matronly woman in a porkpie hat to mother him. Take +him in tow, platter face and a large apron. Ladies' grey flannelette +bloomers, three shillings a pair, astonishing bargain. Plain and loved, +loved for ever, they say. Ugly: no woman thinks she is. Love, lie and be +handsome for tomorrow we die. See him sometimes walking about trying to +find out who played the trick. U. p: up. Fate that is. He, not me. Also +a shop often noticed. Curse seems to dog it. Dreamt last night? Wait. +Something confused. She had red slippers on. Turkish. Wore the breeches. +Suppose she does? Would I like her in pyjamas? Damned hard to answer. +Nannetti's gone. Mailboat. Near Holyhead by now. Must nail that ad +of Keyes's. Work Hynes and Crawford. Petticoats for Molly. She has +something to put in them. What's that? Might be money. + +Mr Bloom stooped and turned over a piece of paper on the strand. He +brought it near his eyes and peered. Letter? No. Can't read. Better go. +Better. I'm tired to move. Page of an old copybook. All those holes and +pebbles. Who could count them? Never know what you find. Bottle with +story of a treasure in it, thrown from a wreck. Parcels post. Children +always want to throw things in the sea. Trust? Bread cast on the waters. +What's this? Bit of stick. + +O! Exhausted that female has me. Not so young now. Will she come here +tomorrow? Wait for her somewhere for ever. Must come back. Murderers do. +Will I? + +Mr Bloom with his stick gently vexed the thick sand at his foot. Write a +message for her. Might remain. What? + +I. + +Some flatfoot tramp on it in the morning. Useless. Washed away. Tide +comes here. Saw a pool near her foot. Bend, see my face there, dark +mirror, breathe on it, stirs. All these rocks with lines and scars and +letters. O, those transparent! Besides they don't know. What is the +meaning of that other world. I called you naughty boy because I do not +like. + +AM. A. + +No room. Let it go. + +Mr Bloom effaced the letters with his slow boot. Hopeless thing sand. +Nothing grows in it. All fades. No fear of big vessels coming up here. +Except Guinness's barges. Round the Kish in eighty days. Done half by +design. + +He flung his wooden pen away. The stick fell in silted sand, stuck. Now +if you were trying to do that for a week on end you couldn't. Chance. +We'll never meet again. But it was lovely. Goodbye, dear. Thanks. Made +me feel so young. + +Short snooze now if I had. Must be near nine. Liverpool boat long gone.. +Not even the smoke. And she can do the other. Did too. And Belfast. I +won't go. Race there, race back to Ennis. Let him. Just close my eyes +a moment. Won't sleep, though. Half dream. It never comes the same. Bat +again. No harm in him. Just a few. + +O sweety all your little girlwhite up I saw dirty bracegirdle made me do +love sticky we two naughty Grace darling she him half past the bed met +him pike hoses frillies for Raoul de perfume your wife black hair heave +under embon _senorita_ young eyes Mulvey plump bubs me breadvan Winkle +red slippers she rusty sleep wander years of dreams return tail end +Agendath swoony lovey showed me her next year in drawers return next in +her next her next. + +A bat flew. Here. There. Here. Far in the grey a bell chimed. Mr Bloom +with open mouth, his left boot sanded sideways, leaned, breathed. Just +for a few + + _Cuckoo + Cuckoo + Cuckoo._ + +The clock on the mantelpiece in the priest's house cooed where Canon +O'Hanlon and Father Conroy and the reverend John Hughes S. J. were +taking tea and sodabread and butter and fried mutton chops with catsup +and talking about + + _Cuckoo + Cuckoo + Cuckoo._ + +Because it was a little canarybird that came out of its little house +to tell the time that Gerty MacDowell noticed the time she was there +because she was as quick as anything about a thing like that, was Gerty +MacDowell, and she noticed at once that that foreign gentleman that was +sitting on the rocks looking was + + _Cuckoo + Cuckoo + Cuckoo._ + + +Deshil Holles Eamus. Deshil Holles Eamus. Deshil Holles Eamus. + +Send us bright one, light one, Horhorn, quickening and wombfruit. Send +us bright one, light one, Horhorn, quickening and wombfruit. Send us +bright one, light one, Horhorn, quickening and wombfruit. + +Hoopsa boyaboy hoopsa! Hoopsa boyaboy hoopsa! Hoopsa boyaboy hoopsa! + +Universally that person's acumen is esteemed very little perceptive +concerning whatsoever matters are being held as most profitably by +mortals with sapience endowed to be studied who is ignorant of that +which the most in doctrine erudite and certainly by reason of that in +them high mind's ornament deserving of veneration constantly maintain +when by general consent they affirm that other circumstances being +equal by no exterior splendour is the prosperity of a nation more +efficaciously asserted than by the measure of how far forward may +have progressed the tribute of its solicitude for that proliferent +continuance which of evils the original if it be absent when fortunately +present constitutes the certain sign of omnipotent nature's incorrupted +benefaction. For who is there who anything of some significance has +apprehended but is conscious that that exterior splendour may be the +surface of a downwardtending lutulent reality or on the contrary anyone +so is there unilluminated as not to perceive that as no nature's boon +can contend against the bounty of increase so it behoves every most just +citizen to become the exhortator and admonisher of his semblables and +to tremble lest what had in the past been by the nation excellently +commenced might be in the future not with similar excellence +accomplished if an inverecund habit shall have gradually traduced +the honourable by ancestors transmitted customs to that thither of +profundity that that one was audacious excessively who would have the +hardihood to rise affirming that no more odious offence can for anyone +be than to oblivious neglect to consign that evangel simultaneously +command and promise which on all mortals with prophecy of abundance +or with diminution's menace that exalted of reiteratedly procreating +function ever irrevocably enjoined? + +It is not why therefore we shall wonder if, as the best historians +relate, among the Celts, who nothing that was not in its nature +admirable admired, the art of medicine shall have been highly honoured. +Not to speak of hostels, leperyards, sweating chambers, plaguegraves, +their greatest doctors, the O'Shiels, the O'Hickeys, the O'Lees, +have sedulously set down the divers methods by which the sick and the +relapsed found again health whether the malady had been the trembling +withering or loose boyconnell flux. Certainly in every public work which +in it anything of gravity contains preparation should be with importance +commensurate and therefore a plan was by them adopted (whether by having +preconsidered or as the maturation of experience it is difficult in +being said which the discrepant opinions of subsequent inquirers are not +up to the present congrued to render manifest) whereby maternity was so +far from all accident possibility removed that whatever care the patient +in that all hardest of woman hour chiefly required and not solely +for the copiously opulent but also for her who not being sufficiently +moneyed scarcely and often not even scarcely could subsist valiantly and +for an inconsiderable emolument was provided. + +To her nothing already then and thenceforward was anyway able to be +molestful for this chiefly felt all citizens except with proliferent +mothers prosperity at all not to can be and as they had received +eternity gods mortals generation to befit them her beholding, when the +case was so hoving itself, parturient in vehicle thereward carrying +desire immense among all one another was impelling on of her to be +received into that domicile. O thing of prudent nation not merely in +being seen but also even in being related worthy of being praised that +they her by anticipation went seeing mother, that she by them suddenly +to be about to be cherished had been begun she felt! + +Before born bliss babe had. Within womb won he worship. Whatever in that +one case done commodiously done was. A couch by midwives attended with +wholesome food reposeful, cleanest swaddles as though forthbringing were +now done and by wise foresight set: but to this no less of what drugs +there is need and surgical implements which are pertaining to her +case not omitting aspect of all very distracting spectacles in various +latitudes by our terrestrial orb offered together with images, divine +and human, the cogitation of which by sejunct females is to tumescence +conducive or eases issue in the high sunbright wellbuilt fair home of +mothers when, ostensibly far gone and reproductitive, it is come by her +thereto to lie in, her term up. + +Some man that wayfaring was stood by housedoor at night's oncoming. Of +Israel's folk was that man that on earth wandering far had fared. Stark +ruth of man his errand that him lone led till that house. + +Of that house A. Horne is lord. Seventy beds keeps he there teeming +mothers are wont that they lie for to thole and bring forth bairns hale +so God's angel to Mary quoth. Watchers tway there walk, white sisters +in ward sleepless. Smarts they still, sickness soothing: in twelve moons +thrice an hundred. Truest bedthanes they twain are, for Horne holding +wariest ward. + +In ward wary the watcher hearing come that man mildhearted eft rising +with swire ywimpled to him her gate wide undid. Lo, levin leaping +lightens in eyeblink Ireland's westward welkin. Full she drad that +God the Wreaker all mankind would fordo with water for his evil sins. +Christ's rood made she on breastbone and him drew that he would rathe +infare under her thatch. That man her will wotting worthful went in +Horne's house. + +Loth to irk in Horne's hall hat holding the seeker stood. On her stow he +ere was living with dear wife and lovesome daughter that then over land +and seafloor nine years had long outwandered. Once her in townhithe +meeting he to her bow had not doffed. Her to forgive now he craved with +good ground of her allowed that that of him swiftseen face, hers, so +young then had looked. Light swift her eyes kindled, bloom of blushes +his word winning. + +As her eyes then ongot his weeds swart therefor sorrow she feared. Glad +after she was that ere adread was. Her he asked if O'Hare Doctor tidings +sent from far coast and she with grameful sigh him answered that O'Hare +Doctor in heaven was. Sad was the man that word to hear that him so +heavied in bowels ruthful. All she there told him, ruing death for +friend so young, algate sore unwilling God's rightwiseness to withsay. +She said that he had a fair sweet death through God His goodness with +masspriest to be shriven, holy housel and sick men's oil to his limbs. +The man then right earnest asked the nun of which death the dead man was +died and the nun answered him and said that he was died in Mona Island +through bellycrab three year agone come Childermas and she prayed to God +the Allruthful to have his dear soul in his undeathliness. He heard her +sad words, in held hat sad staring. So stood they there both awhile in +wanhope sorrowing one with other. + +Therefore, everyman, look to that last end that is thy death and the +dust that gripeth on every man that is born of woman for as he came +naked forth from his mother's womb so naked shall he wend him at the +last for to go as he came. + +The man that was come in to the house then spoke to the nursingwoman and +he asked her how it fared with the woman that lay there in childbed. +The nursingwoman answered him and said that that woman was in throes +now full three days and that it would be a hard birth unneth to bear +but that now in a little it would be. She said thereto that she had +seen many births of women but never was none so hard as was that woman's +birth. Then she set it all forth to him for because she knew the man +that time was had lived nigh that house. The man hearkened to her words +for he felt with wonder women's woe in the travail that they have of +motherhood and he wondered to look on her face that was a fair face for +any man to see but yet was she left after long years a handmaid. Nine +twelve bloodflows chiding her childless. + +And whiles they spake the door of the castle was opened and there nighed +them a mickle noise as of many that sat there at meat. And there came +against the place as they stood a young learningknight yclept Dixon. And +the traveller Leopold was couth to him sithen it had happed that they +had had ado each with other in the house of misericord where this +learningknight lay by cause the traveller Leopold came there to be +healed for he was sore wounded in his breast by a spear wherewith a +horrible and dreadful dragon was smitten him for which he did do make +a salve of volatile salt and chrism as much as he might suffice. And he +said now that he should go in to that castle for to make merry with +them that were there. And the traveller Leopold said that he should go +otherwhither for he was a man of cautels and a subtile. Also the lady +was of his avis and repreved the learningknight though she trowed well +that the traveller had said thing that was false for his subtility. But +the learningknight would not hear say nay nor do her mandement ne have +him in aught contrarious to his list and he said how it was a marvellous +castle. And the traveller Leopold went into the castle for to rest him +for a space being sore of limb after many marches environing in divers +lands and sometime venery. + +And in the castle was set a board that was of the birchwood of Finlandy +and it was upheld by four dwarfmen of that country but they durst not +move more for enchantment. And on this board were frightful swords and +knives that are made in a great cavern by swinking demons out of white +flames that they fix then in the horns of buffalos and stags that there +abound marvellously. And there were vessels that are wrought by magic of +Mahound out of seasand and the air by a warlock with his breath that he +blases in to them like to bubbles. And full fair cheer and rich was on +the board that no wight could devise a fuller ne richer. And there was +a vat of silver that was moved by craft to open in the which lay strange +fishes withouten heads though misbelieving men nie that this be possible +thing without they see it natheless they are so. And these fishes lie +in an oily water brought there from Portugal land because of the fatness +that therein is like to the juices of the olivepress. And also it was +a marvel to see in that castle how by magic they make a compost out of +fecund wheatkidneys out of Chaldee that by aid of certain angry spirits +that they do in to it swells up wondrously like to a vast mountain. And +they teach the serpents there to entwine themselves up on long sticks +out of the ground and of the scales of these serpents they brew out a +brewage like to mead. + +And the learning knight let pour for childe Leopold a draught and halp +thereto the while all they that were there drank every each. And childe +Leopold did up his beaver for to pleasure him and took apertly somewhat +in amity for he never drank no manner of mead which he then put by and +anon full privily he voided the more part in his neighbour glass and +his neighbour nist not of this wile. And he sat down in that castle with +them for to rest him there awhile. Thanked be Almighty God. + +This meanwhile this good sister stood by the door and begged them at the +reverence of Jesu our alther liege Lord to leave their wassailing for +there was above one quick with child, a gentle dame, whose time hied +fast. Sir Leopold heard on the upfloor cry on high and he wondered what +cry that it was whether of child or woman and I marvel, said he, that it +be not come or now. Meseems it dureth overlong. And he was ware and saw +a franklin that hight Lenehan on that side the table that was older than +any of the tother and for that they both were knights virtuous in the +one emprise and eke by cause that he was elder he spoke to him full +gently. But, said he, or it be long too she will bring forth by God His +bounty and have joy of her childing for she hath waited marvellous long. +And the franklin that had drunken said, Expecting each moment to be her +next. Also he took the cup that stood tofore him for him needed never +none asking nor desiring of him to drink and, Now drink, said he, fully +delectably, and he quaffed as far as he might to their both's health for +he was a passing good man of his lustiness. And sir Leopold that was the +goodliest guest that ever sat in scholars' hall and that was the meekest +man and the kindest that ever laid husbandly hand under hen and that was +the very truest knight of the world one that ever did minion service +to lady gentle pledged him courtly in the cup. Woman's woe with wonder +pondering. + +Now let us speak of that fellowship that was there to the intent to be +drunken an they might. There was a sort of scholars along either side +the board, that is to wit, Dixon yclept junior of saint Mary Merciable's +with other his fellows Lynch and Madden, scholars of medicine, and the +franklin that hight Lenehan and one from Alba Longa, one Crotthers, and +young Stephen that had mien of a frere that was at head of the board +and Costello that men clepen Punch Costello all long of a mastery of +him erewhile gested (and of all them, reserved young Stephen, he was the +most drunken that demanded still of more mead) and beside the meek sir +Leopold. But on young Malachi they waited for that he promised to have +come and such as intended to no goodness said how he had broke his avow. +And sir Leopold sat with them for he bore fast friendship to sir Simon +and to this his son young Stephen and for that his languor becalmed him +there after longest wanderings insomuch as they feasted him for that +time in the honourablest manner. Ruth red him, love led on with will to +wander, loth to leave. + +For they were right witty scholars. And he heard their aresouns each gen +other as touching birth and righteousness, young Madden maintaining that +put such case it were hard the wife to die (for so it had fallen out a +matter of some year agone with a woman of Eblana in Horne's house that +now was trespassed out of this world and the self night next before her +death all leeches and pothecaries had taken counsel of her case). And +they said farther she should live because in the beginning, they said, +the woman should bring forth in pain and wherefore they that were of +this imagination affirmed how young Madden had said truth for he had +conscience to let her die. And not few and of these was young Lynch +were in doubt that the world was now right evil governed as it was never +other howbeit the mean people believed it otherwise but the law nor his +judges did provide no remedy. A redress God grant. This was scant said +but all cried with one acclaim nay, by our Virgin Mother, the wife +should live and the babe to die. In colour whereof they waxed hot +upon that head what with argument and what for their drinking but the +franklin Lenehan was prompt each when to pour them ale so that at the +least way mirth might not lack. Then young Madden showed all the whole +affair and said how that she was dead and how for holy religion sake by +rede of palmer and bedesman and for a vow he had made to Saint Ultan of +Arbraccan her goodman husband would not let her death whereby they were +all wondrous grieved. To whom young Stephen had these words following: +Murmur, sirs, is eke oft among lay folk. Both babe and parent now +glorify their Maker, the one in limbo gloom, the other in purgefire. +But, gramercy, what of those Godpossibled souls that we nightly +impossibilise, which is the sin against the Holy Ghost, Very God, Lord +and Giver of Life? For, sirs, he said, our lust is brief. We are means +to those small creatures within us and nature has other ends than we. +Then said Dixon junior to Punch Costello wist he what ends. But he had +overmuch drunken and the best word he could have of him was that he +would ever dishonest a woman whoso she were or wife or maid or leman if +it so fortuned him to be delivered of his spleen of lustihead. Whereat +Crotthers of Alba Longa sang young Malachi's praise of that beast the +unicorn how once in the millennium he cometh by his horn, the other all +this while, pricked forward with their jibes wherewith they did malice +him, witnessing all and several by saint Foutinus his engines that +he was able to do any manner of thing that lay in man to do. Thereat +laughed they all right jocundly only young Stephen and sir Leopold which +never durst laugh too open by reason of a strange humour which he would +not bewray and also for that he rued for her that bare whoso she might +be or wheresoever. Then spake young Stephen orgulous of mother Church +that would cast him out of her bosom, of law of canons, of Lilith, +patron of abortions, of bigness wrought by wind of seeds of brightness +or by potency of vampires mouth to mouth or, as Virgilius saith, by the +influence of the occident or by the reek of moonflower or an she lie +with a woman which her man has but lain with, _effectu secuto_, or +peradventure in her bath according to the opinions of Averroes and Moses +Maimonides. He said also how at the end of the second month a human soul +was infused and how in all our holy mother foldeth ever souls for God's +greater glory whereas that earthly mother which was but a dam to bear +beastly should die by canon for so saith he that holdeth the fisherman's +seal, even that blessed Peter on which rock was holy church for all ages +founded. All they bachelors then asked of sir Leopold would he in like +case so jeopard her person as risk life to save life. A wariness of +mind he would answer as fitted all and, laying hand to jaw, he said +dissembling, as his wont was, that as it was informed him, who had ever +loved the art of physic as might a layman, and agreeing also with his +experience of so seldomseen an accident it was good for that mother +Church belike at one blow had birth and death pence and in such sort +deliverly he scaped their questions. That is truth, pardy, said Dixon, +and, or I err, a pregnant word. Which hearing young Stephen was a +marvellous glad man and he averred that he who stealeth from the poor +lendeth to the Lord for he was of a wild manner when he was drunken and +that he was now in that taking it appeared eftsoons. + +But sir Leopold was passing grave maugre his word by cause he still had +pity of the terrorcausing shrieking of shrill women in their labour +and as he was minded of his good lady Marion that had borne him an only +manchild which on his eleventh day on live had died and no man of art +could save so dark is destiny. And she was wondrous stricken of heart +for that evil hap and for his burial did him on a fair corselet of +lamb's wool, the flower of the flock, lest he might perish utterly and +lie akeled (for it was then about the midst of the winter) and now Sir +Leopold that had of his body no manchild for an heir looked upon him his +friend's son and was shut up in sorrow for his forepassed happiness and +as sad as he was that him failed a son of such gentle courage (for all +accounted him of real parts) so grieved he also in no less measure +for young Stephen for that he lived riotously with those wastrels and +murdered his goods with whores. + +About that present time young Stephen filled all cups that stood empty +so as there remained but little mo if the prudenter had not shadowed +their approach from him that still plied it very busily who, praying for +the intentions of the sovereign pontiff, he gave them for a pledge the +vicar of Christ which also as he said is vicar of Bray. Now drink we, +quod he, of this mazer and quaff ye this mead which is not indeed parcel +of my body but my soul's bodiment. Leave ye fraction of bread to them +that live by bread alone. Be not afeard neither for any want for this +will comfort more than the other will dismay. See ye here. And he showed +them glistering coins of the tribute and goldsmith notes the worth of +two pound nineteen shilling that he had, he said, for a song which he +writ. They all admired to see the foresaid riches in such dearth of +money as was herebefore. His words were then these as followeth: Know +all men, he said, time's ruins build eternity's mansions. What means +this? Desire's wind blasts the thorntree but after it becomes from a +bramblebush to be a rose upon the rood of time. Mark me now. In woman's +womb word is made flesh but in the spirit of the maker all flesh +that passes becomes the word that shall not pass away. This is the +postcreation. _Omnis caro ad te veniet_. No question but her name is +puissant who aventried the dear corse of our Agenbuyer, Healer and Herd, +our mighty mother and mother most venerable and Bernardus saith aptly +that She hath an _omnipotentiam deiparae supplicem_, that is to wit, an +almightiness of petition because she is the second Eve and she won +us, saith Augustine too, whereas that other, our grandam, which we are +linked up with by successive anastomosis of navelcords sold us all, +seed, breed and generation, for a penny pippin. But here is the matter +now. Or she knew him, that second I say, and was but creature of her +creature, _vergine madre, figlia di tuo figlio_, or she knew him not and +then stands she in the one denial or ignorancy with Peter Piscator who +lives in the house that Jack built and with Joseph the joiner patron of +the happy demise of all unhappy marriages, _parceque M. Leo Taxil nous +a dit que qui l'avait mise dans cette fichue position c'etait le +sacre pigeon, ventre de Dieu! Entweder_ transubstantiality ODER +consubstantiality but in no case subsubstantiality. And all cried out +upon it for a very scurvy word. A pregnancy without joy, he said, a +birth without pangs, a body without blemish, a belly without bigness. +Let the lewd with faith and fervour worship. With will will we +withstand, withsay. + +Hereupon Punch Costello dinged with his fist upon the board and would +sing a bawdy catch _Staboo Stabella_ about a wench that was put in pod +of a jolly swashbuckler in Almany which he did straightways now attack: +_The first three months she was not well, Staboo,_ when here nurse +Quigley from the door angerly bid them hist ye should shame you nor +was it not meet as she remembered them being her mind was to have all +orderly against lord Andrew came for because she was jealous that +no gasteful turmoil might shorten the honour of her guard. It was an +ancient and a sad matron of a sedate look and christian walking, +in habit dun beseeming her megrims and wrinkled visage, nor did her +hortative want of it effect for incontinently Punch Costello was of them +all embraided and they reclaimed the churl with civil rudeness some and +shaked him with menace of blandishments others whiles they all chode +with him, a murrain seize the dolt, what a devil he would be at, thou +chuff, thou puny, thou got in peasestraw, thou losel, thou chitterling, +thou spawn of a rebel, thou dykedropt, thou abortion thou, to shut up +his drunken drool out of that like a curse of God ape, the good sir +Leopold that had for his cognisance the flower of quiet, margerain +gentle, advising also the time's occasion as most sacred and most worthy +to be most sacred. In Horne's house rest should reign. + +To be short this passage was scarce by when Master Dixon of Mary in +Eccles, goodly grinning, asked young Stephen what was the reason why he +had not cided to take friar's vows and he answered him obedience in the +womb, chastity in the tomb but involuntary poverty all his days. Master +Lenehan at this made return that he had heard of those nefarious deeds +and how, as he heard hereof counted, he had besmirched the lily virtue +of a confiding female which was corruption of minors and they all +intershowed it too, waxing merry and toasting to his fathership. But he +said very entirely it was clean contrary to their suppose for he was +the eternal son and ever virgin. Thereat mirth grew in them the more and +they rehearsed to him his curious rite of wedlock for the disrobing and +deflowering of spouses, as the priests use in Madagascar island, she +to be in guise of white and saffron, her groom in white and grain, with +burning of nard and tapers, on a bridebed while clerks sung kyries and +the anthem _Ut novetur sexus omnis corporis mysterium_ till she was +there unmaided. He gave them then a much admirable hymen minim by those +delicate poets Master John Fletcher and Master Francis Beaumont that is +in their _Maid's Tragedy_ that was writ for a like twining of lovers: +_To bed, to bed_ was the burden of it to be played with accompanable +concent upon the virginals. An exquisite dulcet epithalame of most +mollificative suadency for juveniles amatory whom the odoriferous +flambeaus of the paranymphs have escorted to the quadrupedal proscenium +of connubial communion. Well met they were, said Master Dixon, joyed, +but, harkee, young sir, better were they named Beau Mount and Lecher +for, by my troth, of such a mingling much might come. Young Stephen said +indeed to his best remembrance they had but the one doxy between them +and she of the stews to make shift with in delights amorous for life ran +very high in those days and the custom of the country approved with it. +Greater love than this, he said, no man hath that a man lay down his +wife for his friend. Go thou and do likewise. Thus, or words to that +effect, saith Zarathustra, sometime regius professor of French letters +to the university of Oxtail nor breathed there ever that man to whom +mankind was more beholden. Bring a stranger within thy tower it will +go hard but thou wilt have the secondbest bed. _Orate, fratres, pro +memetipso_. And all the people shall say, Amen. Remember, Erin, thy +generations and thy days of old, how thou settedst little by me and by +my word and broughtedst in a stranger to my gates to commit fornication +in my sight and to wax fat and kick like Jeshurum. Therefore hast thou +sinned against my light and hast made me, thy lord, to be the slave of +servants. Return, return, Clan Milly: forget me not, O Milesian. Why +hast thou done this abomination before me that thou didst spurn me for +a merchant of jalaps and didst deny me to the Roman and to the Indian of +dark speech with whom thy daughters did lie luxuriously? Look forth now, +my people, upon the land of behest, even from Horeb and from Nebo and +from Pisgah and from the Horns of Hatten unto a land flowing with milk +and money. But thou hast suckled me with a bitter milk: my moon and my +sun thou hast quenched for ever. And thou hast left me alone for ever +in the dark ways of my bitterness: and with a kiss of ashes hast thou +kissed my mouth. This tenebrosity of the interior, he proceeded to say, +hath not been illumined by the wit of the septuagint nor so much as +mentioned for the Orient from on high Which brake hell's gates visited a +darkness that was foraneous. Assuefaction minorates atrocities (as Tully +saith of his darling Stoics) and Hamlet his father showeth the prince no +blister of combustion. The adiaphane in the noon of life is an Egypt's +plague which in the nights of prenativity and postmortemity is their +most proper _ubi_ and _quomodo_. And as the ends and ultimates of +all things accord in some mean and measure with their inceptions and +originals, that same multiplicit concordance which leads forth growth +from birth accomplishing by a retrogressive metamorphosis that minishing +and ablation towards the final which is agreeable unto nature so is it +with our subsolar being. The aged sisters draw us into life: we wail, +batten, sport, clip, clasp, sunder, dwindle, die: over us dead they +bend. First, saved from waters of old Nile, among bulrushes, a bed +of fasciated wattles: at last the cavity of a mountain, an occulted +sepulchre amid the conclamation of the hillcat and the ossifrage. And as +no man knows the ubicity of his tumulus nor to what processes we shall +thereby be ushered nor whether to Tophet or to Edenville in the like way +is all hidden when we would backward see from what region of remoteness +the whatness of our whoness hath fetched his whenceness. + +Thereto Punch Costello roared out mainly _Etienne chanson_ but he loudly +bid them, lo, wisdom hath built herself a house, this vast majestic +longstablished vault, the crystal palace of the Creator, all in applepie +order, a penny for him who finds the pea. + + _Behold the mansion reared by dedal Jack + See the malt stored in many a refluent sack, + In the proud cirque of Jackjohn's bivouac._ + +A black crack of noise in the street here, alack, bawled back. Loud on +left Thor thundered: in anger awful the hammerhurler. Came now the storm +that hist his heart. And Master Lynch bade him have a care to flout and +witwanton as the god self was angered for his hellprate and paganry. And +he that had erst challenged to be so doughty waxed wan as they might all +mark and shrank together and his pitch that was before so haught uplift +was now of a sudden quite plucked down and his heart shook within the +cage of his breast as he tasted the rumour of that storm. Then did some +mock and some jeer and Punch Costello fell hard again to his yale which +Master Lenehan vowed he would do after and he was indeed but a word and +a blow on any the least colour. But the braggart boaster cried that an +old Nobodaddy was in his cups it was muchwhat indifferent and he would +not lag behind his lead. But this was only to dye his desperation as +cowed he crouched in Horne's hall. He drank indeed at one draught to +pluck up a heart of any grace for it thundered long rumblingly over all +the heavens so that Master Madden, being godly certain whiles, knocked +him on his ribs upon that crack of doom and Master Bloom, at the +braggart's side, spoke to him calming words to slumber his great fear, +advertising how it was no other thing but a hubbub noise that he heard, +the discharge of fluid from the thunderhead, look you, having taken +place, and all of the order of a natural phenomenon. + +But was young Boasthard's fear vanquished by Calmer's words? No, for he +had in his bosom a spike named Bitterness which could not by words be +done away. And was he then neither calm like the one nor godly like the +other? He was neither as much as he would have liked to be either. But +could he not have endeavoured to have found again as in his youth the +bottle Holiness that then he lived withal? Indeed no for Grace was not +there to find that bottle. Heard he then in that clap the voice of the +god Bringforth or, what Calmer said, a hubbub of Phenomenon? Heard? +Why, he could not but hear unless he had plugged him up the tube +Understanding (which he had not done). For through that tube he saw that +he was in the land of Phenomenon where he must for a certain one day die +as he was like the rest too a passing show. And would he not accept to +die like the rest and pass away? By no means would he though he must nor +would he make more shows according as men do with wives which Phenomenon +has commanded them to do by the book Law. Then wotted he nought of that +other land which is called Believe-on-Me, that is the land of promise +which behoves to the king Delightful and shall be for ever where there +is no death and no birth neither wiving nor mothering at which all shall +come as many as believe on it? Yes, Pious had told him of that land and +Chaste had pointed him to the way but the reason was that in the way he +fell in with a certain whore of an eyepleasing exterior whose name, she +said, is Bird-in-the-Hand and she beguiled him wrongways from the true +path by her flatteries that she said to him as, Ho, you pretty man, turn +aside hither and I will show you a brave place, and she lay at him so +flatteringly that she had him in her grot which is named Two-in-the-Bush +or, by some learned, Carnal Concupiscence. + +This was it what all that company that sat there at commons in Manse +of Mothers the most lusted after and if they met with this whore +Bird-in-the-Hand (which was within all foul plagues, monsters and a +wicked devil) they would strain the last but they would make at her and +know her. For regarding Believe-on-Me they said it was nought else +but notion and they could conceive no thought of it for, first, +Two-in-the-Bush whither she ticed them was the very goodliest grot and +in it were four pillows on which were four tickets with these words +printed on them, Pickaback and Topsyturvy and Shameface and Cheek by +Jowl and, second, for that foul plague Allpox and the monsters they +cared not for them for Preservative had given them a stout shield of +oxengut and, third, that they might take no hurt neither from Offspring +that was that wicked devil by virtue of this same shield which was +named Killchild. So were they all in their blind fancy, Mr Cavil and Mr +Sometimes Godly, Mr Ape Swillale, Mr False Franklin, Mr Dainty Dixon, +Young Boasthard and Mr Cautious Calmer. Wherein, O wretched company, +were ye all deceived for that was the voice of the god that was in a +very grievous rage that he would presently lift his arm up and +spill their souls for their abuses and their spillings done by them +contrariwise to his word which forth to bring brenningly biddeth. + +So Thursday sixteenth June Patk. Dignam laid in clay of an apoplexy and +after hard drought, please God, rained, a bargeman coming in by water a +fifty mile or thereabout with turf saying the seed won't sprout, fields +athirst, very sadcoloured and stunk mightily, the quags and tofts too. +Hard to breathe and all the young quicks clean consumed without sprinkle +this long while back as no man remembered to be without. The rosy buds +all gone brown and spread out blobs and on the hills nought but dry flag +and faggots that would catch at first fire. All the world saying, for +aught they knew, the big wind of last February a year that did havoc the +land so pitifully a small thing beside this barrenness. But by and +by, as said, this evening after sundown, the wind sitting in the +west, biggish swollen clouds to be seen as the night increased and the +weatherwise poring up at them and some sheet lightnings at first and +after, past ten of the clock, one great stroke with a long thunder and +in a brace of shakes all scamper pellmell within door for the smoking +shower, the men making shelter for their straws with a clout or +kerchief, womenfolk skipping off with kirtles catched up soon as the +pour came. In Ely place, Baggot street, Duke's lawn, thence through +Merrion green up to Holles street a swash of water flowing that was +before bonedry and not one chair or coach or fiacre seen about but +no more crack after that first. Over against the Rt. Hon. Mr Justice +Fitzgibbon's door (that is to sit with Mr Healy the lawyer upon the +college lands) Mal. Mulligan a gentleman's gentleman that had but come +from Mr Moore's the writer's (that was a papish but is now, folk say, +a good Williamite) chanced against Alec. Bannon in a cut bob (which are +now in with dance cloaks of Kendal green) that was new got to town from +Mullingar with the stage where his coz and Mal M's brother will stay a +month yet till Saint Swithin and asks what in the earth he does there, +he bound home and he to Andrew Horne's being stayed for to crush a cup +of wine, so he said, but would tell him of a skittish heifer, big of +her age and beef to the heel, and all this while poured with rain and +so both together on to Horne's. There Leop. Bloom of Crawford's journal +sitting snug with a covey of wags, likely brangling fellows, Dixon jun., +scholar of my lady of Mercy's, Vin. Lynch, a Scots fellow, Will. Madden, +T. Lenehan, very sad about a racer he fancied and Stephen D. Leop. Bloom +there for a languor he had but was now better, be having dreamed tonight +a strange fancy of his dame Mrs Moll with red slippers on in a pair of +Turkey trunks which is thought by those in ken to be for a change and +Mistress Purefoy there, that got in through pleading her belly, and now +on the stools, poor body, two days past her term, the midwives sore put +to it and can't deliver, she queasy for a bowl of riceslop that is a +shrewd drier up of the insides and her breath very heavy more than good +and should be a bullyboy from the knocks, they say, but God give her +soon issue. 'Tis her ninth chick to live, I hear, and Lady day bit off +her last chick's nails that was then a twelvemonth and with other three +all breastfed that died written out in a fair hand in the king's bible. +Her hub fifty odd and a methodist but takes the sacrament and is to +be seen any fair sabbath with a pair of his boys off Bullock harbour +dapping on the sound with a heavybraked reel or in a punt he has +trailing for flounder and pollock and catches a fine bag, I hear. In sum +an infinite great fall of rain and all refreshed and will much increase +the harvest yet those in ken say after wind and water fire shall come +for a prognostication of Malachi's almanac (and I hear that Mr Russell +has done a prophetical charm of the same gist out of the Hindustanish +for his farmer's gazette) to have three things in all but this a mere +fetch without bottom of reason for old crones and bairns yet sometimes +they are found in the right guess with their queerities no telling how. + +With this came up Lenehan to the feet of the table to say how the letter +was in that night's gazette and he made a show to find it about him +(for he swore with an oath that he had been at pains about it) but on +Stephen's persuasion he gave over the search and was bidden to sit near +by which he did mighty brisk. He was a kind of sport gentleman that +went for a merryandrew or honest pickle and what belonged of women, +horseflesh or hot scandal he had it pat. To tell the truth he was mean +in fortunes and for the most part hankered about the coffeehouses +and low taverns with crimps, ostlers, bookies, Paul's men, runners, +flatcaps, waistcoateers, ladies of the bagnio and other rogues of the +game or with a chanceable catchpole or a tipstaff often at nights +till broad day of whom he picked up between his sackpossets much loose +gossip. He took his ordinary at a boilingcook's and if he had but gotten +into him a mess of broken victuals or a platter of tripes with a bare +tester in his purse he could always bring himself off with his tongue, +some randy quip he had from a punk or whatnot that every mother's son of +them would burst their sides. The other, Costello that is, hearing this +talk asked was it poetry or a tale. Faith, no, he says, Frank (that was +his name), 'tis all about Kerry cows that are to be butchered along of +the plague. But they can go hang, says he with a wink, for me with their +bully beef, a pox on it. There's as good fish in this tin as ever came +out of it and very friendly he offered to take of some salty sprats that +stood by which he had eyed wishly in the meantime and found the place +which was indeed the chief design of his embassy as he was sharpset. +_Mort aux vaches_, says Frank then in the French language that had been +indentured to a brandyshipper that has a winelodge in Bordeaux and he +spoke French like a gentleman too. From a child this Frank had been +a donought that his father, a headborough, who could ill keep him to +school to learn his letters and the use of the globes, matriculated at +the university to study the mechanics but he took the bit between his +teeth like a raw colt and was more familiar with the justiciary and the +parish beadle than with his volumes. One time he would be a playactor, +then a sutler or a welsher, then nought would keep him from the bearpit +and the cocking main, then he was for the ocean sea or to hoof it on +the roads with the romany folk, kidnapping a squire's heir by favour of +moonlight or fecking maids' linen or choking chicken behind a hedge. He +had been off as many times as a cat has lives and back again with naked +pockets as many more to his father the headborough who shed a pint +of tears as often as he saw him. What, says Mr Leopold with his hands +across, that was earnest to know the drift of it, will they slaughter +all? I protest I saw them but this day morning going to the Liverpool +boats, says he. I can scarce believe 'tis so bad, says he. And he had +experience of the like brood beasts and of springers, greasy hoggets and +wether wool, having been some years before actuary for Mr Joseph Cuffe, +a worthy salesmaster that drove his trade for live stock and meadow +auctions hard by Mr Gavin Low's yard in Prussia street. I question with +you there, says he. More like 'tis the hoose or the timber tongue. Mr +Stephen, a little moved but very handsomely told him no such matter and +that he had dispatches from the emperor's chief tailtickler thanking +him for the hospitality, that was sending over Doctor Rinderpest, the +bestquoted cowcatcher in all Muscovy, with a bolus or two of physic to +take the bull by the horns. Come, come, says Mr Vincent, plain dealing. +He'll find himself on the horns of a dilemma if he meddles with a +bull that's Irish, says he. Irish by name and irish by nature, says Mr +Stephen, and he sent the ale purling about, an Irish bull in an English +chinashop. I conceive you, says Mr Dixon. It is that same bull that was +sent to our island by farmer Nicholas, the bravest cattlebreeder of them +all, with an emerald ring in his nose. True for you, says Mr Vincent +cross the table, and a bullseye into the bargain, says he, and a plumper +and a portlier bull, says he, never shit on shamrock. He had horns +galore, a coat of cloth of gold and a sweet smoky breath coming out of +his nostrils so that the women of our island, leaving doughballs and +rollingpins, followed after him hanging his bulliness in daisychains. +What for that, says Mr Dixon, but before he came over farmer Nicholas +that was a eunuch had him properly gelded by a college of doctors who +were no better off than himself. So be off now, says he, and do all my +cousin german the lord Harry tells you and take a farmer's blessing, and +with that he slapped his posteriors very soundly. But the slap and the +blessing stood him friend, says Mr Vincent, for to make up he taught him +a trick worth two of the other so that maid, wife, abbess and widow to +this day affirm that they would rather any time of the month whisper +in his ear in the dark of a cowhouse or get a lick on the nape from his +long holy tongue than lie with the finest strapping young ravisher in +the four fields of all Ireland. Another then put in his word: And they +dressed him, says he, in a point shift and petticoat with a tippet and +girdle and ruffles on his wrists and clipped his forelock and rubbed him +all over with spermacetic oil and built stables for him at every turn of +the road with a gold manger in each full of the best hay in the market +so that he could doss and dung to his heart's content. By this time the +father of the faithful (for so they called him) was grown so heavy that +he could scarce walk to pasture. To remedy which our cozening dames and +damsels brought him his fodder in their apronlaps and as soon as his +belly was full he would rear up on his hind uarters to show their +ladyships a mystery and roar and bellow out of him in bulls' language +and they all after him. Ay, says another, and so pampered was he that he +would suffer nought to grow in all the land but green grass for himself +(for that was the only colour to his mind) and there was a board put up +on a hillock in the middle of the island with a printed notice, saying: +By the Lord Harry, Green is the grass that grows on the ground. And, +says Mr Dixon, if ever he got scent of a cattleraider in Roscommon or +the wilds of Connemara or a husbandman in Sligo that was sowing as much +as a handful of mustard or a bag of rapeseed out he'd run amok over half +the countryside rooting up with his horns whatever was planted and all +by lord Harry's orders. There was bad blood between them at first, says +Mr Vincent, and the lord Harry called farmer Nicholas all the old Nicks +in the world and an old whoremaster that kept seven trulls in his house +and I'll meddle in his matters, says he. I'll make that animal smell +hell, says he, with the help of that good pizzle my father left me. But +one evening, says Mr Dixon, when the lord Harry was cleaning his royal +pelt to go to dinner after winning a boatrace (he had spade oars for +himself but the first rule of the course was that the others were to row +with pitchforks) he discovered in himself a wonderful likeness to a bull +and on picking up a blackthumbed chapbook that he kept in the pantry +he found sure enough that he was a lefthanded descendant of the famous +champion bull of the Romans, _Bos Bovum_, which is good bog Latin for +boss of the show. After that, says Mr Vincent, the lord Harry put his +head into a cow's drinkingtrough in the presence of all his courtiers +and pulling it out again told them all his new name. Then, with the +water running off him, he got into an old smock and skirt that had +belonged to his grandmother and bought a grammar of the bulls' language +to study but he could never learn a word of it except the first personal +pronoun which he copied out big and got off by heart and if ever he went +out for a walk he filled his pockets with chalk to write it upon what +took his fancy, the side of a rock or a teahouse table or a bale of +cotton or a corkfloat. In short, he and the bull of Ireland were soon as +fast friends as an arse and a shirt. They were, says Mr Stephen, and +the end was that the men of the island seeing no help was toward, as +the ungrate women were all of one mind, made a wherry raft, loaded +themselves and their bundles of chattels on shipboard, set all masts +erect, manned the yards, sprang their luff, heaved to, spread three +sheets in the wind, put her head between wind and water, weighed anchor, +ported her helm, ran up the jolly Roger, gave three times three, let the +bullgine run, pushed off in their bumboat and put to sea to recover +the main of America. Which was the occasion, says Mr Vincent, of the +composing by a boatswain of that rollicking chanty: + + _--Pope Peter's but a pissabed. + A man's a man for a' that._ + +Our worthy acquaintance Mr Malachi Mulligan now appeared in the doorway +as the students were finishing their apologue accompanied with a friend +whom he had just rencountered, a young gentleman, his name Alec Bannon, +who had late come to town, it being his intention to buy a colour or a +cornetcy in the fencibles and list for the wars. Mr Mulligan was civil +enough to express some relish of it all the more as it jumped with a +project of his own for the cure of the very evil that had been touched +on. Whereat he handed round to the company a set of pasteboard cards +which he had had printed that day at Mr Quinnell's bearing a legend +printed in fair italics: _Mr Malachi Mulligan. Fertiliser and Incubator. +Lambay Island_. His project, as he went on to expound, was to withdraw +from the round of idle pleasures such as form the chief business of sir +Fopling Popinjay and sir Milksop Quidnunc in town and to devote himself +to the noblest task for which our bodily organism has been framed. Well, +let us hear of it, good my friend, said Mr Dixon. I make no doubt it +smacks of wenching. Come, be seated, both. 'Tis as cheap sitting as +standing. Mr Mulligan accepted of the invitation and, expatiating upon +his design, told his hearers that he had been led into this thought by +a consideration of the causes of sterility, both the inhibitory and the +prohibitory, whether the inhibition in its turn were due to conjugal +vexations or to a parsimony of the balance as well as whether the +prohibition proceeded from defects congenital or from proclivities +acquired. It grieved him plaguily, he said, to see the nuptial couch +defrauded of its dearest pledges: and to reflect upon so many agreeable +females with rich jointures, a prey to the vilest bonzes, who hide their +flambeau under a bushel in an uncongenial cloister or lose their womanly +bloom in the embraces of some unaccountable muskin when they might +multiply the inlets of happiness, sacrificing the inestimable jewel of +their sex when a hundred pretty fellows were at hand to caress, this, he +assured them, made his heart weep. To curb this inconvenient (which +he concluded due to a suppression of latent heat), having advised with +certain counsellors of worth and inspected into this matter, he had +resolved to purchase in fee simple for ever the freehold of Lambay +island from its holder, lord Talbot de Malahide, a Tory gentleman of +note much in favour with our ascendancy party. He proposed to set up +there a national fertilising farm to be named _Omphalos_ with an obelisk +hewn and erected after the fashion of Egypt and to offer his dutiful +yeoman services for the fecundation of any female of what grade of life +soever who should there direct to him with the desire of fulfilling the +functions of her natural. Money was no object, he said, nor would he +take a penny for his pains. The poorest kitchenwench no less than the +opulent lady of fashion, if so be their constructions and their tempers +were warm persuaders for their petitions, would find in him their man. +For his nutriment he shewed how he would feed himself exclusively upon a +diet of savoury tubercles and fish and coneys there, the flesh of these +latter prolific rodents being highly recommended for his purpose, both +broiled and stewed with a blade of mace and a pod or two of capsicum +chillies. After this homily which he delivered with much warmth of +asseveration Mr Mulligan in a trice put off from his hat a kerchief with +which he had shielded it. They both, it seems, had been overtaken by the +rain and for all their mending their pace had taken water, as might be +observed by Mr Mulligan's smallclothes of a hodden grey which was now +somewhat piebald. His project meanwhile was very favourably entertained +by his auditors and won hearty eulogies from all though Mr Dixon of +Mary's excepted to it, asking with a finicking air did he purpose also +to carry coals to Newcastle. Mr Mulligan however made court to the +scholarly by an apt quotation from the classics which, as it dwelt +upon his memory, seemed to him a sound and tasteful support of his +contention: _Talis ac tanta depravatio hujus seculi, O quirites, +ut matresfamiliarum nostrae lascivas cujuslibet semiviri libici +titillationes testibus ponderosis atque excelsis erectionibus +centurionum Romanorum magnopere anteponunt_, while for those of ruder +wit he drove home his point by analogies of the animal kingdom more +suitable to their stomach, the buck and doe of the forest glade, the +farmyard drake and duck. + +Valuing himself not a little upon his elegance, being indeed a proper +man of person, this talkative now applied himself to his dress with +animadversions of some heat upon the sudden whimsy of the atmospherics +while the company lavished their encomiums upon the project he had +advanced. The young gentleman, his friend, overjoyed as he was at a +passage that had late befallen him, could not forbear to tell it his +nearest neighbour. Mr Mulligan, now perceiving the table, asked for whom +were those loaves and fishes and, seeing the stranger, he made him +a civil bow and said, Pray, sir, was you in need of any professional +assistance we could give? Who, upon his offer, thanked him very +heartily, though preserving his proper distance, and replied that he was +come there about a lady, now an inmate of Horne's house, that was in an +interesting condition, poor body, from woman's woe (and here he fetched +a deep sigh) to know if her happiness had yet taken place. Mr Dixon, +to turn the table, took on to ask of Mr Mulligan himself whether +his incipient ventripotence, upon which he rallied him, betokened an +ovoblastic gestation in the prostatic utricle or male womb or was due, +as with the noted physician, Mr Austin Meldon, to a wolf in the stomach. +For answer Mr Mulligan, in a gale of laughter at his smalls, smote +himself bravely below the diaphragm, exclaiming with an admirable droll +mimic of Mother Grogan (the most excellent creature of her sex though +'tis pity she's a trollop): There's a belly that never bore a bastard. +This was so happy a conceit that it renewed the storm of mirth and threw +the whole room into the most violent agitations of delight. The spry +rattle had run on in the same vein of mimicry but for some larum in the +antechamber. + +Here the listener who was none other than the Scotch student, a little +fume of a fellow, blond as tow, congratulated in the liveliest fashion +with the young gentleman and, interrupting the narrative at a salient +point, having desired his visavis with a polite beck to have the +obligingness to pass him a flagon of cordial waters at the same time by +a questioning poise of the head (a whole century of polite breeding had +not achieved so nice a gesture) to which was united an equivalent but +contrary balance of the bottle asked the narrator as plainly as was ever +done in words if he might treat him with a cup of it. _Mais bien sur_, +noble stranger, said he cheerily, _et mille compliments_. That you may +and very opportunely. There wanted nothing but this cup to crown my +felicity. But, gracious heaven, was I left with but a crust in my wallet +and a cupful of water from the well, my God, I would accept of them and +find it in my heart to kneel down upon the ground and give thanks to +the powers above for the happiness vouchsafed me by the Giver of good +things. With these words he approached the goblet to his lips, took a +complacent draught of the cordial, slicked his hair and, opening his +bosom, out popped a locket that hung from a silk riband, that very +picture which he had cherished ever since her hand had wrote therein. +Gazing upon those features with a world of tenderness, Ah, Monsieur, he +said, had you but beheld her as I did with these eyes at that affecting +instant with her dainty tucker and her new coquette cap (a gift for her +feastday as she told me prettily) in such an artless disorder, of so +melting a tenderness, 'pon my conscience, even you, Monsieur, had been +impelled by generous nature to deliver yourself wholly into the hands of +such an enemy or to quit the field for ever. I declare, I was never so +touched in all my life. God, I thank thee, as the Author of my days! +Thrice happy will he be whom so amiable a creature will bless with her +favours. A sigh of affection gave eloquence to these words and, having +replaced the locket in his bosom, he wiped his eye and sighed again. +Beneficent Disseminator of blessings to all Thy creatures, how great +and universal must be that sweetest of Thy tyrannies which can hold in +thrall the free and the bond, the simple swain and the polished coxcomb, +the lover in the heyday of reckless passion and the husband of maturer +years. But indeed, sir, I wander from the point. How mingled and +imperfect are all our sublunary joys. Maledicity! he exclaimed in +anguish. Would to God that foresight had but remembered me to take my +cloak along! I could weep to think of it. Then, though it had poured +seven showers, we were neither of us a penny the worse. But beshrew me, +he cried, clapping hand to his forehead, tomorrow will be a new day and, +thousand thunders, I know of a _marchand de capotes_, Monsieur Poyntz, +from whom I can have for a livre as snug a cloak of the French fashion +as ever kept a lady from wetting. Tut, tut! cries Le Fecondateur, +tripping in, my friend Monsieur Moore, that most accomplished traveller +(I have just cracked a half bottle AVEC LUI in a circle of the best wits +of the town), is my authority that in Cape Horn, _ventre biche_, they +have a rain that will wet through any, even the stoutest cloak. A +drenching of that violence, he tells me, _sans blague_, has sent more +than one luckless fellow in good earnest posthaste to another world. +Pooh! A _livre!_ cries Monsieur Lynch. The clumsy things are dear at a +sou. One umbrella, were it no bigger than a fairy mushroom, is worth ten +such stopgaps. No woman of any wit would wear one. My dear Kitty told me +today that she would dance in a deluge before ever she would starve in +such an ark of salvation for, as she reminded me (blushing piquantly and +whispering in my ear though there was none to snap her words but giddy +butterflies), dame Nature, by the divine blessing, has implanted it in +our hearts and it has become a household word that _il y a deux choses_ +for which the innocence of our original garb, in other circumstances a +breach of the proprieties, is the fittest, nay, the only garment. The +first, said she (and here my pretty philosopher, as I handed her to her +tilbury, to fix my attention, gently tipped with her tongue the outer +chamber of my ear), the first is a bath... But at this point a bell +tinkling in the hall cut short a discourse which promised so bravely for +the enrichment of our store of knowledge. + +Amid the general vacant hilarity of the assembly a bell rang and, while +all were conjecturing what might be the cause, Miss Callan entered and, +having spoken a few words in a low tone to young Mr Dixon, retired with +a profound bow to the company. The presence even for a moment among a +party of debauchees of a woman endued with every quality of modesty and +not less severe than beautiful refrained the humourous sallies even of +the most licentious but her departure was the signal for an outbreak of +ribaldry. Strike me silly, said Costello, a low fellow who was fuddled. +A monstrous fine bit of cowflesh! I'll be sworn she has rendezvoused +you. What, you dog? Have you a way with them? Gad's bud, immensely +so, said Mr Lynch. The bedside manner it is that they use in the Mater +hospice. Demme, does not Doctor O'Gargle chuck the nuns there under the +chin. As I look to be saved I had it from my Kitty who has been wardmaid +there any time these seven months. Lawksamercy, doctor, cried the young +blood in the primrose vest, feigning a womanish simper and with immodest +squirmings of his body, how you do tease a body! Drat the man! Bless +me, I'm all of a wibbly wobbly. Why, you're as bad as dear little Father +Cantekissem, that you are! May this pot of four half choke me, cried +Costello, if she aint in the family way. I knows a lady what's got a +white swelling quick as I claps eyes on her. The young surgeon, however, +rose and begged the company to excuse his retreat as the nurse had just +then informed him that he was needed in the ward. Merciful providence +had been pleased to put a period to the sufferings of the lady who was +_enceinte_ which she had borne with a laudable fortitude and she had +given birth to a bouncing boy. I want patience, said he, with those +who, without wit to enliven or learning to instruct, revile an ennobling +profession which, saving the reverence due to the Deity, is the greatest +power for happiness upon the earth. I am positive when I say that if +need were I could produce a cloud of witnesses to the excellence of +her noble exercitations which, so far from being a byword, should be a +glorious incentive in the human breast. I cannot away with them. What? +Malign such an one, the amiable Miss Callan, who is the lustre of +her own sex and the astonishment of ours? And at an instant the most +momentous that can befall a puny child of clay? Perish the thought! I +shudder to think of the future of a race where the seeds of such malice +have been sown and where no right reverence is rendered to mother and +maid in house of Horne. Having delivered himself of this rebuke he +saluted those present on the by and repaired to the door. A murmur +of approval arose from all and some were for ejecting the low soaker +without more ado, a design which would have been effected nor would +he have received more than his bare deserts had he not abridged his +transgression by affirming with a horrid imprecation (for he swore a +round hand) that he was as good a son of the true fold as ever drew +breath. Stap my vitals, said he, them was always the sentiments of +honest Frank Costello which I was bred up most particular to honour thy +father and thy mother that had the best hand to a rolypoly or a hasty +pudding as you ever see what I always looks back on with a loving heart. + +To revert to Mr Bloom who, after his first entry, had been conscious of +some impudent mocks which he however had borne with as being the fruits +of that age upon which it is commonly charged that it knows not +pity. The young sparks, it is true, were as full of extravagancies +as overgrown children: the words of their tumultuary discussions +were difficultly understood and not often nice: their testiness and +outrageous _mots_ were such that his intellects resiled from: nor were +they scrupulously sensible of the proprieties though their fund of +strong animal spirits spoke in their behalf. But the word of Mr Costello +was an unwelcome language for him for he nauseated the wretch that +seemed to him a cropeared creature of a misshapen gibbosity, born out +of wedlock and thrust like a crookback toothed and feet first into the +world, which the dint of the surgeon's pliers in his skull lent indeed +a colour to, so as to put him in thought of that missing link of +creation's chain desiderated by the late ingenious Mr Darwin. It was now +for more than the middle span of our allotted years that he had passed +through the thousand vicissitudes of existence and, being of a wary +ascendancy and self a man of rare forecast, he had enjoined his heart +to repress all motions of a rising choler and, by intercepting them +with the readiest precaution, foster within his breast that plenitude +of sufferance which base minds jeer at, rash judgers scorn and all find +tolerable and but tolerable. To those who create themselves wits at the +cost of feminine delicacy (a habit of mind which he never did hold +with) to them he would concede neither to bear the name nor to herit +the tradition of a proper breeding: while for such that, having lost +all forbearance, can lose no more, there remained the sharp antidote of +experience to cause their insolency to beat a precipitate and inglorious +retreat. Not but what he could feel with mettlesome youth which, caring +nought for the mows of dotards or the gruntlings of the severe, is ever +(as the chaste fancy of the Holy Writer expresses it) for eating of the +tree forbid it yet not so far forth as to pretermit humanity upon any +condition soever towards a gentlewoman when she was about her lawful +occasions. To conclude, while from the sister's words he had reckoned +upon a speedy delivery he was, however, it must be owned, not a little +alleviated by the intelligence that the issue so auspicated after an +ordeal of such duress now testified once more to the mercy as well as to +the bounty of the Supreme Being. + +Accordingly he broke his mind to his neighbour, saying that, to express +his notion of the thing, his opinion (who ought not perchance to express +one) was that one must have a cold constitution and a frigid genius not +to be rejoiced by this freshest news of the fruition of her confinement +since she had been in such pain through no fault of hers. The dressy +young blade said it was her husband's that put her in that expectation +or at least it ought to be unless she were another Ephesian matron. I +must acquaint you, said Mr Crotthers, clapping on the table so as to +evoke a resonant comment of emphasis, old Glory Allelujurum was round +again today, an elderly man with dundrearies, preferring through his +nose a request to have word of Wilhelmina, my life, as he calls her. I +bade him hold himself in readiness for that the event would burst anon. +'Slife, I'll be round with you. I cannot but extol the virile potency of +the old bucko that could still knock another child out of her. All fell +to praising of it, each after his own fashion, though the same young +blade held with his former view that another than her conjugial had +been the man in the gap, a clerk in orders, a linkboy (virtuous) or +an itinerant vendor of articles needed in every household. Singular, +communed the guest with himself, the wonderfully unequal faculty of +metempsychosis possessed by them, that the puerperal dormitory and the +dissecting theatre should be the seminaries of such frivolity, that the +mere acquisition of academic titles should suffice to transform in a +pinch of time these votaries of levity into exemplary practitioners of +an art which most men anywise eminent have esteemed the noblest. But, +he further added, it is mayhap to relieve the pentup feelings that in +common oppress them for I have more than once observed that birds of a +feather laugh together. + +But with what fitness, let it be asked of the noble lord, his patron, +has this alien, whom the concession of a gracious prince has admitted +to civic rights, constituted himself the lord paramount of our +internal polity? Where is now that gratitude which loyalty should have +counselled? During the recent war whenever the enemy had a temporary +advantage with his granados did this traitor to his kind not seize that +moment to discharge his piece against the empire of which he is a tenant +at will while he trembled for the security of his four per cents? Has he +forgotten this as he forgets all benefits received? Or is it that from +being a deluder of others he has become at last his own dupe as he is, +if report belie him not, his own and his only enjoyer? Far be it from +candour to violate the bedchamber of a respectable lady, the daughter of +a gallant major, or to cast the most distant reflections upon her +virtue but if he challenges attention there (as it was indeed highly his +interest not to have done) then be it so. Unhappy woman, she has been +too long and too persistently denied her legitimate prerogative to +listen to his objurgations with any other feeling than the derision of +the desperate. He says this, a censor of morals, a very pelican in his +piety, who did not scruple, oblivious of the ties of nature, to attempt +illicit intercourse with a female domestic drawn from the lowest strata +of society! Nay, had the hussy's scouringbrush not been her tutelary +angel, it had gone with her as hard as with Hagar, the Egyptian! In the +question of the grazing lands his peevish asperity is notorious and in +Mr Cuffe's hearing brought upon him from an indignant rancher a scathing +retort couched in terms as straightforward as they were bucolic. It ill +becomes him to preach that gospel. Has he not nearer home a seedfield +that lies fallow for the want of the ploughshare? A habit reprehensible +at puberty is second nature and an opprobrium in middle life. If he must +dispense his balm of Gilead in nostrums and apothegms of dubious taste +to restore to health a generation of unfledged profligates let his +practice consist better with the doctrines that now engross him. His +marital breast is the repository of secrets which decorum is reluctant +to adduce. The lewd suggestions of some faded beauty may console him for +a consort neglected and debauched but this new exponent of morals and +healer of ills is at his best an exotic tree which, when rooted in +its native orient, throve and flourished and was abundant in balm +but, transplanted to a clime more temperate, its roots have lost their +quondam vigour while the stuff that comes away from it is stagnant, acid +and inoperative. + +The news was imparted with a circumspection recalling the ceremonial +usage of the Sublime Porte by the second female infirmarian to the +junior medical officer in residence, who in his turn announced to the +delegation that an heir had been born, When he had betaken himself +to the women's apartment to assist at the prescribed ceremony of the +afterbirth in the presence of the secretary of state for domestic +affairs and the members of the privy council, silent in unanimous +exhaustion and approbation the delegates, chafing under the length and +solemnity of their vigil and hoping that the joyful occurrence would +palliate a licence which the simultaneous absence of abigail and +obstetrician rendered the easier, broke out at once into a strife of +tongues. In vain the voice of Mr Canvasser Bloom was heard endeavouring +to urge, to mollify, to refrain. The moment was too propitious for the +display of that discursiveness which seemed the only bond of union among +tempers so divergent. Every phase of the situation was successively +eviscerated: the prenatal repugnance of uterine brothers, the Caesarean +section, posthumity with respect to the father and, that rarer form, +with respect to the mother, the fratricidal case known as the Childs +Murder and rendered memorable by the impassioned plea of Mr Advocate +Bushe which secured the acquittal of the wrongfully accused, the +rights of primogeniture and king's bounty touching twins and triplets, +miscarriages and infanticides, simulated or dissimulated, the acardiac +_foetus in foetu_ and aprosopia due to a congestion, the agnathia +of certain chinless Chinamen (cited by Mr Candidate Mulligan) in +consequence of defective reunion of the maxillary knobs along the medial +line so that (as he said) one ear could hear what the other spoke, the +benefits of anesthesia or twilight sleep, the prolongation of labour +pains in advanced gravidancy by reason of pressure on the vein, the +premature relentment of the amniotic fluid (as exemplified in the +actual case) with consequent peril of sepsis to the matrix, artificial +insemination by means of syringes, involution of the womb consequent +upon the menopause, the problem of the perpetration of the species in +the case of females impregnated by delinquent rape, that distressing +manner of delivery called by the Brandenburghers _Sturzgeburt,_ the +recorded instances of multiseminal, twikindled and monstrous births +conceived during the catamenic period or of consanguineous parents--in +a word all the cases of human nativity which Aristotle has classified +in his masterpiece with chromolithographic illustrations. The gravest +problems of obstetrics and forensic medicine were examined with as much +animation as the most popular beliefs on the state of pregnancy such as +the forbidding to a gravid woman to step over a countrystile lest, +by her movement, the navelcord should strangle her creature and +the injunction upon her in the event of a yearning, ardently and +ineffectually entertained, to place her hand against that part of her +person which long usage has consecrated as the seat of castigation. +The abnormalities of harelip, breastmole, supernumerary digits, negro's +inkle, strawberry mark and portwine stain were alleged by one as a +_prima facie_ and natural hypothetical explanation of those swineheaded +(the case of Madame Grissel Steevens was not forgotten) or doghaired +infants occasionally born. The hypothesis of a plasmic memory, advanced +by the Caledonian envoy and worthy of the metaphysical traditions of +the land he stood for, envisaged in such cases an arrest of embryonic +development at some stage antecedent to the human. An outlandish +delegate sustained against both these views, with such heat as almost +carried conviction, the theory of copulation between women and the males +of brutes, his authority being his own avouchment in support of fables +such as that of the Minotaur which the genius of the elegant Latin poet +has handed down to us in the pages of his Metamorphoses. The impression +made by his words was immediate but shortlived. It was effaced as easily +as it had been evoked by an allocution from Mr Candidate Mulligan in +that vein of pleasantry which none better than he knew how to affect, +postulating as the supremest object of desire a nice clean old man. +Contemporaneously, a heated argument having arisen between Mr Delegate +Madden and Mr Candidate Lynch regarding the juridical and theological +dilemma created in the event of one Siamese twin predeceasing the other, +the difficulty by mutual consent was referred to Mr Canvasser Bloom +for instant submittal to Mr Coadjutor Deacon Dedalus. Hitherto silent, +whether the better to show by preternatural gravity that curious dignity +of the garb with which he was invested or in obedience to an inward +voice, he delivered briefly and, as some thought, perfunctorily the +ecclesiastical ordinance forbidding man to put asunder what God has +joined. + +But Malachias' tale began to freeze them with horror. He conjured up the +scene before them. The secret panel beside the chimney slid back and +in the recess appeared... Haines! Which of us did not feel his flesh +creep! He had a portfolio full of Celtic literature in one hand, in the +other a phial marked _Poison._ Surprise, horror, loathing were depicted +on all faces while he eyed them with a ghostly grin. I anticipated some +such reception, he began with an eldritch laugh, for which, it seems, +history is to blame. Yes, it is true. I am the murderer of Samuel +Childs. And how I am punished! The inferno has no terrors for me. This +is the appearance is on me. Tare and ages, what way would I be resting +at all, he muttered thickly, and I tramping Dublin this while back +with my share of songs and himself after me the like of a soulth or a +bullawurrus? My hell, and Ireland's, is in this life. It is what I tried +to obliterate my crime. Distractions, rookshooting, the Erse language +(he recited some), laudanum (he raised the phial to his lips), camping +out. In vain! His spectre stalks me. Dope is my only hope... Ah! +Destruction! The black panther! With a cry he suddenly vanished and the +panel slid back. An instant later his head appeared in the door opposite +and said: Meet me at Westland Row station at ten past eleven. He was +gone. Tears gushed from the eyes of the dissipated host. The seer +raised his hand to heaven, murmuring: The vendetta of Mananaun! The +sage repeated: _Lex talionis_. The sentimentalist is he who would enjoy +without incurring the immense debtorship for a thing done. Malachias, +overcome by emotion, ceased. The mystery was unveiled. Haines was the +third brother. His real name was Childs. The black panther was himself +the ghost of his own father. He drank drugs to obliterate. For this +relief much thanks. The lonely house by the graveyard is uninhabited. +No soul will live there. The spider pitches her web in the solitude. +The nocturnal rat peers from his hole. A curse is on it. It is haunted. +Murderer's ground. + +What is the age of the soul of man? As she hath the virtue of the +chameleon to change her hue at every new approach, to be gay with the +merry and mournful with the downcast, so too is her age changeable as +her mood. No longer is Leopold, as he sits there, ruminating, chewing +the cud of reminiscence, that staid agent of publicity and holder of a +modest substance in the funds. A score of years are blown away. He is +young Leopold. There, as in a retrospective arrangement, a mirror within +a mirror (hey, presto!), he beholdeth himself. That young figure of then +is seen, precociously manly, walking on a nipping morning from the old +house in Clanbrassil street to the high school, his booksatchel on +him bandolierwise, and in it a goodly hunk of wheaten loaf, a mother's +thought. Or it is the same figure, a year or so gone over, in his first +hard hat (ah, that was a day!), already on the road, a fullfledged +traveller for the family firm, equipped with an orderbook, a scented +handkerchief (not for show only), his case of bright trinketware (alas! +a thing now of the past!) and a quiverful of compliant smiles for this +or that halfwon housewife reckoning it out upon her fingertips or for +a budding virgin, shyly acknowledging (but the heart? tell me!) his +studied baisemoins. The scent, the smile, but, more than these, the dark +eyes and oleaginous address, brought home at duskfall many a commission +to the head of the firm, seated with Jacob's pipe after like labours in +the paternal ingle (a meal of noodles, you may be sure, is aheating), +reading through round horned spectacles some paper from the Europe of a +month before. But hey, presto, the mirror is breathed on and the young +knighterrant recedes, shrivels, dwindles to a tiny speck within the +mist. Now he is himself paternal and these about him might be his +sons. Who can say? The wise father knows his own child. He thinks of a +drizzling night in Hatch street, hard by the bonded stores there, the +first. Together (she is a poor waif, a child of shame, yours and mine +and of all for a bare shilling and her luckpenny), together they hear +the heavy tread of the watch as two raincaped shadows pass the new royal +university. Bridie! Bridie Kelly! He will never forget the name, ever +remember the night: first night, the bridenight. They are entwined +in nethermost darkness, the willer with the willed, and in an instant +(_fiat_!) light shall flood the world. Did heart leap to heart? Nay, +fair reader. In a breath 'twas done but--hold! Back! It must not be! In +terror the poor girl flees away through the murk. She is the bride of +darkness, a daughter of night. She dare not bear the sunnygolden babe +of day. No, Leopold. Name and memory solace thee not. That youthful +illusion of thy strength was taken from thee--and in vain. No son of thy +loins is by thee. There is none now to be for Leopold, what Leopold was +for Rudolph. + +The voices blend and fuse in clouded silence: silence that is the +infinite of space: and swiftly, silently the soul is wafted over regions +of cycles of generations that have lived. A region where grey twilight +ever descends, never falls on wide sagegreen pasturefields, shedding her +dusk, scattering a perennial dew of stars. She follows her mother with +ungainly steps, a mare leading her fillyfoal. Twilight phantoms +are they, yet moulded in prophetic grace of structure, slim shapely +haunches, a supple tendonous neck, the meek apprehensive skull. They +fade, sad phantoms: all is gone. Agendath is a waste land, a home of +screechowls and the sandblind upupa. Netaim, the golden, is no more. And +on the highway of the clouds they come, muttering thunder of rebellion, +the ghosts of beasts. Huuh! Hark! Huuh! Parallax stalks behind and goads +them, the lancinating lightnings of whose brow are scorpions. Elk and +yak, the bulls of Bashan and of Babylon, mammoth and mastodon, they come +trooping to the sunken sea, _Lacus Mortis_. Ominous revengeful zodiacal +host! They moan, passing upon the clouds, horned and capricorned, the +trumpeted with the tusked, the lionmaned, the giantantlered, snouter +and crawler, rodent, ruminant and pachyderm, all their moving moaning +multitude, murderers of the sun. + +Onward to the dead sea they tramp to drink, unslaked and with horrible +gulpings, the salt somnolent inexhaustible flood. And the equine portent +grows again, magnified in the deserted heavens, nay to heaven's own +magnitude, till it looms, vast, over the house of Virgo. And lo, wonder +of metempsychosis, it is she, the everlasting bride, harbinger of the +daystar, the bride, ever virgin. It is she, Martha, thou lost one, +Millicent, the young, the dear, the radiant. How serene does she now +arise, a queen among the Pleiades, in the penultimate antelucan hour, +shod in sandals of bright gold, coifed with a veil of what do you call +it gossamer. It floats, it flows about her starborn flesh and loose it +streams, emerald, sapphire, mauve and heliotrope, sustained on currents +of the cold interstellar wind, winding, coiling, simply swirling, +writhing in the skies a mysterious writing till, after a myriad +metamorphoses of symbol, it blazes, Alpha, a ruby and triangled sign +upon the forehead of Taurus. + +Francis was reminding Stephen of years before when they had been at +school together in Conmee's time. He asked about Glaucon, Alcibiades, +Pisistratus. Where were they now? Neither knew. You have spoken of the +past and its phantoms, Stephen said. Why think of them? If I call them +into life across the waters of Lethe will not the poor ghosts troop to +my call? Who supposes it? I, Bous Stephanoumenos, bullockbefriending +bard, am lord and giver of their life. He encircled his gadding hair +with a coronal of vineleaves, smiling at Vincent. That answer and those +leaves, Vincent said to him, will adorn you more fitly when something +more, and greatly more, than a capful of light odes can call your genius +father. All who wish you well hope this for you. All desire to see +you bring forth the work you meditate, to acclaim you Stephaneforos. I +heartily wish you may not fail them. O no, Vincent Lenehan said, laying +a hand on the shoulder near him. Have no fear. He could not leave his +mother an orphan. The young man's face grew dark. All could see how hard +it was for him to be reminded of his promise and of his recent loss. He +would have withdrawn from the feast had not the noise of voices allayed +the smart. Madden had lost five drachmas on Sceptre for a whim of the +rider's name: Lenehan as much more. He told them of the race. The flag +fell and, huuh! off, scamper, the mare ran out freshly with 0. Madden +up. She was leading the field. All hearts were beating. Even Phyllis +could not contain herself. She waved her scarf and cried: Huzzah! +Sceptre wins! But in the straight on the run home when all were in close +order the dark horse Throwaway drew level, reached, outstripped her. All +was lost now. Phyllis was silent: her eyes were sad anemones. Juno, she +cried, I am undone. But her lover consoled her and brought her a bright +casket of gold in which lay some oval sugarplums which she partook. A +tear fell: one only. A whacking fine whip, said Lenehan, is W. Lane. +Four winners yesterday and three today. What rider is like him? Mount +him on the camel or the boisterous buffalo the victory in a hack canter +is still his. But let us bear it as was the ancient wont. Mercy on the +luckless! Poor Sceptre! he said with a light sigh. She is not the filly +that she was. Never, by this hand, shall we behold such another. By gad, +sir, a queen of them. Do you remember her, Vincent? I wish you could +have seen my queen today, Vincent said. How young she was and radiant +(Lalage were scarce fair beside her) in her yellow shoes and frock of +muslin, I do not know the right name of it. The chestnuts that shaded +us were in bloom: the air drooped with their persuasive odour and with +pollen floating by us. In the sunny patches one might easily have +cooked on a stone a batch of those buns with Corinth fruit in them that +Periplipomenes sells in his booth near the bridge. But she had nought +for her teeth but the arm with which I held her and in that she nibbled +mischievously when I pressed too close. A week ago she lay ill, four +days on the couch, but today she was free, blithe, mocked at peril. +She is more taking then. Her posies tool Mad romp that she is, she had +pulled her fill as we reclined together. And in your ear, my friend, you +will not think who met us as we left the field. Conmee himself! He was +walking by the hedge, reading, I think a brevier book with, I doubt not, +a witty letter in it from Glycera or Chloe to keep the page. The sweet +creature turned all colours in her confusion, feigning to reprove a +slight disorder in her dress: a slip of underwood clung there for the +very trees adore her. When Conmee had passed she glanced at her lovely +echo in that little mirror she carries. But he had been kind. In going +by he had blessed us. The gods too are ever kind, Lenehan said. If I had +poor luck with Bass's mare perhaps this draught of his may serve me more +propensely. He was laying his hand upon a winejar: Malachi saw it and +withheld his act, pointing to the stranger and to the scarlet label. +Warily, Malachi whispered, preserve a druid silence. His soul is far +away. It is as painful perhaps to be awakened from a vision as to be +born. Any object, intensely regarded, may be a gate of access to the +incorruptible eon of the gods. Do you not think it, Stephen? Theosophos +told me so, Stephen answered, whom in a previous existence Egyptian +priests initiated into the mysteries of karmic law. The lords of the +moon, Theosophos told me, an orangefiery shipload from planet Alpha +of the lunar chain would not assume the etheric doubles and these +were therefore incarnated by the rubycoloured egos from the second +constellation. + +However, as a matter of fact though, the preposterous surmise about him +being in some description of a doldrums or other or mesmerised which +was entirely due to a misconception of the shallowest character, was +not the case at all. The individual whose visual organs while the above +was going on were at this juncture commencing to exhibit symptoms of +animation was as astute if not astuter than any man living and anybody +that conjectured the contrary would have found themselves pretty +speedily in the wrong shop. During the past four minutes or thereabouts +he had been staring hard at a certain amount of number one Bass bottled +by Messrs Bass and Co at Burton-on-Trent which happened to be situated +amongst a lot of others right opposite to where he was and which was +certainly calculated to attract anyone's remark on account of its +scarlet appearance. He was simply and solely, as it subsequently +transpired for reasons best known to himself, which put quite an +altogether different complexion on the proceedings, after the moment +before's observations about boyhood days and the turf, recollecting two +or three private transactions of his own which the other two were as +mutually innocent of as the babe unborn. Eventually, however, both +their eyes met and as soon as it began to dawn on him that the other was +endeavouring to help himself to the thing he involuntarily determined +to help him himself and so he accordingly took hold of the neck of the +mediumsized glass recipient which contained the fluid sought after and +made a capacious hole in it by pouring a lot of it out with, also at the +same time, however, a considerable degree of attentiveness in order not +to upset any of the beer that was in it about the place. + +The debate which ensued was in its scope and progress an epitome of the +course of life. Neither place nor council was lacking in dignity. The +debaters were the keenest in the land, the theme they were engaged on +the loftiest and most vital. The high hall of Horne's house had never +beheld an assembly so representative and so varied nor had the +old rafters of that establishment ever listened to a language so +encyclopaedic. A gallant scene in truth it made. Crotthers was there at +the foot of the table in his striking Highland garb, his face glowing +from the briny airs of the Mull of Galloway. There too, opposite to him, +was Lynch whose countenance bore already the stigmata of early depravity +and premature wisdom. Next the Scotchman was the place assigned to +Costello, the eccentric, while at his side was seated in stolid repose +the squat form of Madden. The chair of the resident indeed stood vacant +before the hearth but on either flank of it the figure of Bannon in +explorer's kit of tweed shorts and salted cowhide brogues contrasted +sharply with the primrose elegance and townbred manners of Malachi +Roland St John Mulligan. Lastly at the head of the board was the young +poet who found a refuge from his labours of pedagogy and metaphysical +inquisition in the convivial atmosphere of Socratic discussion, while +to right and left of him were accommodated the flippant prognosticator, +fresh from the hippodrome, and that vigilant wanderer, soiled by the +dust of travel and combat and stained by the mire of an indelible +dishonour, but from whose steadfast and constant heart no lure or peril +or threat or degradation could ever efface the image of that voluptuous +loveliness which the inspired pencil of Lafayette has limned for ages +yet to come. + +It had better be stated here and now at the outset that the perverted +transcendentalism to which Mr S. Dedalus' (Div. Scep.) contentions +would appear to prove him pretty badly addicted runs directly counter to +accepted scientific methods. Science, it cannot be too often repeated, +deals with tangible phenomena. The man of science like the man in the +street has to face hardheaded facts that cannot be blinked and explain +them as best he can. There may be, it is true, some questions which +science cannot answer--at present--such as the first problem submitted +by Mr L. Bloom (Pubb. Canv.) regarding the future determination of sex. +Must we accept the view of Empedocles of Trinacria that the right ovary +(the postmenstrual period, assert others) is responsible for the birth +of males or are the too long neglected spermatozoa or nemasperms the +differentiating factors or is it, as most embryologists incline to +opine, such as Culpepper, Spallanzani, Blumenbach, Lusk, Hertwig, +Leopold and Valenti, a mixture of both? This would be tantamount to +a cooperation (one of nature's favourite devices) between the _nisus +formativus_ of the nemasperm on the one hand and on the other a happily +chosen position, _succubitus felix_ of the passive element. The other +problem raised by the same inquirer is scarcely less vital: infant +mortality. It is interesting because, as he pertinently remarks, we +are all born in the same way but we all die in different ways. Mr M. +Mulligan (Hyg. et Eug. Doc.) blames the sanitary conditions in which +our greylunged citizens contract adenoids, pulmonary complaints etc. by +inhaling the bacteria which lurk in dust. These factors, he alleged, +and the revolting spectacles offered by our streets, hideous publicity +posters, religious ministers of all denominations, mutilated soldiers +and sailors, exposed scorbutic cardrivers, the suspended carcases of +dead animals, paranoic bachelors and unfructified duennas--these, he +said, were accountable for any and every fallingoff in the calibre of +the race. Kalipedia, he prophesied, would soon be generally adopted +and all the graces of life, genuinely good music, agreeable literature, +light philosophy, instructive pictures, plastercast reproductions of +the classical statues such as Venus and Apollo, artistic coloured +photographs of prize babies, all these little attentions would enable +ladies who were in a particular condition to pass the intervening months +in a most enjoyable manner. Mr J. Crotthers (Disc. Bacc.) attributes +some of these demises to abdominal trauma in the case of women workers +subjected to heavy labours in the workshop and to marital discipline in +the home but by far the vast majority to neglect, private or official, +culminating in the exposure of newborn infants, the practice of criminal +abortion or in the atrocious crime of infanticide. Although the former +(we are thinking of neglect) is undoubtedly only too true the case he +cites of nurses forgetting to count the sponges in the peritoneal cavity +is too rare to be normative. In fact when one comes to look into it the +wonder is that so many pregnancies and deliveries go off so well as they +do, all things considered and in spite of our human shortcomings which +often baulk nature in her intentions. An ingenious suggestion is +that thrown out by Mr V. Lynch (Bacc. Arith.) that both natality and +mortality, as well as all other phenomena of evolution, tidal movements, +lunar phases, blood temperatures, diseases in general, everything, in +fine, in nature's vast workshop from the extinction of some remote sun +to the blossoming of one of the countless flowers which beautify our +public parks is subject to a law of numeration as yet unascertained. +Still the plain straightforward question why a child of normally healthy +parents and seemingly a healthy child and properly looked after succumbs +unaccountably in early childhood (though other children of the same +marriage do not) must certainly, in the poet's words, give us pause. +Nature, we may rest assured, has her own good and cogent reasons for +whatever she does and in all probability such deaths are due to some law +of anticipation by which organisms in which morbous germs have taken +up their residence (modern science has conclusively shown that only the +plasmic substance can be said to be immortal) tend to disappear at an +increasingly earlier stage of development, an arrangement which, though +productive of pain to some of our feelings (notably the maternal), is +nevertheless, some of us think, in the long run beneficial to the +race in general in securing thereby the survival of the fittest. Mr S. +Dedalus' (Div. Scep.) remark (or should it be called an interruption?) +that an omnivorous being which can masticate, deglute, digest and +apparently pass through the ordinary channel with pluterperfect +imperturbability such multifarious aliments as cancrenous females +emaciated by parturition, corpulent professional gentlemen, not to speak +of jaundiced politicians and chlorotic nuns, might possibly find gastric +relief in an innocent collation of staggering bob, reveals as nought +else could and in a very unsavoury light the tendency above alluded to. +For the enlightenment of those who are not so intimately acquainted with +the minutiae of the municipal abattoir as this morbidminded esthete and +embryo philosopher who for all his overweening bumptiousness in things +scientific can scarcely distinguish an acid from an alkali prides +himself on being, it should perhaps be stated that staggering bob in +the vile parlance of our lowerclass licensed victuallers signifies the +cookable and eatable flesh of a calf newly dropped from its mother. In +a recent public controversy with Mr L. Bloom (Pubb. Canv.) which took +place in the commons' hall of the National Maternity Hospital, 29, 30 +and 31 Holles street, of which, as is well known, Dr A. Horne (Lic. in +Midw., F. K. Q. C. P. I.) is the able and popular master, he is reported +by eyewitnesses as having stated that once a woman has let the cat +into the bag (an esthete's allusion, presumably, to one of the most +complicated and marvellous of all nature's processes--the act of sexual +congress) she must let it out again or give it life, as he phrased it, +to save her own. At the risk of her own, was the telling rejoinder of +his interlocutor, none the less effective for the moderate and measured +tone in which it was delivered. + +Meanwhile the skill and patience of the physician had brought about a +happy _accouchement._ It had been a weary weary while both for patient +and doctor. All that surgical skill could do was done and the brave +woman had manfully helped. She had. She had fought the good fight and +now she was very very happy. Those who have passed on, who have gone +before, are happy too as they gaze down and smile upon the touching +scene. Reverently look at her as she reclines there with the motherlight +in her eyes, that longing hunger for baby fingers (a pretty sight it is +to see), in the first bloom of her new motherhood, breathing a silent +prayer of thanksgiving to One above, the Universal Husband. And as her +loving eyes behold her babe she wishes only one blessing more, to have +her dear Doady there with her to share her joy, to lay in his arms that +mite of God's clay, the fruit of their lawful embraces. He is older now +(you and I may whisper it) and a trifle stooped in the shoulders yet +in the whirligig of years a grave dignity has come to the conscientious +second accountant of the Ulster bank, College Green branch. O Doady, +loved one of old, faithful lifemate now, it may never be again, that +faroff time of the roses! With the old shake of her pretty head she +recalls those days. God! How beautiful now across the mist of years! But +their children are grouped in her imagination about the bedside, hers +and his, Charley, Mary Alice, Frederick Albert (if he had lived), Mamy, +Budgy (Victoria Frances), Tom, Violet Constance Louisa, darling little +Bobsy (called after our famous hero of the South African war, lord Bobs +of Waterford and Candahar) and now this last pledge of their union, a +Purefoy if ever there was one, with the true Purefoy nose. Young hopeful +will be christened Mortimer Edward after the influential third cousin of +Mr Purefoy in the Treasury Remembrancer's office, Dublin Castle. And so +time wags on: but father Cronion has dealt lightly here. No, let no sigh +break from that bosom, dear gentle Mina. And Doady, knock the ashes from +your pipe, the seasoned briar you still fancy when the curfew rings for +you (may it be the distant day!) and dout the light whereby you read +in the Sacred Book for the oil too has run low, and so with a tranquil +heart to bed, to rest. He knows and will call in His own good time. You +too have fought the good fight and played loyally your man's part. Sir, +to you my hand. Well done, thou good and faithful servant! + +There are sins or (let us call them as the world calls them) evil +memories which are hidden away by man in the darkest places of the heart +but they abide there and wait. He may suffer their memory to grow dim, +let them be as though they had not been and all but persuade himself +that they were not or at least were otherwise. Yet a chance word will +call them forth suddenly and they will rise up to confront him in the +most various circumstances, a vision or a dream, or while timbrel +and harp soothe his senses or amid the cool silver tranquility of the +evening or at the feast, at midnight, when he is now filled with wine. +Not to insult over him will the vision come as over one that lies under +her wrath, not for vengeance to cut him off from the living but shrouded +in the piteous vesture of the past, silent, remote, reproachful. + +The stranger still regarded on the face before him a slow recession of +that false calm there, imposed, as it seemed, by habit or some studied +trick, upon words so embittered as to accuse in their speaker an +unhealthiness, a _flair,_ for the cruder things of life. A scene +disengages itself in the observer's memory, evoked, it would seem, by +a word of so natural a homeliness as if those days were really present +there (as some thought) with their immediate pleasures. A shaven space +of lawn one soft May evening, the wellremembered grove of lilacs at +Roundtown, purple and white, fragrant slender spectators of the game but +with much real interest in the pellets as they run slowly forward over +the sward or collide and stop, one by its fellow, with a brief alert +shock. And yonder about that grey urn where the water moves at times +in thoughtful irrigation you saw another as fragrant sisterhood, Floey, +Atty, Tiny and their darker friend with I know not what of arresting in +her pose then, Our Lady of the Cherries, a comely brace of them pendent +from an ear, bringing out the foreign warmth of the skin so daintily +against the cool ardent fruit. A lad of four or five in linseywoolsey +(blossomtime but there will be cheer in the kindly hearth when ere long +the bowls are gathered and hutched) is standing on the urn secured by +that circle of girlish fond hands. He frowns a little just as this young +man does now with a perhaps too conscious enjoyment of the danger but +must needs glance at whiles towards where his mother watches from the +PIAZZETTA giving upon the flowerclose with a faint shadow of remoteness +or of reproach (_alles Vergangliche_) in her glad look. + +Mark this farther and remember. The end comes suddenly. Enter that +antechamber of birth where the studious are assembled and note their +faces. Nothing, as it seems, there of rash or violent. Quietude of +custody, rather, befitting their station in that house, the vigilant +watch of shepherds and of angels about a crib in Bethlehem of Juda long +ago. But as before the lightning the serried stormclouds, heavy with +preponderant excess of moisture, in swollen masses turgidly distended, +compass earth and sky in one vast slumber, impending above parched field +and drowsy oxen and blighted growth of shrub and verdure till in an +instant a flash rives their centres and with the reverberation of the +thunder the cloudburst pours its torrent, so and not otherwise was the +transformation, violent and instantaneous, upon the utterance of the +word. + +Burke's! outflings my lord Stephen, giving the cry, and a tag and +bobtail of all them after, cockerel, jackanapes, welsher, pilldoctor, +punctual Bloom at heels with a universal grabbing at headgear, +ashplants, bilbos, Panama hats and scabbards, Zermatt alpenstocks and +what not. A dedale of lusty youth, noble every student there. Nurse +Callan taken aback in the hallway cannot stay them nor smiling surgeon +coming downstairs with news of placentation ended, a full pound if a +milligramme. They hark him on. The door! It is open? Ha! They are out, +tumultuously, off for a minute's race, all bravely legging it, Burke's +of Denzille and Holles their ulterior goal. Dixon follows giving them +sharp language but raps out an oath, he too, and on. Bloom stays with +nurse a thought to send a kind word to happy mother and nurseling up +there. Doctor Diet and Doctor Quiet. Looks she too not other now? Ward +of watching in Horne's house has told its tale in that washedout pallor. +Then all being gone, a glance of motherwit helping, he whispers close in +going: Madam, when comes the storkbird for thee? + +The air without is impregnated with raindew moisture, life essence +celestial, glistening on Dublin stone there under starshiny _coelum._ +God's air, the Allfather's air, scintillant circumambient cessile air. +Breathe it deep into thee. By heaven, Theodore Purefoy, thou hast done a +doughty deed and no botch! Thou art, I vow, the remarkablest progenitor +barring none in this chaffering allincluding most farraginous chronicle. +Astounding! In her lay a Godframed Godgiven preformed possibility which +thou hast fructified with thy modicum of man's work. Cleave to her! +Serve! Toil on, labour like a very bandog and let scholarment and all +Malthusiasts go hang. Thou art all their daddies, Theodore. Art drooping +under thy load, bemoiled with butcher's bills at home and ingots (not +thine!) in the countinghouse? Head up! For every newbegotten thou shalt +gather thy homer of ripe wheat. See, thy fleece is drenched. Dost envy +Darby Dullman there with his Joan? A canting jay and a rheumeyed +curdog is all their progeny. Pshaw, I tell thee! He is a mule, a dead +gasteropod, without vim or stamina, not worth a cracked kreutzer. +Copulation without population! No, say I! Herod's slaughter of the +innocents were the truer name. Vegetables, forsooth, and sterile +cohabitation! Give her beefsteaks, red, raw, bleeding! She is a hoary +pandemonium of ills, enlarged glands, mumps, quinsy, bunions, hayfever, +bedsores, ringworm, floating kidney, Derbyshire neck, warts, bilious +attacks, gallstones, cold feet, varicose veins. A truce to threnes and +trentals and jeremies and all such congenital defunctive music! Twenty +years of it, regret them not. With thee it was not as with many that +will and would and wait and never--do. Thou sawest thy America, thy +lifetask, and didst charge to cover like the transpontine bison. How +saith Zarathustra? _Deine Kuh Trubsal melkest Du. Nun Trinkst Du die +susse Milch des Euters_. See! it displodes for thee in abundance. Drink, +man, an udderful! Mother's milk, Purefoy, the milk of human kin, milk +too of those burgeoning stars overhead rutilant in thin rainvapour, +punch milk, such as those rioters will quaff in their guzzling den, milk +of madness, the honeymilk of Canaan's land. Thy cow's dug was tough, +what? Ay, but her milk is hot and sweet and fattening. No dollop this +but thick rich bonnyclaber. To her, old patriarch! Pap! _Per deam +Partulam et Pertundam nunc est bibendum_! + +All off for a buster, armstrong, hollering down the street. Bonafides. +Where you slep las nigh? Timothy of the battered naggin. Like ole +Billyo. Any brollies or gumboots in the fambly? Where the Henry Nevil's +sawbones and ole clo? Sorra one o' me knows. Hurrah there, Dix! Forward +to the ribbon counter. Where's Punch? All serene. Jay, look at the +drunken minister coming out of the maternity hospal! _Benedicat vos +omnipotens Deus, Pater et Filius_. A make, mister. The Denzille lane +boys. Hell, blast ye! Scoot. Righto, Isaacs, shove em out of the +bleeding limelight. Yous join uz, dear sir? No hentrusion in life. Lou +heap good man. Allee samee dis bunch. _En avant, mes enfants_! Fire +away number one on the gun. Burke's! Burke's! Thence they advanced five +parasangs. Slattery's mounted foot. Where's that bleeding awfur? Parson +Steve, apostates' creed! No, no, Mulligan! Abaft there! Shove ahead. +Keep a watch on the clock. Chuckingout time. Mullee! What's on you? _Ma +mere m'a mariee._ British Beatitudes! _Retamplatan Digidi Boumboum_. +Ayes have it. To be printed and bound at the Druiddrum press by two +designing females. Calf covers of pissedon green. Last word in art +shades. Most beautiful book come out of Ireland my time. _Silentium!_ +Get a spurt on. Tention. Proceed to nearest canteen and there annex +liquor stores. March! Tramp, tramp, tramp, the boys are (atitudes!) +parching. Beer, beef, business, bibles, bulldogs battleships, buggery +and bishops. Whether on the scaffold high. Beer, beef, trample the +bibles. When for Irelandear. Trample the trampellers. Thunderation! Keep +the durned millingtary step. We fall. Bishops boosebox. Halt! Heave to. +Rugger. Scrum in. No touch kicking. Wow, my tootsies! You hurt? Most +amazingly sorry! + +Query. Who's astanding this here do? Proud possessor of damnall. Declare +misery. Bet to the ropes. Me nantee saltee. Not a red at me this week +gone. Yours? Mead of our fathers for the _Ubermensch._ Dittoh. Five +number ones. You, sir? Ginger cordial. Chase me, the cabby's caudle. +Stimulate the caloric. Winding of his ticker. Stopped short never to go +again when the old. Absinthe for me, savvy? _Caramba!_ Have an eggnog or +a prairie oyster. Enemy? Avuncular's got my timepiece. Ten to. Obligated +awful. Don't mention it. Got a pectoral trauma, eh, Dix? Pos fact. Got +bet be a boomblebee whenever he wus settin sleepin in hes bit garten. +Digs up near the Mater. Buckled he is. Know his dona? Yup, sartin I do. +Full of a dure. See her in her dishybilly. Peels off a credit. Lovey +lovekin. None of your lean kine, not much. Pull down the blind, love. +Two Ardilauns. Same here. Look slippery. If you fall don't wait to get +up. Five, seven, nine. Fine! Got a prime pair of mincepies, no kid. And +her take me to rests and her anker of rum. Must be seen to be believed. +Your starving eyes and allbeplastered neck you stole my heart, O +gluepot. Sir? Spud again the rheumatiz? All poppycock, you'll scuse me +saying. For the hoi polloi. I vear thee beest a gert vool. Well, doc? +Back fro Lapland? Your corporosity sagaciating O K? How's the squaws +and papooses? Womanbody after going on the straw? Stand and deliver. +Password. There's hair. Ours the white death and the ruddy birth. Hi! +Spit in your own eye, boss! Mummer's wire. Cribbed out of Meredith. +Jesified, orchidised, polycimical jesuit! Aunty mine's writing Pa Kinch. +Baddybad Stephen lead astray goodygood Malachi. + +Hurroo! Collar the leather, youngun. Roun wi the nappy. Here, Jock braw +Hielentman's your barleybree. Lang may your lum reek and your kailpot +boil! My tipple. _Merci._ Here's to us. How's that? Leg before wicket. +Don't stain my brandnew sitinems. Give's a shake of peppe, you there. +Catch aholt. Caraway seed to carry away. Twig? Shrieks of silence. Every +cove to his gentry mort. Venus Pandemos. _Les petites femmes_. Bold bad +girl from the town of Mullingar. Tell her I was axing at her. Hauding +Sara by the wame. On the road to Malahide. Me? If she who seduced me had +left but the name. What do you want for ninepence? Machree, macruiskeen. +Smutty Moll for a mattress jig. And a pull all together. _Ex!_ + +Waiting, guvnor? Most deciduously. Bet your boots on. Stunned like, +seeing as how no shiners is acoming. Underconstumble? He've got the +chink _ad lib_. Seed near free poun on un a spell ago a said war hisn. +Us come right in on your invite, see? Up to you, matey. Out with the +oof. Two bar and a wing. You larn that go off of they there Frenchy +bilks? Won't wash here for nuts nohow. Lil chile velly solly. Ise de +cutest colour coon down our side. Gawds teruth, Chawley. We are nae fou. +We're nae tha fou. Au reservoir, mossoo. Tanks you. + +'Tis, sure. What say? In the speakeasy. Tight. I shee you, shir. Bantam, +two days teetee. Bowsing nowt but claretwine. Garn! Have a glint, do. +Gum, I'm jiggered. And been to barber he have. Too full for words. With +a railway bloke. How come you so? Opera he'd like? Rose of Castile. Rows +of cast. Police! Some H2O for a gent fainted. Look at Bantam's flowers. +Gemini. He's going to holler. The colleen bawn. My colleen bawn. O, +cheese it! Shut his blurry Dutch oven with a firm hand. Had the winner +today till I tipped him a dead cert. The ruffin cly the nab of Stephen +Hand as give me the jady coppaleen. He strike a telegramboy paddock wire +big bug Bass to the depot. Shove him a joey and grahamise. Mare on form +hot order. Guinea to a goosegog. Tell a cram, that. Gospeltrue. Criminal +diversion? I think that yes. Sure thing. Land him in chokeechokee if the +harman beck copped the game. Madden back Madden's a maddening back. O +lust our refuge and our strength. Decamping. Must you go? Off to mammy. +Stand by. Hide my blushes someone. All in if he spots me. Come ahome, +our Bantam. Horryvar, mong vioo. Dinna forget the cowslips for hersel. +Cornfide. Wha gev ye thon colt? Pal to pal. Jannock. Of John Thomas, her +spouse. No fake, old man Leo. S'elp me, honest injun. Shiver my timbers +if I had. There's a great big holy friar. Vyfor you no me tell? Vel, +I ses, if that aint a sheeny nachez, vel, I vil get misha mishinnah. +Through yerd our lord, Amen. + +You move a motion? Steve boy, you're going it some. More bluggy +drunkables? Will immensely splendiferous stander permit one stooder of +most extreme poverty and one largesize grandacious thirst to terminate +one expensive inaugurated libation? Give's a breather. Landlord, +landlord, have you good wine, staboo? Hoots, mon, a wee drap to pree. +Cut and come again. Right. Boniface! Absinthe the lot. _Nos omnes +biberimus viridum toxicum diabolus capiat posterioria nostria_. +Closingtime, gents. Eh? Rome boose for the Bloom toff. I hear you say +onions? Bloo? Cadges ads. Photo's papli, by all that's gorgeous. Play +low, pardner. Slide. _Bonsoir la compagnie_. And snares of the poxfiend. +Where's the buck and Namby Amby? Skunked? Leg bail. Aweel, ye maun e'en +gang yer gates. Checkmate. King to tower. Kind Kristyann wil yu help +yung man hoose frend tuk bungellow kee tu find plais whear tu lay crown +of his hed 2 night. Crickey, I'm about sprung. Tarnally dog gone my +shins if this beent the bestest puttiest longbreak yet. Item, curate, +couple of cookies for this child. Cot's plood and prandypalls, none! Not +a pite of sheeses? Thrust syphilis down to hell and with him those other +licensed spirits. Time, gents! Who wander through the world. Health all! +_a la votre_! + +Golly, whatten tunket's yon guy in the mackintosh? Dusty Rhodes. Peep +at his wearables. By mighty! What's he got? Jubilee mutton. Bovril, +by James. Wants it real bad. D'ye ken bare socks? Seedy cuss in the +Richmond? Rawthere! Thought he had a deposit of lead in his penis. +Trumpery insanity. Bartle the Bread we calls him. That, sir, was once +a prosperous cit. Man all tattered and torn that married a maiden all +forlorn. Slung her hook, she did. Here see lost love. Walking Mackintosh +of lonely canyon. Tuck and turn in. Schedule time. Nix for the hornies. +Pardon? Seen him today at a runefal? Chum o' yourn passed in his checks? +Ludamassy! Pore piccaninnies! Thou'll no be telling me thot, Pold veg! +Did ums blubble bigsplash crytears cos fren Padney was took off in black +bag? Of all de darkies Massa Pat was verra best. I never see the like +since I was born. _Tiens, tiens_, but it is well sad, that, my faith, +yes. O, get, rev on a gradient one in nine. Live axle drives are souped. +Lay you two to one Jenatzy licks him ruddy well hollow. Jappies? High +angle fire, inyah! Sunk by war specials. Be worse for him, says he, nor +any Rooshian. Time all. There's eleven of them. Get ye gone. Forward, +woozy wobblers! Night. Night. May Allah the Excellent One your soul this +night ever tremendously conserve. + +Your attention! We're nae tha fou. The Leith police dismisseth us. The +least tholice. Ware hawks for the chap puking. Unwell in his abominable +regions. Yooka. Night. Mona, my true love. Yook. Mona, my own love. Ook. + +Hark! Shut your obstropolos. Pflaap! Pflaap! Blaze on. There she goes. +Brigade! Bout ship. Mount street way. Cut up! Pflaap! Tally ho. You not +come? Run, skelter, race. Pflaaaap! + +Lynch! Hey? Sign on long o' me. Denzille lane this way. Change here for +Bawdyhouse. We two, she said, will seek the kips where shady Mary is. +Righto, any old time. _Laetabuntur in cubilibus suis_. You coming long? +Whisper, who the sooty hell's the johnny in the black duds? Hush! Sinned +against the light and even now that day is at hand when he shall come to +judge the world by fire. Pflaap! _Ut implerentur scripturae_. Strike +up a ballad. Then outspake medical Dick to his comrade medical Davy. +Christicle, who's this excrement yellow gospeller on the Merrion +hall? Elijah is coming! Washed in the blood of the Lamb. Come on you +winefizzling, ginsizzling, booseguzzling existences! Come on, you +dog-gone, bullnecked, beetlebrowed, hogjowled, peanutbrained, weaseleyed +fourflushers, false alarms and excess baggage! Come on, you triple +extract of infamy! Alexander J Christ Dowie, that's my name, that's +yanked to glory most half this planet from Frisco beach to Vladivostok. +The Deity aint no nickel dime bumshow. I put it to you that He's on the +square and a corking fine business proposition. He's the grandest thing +yet and don't you forget it. Shout salvation in King Jesus. You'll +need to rise precious early you sinner there, if you want to diddle the +Almighty God. Pflaaaap! Not half. He's got a coughmixture with a punch +in it for you, my friend, in his back pocket. Just you try it on. + + + +_The Mabbot street entrance of nighttown, before which stretches +an uncobbled tramsiding set with skeleton tracks, red and green +will-o'-the-wisps and danger signals. Rows of grimy houses with gaping +doors. Rare lamps with faint rainbow fins. Round Rabaiotti's halted ice +gondola stunted men and women squabble. They grab wafers between which +are wedged lumps of coral and copper snow. Sucking, they scatter slowly. +Children. The swancomb of the gondola, highreared, forges on through the +murk, white and blue under a lighthouse. Whistles call and answer._ + +THE CALLS: Wait, my love, and I'll be with you. + +THE ANSWERS: Round behind the stable. + +_(A deafmute idiot with goggle eyes, his shapeless mouth dribbling, +jerks past, shaken in Saint Vitus' dance. A chain of children 's hands +imprisons him.)_ + +THE CHILDREN: Kithogue! Salute! + +THE IDIOT: _(Lifts a palsied left arm and gurgles)_ Grhahute! + +THE CHILDREN: Where's the great light? + +THE IDIOT: _(Gobbing)_ Ghaghahest. + +_(They release him. He jerks on. A pigmy woman swings on a rope slung +between two railings, counting. A form sprawled against a dustbin and +muffled by its arm and hat snores, groans, grinding growling teeth, and +snores again. On a step a gnome totting among a rubbishtip crouches +to shoulder a sack of rags and bones. A crone standing by with a smoky +oillamp rams her last bottle in the maw of his sack. He heaves his +booty, tugs askew his peaked cap and hobbles off mutely. The crone +makes back for her lair, swaying her lamp. A bandy child, asquat on the +doorstep with a paper shuttlecock, crawls sidling after her in spurts, +clutches her skirt, scrambles up. A drunken navvy grips with both hands +the railings of an area, lurching heavily. At a comer two night watch in +shouldercapes, their hands upon their staffholsters, loom tall. A plate +crashes: a woman screams: a child wails. Oaths of a man roar, mutter, +cease. Figures wander, lurk, peer from warrens. In a room lit by a +candle stuck in a bottleneck a slut combs out the tatts from the hair +of a scrofulous child. Cissy Caffrey's voice, still young, sings shrill +from a lane.)_ + +CISSY CAFFREY: + + _I gave it to Molly + Because she was jolly, + The leg of the duck, + The leg of the duck._ + +_(Private Carr and Private Compton, swaggersticks tight in their oxters, +as they march unsteadily rightaboutface and burst together from their +mouths a volleyed fart. Laughter of men from the lane. A hoarse virago +retorts.)_ + +THE VIRAGO: Signs on you, hairy arse. More power the Cavan girl. + +CISSY CAFFREY: More luck to me. Cavan, Cootehill and Belturbet. _(She +sings)_ + + _I gave it to Nelly + To stick in her belly, + The leg of the duck, + The leg of the duck._ + +_(Private Carr and Private Compton turn and counterretort, their tunics +bloodbright in a lampglow, black sockets of caps on their blond cropped +polls. Stephen Dedalus and Lynch pass through the crowd close to the +redcoats.)_ + +PRIVATE COMPTON: _(Jerks his finger)_ Way for the parson. + +PRIVATE CARR: _(Turns and calls)_ What ho, parson! + +CISSY CAFFREY: _(Her voice soaring higher)_ + + _She has it, she got it, + Wherever she put it, + The leg of the duck._ + +_(Stephen, flourishing the ashplant in his left hand, chants with joy +the_ introit _for paschal time. Lynch, his jockeycap low on his brow, +attends him, a sneer of discontent wrinkling his face.)_ + +STEPHEN: _Vidi aquam egredientem de templo a latere dextro. Alleluia_. + +_(The famished snaggletusks of an elderly bawd protrude from a +doorway.)_ + +THE BAWD: _(Her voice whispering huskily)_ Sst! Come here till I tell +you. Maidenhead inside. Sst! + +STEPHEN: _(Altius aliquantulum) Et omnes ad quos pervenit aqua ista_. + +THE BAWD: _(Spits in their trail her jet of venom)_ Trinity medicals. +Fallopian tube. All prick and no pence. + +_(Edy Boardman, sniffling, crouched with bertha supple, draws her shawl +across her nostrils.)_ + +EDY BOARDMAN: _(Bickering)_ And says the one: I seen you up Faithful +place with your squarepusher, the greaser off the railway, in his +cometobed hat. Did you, says I. That's not for you to say, says I. You +never seen me in the mantrap with a married highlander, says I. The +likes of her! Stag that one is! Stubborn as a mule! And her walking with +two fellows the one time, Kilbride, the enginedriver, and lancecorporal +Oliphant. + +STEPHEN: _(Ttriumphaliter) Salvi facti sunt._ + +_(He flourishes his ashplant, shivering the lamp image, shattering light +over the world. A liver and white spaniel on the prowl slinks after him, +growling. Lynch scares it with a kick.)_ + +LYNCH: So that? + +STEPHEN: (_Looks behind_) So that gesture, not music not odour, would be +a universal language, the gift of tongues rendering visible not the lay +sense but the first entelechy, the structural rhythm. + +LYNCH: Pornosophical philotheology. Metaphysics in Mecklenburgh street! + +STEPHEN: We have shrewridden Shakespeare and henpecked Socrates. Even +the allwisest Stagyrite was bitted, bridled and mounted by a light of +love. + +LYNCH: Ba! + +STEPHEN: Anyway, who wants two gestures to illustrate a loaf and a jug? +This movement illustrates the loaf and jug of bread or wine in Omar. +Hold my stick. + +LYNCH: Damn your yellow stick. Where are we going? + +STEPHEN: Lecherous lynx, _to la belle dame sans merci,_ Georgina +Johnson, _ad deam qui laetificat iuventutem meam._ + +_(Stephen thrusts the ashplant on him and slowly holds out his hands, +his head going back till both hands are a span from his breast, down +turned, in planes intersecting, the fingers about to part, the left +being higher.)_ + +LYNCH: Which is the jug of bread? It skills not. That or the +customhouse. Illustrate thou. Here take your crutch and walk. + +_(They pass. Tommy Caffrey scrambles to a gaslamp and, clasping, climbs +in spasms. From the top spur he slides down. Jacky Caffrey clasps to +climb. The navvy lurches against the lamp. The twins scuttle off in the +dark. The navvy, swaying, presses a forefinger against a wing of his +nose and ejects from the farther nostril a long liquid jet of snot. +Shouldering the lamp he staggers away through the crowd with his flaring +cresset._ + +_Snakes of river fog creep slowly. From drains, clefts, cesspools, +middens arise on all sides stagnant fumes. A glow leaps in the south +beyond the seaward reaches of the river. The navvy, staggering forward, +cleaves the crowd and lurches towards the tramsiding on the farther side +under the railway bridge bloom appears, flushed, panting, cramming bread +and chocolate into a sidepocket. From Gillen's hairdresser's window a +composite portrait shows him gallant Nelson's image. A concave mirror +at the side presents to him lovelorn longlost lugubru Booloohoom. Grave +Gladstone sees him level, Bloom for Bloom. he passes, struck by the +stare of truculent Wellington, but in the convex mirror grin unstruck +the bonham eyes and fatchuck cheekchops of Jollypoldy the rixdix doldy._ + +_At Antonio Pabaiotti's door Bloom halts, sweated under the bright +arclamp. He disappears. In a moment he reappears and hurries on.)_ + +BLOOM: Fish and taters. N. g. Ah! + +_(He disappears into Olhausen's, the porkbutcher's, under the downcoming +rollshutter. A few moments later he emerges from under the shutter, +puffing Poldy, blowing Bloohoom. In each hand he holds a parcel, one +containing a lukewarm pig's crubeen, the other a cold sheep's trotter, +sprinkled with wholepepper. He gasps, standing upright. Then bending to +one side he presses a parcel against his ribs and groans.)_ + +BLOOM: Stitch in my side. Why did I run? + +_(He takes breath with care and goes forward slowly towards the lampset +siding. The glow leaps again.)_ + +BLOOM: What is that? A flasher? Searchlight. + +_(He stands at Cormack's corner, watching)_ + +BLOOM: _Aurora borealis_ or a steel foundry? Ah, the brigade, of course. +South side anyhow. Big blaze. Might be his house. Beggar's bush. We're +safe. _(He hums cheerfully)_ London's burning, London's burning! On +fire, on fire! (_He catches sight of the navvy lurching through the +crowd at the farther side of Talbot street_) I'll miss him. Run. Quick. +Better cross here. + +_(He darts to cross the road. Urchins shout.)_ + +THE URCHINS: Mind out, mister! (_Two cyclists, with lighted paper +lanterns aswing, swim by him, grazing him, their bells rattling_) + +THE BELLS: Haltyaltyaltyall. + +BLOOM: _(Halts erect, stung by a spasm)_ Ow! + +_(He looks round, darts forward suddenly. Through rising fog a dragon +sandstrewer, travelling at caution, slews heavily down upon him, +its huge red headlight winking, its trolley hissing on the wire. The +motorman bangs his footgong.)_ + +THE GONG: Bang Bang Bla Bak Blud Bugg Bloo. + +_(The brake cracks violently. Bloom, raising a policeman's whitegloved +hand, blunders stifflegged out of the track. The motorman, thrown +forward, pugnosed, on the guidewheel, yells as he slides past over +chains and keys.)_ + +THE MOTORMAN: Hey, shitbreeches, are you doing the hat trick? + +BLOOM: _(Bloom trickleaps to the curbstone and halts again. He brushes a +mudflake from his cheek with a parcelled hand.)_ No thoroughfare. Close +shave that but cured the stitch. Must take up Sandow's exercises again. +On the hands down. Insure against street accident too. The Providential. +_(He feels his trouser pocket)_ Poor mamma's panacea. Heel easily catch +in track or bootlace in a cog. Day the wheel of the black Maria peeled +off my shoe at Leonard's corner. Third time is the charm. Shoe trick. +Insolent driver. I ought to report him. Tension makes them nervous. +Might be the fellow balked me this morning with that horsey woman. Same +style of beauty. Quick of him all the same. The stiff walk. True word +spoken in jest. That awful cramp in Lad lane. Something poisonous I +ate. Emblem of luck. Why? Probably lost cattle. Mark of the beast. _(He +closes his eyes an instant)_ Bit light in the head. Monthly or effect of +the other. Brainfogfag. That tired feeling. Too much for me now. Ow! + +(A sinister figure leans on plaited legs against o'beirne's wall, a +visage unknown, injected with dark mercury. From under a wideleaved +sombrero the figure regards him with evil eye.) + +BLOOM: _Buenas noches, senorita Blanca, que calle es esta?_ + +THE FIGURE: (_Impassive, raises a signal arm_) Password. _Sraid Mabbot._ + +BLOOM: Haha. _Merci._ Esperanto. _Slan leath. (He mutters)_ Gaelic +league spy, sent by that fireeater. + +_(He steps forward. A sackshouldered ragman bars his path. He steps +left, ragsackman left.)_ + +BLOOM: I beg. (_He swerves, sidles, stepaside, slips past and on_.) + +BLOOM: Keep to the right, right, right. If there is a signpost planted +by the Touring Club at Stepaside who procured that public boon? I who +lost my way and contributed to the columns of the _Irish Cyclist_ the +letter headed _In darkest Stepaside_. Keep, keep, keep to the right. +Rags and bones at midnight. A fence more likely. First place murderer +makes for. Wash off his sins of the world. + +_(Jacky Caffrey, hunted by Tommy Caffrey, runs full tilt against +Bloom.)_ + +BLOOM: O + +_(Shocked, on weak hams, he halts. Tommy and Jacky vanish there, there. +Bloom pats with parcelled hands watch fobpocket, bookpocket, pursepoket, +sweets of sin, potato soap.)_ + +BLOOM: Beware of pickpockets. Old thieves' dodge. Collide. Then snatch +your purse. + +_(The retriever approaches sniffing, nose to the ground. A sprawled form +sneezes. A stooped bearded figure appears garbed in the long caftan +of an elder in Zion and a smokingcap with magenta tassels. Horned +spectacles hang down at the wings of the nose. Yellow poison streaks are +on the drawn face.)_ + +RUDOLPH: Second halfcrown waste money today. I told you not go with +drunken goy ever. So you catch no money. + +BLOOM: _(Hides the crubeen and trotter behind his back and, crestfallen, +feels warm and cold feetmeat) Ja, ich weiss, papachi._ + +RUDOLPH: What you making down this place? Have you no soul? _(with +feeble vulture talons he feels the silent face of Bloom)_ Are you not +my son Leopold, the grandson of Leopold? Are you not my dear son Leopold +who left the house of his father and left the god of his fathers Abraham +and Jacob? + +BLOOM: _(With precaution)_ I suppose so, father. Mosenthal. All that's +left of him. + +RUDOLPH: _(Severely)_ One night they bring you home drunk as dog after +spend your good money. What you call them running chaps? + +BLOOM: _(In youth's smart blue Oxford suit with white vestslips, +narrowshouldered, in brown Alpine hat, wearing gent's sterling silver +waterbury keyless watch and double curb Albert with seal attached, one +side of him coated with stiffening mud)_ Harriers, father. Only that +once. + +RUDOLPH: Once! Mud head to foot. Cut your hand open. Lockjaw. They make +you kaputt, Leopoldleben. You watch them chaps. + +BLOOM: _(Weakly)_ They challenged me to a sprint. It was muddy. I +slipped. + +RUDOLPH: _(With contempt) Goim nachez_! Nice spectacles for your poor +mother! + +BLOOM: Mamma! + +ELLEN BLOOM: _(In pantomime dame's stringed mobcap, widow Twankey's +crinoline and bustle, blouse with muttonleg sleeves buttoned behind, +grey mittens and cameo brooch, her plaited hair in a crispine net, +appears over the staircase banisters, a slanted candlestick in her hand, +and cries out in shrill alarm)_ O blessed Redeemer, what have they done +to him! My smelling salts! _(She hauls up a reef of skirt and ransacks +the pouch of her striped blay petticoat. A phial, an Agnus Dei, a +shrivelled potato and a celluloid doll fall out)_ Sacred Heart of Mary, +where were you at all at all? + +_(Bloom, mumbling, his eyes downcast, begins to bestow his parcels in +his filled pockets but desists, muttering.)_ + +A VOICE: _(Sharply)_ Poldy! + +BLOOM: Who? _(He ducks and wards off a blow clumsily)_ At your service. + +_(He looks up. Beside her mirage of datepalms a handsome woman in +Turkish costume stands before him. Opulent curves fill out her scarlet +trousers and jacket, slashed with gold. A wide yellow cummerbund girdles +her. A white yashmak, violet in the night, covers her face, leaving free +only her large dark eyes and raven hair.)_ + +BLOOM: Molly! + +MARION: Welly? Mrs Marion from this out, my dear man, when you speak to +me. _(Satirically)_ Has poor little hubby cold feet waiting so long? + +BLOOM: _(Shifts from foot to foot)_ No, no. Not the least little bit. + +_(He breathes in deep agitation, swallowing gulps of air, questions, +hopes, crubeens for her supper, things to tell her, excuse, desire, +spellbound. A coin gleams on her forehead. On her feet are jewelled +toerings. Her ankles are linked by a slender fetterchain. Beside her +a camel, hooded with a turreting turban, waits. A silk ladder of +innumerable rungs climbs to his bobbing howdah. He ambles near with +disgruntled hindquarters. Fiercely she slaps his haunch, her goldcurb +wristbangles angriling, scolding him in Moorish.)_ + +MARION: Nebrakada! Femininum! + +_(The camel, lifting a foreleg, plucks from a tree a large mango fruit, +offers it to his mistress, blinking, in his cloven hoof, then droops his +head and, grunting, with uplifted neck, fumbles to kneel. Bloom stoops +his back for leapfrog.)_ + +BLOOM: I can give you... I mean as your business menagerer... Mrs +Marion... if you... + +MARION: So you notice some change? _(Her hands passing slowly over her +trinketed stomacher, a slow friendly mockery in her eyes)_ O Poldy, +Poldy, you are a poor old stick in the mud! Go and see life. See the +wide world. + +BLOOM: I was just going back for that lotion whitewax, orangeflower +water. Shop closes early on Thursday. But the first thing in the +morning. _(He pats divers pockets)_ This moving kidney. Ah! + +_(He points to the south, then to the east. A cake of new clean lemon +soap arises, diffusing light and perfume.)_ + +THE SOAP: We're a capital couple are Bloom and I. He brightens the +earth. I polish the sky. + + +_(The freckled face of Sweny, the druggist, appears in the disc of the +soapsun.)_ + +SWENY: Three and a penny, please. + +BLOOM: Yes. For my wife. Mrs Marion. Special recipe. + +MARION: _(Softly)_ Poldy! + +BLOOM: Yes, ma'am? + +MARION: _ti trema un poco il cuore?_ + +_(In disdain she saunters away, plump as a pampered pouter pigeon, +humming the duet from_ Don Giovanni.) + +BLOOM: Are you sure about that _voglio_? I mean the pronunciati... + +_(He follows, followed by the sniffing terrier. The elderly bawd seizes +his sleeve, the bristles of her chinmole glittering.)_ + +THE BAWD: Ten shillings a maidenhead. Fresh thing was never touched. +Fifteen. There's no-one in it only her old father that's dead drunk. + +_(She points. In the gap of her dark den furtive, rainbedraggled, Bridie +Kelly stands.)_ + +BRIDIE: Hatch street. Any good in your mind? + +_(With a squeak she flaps her bat shawl and runs. A burly rough pursues +with booted strides. He stumbles on the steps, recovers, plunges into +gloom. Weak squeaks of laughter are heard, weaker.)_ + +THE BAWD: _(Her wolfeyes shining)_ He's getting his pleasure. You won't +get a virgin in the flash houses. Ten shillings. Don't be all night +before the polis in plain clothes sees us. Sixtyseven is a bitch. + +_(Leering, Gerty Macdowell limps forward. She draws from behind, ogling, +and shows coyly her bloodied clout.)_ + +GERTY: With all my worldly goods I thee and thou. _(She murmurs)_ You +did that. I hate you. + +BLOOM: I? When? You're dreaming. I never saw you. + +THE BAWD: Leave the gentleman alone, you cheat. Writing the gentleman +false letters. Streetwalking and soliciting. Better for your mother take +the strap to you at the bedpost, hussy like you. + +GERTY: _(To Bloom)_ When you saw all the secrets of my bottom drawer. +_(She paws his sleeve, slobbering)_ Dirty married man! I love you for +doing that to me. + +_(She glides away crookedly. Mrs Breen in man's frieze overcoat +with loose bellows pockets, stands in the causeway, her roguish eyes +wideopen, smiling in all her herbivorous buckteeth.)_ + +MRS BREEN: Mr... + +BLOOM: _(Coughs gravely)_ Madam, when we last had this pleasure by +letter dated the sixteenth instant... + +MRS BREEN: Mr Bloom! You down here in the haunts of sin! I caught you +nicely! Scamp! + +BLOOM: _(Hurriedly)_ Not so loud my name. Whatever do you think of me? +Don't give me away. Walls have ears. How do you do? It's ages since I. +You're looking splendid. Absolutely it. Seasonable weather we are having +this time of year. Black refracts heat. Short cut home here. Interesting +quarter. Rescue of fallen women. Magdalen asylum. I am the secretary... + +MRS BREEN: _(Holds up a finger)_ Now, don't tell a big fib! I know +somebody won't like that. O just wait till I see Molly! _(Slily)_ +Account for yourself this very sminute or woe betide you! + +BLOOM: _(Looks behind)_ She often said she'd like to visit. Slumming. +The exotic, you see. Negro servants in livery too if she had money. +Othello black brute. Eugene Stratton. Even the bones and cornerman at +the Livermore christies. Bohee brothers. Sweep for that matter. + +_(Tom and Sam Bohee, coloured coons in white duck suits, scarlet socks, +upstarched Sambo chokers and large scarlet asters in their buttonholes, +leap out. Each has his banjo slung. Their paler smaller negroid hands +jingle the twingtwang wires. Flashing white Kaffir eyes and tusks they +rattle through a breakdown in clumsy clogs, twinging, singing, back to +back, toe heel, heel toe, with smackfatclacking nigger lips.)_ + +TOM AND SAM: + + There's someone in the house with Dina + There's someone in the house, I know, + There's someone in the house with Dina + Playing on the old banjo. + +_(They whisk black masks from raw babby faces: then, chuckling, +chortling, trumming, twanging, they diddle diddle cakewalk dance away.)_ + +BLOOM: _(With a sour tenderish smile)_ A little frivol, shall we, if +you are so inclined? Would you like me perhaps to embrace you just for a +fraction of a second? + +MRS BREEN: _(Screams gaily)_ O, you ruck! You ought to see yourself! + +BLOOM: For old sake' sake. I only meant a square party, a mixed marriage +mingling of our different little conjugials. You know I had a soft +corner for you. _(Gloomily)_ 'Twas I sent you that valentine of the dear +gazelle. + +MRS BREEN: Glory Alice, you do look a holy show! Killing simply. _(She +puts out her hand inquisitively)_ What are you hiding behind your back? +Tell us, there's a dear. + +BLOOM: _(Seizes her wrist with his free hand)_ Josie Powell that was, +prettiest deb in Dublin. How time flies by! Do you remember, harking +back in a retrospective arrangement, Old Christmas night, Georgina +Simpson's housewarming while they were playing the Irving Bishop game, +finding the pin blindfold and thoughtreading? Subject, what is in this +snuffbox? + +MRS BREEN: You were the lion of the night with your seriocomic +recitation and you looked the part. You were always a favourite with the +ladies. + +BLOOM: _(Squire of dames, in dinner jacket with wateredsilk facings, +blue masonic badge in his buttonhole, black bow and mother-of-pearl +studs, a prismatic champagne glass tilted in his hand)_ Ladies and +gentlemen, I give you Ireland, home and beauty. + +MRS BREEN: The dear dead days beyond recall. Love's old sweet song. + +BLOOM: _(Meaningfully dropping his voice)_ I confess I'm teapot with +curiosity to find out whether some person's something is a little teapot +at present. + +MRS BREEN: _(Gushingly)_ Tremendously teapot! London's teapot and I'm +simply teapot all over me! _(She rubs sides with him)_ After the parlour +mystery games and the crackers from the tree we sat on the staircase +ottoman. Under the mistletoe. Two is company. + +BLOOM: _(Wearing a purple Napoleon hat with an amber halfmoon, his +fingers and thumb passing slowly down to her soft moist meaty palm which +she surrenders gently)_ The witching hour of night. I took the splinter +out of this hand, carefully, slowly. _(Tenderly, as he slips on her +finger a ruby ring) La ci darem la mano._ + +MRS BREEN: _(In a onepiece evening frock executed in moonlight blue, a +tinsel sylph's diadem on her brow with her dancecard fallen beside +her moonblue satin slipper, curves her palm softly, breathing quickly) +Voglio e non._ You're hot! You're scalding! The left hand nearest the +heart. + +BLOOM: When you made your present choice they said it was beauty and +the beast. I can never forgive you for that. _(His clenched fist at +his brow)_ Think what it means. All you meant to me then. _(Hoarsely)_ +Woman, it's breaking me! + +_(Denis Breen, whitetallhatted, with Wisdom Hely's sandwich-boards, +shuffles past them in carpet slippers, his dull beard thrust out, +muttering to right and left. Little Alf Bergan, cloaked in the pall of +the ace of spades, dogs him to left and right, doubled in laughter.)_ + +ALF BERGAN: _(Points jeering at the sandwichboards)_ U. p: Up. + +MRS BREEN: _(To Bloom)_ High jinks below stairs. _(She gives him the +glad eye)_ Why didn't you kiss the spot to make it well? You wanted to. + +BLOOM: _(Shocked)_ Molly's best friend! Could you? + +MRS BREEN: _(Her pulpy tongue between her lips, offers a pigeon kiss)_ +Hnhn. The answer is a lemon. Have you a little present for me there? + +BLOOM: _(Offhandedly)_ Kosher. A snack for supper. The home without +potted meat is incomplete. I was at _Leah._ Mrs Bandmann Palmer. +Trenchant exponent of Shakespeare. Unfortunately threw away the +programme. Rattling good place round there for pigs' feet. Feel. + +_(Richie Goulding, three ladies' hats pinned on his head, appears +weighted to one side by the black legal bag of Collis and Ward on which +a skull and crossbones are painted in white limewash. He opens it +and shows it full of polonies, kippered herrings, Findon haddies and +tightpacked pills.)_ + +RICHIE: Best value in Dub. + +_(Bald Pat, bothered beetle, stands on the curbstone, folding his +napkin, waiting to wait.)_ + +PAT: _(Advances with a tilted dish of spillspilling gravy)_ Steak and +kidney. Bottle of lager. Hee hee hee. Wait till I wait. + +RICHIE: Goodgod. Inev erate inall... + +_(With hanging head he marches doggedly forward. The navvy, lurching by, +gores him with his flaming pronghorn.)_ + +RICHIE: _(With a cry of pain, his hand to his back)_ Ah! Bright's! +Lights! + +BLOOM: _(Ooints to the navvy)_ A spy. Don't attract attention. I hate +stupid crowds. I am not on pleasure bent. I am in a grave predicament. + +MRS BREEN: Humbugging and deluthering as per usual with your cock and +bull story. + +BLOOM: I want to tell you a little secret about how I came to be here. +But you must never tell. Not even Molly. I have a most particular +reason. + +MRS BREEN: _(All agog)_ O, not for worlds. + +BLOOM: Let's walk on. Shall us? + +MRS BREEN: Let's. + +_(The bawd makes an unheeded sign. Bloom walks on with Mrs Breen. The +terrier follows, whining piteously, wagging his tail.)_ + +THE BAWD: Jewman's melt! + +BLOOM: _(In an oatmeal sporting suit, a sprig of woodbine in the lapel, +tony buff shirt, shepherd's plaid Saint Andrew's cross scarftie, white +spats, fawn dustcoat on his arm, tawny red brogues, fieldglasses in +bandolier and a grey billycock hat)_ Do you remember a long long time, +years and years ago, just after Milly, Marionette we called her, was +weaned when we all went together to Fairyhouse races, was it? + +MRS BREEN: _(In smart Saxe tailormade, white velours hat and spider +veil)_ Leopardstown. + +BLOOM: I mean, Leopardstown. And Molly won seven shillings on a three +year old named Nevertell and coming home along by Foxrock in that old +fiveseater shanderadan of a waggonette you were in your heyday then and +you had on that new hat of white velours with a surround of molefur that +Mrs Hayes advised you to buy because it was marked down to nineteen and +eleven, a bit of wire and an old rag of velveteen, and I'll lay you what +you like she did it on purpose... + +MRS BREEN: She did, of course, the cat! Don't tell me! Nice adviser! + +BLOOM: Because it didn't suit you one quarter as well as the other ducky +little tammy toque with the bird of paradise wing in it that I admired +on you and you honestly looked just too fetching in it though it was a +pity to kill it, you cruel naughty creature, little mite of a thing with +a heart the size of a fullstop. + +MRS BREEN: _(Squeezes his arm, simpers)_ Naughty cruel I was! + +BLOOM: _(Low, secretly, ever more rapidly)_ And Molly was eating a +sandwich of spiced beef out of Mrs Joe Gallaher's lunch basket. Frankly, +though she had her advisers or admirers, I never cared much for her +style. She was... + +MRS BREEN: Too... + +BLOOM: Yes. And Molly was laughing because Rogers and Maggot O'Reilly +were mimicking a cock as we passed a farmhouse and Marcus Tertius Moses, +the tea merchant, drove past us in a gig with his daughter, Dancer Moses +was her name, and the poodle in her lap bridled up and you asked me if I +ever heard or read or knew or came across... + +MRS BREEN: _(Eagerly)_ Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. + +_(She fades from his side. Followed by the whining dog he walks on +towards hellsgates. In an archway a standing woman, bent forward, her +feet apart, pisses cowily. Outside a shuttered pub a bunch of loiterers +listen to a tale which their brokensnouted gaffer rasps out with raucous +humour. An armless pair of them flop wrestling, growling, in maimed +sodden playfight.)_ + +THE GAFFER: _(Crouches, his voice twisted in his snout)_ And when Cairns +came down from the scaffolding in Beaver street what was he after doing +it into only into the bucket of porter that was there waiting on the +shavings for Derwan's plasterers. + +THE LOITERERS: _(Guffaw with cleft palates)_ O jays! + +_(Their paintspeckled hats wag. Spattered with size and lime of their +lodges they frisk limblessly about him.)_ + +BLOOM: Coincidence too. They think it funny. Anything but that. Broad +daylight. Trying to walk. Lucky no woman. + +THE LOITERERS: Jays, that's a good one. Glauber salts. O jays, into the +men's porter. + +_(Bloom passes. Cheap whores, singly, coupled, shawled, dishevelled, +call from lanes, doors, corners.)_ + +THE WHORES: + + Are you going far, queer fellow? + How's your middle leg? + Got a match on you? + Eh, come here till I stiffen it for you. + + +_(He plodges through their sump towards the lighted street beyond. From +a bulge of window curtains a gramophone rears a battered brazen trunk. +In the shadow a shebeenkeeper haggles with the navvy and the two +redcoats.)_ + +THE NAVVY: _(Belching)_ Where's the bloody house? + +THE SHEBEENKEEPER: Purdon street. Shilling a bottle of stout. +Respectable woman. + +THE NAVVY: _(Gripping the two redcoats, staggers forward with them)_ +Come on, you British army! + +PRIVATE CARR: _(Behind his back)_ He aint half balmy. + +PRIVATE COMPTON: _(Laughs)_ What ho! + +PRIVATE CARR: _(To the navvy)_ Portobello barracks canteen. You ask for +Carr. Just Carr. + +THE NAVVY: _(Shouts)_ + +We are the boys. Of Wexford. + +PRIVATE COMPTON: Say! What price the sergeantmajor? + +PRIVATE CARR: Bennett? He's my pal. I love old Bennett. + +THE NAVVY: _(Shouts)_ + + The galling chain. + And free our native land. + +_(He staggers forward, dragging them with him. Bloom stops, at fault. +The dog approaches, his tongue outlolling, panting)_ + +BLOOM: Wildgoose chase this. Disorderly houses. Lord knows where they +are gone. Drunks cover distance double quick. Nice mixup. Scene at +Westland row. Then jump in first class with third ticket. Then too far. +Train with engine behind. Might have taken me to Malahide or a siding +for the night or collision. Second drink does it. Once is a dose. What +am I following him for? Still, he's the best of that lot. If I hadn't +heard about Mrs Beaufoy Purefoy I wouldn't have gone and wouldn't have +met. Kismet. He'll lose that cash. Relieving office here. Good biz for +cheapjacks, organs. What do ye lack? Soon got, soon gone. Might have +lost my life too with that mangongwheeltracktrolleyglarejuggernaut only +for presence of mind. Can't always save you, though. If I had passed +Truelock's window that day two minutes later would have been shot. +Absence of body. Still if bullet only went through my coat get damages +for shock, five hundred pounds. What was he? Kildare street club toff. +God help his gamekeeper. + +_(He gazes ahead, reading on the wall a scrawled chalk legend_ Wet Dream +_and a phallic design._) Odd! Molly drawing on the frosted carriagepane +at Kingstown. What's that like? _(Gaudy dollwomen loll in the lighted +doorways, in window embrasures, smoking birdseye cigarettes. The +odour of the sicksweet weed floats towards him in slow round ovalling +wreaths.)_ + +THE WREATHS: Sweet are the sweets. Sweets of sin. + +BLOOM: My spine's a bit limp. Go or turn? And this food? Eat it and get +all pigsticky. Absurd I am. Waste of money. One and eightpence too +much. _(The retriever drives a cold snivelling muzzle against his hand, +wagging his tail.)_ Strange how they take to me. Even that brute today. +Better speak to him first. Like women they like _rencontres._ Stinks +like a polecat. _Chacun son gout_. He might be mad. Dogdays. Uncertain +in his movements. Good fellow! Fido! Good fellow! Garryowen! _(The +wolfdog sprawls on his back, wriggling obscenely with begging paws, his +long black tongue lolling out.)_ Influence of his surroundings. Give +and have done with it. Provided nobody. _(Calling encouraging words he +shambles back with a furtive poacher's tread, dogged by the setter into +a dark stalestunk corner. He unrolls one parcel and goes to dump the +crubeen softly but holds back and feels the trotter.)_ Sizeable for +threepence. But then I have it in my left hand. Calls for more effort. +Why? Smaller from want of use. O, let it slide. Two and six. + +_(With regret he lets the unrolled crubeen and trotter slide. The +mastiff mauls the bundle clumsily and gluts himself with growling greed, +crunching the bones. Two raincaped watch approach, silent, vigilant. +They murmur together.)_ + +THE WATCH: Bloom. Of Bloom. For Bloom. Bloom. + +_(Each lays hand on Bloom's shoulder.)_ + +FIRST WATCH: Caught in the act. Commit no nuisance. + +BLOOM: _(Stammers)_ I am doing good to others. + +_(A covey of gulls, storm petrels, rises hungrily from Liffey slime with +Banbury cakes in their beaks.)_ + +THE GULLS: Kaw kave kankury kake. + +BLOOM: The friend of man. Trained by kindness. + +_(He points. Bob Doran, toppling from a high barstool, sways over the +munching spaniel.)_ + +BOB DORAN: Towser. Give us the paw. Give the paw. + +_(The bulldog growls, his scruff standing, a gobbet of pig's knuckle +between his molars through which rabid scumspittle dribbles. Bob Doran +fills silently into an area.)_ + +SECOND WATCH: Prevention of cruelty to animals. + +BLOOM: _(Enthusiastically)_ A noble work! I scolded that tramdriver on +Harold's cross bridge for illusing the poor horse with his harness scab. +Bad French I got for my pains. Of course it was frosty and the last +tram. All tales of circus life are highly demoralising. + +_(Signor Maffei, passionpale, in liontamer's costume with diamond studs +in his shirtfront, steps forward, holding a circus paperhoop, a +curling carriagewhip and a revolver with which he covers the gorging +boarhound.)_ + +SIGNOR MAFFEI: _(With a sinister smile)_ Ladies and gentlemen, my +educated greyhound. It was I broke in the bucking broncho Ajax with my +patent spiked saddle for carnivores. Lash under the belly with a knotted +thong. Block tackle and a strangling pulley will bring your lion to +heel, no matter how fractious, even _Leo ferox_ there, the Libyan +maneater. A redhot crowbar and some liniment rubbing on the burning part +produced Fritz of Amsterdam, the thinking hyena. _(He glares)_ I possess +the Indian sign. The glint of my eye does it with these breastsparklers. +_(With a bewitching smile)_ I now introduce Mademoiselle Ruby, the pride +of the ring. + +FIRST WATCH: Come. Name and address. + +BLOOM: I have forgotten for the moment. Ah, yes! _(He takes off his high +grade hat, saluting)_ Dr Bloom, Leopold, dental surgeon. You have heard +of von Blum Pasha. Umpteen millions. _Donnerwetter!_ Owns half Austria. +Egypt. Cousin. + +FIRST WATCH: Proof. + +_(A card falls from inside the leather headband of Bloom's hat.)_ + +BLOOM: _(In red fez, cadi's dress coat with broad green sash, wearing +a false badge of the Legion of Honour, picks up the card hastily and +offers it)_ Allow me. My club is the Junior Army and Navy. Solicitors: +Messrs John Henry Menton, 27 Bachelor's Walk. + +FIRST WATCH: _(Reads)_ Henry Flower. No fixed abode. Unlawfully watching +and besetting. + +SECOND WATCH: An alibi. You are cautioned. + +BLOOM: _(Produces from his heartpocket a crumpled yellow flower)_ This +is the flower in question. It was given me by a man I don't know his +name. _(Plausibly)_ You know that old joke, rose of Castile. Bloom. The +change of name. Virag. _(He murmurs privately and confidentially)_ We +are engaged you see, sergeant. Lady in the case. Love entanglement. _(He +shoulders the second watch gently)_ Dash it all. It's a way we gallants +have in the navy. Uniform that does it. _(He turns gravely to the first +watch)_ Still, of course, you do get your Waterloo sometimes. Drop in +some evening and have a glass of old Burgundy. _(To the second watch +gaily)_ I'll introduce you, inspector. She's game. Do it in the shake of +a lamb's tail. + +_(A dark mercurialised face appears, leading a veiled figure.)_ + +THE DARK MERCURY: The Castle is looking for him. He was drummed out of +the army. + +MARTHA: _(Thickveiled, a crimson halter round her neck, a copy of +the_ Irish Times _in her hand, in tone of reproach, pointing)_ Henry! +Leopold! Lionel, thou lost one! Clear my name. + +FIRST WATCH: _(Sternly)_ Come to the station. + +BLOOM: _(Scared, hats himself, steps back, then, plucking at his heart +and lifting his right forearm on the square, he gives the sign and +dueguard of fellowcraft)_ No, no, worshipful master, light of love. +Mistaken identity. The Lyons mail. Lesurques and Dubosc. You remember +the Childs fratricide case. We medical men. By striking him dead with +a hatchet. I am wrongfully accused. Better one guilty escape than +ninetynine wrongfully condemned. + +MARTHA: _(Sobbing behind her veil)_ Breach of promise. My real name +is Peggy Griffin. He wrote to me that he was miserable. I'll tell my +brother, the Bective rugger fullback, on you, heartless flirt. + +BLOOM: _(Behind his hand)_ She's drunk. The woman is inebriated. _(He +murmurs vaguely the pass of Ephraim)_ Shitbroleeth. + +SECOND WATCH: _(Tears in his eyes, to Bloom)_ You ought to be thoroughly +well ashamed of yourself. + +BLOOM: Gentlemen of the jury, let me explain. A pure mare's nest. I am +a man misunderstood. I am being made a scapegoat of. I am a respectable +married man, without a stain on my character. I live in Eccles street. +My wife, I am the daughter of a most distinguished commander, a gallant +upstanding gentleman, what do you call him, Majorgeneral Brian Tweedy, +one of Britain's fighting men who helped to win our battles. Got his +majority for the heroic defence of Rorke's Drift. + +FIRST WATCH: Regiment. + +BLOOM: _(Turns to the gallery)_ The royal Dublins, boys, the salt of the +earth, known the world over. I think I see some old comrades in arms +up there among you. The R. D. F., with our own Metropolitan police, +guardians of our homes, the pluckiest lads and the finest body of men, +as physique, in the service of our sovereign. + +A VOICE: Turncoat! Up the Boers! Who booed Joe Chamberlain? + +BLOOM: _(His hand on the shoulder of the first watch)_ My old dad too +was a J. P. I'm as staunch a Britisher as you are, sir. I fought with +the colours for king and country in the absentminded war under general +Gough in the park and was disabled at Spion Kop and Bloemfontein, was +mentioned in dispatches. I did all a white man could. _(With quiet +feeling)_ Jim Bludso. Hold her nozzle again the bank. + +FIRST WATCH: Profession or trade. + +BLOOM: Well, I follow a literary occupation, author-journalist. In fact +we are just bringing out a collection of prize stories of which I am the +inventor, something that is an entirely new departure. I am connected +with the British and Irish press. If you ring up... + +_(Myles Crawford strides out jerkily, a quill between his teeth. His +scarlet beak blazes within the aureole of his straw hat. He dangles +a hank of Spanish onions in one hand and holds with the other hand a +telephone receiver nozzle to his ear.)_ + +MYLES CRAWFORD: _(His cock's wattles wagging)_ Hello, seventyseven +eightfour. Hello. _Freeman's Urinal_ and _Weekly Arsewipe_ here. +Paralyse Europe. You which? Bluebags? Who writes? Is it Bloom? + +_(Mr Philip Beaufoy, palefaced, stands in the witnessbox, in accurate +morning dress, outbreast pocket with peak of handkerchief showing, +creased lavender trousers and patent boots. He carries a large portfolio +labelled_ Matcham's Masterstrokes.) + +BEAUFOY: _(Drawls)_ No, you aren't. Not by a long shot if I know it. +I don't see it that's all. No born gentleman, no-one with the most +rudimentary promptings of a gentleman would stoop to such particularly +loathsome conduct. One of those, my lord. A plagiarist. A soapy sneak +masquerading as a litterateur. It's perfectly obvious that with the most +inherent baseness he has cribbed some of my bestselling copy, really +gorgeous stuff, a perfect gem, the love passages in which are beneath +suspicion. The Beaufoy books of love and great possessions, with which +your lordship is doubtless familiar, are a household word throughout the +kingdom. + +BLOOM: _(Murmurs with hangdog meekness glum)_ That bit about the +laughing witch hand in hand I take exception to, if I may... + +BEAUFOY: _(His lip upcurled, smiles superciliously on the court)_ You +funny ass, you! You're too beastly awfully weird for words! I don't +think you need over excessively disincommodate yourself in that regard. +My literary agent Mr J. B. Pinker is in attendance. I presume, my +lord, we shall receive the usual witnesses' fees, shan't we? We are +considerably out of pocket over this bally pressman johnny, this jackdaw +of Rheims, who has not even been to a university. + +BLOOM: _(Indistinctly)_ University of life. Bad art. + +BEAUFOY: _(Shouts)_ It's a damnably foul lie, showing the moral +rottenness of the man! _(He extends his portfolio)_ We have here damning +evidence, the _corpus delicti_, my lord, a specimen of my maturer work +disfigured by the hallmark of the beast. + +A VOICE FROM THE GALLERY: + +Moses, Moses, king of the jews, Wiped his arse in the Daily News. + +BLOOM: _(Bravely)_ Overdrawn. + +BEAUFOY: You low cad! You ought to be ducked in the horsepond, you +rotter! _(To the court)_ Why, look at the man's private life! Leading +a quadruple existence! Street angel and house devil. Not fit to be +mentioned in mixed society! The archconspirator of the age! + +BLOOM: _(To the court)_ And he, a bachelor, how... + +FIRST WATCH: The King versus Bloom. Call the woman Driscoll. + +THE CRIER: Mary Driscoll, scullerymaid! + +_(Mary Driscoll, a slipshod servant girl, approaches. She has a bucket +on the crook of her arm and a scouringbrush in her hand.)_ + +SECOND WATCH: Another! Are you of the unfortunate class? + +MARY DRISCOLL: _(Indignantly)_ I'm not a bad one. I bear a respectable +character and was four months in my last place. I was in a situation, +six pounds a year and my chances with Fridays out and I had to leave +owing to his carryings on. + +FIRST WATCH: What do you tax him with? + +MARY DRISCOLL: He made a certain suggestion but I thought more of myself +as poor as I am. + +BLOOM: _(In housejacket of ripplecloth, flannel trousers, heelless +slippers, unshaven, his hair rumpled: softly)_ I treated you white. +I gave you mementos, smart emerald garters far above your station. +Incautiously I took your part when you were accused of pilfering. +There's a medium in all things. Play cricket. + +MARY DRISCOLL: _(Excitedly)_ As God is looking down on me this night if +ever I laid a hand to them oysters! + +FIRST WATCH: The offence complained of? Did something happen? + +MARY DRISCOLL: He surprised me in the rere of the premises, Your honour, +when the missus was out shopping one morning with a request for a safety +pin. He held me and I was discoloured in four places as a result. And he +interfered twict with my clothing. + +BLOOM: She counterassaulted. + +MARY DRISCOLL: _(Scornfully)_ I had more respect for the scouringbrush, +so I had. I remonstrated with him, Your lord, and he remarked: keep it +quiet. + +_(General laughter.)_ + +GEORGE FOTTRELL: _(Clerk of the crown and peace, resonantly)_ Order in +court! The accused will now make a bogus statement. + +_(Bloom, pleading not guilty and holding a fullblown waterlily, begins +a long unintelligible speech. They would hear what counsel had to say in +his stirring address to the grand jury. He was down and out but, though +branded as a black sheep, if he might say so, he meant to reform, to +retrieve the memory of the past in a purely sisterly way and return to +nature as a purely domestic animal. A sevenmonths' child, he had been +carefully brought up and nurtured by an aged bedridden parent. There +might have been lapses of an erring father but he wanted to turn over +a new leaf and now, when at long last in sight of the whipping post, +to lead a homely life in the evening of his days, permeated by the +affectionate surroundings of the heaving bosom of the family. An +acclimatised Britisher, he had seen that summer eve from the footplate +of an engine cab of the Loop line railway company while the rain +refrained from falling glimpses, as it were, through the windows of +loveful households in Dublin city and urban district of scenes truly +rural of happiness of the better land with Dockrell's wallpaper at one +and ninepence a dozen, innocent Britishborn bairns lisping prayers to +the Sacred Infant, youthful scholars grappling with their pensums or +model young ladies playing on the pianoforte or anon all with fervour +reciting the family rosary round the crackling Yulelog while in the +boreens and green lanes the colleens with their swains strolled what +times the strains of the organtoned melodeon Britannia metalbound with +four acting stops and twelvefold bellows, a sacrifice, greatest bargain +ever..._ + +_(Renewed laughter. He mumbles incoherently. Reporters complain that +they cannot hear.)_ + +LONGHAND AND SHORTHAND: _(Without looking up from their notebooks)_ +Loosen his boots. + +PROFESSOR MACHUGH: _(From the presstable, coughs and calls)_ Cough it +up, man. Get it out in bits. + +_(The crossexamination proceeds re Bloom and the bucket. A large bucket. +Bloom himself. Bowel trouble. In Beaver street Gripe, yes. Quite bad. +A plasterer's bucket. By walking stifflegged. Suffered untold misery. +Deadly agony. About noon. Love or burgundy. Yes, some spinach. Crucial +moment. He did not look in the bucket Nobody. Rather a mess. Not +completely._ A Titbits _back number_.) + +_(Uproar and catcalls. Bloom in a torn frockcoat stained with whitewash, +dinged silk hat sideways on his head, a strip of stickingplaster across +his nose, talks inaudibly.)_ + +J. J. O'MOLLOY: _(In barrister's grey wig and stuffgown, speaking with +a voice of pained protest)_ This is no place for indecent levity at +the expense of an erring mortal disguised in liquor. We are not in a +beargarden nor at an Oxford rag nor is this a travesty of justice. My +client is an infant, a poor foreign immigrant who started scratch as +a stowaway and is now trying to turn an honest penny. The trumped up +misdemeanour was due to a momentary aberration of heredity, brought on +by hallucination, such familiarities as the alleged guilty occurrence +being quite permitted in my client's native place, the land of the +Pharaoh. _Prima facie_, I put it to you that there was no attempt at +carnally knowing. Intimacy did not occur and the offence complained of +by Driscoll, that her virtue was solicited, was not repeated. I would +deal in especial with atavism. There have been cases of shipwreck and +somnambulism in my client's family. If the accused could speak he could +a tale unfold--one of the strangest that have ever been narrated between +the covers of a book. He himself, my lord, is a physical wreck from +cobbler's weak chest. His submission is that he is of Mongolian +extraction and irresponsible for his actions. Not all there, in fact. + +BLOOM: _(Barefoot, pigeonbreasted, in lascar's vest and trousers, +apologetic toes turned in, opens his tiny mole's eyes and looks about +him dazedly, passing a slow hand across his forehead. Then he hitches +his belt sailor fashion and with a shrug of oriental obeisance salutes +the court, pointing one thumb heavenward.)_ Him makee velly muchee fine +night. _(He begins to lilt simply)_ + + Li li poo lil chile + Blingee pigfoot evly night + Payee two shilly... + +_(He is howled down.)_ + +J. J. O'MOLLOY: _(Hotly to the populace)_ This is a lonehand fight. By +Hades, I will not have any client of mine gagged and badgered in this +fashion by a pack of curs and laughing hyenas. The Mosaic code has +superseded the law of the jungle. I say it and I say it emphatically, +without wishing for one moment to defeat the ends of justice, accused +was not accessory before the act and prosecutrix has not been tampered +with. The young person was treated by defendant as if she were his very +own daughter. _(Bloom takes J. J. O'Molloy's hand and raises it to his +lips.)_ I shall call rebutting evidence to prove up to the hilt that the +hidden hand is again at its old game. When in doubt persecute Bloom. My +client, an innately bashful man, would be the last man in the world to +do anything ungentlemanly which injured modesty could object to or +cast a stone at a girl who took the wrong turning when some dastard, +responsible for her condition, had worked his own sweet will on her. He +wants to go straight. I regard him as the whitest man I know. He is down +on his luck at present owing to the mortgaging of his extensive property +at Agendath Netaim in faraway Asia Minor, slides of which will now be +shown. _(To Bloom)_ I suggest that you will do the handsome thing. + +BLOOM: A penny in the pound. + +_(The image of the lake of Kinnereth with blurred cattle cropping in +silver haze is projected on the wall. Moses Dlugacz, ferreteyed albino, +in blue dungarees, stands up in the gallery, holding in each hand an +orange citron and a pork kidney.)_ + +DLUGACZ: _(Hoarsely)_ Bleibtreustrasse, Berlin, W.13. + +_(J. J. O'Molloy steps on to a low plinth and holds the lapel of his +coat with solemnity. His face lengthens, grows pale and bearded, with +sunken eyes, the blotches of phthisis and hectic cheekbones of John F. +Taylor. He applies his handkerchief to his mouth and scrutinises the +galloping tide of rosepink blood.)_ + +J.J.O'MOLLOY: _(Almost voicelessly)_ Excuse me. I am suffering from a +severe chill, have recently come from a sickbed. A few wellchosen words. +_(He assumes the avine head, foxy moustache and proboscidal eloquence of +Seymour Bushe.)_ When the angel's book comes to be opened if aught +that the pensive bosom has inaugurated of soultransfigured and of +soultransfiguring deserves to live I say accord the prisoner at the bar +the sacred benefit of the doubt. _(A paper with something written on it +is handed into court._) + +BLOOM: _(In court dress)_ Can give best references. Messrs Callan, +Coleman. Mr Wisdom Hely J. P. My old chief Joe Cuffe. Mr V. B. Dillon, +ex lord mayor of Dublin. I have moved in the charmed circle of the +highest... Queens of Dublin society. _(Carelessly)_ I was just chatting +this afternoon at the viceregal lodge to my old pals, sir Robert and +lady Ball, astronomer royal at the levee. Sir Bob, I said... + +MRS YELVERTON BARRY: _(In lowcorsaged opal balldress and elbowlength +ivory gloves, wearing a sabletrimmed brickquilted dolman, a comb of +brilliants and panache of osprey in her hair)_ Arrest him, constable. He +wrote me an anonymous letter in prentice backhand when my husband was +in the North Riding of Tipperary on the Munster circuit, signed James +Lovebirch. He said that he had seen from the gods my peerless globes as +I sat in a box of the _Theatre Royal_ at a command performance of _La +Cigale_. I deeply inflamed him, he said. He made improper overtures +to me to misconduct myself at half past four p.m. on the following +Thursday, Dunsink time. He offered to send me through the post a work +of fiction by Monsieur Paul de Kock, entitled _The Girl with the Three +Pairs of Stays_. + +MRS BELLINGHAM: _(In cap and seal coney mantle, wrapped up to the +nose, steps out of her brougham and scans through tortoiseshell +quizzing-glasses which she takes from inside her huge opossum muff)_ +Also to me. Yes, I believe it is the same objectionable person. Because +he closed my carriage door outside sir Thornley Stoker's one sleety day +during the cold snap of February ninetythree when even the grid of the +wastepipe and the ballstop in my bath cistern were frozen. Subsequently +he enclosed a bloom of edelweiss culled on the heights, as he said, +in my honour. I had it examined by a botanical expert and elicited the +information that it was ablossom of the homegrown potato plant purloined +from a forcingcase of the model farm. + +MRS YELVERTON BARRY: Shame on him! + +_(A crowd of sluts and ragamuffins surges forward)_ + +THE SLUTS AND RAGAMUFFINS: _(Screaming)_ Stop thief! Hurrah there, +Bluebeard! Three cheers for Ikey Mo! + +SECOND WATCH: _(Produces handcuffs)_ Here are the darbies. + +MRS BELLINGHAM: He addressed me in several handwritings with fulsome +compliments as a Venus in furs and alleged profound pity for my +frostbound coachman Palmer while in the same breath he expressed himself +as envious of his earflaps and fleecy sheepskins and of his fortunate +proximity to my person, when standing behind my chair wearing my livery +and the armorial bearings of the Bellingham escutcheon garnished sable, +a buck's head couped or. He lauded almost extravagantly my nether +extremities, my swelling calves in silk hose drawn up to the limit, and +eulogised glowingly my other hidden treasures in priceless lace which, +he said, he could conjure up. He urged me (stating that he felt it +his mission in life to urge me) to defile the marriage bed, to commit +adultery at the earliest possible opportunity. + +THE HONOURABLE MRS MERVYN TALBOYS: _(In amazon costume, hard hat, +jackboots cockspurred, vermilion waistcoat, fawn musketeer gauntlets +with braided drums, long train held up and hunting crop with which she +strikes her welt constantly)_ Also me. Because he saw me on the polo +ground of the Phoenix park at the match All Ireland versus the Rest of +Ireland. My eyes, I know, shone divinely as I watched Captain Slogger +Dennehy of the Inniskillings win the final chukkar on his darling cob +_Centaur._ This plebeian Don Juan observed me from behind a hackney car +and sent me in double envelopes an obscene photograph, such as are sold +after dark on Paris boulevards, insulting to any lady. I have it still. +It represents a partially nude senorita, frail and lovely (his wife, as +he solemnly assured me, taken by him from nature), practising illicit +intercourse with a muscular torero, evidently a blackguard. He urged me +to do likewise, to misbehave, to sin with officers of the garrison. He +implored me to soil his letter in an unspeakable manner, to chastise +him as he richly deserves, to bestride and ride him, to give him a most +vicious horsewhipping. + +MRS BELLINGHAM: Me too. + +MRS YELVERTON BARRY: Me too. + +_(Several highly respectable Dublin ladies hold up improper letters +received from Bloom.)_ + +THE HONOURABLE MRS MERVYN TALBOYS: _(Stamps her jingling spurs in a +sudden paroxysm of fury)_ I will, by the God above me. I'll scourge the +pigeonlivered cur as long as I can stand over him. I'll flay him alive. + +BLOOM: _(His eyes closing, quails expectantly)_ Here? _(He squirms)_ +Again! _(He pants cringing)_ I love the danger. + +THE HONOURABLE MRS MERVYN TALBOYS: Very much so! I'll make it hot for +you. I'll make you dance Jack Latten for that. + +MRS BELLINGHAM: Tan his breech well, the upstart! Write the stars and +stripes on it! + +MRS YELVERTON BARRY: Disgraceful! There's no excuse for him! A married +man! + +BLOOM: All these people. I meant only the spanking idea. A warm tingling +glow without effusion. Refined birching to stimulate the circulation. + +THE HONOURABLE MRS MERVYN TALBOYS: _(Laughs derisively)_ O, did you, my +fine fellow? Well, by the living God, you'll get the surprise of your +life now, believe me, the most unmerciful hiding a man ever bargained +for. You have lashed the dormant tigress in my nature into fury. + +MRS BELLINGHAM: _(Shakes her muff and quizzing-glasses vindictively)_ +Make him smart, Hanna dear. Give him ginger. Thrash the mongrel within +an inch of his life. The cat-o'-nine-tails. Geld him. Vivisect him. + +BLOOM: _(Shuddering, shrinking, joins his hands: with hangdog mien)_ O +cold! O shivery! It was your ambrosial beauty. Forget, forgive. Kismet. +Let me off this once. _(He offers the other cheek)_ + +MRS YELVERTON BARRY: _(Severely)_ Don't do so on any account, Mrs +Talboys! He should be soundly trounced! + +THE HONOURABLE MRS MERVYN TALBOYS: _(Unbuttoning her gauntlet +violently)_ I'll do no such thing. Pigdog and always was ever since +he was pupped! To dare address me! I'll flog him black and blue in +the public streets. I'll dig my spurs in him up to the rowel. He is a +wellknown cuckold. _(She swishes her huntingcrop savagely in the air)_ +Take down his trousers without loss of time. Come here, sir! Quick! +Ready? + +BLOOM: _(Trembling, beginning to obey)_ The weather has been so warm. + +_(Davy Stephens, ringletted, passes with a bevy of barefoot newsboys.)_ + +DAVY STEPHENS: _Messenger of the Sacred Heart and Evening Telegraph_ +with Saint Patrick's Day supplement. Containing the new addresses of all +the cuckolds in Dublin. + +_(The very reverend Canon O'Hanlon in cloth of gold cope elevates and +exposes a marble timepiece. Before him Father Conroy and the reverend +John Hughes S.J. bend low.)_ + +THE TIMEPIECE: _(Unportalling)_ + + Cuckoo. + Cuckoo. + Cuckoo. + +_(The brass quoits of a bed are heard to jingle.)_ + +THE QUOITS: Jigjag. Jigajiga. Jigjag. + +_(A panel of fog rolls back rapidly, revealing rapidly in the jurybox +the faces of Martin Cunningham, foreman, silkhatted, Jack Power, Simon +Dedalus, Tom Kernan, Ned Lambert, John Henry Menton Myles Crawford, +Lenehan, Paddy Leonard, Nosey Flynn, M'Coy and the featureless face of a +Nameless One.)_ + +THE NAMELESS ONE: Bareback riding. Weight for age. Gob, he organised +her. + +THE JURORS: _(All their heads turned to his voice)_ Really? + +THE NAMELESS ONE: _(Snarls)_ Arse over tip. Hundred shillings to five. + +THE JURORS: _(All their heads lowered in assent)_ Most of us thought as +much. + +FIRST WATCH: He is a marked man. Another girl's plait cut. Wanted: Jack +the Ripper. A thousand pounds reward. + +SECOND WATCH: _(Awed, whispers)_ And in black. A mormon. Anarchist. + +THE CRIER: _(Loudly)_ Whereas Leopold Bloom of no fixed abode is a +wellknown dynamitard, forger, bigamist, bawd and cuckold and a public +nuisance to the citizens of Dublin and whereas at this commission of +assizes the most honourable... + +_(His Honour, sir Frederick Falkiner, recorder of Dublin, in judicial +garb of grey stone rises from the bench, stonebearded. He bears in his +arms an umbrella sceptre. From his forehead arise starkly the Mosaic +ramshorns.)_ + +THE RECORDER: I will put an end to this white slave traffic and rid +Dublin of this odious pest. Scandalous! _(He dons the black cap)_ Let +him be taken, Mr Subsheriff, from the dock where he now stands and +detained in custody in Mountjoy prison during His Majesty's pleasure +and there be hanged by the neck until he is dead and therein fail not +at your peril or may the Lord have mercy on your soul. Remove him. _(A +black skullcap descends upon his head.)_ + +_(The subsheriff Long John Fanning appears, smoking a pungent Henry +Clay.)_ + +LONG JOHN FANNING: _(Scowls and calls with rich rolling utterance)_ +Who'll hang Judas Iscariot? + +_(H. Rumbold, master barber, in a bloodcoloured jerkin and tanner's +apron, a rope coiled over his shoulder, mounts the block. A life +preserver and a nailstudded bludgeon are stuck in his belt. He rubs +grimly his grappling hands, knobbed with knuckledusters.)_ + +RUMBOLD: _(To the recorder with sinister familiarity)_ Hanging Harry, +your Majesty, the Mersey terror. Five guineas a jugular. Neck or +nothing. + +_(The bells of George's church toll slowly, loud dark iron.)_ + +THE BELLS: Heigho! Heigho! + +BLOOM: _(Desperately)_ Wait. Stop. Gulls. Good heart. I saw. Innocence. +Girl in the monkeyhouse. Zoo. Lewd chimpanzee. _(Breathlessly)_ Pelvic +basin. Her artless blush unmanned me. _(Overcome with emotion)_ I left +the precincts. (He turns to a figure in the crowd, appealing) Hynes, may +I speak to you? You know me. That three shillings you can keep. If you +want a little more... + +HYNES: _(Coldly)_ You are a perfect stranger. + +SECOND WATCH: _(Points to the corner)_ The bomb is here. + +FIRST WATCH: Infernal machine with a time fuse. + +BLOOM: No, no. Pig's feet. I was at a funeral. + +FIRST WATCH: _(Draws his truncheon)_ Liar! + +_(The beagle lifts his snout, showing the grey scorbutic face of Paddy +Dignam. He has gnawed all. He exhales a putrid carcasefed breath. +He grows to human size and shape. His dachshund coat becomes a brown +mortuary habit. His green eye flashes bloodshot. Half of one ear, all +the nose and both thumbs are ghouleaten.)_ + +PADDY DIGNAM: _(In a hollow voice)_ It is true. It was my funeral. +Doctor Finucane pronounced life extinct when I succumbed to the disease +from natural causes. + +_(He lifts his mutilated ashen face moonwards and bays lugubriously.)_ + +BLOOM: _(In triumph)_ You hear? + +PADDY DIGNAM: Bloom, I am Paddy Dignam's spirit. List, list, O list! + +BLOOM: The voice is the voice of Esau. + +SECOND WATCH: _(Blesses himself)_ How is that possible? + +FIRST WATCH: It is not in the penny catechism. + +PADDY DIGNAM: By metempsychosis. Spooks. + +A VOICE: O rocks. + +PADDY DIGNAM: _(Earnestly)_ Once I was in the employ of Mr J. H. Menton, +solicitor, commissioner for oaths and affidavits, of 27 Bachelor's Walk. +Now I am defunct, the wall of the heart hypertrophied. Hard lines. The +poor wife was awfully cut up. How is she bearing it? Keep her off that +bottle of sherry. _(He looks round him)_ A lamp. I must satisfy an +animal need. That buttermilk didn't agree with me. + +_(The portly figure of John O'Connell, caretaker, stands forth, holding +a bunch of keys tied with crape. Beside him stands Father Coffey, +chaplain, toadbellied, wrynecked, in a surplice and bandanna nightcap, +holding sleepily a staff twisted poppies.)_ + +FATHER COFFEY: _(Yawns, then chants with a hoarse croak)_ Namine. +Jacobs. Vobiscuits. Amen. + +JOHN O'CONNELL: _(Foghorns stormily through his megaphone)_ Dignam, +Patrick T, deceased. + +PADDY DIGNAM: _(With pricked up ears, winces)_ Overtones. _(He wriggles +forward and places an ear to the ground)_ My master's voice! + +JOHN O'CONNELL: Burial docket letter number U. P. eightyfive thousand. +Field seventeen. House of Keys. Plot, one hundred and one. + +_(Paddy Dignam listens with visible effort, thinking, his tail +stiffpointcd, his ears cocked.)_ + +PADDY DIGNAM: Pray for the repose of his soul. + +_(He worms down through a coalhole, his brown habit trailing its tether +over rattling pebbles. After him toddles an obese grandfather rat on +fungus turtle paws under a grey carapace. Dignam's voice, muffled, is +heard baying under ground:_ Dignam's dead and gone below. _Tom Rochford, +robinredbreasted, in cap and breeches, jumps from his twocolumned +machine.)_ + +TOM ROCHFORD: _(A hand to his breastbone, bows)_ Reuben J. A florin I +find him. _(He fixes the manhole with a resolute stare)_ My turn now on. +Follow me up to Carlow. + +_(He executes a daredevil salmon leap in the air and is engulfed in the +coalhole. Two discs on the columns wobble, eyes of nought. All recedes. +Bloom plodges forward again through the sump. Kisses chirp amid +the rifts of fog a piano sounds. He stands before a lighted house, +listening. The kisses, winging from their bowers fly about him, +twittering, warbling, cooing.)_ + +THE KISSES: _(Warbling)_ Leo! _(Twittering)_ Icky licky micky sticky for +Leo! _(Cooing)_ Coo coocoo! Yummyyum, Womwom! _(Warbling)_ Big comebig! +Pirouette! Leopopold! _(Twittering)_ Leeolee! _(Warbling)_ O Leo! + +_(They rustle, flutter upon his garments, alight, bright giddy flecks, +silvery sequins.)_ + +BLOOM: A man's touch. Sad music. Church music. Perhaps here. + +_(Zoe Higgins, a young whore in a sapphire slip, closed with three +bronze buckles, a slim black velvet fillet round her throat, nods, trips +down the steps and accosts him.)_ + +ZOE: Are you looking for someone? He's inside with his friend. + +BLOOM: Is this Mrs Mack's? + +ZOE: No, eightyone. Mrs Cohen's. You might go farther and fare worse. +Mother Slipperslapper. _(Familiarly)_ She's on the job herself tonight +with the vet her tipster that gives her all the winners and pays for +her son in Oxford. Working overtime but her luck's turned today. +_(Suspiciously)_ You're not his father, are you? + +BLOOM: Not I! + +ZOE: You both in black. Has little mousey any tickles tonight? + +_(His skin, alert, feels her fingertips approach. A hand glides over his +left thigh.)_ + +ZOE: How's the nuts? + +BLOOM: Off side. Curiously they are on the right. Heavier, I suppose. +One in a million my tailor, Mesias, says. + +ZOE: _(In sudden alarm)_ You've a hard chancre. + +BLOOM: Not likely. + +ZOE: I feel it. + +_(Her hand slides into his left trouser pocket and brings out a hard +black shrivelled potato. She regards it and Bloom with dumb moist +lips.)_ + +BLOOM: A talisman. Heirloom. + +ZOE: For Zoe? For keeps? For being so nice, eh? + +_(She puts the potato greedily into a pocket then links his arm, +cuddling him with supple warmth. He smiles uneasily. Slowly, note by +note, oriental music is played. He gazes in the tawny crystal of her +eyes, ringed with kohol. His smile softens.)_ + +ZOE: You'll know me the next time. + +BLOOM: _(Forlornly)_ I never loved a dear gazelle but it was sure to... + +_(Gazelles are leaping, feeding on the mountains. Near are lakes. Round +their shores file shadows black of cedargroves. Aroma rises, a strong +hairgrowth of resin. It burns, the orient, a sky of sapphire, cleft by +the bronze flight of eagles. Under it lies the womancity nude, white, +still, cool, in luxury. A fountain murmurs among damask roses. Mammoth +roses murmur of scarlet winegrapes. A wine of shame, lust, blood exudes, +strangely murmuring.)_ + +ZOE: _(Murmuring singsong with the music, her odalisk lips lusciously +smeared with salve of swinefat and rosewater) Schorach ani wenowach, +benoith Hierushaloim._ + +BLOOM: _(Fascinated)_ I thought you were of good stock by your accent. + +ZOE: And you know what thought did? + +_(She bites his ear gently with little goldstopped teeth, sending on +him a cloying breath of stale garlic. The roses draw apart, disclose a +sepulchre of the gold of kings and their mouldering bones.)_ + +BLOOM: _(Draws back, mechanically caressing her right bub with a flat +awkward hand)_ Are you a Dublin girl? + +ZOE: _(Catches a stray hair deftly and twists it to her coil)_ No bloody +fear. I'm English. Have you a swaggerroot? + +BLOOM: _(As before)_ Rarely smoke, dear. Cigar now and then. Childish +device. _(Lewdly)_ The mouth can be better engaged than with a cylinder +of rank weed. + +ZOE: Go on. Make a stump speech out of it. + +BLOOM: _(In workman's corduroy overalls, black gansy with red floating +tie and apache cap)_ Mankind is incorrigible. Sir Walter Ralegh brought +from the new world that potato and that weed, the one a killer of +pestilence by absorption, the other a poisoner of the ear, eye, heart, +memory, will understanding, all. That is to say he brought the poison +a hundred years before another person whose name I forget brought the +food. Suicide. Lies. All our habits. Why, look at our public life! + +_(Midnight chimes from distant steeples.)_ + +THE CHIMES: Turn again, Leopold! Lord mayor of Dublin! + +BLOOM: _(In alderman's gown and chain)_ Electors of Arran Quay, Inns +Quay, Rotunda, Mountjoy and North Dock, better run a tramline, I say, +from the cattlemarket to the river. That's the music of the future. +That's my programme. _Cui bono_? But our bucaneering Vanderdeckens in +their phantom ship of finance... + +AN ELECTOR: Three times three for our future chief magistrate! + +_(The aurora borealis of the torchlight procession leaps.)_ + +THE TORCHBEARERS: Hooray! + +_(Several wellknown burgesses, city magnates and freemen of the city +shake hands with Bloom and congratulate him. Timothy Harrington, late +thrice Lord Mayor of Dublin, imposing in mayoral scarlet, gold chain and +white silk tie, confers with councillor Lorcan Sherlock, locum tenens. +They nod vigorously in agreement.)_ + +LATE LORD MAYOR HARRINGTON: _(In scarlet robe with mace, gold mayoral +chain and large white silk scarf)_ That alderman sir Leo Bloom's speech +be printed at the expense of the ratepayers. That the house in which +he was born be ornamented with a commemorative tablet and that the +thoroughfare hitherto known as Cow Parlour off Cork street be henceforth +designated Boulevard Bloom. + +COUNCILLOR LORCAN SHERLOCK: Carried unanimously. + +BLOOM: _(Impassionedly)_ These flying Dutchmen or lying Dutchmen as +they recline in their upholstered poop, casting dice, what reck they? +Machines is their cry, their chimera, their panacea. Laboursaving +apparatuses, supplanters, bugbears, manufactured monsters for mutual +murder, hideous hobgoblins produced by a horde of capitalistic lusts +upon our prostituted labour. The poor man starves while they are +grassing their royal mountain stags or shooting peasants and phartridges +in their purblind pomp of pelf and power. But their reign is rover for +rever and ever and ev... + +_(Prolonged applause. Venetian masts, maypoles and festal arches spring +up. A streamer bearing the legends_ Cead Mile Failte _and_ Mah Ttob +Melek Israel _Spans the street. All the windows are thronged with +sightseers, chiefly ladies. Along the route the regiments of the +royal Dublin Fusiliers, the King's own Scottish Borderers, the Cameron +Highlanders and the Welsh Fusiliers standing to attention, keep back +the crowd. Boys from High school are perched on the lampposts, +telegraph poles, windowsills, cornices, gutters, chimneypots, railings, +rainspouts, whistling and cheering the pillar of the cloud appears. A +fife and drum band is heard in the distance playing the Kol Nidre. The +beaters approach with imperial eagles hoisted, trailing banners and +waving oriental palms. The chryselephantine papal standard rises high, +surrounded by pennons of the civic flag. The van of the procession +appears headed by John Howard Parnell, city marshal, in a chessboard +tabard, the Athlone Poursuivant and Ulster King of Arms. They are +followed by the Right Honourable Joseph Hutchinson, lord mayor of +Dublin, his lordship the lord mayor of Cork, their worships the +mayors of Limerick, Galway, Sligo and Waterford, twentyeight Irish +representative peers, sirdars, grandees and maharajahs bearing the cloth +of estate, the Dublin Metropolitan Fire Brigade, the chapter of the +saints of finance in their plutocratic order of precedence, the bishop +of Down and Connor, His Eminence Michael cardinal Logue, archbishop of +Armagh, primate of all Ireland, His Grace, the most reverend Dr William +Alexander, archbishop of Armagh, primate of all Ireland, the chief +rabbi, the presbyterian moderator, the heads of the baptist, anabaptist, +methodist and Moravian chapels and the honorary secretary of the society +of friends. After them march the guilds and trades and trainbands +with flying colours: coopers, bird fanciers, millwrights, newspaper +canvassers, law scriveners, masseurs, vintners, trussmakers, +chimneysweeps, lard refiners, tabinet and poplin weavers, farriers, +Italian warehousemen, church decorators, bootjack manufacturers, +undertakers, silk mercers, lapidaries, salesmasters, corkcutters, +assessors of fire losses, dyers and cleaners, export bottlers, +fellmongers, ticketwriters, heraldic seal engravers, horse repository +hands, bullion brokers, cricket and archery outfitters, riddlemakers, +egg and potato factors, hosiers and glovers, plumbing contractors. After +them march gentlemen of the bedchamber, Black Rod, Deputy Garter, +Gold Stick, the master of horse, the lord great chamberlain, the earl +marshal, the high constable carrying the sword of state, saint Stephen's +iron crown, the chalice and bible. Four buglers on foot blow a sennet. +Beefeaters reply, winding clarions of welcome. Under an arch of triumph +Bloom appears, bareheaded, in a crimson velvet mantle trimmed with +ermine, bearing Saint Edward's staff the orb and sceptre with the dove, +the curtana. He is seated on a milkwhite horse with long flowing crimson +tail, richly caparisoned, with golden headstall. Wild excitement. The +ladies from their balconies throw down rosepetals. The air is perfumed +with essences. The men cheer. Bloom's boys run amid the bystanders with +branches of hawthorn and wrenbushes.)_ + +BLOOM'S BOYS: + + The wren, the wren, + The king of all birds, + Saint Stephen's his day + Was caught in the furze. + + +A BLACKSMITH: _(Murmurs)_ For the honour of God! And is that Bloom? He +scarcely looks thirtyone. + +A PAVIOR AND FLAGGER: That's the famous Bloom now, the world's greatest +reformer. Hats off! + +_(All uncover their heads. Women whisper eagerly.)_ + +A MILLIONAIRESS: _(Richly)_ Isn't he simply wonderful? + +A NOBLEWOMAN: _(Nobly)_ All that man has seen! + +A FEMINIST: _(Masculinely)_ And done! + +A BELLHANGER: A classic face! He has the forehead of a thinker. + +_(Bloom's weather. A sunburst appears in the northwest.)_ + +THE BISHOP OF DOWN AND CONNOR: I here present your undoubted +emperor-president and king-chairman, the most serene and potent and very +puissant ruler of this realm. God save Leopold the First! + +ALL: God save Leopold the First! + +BLOOM: _(In dalmatic and purple mantle, to the bishop of Down and +Connor, with dignity)_ Thanks, somewhat eminent sir. + +WILLIAM, ARCHBISHOP OF ARMAGH: _(In purple stock and shovel hat)_ +Will you to your power cause law and mercy to be executed in all your +judgments in Ireland and territories thereunto belonging? + +BLOOM: _(Placing his right hand on his testicles, swears)_ So may the +Creator deal with me. All this I promise to do. + +MICHAEL, ARCHBISHOP OF ARMAGH: _(Pours a cruse of hairoil over Bloom's +head) Gaudium magnum annuntio vobis. Habemus carneficem._ Leopold, +Patrick, Andrew, David, George, be thou anointed! + +_(Bloom assumes a mantle of cloth of gold and puts on a ruby ring. He +ascends and stands on the stone of destiny. The representative peers put +on at the same time their twentyeight crowns. Joybells ring in Christ +church, Saint Patrick's, George's and gay Malahide. Mirus bazaar +fireworks go up from all sides with symbolical phallopyrotechnic +designs. The peers do homage, one by one, approaching and +genuflecting.)_ + +THE PEERS: I do become your liege man of life and limb to earthly +worship. + +_(Bloom holds up his right hand on which sparkles the Koh-i-Noor +diamond. His palfrey neighs. Immediate silence. Wireless +intercontinental and interplanetary transmitters are set for reception +of message.)_ + +BLOOM: My subjects! We hereby nominate our faithful charger Copula Felix +hereditary Grand Vizier and announce that we have this day repudiated +our former spouse and have bestowed our royal hand upon the princess +Selene, the splendour of night. + +_(The former morganatic spouse of Bloom is hastily removed in the Black +Maria. The princess Selene, in moonblue robes, a silver crescent on her +head, descends from a Sedan chair, borne by two giants. An outburst of +cheering.)_ + +JOHN HOWARD PARNELL: _(Raises the royal standard)_ Illustrious Bloom! +Successor to my famous brother! + +BLOOM: _(Embraces John Howard Parnell)_ We thank you from our heart, +John, for this right royal welcome to green Erin, the promised land of +our common ancestors. + +_(The freedom of the city is presented to him embodied in a charter. The +keys of Dublin, crossed on a crimson cushion, are given to him. He shows +all that he is wearing green socks.)_ + +TOM KERNAN: You deserve it, your honour. + +BLOOM: On this day twenty years ago we overcame the hereditary enemy at +Ladysmith. Our howitzers and camel swivel guns played on his lines with +telling effect. Half a league onward! They charge! All is lost now! Do +we yield? No! We drive them headlong! Lo! We charge! Deploying to the +left our light horse swept across the heights of Plevna and, uttering +their warcry _Bonafide Sabaoth_, sabred the Saracen gunners to a man. + +THE CHAPEL OF FREEMAN TYPESETTERS: Hear! Hear! + +JOHN WYSE NOLAN: There's the man that got away James Stephens. + +A BLUECOAT SCHOOLBOY: Bravo! + +AN OLD RESIDENT: You're a credit to your country, sir, that's what you +are. + +AN APPLEWOMAN: He's a man like Ireland wants. + +BLOOM: My beloved subjects, a new era is about to dawn. I, Bloom, tell +you verily it is even now at hand. Yea, on the word of a Bloom, ye shall +ere long enter into the golden city which is to be, the new Bloomusalem +in the Nova Hibernia of the future. + +_(Thirtytwo workmen, wearing rosettes, from all the counties of Ireland, +under the guidance of Derwan the builder, construct the new Bloomusalem. +It is a colossal edifice with crystal roof, built in the shape of a +huge pork kidney, containing forty thousand rooms. In the course of its +extension several buildings and monuments are demolished. Government +offices are temporarily transferred to railway sheds. Numerous houses +are razed to the ground. The inhabitants are lodged in barrels and +boxes, all marked in red with the letters: L. B. several paupers +fill from a ladder. A part of the walls of Dublin, crowded with loyal +sightseers, collapses.)_ + +THE SIGHTSEERS: _(Dying) Morituri te salutant. (They die)_ + +_(A man in a brown macintosh springs up through a trapdoor. He points an +elongated finger at Bloom.)_ + +THE MAN IN THE MACINTOSH: Don't you believe a word he says. That man is +Leopold M'Intosh, the notorious fireraiser. His real name is Higgins. + +BLOOM: Shoot him! Dog of a christian! So much for M'Intosh! + +_(A cannonshot. The man in the macintosh disappears. Bloom with his +sceptre strikes down poppies. The instantaneous deaths of many +powerful enemies, graziers, members of parliament, members of standing +committees, are reported. Bloom's bodyguard distribute Maundy money, +commemoration medals, loaves and fishes, temperance badges, expensive +Henry Clay cigars, free cowbones for soup, rubber preservatives in +sealed envelopes tied with gold thread, butter scotch, pineapple rock,_ +billets doux _in the form of cocked hats, readymade suits, porringers +of toad in the hole, bottles of Jeyes' Fluid, purchase stamps, 40 days' +indulgences, spurious coins, dairyfed pork sausages, theatre passes, +season tickets available for all tramlines, coupons of the royal and +privileged Hungarian lottery, penny dinner counters, cheap reprints of +the World's Twelve Worst Books: Froggy And Fritz (politic), Care of the +Baby (infantilic), 50 Meals for 7/6 (culinic), Was Jesus a Sun Myth? +(historic), Expel that Pain (medic), Infant's Compendium of the +Universe (cosmic), Let's All Chortle (hilaric), Canvasser's Vade Mecum +(journalic), Loveletters of Mother Assistant (erotic), Who's Who in +Space (astric), Songs that Reached Our Heart (melodic), Pennywise's Way +to Wealth (parsimonic). A general rush and scramble. Women press forward +to touch the hem of Bloom's robe. The Lady Gwendolen Dubedat bursts +through the throng, leaps on his horse and kisses him on both cheeks +amid great acclamation. A magnesium flashlight photograph is taken. +Babes and sucklings are held up.)_ + +THE WOMEN: Little father! Little father! + +THE BABES AND SUCKLINGS: + + Clap clap hands till Poldy comes home, + Cakes in his pocket for Leo alone. + + +_(Bloom, bending down, pokes Baby Boardman gently in the stomach.)_ + +BABY BOARDMAN: _(Hiccups, curdled milk flowing from his mouth)_ +Hajajaja. + +BLOOM: _(Shaking hands with a blind stripling)_ My more than Brother! +_(Placing his arms round the shoulders of an old couple)_ Dear old +friends! _(He plays pussy fourcorners with ragged boys and girls)_ +Peep! Bopeep! _(He wheels twins in a perambulator)_ Ticktacktwo +wouldyousetashoe? _(He performs juggler's tricks, draws red, orange, +yellow, green, blue, indigo and violet silk handkerchiefs from his +mouth)_ Roygbiv. 32 feet per second. _(He consoles a widow)_ Absence +makes the heart grow younger. _(He dances the Highland fling with +grotesque antics)_ Leg it, ye devils! _(He kisses the bedsores of a +palsied veteran_) Honourable wounds! _(He trips up a fit policeman)_ +U. p: up. U. p: up. _(He whispers in the ear of a blushing waitress and +laughs kindly)_ Ah, naughty, naughty! _(He eats a raw turnip offered +him by Maurice Butterly, farmer)_ Fine! Splendid! _(He refuses to +accept three shillings offered him by Joseph Hynes, journalist)_ My dear +fellow, not at all! (He gives his coat to a beggar) Please accept. _(He +takes part in a stomach race with elderly male and female cripples)_ +Come on, boys! Wriggle it, girls! + +THE CITIZEN: _(Choked with emotion, brushes aside a tear in his emerald +muffler)_ May the good God bless him! + +_(The rams' horns sound for silence. The standard of Zion is hoisted.)_ + +BLOOM: _(Uncloaks impressively, revealing obesity, unrolls a paper and +reads solemnly)_ Aleph Beth Ghimel Daleth Hagadah Tephilim Kosher Yom +Kippur Hanukah Roschaschana Beni Brith Bar Mitzvah Mazzoth Askenazim +Meshuggah Talith. + +_(An official translation is read by Jimmy Henry, assistant town +clerk.)_ + +JIMMY HENRY: The Court of Conscience is now open. His Most Catholic +Majesty will now administer open air justice. Free medical and legal +advice, solution of doubles and other problems. All cordially invited. +Given at this our loyal city of Dublin in the year I of the Paradisiacal +Era. + +PADDY LEONARD: What am I to do about my rates and taxes? + +BLOOM: Pay them, my friend. + +PADDY LEONARD: Thank you. + +NOSEY FLYNN: Can I raise a mortgage on my fire insurance? + +BLOOM: _(Obdurately)_ Sirs, take notice that by the law of torts you are +bound over in your own recognisances for six months in the sum of five +pounds. + +J. J. O'MOLLOY: A Daniel did I say? Nay! A Peter O'Brien! + +NOSEY FLYNN: Where do I draw the five pounds? + +PISSER BURKE: For bladder trouble? + +BLOOM: + + _Acid. nit. hydrochlor. dil.,_ 20 minims + _Tinct. nux vom.,_ 5 minims + _Extr. taraxel. iiq.,_ 30 minims. + _Aq. dis. ter in die._ + +CHRIS CALLINAN: What is the parallax of the subsolar ecliptic of +Aldebaran? + +BLOOM: Pleased to hear from you, Chris. K. II. + +JOE HYNES: Why aren't you in uniform? + +BLOOM: When my progenitor of sainted memory wore the uniform of the +Austrian despot in a dank prison where was yours? + +BEN DOLLARD: Pansies? + +BLOOM: Embellish (beautify) suburban gardens. + +BEN DOLLARD: When twins arrive? + +BLOOM: Father (pater, dad) starts thinking. + +LARRY O'ROURKE: An eightday licence for my new premises. You remember +me, sir Leo, when you were in number seven. I'm sending around a dozen +of stout for the missus. + +BLOOM: _(Coldly)_ You have the advantage of me. Lady Bloom accepts no +presents. + +CROFTON: This is indeed a festivity. + +BLOOM: _(Solemnly)_ You call it a festivity. I call it a sacrament. + +ALEXANDER KEYES: When will we have our own house of keys? + +BLOOM: I stand for the reform of municipal morals and the plain ten +commandments. New worlds for old. Union of all, jew, moslem and gentile. +Three acres and a cow for all children of nature. Saloon motor hearses. +Compulsory manual labour for all. All parks open to the public day and +night. Electric dishscrubbers. Tuberculosis, lunacy, war and mendicancy +must now cease. General amnesty, weekly carnival with masked licence, +bonuses for all, esperanto the universal language with universal +brotherhood. No more patriotism of barspongers and dropsical impostors. +Free money, free rent, free love and a free lay church in a free lay +state. + +O'MADDEN BURKE: Free fox in a free henroost. + +DAVY BYRNE: _(Yawning)_ Iiiiiiiiiaaaaaaach! + +BLOOM: Mixed races and mixed marriage. + +LENEHAN: What about mixed bathing? + +_(bloom explains to those near him his schemes for social regeneration. +All agree with him. The keeper of the Kildare Street Museum appears, +dragging a lorry on which are the shaking statues of several naked +goddesses, Venus Callipyge, Venus Pandemos, Venus Metempsychosis, and +plaster figures, also naked, representing the new nine muses, Commerce, +Operatic Music, Amor, Publicity, Manufacture, Liberty of Speech, Plural +Voting, Gastronomy, Private Hygiene, Seaside Concert Entertainments, +Painless Obstetrics and Astronomy for the People.)_ + +FATHER FARLEY: He is an episcopalian, an agnostic, an anythingarian +seeking to overthrow our holy faith. + +MRS RIORDAN: _(Tears up her will)_ I'm disappointed in you! You bad man! + +MOTHER GROGAN: _(Removes her boot to throw it at Bloom)_ You beast! You +abominable person! + +NOSEY FLYNN: Give us a tune, Bloom. One of the old sweet songs. + +BLOOM: _(With rollicking humour)_ + + I vowed that I never would leave her, + She turned out a cruel deceiver. + With my tooraloom tooraloom tooraloom tooraloom. + +HOPPY HOLOHAN: Good old Bloom! There's nobody like him after all. + +PADDY LEONARD: Stage Irishman! + +BLOOM: What railway opera is like a tramline in Gibraltar? The Rows of +Casteele._(Laughter.)_ + +LENEHAN: Plagiarist! Down with Bloom! + +THE VEILED SIBYL: _(Enthusiastically)_ I'm a Bloomite and I glory in it. +I believe in him in spite of all. I'd give my life for him, the funniest +man on earth. + +BLOOM: _(Winks at the bystanders)_ I bet she's a bonny lassie. + +THEODORE PUREFOY: _(In fishingcap and oilskin jacket)_ He employs a +mechanical device to frustrate the sacred ends of nature. + +THE VEILED SIBYL: _(Stabs herself)_ My hero god! _(She dies)_ + +_(Many most attractive and enthusiastic women also commit suicide by +stabbing, drowning, drinking prussic acid, aconite, arsenic, opening +their veins, refusing food, casting themselves under steamrollers, from +the top of Nelson's Pillar, into the great vat of Guinness's brewery, +asphyxiating themselves by placing their heads in gasovens, hanging +themselves in stylish garters, leaping from windows of different +storeys.)_ + +ALEXANDER J DOWIE: _(Violently)_ Fellowchristians and antiBloomites, the +man called Bloom is from the roots of hell, a disgrace to christian +men. A fiendish libertine from his earliest years this stinking goat +of Mendes gave precocious signs of infantile debauchery, recalling the +cities of the plain, with a dissolute granddam. This vile hypocrite, +bronzed with infamy, is the white bull mentioned in the Apocalypse. +A worshipper of the Scarlet Woman, intrigue is the very breath of his +nostrils. The stake faggots and the caldron of boiling oil are for him. +Caliban! + +THE MOB: Lynch him! Roast him! He's as bad as Parnell was. Mr Fox! + +_(Mother Grogan throws her boot at Bloom. Several shopkeepers from upper +and lower Dorset street throw objects of little or no commercial value, +hambones, condensed milk tins, unsaleable cabbage, stale bread, sheep's +tails, odd pieces of fat.)_ + +BLOOM: _(Excitedly)_ This is midsummer madness, some ghastly joke again. +By heaven, I am guiltless as the unsunned snow! It was my brother Henry. +He is my double. He lives in number 2 Dolphin's Barn. Slander, the +viper, has wrongfully accused me. Fellowcountrymen, _sgenl inn ban bata +coisde gan capall._ I call on my old friend, Dr Malachi Mulligan, sex +specialist, to give medical testimony on my behalf. + +DR MULLIGAN: _(In motor jerkin, green motorgoggles on his brow)_ Dr +Bloom is bisexually abnormal. He has recently escaped from Dr Eustace's +private asylum for demented gentlemen. Born out of bedlock hereditary +epilepsy is present, the consequence of unbridled lust. Traces of +elephantiasis have been discovered among his ascendants. There are +marked symptoms of chronic exhibitionism. Ambidexterity is also +latent. He is prematurely bald from selfabuse, perversely idealistic in +consequence, a reformed rake, and has metal teeth. In consequence of a +family complex he has temporarily lost his memory and I believe him +to be more sinned against than sinning. I have made a pervaginal +examination and, after application of the acid test to 5427 anal, +axillary, pectoral and pubic hairs, I declare him to be _virgo intacta._ + +_(Bloom holds his high grade hat over his genital organs.)_ + +DR MADDEN: Hypsospadia is also marked. In the interest of coming +generations I suggest that the parts affected should be preserved in +spirits of wine in the national teratological museum. + +DR CROTTHERS: I have examined the patient's urine. It is albuminoid. +Salivation is insufficient, the patellar reflex intermittent. + +DR PUNCH COSTELLO: The _fetor judaicus_ is most perceptible. + +DR DIXON: _(Reads a bill of health)_ Professor Bloom is a finished +example of the new womanly man. His moral nature is simple and lovable. +Many have found him a dear man, a dear person. He is a rather quaint +fellow on the whole, coy though not feebleminded in the medical sense. +He has written a really beautiful letter, a poem in itself, to the court +missionary of the Reformed Priests' Protection Society which clears up +everything. He is practically a total abstainer and I can affirm that +he sleeps on a straw litter and eats the most Spartan food, cold dried +grocer's peas. He wears a hairshirt of pure Irish manufacture winter and +summer and scourges himself every Saturday. He was, I understand, at one +time a firstclass misdemeanant in Glencree reformatory. Another report +states that he was a very posthumous child. I appeal for clemency in the +name of the most sacred word our vocal organs have ever been called upon +to speak. He is about to have a baby. + +_(General commotion and compassion. Women faint. A wealthy American +makes a street collection for Bloom. Gold and silver coins, blank +cheques, banknotes, jewels, treasury bonds, maturing bills of exchange, +I. O. U's, wedding rings, watchchains, lockets, necklaces and bracelets +are rapidly collected.)_ + +BLOOM: O, I so want to be a mother. + +MRS THORNTON: _(In nursetender's gown)_ Embrace me tight, dear. You'll +be soon over it. Tight, dear. + +_(Bloom embraces her tightly and bears eight male yellow and white +children. They appear on a redcarpeted staircase adorned with expensive +plants. All the octuplets are handsome, with valuable metallic faces, +wellmade, respectably dressed and wellconducted, speaking five modern +languages fluently and interested in various arts and sciences. Each +has his name printed in legible letters on his shirtfront: Nasodoro, +Goldfinger, Chrysostomos, Maindoree, Silversmile, Silberselber, +Vifargent, Panargyros. They are immediately appointed to positions of +high public trust in several different countries as managing directors +of banks, traffic managers of railways, chairmen of limited liability +companies, vicechairmen of hotel syndicates.)_ + +A VOICE: Bloom, are you the Messiah ben Joseph or ben David? + +BLOOM: _(Darkly)_ You have said it. + +BROTHER BUZZ: Then perform a miracle like Father Charles. + +BANTAM LYONS: Prophesy who will win the Saint Leger. + +_(Bloom walks on a net, covers his left eye with his left ear, passes +through several walls, climbs Nelson's Pillar, hangs from the top ledge +by his eyelids, eats twelve dozen oysters (shells included), heals +several sufferers from king's evil, contracts his face so as to resemble +many historical personages, Lord Beaconsfield, Lord Byron, Wat Tyler, +Moses of Egypt, Moses Maimonides, Moses Mendelssohn, Henry Irving, Rip +van Winkle, Kossuth, Jean Jacques Rousseau, Baron Leopold Rothschild, +Robinson Crusoe, Sherlock Holmes, Pasteur, turns each foot +simultaneously in different directions, bids the tide turn back, +eclipses the sun by extending his little finger.)_ + +BRINI, PAPAL NUNCIO: _(In papal zouave's uniform, steel cuirasses as +breastplate, armplates, thighplates, legplates, large profane moustaches +and brown paper mitre) Leopoldi autem generatio._ Moses begat Noah +and Noah begat Eunuch and Eunuch begat O'Halloran and O'Halloran begat +Guggenheim and Guggenheim begat Agendath and Agendath begat Netaim and +Netaim begat Le Hirsch and Le Hirsch begat Jesurum and Jesurum begat +MacKay and MacKay begat Ostrolopsky and Ostrolopsky begat Smerdoz +and Smerdoz begat Weiss and Weiss begat Schwarz and Schwarz begat +Adrianopoli and Adrianopoli begat Aranjuez and Aranjuez begat Lewy +Lawson and Lewy Lawson begat Ichabudonosor and Ichabudonosor begat +O'Donnell Magnus and O'Donnell Magnus begat Christbaum and Christbaum +begat ben Maimun and ben Maimun begat Dusty Rhodes and Dusty Rhodes +begat Benamor and Benamor begat Jones-Smith and Jones-Smith begat +Savorgnanovich and Savorgnanovich begat Jasperstone and Jasperstone +begat Vingtetunieme and Vingtetunieme begat Szombathely and Szombathely +begat Virag and Virag begat Bloom _et vocabitur nomen eius Emmanuel._ + +A DEADHAND: _(Writes on the wall)_ Bloom is a cod. + +CRAB: _(In bushranger's kit)_ What did you do in the cattlecreep behind +Kilbarrack? + +A FEMALE INFANT: _(Shakes a rattle)_ And under Ballybough bridge? + +A HOLLYBUSH: And in the devil's glen? + +BLOOM: _(Blushes furiously all over from frons to nates, three tears +filling from his left eye)_ Spare my past. + +THE IRISH EVICTED TENANTS: _(In bodycoats, kneebreeches, with Donnybrook +fair shillelaghs)_ Sjambok him! + +_(Bloom with asses' ears seats himself in the pillory with crossed arms, +his feet protruding. He whistles_ Don Giovanni, a cenar teco. _Artane +orphans, joining hands, caper round him. Girls of the Prison Gate +Mission, joining hands, caper round in the opposite direction.)_ + +THE ARTANE ORPHANS: + + You hig, you hog, you dirty dog! + You think the ladies love you! + THE PRISON GATE GIRLS: + + + If you see Kay + Tell him he may + See you in tea + Tell him from me. + +HORNBLOWER: _(In ephod and huntingcap, announces)_ And he shall carry +the sins of the people to Azazel, the spirit which is in the wilderness, +and to Lilith, the nighthag. And they shall stone him and defile him, +yea, all from Agendath Netaim and from Mizraim, the land of Ham. + +_(All the people cast soft pantomime stones at Bloom. Many bonafide +travellers and ownerless dogs come near him and defile him. Mastiansky +and Citron approach in gaberdines, wearing long earlocks. They wag their +beards at Bloom.)_ + +MASTIANSKY AND CITRON: Belial! Laemlein of Istria, the false Messiah! +Abulafia! Recant! + +_(George R Mesias, Bloom's tailor, appears, a tailor's goose under his +arm, presenting a bill)_ + +MESIAS: To alteration one pair trousers eleven shillings. + +BLOOM: _(Rubs his hands cheerfully)_ Just like old times. Poor Bloom! + +_(Reuben J Dodd, blackbearded iscariot, bad shepherd, bearing on his +shoulders the drowned corpse of his son, approaches the pillory.)_ + +REUBEN J: _(Whispers hoarsely)_ The squeak is out. A split is gone for +the flatties. Nip the first rattler. + +THE FIRE BRIGADE: Pflaap! + +BROTHER BUZZ: _(Invests Bloom in a yellow habit with embroidery of +painted flames and high pointed hat. He places a bag of gunpowder round +his neck and hands him over to the civil power, saying)_ Forgive him his +trespasses. + +_(Lieutenant Myers of the Dublin Fire Brigade by general request sets +fire to Bloom. Lamentations.)_ + +THE CITIZEN: Thank heaven! + +BLOOM: _(In a seamless garment marked I. H. S. stands upright amid +phoenix flames)_ Weep not for me, O daughters of Erin. + +_(He exhibits to Dublin reporters traces of burning. The daughters of +Erin, in black garments, with large prayerbooks and long lighted candles +in their hands, kneel down and pray.)_ + +THE DAUGHTERS OF ERIN: + + Kidney of Bloom, pray for us + Flower of the Bath, pray for us + Mentor of Menton, pray for us + Canvasser for the Freeman, pray for us + Charitable Mason, pray for us + Wandering Soap, pray for us + Sweets of Sin, pray for us + Music without Words, pray for us + Reprover of the Citizen, pray for us + Friend of all Frillies, pray for us + Midwife Most Merciful, pray for us + Potato Preservative against Plague and Pestilence, pray for us. + +_(A choir of six hundred voices, conducted by Vincent O'brien, sings +the chorus from Handel's Messiah alleluia for the lord god omnipotent +reigneth, accompanied on the organ by Joseph Glynn. Bloom becomes mute, +shrunken, carbonised.)_ + + +ZOE: Talk away till you're black in the face. + +BLOOM: _(In caubeen with clay pipe stuck in the band, dusty brogues, an +emigrant's red handkerchief bundle in his hand, leading a black bogoak +pig by a sugaun, with a smile in his eye)_ Let me be going now, woman of +the house, for by all the goats in Connemara I'm after having the +father and mother of a bating. _(With a tear in his eye)_ All insanity. +Patriotism, sorrow for the dead, music, future of the race. To be or not +to be. Life's dream is o'er. End it peacefully. They can live on. _(He +gazes far away mournfully)_ I am ruined. A few pastilles of aconite. The +blinds drawn. A letter. Then lie back to rest. _(He breathes softly)_ No +more. I have lived. Fare. Farewell. + +ZOE: _(Stiffly, her finger in her neckfillet)_ Honest? Till the next +time. _(She sneers)_ Suppose you got up the wrong side of the bed or +came too quick with your best girl. O, I can read your thoughts! + +BLOOM: _(Bitterly)_ Man and woman, love, what is it? A cork and bottle. +I'm sick of it. Let everything rip. + +ZOE: _(In sudden sulks)_ I hate a rotter that's insincere. Give a +bleeding whore a chance. + +BLOOM: _(Repentantly)_ I am very disagreeable. You are a necessary evil. +Where are you from? London? + +ZOE: _(Glibly)_ Hog's Norton where the pigs plays the organs. I'm +Yorkshire born. _(She holds his hand which is feeling for her nipple)_ +I say, Tommy Tittlemouse. Stop that and begin worse. Have you cash for a +short time? Ten shillings? + +BLOOM: _(Smiles, nods slowly)_ More, houri, more. + +ZOE: And more's mother? _(She pats him offhandedly with velvet paws)_ +Are you coming into the musicroom to see our new pianola? Come and I'll +peel off. + +BLOOM: _(Feeling his occiput dubiously with the unparalleled +embarrassment of a harassed pedlar gauging the symmetry of her peeled +pears)_ Somebody would be dreadfully jealous if she knew. The greeneyed +monster. _(Earnestly)_ You know how difficult it is. I needn't tell you. + +ZOE: _(Flattered)_ What the eye can't see the heart can't grieve for. +_(She pats him)_ Come. + +BLOOM: Laughing witch! The hand that rocks the cradle. + +ZOE: Babby! + +BLOOM: _(In babylinen and pelisse, bigheaded, with a caul of dark hair, +fixes big eyes on her fluid slip and counts its bronze buckles with a +chubby finger, his moist tongue lolling and lisping)_ One two tlee: tlee +tlwo tlone. + +THE BUCKLES: Love me. Love me not. Love me. + +ZOE: Silent means consent. _(With little parted talons she captures his +hand, her forefinger giving to his palm the passtouch of secret monitor, +luring him to doom.)_ Hot hands cold gizzard. + +_(He hesitates amid scents, music, temptations. She leads him towards +the steps, drawing him by the odour of her armpits, the vice of her +painted eyes, the rustle of her slip in whose sinuous folds lurks the +lion reek of all the male brutes that have possessed her.)_ + +THE MALE BRUTES: _(Exhaling sulphur of rut and dung and ramping in their +loosebox, faintly roaring, their drugged heads swaying to and fro)_ +Good! + +_(Zoe and Bloom reach the doorway where two sister whores are seated. +They examine him curiously from under their pencilled brows and smile to +his hasty bow. He trips awkwardly.)_ + +ZOE: _(Her lucky hand instantly saving him)_ Hoopsa! Don't fall +upstairs. + +BLOOM: The just man falls seven times. _(He stands aside at the +threshold)_ After you is good manners. + +ZOE: Ladies first, gentlemen after. + +_(She crosses the threshold. He hesitates. She turns and, holding out +her hands, draws him over. He hops. On the antlered rack of the hall +hang a man 's hat and waterproof. Bloom uncovers himself but, seeing +them, frowns, then smiles, preoccupied. A door on the return landing is +flung open. A man in purple shirt and grey trousers, brownsocked, passes +with an ape's gait, his bald head and goatee beard upheld, hugging a +full waterjugjar, his twotailed black braces dangling at heels. Averting +his face quickly Bloom bends to examine on the halltable the spaniel +eyes of a running fox: then, his lifted head sniffing, follows Zoe +into the musicroom. A shade of mauve tissuepaper dims the light of the +chandelier. Round and round a moth flies, colliding, escaping. The +floor is covered with an oilcloth mosaic of jade and azure and cinnabar +rhomboids. Footmarks are stamped over it in all senses, heel to heel, +heel to hollow, toe to toe, feet locked, a morris of shuffling feet +without body phantoms, all in a scrimmage higgledypiggledy. The walls +are tapestried with a paper of yewfronds and clear glades. In the grate +is spread a screen of peacock feathers. Lynch squats crosslegged on +the hearthrug of matted hair, his cap back to the front. With a wand he +beats time slowly. Kitty Ricketts, a bony pallid whore in navy costume, +doeskin gloves rolled back from a coral wristlet, a chain purse in +her hand, sits perched on the edge of the table swinging her leg and +glancing at herself in the gilt mirror over the mantelpiece. A tag +of her corsetlace hangs slightly below her jacket. Lynch indicates +mockingly the couple at the piano.)_ + +KITTY: _(Coughs behind her hand)_ She's a bit imbecillic. _(She signs +with a waggling forefinger)_ Blemblem. _(Lynch lifts up her skirt and +white petticoat with his wand she settles them down quickly.)_ Respect +yourself. _(She hiccups, then bends quickly her sailor hat under which +her hair glows, red with henna)_ O, excuse! + +ZOE: More limelight, Charley. _(She goes to the chandelier and turns the +gas full cock)_ + +KITTY: _(Peers at the gasjet)_ What ails it tonight? + +LYNCH: _(Deeply)_ Enter a ghost and hobgoblins. + +ZOE: Clap on the back for Zoe. + +_(The wand in Lynch's hand flashes: a brass poker. Stephen stands at +the pianola on which sprawl his hat and ashplant. With two fingers he +repeats once more the series of empty fifths. Florry Talbot, a blond +feeble goosefat whore in a tatterdemalion gown of mildewed strawberry, +lolls spreadeagle in the sofacorner, her limp forearm pendent over the +bolster, listening. A heavy stye droops over her sleepy eyelid.)_ + +KITTY: _(Hiccups again with a kick of her horsed foot)_ O, excuse! + +ZOE: _(Promptly)_ Your boy's thinking of you. Tie a knot on your shift. + +_(Kitty Ricketts bends her head. Her boa uncoils, slides, glides over +her shoulder, back, arm, chair to the ground. Lynch lifts the curled +caterpillar on his wand. She snakes her neck, nestling. Stephen glances +behind at the squatted figure with its cap back to the front.)_ + +STEPHEN: As a matter of fact it is of no importance whether Benedetto +Marcello found it or made it. The rite is the poet's rest. It may be an +old hymn to Demeter or also illustrate _Coela enarrant gloriam Domini._ +It is susceptible of nodes or modes as far apart as hyperphrygian and +mixolydian and of texts so divergent as priests haihooping round David's +that is Circe's or what am I saying Ceres' altar and David's tip +from the stable to his chief bassoonist about the alrightness of his +almightiness. _Mais nom de nom,_ that is another pair of trousers. +_Jetez la gourme. Faut que jeunesse se passe. (He stops, points at +Lynch's cap, smiles, laughs)_ Which side is your knowledge bump? + +THE CAP: _(With saturnine spleen)_ Bah! It is because it is. Woman's +reason. Jewgreek is greekjew. Extremes meet. Death is the highest form +of life. Bah! + +STEPHEN: You remember fairly accurately all my errors, boasts, mistakes. +How long shall I continue to close my eyes to disloyalty? Whetstone! + +THE CAP: Bah! + +STEPHEN: Here's another for you. _(He frowns)_ The reason is because +the fundamental and the dominant are separated by the greatest possible +interval which... + +THE CAP: Which? Finish. You can't. + +STEPHEN: _(With an effort)_ Interval which. Is the greatest possible +ellipse. Consistent with. The ultimate return. The octave. Which. + +THE CAP: Which? + +_(Outside the gramophone begins to blare_ The Holy City.) + +STEPHEN: _(Abruptly)_ What went forth to the ends of the world to +traverse not itself, God, the sun, Shakespeare, a commercial traveller, +having itself traversed in reality itself becomes that self. Wait a +moment. Wait a second. Damn that fellow's noise in the street. Self +which it itself was ineluctably preconditioned to become. _Ecco!_ + +LYNCH: _(With a mocking whinny of laughter grins at Bloom and Zoe +Higgins)_ What a learned speech, eh? + +ZOE: _(Briskly)_ God help your head, he knows more than you have +forgotten. + +_(With obese stupidity Florry Talbot regards Stephen.)_ + +FLORRY: They say the last day is coming this summer. + +KITTY: No! + +ZOE: _(Explodes in laughter)_ Great unjust God! + +FLORRY: _(Offended)_ Well, it was in the papers about Antichrist. O, my +foot's tickling. + +_(Ragged barefoot newsboys, jogging a wagtail kite, patter past, +yelling.)_ + +THE NEWSBOYS: Stop press edition. Result of the rockinghorse races. Sea +serpent in the royal canal. Safe arrival of Antichrist. + +_(Stephen turns and sees Bloom.)_ + +STEPHEN: A time, times and half a time. + +_(Reuben I Antichrist, wandering jew, a clutching hand open on his +spine, stumps forward. Across his loins is slung a pilgrim's wallet from +which protrude promissory notes and dishonoured bills. Aloft over his +shoulder he bears a long boatpole from the hook of which the sodden +huddled mass of his only son, saved from Liffey waters, hangs from +the slack of its breeches. A hobgoblin in the image of Punch Costello, +hipshot, crookbacked, hydrocephalic, prognathic with receding forehead +and Ally Sloper nose, tumbles in somersaults through the gathering +darkness.)_ + +ALL: What? + +THE HOBGOBLIN: _(His jaws chattering, capers to and fro, goggling his +eyes, squeaking, kangaroohopping with outstretched clutching arms, then +all at once thrusts his lipless face through the fork of his thighs) Il +vient! C'est moi! L'homme qui rit! L'homme primigene! (He whirls round +and round with dervish howls) Sieurs et dames, faites vos jeux! (He +crouches juggling. Tiny roulette planets fly from his hands.) Les jeux +sont faits! (The planets rush together, uttering crepitant cracks) Rien +va plus! (The planets, buoyant balloons, sail swollen up and away. He +springs off into vacuum.)_ + +FLORRY: _(Sinking into torpor, crossing herself secretly)_ The end of +the world! + +_(A female tepid effluvium leaks out from her. Nebulous obscurity +occupies space. Through the drifting fog without the gramophone blares +over coughs and feetshuffling.)_ + +THE GRAMOPHONE: Jerusalem! + +Open your gates and sing + +Hosanna... + +_(A rocket rushes up the sky and bursts. A white star fills from it, +proclaiming the consummation of all things and second coming of Elijah. +Along an infinite invisible tightrope taut from zenith to nadir the End +of the World, a twoheaded octopus in gillie's kilts, busby and tartan +filibegs, whirls through the murk, head over heels, in the form of the +Three Legs of Man.)_ + +THE END OF THE WORLD: _(with a Scotch accent)_ Wha'll dance the keel +row, the keel row, the keel row? + +_(Over the possing drift and choking breathcoughs, Elijah's voice, harsh +as a corncrake's, jars on high. Perspiring in a loose lawn surplice with +funnel sleeves he is seen, vergerfaced, above a rostrum about which the +banner of old glory is draped. He thumps the parapet.)_ + +ELIJAH: No yapping, if you please, in this booth. Jake Crane, Creole +Sue, Dove Campbell, Abe Kirschner, do your coughing with your mouths +shut. Say, I am operating all this trunk line. Boys, do it now. God's +time is 12.25. Tell mother you'll be there. Rush your order and you play +a slick ace. Join on right here. Book through to eternity junction, the +nonstop run. Just one word more. Are you a god or a doggone clod? If the +second advent came to Coney Island are we ready? Florry Christ, Stephen +Christ, Zoe Christ, Bloom Christ, Kitty Christ, Lynch Christ, it's up to +you to sense that cosmic force. Have we cold feet about the cosmos? +No. Be on the side of the angels. Be a prism. You have that something +within, the higher self. You can rub shoulders with a Jesus, a Gautama, +an Ingersoll. Are you all in this vibration? I say you are. You once +nobble that, congregation, and a buck joyride to heaven becomes a back +number. You got me? It's a lifebrightener, sure. The hottest stuff ever +was. It's the whole pie with jam in. It's just the cutest snappiest line +out. It is immense, supersumptuous. It restores. It vibrates. I know +and I am some vibrator. Joking apart and, getting down to bedrock, A. +J. Christ Dowie and the harmonial philosophy, have you got that? O. K. +Seventyseven west sixtyninth street. Got me? That's it. You call me up +by sunphone any old time. Bumboosers, save your stamps. _(He shouts)_ +Now then our glory song. All join heartily in the singing. Encore! _(He +sings)_ Jeru... + +THE GRAMOPHONE: _(Drowning his voice)_ Whorusalaminyourhighhohhhh... +_(The disc rasps gratingly against the needle)_ + +THE THREE WHORES: _(Covering their ears, squawk)_ Ahhkkk! + +ELIJAH: _(In rolledup shirtsleeves, black in the face, shouts at the top +of his voice, his arms uplifted)_ Big Brother up there, Mr President, +you hear what I done just been saying to you. Certainly, I sort of +believe strong in you, Mr President. I certainly am thinking now Miss +Higgins and Miss Ricketts got religion way inside them. Certainly seems +to me I don't never see no wusser scared female than the way you been, +Miss Florry, just now as I done seed you. Mr President, you come long +and help me save our sisters dear. _(He winks at his audience)_ Our Mr +President, he twig the whole lot and he aint saying nothing. + +KITTY-KATE: I forgot myself. In a weak moment I erred and did what I did +on Constitution hill. I was confirmed by the bishop and enrolled in +the brown scapular. My mother's sister married a Montmorency. It was a +working plumber was my ruination when I was pure. + +ZOE-FANNY: I let him larrup it into me for the fun of it. + +FLORRY-TERESA: It was in consequence of a portwine beverage on top of +Hennessy's three star. I was guilty with Whelan when he slipped into the +bed. + +STEPHEN: In the beginning was the word, in the end the world without +end. Blessed be the eight beatitudes. + +_(The beatitudes, Dixon, Madden, Crotthers, Costello, Lenehan, Bannon, +Mulligan and Lynch in white surgical students' gowns, four abreast, +goosestepping, tramp fist past in noisy marching)_ + +THE BEATITUDES: _(Incoherently)_ Beer beef battledog buybull businum +barnum buggerum bishop. + +LYSTER: _(In quakergrey kneebreeches and broadbrimmed hat, says +discreetly)_ He is our friend. I need not mention names. Seek thou the +light. + +_(He corantos by. Best enters in hairdresser's attire, shinily +laundered, his locks in curlpapers. He leads John Eglinton who wears a +mandarin's kimono of Nankeen yellow, lizardlettered, and a high pagoda +hat.)_ + +BEST: _(Smiling, lifts the hat and displays a shaven poll from the crown +of which bristles a pigtail toupee tied with an orange topknot)_ I was +just beautifying him, don't you know. A thing of beauty, don't you know, +Yeats says, or I mean, Keats says. + +JOHN EGLINTON: _(Produces a greencapped dark lantern and flashes it +towards a corner: with carping accent)_ Esthetics and cosmetics are for +the boudoir. I am out for truth. Plain truth for a plain man. Tanderagee +wants the facts and means to get them. + +_(In the cone of the searchlight behind the coalscuttle, ollave, +holyeyed, the bearded figure of Mananaun Maclir broods, chin on knees. +He rises slowly. A cold seawind blows from his druid mouth. About his +head writhe eels and elvers. He is encrusted with weeds and shells. His +right hand holds a bicycle pump. His left hand grasps a huge crayfish by +its two talons.)_ + +MANANAUN MACLIR: _(With a voice of waves)_ Aum! Hek! Wal! Ak! Lub! Mor! +Ma! White yoghin of the gods. Occult pimander of Hermes Trismegistos. +_(With a voice of whistling seawind)_ Punarjanam patsypunjaub! I won't +have my leg pulled. It has been said by one: beware the left, the cult +of Shakti. _(With a cry of stormbirds)_ Shakti Shiva, darkhidden Father! +_(He smites with his bicycle pump the crayfish in his left hand. On its +cooperative dial glow the twelve signs of the zodiac. He wails with +the vehemence of the ocean.)_ Aum! Baum! Pyjaum! I am the light of the +homestead! I am the dreamery creamery butter. + +_(A skeleton judashand strangles the light. The green light wanes to +mauve. The gasjet wails whistling.)_ + +THE GASJET: Pooah! Pfuiiiiiii! + +_(Zoe runs to the chandelier and, crooking her leg, adjusts the +mantle.)_ + +ZOE: Who has a fag as I'm here? + +LYNCH: _(Tossing a cigarette on to the table)_ Here. + +ZOE: _(Her head perched aside in mock pride)_ Is that the way to hand +the _pot_ to a lady? _(She stretches up to light the cigarette over the +flame, twirling it slowly, showing the brown tufts of her armpits. Lynch +with his poker lifts boldly a side of her slip. Bare from her garters up +her flesh appears under the sapphire a nixie's green. She puffs calmly +at her cigarette.)_ Can you see the beautyspot of my behind? + +LYNCH: I'm not looking + +ZOE: _(Makes sheep's eyes)_ No? You wouldn't do a less thing. Would you +suck a lemon? + +_(Squinting in mock shame she glances with sidelong meaning at Bloom, +then twists round towards him, pulling her slip free of the poker. Blue +fluid again flows over her flesh. Bloom stands, smiling desirously, +twirling his thumbs. Kitty Ricketts licks her middle finger with her +spittle and, gazing in the mirror, smooths both eyebrows. Lipoti Virag, +basilicogrammate, chutes rapidly down through the chimneyflue and struts +two steps to the left on gawky pink stilts. He is sausaged into several +overcoats and wears a brown macintosh under which he holds a roll of +parchment. In his left eye flashes the monocle of Cashel Boyle O'connor +Fitzmaurice Tisdall Farrell. On his head is perched an Egyptian pshent. +Two quills project over his ears.)_ + +VIRAG: _(Heels together, bows)_ My name is Virag Lipoti, of Szombathely. +_(He coughs thoughtfully, drily)_ Promiscuous nakedness is much in +evidence hereabouts, eh? Inadvertently her backview revealed the fact +that she is not wearing those rather intimate garments of which you +are a particular devotee. The injection mark on the thigh I hope you +perceived? Good. + +BLOOM: Granpapachi. But... + +VIRAG: Number two on the other hand, she of the cherry rouge and +coiffeuse white, whose hair owes not a little to our tribal elixir of +gopherwood, is in walking costume and tightly staysed by her sit, I +should opine. Backbone in front, so to say. Correct me but I always +understood that the act so performed by skittish humans with glimpses of +lingerie appealed to you in virtue of its exhibitionististicicity. In a +word. Hippogriff. Am I right? + +BLOOM: She is rather lean. + +VIRAG: _(Not unpleasantly)_ Absolutely! Well observed and those pannier +pockets of the skirt and slightly pegtop effect are devised to suggest +bunchiness of hip. A new purchase at some monster sale for which a gull +has been mulcted. Meretricious finery to deceive the eye. Observe the +attention to details of dustspecks. Never put on you tomorrow what you +can wear today. Parallax! _(With a nervous twitch of his head)_ Did you +hear my brain go snap? Pollysyllabax! + +BLOOM: _(An elbow resting in a hand, a forefinger against his cheek)_ +She seems sad. + +VIRAG: _(Cynically, his weasel teeth bared yellow, draws down his left +eye with a finger and barks hoarsely)_ Hoax! Beware of the flapper +and bogus mournful. Lily of the alley. All possess bachelor's button +discovered by Rualdus Columbus. Tumble her. Columble her. Chameleon. +_(More genially)_ Well then, permit me to draw your attention to item +number three. There is plenty of her visible to the naked eye. Observe +the mass of oxygenated vegetable matter on her skull. What ho, she +bumps! The ugly duckling of the party, longcasted and deep in keel. + +BLOOM: _(Regretfully)_ When you come out without your gun. + +VIRAG: We can do you all brands, mild, medium and strong. Pay your +money, take your choice. How happy could you be with either... + +BLOOM: With...? + +VIRAG: _(His tongue upcurling)_ Lyum! Look. Her beam is broad. She +is coated with quite a considerable layer of fat. Obviously mammal in +weight of bosom you remark that she has in front well to the fore two +protuberances of very respectable dimensions, inclined to fall in the +noonday soupplate, while on her rere lower down are two additional +protuberances, suggestive of potent rectum and tumescent for palpation, +which leave nothing to be desired save compactness. Such fleshy parts +are the product of careful nurture. When coopfattened their livers +reach an elephantine size. Pellets of new bread with fennygreek and +gumbenjamin swamped down by potions of green tea endow them during their +brief existence with natural pincushions of quite colossal blubber. That +suits your book, eh? Fleshhotpots of Egypt to hanker after. Wallow in +it. Lycopodium. _(His throat twitches)_ Slapbang! There he goes again. + +BLOOM: The stye I dislike. + +VIRAG: _(Arches his eyebrows)_ Contact with a goldring, they say. +_Argumentum ad feminam_, as we said in old Rome and ancient Greece +in the consulship of Diplodocus and Ichthyosauros. For the rest Eve's +sovereign remedy. Not for sale. Hire only. Huguenot. _(He twitches)_ It +is a funny sound. _(He coughs encouragingly)_ But possibly it is only a +wart. I presume you shall have remembered what I will have taught you on +that head? Wheatenmeal with honey and nutmeg. + +BLOOM: _(Reflecting)_ Wheatenmeal with lycopodium and syllabax. This +searching ordeal. It has been an unusually fatiguing day, a chapter of +accidents. Wait. I mean, wartsblood spreads warts, you said... + +VIRAG: _(Severely, his nose hardhumped, his side eye winking)_ Stop +twirling your thumbs and have a good old thunk. See, you have forgotten. +Exercise your mnemotechnic. _La causa e santa_. Tara. Tara. _(Aside)_ He +will surely remember. + +BLOOM: Rosemary also did I understand you to say or willpower over +parasitic tissues. Then nay no I have an inkling. The touch of a +deadhand cures. Mnemo? + +VIRAG: _(Excitedly)_ I say so. I say so. E'en so. Technic. _(He taps his +parchmentroll energetically)_ This book tells you how to act with all +descriptive particulars. Consult index for agitated fear of aconite, +melancholy of muriatic, priapic pulsatilla. Virag is going to talk about +amputation. Our old friend caustic. They must be starved. Snip off with +horsehair under the denned neck. But, to change the venue to the Bulgar +and the Basque, have you made up your mind whether you like or dislike +women in male habiliments? _(With a dry snigger)_ You intended to devote +an entire year to the study of the religious problem and the summer +months of 1886 to square the circle and win that million. Pomegranate! +From the sublime to the ridiculous is but a step. Pyjamas, let us say? +Or stockingette gussetted knickers, closed? Or, put we the case, +those complicated combinations, camiknickers? _(He crows derisively)_ +Keekeereekee! + +_(Bloom surveys uncertainly the three whores then gazes at the veiled +mauve light, hearing the everflying moth.)_ + +BLOOM: I wanted then to have now concluded. Nightdress was never. Hence +this. But tomorrow is a new day will be. Past was is today. What now is +will then morrow as now was be past yester. + +VIRAG: _(Prompts in a pig's whisper)_ Insects of the day spend their +brief existence in reiterated coition, lured by the smell of the +inferiorly pulchritudinous fumale possessing extendified pudendal nerve +in dorsal region. Pretty Poll! _(His yellow parrotbeak gabbles nasally)_ +They had a proverb in the Carpathians in or about the year five thousand +five hundred and fifty of our era. One tablespoonful of honey will +attract friend Bruin more than half a dozen barrels of first choice malt +vinegar. Bear's buzz bothers bees. But of this apart. At another time +we may resume. We were very pleased, we others. _(He coughs and, bending +his brow, rubs his nose thoughtfully with a scooping hand)_ You shall +find that these night insects follow the light. An illusion for remember +their complex unadjustable eye. For all these knotty points see the +seventeenth book of my Fundamentals of Sexology or the Love Passion +which Doctor L.B. says is the book sensation of the year. Some, to +example, there are again whose movements are automatic. Perceive. That +is his appropriate sun. Nightbird nightsun nighttown. Chase me, Charley! +_(He blows into bloom's ear)_ Buzz! + +BLOOM: Bee or bluebottle too other day butting shadow on wall dazed self +then me wandered dazed down shirt good job I... + +VIRAG: _(His face impassive, laughs in a rich feminine key)_ Splendid! +Spanish fly in his fly or mustard plaster on his dibble. _(He gobbles +gluttonously with turkey wattles)_ Bubbly jock! Bubbly jock! Where are +we? Open Sesame! Cometh forth! _(He unrolls his parchment rapidly and +reads, his glowworm's nose running backwards over the letters which he +claws)_ Stay, good friend. I bring thee thy answer. Redbank oysters will +shortly be upon us. I'm the best o'cook. Those succulent bivalves may +help us and the truffles of Perigord, tubers dislodged through mister +omnivorous porker, were unsurpassed in cases of nervous debility or +viragitis. Though they stink yet they sting. _(He wags his head with +cackling raillery)_ Jocular. With my eyeglass in my ocular. _(He +sneezes)_ Amen! + +BLOOM: _(Absently)_ Ocularly woman's bivalve case is worse. Always open +sesame. The cloven sex. Why they fear vermin, creeping things. Yet Eve +and the serpent contradicts. Not a historical fact. Obvious analogy +to my idea. Serpents too are gluttons for woman's milk. Wind their way +through miles of omnivorous forest to sucksucculent her breast dry. Like +those bubblyjocular Roman matrons one reads of in Elephantuliasis. + +VIRAG: _(His mouth projected in hard wrinkles, eyes stonily forlornly +closed, psalms in outlandish monotone)_ That the cows with their those +distended udders that they have been the the known... + +BLOOM: I am going to scream. I beg your pardon. Ah? So. _(He repeats)_ +Spontaneously to seek out the saurian's lair in order to entrust their +teats to his avid suction. Ant milks aphis. _(Profoundly)_ Instinct +rules the world. In life. In death. + +VIRAG: _(Head askew, arches his back and hunched wingshoulders, peers +at the moth out of blear bulged eyes, points a horning claw and cries)_ +Who's moth moth? Who's dear Gerald? Dear Ger, that you? O dear, he is +Gerald. O, I much fear he shall be most badly burned. Will some pleashe +pershon not now impediment so catastrophics mit agitation of firstclass +tablenumpkin? _(He mews)_ Puss puss puss puss! _(He sighs, draws back +and stares sideways down with dropping underjaw)_ Well, well. He doth +rest anon. (He snaps his jaws suddenly on the air) + +THE MOTH: + + I'm a tiny tiny thing + Ever flying in the spring + Round and round a ringaring. + Long ago I was a king + Now I do this kind of thing + On the wing, on the wing! + Bing! + +_(He rushes against the mauve shade, flapping noisily)_ Pretty pretty +pretty pretty pretty pretty petticoats. + +_(From left upper entrance with two gliding steps Henry Flower comes +forward to left front centre. He wears a dark mantle and drooping plumed +sombrero. He carries a silverstringed inlaid dulcimer and a longstemmed +bamboo Jacob's pipe, its clay bowl fashioned as a female head. He wears +dark velvet hose and silverbuckled pumps. He has the romantic Saviour's +face with flowing locks, thin beard and moustache. His spindlelegs and +sparrow feet are those of the tenor Mario, prince of Candia. He settles +down his goffered ruffs and moistens his lips with a passage of his +amorous tongue.)_ + +HENRY: _(In a low dulcet voice, touching the strings of his guitar)_ +There is a flower that bloometh. + +_(Virag truculent, his jowl set, stares at the lamp. Grave Bloom regards +Zoe's neck. Henry gallant turns with pendant dewlap to the piano.)_ + +STEPHEN: _(To himself)_ Play with your eyes shut. Imitate pa. Filling my +belly with husks of swine. Too much of this. I will arise and go to my. +Expect this is the. Steve, thou art in a parlous way. Must visit old +Deasy or telegraph. Our interview of this morning has left on me a deep +impression. Though our ages. Will write fully tomorrow. I'm partially +drunk, by the way. _(He touches the keys again)_ Minor chord comes now. +Yes. Not much however. + +_(Almidano Artifoni holds out a batonroll of music with vigorous +moustachework.)_ + +ARTIFONI: _Ci rifletta. Lei rovina tutto._ + +FLORRY: Sing us something. Love's old sweet song. + +STEPHEN: No voice. I am a most finished artist. Lynch, did I show you +the letter about the lute? + +FLORRY: _(Smirking)_ The bird that can sing and won't sing. + +_(The Siamese twins, Philip Drunk and Philip Sober, two Oxford dons with +lawnmowers, appear in the window embrasure. Both are masked with Matthew +Arnold's face.)_ + +PHILIP SOBER: Take a fool's advice. All is not well. Work it out with +the buttend of a pencil, like a good young idiot. Three pounds twelve +you got, two notes, one sovereign, two crowns, if youth but knew. +Mooney's en ville, Mooney's sur mer, the Moira, Larchet's, Holles street +hospital, Burke's. Eh? I am watching you. + +PHILIP DRUNK: _(Impatiently)_ Ah, bosh, man. Go to hell! I paid my way. +If I could only find out about octaves. Reduplication of personality. +Who was it told me his name? _(His lawnmower begins to purr)_ Aha, yes. +_Zoe mou sas agapo_. Have a notion I was here before. When was it not +Atkinson his card I have somewhere. Mac Somebody. Unmack I have it. He +told me about, hold on, Swinburne, was it, no? + +FLORRY: And the song? + +STEPHEN: Spirit is willing but the flesh is weak. + +FLORRY: Are you out of Maynooth? You're like someone I knew once. + +STEPHEN: Out of it now. _(To himself)_ Clever. + +PHILIP DRUNK AND PHILIP SOBER: _(Their lawnmowers purring with a +rigadoon of grasshalms)_ Clever ever. Out of it out of it. By the +bye have you the book, the thing, the ashplant? Yes, there it, yes. +Cleverever outofitnow. Keep in condition. Do like us. + +ZOE: There was a priest down here two nights ago to do his bit of +business with his coat buttoned up. You needn't try to hide, I says to +him. I know you've a Roman collar. + +VIRAG: Perfectly logical from his standpoint. Fall of man. _(Harshly, +his pupils waxing)_ To hell with the pope! Nothing new under the sun. I +am the Virag who disclosed the Sex Secrets of Monks and Maidens. Why +I left the church of Rome. Read the Priest, the Woman and the +Confessional. Penrose. Flipperty Jippert. _(He wriggles)_ Woman, undoing +with sweet pudor her belt of rushrope, offers her allmoist yoni to man's +lingam. Short time after man presents woman with pieces of jungle meat. +Woman shows joy and covers herself with featherskins. Man loves her yoni +fiercely with big lingam, the stiff one. _(He cries) Coactus volui._ +Then giddy woman will run about. Strong man grapses woman's wrist. +Woman squeals, bites, spucks. Man, now fierce angry, strikes woman's fat +yadgana. _(He chases his tail)_ Piffpaff! Popo! _(He stops, sneezes)_ +Pchp! _(He worries his butt)_ Prrrrrht! + +LYNCH: I hope you gave the good father a penance. Nine glorias for +shooting a bishop. + +ZOE: _(Spouts walrus smoke through her nostrils)_ He couldn't get a +connection. Only, you know, sensation. A dry rush. + +BLOOM: Poor man! + +ZOE: _(Lightly)_ Only for what happened him. + +BLOOM: How? + +VIRAG: _(A diabolic rictus of black luminosity contracting his visage, +cranes his scraggy neck forward. He lifts a mooncalf nozzle and howls.) +Verfluchte Goim!_ He had a father, forty fathers. He never existed. Pig +God! He had two left feet. He was Judas Iacchia, a Libyan eunuch, the +pope's bastard. _(He leans out on tortured forepaws, elbows bent rigid, +his eye agonising in his flat skullneck and yelps over the mute world)_ +A son of a whore. Apocalypse. + +KITTY: And Mary Shortall that was in the lock with the pox she got from +Jimmy Pidgeon in the blue caps had a child off him that couldn't swallow +and was smothered with the convulsions in the mattress and we all +subscribed for the funeral. + +PHILIP DRUNK: _(Gravely) Qui vous a mis dans cette fichue position, +Philippe?_ + +PHILIP SOBER: _(Gaily) c'etait le sacre pigeon, Philippe._ + +_(Kitty unpins her hat and sets it down calmly, patting her henna hair. +And a prettier, a daintier head of winsome curls was never seen on a +whore's shoulders. Lynch puts on her hat. She whips it off.)_ + +LYNCH: _(Laughs)_ And to such delights has Metchnikoff inoculated +anthropoid apes. + +FLORRY: _(Nods)_ Locomotor ataxy. + +ZOE: _(Gaily)_ O, my dictionary. + +LYNCH: Three wise virgins. + +VIRAG: _(Agueshaken, profuse yellow spawn foaming over his bony +epileptic lips)_ She sold lovephiltres, whitewax, orangeflower. Panther, +the Roman centurion, polluted her with his genitories. _(He sticks out +a flickering phosphorescent scorpion tongue, his hand on his fork)_ +Messiah! He burst her tympanum. _(With gibbering baboon's cries he jerks +his hips in the cynical spasm)_ Hik! Hek! Hak! Hok! Huk! Kok! Kuk! + +_(Ben Jumbo Dollard, Rubicund, musclebound, hairynostrilled, +hugebearded, cabbageeared, shaggychested, shockmaned, fat-papped, stands +forth, his loins and genitals tightened into a pair of black bathing +bagslops.)_ + +BEN DOLLARD: _(Nakkering castanet bones in his huge padded paws, yodels +jovially in base barreltone)_ When love absorbs my ardent soul. + +_(The virgins Nurse Callan and Nurse Quigley burst through the +ringkeepers and the ropes and mob him with open arms.)_ + +THE VIRGINS: _(Gushingly)_ Big Ben! Ben my Chree! + +A VOICE: Hold that fellow with the bad breeches. + +BEN DOLLARD: _(Smites his thigh in abundant laughter)_ Hold him now. + +HENRY: _(Caressing on his breast a severed female head, murmurs)_ Thine +heart, mine love. _(He plucks his lutestrings)_ When first I saw... + +VIRAG: _(Sloughing his skins, his multitudinous plumage moulting)_ Rats! +_(He yawns, showing a coalblack throat, and closes his jaws by an upward +push of his parchmentroll)_ After having said which I took my departure. +Farewell. Fare thee well. _Dreck!_ + +_(Henry Flower combs his moustache and beard rapidly with a pocketcomb +and gives a cow's lick to his hair. Steered by his rapier, he glides to +the door, his wild harp slung behind him. Virag reaches the door in two +ungainly stilthops, his tail cocked, and deftly claps sideways on the +wall a pusyellow flybill, butting it with his head.)_ + +THE FLYBILL: K. II. Post No Bills. Strictly confidential. Dr Hy Franks. + +HENRY: All is lost now. + +_(Virag unscrews his head in a trice and holds it under his arm.)_ + +VIRAG'S HEAD: Quack! + +_(Exeunt severally.)_ + +STEPHEN: _(Over his shoulder to zoe)_ You would have preferred +the fighting parson who founded the protestant error. But beware +Antisthenes, the dog sage, and the last end of Arius Heresiarchus. The +agony in the closet. + +LYNCH: All one and the same God to her. + +STEPHEN: _(Devoutly)_ And sovereign Lord of all things. + +FLORRY: _(To Stephen)_ I'm sure you're a spoiled priest. Or a monk. + +LYNCH: He is. A cardinal's son. + +STEPHEN: Cardinal sin. Monks of the screw. + +_(His Eminence Simon Stephen Cardinal Dedalus, Primate of all Ireland, +appears in the doorway, dressed in red soutane, sandals and socks. Seven +dwarf simian acolytes, also in red, cardinal sins, uphold his train, +peeping under it. He wears a battered silk hat sideways on his head. His +thumbs are stuck in his armpits and his palms outspread. Round his +neck hangs a rosary of corks ending on his breast in a corkscrew cross. +Releasing his thumbs, he invokes grace from on high with large wave +gestures and proclaims with bloated pomp:)_ + +THE CARDINAL: + + Conservio lies captured + He lies in the lowest dungeon + With manacles and chains around his limbs + Weighing upwards of three tons. + +_(He looks at all for a moment, his right eye closed tight, his left +cheek puffed out. Then, unable to repress his merriment, he rocks to and +fro, arms akimbo, and sings with broad rollicking humour:)_ + + O, the poor little fellow + Hihihihihis legs they were yellow + He was plump, fat and heavy and brisk as a snake + But some bloody savage + To graize his white cabbage + He murdered Nell Flaherty's duckloving drake. + +_(A multitude of midges swarms white over his robe. He scratches himself +with crossed arms at his ribs, grimacing, and exclaims:)_ + +I'm suffering the agony of the damned. By the hoky fiddle, thanks be to +Jesus those funny little chaps are not unanimous. If they were they'd +walk me off the face of the bloody globe. + +_(His head aslant he blesses curtly with fore and middle fingers, +imparts the Easter kiss and doubleshuffles off comically, swaying +his hat from side to side, shrinking quickly to the size of his +trainbearers. The dwarf acolytes, giggling, peeping, nudging, ogling, +Easterkissing, zigzag behind him. His voice is heard mellow from afar, +merciful male, melodious:)_ + + Shall carry my heart to thee, + Shall carry my heart to thee, + And the breath of the balmy night + Shall carry my heart to thee! + _(The trick doorhandle turns.)_ + + +THE DOORHANDLE: Theeee! + +ZOE: The devil is in that door. + +_(A male form passes down the creaking staircase and is heard taking +the waterproof and hat from the rack. Bloom starts forward involuntarily +and, half closing the door as he passes, takes the chocolate from his +pocket and offers it nervously to Zoe.)_ + +ZOE: _(Sniffs his hair briskly)_ Hmmm! Thank your mother for the +rabbits. I'm very fond of what I like. + +BLOOM: _(Hearing a male voice in talk with the whores on the doorstep, +pricks his ears)_ If it were he? After? Or because not? Or the double +event? + +ZOE: _(Tears open the silverfoil)_ Fingers was made before forks. _(She +breaks off and nibbles a piece gives a piece to Kitty Ricketts and then +turns kittenishly to Lynch)_ No objection to French lozenges? _(He nods. +She taunts him.)_ Have it now or wait till you get it? _(He opens his +mouth, his head cocked. She whirls the prize in left circle. His head +follows. She whirls it back in right circle. He eyes her.)_ Catch! + +_(She tosses a piece. With an adroit snap he catches it and bites it +through with a crack.)_ + +KITTY: _(Chewing)_ The engineer I was with at the bazaar does have +lovely ones. Full of the best liqueurs. And the viceroy was there with +his lady. The gas we had on the Toft's hobbyhorses. I'm giddy still. + +BLOOM: _(In Svengali's fur overcoat, with folded arms and Napoleonic +forelock, frowns in ventriloquial exorcism with piercing eagle glance +towards the door. Then rigid with left foot advanced he makes a swift +pass with impelling fingers and gives the sign of past master, drawing +his right arm downwards from his left shoulder.)_ Go, go, go, I conjure +you, whoever you are! + +_(A male cough and tread are heard passing through the mist outside. +Bloom's features relax. He places a hand in his waistcoat, posing +calmly. Zoe offers him chocolate.)_ + +BLOOM: _(Solemnly)_ Thanks. + +ZOE: Do as you're bid. Here! + +_(A firm heelclacking tread is heard on the stairs.)_ + +BLOOM: _(Takes the chocolate)_ Aphrodisiac? Tansy and pennyroyal. But I +bought it. Vanilla calms or? Mnemo. Confused light confuses memory. Red +influences lupus. Colours affect women's characters, any they have. This +black makes me sad. Eat and be merry for tomorrow. _(He eats)_ Influence +taste too, mauve. But it is so long since I. Seems new. Aphro. That +priest. Must come. Better late than never. Try truffles at Andrews. + +_(The door opens. Bella Cohen, a massive whoremistress, enters. She +is dressed in a threequarter ivory gown, fringed round the hem with +tasselled selvedge, and cools herself flirting a black horn fan like +Minnie Hauck in_ Carmen. _On her left hand are wedding and keeper rings. +Her eyes are deeply carboned. She has a sprouting moustache. Her +olive face is heavy, slightly sweated and fullnosed with orangetainted +nostrils. She has large pendant beryl eardrops.)_ + +BELLA: My word! I'm all of a mucksweat. + +_(She glances round her at the couples. Then her eyes rest on Bloom with +hard insistence. Her large fan winnows wind towards her heated faceneck +and embonpoint. Her falcon eyes glitter.)_ + +THE FAN: _(Flirting quickly, then slowly)_ Married, I see. + +BLOOM: Yes. Partly, I have mislaid... + +THE FAN: _(Half opening, then closing)_ And the missus is master. +Petticoat government. + +BLOOM: _(Looks down with a sheepish grin)_ That is so. + +THE FAN: _(Folding together, rests against her left eardrop)_ Have you +forgotten me? + +BLOOM: Yes. Yo. + +THE FAN: _(Folded akimbo against her waist)_ Is me her was you dreamed +before? Was then she him you us since knew? Am all them and the same now +we? + +_(Bella approaches, gently tapping with the fan.)_ + +BLOOM: _(Wincing)_ Powerful being. In my eyes read that slumber which +women love. + +THE FAN: _(Tapping)_ We have met. You are mine. It is fate. + +BLOOM: _(Cowed)_ Exuberant female. Enormously I desiderate your +domination. I am exhausted, abandoned, no more young. I stand, so to +speak, with an unposted letter bearing the extra regulation fee before +the too late box of the general postoffice of human life. The door +and window open at a right angle cause a draught of thirtytwo feet per +second according to the law of falling bodies. I have felt this instant +a twinge of sciatica in my left glutear muscle. It runs in our family. +Poor dear papa, a widower, was a regular barometer from it. He believed +in animal heat. A skin of tabby lined his winter waistcoat. Near the +end, remembering king David and the Sunamite, he shared his bed with +Athos, faithful after death. A dog's spittle as you probably... _(He +winces)_ Ah! + +RICHIE GOULDING: _(Bagweighted, passes the door)_ Mocking is catch. Best +value in Dub. Fit for a prince's. Liver and kidney. + +THE FAN: _(Tapping)_ All things end. Be mine. Now. + +BLOOM: _(Undecided)_ All now? I should not have parted with my talisman. +Rain, exposure at dewfall on the searocks, a peccadillo at my time of +life. Every phenomenon has a natural cause. + +THE FAN: _(Points downwards slowly)_ You may. + +BLOOM: _(Looks downwards and perceives her unfastened bootlace)_ We are +observed. + +THE FAN: _(Points downwards quickly)_ You must. + +BLOOM: _(With desire, with reluctance)_ I can make a true black knot. +Learned when I served my time and worked the mail order line for +Kellett's. Experienced hand. Every knot says a lot. Let me. In courtesy. +I knelt once before today. Ah! + +_(Bella raises her gown slightly and, steadying her pose, lifts to the +edge of a chair a plump buskined hoof and a full pastern, silksocked. +Bloom, stifflegged, aging, bends over her hoof and with gentle fingers +draws out and in her laces.)_ + +BLOOM: _(Murmurs lovingly)_ To be a shoefitter in Manfield's was my +love's young dream, the darling joys of sweet buttonhooking, to lace +up crisscrossed to kneelength the dressy kid footwear satinlined, so +incredibly impossibly small, of Clyde Road ladies. Even their wax model +Raymonde I visited daily to admire her cobweb hose and stick of rhubarb +toe, as worn in Paris. + +THE HOOF: Smell my hot goathide. Feel my royal weight. + +BLOOM: _(Crosslacing)_ Too tight? + +THE HOOF: If you bungle, Handy Andy, I'll kick your football for you. + +BLOOM: Not to lace the wrong eyelet as I did the night of the bazaar +dance. Bad luck. Hook in wrong tache of her... person you mentioned. +That night she met... Now! + +_(He knots the lace. Bella places her foot on the floor. Bloom raises +his head. Her heavy face, her eyes strike him in midbrow. His eyes grow +dull, darker and pouched, his nose thickens.)_ + +BLOOM: _(Mumbles)_ Awaiting your further orders we remain, gentlemen,... + +BELLO: _(With a hard basilisk stare, in a baritone voice)_ Hound of +dishonour! + +BLOOM: _(Infatuated)_ Empress! + +BELLO: _(His heavy cheekchops sagging)_ Adorer of the adulterous rump! + +BLOOM: _(Plaintively)_ Hugeness! + +BELLO: Dungdevourer! + +BLOOM: _(With sinews semiflexed)_ Magmagnificence! + +BELLO: Down! _(He taps her on the shoulder with his fan)_ Incline feet +forward! Slide left foot one pace back! You will fall. You are falling. +On the hands down! + +BLOOM: _(Her eyes upturned in the sign of admiration, closing, yaps)_ +Truffles! + +_(With a piercing epileptic cry she sinks on all fours, grunting, +snuffling, rooting at his feet: then lies, shamming dead, with eyes shut +tight, trembling eyelids, bowed upon the ground in the attitude of most +excellent master.)_ + +BELLO: _(With bobbed hair, purple gills, fit moustache rings round his +shaven mouth, in mountaineer's puttees, green silverbuttoned coat, sport +skirt and alpine hat with moorcock's feather, his hands stuck deep in +his breeches pockets, places his heel on her neck and grinds it in)_ +Footstool! Feel my entire weight. Bow, bondslave, before the throne of +your despot's glorious heels so glistening in their proud erectness. + +BLOOM: _(Enthralled, bleats)_ I promise never to disobey. + +BELLO: _(Laughs loudly)_ Holy smoke! You little know what's in store for +you. I'm the Tartar to settle your little lot and break you in! I'll bet +Kentucky cocktails all round I shame it out of you, old son. Cheek me, +I dare you. If you do tremble in anticipation of heel discipline to be +inflicted in gym costume. + +_(Bloom creeps under the sofa and peers out through the fringe.)_ + +ZOE: _(Widening her slip to screen her)_ She's not here. + +BLOOM: _(Closing her eyes)_ She's not here. + +FLORRY: _(Hiding her with her gown)_ She didn't mean it, Mr Bello. +She'll be good, sir. + +KITTY: Don't be too hard on her, Mr Bello. Sure you won't, ma'amsir. + +BELLO: _(Coaxingly)_ Come, ducky dear, I want a word with you, darling, +just to administer correction. Just a little heart to heart talk, +sweety. _(Bloom puts out her timid head)_ There's a good girly now. +_(Bello grabs her hair violently and drags her forward)_ I only want +to correct you for your own good on a soft safe spot. How's that tender +behind? O, ever so gently, pet. Begin to get ready. + +BLOOM: _(Fainting)_ Don't tear my... + +BELLO: _(Savagely)_ The nosering, the pliers, the bastinado, the hanging +hook, the knout I'll make you kiss while the flutes play like the Nubian +slave of old. You're in for it this time! I'll make you remember me for +the balance of your natural life. _(His forehead veins swollen, his face +congested)_ I shall sit on your ottoman saddleback every morning after +my thumping good breakfast of Matterson's fat hamrashers and a bottle +of Guinness's porter. _(He belches)_ And suck my thumping good Stock +Exchange cigar while I read the _Licensed Victualler's Gazette_. Very +possibly I shall have you slaughtered and skewered in my stables and +enjoy a slice of you with crisp crackling from the baking tin basted +and baked like sucking pig with rice and lemon or currant sauce. It will +hurt you. _(He twists her arm. Bloom squeals, turning turtle.)_ + +BLOOM: Don't be cruel, nurse! Don't! + +BELLO: _(Twisting)_ Another! + +BLOOM: _(Screams)_ O, it's hell itself! Every nerve in my body aches +like mad! + +BELLO: _(Shouts)_ Good, by the rumping jumping general! That's the best +bit of news I heard these six weeks. Here, don't keep me waiting, damn +you! _(He slaps her face)_ + +BLOOM: _(Whimpers)_ You're after hitting me. I'll tell... + +BELLO: Hold him down, girls, till I squat on him. + +ZOE: Yes. Walk on him! I will. + +FLORRY: I will. Don't be greedy. + +KITTY: No, me. Lend him to me. + +_(The brothel cook, mrs keogh, wrinkled, greybearded, in a greasy bib, +men's grey and green socks and brogues, floursmeared, a rollingpin stuck +with raw pastry in her bare red arm and hand, appears at the door.)_ + +MRS KEOGH: _(Ferociously)_ Can I help? _(They hold and pinion Bloom.)_ + +BELLO: _(Squats with a grunt on Bloom's upturned face, puffing +cigarsmoke, nursing a fat leg)_ I see Keating Clay is elected +vicechairman of the Richmond asylum and by the by Guinness's preference +shares are at sixteen three quaffers. Curse me for a fool that didn't +buy that lot Craig and Gardner told me about. Just my infernal luck, +curse it. And that Goddamned outsider _Throwaway_ at twenty to one. +_(He quenches his cigar angrily on Bloom's ear)_ Where's that Goddamned +cursed ashtray? + +BLOOM: _(Goaded, buttocksmothered)_ O! O! Monsters! Cruel one! + +BELLO: Ask for that every ten minutes. Beg. Pray for it as you never +prayed before. _(He thrusts out a figged fist and foul cigar)_ Here, +kiss that. Both. Kiss. _(He throws a leg astride and, pressing with +horseman's knees, calls in a hard voice)_ Gee up! A cockhorse to Banbury +cross. I'll ride him for the Eclipse stakes. _(He bends sideways and +squeezes his mount's testicles roughly, shouting)_ Ho! Off we pop! I'll +nurse you in proper fashion. _(He horserides cockhorse, leaping in the +saddle)_ The lady goes a pace a pace and the coachman goes a trot a trot +and the gentleman goes a gallop a gallop a gallop a gallop. + +FLORRY: _(Pulls at Bello)_ Let me on him now. You had enough. I asked +before you. + +ZOE: _(Pulling at florry)_ Me. Me. Are you not finished with him yet, +suckeress? + +BLOOM: _(Stifling)_ Can't. + +BELLO: Well, I'm not. Wait. _(He holds in his breath)_ Curse it. Here. +This bung's about burst. _(He uncorks himself behind: then, contorting +his features, farts loudly)_ Take that! _(He recorks himself)_ Yes, by +Jingo, sixteen three quarters. + +BLOOM: _(A sweat breaking out over him)_ Not man. _(He sniffs)_ Woman. + +BELLO: _(Stands up)_ No more blow hot and cold. What you longed for has +come to pass. Henceforth you are unmanned and mine in earnest, a thing +under the yoke. Now for your punishment frock. You will shed your male +garments, you understand, Ruby Cohen? and don the shot silk luxuriously +rustling over head and shoulders. And quickly too! + +BLOOM: _(Shrinks)_ Silk, mistress said! O crinkly! scrapy! Must I +tiptouch it with my nails? + +BELLO: _(Points to his whores)_ As they are now so will you be, wigged, +singed, perfumesprayed, ricepowdered, with smoothshaven armpits. Tape +measurements will be taken next your skin. You will be laced with cruel +force into vicelike corsets of soft dove coutille with whalebone busk to +the diamondtrimmed pelvis, the absolute outside edge, while your figure, +plumper than when at large, will be restrained in nettight frocks, +pretty two ounce petticoats and fringes and things stamped, of course, +with my houseflag, creations of lovely lingerie for Alice and nice +scent for Alice. Alice will feel the pullpull. Martha and Mary will be +a little chilly at first in such delicate thighcasing but the frilly +flimsiness of lace round your bare knees will remind you... + +BLOOM: _(A charming soubrette with dauby cheeks, mustard hair and large +male hands and nose, leering mouth)_ I tried her things on only twice, +a small prank, in Holles street. When we were hard up I washed them to +save the laundry bill. My own shirts I turned. It was the purest thrift. + +BELLO: _(Jeers)_ Little jobs that make mother pleased, eh? And showed +off coquettishly in your domino at the mirror behind closedrawn blinds +your unskirted thighs and hegoat's udders in various poses of surrender, +eh? Ho! ho! I have to laugh! That secondhand black operatop shift and +short trunkleg naughties all split up the stitches at her last rape that +Mrs Miriam Dandrade sold you from the Shelbourne hotel, eh? + +BLOOM: Miriam. Black. Demimondaine. + +BELLO: _(Guffaws)_ Christ Almighty it's too tickling, this! You were +a nicelooking Miriam when you clipped off your backgate hairs and +lay swooning in the thing across the bed as Mrs Dandrade about to be +violated by lieutenant Smythe-Smythe, Mr Philip Augustus Blockwell M. +P., signor Laci Daremo, the robust tenor, blueeyed Bert, the liftboy, +Henri Fleury of Gordon Bennett fame, Sheridan, the quadroon Croesus, the +varsity wetbob eight from old Trinity, Ponto, her splendid Newfoundland +and Bobs, dowager duchess of Manorhamilton. _(He guffaws again)_ Christ, +wouldn't it make a Siamese cat laugh? + +BLOOM: _(Her hands and features working)_ It was Gerald converted me to +be a true corsetlover when I was female impersonator in the High School +play _Vice Versa_. It was dear Gerald. He got that kink, fascinated by +sister's stays. Now dearest Gerald uses pinky greasepaint and gilds his +eyelids. Cult of the beautiful. + +BELLO: _(With wicked glee)_ Beautiful! Give us a breather! When you +took your seat with womanish care, lifting your billowy flounces, on the +smoothworn throne. + +BLOOM: Science. To compare the various joys we each enjoy. _(Earnestly)_ +And really it's better the position... because often I used to wet... + +BELLO: _(Sternly)_ No insubordination! The sawdust is there in the +corner for you. I gave you strict instructions, didn't I? Do it +standing, sir! I'll teach you to behave like a jinkleman! If I catch a +trace on your swaddles. Aha! By the ass of the Dorans you'll find I'm a +martinet. The sins of your past are rising against you. Many. Hundreds. + +THE SINS OF THE PAST: _(In a medley of voices)_ He went through a form +of clandestine marriage with at least one woman in the shadow of the +Black church. Unspeakable messages he telephoned mentally to Miss Dunn +at an address in D'Olier street while he presented himself indecently to +the instrument in the callbox. By word and deed he frankly encouraged +a nocturnal strumpet to deposit fecal and other matter in an unsanitary +outhouse attached to empty premises. In five public conveniences +he wrote pencilled messages offering his nuptial partner to all +strongmembered males. And by the offensively smelling vitriol works did +he not pass night after night by loving courting couples to see if and +what and how much he could see? Did he not lie in bed, the gross boar, +gloating over a nauseous fragment of wellused toilet paper presented to +him by a nasty harlot, stimulated by gingerbread and a postal order? + +BELLO: _(Whistles loudly)_ Say! What was the most revolting piece of +obscenity in all your career of crime? Go the whole hog. Puke it out! Be +candid for once. + +_(Mute inhuman faces throng forward, leering, vanishing, gibbering, +Booloohoom. Poldy Kock, Bootlaces a penny Cassidy's hag, blind +stripling, Larry Rhinoceros, the girl, the woman, the whore, the other, +the...)_ + +BLOOM: Don't ask me! Our mutual faith. Pleasants street. I only thought +the half of the... I swear on my sacred oath... + +BELLO: _(Peremptorily)_ Answer. Repugnant wretch! I insist on knowing. +Tell me something to amuse me, smut or a bloody good ghoststory or a +line of poetry, quick, quick, quick! Where? How? What time? With how +many? I give you just three seconds. One! Two! Thr... + +BLOOM: _(Docile, gurgles)_ I rererepugnosed in rerererepugnant + +BELLO: _(Imperiously)_ O, get out, you skunk! Hold your tongue! Speak +when you're spoken to. + +BLOOM: _(Bows)_ Master! Mistress! Mantamer! + +_(He lifts his arms. His bangle bracelets fill.)_ + +BELLO: _(Satirically)_ By day you will souse and bat our smelling +underclothes also when we ladies are unwell, and swab out our latrines +with dress pinned up and a dishclout tied to your tail. Won't that be +nice? _(He places a ruby ring on her finger)_ And there now! With this +ring I thee own. Say, thank you, mistress. + +BLOOM: Thank you, mistress. + +BELLO: You will make the beds, get my tub ready, empty the pisspots in +the different rooms, including old Mrs Keogh's the cook's, a sandy one. +Ay, and rinse the seven of them well, mind, or lap it up like champagne. +Drink me piping hot. Hop! You will dance attendance or I'll lecture you +on your misdeeds, Miss Ruby, and spank your bare bot right well, miss, +with the hairbrush. You'll be taught the error of your ways. At night +your wellcreamed braceletted hands will wear fortythreebutton gloves +newpowdered with talc and having delicately scented fingertips. For such +favours knights of old laid down their lives. _(He chuckles)_ My boys +will be no end charmed to see you so ladylike, the colonel, above +all, when they come here the night before the wedding to fondle my new +attraction in gilded heels. First I'll have a go at you myself. A man I +know on the turf named Charles Alberta Marsh (I was in bed with him just +now and another gentleman out of the Hanaper and Petty Bag office) is +on the lookout for a maid of all work at a short knock. Swell the bust. +Smile. Droop shoulders. What offers? _(He points)_ For that lot. Trained +by owner to fetch and carry, basket in mouth. _(He bares his arm and +plunges it elbowdeep in Bloom's vulva)_ There's fine depth for you! +What, boys? That give you a hardon? _(He shoves his arm in a bidder's +face)_ Here wet the deck and wipe it round! + +A BIDDER: A florin. + +_(Dillon's lacquey rings his handbell.)_ + +THE LACQUEY: Barang! + +A VOICE: One and eightpence too much. + +CHARLES ALBERTA MARSH: Must be virgin. Good breath. Clean. + +BELLO: _(Gives a rap with his gavel)_ Two bar. Rockbottom figure and +cheap at the price. Fourteen hands high. Touch and examine his points. +Handle him. This downy skin, these soft muscles, this tender flesh. If +I had only my gold piercer here! And quite easy to milk. Three newlaid +gallons a day. A pure stockgetter, due to lay within the hour. His +sire's milk record was a thousand gallons of whole milk in forty weeks. +Whoa my jewel! Beg up! Whoa! _(He brands his initial C on Bloom's +croup)_ So! Warranted Cohen! What advance on two bob, gentlemen? + +A DARKVISAGED MAN: _(In disguised accent)_ Hoondert punt sterlink. + +VOICES: _(Subdued)_ For the Caliph. Haroun Al Raschid. + +BELLO: _(Gaily)_ Right. Let them all come. The scanty, daringly short +skirt, riding up at the knee to show a peep of white pantalette, is a +potent weapon and transparent stockings, emeraldgartered, with the +long straight seam trailing up beyond the knee, appeal to the better +instincts of the _blase_ man about town. Learn the smooth mincing walk +on four inch Louis Quinze heels, the Grecian bend with provoking croup, +the thighs fluescent, knees modestly kissing. Bring all your powers of +fascination to bear on them. Pander to their Gomorrahan vices. + +BLOOM: _(Bends his blushing face into his armpit and simpers with +forefinger in mouth)_ O, I know what you're hinting at now! + +BELLO: What else are you good for, an impotent thing like you? _(He +stoops and, peering, pokes with his fan rudely under the fat suet folds +of Bloom's haunches)_ Up! Up! Manx cat! What have we here? Where's your +curly teapot gone to or who docked it on you, cockyolly? Sing, birdy, +sing. It's as limp as a boy of six's doing his pooly behind a cart. Buy +a bucket or sell your pump. _(Loudly)_ Can you do a man's job? + +BLOOM: Eccles street... + +BELLO: _(Sarcastically)_ I wouldn't hurt your feelings for the world but +there's a man of brawn in possession there. The tables are turned, my +gay young fellow! He is something like a fullgrown outdoor man. Well for +you, you muff, if you had that weapon with knobs and lumps and warts all +over it. He shot his bolt, I can tell you! Foot to foot, knee to knee, +belly to belly, bubs to breast! He's no eunuch. A shock of red hair he +has sticking out of him behind like a furzebush! Wait for nine months, +my lad! Holy ginger, it's kicking and coughing up and down in her guts +already! That makes you wild, don't it? Touches the spot? _(He spits in +contempt)_ Spittoon! + +BLOOM: I was indecently treated, I... Inform the police. Hundred +pounds. Unmentionable. I... + +BELLO: Would if you could, lame duck. A downpour we want not your +drizzle. + +BLOOM: To drive me mad! Moll! I forgot! Forgive! Moll... We... Still... + +BELLO: _(Ruthlessly)_ No, Leopold Bloom, all is changed by woman's will +since you slept horizontal in Sleepy Hollow your night of twenty years. +Return and see. + +_(Old Sleepy Hollow calls over the wold.)_ + +SLEEPY HOLLOW: Rip van Wink! Rip van Winkle! + +BLOOM: _(In tattered mocassins with a rusty fowlingpiece, tiptoeing, +fingertipping, his haggard bony bearded face peering through the diamond +panes, cries out)_ I see her! It's she! The first night at Mat Dillon's! +But that dress, the green! And her hair is dyed gold and he... + +BELLO: _(Laughs mockingly)_ That's your daughter, you owl, with a +Mullingar student. + +_(Milly Bloom, fairhaired, greenvested, slimsandalled, her blue scarf +in the seawind simply swirling, breaks from the arms of her lover and +calls, her young eyes wonderwide.)_ + +MILLY: My! It's Papli! But, O Papli, how old you've grown! + +BELLO: Changed, eh? Our whatnot, our writingtable where we never wrote, +aunt Hegarty's armchair, our classic reprints of old masters. A man and +his menfriends are living there in clover. The _Cuckoos' Rest!_ Why not? +How many women had you, eh, following them up dark streets, flatfoot, +exciting them by your smothered grunts, what, you male prostitute? +Blameless dames with parcels of groceries. Turn about. Sauce for the +goose, my gander O. + +BLOOM: They... I... + +BELLO: _(Cuttingly)_ Their heelmarks will stamp the Brusselette carpet +you bought at Wren's auction. In their horseplay with Moll the romp to +find the buck flea in her breeches they will deface the little statue +you carried home in the rain for art for art' sake. They will violate +the secrets of your bottom drawer. Pages will be torn from your handbook +of astronomy to make them pipespills. And they will spit in your ten +shilling brass fender from Hampton Leedom's. + +BLOOM: Ten and six. The act of low scoundrels. Let me go. I will return. +I will prove... + +A VOICE: Swear! + +_(Bloom clenches his fists and crawls forward, a bowieknife between his +teeth.)_ + +BELLO: As a paying guest or a kept man? Too late. You have made your +secondbest bed and others must lie in it. Your epitaph is written. You +are down and out and don't you forget it, old bean. + +BLOOM: Justice! All Ireland versus one! Has nobody...? _(He bites his +thumb)_ + +BELLO: Die and be damned to you if you have any sense of decency +or grace about you. I can give you a rare old wine that'll send you +skipping to hell and back. Sign a will and leave us any coin you have! +If you have none see you damn well get it, steal it, rob it! We'll bury +you in our shrubbery jakes where you'll be dead and dirty with old Cuck +Cohen, my stepnephew I married, the bloody old gouty procurator and +sodomite with a crick in his neck, and my other ten or eleven husbands, +whatever the buggers' names were, suffocated in the one cesspool. _(He +explodes in a loud phlegmy laugh)_ We'll manure you, Mr Flower! _(He +pipes scoffingly)_ Byby, Poldy! Byby, Papli! + +BLOOM: _(Clasps his head)_ My willpower! Memory! I have sinned! I have +suff... + +_(He weeps tearlessly)_ + +BELLO: _(Sneers)_ Crybabby! Crocodile tears! + +_(Bloom, broken, closely veiled for the sacrifice, sobs, his face to +the earth. The passing bell is heard. Darkshawled figures of the +circumcised, in sackcloth and ashes, stand by the wailing wall. M. +Shulomowitz, Joseph Goldwater, Moses Herzog, Harris Rosenberg, M. +Moisel, J. Citron, Minnie Watchman, P. Mastiansky, The Reverend Leopold +Abramovitz, Chazen. With swaying arms they wail in pneuma over the +recreant Bloom.)_ + +THE CIRCUMCISED: _(In dark guttural chant as they cast dead sea fruit +upon him, no flowers) Shema Israel Adonai Elohenu Adonai Echad._ + +VOICES: _(Sighing)_ So he's gone. Ah yes. Yes, indeed. Bloom? Never +heard of him. No? Queer kind of chap. There's the widow. That so? Ah, +yes. + +_(From the suttee pyre the flame of gum camphire ascends. The pall of +incense smoke screens and disperses. Out of her oakframe a nymph with +hair unbound, lightly clad in teabrown artcolours, descends from her +grotto and passing under interlacing yews stands over Bloom.)_ + +THE YEWS: _(Their leaves whispering)_ Sister. Our sister. Ssh! + +THE NYMPH: _(Softly)_ Mortal! _(Kindly)_ Nay, dost not weepest! + +BLOOM: _(Crawls jellily forward under the boughs, streaked by sunlight, +with dignity)_ This position. I felt it was expected of me. Force of +habit. + +THE NYMPH: Mortal! You found me in evil company, highkickers, coster +picnicmakers, pugilists, popular generals, immoral panto boys in +fleshtights and the nifty shimmy dancers, La Aurora and Karini, musical +act, the hit of the century. I was hidden in cheap pink paper that smelt +of rock oil. I was surrounded by the stale smut of clubmen, stories to +disturb callow youth, ads for transparencies, truedup dice and bustpads, +proprietary articles and why wear a truss with testimonial from ruptured +gentleman. Useful hints to the married. + +BLOOM: _(Lifts a turtle head towards her lap)_ We have met before. On +another star. + +THE NYMPH: _(Sadly)_ Rubber goods. Neverrip brand as supplied to the +aristocracy. Corsets for men. I cure fits or money refunded. Unsolicited +testimonials for Professor Waldmann's wonderful chest exuber. My bust +developed four inches in three weeks, reports Mrs Gus Rublin with photo. + +BLOOM: You mean _Photo Bits?_ + +THE NYMPH: I do. You bore me away, framed me in oak and tinsel, set me +above your marriage couch. Unseen, one summer eve, you kissed me in +four places. And with loving pencil you shaded my eyes, my bosom and my +shame. + +BLOOM: _(Humbly kisses her long hair)_ Your classic curves, beautiful +immortal, I was glad to look on you, to praise you, a thing of beauty, +almost to pray. + +THE NYMPH: During dark nights I heard your praise. + +BLOOM: _(Quickly)_ Yes, yes. You mean that I... Sleep reveals the worst +side of everyone, children perhaps excepted. I know I fell out of bed +or rather was pushed. Steel wine is said to cure snoring. For the rest +there is that English invention, pamphlet of which I received some days +ago, incorrectly addressed. It claims to afford a noiseless, inoffensive +vent. _(He sighs)_ 'Twas ever thus. Frailty, thy name is marriage. + +THE NYMPH: _(Her fingers in her ears)_ And words. They are not in my +dictionary. + +BLOOM: You understood them? + +THE YEWS: Ssh! + +THE NYMPH: _(Covers her face with her hands)_ What have I not seen in +that chamber? What must my eyes look down on? + +BLOOM: _(Apologetically)_ I know. Soiled personal linen, wrong side up +with care. The quoits are loose. From Gibraltar by long sea long ago. + +THE NYMPH: _(Bends her head)_ Worse, worse! + +BLOOM: _(Reflects precautiously)_ That antiquated commode. It wasn't her +weight. She scaled just eleven stone nine. She put on nine pounds +after weaning. It was a crack and want of glue. Eh? And that absurd +orangekeyed utensil which has only one handle. + +_(The sound of a waterfall is heard in bright cascade.)_ + +THE WATERFALL: + + Poulaphouca Poulaphouca + Poulaphouca Poulaphouca. + +THE YEWS: _(Mingling their boughs)_ Listen. Whisper. She is right, our +sister. We grew by Poulaphouca waterfall. We gave shade on languorous +summer days. + + +JOHN WYSE NOLAN: _(In the background, in Irish National Forester's +uniform, doffs his plumed hat)_ Prosper! Give shade on languorous days, +trees of Ireland! + +THE YEWS: _(Murmuring)_ Who came to Poulaphouca with the High School +excursion? Who left his nutquesting classmates to seek our shade? + +BLOOM: _(Scared)_ High School of Poula? Mnemo? Not in full possession of +faculties. Concussion. Run over by tram. + +THE ECHO: Sham! + +BLOOM: _(Pigeonbreasted, bottleshouldered, padded, in nondescript +juvenile grey and black striped suit, too small for him, white tennis +shoes, bordered stockings with turnover tops and a red schoolcap with +badge)_ I was in my teens, a growing boy. A little then sufficed, a +jolting car, the mingling odours of the ladies' cloakroom and lavatory, +the throng penned tight on the old Royal stairs (for they love crushes, +instinct of the herd, and the dark sexsmelling theatre unbridles +vice), even a pricelist of their hosiery. And then the heat. There were +sunspots that summer. End of school. And tipsycake. Halcyon days. + +_(Halcyon days, high school boys in blue and white football jerseys and +shorts, Master Donald Turnbull, Master Abraham Chatterton, Master Owen +Goldberg, Master Jack Meredith, Master Percy Apjohn, stand in a clearing +of the trees and shout to Master Leopold Bloom.)_ + +THE HALCYON DAYS: Mackerel! Live us again. Hurray! _(They cheer)_ + +BLOOM: _(Hobbledehoy, warmgloved, mammamufflered, starred with spent +snowballs, struggles to rise)_ Again! I feel sixteen! What a lark! Let's +ring all the bells in Montague street. _(He cheers feebly)_ Hurray for +the High School! + +THE ECHO: Fool! + +THE YEWS: _(Rustling)_ She is right, our sister. Whisper. _(Whispered +kisses are heard in all the wood. Faces of hamadryads peep out from +the boles and among the leaves and break, blossoming into bloom.)_ Who +profaned our silent shade? + +THE NYMPH: _(Coyly, through parting fingers)_ There? In the open air? + +THE YEWS: _(Sweeping downward)_ Sister, yes. And on our virgin sward. + +THE WATERFALL: + + Poulaphouca Poulaphouca + Phoucaphouca Phoucaphouca. + +THE NYMPH: _(With wide fingers)_ O, infamy! + +BLOOM: I was precocious. Youth. The fauna. I sacrificed to the god of +the forest. The flowers that bloom in the spring. It was pairing +time. Capillary attraction is a natural phenomenon. Lotty Clarke, +flaxenhaired, I saw at her night toilette through illclosed curtains +with poor papa's operaglasses: The wanton ate grass wildly. She rolled +downhill at Rialto bridge to tempt me with her flow of animal spirits. +She climbed their crooked tree and I... A saint couldn't resist it. The +demon possessed me. Besides, who saw? + +_(Staggering Bob, a whitepolled calf, thrusts a ruminating head with +humid nostrils through the foliage.)_ + +STAGGERING BOB: (LARGE TEARDROPS ROLLING FROM HIS PROMINENT EYES, +SNIVELS) Me. Me see. + +BLOOM: Simply satisfying a need I... _(With pathos)_ No girl would when +I went girling. Too ugly. They wouldn't play... + +_(High on Ben Howth through rhododendrons a nannygoat passes, +plumpuddered, buttytailed, dropping currants.)_ + +THE NANNYGOAT: _(Bleats)_ Megeggaggegg! Nannannanny! + +BLOOM: _(Hatless, flushed, covered with burrs of thistledown and +gorsespine)_ Regularly engaged. Circumstances alter cases. _(He gazes +intently downwards on the water)_ Thirtytwo head over heels per second. +Press nightmare. Giddy Elijah. Fall from cliff. Sad end of government +printer's clerk. _(Through silversilent summer air the dummy of Bloom, +rolled in a mummy, rolls roteatingly from the Lion's Head cliff into the +purple waiting waters.)_ + +THE DUMMYMUMMY: Bbbbblllllblblblblobschbg! + +_(Far out in the bay between bailey and kish lights the_ Erin's King +_sails, sending a broadening plume of coalsmoke from her funnel towards +the land.)_ + +COUNCILLOR NANNETII: _(Alone on deck, in dark alpaca, yellowkitefaced, +his hand in his waistcoat opening, declaims)_ When my country takes her +place among the nations of the earth, then, and not till then, let my +epitaph be written. I have... + +BLOOM: Done. Prff! + +THE NYMPH: _(Loftily)_ We immortals, as you saw today, have not such +a place and no hair there either. We are stonecold and pure. We eat +electric light. _(She arches her body in lascivious crispation, placing +her forefinger in her mouth)_ Spoke to me. Heard from behind. How then +could you...? + +BLOOM: _(Pawing the heather abjectly)_ O, I have been a perfect pig. +Enemas too I have administered. One third of a pint of quassia to which +add a tablespoonful of rocksalt. Up the fundament. With Hamilton Long's +syringe, the ladies' friend. + +THE NYMPH: In my presence. The powderpuff. _(She blushes and makes a +knee)_ And the rest! + +BLOOM: _(Dejected)_ Yes. _Peccavi!_ I have paid homage on that living +altar where the back changes name. _(With sudden fervour)_ For why +should the dainty scented jewelled hand, the hand that rules...? + +_(Figures wind serpenting in slow woodland pattern around the treestems, +cooeeing)_ + +THE VOICE OF KITTY: _(In the thicket)_ Show us one of them cushions. + +THE VOICE OF FLORRY: Here. + +_(A grouse wings clumsily through the underwood.)_ + +THE VOICE OF LYNCH: _(In the thicket)_ Whew! Piping hot! + +THE VOICE OF ZOE: _(From the thicket)_ Came from a hot place. + +THE VOICE OF VIRAG: _(A birdchief, bluestreaked and feathered in war +panoply with his assegai, striding through a crackling canebrake over +beechmast and acorns)_ Hot! Hot! Ware Sitting Bull! + +BLOOM: It overpowers me. The warm impress of her warm form. Even to sit +where a woman has sat, especially with divaricated thighs, as though to +grant the last favours, most especially with previously well uplifted +white sateen coatpans. So womanly, full. It fills me full. + +THE WATERFALL: + + _Phillaphulla Poulaphouca + Poulaphouca Poulaphouca._ + +THE YEWS: Ssh! Sister, speak! + +THE NYMPH: _(Eyeless, in nun's white habit, coif and hugewinged wimple, +softly, with remote eyes)_ Tranquilla convent. Sister Agatha. Mount +Carmel. The apparitions of Knock and Lourdes. No more desire. _(She +reclines her head, sighing)_ Only the ethereal. Where dreamy creamy gull +waves o'er the waters dull. + +_(Bloom half rises. His back trouserbutton snaps.)_ + +THE BUTTON: Bip! + +_(Two sluts of the coombe dance rainily by, shawled, yelling flatly.)_ + +THE SLUTS: + + O, Leopold lost the pin of his drawers + He didn't know what to do, + To keep it up, + To keep it up. + +BLOOM: _(Coldly)_ You have broken the spell. The last straw. If there +were only ethereal where would you all be, postulants and novices? Shy +but willing like an ass pissing. + +THE YEWS: _(Their silverfoil of leaves precipitating, their skinny arms +aging and swaying)_ Deciduously! + +THE NYMPH: _(Her features hardening, gropes in the folds of her habit)_ +Sacrilege! To attempt my virtue! _(A large moist stain appears on her +robe)_ Sully my innocence! You are not fit to touch the garment of a +pure woman. _(She clutches again in her robe)_ Wait. Satan, you'll sing +no more lovesongs. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. _(She draws a poniard and, +clad in the sheathmail of an elected knight of nine, strikes at his +loins)_ Nekum! + +BLOOM: _(Starts up, seizes her hand)_ Hoy! Nebrakada! Cat o' nine lives! +Fair play, madam. No pruningknife. The fox and the grapes, is it? What +do you lack with your barbed wire? Crucifix not thick enough? _(He +clutches her veil)_ A holy abbot you want or Brophy, the lame gardener, +or the spoutless statue of the watercarrier, or good mother Alphonsus, +eh Reynard? + +THE NYMPH: _(With a cry flees from him unveiled, her plaster cast +cracking, a cloud of stench escaping from the cracks)_ Poli...! + +BLOOM: _(Calls after her)_ As if you didn't get it on the double +yourselves. No jerks and multiple mucosities all over you. I tried it. +Your strength our weakness. What's our studfee? What will you pay on +the nail? You fee mendancers on the Riviera, I read. _(The fleeing nymph +raises a keen)_ Eh? I have sixteen years of black slave labour behind +me. And would a jury give me five shillings alimony tomorrow, eh? Fool +someone else, not me. _(He sniffs)_ Rut. Onions. Stale. Sulphur. Grease. + +_(The figure of Bella Cohen stands before him.)_ + +BELLA: You'll know me the next time. + +BLOOM: _(Composed, regards her) Passee._ Mutton dressed as lamb. Long +in the tooth and superfluous hair. A raw onion the last thing at night +would benefit your complexion. And take some double chin drill. Your +eyes are as vapid as the glasseyes of your stuffed fox. They have the +dimensions of your other features, that's all. I'm not a triple screw +propeller. + +BELLA: _(Contemptuously)_ You're not game, in fact. _(Her sowcunt +barks)_ Fbhracht! + +BLOOM: _(Contemptuously)_ Clean your nailless middle finger first, your +bully's cold spunk is dripping from your cockscomb. Take a handful of +hay and wipe yourself. + +BELLA: I know you, canvasser! Dead cod! + +BLOOM: I saw him, kipkeeper! Pox and gleet vendor! + +BELLA: _(Turns to the piano)_ Which of you was playing the dead march +from _Saul?_ + +ZOE: Me. Mind your cornflowers. _(She darts to the piano and bangs +chords on it with crossed arms)_ The cat's ramble through the slag. +_(She glances back)_ Eh? Who's making love to my sweeties? _(She darts +back to the table)_ What's yours is mine and what's mine is my own. + +_(Kitty, disconcerted, coats her teeth with the silver paper. Bloom +approaches Zoe.)_ + +BLOOM: _(Gently)_ Give me back that potato, will you? + +ZOE: Forfeits, a fine thing and a superfine thing. + +BLOOM: _(With feeling)_ It is nothing, but still, a relic of poor mamma. + +ZOE: + + Give a thing and take it back + God'll ask you where is that + You'll say you don't know + God'll send you down below. + +BLOOM: There is a memory attached to it. I should like to have it. + +STEPHEN: To have or not to have that is the question. + +ZOE: Here. _(She hauls up a reef of her slip, revealing her bare thigh, +and unrolls the potato from the top of her stocking)_ Those that hides +knows where to find. + +BELLA: _(Frowns)_ Here. This isn't a musical peepshow. And don't you +smash that piano. Who's paying here? + +_(She goes to the pianola. Stephen fumbles in his pocket and, taking out +a banknote by its corner, hands it to her.)_ + +STEPHEN: _(With exaggerated politeness)_ This silken purse I made out +of the sow's ear of the public. Madam, excuse me. If you allow me. _(He +indicates vaguely Lynch and Bloom)_ We are all in the same sweepstake, +Kinch and Lynch. _Dans ce bordel ou tenons nostre etat_. + +LYNCH: _(Calls from the hearth)_ Dedalus! Give her your blessing for me. + +STEPHEN: _(Hands Bella a coin)_ Gold. She has it. + +BELLA: _(Looks at the money, then at Stephen, then at Zoe, Florry and +Kitty)_ Do you want three girls? It's ten shillings here. + +STEPHEN: _(Delightedly)_ A hundred thousand apologies. _(He fumbles +again and takes out and hands her two crowns)_ Permit, _brevi manu_, my +sight is somewhat troubled. + +_(Bella goes to the table to count the money while Stephen talks to +himself in monosyllables. Zoe bends over the table. Kitty leans over +Zoe's neck. Lynch gets up, rights his cap and, clasping Kitty's waist, +adds his head to the group.)_ + +FLORRY: _(Strives heavily to rise)_ Ow! My foot's asleep. _(She limps +over to the table. Bloom approaches.)_ + +BELLA, ZOE, KITTY, LYNCH, BLOOM: _(Chattering and squabbling)_ The +gentleman... ten shillings... paying for the three... allow me a +moment... this gentleman pays separate... who's touching it?... ow! +... mind who you're pinching... are you staying the night or a short +time?... who did?... you're a liar, excuse me... the gentleman paid +down like a gentleman... drink... it's long after eleven. + +STEPHEN: _(At the pianola, making a gesture of abhorrence)_ No bottles! +What, eleven? A riddle! + +ZOE: _(Lifting up her pettigown and folding a half sovereign into the +top of her stocking)_ Hard earned on the flat of my back. + +LYNCH: _(Lifting Kitty from the table)_ Come! + +KITTY: Wait. _(She clutches the two crowns)_ + +FLORRY: And me? + +LYNCH: Hoopla! _(He lifts her, carries her and bumps her down on the +sofa.)_ + +STEPHEN: + + The fox crew, the cocks flew, + The bells in heaven + Were striking eleven. + 'Tis time for her poor soul + To get out of heaven. + +BLOOM: _(Quietly lays a half sovereign on the table between bella and +florry)_ So. Allow me. _(He takes up the poundnote)_ Three times ten. +We're square. + +BELLA: _(Admiringly)_ You're such a slyboots, old cocky. I could kiss +you. + +ZOE: _(Points)_ Him? Deep as a drawwell. _(Lynch bends Kitty back over +the sofa and kisses her. Bloom goes with the poundnote to Stephen.)_ + +BLOOM: This is yours. + +STEPHEN: How is that? _Les distrait_ or absentminded beggar. _(He +fumbles again in his pocket and draws out a handful of coins. An object +fills.)_ That fell. + +BLOOM: _(Stooping, picks up and hands a box of matches)_ This. + +STEPHEN: Lucifer. Thanks. + +BLOOM: _(Quietly)_ You had better hand over that cash to me to take care +of. Why pay more? + +STEPHEN: _(Hands him all his coins)_ Be just before you are generous. + +BLOOM: I will but is it wise? _(He counts)_ One, seven, eleven, and +five. Six. Eleven. I don't answer for what you may have lost. + +STEPHEN: Why striking eleven? Proparoxyton. Moment before the next +Lessing says. Thirsty fox. _(He laughs loudly)_ Burying his grandmother. +Probably he killed her. + +BLOOM: That is one pound six and eleven. One pound seven, say. + +STEPHEN: Doesn't matter a rambling damn. + +BLOOM: No, but... + +STEPHEN: _(Comes to the table)_ Cigarette, please. _(Lynch tosses a +cigarette from the sofa to the table)_ And so Georgina Johnson is dead +and married. _(A cigarette appears on the table. Stephen looks at it)_ +Wonder. Parlour magic. Married. Hm. _(He strikes a match and proceeds to +light the cigarette with enigmatic melancholy)_ + +LYNCH: _(Watching him)_ You would have a better chance of lighting it if +you held the match nearer. + +STEPHEN: _(Brings the match near his eye)_ Lynx eye. Must get glasses. +Broke them yesterday. Sixteen years ago. Distance. The eye sees all +flat. _(He draws the match away. It goes out.)_ Brain thinks. Near: +far. Ineluctable modality of the visible. _(He frowns mysteriously)_ Hm. +Sphinx. The beast that has twobacks at midnight. Married. + +ZOE: It was a commercial traveller married her and took her away with +him. + +FLORRY: _(Nods)_ Mr Lambe from London. + +STEPHEN: Lamb of London, who takest away the sins of our world. + +LYNCH: _(Embracing Kitty on the sofa, chants deeply) Dona nobis pacem._ + +_(The cigarette slips from Stephen 's fingers. Bloom picks it up and +throws it in the grate.)_ + +BLOOM: Don't smoke. You ought to eat. Cursed dog I met. _(To Zoe)_ You +have nothing? + +ZOE: Is he hungry? + +STEPHEN: _(Extends his hand to her smiling and chants to the air of the +bloodoath in the_ Dusk of the Gods) + + Hangende Hunger, + Fragende Frau, + Macht uns alle kaputt. + + +ZOE: _(Tragically)_ Hamlet, I am thy father's gimlet! _(She takes +his hand)_ Blue eyes beauty I'll read your hand. _(She points to his +forehead)_ No wit, no wrinkles. _(She counts)_ Two, three, Mars, that's +courage. _(Stephen shakes his head)_ No kid. + +LYNCH: Sheet lightning courage. The youth who could not shiver and +shake. _(To Zoe)_ Who taught you palmistry? + +ZOE: _(Turns)_ Ask my ballocks that I haven't got. _(To Stephen)_ I see +it in your face. The eye, like that. _(She frowns with lowered head)_ + +LYNCH: _(Laughing, slaps Kitty behind twice)_ Like that. Pandybat. + +_(Twice loudly a pandybat cracks, the coffin of the pianola flies open, +the bald little round jack-in-the-box head of Father Dolan springs up.)_ + +FATHER DOLAN: Any boy want flogging? Broke his glasses? Lazy idle little +schemer. See it in your eye. + +_(Mild, benign, rectorial, reproving, the head of Don John Conmee rises +from the pianola coffin.)_ + +DON JOHN CONMEE: Now, Father Dolan! Now. I'm sure that Stephen is a very +good little boy! + +ZOE: _(Examining Stephen's palm)_ Woman's hand. + +STEPHEN: _(Murmurs)_ Continue. Lie. Hold me. Caress. I never could read +His handwriting except His criminal thumbprint on the haddock. + +ZOE: What day were you born? + +STEPHEN: Thursday. Today. + +ZOE: Thursday's child has far to go. _(She traces lines on his hand)_ +Line of fate. Influential friends. + +FLORRY: _(Pointing)_ Imagination. + +ZOE: Mount of the moon. You'll meet with a... _(She peers at his hands +abruptly)_ I won't tell you what's not good for you. Or do you want to +know? + +BLOOM: _(Detaches her fingers and offers his palm)_ More harm than good. +Here. Read mine. + +BELLA: Show. _(She turns up bloom's hand)_ I thought so. Knobby knuckles +for the women. + +ZOE: _(Peering at bloom's palm)_ Gridiron. Travels beyond the sea and +marry money. + +BLOOM: Wrong. + +ZOE: _(Quickly)_ O, I see. Short little finger. Henpecked husband. That +wrong? + +_(Black Liz, a huge rooster hatching in a chalked circle, rises, +stretches her wings and clucks.)_ + +BLACK LIZ: Gara. Klook. Klook. Klook. + +_(She sidles from her newlaid egg and waddles off)_ + +BLOOM: _(Points to his hand)_ That weal there is an accident. Fell and +cut it twentytwo years ago. I was sixteen. + +ZOE: I see, says the blind man. Tell us news. + +STEPHEN: See? Moves to one great goal. I am twentytwo. Sixteen years ago +he was twentytwo too. Sixteen years ago I twentytwo tumbled. Twentytwo +years ago he sixteen fell off his hobbyhorse. _(He winces)_ Hurt my hand +somewhere. Must see a dentist. Money? + +_(Zoe whispers to Florry. They giggle. Bloom releases his hand and +writes idly on the table in backhand, pencilling slow curves.)_ + +FLORRY: What? + +_(A hackneycar, number three hundred and twentyfour, with a +gallantbuttocked mare, driven by James Barton, Harmony Avenue, +Donnybrook, trots past. Blazes Boylan and Lenehan sprawl swaying on the +sideseats. The Ormond boots crouches behind on the axle. Sadly over the +crossblind Lydia Douce and Mina Kennedy gaze.)_ + +THE BOOTS: _(Jogging, mocks them with thumb and wriggling wormfingers)_ +Haw haw have you the horn? + +_(Bronze by gold they whisper.)_ + +ZOE: _(To Florry)_ Whisper. + +_(They whisper again)_ + +_(Over the well of the car Blazes Boylan leans, his boater straw set +sideways, a red flower in his mouth. Lenehan in yachtsman's cap and +white shoes officiously detaches a long hair from Blazes Boylan's coat +shoulder.)_ + +LENEHAN: Ho! What do I here behold? Were you brushing the cobwebs off a +few quims? + +BOYLAN: _(Seated, smiles)_ Plucking a turkey. + +LENEHAN: A good night's work. + +BOYLAN: _(Holding up four thick bluntungulated fingers, winks)_ Blazes +Kate! Up to sample or your money back. _(He holds out a forefinger)_ +Smell that. + +LENEHAN: _(Smells gleefully)_ Ah! Lobster and mayonnaise. Ah! + +ZOE AND FLORRY: _(Laugh together)_ Ha ha ha ha. + +BOYLAN: _(Jumps surely from the car and calls loudly for all to hear)_ +Hello, Bloom! Mrs Bloom dressed yet? + +BLOOM: _(In flunkey's prune plush coat and kneebreeches, buff stockings +and powdered wig)_ I'm afraid not, sir. The last articles... + +BOYLAN: _(Tosses him sixpence)_ Here, to buy yourself a gin and splash. +_(He hangs his hat smartly on a peg of Bloom's antlered head)_ Show me +in. I have a little private business with your wife, you understand? + +BLOOM: Thank you, sir. Yes, sir. Madam Tweedy is in her bath, sir. + +MARION: He ought to feel himself highly honoured. _(She plops splashing +out of the water)_ Raoul darling, come and dry me. I'm in my pelt. Only +my new hat and a carriage sponge. + +BOYLAN: _(A merry twinkle in his eye)_ Topping! + +BELLA: What? What is it? + +_(Zoe whispers to her.)_ + +MARION: Let him look, the pishogue! Pimp! And scourge himself! I'll +write to a powerful prostitute or Bartholomona, the bearded woman, to +raise weals out on him an inch thick and make him bring me back a signed +and stamped receipt. + +BOYLAN: (clasps himself) Here, I can't hold this little lot much longer. +(he strides off on stiff cavalry legs) + +BELLA: _(Laughing)_ Ho ho ho ho. + +BOYLAN: _(To Bloom, over his shoulder)_ You can apply your eye to the +keyhole and play with yourself while I just go through her a few times. + +BLOOM: Thank you, sir. I will, sir. May I bring two men chums to witness +the deed and take a snapshot? _(He holds out an ointment jar)_ Vaseline, +sir? Orangeflower...? Lukewarm water...? + +KITTY: _(From the sofa)_ Tell us, Florry. Tell us. What. + +_(Florry whispers to her. Whispering lovewords murmur, liplapping +loudly, poppysmic plopslop.)_ + +MINA KENNEDY: _(Her eyes upturned)_ O, it must be like the scent of +geraniums and lovely peaches! O, he simply idolises every bit of her! +Stuck together! Covered with kisses! + +LYDIA DOUCE: _(Her mouth opening)_ Yumyum. O, he's carrying her round +the room doing it! Ride a cockhorse. You could hear them in Paris and +New York. Like mouthfuls of strawberries and cream. + +KITTY: _(Laughing)_ Hee hee hee. + +BOYLAN'S VOICE: _(Sweetly, hoarsely, in the pit of his stomach)_ Ah! +Gooblazqruk brukarchkrasht! + +MARION'S VOICE: _(Hoarsely, sweetly, rising to her throat)_ O! +Weeshwashtkissinapooisthnapoohuck? + +BLOOM: _(His eyes wildly dilated, clasps himself)_ Show! Hide! Show! +Plough her! More! Shoot! + +BELLA, ZOE, FLORRY, KITTY: Ho ho! Ha ha! Hee hee! + +LYNCH: _(Points)_ The mirror up to nature. _(He laughs)_ Hu hu hu hu hu! + +_(Stephen and Bloom gaze in the mirror. The face of William Shakespeare, +beardless, appears there, rigid in facial paralysis, crowned by the +reflection of the reindeer antlered hatrack in the hall.)_ + +SHAKESPEARE: _(In dignified ventriloquy)_ 'Tis the loud laugh bespeaks +the vacant mind. _(To Bloom)_ Thou thoughtest as how thou wastest +invisible. Gaze. _(He crows with a black capon's laugh)_ Iagogo! How my +Oldfellow chokit his Thursdaymornun. Iagogogo! + +BLOOM: _(Smiles yellowly at the three whores)_ When will I hear the +joke? + +ZOE: Before you're twice married and once a widower. + +BLOOM: Lapses are condoned. Even the great Napoleon when measurements +were taken next the skin after his death... + +_(Mrs Dignam, widow woman, her snubnose and cheeks flushed with +deathtalk, tears and Tunney's tawny sherry, hurries by in her weeds, +her bonnet awry, rouging and powdering her cheeks, lips and nose, a +pen chivvying her brood of cygnets. Beneath her skirt appear her late +husband's everyday trousers and turnedup boots, large eights. She holds +a Scottish widows' insurance policy and a large marquee umbrella under +which her brood run with her, Patsy hopping on one shod foot, his collar +loose, a hank of porksteaks dangling, freddy whimpering, Susy with a +crying cod's mouth, Alice struggling with the baby. She cuffs them on, +her streamers flaunting aloft.)_ + +FREDDY: Ah, ma, you're dragging me along! + +SUSY: Mamma, the beeftea is fizzing over! + +SHAKESPEARE: _(With paralytic rage)_ Weda seca whokilla farst. + +_(The face of Martin Cunningham, bearded, refeatures Shakespeare's +beardless face. The marquee umbrella sways drunkenly, the children run +aside. Under the umbrella appears Mrs Cunningham in Merry Widow hat and +kimono gown. She glides sidling and bowing, twirling japanesily.)_ + +MRS CUNNINGHAM: _(Sings)_ + +And they call me the jewel of Asia! + +MARTIN CUNNINGHAM: _(Gazes on her, impassive)_ Immense! Most bloody +awful demirep! + +STEPHEN: _Et exaltabuntur cornua iusti._ Queens lay with prize bulls. +Remember Pasiphae for whose lust my grandoldgrossfather made the first +confessionbox. Forget not Madam Grissel Steevens nor the suine scions +of the house of Lambert. And Noah was drunk with wine. And his ark was +open. + +BELLA: None of that here. Come to the wrong shop. + +LYNCH: Let him alone. He's back from Paris. + +ZOE: _(Runs to stephen and links him)_ O go on! Give us some parleyvoo. + +_(Stephen claps hat on head and leaps over to the fireplace where he +stands with shrugged shoulders, finny hands outspread, a painted smile +on his face.)_ + +LYNCH: _(Oommelling on the sofa)_ Rmm Rmm Rmm Rrrrrrmmmm. + +STEPHEN: _(Gabbles with marionette jerks)_ Thousand places of +entertainment to expense your evenings with lovely ladies saling gloves +and other things perhaps hers heart beerchops perfect fashionable +house very eccentric where lots cocottes beautiful dressed much about +princesses like are dancing cancan and walking there parisian clowneries +extra foolish for bachelors foreigns the same if talking a poor english +how much smart they are on things love and sensations voluptuous. +Misters very selects for is pleasure must to visit heaven and hell show +with mortuary candles and they tears silver which occur every night. +Perfectly shocking terrific of religion's things mockery seen in +universal world. All chic womans which arrive full of modesty then +disrobe and squeal loud to see vampire man debauch nun very fresh young +with _dessous troublants_. _(He clacks his tongue loudly)_ _Ho, la la! +Ce pif qu'il a!_ + +LYNCH: _Vive le vampire!_ + +THE WHORES: Bravo! Parleyvoo! + +STEPHEN: _(Grimacing with head back, laughs loudly, clapping himself)_ +Great success of laughing. Angels much prostitutes like and holy +apostles big damn ruffians. _Demimondaines_ nicely handsome sparkling of +diamonds very amiable costumed. Or do you are fond better what belongs +they moderns pleasure turpitude of old mans? _(He points about him with +grotesque gestures which Lynch and the whores reply to)_ Caoutchouc +statue woman reversible or lifesize tompeeptom of virgins nudities very +lesbic the kiss five ten times. Enter, gentleman, to see in mirror every +positions trapezes all that machine there besides also if desire act +awfully bestial butcher's boy pollutes in warm veal liver or omlet on +the belly _piece de Shakespeare._ + +BELLA: _(Clapping her belly sinks back on the sofa, with a shout of +laughter)_ An omelette on the... Ho! ho! ho! ho!... omelette on the... + +STEPHEN: _(Mincingly)_ I love you, sir darling. Speak you englishman +tongue for _double entente cordiale._ O yes, _mon loup_. How much cost? +Waterloo. Watercloset. _(He ceases suddenly and holds up a forefinger)_ + +BELLA: _(Laughing)_ Omelette... + +THE WHORES: _(Laughing)_ Encore! Encore! + +STEPHEN: Mark me. I dreamt of a watermelon. + +ZOE: Go abroad and love a foreign lady. + +LYNCH: Across the world for a wife. + +FLORRY: Dreams goes by contraries. + +STEPHEN: _(Extends his arms)_ It was here. Street of harlots. In +Serpentine avenue Beelzebub showed me her, a fubsy widow. Where's the +red carpet spread? + +BLOOM: _(Approaching Stephen)_ Look... + +STEPHEN: No, I flew. My foes beneath me. And ever shall be. World +without end. _(He cries) P_ater! Free! + +BLOOM: I say, look... + +STEPHEN: Break my spirit, will he? _O merde alors! (He cries, his +vulture talons sharpened)_ Hola! Hillyho! + +_(Simon Dedalus' voice hilloes in answer, somewhat sleepy but ready.)_ + +SIMON: That's all right. _(He swoops uncertainly through the air, +wheeling, uttering cries of heartening, on strong ponderous buzzard +wings)_ Ho, boy! Are you going to win? Hoop! Pschatt! Stable with those +halfcastes. Wouldn't let them within the bawl of an ass. Head up! Keep +our flag flying! An eagle gules volant in a field argent displayed. +Ulster king at arms! Haihoop! _(He makes the beagle's call, giving +tongue)_ Bulbul! Burblblburblbl! Hai, boy! + +_(The fronds and spaces of the wallpaper file rapidly across country. +A stout fox, drawn from covert, brush pointed, having buried his +grandmother, runs swift for the open, brighteyed, seeking badger earth, +under the leaves. The pack of staghounds follows, nose to the ground, +sniffing their quarry, beaglebaying, burblbrbling to be blooded. Ward +Union huntsmen and huntswomen live with them, hot for a kill. From Six +Mile Point, Flathouse, Nine Mile Stone follow the footpeople with knotty +sticks, hayforks, salmongaffs, lassos, flockmasters with stockwhips, +bearbaiters with tomtoms, toreadors with bullswords, greynegroes +waving torches. The crowd bawls of dicers, crown and anchor players, +thimbleriggers, broadsmen. Crows and touts, hoarse bookies in high +wizard hats clamour deafeningly.)_ + +THE CROWD: + + Card of the races. Racing card! + Ten to one the field! + Tommy on the clay here! Tommy on the clay! + Ten to one bar one! Ten to one bar one! + Try your luck on Spinning Jenny! + Ten to one bar one! + Sell the monkey, boys! Sell the monkey! + I'll give ten to one! + Ten to one bar one! + +_(A dark horse, riderless, bolts like a phantom past the winningpost, +his mane moonfoaming, his eyeballs stars. The field follows, a bunch of +bucking mounts. Skeleton horses, Sceptre, Maximum the Second, Zinfandel, +the Duke of Westminster's Shotover, Repulse, the Duke of Beaufort's +Ceylon, prix de Paris. Dwarfs ride them, rustyarmoured, leaping, leaping +in their, in their saddles. Last in a drizzle of rain on a brokenwinded +isabelle nag, Cock of the North, the favourite, honey cap, green jacket, +orange sleeves, Garrett Deasy up, gripping the reins, a hockeystick at +the ready. His nag on spavined whitegaitered feet jogs along the rocky +road.)_ + +THE ORANGE LODGES: _(Jeering)_ Get down and push, mister. Last lap! +You'll be home the night! + +GARRETT DEASY: _(Bolt upright, his nailscraped face plastered with +postagestamps, brandishes his hockeystick, his blue eyes flashing in the +prism of the chandelier as his mount lopes by at schooling gallop)_ + +_Per vias rectas!_ + +_(A yoke of buckets leopards all over him and his rearing nag a torrent +of mutton broth with dancing coins of carrots, barley, onions, turnips, +potatoes.)_ + +THE GREEN LODGES: Soft day, sir John! Soft day, your honour! + +_(Private Carr, Private Compton and Cissy Caffrey pass beneath the +windows, singing in discord.)_ + +STEPHEN: Hark! Our friend noise in the street. + +ZOE: _(Holds up her hand)_ Stop! + +PRIVATE CARR, PRIVATE COMPTON AND CISSY CAFFREY: + +Yet I've a sort a Yorkshire relish for... + +ZOE: That's me. _(She claps her hands)_ Dance! Dance! _(She runs to the +pianola)_ Who has twopence? + +BLOOM: Who'll...? + +LYNCH: _(Handing her coins)_ Here. + +STEPHEN: _(Cracking his fingers impatiently)_ Quick! Quick! Where's my +augur's rod? _(He runs to the piano and takes his ashplant, beating his +foot in tripudium)_ + +ZOE: _(Turns the drumhandle)_ There. + +_(She drops two pennies in the slot. Gold, pink and violet lights +start forth. The drum turns purring in low hesitation waltz. Professor +Goodwin, in a bowknotted periwig, in court dress, wearing a stained +inverness cape, bent in two from incredible age, totters across the +room, his hands fluttering. He sits tinily on the pianostool and lifts +and beats handless sticks of arms on the keyboard, nodding with damsel's +grace, his bowknot bobbing)_ + +ZOE: _(Twirls round herself, heeltapping)_ Dance. Anybody here for +there? Who'll dance? Clear the table. + +_(The pianola with changing lights plays in waltz time the prelude of_ +My Girl's a Yorkshire Girl. _Stephen throws his ashplant on the table +and seizes Zoe round the waist. Florry and Bella push the table towards +the fireplace. Stephen, arming Zoe with exaggerated grace, begins to +waltz her round the room. Bloom stands aside. Her sleeve filling from +gracing arms reveals a white fleshflower of vaccination. Between the +curtains Professor Maginni inserts a leg on the toepoint of which spins +a silk hat. With a deft kick he sends it spinning to his crown and +jauntyhatted skates in. He wears a slate frockcoat with claret silk +lapels, a gorget of cream tulle, a green lowcut waistcoat, stock collar +with white kerchief, tight lavender trousers, patent pumps and canary +gloves. In his buttonhole is an immense dahlia. He twirls in reversed +directions a clouded cane, then wedges it tight in his oxter. He places +a hand lightly on his breastbone, bows, and fondles his flower and +buttons.)_ + +MAGINNI: The poetry of motion, art of calisthenics. No connection +with Madam Legget Byrne's or Levenston's. Fancy dress balls arranged. +Deportment. The Katty Lanner step. So. Watch me! My terpsichorean +abilities. _(He minuets forward three paces on tripping bee's feet) Tout +le monde en avant! Reverence! Tout le monde en place!_ + +_(The prelude ceases. Professor Goodwin, beating vague arms shrivels, +sinks, his live cape filling about the stool. The air in firmer waltz +time sounds. Stephen and Zoe circle freely. The lights change, glow, +fide gold rosy violet.)_ + +THE PIANOLA: + +Two young fellows were talking about their girls, girls, girls, +Sweethearts they'd left behind... + +_(From a corner the morning hours run out, goldhaired, slimsandalled, +in girlish blue, waspwaisted, with innocent hands. Nimbly they dance, +twirling their skipping ropes. The hours of noon follow in amber gold. +Laughing, linked, high haircombs flashing, they catch the sun in mocking +mirrors, lifting their arms.)_ + +MAGINNI: _(Clipclaps glovesilent hands) Carre! Avant deux!_ Breathe +evenly! _Balance!_ + +_(The morning and noon hours waltz in their places, turning, advancing +to each other, shaping their curves, bowing visavis. Cavaliers behind +them arch and suspend their arms, with hands descending to, touching, +rising from their shoulders.)_ + +HOURS: You may touch my. + +CAVALIERS: May I touch your? + +HOURS: O, but lightly! + +CAVALIERS: O, so lightly! + +THE PIANOLA: + +My little shy little lass has a waist. + +_(Zoe and Stephen turn boldly with looser swing. The twilight hours +advance from long landshadows, dispersed, lagging, languideyed, their +cheeks delicate with cipria and false faint bloom. They are in grey +gauze with dark bat sleeves that flutter in the land breeze.)_ + +MAGINNI: _Avant huit! Traverse! Salut! Cours de mains! Croise!_ + +_(The night hours, one by one, steal to the last place. Morning, noon +and twilight hours retreat before them. They are masked, with daggered +hair and bracelets of dull bells. Weary they curchycurchy under veils.)_ + +THE BRACELETS: Heigho! Heigho! + +ZOE: _(Twirling, her hand to her brow)_ O! + +MAGINNI: _Les tiroirs! Chaine de dames! La corbeille! Dos a dos!_ + +_(Arabesquing wearily they weave a pattern on the floor, weaving, +unweaving, curtseying, twirling, simply swirling.)_ + +ZOE: I'm giddy! + +_(She frees herself, droops on a chair. Stephen seizes Florry and turns +with her.)_ + +MAGINNI: Boulangere! Les ronds! Les ponts! Chevaux de bois! Escargots! + +_(Twining, receding, with interchanging hands the night hours link each +each with arching arms in a mosaic of movements. Stephen and Florry turn +cumbrously.)_ + +MAGINNI: _Dansez avec vos dames! Changez de dames! Donnez le petit +bouquet a votre dame! Remerciez!_ + +THE PIANOLA: + + Best, best of all, + Baraabum! + +KITTY: (JUMPS UP) O, they played that on the hobbyhorses at the Mirus +bazaar! + +_(She runs to Stephen. He leaves florry brusquely and seizes Kitty. +A screaming bittern's harsh high whistle shrieks. Groangrousegurgling +Toft's cumbersome whirligig turns slowly the room right roundabout the +room.)_ + +THE PIANOLA: + + My girl's a Yorkshire girl. + +ZOE: + +Yorkshire through and through. + +Come on all! + +_(She seizes Florry and waltzes her.)_ + +STEPHEN: _Pas seul!_ + +_(He wheels Kitty into Lynch's arms, snatches up his ashplant from +the table and takes the floor. All wheel whirl waltz twirl. Bloombella +Kittylynch Florryzoe jujuby women. Stephen with hat ashplant frogsplits +in middle highkicks with skykicking mouth shut hand clasp part under +thigh. With clang tinkle boomhammer tallyho hornblower blue green yellow +flashes Toft's cumbersome turns with hobbyhorse riders from gilded +snakes dangled, bowels fandango leaping spurn soil foot and fall +again.)_ + +THE PIANOLA: + + Though she's a factory lass + And wears no fancy clothes. + +_(Closeclutched swift swifter with glareblareflare scudding they +scootlootshoot lumbering by. Baraabum!)_ + +TUTTI: Encore! Bis! Bravo! Encore! + +SIMON: Think of your mother's people! + +STEPHEN: Dance of death. + +_(Bang fresh barang bang of lacquey's bell, horse, nag, steer, piglings, +Conmee on Christass, lame crutch and leg sailor in cockboat armfolded +ropepulling hitching stamp hornpipe through and through. Baraabum! On +nags hogs bellhorses Gadarene swine Corny in coffin Steel shark stone +onehandled nelson two trickies Frauenzimmer plumstained from pram +filling bawling gum he's a champion. Fuseblue peer from barrel rev. +evensong Love on hackney jaunt Blazes blind coddoubled bicyclers Dilly +with snowcake no fancy clothes. Then in last switchback lumbering up +and down bump mashtub sort of viceroy and reine relish for tublumber +bumpshire rose. Baraabum!)_ + +_(The couples fall aside. Stephen whirls giddily. Room whirls back. Eyes +closed he totters. Red rails fly spacewards. Stars all around suns turn +roundabout. Bright midges dance on walls. He stops dead.)_ + +STEPHEN: Ho! + +_(Stephen's mother, emaciated, rises stark through the floor, in leper +grey with a wreath of faded orangeblossoms and a torn bridal veil, her +face worn and noseless, green with gravemould. Her hair is scant and +lank. She fixes her bluecircled hollow eyesockets on Stephen and opens +her toothless mouth uttering a silent word. A choir of virgins and +confessors sing voicelessly.)_ + +THE CHOIR: + + Liliata rutilantium te confessorum... + Iubilantium te virginum... + +_(from the top of a tower Buck Mulligan, in particoloured jester's dress +of puce and yellow and clown's cap with curling bell, stands gaping at +her, a smoking buttered split scone in his hand.)_ + +BUCK MULLIGAN: She's beastly dead. The pity of it! Mulligan meets the +afflicted mother. _(He upturns his eyes)_ Mercurial Malachi! + +THE MOTHER: _(With the subtle smile of death's madness)_ I was once the +beautiful May Goulding. I am dead. + +STEPHEN: _(Horrorstruck)_ Lemur, who are you? No. What bogeyman's trick +is this? + +BUCK MULLIGAN: _(Shakes his curling capbell)_ The mockery of it! Kinch +dogsbody killed her bitchbody. She kicked the bucket. _(Tears of molten +butter fall from his eyes on to the scone)_ Our great sweet mother! _Epi +oinopa ponton._ + +THE MOTHER: _(Comes nearer, breathing upon him softly her breath of +wetted ashes)_ All must go through it, Stephen. More women than men in +the world. You too. Time will come. + +STEPHEN: _(Choking with fright, remorse and horror)_ They say I killed +you, mother. He offended your memory. Cancer did it, not I. Destiny. + +THE MOTHER: _(A green rill of bile trickling from a side of her mouth)_ +You sang that song to me. _Love's bitter mystery._ + +STEPHEN: _(Eagerly)_ Tell me the word, mother, if you know now. The word +known to all men. + +THE MOTHER: Who saved you the night you jumped into the train at +Dalkey with Paddy Lee? Who had pity for you when you were sad among the +strangers? Prayer is allpowerful. Prayer for the suffering souls in the +Ursuline manual and forty days' indulgence. Repent, Stephen. + +STEPHEN: The ghoul! Hyena! + +THE MOTHER: I pray for you in my other world. Get Dilly to make you that +boiled rice every night after your brainwork. Years and years I loved +you, O, my son, my firstborn, when you lay in my womb. + +ZOE: _(Fanning herself with the grate fan)_ I'm melting! + +FLORRY: _(Points to Stephen)_ Look! He's white. + +BLOOM: _(Goes to the window to open it more)_ Giddy. + +THE MOTHER: _(With smouldering eyes)_ Repent! O, the fire of hell! + +STEPHEN: _(Panting)_ His noncorrosive sublimate! The corpsechewer! Raw +head and bloody bones. + +THE MOTHER: _(Her face drawing near and nearer, sending out an ashen +breath)_ Beware! _(She raises her blackened withered right arm slowly +towards Stephen's breast with outstretched finger)_ Beware God's hand! +_(A green crab with malignant red eyes sticks deep its grinning claws in +Stephen's heart.)_ + +STEPHEN: _(Strangled with rage)_ Shite! _(His features grow drawn grey +and old)_ + +BLOOM: _(At the window)_ What? + +STEPHEN: _Ah non, par exemple!_ The intellectual imagination! With me +all or not at all. _Non serviam!_ + +FLORRY: Give him some cold water. Wait. _(She rushes out)_ + +THE MOTHER: _(Wrings her hands slowly, moaning desperately)_ O Sacred +Heart of Jesus, have mercy on him! Save him from hell, O Divine Sacred +Heart! + +STEPHEN: No! No! No! Break my spirit, all of you, if you can! I'll bring +you all to heel! + +THE MOTHER: _(In the agony of her deathrattle)_ Have mercy on Stephen, +Lord, for my sake! Inexpressible was my anguish when expiring with love, +grief and agony on Mount Calvary. + +STEPHEN: _Nothung_! + +_(He lifts his ashplant high with both hands and smashes the chandelier. +Time's livid final flame leaps and, in the following darkness, ruin of +all space, shattered glass and toppling masonry.)_ + +THE GASJET: Pwfungg! + +BLOOM: Stop! + +LYNCH: _(Rushes forward and seizes Stephen's hand)_ Here! Hold on! Don't +run amok! + +BELLA: Police! + +_(Stephen, abandoning his ashplant, his head and arms thrown back stark, +beats the ground and flies from the room, past the whores at the door.)_ + +BELLA: _(Screams)_ After him! + +_(The two whores rush to the halldoor. Lynch and Kitty and Zoe stampede +from the room. They talk excitedly. Bloom follows, returns.)_ + +THE WHORES: _(Jammed in the doorway, pointing)_ Down there. + +ZOE: _(Pointing)_ There. There's something up. + +BELLA: Who pays for the lamp? _(She seizes Bloom's coattail)_ Here, you +were with him. The lamp's broken. + +BLOOM: _(Rushes to the hall, rushes back)_ What lamp, woman? + +A WHORE: He tore his coat. + +BELLA: _(Her eyes hard with anger and cupidity, points)_ Who's to pay +for that? Ten shillings. You're a witness. + +BLOOM: _(Snatches up Stephen's ashplant)_ Me? Ten shillings? Haven't you +lifted enough off him? Didn't he...? + +BELLA: _(Loudly)_ Here, none of your tall talk. This isn't a brothel. A +ten shilling house. + +BLOOM: _(His head under the lamp, pulls the chain. Puling, the gasjet +lights up a crushed mauve purple shade. He raises the ashplant.)_ Only +the chimney's broken. Here is all he... + +BELLA: _(Shrinks back and screams)_ Jesus! Don't! + +BLOOM: _(Warding off a blow)_ To show you how he hit the paper. There's +not sixpenceworth of damage done. Ten shillings! + +FLORRY: _(With a glass of water, enters)_ Where is he? + +BELLA: Do you want me to call the police? + +BLOOM: O, I know. Bulldog on the premises. But he's a Trinity student. +Patrons of your establishment. Gentlemen that pay the rent. _(He makes +a masonic sign)_ Know what I mean? Nephew of the vice-chancellor. You +don't want a scandal. + +BELLA: _(Angrily)_ Trinity. Coming down here ragging after the boatraces +and paying nothing. Are you my commander here or? Where is he? I'll +charge him! Disgrace him, I will! (She Shouts) Zoe! Zoe! + +BLOOM: _(Urgently)_ And if it were your own son in Oxford? _(Warningly)_ +I know. + +BELLA: _(Almost speechless)_ Who are. Incog! + +ZOE: _(In the doorway)_ There's a row on. + +BLOOM: What? Where? _(He throws a shilling on the table and starts)_ +That's for the chimney. Where? I need mountain air. + +_(He hurries out through the hall. The whores point. Florry follows, +spilling water from her tilted tumbler. On the doorstep all the whores +clustered talk volubly, pointing to the right where the fog has cleared +off. From the left arrives a jingling hackney car. It slows to in front +of the house. Bloom at the halldoor perceives Corny Kelleher who is +about to dismount from the car with two silent lechers. He averts +his face. Bella from within the hall urges on her whores. They blow +ickylickysticky yumyum kisses. Corny Kelleher replies with a ghastly +lewd smile. The silent lechers turn to pay the jarvey. Zoe and Kitty +still point right. Bloom, parting them swiftly, draws his caliph's hood +and poncho and hurries down the steps with sideways face. Incog Haroun +al Raschid he flits behind the silent lechers and hastens on by the +railings with fleet step of a pard strewing the drag behind him, torn +envelopes drenched in aniseed. The ashplant marks his stride. A pack +of bloodhounds, led by Hornblower of Trinity brandishing a dogwhip in +tallyho cap and an old pair of grey trousers, follow from fir, picking +up the scent, nearer, baying, panting, at fault, breaking away, throwing +their tongues, biting his heels, leaping at his tail. He walks, +runs, zigzags, gallops, lugs laid back. He is pelted with gravel, +cabbagestumps, biscuitboxes, eggs, potatoes, dead codfish, woman's +slipperslappers. After him freshfound the hue and cry zigzag gallops +in hot pursuit of follow my leader: 65 C, 66 C, night watch, John Henry +Menton, Wisdom Hely, V. B. Dillon, Councillor Nannetti, Alexander Keyes, +Larry O'rourke, Joe Cuffe Mrs O'dowd, Pisser Burke, The Nameless One, +Mrs Riordan, The Citizen, Garryowen, Whodoyoucallhim, Strangeface, +Fellowthatsolike, Sawhimbefore, Chapwithawen, Chris Callinan, Sir +Charles Cameron, Benjamin Dollard, Lenehan, Bartell d'Arcy, Joe Hynes, +red Murray, editor Brayden, T. M. Healy, Mr Justice Fitzgibbon, John +Howard Parnell, the reverend Tinned Salmon, Professor Joly, Mrs +Breen, Denis Breen, Theodore Purefoy, Mina Purefoy, the Westland +Row postmistress, C. P. M'Coy, friend of Lyons, Hoppy Holohan, +maninthestreet, othermaninthestreet, Footballboots, pugnosed driver, +rich protestant lady, Davy Byrne, Mrs Ellen M'Guinness, Mrs Joe +Gallaher, George Lidwell, Jimmy Henry on corns, Superintendent Laracy, +Father Cowley, Crofton out of the Collector-general's, Dan Dawson, +dental surgeon Bloom with tweezers, Mrs Bob Doran, Mrs Kennefick, Mrs +Wyse Nolan, John Wyse Nolan, handsomemarriedwomanrubbedagainstwide +behindinClonskeatram, the bookseller of_ Sweets of Sin, _Miss +Dubedatandshedidbedad, Mesdames Gerald and Stanislaus Moran of Roebuck, +the managing clerk of Drimmie's, Wetherup, colonel Hayes, Mastiansky, +Citron, Penrose, Aaron Figatner, Moses Herzog, Michael E Geraghty, +Inspector Troy, Mrs Galbraith, the constable off Eccles Street corner, +old doctor Brady with stethoscope, the mystery man on the beach, a +retriever, Mrs Miriam Dandrade and all her lovers.)_ + +THE HUE AND CRY: _(Helterskelterpelterwelter)_ He's Bloom! Stop Bloom! +Stopabloom! Stopperrobber! Hi! Hi! Stophim on the corner! + +_(At the corner of Beaver Street beneath the scaffolding Bloom panting +stops on the fringe of the noisy quarrelling knot, a lot not knowing a +jot what hi! hi! row and wrangle round the whowhat brawlaltogether.)_ + +STEPHEN: _(With elaborate gestures, breathing deeply and slowly)_ You +are my guests. Uninvited. By virtue of the fifth of George and seventh +of Edward. History to blame. Fabled by mothers of memory. + +PRIVATE CARR: _(To Cissy Caffrey)_ Was he insulting you? + +STEPHEN: Addressed her in vocative feminine. Probably neuter. +Ungenitive. + +VOICES: No, he didn't. I seen him. The girl there. He was in Mrs +Cohen's. What's up? Soldier and civilian. + +CISSY CAFFREY: I was in company with the soldiers and they left me to +do--you know, and the young man run up behind me. But I'm faithful to +the man that's treating me though I'm only a shilling whore. + +STEPHEN: _(Catches sight of Lynch's and Kitty's heads)_ Hail, Sisyphus. +_(He points to himself and the others)_ Poetic. Uropoetic. + +VOICES: Shes faithfultheman. + +CISSY CAFFREY: Yes, to go with him. And me with a soldier friend. + +PRIVATE COMPTON: He doesn't half want a thick ear, the blighter. Biff +him one, Harry. + +PRIVATE CARR: _(To Cissy)_ Was he insulting you while me and him was +having a piss? + +LORD TENNYSON: _(Gentleman poet in Union Jack blazer and cricket +flannels, bareheaded, flowingbearded)_ Theirs not to reason why. + +PRIVATE COMPTON: Biff him, Harry. + +STEPHEN: _(To Private Compton)_ I don't know your name but you are quite +right. Doctor Swift says one man in armour will beat ten men in their +shirts. Shirt is synechdoche. Part for the whole. + +CISSY CAFFREY: _(To The Crowd)_ No, I was with the privates. + +STEPHEN: _(Amiably)_ Why not? The bold soldier boy. In my opinion every +lady for example... + +PRIVATE CARR: _(His cap awry, advances to Stephen)_ Say, how would it +be, governor, if I was to bash in your jaw? + +STEPHEN: _(Looks up to the sky)_ How? Very unpleasant. Noble art of +selfpretence. Personally, I detest action. _(He waves his hand)_ Hand +hurts me slightly. _Enfin ce sont vos oignons._ _(To Cissy Caffrey)_ +Some trouble is on here. What is it precisely? + +DOLLY GRAY: _(From her balcony waves her handkerchief, giving the sign +of the heroine of Jericho)_ Rahab. Cook's son, goodbye. Safe home to +Dolly. Dream of the girl you left behind and she will dream of you. + +_(The soldiers turn their swimming eyes.)_ + +BLOOM: _(Elbowing through the crowd, plucks Stephen's sleeve +vigorously)_ Come now, professor, that carman is waiting. + +STEPHEN: _(Turns)_ Eh? _(He disengages himself)_ Why should I not speak +to him or to any human being who walks upright upon this oblate orange? +_(He points his finger)_ I'm not afraid of what I can talk to if I see +his eye. Retaining the perpendicular. + +_(He staggers a pace back)_ + +BLOOM: _(Propping him)_ Retain your own. + +STEPHEN: _(Laughs emptily)_ My centre of gravity is displaced. I have +forgotten the trick. Let us sit down somewhere and discuss. Struggle +for life is the law of existence but but human philirenists, notably the +tsar and the king of England, have invented arbitration. _(He taps his +brow)_ But in here it is I must kill the priest and the king. + +BIDDY THE CLAP: Did you hear what the professor said? He's a professor +out of the college. + +CUNTY KATE: I did. I heard that. + +BIDDY THE CLAP: He expresses himself with such marked refinement of +phraseology. + +CUNTY KATE: Indeed, yes. And at the same time with such apposite +trenchancy. + +PRIVATE CARR: _(Pulls himself free and comes forward)_ What's that +you're saying about my king? + +_(Edward the Seventh appears in an archway. He wars a white jersey on +which an image of the Sacred Heart is stitched with the insignia of +Garter and Thistle, Golden Fleece, Elephant of Denmark, Skinner's +and Probyn's horse, Lincoln's Inn bencher and ancient and honourable +artillery company of Massachusetts. He sucks a red jujube. He is robed +as a grand elect perfect and sublime mason with trowel and apron, +marked_ made in Germany. _In his left hand he holds a plasterer's bucket +on which is printed_ Defense d'uriner. _A roar of welcome greets him.)_ + +EDWARD THE SEVENTH: _(Slowly, solemnly but indistinctly)_ Peace, perfect +peace. For identification, bucket in my hand. Cheerio, boys. _(He turns +to his subjects)_ We have come here to witness a clean straight fight +and we heartily wish both men the best of good luck. Mahak makar a bak. + +_(He shakes hands with Private Carr, Private Compton, Stephen, Bloom and +Lynch. General applause. Edward the Seventh lifts his bucket graciously +in acknowledgment.)_ + +PRIVATE CARR: _(To Stephen)_ Say it again. + +STEPHEN: _(Nervous, friendly, pulls himself up)_ I understand your point +of view though I have no king myself for the moment. This is the age of +patent medicines. A discussion is difficult down here. But this is the +point. You die for your country. Suppose. _(He places his arm on Private +Carr's sleeve)_ Not that I wish it for you. But I say: Let my country +die for me. Up to the present it has done so. I didn't want it to die. +Damn death. Long live life! + +EDWARD THE SEVENTH: _(Levitates over heaps of slain, in the garb and +with the halo of Joking Jesus, a white jujube in his phosphorescent +face)_ + +My methods are new and are causing surprise. To make the blind see I +throw dust in their eyes. + +STEPHEN: Kings and unicorns! _(He fills back a pace)_ Come somewhere and +we'll... What was that girl saying?... + +PRIVATE COMPTON: Eh, Harry, give him a kick in the knackers. Stick one +into Jerry. + +BLOOM: _(To the privates, softly)_ He doesn't know what he's saying. +Taken a little more than is good for him. Absinthe. Greeneyed monster. I +know him. He's a gentleman, a poet. It's all right. + +STEPHEN: _(Nods, smiling and laughing)_ Gentleman, patriot, scholar and +judge of impostors. + +PRIVATE CARR: I don't give a bugger who he is. + +PRIVATE COMPTON: We don't give a bugger who he is. + +STEPHEN: I seem to annoy them. Green rag to a bull. + +_(Kevin Egan of Paris in black Spanish tasselled shirt and peep-o'-day +boy's hat signs to Stephen.)_ + +KEVIN EGAN: H'lo! _Bonjour!_ The _vieille ogresse_ with the _dents +jaunes_. + +_(Patrice Egan peeps from behind, his rabbitface nibbling a quince +leaf.)_ + +PATRICE: _Socialiste!_ + +DON EMILE PATRIZIO FRANZ RUPERT POPE HENNESSY: _(In medieval hauberk, +two wild geese volant on his helm, with noble indignation points a +mailed hand against the privates)_ Werf those eykes to footboden, big +grand porcos of johnyellows todos covered of gravy! + +BLOOM: _(To Stephen)_ Come home. You'll get into trouble. + +STEPHEN: _(Swaying)_ I don't avoid it. He provokes my intelligence. + +BIDDY THE CLAP: One immediately observes that he is of patrician +lineage. + +THE VIRAGO: Green above the red, says he. Wolfe Tone. + +THE BAWD: The red's as good as the green. And better. Up the soldiers! +Up King Edward! + +A ROUGH: _(Laughs)_ Ay! Hands up to De Wet. + +THE CITIZEN: _(With a huge emerald muffler and shillelagh, calls)_ + + May the God above + Send down a dove + With teeth as sharp as razors + To slit the throats + Of the English dogs + That hanged our Irish leaders. + +THE CROPPY BOY: _(The ropenoose round his neck, gripes in his issuing +bowels with both hands)_ + +I bear no hate to a living thing, But I love my country beyond the king. + +RUMBOLD, DEMON BARBER: _(Accompanied by two blackmasked assistants, +advances with gladstone bag which he opens)_ Ladies and gents, +cleaver purchased by Mrs Pearcy to slay Mogg. Knife with which Voisin +dismembered the wife of a compatriot and hid remains in a sheet in the +cellar, the unfortunate female's throat being cut from ear to ear. Phial +containing arsenic retrieved from body of Miss Barron which sent Seddon +to the gallows. + +_(He jerks the rope. The assistants leap at the victim's legs and drag +him downward, grunting the croppy boy's tongue protrudes violently.)_ + +THE CROPPY BOY: + +Horhot ho hray hor hother's hest. + +_(He gives up the ghost. A violent erection of the hanged sends gouts +of sperm spouting through his deathclothes on to the cobblestones. Mrs +Bellingham, Mrs Yelverton Barry and the Honourable Mrs Mervyn Talboys +rush forward with their handkerchiefs to sop it up.)_ + +RUMBOLD: I'm near it myself. _(He undoes the noose)_ Rope which hanged +the awful rebel. Ten shillings a time. As applied to Her Royal Highness. +_(He plunges his head into the gaping belly of the hanged and draws out +his head again clotted with coiled and smoking entrails)_ My painful +duty has now been done. God save the king! + +EDWARD THE SEVENTH: _(Dances slowly, solemnly, rattling his bucket, and +sings with soft contentment)_ + +On coronation day, on coronation day, O, won't we have a merry time, +Drinking whisky, beer and wine! + +PRIVATE CARR: Here. What are you saying about my king? + +STEPHEN: _(Throws up his hands)_ O, this is too monotonous! Nothing. +He wants my money and my life, though want must be his master, for +some brutish empire of his. Money I haven't. _(He searches his pockets +vaguely)_ GAVE IT TO SOMEONE. + +PRIVATE CARR: Who wants your bleeding money? + +STEPHEN: _(Tries to move off)_ Will someone tell me where I am least +likely to meet these necessary evils? _Ca se voit aussi a paris._ Not +that I... But, by Saint Patrick...! + +_(The women's heads coalesce. Old Gummy Granny in sugarloaf hat appears +seated on a toadstool, the deathflower of the potato blight on her +breast.)_ + +STEPHEN: Aha! I know you, gammer! Hamlet, revenge! The old sow that eats +her farrow! + +OLD GUMMY GRANNY: _(Rocking to and fro)_ Ireland's sweetheart, the king +of Spain's daughter, alanna. Strangers in my house, bad manners to them! +_(She keens with banshee woe)_ Ochone! Ochone! Silk of the kine! _(She +wails)_ You met with poor old Ireland and how does she stand? + +STEPHEN: How do I stand you? The hat trick! Where's the third person of +the Blessed Trinity? Soggarth Aroon? The reverend Carrion Crow. + +CISSY CAFFREY: _(Shrill)_ Stop them from fighting! + +A ROUGH: Our men retreated. + +PRIVATE CARR: _(Tugging at his belt)_ I'll wring the neck of any fucker +says a word against my fucking king. + +BLOOM: _(Terrified)_ He said nothing. Not a word. A pure +misunderstanding. + +THE CITIZEN: _Erin go bragh!_ + +_(Major Tweedy and the Citizen exhibit to each other medals, +decorations, trophies of war, wounds. Both salute with fierce +hostility.)_ + +PRIVATE COMPTON: Go it, Harry. Do him one in the eye. He's a proboer. + +STEPHEN: Did I? When? + +BLOOM: _(To the redcoats)_ We fought for you in South Africa, Irish +missile troops. Isn't that history? Royal Dublin Fusiliers. Honoured by +our monarch. + +THE NAVVY: _(Staggering past)_ O, yes! O God, yes! O, make the kwawr a +krowawr! O! Bo! + +_(Casqued halberdiers in armour thrust forward a pentice of gutted +spearpoints. Major Tweedy, moustached like Turko the terrible, in +bearskin cap with hackleplume and accoutrements, with epaulettes, gilt +chevrons and sabretaches, his breast bright with medals, toes the line. +He gives the pilgrim warrior's sign of the knights templars.)_ + +MAJOR TWEEDY: _(Growls gruffly)_ Rorke's Drift! Up, guards, and at them! +Mahar shalal hashbaz. + +PRIVATE CARR: I'll do him in. + +PRIVATE COMPTON: _(Waves the crowd back)_ Fair play, here. Make a +bleeding butcher's shop of the bugger. + +_(Massed bands blare_ Garryowen _and_ God save the King.) + +CISSY CAFFREY: They're going to fight. For me! + +CUNTY KATE: The brave and the fair. + +BIDDY THE CLAP: Methinks yon sable knight will joust it with the best. + +CUNTY KATE: _(Blushing deeply)_ Nay, madam. The gules doublet and merry +saint George for me! + +STEPHEN: + +The harlot's cry from street to street Shall weave Old Ireland's +windingsheet. + +PRIVATE CARR: _(Loosening his belt, shouts)_ I'll wring the neck of any +fucking bastard says a word against my bleeding fucking king. + +BLOOM: _(Shakes Cissy Caffrey's shoulders)_ Speak, you! Are you struck +dumb? You are the link between nations and generations. Speak, woman, +sacred lifegiver! + +CISSY CAFFREY: _(Alarmed, seizes Private Carr's sleeve)_ Amn't I with +you? Amn't I your girl? Cissy's your girl. _(She cries)_ Police! + +STEPHEN: _(Ecstatically, to Cissy Caffrey)_ + + White thy fambles, red thy gan + And thy quarrons dainty is. + + +VOICES: Police! + +DISTANT VOICES: Dublin's burning! Dublin's burning! On fire, on fire! + +_(Brimstone fires spring up. Dense clouds roll past. Heavy Gatling guns +boom. Pandemonium. Troops deploy. Gallop of hoofs. Artillery. Hoarse +commands. Bells clang. Backers shout. Drunkards bawl. Whores screech. +Foghorns hoot. Cries of valour. Shrieks of dying. Pikes clash on +cuirasses. Thieves rob the slain. Birds of prey, winging from the sea, +rising from marshlands, swooping from eyries, hover screaming, gannets, +cormorants, vultures, goshawks, climbing woodcocks, peregrines, merlins, +blackgrouse, sea eagles, gulls, albatrosses, barnacle geese. The +midnight sun is darkened. The earth trembles. The dead of Dublin +from Prospect and Mount Jerome in white sheepskin overcoats and black +goatfell cloaks arise and appear to many. A chasm opens with a noiseless +yawn. Tom Rochford, winner, in athlete's singlet and breeches, arrives +at the head of the national hurdle handicap and leaps into the void. +He is followed by a race of runners and leapers. In wild attitudes they +spring from the brink. Their bodies plunge. Factory lasses with fancy +clothes toss redhot Yorkshire baraabombs. Society ladies lift their +skirts above their heads to protect themselves. Laughing witches in red +cutty sarks ride through the air on broomsticks. Quakerlyster plasters +blisters. It rains dragons' teeth. Armed heroes spring up from furrows. +They exchange in amity the pass of knights of the red cross and fight +duels with cavalry sabres: Wolfe Tone against Henry Grattan, Smith +O'Brien against Daniel O'Connell, Michael Davitt against Isaac Butt, +Justin M'Carthy against Parnell, Arthur Griffith against John Redmond, +John O'Leary against Lear O'Johnny, Lord Edward Fitzgerald against Lord +Gerald Fitzedward, The O'Donoghue of the Glens against The Glens of The +O'Donoghue. On an eminence, the centre of the earth, rises the feldaltar +of Saint Barbara. Black candles rise from its gospel and epistle horns. +From the high barbacans of the tower two shafts of light fall on the +smokepalled altarstone. On the altarstone Mrs Mina Purefoy, goddess of +unreason, lies, naked, fettered, a chalice resting on her swollen belly. +Father Malachi O'Flynn in a lace petticoat and reversed chasuble, his +two left feet back to the front, celebrates camp mass. The Reverend Mr +Hugh C Haines Love M. A. in a plain cassock and mortarboard, his head +and collar back to the front, holds over the celebrant's head an open +umbrella.)_ + +FATHER MALACHI O'FLYNN: _Introibo ad altare diaboli._ + +THE REVEREND MR HAINES LOVE: To the devil which hath made glad my young +days. + +FATHER MALACHI O'FLYNN: _(Takes from the chalice and elevates a +blooddripping host) Corpus meum._ + +THE REVEREND MR HAINES LOVE: _(Raises high behind the celebrant's +petticoat, revealing his grey bare hairy buttocks between which a carrot +is stuck)_ My body. + +THE VOICE OF ALL THE DAMNED: Htengier Tnetopinmo Dog Drol eht rof, +Aiulella! + +_(From on high the voice of Adonai calls.)_ + +ADONAI: Dooooooooooog! + +THE VOICE OF ALL THE BLESSED: Alleluia, for the Lord God Omnipotent +reigneth! + +_(From on high the voice of Adonai calls.)_ + +ADONAI: Goooooooooood! + +_(In strident discord peasants and townsmen of Orange and Green factions +sing_ Kick the Pope _and_ Daily, daily sing to Mary.) + +PRIVATE CARR: _(With ferocious articulation)_ I'll do him in, so help me +fucking Christ! I'll wring the bastard fucker's bleeding blasted fucking +windpipe! + +OLD GUMMY GRANNY: _(Thrusts a dagger towards Stephen's hand)_ Remove +him, acushla. At 8.35 a.m. you will be in heaven and Ireland will be +free. _(She prays)_ O good God, take him! + +(THE RETRIEVER, NOSING ON THE FRINGE OF THE CROWD, BARKS NOISILY.) + +BLOOM: _(Runs to lynch)_ Can't you get him away? + +LYNCH: He likes dialectic, the universal language. Kitty! _(To Bloom)_ +Get him away, you. He won't listen to me. + +_(He drags Kitty away.)_ + +STEPHEN: _(Points) exit Judas. Et laqueo se suspendit._ + +BLOOM: _(Runs to Stephen)_ Come along with me now before worse happens. +Here's your stick. + +STEPHEN: Stick, no. Reason. This feast of pure reason. + +CISSY CAFFREY: _(Pulling Private Carr)_ Come on, you're boosed. He +insulted me but I forgive him. _(Shouting in his ear)_ I forgive him for +insulting me. + +BLOOM: _(Over Stephen's shoulder)_ Yes, go. You see he's incapable. + +PRIVATE CARR: _(Breaks loose)_ I'll insult him. + +_(He rushes towards Stephen, fist outstretched, and strikes him in the +face. Stephen totters, collapses, falls, stunned. He lies prone, his +face to the sky, his hat rolling to the wall. Bloom follows and picks it +up.)_ + +MAJOR TWEEDY: _(Loudly)_ Carbine in bucket! Cease fire! Salute! + +THE RETRIEVER: _(Barking furiously)_ Ute ute ute ute ute ute ute ute. + +THE CROWD: Let him up! Don't strike him when he's down! Air! Who? The +soldier hit him. He's a professor. Is he hurted? Don't manhandle him! +He's fainted! + +A HAG: What call had the redcoat to strike the gentleman and he under +the influence. Let them go and fight the Boers! + +THE BAWD: Listen to who's talking! Hasn't the soldier a right to go with +his girl? He gave him the coward's blow. + +_(They grab at each other's hair, claw at each other and spit)_ + +THE RETRIEVER: _(Barking)_ Wow wow wow. + +BLOOM: _(Shoves them back, loudly)_ Get back, stand back! + +PRIVATE COMPTON: _(Tugging his comrade)_ Here. Bugger off, Harry. Here's +the cops! _(Two raincaped watch, tall, stand in the group.)_ + +FIRST WATCH: What's wrong here? + +PRIVATE COMPTON: We were with this lady. And he insulted us. And +assaulted my chum. _(The retriever barks)_ Who owns the bleeding tyke? + +CISSY CAFFREY: _(With expectation)_ Is he bleeding! + +A MAN: _(Rising from his knees)_ No. Gone off. He'll come to all right. + +BLOOM: _(Glances sharply at the man)_ Leave him to me. I can easily... + +SECOND WATCH: Who are you? Do you know him? + +PRIVATE CARR: _(Lurches towards the watch)_ He insulted my lady friend. + +BLOOM: _(Angrily)_ You hit him without provocation. I'm a witness. +Constable, take his regimental number. + +SECOND WATCH: I don't want your instructions in the discharge of my +duty. + +PRIVATE COMPTON: _(Pulling his comrade)_ Here, bugger off Harry. Or +Bennett'll shove you in the lockup. + +PRIVATE CARR: _(Staggering as he is pulled away)_ God fuck old Bennett. +He's a whitearsed bugger. I don't give a shit for him. + +FIRST WATCH: _(Takes out his notebook)_ What's his name? + +BLOOM: _(Peering over the crowd)_ I just see a car there. If you give me +a hand a second, sergeant... + +FIRST WATCH: Name and address. + +_(Corny Kelleker, weepers round his hat, a death wreath in his hand, +appears among the bystanders.)_ + +BLOOM: _(Quickly)_ O, the very man! _(He whispers)_ Simon Dedalus' son. +A bit sprung. Get those policemen to move those loafers back. + +SECOND WATCH: Night, Mr Kelleher. + +CORNY KELLEHER: _(To the watch, with drawling eye)_ That's all right. +I know him. Won a bit on the races. Gold cup. Throwaway. _(He laughs)_ +Twenty to one. Do you follow me? + +FIRST WATCH: _(Turns to the crowd)_ Here, what are you all gaping at? +Move on out of that. + +_(The crowd disperses slowly, muttering, down the lane.)_ + +CORNY KELLEHER: Leave it to me, sergeant. That'll be all right. _(He +laughs, shaking his head)_ We were often as bad ourselves, ay or worse. +What? Eh, what? + +FIRST WATCH: _(Laughs)_ I suppose so. + +CORNY KELLEHER: _(Nudges the second watch)_ Come and wipe your name off +the slate. _(He lilts, wagging his head)_ With my tooraloom tooraloom +tooraloom tooraloom. What, eh, do you follow me? + +SECOND WATCH: _(Genially)_ Ah, sure we were too. + +CORNY KELLEHER: _(Winking)_ Boys will be boys. I've a car round there. + +SECOND WATCH: All right, Mr Kelleher. Good night. + +CORNY KELLEHER: I'll see to that. + +BLOOM: _(Shakes hands with both of the watch in turn)_ Thank you very +much, gentlemen. Thank you. _(He mumbles confidentially)_ We don't want +any scandal, you understand. Father is a wellknown highly respected +citizen. Just a little wild oats, you understand. + +FIRST WATCH: O. I understand, sir. + +SECOND WATCH: That's all right, sir. + +FIRST WATCH: It was only in case of corporal injuries I'd have to report +it at the station. + +BLOOM: _(Nods rapidly)_ Naturally. Quite right. Only your bounden duty. + +SECOND WATCH: It's our duty. + +CORNY KELLEHER: Good night, men. + +THE WATCH: _(Saluting together)_ Night, gentlemen. _(They move off with +slow heavy tread)_ + +BLOOM: _(Blows)_ Providential you came on the scene. You have a car?... + +CORNY KELLEHER: _(Laughs, pointing his thumb over his right shoulder to +the car brought up against the scaffolding)_ Two commercials that were +standing fizz in Jammet's. Like princes, faith. One of them lost two +quid on the race. Drowning his grief. And were on for a go with the +jolly girls. So I landed them up on Behan's car and down to nighttown. + +BLOOM: I was just going home by Gardiner street when I happened to... + +CORNY KELLEHER: _(Laughs)_ Sure they wanted me to join in with the mots. +No, by God, says I. Not for old stagers like myself and yourself. _(He +laughs again and leers with lacklustre eye)_ Thanks be to God we have it +in the house, what, eh, do you follow me? Hah, hah, hah! + +BLOOM: _(Tries to laugh)_ He, he, he! Yes. Matter of fact I was just +visiting an old friend of mine there, Virag, you don't know him (poor +fellow, he's laid up for the past week) and we had a liquor together and +I was just making my way home... + +_(The horse neighs.)_ + +THE HORSE: Hohohohohohoh! Hohohohome! + +CORNY KELLEHER: Sure it was Behan our jarvey there that told me after +we left the two commercials in Mrs Cohen's and I told him to pull up and +got off to see. _(He laughs)_ Sober hearsedrivers a speciality. Will I +give him a lift home? Where does he hang out? Somewhere in Cabra, what? + +BLOOM: No, in Sandycove, I believe, from what he let drop. + +_(Stephen, prone, breathes to the stars. Corny Kelleher, asquint, drawls +at the horse. Bloom, in gloom, looms down.)_ + +CORNY KELLEHER: _(Scratches his nape)_ Sandycove! _(He bends down and +calls to Stephen)_ Eh! _(He calls again)_ Eh! He's covered with shavings +anyhow. Take care they didn't lift anything off him. + +BLOOM: No, no, no. I have his money and his hat here and stick. + +CORNY KELLEHER: Ah, well, he'll get over it. No bones broken. Well, I'll +shove along. _(He laughs)_ I've a rendezvous in the morning. Burying the +dead. Safe home! + +THE HORSE: _(Neighs)_ Hohohohohome. + +BLOOM: Good night. I'll just wait and take him along in a few... + +_(Corny Kelleher returns to the outside car and mounts it. The horse +harness jingles.)_ + +CORNY KELLEHER: _(From the car, standing)_ Night. + +BLOOM: Night. + +_(The jarvey chucks the reins and raises his whip encouragingly. The +car and horse back slowly, awkwardly, and turn. Corny Kelleher on the +sideseat sways his head to and fro in sign of mirth at Bloom's plight. +The jarvey joins in the mute pantomimic merriment nodding from the +farther seat. Bloom shakes his head in mute mirthful reply. With thumb +and palm Corny Kelleher reassures that the two bobbies will allow the +sleep to continue for what else is to be done. With a slow nod Bloom +conveys his gratitude as that is exactly what Stephen needs. The car +jingles tooraloom round the corner of the tooraloom lane. Corny Kelleher +again reassuralooms with his hand. Bloom with his hand assuralooms Corny +Kelleher that he is reassuraloomtay. The tinkling hoofs and jingling +harness grow fainter with their tooralooloo looloo lay. Bloom, holding +in his hand Stephen's hat, festooned with shavings, and ashplant, stands +irresolute. Then he bends to him and shakes him by the shoulder.)_ + +BLOOM: Eh! Ho! _(There is no answer; he bends again)_ Mr Dedalus! +_(There is no answer)_ The name if you call. Somnambulist. _(He bends +again and hesitating, brings his mouth near the face of the prostrate +form)_ Stephen! _(There is no answer. He calls again.)_ Stephen! + +STEPHEN: _(Groans)_ Who? Black panther. Vampire. _(He sighs and +stretches himself, then murmurs thickly with prolonged vowels)_ + + Who... drive... Fergus now + And pierce... wood's woven shade?... + +_(He turns on his left side, sighing, doubling himself together.)_ + +BLOOM: Poetry. Well educated. Pity. _(He bends again and undoes +the buttons of Stephen's waistcoat)_ To breathe. _(He brushes the +woodshavings from Stephen's clothes with light hand and fingers)_ One +pound seven. Not hurt anyhow. _(He listens)_ What? + +STEPHEN: _(Murmurs)_ + + ... shadows... the woods + ... white breast... dim sea. + +_(He stretches out his arms, sighs again and curls his body. Bloom, +holding the hat and ashplant, stands erect. A dog barks in the distance. +Bloom tightens and loosens his grip on the ashplant. He looks down on +Stephen's face and form.)_ + +BLOOM: _(Communes with the night)_ Face reminds me of his poor mother. +In the shady wood. The deep white breast. Ferguson, I think I caught. A +girl. Some girl. Best thing could happen him. _(He murmurs)_... swear +that I will always hail, ever conceal, never reveal, any part or parts, +art or arts... _(He murmurs)_... in the rough sands of the sea... a +cabletow's length from the shore... where the tide ebbs... and flows +... + +_(Silent, thoughtful, alert he stands on guard, his fingers at his lips +in the attitude of secret master. Against the dark wall a figure appears +slowly, a fairy boy of eleven, a changeling, kidnapped, dressed in an +eton suit with glass shoes and a little bronze helmet, holding a book +in his hand. He reads from right to left inaudibly, smiling, kissing the +page.)_ + +BLOOM: _(Wonderstruck, calls inaudibly)_ Rudy! + +RUDY: _(Gazes, unseeing, into Bloom's eyes and goes on reading, kissing, +smiling. He has a delicate mauve face. On his suit he has diamond and +ruby buttons. In his free left hand he holds a slim ivory cane with a +violet bowknot. A white lambkin peeps out of his waistcoat pocket.)_ + + + + +-- III -- + +Preparatory to anything else Mr Bloom brushed off the greater bulk of +the shavings and handed Stephen the hat and ashplant and bucked him up +generally in orthodox Samaritan fashion which he very badly needed. His +(Stephen's) mind was not exactly what you would call wandering but a bit +unsteady and on his expressed desire for some beverage to drink Mr +Bloom in view of the hour it was and there being no pump of Vartry water +available for their ablutions let alone drinking purposes hit upon an +expedient by suggesting, off the reel, the propriety of the cabman's +shelter, as it was called, hardly a stonesthrow away near Butt bridge +where they might hit upon some drinkables in the shape of a milk and +soda or a mineral. But how to get there was the rub. For the nonce he +was rather nonplussed but inasmuch as the duty plainly devolved upon him +to take some measures on the subject he pondered suitable ways and means +during which Stephen repeatedly yawned. So far as he could see he was +rather pale in the face so that it occurred to him as highly advisable +to get a conveyance of some description which would answer in their +then condition, both of them being e.d.ed, particularly Stephen, always +assuming that there was such a thing to be found. Accordingly after a +few such preliminaries as brushing, in spite of his having forgotten +to take up his rather soapsuddy handkerchief after it had done yeoman +service in the shaving line, they both walked together along Beaver +street or, more properly, lane as far as the farrier's and the +distinctly fetid atmosphere of the livery stables at the corner of +Montgomery street where they made tracks to the left from thence +debouching into Amiens street round by the corner of Dan Bergin's. But +as he confidently anticipated there was not a sign of a Jehu plying for +hire anywhere to be seen except a fourwheeler, probably engaged by some +fellows inside on the spree, outside the North Star hotel and there was +no symptom of its budging a quarter of an inch when Mr Bloom, who was +anything but a professional whistler, endeavoured to hail it by emitting +a kind of a whistle, holding his arms arched over his head, twice. + +This was a quandary but, bringing common sense to bear on it, evidently +there was nothing for it but put a good face on the matter and foot it +which they accordingly did. So, bevelling around by Mullett's and the +Signal House which they shortly reached, they proceeded perforce in the +direction of Amiens street railway terminus, Mr Bloom being handicapped +by the circumstance that one of the back buttons of his trousers had, +to vary the timehonoured adage, gone the way of all buttons though, +entering thoroughly into the spirit of the thing, he heroically made +light of the mischance. So as neither of them were particularly pressed +for time, as it happened, and the temperature refreshing since it +cleared up after the recent visitation of Jupiter Pluvius, they dandered +along past by where the empty vehicle was waiting without a fare or a +jarvey. As it so happened a Dublin United Tramways Company's sandstrewer +happened to be returning and the elder man recounted to his companion _a +propos_ of the incident his own truly miraculous escape of some little +while back. They passed the main entrance of the Great Northern railway +station, the starting point for Belfast, where of course all traffic was +suspended at that late hour and passing the backdoor of the morgue +(a not very enticing locality, not to say gruesome to a degree, more +especially at night) ultimately gained the Dock Tavern and in due course +turned into Store street, famous for its C division police station. +Between this point and the high at present unlit warehouses of Beresford +place Stephen thought to think of Ibsen, associated with Baird's the +stonecutter's in his mind somehow in Talbot place, first turning on the +right, while the other who was acting as his _fidus Achates_ inhaled +with internal satisfaction the smell of James Rourke's city bakery, +situated quite close to where they were, the very palatable odour indeed +of our daily bread, of all commodities of the public the primary and +most indispensable. Bread, the staff of life, earn your bread, O tell me +where is fancy bread, at Rourke's the baker's it is said. + +_En route_ to his taciturn and, not to put too fine a point on it, not +yet perfectly sober companion Mr Bloom who at all events was in complete +possession of his faculties, never more so, in fact disgustingly sober, +spoke a word of caution re the dangers of nighttown, women of ill fame +and swell mobsmen, which, barely permissible once in a while though not +as a habitual practice, was of the nature of a regular deathtrap for +young fellows of his age particularly if they had acquired drinking +habits under the influence of liquor unless you knew a little jiujitsu +for every contingency as even a fellow on the broad of his back could +administer a nasty kick if you didn't look out. Highly providential +was the appearance on the scene of Corny Kelleher when Stephen was +blissfully unconscious but for that man in the gap turning up at the +eleventh hour the finis might have been that he might have been a +candidate for the accident ward or, failing that, the bridewell and +an appearance in the court next day before Mr Tobias or, he being the +solicitor rather, old Wall, he meant to say, or Mahony which simply +spelt ruin for a chap when it got bruited about. The reason he mentioned +the fact was that a lot of those policemen, whom he cordially disliked, +were admittedly unscrupulous in the service of the Crown and, as Mr +Bloom put it, recalling a case or two in the A division in Clanbrassil +street, prepared to swear a hole through a ten gallon pot. Never on +the spot when wanted but in quiet parts of the city, Pembroke road for +example, the + +guardians of the law were well in evidence, the obvious reason being +they were paid to protect the upper classes. Another thing he commented +on was equipping soldiers with firearms or sidearms of any description +liable to go off at any time which was tantamount to inciting them +against civilians should by any chance they fall out over anything. You +frittered away your time, he very sensibly maintained, and health and +also character besides which, the squandermania of the thing, fast women +of the _demimonde_ ran away with a lot of l s. d. into the bargain and +the greatest danger of all was who you got drunk with though, touching +the much vexed question of stimulants, he relished a glass of choice old +wine in season as both + +nourishing and bloodmaking and possessing aperient virtues (notably a +good burgundy which he was a staunch believer in) still never beyond +a certain point where he invariably drew the line as it simply led to +trouble all round to say nothing of your being at the tender mercy of +others practically. Most of all he commented adversely on the desertion +of Stephen by all his pubhunting _confreres_ but one, a most glaring +piece of ratting on the part of his brother medicos under all the circs. + +--And that one was Judas, Stephen said, who up to then had said nothing +whatsoever of any kind. + +Discussing these and kindred topics they made a beeline across the back +of the Customhouse and passed under the Loop Line bridge where a brazier +of coke burning in front of a sentrybox or something like one attracted +their rather lagging footsteps. Stephen of his own accord stopped for +no special reason to look at the heap of barren cobblestones and by +the light emanating from the brazier he could just make out the darker +figure of the corporation watchman inside the gloom of the sentrybox. He +began to remember that this had happened or had been mentioned as having +happened before but it cost him no small effort before he remembered +that he recognised in the sentry a quondam friend of his father's, +Gumley. To avoid a meeting he drew nearer to the pillars of the railway +bridge. + +--Someone saluted you, Mr Bloom said. + +A figure of middle height on the prowl evidently under the arches +saluted again, calling: + +--_Night!_ + +Stephen of course started rather dizzily and stopped to return the +compliment. Mr Bloom actuated by motives of inherent delicacy inasmuch +as he always believed in minding his own business moved off but +nevertheless remained on the _qui vive_ with just a shade of anxiety +though not funkyish in the least. Though unusual in the Dublin area he +knew that it was not by any means unknown for desperadoes who had next +to nothing to live on to be abroad waylaying and generally terrorising +peaceable pedestrians by placing a pistol at their head in some +secluded spot outside the city proper, famished loiterers of the +Thames embankment category they might be hanging about there or simply +marauders ready to decamp with whatever boodle they could in one fell +swoop at a moment's notice, your money or your life, leaving you there +to point a moral, gagged and garrotted. + +Stephen, that is when the accosting figure came to close quarters, +though he was not in an over sober state himself recognised Corley's +breath redolent of rotten cornjuice. Lord John Corley some called him +and his genealogy came about in this wise. He was the eldest son of +inspector Corley of the G division, lately deceased, who had married +a certain Katherine Brophy, the daughter of a Louth farmer. His +grandfather Patrick Michael Corley of New Ross had married the widow +of a publican there whose maiden name had been Katherine (also) Talbot. +Rumour had it (though not proved) that she descended from the house of +the lords Talbot de Malahide in whose mansion, really an unquestionably +fine residence of its kind and well worth seeing, her mother or aunt or +some relative, a woman, as the tale went, of extreme beauty, had enjoyed +the distinction of being in service in the washkitchen. This therefore +was the reason why the still comparatively young though dissolute +man who now addressed Stephen was spoken of by some with facetious +proclivities as Lord John Corley. + +Taking Stephen on one side he had the customary doleful ditty to tell. +Not as much as a farthing to purchase a night's lodgings. His friends +had all deserted him. Furthermore he had a row with Lenehan and called +him to Stephen a mean bloody swab with a sprinkling of a number of other +uncalledfor expressions. He was out of a job and implored of Stephen to +tell him where on God's earth he could get something, anything at all, +to do. No, it was the daughter of the mother in the washkitchen that +was fostersister to the heir of the house or else they were connected +through the mother in some way, both occurrences happening at the same +time if the whole thing wasn't a complete fabrication from start to +finish. Anyhow he was all in. + +--I wouldn't ask you only, pursued he, on my solemn oath and God knows +I'm on the rocks. + +--There'll be a job tomorrow or next day, Stephen told him, in a boys' +school at Dalkey for a gentleman usher. Mr Garrett Deasy. Try it. You +may mention my name. + +--Ah, God, Corley replied, sure I couldn't teach in a school, man. I was +never one of your bright ones, he added with a half laugh. I got stuck +twice in the junior at the christian brothers. + +--I have no place to sleep myself, Stephen informed him. + +Corley at the first go-off was inclined to suspect it was something to +do with Stephen being fired out of his digs for bringing in a bloody +tart off the street. There was a dosshouse in Marlborough street, Mrs +Maloney's, but it was only a tanner touch and full of undesirables but +M'Conachie told him you got a decent enough do in the Brazen Head over +in Winetavern street (which was distantly suggestive to the person +addressed of friar Bacon) for a bob. He was starving too though he +hadn't said a word about it. + +Though this sort of thing went on every other night or very near it +still Stephen's feelings got the better of him in a sense though he knew +that Corley's brandnew rigmarole on a par with the others was hardly +deserving of much credence. However _haud ignarus malorum miseris +succurrere disco_ etcetera as the Latin poet remarks especially as luck +would have it he got paid his screw after every middle of the month on +the sixteenth which was the date of the month as a matter of fact though +a good bit of the wherewithal was demolished. But the cream of the joke +was nothing would get it out of Corley's head that he was living in +affluence and hadn't a thing to do but hand out the needful. Whereas. +He put his hand in a pocket anyhow not with the idea of finding any food +there but thinking he might lend him anything up to a bob or so in lieu +so that he might endeavour at all events and get sufficient to eat but +the result was in the negative for, to his chagrin, he found his cash +missing. A few broken biscuits were all the result of his investigation. +He tried his hardest to recollect for the moment whether he had lost +as well he might have or left because in that contingency it was not a +pleasant lookout, very much the reverse in fact. He was altogether too +fagged out to institute a thorough search though he tried to recollect. +About biscuits he dimly remembered. Who now exactly gave them he +wondered or where was or did he buy. However in another pocket he came +across what he surmised in the dark were pennies, erroneously however, +as it turned out. + +--Those are halfcrowns, man, Corley corrected him. + +And so in point of fact they turned out to be. Stephen anyhow lent him +one of them. + +--Thanks, Corley answered, you're a gentleman. I'll pay you back one +time. Who's that with you? I saw him a few times in the Bleeding Horse +in Camden street with Boylan, the billsticker. You might put in a good +word for us to get me taken on there. I'd carry a sandwichboard only +the girl in the office told me they're full up for the next three weeks, +man. God, you've to book ahead, man, you'd think it was for the Carl +Rosa. I don't give a shite anyway so long as I get a job, even as a +crossing sweeper. + +Subsequently being not quite so down in the mouth after the two and six +he got he informed Stephen about a fellow by the name of Bags Comisky +that he said Stephen knew well out of Fullam's, the shipchandler's, +bookkeeper there that used to be often round in Nagle's back with O'Mara +and a little chap with a stutter the name of Tighe. Anyhow he was lagged +the night before last and fined ten bob for a drunk and disorderly and +refusing to go with the constable. + +210 + +Mr Bloom in the meanwhile kept dodging about in the vicinity of the +cobblestones near the brazier of coke in front of the corporation +watchman's sentrybox who evidently a glutton for work, it struck him, +was having a quiet forty winks for all intents and purposes on his own +private account while Dublin slept. He threw an odd eye at the same time +now and then at Stephen's anything but immaculately attired interlocutor +as if he had seen that nobleman somewhere or other though where he was +not in a position to truthfully state nor had he the remotest idea when. +Being a levelheaded individual who could give points to not a few in +point of shrewd observation he also remarked on his very dilapidated +hat and slouchy wearing apparel generally testifying to a chronic +impecuniosity. Palpably he was one of his hangerson but for the +matter of that it was merely a question of one preying on his nextdoor +neighbour all round, in every deep, so to put it, a deeper depth and for +the matter of that if the man in the street chanced to be in the dock +himself penal servitude with or without the option of a fine would be +a very rara avis altogether. In any case he had a consummate amount of +cool assurance intercepting people at that hour of the night or morning. +Pretty thick that was certainly. + +The pair parted company and Stephen rejoined Mr Bloom who, with his +practised eye, was not without perceiving that he had succumbed to the +blandiloquence of the other parasite. Alluding to the encounter he said, +laughingly, Stephen, that is: + +--He is down on his luck. He asked me to ask you to ask somebody named +Boylan, a billsticker, to give him a job as a sandwichman. + +At this intelligence, in which he seemingly evinced little interest, Mr +Bloom gazed abstractedly for the space of a half a second or so in the +direction of a bucketdredger, rejoicing in the farfamed name of Eblana, +moored alongside Customhouse quay and quite possibly out of repair, +whereupon he observed evasively: + +--Everybody gets their own ration of luck, they say. Now you mention it +his face was familiar to me. But, leaving that for the moment, how much +did you part with, he queried, if I am not too inquisitive? + +--Half a crown, Stephen responded. I daresay he needs it to sleep +somewhere. + +--Needs! Mr Bloom ejaculated, professing not the least surprise at +the intelligence, I can quite credit the assertion and I guarantee he +invariably does. Everyone according to his needs or everyone according +to his deeds. But, talking about things in general, where, added he with +a smile, will you sleep yourself? Walking to Sandycove is out of +the question. And even supposing you did you won't get in after what +occurred at Westland Row station. Simply fag out there for nothing. I +don't mean to presume to dictate to you in the slightest degree but why +did you leave your father's house? + +--To seek misfortune, was Stephen's answer. + +--I met your respected father on a recent occasion, Mr Bloom +diplomatically returned, today in fact, or to be strictly accurate, on +yesterday. Where does he live at present? I gathered in the course of +conversation that he had moved. + +--I believe he is in Dublin somewhere, Stephen answered unconcernedly. +Why? + +--A gifted man, Mr Bloom said of Mr Dedalus senior, in more respects +than one and a born _raconteur_ if ever there was one. He takes great +pride, quite legitimate, out of you. You could go back perhaps, he +hasarded, still thinking of the very unpleasant scene at Westland Row +terminus when it was perfectly evident that the other two, Mulligan, +that is, and that English tourist friend of his, who eventually euchred +their third companion, were patently trying as if the whole bally +station belonged to them to give Stephen the slip in the confusion, +which they did. + +There was no response forthcoming to the suggestion however, such as it +was, Stephen's mind's eye being too busily engaged in repicturing his +family hearth the last time he saw it with his sister Dilly sitting by +the ingle, her hair hanging down, waiting for some weak Trinidad shell +cocoa that was in the sootcoated kettle to be done so that she and he +could drink it with the oatmealwater for milk after the Friday herrings +they had eaten at two a penny with an egg apiece for Maggy, Boody and +Katey, the cat meanwhile under the mangle devouring a mess of eggshells +and charred fish heads and bones on a square of brown paper, in +accordance with the third precept of the church to fast and abstain +on the days commanded, it being quarter tense or if not, ember days or +something like that. + +--No, Mr Bloom repeated again, I wouldn't personally repose much trust +in that boon companion of yours who contributes the humorous element, Dr +Mulligan, as a guide, philosopher and friend if I were in your shoes. He +knows which side his bread is buttered on though in all probability he +never realised what it is to be without regular meals. Of course you +didn't notice as much as I did. But it wouldn't occasion me the least +surprise to learn that a pinch of tobacco or some narcotic was put in +your drink for some ulterior object. + +He understood however from all he heard that Dr Mulligan was a versatile +allround man, by no means confined to medicine only, who was rapidly +coming to the fore in his line and, if the report was verified, bade +fair to enjoy a flourishing practice in the not too distant future as +a tony medical practitioner drawing a handsome fee for his services +in addition to which professional status his rescue of that man from +certain drowning by artificial respiration and what they call first +aid at Skerries, or Malahide was it?, was, he was bound to admit, an +exceedingly plucky deed which he could not too highly praise, so that +frankly he was utterly at a loss to fathom what earthly reason could be +at the back of it except he put it down to sheer cussedness or jealousy, +pure and simple. + +--Except it simply amounts to one thing and he is what they call picking +your brains, he ventured to throw out. + +The guarded glance of half solicitude half curiosity augmented by +friendliness which he gave at Stephen's at present morose expression +of features did not throw a flood of light, none at all in fact on the +problem as to whether he had let himself be badly bamboozled to judge by +two or three lowspirited remarks he let drop or the other way about saw +through the affair and for some reason or other best known to himself +allowed matters to more or less. Grinding poverty did have that effect +and he more than conjectured that, high educational abilities though he +possessed, he experienced no little difficulty in making both ends meet. + +Adjacent to the men's public urinal they perceived an icecream car round +which a group of presumably Italians in heated altercation were getting +rid of voluble expressions in their vivacious language in a particularly +animated way, there being some little differences between the parties. + +--_Puttana madonna, che ci dia i quattrini! Ho ragione? Culo rotto!_ + +_--Intendiamoci. Mezzo sovrano piu..._ + +_--Dice lui, pero!_ + +_--Mezzo._ + +_--Farabutto! Mortacci sui!_ + +_--Ma ascolta! Cinque la testa piu..._ + +Mr Bloom and Stephen entered the cabman's shelter, an unpretentious +wooden structure, where, prior to then, he had rarely if ever been +before, the former having previously whispered to the latter a few +hints anent the keeper of it said to be the once famous Skin-the-Goat +Fitzharris, the invincible, though he could not vouch for the actual +facts which quite possibly there was not one vestige of truth in. A few +moments later saw our two noctambules safely seated in a discreet corner +only to be greeted by stares from the decidedly miscellaneous collection +of waifs and strays and other nondescript specimens of the genus _homo_ +already there engaged in eating and drinking diversified by conversation +for whom they seemingly formed an object of marked curiosity. + +--Now touching a cup of coffee, Mr Bloom ventured to plausibly suggest +to break the ice, it occurs to me you ought to sample something in the +shape of solid food, say, a roll of some description. + +Accordingly his first act was with characteristic _sangfroid_ to order +these commodities quietly. The _hoi polloi_ of jarvies or stevedores +or whatever they were after a cursory examination turned their eyes +apparently dissatisfied, away though one redbearded bibulous individual +portion of whose hair was greyish, a sailor probably, still stared for +some appreciable time before transferring his rapt attention to the +floor. Mr Bloom, availing himself of the right of free speech, he having +just a bowing acquaintance with the language in dispute, though, to be +sure, rather in a quandary over _voglio_, remarked to his _protege_ in +an audible tone of voice _a propos_ of the battle royal in the street +which was still raging fast and furious: + +--A beautiful language. I mean for singing purposes. Why do you not +write your poetry in that language? _Bella Poetria_! It is so melodious +and full. _Belladonna. Voglio._ + +Stephen, who was trying his dead best to yawn if he could, suffering +from lassitude generally, replied: + +--To fill the ear of a cow elephant. They were haggling over money. + +--Is that so? Mr Bloom asked. Of course, he subjoined pensively, at the +inward reflection of there being more languages to start with than were +absolutely necessary, it may be only the southern glamour that surrounds +it. + +The keeper of the shelter in the middle of this _tete-a-tete_ put a +boiling swimming cup of a choice concoction labelled coffee on the table +and a rather antediluvian specimen of a bun, or so it seemed. After +which he beat a retreat to his counter, Mr Bloom determining to have +a good square look at him later on so as not to appear to. For which +reason he encouraged Stephen to proceed with his eyes while he did +the honours by surreptitiously pushing the cup of what was temporarily +supposed to be called coffee gradually nearer him. + +--Sounds are impostures, Stephen said after a pause of some little time, +like names. Cicero, Podmore. Napoleon, Mr Goodbody. Jesus, Mr Doyle. +Shakespeares were as common as Murphies. What's in a name? + +--Yes, to be sure, Mr Bloom unaffectedly concurred. Of course. Our name +was changed too, he added, pushing the socalled roll across. + +The redbearded sailor who had his weather eye on the newcomers boarded +Stephen, whom he had singled out for attention in particular, squarely +by asking: + +--And what might your name be? + +Just in the nick of time Mr Bloom touched his companion's boot but +Stephen, apparently disregarding the warm pressure from an unexpected +quarter, answered: + +--Dedalus. + +The sailor stared at him heavily from a pair of drowsy baggy eyes, +rather bunged up from excessive use of boose, preferably good old +Hollands and water. + +--You know Simon Dedalus? he asked at length. + +--I've heard of him, Stephen said. + +Mr Bloom was all at sea for a moment, seeing the others evidently +eavesdropping too. + +--He's Irish, the seaman bold affirmed, staring still in much the same +way and nodding. All Irish. + +--All too Irish, Stephen rejoined. + +As for Mr Bloom he could neither make head or tail of the whole business +and he was just asking himself what possible connection when the sailor +of his own accord turned to the other occupants of the shelter with the +remark: + +--I seen him shoot two eggs off two bottles at fifty yards over his +shoulder. The lefthand dead shot. + +Though he was slightly hampered by an occasional stammer and his +gestures being also clumsy as it was still he did his best to explain. + +--Bottles out there, say. Fifty yards measured. Eggs on the bottles. +Cocks his gun over his shoulder. Aims. + +He turned his body half round, shut up his right eye completely. Then he +screwed his features up someway sideways and glared out into the night +with an unprepossessing cast of countenance. + +--Pom! he then shouted once. + +The entire audience waited, anticipating an additional detonation, there +being still a further egg. + +--Pom! he shouted twice. + +Egg two evidently demolished, he nodded and winked, adding +bloodthirstily: + +_--Buffalo Bill shoots to kill, Never missed nor he never will._ + +A silence ensued till Mr Bloom for agreeableness' sake just felt like +asking him whether it was for a marksmanship competition like the +Bisley. + +--Beg pardon, the sailor said. + +--Long ago? Mr Bloom pursued without flinching a hairsbreadth. + +--Why, the sailor replied, relaxing to a certain extent under the magic +influence of diamond cut diamond, it might be a matter of ten years. He +toured the wide world with Hengler's Royal Circus. I seen him do that in +Stockholm. + +--Curious coincidence, Mr Bloom confided to Stephen unobtrusively. + +--Murphy's my name, the sailor continued. D. B. Murphy of Carrigaloe. +Know where that is? + +--Queenstown harbour, Stephen replied. + +--That's right, the sailor said. Fort Camden and Fort Carlisle. That's +where I hails from. I belongs there. That's where I hails from. My +little woman's down there. She's waiting for me, I know. _For England, +home and beauty_. She's my own true wife I haven't seen for seven years +now, sailing about. + +Mr Bloom could easily picture his advent on this scene, the homecoming +to the mariner's roadside shieling after having diddled Davy Jones, +a rainy night with a blind moon. Across the world for a wife. Quite a +number of stories there were on that particular Alice Ben Bolt topic, +Enoch Arden and Rip van Winkle and does anybody hereabouts remember Caoc +O'Leary, a favourite and most trying declamation piece by the way of +poor John Casey and a bit of perfect poetry in its own small way. +Never about the runaway wife coming back, however much devoted to the +absentee. The face at the window! Judge of his astonishment when he +finally did breast the tape and the awful truth dawned upon him anent +his better half, wrecked in his affections. You little expected me but +I've come to stay and make a fresh start. There she sits, a grasswidow, +at the selfsame fireside. Believes me dead, rocked in the cradle of the +deep. And there sits uncle Chubb or Tomkin, as the case might be, the +publican of the Crown and Anchor, in shirtsleeves, eating rumpsteak and +onions. No chair for father. Broo! The wind! Her brandnew arrival is on +her knee, _post mortem_ child. With a high ro! and a randy ro! and my +galloping tearing tandy, O! Bow to the inevitable. Grin and bear it. I +remain with much love your brokenhearted husband D B Murphy. + +The sailor, who scarcely seemed to be a Dublin resident, turned to one +of the jarvies with the request: + +--You don't happen to have such a thing as a spare chaw about you? + +The jarvey addressed as it happened had not but the keeper took a die of +plug from his good jacket hanging on a nail and the desired object was +passed from hand to hand. + +--Thank you, the sailor said. + +He deposited the quid in his gob and, chewing and with some slow +stammers, proceeded: + +--We come up this morning eleven o'clock. The threemaster _Rosevean_ +from Bridgwater with bricks. I shipped to get over. Paid off this +afternoon. There's my discharge. See? D. B. Murphy. A. B. S. + +In confirmation of which statement he extricated from an inside pocket +and handed to his neighbour a not very cleanlooking folded document. + +--You must have seen a fair share of the world, the keeper remarked, +leaning on the counter. + +--Why, the sailor answered upon reflection upon it, I've circumnavigated +a bit since I first joined on. I was in the Red Sea. I was in China and +North America and South America. We was chased by pirates one voyage. +I seen icebergs plenty, growlers. I was in Stockholm and the Black Sea, +the Dardanelles under Captain Dalton, the best bloody man that ever +scuttled a ship. I seen Russia. _Gospodi pomilyou_. That's how the +Russians prays. + +--You seen queer sights, don't be talking, put in a jarvey. + +--Why, the sailor said, shifting his partially chewed plug. I seen +queer things too, ups and downs. I seen a crocodile bite the fluke of an +anchor same as I chew that quid. + +He took out of his mouth the pulpy quid and, lodging it between his +teeth, bit ferociously: + +--Khaan! Like that. And I seen maneaters in Peru that eats corpses and +the livers of horses. Look here. Here they are. A friend of mine sent +me. + +He fumbled out a picture postcard from his inside pocket which seemed to +be in its way a species of repository and pushed it along the table. The +printed matter on it stated: _Choza de Indios. Beni, Bolivia._ + +All focussed their attention at the scene exhibited, a group of savage +women in striped loincloths, squatted, blinking, suckling, frowning, +sleeping amid a swarm of infants (there must have been quite a score of +them) outside some primitive shanties of osier. + +--Chews coca all day, the communicative tarpaulin added. Stomachs +like breadgraters. Cuts off their diddies when they can't bear no more +children. + +See them sitting there stark ballocknaked eating a dead horse's liver +raw. + +His postcard proved a centre of attraction for Messrs the greenhorns for +several minutes if not more. + +--Know how to keep them off? he inquired generally. + +Nobody volunteering a statement he winked, saying: + +--Glass. That boggles 'em. Glass. + +Mr Bloom, without evincing surprise, unostentatiously turned over the +card to peruse the partially obliterated address and postmark. It ran +as follows: _Tarjeta Postal, Senor A Boudin, Galeria Becche, Santiago, +Chile._ There was no message evidently, as he took particular notice. +Though not an implicit believer in the lurid story narrated (or the +eggsniping transaction for that matter despite William Tell and the +Lazarillo-Don Cesar de Bazan incident depicted in _Maritana_ on which +occasion the former's ball passed through the latter's hat) having +detected a discrepancy between his name (assuming he was the person +he represented himself to be and not sailing under false colours +after having boxed the compass on the strict q.t. somewhere) and +the fictitious addressee of the missive which made him nourish some +suspicions of our friend's _bona fides_ nevertheless it reminded him in +a way of a longcherished plan he meant to one day realise some Wednesday +or Saturday of travelling to London via long sea not to say that he had +ever travelled extensively to any great extent but he was at heart a +born adventurer though by a trick of fate he had consistently remained +a landlubber except you call going to Holyhead which was his longest. +Martin Cunningham frequently said he would work a pass through Egan but +some deuced hitch or other eternally cropped up with the net result that +the scheme fell through. But even suppose it did come to planking +down the needful and breaking Boyd's heart it was not so dear, purse +permitting, a few guineas at the outside considering the fare to +Mullingar where he figured on going was five and six, there and back. +The trip would benefit health on account of the bracing ozone and be in +every way thoroughly pleasurable, especially for a chap whose liver was +out of order, seeing the different places along the route, Plymouth, +Falmouth, Southampton and so on culminating in an instructive tour of +the sights of the great metropolis, the spectacle of our modern Babylon +where doubtless he would see the greatest improvement, tower, abbey, +wealth of Park lane to renew acquaintance with. Another thing just +struck him as a by no means bad notion was he might have a gaze around +on the spot to see about trying to make arrangements about a concert +tour of summer music embracing the most prominent pleasure resorts, +Margate with mixed bathing and firstrate hydros and spas, Eastbourne, +Scarborough, Margate and so on, beautiful Bournemouth, the Channel +islands and similar bijou spots, which might prove highly remunerative. +Not, of course, with a hole and corner scratch company or local ladies +on the job, witness Mrs C P M'Coy type lend me your valise and I'll post +you the ticket. No, something top notch, an all star Irish caste, the +Tweedy-Flower grand opera company with his own legal consort as leading +lady as a sort of counterblast to the Elster Grimes and Moody-Manners, +perfectly simple matter and he was quite sanguine of success, providing +puffs in the local papers could be managed by some fellow with a bit of +bounce who could pull the indispensable wires and thus combine business +with pleasure. But who? That was the rub. Also, without being actually +positive, it struck him a great field was to be opened up in the line +of opening up new routes to keep pace with the times _apropos_ of the +Fishguard-Rosslare route which, it was mooted, was once more on the +_tapis_ in the circumlocution departments with the usual quantity of red +tape and dillydallying of effete fogeydom and dunderheads generally. A +great opportunity there certainly was for push and enterprise to meet +the travelling needs of the public at large, the average man, i.e. +Brown, Robinson and Co. + +It was a subject of regret and absurd as well on the face of it and no +small blame to our vaunted society that the man in the street, when the +system really needed toning up, for the matter of a couple of paltry +pounds was debarred from seeing more of the world they lived in instead +of being always and ever cooped up since my old stick-in-the-mud took me +for a wife. After all, hang it, they had their eleven and more humdrum +months of it and merited a radical change of _venue_ after the grind +of city life in the summertime for choice when dame Nature is at her +spectacular best constituting nothing short of a new lease of life. +There were equally excellent opportunities for vacationists in the home +island, delightful sylvan spots for rejuvenation, offering a plethora +of attractions as well as a bracing tonic for the system in and around +Dublin and its picturesque environs even, Poulaphouca to which there was +a steamtram, but also farther away from the madding crowd in Wicklow, +rightly termed the garden of Ireland, an ideal neighbourhood for elderly +wheelmen so long as it didn't come down, and in the wilds of Donegal +where if report spoke true the _coup d'oeil_ was exceedingly grand +though the lastnamed locality was not easily getatable so that the +influx of visitors was not as yet all that it might be considering the +signal benefits to be derived from it while Howth with its historic +associations and otherwise, Silken Thomas, Grace O'Malley, George IV, +rhododendrons several hundred feet above sealevel was a favourite haunt +with all sorts and conditions of men especially in the spring when young +men's fancy, though it had its own toll of deaths by falling off the +cliffs by design or accidentally, usually, by the way, on their left +leg, it being only about three quarters of an hour's run from the +pillar. Because of course uptodate tourist travelling was as yet merely +in its infancy, so to speak, and the accommodation left much to be +desired. Interesting to fathom it seemed to him from a motive of +curiosity, pure and simple, was whether it was the traffic that created +the route or viceversa or the two sides in fact. He turned back the +other side of the card, picture, and passed it along to Stephen. + +--I seen a Chinese one time, related the doughty narrator, that had +little pills like putty and he put them in the water and they opened and +every pill was something different. One was a ship, another was a house, +another was a flower. Cooks rats in your soup, he appetisingly added, +the chinks does. + +Possibly perceiving an expression of dubiosity on their faces the +globetrotter went on, adhering to his adventures. + +--And I seen a man killed in Trieste by an Italian chap. Knife in his +back. Knife like that. + +Whilst speaking he produced a dangerouslooking claspknife quite in +keeping with his character and held it in the striking position. + +--In a knockingshop it was count of a tryon between two smugglers. +Fellow hid behind a door, come up behind him. Like that. _Prepare to +meet your God_, says he. Chuk! It went into his back up to the butt. + +His heavy glance drowsily roaming about kind of defied their further +questions even should they by any chance want to. + +--That's a good bit of steel, repeated he, examining his formidable +_stiletto_. + +After which harrowing _denouement_ sufficient to appal the stoutest he +snapped the blade to and stowed the weapon in question away as before in +his chamber of horrors, otherwise pocket. + +--They're great for the cold steel, somebody who was evidently quite in +the dark said for the benefit of them all. That was why they thought +the park murders of the invincibles was done by foreigners on account of +them using knives. + +At this remark passed obviously in the spirit of _where ignorance +is bliss_ Mr B. and Stephen, each in his own particular way, both +instinctively exchanged meaning glances, in a religious silence of the +strictly _entre nous_ variety however, towards where Skin-the-Goat, +_alias_ the keeper, not turning a hair, was drawing spurts of liquid +from his boiler affair. His inscrutable face which was really a work +of art, a perfect study in itself, beggaring description, conveyed +the impression that he didn't understand one jot of what was going on. +Funny, very! + +There ensued a somewhat lengthy pause. One man was reading in fits and +starts a stained by coffee evening journal, another the card with the +natives _choza de_, another the seaman's discharge. Mr Bloom, so far +as he was personally concerned, was just pondering in pensive mood. He +vividly recollected when the occurrence alluded to took place as well +as yesterday, roughly some score of years previously in the days of the +land troubles, when it took the civilised world by storm, figuratively +speaking, early in the eighties, eightyone to be correct, when he was +just turned fifteen. + +--Ay, boss, the sailor broke in. Give us back them papers. + +The request being complied with he clawed them up with a scrape. + +--Have you seen the rock of Gibraltar? Mr Bloom inquired. + +The sailor grimaced, chewing, in a way that might be read as yes, ay or +no. + +--Ah, you've touched there too, Mr Bloom said, Europa point, thinking he +had, in the hope that the rover might possibly by some reminiscences but +he failed to do so, simply letting spirt a jet of spew into the sawdust, +and shook his head with a sort of lazy scorn. + +--What year would that be about? Mr B interrogated. Can you recall the +boats? + +Our _soi-disant_ sailor munched heavily awhile hungrily before +answering: + +--I'm tired of all them rocks in the sea, he said, and boats and ships. +Salt junk all the time. + +Tired seemingly, he ceased. His questioner perceiving that he was not +likely to get a great deal of change out of such a wily old customer, +fell to woolgathering on the enormous dimensions of the water about the +globe, suffice it to say that, as a casual glance at the map revealed, +it covered fully three fourths of it and he fully realised accordingly +what it meant to rule the waves. On more than one occasion, a dozen +at the lowest, near the North Bull at Dollymount he had remarked a +superannuated old salt, evidently derelict, seated habitually near the +not particularly redolent sea on the wall, staring quite obliviously at +it and it at him, dreaming of fresh woods and pastures new as someone +somewhere sings. And it left him wondering why. Possibly he had tried to +find out the secret for himself, floundering up and down the antipodes +and all that sort of thing and over and under, well, not exactly under, +tempting the fates. And the odds were twenty to nil there was really no +secret about it at all. Nevertheless, without going into the _minutiae_ +of the business, the eloquent fact remained that the sea was there in +all its glory and in the natural course of things somebody or other had +to sail on it and fly in the face of providence though it merely went +to show how people usually contrived to load that sort of onus on to the +other fellow like the hell idea and the lottery and insurance which were +run on identically the same lines so that for that very reason if no +other lifeboat Sunday was a highly laudable institution to which the +public at large, no matter where living inland or seaside, as the case +might be, having it brought home to them like that should extend its +gratitude also to the harbourmasters and coastguard service who had +to man the rigging and push off and out amid the elements whatever the +season when duty called _Ireland expects that every man_ and so on and +sometimes had a terrible time of it in the wintertime not forgetting the +Irish lights, Kish and others, liable to capsize at any moment, rounding +which he once with his daughter had experienced some remarkably choppy, +not to say stormy, weather. + +--There was a fellow sailed with me in the Rover, the old seadog, +himself a rover, proceeded, went ashore and took up a soft job as +gentleman's valet at six quid a month. Them are his trousers I've on +me and he gave me an oilskin and that jackknife. I'm game for that job, +shaving and brushup. I hate roaming about. There's my son now, Danny, +run off to sea and his mother got him took in a draper's in Cork where +he could be drawing easy money. + +--What age is he? queried one hearer who, by the way, seen from the +side, bore a distant resemblance to Henry Campbell, the townclerk, away +from the carking cares of office, unwashed of course and in a seedy +getup and a strong suspicion of nosepaint about the nasal appendage. + +--Why, the sailor answered with a slow puzzled utterance, my son, Danny? +He'd be about eighteen now, way I figure it. + +The Skibbereen father hereupon tore open his grey or unclean anyhow +shirt with his two hands and scratched away at his chest on which was to +be seen an image tattooed in blue Chinese ink intended to represent an +anchor. + +--There was lice in that bunk in Bridgwater, he remarked, sure as nuts. +I must get a wash tomorrow or next day. It's them black lads I objects +to. I hate those buggers. Suck your blood dry, they does. + +Seeing they were all looking at his chest he accommodatingly dragged +his shirt more open so that on top of the timehonoured symbol of the +mariner's hope and rest they had a full view of the figure 16 and a +young man's sideface looking frowningly rather. + +--Tattoo, the exhibitor explained. That was done when we were Iying +becalmed off Odessa in the Black Sea under Captain Dalton. Fellow, the +name of Antonio, done that. There he is himself, a Greek. + +--Did it hurt much doing it? one asked the sailor. + +That worthy, however, was busily engaged in collecting round the. +Someway in his. Squeezing or. + +--See here, he said, showing Antonio. There he is cursing the mate. And +there he is now, he added, the same fellow, pulling the skin with his +fingers, some special knack evidently, and he laughing at a yarn. + +And in point of fact the young man named Antonio's livid face did +actually look like forced smiling and the curious effect excited the +unreserved admiration of everybody including Skin-the-Goat, who this +time stretched over. + +--Ay, ay, sighed the sailor, looking down on his manly chest. He's gone +too. Ate by sharks after. Ay, ay. + +He let go of the skin so that the profile resumed the normal expression +of before. + +--Neat bit of work, one longshoreman said. + +--And what's the number for? loafer number two queried. + +--Eaten alive? a third asked the sailor. + +--Ay, ay, sighed again the latter personage, more cheerily this +time with some sort of a half smile for a brief duration only in the +direction of the questioner about the number. Ate. A Greek he was. + +And then he added with rather gallowsbird humour considering his alleged +end: + +_--As bad as old Antonio, For he left me on my ownio._ + +The face of a streetwalker glazed and haggard under a black straw hat +peered askew round the door of the shelter palpably reconnoitring on +her own with the object of bringing more grist to her mill. Mr +Bloom, scarcely knowing which way to look, turned away on the moment +flusterfied but outwardly calm, and, picking up from the table the pink +sheet of the Abbey street organ which the jarvey, if such he was, had +laid aside, he picked it up and looked at the pink of the paper though +why pink. His reason for so doing was he recognised on the moment +round the door the same face he had caught a fleeting glimpse of that +afternoon on Ormond quay, the partially idiotic female, namely, of the +lane who knew the lady in the brown costume does be with you (Mrs B.) +and begged the chance of his washing. Also why washing which seemed +rather vague than not, your washing. Still candour compelled him to +admit he had washed his wife's undergarments when soiled in Holles +street and women would and did too a man's similar garments initialled +with Bewley and Draper's marking ink (hers were, that is) if they really +loved him, that is to say, love me, love my dirty shirt. Still just +then, being on tenterhooks, he desired the female's room more than her +company so it came as a genuine relief when the keeper made her a rude +sign to take herself off. Round the side of the Evening Telegraph he +just caught a fleeting glimpse of her face round the side of the door +with a kind of demented glassy grin showing that she was not exactly all +there, viewing with evident amusement the group of gazers round skipper +Murphy's nautical chest and then there was no more of her. + +--The gunboat, the keeper said. + +--It beats me, Mr Bloom confided to Stephen, medically I am speaking, +how a wretched creature like that from the Lock hospital reeking with +disease can be barefaced enough to solicit or how any man in his sober +senses, if he values his health in the least. Unfortunate creature! Of +course I suppose some man is ultimately responsible for her condition. +Still no matter what the cause is from... + +Stephen had not noticed her and shrugged his shoulders, merely +remarking: + +--In this country people sell much more than she ever had and do a +roaring trade. Fear not them that sell the body but have not power to +buy the soul. She is a bad merchant. She buys dear and sells cheap. + +The elder man, though not by any manner of means an old maid or a prude, +said it was nothing short of a crying scandal that ought to be put a +stop to _instanter_ to say that women of that stamp (quite apart from +any oldmaidish squeamishness on the subject), a necessary evil, w ere +not licensed and medically inspected by the proper authorities, a thing, +he could truthfully state, he, as a _paterfamilias_, was a stalwart +advocate of from the very first start. Whoever embarked on a policy of +the sort, he said, and ventilated the matter thoroughly would confer a +lasting boon on everybody concerned. + +--You as a good catholic, he observed, talking of body and soul, believe +in the soul. Or do you mean the intelligence, the brainpower as such, +as distinct from any outside object, the table, let us say, that cup. I +believe in that myself because it has been explained by competent men as +the convolutions of the grey matter. Otherwise we would never have such +inventions as X rays, for instance. Do you? + +Thus cornered, Stephen had to make a superhuman effort of memory to try +and concentrate and remember before he could say: + +--They tell me on the best authority it is a simple substance and +therefore incorruptible. It would be immortal, I understand, but for the +possibility of its annihilation by its First Cause Who, from all I +can hear, is quite capable of adding that to the number of His other +practical jokes, _corruptio per se_ and _corruptio per accidens_ both +being excluded by court etiquette. + +Mr Bloom thoroughly acquiesced in the general gist of this though the +mystical finesse involved was a bit out of his sublunary depth still +he felt bound to enter a demurrer on the head of simple, promptly +rejoining: + +--Simple? I shouldn't think that is the proper word. Of course, I grant +you, to concede a point, you do knock across a simple soul once in a +blue moon. But what I am anxious to arrive at is it is one thing for +instance to invent those rays Rontgen did or the telescope like Edison, +though I believe it was before his time Galileo was the man, I mean, +and the same applies to the laws, for example, of a farreaching natural +phenomenon such as electricity but it's a horse of quite another colour +to say you believe in the existence of a supernatural God. + +--O that, Stephen expostulated, has been proved conclusively by several +of the bestknown passages in Holy Writ, apart from circumstantial +evidence. + +On this knotty point however the views of the pair, poles apart as they +were both in schooling and everything else with the marked difference in +their respective ages, clashed. + +--Has been? the more experienced of the two objected, sticking to his +original point with a smile of unbelief. I'm not so sure about that. +That's a matter for everyman's opinion and, without dragging in the +sectarian side of the business, I beg to differ with you _in toto_ +there. My belief is, to tell you the candid truth, that those bits were +genuine forgeries all of them put in by monks most probably or it's the +big question of our national poet over again, who precisely wrote them +like _Hamlet_ and Bacon, as, you who know your Shakespeare infinitely +better than I, of course I needn't tell you. Can't you drink that +coffee, by the way? Let me stir it. And take a piece of that bun. It's +like one of our skipper's bricks disguised. Still no-one can give what +he hasn't got. Try a bit. + +--Couldn't, Stephen contrived to get out, his mental organs for the +moment refusing to dictate further. + +Faultfinding being a proverbially bad hat Mr Bloom thought well to stir +or try to the clotted sugar from the bottom and reflected with something +approaching acrimony on the Coffee Palace and its temperance (and +lucrative) work. To be sure it was a legitimate object and beyond yea or +nay did a world of good, shelters such as the present one they were in +run on teetotal lines for vagrants at night, concerts, dramatic evenings +and useful lectures (admittance free) by qualified men for the lower +orders. On the other hand he had a distinct and painful recollection +they paid his wife, Madam Marion Tweedy who had been prominently +associated with it at one time, a very modest remuneration indeed for +her pianoplaying. The idea, he was strongly inclined to believe, was +to do good and net a profit, there being no competition to speak +of. Sulphate of copper poison SO4 or something in some dried peas he +remembered reading of in a cheap eatinghouse somewhere but he couldn't +remember when it was or where. Anyhow inspection, medical inspection, +of all eatables seemed to him more than ever necessary which possibly +accounted for the vogue of Dr Tibble's Vi-Cocoa on account of the +medical analysis involved. + +--Have a shot at it now, he ventured to say of the coffee after being +stirred. + +Thus prevailed on to at any rate taste it Stephen lifted the heavy mug +from the brown puddle it clopped out of when taken up by the handle and +took a sip of the offending beverage. + +--Still it's solid food, his good genius urged, I'm a stickler for solid +food, his one and only reason being not gormandising in the least but +regular meals as the _sine qua non_ for any kind of proper work, mental +or manual. You ought to eat more solid food. You would feel a different +man. + +--Liquids I can eat, Stephen said. But O, oblige me by taking away that +knife. I can't look at the point of it. It reminds me of Roman history. + +Mr Bloom promptly did as suggested and removed the incriminated article, +a blunt hornhandled ordinary knife with nothing particularly Roman or +antique about it to the lay eye, observing that the point was the least +conspicuous point about it. + +--Our mutual friend's stories are like himself, Mr Bloom _apropos_ of +knives remarked to his _confidante sotto voce_. Do you think they are +genuine? He could spin those yarns for hours on end all night long and +lie like old boots. Look at him. + +Yet still though his eyes were thick with sleep and sea air life was +full of a host of things and coincidences of a terrible nature and it +was quite within the bounds of possibility that it was not an +entire fabrication though at first blush there was not much inherent +probability in all the spoof he got off his chest being strictly +accurate gospel. + +He had been meantime taking stock of the individual in front of him and +Sherlockholmesing him up ever since he clapped eyes on him. Though a +wellpreserved man of no little stamina, if a trifle prone to baldness, +there was something spurious in the cut of his jib that suggested a jail +delivery and it required no violent stretch of imagination to associate +such a weirdlooking specimen with the oakum and treadmill fraternity. He +might even have done for his man supposing it was his own case he told, +as people often did about others, namely, that he killed him himself +and had served his four or five goodlooking years in durance vile to say +nothing of the Antonio personage (no relation to the dramatic personage +of identical name who sprang from the pen of our national poet) who +expiated his crimes in the melodramatic manner above described. On the +other hand he might be only bluffing, a pardonable weakness because +meeting unmistakable mugs, Dublin residents, like those jarvies waiting +news from abroad would tempt any ancient mariner who sailed the ocean +seas to draw the long bow about the schooner _Hesperus_ and etcetera. +And when all was said and done the lies a fellow told about himself +couldn't probably hold a proverbial candle to the wholesale whoppers +other fellows coined about him. + +--Mind you, I'm not saying that it's all a pure invention, he resumed. +Analogous scenes are occasionally, if not often, met with. Giants, +though that is rather a far cry, you see once in a way, Marcella the +midget queen. In those waxworks in Henry street I myself saw some +Aztecs, as they are called, sitting bowlegged, they couldn't straighten +their legs if you paid them because the muscles here, you see, he +proceeded, indicating on his companion the brief outline of the sinews +or whatever you like to call them behind the right knee, were utterly +powerless from sitting that way so long cramped up, being adored as +gods. There's an example again of simple souls. + +However reverting to friend Sinbad and his horrifying adventures (who +reminded him a bit of Ludwig, _alias_ Ledwidge, when he occupied +the boards of the Gaiety when Michael Gunn was identified with the +management in the _Flying Dutchman_, a stupendous success, and his host +of admirers came in large numbers, everyone simply flocking to hear him +though ships of any sort, phantom or the reverse, on the stage usually +fell a bit flat as also did trains) there was nothing intrinsically +incompatible about it, he conceded. On the contrary that stab in the +back touch was quite in keeping with those italianos though candidly he +was none the less free to admit those icecreamers and friers in the fish +way not to mention the chip potato variety and so forth over in little +Italy there near the Coombe were sober thrifty hardworking fellows +except perhaps a bit too given to pothunting the harmless necessary +animal of the feline persuasion of others at night so as to have a good +old succulent tuckin with garlic _de rigueur_ off him or her next day on +the quiet and, he added, on the cheap. + +--Spaniards, for instance, he continued, passionate temperaments like +that, impetuous as Old Nick, are given to taking the law into their own +hands and give you your quietus doublequick with those poignards they +carry in the abdomen. It comes from the great heat, climate generally. +My wife is, so to speak, Spanish, half that is. Point of fact she could +actually claim Spanish nationality if she wanted, having been born in +(technically) Spain, i.e. Gibraltar. She has the Spanish type. Quite +dark, regular brunette, black. I for one certainly believe climate +accounts for character. That's why I asked you if you wrote your poetry +in Italian. + +--The temperaments at the door, Stephen interposed with, were very +passionate about ten shillings. _Roberto ruba roba sua_. + +--Quite so, Mr Bloom dittoed. + +--Then, Stephen said staring and rambling on to himself or some unknown +listener somewhere, we have the impetuosity of Dante and the isosceles +triangle miss Portinari he fell in love with and Leonardo and san +Tommaso Mastino. + +--It's in the blood, Mr Bloom acceded at once. All are washed in the +blood of the sun. Coincidence I just happened to be in the Kildare +street museum 890 today, shortly prior to our meeting if I can so call +it, and I was just looking at those antique statues there. The splendid +proportions of hips, bosom. You simply don't knock against those kind of +women here. An exception here and there. Handsome yes, pretty in a way +you find but what I'm talking about is the female form. Besides they +have so little taste in dress, most of them, which greatly enhances a +woman's natural beauty, no matter what you say. Rumpled stockings, it +may be, possibly is, a foible of mine but still it's a thing I simply +hate to see. + +Interest, however, was starting to flag somewhat all round and then the +others got on to talking about accidents at sea, ships lost in a fog, +goo collisions with icebergs, all that sort of thing. Shipahoy of course +had his own say to say. He had doubled the cape a few odd times and +weathered a monsoon, a kind of wind, in the China seas and through all +those perils of the deep there was one thing, he declared, stood to him +or words to that effect, a pious medal he had that saved him. + +So then after that they drifted on to the wreck off Daunt's rock, wreck +of that illfated Norwegian barque nobody could think of her name for +the moment till the jarvey who had really quite a look of Henry Campbell +remembered it _Palme_ on Booterstown strand. That was the talk of the +town that year (Albert William Quill wrote a fine piece of original +verse of 910 distinctive merit on the topic for the Irish _Times_), +breakers running over her and crowds and crowds on the shore in +commotion petrified with horror. Then someone said something about the +case of the s. s. _Lady Cairns_ of Swansea run into by the _Mona_ which +was on an opposite tack in rather muggyish weather and lost with all +hands on deck. No aid was given. Her master, the _Mona's_, said he +was afraid his collision bulkhead would give way. She had no water, it +appears, in her hold. + +At this stage an incident happened. It having become necessary for him +to unfurl a reef the sailor vacated his seat. + +--Let me cross your bows mate, he said to his neighbour who was just +gently dropping off into a peaceful doze. + +He made tracks heavily, slowly with a dumpy sort of a gait to the door, +stepped heavily down the one step there was out of the shelter and bore +due left. While he was in the act of getting his bearings Mr Bloom who +noticed when he stood up that he had two flasks of presumably ship's +rum sticking one out of each pocket for the private consumption of his +burning interior, saw him produce a bottle and uncork it or unscrew and, +applying its nozz1e to his lips, take a good old delectable swig out of +it with a gurgling noise. The irrepressible Bloom, who also had a +shrewd suspicion that the old stager went out on a manoeuvre after the +counterattraction in the shape of a female who however had disappeared +to all intents and purposes, could by straining just perceive him, when +duly refreshed by his rum puncheon exploit, gaping up at the piers and +girders of the Loop line rather out of his depth as of course it was all +radically altered since his last visit and greatly improved. Some person +or persons invisible directed him to the male urinal erected by the +cleansing committee all over the place for the purpose but after a brief +space of time during which silence reigned supreme the sailor, evidently +giving it a wide berth, eased himself closer at hand, the noise of his +bilgewater some little time subsequently splashing on the ground where +it apparently awoke a horse of the cabrank. A hoof scooped anyway for +new foothold after sleep and harness jingled. Slightly disturbed in his +sentrybox by the brazier of live coke the watcher of the corporation +stones who, though now broken down and fast breaking up, was none other +in stern reality than the Gumley aforesaid, now practically on the +parish rates, given the temporary job by Pat Tobin in all human +probability from dictates of humanity knowing him before shifted about +and shuffled in his box before composing his limbs again in to the arms +of Morpheus, a truly amazing piece of hard lines in its most virulent +form on a fellow most respectably connected and familiarised with decent +home comforts all his life who came in for a cool 100 pounds a year +at one time which of course the doublebarrelled ass proceeded to make +general ducks and drakes of. And there he was at the end of his tether +after having often painted the town tolerably pink without a beggarly +stiver. He drank needless to be told and it pointed only once more a +moral when he might quite easily be in a large way of business if--a +big if, however--he had contrived to cure himself of his particular +partiality. + +All meantime were loudly lamenting the falling off in Irish shipping, +coastwise and foreign as well, which was all part and parcel of the same +thing. A Palgrave Murphy boat was put off the ways at Alexandra basin, +the only launch that year. Right enough the harbours were there only no +ships ever called. + +There were wrecks and wreckers, the keeper said, who was evidently _au +fait_. + +What he wanted to ascertain was why that ship ran bang against the only +rock in Galway bay when the Galway harbour scheme was mooted by a Mr +Worthington or some name like that, eh? Ask the then captain, he advised +them, how much palmoil the British government gave him for that day's +work, Captain John Lever of the Lever Line. + +--Am I right, skipper? he queried of the sailor, now returning after his +private potation and the rest of his exertions. + +That worthy picking up the scent of the fagend of the song or words +growled in wouldbe music but with great vim some kind of chanty or other +in seconds or thirds. Mr Bloom's sharp ears heard him then expectorate +the plug probably (which it was), so that he must have lodged it for the +time being in his fist while he did the drinking and making water jobs +and found it a bit sour after the liquid fire in question. Anyhow in +he rolled after his successful libation-_cum_-potation, introducing an +atmosphere of drink into the _soiree_, boisterously trolling, like a +veritable son of a seacook: + + _--The biscuits was as hard as brass + And the beef as salt as Lot's wife's arse. + O, Johnny Lever! + Johnny Lever, O!_ + +After which effusion the redoubtable specimen duly arrived on the scene +and regaining his seat he sank rather than sat heavily on the form +provided. Skin-the-Goat, assuming he was he, evidently with an axe to +grind, was airing his grievances in a forcible-feeble philippic anent +the natural resources of Ireland or something of that sort which he +described in his lengthy dissertation as the richest country bar none on +the face of God's earth, far and away superior to England, with coal in +large quantities, six million pounds worth of pork exported every year, +ten millions between butter and eggs and all the riches drained out of +it by England levying taxes on the poor people that paid through the +nose always and gobbling up the best meat in the market and a lot more +surplus steam in the same vein. Their conversation accordingly became +general and all agreed that that was a fact. You could grow any mortal +thing in Irish soil, he stated, and there was that colonel Everard down +there in Navan growing tobacco. Where would you find anywhere the like +of Irish bacon? But a day of reckoning, he stated _crescendo_ with no +uncertain voice, thoroughly monopolising all the conversation, was in +store for mighty England, despite her power of pelf on account of her +crimes. There would be a fall and the greatest fall in history. +The Germans and the Japs were going to have their little lookin, he +affirmed. The Boers were the beginning of the end. Brummagem England was +toppling already and her downfall would be Ireland, her Achilles heel, +which he explained to them about the vulnerable point of Achilles, the +Greek hero, a point his auditors at once seized as he completely gripped +their attention by showing the tendon referred to on his boot. His +advice to every Irishman was: stay in the land of your birth and work +for Ireland and live for Ireland. Ireland, Parnell said, could not spare +a single one of her sons. + +Silence all round marked the termination of his _finale_. The impervious +navigator heard these lurid tidings, undismayed. + +--Take a bit of doing, boss, retaliated that rough diamond palpably a +bit peeved in response to the foregoing truism. + +To which cold douche referring to downfall and so on the keeper +concurred but nevertheless held to his main view. + +--Who's the best troops in the army? the grizzled old veteran irately +interrogated. And the best jumpers and racers? And the best admirals and +generals we've got? Tell me that. + +--The Irish, for choice, retorted the cabby like Campbell, facial +blemishes apart. + +--That's right, the old tarpaulin corroborated. The Irish catholic +peasant. He's the backbone of our empire. You know Jem Mullins? + +While allowing him his individual opinions as everyman the keeper added +he cared nothing for any empire, ours or his, and considered no Irishman +worthy of his salt that served it. Then they began to have a few +irascible words when it waxed hotter, both, needless to say, appealing +to the listeners who followed the passage of arms with interest so long +as they didn't indulge in recriminations and come to blows. + +From inside information extending over a series of years Mr Bloom was +rather inclined to poohpooh the suggestion as egregious balderdash for, +pending that consummation devoutly to be or not to be wished for, he was +fully cognisant of the fact that their neighbours across the channel, +unless they were much bigger fools than he took them for, rather +concealed their strength than the opposite. It was quite on a par with +the quixotic idea in certain quarters that in a hundred million years +the coal seam of the sister island would be played out and if, as +time went on, that turned out to be how the cat jumped all he could +personally say on the matter was that as a host of contingencies, +equally relevant to the issue, might occur ere then it was highly +advisable in the interim to try to make the most of both countries even +though poles apart. Another little interesting point, the amours of +whores and chummies, to put it in common parlance, reminded him Irish +soldiers had as often fought for England as against her, more so, in +fact. And now, why? So the scene between the pair of them, the licensee +of the place rumoured to be or have been Fitzharris, the famous +invincible, and the other, obviously bogus, reminded him forcibly as +being on all fours with the confidence trick, supposing, that is, it was +prearranged as the lookeron, a student of the human soul if anything, +the others seeing least of the game. And as for the lessee or keeper, +who probably wasn't the other person at all, he (B.) couldn't help +feeling and most properly it was better to give people like that the +goby unless you were a blithering idiot altogether and refuse to have +anything to do with them as a golden rule in private life and their +felonsetting, there always being the offchance of a Dannyman coming +forward and turning queen's evidence or king's now like Denis or Peter +Carey, an idea he utterly repudiated. Quite apart from that he disliked +those careers of wrongdoing and crime on principle. Yet, though such +criminal propensities had never been an inmate of his bosom in any +shape or form, he certainly did feel and no denying it (while inwardly +remaining what he was) a certain kind of admiration for a man who +had actually brandished a knife, cold steel, with the courage of his +political convictions (though, personally, he would never be a party to +any such thing), off the same bat as those love vendettas of the south, +have her or swing for her, when the husband frequently, after some words +passed between the two concerning her relations with the other lucky +mortal (he having had the pair watched), inflicted fatal injuries on +his adored one as a result of an alternative postnuptial _liaison_ +by plunging his knife into her, until it just struck him that +Fitz, nicknamed Skin-the-Goat, merely drove the car for the actual +perpetrators of the outrage and so was not, if he was reliably informed, +actually party to the ambush which, in point of fact, was the plea some +legal luminary saved his skin on. In any case that was very ancient +history by now and as for our friend, the pseudo Skin-the-etcetera, he +had transparently outlived his welcome. He ought to have either died +naturally or on the scaffold high. Like actresses, always farewell +positively last performance then come up smiling again. Generous to a +fault of course, temperamental, no economising or any idea of the sort, +always snapping at the bone for the shadow. So similarly he had a very +shrewd suspicion that Mr Johnny Lever got rid of some l s d. in the +course of his perambulations round the docks in the congenial atmosphere +of the _Old Ireland_ tavern, come back to Erin and so on. Then as for +the other he had heard not so long before the same identical lingo as he +told Stephen how he simply but effectually silenced the offender. + +--He took umbrage at something or other, that muchinjured but on the +whole eventempered person declared, I let slip. He called me a jew and +in a heated fashion offensively. So I without deviating from plain facts +in the least told him his God, I mean Christ, was a jew too and all his +family like me though in reality I'm not. That was one for him. A soft +answer turns away wrath. He hadn't a word to say for himself as everyone +saw. Am I not right? + +He turned a long you are wrong gaze on Stephen of timorous dark pride +at the soft impeachment with a glance also of entreaty for he seemed to +glean in a kind of a way that it wasn't all exactly. + +--_Ex quibus_, Stephen mumbled in a noncommittal accent, their two or +four eyes conversing, _Christus_ or Bloom his name is or after all any +other, _secundum carnem_. + +--Of course, Mr B. proceeded to stipulate, you must look at both sides +of the question. It is hard to lay down any hard and fast rules as to +right and wrong but room for improvement all round there certainly is +though every country, they say, our own distressful included, has the +government it deserves. But with a little goodwill all round. It's all +very fine to boast of mutual superiority but what about mutual equality. +I resent violence and intolerance in any shape or form. It never +reaches anything or stops anything. A revolution must come on the due +instalments plan. It's a patent absurdity on the face of it to hate +people because they live round the corner and speak another vernacular, +in the next house so to speak. + +--Memorable bloody bridge battle and seven minutes' war, Stephen +assented, between Skinner's alley and Ormond market. + +Yes, Mr Bloom thoroughly agreed, entirely endorsing the remark, that +was overwhelmingly right. And the whole world was full of that sort of +thing. + +--You just took the words out of my mouth, he said. A hocuspocus of +conflicting evidence that candidly you couldn't remotely... + +All those wretched quarrels, in his humble opinion, stirring up +bad blood, from some bump of combativeness or gland of some kind, +erroneously supposed to be about a punctilio of honour and a flag, were +very largely a question of the money question which was at the back of +everything greed and jealousy, people never knowing when to stop. + +--They accuse, remarked he audibly. + +He turned away from the others who probably and spoke nearer to, so as +the others in case they. + +--Jews, he softly imparted in an aside in Stephen's ear, are accused of +ruining. Not a vestige of truth in it, I can safely say. History, would +you be surprised to learn, proves up to the hilt Spain decayed when the +inquisition hounded the jews out and England prospered when Cromwell, +an uncommonly able ruffian who in other respects has much to answer for, +imported them. Why? Because they are imbued with the proper spirit. They +are practical and are proved to be so. I don't want to indulge in any +because you know the standard works on the subject and then orthodox as +you are. But in the economic, not touching religion, domain the priest +spells poverty. Spain again, you saw in the war, compared with goahead +America. Turks. It's in the dogma. Because if they didn't believe they'd +go straight to heaven when they die they'd try to live better, at least +so I think. That's the juggle on which the p.p's raise the wind on false +pretences. I'm, he resumed with dramatic force, as good an Irishman +as that rude person I told you about at the outset and I want to see +everyone, concluded he, all creeds and classes _pro rata_ having a +comfortable tidysized income, in no niggard fashion either, something +in the neighbourhood of 300 pounds per annum. That's the vital issue +at stake and it's feasible and would be provocative of friendlier +intercourse between man and man. At least that's my idea for what it's +worth. I call that patriotism. _Ubi patria_, as we learned a smattering +of in our classical days in _Alma Mater, vita bene_. Where you can live +well, the sense is, if you work. + +Over his untastable apology for a cup of coffee, listening to this +synopsis of things in general, Stephen stared at nothing in particular. +He could hear, of course, all kinds of words changing colour like those +crabs about Ringsend in the morning burrowing quickly into all colours +of different sorts of the same sand where they had a home somewhere +beneath or seemed to. Then he looked up and saw the eyes that said or +didn't say the words the voice he heard said, if you work. + +--Count me out, he managed to remark, meaning work. + +The eyes were surprised at this observation because as he, the person +who owned them pro tem. observed or rather his voice speaking did, all +must work, have to, together. + +--I mean, of course, the other hastened to affirm, work in the widest +possible sense. Also literary labour not merely for the kudos of +the thing. Writing for the newspapers which is the readiest channel +nowadays. That's work too. Important work. After all, from the little +I know of you, after all the money expended on your education you are +entitled to recoup yourself and command your price. You have every bit +as much right to live by your pen in pursuit of your philosophy as the +peasant has. What? You both belong to Ireland, the brain and the brawn. +Each is equally important. + +--You suspect, Stephen retorted with a sort of a half laugh, that I may +be important because I belong to the _faubourg Saint Patrice_ called +Ireland for short. + +--I would go a step farther, Mr Bloom insinuated. + +--But I suspect, Stephen interrupted, that Ireland must be important +because it belongs to me. + +--What belongs, queried Mr Bloom bending, fancying he was perhaps under +some misapprehension. Excuse me. Unfortunately, I didn't catch the +latter portion. What was it you...? + +Stephen, patently crosstempered, repeated and shoved aside his mug of +coffee or whatever you like to call it none too politely, adding: 1170 + +--We can't change the country. Let us change the subject. + +At this pertinent suggestion Mr Bloom, to change the subject, looked +down but in a quandary, as he couldn't tell exactly what construction +to put on belongs to which sounded rather a far cry. The rebuke of some +kind was clearer than the other part. Needless to say the fumes of +his recent orgy spoke then with some asperity in a curious bitter way +foreign to his sober state. Probably the homelife to which Mr B attached +the utmost importance had not been all that was needful or he hadn't +been familiarised with the right sort of people. With a touch of fear +for the young man beside him whom he furtively scrutinised with an air +of some consternation remembering he had just come back from Paris, +the eyes more especially reminding him forcibly of father and sister, +failing to throw much light on the subject, however, he brought to mind +instances of cultured fellows that promised so brilliantly nipped in the +bud of premature decay and nobody to blame but themselves. For instance +there was the case of O'Callaghan, for one, the halfcrazy faddist, +respectably connected though of inadequate means, with his mad vagaries +among whose other gay doings when rotto and making himself a nuisance +to everybody all round he was in the habit of ostentatiously sporting in +public a suit of brown paper (a fact). And then the usual _denouement_ +after the fun had gone on fast and furious he got 1190 landed into hot +water and had to be spirited away by a few friends, after a strong hint +to a blind horse from John Mallon of Lower Castle Yard, so as not to +be made amenable under section two of the criminal law amendment act, +certain names of those subpoenaed being handed in but not divulged +for reasons which will occur to anyone with a pick of brains. Briefly, +putting two and two together, six sixteen which he pointedly turned a +deaf ear to, Antonio and so forth, jockeys and esthetes and the tattoo +which was all the go in the seventies or thereabouts even in the house +of lords because early in life the occupant of the throne, then heir +apparent, the other members of the upper ten and other high personages +simply following in the footsteps of the head of the state, he reflected +about the errors of notorieties and crowned heads running counter to +morality such as the Cornwall case a number of years before under their +veneer in a way scarcely intended by nature, a thing good Mrs Grundy, +as the law stands, was terribly down on though not for the reason they +thought they were probably whatever it was except women chiefly who were +always fiddling more or less at one another it being largely a matter of +dress and all the rest of it. Ladies who like distinctive underclothing +should, and every welltailored man must, trying to make the gap wider +between them by innuendo and give more of a genuine filip to acts of +impropriety between the two, she unbuttoned his and then he untied her, +mind the pin, whereas savages in the cannibal islands, say, at ninety +degrees in the shade not caring a continental. However, reverting to the +original, there were on the other hand others who had forced their way +to the top from the lowest rung by the aid of their bootstraps. Sheer +force of natural genius, that. With brains, sir. + +For which and further reasons he felt it was his interest and duty even +to wait on and profit by the unlookedfor occasion though why he could +not exactly tell being as it was already several shillings to the +bad having in fact let himself in for it. Still to cultivate the +acquaintance of someone of no uncommon calibre who could provide food +for reflection would amply repay any small. Intellectual stimulation, +as such, was, he felt, from time to time a firstrate tonic for the mind. +Added to which was the coincidence of meeting, discussion, dance, row, +old salt of the here today and gone tomorrow type, night loafers, the +whole galaxy of events, all went to make up a miniature cameo of the +world we live in especially as the lives of the submerged tenth, viz. +coalminers, divers, scavengers etc., were very much under the microscope +lately. To improve the shining hour he wondered whether he might meet +with anything approaching the same luck as Mr Philip Beaufoy if taken +down in writing suppose he were to pen something out of the common +groove (as he fully intended doing) at the rate of one guinea per +column. _My Experiences_, let us say, _in a Cabman's Shelter_. + +The pink edition extra sporting of the _Telegraph_ tell a graphic lie +lay, as luck would have it, beside his elbow and as he was just puzzling +again, far from satisfied, over a country belonging to him and the +preceding rebus the vessel came from Bridgwater and the postcard was +addressed A. Boudin find the captain's age, his eyes went aimlessly +over the respective captions which came under his special province the +allembracing give us this day our daily press. First he got a bit of a +start but it turned out to be only something about somebody named H. +du Boyes, agent for typewriters or something like that. Great battle, +Tokio. Lovemaking in Irish, 200 pounds damages. Gordon Bennett. +Emigration Swindle. Letter from His Grace. William. Ascot meeting, +the Gold Cup. Victory of outsider _Throwaway_ recalls Derby of '92 when +Capt. Marshall's dark horse _Sir Hugo_ captured the blue ribband at long +odds. New York disaster. Thousand lives lost. Foot and Mouth. Funeral of +the late Mr Patrick Dignam. + +So to change the subject he read about Dignam R. I. P. which, he +reflected, was anything but a gay sendoff. Or a change of address +anyway. + +--_This morning_ (Hynes put it in of course) _the remains of the late Mr +Patrick Dignam were removed from his residence, no 9 Newbridge Avenue, +Sandymount, for interment in Glasnevin. The deceased gentleman was a +most popular and genial personality in city life and his demise after a +brief illness came as a great shock to citizens of all classes by whom +he is deeply regretted. The obsequies, at which many friends of the +deceased were present, were carried out_ (certainly Hynes wrote it with +a nudge from Corny) _by Messrs H. J. O'Neill and Son, 164 North Strand +Road. The mourners included: Patk. Dignam (son), Bernard Corrigan +(brother-in-law), Jno. Henry Menton, solr, Martin Cunningham, John +Power, eatondph 1/8 ador dorador douradora_ (must be where he called +Monks the dayfather about Keyes's ad) _Thomas Kernan, Simon Dedalus, +Stephen Dedalus B.,4., Edw. J. Lambert, Cornelius T. Kelleher, Joseph +M'C Hynes, L. Boom, CP M'Coy,--M'lntosh and several others_. + +Nettled not a little by L. _Boom_ (as it incorrectly stated) and the +line of bitched type but tickled to death simultaneously by C. P. M'Coy +and Stephen Dedalus B. A. who were conspicuous, needless to say, by +their total absence (to say nothing of M'Intosh) L. Boom pointed it +out to his companion B. A. engaged in stifling another yawn, half +nervousness, not forgetting the usual crop of nonsensical howlers of +misprints. + +--Is that first epistle to the Hebrews, he asked as soon as his bottom +jaw would let him, in? Text: open thy mouth and put thy foot in it. + +--It is. Really, Mr Bloom said (though first he fancied he alluded to +the archbishop till he added about foot and mouth with which there could +be no possible connection) overjoyed to set his mind at rest and a bit +flabbergasted at Myles Crawford's after all managing to. There. + +While the other was reading it on page two Boom (to give him for the +nonce his new misnomer) whiled away a few odd leisure moments in fits +and starts with the account of the third event at Ascot on page three, +his side. Value 1000 sovs with 3000 sovs in specie added. For entire +colts and fillies. Mr F. Alexander's _Throwaway_, b. h. by _Rightaway_, +5 yrs, 9 st 4 lbs (W. Lane) 1, lord Howard de Walden's _Zinfandel_ (M. +Cannon) z, Mr W. Bass's _Sceptre_ 3. Betting 5 to 4 on _Zinfandel_, +20 to 1 _Throwaway_ (off). _Sceptre_ a shade heavier, 5 to 4 on +_Zinfandel_, 20 to 1 _Throwaway_ (off). _Throwaway_ and _Zinfandel_ +stood close order. It was anybody's race then the rank outsider drew to +the fore, got long lead, beating lord Howard de Walden's chestnut +colt and Mr W. Bass's bay filly Sceptre on a 2 1/2 mile course. Winner +trained by Braime so that Lenehan's version of the business was all pure +buncombe. Secured the verdict cleverly by a length. 1000 sovs with +3000 in specie. Also ran: J de Bremond's (French horse Bantam Lyons was +anxiously inquiring after not in yet but expected any minute) _Maximum +II_. Different ways of bringing off a coup. Lovemaking damages. Though +that halfbaked Lyons ran off at a tangent in his impetuosity to get +left. Of course gambling eminently lent itself to that sort of thing +though as the event turned out the poor fool hadn't much reason to +congratulate himself on his pick, the forlorn hope. Guesswork it reduced +itself to eventually. + +--There was every indication they would arrive at that, he, Bloom, said. + +--Who? the other, whose hand by the way was hurt, said. + +One morning you would open the paper, the cabman affirmed, and read: +_Return of Parnell_. He bet them what they liked. A Dublin fusilier was +in that shelter one night and said he saw him in South Africa. Pride it +was killed him. He ought to have done away with himself or lain low for +a time after committee room no 15 until he was his old self again with +no-one to point a finger at him. Then they would all to a man have gone +down on their marrowbones to him to come back when he had recovered +his senses. Dead he wasn't. Simply absconded somewhere. The coffin they +brought over was full of stones. He changed his name to De Wet, the Boer +general. He made a mistake to fight the priests. And so forth and so on. + +All the same Bloom (properly so dubbed) was rather surprised at their +memories for in nine cases out of ten it was a case of tarbarrels and +not singly but in their thousands and then complete oblivion because it +was twenty odd years. Highly unlikely of course there was even a shadow +of truth in the stones and, even supposing, he thought a return highly +inadvisable, all things considered. Something evidently riled them in +his death. Either he petered out too tamely of acute pneumonia just when +his various different political arrangements were nearing completion +or whether it transpired he owed his death to his having neglected to +change his boots and clothes-after a wetting when a cold resulted and +failing to consult a specialist he being confined to his room till he +eventually died of it amid widespread regret before a fortnight was at +an end or quite possibly they were distressed to find the job was taken +out of their hands. Of course nobody being acquainted with his movements +even before there was absolutely no clue as to his whereabouts which +were decidedly of the _Alice, where art thou_ order even prior to his +starting to go under several aliases such as Fox and Stewart so the +remark which emanated from friend cabby might be within the bounds of +possibility. Naturally then it would prey on his mind as a born leader +of men which undoubtedly he was and a commanding figure, a sixfooter +or at any rate five feet ten or eleven in his stockinged feet, whereas +Messrs So and So who, though they weren't even a patch on the former +man, ruled the roost after their redeeming features were very few and +far between. It certainly pointed a moral, the idol with feet of clay, +and then seventytwo of his trusty henchmen rounding on him with mutual +mudslinging. And the identical same with murderers. You had to come +back. That haunting sense kind of drew you. To show the understudy in +the title _role_ how to. He saw him once on the auspicious occasion +when they broke up the type in the _Insuppressible_ or was it _United +Ireland_, a privilege he keenly appreciated, and, in point of fact, +handed him his silk hat when it was knocked off and he said _Thank you_, +excited as he undoubtedly was under his frigid exterior notwithstanding +the little misadventure mentioned between the cup and the lip: what's +bred in the bone. Still as regards return. You were a lucky dog if +they didn't set the terrier at you directly you got back. Then a lot of +shillyshally usually followed, Tom for and Dick and Harry against. And +then, number one, you came up against the man in possession and had to +produce your credentials like the claimant in the Tichborne case, +Roger Charles Tichborne, _Bella_ was the boat's name to the best of his +recollection he, the heir, went down in as the evidence went to show +and there was a tattoo mark too in Indian ink, lord Bellew was it, as he +might very easily have picked up the details from some pal on board ship +and then, when got up to tally with the description given, introduce +himself with: _Excuse me, my name is So and So_ or some such commonplace +remark. A more prudent course, as Bloom said to the not over effusive, +in fact like the distinguished personage under discussion beside him, +would have been to sound the lie of the land first. + +--That bitch, that English whore, did for him, the shebeen proprietor +commented. She put the first nail in his coffin. + +--Fine lump of a woman all the same, the _soi-disant_ townclerk Henry +Campbell remarked, and plenty of her. She loosened many a man's thighs. +I seen her picture in a barber's. The husband was a captain or an +officer. + +--Ay, Skin-the-Goat amusingly added, he was and a cottonball one. + +This gratuitous contribution of a humorous character occasioned a fair +amount of laughter among his _entourage_. As regards Bloom he, without +the faintest suspicion of a smile, merely gazed in the direction of +the door and reflected upon the historic story which had aroused +extraordinary interest at the time when the facts, to make matters +worse, were made public with the usual affectionate letters that passed +between them full of sweet nothings. First it was strictly Platonic till +nature intervened and an attachment sprang up between them till bit by +bit matters came to a climax and the matter became the talk of the town +till the staggering blow came as a welcome intelligence to not a few +evildisposed, however, who were resolved upon encompassing his downfall +though the thing was public property all along though not to anything +like the sensational extent that it subsequently blossomed into. Since +their names were coupled, though, since he was her declared favourite, +where was the particular necessity to proclaim it to the rank and file +from the housetops, the fact, namely, that he had shared her bedroom +which came out in the witnessbox on oath when a thrill went through the +packed court literally electrifying everybody in the shape of witnesses +swearing to having witnessed him on such and such a particular date in +the act of scrambling out of an upstairs apartment with the assistance +of a ladder in night apparel, having gained admittance in the same +fashion, a fact the weeklies, addicted to the lubric a little, simply +coined shoals of money out of. Whereas the simple fact of the case was +it was simply a case of the husband not being up to the scratch, with +nothing in common between them beyond the name, and then a real man +arriving on the scene, strong to the verge of weakness, falling a victim +to her siren charms and forgetting home ties, the usual sequel, to bask +in the loved one's smiles. The eternal question of the life connubial, +needless to say, cropped up. Can real love, supposing there happens to +be another chap in the case, exist between married folk? Poser. +Though it was no concern of theirs absolutely if he regarded her with +affection, carried away by a wave of folly. A magnificent specimen of +manhood he was truly augmented obviously by gifts of a high order, as +compared with the other military supernumerary that is (who was just the +usual everyday _farewell, my gallant captain_ kind of an individual in +the light dragoons, the 18th hussars to be accurate) and inflammable +doubtless (the fallen leader, that is, not the other) in his own +peculiar way which she of course, woman, quickly perceived as highly +likely to carve his way to fame which he almost bid fair to do till the +priests and ministers of the gospel as a whole, his erstwhile staunch +adherents, and his beloved evicted tenants for whom he had done yeoman +service in the rural parts of the country by taking up the cudgels on +their behalf in a way that exceeded their most sanguine expectations, +very effectually cooked his matrimonial goose, thereby heaping coals of +fire on his head much in the same way as the fabled ass's kick. Looking +back now in a retrospective kind of arrangement all seemed a kind of +dream. And then coming back was the worst thing you ever did because it +went without saying you would feel out of place as things always moved +with the times. Why, as he reflected, Irishtown strand, a locality he +had not been in for quite a number of years looked different somehow +since, as it happened, he went to reside on the north side. North or +south, however, it was just the wellknown case of hot passion, pure and +simple, upsetting the applecart with a vengeance and just bore out the +very thing he was saying as she also was Spanish or half so, types that +wouldn't do things by halves, passionate abandon of the south, casting +every shred of decency to the winds. + +--Just bears out what I was saying, he, with glowing bosom said to +Stephen, about blood and the sun. And, if I don't greatly mistake she +was Spanish too. + +--The king of Spain's daughter, Stephen answered, adding something or +other rather muddled about farewell and adieu to you Spanish onions and +the first land called the Deadman and from Ramhead to Scilly was so and +so many. + +--Was she? Bloom ejaculated, surprised though not astonished by any +means, I never heard that rumour before. Possible, especially there, it +was as she lived there. So, Spain. + +Carefully avoiding a book in his pocket _Sweets of_, which reminded him +by the by of that Cap l street library book out of date, he took out his +pocketbook and, turning over the various contents it contained rapidly +finally he. + +--Do you consider, by the by, he said, thoughtfully selecting a faded +photo which he laid on the table, that a Spanish type? + +Stephen, obviously addressed, looked down on the photo showing a large +sized lady with her fleshy charms on evidence in an open fashion as she +was in the full bloom of womanhood in evening dress cut ostentatiously +low for the occasion to give a liberal display of bosom, with more than +vision of breasts, her full lips parted and some perfect teeth, standing +near, ostensibly with gravity, a piano on the rest of which was _In Old +Madrid_, a ballad, pretty in its way, which was then all the vogue. Her +(the lady's) eyes, dark, large, looked at Stephen, about to smile about +something to be admired, Lafayette of Westmoreland street, Dublin's +premier photographic artist, being responsible for the esthetic +execution. + +--Mrs Bloom, my wife the _prima donna_ Madam Marion Tweedy, Bloom +indicated. Taken a few years since. In or about ninety six. Very like +her then. + +Beside the young man he looked also at the photo of the lady now his +1440 legal wife who, he intimated, was the accomplished daughter of +Major Brian Tweedy and displayed at an early age remarkable proficiency +as a singer having even made her bow to the public when her years +numbered barely sweet sixteen. As for the face it was a speaking +likeness in expression but it did not do justice to her figure which +came in for a lot of notice usually and which did not come out to the +best advantage in that getup. She could without difficulty, he said, +have posed for the ensemble, not to dwell on certain opulent curves of +the. He dwelt, being a bit of an artist in his spare time, on the female +form in general developmentally because, as it so happened, no later +than that afternoon he had seen those Grecian statues, 1450 perfectly +developed as works of art, in the National Museum. Marble could give +the original, shoulders, back, all the symmetry, all the rest. Yes, +puritanisme, it does though Saint Joseph's sovereign thievery alors +(Bandez!) Figne toi trop. Whereas no photo could because it simply +wasn't art in a word. + +The spirit moving him he would much have liked to follow Jack Tar's good +example and leave the likeness there for a very few minutes to speak for +itself on the plea he so that the other could drink in the beauty for +himself, her stage presence being, frankly, a treat in itself which the +camera could not at all do justice to. But it was scarcely professional +etiquette so. Though it was a warm pleasant sort of a night now yet +wonderfully cool for the season considering, for sunshine after storm. +And he did feel a kind of need there and then to follow suit like a +kind of inward voice and satisfy a possible need by moving a motion. +Nevertheless he sat tight just viewing the slightly soiled photo creased +by opulent curves, none the worse for wear however, and looked away +thoughtfully with the intention of not further increasing the +other's possible embarrassment while gauging her symmetry of heaving +_embonpoint_. In fact the slight soiling was only an added charm like +the case of linen slightly soiled, good as new, much better in fact +with the starch out. Suppose she was gone when he? I looked for the lamp +which she told me came into his mind but merely as a passing fancy of +his because he then recollected the morning littered bed etcetera and +the book about Ruby with met him pike hoses (_sic_) in it which must +have fell down sufficiently appropriately beside the domestic chamberpot +with apologies to Lindley Murray. + +The vicinity of the young man he certainly relished, educated, +_distingue_ and impulsive into the bargain, far and away the pick of the +bunch though you wouldn't think he had it in him yet you would. Besides +he said the picture was handsome which, say what you like, it was though +at the moment she was distinctly stouter. And why not? An awful lot of +makebelieve went on about that sort of thing involving a lifelong slur +with the usual splash page of gutterpress about the same old matrimonial +tangle alleging misconduct with professional golfer or the newest +stage favourite instead of being honest and aboveboard about the whole +business. How they were fated to meet and an attachment sprang up +between the two so that their names were coupled in the public eye +was told in court with letters containing the habitual mushy and +compromising expressions leaving no loophole to show that they openly +cohabited two or three times a week at some wellknown seaside hotel and +relations, when the thing ran its normal course, became in due course +intimate. Then the decree _nisi_ and the King's proctor tries to show +cause why and, he failing to quash it, _nisi_ was made absolute. But as +for that the two misdemeanants, wrapped up as they largely were in one +another, could safely afford to ignore it as they very largely did till +the matter was put in the hands of a solicitor who filed a petition for +the party wronged in due course. He, B, enjoyed the distinction of being +close to Erin's uncrowned king in the flesh when the thing occurred on +the historic _fracas_ when the fallen leader's, who notoriously stuck to +his guns to the last drop even when clothed in the mantle of adultery, +(leader's) trusty henchmen to the number of ten or a dozen or +possibly even more than that penetrated into the printing works of the +_Insuppressible_ or no it was _United Ireland_ (a by no means by the +by appropriate appellative) and broke up the typecases with hammers or +something like that all on account of some scurrilous effusions from +the facile pens of the O'Brienite scribes at the usual mudslinging +occupation reflecting on the erstwhile tribune's private morals. Though +palpably a radically altered man he was still a commanding figure though +carelessly garbed as usual with that look of settled purpose which went +a long way with the shillyshallyers till they discovered to their vast +discomfiture that their idol had feet of clay after placing him upon a +pedestal which she, however, was the first to perceive. As those were +particularly hot times in the general hullaballoo Bloom sustained a +minor injury from a nasty prod of some chap's elbow in the crowd that +of course congregated lodging some place about the pit of the stomach, +fortunately not of a grave character. His hat (Parnell's) a silk one was +inadvertently knocked off and, as a matter of strict history, Bloom was +the man who picked it up in the crush after witnessing the occurrence +meaning to return it to him (and return it to him he did with the utmost +celerity) who panting and hatless and whose thoughts were miles away +from his hat at the time all the same being a gentleman born with a +stake in the country he, as a matter of fact, having gone into it more +for the kudos of the thing than anything else, what's bred in the bone +instilled into him in infancy at his mother's knee in the shape of +knowing what good form was came out at once because he turned round to +the donor and thanked him with perfect _aplomb_, saying: _Thank you, +sir_, though in a very different tone of voice from the ornament of the +legal profession whose headgear Bloom also set to rights earlier in the +course of the day, history repeating itself with a difference, after +the burial of a mutual friend when they had left him alone in his glory +after the grim task of having committed his remains to the grave. + +On the other hand what incensed him more inwardly was the blatant jokes +of the cabman and so on who passed it all off as a jest, laughing 1530 +immoderately, pretending to understand everything, the why and the +wherefore, and in reality not knowing their own minds, it being a case +for the two parties themselves unless it ensued that the legitimate +husband happened to be a party to it owing to some anonymous letter from +the usual boy Jones, who happened to come across them at the crucial +moment in a loving position locked in one another's arms, drawing +attention to their illicit proceedings and leading up to a domestic +rumpus and the erring fair one begging forgiveness of her lord and +master upon her knees and promising to sever the connection and not +receive his visits any more if only the aggrieved husband would overlook +the matter and let bygones be bygones with tears in her eyes though +possibly with her tongue in her fair cheek at the same time as quite +possibly there were several others. He personally, being of a sceptical +bias, believed and didn't make the smallest bones about saying so either +that man or men in the plural were always hanging around on the waiting +list about a lady, even supposing she was the best wife in the world +and they got on fairly well together for the sake of argument, when, +neglecting her duties, she chose to be tired of wedded life and was on +for a little flutter in polite debauchery to press their attentions on +her with improper intent, the upshot being that her affections centred +on another, the cause of many _liaisons_ between still attractive +married women getting on for fair and forty and younger men, no doubt as +several famous cases of feminine infatuation proved up to the hilt. + +It was a thousand pities a young fellow, blessed with an allowance of +brains as his neighbour obviously was, should waste his valuable time +with profligate women who might present him with a nice dose to last him +his lifetime. In the nature of single blessedness he would one day take +unto himself a wife when Miss Right came on the scene but in the interim +ladies' society was a _conditio sine qua non_ though he had the gravest +possible doubts, not that he wanted in the smallest to pump Stephen +about Miss Ferguson (who was very possibly the particular lodestar who +brought him down to Irishtown so early in the morning), as to whether he +would find much satisfaction basking in the boy and girl courtship idea +and the company of smirking misses without a penny to their names bi or +triweekly with the orthodox preliminary canter of complimentplaying and +walking out leading up to fond lovers' ways and flowers and chocs. To +think of him house and homeless, rooked by some landlady worse than any +stepmother, was really too bad at his age. The queer suddenly things +he popped out with attracted the elder man who was several years the +other's senior or like his father but something substantial he certainly +ought to eat even were it only an eggflip made on unadulterated maternal +nutriment or, failing that, the homely Humpty Dumpty boiled. + +--At what o'clock did you dine? he questioned of the slim form and tired +though unwrinkled face. + +--Some time yesterday, Stephen said. + +--Yesterday! exclaimed Bloom till he remembered it was already tomorrow +Friday. Ah, you mean it's after twelve! + +--The day before yesterday, Stephen said, improving on himself. + +Literally astounded at this piece of intelligence Bloom reflected. +Though they didn't see eye to eye in everything a certain analogy there +somehow was as if both their minds were travelling, so to speak, in the +one train of thought. At his age when dabbling in politics roughly +some score of years previously when he had been a _quasi_ aspirant to +parliamentary honours in the Buckshot Foster days he too recollected in +retrospect (which was a source of keen satisfaction in itself) he had +a sneaking regard for those same ultra ideas. For instance when the +evicted tenants question, then at its first inception, bulked largely in +people's mind though, it goes without saying, not contributing a copper +or pinning his faith absolutely to its dictums, some of which wouldn't +exactly hold water, he at the outset in principle at all events was in +thorough sympathy with peasant possession as voicing the trend of modern +opinion (a partiality, however, which, realising his mistake, he was +subsequently partially cured of) and even was twitted with going a +step farther than Michael Davitt in the striking views he at one time +inculcated as a backtothelander, which was one reason he strongly +resented the innuendo put upon him in so barefaced a fashion by our +friend at the gathering of the clans in Barney Kiernan's so that he, +though often considerably misunderstood and the least pugnacious of +mortals, be it repeated, departed from his customary habit to give +him (metaphorically) one in the gizzard though, so far as politics +themselves were concerned, he was only too conscious of the casualties +invariably resulting from propaganda and displays of mutual animosity +and the misery and suffering it entailed as a foregone conclusion on +fine young fellows, chiefly, destruction of the fittest, in a word. + +Anyhow upon weighing up the pros and cons, getting on for one, as it +was, it was high time to be retiring for the night. The crux was it +was a bit risky to bring him home as eventualities might possibly ensue +(somebody having a temper of her own sometimes) and spoil the hash +altogether as on the night he misguidedly brought home a dog (breed +unknown) with a lame paw (not that the cases were either identical or +the reverse though he had hurt his hand too) to Ontario Terrace as he +very distinctly remembered, having been there, so to speak. On the +other hand it was altogether far and away too late for the Sandymount +or Sandycove suggestion so that he was in some perplexity as to which of +the two alternatives. Everything pointed to the fact that it behoved him +to avail himself to the full of the opportunity, all things considered. +His initial impression was he was a shade standoffish or not over +effusive but it grew on him someway. For one thing he mightn't what you +call jump at the idea, if approached, and what mostly worried him was +he didn't know how to lead up to it or word it exactly, supposing he +did entertain the proposal, as it would afford him very great personal +pleasure if he would allow him to help to put coin in his way or some +wardrobe, if found suitable. At all events he wound up by concluding, +eschewing for the nonce hidebound precedent, a cup of Epps's cocoa and +a shakedown for the night plus the use of a rug or two and overcoat +doubled into a pillow at least he would be in safe hands and as warm as +a toast on a trivet he failed to perceive any very vast amount of harm +in that always with the proviso no rumpus of any sort was kicked up. +A move had to be made because that merry old soul, the grasswidower +in question who appeared to be glued to the spot, didn't appear in any +particular hurry to wend his way home to his dearly beloved Queenstown +and it was highly likely some sponger's bawdyhouse of retired beauties +where age was no bar off Sheriff street lower would be the best clue +to that equivocal character's whereabouts for a few days to come, +alternately racking their feelings (the mermaids') with sixchamber +revolver anecdotes verging on the tropical calculated to freeze +the marrow of anybody's bones and mauling their largesized charms +betweenwhiles with rough and tumble gusto to the accompaniment of large +potations of potheen and the usual blarney about himself for as to who +he in reality was let x equal my right name and address, as Mr Algebra +remarks _passim_. At the same time he inwardly chuckled over his gentle +repartee to the blood and ouns champion about his god being a jew. +People could put up with being bitten by a wolf but what properly riled +them was a bite from a sheep. The most vulnerable point too of tender +Achilles. Your god was a jew. Because mostly they appeared to imagine he +came from Carrick-on-Shannon or somewhereabouts in the county Sligo. + +--I propose, our hero eventually suggested after mature reflection while +prudently pocketing her photo, as it's rather stuffy here you just come +home with me and talk things over. My diggings are quite close in the +vicinity. You can't drink that stuff. Do you like cocoa? Wait. I'll just +pay this lot. + +The best plan clearly being to clear out, the remainder being plain +sailing, he beckoned, while prudently pocketing the photo, to the keeper +of the shanty who didn't seem to. + +--Yes, that's the best, he assured Stephen to whom for the matter of +that Brazen Head or him or anywhere else was all more or less. + +All kinds of Utopian plans were flashing through his (B's) busy brain, +education (the genuine article), literature, journalism, prize titbits, +up to date billing, concert tours in English watering resorts packed +with hydros and seaside theatres, turning money away, duets in Italian +with the accent perfectly true to nature and a quantity of other +things, no necessity, of course, to tell the world and his wife from the +housetops about it, and a slice of luck. An opening was all was wanted. +Because he more than suspected he had his father's voice to bank his +hopes on which it was quite on the cards he had so it would be just as +well, by the way no harm, to trail the conversation in the direction of +that particular red herring just to. + +The cabby read out of the paper he had got hold of that the former +viceroy, earl Cadogan, had presided at the cabdrivers' association +dinner in London somewhere. Silence with a yawn or two accompanied this +thrilling announcement. Then the old specimen in the corner who appeared +to have some spark of vitality left read out that sir Anthony MacDonnell +had left Euston for the chief secretary's lodge or words to that effect. +To which absorbing piece of intelligence echo answered why. + +--Give us a squint at that literature, grandfather, the ancient mariner +put in, manifesting some natural impatience. + +--And welcome, answered the elderly party thus addressed. + +The sailor lugged out from a case he had a pair of greenish goggles +which he very slowly hooked over his nose and both ears. + +--Are you bad in the eyes? the sympathetic personage like the townclerk +queried. + +--Why, answered the seafarer with the tartan beard, who seemingly was +a bit of a literary cove in his own small way, staring out of seagreen +portholes as you might well describe them as, I uses goggles reading. +Sand in the Red Sea done that. One time I could read a book in the dark, +manner of speaking. _The Arabian Nights Entertainment_ was my favourite +and _Red as a Rose is She._ + +Hereupon he pawed the journal open and pored upon Lord only knows what, +found drowned or the exploits of King Willow, Iremonger having made a +hundred and something second wicket not out for Notts, during which +time (completely regardless of Ire) the keeper was intensely occupied +loosening an apparently new or secondhand boot which manifestly pinched +him as he muttered against whoever it was sold it, all of them who were +sufficiently awake enough to be picked out by their facial expressions, +that is to say, either simply looking on glumly or passing a trivial +remark. + +To cut a long story short Bloom, grasping the situation, was the first +to rise from his seat so as not to outstay their welcome having first +and foremost, being as good as his word that he would foot the bill for +the occasion, taken the wise precaution to unobtrusively motion to mine +host as a parting shot a scarcely perceptible sign when the others were +not looking to the effect that the amount due was forthcoming, making a +grand total of fourpence (the amount he deposited unobtrusively in +four coppers, literally the last of the Mohicans), he having previously +spotted on the printed pricelist for all who ran to read opposite him +in unmistakable figures, coffee 2d, confectionery do, and honestly well +worth twice the money once in a way, as Wetherup used to remark. + +--Come, he counselled to close the _seance_. + +Seeing that the ruse worked and the coast was clear they left the +shelter or shanty together and the _elite_ society of oilskin and +company whom nothing short of an earthquake would move out of their +_dolce far niente_. Stephen, who confessed to still feeling poorly and +fagged out, paused at the, for a moment, the door. + +--One thing I never understood, he said to be original on the spur of +the moment. Why they put tables upside down at night, I mean chairs +upside down, on the tables in cafes. To which impromptu the neverfailing +Bloom replied without a moment's hesitation, saying straight off: + +--To sweep the floor in the morning. + +So saying he skipped around, nimbly considering, frankly at the same +time apologetic to get on his companion's right, a habit of his, by the +bye, his right side being, in classical idiom, his tender Achilles. The +night air was certainly now a treat to breathe though Stephen was a bit +weak on his pins. + +--It will (the air) do you good, Bloom said, meaning also the walk, in +a moment. The only thing is to walk then you'll feel a different man. +Come. It's not far. Lean on me. + +Accordingly he passed his left arm in Stephen's right and led him on +accordingly. + +--Yes, Stephen said uncertainly because he thought he felt a strange +kind of flesh of a different man approach him, sinewless and wobbly and +all that. + +Anyhow they passed the sentrybox with stones, brazier etc. where +the municipal supernumerary, ex Gumley, was still to all intents and +purposes wrapped in the arms of Murphy, as the adage has it, dreaming +of fresh fields and pastures new. And _apropos_ of coffin of stones the +analogy was not at all bad as it was in fact a stoning to death on the +part of seventytwo out of eighty odd constituencies that ratted at the +time of the split and chiefly the belauded peasant class, probably the +selfsame evicted tenants he had put in their holdings. + +So they turned on to chatting about music, a form of art for which +Bloom, as a pure amateur, possessed the greatest love, as they made +tracks arm in arm across Beresford place. Wagnerian music, though +confessedly grand in its way, was a bit too heavy for Bloom and hard to +follow at the first go-off but the music of Mercadante's _Huguenots_, +Meyerbeer's _Seven Last Words on the Cross_ and Mozart's _Twelfth Mass_ +he simply revelled in, the _Gloria_ in that being, to his mind, the acme +of first class music as such, literally knocking everything else into +a cocked hat. He infinitely preferred the sacred music of the catholic +church to anything the opposite shop could offer in that line such as +those Moody and Sankey hymns or _Bid me to live and i will live +thy protestant to be_. He also yielded to none in his admiration of +Rossini's _Stabat Mater_, a work simply abounding in immortal numbers, +in which his wife, Madam Marion Tweedy, made a hit, a veritable +sensation, he might safely say, greatly adding to her other laureis and +putting the others totally in the shade, in the jesuit fathers' church +in upper Gardiner street, the sacred edifice being thronged to the +doors to hear her with virtuosos, or _virtuosi_ rather. There was the +unanimous opinion that there was none to come up to her and suffice it +to say in a place of worship for music of a sacred character there was +a generally voiced desire for an encore. On the whole though favouring +preferably light opera of the _Don Giovanni_ description and _Martha_, +a gem in its line, he had a _penchant_, though with only a surface +knowledge, for the severe classical school such as Mendelssohn. And +talking of that, taking it for granted he knew all about the old +favourites, he mentioned _par excellence_ Lionel's air in _Martha, +M'appari_, which, curiously enough, he had heard or overheard, to be +more accurate, on yesterday, a privilege he keenly appreciated, from the +lips of Stephen's respected father, sung to perfection, a study of the +number, in fact, which made all the others take a back seat. Stephen, in +reply to a politely put query, said he didn't sing it but launched +out into praises of Shakespeare's songs, at least of in or about that +period, the lutenist Dowland who lived in Fetter lane near Gerard the +herbalist, who _anno ludendo hausi, Doulandus_, an instrument he was +contemplating purchasing from Mr Arnold Dolmetsch, whom B. did not quite +recall though the name certainly sounded familiar, for sixtyfive guineas +and Farnaby and son with their _dux_ and _comes_ conceits and Byrd +(William) who played the virginals, he said, in the Queen's chapel or +anywhere else he found them and one Tomkins who made toys or airs and +John Bull. + +On the roadway which they were approaching whilst still speaking beyond +the swingchains a horse, dragging a sweeper, paced on the paven ground, +brushing a long swathe of mire up so that with the noise Bloom was not +perfectly certain whether he had caught aright the allusion to sixtyfive +guineas and John Bull. He inquired if it was John Bull the political +celebrity of that ilk, as it struck him, the two identical names, as a +striking coincidence. + +By the chains the horse slowly swerved to turn, which perceiving, Bloom, +who was keeping a sharp lookout as usual, plucked the other's sleeve +gently, jocosely remarking: + +--Our lives are in peril tonight. Beware of the steamroller. + +They thereupon stopped. Bloom looked at the head of a horse not worth +anything like sixtyfive guineas, suddenly in evidence in the dark quite +near so that it seemed new, a different grouping of bones and even flesh +because palpably it was a fourwalker, a hipshaker, a blackbuttocker, a +taildangler, a headhanger putting his hind foot foremost the while the +lord of his creation sat on the perch, busy with his thoughts. But such +a good poor brute he was sorry he hadn't a lump of sugar but, as he +wisely reflected, you could scarcely be prepared for every emergency +that might crop up. He was just a big nervous foolish noodly kind of a +horse, without a second care in the world. But even a dog, he reflected, +take that mongrel in Barney Kiernan's, of the same size, would be a holy +horror to face. But it was no animal's fault in particular if he was +built that way like the camel, ship of the desert, distilling grapes +into potheen in his hump. Nine tenths of them all could be caged or +trained, nothing beyond the art of man barring the bees. Whale with a +harpoon hairpin, alligator tickle the small of his back and he sees the +joke, chalk a circle for a rooster, tiger my eagle eye. These timely +reflections anent the brutes of the field occupied his mind somewhat +distracted from Stephen's words while the ship of the street was +manoeuvring and Stephen went on about the highly interesting old. + +--What's this I was saying? Ah, yes! My wife, he intimated, plunging +_in medias res_, would have the greatest of pleasure in making your +acquaintance as she is passionately attached to music of any kind. + +He looked sideways in a friendly fashion at the sideface of Stephen, +image of his mother, which was not quite the same as the usual handsome +blackguard type they unquestionably had an insatiable hankering after as +he was perhaps not that way built. + +Still, supposing he had his father's gift as he more than suspected, +it opened up new vistas in his mind such as Lady Fingall's Irish +industries, concert on the preceding Monday, and aristocracy in general. + +Exquisite variations he was now describing on an air _Youth here has +End_ by Jans Pieter Sweelinck, a Dutchman of Amsterdam where the frows +come from. Even more he liked an old German song of _Johannes Jeep_ +about the clear sea and the voices of sirens, sweet murderers of men, +which boggled Bloom a bit: + + _Von der Sirenen Listigkeit + Tun die Poeten dichten._ + +These opening bars he sang and translated _extempore_. Bloom, nodding, +said he perfectly understood and begged him to go on by all means which +he did. + +A phenomenally beautiful tenor voice like that, the rarest of boons, +which Bloom appreciated at the very first note he got out, could easily, +if properly handled by some recognised authority on voice production +such as Barraclough and being able to read music into the bargain, +command its own price where baritones were ten a penny and procure for +its fortunate possessor in the near future an _entree_ into fashionable +houses in the best residential quarters of financial magnates in a large +way of business and titled people where with his university degree of +B. A. (a huge ad in its way) and gentlemanly bearing to all the more +influence the good impression he would infallibly score a distinct +success, being blessed with brains which also could be utilised for the +purpose and other requisites, if his clothes were properly attended +to so as to the better worm his way into their good graces as he, a +youthful tyro in--society's sartorial niceties, hardly understood how a +little thing like that could militate against you. It was in fact only a +matter of months and he could easily foresee him participating in their +musical and artistic _conversaziones_ during the festivities of the +Christmas season, for choice, causing a slight flutter in the dovecotes +of the fair sex and being made a lot of by ladies out for sensation, +cases of which, as he happened to know, were on record--in fact, without +giving the show away, he himself once upon a time, if he cared to, could +easily have. Added to which of course would be the pecuniary emolument +by no means to be sneezed at, going hand in hand with his tuition +fees. Not, he parenthesised, that for the sake of filthy lucre he need +necessarily embrace the lyric platform as a walk in life for any lengthy +space of time. But a step in the required direction it was beyond yea or +nay and both monetarily and mentally it contained no reflection on his +dignity in the smallest and it often turned in uncommonly handy to +be handed a cheque at a muchneeded moment when every little helped. +Besides, though taste latterly had deteriorated to a degree, original +music like that, different from the conventional rut, would rapidly +have a great vogue as it would be a decided novelty for Dublin's musical +world after the usual hackneyed run of catchy tenor solos foisted on a +confiding public by Ivan St Austell and Hilton St Just and their _genus +omne_. Yes, beyond a shadow of a doubt he could with all the cards in +his hand and he had a capital opening to make a name for himself and win +a high place in the city's esteem where he could command a stiff figure +and, booking ahead, give a grand concert for the patrons of the King +street house, given a backerup, if one were forthcoming to kick him +upstairs, so to speak, a big _if_, however, with some impetus of the +goahead sort to obviate the inevitable procrastination which often +tripped-up a too much feted prince of good fellows. And it need not +detract from the other by one iota as, being his own master, he would +have heaps of time to practise literature in his spare moments when +desirous of so doing without its clashing with his vocal career or +containing anything derogatory whatsoever as it was a matter for himself +alone. In fact, he had the ball at his feet and that was the very reason +why the other, possessed of a remarkably sharp nose for smelling a rat +of any sort, hung on to him at all. + +The horse was just then. And later on at a propitious opportunity he +purposed (Bloom did), without anyway prying into his private affairs on +the _fools step in where angels_ principle, advising him to sever his +connection with a certain budding practitioner who, he noticed, was +prone to disparage and even to a slight extent with some hilarious +pretext when not present, deprecate him, or whatever you like to call it +which in Bloom's humble opinion threw a nasty sidelight on that side of +a person's character, no pun intended. + +The horse having reached the end of his tether, so to speak, halted and, +rearing high a proud feathering tail, added his quota by letting fall on +the floor which the brush would soon brush up and polish, three smoking +globes of turds. Slowly three times, one after another, from a full +crupper he mired. And humanely his driver waited till he (or she) had +ended, patient in his scythed car. + +Side by side Bloom, profiting by the _contretemps_, with Stephen passed +through the gap of the chains, divided by the upright, and, stepping +over a strand of mire, went across towards Gardiner street lower, +Stephen singing more boldly, but not loudly, the end of the ballad. + +_Und alle Schiffe brucken._ + +The driver never said a word, good, bad or indifferent, but merely +watched the two figures, as he sat on his lowbacked car, both black, +one full, one lean, walk towards the railway bridge, _to be married by +Father Maher_. As they walked they at times stopped and walked again +continuing their _tete-a-tete_ (which, of course, he was utterly out +of) about sirens enemies of man's reason, mingled with a number of other +topics of the same category, usurpers, historical cases of the kind +while the man in the sweeper car or you might as well call it in the +sleeper car who in any case couldn't possibly hear because they were too +far simply sat in his seat near the end of lower Gardiner street _and +looked after their lowbacked car_. + + + +What parallel courses did Bloom and Stephen follow returning? + +Starting united both at normal walking pace from Beresford place they +followed in the order named Lower and Middle Gardiner streets and +Mountjoy square, west: then, at reduced pace, each bearing left, +Gardiner's place by an inadvertence as far as the farther corner of +Temple street: then, at reduced pace with interruptions of halt, bearing +right, Temple street, north, as far as Hardwicke place. Approaching, +disparate, at relaxed walking pace they crossed both the circus before +George's church diametrically, the chord in any circle being less than +the arc which it subtends. + + +Of what did the duumvirate deliberate during their itinerary? + +Music, literature, Ireland, Dublin, Paris, friendship, woman, +prostitution, diet, the influence of gaslight or the light of arc and +glowlamps on the growth of adjoining paraheliotropic trees, exposed +corporation emergency dustbuckets, the Roman catholic church, +ecclesiastical celibacy, the Irish nation, jesuit education, careers, +the study of medicine, the past day, the maleficent influence of the +presabbath, Stephen's collapse. + +Did Bloom discover common factors of similarity between their respective +like and unlike reactions to experience? + +Both were sensitive to artistic impressions, musical in preference to +plastic or pictorial. Both preferred a continental to an insular manner +of life, a cisatlantic to a transatlantic place of residence. Both +indurated by early domestic training and an inherited tenacity of +heterodox resistance professed their disbelief in many orthodox +religious, national, social and ethical doctrines. Both admitted +the alternately stimulating and obtunding influence of heterosexual +magnetism. + + +Were their views on some points divergent? + +Stephen dissented openly from Bloom's views on the importance of dietary +and civic selfhelp while Bloom dissented tacitly from Stephen's views +on the eternal affirmation of the spirit of man in literature. Bloom +assented covertly to Stephen's rectification of the anachronism +involved in assigning the date of the conversion of the Irish nation to +christianity from druidism by Patrick son of Calpornus, son of Potitus, +son of Odyssus, sent by pope Celestine I in the year 432 in the reign of +Leary to the year 260 or thereabouts in the reign of Cormac MacArt (died +266 A.D.), suffocated by imperfect deglutition of aliment at Sletty +and interred at Rossnaree. The collapse which Bloom ascribed to +gastric inanition and certain chemical compounds of varying degrees of +adulteration and alcoholic strength, accelerated by mental exertion and +the velocity of rapid circular motion in a relaxing atmosphere, Stephen +attributed to the reapparition of a matutinal cloud (perceived by both +from two different points of observation Sandycove and Dublin) at first +no bigger than a woman's hand. + + +Was there one point on which their views were equal and negative? + +The influence of gaslight or electric light on the growth of adjoining +paraheliotropic trees. + + +Had Bloom discussed similar subjects during nocturnal perambulations in +the past? + +In 1884 with Owen Goldberg and Cecil Turnbull at night on public +thoroughfares between Longwood avenue and Leonard's corner and Leonard's +corner and Synge street and Synge street and Bloomfield avenue. + +In 1885 with Percy Apjohn in the evenings, reclined against the wall +between Gibraltar villa and Bloomfield house in Crumlin, barony +of Uppercross. In 1886 occasionally with casual acquaintances and +prospective purchasers on doorsteps, in front parlours, in third class +railway carriages of suburban lines. In 1888 frequently with major Brian +Tweedy and his daughter Miss Marion Tweedy, together and separately on +the lounge in Matthew Dillon's house in Roundtown. Once in 1892 and once +in 1893 with Julius (Juda) Mastiansky, on both occasions in the parlour +of his (Bloom's) house in Lombard street, west. + + +What reflection concerning the irregular sequence of dates 1884, 1885, +1886, 1888, 1892, 1893, 1904 did Bloom make before their arrival at +their destination? + +He reflected that the progressive extension of the field of individual +development and experience was regressively accompanied by a restriction +of the converse domain of interindividual relations. + + +As in what ways? + +From inexistence to existence he came to many and was as one received: +existence with existence he was with any as any with any: from existence +to nonexistence gone he would be by all as none perceived. + +What act did Bloom make on their arrival at their destination? + +At the housesteps of the 4th Of the equidifferent uneven numbers, number +7 Eccles street, he inserted his hand mechanically into the back pocket +of his trousers to obtain his latchkey. + + +Was it there? + +It was in the corresponding pocket of the trousers which he had worn on +the day but one preceding. + + +Why was he doubly irritated? + +Because he had forgotten and because he remembered that he had reminded +himself twice not to forget. + + +What were then the alternatives before the, premeditatedly +(respectively) and inadvertently, keyless couple? + +To enter or not to enter. To knock or not to knock. + + +Bloom's decision? + +A stratagem. Resting his feet on the dwarf wall, he climbed over the +area railings, compressed his hat on his head, grasped two points at +the lower union of rails and stiles, lowered his body gradually by its +length of five feet nine inches and a half to within two feet ten inches +of the area pavement and allowed his body to move freely in space by +separating himself from the railings and crouching in preparation for +the impact of the fall. + + +Did he fall? + +By his body's known weight of eleven stone and four pounds in +avoirdupois measure, as certified by the graduated machine for +periodical selfweighing in the premises of Francis Froedman, +pharmaceutical chemist of 19 Frederick street, north, on the last feast +of the Ascension, to wit, the twelfth day of May of the bissextile year +one thousand nine hundred and four of the christian era (jewish era five +thousand six hundred and sixtyfour, mohammadan era one thousand three +hundred and twentytwo), golden number 5, epact 13, solar cycle 9, +dominical letters C B, Roman indiction 2, Julian period 6617, MCMIV. + + +Did he rise uninjured by concussion? + +Regaining new stable equilibrium he rose uninjured though concussed by +the impact, raised the latch of the area door by the exertion of force +at its freely moving flange and by leverage of the first kind applied +at its fulcrum, gained retarded access to the kitchen through the +subadjacent scullery, ignited a lucifer match by friction, set free +inflammable coal gas by turningon the ventcock, lit a high flame which, +by regulating, he reduced to quiescent candescence and lit finally a +portable candle. + + +What discrete succession of images did Stephen meanwhile perceive? + +Reclined against the area railings he perceived through the transparent +kitchen panes a man regulating a gasflame of 14 CP, a man lighting a +candle of 1 CP, a man removing in turn each of his two boots, a man +leaving the kitchen holding a candle. + + +Did the man reappear elsewhere? + +After a lapse of four minutes the glimmer of his candle was discernible +through the semitransparent semicircular glass fanlight over the +halldoor. The halldoor turned gradually on its hinges. In the open space +of the doorway the man reappeared without his hat, with his candle. + + +Did Stephen obey his sign? + +Yes, entering softly, he helped to close and chain the door and followed +softly along the hallway the man's back and listed feet and lighted +candle past a lighted crevice of doorway on the left and carefully down +a turning staircase of more than five steps into the kitchen of Bloom's +house. + + +What did Bloom do? + +He extinguished the candle by a sharp expiration of breath upon its +flame, drew two spoonseat deal chairs to the hearthstone, one for +Stephen with its back to the area window, the other for himself when +necessary, knelt on one knee, composed in the grate a pyre of crosslaid +resintipped sticks and various coloured papers and irregular polygons +of best Abram coal at twentyone shillings a ton from the yard of Messrs +Flower and M'Donald of 14 D'Olier street, kindled it at three projecting +points of paper with one ignited lucifer match, thereby releasing +the potential energy contained in the fuel by allowing its carbon and +hydrogen elements to enter into free union with the oxygen of the air. + + +Of what similar apparitions did Stephen think? + +Of others elsewhere in other times who, kneeling on one knee or on two, +had kindled fires for him, of Brother Michael in the infirmary of the +college of the Society of Jesus at Clongowes Wood, Sallins, in the +county of Kildare: of his father, Simon Dedalus, in an unfurnished room +of his first residence in Dublin, number thirteen Fitzgibbon street: +of his godmother Miss Kate Morkan in the house of her dying sister Miss +Julia Morkan at 15 Usher's Island: of his aunt Sara, wife of Richie +(Richard) Goulding, in the kitchen of their lodgings at 62 Clanbrassil +street: of his mother Mary, wife of Simon Dedalus, in the kitchen of +number twelve North Richmond street on the morning of the feast of +Saint Francis Xavier 1898: of the dean of studies, Father Butt, in the +physics' theatre of university College, 16 Stephen's Green, north: of +his sister Dilly (Delia) in his father's house in Cabra. + + +What did Stephen see on raising his gaze to the height of a yard from +the fire towards the opposite wall? + +Under a row of five coiled spring housebells a curvilinear rope, +stretched between two holdfasts athwart across the recess beside the +chimney pier, from which hung four smallsized square handkerchiefs +folded unattached consecutively in adjacent rectangles and one pair of +ladies' grey hose with Lisle suspender tops and feet in their habitual +position clamped by three erect wooden pegs two at their outer +extremities and the third at their point of junction. + + +What did Bloom see on the range? + +On the right (smaller) hob a blue enamelled saucepan: on the left +(larger) hob a black iron kettle. + + +What did Bloom do at the range? + +He removed the saucepan to the left hob, rose and carried the iron +kettle to the sink in order to tap the current by turning the faucet to +let it flow. + + +Did it flow? + +Yes. From Roundwood reservoir in county Wicklow of a cubic capacity of +2400 million gallons, percolating through a subterranean aqueduct of +filter mains of single and double pipeage constructed at an initial +plant cost of 5 pounds per linear yard by way of the Dargle, Rathdown, +Glen of the Downs and Callowhill to the 26 acre reservoir at Stillorgan, +a distance of 22 statute miles, and thence, through a system of +relieving tanks, by a gradient of 250 feet to the city boundary at +Eustace bridge, upper Leeson street, though from prolonged summer drouth +and daily supply of 12 1/2 million gallons the water had fallen below +the sill of the overflow weir for which reason the borough surveyor and +waterworks engineer, Mr Spencer Harty, C. E., on the instructions of +the waterworks committee had prohibited the use of municipal water for +purposes other than those of consumption (envisaging the possibility of +recourse being had to the impotable water of the Grand and Royal canals +as in 1893) particularly as the South Dublin Guardians, notwithstanding +their ration of 15 gallons per day per pauper supplied through a 6 inch +meter, had been convicted of a wastage of 20,000 gallons per night by +a reading of their meter on the affirmation of the law agent of +the corporation, Mr Ignatius Rice, solicitor, thereby acting to the +detriment of another section of the public, selfsupporting taxpayers, +solvent, sound. + +What in water did Bloom, waterlover, drawer of water, watercarrier, +returning to the range, admire? + +Its universality: its democratic equality and constancy to its nature +in seeking its own level: its vastness in the ocean of Mercator's +projection: its unplumbed profundity in the Sundam trench of the Pacific +exceeding 8000 fathoms: the restlessness of its waves and surface +particles visiting in turn all points of its seaboard: the independence +of its units: the variability of states of sea: its hydrostatic +quiescence in calm: its hydrokinetic turgidity in neap and spring tides: +its subsidence after devastation: its sterility in the circumpolar +icecaps, arctic and antarctic: its climatic and commercial significance: +its preponderance of 3 to 1 over the dry land of the globe: its +indisputable hegemony extending in square leagues over all the region +below the subequatorial tropic of Capricorn: the multisecular stability +of its primeval basin: its luteofulvous bed: its capacity to dissolve +and hold in solution all soluble substances including millions of +tons of the most precious metals: its slow erosions of peninsulas and +islands, its persistent formation of homothetic islands, peninsulas +and downwardtending promontories: its alluvial deposits: its weight and +volume and density: its imperturbability in lagoons and highland tarns: +its gradation of colours in the torrid and temperate and frigid zones: +its vehicular ramifications in continental lakecontained streams and +confluent oceanflowing rivers with their tributaries and transoceanic +currents, gulfstream, north and south equatorial courses: its violence +in seaquakes, waterspouts, Artesian wells, eruptions, torrents, eddies, +freshets, spates, groundswells, watersheds, waterpartings, geysers, +cataracts, whirlpools, maelstroms, inundations, deluges, cloudbursts: +its vast circumterrestrial ahorizontal curve: its secrecy in springs and +latent humidity, revealed by rhabdomantic or hygrometric instruments +and exemplified by the well by the hole in the wall at Ashtown +gate, saturation of air, distillation of dew: the simplicity of its +composition, two constituent parts of hydrogen with one constituent part +of oxygen: its healing virtues: its buoyancy in the waters of the Dead +Sea: its persevering penetrativeness in runnels, gullies, inadequate +dams, leaks on shipboard: its properties for cleansing, quenching thirst +and fire, nourishing vegetation: its infallibility as paradigm and +paragon: its metamorphoses as vapour, mist, cloud, rain, sleet, snow, +hail: its strength in rigid hydrants: its variety of forms in loughs +and bays and gulfs and bights and guts and lagoons and atolls and +archipelagos and sounds and fjords and minches and tidal estuaries and +arms of sea: its solidity in glaciers, icebergs, icefloes: its docility +in working hydraulic millwheels, turbines, dynamos, electric power +stations, bleachworks, tanneries, scutchmills: its utility in canals, +rivers, if navigable, floating and graving docks: its potentiality +derivable from harnessed tides or watercourses falling from level +to level: its submarine fauna and flora (anacoustic, photophobe), +numerically, if not literally, the inhabitants of the globe: its +ubiquity as constituting 90 percent of the human body: the noxiousness +of its effluvia in lacustrine marshes, pestilential fens, faded +flowerwater, stagnant pools in the waning moon. + + +Having set the halffilled kettle on the now burning coals, why did he +return to the stillflowing tap? + +To wash his soiled hands with a partially consumed tablet of +Barrington's lemonflavoured soap, to which paper still adhered, (bought +thirteen hours previously for fourpence and still unpaid for), in fresh +cold neverchanging everchanging water and dry them, face and hands, in a +long redbordered holland cloth passed over a wooden revolving roller. + + +What reason did Stephen give for declining Bloom's offer? + +That he was hydrophobe, hating partial contact by immersion or total by +submersion in cold water, (his last bath having taken place in the month +of October of the preceding year), disliking the aqueous substances of +glass and crystal, distrusting aquacities of thought and language. + + +What impeded Bloom from giving Stephen counsels of hygiene and +prophylactic to which should be added suggestions concerning a +preliminary wetting of the head and contraction of the muscles with +rapid splashing of the face and neck and thoracic and epigastric region +in case of sea or river bathing, the parts of the human anatomy most +sensitive to cold being the nape, stomach and thenar or sole of foot? + +The incompatibility of aquacity with the erratic originality of genius. + + +What additional didactic counsels did he similarly repress? + +Dietary: concerning the respective percentage of protein and caloric +energy in bacon, salt ling and butter, the absence of the former in the +lastnamed and the abundance of the latter in the firstnamed. + + +Which seemed to the host to be the predominant qualities of his guest? + +Confidence in himself, an equal and opposite power of abandonment and +recuperation. + + +What concomitant phenomenon took place in the vessel of liquid by the +agency of fire? + +The phenomenon of ebullition. Fanned by a constant updraught of +ventilation between the kitchen and the chimneyflue, ignition was +communicated from the faggots of precombustible fuel to polyhedral +masses of bituminous coal, containing in compressed mineral form the +foliated fossilised decidua of primeval forests which had in turn +derived their vegetative existence from the sun, primal source of heat +(radiant), transmitted through omnipresent luminiferous diathermanous +ether. Heat (convected), a mode of motion developed by such +combustion, was constantly and increasingly conveyed from the source +of calorification to the liquid contained in the vessel, being radiated +through the uneven unpolished dark surface of the metal iron, in part +reflected, in part absorbed, in part transmitted, gradually raising +the temperature of the water from normal to boiling point, a rise in +temperature expressible as the result of an expenditure of 72 thermal +units needed to raise 1 pound of water from 50 degrees to 212 degrees +Fahrenheit. + + +What announced the accomplishment of this rise in temperature? + +A double falciform ejection of water vapour from under the kettlelid at +both sides simultaneously. + + +For what personal purpose could Bloom have applied the water so boiled? + +To shave himself. + + +What advantages attended shaving by night? + +A softer beard: a softer brush if intentionally allowed to remain from +shave to shave in its agglutinated lather: a softer skin if unexpectedly +encountering female acquaintances in remote places at incustomary hours: +quiet reflections upon the course of the day: a cleaner sensation when +awaking after a fresher sleep since matutinal noises, premonitions and +perturbations, a clattered milkcan, a postman's double knock, a paper +read, reread while lathering, relathering the same spot, a shock, a +shoot, with thought of aught he sought though fraught with nought might +cause a faster rate of shaving and a nick on which incision plaster with +precision cut and humected and applied adhered: which was to be done. + + +Why did absence of light disturb him less than presence of noise? + +Because of the surety of the sense of touch in his firm full masculine +feminine passive active hand. + + +What quality did it (his hand) possess but with what counteracting +influence? + +The operative surgical quality but that he was reluctant to shed human +blood even when the end justified the means, preferring, in their +natural order, heliotherapy, psychophysicotherapeutics, osteopathic +surgery. + + +What lay under exposure on the lower, middle and upper shelves of the +kitchen dresser, opened by Bloom? + +On the lower shelf five vertical breakfast plates, six horizontal +breakfast saucers on which rested inverted breakfast cups, a +moustachecup, uninverted, and saucer of Crown Derby, four white +goldrimmed eggcups, an open shammy purse displaying coins, mostly +copper, and a phial of aromatic (violet) comfits. On the middle shelf +a chipped eggcup containing pepper, a drum of table salt, four +conglomerated black olives in oleaginous paper, an empty pot of +Plumtree's potted meat, an oval wicker basket bedded with fibre and +containing one Jersey pear, a halfempty bottle of William Gilbey and +Co's white invalid port, half disrobed of its swathe of coralpink tissue +paper, a packet of Epps's soluble cocoa, five ounces of Anne Lynch's +choice tea at 2/- per lb in a crinkled leadpaper bag, a cylindrical +canister containing the best crystallised lump sugar, two onions, one, +the larger, Spanish, entire, the other, smaller, Irish, bisected with +augmented surface and more redolent, a jar of Irish Model Dairy's cream, +a jug of brown crockery containing a naggin and a quarter of soured +adulterated milk, converted by heat into water, acidulous serum and +semisolidified curds, which added to the quantity subtracted for Mr +Bloom's and Mrs Fleming's breakfasts, made one imperial pint, the total +quantity originally delivered, two cloves, a halfpenny and a small dish +containing a slice of fresh ribsteak. On the upper shelf a battery of +jamjars (empty) of various sizes and proveniences. + + +What attracted his attention lying on the apron of the dresser? + +Four polygonal fragments of two lacerated scarlet betting tickets, +numbered 8 87, 88 6. + + +What reminiscences temporarily corrugated his brow? + +Reminiscences of coincidences, truth stranger than fiction, +preindicative of the result of the Gold Cup flat handicap, the official +and definitive result of which he had read in the _Evening Telegraph_, +late pink edition, in the cabman's shelter, at Butt bridge. + + +Where had previous intimations of the result, effected or projected, +been received by him? + +In Bernard Kiernan's licensed premises 8, 9 and 10 little Britain +street: in David Byrne's licensed premises, 14 Duke street: in O'Connell +street lower, outside Graham Lemon's when a dark man had placed in +his hand a throwaway (subsequently thrown away), advertising Elijah, +restorer of the church in Zion: in Lincoln place outside the premises of +F. W. Sweny and Co (Limited), dispensing chemists, when, when Frederick +M. (Bantam) Lyons had rapidly and successively requested, perused and +restituted the copy of the current issue of the _Freeman's Journal and +National Press_ which he had been about to throw away (subsequently +thrown away), he had proceeded towards the oriental edifice of +the Turkish and Warm Baths, 11 Leinster street, with the light of +inspiration shining in his countenance and bearing in his arms the +secret of the race, graven in the language of prediction. + +What qualifying considerations allayed his perturbations? + +The difficulties of interpretation since the significance of any event +followed its occurrence as variably as the acoustic report followed the +electrical discharge and of counterestimating against an actual loss +by failure to interpret the total sum of possible losses proceeding +originally from a successful interpretation. + + +His mood? + +He had not risked, he did not expect, he had not been disappointed, he +was satisfied. + + +What satisfied him? + +To have sustained no positive loss. To have brought a positive gain to +others. Light to the gentiles. + + +How did Bloom prepare a collation for a gentile? + +He poured into two teacups two level spoonfuls, four in all, of Epps's +soluble cocoa and proceeded according to the directions for use printed +on the label, to each adding after sufficient time for infusion the +prescribed ingredients for diffusion in the manner and in the quantity +prescribed. + + +What supererogatory marks of special hospitality did the host show his +guest? + +Relinquishing his symposiarchal right to the moustache cup of imitation +Crown Derby presented to him by his only daughter, Millicent (Milly), +he substituted a cup identical with that of his guest and served +extraordinarily to his guest and, in reduced measure, to himself the +viscous cream ordinarily reserved for the breakfast of his wife Marion +(Molly). + + +Was the guest conscious of and did he acknowledge these marks of +hospitality? + +His attention was directed to them by his host jocosely, and he accepted +them seriously as they drank in jocoserious silence Epps's massproduct, +the creature cocoa. + + +Were there marks of hospitality which he contemplated but suppressed, +reserving them for another and for himself on future occasions to +complete the act begun? + +The reparation of a fissure of the length of 1 1/2 inches in the right +side of his guest's jacket. A gift to his guest of one of the four +lady's handkerchiefs, if and when ascertained to be in a presentable +condition. + + +Who drank more quickly? + +Bloom, having the advantage of ten seconds at the initiation and taking, +from the concave surface of a spoon along the handle of which a steady +flow of heat was conducted, three sips to his opponent's one, six to +two, nine to three. + + +What cerebration accompanied his frequentative act? + +Concluding by inspection but erroneously that his silent companion was +engaged in mental composition he reflected on the pleasures derived from +literature of instruction rather than of amusement as he himself had +applied to the works of William Shakespeare more than once for the +solution of difficult problems in imaginary or real life. + + +Had he found their solution? + +In spite of careful and repeated reading of certain classical passages, +aided by a glossary, he had derived imperfect conviction from the text, +the answers not bearing in all points. + + +What lines concluded his first piece of original verse written by him, +potential poet, at the age of 11 in 1877 on the occasion of the offering +of three prizes of 10/-, 5/- and 2/6 respectively for competition by the +_Shamrock_, a weekly newspaper? + + _An ambition to squint + At my verses in print + Makes me hope that for these you'll find room?. + If you so condescend + Then please place at the end + The name of yours truly, L. Bloom._ + +Did he find four separating forces between his temporary guest and him? + +Name, age, race, creed. + + +What anagrams had he made on his name in youth? + + Leopold Bloom + Ellpodbomool + Molldopeloob + Bollopedoom + Old Ollebo, M. P. + + +What acrostic upon the abbreviation of his first name had he (kinetic +poet) sent to Miss Marion (Molly) Tweedy on the 14 February 1888? + + _Poets oft have sung in rhyme + Of music sweet their praise divine. + Let them hymn it nine times nine. + Dearer far than song or wine. + You are mine. The world is mine._ + + +What had prevented him from completing a topical song (music by R. G. +Johnston) on the events of the past, or fixtures for the actual, years, +entitled _If Brian Boru could but come back and see old Dublin now_, +commissioned by Michael Gunn, lessee of the Gaiety Theatre, 46, 47, 48, +49 South King street, and to be introduced into the sixth scene, the +valley of diamonds, of the second edition (30 January 1893) of the grand +annual Christmas pantomime _Sinbad the Sailor_ (produced by R Shelton +26 December 1892, written by Greenleaf Whittier, scenery by George +A. Jackson and Cecil Hicks, costumes by Mrs and Miss Whelan under +the personal supervision of Mrs Michael Gunn, ballets by Jessie Noir, +harlequinade by Thomas Otto) and sung by Nelly Bouverist, principal +girl? + +Firstly, oscillation between events of imperial and of local interest, +the anticipated diamond jubilee of Queen Victoria (born 1820, acceded +1837) and the posticipated opening of the new municipal fish market: +secondly, apprehension of opposition from extreme circles on the +questions of the respective visits of Their Royal Highnesses the +duke and duchess of York (real) and of His Majesty King Brian Boru +(imaginary): thirdly, a conflict between professional etiquette and +professional emulation concerning the recent erections of the Grand +Lyric Hall on Burgh Quay and the Theatre Royal in Hawkins street: +fourthly, distraction resultant from compassion for Nelly Bouverist's +non-intellectual, non-political, non-topical expression of countenance +and concupiscence caused by Nelly Bouverist's revelations of white +articles of non-intellectual, non-political, non-topical underclothing +while she (Nelly Bouverist) was in the articles: fifthly, the +difficulties of the selection of appropriate music and humorous +allusions from _Everybody's Book of Jokes_ (1000 pages and a laugh in +every one): sixthly, the rhymes, homophonous and cacophonous, associated +with the names of the new lord mayor, Daniel Tallon, the new high +sheriff, Thomas Pile and the new solicitorgeneral, Dunbar Plunket +Barton. + + +What relation existed between their ages? + +16 years before in 1888 when Bloom was of Stephen's present age Stephen +was 6. 16 years after in 1920 when Stephen would be of Bloom's present +age Bloom would be 54. In 1936 when Bloom would be 70 and Stephen 54 +their ages initially in the ratio of 16 to 0 would be as 17 1/2 to 13 +1/2, the proportion increasing and the disparity diminishing according +as arbitrary future years were added, for if the proportion existing in +1883 had continued immutable, conceiving that to be possible, till then +1904 when Stephen was 22 Bloom would be 374 and in 1920 when Stephen +would be 38, as Bloom then was, Bloom would be 646 while in 1952 when +Stephen would have attained the maximum postdiluvian age of 70 Bloom, +being 1190 years alive having been born in the year 714, would have +surpassed by 221 years the maximum antediluvian age, that of Methusalah, +969 years, while, if Stephen would continue to live until he would +attain that age in the year 3072 A.D., Bloom would have been obliged to +have been alive 83,300 years, having been obliged to have been born in +the year 81,396 B.C. + + +What events might nullify these calculations? + +The cessation of existence of both or either, the inauguration of a +new era or calendar, the annihilation of the world and consequent +extermination of the human species, inevitable but impredictable. + + +How many previous encounters proved their preexisting acquaintance? + +Two. The first in the lilacgarden of Matthew Dillon's house, Medina +Villa, Kimmage road, Roundtown, in 1887, in the company of Stephen's +mother, Stephen being then of the age of 5 and reluctant to give his +hand in salutation. The second in the coffeeroom of Breslin's hotel on a +rainy Sunday in the January of 1892, in the company of Stephen's father +and Stephen's granduncle, Stephen being then 5 years older. + + +Did Bloom accept the invitation to dinner given then by the son and +afterwards seconded by the father? + +Very gratefully, with grateful appreciation, with sincere appreciative +gratitude, in appreciatively grateful sincerity of regret, he declined. + + +Did their conversation on the subject of these reminiscences reveal a +third connecting link between them? + +Mrs Riordan (Dante), a widow of independent means, had resided in the +house of Stephen's parents from 1 September 1888 to 29 December 1891 and +had also resided during the years 1892, 1893 and 1894 in the City Arms +Hotel owned by Elizabeth O'Dowd of 54 Prussia street where, during parts +of the years 1893 and 1894, she had been a constant informant of Bloom +who resided also in the same hotel, being at that time a clerk in the +employment of Joseph Cuffe of 5 Smithfield for the superintendence of +sales in the adjacent Dublin Cattle market on the North Circular road. + + +Had he performed any special corporal work of mercy for her? + +He had sometimes propelled her on warm summer evenings, an infirm widow +of independent, if limited, means, in her convalescent bathchair +with slow revolutions of its wheels as far as the corner of the North +Circular road opposite Mr Gavin Low's place of business where she had +remained for a certain time scanning through his onelensed binocular +fieldglasses unrecognisable citizens on tramcars, roadster bicycles +equipped with inflated pneumatic tyres, hackney carriages, tandems, +private and hired landaus, dogcarts, ponytraps and brakes passing from +the city to the Phoenix Park and vice versa. + + +Why could he then support that his vigil with the greater equanimity? + +Because in middle youth he had often sat observing through a rondel +of bossed glass of a multicoloured pane the spectacle offered with +continual changes of the thoroughfare without, pedestrians, quadrupeds, +velocipedes, vehicles, passing slowly, quickly, evenly, round and round +and round the rim of a round and round precipitous globe. + + +What distinct different memories had each of her now eight years +deceased? + +The older, her bezique cards and counters, her Skye terrier, her +suppositious wealth, her lapses of responsiveness and incipient +catarrhal deafness: the younger, her lamp of colza oil before the statue +of the Immaculate Conception, her green and maroon brushes for Charles +Stewart Parnell and for Michael Davitt, her tissue papers. + + +Were there no means still remaining to him to achieve the rejuvenation +which these reminiscences divulged to a younger companion rendered the +more desirable? + +The indoor exercises, formerly intermittently practised, subsequently +abandoned, prescribed in Eugen Sandow's _Physical Strength and How to +Obtain It_ which, designed particularly for commercial men engaged in +sedentary occupations, were to be made with mental concentration in +front of a mirror so as to bring into play the various families of +muscles and produce successively a pleasant rigidity, a more pleasant +relaxation and the most pleasant repristination of juvenile agility. + + +Had any special agility been his in earlier youth? + +Though ringweight lifting had been beyond his strength and the full +circle gyration beyond his courage yet as a High school scholar he +had excelled in his stable and protracted execution of the half lever +movement on the parallel bars in consequence of his abnormally developed +abdominal muscles. + + +Did either openly allude to their racial difference? + +Neither. + + +What, reduced to their simplest reciprocal form, were Bloom's thoughts +about Stephen's thoughts about Bloom and about Stephen's thoughts about +Bloom's thoughts about Stephen? + +He thought that he thought that he was a jew whereas he knew that he +knew that he knew that he was not. + + +What, the enclosures of reticence removed, were their respective +parentages? + +Bloom, only born male transubstantial heir of Rudolf Virag (subsequently +Rudolph Bloom) of Szombathely, Vienna, Budapest, Milan, London and +Dublin and of Ellen Higgins, second daughter of Julius Higgins (born +Karoly) and Fanny Higgins (born Hegarty). Stephen, eldest surviving male +consubstantial heir of Simon Dedalus of Cork and Dublin and of Mary, +daughter of Richard and Christina Goulding (born Grier). + + +Had Bloom and Stephen been baptised, and where and by whom, cleric or +layman? + +Bloom (three times), by the reverend Mr Gilmer Johnston M. A., alone, +in the protestant church of Saint Nicholas Without, Coombe, by James +O'Connor, Philip Gilligan and James Fitzpatrick, together, under a pump +in the village of Swords, and by the reverend Charles Malone C. C., in +the church of the Three Patrons, Rathgar. Stephen (once) by the reverend +Charles Malone C. C., alone, in the church of the Three Patrons, +Rathgar. + + +Did they find their educational careers similar? + +Substituting Stephen for Bloom Stoom would have passed successively +through a dame's school and the high school. Substituting Bloom for +Stephen Blephen would have passed successively through the preparatory, +junior, middle and senior grades of the intermediate and through the +matriculation, first arts, second arts and arts degree courses of the +royal university. + + +Why did Bloom refrain from stating that he had frequented the university +of life? + +Because of his fluctuating incertitude as to whether this observation +had or had not been already made by him to Stephen or by Stephen to him. + + +What two temperaments did they individually represent? + +The scientific. The artistic. + + +What proofs did Bloom adduce to prove that his tendency was towards +applied, rather than towards pure, science? + +Certain possible inventions of which he had cogitated when reclining +in a state of supine repletion to aid digestion, stimulated by his +appreciation of the importance of inventions now common but once +revolutionary, for example, the aeronautic parachute, the reflecting +telescope, the spiral corkscrew, the safety pin, the mineral water +siphon, the canal lock with winch and sluice, the suction pump. + + +Were these inventions principally intended for an improved scheme of +kindergarten? + +Yes, rendering obsolete popguns, elastic airbladders, games of hazard, +catapults. They comprised astronomical kaleidoscopes exhibiting the +twelve constellations of the zodiac from Aries to Pisces, miniature +mechanical orreries, arithmetical gelatine lozenges, geometrical +to correspond with zoological biscuits, globemap playing balls, +historically costumed dolls. + + +What also stimulated him in his cogitations? + +The financial success achieved by Ephraim Marks and Charles A. James, +the former by his 1d bazaar at 42 George's street, south, the latter +at his 6 1/2d shop and world's fancy fair and waxwork exhibition at 30 +Henry street, admission 2d, children 1d: and the infinite possibilities +hitherto unexploited of the modern art of advertisement if condensed +in triliteral monoideal symbols, vertically of maximum visibility +(divined), horizontally of maximum legibility (deciphered) and of +magnetising efficacy to arrest involuntary attention, to interest, to +convince, to decide. + + +Such as? + +K. II. Kino's 11/- Trousers. House of Keys. Alexander J. Keyes. + + +Such as not? + +Look at this long candle. Calculate when it burns out and you receive +gratis 1 pair of our special non-compo boots, guaranteed 1 candle power. +Address: Barclay and Cook, 18 Talbot street. + +Bacilikil (Insect Powder). Veribest (Boot Blacking). Uwantit (Combined +pocket twoblade penknife with corkscrew, nailfile and pipecleaner). + + +Such as never? + +What is home without Plumtree's Potted Meat? + +Incomplete. + +With it an abode of bliss. + +Manufactured by George Plumtree, 23 Merchants' quay, Dublin, put up in +4 oz pots, and inserted by Councillor Joseph P. Nannetti, M. P., Rotunda +Ward, 19 Hardwicke street, under the obituary notices and anniversaries +of deceases. The name on the label is Plumtree. A plumtree in a meatpot, +registered trade mark. Beware of imitations. Peatmot. Trumplee. Moutpat. +Plamtroo. + + +Which example did he adduce to induce Stephen to deduce that +originality, though producing its own reward, does not invariably +conduce to success? + +His own ideated and rejected project of an illuminated showcart, drawn +by a beast of burden, in which two smartly dressed girls were to be +seated engaged in writing. + + +What suggested scene was then constructed by Stephen? + +Solitary hotel in mountain pass. Autumn. Twilight. Fire lit. In dark +corner young man seated. Young woman enters. Restless. Solitary. She +sits. She goes to window. She stands. She sits. Twilight. She thinks. +On solitary hotel paper she writes. She thinks. She writes. She sighs. +Wheels and hoofs. She hurries out. He comes from his dark corner. He +seizes solitary paper. He holds it towards fire. Twilight. He reads. +Solitary. + + +What? + +In sloping, upright and backhands: Queen's Hotel, Queen's Hotel, Queen's +Hotel. Queen's Ho... + + +What suggested scene was then reconstructed by Bloom? + +The Queen's Hotel, Ennis, county Clare, where Rudolph Bloom (Rudolf +Virag) died on the evening of the 27 June 1886, at some hour unstated, +in consequence of an overdose of monkshood (aconite) selfadministered in +the form of a neuralgic liniment composed of 2 parts of aconite liniment +to I of chloroform liniment (purchased by him at 10.20 a.m. on the +morning of 27 June 1886 at the medical hall of Francis Dennehy, 17 +Church street, Ennis) after having, though not in consequence of having, +purchased at 3.15 p.m. on the afternoon of 27 June 1886 a new boater +straw hat, extra smart (after having, though not in consequence of +having, purchased at the hour and in the place aforesaid, the toxin +aforesaid), at the general drapery store of James Cullen, 4 Main street, +Ennis. + + +Did he attribute this homonymity to information or coincidence or +intuition? + +Coincidence. + + +Did he depict the scene verbally for his guest to see? + +He preferred himself to see another's face and listen to another's +words by which potential narration was realised and kinetic temperament +relieved. + + +Did he see only a second coincidence in the second scene narrated to +him, described by the narrator as _A Pisgah Sight of Palestine or The +Parable of the Plums_? + +It, with the preceding scene and with others unnarrated but existent by +implication, to which add essays on various subjects or moral apothegms +(e.g. _My Favourite Hero or Procrastination is the Thief of Time_) +composed during schoolyears, seemed to him to contain in itself and +in conjunction with the personal equation certain possibilities of +financial, social, personal and sexual success, whether specially +collected and selected as model pedagogic themes (of cent per cent +merit) for the use of preparatory and junior grade students or +contributed in printed form, following the precedent of Philip Beaufoy +or Doctor Dick or Heblon's _Studies in Blue_, to a publication of +certified circulation and solvency or employed verbally as intellectual +stimulation for sympathetic auditors, tacitly appreciative of successful +narrative and confidently augurative of successful achievement, during +the increasingly longer nights gradually following the summer solstice +on the day but three following, videlicet, Tuesday, 21 June (S. Aloysius +Gonzaga), sunrise 3.33 a.m., sunset 8.29 p.m. + + +Which domestic problem as much as, if not more than, any other +frequently engaged his mind? + +What to do with our wives. + + +What had been his hypothetical singular solutions? + +Parlour games (dominos, halma, tiddledywinks, spilikins, cup and ball, +nap, spoil five, bezique, twentyfive, beggar my neighbour, draughts, +chess or backgammon): embroidery, darning or knitting for the +policeaided clothing society: musical duets, mandoline and guitar, piano +and flute, guitar and piano: legal scrivenery or envelope addressing: +biweekly visits to variety entertainments: commercial activity as +pleasantly commanding and pleasingly obeyed mistress proprietress in +a cool dairy shop or warm cigar divan: the clandestine satisfaction of +erotic irritation in masculine brothels, state inspected and medically +controlled: social visits, at regular infrequent prevented intervals +and with regular frequent preventive superintendence, to and from female +acquaintances of recognised respectability in the vicinity: courses of +evening instruction specially designed to render liberal instruction +agreeable. + + +What instances of deficient mental development in his wife inclined him +in favour of the lastmentioned (ninth) solution? + +In disoccupied moments she had more than once covered a sheet of paper +with signs and hieroglyphics which she stated were Greek and Irish and +Hebrew characters. She had interrogated constantly at varying intervals +as to the correct method of writing the capital initial of the name of +a city in Canada, Quebec. She understood little of political +complications, internal, or balance of power, external. In calculating +the addenda of bills she frequently had recourse to digital aid. +After completion of laconic epistolary compositions she abandoned +the implement of calligraphy in the encaustic pigment, exposed to +the corrosive action of copperas, green vitriol and nutgall. Unusual +polysyllables of foreign origin she interpreted phonetically or by false +analogy or by both: metempsychosis (met him pike hoses), _alias_ (a +mendacious person mentioned in sacred scripture). + + +What compensated in the false balance of her intelligence for these and +such deficiencies of judgment regarding persons, places and things? + +The false apparent parallelism of all perpendicular arms of all +balances, proved true by construction. The counterbalance of her +proficiency of judgment regarding one person, proved true by experiment. + + +How had he attempted to remedy this state of comparative ignorance? + +Variously. By leaving in a conspicuous place a certain book open at a +certain page: by assuming in her, when alluding explanatorily, latent +knowledge: by open ridicule in her presence of some absent other's +ignorant lapse. + + +With what success had he attempted direct instruction? + +She followed not all, a part of the whole, gave attention with interest +comprehended with surprise, with care repeated, with greater difficulty +remembered, forgot with ease, with misgiving reremembered, rerepeated +with error. + + +What system had proved more effective? + +Indirect suggestion implicating selfinterest. + + +Example? + +She disliked umbrella with rain, he liked woman with umbrella, she +disliked new hat with rain, he liked woman with new hat, he bought new +hat with rain, she carried umbrella with new hat. + + +Accepting the analogy implied in his guest's parable which examples of +postexilic eminence did he adduce? + +Three seekers of the pure truth, Moses of Egypt, Moses Maimonides, +author of _More Nebukim_ (Guide of the Perplexed) and Moses Mendelssohn +of such eminence that from Moses (of Egypt) to Moses (Mendelssohn) there +arose none like Moses (Maimonides). + + +What statement was made, under correction, by Bloom concerning a fourth +seeker of pure truth, by name Aristotle, mentioned, with permission, by +Stephen? + +That the seeker mentioned had been a pupil of a rabbinical philosopher, +name uncertain. + + +Were other anapocryphal illustrious sons of the law and children of a +selected or rejected race mentioned? + +Felix Bartholdy Mendelssohn (composer), Baruch Spinoza (philosopher), +Mendoza (pugilist), Ferdinand Lassalle (reformer, duellist). + + +What fragments of verse from the ancient Hebrew and ancient Irish +languages were cited with modulations of voice and translation of texts +by guest to host and by host to guest? + +By Stephen: _suil, suil, suil arun, suil go siocair agus suil go cuin_ +(walk, walk, walk your way, walk in safety, walk with care). + + +By Bloom: _Kkifeloch, harimon rakatejch m'baad l'zamatejch_ (thy temple +amid thy hair is as a slice of pomegranate). + + +How was a glyphic comparison of the phonic symbols of both languages +made in substantiation of the oral comparison? + +By juxtaposition. On the penultimate blank page of a book of inferior +literary style, entituled _Sweets of Sin_ (produced by Bloom and so +manipulated that its front cover came in contact with the surface of +the table) with a pencil (supplied by Stephen) Stephen wrote the Irish +characters for gee, eh, dee, em, simple and modified, and Bloom in turn +wrote the Hebrew characters ghimel, aleph, daleth and (in the absence of +mem) a substituted qoph, explaining their arithmetical values as ordinal +and cardinal numbers, videlicet 3, 1, 4, and 100. + + +Was the knowledge possessed by both of each of these languages, the +extinct and the revived, theoretical or practical? + +Theoretical, being confined to certain grammatical rules of accidence +and syntax and practically excluding vocabulary. + + +What points of contact existed between these languages and between the +peoples who spoke them? + +The presence of guttural sounds, diacritic aspirations, epenthetic and +servile letters in both languages: their antiquity, both having been +taught on the plain of Shinar 242 years after the deluge in the seminary +instituted by Fenius Farsaigh, descendant of Noah, progenitor of Israel, +and ascendant of Heber and Heremon, progenitors of Ireland: their +archaeological, genealogical, hagiographical, exegetical, homiletic, +toponomastic, historical and religious literatures comprising the works +of rabbis and culdees, Torah, Talmud (Mischna and Ghemara), Massor, +Pentateuch, Book of the Dun Cow, Book of Ballymote, Garland of Howth, +Book of Kells: their dispersal, persecution, survival and revival: the +isolation of their synagogical and ecclesiastical rites in ghetto (S. +Mary's Abbey) and masshouse (Adam and Eve's tavern): the proscription +of their national costumes in penal laws and jewish dress acts: the +restoration in Chanah David of Zion and the possibility of Irish +political autonomy or devolution. + + +What anthem did Bloom chant partially in anticipation of that multiple, +ethnically irreducible consummation? + + _Kolod balejwaw pnimah + Nefesch, jehudi, homijah._ + + +Why was the chant arrested at the conclusion of this first distich? + +In consequence of defective mnemotechnic. + + +How did the chanter compensate for this deficiency? + +By a periphrastic version of the general text. + + +In what common study did their mutual reflections merge? + +The increasing simplification traceable from the Egyptian epigraphic +hieroglyphs to the Greek and Roman alphabets and the anticipation of +modern stenography and telegraphic code in the cuneiform inscriptions +(Semitic) and the virgular quinquecostate ogham writing (Celtic). Did +the guest comply with his host's request? + +Doubly, by appending his signature in Irish and Roman characters. + +What was Stephen's auditive sensation? + +He heard in a profound ancient male unfamiliar melody the accumulation +of the past. + + +What was Bloom's visual sensation? + +He saw in a quick young male familiar form the predestination of a +future. + + +What were Stephen's and Bloom's quasisimultaneous volitional +quasisensations of concealed identities? + +Visually, Stephen's: The traditional figure of hypostasis, depicted +by Johannes Damascenus, Lentulus Romanus and Epiphanius Monachus as +leucodermic, sesquipedalian with winedark hair. Auditively, Bloom's: The +traditional accent of the ecstasy of catastrophe. + + +What future careers had been possible for Bloom in the past and with +what exemplars? + +In the church, Roman, Anglican or Nonconformist: exemplars, the very +reverend John Conmee S. J., the reverend T. Salmon, D. D., provost of +Trinity college, Dr Alexander J. Dowie. At the bar, English or Irish: +exemplars, Seymour Bushe, K. C., Rufus Isaacs, K. C. On the stage modern +or Shakespearean: exemplars, Charles Wyndham, high comedian Osmond +Tearle (died 1901), exponent of Shakespeare. + + +Did the host encourage his guest to chant in a modulated voice a strange +legend on an allied theme? + +Reassuringly, their place, where none could hear them talk, being +secluded, reassured, the decocted beverages, allowing for subsolid +residual sediment of a mechanical mixture, water plus sugar plus cream +plus cocoa, having been consumed. + + +Recite the first (major) part of this chanted legend. + + _Little Harry Hughes and his schoolfellows all + Went out for to play ball. + And the very first ball little Harry Hughes played + He drove it o'er the jew's garden wall. + And the very second ball little Harry Hughes played + He broke the jew's windows all._ + + + +How did the son of Rudolph receive this first part? + + +With unmixed feeling. Smiling, a jew he heard with pleasure and saw the +unbroken kitchen window. + + +Recite the second part (minor) of the legend. + + _Then out there came the jew's daughter + And she all dressed in green. + "Come back, come back, you pretty little boy, + And play your ball again." + + "I can't come back and I won't come back + Without my schoolfellows all. + For if my master he did hear + He'd make it a sorry ball." + + She took him by the lilywhite hand + And led him along the hall + Until she led him to a room + Where none could hear him call. + + She took a penknife out of her pocket + And cut off his little head. + And now he'll play his ball no more + For he lies among the dead._ + + +How did the father of Millicent receive this second part? + +With mixed feelings. Unsmiling, he heard and saw with wonder a jew's +daughter, all dressed in green. + + +Condense Stephen's commentary. + +One of all, the least of all, is the victim predestined. Once by +inadvertence twice by design he challenges his destiny. It comes when he +is abandoned and challenges him reluctant and, as an apparition of hope +and youth, holds him unresisting. It leads him to a strange habitation, +to a secret infidel apartment, and there, implacable, immolates him, +consenting. + + +Why was the host (victim predestined) sad? + +He wished that a tale of a deed should be told of a deed not by him +should by him not be told. + + +Why was the host (reluctant, unresisting) still? + +In accordance with the law of the conservation of energy. + + +Why was the host (secret infidel) silent? + +He weighed the possible evidences for and against ritual murder: the +incitations of the hierarchy, the superstition of the populace, the +propagation of rumour in continued fraction of veridicity, the envy of +opulence, the influence of retaliation, the sporadic reappearance of +atavistic delinquency, the mitigating circumstances of fanaticism, +hypnotic suggestion and somnambulism. + + +From which (if any) of these mental or physical disorders was he not +totally immune? + +From hypnotic suggestion: once, waking, he had not recognised his +sleeping apartment: more than once, waking, he had been for an +indefinite time incapable of moving or uttering sounds. From +somnambulism: once, sleeping, his body had risen, crouched and +crawled in the direction of a heatless fire and, having attained +its destination, there, curled, unheated, in night attire had lain, +sleeping. + + +Had this latter or any cognate phenomenon declared itself in any member +of his family? + +Twice, in Holles street and in Ontario terrace, his daughter Millicent +(Milly) at the ages of 6 and 8 years had uttered in sleep an exclamation +of terror and had replied to the interrogations of two figures in night +attire with a vacant mute expression. + + +What other infantile memories had he of her? + +15 June 1889. A querulous newborn female infant crying to cause and +lessen congestion. A child renamed Padney Socks she shook with shocks +her moneybox: counted his three free moneypenny buttons, one, tloo, +tlee: a doll, a boy, a sailor she cast away: blond, born of two dark, +she had blond ancestry, remote, a violation, Herr Hauptmann Hainau, +Austrian army, proximate, a hallucination, lieutenant Mulvey, British +navy. + + +What endemic characteristics were present? + +Conversely the nasal and frontal formation was derived in a direct +line of lineage which, though interrupted, would continue at distant +intervals to more distant intervals to its most distant intervals. + + +What memories had he of her adolescence? + +She relegated her hoop and skippingrope to a recess. On the duke's lawn, +entreated by an English visitor, she declined to permit him to make and +take away her photographic image (objection not stated). On the South +Circular road in the company of Elsa Potter, followed by an individual +of sinister aspect, she went half way down Stamer street and turned +abruptly back (reason of change not stated). On the vigil of the 15th +anniversary of her birth she wrote a letter from Mullingar, county +Westmeath, making a brief allusion to a local student (faculty and year +not stated). + + +Did that first division, portending a second division, afflict him? + +Less than he had imagined, more than he had hoped. + + +What second departure was contemporaneously perceived by him similarly, +if differently? + +A temporary departure of his cat. + + +Why similarly, why differently? + +Similarly, because actuated by a secret purpose the quest of a new male + +(Mullingar student) or of a healing herb (valerian). Differently, +because of different possible returns to the inhabitants or to the +habitation. + + +In other respects were their differences similar? + +In passivity, in economy, in the instinct of tradition, in +unexpectedness. + + +As? + +Inasmuch as leaning she sustained her blond hair for him to ribbon it +for her (cf neckarching cat). Moreover, on the free surface of the lake +in Stephen's green amid inverted reflections of trees her uncommented +spit, describing concentric circles of waterrings, indicated by the +constancy of its permanence the locus of a somnolent prostrate fish (cf +mousewatching cat). + +Again, in order to remember the date, combatants, issue and consequences +of a famous military engagement she pulled a plait of her hair (cf +earwashing cat). Furthermore, silly Milly, she dreamed of having had +an unspoken unremembered conversation with a horse whose name had been +Joseph to whom (which) she had offered a tumblerful of lemonade which +it (he) had appeared to have accepted (cf hearthdreaming cat). Hence, in +passivity, in economy, in the instinct of tradition, in unexpectedness, +their differences were similar. + + +In what way had he utilised gifts (1) an owl, (2) a clock, given as +matrimonial auguries, to interest and to instruct her? + +As object lessons to explain: 1) the nature and habits of oviparous +animals, the possibility of aerial flight, certain abnormalities of +vision, the secular process of imbalsamation: 2) the principle of the +pendulum, exemplified in bob, wheelgear and regulator, the translation +in terms of human or social regulation of the various positions of +clockwise moveable indicators on an unmoving dial, the exactitude of the +recurrence per hour of an instant in each hour when the longer and the +shorter indicator were at the same angle of inclination, _videlicet_, 5 +5/11 minutes past each hour per hour in arithmetical progression. + + +In what manners did she reciprocate? + +She remembered: on the 27th anniversary of his birth she presented to +him a breakfast moustachecup of imitation Crown Derby porcelain ware. +She provided: at quarter day or thereabouts if or when purchases +had been made by him not for her she showed herself attentive to his +necessities, anticipating his desires. She admired: a natural phenomenon +having been explained by him to her she expressed the immediate desire +to possess without gradual acquisition a fraction of his science, the +moiety, the quarter, a thousandth part. + + +What proposal did Bloom, diambulist, father of Milly, somnambulist, make +to Stephen, noctambulist? + +To pass in repose the hours intervening between Thursday (proper) and +Friday (normal) on an extemporised cubicle in the apartment immediately +above the kitchen and immediately adjacent to the sleeping apartment of +his host and hostess. + + +What various advantages would or might have resulted from a prolongation +of such an extemporisation? + +For the guest: security of domicile and seclusion of study. For the +host: rejuvenation of intelligence, vicarious satisfaction. For the +hostess: disintegration of obsession, acquisition of correct Italian +pronunciation. + + +Why might these several provisional contingencies between a guest and +a hostess not necessarily preclude or be precluded by a permanent +eventuality of reconciliatory union between a schoolfellow and a jew's +daughter? + +Because the way to daughter led through mother, the way to mother +through daughter. + + +To what inconsequent polysyllabic question of his host did the guest +return a monosyllabic negative answer? + +If he had known the late Mrs Emily Sinico, accidentally killed at Sydney +Parade railway station, 14 October 1903. + + +What inchoate corollary statement was consequently suppressed by the +host? + +A statement explanatory of his absence on the occasion of the interment +of Mrs Mary Dedalus (born Goulding), 26 June 1903, vigil of the +anniversary of the decease of Rudolph Bloom (born Virag). + + +Was the proposal of asylum accepted? + +Promptly, inexplicably, with amicability, gratefully it was declined. +What exchange of money took place between host and guest? + +The former returned to the latter, without interest, a sum of money +(1-7-0), one pound seven shillings sterling, advanced by the latter to +the former. + + +What counterproposals were alternately advanced, accepted, modified, +declined, restated in other terms, reaccepted, ratified, reconfirmed? + +To inaugurate a prearranged course of Italian instruction, place +the residence of the instructed. To inaugurate a course of vocal +instruction, place the residence of the instructress. To inaugurate +a series of static semistatic and peripatetic intellectual dialogues, +places the residence of both speakers (if both speakers were resident in +the same place), the Ship hotel and tavern, 6 Lower Abbey street (W. and +E. Connery, proprietors), the National Library of Ireland, 10 Kildare +street, the National Maternity Hospital, 29, 30 and 31 Holles street, a +public garden, the vicinity of a place of worship, a conjunction of two +or more public thoroughfares, the point of bisection of a right line +drawn between their residences (if both speakers were resident in +different places). + + +What rendered problematic for Bloom the realisation of these mutually +selfexcluding propositions? + +The irreparability of the past: once at a performance of Albert +Hengler's circus in the Rotunda, Rutland square, Dublin, an intuitive +particoloured clown in quest of paternity had penetrated from the ring +to a place in the auditorium where Bloom, solitary, was seated and had +publicly declared to an exhilarated audience that he (Bloom) was his +(the clown's) papa. The imprevidibility of the future: once in the +summer of 1898 he (Bloom) had marked a florin (2/-) with three notches +on the milled edge and tendered it m payment of an account due to and +received by J. and T. Davy, family grocers, 1 Charlemont Mall, Grand +Canal, for circulation on the waters of civic finance, for possible, +circuitous or direct, return. + + +Was the clown Bloom's son? + +No. + + +Had Bloom's coin returned? + +Never. + + +Why would a recurrent frustration the more depress him? + +Because at the critical turningpoint of human existence he desired to +amend many social conditions, the product of inequality and avarice and +international animosity. He believed then that human life was infinitely +perfectible, eliminating these conditions? + +There remained the generic conditions imposed by natural, as distinct +from human law, as integral parts of the human whole: the necessity of +destruction to procure alimentary sustenance: the painful character of +the ultimate functions of separate existence, the agonies of birth and +death: the monotonous menstruation of simian and (particularly) human +females extending from the age of puberty to the menopause: inevitable +accidents at sea, in mines and factories: certain very painful maladies +and their resultant surgical operations, innate lunacy and congenital +criminality, decimating epidemics: catastrophic cataclysms which make +terror the basis of human mentality: seismic upheavals the epicentres +of which are located in densely populated regions: the fact of vital +growth, through convulsions of metamorphosis, from infancy through +maturity to decay. + + +Why did he desist from speculation? + +Because it was a task for a superior intelligence to substitute other +more acceptable phenomena in the place of the less acceptable phenomena +to be removed. + + +Did Stephen participate in his dejection? + +He affirmed his significance as a conscious rational animal proceeding +syllogistically from the known to the unknown and a conscious rational +reagent between a micro and a macrocosm ineluctably constructed upon the +incertitude of the void. + + +Was this affirmation apprehended by Bloom? + +Not verbally. Substantially. + + +What comforted his misapprehension? + +That as a competent keyless citizen he had proceeded energetically from +the unknown to the known through the incertitude of the void. + + +In what order of precedence, with what attendant ceremony was the exodus +from the house of bondage to the wilderness of inhabitation effected? + +Lighted Candle in Stick borne by + +BLOOM + +Diaconal Hat on Ashplant borne by + +STEPHEN: + + +With what intonation secreto of what commemorative psalm? + +The 113th, _modus peregrinus: In exitu Israel de Egypto: domus Jacob de +populo barbaro_. + + +What did each do at the door of egress? + +Bloom set the candlestick on the floor. Stephen put the hat on his head. + + +For what creature was the door of egress a door of ingress? + +For a cat. + + +What spectacle confronted them when they, first the host, then the +guest, emerged silently, doubly dark, from obscurity by a passage from +the rere of the house into the penumbra of the garden? + +The heaventree of stars hung with humid nightblue fruit. + + +With what meditations did Bloom accompany his demonstration to his +companion of various constellations? + +Meditations of evolution increasingly vaster: of the moon invisible in +incipient lunation, approaching perigee: of the infinite lattiginous +scintillating uncondensed milky way, discernible by daylight by an +observer placed at the lower end of a cylindrical vertical shaft 5000 +ft deep sunk from the surface towards the centre of the earth: of Sirius +(alpha in Canis Maior) 10 lightyears (57,000,000,000,000 miles) distant +and in volume 900 times the dimension of our planet: of Arcturus: of the +precession of equinoxes: of Orion with belt and sextuple sun theta and +nebula in which 100 of our solar systems could be contained: of moribund +and of nascent new stars such as Nova in 1901: of our system plunging +towards the constellation of Hercules: of the parallax or parallactic +drift of socalled fixed stars, in reality evermoving wanderers from +immeasurably remote eons to infinitely remote futures in comparison with +which the years, threescore and ten, of allotted human life formed a +parenthesis of infinitesimal brevity. + + +Were there obverse meditations of involution increasingly less vast? + +Of the eons of geological periods recorded in the stratifications of the +earth: of the myriad minute entomological organic existences concealed +in cavities of the earth, beneath removable stones, in hives and mounds, +of microbes, germs, bacteria, bacilli, spermatozoa: of the incalculable +trillions of billions of millions of imperceptible molecules contained +by cohesion of molecular affinity in a single pinhead: of the universe +of human serum constellated with red and white bodies, themselves +universes of void space constellated with other bodies, each, in +continuity, its universe of divisible component bodies of which each was +again divisible in divisions of redivisible component bodies, dividends +and divisors ever diminishing without actual division till, if the +progress were carried far enough, nought nowhere was never reached. + + +Why did he not elaborate these calculations to a more precise result? + +Because some years previously in 1886 when occupied with the problem +of the quadrature of the circle he had learned of the existence of a +number computed to a relative degree of accuracy to be of such magnitude +and of so many places, e.g., the 9th power of the 9th power of 9, that, +the result having been obtained, 33 closely printed volumes of 1000 +pages each of innumerable quires and reams of India paper would have to +be requisitioned in order to contain the complete tale of its printed +integers of units, tens, hundreds, thousands, tens of thousands, +hundreds of thousands, millions, tens of millions, hundreds of millions, +billions, the nucleus of the nebula of every digit of every series +containing succinctly the potentiality of being raised to the utmost +kinetic elaboration of any power of any of its powers. + + +Did he find the problems of the inhabitability of the planets and their +satellites by a race, given in species, and of the possible social and +moral redemption of said race by a redeemer, easier of solution? + +Of a different order of difficulty. Conscious that the human organism, +normally capable of sustaining an atmospheric pressure of 19 tons, +when elevated to a considerable altitude in the terrestrial atmosphere +suffered with arithmetical progression of intensity, according as +the line of demarcation between troposphere and stratosphere was +approximated from nasal hemorrhage, impeded respiration and vertigo, +when proposing this problem for solution, he had conjectured as a +working hypothesis which could not be proved impossible that a more +adaptable and differently anatomically constructed race of beings might +subsist otherwise under Martian, Mercurial, Veneral, Jovian, Saturnian, +Neptunian or Uranian sufficient and equivalent conditions, though +an apogean humanity of beings created in varying forms with finite +differences resulting similar to the whole and to one another would +probably there as here remain inalterably and inalienably attached to +vanities, to vanities of vanities and to all that is vanity. + + And the problem of possible redemption? + The minor was proved by the major. + + +Which various features of the constellations were in turn considered? + +The various colours significant of various degrees of vitality (white, +yellow, crimson, vermilion, cinnabar): their degrees of brilliancy: +their magnitudes revealed up to and including the 7th: their positions: +the waggoner's star: Walsingham way: the chariot of David: the annular +cinctures of Saturn: the condensation of spiral nebulae into suns: the +interdependent gyrations of double suns: the independent synchronous +discoveries of Galileo, Simon Marius, Piazzi, Le Verrier, Herschel, +Galle: the systematisations attempted by Bode and Kepler of cubes +of distances and squares of times of revolution: the almost infinite +compressibility of hirsute comets and their vast elliptical egressive +and reentrant orbits from perihelion to aphelion: the sidereal origin of +meteoric stones: the Libyan floods on Mars about the period of the birth +of the younger astroscopist: the annual recurrence of meteoric showers +about the period of the feast of S. Lawrence (martyr, lo August): the +monthly recurrence known as the new moon with the old moon in her arms: +the posited influence of celestial on human bodies: the appearance of a +star (1st magnitude) of exceeding brilliancy dominating by night and +day (a new luminous sun generated by the collision and amalgamation in +incandescence of two nonluminous exsuns) about the period of the +birth of William Shakespeare over delta in the recumbent neversetting +constellation of Cassiopeia and of a star (2nd magnitude) of similar +origin but of lesser brilliancy which had appeared in and disappeared +from the constellation of the Corona Septentrionalis about the period +of the birth of Leopold Bloom and of other stars of (presumably) similar +origin which had (effectively or presumably) appeared in and disappeared +from the constellation of Andromeda about the period of the birth of +Stephen Dedalus, and in and from the constellation of Auriga some years +after the birth and death of Rudolph Bloom, junior, and in and from +other constellations some years before or after the birth or death of +other persons: the attendant phenomena of eclipses, solar and lunar, +from immersion to emersion, abatement of wind, transit of shadow, +taciturnity of winged creatures, emergence of nocturnal or crepuscular +animals, persistence of infernal light, obscurity of terrestrial waters, +pallor of human beings. + + +His (Bloom's) logical conclusion, having weighed the matter and allowing +for possible error? + +That it was not a heaventree, not a heavengrot, not a heavenbeast, not +a heavenman. That it was a Utopia, there being no known method from +the known to the unknown: an infinity renderable equally finite by the +suppositious apposition of one or more bodies equally of the same and of +different magnitudes: a mobility of illusory forms immobilised in space, +remobilised in air: a past which possibly had ceased to exist as a +present before its probable spectators had entered actual present +existence. + + +Was he more convinced of the esthetic value of the spectacle? + +Indubitably in consequence of the reiterated examples of poets in the +delirium of the frenzy of attachment or in the abasement of rejection +invoking ardent sympathetic constellations or the frigidity of the +satellite of their planet. + + +Did he then accept as an article of belief the theory of astrological +influences upon sublunary disasters? + +It seemed to him as possible of proof as of confutation and the +nomenclature employed in its selenographical charts as attributable to +verifiable intuition as to fallacious analogy: the lake of dreams, the +sea of rains, the gulf of dews, the ocean of fecundity. + + +What special affinities appeared to him to exist between the moon and +woman? + +Her antiquity in preceding and surviving successive tellurian +generations: her nocturnal predominance: her satellitic dependence: +her luminary reflection: her constancy under all her phases, rising +and setting by her appointed times, waxing and waning: the forced +invariability of her aspect: her indeterminate response to inaffirmative +interrogation: her potency over effluent and refluent waters: her power +to enamour, to mortify, to invest with beauty, to render insane, to +incite to and aid delinquency: the tranquil inscrutability of her +visage: the terribility of her isolated dominant implacable resplendent +propinquity: her omens of tempest and of calm: the stimulation of her +light, her motion and her presence: the admonition of her craters, her +arid seas, her silence: her splendour, when visible: her attraction, +when invisible. + + +What visible luminous sign attracted Bloom's, who attracted Stephen's, +gaze? + +In the second storey (rere) of his (Bloom's) house the light of a +paraffin oil lamp with oblique shade projected on a screen of roller +blind supplied by Frank O'Hara, window blind, curtain pole and revolving +shutter manufacturer, 16 Aungier street. + + +How did he elucidate the mystery of an invisible attractive person, his +wife Marion (Molly) Bloom, denoted by a visible splendid sign, a lamp? + +With indirect and direct verbal allusions or affirmations: with subdued +affection and admiration: with description: with impediment: with +suggestion. + + +Both then were silent? + +Silent, each contemplating the other in both mirrors of the reciprocal +flesh of theirhisnothis fellowfaces. + + +Were they indefinitely inactive? + +At Stephen's suggestion, at Bloom's instigation both, first Stephen, +then Bloom, in penumbra urinated, their sides contiguous, their organs +of micturition reciprocally rendered invisible by manual circumposition, +their gazes, first Bloom's, then Stephen's, elevated to the projected +luminous and semiluminous shadow. + + +Similarly? + +The trajectories of their, first sequent, then simultaneous, urinations +were dissimilar: Bloom's longer, less irruent, in the incomplete form of +the bifurcated penultimate alphabetical letter, who in his ultimate +year at High School (1880) had been capable of attaining the point +of greatest altitude against the whole concurrent strength of the +institution, 210 scholars: Stephen's higher, more sibilant, who in the +ultimate hours of the previous day had augmented by diuretic consumption +an insistent vesical pressure. + + +What different problems presented themselves to each concerning the +invisible audible collateral organ of the other? + +To Bloom: the problems of irritability, tumescence, rigidity, +reactivity, dimension, sanitariness, pilosity. + +To Stephen: the problem of the sacerdotal integrity of Jesus circumcised +(I January, holiday of obligation to hear mass and abstain from +unnecessary servile work) and the problem as to whether the divine +prepuce, the carnal bridal ring of the holy Roman catholic apostolic +church, conserved in Calcata, were deserving of simple hyperduly or of +the fourth degree of latria accorded to the abscission of such divine +excrescences as hair and toenails. + + +What celestial sign was by both simultaneously observed? + +A star precipitated with great apparent velocity across the firmament +from Vega in the Lyre above the zenith beyond the stargroup of the Tress +of Berenice towards the zodiacal sign of Leo. + + +How did the centripetal remainer afford egress to the centrifugal +departer? + +By inserting the barrel of an arruginated male key in the hole of an +unstable female lock, obtaining a purchase on the bow of the key and +turning its wards from right to left, withdrawing a bolt from its +staple, pulling inward spasmodically an obsolescent unhinged door and +revealing an aperture for free egress and free ingress. + + +How did they take leave, one of the other, in separation? + +Standing perpendicular at the same door and on different sides of its +base, the lines of their valedictory arms, meeting at any point and +forming any angle less than the sum of two right angles. + + +What sound accompanied the union of their tangent, the disunion of their +(respectively) centrifugal and centripetal hands? + +The sound of the peal of the hour of the night by the chime of the bells +in the church of Saint George. + + +What echoes of that sound were by both and each heard? + +By Stephen: + +_Liliata rutilantium. Turma circumdet. Iubilantium te virginum. Chorus +excipiat._ + +By Bloom: + + _Heigho, heigho, + Heigho, heigho._ + + +Where were the several members of the company which with Bloom that day +at the bidding of that peal had travelled from Sandymount in the south +to Glasnevin in the north? + +Martin Cunningham (in bed), Jack Power (in bed), Simon Dedalus (in bed), +Ned Lambert (in bed), Tom Kernan (in bed), Joe Hynes (in bed), John +Henry Menton (in bed), Bernard Corrigan (in bed), Patsy Dignam (in bed), +Paddy Dignam (in the grave). + + +Alone, what did Bloom hear? + +The double reverberation of retreating feet on the heavenborn earth, the +double vibration of a jew's harp in the resonant lane. + + +Alone, what did Bloom feel? + +The cold of interstellar space, thousands of degrees below freezing +point or the absolute zero of Fahrenheit, Centigrade or Reaumur: the +incipient intimations of proximate dawn. + + +Of what did bellchime and handtouch and footstep and lonechill remind +him? + +Of companions now in various manners in different places defunct: Percy +Apjohn (killed in action, Modder River), Philip Gilligan (phthisis, +Jervis Street hospital), Matthew F. Kane (accidental drowning, Dublin +Bay), Philip Moisel (pyemia, Heytesbury street), Michael Hart (phthisis, +Mater Misericordiae hospital), Patrick Dignam (apoplexy, Sandymount). + + +What prospect of what phenomena inclined him to remain? + +The disparition of three final stars, the diffusion of daybreak, the +apparition of a new solar disk. + + +Had he ever been a spectator of those phenomena? + +Once, in 1887, after a protracted performance of charades in the house +of Luke Doyle, Kimmage, he had awaited with patience the apparition +of the diurnal phenomenon, seated on a wall, his gaze turned in the +direction of Mizrach, the east. + + +He remembered the initial paraphenomena? + +More active air, a matutinal distant cock, ecclesiastical clocks at +various points, avine music, the isolated tread of an early wayfarer, +the visible diffusion of the light of an invisible luminous body, the +first golden limb of the resurgent sun perceptible low on the horizon. + + +Did he remain? + +With deep inspiration he returned, retraversing the garden, reentering +the passage, reclosing the door. With brief suspiration he reassumed the +candle, reascended the stairs, reapproached the door of the front room, +hallfloor, and reentered. + + +What suddenly arrested his ingress? + +The right temporal lobe of the hollow sphere of his cranium came into +contact with a solid timber angle where, an infinitesimal but sensible +fraction of a second later, a painful sensation was located in +consequence of antecedent sensations transmitted and registered. + + +Describe the alterations effected in the disposition of the articles of +furniture. + +A sofa upholstered in prune plush had been translocated from opposite +the door to the ingleside near the compactly furled Union Jack (an +alteration which he had frequently intended to execute): the blue and +white checker inlaid majolicatopped table had been placed opposite the +door in the place vacated by the prune plush sofa: the walnut sideboard +(a projecting angle of which had momentarily arrested his ingress) had +been moved from its position beside the door to a more advantageous but +more perilous position in front of the door: two chairs had been moved +from right and left of the ingleside to the position originally occupied +by the blue and white checker inlaid majolicatopped table. + + +Describe them. + +One: a squat stuffed easychair, with stout arms extended and back +slanted to the rere, which, repelled in recoil, had then upturned an +irregular fringe of a rectangular rug and now displayed on its amply +upholstered seat a centralised diffusing and diminishing discolouration. +The other: a slender splayfoot chair of glossy cane curves, placed +directly opposite the former, its frame from top to seat and from seat +to base being varnished dark brown, its seat being a bright circle of +white plaited rush. + + +What significances attached to these two chairs? + +Significances of similitude, of posture, of symbolism, of circumstantial +evidence, of testimonial supermanence. + + +What occupied the position originally occupied by the sideboard? + +A vertical piano (Cadby) with exposed keyboard, its closed coffin +supporting a pair of long yellow ladies' gloves and an emerald ashtray +containing four consumed matches, a partly consumed cigarette and two +discoloured ends of cigarettes, its musicrest supporting the music in +the key of G natural for voice and piano of _Love's Old Sweet Song_ +(words by G. Clifton Bingham, composed by J. L. Molloy, sung by Madam +Antoinette Sterling) open at the last page with the final indications +_ad libitum, forte_, pedal, _animato_, sustained pedal, _ritirando_, +close. + + +With what sensations did Bloom contemplate in rotation these objects? + +With strain, elevating a candlestick: with pain, feeling on his right +temple a contused tumescence: with attention, focussing his gaze on +a large dull passive and a slender bright active: with solicitation, +bending and downturning the upturned rugfringe: with amusement, +remembering Dr Malachi Mulligan's scheme of colour containing the +gradation of green: with pleasure, repeating the words and antecedent +act and perceiving through various channels of internal sensibility +the consequent and concomitant tepid pleasant diffusion of gradual +discolouration. + + +His next proceeding? + +From an open box on the majolicatopped table he extracted a black +diminutive cone, one inch in height, placed it on its circular base on +a small tin plate, placed his candlestick on the right corner of the +mantelpiece, produced from his waistcoat a folded page of prospectus +(illustrated) entitled Agendath Netaim, unfolded the same, examined +it superficially, rolled it into a thin cylinder, ignited it in the +candleflame, applied it when ignited to the apex of the cone till the +latter reached the stage of rutilance, placed the cylinder in the basin +of the candlestick disposing its unconsumed part in such a manner as to +facilitate total combustion. + + +What followed this operation? + +The truncated conical crater summit of the diminutive volcano emitted a +vertical and serpentine fume redolent of aromatic oriental incense. + + +What homothetic objects, other than the candlestick, stood on the +mantelpiece? + +A timepiece of striated Connemara marble, stopped at the hour of 4.46 +a.m. on the 21 March 1896, matrimonial gift of Matthew Dillon: a dwarf +tree of glacial arborescence under a transparent bellshade, matrimonial +gift of Luke and Caroline Doyle: an embalmed owl, matrimonial gift of +Alderman John Hooper. + + +What interchanges of looks took place between these three objects and +Bloom? + +In the mirror of the giltbordered pierglass the undecorated back of the +dwarf tree regarded the upright back of the embalmed owl. Before +the mirror the matrimonial gift of Alderman John Hooper with a clear +melancholy wise bright motionless compassionate gaze regarded Bloom +while Bloom with obscure tranquil profound motionless compassionated +gaze regarded the matrimonial gift of Luke and Caroline Doyle. + + +What composite asymmetrical image in the mirror then attracted his +attention? + +The image of a solitary (ipsorelative) mutable (aliorelative) man. + + +Why solitary (ipsorelative)? + +_Brothers and sisters had he none. Yet that man's father was his +grandfather's son._ + + +Why mutable (aliorelative)? + +From infancy to maturity he had resembled his maternal procreatrix. +From maturity to senility he would increasingly resemble his paternal +procreator. + + +What final visual impression was communicated to him by the mirror? + +The optical reflection of several inverted volumes improperly arranged +and not in the order of their common letters with scintillating titles +on the two bookshelves opposite. + + +Catalogue these books. + +_Thom's Dublin Post Office Directory, 1886_. Denis Florence M'Carthy's +_Poetical Works_ (copper beechleaf bookmark at p. 5). Shakespeare's +_Works_ (dark crimson morocco, goldtooled). + +_The Useful Ready Reckoner_ (brown cloth). + +_The Secret History of the Court of Charles II_ (red cloth, tooled +binding). _The Child's Guide_ (blue cloth). + +_The Beauties of Killarney_ (wrappers). + +_When We Were Boys_ by William O'Brien M. P. (green cloth, slightly +faded, envelope bookmark at p. 217). + +_Thoughts from Spinoza_ (maroon leather). + +_The Story of the Heavens_ by Sir Robert Ball (blue cloth). Ellis's +_Three Trips to Madagascar_ (brown cloth, title obliterated). + +_The Stark-Munro Letters_ by A. Conan Doyle, property of the City of +Dublin Public Library, 106 Capel street, lent 21 May (Whitsun Eve) 1904, +due 4 June 1904, 13 days overdue (black cloth binding, bearing white +letternumber ticket). + +_Voyages in China_ by "Viator" (recovered with brown paper, red ink +title). + +_Philosophy of the Talmud_ (sewn pamphlet). Lockhart's _Life of +Napoleon_ (cover wanting, marginal annotations, minimising victories, +aggrandising defeats of the protagonist). + +_Soll und Haben_ by Gustav Freytag (black boards, Gothic characters, +cigarette coupon bookmark at p. 24). Hozier's _History of the +Russo-Turkish War_ (brown cloth, a volumes, with gummed label, Garrison +Library, Governor's Parade, Gibraltar, on verso of cover). + +_Laurence Bloomfield in Ireland_ by William Allingham (second edition, +green cloth, gilt trefoil design, previous owner's name on recto of +flyleaf erased). + +_A Handbook of Astronomy_ (cover, brown leather, detached, S plates, +antique letterpress long primer, author's footnotes nonpareil, marginal +clues brevier, captions small pica). + +_The Hidden Life of Christ_ (black boards). + +_In the Track of the Sun_ (yellow cloth, titlepage missing, recurrent +title intestation). + +_Physical Strength and How to Obtain It_ by Eugen Sandow (red cloth). + +_Short but yet Plain Elements of Geometry_ written in French by F. +Ignat. Pardies and rendered into English by John Harris D. D. London, +printed for R. Knaplock at the Bifhop's Head, MDCCXI, with dedicatory +epiftle to his worthy friend Charles Cox, efquire, Member of Parliament +for the burgh of Southwark and having ink calligraphed statement on the +flyleaf certifying that the book was the property of Michael Gallagher, +dated this 10th day of May 1822 and requefting the perfon who should +find it, if the book should be loft or go aftray, to reftore it to +Michael Gallagher, carpenter, Dufery Gate, Ennifcorthy, county Wicklow, +the fineft place in the world. + + +What reflections occupied his mind during the process of reversion of +the inverted volumes? + +The necessity of order, a place for everything and everything in its +place: the deficient appreciation of literature possessed by females: +the incongruity of an apple incuneated in a tumbler and of an umbrella +inclined in a closestool: the insecurity of hiding any secret document +behind, beneath or between the pages of a book. + + +Which volume was the largest in bulk? + +Hozier's _History of the Russo-Turkish war._ + + +What among other data did the second volume of the work in question +contain? + +The name of a decisive battle (forgotten), frequently remembered by a +decisive officer, major Brian Cooper Tweedy (remembered). + + +Why, firstly and secondly, did he not consult the work in question? + +Firstly, in order to exercise mnemotechnic: secondly, because after an +interval of amnesia, when, seated at the central table, about to consult +the work in question, he remembered by mnemotechnic the name of the +military engagement, Plevna. + + +What caused him consolation in his sitting posture? + +The candour, nudity, pose, tranquility, youth, grace, sex, counsel of a +statue erect in the centre of the table, an image of Narcissus purchased +by auction from P. A. Wren, 9 Bachelor's Walk. + + +What caused him irritation in his sitting posture? Inhibitory pressure +of collar (size 17) and waistcoat (5 buttons), two articles of clothing +superfluous in the costume of mature males and inelastic to alterations +of mass by expansion. + + +How was the irritation allayed? + +He removed his collar, with contained black necktie and collapsible +stud, from his neck to a position on the left of the table. He +unbuttoned successively in reversed direction waistcoat, trousers, shirt +and vest along the medial line of irregular incrispated black hairs +extending in triangular convergence from the pelvic basin over the +circumference of the abdomen and umbilicular fossicle along the medial +line of nodes to the intersection of the sixth pectoral vertebrae, +thence produced both ways at right angles and terminating in circles +described about two equidistant points, right and left, on the summits +of the mammary prominences. He unbraced successively each of six minus +one braced trouser buttons, arranged in pairs, of which one incomplete. + + +What involuntary actions followed? + +He compressed between 2 fingers the flesh circumjacent to a cicatrice in +the left infracostal region below the diaphragm resulting from a sting +inflicted 2 weeks and 3 days previously (23 May 1904) by a bee. +He scratched imprecisely with his right hand, though insensible of +prurition, various points and surfaces of his partly exposed, wholly +abluted skin. He inserted his left hand into the left lower pocket of +his waistcoat and extracted and replaced a silver coin (I shilling), +placed there (presumably) on the occasion (17 October 1903) of the +interment of Mrs Emily Sinico, Sydney Parade. + + +Compile the budget for 16 June 1904. DEBIT + + 1 Pork Kidney + 1 Copy FREEMAN'S JOURNAL + 1 Bath And Gratification + Tramfare + 1 In Memoriam Patrick Dignam + 2 Banbury cakes + 1 Lunch + 1 Renewal fee for book + 1 Packet Notepaper and Envelopes + 1 Dinner and Gratification + 1 Postal Order and Stamp + Tramfare + 1 Pig's Foot + 1 Sheep's Trotter + 1 Cake Fry's Plain Chocolate + 1 Square Soda Bread + 1 Coffee and Bun + Loan (Stephen Dedalus) refunded + BALANCE + + + L. s. d. + 0--0--3 + 0--0--1 + 0--1--6 + 0--0--1 + 0--5--0 + 0--0--1 + 0--0--7 + 0--1--0 + 0--0--2 + 0--2--0 + 0--2--8 + 0--0--1 + 0--0--4 + 0--0--3 + 0--0--1 + 0--0--4 + 0--0--4 + 1--7--0 + 0-17--5 + 2-19--3 + CREDIT + + Cash in hand + Commission recd. _Freeman's Journal_ + Loan (Stephen Dedalus) + + + + + + L. s. d. + 0--4--9 + 1--7--6 + 1--7--0 + + + + + + 2-19--3 + + + + +Did the process of divestiture continue? + +Sensible of a benignant persistent ache in his footsoles he extended +his foot to one side and observed the creases, protuberances and salient +points caused by foot pressure in the course of walking repeatedly in +several different directions, then, inclined, he disnoded the laceknots, +unhooked and loosened the laces, took off each of his two boots for the +second time, detached the partially moistened right sock through the +fore part of which the nail of his great toe had again effracted, raised +his right foot and, having unhooked a purple elastic sock suspender, +took off his right sock, placed his unclothed right foot on the margin +of the seat of his chair, picked at and gently lacerated the protruding +part of the great toenail, raised the part lacerated to his nostrils and +inhaled the odour of the quick, then, with satisfaction, threw away the +lacerated ungual fragment. + + +Why with satisfaction? + +Because the odour inhaled corresponded to other odours inhaled of other +ungual fragments, picked and lacerated by Master Bloom, pupil of Mrs +Ellis's juvenile school, patiently each night in the act of brief +genuflection and nocturnal prayer and ambitious meditation. + + +In what ultimate ambition had all concurrent and consecutive ambitions +now coalesced? + +Not to inherit by right of primogeniture, gavelkind or borough English, +or possess in perpetuity an extensive demesne of a sufficient number of +acres, roods and perches, statute land measure (valuation 42 pounds), of +grazing turbary surrounding a baronial hall with gatelodge and carriage +drive nor, on the other hand, a terracehouse or semidetached villa, +described as _Rus in Urbe_ or _Qui si sana_, but to purchase by private +treaty in fee simple a thatched bungalowshaped 2 storey dwellinghouse of +southerly aspect, surmounted by vane and lightning conductor, connected +with the earth, with porch covered by parasitic plants (ivy or Virginia +creeper), halldoor, olive green, with smart carriage finish and neat +doorbrasses, stucco front with gilt tracery at eaves and gable, rising, +if possible, upon a gentle eminence with agreeable prospect from balcony +with stone pillar parapet over unoccupied and unoccupyable interjacent +pastures and standing in 5 or 6 acres of its own ground, at such +a distance from the nearest public thoroughfare as to render its +houselights visible at night above and through a quickset hornbeam hedge +of topiary cutting, situate at a given point not less than 1 statute +mile from the periphery of the metropolis, within a time limit of not +more than 15 minutes from tram or train line (e.g., Dundrum, south, or +Sutton, north, both localities equally reported by trial to resemble the +terrestrial poles in being favourable climates for phthisical subjects), +the premises to be held under feefarm grant, lease 999 years, the +messuage to consist of 1 drawingroom with baywindow (2 lancets), +thermometer affixed, 1 sittingroom, 4 bedrooms, 2 servants' rooms, tiled +kitchen with close range and scullery, lounge hall fitted with linen +wallpresses, fumed oak sectional bookcase containing the Encyclopaedia +Britannica and New Century Dictionary, transverse obsolete medieval and +oriental weapons, dinner gong, alabaster lamp, bowl pendant, vulcanite +automatic telephone receiver with adjacent directory, handtufted +Axminster carpet with cream ground and trellis border, loo table with +pillar and claw legs, hearth with massive firebrasses and ormolu mantel +chronometer clock, guaranteed timekeeper with cathedral chime, barometer +with hygrographic chart, comfortable lounge settees and corner fitments, +upholstered in ruby plush with good springing and sunk centre, three +banner Japanese screen and cuspidors (club style, rich winecoloured +leather, gloss renewable with a minimum of labour by use of linseed +oil and vinegar) and pyramidically prismatic central chandelier lustre, +bentwood perch with fingertame parrot (expurgated language), embossed +mural paper at 10/- per dozen with transverse swags of carmine floral +design and top crown frieze, staircase, three continuous flights at +successive right angles, of varnished cleargrained oak, treads and +risers, newel, balusters and handrail, with steppedup panel dado, +dressed with camphorated wax: bathroom, hot and cold supply, reclining +and shower: water closet on mezzanine provided with opaque singlepane +oblong window, tipup seat, bracket lamp, brass tierod and brace, +armrests, footstool and artistic oleograph on inner face of door: +ditto, plain: servants' apartments with separate sanitary and hygienic +necessaries for cook, general and betweenmaid (salary, rising by +biennial unearned increments of 2 pounds, with comprehensive fidelity +insurance, annual bonus (1 pound) and retiring allowance (based on +the 65 system) after 30 years' service), pantry, buttery, larder, +refrigerator, outoffices, coal and wood cellarage with winebin (still +and sparkling vintages) for distinguished guests, if entertained to +dinner (evening dress), carbon monoxide gas supply throughout. + + +What additional attractions might the grounds contain? + +As addenda, a tennis and fives court, a shrubbery, a glass summerhouse +with tropical palms, equipped in the best botanical manner, a rockery +with waterspray, a beehive arranged on humane principles, oval +flowerbeds in rectangular grassplots set with eccentric ellipses of +scarlet and chrome tulips, blue scillas, crocuses, polyanthus, sweet +William, sweet pea, lily of the valley (bulbs obtainable from sir James +W. Mackey (Limited) wholesale and retail seed and bulb merchants and +nurserymen, agents for chemical manures, 23 Sackville street, upper), an +orchard, kitchen garden and vinery protected against illegal trespassers +by glasstopped mural enclosures, a lumbershed with padlock for various +inventoried implements. + + +As? + +Eeltraps, lobsterpots, fishingrods, hatchet, steelyard, grindstone, +clodcrusher, swatheturner, carriagesack, telescope ladder, 10 tooth +rake, washing clogs, haytedder, tumbling rake, billhook, paintpot, +brush, hoe and so on. + +What improvements might be subsequently introduced? + +A rabbitry and fowlrun, a dovecote, a botanical conservatory, 2 hammocks +(lady's and gentleman's), a sundial shaded and sheltered by laburnum +or lilac trees, an exotically harmonically accorded Japanese tinkle +gatebell affixed to left lateral gatepost, a capacious waterbutt, +a lawnmower with side delivery and grassbox, a lawnsprinkler with +hydraulic hose. + + +What facilities of transit were desirable? + +When citybound frequent connection by train or tram from their +respective intermediate station or terminal. When countrybound +velocipedes, a chainless freewheel roadster cycle with side basketcar +attached, or draught conveyance, a donkey with wicker trap or smart +phaeton with good working solidungular cob (roan gelding, 14 h). + + +What might be the name of this erigible or erected residence? + +Bloom Cottage. Saint Leopold's. Flowerville. + + +Could Bloom of 7 Eccles street foresee Bloom of Flowerville? + +In loose allwool garments with Harris tweed cap, price 8/6, and useful +garden boots with elastic gussets and wateringcan, planting aligned +young firtrees, syringing, pruning, staking, sowing hayseed, trundling a +weedladen wheelbarrow without excessive fatigue at sunset amid the scent +of newmown hay, ameliorating the soil, multiplying wisdom, achieving +longevity. + + +What syllabus of intellectual pursuits was simultaneously possible? + +Snapshot photography, comparative study of religions, folklore relative +to various amatory and superstitious practices, contemplation of the +celestial constellations. + + +What lighter recreations? + +Outdoor: garden and fieldwork, cycling on level macadamised causeways +ascents of moderately high hills, natation in secluded fresh water and +unmolested river boating in secure wherry or light curricle with kedge +anchor on reaches free from weirs and rapids (period of estivation), +vespertinal perambulation or equestrian circumprocession with inspection +of sterile landscape and contrastingly agreeable cottagers' fires of +smoking peat turves (period of hibernation). Indoor: discussion in +tepid security of unsolved historical and criminal problems: lecture of +unexpurgated exotic erotic masterpieces: house carpentry with toolbox +containing hammer, awl nails, screws, tintacks, gimlet, tweezers, +bullnose plane and turnscrew. Might he become a gentleman farmer of +field produce and live stock? + +Not impossibly, with 1 or 2 stripper cows, 1 pike of upland hay and +requisite farming implements, e.g., an end-to-end churn, a turnip pulper +etc. + + +What would be his civic functions and social status among the county +families and landed gentry? + +Arranged successively in ascending powers of hierarchical order, that +of gardener, groundsman, cultivator, breeder, and at the zenith of his +career, resident magistrate or justice of the peace with a family crest +and coat of arms and appropriate classical motto _(Semper paratus_), +duly recorded in the court directory (Bloom, Leopold P., M. P., P. C., +K. P., L. L. D. (_honoris causa_), Bloomville, Dundrum) and mentioned in +court and fashionable intelligence (Mr and Mrs Leopold Bloom have left +Kingstown for England). + + +What course of action did he outline for himself in such capacity? + +A course that lay between undue clemency and excessive rigour: +the dispensation in a heterogeneous society of arbitrary classes, +incessantly rearranged in terms of greater and lesser social inequality, +of unbiassed homogeneous indisputable justice, tempered with mitigants +of the widest possible latitude but exactable to the uttermost farthing +with confiscation of estate, real and personal, to the crown. Loyal to +the highest constituted power in the land, actuated by an innate love of +rectitude his aims would be the strict maintenance of public order, +the repression of many abuses though not of all simultaneously (every +measure of reform or retrenchment being a preliminary solution to be +contained by fluxion in the final solution), the upholding of the letter +of the law (common, statute and law merchant) against all traversers in +covin and trespassers acting in contravention of bylaws and regulations, +all resuscitators (by trespass and petty larceny of kindlings) of +venville rights, obsolete by desuetude, all orotund instigators +of international persecution, all perpetuators of international +animosities, all menial molestors of domestic conviviality, all +recalcitrant violators of domestic connubiality. + + +Prove that he had loved rectitude from his earliest youth. + +To Master Percy Apjohn at High School in 1880 he had divulged his +disbelief in the tenets of the Irish (protestant) church (to which his +father Rudolf Virag (later Rudolph Bloom) had been converted from the +Israelitic faith and communion in 1865 by the Society for promoting +Christianity among the jews) subsequently abjured by him in favour of +Roman catholicism at the epoch of and with a view to his matrimony +in 1888. To Daniel Magrane and Francis Wade in 1882 during a juvenile +friendship (terminated by the premature emigration of the former) he +had advocated during nocturnal perambulations the political theory of +colonial (e.g. Canadian) expansion and the evolutionary theories of +Charles Darwin, expounded in _The Descent of Man_ and _The Origin +of Species_. In 1885 he had publicly expressed his adherence to the +collective and national economic programme advocated by James Fintan +Lalor, John Fisher Murray, John Mitchel, J. F. X. O'Brien and others, +the agrarian policy of Michael Davitt, the constitutional agitation of +Charles Stewart Parnell (M. P. for Cork City), the programme of +peace, retrenchment and reform of William Ewart Gladstone (M. P. for +Midlothian, N. B.) and, in support of his political convictions, had +climbed up into a secure position amid the ramifications of a tree +on Northumberland road to see the entrance (2 February 1888) into the +capital of a demonstrative torchlight procession of 20,000 torchbearers, +divided into 120 trade corporations, bearing 2000 torches in escort of +the marquess of Ripon and (honest) John Morley. + + +How much and how did he propose to pay for this country residence? + +As per prospectus of the Industrious Foreign Acclimatised Nationalised +Friendly Stateaided Building Society (incorporated 1874), a maximum +of 60 pounds per annum, being 1/6 of an assured income, derived from +giltedged securities, representing at 5 % simple interest on capital of +1200 pounds (estimate of price at 20 years' purchase), of which to be +paid on acquisition and the balance in the form of annual rent, viz. 800 +pounds plus 2 1/2 % interest on the same, repayable quarterly in equal +annual instalments until extinction by amortisation of loan advanced for +purchase within a period of 20 years, amounting to an annual rental of +64 pounds, headrent included, the titledeeds to remain in possession +of the lender or lenders with a saving clause envisaging forced sale, +foreclosure and mutual compensation in the event of protracted failure +to pay the terms assigned, otherwise the messuage to become the absolute +property of the tenant occupier upon expiry of the period of years +stipulated. + + +What rapid but insecure means to opulence might facilitate immediate +purchase? + +A private wireless telegraph which would transmit by dot and dash system +the result of a national equine handicap (flat or steeplechase) of I or +more miles and furlongs won by an outsider at odds of 50 to 1 at 3 hr +8 m p.m. at Ascot (Greenwich time), the message being received and +available for betting purposes in Dublin at 2.59 p.m. (Dunsink time). +The unexpected discovery of an object of great monetary value (precious +stone, valuable adhesive or impressed postage stamps (7 schilling, +mauve, imperforate, Hamburg, 1866: 4 pence, rose, blue paper, perforate, +Great Britain, 1855: 1 franc, stone, official, rouletted, diagonal +surcharge, Luxemburg, 1878), antique dynastical ring, unique relic) in +unusual repositories or by unusual means: from the air (dropped by an +eagle in flight), by fire (amid the carbonised remains of an incendiated +edifice), in the sea (amid flotsam, jetsam, lagan and derelict), on +earth (in the gizzard of a comestible fowl). A Spanish prisoner's +donation of a distant treasure of valuables or specie or bullion lodged +with a solvent banking corporation loo years previously at 5% compound +interest of the collective worth of 5,000,000 pounds stg (five million +pounds sterling). A contract with an inconsiderate contractee for the +delivery of 32 consignments of some given commodity in consideration of +cash payment on delivery per delivery at the initial rate of 1/4d to be +increased constantly in the geometrical progression of 2 (1/4d, 1/2d, +1d, 2d, 4d, 8d, 1s 4d, 2s 8d to 32 terms). A prepared scheme +based on a study of the laws of probability to break the bank at Monte +Carlo. A solution of the secular problem of the quadrature of the +circle, government premium 1,000,000 pounds sterling. + + +Was vast wealth acquirable through industrial channels? + +The reclamation of dunams of waste arenary soil, proposed in the +prospectus of Agendath Netaim, Bleibtreustrasse, Berlin, W. 15, by the +cultivation of orange plantations and melonfields and reafforestation. +The utilisation of waste paper, fells of sewer rodents, human excrement +possessing chemical properties, in view of the vast production of the +first, vast number of the second and immense quantity of the third, +every normal human being of average vitality and appetite producing +annually, cancelling byproducts of water, a sum total of 80 lbs. (mixed +animal and vegetable diet), to be multiplied by 4,386,035, the total +population of Ireland according to census returns of 1901. + + +Were there schemes of wider scope? + +A scheme to be formulated and submitted for approval to the harbour +commissioners for the exploitation of white coal (hydraulic power), +obtained by hydroelectric plant at peak of tide at Dublin bar or at +head of water at Poulaphouca or Powerscourt or catchment basins of main +streams for the economic production of 500,000 W. H. P. of electricity. +A scheme to enclose the peninsular delta of the North Bull at Dollymount +and erect on the space of the foreland, used for golf links and rifle +ranges, an asphalted esplanade with casinos, booths, shooting galleries, +hotels, boardinghouses, readingrooms, establishments for mixed bathing. +A scheme for the use of dogvans and goatvans for the delivery of early +morning milk. A scheme for the development of Irish tourist traffic in +and around Dublin by means of petrolpropelled riverboats, plying in the +fluvial fairway between Island bridge and Ringsend, charabancs, narrow +gauge local railways, and pleasure steamers for coastwise navigation +(10/- per person per day, guide (trilingual) included). A scheme for +the repristination of passenger and goods traffics over Irish waterways, +when freed from weedbeds. A scheme to connect by tramline the Cattle +Market (North Circular road and Prussia street) with the quays (Sheriff +street, lower, and East Wall), parallel with the Link line railway +laid (in conjunction with the Great Southern and Western railway line) +between the cattle park, Liffey junction, and terminus of Midland Great +Western Railway 43 to 45 North + +Wall, in proximity to the terminal stations or Dublin branches of Great +Central Railway, Midland Railway of England, City of Dublin Steam Packet +Company, Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway Company, Dublin and Glasgow +Steam Packet Company, Glasgow, Dublin and Londonderry Steam Packet +Company (Laird line), British and Irish Steam Packet Company, Dublin +and Morecambe Steamers, London and North Western Railway Company, Dublin +Port and Docks Board Landing Sheds and transit sheds of Palgrave, Murphy +and Company, steamship owners, agents for steamers from Mediterranean, +Spain, Portugal, France, Belgium and Holland and for Liverpool +Underwriters' Association, the cost of acquired rolling stock for +animal transport and of additional mileage operated by the Dublin United +Tramways Company, limited, to be covered by graziers' fees. + + +Positing what protasis would the contraction for such several schemes +become a natural and necessary apodosis? + +Given a guarantee equal to the sum sought, the support, by deed of +gift and transfer vouchers during donor's lifetime or by bequest +after donor's painless extinction, of eminent financiers (Blum Pasha, +Rothschild Guggenheim, Hirsch, Montefiore, Morgan, Rockefeller) +possessing fortunes in 6 figures, amassed during a successful life, and +joining capital with opportunity the thing required was done. + + +What eventuality would render him independent of such wealth? + +The independent discovery of a goldseam of inexhaustible ore. + + +For what reason did he meditate on schemes so difficult of realisation? + +It was one of his axioms that similar meditations or the automatic +relation to himself of a narrative concerning himself or tranquil +recollection of the past when practised habitually before retiring for +the night alleviated fatigue and produced as a result sound repose and +renovated vitality. + + +His justifications? + +As a physicist he had learned that of the 70 years of complete human +life at least 2/7, viz. 20 years are passed in sleep. As a philosopher +he knew that at the termination of any allotted life only an +infinitesimal part of any person's desires has been realised. As a +physiologist he believed in the artificial placation of malignant +agencies chiefly operative during somnolence. + + +What did he fear? + +The committal of homicide or suicide during sleep by an aberration +of the light of reason, the incommensurable categorical intelligence +situated in the cerebral convolutions. + + +What were habitually his final meditations? + +Of some one sole unique advertisement to cause passers to stop in +wonder, a poster novelty, with all extraneous accretions excluded, +reduced to its simplest and most efficient terms not exceeding the span +of casual vision and congruous with the velocity of modern life. + + +What did the first drawer unlocked contain? + +A Vere Foster's handwriting copybook, property of Milly (Millicent) +Bloom, certain pages of which bore diagram drawings, marked _Papli_, +which showed a large globular head with 5 hairs erect, 2 eyes in +profile, the trunk full front with 3 large buttons, 1 triangular foot: 2 +fading photographs of queen Alexandra of England and of Maud Branscombe, +actress and professional beauty: a Yuletide card, bearing on it a +pictorial representation of a parasitic plant, the legend _Mizpah_, the +date Xmas 1892, the name of the senders: from Mr + Mrs M. Comerford, the +versicle: _May this Yuletide bring to thee, Joy and peace and welcome +glee_: a butt of red partly liquefied sealing wax, obtained from the +stores department of Messrs Hely's, Ltd., 89, 90, and 91 Dame street: +a box containing the remainder of a gross of gilt "J" pennibs, obtained +from same department of same firm: an old sandglass which rolled +containing sand which rolled: a sealed prophecy (never unsealed) written +by Leopold Bloom in 1886 concerning the consequences of the passing into +law of William Ewart Gladstone's Home Rule bill of 1886 (never passed +into law): a bazaar ticket, no 2004, of S. Kevin's Charity Fair, price +6d, 100 prizes: an infantile epistle, dated, small em monday, reading: +capital pee Papli comma capital aitch How are you note of interrogation +capital eye I am very well full stop new paragraph signature with +flourishes capital em Milly no stop: a cameo brooch, property of Ellen +Bloom (born Higgins), deceased: a cameo scarfpin, property of Rudolph +Bloom (born Virag), deceased: 3 typewritten letters, addressee, Henry +Flower, c/o. P. O. Westland Row, addresser, Martha Clifford, c/o. P. O. +Dolphin's Barn: the transliterated name and address of the addresser +of the 3 letters in reversed alphabetic boustrophedonic punctated +quadrilinear cryptogram (vowels suppressed) N. IGS./WI. UU. OX/W. OKS. +MH/Y. IM: a press cutting from an English weekly periodical _Modern +Society_, subject corporal chastisement in girls' schools: a pink ribbon +which had festooned an Easter egg in the year 1899: two partly uncoiled +rubber preservatives with reserve pockets, purchased by post from Box +32, P. O., Charing Cross, London, W. C.: 1 pack of 1 dozen creamlaid +envelopes and feintruled notepaper, watermarked, now reduced by 3: some +assorted Austrian-Hungarian coins: 2 coupons of the Royal and Privileged +Hungarian Lottery: a lowpower magnifying glass: 2 erotic photocards +showing a) buccal coition between nude senorita (rere presentation, +superior position) and nude torero (fore presentation, inferior +position) b) anal violation by male religious (fully clothed, eyes +abject) of female religious (partly clothed, eyes direct), purchased by +post from Box 32, P. O., Charing Cross, London, W. C.: a press cutting +of recipe for renovation of old tan boots: a Id adhesive stamp, +lavender, of the reign of Queen Victoria: a chart of the measurements +of Leopold Bloom compiled before, during and after 2 months' consecutive +use of Sandow-Whiteley's pulley exerciser (men's 15/-, athlete's 20/-) +viz. chest 28 in and 29 1/2 in, biceps 9 in and 10 in, forearm 8 1/2 in +and 9 in, thigh 10 in and 12 in, calf 11 in and 12 in: 1 prospectus of +The Wonderworker, the world's greatest remedy for rectal complaints, +direct from Wonderworker, Coventry House, South Place, London E C, +addressed (erroneously) to Mrs L. Bloom with brief accompanying note +commencing (erroneously): Dear Madam. + + +Quote the textual terms in which the prospectus claimed advantages for +this thaumaturgic remedy. + +It heals and soothes while you sleep, in case of trouble in breaking +wind, assists nature in the most formidable way, insuring instant relief +in discharge of gases, keeping parts clean and free natural action, an +initial outlay of 7/6 making a new man of you and life worth living. +Ladies find Wonderworker especially useful, a pleasant surprise when +they note delightful result like a cool drink of fresh spring water on +a sultry summer's day. Recommend it to your lady and gentlemen friends, +lasts a lifetime. Insert long round end. Wonderworker. + + +Were there testimonials? + +Numerous. From clergyman, British naval officer, wellknown author, city +man, hospital nurse, lady, mother of five, absentminded beggar. + + +How did absentminded beggar's concluding testimonial conclude? + +What a pity the government did not supply our men with wonderworkers +during the South African campaign! What a relief it would have been! + + +What object did Bloom add to this collection of objects? + +A 4th typewritten letter received by Henry Flower (let H. F. be L. B.) +from Martha Clifford (find M. C.). + + +What pleasant reflection accompanied this action? + +The reflection that, apart from the letter in question, his magnetic +face, form and address had been favourably received during the course of +the preceding day by a wife (Mrs Josephine Breen, born Josie Powell), +a nurse, Miss Callan (Christian name unknown), a maid, Gertrude (Gerty, +family name unknown). + + +What possibility suggested itself? + +The possibility of exercising virile power of fascination in the not +immediate future after an expensive repast in a private apartment in +the company of an elegant courtesan, of corporal beauty, moderately +mercenary, variously instructed, a lady by origin. + + +What did the 2nd drawer contain? + +Documents: the birth certificate of Leopold Paula Bloom: an endowment +assurance policy of 500 pounds in the Scottish Widows' Assurance +Society, intestated Millicent (Milly) Bloom, coming into force at 25 +years as with profit policy of 430 pounds, 462/10/0 and 500 pounds at +60 years or death, 65 years or death and death, respectively, or +with profit policy (paidup) of 299/10/0 together with cash payment of +133/10/0, at option: a bank passbook issued by the Ulster Bank, College +Green branch showing statement of a/c for halfyear ending 31 December +1903, balance in depositor's favour: 18/14/6 (eighteen pounds, fourteen +shillings and sixpence, sterling), net personalty: certificate of +possession of 900 pounds, Canadian 4 percent (inscribed) government +stock (free of stamp duty): dockets of the Catholic Cemeteries' +(Glasnevin) Committee, relative to a graveplot purchased: a local press +cutting concerning change of name by deedpoll. + + +Quote the textual terms of this notice. + +I, Rudolph Virag, now resident at no 52 Clanbrassil street, Dublin, +formerly of Szombathely in the kingdom of Hungary, hereby give notice +that I have assumed and intend henceforth upon all occasions and at all +times to be known by the name of Rudolph Bloom. + + +What other objects relative to Rudolph Bloom (born Virag) were in the +2nd drawer? + +An indistinct daguerreotype of Rudolf Virag and his father Leopold +Virag executed in the year 1852 in the portrait atelier of their +(respectively) 1st and 2nd cousin, Stefan Virag of Szesfehervar, +Hungary. An ancient haggadah book in which a pair of hornrimmed convex +spectacles inserted marked the passage of thanksgiving in the ritual +prayers for Pessach (Passover): a photocard of the Queen's Hotel, +Ennis, proprietor, Rudolph Bloom: an envelope addressed: _To My Dear Son +Leopold_. + + +What fractions of phrases did the lecture of those five whole words +evoke? + +Tomorrow will be a week that I received... it is no use Leopold to be +... with your dear mother... that is not more to stand... to her... +all for me is out... be kind to Athos, Leopold... my dear son... +always... of me... _das Herz... Gott... dein_... + + +What reminiscences of a human subject suffering from progressive +melancholia did these objects evoke in Bloom? + +An old man, widower, unkempt of hair, in bed, with head covered, +sighing: an infirm dog, Athos: aconite, resorted to by increasing doses +of grains and scruples as a palliative of recrudescent neuralgia: the +face in death of a septuagenarian, suicide by poison. + + +Why did Bloom experience a sentiment of remorse? + +Because in immature impatience he had treated with disrespect certain +beliefs and practices. + + +As? + +The prohibition of the use of fleshmeat and milk at one meal: the +hebdomadary symposium of incoordinately abstract, perfervidly concrete +mercantile coexreligionist excompatriots: the circumcision of +male infants: the supernatural character of Judaic scripture: the +ineffability of the tetragrammaton: the sanctity of the sabbath. + + +How did these beliefs and practices now appear to him? + +Not more rational than they had then appeared, not less rational than +other beliefs and practices now appeared. + + +What first reminiscence had he of Rudolph Bloom (deceased)? + +Rudolph Bloom (deceased) narrated to his son Leopold Bloom (aged 6) a +retrospective arrangement of migrations and settlements in and between +Dublin, London, Florence, Milan, Vienna, Budapest, Szombathely with +statements of satisfaction (his grandfather having seen Maria Theresia, +empress of Austria, queen of Hungary), with commercial advice (having +taken care of pence, the pounds having taken care of themselves). +Leopold Bloom (aged 6) had accompanied these narrations by constant +consultation of a geographical map of Europe (political) and by +suggestions for the establishment of affiliated business premises in the +various centres mentioned. + + +Had time equally but differently obliterated the memory of these +migrations in narrator and listener? + +In narrator by the access of years and in consequence of the use of +narcotic toxin: in listener by the access of years and in consequence of +the action of distraction upon vicarious experiences. + + +What idiosyncracies of the narrator were concomitant products of +amnesia? + +Occasionally he ate without having previously removed his hat. +Occasionally he drank voraciously the juice of gooseberry fool from an +inclined plate. Occasionally he removed from his lips the traces of food +by means of a lacerated envelope or other accessible fragment of paper. + + +What two phenomena of senescence were more frequent? + +The myopic digital calculation of coins, eructation consequent upon +repletion. + + +What object offered partial consolation for these reminiscences? + +The endowment policy, the bank passbook, the certificate of the +possession of scrip. + + +Reduce Bloom by cross multiplication of reverses of fortune, from which +these supports protected him, and by elimination of all positive values +to a negligible negative irrational unreal quantity. + +Successively, in descending helotic order: Poverty: that of the outdoor +hawker of imitation jewellery, the dun for the recovery of bad and +doubtful debts, the poor rate and deputy cess collector. Mendicancy: +that of the fraudulent bankrupt with negligible assets paying 1s. 4d. +in the pound, sandwichman, distributor of throwaways, nocturnal vagrant, +insinuating sycophant, maimed sailor, blind stripling, superannuated +bailiffs man, marfeast, lickplate, spoilsport, pickthank, eccentric +public laughingstock seated on bench of public park under discarded +perforated umbrella. Destitution: the inmate of Old Man's House (Royal +Hospital) Kilmainham, the inmate of Simpson's Hospital for reduced but +respectable men permanently disabled by gout or want of sight. Nadir of +misery: the aged impotent disfranchised ratesupported moribund lunatic +pauper. + + +With which attendant indignities? + +The unsympathetic indifference of previously amiable females, the +contempt of muscular males, the acceptance of fragments of bread, +the simulated ignorance of casual acquaintances, the latration of +illegitimate unlicensed vagabond dogs, the infantile discharge of +decomposed vegetable missiles, worth little or nothing, nothing or less +than nothing. + + +By what could such a situation be precluded? + +By decease (change of state): by departure (change of place). + + +Which preferably? + +The latter, by the line of least resistance. + + +What considerations rendered departure not entirely undesirable? + +Constant cohabitation impeding mutual toleration of personal defects. +The habit of independent purchase increasingly cultivated. The necessity +to counteract by impermanent sojourn the permanence of arrest. + + +What considerations rendered departure not irrational? + +The parties concerned, uniting, had increased and multiplied, which +being done, offspring produced and educed to maturity, the parties, if +not disunited were obliged to reunite for increase and multiplication, +which was absurd, to form by reunion the original couple of uniting +parties, which was impossible. + + +What considerations rendered departure desirable? + +The attractive character of certain localities in Ireland and abroad, +as represented in general geographical maps of polychrome design or +in special ordnance survey charts by employment of scale numerals and +hachures. + + +In Ireland? + +The cliffs of Moher, the windy wilds of Connemara, lough Neagh with +submerged petrified city, the Giant's Causeway, Fort Camden and Fort +Carlisle, the Golden Vale of Tipperary, the islands of Aran, the +pastures of royal Meath, Brigid's elm in Kildare, the Queen's Island +shipyard in Belfast, the Salmon Leap, the lakes of Killarney. + + +Abroad? + +Ceylon (with spicegardens supplying tea to Thomas Kernan, agent for +Pulbrook, Robertson and Co, 2 Mincing Lane, London, E. C., 5 Dame +street, Dublin), Jerusalem, the holy city (with mosque of Omar and gate +of Damascus, goal of aspiration), the straits of Gibraltar (the unique +birthplace of Marion Tweedy), the Parthenon (containing statues of nude +Grecian divinities), the Wall street money market (which controlled +international finance), the Plaza de Toros at La Linea, Spain (where +O'Hara of the Camerons had slain the bull), Niagara (over which no human +being had passed with impunity), the land of the Eskimos (eaters +of soap), the forbidden country of Thibet (from which no traveller +returns), the bay of Naples (to see which was to die), the Dead Sea. + + +Under what guidance, following what signs? + +At sea, septentrional, by night the polestar, located at the point of +intersection of the right line from beta to alpha in Ursa Maior produced +and divided externally at omega and the hypotenuse of the rightangled +triangle formed by the line alpha omega so produced and the line alpha +delta of Ursa Maior. On land, meridional, a bispherical moon, revealed +in imperfect varying phases of lunation through the posterior interstice +of the imperfectly occluded skirt of a carnose negligent perambulating +female, a pillar of the cloud by day. + + +What public advertisement would divulge the occultation of the departed? + +5 pounds reward, lost, stolen or strayed from his residence 7 Eccles +street, missing gent about 40, answering to the name of Bloom, Leopold +(Poldy), height 5 ft 9 1/2 inches, full build, olive complexion, may +have since grown a beard, when last seen was wearing a black suit. Above +sum will be paid for information leading to his discovery. + + +What universal binomial denominations would be his as entity and +nonentity? + +Assumed by any or known to none. Everyman or Noman. + + +What tributes his? + +Honour and gifts of strangers, the friends of Everyman. A nymph +immortal, beauty, the bride of Noman. + + +Would the departed never nowhere nohow reappear? + +Ever he would wander, selfcompelled, to the extreme limit of his +cometary orbit, beyond the fixed stars and variable suns and telescopic +planets, astronomical waifs and strays, to the extreme boundary of +space, passing from land to land, among peoples, amid events. Somewhere +imperceptibly he would hear and somehow reluctantly, suncompelled, obey +the summons of recall. Whence, disappearing from the constellation of +the Northern Crown he would somehow reappear reborn above delta in the +constellation of Cassiopeia and after incalculable eons of peregrination +return an estranged avenger, a wreaker of justice on malefactors, a dark +crusader, a sleeper awakened, with financial resources (by supposition) +surpassing those of Rothschild or the silver king. + + +What would render such return irrational? + +An unsatisfactory equation between an exodus and return in time through +reversible space and an exodus and return in space through irreversible +time. + + +What play of forces, inducing inertia, rendered departure undesirable? + +The lateness of the hour, rendering procrastinatory: the obscurity +of the night, rendering invisible: the uncertainty of thoroughfares, +rendering perilous: the necessity for repose, obviating movement: the +proximity of an occupied bed, obviating research: the anticipation of +warmth (human) tempered with coolness (linen), obviating desire and +rendering desirable: the statue of Narcissus, sound without echo, +desired desire. + + +What advantages were possessed by an occupied, as distinct from an +unoccupied bed? + +The removal of nocturnal solitude, the superior quality of human +(mature female) to inhuman (hotwaterjar) calefaction, the stimulation of +matutinal contact, the economy of mangling done on the premises in the +case of trousers accurately folded and placed lengthwise between the +spring mattress (striped) and the woollen mattress (biscuit section). + + +What past consecutive causes, before rising preapprehended, of +accumulated fatigue did Bloom, before rising, silently recapitulate? + +The preparation of breakfast (burnt offering): intestinal congestion and +premeditative defecation (holy of holies): the bath (rite of John): the +funeral (rite of Samuel): the advertisement of Alexander Keyes (Urim and +Thummim): the unsubstantial lunch (rite of Melchisedek): the visit to +museum and national library (holy place): the bookhunt along Bedford +row, Merchants' Arch, Wellington Quay (Simchath Torah): the music in the +Ormond Hotel (Shira Shirim): the altercation with a truculent troglodyte +in Bernard Kiernan's premises (holocaust): a blank period of time +including a cardrive, a visit to a house of mourning, a leavetaking +(wilderness): the eroticism produced by feminine exhibitionism (rite of +Onan): the prolonged delivery of Mrs Mina Purefoy (heave offering): +the visit to the disorderly house of Mrs Bella Cohen, 82 Tyrone +street, lower and subsequent brawl and chance medley in Beaver street +(Armageddon)--nocturnal perambulation to and from the cabman's shelter, +Butt Bridge (atonement). + + +What selfimposed enigma did Bloom about to rise in order to go so as to +conclude lest he should not conclude involuntarily apprehend? + +The cause of a brief sharp unforeseen heard loud lone crack emitted by +the insentient material of a strainveined timber table. + + +What selfinvolved enigma did Bloom risen, going, gathering multicoloured +multiform multitudinous garments, voluntarily apprehending, not +comprehend? + +Who was M'Intosh? + + +What selfevident enigma pondered with desultory constancy during 30 +years did Bloom now, having effected natural obscurity by the extinction +of artificial light, silently suddenly comprehend? + +Where was Moses when the candle went out? + + +What imperfections in a perfect day did Bloom, walking, charged with +collected articles of recently disvested male wearing apparel, silently, +successively, enumerate? + +A provisional failure to obtain renewal of an advertisement: to obtain +a certain quantity of tea from Thomas Kernan (agent for Pulbrook, +Robertson and Co, 5 Dame Street, Dublin, and 2 Mincing Lane, London E. +C.): to certify the presence or absence of posterior rectal orifice in +the case of Hellenic female divinities: to obtain admission (gratuitous +or paid) to the performance of Leah by Mrs Bandmann Palmer at the Gaiety +Theatre, 46, 47, 48, 49 South King street. + + +What impression of an absent face did Bloom, arrested, silently recall? + +The face of her father, the late Major Brian Cooper Tweedy, Royal Dublin +Fusiliers, of Gibraltar and Rehoboth, Dolphin's Barn. + + +What recurrent impressions of the same were possible by hypothesis? + +Retreating, at the terminus of the Great Northern Railway, Amiens +street, with constant uniform acceleration, along parallel lines +meeting at infinity, if produced: along parallel lines, reproduced from +infinity, with constant uniform retardation, at the terminus of the +Great Northern Railway, Amiens street, returning. + + +What miscellaneous effects of female personal wearing apparel were +perceived by him? + +A pair of new inodorous halfsilk black ladies' hose, a pair of new +violet garters, a pair of outsize ladies' drawers of India mull, cut on +generous lines, redolent of opoponax, jessamine and Muratti's Turkish +cigarettes and containing a long bright steel safety pin, folded +curvilinear, a camisole of batiste with thin lace border, an accordion +underskirt of blue silk moirette, all these objects being disposed +irregularly on the top of a rectangular trunk, quadruple battened, +having capped corners, with multicoloured labels, initialled on its fore +side in white lettering B. C. T. (Brian Cooper Tweedy). + + +What impersonal objects were perceived? + +A commode, one leg fractured, totally covered by square cretonne +cutting, apple design, on which rested a lady's black straw hat. +Orangekeyed ware, bought of Henry Price, basket, fancy goods, chinaware +and ironmongery manufacturer, 21, 22, 23 Moore street, disposed +irregularly on the washstand and floor and consisting of basin, soapdish +and brushtray (on the washstand, together), pitcher and night article +(on the floor, separate). + + +Bloom's acts? + +He deposited the articles of clothing on a chair, removed his remaining +articles of clothing, took from beneath the bolster at the head of the +bed a folded long white nightshirt, inserted his head and arms into the +proper apertures of the nightshirt, removed a pillow from the head to +the foot of the bed, prepared the bedlinen accordingly and entered the +bed. + + +How? + +With circumspection, as invariably when entering an abode (his own or +not his own): with solicitude, the snakespiral springs of the mattress +being old, the brass quoits and pendent viper radii loose and tremulous +under stress and strain: prudently, as entering a lair or ambush of +lust or adders: lightly, the less to disturb: reverently, the bed of +conception and of birth, of consummation of marriage and of breach of +marriage, of sleep and of death. + + +What did his limbs, when gradually extended, encounter? + +New clean bedlinen, additional odours, the presence of a human form, +female, hers, the imprint of a human form, male, not his, some crumbs, +some flakes of potted meat, recooked, which he removed. + + +If he had smiled why would he have smiled? + +To reflect that each one who enters imagines himself to be the first to +enter whereas he is always the last term of a preceding series even if +the first term of a succeeding one, each imagining himself to be first, +last, only and alone whereas he is neither first nor last nor only nor +alone in a series originating in and repeated to infinity. + + +What preceding series? + +Assuming Mulvey to be the first term of his series, Penrose, Bartell +d'Arcy, professor Goodwin, Julius Mastiansky, John Henry Menton, Father +Bernard Corrigan, a farmer at the Royal Dublin Society's Horse Show, +Maggot O'Reilly, Matthew Dillon, Valentine Blake Dillon (Lord Mayor +of Dublin), Christopher Callinan, Lenehan, an Italian organgrinder, +an unknown gentleman in the Gaiety Theatre, Benjamin Dollard, Simon +Dedalus, Andrew (Pisser) Burke, Joseph Cuffe, Wisdom Hely, Alderman John +Hooper, Dr Francis Brady, Father Sebastian of Mount Argus, a bootblack +at the General Post Office, Hugh E. (Blazes) Boylan and so each and so +on to no last term. + + +What were his reflections concerning the last member of this series and +late occupant of the bed? + +Reflections on his vigour (a bounder), corporal proportion (a +billsticker), commercial ability (a bester), impressionability (a +boaster). + + +Why for the observer impressionability in addition to vigour, corporal +proportion and commercial ability? + +Because he had observed with augmenting frequency in the preceding +members of the same series the same concupiscence, inflammably +transmitted, first with alarm, then with understanding, then with +desire, finally with fatigue, with alternating symptoms of epicene +comprehension and apprehension. + + +With what antagonistic sentiments were his subsequent reflections +affected? + +Envy, jealousy, abnegation, equanimity. + + +Envy? + +Of a bodily and mental male organism specially adapted for the +superincumbent posture of energetic human copulation and energetic +piston and cylinder movement necessary for the complete satisfaction of +a constant but not acute concupiscence resident in a bodily and mental +female organism, passive but not obtuse. + + +Jealousy? + +Because a nature full and volatile in its free state, was alternately +the agent and reagent of attraction. Because attraction between agent(s) +and reagent(s) at all instants varied, with inverse proportion of +increase and decrease, with incessant circular extension and radial +reentrance. Because the controlled contemplation of the fluctuation of +attraction produced, if desired, a fluctuation of pleasure. + + +Abnegation? + +In virtue of a) acquaintance initiated in September 1903 in the +establishment of George Mesias, merchant tailor and outfitter, 5 Eden +Quay, b) hospitality extended and received in kind, reciprocated and +reappropriated in person, c) comparative youth subject to impulses of +ambition and magnanimity, colleagual altruism and amorous egoism, d) +extraracial attraction, intraracial inhibition, supraracial prerogative, +e) an imminent provincial musical tour, common current expenses, net +proceeds divided. + + +Equanimity? + +As as natural as any and every natural act of a nature expressed or +understood executed in natured nature by natural creatures in accordance +with his, her and their natured natures, of dissimilar similarity. +As not so calamitous as a cataclysmic annihilation of the planet in +consequence of a collision with a dark sun. As less reprehensible than +theft, highway robbery, cruelty to children and animals, obtaining money +under false pretences, forgery, embezzlement, misappropriation of public +money, betrayal of public trust, malingering, mayhem, corruption of +minors, criminal libel, blackmail, contempt of court, arson, treason, +felony, mutiny on the high seas, trespass, burglary, jailbreaking, +practice of unnatural vice, desertion from armed forces in the field, +perjury, poaching, usury, intelligence with the king's enemies, +impersonation, criminal assault, manslaughter, wilful and premeditated +murder. As not more abnormal than all other parallel processes of +adaptation to altered conditions of existence, resulting in a reciprocal +equilibrium between the bodily organism and its attendant circumstances, +foods, beverages, acquired habits, indulged inclinations, significant +disease. As more than inevitable, irreparable. + + +Why more abnegation than jealousy, less envy than equanimity? + +From outrage (matrimony) to outrage (adultery) there arose nought but +outrage (copulation) yet the matrimonial violator of the matrimonially +violated had not been outraged by the adulterous violator of the +adulterously violated. + + +What retribution, if any? + +Assassination, never, as two wrongs did not make one right. Duel by +combat, no. Divorce, not now. Exposure by mechanical artifice (automatic +bed) or individual testimony (concealed ocular witnesses), not yet. Suit +for damages by legal influence or simulation of assault with evidence of +injuries sustained (selfinflicted), not impossibly. Hushmoney by moral +influence possibly. If any, positively, connivance, introduction of +emulation (material, a prosperous rival agency of publicity: moral, +a successful rival agent of intimacy), depreciation, alienation, +humiliation, separation protecting the one separated from the other, +protecting the separator from both. + + +By what reflections did he, a conscious reactor against the void of +incertitude, justify to himself his sentiments? + +The preordained frangibility of the hymen: the presupposed intangibility +of the thing in itself: the incongruity and disproportion between +the selfprolonging tension of the thing proposed to be done and the +selfabbreviating relaxation of the thing done; the fallaciously inferred +debility of the female: the muscularity of the male: the variations of +ethical codes: the natural grammatical transition by inversion involving +no alteration of sense of an aorist preterite proposition (parsed as +masculine subject, monosyllabic onomatopoeic transitive verb with direct +feminine object) from the active voice into its correlative aorist +preterite proposition (parsed as feminine subject, auxiliary verb +and quasimonosyllabic onomatopoeic past participle with complementary +masculine agent) in the passive voice: the continued product of +seminators by generation: the continual production of semen by +distillation: the futility of triumph or protest or vindication: the +inanity of extolled virtue: the lethargy of nescient matter: the apathy +of the stars. + + +In what final satisfaction did these antagonistic sentiments and +reflections, reduced to their simplest forms, converge? + +Satisfaction at the ubiquity in eastern and western terrestrial +hemispheres, in all habitable lands and islands explored or unexplored +(the land of the midnight sun, the islands of the blessed, the isles of +Greece, the land of promise), of adipose anterior and posterior female +hemispheres, redolent of milk and honey and of excretory sanguine and +seminal warmth, reminiscent of secular families of curves of amplitude, +insusceptible of moods of impression or of contrarieties of expression, +expressive of mute immutable mature animality. + + +The visible signs of antesatisfaction? + +An approximate erection: a solicitous adversion: a gradual elevation: a +tentative revelation: a silent contemplation. + + +Then? + +He kissed the plump mellow yellow smellow melons of her rump, on each +plump melonous hemisphere, in their mellow yellow furrow, with obscure +prolonged provocative melonsmellonous osculation. + + +The visible signs of postsatisfaction? + +A silent contemplation: a tentative velation: a gradual abasement: a +solicitous aversion: a proximate erection. + + +What followed this silent action? + +Somnolent invocation, less somnolent recognition, incipient excitation, +catechetical interrogation. + + +With what modifications did the narrator reply to this interrogation? + +Negative: he omitted to mention the clandestine correspondence between +Martha Clifford and Henry Flower, the public altercation at, in and +in the vicinity of the licensed premises of Bernard Kiernan and Co, +Limited, 8, 9 and 10 Little Britain street, the erotic provocation +and response thereto caused by the exhibitionism of Gertrude (Gerty), +surname unknown. Positive: he included mention of a performance by Mrs +Bandmann Palmer of LEAH at the Gaiety Theatre, 46, 47, 48, 49 South King +street, an invitation to supper at Wynn's (Murphy's) Hotel, 35, 36 and +37 Lower Abbey street, a volume of peccaminous pornographical tendency +entituled SWEETS OF SIN, anonymous author a gentleman of fashion, a +temporary concussion caused by a falsely calculated movement in the +course of a postcenal gymnastic display, the victim (since completely +recovered) being Stephen Dedalus, professor and author, eldest surviving +son of Simon Dedalus, of no fixed occupation, an aeronautical feat +executed by him (narrator) in the presence of a witness, the professor +and author aforesaid, with promptitude of decision and gymnastic +flexibility. + + +Was the narration otherwise unaltered by modifications? + +Absolutely. + + +Which event or person emerged as the salient point of his narration? + +Stephen Dedalus, professor and author. + + +What limitations of activity and inhibitions of conjugal rights were +perceived by listener and narrator concerning themselves during the +course of this intermittent and increasingly more laconic narration? + +By the listener a limitation of fertility inasmuch as marriage had been +celebrated 1 calendar month after the 18th anniversary of her birth (8 +September 1870), viz. 8 October, and consummated on the same date with +female issue born 15 June 1889, having been anticipatorily consummated +on the lo September of the same year and complete carnal intercourse, +with ejaculation of semen within the natural female organ, having last +taken place 5 weeks previous, viz. 27 November 1893, to the birth on 29 +December 1893 of second (and only male) issue, deceased 9 January 1894, +aged 11 days, there remained a period of 10 years, 5 months and 18 days +during which carnal intercourse had been incomplete, without ejaculation +of semen within the natural female organ. By the narrator a limitation +of activity, mental and corporal, inasmuch as complete mental +intercourse between himself and the listener had not taken place since +the consummation of puberty, indicated by catamenic hemorrhage, of the +female issue of narrator and listener, 15 September 1903, there remained +a period of 9 months and 1 day during which, in consequence of a +preestablished natural comprehension in incomprehension between the +consummated females (listener and issue), complete corporal liberty of +action had been circumscribed. + + +How? + +By various reiterated feminine interrogation concerning the masculine +destination whither, the place where, the time at which, the duration +for which, the object with which in the case of temporary absences, +projected or effected. + + +What moved visibly above the listener's and the narrator's invisible +thoughts? + +The upcast reflection of a lamp and shade, an inconstant series of +concentric circles of varying gradations of light and shadow. + + +In what directions did listener and narrator lie? + +Listener, S. E. by E.: Narrator, N. W. by W.: on the 53rd parallel +of latitude, N., and 6th meridian of longitude, W.: at an angle of 45 +degrees to the terrestrial equator. + + +In what state of rest or motion? + +At rest relatively to themselves and to each other. In motion being each +and both carried westward, forward and rereward respectively, by the +proper perpetual motion of the earth through everchanging tracks of +neverchanging space. + + +In what posture? + +Listener: reclined semilaterally, left, left hand under head, right +leg extended in a straight line and resting on left leg, flexed, in the +attitude of Gea-Tellus, fulfilled, recumbent, big with seed. Narrator: +reclined laterally, left, with right and left legs flexed, the index +finger and thumb of the right hand resting on the bridge of the nose, in +the attitude depicted in a snapshot photograph made by Percy Apjohn, the +childman weary, the manchild in the womb. + + +Womb? Weary? + +He rests. He has travelled. + + +With? + +Sinbad the Sailor and Tinbad the Tailor and Jinbad the Jailer and +Whinbad the Whaler and Ninbad the Nailer and Finbad the Failer and +Binbad the Bailer and Pinbad the Pailer and Minbad the Mailer and Hinbad +the Hailer and Rinbad the Railer and Dinbad the Kailer and Vinbad the +Quailer and Linbad the Yailer and Xinbad the Phthailer. + + +When? + +Going to dark bed there was a square round Sinbad the Sailor roc's auk's +egg in the night of the bed of all the auks of the rocs of Darkinbad the +Brightdayler. + + +Where? + + + +Yes because he never did a thing like that before as ask to get his +breakfast in bed with a couple of eggs since the _City Arms_ hotel +when he used to be pretending to be laid up with a sick voice doing his +highness to make himself interesting for that old faggot Mrs Riordan +that he thought he had a great leg of and she never left us a farthing +all for masses for herself and her soul greatest miser ever was actually +afraid to lay out 4d for her methylated spirit telling me all her +ailments she had too much old chat in her about politics and earthquakes +and the end of the world let us have a bit of fun first God help the +world if all the women were her sort down on bathingsuits and lownecks +of course nobody wanted her to wear them I suppose she was pious because +no man would look at her twice I hope Ill never be like her a wonder +she didnt want us to cover our faces but she was a welleducated woman +certainly and her gabby talk about Mr Riordan here and Mr Riordan there +I suppose he was glad to get shut of her and her dog smelling my fur and +always edging to get up under my petticoats especially then still I like +that in him polite to old women like that and waiters and beggars too +hes not proud out of nothing but not always if ever he got anything +really serious the matter with him its much better for them to go into +a hospital where everything is clean but I suppose Id have to dring it +into him for a month yes and then wed have a hospital nurse next thing +on the carpet have him staying there till they throw him out or a nun +maybe like the smutty photo he has shes as much a nun as Im not yes +because theyre so weak and puling when theyre sick they want a woman +to get well if his nose bleeds youd think it was O tragic and that +dyinglooking one off the south circular when he sprained his foot at +the choir party at the sugarloaf Mountain the day I wore that dress +Miss Stack bringing him flowers the worst old ones she could find at the +bottom of the basket anything at all to get into a mans bedroom with +her old maids voice trying to imagine he was dying on account of her to +never see thy face again though he looked more like a man with his beard +a bit grown in the bed father was the same besides I hate bandaging and +dosing when he cut his toe with the razor paring his corns afraid hed +get bloodpoisoning but if it was a thing I was sick then wed see what +attention only of course the woman hides it not to give all the trouble +they do yes he came somewhere Im sure by his appetite anyway love its +not or hed be off his feed thinking of her so either it was one of those +night women if it was down there he was really and the hotel story he +made up a pack of lies to hide it planning it Hynes kept me who did I +meet ah yes I met do you remember Menton and who else who let me see +that big babbyface I saw him and he not long married flirting with a +young girl at Pooles Myriorama and turned my back on him when he slinked +out looking quite conscious what harm but he had the impudence to make +up to me one time well done to him mouth almighty and his boiled eyes of +all the big stupoes I ever met and thats called a solicitor only for +I hate having a long wrangle in bed or else if its not that its some +little bitch or other he got in with somewhere or picked up on the +sly if they only knew him as well as I do yes because the day before +yesterday he was scribbling something a letter when I came into the +front room to show him Dignams death in the paper as if something told +me and he covered it up with the blottingpaper pretending to be thinking +about business so very probably that was it to somebody who thinks +she has a softy in him because all men get a bit like that at his age +especially getting on to forty he is now so as to wheedle any money she +can out of him no fool like an old fool and then the usual kissing my +bottom was to hide it not that I care two straws now who he does it with +or knew before that way though Id like to find out so long as I dont +have the two of them under my nose all the time like that slut that Mary +we had in Ontario terrace padding out her false bottom to excite him bad +enough to get the smell of those painted women off him once or twice +I had a suspicion by getting him to come near me when I found the +long hair on his coat without that one when I went into the kitchen +pretending he was drinking water 1 woman is not enough for them it was +all his fault of course ruining servants then proposing that she could +eat at our table on Christmas day if you please O no thank you not in my +house stealing my potatoes and the oysters 2/6 per doz going out to see +her aunt if you please common robbery so it was but I was sure he had +something on with that one it takes me to find out a thing like that he +said you have no proof it was her proof O yes her aunt was very fond of +oysters but I told her what I thought of her suggesting me to go out to +be alone with her I wouldnt lower myself to spy on them the garters I +found in her room the Friday she was out that was enough for me a little +bit too much her face swelled up on her with temper when I gave her her +weeks notice I saw to that better do without them altogether do out the +rooms myself quicker only for the damn cooking and throwing out the dirt +I gave it to him anyhow either she or me leaves the house I couldnt even +touch him if I thought he was with a dirty barefaced liar and sloven +like that one denying it up to my face and singing about the place in +the W C too because she knew she was too well off yes because he couldnt +possibly do without it that long so he must do it somewhere and the last +time he came on my bottom when was it the night Boylan gave my hand a +great squeeze going along by the Tolka in my hand there steals another +I just pressed the back of his like that with my thumb to squeeze back +singing the young May moon shes beaming love because he has an idea +about him and me hes not such a fool he said Im dining out and going to +the Gaiety though Im not going to give him the satisfaction in any case +God knows hes a change in a way not to be always and ever wearing the +same old hat unless I paid some nicelooking boy to do it since I cant do +it myself a young boy would like me Id confuse him a little alone with +him if we were Id let him see my garters the new ones and make him turn +red looking at him seduce him I know what boys feel with that down +on their cheek doing that frigging drawing out the thing by the hour +question and answer would you do this that and the other with the +coalman yes with a bishop yes I would because I told him about some dean +or bishop was sitting beside me in the jews temples gardens when I was +knitting that woollen thing a stranger to Dublin what place was it and +so on about the monuments and he tired me out with statues encouraging +him making him worse than he is who is in your mind now tell me who are +you thinking of who is it tell me his name who tell me who the german +Emperor is it yes imagine Im him think of him can you feel him trying to +make a whore of me what he never will he ought to give it up now at this +age of his life simply ruination for any woman and no satisfaction in it +pretending to like it till he comes and then finish it off myself anyway +and it makes your lips pale anyhow its done now once and for all with +all the talk of the world about it people make its only the first time +after that its just the ordinary do it and think no more about it why +cant you kiss a man without going and marrying him first you sometimes +love to wildly when you feel that way so nice all over you you cant help +yourself I wish some man or other would take me sometime when hes there +and kiss me in his arms theres nothing like a kiss long and hot down to +your soul almost paralyses you then I hate that confession when I used +to go to Father Corrigan he touched me father and what harm if he did +where and I said on the canal bank like a fool but whereabouts on your +person my child on the leg behind high up was it yes rather high up was +it where you sit down yes O Lord couldnt he say bottom right out and +have done with it what has that got to do with it and did you whatever +way he put it I forget no father and I always think of the real father +what did he want to know for when I already confessed it to God he had +a nice fat hand the palm moist always I wouldnt mind feeling it neither +would he Id say by the bullneck in his horsecollar I wonder did he know +me in the box I could see his face he couldnt see mine of course hed +never turn or let on still his eyes were red when his father died theyre +lost for a woman of course must be terrible when a man cries let alone +them Id like to be embraced by one in his vestments and the smell of +incense off him like the pope besides theres no danger with a priest if +youre married hes too careful about himself then give something to H +H the pope for a penance I wonder was he satisfied with me one thing I +didnt like his slapping me behind going away so familiarly in the hall +though I laughed Im not a horse or an ass am I I suppose he was thinking +of his fathers I wonder is he awake thinking of me or dreaming am I in +it who gave him that flower he said he bought he smelt of some kind of +drink not whisky or stout or perhaps the sweety kind of paste they stick +their bills up with some liqueur Id like to sip those richlooking green +and yellow expensive drinks those stagedoor johnnies drink with the +opera hats I tasted once with my finger dipped out of that American that +had the squirrel talking stamps with father he had all he could do to +keep himself from falling asleep after the last time after we took the +port and potted meat it had a fine salty taste yes because I felt lovely +and tired myself and fell asleep as sound as a top the moment I popped +straight into bed till that thunder woke me up God be merciful to us +I thought the heavens were coming down about us to punish us when I +blessed myself and said a Hail Mary like those awful thunderbolts in +Gibraltar as if the world was coming to an end and then they come and +tell you theres no God what could you do if it was running and rushing +about nothing only make an act of contrition the candle I lit that +evening in Whitefriars street chapel for the month of May see it brought +its luck though hed scoff if he heard because he never goes to church +mass or meeting he says your soul you have no soul inside only grey +matter because he doesnt know what it is to have one yes when I lit the +lamp because he must have come 3 or 4 times with that tremendous big red +brute of a thing he has I thought the vein or whatever the dickens they +call it was going to burst though his nose is not so big after I took +off all my things with the blinds down after my hours dressing and +perfuming and combing it like iron or some kind of a thick crowbar +standing all the time he must have eaten oysters I think a few dozen he +was in great singing voice no I never in all my life felt anyone had +one the size of that to make you feel full up he must have eaten a whole +sheep after whats the idea making us like that with a big hole in the +middle of us or like a Stallion driving it up into you because thats all +they want out of you with that determined vicious look in his eye I had +to halfshut my eyes still he hasnt such a tremendous amount of spunk in +him when I made him pull out and do it on me considering how big it is +so much the better in case any of it wasnt washed out properly the last +time I let him finish it in me nice invention they made for women for +him to get all the pleasure but if someone gave them a touch of it +themselves theyd know what I went through with Milly nobody would +believe cutting her teeth too and Mina Purefoys husband give us a swing +out of your whiskers filling her up with a child or twins once a year +as regular as the clock always with a smell of children off her the one +they called budgers or something like a nigger with a shock of hair on +it Jesusjack the child is a black the last time I was there a squad of +them falling over one another and bawling you couldnt hear your ears +supposed to be healthy not satisfied till they have us swollen out like +elephants or I dont know what supposing I risked having another not off +him though still if he was married Im sure hed have a fine strong child +but I dont know Poldy has more spunk in him yes thatd be awfully jolly +I suppose it was meeting Josie Powell and the funeral and thinking about +me and Boylan set him off well he can think what he likes now if thatll +do him any good I know they were spooning a bit when I came on the scene +he was dancing and sitting out with her the night of Georgina Simpsons +housewarming and then he wanted to ram it down my neck it was on account +of not liking to see her a wallflower that was why we had the standup +row over politics he began it not me when he said about Our Lord being a +carpenter at last he made me cry of course a woman is so sensitive about +everything I was fuming with myself after for giving in only for I knew +he was gone on me and the first socialist he said He was he annoyed me +so much I couldnt put him into a temper still he knows a lot of mixedup +things especially about the body and the inside I often wanted to study +up that myself what we have inside us in that family physician I could +always hear his voice talking when the room was crowded and watch him +after that I pretended I had a coolness on with her over him because he +used to be a bit on the jealous side whenever he asked who are you going +to and I said over to Floey and he made me the present of Byron's poems +and the three pairs of gloves so that finished that I could quite easily +get him to make it up any time I know how Id even supposing he got in +with her again and was going out to see her somewhere Id know if he +refused to eat the onions I know plenty of ways ask him to tuck down the +collar of my blouse or touch him with my veil and gloves on going out I +kiss then would send them all spinning however alright well see then let +him go to her she of course would only be too delighted to pretend shes +mad in love with him that I wouldnt so much mind Id just go to her and +ask her do you love him and look her square in the eyes she couldnt fool +me but he might imagine he was and make a declaration to her with his +plabbery kind of a manner like he did to me though I had the devils own +job to get it out of him though I liked him for that it showed he could +hold in and wasnt to be got for the asking he was on the pop of asking +me too the night in the kitchen I was rolling the potato cake theres +something I want to say to you only for I put him off letting on I was +in a temper with my hands and arms full of pasty flour in any case I let +out too much the night before talking of dreams so I didnt want to let +him know more than was good for him she used to be always embracing me +Josie whenever he was there meaning him of course glauming me over and +when I said I washed up and down as far as possible asking me and did +you wash possible the women are always egging on to that putting it on +thick when hes there they know by his sly eye blinking a bit putting on +the indifferent when they come out with something the kind he is what +spoils him I dont wonder in the least because he was very handsome at +that time trying to look like Lord Byron I said I liked though he +was too beautiful for a man and he was a little before we got engaged +afterwards though she didnt like it so much the day I was in fits of +laughing with the giggles I couldnt stop about all my hairpins falling +out one after another with the mass of hair I had youre always in great +humour she said yes because it grigged her because she knew what it +meant because I used to tell her a good bit of what went on between us +not all but just enough to make her mouth water but that wasnt my fault +she didnt darken the door much after we were married I wonder what shes +got like now after living with that dotty husband of hers she had her +face beginning to look drawn and run down the last time I saw her she +must have been just after a row with him because I saw on the moment she +was edging to draw down a conversation about husbands and talk about him +to run him down what was it she told me O yes that sometimes he used to +go to bed with his muddy boots on when the maggot takes him just imagine +having to get into bed with a thing like that that might murder you +any moment what a man well its not the one way everyone goes mad Poldy +anyhow whatever he does always wipes his feet on the mat when he comes +in wet or shine and always blacks his own boots too and he always takes +off his hat when he comes up in the street like then and now hes going +about in his slippers to look for 10000 pounds for a postcard U p up +O sweetheart May wouldnt a thing like that simply bore you stiff to +extinction actually too stupid even to take his boots off now what +could you make of a man like that Id rather die 20 times over than marry +another of their sex of course hed never find another woman like me to +put up with him the way I do know me come sleep with me yes and he knows +that too at the bottom of his heart take that Mrs Maybrick that poisoned +her husband for what I wonder in love with some other man yes it was +found out on her wasnt she the downright villain to go and do a thing +like that of course some men can be dreadfully aggravating drive you mad +and always the worst word in the world what do they ask us to marry them +for if were so bad as all that comes to yes because they cant get on +without us white Arsenic she put in his tea off flypaper wasnt it I +wonder why they call it that if I asked him hed say its from the Greek +leave us as wise as we were before she must have been madly in love with +the other fellow to run the chance of being hanged O she didnt care if +that was her nature what could she do besides theyre not brutes enough +to go and hang a woman surely are they + +theyre all so different Boylan talking about the shape of my foot he +noticed at once even before he was introduced when I was in the D B C +with Poldy laughing and trying to listen I was waggling my foot we both +ordered 2 teas and plain bread and butter I saw him looking with his +two old maids of sisters when I stood up and asked the girl where it was +what do I care with it dropping out of me and that black closed breeches +he made me buy takes you half an hour to let them down wetting all +myself always with some brandnew fad every other week such a long one I +did I forgot my suede gloves on the seat behind that I never got after +some robber of a woman and he wanted me to put it in the Irish times +lost in the ladies lavatory D B C Dame street finder return to Mrs +Marion Bloom and I saw his eyes on my feet going out through the turning +door he was looking when I looked back and I went there for tea 2 days +after in the hope but he wasnt now how did that excite him because I was +crossing them when we were in the other room first he meant the shoes +that are too tight to walk in my hand is nice like that if I only had a +ring with the stone for my month a nice aquamarine Ill stick him for one +and a gold bracelet I dont like my foot so much still I made him spend +once with my foot the night after Goodwins botchup of a concert so cold +and windy it was well we had that rum in the house to mull and the fire +wasnt black out when he asked to take off my stockings lying on the +hearthrug in Lombard street west and another time it was my muddy boots +hed like me to walk in all the horses dung I could find but of course +hes not natural like the rest of the world that I what did he say I +could give 9 points in 10 to Katty Lanner and beat her what does that +mean I asked him I forget what he said because the stoppress edition +just passed and the man with the curly hair in the Lucan dairy thats so +polite I think I saw his face before somewhere I noticed him when I was +tasting the butter so I took my time Bartell dArcy too that he used to +make fun of when he commenced kissing me on the choir stairs after I +sang Gounods _Ave Maria_ what are we waiting for O my heart kiss me +straight on the brow and part which is my brown part he was pretty hot +for all his tinny voice too my low notes he was always raving about if +you can believe him I liked the way he used his mouth singing then he +said wasnt it terrible to do that there in a place like that I dont see +anything so terrible about it Ill tell him about that some day not now +and surprise him ay and Ill take him there and show him the very place +too we did it so now there you are like it or lump it he thinks nothing +can happen without him knowing he hadnt an idea about my mother till we +were engaged otherwise hed never have got me so cheap as he did he was +lo times worse himself anyhow begging me to give him a tiny bit cut off +my drawers that was the evening coming along Kenilworth square he kissed +me in the eye of my glove and I had to take it off asking me questions +is it permitted to enquire the shape of my bedroom so I let him keep it +as if I forgot it to think of me when I saw him slip it into his pocket +of course hes mad on the subject of drawers thats plain to be seen +always skeezing at those brazenfaced things on the bicycles with their +skirts blowing up to their navels even when Milly and I were out with +him at the open air fete that one in the cream muslin standing right +against the sun so he could see every atom she had on when he saw me +from behind following in the rain I saw him before he saw me however +standing at the corner of the Harolds cross road with a new raincoat on +him with the muffler in the Zingari colours to show off his complexion +and the brown hat looking slyboots as usual what was he doing there +where hed no business they can go and get whatever they like from +anything at all with a skirt on it and were not to ask any questions but +they want to know where were you where are you going I could feel him +coming along skulking after me his eyes on my neck he had been keeping +away from the house he felt it was getting too warm for him so I +halfturned and stopped then he pestered me to say yes till I took off my +glove slowly watching him he said my openwork sleeves were too cold for +the rain anything for an excuse to put his hand anear me drawers drawers +the whole blessed time till I promised to give him the pair off my doll +to carry about in his waistcoat pocket _O Maria Santisima_ he did look +a big fool dreeping in the rain splendid set of teeth he had made me +hungry to look at them and beseeched of me to lift the orange petticoat +I had on with the sunray pleats that there was nobody he said hed kneel +down in the wet if I didnt so persevering he would too and ruin his new +raincoat you never know what freak theyd take alone with you theyre so +savage for it if anyone was passing so I lifted them a bit and touched +his trousers outside the way I used to Gardner after with my ring hand +to keep him from doing worse where it was too public I was dying to find +out was he circumcised he was shaking like a jelly all over they want +to do everything too quick take all the pleasure out of it and father +waiting all the time for his dinner he told me to say I left my purse in +the butchers and had to go back for it what a Deceiver then he wrote me +that letter with all those words in it how could he have the face to any +woman after his company manners making it so awkward after when we met +asking me have I offended you with my eyelids down of course he saw I +wasnt he had a few brains not like that other fool Henny Doyle he was +always breaking or tearing something in the charades I hate an unlucky +man and if I knew what it meant of course I had to say no for form sake +dont understand you I said and wasnt it natural so it is of course +it used to be written up with a picture of a womans on that wall in +Gibraltar with that word I couldnt find anywhere only for children +seeing it too young then writing every morning a letter sometimes twice +a day I liked the way he made love then he knew the way to take a woman +when he sent me the 8 big poppies because mine was the 8th then I wrote +the night he kissed my heart at Dolphins barn I couldnt describe it +simply it makes you feel like nothing on earth but he never knew how to +embrace well like Gardner I hope hell come on Monday as he said at the +same time four I hate people who come at all hours answer the door you +think its the vegetables then its somebody and you all undressed or +the door of the filthy sloppy kitchen blows open the day old frostyface +Goodwin called about the concert in Lombard street and I just after +dinner all flushed and tossed with boiling old stew dont look at me +professor I had to say Im a fright yes but he was a real old gent in his +way it was impossible to be more respectful nobody to say youre out you +have to peep out through the blind like the messengerboy today I thought +it was a putoff first him sending the port and the peaches first and I +was just beginning to yawn with nerves thinking he was trying to make a +fool of me when I knew his tattarrattat at the door he must have been +a bit late because it was l/4 after 3 when I saw the 2 Dedalus girls +coming from school I never know the time even that watch he gave me +never seems to go properly Id want to get it looked after when I threw +the penny to that lame sailor for England home and beauty when I was +whistling there is a charming girl I love and I hadnt even put on my +clean shift or powdered myself or a thing then this day week were to go +to Belfast just as well he has to go to Ennis his fathers anniversary +the 27th it wouldnt be pleasant if he did suppose our rooms at the hotel +were beside each other and any fooling went on in the new bed I couldnt +tell him to stop and not bother me with him in the next room or perhaps +some protestant clergyman with a cough knocking on the wall then hed +never believe the next day we didnt do something its all very well a +husband but you cant fool a lover after me telling him we never did +anything of course he didnt believe me no its better hes going where +he is besides something always happens with him the time going to the +Mallow concert at Maryborough ordering boiling soup for the two of +us then the bell rang out he walks down the platform with the soup +splashing about taking spoonfuls of it hadnt he the nerve and the waiter +after him making a holy show of us screeching and confusion for the +engine to start but he wouldnt pay till he finished it the two gentlemen +in the 3rd class carriage said he was quite right so he was too hes so +pigheaded sometimes when he gets a thing into his head a good job he was +able to open the carriage door with his knife or theyd have taken us on +to Cork I suppose that was done out of revenge on him O I love jaunting +in a train or a car with lovely soft cushions I wonder will he take +a 1st class for me he might want to do it in the train by tipping the +guard well O I suppose therell be the usual idiots of men gaping at +us with their eyes as stupid as ever they can possibly be that was an +exceptional man that common workman that left us alone in the carriage +that day going to Howth Id like to find out something about him l or 2 +tunnels perhaps then you have to look out of the window all the nicer +then coming back suppose I never came back what would they say eloped +with him that gets you on on the stage the last concert I sang at where +its over a year ago when was it St Teresas hall Clarendon St little +chits of missies they have now singing Kathleen Kearney and her like +on account of father being in the army and my singing the absentminded +beggar and wearing a brooch for Lord Roberts when I had the map of it +all and Poldy not Irish enough was it him managed it this time I wouldnt +put it past him like he got me on to sing in the _Stabat Mater_ by going +around saying he was putting Lead Kindly Light to music I put him up to +that till the jesuits found out he was a freemason thumping the piano +lead Thou me on copied from some old opera yes and he was going about +with some of them Sinner Fein lately or whatever they call themselves +talking his usual trash and nonsense he says that little man he showed +me without the neck is very intelligent the coming man Griffiths is he +well he doesnt look it thats all I can say still it must have been him +he knew there was a boycott I hate the mention of their politics after +the war that Pretoria and Ladysmith and Bloemfontein where Gardner lieut +Stanley G 8th Bn 2nd East Lancs Rgt of enteric fever he was a lovely +fellow in khaki and just the right height over me Im sure he was brave +too he said I was lovely the evening we kissed goodbye at the canal lock +my Irish beauty he was pale with excitement about going away or wed be +seen from the road he couldnt stand properly and I so hot as I never +felt they could have made their peace in the beginning or old oom Paul +and the rest of the other old Krugers go and fight it out between them +instead of dragging on for years killing any finelooking men there were +with their fever if he was even decently shot it wouldnt have been so +bad I love to see a regiment pass in review the first time I saw the +Spanish cavalry at La Roque it was lovely after looking across the bay +from Algeciras all the lights of the rock like fireflies or those sham +battles on the 15 acres the Black Watch with their kilts in time at the +march past the 10th hussars the prince of Wales own or the lancers O the +lancers theyre grand or the Dublins that won Tugela his father made his +money over selling the horses for the cavalry well he could buy me a +nice present up in Belfast after what I gave him theyve lovely linen up +there or one of those nice kimono things I must buy a mothball like I +had before to keep in the drawer with them it would be exciting going +round with him shopping buying those things in a new city better leave +this ring behind want to keep turning and turning to get it over the +knuckle there or they might bell it round the town in their papers or +tell the police on me but theyd think were married O let them all go and +smother themselves for the fat lot I care he has plenty of money and hes +not a marrying man so somebody better get it out of him if I could find +out whether he likes me I looked a bit washy of course when I looked +close in the handglass powdering a mirror never gives you the expression +besides scrooching down on me like that all the time with his big +hipbones hes heavy too with his hairy chest for this heat always having +to lie down for them better for him put it into me from behind the way +Mrs Mastiansky told me her husband made her like the dogs do it and +stick out her tongue as far as ever she could and he so quiet and mild +with his tingating cither can you ever be up to men the way it takes +them lovely stuff in that blue suit he had on and stylish tie and socks +with the skyblue silk things on them hes certainly well off I know by +the cut his clothes have and his heavy watch but he was like a perfect +devil for a few minutes after he came back with the stoppress tearing up +the tickets and swearing blazes because he lost 20 quid he said he lost +over that outsider that won and half he put on for me on account of +Lenehans tip cursing him to the lowest pits that sponger he was making +free with me after the Glencree dinner coming back that long joult over +the featherbed mountain after the lord Mayor looking at me with his +dirty eyes Val Dillon that big heathen I first noticed him at dessert +when I was cracking the nuts with my teeth I wished I could have picked +every morsel of that chicken out of my fingers it was so tasty +and browned and as tender as anything only for I didnt want to eat +everything on my plate those forks and fishslicers were hallmarked +silver too I wish I had some I could easily have slipped a couple into +my muff when I was playing with them then always hanging out of them for +money in a restaurant for the bit you put down your throat we have to +be thankful for our mangy cup of tea itself as a great compliment to be +noticed the way the world is divided in any case if its going to go on I +want at least two other good chemises for one thing and but I dont know +what kind of drawers he likes none at all I think didnt he say yes and +half the girls in Gibraltar never wore them either naked as God made +them that Andalusian singing her Manola she didnt make much secret of +what she hadnt yes and the second pair of silkette stockings is laddered +after one days wear I could have brought them back to Lewers this +morning and kicked up a row and made that one change them only not to +upset myself and run the risk of walking into him and ruining the whole +thing and one of those kidfitting corsets Id want advertised cheap in +the Gentlewoman with elastic gores on the hips he saved the one I have +but thats no good what did they say they give a delightful figure line +11/6 obviating that unsightly broad appearance across the lower back to +reduce flesh my belly is a bit too big Ill have to knock off the +stout at dinner or am I getting too fond of it the last they sent from +ORourkes was as flat as a pancake he makes his money easy Larry they +call him the old mangy parcel he sent at Xmas a cottage cake and a +bottle of hogwash he tried to palm off as claret that he couldnt get +anyone to drink God spare his spit for fear hed die of the drouth or +I must do a few breathing exercises I wonder is that antifat any good +might overdo it the thin ones are not so much the fashion now garters +that much I have the violet pair I wore today thats all he bought me +out of the cheque he got on the first O no there was the face lotion +I finished the last of yesterday that made my skin like new I told him +over and over again get that made up in the same place and dont forget +it God only knows whether he did after all I said to him 111 know by +the bottle anyway if not I suppose 111 only have to wash in my piss like +beeftea or chickensoup with some of that opoponax and violet I thought +it was beginning to look coarse or old a bit the skin underneath is much +finer where it peeled off there on my finger after the burn its a pity +it isnt all like that and the four paltry handkerchiefs about 6/- in all +sure you cant get on in this world without style all going in food and +rent when I get it Ill lash it around I tell you in fine style I always +want to throw a handful of tea into the pot measuring and mincing if +I buy a pair of old brogues itself do you like those new shoes yes how +much were they Ive no clothes at all the brown costume and the skirt and +jacket and the one at the cleaners 3 whats that for any woman cutting +up this old hat and patching up the other the men wont look at you and +women try to walk on you because they know youve no man then with all +the things getting dearer every day for the 4 years more I have of life +up to 35 no Im what am I at all 111 be 33 in September will I what O +well look at that Mrs Galbraith shes much older than me I saw her when +I was out last week her beautys on the wane she was a lovely woman +magnificent head of hair on her down to her waist tossing it back like +that like Kitty OShea in Grantham street 1st thing I did every morning +to look across see her combing it as if she loved it and was full of it +pity I only got to know her the day before we left and that Mrs Langtry +the jersey lily the prince of Wales was in love with I suppose hes like +the first man going the roads only for the name of a king theyre all +made the one way only a black mans Id like to try a beauty up to what +was she 45 there was some funny story about the jealous old husband what +was it at all and an oyster knife he went no he made her wear a kind +of a tin thing round her and the prince of Wales yes he had the oyster +knife cant be true a thing like that like some of those books he brings +me the works of Master Francois Somebody supposed to be a priest about +a child born out of her ear because her bumgut fell out a nice word for +any priest to write and her a--e as if any fool wouldnt know what that +meant I hate that pretending of all things with that old blackguards +face on him anybody can see its not true and that Ruby and Fair Tyrants +he brought me that twice I remember when I came to page 5 o the part +about where she hangs him up out of a hook with a cord flagellate +sure theres nothing for a woman in that all invention made up about he +drinking the champagne out of her slipper after the ball was over like +the infant Jesus in the crib at Inchicore in the Blessed Virgins arms +sure no woman could have a child that big taken out of her and I thought +first it came out of her side because how could she go to the chamber +when she wanted to and she a rich lady of course she felt honoured H R H +he was in Gibraltar the year I was born I bet he found lilies there too +where he planted the tree he planted more than that in his time he might +have planted me too if hed come a bit sooner then I wouldnt be here as +I am he ought to chuck that Freeman with the paltry few shillings +he knocks out of it and go into an office or something where hed get +regular pay or a bank where they could put him up on a throne to count +the money all the day of course he prefers plottering about the house +so you cant stir with him any side whats your programme today I wish hed +even smoke a pipe like father to get the smell of a man or pretending +to be mooching about for advertisements when he could have been in Mr +Cuffes still only for what he did then sending me to try and patch it up +I could have got him promoted there to be the manager he gave me a great +mirada once or twice first he was as stiff as the mischief really and +truly Mrs Bloom only I felt rotten simply with the old rubbishy dress +that I lost the leads out of the tails with no cut in it but theyre +coming into fashion again I bought it simply to please him I knew it was +no good by the finish pity I changed my mind of going to Todd and Bums +as I said and not Lees it was just like the shop itself rummage sale a +lot of trash I hate those rich shops get on your nerves nothing kills me +altogether only he thinks he knows a great lot about a womans dress and +cooking mathering everything he can scour off the shelves into it if +I went by his advices every blessed hat I put on does that suit me yes +take that thats alright the one like a weddingcake standing up miles +off my head he said suited me or the dishcover one coming down on my +backside on pins and needles about the shopgirl in that place in Grafton +street I had the misfortune to bring him into and she as insolent as +ever she could be with her smirk saying Im afraid were giving you too +much trouble what shes there for but I stared it out of her yes he was +awfully stiff and no wonder but he changed the second time he looked +Poldy pigheaded as usual like the soup but I could see him looking very +hard at my chest when he stood up to open the door for me it was nice of +him to show me out in any case Im extremely sorry Mrs Bloom believe me +without making it too marked the first time after him being insulted and +me being supposed to be his wife I just half smiled I know my chest was +out that way at the door when he said Im extremely sorry and Im sure you +were + +yes I think he made them a bit firmer sucking them like that so long he +made me thirsty titties he calls them I had to laugh yes this one anyhow +stiff the nipple gets for the least thing Ill get him to keep that up +and Ill take those eggs beaten up with marsala fatten them out for him +what are all those veins and things curious the way its made 2 the same +in case of twins theyre supposed to represent beauty placed up there +like those statues in the museum one of them pretending to hide it with +her hand are they so beautiful of course compared with what a man looks +like with his two bags full and his other thing hanging down out of +him or sticking up at you like a hatrack no wonder they hide it with a +cabbageleaf that disgusting Cameron highlander behind the meat market or +that other wretch with the red head behind the tree where the statue +of the fish used to be when I was passing pretending he was pissing +standing out for me to see it with his babyclothes up to one side the +Queens own they were a nice lot its well the Surreys relieved them +theyre always trying to show it to you every time nearly I passed +outside the mens greenhouse near the Harcourt street station just to +try some fellow or other trying to catch my eye as if it was I of the +7 wonders of the world O and the stink of those rotten places the night +coming home with Poldy after the Comerfords party oranges and lemonade +to make you feel nice and watery I went into r of them it was so biting +cold I couldnt keep it when was that 93 the canal was frozen yes it was +a few months after a pity a couple of the Camerons werent there to see +me squatting in the mens place meadero I tried to draw a picture of +it before I tore it up like a sausage or something I wonder theyre not +afraid going about of getting a kick or a bang of something there the +woman is beauty of course thats admitted when he said I could pose for a +picture naked to some rich fellow in Holles street when he lost the +job in Helys and I was selling the clothes and strumming in the coffee +palace would I be like that bath of the nymph with my hair down yes only +shes younger or Im a little like that dirty bitch in that Spanish photo +he has nymphs used they go about like that I asked him about her and +that word met something with hoses in it and he came out with some +jawbreakers about the incarnation he never can explain a thing simply +the way a body can understand then he goes and burns the bottom out of +the pan all for his Kidney this one not so much theres the mark of his +teeth still where he tried to bite the nipple I had to scream out arent +they fearful trying to hurt you I had a great breast of milk with Milly +enough for two what was the reason of that he said I could have got a +pound a week as a wet nurse all swelled out the morning that delicate +looking student that stopped in no 28 with the Citrons Penrose nearly +caught me washing through the window only for I snapped up the towel to +my face that was his studenting hurt me they used to weaning her till he +got doctor Brady to give me the belladonna prescription I had to get him +to suck them they were so hard he said it was sweeter and thicker than +cows then he wanted to milk me into the tea well hes beyond everything I +declare somebody ought to put him in the budget if I only could remember +the I half of the things and write a book out of it the works of Master +Poldy yes and its so much smoother the skin much an hour he was at them +Im sure by the clock like some kind of a big infant I had at me they +want everything in their mouth all the pleasure those men get out of a +woman I can feel his mouth O Lord I must stretch myself I wished he was +here or somebody to let myself go with and come again like that I feel +all fire inside me or if I could dream it when he made me spend the 2nd +time tickling me behind with his finger I was coming for about 5 minutes +with my legs round him I had to hug him after O Lord I wanted to shout +out all sorts of things fuck or shit or anything at all only not to look +ugly or those lines from the strain who knows the way hed take it you +want to feel your way with a man theyre not all like him thank God some +of them want you to be so nice about it I noticed the contrast he does +it and doesnt talk I gave my eyes that look with my hair a bit loose +from the tumbling and my tongue between my lips up to him the savage +brute Thursday Friday one Saturday two Sunday three O Lord I cant wait +till Monday + +frseeeeeeeefronnnng train somewhere whistling the strength those engines +have in them like big giants and the water rolling all over and out of +them all sides like the end of Loves old sweeeetsonnnng the poor men +that have to be out all the night from their wives and families in those +roasting engines stifling it was today Im glad I burned the half of +those old Freemans and Photo Bits leaving things like that lying about +hes getting very careless and threw the rest of them up in the W C 111 +get him to cut them tomorrow for me instead of having them there for +the next year to get a few pence for them have him asking wheres last +Januarys paper and all those old overcoats I bundled out of the hall +making the place hotter than it is that rain was lovely and refreshing +just after my beauty sleep I thought it was going to get like Gibraltar +my goodness the heat there before the levanter came on black as night +and the glare of the rock standing up in it like a big giant compared +with their 3 Rock mountain they think is so great with the red sentries +here and there the poplars and they all whitehot and the smell of the +rainwater in those tanks watching the sun all the time weltering down on +you faded all that lovely frock fathers friend Mrs Stanhope sent me from +the B Marche paris what a shame my dearest Doggerina she wrote on it +she was very nice whats this her other name was just a p c to tell you I +sent the little present have just had a jolly warm bath and feel a very +clean dog now enjoyed it wogger she called him wogger wd give anything +to be back in Gib and hear you sing Waiting and in old Madrid Concone +is the name of those exercises he bought me one of those new some word +I couldnt make out shawls amusing things but tear for the least thing +still there lovely I think dont you will always think of the lovely teas +we had together scrumptious currant scones and raspberry wafers I adore +well now dearest Doggerina be sure and write soon kind she left out +regards to your father also captain Grove with love yrs affly Hester x +x x x x she didnt look a bit married just like a girl he was years older +than her wogger he was awfully fond of me when he held down the wire +with his foot for me to step over at the bullfight at La Linea when +that matador Gomez was given the bulls ear these clothes we have to wear +whoever invented them expecting you to walk up Killiney hill then for +example at that picnic all staysed up you cant do a blessed thing in +them in a crowd run or jump out of the way thats why I was afraid when +that other ferocious old Bull began to charge the banderilleros with +the sashes and the 2 things in their hats and the brutes of men shouting +bravo toro sure the women were as bad in their nice white mantillas +ripping all the whole insides out of those poor horses I never heard of +such a thing in all my life yes he used to break his heart at me taking +off the dog barking in bell lane poor brute and it sick what became +of them ever I suppose theyre dead long ago the 2 of them its like all +through a mist makes you feel so old I made the scones of course I had +everything all to myself then a girl Hester we used to compare our hair +mine was thicker than hers she showed me how to settle it at the back +when I put it up and whats this else how to make a knot on a thread with +the one hand we were like cousins what age was I then the night of the +storm I slept in her bed she had her arms round me then we were fighting +in the morning with the pillow what fun he was watching me whenever he +got an opportunity at the band on the Alameda esplanade when I was with +father and captain Grove I looked up at the church first and then at the +windows then down and our eyes met I felt something go through me like +all needles my eyes were dancing I remember after when I looked +at myself in the glass hardly recognised myself the change he was +attractive to a girl in spite of his being a little bald intelligent +looking disappointed and gay at the same time he was like Thomas in +the shadow of Ashlydyat I had a splendid skin from the sun and the +excitement like a rose I didnt get a wink of sleep it wouldnt have been +nice on account of her but I could have stopped it in time she gave me +the Moonstone to read that was the first I read of Wilkie Collins East +Lynne I read and the shadow of Ashlydyat Mrs Henry Wood Henry Dunbar by +that other woman I lent him afterwards with Mulveys photo in it so as he +see I wasnt without and Lord Lytton Eugene Aram Molly bawn she gave me +by Mrs Hungerford on account of the name I dont like books with a Molly +in them like that one he brought me about the one from Flanders a whore +always shoplifting anything she could cloth and stuff and yards of it +O this blanket is too heavy on me thats better I havent even one decent +nightdress this thing gets all rolled under me besides him and his +fooling thats better I used to be weltering then in the heat my shift +drenched with the sweat stuck in the cheeks of my bottom on the chair +when I stood up they were so fattish and firm when I got up on the sofa +cushions to see with my clothes up and the bugs tons of them at night +and the mosquito nets I couldnt read a line Lord how long ago it seems +centuries of course they never came back and she didnt put her address +right on it either she may have noticed her wogger people were always +going away and we never I remember that day with the waves and the +boats with their high heads rocking and the smell of ship those Officers +uniforms on shore leave made me seasick he didnt say anything he was +very serious I had the high buttoned boots on and my skirt was blowing +she kissed me six or seven times didnt I cry yes I believe I did or near +it my lips were taittering when I said goodbye she had a Gorgeous wrap +of some special kind of blue colour on her for the voyage made very +peculiarly to one side like and it was extremely pretty it got as dull +as the devil after they went I was almost planning to run away mad out +of it somewhere were never easy where we are father or aunt or marriage +waiting always waiting to guiiiide him toooo me waiting nor speeeed +his flying feet their damn guns bursting and booming all over the shop +especially the Queens birthday and throwing everything down in all +directions if you didnt open the windows when general Ulysses Grant +whoever he was or did supposed to be some great fellow landed off the +ship and old Sprague the consul that was there from before the flood +dressed up poor man and he in mourning for the son then the same old +bugles for reveille in the morning and drums rolling and the unfortunate +poor devils of soldiers walking about with messtins smelling the place +more than the old longbearded jews in their jellibees and levites +assembly and sound clear and gunfire for the men to cross the lines and +the warden marching with his keys to lock the gates and the bagpipes and +only captain Groves and father talking about Rorkes drift and Plevna and +sir Garnet Wolseley and Gordon at Khartoum lighting their pipes for +them everytime they went out drunken old devil with his grog on the +windowsill catch him leaving any of it picking his nose trying to think +of some other dirty story to tell up in a corner but he never forgot +himself when I was there sending me out of the room on some blind excuse +paying his compliments the Bushmills whisky talking of course but hed +do the same to the next woman that came along I suppose he died of +galloping drink ages ago the days like years not a letter from a living +soul except the odd few I posted to myself with bits of paper in them so +bored sometimes I could fight with my nails listening to that old Arab +with the one eye and his heass of an instrument singing his heah heah +aheah all my compriments on your hotchapotch of your heass as bad as now +with the hands hanging off me looking out of the window if there was a +nice fellow even in the opposite house that medical in Holles street the +nurse was after when I put on my gloves and hat at the window to show +I was going out not a notion what I meant arent they thick never +understand what you say even youd want to print it up on a big poster +for them not even if you shake hands twice with the left he didnt +recognise me either when I half frowned at him outside Westland row +chapel where does their great intelligence come in Id like to know +grey matter they have it all in their tail if you ask me those country +gougers up in the City Arms intelligence they had a damn sight less than +the bulls and cows they were selling the meat and the coalmans bell that +noisy bugger trying to swindle me with the wrong bill he took out of his +hat what a pair of paws and pots and pans and kettles to mend any broken +bottles for a poor man today and no visitors or post ever except his +cheques or some advertisement like that wonderworker they sent him +addressed dear Madam only his letter and the card from Milly this +morning see she wrote a letter to him who did I get the last letter from +O Mrs Dwenn now what possessed her to write from Canada after so many +years to know the recipe I had for pisto madrileno Floey Dillon since +she wrote to say she was married to a very rich architect if Im to +believe all I hear with a villa and eight rooms her father was an +awfully nice man he was near seventy always goodhumoured well now Miss +Tweedy or Miss Gillespie theres the piannyer that was a solid silver +coffee service he had too on the mahogany sideboard then dying so far +away I hate people that have always their poor story to tell everybody +has their own troubles that poor Nancy Blake died a month ago of acute +neumonia well I didnt know her so well as all that she was Floeys friend +more than mine poor Nancy its a bother having to answer he always tells +me the wrong things and no stops to say like making a speech your sad +bereavement symphathy I always make that mistake and newphew with 2 +double yous in I hope hell write me a longer letter the next time if its +a thing he really likes me O thanks be to the great God I got somebody +to give me what I badly wanted to put some heart up into me youve no +chances at all in this place like you used long ago I wish somebody +would write me a loveletter his wasnt much and I told him he could write +what he liked yours ever Hugh Boylan in old Madrid stuff silly women +believe love is sighing I am dying still if he wrote it I suppose thered +be some truth in it true or no it fills up your whole day and life +always something to think about every moment and see it all round you +like a new world I could write the answer in bed to let him imagine me +short just a few words not those long crossed letters Atty Dillon used +to write to the fellow that was something in the four courts that jilted +her after out of the ladies letterwriter when I told her to say a few +simple words he could twist how he liked not acting with precipat precip +itancy with equal candour the greatest earthly happiness answer to a +gentlemans proposal affirmatively my goodness theres nothing else its +all very fine for them but as for being a woman as soon as youre old +they might as well throw you out in the bottom of the ashpit. + +Mulveys was the first when I was in bed that morning and Mrs Rubio +brought it in with the coffee she stood there standing when I asked her +to hand me and I pointing at them I couldnt think of the word a hairpin +to open it with ah horquilla disobliging old thing and it staring her +in the face with her switch of false hair on her and vain about her +appearance ugly as she was near 80 or a loo her face a mass of wrinkles +with all her religion domineering because she never could get over the +Atlantic fleet coming in half the ships of the world and the Union Jack +flying with all her carabineros because 4 drunken English sailors took +all the rock from them and because I didnt run into mass often enough in +Santa Maria to please her with her shawl up on her except when there was +a marriage on with all her miracles of the saints and her black blessed +virgin with the silver dress and the sun dancing 3 times on Easter +Sunday morning and when the priest was going by with the bell bringing +the vatican to the dying blessing herself for his Majestad an admirer +he signed it I near jumped out of my skin I wanted to pick him up when +I saw him following me along the Calle Real in the shop window then +he tipped me just in passing but I never thought hed write making an +appointment I had it inside my petticoat bodice all day reading it up +in every hole and corner while father was up at the drill instructing to +find out by the handwriting or the language of stamps singing I remember +shall I wear a white rose and I wanted to put on the old stupid clock to +near the time he was the first man kissed me under the Moorish wall my +sweetheart when a boy it never entered my head what kissing meant till +he put his tongue in my mouth his mouth was sweetlike young I put my +knee up to him a few times to learn the way what did I tell him I was +engaged for for fun to the son of a Spanish nobleman named Don Miguel de +la Flora and he believed me that I was to be married to him in 3 years +time theres many a true word spoken in jest there is a flower that +bloometh a few things I told him true about myself just for him to be +imagining the Spanish girls he didnt like I suppose one of them wouldnt +have him I got him excited he crushed all the flowers on my bosom he +brought me he couldnt count the pesetas and the perragordas till I +taught him Cappoquin he came from he said on the black water but it was +too short then the day before he left May yes it was May when the infant +king of Spain was born Im always like that in the spring Id like a new +fellow every year up on the tiptop under the rockgun near OHaras tower +I told him it was struck by lightning and all about the old Barbary apes +they sent to Clapham without a tail careering all over the show on each +others back Mrs Rubio said she was a regular old rock scorpion robbing +the chickens out of Inces farm and throw stones at you if you went anear +he was looking at me I had that white blouse on open in the front to +encourage him as much as I could without too openly they were just +beginning to be plump I said I was tired we lay over the firtree cove +a wild place I suppose it must be the highest rock in existence the +galleries and casemates and those frightful rocks and Saint Michaels +cave with the icicles or whatever they call them hanging down and +ladders all the mud plotching my boots Im sure thats the way down the +monkeys go under the sea to Africa when they die the ships out far like +chips that was the Malta boat passing yes the sea and the sky you could +do what you liked lie there for ever he caressed them outside they love +doing that its the roundness there I was leaning over him with my white +ricestraw hat to take the newness out of it the left side of my face the +best my blouse open for his last day transparent kind of shirt he had I +could see his chest pink he wanted to touch mine with his for a moment +but I wouldnt lee him he was awfully put out first for fear you never +know consumption or leave me with a child embarazada that old servant +Ines told me that one drop even if it got into you at all after I tried +with the Banana but I was afraid it might break and get lost up in me +somewhere because they once took something down out of a woman that was +up there for years covered with limesalts theyre all mad to get in there +where they come out of youd think they could never go far enough up and +then theyre done with you in a way till the next time yes because theres +a wonderful feeling there so tender all the time how did we finish it +off yes O yes I pulled him off into my handkerchief pretending not to +be excited but I opened my legs I wouldnt let him touch me inside my +petticoat because I had a skirt opening up the side I tormented the +life out of him first tickling him I loved rousing that dog in the hotel +rrrsssstt awokwokawok his eyes shut and a bird flying below us he was +shy all the same I liked him like that moaning I made him blush a little +when I got over him that way when I unbuttoned him and took his out and +drew back the skin it had a kind of eye in it theyre all Buttons men +down the middle on the wrong side of them Molly darling he called me +what was his name Jack Joe Harry Mulvey was it yes I think a lieutenant +he was rather fair he had a laughing kind of a voice so I went round to +the whatyoucallit everything was whatyoucallit moustache had he he said +hed come back Lord its just like yesterday to me and if I was married +hed do it to me and I promised him yes faithfully Id let him block me +now flying perhaps hes dead or killed or a captain or admiral its nearly +20 years if I said firtree cove he would if he came up behind me and +put his hands over my eyes to guess who I might recognise him hes young +still about 40 perhaps hes married some girl on the black water and is +quite changed they all do they havent half the character a woman has she +little knows what I did with her beloved husband before he ever dreamt +of her in broad daylight too in the sight of the whole world you might +say they could have put an article about it in the Chronicle I was a bit +wild after when I blew out the old bag the biscuits were in from Benady +Bros and exploded it Lord what a bang all the woodcocks and pigeons +screaming coming back the same way that we went over middle hill round +by the old guardhouse and the jews burialplace pretending to read out +the Hebrew on them I wanted to fire his pistol he said he hadnt one he +didnt know what to make of me with his peak cap on that he always wore +crooked as often as I settled it straight H M S Calypso swinging my hat +that old Bishop that spoke off the altar his long preach about womans +higher functions about girls now riding the bicycle and wearing peak +caps and the new woman bloomers God send him sense and me more money I +suppose theyre called after him I never thought that would be my +name Bloom when I used to write it in print to see how it looked on a +visiting card or practising for the butcher and oblige M Bloom youre +looking blooming Josie used to say after I married him well its better +than Breen or Briggs does brig or those awful names with bottom in them +Mrs Ramsbottom or some other kind of a bottom Mulvey I wouldnt go mad +about either or suppose I divorced him Mrs Boylan my mother whoever she +was might have given me a nicer name the Lord knows after the lovely +one she had Lunita Laredo the fun we had running along Williss road to +Europa point twisting in and out all round the other side of Jersey they +were shaking and dancing about in my blouse like Millys little ones now +when she runs up the stairs I loved looking down at them I was jumping +up at the pepper trees and the white poplars pulling the leaves off and +throwing them at him he went to India he was to write the voyages those +men have to make to the ends of the world and back its the least they +might get a squeeze or two at a woman while they can going out to be +drowned or blown up somewhere I went up Windmill hill to the flats +that Sunday morning with captain Rubios that was dead spyglass like the +sentry had he said hed have one or two from on board I wore that frock +from the B Marche paris and the coral necklace the straits shining I +could see over to Morocco almost the bay of Tangier white and the Atlas +mountain with snow on it and the straits like a river so clear Harry +Molly darling I was thinking of him on the sea all the time after at +mass when my petticoat began to slip down at the elevation weeks and +weeks I kept the handkerchief under my pillow for the smell of him there +was no decent perfume to be got in that Gibraltar only that cheap peau +dEspagne that faded and left a stink on you more than anything else I +wanted to give him a memento he gave me that clumsy Claddagh ring for +luck that I gave Gardner going to south Africa where those Boers killed +him with their war and fever but they were well beaten all the same as +if it brought its bad luck with it like an opal or pearl still it must +have been pure 18 carrot gold because it was very heavy but what could +you get in a place like that the sandfrog shower from Africa and that +derelict ship that came up to the harbour Marie the Marie whatyoucallit +no he hadnt a moustache that was Gardner yes I can see his face +cleanshaven Frseeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeefrong that train again weeping tone +once in the dear deaead days beyondre call close my eyes breath my lips +forward kiss sad look eyes open piano ere oer the world the mists began +I hate that istsbeg comes loves sweet sooooooooooong Ill let that out +full when I get in front of the footlights again Kathleen Kearney +and her lot of squealers Miss This Miss That Miss Theother lot of +sparrowfarts skitting around talking about politics they know as much +about as my backside anything in the world to make themselves someway +interesting Irish homemade beauties soldiers daughter am I ay and whose +are you bootmakers and publicans I beg your pardon coach I thought you +were a wheelbarrow theyd die down dead off their feet if ever they got +a chance of walking down the Alameda on an officers arm like me on the +bandnight my eyes flash my bust that they havent passion God help their +poor head I knew more about men and life when I was I S than theyll all +know at 50 they dont know how to sing a song like that Gardner said no +man could look at my mouth and teeth smiling like that and not think of +it I was afraid he mightnt like my accent first he so English all father +left me in spite of his stamps Ive my mothers eyes and figure anyhow +he always said theyre so snotty about themselves some of those cads he +wasnt a bit like that he was dead gone on my lips let them get a husband +first thats fit to be looked at and a daughter like mine or see if they +can excite a swell with money that can pick and choose whoever he wants +like Boylan to do it 4 or 5 times locked in each others arms or the +voice either I could have been a prima donna only I married him comes +looooves old deep down chin back not too much make it double My Ladys +Bower is too long for an encore about the moated grange at twilight and +vaunted rooms yes Ill sing Winds that blow from the south that he gave +after the choirstairs performance Ill change that lace on my black dress +to show off my bubs and Ill yes by God Ill get that big fan mended make +them burst with envy my hole is itching me always when I think of him I +feel I want to I feel some wind in me better go easy not wake him have +him at it again slobbering after washing every bit of myself back belly +and sides if we had even a bath itself or my own room anyway I wish hed +sleep in some bed by himself with his cold feet on me give us room even +to let a fart God or do the least thing better yes hold them like that +a bit on my side piano quietly sweeeee theres that train far away +pianissimo eeeee one more song + +that was a relief wherever you be let your wind go free who knows if +that pork chop I took with my cup of tea after was quite good with the +heat I couldnt smell anything off it Im sure that queerlooking man in +the porkbutchers is a great rogue I hope that lamp is not smoking fill +my nose up with smuts better than having him leaving the gas on all +night I couldnt rest easy in my bed in Gibraltar even getting up to see +why am I so damned nervous about that though I like it in the winter its +more company O Lord it was rotten cold too that winter when I was +only about ten was I yes I had the big doll with all the funny clothes +dressing her up and undressing that icy wind skeeting across from those +mountains the something Nevada sierra nevada standing at the fire with +the little bit of a short shift I had up to heat myself I loved dancing +about in it then make a race back into bed Im sure that fellow opposite +used to be there the whole time watching with the lights out in the +summer and I in my skin hopping around I used to love myself then +stripped at the washstand dabbing and creaming only when it came to the +chamber performance I put out the light too so then there were 2 of us +goodbye to my sleep for this night anyhow I hope hes not going to get in +with those medicals leading him astray to imagine hes young again coming +in at 4 in the morning it must be if not more still he had the manners +not to wake me what do they find to gabber about all night squandering +money and getting drunker and drunker couldnt they drink water then he +starts giving us his orders for eggs and tea and Findon haddy and hot +buttered toast I suppose well have him sitting up like the king of +the country pumping the wrong end of the spoon up and down in his egg +wherever he learned that from and I love to hear him falling up the +stairs of a morning with the cups rattling on the tray and then play +with the cat she rubs up against you for her own sake I wonder has she +fleas shes as bad as a woman always licking and lecking but I hate their +claws I wonder do they see anything that we cant staring like that when +she sits at the top of the stairs so long and listening as I wait always +what a robber too that lovely fresh place I bought I think Ill get a bit +of fish tomorrow or today is it Friday yes I will with some blancmange +with black currant jam like long ago not those 2 lb pots of mixed plum +and apple from the London and Newcastle Williams and Woods goes twice as +far only for the bones I hate those eels cod yes Ill get a nice piece +of cod Im always getting enough for 3 forgetting anyway Im sick of that +everlasting butchers meat from Buckleys loin chops and leg beef and rib +steak and scrag of mutton and calfs pluck the very name is enough or +a picnic suppose we all gave 5/- each and or let him pay it and invite +some other woman for him who Mrs Fleming and drove out to the furry glen +or the strawberry beds wed have him examining all the horses toenails +first like he does with the letters no not with Boylan there yes with +some cold veal and ham mixed sandwiches there are little houses down +at the bottom of the banks there on purpose but its as hot as blazes he +says not a bank holiday anyhow I hate those ruck of Mary Ann coalboxes +out for the day Whit Monday is a cursed day too no wonder that bee bit +him better the seaside but Id never again in this life get into a boat +with him after him at Bray telling the boatman he knew how to row if +anyone asked could he ride the steeplechase for the gold cup hed say +yes then it came on to get rough the old thing crookeding about and the +weight all down my side telling me pull the right reins now pull the +left and the tide all swamping in floods in through the bottom and his +oar slipping out of the stirrup its a mercy we werent all drowned he can +swim of course me no theres no danger whatsoever keep yourself calm in +his flannel trousers Id like to have tattered them down off him before +all the people and give him what that one calls flagellate till he was +black and blue do him all the good in the world only for that longnosed +chap I dont know who he is with that other beauty Burke out of the City +Arms hotel was there spying around as usual on the slip always where he +wasnt wanted if there was a row on youd vomit a better face there was no +love lost between us thats 1 consolation I wonder what kind is that book +he brought me Sweets of Sin by a gentleman of fashion some other Mr de +Kock I suppose the people gave him that nickname going about with his +tube from one woman to another I couldnt even change my new white shoes +all ruined with the saltwater and the hat I had with that feather all +blowy and tossed on me how annoying and provoking because the smell of +the sea excited me of course the sardines and the bream in Catalan bay +round the back of the rock they were fine all silver in the fishermens +baskets old Luigi near a hundred they said came from Genoa and the tall +old chap with the earrings I dont like a man you have to climb up to to +get at I suppose theyre all dead and rotten long ago besides I dont like +being alone in this big barracks of a place at night I suppose Ill have +to put up with it I never brought a bit of salt in even when we moved +in the confusion musical academy he was going to make on the first floor +drawingroom with a brassplate or Blooms private hotel he suggested go +and ruin himself altogether the way his father did down in Ennis like +all the things he told father he was going to do and me but I saw +through him telling me all the lovely places we could go for the +honeymoon Venice by moonlight with the gondolas and the lake of Como he +had a picture cut out of some paper of and mandolines and lanterns O +how nice I said whatever I liked he was going to do immediately if +not sooner will you be my man will you carry my can he ought to get a +leather medal with a putty rim for all the plans he invents then leaving +us here all day youd never know what old beggar at the door for a crust +with his long story might be a tramp and put his foot in the way to +prevent me shutting it like that picture of that hardened criminal he +was called in Lloyds Weekly news 20 years in jail then he comes out and +murders an old woman for her money imagine his poor wife or mother or +whoever she is such a face youd run miles away from I couldnt rest easy +till I bolted all the doors and windows to make sure but its worse again +being locked up like in a prison or a madhouse they ought to be all shot +or the cat of nine tails a big brute like that that would attack a poor +old woman to murder her in her bed Id cut them off him so I would not +that hed be much use still better than nothing the night I was sure +I heard burglars in the kitchen and he went down in his shirt with a +candle and a poker as if he was looking for a mouse as white as a sheet +frightened out of his wits making as much noise as he possibly could +for the burglars benefit there isnt much to steal indeed the Lord knows +still its the feeling especially now with Milly away such an idea for +him to send the girl down there to learn to take photographs on account +of his grandfather instead of sending her to Skerrys academy where shed +have to learn not like me getting all IS at school only hed do a thing +like that all the same on account of me and Boylan thats why he did +it Im certain the way he plots and plans everything out I couldnt turn +round with her in the place lately unless I bolted the door first gave +me the fidgets coming in without knocking first when I put the chair +against the door just as I was washing myself there below with the glove +get on your nerves then doing the loglady all day put her in a glasscase +with two at a time to look at her if he knew she broke off the hand off +that little gimcrack statue with her roughness and carelessness before +she left that I got that little Italian boy to mend so that you cant +see the join for 2 shillings wouldnt even teem the potatoes for you of +course shes right not to ruin her hands I noticed he was always talking +to her lately at the table explaining things in the paper and she +pretending to understand sly of course that comes from his side of the +house he cant say I pretend things can he Im too honest as a matter of +fact and helping her into her coat but if there was anything wrong with +her its me shed tell not him I suppose he thinks Im finished out and +laid on the shelf well Im not no nor anything like it well see well see +now shes well on for flirting too with Tom Devans two sons imitating +me whistling with those romps of Murray girls calling for her can Milly +come out please shes in great demand to pick what they can out of her +round in Nelson street riding Harry Devans bicycle at night its as well +he sent her where she is she was just getting out of bounds wanting to +go on the skatingrink and smoking their cigarettes through their nose I +smelt it off her dress when I was biting off the thread of the button +I sewed on to the bottom of her jacket she couldnt hide much from me I +tell you only I oughtnt to have stitched it and it on her it brings a +parting and the last plumpudding too split in 2 halves see it comes out +no matter what they say her tongue is a bit too long for my taste +your blouse is open too low she says to me the pan calling the kettle +blackbottom and I had to tell her not to cock her legs up like that on +show on the windowsill before all the people passing they all look at +her like me when I was her age of course any old rag looks well on +you then a great touchmenot too in her own way at the Only Way in the +Theatre royal take your foot away out of that I hate people touching +me afraid of her life Id crush her skirt with the pleats a lot of that +touching must go on in theatres in the crush in the dark theyre always +trying to wiggle up to you that fellow in the pit at the Gaiety for +Beerbohm Tree in Trilby the last time Ill ever go there to be squashed +like that for any Trilby or her barebum every two minutes tipping me +there and looking away hes a bit daft I think I saw him after trying to +get near two stylishdressed ladies outside Switzers window at the same +little game I recognised him on the moment the face and everything but +he didnt remember me yes and she didnt even want me to kiss her at the +Broadstone going away well I hope shell get someone to dance attendance +on her the way I did when she was down with the mumps and her glands +swollen wheres this and wheres that of course she cant feel anything +deep yet I never came properly till I was what 22 or so it went into the +wrong place always only the usual girls nonsense and giggling that +Conny Connolly writing to her in white ink on black paper sealed with +sealingwax though she clapped when the curtain came down because he +looked so handsome then we had Martin Harvey for breakfast dinner and +supper I thought to myself afterwards it must be real love if a man +gives up his life for her that way for nothing I suppose there are a +few men like that left its hard to believe in it though unless it really +happened to me the majority of them with not a particle of love in their +natures to find two people like that nowadays full up of each other that +would feel the same way as you do theyre usually a bit foolish in the +head his father must have been a bit queer to go and poison himself +after her still poor old man I suppose he felt lost shes always making +love to my things too the few old rags I have wanting to put her hair up +at I S my powder too only ruin her skin on her shes time enough for that +all her life after of course shes restless knowing shes pretty with her +lips so red a pity they wont stay that way I was too but theres no use +going to the fair with the thing answering me like a fishwoman when +I asked to go for a half a stone of potatoes the day we met Mrs Joe +Gallaher at the trottingmatches and she pretended not to see us in her +trap with Friery the solicitor we werent grand enough till I gave her 2 +damn fine cracks across the ear for herself take that now for answering +me like that and that for your impudence she had me that exasperated of +course contradicting I was badtempered too because how was it there was +a weed in the tea or I didnt sleep the night before cheese I ate was it +and I told her over and over again not to leave knives crossed like that +because she has nobody to command her as she said herself well if he +doesnt correct her faith I will that was the last time she turned on the +teartap I was just like that myself they darent order me about the place +its his fault of course having the two of us slaving here instead of +getting in a woman long ago am I ever going to have a proper servant +again of course then shed see him coming Id have to let her know or shed +revenge it arent they a nuisance that old Mrs Fleming you have to be +walking round after her putting the things into her hands sneezing and +farting into the pots well of course shes old she cant help it a good +job I found that rotten old smelly dishcloth that got lost behind the +dresser I knew there was something and opened the area window to let out +the smell bringing in his friends to entertain them like the night he +walked home with a dog if you please that might have been mad especially +Simon Dedalus son his father such a criticiser with his glasses up with +his tall hat on him at the cricket match and a great big hole in his +sock one thing laughing at the other and his son that got all those +prizes for whatever he won them in the intermediate imagine climbing +over the railings if anybody saw him that knew us I wonder he didnt tear +a big hole in his grand funeral trousers as if the one nature gave wasnt +enough for anybody hawking him down into the dirty old kitchen now is he +right in his head I ask pity it wasnt washing day my old pair of drawers +might have been hanging up too on the line on exhibition for all hed +ever care with the ironmould mark the stupid old bundle burned on them +he might think was something else and she never even rendered down the +fat I told her and now shes going such as she was on account of her +paralysed husband getting worse theres always something wrong with them +disease or they have to go under an operation or if its not that its +drink and he beats her Ill have to hunt around again for someone every +day I get up theres some new thing on sweet God sweet God well when Im +stretched out dead in my grave I suppose 111 have some peace I want to +get up a minute if Im let wait O Jesus wait yes that thing has come on +me yes now wouldnt that afflict you of course all the poking and rooting +and ploughing he had up in me now what am I to do Friday Saturday Sunday +wouldnt that pester the soul out of a body unless he likes it some men +do God knows theres always something wrong with us 5 days every 3 or 4 +weeks usual monthly auction isnt it simply sickening that night it came +on me like that the one and only time we were in a box that Michael Gunn +gave him to see Mrs Kendal and her husband at the Gaiety something he +did about insurance for him in Drimmies I was fit to be tied though I +wouldnt give in with that gentleman of fashion staring down at me with +his glasses and him the other side of me talking about Spinoza and his +soul thats dead I suppose millions of years ago I smiled the best I +could all in a swamp leaning forward as if I was interested having to +sit it out then to the last tag I wont forget that wife of Scarli in +a hurry supposed to be a fast play about adultery that idiot in the +gallery hissing the woman adulteress he shouted I suppose he went and +had a woman in the next lane running round all the back ways after +to make up for it I wish he had what I had then hed boo I bet the cat +itself is better off than us have we too much blood up in us or what O +patience above its pouring out of me like the sea anyhow he didnt make +me pregnant as big as he is I dont want to ruin the clean sheets I just +put on I suppose the clean linen I wore brought it on too damn it damn +it and they always want to see a stain on the bed to know youre a virgin +for them all thats troubling them theyre such fools too you could be a +widow or divorced 40 times over a daub of red ink would do or blackberry +juice no thats too purply O Jamesy let me up out of this pooh sweets of +sin whoever suggested that business for women what between clothes and +cooking and children this damned old bed too jingling like the dickens +I suppose they could hear us away over the other side of the park till I +suggested to put the quilt on the floor with the pillow under my bottom +I wonder is it nicer in the day I think it is easy I think Ill cut +all this hair off me there scalding me I might look like a young girl +wouldnt he get the great suckin the next time he turned up my clothes on +me Id give anything to see his face wheres the chamber gone easy Ive a +holy horror of its breaking under me after that old commode I wonder +was I too heavy sitting on his knee I made him sit on the easychair +purposely when I took off only my blouse and skirt first in the other +room he was so busy where he oughtnt to be he never felt me I hope my +breath was sweet after those kissing comfits easy God I remember one +time I could scout it out straight whistling like a man almost easy O +Lord how noisy I hope theyre bubbles on it for a wad of money from some +fellow 111 have to perfume it in the morning dont forget I bet he +never saw a better pair of thighs than that look how white they are the +smoothest place is right there between this bit here how soft like a +peach easy God I wouldnt mind being a man and get up on a lovely woman +O Lord what a row youre making like the jersey lily easy easy O how the +waters come down at Lahore + +who knows is there anything the matter with my insides or have I +something growing in me getting that thing like that every week when was +it last I Whit Monday yes its only about 3 weeks I ought to go to the +doctor only it would be like before I married him when I had that white +thing coming from me and Floey made me go to that dry old stick Dr +Collins for womens diseases on Pembroke road your vagina he called it I +suppose thats how he got all the gilt mirrors and carpets getting round +those rich ones off Stephens green running up to him for every little +fiddlefaddle her vagina and her cochinchina theyve money of course so +theyre all right I wouldnt marry him not if he was the last man in +the world besides theres something queer about their children always +smelling around those filthy bitches all sides asking me if what I did +had an offensive odour what did he want me to do but the one thing gold +maybe what a question if I smathered it all over his wrinkly old face +for him with all my compriments I suppose hed know then and could you +pass it easily pass what I thought he was talking about the rock of +Gibraltar the way he put it thats a very nice invention too by the +way only I like letting myself down after in the hole as far as I can +squeeze and pull the chain then to flush it nice cool pins and needles +still theres something in it I suppose I always used to know by Millys +when she was a child whether she had worms or not still all the same +paying him for that how much is that doctor one guinea please and asking +me had I frequent omissions where do those old fellows get all the words +they have omissions with his shortsighted eyes on me cocked sideways I +wouldnt trust him too far to give me chloroform or God knows what else +still I liked him when he sat down to write the thing out frowning so +severe his nose intelligent like that you be damned you lying strap O +anything no matter who except an idiot he was clever enough to spot +that of course that was all thinking of him and his mad crazy letters +my Precious one everything connected with your glorious Body everything +underlined that comes from it is a thing of beauty and of joy for ever +something he got out of some nonsensical book that he had me always at +myself 4 and 5 times a day sometimes and I said I hadnt are you sure +O yes I said I am quite sure in a way that shut him up I knew what was +coming next only natural weakness it was he excited me I dont know how +the first night ever we met when I was living in Rehoboth terrace we +stood staring at one another for about lo minutes as if we met somewhere +I suppose on account of my being jewess looking after my mother he used +to amuse me the things he said with the half sloothering smile on him +and all the Doyles said he was going to stand for a member of Parliament +O wasnt I the born fool to believe all his blather about home rule +and the land league sending me that long strool of a song out of the +Huguenots to sing in French to be more classy O beau pays de la Touraine +that I never even sang once explaining and rigmaroling about religion +and persecution he wont let you enjoy anything naturally then might he +as a great favour the very 1st opportunity he got a chance in Brighton +square running into my bedroom pretending the ink got on his hands to +wash it off with the Albion milk and sulphur soap I used to use and the +gelatine still round it O I laughed myself sick at him that day I better +not make an alnight sitting on this affair they ought to make chambers a +natural size so that a woman could sit on it properly he kneels down to +do it I suppose there isnt in all creation another man with the habits +he has look at the way hes sleeping at the foot of the bed how can he +without a hard bolster its well he doesnt kick or he might knock out +all my teeth breathing with his hand on his nose like that Indian god +he took me to show one wet Sunday in the museum in Kildare street all +yellow in a pinafore lying on his side on his hand with his ten toes +sticking out that he said was a bigger religion than the jews and +Our Lords both put together all over Asia imitating him as hes always +imitating everybody I suppose he used to sleep at the foot of the bed +too with his big square feet up in his wifes mouth damn this stinking +thing anyway wheres this those napkins are ah yes I know I hope the old +press doesnt creak ah I knew it would hes sleeping hard had a good time +somewhere still she must have given him great value for his money of +course he has to pay for it from her O this nuisance of a thing I hope +theyll have something better for us in the other world tying ourselves +up God help us thats all right for tonight now the lumpy old jingly +bed always reminds me of old Cohen I suppose he scratched himself in it +often enough and he thinks father bought it from Lord Napier that I used +to admire when I was a little girl because I told him easy piano O +I like my bed God here we are as bad as ever after 16 years how many +houses were we in at all Raymond terrace and Ontario terrace and Lombard +street and Holles street and he goes about whistling every time were on +the run again his huguenots or the frogs march pretending to help the +men with our 4 sticks of furniture and then the City Arms hotel worse +and worse says Warden Daly that charming place on the landing always +somebody inside praying then leaving all their stinks after them +always know who was in there last every time were just getting on right +something happens or he puts his big foot in it Thoms and Helys and Mr +Cuffes and Drimmies either hes going to be run into prison over his old +lottery tickets that was to be all our salvations or he goes and gives +impudence well have him coming home with the sack soon out of the +Freeman too like the rest on account of those Sinner Fein or the +freemasons then well see if the little man he showed me dribbling +along in the wet all by himself round by Coadys lane will give him much +consolation that he says is so capable and sincerely Irish he is indeed +judging by the sincerity of the trousers I saw on him wait theres +Georges church bells wait 3 quarters the hour l wait 2 oclock well +thats a nice hour of the night for him to be coming home at to anybody +climbing down into the area if anybody saw him Ill knock him off that +little habit tomorrow first Ill look at his shirt to see or Ill see if +he has that French letter still in his pocketbook I suppose he thinks I +dont know deceitful men all their 20 pockets arent enough for their lies +then why should we tell them even if its the truth they dont believe you +then tucked up in bed like those babies in the Aristocrats Masterpiece +he brought me another time as if we hadnt enough of that in real life +without some old Aristocrat or whatever his name is disgusting you more +with those rotten pictures children with two heads and no legs thats the +kind of villainy theyre always dreaming about with not another thing in +their empty heads they ought to get slow poison the half of them then +tea and toast for him buttered on both sides and newlaid eggs I suppose +Im nothing any more when I wouldnt let him lick me in Holles street one +night man man tyrant as ever for the one thing he slept on the floor +half the night naked the way the jews used when somebody dies belonged +to them and wouldnt eat any breakfast or speak a word wanting to be +petted so I thought I stood out enough for one time and let him he does +it all wrong too thinking only of his own pleasure his tongue is too +flat or I dont know what he forgets that wethen I dont Ill make him do +it again if he doesnt mind himself and lock him down to sleep in the +coalcellar with the blackbeetles I wonder was it her Josie off her head +with my castoffs hes such a born liar too no hed never have the courage +with a married woman thats why he wants me and Boylan though as for her +Denis as she calls him that forlornlooking spectacle you couldnt call +him a husband yes its some little bitch hes got in with even when I was +with him with Milly at the College races that Hornblower with the childs +bonnet on the top of his nob let us into by the back way he was throwing +his sheeps eyes at those two doing skirt duty up and down I tried to +wink at him first no use of course and thats the way his money goes this +is the fruits of Mr Paddy Dignam yes they were all in great style at the +grand funeral in the paper Boylan brought in if they saw a real officers +funeral thatd be something reversed arms muffled drums the poor horse +walking behind in black L Boom and Tom Kernan that drunken little +barrelly man that bit his tongue off falling down the mens W C drunk +in some place or other and Martin Cunningham and the two Dedaluses and +Fanny MCoys husband white head of cabbage skinny thing with a turn in +her eye trying to sing my songs shed want to be born all over again and +her old green dress with the lowneck as she cant attract them any other +way like dabbling on a rainy day I see it all now plainly and they call +that friendship killing and then burying one another and they all with +their wives and families at home more especially Jack Power keeping that +barmaid he does of course his wife is always sick or going to be sick +or just getting better of it and hes a goodlooking man still though +hes getting a bit grey over the ears theyre a nice lot all of them well +theyre not going to get my husband again into their clutches if I can +help it making fun of him then behind his back I know well when he goes +on with his idiotics because he has sense enough not to squander every +penny piece he earns down their gullets and looks after his wife and +family goodfornothings poor Paddy Dignam all the same Im sorry in a +way for him what are his wife and 5 children going to do unless he was +insured comical little teetotum always stuck up in some pub corner and +her or her son waiting Bill Bailey wont you please come home her widows +weeds wont improve her appearance theyre awfully becoming though if +youre goodlooking what men wasnt he yes he was at the Glencree dinner +and Ben Dollard base barreltone the night he borrowed the swallowtail +to sing out of in Holles street squeezed and squashed into them and +grinning all over his big Dolly face like a wellwhipped childs botty +didnt he look a balmy ballocks sure enough that must have been a +spectacle on the stage imagine paying 5/- in the preserved seats for +that to see him trotting off in his trowlers and Simon Dedalus too he +was always turning up half screwed singing the second verse first the +old love is the new was one of his so sweetly sang the maiden on the +hawthorn bough he was always on for flirtyfying too when I sang Maritana +with him at Freddy Mayers private opera he had a delicious glorious +voice Phoebe dearest goodbye _sweet_heart sweetheart he always sang it +not like Bartell Darcy sweet tart goodbye of course he had the gift of +the voice so there was no art in it all over you like a warm showerbath +O Maritana wildwood flower we sang splendidly though it was a bit too +high for my register even transposed and he was married at the time to +May Goulding but then hed say or do something to knock the good out of +it hes a widower now I wonder what sort is his son he says hes an author +and going to be a university professor of Italian and Im to take lessons +what is he driving at now showing him my photo its not good of me I +ought to have got it taken in drapery that never looks out of fashion +still I look young in it I wonder he didnt make him a present of it +altogether and me too after all why not I saw him driving down to the +Kingsbridge station with his father and mother I was in mourning thats +11 years ago now yes hed be 11 though what was the good in going into +mourning for what was neither one thing nor the other the first cry was +enough for me I heard the deathwatch too ticking in the wall of course +he insisted hed go into mourning for the cat I suppose hes a man now by +this time he was an innocent boy then and a darling little fellow in his +lord Fauntleroy suit and curly hair like a prince on the stage when I +saw him at Mat Dillons he liked me too I remember they all do wait by +God yes wait yes hold on he was on the cards this morning when I laid +out the deck union with a young stranger neither dark nor fair you met +before I thought it meant him but hes no chicken nor a stranger either +besides my face was turned the other way what was the 7th card after +that the 10 of spades for a journey by land then there was a letter on +its way and scandals too the 3 queens and the 8 of diamonds for a rise +in society yes wait it all came out and 2 red 8s for new garments look +at that and didnt I dream something too yes there was something about +poetry in it I hope he hasnt long greasy hair hanging into his eyes or +standing up like a red Indian what do they go about like that for only +getting themselves and their poetry laughed at I always liked poetry +when I was a girl first I thought he was a poet like lord Byron and not +an ounce of it in his composition I thought he was quite different I +wonder is he too young hes about wait 88 I was married 88 Milly is 15 +yesterday 89 what age was he then at Dillons 5 or 6 about 88 I suppose +hes 20 or more Im not too old for him if hes 23 or 24 I hope hes not +that stuckup university student sort no otherwise he wouldnt go sitting +down in the old kitchen with him taking Eppss cocoa and talking of +course he pretended to understand it all probably he told him he was +out of Trinity college hes very young to be a professor I hope hes not +a professor like Goodwin was he was a potent professor of John Jameson +they all write about some woman in their poetry well I suppose he wont +find many like me where softly sighs of love the light guitar where +poetry is in the air the blue sea and the moon shining so beautifully +coming back on the nightboat from Tarifa the lighthouse at Europa point +the guitar that fellow played was so expressive will I ever go back +there again all new faces two glancing eyes a lattice hid Ill sing that +for him theyre my eyes if hes anything of a poet two eyes as darkly +bright as loves own star arent those beautiful words as loves young star +itll be a change the Lord knows to have an intelligent person to talk +to about yourself not always listening to him and Billy Prescotts ad +and Keyess ad and Tom the Devils ad then if anything goes wrong in their +business we have to suffer Im sure hes very distinguished Id like to +meet a man like that God not those other ruck besides hes young those +fine young men I could see down in Margate strand bathingplace from the +side of the rock standing up in the sun naked like a God or something +and then plunging into the sea with them why arent all men like that +thered be some consolation for a woman like that lovely little statue he +bought I could look at him all day long curly head and his shoulders +his finger up for you to listen theres real beauty and poetry for you +I often felt I wanted to kiss him all over also his lovely young cock +there so simple I wouldnt mind taking him in my mouth if nobody was +looking as if it was asking you to suck it so clean and white he looks +with his boyish face I would too in 1/2 a minute even if some of it went +down what its only like gruel or the dew theres no danger besides hed +be so clean compared with those pigs of men I suppose never dream of +washing it from I years end to the other the most of them only thats +what gives the women the moustaches Im sure itll be grand if I can only +get in with a handsome young poet at my age Ill throw them the 1st thing +in the morning till I see if the wishcard comes out or Ill try pairing +the lady herself and see if he comes out Ill read and study all I can +find or learn a bit off by heart if I knew who he likes so he wont think +me stupid if he thinks all women are the same and I can teach him the +other part Ill make him feel all over him till he half faints under +me then hell write about me lover and mistress publicly too with our 2 +photographs in all the papers when he becomes famous O but then what am +I going to do about him though + +no thats no way for him has he no manners nor no refinement nor no +nothing in his nature slapping us behind like that on my bottom because +I didnt call him Hugh the ignoramus that doesnt know poetry from a +cabbage thats what you get for not keeping them in their proper place +pulling off his shoes and trousers there on the chair before me so +barefaced without even asking permission and standing out that vulgar +way in the half of a shirt they wear to be admired like a priest or a +butcher or those old hypocrites in the time of Julius Caesar of course +hes right enough in his way to pass the time as a joke sure you might +as well be in bed with what with a lion God Im sure hed have something +better to say for himself an old Lion would O well I suppose its because +they were so plump and tempting in my short petticoat he couldnt resist +they excite myself sometimes its well for men all the amount of pleasure +they get off a womans body were so round and white for them always I +wished I was one myself for a change just to try with that thing they +have swelling up on you so hard and at the same time so soft when you +touch it my uncle John has a thing long I heard those cornerboys saying +passing the comer of Marrowbone lane my aunt Mary has a thing hairy +because it was dark and they knew a girl was passing it didnt make me +blush why should it either its only nature and he puts his thing long +into my aunt Marys hairy etcetera and turns out to be you put the handle +in a sweepingbrush men again all over they can pick and choose what they +please a married woman or a fast widow or a girl for their different +tastes like those houses round behind Irish street no but were to be +always chained up theyre not going to be chaining me up no damn fear +once I start I tell you for their stupid husbands jealousy why cant we +all remain friends over it instead of quarrelling her husband found it +out what they did together well naturally and if he did can he undo it +hes coronado anyway whatever he does and then he going to the other +mad extreme about the wife in Fair Tyrants of course the man never even +casts a 2nd thought on the husband or wife either its the woman he wants +and he gets her what else were we given all those desires for Id like to +know I cant help it if Im young still can I its a wonder Im not an old +shrivelled hag before my time living with him so cold never embracing +me except sometimes when hes asleep the wrong end of me not knowing I +suppose who he has any man thatd kiss a womans bottom Id throw my hat at +him after that hed kiss anything unnatural where we havent I atom of any +kind of expression in us all of us the same 2 lumps of lard before ever +Id do that to a man pfooh the dirty brutes the mere thought is enough +I kiss the feet of you senorita theres some sense in that didnt he kiss +our halldoor yes he did what a madman nobody understands his cracked +ideas but me still of course a woman wants to be embraced 20 times a day +almost to make her look young no matter by who so long as to be in love +or loved by somebody if the fellow you want isnt there sometimes by the +Lord God I was thinking would I go around by the quays there some dark +evening where nobodyd know me and pick up a sailor off the sea thatd be +hot on for it and not care a pin whose I was only do it off up in a gate +somewhere or one of those wildlooking gipsies in Rathfarnham had their +camp pitched near the Bloomfield laundry to try and steal our things if +they could I only sent mine there a few times for the name model +laundry sending me back over and over some old ones odd stockings that +blackguardlooking fellow with the fine eyes peeling a switch attack me +in the dark and ride me up against the wall without a word or a murderer +anybody what they do themselves the fine gentlemen in their silk hats +that K C lives up somewhere this way coming out of Hardwicke lane the +night he gave us the fish supper on account of winning over the boxing +match of course it was for me he gave it I knew him by his gaiters and +the walk and when I turned round a minute after just to see there was +a woman after coming out of it too some filthy prostitute then he goes +home to his wife after that only I suppose the half of those sailors are +rotten again with disease O move over your big carcass out of that for +the love of Mike listen to him the winds that waft my sighs to thee so +well he may sleep and sigh the great Suggester Don Poldo de la Flora if +he knew how he came out on the cards this morning hed have something to +sigh for a dark man in some perplexity between 2 7s too in prison for +Lord knows what he does that I dont know and Im to be slooching around +down in the kitchen to get his lordship his breakfast while hes rolled +up like a mummy will I indeed did you ever see me running Id just like +to see myself at it show them attention and they treat you like dirt +I dont care what anybody says itd be much better for the world to be +governed by the women in it you wouldnt see women going and killing one +another and slaughtering when do you ever see women rolling around drunk +like they do or gambling every penny they have and losing it on horses +yes because a woman whatever she does she knows where to stop sure they +wouldnt be in the world at all only for us they dont know what it is to +be a woman and a mother how could they where would they all of them be +if they hadnt all a mother to look after them what I never had thats +why I suppose hes running wild now out at night away from his books +and studies and not living at home on account of the usual rowy house I +suppose well its a poor case that those that have a fine son like that +theyre not satisfied and I none was he not able to make one it wasnt my +fault we came together when I was watching the two dogs up in her behind +in the middle of the naked street that disheartened me altogether I +suppose I oughtnt to have buried him in that little woolly jacket I +knitted crying as I was but give it to some poor child but I knew well +Id never have another our 1st death too it was we were never the same +since O Im not going to think myself into the glooms about that any +more I wonder why he wouldnt stay the night I felt all the time it was +somebody strange he brought in instead of roving around the city meeting +God knows who nightwalkers and pickpockets his poor mother wouldnt +like that if she was alive ruining himself for life perhaps still its a +lovely hour so silent I used to love coming home after dances the air of +the night they have friends they can talk to weve none either he wants +what he wont get or its some woman ready to stick her knife in you I +hate that in women no wonder they treat us the way they do we are a +dreadful lot of bitches I suppose its all the troubles we have makes us +so snappy Im not like that he could easy have slept in there on the sofa +in the other room I suppose he was as shy as a boy he being so young +hardly 20 of me in the next room hed have heard me on the chamber arrah +what harm Dedalus I wonder its like those names in Gibraltar Delapaz +Delagracia they had the devils queer names there father Vilaplana of +Santa Maria that gave me the rosary Rosales y OReilly in the Calle las +Siete Revueltas and Pisimbo and Mrs Opisso in Governor street O what a +name Id go and drown myself in the first river if I had a name like +her O my and all the bits of streets Paradise ramp and Bedlam ramp and +Rodgers ramp and Crutchetts ramp and the devils gap steps well small +blame to me if I am a harumscarum I know I am a bit I declare to God I +dont feel a day older than then I wonder could I get my tongue round +any of the Spanish como esta usted muy bien gracias y usted see I havent +forgotten it all I thought I had only for the grammar a noun is the +name of any person place or thing pity I never tried to read that novel +cantankerous Mrs Rubio lent me by Valera with the questions in it all +upside down the two ways I always knew wed go away in the end I can +tell him the Spanish and he tell me the Italian then hell see Im not +so ignorant what a pity he didnt stay Im sure the poor fellow was dead +tired and wanted a good sleep badly I could have brought him in his +breakfast in bed with a bit of toast so long as I didnt do it on +the knife for bad luck or if the woman was going her rounds with the +watercress and something nice and tasty there are a few olives in the +kitchen he might like I never could bear the look of them in Abrines +I could do the criada the room looks all right since I changed it the +other way you see something was telling me all the time Id have to +introduce myself not knowing me from Adam very funny wouldnt it Im his +wife or pretend we were in Spain with him half awake without a Gods +notion where he is dos huevos estrellados senor Lord the cracked things +come into my head sometimes itd be great fun supposing he stayed with us +why not theres the room upstairs empty and Millys bed in the back room +he could do his writing and studies at the table in there for all the +scribbling he does at it and if he wants to read in bed in the morning +like me as hes making the breakfast for I he can make it for 2 Im sure +Im not going to take in lodgers off the street for him if he takes +a gesabo of a house like this Id love to have a long talk with an +intelligent welleducated person Id have to get a nice pair of red +slippers like those Turks with the fez used to sell or yellow and a +nice semitransparent morning gown that I badly want or a peachblossom +dressing jacket like the one long ago in Walpoles only 8/6 or 18/6 Ill +just give him one more chance Ill get up early in the morning Im sick of +Cohens old bed in any case I might go over to the markets to see all +the vegetables and cabbages and tomatoes and carrots and all kinds of +splendid fruits all coming in lovely and fresh who knows whod be the 1st +man Id meet theyre out looking for it in the morning Mamy Dillon used +to say they are and the night too that was her massgoing Id love a +big juicy pear now to melt in your mouth like when I used to be in the +longing way then Ill throw him up his eggs and tea in the moustachecup +she gave him to make his mouth bigger I suppose hed like my nice cream +too I know what Ill do Ill go about rather gay not too much singing a +bit now and then mi fa pieta Masetto then Ill start dressing myself to +go out presto non son piu forte Ill put on my best shift and drawers let +him have a good eyeful out of that to make his micky stand for him Ill +let him know if thats what he wanted that his wife is I s l o fucked yes +and damn well fucked too up to my neck nearly not by him 5 or 6 times +handrunning theres the mark of his spunk on the clean sheet I wouldnt +bother to even iron it out that ought to satisfy him if you dont believe +me feel my belly unless I made him stand there and put him into me Ive a +mind to tell him every scrap and make him do it out in front of me serve +him right its all his own fault if I am an adulteress as the thing in +the gallery said O much about it if thats all the harm ever we did in +this vale of tears God knows its not much doesnt everybody only they +hide it I suppose thats what a woman is supposed to be there for or +He wouldnt have made us the way He did so attractive to men then if he +wants to kiss my bottom Ill drag open my drawers and bulge it right out +in his face as large as life he can stick his tongue 7 miles up my hole +as hes there my brown part then Ill tell him I want LI or perhaps 30/- +Ill tell him I want to buy underclothes then if he gives me that well he +wont be too bad I dont want to soak it all out of him like other women +do I could often have written out a fine cheque for myself and write his +name on it for a couple of pounds a few times he forgot to lock it up +besides he wont spend it Ill let him do it off on me behind provided he +doesnt smear all my good drawers O I suppose that cant be helped Ill do +the indifferent l or 2 questions Ill know by the answers when hes like +that he cant keep a thing back I know every turn in him Ill tighten my +bottom well and let out a few smutty words smellrump or lick my shit or +the first mad thing comes into my head then Ill suggest about yes O wait +now sonny my turn is coming Ill be quite gay and friendly over it O +but I was forgetting this bloody pest of a thing pfooh you wouldnt know +which to laugh or cry were such a mixture of plum and apple no Ill have +to wear the old things so much the better itll be more pointed hell +never know whether he did it or not there thats good enough for you +any old thing at all then Ill wipe him off me just like a business his +omission then Ill go out Ill have him eying up at the ceiling where is +she gone now make him want me thats the only way a quarter after what an +unearthly hour I suppose theyre just getting up in China now combing out +their pigtails for the day well soon have the nuns ringing the angelus +theyve nobody coming in to spoil their sleep except an odd priest or two +for his night office or the alarmclock next door at cockshout clattering +the brains out of itself let me see if I can doze off 1 2 3 4 5 what +kind of flowers are those they invented like the stars the wallpaper +in Lombard street was much nicer the apron he gave me was like that +something only I only wore it twice better lower this lamp and try again +so as I can get up early Ill go to Lambes there beside Findlaters and +get them to send us some flowers to put about the place in case he +brings him home tomorrow today I mean no no Fridays an unlucky day first +I want to do the place up someway the dust grows in it I think while Im +asleep then we can have music and cigarettes I can accompany him first I +must clean the keys of the piano with milk whatll I wear shall I wear +a white rose or those fairy cakes in Liptons I love the smell of a rich +big shop at 7 1/2d a lb or the other ones with the cherries in them +and the pinky sugar I Id a couple of lbs of those a nice plant for the +middle of the table Id get that cheaper in wait wheres this I saw them +not long ago I love flowers Id love to have the whole place swimming in +roses God of heaven theres nothing like nature the wild mountains then +the sea and the waves rushing then the beautiful country with the fields +of oats and wheat and all kinds of things and all the fine cattle going +about that would do your heart good to see rivers and lakes and flowers +all sorts of shapes and smells and colours springing up even out of the +ditches primroses and violets nature it is as for them saying theres no +God I wouldnt give a snap of my two fingers for all their learning why +dont they go and create something I often asked him atheists or whatever +they call themselves go and wash the cobbles off themselves first then +they go howling for the priest and they dying and why why because theyre +afraid of hell on account of their bad conscience ah yes I know them +well who was the first person in the universe before there was anybody +that made it all who ah that they dont know neither do I so there you +are they might as well try to stop the sun from rising tomorrow the sun +shines for you he said the day we were lying among the rhododendrons on +Howth head in the grey tweed suit and his straw hat the day I got him to +propose to me yes first I gave him the bit of seedcake out of my mouth +and it was leapyear like now yes 16 years ago my God after that long +kiss I near lost my breath yes he said I was a flower of the mountain +yes so we are flowers all a womans body yes that was one true thing he +said in his life and the sun shines for you today yes that was why I +liked him because I saw he understood or felt what a woman is and I knew +I could always get round him and I gave him all the pleasure I could +leading him on till he asked me to say yes and I wouldnt answer first +only looked out over the sea and the sky I was thinking of so many +things he didnt know of Mulvey and Mr Stanhope and Hester and father and +old captain Groves and the sailors playing all birds fly and I say stoop +and washing up dishes they called it on the pier and the sentry in front +of the governors house with the thing round his white helmet poor devil +half roasted and the Spanish girls laughing in their shawls and their +tall combs and the auctions in the morning the Greeks and the jews and +the Arabs and the devil knows who else from all the ends of Europe and +Duke street and the fowl market all clucking outside Larby Sharons +and the poor donkeys slipping half asleep and the vague fellows in the +cloaks asleep in the shade on the steps and the big wheels of the carts +of the bulls and the old castle thousands of years old yes and those +handsome Moors all in white and turbans like kings asking you to sit +down in their little bit of a shop and Ronda with the old windows of the +posadas 2 glancing eyes a lattice hid for her lover to kiss the iron +and the wineshops half open at night and the castanets and the night we +missed the boat at Algeciras the watchman going about serene with his +lamp and O that awful deepdown torrent O and the sea the sea crimson +sometimes like fire and the glorious sunsets and the figtrees in the +Alameda gardens yes and all the queer little streets and the pink +and blue and yellow houses and the rosegardens and the jessamine and +geraniums and cactuses and Gibraltar as a girl where I was a Flower +of the mountain yes when I put the rose in my hair like the Andalusian +girls used or shall I wear a red yes and how he kissed me under the +Moorish wall and I thought well as well him as another and then I asked +him with my eyes to ask again yes and then he asked me would I yes to +say yes my mountain flower and first I put my arms around him yes and +drew him down to me so he could feel my breasts all perfume yes and his +heart was going like mad and yes I said yes I will Yes. + +Trieste-Zurich-Paris 1914-1921 + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Ulysses, by James Joyce + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ULYSSES *** + +***** This file should be named 4300-8.txt or 4300-8.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/4/3/0/4300/ + +Produced by Col Choat + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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Thus, we do not necessarily +keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition. + + +Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility: + + http://www.gutenberg.org + +This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm, +including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary +Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to +subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks. diff --git a/src/main/pg-war_and_peace.txt b/src/main/pg-war_and_peace.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..13d58de --- /dev/null +++ b/src/main/pg-war_and_peace.txt @@ -0,0 +1,65007 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of War and Peace, by Leo Tolstoy + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost +no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it +under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this +eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: War and Peace + +Author: Leo Tolstoy + +Translators: Louise and Aylmer Maude + +Posting Date: January 10, 2009 [EBook #2600] + +Last Updated: March 15, 2013 + +Language: English + + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WAR AND PEACE *** + +An Anonymous Volunteer, and David Widger + + + + + +WAR AND PEACE + +By Leo Tolstoy/Tolstoi + +CONTENTS + +BOOK ONE: 1805 + +CHAPTER I + +CHAPTER II + +CHAPTER III + +CHAPTER IV + +CHAPTER V + +CHAPTER VI + +CHAPTER VII + +CHAPTER VIII + +CHAPTER IX + +CHAPTER X + +CHAPTER XI + +CHAPTER XII + +CHAPTER XIII + +CHAPTER XIV + +CHAPTER XV + +CHAPTER XVI + +CHAPTER XVII + +CHAPTER XVIII + +CHAPTER XIX + +CHAPTER XX + +CHAPTER XXI + +CHAPTER XXII + +CHAPTER XXIII + +CHAPTER XXIV + +CHAPTER XXV + +CHAPTER XXVI + +CHAPTER XXVII + +CHAPTER XXVIII + +BOOK TWO: 1805 + +CHAPTER I + +CHAPTER II + +CHAPTER III + +CHAPTER IV + +CHAPTER V + +CHAPTER VI + +CHAPTER VII + +CHAPTER VIII + +CHAPTER IX + +CHAPTER X + +CHAPTER XI + +CHAPTER XII + +CHAPTER XIII + +CHAPTER XIV + +CHAPTER XV + +CHAPTER XVI + +CHAPTER XVII + +CHAPTER XVIII + +CHAPTER XIX + +CHAPTER XX + +CHAPTER XXI + +BOOK THREE: 1805 + +CHAPTER I + +CHAPTER II + +CHAPTER III + +CHAPTER IV + +CHAPTER V + +CHAPTER VI + +CHAPTER VII + +CHAPTER VIII + +CHAPTER IX + +CHAPTER X + +CHAPTER XI + +CHAPTER XII + +CHAPTER XIII + +CHAPTER XIV + +CHAPTER XV + +CHAPTER XVI + +CHAPTER XVII + +CHAPTER XVIII + +CHAPTER XIX + +BOOK FOUR: 1806 + +CHAPTER I + +CHAPTER II + +CHAPTER III + +CHAPTER IV + +CHAPTER V + +CHAPTER VI + +CHAPTER VII + +CHAPTER VIII + +CHAPTER IX + +CHAPTER X + +CHAPTER XI + +CHAPTER XII + +CHAPTER XIII + +CHAPTER XIV + +CHAPTER XV + +CHAPTER XVI + +BOOK FIVE: 1806 - 07 + +CHAPTER I + +CHAPTER II + +CHAPTER III + +CHAPTER IV + +CHAPTER V + +CHAPTER VI + +CHAPTER VII + +CHAPTER VIII + +CHAPTER IX + +CHAPTER X + +CHAPTER XI + +CHAPTER XII + +CHAPTER XIII + +CHAPTER XIV + +CHAPTER XV + +CHAPTER XVI + +CHAPTER XVII + +CHAPTER XVIII + +CHAPTER XIX + +CHAPTER XX + +CHAPTER XXI + +CHAPTER XXII + +BOOK SIX: 1808 - 10 + +CHAPTER I + +CHAPTER II + +CHAPTER III + +CHAPTER IV + +CHAPTER V + +CHAPTER VI + +CHAPTER VII + +CHAPTER VIII + +CHAPTER IX + +CHAPTER X + +CHAPTER XI + +CHAPTER XII + +CHAPTER XIII + +CHAPTER XIV + +CHAPTER XV + +CHAPTER XVI + +CHAPTER XVII + +CHAPTER XVIII + +CHAPTER XIX + +CHAPTER XX + +CHAPTER XXI + +CHAPTER XXII + +CHAPTER XXIII + +CHAPTER XXIV + +CHAPTER XXV + +CHAPTER XXVI + +BOOK SEVEN: 1810 - 11 + +CHAPTER I + +CHAPTER II + +CHAPTER III + +CHAPTER IV + +CHAPTER V + +CHAPTER VI + +CHAPTER VII + +CHAPTER VIII + +CHAPTER IX + +CHAPTER X + +CHAPTER XI + +CHAPTER XII + +CHAPTER XIII + +BOOK EIGHT: 1811 - 12 + +CHAPTER I + +CHAPTER II + +CHAPTER III + +CHAPTER IV + +CHAPTER V + +CHAPTER VI + +CHAPTER VII + +CHAPTER VIII + +CHAPTER IX + +CHAPTER X + +CHAPTER XI + +CHAPTER XII + +CHAPTER XIII + +CHAPTER XIV + +CHAPTER XV + +CHAPTER XVI + +CHAPTER XVII + +CHAPTER XVIII + +CHAPTER XIX + +CHAPTER XX + +CHAPTER XXI + +CHAPTER XXII + +BOOK NINE: 1812 + +CHAPTER I + +CHAPTER II + +CHAPTER III + +CHAPTER IV + +CHAPTER V + +CHAPTER VI + +CHAPTER VII + +CHAPTER VIII + +CHAPTER IX + +CHAPTER X + +CHAPTER XI + +CHAPTER XII + +CHAPTER XIII + +CHAPTER XIV + +CHAPTER XV + +CHAPTER XVI + +CHAPTER XVII + +CHAPTER XVIII + +CHAPTER XIX + +CHAPTER XX + +CHAPTER XXI + +CHAPTER XXII + +CHAPTER XXIII + +BOOK TEN: 1812 + +CHAPTER I + +CHAPTER II + +CHAPTER III + +CHAPTER IV + +CHAPTER V + +CHAPTER VI + +CHAPTER VII + +CHAPTER VIII + +CHAPTER IX + +CHAPTER X + +CHAPTER XI + +CHAPTER XII + +CHAPTER XIII + +CHAPTER XIV + +CHAPTER XV + +CHAPTER XVI + +CHAPTER XVII + +CHAPTER XVIII + +CHAPTER XIX + +CHAPTER XX + +CHAPTER XXI + +CHAPTER XXII + +CHAPTER XXIII + +CHAPTER XXIV + +CHAPTER XXV + +CHAPTER XXVI + +CHAPTER XXVII + +CHAPTER XXVIII + +CHAPTER XXIX + +CHAPTER XXX + +CHAPTER XXXI + +CHAPTER XXXII + +CHAPTER XXXIII + +CHAPTER XXXIV + +CHAPTER XXXV + +CHAPTER XXXVI + +CHAPTER XXXVII + +CHAPTER XXXVIII + +CHAPTER XXXIX + +BOOK ELEVEN: 1812 + +CHAPTER I + +CHAPTER II + +CHAPTER III + +CHAPTER IV + +CHAPTER V + +CHAPTER VI + +CHAPTER VII + +CHAPTER VIII + +CHAPTER IX + +CHAPTER X + +CHAPTER XI + +CHAPTER XII + +CHAPTER XIII + +CHAPTER XIV + +CHAPTER XV + +CHAPTER XVI + +CHAPTER XVII + +CHAPTER XVIII + +CHAPTER XIX + +CHAPTER XX + +CHAPTER XXI + +CHAPTER XXII + +CHAPTER XXIII + +CHAPTER XXIV + +CHAPTER XXV + +CHAPTER XXVI + +CHAPTER XXVII + +CHAPTER XXVIII + +CHAPTER XXIX + +CHAPTER XXX + +CHAPTER XXXI + +CHAPTER XXXII + +CHAPTER XXXIII + +CHAPTER XXXIV + +BOOK TWELVE: 1812 + +CHAPTER I + +CHAPTER II + +CHAPTER III + +CHAPTER IV + +CHAPTER V + +CHAPTER VI + +CHAPTER VII + +CHAPTER VIII + +CHAPTER IX + +CHAPTER X + +CHAPTER XI + +CHAPTER XII + +CHAPTER XIII + +CHAPTER XIV + +CHAPTER XV + +CHAPTER XVI + +BOOK THIRTEEN: 1812 + +CHAPTER I + +CHAPTER II + +CHAPTER III + +CHAPTER IV + +CHAPTER V + +CHAPTER VI + +CHAPTER VII + +CHAPTER VIII + +CHAPTER IX + +CHAPTER X + +CHAPTER XI + +CHAPTER XII + +CHAPTER XIII + +CHAPTER XIV + +CHAPTER XV + +CHAPTER XVI + +CHAPTER XVII + +CHAPTER XVIII + +CHAPTER XIX + +BOOK FOURTEEN: 1812 + +CHAPTER I + +CHAPTER II + +CHAPTER III + +CHAPTER IV + +CHAPTER V + +CHAPTER VI + +CHAPTER VII + +CHAPTER VIII + +CHAPTER IX + +CHAPTER X + +CHAPTER XI + +CHAPTER XII + +CHAPTER XIII + +CHAPTER XIV + +CHAPTER XV + +CHAPTER XVI + +CHAPTER XVII + +CHAPTER XVIII + +CHAPTER XIX + +BOOK FIFTEEN: 1812 - 13 + +CHAPTER I + +CHAPTER II + +CHAPTER III + +CHAPTER IV + +CHAPTER V + +CHAPTER VI + +CHAPTER VII + +CHAPTER VIII + +CHAPTER IX + +CHAPTER X + +CHAPTER XI + +CHAPTER XII + +CHAPTER XIII + +CHAPTER XIV + +CHAPTER XV + +CHAPTER XVI + +CHAPTER XVII + +CHAPTER XVIII + +CHAPTER XIX + +CHAPTER XX + +FIRST EPILOGUE: 1813 - 20 + +CHAPTER I + +CHAPTER II + +CHAPTER III + +CHAPTER IV + +CHAPTER V + +CHAPTER VI + +CHAPTER VII + +CHAPTER VIII + +CHAPTER IX + +CHAPTER X + +CHAPTER XI + +CHAPTER XII + +CHAPTER XIII + +CHAPTER XIV + +CHAPTER XV + +CHAPTER XVI + +SECOND EPILOGUE + +CHAPTER I + +CHAPTER II + +CHAPTER III + +CHAPTER IV + +CHAPTER V + +CHAPTER VI + +CHAPTER VII + +CHAPTER VIII + +CHAPTER IX + +CHAPTER X + +CHAPTER XI + +CHAPTER XII + +BOOK ONE: 1805 + + + + +CHAPTER I + +"Well, Prince, so Genoa and Lucca are now just family estates of the +Buonapartes. But I warn you, if you don't tell me that this means war, +if you still try to defend the infamies and horrors perpetrated by that +Antichrist--I really believe he is Antichrist--I will have nothing more +to do with you and you are no longer my friend, no longer my 'faithful +slave,' as you call yourself! But how do you do? I see I have frightened +you--sit down and tell me all the news." + +It was in July, 1805, and the speaker was the well-known Anna Pavlovna +Scherer, maid of honor and favorite of the Empress Marya Fedorovna. With +these words she greeted Prince Vasili Kuragin, a man of high rank and +importance, who was the first to arrive at her reception. Anna Pavlovna +had had a cough for some days. She was, as she said, suffering from la +grippe; grippe being then a new word in St. Petersburg, used only by the +elite. + +All her invitations without exception, written in French, and delivered +by a scarlet-liveried footman that morning, ran as follows: + +"If you have nothing better to do, Count (or Prince), and if the +prospect of spending an evening with a poor invalid is not too terrible, +I shall be very charmed to see you tonight between 7 and 10--Annette +Scherer." + +"Heavens! what a virulent attack!" replied the prince, not in the least +disconcerted by this reception. He had just entered, wearing an +embroidered court uniform, knee breeches, and shoes, and had stars on +his breast and a serene expression on his flat face. He spoke in that +refined French in which our grandfathers not only spoke but thought, and +with the gentle, patronizing intonation natural to a man of importance +who had grown old in society and at court. He went up to Anna Pavlovna, +kissed her hand, presenting to her his bald, scented, and shining head, +and complacently seated himself on the sofa. + +"First of all, dear friend, tell me how you are. Set your friend's mind +at rest," said he without altering his tone, beneath the politeness and +affected sympathy of which indifference and even irony could be +discerned. + +"Can one be well while suffering morally? Can one be calm in times like +these if one has any feeling?" said Anna Pavlovna. "You are staying the +whole evening, I hope?" + +"And the fete at the English ambassador's? Today is Wednesday. I must +put in an appearance there," said the prince. "My daughter is coming for +me to take me there." + +"I thought today's fete had been canceled. I confess all these +festivities and fireworks are becoming wearisome." + +"If they had known that you wished it, the entertainment would have been +put off," said the prince, who, like a wound-up clock, by force of habit +said things he did not even wish to be believed. + +"Don't tease! Well, and what has been decided about Novosiltsev's +dispatch? You know everything." + +"What can one say about it?" replied the prince in a cold, listless +tone. "What has been decided? They have decided that Buonaparte has +burnt his boats, and I believe that we are ready to burn ours." + +Prince Vasili always spoke languidly, like an actor repeating a stale +part. Anna Pavlovna Scherer on the contrary, despite her forty years, +overflowed with animation and impulsiveness. To be an enthusiast had +become her social vocation and, sometimes even when she did not feel +like it, she became enthusiastic in order not to disappoint the +expectations of those who knew her. The subdued smile which, though it +did not suit her faded features, always played round her lips expressed, +as in a spoiled child, a continual consciousness of her charming defect, +which she neither wished, nor could, nor considered it necessary, to +correct. + +In the midst of a conversation on political matters Anna Pavlovna burst +out: + +"Oh, don't speak to me of Austria. Perhaps I don't understand things, +but Austria never has wished, and does not wish, for war. She is +betraying us! Russia alone must save Europe. Our gracious sovereign +recognizes his high vocation and will be true to it. That is the one +thing I have faith in! Our good and wonderful sovereign has to perform +the noblest role on earth, and he is so virtuous and noble that God will +not forsake him. He will fulfill his vocation and crush the hydra of +revolution, which has become more terrible than ever in the person of +this murderer and villain! We alone must avenge the blood of the just +one.... Whom, I ask you, can we rely on?... England with her commercial +spirit will not and cannot understand the Emperor Alexander's loftiness +of soul. She has refused to evacuate Malta. She wanted to find, and +still seeks, some secret motive in our actions. What answer did +Novosiltsev get? None. The English have not understood and cannot +understand the self-abnegation of our Emperor who wants nothing for +himself, but only desires the good of mankind. And what have they +promised? Nothing! And what little they have promised they will not +perform! Prussia has always declared that Buonaparte is invincible, and +that all Europe is powerless before him.... And I don't believe a word +that Hardenburg says, or Haugwitz either. This famous Prussian +neutrality is just a trap. I have faith only in God and the lofty +destiny of our adored monarch. He will save Europe!" + +She suddenly paused, smiling at her own impetuosity. + +"I think," said the prince with a smile, "that if you had been sent +instead of our dear Wintzingerode you would have captured the King of +Prussia's consent by assault. You are so eloquent. Will you give me a +cup of tea?" + +"In a moment. A propos," she added, becoming calm again, "I am expecting +two very interesting men tonight, le Vicomte de Mortemart, who is +connected with the Montmorencys through the Rohans, one of the best +French families. He is one of the genuine emigres, the good ones. And +also the Abbe Morio. Do you know that profound thinker? He has been +received by the Emperor. Had you heard?" + +"I shall be delighted to meet them," said the prince. "But tell me," he +added with studied carelessness as if it had only just occurred to him, +though the question he was about to ask was the chief motive of his +visit, "is it true that the Dowager Empress wants Baron Funke to be +appointed first secretary at Vienna? The baron by all accounts is a poor +creature." + +Prince Vasili wished to obtain this post for his son, but others were +trying through the Dowager Empress Marya Fedorovna to secure it for the +baron. + +Anna Pavlovna almost closed her eyes to indicate that neither she nor +anyone else had a right to criticize what the Empress desired or was +pleased with. + +"Baron Funke has been recommended to the Dowager Empress by her sister," +was all she said, in a dry and mournful tone. + +As she named the Empress, Anna Pavlovna's face suddenly assumed an +expression of profound and sincere devotion and respect mingled with +sadness, and this occurred every time she mentioned her illustrious +patroness. She added that Her Majesty had deigned to show Baron Funke +beaucoup d'estime, and again her face clouded over with sadness. + +The prince was silent and looked indifferent. But, with the womanly and +courtierlike quickness and tact habitual to her, Anna Pavlovna wished +both to rebuke him (for daring to speak as he had done of a man +recommended to the Empress) and at the same time to console him, so she +said: + +"Now about your family. Do you know that since your daughter came out +everyone has been enraptured by her? They say she is amazingly +beautiful." + +The prince bowed to signify his respect and gratitude. + +"I often think," she continued after a short pause, drawing nearer to +the prince and smiling amiably at him as if to show that political and +social topics were ended and the time had come for intimate +conversation--"I often think how unfairly sometimes the joys of life are +distributed. Why has fate given you two such splendid children? I don't +speak of Anatole, your youngest. I don't like him," she added in a tone +admitting of no rejoinder and raising her eyebrows. "Two such charming +children. And really you appreciate them less than anyone, and so you +don't deserve to have them." + +And she smiled her ecstatic smile. + +"I can't help it," said the prince. "Lavater would have said I lack the +bump of paternity." + +"Don't joke; I mean to have a serious talk with you. Do you know I am +dissatisfied with your younger son? Between ourselves" (and her face +assumed its melancholy expression), "he was mentioned at Her Majesty's +and you were pitied...." + +The prince answered nothing, but she looked at him significantly, +awaiting a reply. He frowned. + +"What would you have me do?" he said at last. "You know I did all a +father could for their education, and they have both turned out fools. +Hippolyte is at least a quiet fool, but Anatole is an active one. That +is the only difference between them." He said this smiling in a way more +natural and animated than usual, so that the wrinkles round his mouth +very clearly revealed something unexpectedly coarse and unpleasant. + +"And why are children born to such men as you? If you were not a father +there would be nothing I could reproach you with," said Anna Pavlovna, +looking up pensively. + +"I am your faithful slave and to you alone I can confess that my +children are the bane of my life. It is the cross I have to bear. That +is how I explain it to myself. It can't be helped!" + +He said no more, but expressed his resignation to cruel fate by a +gesture. Anna Pavlovna meditated. + +"Have you never thought of marrying your prodigal son Anatole?" she +asked. "They say old maids have a mania for matchmaking, and though I +don't feel that weakness in myself as yet, I know a little person who is +very unhappy with her father. She is a relation of yours, Princess Mary +Bolkonskaya." + +Prince Vasili did not reply, though, with the quickness of memory and +perception befitting a man of the world, he indicated by a movement of +the head that he was considering this information. + +"Do you know," he said at last, evidently unable to check the sad +current of his thoughts, "that Anatole is costing me forty thousand +rubles a year? And," he went on after a pause, "what will it be in five +years, if he goes on like this?" Presently he added: "That's what we +fathers have to put up with.... Is this princess of yours rich?" + +"Her father is very rich and stingy. He lives in the country. He is the +well-known Prince Bolkonski who had to retire from the army under the +late Emperor, and was nicknamed 'the King of Prussia.' He is very clever +but eccentric, and a bore. The poor girl is very unhappy. She has a +brother; I think you know him, he married Lise Meinen lately. He is an +aide-de-camp of Kutuzov's and will be here tonight." + +"Listen, dear Annette," said the prince, suddenly taking Anna Pavlovna's +hand and for some reason drawing it downwards. "Arrange that affair for +me and I shall always be your most devoted slave-slafe with an f, as a +village elder of mine writes in his reports. She is rich and of good +family and that's all I want." + +And with the familiarity and easy grace peculiar to him, he raised the +maid of honor's hand to his lips, kissed it, and swung it to and fro as +he lay back in his armchair, looking in another direction. + +"Attendez," said Anna Pavlovna, reflecting, "I'll speak to Lise, young +Bolkonski's wife, this very evening, and perhaps the thing can be +arranged. It shall be on your family's behalf that I'll start my +apprenticeship as old maid." + + + + +CHAPTER II + +Anna Pavlovna's drawing room was gradually filling. The highest +Petersburg society was assembled there: people differing widely in age +and character but alike in the social circle to which they belonged. +Prince Vasili's daughter, the beautiful Helene, came to take her father +to the ambassador's entertainment; she wore a ball dress and her badge +as maid of honor. The youthful little Princess Bolkonskaya, known as la +femme la plus seduisante de Petersbourg, * was also there. She had been +married during the previous winter, and being pregnant did not go to any +large gatherings, but only to small receptions. Prince Vasili's son, +Hippolyte, had come with Mortemart, whom he introduced. The Abbe Morio +and many others had also come. + + +* The most fascinating woman in Petersburg. + +To each new arrival Anna Pavlovna said, "You have not yet seen my aunt," +or "You do not know my aunt?" and very gravely conducted him or her to a +little old lady, wearing large bows of ribbon in her cap, who had come +sailing in from another room as soon as the guests began to arrive; and +slowly turning her eyes from the visitor to her aunt, Anna Pavlovna +mentioned each one's name and then left them. + +Each visitor performed the ceremony of greeting this old aunt whom not +one of them knew, not one of them wanted to know, and not one of them +cared about; Anna Pavlovna observed these greetings with mournful and +solemn interest and silent approval. The aunt spoke to each of them in +the same words, about their health and her own, and the health of Her +Majesty, "who, thank God, was better today." And each visitor, though +politeness prevented his showing impatience, left the old woman with a +sense of relief at having performed a vexatious duty and did not return +to her the whole evening. + +The young Princess Bolkonskaya had brought some work in a gold- +embroidered velvet bag. Her pretty little upper lip, on which a delicate +dark down was just perceptible, was too short for her teeth, but it +lifted all the more sweetly, and was especially charming when she +occasionally drew it down to meet the lower lip. As is always the case +with a thoroughly attractive woman, her defect--the shortness of her +upper lip and her half-open mouth--seemed to be her own special and +peculiar form of beauty. Everyone brightened at the sight of this pretty +young woman, so soon to become a mother, so full of life and health, and +carrying her burden so lightly. Old men and dull dispirited young ones +who looked at her, after being in her company and talking to her a +little while, felt as if they too were becoming, like her, full of life +and health. All who talked to her, and at each word saw her bright smile +and the constant gleam of her white teeth, thought that they were in a +specially amiable mood that day. + +The little princess went round the table with quick, short, swaying +steps, her workbag on her arm, and gaily spreading out her dress sat +down on a sofa near the silver samovar, as if all she was doing was a +pleasure to herself and to all around her. "I have brought my work," +said she in French, displaying her bag and addressing all present. +"Mind, Annette, I hope you have not played a wicked trick on me," she +added, turning to her hostess. "You wrote that it was to be quite a +small reception, and just see how badly I am dressed." And she spread +out her arms to show her short-waisted, lace-trimmed, dainty gray dress, +girdled with a broad ribbon just below the breast. + +"Soyez tranquille, Lise, you will always be prettier than anyone else," +replied Anna Pavlovna. + +"You know," said the princess in the same tone of voice and still in +French, turning to a general, "my husband is deserting me? He is going +to get himself killed. Tell me what this wretched war is for?" she +added, addressing Prince Vasili, and without waiting for an answer she +turned to speak to his daughter, the beautiful Helene. + +"What a delightful woman this little princess is!" said Prince Vasili to +Anna Pavlovna. + +One of the next arrivals was a stout, heavily built young man with +close-cropped hair, spectacles, the light-colored breeches fashionable +at that time, a very high ruffle, and a brown dress coat. This stout +young man was an illegitimate son of Count Bezukhov, a well-known +grandee of Catherine's time who now lay dying in Moscow. The young man +had not yet entered either the military or civil service, as he had only +just returned from abroad where he had been educated, and this was his +first appearance in society. Anna Pavlovna greeted him with the nod she +accorded to the lowest hierarchy in her drawing room. But in spite of +this lowest-grade greeting, a look of anxiety and fear, as at the sight +of something too large and unsuited to the place, came over her face +when she saw Pierre enter. Though he was certainly rather bigger than +the other men in the room, her anxiety could only have reference to the +clever though shy, but observant and natural, expression which +distinguished him from everyone else in that drawing room. + +"It is very good of you, Monsieur Pierre, to come and visit a poor +invalid," said Anna Pavlovna, exchanging an alarmed glance with her aunt +as she conducted him to her. + +Pierre murmured something unintelligible, and continued to look round as +if in search of something. On his way to the aunt he bowed to the little +princess with a pleased smile, as to an intimate acquaintance. + +Anna Pavlovna's alarm was justified, for Pierre turned away from the +aunt without waiting to hear her speech about Her Majesty's health. Anna +Pavlovna in dismay detained him with the words: "Do you know the Abbe +Morio? He is a most interesting man." + +"Yes, I have heard of his scheme for perpetual peace, and it is very +interesting but hardly feasible." + +"You think so?" rejoined Anna Pavlovna in order to say something and get +away to attend to her duties as hostess. But Pierre now committed a +reverse act of impoliteness. First he had left a lady before she had +finished speaking to him, and now he continued to speak to another who +wished to get away. With his head bent, and his big feet spread apart, +he began explaining his reasons for thinking the abbe's plan chimerical. + +"We will talk of it later," said Anna Pavlovna with a smile. + +And having got rid of this young man who did not know how to behave, she +resumed her duties as hostess and continued to listen and watch, ready +to help at any point where the conversation might happen to flag. As the +foreman of a spinning mill, when he has set the hands to work, goes +round and notices here a spindle that has stopped or there one that +creaks or makes more noise than it should, and hastens to check the +machine or set it in proper motion, so Anna Pavlovna moved about her +drawing room, approaching now a silent, now a too-noisy group, and by a +word or slight rearrangement kept the conversational machine in steady, +proper, and regular motion. But amid these cares her anxiety about +Pierre was evident. She kept an anxious watch on him when he approached +the group round Mortemart to listen to what was being said there, and +again when he passed to another group whose center was the abbe. + +Pierre had been educated abroad, and this reception at Anna Pavlovna's +was the first he had attended in Russia. He knew that all the +intellectual lights of Petersburg were gathered there and, like a child +in a toyshop, did not know which way to look, afraid of missing any +clever conversation that was to be heard. Seeing the self-confident and +refined expression on the faces of those present he was always expecting +to hear something very profound. At last he came up to Morio. Here the +conversation seemed interesting and he stood waiting for an opportunity +to express his own views, as young people are fond of doing. + + + + +CHAPTER III + +Anna Pavlovna's reception was in full swing. The spindles hummed +steadily and ceaselessly on all sides. With the exception of the aunt, +beside whom sat only one elderly lady, who with her thin careworn face +was rather out of place in this brilliant society, the whole company had +settled into three groups. One, chiefly masculine, had formed round the +abbe. Another, of young people, was grouped round the beautiful Princess +Helene, Prince Vasili's daughter, and the little Princess Bolkonskaya, +very pretty and rosy, though rather too plump for her age. The third +group was gathered round Mortemart and Anna Pavlovna. + +The vicomte was a nice-looking young man with soft features and polished +manners, who evidently considered himself a celebrity but out of +politeness modestly placed himself at the disposal of the circle in +which he found himself. Anna Pavlovna was obviously serving him up as a +treat to her guests. As a clever maitre d'hotel serves up as a specially +choice delicacy a piece of meat that no one who had seen it in the +kitchen would have cared to eat, so Anna Pavlovna served up to her +guests, first the vicomte and then the abbe, as peculiarly choice +morsels. The group about Mortemart immediately began discussing the +murder of the Duc d'Enghien. The vicomte said that the Duc d'Enghien had +perished by his own magnanimity, and that there were particular reasons +for Buonaparte's hatred of him. + +"Ah, yes! Do tell us all about it, Vicomte," said Anna Pavlovna, with a +pleasant feeling that there was something a la Louis XV in the sound of +that sentence: "Contez nous cela, Vicomte." + +The vicomte bowed and smiled courteously in token of his willingness to +comply. Anna Pavlovna arranged a group round him, inviting everyone to +listen to his tale. + +"The vicomte knew the duc personally," whispered Anna Pavlovna to one of +the guests. "The vicomte is a wonderful raconteur," said she to another. +"How evidently he belongs to the best society," said she to a third; and +the vicomte was served up to the company in the choicest and most +advantageous style, like a well-garnished joint of roast beef on a hot +dish. + +The vicomte wished to begin his story and gave a subtle smile. + +"Come over here, Helene, dear," said Anna Pavlovna to the beautiful +young princess who was sitting some way off, the center of another +group. + +The princess smiled. She rose with the same unchanging smile with which +she had first entered the room--the smile of a perfectly beautiful +woman. With a slight rustle of her white dress trimmed with moss and +ivy, with a gleam of white shoulders, glossy hair, and sparkling +diamonds, she passed between the men who made way for her, not looking +at any of them but smiling on all, as if graciously allowing each the +privilege of admiring her beautiful figure and shapely shoulders, back, +and bosom--which in the fashion of those days were very much exposed-- +and she seemed to bring the glamour of a ballroom with her as she moved +toward Anna Pavlovna. Helene was so lovely that not only did she not +show any trace of coquetry, but on the contrary she even appeared shy of +her unquestionable and all too victorious beauty. She seemed to wish, +but to be unable, to diminish its effect. + +"How lovely!" said everyone who saw her; and the vicomte lifted his +shoulders and dropped his eyes as if startled by something extraordinary +when she took her seat opposite and beamed upon him also with her +unchanging smile. + +"Madame, I doubt my ability before such an audience," said he, smilingly +inclining his head. + +The princess rested her bare round arm on a little table and considered +a reply unnecessary. She smilingly waited. All the time the story was +being told she sat upright, glancing now at her beautiful round arm, +altered in shape by its pressure on the table, now at her still more +beautiful bosom, on which she readjusted a diamond necklace. From time +to time she smoothed the folds of her dress, and whenever the story +produced an effect she glanced at Anna Pavlovna, at once adopted just +the expression she saw on the maid of honor's face, and again relapsed +into her radiant smile. + +The little princess had also left the tea table and followed Helene. + +"Wait a moment, I'll get my work.... Now then, what are you thinking +of?" she went on, turning to Prince Hippolyte. "Fetch me my workbag." + +There was a general movement as the princess, smiling and talking +merrily to everyone at once, sat down and gaily arranged herself in her +seat. + +"Now I am all right," she said, and asking the vicomte to begin, she +took up her work. + +Prince Hippolyte, having brought the workbag, joined the circle and +moving a chair close to hers seated himself beside her. + +Le charmant Hippolyte was surprising by his extraordinary resemblance to +his beautiful sister, but yet more by the fact that in spite of this +resemblance he was exceedingly ugly. His features were like his +sister's, but while in her case everything was lit up by a joyous, self- +satisfied, youthful, and constant smile of animation, and by the +wonderful classic beauty of her figure, his face on the contrary was +dulled by imbecility and a constant expression of sullen self- +confidence, while his body was thin and weak. His eyes, nose, and mouth +all seemed puckered into a vacant, wearied grimace, and his arms and +legs always fell into unnatural positions. + +"It's not going to be a ghost story?" said he, sitting down beside the +princess and hastily adjusting his lorgnette, as if without this +instrument he could not begin to speak. + +"Why no, my dear fellow," said the astonished narrator, shrugging his +shoulders. + +"Because I hate ghost stories," said Prince Hippolyte in a tone which +showed that he only understood the meaning of his words after he had +uttered them. + +He spoke with such self-confidence that his hearers could not be sure +whether what he said was very witty or very stupid. He was dressed in a +dark-green dress coat, knee breeches of the color of cuisse de nymphe +effrayee, as he called it, shoes, and silk stockings. + +The vicomte told his tale very neatly. It was an anecdote, then current, +to the effect that the Duc d'Enghien had gone secretly to Paris to visit +Mademoiselle George; that at her house he came upon Bonaparte, who also +enjoyed the famous actress' favors, and that in his presence Napoleon +happened to fall into one of the fainting fits to which he was subject, +and was thus at the duc's mercy. The latter spared him, and this +magnanimity Bonaparte subsequently repaid by death. + +The story was very pretty and interesting, especially at the point where +the rivals suddenly recognized one another; and the ladies looked +agitated. + +"Charming!" said Anna Pavlovna with an inquiring glance at the little +princess. + +"Charming!" whispered the little princess, sticking the needle into her +work as if to testify that the interest and fascination of the story +prevented her from going on with it. + +The vicomte appreciated this silent praise and smiling gratefully +prepared to continue, but just then Anna Pavlovna, who had kept a +watchful eye on the young man who so alarmed her, noticed that he was +talking too loudly and vehemently with the abbe, so she hurried to the +rescue. Pierre had managed to start a conversation with the abbe about +the balance of power, and the latter, evidently interested by the young +man's simple-minded eagerness, was explaining his pet theory. Both were +talking and listening too eagerly and too naturally, which was why Anna +Pavlovna disapproved. + +"The means are... the balance of power in Europe and the rights of the +people," the abbe was saying. "It is only necessary for one powerful +nation like Russia--barbaric as she is said to be--to place herself +disinterestedly at the head of an alliance having for its object the +maintenance of the balance of power of Europe, and it would save the +world!" + +"But how are you to get that balance?" Pierre was beginning. + +At that moment Anna Pavlovna came up and, looking severely at Pierre, +asked the Italian how he stood Russian climate. The Italian's face +instantly changed and assumed an offensively affected, sugary +expression, evidently habitual to him when conversing with women. + +"I am so enchanted by the brilliancy of the wit and culture of the +society, more especially of the feminine society, in which I have had +the honor of being received, that I have not yet had time to think of +the climate," said he. + +Not letting the abbe and Pierre escape, Anna Pavlovna, the more +conveniently to keep them under observation, brought them into the +larger circle. + + + + +CHAPTER IV + +Just then another visitor entered the drawing room: Prince Andrew +Bolkonski, the little princess' husband. He was a very handsome young +man, of medium height, with firm, clearcut features. Everything about +him, from his weary, bored expression to his quiet, measured step, +offered a most striking contrast to his quiet, little wife. It was +evident that he not only knew everyone in the drawing room, but had +found them to be so tiresome that it wearied him to look at or listen to +them. And among all these faces that he found so tedious, none seemed to +bore him so much as that of his pretty wife. He turned away from her +with a grimace that distorted his handsome face, kissed Anna Pavlovna's +hand, and screwing up his eyes scanned the whole company. + +"You are off to the war, Prince?" said Anna Pavlovna. + +"General Kutuzov," said Bolkonski, speaking French and stressing the +last syllable of the general's name like a Frenchman, "has been pleased +to take me as an aide-de-camp...." + +"And Lise, your wife?" + +"She will go to the country." + +"Are you not ashamed to deprive us of your charming wife?" + +"Andre," said his wife, addressing her husband in the same coquettish +manner in which she spoke to other men, "the vicomte has been telling us +such a tale about Mademoiselle George and Buonaparte!" + +Prince Andrew screwed up his eyes and turned away. Pierre, who from the +moment Prince Andrew entered the room had watched him with glad, +affectionate eyes, now came up and took his arm. Before he looked round +Prince Andrew frowned again, expressing his annoyance with whoever was +touching his arm, but when he saw Pierre's beaming face he gave him an +unexpectedly kind and pleasant smile. + +"There now!... So you, too, are in the great world?" said he to Pierre. + +"I knew you would be here," replied Pierre. "I will come to supper with +you. May I?" he added in a low voice so as not to disturb the vicomte +who was continuing his story. + +"No, impossible!" said Prince Andrew, laughing and pressing Pierre's +hand to show that there was no need to ask the question. He wished to +say something more, but at that moment Prince Vasili and his daughter +got up to go and the two young men rose to let them pass. + +"You must excuse me, dear Vicomte," said Prince Vasili to the Frenchman, +holding him down by the sleeve in a friendly way to prevent his rising. +"This unfortunate fete at the ambassador's deprives me of a pleasure, +and obliges me to interrupt you. I am very sorry to leave your +enchanting party," said he, turning to Anna Pavlovna. + +His daughter, Princess Helene, passed between the chairs, lightly +holding up the folds of her dress, and the smile shone still more +radiantly on her beautiful face. Pierre gazed at her with rapturous, +almost frightened, eyes as she passed him. + +"Very lovely," said Prince Andrew. + +"Very," said Pierre. + +In passing Prince Vasili seized Pierre's hand and said to Anna Pavlovna: +"Educate this bear for me! He has been staying with me a whole month and +this is the first time I have seen him in society. Nothing is so +necessary for a young man as the society of clever women." + +Anna Pavlovna smiled and promised to take Pierre in hand. She knew his +father to be a connection of Prince Vasili's. The elderly lady who had +been sitting with the old aunt rose hurriedly and overtook Prince Vasili +in the anteroom. All the affectation of interest she had assumed had +left her kindly and tear-worn face and it now expressed only anxiety and +fear. + +"How about my son Boris, Prince?" said she, hurrying after him into the +anteroom. "I can't remain any longer in Petersburg. Tell me what news I +may take back to my poor boy." + +Although Prince Vasili listened reluctantly and not very politely to the +elderly lady, even betraying some impatience, she gave him an +ingratiating and appealing smile, and took his hand that he might not go +away. + +"What would it cost you to say a word to the Emperor, and then he would +be transferred to the Guards at once?" said she. + +"Believe me, Princess, I am ready to do all I can," answered Prince +Vasili, "but it is difficult for me to ask the Emperor. I should advise +you to appeal to Rumyantsev through Prince Golitsyn. That would be the +best way." + +The elderly lady was a Princess Drubetskaya, belonging to one of the +best families in Russia, but she was poor, and having long been out of +society had lost her former influential connections. She had now come to +Petersburg to procure an appointment in the Guards for her only son. It +was, in fact, solely to meet Prince Vasili that she had obtained an +invitation to Anna Pavlovna's reception and had sat listening to the +vicomte's story. Prince Vasili's words frightened her, an embittered +look clouded her once handsome face, but only for a moment; then she +smiled again and clutched Prince Vasili's arm more tightly. + +"Listen to me, Prince," said she. "I have never yet asked you for +anything and I never will again, nor have I ever reminded you of my +father's friendship for you; but now I entreat you for God's sake to do +this for my son--and I shall always regard you as a benefactor," she +added hurriedly. "No, don't be angry, but promise! I have asked Golitsyn +and he has refused. Be the kindhearted man you always were," she said, +trying to smile though tears were in her eyes. + +"Papa, we shall be late," said Princess Helene, turning her beautiful +head and looking over her classically molded shoulder as she stood +waiting by the door. + +Influence in society, however, is a capital which has to be economized +if it is to last. Prince Vasili knew this, and having once realized that +if he asked on behalf of all who begged of him, he would soon be unable +to ask for himself, he became chary of using his influence. But in +Princess Drubetskaya's case he felt, after her second appeal, something +like qualms of conscience. She had reminded him of what was quite true; +he had been indebted to her father for the first steps in his career. +Moreover, he could see by her manners that she was one of those women-- +mostly mothers--who, having once made up their minds, will not rest +until they have gained their end, and are prepared if necessary to go on +insisting day after day and hour after hour, and even to make scenes. +This last consideration moved him. + +"My dear Anna Mikhaylovna," said he with his usual familiarity and +weariness of tone, "it is almost impossible for me to do what you ask; +but to prove my devotion to you and how I respect your father's memory, +I will do the impossible--your son shall be transferred to the Guards. +Here is my hand on it. Are you satisfied?" + +"My dear benefactor! This is what I expected from you--I knew your +kindness!" He turned to go. + +"Wait--just a word! When he has been transferred to the Guards..." she +faltered. "You are on good terms with Michael Ilarionovich Kutuzov... +recommend Boris to him as adjutant! Then I shall be at rest, and +then..." + +Prince Vasili smiled. + +"No, I won't promise that. You don't know how Kutuzov is pestered since +his appointment as Commander in Chief. He told me himself that all the +Moscow ladies have conspired to give him all their sons as adjutants." + +"No, but do promise! I won't let you go! My dear benefactor..." + +"Papa," said his beautiful daughter in the same tone as before, "we +shall be late." + +"Well, au revoir! Good-bye! You hear her?" + +"Then tomorrow you will speak to the Emperor?" + +"Certainly; but about Kutuzov, I don't promise." + +"Do promise, do promise, Vasili!" cried Anna Mikhaylovna as he went, +with the smile of a coquettish girl, which at one time probably came +naturally to her, but was now very ill-suited to her careworn face. + +Apparently she had forgotten her age and by force of habit employed all +the old feminine arts. But as soon as the prince had gone her face +resumed its former cold, artificial expression. She returned to the +group where the vicomte was still talking, and again pretended to +listen, while waiting till it would be time to leave. Her task was +accomplished. + + + + +CHAPTER V + +"And what do you think of this latest comedy, the coronation at Milan?" +asked Anna Pavlovna, "and of the comedy of the people of Genoa and Lucca +laying their petitions before Monsieur Buonaparte, and Monsieur +Buonaparte sitting on a throne and granting the petitions of the +nations? Adorable! It is enough to make one's head whirl! It is as if +the whole world had gone crazy." + +Prince Andrew looked Anna Pavlovna straight in the face with a sarcastic +smile. + +"'Dieu me la donne, gare a qui la touche!' * They say he was very fine +when he said that," he remarked, repeating the words in Italian: "'Dio +mi l'ha dato. Guai a chi la tocchi!'" + + +* God has given it to me, let him who touches it beware! + +"I hope this will prove the last drop that will make the glass run +over," Anna Pavlovna continued. "The sovereigns will not be able to +endure this man who is a menace to everything." + +"The sovereigns? I do not speak of Russia," said the vicomte, polite but +hopeless: "The sovereigns, madame... What have they done for Louis XVII, +for the Queen, or for Madame Elizabeth? Nothing!" and he became more +animated. "And believe me, they are reaping the reward of their betrayal +of the Bourbon cause. The sovereigns! Why, they are sending ambassadors +to compliment the usurper." + +And sighing disdainfully, he again changed his position. + +Prince Hippolyte, who had been gazing at the vicomte for some time +through his lorgnette, suddenly turned completely round toward the +little princess, and having asked for a needle began tracing the Conde +coat of arms on the table. He explained this to her with as much gravity +as if she had asked him to do it. + +"Baton de gueules, engrele de gueules d'azur--maison Conde," said he. + +The princess listened, smiling. + +"If Buonaparte remains on the throne of France a year longer," the +vicomte continued, with the air of a man who, in a matter with which he +is better acquainted than anyone else, does not listen to others but +follows the current of his own thoughts, "things will have gone too far. +By intrigues, violence, exile, and executions, French society--I mean +good French society--will have been forever destroyed, and then..." + +He shrugged his shoulders and spread out his hands. Pierre wished to +make a remark, for the conversation interested him, but Anna Pavlovna, +who had him under observation, interrupted: + +"The Emperor Alexander," said she, with the melancholy which always +accompanied any reference of hers to the Imperial family, "has declared +that he will leave it to the French people themselves to choose their +own form of government; and I believe that once free from the usurper, +the whole nation will certainly throw itself into the arms of its +rightful king," she concluded, trying to be amiable to the royalist +emigrant. + +"That is doubtful," said Prince Andrew. "Monsieur le Vicomte quite +rightly supposes that matters have already gone too far. I think it will +be difficult to return to the old regime." + +"From what I have heard," said Pierre, blushing and breaking into the +conversation, "almost all the aristocracy has already gone over to +Bonaparte's side." + +"It is the Buonapartists who say that," replied the vicomte without +looking at Pierre. "At the present time it is difficult to know the real +state of French public opinion." + +"Bonaparte has said so," remarked Prince Andrew with a sarcastic smile. + +It was evident that he did not like the vicomte and was aiming his +remarks at him, though without looking at him. + +"'I showed them the path to glory, but they did not follow it,'" Prince +Andrew continued after a short silence, again quoting Napoleon's words. +"'I opened my antechambers and they crowded in.' I do not know how far +he was justified in saying so." + +"Not in the least," replied the vicomte. "After the murder of the duc +even the most partial ceased to regard him as a hero. If to some +people," he went on, turning to Anna Pavlovna, "he ever was a hero, +after the murder of the duc there was one martyr more in heaven and one +hero less on earth." + +Before Anna Pavlovna and the others had time to smile their appreciation +of the vicomte's epigram, Pierre again broke into the conversation, and +though Anna Pavlovna felt sure he would say something inappropriate, she +was unable to stop him. + +"The execution of the Duc d'Enghien," declared Monsieur Pierre, "was a +political necessity, and it seems to me that Napoleon showed greatness +of soul by not fearing to take on himself the whole responsibility of +that deed." + +"Dieu! Mon Dieu!" muttered Anna Pavlovna in a terrified whisper. + +"What, Monsieur Pierre... Do you consider that assassination shows +greatness of soul?" said the little princess, smiling and drawing her +work nearer to her. + +"Oh! Oh!" exclaimed several voices. + +"Capital!" said Prince Hippolyte in English, and began slapping his knee +with the palm of his hand. + +The vicomte merely shrugged his shoulders. Pierre looked solemnly at his +audience over his spectacles and continued. + +"I say so," he continued desperately, "because the Bourbons fled from +the Revolution leaving the people to anarchy, and Napoleon alone +understood the Revolution and quelled it, and so for the general good, +he could not stop short for the sake of one man's life." + +"Won't you come over to the other table?" suggested Anna Pavlovna. + +But Pierre continued his speech without heeding her. + +"No," cried he, becoming more and more eager, "Napoleon is great because +he rose superior to the Revolution, suppressed its abuses, preserved all +that was good in it--equality of citizenship and freedom of speech and +of the press--and only for that reason did he obtain power." + +"Yes, if having obtained power, without availing himself of it to commit +murder he had restored it to the rightful king, I should have called him +a great man," remarked the vicomte. + +"He could not do that. The people only gave him power that he might rid +them of the Bourbons and because they saw that he was a great man. The +Revolution was a grand thing!" continued Monsieur Pierre, betraying by +this desperate and provocative proposition his extreme youth and his +wish to express all that was in his mind. + +"What? Revolution and regicide a grand thing?... Well, after that... But +won't you come to this other table?" repeated Anna Pavlovna. + +"Rousseau's Contrat Social," said the vicomte with a tolerant smile. + +"I am not speaking of regicide, I am speaking about ideas." + +"Yes: ideas of robbery, murder, and regicide," again interjected an +ironical voice. + +"Those were extremes, no doubt, but they are not what is most important. +What is important are the rights of man, emancipation from prejudices, +and equality of citizenship, and all these ideas Napoleon has retained +in full force." + +"Liberty and equality," said the vicomte contemptuously, as if at last +deciding seriously to prove to this youth how foolish his words were, +"high-sounding words which have long been discredited. Who does not love +liberty and equality? Even our Saviour preached liberty and equality. +Have people since the Revolution become happier? On the contrary. We +wanted liberty, but Buonaparte has destroyed it." + +Prince Andrew kept looking with an amused smile from Pierre to the +vicomte and from the vicomte to their hostess. In the first moment of +Pierre's outburst Anna Pavlovna, despite her social experience, was +horror-struck. But when she saw that Pierre's sacrilegious words had not +exasperated the vicomte, and had convinced herself that it was +impossible to stop him, she rallied her forces and joined the vicomte in +a vigorous attack on the orator. + +"But, my dear Monsieur Pierre," said she, "how do you explain the fact +of a great man executing a duc--or even an ordinary man who--is innocent +and untried?" + +"I should like," said the vicomte, "to ask how monsieur explains the +18th Brumaire; was not that an imposture? It was a swindle, and not at +all like the conduct of a great man!" + +"And the prisoners he killed in Africa? That was horrible!" said the +little princess, shrugging her shoulders. + +"He's a low fellow, say what you will," remarked Prince Hippolyte. + +Pierre, not knowing whom to answer, looked at them all and smiled. His +smile was unlike the half-smile of other people. When he smiled, his +grave, even rather gloomy, look was instantaneously replaced by another- +-a childlike, kindly, even rather silly look, which seemed to ask +forgiveness. + +The vicomte who was meeting him for the first time saw clearly that this +young Jacobin was not so terrible as his words suggested. All were +silent. + +"How do you expect him to answer you all at once?" said Prince Andrew. +"Besides, in the actions of a statesman one has to distinguish between +his acts as a private person, as a general, and as an emperor. So it +seems to me." + +"Yes, yes, of course!" Pierre chimed in, pleased at the arrival of this +reinforcement. + +"One must admit," continued Prince Andrew, "that Napoleon as a man was +great on the bridge of Arcola, and in the hospital at Jaffa where he +gave his hand to the plague-stricken; but... but there are other acts +which it is difficult to justify." + +Prince Andrew, who had evidently wished to tone down the awkwardness of +Pierre's remarks, rose and made a sign to his wife that it was time to +go. + +Suddenly Prince Hippolyte started up making signs to everyone to attend, +and asking them all to be seated began: + +"I was told a charming Moscow story today and must treat you to it. +Excuse me, Vicomte--I must tell it in Russian or the point will be +lost...." And Prince Hippolyte began to tell his story in such Russian +as a Frenchman would speak after spending about a year in Russia. +Everyone waited, so emphatically and eagerly did he demand their +attention to his story. + +"There is in Moscow a lady, une dame, and she is very stingy. She must +have two footmen behind her carriage, and very big ones. That was her +taste. And she had a lady's maid, also big. She said..." + +Here Prince Hippolyte paused, evidently collecting his ideas with +difficulty. + +"She said... Oh yes! She said, 'Girl,' to the maid, 'put on a livery, +get up behind the carriage, and come with me while I make some calls.'" + +Here Prince Hippolyte spluttered and burst out laughing long before his +audience, which produced an effect unfavorable to the narrator. Several +persons, among them the elderly lady and Anna Pavlovna, did however +smile. + +"She went. Suddenly there was a great wind. The girl lost her hat and +her long hair came down...." Here he could contain himself no longer and +went on, between gasps of laughter: "And the whole world knew...." + +And so the anecdote ended. Though it was unintelligible why he had told +it, or why it had to be told in Russian, still Anna Pavlovna and the +others appreciated Prince Hippolyte's social tact in so agreeably ending +Pierre's unpleasant and unamiable outburst. After the anecdote the +conversation broke up into insignificant small talk about the last and +next balls, about theatricals, and who would meet whom, and when and +where. + + + + +CHAPTER VI + +Having thanked Anna Pavlovna for her charming soiree, the guests began +to take their leave. + +Pierre was ungainly. Stout, about the average height, broad, with huge +red hands; he did not know, as the saying is, how to enter a drawing +room and still less how to leave one; that is, how to say something +particularly agreeable before going away. Besides this he was absent- +minded. When he rose to go, he took up instead of his own, the general's +three-cornered hat, and held it, pulling at the plume, till the general +asked him to restore it. All his absent-mindedness and inability to +enter a room and converse in it was, however, redeemed by his kindly, +simple, and modest expression. Anna Pavlovna turned toward him and, with +a Christian mildness that expressed forgiveness of his indiscretion, +nodded and said: "I hope to see you again, but I also hope you will +change your opinions, my dear Monsieur Pierre." + +When she said this, he did not reply and only bowed, but again everybody +saw his smile, which said nothing, unless perhaps, "Opinions are +opinions, but you see what a capital, good-natured fellow I am." And +everyone, including Anna Pavlovna, felt this. + +Prince Andrew had gone out into the hall, and, turning his shoulders to +the footman who was helping him on with his cloak, listened +indifferently to his wife's chatter with Prince Hippolyte who had also +come into the hall. Prince Hippolyte stood close to the pretty, pregnant +princess, and stared fixedly at her through his eyeglass. + +"Go in, Annette, or you will catch cold," said the little princess, +taking leave of Anna Pavlovna. "It is settled," she added in a low +voice. + +Anna Pavlovna had already managed to speak to Lise about the match she +contemplated between Anatole and the little princess' sister-in-law. + +"I rely on you, my dear," said Anna Pavlovna, also in a low tone. "Write +to her and let me know how her father looks at the matter. Au revoir!"-- +and she left the hall. + +Prince Hippolyte approached the little princess and, bending his face +close to her, began to whisper something. + +Two footmen, the princess' and his own, stood holding a shawl and a +cloak, waiting for the conversation to finish. They listened to the +French sentences which to them were meaningless, with an air of +understanding but not wishing to appear to do so. The princess as usual +spoke smilingly and listened with a laugh. + +"I am very glad I did not go to the ambassador's," said Prince Hippolyte +"-so dull-. It has been a delightful evening, has it not? Delightful!" + +"They say the ball will be very good," replied the princess, drawing up +her downy little lip. "All the pretty women in society will be there." + +"Not all, for you will not be there; not all," said Prince Hippolyte +smiling joyfully; and snatching the shawl from the footman, whom he even +pushed aside, he began wrapping it round the princess. Either from +awkwardness or intentionally (no one could have said which) after the +shawl had been adjusted he kept his arm around her for a long time, as +though embracing her. + +Still smiling, she gracefully moved away, turning and glancing at her +husband. Prince Andrew's eyes were closed, so weary and sleepy did he +seem. + +"Are you ready?" he asked his wife, looking past her. + +Prince Hippolyte hurriedly put on his cloak, which in the latest fashion +reached to his very heels, and, stumbling in it, ran out into the porch +following the princess, whom a footman was helping into the carriage. + +"Princesse, au revoir," cried he, stumbling with his tongue as well as +with his feet. + +The princess, picking up her dress, was taking her seat in the dark +carriage, her husband was adjusting his saber; Prince Hippolyte, under +pretense of helping, was in everyone's way. + +"Allow me, sir," said Prince Andrew in Russian in a cold, disagreeable +tone to Prince Hippolyte who was blocking his path. + +"I am expecting you, Pierre," said the same voice, but gently and +affectionately. + +The postilion started, the carriage wheels rattled. Prince Hippolyte +laughed spasmodically as he stood in the porch waiting for the vicomte +whom he had promised to take home. + +"Well, mon cher," said the vicomte, having seated himself beside +Hippolyte in the carriage, "your little princess is very nice, very nice +indeed, quite French," and he kissed the tips of his fingers. Hippolyte +burst out laughing. + +"Do you know, you are a terrible chap for all your innocent airs," +continued the vicomte. "I pity the poor husband, that little officer who +gives himself the airs of a monarch." + +Hippolyte spluttered again, and amid his laughter said, "And you were +saying that the Russian ladies are not equal to the French? One has to +know how to deal with them." + +Pierre reaching the house first went into Prince Andrew's study like one +quite at home, and from habit immediately lay down on the sofa, took +from the shelf the first book that came to his hand (it was Caesar's +Commentaries), and resting on his elbow, began reading it in the middle. + +"What have you done to Mlle Scherer? She will be quite ill now," said +Prince Andrew, as he entered the study, rubbing his small white hands. + +Pierre turned his whole body, making the sofa creak. He lifted his eager +face to Prince Andrew, smiled, and waved his hand. + +"That abbe is very interesting but he does not see the thing in the +right light.... In my opinion perpetual peace is possible but--I do not +know how to express it... not by a balance of political power...." + +It was evident that Prince Andrew was not interested in such abstract +conversation. + +"One can't everywhere say all one thinks, mon cher. Well, have you at +last decided on anything? Are you going to be a guardsman or a +diplomatist?" asked Prince Andrew after a momentary silence. + +Pierre sat up on the sofa, with his legs tucked under him. + +"Really, I don't yet know. I don't like either the one or the other." + +"But you must decide on something! Your father expects it." + +Pierre at the age of ten had been sent abroad with an abbe as tutor, and +had remained away till he was twenty. When he returned to Moscow his +father dismissed the abbe and said to the young man, "Now go to +Petersburg, look round, and choose your profession. I will agree to +anything. Here is a letter to Prince Vasili, and here is money. Write to +me all about it, and I will help you in everything." Pierre had already +been choosing a career for three months, and had not decided on +anything. It was about this choice that Prince Andrew was speaking. +Pierre rubbed his forehead. + +"But he must be a Freemason," said he, referring to the abbe whom he had +met that evening. + +"That is all nonsense." Prince Andrew again interrupted him, "let us +talk business. Have you been to the Horse Guards?" + +"No, I have not; but this is what I have been thinking and wanted to +tell you. There is a war now against Napoleon. If it were a war for +freedom I could understand it and should be the first to enter the army; +but to help England and Austria against the greatest man in the world is +not right." + +Prince Andrew only shrugged his shoulders at Pierre's childish words. He +put on the air of one who finds it impossible to reply to such nonsense, +but it would in fact have been difficult to give any other answer than +the one Prince Andrew gave to this naive question. + +"If no one fought except on his own conviction, there would be no wars," +he said. + +"And that would be splendid," said Pierre. + +Prince Andrew smiled ironically. + +"Very likely it would be splendid, but it will never come about..." + +"Well, why are you going to the war?" asked Pierre. + +"What for? I don't know. I must. Besides that I am going..." He paused. +"I am going because the life I am leading here does not suit me!" + + + + +CHAPTER VII + +The rustle of a woman's dress was heard in the next room. Prince Andrew +shook himself as if waking up, and his face assumed the look it had had +in Anna Pavlovna's drawing room. Pierre removed his feet from the sofa. +The princess came in. She had changed her gown for a house dress as +fresh and elegant as the other. Prince Andrew rose and politely placed a +chair for her. + +"How is it," she began, as usual in French, settling down briskly and +fussily in the easy chair, "how is it Annette never got married? How +stupid you men all are not to have married her! Excuse me for saying so, +but you have no sense about women. What an argumentative fellow you are, +Monsieur Pierre!" + +"And I am still arguing with your husband. I can't understand why he +wants to go to the war," replied Pierre, addressing the princess with +none of the embarrassment so commonly shown by young men in their +intercourse with young women. + +The princess started. Evidently Pierre's words touched her to the quick. + +"Ah, that is just what I tell him!" said she. "I don't understand it; I +don't in the least understand why men can't live without wars. How is it +that we women don't want anything of the kind, don't need it? Now you +shall judge between us. I always tell him: Here he is Uncle's aide-de- +camp, a most brilliant position. He is so well known, so much +appreciated by everyone. The other day at the Apraksins' I heard a lady +asking, 'Is that the famous Prince Andrew?' I did indeed." She laughed. +"He is so well received everywhere. He might easily become aide-de-camp +to the Emperor. You know the Emperor spoke to him most graciously. +Annette and I were speaking of how to arrange it. What do you think?" + +Pierre looked at his friend and, noticing that he did not like the +conversation, gave no reply. + +"When are you starting?" he asked. + +"Oh, don't speak of his going, don't! I won't hear it spoken of," said +the princess in the same petulantly playful tone in which she had spoken +to Hippolyte in the drawing room and which was so plainly ill-suited to +the family circle of which Pierre was almost a member. "Today when I +remembered that all these delightful associations must be broken off... +and then you know, Andre..." (she looked significantly at her husband) +"I'm afraid, I'm afraid!" she whispered, and a shudder ran down her +back. + +Her husband looked at her as if surprised to notice that someone besides +Pierre and himself was in the room, and addressed her in a tone of +frigid politeness. + +"What is it you are afraid of, Lise? I don't understand," said he. + +"There, what egotists men all are: all, all egotists! Just for a whim of +his own, goodness only knows why, he leaves me and locks me up alone in +the country." + +"With my father and sister, remember," said Prince Andrew gently. + +"Alone all the same, without my friends.... And he expects me not to be +afraid." + +Her tone was now querulous and her lip drawn up, giving her not a +joyful, but an animal, squirrel-like expression. She paused as if she +felt it indecorous to speak of her pregnancy before Pierre, though the +gist of the matter lay in that. + +"I still can't understand what you are afraid of," said Prince Andrew +slowly, not taking his eyes off his wife. + +The princess blushed, and raised her arms with a gesture of despair. + +"No, Andrew, I must say you have changed. Oh, how you have..." + +"Your doctor tells you to go to bed earlier," said Prince Andrew. "You +had better go." + +The princess said nothing, but suddenly her short downy lip quivered. +Prince Andrew rose, shrugged his shoulders, and walked about the room. + +Pierre looked over his spectacles with naive surprise, now at him and +now at her, moved as if about to rise too, but changed his mind. + +"Why should I mind Monsieur Pierre being here?" exclaimed the little +princess suddenly, her pretty face all at once distorted by a tearful +grimace. "I have long wanted to ask you, Andrew, why you have changed so +to me? What have I done to you? You are going to the war and have no +pity for me. Why is it?" + +"Lise!" was all Prince Andrew said. But that one word expressed an +entreaty, a threat, and above all conviction that she would herself +regret her words. But she went on hurriedly: + +"You treat me like an invalid or a child. I see it all! Did you behave +like that six months ago?" + +"Lise, I beg you to desist," said Prince Andrew still more emphatically. + +Pierre, who had been growing more and more agitated as he listened to +all this, rose and approached the princess. He seemed unable to bear the +sight of tears and was ready to cry himself. + +"Calm yourself, Princess! It seems so to you because... I assure you I +myself have experienced... and so... because... No, excuse me! An +outsider is out of place here... No, don't distress yourself... Good- +bye!" + +Prince Andrew caught him by the hand. + +"No, wait, Pierre! The princess is too kind to wish to deprive me of the +pleasure of spending the evening with you." + +"No, he thinks only of himself," muttered the princess without +restraining her angry tears. + +"Lise!" said Prince Andrew dryly, raising his voice to the pitch which +indicates that patience is exhausted. + +Suddenly the angry, squirrel-like expression of the princess' pretty +face changed into a winning and piteous look of fear. Her beautiful eyes +glanced askance at her husband's face, and her own assumed the timid, +deprecating expression of a dog when it rapidly but feebly wags its +drooping tail. + +"Mon Dieu, mon Dieu!" she muttered, and lifting her dress with one hand +she went up to her husband and kissed him on the forehead. + +"Good night, Lise," said he, rising and courteously kissing her hand as +he would have done to a stranger. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII + +The friends were silent. Neither cared to begin talking. Pierre +continually glanced at Prince Andrew; Prince Andrew rubbed his forehead +with his small hand. + +"Let us go and have supper," he said with a sigh, going to the door. + +They entered the elegant, newly decorated, and luxurious dining room. +Everything from the table napkins to the silver, china, and glass bore +that imprint of newness found in the households of the newly married. +Halfway through supper Prince Andrew leaned his elbows on the table and, +with a look of nervous agitation such as Pierre had never before seen on +his face, began to talk--as one who has long had something on his mind +and suddenly determines to speak out. + +"Never, never marry, my dear fellow! That's my advice: never marry till +you can say to yourself that you have done all you are capable of, and +until you have ceased to love the woman of your choice and have seen her +plainly as she is, or else you will make a cruel and irrevocable +mistake. Marry when you are old and good for nothing--or all that is +good and noble in you will be lost. It will all be wasted on trifles. +Yes! Yes! Yes! Don't look at me with such surprise. If you marry +expecting anything from yourself in the future, you will feel at every +step that for you all is ended, all is closed except the drawing room, +where you will be ranged side by side with a court lackey and an +idiot!... But what's the good?..." and he waved his arm. + +Pierre took off his spectacles, which made his face seem different and +the good-natured expression still more apparent, and gazed at his friend +in amazement. + +"My wife," continued Prince Andrew, "is an excellent woman, one of those +rare women with whom a man's honor is safe; but, O God, what would I not +give now to be unmarried! You are the first and only one to whom I +mention this, because I like you." + +As he said this Prince Andrew was less than ever like that Bolkonski who +had lolled in Anna Pavlovna's easy chairs and with half-closed eyes had +uttered French phrases between his teeth. Every muscle of his thin face +was now quivering with nervous excitement; his eyes, in which the fire +of life had seemed extinguished, now flashed with brilliant light. It +was evident that the more lifeless he seemed at ordinary times, the more +impassioned he became in these moments of almost morbid irritation. + +"You don't understand why I say this," he continued, "but it is the +whole story of life. You talk of Bonaparte and his career," said he +(though Pierre had not mentioned Bonaparte), "but Bonaparte when he +worked went step by step toward his goal. He was free, he had nothing +but his aim to consider, and he reached it. But tie yourself up with a +woman and, like a chained convict, you lose all freedom! And all you +have of hope and strength merely weighs you down and torments you with +regret. Drawing rooms, gossip, balls, vanity, and triviality--these are +the enchanted circle I cannot escape from. I am now going to the war, +the greatest war there ever was, and I know nothing and am fit for +nothing. I am very amiable and have a caustic wit," continued Prince +Andrew, "and at Anna Pavlovna's they listen to me. And that stupid set +without whom my wife cannot exist, and those women... If you only knew +what those society women are, and women in general! My father is right. +Selfish, vain, stupid, trivial in everything--that's what women are when +you see them in their true colors! When you meet them in society it +seems as if there were something in them, but there's nothing, nothing, +nothing! No, don't marry, my dear fellow; don't marry!" concluded Prince +Andrew. + +"It seems funny to me," said Pierre, "that you, you should consider +yourself incapable and your life a spoiled life. You have everything +before you, everything. And you..." + +He did not finish his sentence, but his tone showed how highly he +thought of his friend and how much he expected of him in the future. + +"How can he talk like that?" thought Pierre. He considered his friend a +model of perfection because Prince Andrew possessed in the highest +degree just the very qualities Pierre lacked, and which might be best +described as strength of will. Pierre was always astonished at Prince +Andrew's calm manner of treating everybody, his extraordinary memory, +his extensive reading (he had read everything, knew everything, and had +an opinion about everything), but above all at his capacity for work and +study. And if Pierre was often struck by Andrew's lack of capacity for +philosophical meditation (to which he himself was particularly +addicted), he regarded even this not as a defect but as a sign of +strength. + +Even in the best, most friendly and simplest relations of life, praise +and commendation are essential, just as grease is necessary to wheels +that they may run smoothly. + +"My part is played out," said Prince Andrew. "What's the use of talking +about me? Let us talk about you," he added after a silence, smiling at +his reassuring thoughts. + +That smile was immediately reflected on Pierre's face. + +"But what is there to say about me?" said Pierre, his face relaxing into +a careless, merry smile. "What am I? An illegitimate son!" He suddenly +blushed crimson, and it was plain that he had made a great effort to say +this. "Without a name and without means... And it really..." But he did +not say what "it really" was. "For the present I am free and am all +right. Only I haven't the least idea what I am to do; I wanted to +consult you seriously." + +Prince Andrew looked kindly at him, yet his glance--friendly and +affectionate as it was--expressed a sense of his own superiority. + +"I am fond of you, especially as you are the one live man among our +whole set. Yes, you're all right! Choose what you will; it's all the +same. You'll be all right anywhere. But look here: give up visiting +those Kuragins and leading that sort of life. It suits you so badly--all +this debauchery, dissipation, and the rest of it!" + +"What would you have, my dear fellow?" answered Pierre, shrugging his +shoulders. "Women, my dear fellow; women!" + +"I don't understand it," replied Prince Andrew. "Women who are comme il +faut, that's a different matter; but the Kuragins' set of women, 'women +and wine' I don't understand!" + +Pierre was staying at Prince Vasili Kuragin's and sharing the dissipated +life of his son Anatole, the son whom they were planning to reform by +marrying him to Prince Andrew's sister. + +"Do you know?" said Pierre, as if suddenly struck by a happy thought, +"seriously, I have long been thinking of it.... Leading such a life I +can't decide or think properly about anything. One's head aches, and one +spends all one's money. He asked me for tonight, but I won't go." + +"You give me your word of honor not to go?" + +"On my honor!" + + + + +CHAPTER IX + +It was past one o'clock when Pierre left his friend. It was a cloudless, +northern, summer night. Pierre took an open cab intending to drive +straight home. But the nearer he drew to the house the more he felt the +impossibility of going to sleep on such a night. It was light enough to +see a long way in the deserted street and it seemed more like morning or +evening than night. On the way Pierre remembered that Anatole Kuragin +was expecting the usual set for cards that evening, after which there +was generally a drinking bout, finishing with visits of a kind Pierre +was very fond of. + +"I should like to go to Kuragin's," thought he. + +But he immediately recalled his promise to Prince Andrew not to go +there. Then, as happens to people of weak character, he desired so +passionately once more to enjoy that dissipation he was so accustomed to +that he decided to go. The thought immediately occurred to him that his +promise to Prince Andrew was of no account, because before he gave it he +had already promised Prince Anatole to come to his gathering; "besides," +thought he, "all such 'words of honor' are conventional things with no +definite meaning, especially if one considers that by tomorrow one may +be dead, or something so extraordinary may happen to one that honor and +dishonor will be all the same!" Pierre often indulged in reflections of +this sort, nullifying all his decisions and intentions. He went to +Kuragin's. + +Reaching the large house near the Horse Guards' barracks, in which +Anatole lived, Pierre entered the lighted porch, ascended the stairs, +and went in at the open door. There was no one in the anteroom; empty +bottles, cloaks, and overshoes were lying about; there was a smell of +alcohol, and sounds of voices and shouting in the distance. + +Cards and supper were over, but the visitors had not yet dispersed. +Pierre threw off his cloak and entered the first room, in which were the +remains of supper. A footman, thinking no one saw him, was drinking on +the sly what was left in the glasses. From the third room came sounds of +laughter, the shouting of familiar voices, the growling of a bear, and +general commotion. Some eight or nine young men were crowding anxiously +round an open window. Three others were romping with a young bear, one +pulling him by the chain and trying to set him at the others. + +"I bet a hundred on Stevens!" shouted one. + +"Mind, no holding on!" cried another. + +"I bet on Dolokhov!" cried a third. "Kuragin, you part our hands." + +"There, leave Bruin alone; here's a bet on." + +"At one draught, or he loses!" shouted a fourth. + +"Jacob, bring a bottle!" shouted the host, a tall, handsome fellow who +stood in the midst of the group, without a coat, and with his fine linen +shirt unfastened in front. "Wait a bit, you fellows.... Here is Petya! +Good man!" cried he, addressing Pierre. + +Another voice, from a man of medium height with clear blue eyes, +particularly striking among all these drunken voices by its sober ring, +cried from the window: "Come here; part the bets!" This was Dolokhov, an +officer of the Semenov regiment, a notorious gambler and duelist, who +was living with Anatole. Pierre smiled, looking about him merrily. + +"I don't understand. What's it all about?" + +"Wait a bit, he is not drunk yet! A bottle here," said Anatole, taking a +glass from the table he went up to Pierre. + +"First of all you must drink!" + +Pierre drank one glass after another, looking from under his brows at +the tipsy guests who were again crowding round the window, and listening +to their chatter. Anatole kept on refilling Pierre's glass while +explaining that Dolokhov was betting with Stevens, an English naval +officer, that he would drink a bottle of rum sitting on the outer ledge +of the third floor window with his legs hanging out. + +"Go on, you must drink it all," said Anatole, giving Pierre the last +glass, "or I won't let you go!" + +"No, I won't," said Pierre, pushing Anatole aside, and he went up to the +window. + +Dolokhov was holding the Englishman's hand and clearly and distinctly +repeating the terms of the bet, addressing himself particularly to +Anatole and Pierre. + +Dolokhov was of medium height, with curly hair and light-blue eyes. He +was about twenty-five. Like all infantry officers he wore no mustache, +so that his mouth, the most striking feature of his face, was clearly +seen. The lines of that mouth were remarkably finely curved. The middle +of the upper lip formed a sharp wedge and closed firmly on the firm +lower one, and something like two distinct smiles played continually +round the two corners of the mouth; this, together with the resolute, +insolent intelligence of his eyes, produced an effect which made it +impossible not to notice his face. Dolokhov was a man of small means and +no connections. Yet, though Anatole spent tens of thousands of rubles, +Dolokhov lived with him and had placed himself on such a footing that +all who knew them, including Anatole himself, respected him more than +they did Anatole. Dolokhov could play all games and nearly always won. +However much he drank, he never lost his clearheadedness. Both Kuragin +and Dolokhov were at that time notorious among the rakes and scapegraces +of Petersburg. + +The bottle of rum was brought. The window frame which prevented anyone +from sitting on the outer sill was being forced out by two footmen, who +were evidently flurried and intimidated by the directions and shouts of +the gentlemen around. + +Anatole with his swaggering air strode up to the window. He wanted to +smash something. Pushing away the footmen he tugged at the frame, but +could not move it. He smashed a pane. + +"You have a try, Hercules," said he, turning to Pierre. + +Pierre seized the crossbeam, tugged, and wrenched the oak frame out with +a crash. + +"Take it right out, or they'll think I'm holding on," said Dolokhov. + +"Is the Englishman bragging?... Eh? Is it all right?" said Anatole. + +"First-rate," said Pierre, looking at Dolokhov, who with a bottle of rum +in his hand was approaching the window, from which the light of the sky, +the dawn merging with the afterglow of sunset, was visible. + +Dolokhov, the bottle of rum still in his hand, jumped onto the window +sill. "Listen!" cried he, standing there and addressing those in the +room. All were silent. + +"I bet fifty imperials"--he spoke French that the Englishman might +understand him, but he did not speak it very well--"I bet fifty +imperials... or do you wish to make it a hundred?" added he, addressing +the Englishman. + +"No, fifty," replied the latter. + +"All right. Fifty imperials... that I will drink a whole bottle of rum +without taking it from my mouth, sitting outside the window on this +spot" (he stooped and pointed to the sloping ledge outside the window) +"and without holding on to anything. Is that right?" + +"Quite right," said the Englishman. + +Anatole turned to the Englishman and taking him by one of the buttons of +his coat and looking down at him--the Englishman was short--began +repeating the terms of the wager to him in English. + +"Wait!" cried Dolokhov, hammering with the bottle on the window sill to +attract attention. "Wait a bit, Kuragin. Listen! If anyone else does the +same, I will pay him a hundred imperials. Do you understand?" + +The Englishman nodded, but gave no indication whether he intended to +accept this challenge or not. Anatole did not release him, and though he +kept nodding to show that he understood, Anatole went on translating +Dolokhov's words into English. A thin young lad, an hussar of the Life +Guards, who had been losing that evening, climbed on the window sill, +leaned over, and looked down. + +"Oh! Oh! Oh!" he muttered, looking down from the window at the stones of +the pavement. + +"Shut up!" cried Dolokhov, pushing him away from the window. The lad +jumped awkwardly back into the room, tripping over his spurs. + +Placing the bottle on the window sill where he could reach it easily, +Dolokhov climbed carefully and slowly through the window and lowered his +legs. Pressing against both sides of the window, he adjusted himself on +his seat, lowered his hands, moved a little to the right and then to the +left, and took up the bottle. Anatole brought two candles and placed +them on the window sill, though it was already quite light. Dolokhov's +back in his white shirt, and his curly head, were lit up from both +sides. Everyone crowded to the window, the Englishman in front. Pierre +stood smiling but silent. One man, older than the others present, +suddenly pushed forward with a scared and angry look and wanted to seize +hold of Dolokhov's shirt. + +"I say, this is folly! He'll be killed," said this more sensible man. + +Anatole stopped him. + +"Don't touch him! You'll startle him and then he'll be killed. Eh?... +What then?... Eh?" + +Dolokhov turned round and, again holding on with both hands, arranged +himself on his seat. + +"If anyone comes meddling again," said he, emitting the words separately +through his thin compressed lips, "I will throw him down there. Now +then!" + +Saying this he again turned round, dropped his hands, took the bottle +and lifted it to his lips, threw back his head, and raised his free hand +to balance himself. One of the footmen who had stooped to pick up some +broken glass remained in that position without taking his eyes from the +window and from Dolokhov's back. Anatole stood erect with staring eyes. +The Englishman looked on sideways, pursing up his lips. The man who had +wished to stop the affair ran to a corner of the room and threw himself +on a sofa with his face to the wall. Pierre hid his face, from which a +faint smile forgot to fade though his features now expressed horror and +fear. All were still. Pierre took his hands from his eyes. Dolokhov +still sat in the same position, only his head was thrown further back +till his curly hair touched his shirt collar, and the hand holding the +bottle was lifted higher and higher and trembled with the effort. The +bottle was emptying perceptibly and rising still higher and his head +tilting yet further back. "Why is it so long?" thought Pierre. It seemed +to him that more than half an hour had elapsed. Suddenly Dolokhov made a +backward movement with his spine, and his arm trembled nervously; this +was sufficient to cause his whole body to slip as he sat on the sloping +ledge. As he began slipping down, his head and arm wavered still more +with the strain. One hand moved as if to clutch the window sill, but +refrained from touching it. Pierre again covered his eyes and thought he +would never open them again. Suddenly he was aware of a stir all around. +He looked up: Dolokhov was standing on the window sill, with a pale but +radiant face. + +"It's empty." + +He threw the bottle to the Englishman, who caught it neatly. Dolokhov +jumped down. He smelt strongly of rum. + +"Well done!... Fine fellow!... There's a bet for you!... Devil take +you!" came from different sides. + +The Englishman took out his purse and began counting out the money. +Dolokhov stood frowning and did not speak. Pierre jumped upon the window +sill. + +"Gentlemen, who wishes to bet with me? I'll do the same thing!" he +suddenly cried. "Even without a bet, there! Tell them to bring me a +bottle. I'll do it.... Bring a bottle!" + +"Let him do it, let him do it," said Dolokhov, smiling. + +"What next? Have you gone mad?... No one would let you!... Why, you go +giddy even on a staircase," exclaimed several voices. + +"I'll drink it! Let's have a bottle of rum!" shouted Pierre, banging the +table with a determined and drunken gesture and preparing to climb out +of the window. + +They seized him by his arms; but he was so strong that everyone who +touched him was sent flying. + +"No, you'll never manage him that way," said Anatole. "Wait a bit and +I'll get round him.... Listen! I'll take your bet tomorrow, but now we +are all going to ----'s." + +"Come on then," cried Pierre. "Come on!... And we'll take Bruin with +us." + +And he caught the bear, took it in his arms, lifted it from the ground, +and began dancing round the room with it. + + + + +CHAPTER X + +Prince Vasili kept the promise he had given to Princess Drubetskaya who +had spoken to him on behalf of her only son Boris on the evening of Anna +Pavlovna's soiree. The matter was mentioned to the Emperor, an exception +made, and Boris transferred into the regiment of Semenov Guards with the +rank of cornet. He received, however, no appointment to Kutuzov's staff +despite all Anna Mikhaylovna's endeavors and entreaties. Soon after Anna +Pavlovna's reception Anna Mikhaylovna returned to Moscow and went +straight to her rich relations, the Rostovs, with whom she stayed when +in the town and where her darling Bory, who had only just entered a +regiment of the line and was being at once transferred to the Guards as +a cornet, had been educated from childhood and lived for years at a +time. The Guards had already left Petersburg on the tenth of August, and +her son, who had remained in Moscow for his equipment, was to join them +on the march to Radzivilov. + +It was St. Natalia's day and the name day of two of the Rostovs--the +mother and the youngest daughter--both named Nataly. Ever since the +morning, carriages with six horses had been coming and going +continually, bringing visitors to the Countess Rostova's big house on +the Povarskaya, so well known to all Moscow. The countess herself and +her handsome eldest daughter were in the drawing-room with the visitors +who came to congratulate, and who constantly succeeded one another in +relays. + +The countess was a woman of about forty-five, with a thin Oriental type +of face, evidently worn out with childbearing--she had had twelve. A +languor of motion and speech, resulting from weakness, gave her a +distinguished air which inspired respect. Princess Anna Mikhaylovna +Drubetskaya, who as a member of the household was also seated in the +drawing room, helped to receive and entertain the visitors. The young +people were in one of the inner rooms, not considering it necessary to +take part in receiving the visitors. The count met the guests and saw +them off, inviting them all to dinner. + +"I am very, very grateful to you, mon cher," or "ma chere"--he called +everyone without exception and without the slightest variation in his +tone, "my dear," whether they were above or below him in rank--"I thank +you for myself and for our two dear ones whose name day we are keeping. +But mind you come to dinner or I shall be offended, ma chere! On behalf +of the whole family I beg you to come, mon cher!" These words he +repeated to everyone without exception or variation, and with the same +expression on his full, cheerful, clean-shaven face, the same firm +pressure of the hand and the same quick, repeated bows. As soon as he +had seen a visitor off he returned to one of those who were still in the +drawing room, drew a chair toward him or her, and jauntily spreading out +his legs and putting his hands on his knees with the air of a man who +enjoys life and knows how to live, he swayed to and fro with dignity, +offered surmises about the weather, or touched on questions of health, +sometimes in Russian and sometimes in very bad but self-confident +French; then again, like a man weary but unflinching in the fulfillment +of duty, he rose to see some visitors off and, stroking his scanty gray +hairs over his bald patch, also asked them to dinner. Sometimes on his +way back from the anteroom he would pass through the conservatory and +pantry into the large marble dining hall, where tables were being set +out for eighty people; and looking at the footmen, who were bringing in +silver and china, moving tables, and unfolding damask table linen, he +would call Dmitri Vasilevich, a man of good family and the manager of +all his affairs, and while looking with pleasure at the enormous table +would say: "Well, Dmitri, you'll see that things are all as they should +be? That's right! The great thing is the serving, that's it." And with a +complacent sigh he would return to the drawing room. + +"Marya Lvovna Karagina and her daughter!" announced the countess' +gigantic footman in his bass voice, entering the drawing room. The +countess reflected a moment and took a pinch from a gold snuffbox with +her husband's portrait on it. + +"I'm quite worn out by these callers. However, I'll see her and no more. +She is so affected. Ask her in," she said to the footman in a sad voice, +as if saying: "Very well, finish me off." + +A tall, stout, and proud-looking woman, with a round-faced smiling +daughter, entered the drawing room, their dresses rustling. + +"Dear Countess, what an age... She has been laid up, poor child... at +the Razumovski's ball... and Countess Apraksina... I was so +delighted..." came the sounds of animated feminine voices, interrupting +one another and mingling with the rustling of dresses and the scraping +of chairs. Then one of those conversations began which last out until, +at the first pause, the guests rise with a rustle of dresses and say, "I +am so delighted... Mamma's health... and Countess Apraksina..." and +then, again rustling, pass into the anteroom, put on cloaks or mantles, +and drive away. The conversation was on the chief topic of the day: the +illness of the wealthy and celebrated beau of Catherine's day, Count +Bezukhov, and about his illegitimate son Pierre, the one who had behaved +so improperly at Anna Pavlovna's reception. + +"I am so sorry for the poor count," said the visitor. "He is in such bad +health, and now this vexation about his son is enough to kill him!" + +"What is that?" asked the countess as if she did not know what the +visitor alluded to, though she had already heard about the cause of +Count Bezukhov's distress some fifteen times. + +"That's what comes of a modern education," exclaimed the visitor. "It +seems that while he was abroad this young man was allowed to do as he +liked, now in Petersburg I hear he has been doing such terrible things +that he has been expelled by the police." + +"You don't say so!" replied the countess. + +"He chose his friends badly," interposed Anna Mikhaylovna. "Prince +Vasili's son, he, and a certain Dolokhov have, it is said, been up to +heaven only knows what! And they have had to suffer for it. Dolokhov has +been degraded to the ranks and Bezukhov's son sent back to Moscow. +Anatole Kuragin's father managed somehow to get his son's affair hushed +up, but even he was ordered out of Petersburg." + +"But what have they been up to?" asked the countess. + +"They are regular brigands, especially Dolokhov," replied the visitor. +"He is a son of Marya Ivanovna Dolokhova, such a worthy woman, but +there, just fancy! Those three got hold of a bear somewhere, put it in a +carriage, and set off with it to visit some actresses! The police tried +to interfere, and what did the young men do? They tied a policeman and +the bear back to back and put the bear into the Moyka Canal. And there +was the bear swimming about with the policeman on his back!" + +"What a nice figure the policeman must have cut, my dear!" shouted the +count, dying with laughter. + +"Oh, how dreadful! How can you laugh at it, Count?" + +Yet the ladies themselves could not help laughing. + +"It was all they could do to rescue the poor man," continued the +visitor. "And to think it is Cyril Vladimirovich Bezukhov's son who +amuses himself in this sensible manner! And he was said to be so well +educated and clever. This is all that his foreign education has done for +him! I hope that here in Moscow no one will receive him, in spite of his +money. They wanted to introduce him to me, but I quite declined: I have +my daughters to consider." + +"Why do you say this young man is so rich?" asked the countess, turning +away from the girls, who at once assumed an air of inattention. "His +children are all illegitimate. I think Pierre also is illegitimate." + +The visitor made a gesture with her hand. + +"I should think he has a score of them." + +Princess Anna Mikhaylovna intervened in the conversation, evidently +wishing to show her connections and knowledge of what went on in +society. + +"The fact of the matter is," said she significantly, and also in a half +whisper, "everyone knows Count Cyril's reputation.... He has lost count +of his children, but this Pierre was his favorite." + +"How handsome the old man still was only a year ago!" remarked the +countess. "I have never seen a handsomer man." + +"He is very much altered now," said Anna Mikhaylovna. "Well, as I was +saying, Prince Vasili is the next heir through his wife, but the count +is very fond of Pierre, looked after his education, and wrote to the +Emperor about him; so that in the case of his death--and he is so ill +that he may die at any moment, and Dr. Lorrain has come from Petersburg- +-no one knows who will inherit his immense fortune, Pierre or Prince +Vasili. Forty thousand serfs and millions of rubles! I know it all very +well for Prince Vasili told me himself. Besides, Cyril Vladimirovich is +my mother's second cousin. He's also my Bory's godfather," she added, as +if she attached no importance at all to the fact. + +"Prince Vasili arrived in Moscow yesterday. I hear he has come on some +inspection business," remarked the visitor. + +"Yes, but between ourselves," said the princess, "that is a pretext. The +fact is he has come to see Count Cyril Vladimirovich, hearing how ill he +is." + +"But do you know, my dear, that was a capital joke," said the count; and +seeing that the elder visitor was not listening, he turned to the young +ladies. "I can just imagine what a funny figure that policeman cut!" + +And as he waved his arms to impersonate the policeman, his portly form +again shook with a deep ringing laugh, the laugh of one who always eats +well and, in particular, drinks well. "So do come and dine with us!" he +said. + + + + +CHAPTER XI + +Silence ensued. The countess looked at her callers, smiling affably, but +not concealing the fact that she would not be distressed if they now +rose and took their leave. The visitor's daughter was already smoothing +down her dress with an inquiring look at her mother, when suddenly from +the next room were heard the footsteps of boys and girls running to the +door and the noise of a chair falling over, and a girl of thirteen, +hiding something in the folds of her short muslin frock, darted in and +stopped short in the middle of the room. It was evident that she had not +intended her flight to bring her so far. Behind her in the doorway +appeared a student with a crimson coat collar, an officer of the Guards, +a girl of fifteen, and a plump rosy-faced boy in a short jacket. + +The count jumped up and, swaying from side to side, spread his arms wide +and threw them round the little girl who had run in. + +"Ah, here she is!" he exclaimed laughing. "My pet, whose name day it is. +My dear pet!" + +"Ma chere, there is a time for everything," said the countess with +feigned severity. "You spoil her, Ilya," she added, turning to her +husband. + +"How do you do, my dear? I wish you many happy returns of your name +day," said the visitor. "What a charming child," she added, addressing +the mother. + +This black-eyed, wide-mouthed girl, not pretty but full of life--with +childish bare shoulders which after her run heaved and shook her bodice, +with black curls tossed backward, thin bare arms, little legs in lace- +frilled drawers, and feet in low slippers--was just at that charming age +when a girl is no longer a child, though the child is not yet a young +woman. Escaping from her father she ran to hide her flushed face in the +lace of her mother's mantilla--not paying the least attention to her +severe remark--and began to laugh. She laughed, and in fragmentary +sentences tried to explain about a doll which she produced from the +folds of her frock. + +"Do you see?... My doll... Mimi... You see..." was all Natasha managed +to utter (to her everything seemed funny). She leaned against her mother +and burst into such a loud, ringing fit of laughter that even the prim +visitor could not help joining in. + +"Now then, go away and take your monstrosity with you," said the mother, +pushing away her daughter with pretended sternness, and turning to the +visitor she added: "She is my youngest girl." + +Natasha, raising her face for a moment from her mother's mantilla, +glanced up at her through tears of laughter, and again hid her face. + +The visitor, compelled to look on at this family scene, thought it +necessary to take some part in it. + +"Tell me, my dear," said she to Natasha, "is Mimi a relation of yours? A +daughter, I suppose?" + +Natasha did not like the visitor's tone of condescension to childish +things. She did not reply, but looked at her seriously. + +Meanwhile the younger generation: Boris, the officer, Anna Mikhaylovna's +son; Nicholas, the undergraduate, the count's eldest son; Sonya, the +count's fifteen-year-old niece, and little Petya, his youngest boy, had +all settled down in the drawing room and were obviously trying to +restrain within the bounds of decorum the excitement and mirth that +shone in all their faces. Evidently in the back rooms, from which they +had dashed out so impetuously, the conversation had been more amusing +than the drawing-room talk of society scandals, the weather, and +Countess Apraksina. Now and then they glanced at one another, hardly +able to suppress their laughter. + +The two young men, the student and the officer, friends from childhood, +were of the same age and both handsome fellows, though not alike. Boris +was tall and fair, and his calm and handsome face had regular, delicate +features. Nicholas was short with curly hair and an open expression. +Dark hairs were already showing on his upper lip, and his whole face +expressed impetuosity and enthusiasm. Nicholas blushed when he entered +the drawing room. He evidently tried to find something to say, but +failed. Boris on the contrary at once found his footing, and related +quietly and humorously how he had known that doll Mimi when she was +still quite a young lady, before her nose was broken; how she had aged +during the five years he had known her, and how her head had cracked +right across the skull. Having said this he glanced at Natasha. She +turned away from him and glanced at her younger brother, who was +screwing up his eyes and shaking with suppressed laughter, and unable to +control herself any longer, she jumped up and rushed from the room as +fast as her nimble little feet would carry her. Boris did not laugh. + +"You were meaning to go out, weren't you, Mamma? Do you want the +carriage?" he asked his mother with a smile. + +"Yes, yes, go and tell them to get it ready," she answered, returning +his smile. + +Boris quietly left the room and went in search of Natasha. The plump boy +ran after them angrily, as if vexed that their program had been +disturbed. + + + + +CHAPTER XII + +The only young people remaining in the drawing room, not counting the +young lady visitor and the countess' eldest daughter (who was four years +older than her sister and behaved already like a grown-up person), were +Nicholas and Sonya, the niece. Sonya was a slender little brunette with +a tender look in her eyes which were veiled by long lashes, thick black +plaits coiling twice round her head, and a tawny tint in her complexion +and especially in the color of her slender but graceful and muscular +arms and neck. By the grace of her movements, by the softness and +flexibility of her small limbs, and by a certain coyness and reserve of +manner, she reminded one of a pretty, half-grown kitten which promises +to become a beautiful little cat. She evidently considered it proper to +show an interest in the general conversation by smiling, but in spite of +herself her eyes under their thick long lashes watched her cousin who +was going to join the army, with such passionate girlish adoration that +her smile could not for a single instant impose upon anyone, and it was +clear that the kitten had settled down only to spring up with more +energy and again play with her cousin as soon as they too could, like +Natasha and Boris, escape from the drawing room. + +"Ah yes, my dear," said the count, addressing the visitor and pointing +to Nicholas, "his friend Boris has become an officer, and so for +friendship's sake he is leaving the university and me, his old father, +and entering the military service, my dear. And there was a place and +everything waiting for him in the Archives Department! Isn't that +friendship?" remarked the count in an inquiring tone. + +"But they say that war has been declared," replied the visitor. + +"They've been saying so a long while," said the count, "and they'll say +so again and again, and that will be the end of it. My dear, there's +friendship for you," he repeated. "He's joining the hussars." + +The visitor, not knowing what to say, shook her head. + +"It's not at all from friendship," declared Nicholas, flaring up and +turning away as if from a shameful aspersion. "It is not from friendship +at all; I simply feel that the army is my vocation." + +He glanced at his cousin and the young lady visitor; and they were both +regarding him with a smile of approbation. + +"Schubert, the colonel of the Pavlograd Hussars, is dining with us +today. He has been here on leave and is taking Nicholas back with him. +It can't be helped!" said the count, shrugging his shoulders and +speaking playfully of a matter that evidently distressed him. + +"I have already told you, Papa," said his son, "that if you don't wish +to let me go, I'll stay. But I know I am no use anywhere except in the +army; I am not a diplomat or a government clerk.--I don't know how to +hide what I feel." As he spoke he kept glancing with the flirtatiousness +of a handsome youth at Sonya and the young lady visitor. + +The little kitten, feasting her eyes on him, seemed ready at any moment +to start her gambols again and display her kittenish nature. + +"All right, all right!" said the old count. "He always flares up! This +Buonaparte has turned all their heads; they all think of how he rose +from an ensign and became Emperor. Well, well, God grant it," he added, +not noticing his visitor's sarcastic smile. + +The elders began talking about Bonaparte. Julie Karagina turned to young +Rostov. + +"What a pity you weren't at the Arkharovs' on Thursday. It was so dull +without you," said she, giving him a tender smile. + +The young man, flattered, sat down nearer to her with a coquettish +smile, and engaged the smiling Julie in a confidential conversation +without at all noticing that his involuntary smile had stabbed the heart +of Sonya, who blushed and smiled unnaturally. In the midst of his talk +he glanced round at her. She gave him a passionately angry glance, and +hardly able to restrain her tears and maintain the artificial smile on +her lips, she got up and left the room. All Nicholas' animation +vanished. He waited for the first pause in the conversation, and then +with a distressed face left the room to find Sonya. + +"How plainly all these young people wear their hearts on their sleeves!" +said Anna Mikhaylovna, pointing to Nicholas as he went out. "Cousinage-- +dangereux voisinage;" * she added. + + +* Cousinhood is a dangerous neighborhood. + +"Yes," said the countess when the brightness these young people had +brought into the room had vanished; and as if answering a question no +one had put but which was always in her mind, "and how much suffering, +how much anxiety one has had to go through that we might rejoice in them +now! And yet really the anxiety is greater now than the joy. One is +always, always anxious! Especially just at this age, so dangerous both +for girls and boys." + +"It all depends on the bringing up," remarked the visitor. + +"Yes, you're quite right," continued the countess. "Till now I have +always, thank God, been my children's friend and had their full +confidence," said she, repeating the mistake of so many parents who +imagine that their children have no secrets from them. "I know I shall +always be my daughters' first confidante, and that if Nicholas, with his +impulsive nature, does get into mischief (a boy can't help it), he will +all the same never be like those Petersburg young men." + +"Yes, they are splendid, splendid youngsters," chimed in the count, who +always solved questions that seemed to him perplexing by deciding that +everything was splendid. "Just fancy: wants to be an hussar. What's one +to do, my dear?" + +"What a charming creature your younger girl is," said the visitor; "a +little volcano!" + +"Yes, a regular volcano," said the count. "Takes after me! And what a +voice she has; though she's my daughter, I tell the truth when I say +she'll be a singer, a second Salomoni! We have engaged an Italian to +give her lessons." + +"Isn't she too young? I have heard that it harms the voice to train it +at that age." + +"Oh no, not at all too young!" replied the count. "Why, our mothers used +to be married at twelve or thirteen." + +"And she's in love with Boris already. Just fancy!" said the countess +with a gentle smile, looking at Boris and went on, evidently concerned +with a thought that always occupied her: "Now you see if I were to be +severe with her and to forbid it... goodness knows what they might be up +to on the sly" (she meant that they would be kissing), "but as it is, I +know every word she utters. She will come running to me of her own +accord in the evening and tell me everything. Perhaps I spoil her, but +really that seems the best plan. With her elder sister I was stricter." + +"Yes, I was brought up quite differently," remarked the handsome elder +daughter, Countess Vera, with a smile. + +But the smile did not enhance Vera's beauty as smiles generally do; on +the contrary it gave her an unnatural, and therefore unpleasant, +expression. Vera was good-looking, not at all stupid, quick at learning, +was well-brought up, and had a pleasant voice; what she said was true +and appropriate, yet, strange to say, everyone--the visitors and +countess alike--turned to look at her as if wondering why she had said +it, and they all felt awkward. + +"People are always too clever with their eldest children and try to make +something exceptional of them," said the visitor. + +"What's the good of denying it, my dear? Our dear countess was too +clever with Vera," said the count. "Well, what of that? She's turned out +splendidly all the same," he added, winking at Vera. + +The guests got up and took their leave, promising to return to dinner. + +"What manners! I thought they would never go," said the countess, when +she had seen her guests out. + + + + +CHAPTER XIII + +When Natasha ran out of the drawing room she only went as far as the +conservatory. There she paused and stood listening to the conversation +in the drawing room, waiting for Boris to come out. She was already +growing impatient, and stamped her foot, ready to cry at his not coming +at once, when she heard the young man's discreet steps approaching +neither quickly nor slowly. At this Natasha dashed swiftly among the +flower tubs and hid there. + +Boris paused in the middle of the room, looked round, brushed a little +dust from the sleeve of his uniform, and going up to a mirror examined +his handsome face. Natasha, very still, peered out from her ambush, +waiting to see what he would do. He stood a little while before the +glass, smiled, and walked toward the other door. Natasha was about to +call him but changed her mind. "Let him look for me," thought she. +Hardly had Boris gone than Sonya, flushed, in tears, and muttering +angrily, came in at the other door. Natasha checked her first impulse to +run out to her, and remained in her hiding place, watching--as under an +invisible cap--to see what went on in the world. She was experiencing a +new and peculiar pleasure. Sonya, muttering to herself, kept looking +round toward the drawing-room door. It opened and Nicholas came in. + +"Sonya, what is the matter with you? How can you?" said he, running up +to her. + +"It's nothing, nothing; leave me alone!" sobbed Sonya. + +"Ah, I know what it is." + +"Well, if you do, so much the better, and you can go back to her!" + +"So-o-onya! Look here! How can you torture me and yourself like that, +for a mere fancy?" said Nicholas taking her hand. + +Sonya did not pull it away, and left off crying. Natasha, not stirring +and scarcely breathing, watched from her ambush with sparkling eyes. +"What will happen now?" thought she. + +"Sonya! What is anyone in the world to me? You alone are everything!" +said Nicholas. "And I will prove it to you." + +"I don't like you to talk like that." + +"Well, then, I won't; only forgive me, Sonya!" He drew her to him and +kissed her. + +"Oh, how nice," thought Natasha; and when Sonya and Nicholas had gone +out of the conservatory she followed and called Boris to her. + +"Boris, come here," said she with a sly and significant look. "I have +something to tell you. Here, here!" and she led him into the +conservatory to the place among the tubs where she had been hiding. + +Boris followed her, smiling. + +"What is the something?" asked he. + +She grew confused, glanced round, and, seeing the doll she had thrown +down on one of the tubs, picked it up. + +"Kiss the doll," said she. + +Boris looked attentively and kindly at her eager face, but did not +reply. + +"Don't you want to? Well, then, come here," said she, and went further +in among the plants and threw down the doll. "Closer, closer!" she +whispered. + +She caught the young officer by his cuffs, and a look of solemnity and +fear appeared on her flushed face. + +"And me? Would you like to kiss me?" she whispered almost inaudibly, +glancing up at him from under her brows, smiling, and almost crying from +excitement. + +Boris blushed. + +"How funny you are!" he said, bending down to her and blushing still +more, but he waited and did nothing. + +Suddenly she jumped up onto a tub to be higher than he, embraced him so +that both her slender bare arms clasped him above his neck, and, tossing +back her hair, kissed him full on the lips. + +Then she slipped down among the flowerpots on the other side of the tubs +and stood, hanging her head. + +"Natasha," he said, "you know that I love you, but..." + +"You are in love with me?" Natasha broke in. + +"Yes, I am, but please don't let us do like that.... In another four +years... then I will ask for your hand." + +Natasha considered. + +"Thirteen, fourteen, fifteen, sixteen," she counted on her slender +little fingers. "All right! Then it's settled?" + +A smile of joy and satisfaction lit up her eager face. + +"Settled!" replied Boris. + +"Forever?" said the little girl. "Till death itself?" + +She took his arm and with a happy face went with him into the adjoining +sitting room. + + + + +CHAPTER XIV + +After receiving her visitors, the countess was so tired that she gave +orders to admit no more, but the porter was told to be sure to invite to +dinner all who came "to congratulate." The countess wished to have a +tete-a-tete talk with the friend of her childhood, Princess Anna +Mikhaylovna, whom she had not seen properly since she returned from +Petersburg. Anna Mikhaylovna, with her tear-worn but pleasant face, drew +her chair nearer to that of the countess. + +"With you I will be quite frank," said Anna Mikhaylovna. "There are not +many left of us old friends! That's why I so value your friendship." + +Anna Mikhaylovna looked at Vera and paused. The countess pressed her +friend's hand. + +"Vera," she said to her eldest daughter who was evidently not a +favorite, "how is it you have so little tact? Don't you see you are not +wanted here? Go to the other girls, or..." + +The handsome Vera smiled contemptuously but did not seem at all hurt. + +"If you had told me sooner, Mamma, I would have gone," she replied as +she rose to go to her own room. + +But as she passed the sitting room she noticed two couples sitting, one +pair at each window. She stopped and smiled scornfully. Sonya was +sitting close to Nicholas who was copying out some verses for her, the +first he had ever written. Boris and Natasha were at the other window +and ceased talking when Vera entered. Sonya and Natasha looked at Vera +with guilty, happy faces. + +It was pleasant and touching to see these little girls in love; but +apparently the sight of them roused no pleasant feeling in Vera. + +"How often have I asked you not to take my things?" she said. "You have +a room of your own," and she took the inkstand from Nicholas. + +"In a minute, in a minute," he said, dipping his pen. + +"You always manage to do things at the wrong time," continued Vera. "You +came rushing into the drawing room so that everyone felt ashamed of +you." + +Though what she said was quite just, perhaps for that very reason no one +replied, and the four simply looked at one another. She lingered in the +room with the inkstand in her hand. + +"And at your age what secrets can there be between Natasha and Boris, or +between you two? It's all nonsense!" + +"Now, Vera, what does it matter to you?" said Natasha in defense, +speaking very gently. + +She seemed that day to be more than ever kind and affectionate to +everyone. + +"Very silly," said Vera. "I am ashamed of you. Secrets indeed!" + +"All have secrets of their own," answered Natasha, getting warmer. "We +don't interfere with you and Berg." + +"I should think not," said Vera, "because there can never be anything +wrong in my behavior. But I'll just tell Mamma how you are behaving with +Boris." + +"Natalya Ilynichna behaves very well to me," remarked Boris. "I have +nothing to complain of." + +"Don't, Boris! You are such a diplomat that it is really tiresome," said +Natasha in a mortified voice that trembled slightly. (She used the word +"diplomat," which was just then much in vogue among the children, in the +special sense they attached to it.) "Why does she bother me?" And she +added, turning to Vera, "You'll never understand it, because you've +never loved anyone. You have no heart! You are a Madame de Genlis and +nothing more" (this nickname, bestowed on Vera by Nicholas, was +considered very stinging), "and your greatest pleasure is to be +unpleasant to people! Go and flirt with Berg as much as you please," she +finished quickly. + +"I shall at any rate not run after a young man before visitors..." + +"Well, now you've done what you wanted," put in Nicholas--"said +unpleasant things to everyone and upset them. Let's go to the nursery." + +All four, like a flock of scared birds, got up and left the room. + +"The unpleasant things were said to me," remarked Vera, "I said none to +anyone." + +"Madame de Genlis! Madame de Genlis!" shouted laughing voices through +the door. + +The handsome Vera, who produced such an irritating and unpleasant effect +on everyone, smiled and, evidently unmoved by what had been said to her, +went to the looking glass and arranged her hair and scarf. Looking at +her own handsome face she seemed to become still colder and calmer. + +In the drawing room the conversation was still going on. + +"Ah, my dear," said the countess, "my life is not all roses either. +Don't I know that at the rate we are living our means won't last long? +It's all the Club and his easygoing nature. Even in the country do we +get any rest? Theatricals, hunting, and heaven knows what besides! But +don't let's talk about me; tell me how you managed everything. I often +wonder at you, Annette--how at your age you can rush off alone in a +carriage to Moscow, to Petersburg, to those ministers and great people, +and know how to deal with them all! It's quite astonishing. How did you +get things settled? I couldn't possibly do it." + +"Ah, my love," answered Anna Mikhaylovna, "God grant you never know what +it is to be left a widow without means and with a son you love to +distraction! One learns many things then," she added with a certain +pride. "That lawsuit taught me much. When I want to see one of those big +people I write a note: 'Princess So-and-So desires an interview with So +and-So,' and then I take a cab and go myself two, three, or four times-- +till I get what I want. I don't mind what they think of me." + +"Well, and to whom did you apply about Bory?" asked the countess. "You +see yours is already an officer in the Guards, while my Nicholas is +going as a cadet. There's no one to interest himself for him. To whom +did you apply?" + +"To Prince Vasili. He was so kind. He at once agreed to everything, and +put the matter before the Emperor," said Princess Anna Mikhaylovna +enthusiastically, quite forgetting all the humiliation she had endured +to gain her end. + +"Has Prince Vasili aged much?" asked the countess. "I have not seen him +since we acted together at the Rumyantsovs' theatricals. I expect he has +forgotten me. He paid me attentions in those days," said the countess, +with a smile. + +"He is just the same as ever," replied Anna Mikhaylovna, "overflowing +with amiability. His position has not turned his head at all. He said to +me, 'I am sorry I can do so little for you, dear Princess. I am at your +command.' Yes, he is a fine fellow and a very kind relation. But, +Nataly, you know my love for my son: I would do anything for his +happiness! And my affairs are in such a bad way that my position is now +a terrible one," continued Anna Mikhaylovna, sadly, dropping her voice. +"My wretched lawsuit takes all I have and makes no progress. Would you +believe it, I have literally not a penny and don't know how to equip +Boris." She took out her handkerchief and began to cry. "I need five +hundred rubles, and have only one twenty-five-ruble note. I am in such a +state.... My only hope now is in Count Cyril Vladimirovich Bezukhov. If +he will not assist his godson--you know he is Bory's godfather--and +allow him something for his maintenance, all my trouble will have been +thrown away.... I shall not be able to equip him." + +The countess' eyes filled with tears and she pondered in silence. + +"I often think, though, perhaps it's a sin," said the princess, "that +here lives Count Cyril Vladimirovich Bezukhov so rich, all alone... that +tremendous fortune... and what is his life worth? It's a burden to him, +and Bory's life is only just beginning...." + +"Surely he will leave something to Boris," said the countess. + +"Heaven only knows, my dear! These rich grandees are so selfish. Still, +I will take Boris and go to see him at once, and I shall speak to him +straight out. Let people think what they will of me, it's really all the +same to me when my son's fate is at stake." The princess rose. "It's now +two o'clock and you dine at four. There will just be time." + +And like a practical Petersburg lady who knows how to make the most of +time, Anna Mikhaylovna sent someone to call her son, and went into the +anteroom with him. + +"Good-bye, my dear," said she to the countess who saw her to the door, +and added in a whisper so that her son should not hear, "Wish me good +luck." + +"Are you going to Count Cyril Vladimirovich, my dear?" said the count +coming out from the dining hall into the anteroom, and he added: "If he +is better, ask Pierre to dine with us. He has been to the house, you +know, and danced with the children. Be sure to invite him, my dear. We +will see how Taras distinguishes himself today. He says Count Orlov +never gave such a dinner as ours will be!" + + + + +CHAPTER XV + +"My dear Boris," said Princess Anna Mikhaylovna to her son as Countess +Rostova's carriage in which they were seated drove over the straw +covered street and turned into the wide courtyard of Count Cyril +Vladimirovich Bezukhov's house. "My dear Boris," said the mother, +drawing her hand from beneath her old mantle and laying it timidly and +tenderly on her son's arm, "be affectionate and attentive to him. Count +Cyril Vladimirovich is your godfather after all, your future depends on +him. Remember that, my dear, and be nice to him, as you so well know how +to be." + +"If only I knew that anything besides humiliation would come of it..." +answered her son coldly. "But I have promised and will do it for your +sake." + +Although the hall porter saw someone's carriage standing at the +entrance, after scrutinizing the mother and son (who without asking to +be announced had passed straight through the glass porch between the +rows of statues in niches) and looking significantly at the lady's old +cloak, he asked whether they wanted the count or the princesses, and, +hearing that they wished to see the count, said his excellency was worse +today, and that his excellency was not receiving anyone. + +"We may as well go back," said the son in French. + +"My dear!" exclaimed his mother imploringly, again laying her hand on +his arm as if that touch might soothe or rouse him. + +Boris said no more, but looked inquiringly at his mother without taking +off his cloak. + +"My friend," said Anna Mikhaylovna in gentle tones, addressing the hall +porter, "I know Count Cyril Vladimirovich is very ill... that's why I +have come... I am a relation. I shall not disturb him, my friend... I +only need see Prince Vasili Sergeevich: he is staying here, is he not? +Please announce me." + +The hall porter sullenly pulled a bell that rang upstairs, and turned +away. + +"Princess Drubetskaya to see Prince Vasili Sergeevich," he called to a +footman dressed in knee breeches, shoes, and a swallow-tail coat, who +ran downstairs and looked over from the halfway landing. + +The mother smoothed the folds of her dyed silk dress before a large +Venetian mirror in the wall, and in her trodden-down shoes briskly +ascended the carpeted stairs. + +"My dear," she said to her son, once more stimulating him by a touch, +"you promised me!" + +The son, lowering his eyes, followed her quietly. + +They entered the large hall, from which one of the doors led to the +apartments assigned to Prince Vasili. + +Just as the mother and son, having reached the middle of the hall, were +about to ask their way of an elderly footman who had sprung up as they +entered, the bronze handle of one of the doors turned and Prince Vasili +came out--wearing a velvet coat with a single star on his breast, as was +his custom when at home--taking leave of a good-looking, dark-haired +man. This was the celebrated Petersburg doctor, Lorrain. + +"Then it is certain?" said the prince. + +"Prince, humanum est errare, * but..." replied the doctor, swallowing +his r's, and pronouncing the Latin words with a French accent. + + +* To err is human. + +"Very well, very well..." + +Seeing Anna Mikhaylovna and her son, Prince Vasili dismissed the doctor +with a bow and approached them silently and with a look of inquiry. The +son noticed that an expression of profound sorrow suddenly clouded his +mother's face, and he smiled slightly. + +"Ah, Prince! In what sad circumstances we meet again! And how is our +dear invalid?" said she, as though unaware of the cold offensive look +fixed on her. + +Prince Vasili stared at her and at Boris questioningly and perplexed. +Boris bowed politely. Prince Vasili without acknowledging the bow turned +to Anna Mikhaylovna, answering her query by a movement of the head and +lips indicating very little hope for the patient. + +"Is it possible?" exclaimed Anna Mikhaylovna. "Oh, how awful! It is +terrible to think.... This is my son," she added, indicating Boris. "He +wanted to thank you himself." + +Boris bowed again politely. + +"Believe me, Prince, a mother's heart will never forget what you have +done for us." + +"I am glad I was able to do you a service, my dear Anna Mikhaylovna," +said Prince Vasili, arranging his lace frill, and in tone and manner, +here in Moscow to Anna Mikhaylovna whom he had placed under an +obligation, assuming an air of much greater importance than he had done +in Petersburg at Anna Scherer's reception. + +"Try to serve well and show yourself worthy," added he, addressing Boris +with severity. "I am glad.... Are you here on leave?" he went on in his +usual tone of indifference. + +"I am awaiting orders to join my new regiment, your excellency," replied +Boris, betraying neither annoyance at the prince's brusque manner nor a +desire to enter into conversation, but speaking so quietly and +respectfully that the prince gave him a searching glance. + +"Are you living with your mother?" + +"I am living at Countess Rostova's," replied Boris, again adding, "your +excellency." + +"That is, with Ilya Rostov who married Nataly Shinshina," said Anna +Mikhaylovna. + +"I know, I know," answered Prince Vasili in his monotonous voice. "I +never could understand how Nataly made up her mind to marry that +unlicked bear! A perfectly absurd and stupid fellow, and a gambler too, +I am told." + +"But a very kind man, Prince," said Anna Mikhaylovna with a pathetic +smile, as though she too knew that Count Rostov deserved this censure, +but asked him not to be too hard on the poor old man. "What do the +doctors say?" asked the princess after a pause, her worn face again +expressing deep sorrow. + +"They give little hope," replied the prince. + +"And I should so like to thank Uncle once for all his kindness to me and +Boris. He is his godson," she added, her tone suggesting that this fact +ought to give Prince Vasili much satisfaction. + +Prince Vasili became thoughtful and frowned. Anna Mikhaylovna saw that +he was afraid of finding in her a rival for Count Bezukhov's fortune, +and hastened to reassure him. + +"If it were not for my sincere affection and devotion to Uncle," said +she, uttering the word with peculiar assurance and unconcern, "I know +his character: noble, upright... but you see he has no one with him +except the young princesses.... They are still young...." She bent her +head and continued in a whisper: "Has he performed his final duty, +Prince? How priceless are those last moments! It can make things no +worse, and it is absolutely necessary to prepare him if he is so ill. We +women, Prince," and she smiled tenderly, "always know how to say these +things. I absolutely must see him, however painful it may be for me. I +am used to suffering." + +Evidently the prince understood her, and also understood, as he had done +at Anna Pavlovna's, that it would be difficult to get rid of Anna +Mikhaylovna. + +"Would not such a meeting be too trying for him, dear Anna Mikhaylovna?" +said he. "Let us wait until evening. The doctors are expecting a +crisis." + +"But one cannot delay, Prince, at such a moment! Consider that the +welfare of his soul is at stake. Ah, it is awful: the duties of a +Christian..." + +A door of one of the inner rooms opened and one of the princesses, the +count's niece, entered with a cold, stern face. The length of her body +was strikingly out of proportion to her short legs. Prince Vasili turned +to her. + +"Well, how is he?" + +"Still the same; but what can you expect, this noise..." said the +princess, looking at Anna Mikhaylovna as at a stranger. + +"Ah, my dear, I hardly knew you," said Anna Mikhaylovna with a happy +smile, ambling lightly up to the count's niece. "I have come, and am at +your service to help you nurse my uncle. I imagine what you have gone +through," and she sympathetically turned up her eyes. + +The princess gave no reply and did not even smile, but left the room as +Anna Mikhaylovna took off her gloves and, occupying the position she had +conquered, settled down in an armchair, inviting Prince Vasili to take a +seat beside her. + +"Boris," she said to her son with a smile, "I shall go in to see the +count, my uncle; but you, my dear, had better go to Pierre meanwhile and +don't forget to give him the Rostovs' invitation. They ask him to +dinner. I suppose he won't go?" she continued, turning to the prince. + +"On the contrary," replied the prince, who had plainly become depressed, +"I shall be only too glad if you relieve me of that young man.... Here +he is, and the count has not once asked for him." + +He shrugged his shoulders. A footman conducted Boris down one flight of +stairs and up another, to Pierre's rooms. + + + + +CHAPTER XVI + +Pierre, after all, had not managed to choose a career for himself in +Petersburg, and had been expelled from there for riotous conduct and +sent to Moscow. The story told about him at Count Rostov's was true. +Pierre had taken part in tying a policeman to a bear. He had now been +for some days in Moscow and was staying as usual at his father's house. +Though he expected that the story of his escapade would be already known +in Moscow and that the ladies about his father--who were never favorably +disposed toward him--would have used it to turn the count against him, +he nevertheless on the day of his arrival went to his father's part of +the house. Entering the drawing room, where the princesses spent most of +their time, he greeted the ladies, two of whom were sitting at +embroidery frames while a third read aloud. It was the eldest who was +reading--the one who had met Anna Mikhaylovna. The two younger ones were +embroidering: both were rosy and pretty and they differed only in that +one had a little mole on her lip which made her much prettier. Pierre +was received as if he were a corpse or a leper. The eldest princess +paused in her reading and silently stared at him with frightened eyes; +the second assumed precisely the same expression; while the youngest, +the one with the mole, who was of a cheerful and lively disposition, +bent over her frame to hide a smile probably evoked by the amusing scene +she foresaw. She drew her wool down through the canvas and, scarcely +able to refrain from laughing, stooped as if trying to make out the +pattern. + +"How do you do, cousin?" said Pierre. "You don't recognize me?" + +"I recognize you only too well, too well." + +"How is the count? Can I see him?" asked Pierre, awkwardly as usual, but +unabashed. + +"The count is suffering physically and mentally, and apparently you have +done your best to increase his mental sufferings." + +"Can I see the count?" Pierre again asked. + +"Hm.... If you wish to kill him, to kill him outright, you can see +him... Olga, go and see whether Uncle's beef tea is ready--it is almost +time," she added, giving Pierre to understand that they were busy, and +busy making his father comfortable, while evidently he, Pierre, was only +busy causing him annoyance. + +Olga went out. Pierre stood looking at the sisters; then he bowed and +said: "Then I will go to my rooms. You will let me know when I can see +him." + +And he left the room, followed by the low but ringing laughter of the +sister with the mole. + +Next day Prince Vasili had arrived and settled in the count's house. He +sent for Pierre and said to him: "My dear fellow, if you are going to +behave here as you did in Petersburg, you will end very badly; that is +all I have to say to you. The count is very, very ill, and you must not +see him at all." + +Since then Pierre had not been disturbed and had spent the whole time in +his rooms upstairs. + +When Boris appeared at his door Pierre was pacing up and down his room, +stopping occasionally at a corner to make menacing gestures at the wall, +as if running a sword through an invisible foe, and glaring savagely +over his spectacles, and then again resuming his walk, muttering +indistinct words, shrugging his shoulders and gesticulating. + +"England is done for," said he, scowling and pointing his finger at +someone unseen. "Mr. Pitt, as a traitor to the nation and to the rights +of man, is sentenced to..." But before Pierre--who at that moment +imagined himself to be Napoleon in person and to have just effected the +dangerous crossing of the Straits of Dover and captured London--could +pronounce Pitt's sentence, he saw a well-built and handsome young +officer entering his room. Pierre paused. He had left Moscow when Boris +was a boy of fourteen, and had quite forgotten him, but in his usual +impulsive and hearty way he took Boris by the hand with a friendly +smile. + +"Do you remember me?" asked Boris quietly with a pleasant smile. "I have +come with my mother to see the count, but it seems he is not well." + +"Yes, it seems he is ill. People are always disturbing him," answered +Pierre, trying to remember who this young man was. + +Boris felt that Pierre did not recognize him but did not consider it +necessary to introduce himself, and without experiencing the least +embarrassment looked Pierre straight in the face. + +"Count Rostov asks you to come to dinner today," said he, after a +considerable pause which made Pierre feel uncomfortable. + +"Ah, Count Rostov!" exclaimed Pierre joyfully. "Then you are his son, +Ilya? Only fancy, I didn't know you at first. Do you remember how we +went to the Sparrow Hills with Madame Jacquot?... It's such an age..." + +"You are mistaken," said Boris deliberately, with a bold and slightly +sarcastic smile. "I am Boris, son of Princess Anna Mikhaylovna +Drubetskaya. Rostov, the father, is Ilya, and his son is Nicholas. I +never knew any Madame Jacquot." + +Pierre shook his head and arms as if attacked by mosquitoes or bees. + +"Oh dear, what am I thinking about? I've mixed everything up. One has so +many relatives in Moscow! So you are Boris? Of course. Well, now we know +where we are. And what do you think of the Boulogne expedition? The +English will come off badly, you know, if Napoleon gets across the +Channel. I think the expedition is quite feasible. If only Villeneuve +doesn't make a mess of things!" + +Boris knew nothing about the Boulogne expedition; he did not read the +papers and it was the first time he had heard Villeneuve's name. + +"We here in Moscow are more occupied with dinner parties and scandal +than with politics," said he in his quiet ironical tone. "I know nothing +about it and have not thought about it. Moscow is chiefly busy with +gossip," he continued. "Just now they are talking about you and your +father." + +Pierre smiled in his good-natured way as if afraid for his companion's +sake that the latter might say something he would afterwards regret. But +Boris spoke distinctly, clearly, and dryly, looking straight into +Pierre's eyes. + +"Moscow has nothing else to do but gossip," Boris went on. "Everybody is +wondering to whom the count will leave his fortune, though he may +perhaps outlive us all, as I sincerely hope he will..." + +"Yes, it is all very horrid," interrupted Pierre, "very horrid." + +Pierre was still afraid that this officer might inadvertently say +something disconcerting to himself. + +"And it must seem to you," said Boris flushing slightly, but not +changing his tone or attitude, "it must seem to you that everyone is +trying to get something out of the rich man?" + +"So it does," thought Pierre. + +"But I just wish to say, to avoid misunderstandings, that you are quite +mistaken if you reckon me or my mother among such people. We are very +poor, but for my own part at any rate, for the very reason that your +father is rich, I don't regard myself as a relation of his, and neither +I nor my mother would ever ask or take anything from him." + +For a long time Pierre could not understand, but when he did, he jumped +up from the sofa, seized Boris under the elbow in his quick, clumsy way, +and, blushing far more than Boris, began to speak with a feeling of +mingled shame and vexation. + +"Well, this is strange! Do you suppose I... who could think?... I know +very well..." + +But Boris again interrupted him. + +"I am glad I have spoken out fully. Perhaps you did not like it? You +must excuse me," said he, putting Pierre at ease instead of being put at +ease by him, "but I hope I have not offended you. I always make it a +rule to speak out... Well, what answer am I to take? Will you come to +dinner at the Rostovs'?" + +And Boris, having apparently relieved himself of an onerous duty and +extricated himself from an awkward situation and placed another in it, +became quite pleasant again. + +"No, but I say," said Pierre, calming down, "you are a wonderful fellow! +What you have just said is good, very good. Of course you don't know me. +We have not met for such a long time... not since we were children. You +might think that I... I understand, quite understand. I could not have +done it myself, I should not have had the courage, but it's splendid. I +am very glad to have made your acquaintance. It's queer," he added after +a pause, "that you should have suspected me!" He began to laugh. "Well, +what of it! I hope we'll get better acquainted," and he pressed Boris' +hand. "Do you know, I have not once been in to see the count. He has not +sent for me.... I am sorry for him as a man, but what can one do?" + +"And so you think Napoleon will manage to get an army across?" asked +Boris with a smile. + +Pierre saw that Boris wished to change the subject, and being of the +same mind he began explaining the advantages and disadvantages of the +Boulogne expedition. + +A footman came in to summon Boris--the princess was going. Pierre, in +order to make Boris' better acquaintance, promised to come to dinner, +and warmly pressing his hand looked affectionately over his spectacles +into Boris' eyes. After he had gone Pierre continued pacing up and down +the room for a long time, no longer piercing an imaginary foe with his +imaginary sword, but smiling at the remembrance of that pleasant, +intelligent, and resolute young man. + +As often happens in early youth, especially to one who leads a lonely +life, he felt an unaccountable tenderness for this young man and made up +his mind that they would be friends. + +Prince Vasili saw the princess off. She held a handkerchief to her eyes +and her face was tearful. + +"It is dreadful, dreadful!" she was saying, "but cost me what it may I +shall do my duty. I will come and spend the night. He must not be left +like this. Every moment is precious. I can't think why his nieces put it +off. Perhaps God will help me to find a way to prepare him!... Adieu, +Prince! May God support you..." + +"Adieu, ma bonne," answered Prince Vasili turning away from her. + +"Oh, he is in a dreadful state," said the mother to her son when they +were in the carriage. "He hardly recognizes anybody." + +"I don't understand, Mamma--what is his attitude to Pierre?" asked the +son. + +"The will will show that, my dear; our fate also depends on it." + +"But why do you expect that he will leave us anything?" + +"Ah, my dear! He is so rich, and we are so poor!" + +"Well, that is hardly a sufficient reason, Mamma..." + +"Oh, Heaven! How ill he is!" exclaimed the mother. + + + + +CHAPTER XVII + +After Anna Mikhaylovna had driven off with her son to visit Count Cyril +Vladimirovich Bezukhov, Countess Rostova sat for a long time all alone +applying her handkerchief to her eyes. At last she rang. + +"What is the matter with you, my dear?" she said crossly to the maid who +kept her waiting some minutes. "Don't you wish to serve me? Then I'll +find you another place." + +The countess was upset by her friend's sorrow and humiliating poverty, +and was therefore out of sorts, a state of mind which with her always +found expression in calling her maid "my dear" and speaking to her with +exaggerated politeness. + +"I am very sorry, ma'am," answered the maid. + +"Ask the count to come to me." + +The count came waddling in to see his wife with a rather guilty look as +usual. + +"Well, little countess? What a saute of game au madere we are to have, +my dear! I tasted it. The thousand rubles I paid for Taras were not ill- +spent. He is worth it!" + +He sat down by his wife, his elbows on his knees and his hands ruffling +his gray hair. + +"What are your commands, little countess?" + +"You see, my dear... What's that mess?" she said, pointing to his +waistcoat. "It's the saute, most likely," she added with a smile. "Well, +you see, Count, I want some money." + +Her face became sad. + +"Oh, little countess!"... and the count began bustling to get out his +pocketbook. + +"I want a great deal, Count! I want five hundred rubles," and taking out +her cambric handkerchief she began wiping her husband's waistcoat. + +"Yes, immediately, immediately! Hey, who's there?" he called out in a +tone only used by persons who are certain that those they call will rush +to obey the summons. "Send Dmitri to me!" + +Dmitri, a man of good family who had been brought up in the count's +house and now managed all his affairs, stepped softly into the room. + +"This is what I want, my dear fellow," said the count to the deferential +young man who had entered. "Bring me..." he reflected a moment, "yes, +bring me seven hundred rubles, yes! But mind, don't bring me such +tattered and dirty notes as last time, but nice clean ones for the +countess." + +"Yes, Dmitri, clean ones, please," said the countess, sighing deeply. + +"When would you like them, your excellency?" asked Dmitri. "Allow me to +inform you... But, don't be uneasy," he added, noticing that the count +was beginning to breathe heavily and quickly which was always a sign of +approaching anger. "I was forgetting... Do you wish it brought at once?" + +"Yes, yes; just so! Bring it. Give it to the countess." + +"What a treasure that Dmitri is," added the count with a smile when the +young man had departed. "There is never any 'impossible' with him. +That's a thing I hate! Everything is possible." + +"Ah, money, Count, money! How much sorrow it causes in the world," said +the countess. "But I am in great need of this sum." + +"You, my little countess, are a notorious spendthrift," said the count, +and having kissed his wife's hand he went back to his study. + +When Anna Mikhaylovna returned from Count Bezukhov's the money, all in +clean notes, was lying ready under a handkerchief on the countess' +little table, and Anna Mikhaylovna noticed that something was agitating +her. + +"Well, my dear?" asked the countess. + +"Oh, what a terrible state he is in! One would not know him, he is so +ill! I was only there a few moments and hardly said a word..." + +"Annette, for heaven's sake don't refuse me," the countess began, with a +blush that looked very strange on her thin, dignified, elderly face, and +she took the money from under the handkerchief. + +Anna Mikhaylovna instantly guessed her intention and stooped to be ready +to embrace the countess at the appropriate moment. + +"This is for Boris from me, for his outfit." + +Anna Mikhaylovna was already embracing her and weeping. The countess +wept too. They wept because they were friends, and because they were +kindhearted, and because they--friends from childhood--had to think +about such a base thing as money, and because their youth was over.... +But those tears were pleasant to them both. + + + + +CHAPTER XVIII + +Countess Rostova, with her daughters and a large number of guests, was +already seated in the drawing room. The count took the gentlemen into +his study and showed them his choice collection of Turkish pipes. From +time to time he went out to ask: "Hasn't she come yet?" They were +expecting Marya Dmitrievna Akhrosimova, known in society as le terrible +dragon, a lady distinguished not for wealth or rank, but for common +sense and frank plainness of speech. Marya Dmitrievna was known to the +Imperial family as well as to all Moscow and Petersburg, and both cities +wondered at her, laughed privately at her rudenesses, and told good +stories about her, while none the less all without exception respected +and feared her. + +In the count's room, which was full of tobacco smoke, they talked of war +that had been announced in a manifesto, and about the recruiting. None +of them had yet seen the manifesto, but they all knew it had appeared. +The count sat on the sofa between two guests who were smoking and +talking. He neither smoked nor talked, but bending his head first to one +side and then to the other watched the smokers with evident pleasure and +listened to the conversation of his two neighbors, whom he egged on +against each other. + +One of them was a sallow, clean-shaven civilian with a thin and wrinkled +face, already growing old, though he was dressed like a most fashionable +young man. He sat with his legs up on the sofa as if quite at home and, +having stuck an amber mouthpiece far into his mouth, was inhaling the +smoke spasmodically and screwing up his eyes. This was an old bachelor, +Shinshin, a cousin of the countess', a man with "a sharp tongue" as they +said in Moscow society. He seemed to be condescending to his companion. +The latter, a fresh, rosy officer of the Guards, irreproachably washed, +brushed, and buttoned, held his pipe in the middle of his mouth and with +red lips gently inhaled the smoke, letting it escape from his handsome +mouth in rings. This was Lieutenant Berg, an officer in the Semenov +regiment with whom Boris was to travel to join the army, and about whom +Natasha had teased her elder sister Vera, speaking of Berg as her +"intended." The count sat between them and listened attentively. His +favorite occupation when not playing boston, a card game he was very +fond of, was that of listener, especially when he succeeded in setting +two loquacious talkers at one another. + +"Well, then, old chap, mon tres honorable Alphonse Karlovich," said +Shinshin, laughing ironically and mixing the most ordinary Russian +expressions with the choicest French phrases--which was a peculiarity of +his speech. "Vous comptez vous faire des rentes sur l'etat; * you want +to make something out of your company?" + + +* You expect to make an income out of the government. + +"No, Peter Nikolaevich; I only want to show that in the cavalry the +advantages are far less than in the infantry. Just consider my own +position now, Peter Nikolaevich..." + +Berg always spoke quietly, politely, and with great precision. His +conversation always related entirely to himself; he would remain calm +and silent when the talk related to any topic that had no direct bearing +on himself. He could remain silent for hours without being at all put +out of countenance himself or making others uncomfortable, but as soon +as the conversation concerned himself he would begin to talk +circumstantially and with evident satisfaction. + +"Consider my position, Peter Nikolaevich. Were I in the cavalry I should +get not more than two hundred rubles every four months, even with the +rank of lieutenant; but as it is I receive two hundred and thirty," said +he, looking at Shinshin and the count with a joyful, pleasant smile, as +if it were obvious to him that his success must always be the chief +desire of everyone else. + +"Besides that, Peter Nikolaevich, by exchanging into the Guards I shall +be in a more prominent position," continued Berg, "and vacancies occur +much more frequently in the Foot Guards. Then just think what can be +done with two hundred and thirty rubles! I even manage to put a little +aside and to send something to my father," he went on, emitting a smoke +ring. + +"La balance y est... * A German knows how to skin a flint, as the +proverb says," remarked Shinshin, moving his pipe to the other side of +his mouth and winking at the count. + + +* So that squares matters. + +The count burst out laughing. The other guests seeing that Shinshin was +talking came up to listen. Berg, oblivious of irony or indifference, +continued to explain how by exchanging into the Guards he had already +gained a step on his old comrades of the Cadet Corps; how in wartime the +company commander might get killed and he, as senior in the company, +might easily succeed to the post; how popular he was with everyone in +the regiment, and how satisfied his father was with him. Berg evidently +enjoyed narrating all this, and did not seem to suspect that others, +too, might have their own interests. But all he said was so prettily +sedate, and the naivete of his youthful egotism was so obvious, that he +disarmed his hearers. + +"Well, my boy, you'll get along wherever you go--foot or horse--that +I'll warrant," said Shinshin, patting him on the shoulder and taking his +feet off the sofa. + +Berg smiled joyously. The count, by his guests, went into the drawing +room. + +It was just the moment before a big dinner when the assembled guests, +expecting the summons to zakuska, * avoid engaging in any long +conversation but think it necessary to move about and talk, in order to +show that they are not at all impatient for their food. The host and +hostess look toward the door, and now and then glance at one another, +and the visitors try to guess from these glances who, or what, they are +waiting for--some important relation who has not yet arrived, or a dish +that is not yet ready. + + +* Hors d'oeuvres. + +Pierre had come just at dinnertime and was sitting awkwardly in the +middle of the drawing room on the first chair he had come across, +blocking the way for everyone. The countess tried to make him talk, but +he went on naively looking around through his spectacles as if in search +of somebody and answered all her questions in monosyllables. He was in +the way and was the only one who did not notice the fact. Most of the +guests, knowing of the affair with the bear, looked with curiosity at +this big, stout, quiet man, wondering how such a clumsy, modest fellow +could have played such a prank on a policeman. + +"You have only lately arrived?" the countess asked him. + +"Oui, madame," replied he, looking around him. + +"You have not yet seen my husband?" + +"Non, madame." He smiled quite inappropriately. + +"You have been in Paris recently, I believe? I suppose it's very +interesting." + +"Very interesting." + +The countess exchanged glances with Anna Mikhaylovna. The latter +understood that she was being asked to entertain this young man, and +sitting down beside him she began to speak about his father; but he +answered her, as he had the countess, only in monosyllables. The other +guests were all conversing with one another. "The Razumovskis... It was +charming... You are very kind... Countess Apraksina..." was heard on all +sides. The countess rose and went into the ballroom. + +"Marya Dmitrievna?" came her voice from there. + +"Herself," came the answer in a rough voice, and Marya Dmitrievna +entered the room. + +All the unmarried ladies and even the married ones except the very +oldest rose. Marya Dmitrievna paused at the door. Tall and stout, +holding high her fifty-year-old head with its gray curls, she stood +surveying the guests, and leisurely arranged her wide sleeves as if +rolling them up. Marya Dmitrievna always spoke in Russian. + +"Health and happiness to her whose name day we are keeping and to her +children," she said, in her loud, full-toned voice which drowned all +others. "Well, you old sinner," she went on, turning to the count who +was kissing her hand, "you're feeling dull in Moscow, I daresay? Nowhere +to hunt with your dogs? But what is to be done, old man? Just see how +these nestlings are growing up," and she pointed to the girls. "You must +look for husbands for them whether you like it or not...." + +"Well," said she, "how's my Cossack?" (Marya Dmitrievna always called +Natasha a Cossack) and she stroked the child's arm as she came up +fearless and gay to kiss her hand. "I know she's a scamp of a girl, but +I like her." + +She took a pair of pear-shaped ruby earrings from her huge reticule and, +having given them to the rosy Natasha, who beamed with the pleasure of +her saint's-day fete, turned away at once and addressed herself to +Pierre. + +"Eh, eh, friend! Come here a bit," said she, assuming a soft high tone +of voice. "Come here, my friend..." and she ominously tucked up her +sleeves still higher. Pierre approached, looking at her in a childlike +way through his spectacles. + +"Come nearer, come nearer, friend! I used to be the only one to tell +your father the truth when he was in favor, and in your case it's my +evident duty." She paused. All were silent, expectant of what was to +follow, for this was clearly only a prelude. + +"A fine lad! My word! A fine lad!... His father lies on his deathbed and +he amuses himself setting a policeman astride a bear! For shame, sir, +for shame! It would be better if you went to the war." + +She turned away and gave her hand to the count, who could hardly keep +from laughing. + +"Well, I suppose it is time we were at table?" said Marya Dmitrievna. + +The count went in first with Marya Dmitrievna, the countess followed on +the arm of a colonel of hussars, a man of importance to them because +Nicholas was to go with him to the regiment; then came Anna Mikhaylovna +with Shinshin. Berg gave his arm to Vera. The smiling Julie Karagina +went in with Nicholas. After them other couples followed, filling the +whole dining hall, and last of all the children, tutors, and governesses +followed singly. The footmen began moving about, chairs scraped, the +band struck up in the gallery, and the guests settled down in their +places. Then the strains of the count's household band were replaced by +the clatter of knives and forks, the voices of visitors, and the soft +steps of the footmen. At one end of the table sat the countess with +Marya Dmitrievna on her right and Anna Mikhaylovna on her left, the +other lady visitors were farther down. At the other end sat the count, +with the hussar colonel on his left and Shinshin and the other male +visitors on his right. Midway down the long table on one side sat the +grownup young people: Vera beside Berg, and Pierre beside Boris; and on +the other side, the children, tutors, and governesses. From behind the +crystal decanters and fruit vases, the count kept glancing at his wife +and her tall cap with its light-blue ribbons, and busily filled his +neighbors' glasses, not neglecting his own. The countess in turn, +without omitting her duties as hostess, threw significant glances from +behind the pineapples at her husband whose face and bald head seemed by +their redness to contrast more than usual with his gray hair. At the +ladies' end an even chatter of voices was heard all the time, at the +men's end the voices sounded louder and louder, especially that of the +colonel of hussars who, growing more and more flushed, ate and drank so +much that the count held him up as a pattern to the other guests. Berg +with tender smiles was saying to Vera that love is not an earthly but a +heavenly feeling. Boris was telling his new friend Pierre who the guests +were and exchanging glances with Natasha, who was sitting opposite. +Pierre spoke little but examined the new faces, and ate a great deal. Of +the two soups he chose turtle with savory patties and went on to the +game without omitting a single dish or one of the wines. These latter +the butler thrust mysteriously forward, wrapped in a napkin, from behind +the next man's shoulders and whispered: "Dry Madeira"... "Hungarian"... +or "Rhine wine" as the case might be. Of the four crystal glasses +engraved with the count's monogram that stood before his plate, Pierre +held out one at random and drank with enjoyment, gazing with ever- +increasing amiability at the other guests. Natasha, who sat opposite, +was looking at Boris as girls of thirteen look at the boy they are in +love with and have just kissed for the first time. Sometimes that same +look fell on Pierre, and that funny lively little girl's look made him +inclined to laugh without knowing why. + +Nicholas sat at some distance from Sonya, beside Julie Karagina, to whom +he was again talking with the same involuntary smile. Sonya wore a +company smile but was evidently tormented by jealousy; now she turned +pale, now blushed and strained every nerve to overhear what Nicholas and +Julie were saying to one another. The governess kept looking round +uneasily as if preparing to resent any slight that might be put upon the +children. The German tutor was trying to remember all the dishes, wines, +and kinds of dessert, in order to send a full description of the dinner +to his people in Germany; and he felt greatly offended when the butler +with a bottle wrapped in a napkin passed him by. He frowned, trying to +appear as if he did not want any of that wine, but was mortified because +no one would understand that it was not to quench his thirst or from +greediness that he wanted it, but simply from a conscientious desire for +knowledge. + + + + +CHAPTER XIX + +At the men's end of the table the talk grew more and more animated. The +colonel told them that the declaration of war had already appeared in +Petersburg and that a copy, which he had himself seen, had that day been +forwarded by courier to the commander-in-chief. + +"And why the deuce are we going to fight Bonaparte?" remarked Shinshin. +"He has stopped Austria's cackle and I fear it will be our turn next." + +The colonel was a stout, tall, plethoric German, evidently devoted to +the service and patriotically Russian. He resented Shinshin's remark. + +"It is for the reasson, my goot sir," said he, speaking with a German +accent, "for the reasson zat ze Emperor knows zat. He declares in ze +manifessto zat he cannot fiew wiz indifference ze danger vreatening +Russia and zat ze safety and dignity of ze Empire as vell as ze sanctity +of its alliances..." he spoke this last word with particular emphasis as +if in it lay the gist of the matter. + +Then with the unerring official memory that characterized him he +repeated from the opening words of the manifesto: + +... and the wish, which constitutes the Emperor's sole and absolute aim- +-to establish peace in Europe on firm foundations--has now decided him +to despatch part of the army abroad and to create a new condition for +the attainment of that purpose. + +"Zat, my dear sir, is vy..." he concluded, drinking a tumbler of wine +with dignity and looking to the count for approval. + +"Connaissez-vous le Proverbe: * 'Jerome, Jerome, do not roam, but turn +spindles at home!'?" said Shinshin, puckering his brows and smiling. +"Cela nous convient a merveille.*(2) Suvorov now--he knew what he was +about; yet they beat him a plate couture,*(3) and where are we to find +Suvorovs now? Je vous demande un peu,"*(4) said he, continually changing +from French to Russian. + + +*Do you know the proverb? + +*(2) That suits us down to the ground. + +*(3) Hollow. + +*(4) I just ask you that. + +"Ve must vight to the last tr-r-op of our plood!" said the colonel, +thumping the table; "and ve must tie for our Emperor, and zen all vill +pe vell. And ve must discuss it as little as po-o-ossible"... he dwelt +particularly on the word possible... "as po-o-ossible," he ended, again +turning to the count. "Zat is how ve old hussars look at it, and zere's +an end of it! And how do you, a young man and a young hussar, how do you +judge of it?" he added, addressing Nicholas, who when he heard that the +war was being discussed had turned from his partner with eyes and ears +intent on the colonel. + +"I am quite of your opinion," replied Nicholas, flaming up, turning his +plate round and moving his wineglasses about with as much decision and +desperation as though he were at that moment facing some great danger. +"I am convinced that we Russians must die or conquer," he concluded, +conscious--as were others--after the words were uttered that his remarks +were too enthusiastic and emphatic for the occasion and were therefore +awkward. + +"What you said just now was splendid!" said his partner Julie. + +Sonya trembled all over and blushed to her ears and behind them and down +to her neck and shoulders while Nicholas was speaking. + +Pierre listened to the colonel's speech and nodded approvingly. + +"That's fine," said he. + +"The young man's a real hussar!" shouted the colonel, again thumping the +table. + +"What are you making such a noise about over there?" Marya Dmitrievna's +deep voice suddenly inquired from the other end of the table. "What are +you thumping the table for?" she demanded of the hussar, "and why are +you exciting yourself? Do you think the French are here?" + +"I am speaking ze truce," replied the hussar with a smile. + +"It's all about the war," the count shouted down the table. "You know my +son's going, Marya Dmitrievna? My son is going." + +"I have four sons in the army but still I don't fret. It is all in God's +hands. You may die in your bed or God may spare you in a battle," +replied Marya Dmitrievna's deep voice, which easily carried the whole +length of the table. + +"That's true!" + +Once more the conversations concentrated, the ladies' at the one end and +the men's at the other. + +"You won't ask," Natasha's little brother was saying; "I know you won't +ask!" + +"I will," replied Natasha. + +Her face suddenly flushed with reckless and joyous resolution. She half +rose, by a glance inviting Pierre, who sat opposite, to listen to what +was coming, and turning to her mother: + +"Mamma!" rang out the clear contralto notes of her childish voice, +audible the whole length of the table. + +"What is it?" asked the countess, startled; but seeing by her daughter's +face that it was only mischief, she shook a finger at her sternly with a +threatening and forbidding movement of her head. + +The conversation was hushed. + +"Mamma! What sweets are we going to have?" and Natasha's voice sounded +still more firm and resolute. + +The countess tried to frown, but could not. Marya Dmitrievna shook her +fat finger. + +"Cossack!" she said threateningly. + +Most of the guests, uncertain how to regard this sally, looked at the +elders. + +"You had better take care!" said the countess. + +"Mamma! What sweets are we going to have?" Natasha again cried boldly, +with saucy gaiety, confident that her prank would be taken in good part. + +Sonya and fat little Petya doubled up with laughter. + +"You see! I have asked," whispered Natasha to her little brother and to +Pierre, glancing at him again. + +"Ice pudding, but you won't get any," said Marya Dmitrievna. + +Natasha saw there was nothing to be afraid of and so she braved even +Marya Dmitrievna. + +"Marya Dmitrievna! What kind of ice pudding? I don't like ice cream." + +"Carrot ices." + +"No! What kind, Marya Dmitrievna? What kind?" she almost screamed; "I +want to know!" + +Marya Dmitrievna and the countess burst out laughing, and all the guests +joined in. Everyone laughed, not at Marya Dmitrievna's answer but at the +incredible boldness and smartness of this little girl who had dared to +treat Marya Dmitrievna in this fashion. + +Natasha only desisted when she had been told that there would be +pineapple ice. Before the ices, champagne was served round. The band +again struck up, the count and countess kissed, and the guests, leaving +their seats, went up to "congratulate" the countess, and reached across +the table to clink glasses with the count, with the children, and with +one another. Again the footmen rushed about, chairs scraped, and in the +same order in which they had entered but with redder faces, the guests +returned to the drawing room and to the count's study. + + + + +CHAPTER XX + +The card tables were drawn out, sets made up for boston, and the count's +visitors settled themselves, some in the two drawing rooms, some in the +sitting room, some in the library. + +The count, holding his cards fanwise, kept himself with difficulty from +dropping into his usual after-dinner nap, and laughed at everything. The +young people, at the countess' instigation, gathered round the +clavichord and harp. Julie by general request played first. After she +had played a little air with variations on the harp, she joined the +other young ladies in begging Natasha and Nicholas, who were noted for +their musical talent, to sing something. Natasha, who was treated as +though she were grown up, was evidently very proud of this but at the +same time felt shy. + +"What shall we sing?" she said. + +"'The Brook,'" suggested Nicholas. + +"Well, then, let's be quick. Boris, come here," said Natasha. "But where +is Sonya?" + +She looked round and seeing that her friend was not in the room ran to +look for her. + +Running into Sonya's room and not finding her there, Natasha ran to the +nursery, but Sonya was not there either. Natasha concluded that she must +be on the chest in the passage. The chest in the passage was the place +of mourning for the younger female generation in the Rostov household. +And there in fact was Sonya lying face downward on Nurse's dirty feather +bed on the top of the chest, crumpling her gauzy pink dress under her, +hiding her face with her slender fingers, and sobbing so convulsively +that her bare little shoulders shook. Natasha's face, which had been so +radiantly happy all that saint's day, suddenly changed: her eyes became +fixed, and then a shiver passed down her broad neck and the corners of +her mouth drooped. + +"Sonya! What is it? What is the matter?... Oo... Oo... Oo...!" And +Natasha's large mouth widened, making her look quite ugly, and she began +to wail like a baby without knowing why, except that Sonya was crying. +Sonya tried to lift her head to answer but could not, and hid her face +still deeper in the bed. Natasha wept, sitting on the blue-striped +feather bed and hugging her friend. With an effort Sonya sat up and +began wiping her eyes and explaining. + +"Nicholas is going away in a week's time, his... papers... have come... +he told me himself... but still I should not cry," and she showed a +paper she held in her hand--with the verses Nicholas had written, +"still, I should not cry, but you can't... no one can understand... what +a soul he has!" + +And she began to cry again because he had such a noble soul. + +"It's all very well for you... I am not envious... I love you and Boris +also," she went on, gaining a little strength; "he is nice... there are +no difficulties in your way.... But Nicholas is my cousin... one would +have to... the Metropolitan himself... and even then it can't be done. +And besides, if she tells Mamma" (Sonya looked upon the countess as her +mother and called her so) "that I am spoiling Nicholas' career and am +heartless and ungrateful, while truly... God is my witness," and she +made the sign of the cross, "I love her so much, and all of you, only +Vera... And what for? What have I done to her? I am so grateful to you +that I would willingly sacrifice everything, only I have nothing...." + +Sonya could not continue, and again hid her face in her hands and in the +feather bed. Natasha began consoling her, but her face showed that she +understood all the gravity of her friend's trouble. + +"Sonya," she suddenly exclaimed, as if she had guessed the true reason +of her friend's sorrow, "I'm sure Vera has said something to you since +dinner? Hasn't she?" + +"Yes, these verses Nicholas wrote himself and I copied some others, and +she found them on my table and said she'd show them to Mamma, and that I +was ungrateful, and that Mamma would never allow him to marry me, but +that he'll marry Julie. You see how he's been with her all day... +Natasha, what have I done to deserve it?..." + +And again she began to sob, more bitterly than before. Natasha lifted +her up, hugged her, and, smiling through her tears, began comforting +her. + +"Sonya, don't believe her, darling! Don't believe her! Do you remember +how we and Nicholas, all three of us, talked in the sitting room after +supper? Why, we settled how everything was to be. I don't quite remember +how, but don't you remember that it could all be arranged and how nice +it all was? There's Uncle Shinshin's brother has married his first +cousin. And we are only second cousins, you know. And Boris says it is +quite possible. You know I have told him all about it. And he is so +clever and so good!" said Natasha. "Don't you cry, Sonya, dear love, +darling Sonya!" and she kissed her and laughed. "Vera's spiteful; never +mind her! And all will come right and she won't say anything to Mamma. +Nicholas will tell her himself, and he doesn't care at all for Julie." + +Natasha kissed her on the hair. + +Sonya sat up. The little kitten brightened, its eyes shone, and it +seemed ready to lift its tail, jump down on its soft paws, and begin +playing with the ball of worsted as a kitten should. + +"Do you think so?... Really? Truly?" she said, quickly smoothing her +frock and hair. + +"Really, truly!" answered Natasha, pushing in a crisp lock that had +strayed from under her friend's plaits. + +Both laughed. + +"Well, let's go and sing 'The Brook.'" + +"Come along!" + +"Do you know, that fat Pierre who sat opposite me is so funny!" said +Natasha, stopping suddenly. "I feel so happy!" + +And she set off at a run along the passage. + +Sonya, shaking off some down which clung to her and tucking away the +verses in the bosom of her dress close to her bony little chest, ran +after Natasha down the passage into the sitting room with flushed face +and light, joyous steps. At the visitors' request the young people sang +the quartette, "The Brook," with which everyone was delighted. Then +Nicholas sang a song he had just learned: + + +At nighttime in the moon's fair glow How sweet, as fancies wander free, +To feel that in this world there's one Who still is thinking but of +thee! + +That while her fingers touch the harp Wafting sweet music o'er the lea, +It is for thee thus swells her heart, Sighing its message out to thee... + +A day or two, then bliss unspoilt, But oh! till then I cannot live!... + +He had not finished the last verse before the young people began to get +ready to dance in the large hall, and the sound of the feet and the +coughing of the musicians were heard from the gallery. + +Pierre was sitting in the drawing-room where Shinshin had engaged him, +as a man recently returned from abroad, in a political conversation in +which several others joined but which bored Pierre. When the music began +Natasha came in and walking straight up to Pierre said, laughing and +blushing: + +"Mamma told me to ask you to join the dancers." + +"I am afraid of mixing the figures," Pierre replied; "but if you will be +my teacher..." And lowering his big arm he offered it to the slender +little girl. + +While the couples were arranging themselves and the musicians tuning up, +Pierre sat down with his little partner. Natasha was perfectly happy; +she was dancing with a grown-up man, who had been abroad. She was +sitting in a conspicuous place and talking to him like a grown-up lady. +She had a fan in her hand that one of the ladies had given her to hold. +Assuming quite the pose of a society woman (heaven knows when and where +she had learned it) she talked with her partner, fanning herself and +smiling over the fan. + +"Dear, dear! Just look at her!" exclaimed the countess as she crossed +the ballroom, pointing to Natasha. + +Natasha blushed and laughed. + +"Well, really, Mamma! Why should you? What is there to be surprised at?" + +In the midst of the third ecossaise there was a clatter of chairs being +pushed back in the sitting room where the count and Marya Dmitrievna had +been playing cards with the majority of the more distinguished and older +visitors. They now, stretching themselves after sitting so long, and +replacing their purses and pocketbooks, entered the ballroom. First came +Marya Dmitrievna and the count, both with merry countenances. The count, +with playful ceremony somewhat in ballet style, offered his bent arm to +Marya Dmitrievna. He drew himself up, a smile of debonair gallantry lit +up his face and as soon as the last figure of the ecossaise was ended, +he clapped his hands to the musicians and shouted up to their gallery, +addressing the first violin: + +"Semen! Do you know the Daniel Cooper?" + +This was the count's favorite dance, which he had danced in his youth. +(Strictly speaking, Daniel Cooper was one figure of the anglaise.) + +"Look at Papa!" shouted Natasha to the whole company, and quite +forgetting that she was dancing with a grown-up partner she bent her +curly head to her knees and made the whole room ring with her laughter. + +And indeed everybody in the room looked with a smile of pleasure at the +jovial old gentleman, who standing beside his tall and stout partner, +Marya Dmitrievna, curved his arms, beat time, straightened his +shoulders, turned out his toes, tapped gently with his foot, and, by a +smile that broadened his round face more and more, prepared the +onlookers for what was to follow. As soon as the provocatively gay +strains of Daniel Cooper (somewhat resembling those of a merry peasant +dance) began to sound, all the doorways of the ballroom were suddenly +filled by the domestic serfs--the men on one side and the women on the +other--who with beaming faces had come to see their master making merry. + +"Just look at the master! A regular eagle he is!" loudly remarked the +nurse, as she stood in one of the doorways. + +The count danced well and knew it. But his partner could not and did not +want to dance well. Her enormous figure stood erect, her powerful arms +hanging down (she had handed her reticule to the countess), and only her +stern but handsome face really joined in the dance. What was expressed +by the whole of the count's plump figure, in Marya Dmitrievna found +expression only in her more and more beaming face and quivering nose. +But if the count, getting more and more into the swing of it, charmed +the spectators by the unexpectedness of his adroit maneuvers and the +agility with which he capered about on his light feet, Marya Dmitrievna +produced no less impression by slight exertions--the least effort to +move her shoulders or bend her arms when turning, or stamp her foot-- +which everyone appreciated in view of her size and habitual severity. +The dance grew livelier and livelier. The other couples could not +attract a moment's attention to their own evolutions and did not even +try to do so. All were watching the count and Marya Dmitrievna. Natasha +kept pulling everyone by sleeve or dress, urging them to "look at Papa!" +though as it was they never took their eyes off the couple. In the +intervals of the dance the count, breathing deeply, waved and shouted to +the musicians to play faster. Faster, faster, and faster; lightly, more +lightly, and yet more lightly whirled the count, flying round Marya +Dmitrievna, now on his toes, now on his heels; until, turning his +partner round to her seat, he executed the final pas, raising his soft +foot backwards, bowing his perspiring head, smiling and making a wide +sweep with his arm, amid a thunder of applause and laughter led by +Natasha. Both partners stood still, breathing heavily and wiping their +faces with their cambric handkerchiefs. + +"That's how we used to dance in our time, ma chere," said the count. + +"That was a Daniel Cooper!" exclaimed Marya Dmitrievna, tucking up her +sleeves and puffing heavily. + + + + +CHAPTER XXI + +While in the Rostovs' ballroom the sixth anglaise was being danced, to a +tune in which the weary musicians blundered, and while tired footmen and +cooks were getting the supper, Count Bezukhov had a sixth stroke. The +doctors pronounced recovery impossible. After a mute confession, +communion was administered to the dying man, preparations made for the +sacrament of unction, and in his house there was the bustle and thrill +of suspense usual at such moments. Outside the house, beyond the gates, +a group of undertakers, who hid whenever a carriage drove up, waited in +expectation of an important order for an expensive funeral. The Military +Governor of Moscow, who had been assiduous in sending aides-de-camp to +inquire after the count's health, came himself that evening to bid a +last farewell to the celebrated grandee of Catherine's court, Count +Bezukhov. + +The magnificent reception room was crowded. Everyone stood up +respectfully when the Military Governor, having stayed about half an +hour alone with the dying man, passed out, slightly acknowledging their +bows and trying to escape as quickly as possible from the glances fixed +on him by the doctors, clergy, and relatives of the family. Prince +Vasili, who had grown thinner and paler during the last few days, +escorted him to the door, repeating something to him several times in +low tones. + +When the Military Governor had gone, Prince Vasili sat down all alone on +a chair in the ballroom, crossing one leg high over the other, leaning +his elbow on his knee and covering his face with his hand. After sitting +so for a while he rose, and, looking about him with frightened eyes, +went with unusually hurried steps down the long corridor leading to the +back of the house, to the room of the eldest princess. + +Those who were in the dimly lit reception room spoke in nervous +whispers, and, whenever anyone went into or came from the dying man's +room, grew silent and gazed with eyes full of curiosity or expectancy at +his door, which creaked slightly when opened. + +"The limits of human life... are fixed and may not be o'erpassed," said +an old priest to a lady who had taken a seat beside him and was +listening naively to his words. + +"I wonder, is it not too late to administer unction?" asked the lady, +adding the priest's clerical title, as if she had no opinion of her own +on the subject. + +"Ah, madam, it is a great sacrament," replied the priest, passing his +hand over the thin grizzled strands of hair combed back across his bald +head. + +"Who was that? The Military Governor himself?" was being asked at the +other side of the room. "How young-looking he is!" + +"Yes, and he is over sixty. I hear the count no longer recognizes +anyone. They wished to administer the sacrament of unction." + +"I knew someone who received that sacrament seven times." + +The second princess had just come from the sickroom with her eyes red +from weeping and sat down beside Dr. Lorrain, who was sitting in a +graceful pose under a portrait of Catherine, leaning his elbow on a +table. + +"Beautiful," said the doctor in answer to a remark about the weather. +"The weather is beautiful, Princess; and besides, in Moscow one feels as +if one were in the country." + +"Yes, indeed," replied the princess with a sigh. "So he may have +something to drink?" + +Lorrain considered. + +"Has he taken his medicine?" + +"Yes." + +The doctor glanced at his watch. + +"Take a glass of boiled water and put a pinch of cream of tartar," and +he indicated with his delicate fingers what he meant by a pinch. + +"Dere has neffer been a gase," a German doctor was saying to an aide-de- +camp, "dat one liffs after de sird stroke." + +"And what a well-preserved man he was!" remarked the aide-de-camp. "And +who will inherit his wealth?" he added in a whisper. + +"It von't go begging," replied the German with a smile. + +Everyone again looked toward the door, which creaked as the second +princess went in with the drink she had prepared according to Lorrain's +instructions. The German doctor went up to Lorrain. + +"Do you think he can last till morning?" asked the German, addressing +Lorrain in French which he pronounced badly. + +Lorrain, pursing up his lips, waved a severely negative finger before +his nose. + +"Tonight, not later," said he in a low voice, and he moved away with a +decorous smile of self-satisfaction at being able clearly to understand +and state the patient's condition. + +Meanwhile Prince Vasili had opened the door into the princess' room. + +In this room it was almost dark; only two tiny lamps were burning before +the icons and there was a pleasant scent of flowers and burnt pastilles. +The room was crowded with small pieces of furniture, whatnots, +cupboards, and little tables. The quilt of a high, white feather bed was +just visible behind a screen. A small dog began to bark. + +"Ah, is it you, cousin?" + +She rose and smoothed her hair, which was as usual so extremely smooth +that it seemed to be made of one piece with her head and covered with +varnish. + +"Has anything happened?" she asked. "I am so terrified." + +"No, there is no change. I only came to have a talk about business, +Catiche," * muttered the prince, seating himself wearily on the chair +she had just vacated. "You have made the place warm, I must say," he +remarked. "Well, sit down: let's have a talk." + + +*Catherine. + +"I thought perhaps something had happened," she said with her unchanging +stonily severe expression; and, sitting down opposite the prince, she +prepared to listen. + +"I wished to get a nap, mon cousin, but I can't." + +"Well, my dear?" said Prince Vasili, taking her hand and bending it +downwards as was his habit. + +It was plain that this "well?" referred to much that they both +understood without naming. + +The princess, who had a straight, rigid body, abnormally long for her +legs, looked directly at Prince Vasili with no sign of emotion in her +prominent gray eyes. Then she shook her head and glanced up at the icons +with a sigh. This might have been taken as an expression of sorrow and +devotion, or of weariness and hope of resting before long. Prince Vasili +understood it as an expression of weariness. + +"And I?" he said; "do you think it is easier for me? I am as worn out as +a post horse, but still I must have a talk with you, Catiche, a very +serious talk." + +Prince Vasili said no more and his cheeks began to twitch nervously, now +on one side, now on the other, giving his face an unpleasant expression +which was never to be seen on it in a drawing room. His eyes too seemed +strange; at one moment they looked impudently sly and at the next +glanced round in alarm. + +The princess, holding her little dog on her lap with her thin bony +hands, looked attentively into Prince Vasili's eyes evidently resolved +not to be the first to break silence, if she had to wait till morning. + +"Well, you see, my dear princess and cousin, Catherine Semenovna," +continued Prince Vasili, returning to his theme, apparently not without +an inner struggle; "at such a moment as this one must think of +everything. One must think of the future, of all of you... I love you +all, like children of my own, as you know." + +The princess continued to look at him without moving, and with the same +dull expression. + +"And then of course my family has also to be considered," Prince Vasili +went on, testily pushing away a little table without looking at her. +"You know, Catiche, that we--you three sisters, Mamontov, and my wife-- +are the count's only direct heirs. I know, I know how hard it is for you +to talk or think of such matters. It is no easier for me; but, my dear, +I am getting on for sixty and must be prepared for anything. Do you know +I have sent for Pierre? The count," pointing to his portrait, +"definitely demanded that he should be called." + +Prince Vasili looked questioningly at the princess, but could not make +out whether she was considering what he had just said or whether she was +simply looking at him. + +"There is one thing I constantly pray God to grant, mon cousin," she +replied, "and it is that He would be merciful to him and would allow his +noble soul peacefully to leave this..." + +"Yes, yes, of course," interrupted Prince Vasili impatiently, rubbing +his bald head and angrily pulling back toward him the little table that +he had pushed away. "But... in short, the fact is... you know yourself +that last winter the count made a will by which he left all his +property, not to us his direct heirs, but to Pierre." + +"He has made wills enough!" quietly remarked the princess. "But he +cannot leave the estate to Pierre. Pierre is illegitimate." + +"But, my dear," said Prince Vasili suddenly, clutching the little table +and becoming more animated and talking more rapidly: "what if a letter +has been written to the Emperor in which the count asks for Pierre's +legitimation? Do you understand that in consideration of the count's +services, his request would be granted?..." + +The princess smiled as people do who think they know more about the +subject under discussion than those they are talking with. + +"I can tell you more," continued Prince Vasili, seizing her hand, "that +letter was written, though it was not sent, and the Emperor knew of it. +The only question is, has it been destroyed or not? If not, then as soon +as all is over," and Prince Vasili sighed to intimate what he meant by +the words all is over, "and the count's papers are opened, the will and +letter will be delivered to the Emperor, and the petition will certainly +be granted. Pierre will get everything as the legitimate son." + +"And our share?" asked the princess smiling ironically, as if anything +might happen, only not that. + +"But, my poor Catiche, it is as clear as daylight! He will then be the +legal heir to everything and you won't get anything. You must know, my +dear, whether the will and letter were written, and whether they have +been destroyed or not. And if they have somehow been overlooked, you +ought to know where they are, and must find them, because..." + +"What next?" the princess interrupted, smiling sardonically and not +changing the expression of her eyes. "I am a woman, and you think we are +all stupid; but I know this: an illegitimate son cannot inherit... un +batard!" * she added, as if supposing that this translation of the word +would effectively prove to Prince Vasili the invalidity of his +contention. + + +* A bastard. + +"Well, really, Catiche! Can't you understand! You are so intelligent, +how is it you don't see that if the count has written a letter to the +Emperor begging him to recognize Pierre as legitimate, it follows that +Pierre will not be Pierre but will become Count Bezukhov, and will then +inherit everything under the will? And if the will and letter are not +destroyed, then you will have nothing but the consolation of having been +dutiful et tout ce qui s'ensuit! * That's certain." + + +* And all that follows therefrom. + +"I know the will was made, but I also know that it is invalid; and you, +mon cousin, seem to consider me a perfect fool," said the princess with +the expression women assume when they suppose they are saying something +witty and stinging. + +"My dear Princess Catherine Semenovna," began Prince Vasili impatiently, +"I came here not to wrangle with you, but to talk about your interests +as with a kinswoman, a good, kind, true relation. And I tell you for the +tenth time that if the letter to the Emperor and the will in Pierre's +favor are among the count's papers, then, my dear girl, you and your +sisters are not heiresses! If you don't believe me, then believe an +expert. I have just been talking to Dmitri Onufrich" (the family +solicitor) "and he says the same." + +At this a sudden change evidently took place in the princess' ideas; her +thin lips grew white, though her eyes did not change, and her voice when +she began to speak passed through such transitions as she herself +evidently did not expect. + +"That would be a fine thing!" said she. "I never wanted anything and I +don't now." + +She pushed the little dog off her lap and smoothed her dress. + +"And this is gratitude--this is recognition for those who have +sacrificed everything for his sake!" she cried. "It's splendid! Fine! I +don't want anything, Prince." + +"Yes, but you are not the only one. There are your sisters..." replied +Prince Vasili. + +But the princess did not listen to him. + +"Yes, I knew it long ago but had forgotten. I knew that I could expect +nothing but meanness, deceit, envy, intrigue, and ingratitude--the +blackest ingratitude--in this house..." + +"Do you or do you not know where that will is?" insisted Prince Vasili, +his cheeks twitching more than ever. + +"Yes, I was a fool! I still believed in people, loved them, and +sacrificed myself. But only the base, the vile succeed! I know who has +been intriguing!" + +The princess wished to rise, but the prince held her by the hand. She +had the air of one who has suddenly lost faith in the whole human race. +She gave her companion an angry glance. + +"There is still time, my dear. You must remember, Catiche, that it was +all done casually in a moment of anger, of illness, and was afterwards +forgotten. Our duty, my dear, is to rectify his mistake, to ease his +last moments by not letting him commit this injustice, and not to let +him die feeling that he is rendering unhappy those who..." + +"Who sacrificed everything for him," chimed in the princess, who would +again have risen had not the prince still held her fast, "though he +never could appreciate it. No, mon cousin," she added with a sigh, "I +shall always remember that in this world one must expect no reward, that +in this world there is neither honor nor justice. In this world one has +to be cunning and cruel." + +"Now come, come! Be reasonable. I know your excellent heart." + +"No, I have a wicked heart." + +"I know your heart," repeated the prince. "I value your friendship and +wish you to have as good an opinion of me. Don't upset yourself, and let +us talk sensibly while there is still time, be it a day or be it but an +hour.... Tell me all you know about the will, and above all where it is. +You must know. We will take it at once and show it to the count. He has, +no doubt, forgotten it and will wish to destroy it. You understand that +my sole desire is conscientiously to carry out his wishes; that is my +only reason for being here. I came simply to help him and you." + +"Now I see it all! I know who has been intriguing--I know!" cried the +princess. + +"That's not the point, my dear." + +"It's that protege of yours, that sweet Princess Drubetskaya, that Anna +Mikhaylovna whom I would not take for a housemaid... the infamous, vile +woman!" + +"Do not let us lose any time..." + +"Ah, don't talk to me! Last winter she wheedled herself in here and told +the count such vile, disgraceful things about us, especially about +Sophie--I can't repeat them--that it made the count quite ill and he +would not see us for a whole fortnight. I know it was then he wrote this +vile, infamous paper, but I thought the thing was invalid." + +"We've got to it at last--why did you not tell me about it sooner?" + +"It's in the inlaid portfolio that he keeps under his pillow," said the +princess, ignoring his question. "Now I know! Yes; if I have a sin, a +great sin, it is hatred of that vile woman!" almost shrieked the +princess, now quite changed. "And what does she come worming herself in +here for? But I will give her a piece of my mind. The time will come!" + + + + +CHAPTER XXII + +While these conversations were going on in the reception room and the +princess' room, a carriage containing Pierre (who had been sent for) and +Anna Mikhaylovna (who found it necessary to accompany him) was driving +into the court of Count Bezukhov's house. As the wheels rolled softly +over the straw beneath the windows, Anna Mikhaylovna, having turned with +words of comfort to her companion, realized that he was asleep in his +corner and woke him up. Rousing himself, Pierre followed Anna +Mikhaylovna out of the carriage, and only then began to think of the +interview with his dying father which awaited him. He noticed that they +had not come to the front entrance but to the back door. While he was +getting down from the carriage steps two men, who looked like +tradespeople, ran hurriedly from the entrance and hid in the shadow of +the wall. Pausing for a moment, Pierre noticed several other men of the +same kind hiding in the shadow of the house on both sides. But neither +Anna Mikhaylovna nor the footman nor the coachman, who could not help +seeing these people, took any notice of them. "It seems to be all +right," Pierre concluded, and followed Anna Mikhaylovna. She hurriedly +ascended the narrow dimly lit stone staircase, calling to Pierre, who +was lagging behind, to follow. Though he did not see why it was +necessary for him to go to the count at all, still less why he had to go +by the back stairs, yet judging by Anna Mikhaylovna's air of assurance +and haste, Pierre concluded that it was all absolutely necessary. +Halfway up the stairs they were almost knocked over by some men who, +carrying pails, came running downstairs, their boots clattering. These +men pressed close to the wall to let Pierre and Anna Mikhaylovna pass +and did not evince the least surprise at seeing them there. + +"Is this the way to the princesses' apartments?" asked Anna Mikhaylovna +of one of them. + +"Yes," replied a footman in a bold loud voice, as if anything were now +permissible; "the door to the left, ma'am." + +"Perhaps the count did not ask for me," said Pierre when he reached the +landing. "I'd better go to my own room." + +Anna Mikhaylovna paused and waited for him to come up. + +"Ah, my friend!" she said, touching his arm as she had done her son's +when speaking to him that afternoon, "believe me I suffer no less than +you do, but be a man!" + +"But really, hadn't I better go away?" he asked, looking kindly at her +over his spectacles. + +"Ah, my dear friend! Forget the wrongs that may have been done you. +Think that he is your father... perhaps in the agony of death." She +sighed. "I have loved you like a son from the first. Trust yourself to +me, Pierre. I shall not forget your interests." + +Pierre did not understand a word, but the conviction that all this had +to be grew stronger, and he meekly followed Anna Mikhaylovna who was +already opening a door. + +This door led into a back anteroom. An old man, a servant of the +princesses, sat in a corner knitting a stocking. Pierre had never been +in this part of the house and did not even know of the existence of +these rooms. Anna Mikhaylovna, addressing a maid who was hurrying past +with a decanter on a tray as "my dear" and "my sweet," asked about the +princess' health and then led Pierre along a stone passage. The first +door on the left led into the princesses' apartments. The maid with the +decanter in her haste had not closed the door (everything in the house +was done in haste at that time), and Pierre and Anna Mikhaylovna in +passing instinctively glanced into the room, where Prince Vasili and the +eldest princess were sitting close together talking. Seeing them pass, +Prince Vasili drew back with obvious impatience, while the princess +jumped up and with a gesture of desperation slammed the door with all +her might. + +This action was so unlike her usual composure and the fear depicted on +Prince Vasili's face so out of keeping with his dignity that Pierre +stopped and glanced inquiringly over his spectacles at his guide. Anna +Mikhaylovna evinced no surprise, she only smiled faintly and sighed, as +if to say that this was no more than she had expected. + +"Be a man, my friend. I will look after your interests," said she in +reply to his look, and went still faster along the passage. + +Pierre could not make out what it was all about, and still less what +"watching over his interests" meant, but he decided that all these +things had to be. From the passage they went into a large, dimly lit +room adjoining the count's reception room. It was one of those sumptuous +but cold apartments known to Pierre only from the front approach, but +even in this room there now stood an empty bath, and water had been +spilled on the carpet. They were met by a deacon with a censer and by a +servant who passed out on tiptoe without heeding them. They went into +the reception room familiar to Pierre, with two Italian windows opening +into the conservatory, with its large bust and full length portrait of +Catherine the Great. The same people were still sitting here in almost +the same positions as before, whispering to one another. All became +silent and turned to look at the pale tear-worn Anna Mikhaylovna as she +entered, and at the big stout figure of Pierre who, hanging his head, +meekly followed her. + +Anna Mikhaylovna's face expressed a consciousness that the decisive +moment had arrived. With the air of a practical Petersburg lady she now, +keeping Pierre close beside her, entered the room even more boldly than +that afternoon. She felt that as she brought with her the person the +dying man wished to see, her own admission was assured. Casting a rapid +glance at all those in the room and noticing the count's confessor +there, she glided up to him with a sort of amble, not exactly bowing yet +seeming to grow suddenly smaller, and respectfully received the blessing +first of one and then of another priest. + +"God be thanked that you are in time," said she to one of the priests; +"all we relatives have been in such anxiety. This young man is the +count's son," she added more softly. "What a terrible moment!" + +Having said this she went up to the doctor. + +"Dear doctor," said she, "this young man is the count's son. Is there +any hope?" + +The doctor cast a rapid glance upwards and silently shrugged his +shoulders. Anna Mikhaylovna with just the same movement raised her +shoulders and eyes, almost closing the latter, sighed, and moved away +from the doctor to Pierre. To him, in a particularly respectful and +tenderly sad voice, she said: + +"Trust in His mercy!" and pointing out a small sofa for him to sit and +wait for her, she went silently toward the door that everyone was +watching and it creaked very slightly as she disappeared behind it. + +Pierre, having made up his mind to obey his monitress implicitly, moved +toward the sofa she had indicated. As soon as Anna Mikhaylovna had +disappeared he noticed that the eyes of all in the room turned to him +with something more than curiosity and sympathy. He noticed that they +whispered to one another, casting significant looks at him with a kind +of awe and even servility. A deference such as he had never before +received was shown him. A strange lady, the one who had been talking to +the priests, rose and offered him her seat; an aide-de-camp picked up +and returned a glove Pierre had dropped; the doctors became respectfully +silent as he passed by, and moved to make way for him. At first Pierre +wished to take another seat so as not to trouble the lady, and also to +pick up the glove himself and to pass round the doctors who were not +even in his way; but all at once he felt that this would not do, and +that tonight he was a person obliged to perform some sort of awful rite +which everyone expected of him, and that he was therefore bound to +accept their services. He took the glove in silence from the aide-de- +camp, and sat down in the lady's chair, placing his huge hands +symmetrically on his knees in the naive attitude of an Egyptian statue, +and decided in his own mind that all was as it should be, and that in +order not to lose his head and do foolish things he must not act on his +own ideas tonight, but must yield himself up entirely to the will of +those who were guiding him. + +Not two minutes had passed before Prince Vasili with head erect +majestically entered the room. He was wearing his long coat with three +stars on his breast. He seemed to have grown thinner since the morning; +his eyes seemed larger than usual when he glanced round and noticed +Pierre. He went up to him, took his hand (a thing he never used to do), +and drew it downwards as if wishing to ascertain whether it was firmly +fixed on. + +"Courage, courage, my friend! He has asked to see you. That is well!" +and he turned to go. + +But Pierre thought it necessary to ask: "How is..." and hesitated, not +knowing whether it would be proper to call the dying man "the count," +yet ashamed to call him "father." + +"He had another stroke about half an hour ago. Courage, my friend..." + +Pierre's mind was in such a confused state that the word "stroke" +suggested to him a blow from something. He looked at Prince Vasili in +perplexity, and only later grasped that a stroke was an attack of +illness. Prince Vasili said something to Lorrain in passing and went +through the door on tiptoe. He could not walk well on tiptoe and his +whole body jerked at each step. The eldest princess followed him, and +the priests and deacons and some servants also went in at the door. +Through that door was heard a noise of things being moved about, and at +last Anna Mikhaylovna, still with the same expression, pale but resolute +in the discharge of duty, ran out and touching Pierre lightly on the arm +said: + +"The divine mercy is inexhaustible! Unction is about to be administered. +Come." + +Pierre went in at the door, stepping on the soft carpet, and noticed +that the strange lady, the aide-de-camp, and some of the servants, all +followed him in, as if there were now no further need for permission to +enter that room. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIII + +Pierre well knew this large room divided by columns and an arch, its +walls hung round with Persian carpets. The part of the room behind the +columns, with a high silk-curtained mahogany bedstead on one side and on +the other an immense case containing icons, was brightly illuminated +with red light like a Russian church during evening service. Under the +gleaming icons stood a long invalid chair, and in that chair on snowy- +white smooth pillows, evidently freshly changed, Pierre saw--covered to +the waist by a bright green quilt--the familiar, majestic figure of his +father, Count Bezukhov, with that gray mane of hair above his broad +forehead which reminded one of a lion, and the deep characteristically +noble wrinkles of his handsome, ruddy face. He lay just under the icons; +his large thick hands outside the quilt. Into the right hand, which was +lying palm downwards, a wax taper had been thrust between forefinger and +thumb, and an old servant, bending over from behind the chair, held it +in position. By the chair stood the priests, their long hair falling +over their magnificent glittering vestments, with lighted tapers in +their hands, slowly and solemnly conducting the service. A little behind +them stood the two younger princesses holding handkerchiefs to their +eyes, and just in front of them their eldest sister, Catiche, with a +vicious and determined look steadily fixed on the icons, as though +declaring to all that she could not answer for herself should she glance +round. Anna Mikhaylovna, with a meek, sorrowful, and all-forgiving +expression on her face, stood by the door near the strange lady. Prince +Vasili in front of the door, near the invalid chair, a wax taper in his +left hand, was leaning his left arm on the carved back of a velvet chair +he had turned round for the purpose, and was crossing himself with his +right hand, turning his eyes upward each time he touched his forehead. +His face wore a calm look of piety and resignation to the will of God. +"If you do not understand these sentiments," he seemed to be saying, "so +much the worse for you!" + +Behind him stood the aide-de-camp, the doctors, and the menservants; the +men and women had separated as in church. All were silently crossing +themselves, and the reading of the church service, the subdued chanting +of deep bass voices, and in the intervals sighs and the shuffling of +feet were the only sounds that could be heard. Anna Mikhaylovna, with an +air of importance that showed that she felt she quite knew what she was +about, went across the room to where Pierre was standing and gave him a +taper. He lit it and, distracted by observing those around him, began +crossing himself with the hand that held the taper. + +Sophie, the rosy, laughter-loving, youngest princess with the mole, +watched him. She smiled, hid her face in her handkerchief, and remained +with it hidden for awhile; then looking up and seeing Pierre she again +began to laugh. She evidently felt unable to look at him without +laughing, but could not resist looking at him: so to be out of +temptation she slipped quietly behind one of the columns. In the midst +of the service the voices of the priests suddenly ceased, they whispered +to one another, and the old servant who was holding the count's hand got +up and said something to the ladies. Anna Mikhaylovna stepped forward +and, stooping over the dying man, beckoned to Lorrain from behind her +back. The French doctor held no taper; he was leaning against one of the +columns in a respectful attitude implying that he, a foreigner, in spite +of all differences of faith, understood the full importance of the rite +now being performed and even approved of it. He now approached the sick +man with the noiseless step of one in full vigor of life, with his +delicate white fingers raised from the green quilt the hand that was +free, and turning sideways felt the pulse and reflected a moment. The +sick man was given something to drink, there was a stir around him, then +the people resumed their places and the service continued. During this +interval Pierre noticed that Prince Vasili left the chair on which he +had been leaning, and--with an air which intimated that he knew what he +was about and if others did not understand him it was so much the worse +for them--did not go up to the dying man, but passed by him, joined the +eldest princess, and moved with her to the side of the room where stood +the high bedstead with its silken hangings. On leaving the bed both +Prince Vasili and the princess passed out by a back door, but returned +to their places one after the other before the service was concluded. +Pierre paid no more attention to this occurrence than to the rest of +what went on, having made up his mind once for all that what he saw +happening around him that evening was in some way essential. + +The chanting of the service ceased, and the voice of the priest was +heard respectfully congratulating the dying man on having received the +sacrament. The dying man lay as lifeless and immovable as before. Around +him everyone began to stir: steps were audible and whispers, among which +Anna Mikhaylovna's was the most distinct. + +Pierre heard her say: + +"Certainly he must be moved onto the bed; here it will be impossible..." + +The sick man was so surrounded by doctors, princesses, and servants that +Pierre could no longer see the reddish-yellow face with its gray mane-- +which, though he saw other faces as well, he had not lost sight of for a +single moment during the whole service. He judged by the cautious +movements of those who crowded round the invalid chair that they had +lifted the dying man and were moving him. + +"Catch hold of my arm or you'll drop him!" he heard one of the servants +say in a frightened whisper. "Catch hold from underneath. Here!" +exclaimed different voices; and the heavy breathing of the bearers and +the shuffling of their feet grew more hurried, as if the weight they +were carrying were too much for them. + +As the bearers, among whom was Anna Mikhaylovna, passed the young man he +caught a momentary glimpse between their heads and backs of the dying +man's high, stout, uncovered chest and powerful shoulders, raised by +those who were holding him under the armpits, and of his gray, curly, +leonine head. This head, with its remarkably broad brow and cheekbones, +its handsome, sensual mouth, and its cold, majestic expression, was not +disfigured by the approach of death. It was the same as Pierre +remembered it three months before, when the count had sent him to +Petersburg. But now this head was swaying helplessly with the uneven +movements of the bearers, and the cold listless gaze fixed itself upon +nothing. + +After a few minutes' bustle beside the high bedstead, those who had +carried the sick man dispersed. Anna Mikhaylovna touched Pierre's hand +and said, "Come." Pierre went with her to the bed on which the sick man +had been laid in a stately pose in keeping with the ceremony just +completed. He lay with his head propped high on the pillows. His hands +were symmetrically placed on the green silk quilt, the palms downward. +When Pierre came up the count was gazing straight at him, but with a +look the significance of which could not be understood by mortal man. +Either this look meant nothing but that as long as one has eyes they +must look somewhere, or it meant too much. Pierre hesitated, not knowing +what to do, and glanced inquiringly at his guide. Anna Mikhaylovna made +a hurried sign with her eyes, glancing at the sick man's hand and moving +her lips as if to send it a kiss. Pierre, carefully stretching his neck +so as not to touch the quilt, followed her suggestion and pressed his +lips to the large boned, fleshy hand. Neither the hand nor a single +muscle of the count's face stirred. Once more Pierre looked +questioningly at Anna Mikhaylovna to see what he was to do next. Anna +Mikhaylovna with her eyes indicated a chair that stood beside the bed. +Pierre obediently sat down, his eyes asking if he were doing right. Anna +Mikhaylovna nodded approvingly. Again Pierre fell into the naively +symmetrical pose of an Egyptian statue, evidently distressed that his +stout and clumsy body took up so much room and doing his utmost to look +as small as possible. He looked at the count, who still gazed at the +spot where Pierre's face had been before he sat down. Anna Mikhaylovna +indicated by her attitude her consciousness of the pathetic importance +of these last moments of meeting between the father and son. This lasted +about two minutes, which to Pierre seemed an hour. Suddenly the broad +muscles and lines of the count's face began to twitch. The twitching +increased, the handsome mouth was drawn to one side (only now did Pierre +realize how near death his father was), and from that distorted mouth +issued an indistinct, hoarse sound. Anna Mikhaylovna looked attentively +at the sick man's eyes, trying to guess what he wanted; she pointed +first to Pierre, then to some drink, then named Prince Vasili in an +inquiring whisper, then pointed to the quilt. The eyes and face of the +sick man showed impatience. He made an effort to look at the servant who +stood constantly at the head of the bed. + +"Wants to turn on the other side," whispered the servant, and got up to +turn the count's heavy body toward the wall. + +Pierre rose to help him. + +While the count was being turned over, one of his arms fell back +helplessly and he made a fruitless effort to pull it forward. Whether he +noticed the look of terror with which Pierre regarded that lifeless arm, +or whether some other thought flitted across his dying brain, at any +rate he glanced at the refractory arm, at Pierre's terror-stricken face, +and again at the arm, and on his face a feeble, piteous smile appeared, +quite out of keeping with his features, that seemed to deride his own +helplessness. At sight of this smile Pierre felt an unexpected quivering +in his breast and a tickling in his nose, and tears dimmed his eyes. The +sick man was turned on to his side with his face to the wall. He sighed. + +"He is dozing," said Anna Mikhaylovna, observing that one of the +princesses was coming to take her turn at watching. "Let us go." + +Pierre went out. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIV + +There was now no one in the reception room except Prince Vasili and the +eldest princess, who were sitting under the portrait of Catherine the +Great and talking eagerly. As soon as they saw Pierre and his companion +they became silent, and Pierre thought he saw the princess hide +something as she whispered: + +"I can't bear the sight of that woman." + +"Catiche has had tea served in the small drawing room," said Prince +Vasili to Anna Mikhaylovna. "Go and take something, my poor Anna +Mikhaylovna, or you will not hold out." + +To Pierre he said nothing, merely giving his arm a sympathetic squeeze +below the shoulder. Pierre went with Anna Mikhaylovna into the small +drawing room. + +"There is nothing so refreshing after a sleepless night as a cup of this +delicious Russian tea," Lorrain was saying with an air of restrained +animation as he stood sipping tea from a delicate Chinese handleless cup +before a table on which tea and a cold supper were laid in the small +circular room. Around the table all who were at Count Bezukhov's house +that night had gathered to fortify themselves. Pierre well remembered +this small circular drawing room with its mirrors and little tables. +During balls given at the house Pierre, who did not know how to dance, +had liked sitting in this room to watch the ladies who, as they passed +through in their ball dresses with diamonds and pearls on their bare +shoulders, looked at themselves in the brilliantly lighted mirrors which +repeated their reflections several times. Now this same room was dimly +lighted by two candles. On one small table tea things and supper dishes +stood in disorder, and in the middle of the night a motley throng of +people sat there, not merrymaking, but somberly whispering, and +betraying by every word and movement that they none of them forgot what +was happening and what was about to happen in the bedroom. Pierre did +not eat anything though he would very much have liked to. He looked +inquiringly at his monitress and saw that she was again going on tiptoe +to the reception room where they had left Prince Vasili and the eldest +princess. Pierre concluded that this also was essential, and after a +short interval followed her. Anna Mikhaylovna was standing beside the +princess, and they were both speaking in excited whispers. + +"Permit me, Princess, to know what is necessary and what is not +necessary," said the younger of the two speakers, evidently in the same +state of excitement as when she had slammed the door of her room. + +"But, my dear princess," answered Anna Mikhaylovna blandly but +impressively, blocking the way to the bedroom and preventing the other +from passing, "won't this be too much for poor Uncle at a moment when he +needs repose? Worldly conversation at a moment when his soul is already +prepared..." + +Prince Vasili was seated in an easy chair in his familiar attitude, with +one leg crossed high above the other. His cheeks, which were so flabby +that they looked heavier below, were twitching violently; but he wore +the air of a man little concerned in what the two ladies were saying. + +"Come, my dear Anna Mikhaylovna, let Catiche do as she pleases. You know +how fond the count is of her." + +"I don't even know what is in this paper," said the younger of the two +ladies, addressing Prince Vasili and pointing to an inlaid portfolio she +held in her hand. "All I know is that his real will is in his writing +table, and this is a paper he has forgotten...." + +She tried to pass Anna Mikhaylovna, but the latter sprang so as to bar +her path. + +"I know, my dear, kind princess," said Anna Mikhaylovna, seizing the +portfolio so firmly that it was plain she would not let go easily. "Dear +princess, I beg and implore you, have some pity on him! Je vous en +conjure..." + +The princess did not reply. Their efforts in the struggle for the +portfolio were the only sounds audible, but it was evident that if the +princess did speak, her words would not be flattering to Anna +Mikhaylovna. Though the latter held on tenaciously, her voice lost none +of its honeyed firmness and softness. + +"Pierre, my dear, come here. I think he will not be out of place in a +family consultation; is it not so, Prince?" + +"Why don't you speak, cousin?" suddenly shrieked the princess so loud +that those in the drawing room heard her and were startled. "Why do you +remain silent when heaven knows who permits herself to interfere, making +a scene on the very threshold of a dying man's room? Intriguer!" she +hissed viciously, and tugged with all her might at the portfolio. + +But Anna Mikhaylovna went forward a step or two to keep her hold on the +portfolio, and changed her grip. + +Prince Vasili rose. "Oh!" said he with reproach and surprise, "this is +absurd! Come, let go I tell you." + +The princess let go. + +"And you too!" + +But Anna Mikhaylovna did not obey him. + +"Let go, I tell you! I will take the responsibility. I myself will go +and ask him, I!... does that satisfy you?" + +"But, Prince," said Anna Mikhaylovna, "after such a solemn sacrament, +allow him a moment's peace! Here, Pierre, tell them your opinion," said +she, turning to the young man who, having come quite close, was gazing +with astonishment at the angry face of the princess which had lost all +dignity, and at the twitching cheeks of Prince Vasili. + +"Remember that you will answer for the consequences," said Prince Vasili +severely. "You don't know what you are doing." + +"Vile woman!" shouted the princess, darting unexpectedly at Anna +Mikhaylovna and snatching the portfolio from her. + +Prince Vasili bent his head and spread out his hands. + +At this moment that terrible door, which Pierre had watched so long and +which had always opened so quietly, burst noisily open and banged +against the wall, and the second of the three sisters rushed out +wringing her hands. + +"What are you doing!" she cried vehemently. "He is dying and you leave +me alone with him!" + +Her sister dropped the portfolio. Anna Mikhaylovna, stooping, quickly +caught up the object of contention and ran into the bedroom. The eldest +princess and Prince Vasili, recovering themselves, followed her. A few +minutes later the eldest sister came out with a pale hard face, again +biting her underlip. At sight of Pierre her expression showed an +irrepressible hatred. + +"Yes, now you may be glad!" said she; "this is what you have been +waiting for." And bursting into tears she hid her face in her +handkerchief and rushed from the room. + +Prince Vasili came next. He staggered to the sofa on which Pierre was +sitting and dropped onto it, covering his face with his hand. Pierre +noticed that he was pale and that his jaw quivered and shook as if in an +ague. + +"Ah, my friend!" said he, taking Pierre by the elbow; and there was in +his voice a sincerity and weakness Pierre had never observed in it +before. "How often we sin, how much we deceive, and all for what? I am +near sixty, dear friend... I too... All will end in death, all! Death is +awful..." and he burst into tears. + +Anna Mikhaylovna came out last. She approached Pierre with slow, quiet +steps. + +"Pierre!" she said. + +Pierre gave her an inquiring look. She kissed the young man on his +forehead, wetting him with her tears. Then after a pause she said: + +"He is no more...." + +Pierre looked at her over his spectacles. + +"Come, I will go with you. Try to weep, nothing gives such relief as +tears." + +She led him into the dark drawing room and Pierre was glad no one could +see his face. Anna Mikhaylovna left him, and when she returned he was +fast asleep with his head on his arm. + +In the morning Anna Mikhaylovna said to Pierre: + +"Yes, my dear, this is a great loss for us all, not to speak of you. But +God will support you: you are young, and are now, I hope, in command of +an immense fortune. The will has not yet been opened. I know you well +enough to be sure that this will not turn your head, but it imposes +duties on you, and you must be a man." + +Pierre was silent. + +"Perhaps later on I may tell you, my dear boy, that if I had not been +there, God only knows what would have happened! You know, Uncle promised +me only the day before yesterday not to forget Boris. But he had no +time. I hope, my dear friend, you will carry out your father's wish?" + +Pierre understood nothing of all this and coloring shyly looked in +silence at Princess Anna Mikhaylovna. After her talk with Pierre, Anna +Mikhaylovna returned to the Rostovs' and went to bed. On waking in the +morning she told the Rostovs and all her acquaintances the details of +Count Bezukhov's death. She said the count had died as she would herself +wish to die, that his end was not only touching but edifying. As to the +last meeting between father and son, it was so touching that she could +not think of it without tears, and did not know which had behaved better +during those awful moments--the father who so remembered everything and +everybody at last and had spoken such pathetic words to the son, or +Pierre, whom it had been pitiful to see, so stricken was he with grief, +though he tried hard to hide it in order not to sadden his dying father. +"It is painful, but it does one good. It uplifts the soul to see such +men as the old count and his worthy son," said she. Of the behavior of +the eldest princess and Prince Vasili she spoke disapprovingly, but in +whispers and as a great secret. + + + + +CHAPTER XXV + +At Bald Hills, Prince Nicholas Andreevich Bolkonski's estate, the +arrival of young Prince Andrew and his wife was daily expected, but this +expectation did not upset the regular routine of life in the old +prince's household. General in Chief Prince Nicholas Andreevich +(nicknamed in society, "the King of Prussia") ever since the Emperor +Paul had exiled him to his country estate had lived there continuously +with his daughter, Princess Mary, and her companion, Mademoiselle +Bourienne. Though in the new reign he was free to return to the +capitals, he still continued to live in the country, remarking that +anyone who wanted to see him could come the hundred miles from Moscow to +Bald Hills, while he himself needed no one and nothing. He used to say +that there are only two sources of human vice--idleness and +superstition, and only two virtues--activity and intelligence. He +himself undertook his daughter's education, and to develop these two +cardinal virtues in her gave her lessons in algebra and geometry till +she was twenty, and arranged her life so that her whole time was +occupied. He was himself always occupied: writing his memoirs, solving +problems in higher mathematics, turning snuffboxes on a lathe, working +in the garden, or superintending the building that was always going on +at his estate. As regularity is a prime condition facilitating activity, +regularity in his household was carried to the highest point of +exactitude. He always came to table under precisely the same conditions, +and not only at the same hour but at the same minute. With those about +him, from his daughter to his serfs, the prince was sharp and invariably +exacting, so that without being a hardhearted man he inspired such fear +and respect as few hardhearted men would have aroused. Although he was +in retirement and had now no influence in political affairs, every high +official appointed to the province in which the prince's estate lay +considered it his duty to visit him and waited in the lofty antechamber +just as the architect, gardener, or Princess Mary did, till the prince +appeared punctually to the appointed hour. Everyone sitting in this +antechamber experienced the same feeling of respect and even fear when +the enormously high study door opened and showed the figure of a rather +small old man, with powdered wig, small withered hands, and bushy gray +eyebrows which, when he frowned, sometimes hid the gleam of his shrewd, +youthfully glittering eyes. + +On the morning of the day that the young couple were to arrive, Princess +Mary entered the antechamber as usual at the time appointed for the +morning greeting, crossing herself with trepidation and repeating a +silent prayer. Every morning she came in like that, and every morning +prayed that the daily interview might pass off well. + +An old powdered manservant who was sitting in the antechamber rose +quietly and said in a whisper: "Please walk in." + +Through the door came the regular hum of a lathe. The princess timidly +opened the door which moved noiselessly and easily. She paused at the +entrance. The prince was working at the lathe and after glancing round +continued his work. + +The enormous study was full of things evidently in constant use. The +large table covered with books and plans, the tall glass-fronted +bookcases with keys in the locks, the high desk for writing while +standing up, on which lay an open exercise book, and the lathe with +tools laid ready to hand and shavings scattered around--all indicated +continuous, varied, and orderly activity. The motion of the small foot +shod in a Tartar boot embroidered with silver, and the firm pressure of +the lean sinewy hand, showed that the prince still possessed the +tenacious endurance and vigor of hardy old age. After a few more turns +of the lathe he removed his foot from the pedal, wiped his chisel, +dropped it into a leather pouch attached to the lathe, and, approaching +the table, summoned his daughter. He never gave his children a blessing, +so he simply held out his bristly cheek (as yet unshaven) and, regarding +her tenderly and attentively, said severely: + +"Quite well? All right then, sit down." He took the exercise book +containing lessons in geometry written by himself and drew up a chair +with his foot. + +"For tomorrow!" said he, quickly finding the page and making a scratch +from one paragraph to another with his hard nail. + +The princess bent over the exercise book on the table. + +"Wait a bit, here's a letter for you," said the old man suddenly, taking +a letter addressed in a woman's hand from a bag hanging above the table, +onto which he threw it. + +At the sight of the letter red patches showed themselves on the +princess' face. She took it quickly and bent her head over it. + +"From Heloise?" asked the prince with a cold smile that showed his still +sound, yellowish teeth. + +"Yes, it's from Julie," replied the princess with a timid glance and a +timid smile. + +"I'll let two more letters pass, but the third I'll read," said the +prince sternly; "I'm afraid you write much nonsense. I'll read the +third!" + +"Read this if you like, Father," said the princess, blushing still more +and holding out the letter. + +"The third, I said the third!" cried the prince abruptly, pushing the +letter away, and leaning his elbows on the table he drew toward him the +exercise book containing geometrical figures. + +"Well, madam," he began, stooping over the book close to his daughter +and placing an arm on the back of the chair on which she sat, so that +she felt herself surrounded on all sides by the acrid scent of old age +and tobacco, which she had known so long. "Now, madam, these triangles +are equal; please note that the angle ABC..." + +The princess looked in a scared way at her father's eyes glittering +close to her; the red patches on her face came and went, and it was +plain that she understood nothing and was so frightened that her fear +would prevent her understanding any of her father's further +explanations, however clear they might be. Whether it was the teacher's +fault or the pupil's, this same thing happened every day: the princess' +eyes grew dim, she could not see and could not hear anything, but was +only conscious of her stern father's withered face close to her, of his +breath and the smell of him, and could think only of how to get away +quickly to her own room to make out the problem in peace. The old man +was beside himself: moved the chair on which he was sitting noisily +backward and forward, made efforts to control himself and not become +vehement, but almost always did become vehement, scolded, and sometimes +flung the exercise book away. + +The princess gave a wrong answer. + +"Well now, isn't she a fool!" shouted the prince, pushing the book aside +and turning sharply away; but rising immediately, he paced up and down, +lightly touched his daughter's hair and sat down again. + +He drew up his chair, and continued to explain. + +"This won't do, Princess; it won't do," said he, when Princess Mary, +having taken and closed the exercise book with the next day's lesson, +was about to leave: "Mathematics are most important, madam! I don't want +to have you like our silly ladies. Get used to it and you'll like it," +and he patted her cheek. "It will drive all the nonsense out of your +head." + +She turned to go, but he stopped her with a gesture and took an uncut +book from the high desk. + +"Here is some sort of Key to the Mysteries that your Heloise has sent +you. Religious! I don't interfere with anyone's belief... I have looked +at it. Take it. Well, now go. Go." + +He patted her on the shoulder and himself closed the door after her. + +Princess Mary went back to her room with the sad, scared expression that +rarely left her and which made her plain, sickly face yet plainer. She +sat down at her writing table, on which stood miniature portraits and +which was littered with books and papers. The princess was as untidy as +her father was tidy. She put down the geometry book and eagerly broke +the seal of her letter. It was from her most intimate friend from +childhood; that same Julie Karagina who had been at the Rostovs' name- +day party. + +Julie wrote in French: + +Dear and precious Friend, How terrible and frightful a thing is +separation! Though I tell myself that half my life and half my happiness +are wrapped up in you, and that in spite of the distance separating us +our hearts are united by indissoluble bonds, my heart rebels against +fate and in spite of the pleasures and distractions around me I cannot +overcome a certain secret sorrow that has been in my heart ever since we +parted. Why are we not together as we were last summer, in your big +study, on the blue sofa, the confidential sofa? Why cannot I now, as +three months ago, draw fresh moral strength from your look, so gentle, +calm, and penetrating, a look I loved so well and seem to see before me +as I write? + +Having read thus far, Princess Mary sighed and glanced into the mirror +which stood on her right. It reflected a weak, ungraceful figure and +thin face. Her eyes, always sad, now looked with particular hopelessness +at her reflection in the glass. "She flatters me," thought the princess, +turning away and continuing to read. But Julie did not flatter her +friend, the princess' eyes--large, deep and luminous (it seemed as if at +times there radiated from them shafts of warm light)--were so beautiful +that very often in spite of the plainness of her face they gave her an +attraction more powerful than that of beauty. But the princess never saw +the beautiful expression of her own eyes--the look they had when she was +not thinking of herself. As with everyone, her face assumed a forced +unnatural expression as soon as she looked in a glass. She went on +reading: + +All Moscow talks of nothing but war. One of my two brothers is already +abroad, the other is with the Guards, who are starting on their march to +the frontier. Our dear Emperor has left Petersburg and it is thought +intends to expose his precious person to the chances of war. God grant +that the Corsican monster who is destroying the peace of Europe may be +overthrown by the angel whom it has pleased the Almighty, in His +goodness, to give us as sovereign! To say nothing of my brothers, this +war has deprived me of one of the associations nearest my heart. I mean +young Nicholas Rostov, who with his enthusiasm could not bear to remain +inactive and has left the university to join the army. I will confess to +you, dear Mary, that in spite of his extreme youth his departure for the +army was a great grief to me. This young man, of whom I spoke to you +last summer, is so noble-minded and full of that real youthfulness which +one seldom finds nowadays among our old men of twenty and, particularly, +he is so frank and has so much heart. He is so pure and poetic that my +relations with him, transient as they were, have been one of the +sweetest comforts to my poor heart, which has already suffered so much. +Someday I will tell you about our parting and all that was said then. +That is still too fresh. Ah, dear friend, you are happy not to know +these poignant joys and sorrows. You are fortunate, for the latter are +generally the stronger! I know very well that Count Nicholas is too +young ever to be more to me than a friend, but this sweet friendship, +this poetic and pure intimacy, were what my heart needed. But enough of +this! The chief news, about which all Moscow gossips, is the death of +old Count Bezukhov, and his inheritance. Fancy! The three princesses +have received very little, Prince Vasili nothing, and it is Monsieur +Pierre who has inherited all the property and has besides been +recognized as legitimate; so that he is now Count Bezukhov and possessor +of the finest fortune in Russia. It is rumored that Prince Vasili played +a very despicable part in this affair and that he returned to Petersburg +quite crestfallen. + +I confess I understand very little about all these matters of wills and +inheritance; but I do know that since this young man, whom we all used +to know as plain Monsieur Pierre, has become Count Bezukhov and the +owner of one of the largest fortunes in Russia, I am much amused to +watch the change in the tone and manners of the mammas burdened by +marriageable daughters, and of the young ladies themselves, toward him, +though, between you and me, he always seemed to me a poor sort of +fellow. As for the past two years people have amused themselves by +finding husbands for me (most of whom I don't even know), the +matchmaking chronicles of Moscow now speak of me as the future Countess +Bezukhova. But you will understand that I have no desire for the post. A +propos of marriages: do you know that a while ago that universal auntie +Anna Mikhaylovna told me, under the seal of strict secrecy, of a plan of +marriage for you. It is neither more nor less than with Prince Vasili's +son Anatole, whom they wish to reform by marrying him to someone rich +and distinguee, and it is on you that his relations' choice has fallen. +I don't know what you will think of it, but I consider it my duty to let +you know of it. He is said to be very handsome and a terrible +scapegrace. That is all I have been able to find out about him. + +But enough of gossip. I am at the end of my second sheet of paper, and +Mamma has sent for me to go and dine at the Apraksins'. Read the +mystical book I am sending you; it has an enormous success here. Though +there are things in it difficult for the feeble human mind to grasp, it +is an admirable book which calms and elevates the soul. Adieu! Give my +respects to monsieur your father and my compliments to Mademoiselle +Bourienne. I embrace you as I love you. + +JULIE + +P.S. Let me have news of your brother and his charming little wife. + +The princess pondered awhile with a thoughtful smile and her luminous +eyes lit up so that her face was entirely transformed. Then she suddenly +rose and with her heavy tread went up to the table. She took a sheet of +paper and her hand moved rapidly over it. This is the reply she wrote, +also in French: + +Dear and precious Friend, Your letter of the 13th has given me great +delight. So you still love me, my romantic Julie? Separation, of which +you say so much that is bad, does not seem to have had its usual effect +on you. You complain of our separation. What then should I say, if I +dared complain, I who am deprived of all who are dear to me? Ah, if we +had not religion to console us life would be very sad. Why do you +suppose that I should look severely on your affection for that young +man? On such matters I am only severe with myself. I understand such +feelings in others, and if never having felt them I cannot approve of +them, neither do I condemn them. Only it seems to me that Christian +love, love of one's neighbor, love of one's enemy, is worthier, sweeter, +and better than the feelings which the beautiful eyes of a young man can +inspire in a romantic and loving young girl like yourself. + +The news of Count Bezukhov's death reached us before your letter and my +father was much affected by it. He says the count was the last +representative but one of the great century, and that it is his own turn +now, but that he will do all he can to let his turn come as late as +possible. God preserve us from that terrible misfortune! + +I cannot agree with you about Pierre, whom I knew as a child. He always +seemed to me to have an excellent heart, and that is the quality I value +most in people. As to his inheritance and the part played by Prince +Vasili, it is very sad for both. Ah, my dear friend, our divine +Saviour's words, that it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of +a needle than for a rich man to enter the Kingdom of God, are terribly +true. I pity Prince Vasili but am still more sorry for Pierre. So young, +and burdened with such riches--to what temptations he will be exposed! +If I were asked what I desire most on earth, it would be to be poorer +than the poorest beggar. A thousand thanks, dear friend, for the volume +you have sent me and which has such success in Moscow. Yet since you +tell me that among some good things it contains others which our weak +human understanding cannot grasp, it seems to me rather useless to spend +time in reading what is unintelligible and can therefore bear no fruit. +I never could understand the fondness some people have for confusing +their minds by dwelling on mystical books that merely awaken their +doubts and excite their imagination, giving them a bent for exaggeration +quite contrary to Christian simplicity. Let us rather read the Epistles +and Gospels. Let us not seek to penetrate what mysteries they contain; +for how can we, miserable sinners that we are, know the terrible and +holy secrets of Providence while we remain in this flesh which forms an +impenetrable veil between us and the Eternal? Let us rather confine +ourselves to studying those sublime rules which our divine Saviour has +left for our guidance here below. Let us try to conform to them and +follow them, and let us be persuaded that the less we let our feeble +human minds roam, the better we shall please God, who rejects all +knowledge that does not come from Him; and the less we seek to fathom +what He has been pleased to conceal from us, the sooner will He +vouchsafe its revelation to us through His divine Spirit. + +My father has not spoken to me of a suitor, but has only told me that he +has received a letter and is expecting a visit from Prince Vasili. In +regard to this project of marriage for me, I will tell you, dear sweet +friend, that I look on marriage as a divine institution to which we must +conform. However painful it may be to me, should the Almighty lay the +duties of wife and mother upon me I shall try to perform them as +faithfully as I can, without disquieting myself by examining my feelings +toward him whom He may give me for husband. + +I have had a letter from my brother, who announces his speedy arrival at +Bald Hills with his wife. This pleasure will be but a brief one, +however, for he will leave us again to take part in this unhappy war +into which we have been drawn, God knows how or why. Not only where you +are--at the heart of affairs and of the world--is the talk all of war, +even here amid fieldwork and the calm of nature--which townsfolk +consider characteristic of the country--rumors of war are heard and +painfully felt. My father talks of nothing but marches and +countermarches, things of which I understand nothing; and the day before +yesterday during my daily walk through the village I witnessed a +heartrending scene.... It was a convoy of conscripts enrolled from our +people and starting to join the army. You should have seen the state of +the mothers, wives, and children of the men who were going and should +have heard the sobs. It seems as though mankind has forgotten the laws +of its divine Saviour, Who preached love and forgiveness of injuries-- +and that men attribute the greatest merit to skill in killing one +another. + +Adieu, dear and kind friend; may our divine Saviour and His most Holy +Mother keep you in their holy and all-powerful care! + +MARY + +"Ah, you are sending off a letter, Princess? I have already dispatched +mine. I have written to my poor mother," said the smiling Mademoiselle +Bourienne rapidly, in her pleasant mellow tones and with guttural r's. +She brought into Princess Mary's strenuous, mournful, and gloomy world a +quite different atmosphere, careless, lighthearted, and self-satisfied. + +"Princess, I must warn you," she added, lowering her voice and evidently +listening to herself with pleasure, and speaking with exaggerated +grasseyement, "the prince has been scolding Michael Ivanovich. He is in +a very bad humor, very morose. Be prepared." + +"Ah, dear friend," replied Princess Mary, "I have asked you never to +warn me of the humor my father is in. I do not allow myself to judge him +and would not have others do so." + +The princess glanced at her watch and, seeing that she was five minutes +late in starting her practice on the clavichord, went into the sitting +room with a look of alarm. Between twelve and two o'clock, as the day +was mapped out, the prince rested and the princess played the +clavichord. + + + + +CHAPTER XXVI + +The gray-haired valet was sitting drowsily listening to the snoring of +the prince, who was in his large study. From the far side of the house +through the closed doors came the sound of difficult passages--twenty +times repeated--of a sonata by Dussek. + +Just then a closed carriage and another with a hood drove up to the +porch. Prince Andrew got out of the carriage, helped his little wife to +alight, and let her pass into the house before him. Old Tikhon, wearing +a wig, put his head out of the door of the antechamber, reported in a +whisper that the prince was sleeping, and hastily closed the door. +Tikhon knew that neither the son's arrival nor any other unusual event +must be allowed to disturb the appointed order of the day. Prince Andrew +apparently knew this as well as Tikhon; he looked at his watch as if to +ascertain whether his father's habits had changed since he was at home +last, and, having assured himself that they had not, he turned to his +wife. + +"He will get up in twenty minutes. Let us go across to Mary's room," he +said. + +The little princess had grown stouter during this time, but her eyes and +her short, downy, smiling lip lifted when she began to speak just as +merrily and prettily as ever. + +"Why, this is a palace!" she said to her husband, looking around with +the expression with which people compliment their host at a ball. "Let's +come, quick, quick!" And with a glance round, she smiled at Tikhon, at +her husband, and at the footman who accompanied them. + +"Is that Mary practicing? Let's go quietly and take her by surprise." + +Prince Andrew followed her with a courteous but sad expression. + +"You've grown older, Tikhon," he said in passing to the old man, who +kissed his hand. + +Before they reached the room from which the sounds of the clavichord +came, the pretty, fair haired Frenchwoman, Mademoiselle Bourienne, +rushed out apparently beside herself with delight. + +"Ah! what joy for the princess!" exclaimed she: "At last! I must let her +know." + +"No, no, please not... You are Mademoiselle Bourienne," said the little +princess, kissing her. "I know you already through my sister-in-law's +friendship for you. She was not expecting us?" + +They went up to the door of the sitting room from which came the sound +of the oft-repeated passage of the sonata. Prince Andrew stopped and +made a grimace, as if expecting something unpleasant. + +The little princess entered the room. The passage broke off in the +middle, a cry was heard, then Princess Mary's heavy tread and the sound +of kissing. When Prince Andrew went in the two princesses, who had only +met once before for a short time at his wedding, were in each other's +arms warmly pressing their lips to whatever place they happened to +touch. Mademoiselle Bourienne stood near them pressing her hand to her +heart, with a beatific smile and obviously equally ready to cry or to +laugh. Prince Andrew shrugged his shoulders and frowned, as lovers of +music do when they hear a false note. The two women let go of one +another, and then, as if afraid of being too late, seized each other's +hands, kissing them and pulling them away, and again began kissing each +other on the face, and then to Prince Andrew's surprise both began to +cry and kissed again. Mademoiselle Bourienne also began to cry. Prince +Andrew evidently felt ill at ease, but to the two women it seemed quite +natural that they should cry, and apparently it never entered their +heads that it could have been otherwise at this meeting. + +"Ah! my dear!... Ah! Mary!" they suddenly exclaimed, and then laughed. +"I dreamed last night..."--"You were not expecting us?..." "Ah! Mary, +you have got thinner?..." "And you have grown stouter!..." + +"I knew the princess at once," put in Mademoiselle Bourienne. + +"And I had no idea!..." exclaimed Princess Mary. "Ah, Andrew, I did not +see you." + +Prince Andrew and his sister, hand in hand, kissed one another, and he +told her she was still the same crybaby as ever. Princess Mary had +turned toward her brother, and through her tears the loving, warm, +gentle look of her large luminous eyes, very beautiful at that moment, +rested on Prince Andrew's face. + +The little princess talked incessantly, her short, downy upper lip +continually and rapidly touching her rosy nether lip when necessary and +drawing up again next moment when her face broke into a smile of +glittering teeth and sparkling eyes. She told of an accident they had +had on the Spasski Hill which might have been serious for her in her +condition, and immediately after that informed them that she had left +all her clothes in Petersburg and that heaven knew what she would have +to dress in here; and that Andrew had quite changed, and that Kitty +Odyntsova had married an old man, and that there was a suitor for Mary, +a real one, but that they would talk of that later. Princess Mary was +still looking silently at her brother and her beautiful eyes were full +of love and sadness. It was plain that she was following a train of +thought independent of her sister-in-law's words. In the midst of a +description of the last Petersburg fete she addressed her brother: + +"So you are really going to the war, Andrew?" she said sighing. + +Lise sighed too. + +"Yes, and even tomorrow," replied her brother. + +"He is leaving me here, God knows why, when he might have had +promotion..." + +Princess Mary did not listen to the end, but continuing her train of +thought turned to her sister-in-law with a tender glance at her figure. + +"Is it certain?" she said. + +The face of the little princess changed. She sighed and said: "Yes, +quite certain. Ah! it is very dreadful..." + +Her lip descended. She brought her face close to her sister-in-law's and +unexpectedly again began to cry. + +"She needs rest," said Prince Andrew with a frown. "Don't you, Lise? +Take her to your room and I'll go to Father. How is he? Just the same?" + +"Yes, just the same. Though I don't know what your opinion will be," +answered the princess joyfully. + +"And are the hours the same? And the walks in the avenues? And the +lathe?" asked Prince Andrew with a scarcely perceptible smile which +showed that, in spite of all his love and respect for his father, he was +aware of his weaknesses. + +"The hours are the same, and the lathe, and also the mathematics and my +geometry lessons," said Princess Mary gleefully, as if her lessons in +geometry were among the greatest delights of her life. + +When the twenty minutes had elapsed and the time had come for the old +prince to get up, Tikhon came to call the young prince to his father. +The old man made a departure from his usual routine in honor of his +son's arrival: he gave orders to admit him to his apartments while he +dressed for dinner. The old prince always dressed in old-fashioned +style, wearing an antique coat and powdered hair; and when Prince Andrew +entered his father's dressing room (not with the contemptuous look and +manner he wore in drawing rooms, but with the animated face with which +he talked to Pierre), the old man was sitting on a large leather-covered +chair, wrapped in a powdering mantle, entrusting his head to Tikhon. + +"Ah! here's the warrior! Wants to vanquish Buonaparte?" said the old +man, shaking his powdered head as much as the tail, which Tikhon was +holding fast to plait, would allow. + +"You at least must tackle him properly, or else if he goes on like this +he'll soon have us, too, for his subjects! How are you?" And he held out +his cheek. + +The old man was in a good temper after his nap before dinner. (He used +to say that a nap "after dinner was silver--before dinner, golden.") He +cast happy, sidelong glances at his son from under his thick, bushy +eyebrows. Prince Andrew went up and kissed his father on the spot +indicated to him. He made no reply on his father's favorite topic-- +making fun of the military men of the day, and more particularly of +Bonaparte. + +"Yes, Father, I have come to you and brought my wife who is pregnant," +said Prince Andrew, following every movement of his father's face with +an eager and respectful look. "How is your health?" + +"Only fools and rakes fall ill, my boy. You know me: I am busy from +morning till night and abstemious, so of course I am well." + +"Thank God," said his son smiling. + +"God has nothing to do with it! Well, go on," he continued, returning to +his hobby; "tell me how the Germans have taught you to fight Bonaparte +by this new science you call 'strategy.'" + +Prince Andrew smiled. + +"Give me time to collect my wits, Father," said he, with a smile that +showed that his father's foibles did not prevent his son from loving and +honoring him. "Why, I have not yet had time to settle down!" + +"Nonsense, nonsense!" cried the old man, shaking his pigtail to see +whether it was firmly plaited, and grasping his by the hand. "The house +for your wife is ready. Princess Mary will take her there and show her +over, and they'll talk nineteen to the dozen. That's their woman's way! +I am glad to have her. Sit down and talk. About Mikhelson's army I +understand--Tolstoy's too... a simultaneous expedition.... But what's +the southern army to do? Prussia is neutral... I know that. What about +Austria?" said he, rising from his chair and pacing up and down the room +followed by Tikhon, who ran after him, handing him different articles of +clothing. "What of Sweden? How will they cross Pomerania?" + +Prince Andrew, seeing that his father insisted, began--at first +reluctantly, but gradually with more and more animation, and from habit +changing unconsciously from Russian to French as he went on--to explain +the plan of operation for the coming campaign. He explained how an army, +ninety thousand strong, was to threaten Prussia so as to bring her out +of her neutrality and draw her into the war; how part of that army was +to join some Swedish forces at Stralsund; how two hundred and twenty +thousand Austrians, with a hundred thousand Russians, were to operate in +Italy and on the Rhine; how fifty thousand Russians and as many English +were to land at Naples, and how a total force of five hundred thousand +men was to attack the French from different sides. The old prince did +not evince the least interest during this explanation, but as if he were +not listening to it continued to dress while walking about, and three +times unexpectedly interrupted. Once he stopped it by shouting: "The +white one, the white one!" + +This meant that Tikhon was not handing him the waistcoat he wanted. +Another time he interrupted, saying: + +"And will she soon be confined?" and shaking his head reproachfully +said: "That's bad! Go on, go on." + +The third interruption came when Prince Andrew was finishing his +description. The old man began to sing, in the cracked voice of old age: +"Malbrook s'en va-t-en guerre. Dieu sait quand reviendra." * + + +* "Marlborough is going to the wars; God knows when he'll return." + +His son only smiled. + +"I don't say it's a plan I approve of," said the son; "I am only telling +you what it is. Napoleon has also formed his plan by now, not worse than +this one." + +"Well, you've told me nothing new," and the old man repeated, +meditatively and rapidly: + +"Dieu sait quand reviendra. Go to the dining room." + + + + +CHAPTER XXVII + +At the appointed hour the prince, powdered and shaven, entered the +dining room where his daughter-in-law, Princess Mary, and Mademoiselle +Bourienne were already awaiting him together with his architect, who by +a strange caprice of his employer's was admitted to table though the +position of that insignificant individual was such as could certainly +not have caused him to expect that honor. The prince, who generally kept +very strictly to social distinctions and rarely admitted even important +government officials to his table, had unexpectedly selected Michael +Ivanovich (who always went into a corner to blow his nose on his checked +handkerchief) to illustrate the theory that all men are equals, and had +more than once impressed on his daughter that Michael Ivanovich was "not +a whit worse than you or I." At dinner the prince usually spoke to the +taciturn Michael Ivanovich more often than to anyone else. + +In the dining room, which like all the rooms in the house was +exceedingly lofty, the members of the household and the footmen--one +behind each chair--stood waiting for the prince to enter. The head +butler, napkin on arm, was scanning the setting of the table, making +signs to the footmen, and anxiously glancing from the clock to the door +by which the prince was to enter. Prince Andrew was looking at a large +gilt frame, new to him, containing the genealogical tree of the Princes +Bolkonski, opposite which hung another such frame with a badly painted +portrait (evidently by the hand of the artist belonging to the estate) +of a ruling prince, in a crown--an alleged descendant of Rurik and +ancestor of the Bolkonskis. Prince Andrew, looking again at that +genealogical tree, shook his head, laughing as a man laughs who looks at +a portrait so characteristic of the original as to be amusing. + +"How thoroughly like him that is!" he said to Princess Mary, who had +come up to him. + +Princess Mary looked at her brother in surprise. She did not understand +what he was laughing at. Everything her father did inspired her with +reverence and was beyond question. + +"Everyone has his Achilles' heel," continued Prince Andrew. "Fancy, with +his powerful mind, indulging in such nonsense!" + +Princess Mary could not understand the boldness of her brother's +criticism and was about to reply, when the expected footsteps were heard +coming from the study. The prince walked in quickly and jauntily as was +his wont, as if intentionally contrasting the briskness of his manners +with the strict formality of his house. At that moment the great clock +struck two and another with a shrill tone joined in from the drawing +room. The prince stood still; his lively glittering eyes from under +their thick, bushy eyebrows sternly scanned all present and rested on +the little princess. She felt, as courtiers do when the Tsar enters, the +sensation of fear and respect which the old man inspired in all around +him. He stroked her hair and then patted her awkwardly on the back of +her neck. + +"I'm glad, glad, to see you," he said, looking attentively into her +eyes, and then quickly went to his place and sat down. "Sit down, sit +down! Sit down, Michael Ianovich!" + +He indicated a place beside him to his daughter-in-law. A footman moved +the chair for her. + +"Ho, ho!" said the old man, casting his eyes on her rounded figure. +"You've been in a hurry. That's bad!" + +He laughed in his usual dry, cold, unpleasant way, with his lips only +and not with his eyes. + +"You must walk, walk as much as possible, as much as possible," he said. + +The little princess did not, or did not wish to, hear his words. She was +silent and seemed confused. The prince asked her about her father, and +she began to smile and talk. He asked about mutual acquaintances, and +she became still more animated and chattered away giving him greetings +from various people and retelling the town gossip. + +"Countess Apraksina, poor thing, has lost her husband and she has cried +her eyes out," she said, growing more and more lively. + +As she became animated the prince looked at her more and more sternly, +and suddenly, as if he had studied her sufficiently and had formed a +definite idea of her, he turned away and addressed Michael Ivanovich. + +"Well, Michael Ivanovich, our Bonaparte will be having a bad time of it. +Prince Andrew" (he always spoke thus of his son) "has been telling me +what forces are being collected against him! While you and I never +thought much of him." + +Michael Ivanovich did not at all know when "you and I" had said such +things about Bonaparte, but understanding that he was wanted as a peg on +which to hang the prince's favorite topic, he looked inquiringly at the +young prince, wondering what would follow. + +"He is a great tactician!" said the prince to his son, pointing to the +architect. + +And the conversation again turned on the war, on Bonaparte, and the +generals and statesmen of the day. The old prince seemed convinced not +only that all the men of the day were mere babies who did not know the A +B C of war or of politics, and that Bonaparte was an insignificant +little Frenchy, successful only because there were no longer any +Potemkins or Suvorovs left to oppose him; but he was also convinced that +there were no political difficulties in Europe and no real war, but only +a sort of puppet show at which the men of the day were playing, +pretending to do something real. Prince Andrew gaily bore with his +father's ridicule of the new men, and drew him on and listened to him +with evident pleasure. + +"The past always seems good," said he, "but did not Suvorov himself fall +into a trap Moreau set him, and from which he did not know how to +escape?" + +"Who told you that? Who?" cried the prince. "Suvorov!" And he jerked +away his plate, which Tikhon briskly caught. "Suvorov!... Consider, +Prince Andrew. Two... Frederick and Suvorov; Moreau!... Moreau would +have been a prisoner if Suvorov had had a free hand; but he had the +Hofs-kriegs-wurst-schnapps-Rath on his hands. It would have puzzled the +devil himself! When you get there you'll find out what those Hofs- +kriegs-wurst-Raths are! Suvorov couldn't manage them so what chance has +Michael Kutuzov? No, my dear boy," he continued, "you and your generals +won't get on against Buonaparte; you'll have to call in the French, so +that birds of a feather may fight together. The German, Pahlen, has been +sent to New York in America, to fetch the Frenchman, Moreau," he said, +alluding to the invitation made that year to Moreau to enter the Russian +service.... "Wonderful!... Were the Potemkins, Suvorovs, and Orlovs +Germans? No, lad, either you fellows have all lost your wits, or I have +outlived mine. May God help you, but we'll see what will happen. +Buonaparte has become a great commander among them! Hm!..." + +"I don't at all say that all the plans are good," said Prince Andrew, "I +am only surprised at your opinion of Bonaparte. You may laugh as much as +you like, but all the same Bonaparte is a great general!" + +"Michael Ivanovich!" cried the old prince to the architect who, busy +with his roast meat, hoped he had been forgotten: "Didn't I tell you +Buonaparte was a great tactician? Here, he says the same thing." + +"To be sure, your excellency," replied the architect. + +The prince again laughed his frigid laugh. + +"Buonaparte was born with a silver spoon in his mouth. He has got +splendid soldiers. Besides he began by attacking Germans. And only +idlers have failed to beat the Germans. Since the world began everybody +has beaten the Germans. They beat no one--except one another. He made +his reputation fighting them." + +And the prince began explaining all the blunders which, according to +him, Bonaparte had made in his campaigns and even in politics. His son +made no rejoinder, but it was evident that whatever arguments were +presented he was as little able as his father to change his opinion. He +listened, refraining from a reply, and involuntarily wondered how this +old man, living alone in the country for so many years, could know and +discuss so minutely and acutely all the recent European military and +political events. + +"You think I'm an old man and don't understand the present state of +affairs?" concluded his father. "But it troubles me. I don't sleep at +night. Come now, where has this great commander of yours shown his +skill?" he concluded. + +"That would take too long to tell," answered the son. + +"Well, then go to your Buonaparte! Mademoiselle Bourienne, here's +another admirer of that powder-monkey emperor of yours," he exclaimed in +excellent French. + +"You know, Prince, I am not a Bonapartist!" + +"Dieu sait quand reviendra..." hummed the prince out of tune and, with a +laugh still more so, he quitted the table. + +The little princess during the whole discussion and the rest of the +dinner sat silent, glancing with a frightened look now at her father-in- +law and now at Princess Mary. When they left the table she took her +sister-in-law's arm and drew her into another room. + +"What a clever man your father is," said she; "perhaps that is why I am +afraid of him." + +"Oh, he is so kind!" answered Princess Mary. + + + + +CHAPTER XXVIII + +Prince Andrew was to leave next evening. The old prince, not altering +his routine, retired as usual after dinner. The little princess was in +her sister-in-law's room. Prince Andrew in a traveling coat without +epaulettes had been packing with his valet in the rooms assigned to him. +After inspecting the carriage himself and seeing the trunks put in, he +ordered the horses to be harnessed. Only those things he always kept +with him remained in his room; a small box, a large canteen fitted with +silver plate, two Turkish pistols and a saber--a present from his father +who had brought it from the siege of Ochakov. All these traveling +effects of Prince Andrew's were in very good order: new, clean, and in +cloth covers carefully tied with tapes. + +When starting on a journey or changing their mode of life, men capable +of reflection are generally in a serious frame of mind. At such moments +one reviews the past and plans for the future. Prince Andrew's face +looked very thoughtful and tender. With his hands behind him he paced +briskly from corner to corner of the room, looking straight before him +and thoughtfully shaking his head. Did he fear going to the war, or was +he sad at leaving his wife?--perhaps both, but evidently he did not wish +to be seen in that mood, for hearing footsteps in the passage he +hurriedly unclasped his hands, stopped at a table as if tying the cover +of the small box, and assumed his usual tranquil and impenetrable +expression. It was the heavy tread of Princess Mary that he heard. + +"I hear you have given orders to harness," she cried, panting (she had +apparently been running), "and I did so wish to have another talk with +you alone! God knows how long we may again be parted. You are not angry +with me for coming? You have changed so, Andrusha," she added, as if to +explain such a question. + +She smiled as she uttered his pet name, "Andrusha." It was obviously +strange to her to think that this stern handsome man should be Andrusha- +-the slender mischievous boy who had been her playfellow in childhood. + +"And where is Lise?" he asked, answering her question only by a smile. + +"She was so tired that she has fallen asleep on the sofa in my room. Oh, +Andrew! What a treasure of a wife you have," said she, sitting down on +the sofa, facing her brother. "She is quite a child: such a dear, merry +child. I have grown so fond of her." + +Prince Andrew was silent, but the princess noticed the ironical and +contemptuous look that showed itself on his face. + +"One must be indulgent to little weaknesses; who is free from them, +Andrew? Don't forget that she has grown up and been educated in society, +and so her position now is not a rosy one. We should enter into +everyone's situation. Tout comprendre, c'est tout pardonner. * Think +what it must be for her, poor thing, after what she has been used to, to +be parted from her husband and be left alone in the country, in her +condition! It's very hard." + + +* To understand all is to forgive all. + +Prince Andrew smiled as he looked at his sister, as we smile at those we +think we thoroughly understand. + +"You live in the country and don't think the life terrible," he replied. + +"I... that's different. Why speak of me? I don't want any other life, +and can't, for I know no other. But think, Andrew: for a young society +woman to be buried in the country during the best years of her life, all +alone--for Papa is always busy, and I... well, you know what poor +resources I have for entertaining a woman used to the best society. +There is only Mademoiselle Bourienne...." + +"I don't like your Mademoiselle Bourienne at all," said Prince Andrew. + +"No? She is very nice and kind and, above all, she's much to be pitied. +She has no one, no one. To tell the truth, I don't need her, and she's +even in my way. You know I always was a savage, and now am even more so. +I like being alone.... Father likes her very much. She and Michael +Ivanovich are the two people to whom he is always gentle and kind, +because he has been a benefactor to them both. As Sterne says: 'We don't +love people so much for the good they have done us, as for the good we +have done them.' Father took her when she was homeless after losing her +own father. She is very good-natured, and my father likes her way of +reading. She reads to him in the evenings and reads splendidly." + +"To be quite frank, Mary, I expect Father's character sometimes makes +things trying for you, doesn't it?" Prince Andrew asked suddenly. + +Princess Mary was first surprised and then aghast at this question. + +"For me? For me?... Trying for me!..." said she. + +"He always was rather harsh; and now I should think he's getting very +trying," said Prince Andrew, apparently speaking lightly of their father +in order to puzzle or test his sister. + +"You are good in every way, Andrew, but you have a kind of intellectual +pride," said the princess, following the train of her own thoughts +rather than the trend of the conversation--"and that's a great sin. How +can one judge Father? But even if one might, what feeling except +veneration could such a man as my father evoke? And I am so contented +and happy with him. I only wish you were all as happy as I am." + +Her brother shook his head incredulously. + +"The only thing that is hard for me... I will tell you the truth, +Andrew... is Father's way of treating religious subjects. I don't +understand how a man of his immense intellect can fail to see what is as +clear as day, and can go so far astray. That is the only thing that +makes me unhappy. But even in this I can see lately a shade of +improvement. His satire has been less bitter of late, and there was a +monk he received and had a long talk with." + +"Ah! my dear, I am afraid you and your monk are wasting your powder," +said Prince Andrew banteringly yet tenderly. + +"Ah! mon ami, I only pray, and hope that God will hear me. Andrew..." +she said timidly after a moment's silence, "I have a great favor to ask +of you." + +"What is it, dear?" + +"No--promise that you will not refuse! It will give you no trouble and +is nothing unworthy of you, but it will comfort me. Promise, +Andrusha!..." said she, putting her hand in her reticule but not yet +taking out what she was holding inside it, as if what she held were the +subject of her request and must not be shown before the request was +granted. + +She looked timidly at her brother. + +"Even if it were a great deal of trouble..." answered Prince Andrew, as +if guessing what it was about. + +"Think what you please! I know you are just like Father. Think as you +please, but do this for my sake! Please do! Father's father, our +grandfather, wore it in all his wars." (She still did not take out what +she was holding in her reticule.) "So you promise?" + +"Of course. What is it?" + +"Andrew, I bless you with this icon and you must promise me you will +never take it off. Do you promise?" + +"If it does not weigh a hundredweight and won't break my neck... To +please you..." said Prince Andrew. But immediately, noticing the pained +expression his joke had brought to his sister's face, he repented and +added: "I am glad; really, dear, I am very glad." + +"Against your will He will save and have mercy on you and bring you to +Himself, for in Him alone is truth and peace," said she in a voice +trembling with emotion, solemnly holding up in both hands before her +brother a small, oval, antique, dark-faced icon of the Saviour in a gold +setting, on a finely wrought silver chain. + +She crossed herself, kissed the icon, and handed it to Andrew. + +"Please, Andrew, for my sake!..." + +Rays of gentle light shone from her large, timid eyes. Those eyes lit up +the whole of her thin, sickly face and made it beautiful. Her brother +would have taken the icon, but she stopped him. Andrew understood, +crossed himself and kissed the icon. There was a look of tenderness, for +he was touched, but also a gleam of irony on his face. + +"Thank you, my dear." She kissed him on the forehead and sat down again +on the sofa. They were silent for a while. + +"As I was saying to you, Andrew, be kind and generous as you always used +to be. Don't judge Lise harshly," she began. "She is so sweet, so good- +natured, and her position now is a very hard one." + +"I do not think I have complained of my wife to you, Masha, or blamed +her. Why do you say all this to me?" + +Red patches appeared on Princess Mary's face and she was silent as if +she felt guilty. + +"I have said nothing to you, but you have already been talked to. And I +am sorry for that," he went on. + +The patches grew deeper on her forehead, neck, and cheeks. She tried to +say something but could not. Her brother had guessed right: the little +princess had been crying after dinner and had spoken of her forebodings +about her confinement, and how she dreaded it, and had complained of her +fate, her father-in-law, and her husband. After crying she had fallen +asleep. Prince Andrew felt sorry for his sister. + +"Know this, Masha: I can't reproach, have not reproached, and never +shall reproach my wife with anything, and I cannot reproach myself with +anything in regard to her; and that always will be so in whatever +circumstances I may be placed. But if you want to know the truth... if +you want to know whether I am happy? No! Is she happy? No! But why this +is so I don't know..." + +As he said this he rose, went to his sister, and, stooping, kissed her +forehead. His fine eyes lit up with a thoughtful, kindly, and +unaccustomed brightness, but he was looking not at his sister but over +her head toward the darkness of the open doorway. + +"Let us go to her, I must say good-by. Or--go and wake and I'll come in +a moment. Petrushka!" he called to his valet: "Come here, take these +away. Put this on the seat and this to the right." + +Princess Mary rose and moved to the door, then stopped and said: +"Andrew, if you had faith you would have turned to God and asked Him to +give you the love you do not feel, and your prayer would have been +answered." + +"Well, may be!" said Prince Andrew. "Go, Masha; I'll come immediately." + +On the way to his sister's room, in the passage which connected one wing +with the other, Prince Andrew met Mademoiselle Bourienne smiling +sweetly. It was the third time that day that, with an ecstatic and +artless smile, she had met him in secluded passages. + +"Oh! I thought you were in your room," she said, for some reason +blushing and dropping her eyes. + +Prince Andrew looked sternly at her and an expression of anger suddenly +came over his face. He said nothing to her but looked at her forehead +and hair, without looking at her eyes, with such contempt that the +Frenchwoman blushed and went away without a word. When he reached his +sister's room his wife was already awake and her merry voice, hurrying +one word after another, came through the open door. She was speaking as +usual in French, and as if after long self-restraint she wished to make +up for lost time. + +"No, but imagine the old Countess Zubova, with false curls and her mouth +full of false teeth, as if she were trying to cheat old age.... Ha, ha, +ha! Mary!" + +This very sentence about Countess Zubova and this same laugh Prince +Andrew had already heard from his wife in the presence of others some +five times. He entered the room softly. The little princess, plump and +rosy, was sitting in an easy chair with her work in her hands, talking +incessantly, repeating Petersburg reminiscences and even phrases. Prince +Andrew came up, stroked her hair, and asked if she felt rested after +their journey. She answered him and continued her chatter. + +The coach with six horses was waiting at the porch. It was an autumn +night, so dark that the coachman could not see the carriage pole. +Servants with lanterns were bustling about in the porch. The immense +house was brilliant with lights shining through its lofty windows. The +domestic serfs were crowding in the hall, waiting to bid good-by to the +young prince. The members of the household were all gathered in the +reception hall: Michael Ivanovich, Mademoiselle Bourienne, Princess +Mary, and the little princess. Prince Andrew had been called to his +father's study as the latter wished to say good-by to him alone. All +were waiting for them to come out. + +When Prince Andrew entered the study the old man in his old-age +spectacles and white dressing gown, in which he received no one but his +son, sat at the table writing. He glanced round. + +"Going?" And he went on writing. + +"I've come to say good-by." + +"Kiss me here," and he touched his cheek: "Thanks, thanks!" + +"What do you thank me for?" + +"For not dilly-dallying and not hanging to a woman's apron strings. The +Service before everything. Thanks, thanks!" And he went on writing, so +that his quill spluttered and squeaked. "If you have anything to say, +say it. These two things can be done together," he added. + +"About my wife... I am ashamed as it is to leave her on your hands..." + +"Why talk nonsense? Say what you want." + +"When her confinement is due, send to Moscow for an accoucheur.... Let +him be here...." + +The old prince stopped writing and, as if not understanding, fixed his +stern eyes on his son. + +"I know that no one can help if nature does not do her work," said +Prince Andrew, evidently confused. "I know that out of a million cases +only one goes wrong, but it is her fancy and mine. They have been +telling her things. She has had a dream and is frightened." + +"Hm... Hm..." muttered the old prince to himself, finishing what he was +writing. "I'll do it." + +He signed with a flourish and suddenly turning to his son began to +laugh. + +"It's a bad business, eh?" + +"What is bad, Father?" + +"The wife!" said the old prince, briefly and significantly. + +"I don't understand!" said Prince Andrew. + +"No, it can't be helped, lad," said the prince. "They're all like that; +one can't unmarry. Don't be afraid; I won't tell anyone, but you know it +yourself." + +He seized his son by the hand with small bony fingers, shook it, looked +straight into his son's face with keen eyes which seemed to see through +him, and again laughed his frigid laugh. + +The son sighed, thus admitting that his father had understood him. The +old man continued to fold and seal his letter, snatching up and throwing +down the wax, the seal, and the paper, with his accustomed rapidity. + +"What's to be done? She's pretty! I will do everything. Make your mind +easy," said he in abrupt sentences while sealing his letter. + +Andrew did not speak; he was both pleased and displeased that his father +understood him. The old man got up and gave the letter to his son. + +"Listen!" said he; "don't worry about your wife: what can be done shall +be. Now listen! Give this letter to Michael Ilarionovich. * I have +written that he should make use of you in proper places and not keep you +long as an adjutant: a bad position! Tell him I remember and like him. +Write and tell me how he receives you. If he is all right--serve him. +Nicholas Bolkonski's son need not serve under anyone if he is in +disfavor. Now come here." + + +*Kutuzov. + +He spoke so rapidly that he did not finish half his words, but his son +was accustomed to understand him. He led him to the desk, raised the +lid, drew out a drawer, and took out an exercise book filled with his +bold, tall, close handwriting. + +"I shall probably die before you. So remember, these are my memoirs; +hand them to the Emperor after my death. Now here is a Lombard bond and +a letter; it is a premium for the man who writes a history of Suvorov's +wars. Send it to the Academy. Here are some jottings for you to read +when I am gone. You will find them useful." + +Andrew did not tell his father that he would no doubt live a long time +yet. He felt that he must not say it. + +"I will do it all, Father," he said. + +"Well, now, good-by!" He gave his son his hand to kiss, and embraced +him. "Remember this, Prince Andrew, if they kill you it will hurt me, +your old father..." he paused unexpectedly, and then in a querulous +voice suddenly shrieked: "but if I hear that you have not behaved like a +son of Nicholas Bolkonski, I shall be ashamed!" + +"You need not have said that to me, Father," said the son with a smile. + +The old man was silent. + +"I also wanted to ask you," continued Prince Andrew, "if I'm killed and +if I have a son, do not let him be taken away from you--as I said +yesterday... let him grow up with you.... Please." + +"Not let the wife have him?" said the old man, and laughed. + +They stood silent, facing one another. The old man's sharp eyes were +fixed straight on his son's. Something twitched in the lower part of the +old prince's face. + +"We've said good-by. Go!" he suddenly shouted in a loud, angry voice, +opening his door. + +"What is it? What?" asked both princesses when they saw for a moment at +the door Prince Andrew and the figure of the old man in a white dressing +gown, spectacled and wigless, shouting in an angry voice. + +Prince Andrew sighed and made no reply. + +"Well!" he said, turning to his wife. + +And this "Well!" sounded coldly ironic, as if he were saying,: "Now go +through your performance." + +"Andrew, already!" said the little princess, turning pale and looking +with dismay at her husband. + +He embraced her. She screamed and fell unconscious on his shoulder. + +He cautiously released the shoulder she leaned on, looked into her face, +and carefully placed her in an easy chair. + +"Adieu, Mary," said he gently to his sister, taking her by the hand and +kissing her, and then he left the room with rapid steps. + +The little princess lay in the armchair, Mademoiselle Bourienne chafing +her temples. Princess Mary, supporting her sister-in-law, still looked +with her beautiful eyes full of tears at the door through which Prince +Andrew had gone and made the sign of the cross in his direction. From +the study, like pistol shots, came the frequent sound of the old man +angrily blowing his nose. Hardly had Prince Andrew gone when the study +door opened quickly and the stern figure of the old man in the white +dressing gown looked out. + +"Gone? That's all right!" said he; and looking angrily at the +unconscious little princess, he shook his head reprovingly and slammed +the door. + +BOOK TWO: 1805 + + + + +CHAPTER I + +In October, 1805, a Russian army was occupying the villages and towns of +the Archduchy of Austria, and yet other regiments freshly arriving from +Russia were settling near the fortress of Braunau and burdening the +inhabitants on whom they were quartered. Braunau was the headquarters of +the commander-in-chief, Kutuzov. + +On October 11, 1805, one of the infantry regiments that had just reached +Braunau had halted half a mile from the town, waiting to be inspected by +the commander-in-chief. Despite the un-Russian appearance of the +locality and surroundings--fruit gardens, stone fences, tiled roofs, and +hills in the distance--and despite the fact that the inhabitants (who +gazed with curiosity at the soldiers) were not Russians, the regiment +had just the appearance of any Russian regiment preparing for an +inspection anywhere in the heart of Russia. + +On the evening of the last day's march an order had been received that +the commander-in-chief would inspect the regiment on the march. Though +the words of the order were not clear to the regimental commander, and +the question arose whether the troops were to be in marching order or +not, it was decided at a consultation between the battalion commanders +to present the regiment in parade order, on the principle that it is +always better to "bow too low than not bow low enough." So the soldiers, +after a twenty-mile march, were kept mending and cleaning all night long +without closing their eyes, while the adjutants and company commanders +calculated and reckoned, and by morning the regiment--instead of the +straggling, disorderly crowd it had been on its last march the day +before--presented a well-ordered array of two thousand men each of whom +knew his place and his duty, had every button and every strap in place, +and shone with cleanliness. And not only externally was all in order, +but had it pleased the commander-in-chief to look under the uniforms he +would have found on every man a clean shirt, and in every knapsack the +appointed number of articles, "awl, soap, and all," as the soldiers say. +There was only one circumstance concerning which no one could be at +ease. It was the state of the soldiers' boots. More than half the men's +boots were in holes. But this defect was not due to any fault of the +regimental commander, for in spite of repeated demands boots had not +been issued by the Austrian commissariat, and the regiment had marched +some seven hundred miles. + +The commander of the regiment was an elderly, choleric, stout, and +thick-set general with grizzled eyebrows and whiskers, and wider from +chest to back than across the shoulders. He had on a brand-new uniform +showing the creases where it had been folded and thick gold epaulettes +which seemed to stand rather than lie down on his massive shoulders. He +had the air of a man happily performing one of the most solemn duties of +his life. He walked about in front of the line and at every step pulled +himself up, slightly arching his back. It was plain that the commander +admired his regiment, rejoiced in it, and that his whole mind was +engrossed by it, yet his strut seemed to indicate that, besides military +matters, social interests and the fair sex occupied no small part of his +thoughts. + +"Well, Michael Mitrich, sir?" he said, addressing one of the battalion +commanders who smilingly pressed forward (it was plain that they both +felt happy). "We had our hands full last night. However, I think the +regiment is not a bad one, eh?" + +The battalion commander perceived the jovial irony and laughed. + +"It would not be turned off the field even on the Tsaritsin Meadow." + +"What?" asked the commander. + +At that moment, on the road from the town on which signalers had been +posted, two men appeared on horse back. They were an aide-de-camp +followed by a Cossack. + +The aide-de-camp was sent to confirm the order which had not been +clearly worded the day before, namely, that the commander-in-chief +wished to see the regiment just in the state in which it had been on the +march: in their greatcoats, and packs, and without any preparation +whatever. + +A member of the Hofkriegsrath from Vienna had come to Kutuzov the day +before with proposals and demands for him to join up with the army of +the Archduke Ferdinand and Mack, and Kutuzov, not considering this +junction advisable, meant, among other arguments in support of his view, +to show the Austrian general the wretched state in which the troops +arrived from Russia. With this object he intended to meet the regiment; +so the worse the condition it was in, the better pleased the commander- +in-chief would be. Though the aide-de-camp did not know these +circumstances, he nevertheless delivered the definite order that the men +should be in their greatcoats and in marching order, and that the +commander-in-chief would otherwise be dissatisfied. On hearing this the +regimental commander hung his head, silently shrugged his shoulders, and +spread out his arms with a choleric gesture. + +"A fine mess we've made of it!" he remarked. + +"There now! Didn't I tell you, Michael Mitrich, that if it was said 'on +the march' it meant in greatcoats?" said he reproachfully to the +battalion commander. "Oh, my God!" he added, stepping resolutely +forward. "Company commanders!" he shouted in a voice accustomed to +command. "Sergeants major!... How soon will he be here?" he asked the +aide-de-camp with a respectful politeness evidently relating to the +personage he was referring to. + +"In an hour's time, I should say." + +"Shall we have time to change clothes?" + +"I don't know, General...." + +The regimental commander, going up to the line himself, ordered the +soldiers to change into their greatcoats. The company commanders ran off +to their companies, the sergeants major began bustling (the greatcoats +were not in very good condition), and instantly the squares that had up +to then been in regular order and silent began to sway and stretch and +hum with voices. On all sides soldiers were running to and fro, throwing +up their knapsacks with a jerk of their shoulders and pulling the straps +over their heads, unstrapping their overcoats and drawing the sleeves on +with upraised arms. + +In half an hour all was again in order, only the squares had become gray +instead of black. The regimental commander walked with his jerky steps +to the front of the regiment and examined it from a distance. + +"Whatever is this? This!" he shouted and stood still. "Commander of the +third company!" + +"Commander of the third company wanted by the general!... commander to +the general... third company to the commander." The words passed along +the lines and an adjutant ran to look for the missing officer. + +When the eager but misrepeated words had reached their destination in a +cry of: "The general to the third company," the missing officer appeared +from behind his company and, though he was a middle-aged man and not in +the habit of running, trotted awkwardly stumbling on his toes toward the +general. The captain's face showed the uneasiness of a schoolboy who is +told to repeat a lesson he has not learned. Spots appeared on his nose, +the redness of which was evidently due to intemperance, and his mouth +twitched nervously. The general looked the captain up and down as he +came up panting, slackening his pace as he approached. + +"You will soon be dressing your men in petticoats! What is this?" +shouted the regimental commander, thrusting forward his jaw and pointing +at a soldier in the ranks of the third company in a greatcoat of bluish +cloth, which contrasted with the others. "What have you been after? The +commander in chief is expected and you leave your place? Eh? I'll teach +you to dress the men in fancy coats for a parade.... Eh...?" + +The commander of the company, with his eyes fixed on his superior, +pressed two fingers more and more rigidly to his cap, as if in this +pressure lay his only hope of salvation. + +"Well, why don't you speak? Whom have you got there dressed up as a +Hungarian?" said the commander with an austere gibe. + +"Your excellency..." + +"Well, your excellency, what? Your excellency! But what about your +excellency?... nobody knows." + +"Your excellency, it's the officer Dolokhov, who has been reduced to the +ranks," said the captain softly. + +"Well? Has he been degraded into a field marshal, or into a soldier? If +a soldier, he should be dressed in regulation uniform like the others." + +"Your excellency, you gave him leave yourself, on the march." + +"Gave him leave? Leave? That's just like you young men," said the +regimental commander cooling down a little. "Leave indeed.... One says a +word to you and you... What?" he added with renewed irritation, "I beg +you to dress your men decently." + +And the commander, turning to look at the adjutant, directed his jerky +steps down the line. He was evidently pleased at his own display of +anger and walking up to the regiment wished to find a further excuse for +wrath. Having snapped at an officer for an unpolished badge, at another +because his line was not straight, he reached the third company. + +"H-o-o-w are you standing? Where's your leg? Your leg?" shouted the +commander with a tone of suffering in his voice, while there were still +five men between him and Dolokhov with his bluish-gray uniform. + +Dolokhov slowly straightened his bent knee, looking straight with his +clear, insolent eyes in the general's face. + +"Why a blue coat? Off with it... Sergeant major! Change his coat... the +ras..." he did not finish. + +"General, I must obey orders, but I am not bound to endure..." Dolokhov +hurriedly interrupted. + +"No talking in the ranks!... No talking, no talking!" + +"Not bound to endure insults," Dolokhov concluded in loud, ringing +tones. + +The eyes of the general and the soldier met. The general became silent, +angrily pulling down his tight scarf. + +"I request you to have the goodness to change your coat," he said as he +turned away. + + + + +CHAPTER II + +"He's coming!" shouted the signaler at that moment. + +The regimental commander, flushing, ran to his horse, seized the stirrup +with trembling hands, threw his body across the saddle, righted himself, +drew his saber, and with a happy and resolute countenance, opening his +mouth awry, prepared to shout. The regiment fluttered like a bird +preening its plumage and became motionless. + +"Att-ention!" shouted the regimental commander in a soul-shaking voice +which expressed joy for himself, severity for the regiment, and welcome +for the approaching chief. + +Along the broad country road, edged on both sides by trees, came a high, +light blue Viennese caleche, slightly creaking on its springs and drawn +by six horses at a smart trot. Behind the caleche galloped the suite and +a convoy of Croats. Beside Kutuzov sat an Austrian general, in a white +uniform that looked strange among the Russian black ones. The caleche +stopped in front of the regiment. Kutuzov and the Austrian general were +talking in low voices and Kutuzov smiled slightly as treading heavily he +stepped down from the carriage just as if those two thousand men +breathlessly gazing at him and the regimental commander did not exist. + +The word of command rang out, and again the regiment quivered, as with a +jingling sound it presented arms. Then amidst a dead silence the feeble +voice of the commander-in-chief was heard. The regiment roared, "Health +to your ex... len... len... lency!" and again all became silent. At +first Kutuzov stood still while the regiment moved; then he and the +general in white, accompanied by the suite, walked between the ranks. + +From the way the regimental commander saluted the commander-in-chief and +devoured him with his eyes, drawing himself up obsequiously, and from +the way he walked through the ranks behind the generals, bending forward +and hardly able to restrain his jerky movements, and from the way he +darted forward at every word or gesture of the commander-in-chief, it +was evident that he performed his duty as a subordinate with even +greater zeal than his duty as a commander. Thanks to the strictness and +assiduity of its commander the regiment, in comparison with others that +had reached Braunau at the same time, was in splendid condition. There +were only 217 sick and stragglers. Everything was in good order except +the boots. + +Kutuzov walked through the ranks, sometimes stopping to say a few +friendly words to officers he had known in the Turkish war, sometimes +also to the soldiers. Looking at their boots he several times shook his +head sadly, pointing them out to the Austrian general with an expression +which seemed to say that he was not blaming anyone, but could not help +noticing what a bad state of things it was. The regimental commander ran +forward on each such occasion, fearing to miss a single word of the +commander-in-chief's regarding the regiment. Behind Kutuzov, at a +distance that allowed every softly spoken word to be heard, followed +some twenty men of his suite. These gentlemen talked among themselves +and sometimes laughed. Nearest of all to the commander-in-chief walked a +handsome adjutant. This was Prince Bolkonski. Beside him was his comrade +Nesvitski, a tall staff officer, extremely stout, with a kindly, +smiling, handsome face and moist eyes. Nesvitski could hardly keep from +laughter provoked by a swarthy hussar officer who walked beside him. +This hussar, with a grave face and without a smile or a change in the +expression of his fixed eyes, watched the regimental commander's back +and mimicked his every movement. Each time the commander started and +bent forward, the hussar started and bent forward in exactly the same +manner. Nesvitski laughed and nudged the others to make them look at the +wag. + +Kutuzov walked slowly and languidly past thousands of eyes which were +starting from their sockets to watch their chief. On reaching the third +company he suddenly stopped. His suite, not having expected this, +involuntarily came closer to him. + +"Ah, Timokhin!" said he, recognizing the red-nosed captain who had been +reprimanded on account of the blue greatcoat. + +One would have thought it impossible for a man to stretch himself more +than Timokhin had done when he was reprimanded by the regimental +commander, but now that the commander-in-chief addressed him he drew +himself up to such an extent that it seemed he could not have sustained +it had the commander-in-chief continued to look at him, and so Kutuzov, +who evidently understood his case and wished him nothing but good, +quickly turned away, a scarcely perceptible smile flitting over his +scarred and puffy face. + +"Another Ismail comrade," said he. "A brave officer! Are you satisfied +with him?" he asked the regimental commander. + +And the latter--unconscious that he was being reflected in the hussar +officer as in a looking glass--started, moved forward, and answered: +"Highly satisfied, your excellency!" + +"We all have our weaknesses," said Kutuzov smiling and walking away from +him. "He used to have a predilection for Bacchus." + +The regimental commander was afraid he might be blamed for this and did +not answer. The hussar at that moment noticed the face of the red-nosed +captain and his drawn-in stomach, and mimicked his expression and pose +with such exactitude that Nesvitski could not help laughing. Kutuzov +turned round. The officer evidently had complete control of his face, +and while Kutuzov was turning managed to make a grimace and then assume +a most serious, deferential, and innocent expression. + +The third company was the last, and Kutuzov pondered, apparently trying +to recollect something. Prince Andrew stepped forward from among the +suite and said in French: + +"You told me to remind you of the officer Dolokhov, reduced to the ranks +in this regiment." + +"Where is Dolokhov?" asked Kutuzov. + +Dolokhov, who had already changed into a soldier's gray greatcoat, did +not wait to be called. The shapely figure of the fair-haired soldier, +with his clear blue eyes, stepped forward from the ranks, went up to the +commander in chief, and presented arms. + +"Have you a complaint to make?" Kutuzov asked with a slight frown. + +"This is Dolokhov," said Prince Andrew. + +"Ah!" said Kutuzov. "I hope this will be a lesson to you. Do your duty. +The Emperor is gracious, and I shan't forget you if you deserve well." + +The clear blue eyes looked at the commander-in-chief just as boldly as +they had looked at the regimental commander, seeming by their expression +to tear open the veil of convention that separates a commander-in-chief +so widely from a private. + +"One thing I ask of your excellency," Dolokhov said in his firm, +ringing, deliberate voice. "I ask an opportunity to atone for my fault +and prove my devotion to His Majesty the Emperor and to Russia!" + +Kutuzov turned away. The same smile of the eyes with which he had turned +from Captain Timokhin again flitted over his face. He turned away with a +grimace as if to say that everything Dolokhov had said to him and +everything he could say had long been known to him, that he was weary of +it and it was not at all what he wanted. He turned away and went to the +carriage. + +The regiment broke up into companies, which went to their appointed +quarters near Braunau, where they hoped to receive boots and clothes and +to rest after their hard marches. + +"You won't bear me a grudge, Prokhor Ignatych?" said the regimental +commander, overtaking the third company on its way to its quarters and +riding up to Captain Timokhin who was walking in front. (The regimental +commander's face now that the inspection was happily over beamed with +irrepressible delight.) "It's in the Emperor's service... it can't be +helped... one is sometimes a bit hasty on parade... I am the first to +apologize, you know me!... He was very pleased!" And he held out his +hand to the captain. + +"Don't mention it, General, as if I'd be so bold!" replied the captain, +his nose growing redder as he gave a smile which showed where two front +teeth were missing that had been knocked out by the butt end of a gun at +Ismail. + +"And tell Mr. Dolokhov that I won't forget him--he may be quite easy. +And tell me, please--I've been meaning to ask--how is he behaving +himself, and in general..." + +"As far as the service goes he is quite punctilious, your excellency; +but his character..." said Timokhin. + +"And what about his character?" asked the regimental commander. + +"It's different on different days," answered the captain. "One day he is +sensible, well educated, and good-natured, and the next he's a wild +beast.... In Poland, if you please, he nearly killed a Jew." + +"Oh, well, well!" remarked the regimental commander. "Still, one must +have pity on a young man in misfortune. You know he has important +connections... Well, then, you just..." + +"I will, your excellency," said Timokhin, showing by his smile that he +understood his commander's wish. + +"Well, of course, of course!" + +The regimental commander sought out Dolokhov in the ranks and, reining +in his horse, said to him: + +"After the next affair... epaulettes." + +Dolokhov looked round but did not say anything, nor did the mocking +smile on his lips change. + +"Well, that's all right," continued the regimental commander. "A cup of +vodka for the men from me," he added so that the soldiers could hear. "I +thank you all! God be praised!" and he rode past that company and +overtook the next one. + +"Well, he's really a good fellow, one can serve under him," said +Timokhin to the subaltern beside him. + +"In a word, a hearty one..." said the subaltern, laughing (the +regimental commander was nicknamed King of Hearts). + +The cheerful mood of their officers after the inspection infected the +soldiers. The company marched on gaily. The soldiers' voices could be +heard on every side. + +"And they said Kutuzov was blind of one eye?" + +"And so he is! Quite blind!" + +"No, friend, he is sharper-eyed than you are. Boots and leg bands... he +noticed everything..." + +"When he looked at my feet, friend... well, thinks I..." + +"And that other one with him, the Austrian, looked as if he were smeared +with chalk--as white as flour! I suppose they polish him up as they do +the guns." + +"I say, Fedeshon!... Did he say when the battles are to begin? You were +near him. Everybody said that Buonaparte himself was at Braunau." + +"Buonaparte himself!... Just listen to the fool, what he doesn't know! +The Prussians are up in arms now. The Austrians, you see, are putting +them down. When they've been put down, the war with Buonaparte will +begin. And he says Buonaparte is in Braunau! Shows you're a fool. You'd +better listen more carefully!" + +"What devils these quartermasters are! See, the fifth company is turning +into the village already... they will have their buckwheat cooked before +we reach our quarters." + +"Give me a biscuit, you devil!" + +"And did you give me tobacco yesterday? That's just it, friend! Ah, +well, never mind, here you are." + +"They might call a halt here or we'll have to do another four miles +without eating." + +"Wasn't it fine when those Germans gave us lifts! You just sit still and +are drawn along." + +"And here, friend, the people are quite beggarly. There they all seemed +to be Poles--all under the Russian crown--but here they're all regular +Germans." + +"Singers to the front" came the captain's order. + +And from the different ranks some twenty men ran to the front. A +drummer, their leader, turned round facing the singers, and flourishing +his arm, began a long-drawn-out soldiers' song, commencing with the +words: "Morning dawned, the sun was rising," and concluding: "On then, +brothers, on to glory, led by Father Kamenski." This song had been +composed in the Turkish campaign and now being sung in Austria, the only +change being that the words "Father Kamenski" were replaced by "Father +Kutuzov." + +Having jerked out these last words as soldiers do and waved his arms as +if flinging something to the ground, the drummer--a lean, handsome +soldier of forty--looked sternly at the singers and screwed up his eyes. +Then having satisfied himself that all eyes were fixed on him, he raised +both arms as if carefully lifting some invisible but precious object +above his head and, holding it there for some seconds, suddenly flung it +down and began: + +"Oh, my bower, oh, my bower...!" + +"Oh, my bower new...!" chimed in twenty voices, and the castanet player, +in spite of the burden of his equipment, rushed out to the front and, +walking backwards before the company, jerked his shoulders and +flourished his castanets as if threatening someone. The soldiers, +swinging their arms and keeping time spontaneously, marched with long +steps. Behind the company the sound of wheels, the creaking of springs, +and the tramp of horses' hoofs were heard. Kutuzov and his suite were +returning to the town. The commander-in-chief made a sign that the men +should continue to march at ease, and he and all his suite showed +pleasure at the sound of the singing and the sight of the dancing +soldier and the gay and smartly marching men. In the second file from +the right flank, beside which the carriage passed the company, a blue- +eyed soldier involuntarily attracted notice. It was Dolokhov marching +with particular grace and boldness in time to the song and looking at +those driving past as if he pitied all who were not at that moment +marching with the company. The hussar cornet of Kutuzov's suite who had +mimicked the regimental commander, fell back from the carriage and rode +up to Dolokhov. + +Hussar cornet Zherkov had at one time, in Petersburg, belonged to the +wild set led by Dolokhov. Zherkov had met Dolokhov abroad as a private +and had not seen fit to recognize him. But now that Kutuzov had spoken +to the gentleman ranker, he addressed him with the cordiality of an old +friend. + +"My dear fellow, how are you?" said he through the singing, making his +horse keep pace with the company. + +"How am I?" Dolokhov answered coldly. "I am as you see." + +The lively song gave a special flavor to the tone of free and easy +gaiety with which Zherkov spoke, and to the intentional coldness of +Dolokhov's reply. + +"And how do you get on with the officers?" inquired Zherkov. + +"All right. They are good fellows. And how have you wriggled onto the +staff?" + +"I was attached; I'm on duty." + +Both were silent. + +"She let the hawk fly upward from her wide right sleeve," went the song, +arousing an involuntary sensation of courage and cheerfulness. Their +conversation would probably have been different but for the effect of +that song. + +"Is it true that Austrians have been beaten?" asked Dolokhov. + +"The devil only knows! They say so." + +"I'm glad," answered Dolokhov briefly and clearly, as the song demanded. + +"I say, come round some evening and we'll have a game of faro!" said +Zherkov. + +"Why, have you too much money?" + +"Do come." + +"I can't. I've sworn not to. I won't drink and won't play till I get +reinstated." + +"Well, that's only till the first engagement." + +"We shall see." + +They were again silent. + +"Come if you need anything. One can at least be of use on the staff..." + +Dolokhov smiled. "Don't trouble. If I want anything, I won't beg--I'll +take it!" + +"Well, never mind; I only..." + +"And I only..." + +"Good-bye." + +"Good health..." + + +"It's a long, long way. To my native land..." + +Zherkov touched his horse with the spurs; it pranced excitedly from foot +to foot uncertain with which to start, then settled down, galloped past +the company, and overtook the carriage, still keeping time to the song. + + + + +CHAPTER III + +On returning from the review, Kutuzov took the Austrian general into his +private room and, calling his adjutant, asked for some papers relating +to the condition of the troops on their arrival, and the letters that +had come from the Archduke Ferdinand, who was in command of the advanced +army. Prince Andrew Bolkonski came into the room with the required +papers. Kutuzov and the Austrian member of the Hofkriegsrath were +sitting at the table on which a plan was spread out. + +"Ah!..." said Kutuzov glancing at Bolkonski as if by this exclamation he +was asking the adjutant to wait, and he went on with the conversation in +French. + +"All I can say, General," said he with a pleasant elegance of expression +and intonation that obliged one to listen to each deliberately spoken +word. It was evident that Kutuzov himself listened with pleasure to his +own voice. "All I can say, General, is that if the matter depended on my +personal wishes, the will of His Majesty the Emperor Francis would have +been fulfilled long ago. I should long ago have joined the archduke. And +believe me on my honour that to me personally it would be a pleasure to +hand over the supreme command of the army into the hands of a better +informed and more skillful general--of whom Austria has so many--and to +lay down all this heavy responsibility. But circumstances are sometimes +too strong for us, General." + +And Kutuzov smiled in a way that seemed to say, "You are quite at +liberty not to believe me and I don't even care whether you do or not, +but you have no grounds for telling me so. And that is the whole point." + +The Austrian general looked dissatisfied, but had no option but to reply +in the same tone. + +"On the contrary," he said, in a querulous and angry tone that +contrasted with his flattering words, "on the contrary, your +excellency's participation in the common action is highly valued by His +Majesty; but we think the present delay is depriving the splendid +Russian troops and their commander of the laurels they have been +accustomed to win in their battles," he concluded his evidently +prearranged sentence. + +Kutuzov bowed with the same smile. + +"But that is my conviction, and judging by the last letter with which +His Highness the Archduke Ferdinand has honored me, I imagine that the +Austrian troops, under the direction of so skillful a leader as General +Mack, have by now already gained a decisive victory and no longer need +our aid," said Kutuzov. + +The general frowned. Though there was no definite news of an Austrian +defeat, there were many circumstances confirming the unfavorable rumors +that were afloat, and so Kutuzov's suggestion of an Austrian victory +sounded much like irony. But Kutuzov went on blandly smiling with the +same expression, which seemed to say that he had a right to suppose so. +And, in fact, the last letter he had received from Mack's army informed +him of a victory and stated strategically the position of the army was +very favorable. + +"Give me that letter," said Kutuzov turning to Prince Andrew. "Please +have a look at it"--and Kutuzov with an ironical smile about the corners +of his mouth read to the Austrian general the following passage, in +German, from the Archduke Ferdinand's letter: + +We have fully concentrated forces of nearly seventy thousand men with +which to attack and defeat the enemy should he cross the Lech. Also, as +we are masters of Ulm, we cannot be deprived of the advantage of +commanding both sides of the Danube, so that should the enemy not cross +the Lech, we can cross the Danube, throw ourselves on his line of +communications, recross the river lower down, and frustrate his +intention should he try to direct his whole force against our faithful +ally. We shall therefore confidently await the moment when the Imperial +Russian army will be fully equipped, and shall then, in conjunction with +it, easily find a way to prepare for the enemy the fate he deserves. + +Kutuzov sighed deeply on finishing this paragraph and looked at the +member of the Hofkriegsrath mildly and attentively. + +"But you know the wise maxim your excellency, advising one to expect the +worst," said the Austrian general, evidently wishing to have done with +jests and to come to business. He involuntarily looked round at the +aide-de-camp. + +"Excuse me, General," interrupted Kutuzov, also turning to Prince +Andrew. "Look here, my dear fellow, get from Kozlovski all the reports +from our scouts. Here are two letters from Count Nostitz and here is one +from His Highness the Archduke Ferdinand and here are these," he said, +handing him several papers, "make a neat memorandum in French out of all +this, showing all the news we have had of the movements of the Austrian +army, and then give it to his excellency." + +Prince Andrew bowed his head in token of having understood from the +first not only what had been said but also what Kutuzov would have liked +to tell him. He gathered up the papers and with a bow to both, stepped +softly over the carpet and went out into the waiting room. + +Though not much time had passed since Prince Andrew had left Russia, he +had changed greatly during that period. In the expression of his face, +in his movements, in his walk, scarcely a trace was left of his former +affected languor and indolence. He now looked like a man who has time to +think of the impression he makes on others, but is occupied with +agreeable and interesting work. His face expressed more satisfaction +with himself and those around him, his smile and glance were brighter +and more attractive. + +Kutuzov, whom he had overtaken in Poland, had received him very kindly, +promised not to forget him, distinguished him above the other adjutants, +and had taken him to Vienna and given him the more serious commissions. +From Vienna Kutuzov wrote to his old comrade, Prince Andrew's father. + +Your son bids fair to become an officer distinguished by his industry, +firmness, and expedition. I consider myself fortunate to have such a +subordinate by me. + +On Kutuzov's staff, among his fellow officers and in the army generally, +Prince Andrew had, as he had had in Petersburg society, two quite +opposite reputations. Some, a minority, acknowledged him to be different +from themselves and from everyone else, expected great things of him, +listened to him, admired, and imitated him, and with them Prince Andrew +was natural and pleasant. Others, the majority, disliked him and +considered him conceited, cold, and disagreeable. But among these people +Prince Andrew knew how to take his stand so that they respected and even +feared him. + +Coming out of Kutuzov's room into the waiting room with the papers in +his hand Prince Andrew came up to his comrade, the aide-de-camp on duty, +Kozlovski, who was sitting at the window with a book. + +"Well, Prince?" asked Kozlovski. + +"I am ordered to write a memorandum explaining why we are not +advancing." + +"And why is it?" + +Prince Andrew shrugged his shoulders. + +"Any news from Mack?" + +"No." + +"If it were true that he has been beaten, news would have come." + +"Probably," said Prince Andrew moving toward the outer door. + +But at that instant a tall Austrian general in a greatcoat, with the +order of Maria Theresa on his neck and a black bandage round his head, +who had evidently just arrived, entered quickly, slamming the door. +Prince Andrew stopped short. + +"Commander in Chief Kutuzov?" said the newly arrived general speaking +quickly with a harsh German accent, looking to both sides and advancing +straight toward the inner door. + +"The commander-in-chief is engaged," said Kozlovski, going hurriedly up +to the unknown general and blocking his way to the door. "Whom shall I +announce?" + +The unknown general looked disdainfully down at Kozlovski, who was +rather short, as if surprised that anyone should not know him. + +"The commander-in-chief is engaged," repeated Kozlovski calmly. + +The general's face clouded, his lips quivered and trembled. He took out +a notebook, hurriedly scribbled something in pencil, tore out the leaf, +gave it to Kozlovski, stepped quickly to the window, and threw himself +into a chair, gazing at those in the room as if asking, "Why do they +look at me?" Then he lifted his head, stretched his neck as if he +intended to say something, but immediately, with affected indifference, +began to hum to himself, producing a queer sound which immediately broke +off. The door of the private room opened and Kutuzov appeared in the +doorway. The general with the bandaged head bent forward as though +running away from some danger, and, making long, quick strides with his +thin legs, went up to Kutuzov. + +"Vous voyez le malheureux Mack," he uttered in a broken voice. + +Kutuzov's face as he stood in the open doorway remained perfectly +immobile for a few moments. Then wrinkles ran over his face like a wave +and his forehead became smooth again, he bowed his head respectfully, +closed his eyes, silently let Mack enter his room before him, and closed +the door himself behind him. + +The report which had been circulated that the Austrians had been beaten +and that the whole army had surrendered at Ulm proved to be correct. +Within half an hour adjutants had been sent in various directions with +orders which showed that the Russian troops, who had hitherto been +inactive, would also soon have to meet the enemy. + +Prince Andrew was one of those rare staff officers whose chief interest +lay in the general progress of the war. When he saw Mack and heard the +details of his disaster he understood that half the campaign was lost, +understood all the difficulties of the Russian army's position, and +vividly imagined what awaited it and the part he would have to play. +Involuntarily he felt a joyful agitation at the thought of the +humiliation of arrogant Austria and that in a week's time he might, +perhaps, see and take part in the first Russian encounter with the +French since Suvorov met them. He feared that Bonaparte's genius might +outweigh all the courage of the Russian troops, and at the same time +could not admit the idea of his hero being disgraced. + +Excited and irritated by these thoughts Prince Andrew went toward his +room to write to his father, to whom he wrote every day. In the corridor +he met Nesvitski, with whom he shared a room, and the wag Zherkov; they +were as usual laughing. + +"Why are you so glum?" asked Nesvitski noticing Prince Andrew's pale +face and glittering eyes. + +"There's nothing to be gay about," answered Bolkonski. + +Just as Prince Andrew met Nesvitski and Zherkov, there came toward them +from the other end of the corridor, Strauch, an Austrian general who on +Kutuzov's staff in charge of the provisioning of the Russian army, and +the member of the Hofkriegsrath who had arrived the previous evening. +There was room enough in the wide corridor for the generals to pass the +three officers quite easily, but Zherkov, pushing Nesvitski aside with +his arm, said in a breathless voice, + +"They're coming!... they're coming!... Stand aside, make way, please +make way!" + +The generals were passing by, looking as if they wished to avoid +embarrassing attentions. On the face of the wag Zherkov there suddenly +appeared a stupid smile of glee which he seemed unable to suppress. + +"Your excellency," said he in German, stepping forward and addressing +the Austrian general, "I have the honor to congratulate you." + +He bowed his head and scraped first with one foot and then with the +other, awkwardly, like a child at a dancing lesson. + +The member of the Hofkriegsrath looked at him severely but, seeing the +seriousness of his stupid smile, could not but give him a moment's +attention. He screwed up his eyes showing that he was listening. + +"I have the honor to congratulate you. General Mack has arrived, quite +well, only a little bruised just here," he added, pointing with a +beaming smile to his head. + +The general frowned, turned away, and went on. + +"Gott, wie naiv!" * said he angrily, after he had gone a few steps. + + +* "Good God, what simplicity!" + +Nesvitski with a laugh threw his arms round Prince Andrew, but +Bolkonski, turning still paler, pushed him away with an angry look and +turned to Zherkov. The nervous irritation aroused by the appearance of +Mack, the news of his defeat, and the thought of what lay before the +Russian army found vent in anger at Zherkov's untimely jest. + +"If you, sir, choose to make a buffoon of yourself," he said sharply, +with a slight trembling of the lower jaw, "I can't prevent your doing +so; but I warn you that if you dare to play the fool in my presence, I +will teach you to behave yourself." + +Nesvitski and Zherkov were so surprised by this outburst that they gazed +at Bolkonski silently with wide-open eyes. + +"What's the matter? I only congratulated them," said Zherkov. + +"I am not jesting with you; please be silent!" cried Bolkonski, and +taking Nesvitski's arm he left Zherkov, who did not know what to say. + +"Come, what's the matter, old fellow?" said Nesvitski trying to soothe +him. + +"What's the matter?" exclaimed Prince Andrew standing still in his +excitement. "Don't you understand that either we are officers serving +our Tsar and our country, rejoicing in the successes and grieving at the +misfortunes of our common cause, or we are merely lackeys who care +nothing for their master's business. Quarante mille hommes massacres et +l'armee de nos allies detruite, et vous trouvez la le mot pour rire," * +he said, as if strengthening his views by this French sentence. "C'est +bien pour un garcon de rien comme cet individu dont vous avez fait un +ami, mais pas pour vous, pas pour vous. *(2) Only a hobbledehoy could +amuse himself in this way," he added in Russian--but pronouncing the +word with a French accent--having noticed that Zherkov could still hear +him. + + +* "Forty thousand men massacred and the army of our allies destroyed, +and you find that a cause for jesting!" + +* (2) "It is all very well for that good-for-nothing fellow of whom you +have made a friend, but not for you, not for you." + +He waited a moment to see whether the cornet would answer, but he turned +and went out of the corridor. + + + + +CHAPTER IV + +The Pavlograd Hussars were stationed two miles from Braunau. The +squadron in which Nicholas Rostov served as a cadet was quartered in the +German village of Salzeneck. The best quarters in the village were +assigned to cavalry-captain Denisov, the squadron commander, known +throughout the whole cavalry division as Vaska Denisov. Cadet Rostov, +ever since he had overtaken the regiment in Poland, had lived with the +squadron commander. + +On October 11, the day when all was astir at headquarters over the news +of Mack's defeat, the camp life of the officers of this squadron was +proceeding as usual. Denisov, who had been losing at cards all night, +had not yet come home when Rostov rode back early in the morning from a +foraging expedition. Rostov in his cadet uniform, with a jerk to his +horse, rode up to the porch, swung his leg over the saddle with a supple +youthful movement, stood for a moment in the stirrup as if loathe to +part from his horse, and at last sprang down and called to his orderly. + +"Ah, Bondarenko, dear friend!" said he to the hussar who rushed up +headlong to the horse. "Walk him up and down, my dear fellow," he +continued, with that gay brotherly cordiality which goodhearted young +people show to everyone when they are happy. + +"Yes, your excellency," answered the Ukrainian gaily, tossing his head. + +"Mind, walk him up and down well!" + +Another hussar also rushed toward the horse, but Bondarenko had already +thrown the reins of the snaffle bridle over the horse's head. It was +evident that the cadet was liberal with his tips and that it paid to +serve him. Rostov patted the horse's neck and then his flank, and +lingered for a moment. + +"Splendid! What a horse he will be!" he thought with a smile, and +holding up his saber, his spurs jingling, he ran up the steps of the +porch. His landlord, who in a waistcoat and a pointed cap, pitchfork in +hand, was clearing manure from the cowhouse, looked out, and his face +immediately brightened on seeing Rostov. "Schon gut Morgen! Schon gut +Morgen!" * he said winking with a merry smile, evidently pleased to +greet the young man. + + +* "A very good morning! A very good morning!" + +"Schon fleissig?" * said Rostov with the same gay brotherly smile which +did not leave his eager face. "Hoch Oestreicher! Hoch Russen! Kaiser +Alexander hoch!" *(2) said he, quoting words often repeated by the +German landlord. + + +* "Busy already?" + +* (2) "Hurrah for the Austrians! Hurrah for the Russians! Hurrah for +Emperor Alexander!" + +The German laughed, came out of the cowshed, pulled off his cap, and +waving it above his head cried: + +"Und die ganze Welt hoch!" * + + +* "And hurrah for the whole world!" + +Rostov waved his cap above his head like the German and cried laughing, +"Und vivat die ganze Welt!" Though neither the German cleaning his +cowshed nor Rostov back with his platoon from foraging for hay had any +reason for rejoicing, they looked at each other with joyful delight and +brotherly love, wagged their heads in token of their mutual affection, +and parted smiling, the German returning to his cowshed and Rostov going +to the cottage he occupied with Denisov. + +"What about your master?" he asked Lavrushka, Denisov's orderly, whom +all the regiment knew for a rogue. + +"Hasn't been in since the evening. Must have been losing," answered +Lavrushka. "I know by now, if he wins he comes back early to brag about +it, but if he stays out till morning it means he's lost and will come +back in a rage. Will you have coffee?" + +"Yes, bring some." + +Ten minutes later Lavrushka brought the coffee. "He's coming!" said he. +"Now for trouble!" Rostov looked out of the window and saw Denisov +coming home. Denisov was a small man with a red face, sparkling black +eyes, and black tousled mustache and hair. He wore an unfastened cloak, +wide breeches hanging down in creases, and a crumpled shako on the back +of his head. He came up to the porch gloomily, hanging his head. + +"Lavwuska!" he shouted loudly and angrily, "take it off, blockhead!" + +"Well, I am taking it off," replied Lavrushka's voice. + +"Ah, you're up already," said Denisov, entering the room. + +"Long ago," answered Rostov, "I have already been for the hay, and have +seen Fraulein Mathilde." + +"Weally! And I've been losing, bwother. I lost yesterday like a damned +fool!" cried Denisov, not pronouncing his r's. "Such ill luck! Such ill +luck. As soon as you left, it began and went on. Hullo there! Tea!" + +Puckering up his face though smiling, and showing his short strong +teeth, he began with stubby fingers of both hands to ruffle up his thick +tangled black hair. + +"And what devil made me go to that wat?" (an officer nicknamed "the +rat") he said, rubbing his forehead and whole face with both hands. +"Just fancy, he didn't let me win a single cahd, not one cahd." + +He took the lighted pipe that was offered to him, gripped it in his +fist, and tapped it on the floor, making the sparks fly, while he +continued to shout. + +"He lets one win the singles and collahs it as soon as one doubles it; +gives the singles and snatches the doubles!" + +He scattered the burning tobacco, smashed the pipe, and threw it away. +Then he remained silent for a while, and all at once looked cheerfully +with his glittering, black eyes at Rostov. + +"If at least we had some women here; but there's nothing foh one to do +but dwink. If we could only get to fighting soon. Hullo, who's there?" +he said, turning to the door as he heard a tread of heavy boots and the +clinking of spurs that came to a stop, and a respectful cough. + +"The squadron quartermaster!" said Lavrushka. + +Denisov's face puckered still more. + +"Wetched!" he muttered, throwing down a purse with some gold in it. +"Wostov, deah fellow, just see how much there is left and shove the +purse undah the pillow," he said, and went out to the quartermaster. + +Rostov took the money and, mechanically arranging the old and new coins +in separate piles, began counting them. + +"Ah! Telyanin! How d'ye do? They plucked me last night," came Denisov's +voice from the next room. + +"Where? At Bykov's, at the rat's... I knew it," replied a piping voice, +and Lieutenant Telyanin, a small officer of the same squadron, entered +the room. + +Rostov thrust the purse under the pillow and shook the damp little hand +which was offered him. Telyanin for some reason had been transferred +from the Guards just before this campaign. He behaved very well in the +regiment but was not liked; Rostov especially detested him and was +unable to overcome or conceal his groundless antipathy to the man. + +"Well, young cavalryman, how is my Rook behaving?" he asked. (Rook was a +young horse Telyanin had sold to Rostov.) + +The lieutenant never looked the man he was speaking to straight in the +face; his eyes continually wandered from one object to another. + +"I saw you riding this morning..." he added. + +"Oh, he's all right, a good horse," answered Rostov, though the horse +for which he had paid seven hundred rubbles was not worth half that sum. +"He's begun to go a little lame on the left foreleg," he added. + +"The hoof's cracked! That's nothing. I'll teach you what to do and show +you what kind of rivet to use." + +"Yes, please do," said Rostov. + +"I'll show you, I'll show you! It's not a secret. And it's a horse +you'll thank me for." + +"Then I'll have it brought round," said Rostov wishing to avoid +Telyanin, and he went out to give the order. + +In the passage Denisov, with a pipe, was squatting on the threshold +facing the quartermaster who was reporting to him. On seeing Rostov, +Denisov screwed up his face and pointing over his shoulder with his +thumb to the room where Telyanin was sitting, he frowned and gave a +shudder of disgust. + +"Ugh! I don't like that fellow," he said, regardless of the +quartermaster's presence. + +Rostov shrugged his shoulders as much as to say: "Nor do I, but what's +one to do?" and, having given his order, he returned to Telyanin. + +Telyanin was sitting in the same indolent pose in which Rostov had left +him, rubbing his small white hands. + +"Well there certainly are disgusting people," thought Rostov as he +entered. + +"Have you told them to bring the horse?" asked Telyanin, getting up and +looking carelessly about him. + +"I have." + +"Let us go ourselves. I only came round to ask Denisov about yesterday's +order. Have you got it, Denisov?" + +"Not yet. But where are you off to?" + +"I want to teach this young man how to shoe a horse," said Telyanin. + +They went through the porch and into the stable. The lieutenant +explained how to rivet the hoof and went away to his own quarters. + +When Rostov went back there was a bottle of vodka and a sausage on the +table. Denisov was sitting there scratching with his pen on a sheet of +paper. He looked gloomily in Rostov's face and said: "I am witing to +her." + +He leaned his elbows on the table with his pen in his hand and, +evidently glad of a chance to say quicker in words what he wanted to +write, told Rostov the contents of his letter. + +"You see, my fwiend," he said, "we sleep when we don't love. We are +childwen of the dust... but one falls in love and one is a God, one is +pua' as on the first day of cweation... Who's that now? Send him to the +devil, I'm busy!" he shouted to Lavrushka, who went up to him not in the +least abashed. + +"Who should it be? You yourself told him to come. It's the quartermaster +for the money." + +Denisov frowned and was about to shout some reply but stopped. + +"Wetched business," he muttered to himself. "How much is left in the +puhse?" he asked, turning to Rostov. + +"Seven new and three old imperials." + +"Oh, it's wetched! Well, what are you standing there for, you sca'cwow? +Call the quahtehmasteh," he shouted to Lavrushka. + +"Please, Denisov, let me lend you some: I have some, you know," said +Rostov, blushing. + +"Don't like bowwowing from my own fellows, I don't," growled Denisov. + +"But if you won't accept money from me like a comrade, you will offend +me. Really I have some," Rostov repeated. + +"No, I tell you." + +And Denisov went to the bed to get the purse from under the pillow. + +"Where have you put it, Wostov?" + +"Under the lower pillow." + +"It's not there." + +Denisov threw both pillows on the floor. The purse was not there. + +"That's a miwacle." + +"Wait, haven't you dropped it?" said Rostov, picking up the pillows one +at a time and shaking them. + +He pulled off the quilt and shook it. The purse was not there. + +"Dear me, can I have forgotten? No, I remember thinking that you kept it +under your head like a treasure," said Rostov. "I put it just here. +Where is it?" he asked, turning to Lavrushka. + +"I haven't been in the room. It must be where you put it." + +"But it isn't?..." + +"You're always like that; you thwow a thing down anywhere and forget it. +Feel in your pockets." + +"No, if I hadn't thought of it being a treasure," said Rostov, "but I +remember putting it there." + +Lavrushka turned all the bedding over, looked under the bed and under +the table, searched everywhere, and stood still in the middle of the +room. Denisov silently watched Lavrushka's movements, and when the +latter threw up his arms in surprise saying it was nowhere to be found +Denisov glanced at Rostov. + +"Wostov, you've not been playing schoolboy twicks..." + +Rostov felt Denisov's gaze fixed on him, raised his eyes, and instantly +dropped them again. All the blood which had seemed congested somewhere +below his throat rushed to his face and eyes. He could not draw breath. + +"And there hasn't been anyone in the room except the lieutenant and +yourselves. It must be here somewhere," said Lavrushka. + +"Now then, you devil's puppet, look alive and hunt for it!" shouted +Denisov, suddenly, turning purple and rushing at the man with a +threatening gesture. "If the purse isn't found I'll flog you, I'll flog +you all." + +Rostov, his eyes avoiding Denisov, began buttoning his coat, buckled on +his saber, and put on his cap. + +"I must have that purse, I tell you," shouted Denisov, shaking his +orderly by the shoulders and knocking him against the wall. + +"Denisov, let him alone, I know who has taken it," said Rostov, going +toward the door without raising his eyes. Denisov paused, thought a +moment, and, evidently understanding what Rostov hinted at, seized his +arm. + +"Nonsense!" he cried, and the veins on his forehead and neck stood out +like cords. "You are mad, I tell you. I won't allow it. The purse is +here! I'll flay this scoundwel alive, and it will be found." + +"I know who has taken it," repeated Rostov in an unsteady voice, and +went to the door. + +"And I tell you, don't you dahe to do it!" shouted Denisov, rushing at +the cadet to restrain him. + +But Rostov pulled away his arm and, with as much anger as though Denisov +were his worst enemy, firmly fixed his eyes directly on his face. + +"Do you understand what you're saying?" he said in a trembling voice. +"There was no one else in the room except myself. So that if it is not +so, then..." + +He could not finish, and ran out of the room. + +"Ah, may the devil take you and evewybody," were the last words Rostov +heard. + +Rostov went to Telyanin's quarters. + +"The master is not in, he's gone to headquarters," said Telyanin's +orderly. "Has something happened?" he added, surprised at the cadet's +troubled face. + +"No, nothing." + +"You've only just missed him," said the orderly. + +The headquarters were situated two miles away from Salzeneck, and +Rostov, without returning home, took a horse and rode there. There was +an inn in the village which the officers frequented. Rostov rode up to +it and saw Telyanin's horse at the porch. + +In the second room of the inn the lieutenant was sitting over a dish of +sausages and a bottle of wine. + +"Ah, you've come here too, young man!" he said, smiling and raising his +eyebrows. + +"Yes," said Rostov as if it cost him a great deal to utter the word; and +he sat down at the nearest table. + +Both were silent. There were two Germans and a Russian officer in the +room. No one spoke and the only sounds heard were the clatter of knives +and the munching of the lieutenant. + +When Telyanin had finished his lunch he took out of his pocket a double +purse and, drawing its rings aside with his small, white, turned-up +fingers, drew out a gold imperial, and lifting his eyebrows gave it to +the waiter. + +"Please be quick," he said. + +The coin was a new one. Rostov rose and went up to Telyanin. + +"Allow me to look at your purse," he said in a low, almost inaudible, +voice. + +With shifting eyes but eyebrows still raised, Telyanin handed him the +purse. + +"Yes, it's a nice purse. Yes, yes," he said, growing suddenly pale, and +added, "Look at it, young man." + +Rostov took the purse in his hand, examined it and the money in it, and +looked at Telyanin. The lieutenant was looking about in his usual way +and suddenly seemed to grow very merry. + +"If we get to Vienna I'll get rid of it there but in these wretched +little towns there's nowhere to spend it," said he. "Well, let me have +it, young man, I'm going." + +Rostov did not speak. + +"And you? Are you going to have lunch too? They feed you quite decently +here," continued Telyanin. "Now then, let me have it." + +He stretched out his hand to take hold of the purse. Rostov let go of +it. Telyanin took the purse and began carelessly slipping it into the +pocket of his riding breeches, with his eyebrows lifted and his mouth +slightly open, as if to say, "Yes, yes, I am putting my purse in my +pocket and that's quite simple and is no one else's business." + +"Well, young man?" he said with a sigh, and from under his lifted brows +he glanced into Rostov's eyes. + +Some flash as of an electric spark shot from Telyanin's eyes to Rostov's +and back, and back again and again in an instant. + +"Come here," said Rostov, catching hold of Telyanin's arm and almost +dragging him to the window. "That money is Denisov's; you took it..." he +whispered just above Telyanin's ear. + +"What? What? How dare you? What?" said Telyanin. + +But these words came like a piteous, despairing cry and an entreaty for +pardon. As soon as Rostov heard them, an enormous load of doubt fell +from him. He was glad, and at the same instant began to pity the +miserable man who stood before him, but the task he had begun had to be +completed. + +"Heaven only knows what the people here may imagine," muttered Telyanin, +taking up his cap and moving toward a small empty room. "We must have an +explanation..." + +"I know it and shall prove it," said Rostov. + +"I..." + +Every muscle of Telyanin's pale, terrified face began to quiver, his +eyes still shifted from side to side but with a downward look not rising +to Rostov's face, and his sobs were audible. + +"Count!... Don't ruin a young fellow... here is this wretched money, +take it..." He threw it on the table. "I have an old father and +mother!..." + +Rostov took the money, avoiding Telyanin's eyes, and went out of the +room without a word. But at the door he stopped and then retraced his +steps. "O God," he said with tears in his eyes, "how could you do it?" + +"Count..." said Telyanin drawing nearer to him. + +"Don't touch me," said Rostov, drawing back. "If you need it, take the +money," and he threw the purse to him and ran out of the inn. + + + + +CHAPTER V + +That same evening there was an animated discussion among the squadron's +officers in Denisov's quarters. + +"And I tell you, Rostov, that you must apologize to the colonel!" said a +tall, grizzly-haired staff captain, with enormous mustaches and many +wrinkles on his large features, to Rostov who was crimson with +excitement. + +The staff captain, Kirsten, had twice been reduced to the ranks for +affairs of honor and had twice regained his commission. + +"I will allow no one to call me a liar!" cried Rostov. "He told me I +lied, and I told him he lied. And there it rests. He may keep me on duty +every day, or may place me under arrest, but no one can make me +apologize, because if he, as commander of this regiment, thinks it +beneath his dignity to give me satisfaction, then..." + +"You just wait a moment, my dear fellow, and listen," interrupted the +staff captain in his deep bass, calmly stroking his long mustache. "You +tell the colonel in the presence of other officers that an officer has +stolen..." + +"I'm not to blame that the conversation began in the presence of other +officers. Perhaps I ought not to have spoken before them, but I am not a +diplomatist. That's why I joined the hussars, thinking that here one +would not need finesse; and he tells me that I am lying--so let him give +me satisfaction..." + +"That's all right. No one thinks you a coward, but that's not the point. +Ask Denisov whether it is not out of the question for a cadet to demand +satisfaction of his regimental commander?" + +Denisov sat gloomily biting his mustache and listening to the +conversation, evidently with no wish to take part in it. He answered the +staff captain's question by a disapproving shake of his head. + +"You speak to the colonel about this nasty business before other +officers," continued the staff captain, "and Bogdanich" (the colonel was +called Bogdanich) "shuts you up." + +"He did not shut me up, he said I was telling an untruth." + +"Well, have it so, and you talked a lot of nonsense to him and must +apologize." + +"Not on any account!" exclaimed Rostov. + +"I did not expect this of you," said the staff captain seriously and +severely. "You don't wish to apologize, but, man, it's not only to him +but to the whole regiment--all of us--you're to blame all round. The +case is this: you ought to have thought the matter over and taken +advice; but no, you go and blurt it all straight out before the +officers. Now what was the colonel to do? Have the officer tried and +disgrace the whole regiment? Disgrace the whole regiment because of one +scoundrel? Is that how you look at it? We don't see it like that. And +Bogdanich was a brick: he told you you were saying what was not true. +It's not pleasant, but what's to be done, my dear fellow? You landed +yourself in it. And now, when one wants to smooth the thing over, some +conceit prevents your apologizing, and you wish to make the whole affair +public. You are offended at being put on duty a bit, but why not +apologize to an old and honorable officer? Whatever Bogdanich may be, +anyway he is an honorable and brave old colonel! You're quick at taking +offense, but you don't mind disgracing the whole regiment!" The staff +captain's voice began to tremble. "You have been in the regiment next to +no time, my lad, you're here today and tomorrow you'll be appointed +adjutant somewhere and can snap your fingers when it is said 'There are +thieves among the Pavlograd officers!' But it's not all the same to us! +Am I not right, Denisov? It's not the same!" + +Denisov remained silent and did not move, but occasionally looked with +his glittering black eyes at Rostov. + +"You value your own pride and don't wish to apologize," continued the +staff captain, "but we old fellows, who have grown up in and, God +willing, are going to die in the regiment, we prize the honor of the +regiment, and Bogdanich knows it. Oh, we do prize it, old fellow! And +all this is not right, it's not right! You may take offense or not but I +always stick to mother truth. It's not right!" + +And the staff captain rose and turned away from Rostov. + + +"That's twue, devil take it!" shouted Denisov, jumping up. "Now then, +Wostov, now then!" + +Rostov, growing red and pale alternately, looked first at one officer +and then at the other. + +"No, gentlemen, no... you mustn't think... I quite understand. You're +wrong to think that of me... I... for me... for the honor of the +regiment I'd... Ah well, I'll show that in action, and for me the honor +of the flag... Well, never mind, it's true I'm to blame, to blame all +round. Well, what else do you want?..." + +"Come, that's right, Count!" cried the staff captain, turning round and +clapping Rostov on the shoulder with his big hand. + +"I tell you," shouted Denisov, "he's a fine fellow." + +"That's better, Count," said the staff captain, beginning to address +Rostov by his title, as if in recognition of his confession. "Go and +apologize, your excellency. Yes, go!" + +"Gentlemen, I'll do anything. No one shall hear a word from me," said +Rostov in an imploring voice, "but I can't apologize, by God I can't, do +what you will! How can I go and apologize like a little boy asking +forgiveness?" + +Denisov began to laugh. + +"It'll be worse for you. Bogdanich is vindictive and you'll pay for your +obstinacy," said Kirsten. + +"No, on my word it's not obstinacy! I can't describe the feeling. I +can't..." + +"Well, it's as you like," said the staff captain. "And what has become +of that scoundrel?" he asked Denisov. + +"He has weported himself sick, he's to be stwuck off the list tomowwow," +muttered Denisov. + +"It is an illness, there's no other way of explaining it," said the +staff captain. + +"Illness or not, he'd better not cwoss my path. I'd kill him!" shouted +Denisov in a bloodthirsty tone. + +Just then Zherkov entered the room. + +"What brings you here?" cried the officers turning to the newcomer. + +"We're to go into action, gentlemen! Mack has surrendered with his whole +army." + +"It's not true!" + +"I've seen him myself!" + +"What? Saw the real Mack? With hands and feet?" + +"Into action! Into action! Bring him a bottle for such news! But how did +you come here?" + +"I've been sent back to the regiment all on account of that devil, Mack. +An Austrian general complained of me. I congratulated him on Mack's +arrival... What's the matter, Rostov? You look as if you'd just come out +of a hot bath." + +"Oh, my dear fellow, we're in such a stew here these last two days." + +The regimental adjutant came in and confirmed the news brought by +Zherkov. They were under orders to advance next day. + +"We're going into action, gentlemen!" + +"Well, thank God! We've been sitting here too long!" + + + + +CHAPTER VI + +Kutuzov fell back toward Vienna, destroying behind him the bridges over +the rivers Inn (at Braunau) and Traun (near Linz). On October 23 the +Russian troops were crossing the river Enns. At midday the Russian +baggage train, the artillery, and columns of troops were defiling +through the town of Enns on both sides of the bridge. + +It was a warm, rainy, autumnal day. The wide expanse that opened out +before the heights on which the Russian batteries stood guarding the +bridge was at times veiled by a diaphanous curtain of slanting rain, and +then, suddenly spread out in the sunlight, far-distant objects could be +clearly seen glittering as though freshly varnished. Down below, the +little town could be seen with its white, red-roofed houses, its +cathedral, and its bridge, on both sides of which streamed jostling +masses of Russian troops. At the bend of the Danube, vessels, an island, +and a castle with a park surrounded by the waters of the confluence of +the Enns and the Danube became visible, and the rocky left bank of the +Danube covered with pine forests, with a mystic background of green +treetops and bluish gorges. The turrets of a convent stood out beyond a +wild virgin pine forest, and far away on the other side of the Enns the +enemy's horse patrols could be discerned. + +Among the field guns on the brow of the hill the general in command of +the rearguard stood with a staff officer, scanning the country through +his fieldglass. A little behind them Nesvitski, who had been sent to the +rearguard by the commander-in-chief, was sitting on the trail of a gun +carriage. A Cossack who accompanied him had handed him a knapsack and a +flask, and Nesvitski was treating some officers to pies and real +doppelkummel. The officers gladly gathered round him, some on their +knees, some squatting Turkish fashion on the wet grass. + +"Yes, the Austrian prince who built that castle was no fool. It's a fine +place! Why are you not eating anything, gentlemen?" Nesvitski was +saying. + +"Thank you very much, Prince," answered one of the officers, pleased to +be talking to a staff officer of such importance. "It's a lovely place! +We passed close to the park and saw two deer... and what a splendid +house!" + +"Look, Prince," said another, who would have dearly liked to take +another pie but felt shy, and therefore pretended to be examining the +countryside--"See, our infantrymen have already got there. Look there in +the meadow behind the village, three of them are dragging something. +They'll ransack that castle," he remarked with evident approval. + +"So they will," said Nesvitski. "No, but what I should like," added he, +munching a pie in his moist-lipped handsome mouth, "would be to slip in +over there." + +He pointed with a smile to a turreted nunnery, and his eyes narrowed and +gleamed. + +"That would be fine, gentlemen!" + +The officers laughed. + +"Just to flutter the nuns a bit. They say there are Italian girls among +them. On my word I'd give five years of my life for it!" + +"They must be feeling dull, too," said one of the bolder officers, +laughing. + +Meanwhile the staff officer standing in front pointed out something to +the general, who looked through his field glass. + +"Yes, so it is, so it is," said the general angrily, lowering the field +glass and shrugging his shoulders, "so it is! They'll be fired on at the +crossing. And why are they dawdling there?" + +On the opposite side the enemy could be seen by the naked eye, and from +their battery a milk-white cloud arose. Then came the distant report of +a shot, and our troops could be seen hurrying to the crossing. + +Nesvitski rose, puffing, and went up to the general, smiling. + +"Would not your excellency like a little refreshment?" he said. + +"It's a bad business," said the general without answering him, "our men +have been wasting time." + +"Hadn't I better ride over, your excellency?" asked Nesvitski. + +"Yes, please do," answered the general, and he repeated the order that +had already once been given in detail: "and tell the hussars that they +are to cross last and to fire the bridge as I ordered; and the +inflammable material on the bridge must be reinspected." + +"Very good," answered Nesvitski. + +He called the Cossack with his horse, told him to put away the knapsack +and flask, and swung his heavy person easily into the saddle. + +"I'll really call in on the nuns," he said to the officers who watched +him smilingly, and he rode off by the winding path down the hill. + +"Now then, let's see how far it will carry, Captain. Just try!" said the +general, turning to an artillery officer. "Have a little fun to pass the +time." + +"Crew, to your guns!" commanded the officer. + +In a moment the men came running gaily from their campfires and began +loading. + +"One!" came the command. + +Number one jumped briskly aside. The gun rang out with a deafening +metallic roar, and a whistling grenade flew above the heads of our +troops below the hill and fell far short of the enemy, a little smoke +showing the spot where it burst. + +The faces of officers and men brightened up at the sound. Everyone got +up and began watching the movements of our troops below, as plainly +visible as if but a stone's throw away, and the movements of the +approaching enemy farther off. At the same instant the sun came fully +out from behind the clouds, and the clear sound of the solitary shot and +the brilliance of the bright sunshine merged in a single joyous and +spirited impression. + + + + +CHAPTER VII + +Two of the enemy's shots had already flown across the bridge, where +there was a crush. Halfway across stood Prince Nesvitski, who had +alighted from his horse and whose big body was jammed against the +railings. He looked back laughing to the Cossack who stood a few steps +behind him holding two horses by their bridles. Each time Prince +Nesvitski tried to move on, soldiers and carts pushed him back again and +pressed him against the railings, and all he could do was to smile. + +"What a fine fellow you are, friend!" said the Cossack to a convoy +soldier with a wagon, who was pressing onto the infantrymen who were +crowded together close to his wheels and his horses. "What a fellow! You +can't wait a moment! Don't you see the general wants to pass?" + +But the convoyman took no notice of the word "general" and shouted at +the soldiers who were blocking his way. "Hi there, boys! Keep to the +left! Wait a bit." But the soldiers, crowded together shoulder to +shoulder, their bayonets interlocking, moved over the bridge in a dense +mass. Looking down over the rails Prince Nesvitski saw the rapid, noisy +little waves of the Enns, which rippling and eddying round the piles of +the bridge chased each other along. Looking on the bridge he saw equally +uniform living waves of soldiers, shoulder straps, covered shakos, +knapsacks, bayonets, long muskets, and, under the shakos, faces with +broad cheekbones, sunken cheeks, and listless tired expressions, and +feet that moved through the sticky mud that covered the planks of the +bridge. Sometimes through the monotonous waves of men, like a fleck of +white foam on the waves of the Enns, an officer, in a cloak and with a +type of face different from that of the men, squeezed his way along; +sometimes like a chip of wood whirling in the river, an hussar on foot, +an orderly, or a townsman was carried through the waves of infantry; and +sometimes like a log floating down the river, an officers' or company's +baggage wagon, piled high, leather covered, and hemmed in on all sides, +moved across the bridge. + +"It's as if a dam had burst," said the Cossack hopelessly. "Are there +many more of you to come?" + +"A million all but one!" replied a waggish soldier in a torn coat, with +a wink, and passed on followed by another, an old man. + +"If he" (he meant the enemy) "begins popping at the bridge now," said +the old soldier dismally to a comrade, "you'll forget to scratch +yourself." + +That soldier passed on, and after him came another sitting on a cart. + +"Where the devil have the leg bands been shoved to?" said an orderly, +running behind the cart and fumbling in the back of it. + +And he also passed on with the wagon. Then came some merry soldiers who +had evidently been drinking. + +"And then, old fellow, he gives him one in the teeth with the butt end +of his gun..." a soldier whose greatcoat was well tucked up said gaily, +with a wide swing of his arm. + +"Yes, the ham was just delicious..." answered another with a loud laugh. +And they, too, passed on, so that Nesvitski did not learn who had been +struck on the teeth, or what the ham had to do with it. + +"Bah! How they scurry. He just sends a ball and they think they'll all +be killed," a sergeant was saying angrily and reproachfully. + +"As it flies past me, Daddy, the ball I mean," said a young soldier with +an enormous mouth, hardly refraining from laughing, "I felt like dying +of fright. I did, 'pon my word, I got that frightened!" said he, as if +bragging of having been frightened. + +That one also passed. Then followed a cart unlike any that had gone +before. It was a German cart with a pair of horses led by a German, and +seemed loaded with a whole houseful of effects. A fine brindled cow with +a large udder was attached to the cart behind. A woman with an unweaned +baby, an old woman, and a healthy German girl with bright red cheeks +were sitting on some feather beds. Evidently these fugitives were +allowed to pass by special permission. The eyes of all the soldiers +turned toward the women, and while the vehicle was passing at foot pace +all the soldiers' remarks related to the two young ones. Every face bore +almost the same smile, expressing unseemly thoughts about the women. + +"Just see, the German sausage is making tracks, too!" + +"Sell me the missis," said another soldier, addressing the German, who, +angry and frightened, strode energetically along with downcast eyes. + +"See how smart she's made herself! Oh, the devils!" + +"There, Fedotov, you should be quartered on them!" + +"I have seen as much before now, mate!" + +"Where are you going?" asked an infantry officer who was eating an +apple, also half smiling as he looked at the handsome girl. + +The German closed his eyes, signifying that he did not understand. + +"Take it if you like," said the officer, giving the girl an apple. + +The girl smiled and took it. Nesvitski like the rest of the men on the +bridge did not take his eyes off the women till they had passed. When +they had gone by, the same stream of soldiers followed, with the same +kind of talk, and at last all stopped. As often happens, the horses of a +convoy wagon became restive at the end of the bridge, and the whole +crowd had to wait. + +"And why are they stopping? There's no proper order!" said the soldiers. +"Where are you shoving to? Devil take you! Can't you wait? It'll be +worse if he fires the bridge. See, here's an officer jammed in too"-- +different voices were saying in the crowd, as the men looked at one +another, and all pressed toward the exit from the bridge. + +Looking down at the waters of the Enns under the bridge, Nesvitski +suddenly heard a sound new to him, of something swiftly approaching... +something big, that splashed into the water. + +"Just see where it carries to!" a soldier near by said sternly, looking +round at the sound. + +"Encouraging us to get along quicker," said another uneasily. + +The crowd moved on again. Nesvitski realized that it was a cannon ball. + +"Hey, Cossack, my horse!" he said. "Now, then, you there! get out of the +way! Make way!" + +With great difficulty he managed to get to his horse, and shouting +continually he moved on. The soldiers squeezed themselves to make way +for him, but again pressed on him so that they jammed his leg, and those +nearest him were not to blame for they were themselves pressed still +harder from behind. + +"Nesvitski, Nesvitski! you numskull!" came a hoarse voice from behind +him. + +Nesvitski looked round and saw, some fifteen paces away but separated by +the living mass of moving infantry, Vaska Denisov, red and shaggy, with +his cap on the back of his black head and a cloak hanging jauntily over +his shoulder. + +"Tell these devils, these fiends, to let me pass!" shouted Denisov +evidently in a fit of rage, his coal-black eyes with their bloodshot +whites glittering and rolling as he waved his sheathed saber in a small +bare hand as red as his face. + +"Ah, Vaska!" joyfully replied Nesvitski. "What's up with you?" + +"The squadwon can't pass," shouted Vaska Denisov, showing his white +teeth fiercely and spurring his black thoroughbred Arab, which twitched +its ears as the bayonets touched it, and snorted, spurting white foam +from his bit, tramping the planks of the bridge with his hoofs, and +apparently ready to jump over the railings had his rider let him. "What +is this? They're like sheep! Just like sheep! Out of the way!... Let us +pass!... Stop there, you devil with the cart! I'll hack you with my +saber!" he shouted, actually drawing his saber from its scabbard and +flourishing it. + +The soldiers crowded against one another with terrified faces, and +Denisov joined Nesvitski. + +"How's it you're not drunk today?" said Nesvitski when the other had +ridden up to him. + +"They don't even give one time to dwink!" answered Vaska Denisov. "They +keep dwagging the wegiment to and fwo all day. If they mean to fight, +let's fight. But the devil knows what this is." + +"What a dandy you are today!" said Nesvitski, looking at Denisov's new +cloak and saddlecloth. + +Denisov smiled, took out of his sabretache a handkerchief that diffused +a smell of perfume, and put it to Nesvitski's nose. + +"Of course. I'm going into action! I've shaved, bwushed my teeth, and +scented myself." + +The imposing figure of Nesvitski followed by his Cossack, and the +determination of Denisov who flourished his sword and shouted +frantically, had such an effect that they managed to squeeze through to +the farther side of the bridge and stopped the infantry. Beside the +bridge Nesvitski found the colonel to whom he had to deliver the order, +and having done this he rode back. + +Having cleared the way Denisov stopped at the end of the bridge. +Carelessly holding in his stallion that was neighing and pawing the +ground, eager to rejoin its fellows, he watched his squadron draw +nearer. Then the clang of hoofs, as of several horses galloping, +resounded on the planks of the bridge, and the squadron, officers in +front and men four abreast, spread across the bridge and began to emerge +on his side of it. + +The infantry who had been stopped crowded near the bridge in the +trampled mud and gazed with that particular feeling of ill-will, +estrangement, and ridicule with which troops of different arms usually +encounter one another at the clean, smart hussars who moved past them in +regular order. + +"Smart lads! Only fit for a fair!" said one. + +"What good are they? They're led about just for show!" remarked another. + +"Don't kick up the dust, you infantry!" jested an hussar whose prancing +horse had splashed mud over some foot soldiers. + +"I'd like to put you on a two days' march with a knapsack! Your fine +cords would soon get a bit rubbed," said an infantryman, wiping the mud +off his face with his sleeve. "Perched up there, you're more like a bird +than a man." + +"There now, Zikin, they ought to put you on a horse. You'd look fine," +said a corporal, chaffing a thin little soldier who bent under the +weight of his knapsack. + +"Take a stick between your legs, that'll suit you for a horse!" the +hussar shouted back. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII + +The last of the infantry hurriedly crossed the bridge, squeezing +together as they approached it as if passing through a funnel. At last +the baggage wagons had all crossed, the crush was less, and the last +battalion came onto the bridge. Only Denisov's squadron of hussars +remained on the farther side of the bridge facing the enemy, who could +be seen from the hill on the opposite bank but was not yet visible from +the bridge, for the horizon as seen from the valley through which the +river flowed was formed by the rising ground only half a mile away. At +the foot of the hill lay wasteland over which a few groups of our +Cossack scouts were moving. Suddenly on the road at the top of the high +ground, artillery and troops in blue uniform were seen. These were the +French. A group of Cossack scouts retired down the hill at a trot. All +the officers and men of Denisov's squadron, though they tried to talk of +other things and to look in other directions, thought only of what was +there on the hilltop, and kept constantly looking at the patches +appearing on the skyline, which they knew to be the enemy's troops. The +weather had cleared again since noon and the sun was descending brightly +upon the Danube and the dark hills around it. It was calm, and at +intervals the bugle calls and the shouts of the enemy could be heard +from the hill. There was no one now between the squadron and the enemy +except a few scattered skirmishers. An empty space of some seven hundred +yards was all that separated them. The enemy ceased firing, and that +stern, threatening, inaccessible, and intangible line which separates +two hostile armies was all the more clearly felt. + +"One step beyond that boundary line which resembles the line dividing +the living from the dead lies uncertainty, suffering, and death. And +what is there? Who is there?--there beyond that field, that tree, that +roof lit up by the sun? No one knows, but one wants to know. You fear +and yet long to cross that line, and know that sooner or later it must +be crossed and you will have to find out what is there, just as you will +inevitably have to learn what lies the other side of death. But you are +strong, healthy, cheerful, and excited, and are surrounded by other such +excitedly animated and healthy men." So thinks, or at any rate feels, +anyone who comes in sight of the enemy, and that feeling gives a +particular glamour and glad keenness of impression to everything that +takes place at such moments. + +On the high ground where the enemy was, the smoke of a cannon rose, and +a ball flew whistling over the heads of the hussar squadron. The +officers who had been standing together rode off to their places. The +hussars began carefully aligning their horses. Silence fell on the whole +squadron. All were looking at the enemy in front and at the squadron +commander, awaiting the word of command. A second and a third cannon +ball flew past. Evidently they were firing at the hussars, but the balls +with rapid rhythmic whistle flew over the heads of the horsemen and fell +somewhere beyond them. The hussars did not look round, but at the sound +of each shot, as at the word of command, the whole squadron with its +rows of faces so alike yet so different, holding its breath while the +ball flew past, rose in the stirrups and sank back again. The soldiers +without turning their heads glanced at one another, curious to see their +comrades' impression. Every face, from Denisov's to that of the bugler, +showed one common expression of conflict, irritation, and excitement, +around chin and mouth. The quartermaster frowned, looking at the +soldiers as if threatening to punish them. Cadet Mironov ducked every +time a ball flew past. Rostov on the left flank, mounted on his Rook--a +handsome horse despite its game leg--had the happy air of a schoolboy +called up before a large audience for an examination in which he feels +sure he will distinguish himself. He was glancing at everyone with a +clear, bright expression, as if asking them to notice how calmly he sat +under fire. But despite himself, on his face too that same indication of +something new and stern showed round the mouth. + +"Who's that curtseying there? Cadet Miwonov! That's not wight! Look at +me," cried Denisov who, unable to keep still on one spot, kept turning +his horse in front of the squadron. + +The black, hairy, snub-nosed face of Vaska Denisov, and his whole short +sturdy figure with the sinewy hairy hand and stumpy fingers in which he +held the hilt of his naked saber, looked just as it usually did, +especially toward evening when he had emptied his second bottle; he was +only redder than usual. With his shaggy head thrown back like birds when +they drink, pressing his spurs mercilessly into the sides of his good +horse, Bedouin, and sitting as though falling backwards in the saddle, +he galloped to the other flank of the squadron and shouted in a hoarse +voice to the men to look to their pistols. He rode up to Kirsten. The +staff captain on his broad-backed, steady mare came at a walk to meet +him. His face with its long mustache was serious as always, only his +eyes were brighter than usual. + +"Well, what about it?" said he to Denisov. "It won't come to a fight. +You'll see--we shall retire." + +"The devil only knows what they're about!" muttered Denisov. "Ah, +Wostov," he cried noticing the cadet's bright face, "you've got it at +last." + +And he smiled approvingly, evidently pleased with the cadet. Rostov felt +perfectly happy. Just then the commander appeared on the bridge. Denisov +galloped up to him. + +"Your excellency! Let us attack them! I'll dwive them off." + +"Attack indeed!" said the colonel in a bored voice, puckering up his +face as if driving off a troublesome fly. "And why are you stopping +here? Don't you see the skirmishers are retreating? Lead the squadron +back." + +The squadron crossed the bridge and drew out of range of fire without +having lost a single man. The second squadron that had been in the front +line followed them across and the last Cossacks quitted the farther side +of the river. + +The two Pavlograd squadrons, having crossed the bridge, retired up the +hill one after the other. Their colonel, Karl Bogdanich Schubert, came +up to Denisov's squadron and rode at a footpace not far from Rostov, +without taking any notice of him although they were now meeting for the +first time since their encounter concerning Telyanin. Rostov, feeling +that he was at the front and in the power of a man toward whom he now +admitted that he had been to blame, did not lift his eyes from the +colonel's athletic back, his nape covered with light hair, and his red +neck. It seemed to Rostov that Bogdanich was only pretending not to +notice him, and that his whole aim now was to test the cadet's courage, +so he drew himself up and looked around him merrily; then it seemed to +him that Bogdanich rode so near in order to show him his courage. Next +he thought that his enemy would send the squadron on a desperate attack +just to punish him--Rostov. Then he imagined how, after the attack, +Bogdanich would come up to him as he lay wounded and would magnanimously +extend the hand of reconciliation. + +The high-shouldered figure of Zherkov, familiar to the Pavlograds as he +had but recently left their regiment, rode up to the colonel. After his +dismissal from headquarters Zherkov had not remained in the regiment, +saying he was not such a fool as to slave at the front when he could get +more rewards by doing nothing on the staff, and had succeeded in +attaching himself as an orderly officer to Prince Bagration. He now came +to his former chief with an order from the commander of the rear guard. + +"Colonel," he said, addressing Rostov's enemy with an air of gloomy +gravity and glancing round at his comrades, "there is an order to stop +and fire the bridge." + +"An order to who?" asked the colonel morosely. + +"I don't myself know 'to who,'" replied the cornet in a serious tone, +"but the prince told me to 'go and tell the colonel that the hussars +must return quickly and fire the bridge.'" + +Zherkov was followed by an officer of the suite who rode up to the +colonel of hussars with the same order. After him the stout Nesvitski +came galloping up on a Cossack horse that could scarcely carry his +weight. + +"How's this, Colonel?" he shouted as he approached. "I told you to fire +the bridge, and now someone has gone and blundered; they are all beside +themselves over there and one can't make anything out." + +The colonel deliberately stopped the regiment and turned to Nesvitski. + +"You spoke to me of inflammable material," said he, "but you said +nothing about firing it." + +"But, my dear sir," said Nesvitski as he drew up, taking off his cap and +smoothing his hair wet with perspiration with his plump hand, "wasn't I +telling you to fire the bridge, when inflammable material had been put +in position?" + +"I am not your 'dear sir,' Mr. Staff Officer, and you did not tell me to +burn the bridge! I know the service, and it is my habit orders strictly +to obey. You said the bridge would be burned, but who would it burn, I +could not know by the holy spirit!" + +"Ah, that's always the way!" said Nesvitski with a wave of the hand. +"How did you get here?" said he, turning to Zherkov. + +"On the same business. But you are damp! Let me wring you out!" + +"You were saying, Mr. Staff Officer..." continued the colonel in an +offended tone. + +"Colonel," interrupted the officer of the suite, "You must be quick or +the enemy will bring up his guns to use grapeshot." + +The colonel looked silently at the officer of the suite, at the stout +staff officer, and at Zherkov, and he frowned. + +"I will the bridge fire," he said in a solemn tone as if to announce +that in spite of all the unpleasantness he had to endure he would still +do the right thing. + +Striking his horse with his long muscular legs as if it were to blame +for everything, the colonel moved forward and ordered the second +squadron, that in which Rostov was serving under Denisov, to return to +the bridge. + +"There, it's just as I thought," said Rostov to himself. "He wishes to +test me!" His heart contracted and the blood rushed to his face. "Let +him see whether I am a coward!" he thought. + +Again on all the bright faces of the squadron the serious expression +appeared that they had worn when under fire. Rostov watched his enemy, +the colonel, closely--to find in his face confirmation of his own +conjecture, but the colonel did not once glance at Rostov, and looked as +he always did when at the front, solemn and stern. Then came the word of +command. + +"Look sharp! Look sharp!" several voices repeated around him. + +Their sabers catching in the bridles and their spurs jingling, the +hussars hastily dismounted, not knowing what they were to do. The men +were crossing themselves. Rostov no longer looked at the colonel, he had +no time. He was afraid of falling behind the hussars, so much afraid +that his heart stood still. His hand trembled as he gave his horse into +an orderly's charge, and he felt the blood rush to his heart with a +thud. Denisov rode past him, leaning back and shouting something. Rostov +saw nothing but the hussars running all around him, their spurs catching +and their sabers clattering. + +"Stretchers!" shouted someone behind him. + +Rostov did not think what this call for stretchers meant; he ran on, +trying only to be ahead of the others; but just at the bridge, not +looking at the ground, he came on some sticky, trodden mud, stumbled, +and fell on his hands. The others outstripped him. + +"At boss zides, Captain," he heard the voice of the colonel, who, having +ridden ahead, had pulled up his horse near the bridge, with a +triumphant, cheerful face. + +Rostov wiping his muddy hands on his breeches looked at his enemy and +was about to run on, thinking that the farther he went to the front the +better. But Bogdanich, without looking at or recognizing Rostov, shouted +to him: + +"Who's that running on the middle of the bridge? To the right! Come +back, Cadet!" he cried angrily; and turning to Denisov, who, showing off +his courage, had ridden on to the planks of the bridge: + +"Why run risks, Captain? You should dismount," he said. + +"Oh, every bullet has its billet," answered Vaska Denisov, turning in +his saddle. + +Meanwhile Nesvitski, Zherkov, and the officer of the suite were standing +together out of range of the shots, watching, now the small group of men +with yellow shakos, dark-green jackets braided with cord, and blue +riding breeches, who were swarming near the bridge, and then at what was +approaching in the distance from the opposite side--the blue uniforms +and groups with horses, easily recognizable as artillery. + +"Will they burn the bridge or not? Who'll get there first? Will they get +there and fire the bridge or will the French get within grapeshot range +and wipe them out?" These were the questions each man of the troops on +the high ground above the bridge involuntarily asked himself with a +sinking heart--watching the bridge and the hussars in the bright evening +light and the blue tunics advancing from the other side with their +bayonets and guns. + +"Ugh. The hussars will get it hot!" said Nesvitski; "they are within +grapeshot range now." + +"He shouldn't have taken so many men," said the officer of the suite. + +"True enough," answered Nesvitski; "two smart fellows could have done +the job just as well." + +"Ah, your excellency," put in Zherkov, his eyes fixed on the hussars, +but still with that naive air that made it impossible to know whether he +was speaking in jest or in earnest. "Ah, your excellency! How you look +at things! Send two men? And who then would give us the Vladimir medal +and ribbon? But now, even if they do get peppered, the squadron may be +recommended for honors and he may get a ribbon. Our Bogdanich knows how +things are done." + +"There now!" said the officer of the suite, "that's grapeshot." + +He pointed to the French guns, the limbers of which were being detached +and hurriedly removed. + +On the French side, amid the groups with cannon, a cloud of smoke +appeared, then a second and a third almost simultaneously, and at the +moment when the first report was heard a fourth was seen. Then two +reports one after another, and a third. + +"Oh! Oh!" groaned Nesvitski as if in fierce pain, seizing the officer of +the suite by the arm. "Look! A man has fallen! Fallen, fallen!" + +"Two, I think." + +"If I were Tsar I would never go to war," said Nesvitski, turning away. + +The French guns were hastily reloaded. The infantry in their blue +uniforms advanced toward the bridge at a run. Smoke appeared again but +at irregular intervals, and grapeshot cracked and rattled onto the +bridge. But this time Nesvitski could not see what was happening there, +as a dense cloud of smoke arose from it. The hussars had succeeded in +setting it on fire and the French batteries were now firing at them, no +longer to hinder them but because the guns were trained and there was +someone to fire at. + +The French had time to fire three rounds of grapeshot before the hussars +got back to their horses. Two were misdirected and the shot went too +high, but the last round fell in the midst of a group of hussars and +knocked three of them over. + +Rostov, absorbed by his relations with Bogdanich, had paused on the +bridge not knowing what to do. There was no one to hew down (as he had +always imagined battles to himself), nor could he help to fire the +bridge because he had not brought any burning straw with him like the +other soldiers. He stood looking about him, when suddenly he heard a +rattle on the bridge as if nuts were being spilt, and the hussar nearest +to him fell against the rails with a groan. Rostov ran up to him with +the others. Again someone shouted, "Stretchers!" Four men seized the +hussar and began lifting him. + +"Oooh! For Christ's sake let me alone!" cried the wounded man, but still +he was lifted and laid on the stretcher. + +Nicholas Rostov turned away and, as if searching for something, gazed +into the distance, at the waters of the Danube, at the sky, and at the +sun. How beautiful the sky looked; how blue, how calm, and how deep! How +bright and glorious was the setting sun! With what soft glitter the +waters of the distant Danube shone. And fairer still were the faraway +blue mountains beyond the river, the nunnery, the mysterious gorges, and +the pine forests veiled in the mist of their summits... There was peace +and happiness... "I should wish for nothing else, nothing, if only I +were there," thought Rostov. "In myself alone and in that sunshine there +is so much happiness; but here... groans, suffering, fear, and this +uncertainty and hurry... There--they are shouting again, and again are +all running back somewhere, and I shall run with them, and it, death, is +here above me and around... Another instant and I shall never again see +the sun, this water, that gorge!..." + +At that instant the sun began to hide behind the clouds, and other +stretchers came into view before Rostov. And the fear of death and of +the stretchers, and love of the sun and of life, all merged into one +feeling of sickening agitation. + +"O Lord God! Thou who art in that heaven, save, forgive, and protect +me!" Rostov whispered. + +The hussars ran back to the men who held their horses; their voices +sounded louder and calmer, the stretchers disappeared from sight. + +"Well, fwiend? So you've smelt powdah!" shouted Vaska Denisov just above +his ear. + +"It's all over; but I am a coward--yes, a coward!" thought Rostov, and +sighing deeply he took Rook, his horse, which stood resting one foot, +from the orderly and began to mount. + +"Was that grapeshot?" he asked Denisov. + +"Yes and no mistake!" cried Denisov. "You worked like wegular bwicks and +it's nasty work! An attack's pleasant work! Hacking away at the dogs! +But this sort of thing is the very devil, with them shooting at you like +a target." + +And Denisov rode up to a group that had stopped near Rostov, composed of +the colonel, Nesvitski, Zherkov, and the officer from the suite. + +"Well, it seems that no one has noticed," thought Rostov. And this was +true. No one had taken any notice, for everyone knew the sensation which +the cadet under fire for the first time had experienced. + +"Here's something for you to report," said Zherkov. "See if I don't get +promoted to a sublieutenancy." + +"Inform the prince that I the bridge fired!" said the colonel +triumphantly and gaily. + +"And if he asks about the losses?" + +"A trifle," said the colonel in his bass voice: "two hussars wounded, +and one knocked out," he added, unable to restrain a happy smile, and +pronouncing the phrase "knocked out" with ringing distinctness. + + + + +CHAPTER IX + +Pursued by the French army of a hundred thousand men under the command +of Bonaparte, encountering a population that was unfriendly to it, +losing confidence in its allies, suffering from shortness of supplies, +and compelled to act under conditions of war unlike anything that had +been foreseen, the Russian army of thirty-five thousand men commanded by +Kutuzov was hurriedly retreating along the Danube, stopping where +overtaken by the enemy and fighting rearguard actions only as far as +necessary to enable it to retreat without losing its heavy equipment. +There had been actions at Lambach, Amstetten, and Melk; but despite the +courage and endurance--acknowledged even by the enemy--with which the +Russians fought, the only consequence of these actions was a yet more +rapid retreat. Austrian troops that had escaped capture at Ulm and had +joined Kutuzov at Braunau now separated from the Russian army, and +Kutuzov was left with only his own weak and exhausted forces. The +defense of Vienna was no longer to be thought of. Instead of an +offensive, the plan of which, carefully prepared in accord with the +modern science of strategics, had been handed to Kutuzov when he was in +Vienna by the Austrian Hofkriegsrath, the sole and almost unattainable +aim remaining for him was to effect a junction with the forces that were +advancing from Russia, without losing his army as Mack had done at Ulm. + +On the twenty-eighth of October Kutuzov with his army crossed to the +left bank of the Danube and took up a position for the first time with +the river between himself and the main body of the French. On the +thirtieth he attacked Mortier's division, which was on the left bank, +and broke it up. In this action for the first time trophies were taken: +banners, cannon, and two enemy generals. For the first time, after a +fortnight's retreat, the Russian troops had halted and after a fight had +not only held the field but had repulsed the French. Though the troops +were ill-clad, exhausted, and had lost a third of their number in +killed, wounded, sick, and stragglers; though a number of sick and +wounded had been abandoned on the other side of the Danube with a letter +in which Kutuzov entrusted them to the humanity of the enemy; and though +the big hospitals and the houses in Krems converted into military +hospitals could no longer accommodate all the sick and wounded, yet the +stand made at Krems and the victory over Mortier raised the spirits of +the army considerably. Throughout the whole army and at headquarters +most joyful though erroneous rumors were rife of the imaginary approach +of columns from Russia, of some victory gained by the Austrians, and of +the retreat of the frightened Bonaparte. + +Prince Andrew during the battle had been in attendance on the Austrian +General Schmidt, who was killed in the action. His horse had been +wounded under him and his own arm slightly grazed by a bullet. As a mark +of the commander-in-chief's special favor he was sent with the news of +this victory to the Austrian court, now no longer at Vienna (which was +threatened by the French) but at Brunn. Despite his apparently delicate +build Prince Andrew could endure physical fatigue far better than many +very muscular men, and on the night of the battle, having arrived at +Krems excited but not weary, with dispatches from Dokhturov to Kutuzov, +he was sent immediately with a special dispatch to Brunn. To be so sent +meant not only a reward but an important step toward promotion. + +The night was dark but starry, the road showed black in the snow that +had fallen the previous day--the day of the battle. Reviewing his +impressions of the recent battle, picturing pleasantly to himself the +impression his news of a victory would create, or recalling the send-off +given him by the commander-in-chief and his fellow officers, Prince +Andrew was galloping along in a post chaise enjoying the feelings of a +man who has at length begun to attain a long-desired happiness. As soon +as he closed his eyes his ears seemed filled with the rattle of the +wheels and the sensation of victory. Then he began to imagine that the +Russians were running away and that he himself was killed, but he +quickly roused himself with a feeling of joy, as if learning afresh that +this was not so but that on the contrary the French had run away. He +again recalled all the details of the victory and his own calm courage +during the battle, and feeling reassured he dozed off.... The dark +starry night was followed by a bright cheerful morning. The snow was +thawing in the sunshine, the horses galloped quickly, and on both sides +of the road were forests of different kinds, fields, and villages. + +At one of the post stations he overtook a convoy of Russian wounded. The +Russian officer in charge of the transport lolled back in the front +cart, shouting and scolding a soldier with coarse abuse. In each of the +long German carts six or more pale, dirty, bandaged men were being +jolted over the stony road. Some of them were talking (he heard Russian +words), others were eating bread; the more severely wounded looked +silently, with the languid interest of sick children, at the envoy +hurrying past them. + +Prince Andrew told his driver to stop, and asked a soldier in what +action they had been wounded. "Day before yesterday, on the Danube," +answered the soldier. Prince Andrew took out his purse and gave the +soldier three gold pieces. + +"That's for them all," he said to the officer who came up. + +"Get well soon, lads!" he continued, turning to the soldiers. "There's +plenty to do still." + +"What news, sir?" asked the officer, evidently anxious to start a +conversation. + +"Good news!... Go on!" he shouted to the driver, and they galloped on. + +It was already quite dark when Prince Andrew rattled over the paved +streets of Brunn and found himself surrounded by high buildings, the +lights of shops, houses, and street lamps, fine carriages, and all that +atmosphere of a large and active town which is always so attractive to a +soldier after camp life. Despite his rapid journey and sleepless night, +Prince Andrew when he drove up to the palace felt even more vigorous and +alert than he had done the day before. Only his eyes gleamed feverishly +and his thoughts followed one another with extraordinary clearness and +rapidity. He again vividly recalled the details of the battle, no longer +dim, but definite and in the concise form in which he imagined himself +stating them to the Emperor Francis. He vividly imagined the casual +questions that might be put to him and the answers he would give. He +expected to be at once presented to the Emperor. At the chief entrance +to the palace, however, an official came running out to meet him, and +learning that he was a special messenger led him to another entrance. + +"To the right from the corridor, Euer Hochgeboren! There you will find +the adjutant on duty," said the official. "He will conduct you to the +Minister of War." + +The adjutant on duty, meeting Prince Andrew, asked him to wait, and went +in to the Minister of War. Five minutes later he returned and bowing +with particular courtesy ushered Prince Andrew before him along a +corridor to the cabinet where the Minister of War was at work. The +adjutant by his elaborate courtesy appeared to wish to ward off any +attempt at familiarity on the part of the Russian messenger. + +Prince Andrew's joyous feeling was considerably weakened as he +approached the door of the minister's room. He felt offended, and +without his noticing it the feeling of offense immediately turned into +one of disdain which was quite uncalled for. His fertile mind instantly +suggested to him a point of view which gave him a right to despise the +adjutant and the minister. "Away from the smell of powder, they probably +think it easy to gain victories!" he thought. His eyes narrowed +disdainfully, he entered the room of the Minister of War with peculiarly +deliberate steps. This feeling of disdain was heightened when he saw the +minister seated at a large table reading some papers and making pencil +notes on them, and for the first two or three minutes taking no notice +of his arrival. A wax candle stood at each side of the minister's bent +bald head with its gray temples. He went on reading to the end, without +raising his eyes at the opening of the door and the sound of footsteps. + +"Take this and deliver it," said he to his adjutant, handing him the +papers and still taking no notice of the special messenger. + +Prince Andrew felt that either the actions of Kutuzov's army interested +the Minister of War less than any of the other matters he was concerned +with, or he wanted to give the Russian special messenger that +impression. "But that is a matter of perfect indifference to me," he +thought. The minister drew the remaining papers together, arranged them +evenly, and then raised his head. He had an intellectual and distinctive +head, but the instant he turned to Prince Andrew the firm, intelligent +expression on his face changed in a way evidently deliberate and +habitual to him. His face took on the stupid artificial smile (which +does not even attempt to hide its artificiality) of a man who is +continually receiving many petitioners one after another. + +"From General Field Marshal Kutuzov?" he asked. "I hope it is good news? +There has been an encounter with Mortier? A victory? It was high time!" + +He took the dispatch which was addressed to him and began to read it +with a mournful expression. + +"Oh, my God! My God! Schmidt!" he exclaimed in German. "What a calamity! +What a calamity!" + +Having glanced through the dispatch he laid it on the table and looked +at Prince Andrew, evidently considering something. + +"Ah what a calamity! You say the affair was decisive? But Mortier is not +captured." Again he pondered. "I am very glad you have brought good +news, though Schmidt's death is a heavy price to pay for the victory. +His Majesty will no doubt wish to see you, but not today. I thank you! +You must have a rest. Be at the levee tomorrow after the parade. +However, I will let you know." + +The stupid smile, which had left his face while he was speaking, +reappeared. + +"Au revoir! Thank you very much. His Majesty will probably desire to see +you," he added, bowing his head. + +When Prince Andrew left the palace he felt that all the interest and +happiness the victory had afforded him had been now left in the +indifferent hands of the Minister of War and the polite adjutant. The +whole tenor of his thoughts instantaneously changed; the battle seemed +the memory of a remote event long past. + + + + +CHAPTER X + +Prince Andrew stayed at Brunn with Bilibin, a Russian acquaintance of +his in the diplomatic service. + +"Ah, my dear prince! I could not have a more welcome visitor," said +Bilibin as he came out to meet Prince Andrew. "Franz, put the prince's +things in my bedroom," said he to the servant who was ushering Bolkonski +in. "So you're a messenger of victory, eh? Splendid! And I am sitting +here ill, as you see." + +After washing and dressing, Prince Andrew came into the diplomat's +luxurious study and sat down to the dinner prepared for him. Bilibin +settled down comfortably beside the fire. + +After his journey and the campaign during which he had been deprived of +all the comforts of cleanliness and all the refinements of life, Prince +Andrew felt a pleasant sense of repose among luxurious surroundings such +as he had been accustomed to from childhood. Besides it was pleasant, +after his reception by the Austrians, to speak if not in Russian (for +they were speaking French) at least with a Russian who would, he +supposed, share the general Russian antipathy to the Austrians which was +then particularly strong. + +Bilibin was a man of thirty-five, a bachelor, and of the same circle as +Prince Andrew. They had known each other previously in Petersburg, but +had become more intimate when Prince Andrew was in Vienna with Kutuzov. +Just as Prince Andrew was a young man who gave promise of rising high in +the military profession, so to an even greater extent Bilibin gave +promise of rising in his diplomatic career. He still a young man but no +longer a young diplomat, as he had entered the service at the age of +sixteen, had been in Paris and Copenhagen, and now held a rather +important post in Vienna. Both the foreign minister and our ambassador +in Vienna knew him and valued him. He was not one of those many +diplomats who are esteemed because they have certain negative qualities, +avoid doing certain things, and speak French. He was one of those, who, +liking work, knew how to do it, and despite his indolence would +sometimes spend a whole night at his writing table. He worked well +whatever the import of his work. It was not the question "What for?" but +the question "How?" that interested him. What the diplomatic matter +might be he did not care, but it gave him great pleasure to prepare a +circular, memorandum, or report, skillfully, pointedly, and elegantly. +Bilibin's services were valued not only for what he wrote, but also for +his skill in dealing and conversing with those in the highest spheres. + +Bilibin liked conversation as he liked work, only when it could be made +elegantly witty. In society he always awaited an opportunity to say +something striking and took part in a conversation only when that was +possible. His conversation was always sprinkled with wittily original, +finished phrases of general interest. These sayings were prepared in the +inner laboratory of his mind in a portable form as if intentionally, so +that insignificant society people might carry them from drawing room to +drawing room. And, in fact, Bilibin's witticisms were hawked about in +the Viennese drawing rooms and often had an influence on matters +considered important. + +His thin, worn, sallow face was covered with deep wrinkles, which always +looked as clean and well washed as the tips of one's fingers after a +Russian bath. The movement of these wrinkles formed the principal play +of expression on his face. Now his forehead would pucker into deep folds +and his eyebrows were lifted, then his eyebrows would descend and deep +wrinkles would crease his cheeks. His small, deep-set eyes always +twinkled and looked out straight. + +"Well, now tell me about your exploits," said he. + +Bolkonski, very modestly without once mentioning himself, described the +engagement and his reception by the Minister of War. + +"They received me and my news as one receives a dog in a game of +skittles," said he in conclusion. + +Bilibin smiled and the wrinkles on his face disappeared. + +"Cependant, mon cher," he remarked, examining his nails from a distance +and puckering the skin above his left eye, "malgre la haute estime que +je professe pour the Orthodox Russian army, j'avoue que votre victoire +n'est pas des plus victorieuses." * + + +* "But my dear fellow, with all my respect for the Orthodox Russian +army, I must say that your victory was not particularly victorious." + +He went on talking in this way in French, uttering only those words in +Russian on which he wished to put a contemptuous emphasis. + +"Come now! You with all your forces fall on the unfortunate Mortier and +his one division, and even then Mortier slips through your fingers! +Where's the victory?" + +"But seriously," said Prince Andrew, "we can at any rate say without +boasting that it was a little better than at Ulm..." + +"Why didn't you capture one, just one, marshal for us?" + +"Because not everything happens as one expects or with the smoothness of +a parade. We had expected, as I told you, to get at their rear by seven +in the morning but had not reached it by five in the afternoon." + +"And why didn't you do it at seven in the morning? You ought to have +been there at seven in the morning," returned Bilibin with a smile. "You +ought to have been there at seven in the morning." + +"Why did you not succeed in impressing on Bonaparte by diplomatic +methods that he had better leave Genoa alone?" retorted Prince Andrew in +the same tone. + +"I know," interrupted Bilibin, "you're thinking it's very easy to take +marshals, sitting on a sofa by the fire! That is true, but still why +didn't you capture him? So don't be surprised if not only the Minister +of War but also his Most August Majesty the Emperor and King Francis is +not much delighted by your victory. Even I, a poor secretary of the +Russian Embassy, do not feel any need in token of my joy to give my +Franz a thaler, or let him go with his Liebchen to the Prater... True, +we have no Prater here..." + +He looked straight at Prince Andrew and suddenly unwrinkled his +forehead. + +"It is now my turn to ask you 'why?' mon cher," said Bolkonski. "I +confess I do not understand: perhaps there are diplomatic subtleties +here beyond my feeble intelligence, but I can't make it out. Mack loses +a whole army, the Archduke Ferdinand and the Archduke Karl give no signs +of life and make blunder after blunder. Kutuzov alone at last gains a +real victory, destroying the spell of the invincibility of the French, +and the Minister of War does not even care to hear the details." + +"That's just it, my dear fellow. You see it's hurrah for the Tsar, for +Russia, for the Orthodox Greek faith! All that is beautiful, but what do +we, I mean the Austrian court, care for your victories? Bring us nice +news of a victory by the Archduke Karl or Ferdinand (one archduke's as +good as another, as you know) and even if it is only over a fire brigade +of Bonaparte's, that will be another story and we'll fire off some +cannon! But this sort of thing seems done on purpose to vex us. The +Archduke Karl does nothing, the Archduke Ferdinand disgraces himself. +You abandon Vienna, give up its defense--as much as to say: 'Heaven is +with us, but heaven help you and your capital!' The one general whom we +all loved, Schmidt, you expose to a bullet, and then you congratulate us +on the victory! Admit that more irritating news than yours could not +have been conceived. It's as if it had been done on purpose, on purpose. +Besides, suppose you did gain a brilliant victory, if even the Archduke +Karl gained a victory, what effect would that have on the general course +of events? It's too late now when Vienna is occupied by the French +army!" + +"What? Occupied? Vienna occupied?" + +"Not only occupied, but Bonaparte is at Schonbrunn, and the count, our +dear Count Vrbna, goes to him for orders." + +After the fatigues and impressions of the journey, his reception, and +especially after having dined, Bolkonski felt that he could not take in +the full significance of the words he heard. + +"Count Lichtenfels was here this morning," Bilibin continued, "and +showed me a letter in which the parade of the French in Vienna was fully +described: Prince Murat et tout le tremblement... You see that your +victory is not a matter for great rejoicing and that you can't be +received as a savior." + +"Really I don't care about that, I don't care at all," said Prince +Andrew, beginning to understand that his news of the battle before Krems +was really of small importance in view of such events as the fall of +Austria's capital. "How is it Vienna was taken? What of the bridge and +its celebrated bridgehead and Prince Auersperg? We heard reports that +Prince Auersperg was defending Vienna?" he said. + +"Prince Auersperg is on this, on our side of the river, and is defending +us--doing it very badly, I think, but still he is defending us. But +Vienna is on the other side. No, the bridge has not yet been taken and I +hope it will not be, for it is mined and orders have been given to blow +it up. Otherwise we should long ago have been in the mountains of +Bohemia, and you and your army would have spent a bad quarter of an hour +between two fires." + +"But still this does not mean that the campaign is over," said Prince +Andrew. + +"Well, I think it is. The bigwigs here think so too, but they daren't +say so. It will be as I said at the beginning of the campaign, it won't +be your skirmishing at Durrenstein, or gunpowder at all, that will +decide the matter, but those who devised it," said Bilibin quoting one +of his own mots, releasing the wrinkles on his forehead, and pausing. +"The only question is what will come of the meeting between the Emperor +Alexander and the King of Prussia in Berlin? If Prussia joins the +Allies, Austria's hand will be forced and there will be war. If not it +is merely a question of settling where the preliminaries of the new +Campo Formio are to be drawn up." + +"What an extraordinary genius!" Prince Andrew suddenly exclaimed, +clenching his small hand and striking the table with it, "and what luck +the man has!" + +"Buonaparte?" said Bilibin inquiringly, puckering up his forehead to +indicate that he was about to say something witty. "Buonaparte?" he +repeated, accentuating the u: "I think, however, now that he lays down +laws for Austria at Schonbrunn, il faut lui faire grace de l'u! * I +shall certainly adopt an innovation and call him simply Bonaparte!" + + +* "We must let him off the u!" + +"But joking apart," said Prince Andrew, "do you really think the +campaign is over?" + +"This is what I think. Austria has been made a fool of, and she is not +used to it. She will retaliate. And she has been fooled in the first +place because her provinces have been pillaged--they say the Holy +Russian army loots terribly--her army is destroyed, her capital taken, +and all this for the beaux yeux * of His Sardinian Majesty. And +therefore--this is between ourselves--I instinctively feel that we are +being deceived, my instinct tells me of negotiations with France and +projects for peace, a secret peace concluded separately." + + +* Fine eyes. + +"Impossible!" cried Prince Andrew. "That would be too base." + +"If we live we shall see," replied Bilibin, his face again becoming +smooth as a sign that the conversation was at an end. + +When Prince Andrew reached the room prepared for him and lay down in a +clean shirt on the feather bed with its warmed and fragrant pillows, he +felt that the battle of which he had brought tidings was far, far away +from him. The alliance with Prussia, Austria's treachery, Bonaparte's +new triumph, tomorrow's levee and parade, and the audience with the +Emperor Francis occupied his thoughts. + +He closed his eyes, and immediately a sound of cannonading, of musketry +and the rattling of carriage wheels seemed to fill his ears, and now +again drawn out in a thin line the musketeers were descending the hill, +the French were firing, and he felt his heart palpitating as he rode +forward beside Schmidt with the bullets merrily whistling all around, +and he experienced tenfold the joy of living, as he had not done since +childhood. + +He woke up... + +"Yes, that all happened!" he said, and, smiling happily to himself like +a child, he fell into a deep, youthful slumber. + + + + +CHAPTER XI + +Next day he woke late. Recalling his recent impressions, the first +thought that came into his mind was that today he had to be presented to +the Emperor Francis; he remembered the Minister of War, the polite +Austrian adjutant, Bilibin, and last night's conversation. Having +dressed for his attendance at court in full parade uniform, which he had +not worn for a long time, he went into Bilibin's study fresh, animated, +and handsome, with his hand bandaged. In the study were four gentlemen +of the diplomatic corps. With Prince Hippolyte Kuragin, who was a +secretary to the embassy, Bolkonski was already acquainted. Bilibin +introduced him to the others. + +The gentlemen assembled at Bilibin's were young, wealthy, gay society +men, who here, as in Vienna, formed a special set which Bilibin, their +leader, called les notres. * This set, consisting almost exclusively of +diplomats, evidently had its own interests which had nothing to do with +war or politics but related to high society, to certain women, and to +the official side of the service. These gentlemen received Prince Andrew +as one of themselves, an honor they did not extend to many. From +politeness and to start conversation, they asked him a few questions +about the army and the battle, and then the talk went off into merry +jests and gossip. + + +* Ours. + +"But the best of it was," said one, telling of the misfortune of a +fellow diplomat, "that the Chancellor told him flatly that his +appointment to London was a promotion and that he was so to regard it. +Can you fancy the figure he cut?..." + +"But the worst of it, gentlemen--I am giving Kuragin away to you--is +that that man suffers, and this Don Juan, wicked fellow, is taking +advantage of it!" + +Prince Hippolyte was lolling in a lounge chair with his legs over its +arm. He began to laugh. + +"Tell me about that!" he said. + +"Oh, you Don Juan! You serpent!" cried several voices. + +"You, Bolkonski, don't know," said Bilibin turning to Prince Andrew, +"that all the atrocities of the French army (I nearly said of the +Russian army) are nothing compared to what this man has been doing among +the women!" + +"La femme est la compagne de l'homme," * announced Prince Hippolyte, and +began looking through a lorgnette at his elevated legs. + + +* "Woman is man's companion." + +Bilibin and the rest of "ours" burst out laughing in Hippolyte's face, +and Prince Andrew saw that Hippolyte, of whom--he had to admit--he had +almost been jealous on his wife's account, was the butt of this set. + +"Oh, I must give you a treat," Bilibin whispered to Bolkonski. "Kuragin +is exquisite when he discusses politics--you should see his gravity!" + +He sat down beside Hippolyte and wrinkling his forehead began talking to +him about politics. Prince Andrew and the others gathered round these +two. + +"The Berlin cabinet cannot express a feeling of alliance," began +Hippolyte gazing round with importance at the others, "without +expressing... as in its last note... you understand... Besides, unless +His Majesty the Emperor derogates from the principle of our alliance... + +"Wait, I have not finished..." he said to Prince Andrew, seizing him by +the arm, "I believe that intervention will be stronger than +nonintervention. And..." he paused. "Finally one cannot impute the +nonreceipt of our dispatch of November 18. That is how it will end." And +he released Bolkonski's arm to indicate that he had now quite finished. + +"Demosthenes, I know thee by the pebble thou secretest in thy golden +mouth!" said Bilibin, and the mop of hair on his head moved with +satisfaction. + +Everybody laughed, and Hippolyte louder than anyone. He was evidently +distressed, and breathed painfully, but could not restrain the wild +laughter that convulsed his usually impassive features. + +"Well now, gentlemen," said Bilibin, "Bolkonski is my guest in this +house and in Brunn itself. I want to entertain him as far as I can, with +all the pleasures of life here. If we were in Vienna it would be easy, +but here, in this wretched Moravian hole, it is more difficult, and I +beg you all to help me. Brunn's attractions must be shown him. You can +undertake the theater, I society, and you, Hippolyte, of course the +women." + +"We must let him see Amelie, she's exquisite!" said one of "ours," +kissing his finger tips. + +"In general we must turn this bloodthirsty soldier to more humane +interests," said Bilibin. + +"I shall scarcely be able to avail myself of your hospitality, +gentlemen, it is already time for me to go," replied Prince Andrew +looking at his watch. + +"Where to?" + +"To the Emperor." + +"Oh! Oh! Oh! Well, au revoir, Bolkonski! Au revoir, Prince! Come back +early to dinner," cried several voices. "We'll take you in hand." + +"When speaking to the Emperor, try as far as you can to praise the way +that provisions are supplied and the routes indicated," said Bilibin, +accompanying him to the hall. + +"I should like to speak well of them, but as far as I know the facts, I +can't," replied Bolkonski, smiling. + +"Well, talk as much as you can, anyway. He has a passion for giving +audiences, but he does not like talking himself and can't do it, as you +will see." + + + + +CHAPTER XII + +At the levee Prince Andrew stood among the Austrian officers as he had +been told to, and the Emperor Francis merely looked fixedly into his +face and just nodded to him with his long head. But after it was over, +the adjutant he had seen the previous day ceremoniously informed +Bolkonski that the Emperor desired to give him an audience. The Emperor +Francis received him standing in the middle of the room. Before the +conversation began Prince Andrew was struck by the fact that the Emperor +seemed confused and blushed as if not knowing what to say. + +"Tell me, when did the battle begin?" he asked hurriedly. + +Prince Andrew replied. Then followed other questions just as simple: +"Was Kutuzov well? When had he left Krems?" and so on. The Emperor spoke +as if his sole aim were to put a given number of questions--the answers +to these questions, as was only too evident, did not interest him. + +"At what o'clock did the battle begin?" asked the Emperor. + +"I cannot inform Your Majesty at what o'clock the battle began at the +front, but at Durrenstein, where I was, our attack began after five in +the afternoon," replied Bolkonski growing more animated and expecting +that he would have a chance to give a reliable account, which he had +ready in his mind, of all he knew and had seen. But the Emperor smiled +and interrupted him. + +"How many miles?" + +"From where to where, Your Majesty?" + +"From Durrenstein to Krems." + +"Three and a half miles, Your Majesty." + +"The French have abandoned the left bank?" + +"According to the scouts the last of them crossed on rafts during the +night." + +"Is there sufficient forage in Krems?" + +"Forage has not been supplied to the extent..." + +The Emperor interrupted him. + +"At what o'clock was General Schmidt killed?" + +"At seven o'clock, I believe." + +"At seven o'clock? It's very sad, very sad!" + +The Emperor thanked Prince Andrew and bowed. Prince Andrew withdrew and +was immediately surrounded by courtiers on all sides. Everywhere he saw +friendly looks and heard friendly words. Yesterday's adjutant reproached +him for not having stayed at the palace, and offered him his own house. +The Minister of War came up and congratulated him on the Maria Theresa +Order of the third grade, which the Emperor was conferring on him. The +Empress' chamberlain invited him to see Her Majesty. The archduchess +also wished to see him. He did not know whom to answer, and for a few +seconds collected his thoughts. Then the Russian ambassador took him by +the shoulder, led him to the window, and began to talk to him. + +Contrary to Bilibin's forecast the news he had brought was joyfully +received. A thanksgiving service was arranged, Kutuzov was awarded the +Grand Cross of Maria Theresa, and the whole army received rewards. +Bolkonski was invited everywhere, and had to spend the whole morning +calling on the principal Austrian dignitaries. Between four and five in +the afternoon, having made all his calls, he was returning to Bilibin's +house thinking out a letter to his father about the battle and his visit +to Brunn. At the door he found a vehicle half full of luggage. Franz, +Bilibin's man, was dragging a portmanteau with some difficulty out of +the front door. + +Before returning to Bilibin's Prince Andrew had gone to a bookshop to +provide himself with some books for the campaign, and had spent some +time in the shop. + +"What is it?" he asked. + +"Oh, your excellency!" said Franz, with difficulty rolling the +portmanteau into the vehicle, "we are to move on still farther. The +scoundrel is again at our heels!" + +"Eh? What?" asked Prince Andrew. + +Bilibin came out to meet him. His usually calm face showed excitement. + +"There now! Confess that this is delightful," said he. "This affair of +the Thabor Bridge, at Vienna.... They have crossed without striking a +blow!" + +Prince Andrew could not understand. + +"But where do you come from not to know what every coachman in the town +knows?" + +"I come from the archduchess'. I heard nothing there." + +"And you didn't see that everybody is packing up?" + +"I did not... What is it all about?" inquired Prince Andrew impatiently. + +"What's it all about? Why, the French have crossed the bridge that +Auersperg was defending, and the bridge was not blown up: so Murat is +now rushing along the road to Brunn and will be here in a day or two." + +"What? Here? But why did they not blow up the bridge, if it was mined?" + +"That is what I ask you. No one, not even Bonaparte, knows why." + +Bolkonski shrugged his shoulders. + +"But if the bridge is crossed it means that the army too is lost? It +will be cut off," said he. + +"That's just it," answered Bilibin. "Listen! The French entered Vienna +as I told you. Very well. Next day, which was yesterday, those +gentlemen, messieurs les marechaux, * Murat, Lannes, and Belliard, mount +and ride to the bridge. (Observe that all three are Gascons.) +'Gentlemen,' says one of them, 'you know the Thabor Bridge is mined and +doubly mined and that there are menacing fortifications at its head and +an army of fifteen thousand men has been ordered to blow up the bridge +and not let us cross? But it will please our sovereign the Emperor +Napoleon if we take this bridge, so let us three go and take it!' 'Yes, +let's!' say the others. And off they go and take the bridge, cross it, +and now with their whole army are on this side of the Danube, marching +on us, you, and your lines of communication." + + +* The marshalls. + +"Stop jesting," said Prince Andrew sadly and seriously. This news +grieved him and yet he was pleased. + +As soon as he learned that the Russian army was in such a hopeless +situation it occurred to him that it was he who was destined to lead it +out of this position; that here was the Toulon that would lift him from +the ranks of obscure officers and offer him the first step to fame! +Listening to Bilibin he was already imagining how on reaching the army +he would give an opinion at the war council which would be the only one +that could save the army, and how he alone would be entrusted with the +executing of the plan. + +"Stop this jesting," he said. + +"I am not jesting," Bilibin went on. "Nothing is truer or sadder. These +gentlemen ride onto the bridge alone and wave white handkerchiefs; they +assure the officer on duty that they, the marshals, are on their way to +negotiate with Prince Auersperg. He lets them enter the tete-de-pont. * +They spin him a thousand gasconades, saying that the war is over, that +the Emperor Francis is arranging a meeting with Bonaparte, that they +desire to see Prince Auersperg, and so on. The officer sends for +Auersperg; these gentlemen embrace the officers, crack jokes, sit on the +cannon, and meanwhile a French battalion gets to the bridge unobserved, +flings the bags of incendiary material into the water, and approaches +the tete-de-pont. At length appears the lieutenant general, our dear +Prince Auersperg von Mautern himself. 'Dearest foe! Flower of the +Austrian army, hero of the Turkish wars Hostilities are ended, we can +shake one another's hand.... The Emperor Napoleon burns with impatience +to make Prince Auersperg's acquaintance.' In a word, those gentlemen, +Gascons indeed, so bewildered him with fine words, and he is so +flattered by his rapidly established intimacy with the French marshals, +and so dazzled by the sight of Murat's mantle and ostrich plumes, qu'il +n'y voit que du feu, et oublie celui qu'il devait faire faire sur +l'ennemi!" *(2) In spite of the animation of his speech, Bilibin did not +forget to pause after this mot to give time for its due appreciation. +"The French battalion rushes to the bridgehead, spikes the guns, and the +bridge is taken! But what is best of all," he went on, his excitement +subsiding under the delightful interest of his own story, "is that the +sergeant in charge of the cannon which was to give the signal to fire +the mines and blow up the bridge, this sergeant, seeing that the French +troops were running onto the bridge, was about to fire, but Lannes +stayed his hand. The sergeant, who was evidently wiser than his general, +goes up to Auersperg and says: 'Prince, you are being deceived, here are +the French!' Murat, seeing that all is lost if the sergeant is allowed +to speak, turns to Auersperg with feigned astonishment (he is a true +Gascon) and says: 'I don't recognize the world-famous Austrian +discipline, if you allow a subordinate to address you like that!' It was +a stroke of genius. Prince Auersperg feels his dignity at stake and +orders the sergeant to be arrested. Come, you must own that this affair +of the Thabor Bridge is delightful! It is not exactly stupidity, nor +rascality...." + + +* Bridgehead. + +* (2) That their fire gets into his eyes and he forgets that he ought to +be firing at the enemy. + +"It may be treachery," said Prince Andrew, vividly imagining the gray +overcoats, wounds, the smoke of gunpowder, the sounds of firing, and the +glory that awaited him. + +"Not that either. That puts the court in too bad a light," replied +Bilibin. "It's not treachery nor rascality nor stupidity: it is just as +at Ulm... it is..."--he seemed to be trying to find the right +expression. "C'est... c'est du Mack. Nous sommes mackes (It is... it is +a bit of Mack. We are Macked)," he concluded, feeling that he had +produced a good epigram, a fresh one that would be repeated. His +hitherto puckered brow became smooth as a sign of pleasure, and with a +slight smile he began to examine his nails. + +"Where are you off to?" he said suddenly to Prince Andrew who had risen +and was going toward his room. + +"I am going away." + +"Where to?" + +"To the army." + +"But you meant to stay another two days?" + +"But now I am off at once." + +And Prince Andrew after giving directions about his departure went to +his room. + +"Do you know, mon cher," said Bilibin following him, "I have been +thinking about you. Why are you going?" + +And in proof of the conclusiveness of his opinion all the wrinkles +vanished from his face. + +Prince Andrew looked inquiringly at him and gave no reply. + +"Why are you going? I know you think it your duty to gallop back to the +army now that it is in danger. I understand that. Mon cher, it is +heroism!" + +"Not at all," said Prince Andrew. + +"But as you are a philosopher, be a consistent one, look at the other +side of the question and you will see that your duty, on the contrary, +is to take care of yourself. Leave it to those who are no longer fit for +anything else.... You have not been ordered to return and have not been +dismissed from here; therefore, you can stay and go with us wherever our +ill luck takes us. They say we are going to Olmutz, and Olmutz is a very +decent town. You and I will travel comfortably in my caleche." + +"Do stop joking, Bilibin," cried Bolkonski. + +"I am speaking sincerely as a friend! Consider! Where and why are you +going, when you might remain here? You are faced by one of two things," +and the skin over his left temple puckered, "either you will not reach +your regiment before peace is concluded, or you will share defeat and +disgrace with Kutuzov's whole army." + +And Bilibin unwrinkled his temple, feeling that the dilemma was +insoluble. + +"I cannot argue about it," replied Prince Andrew coldly, but he thought: +"I am going to save the army." + +"My dear fellow, you are a hero!" said Bilibin. + + + + +CHAPTER XIII + +That same night, having taken leave of the Minister of War, Bolkonski +set off to rejoin the army, not knowing where he would find it and +fearing to be captured by the French on the way to Krems. + +In Brunn everybody attached to the court was packing up, and the heavy +baggage was already being dispatched to Olmutz. Near Hetzelsdorf Prince +Andrew struck the high road along which the Russian army was moving with +great haste and in the greatest disorder. The road was so obstructed +with carts that it was impossible to get by in a carriage. Prince Andrew +took a horse and a Cossack from a Cossack commander, and hungry and +weary, making his way past the baggage wagons, rode in search of the +commander-in-chief and of his own luggage. Very sinister reports of the +position of the army reached him as he went along, and the appearance of +the troops in their disorderly flight confirmed these rumors. + +"Cette armee russe que l'or de l'Angleterre a transportee des extremites +de l'univers, nous allons lui faire eprouver le meme sort--(le sort de +l'armee d'Ulm)." * He remembered these words in Bonaparte's address to +his army at the beginning of the campaign, and they awoke in him +astonishment at the genius of his hero, a feeling of wounded pride, and +a hope of glory. "And should there be nothing left but to die?" he +thought. "Well, if need be, I shall do it no worse than others." + + +* "That Russian army which has been brought from the ends of the earth +by English gold, we shall cause to share the same fate--(the fate of the +army at Ulm)." + +He looked with disdain at the endless confused mass of detachments, +carts, guns, artillery, and again baggage wagons and vehicles of all +kinds overtaking one another and blocking the muddy road, three and +sometimes four abreast. From all sides, behind and before, as far as ear +could reach, there were the rattle of wheels, the creaking of carts and +gun carriages, the tramp of horses, the crack of whips, shouts, the +urging of horses, and the swearing of soldiers, orderlies, and officers. +All along the sides of the road fallen horses were to be seen, some +flayed, some not, and broken-down carts beside which solitary soldiers +sat waiting for something, and again soldiers straggling from their +companies, crowds of whom set off to the neighboring villages, or +returned from them dragging sheep, fowls, hay, and bulging sacks. At +each ascent or descent of the road the crowds were yet denser and the +din of shouting more incessant. Soldiers floundering knee-deep in mud +pushed the guns and wagons themselves. Whips cracked, hoofs slipped, +traces broke, and lungs were strained with shouting. The officers +directing the march rode backward and forward between the carts. Their +voices were but feebly heard amid the uproar and one saw by their faces +that they despaired of the possibility of checking this disorder. + +"Here is our dear Orthodox Russian army," thought Bolkonski, recalling +Bilibin's words. + +Wishing to find out where the commander-in-chief was, he rode up to a +convoy. Directly opposite to him came a strange one-horse vehicle, +evidently rigged up by soldiers out of any available materials and +looking like something between a cart, a cabriolet, and a caleche. A +soldier was driving, and a woman enveloped in shawls sat behind the +apron under the leather hood of the vehicle. Prince Andrew rode up and +was just putting his question to a soldier when his attention was +diverted by the desperate shrieks of the woman in the vehicle. An +officer in charge of transport was beating the soldier who was driving +the woman's vehicle for trying to get ahead of others, and the strokes +of his whip fell on the apron of the equipage. The woman screamed +piercingly. Seeing Prince Andrew she leaned out from behind the apron +and, waving her thin arms from under the woolen shawl, cried: + +"Mr. Aide-de-camp! Mr. Aide-de-camp!... For heaven's sake... Protect me! +What will become of us? I am the wife of the doctor of the Seventh +Chasseurs.... They won't let us pass, we are left behind and have lost +our people..." + +"I'll flatten you into a pancake!" shouted the angry officer to the +soldier. "Turn back with your slut!" + +"Mr. Aide-de-camp! Help me!... What does it all mean?" screamed the +doctor's wife. + +"Kindly let this cart pass. Don't you see it's a woman?" said Prince +Andrew riding up to the officer. + +The officer glanced at him, and without replying turned again to the +soldier. "I'll teach you to push on!... Back!" + +"Let them pass, I tell you!" repeated Prince Andrew, compressing his +lips. + +"And who are you?" cried the officer, turning on him with tipsy rage, +"who are you? Are you in command here? Eh? I am commander here, not you! +Go back or I'll flatten you into a pancake," repeated he. This +expression evidently pleased him. + +"That was a nice snub for the little aide-de-camp," came a voice from +behind. + +Prince Andrew saw that the officer was in that state of senseless, tipsy +rage when a man does not know what he is saying. He saw that his +championship of the doctor's wife in her queer trap might expose him to +what he dreaded more than anything in the world--to ridicule; but his +instinct urged him on. Before the officer finished his sentence Prince +Andrew, his face distorted with fury, rode up to him and raised his +riding whip. + +"Kind...ly let--them--pass!" + +The officer flourished his arm and hastily rode away. + +"It's all the fault of these fellows on the staff that there's this +disorder," he muttered. "Do as you like." + +Prince Andrew without lifting his eyes rode hastily away from the +doctor's wife, who was calling him her deliverer, and recalling with a +sense of disgust the minutest details of this humiliating scene he +galloped on to the village where he was told that the commander-in-chief +was. + +On reaching the village he dismounted and went to the nearest house, +intending to rest if but for a moment, eat something, and try to sort +out the stinging and tormenting thoughts that confused his mind. "This +is a mob of scoundrels and not an army," he was thinking as he went up +to the window of the first house, when a familiar voice called him by +name. + +He turned round. Nesvitski's handsome face looked out of the little +window. Nesvitski, moving his moist lips as he chewed something, and +flourishing his arm, called him to enter. + +"Bolkonski! Bolkonski!... Don't you hear? Eh? Come quick..." he shouted. + +Entering the house, Prince Andrew saw Nesvitski and another adjutant +having something to eat. They hastily turned round to him asking if he +had any news. On their familiar faces he read agitation and alarm. This +was particularly noticeable on Nesvitski's usually laughing countenance. + +"Where is the commander-in-chief?" asked Bolkonski. + +"Here, in that house," answered the adjutant. + +"Well, is it true that it's peace and capitulation?" asked Nesvitski. + +"I was going to ask you. I know nothing except that it was all I could +do to get here." + +"And we, my dear boy! It's terrible! I was wrong to laugh at Mack, we're +getting it still worse," said Nesvitski. "But sit down and have +something to eat." + +"You won't be able to find either your baggage or anything else now, +Prince. And God only knows where your man Peter is," said the other +adjutant. + +"Where are headquarters?" + +"We are to spend the night in Znaim." + +"Well, I have got all I need into packs for two horses," said Nesvitski. +"They've made up splendid packs for me--fit to cross the Bohemian +mountains with. It's a bad lookout, old fellow! But what's the matter +with you? You must be ill to shiver like that," he added, noticing that +Prince Andrew winced as at an electric shock. + +"It's nothing," replied Prince Andrew. + +He had just remembered his recent encounter with the doctor's wife and +the convoy officer. + +"What is the commander-in-chief doing here?" he asked. + +"I can't make out at all," said Nesvitski. + +"Well, all I can make out is that everything is abominable, abominable, +quite abominable!" said Prince Andrew, and he went off to the house +where the commander-in-chief was. + +Passing by Kutuzov's carriage and the exhausted saddle horses of his +suite, with their Cossacks who were talking loudly together, Prince +Andrew entered the passage. Kutuzov himself, he was told, was in the +house with Prince Bagration and Weyrother. Weyrother was the Austrian +general who had succeeded Schmidt. In the passage little Kozlovski was +squatting on his heels in front of a clerk. The clerk, with cuffs turned +up, was hastily writing at a tub turned bottom upwards. Kozlovski's face +looked worn--he too had evidently not slept all night. He glanced at +Prince Andrew and did not even nod to him. + +"Second line... have you written it?" he continued dictating to the +clerk. "The Kiev Grenadiers, Podolian..." + +"One can't write so fast, your honor," said the clerk, glancing angrily +and disrespectfully at Kozlovski. + +Through the door came the sounds of Kutuzov's voice, excited and +dissatisfied, interrupted by another, an unfamiliar voice. From the +sound of these voices, the inattentive way Kozlovski looked at him, the +disrespectful manner of the exhausted clerk, the fact that the clerk and +Kozlovski were squatting on the floor by a tub so near to the commander +in chief, and from the noisy laughter of the Cossacks holding the horses +near the window, Prince Andrew felt that something important and +disastrous was about to happen. + +He turned to Kozlovski with urgent questions. + +"Immediately, Prince," said Kozlovski. "Dispositions for Bagration." + +"What about capitulation?" + +"Nothing of the sort. Orders are issued for a battle." + +Prince Andrew moved toward the door from whence voices were heard. Just +as he was going to open it the sounds ceased, the door opened, and +Kutuzov with his eagle nose and puffy face appeared in the doorway. +Prince Andrew stood right in front of Kutuzov but the expression of the +commander in chief's one sound eye showed him to be so preoccupied with +thoughts and anxieties as to be oblivious of his presence. He looked +straight at his adjutant's face without recognizing him. + +"Well, have you finished?" said he to Kozlovski. + +"One moment, your excellency." + +Bagration, a gaunt middle-aged man of medium height with a firm, +impassive face of Oriental type, came out after the commander-in-chief. + +"I have the honor to present myself," repeated Prince Andrew rather +loudly, handing Kutuzov an envelope. + +"Ah, from Vienna? Very good. Later, later!" + +Kutuzov went out into the porch with Bagration. + +"Well, good-by, Prince," said he to Bagration. "My blessing, and may +Christ be with you in your great endeavor!" + +His face suddenly softened and tears came into his eyes. With his left +hand he drew Bagration toward him, and with his right, on which he wore +a ring, he made the sign of the cross over him with a gesture evidently +habitual, offering his puffy cheek, but Bagration kissed him on the neck +instead. + +"Christ be with you!" Kutuzov repeated and went toward his carriage. +"Get in with me," said he to Bolkonski. + +"Your excellency, I should like to be of use here. Allow me to remain +with Prince Bagration's detachment." + +"Get in," said Kutuzov, and noticing that Bolkonski still delayed, he +added: "I need good officers myself, need them myself!" + +They got into the carriage and drove for a few minutes in silence. + +"There is still much, much before us," he said, as if with an old man's +penetration he understood all that was passing in Bolkonski's mind. "If +a tenth part of his detachment returns I shall thank God," he added as +if speaking to himself. + +Prince Andrew glanced at Kutuzov's face only a foot distant from him and +involuntarily noticed the carefully washed seams of the scar near his +temple, where an Ismail bullet had pierced his skull, and the empty eye +socket. "Yes, he has a right to speak so calmly of those men's death," +thought Bolkonski. + +"That is why I beg to be sent to that detachment," he said. + +Kutuzov did not reply. He seemed to have forgotten what he had been +saying, and sat plunged in thought. Five minutes later, gently swaying +on the soft springs of the carriage, he turned to Prince Andrew. There +was not a trace of agitation on his face. With delicate irony he +questioned Prince Andrew about the details of his interview with the +Emperor, about the remarks he had heard at court concerning the Krems +affair, and about some ladies they both knew. + + + + +CHAPTER XIV + +On November 1 Kutuzov had received, through a spy, news that the army he +commanded was in an almost hopeless position. The spy reported that the +French, after crossing the bridge at Vienna, were advancing in immense +force upon Kutuzov's line of communication with the troops that were +arriving from Russia. If Kutuzov decided to remain at Krems, Napoleon's +army of one hundred and fifty thousand men would cut him off completely +and surround his exhausted army of forty thousand, and he would find +himself in the position of Mack at Ulm. If Kutuzov decided to abandon +the road connecting him with the troops arriving from Russia, he would +have to march with no road into unknown parts of the Bohemian mountains, +defending himself against superior forces of the enemy and abandoning +all hope of a junction with Buxhowden. If Kutuzov decided to retreat +along the road from Krems to Olmutz, to unite with the troops arriving +from Russia, he risked being forestalled on that road by the French who +had crossed the Vienna bridge, and encumbered by his baggage and +transport, having to accept battle on the march against an enemy three +times as strong, who would hem him in from two sides. + +Kutuzov chose this latter course. + +The French, the spy reported, having crossed the Vienna bridge, were +advancing by forced marches toward Znaim, which lay sixty-six miles off +on the line of Kutuzov's retreat. If he reached Znaim before the French, +there would be great hope of saving the army; to let the French +forestall him at Znaim meant the exposure of his whole army to a +disgrace such as that of Ulm, or to utter destruction. But to forestall +the French with his whole army was impossible. The road for the French +from Vienna to Znaim was shorter and better than the road for the +Russians from Krems to Znaim. + +The night he received the news, Kutuzov sent Bagration's vanguard, four +thousand strong, to the right across the hills from the Krems-Znaim to +the Vienna-Znaim road. Bagration was to make this march without resting, +and to halt facing Vienna with Znaim to his rear, and if he succeeded in +forestalling the French he was to delay them as long as possible. +Kutuzov himself with all his transport took the road to Znaim. + +Marching thirty miles that stormy night across roadless hills, with his +hungry, ill-shod soldiers, and losing a third of his men as stragglers +by the way, Bagration came out on the Vienna-Znaim road at Hollabrunn a +few hours ahead of the French who were approaching Hollabrunn from +Vienna. Kutuzov with his transport had still to march for some days +before he could reach Znaim. Hence Bagration with his four thousand +hungry, exhausted men would have to detain for days the whole enemy army +that came upon him at Hollabrunn, which was clearly impossible. But a +freak of fate made the impossible possible. The success of the trick +that had placed the Vienna bridge in the hands of the French without a +fight led Murat to try to deceive Kutuzov in a similar way. Meeting +Bagration's weak detachment on the Znaim road he supposed it to be +Kutuzov's whole army. To be able to crush it absolutely he awaited the +arrival of the rest of the troops who were on their way from Vienna, and +with this object offered a three days' truce on condition that both +armies should remain in position without moving. Murat declared that +negotiations for peace were already proceeding, and that he therefore +offered this truce to avoid unnecessary bloodshed. Count Nostitz, the +Austrian general occupying the advanced posts, believed Murat's emissary +and retired, leaving Bagration's division exposed. Another emissary rode +to the Russian line to announce the peace negotiations and to offer the +Russian army the three days' truce. Bagration replied that he was not +authorized either to accept or refuse a truce and sent his adjutant to +Kutuzov to report the offer he had received. + +A truce was Kutuzov's sole chance of gaining time, giving Bagration's +exhausted troops some rest, and letting the transport and heavy convoys +(whose movements were concealed from the French) advance if but one +stage nearer Znaim. The offer of a truce gave the only, and a quite +unexpected, chance of saving the army. On receiving the news he +immediately dispatched Adjutant General Wintzingerode, who was in +attendance on him, to the enemy camp. Wintzingerode was not merely to +agree to the truce but also to offer terms of capitulation, and +meanwhile Kutuzov sent his adjutants back to hasten to the utmost the +movements of the baggage trains of the entire army along the Krems-Znaim +road. Bagration's exhausted and hungry detachment, which alone covered +this movement of the transport and of the whole army, had to remain +stationary in face of an enemy eight times as strong as itself. + +Kutuzov's expectations that the proposals of capitulation (which were in +no way binding) might give time for part of the transport to pass, and +also that Murat's mistake would very soon be discovered, proved correct. +As soon as Bonaparte (who was at Schonbrunn, sixteen miles from +Hollabrunn) received Murat's dispatch with the proposal of a truce and a +capitulation, he detected a ruse and wrote the following letter to +Murat: + +Schonbrunn, 25th Brumaire, 1805, + +at eight o'clock in the morning + +To PRINCE MURAT, + +I cannot find words to express to you my displeasure. You command only +my advance guard, and have no right to arrange an armistice without my +order. You are causing me to lose the fruits of a campaign. Break the +armistice immediately and march on the enemy. Inform him that the +general who signed that capitulation had no right to do so, and that no +one but the Emperor of Russia has that right. + +If, however, the Emperor of Russia ratifies that convention, I will +ratify it; but it is only a trick. March on, destroy the Russian +army.... You are in a position to seize its baggage and artillery. + +The Russian Emperor's aide-de-camp is an impostor. Officers are nothing +when they have no powers; this one had none.... The Austrians let +themselves be tricked at the crossing of the Vienna bridge, you are +letting yourself be tricked by an aide-de-camp of the Emperor. + +NAPOLEON + +Bonaparte's adjutant rode full gallop with this menacing letter to +Murat. Bonaparte himself, not trusting to his generals, moved with all +the Guards to the field of battle, afraid of letting a ready victim +escape, and Bagration's four thousand men merrily lighted campfires, +dried and warmed themselves, cooked their porridge for the first time +for three days, and not one of them knew or imagined what was in store +for him. + + + + +CHAPTER XV + +Between three and four o'clock in the afternoon Prince Andrew, who had +persisted in his request to Kutuzov, arrived at Grunth and reported +himself to Bagration. Bonaparte's adjutant had not yet reached Murat's +detachment and the battle had not yet begun. In Bagration's detachment +no one knew anything of the general position of affairs. They talked of +peace but did not believe in its possibility; others talked of a battle +but also disbelieved in the nearness of an engagement. Bagration, +knowing Bolkonski to be a favorite and trusted adjutant, received him +with distinction and special marks of favor, explaining to him that +there would probably be an engagement that day or the next, and giving +him full liberty to remain with him during the battle or to join the +rearguard and have an eye on the order of retreat, "which is also very +important." + +"However, there will hardly be an engagement today," said Bagration as +if to reassure Prince Andrew. + +"If he is one of the ordinary little staff dandies sent to earn a medal +he can get his reward just as well in the rearguard, but if he wishes to +stay with me, let him... he'll be of use here if he's a brave officer," +thought Bagration. Prince Andrew, without replying, asked the prince's +permission to ride round the position to see the disposition of the +forces, so as to know his bearings should he be sent to execute an +order. The officer on duty, a handsome, elegantly dressed man with a +diamond ring on his forefinger, who was fond of speaking French though +he spoke it badly, offered to conduct Prince Andrew. + +On all sides they saw rain-soaked officers with dejected faces who +seemed to be seeking something, and soldiers dragging doors, benches, +and fencing from the village. + +"There now, Prince! We can't stop those fellows," said the staff officer +pointing to the soldiers. "The officers don't keep them in hand. And +there," he pointed to a sutler's tent, "they crowd in and sit. This +morning I turned them all out and now look, it's full again. I must go +there, Prince, and scare them a bit. It won't take a moment." + +"Yes, let's go in and I will get myself a roll and some cheese," said +Prince Andrew who had not yet had time to eat anything. + +"Why didn't you mention it, Prince? I would have offered you something." + +They dismounted and entered the tent. Several officers, with flushed and +weary faces, were sitting at the table eating and drinking. + +"Now what does this mean, gentlemen?" said the staff officer, in the +reproachful tone of a man who has repeated the same thing more than +once. "You know it won't do to leave your posts like this. The prince +gave orders that no one should leave his post. Now you, Captain," and he +turned to a thin, dirty little artillery officer who without his boots +(he had given them to the canteen keeper to dry), in only his stockings, +rose when they entered, smiling not altogether comfortably. + +"Well, aren't you ashamed of yourself, Captain Tushin?" he continued. +"One would think that as an artillery officer you would set a good +example, yet here you are without your boots! The alarm will be sounded +and you'll be in a pretty position without your boots!" (The staff +officer smiled.) "Kindly return to your posts, gentlemen, all of you, +all!" he added in a tone of command. + +Prince Andrew smiled involuntarily as he looked at the artillery officer +Tushin, who silent and smiling, shifting from one stockinged foot to the +other, glanced inquiringly with his large, intelligent, kindly eyes from +Prince Andrew to the staff officer. + +"The soldiers say it feels easier without boots," said Captain Tushin +smiling shyly in his uncomfortable position, evidently wishing to adopt +a jocular tone. But before he had finished he felt that his jest was +unacceptable and had not come off. He grew confused. + +"Kindly return to your posts," said the staff officer trying to preserve +his gravity. + +Prince Andrew glanced again at the artillery officer's small figure. +There was something peculiar about it, quite unsoldierly, rather comic, +but extremely attractive. + +The staff officer and Prince Andrew mounted their horses and rode on. + +Having ridden beyond the village, continually meeting and overtaking +soldiers and officers of various regiments, they saw on their left some +entrenchments being thrown up, the freshly dug clay of which showed up +red. Several battalions of soldiers, in their shirt sleeves despite the +cold wind, swarmed in these earthworks like a host of white ants; +spadefuls of red clay were continually being thrown up from behind the +bank by unseen hands. Prince Andrew and the officer rode up, looked at +the entrenchment, and went on again. Just behind it they came upon some +dozens of soldiers, continually replaced by others, who ran from the +entrenchment. They had to hold their noses and put their horses to a +trot to escape from the poisoned atmosphere of these latrines. + +"Voila l'agrement des camps, monsieur le Prince," * said the staff +officer. + + +* "This is a pleasure one gets in camp, Prince." + +They rode up the opposite hill. From there the French could already be +seen. Prince Andrew stopped and began examining the position. + +"That's our battery," said the staff officer indicating the highest +point. "It's in charge of the queer fellow we saw without his boots. You +can see everything from there; let's go there, Prince." + +"Thank you very much, I will go on alone," said Prince Andrew, wishing +to rid himself of this staff officer's company, "please don't trouble +yourself further." + +The staff officer remained behind and Prince Andrew rode on alone. + +The farther forward and nearer the enemy he went, the more orderly and +cheerful were the troops. The greatest disorder and depression had been +in the baggage train he had passed that morning on the Znaim road seven +miles away from the French. At Grunth also some apprehension and alarm +could be felt, but the nearer Prince Andrew came to the French lines the +more confident was the appearance of our troops. The soldiers in their +greatcoats were ranged in lines, the sergeants major and company +officers were counting the men, poking the last man in each section in +the ribs and telling him to hold his hand up. Soldiers scattered over +the whole place were dragging logs and brushwood and were building +shelters with merry chatter and laughter; around the fires sat others, +dressed and undressed, drying their shirts and leg bands or mending +boots or overcoats and crowding round the boilers and porridge cookers. +In one company dinner was ready, and the soldiers were gazing eagerly at +the steaming boiler, waiting till the sample, which a quartermaster +sergeant was carrying in a wooden bowl to an officer who sat on a log +before his shelter, had been tasted. + +Another company, a lucky one for not all the companies had vodka, +crowded round a pockmarked, broad-shouldered sergeant major who, tilting +a keg, filled one after another the canteen lids held out to him. The +soldiers lifted the canteen lids to their lips with reverential faces, +emptied them, rolling the vodka in their mouths, and walked away from +the sergeant major with brightened expressions, licking their lips and +wiping them on the sleeves of their greatcoats. All their faces were as +serene as if all this were happening at home awaiting peaceful +encampment, and not within sight of the enemy before an action in which +at least half of them would be left on the field. After passing a +chasseur regiment and in the lines of the Kiev grenadiers--fine fellows +busy with similar peaceful affairs--near the shelter of the regimental +commander, higher than and different from the others, Prince Andrew came +out in front of a platoon of grenadiers before whom lay a naked man. Two +soldiers held him while two others were flourishing their switches and +striking him regularly on his bare back. The man shrieked unnaturally. A +stout major was pacing up and down the line, and regardless of the +screams kept repeating: + +"It's a shame for a soldier to steal; a soldier must be honest, +honorable, and brave, but if he robs his fellows there is no honor in +him, he's a scoundrel. Go on! Go on!" + +So the swishing sound of the strokes, and the desperate but unnatural +screams, continued. + +"Go on, go on!" said the major. + +A young officer with a bewildered and pained expression on his face +stepped away from the man and looked round inquiringly at the adjutant +as he rode by. + +Prince Andrew, having reached the front line, rode along it. Our front +line and that of the enemy were far apart on the right and left flanks, +but in the center where the men with a flag of truce had passed that +morning, the lines were so near together that the men could see one +another's faces and speak to one another. Besides the soldiers who +formed the picket line on either side, there were many curious onlookers +who, jesting and laughing, stared at their strange foreign enemies. + +Since early morning--despite an injunction not to approach the picket +line--the officers had been unable to keep sight-seers away. The +soldiers forming the picket line, like showmen exhibiting a curiosity, +no longer looked at the French but paid attention to the sight-seers and +grew weary waiting to be relieved. Prince Andrew halted to have a look +at the French. + +"Look! Look there!" one soldier was saying to another, pointing to a +Russian musketeer who had gone up to the picket line with an officer and +was rapidly and excitedly talking to a French grenadier. "Hark to him +jabbering! Fine, isn't it? It's all the Frenchy can do to keep up with +him. There now, Sidorov!" + +"Wait a bit and listen. It's fine!" answered Sidorov, who was considered +an adept at French. + +The soldier to whom the laughers referred was Dolokhov. Prince Andrew +recognized him and stopped to listen to what he was saying. Dolokhov had +come from the left flank where their regiment was stationed, with his +captain. + +"Now then, go on, go on!" incited the officer, bending forward and +trying not to lose a word of the speech which was incomprehensible to +him. "More, please: more! What's he saying?" + +Dolokhov did not answer the captain; he had been drawn into a hot +dispute with the French grenadier. They were naturally talking about the +campaign. The Frenchman, confusing the Austrians with the Russians, was +trying to prove that the Russians had surrendered and had fled all the +way from Ulm, while Dolokhov maintained that the Russians had not +surrendered but had beaten the French. + +"We have orders to drive you off here, and we shall drive you off," said +Dolokhov. + +"Only take care you and your Cossacks are not all captured!" said the +French grenadier. + +The French onlookers and listeners laughed. + +"We'll make you dance as we did under Suvorov...," * said Dolokhov. + + +* "On vous fera danser." + +"Qu' est-ce qu'il chante?" * asked a Frenchman. + + +* "What's he singing about?" + +"It's ancient history," said another, guessing that it referred to a +former war. "The Emperor will teach your Suvara as he has taught the +others..." + +"Bonaparte..." began Dolokhov, but the Frenchman interrupted him. + +"Not Bonaparte. He is the Emperor! Sacre nom...!" cried he angrily. + +"The devil skin your Emperor." + +And Dolokhov swore at him in coarse soldier's Russian and shouldering +his musket walked away. + +"Let us go, Ivan Lukich," he said to the captain. + +"Ah, that's the way to talk French," said the picket soldiers. "Now, +Sidorov, you have a try!" + +Sidorov, turning to the French, winked, and began to jabber meaningless +sounds very fast: "Kari, mala, tafa, safi, muter, Kaska," he said, +trying to give an expressive intonation to his voice. + +"Ho! ho! ho! Ha! ha! ha! ha! Ouh! ouh!" came peals of such healthy and +good-humored laughter from the soldiers that it infected the French +involuntarily, so much so that the only thing left to do seemed to be to +unload the muskets, explode the ammunition, and all return home as +quickly as possible. + +But the guns remained loaded, the loopholes in blockhouses and +entrenchments looked out just as menacingly, and the unlimbered cannon +confronted one another as before. + + + + +CHAPTER XVI + +Having ridden round the whole line from right flank to left, Prince +Andrew made his way up to the battery from which the staff officer had +told him the whole field could be seen. Here he dismounted, and stopped +beside the farthest of the four unlimbered cannon. Before the guns an +artillery sentry was pacing up and down; he stood at attention when the +officer arrived, but at a sign resumed his measured, monotonous pacing. +Behind the guns were their limbers and still farther back picket ropes +and artillerymen's bonfires. To the left, not far from the farthest +cannon, was a small, newly constructed wattle shed from which came the +sound of officers' voices in eager conversation. + +It was true that a view over nearly the whole Russian position and the +greater part of the enemy's opened out from this battery. Just facing +it, on the crest of the opposite hill, the village of Schon Grabern +could be seen, and in three places to left and right the French troops +amid the smoke of their campfires, the greater part of whom were +evidently in the village itself and behind the hill. To the left from +that village, amid the smoke, was something resembling a battery, but it +was impossible to see it clearly with the naked eye. Our right flank was +posted on a rather steep incline which dominated the French position. +Our infantry were stationed there, and at the farthest point the +dragoons. In the center, where Tushin's battery stood and from which +Prince Andrew was surveying the position, was the easiest and most +direct descent and ascent to the brook separating us from Schon Grabern. +On the left our troops were close to a copse, in which smoked the +bonfires of our infantry who were felling wood. The French line was +wider than ours, and it was plain that they could easily outflank us on +both sides. Behind our position was a steep and deep dip, making it +difficult for artillery and cavalry to retire. Prince Andrew took out +his notebook and, leaning on the cannon, sketched a plan of the +position. He made some notes on two points, intending to mention them to +Bagration. His idea was, first, to concentrate all the artillery in the +center, and secondly, to withdraw the cavalry to the other side of the +dip. Prince Andrew, being always near the commander in chief, closely +following the mass movements and general orders, and constantly studying +historical accounts of battles, involuntarily pictured to himself the +course of events in the forthcoming action in broad outline. He imagined +only important possibilities: "If the enemy attacks the right flank," he +said to himself, "the Kiev grenadiers and the Podolsk chasseurs must +hold their position till reserves from the center come up. In that case +the dragoons could successfully make a flank counterattack. If they +attack our center we, having the center battery on this high ground, +shall withdraw the left flank under its cover, and retreat to the dip by +echelons." So he reasoned.... All the time he had been beside the gun, +he had heard the voices of the officers distinctly, but as often happens +had not understood a word of what they were saying. Suddenly, however, +he was struck by a voice coming from the shed, and its tone was so +sincere that he could not but listen. + +"No, friend," said a pleasant and, as it seemed to Prince Andrew, a +familiar voice, "what I say is that if it were possible to know what is +beyond death, none of us would be afraid of it. That's so, friend." + +Another, a younger voice, interrupted him: "Afraid or not, you can't +escape it anyhow." + +"All the same, one is afraid! Oh, you clever people," said a third manly +voice interrupting them both. "Of course you artillery men are very +wise, because you can take everything along with you--vodka and snacks." + +And the owner of the manly voice, evidently an infantry officer, +laughed. + +"Yes, one is afraid," continued the first speaker, he of the familiar +voice. "One is afraid of the unknown, that's what it is. Whatever we may +say about the soul going to the sky... we know there is no sky but only +an atmosphere." + +The manly voice again interrupted the artillery officer. + +"Well, stand us some of your herb vodka, Tushin," it said. + +"Why," thought Prince Andrew, "that's the captain who stood up in the +sutler's hut without his boots." He recognized the agreeable, +philosophizing voice with pleasure. + +"Some herb vodka? Certainly!" said Tushin. "But still, to conceive a +future life..." + +He did not finish. Just then there was a whistle in the air; nearer and +nearer, faster and louder, louder and faster, a cannon ball, as if it +had not finished saying what was necessary, thudded into the ground near +the shed with super human force, throwing up a mass of earth. The ground +seemed to groan at the terrible impact. + +And immediately Tushin, with a short pipe in the corner of his mouth and +his kind, intelligent face rather pale, rushed out of the shed followed +by the owner of the manly voice, a dashing infantry officer who hurried +off to his company, buttoning up his coat as he ran. + + + + +CHAPTER XVII + +Mounting his horse again Prince Andrew lingered with the battery, +looking at the puff from the gun that had sent the ball. His eyes ran +rapidly over the wide space, but he only saw that the hitherto +motionless masses of the French now swayed and that there really was a +battery to their left. The smoke above it had not yet dispersed. Two +mounted Frenchmen, probably adjutants, were galloping up the hill. A +small but distinctly visible enemy column was moving down the hill, +probably to strengthen the front line. The smoke of the first shot had +not yet dispersed before another puff appeared, followed by a report. +The battle had begun! Prince Andrew turned his horse and galloped back +to Grunth to find Prince Bagration. He heard the cannonade behind him +growing louder and more frequent. Evidently our guns had begun to reply. +From the bottom of the slope, where the parleys had taken place, came +the report of musketry. + +Lemarrois had just arrived at a gallop with Bonaparte's stern letter, +and Murat, humiliated and anxious to expiate his fault, had at once +moved his forces to attack the center and outflank both the Russian +wings, hoping before evening and before the arrival of the Emperor to +crush the contemptible detachment that stood before him. + +"It has begun. Here it is!" thought Prince Andrew, feeling the blood +rush to his heart. "But where and how will my Toulon present itself?" + +Passing between the companies that had been eating porridge and drinking +vodka a quarter of an hour before, he saw everywhere the same rapid +movement of soldiers forming ranks and getting their muskets ready, and +on all their faces he recognized the same eagerness that filled his +heart. "It has begun! Here it is, dreadful but enjoyable!" was what the +face of each soldier and each officer seemed to say. + +Before he had reached the embankments that were being thrown up, he saw, +in the light of the dull autumn evening, mounted men coming toward him. +The foremost, wearing a Cossack cloak and lambskin cap and riding a +white horse, was Prince Bagration. Prince Andrew stopped, waiting for +him to come up; Prince Bagration reined in his horse and recognizing +Prince Andrew nodded to him. He still looked ahead while Prince Andrew +told him what he had seen. + +The feeling, "It has begun! Here it is!" was seen even on Prince +Bagration's hard brown face with its half-closed, dull, sleepy eyes. +Prince Andrew gazed with anxious curiosity at that impassive face and +wished he could tell what, if anything, this man was thinking and +feeling at that moment. "Is there anything at all behind that impassive +face?" Prince Andrew asked himself as he looked. Prince Bagration bent +his head in sign of agreement with what Prince Andrew told him, and +said, "Very good!" in a tone that seemed to imply that everything that +took place and was reported to him was exactly what he had foreseen. +Prince Andrew, out of breath with his rapid ride, spoke quickly. Prince +Bagration, uttering his words with an Oriental accent, spoke +particularly slowly, as if to impress the fact that there was no need to +hurry. However, he put his horse to a trot in the direction of Tushin's +battery. Prince Andrew followed with the suite. Behind Prince Bagration +rode an officer of the suite, the prince's personal adjutant, Zherkov, +an orderly officer, the staff officer on duty, riding a fine bobtailed +horse, and a civilian--an accountant who had asked permission to be +present at the battle out of curiosity. The accountant, a stout, full- +faced man, looked around him with a naive smile of satisfaction and +presented a strange appearance among the hussars, Cossacks, and +adjutants, in his camlet coat, as he jolted on his horse with a convoy +officer's saddle. + +"He wants to see a battle," said Zherkov to Bolkonski, pointing to the +accountant, "but he feels a pain in the pit of his stomach already." + +"Oh, leave off!" said the accountant with a beaming but rather cunning +smile, as if flattered at being made the subject of Zherkov's joke, and +purposely trying to appear stupider than he really was. + +"It is very strange, mon Monsieur Prince," said the staff officer. (He +remembered that in French there is some peculiar way of addressing a +prince, but could not get it quite right.) + +By this time they were all approaching Tushin's battery, and a ball +struck the ground in front of them. + +"What's that that has fallen?" asked the accountant with a naive smile. + +"A French pancake," answered Zherkov. + +"So that's what they hit with?" asked the accountant. "How awful!" + +He seemed to swell with satisfaction. He had hardly finished speaking +when they again heard an unexpectedly violent whistling which suddenly +ended with a thud into something soft... f-f-flop! and a Cossack, riding +a little to their right and behind the accountant, crashed to earth with +his horse. Zherkov and the staff officer bent over their saddles and +turned their horses away. The accountant stopped, facing the Cossack, +and examined him with attentive curiosity. The Cossack was dead, but the +horse still struggled. + +Prince Bagration screwed up his eyes, looked round, and, seeing the +cause of the confusion, turned away with indifference, as if to say, "Is +it worth while noticing trifles?" He reined in his horse with the care +of a skillful rider and, slightly bending over, disengaged his saber +which had caught in his cloak. It was an old-fashioned saber of a kind +no longer in general use. Prince Andrew remembered the story of Suvorov +giving his saber to Bagration in Italy, and the recollection was +particularly pleasant at that moment. They had reached the battery at +which Prince Andrew had been when he examined the battlefield. + +"Whose company?" asked Prince Bagration of an artilleryman standing by +the ammunition wagon. + +He asked, "Whose company?" but he really meant, "Are you frightened +here?" and the artilleryman understood him. + +"Captain Tushin's, your excellency!" shouted the red-haired, freckled +gunner in a merry voice, standing to attention. + +"Yes, yes," muttered Bagration as if considering something, and he rode +past the limbers to the farthest cannon. + +As he approached, a ringing shot issued from it deafening him and his +suite, and in the smoke that suddenly surrounded the gun they could see +the gunners who had seized it straining to roll it quickly back to its +former position. A huge, broad-shouldered gunner, Number One, holding a +mop, his legs far apart, sprang to the wheel; while Number Two with a +trembling hand placed a charge in the cannon's mouth. The short, round- +shouldered Captain Tushin, stumbling over the tail of the gun carriage, +moved forward and, not noticing the general, looked out shading his eyes +with his small hand. + +"Lift it two lines more and it will be just right," cried he in a feeble +voice to which he tried to impart a dashing note, ill-suited to his weak +figure. "Number Two!" he squeaked. "Fire, Medvedev!" + +Bagration called to him, and Tushin, raising three fingers to his cap +with a bashful and awkward gesture not at all like a military salute but +like a priest's benediction, approached the general. Though Tushin's +guns had been intended to cannonade the valley, he was firing incendiary +balls at the village of Schon Grabern visible just opposite, in front of +which large masses of French were advancing. + +No one had given Tushin orders where and at what to fire, but after +consulting his sergeant major, Zakharchenko, for whom he had great +respect, he had decided that it would be a good thing to set fire to the +village. "Very good!" said Bagration in reply to the officer's report, +and began deliberately to examine the whole battlefield extended before +him. The French had advanced nearest on our right. Below the height on +which the Kiev regiment was stationed, in the hollow where the rivulet +flowed, the soul-stirring rolling and crackling of musketry was heard, +and much farther to the right beyond the dragoons, the officer of the +suite pointed out to Bagration a French column that was outflanking us. +To the left the horizon bounded by the adjacent wood. Prince Bagration +ordered two battalions from the center to be sent to reinforce the right +flank. The officer of the suite ventured to remark to the prince that if +these battalions went away, the guns would remain without support. +Prince Bagration turned to the officer and with his dull eyes looked at +him in silence. It seemed to Prince Andrew that the officer's remark was +just and that really no answer could be made to it. But at that moment +an adjutant galloped up with a message from the commander of the +regiment in the hollow and news that immense masses of the French were +coming down upon them and that his regiment was in disorder and was +retreating upon the Kiev grenadiers. Prince Bagration bowed his head in +sign of assent and approval. He rode off at a walk to the right and sent +an adjutant to the dragoons with orders to attack the French. But this +adjutant returned half an hour later with the news that the commander of +the dragoons had already retreated beyond the dip in the ground, as a +heavy fire had been opened on him and he was losing men uselessly, and +so had hastened to throw some sharpshooters into the wood. + +"Very good!" said Bagration. + +As he was leaving the battery, firing was heard on the left also, and as +it was too far to the left flank for him to have time to go there +himself, Prince Bagration sent Zherkov to tell the general in command +(the one who had paraded his regiment before Kutuzov at Braunau) that he +must retreat as quickly as possible behind the hollow in the rear, as +the right flank would probably not be able to withstand the enemy's +attack very long. About Tushin and the battalion that had been in +support of his battery all was forgotten. Prince Andrew listened +attentively to Bagration's colloquies with the commanding officers and +the orders he gave them and, to his surprise, found that no orders were +really given, but that Prince Bagration tried to make it appear that +everything done by necessity, by accident, or by the will of subordinate +commanders was done, if not by his direct command, at least in accord +with his intentions. Prince Andrew noticed, however, that though what +happened was due to chance and was independent of the commander's will, +owing to the tact Bagration showed, his presence was very valuable. +Officers who approached him with disturbed countenances became calm; +soldiers and officers greeted him gaily, grew more cheerful in his +presence, and were evidently anxious to display their courage before +him. + + + + +CHAPTER XVIII + +Prince Bagration, having reached the highest point of our right flank, +began riding downhill to where the roll of musketry was heard but where +on account of the smoke nothing could be seen. The nearer they got to +the hollow the less they could see but the more they felt the nearness +of the actual battlefield. They began to meet wounded men. One with a +bleeding head and no cap was being dragged along by two soldiers who +supported him under the arms. There was a gurgle in his throat and he +was spitting blood. A bullet had evidently hit him in the throat or +mouth. Another was walking sturdily by himself but without his musket, +groaning aloud and swinging his arm which had just been hurt, while +blood from it was streaming over his greatcoat as from a bottle. He had +that moment been wounded and his face showed fear rather than suffering. +Crossing a road they descended a steep incline and saw several men lying +on the ground; they also met a crowd of soldiers some of whom were +unwounded. The soldiers were ascending the hill breathing heavily, and +despite the general's presence were talking loudly and gesticulating. In +front of them rows of gray cloaks were already visible through the +smoke, and an officer catching sight of Bagration rushed shouting after +the crowd of retreating soldiers, ordering them back. Bagration rode up +to the ranks along which shots crackled now here and now there, drowning +the sound of voices and the shouts of command. The whole air reeked with +smoke. The excited faces of the soldiers were blackened with it. Some +were using their ramrods, others putting powder on the touchpans or +taking charges from their pouches, while others were firing, though who +they were firing at could not be seen for the smoke which there was no +wind to carry away. A pleasant humming and whistling of bullets were +often heard. "What is this?" thought Prince Andrew approaching the crowd +of soldiers. "It can't be an attack, for they are not moving; it can't +be a square--for they are not drawn up for that." + +The commander of the regiment, a thin, feeble-looking old man with a +pleasant smile--his eyelids drooping more than half over his old eyes, +giving him a mild expression, rode up to Bagration and welcomed him as a +host welcomes an honored guest. He reported that his regiment had been +attacked by French cavalry and that, though the attack had been +repulsed, he had lost more than half his men. He said the attack had +been repulsed, employing this military term to describe what had +occurred to his regiment, but in reality he did not himself know what +had happened during that half-hour to the troops entrusted to him, and +could not say with certainty whether the attack had been repulsed or his +regiment had been broken up. All he knew was that at the commencement of +the action balls and shells began flying all over his regiment and +hitting men and that afterwards someone had shouted "Cavalry!" and our +men had begun firing. They were still firing, not at the cavalry which +had disappeared, but at French infantry who had come into the hollow and +were firing at our men. Prince Bagration bowed his head as a sign that +this was exactly what he had desired and expected. Turning to his +adjutant he ordered him to bring down the two battalions of the Sixth +Chasseurs whom they had just passed. Prince Andrew was struck by the +changed expression on Prince Bagration's face at this moment. It +expressed the concentrated and happy resolution you see on the face of a +man who on a hot day takes a final run before plunging into the water. +The dull, sleepy expression was no longer there, nor the affectation of +profound thought. The round, steady, hawk's eyes looked before him +eagerly and rather disdainfully, not resting on anything although his +movements were still slow and measured. + +The commander of the regiment turned to Prince Bagration, entreating him +to go back as it was too dangerous to remain where they were. "Please, +your excellency, for God's sake!" he kept saying, glancing for support +at an officer of the suite who turned away from him. "There, you see!" +and he drew attention to the bullets whistling, singing, and hissing +continually around them. He spoke in the tone of entreaty and reproach +that a carpenter uses to a gentleman who has picked up an ax: "We are +used to it, but you, sir, will blister your hands." He spoke as if those +bullets could not kill him, and his half-closed eyes gave still more +persuasiveness to his words. The staff officer joined in the colonel's +appeals, but Bagration did not reply; he only gave an order to cease +firing and re-form, so as to give room for the two approaching +battalions. While he was speaking, the curtain of smoke that had +concealed the hollow, driven by a rising wind, began to move from right +to left as if drawn by an invisible hand, and the hill opposite, with +the French moving about on it, opened out before them. All eyes fastened +involuntarily on this French column advancing against them and winding +down over the uneven ground. One could already see the soldiers' shaggy +caps, distinguish the officers from the men, and see the standard +flapping against its staff. + +"They march splendidly," remarked someone in Bagration's suite. + +The head of the column had already descended into the hollow. The clash +would take place on this side of it... + +The remains of our regiment which had been in action rapidly formed up +and moved to the right; from behind it, dispersing the laggards, came +two battalions of the Sixth Chasseurs in fine order. Before they had +reached Bagration, the weighty tread of the mass of men marching in step +could be heard. On their left flank, nearest to Bagration, marched a +company commander, a fine round-faced man, with a stupid and happy +expression--the same man who had rushed out of the wattle shed. At that +moment he was clearly thinking of nothing but how dashing a fellow he +would appear as he passed the commander. + +With the self-satisfaction of a man on parade, he stepped lightly with +his muscular legs as if sailing along, stretching himself to his full +height without the smallest effort, his ease contrasting with the heavy +tread of the soldiers who were keeping step with him. He carried close +to his leg a narrow unsheathed sword (small, curved, and not like a real +weapon) and looked now at the superior officers and now back at the men +without losing step, his whole powerful body turning flexibly. It was as +if all the powers of his soul were concentrated on passing the commander +in the best possible manner, and feeling that he was doing it well he +was happy. "Left... left... left..." he seemed to repeat to himself at +each alternate step; and in time to this, with stern but varied faces, +the wall of soldiers burdened with knapsacks and muskets marched in +step, and each one of these hundreds of soldiers seemed to be repeating +to himself at each alternate step, "Left... left... left..." A fat major +skirted a bush, puffing and falling out of step; a soldier who had +fallen behind, his face showing alarm at his defection, ran at a trot, +panting to catch up with his company. A cannon ball, cleaving the air, +flew over the heads of Bagration and his suite, and fell into the column +to the measure of "Left... left!" "Close up!" came the company +commander's voice in jaunty tones. The soldiers passed in a semicircle +round something where the ball had fallen, and an old trooper on the +flank, a noncommissioned officer who had stopped beside the dead men, +ran to catch up his line and, falling into step with a hop, looked back +angrily, and through the ominous silence and the regular tramp of feet +beating the ground in unison, one seemed to hear left... left... left. + +"Well done, lads!" said Prince Bagration. + +"Glad to do our best, your ex'len-lency!" came a confused shout from the +ranks. A morose soldier marching on the left turned his eyes on +Bagration as he shouted, with an expression that seemed to say: "We know +that ourselves!" Another, without looking round, as though fearing to +relax, shouted with his mouth wide open and passed on. + +The order was given to halt and down knapsacks. + +Bagration rode round the ranks that had marched past him and dismounted. +He gave the reins to a Cossack, took off and handed over his felt coat, +stretched his legs, and set his cap straight. The head of the French +column, with its officers leading, appeared from below the hill. + +"Forward, with God!" said Bagration, in a resolute, sonorous voice, +turning for a moment to the front line, and slightly swinging his arms, +he went forward uneasily over the rough field with the awkward gait of a +cavalryman. Prince Andrew felt that an invisible power was leading him +forward, and experienced great happiness. + +The French were already near. Prince Andrew, walking beside Bagration, +could clearly distinguish their bandoliers, red epaulets, and even their +faces. (He distinctly saw an old French officer who, with gaitered legs +and turned-out toes, climbed the hill with difficulty.) Prince Bagration +gave no further orders and silently continued to walk on in front of the +ranks. Suddenly one shot after another rang out from the French, smoke +appeared all along their uneven ranks, and musket shots sounded. Several +of our men fell, among them the round-faced officer who had marched so +gaily and complacently. But at the moment the first report was heard, +Bagration looked round and shouted, "Hurrah!" + +"Hurrah--ah!--ah!" rang a long-drawn shout from our ranks, and passing +Bagration and racing one another they rushed in an irregular but joyous +and eager crowd down the hill at their disordered foe. + + + + +CHAPTER XIX + +The attack of the Sixth Chasseurs secured the retreat of our right +flank. In the center Tushin's forgotten battery, which had managed to +set fire to the Schon Grabern village, delayed the French advance. The +French were putting out the fire which the wind was spreading, and thus +gave us time to retreat. The retirement of the center to the other side +of the dip in the ground at the rear was hurried and noisy, but the +different companies did not get mixed. But our left--which consisted of +the Azov and Podolsk infantry and the Pavlograd hussars--was +simultaneously attacked and outflanked by superior French forces under +Lannes and was thrown into confusion. Bagration had sent Zherkov to the +general commanding that left flank with orders to retreat immediately. + +Zherkov, not removing his hand from his cap, turned his horse about and +galloped off. But no sooner had he left Bagration than his courage +failed him. He was seized by panic and could not go where it was +dangerous. + +Having reached the left flank, instead of going to the front where the +firing was, he began to look for the general and his staff where they +could not possibly be, and so did not deliver the order. + +The command of the left flank belonged by seniority to the commander of +the regiment Kutuzov had reviewed at Braunau and in which Dolokhov was +serving as a private. But the command of the extreme left flank had been +assigned to the commander of the Pavlograd regiment in which Rostov was +serving, and a misunderstanding arose. The two commanders were much +exasperated with one another and, long after the action had begun on the +right flank and the French were already advancing, were engaged in +discussion with the sole object of offending one another. But the +regiments, both cavalry and infantry, were by no means ready for the +impending action. From privates to general they were not expecting a +battle and were engaged in peaceful occupations, the cavalry feeding the +horses and the infantry collecting wood. + +"He higher iss dan I in rank," said the German colonel of the hussars, +flushing and addressing an adjutant who had ridden up, "so let him do +what he vill, but I cannot sacrifice my hussars... Bugler, sount ze +retreat!" + +But haste was becoming imperative. Cannon and musketry, mingling +together, thundered on the right and in the center, while the capotes of +Lannes' sharpshooters were already seen crossing the milldam and forming +up within twice the range of a musket shot. The general in command of +the infantry went toward his horse with jerky steps, and having mounted +drew himself up very straight and tall and rode to the Pavlograd +commander. The commanders met with polite bows but with secret +malevolence in their hearts. + +"Once again, Colonel," said the general, "I can't leave half my men in +the wood. I beg of you, I beg of you," he repeated, "to occupy the +position and prepare for an attack." + +"I peg of you yourself not to mix in vot is not your business!" suddenly +replied the irate colonel. "If you vere in the cavalry..." + +"I am not in the cavalry, Colonel, but I am a Russian general and if you +are not aware of the fact..." + +"Quite avare, your excellency," suddenly shouted the colonel, touching +his horse and turning purple in the face. "Vill you be so goot to come +to ze front and see dat zis position iss no goot? I don't vish to +destroy my men for your pleasure!" + +"You forget yourself, Colonel. I am not considering my own pleasure and +I won't allow it to be said!" + +Taking the colonel's outburst as a challenge to his courage, the general +expanded his chest and rode, frowning, beside him to the front line, as +if their differences would be settled there amongst the bullets. They +reached the front, several bullets sped over them, and they halted in +silence. There was nothing fresh to be seen from the line, for from +where they had been before it had been evident that it was impossible +for cavalry to act among the bushes and broken ground, as well as that +the French were outflanking our left. The general and colonel looked +sternly and significantly at one another like two fighting cocks +preparing for battle, each vainly trying to detect signs of cowardice in +the other. Both passed the examination successfully. As there was +nothing to be said, and neither wished to give occasion for it to be +alleged that he had been the first to leave the range of fire, they +would have remained there for a long time testing each other's courage +had it not been that just then they heard the rattle of musketry and a +muffled shout almost behind them in the wood. The French had attacked +the men collecting wood in the copse. It was no longer possible for the +hussars to retreat with the infantry. They were cut off from the line of +retreat on the left by the French. However inconvenient the position, it +was now necessary to attack in order to cut a way through for +themselves. + +The squadron in which Rostov was serving had scarcely time to mount +before it was halted facing the enemy. Again, as at the Enns bridge, +there was nothing between the squadron and the enemy, and again that +terrible dividing line of uncertainty and fear--resembling the line +separating the living from the dead--lay between them. All were +conscious of this unseen line, and the question whether they would cross +it or not, and how they would cross it, agitated them all. + +The colonel rode to the front, angrily gave some reply to questions put +to him by the officers, and, like a man desperately insisting on having +his own way, gave an order. No one said anything definite, but the rumor +of an attack spread through the squadron. The command to form up rang +out and the sabers whizzed as they were drawn from their scabbards. +Still no one moved. The troops of the left flank, infantry and hussars +alike, felt that the commander did not himself know what to do, and this +irresolution communicated itself to the men. + +"If only they would be quick!" thought Rostov, feeling that at last the +time had come to experience the joy of an attack of which he had so +often heard from his fellow hussars. + +"Fo'ward, with God, lads!" rang out Denisov's voice. "At a twot +fo'ward!" + +The horses' croups began to sway in the front line. Rook pulled at the +reins and started of his own accord. + +Before him, on the right, Rostov saw the front lines of his hussars and +still farther ahead a dark line which he could not see distinctly but +took to be the enemy. Shots could be heard, but some way off. + +"Faster!" came the word of command, and Rostov felt Rook's flanks +drooping as he broke into a gallop. + +Rostov anticipated his horse's movements and became more and more +elated. He had noticed a solitary tree ahead of him. This tree had been +in the middle of the line that had seemed so terrible--and now he had +crossed that line and not only was there nothing terrible, but +everything was becoming more and more happy and animated. "Oh, how I +will slash at him!" thought Rostov, gripping the hilt of his saber. + +"Hur-a-a-a-ah!" came a roar of voices. "Let anyone come my way now," +thought Rostov driving his spurs into Rook and letting him go at a full +gallop so that he outstripped the others. Ahead, the enemy was already +visible. Suddenly something like a birch broom seemed to sweep over the +squadron. Rostov raised his saber, ready to strike, but at that instant +the trooper Nikitenko, who was galloping ahead, shot away from him, and +Rostov felt as in a dream that he continued to be carried forward with +unnatural speed but yet stayed on the same spot. From behind him +Bondarchuk, an hussar he knew, jolted against him and looked angrily at +him. Bondarchuk's horse swerved and galloped past. + +"How is it I am not moving? I have fallen, I am killed!" Rostov asked +and answered at the same instant. He was alone in the middle of a field. +Instead of the moving horses and hussars' backs, he saw nothing before +him but the motionless earth and the stubble around him. There was warm +blood under his arm. "No, I am wounded and the horse is killed." Rook +tried to rise on his forelegs but fell back, pinning his rider's leg. +Blood was flowing from his head; he struggled but could not rise. Rostov +also tried to rise but fell back, his sabretache having become entangled +in the saddle. Where our men were, and where the French, he did not +know. There was no one near. + +Having disentangled his leg, he rose. "Where, on which side, was now the +line that had so sharply divided the two armies?" he asked himself and +could not answer. "Can something bad have happened to me?" he wondered +as he got up: and at that moment he felt that something superfluous was +hanging on his benumbed left arm. The wrist felt as if it were not his. +He examined his hand carefully, vainly trying to find blood on it. "Ah, +here are people coming," he thought joyfully, seeing some men running +toward him. "They will help me!" In front came a man wearing a strange +shako and a blue cloak, swarthy, sunburned, and with a hooked nose. Then +came two more, and many more running behind. One of them said something +strange, not in Russian. In among the hindmost of these men wearing +similar shakos was a Russian hussar. He was being held by the arms and +his horse was being led behind him. + +"It must be one of ours, a prisoner. Yes. Can it be that they will take +me too? Who are these men?" thought Rostov, scarcely believing his eyes. +"Can they be French?" He looked at the approaching Frenchmen, and though +but a moment before he had been galloping to get at them and hack them +to pieces, their proximity now seemed so awful that he could not believe +his eyes. "Who are they? Why are they running? Can they be coming at me? +And why? To kill me? Me whom everyone is so fond of?" He remembered his +mother's love for him, and his family's, and his friends', and the +enemy's intention to kill him seemed impossible. "But perhaps they may +do it!" For more than ten seconds he stood not moving from the spot or +realizing the situation. The foremost Frenchman, the one with the hooked +nose, was already so close that the expression of his face could be +seen. And the excited, alien face of that man, his bayonet hanging down, +holding his breath, and running so lightly, frightened Rostov. He seized +his pistol and, instead of firing it, flung it at the Frenchman and ran +with all his might toward the bushes. He did not now run with the +feeling of doubt and conflict with which he had trodden the Enns bridge, +but with the feeling of a hare fleeing from the hounds. One single +sentiment, that of fear for his young and happy life, possessed his +whole being. Rapidly leaping the furrows, he fled across the field with +the impetuosity he used to show at catchplay, now and then turning his +good-natured, pale, young face to look back. A shudder of terror went +through him: "No, better not look," he thought, but having reached the +bushes he glanced round once more. The French had fallen behind, and +just as he looked round the first man changed his run to a walk and, +turning, shouted something loudly to a comrade farther back. Rostov +paused. "No, there's some mistake," thought he. "They can't have wanted +to kill me." But at the same time, his left arm felt as heavy as if a +seventy-pound weight were tied to it. He could run no more. The +Frenchman also stopped and took aim. Rostov closed his eyes and stooped +down. One bullet and then another whistled past him. He mustered his +last remaining strength, took hold of his left hand with his right, and +reached the bushes. Behind these were some Russian sharpshooters. + + + + +CHAPTER XX + +The infantry regiments that had been caught unawares in the outskirts of +the wood ran out of it, the different companies getting mixed, and +retreated as a disorderly crowd. One soldier, in his fear, uttered the +senseless cry, "Cut off!" that is so terrible in battle, and that word +infected the whole crowd with a feeling of panic. + +"Surrounded! Cut off? We're lost!" shouted the fugitives. + +The moment he heard the firing and the cry from behind, the general +realized that something dreadful had happened to his regiment, and the +thought that he, an exemplary officer of many years' service who had +never been to blame, might be held responsible at headquarters for +negligence or inefficiency so staggered him that, forgetting the +recalcitrant cavalry colonel, his own dignity as a general, and above +all quite forgetting the danger and all regard for self-preservation, he +clutched the crupper of his saddle and, spurring his horse, galloped to +the regiment under a hail of bullets which fell around, but fortunately +missed him. His one desire was to know what was happening and at any +cost correct, or remedy, the mistake if he had made one, so that he, an +exemplary officer of twenty-two years' service, who had never been +censured, should not be held to blame. + +Having galloped safely through the French, he reached a field behind the +copse across which our men, regardless of orders, were running and +descending the valley. That moment of moral hesitation which decides the +fate of battles had arrived. Would this disorderly crowd of soldiers +attend to the voice of their commander, or would they, disregarding him, +continue their flight? Despite his desperate shouts that used to seem so +terrible to the soldiers, despite his furious purple countenance +distorted out of all likeness to his former self, and the flourishing of +his saber, the soldiers all continued to run, talking, firing into the +air, and disobeying orders. The moral hesitation which decided the fate +of battles was evidently culminating in a panic. + +The general had a fit of coughing as a result of shouting and of the +powder smoke and stopped in despair. Everything seemed lost. But at that +moment the French who were attacking, suddenly and without any apparent +reason, ran back and disappeared from the outskirts, and Russian +sharpshooters showed themselves in the copse. It was Timokhin's company, +which alone had maintained its order in the wood and, having lain in +ambush in a ditch, now attacked the French unexpectedly. Timokhin, armed +only with a sword, had rushed at the enemy with such a desperate cry and +such mad, drunken determination that, taken by surprise, the French had +thrown down their muskets and run. Dolokhov, running beside Timokhin, +killed a Frenchman at close quarters and was the first to seize the +surrendering French officer by his collar. Our fugitives returned, the +battalions re-formed, and the French who had nearly cut our left flank +in half were for the moment repulsed. Our reserve units were able to +join up, and the fight was at an end. The regimental commander and Major +Ekonomov had stopped beside a bridge, letting the retreating companies +pass by them, when a soldier came up and took hold of the commander's +stirrup, almost leaning against him. The man was wearing a bluish coat +of broadcloth, he had no knapsack or cap, his head was bandaged, and +over his shoulder a French munition pouch was slung. He had an officer's +sword in his hand. The soldier was pale, his blue eyes looked impudently +into the commander's face, and his lips were smiling. Though the +commander was occupied in giving instructions to Major Ekonomov, he +could not help taking notice of the soldier. + +"Your excellency, here are two trophies," said Dolokhov, pointing to the +French sword and pouch. "I have taken an officer prisoner. I stopped the +company." Dolokhov breathed heavily from weariness and spoke in abrupt +sentences. "The whole company can bear witness. I beg you will remember +this, your excellency!" + +"All right, all right," replied the commander, and turned to Major +Ekonomov. + +But Dolokhov did not go away; he untied the handkerchief around his +head, pulled it off, and showed the blood congealed on his hair. + +"A bayonet wound. I remained at the front. Remember, your excellency!" + +Tushin's battery had been forgotten and only at the very end of the +action did Prince Bagration, still hearing the cannonade in the center, +send his orderly staff officer, and later Prince Andrew also, to order +the battery to retire as quickly as possible. When the supports attached +to Tushin's battery had been moved away in the middle of the action by +someone's order, the battery had continued firing and was only not +captured by the French because the enemy could not surmise that anyone +could have the effrontery to continue firing from four quite undefended +guns. On the contrary, the energetic action of that battery led the +French to suppose that here--in the center--the main Russian forces were +concentrated. Twice they had attempted to attack this point, but on each +occasion had been driven back by grapeshot from the four isolated guns +on the hillock. + +Soon after Prince Bagration had left him, Tushin had succeeded in +setting fire to Schon Grabern. + +"Look at them scurrying! It's burning! Just see the smoke! Fine! Grand! +Look at the smoke, the smoke!" exclaimed the artillerymen, brightening +up. + +All the guns, without waiting for orders, were being fired in the +direction of the conflagration. As if urging each other on, the soldiers +cried at each shot: "Fine! That's good! Look at it... Grand!" The fire, +fanned by the breeze, was rapidly spreading. The French columns that had +advanced beyond the village went back; but as though in revenge for this +failure, the enemy placed ten guns to the right of the village and began +firing them at Tushin's battery. + +In their childlike glee, aroused by the fire and their luck in +successfully cannonading the French, our artillerymen only noticed this +battery when two balls, and then four more, fell among our guns, one +knocking over two horses and another tearing off a munition-wagon +driver's leg. Their spirits once roused were, however, not diminished, +but only changed character. The horses were replaced by others from a +reserve gun carriage, the wounded were carried away, and the four guns +were turned against the ten-gun battery. Tushin's companion officer had +been killed at the beginning of the engagement and within an hour +seventeen of the forty men of the guns' crews had been disabled, but the +artillerymen were still as merry and lively as ever. Twice they noticed +the French appearing below them, and then they fired grapeshot at them. + +Little Tushin, moving feebly and awkwardly, kept telling his orderly to +"refill my pipe for that one!" and then, scattering sparks from it, ran +forward shading his eyes with his small hand to look at the French. + +"Smack at 'em, lads!" he kept saying, seizing the guns by the wheels and +working the screws himself. + +Amid the smoke, deafened by the incessant reports which always made him +jump, Tushin not taking his pipe from his mouth ran from gun to gun, now +aiming, now counting the charges, now giving orders about replacing dead +or wounded horses and harnessing fresh ones, and shouting in his feeble +voice, so high pitched and irresolute. His face grew more and more +animated. Only when a man was killed or wounded did he frown and turn +away from the sight, shouting angrily at the men who, as is always the +case, hesitated about lifting the injured or dead. The soldiers, for the +most part handsome fellows and, as is always the case in an artillery +company, a head and shoulders taller and twice as broad as their +officer--all looked at their commander like children in an embarrassing +situation, and the expression on his face was invariably reflected on +theirs. + +Owing to the terrible uproar and the necessity for concentration and +activity, Tushin did not experience the slightest unpleasant sense of +fear, and the thought that he might be killed or badly wounded never +occurred to him. On the contrary, he became more and more elated. It +seemed to him that it was a very long time ago, almost a day, since he +had first seen the enemy and fired the first shot, and that the corner +of the field he stood on was well-known and familiar ground. Though he +thought of everything, considered everything, and did everything the +best of officers could do in his position, he was in a state akin to +feverish delirium or drunkenness. + +From the deafening sounds of his own guns around him, the whistle and +thud of the enemy's cannon balls, from the flushed and perspiring faces +of the crew bustling round the guns, from the sight of the blood of men +and horses, from the little puffs of smoke on the enemy's side (always +followed by a ball flying past and striking the earth, a man, a gun, a +horse), from the sight of all these things a fantastic world of his own +had taken possession of his brain and at that moment afforded him +pleasure. The enemy's guns were in his fancy not guns but pipes from +which occasional puffs were blown by an invisible smoker. + +"There... he's puffing again," muttered Tushin to himself, as a small +cloud rose from the hill and was borne in a streak to the left by the +wind. + +"Now look out for the ball... we'll throw it back." + +"What do you want, your honor?" asked an artilleryman, standing close +by, who heard him muttering. + +"Nothing... only a shell..." he answered. + +"Come along, our Matvevna!" he said to himself. "Matvevna" * was the +name his fancy gave to the farthest gun of the battery, which was large +and of an old pattern. The French swarming round their guns seemed to +him like ants. In that world, the handsome drunkard Number One of the +second gun's crew was "uncle"; Tushin looked at him more often than at +anyone else and took delight in his every movement. The sound of +musketry at the foot of the hill, now diminishing, now increasing, +seemed like someone's breathing. He listened intently to the ebb and +flow of these sounds. + + +* Daughter of Matthew. + +"Ah! Breathing again, breathing!" he muttered to himself. + +He imagined himself as an enormously tall, powerful man who was throwing +cannon balls at the French with both hands. + +"Now then, Matvevna, dear old lady, don't let me down!" he was saying as +he moved from the gun, when a strange, unfamiliar voice called above his +head: "Captain Tushin! Captain!" + +Tushin turned round in dismay. It was the staff officer who had turned +him out of the booth at Grunth. He was shouting in a gasping voice: + +"Are you mad? You have twice been ordered to retreat, and you..." + +"Why are they down on me?" thought Tushin, looking in alarm at his +superior. + +"I... don't..." he muttered, holding up two fingers to his cap. "I..." + +But the staff officer did not finish what he wanted to say. A cannon +ball, flying close to him, caused him to duck and bend over his horse. +He paused, and just as he was about to say something more, another ball +stopped him. He turned his horse and galloped off. + +"Retire! All to retire!" he shouted from a distance. + +The soldiers laughed. A moment later, an adjutant arrived with the same +order. + +It was Prince Andrew. The first thing he saw on riding up to the space +where Tushin's guns were stationed was an unharnessed horse with a +broken leg, that lay screaming piteously beside the harnessed horses. +Blood was gushing from its leg as from a spring. Among the limbers lay +several dead men. One ball after another passed over as he approached +and he felt a nervous shudder run down his spine. But the mere thought +of being afraid roused him again. "I cannot be afraid," thought he, and +dismounted slowly among the guns. He delivered the order and did not +leave the battery. He decided to have the guns removed from their +positions and withdrawn in his presence. Together with Tushin, stepping +across the bodies and under a terrible fire from the French, he attended +to the removal of the guns. + +"A staff officer was here a minute ago, but skipped off," said an +artilleryman to Prince Andrew. "Not like your honor!" + +Prince Andrew said nothing to Tushin. They were both so busy as to seem +not to notice one another. When having limbered up the only two cannon +that remained uninjured out of the four, they began moving down the hill +(one shattered gun and one unicorn were left behind), Prince Andrew rode +up to Tushin. + +"Well, till we meet again..." he said, holding out his hand to Tushin. + +"Good-bye, my dear fellow," said Tushin. "Dear soul! Good-bye, my dear +fellow!" and for some unknown reason tears suddenly filled his eyes. + + + + +CHAPTER XXI + +The wind had fallen and black clouds, merging with the powder smoke, +hung low over the field of battle on the horizon. It was growing dark +and the glow of two conflagrations was the more conspicuous. The +cannonade was dying down, but the rattle of musketry behind and on the +right sounded oftener and nearer. As soon as Tushin with his guns, +continually driving round or coming upon wounded men, was out of range +of fire and had descended into the dip, he was met by some of the staff, +among them the staff officer and Zherkov, who had been twice sent to +Tushin's battery but had never reached it. Interrupting one another, +they all gave, and transmitted, orders as to how to proceed, +reprimanding and reproaching him. Tushin gave no orders, and, silently-- +fearing to speak because at every word he felt ready to weep without +knowing why--rode behind on his artillery nag. Though the orders were to +abandon the wounded, many of them dragged themselves after troops and +begged for seats on the gun carriages. The jaunty infantry officer who +just before the battle had rushed out of Tushin's wattle shed was laid, +with a bullet in his stomach, on "Matvevna's" carriage. At the foot of +the hill, a pale hussar cadet, supporting one hand with the other, came +up to Tushin and asked for a seat. + +"Captain, for God's sake! I've hurt my arm," he said timidly. "For God's +sake... I can't walk. For God's sake!" + +It was plain that this cadet had already repeatedly asked for a lift and +been refused. He asked in a hesitating, piteous voice. + +"Tell them to give me a seat, for God's sake!" + +"Give him a seat," said Tushin. "Lay a cloak for him to sit on, lad," he +said, addressing his favorite soldier. "And where is the wounded +officer?" + +"He has been set down. He died," replied someone. + +"Help him up. Sit down, dear fellow, sit down! Spread out the cloak, +Antonov." + +The cadet was Rostov. With one hand he supported the other; he was pale +and his jaw trembled, shivering feverishly. He was placed on "Matvevna," +the gun from which they had removed the dead officer. The cloak they +spread under him was wet with blood which stained his breeches and arm. + +"What, are you wounded, my lad?" said Tushin, approaching the gun on +which Rostov sat. + +"No, it's a sprain." + +"Then what is this blood on the gun carriage?" inquired Tushin. + +"It was the officer, your honor, stained it," answered the artilleryman, +wiping away the blood with his coat sleeve, as if apologizing for the +state of his gun. + +It was all that they could do to get the guns up the rise aided by the +infantry, and having reached the village of Gruntersdorf they halted. It +had grown so dark that one could not distinguish the uniforms ten paces +off, and the firing had begun to subside. Suddenly, near by on the +right, shouting and firing were again heard. Flashes of shot gleamed in +the darkness. This was the last French attack and was met by soldiers +who had sheltered in the village houses. They all rushed out of the +village again, but Tushin's guns could not move, and the artillerymen, +Tushin, and the cadet exchanged silent glances as they awaited their +fate. The firing died down and soldiers, talking eagerly, streamed out +of a side street. + +"Not hurt, Petrov?" asked one. + +"We've given it 'em hot, mate! They won't make another push now," said +another. + +"You couldn't see a thing. How they shot at their own fellows! Nothing +could be seen. Pitch-dark, brother! Isn't there something to drink?" + +The French had been repulsed for the last time. And again and again in +the complete darkness Tushin's guns moved forward, surrounded by the +humming infantry as by a frame. + +In the darkness, it seemed as though a gloomy unseen river was flowing +always in one direction, humming with whispers and talk and the sound of +hoofs and wheels. Amid the general rumble, the groans and voices of the +wounded were more distinctly heard than any other sound in the darkness +of the night. The gloom that enveloped the army was filled with their +groans, which seemed to melt into one with the darkness of the night. +After a while the moving mass became agitated, someone rode past on a +white horse followed by his suite, and said something in passing: "What +did he say? Where to, now? Halt, is it? Did he thank us?" came eager +questions from all sides. The whole moving mass began pressing closer +together and a report spread that they were ordered to halt: evidently +those in front had halted. All remained where they were in the middle of +the muddy road. + +Fires were lighted and the talk became more audible. Captain Tushin, +having given orders to his company, sent a soldier to find a dressing +station or a doctor for the cadet, and sat down by a bonfire the +soldiers had kindled on the road. Rostov, too, dragged himself to the +fire. From pain, cold, and damp, a feverish shivering shook his whole +body. Drowsiness was irresistibly mastering him, but he kept awake by an +excruciating pain in his arm, for which he could find no satisfactory +position. He kept closing his eyes and then again looking at the fire, +which seemed to him dazzlingly red, and at the feeble, round-shouldered +figure of Tushin who was sitting cross-legged like a Turk beside him. +Tushin's large, kind, intelligent eyes were fixed with sympathy and +commiseration on Rostov, who saw that Tushin with his whole heart wished +to help him but could not. + +From all sides were heard the footsteps and talk of the infantry, who +were walking, driving past, and settling down all around. The sound of +voices, the tramping feet, the horses' hoofs moving in mud, the +crackling of wood fires near and afar, merged into one tremulous rumble. + +It was no longer, as before, a dark, unseen river flowing through the +gloom, but a dark sea swelling and gradually subsiding after a storm. +Rostov looked at and listened listlessly to what passed before and +around him. An infantryman came to the fire, squatted on his heels, held +his hands to the blaze, and turned away his face. + +"You don't mind your honor?" he asked Tushin. "I've lost my company, +your honor. I don't know where... such bad luck!" + +With the soldier, an infantry officer with a bandaged cheek came up to +the bonfire, and addressing Tushin asked him to have the guns moved a +trifle to let a wagon go past. After he had gone, two soldiers rushed to +the campfire. They were quarreling and fighting desperately, each trying +to snatch from the other a boot they were both holding on to. + +"You picked it up?... I dare say! You're very smart!" one of them +shouted hoarsely. + +Then a thin, pale soldier, his neck bandaged with a bloodstained leg +band, came up and in angry tones asked the artillerymen for water. + +"Must one die like a dog?" said he. + +Tushin told them to give the man some water. Then a cheerful soldier ran +up, begging a little fire for the infantry. + +"A nice little hot torch for the infantry! Good luck to you, fellow +countrymen. Thanks for the fire--we'll return it with interest," said +he, carrying away into the darkness a glowing stick. + +Next came four soldiers, carrying something heavy on a cloak, and passed +by the fire. One of them stumbled. + +"Who the devil has put the logs on the road?" snarled he. + +"He's dead--why carry him?" said another. + +"Shut up!" + +And they disappeared into the darkness with their load. + +"Still aching?" Tushin asked Rostov in a whisper. + +"Yes." + +"Your honor, you're wanted by the general. He is in the hut here," said +a gunner, coming up to Tushin. + +"Coming, friend." + +Tushin rose and, buttoning his greatcoat and pulling it straight, walked +away from the fire. + +Not far from the artillery campfire, in a hut that had been prepared for +him, Prince Bagration sat at dinner, talking with some commanding +officers who had gathered at his quarters. The little old man with the +half-closed eyes was there greedily gnawing a mutton bone, and the +general who had served blamelessly for twenty-two years, flushed by a +glass of vodka and the dinner; and the staff officer with the signet +ring, and Zherkov, uneasily glancing at them all, and Prince Andrew, +pale, with compressed lips and feverishly glittering eyes. + +In a corner of the hut stood a standard captured from the French, and +the accountant with the naive face was feeling its texture, shaking his +head in perplexity--perhaps because the banner really interested him, +perhaps because it was hard for him, hungry as he was, to look on at a +dinner where there was no place for him. In the next hut there was a +French colonel who had been taken prisoner by our dragoons. Our officers +were flocking in to look at him. Prince Bagration was thanking the +individual commanders and inquiring into details of the action and our +losses. The general whose regiment had been inspected at Braunau was +informing the prince that as soon as the action began he had withdrawn +from the wood, mustered the men who were woodcutting, and, allowing the +French to pass him, had made a bayonet charge with two battalions and +had broken up the French troops. + +"When I saw, your excellency, that their first battalion was +disorganized, I stopped in the road and thought: 'I'll let them come on +and will meet them with the fire of the whole battalion'--and that's +what I did." + +The general had so wished to do this and was so sorry he had not managed +to do it that it seemed to him as if it had really happened. Perhaps it +might really have been so? Could one possibly make out amid all that +confusion what did or did not happen? + +"By the way, your excellency, I should inform you," he continued-- +remembering Dolokhov's conversation with Kutuzov and his last interview +with the gentleman-ranker--"that Private Dolokhov, who was reduced to +the ranks, took a French officer prisoner in my presence and +particularly distinguished himself." + +"I saw the Pavlograd hussars attack there, your excellency," chimed in +Zherkov, looking uneasily around. He had not seen the hussars all that +day, but had heard about them from an infantry officer. "They broke up +two squares, your excellency." + +Several of those present smiled at Zherkov's words, expecting one of his +usual jokes, but noticing that what he was saying redounded to the glory +of our arms and of the day's work, they assumed a serious expression, +though many of them knew that what he was saying was a lie devoid of any +foundation. Prince Bagration turned to the old colonel: + +"Gentlemen, I thank you all; all arms have behaved heroically: infantry, +cavalry, and artillery. How was it that two guns were abandoned in the +center?" he inquired, searching with his eyes for someone. (Prince +Bagration did not ask about the guns on the left flank; he knew that all +the guns there had been abandoned at the very beginning of the action.) +"I think I sent you?" he added, turning to the staff officer on duty. + +"One was damaged," answered the staff officer, "and the other I can't +understand. I was there all the time giving orders and had only just +left.... It is true that it was hot there," he added, modestly. + +Someone mentioned that Captain Tushin was bivouacking close to the +village and had already been sent for. + +"Oh, but you were there?" said Prince Bagration, addressing Prince +Andrew. + +"Of course, we only just missed one another," said the staff officer, +with a smile to Bolkonski. + +"I had not the pleasure of seeing you," said Prince Andrew, coldly and +abruptly. + +All were silent. Tushin appeared at the threshold and made his way +timidly from behind the backs of the generals. As he stepped past the +generals in the crowded hut, feeling embarrassed as he always was by the +sight of his superiors, he did not notice the staff of the banner and +stumbled over it. Several of those present laughed. + +"How was it a gun was abandoned?" asked Bagration, frowning, not so much +at the captain as at those who were laughing, among whom Zherkov laughed +loudest. + +Only now, when he was confronted by the stern authorities, did his guilt +and the disgrace of having lost two guns and yet remaining alive present +themselves to Tushin in all their horror. He had been so excited that he +had not thought about it until that moment. The officers' laughter +confused him still more. He stood before Bagration with his lower jaw +trembling and was hardly able to mutter: "I don't know... your +excellency... I had no men... your excellency." + +"You might have taken some from the covering troops." + +Tushin did not say that there were no covering troops, though that was +perfectly true. He was afraid of getting some other officer into +trouble, and silently fixed his eyes on Bagration as a schoolboy who has +blundered looks at an examiner. + +The silence lasted some time. Prince Bagration, apparently not wishing +to be severe, found nothing to say; the others did not venture to +intervene. Prince Andrew looked at Tushin from under his brows and his +fingers twitched nervously. + +"Your excellency!" Prince Andrew broke the silence with his abrupt +voice, "you were pleased to send me to Captain Tushin's battery. I went +there and found two thirds of the men and horses knocked out, two guns +smashed, and no supports at all." + +Prince Bagration and Tushin looked with equal intentness at Bolkonski, +who spoke with suppressed agitation. + +"And, if your excellency will allow me to express my opinion," he +continued, "we owe today's success chiefly to the action of that battery +and the heroic endurance of Captain Tushin and his company," and without +awaiting a reply, Prince Andrew rose and left the table. + +Prince Bagration looked at Tushin, evidently reluctant to show distrust +in Bolkonski's emphatic opinion yet not feeling able fully to credit it, +bent his head, and told Tushin that he could go. Prince Andrew went out +with him. + +"Thank you; you saved me, my dear fellow!" said Tushin. + +Prince Andrew gave him a look, but said nothing and went away. He felt +sad and depressed. It was all so strange, so unlike what he had hoped. + +"Who are they? Why are they here? What do they want? And when will all +this end?" thought Rostov, looking at the changing shadows before him. +The pain in his arm became more and more intense. Irresistible +drowsiness overpowered him, red rings danced before his eyes, and the +impression of those voices and faces and a sense of loneliness merged +with the physical pain. It was they, these soldiers--wounded and +unwounded--it was they who were crushing, weighing down, and twisting +the sinews and scorching the flesh of his sprained arm and shoulder. To +rid himself of them he closed his eyes. + +For a moment he dozed, but in that short interval innumerable things +appeared to him in a dream: his mother and her large white hand, Sonya's +thin little shoulders, Natasha's eyes and laughter, Denisov with his +voice and mustache, and Telyanin and all that affair with Telyanin and +Bogdanich. That affair was the same thing as this soldier with the harsh +voice, and it was that affair and this soldier that were so agonizingly, +incessantly pulling and pressing his arm and always dragging it in one +direction. He tried to get away from them, but they would not for an +instant let his shoulder move a hair's breadth. It would not ache--it +would be well--if only they did not pull it, but it was impossible to +get rid of them. + +He opened his eyes and looked up. The black canopy of night hung less +than a yard above the glow of the charcoal. Flakes of falling snow were +fluttering in that light. Tushin had not returned, the doctor had not +come. He was alone now, except for a soldier who was sitting naked at +the other side of the fire, warming his thin yellow body. + +"Nobody wants me!" thought Rostov. "There is no one to help me or pity +me. Yet I was once at home, strong, happy, and loved." He sighed and, +doing so, groaned involuntarily. + +"Eh, is anything hurting you?" asked the soldier, shaking his shirt out +over the fire, and not waiting for an answer he gave a grunt and added: +"What a lot of men have been crippled today--frightful!" + +Rostov did not listen to the soldier. He looked at the snowflakes +fluttering above the fire and remembered a Russian winter at his warm, +bright home, his fluffy fur coat, his quickly gliding sleigh, his +healthy body, and all the affection and care of his family. "And why did +I come here?" he wondered. + +Next day the French army did not renew their attack, and the remnant of +Bagration's detachment was reunited to Kutuzov's army. + +BOOK THREE: 1805 + + + + +CHAPTER I + +Prince Vasili was not a man who deliberately thought out his plans. +Still less did he think of injuring anyone for his own advantage. He was +merely a man of the world who had got on and to whom getting on had +become a habit. Schemes and devices for which he never rightly accounted +to himself, but which formed the whole interest of his life, were +constantly shaping themselves in his mind, arising from the +circumstances and persons he met. Of these plans he had not merely one +or two in his head but dozens, some only beginning to form themselves, +some approaching achievement, and some in course of disintegration. He +did not, for instance, say to himself: "This man now has influence, I +must gain his confidence and friendship and through him obtain a special +grant." Nor did he say to himself: "Pierre is a rich man, I must entice +him to marry my daughter and lend me the forty thousand rubles I need." +But when he came across a man of position his instinct immediately told +him that this man could be useful, and without any premeditation Prince +Vasili took the first opportunity to gain his confidence, flatter him, +become intimate with him, and finally make his request. + +He had Pierre at hand in Moscow and procured for him an appointment as +Gentleman of the Bedchamber, which at that time conferred the status of +Councilor of State, and insisted on the young man accompanying him to +Petersburg and staying at his house. With apparent absent-mindedness, +yet with unhesitating assurance that he was doing the right thing, +Prince Vasili did everything to get Pierre to marry his daughter. Had he +thought out his plans beforehand he could not have been so natural and +shown such unaffected familiarity in intercourse with everybody both +above and below him in social standing. Something always drew him toward +those richer and more powerful than himself and he had rare skill in +seizing the most opportune moment for making use of people. + +Pierre, on unexpectedly becoming Count Bezukhov and a rich man, felt +himself after his recent loneliness and freedom from cares so beset and +preoccupied that only in bed was he able to be by himself. He had to +sign papers, to present himself at government offices, the purpose of +which was not clear to him, to question his chief steward, to visit his +estate near Moscow, and to receive many people who formerly did not even +wish to know of his existence but would now have been offended and +grieved had he chosen not to see them. These different people-- +businessmen, relations, and acquaintances alike--were all disposed to +treat the young heir in the most friendly and flattering manner: they +were all evidently firmly convinced of Pierre's noble qualities. He was +always hearing such words as: "With your remarkable kindness," or, "With +your excellent heart," "You are yourself so honorable Count," or, "Were +he as clever as you," and so on, till he began sincerely to believe in +his own exceptional kindness and extraordinary intelligence, the more so +as in the depth of his heart it had always seemed to him that he really +was very kind and intelligent. Even people who had formerly been +spiteful toward him and evidently unfriendly now became gentle and +affectionate. The angry eldest princess, with the long waist and hair +plastered down like a doll's, had come into Pierre's room after the +funeral. With drooping eyes and frequent blushes she told him she was +very sorry about their past misunderstandings and did not now feel she +had a right to ask him for anything, except only for permission, after +the blow she had received, to remain for a few weeks longer in the house +she so loved and where she had sacrificed so much. She could not refrain +from weeping at these words. Touched that this statuesque princess could +so change, Pierre took her hand and begged her forgiveness, without +knowing what for. From that day the eldest princess quite changed toward +Pierre and began knitting a striped scarf for him. + +"Do this for my sake, mon cher; after all, she had to put up with a +great deal from the deceased," said Prince Vasili to him, handing him a +deed to sign for the princess' benefit. + +Prince Vasili had come to the conclusion that it was necessary to throw +this bone--a bill for thirty thousand rubles--to the poor princess that +it might not occur to her to speak of his share in the affair of the +inlaid portfolio. Pierre signed the deed and after that the princess +grew still kinder. The younger sisters also became affectionate to him, +especially the youngest, the pretty one with the mole, who often made +him feel confused by her smiles and her own confusion when meeting him. + +It seemed so natural to Pierre that everyone should like him, and it +would have seemed so unnatural had anyone disliked him, that he could +not but believe in the sincerity of those around him. Besides, he had no +time to ask himself whether these people were sincere or not. He was +always busy and always felt in a state of mild and cheerful +intoxication. He felt as though he were the center of some important and +general movement; that something was constantly expected of him, that if +he did not do it he would grieve and disappoint many people, but if he +did this and that, all would be well; and he did what was demanded of +him, but still that happy result always remained in the future. + +More than anyone else, Prince Vasili took possession of Pierre's affairs +and of Pierre himself in those early days. From the death of Count +Bezukhov he did not let go his hold of the lad. He had the air of a man +oppressed by business, weary and suffering, who yet would not, for +pity's sake, leave this helpless youth who, after all, was the son of +his old friend and the possessor of such enormous wealth, to the caprice +of fate and the designs of rogues. During the few days he spent in +Moscow after the death of Count Bezukhov, he would call Pierre, or go to +him himself, and tell him what ought to be done in a tone of weariness +and assurance, as if he were adding every time: "You know I am +overwhelmed with business and it is purely out of charity that I trouble +myself about you, and you also know quite well that what I propose is +the only thing possible." + +"Well, my dear fellow, tomorrow we are off at last," said Prince Vasili +one day, closing his eyes and fingering Pierre's elbow, speaking as if +he were saying something which had long since been agreed upon and could +not now be altered. "We start tomorrow and I'm giving you a place in my +carriage. I am very glad. All our important business here is now +settled, and I ought to have been off long ago. Here is something I have +received from the chancellor. I asked him for you, and you have been +entered in the diplomatic corps and made a Gentleman of the Bedchamber. +The diplomatic career now lies open before you." + +Notwithstanding the tone of wearied assurance with which these words +were pronounced, Pierre, who had so long been considering his career, +wished to make some suggestion. But Prince Vasili interrupted him in the +special deep cooing tone, precluding the possibility of interrupting his +speech, which he used in extreme cases when special persuasion was +needed. + +"Mais, mon cher, I did this for my own sake, to satisfy my conscience, +and there is nothing to thank me for. No one has ever complained yet of +being too much loved; and besides, you are free, you could throw it up +tomorrow. But you will see everything for yourself when you get to +Petersburg. It is high time for you to get away from these terrible +recollections." Prince Vasili sighed. "Yes, yes, my boy. And my valet +can go in your carriage. Ah! I was nearly forgetting," he added. "You +know, mon cher, your father and I had some accounts to settle, so I have +received what was due from the Ryazan estate and will keep it; you won't +require it. We'll go into the accounts later." + +By "what was due from the Ryazan estate" Prince Vasili meant several +thousand rubles quitrent received from Pierre's peasants, which the +prince had retained for himself. + +In Petersburg, as in Moscow, Pierre found the same atmosphere of +gentleness and affection. He could not refuse the post, or rather the +rank (for he did nothing), that Prince Vasili had procured for him, and +acquaintances, invitations, and social occupations were so numerous +that, even more than in Moscow, he felt a sense of bewilderment, bustle, +and continual expectation of some good, always in front of him but never +attained. + +Of his former bachelor acquaintances many were no longer in Petersburg. +The Guards had gone to the front; Dolokhov had been reduced to the +ranks; Anatole was in the army somewhere in the provinces; Prince Andrew +was abroad; so Pierre had not the opportunity to spend his nights as he +used to like to spend them, or to open his mind by intimate talks with a +friend older than himself and whom he respected. His whole time was +taken up with dinners and balls and was spent chiefly at Prince Vasili's +house in the company of the stout princess, his wife, and his beautiful +daughter Helene. + +Like the others, Anna Pavlovna Scherer showed Pierre the change of +attitude toward him that had taken place in society. + +Formerly in Anna Pavlovna's presence, Pierre had always felt that what +he was saying was out of place, tactless and unsuitable, that remarks +which seemed to him clever while they formed in his mind became foolish +as soon as he uttered them, while on the contrary Hippolyte's stupidest +remarks came out clever and apt. Now everything Pierre said was +charmant. Even if Anna Pavlovna did not say so, he could see that she +wished to and only refrained out of regard for his modesty. + +In the beginning of the winter of 1805-6 Pierre received one of Anna +Pavlovna's usual pink notes with an invitation to which was added: "You +will find the beautiful Helene here, whom it is always delightful to +see." + +When he read that sentence, Pierre felt for the first time that some +link which other people recognized had grown up between himself and +Helene, and that thought both alarmed him, as if some obligation were +being imposed on him which he could not fulfill, and pleased him as an +entertaining supposition. + +Anna Pavlovna's "At Home" was like the former one, only the novelty she +offered her guests this time was not Mortemart, but a diplomatist fresh +from Berlin with the very latest details of the Emperor Alexander's +visit to Potsdam, and of how the two august friends had pledged +themselves in an indissoluble alliance to uphold the cause of justice +against the enemy of the human race. Anna Pavlovna received Pierre with +a shade of melancholy, evidently relating to the young man's recent loss +by the death of Count Bezukhov (everyone constantly considered it a duty +to assure Pierre that he was greatly afflicted by the death of the +father he had hardly known), and her melancholy was just like the august +melancholy she showed at the mention of her most august Majesty the +Empress Marya Fedorovna. Pierre felt flattered by this. Anna Pavlovna +arranged the different groups in her drawing room with her habitual +skill. The large group, in which were Prince Vasili and the generals, +had the benefit of the diplomat. Another group was at the tea table. +Pierre wished to join the former, but Anna Pavlovna--who was in the +excited condition of a commander on a battlefield to whom thousands of +new and brilliant ideas occur which there is hardly time to put in +action--seeing Pierre, touched his sleeve with her finger, saying: + +"Wait a bit, I have something in view for you this evening." (She +glanced at Helene and smiled at her.) "My dear Helene, be charitable to +my poor aunt who adores you. Go and keep her company for ten minutes. +And that it will not be too dull, here is the dear count who will not +refuse to accompany you." + +The beauty went to the aunt, but Anna Pavlovna detained Pierre, looking +as if she had to give some final necessary instructions. + +"Isn't she exquisite?" she said to Pierre, pointing to the stately +beauty as she glided away. "And how she carries herself! For so young a +girl, such tact, such masterly perfection of manner! It comes from her +heart. Happy the man who wins her! With her the least worldly of men +would occupy a most brilliant position in society. Don't you think so? I +only wanted to know your opinion," and Anna Pavlovna let Pierre go. + +Pierre, in reply, sincerely agreed with her as to Helene's perfection of +manner. If he ever thought of Helene, it was just of her beauty and her +remarkable skill in appearing silently dignified in society. + +The old aunt received the two young people in her corner, but seemed +desirous of hiding her adoration for Helene and inclined rather to show +her fear of Anna Pavlovna. She looked at her niece, as if inquiring what +she was to do with these people. On leaving them, Anna Pavlovna again +touched Pierre's sleeve, saying: "I hope you won't say that it is dull +in my house again," and she glanced at Helene. + +Helene smiled, with a look implying that she did not admit the +possibility of anyone seeing her without being enchanted. The aunt +coughed, swallowed, and said in French that she was very pleased to see +Helene, then she turned to Pierre with the same words of welcome and the +same look. In the middle of a dull and halting conversation, Helene +turned to Pierre with the beautiful bright smile that she gave to +everyone. Pierre was so used to that smile, and it had so little meaning +for him, that he paid no attention to it. The aunt was just speaking of +a collection of snuffboxes that had belonged to Pierre's father, Count +Bezukhov, and showed them her own box. Princess Helene asked to see the +portrait of the aunt's husband on the box lid. + +"That is probably the work of Vinesse," said Pierre, mentioning a +celebrated miniaturist, and he leaned over the table to take the +snuffbox while trying to hear what was being said at the other table. + +He half rose, meaning to go round, but the aunt handed him the snuffbox, +passing it across Helene's back. Helene stooped forward to make room, +and looked round with a smile. She was, as always at evening parties, +wearing a dress such as was then fashionable, cut very low at front and +back. Her bust, which had always seemed like marble to Pierre, was so +close to him that his shortsighted eyes could not but perceive the +living charm of her neck and shoulders, so near to his lips that he need +only have bent his head a little to have touched them. He was conscious +of the warmth of her body, the scent of perfume, and the creaking of her +corset as she moved. He did not see her marble beauty forming a complete +whole with her dress, but all the charm of her body only covered by her +garments. And having once seen this he could not help being aware of it, +just as we cannot renew an illusion we have once seen through. + +"So you have never noticed before how beautiful I am?" Helene seemed to +say. "You had not noticed that I am a woman? Yes, I am a woman who may +belong to anyone--to you too," said her glance. And at that moment +Pierre felt that Helene not only could, but must, be his wife, and that +it could not be otherwise. + +He knew this at that moment as surely as if he had been standing at the +altar with her. How and when this would be he did not know, he did not +even know if it would be a good thing (he even felt, he knew not why, +that it would be a bad thing), but he knew it would happen. + +Pierre dropped his eyes, lifted them again, and wished once more to see +her as a distant beauty far removed from him, as he had seen her every +day until then, but he could no longer do it. He could not, any more +than a man who has been looking at a tuft of steppe grass through the +mist and taking it for a tree can again take it for a tree after he has +once recognized it to be a tuft of grass. She was terribly close to him. +She already had power over him, and between them there was no longer any +barrier except the barrier of his own will. + +"Well, I will leave you in your little corner," came Anna Pavlovna's +voice, "I see you are all right there." + +And Pierre, anxiously trying to remember whether he had done anything +reprehensible, looked round with a blush. It seemed to him that everyone +knew what had happened to him as he knew it himself. + +A little later when he went up to the large circle, Anna Pavlovna said +to him: "I hear you are refitting your Petersburg house?" + +This was true. The architect had told him that it was necessary, and +Pierre, without knowing why, was having his enormous Petersburg house +done up. + +"That's a good thing, but don't move from Prince Vasili's. It is good to +have a friend like the prince," she said, smiling at Prince Vasili. "I +know something about that. Don't I? And you are still so young. You need +advice. Don't be angry with me for exercising an old woman's privilege." + +She paused, as women always do, expecting something after they have +mentioned their age. "If you marry it will be a different thing," she +continued, uniting them both in one glance. Pierre did not look at +Helene nor she at him. But she was just as terribly close to him. He +muttered something and colored. + +When he got home he could not sleep for a long time for thinking of what +had happened. What had happened? Nothing. He had merely understood that +the woman he had known as a child, of whom when her beauty was mentioned +he had said absent-mindedly: "Yes, she's good looking," he had +understood that this woman might belong to him. + +"But she's stupid. I have myself said she is stupid," he thought. "There +is something nasty, something wrong, in the feeling she excites in me. I +have been told that her brother Anatole was in love with her and she +with him, that there was quite a scandal and that that's why he was sent +away. Hippolyte is her brother... Prince Vasili is her father... It's +bad...." he reflected, but while he was thinking this (the reflection +was still incomplete), he caught himself smiling and was conscious that +another line of thought had sprung up, and while thinking of her +worthlessness he was also dreaming of how she would be his wife, how she +would love him become quite different, and how all he had thought and +heard of her might be false. And he again saw her not as the daughter of +Prince Vasili, but visualized her whole body only veiled by its gray +dress. "But no! Why did this thought never occur to me before?" and +again he told himself that it was impossible, that there would be +something unnatural, and as it seemed to him dishonorable, in this +marriage. He recalled her former words and looks and the words and looks +of those who had seen them together. He recalled Anna Pavlovna's words +and looks when she spoke to him about his house, recalled thousands of +such hints from Prince Vasili and others, and was seized by terror lest +he had already, in some way, bound himself to do something that was +evidently wrong and that he ought not to do. But at the very time he was +expressing this conviction to himself, in another part of his mind her +image rose in all its womanly beauty. + + + + +CHAPTER II + +In November, 1805, Prince Vasili had to go on a tour of inspection in +four different provinces. He had arranged this for himself so as to +visit his neglected estates at the same time and pick up his son Anatole +where his regiment was stationed, and take him to visit Prince Nicholas +Bolkonski in order to arrange a match for him with the daughter of that +rich old man. But before leaving home and undertaking these new affairs, +Prince Vasili had to settle matters with Pierre, who, it is true, had +latterly spent whole days at home, that is, in Prince Vasili's house +where he was staying, and had been absurd, excited, and foolish in +Helene's presence (as a lover should be), but had not yet proposed to +her. + +"This is all very fine, but things must be settled," said Prince Vasili +to himself, with a sorrowful sigh, one morning, feeling that Pierre who +was under such obligations to him ("But never mind that") was not +behaving very well in this matter. "Youth, frivolity... well, God be +with him," thought he, relishing his own goodness of heart, "but it must +be brought to a head. The day after tomorrow will be Lelya's name day. I +will invite two or three people, and if he does not understand what he +ought to do then it will be my affair--yes, my affair. I am her father." + +Six weeks after Anna Pavlovna's "At Home" and after the sleepless night +when he had decided that to marry Helene would be a calamity and that he +ought to avoid her and go away, Pierre, despite that decision, had not +left Prince Vasili's and felt with terror that in people's eyes he was +every day more and more connected with her, that it was impossible for +him to return to his former conception of her, that he could not break +away from her, and that though it would be a terrible thing he would +have to unite his fate with hers. He might perhaps have been able to +free himself but that Prince Vasili (who had rarely before given +receptions) now hardly let a day go by without having an evening party +at which Pierre had to be present unless he wished to spoil the general +pleasure and disappoint everyone's expectation. Prince Vasili, in the +rare moments when he was at home, would take Pierre's hand in passing +and draw it downwards, or absent-mindedly hold out his wrinkled, clean- +shaven cheek for Pierre to kiss and would say: "Till tomorrow," or, "Be +in to dinner or I shall not see you," or, "I am staying in for your +sake," and so on. And though Prince Vasili, when he stayed in (as he +said) for Pierre's sake, hardly exchanged a couple of words with him, +Pierre felt unable to disappoint him. Every day he said to himself one +and the same thing: "It is time I understood her and made up my mind +what she really is. Was I mistaken before, or am I mistaken now? No, she +is not stupid, she is an excellent girl," he sometimes said to himself +"she never makes a mistake, never says anything stupid. She says little, +but what she does say is always clear and simple, so she is not stupid. +She never was abashed and is not abashed now, so she cannot be a bad +woman!" He had often begun to make reflections or think aloud in her +company, and she had always answered him either by a brief but +appropriate remark--showing that it did not interest her--or by a silent +look and smile which more palpably than anything else showed Pierre her +superiority. She was right in regarding all arguments as nonsense in +comparison with that smile. + +She always addressed him with a radiantly confiding smile meant for him +alone, in which there was something more significant than in the general +smile that usually brightened her face. Pierre knew that everyone was +waiting for him to say a word and cross a certain line, and he knew that +sooner or later he would step across it, but an incomprehensible terror +seized him at the thought of that dreadful step. A thousand times during +that month and a half while he felt himself drawn nearer and nearer to +that dreadful abyss, Pierre said to himself: "What am I doing? I need +resolution. Can it be that I have none?" + +He wished to take a decision, but felt with dismay that in this matter +he lacked that strength of will which he had known in himself and really +possessed. Pierre was one of those who are only strong when they feel +themselves quite innocent, and since that day when he was overpowered by +a feeling of desire while stooping over the snuffbox at Anna Pavlovna's, +an unacknowledged sense of the guilt of that desire paralyzed his will. + +On Helene's name day, a small party of just their own people--as his +wife said--met for supper at Prince Vasili's. All these friends and +relations had been given to understand that the fate of the young girl +would be decided that evening. The visitors were seated at supper. +Princess Kuragina, a portly imposing woman who had once been handsome, +was sitting at the head of the table. On either side of her sat the more +important guests--an old general and his wife, and Anna Pavlovna +Scherer. At the other end sat the younger and less important guests, and +there too sat the members of the family, and Pierre and Helene, side by +side. Prince Vasili was not having any supper: he went round the table +in a merry mood, sitting down now by one, now by another, of the guests. +To each of them he made some careless and agreeable remark except to +Pierre and Helene, whose presence he seemed not to notice. He enlivened +the whole party. The wax candles burned brightly, the silver and crystal +gleamed, so did the ladies' toilets and the gold and silver of the men's +epaulets; servants in scarlet liveries moved round the table, the +clatter of plates, knives, and glasses mingled with the animated hum of +several conversations. At one end of the table, the old chamberlain was +heard assuring an old baroness that he loved her passionately, at which +she laughed; at the other could be heard the story of the misfortunes of +some Mary Viktorovna or other. At the center of the table, Prince Vasili +attracted everybody's attention. With a facetious smile on his face, he +was telling the ladies about last Wednesday's meeting of the Imperial +Council, at which Sergey Kuzmich Vyazmitinov, the new military governor +general of Petersburg, had received and read the then famous rescript of +the Emperor Alexander from the army to Sergey Kuzmich, in which the +Emperor said that he was receiving from all sides declarations of the +people's loyalty, that the declaration from Petersburg gave him +particular pleasure, and that he was proud to be at the head of such a +nation and would endeavor to be worthy of it. This rescript began with +the words: "Sergey Kuzmich, From all sides reports reach me," etc. + +"Well, and so he never got farther than: 'Sergey Kuzmich'?" asked one of +the ladies. + +"Exactly, not a hair's breadth farther," answered Prince Vasili, +laughing, "'Sergey Kuzmich... From all sides... From all sides... Sergey +Kuzmich...' Poor Vyazmitinov could not get any farther! He began the +rescript again and again, but as soon as he uttered 'Sergey' he sobbed, +'Kuz-mi-ch,' tears, and 'From all sides' was smothered in sobs and he +could get no farther. And again his handkerchief, and again: 'Sergey +Kuzmich, From all sides,'... and tears, till at last somebody else was +asked to read it." + +"Kuzmich... From all sides... and then tears," someone repeated +laughing. + +"Don't be unkind," cried Anna Pavlovna from her end of the table holding +up a threatening finger. "He is such a worthy and excellent man, our +dear Vyazmitinov...." + +Everybody laughed a great deal. At the head of the table, where the +honored guests sat, everyone seemed to be in high spirits and under the +influence of a variety of exciting sensations. Only Pierre and Helene +sat silently side by side almost at the bottom of the table, a +suppressed smile brightening both their faces, a smile that had nothing +to do with Sergey Kuzmich--a smile of bashfulness at their own feelings. +But much as all the rest laughed, talked, and joked, much as they +enjoyed their Rhine wine, saute, and ices, and however they avoided +looking at the young couple, and heedless and unobservant as they seemed +of them, one could feel by the occasional glances they gave that the +story about Sergey Kuzmich, the laughter, and the food were all a +pretense, and that the whole attention of that company was directed to-- +Pierre and Helene. Prince Vasili mimicked the sobbing of Sergey Kuzmich +and at the same time his eyes glanced toward his daughter, and while he +laughed the expression on his face clearly said: "Yes... it's getting +on, it will all be settled today." Anna Pavlovna threatened him on +behalf of "our dear Vyazmitinov," and in her eyes, which, for an +instant, glanced at Pierre, Prince Vasili read a congratulation on his +future son-in-law and on his daughter's happiness. The old princess +sighed sadly as she offered some wine to the old lady next to her and +glanced angrily at her daughter, and her sigh seemed to say: "Yes, +there's nothing left for you and me but to sip sweet wine, my dear, now +that the time has come for these young ones to be thus boldly, +provocatively happy." "And what nonsense all this is that I am saying!" +thought a diplomatist, glancing at the happy faces of the lovers. +"That's happiness!" + +Into the insignificant, trifling, and artificial interests uniting that +society had entered the simple feeling of the attraction of a healthy +and handsome young man and woman for one another. And this human feeling +dominated everything else and soared above all their affected chatter. +Jests fell flat, news was not interesting, and the animation was +evidently forced. Not only the guests but even the footmen waiting at +table seemed to feel this, and they forgot their duties as they looked +at the beautiful Helene with her radiant face and at the red, broad, and +happy though uneasy face of Pierre. It seemed as if the very light of +the candles was focused on those two happy faces alone. + +Pierre felt that he was the center of it all, and this both pleased and +embarrassed him. He was like a man entirely absorbed in some occupation. +He did not see, hear, or understand anything clearly. Only now and then +detached ideas and impressions from the world of reality shot +unexpectedly through his mind. + +"So it is all finished!" he thought. "And how has it all happened? How +quickly! Now I know that not because of her alone, nor of myself alone, +but because of everyone, it must inevitably come about. They are all +expecting it, they are so sure that it will happen that I cannot, I +cannot, disappoint them. But how will it be? I do not know, but it will +certainly happen!" thought Pierre, glancing at those dazzling shoulders +close to his eyes. + +Or he would suddenly feel ashamed of he knew not what. He felt it +awkward to attract everyone's attention and to be considered a lucky man +and, with his plain face, to be looked on as a sort of Paris possessed +of a Helen. "But no doubt it always is and must be so!" he consoled +himself. "And besides, what have I done to bring it about? How did it +begin? I traveled from Moscow with Prince Vasili. Then there was +nothing. So why should I not stay at his house? Then I played cards with +her and picked up her reticule and drove out with her. How did it begin, +when did it all come about?" And here he was sitting by her side as her +betrothed, seeing, hearing, feeling her nearness, her breathing, her +movements, her beauty. Then it would suddenly seem to him that it was +not she but he was so unusually beautiful, and that that was why they +all looked so at him, and flattered by this general admiration he would +expand his chest, raise his head, and rejoice at his good fortune. +Suddenly he heard a familiar voice repeating something to him a second +time. But Pierre was so absorbed that he did not understand what was +said. + +"I am asking you when you last heard from Bolkonski," repeated Prince +Vasili a third time. "How absent-minded you are, my dear fellow." + +Prince Vasili smiled, and Pierre noticed that everyone was smiling at +him and Helene. "Well, what of it, if you all know it?" thought Pierre. +"What of it? It's the truth!" and he himself smiled his gentle childlike +smile, and Helene smiled too. + +"When did you get the letter? Was it from Olmutz?" repeated Prince +Vasili, who pretended to want to know this in order to settle a dispute. + +"How can one talk or think of such trifles?" thought Pierre. + +"Yes, from Olmutz," he answered, with a sigh. + +After supper Pierre with his partner followed the others into the +drawing room. The guests began to disperse, some without taking leave of +Helene. Some, as if unwilling to distract her from an important +occupation, came up to her for a moment and made haste to go away, +refusing to let her see them off. The diplomatist preserved a mournful +silence as he left the drawing room. He pictured the vanity of his +diplomatic career in comparison with Pierre's happiness. The old general +grumbled at his wife when she asked how his leg was. "Oh, the old fool," +he thought. "That Princess Helene will be beautiful still when she's +fifty." + +"I think I may congratulate you," whispered Anna Pavlovna to the old +princess, kissing her soundly. "If I hadn't this headache I'd have +stayed longer." + +The old princess did not reply, she was tormented by jealousy of her +daughter's happiness. + +While the guests were taking their leave Pierre remained for a long time +alone with Helene in the little drawing room where they were sitting. He +had often before, during the last six weeks, remained alone with her, +but had never spoken to her of love. Now he felt that it was inevitable, +but he could not make up his mind to take the final step. He felt +ashamed; he felt that he was occupying someone else's place here beside +Helene. "This happiness is not for you," some inner voice whispered to +him. "This happiness is for those who have not in them what there is in +you." + +But, as he had to say something, he began by asking her whether she was +satisfied with the party. She replied in her usual simple manner that +this name day of hers had been one of the pleasantest she had ever had. + +Some of the nearest relatives had not yet left. They were sitting in the +large drawing room. Prince Vasili came up to Pierre with languid +footsteps. Pierre rose and said it was getting late. Prince Vasili gave +him a look of stern inquiry, as though what Pierre had just said was so +strange that one could not take it in. But then the expression of +severity changed, and he drew Pierre's hand downwards, made him sit +down, and smiled affectionately. + +"Well, Lelya?" he asked, turning instantly to his daughter and +addressing her with the careless tone of habitual tenderness natural to +parents who have petted their children from babyhood, but which Prince +Vasili had only acquired by imitating other parents. + +And he again turned to Pierre. + +"Sergey Kuzmich--From all sides-" he said, unbuttoning the top button of +his waistcoat. + +Pierre smiled, but his smile showed that he knew it was not the story +about Sergey Kuzmich that interested Prince Vasili just then, and Prince +Vasili saw that Pierre knew this. He suddenly muttered something and +went away. It seemed to Pierre that even the prince was disconcerted. +The sight of the discomposure of that old man of the world touched +Pierre: he looked at Helene and she too seemed disconcerted, and her +look seemed to say: "Well, it is your own fault." + +"The step must be taken but I cannot, I cannot!" thought Pierre, and he +again began speaking about indifferent matters, about Sergey Kuzmich, +asking what the point of the story was as he had not heard it properly. +Helene answered with a smile that she too had missed it. + +When Prince Vasili returned to the drawing room, the princess, his wife, +was talking in low tones to the elderly lady about Pierre. + +"Of course, it is a very brilliant match, but happiness, my dear..." + +"Marriages are made in heaven," replied the elderly lady. + +Prince Vasili passed by, seeming not to hear the ladies, and sat down on +a sofa in a far corner of the room. He closed his eyes and seemed to be +dozing. His head sank forward and then he roused himself. + +"Aline," he said to his wife, "go and see what they are about." + +The princess went up to the door, passed by it with a dignified and +indifferent air, and glanced into the little drawing room. Pierre and +Helene still sat talking just as before. + +"Still the same," she said to her husband. + +Prince Vasili frowned, twisting his mouth, his cheeks quivered and his +face assumed the coarse, unpleasant expression peculiar to him. Shaking +himself, he rose, threw back his head, and with resolute steps went past +the ladies into the little drawing room. With quick steps he went +joyfully up to Pierre. His face was so unusually triumphant that Pierre +rose in alarm on seeing it. + +"Thank God!" said Prince Vasili. "My wife has told me everything!" (He +put one arm around Pierre and the other around his daughter.)--"My dear +boy... Lelya... I am very pleased." (His voice trembled.) "I loved your +father... and she will make you a good wife... God bless you!..." + +He embraced his daughter, and then again Pierre, and kissed him with his +malodorous mouth. Tears actually moistened his cheeks. + +"Princess, come here!" he shouted. + +The old princess came in and also wept. The elderly lady was using her +handkerchief too. Pierre was kissed, and he kissed the beautiful +Helene's hand several times. After a while they were left alone again. + +"All this had to be and could not be otherwise," thought Pierre, "so it +is useless to ask whether it is good or bad. It is good because it's +definite and one is rid of the old tormenting doubt." Pierre held the +hand of his betrothed in silence, looking at her beautiful bosom as it +rose and fell. + +"Helene!" he said aloud and paused. + +"Something special is always said in such cases," he thought, but could +not remember what it was that people say. He looked at her face. She +drew nearer to him. Her face flushed. + +"Oh, take those off... those..." she said, pointing to his spectacles. + +Pierre took them off, and his eyes, besides the strange look eyes have +from which spectacles have just been removed, had also a frightened and +inquiring look. He was about to stoop over her hand and kiss it, but +with a rapid, almost brutal movement of her head, she intercepted his +lips and met them with her own. Her face struck Pierre, by its altered, +unpleasantly excited expression. + +"It is too late now, it's done; besides I love her," thought Pierre. + +"Je vous aime!" * he said, remembering what has to be said at such +moments: but his words sounded so weak that he felt ashamed of himself. + + +* "I love you." + +Six weeks later he was married, and settled in Count Bezukhov's large, +newly furnished Petersburg house, the happy possessor, as people said, +of a wife who was a celebrated beauty and of millions of money. + + + + +CHAPTER III + +Old Prince Nicholas Bolkonski received a letter from Prince Vasili in +November, 1805, announcing that he and his son would be paying him a +visit. "I am starting on a journey of inspection, and of course I shall +think nothing of an extra seventy miles to come and see you at the same +time, my honored benefactor," wrote Prince Vasili. "My son Anatole is +accompanying me on his way to the army, so I hope you will allow him +personally to express the deep respect that, emulating his father, he +feels for you." + +"It seems that there will be no need to bring Mary out, suitors are +coming to us of their own accord," incautiously remarked the little +princess on hearing the news. + +Prince Nicholas frowned, but said nothing. + +A fortnight after the letter Prince Vasili's servants came one evening +in advance of him, and he and his son arrived next day. + +Old Bolkonski had always had a poor opinion of Prince Vasili's +character, but more so recently, since in the new reigns of Paul and +Alexander Prince Vasili had risen to high position and honors. And now, +from the hints contained in his letter and given by the little princess, +he saw which way the wind was blowing, and his low opinion changed into +a feeling of contemptuous ill will. He snorted whenever he mentioned +him. On the day of Prince Vasili's arrival, Prince Bolkonski was +particularly discontented and out of temper. Whether he was in a bad +temper because Prince Vasili was coming, or whether his being in a bad +temper made him specially annoyed at Prince Vasili's visit, he was in a +bad temper, and in the morning Tikhon had already advised the architect +not to go to the prince with his report. + +"Do you hear how he's walking?" said Tikhon, drawing the architect's +attention to the sound of the prince's footsteps. "Stepping flat on his +heels--we know what that means...." + +However, at nine o'clock the prince, in his velvet coat with a sable +collar and cap, went out for his usual walk. It had snowed the day +before and the path to the hothouse, along which the prince was in the +habit of walking, had been swept: the marks of the broom were still +visible in the snow and a shovel had been left sticking in one of the +soft snowbanks that bordered both sides of the path. The prince went +through the conservatories, the serfs' quarters, and the outbuildings, +frowning and silent. + +"Can a sleigh pass?" he asked his overseer, a venerable man, resembling +his master in manners and looks, who was accompanying him back to the +house. + +"The snow is deep. I am having the avenue swept, your honor." + +The prince bowed his head and went up to the porch. "God be thanked," +thought the overseer, "the storm has blown over!" + +"It would have been hard to drive up, your honor," he added. "I heard, +your honor, that a minister is coming to visit your honor." + +The prince turned round to the overseer and fixed his eyes on him, +frowning. + +"What? A minister? What minister? Who gave orders?" he said in his +shrill, harsh voice. "The road is not swept for the princess my +daughter, but for a minister! For me, there are no ministers!" + +"Your honor, I thought..." + +"You thought!" shouted the prince, his words coming more and more +rapidly and indistinctly. "You thought!... Rascals! Blackguards!... I'll +teach you to think!" and lifting his stick he swung it and would have +hit Alpatych, the overseer, had not the latter instinctively avoided the +blow. "Thought... Blackguards..." shouted the prince rapidly. + +But although Alpatych, frightened at his own temerity in avoiding the +stroke, came up to the prince, bowing his bald head resignedly before +him, or perhaps for that very reason, the prince, though he continued to +shout: "Blackguards!... Throw the snow back on the road!" did not lift +his stick again but hurried into the house. + +Before dinner, Princess Mary and Mademoiselle Bourienne, who knew that +the prince was in a bad humor, stood awaiting him; Mademoiselle +Bourienne with a radiant face that said: "I know nothing, I am the same +as usual," and Princess Mary pale, frightened, and with downcast eyes. +What she found hardest to bear was to know that on such occasions she +ought to behave like Mademoiselle Bourienne, but could not. She thought: +"If I seem not to notice he will think that I do not sympathize with +him; if I seem sad and out of spirits myself, he will say (as he has +done before) that I'm in the dumps." + +The prince looked at his daughter's frightened face and snorted. + +"Fool... or dummy!" he muttered. + +"And the other one is not here. They've been telling tales," he thought- +-referring to the little princess who was not in the dining room. + +"Where is the princess?" he asked. "Hiding?" + +"She is not very well," answered Mademoiselle Bourienne with a bright +smile, "so she won't come down. It is natural in her state." + +"Hm! Hm!" muttered the prince, sitting down. + +His plate seemed to him not quite clean, and pointing to a spot he flung +it away. Tikhon caught it and handed it to a footman. The little +princess was not unwell, but had such an overpowering fear of the prince +that, hearing he was in a bad humor, she had decided not to appear. + +"I am afraid for the baby," she said to Mademoiselle Bourienne: "Heaven +knows what a fright might do." + +In general at Bald Hills the little princess lived in constant fear, and +with a sense of antipathy to the old prince which she did not realize +because the fear was so much the stronger feeling. The prince +reciprocated this antipathy, but it was overpowered by his contempt for +her. When the little princess had grown accustomed to life at Bald +Hills, she took a special fancy to Mademoiselle Bourienne, spent whole +days with her, asked her to sleep in her room, and often talked with her +about the old prince and criticized him. + +"So we are to have visitors, mon prince?" remarked Mademoiselle +Bourienne, unfolding her white napkin with her rosy fingers. "His +Excellency Prince Vasili Kuragin and his son, I understand?" she said +inquiringly. + +"Hm!--his excellency is a puppy.... I got him his appointment in the +service," said the prince disdainfully. "Why his son is coming I don't +understand. Perhaps Princess Elizabeth and Princess Mary know. I don't +want him." (He looked at his blushing daughter.) "Are you unwell today? +Eh? Afraid of the 'minister' as that idiot Alpatych called him this +morning?" + +"No, mon pere." + +Though Mademoiselle Bourienne had been so unsuccessful in her choice of +a subject, she did not stop talking, but chattered about the +conservatories and the beauty of a flower that had just opened, and +after the soup the prince became more genial. + +After dinner, he went to see his daughter-in-law. The little princess +was sitting at a small table, chattering with Masha, her maid. She grew +pale on seeing her father-in-law. + +She was much altered. She was now plain rather than pretty. Her cheeks +had sunk, her lip was drawn up, and her eyes drawn down. + +"Yes, I feel a kind of oppression," she said in reply to the prince's +question as to how she felt. + +"Do you want anything?" + +"No, merci, mon pere." + +"Well, all right, all right." + +He left the room and went to the waiting room where Alpatych stood with +bowed head. + +"Has the snow been shoveled back?" + +"Yes, your excellency. Forgive me for heaven's sake... It was only my +stupidity." + +"All right, all right," interrupted the prince, and laughing his +unnatural way, he stretched out his hand for Alpatych to kiss, and then +proceeded to his study. + +Prince Vasili arrived that evening. He was met in the avenue by coachmen +and footmen, who, with loud shouts, dragged his sleighs up to one of the +lodges over the road purposely laden with snow. + +Prince Vasili and Anatole had separate rooms assigned to them. + +Anatole, having taken off his overcoat, sat with arms akimbo before a +table on a corner of which he smilingly and absent-mindedly fixed his +large and handsome eyes. He regarded his whole life as a continual round +of amusement which someone for some reason had to provide for him. And +he looked on this visit to a churlish old man and a rich and ugly +heiress in the same way. All this might, he thought, turn out very well +and amusingly. "And why not marry her if she really has so much money? +That never does any harm," thought Anatole. + +He shaved and scented himself with the care and elegance which had +become habitual to him and, his handsome head held high, entered his +father's room with the good-humored and victorious air natural to him. +Prince Vasili's two valets were busy dressing him, and he looked round +with much animation and cheerfully nodded to his son as the latter +entered, as if to say: "Yes, that's how I want you to look." + +"I say, Father, joking apart, is she very hideous?" Anatole asked, as if +continuing a conversation the subject of which had often been mentioned +during the journey. + +"Enough! What nonsense! Above all, try to be respectful and cautious +with the old prince." + +"If he starts a row I'll go away," said Prince Anatole. "I can't bear +those old men! Eh?" + +"Remember, for you everything depends on this." + +In the meantime, not only was it known in the maidservants' rooms that +the minister and his son had arrived, but the appearance of both had +been minutely described. Princess Mary was sitting alone in her room, +vainly trying to master her agitation. + +"Why did they write, why did Lise tell me about it? It can never +happen!" she said, looking at herself in the glass. "How shall I enter +the drawing room? Even if I like him I can't now be myself with him." +The mere thought of her father's look filled her with terror. The little +princess and Mademoiselle Bourienne had already received from Masha, the +lady's maid, the necessary report of how handsome the minister's son +was, with his rosy cheeks and dark eyebrows, and with what difficulty +the father had dragged his legs upstairs while the son had followed him +like an eagle, three steps at a time. Having received this information, +the little princess and Mademoiselle Bourienne, whose chattering voices +had reached her from the corridor, went into Princess Mary's room. + +"You know they've come, Marie?" said the little princess, waddling in, +and sinking heavily into an armchair. + +She was no longer in the loose gown she generally wore in the morning, +but had on one of her best dresses. Her hair was carefully done and her +face was animated, which, however, did not conceal its sunken and faded +outlines. Dressed as she used to be in Petersburg society, it was still +more noticeable how much plainer she had become. Some unobtrusive touch +had been added to Mademoiselle Bourienne's toilet which rendered her +fresh and pretty face yet more attractive. + +"What! Are you going to remain as you are, dear princess?" she began. +"They'll be announcing that the gentlemen are in the drawing room and we +shall have to go down, and you have not smartened yourself up at all!" + +The little princess got up, rang for the maid, and hurriedly and merrily +began to devise and carry out a plan of how Princess Mary should be +dressed. Princess Mary's self-esteem was wounded by the fact that the +arrival of a suitor agitated her, and still more so by both her +companions' not having the least conception that it could be otherwise. +To tell them that she felt ashamed for herself and for them would be to +betray her agitation, while to decline their offers to dress her would +prolong their banter and insistence. She flushed, her beautiful eyes +grew dim, red blotches came on her face, and it took on the unattractive +martyrlike expression it so often wore, as she submitted herself to +Mademoiselle Bourienne and Lise. Both these women quite sincerely tried +to make her look pretty. She was so plain that neither of them could +think of her as a rival, so they began dressing her with perfect +sincerity, and with the naive and firm conviction women have that dress +can make a face pretty. + +"No really, my dear, this dress is not pretty," said Lise, looking +sideways at Princess Mary from a little distance. "You have a maroon +dress, have it fetched. Really! You know the fate of your whole life may +be at stake. But this one is too light, it's not becoming!" + +It was not the dress, but the face and whole figure of Princess Mary +that was not pretty, but neither Mademoiselle Bourienne nor the little +princess felt this; they still thought that if a blue ribbon were placed +in the hair, the hair combed up, and the blue scarf arranged lower on +the best maroon dress, and so on, all would be well. They forgot that +the frightened face and the figure could not be altered, and that +however they might change the setting and adornment of that face, it +would still remain piteous and plain. After two or three changes to +which Princess Mary meekly submitted, just as her hair had been arranged +on the top of her head (a style that quite altered and spoiled her +looks) and she had put on a maroon dress with a pale-blue scarf, the +little princess walked twice round her, now adjusting a fold of the +dress with her little hand, now arranging the scarf and looking at her +with her head bent first on one side and then on the other. + +"No, it will not do," she said decidedly, clasping her hands. "No, Mary, +really this dress does not suit you. I prefer you in your little gray +everyday dress. Now please, do it for my sake. Katie," she said to the +maid, "bring the princess her gray dress, and you'll see, Mademoiselle +Bourienne, how I shall arrange it," she added, smiling with a foretaste +of artistic pleasure. + +But when Katie brought the required dress, Princess Mary remained +sitting motionless before the glass, looking at her face, and saw in the +mirror her eyes full of tears and her mouth quivering, ready to burst +into sobs. + +"Come, dear princess," said Mademoiselle Bourienne, "just one more +little effort." + +The little princess, taking the dress from the maid, came up to Princess +Mary. + +"Well, now we'll arrange something quite simple and becoming," she said. + +The three voices, hers, Mademoiselle Bourienne's, and Katie's, who was +laughing at something, mingled in a merry sound, like the chirping of +birds. + +"No, leave me alone," said Princess Mary. + +Her voice sounded so serious and so sad that the chirping of the birds +was silenced at once. They looked at the beautiful, large, thoughtful +eyes full of tears and of thoughts, gazing shiningly and imploringly at +them, and understood that it was useless and even cruel to insist. + +"At least, change your coiffure," said the little princess. "Didn't I +tell you," she went on, turning reproachfully to Mademoiselle Bourienne, +"Mary's is a face which such a coiffure does not suit in the least. Not +in the least! Please change it." + +"Leave me alone, please leave me alone! It is all quite the same to me," +answered a voice struggling with tears. + +Mademoiselle Bourienne and the little princess had to own to themselves +that Princess Mary in this guise looked very plain, worse than usual, +but it was too late. She was looking at them with an expression they +both knew, an expression thoughtful and sad. This expression in Princess +Mary did not frighten them (she never inspired fear in anyone), but they +knew that when it appeared on her face, she became mute and was not to +be shaken in her determination. + +"You will change it, won't you?" said Lise. And as Princess Mary gave no +answer, she left the room. + +Princess Mary was left alone. She did not comply with Lise's request, +she not only left her hair as it was, but did not even look in her +glass. Letting her arms fall helplessly, she sat with downcast eyes and +pondered. A husband, a man, a strong dominant and strangely attractive +being rose in her imagination, and carried her into a totally different +happy world of his own. She fancied a child, her own--such as she had +seen the day before in the arms of her nurse's daughter--at her own +breast, the husband standing by and gazing tenderly at her and the +child. "But no, it is impossible, I am too ugly," she thought. + +"Please come to tea. The prince will be out in a moment," came the +maid's voice at the door. + +She roused herself, and felt appalled at what she had been thinking, and +before going down she went into the room where the icons hung and, her +eyes fixed on the dark face of a large icon of the Saviour lit by a +lamp, she stood before it with folded hands for a few moments. A painful +doubt filled her soul. Could the joy of love, of earthly love for a man, +be for her? In her thoughts of marriage Princess Mary dreamed of +happiness and of children, but her strongest, most deeply hidden longing +was for earthly love. The more she tried to hide this feeling from +others and even from herself, the stronger it grew. "O God," she said, +"how am I to stifle in my heart these temptations of the devil? How am I +to renounce forever these vile fancies, so as peacefully to fulfill Thy +will?" And scarcely had she put that question than God gave her the +answer in her own heart. "Desire nothing for thyself, seek nothing, be +not anxious or envious. Man's future and thy own fate must remain hidden +from thee, but live so that thou mayest be ready for anything. If it be +God's will to prove thee in the duties of marriage, be ready to fulfill +His will." With this consoling thought (but yet with a hope for the +fulfillment of her forbidden earthly longing) Princess Mary sighed, and +having crossed herself went down, thinking neither of her gown and +coiffure nor of how she would go in nor of what she would say. What +could all that matter in comparison with the will of God, without Whose +care not a hair of man's head can fall? + + + + +CHAPTER IV + +When Princess Mary came down, Prince Vasili and his son were already in +the drawing room, talking to the little princess and Mademoiselle +Bourienne. When she entered with her heavy step, treading on her heels, +the gentlemen and Mademoiselle Bourienne rose and the little princess, +indicating her to the gentlemen, said: "Voila Marie!" Princess Mary saw +them all and saw them in detail. She saw Prince Vasili's face, serious +for an instant at the sight of her, but immediately smiling again, and +the little princess curiously noting the impression "Marie" produced on +the visitors. And she saw Mademoiselle Bourienne, with her ribbon and +pretty face, and her unusually animated look which was fixed on him, but +him she could not see, she only saw something large, brilliant, and +handsome moving toward her as she entered the room. Prince Vasili +approached first, and she kissed the bold forehead that bent over her +hand and answered his question by saying that, on the contrary, she +remembered him quite well. Then Anatole came up to her. She still could +not see him. She only felt a soft hand taking hers firmly, and she +touched with her lips a white forehead, over which was beautiful light- +brown hair smelling of pomade. When she looked up at him she was struck +by his beauty. Anatole stood with his right thumb under a button of his +uniform, his chest expanded and his back drawn in, slightly swinging one +foot, and, with his head a little bent, looked with beaming face at the +princess without speaking and evidently not thinking about her at all. +Anatole was not quick-witted, nor ready or eloquent in conversation, but +he had the faculty, so invaluable in society, of composure and +imperturbable self-possession. If a man lacking in self-confidence +remains dumb on a first introduction and betrays a consciousness of the +impropriety of such silence and an anxiety to find something to say, the +effect is bad. But Anatole was dumb, swung his foot, and smilingly +examined the princess' hair. It was evident that he could be silent in +this way for a very long time. "If anyone finds this silence +inconvenient, let him talk, but I don't want to," he seemed to say. +Besides this, in his behavior to women Anatole had a manner which +particularly inspires in them curiosity, awe, and even love--a +supercilious consciousness of his own superiority. It was as if he said +to them: "I know you, I know you, but why should I bother about you? +You'd be only too glad, of course." Perhaps he did not really think this +when he met women--even probably he did not, for in general he thought +very little--but his looks and manner gave that impression. The princess +felt this, and as if wishing to show him that she did not even dare +expect to interest him, she turned to his father. The conversation was +general and animated, thanks to Princess Lise's voice and little downy +lip that lifted over her white teeth. She met Prince Vasili with that +playful manner often employed by lively chatty people, and consisting in +the assumption that between the person they so address and themselves +there are some semi-private, long-established jokes and amusing +reminiscences, though no such reminiscences really exist--just as none +existed in this case. Prince Vasili readily adopted her tone and the +little princess also drew Anatole, whom she hardly knew, into these +amusing recollections of things that had never occurred. Mademoiselle +Bourienne also shared them and even Princess Mary felt herself +pleasantly made to share in these merry reminiscences. + +"Here at least we shall have the benefit of your company all to +ourselves, dear prince," said the little princess (of course, in French) +to Prince Vasili. "It's not as at Annette's * receptions where you +always ran away; you remember cette chere Annette!" + + +* Anna Pavlovna. + +"Ah, but you won't talk politics to me like Annette!" + +"And our little tea table?" + +"Oh, yes!" + +"Why is it you were never at Annette's?" the little princess asked +Anatole. "Ah, I know, I know," she said with a sly glance, "your brother +Hippolyte told me about your goings on. Oh!" and she shook her finger at +him, "I have even heard of your doings in Paris!" + +"And didn't Hippolyte tell you?" asked Prince Vasili, turning to his son +and seizing the little princess' arm as if she would have run away and +he had just managed to catch her, "didn't he tell you how he himself was +pining for the dear princess, and how she showed him the door? Oh, she +is a pearl among women, Princess," he added, turning to Princess Mary. + +When Paris was mentioned, Mademoiselle Bourienne for her part seized the +opportunity of joining in the general current of recollections. + +She took the liberty of inquiring whether it was long since Anatole had +left Paris and how he had liked that city. Anatole answered the +Frenchwoman very readily and, looking at her with a smile, talked to her +about her native land. When he saw the pretty little Bourienne, Anatole +came to the conclusion that he would not find Bald Hills dull either. +"Not at all bad!" he thought, examining her, "not at all bad, that +little companion! I hope she will bring her along with her when we're +married, la petite est gentille." * + + +* The little one is charming. + +The old prince dressed leisurely in his study, frowning and considering +what he was to do. The coming of these visitors annoyed him. "What are +Prince Vasili and that son of his to me? Prince Vasili is a shallow +braggart and his son, no doubt, is a fine specimen," he grumbled to +himself. What angered him was that the coming of these visitors revived +in his mind an unsettled question he always tried to stifle, one about +which he always deceived himself. The question was whether he could ever +bring himself to part from his daughter and give her to a husband. The +prince never directly asked himself that question, knowing beforehand +that he would have to answer it justly, and justice clashed not only +with his feelings but with the very possibility of life. Life without +Princess Mary, little as he seemed to value her, was unthinkable to him. +"And why should she marry?" he thought. "To be unhappy for certain. +There's Lise, married to Andrew--a better husband one would think could +hardly be found nowadays--but is she contented with her lot? And who +would marry Marie for love? Plain and awkward! They'll take her for her +connections and wealth. Are there no women living unmarried, and even +the happier for it?" So thought Prince Bolkonski while dressing, and yet +the question he was always putting off demanded an immediate answer. +Prince Vasili had brought his son with the evident intention of +proposing, and today or tomorrow he would probably ask for an answer. +His birth and position in society were not bad. "Well, I've nothing +against it," the prince said to himself, "but he must be worthy of her. +And that is what we shall see." + +"That is what we shall see! That is what we shall see!" he added aloud. + +He entered the drawing room with his usual alert step, glancing rapidly +round the company. He noticed the change in the little princess' dress, +Mademoiselle Bourienne's ribbon, Princess Mary's unbecoming coiffure, +Mademoiselle Bourienne's and Anatole's smiles, and the loneliness of his +daughter amid the general conversation. "Got herself up like a fool!" he +thought, looking irritably at her. "She is shameless, and he ignores +her!" + +He went straight up to Prince Vasili. + +"Well! How d'ye do? How d'ye do? Glad to see you!" + +"Friendship laughs at distance," began Prince Vasili in his usual rapid, +self-confident, familiar tone. "Here is my second son; please love and +befriend him." + +Prince Bolkonski surveyed Anatole. + +"Fine young fellow! Fine young fellow!" he said. "Well, come and kiss +me," and he offered his cheek. + +Anatole kissed the old man, and looked at him with curiosity and perfect +composure, waiting for a display of the eccentricities his father had +told him to expect. + +Prince Bolkonski sat down in his usual place in the corner of the sofa +and, drawing up an armchair for Prince Vasili, pointed to it and began +questioning him about political affairs and news. He seemed to listen +attentively to what Prince Vasili said, but kept glancing at Princess +Mary. + +"And so they are writing from Potsdam already?" he said, repeating +Prince Vasili's last words. Then rising, he suddenly went up to his +daughter. + +"Is it for visitors you've got yourself up like that, eh?" said he. +"Fine, very fine! You have done up your hair in this new way for the +visitors, and before the visitors I tell you that in future you are +never to dare to change your way of dress without my consent." + +"It was my fault, mon pere," interceded the little princess, with a +blush. + +"You must do as you please," said Prince Bolkonski, bowing to his +daughter-in-law, "but she need not make a fool of herself, she's plain +enough as it is." + +And he sat down again, paying no more attention to his daughter, who was +reduced to tears. + +"On the contrary, that coiffure suits the princess very well," said +Prince Vasili. + +"Now you, young prince, what's your name?" said Prince Bolkonski, +turning to Anatole, "come here, let us talk and get acquainted." + +"Now the fun begins," thought Anatole, sitting down with a smile beside +the old prince. + +"Well, my dear boy, I hear you've been educated abroad, not taught to +read and write by the deacon, like your father and me. Now tell me, my +dear boy, are you serving in the Horse Guards?" asked the old man, +scrutinizing Anatole closely and intently. + +"No, I have been transferred to the line," said Anatole, hardly able to +restrain his laughter. + +"Ah! That's a good thing. So, my dear boy, you wish to serve the Tsar +and the country? It is wartime. Such a fine fellow must serve. Well, are +you off to the front?" + +"No, Prince, our regiment has gone to the front, but I am attached... +what is it I am attached to, Papa?" said Anatole, turning to his father +with a laugh. + +"A splendid soldier, splendid! 'What am I attached to!' Ha, ha, ha!" +laughed Prince Bolkonski, and Anatole laughed still louder. Suddenly +Prince Bolkonski frowned. + +"You may go," he said to Anatole. + +Anatole returned smiling to the ladies. + +"And so you've had him educated abroad, Prince Vasili, haven't you?" +said the old prince to Prince Vasili. + +"I have done my best for him, and I can assure you the education there +is much better than ours." + +"Yes, everything is different nowadays, everything is changed. The lad's +a fine fellow, a fine fellow! Well, come with me now." He took Prince +Vasili's arm and led him to his study. As soon as they were alone +together, Prince Vasili announced his hopes and wishes to the old +prince. + +"Well, do you think I shall prevent her, that I can't part from her?" +said the old prince angrily. "What an idea! I'm ready for it tomorrow! +Only let me tell you, I want to know my son-in-law better. You know my +principles--everything aboveboard? I will ask her tomorrow in your +presence; if she is willing, then he can stay on. He can stay and I'll +see." The old prince snorted. "Let her marry, it's all the same to me!" +he screamed in the same piercing tone as when parting from his son. + +"I will tell you frankly," said Prince Vasili in the tone of a crafty +man convinced of the futility of being cunning with so keen-sighted a +companion. "You know, you see right through people. Anatole is no +genius, but he is an honest, goodhearted lad; an excellent son or +kinsman." + +"All right, all right, we'll see!" + +As always happens when women lead lonely lives for any length of time +without male society, on Anatole's appearance all the three women of +Prince Bolkonski's household felt that their life had not been real till +then. Their powers of reasoning, feeling, and observing immediately +increased tenfold, and their life, which seemed to have been passed in +darkness, was suddenly lit up by a new brightness, full of significance. + +Princess Mary grew quite unconscious of her face and coiffure. The +handsome open face of the man who might perhaps be her husband absorbed +all her attention. He seemed to her kind, brave, determined, manly, and +magnanimous. She felt convinced of that. Thousands of dreams of a future +family life continually rose in her imagination. She drove them away and +tried to conceal them. + +"But am I not too cold with him?" thought the princess. "I try to be +reserved because in the depth of my soul I feel too near to him already, +but then he cannot know what I think of him and may imagine that I do +not like him." + +And Princess Mary tried, but could not manage, to be cordial to her new +guest. "Poor girl, she's devilish ugly!" thought Anatole. + +Mademoiselle Bourienne, also roused to great excitement by Anatole's +arrival, thought in another way. Of course, she, a handsome young woman +without any definite position, without relations or even a country, did +not intend to devote her life to serving Prince Bolkonski, to reading +aloud to him and being friends with Princess Mary. Mademoiselle +Bourienne had long been waiting for a Russian prince who, able to +appreciate at a glance her superiority to the plain, badly dressed, +ungainly Russian princesses, would fall in love with her and carry her +off; and here at last was a Russian prince. Mademoiselle Bourienne knew +a story, heard from her aunt but finished in her own way, which she +liked to repeat to herself. It was the story of a girl who had been +seduced, and to whom her poor mother (sa pauvre mere) appeared, and +reproached her for yielding to a man without being married. Mademoiselle +Bourienne was often touched to tears as in imagination she told this +story to him, her seducer. And now he, a real Russian prince, had +appeared. He would carry her away and then sa pauvre mere would appear +and he would marry her. So her future shaped itself in Mademoiselle +Bourienne's head at the very time she was talking to Anatole about +Paris. It was not calculation that guided her (she did not even for a +moment consider what she should do), but all this had long been familiar +to her, and now that Anatole had appeared it just grouped itself around +him and she wished and tried to please him as much as possible. + +The little princess, like an old war horse that hears the trumpet, +unconsciously and quite forgetting her condition, prepared for the +familiar gallop of coquetry, without any ulterior motive or any +struggle, but with naive and lighthearted gaiety. + +Although in female society Anatole usually assumed the role of a man +tired of being run after by women, his vanity was flattered by the +spectacle of his power over these three women. Besides that, he was +beginning to feel for the pretty and provocative Mademoiselle Bourienne +that passionate animal feeling which was apt to master him with great +suddenness and prompt him to the coarsest and most reckless actions. + +After tea, the company went into the sitting room and Princess Mary was +asked to play on the clavichord. Anatole, laughing and in high spirits, +came and leaned on his elbows, facing her and beside Mademoiselle +Bourienne. Princess Mary felt his look with a painfully joyous emotion. +Her favorite sonata bore her into a most intimately poetic world and the +look she felt upon her made that world still more poetic. But Anatole's +expression, though his eyes were fixed on her, referred not to her but +to the movements of Mademoiselle Bourienne's little foot, which he was +then touching with his own under the clavichord. Mademoiselle Bourienne +was also looking at Princess Mary, and in her lovely eyes there was a +look of fearful joy and hope that was also new to the princess. + +"How she loves me!" thought Princess Mary. "How happy I am now, and how +happy I may be with such a friend and such a husband! Husband? Can it be +possible?" she thought, not daring to look at his face, but still +feeling his eyes gazing at her. + +In the evening, after supper, when all were about to retire, Anatole +kissed Princess Mary's hand. She did not know how she found the courage, +but she looked straight into his handsome face as it came near to her +shortsighted eyes. Turning from Princess Mary he went up and kissed +Mademoiselle Bourienne's hand. (This was not etiquette, but then he did +everything so simply and with such assurance!) Mademoiselle Bourienne +flushed, and gave the princess a frightened look. + +"What delicacy!" thought the princess. "Is it possible that Amelie" +(Mademoiselle Bourienne) "thinks I could be jealous of her, and not +value her pure affection and devotion to me?" She went up to her and +kissed her warmly. Anatole went up to kiss the little princess' hand. + +"No! No! No! When your father writes to tell me that you are behaving +well I will give you my hand to kiss. Not till then!" she said. And +smilingly raising a finger at him, she left the room. + + + + +CHAPTER V + +They all separated, but, except Anatole who fell asleep as soon as he +got into bed, all kept awake a long time that night. + +"Is he really to be my husband, this stranger who is so kind--yes, kind, +that is the chief thing," thought Princess Mary; and fear, which she had +seldom experienced, came upon her. She feared to look round, it seemed +to her that someone was there standing behind the screen in the dark +corner. And this someone was he--the devil--and he was also this man +with the white forehead, black eyebrows, and red lips. + +She rang for her maid and asked her to sleep in her room. + +Mademoiselle Bourienne walked up and down the conservatory for a long +time that evening, vainly expecting someone, now smiling at someone, now +working herself up to tears with the imaginary words of her pauvre mere +rebuking her for her fall. + +The little princess grumbled to her maid that her bed was badly made. +She could not lie either on her face or on her side. Every position was +awkward and uncomfortable, and her burden oppressed her now more than +ever because Anatole's presence had vividly recalled to her the time +when she was not like that and when everything was light and gay. She +sat in an armchair in her dressing jacket and nightcap and Katie, sleepy +and disheveled, beat and turned the heavy feather bed for the third +time, muttering to herself. + +"I told you it was all lumps and holes!" the little princess repeated. +"I should be glad enough to fall asleep, so it's not my fault!" and her +voice quivered like that of a child about to cry. + +The old prince did not sleep either. Tikhon, half asleep, heard him +pacing angrily about and snorting. The old prince felt as though he had +been insulted through his daughter. The insult was the more pointed +because it concerned not himself but another, his daughter, whom he +loved more than himself. He kept telling himself that he would consider +the whole matter and decide what was right and how he should act, but +instead of that he only excited himself more and more. + +"The first man that turns up--she forgets her father and everything +else, runs upstairs and does up her hair and wags her tail and is unlike +herself! Glad to throw her father over! And she knew I should notice it. +Fr... fr... fr! And don't I see that that idiot had eyes only for +Bourienne--I shall have to get rid of her. And how is it she has not +pride enough to see it? If she has no pride for herself she might at +least have some for my sake! She must be shown that the blockhead thinks +nothing of her and looks only at Bourienne. No, she has no pride... but +I'll let her see...." + +The old prince knew that if he told his daughter she was making a +mistake and that Anatole meant to flirt with Mademoiselle Bourienne, +Princess Mary's self-esteem would be wounded and his point (not to be +parted from her) would be gained, so pacifying himself with this +thought, he called Tikhon and began to undress. + +"What devil brought them here?" thought he, while Tikhon was putting the +nightshirt over his dried-up old body and gray-haired chest. "I never +invited them. They came to disturb my life--and there is not much of it +left." + +"Devil take 'em!" he muttered, while his head was still covered by the +shirt. + +Tikhon knew his master's habit of sometimes thinking aloud, and +therefore met with unaltered looks the angrily inquisitive expression of +the face that emerged from the shirt. + +"Gone to bed?" asked the prince. + +Tikhon, like all good valets, instinctively knew the direction of his +master's thoughts. He guessed that the question referred to Prince +Vasili and his son. + +"They have gone to bed and put out their lights, your excellency." + +"No good... no good..." said the prince rapidly, and thrusting his feet +into his slippers and his arms into the sleeves of his dressing gown, he +went to the couch on which he slept. + +Though no words had passed between Anatole and Mademoiselle Bourienne, +they quite understood one another as to the first part of their romance, +up to the appearance of the pauvre mere; they understood that they had +much to say to one another in private and so they had been seeking an +opportunity since morning to meet one another alone. When Princess Mary +went to her father's room at the usual hour, Mademoiselle Bourienne and +Anatole met in the conservatory. + +Princess Mary went to the door of the study with special trepidation. It +seemed to her that not only did everybody know that her fate would be +decided that day, but that they also knew what she thought about it. She +read this in Tikhon's face and in that of Prince Vasili's valet, who +made her a low bow when she met him in the corridor carrying hot water. + +The old prince was very affectionate and careful in his treatment of his +daughter that morning. Princess Mary well knew this painstaking +expression of her father's. His face wore that expression when his dry +hands clenched with vexation at her not understanding a sum in +arithmetic, when rising from his chair he would walk away from her, +repeating in a low voice the same words several times over. + +He came to the point at once, treating her ceremoniously. + +"I have had a proposition made me concerning you," he said with an +unnatural smile. "I expect you have guessed that Prince Vasili has not +come and brought his pupil with him" (for some reason Prince Bolkonski +referred to Anatole as a "pupil") "for the sake of my beautiful eyes. +Last night a proposition was made me on your account and, as you know my +principles, I refer it to you." + +"How am I to understand you, mon pere?" said the princess, growing pale +and then blushing. + +"How understand me!" cried her father angrily. "Prince Vasili finds you +to his taste as a daughter-in-law and makes a proposal to you on his +pupil's behalf. That's how it's to be understood! 'How understand +it'!... And I ask you!" + +"I do not know what you think, Father," whispered the princess. + +"I? I? What of me? Leave me out of the question. I'm not going to get +married. What about you? That's what I want to know." + +The princess saw that her father regarded the matter with disapproval, +but at that moment the thought occurred to her that her fate would be +decided now or never. She lowered her eyes so as not to see the gaze +under which she felt that she could not think, but would only be able to +submit from habit, and she said: "I wish only to do your will, but if I +had to express my own desire..." She had no time to finish. The old +prince interrupted her. + +"That's admirable!" he shouted. "He will take you with your dowry and +take Mademoiselle Bourienne into the bargain. She'll be the wife, while +you..." + +The prince stopped. He saw the effect these words had produced on his +daughter. She lowered her head and was ready to burst into tears. + +"Now then, now then, I'm only joking!" he said. "Remember this, +Princess, I hold to the principle that a maiden has a full right to +choose. I give you freedom. Only remember that your life's happiness +depends on your decision. Never mind me!" + +"But I do not know, Father!" + +"There's no need to talk! He receives his orders and will marry you or +anybody; but you are free to choose.... Go to your room, think it over, +and come back in an hour and tell me in his presence: yes or no. I know +you will pray over it. Well, pray if you like, but you had better think +it over. Go! Yes or no, yes or no, yes or no!" he still shouted when the +princess, as if lost in a fog, had already staggered out of the study. + +Her fate was decided and happily decided. But what her father had said +about Mademoiselle Bourienne was dreadful. It was untrue to be sure, but +still it was terrible, and she could not help thinking of it. She was +going straight on through the conservatory, neither seeing nor hearing +anything, when suddenly the well-known whispering of Mademoiselle +Bourienne aroused her. She raised her eyes, and two steps away saw +Anatole embracing the Frenchwoman and whispering something to her. With +a horrified expression on his handsome face, Anatole looked at Princess +Mary, but did not at once take his arm from the waist of Mademoiselle +Bourienne who had not yet seen her. + +"Who's that? Why? Wait a moment!" Anatole's face seemed to say. Princess +Mary looked at them in silence. She could not understand it. At last +Mademoiselle Bourienne gave a scream and ran away. Anatole bowed to +Princess Mary with a gay smile, as if inviting her to join in a laugh at +this strange incident, and then shrugging his shoulders went to the door +that led to his own apartments. + +An hour later, Tikhon came to call Princess Mary to the old prince; he +added that Prince Vasili was also there. When Tikhon came to her +Princess Mary was sitting on the sofa in her room, holding the weeping +Mademoiselle Bourienne in her arms and gently stroking her hair. The +princess' beautiful eyes with all their former calm radiance were +looking with tender affection and pity at Mademoiselle Bourienne's +pretty face. + +"No, Princess, I have lost your affection forever!" said Mademoiselle +Bourienne. + +"Why? I love you more than ever," said Princess Mary, "and I will try to +do all I can for your happiness." + +"But you despise me. You who are so pure can never understand being so +carried away by passion. Oh, only my poor mother..." + +"I quite understand," answered Princess Mary, with a sad smile. "Calm +yourself, my dear. I will go to my father," she said, and went out. + +Prince Vasili, with one leg thrown high over the other and a snuffbox in +his hand, was sitting there with a smile of deep emotion on his face, as +if stirred to his heart's core and himself regretting and laughing at +his own sensibility, when Princess Mary entered. He hurriedly took a +pinch of snuff. + +"Ah, my dear, my dear!" he began, rising and taking her by both hands. +Then, sighing, he added: "My son's fate is in your hands. Decide, my +dear, good, gentle Marie, whom I have always loved as a daughter!" + +He drew back and a real tear appeared in his eye. + +"Fr... fr..." snorted Prince Bolkonski. "The prince is making a +proposition to you in his pupil's--I mean, his son's--name. Do you wish +or not to be Prince Anatole Kuragin's wife? Reply: yes or no," he +shouted, "and then I shall reserve the right to state my opinion also. +Yes, my opinion, and only my opinion," added Prince Bolkonski, turning +to Prince Vasili and answering his imploring look. "Yes, or no?" + +"My desire is never to leave you, Father, never to separate my life from +yours. I don't wish to marry," she answered positively, glancing at +Prince Vasili and at her father with her beautiful eyes. + +"Humbug! Nonsense! Humbug, humbug, humbug!" cried Prince Bolkonski, +frowning and taking his daughter's hand; he did not kiss her, but only +bending his forehead to hers just touched it, and pressed her hand so +that she winced and uttered a cry. + +Prince Vasili rose. + +"My dear, I must tell you that this is a moment I shall never, never +forget. But, my dear, will you not give us a little hope of touching +this heart, so kind and generous? Say 'perhaps'... The future is so +long. Say 'perhaps.'" + +"Prince, what I have said is all there is in my heart. I thank you for +the honor, but I shall never be your son's wife." + +"Well, so that's finished, my dear fellow! I am very glad to have seen +you. Very glad! Go back to your rooms, Princess. Go!" said the old +prince. "Very, very glad to have seen you," repeated he, embracing +Prince Vasili. + +"My vocation is a different one," thought Princess Mary. "My vocation is +to be happy with another kind of happiness, the happiness of love and +self-sacrifice. And cost what it may, I will arrange poor Amelie's +happiness, she loves him so passionately, and so passionately repents. I +will do all I can to arrange the match between them. If he is not rich I +will give her the means; I will ask my father and Andrew. I shall be so +happy when she is his wife. She is so unfortunate, a stranger, alone, +helpless! And, oh God, how passionately she must love him if she could +so far forget herself! Perhaps I might have done the same!..." thought +Princess Mary. + + + + +CHAPTER VI + +It was long since the Rostovs had news of Nicholas. Not till midwinter +was the count at last handed a letter addressed in his son's +handwriting. On receiving it, he ran on tiptoe to his study in alarm and +haste, trying to escape notice, closed the door, and began to read the +letter. + +Anna Mikhaylovna, who always knew everything that passed in the house, +on hearing of the arrival of the letter went softly into the room and +found the count with it in his hand, sobbing and laughing at the same +time. + +Anna Mikhaylovna, though her circumstances had improved, was still +living with the Rostovs. + +"My dear friend?" said she, in a tone of pathetic inquiry, prepared to +sympathize in any way. + +The count sobbed yet more. + +"Nikolenka... a letter... wa... a... s... wounded... my darling boy... +the countess... promoted to be an officer... thank God... How tell the +little countess!" + +Anna Mikhaylovna sat down beside him, with her own handkerchief wiped +the tears from his eyes and from the letter, then having dried her own +eyes she comforted the count, and decided that at dinner and till +teatime she would prepare the countess, and after tea, with God's help, +would inform her. + +At dinner Anna Mikhaylovna talked the whole time about the war news and +about Nikolenka, twice asked when the last letter had been received from +him, though she knew that already, and remarked that they might very +likely be getting a letter from him that day. Each time that these hints +began to make the countess anxious and she glanced uneasily at the count +and at Anna Mikhaylovna, the latter very adroitly turned the +conversation to insignificant matters. Natasha, who, of the whole +family, was the most gifted with a capacity to feel any shades of +intonation, look, and expression, pricked up her ears from the beginning +of the meal and was certain that there was some secret between her +father and Anna Mikhaylovna, that it had something to do with her +brother, and that Anna Mikhaylovna was preparing them for it. Bold as +she was, Natasha, who knew how sensitive her mother was to anything +relating to Nikolenka, did not venture to ask any questions at dinner, +but she was too excited to eat anything and kept wriggling about on her +chair regardless of her governess' remarks. After dinner, she rushed +head long after Anna Mikhaylovna and, dashing at her, flung herself on +her neck as soon as she overtook her in the sitting room. + +"Auntie, darling, do tell me what it is!" + +"Nothing, my dear." + +"No, dearest, sweet one, honey, I won't give up--I know you know +something." + +Anna Mikhaylovna shook her head. + +"You are a little slyboots," she said. + +"A letter from Nikolenka! I'm sure of it!" exclaimed Natasha, reading +confirmation in Anna Mikhaylovna's face. + +"But for God's sake, be careful, you know how it may affect your mamma." + +"I will, I will, only tell me! You won't? Then I will go and tell at +once." + +Anna Mikhaylovna, in a few words, told her the contents of the letter, +on condition that she should tell no one. + +"No, on my true word of honor," said Natasha, crossing herself, "I won't +tell anyone!" and she ran off at once to Sonya. + +"Nikolenka... wounded... a letter," she announced in gleeful triumph. + +"Nicholas!" was all Sonya said, instantly turning white. + +Natasha, seeing the impression the news of her brother's wound produced +on Sonya, felt for the first time the sorrowful side of the news. + +She rushed to Sonya, hugged her, and began to cry. + +"A little wound, but he has been made an officer; he is well now, he +wrote himself," said she through her tears. + +"There now! It's true that all you women are crybabies," remarked Petya, +pacing the room with large, resolute strides. "Now I'm very glad, very +glad indeed, that my brother has distinguished himself so. You are all +blubberers and understand nothing." + +Natasha smiled through her tears. + +"You haven't read the letter?" asked Sonya. + +"No, but she said that it was all over and that he's now an officer." + +"Thank God!" said Sonya, crossing herself. "But perhaps she deceived +you. Let us go to Mamma." + +Petya paced the room in silence for a time. + +"If I'd been in Nikolenka's place I would have killed even more of those +Frenchmen," he said. "What nasty brutes they are! I'd have killed so +many that there'd have been a heap of them." + +"Hold your tongue, Petya, what a goose you are!" + +"I'm not a goose, but they are who cry about trifles," said Petya. + +"Do you remember him?" Natasha suddenly asked, after a moment's silence. + +Sonya smiled. + +"Do I remember Nicholas?" + +"No, Sonya, but do you remember so that you remember him perfectly, +remember everything?" said Natasha, with an expressive gesture, +evidently wishing to give her words a very definite meaning. "I remember +Nikolenka too, I remember him well," she said. "But I don't remember +Boris. I don't remember him a bit." + +"What! You don't remember Boris?" asked Sonya in surprise. + +"It's not that I don't remember--I know what he is like, but not as I +remember Nikolenka. Him--I just shut my eyes and remember, but Boris... +No!" (She shut her eyes.) "No! there's nothing at all." + +"Oh, Natasha!" said Sonya, looking ecstatically and earnestly at her +friend as if she did not consider her worthy to hear what she meant to +say and as if she were saying it to someone else, with whom joking was +out of the question, "I am in love with your brother once for all and, +whatever may happen to him or to me, shall never cease to love him as +long as I live." + +Natasha looked at Sonya with wondering and inquisitive eyes, and said +nothing. She felt that Sonya was speaking the truth, that there was such +love as Sonya was speaking of. But Natasha had not yet felt anything +like it. She believed it could be, but did not understand it. + +"Shall you write to him?" she asked. + +Sonya became thoughtful. The question of how to write to Nicholas, and +whether she ought to write, tormented her. Now that he was already an +officer and a wounded hero, would it be right to remind him of herself +and, as it might seem, of the obligations to her he had taken on +himself? + +"I don't know. I think if he writes, I will write too," she said, +blushing. + +"And you won't feel ashamed to write to him?" + +Sonya smiled. + +"No." + +"And I should be ashamed to write to Boris. I'm not going to." + +"Why should you be ashamed?" + +"Well, I don't know. It's awkward and would make me ashamed." + +"And I know why she'd be ashamed," said Petya, offended by Natasha's +previous remark. "It's because she was in love with that fat one in +spectacles" (that was how Petya described his namesake, the new Count +Bezukhov) "and now she's in love with that singer" (he meant Natasha's +Italian singing master), "that's why she's ashamed!" + +"Petya, you're a stupid!" said Natasha. + +"Not more stupid than you, madam," said the nine-year-old Petya, with +the air of an old brigadier. + +The countess had been prepared by Anna Mikhaylovna's hints at dinner. On +retiring to her own room, she sat in an armchair, her eyes fixed on a +miniature portrait of her son on the lid of a snuffbox, while the tears +kept coming into her eyes. Anna Mikhaylovna, with the letter, came on +tiptoe to the countess' door and paused. + +"Don't come in," she said to the old count who was following her. "Come +later." And she went in, closing the door behind her. + +The count put his ear to the keyhole and listened. + +At first he heard the sound of indifferent voices, then Anna +Mikhaylovna's voice alone in a long speech, then a cry, then silence, +then both voices together with glad intonations, and then footsteps. +Anna Mikhaylovna opened the door. Her face wore the proud expression of +a surgeon who has just performed a difficult operation and admits the +public to appreciate his skill. + +"It is done!" she said to the count, pointing triumphantly to the +countess, who sat holding in one hand the snuffbox with its portrait and +in the other the letter, and pressing them alternately to her lips. + +When she saw the count, she stretched out her arms to him, embraced his +bald head, over which she again looked at the letter and the portrait, +and in order to press them again to her lips, she slightly pushed away +the bald head. Vera, Natasha, Sonya, and Petya now entered the room, and +the reading of the letter began. After a brief description of the +campaign and the two battles in which he had taken part, and his +promotion, Nicholas said that he kissed his father's and mother's hands +asking for their blessing, and that he kissed Vera, Natasha, and Petya. +Besides that, he sent greetings to Monsieur Schelling, Madame Schoss, +and his old nurse, and asked them to kiss for him "dear Sonya, whom he +loved and thought of just the same as ever." When she heard this Sonya +blushed so that tears came into her eyes and, unable to bear the looks +turned upon her, ran away into the dancing hall, whirled round it at +full speed with her dress puffed out like a balloon, and, flushed and +smiling, plumped down on the floor. The countess was crying. + +"Why are you crying, Mamma?" asked Vera. "From all he says one should be +glad and not cry." + +This was quite true, but the count, the countess, and Natasha looked at +her reproachfully. "And who is it she takes after?" thought the +countess. + +Nicholas' letter was read over hundreds of times, and those who were +considered worthy to hear it had to come to the countess, for she did +not let it out of her hands. The tutors came, and the nurses, and +Dmitri, and several acquaintances, and the countess reread the letter +each time with fresh pleasure and each time discovered in it fresh +proofs of Nikolenka's virtues. How strange, how extraordinary, how +joyful it seemed, that her son, the scarcely perceptible motion of whose +tiny limbs she had felt twenty years ago within her, that son about whom +she used to have quarrels with the too indulgent count, that son who had +first learned to say "pear" and then "granny," that this son should now +be away in a foreign land amid strange surroundings, a manly warrior +doing some kind of man's work of his own, without help or guidance. The +universal experience of ages, showing that children do grow +imperceptibly from the cradle to manhood, did not exist for the +countess. Her son's growth toward manhood, at each of its stages, had +seemed as extraordinary to her as if there had never existed the +millions of human beings who grew up in the same way. As twenty years +before, it seemed impossible that the little creature who lived +somewhere under her heart would ever cry, suck her breast, and begin to +speak, so now she could not believe that that little creature could be +this strong, brave man, this model son and officer that, judging by this +letter, he now was. + +"What a style! How charmingly he describes!" said she, reading the +descriptive part of the letter. "And what a soul! Not a word about +himself.... Not a word! About some Denisov or other, though he himself, +I dare say, is braver than any of them. He says nothing about his +sufferings. What a heart! How like him it is! And how he has remembered +everybody! Not forgetting anyone. I always said when he was only so +high--I always said...." + +For more than a week preparations were being made, rough drafts of +letters to Nicholas from all the household were written and copied out, +while under the supervision of the countess and the solicitude of the +count, money and all things necessary for the uniform and equipment of +the newly commissioned officer were collected. Anna Mikhaylovna, +practical woman that she was, had even managed by favor with army +authorities to secure advantageous means of communication for herself +and her son. She had opportunities of sending her letters to the Grand +Duke Constantine Pavlovich, who commanded the Guards. The Rostovs +supposed that The Russian Guards, Abroad, was quite a definite address, +and that if a letter reached the Grand Duke in command of the Guards +there was no reason why it should not reach the Pavlograd regiment, +which was presumably somewhere in the same neighborhood. And so it was +decided to send the letters and money by the Grand Duke's courier to +Boris and Boris was to forward them to Nicholas. The letters were from +the old count, the countess, Petya, Vera, Natasha, and Sonya, and +finally there were six thousand rubles for his outfit and various other +things the old count sent to his son. + + + + +CHAPTER VII + +On the twelfth of November, Kutuzov's active army, in camp before +Olmutz, was preparing to be reviewed next day by the two Emperors--the +Russian and the Austrian. The Guards, just arrived from Russia, spent +the night ten miles from Olmutz and next morning were to come straight +to the review, reaching the field at Olmutz by ten o'clock. + +That day Nicholas Rostov received a letter from Boris, telling him that +the Ismaylov regiment was quartered for the night ten miles from Olmutz +and that he wanted to see him as he had a letter and money for him. +Rostov was particularly in need of money now that the troops, after +their active service, were stationed near Olmutz and the camp swarmed +with well-provisioned sutlers and Austrian Jews offering all sorts of +tempting wares. The Pavlograds held feast after feast, celebrating +awards they had received for the campaign, and made expeditions to +Olmutz to visit a certain Caroline the Hungarian, who had recently +opened a restaurant there with girls as waitresses. Rostov, who had just +celebrated his promotion to a cornetcy and bought Denisov's horse, +Bedouin, was in debt all round, to his comrades and the sutlers. On +receiving Boris' letter he rode with a fellow officer to Olmutz, dined +there, drank a bottle of wine, and then set off alone to the Guards' +camp to find his old playmate. Rostov had not yet had time to get his +uniform. He had on a shabby cadet jacket, decorated with a soldier's +cross, equally shabby cadet's riding breeches lined with worn leather, +and an officer's saber with a sword knot. The Don horse he was riding +was one he had bought from a Cossack during the campaign, and he wore a +crumpled hussar cap stuck jauntily back on one side of his head. As he +rode up to the camp he thought how he would impress Boris and all his +comrades of the Guards by his appearance--that of a fighting hussar who +had been under fire. + +The Guards had made their whole march as if on a pleasure trip, parading +their cleanliness and discipline. They had come by easy stages, their +knapsacks conveyed on carts, and the Austrian authorities had provided +excellent dinners for the officers at every halting place. The regiments +had entered and left the town with their bands playing, and by the Grand +Duke's orders the men had marched all the way in step (a practice on +which the Guards prided themselves), the officers on foot and at their +proper posts. Boris had been quartered, and had marched all the way, +with Berg who was already in command of a company. Berg, who had +obtained his captaincy during the campaign, had gained the confidence of +his superiors by his promptitude and accuracy and had arranged his money +matters very satisfactorily. Boris, during the campaign, had made the +acquaintance of many persons who might prove useful to him, and by a +letter of recommendation he had brought from Pierre had become +acquainted with Prince Andrew Bolkonski, through whom he hoped to obtain +a post on the commander-in-chief's staff. Berg and Boris, having rested +after yesterday's march, were sitting, clean and neatly dressed, at a +round table in the clean quarters allotted to them, playing chess. Berg +held a smoking pipe between his knees. Boris, in the accurate way +characteristic of him, was building a little pyramid of chessmen with +his delicate white fingers while awaiting Berg's move, and watched his +opponent's face, evidently thinking about the game as he always thought +only of whatever he was engaged on. + +"Well, how are you going to get out of that?" he remarked. + +"We'll try to," replied Berg, touching a pawn and then removing his +hand. + +At that moment the door opened. + +"Here he is at last!" shouted Rostov. "And Berg too! Oh, you +petisenfans, allay cushay dormir!" he exclaimed, imitating his Russian +nurse's French, at which he and Boris used to laugh long ago. + +"Dear me, how you have changed!" + +Boris rose to meet Rostov, but in doing so did not omit to steady and +replace some chessmen that were falling. He was about to embrace his +friend, but Nicholas avoided him. With that peculiar feeling of youth, +that dread of beaten tracks, and wish to express itself in a manner +different from that of its elders which is often insincere, Nicholas +wished to do something special on meeting his friend. He wanted to pinch +him, push him, do anything but kiss him--a thing everybody did. But +notwithstanding this, Boris embraced him in a quiet, friendly way and +kissed him three times. + +They had not met for nearly half a year and, being at the age when young +men take their first steps on life's road, each saw immense changes in +the other, quite a new reflection of the society in which they had taken +those first steps. Both had changed greatly since they last met and both +were in a hurry to show the changes that had taken place in them. + +"Oh, you damned dandies! Clean and fresh as if you'd been to a fete, not +like us sinners of the line," cried Rostov, with martial swagger and +with baritone notes in his voice, new to Boris, pointing to his own mud- +bespattered breeches. The German landlady, hearing Rostov's loud voice, +popped her head in at the door. + +"Eh, is she pretty?" he asked with a wink. + +"Why do you shout so? You'll frighten them!" said Boris. "I did not +expect you today," he added. "I only sent you the note yesterday by +Bolkonski--an adjutant of Kutuzov's, who's a friend of mine. I did not +think he would get it to you so quickly.... Well, how are you? Been +under fire already?" asked Boris. + +Without answering, Rostov shook the soldier's Cross of St. George +fastened to the cording of his uniform and, indicating a bandaged arm, +glanced at Berg with a smile. + +"As you see," he said. + +"Indeed? Yes, yes!" said Boris, with a smile. "And we too have had a +splendid march. You know, of course, that His Imperial Highness rode +with our regiment all the time, so that we had every comfort and every +advantage. What receptions we had in Poland! What dinners and balls! I +can't tell you. And the Tsarevich was very gracious to all our +officers." + +And the two friends told each other of their doings, the one of his +hussar revels and life in the fighting line, the other of the pleasures +and advantages of service under members of the Imperial family. + +"Oh, you Guards!" said Rostov. "I say, send for some wine." + +Boris made a grimace. + +"If you really want it," said he. + +He went to his bed, drew a purse from under the clean pillow, and sent +for wine. + +"Yes, and I have some money and a letter to give you," he added. + +Rostov took the letter and, throwing the money on the sofa, put both +arms on the table and began to read. After reading a few lines, he +glanced angrily at Berg, then, meeting his eyes, hid his face behind the +letter. + +"Well, they've sent you a tidy sum," said Berg, eying the heavy purse +that sank into the sofa. "As for us, Count, we get along on our pay. I +can tell you for myself..." + +"I say, Berg, my dear fellow," said Rostov, "when you get a letter from +home and meet one of your own people whom you want to talk everything +over with, and I happen to be there, I'll go at once, to be out of your +way! Do go somewhere, anywhere... to the devil!" he exclaimed, and +immediately seizing him by the shoulder and looking amiably into his +face, evidently wishing to soften the rudeness of his words, he added, +"Don't be hurt, my dear fellow; you know I speak from my heart as to an +old acquaintance." + +"Oh, don't mention it, Count! I quite understand," said Berg, getting up +and speaking in a muffled and guttural voice. + +"Go across to our hosts: they invited you," added Boris. + +Berg put on the cleanest of coats, without a spot or speck of dust, +stood before a looking glass and brushed the hair on his temples +upwards, in the way affected by the Emperor Alexander, and, having +assured himself from the way Rostov looked at it that his coat had been +noticed, left the room with a pleasant smile. + +"Oh dear, what a beast I am!" muttered Rostov, as he read the letter. + +"Why?" + +"Oh, what a pig I am, not to have written and to have given them such a +fright! Oh, what a pig I am!" he repeated, flushing suddenly. "Well, +have you sent Gabriel for some wine? All right let's have some!" + +In the letter from his parents was enclosed a letter of recommendation +to Bagration which the old countess at Anna Mikhaylovna's advice had +obtained through an acquaintance and sent to her son, asking him to take +it to its destination and make use of it. + +"What nonsense! Much I need it!" said Rostov, throwing the letter under +the table. + +"Why have you thrown that away?" asked Boris. + +"It is some letter of recommendation... what the devil do I want it +for!" + +"Why 'What the devil'?" said Boris, picking it up and reading the +address. "This letter would be of great use to you." + +"I want nothing, and I won't be anyone's adjutant." + +"Why not?" inquired Boris. + +"It's a lackey's job!" + +"You are still the same dreamer, I see," remarked Boris, shaking his +head. + +"And you're still the same diplomatist! But that's not the point... +Come, how are you?" asked Rostov. + +"Well, as you see. So far everything's all right, but I confess I should +much like to be an adjutant and not remain at the front." + +"Why?" + +"Because when once a man starts on military service, he should try to +make as successful a career of it as possible." + +"Oh, that's it!" said Rostov, evidently thinking of something else. + +He looked intently and inquiringly into his friend's eyes, evidently +trying in vain to find the answer to some question. + +Old Gabriel brought in the wine. + +"Shouldn't we now send for Berg?" asked Boris. "He would drink with you. +I can't." + +"Well, send for him... and how do you get on with that German?" asked +Rostov, with a contemptuous smile. + +"He is a very, very nice, honest, and pleasant fellow," answered Boris. + +Again Rostov looked intently into Boris' eyes and sighed. Berg returned, +and over the bottle of wine conversation between the three officers +became animated. The Guardsmen told Rostov of their march and how they +had been made much of in Russia, Poland, and abroad. They spoke of the +sayings and doings of their commander, the Grand Duke, and told stories +of his kindness and irascibility. Berg, as usual, kept silent when the +subject did not relate to himself, but in connection with the stories of +the Grand Duke's quick temper he related with gusto how in Galicia he +had managed to deal with the Grand Duke when the latter made a tour of +the regiments and was annoyed at the irregularity of a movement. With a +pleasant smile Berg related how the Grand Duke had ridden up to him in a +violent passion, shouting: "Arnauts!" ("Arnauts" was the Tsarevich's +favorite expression when he was in a rage) and called for the company +commander. + +"Would you believe it, Count, I was not at all alarmed, because I knew I +was right. Without boasting, you know, I may say that I know the Army +Orders by heart and know the Regulations as well as I do the Lord's +Prayer. So, Count, there never is any negligence in my company, and so +my conscience was at ease. I came forward...." (Berg stood up and showed +how he presented himself, with his hand to his cap, and really it would +have been difficult for a face to express greater respect and self- +complacency than his did.) "Well, he stormed at me, as the saying is, +stormed and stormed and stormed! It was not a matter of life but rather +of death, as the saying is. 'Albanians!' and 'devils!' and 'To +Siberia!'" said Berg with a sagacious smile. "I knew I was in the right +so I kept silent; was not that best, Count?... 'Hey, are you dumb?' he +shouted. Still I remained silent. And what do you think, Count? The next +day it was not even mentioned in the Orders of the Day. That's what +keeping one's head means. That's the way, Count," said Berg, lighting +his pipe and emitting rings of smoke. + +"Yes, that was fine," said Rostov, smiling. + +But Boris noticed that he was preparing to make fun of Berg, and +skillfully changed the subject. He asked him to tell them how and where +he got his wound. This pleased Rostov and he began talking about it, and +as he went on became more and more animated. He told them of his Schon +Grabern affair, just as those who have taken part in a battle generally +do describe it, that is, as they would like it to have been, as they +have heard it described by others, and as sounds well, but not at all as +it really was. Rostov was a truthful young man and would on no account +have told a deliberate lie. He began his story meaning to tell +everything just as it happened, but imperceptibly, involuntarily, and +inevitably he lapsed into falsehood. If he had told the truth to his +hearers--who like himself had often heard stories of attacks and had +formed a definite idea of what an attack was and were expecting to hear +just such a story--they would either not have believed him or, still +worse, would have thought that Rostov was himself to blame since what +generally happens to the narrators of cavalry attacks had not happened +to him. He could not tell them simply that everyone went at a trot and +that he fell off his horse and sprained his arm and then ran as hard as +he could from a Frenchman into the wood. Besides, to tell everything as +it really happened, it would have been necessary to make an effort of +will to tell only what happened. It is very difficult to tell the truth, +and young people are rarely capable of it. His hearers expected a story +of how beside himself and all aflame with excitement, he had flown like +a storm at the square, cut his way in, slashed right and left, how his +saber had tasted flesh and he had fallen exhausted, and so on. And so he +told them all that. + +In the middle of his story, just as he was saying: "You cannot imagine +what a strange frenzy one experiences during an attack," Prince Andrew, +whom Boris was expecting, entered the room. Prince Andrew, who liked to +help young men, was flattered by being asked for his assistance and +being well disposed toward Boris, who had managed to please him the day +before, he wished to do what the young man wanted. Having been sent with +papers from Kutuzov to the Tsarevich, he looked in on Boris, hoping to +find him alone. When he came in and saw an hussar of the line recounting +his military exploits (Prince Andrew could not endure that sort of man), +he gave Boris a pleasant smile, frowned as with half-closed eyes he +looked at Rostov, bowed slightly and wearily, and sat down languidly on +the sofa: he felt it unpleasant to have dropped in on bad company. +Rostov flushed up on noticing this, but he did not care, this was a mere +stranger. Glancing, however, at Boris, he saw that he too seemed ashamed +of the hussar of the line. + +In spite of Prince Andrew's disagreeable, ironical tone, in spite of the +contempt with which Rostov, from his fighting army point of view, +regarded all these little adjutants on the staff of whom the newcomer +was evidently one, Rostov felt confused, blushed, and became silent. +Boris inquired what news there might be on the staff, and what, without +indiscretion, one might ask about our plans. + +"We shall probably advance," replied Bolkonski, evidently reluctant to +say more in the presence of a stranger. + +Berg took the opportunity to ask, with great politeness, whether, as was +rumored, the allowance of forage money to captains of companies would be +doubled. To this Prince Andrew answered with a smile that he could give +no opinion on such an important government order, and Berg laughed +gaily. + +"As to your business," Prince Andrew continued, addressing Boris, "we +will talk of it later" (and he looked round at Rostov). "Come to me +after the review and we will do what is possible." + +And, having glanced round the room, Prince Andrew turned to Rostov, +whose state of unconquerable childish embarrassment now changing to +anger he did not condescend to notice, and said: "I think you were +talking of the Schon Grabern affair? Were you there?" + +"I was there," said Rostov angrily, as if intending to insult the aide- +de-camp. + +Bolkonski noticed the hussar's state of mind, and it amused him. With a +slightly contemptuous smile, he said: "Yes, there are many stories now +told about that affair!" + +"Yes, stories!" repeated Rostov loudly, looking with eyes suddenly grown +furious, now at Boris, now at Bolkonski. "Yes, many stories! But our +stories are the stories of men who have been under the enemy's fire! Our +stories have some weight, not like the stories of those fellows on the +staff who get rewards without doing anything!" + +"Of whom you imagine me to be one?" said Prince Andrew, with a quiet and +particularly amiable smile. + +A strange feeling of exasperation and yet of respect for this man's +self-possession mingled at that moment in Rostov's soul. + +"I am not talking about you," he said, "I don't know you and, frankly, I +don't want to. I am speaking of the staff in general." + +"And I will tell you this," Prince Andrew interrupted in a tone of quiet +authority, "you wish to insult me, and I am ready to agree with you that +it would be very easy to do so if you haven't sufficient self-respect, +but admit that the time and place are very badly chosen. In a day or two +we shall all have to take part in a greater and more serious duel, and +besides, Drubetskoy, who says he is an old friend of yours, is not at +all to blame that my face has the misfortune to displease you. However," +he added rising, "you know my name and where to find me, but don't +forget that I do not regard either myself or you as having been at all +insulted, and as a man older than you, my advice is to let the matter +drop. Well then, on Friday after the review I shall expect you, +Drubetskoy. Au revoir!" exclaimed Prince Andrew, and with a bow to them +both he went out. + +Only when Prince Andrew was gone did Rostov think of what he ought to +have said. And he was still more angry at having omitted to say it. He +ordered his horse at once and, coldly taking leave of Boris, rode home. +Should he go to headquarters next day and challenge that affected +adjutant, or really let the matter drop, was the question that worried +him all the way. He thought angrily of the pleasure he would have at +seeing the fright of that small and frail but proud man when covered by +his pistol, and then he felt with surprise that of all the men he knew +there was none he would so much like to have for a friend as that very +adjutant whom he so hated. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII + +The day after Rostov had been to see Boris, a review was held of the +Austrian and Russian troops, both those freshly arrived from Russia and +those who had been campaigning under Kutuzov. The two Emperors, the +Russian with his heir the Tsarevich, and the Austrian with the Archduke, +inspected the allied army of eighty thousand men. + +From early morning the smart clean troops were on the move, forming up +on the field before the fortress. Now thousands of feet and bayonets +moved and halted at the officers' command, turned with banners flying, +formed up at intervals, and wheeled round other similar masses of +infantry in different uniforms; now was heard the rhythmic beat of hoofs +and the jingling of showy cavalry in blue, red, and green braided +uniforms, with smartly dressed bandsmen in front mounted on black, roan, +or gray horses; then again, spreading out with the brazen clatter of the +polished shining cannon that quivered on the gun carriages and with the +smell of linstocks, came the artillery which crawled between the +infantry and cavalry and took up its appointed position. Not only the +generals in full parade uniforms, with their thin or thick waists drawn +in to the utmost, their red necks squeezed into their stiff collars, and +wearing scarves and all their decorations, not only the elegant, pomaded +officers, but every soldier with his freshly washed and shaven face and +his weapons clean and polished to the utmost, and every horse groomed +till its coat shone like satin and every hair of its wetted mane lay +smooth--felt that no small matter was happening, but an important and +solemn affair. Every general and every soldier was conscious of his own +insignificance, aware of being but a drop in that ocean of men, and yet +at the same time was conscious of his strength as a part of that +enormous whole. + +From early morning strenuous activities and efforts had begun and by ten +o'clock all had been brought into due order. The ranks were drawn up on +the vast field. The whole army was extended in three lines: the cavalry +in front, behind it the artillery, and behind that again the infantry. + +A space like a street was left between each two lines of troops. The +three parts of that army were sharply distinguished: Kutuzov's fighting +army (with the Pavlograds on the right flank of the front); those +recently arrived from Russia, both Guards and regiments of the line; and +the Austrian troops. But they all stood in the same lines, under one +command, and in a like order. + +Like wind over leaves ran an excited whisper: "They're coming! They're +coming!" Alarmed voices were heard, and a stir of final preparation +swept over all the troops. + +From the direction of Olmutz in front of them, a group was seen +approaching. And at that moment, though the day was still, a light gust +of wind blowing over the army slightly stirred the streamers on the +lances and the unfolded standards fluttered against their staffs. It +looked as if by that slight motion the army itself was expressing its +joy at the approach of the Emperors. One voice was heard shouting: "Eyes +front!" Then, like the crowing of cocks at sunrise, this was repeated by +others from various sides and all became silent. + +In the deathlike stillness only the tramp of horses was heard. This was +the Emperors' suites. The Emperors rode up to the flank, and the +trumpets of the first cavalry regiment played the general march. It +seemed as though not the trumpeters were playing, but as if the army +itself, rejoicing at the Emperors' approach, had naturally burst into +music. Amid these sounds, only the youthful kindly voice of the Emperor +Alexander was clearly heard. He gave the words of greeting, and the +first regiment roared "Hurrah!" so deafeningly, continuously, and +joyfully that the men themselves were awed by their multitude and the +immensity of the power they constituted. + +Rostov, standing in the front lines of Kutuzov's army which the Tsar +approached first, experienced the same feeling as every other man in +that army: a feeling of self-forgetfulness, a proud consciousness of +might, and a passionate attraction to him who was the cause of this +triumph. + +He felt that at a single word from that man all this vast mass (and he +himself an insignificant atom in it) would go through fire and water, +commit crime, die, or perform deeds of highest heroism, and so he could +not but tremble and his heart stand still at the imminence of that word. + +"Hurrah! Hurrah! Hurrah!" thundered from all sides, one regiment after +another greeting the Tsar with the strains of the march, and then +"Hurrah!"... Then the general march, and again "Hurrah! Hurrah!" growing +ever stronger and fuller and merging into a deafening roar. + +Till the Tsar reached it, each regiment in its silence and immobility +seemed like a lifeless body, but as soon as he came up it became alive, +its thunder joining the roar of the whole line along which he had +already passed. Through the terrible and deafening roar of those voices, +amid the square masses of troops standing motionless as if turned to +stone, hundreds of riders composing the suites moved carelessly but +symmetrically and above all freely, and in front of them two men--the +Emperors. Upon them the undivided, tensely passionate attention of that +whole mass of men was concentrated. + +The handsome young Emperor Alexander, in the uniform of the Horse +Guards, wearing a cocked hat with its peaks front and back, with his +pleasant face and resonant though not loud voice, attracted everyone's +attention. + +Rostov was not far from the trumpeters, and with his keen sight had +recognized the Tsar and watched his approach. When he was within twenty +paces, and Nicholas could clearly distinguish every detail of his +handsome, happy young face, he experienced a feeling of tenderness and +ecstasy such as he had never before known. Every trait and every +movement of the Tsar's seemed to him enchanting. + +Stopping in front of the Pavlograds, the Tsar said something in French +to the Austrian Emperor and smiled. + +Seeing that smile, Rostov involuntarily smiled himself and felt a still +stronger flow of love for his sovereign. He longed to show that love in +some way and knowing that this was impossible was ready to cry. The Tsar +called the colonel of the regiment and said a few words to him. + +"Oh God, what would happen to me if the Emperor spoke to me?" thought +Rostov. "I should die of happiness!" + +The Tsar addressed the officers also: "I thank you all, gentlemen, I +thank you with my whole heart." To Rostov every word sounded like a +voice from heaven. How gladly would he have died at once for his Tsar! + +"You have earned the St. George's standards and will be worthy of them." + +"Oh, to die, to die for him," thought Rostov. + +The Tsar said something more which Rostov did not hear, and the +soldiers, straining their lungs, shouted "Hurrah!" + +Rostov too, bending over his saddle, shouted "Hurrah!" with all his +might, feeling that he would like to injure himself by that shout, if +only to express his rapture fully. + +The Tsar stopped a few minutes in front of the hussars as if undecided. + +"How can the Emperor be undecided?" thought Rostov, but then even this +indecision appeared to him majestic and enchanting, like everything else +the Tsar did. + +That hesitation lasted only an instant. The Tsar's foot, in the narrow +pointed boot then fashionable, touched the groin of the bobtailed bay +mare he rode, his hand in a white glove gathered up the reins, and he +moved off accompanied by an irregularly swaying sea of aides-de-camp. +Farther and farther he rode away, stopping at other regiments, till at +last only his white plumes were visible to Rostov from amid the suites +that surrounded the Emperors. + +Among the gentlemen of the suite, Rostov noticed Bolkonski, sitting his +horse indolently and carelessly. Rostov recalled their quarrel of +yesterday and the question presented itself whether he ought or ought +not to challenge Bolkonski. "Of course not!" he now thought. "Is it +worth thinking or speaking of it at such a moment? At a time of such +love, such rapture, and such self-sacrifice, what do any of our quarrels +and affronts matter? I love and forgive everybody now." + +When the Emperor had passed nearly all the regiments, the troops began a +ceremonial march past him, and Rostov on Bedouin, recently purchased +from Denisov, rode past too, at the rear of his squadron--that is, alone +and in full view of the Emperor. + +Before he reached him, Rostov, who was a splendid horseman, spurred +Bedouin twice and successfully put him to the showy trot in which the +animal went when excited. Bending his foaming muzzle to his chest, his +tail extended, Bedouin, as if also conscious of the Emperor's eye upon +him, passed splendidly, lifting his feet with a high and graceful +action, as if flying through the air without touching the ground. + +Rostov himself, his legs well back and his stomach drawn in and feeling +himself one with his horse, rode past the Emperor with a frowning but +blissful face "like a vewy devil," as Denisov expressed it. + +"Fine fellows, the Pavlograds!" remarked the Emperor. + +"My God, how happy I should be if he ordered me to leap into the fire +this instant!" thought Rostov. + +When the review was over, the newly arrived officers, and also +Kutuzov's, collected in groups and began to talk about the awards, about +the Austrians and their uniforms, about their lines, about Bonaparte, +and how badly the latter would fare now, especially if the Essen corps +arrived and Prussia took our side. + +But the talk in every group was chiefly about the Emperor Alexander. His +every word and movement was described with ecstasy. + +They all had but one wish: to advance as soon as possible against the +enemy under the Emperor's command. Commanded by the Emperor himself they +could not fail to vanquish anyone, be it whom it might: so thought +Rostov and most of the officers after the review. + +All were then more confident of victory than the winning of two battles +would have made them. + + + + +CHAPTER IX + +The day after the review, Boris, in his best uniform and with his +comrade Berg's best wishes for success, rode to Olmutz to see Bolkonski, +wishing to profit by his friendliness and obtain for himself the best +post he could--preferably that of adjutant to some important personage, +a position in the army which seemed to him most attractive. "It is all +very well for Rostov, whose father sends him ten thousand rubles at a +time, to talk about not wishing to cringe to anybody and not be anyone's +lackey, but I who have nothing but my brains have to make a career and +must not miss opportunities, but must avail myself of them!" he +reflected. + +He did not find Prince Andrew in Olmutz that day, but the appearance of +the town where the headquarters and the diplomatic corps were stationed +and the two Emperors were living with their suites, households, and +courts only strengthened his desire to belong to that higher world. + +He knew no one, and despite his smart Guardsman's uniform, all these +exalted personages passing in the streets in their elegant carriages +with their plumes, ribbons, and medals, both courtiers and military men, +seemed so immeasurably above him, an insignificant officer of the +Guards, that they not only did not wish to, but simply could not, be +aware of his existence. At the quarters of the commander-in-chief, +Kutuzov, where he inquired for Bolkonski, all the adjutants and even the +orderlies looked at him as if they wished to impress on him that a great +many officers like him were always coming there and that everybody was +heartily sick of them. In spite of this, or rather because of it, next +day, November 15, after dinner he again went to Olmutz and, entering the +house occupied by Kutuzov, asked for Bolkonski. Prince Andrew was in and +Boris was shown into a large hall probably formerly used for dancing, +but in which five beds now stood, and furniture of various kinds: a +table, chairs, and a clavichord. One adjutant, nearest the door, was +sitting at the table in a Persian dressing gown, writing. Another, the +red, stout Nesvitski, lay on a bed with his arms under his head, +laughing with an officer who had sat down beside him. A third was +playing a Viennese waltz on the clavichord, while a fourth, lying on the +clavichord, sang the tune. Bolkonski was not there. None of these +gentlemen changed his position on seeing Boris. The one who was writing +and whom Boris addressed turned round crossly and told him Bolkonski was +on duty and that he should go through the door on the left into the +reception room if he wished to see him. Boris thanked him and went to +the reception room, where he found some ten officers and generals. + +When he entered, Prince Andrew, his eyes drooping contemptuously (with +that peculiar expression of polite weariness which plainly says, "If it +were not my duty I would not talk to you for a moment"), was listening +to an old Russian general with decorations, who stood very erect, almost +on tiptoe, with a soldier's obsequious expression on his purple face, +reporting something. + +"Very well, then, be so good as to wait," said Prince Andrew to the +general, in Russian, speaking with the French intonation he affected +when he wished to speak contemptuously, and noticing Boris, Prince +Andrew, paying no more heed to the general who ran after him imploring +him to hear something more, nodded and turned to him with a cheerful +smile. + +At that moment Boris clearly realized what he had before surmised, that +in the army, besides the subordination and discipline prescribed in the +military code, which he and the others knew in the regiment, there was +another, more important, subordination, which made this tight-laced, +purple-faced general wait respectfully while Captain Prince Andrew, for +his own pleasure, chose to chat with Lieutenant Drubetskoy. More than +ever was Boris resolved to serve in future not according to the written +code, but under this unwritten law. He felt now that merely by having +been recommended to Prince Andrew he had already risen above the general +who at the front had the power to annihilate him, a lieutenant of the +Guards. Prince Andrew came up to him and took his hand. + +"I am very sorry you did not find me in yesterday. I was fussing about +with Germans all day. We went with Weyrother to survey the dispositions. +When Germans start being accurate, there's no end to it!" + +Boris smiled, as if he understood what Prince Andrew was alluding to as +something generally known. But it was the first time he had heard +Weyrother's name, or even the term "dispositions." + +"Well, my dear fellow, so you still want to be an adjutant? I have been +thinking about you." + +"Yes, I was thinking"--for some reason Boris could not help blushing-- +"of asking the commander-in-chief. He has had a letter from Prince +Kuragin about me. I only wanted to ask because I fear the Guards won't +be in action," he added as if in apology. + +"All right, all right. We'll talk it over," replied Prince Andrew. "Only +let me report this gentleman's business, and I shall be at your +disposal." + +While Prince Andrew went to report about the purple-faced general, that +gentleman--evidently not sharing Boris' conception of the advantages of +the unwritten code of subordination--looked so fixedly at the +presumptuous lieutenant who had prevented his finishing what he had to +say to the adjutant that Boris felt uncomfortable. He turned away and +waited impatiently for Prince Andrew's return from the commander-in- +chief's room. + +"You see, my dear fellow, I have been thinking about you," said Prince +Andrew when they had gone into the large room where the clavichord was. +"It's no use your going to the commander-in-chief. He would say a lot of +pleasant things, ask you to dinner" ("That would not be bad as regards +the unwritten code," thought Boris), "but nothing more would come of it. +There will soon be a battalion of us aides-de-camp and adjutants! But +this is what we'll do: I have a good friend, an adjutant general and an +excellent fellow, Prince Dolgorukov; and though you may not know it, the +fact is that now Kutuzov with his staff and all of us count for nothing. +Everything is now centered round the Emperor. So we will go to +Dolgorukov; I have to go there anyhow and I have already spoken to him +about you. We shall see whether he cannot attach you to himself or find +a place for you somewhere nearer the sun." + +Prince Andrew always became specially keen when he had to guide a young +man and help him to worldly success. Under cover of obtaining help of +this kind for another, which from pride he would never accept for +himself, he kept in touch with the circle which confers success and +which attracted him. He very readily took up Boris' cause and went with +him to Dolgorukov. + +It was late in the evening when they entered the palace at Olmutz +occupied by the Emperors and their retinues. + +That same day a council of war had been held in which all the members of +the Hofkriegsrath and both Emperors took part. At that council, contrary +to the views of the old generals Kutuzov and Prince Schwartzenberg, it +had been decided to advance immediately and give battle to Bonaparte. +The council of war was just over when Prince Andrew accompanied by Boris +arrived at the palace to find Dolgorukov. Everyone at headquarters was +still under the spell of the day's council, at which the party of the +young had triumphed. The voices of those who counseled delay and advised +waiting for something else before advancing had been so completely +silenced and their arguments confuted by such conclusive evidence of the +advantages of attacking that what had been discussed at the council--the +coming battle and the victory that would certainly result from it--no +longer seemed to be in the future but in the past. All the advantages +were on our side. Our enormous forces, undoubtedly superior to +Napoleon's, were concentrated in one place, the troops inspired by the +Emperors' presence were eager for action. The strategic position where +the operations would take place was familiar in all its details to the +Austrian General Weyrother: a lucky accident had ordained that the +Austrian army should maneuver the previous year on the very fields where +the French had now to be fought; the adjacent locality was known and +shown in every detail on the maps, and Bonaparte, evidently weakened, +was undertaking nothing. + +Dolgorukov, one of the warmest advocates of an attack, had just returned +from the council, tired and exhausted but eager and proud of the victory +that had been gained. Prince Andrew introduced his protege, but Prince +Dolgorukov politely and firmly pressing his hand said nothing to Boris +and, evidently unable to suppress the thoughts which were uppermost in +his mind at that moment, addressed Prince Andrew in French. + +"Ah, my dear fellow, what a battle we have gained! God grant that the +one that will result from it will be as victorious! However, dear +fellow," he said abruptly and eagerly, "I must confess to having been +unjust to the Austrians and especially to Weyrother. What exactitude, +what minuteness, what knowledge of the locality, what foresight for +every eventuality, every possibility even to the smallest detail! No, my +dear fellow, no conditions better than our present ones could have been +devised. This combination of Austrian precision with Russian valor--what +more could be wished for?" + +"So the attack is definitely resolved on?" asked Bolkonski. + +"And do you know, my dear fellow, it seems to me that Bonaparte has +decidedly lost bearings, you know that a letter was received from him +today for the Emperor." Dolgorukov smiled significantly. + +"Is that so? And what did he say?" inquired Bolkonski. + +"What can he say? Tra-di-ri-di-ra and so on... merely to gain time. I +tell you he is in our hands, that's certain! But what was most amusing," +he continued, with a sudden, good-natured laugh, "was that we could not +think how to address the reply! If not as 'Consul' and of course not as +'Emperor,' it seemed to me it should be to 'General Bonaparte.'" + +"But between not recognizing him as Emperor and calling him General +Bonaparte, there is a difference," remarked Bolkonski. + +"That's just it," interrupted Dolgorukov quickly, laughing. "You know +Bilibin--he's a very clever fellow. He suggested addressing him as +'Usurper and Enemy of Mankind.'" + +Dolgorukov laughed merrily. + +"Only that?" said Bolkonski. + +"All the same, it was Bilibin who found a suitable form for the address. +He is a wise and clever fellow." + +"What was it?" + +"To the Head of the French Government... Au chef du gouvernement +francais," said Dolgorukov, with grave satisfaction. "Good, wasn't it?" + +"Yes, but he will dislike it extremely," said Bolkonski. + +"Oh yes, very much! My brother knows him, he's dined with him--the +present Emperor--more than once in Paris, and tells me he never met a +more cunning or subtle diplomatist--you know, a combination of French +adroitness and Italian play-acting! Do you know the tale about him and +Count Markov? Count Markov was the only man who knew how to handle him. +You know the story of the handkerchief? It is delightful!" + +And the talkative Dolgorukov, turning now to Boris, now to Prince +Andrew, told how Bonaparte wishing to test Markov, our ambassador, +purposely dropped a handkerchief in front of him and stood looking at +Markov, probably expecting Markov to pick it up for him, and how Markov +immediately dropped his own beside it and picked it up without touching +Bonaparte's. + +"Delightful!" said Bolkonski. "But I have come to you, Prince, as a +petitioner on behalf of this young man. You see..." but before Prince +Andrew could finish, an aide-de-camp came in to summon Dolgorukov to the +Emperor. + +"Oh, what a nuisance," said Dolgorukov, getting up hurriedly and +pressing the hands of Prince Andrew and Boris. "You know I should be +very glad to do all in my power both for you and for this dear young +man." Again he pressed the hand of the latter with an expression of +good-natured, sincere, and animated levity. "But you see... another +time!" + +Boris was excited by the thought of being so close to the higher powers +as he felt himself to be at that moment. He was conscious that here he +was in contact with the springs that set in motion the enormous +movements of the mass of which in his regiment he felt himself a tiny, +obedient, and insignificant atom. They followed Prince Dolgorukov out +into the corridor and met--coming out of the door of the Emperor's room +by which Dolgorukov had entered--a short man in civilian clothes with a +clever face and sharply projecting jaw which, without spoiling his face, +gave him a peculiar vivacity and shiftiness of expression. This short +man nodded to Dolgorukov as to an intimate friend and stared at Prince +Andrew with cool intensity, walking straight toward him and evidently +expecting him to bow or to step out of his way. Prince Andrew did +neither: a look of animosity appeared on his face and the other turned +away and went down the side of the corridor. + +"Who was that?" asked Boris. + +"He is one of the most remarkable, but to me most unpleasant of men--the +Minister of Foreign Affairs, Prince Adam Czartoryski.... It is such men +as he who decide the fate of nations," added Bolkonski with a sigh he +could not suppress, as they passed out of the palace. + +Next day, the army began its campaign, and up to the very battle of +Austerlitz, Boris was unable to see either Prince Andrew or Dolgorukov +again and remained for a while with the Ismaylov regiment. + + + + +CHAPTER X + +At dawn on the sixteenth of November, Denisov's squadron, in which +Nicholas Rostov served and which was in Prince Bagration's detachment, +moved from the place where it had spent the night, advancing into action +as arranged, and after going behind other columns for about two thirds +of a mile was stopped on the highroad. Rostov saw the Cossacks and then +the first and second squadrons of hussars and infantry battalions and +artillery pass by and go forward and then Generals Bagration and +Dolgorukov ride past with their adjutants. All the fear before action +which he had experienced as previously, all the inner struggle to +conquer that fear, all his dreams of distinguishing himself as a true +hussar in this battle, had been wasted. Their squadron remained in +reserve and Nicholas Rostov spent that day in a dull and wretched mood. +At nine in the morning, he heard firing in front and shouts of hurrah, +and saw wounded being brought back (there were not many of them), and at +last he saw how a whole detachment of French cavalry was brought in, +convoyed by a sotnya of Cossacks. Evidently the affair was over and, +though not big, had been a successful engagement. The men and officers +returning spoke of a brilliant victory, of the occupation of the town of +Wischau and the capture of a whole French squadron. The day was bright +and sunny after a sharp night frost, and the cheerful glitter of that +autumn day was in keeping with the news of victory which was conveyed, +not only by the tales of those who had taken part in it, but also by the +joyful expression on the faces of soldiers, officers, generals, and +adjutants, as they passed Rostov going or coming. And Nicholas, who had +vainly suffered all the dread that precedes a battle and had spent that +happy day in inactivity, was all the more depressed. + +"Come here, Wostov. Let's dwink to dwown our gwief!" shouted Denisov, +who had settled down by the roadside with a flask and some food. + +The officers gathered round Denisov's canteen, eating and talking. + +"There! They are bringing another!" cried one of the officers, +indicating a captive French dragoon who was being brought in on foot by +two Cossacks. + +One of them was leading by the bridle a fine large French horse he had +taken from the prisoner. + +"Sell us that horse!" Denisov called out to the Cossacks. + +"If you like, your honor!" + +The officers got up and stood round the Cossacks and their prisoner. The +French dragoon was a young Alsatian who spoke French with a German +accent. He was breathless with agitation, his face was red, and when he +heard some French spoken he at once began speaking to the officers, +addressing first one, then another. He said he would not have been +taken, it was not his fault but the corporal's who had sent him to seize +some horsecloths, though he had told him the Russians were there. And at +every word he added: "But don't hurt my little horse!" and stroked the +animal. It was plain that he did not quite grasp where he was. Now he +excused himself for having been taken prisoner and now, imagining +himself before his own officers, insisted on his soldierly discipline +and zeal in the service. He brought with him into our rearguard all the +freshness of atmosphere of the French army, which was so alien to us. + +The Cossacks sold the horse for two gold pieces, and Rostov, being the +richest of the officers now that he had received his money, bought it. + +"But don't hurt my little horse!" said the Alsatian good-naturedly to +Rostov when the animal was handed over to the hussar. + +Rostov smilingly reassured the dragoon and gave him money. + +"Alley! Alley!" said the Cossack, touching the prisoner's arm to make +him go on. + +"The Emperor! The Emperor!" was suddenly heard among the hussars. + +All began to run and bustle, and Rostov saw coming up the road behind +him several riders with white plumes in their hats. In a moment everyone +was in his place, waiting. + +Rostov did not know or remember how he ran to his place and mounted. +Instantly his regret at not having been in action and his dejected mood +amid people of whom he was weary had gone, instantly every thought of +himself had vanished. He was filled with happiness at his nearness to +the Emperor. He felt that this nearness by itself made up to him for the +day he had lost. He was happy as a lover when the longed-for moment of +meeting arrives. Not daring to look round and without looking round, he +was ecstatically conscious of his approach. He felt it not only from the +sound of the hoofs of the approaching cavalcade, but because as he drew +near everything grew brighter, more joyful, more significant, and more +festive around him. Nearer and nearer to Rostov came that sun shedding +beams of mild and majestic light around, and already he felt himself +enveloped in those beams, he heard his voice, that kindly, calm, and +majestic voice that was yet so simple! And as if in accord with Rostov's +feeling, there was a deathly stillness amid which was heard the +Emperor's voice. + +"The Pavlograd hussars?" he inquired. + +"The reserves, sire!" replied a voice, a very human one compared to that +which had said: "The Pavlograd hussars?" + +The Emperor drew level with Rostov and halted. Alexander's face was even +more beautiful than it had been three days before at the review. It +shone with such gaiety and youth, such innocent youth, that it suggested +the liveliness of a fourteen-year-old boy, and yet it was the face of +the majestic Emperor. Casually, while surveying the squadron, the +Emperor's eyes met Rostov's and rested on them for not more than two +seconds. Whether or no the Emperor understood what was going on in +Rostov's soul (it seemed to Rostov that he understood everything), at +any rate his light-blue eyes gazed for about two seconds into Rostov's +face. A gentle, mild light poured from them. Then all at once he raised +his eyebrows, abruptly touched his horse with his left foot, and +galloped on. + +The younger Emperor could not restrain his wish to be present at the +battle and, in spite of the remonstrances of his courtiers, at twelve +o'clock left the third column with which he had been and galloped toward +the vanguard. Before he came up with the hussars, several adjutants met +him with news of the successful result of the action. + +This battle, which consisted in the capture of a French squadron, was +represented as a brilliant victory over the French, and so the Emperor +and the whole army, especially while the smoke hung over the +battlefield, believed that the French had been defeated and were +retreating against their will. A few minutes after the Emperor had +passed, the Pavlograd division was ordered to advance. In Wischau +itself, a petty German town, Rostov saw the Emperor again. In the market +place, where there had been some rather heavy firing before the +Emperor's arrival, lay several killed and wounded soldiers whom there +had not been time to move. The Emperor, surrounded by his suite of +officers and courtiers, was riding a bobtailed chestnut mare, a +different one from that which he had ridden at the review, and bending +to one side he gracefully held a gold lorgnette to his eyes and looked +at a soldier who lay prone, with blood on his uncovered head. The +wounded soldier was so dirty, coarse, and revolting that his proximity +to the Emperor shocked Rostov. Rostov saw how the Emperor's rather round +shoulders shuddered as if a cold shiver had run down them, how his left +foot began convulsively tapping the horse's side with the spur, and how +the well-trained horse looked round unconcerned and did not stir. An +adjutant, dismounting, lifted the soldier under the arms to place him on +a stretcher that had been brought. The soldier groaned. + +"Gently, gently! Can't you do it more gently?" said the Emperor +apparently suffering more than the dying soldier, and he rode away. + +Rostov saw tears filling the Emperor's eyes and heard him, as he was +riding away, say to Czartoryski: "What a terrible thing war is: what a +terrible thing! Quelle terrible chose que la guerre!" + +The troops of the vanguard were stationed before Wischau, within sight +of the enemy's lines, which all day long had yielded ground to us at the +least firing. The Emperor's gratitude was announced to the vanguard, +rewards were promised, and the men received a double ration of vodka. +The campfires crackled and the soldiers' songs resounded even more +merrily than on the previous night. Denisov celebrated his promotion to +the rank of major, and Rostov, who had already drunk enough, at the end +of the feast proposed the Emperor's health. "Not 'our Sovereign, the +Emperor,' as they say at official dinners," said he, "but the health of +our Sovereign, that good, enchanting, and great man! Let us drink to his +health and to the certain defeat of the French!" + +"If we fought before," he said, "not letting the French pass, as at +Schon Grabern, what shall we not do now when he is at the front? We will +all die for him gladly! Is it not so, gentlemen? Perhaps I am not saying +it right, I have drunk a good deal--but that is how I feel, and so do +you too! To the health of Alexander the First! Hurrah!" + +"Hurrah!" rang the enthusiastic voices of the officers. + +And the old cavalry captain, Kirsten, shouted enthusiastically and no +less sincerely than the twenty-year-old Rostov. + +When the officers had emptied and smashed their glasses, Kirsten filled +others and, in shirt sleeves and breeches, went glass in hand to the +soldiers' bonfires and with his long gray mustache, his white chest +showing under his open shirt, he stood in a majestic pose in the light +of the campfire, waving his uplifted arm. + +"Lads! here's to our Sovereign, the Emperor, and victory over our +enemies! Hurrah!" he exclaimed in his dashing, old, hussar's baritone. + +The hussars crowded round and responded heartily with loud shouts. + +Late that night, when all had separated, Denisov with his short hand +patted his favorite, Rostov, on the shoulder. + +"As there's no one to fall in love with on campaign, he's fallen in love +with the Tsar," he said. + +"Denisov, don't make fun of it!" cried Rostov. "It is such a lofty, +beautiful feeling, such a..." + +"I believe it, I believe it, fwiend, and I share and appwove..." + +"No, you don't understand!" + +And Rostov got up and went wandering among the campfires, dreaming of +what happiness it would be to die--not in saving the Emperor's life (he +did not even dare to dream of that), but simply to die before his eyes. +He really was in love with the Tsar and the glory of the Russian arms +and the hope of future triumph. And he was not the only man to +experience that feeling during those memorable days preceding the battle +of Austerlitz: nine tenths of the men in the Russian army were then in +love, though less ecstatically, with their Tsar and the glory of the +Russian arms. + + + + +CHAPTER XI + +The next day the Emperor stopped at Wischau, and Villier, his physician, +was repeatedly summoned to see him. At headquarters and among the troops +near by the news spread that the Emperor was unwell. He ate nothing and +had slept badly that night, those around him reported. The cause of this +indisposition was the strong impression made on his sensitive mind by +the sight of the killed and wounded. + +At daybreak on the seventeenth, a French officer who had come with a +flag of truce, demanding an audience with the Russian Emperor, was +brought into Wischau from our outposts. This officer was Savary. The +Emperor had only just fallen asleep and so Savary had to wait. At midday +he was admitted to the Emperor, and an hour later he rode off with +Prince Dolgorukov to the advanced post of the French army. + +It was rumored that Savary had been sent to propose to Alexander a +meeting with Napoleon. To the joy and pride of the whole army, a +personal interview was refused, and instead of the Sovereign, Prince +Dolgorukov, the victor at Wischau, was sent with Savary to negotiate +with Napoleon if, contrary to expectations, these negotiations were +actuated by a real desire for peace. + +Toward evening Dolgorukov came back, went straight to the Tsar, and +remained alone with him for a long time. + +On the eighteenth and nineteenth of November, the army advanced two +days' march and the enemy's outposts after a brief interchange of shots +retreated. In the highest army circles from midday on the nineteenth, a +great, excitedly bustling activity began which lasted till the morning +of the twentieth, when the memorable battle of Austerlitz was fought. + +Till midday on the nineteenth, the activity--the eager talk, running to +and fro, and dispatching of adjutants--was confined to the Emperor's +headquarters. But on the afternoon of that day, this activity reached +Kutuzov's headquarters and the staffs of the commanders of columns. By +evening, the adjutants had spread it to all ends and parts of the army, +and in the night from the nineteenth to the twentieth, the whole eighty +thousand allied troops rose from their bivouacs to the hum of voices, +and the army swayed and started in one enormous mass six miles long. + +The concentrated activity which had begun at the Emperor's headquarters +in the morning and had started the whole movement that followed was like +the first movement of the main wheel of a large tower clock. One wheel +slowly moved, another was set in motion, and a third, and wheels began +to revolve faster and faster, levers and cogwheels to work, chimes to +play, figures to pop out, and the hands to advance with regular motion +as a result of all that activity. + +Just as in the mechanism of a clock, so in the mechanism of the military +machine, an impulse once given leads to the final result; and just as +indifferently quiescent till the moment when motion is transmitted to +them are the parts of the mechanism which the impulse has not yet +reached. Wheels creak on their axles as the cogs engage one another and +the revolving pulleys whirr with the rapidity of their movement, but a +neighboring wheel is as quiet and motionless as though it were prepared +to remain so for a hundred years; but the moment comes when the lever +catches it and obeying the impulse that wheel begins to creak and joins +in the common motion the result and aim of which are beyond its ken. + +Just as in a clock, the result of the complicated motion of innumerable +wheels and pulleys is merely a slow and regular movement of the hands +which show the time, so the result of all the complicated human +activities of 160,000 Russians and French--all their passions, desires, +remorse, humiliations, sufferings, outbursts of pride, fear, and +enthusiasm--was only the loss of the battle of Austerlitz, the so-called +battle of the three Emperors--that is to say, a slow movement of the +hand on the dial of human history. + +Prince Andrew was on duty that day and in constant attendance on the +commander-in-chief. + +At six in the evening, Kutuzov went to the Emperor's headquarters and +after staying but a short time with the Tsar went to see the grand +marshal of the court, Count Tolstoy. + +Bolkonski took the opportunity to go in to get some details of the +coming action from Dolgorukov. He felt that Kutuzov was upset and +dissatisfied about something and that at headquarters they were +dissatisfied with him, and also that at the Emperor's headquarters +everyone adopted toward him the tone of men who know something others do +not know: he therefore wished to speak to Dolgorukov. + +"Well, how d'you do, my dear fellow?" said Dolgorukov, who was sitting +at tea with Bilibin. "The fete is for tomorrow. How is your old fellow? +Out of sorts?" + +"I won't say he is out of sorts, but I fancy he would like to be heard." + +"But they heard him at the council of war and will hear him when he +talks sense, but to temporize and wait for something now when Bonaparte +fears nothing so much as a general battle is impossible." + +"Yes, you have seen him?" said Prince Andrew. "Well, what is Bonaparte +like? How did he impress you?" + +"Yes, I saw him, and am convinced that he fears nothing so much as a +general engagement," repeated Dolgorukov, evidently prizing this general +conclusion which he had arrived at from his interview with Napoleon. "If +he weren't afraid of a battle why did he ask for that interview? Why +negotiate, and above all why retreat, when to retreat is so contrary to +his method of conducting war? Believe me, he is afraid, afraid of a +general battle. His hour has come! Mark my words!" + +"But tell me, what is he like, eh?" said Prince Andrew again. + +"He is a man in a gray overcoat, very anxious that I should call him +'Your Majesty,' but who, to his chagrin, got no title from me! That's +the sort of man he is, and nothing more," replied Dolgorukov, looking +round at Bilibin with a smile. + +"Despite my great respect for old Kutuzov," he continued, "we should be +a nice set of fellows if we were to wait about and so give him a chance +to escape, or to trick us, now that we certainly have him in our hands! +No, we mustn't forget Suvorov and his rule--not to put yourself in a +position to be attacked, but yourself to attack. Believe me in war the +energy of young men often shows the way better than all the experience +of old Cunctators." + +"But in what position are we going to attack him? I have been at the +outposts today and it is impossible to say where his chief forces are +situated," said Prince Andrew. + +He wished to explain to Dolgorukov a plan of attack he had himself +formed. + +"Oh, that is all the same," Dolgorukov said quickly, and getting up he +spread a map on the table. "All eventualities have been foreseen. If he +is standing before Brunn..." + +And Prince Dolgorukov rapidly but indistinctly explained Weyrother's +plan of a flanking movement. + +Prince Andrew began to reply and to state his own plan, which might have +been as good as Weyrother's, but for the disadvantage that Weyrother's +had already been approved. As soon as Prince Andrew began to demonstrate +the defects of the latter and the merits of his own plan, Prince +Dolgorukov ceased to listen to him and gazed absent-mindedly not at the +map, but at Prince Andrew's face. + +"There will be a council of war at Kutuzov's tonight, though; you can +say all this there," remarked Dolgorukov. + +"I will do so," said Prince Andrew, moving away from the map. + +"Whatever are you bothering about, gentlemen?" said Bilibin, who, till +then, had listened with an amused smile to their conversation and now +was evidently ready with a joke. "Whether tomorrow brings victory or +defeat, the glory of our Russian arms is secure. Except your Kutuzov, +there is not a single Russian in command of a column! The commanders +are: Herr General Wimpfen, le Comte de Langeron, le Prince de +Lichtenstein, le Prince, de Hohenlohe, and finally Prishprish, and so on +like all those Polish names." + +"Be quiet, backbiter!" said Dolgorukov. "It is not true; there are now +two Russians, Miloradovich, and Dokhturov, and there would be a third, +Count Arakcheev, if his nerves were not too weak." + +"However, I think General Kutuzov has come out," said Prince Andrew. "I +wish you good luck and success, gentlemen!" he added and went out after +shaking hands with Dolgorukov and Bilibin. + +On the way home, Prince Andrew could not refrain from asking Kutuzov, +who was sitting silently beside him, what he thought of tomorrow's +battle. + +Kutuzov looked sternly at his adjutant and, after a pause, replied: "I +think the battle will be lost, and so I told Count Tolstoy and asked him +to tell the Emperor. What do you think he replied? 'But, my dear +general, I am engaged with rice and cutlets, look after military matters +yourself!' Yes... That was the answer I got!" + + + + +CHAPTER XII + +Shortly after nine o'clock that evening, Weyrother drove with his plans +to Kutuzov's quarters where the council of war was to be held. All the +commanders of columns were summoned to the commander-in-chief's and with +the exception of Prince Bagration, who declined to come, were all there +at the appointed time. + +Weyrother, who was in full control of the proposed battle, by his +eagerness and briskness presented a marked contrast to the dissatisfied +and drowsy Kutuzov, who reluctantly played the part of chairman and +president of the council of war. Weyrother evidently felt himself to be +at the head of a movement that had already become unrestrainable. He was +like a horse running downhill harnessed to a heavy cart. Whether he was +pulling it or being pushed by it he did not know, but rushed along at +headlong speed with no time to consider what this movement might lead +to. Weyrother had been twice that evening to the enemy's picket line to +reconnoiter personally, and twice to the Emperors, Russian and Austrian, +to report and explain, and to his headquarters where he had dictated the +dispositions in German, and now, much exhausted, he arrived at +Kutuzov's. + +He was evidently so busy that he even forgot to be polite to the +commander in chief. He interrupted him, talked rapidly and indistinctly, +without looking at the man he was addressing, and did not reply to +questions put to him. He was bespattered with mud and had a pitiful, +weary, and distracted air, though at the same time he was haughty and +self-confident. + +Kutuzov was occupying a nobleman's castle of modest dimensions near +Ostralitz. In the large drawing room which had become the commander in +chief's office were gathered Kutuzov himself, Weyrother, and the members +of the council of war. They were drinking tea, and only awaited Prince +Bagration to begin the council. At last Bagration's orderly came with +the news that the prince could not attend. Prince Andrew came in to +inform the commander-in-chief of this and, availing himself of +permission previously given him by Kutuzov to be present at the council, +he remained in the room. + +"Since Prince Bagration is not coming, we may begin," said Weyrother, +hurriedly rising from his seat and going up to the table on which an +enormous map of the environs of Brunn was spread out. + +Kutuzov, with his uniform unbuttoned so that his fat neck bulged over +his collar as if escaping, was sitting almost asleep in a low chair, +with his podgy old hands resting symmetrically on its arms. At the sound +of Weyrother's voice, he opened his one eye with an effort. + +"Yes, yes, if you please! It is already late," said he, and nodding his +head he let it droop and again closed his eye. + +If at first the members of the council thought that Kutuzov was +pretending to sleep, the sounds his nose emitted during the reading that +followed proved that the commander-in-chief at that moment was absorbed +by a far more serious matter than a desire to show his contempt for the +dispositions or anything else--he was engaged in satisfying the +irresistible human need for sleep. He really was asleep. Weyrother, with +the gesture of a man too busy to lose a moment, glanced at Kutuzov and, +having convinced himself that he was asleep, took up a paper and in a +loud, monotonous voice began to read out the dispositions for the +impending battle, under a heading which he also read out: + +"Dispositions for an attack on the enemy position behind Kobelnitz and +Sokolnitz, November 30, 1805." + +The dispositions were very complicated and difficult. They began as +follows: + +"As the enemy's left wing rests on wooded hills and his right extends +along Kobelnitz and Sokolnitz behind the ponds that are there, while we, +on the other hand, with our left wing by far outflank his right, it is +advantageous to attack the enemy's latter wing especially if we occupy +the villages of Sokolnitz and Kobelnitz, whereby we can both fall on his +flank and pursue him over the plain between Schlappanitz and the +Thuerassa forest, avoiding the defiles of Schlappanitz and Bellowitz +which cover the enemy's front. For this object it is necessary that... +The first column marches... The second column marches... The third +column marches..." and so on, read Weyrother. + +The generals seemed to listen reluctantly to the difficult dispositions. +The tall, fair-haired General Buxhowden stood, leaning his back against +the wall, his eyes fixed on a burning candle, and seemed not to listen +or even to wish to be thought to listen. Exactly opposite Weyrother, +with his glistening wide-open eyes fixed upon him and his mustache +twisted upwards, sat the ruddy Miloradovich in a military pose, his +elbows turned outwards, his hands on his knees, and his shoulders +raised. He remained stubbornly silent, gazing at Weyrother's face, and +only turned away his eyes when the Austrian chief of staff finished +reading. Then Miloradovich looked round significantly at the other +generals. But one could not tell from that significant look whether he +agreed or disagreed and was satisfied or not with the arrangements. Next +to Weyrother sat Count Langeron who, with a subtle smile that never left +his typically southern French face during the whole time of the reading, +gazed at his delicate fingers which rapidly twirled by its corners a +gold snuffbox on which was a portrait. In the middle of one of the +longest sentences, he stopped the rotary motion of the snuffbox, raised +his head, and with inimical politeness lurking in the corners of his +thin lips interrupted Weyrother, wishing to say something. But the +Austrian general, continuing to read, frowned angrily and jerked his +elbows, as if to say: "You can tell me your views later, but now be so +good as to look at the map and listen." Langeron lifted his eyes with an +expression of perplexity, turned round to Miloradovich as if seeking an +explanation, but meeting the latter's impressive but meaningless gaze +drooped his eyes sadly and again took to twirling his snuffbox. + +"A geography lesson!" he muttered as if to himself, but loud enough to +be heard. + +Przebyszewski, with respectful but dignified politeness, held his hand +to his ear toward Weyrother, with the air of a man absorbed in +attention. Dohkturov, a little man, sat opposite Weyrother, with an +assiduous and modest mien, and stooping over the outspread map +conscientiously studied the dispositions and the unfamiliar locality. He +asked Weyrother several times to repeat words he had not clearly heard +and the difficult names of villages. Weyrother complied and Dohkturov +noted them down. + +When the reading which lasted more than an hour was over, Langeron again +brought his snuffbox to rest and, without looking at Weyrother or at +anyone in particular, began to say how difficult it was to carry out +such a plan in which the enemy's position was assumed to be known, +whereas it was perhaps not known, since the enemy was in movement. +Langeron's objections were valid but it was obvious that their chief aim +was to show General Weyrother--who had read his dispositions with as +much self-confidence as if he were addressing school children--that he +had to do, not with fools, but with men who could teach him something in +military matters. + +When the monotonous sound of Weyrother's voice ceased, Kutuzov opened +his eye as a miller wakes up when the soporific drone of the mill wheel +is interrupted. He listened to what Langeron said, as if remarking, "So +you are still at that silly business!" quickly closed his eye again, and +let his head sink still lower. + +Langeron, trying as virulently as possible to sting Weyrother's vanity +as author of the military plan, argued that Bonaparte might easily +attack instead of being attacked, and so render the whole of this plan +perfectly worthless. Weyrother met all objections with a firm and +contemptuous smile, evidently prepared beforehand to meet all objections +be they what they might. + +"If he could attack us, he would have done so today," said he. + +"So you think he is powerless?" said Langeron. + +"He has forty thousand men at most," replied Weyrother, with the smile +of a doctor to whom an old wife wishes to explain the treatment of a +case. + +"In that case he is inviting his doom by awaiting our attack," said +Langeron, with a subtly ironical smile, again glancing round for support +to Miloradovich who was near him. + +But Miloradovich was at that moment evidently thinking of anything +rather than of what the generals were disputing about. + +"Ma foi!" said he, "tomorrow we shall see all that on the battlefield." + +Weyrother again gave that smile which seemed to say that to him it was +strange and ridiculous to meet objections from Russian generals and to +have to prove to them what he had not merely convinced himself of, but +had also convinced the sovereign Emperors of. + +"The enemy has quenched his fires and a continual noise is heard from +his camp," said he. "What does that mean? Either he is retreating, which +is the only thing we need fear, or he is changing his position." (He +smiled ironically.) "But even if he also took up a position in the +Thuerassa, he merely saves us a great deal of trouble and all our +arrangements to the minutest detail remain the same." + +"How is that?..." began Prince Andrew, who had for long been waiting an +opportunity to express his doubts. + +Kutuzov here woke up, coughed heavily, and looked round at the generals. + +"Gentlemen, the dispositions for tomorrow--or rather for today, for it +is past midnight--cannot now be altered," said he. "You have heard them, +and we shall all do our duty. But before a battle, there is nothing more +important..." he paused, "than to have a good sleep." + +He moved as if to rise. The generals bowed and retired. It was past +midnight. Prince Andrew went out. + +The council of war, at which Prince Andrew had not been able to express +his opinion as he had hoped to, left on him a vague and uneasy +impression. Whether Dolgorukov and Weyrother, or Kutuzov, Langeron, and +the others who did not approve of the plan of attack, were right--he did +not know. "But was it really not possible for Kutuzov to state his views +plainly to the Emperor? Is it possible that on account of court and +personal considerations tens of thousands of lives, and my life, my +life," he thought, "must be risked?" + +"Yes, it is very likely that I shall be killed tomorrow," he thought. +And suddenly, at this thought of death, a whole series of most distant, +most intimate, memories rose in his imagination: he remembered his last +parting from his father and his wife; he remembered the days when he +first loved her. He thought of her pregnancy and felt sorry for her and +for himself, and in a nervously emotional and softened mood he went out +of the hut in which he was billeted with Nesvitski and began to walk up +and down before it. + +The night was foggy and through the fog the moonlight gleamed +mysteriously. "Yes, tomorrow, tomorrow!" he thought. "Tomorrow +everything may be over for me! All these memories will be no more, none +of them will have any meaning for me. Tomorrow perhaps, even certainly, +I have a presentiment that for the first time I shall have to show all I +can do." And his fancy pictured the battle, its loss, the concentration +of fighting at one point, and the hesitation of all the commanders. And +then that happy moment, that Toulon for which he had so long waited, +presents itself to him at last. He firmly and clearly expresses his +opinion to Kutuzov, to Weyrother, and to the Emperors. All are struck by +the justness of his views, but no one undertakes to carry them out, so +he takes a regiment, a division-stipulates that no one is to interfere +with his arrangements--leads his division to the decisive point, and +gains the victory alone. "But death and suffering?" suggested another +voice. Prince Andrew, however, did not answer that voice and went on +dreaming of his triumphs. The dispositions for the next battle are +planned by him alone. Nominally he is only an adjutant on Kutuzov's +staff, but he does everything alone. The next battle is won by him +alone. Kutuzov is removed and he is appointed... "Well and then?" asked +the other voice. "If before that you are not ten times wounded, killed, +or betrayed, well... what then?..." "Well then," Prince Andrew answered +himself, "I don't know what will happen and don't want to know, and +can't, but if I want this--want glory, want to be known to men, want to +be loved by them, it is not my fault that I want it and want nothing but +that and live only for that. Yes, for that alone! I shall never tell +anyone, but, oh God! what am I to do if I love nothing but fame and +men's esteem? Death, wounds, the loss of family--I fear nothing. And +precious and dear as many persons are to me--father, sister, wife--those +dearest to me--yet dreadful and unnatural as it seems, I would give them +all at once for a moment of glory, of triumph over men, of love from men +I don't know and never shall know, for the love of these men here," he +thought, as he listened to voices in Kutuzov's courtyard. The voices +were those of the orderlies who were packing up; one voice, probably a +coachman's, was teasing Kutuzov's old cook whom Prince Andrew knew, and +who was called Tit. He was saying, "Tit, I say, Tit!" + +"Well?" returned the old man. + +"Go, Tit, thresh a bit!" said the wag. + +"Oh, go to the devil!" called out a voice, drowned by the laughter of +the orderlies and servants. + +"All the same, I love and value nothing but triumph over them all, I +value this mystic power and glory that is floating here above me in this +mist!" + + + + +CHAPTER XIII + +That same night, Rostov was with a platoon on skirmishing duty in front +of Bagration's detachment. His hussars were placed along the line in +couples and he himself rode along the line trying to master the +sleepiness that kept coming over him. An enormous space, with our army's +campfires dimly glowing in the fog, could be seen behind him; in front +of him was misty darkness. Rostov could see nothing, peer as he would +into that foggy distance: now something gleamed gray, now there was +something black, now little lights seemed to glimmer where the enemy +ought to be, now he fancied it was only something in his own eyes. His +eyes kept closing, and in his fancy appeared--now the Emperor, now +Denisov, and now Moscow memories--and he again hurriedly opened his eyes +and saw close before him the head and ears of the horse he was riding, +and sometimes, when he came within six paces of them, the black figures +of hussars, but in the distance was still the same misty darkness. "Why +not?... It might easily happen," thought Rostov, "that the Emperor will +meet me and give me an order as he would to any other officer; he'll +say: 'Go and find out what's there.' There are many stories of his +getting to know an officer in just such a chance way and attaching him +to himself! What if he gave me a place near him? Oh, how I would guard +him, how I would tell him the truth, how I would unmask his deceivers!" +And in order to realize vividly his love devotion to the sovereign, +Rostov pictured to himself an enemy or a deceitful German, whom he would +not only kill with pleasure but whom he would slap in the face before +the Emperor. Suddenly a distant shout aroused him. He started and opened +his eyes. + +"Where am I? Oh yes, in the skirmishing line... pass and watchword-- +shaft, Olmutz. What a nuisance that our squadron will be in reserve +tomorrow," he thought. "I'll ask leave to go to the front, this may be +my only chance of seeing the Emperor. It won't be long now before I am +off duty. I'll take another turn and when I get back I'll go to the +general and ask him." He readjusted himself in the saddle and touched up +his horse to ride once more round his hussars. It seemed to him that it +was getting lighter. To the left he saw a sloping descent lit up, and +facing it a black knoll that seemed as steep as a wall. On this knoll +there was a white patch that Rostov could not at all make out: was it a +glade in the wood lit up by the moon, or some unmelted snow, or some +white houses? He even thought something moved on that white spot. "I +expect it's snow... that spot... a spot--une tache," he thought. "There +now... it's not a tache... Natasha... sister, black eyes... Na... +tasha... (Won't she be surprised when I tell her how I've seen the +Emperor?) Natasha... take my sabretache..."--"Keep to the right, your +honor, there are bushes here," came the voice of an hussar, past whom +Rostov was riding in the act of falling asleep. Rostov lifted his head +that had sunk almost to his horse's mane and pulled up beside the +hussar. He was succumbing to irresistible, youthful, childish +drowsiness. "But what was I thinking? I mustn't forget. How shall I +speak to the Emperor? No, that's not it--that's tomorrow. Oh yes! +Natasha... sabretache... saber them... Whom? The hussars... Ah, the +hussars with mustaches. Along the Tverskaya Street rode the hussar with +mustaches... I thought about him too, just opposite Guryev's house... +Old Guryev.... Oh, but Denisov's a fine fellow. But that's all nonsense. +The chief thing is that the Emperor is here. How he looked at me and +wished to say something, but dared not.... No, it was I who dared not. +But that's nonsense, the chief thing is not to forget the important +thing I was thinking of. Yes, Na-tasha, sabretache, oh, yes, yes! That's +right!" And his head once more sank to his horse's neck. All at once it +seemed to him that he was being fired at. "What? What? What?... Cut them +down! What?..." said Rostov, waking up. At the moment he opened his eyes +he heard in front of him, where the enemy was, the long-drawn shouts of +thousands of voices. His horse and the horse of the hussar near him +pricked their ears at these shouts. Over there, where the shouting came +from, a fire flared up and went out again, then another, and all along +the French line on the hill fires flared up and the shouting grew louder +and louder. Rostov could hear the sound of French words but could not +distinguish them. The din of many voices was too great; all he could +hear was: "ahahah!" and "rrrr!" + +"What's that? What do you make of it?" said Rostov to the hussar beside +him. "That must be the enemy's camp!" + +The hussar did not reply. + +"Why, don't you hear it?" Rostov asked again, after waiting for a reply. + +"Who can tell, your honor?" replied the hussar reluctantly. + +"From the direction, it must be the enemy," repeated Rostov. + +"It may be he or it may be nothing," muttered the hussar. "It's dark... +Steady!" he cried to his fidgeting horse. + +Rostov's horse was also getting restive: it pawed the frozen ground, +pricking its ears at the noise and looking at the lights. The shouting +grew still louder and merged into a general roar that only an army of +several thousand men could produce. The lights spread farther and +farther, probably along the line of the French camp. Rostov no longer +wanted to sleep. The gay triumphant shouting of the enemy army had a +stimulating effect on him. "Vive l'Empereur! L'Empereur!" he now heard +distinctly. + +"They can't be far off, probably just beyond the stream," he said to the +hussar beside him. + +The hussar only sighed without replying and coughed angrily. The sound +of horse's hoofs approaching at a trot along the line of hussars was +heard, and out of the foggy darkness the figure of a sergeant of hussars +suddenly appeared, looming huge as an elephant. + +"Your honor, the generals!" said the sergeant, riding up to Rostov. + +Rostov, still looking round toward the fires and the shouts, rode with +the sergeant to meet some mounted men who were riding along the line. +One was on a white horse. Prince Bagration and Prince Dolgorukov with +their adjutants had come to witness the curious phenomenon of the lights +and shouts in the enemy's camp. Rostov rode up to Bagration, reported to +him, and then joined the adjutants listening to what the generals were +saying. + +"Believe me," said Prince Dolgorukov, addressing Bagration, "it is +nothing but a trick! He has retreated and ordered the rearguard to +kindle fires and make a noise to deceive us." + +"Hardly," said Bagration. "I saw them this evening on that knoll; if +they had retreated they would have withdrawn from that too.... Officer!" +said Bagration to Rostov, "are the enemy's skirmishers still there?" + +"They were there this evening, but now I don't know, your excellency. +Shall I go with some of my hussars to see?" replied Rostov. + +Bagration stopped and, before replying, tried to see Rostov's face in +the mist. + +"Well, go and see," he said, after a pause. + +"Yes, sir." + +Rostov spurred his horse, called to Sergeant Fedchenko and two other +hussars, told them to follow him, and trotted downhill in the direction +from which the shouting came. He felt both frightened and pleased to be +riding alone with three hussars into that mysterious and dangerous misty +distance where no one had been before him. Bagration called to him from +the hill not to go beyond the stream, but Rostov pretended not to hear +him and did not stop but rode on and on, continually mistaking bushes +for trees and gullies for men and continually discovering his mistakes. +Having descended the hill at a trot, he no longer saw either our own or +the enemy's fires, but heard the shouting of the French more loudly and +distinctly. In the valley he saw before him something like a river, but +when he reached it he found it was a road. Having come out onto the road +he reined in his horse, hesitating whether to ride along it or cross it +and ride over the black field up the hillside. To keep to the road which +gleamed white in the mist would have been safer because it would be +easier to see people coming along it. "Follow me!" said he, crossed the +road, and began riding up the hill at a gallop toward the point where +the French pickets had been standing that evening. + +"Your honor, there he is!" cried one of the hussars behind him. And +before Rostov had time to make out what the black thing was that had +suddenly appeared in the fog, there was a flash, followed by a report, +and a bullet whizzing high up in the mist with a plaintive sound passed +out of hearing. Another musket missed fire but flashed in the pan. +Rostov turned his horse and galloped back. Four more reports followed at +intervals, and the bullets passed somewhere in the fog singing in +different tones. Rostov reined in his horse, whose spirits had risen, +like his own, at the firing, and went back at a footpace. "Well, some +more! Some more!" a merry voice was saying in his soul. But no more +shots came. + +Only when approaching Bagration did Rostov let his horse gallop again, +and with his hand at the salute rode up to the general. + +Dolgorukov was still insisting that the French had retreated and had +only lit fires to deceive us. + +"What does that prove?" he was saying as Rostov rode up. "They might +retreat and leave the pickets." + +"It's plain that they have not all gone yet, Prince," said Bagration. +"Wait till tomorrow morning, we'll find out everything tomorrow." + +"The picket is still on the hill, your excellency, just where it was in +the evening," reported Rostov, stooping forward with his hand at the +salute and unable to repress the smile of delight induced by his ride +and especially by the sound of the bullets. + +"Very good, very good," said Bagration. "Thank you, officer." + +"Your excellency," said Rostov, "may I ask a favor?" + +"What is it?" + +"Tomorrow our squadron is to be in reserve. May I ask to be attached to +the first squadron?" + +"What's your name?" + +"Count Rostov." + +"Oh, very well, you may stay in attendance on me." + +"Count Ilya Rostov's son?" asked Dolgorukov. + +But Rostov did not reply. + +"Then I may reckon on it, your excellency?" + +"I will give the order." + +"Tomorrow very likely I may be sent with some message to the Emperor," +thought Rostov. + +"Thank God!" + +The fires and shouting in the enemy's army were occasioned by the fact +that while Napoleon's proclamation was being read to the troops the +Emperor himself rode round his bivouacs. The soldiers, on seeing him, +lit wisps of straw and ran after him, shouting, "Vive l'Empereur!" +Napoleon's proclamation was as follows: + +Soldiers! The Russian army is advancing against you to avenge the +Austrian army of Ulm. They are the same battalions you broke at +Hollabrunn and have pursued ever since to this place. The position we +occupy is a strong one, and while they are marching to go round me on +the right they will expose a flank to me. Soldiers! I will myself direct +your battalions. I will keep out of fire if you with your habitual valor +carry disorder and confusion into the enemy's ranks, but should victory +be in doubt, even for a moment, you will see your Emperor exposing +himself to the first blows of the enemy, for there must be no doubt of +victory, especially on this day when what is at stake is the honor of +the French infantry, so necessary to the honor of our nation. + +Do not break your ranks on the plea of removing the wounded! Let every +man be fully imbued with the thought that we must defeat these hirelings +of England, inspired by such hatred of our nation! This victory will +conclude our campaign and we can return to winter quarters, where fresh +French troops who are being raised in France will join us, and the peace +I shall conclude will be worthy of my people, of you, and of myself. + +NAPOLEON + + + + +CHAPTER XIV + +At five in the morning it was still quite dark. The troops of the +center, the reserves, and Bagration's right flank had not yet moved, but +on the left flank the columns of infantry, cavalry, and artillery, which +were to be the first to descend the heights to attack the French right +flank and drive it into the Bohemian mountains according to plan, were +already up and astir. The smoke of the campfires, into which they were +throwing everything superfluous, made the eyes smart. It was cold and +dark. The officers were hurriedly drinking tea and breakfasting, the +soldiers, munching biscuit and beating a tattoo with their feet to warm +themselves, gathering round the fires throwing into the flames the +remains of sheds, chairs, tables, wheels, tubs, and everything that they +did not want or could not carry away with them. Austrian column guides +were moving in and out among the Russian troops and served as heralds of +the advance. As soon as an Austrian officer showed himself near a +commanding officer's quarters, the regiment began to move: the soldiers +ran from the fires, thrust their pipes into their boots, their bags into +the carts, got their muskets ready, and formed rank. The officers +buttoned up their coats, buckled on their swords and pouches, and moved +along the ranks shouting. The train drivers and orderlies harnessed and +packed the wagons and tied on the loads. The adjutants and battalion and +regimental commanders mounted, crossed themselves, gave final +instructions, orders, and commissions to the baggage men who remained +behind, and the monotonous tramp of thousands of feet resounded. The +column moved forward without knowing where and unable, from the masses +around them, the smoke and the increasing fog, to see either the place +they were leaving or that to which they were going. + +A soldier on the march is hemmed in and borne along by his regiment as +much as a sailor is by his ship. However far he has walked, whatever +strange, unknown, and dangerous places he reaches, just as a sailor is +always surrounded by the same decks, masts, and rigging of his ship, so +the soldier always has around him the same comrades, the same ranks, the +same sergeant major Ivan Mitrich, the same company dog Jack, and the +same commanders. The sailor rarely cares to know the latitude in which +his ship is sailing, but on the day of battle--heaven knows how and +whence--a stern note of which all are conscious sounds in the moral +atmosphere of an army, announcing the approach of something decisive and +solemn, and awakening in the men an unusual curiosity. On the day of +battle the soldiers excitedly try to get beyond the interests of their +regiment, they listen intently, look about, and eagerly ask concerning +what is going on around them. + +The fog had grown so dense that though it was growing light they could +not see ten paces ahead. Bushes looked like gigantic trees and level +ground like cliffs and slopes. Anywhere, on any side, one might +encounter an enemy invisible ten paces off. But the columns advanced for +a long time, always in the same fog, descending and ascending hills, +avoiding gardens and enclosures, going over new and unknown ground, and +nowhere encountering the enemy. On the contrary, the soldiers became +aware that in front, behind, and on all sides, other Russian columns +were moving in the same direction. Every soldier felt glad to know that +to the unknown place where he was going, many more of our men were going +too. + +"There now, the Kurskies have also gone past," was being said in the +ranks. + +"It's wonderful what a lot of our troops have gathered, lads! Last night +I looked at the campfires and there was no end of them. A regular +Moscow!" + +Though none of the column commanders rode up to the ranks or talked to +the men (the commanders, as we saw at the council of war, were out of +humor and dissatisfied with the affair, and so did not exert themselves +to cheer the men but merely carried out the orders), yet the troops +marched gaily, as they always do when going into action, especially to +an attack. But when they had marched for about an hour in the dense fog, +the greater part of the men had to halt and an unpleasant consciousness +of some dislocation and blunder spread through the ranks. How such a +consciousness is communicated is very difficult to define, but it +certainly is communicated very surely, and flows rapidly, imperceptibly, +and irrepressibly, as water does in a creek. Had the Russian army been +alone without any allies, it might perhaps have been a long time before +this consciousness of mismanagement became a general conviction, but as +it was, the disorder was readily and naturally attributed to the stupid +Germans, and everyone was convinced that a dangerous muddle had been +occasioned by the sausage eaters. + +"Why have we stopped? Is the way blocked? Or have we already come up +against the French?" + +"No, one can't hear them. They'd be firing if we had." + +"They were in a hurry enough to start us, and now here we stand in the +middle of a field without rhyme or reason. It's all those damned +Germans' muddling! What stupid devils!" + +"Yes, I'd send them on in front, but no fear, they're crowding up +behind. And now here we stand hungry." + +"I say, shall we soon be clear? They say the cavalry are blocking the +way," said an officer. + +"Ah, those damned Germans! They don't know their own country!" said +another. + +"What division are you?" shouted an adjutant, riding up. + +"The Eighteenth." + +"Then why are you here? You should have gone on long ago, now you won't +get there till evening." + +"What stupid orders! They don't themselves know what they are doing!" +said the officer and rode off. + +Then a general rode past shouting something angrily, not in Russian. + +"Tafa-lafa! But what he's jabbering no one can make out," said a +soldier, mimicking the general who had ridden away. "I'd shoot them, the +scoundrels!" + +"We were ordered to be at the place before nine, but we haven't got +halfway. Fine orders!" was being repeated on different sides. + +And the feeling of energy with which the troops had started began to +turn into vexation and anger at the stupid arrangements and at the +Germans. + +The cause of the confusion was that while the Austrian cavalry was +moving toward our left flank, the higher command found that our center +was too far separated from our right flank and the cavalry were all +ordered to turn back to the right. Several thousand cavalry crossed in +front of the infantry, who had to wait. + +At the front an altercation occurred between an Austrian guide and a +Russian general. The general shouted a demand that the cavalry should be +halted, the Austrian argued that not he, but the higher command, was to +blame. The troops meanwhile stood growing listless and dispirited. After +an hour's delay they at last moved on, descending the hill. The fog that +was dispersing on the hill lay still more densely below, where they were +descending. In front in the fog a shot was heard and then another, at +first irregularly at varying intervals--trata... tat--and then more and +more regularly and rapidly, and the action at the Goldbach Stream began. + +Not expecting to come on the enemy down by the stream, and having +stumbled on him in the fog, hearing no encouraging word from their +commanders, and with a consciousness of being too late spreading through +the ranks, and above all being unable to see anything in front or around +them in the thick fog, the Russians exchanged shots with the enemy +lazily and advanced and again halted, receiving no timely orders from +the officers or adjutants who wandered about in the fog in those unknown +surroundings unable to find their own regiments. In this way the action +began for the first, second, and third columns, which had gone down into +the valley. The fourth column, with which Kutuzov was, stood on the +Pratzen Heights. + +Below, where the fight was beginning, there was still thick fog; on the +higher ground it was clearing, but nothing could be seen of what was +going on in front. Whether all the enemy forces were, as we supposed, +six miles away, or whether they were near by in that sea of mist, no one +knew till after eight o'clock. + +It was nine o'clock in the morning. The fog lay unbroken like a sea down +below, but higher up at the village of Schlappanitz where Napoleon stood +with his marshals around him, it was quite light. Above him was a clear +blue sky, and the sun's vast orb quivered like a huge hollow, crimson +float on the surface of that milky sea of mist. The whole French army, +and even Napoleon himself with his staff, were not on the far side of +the streams and hollows of Sokolnitz and Schlappanitz beyond which we +intended to take up our position and begin the action, but were on this +side, so close to our own forces that Napoleon with the naked eye could +distinguish a mounted man from one on foot. Napoleon, in the blue cloak +which he had worn on his Italian campaign, sat on his small gray Arab +horse a little in front of his marshals. He gazed silently at the hills +which seemed to rise out of the sea of mist and on which the Russian +troops were moving in the distance, and he listened to the sounds of +firing in the valley. Not a single muscle of his face--which in those +days was still thin--moved. His gleaming eyes were fixed intently on one +spot. His predictions were being justified. Part of the Russian force +had already descended into the valley toward the ponds and lakes and +part were leaving these Pratzen Heights which he intended to attack and +regarded as the key to the position. He saw over the mist that in a +hollow between two hills near the village of Pratzen, the Russian +columns, their bayonets glittering, were moving continuously in one +direction toward the valley and disappearing one after another into the +mist. From information he had received the evening before, from the +sound of wheels and footsteps heard by the outposts during the night, by +the disorderly movement of the Russian columns, and from all +indications, he saw clearly that the allies believed him to be far away +in front of them, and that the columns moving near Pratzen constituted +the center of the Russian army, and that that center was already +sufficiently weakened to be successfully attacked. But still he did not +begin the engagement. + +Today was a great day for him--the anniversary of his coronation. Before +dawn he had slept for a few hours, and refreshed, vigorous, and in good +spirits, he mounted his horse and rode out into the field in that happy +mood in which everything seems possible and everything succeeds. He sat +motionless, looking at the heights visible above the mist, and his cold +face wore that special look of confident, self-complacent happiness that +one sees on the face of a boy happily in love. The marshals stood behind +him not venturing to distract his attention. He looked now at the +Pratzen Heights, now at the sun floating up out of the mist. + +When the sun had entirely emerged from the fog, and fields and mist were +aglow with dazzling light--as if he had only awaited this to begin the +action--he drew the glove from his shapely white hand, made a sign with +it to the marshals, and ordered the action to begin. The marshals, +accompanied by adjutants, galloped off in different directions, and a +few minutes later the chief forces of the French army moved rapidly +toward those Pratzen Heights which were being more and more denuded by +Russian troops moving down the valley to their left. + + + + +CHAPTER XV + +At eight o'clock Kutuzov rode to Pratzen at the head of the fourth +column, Miloradovich's, the one that was to take the place of +Przebyszewski's and Langeron's columns which had already gone down into +the valley. He greeted the men of the foremost regiment and gave them +the order to march, thereby indicating that he intended to lead that +column himself. When he had reached the village of Pratzen he halted. +Prince Andrew was behind, among the immense number forming the +commander-in-chief's suite. He was in a state of suppressed excitement +and irritation, though controlledly calm as a man is at the approach of +a long-awaited moment. He was firmly convinced that this was the day of +his Toulon, or his bridge of Arcola. How it would come about he did not +know, but he felt sure it would do so. The locality and the position of +our troops were known to him as far as they could be known to anyone in +our army. His own strategic plan, which obviously could not now be +carried out, was forgotten. Now, entering into Weyrother's plan, Prince +Andrew considered possible contingencies and formed new projects such as +might call for his rapidity of perception and decision. + +To the left down below in the mist, the musketry fire of unseen forces +could be heard. It was there Prince Andrew thought the fight would +concentrate. "There we shall encounter difficulties, and there," thought +he, "I shall be sent with a brigade or division, and there, standard in +hand, I shall go forward and break whatever is in front of me." + +He could not look calmly at the standards of the passing battalions. +Seeing them he kept thinking, "That may be the very standard with which +I shall lead the army." + +In the morning all that was left of the night mist on the heights was a +hoar frost now turning to dew, but in the valleys it still lay like a +milk-white sea. Nothing was visible in the valley to the left into which +our troops had descended and from whence came the sounds of firing. +Above the heights was the dark clear sky, and to the right the vast orb +of the sun. In front, far off on the farther shore of that sea of mist, +some wooded hills were discernible, and it was there the enemy probably +was, for something could be descried. On the right the Guards were +entering the misty region with a sound of hoofs and wheels and now and +then a gleam of bayonets; to the left beyond the village similar masses +of cavalry came up and disappeared in the sea of mist. In front and +behind moved infantry. The commander-in-chief was standing at the end of +the village letting the troops pass by him. That morning Kutuzov seemed +worn and irritable. The infantry passing before him came to a halt +without any command being given, apparently obstructed by something in +front. + +"Do order them to form into battalion columns and go round the village!" +he said angrily to a general who had ridden up. "Don't you understand, +your excellency, my dear sir, that you must not defile through narrow +village streets when we are marching against the enemy?" + +"I intended to re-form them beyond the village, your excellency," +answered the general. + +Kutuzov laughed bitterly. + +"You'll make a fine thing of it, deploying in sight of the enemy! Very +fine!" + +"The enemy is still far away, your excellency. According to the +dispositions..." + +"The dispositions!" exclaimed Kutuzov bitterly. "Who told you that?... +Kindly do as you are ordered." + +"Yes, sir." + +"My dear fellow," Nesvitski whispered to Prince Andrew, "the old man is +as surly as a dog." + +An Austrian officer in a white uniform with green plumes in his hat +galloped up to Kutuzov and asked in the Emperor's name had the fourth +column advanced into action. + +Kutuzov turned round without answering and his eye happened to fall upon +Prince Andrew, who was beside him. Seeing him, Kutuzov's malevolent and +caustic expression softened, as if admitting that what was being done +was not his adjutant's fault, and still not answering the Austrian +adjutant, he addressed Bolkonski. + +"Go, my dear fellow, and see whether the third division has passed the +village. Tell it to stop and await my orders." + +Hardly had Prince Andrew started than he stopped him. + +"And ask whether sharpshooters have been posted," he added. "What are +they doing? What are they doing?" he murmured to himself, still not +replying to the Austrian. + +Prince Andrew galloped off to execute the order. + +Overtaking the battalions that continued to advance, he stopped the +third division and convinced himself that there really were no +sharpshooters in front of our columns. The colonel at the head of the +regiment was much surprised at the commander-in-chief's order to throw +out skirmishers. He had felt perfectly sure that there were other troops +in front of him and that the enemy must be at least six miles away. +There was really nothing to be seen in front except a barren descent +hidden by dense mist. Having given orders in the commander-in-chief's +name to rectify this omission, Prince Andrew galloped back. Kutuzov +still in the same place, his stout body resting heavily in the saddle +with the lassitude of age, sat yawning wearily with closed eyes. The +troops were no longer moving, but stood with the butts of their muskets +on the ground. + +"All right, all right!" he said to Prince Andrew, and turned to a +general who, watch in hand, was saying it was time they started as all +the left-flank columns had already descended. + +"Plenty of time, your excellency," muttered Kutuzov in the midst of a +yawn. "Plenty of time," he repeated. + +Just then at a distance behind Kutuzov was heard the sound of regiments +saluting, and this sound rapidly came nearer along the whole extended +line of the advancing Russian columns. Evidently the person they were +greeting was riding quickly. When the soldiers of the regiment in front +of which Kutuzov was standing began to shout, he rode a little to one +side and looked round with a frown. Along the road from Pratzen galloped +what looked like a squadron of horsemen in various uniforms. Two of them +rode side by side in front, at full gallop. One in a black uniform with +white plumes in his hat rode a bobtailed chestnut horse, the other who +was in a white uniform rode a black one. These were the two Emperors +followed by their suites. Kutuzov, affecting the manners of an old +soldier at the front, gave the command "Attention!" and rode up to the +Emperors with a salute. His whole appearance and manner were suddenly +transformed. He put on the air of a subordinate who obeys without +reasoning. With an affectation of respect which evidently struck +Alexander unpleasantly, he rode up and saluted. + +This unpleasant impression merely flitted over the young and happy face +of the Emperor like a cloud of haze across a clear sky and vanished. +After his illness he looked rather thinner that day than on the field of +Olmutz where Bolkonski had seen him for the first time abroad, but there +was still the same bewitching combination of majesty and mildness in his +fine gray eyes, and on his delicate lips the same capacity for varying +expression and the same prevalent appearance of goodhearted innocent +youth. + +At the Olmutz review he had seemed more majestic; here he seemed +brighter and more energetic. He was slightly flushed after galloping two +miles, and reining in his horse he sighed restfully and looked round at +the faces of his suite, young and animated as his own. Czartoryski, +Novosiltsev, Prince Volkonsky, Strogonov, and the others, all richly +dressed gay young men on splendid, well-groomed, fresh, only slightly +heated horses, exchanging remarks and smiling, had stopped behind the +Emperor. The Emperor Francis, a rosy, long faced young man, sat very +erect on his handsome black horse, looking about him in a leisurely and +preoccupied manner. He beckoned to one of his white adjutants and asked +some question--"Most likely he is asking at what o'clock they started," +thought Prince Andrew, watching his old acquaintance with a smile he +could not repress as he recalled his reception at Brunn. In the +Emperors' suite were the picked young orderly officers of the Guard and +line regiments, Russian and Austrian. Among them were grooms leading the +Tsar's beautiful relay horses covered with embroidered cloths. + +As when a window is opened a whiff of fresh air from the fields enters a +stuffy room, so a whiff of youthfulness, energy, and confidence of +success reached Kutuzov's cheerless staff with the galloping advent of +all these brilliant young men. + +"Why aren't you beginning, Michael Ilarionovich?" said the Emperor +Alexander hurriedly to Kutuzov, glancing courteously at the same time at +the Emperor Francis. + +"I am waiting, Your Majesty," answered Kutuzov, bending forward +respectfully. + +The Emperor, frowning slightly, bent his ear forward as if he had not +quite heard. + +"Waiting, Your Majesty," repeated Kutuzov. (Prince Andrew noted that +Kutuzov's upper lip twitched unnaturally as he said the word "waiting.") +"Not all the columns have formed up yet, Your Majesty." + +The Tsar heard but obviously did not like the reply; he shrugged his +rather round shoulders and glanced at Novosiltsev who was near him, as +if complaining of Kutuzov. + +"You know, Michael Ilarionovich, we are not on the Empress' Field where +a parade does not begin till all the troops are assembled," said the +Tsar with another glance at the Emperor Francis, as if inviting him if +not to join in at least to listen to what he was saying. But the Emperor +Francis continued to look about him and did not listen. + +"That is just why I do not begin, sire," said Kutuzov in a resounding +voice, apparently to preclude the possibility of not being heard, and +again something in his face twitched--"That is just why I do not begin, +sire, because we are not on parade and not on the Empress' Field," said +clearly and distinctly. + +In the Emperor's suite all exchanged rapid looks that expressed +dissatisfaction and reproach. "Old though he may be, he should not, he +certainly should not, speak like that," their glances seemed to say. + +The Tsar looked intently and observantly into Kutuzov's eye waiting to +hear whether he would say anything more. But Kutuzov, with respectfully +bowed head, seemed also to be waiting. The silence lasted for about a +minute. + +"However, if you command it, Your Majesty," said Kutuzov, lifting his +head and again assuming his former tone of a dull, unreasoning, but +submissive general. + +He touched his horse and having called Miloradovich, the commander of +the column, gave him the order to advance. + +The troops again began to move, and two battalions of the Novgorod and +one of the Apsheron regiment went forward past the Emperor. + +As this Apsheron battalion marched by, the red-faced Miloradovich, +without his greatcoat, with his Orders on his breast and an enormous +tuft of plumes in his cocked hat worn on one side with its corners front +and back, galloped strenuously forward, and with a dashing salute reined +in his horse before the Emperor. + +"God be with you, general!" said the Emperor. + +"Ma foi, sire, nous ferons ce qui sera dans notre possibilite, sire," * +he answered gaily, raising nevertheless ironic smiles among the +gentlemen of the Tsar's suite by his poor French. + + +* "Indeed, Sire, we shall do everything it is possible to do, Sire." + +Miloradovich wheeled his horse sharply and stationed himself a little +behind the Emperor. The Apsheron men, excited by the Tsar's presence, +passed in step before the Emperors and their suites at a bold, brisk +pace. + +"Lads!" shouted Miloradovich in a loud, self-confident, and cheery +voice, obviously so elated by the sound of firing, by the prospect of +battle, and by the sight of the gallant Apsherons, his comrades in +Suvorov's time, now passing so gallantly before the Emperors, that he +forgot the sovereigns' presence. "Lads, it's not the first village +you've had to take," cried he. + +"Glad to do our best!" shouted the soldiers. + +The Emperor's horse started at the sudden cry. This horse that had +carried the sovereign at reviews in Russia bore him also here on the +field of Austerlitz, enduring the heedless blows of his left foot and +pricking its ears at the sound of shots just as it had done on the +Empress' Field, not understanding the significance of the firing, nor of +the nearness of the Emperor Francis' black cob, nor of all that was +being said, thought, and felt that day by its rider. + +The Emperor turned with a smile to one of his followers and made a +remark to him, pointing to the gallant Apsherons. + + + + +CHAPTER XVI + +Kutuzov accompanied by his adjutants rode at a walking pace behind the +carabineers. + +When he had gone less than half a mile in the rear of the column he +stopped at a solitary, deserted house that had probably once been an +inn, where two roads parted. Both of them led downhill and troops were +marching along both. + +The fog had begun to clear and enemy troops were already dimly visible +about a mile and a half off on the opposite heights. Down below, on the +left, the firing became more distinct. Kutuzov had stopped and was +speaking to an Austrian general. Prince Andrew, who was a little behind +looking at them, turned to an adjutant to ask him for a field glass. + +"Look, look!" said this adjutant, looking not at the troops in the +distance, but down the hill before him. "It's the French!" + +The two generals and the adjutant took hold of the field glass, trying +to snatch it from one another. The expression on all their faces +suddenly changed to one of horror. The French were supposed to be a mile +and a half away, but had suddenly and unexpectedly appeared just in +front of us. + +"It's the enemy?... No!... Yes, see it is!... for certain.... But how is +that?" said different voices. + +With the naked eye Prince Andrew saw below them to the right, not more +than five hundred paces from where Kutuzov was standing, a dense French +column coming up to meet the Apsherons. + +"Here it is! The decisive moment has arrived. My turn has come," thought +Prince Andrew, and striking his horse he rode up to Kutuzov. + +"The Apsherons must be stopped, your excellency," cried he. But at that +very instant a cloud of smoke spread all round, firing was heard quite +close at hand, and a voice of naive terror barely two steps from Prince +Andrew shouted, "Brothers! All's lost!" And at this as if at a command, +everyone began to run. + +Confused and ever-increasing crowds were running back to where five +minutes before the troops had passed the Emperors. Not only would it +have been difficult to stop that crowd, it was even impossible not to be +carried back with it oneself. Bolkonski only tried not to lose touch +with it, and looked around bewildered and unable to grasp what was +happening in front of him. Nesvitski with an angry face, red and unlike +himself, was shouting to Kutuzov that if he did not ride away at once he +would certainly be taken prisoner. Kutuzov remained in the same place +and without answering drew out a handkerchief. Blood was flowing from +his cheek. Prince Andrew forced his way to him. + +"You are wounded?" he asked, hardly able to master the trembling of his +lower jaw. + +"The wound is not here, it is there!" said Kutuzov, pressing the +handkerchief to his wounded cheek and pointing to the fleeing soldiers. +"Stop them!" he shouted, and at the same moment, probably realizing that +it was impossible to stop them, spurred his horse and rode to the right. + +A fresh wave of the flying mob caught him and bore him back with it. + +The troops were running in such a dense mass that once surrounded by +them it was difficult to get out again. One was shouting, "Get on! Why +are you hindering us?" Another in the same place turned round and fired +in the air; a third was striking the horse Kutuzov himself rode. Having +by a great effort got away to the left from that flood of men, Kutuzov, +with his suite diminished by more than half, rode toward a sound of +artillery fire near by. Having forced his way out of the crowd of +fugitives, Prince Andrew, trying to keep near Kutuzov, saw on the slope +of the hill amid the smoke a Russian battery that was still firing and +Frenchmen running toward it. Higher up stood some Russian infantry, +neither moving forward to protect the battery nor backward with the +fleeing crowd. A mounted general separated himself from the infantry and +approached Kutuzov. Of Kutuzov's suite only four remained. They were all +pale and exchanged looks in silence. + +"Stop those wretches!" gasped Kutuzov to the regimental commander, +pointing to the flying soldiers; but at that instant, as if to punish +him for those words, bullets flew hissing across the regiment and across +Kutuzov's suite like a flock of little birds. + +The French had attacked the battery and, seeing Kutuzov, were firing at +him. After this volley the regimental commander clutched at his leg; +several soldiers fell, and a second lieutenant who was holding the flag +let it fall from his hands. It swayed and fell, but caught on the +muskets of the nearest soldiers. The soldiers started firing without +orders. + +"Oh! Oh! Oh!" groaned Kutuzov despairingly and looked around.... +"Bolkonski!" he whispered, his voice trembling from a consciousness of +the feebleness of age, "Bolkonski!" he whispered, pointing to the +disordered battalion and at the enemy, "what's that?" + +But before he had finished speaking, Prince Andrew, feeling tears of +shame and anger choking him, had already leapt from his horse and run to +the standard. + +"Forward, lads!" he shouted in a voice piercing as a child's. + +"Here it is!" thought he, seizing the staff of the standard and hearing +with pleasure the whistle of bullets evidently aimed at him. Several +soldiers fell. + +"Hurrah!" shouted Prince Andrew, and, scarcely able to hold up the heavy +standard, he ran forward with full confidence that the whole battalion +would follow him. + +And really he only ran a few steps alone. One soldier moved and then +another and soon the whole battalion ran forward shouting "Hurrah!" and +overtook him. A sergeant of the battalion ran up and took the flag that +was swaying from its weight in Prince Andrew's hands, but he was +immediately killed. Prince Andrew again seized the standard and, +dragging it by the staff, ran on with the battalion. In front he saw our +artillerymen, some of whom were fighting, while others, having abandoned +their guns, were running toward him. He also saw French infantry +soldiers who were seizing the artillery horses and turning the guns +round. Prince Andrew and the battalion were already within twenty paces +of the cannon. He heard the whistle of bullets above him unceasingly and +to right and left of him soldiers continually groaned and dropped. But +he did not look at them: he looked only at what was going on in front of +him--at the battery. He now saw clearly the figure of a red-haired +gunner with his shako knocked awry, pulling one end of a mop while a +French soldier tugged at the other. He could distinctly see the +distraught yet angry expression on the faces of these two men, who +evidently did not realize what they were doing. + +"What are they about?" thought Prince Andrew as he gazed at them. "Why +doesn't the red-haired gunner run away as he is unarmed? Why doesn't the +Frenchman stab him? He will not get away before the Frenchman remembers +his bayonet and stabs him...." + +And really another French soldier, trailing his musket, ran up to the +struggling men, and the fate of the red-haired gunner, who had +triumphantly secured the mop and still did not realize what awaited him, +was about to be decided. But Prince Andrew did not see how it ended. It +seemed to him as though one of the soldiers near him hit him on the head +with the full swing of a bludgeon. It hurt a little, but the worst of it +was that the pain distracted him and prevented his seeing what he had +been looking at. + +"What's this? Am I falling? My legs are giving way," thought he, and +fell on his back. He opened his eyes, hoping to see how the struggle of +the Frenchmen with the gunners ended, whether the red-haired gunner had +been killed or not and whether the cannon had been captured or saved. +But he saw nothing. Above him there was now nothing but the sky--the +lofty sky, not clear yet still immeasurably lofty, with gray clouds +gliding slowly across it. "How quiet, peaceful, and solemn; not at all +as I ran," thought Prince Andrew--"not as we ran, shouting and fighting, +not at all as the gunner and the Frenchman with frightened and angry +faces struggled for the mop: how differently do those clouds glide +across that lofty infinite sky! How was it I did not see that lofty sky +before? And how happy I am to have found it at last! Yes! All is vanity, +all falsehood, except that infinite sky. There is nothing, nothing, but +that. But even it does not exist, there is nothing but quiet and peace. +Thank God!..." + + + + +CHAPTER XVII + +On our right flank commanded by Bagration, at nine o'clock the battle +had not yet begun. Not wishing to agree to Dolgorukov's demand to +commence the action, and wishing to avert responsibility from himself, +Prince Bagration proposed to Dolgorukov to send to inquire of the +commander-in-chief. Bagration knew that as the distance between the two +flanks was more than six miles, even if the messenger were not killed +(which he very likely would be), and found the commander-in-chief (which +would be very difficult), he would not be able to get back before +evening. + +Bagration cast his large, expressionless, sleepy eyes round his suite, +and the boyish face Rostov, breathless with excitement and hope, was the +first to catch his eye. He sent him. + +"And if I should meet His Majesty before I meet the commander-in-chief, +your excellency?" said Rostov, with his hand to his cap. + +"You can give the message to His Majesty," said Dolgorukov, hurriedly +interrupting Bagration. + +On being relieved from picket duty Rostov had managed to get a few +hours' sleep before morning and felt cheerful, bold, and resolute, with +elasticity of movement, faith in his good fortune, and generally in that +state of mind which makes everything seem possible, pleasant, and easy. + +All his wishes were being fulfilled that morning: there was to be a +general engagement in which he was taking part, more than that, he was +orderly to the bravest general, and still more, he was going with a +message to Kutuzov, perhaps even to the sovereign himself. The morning +was bright, he had a good horse under him, and his heart was full of joy +and happiness. On receiving the order he gave his horse the rein and +galloped along the line. At first he rode along the line of Bagration's +troops, which had not yet advanced into action but were standing +motionless; then he came to the region occupied by Uvarov's cavalry and +here he noticed a stir and signs of preparation for battle; having +passed Uvarov's cavalry he clearly heard the sound of cannon and +musketry ahead of him. The firing grew louder and louder. + +In the fresh morning air were now heard, not two or three musket shots +at irregular intervals as before, followed by one or two cannon shots, +but a roll of volleys of musketry from the slopes of the hill before +Pratzen, interrupted by such frequent reports of cannon that sometimes +several of them were not separated from one another but merged into a +general roar. + +He could see puffs of musketry smoke that seemed to chase one another +down the hillsides, and clouds of cannon smoke rolling, spreading, and +mingling with one another. He could also, by the gleam of bayonets +visible through the smoke, make out moving masses of infantry and narrow +lines of artillery with green caissons. + +Rostov stopped his horse for a moment on a hillock to see what was going +on, but strain his attention as he would he could not understand or make +out anything of what was happening: there in the smoke men of some sort +were moving about, in front and behind moved lines of troops; but why, +whither, and who they were, it was impossible to make out. These sights +and sounds had no depressing or intimidating effect on him; on the +contrary, they stimulated his energy and determination. + +"Go on! Go on! Give it them!" he mentally exclaimed at these sounds, and +again proceeded to gallop along the line, penetrating farther and +farther into the region where the army was already in action. + +"How it will be there I don't know, but all will be well!" thought +Rostov. + +After passing some Austrian troops he noticed that the next part of the +line (the Guards) was already in action. + +"So much the better! I shall see it close," he thought. + +He was riding almost along the front line. A handful of men came +galloping toward him. They were our uhlans who with disordered ranks +were returning from the attack. Rostov got out of their way, +involuntarily noticed that one of them was bleeding, and galloped on. + +"That is no business of mine," he thought. He had not ridden many +hundred yards after that before he saw to his left, across the whole +width of the field, an enormous mass of cavalry in brilliant white +uniforms, mounted on black horses, trotting straight toward him and +across his path. Rostov put his horse to full gallop to get out of the +way of these men, and he would have got clear had they continued at the +same speed, but they kept increasing their pace, so that some of the +horses were already galloping. Rostov heard the thud of their hoofs and +the jingle of their weapons and saw their horses, their figures, and +even their faces, more and more distinctly. They were our Horse Guards, +advancing to attack the French cavalry that was coming to meet them. + +The Horse Guards were galloping, but still holding in their horses. +Rostov could already see their faces and heard the command: "Charge!" +shouted by an officer who was urging his thoroughbred to full speed. +Rostov, fearing to be crushed or swept into the attack on the French, +galloped along the front as hard as his horse could go, but still was +not in time to avoid them. + +The last of the Horse Guards, a huge pockmarked fellow, frowned angrily +on seeing Rostov before him, with whom he would inevitably collide. This +Guardsman would certainly have bowled Rostov and his Bedouin over +(Rostov felt himself quite tiny and weak compared to these gigantic men +and horses) had it not occurred to Rostov to flourish his whip before +the eyes of the Guardsman's horse. The heavy black horse, sixteen hands +high, shied, throwing back its ears; but the pockmarked Guardsman drove +his huge spurs in violently, and the horse, flourishing its tail and +extending its neck, galloped on yet faster. Hardly had the Horse Guards +passed Rostov before he heard them shout, "Hurrah!" and looking back saw +that their foremost ranks were mixed up with some foreign cavalry with +red epaulets, probably French. He could see nothing more, for +immediately afterwards cannon began firing from somewhere and smoke +enveloped everything. + +At that moment, as the Horse Guards, having passed him, disappeared in +the smoke, Rostov hesitated whether to gallop after them or to go where +he was sent. This was the brilliant charge of the Horse Guards that +amazed the French themselves. Rostov was horrified to hear later that of +all that mass of huge and handsome men, of all those brilliant, rich +youths, officers and cadets, who had galloped past him on their +thousand-ruble horses, only eighteen were left after the charge. + +"Why should I envy them? My chance is not lost, and maybe I shall see +the Emperor immediately!" thought Rostov and galloped on. + +When he came level with the Foot Guards he noticed that about them and +around them cannon balls were flying, of which he was aware not so much +because he heard their sound as because he saw uneasiness on the +soldiers' faces and unnatural warlike solemnity on those of the +officers. + +Passing behind one of the lines of a regiment of Foot Guards he heard a +voice calling him by name. + +"Rostov!" + +"What?" he answered, not recognizing Boris. + +"I say, we've been in the front line! Our regiment attacked!" said Boris +with the happy smile seen on the faces of young men who have been under +fire for the first time. + +Rostov stopped. + +"Have you?" he said. "Well, how did it go?" + +"We drove them back!" said Boris with animation, growing talkative. "Can +you imagine it?" and he began describing how the Guards, having taken up +their position and seeing troops before them, thought they were +Austrians, and all at once discovered from the cannon balls discharged +by those troops that they were themselves in the front line and had +unexpectedly to go into action. Rostov without hearing Boris to the end +spurred his horse. + +"Where are you off to?" asked Boris. + +"With a message to His Majesty." + +"There he is!" said Boris, thinking Rostov had said "His Highness," and +pointing to the Grand Duke who with his high shoulders and frowning +brows stood a hundred paces away from them in his helmet and Horse +Guards' jacket, shouting something to a pale, white uniformed Austrian +officer. + +"But that's the Grand Duke, and I want the commander-in-chief or the +Emperor," said Rostov, and was about to spur his horse. + +"Count! Count!" shouted Berg who ran up from the other side as eager as +Boris. "Count! I am wounded in my right hand" (and he showed his +bleeding hand with a handkerchief tied round it) "and I remained at the +front. I held my sword in my left hand, Count. All our family--the von +Bergs--have been knights!" + +He said something more, but Rostov did not wait to hear it and rode +away. + +Having passed the Guards and traversed an empty space, Rostov, to avoid +again getting in front of the first line as he had done when the Horse +Guards charged, followed the line of reserves, going far round the place +where the hottest musket fire and cannonade were heard. Suddenly he +heard musket fire quite close in front of him and behind our troops, +where he could never have expected the enemy to be. + +"What can it be?" he thought. "The enemy in the rear of our army? +Impossible!" And suddenly he was seized by a panic of fear for himself +and for the issue of the whole battle. "But be that what it may," he +reflected, "there is no riding round it now. I must look for the +commander in chief here, and if all is lost it is for me to perish with +the rest." + +The foreboding of evil that had suddenly come over Rostov was more and +more confirmed the farther he rode into the region behind the village of +Pratzen, which was full of troops of all kinds. + +"What does it mean? What is it? Whom are they firing at? Who is firing?" +Rostov kept asking as he came up to Russian and Austrian soldiers +running in confused crowds across his path. + +"The devil knows! They've killed everybody! It's all up now!" he was +told in Russian, German, and Czech by the crowd of fugitives who +understood what was happening as little as he did. + +"Kill the Germans!" shouted one. + +"May the devil take them--the traitors!" + +"Zum Henker diese Russen!" * muttered a German. + + +* "Hang these Russians!" + +Several wounded men passed along the road, and words of abuse, screams, +and groans mingled in a general hubbub, then the firing died down. +Rostov learned later that Russian and Austrian soldiers had been firing +at one another. + +"My God! What does it all mean?" thought he. "And here, where at any +moment the Emperor may see them.... But no, these must be only a handful +of scoundrels. It will soon be over, it can't be that, it can't be! Only +to get past them quicker, quicker!" + +The idea of defeat and flight could not enter Rostov's head. Though he +saw French cannon and French troops on the Pratzen Heights just where he +had been ordered to look for the commander-in-chief, he could not, did +not wish to, believe that. + + + + +CHAPTER XVIII + +Rostov had been ordered to look for Kutuzov and the Emperor near the +village of Pratzen. But neither they nor a single commanding officer +were there, only disorganized crowds of troops of various kinds. He +urged on his already weary horse to get quickly past these crowds, but +the farther he went the more disorganized they were. The highroad on +which he had come out was thronged with caleches, carriages of all +sorts, and Russian and Austrian soldiers of all arms, some wounded and +some not. This whole mass droned and jostled in confusion under the +dismal influence of cannon balls flying from the French batteries +stationed on the Pratzen Heights. + +"Where is the Emperor? Where is Kutuzov?" Rostov kept asking everyone he +could stop, but got no answer from anyone. + +At last seizing a soldier by his collar he forced him to answer. + +"Eh, brother! They've all bolted long ago!" said the soldier, laughing +for some reason and shaking himself free. + +Having left that soldier who was evidently drunk, Rostov stopped the +horse of a batman or groom of some important personage and began to +question him. The man announced that the Tsar had been driven in a +carriage at full speed about an hour before along that very road and +that he was dangerously wounded. + +"It can't be!" said Rostov. "It must have been someone else." + +"I saw him myself," replied the man with a self-confident smile of +derision. "I ought to know the Emperor by now, after the times I've seen +him in Petersburg. I saw him just as I see you.... There he sat in the +carriage as pale as anything. How they made the four black horses fly! +Gracious me, they did rattle past! It's time I knew the Imperial horses +and Ilya Ivanych. I don't think Ilya drives anyone except the Tsar!" + +Rostov let go of the horse and was about to ride on, when a wounded +officer passing by addressed him: + +"Who is it you want?" he asked. "The commander-in-chief? He was killed +by a cannon ball--struck in the breast before our regiment." + +"Not killed--wounded!" another officer corrected him. + +"Who? Kutuzov?" asked Rostov. + +"Not Kutuzov, but what's his name--well, never mind... there are not +many left alive. Go that way, to that village, all the commanders are +there," said the officer, pointing to the village of Hosjeradek, and he +walked on. + +Rostov rode on at a footpace not knowing why or to whom he was now +going. The Emperor was wounded, the battle lost. It was impossible to +doubt it now. Rostov rode in the direction pointed out to him, in which +he saw turrets and a church. What need to hurry? What was he now to say +to the Tsar or to Kutuzov, even if they were alive and unwounded? + +"Take this road, your honor, that way you will be killed at once!" a +soldier shouted to him. "They'd kill you there!" + +"Oh, what are you talking about?" said another. "Where is he to go? That +way is nearer." + +Rostov considered, and then went in the direction where they said he +would be killed. + +"It's all the same now. If the Emperor is wounded, am I to try to save +myself?" he thought. He rode on to the region where the greatest number +of men had perished in fleeing from Pratzen. The French had not yet +occupied that region, and the Russians--the uninjured and slightly +wounded--had left it long ago. All about the field, like heaps of manure +on well-kept plowland, lay from ten to fifteen dead and wounded to each +couple of acres. The wounded crept together in twos and threes and one +could hear their distressing screams and groans, sometimes feigned--or +so it seemed to Rostov. He put his horse to a trot to avoid seeing all +these suffering men, and he felt afraid--afraid not for his life, but +for the courage he needed and which he knew would not stand the sight of +these unfortunates. + +The French, who had ceased firing at this field strewn with dead and +wounded where there was no one left to fire at, on seeing an adjutant +riding over it trained a gun on him and fired several shots. The +sensation of those terrible whistling sounds and of the corpses around +him merged in Rostov's mind into a single feeling of terror and pity for +himself. He remembered his mother's last letter. "What would she feel," +thought he, "if she saw me here now on this field with the cannon aimed +at me?" + +In the village of Hosjeradek there were Russian troops retiring from the +field of battle, who though still in some confusion were less +disordered. The French cannon did not reach there and the musketry fire +sounded far away. Here everyone clearly saw and said that the battle was +lost. No one whom Rostov asked could tell him where the Emperor or +Kutuzov was. Some said the report that the Emperor was wounded was +correct, others that it was not, and explained the false rumor that had +spread by the fact that the Emperor's carriage had really galloped from +the field of battle with the pale and terrified Ober-Hofmarschal Count +Tolstoy, who had ridden out to the battlefield with others in the +Emperor's suite. One officer told Rostov that he had seen someone from +headquarters behind the village to the left, and thither Rostov rode, +not hoping to find anyone but merely to ease his conscience. When he had +ridden about two miles and had passed the last of the Russian troops, he +saw, near a kitchen garden with a ditch round it, two men on horseback +facing the ditch. One with a white plume in his hat seemed familiar to +Rostov; the other on a beautiful chestnut horse (which Rostov fancied he +had seen before) rode up to the ditch, struck his horse with his spurs, +and giving it the rein leaped lightly over. Only a little earth crumbled +from the bank under the horse's hind hoofs. Turning the horse sharply, +he again jumped the ditch, and deferentially addressed the horseman with +the white plumes, evidently suggesting that he should do the same. The +rider, whose figure seemed familiar to Rostov and involuntarily riveted +his attention, made a gesture of refusal with his head and hand and by +that gesture Rostov instantly recognized his lamented and adored +monarch. + +"But it can't be he, alone in the midst of this empty field!" thought +Rostov. At that moment Alexander turned his head and Rostov saw the +beloved features that were so deeply engraved on his memory. The Emperor +was pale, his cheeks sunken and his eyes hollow, but the charm, the +mildness of his features, was all the greater. Rostov was happy in the +assurance that the rumors about the Emperor being wounded were false. He +was happy to be seeing him. He knew that he might and even ought to go +straight to him and give the message Dolgorukov had ordered him to +deliver. + +But as a youth in love trembles, is unnerved, and dares not utter the +thoughts he has dreamed of for nights, but looks around for help or a +chance of delay and flight when the longed-for moment comes and he is +alone with her, so Rostov, now that he had attained what he had longed +for more than anything else in the world, did not know how to approach +the Emperor, and a thousand reasons occurred to him why it would be +inconvenient, unseemly, and impossible to do so. + +"What! It is as if I were glad of a chance to take advantage of his +being alone and despondent! A strange face may seem unpleasant or +painful to him at this moment of sorrow; besides, what can I say to him +now, when my heart fails me and my mouth feels dry at the mere sight of +him?" Not one of the innumerable speeches addressed to the Emperor that +he had composed in his imagination could he now recall. Those speeches +were intended for quite other conditions, they were for the most part to +be spoken at a moment of victory and triumph, generally when he was +dying of wounds and the sovereign had thanked him for heroic deeds, and +while dying he expressed the love his actions had proved. + +"Besides how can I ask the Emperor for his instructions for the right +flank now that it is nearly four o'clock and the battle is lost? No, +certainly I must not approach him, I must not intrude on his +reflections. Better die a thousand times than risk receiving an unkind +look or bad opinion from him," Rostov decided; and sorrowfully and with +a heart full despair he rode away, continually looking back at the Tsar, +who still remained in the same attitude of indecision. + +While Rostov was thus arguing with himself and riding sadly away, +Captain von Toll chanced to ride to the same spot, and seeing the +Emperor at once rode up to him, offered his services, and assisted him +to cross the ditch on foot. The Emperor, wishing to rest and feeling +unwell, sat down under an apple tree and von Toll remained beside him. +Rostov from a distance saw with envy and remorse how von Toll spoke long +and warmly to the Emperor and how the Emperor, evidently weeping, +covered his eyes with his hand and pressed von Toll's hand. + +"And I might have been in his place!" thought Rostov, and hardly +restraining his tears of pity for the Emperor, he rode on in utter +despair, not knowing where to or why he was now riding. + +His despair was all the greater from feeling that his own weakness was +the cause of his grief. + +He might... not only might but should, have gone up to the sovereign. It +was a unique chance to show his devotion to the Emperor and he had not +made use of it.... "What have I done?" thought he. And he turned round +and galloped back to the place where he had seen the Emperor, but there +was no one beyond the ditch now. Only some carts and carriages were +passing by. From one of the drivers he learned that Kutuzov's staff were +not far off, in the village the vehicles were going to. Rostov followed +them. In front of him walked Kutuzov's groom leading horses in +horsecloths. Then came a cart, and behind that walked an old, bandy- +legged domestic serf in a peaked cap and sheepskin coat. + +"Tit! I say, Tit!" said the groom. + +"What?" answered the old man absent-mindedly. + +"Go, Tit! Thresh a bit!" + +"Oh, you fool!" said the old man, spitting angrily. Some time passed in +silence, and then the same joke was repeated. + +Before five in the evening the battle had been lost at all points. More +than a hundred cannon were already in the hands of the French. + +Przebyszewski and his corps had laid down their arms. Other columns +after losing half their men were retreating in disorderly confused +masses. + +The remains of Langeron's and Dokhturov's mingled forces were crowding +around the dams and banks of the ponds near the village of Augesd. + +After five o'clock it was only at the Augesd Dam that a hot cannonade +(delivered by the French alone) was still to be heard from numerous +batteries ranged on the slopes of the Pratzen Heights, directed at our +retreating forces. + +In the rearguard, Dokhturov and others rallying some battalions kept up +a musketry fire at the French cavalry that was pursuing our troops. It +was growing dusk. On the narrow Augesd Dam where for so many years the +old miller had been accustomed to sit in his tasseled cap peacefully +angling, while his grandson, with shirt sleeves rolled up, handled the +floundering silvery fish in the watering can, on that dam over which for +so many years Moravians in shaggy caps and blue jackets had peacefully +driven their two-horse carts loaded with wheat and had returned dusty +with flour whitening their carts--on that narrow dam amid the wagons and +the cannon, under the horses' hoofs and between the wagon wheels, men +disfigured by fear of death now crowded together, crushing one another, +dying, stepping over the dying and killing one another, only to move on +a few steps and be killed themselves in the same way. + +Every ten seconds a cannon ball flew compressing the air around, or a +shell burst in the midst of that dense throng, killing some and +splashing with blood those near them. + +Dolokhov--now an officer--wounded in the arm, and on foot, with the +regimental commander on horseback and some ten men of his company, +represented all that was left of that whole regiment. Impelled by the +crowd, they had got wedged in at the approach to the dam and, jammed in +on all sides, had stopped because a horse in front had fallen under a +cannon and the crowd were dragging it out. A cannon ball killed someone +behind them, another fell in front and splashed Dolokhov with blood. The +crowd, pushing forward desperately, squeezed together, moved a few +steps, and again stopped. + +"Move on a hundred yards and we are certainly saved, remain here another +two minutes and it is certain death," thought each one. + +Dolokhov who was in the midst of the crowd forced his way to the edge of +the dam, throwing two soldiers off their feet, and ran onto the slippery +ice that covered the millpool. + +"Turn this way!" he shouted, jumping over the ice which creaked under +him; "turn this way!" he shouted to those with the gun. "It bears!..." + +The ice bore him but it swayed and creaked, and it was plain that it +would give way not only under a cannon or a crowd, but very soon even +under his weight alone. The men looked at him and pressed to the bank, +hesitating to step onto the ice. The general on horseback at the +entrance to the dam raised his hand and opened his mouth to address +Dolokhov. Suddenly a cannon ball hissed so low above the crowd that +everyone ducked. It flopped into something moist, and the general fell +from his horse in a pool of blood. Nobody gave him a look or thought of +raising him. + +"Get onto the ice, over the ice! Go on! Turn! Don't you hear? Go on!" +innumerable voices suddenly shouted after the ball had struck the +general, the men themselves not knowing what, or why, they were +shouting. + +One of the hindmost guns that was going onto the dam turned off onto the +ice. Crowds of soldiers from the dam began running onto the frozen pond. +The ice gave way under one of the foremost soldiers, and one leg slipped +into the water. He tried to right himself but fell in up to his waist. +The nearest soldiers shrank back, the gun driver stopped his horse, but +from behind still came the shouts: "Onto the ice, why do you stop? Go +on! Go on!" And cries of horror were heard in the crowd. The soldiers +near the gun waved their arms and beat the horses to make them turn and +move on. The horses moved off the bank. The ice, that had held under +those on foot, collapsed in a great mass, and some forty men who were on +it dashed, some forward and some back, drowning one another. + +Still the cannon balls continued regularly to whistle and flop onto the +ice and into the water and oftenest of all among the crowd that covered +the dam, the pond, and the bank. + + + + +CHAPTER XIX + +On the Pratzen Heights, where he had fallen with the flagstaff in his +hand, lay Prince Andrew Bolkonski bleeding profusely and unconsciously +uttering a gentle, piteous, and childlike moan. + +Toward evening he ceased moaning and became quite still. He did not know +how long his unconsciousness lasted. Suddenly he again felt that he was +alive and suffering from a burning, lacerating pain in his head. + +"Where is it, that lofty sky that I did not know till now, but saw +today?" was his first thought. "And I did not know this suffering +either," he thought. "Yes, I did not know anything, anything at all till +now. But where am I?" + +He listened and heard the sound of approaching horses, and voices +speaking French. He opened his eyes. Above him again was the same lofty +sky with clouds that had risen and were floating still higher, and +between them gleamed blue infinity. He did not turn his head and did not +see those who, judging by the sound of hoofs and voices, had ridden up +and stopped near him. + +It was Napoleon accompanied by two aides-de-camp. Bonaparte riding over +the battlefield had given final orders to strengthen the batteries +firing at the Augesd Dam and was looking at the killed and wounded left +on the field. + +"Fine men!" remarked Napoleon, looking at a dead Russian grenadier, who, +with his face buried in the ground and a blackened nape, lay on his +stomach with an already stiffened arm flung wide. + +"The ammunition for the guns in position is exhausted, Your Majesty," +said an adjutant who had come from the batteries that were firing at +Augesd. + +"Have some brought from the reserve," said Napoleon, and having gone on +a few steps he stopped before Prince Andrew, who lay on his back with +the flagstaff that had been dropped beside him. (The flag had already +been taken by the French as a trophy.) + +"That's a fine death!" said Napoleon as he gazed at Bolkonski. + +Prince Andrew understood that this was said of him and that it was +Napoleon who said it. He heard the speaker addressed as Sire. But he +heard the words as he might have heard the buzzing of a fly. Not only +did they not interest him, but he took no notice of them and at once +forgot them. His head was burning, he felt himself bleeding to death, +and he saw above him the remote, lofty, and everlasting sky. He knew it +was Napoleon--his hero--but at that moment Napoleon seemed to him such a +small, insignificant creature compared with what was passing now between +himself and that lofty infinite sky with the clouds flying over it. At +that moment it meant nothing to him who might be standing over him, or +what was said of him; he was only glad that people were standing near +him and only wished that they would help him and bring him back to life, +which seemed to him so beautiful now that he had today learned to +understand it so differently. He collected all his strength, to stir and +utter a sound. He feebly moved his leg and uttered a weak, sickly groan +which aroused his own pity. + +"Ah! He is alive," said Napoleon. "Lift this young man up and carry him +to the dressing station." + +Having said this, Napoleon rode on to meet Marshal Lannes, who, hat in +hand, rode up smiling to the Emperor to congratulate him on the victory. + +Prince Andrew remembered nothing more: he lost consciousness from the +terrible pain of being lifted onto the stretcher, the jolting while +being moved, and the probing of his wound at the dressing station. He +did not regain consciousness till late in the day, when with other +wounded and captured Russian officers he was carried to the hospital. +During this transfer he felt a little stronger and was able to look +about him and even speak. + +The first words he heard on coming to his senses were those of a French +convoy officer, who said rapidly: "We must halt here: the Emperor will +pass here immediately; it will please him to see these gentlemen +prisoners." + +"There are so many prisoners today, nearly the whole Russian army, that +he is probably tired of them," said another officer. + +"All the same! They say this one is the commander of all the Emperor +Alexander's Guards," said the first one, indicating a Russian officer in +the white uniform of the Horse Guards. + +Bolkonski recognized Prince Repnin whom he had met in Petersburg +society. Beside him stood a lad of nineteen, also a wounded officer of +the Horse Guards. + +Bonaparte, having come up at a gallop, stopped his horse. + +"Which is the senior?" he asked, on seeing the prisoners. + +They named the colonel, Prince Repnin. + +"You are the commander of the Emperor Alexander's regiment of Horse +Guards?" asked Napoleon. + +"I commanded a squadron," replied Repnin. + +"Your regiment fulfilled its duty honorably," said Napoleon. + +"The praise of a great commander is a soldier's highest reward," said +Repnin. + +"I bestow it with pleasure," said Napoleon. "And who is that young man +beside you?" + +Prince Repnin named Lieutenant Sukhtelen. + +After looking at him Napoleon smiled. + +"He's very young to come to meddle with us." + +"Youth is no hindrance to courage," muttered Sukhtelen in a failing +voice. + +"A splendid reply!" said Napoleon. "Young man, you will go far!" + +Prince Andrew, who had also been brought forward before the Emperor's +eyes to complete the show of prisoners, could not fail to attract his +attention. Napoleon apparently remembered seeing him on the battlefield +and, addressing him, again used the epithet "young man" that was +connected in his memory with Prince Andrew. + +"Well, and you, young man," said he. "How do you feel, mon brave?" + +Though five minutes before, Prince Andrew had been able to say a few +words to the soldiers who were carrying him, now with his eyes fixed +straight on Napoleon, he was silent.... So insignificant at that moment +seemed to him all the interests that engrossed Napoleon, so mean did his +hero himself with his paltry vanity and joy in victory appear, compared +to the lofty, equitable, and kindly sky which he had seen and +understood, that he could not answer him. + +Everything seemed so futile and insignificant in comparison with the +stern and solemn train of thought that weakness from loss of blood, +suffering, and the nearness of death aroused in him. Looking into +Napoleon's eyes Prince Andrew thought of the insignificance of +greatness, the unimportance of life which no one could understand, and +the still greater unimportance of death, the meaning of which no one +alive could understand or explain. + +The Emperor without waiting for an answer turned away and said to one of +the officers as he went: "Have these gentlemen attended to and taken to +my bivouac; let my doctor, Larrey, examine their wounds. Au revoir, +Prince Repnin!" and he spurred his horse and galloped away. + +His face shone with self-satisfaction and pleasure. + +The soldiers who had carried Prince Andrew had noticed and taken the +little gold icon Princess Mary had hung round her brother's neck, but +seeing the favor the Emperor showed the prisoners, they now hastened to +return the holy image. + +Prince Andrew did not see how and by whom it was replaced, but the +little icon with its thin gold chain suddenly appeared upon his chest +outside his uniform. + +"It would be good," thought Prince Andrew, glancing at the icon his +sister had hung round his neck with such emotion and reverence, "it +would be good if everything were as clear and simple as it seems to +Mary. How good it would be to know where to seek for help in this life, +and what to expect after it beyond the grave! How happy and calm I +should be if I could now say: 'Lord, have mercy on me!'... But to whom +should I say that? Either to a Power indefinable, incomprehensible, +which I not only cannot address but which I cannot even express in +words--the Great All or Nothing-" said he to himself, "or to that God +who has been sewn into this amulet by Mary! There is nothing certain, +nothing at all except the unimportance of everything I understand, and +the greatness of something incomprehensible but all-important." + +The stretchers moved on. At every jolt he again felt unendurable pain; +his feverishness increased and he grew delirious. Visions of his father, +wife, sister, and future son, and the tenderness he had felt the night +before the battle, the figure of the insignificant little Napoleon, and +above all this the lofty sky, formed the chief subjects of his delirious +fancies. + +The quiet home life and peaceful happiness of Bald Hills presented +itself to him. He was already enjoying that happiness when that little +Napoleon had suddenly appeared with his unsympathizing look of +shortsighted delight at the misery of others, and doubts and torments +had followed, and only the heavens promised peace. Toward morning all +these dreams melted and merged into the chaos and darkness of +unconciousness and oblivion which in the opinion of Napoleon's doctor, +Larrey, was much more likely to end in death than in convalescence. + +"He is a nervous, bilious subject," said Larrey, "and will not recover." + +And Prince Andrew, with others fatally wounded, was left to the care of +the inhabitants of the district. + +BOOK FOUR: 1806 + + + + +CHAPTER I + +Early in the year 1806 Nicholas Rostov returned home on leave. Denisov +was going home to Voronezh and Rostov persuaded him to travel with him +as far as Moscow and to stay with him there. Meeting a comrade at the +last post station but one before Moscow, Denisov had drunk three bottles +of wine with him and, despite the jolting ruts across the snow-covered +road, did not once wake up on the way to Moscow, but lay at the bottom +of the sleigh beside Rostov, who grew more and more impatient the nearer +they got to Moscow. + +"How much longer? How much longer? Oh, these insufferable streets, +shops, bakers' signboards, street lamps, and sleighs!" thought Rostov, +when their leave permits had been passed at the town gate and they had +entered Moscow. + +"Denisov! We're here! He's asleep," he added, leaning forward with his +whole body as if in that position he hoped to hasten the speed of the +sleigh. + +Denisov gave no answer. + +"There's the corner at the crossroads, where the cabman, Zakhar, has his +stand, and there's Zakhar himself and still the same horse! And here's +the little shop where we used to buy gingerbread! Can't you hurry up? +Now then!" + +"Which house is it?" asked the driver. + +"Why, that one, right at the end, the big one. Don't you see? That's our +house," said Rostov. "Of course, it's our house! Denisov, Denisov! We're +almost there!" + +Denisov raised his head, coughed, and made no answer. + +"Dmitri," said Rostov to his valet on the box, "those lights are in our +house, aren't they?" + +"Yes, sir, and there's a light in your father's study." + +"Then they've not gone to bed yet? What do you think? Mind now, don't +forget to put out my new coat," added Rostov, fingering his new +mustache. "Now then, get on," he shouted to the driver. "Do wake up, +Vaska!" he went on, turning to Denisov, whose head was again nodding. +"Come, get on! You shall have three rubles for vodka--get on!" Rostov +shouted, when the sleigh was only three houses from his door. It seemed +to him the horses were not moving at all. At last the sleigh bore to the +right, drew up at an entrance, and Rostov saw overhead the old familiar +cornice with a bit of plaster broken off, the porch, and the post by the +side of the pavement. He sprang out before the sleigh stopped, and ran +into the hall. The house stood cold and silent, as if quite regardless +of who had come to it. There was no one in the hall. "Oh God! Is +everyone all right?" he thought, stopping for a moment with a sinking +heart, and then immediately starting to run along the hall and up the +warped steps of the familiar staircase. The well-known old door handle, +which always angered the countess when it was not properly cleaned, +turned as loosely as ever. A solitary tallow candle burned in the +anteroom. + +Old Michael was asleep on the chest. Prokofy, the footman, who was so +strong that he could lift the back of the carriage from behind, sat +plaiting slippers out of cloth selvedges. He looked up at the opening +door and his expression of sleepy indifference suddenly changed to one +of delighted amazement. + +"Gracious heavens! The young count!" he cried, recognizing his young +master. "Can it be? My treasure!" and Prokofy, trembling with +excitement, rushed toward the drawing-room door, probably in order to +announce him, but, changing his mind, came back and stooped to kiss the +young man's shoulder. + +"All well?" asked Rostov, drawing away his arm. + +"Yes, God be thanked! Yes! They've just finished supper. Let me have a +look at you, your excellency." + +"Is everything quite all right?" + +"The Lord be thanked, yes!" + +Rostov, who had completely forgotten Denisov, not wishing anyone to +forestall him, threw off his fur coat and ran on tiptoe through the +large dark ballroom. All was the same: there were the same old card +tables and the same chandelier with a cover over it; but someone had +already seen the young master, and, before he had reached the drawing +room, something flew out from a side door like a tornado and began +hugging and kissing him. Another and yet another creature of the same +kind sprang from a second door and a third; more hugging, more kissing, +more outcries, and tears of joy. He could not distinguish which was +Papa, which Natasha, and which Petya. Everyone shouted, talked, and +kissed him at the same time. Only his mother was not there, he noticed +that. + +"And I did not know... Nicholas... My darling!..." + +"Here he is... our own... Kolya, * dear fellow... How he has changed!... +Where are the candles?... Tea!..." + + +* Nicholas. + +"And me, kiss me!" + +"Dearest... and me!" + +Sonya, Natasha, Petya, Anna Mikhaylovna, Vera, and the old count were +all hugging him, and the serfs, men and maids, flocked into the room, +exclaiming and oh-ing and ah-ing. + +Petya, clinging to his legs, kept shouting, "And me too!" + +Natasha, after she had pulled him down toward her and covered his face +with kisses, holding him tight by the skirt of his coat, sprang away and +pranced up and down in one place like a goat and shrieked piercingly. + +All around were loving eyes glistening with tears of joy, and all around +were lips seeking a kiss. + +Sonya too, all rosy red, clung to his arm and, radiant with bliss, +looked eagerly toward his eyes, waiting for the look for which she +longed. Sonya now was sixteen and she was very pretty, especially at +this moment of happy, rapturous excitement. She gazed at him, not taking +her eyes off him, and smiling and holding her breath. He gave her a +grateful look, but was still expectant and looking for someone. The old +countess had not yet come. But now steps were heard at the door, steps +so rapid that they could hardly be his mother's. + +Yet it was she, dressed in a new gown which he did not know, made since +he had left. All the others let him go, and he ran to her. When they +met, she fell on his breast, sobbing. She could not lift her face, but +only pressed it to the cold braiding of his hussar's jacket. Denisov, +who had come into the room unnoticed by anyone, stood there and wiped +his eyes at the sight. + +"Vasili Denisov, your son's friend," he said, introducing himself to the +count, who was looking inquiringly at him. + +"You are most welcome! I know, I know," said the count, kissing and +embracing Denisov. "Nicholas wrote us... Natasha, Vera, look! Here is +Denisov!" + +The same happy, rapturous faces turned to the shaggy figure of Denisov. + +"Darling Denisov!" screamed Natasha, beside herself with rapture, +springing to him, putting her arms round him, and kissing him. This +escapade made everybody feel confused. Denisov blushed too, but smiled +and, taking Natasha's hand, kissed it. + +Denisov was shown to the room prepared for him, and the Rostovs all +gathered round Nicholas in the sitting room. + +The old countess, not letting go of his hand and kissing it every +moment, sat beside him: the rest, crowding round him, watched every +movement, word, or look of his, never taking their blissfully adoring +eyes off him. His brother and sisters struggled for the places nearest +to him and disputed with one another who should bring him his tea, +handkerchief, and pipe. + +Rostov was very happy in the love they showed him; but the first moment +of meeting had been so beatific that his present joy seemed +insufficient, and he kept expecting something more, more and yet more. + +Next morning, after the fatigues of their journey, the travelers slept +till ten o'clock. + +In the room next their bedroom there was a confusion of sabers, +satchels, sabretaches, open portmanteaus, and dirty boots. Two freshly +cleaned pairs with spurs had just been placed by the wall. The servants +were bringing in jugs and basins, hot water for shaving, and their well- +brushed clothes. There was a masculine odor and a smell of tobacco. + +"Hallo, Gwiska--my pipe!" came Vasili Denisov's husky voice. "Wostov, +get up!" + +Rostov, rubbing his eyes that seemed glued together, raised his +disheveled head from the hot pillow. + +"Why, is it late?" + +"Late! It's nearly ten o'clock," answered Natasha's voice. A rustle of +starched petticoats and the whispering and laughter of girls' voices +came from the adjoining room. The door was opened a crack and there was +a glimpse of something blue, of ribbons, black hair, and merry faces. It +was Natasha, Sonya, and Petya, who had come to see whether they were +getting up. + +"Nicholas! Get up!" Natasha's voice was again heard at the door. + +"Directly!" + +Meanwhile, Petya, having found and seized the sabers in the outer room, +with the delight boys feel at the sight of a military elder brother, and +forgetting that it was unbecoming for the girls to see men undressed, +opened the bedroom door. + +"Is this your saber?" he shouted. + +The girls sprang aside. Denisov hid his hairy legs under the blanket, +looking with a scared face at his comrade for help. The door, having let +Petya in, closed again. A sound of laughter came from behind it. + +"Nicholas! Come out in your dressing gown!" said Natasha's voice. + +"Is this your saber?" asked Petya. "Or is it yours?" he said, addressing +the black-mustached Denisov with servile deference. + +Rostov hurriedly put something on his feet, drew on his dressing gown, +and went out. Natasha had put on one spurred boot and was just getting +her foot into the other. Sonya, when he came in, was twirling round and +was about to expand her dresses into a balloon and sit down. They were +dressed alike, in new pale-blue frocks, and were both fresh, rosy, and +bright. Sonya ran away, but Natasha, taking her brother's arm, led him +into the sitting room, where they began talking. They hardly gave one +another time to ask questions and give replies concerning a thousand +little matters which could not interest anyone but themselves. Natasha +laughed at every word he said or that she said herself, not because what +they were saying was amusing, but because she felt happy and was unable +to control her joy which expressed itself by laughter. + +"Oh, how nice, how splendid!" she said to everything. + +Rostov felt that, under the influence of the warm rays of love, that +childlike smile which had not once appeared on his face since he left +home now for the first time after eighteen months again brightened his +soul and his face. + +"No, but listen," she said, "now you are quite a man, aren't you? I'm +awfully glad you're my brother." She touched his mustache. "I want to +know what you men are like. Are you the same as we? No?" + +"Why did Sonya run away?" asked Rostov. + +"Ah, yes! That's a whole long story! How are you going to speak to her-- +thou or you?" + +"As may happen," said Rostov. + +"No, call her you, please! I'll tell you all about it some other time. +No, I'll tell you now. You know Sonya's my dearest friend. Such a friend +that I burned my arm for her sake. Look here!" + +She pulled up her muslin sleeve and showed him a red scar on her long, +slender, delicate arm, high above the elbow on that part that is covered +even by a ball dress. + +"I burned this to prove my love for her. I just heated a ruler in the +fire and pressed it there!" + +Sitting on the sofa with the little cushions on its arms, in what used +to be his old schoolroom, and looking into Natasha's wildly bright eyes, +Rostov re-entered that world of home and childhood which had no meaning +for anyone else, but gave him some of the best joys of his life; and the +burning of an arm with a ruler as a proof of love did not seem to him +senseless, he understood and was not surprised at it. + +"Well, and is that all?" he asked. + +"We are such friends, such friends! All that ruler business was just +nonsense, but we are friends forever. She, if she loves anyone, does it +for life, but I don't understand that, I forget quickly." + +"Well, what then?" + +"Well, she loves me and you like that." + +Natasha suddenly flushed. + +"Why, you remember before you went away?... Well, she says you are to +forget all that.... She says: 'I shall love him always, but let him be +free.' Isn't that lovely and noble! Yes, very noble? Isn't it?" asked +Natasha, so seriously and excitedly that it was evident that what she +was now saying she had talked of before, with tears. + +Rostov became thoughtful. + +"I never go back on my word," he said. "Besides, Sonya is so charming +that only a fool would renounce such happiness." + +"No, no!" cried Natasha, "she and I have already talked it over. We knew +you'd say so. But it won't do, because you see, if you say that--if you +consider yourself bound by your promise--it will seem as if she had not +meant it seriously. It makes it as if you were marrying her because you +must, and that wouldn't do at all." + +Rostov saw that it had been well considered by them. Sonya had already +struck him by her beauty on the preceding day. Today, when he had caught +a glimpse of her, she seemed still more lovely. She was a charming girl +of sixteen, evidently passionately in love with him (he did not doubt +that for an instant). Why should he not love her now, and even marry +her, Rostov thought, but just now there were so many other pleasures and +interests before him! "Yes, they have taken a wise decision," he +thought, "I must remain free." + +"Well then, that's excellent," said he. "We'll talk it over later on. +Oh, how glad I am to have you!" + +"Well, and are you still true to Boris?" he continued. + +"Oh, what nonsense!" cried Natasha, laughing. "I don't think about him +or anyone else, and I don't want anything of the kind." + +"Dear me! Then what are you up to now?" + +"Now?" repeated Natasha, and a happy smile lit up her face. "Have you +seen Duport?" + +"No." + +"Not seen Duport--the famous dancer? Well then, you won't understand. +That's what I'm up to." + +Curving her arms, Natasha held out her skirts as dancers do, ran back a +few steps, turned, cut a caper, brought her little feet sharply +together, and made some steps on the very tips of her toes. + +"See, I'm standing! See!" she said, but could not maintain herself on +her toes any longer. "So that's what I'm up to! I'll never marry anyone, +but will be a dancer. Only don't tell anyone." + +Rostov laughed so loud and merrily that Denisov, in his bedroom, felt +envious and Natasha could not help joining in. + +"No, but don't you think it's nice?" she kept repeating. + +"Nice! And so you no longer wish to marry Boris?" + +Natasha flared up. "I don't want to marry anyone. And I'll tell him so +when I see him!" + +"Dear me!" said Rostov. + +"But that's all rubbish," Natasha chattered on. "And is Denisov nice?" +she asked. + +"Yes, indeed!" + +"Oh, well then, good-by: go and dress. Is he very terrible, Denisov?" + +"Why terrible?" asked Nicholas. "No, Vaska is a splendid fellow." + +"You call him Vaska? That's funny! And is he very nice?" + +"Very." + +"Well then, be quick. We'll all have breakfast together." + +And Natasha rose and went out of the room on tiptoe, like a ballet +dancer, but smiling as only happy girls of fifteen can smile. When +Rostov met Sonya in the drawing room, he reddened. He did not know how +to behave with her. The evening before, in the first happy moment of +meeting, they had kissed each other, but today they felt it could not be +done; he felt that everybody, including his mother and sisters, was +looking inquiringly at him and watching to see how he would behave with +her. He kissed her hand and addressed her not as thou but as you--Sonya. +But their eyes met and said thou, and exchanged tender kisses. Her looks +asked him to forgive her for having dared, by Natasha's intermediacy, to +remind him of his promise, and then thanked him for his love. His looks +thanked her for offering him his freedom and told her that one way or +another he would never cease to love her, for that would be impossible. + +"How strange it is," said Vera, selecting a moment when all were silent, +"that Sonya and Nicholas now say you to one another and meet like +strangers." + +Vera's remark was correct, as her remarks always were, but, like most of +her observations, it made everyone feel uncomfortable, not only Sonya, +Nicholas, and Natasha, but even the old countess, who--dreading this +love affair which might hinder Nicholas from making a brilliant match-- +blushed like a girl. + +Denisov, to Rostov's surprise, appeared in the drawing room with pomaded +hair, perfumed, and in a new uniform, looking just as smart as he made +himself when going into battle, and he was more amiable to the ladies +and gentlemen than Rostov had ever expected to see him. + + + + +CHAPTER II + +On his return to Moscow from the army, Nicholas Rostov was welcomed by +his home circle as the best of sons, a hero, and their darling +Nikolenka; by his relations as a charming, attractive, and polite young +man; by his acquaintances as a handsome lieutenant of hussars, a good +dancer, and one of the best matches in the city. + +The Rostovs knew everybody in Moscow. The old count had money enough +that year, as all his estates had been remortgaged, and so Nicholas, +acquiring a trotter of his own, very stylish riding breeches of the +latest cut, such as no one else yet had in Moscow, and boots of the +latest fashion, with extremely pointed toes and small silver spurs, +passed his time very gaily. After a short period of adapting himself to +the old conditions of life, Nicholas found it very pleasant to be at +home again. He felt that he had grown up and matured very much. His +despair at failing in a Scripture examination, his borrowing money from +Gavril to pay a sleigh driver, his kissing Sonya on the sly--he now +recalled all this as childishness he had left immeasurably behind. Now +he was a lieutenant of hussars, in a jacket laced with silver, and +wearing the Cross of St. George, awarded to soldiers for bravery in +action, and in the company of well-known, elderly, and respected racing +men was training a trotter of his own for a race. He knew a lady on one +of the boulevards whom he visited of an evening. He led the mazurka at +the Arkharovs' ball, talked about the war with Field Marshal Kamenski, +visited the English Club, and was on intimate terms with a colonel of +forty to whom Denisov had introduced him. + +His passion for the Emperor had cooled somewhat in Moscow. But still, as +he did not see him and had no opportunity of seeing him, he often spoke +about him and about his love for him, letting it be understood that he +had not told all and that there was something in his feelings for the +Emperor not everyone could understand, and with his whole soul he shared +the adoration then common in Moscow for the Emperor, who was spoken of +as the "angel incarnate." + +During Rostov's short stay in Moscow, before rejoining the army, he did +not draw closer to Sonya, but rather drifted away from her. She was very +pretty and sweet, and evidently deeply in love with him, but he was at +the period of youth when there seems so much to do that there is no time +for that sort of thing and a young man fears to bind himself and prizes +his freedom which he needs for so many other things. When he thought of +Sonya, during this stay in Moscow, he said to himself, "Ah, there will +be, and there are, many more such girls somewhere whom I do not yet +know. There will be time enough to think about love when I want to, but +now I have no time." Besides, it seemed to him that the society of women +was rather derogatory to his manhood. He went to balls and into ladies' +society with an affectation of doing so against his will. The races, the +English Club, sprees with Denisov, and visits to a certain house--that +was another matter and quite the thing for a dashing young hussar! + +At the beginning of March, old Count Ilya Rostov was very busy arranging +a dinner in honor of Prince Bagration at the English Club. + +The count walked up and down the hall in his dressing gown, giving +orders to the club steward and to the famous Feoktist, the club's head +cook, about asparagus, fresh cucumbers, strawberries, veal, and fish for +this dinner. The count had been a member and on the committee of the +club from the day it was founded. To him the club entrusted the +arrangement of the festival in honor of Bagration, for few men knew so +well how to arrange a feast on an open-handed, hospitable scale, and +still fewer men would be so well able and willing to make up out of +their own resources what might be needed for the success of the fete. +The club cook and the steward listened to the count's orders with +pleased faces, for they knew that under no other management could they +so easily extract a good profit for themselves from a dinner costing +several thousand rubles. + +"Well then, mind and have cocks' comb in the turtle soup, you know!" + +"Shall we have three cold dishes then?" asked the cook. + +The count considered. + +"We can't have less--yes, three... the mayonnaise, that's one," said he, +bending down a finger. + +"Then am I to order those large sterlets?" asked the steward. + +"Yes, it can't be helped if they won't take less. Ah, dear me! I was +forgetting. We must have another entree. Ah, goodness gracious!" he +clutched at his head. "Who is going to get me the flowers? Dmitri! Eh, +Dmitri! Gallop off to our Moscow estate," he said to the factotum who +appeared at his call. "Hurry off and tell Maksim, the gardener, to set +the serfs to work. Say that everything out of the hothouses must be +brought here well wrapped up in felt. I must have two hundred pots here +on Friday." + +Having given several more orders, he was about to go to his "little +countess" to have a rest, but remembering something else of importance, +he returned again, called back the cook and the club steward, and again +began giving orders. A light footstep and the clinking of spurs were +heard at the door, and the young count, handsome, rosy, with a dark +little mustache, evidently rested and made sleeker by his easy life in +Moscow, entered the room. + +"Ah, my boy, my head's in a whirl!" said the old man with a smile, as if +he felt a little confused before his son. "Now, if you would only help a +bit! I must have singers too. I shall have my own orchestra, but +shouldn't we get the gypsy singers as well? You military men like that +sort of thing." + +"Really, Papa, I believe Prince Bagration worried himself less before +the battle of Schon Grabern than you do now," said his son with a smile. + +The old count pretended to be angry. + +"Yes, you talk, but try it yourself!" + +And the count turned to the cook, who, with a shrewd and respectful +expression, looked observantly and sympathetically at the father and +son. + +"What have the young people come to nowadays, eh, Feoktist?" said he. +"Laughing at us old fellows!" + +"That's so, your excellency, all they have to do is to eat a good +dinner, but providing it and serving it all up, that's not their +business!" + +"That's it, that's it!" exclaimed the count, and gaily seizing his son +by both hands, he cried, "Now I've got you, so take the sleigh and pair +at once, and go to Bezukhov's, and tell him 'Count Ilya has sent you to +ask for strawberries and fresh pineapples.' We can't get them from +anyone else. He's not there himself, so you'll have to go in and ask the +princesses; and from there go on to the Rasgulyay--the coachman Ipatka +knows--and look up the gypsy Ilyushka, the one who danced at Count +Orlov's, you remember, in a white Cossack coat, and bring him along to +me." + +"And am I to bring the gypsy girls along with him?" asked Nicholas, +laughing. "Dear, dear!..." + +At that moment, with noiseless footsteps and with the businesslike, +preoccupied, yet meekly Christian look which never left her face, Anna +Mikhaylovna entered the hall. Though she came upon the count in his +dressing gown every day, he invariably became confused and begged her to +excuse his costume. + +"No matter at all, my dear count," she said, meekly closing her eyes. +"But I'll go to Bezukhov's myself. Pierre has arrived, and now we shall +get anything we want from his hothouses. I have to see him in any case. +He has forwarded me a letter from Boris. Thank God, Boris is now on the +staff." + +The count was delighted at Anna Mikhaylovna's taking upon herself one of +his commissions and ordered the small closed carriage for her. + +"Tell Bezukhov to come. I'll put his name down. Is his wife with him?" +he asked. + +Anna Mikhaylovna turned up her eyes, and profound sadness was depicted +on her face. + +"Ah, my dear friend, he is very unfortunate," she said. "If what we hear +is true, it is dreadful. How little we dreamed of such a thing when we +were rejoicing at his happiness! And such a lofty angelic soul as young +Bezukhov! Yes, I pity him from my heart, and shall try to give him what +consolation I can." + +"Wh-what is the matter?" asked both the young and old Rostov. + +Anna Mikhaylovna sighed deeply. + +"Dolokhov, Mary Ivanovna's son," she said in a mysterious whisper, "has +compromised her completely, they say. Pierre took him up, invited him to +his house in Petersburg, and now... she has come here and that daredevil +after her!" said Anna Mikhaylovna, wishing to show her sympathy for +Pierre, but by involuntary intonations and a half smile betraying her +sympathy for the "daredevil," as she called Dolokhov. "They say Pierre +is quite broken by his misfortune." + +"Dear, dear! But still tell him to come to the club--it will all blow +over. It will be a tremendous banquet." + +Next day, the third of March, soon after one o'clock, two hundred and +fifty members of the English Club and fifty guests were awaiting the +guest of honor and hero of the Austrian campaign, Prince Bagration, to +dinner. + +On the first arrival of the news of the battle of Austerlitz, Moscow had +been bewildered. At that time, the Russians were so used to victories +that on receiving news of the defeat some would simply not believe it, +while others sought some extraordinary explanation of so strange an +event. In the English Club, where all who were distinguished, important, +and well informed foregathered when the news began to arrive in +December, nothing was said about the war and the last battle, as though +all were in a conspiracy of silence. The men who set the tone in +conversation--Count Rostopchin, Prince Yuri Dolgorukov, Valuev, Count +Markov, and Prince Vyazemski--did not show themselves at the club, but +met in private houses in intimate circles, and the Moscovites who took +their opinions from others--Ilya Rostov among them--remained for a while +without any definite opinion on the subject of the war and without +leaders. The Moscovites felt that something was wrong and that to +discuss the bad news was difficult, and so it was best to be silent. But +after a while, just as a jury comes out of its room, the bigwigs who +guided the club's opinion reappeared, and everybody began speaking +clearly and definitely. Reasons were found for the incredible, unheard- +of, and impossible event of a Russian defeat, everything became clear, +and in all corners of Moscow the same things began to be said. These +reasons were the treachery of the Austrians, a defective commissariat, +the treachery of the Pole Przebyszewski and of the Frenchman Langeron, +Kutuzov's incapacity, and (it was whispered) the youth and inexperience +of the sovereign, who had trusted worthless and insignificant people. +But the army, the Russian army, everyone declared, was extraordinary and +had achieved miracles of valor. The soldiers, officers, and generals +were heroes. But the hero of heroes was Prince Bagration, distinguished +by his Schon Grabern affair and by the retreat from Austerlitz, where he +alone had withdrawn his column unbroken and had all day beaten back an +enemy force twice as numerous as his own. What also conduced to +Bagration's being selected as Moscow's hero was the fact that he had no +connections in the city and was a stranger there. In his person, honor +was shown to a simple fighting Russian soldier without connections and +intrigues, and to one who was associated by memories of the Italian +campaign with the name of Suvorov. Moreover, paying such honor to +Bagration was the best way of expressing disapproval and dislike of +Kutuzov. + +"Had there been no Bagration, it would have been necessary to invent +him," said the wit Shinshin, parodying the words of Voltaire. Kutuzov no +one spoke of, except some who abused him in whispers, calling him a +court weathercock and an old satyr. + +All Moscow repeated Prince Dolgorukov's saying: "If you go on modeling +and modeling you must get smeared with clay," suggesting consolation for +our defeat by the memory of former victories; and the words of +Rostopchin, that French soldiers have to be incited to battle by +highfalutin words, and Germans by logical arguments to show them that it +is more dangerous to run away than to advance, but that Russian soldiers +only need to be restrained and held back! On all sides, new and fresh +anecdotes were heard of individual examples of heroism shown by our +officers and men at Austerlitz. One had saved a standard, another had +killed five Frenchmen, a third had loaded five cannon singlehanded. Berg +was mentioned, by those who did not know him, as having, when wounded in +the right hand, taken his sword in the left, and gone forward. Of +Bolkonski, nothing was said, and only those who knew him intimately +regretted that he had died so young, leaving a pregnant wife with his +eccentric father. + + + + +CHAPTER III + +On that third of March, all the rooms in the English Club were filled +with a hum of conversation, like the hum of bees swarming in springtime. +The members and guests of the club wandered hither and thither, sat, +stood, met, and separated, some in uniform and some in evening dress, +and a few here and there with powdered hair and in Russian kaftans. +Powdered footmen, in livery with buckled shoes and smart stockings, +stood at every door anxiously noting visitors' every movement in order +to offer their services. Most of those present were elderly, respected +men with broad, self-confident faces, fat fingers, and resolute gestures +and voices. This class of guests and members sat in certain habitual +places and met in certain habitual groups. A minority of those present +were casual guests--chiefly young men, among whom were Denisov, Rostov, +and Dolokhov--who was now again an officer in the Semenov regiment. The +faces of these young people, especially those who were military men, +bore that expression of condescending respect for their elders which +seems to say to the older generation, "We are prepared to respect and +honor you, but all the same remember that the future belongs to us." + +Nesvitski was there as an old member of the club. Pierre, who at his +wife's command had let his hair grow and abandoned his spectacles, went +about the rooms fashionably dressed but looking sad and dull. Here, as +elsewhere, he was surrounded by an atmosphere of subservience to his +wealth, and being in the habit of lording it over these people, he +treated them with absent-minded contempt. + +By his age he should have belonged to the younger men, but by his wealth +and connections he belonged to the groups of old and honored guests, and +so he went from one group to another. Some of the most important old men +were the center of groups which even strangers approached respectfully +to hear the voices of well-known men. The largest circles formed round +Count Rostopchin, Valuev, and Naryshkin. Rostopchin was describing how +the Russians had been overwhelmed by flying Austrians and had had to +force their way through them with bayonets. + +Valuev was confidentially telling that Uvarov had been sent from +Petersburg to ascertain what Moscow was thinking about Austerlitz. + +In the third circle, Naryshkin was speaking of the meeting of the +Austrian Council of War at which Suvorov crowed like a cock in reply to +the nonsense talked by the Austrian generals. Shinshin, standing close +by, tried to make a joke, saying that Kutuzov had evidently failed to +learn from Suvorov even so simple a thing as the art of crowing like a +cock, but the elder members glanced severely at the wit, making him feel +that in that place and on that day, it was improper to speak so of +Kutuzov. + +Count Ilya Rostov, hurried and preoccupied, went about in his soft boots +between the dining and drawing rooms, hastily greeting the important and +unimportant, all of whom he knew, as if they were all equals, while his +eyes occasionally sought out his fine well-set-up young son, resting on +him and winking joyfully at him. Young Rostov stood at a window with +Dolokhov, whose acquaintance he had lately made and highly valued. The +old count came up to them and pressed Dolokhov's hand. + +"Please come and visit us... you know my brave boy... been together out +there... both playing the hero... Ah, Vasili Ignatovich... How d'ye do, +old fellow?" he said, turning to an old man who was passing, but before +he had finished his greeting there was a general stir, and a footman who +had run in announced, with a frightened face: "He's arrived!" + +Bells rang, the stewards rushed forward, and--like rye shaken together +in a shovel--the guests who had been scattered about in different rooms +came together and crowded in the large drawing room by the door of the +ballroom. + +Bagration appeared in the doorway of the anteroom without hat or sword, +which, in accord with the club custom, he had given up to the hall +porter. He had no lambskin cap on his head, nor had he a loaded whip +over his shoulder, as when Rostov had seen him on the eve of the battle +of Austerlitz, but wore a tight new uniform with Russian and foreign +Orders, and the Star of St. George on his left breast. Evidently just +before coming to the dinner he had had his hair and whiskers trimmed, +which changed his appearance for the worse. There was something naively +festive in his air, which, in conjunction with his firm and virile +features, gave him a rather comical expression. Bekleshev and Theodore +Uvarov, who had arrived with him, paused at the doorway to allow him, as +the guest of honor, to enter first. Bagration was embarrassed, not +wishing to avail himself of their courtesy, and this caused some delay +at the doors, but after all he did at last enter first. He walked shyly +and awkwardly over the parquet floor of the reception room, not knowing +what to do with his hands; he was more accustomed to walk over a plowed +field under fire, as he had done at the head of the Kursk regiment at +Schon Grabern--and he would have found that easier. The committeemen met +him at the first door and, expressing their delight at seeing such a +highly honored guest, took possession of him as it were, without waiting +for his reply, surrounded him, and led him to the drawing room. It was +at first impossible to enter the drawing-room door for the crowd of +members and guests jostling one another and trying to get a good look at +Bagration over each other's shoulders, as if he were some rare animal. +Count Ilya Rostov, laughing and repeating the words, "Make way, dear +boy! Make way, make way!" pushed through the crowd more energetically +than anyone, led the guests into the drawing room, and seated them on +the center sofa. The bigwigs, the most respected members of the club, +beset the new arrivals. Count Ilya, again thrusting his way through the +crowd, went out of the drawing room and reappeared a minute later with +another committeeman, carrying a large silver salver which he presented +to Prince Bagration. On the salver lay some verses composed and printed +in the hero's honor. Bagration, on seeing the salver, glanced around in +dismay, as though seeking help. But all eyes demanded that he should +submit. Feeling himself in their power, he resolutely took the salver +with both hands and looked sternly and reproachfully at the count who +had presented it to him. Someone obligingly took the dish from Bagration +(or he would, it seemed, have held it till evening and have gone in to +dinner with it) and drew his attention to the verses. + +"Well, I will read them, then!" Bagration seemed to say, and, fixing his +weary eyes on the paper, began to read them with a fixed and serious +expression. But the author himself took the verses and began reading +them aloud. Bagration bowed his head and listened: + + +Bring glory then to Alexander's reign And on the throne our Titus +shield. A dreaded foe be thou, kindhearted as a man, A Rhipheus at home, +a Caesar in the field! E'en fortunate Napoleon Knows by experience, now, +Bagration, And dare not Herculean Russians trouble... + +But before he had finished reading, a stentorian major-domo announced +that dinner was ready! The door opened, and from the dining room came +the resounding strains of the polonaise: + + +Conquest's joyful thunder waken, Triumph, valiant Russians, now!... + +and Count Rostov, glancing angrily at the author who went on reading his +verses, bowed to Bagration. Everyone rose, feeling that dinner was more +important than verses, and Bagration, again preceding all the rest, went +in to dinner. He was seated in the place of honor between two +Alexanders--Bekleshev and Naryshkin--which was a significant allusion to +the name of the sovereign. Three hundred persons took their seats in the +dining room, according to their rank and importance: the more important +nearer to the honored guest, as naturally as water flows deepest where +the land lies lowest. + +Just before dinner, Count Ilya Rostov presented his son to Bagration, +who recognized him and said a few words to him, disjointed and awkward, +as were all the words he spoke that day, and Count Ilya looked joyfully +and proudly around while Bagration spoke to his son. + +Nicholas Rostov, with Denisov and his new acquaintance, Dolokhov, sat +almost at the middle of the table. Facing them sat Pierre, beside Prince +Nesvitski. Count Ilya Rostov with the other members of the committee sat +facing Bagration and, as the very personification of Moscow hospitality, +did the honors to the prince. + +His efforts had not been in vain. The dinner, both the Lenten and the +other fare, was splendid, yet he could not feel quite at ease till the +end of the meal. He winked at the butler, whispered directions to the +footmen, and awaited each expected dish with some anxiety. Everything +was excellent. With the second course, a gigantic sterlet (at sight of +which Ilya Rostov blushed with self-conscious pleasure), the footmen +began popping corks and filling the champagne glasses. After the fish, +which made a certain sensation, the count exchanged glances with the +other committeemen. "There will be many toasts, it's time to begin," he +whispered, and taking up his glass, he rose. All were silent, waiting +for what he would say. + +"To the health of our Sovereign, the Emperor!" he cried, and at the same +moment his kindly eyes grew moist with tears of joy and enthusiasm. The +band immediately struck up "Conquest's joyful thunder waken..." All rose +and cried "Hurrah!" Bagration also rose and shouted "Hurrah!" in exactly +the same voice in which he had shouted it on the field at Schon Grabern. +Young Rostov's ecstatic voice could be heard above the three hundred +others. He nearly wept. "To the health of our Sovereign, the Emperor!" +he roared, "Hurrah!" and emptying his glass at one gulp he dashed it to +the floor. Many followed his example, and the loud shouting continued +for a long time. When the voices subsided, the footmen cleared away the +broken glass and everybody sat down again, smiling at the noise they had +made and exchanging remarks. The old count rose once more, glanced at a +note lying beside his plate, and proposed a toast, "To the health of the +hero of our last campaign, Prince Peter Ivanovich Bagration!" and again +his blue eyes grew moist. "Hurrah!" cried the three hundred voices +again, but instead of the band a choir began singing a cantata composed +by Paul Ivanovich Kutuzov: + + +Russians! O'er all barriers on! Courage conquest guarantees; Have we not +Bagration? He brings foe men to their knees,... etc. + +As soon as the singing was over, another and another toast was proposed +and Count Ilya Rostov became more and more moved, more glass was +smashed, and the shouting grew louder. They drank to Bekleshev, +Naryshkin, Uvarov, Dolgorukov, Apraksin, Valuev, to the committee, to +all the club members and to all the club guests, and finally to Count +Ilya Rostov separately, as the organizer of the banquet. At that toast, +the count took out his handkerchief and, covering his face, wept +outright. + + + + +CHAPTER IV + +Pierre sat opposite Dolokhov and Nicholas Rostov. As usual, he ate and +drank much, and eagerly. But those who knew him intimately noticed that +some great change had come over him that day. He was silent all through +dinner and looked about, blinking and scowling, or, with fixed eyes and +a look of complete absent-mindedness, kept rubbing the bridge of his +nose. His face was depressed and gloomy. He seemed to see and hear +nothing of what was going on around him and to be absorbed by some +depressing and unsolved problem. + +The unsolved problem that tormented him was caused by hints given by the +princess, his cousin, at Moscow, concerning Dolokhov's intimacy with his +wife, and by an anonymous letter he had received that morning, which in +the mean jocular way common to anonymous letters said that he saw badly +through his spectacles, but that his wife's connection with Dolokhov was +a secret to no one but himself. Pierre absolutely disbelieved both the +princess' hints and the letter, but he feared now to look at Dolokhov, +who was sitting opposite him. Every time he chanced to meet Dolokhov's +handsome insolent eyes, Pierre felt something terrible and monstrous +rising in his soul and turned quickly away. Involuntarily recalling his +wife's past and her relations with Dolokhov, Pierre saw clearly that +what was said in the letter might be true, or might at least seem to be +true had it not referred to his wife. He involuntarily remembered how +Dolokhov, who had fully recovered his former position after the +campaign, had returned to Petersburg and come to him. Availing himself +of his friendly relations with Pierre as a boon companion, Dolokhov had +come straight to his house, and Pierre had put him up and lent him +money. Pierre recalled how Helene had smilingly expressed disapproval of +Dolokhov's living at their house, and how cynically Dolokhov had praised +his wife's beauty to him and from that time till they came to Moscow had +not left them for a day. + +"Yes, he is very handsome," thought Pierre, "and I know him. It would be +particularly pleasant to him to dishonor my name and ridicule me, just +because I have exerted myself on his behalf, befriended him, and helped +him. I know and understand what a spice that would add to the pleasure +of deceiving me, if it really were true. Yes, if it were true, but I do +not believe it. I have no right to, and can't, believe it." He +remembered the expression Dolokhov's face assumed in his moments of +cruelty, as when tying the policeman to the bear and dropping them into +the water, or when he challenged a man to a duel without any reason, or +shot a post-boy's horse with a pistol. That expression was often on +Dolokhov's face when looking at him. "Yes, he is a bully," thought +Pierre, "to kill a man means nothing to him. It must seem to him that +everyone is afraid of him, and that must please him. He must think that +I, too, am afraid of him--and in fact I am afraid of him," he thought, +and again he felt something terrible and monstrous rising in his soul. +Dolokhov, Denisov, and Rostov were now sitting opposite Pierre and +seemed very gay. Rostov was talking merrily to his two friends, one of +whom was a dashing hussar and the other a notorious duelist and rake, +and every now and then he glanced ironically at Pierre, whose +preoccupied, absent-minded, and massive figure was a very noticeable one +at the dinner. Rostov looked inimically at Pierre, first because Pierre +appeared to his hussar eyes as a rich civilian, the husband of a beauty, +and in a word--an old woman; and secondly because Pierre in his +preoccupation and absent-mindedness had not recognized Rostov and had +not responded to his greeting. When the Emperor's health was drunk, +Pierre, lost in thought, did not rise or lift his glass. + +"What are you about?" shouted Rostov, looking at him in an ecstasy of +exasperation. "Don't you hear it's His Majesty the Emperor's health?" + +Pierre sighed, rose submissively, emptied his glass, and, waiting till +all were seated again, turned with his kindly smile to Rostov. + +"Why, I didn't recognize you!" he said. But Rostov was otherwise +engaged; he was shouting "Hurrah!" + +"Why don't you renew the acquaintance?" said Dolokhov to Rostov. + +"Confound him, he's a fool!" said Rostov. + +"One should make up to the husbands of pretty women," said Denisov. + +Pierre did not catch what they were saying, but knew they were talking +about him. He reddened and turned away. + +"Well, now to the health of handsome women!" said Dolokhov, and with a +serious expression, but with a smile lurking at the corners of his +mouth, he turned with his glass to Pierre. + +"Here's to the health of lovely women, Peterkin--and their lovers!" he +added. + +Pierre, with downcast eyes, drank out of his glass without looking at +Dolokhov or answering him. The footman, who was distributing leaflets +with Kutuzov's cantata, laid one before Pierre as one of the principal +guests. He was just going to take it when Dolokhov, leaning across, +snatched it from his hand and began reading it. Pierre looked at +Dolokhov and his eyes dropped, the something terrible and monstrous that +had tormented him all dinnertime rose and took possession of him. He +leaned his whole massive body across the table. + +"How dare you take it?" he shouted. + +Hearing that cry and seeing to whom it was addressed, Nesvitski and the +neighbor on his right quickly turned in alarm to Bezukhov. + +"Don't! Don't! What are you about?" whispered their frightened voices. + +Dolokhov looked at Pierre with clear, mirthful, cruel eyes, and that +smile of his which seemed to say, "Ah! This is what I like!" + +"You shan't have it!" he said distinctly. + +Pale, with quivering lips, Pierre snatched the copy. + +"You...! you... scoundrel! I challenge you!" he ejaculated, and, pushing +back his chair, he rose from the table. + +At the very instant he did this and uttered those words, Pierre felt +that the question of his wife's guilt which had been tormenting him the +whole day was finally and indubitably answered in the affirmative. He +hated her and was forever sundered from her. Despite Denisov's request +that he would take no part in the matter, Rostov agreed to be Dolokhov's +second, and after dinner he discussed the arrangements for the duel with +Nesvitski, Bezukhov's second. Pierre went home, but Rostov with Dolokhov +and Denisov stayed on at the club till late, listening to the gypsies +and other singers. + +"Well then, till tomorrow at Sokolniki," said Dolokhov, as he took leave +of Rostov in the club porch. + +"And do you feel quite calm?" Rostov asked. + +Dolokhov paused. + +"Well, you see, I'll tell you the whole secret of dueling in two words. +If you are going to fight a duel, and you make a will and write +affectionate letters to your parents, and if you think you may be +killed, you are a fool and are lost for certain. But go with the firm +intention of killing your man as quickly and surely as possible, and +then all will be right, as our bear huntsman at Kostroma used to tell +me. 'Everyone fears a bear,' he says, 'but when you see one your fear's +all gone, and your only thought is not to let him get away!' And that's +how it is with me. A demain, mon cher." * + + +* Till tomorrow, my dear fellow. + +Next day, at eight in the morning, Pierre and Nesvitski drove to the +Sokolniki forest and found Dolokhov, Denisov, and Rostov already there. +Pierre had the air of a man preoccupied with considerations which had no +connection with the matter in hand. His haggard face was yellow. He had +evidently not slept that night. He looked about distractedly and screwed +up his eyes as if dazzled by the sun. He was entirely absorbed by two +considerations: his wife's guilt, of which after his sleepless night he +had not the slightest doubt, and the guiltlessness of Dolokhov, who had +no reason to preserve the honor of a man who was nothing to him.... "I +should perhaps have done the same thing in his place," thought Pierre. +"It's even certain that I should have done the same, then why this duel, +this murder? Either I shall kill him, or he will hit me in the head, or +elbow, or knee. Can't I go away from here, run away, bury myself +somewhere?" passed through his mind. But just at moments when such +thoughts occurred to him, he would ask in a particularly calm and +absent-minded way, which inspired the respect of the onlookers, "Will it +be long? Are things ready?" + +When all was ready, the sabers stuck in the snow to mark the barriers, +and the pistols loaded, Nesvitski went up to Pierre. + +"I should not be doing my duty, Count," he said in timid tones, "and +should not justify your confidence and the honor you have done me in +choosing me for your second, if at this grave, this very grave, moment I +did not tell you the whole truth. I think there is no sufficient ground +for this affair, or for blood to be shed over it.... You were not right, +not quite in the right, you were impetuous..." + +"Oh yes, it is horribly stupid," said Pierre. + +"Then allow me to express your regrets, and I am sure your opponent will +accept them," said Nesvitski (who like the others concerned in the +affair, and like everyone in similar cases, did not yet believe that the +affair had come to an actual duel). "You know, Count, it is much more +honorable to admit one's mistake than to let matters become irreparable. +There was no insult on either side. Allow me to convey...." + +"No! What is there to talk about?" said Pierre. "It's all the same.... +Is everything ready?" he added. "Only tell me where to go and where to +shoot," he said with an unnaturally gentle smile. + +He took the pistol in his hand and began asking about the working of the +trigger, as he had not before held a pistol in his hand--a fact that he +did not wish to confess. + +"Oh yes, like that, I know, I only forgot," said he. + +"No apologies, none whatever," said Dolokhov to Denisov (who on his side +had been attempting a reconciliation), and he also went up to the +appointed place. + +The spot chosen for the duel was some eighty paces from the road, where +the sleighs had been left, in a small clearing in the pine forest +covered with melting snow, the frost having begun to break up during the +last few days. The antagonists stood forty paces apart at the farther +edge of the clearing. The seconds, measuring the paces, left tracks in +the deep wet snow between the place where they had been standing and +Nesvitski's and Dolokhov's sabers, which were stuck into the ground ten +paces apart to mark the barrier. It was thawing and misty; at forty +paces' distance nothing could be seen. For three minutes all had been +ready, but they still delayed and all were silent. + + + + +CHAPTER V + +"Well begin!" said Dolokhov. + +"All right," said Pierre, still smiling in the same way. A feeling of +dread was in the air. It was evident that the affair so lightly begun +could no longer be averted but was taking its course independently of +men's will. + +Denisov first went to the barrier and announced: "As the adve'sawies +have wefused a weconciliation, please pwoceed. Take your pistols, and at +the word thwee begin to advance. + +"O-ne! T-wo! Thwee!" he shouted angrily and stepped aside. + +The combatants advanced along the trodden tracks, nearer and nearer to +one another, beginning to see one another through the mist. They had the +right to fire when they liked as they approached the barrier. Dolokhov +walked slowly without raising his pistol, looking intently with his +bright, sparkling blue eyes into his antagonist's face. His mouth wore +its usual semblance of a smile. + +"So I can fire when I like!" said Pierre, and at the word "three," he +went quickly forward, missing the trodden path and stepping into the +deep snow. He held the pistol in his right hand at arm's length, +apparently afraid of shooting himself with it. His left hand he held +carefully back, because he wished to support his right hand with it and +knew he must not do so. Having advanced six paces and strayed off the +track into the snow, Pierre looked down at his feet, then quickly +glanced at Dolokhov and, bending his finger as he had been shown, fired. +Not at all expecting so loud a report, Pierre shuddered at the sound and +then, smiling at his own sensations, stood still. The smoke, rendered +denser by the mist, prevented him from seeing anything for an instant, +but there was no second report as he had expected. He only heard +Dolokhov's hurried steps, and his figure came in view through the smoke. +He was pressing one hand to his left side, while the other clutched his +drooping pistol. His face was pale. Rostov ran toward him and said +something. + +"No-o-o!" muttered Dolokhov through his teeth, "no, it's not over." And +after stumbling a few staggering steps right up to the saber, he sank on +the snow beside it. His left hand was bloody; he wiped it on his coat +and supported himself with it. His frowning face was pallid and +quivered. + +"Plea..." began Dolokhov, but could not at first pronounce the word. + +"Please," he uttered with an effort. + +Pierre, hardly restraining his sobs, began running toward Dolokhov and +was about to cross the space between the barriers, when Dolokhov cried: + +"To your barrier!" and Pierre, grasping what was meant, stopped by his +saber. Only ten paces divided them. Dolokhov lowered his head to the +snow, greedily bit at it, again raised his head, adjusted himself, drew +in his legs and sat up, seeking a firm center of gravity. He sucked and +swallowed the cold snow, his lips quivered but his eyes, still smiling, +glittered with effort and exasperation as he mustered his remaining +strength. He raised his pistol and aimed. + +"Sideways! Cover yourself with your pistol!" ejaculated Nesvitski. + +"Cover yourself!" even Denisov cried to his adversary. + +Pierre, with a gentle smile of pity and remorse, his arms and legs +helplessly spread out, stood with his broad chest directly facing +Dolokhov looked sorrowfully at him. Denisov, Rostov, and Nesvitski +closed their eyes. At the same instant they heard a report and +Dolokhov's angry cry. + +"Missed!" shouted Dolokhov, and he lay helplessly, face downwards on the +snow. + +Pierre clutched his temples, and turning round went into the forest, +trampling through the deep snow, and muttering incoherent words: + +"Folly... folly! Death... lies..." he repeated, puckering his face. + +Nesvitski stopped him and took him home. + +Rostov and Denisov drove away with the wounded Dolokhov. + +The latter lay silent in the sleigh with closed eyes and did not answer +a word to the questions addressed to him. But on entering Moscow he +suddenly came to and, lifting his head with an effort, took Rostov, who +was sitting beside him, by the hand. Rostov was struck by the totally +altered and unexpectedly rapturous and tender expression on Dolokhov's +face. + +"Well? How do you feel?" he asked. + +"Bad! But it's not that, my friend-" said Dolokhov with a gasping voice. +"Where are we? In Moscow, I know. I don't matter, but I have killed her, +killed... She won't get over it! She won't survive...." + +"Who?" asked Rostov. + +"My mother! My mother, my angel, my adored angel mother," and Dolokhov +pressed Rostov's hand and burst into tears. + +When he had become a little quieter, he explained to Rostov that he was +living with his mother, who, if she saw him dying, would not survive it. +He implored Rostov to go on and prepare her. + +Rostov went on ahead to do what was asked, and to his great surprise +learned that Dolokhov the brawler, Dolokhov the bully, lived in Moscow +with an old mother and a hunchback sister, and was the most affectionate +of sons and brothers. + + + + +CHAPTER VI + +Pierre had of late rarely seen his wife alone. Both in Petersburg and in +Moscow their house was always full of visitors. The night after the duel +he did not go to his bedroom but, as he often did, remained in his +father's room, that huge room in which Count Bezukhov had died. + +He lay down on the sofa meaning to fall asleep and forget all that had +happened to him, but could not do so. Such a storm of feelings, +thoughts, and memories suddenly arose within him that he could not fall +asleep, nor even remain in one place, but had to jump up and pace the +room with rapid steps. Now he seemed to see her in the early days of +their marriage, with bare shoulders and a languid, passionate look on +her face, and then immediately he saw beside her Dolokhov's handsome, +insolent, hard, and mocking face as he had seen it at the banquet, and +then that same face pale, quivering, and suffering, as it had been when +he reeled and sank on the snow. + +"What has happened?" he asked himself. "I have killed her lover, yes, +killed my wife's lover. Yes, that was it! And why? How did I come to do +it?"--"Because you married her," answered an inner voice. + +"But in what was I to blame?" he asked. "In marrying her without loving +her; in deceiving yourself and her." And he vividly recalled that moment +after supper at Prince Vasili's, when he spoke those words he had found +so difficult to utter: "I love you." "It all comes from that! Even then +I felt it," he thought. "I felt then that it was not so, that I had no +right to do it. And so it turns out." + +He remembered his honeymoon and blushed at the recollection. +Particularly vivid, humiliating, and shameful was the recollection of +how one day soon after his marriage he came out of the bedroom into his +study a little before noon in his silk dressing gown and found his head +steward there, who, bowing respectfully, looked into his face and at his +dressing gown and smiled slightly, as if expressing respectful +understanding of his employer's happiness. + +"But how often I have felt proud of her, proud of her majestic beauty +and social tact," thought he; "been proud of my house, in which she +received all Petersburg, proud of her unapproachability and beauty. So +this is what I was proud of! I then thought that I did not understand +her. How often when considering her character I have told myself that I +was to blame for not understanding her, for not understanding that +constant composure and complacency and lack of all interests or desires, +and the whole secret lies in the terrible truth that she is a depraved +woman. Now I have spoken that terrible word to myself all has become +clear. + +"Anatole used to come to borrow money from her and used to kiss her +naked shoulders. She did not give him the money, but let herself be +kissed. Her father in jest tried to rouse her jealousy, and she replied +with a calm smile that she was not so stupid as to be jealous: 'Let him +do what he pleases,' she used to say of me. One day I asked her if she +felt any symptoms of pregnancy. She laughed contemptuously and said she +was not a fool to want to have children, and that she was not going to +have any children by me." + +Then he recalled the coarseness and bluntness of her thoughts and the +vulgarity of the expressions that were natural to her, though she had +been brought up in the most aristocratic circles. + +"I'm not such a fool.... Just you try it on.... Allez-vous promener," * +she used to say. Often seeing the success she had with young and old men +and women Pierre could not understand why he did not love her. + + +* "You clear out of this." + +"Yes, I never loved her," said he to himself; "I knew she was a depraved +woman," he repeated, "but dared not admit it to myself. And now there's +Dolokhov sitting in the snow with a forced smile and perhaps dying, +while meeting my remorse with some forced bravado!" + +Pierre was one of those people who, in spite of an appearance of what is +called weak character, do not seek a confidant in their troubles. He +digested his sufferings alone. + +"It is all, all her fault," he said to himself; "but what of that? Why +did I bind myself to her? Why did I say 'Je vous aime' * to her, which +was a lie, and worse than a lie? I am guilty and must endure... what? A +slur on my name? A misfortune for life? Oh, that's nonsense," he +thought. "The slur on my name and honor--that's all apart from myself." + + +* I love you. + +"Louis XVI was executed because they said he was dishonorable and a +criminal," came into Pierre's head, "and from their point of view they +were right, as were those too who canonized him and died a martyr's +death for his sake. Then Robespierre was beheaded for being a despot. +Who is right and who is wrong? No one! But if you are alive--live: +tomorrow you'll die as I might have died an hour ago. And is it worth +tormenting oneself, when one has only a moment of life in comparison +with eternity?" + +But at the moment when he imagined himself calmed by such reflections, +she suddenly came into his mind as she was at the moments when he had +most strongly expressed his insincere love for her, and he felt the +blood rush to his heart and had again to get up and move about and break +and tear whatever came to his hand. "Why did I tell her that 'Je vous +aime'?" he kept repeating to himself. And when he had said it for the +tenth time, Moliere's words: "Mais que diable allait-il faire dans cette +galere?"* occurred to him, and he began to laugh at himself. + + +* "But what the devil was he doing in that galley?" + +In the night he called his valet and told him to pack up to go to +Petersburg. He could not imagine how he could speak to her now. He +resolved to go away next day and leave a letter informing her of his +intention to part from her forever. + +Next morning when the valet came into the room with his coffee, Pierre +was lying asleep on the ottoman with an open book in his hand. + +He woke up and looked round for a while with a startled expression, +unable to realize where he was. + +"The countess told me to inquire whether your excellency was at home," +said the valet. + +But before Pierre could decide what answer he would send, the countess +herself in a white satin dressing gown embroidered with silver and with +simply dressed hair (two immense plaits twice round her lovely head like +a coronet) entered the room, calm and majestic, except that there was a +wrathful wrinkle on her rather prominent marble brow. With her +imperturbable calm she did not begin to speak in front of the valet. She +knew of the duel and had come to speak about it. She waited till the +valet had set down the coffee things and left the room. Pierre looked at +her timidly over his spectacles, and like a hare surrounded by hounds +who lays back her ears and continues to crouch motionless before her +enemies, he tried to continue reading. But feeling this to be senseless +and impossible, he again glanced timidly at her. She did not sit down +but looked at him with a contemptuous smile, waiting for the valet to +go. + +"Well, what's this now? What have you been up to now, I should like to +know?" she asked sternly. + +"I? What have I...?" stammered Pierre. + +"So it seems you're a hero, eh? Come now, what was this duel about? What +is it meant to prove? What? I ask you." + +Pierre turned over heavily on the ottoman and opened his mouth, but +could not reply. + +"If you won't answer, I'll tell you..." Helene went on. "You believe +everything you're told. You were told..." Helene laughed, "that Dolokhov +was my lover," she said in French with her coarse plainness of speech, +uttering the word amant as casually as any other word, "and you believed +it! Well, what have you proved? What does this duel prove? That you're a +fool, que vous etes un sot, but everybody knew that. What will be the +result? That I shall be the laughingstock of all Moscow, that everyone +will say that you, drunk and not knowing what you were about, challenged +a man you are jealous of without cause." Helene raised her voice and +became more and more excited, "A man who's a better man than you in +every way..." + +"Hm... Hm...!" growled Pierre, frowning without looking at her, and not +moving a muscle. + +"And how could you believe he was my lover? Why? Because I like his +company? If you were cleverer and more agreeable, I should prefer +yours." + +"Don't speak to me... I beg you," muttered Pierre hoarsely. + +"Why shouldn't I speak? I can speak as I like, and I tell you plainly +that there are not many wives with husbands such as you who would not +have taken lovers (des amants), but I have not done so," said she. + +Pierre wished to say something, looked at her with eyes whose strange +expression she did not understand, and lay down again. He was suffering +physically at that moment, there was a weight on his chest and he could +not breathe. He knew that he must do something to put an end to this +suffering, but what he wanted to do was too terrible. + +"We had better separate," he muttered in a broken voice. + +"Separate? Very well, but only if you give me a fortune," said Helene. +"Separate! That's a thing to frighten me with!" + +Pierre leaped up from the sofa and rushed staggering toward her. + +"I'll kill you!" he shouted, and seizing the marble top of a table with +a strength he had never before felt, he made a step toward her +brandishing the slab. + +Helene's face became terrible, she shrieked and sprang aside. His +father's nature showed itself in Pierre. He felt the fascination and +delight of frenzy. He flung down the slab, broke it, and swooping down +on her with outstretched hands shouted, "Get out!" in such a terrible +voice that the whole house heard it with horror. God knows what he would +have done at that moment had Helene not fled from the room. + +A week later Pierre gave his wife full power to control all his estates +in Great Russia, which formed the larger part of his property, and left +for Petersburg alone. + + + + +CHAPTER VII + +Two months had elapsed since the news of the battle of Austerlitz and +the loss of Prince Andrew had reached Bald Hills, and in spite of the +letters sent through the embassy and all the searches made, his body had +not been found nor was he on the list of prisoners. What was worst of +all for his relations was the fact that there was still a possibility of +his having been picked up on the battlefield by the people of the place +and that he might now be lying, recovering or dying, alone among +strangers and unable to send news of himself. The gazettes from which +the old prince first heard of the defeat at Austerlitz stated, as usual +very briefly and vaguely, that after brilliant engagements the Russians +had had to retreat and had made their withdrawal in perfect order. The +old prince understood from this official report that our army had been +defeated. A week after the gazette report of the battle of Austerlitz +came a letter from Kutuzov informing the prince of the fate that had +befallen his son. + +"Your son," wrote Kutuzov, "fell before my eyes, a standard in his hand +and at the head of a regiment--he fell as a hero, worthy of his father +and his fatherland. To the great regret of myself and of the whole army +it is still uncertain whether he is alive or not. I comfort myself and +you with the hope that your son is alive, for otherwise he would have +been mentioned among the officers found on the field of battle, a list +of whom has been sent me under flag of truce." + +After receiving this news late in the evening, when he was alone in his +study, the old prince went for his walk as usual next morning, but he +was silent with his steward, the gardener, and the architect, and though +he looked very grim he said nothing to anyone. + +When Princess Mary went to him at the usual hour he was working at his +lathe and, as usual, did not look round at her. + +"Ah, Princess Mary!" he said suddenly in an unnatural voice, throwing +down his chisel. (The wheel continued to revolve by its own impetus, and +Princess Mary long remembered the dying creak of that wheel, which +merged in her memory with what followed.) + +She approached him, saw his face, and something gave way within her. Her +eyes grew dim. By the expression of her father's face, not sad, not +crushed, but angry and working unnaturally, she saw that hanging over +her and about to crush her was some terrible misfortune, the worst in +life, one she had not yet experienced, irreparable and incomprehensible- +-the death of one she loved. + +"Father! Andrew!"--said the ungraceful, awkward princess with such an +indescribable charm of sorrow and self-forgetfulness that her father +could not bear her look but turned away with a sob. + +"Bad news! He's not among the prisoners nor among the killed! Kutuzov +writes..." and he screamed as piercingly as if he wished to drive the +princess away by that scream... "Killed!" + +The princess did not fall down or faint. She was already pale, but on +hearing these words her face changed and something brightened in her +beautiful, radiant eyes. It was as if joy--a supreme joy apart from the +joys and sorrows of this world--overflowed the great grief within her. +She forgot all fear of her father, went up to him, took his hand, and +drawing him down put her arm round his thin, scraggy neck. + +"Father," she said, "do not turn away from me, let us weep together." + +"Scoundrels! Blackguards!" shrieked the old man, turning his face away +from her. "Destroying the army, destroying the men! And why? Go, go and +tell Lise." + +The princess sank helplessly into an armchair beside her father and +wept. She saw her brother now as he had been at the moment when he took +leave of her and of Lise, his look tender yet proud. She saw him tender +and amused as he was when he put on the little icon. "Did he believe? +Had he repented of his unbelief? Was he now there? There in the realms +of eternal peace and blessedness?" she thought. + +"Father, tell me how it happened," she asked through her tears. + +"Go! Go! Killed in battle, where the best of Russian men and Russia's +glory were led to destruction. Go, Princess Mary. Go and tell Lise. I +will follow." + +When Princess Mary returned from her father, the little princess sat +working and looked up with that curious expression of inner, happy calm +peculiar to pregnant women. It was evident that her eyes did not see +Princess Mary but were looking within... into herself... at something +joyful and mysterious taking place within her. + +"Mary," she said, moving away from the embroidery frame and lying back, +"give me your hand." She took her sister-in-law's hand and held it below +her waist. + +Her eyes were smiling expectantly, her downy lip rose and remained +lifted in childlike happiness. + +Princess Mary knelt down before her and hid her face in the folds of her +sister-in-law's dress. + +"There, there! Do you feel it? I feel so strange. And do you know, Mary, +I am going to love him very much," said Lise, looking with bright and +happy eyes at her sister-in-law. + +Princess Mary could not lift her head, she was weeping. + +"What is the matter, Mary?" + +"Nothing... only I feel sad... sad about Andrew," she said, wiping away +her tears on her sister-in-law's knee. + +Several times in the course of the morning Princess Mary began trying to +prepare her sister-in-law, and every time began to cry. Unobservant as +was the little princess, these tears, the cause of which she did not +understand, agitated her. She said nothing but looked about uneasily as +if in search of something. Before dinner the old prince, of whom she was +always afraid, came into her room with a peculiarly restless and malign +expression and went out again without saying a word. She looked at +Princess Mary, then sat thinking for a while with that expression of +attention to something within her that is only seen in pregnant women, +and suddenly began to cry. + +"Has anything come from Andrew?" she asked. + +"No, you know it's too soon for news. But my father is anxious and I +feel afraid." + +"So there's nothing?" + +"Nothing," answered Princess Mary, looking firmly with her radiant eyes +at her sister-in-law. + +She had determined not to tell her and persuaded her father to hide the +terrible news from her till after her confinement, which was expected +within a few days. Princess Mary and the old prince each bore and hid +their grief in their own way. The old prince would not cherish any hope: +he made up his mind that Prince Andrew had been killed, and though he +sent an official to Austria to seek for traces of his son, he ordered a +monument from Moscow which he intended to erect in his own garden to his +memory, and he told everybody that his son had been killed. He tried not +to change his former way of life, but his strength failed him. He walked +less, ate less, slept less, and became weaker every day. Princess Mary +hoped. She prayed for her brother as living and was always awaiting news +of his return. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII + +"Dearest," said the little princess after breakfast on the morning of +the nineteenth March, and her downy little lip rose from old habit, but +as sorrow was manifest in every smile, the sound of every word, and even +every footstep in that house since the terrible news had come, so now +the smile of the little princess--influenced by the general mood though +without knowing its cause--was such as to remind one still more of the +general sorrow. + +"Dearest, I'm afraid this morning's fruschtique *--as Foka the cook +calls it--has disagreed with me." + + +* Fruhstuck: breakfast. + +"What is the matter with you, my darling? You look pale. Oh, you are +very pale!" said Princess Mary in alarm, running with her soft, +ponderous steps up to her sister-in-law. + +"Your excellency, should not Mary Bogdanovna be sent for?" said one of +the maids who was present. (Mary Bogdanovna was a midwife from the +neighboring town, who had been at Bald Hills for the last fortnight.) + +"Oh yes," assented Princess Mary, "perhaps that's it. I'll go. Courage, +my angel." She kissed Lise and was about to leave the room. + +"Oh, no, no!" And besides the pallor and the physical suffering on the +little princess' face, an expression of childish fear of inevitable pain +showed itself. + +"No, it's only indigestion?... Say it's only indigestion, say so, Mary! +Say..." And the little princess began to cry capriciously like a +suffering child and to wring her little hands even with some +affectation. Princess Mary ran out of the room to fetch Mary Bogdanovna. + +"Mon Dieu! Mon Dieu! Oh!" she heard as she left the room. + +The midwife was already on her way to meet her, rubbing her small, plump +white hands with an air of calm importance. + +"Mary Bogdanovna, I think it's beginning!" said Princess Mary looking at +the midwife with wide-open eyes of alarm. + +"Well, the Lord be thanked, Princess," said Mary Bogdanovna, not +hastening her steps. "You young ladies should not know anything about +it." + +"But how is it the doctor from Moscow is not here yet?" said the +princess. (In accordance with Lise's and Prince Andrew's wishes they had +sent in good time to Moscow for a doctor and were expecting him at any +moment.) + +"No matter, Princess, don't be alarmed," said Mary Bogdanovna. "We'll +manage very well without a doctor." + +Five minutes later Princess Mary from her room heard something heavy +being carried by. She looked out. The men servants were carrying the +large leather sofa from Prince Andrew's study into the bedroom. On their +faces was a quiet and solemn look. + +Princess Mary sat alone in her room listening to the sounds in the +house, now and then opening her door when someone passed and watching +what was going on in the passage. Some women passing with quiet steps in +and out of the bedroom glanced at the princess and turned away. She did +not venture to ask any questions, and shut the door again, now sitting +down in her easy chair, now taking her prayer book, now kneeling before +the icon stand. To her surprise and distress she found that her prayers +did not calm her excitement. Suddenly her door opened softly and her old +nurse, Praskovya Savishna, who hardly ever came to that room as the old +prince had forbidden it, appeared on the threshold with a shawl round +her head. + +"I've come to sit with you a bit, Masha," said the nurse, "and here I've +brought the prince's wedding candles to light before his saint, my +angel," she said with a sigh. + +"Oh, nurse, I'm so glad!" + +"God is merciful, birdie." + +The nurse lit the gilt candles before the icons and sat down by the door +with her knitting. Princess Mary took a book and began reading. Only +when footsteps or voices were heard did they look at one another, the +princess anxious and inquiring, the nurse encouraging. Everyone in the +house was dominated by the same feeling that Princess Mary experienced +as she sat in her room. But owing to the superstition that the fewer the +people who know of it the less a woman in travail suffers, everyone +tried to pretend not to know; no one spoke of it, but apart from the +ordinary staid and respectful good manners habitual in the prince's +household, a common anxiety, a softening of the heart, and a +consciousness that something great and mysterious was being accomplished +at that moment made itself felt. + +There was no laughter in the maids' large hall. In the men servants' +hall all sat waiting, silently and alert. In the outlying serfs' +quarters torches and candles were burning and no one slept. The old +prince, stepping on his heels, paced up and down his study and sent +Tikhon to ask Mary Bogdanovna what news.--"Say only that 'the prince +told me to ask,' and come and tell me her answer." + +"Inform the prince that labor has begun," said Mary Bogdanovna, giving +the messenger a significant look. + +Tikhon went and told the prince. + +"Very good!" said the prince closing the door behind him, and Tikhon did +not hear the slightest sound from the study after that. + +After a while he re-entered it as if to snuff the candles, and, seeing +the prince was lying on the sofa, looked at him, noticed his perturbed +face, shook his head, and going up to him silently kissed him on the +shoulder and left the room without snuffing the candles or saying why he +had entered. The most solemn mystery in the world continued its course. +Evening passed, night came, and the feeling of suspense and softening of +heart in the presence of the unfathomable did not lessen but increased. +No one slept. + +It was one of those March nights when winter seems to wish to resume its +sway and scatters its last snows and storms with desperate fury. A relay +of horses had been sent up the highroad to meet the German doctor from +Moscow who was expected every moment, and men on horseback with lanterns +were sent to the crossroads to guide him over the country road with its +hollows and snow-covered pools of water. + +Princess Mary had long since put aside her book: she sat silent, her +luminous eyes fixed on her nurse's wrinkled face (every line of which +she knew so well), on the lock of gray hair that escaped from under the +kerchief, and the loose skin that hung under her chin. + +Nurse Savishna, knitting in hand, was telling in low tones, scarcely +hearing or understanding her own words, what she had told hundreds of +times before: how the late princess had given birth to Princess Mary in +Kishenev with only a Moldavian peasant woman to help instead of a +midwife. + +"God is merciful, doctors are never needed," she said. + +Suddenly a gust of wind beat violently against the casement of the +window, from which the double frame had been removed (by order of the +prince, one window frame was removed in each room as soon as the larks +returned), and, forcing open a loosely closed latch, set the damask +curtain flapping and blew out the candle with its chill, snowy draft. +Princess Mary shuddered; her nurse, putting down the stocking she was +knitting, went to the window and leaning out tried to catch the open +casement. The cold wind flapped the ends of her kerchief and her loose +locks of gray hair. + +"Princess, my dear, there's someone driving up the avenue!" she said, +holding the casement and not closing it. "With lanterns. Most likely the +doctor." + +"Oh, my God! thank God!" said Princess Mary. "I must go and meet him, he +does not know Russian." + +Princess Mary threw a shawl over her head and ran to meet the newcomer. +As she was crossing the anteroom she saw through the window a carriage +with lanterns, standing at the entrance. She went out on the stairs. On +a banister post stood a tallow candle which guttered in the draft. On +the landing below, Philip, the footman, stood looking scared and holding +another candle. Still lower, beyond the turn of the staircase, one could +hear the footstep of someone in thick felt boots, and a voice that +seemed familiar to Princess Mary was saying something. + +"Thank God!" said the voice. "And Father?" + +"Gone to bed," replied the voice of Demyan the house steward, who was +downstairs. + +Then the voice said something more, Demyan replied, and the steps in the +felt boots approached the unseen bend of the staircase more rapidly. + +"It's Andrew!" thought Princess Mary. "No it can't be, that would be too +extraordinary," and at the very moment she thought this, the face and +figure of Prince Andrew, in a fur cloak the deep collar of which covered +with snow, appeared on the landing where the footman stood with the +candle. Yes, it was he, pale, thin, with a changed and strangely +softened but agitated expression on his face. He came up the stairs and +embraced his sister. + +"You did not get my letter?" he asked, and not waiting for a reply-- +which he would not have received, for the princess was unable to speak-- +he turned back, rapidly mounted the stairs again with the doctor who had +entered the hall after him (they had met at the last post station), and +again embraced his sister. + +"What a strange fate, Masha darling!" And having taken off his cloak and +felt boots, he went to the little princess' apartment. + + + + +CHAPTER IX + +The little princess lay supported by pillows, with a white cap on her +head (the pains had just left her). Strands of her black hair lay round +her inflamed and perspiring cheeks, her charming rosy mouth with its +downy lip was open and she was smiling joyfully. Prince Andrew entered +and paused facing her at the foot of the sofa on which she was lying. +Her glittering eyes, filled with childlike fear and excitement, rested +on him without changing their expression. "I love you all and have done +no harm to anyone; why must I suffer so? Help me!" her look seemed to +say. She saw her husband, but did not realize the significance of his +appearance before her now. Prince Andrew went round the sofa and kissed +her forehead. + +"My darling!" he said--a word he had never used to her before. "God is +merciful...." + +She looked at him inquiringly and with childlike reproach. + +"I expected help from you and I get none, none from you either!" said +her eyes. She was not surprised at his having come; she did not realize +that he had come. His coming had nothing to do with her sufferings or +with their relief. The pangs began again and Mary Bogdanovna advised +Prince Andrew to leave the room. + +The doctor entered. Prince Andrew went out and, meeting Princess Mary, +again joined her. They began talking in whispers, but their talk broke +off at every moment. They waited and listened. + +"Go, dear," said Princess Mary. + +Prince Andrew went again to his wife and sat waiting in the room next to +hers. A woman came from the bedroom with a frightened face and became +confused when she saw Prince Andrew. He covered his face with his hands +and remained so for some minutes. Piteous, helpless, animal moans came +through the door. Prince Andrew got up, went to the door, and tried to +open it. Someone was holding it shut. + +"You can't come in! You can't!" said a terrified voice from within. + +He began pacing the room. The screaming ceased, and a few more seconds +went by. Then suddenly a terrible shriek--it could not be hers, she +could not scream like that--came from the bedroom. Prince Andrew ran to +the door; the scream ceased and he heard the wail of an infant. + +"What have they taken a baby in there for?" thought Prince Andrew in the +first second. "A baby? What baby...? Why is there a baby there? Or is +the baby born?" + +Then suddenly he realized the joyful significance of that wail; tears +choked him, and leaning his elbows on the window sill be began to cry, +sobbing like a child. The door opened. The doctor with his shirt sleeves +tucked up, without a coat, pale and with a trembling jaw, came out of +the room. Prince Andrew turned to him, but the doctor gave him a +bewildered look and passed by without a word. A woman rushed out and +seeing Prince Andrew stopped, hesitating on the threshold. He went into +his wife's room. She was lying dead, in the same position he had seen +her in five minutes before and, despite the fixed eyes and the pallor of +the cheeks, the same expression was on her charming childlike face with +its upper lip covered with tiny black hair. + +"I love you all, and have done no harm to anyone; and what have you done +to me?"--said her charming, pathetic, dead face. + +In a corner of the room something red and tiny gave a grunt and squealed +in Mary Bogdanovna's trembling white hands. + +Two hours later Prince Andrew, stepping softly, went into his father's +room. The old man already knew everything. He was standing close to the +door and as soon as it opened his rough old arms closed like a vise +round his son's neck, and without a word he began to sob like a child. + +Three days later the little princess was buried, and Prince Andrew went +up the steps to where the coffin stood, to give her the farewell kiss. +And there in the coffin was the same face, though with closed eyes. "Ah, +what have you done to me?" it still seemed to say, and Prince Andrew +felt that something gave way in his soul and that he was guilty of a sin +he could neither remedy nor forget. He could not weep. The old man too +came up and kissed the waxen little hands that lay quietly crossed one +on the other on her breast, and to him, too, her face seemed to say: +"Ah, what have you done to me, and why?" And at the sight the old man +turned angrily away. + +Another five days passed, and then the young Prince Nicholas Andreevich +was baptized. The wet nurse supported the coverlet with her chin, while +the priest with a goose feather anointed the boy's little red and +wrinkled soles and palms. + +His grandfather, who was his godfather, trembling and afraid of dropping +him, carried the infant round the battered tin font and handed him over +to the godmother, Princess Mary. Prince Andrew sat in another room, +faint with fear lest the baby should be drowned in the font, and awaited +the termination of the ceremony. He looked up joyfully at the baby when +the nurse brought it to him and nodded approval when she told him that +the wax with the baby's hair had not sunk in the font but had floated. + + + + +CHAPTER X + +Rostov's share in Dolokhov's duel with Bezukhov was hushed up by the +efforts of the old count, and instead of being degraded to the ranks as +he expected he was appointed an adjutant to the governor general of +Moscow. As a result he could not go to the country with the rest of the +family, but was kept all summer in Moscow by his new duties. Dolokhov +recovered, and Rostov became very friendly with him during his +convalescence. Dolokhov lay ill at his mother's who loved him +passionately and tenderly, and old Mary Ivanovna, who had grown fond of +Rostov for his friendship to her Fedya, often talked to him about her +son. + +"Yes, Count," she would say, "he is too noble and pure-souled for our +present, depraved world. No one now loves virtue; it seems like a +reproach to everyone. Now tell me, Count, was it right, was it +honorable, of Bezukhov? And Fedya, with his noble spirit, loved him and +even now never says a word against him. Those pranks in Petersburg when +they played some tricks on a policeman, didn't they do it together? And +there! Bezukhov got off scotfree, while Fedya had to bear the whole +burden on his shoulders. Fancy what he had to go through! It's true he +has been reinstated, but how could they fail to do that? I think there +were not many such gallant sons of the fatherland out there as he. And +now--this duel! Have these people no feeling, or honor? Knowing him to +be an only son, to challenge him and shoot so straight! It's well God +had mercy on us. And what was it for? Who doesn't have intrigues +nowadays? Why, if he was so jealous, as I see things he should have +shown it sooner, but he lets it go on for months. And then to call him +out, reckoning on Fedya not fighting because he owed him money! What +baseness! What meanness! I know you understand Fedya, my dear count; +that, believe me, is why I am so fond of you. Few people do understand +him. He is such a lofty, heavenly soul!" + +Dolokhov himself during his convalescence spoke to Rostov in a way no +one would have expected of him. + +"I know people consider me a bad man!" he said. "Let them! I don't care +a straw about anyone but those I love; but those I love, I love so that +I would give my life for them, and the others I'd throttle if they stood +in my way. I have an adored, a priceless mother, and two or three +friends--you among them--and as for the rest I only care about them in +so far as they are harmful or useful. And most of them are harmful, +especially the women. Yes, dear boy," he continued, "I have met loving, +noble, high-minded men, but I have not yet met any women--countesses or +cooks--who were not venal. I have not yet met that divine purity and +devotion I look for in women. If I found such a one I'd give my life for +her! But those!..." and he made a gesture of contempt. "And believe me, +if I still value my life it is only because I still hope to meet such a +divine creature, who will regenerate, purify, and elevate me. But you +don't understand it." + +"Oh, yes, I quite understand," answered Rostov, who was under his new +friend's influence. + +In the autumn the Rostovs returned to Moscow. Early in the winter +Denisov also came back and stayed with them. The first half of the +winter of 1806, which Nicholas Rostov spent in Moscow, was one of the +happiest, merriest times for him and the whole family. Nicholas brought +many young men to his parents' house. Vera was a handsome girl of +twenty; Sonya a girl of sixteen with all the charm of an opening flower; +Natasha, half grown up and half child, was now childishly amusing, now +girlishly enchanting. + +At that time in the Rostovs' house there prevailed an amorous atmosphere +characteristic of homes where there are very young and very charming +girls. Every young man who came to the house--seeing those +impressionable, smiling young faces (smiling probably at their own +happiness), feeling the eager bustle around him, and hearing the fitful +bursts of song and music and the inconsequent but friendly prattle of +young girls ready for anything and full of hope--experienced the same +feeling; sharing with the young folk of the Rostovs' household a +readiness to fall in love and an expectation of happiness. + +Among the young men introduced by Rostov one of the first was Dolokhov, +whom everyone in the house liked except Natasha. She almost quarreled +with her brother about him. She insisted that he was a bad man, and that +in the duel with Bezukhov, Pierre was right and Dolokhov wrong, and +further that he was disagreeable and unnatural. + +"There's nothing for me to understand," she cried out with resolute +self-will, "he is wicked and heartless. There now, I like your Denisov +though he is a rake and all that, still I like him; so you see I do +understand. I don't know how to put it... with this one everything is +calculated, and I don't like that. But Denisov..." + +"Oh, Denisov is quite different," replied Nicholas, implying that even +Denisov was nothing compared to Dolokhov--"you must understand what a +soul there is in Dolokhov, you should see him with his mother. What a +heart!" + +"Well, I don't know about that, but I am uncomfortable with him. And do +you know he has fallen in love with Sonya?" + +"What nonsense..." + +"I'm certain of it; you'll see." + +Natasha's prediction proved true. Dolokhov, who did not usually care for +the society of ladies, began to come often to the house, and the +question for whose sake he came (though no one spoke of it) was soon +settled. He came because of Sonya. And Sonya, though she would never +have dared to say so, knew it and blushed scarlet every time Dolokhov +appeared. + +Dolokhov often dined at the Rostovs', never missed a performance at +which they were present, and went to Iogel's balls for young people +which the Rostovs always attended. He was pointedly attentive to Sonya +and looked at her in such a way that not only could she not bear his +glances without coloring, but even the old countess and Natasha blushed +when they saw his looks. + +It was evident that this strange, strong man was under the irresistible +influence of the dark, graceful girl who loved another. + +Rostov noticed something new in Dolokhov's relations with Sonya, but he +did not explain to himself what these new relations were. "They're +always in love with someone," he thought of Sonya and Natasha. But he +was not as much at ease with Sonya and Dolokhov as before and was less +frequently at home. + +In the autumn of 1806 everybody had again begun talking of the war with +Napoleon with even greater warmth than the year before. Orders were +given to raise recruits, ten men in every thousand for the regular army, +and besides this, nine men in every thousand for the militia. Everywhere +Bonaparte was anathematized and in Moscow nothing but the coming war was +talked of. For the Rostov family the whole interest of these +preparations for war lay in the fact that Nicholas would not hear of +remaining in Moscow, and only awaited the termination of Denisov's +furlough after Christmas to return with him to their regiment. His +approaching departure did not prevent his amusing himself, but rather +gave zest to his pleasures. He spent the greater part of his time away +from home, at dinners, parties, and balls. + + + + +CHAPTER XI + +On the third day after Christmas Nicholas dined at home, a thing he had +rarely done of late. It was a grand farewell dinner, as he and Denisov +were leaving to join their regiment after Epiphany. About twenty people +were present, including Dolokhov and Denisov. + +Never had love been so much in the air, and never had the amorous +atmosphere made itself so strongly felt in the Rostovs' house as at this +holiday time. "Seize the moments of happiness, love and be loved! That +is the only reality in the world, all else is folly. It is the one thing +we are interested in here," said the spirit of the place. + +Nicholas, having as usual exhausted two pairs of horses, without +visiting all the places he meant to go to and where he had been invited, +returned home just before dinner. As soon as he entered he noticed and +felt the tension of the amorous air in the house, and also noticed a +curious embarrassment among some of those present. Sonya, Dolokhov, and +the old countess were especially disturbed, and to a lesser degree +Natasha. Nicholas understood that something must have happened between +Sonya and Dolokhov before dinner, and with the kindly sensitiveness +natural to him was very gentle and wary with them both at dinner. On +that same evening there was to be one of the balls that Iogel (the +dancing master) gave for his pupils during the holidays. + +"Nicholas, will you come to Iogel's? Please do!" said Natasha. "He asked +you, and Vasili Dmitrich * is also going." + + +* Denisov. + +"Where would I not go at the countess' command!" said Denisov, who at +the Rostovs' had jocularly assumed the role of Natasha's knight. "I'm +even weady to dance the pas de chale." + +"If I have time," answered Nicholas. "But I promised the Arkharovs; they +have a party." + +"And you?" he asked Dolokhov, but as soon as he had asked the question +he noticed that it should not have been put. + +"Perhaps," coldly and angrily replied Dolokhov, glancing at Sonya, and, +scowling, he gave Nicholas just such a look as he had given Pierre at +the club dinner. + +"There is something up," thought Nicholas, and he was further confirmed +in this conclusion by the fact that Dolokhov left immediately after +dinner. He called Natasha and asked her what was the matter. + +"And I was looking for you," said Natasha running out to him. "I told +you, but you would not believe it," she said triumphantly. "He has +proposed to Sonya!" + +Little as Nicholas had occupied himself with Sonya of late, something +seemed to give way within him at this news. Dolokhov was a suitable and +in some respects a brilliant match for the dowerless, orphan girl. From +the point of view of the old countess and of society it was out of the +question for her to refuse him. And therefore Nicholas' first feeling on +hearing the news was one of anger with Sonya.... He tried to say, +"That's capital; of course she'll forget her childish promises and +accept the offer," but before he had time to say it Natasha began again. + +"And fancy! she refused him quite definitely!" adding, after a pause, +"she told him she loved another." + +"Yes, my Sonya could not have done otherwise!" thought Nicholas. + +"Much as Mamma pressed her, she refused, and I know she won't change +once she has said..." + +"And Mamma pressed her!" said Nicholas reproachfully. + +"Yes," said Natasha. "Do you know, Nicholas--don't be angry--but I know +you will not marry her. I know, heaven knows how, but I know for certain +that you won't marry her." + +"Now you don't know that at all!" said Nicholas. "But I must talk to +her. What a darling Sonya is!" he added with a smile. + +"Ah, she is indeed a darling! I'll send her to you." + +And Natasha kissed her brother and ran away. + +A minute later Sonya came in with a frightened, guilty, and scared look. +Nicholas went up to her and kissed her hand. This was the first time +since his return that they had talked alone and about their love. + +"Sophie," he began, timidly at first and then more and more boldly, "if +you wish to refuse one who is not only a brilliant and advantageous +match but a splendid, noble fellow... he is my friend..." + +Sonya interrupted him. + +"I have already refused," she said hurriedly. + +"If you are refusing for my sake, I am afraid that I..." + +Sonya again interrupted. She gave him an imploring, frightened look. + +"Nicholas, don't tell me that!" she said. + +"No, but I must. It may be arrogant of me, but still it is best to say +it. If you refuse him on my account, I must tell you the whole truth. I +love you, and I think I love you more than anyone else...." + +"That is enough for me," said Sonya, blushing. + +"No, but I have been in love a thousand times and shall fall in love +again, though for no one have I such a feeling of friendship, +confidence, and love as I have for you. Then I am young. Mamma does not +wish it. In a word, I make no promise. And I beg you to consider +Dolokhov's offer," he said, articulating his friend's name with +difficulty. + +"Don't say that to me! I want nothing. I love you as a brother and +always shall, and I want nothing more." + +"You are an angel: I am not worthy of you, but I am afraid of misleading +you." + +And Nicholas again kissed her hand. + + + + +CHAPTER XII + +Iogel's were the most enjoyable balls in Moscow. So said the mothers as +they watched their young people executing their newly learned steps, and +so said the youths and maidens themselves as they danced till they were +ready to drop, and so said the grown-up young men and women who came to +these balls with an air of condescension and found them most enjoyable. +That year two marriages had come of these balls. The two pretty young +Princesses Gorchakov met suitors there and were married and so further +increased the fame of these dances. What distinguished them from others +was the absence of host or hostess and the presence of the good-natured +Iogel, flying about like a feather and bowing according to the rules of +his art, as he collected the tickets from all his visitors. There was +the fact that only those came who wished to dance and amuse themselves +as girls of thirteen and fourteen do who are wearing long dresses for +the first time. With scarcely any exceptions they all were, or seemed to +be, pretty--so rapturous were their smiles and so sparkling their eyes. +Sometimes the best of the pupils, of whom Natasha, who was exceptionally +graceful, was first, even danced the pas de chale, but at this last ball +only the ecossaise, the anglaise, and the mazurka, which was just coming +into fashion, were danced. Iogel had taken a ballroom in Bezukhov's +house, and the ball, as everyone said, was a great success. There were +many pretty girls and the Rostov girls were among the prettiest. They +were both particularly happy and gay. That evening, proud of Dolokhov's +proposal, her refusal, and her explanation with Nicholas, Sonya twirled +about before she left home so that the maid could hardly get her hair +plaited, and she was transparently radiant with impulsive joy. + +Natasha no less proud of her first long dress and of being at a real +ball was even happier. They were both dressed in white muslin with pink +ribbons. + +Natasha fell in love the very moment she entered the ballroom. She was +not in love with anyone in particular, but with everyone. Whatever +person she happened to look at she was in love with for that moment. + +"Oh, how delightful it is!" she kept saying, running up to Sonya. + +Nicholas and Denisov were walking up and down, looking with kindly +patronage at the dancers. + +"How sweet she is--she will be a weal beauty!" said Denisov. + +"Who?" + +"Countess Natasha," answered Denisov. + +"And how she dances! What gwace!" he said again after a pause. + +"Who are you talking about?" + +"About your sister," ejaculated Denisov testily. + +Rostov smiled. + +"My dear count, you were one of my best pupils--you must dance," said +little Iogel coming up to Nicholas. "Look how many charming young +ladies-" He turned with the same request to Denisov who was also a +former pupil of his. + +"No, my dear fellow, I'll be a wallflower," said Denisov. "Don't you +wecollect what bad use I made of your lessons?" + + +"Oh no!" said Iogel, hastening to reassure him. "You were only +inattentive, but you had talent--oh yes, you had talent!" + +The band struck up the newly introduced mazurka. Nicholas could not +refuse Iogel and asked Sonya to dance. Denisov sat down by the old +ladies and, leaning on his saber and beating time with his foot, told +them something funny and kept them amused, while he watched the young +people dancing, Iogel with Natasha, his pride and his best pupil, were +the first couple. Noiselessly, skillfully stepping with his little feet +in low shoes, Iogel flew first across the hall with Natasha, who, though +shy, went on carefully executing her steps. Denisov did not take his +eyes off her and beat time with his saber in a way that clearly +indicated that if he was not dancing it was because he would not and not +because he could not. In the middle of a figure he beckoned to Rostov +who was passing: + +"This is not at all the thing," he said. "What sort of Polish mazuwka is +this? But she does dance splendidly." + +Knowing that Denisov had a reputation even in Poland for the masterly +way in which he danced the mazurka, Nicholas ran up to Natasha: + +"Go and choose Denisov. He is a real dancer, a wonder!" he said. + +When it came to Natasha's turn to choose a partner, she rose and, +tripping rapidly across in her little shoes trimmed with bows, ran +timidly to the corner where Denisov sat. She saw that everybody was +looking at her and waiting. Nicholas saw that Denisov was refusing +though he smiled delightedly. He ran up to them. + +"Please, Vasili Dmitrich," Natasha was saying, "do come!" + +"Oh no, let me off, Countess," Denisov replied. + +"Now then, Vaska," said Nicholas. + +"They coax me as if I were Vaska the cat!" said Denisov jokingly. + +"I'll sing for you a whole evening," said Natasha. + +"Oh, the faiwy! She can do anything with me!" said Denisov, and he +unhooked his saber. He came out from behind the chairs, clasped his +partner's hand firmly, threw back his head, and advanced his foot, +waiting for the beat. Only on horse back and in the mazurka was +Denisov's short stature not noticeable and he looked the fine fellow he +felt himself to be. At the right beat of the music he looked sideways at +his partner with a merry and triumphant air, suddenly stamped with one +foot, bounded from the floor like a ball, and flew round the room taking +his partner with him. He glided silently on one foot half across the +room, and seeming not to notice the chairs was dashing straight at them, +when suddenly, clinking his spurs and spreading out his legs, he stopped +short on his heels, stood so a second, stamped on the spot clanking his +spurs, whirled rapidly round, and, striking his left heel against his +right, flew round again in a circle. Natasha guessed what he meant to +do, and abandoning herself to him followed his lead hardly knowing how. +First he spun her round, holding her now with his left, now with his +right hand, then falling on one knee he twirled her round him, and again +jumping up, dashed so impetuously forward that it seemed as if he would +rush through the whole suite of rooms without drawing breath, and then +he suddenly stopped and performed some new and unexpected steps. When at +last, smartly whirling his partner round in front of her chair, he drew +up with a click of his spurs and bowed to her, Natasha did not even make +him a curtsy. She fixed her eyes on him in amazement, smiling as if she +did not recognize him. + +"What does this mean?" she brought out. + +Although Iogel did not acknowledge this to be the real mazurka, everyone +was delighted with Denisov's skill, he was asked again and again as a +partner, and the old men began smilingly to talk about Poland and the +good old days. Denisov, flushed after the mazurka and mopping himself +with his handkerchief, sat down by Natasha and did not leave her for the +rest of the evening. + + + + +CHAPTER XIII + +For two days after that Rostov did not see Dolokhov at his own or at +Dolokhov's home: on the third day he received a note from him: + +As I do not intend to be at your house again for reasons you know of, +and am going to rejoin my regiment, I am giving a farewell supper +tonight to my friends--come to the English Hotel. + +About ten o'clock Rostov went to the English Hotel straight from the +theater, where he had been with his family and Denisov. He was at once +shown to the best room, which Dolokhov had taken for that evening. Some +twenty men were gathered round a table at which Dolokhov sat between two +candles. On the table was a pile of gold and paper money, and he was +keeping the bank. Rostov had not seen him since his proposal and Sonya's +refusal and felt uncomfortable at the thought of how they would meet. + +Dolokhov's clear, cold glance met Rostov as soon as he entered the door, +as though he had long expected him. + +"It's a long time since we met," he said. "Thanks for coming. I'll just +finish dealing, and then Ilyushka will come with his chorus." + +"I called once or twice at your house," said Rostov, reddening. + +Dolokhov made no reply. + +"You may punt," he said. + +Rostov recalled at that moment a strange conversation he had once had +with Dolokhov. "None but fools trust to luck in play," Dolokhov had then +said. + +"Or are you afraid to play with me?" Dolokhov now asked as if guessing +Rostov's thought. + +Beneath his smile Rostov saw in him the mood he had shown at the club +dinner and at other times, when as if tired of everyday life he had felt +a need to escape from it by some strange, and usually cruel, action. + +Rostov felt ill at ease. He tried, but failed, to find some joke with +which to reply to Dolokhov's words. But before he had thought of +anything, Dolokhov, looking straight in his face, said slowly and +deliberately so that everyone could hear: + +"Do you remember we had a talk about cards... 'He's a fool who trusts to +luck, one should make certain,' and I want to try." + +"To try his luck or the certainty?" Rostov asked himself. + +"Well, you'd better not play," Dolokhov added, and springing a new pack +of cards said: "Bank, gentlemen!" + +Moving the money forward he prepared to deal. Rostov sat down by his +side and at first did not play. Dolokhov kept glancing at him. + +"Why don't you play?" he asked. + +And strange to say Nicholas felt that he could not help taking up a +card, putting a small stake on it, and beginning to play. + +"I have no money with me," he said. + +"I'll trust you." + +Rostov staked five rubles on a card and lost, staked again, and again +lost. Dolokhov "killed," that is, beat, ten cards of Rostov's running. + +"Gentlemen," said Dolokhov after he had dealt for some time. "Please +place your money on the cards or I may get muddled in the reckoning." + +One of the players said he hoped he might be trusted. + +"Yes, you might, but I am afraid of getting the accounts mixed. So I ask +you to put the money on your cards," replied Dolokhov. "Don't stint +yourself, we'll settle afterwards," he added, turning to Rostov. + +The game continued; a waiter kept handing round champagne. + +All Rostov's cards were beaten and he had eight hundred rubles scored up +against him. He wrote "800 rubles" on a card, but while the waiter +filled his glass he changed his mind and altered it to his usual stake +of twenty rubles. + +"Leave it," said Dolokhov, though he did not seem to be even looking at +Rostov, "you'll win it back all the sooner. I lose to the others but win +from you. Or are you afraid of me?" he asked again. + +Rostov submitted. He let the eight hundred remain and laid down a seven +of hearts with a torn corner, which he had picked up from the floor. He +well remembered that seven afterwards. He laid down the seven of hearts, +on which with a broken bit of chalk he had written "800 rubles" in clear +upright figures; he emptied the glass of warm champagne that was handed +him, smiled at Dolokhov's words, and with a sinking heart, waiting for a +seven to turn up, gazed at Dolokhov's hands which held the pack. Much +depended on Rostov's winning or losing on that seven of hearts. On the +previous Sunday the old count had given his son two thousand rubles, and +though he always disliked speaking of money difficulties had told +Nicholas that this was all he could let him have till May, and asked him +to be more economical this time. Nicholas had replied that it would be +more than enough for him and that he gave his word of honor not to take +anything more till the spring. Now only twelve hundred rubles was left +of that money, so that this seven of hearts meant for him not only the +loss of sixteen hundred rubles, but the necessity of going back on his +word. With a sinking heart he watched Dolokhov's hands and thought, "Now +then, make haste and let me have this card and I'll take my cap and +drive home to supper with Denisov, Natasha, and Sonya, and will +certainly never touch a card again." At that moment his home life, jokes +with Petya, talks with Sonya, duets with Natasha, piquet with his +father, and even his comfortable bed in the house on the Povarskaya rose +before him with such vividness, clearness, and charm that it seemed as +if it were all a lost and unappreciated bliss, long past. He could not +conceive that a stupid chance, letting the seven be dealt to the right +rather than to the left, might deprive him of all this happiness, newly +appreciated and newly illumined, and plunge him into the depths of +unknown and undefined misery. That could not be, yet he awaited with a +sinking heart the movement of Dolokhov's hands. Those broad, reddish +hands, with hairy wrists visible from under the shirt cuffs, laid down +the pack and took up a glass and a pipe that were handed him. + +"So you are not afraid to play with me?" repeated Dolokhov, and as if +about to tell a good story he put down the cards, leaned back in his +chair, and began deliberately with a smile: + +"Yes, gentlemen, I've been told there's a rumor going about Moscow that +I'm a sharper, so I advise you to be careful." + +"Come now, deal!" exclaimed Rostov. + +"Oh, those Moscow gossips!" said Dolokhov, and he took up the cards with +a smile. + +"Aah!" Rostov almost screamed lifting both hands to his head. The seven +he needed was lying uppermost, the first card in the pack. He had lost +more than he could pay. + +"Still, don't ruin yourself!" said Dolokhov with a side glance at Rostov +as he continued to deal. + + + + +CHAPTER XIV + +An hour and a half later most of the players were but little interested +in their own play. + +The whole interest was concentrated on Rostov. Instead of sixteen +hundred rubles he had a long column of figures scored against him, which +he had reckoned up to ten thousand, but that now, as he vaguely +supposed, must have risen to fifteen thousand. In reality it already +exceeded twenty thousand rubles. Dolokhov was no longer listening to +stories or telling them, but followed every movement of Rostov's hands +and occasionally ran his eyes over the score against him. He had decided +to play until that score reached forty-three thousand. He had fixed on +that number because forty-three was the sum of his and Sonya's joint +ages. Rostov, leaning his head on both hands, sat at the table which was +scrawled over with figures, wet with spilled wine, and littered with +cards. One tormenting impression did not leave him: that those broad- +boned reddish hands with hairy wrists visible from under the shirt +sleeves, those hands which he loved and hated, held him in their power. + +"Six hundred rubles, ace, a corner, a nine... winning it back's +impossible... Oh, how pleasant it was at home!... The knave, double or +quits... it can't be!... And why is he doing this to me?" Rostov +pondered. Sometimes he staked a large sum, but Dolokhov refused to +accept it and fixed the stake himself. Nicholas submitted to him, and at +one moment prayed to God as he had done on the battlefield at the bridge +over the Enns, and then guessed that the card that came first to hand +from the crumpled heap under the table would save him, now counted the +cords on his coat and took a card with that number and tried staking the +total of his losses on it, then he looked round for aid from the other +players, or peered at the now cold face of Dolokhov and tried to read +what was passing in his mind. + +"He knows of course what this loss means to me. He can't want my ruin. +Wasn't he my friend? Wasn't I fond of him? But it's not his fault. +What's he to do if he has such luck?... And it's not my fault either," +he thought to himself, "I have done nothing wrong. Have I killed anyone, +or insulted or wished harm to anyone? Why such a terrible misfortune? +And when did it begin? Such a little while ago I came to this table with +the thought of winning a hundred rubles to buy that casket for Mamma's +name day and then going home. I was so happy, so free, so lighthearted! +And I did not realize how happy I was! When did that end and when did +this new, terrible state of things begin? What marked the change? I sat +all the time in this same place at this table, chose and placed cards, +and watched those broad-boned agile hands in the same way. When did it +happen and what has happened? I am well and strong and still the same +and in the same place. No, it can't be! Surely it will all end in +nothing!" + +He was flushed and bathed in perspiration, though the room was not hot. +His face was terrible and piteous to see, especially from its helpless +efforts to seem calm. + +The score against him reached the fateful sum of forty-three thousand. +Rostov had just prepared a card, by bending the corner of which he meant +to double the three thousand just put down to his score, when Dolokhov, +slamming down the pack of cards, put it aside and began rapidly adding +up the total of Rostov's debt, breaking the chalk as he marked the +figures in his clear, bold hand. + +"Supper, it's time for supper! And here are the gypsies!" + +Some swarthy men and women were really entering from the cold outside +and saying something in their gypsy accents. Nicholas understood that it +was all over; but he said in an indifferent tone: + +"Well, won't you go on? I had a splendid card all ready," as if it were +the fun of the game which interested him most. + +"It's all up! I'm lost!" thought he. "Now a bullet through my brain-- +that's all that's left me!" And at the same time he said in a cheerful +voice: + +"Come now, just this one more little card!" + +"All right!" said Dolokhov, having finished the addition. "All right! +Twenty-one rubles," he said, pointing to the figure twenty-one by which +the total exceeded the round sum of forty-three thousand; and taking up +a pack he prepared to deal. Rostov submissively unbent the corner of his +card and, instead of the six thousand he had intended, carefully wrote +twenty-one. + +"It's all the same to me," he said. "I only want to see whether you will +let me win this ten, or beat it." + +Dolokhov began to deal seriously. Oh, how Rostov detested at that moment +those hands with their short reddish fingers and hairy wrists, which +held him in their power.... The ten fell to him. + +"You owe forty-three thousand, Count," said Dolokhov, and stretching +himself he rose from the table. "One does get tired sitting so long," he +added. + +"Yes, I'm tired too," said Rostov. + +Dolokhov cut him short, as if to remind him that it was not for him to +jest. + +"When am I to receive the money, Count?" + +Rostov, flushing, drew Dolokhov into the next room. + +"I cannot pay it all immediately. Will you take an I.O.U.?" he said. + +"I say, Rostov," said Dolokhov clearly, smiling and looking Nicholas +straight in the eyes, "you know the saying, 'Lucky in love, unlucky at +cards.' Your cousin is in love with you, I know." + +"Oh, it's terrible to feel oneself so in this man's power," thought +Rostov. He knew what a shock he would inflict on his father and mother +by the news of this loss, he knew what a relief it would be to escape it +all, and felt that Dolokhov knew that he could save him from all this +shame and sorrow, but wanted now to play with him as a cat does with a +mouse. + +"Your cousin..." Dolokhov started to say, but Nicholas interrupted him. + +"My cousin has nothing to do with this and it's not necessary to mention +her!" he exclaimed fiercely. + +"Then when am I to have it?" + +"Tomorrow," replied Rostov and left the room. + + + + +CHAPTER XV + +To say "tomorrow" and keep up a dignified tone was not difficult, but to +go home alone, see his sisters, brother, mother, and father, confess and +ask for money he had no right to after giving his word of honor, was +terrible. + +At home, they had not yet gone to bed. The young people, after returning +from the theater, had had supper and were grouped round the clavichord. +As soon as Nicholas entered, he was enfolded in that poetic atmosphere +of love which pervaded the Rostov household that winter and, now after +Dolokhov's proposal and Iogel's ball, seemed to have grown thicker round +Sonya and Natasha as the air does before a thunderstorm. Sonya and +Natasha, in the light-blue dresses they had worn at the theater, looking +pretty and conscious of it, were standing by the clavichord, happy and +smiling. Vera was playing chess with Shinshin in the drawing room. The +old countess, waiting for the return of her husband and son, sat playing +patience with the old gentlewoman who lived in their house. Denisov, +with sparkling eyes and ruffled hair, sat at the clavichord striking +chords with his short fingers, his legs thrown back and his eyes rolling +as he sang, with his small, husky, but true voice, some verses called +"Enchantress," which he had composed, and to which he was trying to fit +music: + + +Enchantress, say, to my forsaken lyre What magic power is this recalls +me still? What spark has set my inmost soul on fire, What is this bliss +that makes my fingers thrill? + +He was singing in passionate tones, gazing with his sparkling black- +agate eyes at the frightened and happy Natasha. + +"Splendid! Excellent!" exclaimed Natasha. "Another verse," she said, +without noticing Nicholas. + +"Everything's still the same with them," thought Nicholas, glancing into +the drawing room, where he saw Vera and his mother with the old lady. + +"Ah, and here's Nicholas!" cried Natasha, running up to him. + +"Is Papa at home?" he asked. + +"I am so glad you've come!" said Natasha, without answering him. "We are +enjoying ourselves! Vasili Dmitrich is staying a day longer for my sake! +Did you know?" + +"No, Papa is not back yet," said Sonya. + +"Nicholas, have you come? Come here, dear!" called the old countess from +the drawing room. + +Nicholas went to her, kissed her hand, and sitting down silently at her +table began to watch her hands arranging the cards. From the dancing +room, they still heard the laughter and merry voices trying to persuade +Natasha to sing. + +"All wight! All wight!" shouted Denisov. "It's no good making excuses +now! It's your turn to sing the ba'cawolla--I entweat you!" + +The countess glanced at her silent son. + +"What is the matter?" she asked. + +"Oh, nothing," said he, as if weary of being continually asked the same +question. "Will Papa be back soon?" + +"I expect so." + +"Everything's the same with them. They know nothing about it! Where am I +to go?" thought Nicholas, and went again into the dancing room where the +clavichord stood. + +Sonya was sitting at the clavichord, playing the prelude to Denisov's +favorite barcarolle. Natasha was preparing to sing. Denisov was looking +at her with enraptured eyes. + +Nicholas began pacing up and down the room. + +"Why do they want to make her sing? How can she sing? There's nothing to +be happy about!" thought he. + +Sonya struck the first chord of the prelude. + +"My God, I'm a ruined and dishonored man! A bullet through my brain is +the only thing left me--not singing!" his thoughts ran on. "Go away? But +where to? It's one--let them sing!" + +He continued to pace the room, looking gloomily at Denisov and the girls +and avoiding their eyes. + +"Nikolenka, what is the matter?" Sonya's eyes fixed on him seemed to +ask. She noticed at once that something had happened to him. + +Nicholas turned away from her. Natasha too, with her quick instinct, had +instantly noticed her brother's condition. But, though she noticed it, +she was herself in such high spirits at that moment, so far from sorrow, +sadness, or self-reproach, that she purposely deceived herself as young +people often do. "No, I am too happy now to spoil my enjoyment by +sympathy with anyone's sorrow," she felt, and she said to herself: "No, +I must be mistaken, he must be feeling happy, just as I am." + +"Now, Sonya!" she said, going to the very middle of the room, where she +considered the resonance was best. + +Having lifted her head and let her arms droop lifelessly, as ballet +dancers do, Natasha, rising energetically from her heels to her toes, +stepped to the middle of the room and stood still. + +"Yes, that's me!" she seemed to say, answering the rapt gaze with which +Denisov followed her. + +"And what is she so pleased about?" thought Nicholas, looking at his +sister. "Why isn't she dull and ashamed?" + +Natasha took the first note, her throat swelled, her chest rose, her +eyes became serious. At that moment she was oblivious of her +surroundings, and from her smiling lips flowed sounds which anyone may +produce at the same intervals and hold for the same time, but which +leave you cold a thousand times and the thousand and first time thrill +you and make you weep. + +Natasha, that winter, had for the first time begun to sing seriously, +mainly because Denisov so delighted in her singing. She no longer sang +as a child, there was no longer in her singing that comical, childish, +painstaking effect that had been in it before; but she did not yet sing +well, as all the connoisseurs who heard her said: "It is not trained, +but it is a beautiful voice that must be trained." Only they generally +said this some time after she had finished singing. While that untrained +voice, with its incorrect breathing and labored transitions, was +sounding, even the connoisseurs said nothing, but only delighted in it +and wished to hear it again. In her voice there was a virginal +freshness, an unconsciousness of her own powers, and an as yet untrained +velvety softness, which so mingled with her lack of art in singing that +it seemed as if nothing in that voice could be altered without spoiling +it. + +"What is this?" thought Nicholas, listening to her with widely opened +eyes. "What has happened to her? How she is singing today!" And suddenly +the whole world centered for him on anticipation of the next note, the +next phrase, and everything in the world was divided into three beats: +"Oh mio crudele affetto."... One, two, three... one, two, three... +One... "Oh mio crudele affetto."... One, two, three... One. "Oh, this +senseless life of ours!" thought Nicholas. "All this misery, and money, +and Dolokhov, and anger, and honor--it's all nonsense... but this is +real.... Now then, Natasha, now then, dearest! Now then, darling! How +will she take that si? She's taken it! Thank God!" And without noticing +that he was singing, to strengthen the si he sung a second, a third +below the high note. "Ah, God! How fine! Did I really take it? How +fortunate!" he thought. + +Oh, how that chord vibrated, and how moved was something that was finest +in Rostov's soul! And this something was apart from everything else in +the world and above everything in the world. "What were losses, and +Dolokhov, and words of honor?... All nonsense! One might kill and rob +and yet be happy..." + + + + +CHAPTER XVI + +It was long since Rostov had felt such enjoyment from music as he did +that day. But no sooner had Natasha finished her barcarolle than reality +again presented itself. He got up without saying a word and went +downstairs to his own room. A quarter of an hour later the old count +came in from his club, cheerful and contented. Nicholas, hearing him +drive up, went to meet him. + +"Well--had a good time?" said the old count, smiling gaily and proudly +at his son. + +Nicholas tried to say "Yes," but could not: and he nearly burst into +sobs. The count was lighting his pipe and did not notice his son's +condition. + +"Ah, it can't be avoided!" thought Nicholas, for the first and last +time. And suddenly, in the most casual tone, which made him feel ashamed +of himself, he said, as if merely asking his father to let him have the +carriage to drive to town: + +"Papa, I have come on a matter of business. I was nearly forgetting. I +need some money." + +"Dear me!" said his father, who was in a specially good humor. "I told +you it would not be enough. How much?" + +"Very much," said Nicholas flushing, and with a stupid careless smile, +for which he was long unable to forgive himself, "I have lost a little, +I mean a good deal, a great deal--forty three thousand." + +"What! To whom?... Nonsense!" cried the count, suddenly reddening with +an apoplectic flush over neck and nape as old people do. + +"I promised to pay tomorrow," said Nicholas. + +"Well!..." said the old count, spreading out his arms and sinking +helplessly on the sofa. + +"It can't be helped It happens to everyone!" said the son, with a bold, +free, and easy tone, while in his soul he regarded himself as a +worthless scoundrel whose whole life could not atone for his crime. He +longed to kiss his father's hands and kneel to beg his forgiveness, but +said, in a careless and even rude voice, that it happens to everyone! + +The old count cast down his eyes on hearing his son's words and began +bustlingly searching for something. + +"Yes, yes," he muttered, "it will be difficult, I fear, difficult to +raise... happens to everybody! Yes, who has not done it?" + +And with a furtive glance at his son's face, the count went out of the +room.... Nicholas had been prepared for resistance, but had not at all +expected this. + +"Papa! Pa-pa!" he called after him, sobbing, "forgive me!" And seizing +his father's hand, he pressed it to his lips and burst into tears. + +While father and son were having their explanation, the mother and +daughter were having one not less important. Natasha came running to her +mother, quite excited. + +"Mamma!... Mamma!... He has made me..." + +"Made what?" + +"Made, made me an offer, Mamma! Mamma!" she exclaimed. + +The countess did not believe her ears. Denisov had proposed. To whom? To +this chit of a girl, Natasha, who not so long ago was playing with dolls +and who was still having lessons. + +"Don't, Natasha! What nonsense!" she said, hoping it was a joke. + +"Nonsense, indeed! I am telling you the fact," said Natasha indignantly. +"I come to ask you what to do, and you call it 'nonsense!'" + +The countess shrugged her shoulders. + +"If it is true that Monsieur Denisov has made you a proposal, tell him +he is a fool, that's all!" + +"No, he's not a fool!" replied Natasha indignantly and seriously. + +"Well then, what do you want? You're all in love nowadays. Well, if you +are in love, marry him!" said the countess, with a laugh of annoyance. +"Good luck to you!" + +"No, Mamma, I'm not in love with him, I suppose I'm not in love with +him." + +"Well then, tell him so." + +"Mamma, are you cross? Don't be cross, dear! Is it my fault?" + +"No, but what is it, my dear? Do you want me to go and tell him?" said +the countess smiling. + +"No, I will do it myself, only tell me what to say. It's all very well +for you," said Natasha, with a responsive smile. "You should have seen +how he said it! I know he did not mean to say it, but it came out +accidently." + +"Well, all the same, you must refuse him." + +"No, I mustn't. I am so sorry for him! He's so nice." + +"Well then, accept his offer. It's high time for you to be married," +answered the countess sharply and sarcastically. + +"No, Mamma, but I'm so sorry for him. I don't know how I'm to say it." + +"And there's nothing for you to say. I shall speak to him myself," said +the countess, indignant that they should have dared to treat this little +Natasha as grown up. + +"No, not on any account! I will tell him myself, and you'll listen at +the door," and Natasha ran across the drawing room to the dancing hall, +where Denisov was sitting on the same chair by the clavichord with his +face in his hands. + +He jumped up at the sound of her light step. + +"Nataly," he said, moving with rapid steps toward her, "decide my fate. +It is in your hands." + +"Vasili Dmitrich, I'm so sorry for you!... No, but you are so nice... +but it won't do...not that... but as a friend, I shall always love you." + +Denisov bent over her hand and she heard strange sounds she did not +understand. She kissed his rough curly black head. At this instant, they +heard the quick rustle of the countess' dress. She came up to them. + +"Vasili Dmitrich, I thank you for the honor," she said, with an +embarrassed voice, though it sounded severe to Denisov--"but my daughter +is so young, and I thought that, as my son's friend, you would have +addressed yourself first to me. In that case you would not have obliged +me to give this refusal." + +"Countess..." said Denisov, with downcast eyes and a guilty face. He +tried to say more, but faltered. + +Natasha could not remain calm, seeing him in such a plight. She began to +sob aloud. + +"Countess, I have done w'ong," Denisov went on in an unsteady voice, +"but believe me, I so adore your daughter and all your family that I +would give my life twice over..." He looked at the countess, and seeing +her severe face said: "Well, good-by, Countess," and kissing her hand, +he left the room with quick resolute strides, without looking at +Natasha. + +Next day Rostov saw Denisov off. He did not wish to stay another day in +Moscow. All Denisov's Moscow friends gave him a farewell entertainment +at the gypsies', with the result that he had no recollection of how he +was put in the sleigh or of the first three stages of his journey. + +After Denisov's departure, Rostov spent another fortnight in Moscow, +without going out of the house, waiting for the money his father could +not at once raise, and he spent most of his time in the girls' room. + +Sonya was more tender and devoted to him than ever. It was as if she +wanted to show him that his losses were an achievement that made her +love him all the more, but Nicholas now considered himself unworthy of +her. + +He filled the girls' albums with verses and music, and having at last +sent Dolokhov the whole forty-three thousand rubles and received his +receipt, he left at the end of November, without taking leave of any of +his acquaintances, to overtake his regiment which was already in Poland. + +BOOK FIVE: 1806 - 07 + + + + +CHAPTER I + +After his interview with his wife Pierre left for Petersburg. At the +Torzhok post station, either there were no horses or the postmaster +would not supply them. Pierre was obliged to wait. Without undressing, +he lay down on the leather sofa in front of a round table, put his big +feet in their overboots on the table, and began to reflect. + +"Will you have the portmanteaus brought in? And a bed got ready, and +tea?" asked his valet. + +Pierre gave no answer, for he neither heard nor saw anything. He had +begun to think of the last station and was still pondering on the same +question--one so important that he took no notice of what went on around +him. Not only was he indifferent as to whether he got to Petersburg +earlier or later, or whether he secured accommodation at this station, +but compared to the thoughts that now occupied him it was a matter of +indifference whether he remained there for a few hours or for the rest +of his life. + +The postmaster, his wife, the valet, and a peasant woman selling Torzhok +embroidery came into the room offering their services. Without changing +his careless attitude, Pierre looked at them over his spectacles unable +to understand what they wanted or how they could go on living without +having solved the problems that so absorbed him. He had been engrossed +by the same thoughts ever since the day he returned from Sokolniki after +the duel and had spent that first agonizing, sleepless night. But now, +in the solitude of the journey, they seized him with special force. No +matter what he thought about, he always returned to these same questions +which he could not solve and yet could not cease to ask himself. It was +as if the thread of the chief screw which held his life together were +stripped, so that the screw could not get in or out, but went on turning +uselessly in the same place. + +The postmaster came in and began obsequiously to beg his excellency to +wait only two hours, when, come what might, he would let his excellency +have the courier horses. It was plain that he was lying and only wanted +to get more money from the traveler. + +"Is this good or bad?" Pierre asked himself. "It is good for me, bad for +another traveler, and for himself it's unavoidable, because he needs +money for food; the man said an officer had once given him a thrashing +for letting a private traveler have the courier horses. But the officer +thrashed him because he had to get on as quickly as possible. And I," +continued Pierre, "shot Dolokhov because I considered myself injured, +and Louis XVI was executed because they considered him a criminal, and a +year later they executed those who executed him--also for some reason. +What is bad? What is good? What should one love and what hate? What does +one live for? And what am I? What is life, and what is death? What power +governs all?" + +There was no answer to any of these questions, except one, and that not +a logical answer and not at all a reply to them. The answer was: "You'll +die and all will end. You'll die and know all, or cease asking." But +dying was also dreadful. + +The Torzhok peddler woman, in a whining voice, went on offering her +wares, especially a pair of goatskin slippers. "I have hundreds of +rubles I don't know what to do with, and she stands in her tattered +cloak looking timidly at me," he thought. "And what does she want the +money for? As if that money could add a hair's breadth to happiness or +peace of mind. Can anything in the world make her or me less a prey to +evil and death?--death which ends all and must come today or tomorrow-- +at any rate, in an instant as compared with eternity." And again he +twisted the screw with the stripped thread, and again it turned +uselessly in the same place. + +His servant handed him a half-cut novel, in the form of letters, by +Madame de Souza. He began reading about the sufferings and virtuous +struggles of a certain Emilie de Mansfeld. "And why did she resist her +seducer when she loved him?" he thought. "God could not have put into +her heart an impulse that was against His will. My wife--as she once +was--did not struggle, and perhaps she was right. Nothing has been found +out, nothing discovered," Pierre again said to himself. "All we can know +is that we know nothing. And that's the height of human wisdom." + +Everything within and around him seemed confused, senseless, and +repellent. Yet in this very repugnance to all his circumstances Pierre +found a kind of tantalizing satisfaction. + +"I make bold to ask your excellency to move a little for this +gentleman," said the postmaster, entering the room followed by another +traveler, also detained for lack of horses. + +The newcomer was a short, large-boned, yellow-faced, wrinkled old man, +with gray bushy eyebrows overhanging bright eyes of an indefinite +grayish color. + +Pierre took his feet off the table, stood up, and lay down on a bed that +had been got ready for him, glancing now and then at the newcomer, who, +with a gloomy and tired face, was wearily taking off his wraps with the +aid of his servant, and not looking at Pierre. With a pair of felt boots +on his thin bony legs, and keeping on a worn, nankeen-covered, sheepskin +coat, the traveler sat down on the sofa, leaned back his big head with +its broad temples and close-cropped hair, and looked at Bezukhov. The +stern, shrewd, and penetrating expression of that look struck Pierre. He +felt a wish to speak to the stranger, but by the time he had made up his +mind to ask him a question about the roads, the traveler had closed his +eyes. His shriveled old hands were folded and on the finger of one of +them Pierre noticed a large cast iron ring with a seal representing a +death's head. The stranger sat without stirring, either resting or, as +it seemed to Pierre, sunk in profound and calm meditation. His servant +was also a yellow, wrinkled old man, without beard or mustache, +evidently not because he was shaven but because they had never grown. +This active old servant was unpacking the traveler's canteen and +preparing tea. He brought in a boiling samovar. When everything was +ready, the stranger opened his eyes, moved to the table, filled a +tumbler with tea for himself and one for the beardless old man to whom +he passed it. Pierre began to feel a sense of uneasiness, and the need, +even the inevitability, of entering into conversation with this +stranger. + +The servant brought back his tumbler turned upside down, * with an +unfinished bit of nibbled sugar, and asked if anything more would be +wanted. + + +* To indicate he did not want more tea. + +"No. Give me the book," said the stranger. + +The servant handed him a book which Pierre took to be a devotional work, +and the traveler became absorbed in it. Pierre looked at him. All at +once the stranger closed the book, putting in a marker, and again, +leaning with his arms on the back of the sofa, sat in his former +position with his eyes shut. Pierre looked at him and had not time to +turn away when the old man, opening his eyes, fixed his steady and +severe gaze straight on Pierre's face. + +Pierre felt confused and wished to avoid that look, but the bright old +eyes attracted him irresistibly. + + + + +CHAPTER II + +"I have the pleasure of addressing Count Bezukhov, if I am not +mistaken," said the stranger in a deliberate and loud voice. + +Pierre looked silently and inquiringly at him over his spectacles. + +"I have heard of you, my dear sir," continued the stranger, "and of your +misfortune." He seemed to emphasize the last word, as if to say--"Yes, +misfortune! Call it what you please, I know that what happened to you in +Moscow was a misfortune."--"I regret it very much, my dear sir." + +Pierre flushed and, hurriedly putting his legs down from the bed, bent +forward toward the old man with a forced and timid smile. + +"I have not referred to this out of curiosity, my dear sir, but for +greater reasons." + +He paused, his gaze still on Pierre, and moved aside on the sofa by way +of inviting the other to take a seat beside him. Pierre felt reluctant +to enter into conversation with this old man, but, submitting to him +involuntarily, came up and sat down beside him. + +"You are unhappy, my dear sir," the stranger continued. "You are young +and I am old. I should like to help you as far as lies in my power." + +"Oh, yes!" said Pierre, with a forced smile. "I am very grateful to you. +Where are you traveling from?" + +The stranger's face was not genial, it was even cold and severe, but in +spite of this, both the face and words of his new acquaintance were +irresistibly attractive to Pierre. + +"But if for reason you don't feel inclined to talk to me," said the old +man, "say so, my dear sir." And he suddenly smiled, in an unexpected and +tenderly paternal way. + +"Oh no, not at all! On the contrary, I am very glad to make your +acquaintance," said Pierre. And again, glancing at the stranger's hands, +he looked more closely at the ring, with its skull--a masonic sign. + +"Allow me to ask," he said, "are you a Mason?" + +"Yes, I belong to the Brotherhood of the Freemasons," said the stranger, +looking deeper and deeper into Pierre's eyes. "And in their name and my +own I hold out a brotherly hand to you." + +"I am afraid," said Pierre, smiling, and wavering between the confidence +the personality of the Freemason inspired in him and his own habit of +ridiculing the masonic beliefs--"I am afraid I am very far from +understanding--how am I to put it?--I am afraid my way of looking at the +world is so opposed to yours that we shall not understand one another." + +"I know your outlook," said the Mason, "and the view of life you +mention, and which you think is the result of your own mental efforts, +is the one held by the majority of people, and is the invariable fruit +of pride, indolence, and ignorance. Forgive me, my dear sir, but if I +had not known it I should not have addressed you. Your view of life is a +regrettable delusion." + +"Just as I may suppose you to be deluded," said Pierre, with a faint +smile. + +"I should never dare to say that I know the truth," said the Mason, +whose words struck Pierre more and more by their precision and firmness. +"No one can attain to truth by himself. Only by laying stone on stone +with the cooperation of all, by the millions of generations from our +forefather Adam to our own times, is that temple reared which is to be a +worthy dwelling place of the Great God," he added, and closed his eyes. + +"I ought to tell you that I do not believe... do not believe in God," +said Pierre, regretfully and with an effort, feeling it essential to +speak the whole truth. + +The Mason looked intently at Pierre and smiled as a rich man with +millions in hand might smile at a poor fellow who told him that he, poor +man, had not the five rubles that would make him happy. + +"Yes, you do not know Him, my dear sir," said the Mason. "You cannot +know Him. You do not know Him and that is why you are unhappy." + +"Yes, yes, I am unhappy," assented Pierre. "But what am I to do?" + +"You know Him not, my dear sir, and so you are very unhappy. You do not +know Him, but He is here, He is in me, He is in my words, He is in thee, +and even in those blasphemous words thou hast just uttered!" pronounced +the Mason in a stern and tremulous voice. + +He paused and sighed, evidently trying to calm himself. + +"If He were not," he said quietly, "you and I would not be speaking of +Him, my dear sir. Of what, of whom, are we speaking? Whom hast thou +denied?" he suddenly asked with exulting austerity and authority in his +voice. "Who invented Him, if He did not exist? Whence came thy +conception of the existence of such an incomprehensible Being? didst +thou, and why did the whole world, conceive the idea of the existence of +such an incomprehensible Being, a Being all-powerful, eternal, and +infinite in all His attributes?..." + +He stopped and remained silent for a long time. + +Pierre could not and did not wish to break this silence. + +"He exists, but to understand Him is hard," the Mason began again, +looking not at Pierre but straight before him, and turning the leaves of +his book with his old hands which from excitement he could not keep +still. "If it were a man whose existence thou didst doubt I could bring +him to thee, could take him by the hand and show him to thee. But how +can I, an insignificant mortal, show His omnipotence, His infinity, and +all His mercy to one who is blind, or who shuts his eyes that he may not +see or understand Him and may not see or understand his own vileness and +sinfulness?" He paused again. "Who art thou? Thou dreamest that thou art +wise because thou couldst utter those blasphemous words," he went on, +with a somber and scornful smile. "And thou art more foolish and +unreasonable than a little child, who, playing with the parts of a +skillfully made watch, dares to say that, as he does not understand its +use, he does not believe in the master who made it. To know Him is +hard.... For ages, from our forefather Adam to our own day, we labor to +attain that knowledge and are still infinitely far from our aim; but in +our lack of understanding we see only our weakness and His +greatness...." + +Pierre listened with swelling heart, gazing into the Mason's face with +shining eyes, not interrupting or questioning him, but believing with +his whole soul what the stranger said. Whether he accepted the wise +reasoning contained in the Mason's words, or believed as a child +believes, in the speaker's tone of conviction and earnestness, or the +tremor of the speaker's voice--which sometimes almost broke--or those +brilliant aged eyes grown old in this conviction, or the calm firmness +and certainty of his vocation, which radiated from his whole being (and +which struck Pierre especially by contrast with his own dejection and +hopelessness)--at any rate, Pierre longed with his whole soul to believe +and he did believe, and felt a joyful sense of comfort, regeneration, +and return to life. + +"He is not to be apprehended by reason, but by life," said the Mason. + +"I do not understand," said Pierre, feeling with dismay doubts +reawakening. He was afraid of any want of clearness, any weakness, in +the Mason's arguments; he dreaded not to be able to believe in him. "I +don't understand," he said, "how it is that the mind of man cannot +attain the knowledge of which you speak." + +The Mason smiled with his gentle fatherly smile. + +"The highest wisdom and truth are like the purest liquid we may wish to +imbibe," he said. "Can I receive that pure liquid into an impure vessel +and judge of its purity? Only by the inner purification of myself can I +retain in some degree of purity the liquid I receive." + +"Yes, yes, that is so," said Pierre joyfully. + +"The highest wisdom is not founded on reason alone, not on those worldly +sciences of physics, history, chemistry, and the like, into which +intellectual knowledge is divided. The highest wisdom is one. The +highest wisdom has but one science--the science of the whole--the +science explaining the whole creation and man's place in it. To receive +that science it is necessary to purify and renew one's inner self, and +so before one can know, it is necessary to believe and to perfect one's +self. And to attain this end, we have the light called conscience that +God has implanted in our souls." + +"Yes, yes," assented Pierre. + +"Look then at thy inner self with the eyes of the spirit, and ask +thyself whether thou art content with thyself. What hast thou attained +relying on reason only? What art thou? You are young, you are rich, you +are clever, you are well educated. And what have you done with all these +good gifts? Are you content with yourself and with your life?" + +"No, I hate my life," Pierre muttered, wincing. + +"Thou hatest it. Then change it, purify thyself; and as thou art +purified, thou wilt gain wisdom. Look at your life, my dear sir. How +have you spent it? In riotous orgies and debauchery, receiving +everything from society and giving nothing in return. You have become +the possessor of wealth. How have you used it? What have you done for +your neighbor? Have you ever thought of your tens of thousands of +slaves? Have you helped them physically and morally? No! You have +profited by their toil to lead a profligate life. That is what you have +done. Have you chosen a post in which you might be of service to your +neighbor? No! You have spent your life in idleness. Then you married, my +dear sir--took on yourself responsibility for the guidance of a young +woman; and what have you done? You have not helped her to find the way +of truth, my dear sir, but have thrust her into an abyss of deceit and +misery. A man offended you and you shot him, and you say you do not know +God and hate your life. There is nothing strange in that, my dear sir!" + +After these words, the Mason, as if tired by his long discourse, again +leaned his arms on the back of the sofa and closed his eyes. Pierre +looked at that aged, stern, motionless, almost lifeless face and moved +his lips without uttering a sound. He wished to say, "Yes, a vile, idle, +vicious life!" but dared not break the silence. + +The Mason cleared his throat huskily, as old men do, and called his +servant. + +"How about the horses?" he asked, without looking at Pierre. + +"The exchange horses have just come," answered the servant. "Will you +not rest here?" + +"No, tell them to harness." + +"Can he really be going away leaving me alone without having told me +all, and without promising to help me?" thought Pierre, rising with +downcast head; and he began to pace the room, glancing occasionally at +the Mason. "Yes, I never thought of it, but I have led a contemptible +and profligate life, though I did not like it and did not want to," +thought Pierre. "But this man knows the truth and, if he wished to, +could disclose it to me." + +Pierre wished to say this to the Mason, but did not dare to. The +traveler, having packed his things with his practiced hands, began +fastening his coat. When he had finished, he turned to Bezukhov, and +said in a tone of indifferent politeness: + +"Where are you going to now, my dear sir?" + +"I?... I'm going to Petersburg," answered Pierre, in a childlike, +hesitating voice. "I thank you. I agree with all you have said. But do +not suppose me to be so bad. With my whole soul I wish to be what you +would have me be, but I have never had help from anyone.... But it is I, +above all, who am to blame for everything. Help me, teach me, and +perhaps I may..." + +Pierre could not go on. He gulped and turned away. + +The Mason remained silent for a long time, evidently considering. + +"Help comes from God alone," he said, "but such measure of help as our +Order can bestow it will render you, my dear sir. You are going to +Petersburg. Hand this to Count Willarski" (he took out his notebook and +wrote a few words on a large sheet of paper folded in four). "Allow me +to give you a piece of advice. When you reach the capital, first of all +devote some time to solitude and self-examination and do not resume your +former way of life. And now I wish you a good journey, my dear sir," he +added, seeing that his servant had entered... "and success." + +The traveler was Joseph Alexeevich Bazdeev, as Pierre saw from the +postmaster's book. Bazdeev had been one of the best-known Freemasons and +Martinists, even in Novikov's time. For a long while after he had gone, +Pierre did not go to bed or order horses but paced up and down the room, +pondering over his vicious past, and with a rapturous sense of beginning +anew pictured to himself the blissful, irreproachable, virtuous future +that seemed to him so easy. It seemed to him that he had been vicious +only because he had somehow forgotten how good it is to be virtuous. Not +a trace of his former doubts remained in his soul. He firmly believed in +the possibility of the brotherhood of men united in the aim of +supporting one another in the path of virtue, and that is how +Freemasonry presented itself to him. + + + + +CHAPTER III + +On reaching Petersburg Pierre did not let anyone know of his arrival, he +went nowhere and spent whole days in reading Thomas a Kempis, whose book +had been sent him by someone unknown. One thing he continually realized +as he read that book: the joy, hitherto unknown to him, of believing in +the possibility of attaining perfection, and in the possibility of +active brotherly love among men, which Joseph Alexeevich had revealed to +him. A week after his arrival, the young Polish count, Willarski, whom +Pierre had known slightly in Petersburg society, came into his room one +evening in the official and ceremonious manner in which Dolokhov's +second had called on him, and, having closed the door behind him and +satisfied himself that there was nobody else in the room, addressed +Pierre. + +"I have come to you with a message and an offer, Count," he said without +sitting down. "A person of very high standing in our Brotherhood has +made application for you to be received into our Order before the usual +term and has proposed to me to be your sponsor. I consider it a sacred +duty to fulfill that person's wishes. Do you wish to enter the +Brotherhood of Freemasons under my sponsorship?" + +The cold, austere tone of this man, whom he had almost always before met +at balls, amiably smiling in the society of the most brilliant women, +surprised Pierre. + +"Yes, I do wish it," said he. + +Willarski bowed his head. + +"One more question, Count," he said, "which I beg you to answer in all +sincerity--not as a future Mason but as an honest man: have you +renounced your former convictions--do you believe in God?" + +Pierre considered. + +"Yes... yes, I believe in God," he said. + +"In that case..." began Willarski, but Pierre interrupted him. + +"Yes, I do believe in God," he repeated. + +"In that case we can go," said Willarski. "My carriage is at your +service." + +Willarski was silent throughout the drive. To Pierre's inquiries as to +what he must do and how he should answer, Willarski only replied that +brothers more worthy than he would test him and that Pierre had only to +tell the truth. + +Having entered the courtyard of a large house where the Lodge had its +headquarters, and having ascended a dark staircase, they entered a small +well-lit anteroom where they took off their cloaks without the aid of a +servant. From there they passed into another room. A man in strange +attire appeared at the door. Willarski, stepping toward him, said +something to him in French in an undertone and then went up to a small +wardrobe in which Pierre noticed garments such as he had never seen +before. Having taken a kerchief from the cupboard, Willarski bound +Pierre's eyes with it and tied it in a knot behind, catching some hairs +painfully in the knot. Then he drew his face down, kissed him, and +taking him by the hand led him forward. The hairs tied in the knot hurt +Pierre and there were lines of pain on his face and a shamefaced smile. +His huge figure, with arms hanging down and with a puckered, though +smiling face, moved after Willarski with uncertain, timid steps. + +Having led him about ten paces, Willarski stopped. + +"Whatever happens to you," he said, "you must bear it all manfully if +you have firmly resolved to join our Brotherhood." (Pierre nodded +affirmatively.) "When you hear a knock at the door, you will uncover +your eyes," added Willarski. "I wish you courage and success," and, +pressing Pierre's hand, he went out. + +Left alone, Pierre went on smiling in the same way. Once or twice he +shrugged his shoulders and raised his hand to the kerchief, as if +wishing to take it off, but let it drop again. The five minutes spent +with his eyes bandaged seemed to him an hour. His arms felt numb, his +legs almost gave way, it seemed to him that he was tired out. He +experienced a variety of most complex sensations. He felt afraid of what +would happen to him and still more afraid of showing his fear. He felt +curious to know what was going to happen and what would be revealed to +him; but most of all, he felt joyful that the moment had come when he +would at last start on that path of regeneration and on the actively +virtuous life of which he had been dreaming since he met Joseph +Alexeevich. Loud knocks were heard at the door. Pierre took the bandage +off his eyes and glanced around him. The room was in black darkness, +only a small lamp was burning inside something white. Pierre went nearer +and saw that the lamp stood on a black table on which lay an open book. +The book was the Gospel, and the white thing with the lamp inside was a +human skull with its cavities and teeth. After reading the first words +of the Gospel: "In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with +God," Pierre went round the table and saw a large open box filled with +something. It was a coffin with bones inside. He was not at all +surprised by what he saw. Hoping to enter on an entirely new life quite +unlike the old one, he expected everything to be unusual, even more +unusual than what he was seeing. A skull, a coffin, the Gospel--it +seemed to him that he had expected all this and even more. Trying to +stimulate his emotions he looked around. "God, death, love, the +brotherhood of man," he kept saying to himself, associating these words +with vague yet joyful ideas. The door opened and someone came in. + +By the dim light, to which Pierre had already become accustomed, he saw +a rather short man. Having evidently come from the light into the +darkness, the man paused, then moved with cautious steps toward the +table and placed on it his small leather-gloved hands. + +This short man had on a white leather apron which covered his chest and +part of his legs; he had on a kind of necklace above which rose a high +white ruffle, outlining his rather long face which was lit up from +below. + +"For what have you come hither?" asked the newcomer, turning in Pierre's +direction at a slight rustle made by the latter. "Why have you, who do +not believe in the truth of the light and who have not seen the light, +come here? What do you seek from us? Wisdom, virtue, enlightenment?" + +At the moment the door opened and the stranger came in, Pierre felt a +sense of awe and veneration such as he had experienced in his boyhood at +confession; he felt himself in the presence of one socially a complete +stranger, yet nearer to him through the brotherhood of man. With bated +breath and beating heart he moved toward the Rhetor (by which name the +brother who prepared a seeker for entrance into the Brotherhood was +known). Drawing nearer, he recognized in the Rhetor a man he knew, +Smolyaninov, and it mortified him to think that the newcomer was an +acquaintance--he wished him simply a brother and a virtuous instructor. +For a long time he could not utter a word, so that the Rhetor had to +repeat his question. + +"Yes... I... I... desire regeneration," Pierre uttered with difficulty. + +"Very well," said Smolyaninov, and went on at once: "Have you any idea +of the means by which our holy Order will help you to reach your aim?" +said he quietly and quickly. + +"I... hope... for guidance... help... in regeneration," said Pierre, +with a trembling voice and some difficulty in utterance due to his +excitement and to being unaccustomed to speak of abstract matters in +Russian. + +"What is your conception of Freemasonry?" + +"I imagine that Freemasonry is the fraternity and equality of men who +have virtuous aims," said Pierre, feeling ashamed of the inadequacy of +his words for the solemnity of the moment, as he spoke. "I imagine..." + +"Good!" said the Rhetor quickly, apparently satisfied with this answer. +"Have you sought for means of attaining your aim in religion?" + +"No, I considered it erroneous and did not follow it," said Pierre, so +softly that the Rhetor did not hear him and asked him what he was +saying. "I have been an atheist," answered Pierre. + +"You are seeking for truth in order to follow its laws in your life, +therefore you seek wisdom and virtue. Is that not so?" said the Rhetor, +after a moment's pause. + +"Yes, yes," assented Pierre. + +The Rhetor cleared his throat, crossed his gloved hands on his breast, +and began to speak. + +"Now I must disclose to you the chief aim of our Order," he said, "and +if this aim coincides with yours, you may enter our Brotherhood with +profit. The first and chief object of our Order, the foundation on which +it rests and which no human power can destroy, is the preservation and +handing on to posterity of a certain important mystery... which has come +down to us from the remotest ages, even from the first man--a mystery on +which perhaps the fate of mankind depends. But since this mystery is of +such a nature that nobody can know or use it unless he be prepared by +long and diligent self-purification, not everyone can hope to attain it +quickly. Hence we have a secondary aim, that of preparing our members as +much as possible to reform their hearts, to purify and enlighten their +minds, by means handed on to us by tradition from those who have striven +to attain this mystery, and thereby to render them capable of receiving +it. + +"By purifying and regenerating our members we try, thirdly, to improve +the whole human race, offering it in our members an example of piety and +virtue, and thereby try with all our might to combat the evil which +sways the world. Think this over and I will come to you again." + +"To combat the evil which sways the world..." Pierre repeated, and a +mental image of his future activity in this direction rose in his mind. +He imagined men such as he had himself been a fortnight ago, and he +addressed an edifying exhortation to them. He imagined to himself +vicious and unfortunate people whom he would assist by word and deed, +imagined oppressors whose victims he would rescue. Of the three objects +mentioned by the Rhetor, this last, that of improving mankind, +especially appealed to Pierre. The important mystery mentioned by the +Rhetor, though it aroused his curiosity, did not seem to him essential, +and the second aim, that of purifying and regenerating himself, did not +much interest him because at that moment he felt with delight that he +was already perfectly cured of his former faults and was ready for all +that was good. + +Half an hour later, the Rhetor returned to inform the seeker of the +seven virtues, corresponding to the seven steps of Solomon's temple, +which every Freemason should cultivate in himself. These virtues were: +1. Discretion, the keeping of the secrets of the Order. 2. Obedience to +those of higher ranks in the Order. 3. Morality. 4. Love of mankind. 5. +Courage. 6. Generosity. 7. The love of death. + +"In the seventh place, try, by the frequent thought of death," the +Rhetor said, "to bring yourself to regard it not as a dreaded foe, but +as a friend that frees the soul grown weary in the labors of virtue from +this distressful life, and leads it to its place of recompense and +peace." + +"Yes, that must be so," thought Pierre, when after these words the +Rhetor went away, leaving him to solitary meditation. "It must be so, +but I am still so weak that I love my life, the meaning of which is only +now gradually opening before me." But five of the other virtues which +Pierre recalled, counting them on his fingers, he felt already in his +soul: courage, generosity, morality, love of mankind, and especially +obedience--which did not even seem to him a virtue, but a joy. (He now +felt so glad to be free from his own lawlessness and to submit his will +to those who knew the indubitable truth.) He forgot what the seventh +virtue was and could not recall it. + +The third time the Rhetor came back more quickly and asked Pierre +whether he was still firm in his intention and determined to submit to +all that would be required of him. + +"I am ready for everything," said Pierre. + +"I must also inform you," said the Rhetor, "that our Order delivers its +teaching not in words only but also by other means, which may perhaps +have a stronger effect on the sincere seeker after wisdom and virtue +than mere words. This chamber with what you see therein should already +have suggested to your heart, if it is sincere, more than words could +do. You will perhaps also see in your further initiation a like method +of enlightenment. Our Order imitates the ancient societies that +explained their teaching by hieroglyphics. A hieroglyph," said the +Rhetor, "is an emblem of something not cognizable by the senses but +which possesses qualities resembling those of the symbol." + +Pierre knew very well what a hieroglyph was, but dared not speak. He +listened to the Rhetor in silence, feeling from all he said that his +ordeal was about to begin. + +"If you are resolved, I must begin your initiation," said the Rhetor +coming closer to Pierre. "In token of generosity I ask you to give me +all your valuables." + +"But I have nothing here," replied Pierre, supposing that he was asked +to give up all he possessed. + +"What you have with you: watch, money, rings...." + +Pierre quickly took out his purse and watch, but could not manage for +some time to get the wedding ring off his fat finger. When that had been +done, the Rhetor said: + +"In token of obedience, I ask you to undress." + +Pierre took off his coat, waistcoat, and left boot according to the +Rhetor's instructions. The Mason drew the shirt back from Pierre's left +breast, and stooping down pulled up the left leg of his trousers to +above the knee. Pierre hurriedly began taking off his right boot also +and was going to tuck up the other trouser leg to save this stranger the +trouble, but the Mason told him that was not necessary and gave him a +slipper for his left foot. With a childlike smile of embarrassment, +doubt, and self-derision, which appeared on his face against his will, +Pierre stood with his arms hanging down and legs apart, before his +brother Rhetor, and awaited his further commands. + +"And now, in token of candor, I ask you to reveal to me your chief +passion," said the latter. + +"My passion! I have had so many," replied Pierre. + +"That passion which more than all others caused you to waver on the path +of virtue," said the Mason. + +Pierre paused, seeking a reply. + +"Wine? Gluttony? Idleness? Laziness? Irritability? Anger? Women?" He +went over his vices in his mind, not knowing to which of them to give +the pre-eminence. + +"Women," he said in a low, scarcely audible voice. + +The Mason did not move and for a long time said nothing after this +answer. At last he moved up to Pierre and, taking the kerchief that lay +on the table, again bound his eyes. + +"For the last time I say to you--turn all your attention upon yourself, +put a bridle on your senses, and seek blessedness, not in passion but in +your own heart. The source of blessedness is not without us but +within...." + +Pierre had already long been feeling in himself that refreshing source +of blessedness which now flooded his heart with glad emotion. + + + + +CHAPTER IV + +Soon after this there came into the dark chamber to fetch Pierre, not +the Rhetor but Pierre's sponsor, Willarski, whom he recognized by his +voice. To fresh questions as to the firmness of his resolution Pierre +replied: "Yes, yes, I agree," and with a beaming, childlike smile, his +fat chest uncovered, stepping unevenly and timidly in one slippered and +one booted foot, he advanced, while Willarski held a sword to his bare +chest. He was conducted from that room along passages that turned +backwards and forwards and was at last brought to the doors of the +Lodge. Willarski coughed, he was answered by the masonic knock with +mallets, the doors opened before them. A bass voice (Pierre was still +blindfolded) questioned him as to who he was, when and where he was +born, and so on. Then he was again led somewhere still blindfolded, and +as they went along he was told allegories of the toils of his +pilgrimage, of holy friendship, of the Eternal Architect of the +universe, and of the courage with which he should endure toils and +dangers. During these wanderings, Pierre noticed that he was spoken of +now as the "Seeker," now as the "Sufferer," and now as the "Postulant," +to the accompaniment of various knockings with mallets and swords. As he +was being led up to some object he noticed a hesitation and uncertainty +among his conductors. He heard those around him disputing in whispers +and one of them insisting that he should be led along a certain carpet. +After that they took his right hand, placed it on something, and told +him to hold a pair of compasses to his left breast with the other hand +and to repeat after someone who read aloud an oath of fidelity to the +laws of the Order. The candles were then extinguished and some spirit +lighted, as Pierre knew by the smell, and he was told that he would now +see the lesser light. The bandage was taken off his eyes and, by the +faint light of the burning spirit, Pierre, as in a dream, saw several +men standing before him, wearing aprons like the Rhetor's and holding +swords in their hands pointed at his breast. Among them stood a man +whose white shirt was stained with blood. On seeing this, Pierre moved +forward with his breast toward the swords, meaning them to pierce it. +But the swords were drawn back from him and he was at once blindfolded +again. + +"Now thou hast seen the lesser light," uttered a voice. Then the candles +were relit and he was told that he would see the full light; the bandage +was again removed and more than ten voices said together: "Sic transit +gloria mundi." + +Pierre gradually began to recover himself and looked about at the room +and at the people in it. Round a long table covered with black sat some +twelve men in garments like those he had already seen. Some of them +Pierre had met in Petersburg society. In the President's chair sat a +young man he did not know, with a peculiar cross hanging from his neck. +On his right sat the Italian abbe whom Pierre had met at Anna Pavlovna's +two years before. There were also present a very distinguished dignitary +and a Swiss who had formerly been tutor at the Kuragins'. All maintained +a solemn silence, listening to the words of the President, who held a +mallet in his hand. Let into the wall was a star-shaped light. At one +side of the table was a small carpet with various figures worked upon +it, at the other was something resembling an altar on which lay a +Testament and a skull. Round it stood seven large candlesticks like +those used in churches. Two of the brothers led Pierre up to the altar, +placed his feet at right angles, and bade him lie down, saying that he +must prostrate himself at the Gates of the Temple. + +"He must first receive the trowel," whispered one of the brothers. + +"Oh, hush, please!" said another. + +Pierre, perplexed, looked round with his shortsighted eyes without +obeying, and suddenly doubts arose in his mind. "Where am I? What am I +doing? Aren't they laughing at me? Shan't I be ashamed to remember +this?" But these doubts only lasted a moment. Pierre glanced at the +serious faces of those around, remembered all he had already gone +through, and realized that he could not stop halfway. He was aghast at +his hesitation and, trying to arouse his former devotional feeling, +prostrated himself before the Gates of the Temple. And really, the +feeling of devotion returned to him even more strongly than before. When +he had lain there some time, he was told to get up, and a white leather +apron, such as the others wore, was put on him: he was given a trowel +and three pairs of gloves, and then the Grand Master addressed him. He +told him that he should try to do nothing to stain the whiteness of that +apron, which symbolized strength and purity; then of the unexplained +trowel, he told him to toil with it to cleanse his own heart from vice, +and indulgently to smooth with it the heart of his neighbor. As to the +first pair of gloves, a man's, he said that Pierre could not know their +meaning but must keep them. The second pair of man's gloves he was to +wear at the meetings, and finally of the third, a pair of women's +gloves, he said: "Dear brother, these woman's gloves are intended for +you too. Give them to the woman whom you shall honor most of all. This +gift will be a pledge of your purity of heart to her whom you select to +be your worthy helpmeet in Masonry." And after a pause, he added: "But +beware, dear brother, that these gloves do not deck hands that are +unclean." While the Grand Master said these last words it seemed to +Pierre that he grew embarrassed. Pierre himself grew still more +confused, blushed like a child till tears came to his eyes, began +looking about him uneasily, and an awkward pause followed. + +This silence was broken by one of the brethren, who led Pierre up to the +rug and began reading to him from a manuscript book an explanation of +all the figures on it: the sun, the moon, a hammer, a plumb line, a +trowel, a rough stone and a squared stone, a pillar, three windows, and +so on. Then a place was assigned to Pierre, he was shown the signs of +the Lodge, told the password, and at last was permitted to sit down. The +Grand Master began reading the statutes. They were very long, and +Pierre, from joy, agitation, and embarrassment, was not in a state to +understand what was being read. He managed to follow only the last words +of the statutes and these remained in his mind. + +"In our temples we recognize no other distinctions," read the Grand +Master, "but those between virtue and vice. Beware of making any +distinctions which may infringe equality. Fly to a brother's aid whoever +he may be, exhort him who goeth astray, raise him that falleth, never +bear malice or enmity toward thy brother. Be kindly and courteous. +Kindle in all hearts the flame of virtue. Share thy happiness with thy +neighbor, and may envy never dim the purity of that bliss. Forgive thy +enemy, do not avenge thyself except by doing him good. Thus fulfilling +the highest law thou shalt regain traces of the ancient dignity which +thou hast lost." + +He finished and, getting up, embraced and kissed Pierre, who, with tears +of joy in his eyes, looked round him, not knowing how to answer the +congratulations and greetings from acquaintances that met him on all +sides. He acknowledged no acquaintances but saw in all these men only +brothers, and burned with impatience to set to work with them. + +The Grand Master rapped with his mallet. All the Masons sat down in +their places, and one of them read an exhortation on the necessity of +humility. + +The Grand Master proposed that the last duty should be performed, and +the distinguished dignitary who bore the title of "Collector of Alms" +went round to all the brothers. Pierre would have liked to subscribe all +he had, but fearing that it might look like pride subscribed the same +amount as the others. + +The meeting was at an end, and on reaching home Pierre felt as if he had +returned from a long journey on which he had spent dozens of years, had +become completely changed, and had quite left behind his former habits +and way of life. + + + + +CHAPTER V + +The day after he had been received into the Lodge, Pierre was sitting at +home reading a book and trying to fathom the significance of the Square, +one side of which symbolized God, another moral things, a third physical +things, and the fourth a combination of these. Now and then his +attention wandered from the book and the Square and he formed in +imagination a new plan of life. On the previous evening at the Lodge, he +had heard that a rumor of his duel had reached the Emperor and that it +would be wiser for him to leave Petersburg. Pierre proposed going to his +estates in the south and there attending to the welfare of his serfs. He +was joyfully planning this new life, when Prince Vasili suddenly entered +the room. + +"My dear fellow, what have you been up to in Moscow? Why have you +quarreled with Helene, mon cher? You are under a delusion," said Prince +Vasili, as he entered. "I know all about it, and I can tell you +positively that Helene is as innocent before you as Christ was before +the Jews." + +Pierre was about to reply, but Prince Vasili interrupted him. + +"And why didn't you simply come straight to me as to a friend? I know +all about it and understand it all," he said. "You behaved as becomes a +man who values his honor, perhaps too hastily, but we won't go into +that. But consider the position in which you are placing her and me in +the eyes of society, and even of the court," he added, lowering his +voice. "She is living in Moscow and you are here. Remember, dear boy," +and he drew Pierre's arm downwards, "it is simply a misunderstanding. I +expect you feel it so yourself. Let us write her a letter at once, and +she'll come here and all will be explained, or else, my dear boy, let me +tell you it's quite likely you'll have to suffer for it." + +Prince Vasili gave Pierre a significant look. + +"I know from reliable sources that the Dowager Empress is taking a keen +interest in the whole affair. You know she is very gracious to Helene." + +Pierre tried several times to speak, but, on one hand, Prince Vasili did +not let him and, on the other, Pierre himself feared to begin to speak +in the tone of decided refusal and disagreement in which he had firmly +resolved to answer his father-in-law. Moreover, the words of the masonic +statutes, "be kindly and courteous," recurred to him. He blinked, went +red, got up and sat down again, struggling with himself to do what was +for him the most difficult thing in life--to say an unpleasant thing to +a man's face, to say what the other, whoever he might be, did not +expect. He was so used to submitting to Prince Vasili's tone of careless +self-assurance that he felt he would be unable to withstand it now, but +he also felt that on what he said now his future depended--whether he +would follow the same old road, or that new path so attractively shown +him by the Masons, on which he firmly believed he would be reborn to a +new life. + +"Now, dear boy," said Prince Vasili playfully, "say 'yes,' and I'll +write to her myself, and we will kill the fatted calf." + +But before Prince Vasili had finished his playful speech, Pierre, +without looking at him, and with a kind of fury that made him like his +father, muttered in a whisper: + +"Prince, I did not ask you here. Go, please go!" And he jumped up and +opened the door for him. + +"Go!" he repeated, amazed at himself and glad to see the look of +confusion and fear that showed itself on Prince Vasili's face. + +"What's the matter with you? Are you ill?" + +"Go!" the quivering voice repeated. And Prince Vasili had to go without +receiving any explanation. + +A week later, Pierre, having taken leave of his new friends, the Masons, +and leaving large sums of money with them for alms, went away to his +estates. His new brethren gave him letters to the Kiev and Odessa Masons +and promised to write to him and guide him in his new activity. + + + + +CHAPTER VI + +The duel between Pierre and Dolokhov was hushed up and, in spite of the +Emperor's severity regarding duels at that time, neither the principals +nor their seconds suffered for it. But the story of the duel, confirmed +by Pierre's rupture with his wife, was the talk of society. Pierre who +had been regarded with patronizing condescension when he was an +illegitimate son, and petted and extolled when he was the best match in +Russia, had sunk greatly in the esteem of society after his marriage-- +when the marriageable daughters and their mothers had nothing to hope +from him--especially as he did not know how, and did not wish, to court +society's favor. Now he alone was blamed for what had happened, he was +said to be insanely jealous and subject like his father to fits of +bloodthirsty rage. And when after Pierre's departure Helene returned to +Petersburg, she was received by all her acquaintances not only +cordially, but even with a shade of deference due to her misfortune. +When conversation turned on her husband Helene assumed a dignified +expression, which with characteristic tact she had acquired though she +did not understand its significance. This expression suggested that she +had resolved to endure her troubles uncomplainingly and that her husband +was a cross laid upon her by God. Prince Vasili expressed his opinion +more openly. He shrugged his shoulders when Pierre was mentioned and, +pointing to his forehead, remarked: + +"A bit touched--I always said so." + +"I said from the first," declared Anna Pavlovna referring to Pierre, "I +said at the time and before anyone else" (she insisted on her priority) +"that that senseless young man was spoiled by the depraved ideas of +these days. I said so even at the time when everybody was in raptures +about him, when he had just returned from abroad, and when, if you +remember, he posed as a sort of Marat at one of my soirees. And how has +it ended? I was against this marriage even then and foretold all that +has happened." + +Anna Pavlovna continued to give on free evenings the same kind of +soirees as before--such as she alone had the gift of arranging--at which +was to be found "the cream of really good society, the bloom of the +intellectual essence of Petersburg," as she herself put it. Besides this +refined selection of society Anna Pavlovna's receptions were also +distinguished by the fact that she always presented some new and +interesting person to the visitors and that nowhere else was the state +of the political thermometer of legitimate Petersburg court society so +dearly and distinctly indicated. + +Toward the end of 1806, when all the sad details of Napoleon's +destruction of the Prussian army at Jena and Auerstadt and the surrender +of most of the Prussian fortresses had been received, when our troops +had already entered Prussia and our second war with Napoleon was +beginning, Anna Pavlovna gave one of her soirees. The "cream of really +good society" consisted of the fascinating Helene, forsaken by her +husband, Mortemart, the delightful Prince Hippolyte who had just +returned from Vienna, two diplomatists, the old aunt, a young man +referred to in that drawing room as "a man of great merit" (un homme de +beaucoup de merite), a newly appointed maid of honor and her mother, and +several other less noteworthy persons. + +The novelty Anna Pavlovna was setting before her guests that evening was +Boris Drubetskoy, who had just arrived as a special messenger from the +Prussian army and was aide-de-camp to a very important personage. + +The temperature shown by the political thermometer to the company that +evening was this: + +"Whatever the European sovereigns and commanders may do to countenance +Bonaparte, and to cause me, and us in general, annoyance and +mortification, our opinion of Bonaparte cannot alter. We shall not cease +to express our sincere views on that subject, and can only say to the +King of Prussia and others: 'So much the worse for you. Tu l'as voulu, +George Dandin,' that's all we have to say about it!" + +When Boris, who was to be served up to the guests, entered the drawing +room, almost all the company had assembled, and the conversation, guided +by Anna Pavlovna, was about our diplomatic relations with Austria and +the hope of an alliance with her. + +Boris, grown more manly and looking fresh, rosy and self-possessed, +entered the drawing room elegantly dressed in the uniform of an aide-de- +camp and was duly conducted to pay his respects to the aunt and then +brought back to the general circle. + +Anna Pavlovna gave him her shriveled hand to kiss and introduced him to +several persons whom he did not know, giving him a whispered description +of each. + +"Prince Hippolyte Kuragin, M. Krug, the charge d'affaires from +Copenhagen--a profound intellect," and simply, "Mr. Shitov--a man of +great merit"--this of the man usually so described. + +Thanks to Anna Mikhaylovna's efforts, his own tastes, and the +peculiarities of his reserved nature, Boris had managed during his +service to place himself very advantageously. He was aide-de-camp to a +very important personage, had been sent on a very important mission to +Prussia, and had just returned from there as a special messenger. He had +become thoroughly conversant with that unwritten code with which he had +been so pleased at Olmutz and according to which an ensign might rank +incomparably higher than a general, and according to which what was +needed for success in the service was not effort or work, or courage, or +perseverance, but only the knowledge of how to get on with those who can +grant rewards, and he was himself often surprised at the rapidity of his +success and at the inability of others to understand these things. In +consequence of this discovery his whole manner of life, all his +relations with old friends, all his plans for his future, were +completely altered. He was not rich, but would spend his last groat to +be better dressed than others, and would rather deprive himself of many +pleasures than allow himself to be seen in a shabby equipage or appear +in the streets of Petersburg in an old uniform. He made friends with and +sought the acquaintance of only those above him in position and who +could therefore be of use to him. He liked Petersburg and despised +Moscow. The remembrance of the Rostovs' house and of his childish love +for Natasha was unpleasant to him and he had not once been to see the +Rostovs since the day of his departure for the army. To be in Anna +Pavlovna's drawing room he considered an important step up in the +service, and he at once understood his role, letting his hostess make +use of whatever interest he had to offer. He himself carefully scanned +each face, appraising the possibilities of establishing intimacy with +each of those present, and the advantages that might accrue. He took the +seat indicated to him beside the fair Helene and listened to the general +conversation. + +"Vienna considers the bases of the proposed treaty so unattainable that +not even a continuity of most brilliant successes would secure them, and +she doubts the means we have of gaining them. That is the actual phrase +used by the Vienna cabinet," said the Danish charge d'affaires. + +"The doubt is flattering," said "the man of profound intellect," with a +subtle smile. + +"We must distinguish between the Vienna cabinet and the Emperor of +Austria," said Mortemart. "The Emperor of Austria can never have thought +of such a thing, it is only the cabinet that says it." + +"Ah, my dear vicomte," put in Anna Pavlovna, "L'Urope" (for some reason +she called it Urope as if that were a specially refined French +pronunciation which she could allow herself when conversing with a +Frenchman), "L'Urope ne sera jamais notre alliee sincere." * + + +* "Europe will never be our sincere ally." + +After that Anna Pavlovna led up to the courage and firmness of the King +of Prussia, in order to draw Boris into the conversation. + +Boris listened attentively to each of the speakers, awaiting his turn, +but managed meanwhile to look round repeatedly at his neighbor, the +beautiful Helene, whose eyes several times met those of the handsome +young aide-de-camp with a smile. + +Speaking of the position of Prussia, Anna Pavlovna very naturally asked +Boris to tell them about his journey to Glogau and in what state he +found the Prussian army. Boris, speaking with deliberation, told them in +pure, correct French many interesting details about the armies and the +court, carefully abstaining from expressing an opinion of his own about +the facts he was recounting. For some time he engrossed the general +attention, and Anna Pavlovna felt that the novelty she had served up was +received with pleasure by all her visitors. The greatest attention of +all to Boris' narrative was shown by Helene. She asked him several +questions about his journey and seemed greatly interested in the state +of the Prussian army. As soon as he had finished she turned to him with +her usual smile. + +"You absolutely must come and see me," she said in a tone that implied +that, for certain considerations he could not know of, this was +absolutely necessary. + +"On Tuesday between eight and nine. It will give me great pleasure." + +Boris promised to fulfill her wish and was about to begin a conversation +with her, when Anna Pavlovna called him away on the pretext that her +aunt wished to hear him. + +"You know her husband, of course?" said Anna Pavlovna, closing her eyes +and indicating Helene with a sorrowful gesture. "Ah, she is such an +unfortunate and charming woman! Don't mention him before her--please +don't! It is too painful for her!" + + + + +CHAPTER VII + +When Boris and Anna Pavlovna returned to the others Prince Hippolyte had +the ear of the company. + +Bending forward in his armchair he said: "Le Roi de Prusse!" and having +said this laughed. Everyone turned toward him. + +"Le Roi de Prusse?" Hippolyte said interrogatively, again laughing, and +then calmly and seriously sat back in his chair. Anna Pavlovna waited +for him to go on, but as he seemed quite decided to say no more she +began to tell of how at Potsdam the impious Bonaparte had stolen the +sword of Frederick the Great. + +"It is the sword of Frederick the Great which I..." she began, but +Hippolyte interrupted her with the words: "Le Roi de Prusse..." and +again, as soon as all turned toward him, excused himself and said no +more. + +Anna Pavlovna frowned. Mortemart, Hippolyte's friend, addressed him +firmly. + +"Come now, what about your Roi de Prusse?" + +Hippolyte laughed as if ashamed of laughing. + +"Oh, it's nothing. I only wished to say..." (he wanted to repeat a joke +he had heard in Vienna and which he had been trying all that evening to +get in) "I only wished to say that we are wrong to fight pour le Roi de +Prusse!" + +Boris smiled circumspectly, so that it might be taken as ironical or +appreciative according to the way the joke was received. Everybody +laughed. + +"Your joke is too bad, it's witty but unjust," said Anna Pavlovna, +shaking her little shriveled finger at him. + +"We are not fighting pour le Roi de Prusse, but for right principles. +Oh, that wicked Prince Hippolyte!" she said. + +The conversation did not flag all evening and turned chiefly on the +political news. It became particularly animated toward the end of the +evening when the rewards bestowed by the Emperor were mentioned. + +"You know N-- N-- received a snuffbox with the portrait last year?" said +"the man of profound intellect." "Why shouldn't S-- S-- get the same +distinction?" + +"Pardon me! A snuffbox with the Emperor's portrait is a reward but not a +distinction," said the diplomatist--"a gift, rather." + +"There are precedents, I may mention Schwarzenberg." + +"It's impossible," replied another. + +"Will you bet? The ribbon of the order is a different matter...." + +When everybody rose to go, Helene who had spoken very little all the +evening again turned to Boris, asking him in a tone of caressing +significant command to come to her on Tuesday. + +"It is of great importance to me," she said, turning with a smile toward +Anna Pavlovna, and Anna Pavlovna, with the same sad smile with which she +spoke of her exalted patroness, supported Helene's wish. + +It seemed as if from some words Boris had spoken that evening about the +Prussian army, Helene had suddenly found it necessary to see him. She +seemed to promise to explain that necessity to him when he came on +Tuesday. + +But on Tuesday evening, having come to Helene's splendid salon, Boris +received no clear explanation of why it had been necessary for him to +come. There were other guests and the countess talked little to him, and +only as he kissed her hand on taking leave said unexpectedly and in a +whisper, with a strangely unsmiling face: "Come to dinner tomorrow... in +the evening. You must come.... Come!" + +During that stay in Petersburg, Boris became an intimate in the +countess' house. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII + +The war was flaming up and nearing the Russian frontier. Everywhere one +heard curses on Bonaparte, "the enemy of mankind." Militiamen and +recruits were being enrolled in the villages, and from the seat of war +came contradictory news, false as usual and therefore variously +interpreted. The life of old Prince Bolkonski, Prince Andrew, and +Princess Mary had greatly changed since 1805. + +In 1806 the old prince was made one of the eight commanders in chief +then appointed to supervise the enrollment decreed throughout Russia. +Despite the weakness of age, which had become particularly noticeable +since the time when he thought his son had been killed, he did not think +it right to refuse a duty to which he had been appointed by the Emperor +himself, and this fresh opportunity for action gave him new energy and +strength. He was continually traveling through the three provinces +entrusted to him, was pedantic in the fulfillment of his duties, severe +to cruel with his subordinates, and went into everything down to the +minutest details himself. Princess Mary had ceased taking lessons in +mathematics from her father, and when the old prince was at home went to +his study with the wet nurse and little Prince Nicholas (as his +grandfather called him). The baby Prince Nicholas lived with his wet +nurse and nurse Savishna in the late princess' rooms and Princess Mary +spent most of the day in the nursery, taking a mother's place to her +little nephew as best she could. Mademoiselle Bourienne, too, seemed +passionately fond of the boy, and Princess Mary often deprived herself +to give her friend the pleasure of dandling the little angel--as she +called her nephew--and playing with him. + +Near the altar of the church at Bald Hills there was a chapel over the +tomb of the little princess, and in this chapel was a marble monument +brought from Italy, representing an angel with outspread wings ready to +fly upwards. The angel's upper lip was slightly raised as though about +to smile, and once on coming out of the chapel Prince Andrew and +Princess Mary admitted to one another that the angel's face reminded +them strangely of the little princess. But what was still stranger, +though of this Prince Andrew said nothing to his sister, was that in the +expression the sculptor had happened to give the angel's face, Prince +Andrew read the same mild reproach he had read on the face of his dead +wife: "Ah, why have you done this to me?" + +Soon after Prince Andrew's return the old prince made over to him a +large estate, Bogucharovo, about twenty-five miles from Bald Hills. +Partly because of the depressing memories associated with Bald Hills, +partly because Prince Andrew did not always feel equal to bearing with +his father's peculiarities, and partly because he needed solitude, +Prince Andrew made use of Bogucharovo, began building and spent most of +his time there. + +After the Austerlitz campaign Prince Andrew had firmly resolved not to +continue his military service, and when the war recommenced and +everybody had to serve, he took a post under his father in the +recruitment so as to avoid active service. The old prince and his son +seemed to have changed roles since the campaign of 1805. The old man, +roused by activity, expected the best results from the new campaign, +while Prince Andrew on the contrary, taking no part in the war and +secretly regretting this, saw only the dark side. + +On February 26, 1807, the old prince set off on one of his circuits. +Prince Andrew remained at Bald Hills as usual during his father's +absence. Little Nicholas had been unwell for four days. The coachman who +had driven the old prince to town returned bringing papers and letters +for Prince Andrew. + +Not finding the young prince in his study the valet went with the +letters to Princess Mary's apartments, but did not find him there. He +was told that the prince had gone to the nursery. + +"If you please, your excellency, Petrusha has brought some papers," said +one of the nursemaids to Prince Andrew who was sitting on a child's +little chair while, frowning and with trembling hands, he poured drops +from a medicine bottle into a wineglass half full of water. + +"What is it?" he said crossly, and, his hand shaking unintentionally, he +poured too many drops into the glass. He threw the mixture onto the +floor and asked for some more water. The maid brought it. + +There were in the room a child's cot, two boxes, two armchairs, a table, +a child's table, and the little chair on which Prince Andrew was +sitting. The curtains were drawn, and a single candle was burning on the +table, screened by a bound music book so that the light did not fall on +the cot. + +"My dear," said Princess Mary, addressing her brother from beside the +cot where she was standing, "better wait a bit... later..." + +"Oh, leave off, you always talk nonsense and keep putting things off-- +and this is what comes of it!" said Prince Andrew in an exasperated +whisper, evidently meaning to wound his sister. + +"My dear, really... it's better not to wake him... he's asleep," said +the princess in a tone of entreaty. + +Prince Andrew got up and went on tiptoe up to the little bed, wineglass +in hand. + +"Perhaps we'd really better not wake him," he said hesitating. + +"As you please... really... I think so... but as you please," said +Princess Mary, evidently intimidated and confused that her opinion had +prevailed. She drew her brother's attention to the maid who was calling +him in a whisper. + +It was the second night that neither of them had slept, watching the boy +who was in a high fever. These last days, mistrusting their household +doctor and expecting another for whom they had sent to town, they had +been trying first one remedy and then another. Worn out by sleeplessness +and anxiety they threw their burden of sorrow on one another and +reproached and disputed with each other. + +"Petrusha has come with papers from your father," whispered the maid. + +Prince Andrew went out. + +"Devil take them!" he muttered, and after listening to the verbal +instructions his father had sent and taking the correspondence and his +father's letter, he returned to the nursery. + +"Well?" he asked. + +"Still the same. Wait, for heaven's sake. Karl Ivanich always says that +sleep is more important than anything," whispered Princess Mary with a +sigh. + +Prince Andrew went up to the child and felt him. He was burning hot. + +"Confound you and your Karl Ivanich!" He took the glass with the drops +and again went up to the cot. + +"Andrew, don't!" said Princess Mary. + +But he scowled at her angrily though also with suffering in his eyes, +and stooped glass in hand over the infant. + +"But I wish it," he said. "I beg you--give it him!" + +Princess Mary shrugged her shoulders but took the glass submissively and +calling the nurse began giving the medicine. The child screamed +hoarsely. Prince Andrew winced and, clutching his head, went out and sat +down on a sofa in the next room. + +He still had all the letters in his hand. Opening them mechanically he +began reading. The old prince, now and then using abbreviations, wrote +in his large elongated hand on blue paper as follows: + +Have just this moment received by special messenger very joyful news--if +it's not false. Bennigsen seems to have obtained a complete victory over +Buonaparte at Eylau. In Petersburg everyone is rejoicing, and the +rewards sent to the army are innumerable. Though he is a German--I +congratulate him! I can't make out what the commander at Korchevo--a +certain Khandrikov--is up to; till now the additional men and provisions +have not arrived. Gallop off to him at once and say I'll have his head +off if everything is not here in a week. Have received another letter +about the Preussisch-Eylau battle from Petenka--he took part in it--and +it's all true. When mischief-makers don't meddle even a German beats +Buonaparte. He is said to be fleeing in great disorder. Mind you gallop +off to Korchevo without delay and carry out instructions! + +Prince Andrew sighed and broke the seal of another envelope. It was a +closely written letter of two sheets from Bilibin. He folded it up +without reading it and reread his father's letter, ending with the +words: "Gallop off to Korchevo and carry out instructions!" + +"No, pardon me, I won't go now till the child is better," thought he, +going to the door and looking into the nursery. + +Princess Mary was still standing by the cot, gently rocking the baby. + +"Ah yes, and what else did he say that's unpleasant?" thought Prince +Andrew, recalling his father's letter. "Yes, we have gained a victory +over Bonaparte, just when I'm not serving. Yes, yes, he's always poking +fun at me.... Ah, well! Let him!" And he began reading Bilibin's letter +which was written in French. He read without understanding half of it, +read only to forget, if but for a moment, what he had too long been +thinking of so painfully to the exclusion of all else. + + + + +CHAPTER IX + +Bilibin was now at army headquarters in a diplomatic capacity, and +though he wrote in French and used French jests and French idioms, he +described the whole campaign with a fearless self-censure and self- +derision genuinely Russian. Bilibin wrote that the obligation of +diplomatic discretion tormented him, and he was happy to have in Prince +Andrew a reliable correspondent to whom he could pour out the bile he +had accumulated at the sight of all that was being done in the army. The +letter was old, having been written before the battle at Preussisch- +Eylau. + +"Since the day of our brilliant success at Austerlitz," wrote Bilibin, +"as you know, my dear prince, I never leave headquarters. I have +certainly acquired a taste for war, and it is just as well for me; what +I have seen during these last three months is incredible. + +"I begin ab ovo. 'The enemy of the human race,' as you know, attacks the +Prussians. The Prussians are our faithful allies who have only betrayed +us three times in three years. We take up their cause, but it turns out +that 'the enemy of the human race' pays no heed to our fine speeches and +in his rude and savage way throws himself on the Prussians without +giving them time to finish the parade they had begun, and in two twists +of the hand he breaks them to smithereens and installs himself in the +palace at Potsdam. + +"'I most ardently desire,' writes the King of Prussia to Bonaparte, +'that Your Majesty should be received and treated in my palace in a +manner agreeable to yourself, and in so far as circumstances allowed, I +have hastened to take all steps to that end. May I have succeeded!' The +Prussian generals pride themselves on being polite to the French and lay +down their arms at the first demand. + +"The head of the garrison at Glogau, with ten thousand men, asks the +King of Prussia what he is to do if he is summoned to surrender.... All +this is absolutely true. + +"In short, hoping to settle matters by taking up a warlike attitude, it +turns out that we have landed ourselves in war, and what is more, in war +on our own frontiers, with and for the King of Prussia. We have +everything in perfect order, only one little thing is lacking, namely, a +commander in chief. As it was considered that the Austerlitz success +might have been more decisive had the commander-in-chief not been so +young, all our octogenarians were reviewed, and of Prozorovski and +Kamenski the latter was preferred. The general comes to us, Suvorov- +like, in a kibitka, and is received with acclamations of joy and +triumph. + +"On the 4th, the first courier arrives from Petersburg. The mails are +taken to the field marshal's room, for he likes to do everything +himself. I am called in to help sort the letters and take those meant +for us. The field marshal looks on and waits for letters addressed to +him. We search, but none are to be found. The field marshal grows +impatient and sets to work himself and finds letters from the Emperor to +Count T., Prince V., and others. Then he bursts into one of his wild +furies and rages at everyone and everything, seizes the letters, opens +them, and reads those from the Emperor addressed to others. 'Ah! So +that's the way they treat me! No confidence in me! Ah, ordered to keep +an eye on me! Very well then! Get along with you!' So he writes the +famous order of the day to General Bennigsen: + +'I am wounded and cannot ride and consequently cannot command the army. +You have brought your army corps to Pultusk, routed: here it is exposed, +and without fuel or forage, so something must be done, and, as you +yourself reported to Count Buxhowden yesterday, you must think of +retreating to our frontier--which do today.' + +"'From all my riding,' he writes to the Emperor, 'I have got a saddle +sore which, coming after all my previous journeys, quite prevents my +riding and commanding so vast an army, so I have passed on the command +to the general next in seniority, Count Buxhowden, having sent him my +whole staff and all that belongs to it, advising him if there is a lack +of bread, to move farther into the interior of Prussia, for only one +day's ration of bread remains, and in some regiments none at all, as +reported by the division commanders, Ostermann and Sedmoretzki, and all +that the peasants had has been eaten up. I myself will remain in +hospital at Ostrolenka till I recover. In regard to which I humbly +submit my report, with the information that if the army remains in its +present bivouac another fortnight there will not be a healthy man left +in it by spring. + +"'Grant leave to retire to his country seat to an old man who is already +in any case dishonored by being unable to fulfill the great and glorious +task for which he was chosen. I shall await your most gracious +permission here in hospital, that I may not have to play the part of a +secretary rather than commander in the army. My removal from the army +does not produce the slightest stir--a blind man has left it. There are +thousands such as I in Russia.' + +"The field marshal is angry with the Emperor and he punishes us all, +isn't it logical? + +"This is the first act. Those that follow are naturally increasingly +interesting and entertaining. After the field marshal's departure it +appears that we are within sight of the enemy and must give battle. +Buxhowden is commander-in-chief by seniority, but General Bennigsen does +not quite see it; more particularly as it is he and his corps who are +within sight of the enemy and he wishes to profit by the opportunity to +fight a battle 'on his own hand' as the Germans say. He does so. This is +the battle of Pultusk, which is considered a great victory but in my +opinion was nothing of the kind. We civilians, as you know, have a very +bad way of deciding whether a battle was won or lost. Those who retreat +after a battle have lost it is what we say; and according to that it is +we who lost the battle of Pultusk. In short, we retreat after the battle +but send a courier to Petersburg with news of a victory, and General +Bennigsen, hoping to receive from Petersburg the post of commander in +chief as a reward for his victory, does not give up the command of the +army to General Buxhowden. During this interregnum we begin a very +original and interesting series of maneuvers. Our aim is no longer, as +it should be, to avoid or attack the enemy, but solely to avoid General +Buxhowden who by right of seniority should be our chief. So +energetically do we pursue this aim that after crossing an unfordable +river we burn the bridges to separate ourselves from our enemy, who at +the moment is not Bonaparte but Buxhowden. General Buxhowden was all but +attacked and captured by a superior enemy force as a result of one of +these maneuvers that enabled us to escape him. Buxhowden pursues us--we +scuttle. He hardly crosses the river to our side before we recross to +the other. At last our enemy, Buxhowden, catches us and attacks. Both +generals are angry, and the result is a challenge on Buxhowden's part +and an epileptic fit on Bennigsen's. But at the critical moment the +courier who carried the news of our victory at Pultusk to Petersburg +returns bringing our appointment as commander-in-chief, and our first +foe, Buxhowden, is vanquished; we can now turn our thoughts to the +second, Bonaparte. But as it turns out, just at that moment a third +enemy rises before us--namely the Orthodox Russian soldiers, loudly +demanding bread, meat, biscuits, fodder, and whatnot! The stores are +empty, the roads impassable. The Orthodox begin looting, and in a way of +which our last campaign can give you no idea. Half the regiments form +bands and scour the countryside and put everything to fire and sword. +The inhabitants are totally ruined, the hospitals overflow with sick, +and famine is everywhere. Twice the marauders even attack our +headquarters, and the commander-in-chief has to ask for a battalion to +disperse them. During one of these attacks they carried off my empty +portmanteau and my dressing gown. The Emperor proposes to give all +commanders of divisions the right to shoot marauders, but I much fear +this will oblige one half the army to shoot the other." + +At first Prince Andrew read with his eyes only, but after a while, in +spite of himself (although he knew how far it was safe to trust +Bilibin), what he had read began to interest him more and more. When he +had read thus far, he crumpled the letter up and threw it away. It was +not what he had read that vexed him, but the fact that the life out +there in which he had now no part could perturb him. He shut his eyes, +rubbed his forehead as if to rid himself of all interest in what he had +read, and listened to what was passing in the nursery. Suddenly he +thought he heard a strange noise through the door. He was seized with +alarm lest something should have happened to the child while he was +reading the letter. He went on tiptoe to the nursery door and opened it. + +Just as he went in he saw that the nurse was hiding something from him +with a scared look and that Princess Mary was no longer by the cot. + +"My dear," he heard what seemed to him her despairing whisper behind +him. + +As often happens after long sleeplessness and long anxiety, he was +seized by an unreasoning panic--it occurred to him that the child was +dead. All that he saw and heard seemed to confirm this terror. + +"All is over," he thought, and a cold sweat broke out on his forehead. +He went to the cot in confusion, sure that he would find it empty and +that the nurse had been hiding the dead baby. He drew the curtain aside +and for some time his frightened, restless eyes could not find the baby. +At last he saw him: the rosy boy had tossed about till he lay across the +bed with his head lower than the pillow, and was smacking his lips in +his sleep and breathing evenly. + +Prince Andrew was as glad to find the boy like that, as if he had +already lost him. He bent over him and, as his sister had taught him, +tried with his lips whether the child was still feverish. The soft +forehead was moist. Prince Andrew touched the head with his hand; even +the hair was wet, so profusely had the child perspired. He was not dead, +but evidently the crisis was over and he was convalescent. Prince Andrew +longed to snatch up, to squeeze, to hold to his heart, this helpless +little creature, but dared not do so. He stood over him, gazing at his +head and at the little arms and legs which showed under the blanket. He +heard a rustle behind him and a shadow appeared under the curtain of the +cot. He did not look round, but still gazing at the infant's face +listened to his regular breathing. The dark shadow was Princess Mary, +who had come up to the cot with noiseless steps, lifted the curtain, and +dropped it again behind her. Prince Andrew recognized her without +looking and held out his hand to her. She pressed it. + +"He has perspired," said Prince Andrew. + +"I was coming to tell you so." + +The child moved slightly in his sleep, smiled, and rubbed his forehead +against the pillow. + +Prince Andrew looked at his sister. In the dim shadow of the curtain her +luminous eyes shone more brightly than usual from the tears of joy that +were in them. She leaned over to her brother and kissed him, slightly +catching the curtain of the cot. Each made the other a warning gesture +and stood still in the dim light beneath the curtain as if not wishing +to leave that seclusion where they three were shut off from all the +world. Prince Andrew was the first to move away, ruffling his hair +against the muslin of the curtain. + +"Yes, this is the one thing left me now," he said with a sigh. + + + + +CHAPTER X + +Soon after his admission to the masonic Brotherhood, Pierre went to the +Kiev province, where he had the greatest number of serfs, taking with +him full directions which he had written down for his own guidance as to +what he should do on his estates. + +When he reached Kiev he sent for all his stewards to the head office and +explained to them his intentions and wishes. He told them that steps +would be taken immediately to free his serfs--and that till then they +were not to be overburdened with labor, women while nursing their babies +were not to be sent to work, assistance was to be given to the serfs, +punishments were to be admonitory and not corporal, and hospitals, +asylums, and schools were to be established on all the estates. Some of +the stewards (there were semiliterate foremen among them) listened with +alarm, supposing these words to mean that the young count was displeased +with their management and embezzlement of money, some after their first +fright were amused by Pierre's lisp and the new words they had not heard +before, others simply enjoyed hearing how the master talked, while the +cleverest among them, including the chief steward, understood from this +speech how they could best handle the master for their own ends. + +The chief steward expressed great sympathy with Pierre's intentions, but +remarked that besides these changes it would be necessary to go into the +general state of affairs which was far from satisfactory. + +Despite Count Bezukhov's enormous wealth, since he had come into an +income which was said to amount to five hundred thousand rubles a year, +Pierre felt himself far poorer than when his father had made him an +allowance of ten thousand rubles. He had a dim perception of the +following budget: + +About 80,000 went in payments on all the estates to the Land Bank, about +30,000 went for the upkeep of the estate near Moscow, the town house, +and the allowance to the three princesses; about 15,000 was given in +pensions and the same amount for asylums; 150,000 alimony was sent to +the countess; about 70,000 went for interest on debts. The building of a +new church, previously begun, had cost about 10,000 in each of the last +two years, and he did not know how the rest, about 100,000 rubles, was +spent, and almost every year he was obliged to borrow. Besides this the +chief steward wrote every year telling him of fires and bad harvests, or +of the necessity of rebuilding factories and workshops. So the first +task Pierre had to face was one for which he had very little aptitude or +inclination--practical business. + +He discussed estate affairs every day with his chief steward. But he +felt that this did not forward matters at all. He felt that these +consultations were detached from real affairs and did not link up with +them or make them move. On the one hand, the chief steward put the state +of things to him in the very worst light, pointing out the necessity of +paying off the debts and undertaking new activities with serf labor, to +which Pierre did not agree. On the other hand, Pierre demanded that +steps should be taken to liberate the serfs, which the steward met by +showing the necessity of first paying off the loans from the Land Bank, +and the consequent impossibility of a speedy emancipation. + +The steward did not say it was quite impossible, but suggested selling +the forests in the province of Kostroma, the land lower down the river, +and the Crimean estate, in order to make it possible: all of which +operations according to him were connected with such complicated +measures--the removal of injunctions, petitions, permits, and so on-- +that Pierre became quite bewildered and only replied: + +"Yes, yes, do so." + +Pierre had none of the practical persistence that would have enabled him +to attend to the business himself and so he disliked it and only tried +to pretend to the steward that he was attending to it. The steward for +his part tried to pretend to the count that he considered these +consultations very valuable for the proprietor and troublesome to +himself. + +In Kiev Pierre found some people he knew, and strangers hastened to make +his acquaintance and joyfully welcomed the rich newcomer, the largest +landowner of the province. Temptations to Pierre's greatest weakness-- +the one to which he had confessed when admitted to the Lodge--were so +strong that he could not resist them. Again whole days, weeks, and +months of his life passed in as great a rush and were as much occupied +with evening parties, dinners, lunches, and balls, giving him no time +for reflection, as in Petersburg. Instead of the new life he had hoped +to lead he still lived the old life, only in new surroundings. + +Of the three precepts of Freemasonry Pierre realized that he did not +fulfill the one which enjoined every Mason to set an example of moral +life, and that of the seven virtues he lacked two--morality and the love +of death. He consoled himself with the thought that he fulfilled another +of the precepts--that of reforming the human race--and had other +virtues--love of his neighbor, and especially generosity. + +In the spring of 1807 he decided to return to Petersburg. On the way he +intended to visit all his estates and see for himself how far his orders +had been carried out and in what state were the serfs whom God had +entrusted to his care and whom he intended to benefit. + +The chief steward, who considered the young count's attempts almost +insane--unprofitable to himself, to the count, and to the serfs--made +some concessions. Continuing to represent the liberation of the serfs as +impracticable, he arranged for the erection of large buildings--schools, +hospitals, and asylums--on all the estates before the master arrived. +Everywhere preparations were made not for ceremonious welcomes (which he +knew Pierre would not like), but for just such gratefully religious +ones, with offerings of icons and the bread and salt of hospitality, as, +according to his understanding of his master, would touch and delude +him. + +The southern spring, the comfortable rapid traveling in a Vienna +carriage, and the solitude of the road, all had a gladdening effect on +Pierre. The estates he had not before visited were each more picturesque +than the other; the serfs everywhere seemed thriving and touchingly +grateful for the benefits conferred on them. Everywhere were receptions, +which though they embarrassed Pierre awakened a joyful feeling in the +depth of his heart. In one place the peasants presented him with bread +and salt and an icon of Saint Peter and Saint Paul, asking permission, +as a mark of their gratitude for the benefits he had conferred on them, +to build a new chantry to the church at their own expense in honor of +Peter and Paul, his patron saints. In another place the women with +infants in arms met him to thank him for releasing them from hard work. +On a third estate the priest, bearing a cross, came to meet him +surrounded by children whom, by the count's generosity, he was +instructing in reading, writing, and religion. On all his estates Pierre +saw with his own eyes brick buildings erected or in course of erection, +all on one plan, for hospitals, schools, and almshouses, which were soon +to be opened. Everywhere he saw the stewards' accounts, according to +which the serfs' manorial labor had been diminished, and heard the +touching thanks of deputations of serfs in their full-skirted blue +coats. + +What Pierre did not know was that the place where they presented him +with bread and salt and wished to build a chantry in honor of Peter and +Paul was a market village where a fair was held on St. Peter's day, and +that the richest peasants (who formed the deputation) had begun the +chantry long before, but that nine tenths of the peasants in that +villages were in a state of the greatest poverty. He did not know that +since the nursing mothers were no longer sent to work on his land, they +did still harder work on their own land. He did not know that the priest +who met him with the cross oppressed the peasants by his exactions, and +that the pupils' parents wept at having to let him take their children +and secured their release by heavy payments. He did not know that the +brick buildings, built to plan, were being built by serfs whose manorial +labor was thus increased, though lessened on paper. He did not know that +where the steward had shown him in the accounts that the serfs' payments +had been diminished by a third, their obligatory manorial work had been +increased by a half. And so Pierre was delighted with his visit to his +estates and quite recovered the philanthropic mood in which he had left +Petersburg, and wrote enthusiastic letters to his "brother-instructor" +as he called the Grand Master. + +"How easy it is, how little effort it needs, to do so much good," +thought Pierre, "and how little attention we pay to it!" + +He was pleased at the gratitude he received, but felt abashed at +receiving it. This gratitude reminded him of how much more he might do +for these simple, kindly people. + +The chief steward, a very stupid but cunning man who saw perfectly +through the naive and intelligent count and played with him as with a +toy, seeing the effect these prearranged receptions had on Pierre, +pressed him still harder with proofs of the impossibility and above all +the uselessness of freeing the serfs, who were quite happy as it was. + +Pierre in his secret soul agreed with the steward that it would be +difficult to imagine happier people, and that God only knew what would +happen to them when they were free, but he insisted, though reluctantly, +on what he thought right. The steward promised to do all in his power to +carry out the count's wishes, seeing clearly that not only would the +count never be able to find out whether all measures had been taken for +the sale of the land and forests and to release them from the Land Bank, +but would probably never even inquire and would never know that the +newly erected buildings were standing empty and that the serfs continued +to give in money and work all that other people's serfs gave--that is to +say, all that could be got out of them. + + + + +CHAPTER XI + +Returning from his journey through South Russia in the happiest state of +mind, Pierre carried out an intention he had long had of visiting his +friend Bolkonski, whom he had not seen for two years. + +Bogucharovo lay in a flat uninteresting part of the country among fields +and forests of fir and birch, which were partly cut down. The house lay +behind a newly dug pond filled with water to the brink and with banks +still bare of grass. It was at the end of a village that stretched along +the highroad in the midst of a young copse in which were a few fir +trees. + +The homestead consisted of a threshing floor, outhouses, stables, a +bathhouse, a lodge, and a large brick house with semicircular facade +still in course of construction. Round the house was a garden newly laid +out. The fences and gates were new and solid; two fire pumps and a water +cart, painted green, stood in a shed; the paths were straight, the +bridges were strong and had handrails. Everything bore an impress of +tidiness and good management. Some domestic serfs Pierre met, in reply +to inquiries as to where the prince lived, pointed out a small newly +built lodge close to the pond. Anton, a man who had looked after Prince +Andrew in his boyhood, helped Pierre out of his carriage, said that the +prince was at home, and showed him into a clean little anteroom. + +Pierre was struck by the modesty of the small though clean house after +the brilliant surroundings in which he had last met his friend in +Petersburg. + +He quickly entered the small reception room with its still-unplastered +wooden walls redolent of pine, and would have gone farther, but Anton +ran ahead on tiptoe and knocked at a door. + +"Well, what is it?" came a sharp, unpleasant voice. + +"A visitor," answered Anton. + +"Ask him to wait," and the sound was heard of a chair being pushed back. + +Pierre went with rapid steps to the door and suddenly came face to face +with Prince Andrew, who came out frowning and looking old. Pierre +embraced him and lifting his spectacles kissed his friend on the cheek +and looked at him closely. + +"Well, I did not expect you, I am very glad," said Prince Andrew. + +Pierre said nothing; he looked fixedly at his friend with surprise. He +was struck by the change in him. His words were kindly and there was a +smile on his lips and face, but his eyes were dull and lifeless and in +spite of his evident wish to do so he could not give them a joyous and +glad sparkle. Prince Andrew had grown thinner, paler, and more manly- +looking, but what amazed and estranged Pierre till he got used to it +were his inertia and a wrinkle on his brow indicating prolonged +concentration on some one thought. + +As is usually the case with people meeting after a prolonged separation, +it was long before their conversation could settle on anything. They put +questions and gave brief replies about things they knew ought to be +talked over at length. At last the conversation gradually settled on +some of the topics at first lightly touched on: their past life, plans +for the future, Pierre's journeys and occupations, the war, and so on. +The preoccupation and despondency which Pierre had noticed in his +friend's look was now still more clearly expressed in the smile with +which he listened to Pierre, especially when he spoke with joyful +animation of the past or the future. It was as if Prince Andrew would +have liked to sympathize with what Pierre was saying, but could not. The +latter began to feel that it was in bad taste to speak of his +enthusiasms, dreams, and hopes of happiness or goodness, in Prince +Andrew's presence. He was ashamed to express his new masonic views, +which had been particularly revived and strengthened by his late tour. +He checked himself, fearing to seem naive, yet he felt an irresistible +desire to show his friend as soon as possible that he was now a quite +different, and better, Pierre than he had been in Petersburg. + +"I can't tell you how much I have lived through since then. I hardly +know myself again." + +"Yes, we have altered much, very much, since then," said Prince Andrew. + +"Well, and you? What are your plans?" + +"Plans!" repeated Prince Andrew ironically. "My plans?" he said, as if +astonished at the word. "Well, you see, I'm building. I mean to settle +here altogether next year...." + +Pierre looked silently and searchingly into Prince Andrew's face, which +had grown much older. + +"No, I meant to ask..." Pierre began, but Prince Andrew interrupted him. + +"But why talk of me?... Talk to me, yes, tell me about your travels and +all you have been doing on your estates." + +Pierre began describing what he had done on his estates, trying as far +as possible to conceal his own part in the improvements that had been +made. Prince Andrew several times prompted Pierre's story of what he had +been doing, as though it were all an old-time story, and he listened not +only without interest but even as if ashamed of what Pierre was telling +him. + +Pierre felt uncomfortable and even depressed in his friend's company and +at last became silent. + +"I'll tell you what, my dear fellow," said Prince Andrew, who evidently +also felt depressed and constrained with his visitor, "I am only +bivouacking here and have just come to look round. I am going back to my +sister today. I will introduce you to her. But of course you know her +already," he said, evidently trying to entertain a visitor with whom he +now found nothing in common. "We will go after dinner. And would you now +like to look round my place?" + +They went out and walked about till dinnertime, talking of the political +news and common acquaintances like people who do not know each other +intimately. Prince Andrew spoke with some animation and interest only of +the new homestead he was constructing and its buildings, but even here, +while on the scaffolding, in the midst of a talk explaining the future +arrangements of the house, he interrupted himself: + +"However, this is not at all interesting. Let us have dinner, and then +we'll set off." + +At dinner, conversation turned on Pierre's marriage. + +"I was very much surprised when I heard of it," said Prince Andrew. + +Pierre blushed, as he always did when it was mentioned, and said +hurriedly: "I will tell you some time how it all happened. But you know +it is all over, and forever." + +"Forever?" said Prince Andrew. "Nothing's forever." + +"But you know how it all ended, don't you? You heard of the duel?" + +"And so you had to go through that too!" + +"One thing I thank God for is that I did not kill that man," said +Pierre. + +"Why so?" asked Prince Andrew. "To kill a vicious dog is a very good +thing really." + +"No, to kill a man is bad--wrong." + +"Why is it wrong?" urged Prince Andrew. "It is not given to man to know +what is right and what is wrong. Men always did and always will err, and +in nothing more than in what they consider right and wrong." + +"What does harm to another is wrong," said Pierre, feeling with pleasure +that for the first time since his arrival Prince Andrew was roused, had +begun to talk, and wanted to express what had brought him to his present +state. + +"And who has told you what is bad for another man?" he asked. + +"Bad! Bad!" exclaimed Pierre. "We all know what is bad for ourselves." + +"Yes, we know that, but the harm I am conscious of in myself is +something I cannot inflict on others," said Prince Andrew, growing more +and more animated and evidently wishing to express his new outlook to +Pierre. He spoke in French. "I only know two very real evils in life: +remorse and illness. The only good is the absence of those evils. To +live for myself avoiding those two evils is my whole philosophy now." + +"And love of one's neighbor, and self-sacrifice?" began Pierre. "No, I +can't agree with you! To live only so as not to do evil and not to have +to repent is not enough. I lived like that, I lived for myself and +ruined my life. And only now when I am living, or at least trying" +(Pierre's modesty made him correct himself) "to live for others, only +now have I understood all the happiness of life. No, I shall not agree +with you, and you do not really believe what you are saying." Prince +Andrew looked silently at Pierre with an ironic smile. + +"When you see my sister, Princess Mary, you'll get on with her," he +said. "Perhaps you are right for yourself," he added after a short +pause, "but everyone lives in his own way. You lived for yourself and +say you nearly ruined your life and only found happiness when you began +living for others. I experienced just the reverse. I lived for glory.-- +And after all what is glory? The same love of others, a desire to do +something for them, a desire for their approval.--So I lived for others, +and not almost, but quite, ruined my life. And I have become calmer +since I began to live only for myself." + +"But what do you mean by living only for yourself?" asked Pierre, +growing excited. "What about your son, your sister, and your father?" + +"But that's just the same as myself--they are not others," explained +Prince Andrew. "The others, one's neighbors, le prochain, as you and +Princess Mary call it, are the chief source of all error and evil. Le +prochain--your Kiev peasants to whom you want to do good." + +And he looked at Pierre with a mocking, challenging expression. He +evidently wished to draw him on. + +"You are joking," replied Pierre, growing more and more excited. "What +error or evil can there be in my wishing to do good, and even doing a +little--though I did very little and did it very badly? What evil can +there be in it if unfortunate people, our serfs, people like ourselves, +were growing up and dying with no idea of God and truth beyond +ceremonies and meaningless prayers and are now instructed in a +comforting belief in future life, retribution, recompense, and +consolation? What evil and error are there in it, if people were dying +of disease without help while material assistance could so easily be +rendered, and I supplied them with a doctor, a hospital, and an asylum +for the aged? And is it not a palpable, unquestionable good if a +peasant, or a woman with a baby, has no rest day or night and I give +them rest and leisure?" said Pierre, hurrying and lisping. "And I have +done that though badly and to a small extent; but I have done something +toward it and you cannot persuade me that it was not a good action, and +more than that, you can't make me believe that you do not think so +yourself. And the main thing is," he continued, "that I know, and know +for certain, that the enjoyment of doing this good is the only sure +happiness in life." + +"Yes, if you put it like that it's quite a different matter," said +Prince Andrew. "I build a house and lay out a garden, and you build +hospitals. The one and the other may serve as a pastime. But what's +right and what's good must be judged by one who knows all, but not by +us. Well, you want an argument," he added, "come on then." + +They rose from the table and sat down in the entrance porch which served +as a veranda. + +"Come, let's argue then," said Prince Andrew, "You talk of schools," he +went on, crooking a finger, "education and so forth; that is, you want +to raise him" (pointing to a peasant who passed by them taking off his +cap) "from his animal condition and awaken in him spiritual needs, while +it seems to me that animal happiness is the only happiness possible, and +that is just what you want to deprive him of. I envy him, but you want +to make him what I am, without giving him my means. Then you say, +'lighten his toil.' But as I see it, physical labor is as essential to +him, as much a condition of his existence, as mental activity is to you +or me. You can't help thinking. I go to bed after two in the morning, +thoughts come and I can't sleep but toss about till dawn, because I +think and can't help thinking, just as he can't help plowing and mowing; +if he didn't, he would go to the drink shop or fall ill. Just as I could +not stand his terrible physical labor but should die of it in a week, so +he could not stand my physical idleness, but would grow fat and die. The +third thing--what else was it you talked about?" and Prince Andrew +crooked a third finger. "Ah, yes, hospitals, medicine. He has a fit, he +is dying, and you come and bleed him and patch him up. He will drag +about as a cripple, a burden to everybody, for another ten years. It +would be far easier and simpler for him to die. Others are being born +and there are plenty of them as it is. It would be different if you +grudged losing a laborer--that's how I regard him--but you want to cure +him from love of him. And he does not want that. And besides, what a +notion that medicine ever cured anyone! Killed them, yes!" said he, +frowning angrily and turning away from Pierre. + +Prince Andrew expressed his ideas so clearly and distinctly that it was +evident he had reflected on this subject more than once, and he spoke +readily and rapidly like a man who has not talked for a long time. His +glance became more animated as his conclusions became more hopeless. + +"Oh, that is dreadful, dreadful!" said Pierre. "I don't understand how +one can live with such ideas. I had such moments myself not long ago, in +Moscow and when traveling, but at such times I collapsed so that I don't +live at all--everything seems hateful to me... myself most of all. Then +I don't eat, don't wash... and how is it with you?..." + +"Why not wash? That is not cleanly," said Prince Andrew; "on the +contrary one must try to make one's life as pleasant as possible. I'm +alive, that is not my fault, so I must live out my life as best I can +without hurting others." + +"But with such ideas what motive have you for living? One would sit +without moving, undertaking nothing...." + +"Life as it is leaves one no peace. I should be thankful to do nothing, +but here on the one hand the local nobility have done me the honor to +choose me to be their marshal; it was all I could do to get out of it. +They could not understand that I have not the necessary qualifications +for it--the kind of good-natured, fussy shallowness necessary for the +position. Then there's this house, which must be built in order to have +a nook of one's own in which to be quiet. And now there's this +recruiting." + +"Why aren't you serving in the army?" + +"After Austerlitz!" said Prince Andrew gloomily. "No, thank you very +much! I have promised myself not to serve again in the active Russian +army. And I won't--not even if Bonaparte were here at Smolensk +threatening Bald Hills--even then I wouldn't serve in the Russian army! +Well, as I was saying," he continued, recovering his composure, "now +there's this recruiting. My father is chief in command of the Third +District, and my only way of avoiding active service is to serve under +him." + +"Then you are serving?" + +"I am." + +He paused a little while. + +"And why do you serve?" + +"Why, for this reason! My father is one of the most remarkable men of +his time. But he is growing old, and though not exactly cruel he has too +energetic a character. He is so accustomed to unlimited power that he is +terrible, and now he has this authority of a commander-in-chief of the +recruiting, granted by the Emperor. If I had been two hours late a +fortnight ago he would have had a paymaster's clerk at Yukhnovna +hanged," said Prince Andrew with a smile. "So I am serving because I +alone have any influence with my father, and now and then can save him +from actions which would torment him afterwards." + +"Well, there you see!" + +"Yes, but it is not as you imagine," Prince Andrew continued. "I did +not, and do not, in the least care about that scoundrel of a clerk who +had stolen some boots from the recruits; I should even have been very +glad to see him hanged, but I was sorry for my father--that again is for +myself." + +Prince Andrew grew more and more animated. His eyes glittered feverishly +while he tried to prove to Pierre that in his actions there was no +desire to do good to his neighbor. + +"There now, you wish to liberate your serfs," he continued; "that is a +very good thing, but not for you--I don't suppose you ever had anyone +flogged or sent to Siberia--and still less for your serfs. If they are +beaten, flogged, or sent to Siberia, I don't suppose they are any the +worse off. In Siberia they lead the same animal life, and the stripes on +their bodies heal, and they are happy as before. But it is a good thing +for proprietors who perish morally, bring remorse upon themselves, +stifle this remorse and grow callous, as a result of being able to +inflict punishments justly and unjustly. It is those people I pity, and +for their sake I should like to liberate the serfs. You may not have +seen, but I have seen, how good men brought up in those traditions of +unlimited power, in time when they grow more irritable, become cruel and +harsh, are conscious of it, but cannot restrain themselves and grow more +and more miserable." + +Prince Andrew spoke so earnestly that Pierre could not help thinking +that these thoughts had been suggested to Prince Andrew by his father's +case. + +He did not reply. + +"So that's what I'm sorry for--human dignity, peace of mind, purity, and +not the serfs' backs and foreheads, which, beat and shave as you may, +always remain the same backs and foreheads." + +"No, no! A thousand times no! I shall never agree with you," said +Pierre. + + + + +CHAPTER XII + +In the evening Andrew and Pierre got into the open carriage and drove to +Bald Hills. Prince Andrew, glancing at Pierre, broke the silence now and +then with remarks which showed that he was in a good temper. + +Pointing to the fields, he spoke of the improvements he was making in +his husbandry. + +Pierre remained gloomily silent, answering in monosyllables and +apparently immersed in his own thoughts. + +He was thinking that Prince Andrew was unhappy, had gone astray, did not +see the true light, and that he, Pierre, ought to aid, enlighten, and +raise him. But as soon as he thought of what he should say, he felt that +Prince Andrew with one word, one argument, would upset all his teaching, +and he shrank from beginning, afraid of exposing to possible ridicule +what to him was precious and sacred. + +"No, but why do you think so?" Pierre suddenly began, lowering his head +and looking like a bull about to charge, "why do you think so? You +should not think so." + +"Think? What about?" asked Prince Andrew with surprise. + +"About life, about man's destiny. It can't be so. I myself thought like +that, and do you know what saved me? Freemasonry! No, don't smile. +Freemasonry is not a religious ceremonial sect, as I thought it was: +Freemasonry is the best expression of the best, the eternal, aspects of +humanity." + +And he began to explain Freemasonry as he understood it to Prince +Andrew. He said that Freemasonry is the teaching of Christianity freed +from the bonds of State and Church, a teaching of equality, brotherhood, +and love. + +"Only our holy brotherhood has the real meaning of life, all the rest is +a dream," said Pierre. "Understand, my dear fellow, that outside this +union all is filled with deceit and falsehood and I agree with you that +nothing is left for an intelligent and good man but to live out his +life, like you, merely trying not to harm others. But make our +fundamental convictions your own, join our brotherhood, give yourself up +to us, let yourself be guided, and you will at once feel yourself, as I +have felt myself, a part of that vast invisible chain the beginning of +which is hidden in heaven," said Pierre. + +Prince Andrew, looking straight in front of him, listened in silence to +Pierre's words. More than once, when the noise of the wheels prevented +his catching what Pierre said, he asked him to repeat it, and by the +peculiar glow that came into Prince Andrew's eyes and by his silence, +Pierre saw that his words were not in vain and that Prince Andrew would +not interrupt him or laugh at what he said. + +They reached a river that had overflowed its banks and which they had to +cross by ferry. While the carriage and horses were being placed on it, +they also stepped on the raft. + +Prince Andrew, leaning his arms on the raft railing, gazed silently at +the flooding waters glittering in the setting sun. + +"Well, what do you think about it?" Pierre asked. "Why are you silent?" + +"What do I think about it? I am listening to you. It's all very well.... +You say: join our brotherhood and we will show you the aim of life, the +destiny of man, and the laws which govern the world. But who are we? +Men. How is it you know everything? Why do I alone not see what you see? +You see a reign of goodness and truth on earth, but I don't see it." + +Pierre interrupted him. + +"Do you believe in a future life?" he asked. + +"A future life?" Prince Andrew repeated, but Pierre, giving him no time +to reply, took the repetition for a denial, the more readily as he knew +Prince Andrew's former atheistic convictions. + +"You say you can't see a reign of goodness and truth on earth. Nor could +I, and it cannot be seen if one looks on our life here as the end of +everything. On earth, here on this earth" (Pierre pointed to the +fields), "there is no truth, all is false and evil; but in the universe, +in the whole universe there is a kingdom of truth, and we who are now +the children of earth are--eternally--children of the whole universe. +Don't I feel in my soul that I am part of this vast harmonious whole? +Don't I feel that I form one link, one step, between the lower and +higher beings, in this vast harmonious multitude of beings in whom the +Deity--the Supreme Power if you prefer the term--is manifest? If I see, +clearly see, that ladder leading from plant to man, why should I suppose +it breaks off at me and does not go farther and farther? I feel that I +cannot vanish, since nothing vanishes in this world, but that I shall +always exist and always have existed. I feel that beyond me and above me +there are spirits, and that in this world there is truth." + +"Yes, that is Herder's theory," said Prince Andrew, "but it is not that +which can convince me, dear friend--life and death are what convince. +What convinces is when one sees a being dear to one, bound up with one's +own life, before whom one was to blame and had hoped to make it right" +(Prince Andrew's voice trembled and he turned away), "and suddenly that +being is seized with pain, suffers, and ceases to exist.... Why? It +cannot be that there is no answer. And I believe there is.... That's +what convinces, that is what has convinced me," said Prince Andrew. + +"Yes, yes, of course," said Pierre, "isn't that what I'm saying?" + +"No. All I say is that it is not argument that convinces me of the +necessity of a future life, but this: when you go hand in hand with +someone and all at once that person vanishes there, into nowhere, and +you yourself are left facing that abyss, and look in. And I have looked +in...." + +"Well, that's it then! You know that there is a there and there is a +Someone? There is the future life. The Someone is--God." + +Prince Andrew did not reply. The carriage and horses had long since been +taken off, onto the farther bank, and reharnessed. The sun had sunk half +below the horizon and an evening frost was starring the puddles near the +ferry, but Pierre and Andrew, to the astonishment of the footmen, +coachmen, and ferrymen, still stood on the raft and talked. + +"If there is a God and future life, there is truth and good, and man's +highest happiness consists in striving to attain them. We must live, we +must love, and we must believe that we live not only today on this scrap +of earth, but have lived and shall live forever, there, in the Whole," +said Pierre, and he pointed to the sky. + +Prince Andrew stood leaning on the railing of the raft listening to +Pierre, and he gazed with his eyes fixed on the red reflection of the +sun gleaming on the blue waters. There was perfect stillness. Pierre +became silent. The raft had long since stopped and only the waves of the +current beat softly against it below. Prince Andrew felt as if the sound +of the waves kept up a refrain to Pierre's words, whispering: + +"It is true, believe it." + +He sighed, and glanced with a radiant, childlike, tender look at +Pierre's face, flushed and rapturous, but yet shy before his superior +friend. + +"Yes, if it only were so!" said Prince Andrew. "However, it is time to +get on," he added, and, stepping off the raft, he looked up at the sky +to which Pierre had pointed, and for the first time since Austerlitz saw +that high, everlasting sky he had seen while lying on that battlefield; +and something that had long been slumbering, something that was best +within him, suddenly awoke, joyful and youthful, in his soul. It +vanished as soon as he returned to the customary conditions of his life, +but he knew that this feeling which he did not know how to develop +existed within him. His meeting with Pierre formed an epoch in Prince +Andrew's life. Though outwardly he continued to live in the same old +way, inwardly he began a new life. + + + + +CHAPTER XIII + +It was getting dusk when Prince Andrew and Pierre drove up to the front +entrance of the house at Bald Hills. As they approached the house, +Prince Andrew with a smile drew Pierre's attention to a commotion going +on at the back porch. A woman, bent with age, with a wallet on her back, +and a short, long-haired, young man in a black garment had rushed back +to the gate on seeing the carriage driving up. Two women ran out after +them, and all four, looking round at the carriage, ran in dismay up the +steps of the back porch. + +"Those are Mary's 'God's folk,'" said Prince Andrew. "They have mistaken +us for my father. This is the one matter in which she disobeys him. He +orders these pilgrims to be driven away, but she receives them." + +"But what are 'God's folk'?" asked Pierre. + +Prince Andrew had no time to answer. The servants came out to meet them, +and he asked where the old prince was and whether he was expected back +soon. + +The old prince had gone to the town and was expected back any minute. + +Prince Andrew led Pierre to his own apartments, which were always kept +in perfect order and readiness for him in his father's house; he himself +went to the nursery. + +"Let us go and see my sister," he said to Pierre when he returned. "I +have not found her yet, she is hiding now, sitting with her 'God's +folk.' It will serve her right, she will be confused, but you will see +her 'God's folk.' It's really very curious." + +"What are 'God's folk'?" asked Pierre. + +"Come, and you'll see for yourself." + +Princess Mary really was disconcerted and red patches came on her face +when they went in. In her snug room, with lamps burning before the icon +stand, a young lad with a long nose and long hair, wearing a monk's +cassock, sat on the sofa beside her, behind a samovar. Near them, in an +armchair, sat a thin, shriveled, old woman, with a meek expression on +her childlike face. + +"Andrew, why didn't you warn me?" said the princess, with mild reproach, +as she stood before her pilgrims like a hen before her chickens. + +"Charmee de vous voir. Je suis tres contente de vous voir," * she said +to Pierre as he kissed her hand. She had known him as a child, and now +his friendship with Andrew, his misfortune with his wife, and above all +his kindly, simple face disposed her favorably toward him. She looked at +him with her beautiful radiant eyes and seemed to say, "I like you very +much, but please don't laugh at my people." After exchanging the first +greetings, they sat down. + + +* "Delighted to see you. I am very glad to see you." + +"Ah, and Ivanushka is here too!" said Prince Andrew, glancing with a +smile at the young pilgrim. + +"Andrew!" said Princess Mary, imploringly. "Il faut que vous sachiez que +c'est une femme," * said Prince Andrew to Pierre. + +"Andrew, au nom de Dieu!" *(2) Princess Mary repeated. + + +* "You must know that this is a woman." + +* (2) "For heaven's sake." + +It was evident that Prince Andrew's ironical tone toward the pilgrims +and Princess Mary's helpless attempts to protect them were their +customary long-established relations on the matter. + +"Mais, ma bonne amie," said Prince Andrew, "vous devriez au contraire +m'etre reconnaissante de ce que j'explique a Pierre votre intimite avec +ce jeune homme." * + + +* "But, my dear, you ought on the contrary to be grateful to me for +explaining to Pierre your intimacy with this young man." + +"Really?" said Pierre, gazing over his spectacles with curiosity and +seriousness (for which Princess Mary was specially grateful to him) into +Ivanushka's face, who, seeing that she was being spoken about, looked +round at them all with crafty eyes. + +Princess Mary's embarrassment on her people's account was quite +unnecessary. They were not in the least abashed. The old woman, lowering +her eyes but casting side glances at the newcomers, had turned her cup +upside down and placed a nibbled bit of sugar beside it, and sat quietly +in her armchair, though hoping to be offered another cup of tea. +Ivanushka, sipping out of her saucer, looked with sly womanish eyes from +under her brows at the young men. + +"Where have you been? To Kiev?" Prince Andrew asked the old woman. + +"I have, good sir," she answered garrulously. "Just at Christmastime I +was deemed worthy to partake of the holy and heavenly sacrament at the +shrine of the saint. And now I'm from Kolyazin, master, where a great +and wonderful blessing has been revealed." + +"And was Ivanushka with you?" + +"I go by myself, benefactor," said Ivanushka, trying to speak in a bass +voice. "I only came across Pelageya in Yukhnovo..." + +Pelageya interrupted her companion; she evidently wished to tell what +she had seen. + +"In Kolyazin, master, a wonderful blessing has been revealed." + +"What is it? Some new relics?" asked Prince Andrew. + +"Andrew, do leave off," said Princess Mary. "Don't tell him, Pelageya." + +"No... why not, my dear, why shouldn't I? I like him. He is kind, he is +one of God's chosen, he's a benefactor, he once gave me ten rubles, I +remember. When I was in Kiev, Crazy Cyril says to me (he's one of God's +own and goes barefoot summer and winter), he says, 'Why are you not +going to the right place? Go to Kolyazin where a wonder-working icon of +the Holy Mother of God has been revealed.' On hearing those words I said +good-by to the holy folk and went." + +All were silent, only the pilgrim woman went on in measured tones, +drawing in her breath. + +"So I come, master, and the people say to me: 'A great blessing has been +revealed, holy oil trickles from the cheeks of our blessed Mother, the +Holy Virgin Mother of God'...." + +"All right, all right, you can tell us afterwards," said Princess Mary, +flushing. + +"Let me ask her," said Pierre. "Did you see it yourselves?" he inquired. + +"Oh, yes, master, I was found worthy. Such a brightness on the face like +the light of heaven, and from the blessed Mother's cheek it drops and +drops...." + +"But, dear me, that must be a fraud!" said Pierre, naively, who had +listened attentively to the pilgrim. + +"Oh, master, what are you saying?" exclaimed the horrified Pelageya, +turning to Princess Mary for support. + +"They impose on the people," he repeated. + +"Lord Jesus Christ!" exclaimed the pilgrim woman, crossing herself. "Oh, +don't speak so, master! There was a general who did not believe, and +said, 'The monks cheat,' and as soon as he'd said it he went blind. And +he dreamed that the Holy Virgin Mother of the Kiev catacombs came to him +and said, 'Believe in me and I will make you whole.' So he begged: 'Take +me to her, take me to her.' It's the real truth I'm telling you, I saw +it myself. So he was brought, quite blind, straight to her, and he goes +up to her and falls down and says, 'Make me whole,' says he, 'and I'll +give thee what the Tsar bestowed on me.' I saw it myself, master, the +star is fixed into the icon. Well, and what do you think? He received +his sight! It's a sin to speak so. God will punish you," she said +admonishingly, turning to Pierre. + +"How did the star get into the icon?" Pierre asked. + +"And was the Holy Mother promoted to the rank of general?" said Prince +Andrew, with a smile. + +Pelageya suddenly grew quite pale and clasped her hands. + +"Oh, master, master, what a sin! And you who have a son!" she began, her +pallor suddenly turning to a vivid red. "Master, what have you said? God +forgive you!" And she crossed herself. "Lord forgive him! My dear, what +does it mean?..." she asked, turning to Princess Mary. She got up and, +almost crying, began to arrange her wallet. She evidently felt +frightened and ashamed to have accepted charity in a house where such +things could be said, and was at the same time sorry to have now to +forgo the charity of this house. + +"Now, why need you do it?" said Princess Mary. "Why did you come to +me?..." + +"Come, Pelageya, I was joking," said Pierre. "Princesse, ma parole, je +n'ai pas voulu l'offenser. * I did not mean anything, I was only +joking," he said, smiling shyly and trying to efface his offense. "It +was all my fault, and Andrew was only joking." + + +* "Princess, on my word, I did not wish to offend her." + +Pelageya stopped doubtfully, but in Pierre's face there was such a look +of sincere penitence, and Prince Andrew glanced so meekly now at her and +now at Pierre, that she was gradually reassured. + + + + +CHAPTER XIV + +The pilgrim woman was appeased and, being encouraged to talk, gave a +long account of Father Amphilochus, who led so holy a life that his +hands smelled of incense, and how on her last visit to Kiev some monks +she knew let her have the keys of the catacombs, and how she, taking +some dried bread with her, had spent two days in the catacombs with the +saints. "I'd pray awhile to one, ponder awhile, then go on to another. +I'd sleep a bit and then again go and kiss the relics, and there was +such peace all around, such blessedness, that one don't want to come +out, even into the light of heaven again." + +Pierre listened to her attentively and seriously. Prince Andrew went out +of the room, and then, leaving "God's folk" to finish their tea, +Princess Mary took Pierre into the drawing room. + +"You are very kind," she said to him. + +"Oh, I really did not mean to hurt her feelings. I understand them so +well and have the greatest respect for them." + +Princess Mary looked at him silently and smiled affectionately. + +"I have known you a long time, you see, and am as fond of you as of a +brother," she said. "How do you find Andrew?" she added hurriedly, not +giving him time to reply to her affectionate words. "I am very anxious +about him. His health was better in the winter, but last spring his +wound reopened and the doctor said he ought to go away for a cure. And I +am also very much afraid for him spiritually. He has not a character +like us women who, when we suffer, can weep away our sorrows. He keeps +it all within him. Today he is cheerful and in good spirits, but that is +the effect of your visit--he is not often like that. If you could +persuade him to go abroad. He needs activity, and this quiet regular +life is very bad for him. Others don't notice it, but I see it." + +Toward ten o'clock the men servants rushed to the front door, hearing +the bells of the old prince's carriage approaching. Prince Andrew and +Pierre also went out into the porch. + +"Who's that?" asked the old prince, noticing Pierre as he got out of the +carriage. + +"Ah! Very glad! Kiss me," he said, having learned who the young stranger +was. + +The old prince was in a good temper and very gracious to Pierre. + +Before supper, Prince Andrew, coming back to his father's study, found +him disputing hotly with his visitor. Pierre was maintaining that a time +would come when there would be no more wars. The old prince disputed it +chaffingly, but without getting angry. + +"Drain the blood from men's veins and put in water instead, then there +will be no more war! Old women's nonsense--old women's nonsense!" he +repeated, but still he patted Pierre affectionately on the shoulder, and +then went up to the table where Prince Andrew, evidently not wishing to +join in the conversation, was looking over the papers his father had +brought from town. The old prince went up to him and began to talk +business. + +"The marshal, a Count Rostov, hasn't sent half his contingent. He came +to town and wanted to invite me to dinner--I gave him a pretty +dinner!... And there, look at this.... Well, my boy," the old prince +went on, addressing his son and patting Pierre on the shoulder. "A fine +fellow--your friend--I like him! He stirs me up. Another says clever +things and one doesn't care to listen, but this one talks rubbish yet +stirs an old fellow up. Well, go! Get along! Perhaps I'll come and sit +with you at supper. We'll have another dispute. Make friends with my +little fool, Princess Mary," he shouted after Pierre, through the door. + +Only now, on his visit to Bald Hills, did Pierre fully realize the +strength and charm of his friendship with Prince Andrew. That charm was +not expressed so much in his relations with him as with all his family +and with the household. With the stern old prince and the gentle, timid +Princess Mary, though he had scarcely known them, Pierre at once felt +like an old friend. They were all fond of him already. Not only Princess +Mary, who had been won by his gentleness with the pilgrims, gave him her +most radiant looks, but even the one-year-old "Prince Nicholas" (as his +grandfather called him) smiled at Pierre and let himself be taken in his +arms, and Michael Ivanovich and Mademoiselle Bourienne looked at him +with pleasant smiles when he talked to the old prince. + +The old prince came in to supper; this was evidently on Pierre's +account. And during the two days of the young man's visit he was +extremely kind to him and told him to visit them again. + +When Pierre had gone and the members of the household met together, they +began to express their opinions of him as people always do after a new +acquaintance has left, but as seldom happens, no one said anything but +what was good of him. + + + + +CHAPTER XV + +When returning from his leave, Rostov felt, for the first time, how +close was the bond that united him to Denisov and the whole regiment. + +On approaching it, Rostov felt as he had done when approaching his home +in Moscow. When he saw the first hussar with the unbuttoned uniform of +his regiment, when he recognized red-haired Dementyev and saw the picket +ropes of the roan horses, when Lavrushka gleefully shouted to his +master, "The count has come!" and Denisov, who had been asleep on his +bed, ran all disheveled out of the mud hut to embrace him, and the +officers collected round to greet the new arrival, Rostov experienced +the same feeling as when his mother, his father, and his sister had +embraced him, and tears of joy choked him so that he could not speak. +The regiment was also a home, and as unalterably dear and precious as +his parents' house. + +When he had reported himself to the commander of the regiment and had +been reassigned to his former squadron, had been on duty and had gone +out foraging, when he had again entered into all the little interests of +the regiment and felt himself deprived of liberty and bound in one +narrow, unchanging frame, he experienced the same sense of peace, of +moral support, and the same sense of being at home here in his own +place, as he had felt under the parental roof. But here was none of all +that turmoil of the world at large, where he did not know his right +place and took mistaken decisions; here was no Sonya with whom he ought, +or ought not, to have an explanation; here was no possibility of going +there or not going there; here there were not twenty-four hours in the +day which could be spent in such a variety of ways; there was not that +innumerable crowd of people of whom not one was nearer to him or farther +from him than another; there were none of those uncertain and undefined +money relations with his father, and nothing to recall that terrible +loss to Dolokhov. Here, in the regiment, all was clear and simple. The +whole world was divided into two unequal parts: one, our Pavlograd +regiment; the other, all the rest. And the rest was no concern of his. +In the regiment, everything was definite: who was lieutenant, who +captain, who was a good fellow, who a bad one, and most of all, who was +a comrade. The canteenkeeper gave one credit, one's pay came every four +months, there was nothing to think out or decide, you had only to do +nothing that was considered bad in the Pavlograd regiment and, when +given an order, to do what was clearly, distinctly, and definitely +ordered--and all would be well. + +Having once more entered into the definite conditions of this regimental +life, Rostov felt the joy and relief a tired man feels on lying down to +rest. Life in the regiment, during this campaign, was all the pleasanter +for him, because, after his loss to Dolokhov (for which, in spite of all +his family's efforts to console him, he could not forgive himself), he +had made up his mind to atone for his fault by serving, not as he had +done before, but really well, and by being a perfectly first-rate +comrade and officer--in a word, a splendid man altogether, a thing which +seemed so difficult out in the world, but so possible in the regiment. + +After his losses, he had determined to pay back his debt to his parents +in five years. He received ten thousand rubles a year, but now resolved +to take only two thousand and leave the rest to repay the debt to his +parents. + +Our army, after repeated retreats and advances and battles at Pultusk +and Preussisch-Eylau, was concentrated near Bartenstein. It was awaiting +the Emperor's arrival and the beginning of a new campaign. + +The Pavlograd regiment, belonging to that part of the army which had +served in the 1805 campaign, had been recruiting up to strength in +Russia, and arrived too late to take part in the first actions of the +campaign. It had been neither at Pultusk nor at Preussisch-Eylau and, +when it joined the army in the field in the second half of the campaign, +was attached to Platov's division. + +Platov's division was acting independently of the main army. Several +times parts of the Pavlograd regiment had exchanged shots with the +enemy, had taken prisoners, and once had even captured Marshal Oudinot's +carriages. In April the Pavlograds were stationed immovably for some +weeks near a totally ruined and deserted German village. + +A thaw had set in, it was muddy and cold, the ice on the river broke, +and the roads became impassable. For days neither provisions for the men +nor fodder for the horses had been issued. As no transports could +arrive, the men dispersed about the abandoned and deserted villages, +searching for potatoes, but found few even of these. + +Everything had been eaten up and the inhabitants had all fled--if any +remained, they were worse than beggars and nothing more could be taken +from them; even the soldiers, usually pitiless enough, instead of taking +anything from them, often gave them the last of their rations. + +The Pavlograd regiment had had only two men wounded in action, but had +lost nearly half its men from hunger and sickness. In the hospitals, +death was so certain that soldiers suffering from fever, or the swelling +that came from bad food, preferred to remain on duty, and hardly able to +drag their legs went to the front rather than to the hospitals. When +spring came on, the soldiers found a plant just showing out of the +ground that looked like asparagus, which, for some reason, they called +"Mashka's sweet root." It was very bitter, but they wandered about the +fields seeking it and dug it out with their sabers and ate it, though +they were ordered not to do so, as it was a noxious plant. That spring a +new disease broke out among the soldiers, a swelling of the arms, legs, +and face, which the doctors attributed to eating this root. But in spite +of all this, the soldiers of Denisov's squadron fed chiefly on "Mashka's +sweet root," because it was the second week that the last of the +biscuits were being doled out at the rate of half a pound a man and the +last potatoes received had sprouted and frozen. + +The horses also had been fed for a fortnight on straw from the thatched +roofs and had become terribly thin, though still covered with tufts of +felty winter hair. + +Despite this destitution, the soldiers and officers went on living just +as usual. Despite their pale swollen faces and tattered uniforms, the +hussars formed line for roll call, kept things in order, groomed their +horses, polished their arms, brought in straw from the thatched roofs in +place of fodder, and sat down to dine round the caldrons from which they +rose up hungry, joking about their nasty food and their hunger. As +usual, in their spare time, they lit bonfires, steamed themselves before +them naked; smoked, picked out and baked sprouting rotten potatoes, told +and listened to stories of Potemkin's and Suvorov's campaigns, or to +legends of Alesha the Sly, or the priest's laborer Mikolka. + +The officers, as usual, lived in twos and threes in the roofless, half- +ruined houses. The seniors tried to collect straw and potatoes and, in +general, food for the men. The younger ones occupied themselves as +before, some playing cards (there was plenty of money, though there was +no food), some with more innocent games, such as quoits and skittles. +The general trend of the campaign was rarely spoken of, partly because +nothing certain was known about it, partly because there was a vague +feeling that in the main it was going badly. + +Rostov lived, as before, with Denisov, and since their furlough they had +become more friendly than ever. Denisov never spoke of Rostov's family, +but by the tender friendship his commander showed him, Rostov felt that +the elder hussar's luckless love for Natasha played a part in +strengthening their friendship. Denisov evidently tried to expose Rostov +to danger as seldom as possible, and after an action greeted his safe +return with evident joy. On one of his foraging expeditions, in a +deserted and ruined village to which he had come in search of +provisions, Rostov found a family consisting of an old Pole and his +daughter with an infant in arms. They were half clad, hungry, too weak +to get away on foot and had no means of obtaining a conveyance. Rostov +brought them to his quarters, placed them in his own lodging, and kept +them for some weeks while the old man was recovering. One of his +comrades, talking of women, began chaffing Rostov, saying that he was +more wily than any of them and that it would not be a bad thing if he +introduced to them the pretty Polish girl he had saved. Rostov took the +joke as an insult, flared up, and said such unpleasant things to the +officer that it was all Denisov could do to prevent a duel. When the +officer had gone away, Denisov, who did not himself know what Rostov's +relations with the Polish girl might be, began to upbraid him for his +quickness of temper, and Rostov replied: + +"Say what you like.... She is like a sister to me, and I can't tell you +how it offended me... because... well, for that reason...." + +Denisov patted him on the shoulder and began rapidly pacing the room +without looking at Rostov, as was his way at moments of deep feeling. + +"Ah, what a mad bweed you Wostovs are!" he muttered, and Rostov noticed +tears in his eyes. + + + + +CHAPTER XVI + +In April the troops were enlivened by news of the Emperor's arrival, but +Rostov had no chance of being present at the review he held at +Bartenstein, as the Pavlograds were at the outposts far beyond that +place. + +They were bivouacking. Denisov and Rostov were living in an earth hut, +dug out for them by the soldiers and roofed with branches and turf. The +hut was made in the following manner, which had then come into vogue. A +trench was dug three and a half feet wide, four feet eight inches deep, +and eight feet long. At one end of the trench, steps were cut out and +these formed the entrance and vestibule. The trench itself was the room, +in which the lucky ones, such as the squadron commander, had a board, +lying on piles at the end opposite the entrance, to serve as a table. On +each side of the trench, the earth was cut out to a breadth of about two +and a half feet, and this did duty for bedsteads and couches. The roof +was so constructed that one could stand up in the middle of the trench +and could even sit up on the beds if one drew close to the table. +Denisov, who was living luxuriously because the soldiers of his squadron +liked him, had also a board in the roof at the farther end, with a piece +of (broken but mended) glass in it for a window. When it was very cold, +embers from the soldiers' campfire were placed on a bent sheet of iron +on the steps in the "reception room"--as Denisov called that part of the +hut--and it was then so warm that the officers, of whom there were +always some with Denisov and Rostov, sat in their shirt sleeves. + +In April, Rostov was on orderly duty. One morning, between seven and +eight, returning after a sleepless night, he sent for embers, changed +his rain-soaked underclothes, said his prayers, drank tea, got warm, +then tidied up the things on the table and in his own corner, and, his +face glowing from exposure to the wind and with nothing on but his +shirt, lay down on his back, putting his arms under his head. He was +pleasantly considering the probability of being promoted in a few days +for his last reconnoitering expedition, and was awaiting Denisov, who +had gone out somewhere and with whom he wanted a talk. + +Suddenly he heard Denisov shouting in a vibrating voice behind the hut, +evidently much excited. Rostov moved to the window to see whom he was +speaking to, and saw the quartermaster, Topcheenko. + +"I ordered you not to let them eat that Mashka woot stuff!" Denisov was +shouting. "And I saw with my own eyes how Lazarchuk bwought some fwom +the fields." + +"I have given the order again and again, your honor, but they don't +obey," answered the quartermaster. + +Rostov lay down again on his bed and thought complacently: "Let him fuss +and bustle now, my job's done and I'm lying down--capitally!" He could +hear that Lavrushka--that sly, bold orderly of Denisov's--was talking, +as well as the quartermaster. Lavrushka was saying something about +loaded wagons, biscuits, and oxen he had seen when he had gone out for +provisions. + +Then Denisov's voice was heard shouting farther and farther away. +"Saddle! Second platoon!" + +"Where are they off to now?" thought Rostov. + +Five minutes later, Denisov came into the hut, climbed with muddy boots +on the bed, lit his pipe, furiously scattered his things about, took his +leaded whip, buckled on his saber, and went out again. In answer to +Rostov's inquiry where he was going, he answered vaguely and crossly +that he had some business. + +"Let God and our gweat monarch judge me afterwards!" said Denisov going +out, and Rostov heard the hoofs of several horses splashing through the +mud. He did not even trouble to find out where Denisov had gone. Having +got warm in his corner, he fell asleep and did not leave the hut till +toward evening. Denisov had not yet returned. The weather had cleared +up, and near the next hut two officers and a cadet were playing svayka, +laughing as they threw their missiles which buried themselves in the +soft mud. Rostov joined them. In the middle of the game, the officers +saw some wagons approaching with fifteen hussars on their skinny horses +behind them. The wagons escorted by the hussars drew up to the picket +ropes and a crowd of hussars surrounded them. + +"There now, Denisov has been worrying," said Rostov, "and here are the +provisions." + +"So they are!" said the officers. "Won't the soldiers be glad!" + +A little behind the hussars came Denisov, accompanied by two infantry +officers with whom he was talking. + +Rostov went to meet them. + +"I warn you, Captain," one of the officers, a short thin man, evidently +very angry, was saying. + +"Haven't I told you I won't give them up?" replied Denisov. + +"You will answer for it, Captain. It is mutiny--seizing the transport of +one's own army. Our men have had nothing to eat for two days." + +"And mine have had nothing for two weeks," said Denisov. + +"It is robbery! You'll answer for it, sir!" said the infantry officer, +raising his voice. + +"Now, what are you pestewing me for?" cried Denisov, suddenly losing his +temper. "I shall answer for it and not you, and you'd better not buzz +about here till you get hurt. Be off! Go!" he shouted at the officers. + +"Very well, then!" shouted the little officer, undaunted and not riding +away. "If you are determined to rob, I'll..." + +"Go to the devil! quick ma'ch, while you're safe and sound!" and Denisov +turned his horse on the officer. + +"Very well, very well!" muttered the officer, threateningly, and turning +his horse he trotted away, jolting in his saddle. + +"A dog astwide a fence! A weal dog astwide a fence!" shouted Denisov +after him (the most insulting expression a cavalryman can address to a +mounted infantryman) and riding up to Rostov, he burst out laughing. + +"I've taken twansports from the infantwy by force!" he said. "After all, +can't let our men starve." + +The wagons that had reached the hussars had been consigned to an +infantry regiment, but learning from Lavrushka that the transport was +unescorted, Denisov with his hussars had seized it by force. The +soldiers had biscuits dealt out to them freely, and they even shared +them with the other squadrons. + +The next day the regimental commander sent for Denisov, and holding his +fingers spread out before his eyes said: + +"This is how I look at this affair: I know nothing about it and won't +begin proceedings, but I advise you to ride over to the staff and settle +the business there in the commissariat department and if possible sign a +receipt for such and such stores received. If not, as the demand was +booked against an infantry regiment, there will be a row and the affair +may end badly." + +From the regimental commander's, Denisov rode straight to the staff with +a sincere desire to act on this advice. In the evening he came back to +his dugout in a state such as Rostov had never yet seen him in. Denisov +could not speak and gasped for breath. When Rostov asked what was the +matter, he only uttered some incoherent oaths and threats in a hoarse, +feeble voice. + +Alarmed at Denisov's condition, Rostov suggested that he should undress, +drink some water, and send for the doctor. + +"Twy me for wobbewy... oh! Some more water... Let them twy me, but I'll +always thwash scoundwels... and I'll tell the Empewo'... Ice..." he +muttered. + +The regimental doctor, when he came, said it was absolutely necessary to +bleed Denisov. A deep saucer of black blood was taken from his hairy arm +and only then was he able to relate what had happened to him. + +"I get there," began Denisov. "'Now then, where's your chief's +quarters?' They were pointed out. 'Please to wait.' 'I've widden twenty +miles and have duties to attend to and no time to wait. Announce me.' +Vewy well, so out comes their head chief--also took it into his head to +lecture me: 'It's wobbewy!'--'Wobbewy,' I say, 'is not done by man who +seizes pwovisions to feed his soldiers, but by him who takes them to +fill his own pockets!' 'Will you please be silent?' 'Vewy good!' Then he +says: 'Go and give a weceipt to the commissioner, but your affair will +be passed on to headquarters.' I go to the commissioner. I enter, and at +the table... who do you think? No, but wait a bit!... Who is it that's +starving us?" shouted Denisov, hitting the table with the fist of his +newly bled arm so violently that the table nearly broke down and the +tumblers on it jumped about. "Telyanin! 'What? So it's you who's +starving us to death! Is it? Take this and this!' and I hit him so pat, +stwaight on his snout... 'Ah, what a... what a...!' and I sta'ted +fwashing him... Well, I've had a bit of fun I can tell you!" cried +Denisov, gleeful and yet angry, his white teeth showing under his black +mustache. "I'd have killed him if they hadn't taken him away!" + +"But what are you shouting for? Calm yourself," said Rostov. "You've set +your arm bleeding afresh. Wait, we must tie it up again." + +Denisov was bandaged up again and put to bed. Next day he woke calm and +cheerful. + +But at noon the adjutant of the regiment came into Rostov's and +Denisov's dugout with a grave and serious face and regretfully showed +them a paper addressed to Major Denisov from the regimental commander in +which inquiries were made about yesterday's occurrence. The adjutant +told them that the affair was likely to take a very bad turn: that a +court-martial had been appointed, and that in view of the severity with +which marauding and insubordination were now regarded, degradation to +the ranks would be the best that could be hoped for. + +The case, as represented by the offended parties, was that, after +seizing the transports, Major Denisov, being drunk, went to the chief +quartermaster and without any provocation called him a thief, threatened +to strike him, and on being led out had rushed into the office and given +two officials a thrashing, and dislocated the arm of one of them. + +In answer to Rostov's renewed questions, Denisov said, laughing, that he +thought he remembered that some other fellow had got mixed up in it, but +that it was all nonsense and rubbish, and he did not in the least fear +any kind of trial, and that if those scoundrels dared attack him he +would give them an answer that they would not easily forget. + +Denisov spoke contemptuously of the whole matter, but Rostov knew him +too well not to detect that (while hiding it from others) at heart he +feared a court-martial and was worried over the affair, which was +evidently taking a bad turn. Every day, letters of inquiry and notices +from the court arrived, and on the first of May, Denisov was ordered to +hand the squadron over to the next in seniority and appear before the +staff of his division to explain his violence at the commissariat +office. On the previous day Platov reconnoitered with two Cossack +regiments and two squadrons of hussars. Denisov, as was his wont, rode +out in front of the outposts, parading his courage. A bullet fired by a +French sharpshooter hit him in the fleshy part of his leg. Perhaps at +another time Denisov would not have left the regiment for so slight a +wound, but now he took advantage of it to excuse himself from appearing +at the staff and went into hospital. + + + + +CHAPTER XVII + +In June the battle of Friedland was fought, in which the Pavlograds did +not take part, and after that an armistice was proclaimed. Rostov, who +felt his friend's absence very much, having no news of him since he left +and feeling very anxious about his wound and the progress of his +affairs, took advantage of the armistice to get leave to visit Denisov +in hospital. + +The hospital was in a small Prussian town that had been twice devastated +by Russian and French troops. Because it was summer, when it is so +beautiful out in the fields, the little town presented a particularly +dismal appearance with its broken roofs and fences, its foul streets, +tattered inhabitants, and the sick and drunken soldiers wandering about. + +The hospital was in a brick building with some of the window frames and +panes broken and a courtyard surrounded by the remains of a wooden fence +that had been pulled to pieces. Several bandaged soldiers, with pale +swollen faces, were sitting or walking about in the sunshine in the +yard. + +Directly Rostov entered the door he was enveloped by a smell of +putrefaction and hospital air. On the stairs he met a Russian army +doctor smoking a cigar. The doctor was followed by a Russian assistant. + +"I can't tear myself to pieces," the doctor was saying. "Come to Makar +Alexeevich in the evening. I shall be there." + +The assistant asked some further questions. + +"Oh, do the best you can! Isn't it all the same?" The doctor noticed +Rostov coming upstairs. + +"What do you want, sir?" said the doctor. "What do you want? The bullets +having spared you, do you want to try typhus? This is a pesthouse, sir." + +"How so?" asked Rostov. + +"Typhus, sir. It's death to go in. Only we two, Makeev and I" (he +pointed to the assistant), "keep on here. Some five of us doctors have +died in this place.... When a new one comes he is done for in a week," +said the doctor with evident satisfaction. "Prussian doctors have been +invited here, but our allies don't like it at all." + +Rostov explained that he wanted to see Major Denisov of the hussars, who +was wounded. + +"I don't know. I can't tell you, sir. Only think! I am alone in charge +of three hospitals with more than four hundred patients! It's well that +the charitable Prussian ladies send us two pounds of coffee and some +lint each month or we should be lost!" he laughed. "Four hundred, sir, +and they're always sending me fresh ones. There are four hundred? Eh?" +he asked, turning to the assistant. + +The assistant looked fagged out. He was evidently vexed and impatient +for the talkative doctor to go. + +"Major Denisov," Rostov said again. "He was wounded at Molliten." + +"Dead, I fancy. Eh, Makeev?" queried the doctor, in a tone of +indifference. + +The assistant, however, did not confirm the doctor's words. + +"Is he tall and with reddish hair?" asked the doctor. + +Rostov described Denisov's appearance. + +"There was one like that," said the doctor, as if pleased. "That one is +dead, I fancy. However, I'll look up our list. We had a list. Have you +got it, Makeev?" + +"Makar Alexeevich has the list," answered the assistant. "But if you'll +step into the officers' wards you'll see for yourself," he added, +turning to Rostov. + +"Ah, you'd better not go, sir," said the doctor, "or you may have to +stay here yourself." + +But Rostov bowed himself away from the doctor and asked the assistant to +show him the way. + +"Only don't blame me!" the doctor shouted up after him. + +Rostov and the assistant went into the dark corridor. The smell was so +strong there that Rostov held his nose and had to pause and collect his +strength before he could go on. A door opened to the right, and an +emaciated sallow man on crutches, barefoot and in underclothing, limped +out and, leaning against the doorpost, looked with glittering envious +eyes at those who were passing. Glancing in at the door, Rostov saw that +the sick and wounded were lying on the floor on straw and overcoats. + +"May I go in and look?" + +"What is there to see?" said the assistant. + +But, just because the assistant evidently did not want him to go in, +Rostov entered the soldiers' ward. The foul air, to which he had already +begun to get used in the corridor, was still stronger here. It was a +little different, more pungent, and one felt that this was where it +originated. + +In the long room, brightly lit up by the sun through the large windows, +the sick and wounded lay in two rows with their heads to the walls, and +leaving a passage in the middle. Most of them were unconscious and paid +no attention to the newcomers. Those who were conscious raised +themselves or lifted their thin yellow faces, and all looked intently at +Rostov with the same expression of hope, of relief, reproach, and envy +of another's health. Rostov went to the middle of the room and looking +through the open doors into the two adjoining rooms saw the same thing +there. He stood still, looking silently around. He had not at all +expected such a sight. Just before him, almost across the middle of the +passage on the bare floor, lay a sick man, probably a Cossack to judge +by the cut of his hair. The man lay on his back, his huge arms and legs +outstretched. His face was purple, his eyes were rolled back so that +only the whites were seen, and on his bare legs and arms which were +still red, the veins stood out like cords. He was knocking the back of +his head against the floor, hoarsely uttering some word which he kept +repeating. Rostov listened and made out the word. It was "drink, drink, +a drink!" Rostov glanced round, looking for someone who would put this +man back in his place and bring him water. + +"Who looks after the sick here?" he asked the assistant. + +Just then a commissariat soldier, a hospital orderly, came in from the +next room, marching stiffly, and drew up in front of Rostov. + +"Good day, your honor!" he shouted, rolling his eyes at Rostov and +evidently mistaking him for one of the hospital authorities. + +"Get him to his place and give him some water," said Rostov, pointing to +the Cossack. + +"Yes, your honor," the soldier replied complacently, and rolling his +eyes more than ever he drew himself up still straighter, but did not +move. + +"No, it's impossible to do anything here," thought Rostov, lowering his +eyes, and he was going out, but became aware of an intense look fixed on +him on his right, and he turned. Close to the corner, on an overcoat, +sat an old, unshaven, gray-bearded soldier as thin as a skeleton, with a +stern sallow face and eyes intently fixed on Rostov. The man's neighbor +on one side whispered something to him, pointing at Rostov, who noticed +that the old man wanted to speak to him. He drew nearer and saw that the +old man had only one leg bent under him, the other had been amputated +above the knee. His neighbor on the other side, who lay motionless some +distance from him with his head thrown back, was a young soldier with a +snub nose. His pale waxen face was still freckled and his eyes were +rolled back. Rostov looked at the young soldier and a cold chill ran +down his back. + +"Why, this one seems..." he began, turning to the assistant. + +"And how we've been begging, your honor," said the old soldier, his jaw +quivering. "He's been dead since morning. After all we're men, not +dogs." + +"I'll send someone at once. He shall be taken away--taken away at once," +said the assistant hurriedly. "Let us go, your honor." + +"Yes, yes, let us go," said Rostov hastily, and lowering his eyes and +shrinking, he tried to pass unnoticed between the rows of reproachful +envious eyes that were fixed upon him, and went out of the room. + + + + +CHAPTER XVIII + +Going along the corridor, the assistant led Rostov to the officers' +wards, consisting of three rooms, the doors of which stood open. There +were beds in these rooms and the sick and wounded officers were lying or +sitting on them. Some were walking about the rooms in hospital dressing +gowns. The first person Rostov met in the officers' ward was a thin +little man with one arm, who was walking about the first room in a +nightcap and hospital dressing gown, with a pipe between his teeth. +Rostov looked at him, trying to remember where he had seen him before. + +"See where we've met again!" said the little man. "Tushin, Tushin, don't +you remember, who gave you a lift at Schon Grabern? And I've had a bit +cut off, you see..." he went on with a smile, pointing to the empty +sleeve of his dressing gown. "Looking for Vasili Dmitrich Denisov? My +neighbor," he added, when he heard who Rostov wanted. "Here, here," and +Tushin led him into the next room, from whence came sounds of several +laughing voices. + +"How can they laugh, or even live at all here?" thought Rostov, still +aware of that smell of decomposing flesh that had been so strong in the +soldiers' ward, and still seeming to see fixed on him those envious +looks which had followed him out from both sides, and the face of that +young soldier with eyes rolled back. + +Denisov lay asleep on his bed with his head under the blanket, though it +was nearly noon. + +"Ah, Wostov? How are you, how are you?" he called out, still in the same +voice as in the regiment, but Rostov noticed sadly that under this +habitual ease and animation some new, sinister, hidden feeling showed +itself in the expression of Denisov's face and the intonations of his +voice. + +His wound, though a slight one, had not yet healed even now, six weeks +after he had been hit. His face had the same swollen pallor as the faces +of the other hospital patients, but it was not this that struck Rostov. +What struck him was that Denisov did not seem glad to see him, and +smiled at him unnaturally. He did not ask about the regiment, nor about +the general state of affairs, and when Rostov spoke of these matters did +not listen. + +Rostov even noticed that Denisov did not like to be reminded of the +regiment, or in general of that other free life which was going on +outside the hospital. He seemed to try to forget that old life and was +only interested in the affair with the commissariat officers. On +Rostov's inquiry as to how the matter stood, he at once produced from +under his pillow a paper he had received from the commission and the +rough draft of his answer to it. He became animated when he began +reading his paper and specially drew Rostov's attention to the stinging +rejoinders he made to his enemies. His hospital companions, who had +gathered round Rostov--a fresh arrival from the world outside--gradually +began to disperse as soon as Denisov began reading his answer. Rostov +noticed by their faces that all those gentlemen had already heard that +story more than once and were tired of it. Only the man who had the next +bed, a stout Uhlan, continued to sit on his bed, gloomily frowning and +smoking a pipe, and little one-armed Tushin still listened, shaking his +head disapprovingly. In the middle of the reading, the Uhlan interrupted +Denisov. + +"But what I say is," he said, turning to Rostov, "it would be best +simply to petition the Emperor for pardon. They say great rewards will +now be distributed, and surely a pardon would be granted...." + +"Me petition the Empewo'!" exclaimed Denisov, in a voice to which he +tried hard to give the old energy and fire, but which sounded like an +expression of irritable impotence. "What for? If I were a wobber I would +ask mercy, but I'm being court-martialed for bwinging wobbers to book. +Let them twy me, I'm not afwaid of anyone. I've served the Tsar and my +countwy honowably and have not stolen! And am I to be degwaded?... +Listen, I'm w'iting to them stwaight. This is what I say: 'If I had +wobbed the Tweasuwy...'" + +"It's certainly well written," said Tushin, "but that's not the point, +Vasili Dmitrich," and he also turned to Rostov. "One has to submit, and +Vasili Dmitrich doesn't want to. You know the auditor told you it was a +bad business." + +"Well, let it be bad," said Denisov. + +"The auditor wrote out a petition for you," continued Tushin, "and you +ought to sign it and ask this gentleman to take it. No doubt he" +(indicating Rostov) "has connections on the staff. You won't find a +better opportunity." + +"Haven't I said I'm not going to gwovel?" Denisov interrupted him, went +on reading his paper. + +Rostov had not the courage to persuade Denisov, though he instinctively +felt that the way advised by Tushin and the other officers was the +safest, and though he would have been glad to be of service to Denisov. +He knew his stubborn will and straightforward hasty temper. + +When the reading of Denisov's virulent reply, which took more than an +hour, was over, Rostov said nothing, and he spent the rest of the day in +a most dejected state of mind amid Denisov's hospital comrades, who had +gathered round him, telling them what he knew and listening to their +stories. Denisov was moodily silent all the evening. + +Late in the evening, when Rostov was about to leave, he asked Denisov +whether he had no commission for him. + +"Yes, wait a bit," said Denisov, glancing round at the officers, and +taking his papers from under his pillow he went to the window, where he +had an inkpot, and sat down to write. + +"It seems it's no use knocking one's head against a wall!" he said, +coming from the window and giving Rostov a large envelope. In it was the +petition to the Emperor drawn up by the auditor, in which Denisov, +without alluding to the offenses of the commissariat officials, simply +asked for pardon. + +"Hand it in. It seems..." + +He did not finish, but gave a painfully unnatural smile. + + + + +CHAPTER XIX + +Having returned to the regiment and told the commander the state of +Denisov's affairs, Rostov rode to Tilsit with the letter to the Emperor. + +On the thirteenth of June the French and Russian Emperors arrived in +Tilsit. Boris Drubetskoy had asked the important personage on whom he +was in attendance, to include him in the suite appointed for the stay at +Tilsit. + +"I should like to see the great man," he said, alluding to Napoleon, +whom hitherto he, like everyone else, had always called Buonaparte. + +"You are speaking of Buonaparte?" asked the general, smiling. + +Boris looked at his general inquiringly and immediately saw that he was +being tested. + +"I am speaking, Prince, of the Emperor Napoleon," he replied. The +general patted him on the shoulder, with a smile. + +"You will go far," he said, and took him to Tilsit with him. + +Boris was among the few present at the Niemen on the day the two +Emperors met. He saw the raft, decorated with monograms, saw Napoleon +pass before the French Guards on the farther bank of the river, saw the +pensive face of the Emperor Alexander as he sat in silence in a tavern +on the bank of the Niemen awaiting Napoleon's arrival, saw both Emperors +get into boats, and saw how Napoleon--reaching the raft first--stepped +quickly forward to meet Alexander and held out his hand to him, and how +they both retired into the pavilion. Since he had begun to move in the +highest circles Boris had made it his habit to watch attentively all +that went on around him and to note it down. At the time of the meeting +at Tilsit he asked the names of those who had come with Napoleon and +about the uniforms they wore, and listened attentively to words spoken +by important personages. At the moment the Emperors went into the +pavilion he looked at his watch, and did not forget to look at it again +when Alexander came out. The interview had lasted an hour and fifty- +three minutes. He noted this down that same evening, among other facts +he felt to be of historic importance. As the Emperor's suite was a very +small one, it was a matter of great importance, for a man who valued his +success in the service, to be at Tilsit on the occasion of this +interview between the two Emperors, and having succeeded in this, Boris +felt that henceforth his position was fully assured. He had not only +become known, but people had grown accustomed to him and accepted him. +Twice he had executed commissions to the Emperor himself, so that the +latter knew his face, and all those at court, far from cold-shouldering +him as at first when they considered him a newcomer, would now have been +surprised had he been absent. + +Boris lodged with another adjutant, the Polish Count Zhilinski. +Zhilinski, a Pole brought up in Paris, was rich, and passionately fond +of the French, and almost every day of the stay at Tilsit, French +officers of the Guard and from French headquarters were dining and +lunching with him and Boris. + +On the evening of the twenty-fourth of June, Count Zhilinski arranged a +supper for his French friends. The guest of honor was an aide-de-camp of +Napoleon's, there were also several French officers of the Guard, and a +page of Napoleon's, a young lad of an old aristocratic French family. +That same day, Rostov, profiting by the darkness to avoid being +recognized in civilian dress, came to Tilsit and went to the lodging +occupied by Boris and Zhilinski. + +Rostov, in common with the whole army from which he came, was far from +having experienced the change of feeling toward Napoleon and the French- +-who from being foes had suddenly become friends--that had taken place +at headquarters and in Boris. In the army, Bonaparte and the French were +still regarded with mingled feelings of anger, contempt, and fear. Only +recently, talking with one of Platov's Cossack officers, Rostov had +argued that if Napoleon were taken prisoner he would be treated not as a +sovereign, but as a criminal. Quite lately, happening to meet a wounded +French colonel on the road, Rostov had maintained with heat that peace +was impossible between a legitimate sovereign and the criminal +Bonaparte. Rostov was therefore unpleasantly struck by the presence of +French officers in Boris' lodging, dressed in uniforms he had been +accustomed to see from quite a different point of view from the outposts +of the flank. As soon as he noticed a French officer, who thrust his +head out of the door, that warlike feeling of hostility which he always +experienced at the sight of the enemy suddenly seized him. He stopped at +the threshold and asked in Russian whether Drubetskoy lived there. +Boris, hearing a strange voice in the anteroom, came out to meet him. An +expression of annoyance showed itself for a moment on his face on first +recognizing Rostov. + +"Ah, it's you? Very glad, very glad to see you," he said, however, +coming toward him with a smile. But Rostov had noticed his first +impulse. + +"I've come at a bad time I think. I should not have come, but I have +business," he said coldly. + +"No, I only wonder how you managed to get away from your regiment. Dans +un moment je suis a vous," * he said, answering someone who called him. + + +* "In a minute I shall be at your disposal." + +"I see I'm intruding," Rostov repeated. + +The look of annoyance had already disappeared from Boris' face: having +evidently reflected and decided how to act, he very quietly took both +Rostov's hands and led him into the next room. His eyes, looking +serenely and steadily at Rostov, seemed to be veiled by something, as if +screened by blue spectacles of conventionality. So it seemed to Rostov. + +"Oh, come now! As if you could come at a wrong time!" said Boris, and he +led him into the room where the supper table was laid and introduced him +to his guests, explaining that he was not a civilian, but an hussar +officer, and an old friend of his. + +"Count Zhilinski--le Comte N. N.--le Capitaine S. S.," said he, naming +his guests. Rostov looked frowningly at the Frenchmen, bowed +reluctantly, and remained silent. + +Zhilinski evidently did not receive this new Russian person very +willingly into his circle and did not speak to Rostov. Boris did not +appear to notice the constraint the newcomer produced and, with the same +pleasant composure and the same veiled look in his eyes with which he +had met Rostov, tried to enliven the conversation. One of the Frenchmen, +with the politeness characteristic of his countrymen, addressed the +obstinately taciturn Rostov, saying that the latter had probably come to +Tilsit to see the Emperor. + +"No, I came on business," replied Rostov, briefly. + +Rostov had been out of humor from the moment he noticed the look of +dissatisfaction on Boris' face, and as always happens to those in a bad +humor, it seemed to him that everyone regarded him with aversion and +that he was in everybody's way. He really was in their way, for he alone +took no part in the conversation which again became general. The looks +the visitors cast on him seemed to say: "And what is he sitting here +for?" He rose and went up to Boris. + +"Anyhow, I'm in your way," he said in a low tone. "Come and talk over my +business and I'll go away." + +"Oh, no, not at all," said Boris. "But if you are tired, come and lie +down in my room and have a rest." + +"Yes, really..." + +They went into the little room where Boris slept. Rostov, without +sitting down, began at once, irritably (as if Boris were to blame in +some way) telling him about Denisov's affair, asking him whether, +through his general, he could and would intercede with the Emperor on +Denisov's behalf and get Denisov's petition handed in. When he and Boris +were alone, Rostov felt for the first time that he could not look Boris +in the face without a sense of awkwardness. Boris, with one leg crossed +over the other and stroking his left hand with the slender fingers of +his right, listened to Rostov as a general listens to the report of a +subordinate, now looking aside and now gazing straight into Rostov's +eyes with the same veiled look. Each time this happened Rostov felt +uncomfortable and cast down his eyes. + +"I have heard of such cases and know that His Majesty is very severe in +such affairs. I think it would be best not to bring it before the +Emperor, but to apply to the commander of the corps.... But in general, +I think..." + +"So you don't want to do anything? Well then, say so!" Rostov almost +shouted, not looking Boris in the face. + +Boris smiled. + +"On the contrary, I will do what I can. Only I thought..." + +At that moment Zhilinski's voice was heard calling Boris. + +"Well then, go, go, go..." said Rostov, and refusing supper and +remaining alone in the little room, he walked up and down for a long +time, hearing the lighthearted French conversation from the next room. + + + + +CHAPTER XX + +Rostov had come to Tilsit the day least suitable for a petition on +Denisov's behalf. He could not himself go to the general in attendance +as he was in mufti and had come to Tilsit without permission to do so, +and Boris, even had he wished to, could not have done so on the +following day. On that day, June 27, the preliminaries of peace were +signed. The Emperors exchanged decorations: Alexander received the Cross +of the Legion of Honor and Napoleon the Order of St. Andrew of the First +Degree, and a dinner had been arranged for the evening, given by a +battalion of the French Guards to the Preobrazhensk battalion. The +Emperors were to be present at that banquet. + +Rostov felt so ill at ease and uncomfortable with Boris that, when the +latter looked in after supper, he pretended to be asleep, and early next +morning went away, avoiding Boris. In his civilian clothes and a round +hat, he wandered about the town, staring at the French and their +uniforms and at the streets and houses where the Russian and French +Emperors were staying. In a square he saw tables being set up and +preparations made for the dinner; he saw the Russian and French colors +draped from side to side of the streets, with huge monograms A and N. In +the windows of the houses also flags and bunting were displayed. + +"Boris doesn't want to help me and I don't want to ask him. That's +settled," thought Nicholas. "All is over between us, but I won't leave +here without having done all I can for Denisov and certainly not without +getting his letter to the Emperor. The Emperor!... He is here!" thought +Rostov, who had unconsciously returned to the house where Alexander +lodged. + +Saddled horses were standing before the house and the suite were +assembling, evidently preparing for the Emperor to come out. + +"I may see him at any moment," thought Rostov. "If only I were to hand +the letter direct to him and tell him all... could they really arrest me +for my civilian clothes? Surely not! He would understand on whose side +justice lies. He understands everything, knows everything. Who can be +more just, more magnanimous than he? And even if they did arrest me for +being here, what would it matter?" thought he, looking at an officer who +was entering the house the Emperor occupied. "After all, people do go +in.... It's all nonsense! I'll go in and hand the letter to the Emperor +myself so much the worse for Drubetskoy who drives me to it!" And +suddenly with a determination he himself did not expect, Rostov felt for +the letter in his pocket and went straight to the house. + +"No, I won't miss my opportunity now, as I did after Austerlitz," he +thought, expecting every moment to meet the monarch, and conscious of +the blood that rushed to his heart at the thought. "I will fall at his +feet and beseech him. He will lift me up, will listen, and will even +thank me. 'I am happy when I can do good, but to remedy injustice is the +greatest happiness,'" Rostov fancied the sovereign saying. And passing +people who looked after him with curiosity, he entered the porch of the +Emperor's house. + +A broad staircase led straight up from the entry, and to the right he +saw a closed door. Below, under the staircase, was a door leading to the +lower floor. + +"Whom do you want?" someone inquired. + +"To hand in a letter, a petition, to His Majesty," said Nicholas, with a +tremor in his voice. + +"A petition? This way, to the officer on duty" (he was shown the door +leading downstairs), "only it won't be accepted." + +On hearing this indifferent voice, Rostov grew frightened at what he was +doing; the thought of meeting the Emperor at any moment was so +fascinating and consequently so alarming that he was ready to run away, +but the official who had questioned him opened the door, and Rostov +entered. + +A short stout man of about thirty, in white breeches and high boots and +a batiste shirt that he had evidently only just put on, standing in that +room, and his valet was buttoning on to the back of his breeches a new +pair of handsome silk-embroidered braces that, for some reason, +attracted Rostov's attention. This man was speaking to someone in the +adjoining room. + +"A good figure and in her first bloom," he was saying, but on seeing +Rostov, he stopped short and frowned. + +"What is it? A petition?" + +"What is it?" asked the person in the other room. + +"Another petitioner," answered the man with the braces. + +"Tell him to come later. He'll be coming out directly, we must go." + +"Later... later! Tomorrow. It's too late..." + +Rostov turned and was about to go, but the man in the braces stopped +him. + +"Whom have you come from? Who are you?" + +"I come from Major Denisov," answered Rostov. + +"Are you an officer?" + +"Lieutenant Count Rostov." + +"What audacity! Hand it in through your commander. And go along with +you... go," and he continued to put on the uniform the valet handed him. + +Rostov went back into the hall and noticed that in the porch there were +many officers and generals in full parade uniform, whom he had to pass. + +Cursing his temerity, his heart sinking at the thought of finding +himself at any moment face to face with the Emperor and being put to +shame and arrested in his presence, fully alive now to the impropriety +of his conduct and repenting of it, Rostov, with downcast eyes, was +making his way out of the house through the brilliant suite when a +familiar voice called him and a hand detained him. + +"What are you doing here, sir, in civilian dress?" asked a deep voice. + +It was a cavalry general who had obtained the Emperor's special favor +during this campaign, and who had formerly commanded the division in +which Rostov was serving. + +Rostov, in dismay, began justifying himself, but seeing the kindly, +jocular face of the general, he took him aside and in an excited voice +told him the whole affair, asking him to intercede for Denisov, whom the +general knew. Having heard Rostov to the end, the general shook his head +gravely. + +"I'm sorry, sorry for that fine fellow. Give me the letter." + +Hardly had Rostov handed him the letter and finished explaining +Denisov's case, when hasty steps and the jingling of spurs were heard on +the stairs, and the general, leaving him, went to the porch. The +gentlemen of the Emperor's suite ran down the stairs and went to their +horses. Hayne, the same groom who had been at Austerlitz, led up the +Emperor's horse, and the faint creak of a footstep Rostov knew at once +was heard on the stairs. Forgetting the danger of being recognized, +Rostov went close to the porch, together with some inquisitive +civilians, and again, after two years, saw those features he adored: +that same face and same look and step, and the same union of majesty and +mildness.... And the feeling of enthusiasm and love for his sovereign +rose again in Rostov's soul in all its old force. In the uniform of the +Preobrazhensk regiment--white chamois-leather breeches and high boots-- +and wearing a star Rostov did not know (it was that of the Legion +d'honneur), the monarch came out into the porch, putting on his gloves +and carrying his hat under his arm. He stopped and looked about him, +brightening everything around by his glance. He spoke a few words to +some of the generals, and, recognizing the former commander of Rostov's +division, smiled and beckoned to him. + +All the suite drew back and Rostov saw the general talking for some time +to the Emperor. + +The Emperor said a few words to him and took a step toward his horse. +Again the crowd of members of the suite and street gazers (among whom +was Rostov) moved nearer to the Emperor. Stopping beside his horse, with +his hand on the saddle, the Emperor turned to the cavalry general and +said in a loud voice, evidently wishing to be heard by all: + +"I cannot do it, General. I cannot, because the law is stronger than I," +and he raised his foot to the stirrup. + +The general bowed his head respectfully, and the monarch mounted and +rode down the street at a gallop. Beside himself with enthusiasm, Rostov +ran after him with the crowd. + + + + +CHAPTER XXI + +The Emperor rode to the square where, facing one another, a battalion of +the Preobrazhensk regiment stood on the right and a battalion of the +French Guards in their bearskin caps on the left. + +As the Tsar rode up to one flank of the battalions, which presented +arms, another group of horsemen galloped up to the opposite flank, and +at the head of them Rostov recognized Napoleon. It could be no one else. +He came at a gallop, wearing a small hat, a blue uniform open over a +white vest, and the St. Andrew ribbon over his shoulder. He was riding a +very fine thoroughbred gray Arab horse with a crimson gold-embroidered +saddlecloth. On approaching Alexander he raised his hat, and as he did +so, Rostov, with his cavalryman's eye, could not help noticing that +Napoleon did not sit well or firmly in the saddle. The battalions +shouted "Hurrah!" and "Vive l'Empereur!" Napoleon said something to +Alexander, and both Emperors dismounted and took each other's hands. +Napoleon's face wore an unpleasant and artificial smile. Alexander was +saying something affable to him. + +In spite of the trampling of the French gendarmes' horses, which were +pushing back the crowd, Rostov kept his eyes on every movement of +Alexander and Bonaparte. It struck him as a surprise that Alexander +treated Bonaparte as an equal and that the latter was quite at ease with +the Tsar, as if such relations with an Emperor were an everyday matter +to him. + +Alexander and Napoleon, with the long train of their suites, approached +the right flank of the Preobrazhensk battalion and came straight up to +the crowd standing there. The crowd unexpectedly found itself so close +to the Emperors that Rostov, standing in the front row, was afraid he +might be recognized. + +"Sire, I ask your permission to present the Legion of Honor to the +bravest of your soldiers," said a sharp, precise voice, articulating +every letter. + +This was said by the undersized Napoleon, looking up straight into +Alexander's eyes. Alexander listened attentively to what was said to him +and, bending his head, smiled pleasantly. + +"To him who has borne himself most bravely in this last war," added +Napoleon, accentuating each syllable, as with a composure and assurance +exasperating to Rostov, he ran his eyes over the Russian ranks drawn up +before him, who all presented arms with their eyes fixed on their +Emperor. + +"Will Your Majesty allow me to consult the colonel?" said Alexander and +took a few hasty steps toward Prince Kozlovski, the commander of the +battalion. + +Bonaparte meanwhile began taking the glove off his small white hand, +tore it in doing so, and threw it away. An aide-de-camp behind him +rushed forward and picked it up. + +"To whom shall it be given?" the Emperor Alexander asked Koslovski, in +Russian in a low voice. + +"To whomever Your Majesty commands." + +The Emperor knit his brows with dissatisfaction and, glancing back, +remarked: + +"But we must give him an answer." + +Kozlovski scanned the ranks resolutely and included Rostov in his +scrutiny. + +"Can it be me?" thought Rostov. + +"Lazarev!" the colonel called, with a frown, and Lazarev, the first +soldier in the rank, stepped briskly forward. + +"Where are you off to? Stop here!" voices whispered to Lazarev who did +not know where to go. Lazarev stopped, casting a sidelong look at his +colonel in alarm. His face twitched, as often happens to soldiers called +before the ranks. + +Napoleon slightly turned his head, and put his plump little hand out +behind him as if to take something. The members of his suite, guessing +at once what he wanted, moved about and whispered as they passed +something from one to another, and a page--the same one Rostov had seen +the previous evening at Boris'--ran forward and, bowing respectfully +over the outstretched hand and not keeping it waiting a moment, laid in +it an Order on a red ribbon. Napoleon, without looking, pressed two +fingers together and the badge was between them. Then he approached +Lazarev (who rolled his eyes and persistently gazed at his own monarch), +looked round at the Emperor Alexander to imply that what he was now +doing was done for the sake of his ally, and the small white hand +holding the Order touched one of Lazarev's buttons. It was as if +Napoleon knew that it was only necessary for his hand to deign to touch +that soldier's breast for the soldier to be forever happy, rewarded, and +distinguished from everyone else in the world. Napoleon merely laid the +cross on Lazarev's breast and, dropping his hand, turned toward +Alexander as though sure that the cross would adhere there. And it +really did. + +Officious hands, Russian and French, immediately seized the cross and +fastened it to the uniform. Lazarev glanced morosely at the little man +with white hands who was doing something to him and, still standing +motionless presenting arms, looked again straight into Alexander's eyes, +as if asking whether he should stand there, or go away, or do something +else. But receiving no orders, he remained for some time in that rigid +position. + +The Emperors remounted and rode away. The Preobrazhensk battalion, +breaking rank, mingled with the French Guards and sat down at the tables +prepared for them. + +Lazarev sat in the place of honor. Russian and French officers embraced +him, congratulated him, and pressed his hands. Crowds of officers and +civilians drew near merely to see him. A rumble of Russian and French +voices and laughter filled the air round the tables in the square. Two +officers with flushed faces, looking cheerful and happy, passed by +Rostov. + +"What d'you think of the treat? All on silver plate," one of them was +saying. "Have you seen Lazarev?" + +"I have." + +"Tomorrow, I hear, the Preobrazhenskis will give them a dinner." + +"Yes, but what luck for Lazarev! Twelve hundred francs' pension for +life." + +"Here's a cap, lads!" shouted a Preobrazhensk soldier, donning a shaggy +French cap. + +"It's a fine thing! First-rate!" + +"Have you heard the password?" asked one Guards' officer of another. +"The day before yesterday it was 'Napoleon, France, bravoure'; +yesterday, 'Alexandre, Russie, grandeur.' One day our Emperor gives it +and next day Napoleon. Tomorrow our Emperor will send a St. George's +Cross to the bravest of the French Guards. It has to be done. He must +respond in kind." + +Boris, too, with his friend Zhilinski, came to see the Preobrazhensk +banquet. On his way back, he noticed Rostov standing by the corner of a +house. + +"Rostov! How d'you do? We missed one another," he said, and could not +refrain from asking what was the matter, so strangely dismal and +troubled was Rostov's face. + +"Nothing, nothing," replied Rostov. + +"You'll call round?" + +"Yes, I will." + +Rostov stood at that corner for a long time, watching the feast from a +distance. In his mind, a painful process was going on which he could not +bring to a conclusion. Terrible doubts rose in his soul. Now he +remembered Denisov with his changed expression, his submission, and the +whole hospital, with arms and legs torn off and its dirt and disease. So +vividly did he recall that hospital stench of dead flesh that he looked +round to see where the smell came from. Next he thought of that self- +satisfied Bonaparte, with his small white hand, who was now an Emperor, +liked and respected by Alexander. Then why those severed arms and legs +and those dead men?... Then again he thought of Lazarev rewarded and +Denisov punished and unpardoned. He caught himself harboring such +strange thoughts that he was frightened. + +The smell of the food the Preobrazhenskis were eating and a sense of +hunger recalled him from these reflections; he had to get something to +eat before going away. He went to a hotel he had noticed that morning. +There he found so many people, among them officers who, like himself, +had come in civilian clothes, that he had difficulty in getting a +dinner. Two officers of his own division joined him. The conversation +naturally turned on the peace. The officers, his comrades, like most of +the army, were dissatisfied with the peace concluded after the battle of +Friedland. They said that had we held out a little longer Napoleon would +have been done for, as his troops had neither provisions nor ammunition. +Nicholas ate and drank (chiefly the latter) in silence. He finished a +couple of bottles of wine by himself. The process in his mind went on +tormenting him without reaching a conclusion. He feared to give way to +his thoughts, yet could not get rid of them. Suddenly, on one of the +officers' saying that it was humiliating to look at the French, Rostov +began shouting with uncalled-for wrath, and therefore much to the +surprise of the officers: + +"How can you judge what's best?" he cried, the blood suddenly rushing to +his face. "How can you judge the Emperor's actions? What right have we +to argue? We cannot comprehend either the Emperor's aims or his +actions!" + +"But I never said a word about the Emperor!" said the officer, +justifying himself, and unable to understand Rostov's outburst, except +on the supposition that he was drunk. + +But Rostov did not listen to him. + +"We are not diplomatic officials, we are soldiers and nothing more," he +went on. "If we are ordered to die, we must die. If we're punished, it +means that we have deserved it, it's not for us to judge. If the Emperor +pleases to recognize Bonaparte as Emperor and to conclude an alliance +with him, it means that that is the right thing to do. If once we begin +judging and arguing about everything, nothing sacred will be left! That +way we shall be saying there is no God--nothing!" shouted Nicholas, +banging the table--very little to the point as it seemed to his +listeners, but quite relevantly to the course of his own thoughts. + +"Our business is to do our duty, to fight and not to think! That's +all...." said he. + +"And to drink," said one of the officers, not wishing to quarrel. + +"Yes, and to drink," assented Nicholas. "Hullo there! Another bottle!" +he shouted. + +In 1808 the Emperor Alexander went to Erfurt for a fresh interview with +the Emperor Napoleon, and in the upper circles of Petersburg there was +much talk of the grandeur of this important meeting. + + + + +CHAPTER XXII + +In 1809 the intimacy between "the world's two arbiters," as Napoleon and +Alexander were called, was such that when Napoleon declared war on +Austria a Russian corps crossed the frontier to co-operate with our old +enemy Bonaparte against our old ally the Emperor of Austria, and in +court circles the possibility of marriage between Napoleon and one of +Alexander's sisters was spoken of. But besides considerations of foreign +policy, the attention of Russian society was at that time keenly +directed on the internal changes that were being undertaken in all the +departments of government. + +Life meanwhile--real life, with its essential interests of health and +sickness, toil and rest, and its intellectual interests in thought, +science, poetry, music, love, friendship, hatred, and passions--went on +as usual, independently of and apart from political friendship or enmity +with Napoleon Bonaparte and from all the schemes of reconstruction. + +BOOK SIX: 1808 - 10 + + + + +CHAPTER I + +Prince Andrew had spent two years continuously in the country. + +All the plans Pierre had attempted on his estates--and constantly +changing from one thing to another had never accomplished--were carried +out by Prince Andrew without display and without perceptible difficulty. + +He had in the highest degree a practical tenacity which Pierre lacked, +and without fuss or strain on his part this set things going. + +On one of his estates the three hundred serfs were liberated and became +free agricultural laborers--this being one of the first examples of the +kind in Russia. On other estates the serfs' compulsory labor was +commuted for a quitrent. A trained midwife was engaged for Bogucharovo +at his expense, and a priest was paid to teach reading and writing to +the children of the peasants and household serfs. + +Prince Andrew spent half his time at Bald Hills with his father and his +son, who was still in the care of nurses. The other half he spent in +"Bogucharovo Cloister," as his father called Prince Andrew's estate. +Despite the indifference to the affairs of the world he had expressed to +Pierre, he diligently followed all that went on, received many books, +and to his surprise noticed that when he or his father had visitors from +Petersburg, the very vortex of life, these people lagged behind himself- +-who never left the country--in knowledge of what was happening in home +and foreign affairs. + +Besides being occupied with his estates and reading a great variety of +books, Prince Andrew was at this time busy with a critical survey of our +last two unfortunate campaigns, and with drawing up a proposal for a +reform of the army rules and regulations. + +In the spring of 1809 he went to visit the Ryazan estates which had been +inherited by his son, whose guardian he was. + +Warmed by the spring sunshine he sat in the caleche looking at the new +grass, the first leaves on the birches, and the first puffs of white +spring clouds floating across the clear blue sky. He was not thinking of +anything, but looked absent-mindedly and cheerfully from side to side. + +They crossed the ferry where he had talked with Pierre the year before. +They went through the muddy village, past threshing floors and green +fields of winter rye, downhill where snow still lodged near the bridge, +uphill where the clay had been liquefied by the rain, past strips of +stubble land and bushes touched with green here and there, and into a +birch forest growing on both sides of the road. In the forest it was +almost hot, no wind could be felt. The birches with their sticky green +leaves were motionless, and lilac-colored flowers and the first blades +of green grass were pushing up and lifting last year's leaves. The +coarse evergreen color of the small fir trees scattered here and there +among the birches was an unpleasant reminder of winter. On entering the +forest the horses began to snort and sweated visibly. + +Peter the footman made some remark to the coachman; the latter assented. +But apparently the coachman's sympathy was not enough for Peter, and he +turned on the box toward his master. + +"How pleasant it is, your excellency!" he said with a respectful smile. + +"What?" + +"It's pleasant, your excellency!" + + +"What is he talking about?" thought Prince Andrew. "Oh, the spring, I +suppose," he thought as he turned round. "Yes, really everything is +green already.... How early! The birches and cherry and alders too are +coming out.... But the oaks show no sign yet. Ah, here is one oak!" + +At the edge of the road stood an oak. Probably ten times the age of the +birches that formed the forest, it was ten times as thick and twice as +tall as they. It was an enormous tree, its girth twice as great as a man +could embrace, and evidently long ago some of its branches had been +broken off and its bark scarred. With its huge ungainly limbs sprawling +unsymmetrically, and its gnarled hands and fingers, it stood an aged, +stern, and scornful monster among the smiling birch trees. Only the +dead-looking evergreen firs dotted about in the forest, and this oak, +refused to yield to the charm of spring or notice either the spring or +the sunshine. + +"Spring, love, happiness!" this oak seemed to say. "Are you not weary of +that stupid, meaningless, constantly repeated fraud? Always the same and +always a fraud? There is no spring, no sun, no happiness! Look at those +cramped dead firs, ever the same, and at me too, sticking out my broken +and barked fingers just where they have grown, whether from my back or +my sides: as they have grown so I stand, and I do not believe in your +hopes and your lies." + +As he passed through the forest Prince Andrew turned several times to +look at that oak, as if expecting something from it. Under the oak, too, +were flowers and grass, but it stood among them scowling, rigid, +misshapen, and grim as ever. + +"Yes, the oak is right, a thousand times right," thought Prince Andrew. +"Let others--the young--yield afresh to that fraud, but we know life, +our life is finished!" + +A whole sequence of new thoughts, hopeless but mournfully pleasant, rose +in his soul in connection with that tree. During this journey he, as it +were, considered his life afresh and arrived at his old conclusion, +restful in its hopelessness: that it was not for him to begin anything +anew--but that he must live out his life, content to do no harm, and not +disturbing himself or desiring anything. + + + + +CHAPTER II + +Prince Andrew had to see the Marshal of the Nobility for the district in +connection with the affairs of the Ryazan estate of which he was +trustee. This Marshal was Count Ilya Rostov, and in the middle of May +Prince Andrew went to visit him. + +It was now hot spring weather. The whole forest was already clothed in +green. It was dusty and so hot that on passing near water one longed to +bathe. + +Prince Andrew, depressed and preoccupied with the business about which +he had to speak to the Marshal, was driving up the avenue in the grounds +of the Rostovs' house at Otradnoe. He heard merry girlish cries behind +some trees on the right and saw a group of girls running to cross the +path of his caleche. Ahead of the rest and nearer to him ran a dark- +haired, remarkably slim, pretty girl in a yellow chintz dress, with a +white handkerchief on her head from under which loose locks of hair +escaped. The girl was shouting something but, seeing that he was a +stranger, ran back laughing without looking at him. + +Suddenly, he did not know why, he felt a pang. The day was so beautiful, +the sun so bright, everything around so gay, but that slim pretty girl +did not know, or wish to know, of his existence and was contented and +cheerful in her own separate--probably foolish--but bright and happy +life. "What is she so glad about? What is she thinking of? Not of the +military regulations or of the arrangement of the Ryazan serfs' +quitrents. Of what is she thinking? Why is she so happy?" Prince Andrew +asked himself with instinctive curiosity. + +In 1809 Count Ilya Rostov was living at Otradnoe just as he had done in +former years, that is, entertaining almost the whole province with +hunts, theatricals, dinners, and music. He was glad to see Prince +Andrew, as he was to see any new visitor, and insisted on his staying +the night. + +During the dull day, in the course of which he was entertained by his +elderly hosts and by the more important of the visitors (the old count's +house was crowded on account of an approaching name day), Prince Andrew +repeatedly glanced at Natasha, gay and laughing among the younger +members of the company, and asked himself each time, "What is she +thinking about? Why is she so glad?" + +That night, alone in new surroundings, he was long unable to sleep. He +read awhile and then put out his candle, but relit it. It was hot in the +room, the inside shutters of which were closed. He was cross with the +stupid old man (as he called Rostov), who had made him stay by assuring +him that some necessary documents had not yet arrived from town, and he +was vexed with himself for having stayed. + +He got up and went to the window to open it. As soon as he opened the +shutters the moonlight, as if it had long been watching for this, burst +into the room. He opened the casement. The night was fresh, bright, and +very still. Just before the window was a row of pollard trees, looking +black on one side and with a silvery light on the other. Beneath the +trees grew some kind of lush, wet, bushy vegetation with silver-lit +leaves and stems here and there. Farther back beyond the dark trees a +roof glittered with dew, to the right was a leafy tree with brilliantly +white trunk and branches, and above it shone the moon, nearly at its +full, in a pale, almost starless, spring sky. Prince Andrew leaned his +elbows on the window ledge and his eyes rested on that sky. + +His room was on the first floor. Those in the rooms above were also +awake. He heard female voices overhead. + +"Just once more," said a girlish voice above him which Prince Andrew +recognized at once. + +"But when are you coming to bed?" replied another voice. + +"I won't, I can't sleep, what's the use? Come now for the last time." + + +Two girlish voices sang a musical passage--the end of some song. + +"Oh, how lovely! Now go to sleep, and there's an end of it." + +"You go to sleep, but I can't," said the first voice, coming nearer to +the window. She was evidently leaning right out, for the rustle of her +dress and even her breathing could be heard. Everything was stone-still, +like the moon and its light and the shadows. Prince Andrew, too, dared +not stir, for fear of betraying his unintentional presence. + +"Sonya! Sonya!" he again heard the first speaker. "Oh, how can you +sleep? Only look how glorious it is! Ah, how glorious! Do wake up, +Sonya!" she said almost with tears in her voice. "There never, never was +such a lovely night before!" + +Sonya made some reluctant reply. + +"Do just come and see what a moon!... Oh, how lovely! Come here.... +Darling, sweetheart, come here! There, you see? I feel like sitting down +on my heels, putting my arms round my knees like this, straining tight, +as tight as possible, and flying away! Like this...." + +"Take care, you'll fall out." + +He heard the sound of a scuffle and Sonya's disapproving voice: "It's +past one o'clock." + +"Oh, you only spoil things for me. All right, go, go!" + +Again all was silent, but Prince Andrew knew she was still sitting +there. From time to time he heard a soft rustle and at times a sigh. + +"O God, O God! What does it mean?" she suddenly exclaimed. "To bed then, +if it must be!" and she slammed the casement. + +"For her I might as well not exist!" thought Prince Andrew while he +listened to her voice, for some reason expecting yet fearing that she +might say something about him. "There she is again! As if it were on +purpose," thought he. + +In his soul there suddenly arose such an unexpected turmoil of youthful +thoughts and hopes, contrary to the whole tenor of his life, that unable +to explain his condition to himself he lay down and fell asleep at once. + + + + +CHAPTER III + +Next morning, having taken leave of no one but the count, and not +waiting for the ladies to appear, Prince Andrew set off for home. + +It was already the beginning of June when on his return journey he drove +into the birch forest where the gnarled old oak had made so strange and +memorable an impression on him. In the forest the harness bells sounded +yet more muffled than they had done six weeks before, for now all was +thick, shady, and dense, and the young firs dotted about in the forest +did not jar on the general beauty but, lending themselves to the mood +around, were delicately green with fluffy young shoots. + +The whole day had been hot. Somewhere a storm was gathering, but only a +small cloud had scattered some raindrops lightly, sprinkling the road +and the sappy leaves. The left side of the forest was dark in the shade, +the right side glittered in the sunlight, wet and shiny and scarcely +swayed by the breeze. Everything was in blossom, the nightingales +trilled, and their voices reverberated now near, now far away. + +"Yes, here in this forest was that oak with which I agreed," thought +Prince Andrew. "But where is it?" he again wondered, gazing at the left +side of the road, and without recognizing it he looked with admiration +at the very oak he sought. The old oak, quite transfigured, spreading +out a canopy of sappy dark-green foliage, stood rapt and slightly +trembling in the rays of the evening sun. Neither gnarled fingers nor +old scars nor old doubts and sorrows were any of them in evidence now. +Through the hard century-old bark, even where there were no twigs, +leaves had sprouted such as one could hardly believe the old veteran +could have produced. + +"Yes, it is the same oak," thought Prince Andrew, and all at once he was +seized by an unreasoning springtime feeling of joy and renewal. All the +best moments of his life suddenly rose to his memory. Austerlitz with +the lofty heavens, his wife's dead reproachful face, Pierre at the +ferry, that girl thrilled by the beauty of the night, and that night +itself and the moon, and.... all this rushed suddenly to his mind. + +"No, life is not over at thirty-one!" Prince Andrew suddenly decided +finally and decisively. "It is not enough for me to know what I have in +me--everyone must know it: Pierre, and that young girl who wanted to fly +away into the sky, everyone must know me, so that my life may not be +lived for myself alone while others live so apart from it, but so that +it may be reflected in them all, and they and I may live in harmony!" + +On reaching home Prince Andrew decided to go to Petersburg that autumn +and found all sorts of reasons for this decision. A whole series of +sensible and logical considerations showing it to be essential for him +to go to Petersburg, and even to re-enter the service, kept springing up +in his mind. He could not now understand how he could ever even have +doubted the necessity of taking an active share in life, just as a month +before he had not understood how the idea of leaving the quiet country +could ever enter his head. It now seemed clear to him that all his +experience of life must be senselessly wasted unless he applied it to +some kind of work and again played an active part in life. He did not +even remember how formerly, on the strength of similar wretched logical +arguments, it had seemed obvious that he would be degrading himself if +he now, after the lessons he had had in life, allowed himself to believe +in the possibility of being useful and in the possibility of happiness +or love. Now reason suggested quite the opposite. After that journey to +Ryazan he found the country dull; his former pursuits no longer +interested him, and often when sitting alone in his study he got up, +went to the mirror, and gazed a long time at his own face. Then he would +turn away to the portrait of his dead Lise, who with hair curled a la +grecque looked tenderly and gaily at him out of the gilt frame. She did +not now say those former terrible words to him, but looked simply, +merrily, and inquisitively at him. And Prince Andrew, crossing his arms +behind him, long paced the room, now frowning, now smiling, as he +reflected on those irrational, inexpressible thoughts, secret as a +crime, which altered his whole life and were connected with Pierre, with +fame, with the girl at the window, the oak, and woman's beauty and love. +And if anyone came into his room at such moments he was particularly +cold, stern, and above all unpleasantly logical. + +"My dear," Princess Mary entering at such a moment would say, "little +Nicholas can't go out today, it's very cold." + +"If it were hot," Prince Andrew would reply at such times very dryly to +his sister, "he could go out in his smock, but as it is cold he must +wear warm clothes, which were designed for that purpose. That is what +follows from the fact that it is cold; and not that a child who needs +fresh air should remain at home," he would add with extreme logic, as if +punishing someone for those secret illogical emotions that stirred +within him. + +At such moments Princess Mary would think how intellectual work dries +men up. + + + + +CHAPTER IV + +Prince Andrew arrived in Petersburg in August, 1809. It was the time +when the youthful Speranski was at the zenith of his fame and his +reforms were being pushed forward with the greatest energy. That same +August the Emperor was thrown from his caleche, injured his leg, and +remained three weeks at Peterhof, receiving Speranski every day and no +one else. At that time the two famous decrees were being prepared that +so agitated society--abolishing court ranks and introducing examinations +to qualify for the grades of Collegiate Assessor and State Councilor-- +and not merely these but a whole state constitution, intended to change +the existing order of government in Russia: legal, administrative, and +financial, from the Council of State down to the district tribunals. Now +those vague liberal dreams with which the Emperor Alexander had ascended +the throne, and which he had tried to put into effect with the aid of +his associates, Czartoryski, Novosiltsev, Kochubey, and Strogonov--whom +he himself in jest had called his Comite de salut public--were taking +shape and being realized. + +Now all these men were replaced by Speranski on the civil side, and +Arakcheev on the military. Soon after his arrival Prince Andrew, as a +gentleman of the chamber, presented himself at court and at a levee. The +Emperor, though he met him twice, did not favor him with a single word. +It had always seemed to Prince Andrew before that he was antipathetic to +the Emperor and that the latter disliked his face and personality +generally, and in the cold, repellent glance the Emperor gave him, he +now found further confirmation of this surmise. The courtiers explained +the Emperor's neglect of him by His Majesty's displeasure at Bolkonski's +not having served since 1805. + +"I know myself that one cannot help one's sympathies and antipathies," +thought Prince Andrew, "so it will not do to present my proposal for the +reform of the army regulations to the Emperor personally, but the +project will speak for itself." + +He mentioned what he had written to an old field marshal, a friend of +his father's. The field marshal made an appointment to see him, received +him graciously, and promised to inform the Emperor. A few days later +Prince Andrew received notice that he was to go to see the Minister of +War, Count Arakcheev. + +On the appointed day Prince Andrew entered Count Arakcheev's waiting +room at nine in the morning. + +He did not know Arakcheev personally, had never seen him, and all he had +heard of him inspired him with but little respect for the man. + +"He is Minister of War, a man trusted by the Emperor, and I need not +concern myself about his personal qualities: he has been commissioned to +consider my project, so he alone can get it adopted," thought Prince +Andrew as he waited among a number of important and unimportant people +in Count Arakcheev's waiting room. + +During his service, chiefly as an adjutant, Prince Andrew had seen the +anterooms of many important men, and the different types of such rooms +were well known to him. Count Arakcheev's anteroom had quite a special +character. The faces of the unimportant people awaiting their turn for +an audience showed embarrassment and servility; the faces of those of +higher rank expressed a common feeling of awkwardness, covered by a mask +of unconcern and ridicule of themselves, their situation, and the person +for whom they were waiting. Some walked thoughtfully up and down, others +whispered and laughed. Prince Andrew heard the nickname "Sila +Andreevich" and the words, "Uncle will give it to us hot," in reference +to Count Arakcheev. One general (an important personage), evidently +feeling offended at having to wait so long, sat crossing and uncrossing +his legs and smiling contemptuously to himself. + +But the moment the door opened one feeling alone appeared on all faces-- +that of fear. Prince Andrew for the second time asked the adjutant on +duty to take in his name, but received an ironical look and was told +that his turn would come in due course. After some others had been shown +in and out of the minister's room by the adjutant on duty, an officer +who struck Prince Andrew by his humiliated and frightened air was +admitted at that terrible door. This officer's audience lasted a long +time. Then suddenly the grating sound of a harsh voice was heard from +the other side of the door, and the officer--with pale face and +trembling lips--came out and passed through the waiting room, clutching +his head. + +After this Prince Andrew was conducted to the door and the officer on +duty said in a whisper, "To the right, at the window." + +Prince Andrew entered a plain tidy room and saw at the table a man of +forty with a long waist, a long closely cropped head, deep wrinkles, +scowling brows above dull greenish-hazel eyes and an overhanging red +nose. Arakcheev turned his head toward him without looking at him. + +"What is your petition?" asked Arakcheev. + +"I am not petitioning, your excellency," returned Prince Andrew quietly. + +Arakcheev's eyes turned toward him. + +"Sit down," said he. "Prince Bolkonski?" + +"I am not petitioning about anything. His Majesty the Emperor has +deigned to send your excellency a project submitted by me..." + +"You see, my dear sir, I have read your project," interrupted Arakcheev, +uttering only the first words amiably and then--again without looking at +Prince Andrew--relapsing gradually into a tone of grumbling contempt. +"You are proposing new military laws? There are many laws but no one to +carry out the old ones. Nowadays everybody designs laws, it is easier +writing than doing." + +"I came at His Majesty the Emperor's wish to learn from your excellency +how you propose to deal with the memorandum I have presented," said +Prince Andrew politely. + +"I have endorsed a resolution on your memorandum and sent it to the +committee. I do not approve of it," said Arakcheev, rising and taking a +paper from his writing table. "Here!" and he handed it to Prince Andrew. + +Across the paper was scrawled in pencil, without capital letters, +misspelled, and without punctuation: "Unsoundly constructed because +resembles an imitation of the French military code and from the Articles +of War needlessly deviating." + +"To what committee has the memorandum been referred?" inquired Prince +Andrew. + +"To the Committee on Army Regulations, and I have recommended that your +honor should be appointed a member, but without a salary." + +Prince Andrew smiled. + +"I don't want one." + +"A member without salary," repeated Arakcheev. "I have the honor... Eh! +Call the next one! Who else is there?" he shouted, bowing to Prince +Andrew. + + + + +CHAPTER V + +While waiting for the announcement of his appointment to the committee +Prince Andrew looked up his former acquaintances, particularly those he +knew to be in power and whose aid he might need. In Petersburg he now +experienced the same feeling he had had on the eve of a battle, when +troubled by anxious curiosity and irresistibly attracted to the ruling +circles where the future, on which the fate of millions depended, was +being shaped. From the irritation of the older men, the curiosity of the +uninitiated, the reserve of the initiated, the hurry and preoccupation +of everyone, and the innumerable committees and commissions of whose +existence he learned every day, he felt that now, in 1809, here in +Petersburg a vast civil conflict was in preparation, the commander in +chief of which was a mysterious person he did not know, but who was +supposed to be a man of genius--Speranski. And this movement of +reconstruction of which Prince Andrew had a vague idea, and Speranski +its chief promoter, began to interest him so keenly that the question of +the army regulations quickly receded to a secondary place in his +consciousness. + +Prince Andrew was most favorably placed to secure good reception in the +highest and most diverse Petersburg circles of the day. The reforming +party cordially welcomed and courted him, in the first place because he +was reputed to be clever and very well read, and secondly because by +liberating his serfs he had obtained the reputation of being a liberal. +The party of the old and dissatisfied, who censured the innovations, +turned to him expecting his sympathy in their disapproval of the +reforms, simply because he was the son of his father. The feminine +society world welcomed him gladly, because he was rich, distinguished, a +good match, and almost a newcomer, with a halo of romance on account of +his supposed death and the tragic loss of his wife. Besides this the +general opinion of all who had known him previously was that he had +greatly improved during these last five years, having softened and grown +more manly, lost his former affectation, pride, and contemptuous irony, +and acquired the serenity that comes with years. People talked about +him, were interested in him, and wanted to meet him. + +The day after his interview with Count Arakcheev, Prince Andrew spent +the evening at Count Kochubey's. He told the count of his interview with +Sila Andreevich (Kochubey spoke of Arakcheev by that nickname with the +same vague irony Prince Andrew had noticed in the Minister of War's +anteroom). + +"Mon cher, even in this case you can't do without Michael Mikhaylovich +Speranski. He manages everything. I'll speak to him. He has promised to +come this evening." + +"What has Speranski to do with the army regulations?" asked Prince +Andrew. + +Kochubey shook his head smilingly, as if surprised at Bolkonski's +simplicity. + +"We were talking to him about you a few days ago," Kochubey continued, +"and about your freed plowmen." + +"Oh, is it you, Prince, who have freed your serfs?" said an old man of +Catherine's day, turning contemptuously toward Bolkonski. + +"It was a small estate that brought in no profit," replied Prince +Andrew, trying to extenuate his action so as not to irritate the old man +uselessly. + +"Afraid of being late..." said the old man, looking at Kochubey. + +"There's one thing I don't understand," he continued. "Who will plow the +land if they are set free? It is easy to write laws, but difficult to +rule.... Just the same as now--I ask you, Count--who will be heads of +the departments when everybody has to pass examinations?" + +"Those who pass the examinations, I suppose," replied Kochubey, crossing +his legs and glancing round. + +"Well, I have Pryanichnikov serving under me, a splendid man, a +priceless man, but he's sixty. Is he to go up for examination?" + +"Yes, that's a difficulty, as education is not at all general, but..." + +Count Kochubey did not finish. He rose, took Prince Andrew by the arm, +and went to meet a tall, bald, fair man of about forty with a large open +forehead and a long face of unusual and peculiar whiteness, who was just +entering. The newcomer wore a blue swallow-tail coat with a cross +suspended from his neck and a star on his left breast. It was Speranski. +Prince Andrew recognized him at once, and felt a throb within him, as +happens at critical moments of life. Whether it was from respect, envy, +or anticipation, he did not know. Speranski's whole figure was of a +peculiar type that made him easily recognizable. In the society in which +Prince Andrew lived he had never seen anyone who together with awkward +and clumsy gestures possessed such calmness and self-assurance; he had +never seen so resolute yet gentle an expression as that in those half- +closed, rather humid eyes, or so firm a smile that expressed nothing; +nor had he heard such a refined, smooth, soft voice; above all he had +never seen such delicate whiteness of face or hands--hands which were +broad, but very plump, soft, and white. Such whiteness and softness +Prince Andrew had only seen on the faces of soldiers who had been long +in hospital. This was Speranski, Secretary of State, reporter to the +Emperor and his companion at Erfurt, where he had more than once met and +talked with Napoleon. + +Speranski did not shift his eyes from one face to another as people +involuntarily do on entering a large company and was in no hurry to +speak. He spoke slowly, with assurance that he would be listened to, and +he looked only at the person with whom he was conversing. + +Prince Andrew followed Speranski's every word and movement with +particular attention. As happens to some people, especially to men who +judge those near to them severely, he always on meeting anyone new-- +especially anyone whom, like Speranski, he knew by reputation--expected +to discover in him the perfection of human qualities. + +Speranski told Kochubey he was sorry he had been unable to come sooner +as he had been detained at the palace. He did not say that the Emperor +had kept him, and Prince Andrew noticed this affectation of modesty. +When Kochubey introduced Prince Andrew, Speranski slowly turned his eyes +to Bolkonski with his customary smile and looked at him in silence. + +"I am very glad to make your acquaintance. I had heard of you, as +everyone has," he said after a pause. + +Kochubey said a few words about the reception Arakcheev had given +Bolkonski. Speranski smiled more markedly. + +"The chairman of the Committee on Army Regulations is my good friend +Monsieur Magnitski," he said, fully articulating every word and +syllable, "and if you like I can put you in touch with him." He paused +at the full stop. "I hope you will find him sympathetic and ready to co- +operate in promoting all that is reasonable." + +A circle soon formed round Speranski, and the old man who had talked +about his subordinate Pryanichnikov addressed a question to him. + +Prince Andrew without joining in the conversation watched every movement +of Speranski's: this man, not long since an insignificant divinity +student, who now, Bolkonski thought, held in his hands--those plump +white hands--the fate of Russia. Prince Andrew was struck by the +extraordinarily disdainful composure with which Speranski answered the +old man. He appeared to address condescending words to him from an +immeasurable height. When the old man began to speak too loud, Speranski +smiled and said he could not judge of the advantage or disadvantage of +what pleased the sovereign. + +Having talked for a little while in the general circle, Speranski rose +and coming up to Prince Andrew took him along to the other end of the +room. It was clear that he thought it necessary to interest himself in +Bolkonski. + +"I had no chance to talk with you, Prince, during the animated +conversation in which that venerable gentleman involved me," he said +with a mildly contemptuous smile, as if intimating by that smile that he +and Prince Andrew understood the insignificance of the people with whom +he had just been talking. This flattered Prince Andrew. "I have known of +you for a long time: first from your action with regard to your serfs, a +first example, of which it is very desirable that there should be more +imitators; and secondly because you are one of those gentlemen of the +chamber who have not considered themselves offended by the new decree +concerning the ranks allotted to courtiers, which is causing so much +gossip and tittle-tattle." + +"No," said Prince Andrew, "my father did not wish me to take advantage +of the privilege. I began the service from the lower grade." + +"Your father, a man of the last century, evidently stands above our +contemporaries who so condemn this measure which merely reestablishes +natural justice." + +"I think, however, that these condemnations have some ground," returned +Prince Andrew, trying to resist Speranski's influence, of which he began +to be conscious. He did not like to agree with him in everything and +felt a wish to contradict. Though he usually spoke easily and well, he +felt a difficulty in expressing himself now while talking with +Speranski. He was too much absorbed in observing the famous man's +personality. + +"Grounds of personal ambition maybe," Speranski put in quietly. + +"And of state interest to some extent," said Prince Andrew. + +"What do you mean?" asked Speranski quietly, lowering his eyes. + +"I am an admirer of Montesquieu," replied Prince Andrew, "and his idea +that le principe des monarchies est l'honneur me parait incontestable. +Certains droits et privileges de la noblesse me paraissent etre des +moyens de soutenir ce sentiment." * + + +* "The principle of monarchies is honor seems to me incontestable. +Certain rights and privileges for the aristocracy appear to me a means +of maintaining that sentiment." + +The smile vanished from Speranski's white face, which was much improved +by the change. Probably Prince Andrew's thought interested him. + +"Si vous envisagez la question sous ce point de vue," * he began, +pronouncing French with evident difficulty, and speaking even slower +than in Russian but quite calmly. + + +* "If you regard the question from that point of view." + +Speranski went on to say that honor, l'honneur, cannot be upheld by +privileges harmful to the service; that honor, l'honneur, is either a +negative concept of not doing what is blameworthy or it is a source of +emulation in pursuit of commendation and rewards, which recognize it. +His arguments were concise, simple, and clear. + +"An institution upholding honor, the source of emulation, is one similar +to the Legion d'honneur of the great Emperor Napoleon, not harmful but +helpful to the success of the service, but not a class or court +privilege." + +"I do not dispute that, but it cannot be denied that court privileges +have attained the same end," returned Prince Andrew. "Every courtier +considers himself bound to maintain his position worthily." + +"Yet you do not care to avail yourself of the privilege, Prince," said +Speranski, indicating by a smile that he wished to finish amiably an +argument which was embarrassing for his companion. "If you will do me +the honor of calling on me on Wednesday," he added, "I will, after +talking with Magnitski, let you know what may interest you, and shall +also have the pleasure of a more detailed chat with you." + +Closing his eyes, he bowed a la francaise, without taking leave, and +trying to attract as little attention as possible, he left the room. + + + + +CHAPTER VI + +During the first weeks of his stay in Petersburg Prince Andrew felt the +whole trend of thought he had formed during his life of seclusion quite +overshadowed by the trifling cares that engrossed him in that city. + +On returning home in the evening he would jot down in his notebook four +or five necessary calls or appointments for certain hours. The mechanism +of life, the arrangement of the day so as to be in time everywhere, +absorbed the greater part of his vital energy. He did nothing, did not +even think or find time to think, but only talked, and talked +successfully, of what he had thought while in the country. + +He sometimes noticed with dissatisfaction that he repeated the same +remark on the same day in different circles. But he was so busy for +whole days together that he had no time to notice that he was thinking +of nothing. + +As he had done on their first meeting at Kochubey's, Speranski produced +a strong impression on Prince Andrew on the Wednesday, when he received +him tete-a-tete at his own house and talked to him long and +confidentially. + +To Bolkonski so many people appeared contemptible and insignificant +creatures, and he so longed to find in someone the living ideal of that +perfection toward which he strove, that he readily believed that in +Speranski he had found this ideal of a perfectly rational and virtuous +man. Had Speranski sprung from the same class as himself and possessed +the same breeding and traditions, Bolkonski would soon have discovered +his weak, human, unheroic sides; but as it was, Speranski's strange and +logical turn of mind inspired him with respect all the more because he +did not quite understand him. Moreover, Speranski, either because he +appreciated the other's capacity or because he considered it necessary +to win him to his side, showed off his dispassionate calm reasonableness +before Prince Andrew and flattered him with that subtle flattery which +goes hand in hand with self-assurance and consists in a tacit assumption +that one's companion is the only man besides oneself capable of +understanding the folly of the rest of mankind and the reasonableness +and profundity of one's own ideas. + +During their long conversation on Wednesday evening, Speranski more than +once remarked: "We regard everything that is above the common level of +rooted custom..." or, with a smile: "But we want the wolves to be fed +and the sheep to be safe..." or: "They cannot understand this..." and +all in a way that seemed to say: "We, you and I, understand what they +are and who we are." + +This first long conversation with Speranski only strengthened in Prince +Andrew the feeling he had experienced toward him at their first meeting. +He saw in him a remarkable, clear-thinking man of vast intellect who by +his energy and persistence had attained power, which he was using solely +for the welfare of Russia. In Prince Andrew's eyes Speranski was the man +he would himself have wished to be--one who explained all the facts of +life reasonably, considered important only what was rational, and was +capable of applying the standard of reason to everything. Everything +seemed so simple and clear in Speranski's exposition that Prince Andrew +involuntarily agreed with him about everything. If he replied and +argued, it was only because he wished to maintain his independence and +not submit to Speranski's opinions entirely. Everything was right and +everything was as it should be: only one thing disconcerted Prince +Andrew. This was Speranski's cold, mirrorlike look, which did not allow +one to penetrate to his soul, and his delicate white hands, which Prince +Andrew involuntarily watched as one does watch the hands of those who +possess power. This mirrorlike gaze and those delicate hands irritated +Prince Andrew, he knew not why. He was unpleasantly struck, too, by the +excessive contempt for others that he observed in Speranski, and by the +diversity of lines of argument he used to support his opinions. He made +use of every kind of mental device, except analogy, and passed too +boldly, it seemed to Prince Andrew, from one to another. Now he would +take up the position of a practical man and condemn dreamers; now that +of a satirist, and laugh ironically at his opponents; now grow severely +logical, or suddenly rise to the realm of metaphysics. (This last +resource was one he very frequently employed.) He would transfer a +question to metaphysical heights, pass on to definitions of space, time, +and thought, and, having deduced the refutation he needed, would again +descend to the level of the original discussion. + +In general the trait of Speranski's mentality which struck Prince Andrew +most was his absolute and unshakable belief in the power and authority +of reason. It was evident that the thought could never occur to him +which to Prince Andrew seemed so natural, namely, that it is after all +impossible to express all one thinks; and that he had never felt the +doubt, "Is not all I think and believe nonsense?" And it was just this +peculiarity of Speranski's mind that particularly attracted Prince +Andrew. + +During the first period of their acquaintance Bolkonski felt a +passionate admiration for him similar to that which he had once felt for +Bonaparte. The fact that Speranski was the son of a village priest, and +that stupid people might meanly despise him on account of his humble +origin (as in fact many did), caused Prince Andrew to cherish his +sentiment for him the more, and unconsciously to strengthen it. + +On that first evening Bolkonski spent with him, having mentioned the +Commission for the Revision of the Code of Laws, Speranski told him +sarcastically that the Commission had existed for a hundred and fifty +years, had cost millions, and had done nothing except that Rosenkampf +had stuck labels on the corresponding paragraphs of the different codes. + +"And that is all the state has for the millions it has spent," said he. +"We want to give the Senate new juridical powers, but we have no laws. +That is why it is a sin for men like you, Prince, not to serve in these +times!" + +Prince Andrew said that for that work an education in jurisprudence was +needed which he did not possess. + +"But nobody possesses it, so what would you have? It is a vicious circle +from which we must break a way out." + +A week later Prince Andrew was a member of the Committee on Army +Regulations and--what he had not at all expected--was chairman of a +section of the committee for the revision of the laws. At Speranski's +request he took the first part of the Civil Code that was being drawn up +and, with the aid of the Code Napoleon and the Institutes of Justinian, +he worked at formulating the section on Personal Rights. + + + + +CHAPTER VII + +Nearly two years before this, in 1808, Pierre on returning to Petersburg +after visiting his estates had involuntarily found himself in a leading +position among the Petersburg Freemasons. He arranged dining and funeral +lodge meetings, enrolled new members, and busied himself uniting various +lodges and acquiring authentic charters. He gave money for the erection +of temples and supplemented as far as he could the collection of alms, +in regard to which the majority of members were stingy and irregular. He +supported almost singlehanded a poorhouse the order had founded in +Petersburg. + +His life meanwhile continued as before, with the same infatuations and +dissipations. He liked to dine and drink well, and though he considered +it immoral and humiliating could not resist the temptations of the +bachelor circles in which he moved. + +Amid the turmoil of his activities and distractions, however, Pierre at +the end of a year began to feel that the more firmly he tried to rest +upon it, the more masonic ground on which he stood gave way under him. +At the same time he felt that the deeper the ground sank under him the +closer bound he involuntarily became to the order. When he had joined +the Freemasons he had experienced the feeling of one who confidently +steps onto the smooth surface of a bog. When he put his foot down it +sank in. To make quite sure of the firmness of the ground, he put his +other foot down and sank deeper still, became stuck in it, and +involuntarily waded knee-deep in the bog. + +Joseph Alexeevich was not in Petersburg--he had of late stood aside from +the affairs of the Petersburg lodges, and lived almost entirely in +Moscow. All the members of the lodges were men Pierre knew in ordinary +life, and it was difficult for him to regard them merely as Brothers in +Freemasonry and not as Prince B. or Ivan Vasilevich D., whom he knew in +society mostly as weak and insignificant men. Under the masonic aprons +and insignia he saw the uniforms and decorations at which they aimed in +ordinary life. Often after collecting alms, and reckoning up twenty to +thirty rubles received for the most part in promises from a dozen +members, of whom half were as well able to pay as himself, Pierre +remembered the masonic vow in which each Brother promised to devote all +his belongings to his neighbor, and doubts on which he tried not to +dwell arose in his soul. + +He divided the Brothers he knew into four categories. In the first he +put those who did not take an active part in the affairs of the lodges +or in human affairs, but were exclusively occupied with the mystical +science of the order: with questions of the threefold designation of +God, the three primordial elements--sulphur, mercury, and salt--or the +meaning of the square and all the various figures of the temple of +Solomon. Pierre respected this class of Brothers to which the elder ones +chiefly belonged, including, Pierre thought, Joseph Alexeevich himself, +but he did not share their interests. His heart was not in the mystical +aspect of Freemasonry. + +In the second category Pierre reckoned himself and others like him, +seeking and vacillating, who had not yet found in Freemasonry a straight +and comprehensible path, but hoped to do so. + +In the third category he included those Brothers (the majority) who saw +nothing in Freemasonry but the external forms and ceremonies, and prized +the strict performance of these forms without troubling about their +purport or significance. Such were Willarski and even the Grand Master +of the principal lodge. + +Finally, to the fourth category also a great many Brothers belonged, +particularly those who had lately joined. These according to Pierre's +observations were men who had no belief in anything, nor desire for +anything, but joined the Freemasons merely to associate with the wealthy +young Brothers who were influential through their connections or rank, +and of whom there were very many in the lodge. + +Pierre began to feel dissatisfied with what he was doing. Freemasonry, +at any rate as he saw it here, sometimes seemed to him based merely on +externals. He did not think of doubting Freemasonry itself, but +suspected that Russian Masonry had taken a wrong path and deviated from +its original principles. And so toward the end of the year he went +abroad to be initiated into the higher secrets of the order. + +In the summer of 1809 Pierre returned to Petersburg. Our Freemasons knew +from correspondence with those abroad that Bezukhov had obtained the +confidence of many highly placed persons, had been initiated into many +mysteries, had been raised to a higher grade, and was bringing back with +him much that might conduce to the advantage of the masonic cause in +Russia. The Petersburg Freemasons all came to see him, tried to +ingratiate themselves with him, and it seemed to them all that he was +preparing something for them and concealing it. + +A solemn meeting of the lodge of the second degree was convened, at +which Pierre promised to communicate to the Petersburg Brothers what he +had to deliver to them from the highest leaders of their order. The +meeting was a full one. After the usual ceremonies Pierre rose and began +his address. + +"Dear Brothers," he began, blushing and stammering, with a written +speech in his hand, "it is not sufficient to observe our mysteries in +the seclusion of our lodge--we must act--act! We are drowsing, but we +must act." Pierre raised his notebook and began to read. + +"For the dissemination of pure truth and to secure the triumph of +virtue," he read, "we must cleanse men from prejudice, diffuse +principles in harmony with the spirit of the times, undertake the +education of the young, unite ourselves in indissoluble bonds with the +wisest men, boldly yet prudently overcome superstitions, infidelity, and +folly, and form of those devoted to us a body linked together by unity +of purpose and possessed of authority and power. + +"To attain this end we must secure a preponderance of virtue over vice +and must endeavor to secure that the honest man may, even in this world, +receive a lasting reward for his virtue. But in these great endeavors we +are gravely hampered by the political institutions of today. What is to +be done in these circumstances? To favor revolutions, overthrow +everything, repel force by force?... No! We are very far from that. +Every violent reform deserves censure, for it quite fails to remedy evil +while men remain what they are, and also because wisdom needs no +violence. + +"The whole plan of our order should be based on the idea of preparing +men of firmness and virtue bound together by unity of conviction--aiming +at the punishment of vice and folly, and patronizing talent and virtue: +raising worthy men from the dust and attaching them to our Brotherhood. +Only then will our order have the power unobtrusively to bind the hands +of the protectors of disorder and to control them without their being +aware of it. In a word, we must found a form of government holding +universal sway, which should be diffused over the whole world without +destroying the bonds of citizenship, and beside which all other +governments can continue in their customary course and do everything +except what impedes the great aim of our order, which is to obtain for +virtue the victory over vice. This aim was that of Christianity itself. +It taught men to be wise and good and for their own benefit to follow +the example and instruction of the best and wisest men. + +"At that time, when everything was plunged in darkness, preaching alone +was of course sufficient. The novelty of Truth endowed her with special +strength, but now we need much more powerful methods. It is now +necessary that man, governed by his senses, should find in virtue a +charm palpable to those senses. It is impossible to eradicate the +passions; but we must strive to direct them to a noble aim, and it is +therefore necessary that everyone should be able to satisfy his passions +within the limits of virtue. Our order should provide means to that end. + +"As soon as we have a certain number of worthy men in every state, each +of them again training two others and all being closely united, +everything will be possible for our order, which has already in secret +accomplished much for the welfare of mankind." + +This speech not only made a strong impression, but created excitement in +the lodge. The majority of the Brothers, seeing in it dangerous designs +of Illuminism, * met it with a coldness that surprised Pierre. The Grand +Master began answering him, and Pierre began developing his views with +more and more warmth. It was long since there had been so stormy a +meeting. Parties were formed, some accusing Pierre of Illuminism, others +supporting him. At that meeting he was struck for the first time by the +endless variety of men's minds, which prevents a truth from ever +presenting itself identically to two persons. Even those members who +seemed to be on his side understood him in their own way with +limitations and alterations he could not agree to, as what he always +wanted most was to convey his thought to others just as he himself +understood it. + + +* The Illuminati sought to substitute republican for monarchical +institutions. + +At the end of the meeting the Grand Master with irony and ill-will +reproved Bezukhov for his vehemence and said it was not love of virtue +alone, but also a love of strife that had moved him in the dispute. +Pierre did not answer him and asked briefly whether his proposal would +be accepted. He was told that it would not, and without waiting for the +usual formalities he left the lodge and went home. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII + +Again Pierre was overtaken by the depression he so dreaded. For three +days after the delivery of his speech at the lodge he lay on a sofa at +home receiving no one and going nowhere. + +It was just then that he received a letter from his wife, who implored +him to see her, telling him how grieved she was about him and how she +wished to devote her whole life to him. + +At the end of the letter she informed him that in a few days she would +return to Petersburg from abroad. + +Following this letter one of the masonic Brothers whom Pierre respected +less than the others forced his way in to see him and, turning the +conversation upon Pierre's matrimonial affairs, by way of fraternal +advice expressed the opinion that his severity to his wife was wrong and +that he was neglecting one of the first rules of Freemasonry by not +forgiving the penitent. + +At the same time his mother-in-law, Prince Vasili's wife, sent to him +imploring him to come if only for a few minutes to discuss a most +important matter. Pierre saw that there was a conspiracy against him and +that they wanted to reunite him with his wife, and in the mood he then +was, this was not even unpleasant to him. Nothing mattered to him. +Nothing in life seemed to him of much importance, and under the +influence of the depression that possessed him he valued neither his +liberty nor his resolution to punish his wife. + +"No one is right and no one is to blame; so she too is not to blame," he +thought. + +If he did not at once give his consent to a reunion with his wife, it +was only because in his state of depression he did not feel able to take +any step. Had his wife come to him, he would not have turned her away. +Compared to what preoccupied him, was it not a matter of indifference +whether he lived with his wife or not? + +Without replying either to his wife or his mother-in-law, Pierre late +one night prepared for a journey and started for Moscow to see Joseph +Alexeevich. This is what he noted in his diary: + +Moscow, 17th November + +I have just returned from my benefactor, and hasten to write down what I +have experienced. Joseph Alexeevich is living poorly and has for three +years been suffering from a painful disease of the bladder. No one has +ever heard him utter a groan or a word of complaint. From morning till +late at night, except when he eats his very plain food, he is working at +science. He received me graciously and made me sit down on the bed on +which he lay. I made the sign of the Knights of the East and of +Jerusalem, and he responded in the same manner, asking me with a mild +smile what I had learned and gained in the Prussian and Scottish lodges. +I told him everything as best I could, and told him what I had proposed +to our Petersburg lodge, of the bad reception I had encountered, and of +my rupture with the Brothers. Joseph Alexeevich, having remained silent +and thoughtful for a good while, told me his view of the matter, which +at once lit up for me my whole past and the future path I should follow. +He surprised me by asking whether I remembered the threefold aim of the +order: (1) The preservation and study of the mystery. (2) The +purification and reformation of oneself for its reception, and (3) The +improvement of the human race by striving for such purification. Which +is the principal aim of these three? Certainly self-reformation and +self-purification. Only to this aim can we always strive independently +of circumstances. But at the same time just this aim demands the +greatest efforts of us; and so, led astray by pride, losing sight of +this aim, we occupy ourselves either with the mystery which in our +impurity we are unworthy to receive, or seek the reformation of the +human race while ourselves setting an example of baseness and +profligacy. Illuminism is not a pure doctrine, just because it is +attracted by social activity and puffed up by pride. On this ground +Joseph Alexeevich condemned my speech and my whole activity, and in the +depth of my soul I agreed with him. Talking of my family affairs he said +to me, "the chief duty of a true Mason, as I have told you, lies in +perfecting himself. We often think that by removing all the difficulties +of our life we shall more quickly reach our aim, but on the contrary, my +dear sir, it is only in the midst of worldly cares that we can attain +our three chief aims: (1) Self-knowledge--for man can only know himself +by comparison, (2) Self-perfecting, which can only be attained by +conflict, and (3) The attainment of the chief virtue--love of death. +Only the vicissitudes of life can show us its vanity and develop our +innate love of death or of rebirth to a new life." These words are all +the more remarkable because, in spite of his great physical sufferings, +Joseph Alexeevich is never weary of life though he loves death, for +which--in spite of the purity and loftiness of his inner man--he does +not yet feel himself sufficiently prepared. My benefactor then explained +to me fully the meaning of the Great Square of creation and pointed out +to me that the numbers three and seven are the basis of everything. He +advised me not to avoid intercourse with the Petersburg Brothers, but to +take up only second-grade posts in the lodge, to try, while diverting +the Brothers from pride, to turn them toward the true path self- +knowledge and self-perfecting. Besides this he advised me for myself +personally above all to keep a watch over myself, and to that end he +gave me a notebook, the one I am now writing in and in which I will in +future note down all my actions. + +Petersburg, 23rd November + +I am again living with my wife. My mother-in-law came to me in tears and +said that Helene was here and that she implored me to hear her; that she +was innocent and unhappy at my desertion, and much more. I knew that if +I once let myself see her I should not have strength to go on refusing +what she wanted. In my perplexity I did not know whose aid and advice to +seek. Had my benefactor been here he would have told me what to do. I +went to my room and reread Joseph Alexeevich's letters and recalled my +conversations with him, and deduced from it all that I ought not to +refuse a supplicant, and ought to reach a helping hand to everyone-- +especially to one so closely bound to me--and that I must bear my cross. +But if I forgive her for the sake of doing right, then let union with +her have only a spiritual aim. That is what I decided, and what I wrote +to Joseph Alexeevich. I told my wife that I begged her to forget the +past, to forgive me whatever wrong I may have done her, and that I had +nothing to forgive. It gave me joy to tell her this. She need not know +how hard it was for me to see her again. I have settled on the upper +floor of this big house and am experiencing a happy feeling of +regeneration. + + + + +CHAPTER IX + +At that time, as always happens, the highest society that met at court +and at the grand balls was divided into several circles, each with its +own particular tone. The largest of these was the French circle of the +Napoleonic alliance, the circle of Count Rumyantsev and Caulaincourt. In +this group Helene, as soon as she had settled in Petersburg with her +husband, took a very prominent place. She was visited by the members of +the French embassy and by many belonging to that circle and noted for +their intellect and polished manners. + +Helene had been at Erfurt during the famous meeting of the Emperors and +had brought from there these connections with the Napoleonic +notabilities. At Erfurt her success had been brilliant. Napoleon himself +had noticed her in the theater and said of her: "C'est un superbe +animal." * Her success as a beautiful and elegant woman did not surprise +Pierre, for she had become even handsomer than before. What did surprise +him was that during these last two years his wife had succeeded in +gaining the reputation "d' une femme charmante, aussi spirituelle que +belle." *(2) The distinguished Prince de Ligne wrote her eight-page +letters. Bilibin saved up his epigrams to produce them in Countess +Bezukhova's presence. To be received in the Countess Bezukhova's salon +was regarded as a diploma of intellect. Young men read books before +attending Helene's evenings, to have something to say in her salon, and +secretaries of the embassy, and even ambassadors, confided diplomatic +secrets to her, so that in a way Helene was a power. Pierre, who knew +she was very stupid, sometimes attended, with a strange feeling of +perplexity and fear, her evenings and dinner parties, where politics, +poetry, and philosophy were discussed. At these parties his feelings +were like those of a conjuror who always expects his trick to be found +out at any moment. But whether because stupidity was just what was +needed to run such a salon, or because those who were deceived found +pleasure in the deception, at any rate it remained unexposed and Helene +Bezukhova's reputation as a lovely and clever woman became so firmly +established that she could say the emptiest and stupidest things and +everybody would go into raptures over every word of hers and look for a +profound meaning in it of which she herself had no conception. + + +* "That's a superb animal." + +* (2) "Of a charming woman, as witty as she is lovely." + +Pierre was just the husband needed for a brilliant society woman. He was +that absent-minded crank, a grand seigneur husband who was in no one's +way, and far from spoiling the high tone and general impression of the +drawing room, he served, by the contrast he presented to her, as an +advantageous background to his elegant and tactful wife. Pierre during +the last two years, as a result of his continual absorption in abstract +interests and his sincere contempt for all else, had acquired in his +wife's circle, which did not interest him, that air of unconcern, +indifference, and benevolence toward all, which cannot be acquired +artificially and therefore inspires involuntary respect. He entered his +wife's drawing room as one enters a theater, was acquainted with +everybody, equally pleased to see everyone, and equally indifferent to +them all. Sometimes he joined in a conversation which interested him +and, regardless of whether any "gentlemen of the embassy" were present +or not, lispingly expressed his views, which were sometimes not at all +in accord with the accepted tone of the moment. But the general opinion +concerning the queer husband of "the most distinguished woman in +Petersburg" was so well established that no one took his freaks +seriously. + +Among the many young men who frequented her house every day, Boris +Drubetskoy, who had already achieved great success in the service, was +the most intimate friend of the Bezukhov household since Helene's return +from Erfurt. Helene spoke of him as "mon page" and treated him like a +child. Her smile for him was the same as for everybody, but sometimes +that smile made Pierre uncomfortable. Toward him Boris behaved with a +particularly dignified and sad deference. This shade of deference also +disturbed Pierre. He had suffered so painfully three years before from +the mortification to which his wife had subjected him that he now +protected himself from the danger of its repetition, first by not being +a husband to his wife, and secondly by not allowing himself to suspect. + +"No, now that she has become a bluestocking she has finally renounced +her former infatuations," he told himself. "There has never been an +instance of a bluestocking being carried away by affairs of the heart"-- +a statement which, though gathered from an unknown source, he believed +implicitly. Yet strange to say Boris' presence in his wife's drawing +room (and he was almost always there) had a physical effect upon Pierre; +it constricted his limbs and destroyed the unconsciousness and freedom +of his movements. + +"What a strange antipathy," thought Pierre, "yet I used to like him very +much." + +In the eyes of the world Pierre was a great gentleman, the rather blind +and absurd husband of a distinguished wife, a clever crank who did +nothing but harmed nobody and was a first-rate, good-natured fellow. But +a complex and difficult process of internal development was taking place +all this time in Pierre's soul, revealing much to him and causing him +many spiritual doubts and joys. + + + + +CHAPTER X + +Pierre went on with his diary, and this is what he wrote in it during +that time: + +24th November + +Got up at eight, read the Scriptures, then went to my duties. (By Joseph +Alexeevich's advice Pierre had entered the service of the state and +served on one of the committees.) Returned home for dinner and dined +alone--the countess had many visitors I do not like. I ate and drank +moderately and after dinner copied out some passages for the Brothers. +In the evening I went down to the countess and told a funny story about +B., and only remembered that I ought not to have done so when everybody +laughed loudly at it. + +I am going to bed with a happy and tranquil mind. Great God, help me to +walk in Thy paths, (1) to conquer anger by calmness and deliberation, +(2) to vanquish lust by self-restraint and repulsion, (3) to withdraw +from worldliness, but not avoid (a) the service of the state, (b) family +duties, (c) relations with my friends, and the management of my affairs. + +27th November + +I got up late. On waking I lay long in bed yielding to sloth. O God, +help and strengthen me that I may walk in Thy ways! Read the Scriptures, +but without proper feeling. Brother Urusov came and we talked about +worldly vanities. He told me of the Emperor's new projects. I began to +criticize them, but remembered my rules and my benefactor's words--that +a true Freemason should be a zealous worker for the state when his aid +is required and a quiet onlooker when not called on to assist. My tongue +is my enemy. Brothers G. V. and O. visited me and we had a preliminary +talk about the reception of a new Brother. They laid on me the duty of +Rhetor. I feel myself weak and unworthy. Then our talk turned to the +interpretation of the seven pillars and steps of the Temple, the seven +sciences, the seven virtues, the seven vices, and the seven gifts of the +Holy Spirit. Brother O. was very eloquent. In the evening the admission +took place. The new decoration of the Premises contributed much to the +magnificence of the spectacle. It was Boris Drubetskoy who was admitted. +I nominated him and was the Rhetor. A strange feeling agitated me all +the time I was alone with him in the dark chamber. I caught myself +harboring a feeling of hatred toward him which I vainly tried to +overcome. That is why I should really like to save him from evil and +lead him into the path of truth, but evil thoughts of him did not leave +me. It seemed to me that his object in entering the Brotherhood was +merely to be intimate and in favor with members of our lodge. Apart from +the fact that he had asked me several times whether N. and S. were +members of our lodge (a question to which I could not reply) and that +according to my observation he is incapable of feeling respect for our +holy order and is too preoccupied and satisfied with the outer man to +desire spiritual improvement, I had no cause to doubt him, but he seemed +to me insincere, and all the time I stood alone with him in the dark +temple it seemed to me that he was smiling contemptuously at my words, +and I wished really to stab his bare breast with the sword I held to it. +I could not be eloquent, nor could I frankly mention my doubts to the +Brothers and to the Grand Master. Great Architect of Nature, help me to +find the true path out of the labyrinth of lies! + + +After this, three pages were left blank in the diary, and then the +following was written: + +I have had a long and instructive talk alone with Brother V., who +advised me to hold fast by Brother A. Though I am unworthy, much was +revealed to me. Adonai is the name of the creator of the world. Elohim +is the name of the ruler of all. The third name is the name unutterable +which means the All. Talks with Brother V. strengthen, refresh, and +support me in the path of virtue. In his presence doubt has no place. +The distinction between the poor teachings of mundane science and our +sacred all-embracing teaching is clear to me. Human sciences dissect +everything to comprehend it, and kill everything to examine it. In the +holy science of our order all is one, all is known in its entirety and +life. The Trinity--the three elements of matter--are sulphur, mercury, +and salt. Sulphur is of an oily and fiery nature; in combination with +salt by its fiery nature it arouses a desire in the latter by means of +which it attracts mercury, seizes it, holds it, and in combination +produces other bodies. Mercury is a fluid, volatile, spiritual essence. +Christ, the Holy Spirit, Him!... + +3rd December + +Awoke late, read the Scriptures but was apathetic. Afterwards went and +paced up and down the large hall. I wished to meditate, but instead my +imagination pictured an occurrence of four years ago, when Dolokhov, +meeting me in Moscow after our duel, said he hoped I was enjoying +perfect peace of mind in spite of my wife's absence. At the time I gave +him no answer. Now I recalled every detail of that meeting and in my +mind gave him the most malevolent and bitter replies. I recollected +myself and drove away that thought only when I found myself glowing with +anger, but I did not sufficiently repent. Afterwards Boris Drubetskoy +came and began relating various adventures. His coming vexed me from the +first, and I said something disagreeable to him. He replied. I flared up +and said much that was unpleasant and even rude to him. He became +silent, and I recollected myself only when it was too late. My God, I +cannot get on with him at all. The cause of this is my egotism. I set +myself above him and so become much worse than he, for he is lenient to +my rudeness while I on the contrary nourish contempt for him. O God, +grant that in his presence I may rather see my own vileness, and behave +so that he too may benefit. After dinner I fell asleep and as I was +drowsing off I clearly heard a voice saying in my left ear, "Thy day!" + +I dreamed that I was walking in the dark and was suddenly surrounded by +dogs, but I went on undismayed. Suddenly a smallish dog seized my left +thigh with its teeth and would not let go. I began to throttle it with +my hands. Scarcely had I torn it off before another, a bigger one, began +biting me. I lifted it up, but the higher I lifted it the bigger and +heavier it grew. And suddenly Brother A. came and, taking my arm, led me +to a building to enter which we had to pass along a narrow plank. I +stepped on it, but it bent and gave way and I began to clamber up a +fence which I could scarcely reach with my hands. After much effort I +dragged myself up, so that my leg hung down on one side and my body on +the other. I looked round and saw Brother A. standing on the fence and +pointing me to a broad avenue and garden, and in the garden was a large +and beautiful building. I woke up. O Lord, great Architect of Nature, +help me to tear from myself these dogs--my passions especially the last, +which unites in itself the strength of all the former ones, and aid me +to enter that temple of virtue to a vision of which I attained in my +dream. + +7th December + +I dreamed that Joseph Alexeevich was sitting in my house, and that I was +very glad and wished to entertain him. It seemed as if I chattered +incessantly with other people and suddenly remembered that this could +not please him, and I wished to come close to him and embrace him. But +as soon as I drew near I saw that his face had changed and grown young, +and he was quietly telling me something about the teaching of our order, +but so softly that I could not hear it. Then it seemed that we all left +the room and something strange happened. We were sitting or lying on the +floor. He was telling me something, and I wished to show him my +sensibility, and not listening to what he was saying I began picturing +to myself the condition of my inner man and the grace of God sanctifying +me. And tears came into my eyes, and I was glad he noticed this. But he +looked at me with vexation and jumped up, breaking off his remarks. I +felt abashed and asked whether what he had been saying did not concern +me; but he did not reply, gave me a kind look, and then we suddenly +found ourselves in my bedroom where there is a double bed. He lay down +on the edge of it and I burned with longing to caress him and lie down +too. And he said, "Tell me frankly what is your chief temptation? Do you +know it? I think you know it already." Abashed by this question, I +replied that sloth was my chief temptation. He shook his head +incredulously; and even more abashed, I said that though I was living +with my wife as he advised, I was not living with her as her husband. To +this he replied that one should not deprive a wife of one's embraces and +gave me to understand that that was my duty. But I replied that I should +be ashamed to do it, and suddenly everything vanished. And I awoke and +found in my mind the text from the Gospel: "The life was the light of +men. And the light shineth in darkness; and the darkness comprehended it +not." Joseph Alexeevich's face had looked young and bright. That day I +received a letter from my benefactor in which he wrote about "conjugal +duties." + +9th December + +I had a dream from which I awoke with a throbbing heart. I saw that I +was in Moscow in my house, in the big sitting room, and Joseph +Alexeevich came in from the drawing room. I seemed to know at once that +the process of regeneration had already taken place in him, and I rushed +to meet him. I embraced him and kissed his hands, and he said, "Hast +thou noticed that my face is different?" I looked at him, still holding +him in my arms, and saw that his face was young, but that he had no hair +on his head and his features were quite changed. And I said, "I should +have known you had I met you by chance," and I thought to myself, "Am I +telling the truth?" And suddenly I saw him lying like a dead body; then +he gradually recovered and went with me into my study carrying a large +book of sheets of drawing paper; I said, "I drew that," and he answered +by bowing his head. I opened the book, and on all the pages there were +excellent drawings. And in my dream I knew that these drawings +represented the love adventures of the soul with its beloved. And on its +pages I saw a beautiful representation of a maiden in transparent +garments and with a transparent body, flying up to the clouds. And I +seemed to know that this maiden was nothing else than a representation +of the Song of Songs. And looking at those drawings I dreamed I felt +that I was doing wrong, but could not tear myself away from them. Lord, +help me! My God, if Thy forsaking me is Thy doing, Thy will be done; but +if I am myself the cause, teach me what I should do! I shall perish of +my debauchery if Thou utterly desertest me! + + + + +CHAPTER XI + +The Rostovs' monetary affairs had not improved during the two years they +had spent in the country. + +Though Nicholas Rostov had kept firmly to his resolution and was still +serving modestly in an obscure regiment, spending comparatively little, +the way of life at Otradnoe--Mitenka's management of affairs, in +particular--was such that the debts inevitably increased every year. The +only resource obviously presenting itself to the old count was to apply +for an official post, so he had come to Petersburg to look for one and +also, as he said, to let the lassies enjoy themselves for the last time. + +Soon after their arrival in Petersburg Berg proposed to Vera and was +accepted. + +Though in Moscow the Rostovs belonged to the best society without +themselves giving it a thought, yet in Petersburg their circle of +acquaintances was a mixed and indefinite one. In Petersburg they were +provincials, and the very people they had entertained in Moscow without +inquiring to what set they belonged, here looked down on them. + +The Rostovs lived in the same hospitable way in Petersburg as in Moscow, +and the most diverse people met at their suppers. Country neighbors from +Otradnoe, impoverished old squires and their daughters, Peronskaya a +maid of honor, Pierre Bezukhov, and the son of their district postmaster +who had obtained a post in Petersburg. Among the men who very soon +became frequent visitors at the Rostovs' house in Petersburg were Boris, +Pierre whom the count had met in the street and dragged home with him, +and Berg who spent whole days at the Rostovs' and paid the eldest +daughter, Countess Vera, the attentions a young man pays when he intends +to propose. + +Not in vain had Berg shown everybody his right hand wounded at +Austerlitz and held a perfectly unnecessary sword in his left. He +narrated that episode so persistently and with so important an air that +everyone believed in the merit and usefulness of his deed, and he had +obtained two decorations for Austerlitz. + +In the Finnish war he also managed to distinguish himself. He had picked +up the scrap of a grenade that had killed an aide-de-camp standing near +the commander-in-chief and had taken it to his commander. Just as he had +done after Austerlitz, he related this occurrence at such length and so +insistently that everyone again believed it had been necessary to do +this, and he received two decorations for the Finnish war also. In 1809 +he was a captain in the Guards, wore medals, and held some special +lucrative posts in Petersburg. + +Though some skeptics smiled when told of Berg's merits, it could not be +denied that he was a painstaking and brave officer, on excellent terms +with his superiors, and a moral young man with a brilliant career before +him and an assured position in society. + +Four years before, meeting a German comrade in the stalls of a Moscow +theater, Berg had pointed out Vera Rostova to him and had said in +German, "das soll mein Weib werden," * and from that moment had made up +his mind to marry her. Now in Petersburg, having considered the Rostovs' +position and his own, he decided that the time had come to propose. + + +* "That girl shall be my wife." + +Berg's proposal was at first received with a perplexity that was not +flattering to him. At first it seemed strange that the son of an obscure +Livonian gentleman should propose marriage to a Countess Rostova; but +Berg's chief characteristic was such a naive and good natured egotism +that the Rostovs involuntarily came to think it would be a good thing, +since he himself was so firmly convinced that it was good, indeed +excellent. Moreover, the Rostovs' affairs were seriously embarrassed, as +the suitor could not but know; and above all, Vera was twenty-four, had +been taken out everywhere, and though she was certainly good-looking and +sensible, no one up to now had proposed to her. So they gave their +consent. + +"You see," said Berg to his comrade, whom he called "friend" only +because he knew that everyone has friends, "you see, I have considered +it all, and should not marry if I had not thought it all out or if it +were in any way unsuitable. But on the contrary, my papa and mamma are +now provided for--I have arranged that rent for them in the Baltic +Provinces--and I can live in Petersburg on my pay, and with her fortune +and my good management we can get along nicely. I am not marrying for +money--I consider that dishonorable--but a wife should bring her share +and a husband his. I have my position in the service, she has +connections and some means. In our times that is worth something, isn't +it? But above all, she is a handsome, estimable girl, and she loves +me..." + +Berg blushed and smiled. + +"And I love her, because her character is sensible and very good. Now +the other sister, though they are the same family, is quite different-- +an unpleasant character and has not the same intelligence. She is so... +you know?... Unpleasant... But my fiancee!... Well, you will be coming," +he was going to say, "to dine," but changed his mind and said "to take +tea with us," and quickly doubling up his tongue he blew a small round +ring of tobacco smoke, perfectly embodying his dream of happiness. + +After the first feeling of perplexity aroused in the parents by Berg's +proposal, the holiday tone of joyousness usual at such times took +possession of the family, but the rejoicing was external and insincere. +In the family's feeling toward this wedding a certain awkwardness and +constraint was evident, as if they were ashamed of not having loved Vera +sufficiently and of being so ready to get her off their hands. The old +count felt this most. He would probably have been unable to state the +cause of his embarrassment, but it resulted from the state of his +affairs. He did not know at all how much he had, what his debts amounted +to, or what dowry he could give Vera. When his daughters were born he +had assigned to each of them, for her dowry, an estate with three +hundred serfs; but one of these estates had already been sold, and the +other was mortgaged and the interest so much in arrears that it would +have to be sold, so that it was impossible to give it to Vera. Nor had +he any money. + +Berg had already been engaged a month, and only a week remained before +the wedding, but the count had not yet decided in his own mind the +question of the dowry, nor spoken to his wife about it. At one time the +count thought of giving her the Ryazan estate or of selling a forest, at +another time of borrowing money on a note of hand. A few days before the +wedding Berg entered the count's study early one morning and, with a +pleasant smile, respectfully asked his future father-in-law to let him +know what Vera's dowry would be. The count was so disconcerted by this +long-foreseen inquiry that without consideration he gave the first reply +that came into his head. "I like your being businesslike about it.... I +like it. You shall be satisfied...." + +And patting Berg on the shoulder he got up, wishing to end the +conversation. But Berg, smiling pleasantly, explained that if he did not +know for certain how much Vera would have and did not receive at least +part of the dowry in advance, he would have to break matters off. + +"Because, consider, Count--if I allowed myself to marry now without +having definite means to maintain my wife, I should be acting badly...." + +The conversation ended by the count, who wished to be generous and to +avoid further importunity, saying that he would give a note of hand for +eighty thousand rubles. Berg smiled meekly, kissed the count on the +shoulder, and said that he was very grateful, but that it was impossible +for him to arrange his new life without receiving thirty thousand in +ready money. "Or at least twenty thousand, Count," he added, "and then a +note of hand for only sixty thousand." + +"Yes, yes, all right!" said the count hurriedly. "Only excuse me, my +dear fellow, I'll give you twenty thousand and a note of hand for eighty +thousand as well. Yes, yes! Kiss me." + + + + +CHAPTER XII + +Natasha was sixteen and it was the year 1809, the very year to which she +had counted on her fingers with Boris after they had kissed four years +ago. Since then she had not seen him. Before Sonya and her mother, if +Boris happened to be mentioned, she spoke quite freely of that episode +as of some childish, long-forgotten matter that was not worth +mentioning. But in the secret depths of her soul the question whether +her engagement to Boris was a jest or an important, binding promise +tormented her. + +Since Boris left Moscow in 1805 to join the army he had not seen the +Rostovs. He had been in Moscow several times, and had passed near +Otradnoe, but had never been to see them. + +Sometimes it occurred to Natasha that he did not wish to see her, and +this conjecture was confirmed by the sad tone in which her elders spoke +of him. + +"Nowadays old friends are not remembered," the countess would say when +Boris was mentioned. + +Anna Mikhaylovna also had of late visited them less frequently, seemed +to hold herself with particular dignity, and always spoke rapturously +and gratefully of the merits of her son and the brilliant career on +which he had entered. When the Rostovs came to Petersburg Boris called +on them. + +He drove to their house in some agitation. The memory of Natasha was his +most poetic recollection. But he went with the firm intention of letting +her and her parents feel that the childish relations between himself and +Natasha could not be binding either on her or on him. He had a brilliant +position in society thanks to his intimacy with Countess Bezukhova, a +brilliant position in the service thanks to the patronage of an +important personage whose complete confidence he enjoyed, and he was +beginning to make plans for marrying one of the richest heiresses in +Petersburg, plans which might very easily be realized. When he entered +the Rostovs' drawing room Natasha was in her own room. When she heard of +his arrival she almost ran into the drawing room, flushed and beaming +with a more than cordial smile. + +Boris remembered Natasha in a short dress, with dark eyes shining from +under her curls and boisterous, childish laughter, as he had known her +four years before; and so he was taken aback when quite a different +Natasha entered, and his face expressed rapturous astonishment. This +expression on his face pleased Natasha. + +"Well, do you recognize your little madcap playmate?" asked the +countess. + +Boris kissed Natasha's hand and said that he was astonished at the +change in her. + +"How handsome you have grown!" + +"I should think so!" replied Natasha's laughing eyes. + +"And is Papa older?" she asked. + +Natasha sat down and, without joining in Boris' conversation with the +countess, silently and minutely studied her childhood's suitor. He felt +the weight of that resolute and affectionate scrutiny and glanced at her +occasionally. + +Boris' uniform, spurs, tie, and the way his hair was brushed were all +comme il faut and in the latest fashion. This Natasha noticed at once. +He sat rather sideways in the armchair next to the countess, arranging +with his right hand the cleanest of gloves that fitted his left hand +like a skin, and he spoke with a particularly refined compression of his +lips about the amusements of the highest Petersburg society, recalling +with mild irony old times in Moscow and Moscow acquaintances. It was not +accidentally, Natasha felt, that he alluded, when speaking of the +highest aristocracy, to an ambassador's ball he had attended, and to +invitations he had received from N.N. and S.S. + +All this time Natasha sat silent, glancing up at him from under her +brows. This gaze disturbed and confused Boris more and more. He looked +round more frequently toward her, and broke off in what he was saying. +He did not stay more than ten minutes, then rose and took his leave. The +same inquisitive, challenging, and rather mocking eyes still looked at +him. After his first visit Boris said to himself that Natasha attracted +him just as much as ever, but that he must not yield to that feeling, +because to marry her, a girl almost without fortune, would mean ruin to +his career, while to renew their former relations without intending to +marry her would be dishonorable. Boris made up his mind to avoid meeting +Natasha, but despite that resolution he called again a few days later +and began calling often and spending whole days at the Rostovs'. It +seemed to him that he ought to have an explanation with Natasha and tell +her that the old times must be forgotten, that in spite of everything... +she could not be his wife, that he had no means, and they would never +let her marry him. But he failed to do so and felt awkward about +entering on such an explanation. From day to day he became more and more +entangled. It seemed to her mother and Sonya that Natasha was in love +with Boris as of old. She sang him his favorite songs, showed him her +album, making him write in it, did not allow him to allude to the past, +letting it be understood how delightful was the present; and every day +he went away in a fog, without having said what he meant to, and not +knowing what he was doing or why he came, or how it would all end. He +left off visiting Helene and received reproachful notes from her every +day, and yet he continued to spend whole days with the Rostovs. + + + + +CHAPTER XIII + +One night when the old countess, in nightcap and dressing jacket, +without her false curls, and with her poor little knob of hair showing +under her white cotton cap, knelt sighing and groaning on a rug and +bowing to the ground in prayer, her door creaked and Natasha, also in a +dressing jacket with slippers on her bare feet and her hair in +curlpapers, ran in. The countess--her prayerful mood dispelled--looked +round and frowned. She was finishing her last prayer: "Can it be that +this couch will be my grave?" Natasha, flushed and eager, seeing her +mother in prayer, suddenly checked her rush, half sat down, and +unconsciously put out her tongue as if chiding herself. Seeing that her +mother was still praying she ran on tiptoe to the bed and, rapidly +slipping one little foot against the other, pushed off her slippers and +jumped onto the bed the countess had feared might become her grave. This +couch was high, with a feather bed and five pillows each smaller than +the one below. Natasha jumped on it, sank into the feather bed, rolled +over to the wall, and began snuggling up the bedclothes as she settled +down, raising her knees to her chin, kicking out and laughing almost +inaudibly, now covering herself up head and all, and now peeping at her +mother. The countess finished her prayers and came to the bed with a +stern face, but seeing, that Natasha's head was covered, she smiled in +her kind, weak way. + +"Now then, now then!" said she. + +"Mamma, can we have a talk? Yes?" said Natasha. "Now, just one on your +throat and another... that'll do!" And seizing her mother round the +neck, she kissed her on the throat. In her behavior to her mother +Natasha seemed rough, but she was so sensitive and tactful that however +she clasped her mother she always managed to do it without hurting her +or making her feel uncomfortable or displeased. + +"Well, what is it tonight?" said the mother, having arranged her pillows +and waited until Natasha, after turning over a couple of times, had +settled down beside her under the quilt, spread out her arms, and +assumed a serious expression. + +These visits of Natasha's at night before the count returned from his +club were one of the greatest pleasures of both mother, and daughter. + +"What is it tonight?--But I have to tell you..." + +Natasha put her hand on her mother's mouth. + +"About Boris... I know," she said seriously; "that's what I have come +about. Don't say it--I know. No, do tell me!" and she removed her hand. +"Tell me, Mamma! He's nice?" + +"Natasha, you are sixteen. At your age I was married. You say Boris is +nice. He is very nice, and I love him like a son. But what then?... What +are you thinking about? You have quite turned his head, I can see +that...." + +As she said this the countess looked round at her daughter. Natasha was +lying looking steadily straight before her at one of the mahogany +sphinxes carved on the corners of the bedstead, so that the countess +only saw her daughter's face in profile. That face struck her by its +peculiarly serious and concentrated expression. + +Natasha was listening and considering. + +"Well, what then?" said she. + +"You have quite turned his head, and why? What do you want of him? You +know you can't marry him." + +"Why not?" said Natasha, without changing her position. + +"Because he is young, because he is poor, because he is a relation... +and because you yourself don't love him." + +"How do you know?" + +"I know. It is not right, darling!" + + +"But if I want to..." said Natasha. + +"Leave off talking nonsense," said the countess. + +"But if I want to..." + +"Natasha, I am in earnest..." + +Natasha did not let her finish. She drew the countess' large hand to +her, kissed it on the back and then on the palm, then again turned it +over and began kissing first one knuckle, then the space between the +knuckles, then the next knuckle, whispering, "January, February, March, +April, May. Speak, Mamma, why don't you say anything? Speak!" said she, +turning to her mother, who was tenderly gazing at her daughter and in +that contemplation seemed to have forgotten all she had wished to say. + +"It won't do, my love! Not everyone will understand this friendship +dating from your childish days, and to see him so intimate with you may +injure you in the eyes of other young men who visit us, and above all it +torments him for nothing. He may already have found a suitable and +wealthy match, and now he's half crazy." + +"Crazy?" repeated Natasha. + +"I'll tell you some things about myself. I had a cousin..." + +"I know! Cyril Matveich... but he is old." + +"He was not always old. But this is what I'll do, Natasha, I'll have a +talk with Boris. He need not come so often...." + +"Why not, if he likes to?" + +"Because I know it will end in nothing...." + +"How can you know? No, Mamma, don't speak to him! What nonsense!" said +Natasha in the tone of one being deprived of her property. "Well, I +won't marry, but let him come if he enjoys it and I enjoy it." Natasha +smiled and looked at her mother. "Not to marry, but just so," she added. + +"How so, my pet?" + +"Just so. There's no need for me to marry him. But... just so." + +"Just so, just so," repeated the countess, and shaking all over, she +went off into a good humored, unexpected, elderly laugh. + +"Don't laugh, stop!" cried Natasha. "You're shaking the whole bed! +You're awfully like me, just such another giggler.... Wait..." and she +seized the countess' hands and kissed a knuckle of the little finger, +saying, "June," and continued, kissing, "July, August," on the other +hand. "But, Mamma, is he very much in love? What do you think? Was +anybody ever so much in love with you? And he's very nice, very, very +nice. Only not quite my taste--he is so narrow, like the dining-room +clock.... Don't you understand? Narrow, you know--gray, light gray..." + +"What rubbish you're talking!" said the countess. + +Natasha continued: "Don't you really understand? Nicholas would +understand.... Bezukhov, now, is blue, dark-blue and red, and he is +square." + +"You flirt with him too," said the countess, laughing. + +"No, he is a Freemason, I have found out. He is fine, dark-blue and +red.... How can I explain it to you?" + +"Little countess!" the count's voice called from behind the door. +"You're not asleep?" Natasha jumped up, snatched up her slippers, and +ran barefoot to her own room. + +It was a long time before she could sleep. She kept thinking that no one +could understand all that she understood and all there was in her. + +"Sonya?" she thought, glancing at that curled-up, sleeping little kitten +with her enormous plait of hair. "No, how could she? She's virtuous. She +fell in love with Nicholas and does not wish to know anything more. Even +Mamma does not understand. It is wonderful how clever I am and how... +charming she is," she went on, speaking of herself in the third person, +and imagining it was some very wise man--the wisest and best of men--who +was saying it of her. "There is everything, everything in her," +continued this man. "She is unusually intelligent, charming... and then +she is pretty, uncommonly pretty, and agile--she swims and rides +splendidly... and her voice! One can really say it's a wonderful voice!" + +She hummed a scrap from her favorite opera by Cherubini, threw herself +on her bed, laughed at the pleasant thought that she would immediately +fall asleep, called Dunyasha the maid to put out the candle, and before +Dunyasha had left the room had already passed into yet another happier +world of dreams, where everything was as light and beautiful as in +reality, and even more so because it was different. + +Next day the countess called Boris aside and had a talk with him, after +which he ceased coming to the Rostovs'. + + + + +CHAPTER XIV + +On the thirty-first of December, New Year's Eve, 1809 - 10 an old +grandee of Catherine's day was giving a ball and midnight supper. The +diplomatic corps and the Emperor himself were to be present. + +The grandee's well-known mansion on the English Quay glittered with +innumerable lights. Police were stationed at the brightly lit entrance +which was carpeted with red baize, and not only gendarmes but dozens of +police officers and even the police master himself stood at the porch. +Carriages kept driving away and fresh ones arriving, with red-liveried +footmen and footmen in plumed hats. From the carriages emerged men +wearing uniforms, stars, and ribbons, while ladies in satin and ermine +cautiously descended the carriage steps which were let down for them +with a clatter, and then walked hurriedly and noiselessly over the baize +at the entrance. + +Almost every time a new carriage drove up a whisper ran through the +crowd and caps were doffed. + +"The Emperor?... No, a minister.... prince... ambassador. Don't you see +the plumes?..." was whispered among the crowd. + +One person, better dressed than the rest, seemed to know everyone and +mentioned by name the greatest dignitaries of the day. + +A third of the visitors had already arrived, but the Rostovs, who were +to be present, were still hurrying to get dressed. + +There had been many discussions and preparations for this ball in the +Rostov family, many fears that the invitation would not arrive, that the +dresses would not be ready, or that something would not be arranged as +it should be. + +Marya Ignatevna Peronskaya, a thin and shallow maid of honor at the +court of the Dowager Empress, who was a friend and relation of the +countess and piloted the provincial Rostovs in Petersburg high society, +was to accompany them to the ball. + +They were to call for her at her house in the Taurida Gardens at ten +o'clock, but it was already five minutes to ten, and the girls were not +yet dressed. + +Natasha was going to her first grand ball. She had got up at eight that +morning and had been in a fever of excitement and activity all day. All +her powers since morning had been concentrated on ensuring that they +all--she herself, Mamma, and Sonya--should be as well dressed as +possible. Sonya and her mother put themselves entirely in her hands. The +countess was to wear a claret-colored velvet dress, and the two girls +white gauze over pink silk slips, with roses on their bodices and their +hair dressed a la grecque. + +Everything essential had already been done; feet, hands, necks, and ears +washed, perfumed, and powdered, as befits a ball; the openwork silk +stockings and white satin shoes with ribbons were already on; the +hairdressing was almost done. Sonya was finishing dressing and so was +the countess, but Natasha, who had bustled about helping them all, was +behindhand. She was still sitting before a looking-glass with a dressing +jacket thrown over her slender shoulders. Sonya stood ready dressed in +the middle of the room and, pressing the head of a pin till it hurt her +dainty finger, was fixing on a last ribbon that squeaked as the pin went +through it. + +"That's not the way, that's not the way, Sonya!" cried Natasha turning +her head and clutching with both hands at her hair which the maid who +was dressing it had not time to release. "That bow is not right. Come +here!" + +Sonya sat down and Natasha pinned the ribbon on differently. + +"Allow me, Miss! I can't do it like that," said the maid who was holding +Natasha's hair. + +"Oh, dear! Well then, wait. That's right, Sonya." + +"Aren't you ready? It is nearly ten," came the countess' voice. + +"Directly! Directly! And you, Mamma?" + +"I have only my cap to pin on." + +"Don't do it without me!" called Natasha. "You won't do it right." + +"But it's already ten." + +They had decided to be at the ball by half past ten, and Natasha had +still to get dressed and they had to call at the Taurida Gardens. + +When her hair was done, Natasha, in her short petticoat from under which +her dancing shoes showed, and in her mother's dressing jacket, ran up to +Sonya, scrutinized her, and then ran to her mother. Turning her mother's +head this way and that, she fastened on the cap and, hurriedly kissing +her gray hair, ran back to the maids who were turning up the hem of her +skirt. + +The cause of the delay was Natasha's skirt, which was too long. Two +maids were turning up the hem and hurriedly biting off the ends of +thread. A third with pins in her mouth was running about between the +countess and Sonya, and a fourth held the whole of the gossamer garment +up high on one uplifted hand. + +"Mavra, quicker, darling!" + +"Give me my thimble, Miss, from there..." + +"Whenever will you be ready?" asked the count coming to the door. "Here +is some scent. Peronskaya must be tired of waiting." + +"It's ready, Miss," said the maid, holding up the shortened gauze dress +with two fingers, and blowing and shaking something off it, as if by +this to express a consciousness of the airiness and purity of what she +held. + +Natasha began putting on the dress. + +"In a minute! In a minute! Don't come in, Papa!" she cried to her father +as he opened the door--speaking from under the filmy skirt which still +covered her whole face. + +Sonya slammed the door to. A minute later they let the count in. He was +wearing a blue swallow-tail coat, shoes and stockings, and was perfumed +and his hair pomaded. + +"Oh, Papa! how nice you look! Charming!" cried Natasha, as she stood in +the middle of the room smoothing out the folds of the gauze. + +"If you please, Miss! allow me," said the maid, who on her knees was +pulling the skirt straight and shifting the pins from one side of her +mouth to the other with her tongue. + +"Say what you like," exclaimed Sonya, in a despairing voice as she +looked at Natasha, "say what you like, it's still too long." + +Natasha stepped back to look at herself in the pier glass. The dress was +too long. + +"Really, madam, it is not at all too long," said Mavra, crawling on her +knees after her young lady. + +"Well, if it's too long we'll tack it up... we'll tack it up in one +minute," said the resolute Dunyasha taking a needle that was stuck on +the front of her little shawl and, still kneeling on the floor, set to +work once more. + +At that moment, with soft steps, the countess came in shyly, in her cap +and velvet gown. + +"Oo-oo, my beauty!" exclaimed the count, "she looks better than any of +you!" + +He would have embraced her but, blushing, she stepped aside fearing to +be rumpled. + +"Mamma, your cap, more to this side," said Natasha. "I'll arrange it," +and she rushed forward so that the maids who were tacking up her skirt +could not move fast enough and a piece of gauze was torn off. + +"Oh goodness! What has happened? Really it was not my fault!" + +"Never mind, I'll run it up, it won't show," said Dunyasha. + +"What a beauty--a very queen!" said the nurse as she came to the door. +"And Sonya! They are lovely!" + +At a quarter past ten they at last got into their carriages and started. +But they had still to call at the Taurida Gardens. + +Peronskaya was quite ready. In spite of her age and plainness she had +gone through the same process as the Rostovs, but with less flurry--for +to her it was a matter of routine. Her ugly old body was washed, +perfumed, and powdered in just the same way. She had washed behind her +ears just as carefully, and when she entered her drawing room in her +yellow dress, wearing her badge as maid of honor, her old lady's maid +was as full of rapturous admiration as the Rostovs' servants had been. + +She praised the Rostovs' toilets. They praised her taste and toilet, and +at eleven o'clock, careful of their coiffures and dresses, they settled +themselves in their carriages and drove off. + + + + +CHAPTER XV + +Natasha had not had a moment free since early morning and had not once +had time to think of what lay before her. + +In the damp chill air and crowded closeness of the swaying carriage, she +for the first time vividly imagined what was in store for her there at +the ball, in those brightly lighted rooms--with music, flowers, dances, +the Emperor, and all the brilliant young people of Petersburg. The +prospect was so splendid that she hardly believed it would come true, so +out of keeping was it with the chill darkness and closeness of the +carriage. She understood all that awaited her only when, after stepping +over the red baize at the entrance, she entered the hall, took off her +fur cloak, and, beside Sonya and in front of her mother, mounted the +brightly illuminated stairs between the flowers. Only then did she +remember how she must behave at a ball, and tried to assume the majestic +air she considered indispensable for a girl on such an occasion. But, +fortunately for her, she felt her eyes growing misty, she saw nothing +clearly, her pulse beat a hundred to the minute, and the blood throbbed +at her heart. She could not assume that pose, which would have made her +ridiculous, and she moved on almost fainting from excitement and trying +with all her might to conceal it. And this was the very attitude that +became her best. Before and behind them other visitors were entering, +also talking in low tones and wearing ball dresses. The mirrors on the +landing reflected ladies in white, pale-blue, and pink dresses, with +diamonds and pearls on their bare necks and arms. + +Natasha looked in the mirrors and could not distinguish her reflection +from the others. All was blended into one brilliant procession. On +entering the ballroom the regular hum of voices, footsteps, and +greetings deafened Natasha, and the light and glitter dazzled her still +more. The host and hostess, who had already been standing at the door +for half an hour repeating the same words to the various arrivals, +"Charme de vous voir," * greeted the Rostovs and Peronskaya in the same +manner. + + +* "Delighted to see you." + +The two girls in their white dresses, each with a rose in her black +hair, both curtsied in the same way, but the hostess' eye involuntarily +rested longer on the slim Natasha. She looked at her and gave her alone +a special smile in addition to her usual smile as hostess. Looking at +her she may have recalled the golden, irrecoverable days of her own +girlhood and her own first ball. The host also followed Natasha with his +eyes and asked the count which was his daughter. + +"Charming!" said he, kissing the tips of his fingers. + +In the ballroom guests stood crowding at the entrance doors awaiting the +Emperor. The countess took up a position in one of the front rows of +that crowd. Natasha heard and felt that several people were asking about +her and looking at her. She realized that those noticing her liked her, +and this observation helped to calm her. + +"There are some like ourselves and some worse," she thought. + +Peronskaya was pointing out to the countess the most important people at +the ball. + +"That is the Dutch ambassador, do you see? That gray-haired man," she +said, indicating an old man with a profusion of silver-gray curly hair, +who was surrounded by ladies laughing at something he said. + +"Ah, here she is, the Queen of Petersburg, Countess Bezukhova," said +Peronskaya, indicating Helene who had just entered. "How lovely! She is +quite equal to Marya Antonovna. See how the men, young and old, pay +court to her. Beautiful and clever... they say Prince--is quite mad +about her. But see, those two, though not good-looking, are even more +run after." + +She pointed to a lady who was crossing the room followed by a very plain +daughter. + +"She is a splendid match, a millionairess," said Peronskaya. "And look, +here come her suitors." + +"That is Bezukhova's brother, Anatole Kuragin," she said, indicating a +handsome officer of the Horse Guards who passed by them with head erect, +looking at something over the heads of the ladies. "He's handsome, isn't +he? I hear they will marry him to that rich girl. But your cousin, +Drubetskoy, is also very attentive to her. They say she has millions. Oh +yes, that's the French ambassador himself!" she replied to the countess' +inquiry about Caulaincourt. "Looks as if he were a king! All the same, +the French are charming, very charming. No one more charming in society. +Ah, here she is! Yes, she is still the most beautiful of them all, our +Marya Antonovna! And how simply she is dressed! Lovely! And that stout +one in spectacles is the universal Freemason," she went on, indicating +Pierre. "Put him beside his wife and he looks a regular buffoon!" + +Pierre, swaying his stout body, advanced, making way through the crowd +and nodding to right and left as casually and good-naturedly as if he +were passing through a crowd at a fair. He pushed through, evidently +looking for someone. + +Natasha looked joyfully at the familiar face of Pierre, "the buffoon," +as Peronskaya had called him, and knew he was looking for them, and for +her in particular. He had promised to be at the ball and introduce +partners to her. + +But before he reached them Pierre stopped beside a very handsome, dark +man of middle height, and in a white uniform, who stood by a window +talking to a tall man wearing stars and a ribbon. Natasha at once +recognized the shorter and younger man in the white uniform: it was +Bolkonski, who seemed to her to have grown much younger, happier, and +better-looking. + +"There's someone else we know--Bolkonski, do you see, Mamma?" said +Natasha, pointing out Prince Andrew. "You remember, he stayed a night +with us at Otradnoe." + +"Oh, you know him?" said Peronskaya. "I can't bear him. Il fait a +present la pluie et le beau temps. * He's too proud for anything. Takes +after his father. And he's hand in glove with Speranski, writing some +project or other. Just look how he treats the ladies! There's one +talking to him and he has turned away," she said, pointing at him. "I'd +give it to him if he treated me as he does those ladies." + + +* "He is all the rage just now." + + + + +CHAPTER XVI + +Suddenly everybody stirred, began talking, and pressed forward and then +back, and between the two rows, which separated, the Emperor entered to +the sounds of music that had immediately struck up. Behind him walked +his host and hostess. He walked in rapidly, bowing to right and left as +if anxious to get the first moments of the reception over. The band +played the polonaise in vogue at that time on account of the words that +had been set to it, beginning: "Alexander, Elisaveta, all our hearts you +ravish quite..." The Emperor passed on to the drawing room, the crowd +made a rush for the doors, and several persons with excited faces +hurried there and back again. Then the crowd hastily retired from the +drawing-room door, at which the Emperor reappeared talking to the +hostess. A young man, looking distraught, pounced down on the ladies, +asking them to move aside. Some ladies, with faces betraying complete +forgetfulness of all the rules of decorum, pushed forward to the +detriment of their toilets. The men began to choose partners and take +their places for the polonaise. + +Everyone moved back, and the Emperor came smiling out of the drawing +room leading his hostess by the hand but not keeping time to the music. +The host followed with Marya Antonovna Naryshkina; then came +ambassadors, ministers, and various generals, whom Peronskaya diligently +named. More than half the ladies already had partners and were taking +up, or preparing to take up, their positions for the polonaise. Natasha +felt that she would be left with her mother and Sonya among a minority +of women who crowded near the wall, not having been invited to dance. +She stood with her slender arms hanging down, her scarcely defined bosom +rising and falling regularly, and with bated breath and glittering, +frightened eyes gazed straight before her, evidently prepared for the +height of joy or misery. She was not concerned about the Emperor or any +of those great people whom Peronskaya was pointing out--she had but one +thought: "Is it possible no one will ask me, that I shall not be among +the first to dance? Is it possible that not one of all these men will +notice me? They do not even seem to see me, or if they do they look as +if they were saying, 'Ah, she's not the one I'm after, so it's not worth +looking at her!' No, it's impossible," she thought. "They must know how +I long to dance, how splendidly I dance, and how they would enjoy +dancing with me." + +The strains of the polonaise, which had continued for a considerable +time, had begun to sound like a sad reminiscence to Natasha's ears. She +wanted to cry. Peronskaya had left them. The count was at the other end +of the room. She and the countess and Sonya were standing by themselves +as in the depths of a forest amid that crowd of strangers, with no one +interested in them and not wanted by anyone. Prince Andrew with a lady +passed by, evidently not recognizing them. The handsome Anatole was +smilingly talking to a partner on his arm and looked at Natasha as one +looks at a wall. Boris passed them twice and each time turned away. Berg +and his wife, who were not dancing, came up to them. + +This family gathering seemed humiliating to Natasha--as if there were +nowhere else for the family to talk but here at the ball. She did not +listen to or look at Vera, who was telling her something about her own +green dress. + +At last the Emperor stopped beside his last partner (he had danced with +three) and the music ceased. A worried aide-de-camp ran up to the +Rostovs requesting them to stand farther back, though as it was they +were already close to the wall, and from the gallery resounded the +distinct, precise, enticingly rhythmical strains of a waltz. The Emperor +looked smilingly down the room. A minute passed but no one had yet begun +dancing. An aide-de-camp, the Master of Ceremonies, went up to Countess +Bezukhova and asked her to dance. She smilingly raised her hand and laid +it on his shoulder without looking at him. The aide-de-camp, an adept in +his art, grasping his partner firmly round her waist, with confident +deliberation started smoothly, gliding first round the edge of the +circle, then at the corner of the room he caught Helene's left hand and +turned her, the only sound audible, apart from the ever-quickening +music, being the rhythmic click of the spurs on his rapid, agile feet, +while at every third beat his partner's velvet dress spread out and +seemed to flash as she whirled round. Natasha gazed at them and was +ready to cry because it was not she who was dancing that first turn of +the waltz. + +Prince Andrew, in the white uniform of a cavalry colonel, wearing +stockings and dancing shoes, stood looking animated and bright in the +front row of the circle not far from the Rostovs. Baron Firhoff was +talking to him about the first sitting of the Council of State to be +held next day. Prince Andrew, as one closely connected with Speranski +and participating in the work of the legislative commission, could give +reliable information about that sitting, concerning which various rumors +were current. But not listening to what Firhoff was saying, he was +gazing now at the sovereign and now at the men intending to dance who +had not yet gathered courage to enter the circle. + +Prince Andrew was watching these men abashed by the Emperor's presence, +and the women who were breathlessly longing to be asked to dance. + +Pierre came up to him and caught him by the arm. + +"You always dance. I have a protegee, the young Rostova, here. Ask her," +he said. + +"Where is she?" asked Bolkonski. "Excuse me!" he added, turning to the +baron, "we will finish this conversation elsewhere--at a ball one must +dance." He stepped forward in the direction Pierre indicated. The +despairing, dejected expression of Natasha's face caught his eye. He +recognized her, guessed her feelings, saw that it was her debut, +remembered her conversation at the window, and with an expression of +pleasure on his face approached Countess Rostova. + +"Allow me to introduce you to my daughter," said the countess, with +heightened color. + +"I have the pleasure of being already acquainted, if the countess +remembers me," said Prince Andrew with a low and courteous bow quite +belying Peronskaya's remarks about his rudeness, and approaching Natasha +he held out his arm to grasp her waist before he had completed his +invitation. He asked her to waltz. That tremulous expression on +Natasha's face, prepared either for despair or rapture, suddenly +brightened into a happy, grateful, childlike smile. + +"I have long been waiting for you," that frightened happy little girl +seemed to say by the smile that replaced the threatened tears, as she +raised her hand to Prince Andrew's shoulder. They were the second couple +to enter the circle. Prince Andrew was one of the best dancers of his +day and Natasha danced exquisitely. Her little feet in their white satin +dancing shoes did their work swiftly, lightly, and independently of +herself, while her face beamed with ecstatic happiness. Her slender bare +arms and neck were not beautiful--compared to Helene's her shoulders +looked thin and her bosom undeveloped. But Helene seemed, as it were, +hardened by a varnish left by the thousands of looks that had scanned +her person, while Natasha was like a girl exposed for the first time, +who would have felt very much ashamed had she not been assured that this +was absolutely necessary. + +Prince Andrew liked dancing, and wishing to escape as quickly as +possible from the political and clever talk which everyone addressed to +him, wishing also to break up the circle of restraint he disliked, +caused by the Emperor's presence, he danced, and had chosen Natasha +because Pierre pointed her out to him and because she was the first +pretty girl who caught his eye; but scarcely had he embraced that +slender supple figure and felt her stirring so close to him and smiling +so near him than the wine of her charm rose to his head, and he felt +himself revived and rejuvenated when after leaving her he stood +breathing deeply and watching the other dancers. + + + + +CHAPTER XVII + +After Prince Andrew, Boris came up to ask Natasha for a dance, and then +the aide-de-camp who had opened the ball, and several other young men, +so that, flushed and happy, and passing on her superfluous partners to +Sonya, she did not cease dancing all the evening. She noticed and saw +nothing of what occupied everyone else. Not only did she fail to notice +that the Emperor talked a long time with the French ambassador, and how +particularly gracious he was to a certain lady, or that Prince So-and-so +and So-and-so did and said this and that, and that Helene had great +success and was honored by the special attention of So-and-so, but she +did not even see the Emperor, and only noticed that he had gone because +the ball became livelier after his departure. For one of the merry +cotillions before supper Prince Andrew was again her partner. He +reminded her of their first encounter in the Otradnoe avenue, and how +she had been unable to sleep that moonlight night, and told her how he +had involuntarily overheard her. Natasha blushed at that recollection +and tried to excuse herself, as if there had been something to be +ashamed of in what Prince Andrew had overheard. + +Like all men who have grown up in society, Prince Andrew liked meeting +someone there not of the conventional society stamp. And such was +Natasha, with her surprise, her delight, her shyness, and even her +mistakes in speaking French. With her he behaved with special care and +tenderness, sitting beside her and talking of the simplest and most +unimportant matters; he admired her shy grace. In the middle of the +cotillion, having completed one of the figures, Natasha, still out of +breath, was returning to her seat when another dancer chose her. She was +tired and panting and evidently thought of declining, but immediately +put her hand gaily on the man's shoulder, smiling at Prince Andrew. + +"I'd be glad to sit beside you and rest: I'm tired; but you see how they +keep asking me, and I'm glad of it, I'm happy and I love everybody, and +you and I understand it all," and much, much more was said in her smile. +When her partner left her Natasha ran across the room to choose two +ladies for the figure. + +"If she goes to her cousin first and then to another lady, she will be +my wife," said Prince Andrew to himself quite to his own surprise, as he +watched her. She did go first to her cousin. + +"What rubbish sometimes enters one's head!" thought Prince Andrew, "but +what is certain is that that girl is so charming, so original, that she +won't be dancing here a month before she will be married.... Such as she +are rare here," he thought, as Natasha, readjusting a rose that was +slipping on her bodice, settled herself beside him. + +When the cotillion was over the old count in his blue coat came up to +the dancers. He invited Prince Andrew to come and see them, and asked +his daughter whether she was enjoying herself. Natasha did not answer at +once but only looked up with a smile that said reproachfully: "How can +you ask such a question?" + +"I have never enjoyed myself so much before!" she said, and Prince +Andrew noticed how her thin arms rose quickly as if to embrace her +father and instantly dropped again. Natasha was happier than she had +ever been in her life. She was at that height of bliss when one becomes +completely kind and good and does not believe in the possibility of +evil, unhappiness, or sorrow. + +At that ball Pierre for the first time felt humiliated by the position +his wife occupied in court circles. He was gloomy and absent-minded. A +deep furrow ran across his forehead, and standing by a window he stared +over his spectacles seeing no one. + +On her way to supper Natasha passed him. + +Pierre's gloomy, unhappy look struck her. She stopped in front of him. +She wished to help him, to bestow on him the superabundance of her own +happiness. + +"How delightful it is, Count!" said she. "Isn't it?" + +Pierre smiled absent-mindedly, evidently not grasping what she said. + +"Yes, I am very glad," he said. + +"How can people be dissatisfied with anything?" thought Natasha. +"Especially such a capital fellow as Bezukhov!" In Natasha's eyes all +the people at the ball alike were good, kind, and splendid people, +loving one another; none of them capable of injuring another--and so +they ought all to be happy. + + + + +CHAPTER XVIII + +Next day Prince Andrew thought of the ball, but his mind did not dwell +on it long. "Yes, it was a very brilliant ball," and then... "Yes, that +little Rostova is very charming. There's something fresh, original, un- +Petersburg-like about her that distinguishes her." That was all he +thought about yesterday's ball, and after his morning tea he set to +work. + +But either from fatigue or want of sleep he was ill-disposed for work +and could get nothing done. He kept criticizing his own work, as he +often did, and was glad when he heard someone coming. + +The visitor was Bitski, who served on various committees, frequented all +the societies in Petersburg, and a passionate devotee of the new ideas +and of Speranski, and a diligent Petersburg newsmonger--one of those men +who choose their opinions like their clothes according to the fashion, +but who for that very reason appear to be the warmest partisans. Hardly +had he got rid of his hat before he ran into Prince Andrew's room with a +preoccupied air and at once began talking. He had just heard particulars +of that morning's sitting of the Council of State opened by the Emperor, +and he spoke of it enthusiastically. The Emperor's speech had been +extraordinary. It had been a speech such as only constitutional monarchs +deliver. "The Sovereign plainly said that the Council and Senate are +estates of the realm, he said that the government must rest not on +authority but on secure bases. The Emperor said that the fiscal system +must be reorganized and the accounts published," recounted Bitski, +emphasizing certain words and opening his eyes significantly. + +"Ah, yes! Today's events mark an epoch, the greatest epoch in our +history," he concluded. + +Prince Andrew listened to the account of the opening of the Council of +State, which he had so impatiently awaited and to which he had attached +such importance, and was surprised that this event, now that it had +taken place, did not affect him, and even seemed quite insignificant. He +listened with quiet irony to Bitski's enthusiastic account of it. A very +simple thought occurred to him: "What does it matter to me or to Bitski +what the Emperor was pleased to say at the Council? Can all that make me +any happier or better?" + +And this simple reflection suddenly destroyed all the interest Prince +Andrew had felt in the impending reforms. He was going to dine that +evening at Speranski's, "with only a few friends," as the host had said +when inviting him. The prospect of that dinner in the intimate home +circle of the man he so admired had greatly interested Prince Andrew, +especially as he had not yet seen Speranski in his domestic +surroundings, but now he felt disinclined to go to it. + +At the appointed hour, however, he entered the modest house Speranski +owned in the Taurida Gardens. In the parqueted dining room this small +house, remarkable for its extreme cleanliness (suggesting that of a +monastery), Prince Andrew, who was rather late, found the friendly +gathering of Speranski's intimate acquaintances already assembled at +five o'clock. There were no ladies present except Speranski's little +daughter (long-faced like her father) and her governess. The other +guests were Gervais, Magnitski, and Stolypin. While still in the +anteroom Prince Andrew heard loud voices and a ringing staccato laugh--a +laugh such as one hears on the stage. Someone--it sounded like +Speranski--was distinctly ejaculating ha-ha-ha. Prince Andrew had never +before heard Speranski's famous laugh, and this ringing, high-pitched +laughter from a statesman made a strange impression on him. + +He entered the dining room. The whole company were standing between two +windows at a small table laid with hors-d'oeuvres. Speranski, wearing a +gray swallow-tail coat with a star on the breast, and evidently still +the same waistcoat and high white stock he had worn at the meeting of +the Council of State, stood at the table with a beaming countenance. His +guests surrounded him. Magnitski, addressing himself to Speranski, was +relating an anecdote, and Speranski was laughing in advance at what +Magnitski was going to say. When Prince Andrew entered the room +Magnitski's words were again crowned by laughter. Stolypin gave a deep +bass guffaw as he munched a piece of bread and cheese. Gervais laughed +softly with a hissing chuckle, and Speranski in a high-pitched staccato +manner. + +Still laughing, Speranski held out his soft white hand to Prince Andrew. + +"Very pleased to see you, Prince," he said. "One moment..." he went on, +turning to Magnitski and interrupting his story. "We have agreed that +this is a dinner for recreation, with not a word about business!" and +turning again to the narrator he began to laugh afresh. + +Prince Andrew looked at the laughing Speranski with astonishment, +regret, and disillusionment. It seemed to him that this was not +Speranski but someone else. Everything that had formerly appeared +mysterious and fascinating in Speranski suddenly became plain and +unattractive. + +At dinner the conversation did not cease for a moment and seemed to +consist of the contents of a book of funny anecdotes. Before Magnitski +had finished his story someone else was anxious to relate something +still funnier. Most of the anecdotes, if not relating to the state +service, related to people in the service. It seemed that in this +company the insignificance of those people was so definitely accepted +that the only possible attitude toward them was one of good humored +ridicule. Speranski related how at the Council that morning a deaf +dignitary, when asked his opinion, replied that he thought so too. +Gervais gave a long account of an official revision, remarkable for the +stupidity of everybody concerned. Stolypin, stuttering, broke into the +conversation and began excitedly talking of the abuses that existed +under the former order of things--threatening to give a serious turn to +the conversation. Magnitski starting quizzing Stolypin about his +vehemence. Gervais intervened with a joke, and the talk reverted to its +former lively tone. + +Evidently Speranski liked to rest after his labors and find amusement in +a circle of friends, and his guests, understanding his wish, tried to +enliven him and amuse themselves. But their gaiety seemed to Prince +Andrew mirthless and tiresome. Speranski's high-pitched voice struck him +unpleasantly, and the incessant laughter grated on him like a false +note. Prince Andrew did not laugh and feared that he would be a damper +on the spirits of the company, but no one took any notice of his being +out of harmony with the general mood. They all seemed very gay. + +He tried several times to join in the conversation, but his remarks were +tossed aside each time like a cork thrown out of the water, and he could +not jest with them. + +There was nothing wrong or unseemly in what they said, it was witty and +might have been funny, but it lacked just that something which is the +salt of mirth, and they were not even aware that such a thing existed. + +After dinner Speranski's daughter and her governess rose. He patted the +little girl with his white hand and kissed her. And that gesture, too, +seemed unnatural to Prince Andrew. + +The men remained at table over their port--English fashion. In the midst +of a conversation that was started about Napoleon's Spanish affairs, +which they all agreed in approving, Prince Andrew began to express a +contrary opinion. Speranski smiled and, with an evident wish to prevent +the conversation from taking an unpleasant course, told a story that had +no connection with the previous conversation. For a few moments all were +silent. + +Having sat some time at table, Speranski corked a bottle of wine and, +remarking, "Nowadays good wine rides in a carriage and pair," passed it +to the servant and got up. All rose and continuing to talk loudly went +into the drawing room. Two letters brought by a courier were handed to +Speranski and he took them to his study. As soon as he had left the room +the general merriment stopped and the guests began to converse sensibly +and quietly with one another. + +"Now for the recitation!" said Speranski on returning from his study. "A +wonderful talent!" he said to Prince Andrew, and Magnitski immediately +assumed a pose and began reciting some humorous verses in French which +he had composed about various well-known Petersburg people. He was +interrupted several times by applause. When the verses were finished +Prince Andrew went up to Speranski and took his leave. + +"Where are you off to so early?" asked Speranski. + +"I promised to go to a reception." + +They said no more. Prince Andrew looked closely into those mirrorlike, +impenetrable eyes, and felt that it had been ridiculous of him to have +expected anything from Speranski and from any of his own activities +connected with him, or ever to have attributed importance to what +Speranski was doing. That precise, mirthless laughter rang in Prince +Andrew's ears long after he had left the house. + +When he reached home Prince Andrew began thinking of his life in +Petersburg during those last four months as if it were something new. He +recalled his exertions and solicitations, and the history of his project +of army reform, which had been accepted for consideration and which they +were trying to pass over in silence simply because another, a very poor +one, had already been prepared and submitted to the Emperor. He thought +of the meetings of a committee of which Berg was a member. He remembered +how carefully and at what length everything relating to form and +procedure was discussed at those meetings, and how sedulously and +promptly all that related to the gist of the business was evaded. He +recalled his labors on the Legal Code, and how painstakingly he had +translated the articles of the Roman and French codes into Russian, and +he felt ashamed of himself. Then he vividly pictured to himself +Bogucharovo, his occupations in the country, his journey to Ryazan; he +remembered the peasants and Dron the village elder, and mentally +applying to them the Personal Rights he had divided into paragraphs, he +felt astonished that he could have spent so much time on such useless +work. + + + + +CHAPTER XIX + +Next day Prince Andrew called at a few houses he had not visited before, +and among them at the Rostovs' with whom he had renewed acquaintance at +the ball. Apart from considerations of politeness which demanded the +call, he wanted to see that original, eager girl who had left such a +pleasant impression on his mind, in her own home. + +Natasha was one of the first to meet him. She was wearing a dark-blue +house dress in which Prince Andrew thought her even prettier than in her +ball dress. She and all the Rostov family welcomed him as an old friend, +simply and cordially. The whole family, whom he had formerly judged +severely, now seemed to him to consist of excellent, simple, and kindly +people. The old count's hospitality and good nature, which struck one +especially in Petersburg as a pleasant surprise, were such that Prince +Andrew could not refuse to stay to dinner. "Yes," he thought, "they are +capital people, who of course have not the slightest idea what a +treasure they possess in Natasha; but they are kindly folk and form the +best possible setting for this strikingly poetic, charming girl, +overflowing with life!" + +In Natasha Prince Andrew was conscious of a strange world completely +alien to him and brimful of joys unknown to him, a different world, that +in the Otradnoe avenue and at the window that moonlight night had +already begun to disconcert him. Now this world disconcerted him no +longer and was no longer alien to him, but he himself having entered it +found in it a new enjoyment. + +After dinner Natasha, at Prince Andrew's request, went to the clavichord +and began singing. Prince Andrew stood by a window talking to the ladies +and listened to her. In the midst of a phrase he ceased speaking and +suddenly felt tears choking him, a thing he had thought impossible for +him. He looked at Natasha as she sang, and something new and joyful +stirred in his soul. He felt happy and at the same time sad. He had +absolutely nothing to weep about yet he was ready to weep. What about? +His former love? The little princess? His disillusionments?... His hopes +for the future?... Yes and no. The chief reason was a sudden, vivid +sense of the terrible contrast between something infinitely great and +illimitable within him and that limited and material something that he, +and even she, was. This contrast weighed on and yet cheered him while +she sang. + +As soon as Natasha had finished she went up to him and asked how he +liked her voice. She asked this and then became confused, feeling that +she ought not to have asked it. He smiled, looking at her, and said he +liked her singing as he liked everything she did. + +Prince Andrew left the Rostovs' late in the evening. He went to bed from +habit, but soon realized that he could not sleep. Having lit his candle +he sat up in bed, then got up, then lay down again not at all troubled +by his sleeplessness: his soul was as fresh and joyful as if he had +stepped out of a stuffy room into God's own fresh air. It did not enter +his head that he was in love with Natasha; he was not thinking about +her, but only picturing her to himself, and in consequence all life +appeared in a new light. "Why do I strive, why do I toil in this narrow, +confined frame, when life, all life with all its joys, is open to me?" +said he to himself. And for the first time for a very long while he +began making happy plans for the future. He decided that he must attend +to his son's education by finding a tutor and putting the boy in his +charge, then he ought to retire from the service and go abroad, and see +England, Switzerland and Italy. "I must use my freedom while I feel so +much strength and youth in me," he said to himself. "Pierre was right +when he said one must believe in the possibility of happiness in order +to be happy, and now I do believe in it. Let the dead bury their dead, +but while one has life one must live and be happy!" thought he. + + + + +CHAPTER XX + +One morning Colonel Berg, whom Pierre knew as he knew everybody in +Moscow and Petersburg, came to see him. Berg arrived in an immaculate +brand-new uniform, with his hair pomaded and brushed forward over his +temples as the Emperor Alexander wore his hair. + +"I have just been to see the countess, your wife. Unfortunately she +could not grant my request, but I hope, Count, I shall be more fortunate +with you," he said with a smile. + +"What is it you wish, Colonel? I am at your service." + +"I have now quite settled in my new rooms, Count" (Berg said this with +perfect conviction that this information could not but be agreeable), +"and so I wish to arrange just a small party for my own and my wife's +friends." (He smiled still more pleasantly.) "I wished to ask the +countess and you to do me the honor of coming to tea and to supper." + +Only Countess Helene, considering the society of such people as the +Bergs beneath her, could be cruel enough to refuse such an invitation. +Berg explained so clearly why he wanted to collect at his house a small +but select company, and why this would give him pleasure, and why though +he grudged spending money on cards or anything harmful, he was prepared +to run into some expense for the sake of good society--that Pierre could +not refuse, and promised to come. + +"But don't be late, Count, if I may venture to ask; about ten minutes to +eight, please. We shall make up a rubber. Our general is coming. He is +very good to me. We shall have supper, Count. So you will do me the +favor." + +Contrary to his habit of being late, Pierre on that day arrived at the +Bergs' house, not at ten but at fifteen minutes to eight. + +Having prepared everything necessary for the party, the Bergs were ready +for their guests' arrival. + +In their new, clean, and light study with its small busts and pictures +and new furniture sat Berg and his wife. Berg, closely buttoned up in +his new uniform, sat beside his wife explaining to her that one always +could and should be acquainted with people above one, because only then +does one get satisfaction from acquaintances. + +"You can get to know something, you can ask for something. See how I +managed from my first promotion." (Berg measured his life not by years +but by promotions.) "My comrades are still nobodies, while I am only +waiting for a vacancy to command a regiment, and have the happiness to +be your husband." (He rose and kissed Vera's hand, and on the way to her +straightened out a turned-up corner of the carpet.) "And how have I +obtained all this? Chiefly by knowing how to choose my aquaintances. It +goes without saying that one must be conscientious and methodical." + +Berg smiled with a sense of his superiority over a weak woman, and +paused, reflecting that this dear wife of his was after all but a weak +woman who could not understand all that constitutes a man's dignity, +what it was ein Mann zu sein. * Vera at the same time smiling with a +sense of superiority over her good, conscientious husband, who all the +same understood life wrongly, as according to Vera all men did. Berg, +judging by his wife, thought all women weak and foolish. Vera, judging +only by her husband and generalizing from that observation, supposed +that all men, though they understand nothing and are conceited and +selfish, ascribe common sense to themselves alone. + + +* To be a man. + +Berg rose and embraced his wife carefully, so as not to crush her lace +fichu for which he had paid a good price, kissing her straight on the +lips. + +"The only thing is, we mustn't have children too soon," he continued, +following an unconscious sequence of ideas. + +"Yes," answered Vera, "I don't at all want that. We must live for +society." + +"Princess Yusupova wore one exactly like this," said Berg, pointing to +the fichu with a happy and kindly smile. + +Just then Count Bezukhov was announced. Husband and wife glanced at one +another, both smiling with self-satisfaction, and each mentally claiming +the honor of this visit. + +"This is what comes of knowing how to make acquaintances," thought Berg. +"This is what comes of knowing how to conduct oneself." + +"But please don't interrupt me when I am entertaining the guests," said +Vera, "because I know what interests each of them and what to say to +different people." + +Berg smiled again. + +"It can't be helped: men must sometimes have masculine conversation," +said he. + +They received Pierre in their small, new drawing-room, where it was +impossible to sit down anywhere without disturbing its symmetry, +neatness, and order; so it was quite comprehensible and not strange that +Berg, having generously offered to disturb the symmetry of an armchair +or of the sofa for his dear guest, but being apparently painfully +undecided on the matter himself, eventually left the visitor to settle +the question of selection. Pierre disturbed the symmetry by moving a +chair for himself, and Berg and Vera immediately began their evening +party, interrupting each other in their efforts to entertain their +guest. + +Vera, having decided in her own mind that Pierre ought to be entertained +with conversation about the French embassy, at once began accordingly. +Berg, having decided that masculine conversation was required, +interrupted his wife's remarks and touched on the question of the war +with Austria, and unconsciously jumped from the general subject to +personal considerations as to the proposals made him to take part in the +Austrian campaign and the reasons why he had declined them. Though the +conversation was very incoherent and Vera was angry at the intrusion of +the masculine element, both husband and wife felt with satisfaction +that, even if only one guest was present, their evening had begun very +well and was as like as two peas to every other evening party with its +talk, tea, and lighted candles. + +Before long Boris, Berg's old comrade, arrived. There was a shade of +condescension and patronage in his treatment of Berg and Vera. After +Boris came a lady with the colonel, then the general himself, then the +Rostovs, and the party became unquestionably exactly like all other +evening parties. Berg and Vera could not repress their smiles of +satisfaction at the sight of all this movement in their drawing room, at +the sound of the disconnected talk, the rustling of dresses, and the +bowing and scraping. Everything was just as everybody always has it, +especially so the general, who admired the apartment, patted Berg on the +shoulder, and with parental authority superintended the setting out of +the table for boston. The general sat down by Count Ilya Rostov, who was +next to himself the most important guest. The old people sat with the +old, the young with the young, and the hostess at the tea table, on +which stood exactly the same kind of cakes in a silver cake basket as +the Panins had at their party. Everything was just as it was everywhere +else. + + + + +CHAPTER XXI + +Pierre, as one of the principal guests, had to sit down to boston with +Count Rostov, the general, and the colonel. At the card table he +happened to be directly facing Natasha, and was struck by a curious +change that had come over her since the ball. She was silent, and not +only less pretty than at the ball, but only redeemed from plainness by +her look of gentle indifference to everything around. + +"What's the matter with her?" thought Pierre, glancing at her. She was +sitting by her sister at the tea table, and reluctantly, without looking +at him, made some reply to Boris who sat down beside her. After playing +out a whole suit and to his partner's delight taking five tricks, +Pierre, hearing greetings and the steps of someone who had entered the +room while he was picking up his tricks, glanced again at Natasha. + +"What has happened to her?" he asked himself with still greater +surprise. + +Prince Andrew was standing before her, saying something to her with a +look of tender solicitude. She, having raised her head, was looking up +at him, flushed and evidently trying to master her rapid breathing. And +the bright glow of some inner fire that had been suppressed was again +alight in her. She was completely transformed and from a plain girl had +again become what she had been at the ball. + +Prince Andrew went up to Pierre, and the latter noticed a new and +youthful expression in his friend's face. + +Pierre changed places several times during the game, sitting now with +his back to Natasha and now facing her, but during the whole of the six +rubbers he watched her and his friend. + +"Something very important is happening between them," thought Pierre, +and a feeling that was both joyful and painful agitated him and made him +neglect the game. + +After six rubbers the general got up, saying that it was no use playing +like that, and Pierre was released. Natasha on one side was talking with +Sonya and Boris, and Vera with a subtle smile was saying something to +Prince Andrew. Pierre went up to his friend and, asking whether they +were talking secrets, sat down beside them. Vera, having noticed Prince +Andrew's attentions to Natasha, decided that at a party, a real evening +party, subtle allusions to the tender passion were absolutely necessary +and, seizing a moment when Prince Andrew was alone, began a conversation +with him about feelings in general and about her sister. With so +intellectual a guest as she considered Prince Andrew to be, she felt +that she had to employ her diplomatic tact. + +When Pierre went up to them he noticed that Vera was being carried away +by her self-satisfied talk, but that Prince Andrew seemed embarrassed, a +thing that rarely happened with him. + +"What do you think?" Vera was saying with an arch smile. "You are so +discerning, Prince, and understand people's characters so well at a +glance. What do you think of Natalie? Could she be constant in her +attachments? Could she, like other women" (Vera meant herself), "love a +man once for all and remain true to him forever? That is what I consider +true love. What do you think, Prince?" + +"I know your sister too little," replied Prince Andrew, with a sarcastic +smile under which he wished to hide his embarrassment, "to be able to +solve so delicate a question, and then I have noticed that the less +attractive a woman is the more constant she is likely to be," he added, +and looked up at Pierre who was just approaching them. + +"Yes, that is true, Prince. In our days," continued Vera--mentioning +"our days" as people of limited intelligence are fond of doing, +imagining that they have discovered and appraised the peculiarities of +"our days" and that human characteristics change with the times--"in our +days a girl has so much freedom that the pleasure of being courted often +stifles real feeling in her. And it must be confessed that Natalie is +very susceptible." This return to the subject of Natalie caused Prince +Andrew to knit his brows with discomfort: he was about to rise, but Vera +continued with a still more subtle smile: + +"I think no one has been more courted than she," she went on, "but till +quite lately she never cared seriously for anyone. Now you know, Count," +she said to Pierre, "even our dear cousin Boris, who, between ourselves, +was very far gone in the land of tenderness..." (alluding to a map of +love much in vogue at that time). + +Prince Andrew frowned and remained silent. + +"You are friendly with Boris, aren't you?" asked Vera. + +"Yes, I know him..." + +"I expect he has told you of his childish love for Natasha?" + +"Oh, there was childish love?" suddenly asked Prince Andrew, blushing +unexpectedly. + +"Yes, you know between cousins intimacy often leads to love. Le +cousinage est un dangereux voisinage. * Don't you think so?" + + +* "Cousinhood is a dangerous neighborhood." + +"Oh, undoubtedly!" said Prince Andrew, and with sudden and unnatural +liveliness he began chaffing Pierre about the need to be very careful +with his fifty-year-old Moscow cousins, and in the midst of these +jesting remarks he rose, taking Pierre by the arm, and drew him aside. + +"Well?" asked Pierre, seeing his friend's strange animation with +surprise, and noticing the glance he turned on Natasha as he rose. + +"I must... I must have a talk with you," said Prince Andrew. "You know +that pair of women's gloves?" (He referred to the masonic gloves given +to a newly initiated Brother to present to the woman he loved.) "I... +but no, I will talk to you later on," and with a strange light in his +eyes and restlessness in his movements, Prince Andrew approached Natasha +and sat down beside her. Pierre saw how Prince Andrew asked her +something and how she flushed as she replied. + +But at that moment Berg came to Pierre and began insisting that he +should take part in an argument between the general and the colonel on +the affairs in Spain. + +Berg was satisfied and happy. The smile of pleasure never left his face. +The party was very successful and quite like other parties he had seen. +Everything was similar: the ladies' subtle talk, the cards, the general +raising his voice at the card table, and the samovar and the tea cakes; +only one thing was lacking that he had always seen at the evening +parties he wished to imitate. They had not yet had a loud conversation +among the men and a dispute about something important and clever. Now +the general had begun such a discussion and so Berg drew Pierre to it. + + + + +CHAPTER XXII + +Next day, having been invited by the count, Prince Andrew dined with the +Rostovs and spent the rest of the day there. + +Everyone in the house realized for whose sake Prince Andrew came, and +without concealing it he tried to be with Natasha all day. Not only in +the soul of the frightened yet happy and enraptured Natasha, but in the +whole house, there was a feeling of awe at something important that was +bound to happen. The countess looked with sad and sternly serious eyes +at Prince Andrew when he talked to Natasha and timidly started some +artificial conversation about trifles as soon as he looked her way. +Sonya was afraid to leave Natasha and afraid of being in the way when +she was with them. Natasha grew pale, in a panic of expectation, when +she remained alone with him for a moment. Prince Andrew surprised her by +his timidity. She felt that he wanted to say something to her but could +not bring himself to do so. + +In the evening, when Prince Andrew had left, the countess went up to +Natasha and whispered: "Well, what?" + +"Mamma! For heaven's sake don't ask me anything now! One can't talk +about that," said Natasha. + +But all the same that night Natasha, now agitated and now frightened, +lay a long time in her mother's bed gazing straight before her. She told +her how he had complimented her, how he told her he was going abroad, +asked her where they were going to spend the summer, and then how he had +asked her about Boris. + +"But such a... such a... never happened to me before!" she said. "Only I +feel afraid in his presence. I am always afraid when I'm with him. What +does that mean? Does it mean that it's the real thing? Yes? Mamma, are +you asleep?" + +"No, my love; I am frightened myself," answered her mother. "Now go!" + +"All the same I shan't sleep. What silliness, to sleep! Mummy! Mummy! +such a thing never happened to me before," she said, surprised and +alarmed at the feeling she was aware of in herself. "And could we ever +have thought!..." + +It seemed to Natasha that even at the time she first saw Prince Andrew +at Otradnoe she had fallen in love with him. It was as if she feared +this strange, unexpected happiness of meeting again the very man she had +then chosen (she was firmly convinced she had done so) and of finding +him, as it seemed, not indifferent to her. + +"And it had to happen that he should come specially to Petersburg while +we are here. And it had to happen that we should meet at that ball. It +is fate. Clearly it is fate that everything led up to this! Already +then, directly I saw him I felt something peculiar." + +"What else did he say to you? What are those verses? Read them..." said +her mother, thoughtfully, referring to some verses Prince Andrew had +written in Natasha's album. + +"Mamma, one need not be ashamed of his being a widower?" + +"Don't, Natasha! Pray to God. 'Marriages are made in heaven,'" said her +mother. + +"Darling Mummy, how I love you! How happy I am!" cried Natasha, shedding +tears of joy and excitement and embracing her mother. + +At that very time Prince Andrew was sitting with Pierre and telling him +of his love for Natasha and his firm resolve to make her his wife. + +That day Countess Helene had a reception at her house. The French +ambassador was there, and a foreign prince of the blood who had of late +become a frequent visitor of hers, and many brilliant ladies and +gentlemen. Pierre, who had come downstairs, walked through the rooms and +struck everyone by his preoccupied, absent-minded, and morose air. + +Since the ball he had felt the approach of a fit of nervous depression +and had made desperate efforts to combat it. Since the intimacy of his +wife with the royal prince, Pierre had unexpectedly been made a +gentleman of the bedchamber, and from that time he had begun to feel +oppressed and ashamed in court society, and dark thoughts of the vanity +of all things human came to him oftener than before. At the same time +the feeling he had noticed between his protegee Natasha and Prince +Andrew accentuated his gloom by the contrast between his own position +and his friend's. He tried equally to avoid thinking about his wife, and +about Natasha and Prince Andrew; and again everything seemed to him +insignificant in comparison with eternity; again the question: for what? +presented itself; and he forced himself to work day and night at masonic +labors, hoping to drive away the evil spirit that threatened him. Toward +midnight, after he had left the countess' apartments, he was sitting +upstairs in a shabby dressing gown, copying out the original transaction +of the Scottish lodge of Freemasons at a table in his low room cloudy +with tobacco smoke, when someone came in. It was Prince Andrew. + +"Ah, it's you!" said Pierre with a preoccupied, dissatisfied air. "And +I, you see, am hard at it." He pointed to his manuscript book with that +air of escaping from the ills of life with which unhappy people look at +their work. + +Prince Andrew, with a beaming, ecstatic expression of renewed life on +his face, paused in front of Pierre and, not noticing his sad look, +smiled at him with the egotism of joy. + +"Well, dear heart," said he, "I wanted to tell you about it yesterday +and I have come to do so today. I never experienced anything like it +before. I am in love, my friend!" + +Suddenly Pierre heaved a deep sigh and dumped his heavy person down on +the sofa beside Prince Andrew. + +"With Natasha Rostova, yes?" said he. + +"Yes, yes! Who else should it be? I should never have believed it, but +the feeling is stronger than I. Yesterday I tormented myself and +suffered, but I would not exchange even that torment for anything in the +world, I have not lived till now. At last I live, but I can't live +without her! But can she love me?... I am too old for her.... Why don't +you speak?" + +"I? I? What did I tell you?" said Pierre suddenly, rising and beginning +to pace up and down the room. "I always thought it.... That girl is such +a treasure... she is a rare girl.... My dear friend, I entreat you, +don't philosophize, don't doubt, marry, marry, marry.... And I am sure +there will not be a happier man than you." + +"But what of her?" + +"She loves you." + +"Don't talk rubbish..." said Prince Andrew, smiling and looking into +Pierre's eyes. + +"She does, I know," Pierre cried fiercely. + +"But do listen," returned Prince Andrew, holding him by the arm. "Do you +know the condition I am in? I must talk about it to someone." + +"Well, go on, go on. I am very glad," said Pierre, and his face really +changed, his brow became smooth, and he listened gladly to Prince +Andrew. Prince Andrew seemed, and really was, quite a different, quite a +new man. Where was his spleen, his contempt for life, his +disillusionment? Pierre was the only person to whom he made up his mind +to speak openly; and to him he told all that was in his soul. Now he +boldly and lightly made plans for an extended future, said he could not +sacrifice his own happiness to his father's caprice, and spoke of how he +would either make his father consent to this marriage and love her, or +would do without his consent; then he marveled at the feeling that had +mastered him as at something strange, apart from and independent of +himself. + +"I should not have believed anyone who told me that I was capable of +such love," said Prince Andrew. "It is not at all the same feeling that +I knew in the past. The whole world is now for me divided into two +halves: one half is she, and there all is joy, hope, light: the other +half is everything where she is not, and there is all gloom and +darkness...." + +"Darkness and gloom," reiterated Pierre: "yes, yes, I understand that." + +"I cannot help loving the light, it is not my fault. And I am very +happy! You understand me? I know you are glad for my sake." + +"Yes, yes," Pierre assented, looking at his friend with a touched and +sad expression in his eyes. The brighter Prince Andrew's lot appeared to +him, the gloomier seemed his own. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIII + +Prince Andrew needed his father's consent to his marriage, and to obtain +this he started for the country next day. + +His father received his son's communication with external composure, but +inward wrath. He could not comprehend how anyone could wish to alter his +life or introduce anything new into it, when his own life was already +ending. "If only they would let me end my days as I want to," thought +the old man, "then they might do as they please." With his son, however, +he employed the diplomacy he reserved for important occasions and, +adopting a quiet tone, discussed the whole matter. + +In the first place the marriage was not a brilliant one as regards +birth, wealth, or rank. Secondly, Prince Andrew was no longer as young +as he had been and his health was poor (the old man laid special stress +on this), while she was very young. Thirdly, he had a son whom it would +be a pity to entrust to a chit of a girl. "Fourthly and finally," the +father said, looking ironically at his son, "I beg you to put it off for +a year: go abroad, take a cure, look out as you wanted to for a German +tutor for Prince Nicholas. Then if your love or passion or obstinacy--as +you please--is still as great, marry! And that's my last word on it. +Mind, the last..." concluded the prince, in a tone which showed that +nothing would make him alter his decision. + +Prince Andrew saw clearly that the old man hoped that his feelings, or +his fiancee's, would not stand a year's test, or that he (the old prince +himself) would die before then, and he decided to conform to his +father's wish--to propose, and postpone the wedding for a year. + +Three weeks after the last evening he had spent with the Rostovs, Prince +Andrew returned to Petersburg. + +Next day after her talk with her mother Natasha expected Bolkonski all +day, but he did not come. On the second and third day it was the same. +Pierre did not come either and Natasha, not knowing that Prince Andrew +had gone to see his father, could not explain his absence to herself. + +Three weeks passed in this way. Natasha had no desire to go out anywhere +and wandered from room to room like a shadow, idle and listless; she +wept secretly at night and did not go to her mother in the evenings. She +blushed continually and was irritable. It seemed to her that everybody +knew about her disappointment and was laughing at her and pitying her. +Strong as was her inward grief, this wound to her vanity intensified her +misery. + +Once she came to her mother, tried to say something, and suddenly began +to cry. Her tears were those of an offended child who does not know why +it is being punished. + +The countess began to soothe Natasha, who after first listening to her +mother's words, suddenly interrupted her: + +"Leave off, Mamma! I don't think, and don't want to think about it! He +just came and then left off, left off..." + +Her voice trembled, and she again nearly cried, but recovered and went +on quietly: + +"And I don't at all want to get married. And I am afraid of him; I have +now become quite calm, quite calm." + +The day after this conversation Natasha put on the old dress which she +knew had the peculiar property of conducing to cheerfulness in the +mornings, and that day she returned to the old way of life which she had +abandoned since the ball. Having finished her morning tea she went to +the ballroom, which she particularly liked for its loud resonance, and +began singing her solfeggio. When she had finished her first exercise +she stood still in the middle of the room and sang a musical phrase that +particularly pleased her. She listened joyfully (as though she had not +expected it) to the charm of the notes reverberating, filling the whole +empty ballroom, and slowly dying away; and all at once she felt +cheerful. "What's the good of making so much of it? Things are nice as +it is," she said to herself, and she began walking up and down the room, +not stepping simply on the resounding parquet but treading with each +step from the heel to the toe (she had on a new and favorite pair of +shoes) and listening to the regular tap of the heel and creak of the toe +as gladly as she had to the sounds of her own voice. Passing a mirror +she glanced into it. "There, that's me!" the expression of her face +seemed to say as she caught sight of herself. "Well, and very nice too! +I need nobody." + +A footman wanted to come in to clear away something in the room but she +would not let him, and having closed the door behind him continued her +walk. That morning she had returned to her favorite mood--love of, and +delight in, herself. "How charming that Natasha is!" she said again, +speaking as some third, collective, male person. "Pretty, a good voice, +young, and in nobody's way if only they leave her in peace." But however +much they left her in peace she could not now be at peace, and +immediately felt this. + +In the hall the porch door opened, and someone asked, "At home?" and +then footsteps were heard. Natasha was looking at the mirror, but did +not see herself. She listened to the sounds in the hall. When she saw +herself, her face was pale. It was he. She knew this for certain, though +she hardly heard his voice through the closed doors. + +Pale and agitated, Natasha ran into the drawing room. + +"Mamma! Bolkonski has come!" she said. "Mamma, it is awful, it is +unbearable! I don't want... to be tormented? What am I to do?..." + +Before the countess could answer, Prince Andrew entered the room with an +agitated and serious face. As soon as he saw Natasha his face +brightened. He kissed the countess' hand and Natasha's, and sat down +beside the sofa. + +"It is long since we had the pleasure..." began the countess, but Prince +Andrew interrupted her by answering her intended question, obviously in +haste to say what he had to. + +"I have not been to see you all this time because I have been at my +father's. I had to talk over a very important matter with him. I only +got back last night," he said glancing at Natasha; "I want to have a +talk with you, Countess," he added after a moment's pause. + +The countess lowered her eyes, sighing deeply. + +"I am at your disposal," she murmured. + +Natasha knew that she ought to go away, but was unable to do so: +something gripped her throat, and regardless of manners she stared +straight at Prince Andrew with wide-open eyes. + +"At once? This instant!... No, it can't be!" she thought. + +Again he glanced at her, and that glance convinced her that she was not +mistaken. Yes, at once, that very instant, her fate would be decided. + +"Go, Natasha! I will call you," said the countess in a whisper. + +Natasha glanced with frightened imploring eyes at Prince Andrew and at +her mother and went out. + +"I have come, Countess, to ask for your daughter's hand," said Prince +Andrew. + +The countess' face flushed hotly, but she said nothing. + +"Your offer..." she began at last sedately. He remained silent, looking +into her eyes. "Your offer..." (she grew confused) "is agreeable to us, +and I accept your offer. I am glad. And my husband... I hope... but it +will depend on her...." + +"I will speak to her when I have your consent.... Do you give it to me?" +said Prince Andrew. + +"Yes," replied the countess. She held out her hand to him, and with a +mixed feeling of estrangement and tenderness pressed her lips to his +forehead as he stooped to kiss her hand. She wished to love him as a +son, but felt that to her he was a stranger and a terrifying man. "I am +sure my husband will consent," said the countess, "but your father..." + +"My father, to whom I have told my plans, has made it an express +condition of his consent that the wedding is not to take place for a +year. And I wished to tell you of that," said Prince Andrew. + +"It is true that Natasha is still young, but--so long as that?..." + +"It is unavoidable," said Prince Andrew with a sigh. + +"I will send her to you," said the countess, and left the room. + +"Lord have mercy upon us!" she repeated while seeking her daughter. + +Sonya said that Natasha was in her bedroom. Natasha was sitting on the +bed, pale and dry eyed, and was gazing at the icons and whispering +something as she rapidly crossed herself. Seeing her mother she jumped +up and flew to her. + +"Well, Mamma?... Well?..." + +"Go, go to him. He is asking for your hand," said the countess, coldly +it seemed to Natasha. "Go... go," said the mother, sadly and +reproachfully, with a deep sigh, as her daughter ran away. + +Natasha never remembered how she entered the drawing room. When she came +in and saw him she paused. "Is it possible that this stranger has now +become everything to me?" she asked herself, and immediately answered, +"Yes, everything! He alone is now dearer to me than everything in the +world." Prince Andrew came up to her with downcast eyes. + +"I have loved you from the very first moment I saw you. May I hope?" + +He looked at her and was struck by the serious impassioned expression of +her face. Her face said: "Why ask? Why doubt what you cannot but know? +Why speak, when words cannot express what one feels?" + +She drew near to him and stopped. He took her hand and kissed it. + +"Do you love me?" + +"Yes, yes!" Natasha murmured as if in vexation. Then she sighed loudly +and, catching her breath more and more quickly, began to sob. + +"What is it? What's the matter?" + +"Oh, I am so happy!" she replied, smiled through her tears, bent over +closer to him, paused for an instant as if asking herself whether she +might, and then kissed him. + +Prince Andrew held her hands, looked into her eyes, and did not find in +his heart his former love for her. Something in him had suddenly +changed; there was no longer the former poetic and mystic charm of +desire, but there was pity for her feminine and childish weakness, fear +at her devotion and trustfulness, and an oppressive yet joyful sense of +the duty that now bound him to her forever. The present feeling, though +not so bright and poetic as the former, was stronger and more serious. + +"Did your mother tell you that it cannot be for a year?" asked Prince +Andrew, still looking into her eyes. + +"Is it possible that I--the 'chit of a girl,' as everybody called me," +thought Natasha--"is it possible that I am now to be the wife and the +equal of this strange, dear, clever man whom even my father looks up to? +Can it be true? Can it be true that there can be no more playing with +life, that now I am grown up, that on me now lies a responsibility for +my every word and deed? Yes, but what did he ask me?" + +"No," she replied, but she had not understood his question. + +"Forgive me!" he said. "But you are so young, and I have already been +through so much in life. I am afraid for you, you do not yet know +yourself." + +Natasha listened with concentrated attention, trying but failing to take +in the meaning of his words. + +"Hard as this year which delays my happiness will be," continued Prince +Andrew, "it will give you time to be sure of yourself. I ask you to make +me happy in a year, but you are free: our engagement shall remain a +secret, and should you find that you do not love me, or should you come +to love..." said Prince Andrew with an unnatural smile. + +"Why do you say that?" Natasha interrupted him. "You know that from the +very day you first came to Otradnoe I have loved you," she cried, quite +convinced that she spoke the truth. + +"In a year you will learn to know yourself...." + +"A whole year!" Natasha repeated suddenly, only now realizing that the +marriage was to be postponed for a year. "But why a year? Why a +year?..." + +Prince Andrew began to explain to her the reasons for this delay. +Natasha did not hear him. + +"And can't it be helped?" she asked. Prince Andrew did not reply, but +his face expressed the impossibility of altering that decision. + +"It's awful! Oh, it's awful! awful!" Natasha suddenly cried, and again +burst into sobs. "I shall die, waiting a year: it's impossible, it's +awful!" She looked into her lover's face and saw in it a look of +commiseration and perplexity. + +"No, no! I'll do anything!" she said, suddenly checking her tears. "I am +so happy." + +The father and mother came into the room and gave the betrothed couple +their blessing. + +From that day Prince Andrew began to frequent the Rostovs' as Natasha's +affianced lover. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIV + +No betrothal ceremony took place and Natasha's engagement to Bolkonski +was not announced; Prince Andrew insisted on that. He said that as he +was responsible for the delay he ought to bear the whole burden of it; +that he had given his word and bound himself forever, but that he did +not wish to bind Natasha and gave her perfect freedom. If after six +months she felt that she did not love him she would have full right to +reject him. Naturally neither Natasha nor her parents wished to hear of +this, but Prince Andrew was firm. He came every day to the Rostovs', but +did not behave to Natasha as an affianced lover: he did not use the +familiar thou, but said you to her, and kissed only her hand. After +their engagement, quite different, intimate, and natural relations +sprang up between them. It was as if they had not known each other till +now. Both liked to recall how they had regarded each other when as yet +they were nothing to one another; they felt themselves now quite +different beings: then they were artificial, now natural and sincere. At +first the family felt some constraint in intercourse with Prince Andrew; +he seemed a man from another world, and for a long time Natasha trained +the family to get used to him, proudly assuring them all that he only +appeared to be different, but was really just like all of them, and that +she was not afraid of him and no one else ought to be. After a few days +they grew accustomed to him, and without restraint in his presence +pursued their usual way of life, in which he took his part. He could +talk about rural economy with the count, fashions with the countess and +Natasha, and about albums and fancywork with Sonya. Sometimes the +household both among themselves and in his presence expressed their +wonder at how it had all happened, and at the evident omens there had +been of it: Prince Andrew's coming to Otradnoe and their coming to +Petersburg, and the likeness between Natasha and Prince Andrew which her +nurse had noticed on his first visit, and Andrew's encounter with +Nicholas in 1805, and many other incidents betokening that it had to be. + +In the house that poetic dullness and quiet reigned which always +accompanies the presence of a betrothed couple. Often when all sitting +together everyone kept silent. Sometimes the others would get up and go +away and the couple, left alone, still remained silent. They rarely +spoke of their future life. Prince Andrew was afraid and ashamed to +speak of it. Natasha shared this as she did all his feelings, which she +constantly divined. Once she began questioning him about his son. Prince +Andrew blushed, as he often did now--Natasha particularly liked it in +him--and said that his son would not live with them. + +"Why not?" asked Natasha in a frightened tone. + +"I cannot take him away from his grandfather, and besides..." + +"How I should have loved him!" said Natasha, immediately guessing his +thought; "but I know you wish to avoid any pretext for finding fault +with us." + +Sometimes the old count would come up, kiss Prince Andrew, and ask his +advice about Petya's education or Nicholas' service. The old countess +sighed as she looked at them; Sonya was always getting frightened lest +she should be in the way and tried to find excuses for leaving them +alone, even when they did not wish it. When Prince Andrew spoke (he +could tell a story very well), Natasha listened to him with pride; when +she spoke she noticed with fear and joy that he gazed attentively and +scrutinizingly at her. She asked herself in perplexity: "What does he +look for in me? He is trying to discover something by looking at me! +What if what he seeks in me is not there?" Sometimes she fell into one +of the mad, merry moods characteristic of her, and then she particularly +loved to hear and see how Prince Andrew laughed. He seldom laughed, but +when he did he abandoned himself entirely to his laughter, and after +such a laugh she always felt nearer to him. Natasha would have been +completely happy if the thought of the separation awaiting her and +drawing near had not terrified her, just as the mere thought of it made +him turn pale and cold. + +On the eve of his departure from Petersburg Prince Andrew brought with +him Pierre, who had not been to the Rostovs' once since the ball. Pierre +seemed disconcerted and embarrassed. He was talking to the countess, and +Natasha sat down beside a little chess table with Sonya, thereby +inviting Prince Andrew to come too. He did so. + +"You have known Bezukhov a long time?" he asked. "Do you like him?" + +"Yes, he's a dear, but very absurd." + +And as usual when speaking of Pierre, she began to tell anecdotes of his +absent-mindedness, some of which had even been invented about him. + +"Do you know I have entrusted him with our secret? I have known him from +childhood. He has a heart of gold. I beg you, Natalie," Prince Andrew +said with sudden seriousness--"I am going away and heaven knows what may +happen. You may cease to... all right, I know I am not to say that. Only +this, then: whatever may happen to you when I am not here..." + +"What can happen?" + +"Whatever trouble may come," Prince Andrew continued, "I beg you, +Mademoiselle Sophie, whatever may happen, to turn to him alone for +advice and help! He is a most absent-minded and absurd fellow, but he +has a heart of gold." + +Neither her father, nor her mother, nor Sonya, nor Prince Andrew himself +could have foreseen how the separation from her lover would act on +Natasha. Flushed and agitated she went about the house all that day, +dry-eyed, occupied with most trivial matters as if not understanding +what awaited her. She did not even cry when, on taking leave, he kissed +her hand for the last time. "Don't go!" she said in a tone that made him +wonder whether he really ought not to stay and which he remembered long +afterwards. Nor did she cry when he was gone; but for several days she +sat in her room dry-eyed, taking no interest in anything and only saying +now and then, "Oh, why did he go away?" + +But a fortnight after his departure, to the surprise of those around +her, she recovered from her mental sickness just as suddenly and became +her old self again, but with a change in her moral physiognomy, as a +child gets up after a long illness with a changed expression of face. + + + + +CHAPTER XXV + +During that year after his son's departure, Prince Nicholas Bolkonski's +health and temper became much worse. He grew still more irritable, and +it was Princess Mary who generally bore the brunt of his frequent fits +of unprovoked anger. He seemed carefully to seek out her tender spots so +as to torture her mentally as harshly as possible. Princess Mary had two +passions and consequently two joys--her nephew, little Nicholas, and +religion--and these were the favorite subjects of the prince's attacks +and ridicule. Whatever was spoken of he would bring round to the +superstitiousness of old maids, or the petting and spoiling of children. +"You want to make him"--little Nicholas--"into an old maid like +yourself! A pity! Prince Andrew wants a son and not an old maid," he +would say. Or, turning to Mademoiselle Bourienne, he would ask her in +Princess Mary's presence how she liked our village priests and icons and +would joke about them. + +He continually hurt Princess Mary's feelings and tormented her, but it +cost her no effort to forgive him. Could he be to blame toward her, or +could her father, whom she knew loved her in spite of it all, be unjust? +And what is justice? The princess never thought of that proud word +"justice." All the complex laws of man centered for her in one clear and +simple law--the law of love and self-sacrifice taught us by Him who +lovingly suffered for mankind though He Himself was God. What had she to +do with the justice or injustice of other people? She had to endure and +love, and that she did. + +During the winter Prince Andrew had come to Bald Hills and had been gay, +gentle, and more affectionate than Princess Mary had known him for a +long time past. She felt that something had happened to him, but he said +nothing to her about his love. Before he left he had a long talk with +his father about something, and Princess Mary noticed that before his +departure they were dissatisfied with one another. + +Soon after Prince Andrew had gone, Princess Mary wrote to her friend +Julie Karagina in Petersburg, whom she had dreamed (as all girls dream) +of marrying to her brother, and who was at that time in mourning for her +own brother, killed in Turkey. + +Sorrow, it seems, is our common lot, my dear, tender friend Julie. + +Your loss is so terrible that I can only explain it to myself as a +special providence of God who, loving you, wishes to try you and your +excellent mother. Oh, my friend! Religion, and religion alone, can--I +will not say comfort us--but save us from despair. Religion alone can +explain to us what without its help man cannot comprehend: why, for what +cause, kind and noble beings able to find happiness in life--not merely +harming no one but necessary to the happiness of others--are called away +to God, while cruel, useless, harmful persons, or such as are a burden +to themselves and to others, are left living. The first death I saw, and +one I shall never forget--that of my dear sister-in-law--left that +impression on me. Just as you ask destiny why your splendid brother had +to die, so I asked why that angel Lise, who not only never wronged +anyone, but in whose soul there were never any unkind thoughts, had to +die. And what do you think, dear friend? Five years have passed since +then, and already I, with my petty understanding, begin to see clearly +why she had to die, and in what way that death was but an expression of +the infinite goodness of the Creator, whose every action, though +generally incomprehensible to us, is but a manifestation of His infinite +love for His creatures. Perhaps, I often think, she was too angelically +innocent to have the strength to perform all a mother's duties. As a +young wife she was irreproachable; perhaps she could not have been so as +a mother. As it is, not only has she left us, and particularly Prince +Andrew, with the purest regrets and memories, but probably she will +there receive a place I dare not hope for myself. But not to speak of +her alone, that early and terrible death has had the most beneficent +influence on me and on my brother in spite of all our grief. Then, at +the moment of our loss, these thoughts could not occur to me; I should +then have dismissed them with horror, but now they are very clear and +certain. I write all this to you, dear friend, only to convince you of +the Gospel truth which has become for me a principle of life: not a +single hair of our heads will fall without His will. And His will is +governed only by infinite love for us, and so whatever befalls us is for +our good. + +You ask whether we shall spend next winter in Moscow. In spite of my +wish to see you, I do not think so and do not want to do so. You will be +surprised to hear that the reason for this is Buonaparte! The case is +this: my father's health is growing noticeably worse, he cannot stand +any contradiction and is becoming irritable. This irritability is, as +you know, chiefly directed to political questions. He cannot endure the +notion that Buonaparte is negotiating on equal terms with all the +sovereigns of Europe and particularly with our own, the grandson of the +Great Catherine! As you know, I am quite indifferent to politics, but +from my father's remarks and his talks with Michael Ivanovich I know all +that goes on in the world and especially about the honors conferred on +Buonaparte, who only at Bald Hills in the whole world, it seems, is not +accepted as a great man, still less as Emperor of France. And my father +cannot stand this. It seems to me that it is chiefly because of his +political views that my father is reluctant to speak of going to Moscow; +for he foresees the encounters that would result from his way of +expressing his views regardless of anybody. All the benefit he might +derive from a course of treatment he would lose as a result of the +disputes about Buonaparte which would be inevitable. In any case it will +be decided very shortly. + +Our family life goes on in the old way except for my brother Andrew's +absence. He, as I wrote you before, has changed very much of late. After +his sorrow he only this year quite recovered his spirits. He has again +become as I used to know him when a child: kind, affectionate, with that +heart of gold to which I know no equal. He has realized, it seems to me, +that life is not over for him. But together with this mental change he +has grown physically much weaker. He has become thinner and more +nervous. I am anxious about him and glad he is taking this trip abroad +which the doctors recommended long ago. I hope it will cure him. You +write that in Petersburg he is spoken of as one of the most active, +cultivated, and capable of the young men. Forgive my vanity as a +relation, but I never doubted it. The good he has done to everybody +here, from his peasants up to the gentry, is incalculable. On his +arrival in Petersburg he received only his due. I always wonder at the +way rumors fly from Petersburg to Moscow, especially such false ones as +that you write about--I mean the report of my brother's betrothal to the +little Rostova. I do not think my brother will ever marry again, and +certainly not her; and this is why: first, I know that though he rarely +speaks about the wife he has lost, the grief of that loss has gone too +deep in his heart for him ever to decide to give her a successor and our +little angel a stepmother. Secondly because, as far as I know, that girl +is not the kind of girl who could please Prince Andrew. I do not think +he would choose her for a wife, and frankly I do not wish it. But I am +running on too long and am at the end of my second sheet. Good-bye, my +dear friend. May God keep you in His holy and mighty care. My dear +friend, Mademoiselle Bourienne, sends you kisses. + +MARY + + + + +CHAPTER XXVI + +In the middle of the summer Princess Mary received an unexpected letter +from Prince Andrew in Switzerland in which he gave her strange and +surprising news. He informed her of his engagement to Natasha Rostova. +The whole letter breathed loving rapture for his betrothed and tender +and confiding affection for his sister. He wrote that he had never loved +as he did now and that only now did he understand and know what life +was. He asked his sister to forgive him for not having told her of his +resolve when he had last visited Bald Hills, though he had spoken of it +to his father. He had not done so for fear Princess Mary should ask her +father to give his consent, irritating him and having to bear the brunt +of his displeasure without attaining her object. "Besides," he wrote, +"the matter was not then so definitely settled as it is now. My father +then insisted on a delay of a year and now already six months, half of +that period, have passed, and my resolution is firmer than ever. If the +doctors did not keep me here at the spas I should be back in Russia, but +as it is I have to postpone my return for three months. You know me and +my relations with Father. I want nothing from him. I have been and +always shall be independent; but to go against his will and arouse his +anger, now that he may perhaps remain with us such a short time, would +destroy half my happiness. I am now writing to him about the same +question, and beg you to choose a good moment to hand him the letter and +to let me know how he looks at the whole matter and whether there is +hope that he may consent to reduce the term by four months." + +After long hesitations, doubts, and prayers, Princess Mary gave the +letter to her father. The next day the old prince said to her quietly: + +"Write and tell your brother to wait till I am dead.... It won't be +long--I shall soon set him free." + +The princess was about to reply, but her father would not let her speak +and, raising his voice more and more, cried: + +"Marry, marry, my boy!... A good family!... Clever people, eh? Rich, eh? +Yes, a nice stepmother little Nicholas will have! Write and tell him +that he may marry tomorrow if he likes. She will be little Nicholas' +stepmother and I'll marry Bourienne!... Ha, ha, ha! He mustn't be +without a stepmother either! Only one thing, no more women are wanted in +my house--let him marry and live by himself. Perhaps you will go and +live with him too?" he added, turning to Princess Mary. "Go in heaven's +name! Go out into the frost... the frost... the frost!" + +After this outburst the prince did not speak any more about the matter. +But repressed vexation at his son's poor-spirited behavior found +expression in his treatment of his daughter. To his former pretexts for +irony a fresh one was now added--allusions to stepmothers and +amiabilities to Mademoiselle Bourienne. + +"Why shouldn't I marry her?" he asked his daughter. "She'll make a +splendid princess!" + +And latterly, to her surprise and bewilderment, Princess Mary noticed +that her father was really associating more and more with the +Frenchwoman. She wrote to Prince Andrew about the reception of his +letter, but comforted him with hopes of reconciling their father to the +idea. + +Little Nicholas and his education, her brother Andrew, and religion were +Princess Mary's joys and consolations; but besides that, since everyone +must have personal hopes, Princess Mary in the profoundest depths of her +heart had a hidden dream and hope that supplied the chief consolation of +her life. This comforting dream and hope were given her by God's folk-- +the half-witted and other pilgrims who visited her without the prince's +knowledge. The longer she lived, the more experience and observation she +had of life, the greater was her wonder at the short-sightedness of men +who seek enjoyment and happiness here on earth: toiling, suffering, +struggling, and harming one another, to obtain that impossible, +visionary, sinful happiness. Prince Andrew had loved his wife, she died, +but that was not enough: he wanted to bind his happiness to another +woman. Her father objected to this because he wanted a more +distinguished and wealthier match for Andrew. And they all struggled and +suffered and tormented one another and injured their souls, their +eternal souls, for the attainment of benefits which endure but for an +instant. Not only do we know this ourselves, but Christ, the Son of God, +came down to earth and told us that this life is but for a moment and is +a probation; yet we cling to it and think to find happiness in it. "How +is it that no one realizes this?" thought Princess Mary. "No one except +these despised God's folk who, wallet on back, come to me by the back +door, afraid of being seen by the prince, not for fear of ill-usage by +him but for fear of causing him to sin. To leave family, home, and all +the cares of worldly welfare, in order without clinging to anything to +wander in hempen rags from place to place under an assumed name, doing +no one any harm but praying for all--for those who drive one away as +well as for those who protect one: higher than that life and truth there +is no life or truth!" + +There was one pilgrim, a quiet pockmarked little woman of fifty called +Theodosia, who for over thirty years had gone about barefoot and worn +heavy chains. Princess Mary was particularly fond of her. Once, when in +a room with a lamp dimly lit before the icon Theodosia was talking of +her life, the thought that Theodosia alone had found the true path of +life suddenly came to Princess Mary with such force that she resolved to +become a pilgrim herself. When Theodosia had gone to sleep Princess Mary +thought about this for a long time, and at last made up her mind that, +strange as it might seem, she must go on a pilgrimage. She disclosed +this thought to no one but to her confessor, Father Akinfi, the monk, +and he approved of her intention. Under guise of a present for the +pilgrims, Princess Mary prepared a pilgrim's complete costume for +herself: a coarse smock, bast shoes, a rough coat, and a black kerchief. +Often, approaching the chest of drawers containing this secret treasure, +Princess Mary paused, uncertain whether the time had not already come to +put her project into execution. + +Often, listening to the pilgrims' tales, she was so stimulated by their +simple speech, mechanical to them but to her so full of deep meaning, +that several times she was on the point of abandoning everything and +running away from home. In imagination she already pictured herself by +Theodosia's side, dressed in coarse rags, walking with a staff, a wallet +on her back, along the dusty road, directing her wanderings from one +saint's shrine to another, free from envy, earthly love, or desire, and +reaching at last the place where there is no more sorrow or sighing, but +eternal joy and bliss. + +"I shall come to a place and pray there, and before having time to get +used to it or getting to love it, I shall go farther. I will go on till +my legs fail, and I'll lie down and die somewhere, and shall at last +reach that eternal, quiet haven, where there is neither sorrow nor +sighing..." thought Princess Mary. + +But afterwards, when she saw her father and especially little Koko +(Nicholas), her resolve weakened. She wept quietly, and felt that she +was a sinner who loved her father and little nephew more than God. + +BOOK SEVEN: 1810 - 11 + + + + +CHAPTER I + +The Bible legend tells us that the absence of labor--idleness--was a +condition of the first man's blessedness before the Fall. Fallen man has +retained a love of idleness, but the curse weighs on the race not only +because we have to seek our bread in the sweat of our brows, but because +our moral nature is such that we cannot be both idle and at ease. An +inner voice tells us we are in the wrong if we are idle. If man could +find a state in which he felt that though idle he was fulfilling his +duty, he would have found one of the conditions of man's primitive +blessedness. And such a state of obligatory and irreproachable idleness +is the lot of a whole class--the military. The chief attraction of +military service has consisted and will consist in this compulsory and +irreproachable idleness. + +Nicholas Rostov experienced this blissful condition to the full when, +after 1807, he continued to serve in the Pavlograd regiment, in which he +already commanded the squadron he had taken over from Denisov. + +Rostov had become a bluff, good-natured fellow, whom his Moscow +acquaintances would have considered rather bad form, but who was liked +and respected by his comrades, subordinates, and superiors, and was well +contented with his life. Of late, in 1809, he found in letters from home +more frequent complaints from his mother that their affairs were falling +into greater and greater disorder, and that it was time for him to come +back to gladden and comfort his old parents. + +Reading these letters, Nicholas felt a dread of their wanting to take +him away from surroundings in which, protected from all the +entanglements of life, he was living so calmly and quietly. He felt that +sooner or later he would have to re-enter that whirlpool of life, with +its embarrassments and affairs to be straightened out, its accounts with +stewards, quarrels, and intrigues, its ties, society, and with Sonya's +love and his promise to her. It was all dreadfully difficult and +complicated; and he replied to his mother in cold, formal letters in +French, beginning: "My dear Mamma," and ending: "Your obedient son," +which said nothing of when he would return. In 1810 he received letters +from his parents, in which they told him of Natasha's engagement to +Bolkonski, and that the wedding would be in a year's time because the +old prince made difficulties. This letter grieved and mortified +Nicholas. In the first place he was sorry that Natasha, for whom he +cared more than for anyone else in the family, should be lost to the +home; and secondly, from his hussar point of view, he regretted not to +have been there to show that fellow Bolkonski that connection with him +was no such great honor after all, and that if he loved Natasha he might +dispense with permission from his dotard father. For a moment he +hesitated whether he should not apply for leave in order to see Natasha +before she was married, but then came the maneuvers, and considerations +about Sonya and about the confusion of their affairs, and Nicholas again +put it off. But in the spring of that year, he received a letter from +his mother, written without his father's knowledge, and that letter +persuaded him to return. She wrote that if he did not come and take +matters in hand, their whole property would be sold by auction and they +would all have to go begging. The count was so weak, and trusted Mitenka +so much, and was so good-natured, that everybody took advantage of him +and things were going from bad to worse. "For God's sake, I implore you, +come at once if you do not wish to make me and the whole family +wretched," wrote the countess. + +This letter touched Nicholas. He had that common sense of a matter-of- +fact man which showed him what he ought to do. + +The right thing now was, if not to retire from the service, at any rate +to go home on leave. Why he had to go he did not know; but after his +after-dinner nap he gave orders to saddle Mars, an extremely vicious +gray stallion that had not been ridden for a long time, and when he +returned with the horse all in a lather, he informed Lavrushka +(Denisov's servant who had remained with him) and his comrades who +turned up in the evening that he was applying for leave and was going +home. Difficult and strange as it was for him to reflect that he would +go away without having heard from the staff--and this interested him +extremely--whether he was promoted to a captaincy or would receive the +Order of St. Anne for the last maneuvers; strange as it was to think +that he would go away without having sold his three roans to the Polish +Count Golukhovski, who was bargaining for the horses Rostov had betted +he would sell for two thousand rubles; incomprehensible as it seemed +that the ball the hussars were giving in honor of the Polish +Mademoiselle Przazdziecka (out of rivalry to the uhlans who had given +one in honor of their Polish Mademoiselle Borzozowska) would take place +without him--he knew he must go away from this good, bright world to +somewhere where everything was stupid and confused. A week later he +obtained his leave. His hussar comrades--not only those of his own +regiment, but the whole brigade--gave Rostov a dinner to which the +subscription was fifteen rubles a head, and at which there were two +bands and two choirs of singers. Rostov danced the Trepak with Major +Basov; the tipsy officers tossed, embraced, and dropped Rostov; the +soldiers of the third squadron tossed him too, and shouted "hurrah!" and +then they put him in his sleigh and escorted him as far as the first +post station. + +During the first half of the journey--from Kremenchug to Kiev--all +Rostov's thoughts, as is usual in such cases, were behind him, with the +squadron; but when he had gone more than halfway he began to forget his +three roans and Dozhoyveyko, his quartermaster, and to wonder anxiously +how things would be at Otradnoe and what he would find there. Thoughts +of home grew stronger the nearer he approached it--far stronger, as +though this feeling of his was subject to the law by which the force of +attraction is in inverse proportion to the square of the distance. At +the last post station before Otradnoe he gave the driver a three-ruble +tip, and on arriving he ran breathlessly, like a boy, up the steps of +his home. + +After the rapture of meeting, and after that odd feeling of unsatisfied +expectation--the feeling that "everything is just the same, so why did I +hurry?"--Nicholas began to settle down in his old home world. His father +and mother were much the same, only a little older. What was new in them +was a certain uneasiness and occasional discord, which there used not to +be, and which, as Nicholas soon found out, was due to the bad state of +their affairs. Sonya was nearly twenty; she had stopped growing prettier +and promised nothing more than she was already, but that was enough. She +exhaled happiness and love from the time Nicholas returned, and the +faithful, unalterable love of this girl had a gladdening effect on him. +Petya and Natasha surprised Nicholas most. Petya was a big handsome boy +of thirteen, merry, witty, and mischievous, with a voice that was +already breaking. As for Natasha, for a long while Nicholas wondered and +laughed whenever he looked at her. + +"You're not the same at all," he said. + +"How? Am I uglier?" + +"On the contrary, but what dignity? A princess!" he whispered to her. + +"Yes, yes, yes!" cried Natasha, joyfully. + +She told him about her romance with Prince Andrew and of his visit to +Otradnoe and showed him his last letter. + +"Well, are you glad?" Natasha asked. "I am so tranquil and happy now." + +"Very glad," answered Nicholas. "He is an excellent fellow.... And are +you very much in love?" + +"How shall I put it?" replied Natasha. "I was in love with Boris, with +my teacher, and with Denisov, but this is quite different. I feel at +peace and settled. I know that no better man than he exists, and I am +calm and contented now. Not at all as before." + +Nicholas expressed his disapproval of the postponement of the marriage +for a year; but Natasha attacked her brother with exasperation, proving +to him that it could not be otherwise, and that it would be a bad thing +to enter a family against the father's will, and that she herself wished +it so. + +"You don't at all understand," she said. + +Nicholas was silent and agreed with her. + +Her brother often wondered as he looked at her. She did not seem at all +like a girl in love and parted from her affianced husband. She was even- +tempered and calm and quite as cheerful as of old. This amazed Nicholas +and even made him regard Bolkonski's courtship skeptically. He could not +believe that her fate was sealed, especially as he had not seen her with +Prince Andrew. It always seemed to him that there was something not +quite right about this intended marriage. + +"Why this delay? Why no betrothal?" he thought. Once, when he had +touched on this topic with his mother, he discovered, to his surprise +and somewhat to his satisfaction, that in the depth of her soul she too +had doubts about this marriage. + +"You see he writes," said she, showing her son a letter of Prince +Andrew's, with that latent grudge a mother always has in regard to a +daughter's future married happiness, "he writes that he won't come +before December. What can be keeping him? Illness, probably! His health +is very delicate. Don't tell Natasha. And don't attach importance to her +being so bright: that's because she's living through the last days of +her girlhood, but I know what she is like every time we receive a letter +from him! However, God grant that everything turns out well!" (She +always ended with these words.) "He is an excellent man!" + + + + +CHAPTER II + +After reaching home Nicholas was at first serious and even dull. He was +worried by the impending necessity of interfering in the stupid business +matters for which his mother had called him home. To throw off this +burden as quickly as possible, on the third day after his arrival he +went, angry and scowling and without answering questions as to where he +was going, to Mitenka's lodge and demanded an account of everything. But +what an account of everything might be Nicholas knew even less than the +frightened and bewildered Mitenka. The conversation and the examination +of the accounts with Mitenka did not last long. The village elder, a +peasant delegate, and the village clerk, who were waiting in the +passage, heard with fear and delight first the young count's voice +roaring and snapping and rising louder and louder, and then words of +abuse, dreadful words, ejaculated one after the other. + +"Robber!... Ungrateful wretch!... I'll hack the dog to pieces! I'm not +my father!... Robbing us!..." and so on. + +Then with no less fear and delight they saw how the young count, red in +the face and with bloodshot eyes, dragged Mitenka out by the scruff of +the neck and applied his foot and knee to his behind with great agility +at convenient moments between the words, shouting, "Be off! Never let me +see your face here again, you villain!" + +Mitenka flew headlong down the six steps and ran away into the +shrubbery. (This shrubbery was a well-known haven of refuge for culprits +at Otradnoe. Mitenka himself, returning tipsy from the town, used to +hide there, and many of the residents at Otradnoe, hiding from Mitenka, +knew of its protective qualities.) + +Mitenka's wife and sisters-in-law thrust their heads and frightened +faces out of the door of a room where a bright samovar was boiling and +where the steward's high bedstead stood with its patchwork quilt. + +The young count paid no heed to them, but, breathing hard, passed by +with resolute strides and went into the house. + +The countess, who heard at once from the maids what had happened at the +lodge, was calmed by the thought that now their affairs would certainly +improve, but on the other hand felt anxious as to the effect this +excitement might have on her son. She went several times to his door on +tiptoe and listened, as he lighted one pipe after another. + +Next day the old count called his son aside and, with an embarrassed +smile, said to him: + +"But you know, my dear boy, it's a pity you got excited! Mitenka has +told me all about it." + +"I knew," thought Nicholas, "that I should never understand anything in +this crazy world." + +"You were angry that he had not entered those 700 rubles. But they were +carried forward--and you did not look at the other page." + +"Papa, he is a blackguard and a thief! I know he is! And what I have +done, I have done; but, if you like, I won't speak to him again." + +"No, my dear boy" (the count, too, felt embarrassed. He knew he had +mismanaged his wife's property and was to blame toward his children, but +he did not know how to remedy it). "No, I beg you to attend to the +business. I am old. I..." + +"No, Papa. Forgive me if I have caused you unpleasantness. I understand +it all less than you do." + +"Devil take all these peasants, and money matters, and carryings forward +from page to page," he thought. "I used to understand what a 'corner' +and the stakes at cards meant, but carrying forward to another page I +don't understand at all," said he to himself, and after that he did not +meddle in business affairs. But once the countess called her son and +informed him that she had a promissory note from Anna Mikhaylovna for +two thousand rubles, and asked him what he thought of doing with it. + +"This," answered Nicholas. "You say it rests with me. Well, I don't like +Anna Mikhaylovna and I don't like Boris, but they were our friends and +poor. Well then, this!" and he tore up the note, and by so doing caused +the old countess to weep tears of joy. After that, young Rostov took no +further part in any business affairs, but devoted himself with +passionate enthusiasm to what was to him a new pursuit--the chase--for +which his father kept a large establishment. + + + + +CHAPTER III + +The weather was already growing wintry and morning frosts congealed an +earth saturated by autumn rains. The verdure had thickened and its +bright green stood out sharply against the brownish strips of winter rye +trodden down by the cattle, and against the pale-yellow stubble of the +spring buckwheat. The wooded ravines and the copses, which at the end of +August had still been green islands amid black fields and stubble, had +become golden and bright-red islands amid the green winter rye. The +hares had already half changed their summer coats, the fox cubs were +beginning to scatter, and the young wolves were bigger than dogs. It was +the best time of the year for the chase. The hounds of that ardent young +sportsman Rostov had not merely reached hard winter condition, but were +so jaded that at a meeting of the huntsmen it was decided to give them a +three days' rest and then, on the sixteenth of September, to go on a +distant expedition, starting from the oak grove where there was an +undisturbed litter of wolf cubs. + +All that day the hounds remained at home. It was frosty and the air was +sharp, but toward evening the sky became overcast and it began to thaw. +On the fifteenth, when young Rostov, in his dressing gown, looked out of +the window, he saw it was an unsurpassable morning for hunting: it was +as if the sky were melting and sinking to the earth without any wind. +The only motion in the air was that of the dripping, microscopic +particles of drizzling mist. The bare twigs in the garden were hung with +transparent drops which fell on the freshly fallen leaves. The earth in +the kitchen garden looked wet and black and glistened like poppy seed +and at a short distance merged into the dull, moist veil of mist. +Nicholas went out into the wet and muddy porch. There was a smell of +decaying leaves and of dog. Milka, a black-spotted, broad-haunched bitch +with prominent black eyes, got up on seeing her master, stretched her +hind legs, lay down like a hare, and then suddenly jumped up and licked +him right on his nose and mustache. Another borzoi, a dog, catching +sight of his master from the garden path, arched his back and, rushing +headlong toward the porch with lifted tail, began rubbing himself +against his legs. + +"O-hoy!" came at that moment, that inimitable huntsman's call which +unites the deepest bass with the shrillest tenor, and round the corner +came Daniel the head huntsman and head kennelman, a gray, wrinkled old +man with hair cut straight over his forehead, Ukrainian fashion, a long +bent whip in his hand, and that look of independence and scorn of +everything that is only seen in huntsmen. He doffed his Circassian cap +to his master and looked at him scornfully. This scorn was not offensive +to his master. Nicholas knew that this Daniel, disdainful of everybody +and who considered himself above them, was all the same his serf and +huntsman. + +"Daniel!" Nicholas said timidly, conscious at the sight of the weather, +the hounds, and the huntsman that he was being carried away by that +irresistible passion for sport which makes a man forget all his previous +resolutions, as a lover forgets in the presence of his mistress. + +"What orders, your excellency?" said the huntsman in his deep bass, deep +as a proto-deacon's and hoarse with hallooing--and two flashing black +eyes gazed from under his brows at his master, who was silent. "Can you +resist it?" those eyes seemed to be asking. + +"It's a good day, eh? For a hunt and a gallop, eh?" asked Nicholas, +scratching Milka behind the ears. + +Daniel did not answer, but winked instead. + +"I sent Uvarka at dawn to listen," his bass boomed out after a minute's +pause. "He says she's moved them into the Otradnoe enclosure. They were +howling there." (This meant that the she-wolf, about whom they both +knew, had moved with her cubs to the Otradnoe copse, a small place a +mile and a half from the house.) + +"We ought to go, don't you think so?" said Nicholas. "Come to me with +Uvarka." + +"As you please." + +"Then put off feeding them." + +"Yes, sir." + +Five minutes later Daniel and Uvarka were standing in Nicholas' big +study. Though Daniel was not a big man, to see him in a room was like +seeing a horse or a bear on the floor among the furniture and +surroundings of human life. Daniel himself felt this, and as usual stood +just inside the door, trying to speak softly and not move, for fear of +breaking something in the master's apartment, and he hastened to say all +that was necessary so as to get from under that ceiling, out into the +open under the sky once more. + +Having finished his inquiries and extorted from Daniel an opinion that +the hounds were fit (Daniel himself wished to go hunting), Nicholas +ordered the horses to be saddled. But just as Daniel was about to go +Natasha came in with rapid steps, not having done up her hair or +finished dressing and with her old nurse's big shawl wrapped round her. +Petya ran in at the same time. + +"You are going?" asked Natasha. "I knew you would! Sonya said you +wouldn't go, but I knew that today is the sort of day when you couldn't +help going." + +"Yes, we are going," replied Nicholas reluctantly, for today, as he +intended to hunt seriously, he did not want to take Natasha and Petya. +"We are going, but only wolf hunting: it would be dull for you." + +"You know it is my greatest pleasure," said Natasha. "It's not fair; you +are going by yourself, are having the horses saddled and said nothing to +us about it." + +"'No barrier bars a Russian's path'--we'll go!" shouted Petya. + +"But you can't. Mamma said you mustn't," said Nicholas to Natasha. + +"Yes, I'll go. I shall certainly go," said Natasha decisively. "Daniel, +tell them to saddle for us, and Michael must come with my dogs," she +added to the huntsman. + +It seemed to Daniel irksome and improper to be in a room at all, but to +have anything to do with a young lady seemed to him impossible. He cast +down his eyes and hurried out as if it were none of his business, +careful as he went not to inflict any accidental injury on the young +lady. + + + + +CHAPTER IV + +The old count, who had always kept up an enormous hunting establishment +but had now handed it all completely over to his son's care, being in +very good spirits on this fifteenth of September, prepared to go out +with the others. + +In an hour's time the whole hunting party was at the porch. Nicholas, +with a stern and serious air which showed that now was no time for +attending to trifles, went past Natasha and Petya who were trying to +tell him something. He had a look at all the details of the hunt, sent a +pack of hounds and huntsmen on ahead to find the quarry, mounted his +chestnut Donets, and whistling to his own leash of borzois, set off +across the threshing ground to a field leading to the Otradnoe wood. The +old count's horse, a sorrel gelding called Viflyanka, was led by the +groom in attendance on him, while the count himself was to drive in a +small trap straight to a spot reserved for him. + +They were taking fifty-four hounds, with six hunt attendants and +whippers-in. Besides the family, there were eight borzoi kennelmen and +more than forty borzois, so that, with the borzois on the leash +belonging to members of the family, there were about a hundred and +thirty dogs and twenty horsemen. + +Each dog knew its master and its call. Each man in the hunt knew his +business, his place, what he had to do. As soon as they had passed the +fence they all spread out evenly and quietly, without noise or talk, +along the road and field leading to the Otradnoe covert. + +The horses stepped over the field as over a thick carpet, now and then +splashing into puddles as they crossed a road. The misty sky still +seemed to descend evenly and imperceptibly toward the earth, the air was +still, warm, and silent. Occasionally the whistle of a huntsman, the +snort of a horse, the crack of a whip, or the whine of a straggling +hound could be heard. + +When they had gone a little less than a mile, five more riders with dogs +appeared out of the mist, approaching the Rostovs. In front rode a +fresh-looking, handsome old man with a large gray mustache. + +"Good morning, Uncle!" said Nicholas, when the old man drew near. + +"That's it. Come on!... I was sure of it," began "Uncle." (He was a +distant relative of the Rostovs', a man of small means, and their +neighbor.) "I knew you wouldn't be able to resist it and it's a good +thing you're going. That's it! Come on!" (This was "Uncle's" favorite +expression.) "Take the covert at once, for my Girchik says the Ilagins +are at Korniki with their hounds. That's it. Come on!... They'll take +the cubs from under your very nose." + +"That's where I'm going. Shall we join up our packs?" asked Nicholas. + +The hounds were joined into one pack, and "Uncle" and Nicholas rode on +side by side. Natasha, muffled up in shawls which did not hide her eager +face and shining eyes, galloped up to them. She was followed by Petya +who always kept close to her, by Michael, a huntsman, and by a groom +appointed to look after her. Petya, who was laughing, whipped and pulled +at his horse. Natasha sat easily and confidently on her black Arabchik +and reined him in without effort with a firm hand. + +"Uncle" looked round disapprovingly at Petya and Natasha. He did not +like to combine frivolity with the serious business of hunting. + +"Good morning, Uncle! We are going too!" shouted Petya. + +"Good morning, good morning! But don't go overriding the hounds," said +"Uncle" sternly. + +"Nicholas, what a fine dog Trunila is! He knew me," said Natasha, +referring to her favorite hound. + +"In the first place, Trunila is not a 'dog,' but a harrier," thought +Nicholas, and looked sternly at his sister, trying to make her feel the +distance that ought to separate them at that moment. Natasha understood +it. + +"You mustn't think we'll be in anyone's way, Uncle," she said. "We'll go +to our places and won't budge." + +"A good thing too, little countess," said "Uncle," "only mind you don't +fall off your horse," he added, "because--that's it, come on!--you've +nothing to hold on to." + +The oasis of the Otradnoe covert came in sight a few hundred yards off, +the huntsmen were already nearing it. Rostov, having finally settled +with "Uncle" where they should set on the hounds, and having shown +Natasha where she was to stand--a spot where nothing could possibly run +out--went round above the ravine. + +"Well, nephew, you're going for a big wolf," said "Uncle." "Mind and +don't let her slip!" + +"That's as may happen," answered Rostov. "Karay, here!" he shouted, +answering "Uncle's" remark by this call to his borzoi. Karay was a +shaggy old dog with a hanging jowl, famous for having tackled a big wolf +unaided. They all took up their places. + +The old count, knowing his son's ardor in the hunt, hurried so as not to +be late, and the huntsmen had not yet reached their places when Count +Ilya Rostov, cheerful, flushed, and with quivering cheeks, drove up with +his black horses over the winter rye to the place reserved for him, +where a wolf might come out. Having straightened his coat and fastened +on his hunting knives and horn, he mounted his good, sleek, well-fed, +and comfortable horse, Viflyanka, which was turning gray, like himself. +His horses and trap were sent home. Count Ilya Rostov, though not at +heart a keen sportsman, knew the rules of the hunt well, and rode to the +bushy edge of the road where he was to stand, arranged his reins, +settled himself in the saddle, and, feeling that he was ready, looked +about with a smile. + +Beside him was Simon Chekmar, his personal attendant, an old horseman +now somewhat stiff in the saddle. Chekmar held in leash three formidable +wolfhounds, who had, however, grown fat like their master and his horse. +Two wise old dogs lay down unleashed. Some hundred paces farther along +the edge of the wood stood Mitka, the count's other groom, a daring +horseman and keen rider to hounds. Before the hunt, by old custom, the +count had drunk a silver cupful of mulled brandy, taken a snack, and +washed it down with half a bottle of his favorite Bordeaux. + +He was somewhat flushed with the wine and the drive. His eyes were +rather moist and glittered more than usual, and as he sat in his saddle, +wrapped up in his fur coat, he looked like a child taken out for an +outing. + +The thin, hollow-cheeked Chekmar, having got everything ready, kept +glancing at his master with whom he had lived on the best of terms for +thirty years, and understanding the mood he was in expected a pleasant +chat. A third person rode up circumspectly through the wood (it was +plain that he had had a lesson) and stopped behind the count. This +person was a gray-bearded old man in a woman's cloak, with a tall peaked +cap on his head. He was the buffoon, who went by a woman's name, +Nastasya Ivanovna. + +"Well, Nastasya Ivanovna!" whispered the count, winking at him. "If you +scare away the beast, Daniel'll give it you!" + +"I know a thing or two myself!" said Nastasya Ivanovna. + +"Hush!" whispered the count and turned to Simon. "Have you seen the +young countess?" he asked. "Where is she?" + +"With young Count Peter, by the Zharov rank grass," answered Simon, +smiling. "Though she's a lady, she's very fond of hunting." + +"And you're surprised at the way she rides, Simon, eh?" said the count. +"She's as good as many a man!" + +"Of course! It's marvelous. So bold, so easy!" + +"And Nicholas? Where is he? By the Lyadov upland, isn't he?" + +"Yes, sir. He knows where to stand. He understands the matter so well +that Daniel and I are often quite astounded," said Simon, well knowing +what would please his master. + +"Rides well, eh? And how well he looks on his horse, eh?" + +"A perfect picture! How he chased a fox out of the rank grass by the +Zavarzinsk thicket the other day! Leaped a fearful place; what a sight +when they rushed from the covert... the horse worth a thousand rubles +and the rider beyond all price! Yes, one would have to search far to +find another as smart." + +"To search far..." repeated the count, evidently sorry Simon had not +said more. "To search far," he said, turning back the skirt of his coat +to get at his snuffbox. + +"The other day when he came out from Mass in full uniform, Michael +Sidorych..." Simon did not finish, for on the still air he had +distinctly caught the music of the hunt with only two or three hounds +giving tongue. He bent down his head and listened, shaking a warning +finger at his master. "They are on the scent of the cubs..." he +whispered, "straight to the Lyadov uplands." + +The count, forgetting to smooth out the smile on his face, looked into +the distance straight before him, down the narrow open space, holding +the snuffbox in his hand but not taking any. After the cry of the hounds +came the deep tones of the wolf call from Daniel's hunting horn; the +pack joined the first three hounds and they could be heard in full cry, +with that peculiar lift in the note that indicates that they are after a +wolf. The whippers-in no longer set on the hounds, but changed to the +cry of ulyulyu, and above the others rose Daniel's voice, now a deep +bass, now piercingly shrill. His voice seemed to fill the whole wood and +carried far beyond out into the open field. + +After listening a few moments in silence, the count and his attendant +convinced themselves that the hounds had separated into two packs: the +sound of the larger pack, eagerly giving tongue, began to die away in +the distance, the other pack rushed by the wood past the count, and it +was with this that Daniel's voice was heard calling ulyulyu. The sounds +of both packs mingled and broke apart again, but both were becoming more +distant. + +Simon sighed and stooped to straighten the leash a young borzoi had +entangled; the count too sighed and, noticing the snuffbox in his hand, +opened it and took a pinch. "Back!" cried Simon to a borzoi that was +pushing forward out of the wood. The count started and dropped the +snuffbox. Nastasya Ivanovna dismounted to pick it up. The count and +Simon were looking at him. + +Then, unexpectedly, as often happens, the sound of the hunt suddenly +approached, as if the hounds in full cry and Daniel ulyulyuing were just +in front of them. + +The count turned and saw on his right Mitka staring at him with eyes +starting out of his head, raising his cap and pointing before him to the +other side. + +"Look out!" he shouted, in a voice plainly showing that he had long +fretted to utter that word, and letting the borzois slip he galloped +toward the count. + +The count and Simon galloped out of the wood and saw on their left a +wolf which, softly swaying from side to side, was coming at a quiet lope +farther to the left to the very place where they were standing. The +angry borzois whined and getting free of the leash rushed past the +horses' feet at the wolf. + +The wolf paused, turned its heavy forehead toward the dogs awkwardly, +like a man suffering from the quinsy, and, still slightly swaying from +side to side, gave a couple of leaps and with a swish of its tail +disappeared into the skirt of the wood. At the same instant, with a cry +like a wail, first one hound, then another, and then another, sprang +helter-skelter from the wood opposite and the whole pack rushed across +the field toward the very spot where the wolf had disappeared. The hazel +bushes parted behind the hounds and Daniel's chestnut horse appeared, +dark with sweat. On its long back sat Daniel, hunched forward, capless, +his disheveled gray hair hanging over his flushed, perspiring face. + +"Ulyulyulyu! ulyulyu!..." he cried. When he caught sight of the count +his eyes flashed lightning. + +"Blast you!" he shouted, holding up his whip threateningly at the count. + +"You've let the wolf go!... What sportsmen!" and as if scorning to say +more to the frightened and shamefaced count, he lashed the heaving +flanks of his sweating chestnut gelding with all the anger the count had +aroused and flew off after the hounds. The count, like a punished +schoolboy, looked round, trying by a smile to win Simon's sympathy for +his plight. But Simon was no longer there. He was galloping round by the +bushes while the field was coming up on both sides, all trying to head +the wolf, but it vanished into the wood before they could do so. + + + + +CHAPTER V + +Nicholas Rostov meanwhile remained at his post, waiting for the wolf. By +the way the hunt approached and receded, by the cries of the dogs whose +notes were familiar to him, by the way the voices of the huntsmen +approached, receded, and rose, he realized what was happening at the +copse. He knew that young and old wolves were there, that the hounds had +separated into two packs, that somewhere a wolf was being chased, and +that something had gone wrong. He expected the wolf to come his way any +moment. He made thousands of different conjectures as to where and from +what side the beast would come and how he would set upon it. Hope +alternated with despair. Several times he addressed a prayer to God that +the wolf should come his way. He prayed with that passionate and +shamefaced feeling with which men pray at moments of great excitement +arising from trivial causes. "What would it be to Thee to do this for +me?" he said to God. "I know Thou art great, and that it is a sin to ask +this of Thee, but for God's sake do let the old wolf come my way and let +Karay spring at it--in sight of 'Uncle' who is watching from over there- +-and seize it by the throat in a death grip!" A thousand times during +that half-hour Rostov cast eager and restless glances over the edge of +the wood, with the two scraggy oaks rising above the aspen undergrowth +and the gully with its water-worn side and "Uncle's" cap just visible +above the bush on his right. + +"No, I shan't have such luck," thought Rostov, "yet what wouldn't it be +worth! It is not to be! Everywhere, at cards and in war, I am always +unlucky." Memories of Austerlitz and of Dolokhov flashed rapidly and +clearly through his mind. "Only once in my life to get an old wolf, I +want only that!" thought he, straining eyes and ears and looking to the +left and then to the right and listening to the slightest variation of +note in the cries of the dogs. + +Again he looked to the right and saw something running toward him across +the deserted field. "No, it can't be!" thought Rostov, taking a deep +breath, as a man does at the coming of something long hoped for. The +height of happiness was reached--and so simply, without warning, or +noise, or display, that Rostov could not believe his eyes and remained +in doubt for over a second. The wolf ran forward and jumped heavily over +a gully that lay in her path. She was an old animal with a gray back and +big reddish belly. She ran without hurry, evidently feeling sure that no +one saw her. Rostov, holding his breath, looked round at the borzois. +They stood or lay not seeing the wolf or understanding the situation. +Old Karay had turned his head and was angrily searching for fleas, +baring his yellow teeth and snapping at his hind legs. + +"Ulyulyulyu!" whispered Rostov, pouting his lips. The borzois jumped up, +jerking the rings of the leashes and pricking their ears. Karay finished +scratching his hindquarters and, cocking his ears, got up with quivering +tail from which tufts of matted hair hung down. + +"Shall I loose them or not?" Nicholas asked himself as the wolf +approached him coming from the copse. Suddenly the wolf's whole +physiognomy changed: she shuddered, seeing what she had probably never +seen before--human eyes fixed upon her--and turning her head a little +toward Rostov, she paused. + +"Back or forward? Eh, no matter, forward..." the wolf seemed to say to +herself, and she moved forward without again looking round and with a +quiet, long, easy yet resolute lope. + +"Ulyulyu!" cried Nicholas, in a voice not his own, and of its own accord +his good horse darted headlong downhill, leaping over gullies to head +off the wolf, and the borzois passed it, running faster still. Nicholas +did not hear his own cry nor feel that he was galloping, nor see the +borzois, nor the ground over which he went: he saw only the wolf, who, +increasing her speed, bounded on in the same direction along the hollow. +The first to come into view was Milka, with her black markings and +powerful quarters, gaining upon the wolf. Nearer and nearer... now she +was ahead of it; but the wolf turned its head to face her, and instead +of putting on speed as she usually did Milka suddenly raised her tail +and stiffened her forelegs. + +"Ulyulyulyulyu!" shouted Nicholas. + +The reddish Lyubim rushed forward from behind Milka, sprang impetuously +at the wolf, and seized it by its hindquarters, but immediately jumped +aside in terror. The wolf crouched, gnashed her teeth, and again rose +and bounded forward, followed at the distance of a couple of feet by all +the borzois, who did not get any closer to her. + +"She'll get away! No, it's impossible!" thought Nicholas, still shouting +with a hoarse voice. + +"Karay, ulyulyu!..." he shouted, looking round for the old borzoi who +was now his only hope. Karay, with all the strength age had left him, +stretched himself to the utmost and, watching the wolf, galloped heavily +aside to intercept it. But the quickness of the wolf's lope and the +borzoi's slower pace made it plain that Karay had miscalculated. +Nicholas could already see not far in front of him the wood where the +wolf would certainly escape should she reach it. But, coming toward him, +he saw hounds and a huntsman galloping almost straight at the wolf. +There was still hope. A long, yellowish young borzoi, one Nicholas did +not know, from another leash, rushed impetuously at the wolf from in +front and almost knocked her over. But the wolf jumped up more quickly +than anyone could have expected and, gnashing her teeth, flew at the +yellowish borzoi, which, with a piercing yelp, fell with its head on the +ground, bleeding from a gash in its side. + +"Karay? Old fellow!..." wailed Nicholas. + +Thanks to the delay caused by this crossing of the wolf's path, the old +dog with its felted hair hanging from its thigh was within five paces of +it. As if aware of her danger, the wolf turned her eyes on Karay, tucked +her tail yet further between her legs, and increased her speed. But here +Nicholas only saw that something happened to Karay--the borzoi was +suddenly on the wolf, and they rolled together down into a gully just in +front of them. + +That instant, when Nicholas saw the wolf struggling in the gully with +the dogs, while from under them could be seen her gray hair and +outstretched hind leg and her frightened choking head, with her ears +laid back (Karay was pinning her by the throat), was the happiest moment +of his life. With his hand on his saddlebow, he was ready to dismount +and stab the wolf, when she suddenly thrust her head up from among that +mass of dogs, and then her forepaws were on the edge of the gully. She +clicked her teeth (Karay no longer had her by the throat), leaped with a +movement of her hind legs out of the gully, and having disengaged +herself from the dogs, with tail tucked in again, went forward. Karay, +his hair bristling, and probably bruised or wounded, climbed with +difficulty out of the gully. + +"Oh my God! Why?" Nicholas cried in despair. + +"Uncle's" huntsman was galloping from the other side across the wolf's +path and his borzois once more stopped the animal's advance. She was +again hemmed in. + +Nicholas and his attendant, with "Uncle" and his huntsman, were all +riding round the wolf, crying "ulyulyu!" shouting and preparing to +dismount each moment that the wolf crouched back, and starting forward +again every time she shook herself and moved toward the wood where she +would be safe. + +Already, at the beginning of this chase, Daniel, hearing the ulyulyuing, +had rushed out from the wood. He saw Karay seize the wolf, and checked +his horse, supposing the affair to be over. But when he saw that the +horsemen did not dismount and that the wolf shook herself and ran for +safety, Daniel set his chestnut galloping, not at the wolf but straight +toward the wood, just as Karay had run to cut the animal off. As a +result of this, he galloped up to the wolf just when she had been +stopped a second time by "Uncle's" borzois. + +Daniel galloped up silently, holding a naked dagger in his left hand and +thrashing the laboring sides of his chestnut horse with his whip as if +it were a flail. + +Nicholas neither saw nor heard Daniel until the chestnut, breathing +heavily, panted past him, and he heard the fall of a body and saw Daniel +lying on the wolf's back among the dogs, trying to seize her by the +ears. It was evident to the dogs, the hunters, and to the wolf herself +that all was now over. The terrified wolf pressed back her ears and +tried to rise, but the borzois stuck to her. Daniel rose a little, took +a step, and with his whole weight, as if lying down to rest, fell on the +wolf, seizing her by the ears. Nicholas was about to stab her, but +Daniel whispered, "Don't! We'll gag her!" and, changing his position, +set his foot on the wolf's neck. A stick was thrust between her jaws and +she was fastened with a leash, as if bridled, her legs were bound +together, and Daniel rolled her over once or twice from side to side. + +With happy, exhausted faces, they laid the old wolf, alive, on a shying +and snorting horse and, accompanied by the dogs yelping at her, took her +to the place where they were all to meet. The hounds had killed two of +the cubs and the borzois three. The huntsmen assembled with their booty +and their stories, and all came to look at the wolf, which, with her +broad-browed head hanging down and the bitten stick between her jaws, +gazed with great glassy eyes at this crowd of dogs and men surrounding +her. When she was touched, she jerked her bound legs and looked wildly +yet simply at everybody. Old Count Rostov also rode up and touched the +wolf. + +"Oh, what a formidable one!" said he. "A formidable one, eh?" he asked +Daniel, who was standing near. + +"Yes, your excellency," answered Daniel, quickly doffing his cap. + +The count remembered the wolf he had let slip and his encounter with +Daniel. + +"Ah, but you are a crusty fellow, friend!" said the count. + +For sole reply Daniel gave him a shy, childlike, meek, and amiable +smile. + + + + +CHAPTER VI + +The old count went home, and Natasha and Petya promised to return very +soon, but as it was still early the hunt went farther. At midday they +put the hounds into a ravine thickly overgrown with young trees. +Nicholas standing in a fallow field could see all his whips. + +Facing him lay a field of winter rye, there his own huntsman stood alone +in a hollow behind a hazel bush. The hounds had scarcely been loosed +before Nicholas heard one he knew, Voltorn, giving tongue at intervals; +other hounds joined in, now pausing and now again giving tongue. A +moment later he heard a cry from the wooded ravine that a fox had been +found, and the whole pack, joining together, rushed along the ravine +toward the ryefield and away from Nicholas. + +He saw the whips in their red caps galloping along the edge of the +ravine, he even saw the hounds, and was expecting a fox to show itself +at any moment on the ryefield opposite. + +The huntsman standing in the hollow moved and loosed his borzois, and +Nicholas saw a queer, short-legged red fox with a fine brush going hard +across the field. The borzois bore down on it.... Now they drew close to +the fox which began to dodge between the field in sharper and sharper +curves, trailing its brush, when suddenly a strange white borzoi dashed +in followed by a black one, and everything was in confusion; the borzois +formed a star-shaped figure, scarcely swaying their bodies and with +tails turned away from the center of the group. Two huntsmen galloped up +to the dogs; one in a red cap, the other, a stranger, in a green coat. + +"What's this?" thought Nicholas. "Where's that huntsman from? He is not +'Uncle's' man." + +The huntsmen got the fox, but stayed there a long time without strapping +it to the saddle. Their horses, bridled and with high saddles, stood +near them and there too the dogs were lying. The huntsmen waved their +arms and did something to the fox. Then from that spot came the sound of +a horn, with the signal agreed on in case of a fight. + +"That's Ilagin's huntsman having a row with our Ivan," said Nicholas' +groom. + +Nicholas sent the man to call Natasha and Petya to him, and rode at a +footpace to the place where the whips were getting the hounds together. +Several of the field galloped to the spot where the fight was going on. + +Nicholas dismounted, and with Natasha and Petya, who had ridden up, +stopped near the hounds, waiting to see how the matter would end. Out of +the bushes came the huntsman who had been fighting and rode toward his +young master, with the fox tied to his crupper. While still at a +distance he took off his cap and tried to speak respectfully, but he was +pale and breathless and his face was angry. One of his eyes was black, +but he probably was not even aware of it. + +"What has happened?" asked Nicholas. + +"A likely thing, killing a fox our dogs had hunted! And it was my gray +bitch that caught it! Go to law, indeed!... He snatches at the fox! I +gave him one with the fox. Here it is on my saddle! Do you want a taste +of this?..." said the huntsman, pointing to his dagger and probably +imagining himself still speaking to his foe. + +Nicholas, not stopping to talk to the man, asked his sister and Petya to +wait for him and rode to the spot where the enemy's, Ilagin's, hunting +party was. + +The victorious huntsman rode off to join the field, and there, +surrounded by inquiring sympathizers, recounted his exploits. + +The facts were that Ilagin, with whom the Rostovs had a quarrel and were +at law, hunted over places that belonged by custom to the Rostovs, and +had now, as if purposely, sent his men to the very woods the Rostovs +were hunting and let his man snatch a fox their dogs had chased. + +Nicholas, though he had never seen Ilagin, with his usual absence of +moderation in judgment, hated him cordially from reports of his +arbitrariness and violence, and regarded him as his bitterest foe. He +rode in angry agitation toward him, firmly grasping his whip and fully +prepared to take the most resolute and desperate steps to punish his +enemy. + +Hardly had he passed an angle of the wood before a stout gentleman in a +beaver cap came riding toward him on a handsome raven-black horse, +accompanied by two hunt servants. + +Instead of an enemy, Nicholas found in Ilagin a stately and courteous +gentleman who was particularly anxious to make the young count's +acquaintance. Having ridden up to Nicholas, Ilagin raised his beaver cap +and said he much regretted what had occurred and would have the man +punished who had allowed himself to seize a fox hunted by someone else's +borzois. He hoped to become better acquainted with the count and invited +him to draw his covert. + +Natasha, afraid that her brother would do something dreadful, had +followed him in some excitement. Seeing the enemies exchanging friendly +greetings, she rode up to them. Ilagin lifted his beaver cap still +higher to Natasha and said, with a pleasant smile, that the young +countess resembled Diana in her passion for the chase as well as in her +beauty, of which he had heard much. + +To expiate his huntsman's offense, Ilagin pressed the Rostovs to come to +an upland of his about a mile away which he usually kept for himself and +which, he said, swarmed with hares. Nicholas agreed, and the hunt, now +doubled, moved on. + +The way to Iligin's upland was across the fields. The hunt servants fell +into line. The masters rode together. "Uncle," Rostov, and Ilagin kept +stealthily glancing at one another's dogs, trying not to be observed by +their companions and searching uneasily for rivals to their own borzois. + +Rostov was particularly struck by the beauty of a small, pure-bred, red- +spotted bitch on Ilagin's leash, slender but with muscles like steel, a +delicate muzzle, and prominent black eyes. He had heard of the swiftness +of Ilagin's borzois, and in that beautiful bitch saw a rival to his own +Milka. + +In the middle of a sober conversation begun by Ilagin about the year's +harvest, Nicholas pointed to the red-spotted bitch. + +"A fine little bitch, that!" said he in a careless tone. "Is she swift?" + +"That one? Yes, she's a good dog, gets what she's after," answered +Ilagin indifferently, of the red-spotted bitch Erza, for which, a year +before, he had given a neighbor three families of house serfs. "So in +your parts, too, the harvest is nothing to boast of, Count?" he went on, +continuing the conversation they had begun. And considering it polite to +return the young count's compliment, Ilagin looked at his borzois and +picked out Milka who attracted his attention by her breadth. "That +black-spotted one of yours is fine--well shaped!" said he. + +"Yes, she's fast enough," replied Nicholas, and thought: "If only a +full-grown hare would cross the field now I'd show you what sort of +borzoi she is," and turning to his groom, he said he would give a ruble +to anyone who found a hare. + +"I don't understand," continued Ilagin, "how some sportsmen can be so +jealous about game and dogs. For myself, I can tell you, Count, I enjoy +riding in company such as this... what could be better?" (he again +raised his cap to Natasha) "but as for counting skins and what one +takes, I don't care about that." + +"Of course not!" + +"Or being upset because someone else's borzoi and not mine catches +something. All I care about is to enjoy seeing the chase, is it not so, +Count? For I consider that..." + +"A-tu!" came the long-drawn cry of one of the borzoi whippers-in, who +had halted. He stood on a knoll in the stubble, holding his whip aloft, +and again repeated his long-drawn cry, "A-tu!" (This call and the +uplifted whip meant that he saw a sitting hare.) + +"Ah, he has found one, I think," said Ilagin carelessly. "Yes, we must +ride up.... Shall we both course it?" answered Nicholas, seeing in Erza +and "Uncle's" red Rugay two rivals he had never yet had a chance of +pitting against his own borzois. "And suppose they outdo my Milka at +once!" he thought as he rode with "Uncle" and Ilagin toward the hare. + +"A full-grown one?" asked Ilagin as he approached the whip who had +sighted the hare--and not without agitation he looked round and whistled +to Erza. + +"And you, Michael Nikanorovich?" he said, addressing "Uncle." + +The latter was riding with a sullen expression on his face. + +"How can I join in? Why, you've given a village for each of your +borzois! That's it, come on! Yours are worth thousands. Try yours +against one another, you two, and I'll look on!" + +"Rugay, hey, hey!" he shouted. "Rugayushka!" he added, involuntarily by +this diminutive expressing his affection and the hopes he placed on this +red borzoi. Natasha saw and felt the agitation the two elderly men and +her brother were trying to conceal, and was herself excited by it. + +The huntsman stood halfway up the knoll holding up his whip and the +gentlefolk rode up to him at a footpace; the hounds that were far off on +the horizon turned away from the hare, and the whips, but not the +gentlefolk, also moved away. All were moving slowly and sedately. + +"How is it pointing?" asked Nicholas, riding a hundred paces toward the +whip who had sighted the hare. + +But before the whip could reply, the hare, scenting the frost coming +next morning, was unable to rest and leaped up. The pack on leash rushed +downhill in full cry after the hare, and from all sides the borzois that +were not on leash darted after the hounds and the hare. All the hunt, +who had been moving slowly, shouted, "Stop!" calling in the hounds, +while the borzoi whips, with a cry of "A-tu!" galloped across the field +setting the borzois on the hare. The tranquil Ilagin, Nicholas, Natasha, +and "Uncle" flew, reckless of where and how they went, seeing only the +borzois and the hare and fearing only to lose sight even for an instant +of the chase. The hare they had started was a strong and swift one. When +he jumped up he did not run at once, but pricked his ears listening to +the shouting and trampling that resounded from all sides at once. He +took a dozen bounds, not very quickly, letting the borzois gain on him, +and, finally having chosen his direction and realized his danger, laid +back his ears and rushed off headlong. He had been lying in the stubble, +but in front of him was the autumn sowing where the ground was soft. The +two borzois of the huntsman who had sighted him, having been the +nearest, were the first to see and pursue him, but they had not gone far +before Ilagin's red-spotted Erza passed them, got within a length, flew +at the hare with terrible swiftness aiming at his scut, and, thinking +she had seized him, rolled over like a ball. The hare arched his back +and bounded off yet more swiftly. From behind Erza rushed the broad- +haunched, black-spotted Milka and began rapidly gaining on the hare. + +"Milashka, dear!" rose Nicholas' triumphant cry. It looked as if Milka +would immediately pounce on the hare, but she overtook him and flew +past. The hare had squatted. Again the beautiful Erza reached him, but +when close to the hare's scut paused as if measuring the distance, so as +not to make a mistake this time but seize his hind leg. + +"Erza, darling!" Ilagin wailed in a voice unlike his own. Erza did not +hearken to his appeal. At the very moment when she would have seized her +prey, the hare moved and darted along the balk between the winter rye +and the stubble. Again Erza and Milka were abreast, running like a pair +of carriage horses, and began to overtake the hare, but it was easier +for the hare to run on the balk and the borzois did not overtake him so +quickly. + +"Rugay, Rugayushka! That's it, come on!" came a third voice just then, +and "Uncle's" red borzoi, straining and curving its back, caught up with +the two foremost borzois, pushed ahead of them regardless of the +terrible strain, put on speed close to the hare, knocked it off the balk +onto the ryefield, again put on speed still more viciously, sinking to +his knees in the muddy field, and all one could see was how, muddying +his back, he rolled over with the hare. A ring of borzois surrounded +him. A moment later everyone had drawn up round the crowd of dogs. Only +the delighted "Uncle" dismounted, and cut off a pad, shaking the hare +for the blood to drip off, and anxiously glancing round with restless +eyes while his arms and legs twitched. He spoke without himself knowing +whom to or what about. "That's it, come on! That's a dog!... There, it +has beaten them all, the thousand-ruble as well as the one-ruble +borzois. That's it, come on!" said he, panting and looking wrathfully +around as if he were abusing someone, as if they were all his enemies +and had insulted him, and only now had he at last succeeded in +justifying himself. "There are your thousand-ruble ones.... That's it, +come on!..." + +"Rugay, here's a pad for you!" he said, throwing down the hare's muddy +pad. "You've deserved it, that's it, come on!" + +"She'd tired herself out, she'd run it down three times by herself," +said Nicholas, also not listening to anyone and regardless of whether he +were heard or not. + +"But what is there in running across it like that?" said Ilagin's groom. + +"Once she had missed it and turned it away, any mongrel could take it," +Ilagin was saying at the same time, breathless from his gallop and his +excitement. At the same moment Natasha, without drawing breath, screamed +joyously, ecstatically, and so piercingly that it set everyone's ear +tingling. By that shriek she expressed what the others expressed by all +talking at once, and it was so strange that she must herself have been +ashamed of so wild a cry and everyone else would have been amazed at it +at any other time. "Uncle" himself twisted up the hare, threw it neatly +and smartly across his horse's back as if by that gesture he meant to +rebuke everybody, and, with an air of not wishing to speak to anyone, +mounted his bay and rode off. The others all followed, dispirited and +shamefaced, and only much later were they able to regain their former +affectation of indifference. For a long time they continued to look at +red Rugay who, his arched back spattered with mud and clanking the ring +of his leash, walked along just behind "Uncle's" horse with the serene +air of a conqueror. + +"Well, I am like any other dog as long as it's not a question of +coursing. But when it is, then look out!" his appearance seemed to +Nicholas to be saying. + +When, much later, "Uncle" rode up to Nicholas and began talking to him, +he felt flattered that, after what had happened, "Uncle" deigned to +speak to him. + + + + +CHAPTER VII + +Toward evening Ilagin took leave of Nicholas, who found that they were +so far from home that he accepted "Uncle's" offer that the hunting party +should spend the night in his little village of Mikhaylovna. + +"And if you put up at my house that will be better still. That's it, +come on!" said "Uncle." "You see it's damp weather, and you could rest, +and the little countess could be driven home in a trap." + +"Uncle's" offer was accepted. A huntsman was sent to Otradnoe for a +trap, while Nicholas rode with Natasha and Petya to "Uncle's" house. + +Some five male domestic serfs, big and little, rushed out to the front +porch to meet their master. A score of women serfs, old and young, as +well as children, popped out from the back entrance to have a look at +the hunters who were arriving. The presence of Natasha--a woman, a lady, +and on horseback--raised the curiosity of the serfs to such a degree +that many of them came up to her, stared her in the face, and unabashed +by her presence made remarks about her as though she were some prodigy +on show and not a human being able to hear or understand what was said +about her. + +"Arinka! Look, she sits sideways! There she sits and her skirt +dangles.... See, she's got a little hunting horn!" + +"Goodness gracious! See her knife?..." + +"Isn't she a Tartar!" + +"How is it you didn't go head over heels?" asked the boldest of all, +addressing Natasha directly. + +"Uncle" dismounted at the porch of his little wooden house which stood +in the midst of an overgrown garden and, after a glance at his +retainers, shouted authoritatively that the superfluous ones should take +themselves off and that all necessary preparations should be made to +receive the guests and the visitors. + +The serfs all dispersed. "Uncle" lifted Natasha off her horse and taking +her hand led her up the rickety wooden steps of the porch. The house, +with its bare, unplastered log walls, was not overclean--it did not seem +that those living in it aimed at keeping it spotless--but neither was it +noticeably neglected. In the entry there was a smell of fresh apples, +and wolf and fox skins hung about. + +"Uncle" led the visitors through the anteroom into a small hall with a +folding table and red chairs, then into the drawing room with a round +birchwood table and a sofa, and finally into his private room where +there was a tattered sofa, a worn carpet, and portraits of Suvorov, of +the host's father and mother, and of himself in military uniform. The +study smelt strongly of tobacco and dogs. "Uncle" asked his visitors to +sit down and make themselves at home, and then went out of the room. +Rugay, his back still muddy, came into the room and lay down on the +sofa, cleaning himself with his tongue and teeth. Leading from the study +was a passage in which a partition with ragged curtains could be seen. +From behind this came women's laughter and whispers. Natasha, Nicholas, +and Petya took off their wraps and sat down on the sofa. Petya, leaning +on his elbow, fell asleep at once. Natasha and Nicholas were silent. +Their faces glowed, they were hungry and very cheerful. They looked at +one another (now that the hunt was over and they were in the house, +Nicholas no longer considered it necessary to show his manly superiority +over his sister), Natasha gave him a wink, and neither refrained long +from bursting into a peal of ringing laughter even before they had a +pretext ready to account for it. + +After a while "Uncle" came in, in a Cossack coat, blue trousers, and +small top boots. And Natasha felt that this costume, the very one she +had regarded with surprise and amusement at Otradnoe, was just the right +thing and not at all worse than a swallow-tail or frock coat. "Uncle" +too was in high spirits and far from being offended by the brother's and +sister's laughter (it could never enter his head that they might be +laughing at his way of life) he himself joined in the merriment. + +"That's right, young countess, that's it, come on! I never saw anyone +like her!" said he, offering Nicholas a pipe with a long stem and, with +a practiced motion of three fingers, taking down another that had been +cut short. "She's ridden all day like a man, and is as fresh as ever!" + +Soon after "Uncle's" reappearance the door was opened, evidently from +the sound by a barefooted girl, and a stout, rosy, good-looking woman of +about forty, with a double chin and full red lips, entered carrying a +large loaded tray. With hospitable dignity and cordiality in her glance +and in every motion, she looked at the visitors and, with a pleasant +smile, bowed respectfully. In spite of her exceptional stoutness, which +caused her to protrude her chest and stomach and throw back her head, +this woman (who was "Uncle's" housekeeper) trod very lightly. She went +to the table, set down the tray, and with her plump white hands deftly +took from it the bottles and various hors d'oeuvres and dishes and +arranged them on the table. When she had finished, she stepped aside and +stopped at the door with a smile on her face. "Here I am. I am she! Now +do you understand 'Uncle'?" her expression said to Rostov. How could one +help understanding? Not only Nicholas, but even Natasha understood the +meaning of his puckered brow and the happy complacent smile that +slightly puckered his lips when Anisya Fedorovna entered. On the tray +was a bottle of herb wine, different kinds of vodka, pickled mushrooms, +rye cakes made with buttermilk, honey in the comb, still mead and +sparkling mead, apples, nuts (raw and roasted), and nut-and-honey +sweets. Afterwards she brought a freshly roasted chicken, ham, preserves +made with honey, and preserves made with sugar. + +All this was the fruit of Anisya Fedorovna's housekeeping, gathered and +prepared by her. The smell and taste of it all had a smack of Anisya +Fedorovna herself: a savor of juiciness, cleanliness, whiteness, and +pleasant smiles. + +"Take this, little Lady-Countess!" she kept saying, as she offered +Natasha first one thing and then another. + +Natasha ate of everything and thought she had never seen or eaten such +buttermilk cakes, such aromatic jam, such honey-and-nut sweets, or such +a chicken anywhere. Anisya Fedorovna left the room. + +After supper, over their cherry brandy, Rostov and "Uncle" talked of +past and future hunts, of Rugay and Ilagin's dogs, while Natasha sat +upright on the sofa and listened with sparkling eyes. She tried several +times to wake Petya that he might eat something, but he only muttered +incoherent words without waking up. Natasha felt so lighthearted and +happy in these novel surroundings that she only feared the trap would +come for her too soon. After a casual pause, such as often occurs when +receiving friends for the first time in one's own house, "Uncle," +answering a thought that was in his visitors' minds, said: + +"This, you see, is how I am finishing my days... Death will come. That's +it, come on! Nothing will remain. Then why harm anyone?" + +"Uncle's" face was very significant and even handsome as he said this. +Involuntarily Rostov recalled all the good he had heard about him from +his father and the neighbors. Throughout the whole province "Uncle" had +the reputation of being the most honorable and disinterested of cranks. +They called him in to decide family disputes, chose him as executor, +confided secrets to him, elected him to be a justice and to other posts; +but he always persistently refused public appointments, passing the +autumn and spring in the fields on his bay gelding, sitting at home in +winter, and lying in his overgrown garden in summer. + +"Why don't you enter the service, Uncle?" + +"I did once, but gave it up. I am not fit for it. That's it, come on! I +can't make head or tail of it. That's for you--I haven't brains enough. +Now, hunting is another matter--that's it, come on! Open the door, +there!" he shouted. "Why have you shut it?" + +The door at the end of the passage led to the huntsmen's room, as they +called the room for the hunt servants. + +There was a rapid patter of bare feet, and an unseen hand opened the +door into the huntsmen's room, from which came the clear sounds of a +balalayka on which someone, who was evidently a master of the art, was +playing. Natasha had been listening to those strains for some time and +now went out into the passage to hear better. + +"That's Mitka, my coachman.... I have got him a good balalayka. I'm fond +of it," said "Uncle." + +It was the custom for Mitka to play the balalayka in the huntsmen's room +when "Uncle" returned from the chase. "Uncle" was fond of such music. + +"How good! Really very good!" said Nicholas with some unintentional +superciliousness, as if ashamed to confess that the sounds pleased him +very much. + +"Very good?" said Natasha reproachfully, noticing her brother's tone. +"Not 'very good' it's simply delicious!" + +Just as "Uncle's" pickled mushrooms, honey, and cherry brandy had seemed +to her the best in the world, so also that song, at that moment, seemed +to her the acme of musical delight. + +"More, please, more!" cried Natasha at the door as soon as the balalayka +ceased. Mitka tuned up afresh, and recommenced thrumming the balalayka +to the air of My Lady, with trills and variations. "Uncle" sat +listening, slightly smiling, with his head on one side. The air was +repeated a hundred times. The balalayka was retuned several times and +the same notes were thrummed again, but the listeners did not grow weary +of it and wished to hear it again and again. Anisya Fedorovna came in +and leaned her portly person against the doorpost. + +"You like listening?" she said to Natasha, with a smile extremely like +"Uncle's." "That's a good player of ours," she added. + +"He doesn't play that part right!" said "Uncle" suddenly, with an +energetic gesture. "Here he ought to burst out--that's it, come on!-- +ought to burst out." + +"Do you play then?" asked Natasha. + +"Uncle" did not answer, but smiled. + +"Anisya, go and see if the strings of my guitar are all right. I haven't +touched it for a long time. That's it--come on! I've given it up." + +Anisya Fedorovna, with her light step, willingly went to fulfill her +errand and brought back the guitar. + +Without looking at anyone, "Uncle" blew the dust off it and, tapping the +case with his bony fingers, tuned the guitar and settled himself in his +armchair. He took the guitar a little above the fingerboard, arching his +left elbow with a somewhat theatrical gesture, and, with a wink at +Anisya Fedorovna, struck a single chord, pure and sonorous, and then +quietly, smoothly, and confidently began playing in very slow time, not +My Lady, but the well-known song: Came a maiden down the street. The +tune, played with precision and in exact time, began to thrill in the +hearts of Nicholas and Natasha, arousing in them the same kind of sober +mirth as radiated from Anisya Fedorovna's whole being. Anisya Fedorovna +flushed, and drawing her kerchief over her face went laughing out of the +room. "Uncle" continued to play correctly, carefully, with energetic +firmness, looking with a changed and inspired expression at the spot +where Anisya Fedorovna had just stood. Something seemed to be laughing a +little on one side of his face under his gray mustaches, especially as +the song grew brisker and the time quicker and when, here and there, as +he ran his fingers over the strings, something seemed to snap. + +"Lovely, lovely! Go on, Uncle, go on!" shouted Natasha as soon as he had +finished. She jumped up and hugged and kissed him. "Nicholas, Nicholas!" +she said, turning to her brother, as if asking him: "What is it moves me +so?" + +Nicholas too was greatly pleased by "Uncle's" playing, and "Uncle" +played the piece over again. Anisya Fedorovna's smiling face reappeared +in the doorway and behind hers other faces... + + +Fetching water clear and sweet, Stop, dear maiden, I entreat-- + +played "Uncle" once more, running his fingers skillfully over the +strings, and then he stopped short and jerked his shoulders. + +"Go on, Uncle dear," Natasha wailed in an imploring tone as if her life +depended on it. + +"Uncle" rose, and it was as if there were two men in him: one of them +smiled seriously at the merry fellow, while the merry fellow struck a +naive and precise attitude preparatory to a folk dance. + +"Now then, niece!" he exclaimed, waving to Natasha the hand that had +just struck a chord. + +Natasha threw off the shawl from her shoulders, ran forward to face +"Uncle," and setting her arms akimbo also made a motion with her +shoulders and struck an attitude. + +Where, how, and when had this young countess, educated by an emigree +French governess, imbibed from the Russian air she breathed that spirit +and obtained that manner which the pas de chale * would, one would have +supposed, long ago have effaced? But the spirit and the movements were +those inimitable and unteachable Russian ones that "Uncle" had expected +of her. As soon as she had struck her pose, and smiled triumphantly, +proudly, and with sly merriment, the fear that had at first seized +Nicholas and the others that she might not do the right thing was at an +end, and they were already admiring her. + + +* The French shawl dance. + +She did the right thing with such precision, such complete precision, +that Anisya Fedorovna, who had at once handed her the handkerchief she +needed for the dance, had tears in her eyes, though she laughed as she +watched this slim, graceful countess, reared in silks and velvets and so +different from herself, who yet was able to understand all that was in +Anisya and in Anisya's father and mother and aunt, and in every Russian +man and woman. + +"Well, little countess; that's it--come on!" cried "Uncle," with a +joyous laugh, having finished the dance. "Well done, niece! Now a fine +young fellow must be found as husband for you. That's it--come on!" + +"He's chosen already," said Nicholas smiling. + +"Oh?" said "Uncle" in surprise, looking inquiringly at Natasha, who +nodded her head with a happy smile. + +"And such a one!" she said. But as soon as she had said it a new train +of thoughts and feelings arose in her. "What did Nicholas' smile mean +when he said 'chosen already'? Is he glad of it or not? It is as if he +thought my Bolkonski would not approve of or understand our gaiety. But +he would understand it all. Where is he now?" she thought, and her face +suddenly became serious. But this lasted only a second. "Don't dare to +think about it," she said to herself, and sat down again smilingly +beside "Uncle," begging him to play something more. + +"Uncle" played another song and a valse; then after a pause he cleared +his throat and sang his favorite hunting song: + + +As 'twas growing dark last night Fell the snow so soft and light... + +"Uncle" sang as peasants sing, with full and naive conviction that the +whole meaning of a song lies in the words and that the tune comes of +itself, and that apart from the words there is no tune, which exists +only to give measure to the words. As a result of this the unconsidered +tune, like the song of a bird, was extraordinarily good. Natasha was in +ecstasies over "Uncle's" singing. She resolved to give up learning the +harp and to play only the guitar. She asked "Uncle" for his guitar and +at once found the chords of the song. + +After nine o'clock two traps and three mounted men, who had been sent to +look for them, arrived to fetch Natasha and Petya. The count and +countess did not know where they were and were very anxious, said one of +the men. + +Petya was carried out like a log and laid in the larger of the two +traps. Natasha and Nicholas got into the other. "Uncle" wrapped Natasha +up warmly and took leave of her with quite a new tenderness. He +accompanied them on foot as far as the bridge that could not be crossed, +so that they had to go round by the ford, and he sent huntsmen to ride +in front with lanterns. + +"Good-bye, dear niece," his voice called out of the darkness--not the +voice Natasha had known previously, but the one that had sung As 'twas +growing dark last night. + +In the village through which they passed there were red lights and a +cheerful smell of smoke. + +"What a darling Uncle is!" said Natasha, when they had come out onto the +highroad. + +"Yes," returned Nicholas. "You're not cold?" + +"No. I'm quite, quite all right. I feel so comfortable!" answered +Natasha, almost perplexed by her feelings. They remained silent a long +while. The night was dark and damp. They could not see the horses, but +only heard them splashing through the unseen mud. + +What was passing in that receptive childlike soul that so eagerly caught +and assimilated all the diverse impressions of life? How did they all +find place in her? But she was very happy. As they were nearing home she +suddenly struck up the air of As 'twas growing dark last night--the tune +of which she had all the way been trying to get and had at last caught. + +"Got it?" said Nicholas. + +"What were you thinking about just now, Nicholas?" inquired Natasha. + +They were fond of asking one another that question. + +"I?" said Nicholas, trying to remember. "Well, you see, first I thought +that Rugay, the red hound, was like Uncle, and that if he were a man he +would always keep Uncle near him, if not for his riding, then for his +manner. What a good fellow Uncle is! Don't you think so?... Well, and +you?" + +"I? Wait a bit, wait.... Yes, first I thought that we are driving along +and imagining that we are going home, but that heaven knows where we are +really going in the darkness, and that we shall arrive and suddenly find +that we are not in Otradnoe, but in Fairyland. And then I thought... No, +nothing else." + +"I know, I expect you thought of him," said Nicholas, smiling as Natasha +knew by the sound of his voice. + +"No," said Natasha, though she had in reality been thinking about Prince +Andrew at the same time as of the rest, and of how he would have liked +"Uncle." "And then I was saying to myself all the way, 'How well Anisya +carried herself, how well!'" And Nicholas heard her spontaneous, happy, +ringing laughter. "And do you know," she suddenly said, "I know that I +shall never again be as happy and tranquil as I am now." + +"Rubbish, nonsense, humbug!" exclaimed Nicholas, and he thought: "How +charming this Natasha of mine is! I have no other friend like her and +never shall have. Why should she marry? We might always drive about +together!" + +"What a darling this Nicholas of mine is!" thought Natasha. + +"Ah, there are still lights in the drawing-room!" she said, pointing to +the windows of the house that gleamed invitingly in the moist velvety +darkness of the night. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII + +Count Ilya Rostov had resigned the position of Marshal of the Nobility +because it involved him in too much expense, but still his affairs did +not improve. Natasha and Nicholas often noticed their parents conferring +together anxiously and privately and heard suggestions of selling the +fine ancestral Rostov house and estate near Moscow. It was not necessary +to entertain so freely as when the count had been Marshal, and life at +Otradnoe was quieter than in former years, but still the enormous house +and its lodges were full of people and more than twenty sat down to +table every day. These were all their own people who had settled down in +the house almost as members of the family, or persons who were, it +seemed, obliged to live in the count's house. Such were Dimmler the +musician and his wife, Vogel the dancing master and his family, Belova, +an old maiden lady, an inmate of the house, and many others such as +Petya's tutors, the girls' former governess, and other people who simply +found it preferable and more advantageous to live in the count's house +than at home. They had not as many visitors as before, but the old +habits of life without which the count and countess could not conceive +of existence remained unchanged. There was still the hunting +establishment which Nicholas had even enlarged, the same fifty horses +and fifteen grooms in the stables, the same expensive presents and +dinner parties to the whole district on name days; there were still the +count's games of whist and boston, at which--spreading out his cards so +that everybody could see them--he let himself be plundered of hundreds +of rubles every day by his neighbors, who looked upon an opportunity to +play a rubber with Count Rostov as a most profitable source of income. + +The count moved in his affairs as in a huge net, trying not to believe +that he was entangled but becoming more and more so at every step, and +feeling too feeble to break the meshes or to set to work carefully and +patiently to disentangle them. The countess, with her loving heart, felt +that her children were being ruined, that it was not the count's fault +for he could not help being what he was--that (though he tried to hide +it) he himself suffered from the consciousness of his own and his +children's ruin, and she tried to find means of remedying the position. +From her feminine point of view she could see only one solution, namely, +for Nicholas to marry a rich heiress. She felt this to be their last +hope and that if Nicholas refused the match she had found for him, she +would have to abandon the hope of ever getting matters right. This match +was with Julie Karagina, the daughter of excellent and virtuous parents, +a girl the Rostovs had known from childhood, and who had now become a +wealthy heiress through the death of the last of her brothers. + +The countess had written direct to Julie's mother in Moscow suggesting a +marriage between their children and had received a favorable answer from +her. Karagina had replied that for her part she was agreeable, and +everything depend on her daughter's inclination. She invited Nicholas to +come to Moscow. + +Several times the countess, with tears in her eyes, told her son that +now both her daughters were settled, her only wish was to see him +married. She said she could lie down in her grave peacefully if that +were accomplished. Then she told him that she knew of a splendid girl +and tried to discover what he thought about marriage. + +At other times she praised Julie to him and advised him to go to Moscow +during the holidays to amuse himself. Nicholas guessed what his mother's +remarks were leading to and during one of these conversations induced +her to speak quite frankly. She told him that her only hope of getting +their affairs disentangled now lay in his marrying Julie Karagina. + +"But, Mamma, suppose I loved a girl who has no fortune, would you expect +me to sacrifice my feelings and my honor for the sake of money?" he +asked his mother, not realizing the cruelty of his question and only +wishing to show his noble-mindedness. + +"No, you have not understood me," said his mother, not knowing how to +justify herself. "You have not understood me, Nikolenka. It is your +happiness I wish for," she added, feeling that she was telling an +untruth and was becoming entangled. She began to cry. + +"Mamma, don't cry! Only tell me that you wish it, and you know I will +give my life, anything, to put you at ease," said Nicholas. "I would +sacrifice anything for you--even my feelings." + +But the countess did not want the question put like that: she did not +want a sacrifice from her son, she herself wished to make a sacrifice +for him. + +"No, you have not understood me, don't let us talk about it," she +replied, wiping away her tears. + +"Maybe I do love a poor girl," said Nicholas to himself. "Am I to +sacrifice my feelings and my honor for money? I wonder how Mamma could +speak so to me. Because Sonya is poor I must not love her," he thought, +"must not respond to her faithful, devoted love? Yet I should certainly +be happier with her than with some doll-like Julie. I can always +sacrifice my feelings for my family's welfare," he said to himself, "but +I can't coerce my feelings. If I love Sonya, that feeling is for me +stronger and higher than all else." + +Nicholas did not go to Moscow, and the countess did not renew the +conversation with him about marriage. She saw with sorrow, and sometimes +with exasperation, symptoms of a growing attachment between her son and +the portionless Sonya. Though she blamed herself for it, she could not +refrain from grumbling at and worrying Sonya, often pulling her up +without reason, addressing her stiffly as "my dear," and using the +formal "you" instead of the intimate "thou" in speaking to her. The +kindhearted countess was the more vexed with Sonya because that poor, +dark-eyed niece of hers was so meek, so kind, so devotedly grateful to +her benefactors, and so faithfully, unchangingly, and unselfishly in +love with Nicholas, that there were no grounds for finding fault with +her. + +Nicholas was spending the last of his leave at home. A fourth letter had +come from Prince Andrew, from Rome, in which he wrote that he would have +been on his way back to Russia long ago had not his wound unexpectedly +reopened in the warm climate, which obliged him to defer his return till +the beginning of the new year. Natasha was still as much in love with +her betrothed, found the same comfort in that love, and was still as +ready to throw herself into all the pleasures of life as before; but at +the end of the fourth month of their separation she began to have fits +of depression which she could not master. She felt sorry for herself: +sorry that she was being wasted all this time and of no use to anyone-- +while she felt herself so capable of loving and being loved. + +Things were not cheerful in the Rostovs' home. + + + + +CHAPTER IX + +Christmas came and except for the ceremonial Mass, the solemn and +wearisome Christmas congratulations from neighbors and servants, and the +new dresses everyone put on, there were no special festivities, though +the calm frost of twenty degrees Reaumur, the dazzling sunshine by day, +and the starlight of the winter nights seemed to call for some special +celebration of the season. + +On the third day of Christmas week, after the midday dinner, all the +inmates of the house dispersed to various rooms. It was the dullest time +of the day. Nicholas, who had been visiting some neighbors that morning, +was asleep on the sitting-room sofa. The old count was resting in his +study. Sonya sat in the drawing room at the round table, copying a +design for embroidery. The countess was playing patience. Nastasya +Ivanovna the buffoon sat with a sad face at the window with two old +ladies. Natasha came into the room, went up to Sonya, glanced at what +she was doing, and then went up to her mother and stood without +speaking. + +"Why are you wandering about like an outcast?" asked her mother. "What +do you want?" + +"Him... I want him... now, this minute! I want him!" said Natasha, with +glittering eyes and no sign of a smile. + +The countess lifted her head and looked attentively at her daughter. + +"Don't look at me, Mamma! Don't look; I shall cry directly." + +"Sit down with me a little," said the countess. + +"Mamma, I want him. Why should I be wasted like this, Mamma?" + +Her voice broke, tears gushed from her eyes, and she turned quickly to +hide them and left the room. + +She passed into the sitting room, stood there thinking awhile, and then +went into the maids' room. There an old maidservant was grumbling at a +young girl who stood panting, having just run in through the cold from +the serfs' quarters. + +"Stop playing--there's a time for everything," said the old woman. + +"Let her alone, Kondratevna," said Natasha. "Go, Mavrushka, go." + +Having released Mavrushka, Natasha crossed the dancing hall and went to +the vestibule. There an old footman and two young ones were playing +cards. They broke off and rose as she entered. + +"What can I do with them?" thought Natasha. + +"Oh, Nikita, please go... where can I send him?... Yes, go to the yard +and fetch a fowl, please, a cock, and you, Misha, bring me some oats." + +"Just a few oats?" said Misha, cheerfully and readily. + +"Go, go quickly," the old man urged him. + +"And you, Theodore, get me a piece of chalk." + +On her way past the butler's pantry she told them to set a samovar, +though it was not at all the time for tea. + +Foka, the butler, was the most ill-tempered person in the house. Natasha +liked to test her power over him. He distrusted the order and asked +whether the samovar was really wanted. + +"Oh dear, what a young lady!" said Foka, pretending to frown at Natasha. + +No one in the house sent people about or gave them as much trouble as +Natasha did. She could not see people unconcernedly, but had to send +them on some errand. She seemed to be trying whether any of them would +get angry or sulky with her; but the serfs fulfilled no one's orders so +readily as they did hers. "What can I do, where can I go?" thought she, +as she went slowly along the passage. + +"Nastasya Ivanovna, what sort of children shall I have?" she asked the +buffoon, who was coming toward her in a woman's jacket. + +"Why, fleas, crickets, grasshoppers," answered the buffoon. + +"O Lord, O Lord, it's always the same! Oh, where am I to go? What am I +to do with myself?" And tapping with her heels, she ran quickly upstairs +to see Vogel and his wife who lived on the upper story. + +Two governesses were sitting with the Vogels at a table, on which were +plates of raisins, walnuts, and almonds. The governesses were discussing +whether it was cheaper to live in Moscow or Odessa. Natasha sat down, +listened to their talk with a serious and thoughtful air, and then got +up again. + +"The island of Madagascar," she said, "Ma-da-gas-car," she repeated, +articulating each syllable distinctly, and, not replying to Madame +Schoss who asked her what she was saying, she went out of the room. + +Her brother Petya was upstairs too; with the man in attendance on him he +was preparing fireworks to let off that night. + +"Petya! Petya!" she called to him. "Carry me downstairs." + +Petya ran up and offered her his back. She jumped on it, putting her +arms round his neck, and he pranced along with her. + +"No, don't... the island of Madagascar!" she said, and jumping off his +back she went downstairs. + +Having as it were reviewed her kingdom, tested her power, and made sure +that everyone was submissive, but that all the same it was dull, Natasha +betook herself to the ballroom, picked up her guitar, sat down in a dark +corner behind a bookcase, and began to run her fingers over the strings +in the bass, picking out a passage she recalled from an opera she had +heard in Petersburg with Prince Andrew. What she drew from the guitar +would have had no meaning for other listeners, but in her imagination a +whole series of reminiscences arose from those sounds. She sat behind +the bookcase with her eyes fixed on a streak of light escaping from the +pantry door and listened to herself and pondered. She was in a mood for +brooding on the past. + +Sonya passed to the pantry with a glass in her hand. Natasha glanced at +her and at the crack in the pantry door, and it seemed to her that she +remembered the light falling through that crack once before and Sonya +passing with a glass in her hand. "Yes it was exactly the same," thought +Natasha. + +"Sonya, what is this?" she cried, twanging a thick string. + +"Oh, you are there!" said Sonya with a start, and came near and +listened. "I don't know. A storm?" she ventured timidly, afraid of being +wrong. + +"There! That's just how she started and just how she came up smiling +timidly when all this happened before," thought Natasha, "and in just +the same way I thought there was something lacking in her." + +"No, it's the chorus from The Water-Carrier, listen!" and Natasha sang +the air of the chorus so that Sonya should catch it. "Where were you +going?" she asked. + +"To change the water in this glass. I am just finishing the design." + +"You always find something to do, but I can't," said Natasha. "And +where's Nicholas?" + +"Asleep, I think." + +"Sonya, go and wake him," said Natasha. "Tell him I want him to come and +sing." + +She sat awhile, wondering what the meaning of it all having happened +before could be, and without solving this problem, or at all regretting +not having done so, she again passed in fancy to the time when she was +with him and he was looking at her with a lover's eyes. + +"Oh, if only he would come quicker! I am so afraid it will never be! +And, worst of all, I am growing old--that's the thing! There won't then +be in me what there is now. But perhaps he'll come today, will come +immediately. Perhaps he has come and is sitting in the drawing room. +Perhaps he came yesterday and I have forgotten it." She rose, put down +the guitar, and went to the drawing room. + +All the domestic circle, tutors, governesses, and guests, were already +at the tea table. The servants stood round the table--but Prince Andrew +was not there and life was going on as before. + +"Ah, here she is!" said the old count, when he saw Natasha enter. "Well, +sit down by me." But Natasha stayed by her mother and glanced round as +if looking for something. + +"Mamma!" she muttered, "give him to me, give him, Mamma, quickly, +quickly!" and she again had difficulty in repressing her sobs. + +She sat down at the table and listened to the conversation between the +elders and Nicholas, who had also come to the table. "My God, my God! +The same faces, the same talk, Papa holding his cup and blowing in the +same way!" thought Natasha, feeling with horror a sense of repulsion +rising up in her for the whole household, because they were always the +same. + +After tea, Nicholas, Sonya, and Natasha went to the sitting room, to +their favorite corner where their most intimate talks always began. + + + + +CHAPTER X + +"Does it ever happen to you," said Natasha to her brother, when they +settled down in the sitting room, "does it ever happen to you to feel as +if there were nothing more to come--nothing; that everything good is +past? And to feel not exactly dull, but sad?" + +"I should think so!" he replied. "I have felt like that when everything +was all right and everyone was cheerful. The thought has come into my +mind that I was already tired of it all, and that we must all die. Once +in the regiment I had not gone to some merrymaking where there was +music... and suddenly I felt so depressed..." + +"Oh yes, I know, I know, I know!" Natasha interrupted him. "When I was +quite little that used to be so with me. Do you remember when I was +punished once about some plums? You were all dancing, and I sat sobbing +in the schoolroom? I shall never forget it: I felt sad and sorry for +everyone, for myself, and for everyone. And I was innocent--that was the +chief thing," said Natasha. "Do you remember?" + +"I remember," answered Nicholas. "I remember that I came to you +afterwards and wanted to comfort you, but do you know, I felt ashamed +to. We were terribly absurd. I had a funny doll then and wanted to give +it to you. Do you remember?" + +"And do you remember," Natasha asked with a pensive smile, "how once, +long, long ago, when we were quite little, Uncle called us into the +study--that was in the old house--and it was dark--we went in and +suddenly there stood..." + +"A Negro," chimed in Nicholas with a smile of delight. "Of course I +remember. Even now I don't know whether there really was a Negro, or if +we only dreamed it or were told about him." + +"He was gray, you remember, and had white teeth, and stood and looked at +us..." + +"Sonya, do you remember?" asked Nicholas. + +"Yes, yes, I do remember something too," Sonya answered timidly. + +"You know I have asked Papa and Mamma about that Negro," said Natasha, +"and they say there was no Negro at all. But you see, you remember!" + +"Of course I do, I remember his teeth as if I had just seen them." + +"How strange it is! It's as if it were a dream! I like that." + +"And do you remember how we rolled hard-boiled eggs in the ballroom, and +suddenly two old women began spinning round on the carpet? Was that real +or not? Do you remember what fun it was?" + +"Yes, and you remember how Papa in his blue overcoat fired a gun in the +porch?" + +So they went through their memories, smiling with pleasure: not the sad +memories of old age, but poetic, youthful ones--those impressions of +one's most distant past in which dreams and realities blend--and they +laughed with quiet enjoyment. + +Sonya, as always, did not quite keep pace with them, though they shared +the same reminiscences. + +Much that they remembered had slipped from her mind, and what she +recalled did not arouse the same poetic feeling as they experienced. She +simply enjoyed their pleasure and tried to fit in with it. + +She only really took part when they recalled Sonya's first arrival. She +told them how afraid she had been of Nicholas because he had on a corded +jacket and her nurse had told her that she, too, would be sewn up with +cords. + +"And I remember their telling me that you had been born under a +cabbage," said Natasha, "and I remember that I dared not disbelieve it +then, but knew that it was not true, and I felt so uncomfortable." + +While they were talking a maid thrust her head in at the other door of +the sitting room. + +"They have brought the cock, Miss," she said in a whisper. + +"It isn't wanted, Petya. Tell them to take it away," replied Natasha. + +In the middle of their talk in the sitting room, Dimmler came in and +went up to the harp that stood there in a corner. He took off its cloth +covering, and the harp gave out a jarring sound. + +"Mr. Dimmler, please play my favorite nocturne by Field," came the old +countess' voice from the drawing room. + +Dimmler struck a chord and, turning to Natasha, Nicholas, and Sonya, +remarked: "How quiet you young people are!" + +"Yes, we're philosophizing," said Natasha, glancing round for a moment +and then continuing the conversation. They were now discussing dreams. + +Dimmler began to play; Natasha went on tiptoe noiselessly to the table, +took up a candle, carried it out, and returned, seating herself quietly +in her former place. It was dark in the room especially where they were +sitting on the sofa, but through the big windows the silvery light of +the full moon fell on the floor. Dimmler had finished the piece but +still sat softly running his fingers over the strings, evidently +uncertain whether to stop or to play something else. + +"Do you know," said Natasha in a whisper, moving closer to Nicholas and +Sonya, "that when one goes on and on recalling memories, one at last +begins to remember what happened before one was in the world..." + +"That is metempsychosis," said Sonya, who had always learned well, and +remembered everything. "The Egyptians believed that our souls have lived +in animals, and will go back into animals again." + +"No, I don't believe we ever were in animals," said Natasha, still in a +whisper though the music had ceased. "But I am certain that we were +angels somewhere there, and have been here, and that is why we +remember...." + +"May I join you?" said Dimmler who had come up quietly, and he sat down +by them. + +"If we have been angels, why have we fallen lower?" said Nicholas. "No, +that can't be!" + +"Not lower, who said we were lower?... How do I know what I was before?" +Natasha rejoined with conviction. "The soul is immortal--well then, if I +shall always live I must have lived before, lived for a whole eternity." + +"Yes, but it is hard for us to imagine eternity," remarked Dimmler, who +had joined the young folk with a mildly condescending smile but now +spoke as quietly and seriously as they. + +"Why is it hard to imagine eternity?" said Natasha. "It is now today, +and it will be tomorrow, and always; and there was yesterday, and the +day before..." + +"Natasha! Now it's your turn. Sing me something," they heard the +countess say. "Why are you sitting there like conspirators?" + +"Mamma, I don't at all want to," replied Natasha, but all the same she +rose. + +None of them, not even the middle-aged Dimmler, wanted to break off +their conversation and quit that corner in the sitting room, but Natasha +got up and Nicholas sat down at the clavichord. Standing as usual in the +middle of the hall and choosing the place where the resonance was best, +Natasha began to sing her mother's favorite song. + +She had said she did not want to sing, but it was long since she had +sung, and long before she again sang, as she did that evening. The +count, from his study where he was talking to Mitenka, heard her and, +like a schoolboy in a hurry to run out to play, blundered in his talk +while giving orders to the steward, and at last stopped, while Mitenka +stood in front of him also listening and smiling. Nicholas did not take +his eyes off his sister and drew breath in time with her. Sonya, as she +listened, thought of the immense difference there was between herself +and her friend, and how impossible it was for her to be anything like as +bewitching as her cousin. The old countess sat with a blissful yet sad +smile and with tears in her eyes, occasionally shaking her head. She +thought of Natasha and of her own youth, and of how there was something +unnatural and dreadful in this impending marriage of Natasha and Prince +Andrew. + +Dimmler, who had seated himself beside the countess, listened with +closed eyes. + +"Ah, Countess," he said at last, "that's a European talent, she has +nothing to learn--what softness, tenderness, and strength...." + +"Ah, how afraid I am for her, how afraid I am!" said the countess, not +realizing to whom she was speaking. Her maternal instinct told her that +Natasha had too much of something, and that because of this she would +not be happy. Before Natasha had finished singing, fourteen-year-old +Petya rushed in delightedly, to say that some mummers had arrived. + +Natasha stopped abruptly. + +"Idiot!" she screamed at her brother and, running to a chair, threw +herself on it, sobbing so violently that she could not stop for a long +time. + +"It's nothing, Mamma, really it's nothing; only Petya startled me," she +said, trying to smile, but her tears still flowed and sobs still choked +her. + +The mummers (some of the house serfs) dressed up as bears, Turks, +innkeepers, and ladies--frightening and funny--bringing in with them the +cold from outside and a feeling of gaiety, crowded, at first timidly, +into the anteroom, then hiding behind one another they pushed into the +ballroom where, shyly at first and then more and more merrily and +heartily, they started singing, dancing, and playing Christmas games. +The countess, when she had identified them and laughed at their +costumes, went into the drawing room. The count sat in the ballroom, +smiling radiantly and applauding the players. The young people had +disappeared. + +Half an hour later there appeared among the other mummers in the +ballroom an old lady in a hooped skirt--this was Nicholas. A Turkish +girl was Petya. A clown was Dimmler. An hussar was Natasha, and a +Circassian was Sonya with burnt-cork mustache and eyebrows. + +After the condescending surprise, nonrecognition, and praise, from those +who were not themselves dressed up, the young people decided that their +costumes were so good that they ought to be shown elsewhere. + +Nicholas, who, as the roads were in splendid condition, wanted to take +them all for a drive in his troyka, proposed to take with them about a +dozen of the serf mummers and drive to "Uncle's." + +"No, why disturb the old fellow?" said the countess. "Besides, you +wouldn't have room to turn round there. If you must go, go to the +Melyukovs'." + +Melyukova was a widow, who, with her family and their tutors and +governesses, lived three miles from the Rostovs. + +"That's right, my dear," chimed in the old count, thoroughly aroused. +"I'll dress up at once and go with them. I'll make Pashette open her +eyes." + +But the countess would not agree to his going; he had had a bad leg all +these last days. It was decided that the count must not go, but that if +Louisa Ivanovna (Madame Schoss) would go with them, the young ladies +might go to the Melyukovs', Sonya, generally so timid and shy, more +urgently than anyone begging Louisa Ivanovna not to refuse. + +Sonya's costume was the best of all. Her mustache and eyebrows were +extraordinarily becoming. Everyone told her she looked very handsome, +and she was in a spirited and energetic mood unusual with her. Some +inner voice told her that now or never her fate would be decided, and in +her male attire she seemed quite a different person. Louisa Ivanovna +consented to go, and in half an hour four troyka sleighs with large and +small bells, their runners squeaking and whistling over the frozen snow, +drove up to the porch. + +Natasha was foremost in setting a merry holiday tone, which, passing +from one to another, grew stronger and reached its climax when they all +came out into the frost and got into the sleighs, talking, calling to +one another, laughing, and shouting. + +Two of the troykas were the usual household sleighs, the third was the +old count's with a trotter from the Orlov stud as shaft horse, the +fourth was Nicholas' own with a short shaggy black shaft horse. +Nicholas, in his old lady's dress over which he had belted his hussar +overcoat, stood in the middle of the sleigh, reins in hand. + +It was so light that he could see the moonlight reflected from the metal +harness disks and from the eyes of the horses, who looked round in alarm +at the noisy party under the shadow of the porch roof. + +Natasha, Sonya, Madame Schoss, and two maids got into Nicholas' sleigh; +Dimmler, his wife, and Petya, into the old count's, and the rest of the +mummers seated themselves in the other two sleighs. + +"You go ahead, Zakhar!" shouted Nicholas to his father's coachman, +wishing for a chance to race past him. + +The old count's troyka, with Dimmler and his party, started forward, +squeaking on its runners as though freezing to the snow, its deep-toned +bell clanging. The side horses, pressing against the shafts of the +middle horse, sank in the snow, which was dry and glittered like sugar, +and threw it up. + +Nicholas set off, following the first sleigh; behind him the others +moved noisily, their runners squeaking. At first they drove at a steady +trot along the narrow road. While they drove past the garden the shadows +of the bare trees often fell across the road and hid the brilliant +moonlight, but as soon as they were past the fence, the snowy plain +bathed in moonlight and motionless spread out before them glittering +like diamonds and dappled with bluish shadows. Bang, bang! went the +first sleigh over a cradle hole in the snow of the road, and each of the +other sleighs jolted in the same way, and rudely breaking the frost- +bound stillness, the troykas began to speed along the road, one after +the other. + +"A hare's track, a lot of tracks!" rang out Natasha's voice through the +frost-bound air. + +"How light it is, Nicholas!" came Sonya's voice. + +Nicholas glanced round at Sonya, and bent down to see her face closer. +Quite a new, sweet face with black eyebrows and mustaches peeped up at +him from her sable furs--so close and yet so distant--in the moonlight. + +"That used to be Sonya," thought he, and looked at her closer and +smiled. + +"What is it, Nicholas?" + +"Nothing," said he and turned again to the horses. + +When they came out onto the beaten highroad--polished by sleigh runners +and cut up by rough-shod hoofs, the marks of which were visible in the +moonlight--the horses began to tug at the reins of their own accord and +increased their pace. The near side horse, arching his head and breaking +into a short canter, tugged at his traces. The shaft horse swayed from +side to side, moving his ears as if asking: "Isn't it time to begin +now?" In front, already far ahead the deep bell of the sleigh ringing +farther and farther off, the black horses driven by Zakhar could be +clearly seen against the white snow. From that sleigh one could hear the +shouts, laughter, and voices of the mummers. + +"Gee up, my darlings!" shouted Nicholas, pulling the reins to one side +and flourishing the whip. + +It was only by the keener wind that met them and the jerks given by the +side horses who pulled harder--ever increasing their gallop--that one +noticed how fast the troyka was flying. Nicholas looked back. With +screams squeals, and waving of whips that caused even the shaft horses +to gallop--the other sleighs followed. The shaft horse swung steadily +beneath the bow over its head, with no thought of slackening pace and +ready to put on speed when required. + +Nicholas overtook the first sleigh. They were driving downhill and +coming out upon a broad trodden track across a meadow, near a river. + +"Where are we?" thought he. "It's the Kosoy meadow, I suppose. But no-- +this is something new I've never seen before. This isn't the Kosoy +meadow nor the Demkin hill, and heaven only knows what it is! It is +something new and enchanted. Well, whatever it may be..." And shouting +to his horses, he began to pass the first sleigh. + +Zakhar held back his horses and turned his face, which was already +covered with hoarfrost to his eyebrows. + +Nicholas gave the horses the rein, and Zakhar, stretching out his arms, +clucked his tongue and let his horses go. + +"Now, look out, master!" he cried. + +Faster still the two troykas flew side by side, and faster moved the +feet of the galloping side horses. Nicholas began to draw ahead. Zakhar, +while still keeping his arms extended, raised one hand with the reins. + +"No you won't, master!" he shouted. + +Nicholas put all his horses to a gallop and passed Zakhar. The horses +showered the fine dry snow on the faces of those in the sleigh--beside +them sounded quick ringing bells and they caught confused glimpses of +swiftly moving legs and the shadows of the troyka they were passing. The +whistling sound of the runners on the snow and the voices of girls +shrieking were heard from different sides. + +Again checking his horses, Nicholas looked around him. They were still +surrounded by the magic plain bathed in moonlight and spangled with +stars. + +"Zakhar is shouting that I should turn to the left, but why to the +left?" thought Nicholas. "Are we getting to the Melyukovs'? Is this +Melyukovka? Heaven only knows where we are going, and heaven knows what +is happening to us--but it is very strange and pleasant whatever it is." +And he looked round in the sleigh. + +"Look, his mustache and eyelashes are all white!" said one of the +strange, pretty, unfamiliar people--the one with fine eyebrows and +mustache. + +"I think this used to be Natasha," thought Nicholas, "and that was +Madame Schoss, but perhaps it's not, and this Circassian with the +mustache I don't know, but I love her." + +"Aren't you cold?" he asked. + +They did not answer but began to laugh. Dimmler from the sleigh behind +shouted something--probably something funny--but they could not make out +what he said. + +"Yes, yes!" some voices answered, laughing. + +"But here was a fairy forest with black moving shadows, and a glitter of +diamonds and a flight of marble steps and the silver roofs of fairy +buildings and the shrill yells of some animals. And if this is really +Melyukovka, it is still stranger that we drove heaven knows where and +have come to Melyukovka," thought Nicholas. + +It really was Melyukovka, and maids and footmen with merry faces came +running, out to the porch carrying candles. + +"Who is it?" asked someone in the porch. + +"The mummers from the count's. I know by the horses," replied some +voices. + + + + +CHAPTER XI + +Pelageya Danilovna Melyukova, a broadly built, energetic woman wearing +spectacles, sat in the drawing room in a loose dress, surrounded by her +daughters whom she was trying to keep from feeling dull. They were +quietly dropping melted wax into snow and looking at the shadows the wax +figures would throw on the wall, when they heard the steps and voices of +new arrivals in the vestibule. + +Hussars, ladies, witches, clowns, and bears, after clearing their +throats and wiping the hoarfrost from their faces in the vestibule, came +into the ballroom where candles were hurriedly lighted. The clown-- +Dimmler--and the lady--Nicholas--started a dance. Surrounded by the +screaming children the mummers, covering their faces and disguising +their voices, bowed to their hostess and arranged themselves about the +room. + +"Dear me! there's no recognizing them! And Natasha! See whom she looks +like! She really reminds me of somebody. But Herr Dimmler--isn't he +good! I didn't know him! And how he dances. Dear me, there's a +Circassian. Really, how becoming it is to dear Sonya. And who is that? +Well, you have cheered us up! Nikita and Vanya--clear away the tables! +And we were sitting so quietly. Ha, ha, ha!... The hussar, the hussar! +Just like a boy! And the legs!... I can't look at him..." different +voices were saying. + +Natasha, the young Melyukovs' favorite, disappeared with them into the +back rooms where a cork and various dressing gowns and male garments +were called for and received from the footman by bare girlish arms from +behind the door. Ten minutes later, all the young Melyukovs joined the +mummers. + +Pelageya Danilovna, having given orders to clear the rooms for the +visitors and arranged about refreshments for the gentry and the serfs, +went about among the mummers without removing her spectacles, peering +into their faces with a suppressed smile and failing to recognize any of +them. It was not merely Dimmler and the Rostovs she failed to recognize, +she did not even recognize her own daughters, or her late husband's, +dressing gowns and uniforms, which they had put on. + +"And who is this?" she asked her governess, peering into the face of her +own daughter dressed up as a Kazan-Tartar. "I suppose it is one of the +Rostovs! Well, Mr. Hussar, and what regiment do you serve in?" she asked +Natasha. "Here, hand some fruit jelly to the Turk!" she ordered the +butler who was handing things round. "That's not forbidden by his law." + +Sometimes, as she looked at the strange but amusing capers cut by the +dancers, who--having decided once for all that being disguised, no one +would recognize them--were not at all shy, Pelageya Danilovna hid her +face in her handkerchief, and her whole stout body shook with +irrepressible, kindly, elderly laughter. + +"My little Sasha! Look at Sasha!" she said. + +After Russian country dances and chorus dances, Pelageya Danilovna made +the serfs and gentry join in one large circle: a ring, a string, and a +silver ruble were fetched and they all played games together. + +In an hour, all the costumes were crumpled and disordered. The corked +eyebrows and mustaches were smeared over the perspiring, flushed, and +merry faces. Pelageya Danilovna began to recognize the mummers, admired +their cleverly contrived costumes, and particularly how they suited the +young ladies, and she thanked them all for having entertained her so +well. The visitors were invited to supper in the drawing room, and the +serfs had something served to them in the ballroom. + +"Now to tell one's fortune in the empty bathhouse is frightening!" said +an old maid who lived with the Melyukovs, during supper. + +"Why?" said the eldest Melyukov girl. + +"You wouldn't go, it takes courage..." + +"I'll go," said Sonya. + +"Tell what happened to the young lady!" said the second Melyukov girl. + +"Well," began the old maid, "a young lady once went out, took a cock, +laid the table for two, all properly, and sat down. After sitting a +while, she suddenly hears someone coming... a sleigh drives up with +harness bells; she hears him coming! He comes in, just in the shape of a +man, like an officer--comes in and sits down to table with her." + +"Ah! ah!" screamed Natasha, rolling her eyes with horror. + +"Yes? And how... did he speak?" + +"Yes, like a man. Everything quite all right, and he began persuading +her; and she should have kept him talking till cockcrow, but she got +frightened, just got frightened and hid her face in her hands. Then he +caught her up. It was lucky the maids ran in just then..." + +"Now, why frighten them?" said Pelageya Danilovna. + +"Mamma, you used to try your fate yourself..." said her daughter. + +"And how does one do it in a barn?" inquired Sonya. + +"Well, say you went to the barn now, and listened. It depends on what +you hear; hammering and knocking--that's bad; but a sound of shifting +grain is good and one sometimes hears that, too." + +"Mamma, tell us what happened to you in the barn." + +Pelageya Danilovna smiled. + +"Oh, I've forgotten..." she replied. "But none of you would go?" + +"Yes, I will; Pelageya Danilovna, let me! I'll go," said Sonya. + +"Well, why not, if you're not afraid?" + +"Louisa Ivanovna, may I?" asked Sonya. + +Whether they were playing the ring and string game or the ruble game or +talking as now, Nicholas did not leave Sonya's side, and gazed at her +with quite new eyes. It seemed to him that it was only today, thanks to +that burnt-cork mustache, that he had fully learned to know her. And +really, that evening, Sonya was brighter, more animated, and prettier +than Nicholas had ever seen her before. + +"So that's what she is like; what a fool I have been!" he thought gazing +at her sparkling eyes, and under the mustache a happy rapturous smile +dimpled her cheeks, a smile he had never seen before. + +"I'm not afraid of anything," said Sonya. "May I go at once?" She got +up. + +They told her where the barn was and how she should stand and listen, +and they handed her a fur cloak. She threw this over her head and +shoulders and glanced at Nicholas. + +"What a darling that girl is!" thought he. "And what have I been +thinking of till now?" + +Sonya went out into the passage to go to the barn. Nicholas went hastily +to the front porch, saying he felt too hot. The crowd of people really +had made the house stuffy. + +Outside, there was the same cold stillness and the same moon, but even +brighter than before. The light was so strong and the snow sparkled with +so many stars that one did not wish to look up at the sky and the real +stars were unnoticed. The sky was black and dreary, while the earth was +gay. + +"I am a fool, a fool! what have I been waiting for?" thought Nicholas, +and running out from the porch he went round the corner of the house and +along the path that led to the back porch. He knew Sonya would pass that +way. Halfway lay some snow-covered piles of firewood and across and +along them a network of shadows from the bare old lime trees fell on the +snow and on the path. This path led to the barn. The log walls of the +barn and its snow-covered roof, that looked as if hewn out of some +precious stone, sparkled in the moonlight. A tree in the garden snapped +with the frost, and then all was again perfectly silent. His bosom +seemed to inhale not air but the strength of eternal youth and gladness. + +From the back porch came the sound of feet descending the steps, the +bottom step upon which snow had fallen gave a ringing creak and he heard +the voice of an old maidservant saying, "Straight, straight, along the +path, Miss. Only, don't look back." + +"I am not afraid," answered Sonya's voice, and along the path toward +Nicholas came the crunching, whistling sound of Sonya's feet in her thin +shoes. + +Sonya came along, wrapped in her cloak. She was only a couple of paces +away when she saw him, and to her too he was not the Nicholas she had +known and always slightly feared. He was in a woman's dress, with +tousled hair and a happy smile new to Sonya. She ran rapidly toward him. + +"Quite different and yet the same," thought Nicholas, looking at her +face all lit up by the moonlight. He slipped his arms under the cloak +that covered her head, embraced her, pressed her to him, and kissed her +on the lips that wore a mustache and had a smell of burnt cork. Sonya +kissed him full on the lips, and disengaging her little hands pressed +them to his cheeks. + +"Sonya!... Nicholas!"... was all they said. They ran to the barn and +then back again, re-entering, he by the front and she by the back porch. + + + + +CHAPTER XII + +When they all drove back from Pelageya Danilovna's, Natasha, who always +saw and noticed everything, arranged that she and Madame Schoss should +go back in the sleigh with Dimmler, and Sonya with Nicholas and the +maids. + +On the way back Nicholas drove at a steady pace instead of racing and +kept peering by that fantastic all-transforming light into Sonya's face +and searching beneath the eyebrows and mustache for his former and his +present Sonya from whom he had resolved never to be parted again. He +looked and recognizing in her both the old and the new Sonya, and being +reminded by the smell of burnt cork of the sensation of her kiss, +inhaled the frosty air with a full breast and, looking at the ground +flying beneath him and at the sparkling sky, felt himself again in +fairyland. + +"Sonya, is it well with thee?" he asked from time to time. + +"Yes!" she replied. "And with thee?" + +When halfway home Nicholas handed the reins to the coachman and ran for +a moment to Natasha's sleigh and stood on its wing. + +"Natasha!" he whispered in French, "do you know I have made up my mind +about Sonya?" + +"Have you told her?" asked Natasha, suddenly beaming all over with joy. + +"Oh, how strange you are with that mustache and those eyebrows!... +Natasha--are you glad?" + +"I am so glad, so glad! I was beginning to be vexed with you. I did not +tell you, but you have been treating her badly. What a heart she has, +Nicholas! I am horrid sometimes, but I was ashamed to be happy while +Sonya was not," continued Natasha. "Now I am so glad! Well, run back to +her." + +"No, wait a bit.... Oh, how funny you look!" cried Nicholas, peering +into her face and finding in his sister too something new, unusual, and +bewitchingly tender that he had not seen in her before. "Natasha, it's +magical, isn't it?" + +"Yes," she replied. "You have done splendidly." + +"Had I seen her before as she is now," thought Nicholas, "I should long +ago have asked her what to do and have done whatever she told me, and +all would have been well." + +"So you are glad and I have done right?" + +"Oh, quite right! I had a quarrel with Mamma some time ago about it. +Mamma said she was angling for you. How could she say such a thing! I +nearly stormed at Mamma. I will never let anyone say anything bad of +Sonya, for there is nothing but good in her." + +"Then it's all right?" said Nicholas, again scrutinizing the expression +of his sister's face to see if she was in earnest. Then he jumped down +and, his boots scrunching the snow, ran back to his sleigh. The same +happy, smiling Circassian, with mustache and beaming eyes looking up +from under a sable hood, was still sitting there, and that Circassian +was Sonya, and that Sonya was certainly his future happy and loving +wife. + +When they reached home and had told their mother how they had spent the +evening at the Melyukovs', the girls went to their bedroom. When they +had undressed, but without washing off the cork mustaches, they sat a +long time talking of their happiness. They talked of how they would live +when they were married, how their husbands would be friends, and how +happy they would be. On Natasha's table stood two looking glasses which +Dunyasha had prepared beforehand. + +"Only when will all that be? I am afraid never.... It would be too +good!" said Natasha, rising and going to the looking glasses. + +"Sit down, Natasha; perhaps you'll see him," said Sonya. + +Natasha lit the candles, one on each side of one of the looking glasses, +and sat down. + +"I see someone with a mustache," said Natasha, seeing her own face. + +"You mustn't laugh, Miss," said Dunyasha. + +With Sonya's help and the maid's, Natasha got the glass she held into +the right position opposite the other; her face assumed a serious +expression and she sat silent. She sat a long time looking at the +receding line of candles reflected in the glasses and expecting (from +tales she had heard) to see a coffin, or him, Prince Andrew, in that +last dim, indistinctly outlined square. But ready as she was to take the +smallest speck for the image of a man or of a coffin, she saw nothing. +She began blinking rapidly and moved away from the looking glasses. + +"Why is it others see things and I don't?" she said. "You sit down now, +Sonya. You absolutely must, tonight! Do it for me.... Today I feel so +frightened!" + +Sonya sat down before the glasses, got the right position, and began +looking. + +"Now, Miss Sonya is sure to see something," whispered Dunyasha; "while +you do nothing but laugh." + +Sonya heard this and Natasha's whisper: + +"I know she will. She saw something last year." + +For about three minutes all were silent. + +"Of course she will!" whispered Natasha, but did not finish... suddenly +Sonya pushed away the glass she was holding and covered her eyes with +her hand. + +"Oh, Natasha!" she cried. + +"Did you see? Did you? What was it?" exclaimed Natasha, holding up the +looking glass. + +Sonya had not seen anything, she was just wanting to blink and to get up +when she heard Natasha say, "Of course she will!" She did not wish to +disappoint either Dunyasha or Natasha, but it was hard to sit still. She +did not herself know how or why the exclamation escaped her when she +covered her eyes. + +"You saw him?" urged Natasha, seizing her hand. + +"Yes. Wait a bit... I... saw him," Sonya could not help saying, not yet +knowing whom Natasha meant by him, Nicholas or Prince Andrew. + +"But why shouldn't I say I saw something? Others do see! Besides who can +tell whether I saw anything or not?" flashed through Sonya's mind. + +"Yes, I saw him," she said. + +"How? Standing or lying?" + +"No, I saw... At first there was nothing, then I saw him lying down." + +"Andrew lying? Is he ill?" asked Natasha, her frightened eyes fixed on +her friend. + +"No, on the contrary, on the contrary! His face was cheerful, and he +turned to me." And when saying this she herself fancied she had really +seen what she described. + +"Well, and then, Sonya?..." + +"After that, I could not make out what there was; something blue and +red..." + +"Sonya! When will he come back? When shall I see him! O, God, how afraid +I am for him and for myself and about everything!..." Natasha began, and +without replying to Sonya's words of comfort she got into bed, and long +after her candle was out lay open-eyed and motionless, gazing at the +moonlight through the frosty windowpanes. + + + + +CHAPTER XIII + +Soon after the Christmas holidays Nicholas told his mother of his love +for Sonya and of his firm resolve to marry her. The countess, who had +long noticed what was going on between them and was expecting this +declaration, listened to him in silence and then told her son that he +might marry whom he pleased, but that neither she nor his father would +give their blessing to such a marriage. Nicholas, for the first time, +felt that his mother was displeased with him and that, despite her love +for him, she would not give way. Coldly, without looking at her son, she +sent for her husband and, when he came, tried briefly and coldly to +inform him of the facts, in her son's presence, but unable to restrain +herself she burst into tears of vexation and left the room. The old +count began irresolutely to admonish Nicholas and beg him to abandon his +purpose. Nicholas replied that he could not go back on his word, and his +father, sighing and evidently disconcerted, very soon became silent and +went in to the countess. In all his encounters with his son, the count +was always conscious of his own guilt toward him for having wasted the +family fortune, and so he could not be angry with him for refusing to +marry an heiress and choosing the dowerless Sonya. On this occasion, he +was only more vividly conscious of the fact that if his affairs had not +been in disorder, no better wife for Nicholas than Sonya could have been +wished for, and that no one but himself with his Mitenka and his +uncomfortable habits was to blame for the condition of the family +finances. + +The father and mother did not speak of the matter to their son again, +but a few days later the countess sent for Sonya and, with a cruelty +neither of them expected, reproached her niece for trying to catch +Nicholas and for ingratitude. Sonya listened silently with downcast eyes +to the countess' cruel words, without understanding what was required of +her. She was ready to sacrifice everything for her benefactors. Self- +sacrifice was her most cherished idea but in this case she could not see +what she ought to sacrifice, or for whom. She could not help loving the +countess and the whole Rostov family, but neither could she help loving +Nicholas and knowing that his happiness depended on that love. She was +silent and sad and did not reply. Nicholas felt the situation to be +intolerable and went to have an explanation with his mother. He first +implored her to forgive him and Sonya and consent to their marriage, +then he threatened that if she molested Sonya he would at once marry her +secretly. + +The countess, with a coldness her son had never seen in her before, +replied that he was of age, that Prince Andrew was marrying without his +father's consent, and he could do the same, but that she would never +receive that intriguer as her daughter. + +Exploding at the word intriguer, Nicholas, raising his voice, told his +mother he had never expected her to try to force him to sell his +feelings, but if that were so, he would say for the last time.... But he +had no time to utter the decisive word which the expression of his face +caused his mother to await with terror, and which would perhaps have +forever remained a cruel memory to them both. He had not time to say it, +for Natasha, with a pale and set face, entered the room from the door at +which she had been listening. + +"Nicholas, you are talking nonsense! Be quiet, be quiet, be quiet, I +tell you!..." she almost screamed, so as to drown his voice. + +"Mamma darling, it's not at all so... my poor, sweet darling," she said +to her mother, who conscious that they had been on the brink of a +rupture gazed at her son with terror, but in the obstinacy and +excitement of the conflict could not and would not give way. + +"Nicholas, I'll explain to you. Go away! Listen, Mamma darling," said +Natasha. + +Her words were incoherent, but they attained the purpose at which she +was aiming. + +The countess, sobbing heavily, hid her face on her daughter's breast, +while Nicholas rose, clutching his head, and left the room. + +Natasha set to work to effect a reconciliation, and so far succeeded +that Nicholas received a promise from his mother that Sonya should not +be troubled, while he on his side promised not to undertake anything +without his parents' knowledge. + +Firmly resolved, after putting his affairs in order in the regiment, to +retire from the army and return and marry Sonya, Nicholas, serious, +sorrowful, and at variance with his parents, but, as it seemed to him, +passionately in love, left at the beginning of January to rejoin his +regiment. + +After Nicholas had gone things in the Rostov household were more +depressing than ever, and the countess fell ill from mental agitation. + +Sonya was unhappy at the separation from Nicholas and still more so on +account of the hostile tone the countess could not help adopting toward +her. The count was more perturbed than ever by the condition of his +affairs, which called for some decisive action. Their town house and +estate near Moscow had inevitably to be sold, and for this they had to +go to Moscow. But the countess' health obliged them to delay their +departure from day to day. + +Natasha, who had borne the first period of separation from her betrothed +lightly and even cheerfully, now grew more agitated and impatient every +day. The thought that her best days, which she would have employed in +loving him, were being vainly wasted, with no advantage to anyone, +tormented her incessantly. His letters for the most part irritated her. +It hurt her to think that while she lived only in the thought of him, he +was living a real life, seeing new places and new people that interested +him. The more interesting his letters were the more vexed she felt. Her +letters to him, far from giving her any comfort, seemed to her a +wearisome and artificial obligation. She could not write, because she +could not conceive the possibility of expressing sincerely in a letter +even a thousandth part of what she expressed by voice, smile, and +glance. She wrote to him formal, monotonous, and dry letters, to which +she attached no importance herself, and in the rough copies of which the +countess corrected her mistakes in spelling. + +There was still no improvement in the countess' health, but it was +impossible to defer the journey to Moscow any longer. Natasha's +trousseau had to be ordered and the house sold. Moreover, Prince Andrew +was expected in Moscow, where old Prince Bolkonski was spending the +winter, and Natasha felt sure he had already arrived. + +So the countess remained in the country, and the count, taking Sonya and +Natasha with him, went to Moscow at the end of January. + +BOOK EIGHT: 1811 - 12 + + + + +CHAPTER I + +After Prince Andrew's engagement to Natasha, Pierre without any apparent +cause suddenly felt it impossible to go on living as before. Firmly +convinced as he was of the truths revealed to him by his benefactor, and +happy as he had been in perfecting his inner man, to which he had +devoted himself with such ardor--all the zest of such a life vanished +after the engagement of Andrew and Natasha and the death of Joseph +Alexeevich, the news of which reached him almost at the same time. Only +the skeleton of life remained: his house, a brilliant wife who now +enjoyed the favors of a very important personage, acquaintance with all +Petersburg, and his court service with its dull formalities. And this +life suddenly seemed to Pierre unexpectedly loathsome. He ceased keeping +a diary, avoided the company of the Brothers, began going to the club +again, drank a great deal, and came once more in touch with the bachelor +sets, leading such a life that the Countess Helene thought it necessary +to speak severely to him about it. Pierre felt that she was right, and +to avoid compromising her went away to Moscow. + +In Moscow as soon as he entered his huge house in which the faded and +fading princesses still lived, with its enormous retinue; as soon as, +driving through the town, he saw the Iberian shrine with innumerable +tapers burning before the golden covers of the icons, the Kremlin Square +with its snow undisturbed by vehicles, the sleigh drivers and hovels of +the Sivtsev Vrazhok, those old Moscovites who desired nothing, hurried +nowhere, and were ending their days leisurely; when he saw those old +Moscow ladies, the Moscow balls, and the English Club, he felt himself +at home in a quiet haven. In Moscow he felt at peace, at home, warm and +dirty as in an old dressing gown. + +Moscow society, from the old women down to the children, received Pierre +like a long-expected guest whose place was always ready awaiting him. +For Moscow society Pierre was the nicest, kindest, most intellectual, +merriest, and most magnanimous of cranks, a heedless, genial nobleman of +the old Russian type. His purse was always empty because it was open to +everyone. + +Benefit performances, poor pictures, statues, benevolent societies, +gypsy choirs, schools, subscription dinners, sprees, Freemasons, +churches, and books--no one and nothing met with a refusal from him, and +had it not been for two friends who had borrowed large sums from him and +taken him under their protection, he would have given everything away. +There was never a dinner or soiree at the club without him. As soon as +he sank into his place on the sofa after two bottles of Margaux he was +surrounded, and talking, disputing, and joking began. When there were +quarrels, his kindly smile and well-timed jests reconciled the +antagonists. The masonic dinners were dull and dreary when he was not +there. + +When after a bachelor supper he rose with his amiable and kindly smile, +yielding to the entreaties of the festive company to drive off somewhere +with them, shouts of delight and triumph arose among the young men. At +balls he danced if a partner was needed. Young ladies, married and +unmarried, liked him because without making love to any of them, he was +equally amiable to all, especially after supper. "Il est charmant; il +n'a pas de sexe," * they said of him. + + +* "He is charming; he has no sex." + +Pierre was one of those retired gentlemen-in-waiting of whom there were +hundreds good-humoredly ending their days in Moscow. + +How horrified he would have been seven years before, when he first +arrived from abroad, had he been told that there was no need for him to +seek or plan anything, that his rut had long been shaped, eternally +predetermined, and that wriggle as he might, he would be what all in his +position were. He could not have believed it! Had he not at one time +longed with all his heart to establish a republic in Russia; then +himself to be a Napoleon; then to be a philosopher; and then a +strategist and the conqueror of Napoleon? Had he not seen the +possibility of, and passionately desired, the regeneration of the sinful +human race, and his own progress to the highest degree of perfection? +Had he not established schools and hospitals and liberated his serfs? + +But instead of all that--here he was, the wealthy husband of an +unfaithful wife, a retired gentleman-in-waiting, fond of eating and +drinking and, as he unbuttoned his waistcoat, of abusing the government +a bit, a member of the Moscow English Club, and a universal favorite in +Moscow society. For a long time he could not reconcile himself to the +idea that he was one of those same retired Moscow gentlemen-in-waiting +he had so despised seven years before. + +Sometimes he consoled himself with the thought that he was only living +this life temporarily; but then he was shocked by the thought of how +many, like himself, had entered that life and that club temporarily, +with all their teeth and hair, and had only left it when not a single +tooth or hair remained. + +In moments of pride, when he thought of his position it seemed to him +that he was quite different and distinct from those other retired +gentlemen-in-waiting he had formerly despised: they were empty, stupid, +contented fellows, satisfied with their position, "while I am still +discontented and want to do something for mankind. But perhaps all these +comrades of mine struggled just like me and sought something new, a path +in life of their own, and like me were brought by force of +circumstances, society, and race--by that elemental force against which +man is powerless--to the condition I am in," said he to himself in +moments of humility; and after living some time in Moscow he no longer +despised, but began to grow fond of, to respect, and to pity his +comrades in destiny, as he pitied himself. + +Pierre no longer suffered moments of despair, hypochondria, and disgust +with life, but the malady that had formerly found expression in such +acute attacks was driven inwards and never left him for a moment. "What +for? Why? What is going on in the world?" he would ask himself in +perplexity several times a day, involuntarily beginning to reflect anew +on the meaning of the phenomena of life; but knowing by experience that +there were no answers to these questions he made haste to turn away from +them, and took up a book, or hurried off to the club or to Apollon +Nikolaevich's, to exchange the gossip of the town. + +"Helene, who has never cared for anything but her own body and is one of +the stupidest women in the world," thought Pierre, "is regarded by +people as the acme of intelligence and refinement, and they pay homage +to her. Napoleon Bonaparte was despised by all as long as he was great, +but now that he has become a wretched comedian the Emperor Francis wants +to offer him his daughter in an illegal marriage. The Spaniards, through +the Catholic clergy, offer praise to God for their victory over the +French on the fourteenth of June, and the French, also through the +Catholic clergy, offer praise because on that same fourteenth of June +they defeated the Spaniards. My brother Masons swear by the blood that +they are ready to sacrifice everything for their neighbor, but they do +not give a ruble each to the collections for the poor, and they +intrigue, the Astraea Lodge against the Manna Seekers, and fuss about an +authentic Scotch carpet and a charter that nobody needs, and the meaning +of which the very man who wrote it does not understand. We all profess +the Christian law of forgiveness of injuries and love of our neighbors, +the law in honor of which we have built in Moscow forty times forty +churches--but yesterday a deserter was knouted to death and a minister +of that same law of love and forgiveness, a priest, gave the soldier a +cross to kiss before his execution." So thought Pierre, and the whole of +this general deception which everyone accepts, accustomed as he was to +it, astonished him each time as if it were something new. "I understand +the deception and confusion," he thought, "but how am I to tell them all +that I see? I have tried, and have always found that they too in the +depths of their souls understand it as I do, and only try not to see it. +So it appears that it must be so! But I--what is to become of me?" +thought he. He had the unfortunate capacity many men, especially +Russians, have of seeing and believing in the possibility of goodness +and truth, but of seeing the evil and falsehood of life too clearly to +be able to take a serious part in it. Every sphere of work was +connected, in his eyes, with evil and deception. Whatever he tried to +be, whatever he engaged in, the evil and falsehood of it repulsed him +and blocked every path of activity. Yet he had to live and to find +occupation. It was too dreadful to be under the burden of these +insoluble problems, so he abandoned himself to any distraction in order +to forget them. He frequented every kind of society, drank much, bought +pictures, engaged in building, and above all--read. + +He read, and read everything that came to hand. On coming home, while +his valets were still taking off his things, he picked up a book and +began to read. From reading he passed to sleeping, from sleeping to +gossip in drawing rooms of the club, from gossip to carousals and women; +from carousals back to gossip, reading, and wine. Drinking became more +and more a physical and also a moral necessity. Though the doctors +warned him that with his corpulence wine was dangerous for him, he drank +a great deal. He was only quite at ease when having poured several +glasses of wine mechanically into his large mouth he felt a pleasant +warmth in his body, an amiability toward all his fellows, and a +readiness to respond superficially to every idea without probing it +deeply. Only after emptying a bottle or two did he feel dimly that the +terribly tangled skein of life which previously had terrified him was +not as dreadful as he had thought. He was always conscious of some +aspect of that skein, as with a buzzing in his head after dinner or +supper he chatted or listened to conversation or read. But under the +influence of wine he said to himself: "It doesn't matter. I'll get it +unraveled. I have a solution ready, but have no time now--I'll think it +all out later on!" But the later on never came. + +In the morning, on an empty stomach, all the old questions appeared as +insoluble and terrible as ever, and Pierre hastily picked up a book, and +if anyone came to see him he was glad. + +Sometimes he remembered how he had heard that soldiers in war when +entrenched under the enemy's fire, if they have nothing to do, try hard +to find some occupation the more easily to bear the danger. To Pierre +all men seemed like those soldiers, seeking refuge from life: some in +ambition, some in cards, some in framing laws, some in women, some in +toys, some in horses, some in politics, some in sport, some in wine, and +some in governmental affairs. "Nothing is trivial, and nothing is +important, it's all the same--only to save oneself from it as best one +can," thought Pierre. "Only not to see it, that dreadful it!" + + + + +CHAPTER II + +At the beginning of winter Prince Nicholas Bolkonski and his daughter +moved to Moscow. At that time enthusiasm for the Emperor Alexander's +regime had weakened and a patriotic and anti-French tendency prevailed +there, and this, together with his past and his intellect and his +originality, at once made Prince Nicholas Bolkonski an object of +particular respect to the Moscovites and the center of the Moscow +opposition to the government. + +The prince had aged very much that year. He showed marked signs of +senility by a tendency to fall asleep, forgetfulness of quite recent +events, remembrance of remote ones, and the childish vanity with which +he accepted the role of head of the Moscow opposition. In spite of this +the old man inspired in all his visitors alike a feeling of respectful +veneration--especially of an evening when he came in to tea in his old- +fashioned coat and powdered wig and, aroused by anyone, told his abrupt +stories of the past, or uttered yet more abrupt and scathing criticisms +of the present. For them all, that old-fashioned house with its gigantic +mirrors, pre-Revolution furniture, powdered footmen, and the stern +shrewd old man (himself a relic of the past century) with his gentle +daughter and the pretty Frenchwoman who were reverently devoted to him +presented a majestic and agreeable spectacle. But the visitors did not +reflect that besides the couple of hours during which they saw their +host, there were also twenty-two hours in the day during which the +private and intimate life of the house continued. + +Latterly that private life had become very trying for Princess Mary. +There in Moscow she was deprived of her greatest pleasures--talks with +the pilgrims and the solitude which refreshed her at Bald Hills--and she +had none of the advantages and pleasures of city life. She did not go +out into society; everyone knew that her father would not let her go +anywhere without him, and his failing health prevented his going out +himself, so that she was not invited to dinners and evening parties. She +had quite abandoned the hope of getting married. She saw the coldness +and malevolence with which the old prince received and dismissed the +young men, possible suitors, who sometimes appeared at their house. She +had no friends: during this visit to Moscow she had been disappointed in +the two who had been nearest to her. Mademoiselle Bourienne, with whom +she had never been able to be quite frank, had now become unpleasant to +her, and for various reasons Princess Mary avoided her. Julie, with whom +she had corresponded for the last five years, was in Moscow, but proved +to be quite alien to her when they met. Just then Julie, who by the +death of her brothers had become one of the richest heiresses in Moscow, +was in the full whirl of society pleasures. She was surrounded by young +men who, she fancied, had suddenly learned to appreciate her worth. +Julie was at that stage in the life of a society woman when she feels +that her last chance of marrying has come and that her fate must be +decided now or never. On Thursdays Princess Mary remembered with a +mournful smile that she now had no one to write to, since Julie--whose +presence gave her no pleasure was here and they met every week. Like the +old emigre who declined to marry the lady with whom he had spent his +evenings for years, she regretted Julie's presence and having no one to +write to. In Moscow Princess Mary had no one to talk to, no one to whom +to confide her sorrow, and much sorrow fell to her lot just then. The +time for Prince Andrew's return and marriage was approaching, but his +request to her to prepare his father for it had not been carried out; in +fact, it seemed as if matters were quite hopeless, for at every mention +of the young Countess Rostova the old prince (who apart from that was +usually in a bad temper) lost control of himself. Another lately added +sorrow arose from the lessons she gave her six year-old nephew. To her +consternation she detected in herself in relation to little Nicholas +some symptoms of her father's irritability. However often she told +herself that she must not get irritable when teaching her nephew, almost +every time that, pointer in hand, she sat down to show him the French +alphabet, she so longed to pour her own knowledge quickly and easily +into the child--who was already afraid that Auntie might at any moment +get angry--that at his slightest inattention she trembled, became +flustered and heated, raised her voice, and sometimes pulled him by the +arm and put him in the corner. Having put him in the corner she would +herself begin to cry over her cruel, evil nature, and little Nicholas, +following her example, would sob, and without permission would leave his +corner, come to her, pull her wet hands from her face, and comfort her. +But what distressed the princess most of all was her father's +irritability, which was always directed against her and had of late +amounted to cruelty. Had he forced her to prostrate herself to the +ground all night, had he beaten her or made her fetch wood or water, it +would never have entered her mind to think her position hard; but this +loving despot--the more cruel because he loved her and for that reason +tormented himself and her--knew how not merely to hurt and humiliate her +deliberately, but to show her that she was always to blame for +everything. Of late he had exhibited a new trait that tormented Princess +Mary more than anything else; this was his ever-increasing intimacy with +Mademoiselle Bourienne. The idea that at the first moment of receiving +the news of his son's intentions had occurred to him in jest--that if +Andrew got married he himself would marry Bourienne--had evidently +pleased him, and latterly he had persistently, and as it seemed to +Princess Mary merely to offend her, shown special endearments to the +companion and expressed his dissatisfaction with his daughter by +demonstrations of love of Bourienne. + +One day in Moscow in Princess Mary's presence (she thought her father +did it purposely when she was there) the old prince kissed Mademoiselle +Bourienne's hand and, drawing her to him, embraced her affectionately. +Princess Mary flushed and ran out of the room. A few minutes later +Mademoiselle Bourienne came into Princess Mary's room smiling and making +cheerful remarks in her agreeable voice. Princess Mary hastily wiped +away her tears, went resolutely up to Mademoiselle Bourienne, and +evidently unconscious of what she was doing began shouting in angry +haste at the Frenchwoman, her voice breaking: "It's horrible, vile, +inhuman, to take advantage of the weakness..." She did not finish. +"Leave my room," she exclaimed, and burst into sobs. + +Next day the prince did not say a word to his daughter, but she noticed +that at dinner he gave orders that Mademoiselle Bourienne should be +served first. After dinner, when the footman handed coffee and from +habit began with the princess, the prince suddenly grew furious, threw +his stick at Philip, and instantly gave instructions to have him +conscripted for the army. + +"He doesn't obey... I said it twice... and he doesn't obey! She is the +first person in this house; she's my best friend," cried the prince. +"And if you allow yourself," he screamed in a fury, addressing Princess +Mary for the first time, "to forget yourself again before her as you +dared to do yesterday, I will show you who is master in this house. Go! +Don't let me set eyes on you; beg her pardon!" + +Princess Mary asked Mademoiselle Bourienne's pardon, and also her +father's pardon for herself and for Philip the footman, who had begged +for her intervention. + +At such moments something like a pride of sacrifice gathered in her +soul. And suddenly that father whom she had judged would look for his +spectacles in her presence, fumbling near them and not seeing them, or +would forget something that had just occurred, or take a false step with +his failing legs and turn to see if anyone had noticed his feebleness, +or, worst of all, at dinner when there were no visitors to excite him +would suddenly fall asleep, letting his napkin drop and his shaking head +sink over his plate. "He is old and feeble, and I dare to condemn him!" +she thought at such moments, with a feeling of revulsion against +herself. + + + + +CHAPTER III + +In 1811 there was living in Moscow a French doctor--Metivier--who had +rapidly become the fashion. He was enormously tall, handsome, amiable as +Frenchmen are, and was, as all Moscow said, an extraordinarily clever +doctor. He was received in the best houses not merely as a doctor, but +as an equal. + +Prince Nicholas had always ridiculed medicine, but latterly on +Mademoiselle Bourienne's advice had allowed this doctor to visit him and +had grown accustomed to him. Metivier came to see the prince about twice +a week. + +On December 6--St. Nicholas' Day and the prince's name day--all Moscow +came to the prince's front door but he gave orders to admit no one and +to invite to dinner only a small number, a list of whom he gave to +Princess Mary. + +Metivier, who came in the morning with his felicitations, considered it +proper in his quality of doctor de forcer la consigne, * as he told +Princess Mary, and went in to see the prince. It happened that on that +morning of his name day the prince was in one of his worst moods. He had +been going about the house all the morning finding fault with everyone +and pretending not to understand what was said to him and not to be +understood himself. Princess Mary well knew this mood of quiet absorbed +querulousness, which generally culminated in a burst of rage, and she +went about all that morning as though facing a cocked and loaded gun and +awaited the inevitable explosion. Until the doctor's arrival the morning +had passed off safely. After admitting the doctor, Princess Mary sat +down with a book in the drawing room near the door through which she +could hear all that passed in the study. + + +* To force the guard. + +At first she heard only Metivier's voice, then her father's, then both +voices began speaking at the same time, the door was flung open, and on +the threshold appeared the handsome figure of the terrified Metivier +with his shock of black hair, and the prince in his dressing gown and +fez, his face distorted with fury and the pupils of his eyes rolled +downwards. + +"You don't understand?" shouted the prince, "but I do! French spy, slave +of Buonaparte, spy, get out of my house! Be off, I tell you..." + +Metivier, shrugging his shoulders, went up to Mademoiselle Bourienne who +at the sound of shouting had run in from an adjoining room. + +"The prince is not very well: bile and rush of blood to the head. Keep +calm, I will call again tomorrow," said Metivier; and putting his +fingers to his lips he hastened away. + +Through the study door came the sound of slippered feet and the cry: +"Spies, traitors, traitors everywhere! Not a moment's peace in my own +house!" + +After Metivier's departure the old prince called his daughter in, and +the whole weight of his wrath fell on her. She was to blame that a spy +had been admitted. Had he not told her, yes, told her to make a list, +and not to admit anyone who was not on that list? Then why was that +scoundrel admitted? She was the cause of it all. With her, he said, he +could not have a moment's peace and could not die quietly. + +"No, ma'am! We must part, we must part! Understand that, understand it! +I cannot endure any more," he said, and left the room. Then, as if +afraid she might find some means of consolation, he returned and trying +to appear calm added: "And don't imagine I have said this in a moment of +anger. I am calm. I have thought it over, and it will be carried out--we +must part; so find some place for yourself...." But he could not +restrain himself and with the virulence of which only one who loves is +capable, evidently suffering himself, he shook his fists at her and +screamed: + +"If only some fool would marry her!" Then he slammed the door, sent for +Mademoiselle Bourienne, and subsided into his study. + +At two o'clock the six chosen guests assembled for dinner. + +These guests--the famous Count Rostopchin, Prince Lopukhin with his +nephew, General Chatrov an old war comrade of the prince's, and of the +younger generation Pierre and Boris Drubetskoy--awaited the prince in +the drawing room. + +Boris, who had come to Moscow on leave a few days before, had been +anxious to be presented to Prince Nicholas Bolkonski, and had contrived +to ingratiate himself so well that the old prince in his case made an +exception to the rule of not receiving bachelors in his house. + +The prince's house did not belong to what is known as fashionable +society, but his little circle--though not much talked about in town-- +was one it was more flattering to be received in than any other. Boris +had realized this the week before when the commander-in-chief in his +presence invited Rostopchin to dinner on St. Nicholas' Day, and +Rostopchin had replied that he could not come: + +"On that day I always go to pay my devotions to the relics of Prince +Nicholas Bolkonski." + +"Oh, yes, yes!" replied the commander-in-chief. "How is he?..." + +The small group that assembled before dinner in the lofty old-fashioned +drawing room with its old furniture resembled the solemn gathering of a +court of justice. All were silent or talked in low tones. Prince +Nicholas came in serious and taciturn. Princess Mary seemed even quieter +and more diffident than usual. The guests were reluctant to address her, +feeling that she was in no mood for their conversation. Count Rostopchin +alone kept the conversation going, now relating the latest town news, +and now the latest political gossip. + +Lopukhin and the old general occasionally took part in the conversation. +Prince Bolkonski listened as a presiding judge receives a report, only +now and then, silently or by a brief word, showing that he took heed of +what was being reported to him. The tone of the conversation was such as +indicated that no one approved of what was being done in the political +world. Incidents were related evidently confirming the opinion that +everything was going from bad to worse, but whether telling a story or +giving an opinion the speaker always stopped, or was stopped, at the +point beyond which his criticism might touch the sovereign himself. + +At dinner the talk turned on the latest political news: Napoleon's +seizure of the Duke of Oldenburg's territory, and the Russian Note, +hostile to Napoleon, which had been sent to all the European courts. + +"Bonaparte treats Europe as a pirate does a captured vessel," said Count +Rostopchin, repeating a phrase he had uttered several times before. "One +only wonders at the long-suffering or blindness of the crowned heads. +Now the Pope's turn has come and Bonaparte doesn't scruple to depose the +head of the Catholic Church--yet all keep silent! Our sovereign alone +has protested against the seizure of the Duke of Oldenburg's territory, +and even..." Count Rostopchin paused, feeling that he had reached the +limit beyond which censure was impossible. + +"Other territories have been offered in exchange for the Duchy of +Oldenburg," said Prince Bolkonski. "He shifts the Dukes about as I might +move my serfs from Bald Hills to Bogucharovo or my Ryazan estates." + +"The Duke of Oldenburg bears his misfortunes with admirable strength of +character and resignation," remarked Boris, joining in respectfully. + +He said this because on his journey from Petersburg he had had the honor +of being presented to the Duke. Prince Bolkonski glanced at the young +man as if about to say something in reply, but changed his mind, +evidently considering him too young. + +"I have read our protests about the Oldenburg affair and was surprised +how badly the Note was worded," remarked Count Rostopchin in the casual +tone of a man dealing with a subject quite familiar to him. + +Pierre looked at Rostopchin with naive astonishment, not understanding +why he should be disturbed by the bad composition of the Note. + +"Does it matter, Count, how the Note is worded," he asked, "so long as +its substance is forcible?" + +"My dear fellow, with our five hundred thousand troops it should be easy +to have a good style," returned Count Rostopchin. + +Pierre now understood the count's dissatisfaction with the wording of +the Note. + +"One would have thought quill drivers enough had sprung up," remarked +the old prince. "There in Petersburg they are always writing--not notes +only but even new laws. My Andrew there has written a whole volume of +laws for Russia. Nowadays they are always writing!" and he laughed +unnaturally. + +There was a momentary pause in the conversation; the old general cleared +his throat to draw attention. + +"Did you hear of the last event at the review in Petersburg? The figure +cut by the new French ambassador." + +"Eh? Yes, I heard something: he said something awkward in His Majesty's +presence." + +"His Majesty drew attention to the Grenadier division and to the march +past," continued the general, "and it seems the ambassador took no +notice and allowed himself to reply that: 'We in France pay no attention +to such trifles!' The Emperor did not condescend to reply. At the next +review, they say, the Emperor did not once deign to address him." + +All were silent. On this fact relating to the Emperor personally, it was +impossible to pass any judgment. + +"Impudent fellows!" said the prince. "You know Metivier? I turned him +out of my house this morning. He was here; they admitted him in spite of +my request that they should let no one in," he went on, glancing angrily +at his daughter. + +And he narrated his whole conversation with the French doctor and the +reasons that convinced him that Metivier was a spy. Though these reasons +were very insufficient and obscure, no one made any rejoinder. + +After the roast, champagne was served. The guests rose to congratulate +the old prince. Princess Mary, too, went round to him. + +He gave her a cold, angry look and offered her his wrinkled, clean- +shaven cheek to kiss. The whole expression of his face told her that he +had not forgotten the morning's talk, that his decision remained in +force, and only the presence of visitors hindered his speaking of it to +her now. + +When they went into the drawing room where coffee was served, the old +men sat together. + +Prince Nicholas grew more animated and expressed his views on the +impending war. + +He said that our wars with Bonaparte would be disastrous so long as we +sought alliances with the Germans and thrust ourselves into European +affairs, into which we had been drawn by the Peace of Tilsit. "We ought +not to fight either for or against Austria. Our political interests are +all in the East, and in regard to Bonaparte the only thing is to have an +armed frontier and a firm policy, and he will never dare to cross the +Russian frontier, as was the case in 1807!" + +"How can we fight the French, Prince?" said Count Rostopchin. "Can we +arm ourselves against our teachers and divinities? Look at our youths, +look at our ladies! The French are our Gods: Paris is our Kingdom of +Heaven." + +He began speaking louder, evidently to be heard by everyone. + +"French dresses, French ideas, French feelings! There now, you turned +Metivier out by the scruff of his neck because he is a Frenchman and a +scoundrel, but our ladies crawl after him on their knees. I went to a +party last night, and there out of five ladies three were Roman +Catholics and had the Pope's indulgence for doing woolwork on Sundays. +And they themselves sit there nearly naked, like the signboards at our +Public Baths if I may say so. Ah, when one looks at our young people, +Prince, one would like to take Peter the Great's old cudgel out of the +museum and belabor them in the Russian way till all the nonsense jumps +out of them." + +All were silent. The old prince looked at Rostopchin with a smile and +wagged his head approvingly. + +"Well, good-by, your excellency, keep well!" said Rostopchin, getting up +with characteristic briskness and holding out his hand to the prince. + +"Good-bye, my dear fellow.... His words are music, I never tire of +hearing him!" said the old prince, keeping hold of the hand and offering +his cheek to be kissed. + +Following Rostopchin's example the others also rose. + + + + +CHAPTER IV + +Princess Mary as she sat listening to the old men's talk and +faultfinding, understood nothing of what she heard; she only wondered +whether the guests had all observed her father's hostile attitude toward +her. She did not even notice the special attentions and amiabilities +shown her during dinner by Boris Drubetskoy, who was visiting them for +the third time already. + +Princess Mary turned with absent-minded questioning look to Pierre, who +hat in hand and with a smile on his face was the last of the guests to +approach her after the old prince had gone out and they were left alone +in the drawing room. + +"May I stay a little longer?" he said, letting his stout body sink into +an armchair beside her. + +"Oh yes," she answered. "You noticed nothing?" her look asked. + +Pierre was in an agreeable after-dinner mood. He looked straight before +him and smiled quietly. + +"Have you known that young man long, Princess?" he asked. + +"Who?" + +"Drubetskoy." + +"No, not long..." + +"Do you like him?" + +"Yes, he is an agreeable young man.... Why do you ask me that?" said +Princess Mary, still thinking of that morning's conversation with her +father. + +"Because I have noticed that when a young man comes on leave from +Petersburg to Moscow it is usually with the object of marrying an +heiress." + +"You have observed that?" said Princess Mary. + +"Yes," returned Pierre with a smile, "and this young man now manages +matters so that where there is a wealthy heiress there he is too. I can +read him like a book. At present he is hesitating whom to lay siege to-- +you or Mademoiselle Julie Karagina. He is very attentive to her." + +"He visits them?" + +"Yes, very often. And do you know the new way of courting?" said Pierre +with an amused smile, evidently in that cheerful mood of good humored +raillery for which he so often reproached himself in his diary. + +"No," replied Princess Mary. + +"To please Moscow girls nowadays one has to be melancholy. He is very +melancholy with Mademoiselle Karagina," said Pierre. + +"Really?" asked Princess Mary, looking into Pierre's kindly face and +still thinking of her own sorrow. "It would be a relief," thought she, +"if I ventured to confide what I am feeling to someone. I should like to +tell everything to Pierre. He is kind and generous. It would be a +relief. He would give me advice." + +"Would you marry him?" + +"Oh, my God, Count, there are moments when I would marry anybody!" she +cried suddenly to her own surprise and with tears in her voice. "Ah, how +bitter it is to love someone near to you and to feel that..." she went +on in a trembling voice, "that you can do nothing for him but grieve +him, and to know that you cannot alter this. Then there is only one +thing left--to go away, but where could I go?" + +"What is wrong? What is it, Princess?" + +But without finishing what she was saying, Princess Mary burst into +tears. + +"I don't know what is the matter with me today. Don't take any notice-- +forget what I have said!" + +Pierre's gaiety vanished completely. He anxiously questioned the +princess, asked her to speak out fully and confide her grief to him; but +she only repeated that she begged him to forget what she had said, that +she did not remember what she had said, and that she had no trouble +except the one he knew of--that Prince Andrew's marriage threatened to +cause a rupture between father and son. + +"Have you any news of the Rostovs?" she asked, to change the subject. "I +was told they are coming soon. I am also expecting Andrew any day. I +should like them to meet here." + +"And how does he now regard the matter?" asked Pierre, referring to the +old prince. + +Princess Mary shook her head. + +"What is to be done? In a few months the year will be up. The thing is +impossible. I only wish I could spare my brother the first moments. I +wish they would come sooner. I hope to be friends with her. You have +known them a long time," said Princess Mary. "Tell me honestly the whole +truth: what sort of girl is she, and what do you think of her?--The real +truth, because you know Andrew is risking so much doing this against his +father's will that I should like to know..." + +An undefined instinct told Pierre that these explanations, and repeated +requests to be told the whole truth, expressed ill-will on the princess' +part toward her future sister-in-law and a wish that he should +disapprove of Andrew's choice; but in reply he said what he felt rather +than what he thought. + +"I don't know how to answer your question," he said, blushing without +knowing why. "I really don't know what sort of girl she is; I can't +analyze her at all. She is enchanting, but what makes her so I don't +know. That is all one can say about her." + +Princess Mary sighed, and the expression on her face said: "Yes, that's +what I expected and feared." + +"Is she clever?" she asked. + +Pierre considered. + +"I think not," he said, "and yet--yes. She does not deign to be +clever.... Oh no, she is simply enchanting, and that is all." + +Princess Mary again shook her head disapprovingly. + +"Ah, I so long to like her! Tell her so if you see her before I do." + +"I hear they are expected very soon," said Pierre. + +Princess Mary told Pierre of her plan to become intimate with her future +sister-in-law as soon as the Rostovs arrived and to try to accustom the +old prince to her. + + + + +CHAPTER V + +Boris had not succeeded in making a wealthy match in Petersburg, so with +the same object in view he came to Moscow. There he wavered between the +two richest heiresses, Julie and Princess Mary. Though Princess Mary +despite her plainness seemed to him more attractive than Julie, he, +without knowing why, felt awkward about paying court to her. When they +had last met on the old prince's name day, she had answered at random +all his attempts to talk sentimentally, evidently not listening to what +he was saying. + +Julie on the contrary accepted his attentions readily, though in a +manner peculiar to herself. + +She was twenty-seven. After the death of her brothers she had become +very wealthy. She was by now decidedly plain, but thought herself not +merely as good-looking as before but even far more attractive. She was +confirmed in this delusion by the fact that she had become a very +wealthy heiress and also by the fact that the older she grew the less +dangerous she became to men, and the more freely they could associate +with her and avail themselves of her suppers, soirees, and the animated +company that assembled at her house, without incurring any obligation. A +man who would have been afraid ten years before of going every day to +the house when there was a girl of seventeen there, for fear of +compromising her and committing himself, would now go boldly every day +and treat her not as a marriageable girl but as a sexless acquaintance. + +That winter the Karagins' house was the most agreeable and hospitable in +Moscow. In addition to the formal evening and dinner parties, a large +company, chiefly of men, gathered there every day, supping at midnight +and staying till three in the morning. Julie never missed a ball, a +promenade, or a play. Her dresses were always of the latest fashion. But +in spite of that she seemed to be disillusioned about everything and +told everyone that she did not believe either in friendship or in love, +or any of the joys of life, and expected peace only "yonder." She +adopted the tone of one who has suffered a great disappointment, like a +girl who has either lost the man she loved or been cruelly deceived by +him. Though nothing of the kind had happened to her she was regarded in +that light, and had even herself come to believe that she had suffered +much in life. This melancholy, which did not prevent her amusing +herself, did not hinder the young people who came to her house from +passing the time pleasantly. Every visitor who came to the house paid +his tribute to the melancholy mood of the hostess, and then amused +himself with society gossip, dancing, intellectual games, and bouts +rimes, which were in vogue at the Karagins'. Only a few of these young +men, among them Boris, entered more deeply into Julie's melancholy, and +with these she had prolonged conversations in private on the vanity of +all worldly things, and to them she showed her albums filled with +mournful sketches, maxims, and verses. + +To Boris, Julie was particularly gracious: she regretted his early +disillusionment with life, offered him such consolation of friendship as +she who had herself suffered so much could render, and showed him her +album. Boris sketched two trees in the album and wrote: "Rustic trees, +your dark branches shed gloom and melancholy upon me." + +On another page he drew a tomb, and wrote: + + +La mort est secourable et la mort est tranquille. Ah! contre les +douleurs il n'y a pas d'autre asile. * + + +* Death gives relief and death is peaceful. + +Ah! from suffering there is no other refuge. + +Julie said this was charming + +"There is something so enchanting in the smile of melancholy," she said +to Boris, repeating word for word a passage she had copied from a book. +"It is a ray of light in the darkness, a shade between sadness and +despair, showing the possibility of consolation." + +In reply Boris wrote these lines: + + +Aliment de poison d'une ame trop sensible, Toi, sans qui le bonheur me +serait impossible, Tendre melancholie, ah, viens me consoler, Viens +calmer les tourments de ma sombre retraite, Et mele une douceur secrete +A ces pleurs que je sens couler. * + + +*Poisonous nourishment of a too sensitive soul, Thou, without whom +happiness would for me be impossible, Tender melancholy, ah, come to +console me, Come to calm the torments of my gloomy retreat, And mingle a +secret sweetness With these tears that I feel to be flowing. + +For Boris, Julie played most doleful nocturnes on her harp. Boris read +'Poor Liza' aloud to her, and more than once interrupted the reading +because of the emotions that choked him. Meeting at large gatherings +Julie and Boris looked on one another as the only souls who understood +one another in a world of indifferent people. + +Anna Mikhaylovna, who often visited the Karagins, while playing cards +with the mother made careful inquiries as to Julie's dowry (she was to +have two estates in Penza and the Nizhegorod forests). Anna Mikhaylovna +regarded the refined sadness that united her son to the wealthy Julie +with emotion, and resignation to the Divine will. + +"You are always charming and melancholy, my dear Julie," she said to the +daughter. "Boris says his soul finds repose at your house. He has +suffered so many disappointments and is so sensitive," said she to the +mother. "Ah, my dear, I can't tell you how fond I have grown of Julie +latterly," she said to her son. "But who could help loving her? She is +an angelic being! Ah, Boris, Boris!"--she paused. "And how I pity her +mother," she went on; "today she showed me her accounts and letters from +Penza (they have enormous estates there), and she, poor thing, has no +one to help her, and they do cheat her so!" + +Boris smiled almost imperceptibly while listening to his mother. He +laughed blandly at her naive diplomacy but listened to what she had to +say, and sometimes questioned her carefully about the Penza and +Nizhegorod estates. + +Julie had long been expecting a proposal from her melancholy adorer and +was ready to accept it; but some secret feeling of repulsion for her, +for her passionate desire to get married, for her artificiality, and a +feeling of horror at renouncing the possibility of real love still +restrained Boris. His leave was expiring. He spent every day and whole +days at the Karagins', and every day on thinking the matter over told +himself that he would propose tomorrow. But in Julie's presence, looking +at her red face and chin (nearly always powdered), her moist eyes, and +her expression of continual readiness to pass at once from melancholy to +an unnatural rapture of married bliss, Boris could not utter the +decisive words, though in imagination he had long regarded himself as +the possessor of those Penza and Nizhegorod estates and had apportioned +the use of the income from them. Julie saw Boris' indecision, and +sometimes the thought occurred to her that she was repulsive to him, but +her feminine self-deception immediately supplied her with consolation, +and she told herself that he was only shy from love. Her melancholy, +however, began to turn to irritability, and not long before Boris' +departure she formed a definite plan of action. Just as Boris' leave of +absence was expiring, Anatole Kuragin made his appearance in Moscow, and +of course in the Karagins' drawing room, and Julie, suddenly abandoning +her melancholy, became cheerful and very attentive to Kuragin. + +"My dear," said Anna Mikhaylovna to her son, "I know from a reliable +source that Prince Vasili has sent his son to Moscow to get him married +to Julie. I am so fond of Julie that I should be sorry for her. What do +you think of it, my dear?" + +The idea of being made a fool of and of having thrown away that whole +month of arduous melancholy service to Julie, and of seeing all the +revenue from the Penza estates which he had already mentally apportioned +and put to proper use fall into the hands of another, and especially +into the hands of that idiot Anatole, pained Boris. He drove to the +Karagins' with the firm intention of proposing. Julie met him in a gay, +careless manner, spoke casually of how she had enjoyed yesterday's ball, +and asked when he was leaving. Though Boris had come intentionally to +speak of his love and therefore meant to be tender, he began speaking +irritably of feminine inconstancy, of how easily women can turn from +sadness to joy, and how their moods depend solely on who happens to be +paying court to them. Julie was offended and replied that it was true +that a woman needs variety, and the same thing over and over again would +weary anyone. + +"Then I should advise you..." Boris began, wishing to sting her; but at +that instant the galling thought occurred to him that he might have to +leave Moscow without having accomplished his aim, and have vainly wasted +his efforts--which was a thing he never allowed to happen. + +He checked himself in the middle of the sentence, lowered his eyes to +avoid seeing her unpleasantly irritated and irresolute face, and said: + +"I did not come here at all to quarrel with you. On the contrary..." + +He glanced at her to make sure that he might go on. Her irritability had +suddenly quite vanished, and her anxious, imploring eyes were fixed on +him with greedy expectation. "I can always arrange so as not to see her +often," thought Boris. "The affair has been begun and must be finished!" +He blushed hotly, raised his eyes to hers, and said: + +"You know my feelings for you!" + +There was no need to say more: Julie's face shone with triumph and self- +satisfaction; but she forced Boris to say all that is said on such +occasions--that he loved her and had never loved any other woman more +than her. She knew that for the Penza estates and Nizhegorod forests she +could demand this, and she received what she demanded. + +The affianced couple, no longer alluding to trees that shed gloom and +melancholy upon them, planned the arrangements of a splendid house in +Petersburg, paid calls, and prepared everything for a brilliant wedding. + + + + +CHAPTER VI + +At the end of January old Count Rostov went to Moscow with Natasha and +Sonya. The countess was still unwell and unable to travel but it was +impossible to wait for her recovery. Prince Andrew was expected in +Moscow any day, the trousseau had to be ordered and the estate near +Moscow had to be sold, besides which the opportunity of presenting his +future daughter-in-law to old Prince Bolkonski while he was in Moscow +could not be missed. The Rostovs' Moscow house had not been heated that +winter and, as they had come only for a short time and the countess was +not with them, the count decided to stay with Marya Dmitrievna +Akhrosimova, who had long been pressing her hospitality on them. + +Late one evening the Rostovs' four sleighs drove into Marya Dmitrievna's +courtyard in the old Konyusheny street. Marya Dmitrievna lived alone. +She had already married off her daughter, and her sons were all in the +service. + +She held herself as erect, told everyone her opinion as candidly, +loudly, and bluntly as ever, and her whole bearing seemed a reproach to +others for any weakness, passion, or temptation--the possibility of +which she did not admit. From early in the morning, wearing a dressing +jacket, she attended to her household affairs, and then she drove out: +on holy days to church and after the service to jails and prisons on +affairs of which she never spoke to anyone. On ordinary days, after +dressing, she received petitioners of various classes, of whom there +were always some. Then she had dinner, a substantial and appetizing meal +at which there were always three or four guests; after dinner she played +a game of boston, and at night she had the newspapers or a new book read +to her while she knitted. She rarely made an exception and went out to +pay visits, and then only to the most important persons in the town. + +She had not yet gone to bed when the Rostovs arrived and the pulley of +the hall door squeaked from the cold as it let in the Rostovs and their +servants. Marya Dmitrievna, with her spectacles hanging down on her nose +and her head flung back, stood in the hall doorway looking with a stern, +grim face at the new arrivals. One might have thought she was angry with +the travelers and would immediately turn them out, had she not at the +same time been giving careful instructions to the servants for the +accommodation of the visitors and their belongings. + +"The count's things? Bring them here," she said, pointing to the +portmanteaus and not greeting anyone. "The young ladies'? There to the +left. Now what are you dawdling for?" she cried to the maids. "Get the +samovar ready!... You've grown plumper and prettier," she remarked, +drawing Natasha (whose cheeks were glowing from the cold) to her by the +hood. "Foo! You are cold! Now take off your things, quick!" she shouted +to the count who was going to kiss her hand. "You're half frozen, I'm +sure! Bring some rum for tea!... Bonjour, Sonya dear!" she added, +turning to Sonya and indicating by this French greeting her slightly +contemptuous though affectionate attitude toward her. + +When they came in to tea, having taken off their outdoor things and +tidied themselves up after their journey, Marya Dmitrievna kissed them +all in due order. + +"I'm heartily glad you have come and are staying with me. It was high +time," she said, giving Natasha a significant look. "The old man is here +and his son's expected any day. You'll have to make his acquaintance. +But we'll speak of that later on," she added, glancing at Sonya with a +look that showed she did not want to speak of it in her presence. "Now +listen," she said to the count. "What do you want tomorrow? Whom will +you send for? Shinshin?" she crooked one of her fingers. "The sniveling +Anna Mikhaylovna? That's two. She's here with her son. The son is +getting married! Then Bezukhov, eh? He is here too, with his wife. He +ran away from her and she came galloping after him. He dined with me on +Wednesday. As for them"--and she pointed to the girls--"tomorrow I'll +take them first to the Iberian shrine of the Mother of God, and then +we'll drive to the Super-Rogue's. I suppose you'll have everything new. +Don't judge by me: sleeves nowadays are this size! The other day young +Princess Irina Vasilevna came to see me; she was an awful sight--looked +as if she had put two barrels on her arms. You know not a day passes now +without some new fashion.... And what have you to do yourself?" she +asked the count sternly. + +"One thing has come on top of another: her rags to buy, and now a +purchaser has turned up for the Moscow estate and for the house. If you +will be so kind, I'll fix a time and go down to the estate just for a +day, and leave my lassies with you." + +"All right. All right. They'll be safe with me, as safe as in Chancery! +I'll take them where they must go, scold them a bit, and pet them a +bit," said Marya Dmitrievna, touching her goddaughter and favorite, +Natasha, on the cheek with her large hand. + +Next morning Marya Dmitrievna took the young ladies to the Iberian +shrine of the Mother of God and to Madame Suppert-Roguet, who was so +afraid of Marya Dmitrievna that she always let her have costumes at a +loss merely to get rid of her. Marya Dmitrievna ordered almost the whole +trousseau. When they got home she turned everybody out of the room +except Natasha, and then called her pet to her armchair. + +"Well, now we'll talk. I congratulate you on your betrothed. You've +hooked a fine fellow! I am glad for your sake and I've known him since +he was so high." She held her hand a couple of feet from the ground. +Natasha blushed happily. "I like him and all his family. Now listen! You +know that old Prince Nicholas much dislikes his son's marrying. The old +fellow's crotchety! Of course Prince Andrew is not a child and can shift +without him, but it's not nice to enter a family against a father's +will. One wants to do it peacefully and lovingly. You're a clever girl +and you'll know how to manage. Be kind, and use your wits. Then all will +be well." + +Natasha remained silent, from shyness Marya Dmitrievna supposed, but +really because she disliked anyone interfering in what touched her love +of Prince Andrew, which seemed to her so apart from all human affairs +that no one could understand it. She loved and knew Prince Andrew, he +loved her only, and was to come one of these days and take her. She +wanted nothing more. + +"You see I have known him a long time and am also fond of Mary, your +future sister-in-law. 'Husbands' sisters bring up blisters,' but this +one wouldn't hurt a fly. She has asked me to bring you two together. +Tomorrow you'll go with your father to see her. Be very nice and +affectionate to her: you're younger than she. When he comes, he'll find +you already know his sister and father and are liked by them. Am I right +or not? Won't that be best?" + +"Yes, it will," Natasha answered reluctantly. + + + + +CHAPTER VII + +Next day, by Marya Dmitrievna's advice, Count Rostov took Natasha to +call on Prince Nicholas Bolkonski. The count did not set out cheerfully +on this visit, at heart he felt afraid. He well remembered the last +interview he had had with the old prince at the time of the enrollment, +when in reply to an invitation to dinner he had had to listen to an +angry reprimand for not having provided his full quota of men. Natasha, +on the other hand, having put on her best gown, was in the highest +spirits. "They can't help liking me," she thought. "Everybody always has +liked me, and I am so willing to do anything they wish, so ready to be +fond of him--for being his father--and of her--for being his sister-- +that there is no reason for them not to like me..." + +They drove up to the gloomy old house on the Vozdvizhenka and entered +the vestibule. + +"Well, the Lord have mercy on us!" said the count, half in jest, half in +earnest; but Natasha noticed that her father was flurried on entering +the anteroom and inquired timidly and softly whether the prince and +princess were at home. + +When they had been announced a perturbation was noticeable among the +servants. The footman who had gone to announce them was stopped by +another in the large hall and they whispered to one another. Then a +maidservant ran into the hall and hurriedly said something, mentioning +the princess. At last an old, cross looking footman came and announced +to the Rostovs that the prince was not receiving, but that the princess +begged them to walk up. The first person who came to meet the visitors +was Mademoiselle Bourienne. She greeted the father and daughter with +special politeness and showed them to the princess' room. The princess, +looking excited and nervous, her face flushed in patches, ran in to meet +the visitors, treading heavily, and vainly trying to appear cordial and +at ease. From the first glance Princess Mary did not like Natasha. She +thought her too fashionably dressed, frivolously gay and vain. She did +not at all realize that before having seen her future sister-in-law she +was prejudiced against her by involuntary envy of her beauty, youth, and +happiness, as well as by jealousy of her brother's love for her. Apart +from this insuperable antipathy to her, Princess Mary was agitated just +then because on the Rostovs' being announced, the old prince had shouted +that he did not wish to see them, that Princess Mary might do so if she +chose, but they were not to be admitted to him. She had decided to +receive them, but feared lest the prince might at any moment indulge in +some freak, as he seemed much upset by the Rostovs' visit. + +"There, my dear princess, I've brought you my songstress," said the +count, bowing and looking round uneasily as if afraid the old prince +might appear. "I am so glad you should get to know one another... very +sorry the prince is still ailing," and after a few more commonplace +remarks he rose. "If you'll allow me to leave my Natasha in your hands +for a quarter of an hour, Princess, I'll drive round to see Anna +Semenovna, it's quite near in the Dogs' Square, and then I'll come back +for her." + +The count had devised this diplomatic ruse (as he afterwards told his +daughter) to give the future sisters-in-law an opportunity to talk to +one another freely, but another motive was to avoid the danger of +encountering the old prince, of whom he was afraid. He did not mention +this to his daughter, but Natasha noticed her father's nervousness and +anxiety and felt mortified by it. She blushed for him, grew still +angrier at having blushed, and looked at the princess with a bold and +defiant expression which said that she was not afraid of anybody. The +princess told the count that she would be delighted, and only begged him +to stay longer at Anna Semenovna's, and he departed. + +Despite the uneasy glances thrown at her by Princess Mary--who wished to +have a tete-a-tete with Natasha--Mademoiselle Bourienne remained in the +room and persistently talked about Moscow amusements and theaters. +Natasha felt offended by the hesitation she had noticed in the anteroom, +by her father's nervousness, and by the unnatural manner of the princess +who--she thought--was making a favor of receiving her, and so everything +displeased her. She did not like Princess Mary, whom she thought very +plain, affected, and dry. Natasha suddenly shrank into herself and +involuntarily assumed an offhand air which alienated Princess Mary still +more. After five minutes of irksome, constrained conversation, they +heard the sound of slippered feet rapidly approaching. Princess Mary +looked frightened. + +The door opened and the old prince, in a dressing gown and a white +nightcap, came in. + +"Ah, madam!" he began. "Madam, Countess... Countess Rostova, if I am not +mistaken... I beg you to excuse me, to excuse me... I did not know, +madam. God is my witness, I did not know you had honored us with a +visit, and I came in such a costume only to see my daughter. I beg you +to excuse me... God is my witness, I didn't know-" he repeated, +stressing the word "God" so unnaturally and so unpleasantly that +Princess Mary stood with downcast eyes not daring to look either at her +father or at Natasha. + +Nor did the latter, having risen and curtsied, know what to do. +Mademoiselle Bourienne alone smiled agreeably. + +"I beg you to excuse me, excuse me! God is my witness, I did not know," +muttered the old man, and after looking Natasha over from head to foot +he went out. + +Mademoiselle Bourienne was the first to recover herself after this +apparition and began speaking about the prince's indisposition. Natasha +and Princess Mary looked at one another in silence, and the longer they +did so without saying what they wanted to say, the greater grew their +antipathy to one another. + +When the count returned, Natasha was impolitely pleased and hastened to +get away: at that moment she hated the stiff, elderly princess, who +could place her in such an embarrassing position and had spent half an +hour with her without once mentioning Prince Andrew. "I couldn't begin +talking about him in the presence of that Frenchwoman," thought Natasha. +The same thought was meanwhile tormenting Princess Mary. She knew what +she ought to have said to Natasha, but she had been unable to say it +because Mademoiselle Bourienne was in the way, and because, without +knowing why, she felt it very difficult to speak of the marriage. When +the count was already leaving the room, Princess Mary went up hurriedly +to Natasha, took her by the hand, and said with a deep sigh: + +"Wait, I must..." + +Natasha glanced at her ironically without knowing why. + +"Dear Natalie," said Princess Mary, "I want you to know that I am glad +my brother has found happiness...." + +She paused, feeling that she was not telling the truth. Natasha noticed +this and guessed its reason. + +"I think, Princess, it is not convenient to speak of that now," she said +with external dignity and coldness, though she felt the tears choking +her. + +"What have I said and what have I done?" thought she, as soon as she was +out of the room. + +They waited a long time for Natasha to come to dinner that day. She sat +in her room crying like a child, blowing her nose and sobbing. Sonya +stood beside her, kissing her hair. + +"Natasha, what is it about?" she asked. "What do they matter to you? It +will all pass, Natasha." + +"But if you only knew how offensive it was... as if I..." + +"Don't talk about it, Natasha. It wasn't your fault so why should you +mind? Kiss me," said Sonya. + +Natasha raised her head and, kissing her friend on the lips, pressed her +wet face against her. + +"I can't tell you, I don't know. No one's to blame," said Natasha--"It's +my fault. But it all hurts terribly. Oh, why doesn't he come?..." + +She came in to dinner with red eyes. Marya Dmitrievna, who knew how the +prince had received the Rostovs, pretended not to notice how upset +Natasha was and jested resolutely and loudly at table with the count and +the other guests. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII + +That evening the Rostovs went to the Opera, for which Marya Dmitrievna +had taken a box. + +Natasha did not want to go, but could not refuse Marya Dmitrievna's kind +offer which was intended expressly for her. When she came ready dressed +into the ballroom to await her father, and looking in the large mirror +there saw that she was pretty, very pretty, she felt even more sad, but +it was a sweet, tender sadness. + +"O God, if he were here now I would not behave as I did then, but +differently. I would not be silly and afraid of things, I would simply +embrace him, cling to him, and make him look at me with those searching +inquiring eyes with which he has so often looked at me, and then I would +make him laugh as he used to laugh. And his eyes--how I see those eyes!" +thought Natasha. "And what do his father and sister matter to me? I love +him alone, him, him, with that face and those eyes, with his smile, +manly and yet childlike.... No, I had better not think of him; not think +of him but forget him, quite forget him for the present. I can't bear +this waiting and I shall cry in a minute!" and she turned away from the +glass, making an effort not to cry. "And how can Sonya love Nicholas so +calmly and quietly and wait so long and so patiently?" thought she, +looking at Sonya, who also came in quite ready, with a fan in her hand. +"No, she's altogether different. I can't!" + +Natasha at that moment felt so softened and tender that it was not +enough for her to love and know she was beloved, she wanted now, at +once, to embrace the man she loved, to speak and hear from him words of +love such as filled her heart. While she sat in the carriage beside her +father, pensively watching the lights of the street lamps flickering on +the frozen window, she felt still sadder and more in love, and forgot +where she was going and with whom. Having fallen into the line of +carriages, the Rostovs' carriage drove up to the theater, its wheels +squeaking over the snow. Natasha and Sonya, holding up their dresses, +jumped out quickly. The count got out helped by the footmen, and, +passing among men and women who were entering and the program sellers, +they all three went along the corridor to the first row of boxes. +Through the closed doors the music was already audible. + +"Natasha, your hair!..." whispered Sonya. + +An attendant deferentially and quickly slipped before the ladies and +opened the door of their box. The music sounded louder and through the +door rows of brightly lit boxes in which ladies sat with bare arms and +shoulders, and noisy stalls brilliant with uniforms, glittered before +their eyes. A lady entering the next box shot a glance of feminine envy +at Natasha. The curtain had not yet risen and the overture was being +played. Natasha, smoothing her gown, went in with Sonya and sat down, +scanning the brilliant tiers of boxes opposite. A sensation she had not +experienced for a long time--that of hundreds of eyes looking at her +bare arms and neck--suddenly affected her both agreeably and +disagreeably and called up a whole crowd of memories, desires and +emotions associated with that feeling. + +The two remarkably pretty girls, Natasha and Sonya, with Count Rostov +who had not been seen in Moscow for a long time, attracted general +attention. Moreover, everybody knew vaguely of Natasha's engagement to +Prince Andrew, and knew that the Rostovs had lived in the country ever +since, and all looked with curiosity at a fiancee who was making one of +the best matches in Russia. + +Natasha's looks, as everyone told her, had improved in the country, and +that evening thanks to her agitation she was particularly pretty. She +struck those who saw her by her fullness of life and beauty, combined +with her indifference to everything about her. Her black eyes looked at +the crowd without seeking anyone, and her delicate arm, bare to above +the elbow, lay on the velvet edge of the box, while, evidently +unconsciously, she opened and closed her hand in time to the music, +crumpling her program. "Look, there's Alenina," said Sonya, "with her +mother, isn't it?" + +"Dear me, Michael Kirilovich has grown still stouter!" remarked the +count. + +"Look at our Anna Mikhaylovna--what a headdress she has on!" + +"The Karagins, Julie--and Boris with them. One can see at once that +they're engaged...." + +"Drubetskoy has proposed?" + +"Oh yes, I heard it today," said Shinshin, coming into the Rostovs' box. + +Natasha looked in the direction in which her father's eyes were turned +and saw Julie sitting beside her mother with a happy look on her face +and a string of pearls round her thick red neck--which Natasha knew was +covered with powder. Behind them, wearing a smile and leaning over with +an ear to Julie's mouth, was Boris' handsome smoothly brushed head. He +looked at the Rostovs from under his brows and said something, smiling, +to his betrothed. + +"They are talking about us, about me and him!" thought Natasha. "And he +no doubt is calming her jealousy of me. They needn't trouble themselves! +If only they knew how little I am concerned about any of them." + +Behind them sat Anna Mikhaylovna wearing a green headdress and with a +happy look of resignation to the will of God on her face. Their box was +pervaded by that atmosphere of an affianced couple which Natasha knew so +well and liked so much. She turned away and suddenly remembered all that +had been so humiliating in her morning's visit. + +"What right has he not to wish to receive me into his family? Oh, better +not think of it--not till he comes back!" she told herself, and began +looking at the faces, some strange and some familiar, in the stalls. In +the front, in the very center, leaning back against the orchestra rail, +stood Dolokhov in a Persian dress, his curly hair brushed up into a huge +shock. He stood in full view of the audience, well aware that he was +attracting everyone's attention, yet as much at ease as though he were +in his own room. Around him thronged Moscow's most brilliant young men, +whom he evidently dominated. + +The count, laughing, nudged the blushing Sonya and pointed to her former +adorer. + +"Do you recognize him?" said he. "And where has he sprung from?" he +asked, turning to Shinshin. "Didn't he vanish somewhere?" + +"He did," replied Shinshin. "He was in the Caucasus and ran away from +there. They say he has been acting as minister to some ruling prince in +Persia, where he killed the Shah's brother. Now all the Moscow ladies +are mad about him! It's 'Dolokhov the Persian' that does it! We never +hear a word but Dolokhov is mentioned. They swear by him, they offer him +to you as they would a dish of choice sterlet. Dolokhov and Anatole +Kuragin have turned all our ladies' heads." + +A tall, beautiful woman with a mass of plaited hair and much exposed +plump white shoulders and neck, round which she wore a double string of +large pearls, entered the adjoining box rustling her heavy silk dress +and took a long time settling into her place. + +Natasha involuntarily gazed at that neck, those shoulders, and pearls +and coiffure, and admired the beauty of the shoulders and the pearls. +While Natasha was fixing her gaze on her for the second time the lady +looked round and, meeting the count's eyes, nodded to him and smiled. +She was the Countess Bezukhova, Pierre's wife, and the count, who knew +everyone in society, leaned over and spoke to her. + +"Have you been here long, Countess?" he inquired. "I'll call, I'll call +to kiss your hand. I'm here on business and have brought my girls with +me. They say Semenova acts marvelously. Count Pierre never used to +forget us. Is he here?" + +"Yes, he meant to look in," answered Helene, and glanced attentively at +Natasha. + +Count Rostov resumed his seat. + +"Handsome, isn't she?" he whispered to Natasha. + +"Wonderful!" answered Natasha. "She's a woman one could easily fall in +love with." + +Just then the last chords of the overture were heard and the conductor +tapped with his stick. Some latecomers took their seats in the stalls, +and the curtain rose. + +As soon as it rose everyone in the boxes and stalls became silent, and +all the men, old and young, in uniform and evening dress, and all the +women with gems on their bare flesh, turned their whole attention with +eager curiosity to the stage. Natasha too began to look at it. + + + + +CHAPTER IX + +The floor of the stage consisted of smooth boards, at the sides was some +painted cardboard representing trees, and at the back was a cloth +stretched over boards. In the center of the stage sat some girls in red +bodices and white skirts. One very fat girl in a white silk dress sat +apart on a low bench, to the back of which a piece of green cardboard +was glued. They all sang something. When they had finished their song +the girl in white went up to the prompter's box and a man with tight +silk trousers over his stout legs, and holding a plume and a dagger, +went up to her and began singing, waving his arms about. + +First the man in the tight trousers sang alone, then she sang, then they +both paused while the orchestra played and the man fingered the hand of +the girl in white, obviously awaiting the beat to start singing with +her. They sang together and everyone in the theater began clapping and +shouting, while the man and woman on the stage--who represented lovers-- +began smiling, spreading out their arms, and bowing. + +After her life in the country, and in her present serious mood, all this +seemed grotesque and amazing to Natasha. She could not follow the opera +nor even listen to the music; she saw only the painted cardboard and the +queerly dressed men and women who moved, spoke, and sang so strangely in +that brilliant light. She knew what it was all meant to represent, but +it was so pretentiously false and unnatural that she first felt ashamed +for the actors and then amused at them. She looked at the faces of the +audience, seeking in them the same sense of ridicule and perplexity she +herself experienced, but they all seemed attentive to what was happening +on the stage, and expressed delight which to Natasha seemed feigned. "I +suppose it has to be like this!" she thought. She kept looking round in +turn at the rows of pomaded heads in the stalls and then at the seminude +women in the boxes, especially at Helene in the next box, who-- +apparently quite unclothed--sat with a quiet tranquil smile, not taking +her eyes off the stage. And feeling the bright light that flooded the +whole place and the warm air heated by the crowd, Natasha little by +little began to pass into a state of intoxication she had not +experienced for a long while. She did not realize who and where she was, +nor what was going on before her. As she looked and thought, the +strangest fancies unexpectedly and disconnectedly passed through her +mind: the idea occurred to her of jumping onto the edge of the box and +singing the air the actress was singing, then she wished to touch with +her fan an old gentleman sitting not far from her, then to lean over to +Helene and tickle her. + +At a moment when all was quiet before the commencement of a song, a door +leading to the stalls on the side nearest the Rostovs' box creaked, and +the steps of a belated arrival were heard. "There's Kuragin!" whispered +Shinshin. Countess Bezukhova turned smiling to the newcomer, and +Natasha, following the direction of that look, saw an exceptionally +handsome adjutant approaching their box with a self-assured yet +courteous bearing. This was Anatole Kuragin whom she had seen and +noticed long ago at the ball in Petersburg. He was now in an adjutant's +uniform with one epaulet and a shoulder knot. He moved with a restrained +swagger which would have been ridiculous had he not been so good-looking +and had his handsome face not worn such an expression of good-humored +complacency and gaiety. Though the performance was proceeding, he walked +deliberately down the carpeted gangway, his sword and spurs slightly +jingling and his handsome perfumed head held high. Having looked at +Natasha he approached his sister, laid his well gloved hand on the edge +of her box, nodded to her, and leaning forward asked a question, with a +motion toward Natasha. + +"Mais charmante!" said he, evidently referring to Natasha, who did not +exactly hear his words but understood them from the movement of his +lips. Then he took his place in the first row of the stalls and sat down +beside Dolokhov, nudging with his elbow in a friendly and offhand way +that Dolokhov whom others treated so fawningly. He winked at him gaily, +smiled, and rested his foot against the orchestra screen. + +"How like the brother is to the sister," remarked the count. "And how +handsome they both are!" + +Shinshin, lowering his voice, began to tell the count of some intrigue +of Kuragin's in Moscow, and Natasha tried to overhear it just because he +had said she was "charmante." + +The first act was over. In the stalls everyone began moving about, going +out and coming in. + +Boris came to the Rostovs' box, received their congratulations very +simply, and raising his eyebrows with an absent-minded smile conveyed to +Natasha and Sonya his fiancee's invitation to her wedding, and went +away. Natasha with a gay, coquettish smile talked to him, and +congratulated on his approaching wedding that same Boris with whom she +had formerly been in love. In the state of intoxication she was in, +everything seemed simple and natural. + +The scantily clad Helene smiled at everyone in the same way, and Natasha +gave Boris a similar smile. + +Helene's box was filled and surrounded from the stalls by the most +distinguished and intellectual men, who seemed to vie with one another +in their wish to let everyone see that they knew her. + +During the whole of that entr'acte Kuragin stood with Dolokhov in front +of the orchestra partition, looking at the Rostovs' box. Natasha knew he +was talking about her and this afforded her pleasure. She even turned so +that he should see her profile in what she thought was its most becoming +aspect. Before the beginning of the second act Pierre appeared in the +stalls. The Rostovs had not seen him since their arrival. His face +looked sad, and he had grown still stouter since Natasha last saw him. +He passed up to the front rows, not noticing anyone. Anatole went up to +him and began speaking to him, looking at and indicating the Rostovs' +box. On seeing Natasha Pierre grew animated and, hastily passing between +the rows, came toward their box. When he got there he leaned on his +elbows and, smiling, talked to her for a long time. While conversing +with Pierre, Natasha heard a man's voice in Countess Bezukhova's box and +something told her it was Kuragin. She turned and their eyes met. Almost +smiling, he gazed straight into her eyes with such an enraptured +caressing look that it seemed strange to be so near him, to look at him +like that, to be so sure he admired her, and not to be acquainted with +him. + +In the second act there was scenery representing tombstones, there was a +round hole in the canvas to represent the moon, shades were raised over +the footlights, and from horns and contrabass came deep notes while many +people appeared from right and left wearing black cloaks and holding +things like daggers in their hands. They began waving their arms. Then +some other people ran in and began dragging away the maiden who had been +in white and was now in light blue. They did not drag her away at once, +but sang with her for a long time and then at last dragged her off, and +behind the scenes something metallic was struck three times and everyone +knelt down and sang a prayer. All these things were repeatedly +interrupted by the enthusiastic shouts of the audience. + +During this act every time Natasha looked toward the stalls she saw +Anatole Kuragin with an arm thrown across the back of his chair, staring +at her. She was pleased to see that he was captivated by her and it did +not occur to her that there was anything wrong in it. + +When the second act was over Countess Bezukhova rose, turned to the +Rostovs' box--her whole bosom completely exposed--beckoned the old count +with a gloved finger, and paying no attention to those who had entered +her box began talking to him with an amiable smile. + +"Do make me acquainted with your charming daughters," said she. "The +whole town is singing their praises and I don't even know them!" + +Natasha rose and curtsied to the splendid countess. She was so pleased +by praise from this brilliant beauty that she blushed with pleasure. + +"I want to become a Moscovite too, now," said Helene. "How is it you're +not ashamed to bury such pearls in the country?" + +Countess Bezukhova quite deserved her reputation of being a fascinating +woman. She could say what she did not think--especially what was +flattering--quite simply and naturally. + +"Dear count, you must let me look after your daughters! Though I am not +staying here long this time--nor are you--I will try to amuse them. I +have already heard much of you in Petersburg and wanted to get to know +you," said she to Natasha with her stereotyped and lovely smile. "I had +heard about you from my page, Drubetskoy. Have you heard he is getting +married? And also from my husband's friend Bolkonski, Prince Andrew +Bolkonski," she went on with special emphasis, implying that she knew of +his relation to Natasha. To get better acquainted she asked that one of +the young ladies should come into her box for the rest of the +performance, and Natasha moved over to it. + +The scene of the third act represented a palace in which many candles +were burning and pictures of knights with short beards hung on the +walls. In the middle stood what were probably a king and a queen. The +king waved his right arm and, evidently nervous, sang something badly +and sat down on a crimson throne. The maiden who had been first in white +and then in light blue, now wore only a smock, and stood beside the +throne with her hair down. She sang something mournfully, addressing the +queen, but the king waved his arm severely, and men and women with bare +legs came in from both sides and began dancing all together. Then the +violins played very shrilly and merrily and one of the women with thick +bare legs and thin arms, separating from the others, went behind the +wings, adjusted her bodice, returned to the middle of the stage, and +began jumping and striking one foot rapidly against the other. In the +stalls everyone clapped and shouted "bravo!" Then one of the men went +into a corner of the stage. The cymbals and horns in the orchestra +struck up more loudly, and this man with bare legs jumped very high and +waved his feet about very rapidly. (He was Duport, who received sixty +thousand rubles a year for this art.) Everybody in the stalls, boxes, +and galleries began clapping and shouting with all their might, and the +man stopped and began smiling and bowing to all sides. Then other men +and women danced with bare legs. Then the king again shouted to the +sound of music, and they all began singing. But suddenly a storm came +on, chromatic scales and diminished sevenths were heard in the +orchestra, everyone ran off, again dragging one of their number away, +and the curtain dropped. Once more there was a terrible noise and +clatter among the audience, and with rapturous faces everyone began +shouting: "Duport! Duport! Duport!" Natasha no longer thought this +strange. She looked about with pleasure, smiling joyfully. + +"Isn't Duport delightful?" Helene asked her. + +"Oh, yes," replied Natasha. + + + + +CHAPTER X + +During the entr'acte a whiff of cold air came into Helene's box, the +door opened, and Anatole entered, stooping and trying not to brush +against anyone. + +"Let me introduce my brother to you," said Helene, her eyes shifting +uneasily from Natasha to Anatole. + +Natasha turned her pretty little head toward the elegant young officer +and smiled at him over her bare shoulder. Anatole, who was as handsome +at close quarters as at a distance, sat down beside her and told her he +had long wished to have this happiness--ever since the Naryshkins' ball +in fact, at which he had had the well-remembered pleasure of seeing her. +Kuragin was much more sensible and simple with women than among men. He +talked boldly and naturally, and Natasha was strangely and agreeably +struck by the fact that there was nothing formidable in this man about +whom there was so much talk, but that on the contrary his smile was most +naive, cheerful, and good-natured. + +Kuragin asked her opinion of the performance and told her how at a +previous performance Semenova had fallen down on the stage. + +"And do you know, Countess," he said, suddenly addressing her as an old, +familiar acquaintance, "we are getting up a costume tournament; you +ought to take part in it! It will be great fun. We shall all meet at the +Karagins'! Please come! No! Really, eh?" said he. + +While saying this he never removed his smiling eyes from her face, her +neck, and her bare arms. Natasha knew for certain that he was enraptured +by her. This pleased her, yet his presence made her feel constrained and +oppressed. When she was not looking at him she felt that he was looking +at her shoulders, and she involuntarily caught his eye so that he should +look into hers rather than this. But looking into his eyes she was +frightened, realizing that there was not that barrier of modesty she had +always felt between herself and other men. She did not know how it was +that within five minutes she had come to feel herself terribly near to +this man. When she turned away she feared he might seize her from behind +by her bare arm and kiss her on the neck. They spoke of most ordinary +things, yet she felt that they were closer to one another than she had +ever been to any man. Natasha kept turning to Helene and to her father, +as if asking what it all meant, but Helene was engaged in conversation +with a general and did not answer her look, and her father's eyes said +nothing but what they always said: "Having a good time? Well, I'm glad +of it!" + +During one of these moments of awkward silence when Anatole's prominent +eyes were gazing calmly and fixedly at her, Natasha, to break the +silence, asked him how he liked Moscow. She asked the question and +blushed. She felt all the time that by talking to him she was doing +something improper. Anatole smiled as though to encourage her. + +"At first I did not like it much, because what makes a town pleasant ce +sont les jolies femmes, * isn't that so? But now I like it very much +indeed," he said, looking at her significantly. "You'll come to the +costume tournament, Countess? Do come!" and putting out his hand to her +bouquet and dropping his voice, he added, "You will be the prettiest +there. Do come, dear countess, and give me this flower as a pledge!" + + +* Are the pretty women. + +Natasha did not understand what he was saying any more than he did +himself, but she felt that his incomprehensible words had an improper +intention. She did not know what to say and turned away as if she had +not heard his remark. But as soon as she had turned away she felt that +he was there, behind, so close behind her. + +"How is he now? Confused? Angry? Ought I to put it right?" she asked +herself, and she could not refrain from turning round. She looked +straight into his eyes, and his nearness, self-assurance, and the good- +natured tenderness of his smile vanquished her. She smiled just as he +was doing, gazing straight into his eyes. And again she felt with horror +that no barrier lay between him and her. + +The curtain rose again. Anatole left the box, serene and gay. Natasha +went back to her father in the other box, now quite submissive to the +world she found herself in. All that was going on before her now seemed +quite natural, but on the other hand all her previous thoughts of her +betrothed, of Princess Mary, or of life in the country did not once +recur to her mind and were as if belonging to a remote past. + +In the fourth act there was some sort of devil who sang waving his arm +about, till the boards were withdrawn from under him and he disappeared +down below. That was the only part of the fourth act that Natasha saw. +She felt agitated and tormented, and the cause of this was Kuragin whom +she could not help watching. As they were leaving the theater Anatole +came up to them, called their carriage, and helped them in. As he was +putting Natasha in he pressed her arm above the elbow. Agitated and +flushed she turned round. He was looking at her with glittering eyes, +smiling tenderly. + +Only after she had reached home was Natasha able clearly to think over +what had happened to her, and suddenly remembering Prince Andrew she was +horrified, and at tea to which all had sat down after the opera, she +gave a loud exclamation, flushed, and ran out of the room. + +"O God! I am lost!" she said to herself. "How could I let him?" She sat +for a long time hiding her flushed face in her hands trying to realize +what had happened to her, but was unable either to understand what had +happened or what she felt. Everything seemed dark, obscure, and +terrible. There in that enormous, illuminated theater where the bare- +legged Duport, in a tinsel-decorated jacket, jumped about to the music +on wet boards, and young girls and old men, and the nearly naked Helene +with her proud, calm smile, rapturously cried "bravo!"--there in the +presence of that Helene it had all seemed clear and simple; but now, +alone by herself, it was incomprehensible. "What is it? What was that +terror I felt of him? What is this gnawing of conscience I am feeling +now?" she thought. + +Only to the old countess at night in bed could Natasha have told all she +was feeling. She knew that Sonya with her severe and simple views would +either not understand it at all or would be horrified at such a +confession. So Natasha tried to solve what was torturing her by herself. + +"Am I spoiled for Andrew's love or not?" she asked herself, and with +soothing irony replied: "What a fool I am to ask that! What did happen +to me? Nothing! I have done nothing, I didn't lead him on at all. Nobody +will know and I shall never see him again," she told herself. "So it is +plain that nothing has happened and there is nothing to repent of, and +Andrew can love me still. But why 'still?' O God, why isn't he here?" +Natasha quieted herself for a moment, but again some instinct told her +that though all this was true, and though nothing had happened, yet the +former purity of her love for Prince Andrew had perished. And again in +imagination she went over her whole conversation with Kuragin, and again +saw the face, gestures, and tender smile of that bold handsome man when +he pressed her arm. + + + + +CHAPTER XI + +Anatole Kuragin was staying in Moscow because his father had sent him +away from Petersburg, where he had been spending twenty thousand rubles +a year in cash, besides running up debts for as much more, which his +creditors demanded from his father. + +His father announced to him that he would now pay half his debts for the +last time, but only on condition that he went to Moscow as adjutant to +the commander-in-chief--a post his father had procured for him--and +would at last try to make a good match there. He indicated to him +Princess Mary and Julie Karagina. + +Anatole consented and went to Moscow, where he put up at Pierre's house. +Pierre received him unwillingly at first, but got used to him after a +while, sometimes even accompanied him on his carousals, and gave him +money under the guise of loans. + +As Shinshin had remarked, from the time of his arrival Anatole had +turned the heads of the Moscow ladies, especially by the fact that he +slighted them and plainly preferred the gypsy girls and French +actresses--with the chief of whom, Mademoiselle George, he was said to +be on intimate relations. He had never missed a carousal at Danilov's or +other Moscow revelers', drank whole nights through, outvying everyone +else, and was at all the balls and parties of the best society. There +was talk of his intrigues with some of the ladies, and he flirted with a +few of them at the balls. But he did not run after the unmarried girls, +especially the rich heiresses who were most of them plain. There was a +special reason for this, as he had got married two years before--a fact +known only to his most intimate friends. At that time while with his +regiment in Poland, a Polish landowner of small means had forced him to +marry his daughter. Anatole had very soon abandoned his wife and, for a +payment which he agreed to send to his father-in-law, had arranged to be +free to pass himself off as a bachelor. + +Anatole was always content with his position, with himself, and with +others. He was instinctively and thoroughly convinced that it was +impossible for him to live otherwise than as he did and that he had +never in his life done anything base. He was incapable of considering +how his actions might affect others or what the consequences of this or +that action of his might be. He was convinced that, as a duck is so made +that it must live in water, so God had made him such that he must spend +thirty thousand rubles a year and always occupy a prominent position in +society. He believed this so firmly that others, looking at him, were +persuaded of it too and did not refuse him either a leading place in +society or money, which he borrowed from anyone and everyone and +evidently would not repay. + +He was not a gambler, at any rate he did not care about winning. He was +not vain. He did not mind what people thought of him. Still less could +he be accused of ambition. More than once he had vexed his father by +spoiling his own career, and he laughed at distinctions of all kinds. He +was not mean, and did not refuse anyone who asked of him. All he cared +about was gaiety and women, and as according to his ideas there was +nothing dishonorable in these tastes, and he was incapable of +considering what the gratification of his tastes entailed for others, he +honestly considered himself irreproachable, sincerely despised rogues +and bad people, and with a tranquil conscience carried his head high. + +Rakes, those male Magdalenes, have a secret feeling of innocence similar +to that which female Magdalenes have, based on the same hope of +forgiveness. "All will be forgiven her, for she loved much; and all will +be forgiven him, for he enjoyed much." + +Dolokhov, who had reappeared that year in Moscow after his exile and his +Persian adventures, and was leading a life of luxury, gambling, and +dissipation, associated with his old Petersburg comrade Kuragin and made +use of him for his own ends. + +Anatole was sincerely fond of Dolokhov for his cleverness and audacity. +Dolokhov, who needed Anatole Kuragin's name, position, and connections +as a bait to draw rich young men into his gambling set, made use of him +and amused himself at his expense without letting the other feel it. +Apart from the advantage he derived from Anatole, the very process of +dominating another's will was in itself a pleasure, a habit, and a +necessity to Dolokhov. + +Natasha had made a strong impression on Kuragin. At supper after the +opera he described to Dolokhov with the air of a connoisseur the +attractions of her arms, shoulders, feet, and hair and expressed his +intention of making love to her. Anatole had no notion and was incapable +of considering what might come of such love-making, as he never had any +notion of the outcome of any of his actions. + +"She's first-rate, my dear fellow, but not for us," replied Dolokhov. + +"I will tell my sister to ask her to dinner," said Anatole. "Eh?" + +"You'd better wait till she's married...." + +"You know, I adore little girls, they lose their heads at once," pursued +Anatole. + +"You have been caught once already by a 'little girl,'" said Dolokhov +who knew of Kuragin's marriage. "Take care!" + +"Well, that can't happen twice! Eh?" said Anatole, with a good-humored +laugh. + + + + +CHAPTER XII + +The day after the opera the Rostovs went nowhere and nobody came to see +them. Marya Dmitrievna talked to the count about something which they +concealed from Natasha. Natasha guessed they were talking about the old +prince and planning something, and this disquieted and offended her. She +was expecting Prince Andrew any moment and twice that day sent a +manservant to the Vozdvizhenka to ascertain whether he had come. He had +not arrived. She suffered more now than during her first days in Moscow. +To her impatience and pining for him were now added the unpleasant +recollection of her interview with Princess Mary and the old prince, and +a fear and anxiety of which she did not understand the cause. She +continually fancied that either he would never come or that something +would happen to her before he came. She could no longer think of him by +herself calmly and continuously as she had done before. As soon as she +began to think of him, the recollection of the old prince, of Princess +Mary, of the theater, and of Kuragin mingled with her thoughts. The +question again presented itself whether she was not guilty, whether she +had not already broken faith with Prince Andrew, and again she found +herself recalling to the minutest detail every word, every gesture, and +every shade in the play of expression on the face of the man who had +been able to arouse in her such an incomprehensible and terrifying +feeling. To the family Natasha seemed livelier than usual, but she was +far less tranquil and happy than before. + +On Sunday morning Marya Dmitrievna invited her visitors to Mass at her +parish church--the Church of the Assumption built over the graves of +victims of the plague. + +"I don't like those fashionable churches," she said, evidently priding +herself on her independence of thought. "God is the same everywhere. We +have an excellent priest, he conducts the service decently and with +dignity, and the deacon is the same. What holiness is there in giving +concerts in the choir? I don't like it, it's just self-indulgence!" + +Marya Dmitrievna liked Sundays and knew how to keep them. Her whole +house was scrubbed and cleaned on Saturdays; neither she nor the +servants worked, and they all wore holiday dress and went to church. At +her table there were extra dishes at dinner, and the servants had vodka +and roast goose or suckling pig. But in nothing in the house was the +holiday so noticeable as in Marya Dmitrievna's broad, stern face, which +on that day wore an invariable look of solemn festivity. + +After Mass, when they had finished their coffee in the dining room where +the loose covers had been removed from the furniture, a servant +announced that the carriage was ready, and Marya Dmitrievna rose with a +stern air. She wore her holiday shawl, in which she paid calls, and +announced that she was going to see Prince Nicholas Bolkonski to have an +explanation with him about Natasha. + +After she had gone, a dressmaker from Madame Suppert-Roguet waited on +the Rostovs, and Natasha, very glad of this diversion, having shut +herself into a room adjoining the drawing room, occupied herself trying +on the new dresses. Just as she had put on a bodice without sleeves and +only tacked together, and was turning her head to see in the glass how +the back fitted, she heard in the drawing room the animated sounds of +her father's voice and another's--a woman's--that made her flush. It was +Helene. Natasha had not time to take off the bodice before the door +opened and Countess Bezukhova, dressed in a purple velvet gown with a +high collar, came into the room beaming with good-humored amiable +smiles. + +"Oh, my enchantress!" she cried to the blushing Natasha. "Charming! No, +this is really beyond anything, my dear count," said she to Count Rostov +who had followed her in. "How can you live in Moscow and go nowhere? No, +I won't let you off! Mademoiselle George will recite at my house tonight +and there'll be some people, and if you don't bring your lovely girls-- +who are prettier than Mademoiselle George--I won't know you! My husband +is away in Tver or I would send him to fetch you. You must come. You +positively must! Between eight and nine." + +She nodded to the dressmaker, whom she knew and who had curtsied +respectfully to her, and seated herself in an armchair beside the +looking glass, draping the folds of her velvet dress picturesquely. She +did not cease chattering good-naturedly and gaily, continually praising +Natasha's beauty. She looked at Natasha's dresses and praised them, as +well as a new dress of her own made of "metallic gauze," which she had +received from Paris, and advised Natasha to have one like it. + +"But anything suits you, my charmer!" she remarked. + +A smile of pleasure never left Natasha's face. She felt happy and as if +she were blossoming under the praise of this dear Countess Bezukhova who +had formerly seemed to her so unapproachable and important and was now +so kind to her. Natasha brightened up and felt almost in love with this +woman, who was so beautiful and so kind. Helene for her part was +sincerely delighted with Natasha and wished to give her a good time. +Anatole had asked her to bring him and Natasha together, and she was +calling on the Rostovs for that purpose. The idea of throwing her +brother and Natasha together amused her. + +Though at one time, in Petersburg, she had been annoyed with Natasha for +drawing Boris away, she did not think of that now, and in her own way +heartily wished Natasha well. As she was leaving the Rostovs she called +her protegee aside. + +"My brother dined with me yesterday--we nearly died of laughter--he ate +nothing and kept sighing for you, my charmer! He is madly, quite madly, +in love with you, my dear." + +Natasha blushed scarlet when she heard this. + +"How she blushes, how she blushes, my pretty!" said Helene. "You must +certainly come. If you love somebody, my charmer, that is not a reason +to shut yourself up. Even if you are engaged, I am sure your fiance +would wish you to go into society rather than be bored to death." + +"So she knows I am engaged, and she and her husband Pierre--that good +Pierre--have talked and laughed about this. So it's all right." And +again, under Helene's influence, what had seemed terrible now seemed +simple and natural. "And she is such a grande dame, so kind, and +evidently likes me so much. And why not enjoy myself?" thought Natasha, +gazing at Helene with wide-open, wondering eyes. + +Marya Dmitrievna came back to dinner taciturn and serious, having +evidently suffered a defeat at the old prince's. She was still too +agitated by the encounter to be able to talk of the affair calmly. In +answer to the count's inquiries she replied that things were all right +and that she would tell about it next day. On hearing of Countess +Bezukhova's visit and the invitation for that evening, Marya Dmitrievna +remarked: + +"I don't care to have anything to do with Bezukhova and don't advise you +to; however, if you've promised--go. It will divert your thoughts," she +added, addressing Natasha. + + + + +CHAPTER XIII + +Count Rostov took the girls to Countess Bezukhova's. There were a good +many people there, but nearly all strangers to Natasha. Count Rostov was +displeased to see that the company consisted almost entirely of men and +women known for the freedom of their conduct. Mademoiselle George was +standing in a corner of the drawing room surrounded by young men. There +were several Frenchmen present, among them Metivier who from the time +Helene reached Moscow had been an intimate in her house. The count +decided not to sit down to cards or let his girls out of his sight and +to get away as soon as Mademoiselle George's performance was over. + +Anatole was at the door, evidently on the lookout for the Rostovs. +Immediately after greeting the count he went up to Natasha and followed +her. As soon as she saw him she was seized by the same feeling she had +had at the opera--gratified vanity at his admiration of her and fear at +the absence of a moral barrier between them. + +Helene welcomed Natasha delightedly and was loud in admiration of her +beauty and her dress. Soon after their arrival Mademoiselle George went +out of the room to change her costume. In the drawing room people began +arranging the chairs and taking their seats. Anatole moved a chair for +Natasha and was about to sit down beside her, but the count, who never +lost sight of her, took the seat himself. Anatole sat down behind her. + +Mademoiselle George, with her bare, fat, dimpled arms, and a red shawl +draped over one shoulder, came into the space left vacant for her, and +assumed an unnatural pose. Enthusiastic whispering was audible. + +Mademoiselle George looked sternly and gloomily at the audience and +began reciting some French verses describing her guilty love for her +son. In some places she raised her voice, in others she whispered, +lifting her head triumphantly; sometimes she paused and uttered hoarse +sounds, rolling her eyes. + +"Adorable! divine! delicious!" was heard from every side. + +Natasha looked at the fat actress, but neither saw nor heard nor +understood anything of what went on before her. She only felt herself +again completely borne away into this strange senseless world--so remote +from her old world--a world in which it was impossible to know what was +good or bad, reasonable or senseless. Behind her sat Anatole, and +conscious of his proximity she experienced a frightened sense of +expectancy. + +After the first monologue the whole company rose and surrounded +Mademoiselle George, expressing their enthusiasm. + +"How beautiful she is!" Natasha remarked to her father who had also +risen and was moving through the crowd toward the actress. + +"I don't think so when I look at you!" said Anatole, following Natasha. +He said this at a moment when she alone could hear him. "You are +enchanting... from the moment I saw you I have never ceased..." + +"Come, come, Natasha!" said the count, as he turned back for his +daughter. "How beautiful she is!" Natasha without saying anything +stepped up to her father and looked at him with surprised inquiring +eyes. + +After giving several recitations, Mademoiselle George left, and Countess +Bezukhova asked her visitors into the ballroom. + +The count wished to go home, but Helene entreated him not to spoil her +improvised ball, and the Rostovs stayed on. Anatole asked Natasha for a +valse and as they danced he pressed her waist and hand and told her she +was bewitching and that he loved her. During the ecossaise, which she +also danced with him, Anatole said nothing when they happened to be by +themselves, but merely gazed at her. Natasha lifted her frightened eyes +to him, but there was such confident tenderness in his affectionate look +and smile that she could not, whilst looking at him, say what she had to +say. She lowered her eyes. + +"Don't say such things to me. I am betrothed and love another," she said +rapidly.... She glanced at him. + +Anatole was not upset or pained by what she had said. + +"Don't speak to me of that! What can I do?" said he. "I tell you I am +madly, madly, in love with you! Is it my fault that you are +enchanting?... It's our turn to begin." + +Natasha, animated and excited, looked about her with wide-open +frightened eyes and seemed merrier than usual. She understood hardly +anything that went on that evening. They danced the ecossaise and the +Grossvater. Her father asked her to come home, but she begged to remain. +Wherever she went and whomever she was speaking to, she felt his eyes +upon her. Later on she recalled how she had asked her father to let her +go to the dressing room to rearrange her dress, that Helene had followed +her and spoken laughingly of her brother's love, and that she again met +Anatole in the little sitting room. Helene had disappeared leaving them +alone, and Anatole had taken her hand and said in a tender voice: + +"I cannot come to visit you but is it possible that I shall never see +you? I love you madly. Can I never...?" and, blocking her path, he +brought his face close to hers. + +His large, glittering, masculine eyes were so close to hers that she saw +nothing but them. + +"Natalie?" he whispered inquiringly while she felt her hands being +painfully pressed. "Natalie?" + +"I don't understand. I have nothing to say," her eyes replied. + +Burning lips were pressed to hers, and at the same instant she felt +herself released, and Helene's footsteps and the rustle of her dress +were heard in the room. Natasha looked round at her, and then, red and +trembling, threw a frightened look of inquiry at Anatole and moved +toward the door. + +"One word, just one, for God's sake!" cried Anatole. + +She paused. She so wanted a word from him that would explain to her what +had happened and to which she could find no answer. + +"Natalie, just a word, only one!" he kept repeating, evidently not +knowing what to say and he repeated it till Helene came up to them. + +Helene returned with Natasha to the drawing room. The Rostovs went away +without staying for supper. + +After reaching home Natasha did not sleep all night. She was tormented +by the insoluble question whether she loved Anatole or Prince Andrew. +She loved Prince Andrew--she remembered distinctly how deeply she loved +him. But she also loved Anatole, of that there was no doubt. "Else how +could all this have happened?" thought she. "If, after that, I could +return his smile when saying good-by, if I was able to let it come to +that, it means that I loved him from the first. It means that he is +kind, noble, and splendid, and I could not help loving him. What am I to +do if I love him and the other one too?" she asked herself, unable to +find an answer to these terrible questions. + + + + +CHAPTER XIV + +Morning came with its cares and bustle. Everyone got up and began to +move about and talk, dressmakers came again. Marya Dmitrievna appeared, +and they were called to breakfast. Natasha kept looking uneasily at +everybody with wide-open eyes, as if wishing to intercept every glance +directed toward her, and tried to appear the same as usual. + +After breakfast, which was her best time, Marya Dmitrievna sat down in +her armchair and called Natasha and the count to her. + +"Well, friends, I have now thought the whole matter over and this is my +advice," she began. "Yesterday, as you know, I went to see Prince +Bolkonski. Well, I had a talk with him.... He took it into his head to +begin shouting, but I am not one to be shouted down. I said what I had +to say!" + +"Well, and he?" asked the count. + +"He? He's crazy... he did not want to listen. But what's the use of +talking? As it is we have worn the poor girl out," said Marya +Dmitrievna. "My advice to you is finish your business and go back home +to Otradnoe... and wait there." + +"Oh, no!" exclaimed Natasha. + +"Yes, go back," said Marya Dmitrievna, "and wait there. If your +betrothed comes here now--there will be no avoiding a quarrel; but alone +with the old man he will talk things over and then come on to you." + +Count Rostov approved of this suggestion, appreciating its +reasonableness. If the old man came round it would be all the better to +visit him in Moscow or at Bald Hills later on; and if not, the wedding, +against his wishes, could only be arranged at Otradnoe. + +"That is perfectly true. And I am sorry I went to see him and took her," +said the old count. + +"No, why be sorry? Being here, you had to pay your respects. But if he +won't--that's his affair," said Marya Dmitrievna, looking for something +in her reticule. "Besides, the trousseau is ready, so there is nothing +to wait for; and what is not ready I'll send after you. Though I don't +like letting you go, it is the best way. So go, with God's blessing!" + +Having found what she was looking for in the reticule she handed it to +Natasha. It was a letter from Princess Mary. + +"She has written to you. How she torments herself, poor thing! She's +afraid you might think that she does not like you." + +"But she doesn't like me," said Natasha. + +"Don't talk nonsense!" cried Marya Dmitrievna. + +"I shan't believe anyone, I know she doesn't like me," replied Natasha +boldly as she took the letter, and her face expressed a cold and angry +resolution that caused Marya Dmitrievna to look at her more intently and +to frown. + +"Don't answer like that, my good girl!" she said. "What I say is true! +Write an answer!" Natasha did not reply and went to her own room to read +Princess Mary's letter. + +Princess Mary wrote that she was in despair at the misunderstanding that +had occurred between them. Whatever her father's feelings might be, she +begged Natasha to believe that she could not help loving her as the one +chosen by her brother, for whose happiness she was ready to sacrifice +everything. + +"Do not think, however," she wrote, "that my father is ill-disposed +toward you. He is an invalid and an old man who must be forgiven; but he +is good and magnanimous and will love her who makes his son happy." +Princess Mary went on to ask Natasha to fix a time when she could see +her again. + +After reading the letter Natasha sat down at the writing table to answer +it. "Dear Princess," she wrote in French quickly and mechanically, and +then paused. What more could she write after all that had happened the +evening before? "Yes, yes! All that has happened, and now all is +changed," she thought as she sat with the letter she had begun before +her. "Must I break off with him? Must I really? That's awful..." and to +escape from these dreadful thoughts she went to Sonya and began sorting +patterns with her. + +After dinner Natasha went to her room and again took up Princess Mary's +letter. "Can it be that it is all over?" she thought. "Can it be that +all this has happened so quickly and has destroyed all that went +before?" She recalled her love for Prince Andrew in all its former +strength, and at the same time felt that she loved Kuragin. She vividly +pictured herself as Prince Andrew's wife, and the scenes of happiness +with him she had so often repeated in her imagination, and at the same +time, aglow with excitement, recalled every detail of yesterday's +interview with Anatole. + +"Why could that not be as well?" she sometimes asked herself in complete +bewilderment. "Only so could I be completely happy; but now I have to +choose, and I can't be happy without either of them. Only," she thought, +"to tell Prince Andrew what has happened or to hide it from him are both +equally impossible. But with that one nothing is spoiled. But am I +really to abandon forever the joy of Prince Andrew's love, in which I +have lived so long?" + +"Please, Miss!" whispered a maid entering the room with a mysterious +air. "A man told me to give you this-" and she handed Natasha a letter. + +"Only, for Christ's sake..." the girl went on, as Natasha, without +thinking, mechanically broke the seal and read a love letter from +Anatole, of which, without taking in a word, she understood only that it +was a letter from him--from the man she loved. Yes, she loved him, or +else how could that have happened which had happened? And how could she +have a love letter from him in her hand? + +With trembling hands Natasha held that passionate love letter which +Dolokhov had composed for Anatole, and as she read it she found in it an +echo of all that she herself imagined she was feeling. + +"Since yesterday evening my fate has been sealed; to be loved by you or +to die. There is no other way for me," the letter began. Then he went on +to say that he knew her parents would not give her to him--for this +there were secret reasons he could reveal only to her--but that if she +loved him she need only say the word yes, and no human power could +hinder their bliss. Love would conquer all. He would steal her away and +carry her off to the ends of the earth. + +"Yes, yes! I love him!" thought Natasha, reading the letter for the +twentieth time and finding some peculiarly deep meaning in each word of +it. + +That evening Marya Dmitrievna was going to the Akharovs' and proposed to +take the girls with her. Natasha, pleading a headache, remained at home. + + + + +CHAPTER XV + +On returning late in the evening Sonya went to Natasha's room, and to +her surprise found her still dressed and asleep on the sofa. Open on the +table, beside her lay Anatole's letter. Sonya picked it up and read it. + +As she read she glanced at the sleeping Natasha, trying to find in her +face an explanation of what she was reading, but did not find it. Her +face was calm, gentle, and happy. Clutching her breast to keep herself +from choking, Sonya, pale and trembling with fear and agitation, sat +down in an armchair and burst into tears. + +"How was it I noticed nothing? How could it go so far? Can she have left +off loving Prince Andrew? And how could she let Kuragin go to such +lengths? He is a deceiver and a villain, that's plain! What will +Nicholas, dear noble Nicholas, do when he hears of it? So this is the +meaning of her excited, resolute, unnatural look the day before +yesterday, yesterday, and today," thought Sonya. "But it can't be that +she loves him! She probably opened the letter without knowing who it was +from. Probably she is offended by it. She could not do such a thing!" + +Sonya wiped away her tears and went up to Natasha, again scanning her +face. + +"Natasha!" she said, just audibly. + +Natasha awoke and saw Sonya. + +"Ah, you're back?" + +And with the decision and tenderness that often come at the moment of +awakening, she embraced her friend, but noticing Sonya's look of +embarrassment, her own face expressed confusion and suspicion. + +"Sonya, you've read that letter?" she demanded. + +"Yes," answered Sonya softly. + +Natasha smiled rapturously. + +"No, Sonya, I can't any longer!" she said. "I can't hide it from you any +longer. You know, we love one another! Sonya, darling, he writes... +Sonya..." + +Sonya stared open-eyed at Natasha, unable to believe her ears. + +"And Bolkonski?" she asked. + +"Ah, Sonya, if you only knew how happy I am!" cried Natasha. "You don't +know what love is...." + +"But, Natasha, can that be all over?" + +Natasha looked at Sonya with wide-open eyes as if she could not grasp +the question. + +"Well, then, are you refusing Prince Andrew?" said Sonya. + +"Oh, you don't understand anything! Don't talk nonsense, just listen!" +said Natasha, with momentary vexation. + +"But I can't believe it," insisted Sonya. "I don't understand. How is it +you have loved a man for a whole year and suddenly... Why, you have only +seen him three times! Natasha, I don't believe you, you're joking! In +three days to forget everything and so..." + +"Three days?" said Natasha. "It seems to me I've loved him a hundred +years. It seems to me that I have never loved anyone before. You can't +understand it.... Sonya, wait a bit, sit here," and Natasha embraced and +kissed her. + +"I had heard that it happens like this, and you must have heard it too, +but it's only now that I feel such love. It's not the same as before. As +soon as I saw him I felt he was my master and I his slave, and that I +could not help loving him. Yes, his slave! Whatever he orders I shall +do. You don't understand that. What can I do? What can I do, Sonya?" +cried Natasha with a happy yet frightened expression. + +"But think what you are doing," cried Sonya. "I can't leave it like +this. This secret correspondence... How could you let him go so far?" +she went on, with a horror and disgust she could hardly conceal. + +"I told you that I have no will," Natasha replied. "Why can't you +understand? I love him!" + +"Then I won't let it come to that... I shall tell!" cried Sonya, +bursting into tears. + +"What do you mean? For God's sake... If you tell, you are my enemy!" +declared Natasha. "You want me to be miserable, you want us to be +separated...." + +When she saw Natasha's fright, Sonya shed tears of shame and pity for +her friend. + +"But what has happened between you?" she asked. "What has he said to +you? Why doesn't he come to the house?" + +Natasha did not answer her questions. + +"For God's sake, Sonya, don't tell anyone, don't torture me," Natasha +entreated. "Remember no one ought to interfere in such matters! I have +confided in you...." + +"But why this secrecy? Why doesn't he come to the house?" asked Sonya. +"Why doesn't he openly ask for your hand? You know Prince Andrew gave +you complete freedom--if it is really so; but I don't believe it! +Natasha, have you considered what these secret reasons can be?" + +Natasha looked at Sonya with astonishment. Evidently this question +presented itself to her mind for the first time and she did not know how +to answer it. + +"I don't know what the reasons are. But there must be reasons!" + +Sonya sighed and shook her head incredulously. + +"If there were reasons..." she began. + +But Natasha, guessing her doubts, interrupted her in alarm. + +"Sonya, one can't doubt him! One can't, one can't! Don't you +understand?" she cried. + +"Does he love you?" + +"Does he love me?" Natasha repeated with a smile of pity at her friend's +lack of comprehension. "Why, you have read his letter and you have seen +him." + +"But if he is dishonorable?" + +"He! dishonorable? If you only knew!" exclaimed Natasha. + +"If he is an honorable man he should either declare his intentions or +cease seeing you; and if you won't do this, I will. I will write to him, +and I will tell Papa!" said Sonya resolutely. + +"But I can't live without him!" cried Natasha. + +"Natasha, I don't understand you. And what are you saying! Think of your +father and of Nicholas." + +"I don't want anyone, I don't love anyone but him. How dare you say he +is dishonorable? Don't you know that I love him?" screamed Natasha. "Go +away, Sonya! I don't want to quarrel with you, but go, for God's sake +go! You see how I am suffering!" Natasha cried angrily, in a voice of +despair and repressed irritation. Sonya burst into sobs and ran from the +room. + +Natasha went to the table and without a moment's reflection wrote that +answer to Princess Mary which she had been unable to write all the +morning. In this letter she said briefly that all their +misunderstandings were at an end; that availing herself of the +magnanimity of Prince Andrew who when he went abroad had given her her +freedom, she begged Princess Mary to forget everything and forgive her +if she had been to blame toward her, but that she could not be his wife. +At that moment this all seemed quite easy, simple, and clear to Natasha. + +On Friday the Rostovs were to return to the country, but on Wednesday +the count went with the prospective purchaser to his estate near Moscow. + +On the day the count left, Sonya and Natasha were invited to a big +dinner party at the Karagins', and Marya Dmitrievna took them there. At +that party Natasha again met Anatole, and Sonya noticed that she spoke +to him, trying not to be overheard, and that all through dinner she was +more agitated than ever. When they got home Natasha was the first to +begin the explanation Sonya expected. + +"There, Sonya, you were talking all sorts of nonsense about him," +Natasha began in a mild voice such as children use when they wish to be +praised. "We have had an explanation today." + +"Well, what happened? What did he say? Natasha, how glad I am you're not +angry with me! Tell me everything--the whole truth. What did he say?" + +Natasha became thoughtful. + +"Oh, Sonya, if you knew him as I do! He said... He asked me what I had +promised Bolkonski. He was glad I was free to refuse him." + +Sonya sighed sorrowfully. + +"But you haven't refused Bolkonski?" said she. + +"Perhaps I have. Perhaps all is over between me and Bolkonski. Why do +you think so badly of me?" + +"I don't think anything, only I don't understand this..." + +"Wait a bit, Sonya, you'll understand everything. You'll see what a man +he is! Now don't think badly of me or of him. I don't think badly of +anyone: I love and pity everybody. But what am I to do?" + +Sonya did not succumb to the tender tone Natasha used toward her. The +more emotional and ingratiating the expression of Natasha's face became, +the more serious and stern grew Sonya's. + +"Natasha," said she, "you asked me not to speak to you, and I haven't +spoken, but now you yourself have begun. I don't trust him, Natasha. Why +this secrecy?" + +"Again, again!" interrupted Natasha. + +"Natasha, I am afraid for you!" + +"Afraid of what?" + +"I am afraid you're going to your ruin," said Sonya resolutely, and was +herself horrified at what she had said. + +Anger again showed in Natasha's face. + +"And I'll go to my ruin, I will, as soon as possible! It's not your +business! It won't be you, but I, who'll suffer. Leave me alone, leave +me alone! I hate you!" + +"Natasha!" moaned Sonya, aghast. + +"I hate you, I hate you! You're my enemy forever!" And Natasha ran out +of the room. + +Natasha did not speak to Sonya again and avoided her. With the same +expression of agitated surprise and guilt she went about the house, +taking up now one occupation, now another, and at once abandoning them. + +Hard as it was for Sonya, she watched her friend and did not let her out +of her sight. + +The day before the count was to return, Sonya noticed that Natasha sat +by the drawing-room window all the morning as if expecting something and +that she made a sign to an officer who drove past, whom Sonya took to be +Anatole. + +Sonya began watching her friend still more attentively and noticed that +at dinner and all that evening Natasha was in a strange and unnatural +state. She answered questions at random, began sentences she did not +finish, and laughed at everything. + +After tea Sonya noticed a housemaid at Natasha's door timidly waiting to +let her pass. She let the girl go in, and then listening at the door +learned that another letter had been delivered. + +Then suddenly it became clear to Sonya that Natasha had some dreadful +plan for that evening. Sonya knocked at her door. Natasha did not let +her in. + +"She will run away with him!" thought Sonya. "She is capable of +anything. There was something particularly pathetic and resolute in her +face today. She cried as she said good-by to Uncle," Sonya remembered. +"Yes, that's it, she means to elope with him, but what am I to do?" +thought she, recalling all the signs that clearly indicated that Natasha +had some terrible intention. "The count is away. What am I to do? Write +to Kuragin demanding an explanation? But what is there to oblige him to +reply? Write to Pierre, as Prince Andrew asked me to in case of some +misfortune?... But perhaps she really has already refused Bolkonski--she +sent a letter to Princess Mary yesterday. And Uncle is away...." To tell +Marya Dmitrievna who had such faith in Natasha seemed to Sonya terrible. +"Well, anyway," thought Sonya as she stood in the dark passage, "now or +never I must prove that I remember the family's goodness to me and that +I love Nicholas. Yes! If I don't sleep for three nights I'll not leave +this passage and will hold her back by force and will and not let the +family be disgraced," thought she. + + + + +CHAPTER XVI + +Anatole had lately moved to Dolokhov's. The plan for Natalie Rostova's +abduction had been arranged and the preparations made by Dolokhov a few +days before, and on the day that Sonya, after listening at Natasha's +door, resolved to safeguard her, it was to have been put into execution. +Natasha had promised to come out to Kuragin at the back porch at ten +that evening. Kuragin was to put her into a troyka he would have ready +and to drive her forty miles to the village of Kamenka, where an +unfrocked priest was in readiness to perform a marriage ceremony over +them. At Kamenka a relay of horses was to wait which would take them to +the Warsaw highroad, and from there they would hasten abroad with post +horses. + +Anatole had a passport, an order for post horses, ten thousand rubles he +had taken from his sister and another ten thousand borrowed with +Dolokhov's help. + +Two witnesses for the mock marriage--Khvostikov, a retired petty +official whom Dolokhov made use of in his gambling transactions, and +Makarin, a retired hussar, a kindly, weak fellow who had an unbounded +affection for Kuragin--were sitting at tea in Dolokhov's front room. + +In his large study, the walls of which were hung to the ceiling with +Persian rugs, bearskins, and weapons, sat Dolokhov in a traveling cloak +and high boots, at an open desk on which lay an abacus and some bundles of +paper money. Anatole, with uniform unbuttoned, walked to and fro from +the room where the witnesses were sitting, through the study to the room +behind, where his French valet and others were packing the last of his +things. Dolokhov was counting the money and noting something down. + +"Well," he said, "Khvostikov must have two thousand." + +"Give it to him, then," said Anatole. + +"Makarka" (their name for Makarin) "will go through fire and water for +you for nothing. So here are our accounts all settled," said Dolokhov, +showing him the memorandum. "Is that right?" + +"Yes, of course," returned Anatole, evidently not listening to Dolokhov +and looking straight before him with a smile that did not leave his +face. + +Dolokhov banged down the lid of his desk and turned to Anatole with an +ironic smile: + +"Do you know? You'd really better drop it all. There's still time!" + +"Fool," retorted Anatole. "Don't talk nonsense! If you only knew... it's +the devil knows what!" + +"No, really, give it up!" said Dolokhov. "I am speaking seriously. It's +no joke, this plot you've hatched." + +"What, teasing again? Go to the devil! Eh?" said Anatole, making a +grimace. "Really it's no time for your stupid jokes," and he left the +room. + +Dolokhov smiled contemptuously and condescendingly when Anatole had gone +out. + +"You wait a bit," he called after him. "I'm not joking, I'm talking +sense. Come here, come here!" + +Anatole returned and looked at Dolokhov, trying to give him his +attention and evidently submitting to him involuntarily. + +"Now listen to me. I'm telling you this for the last time. Why should I +joke about it? Did I hinder you? Who arranged everything for you? Who +found the priest and got the passport? Who raised the money? I did it +all." + +"Well, thank you for it. Do you think I am not grateful?" And Anatole +sighed and embraced Dolokhov. + +"I helped you, but all the same I must tell you the truth; it is a +dangerous business, and if you think about it--a stupid business. Well, +you'll carry her off--all right! Will they let it stop at that? It will +come out that you're already married. Why, they'll have you in the +criminal court...." + +"Oh, nonsense, nonsense!" Anatole ejaculated and again made a grimace. +"Didn't I explain to you? What?" And Anatole, with the partiality dull- +witted people have for any conclusion they have reached by their own +reasoning, repeated the argument he had already put to Dolokhov a +hundred times. "Didn't I explain to you that I have come to this +conclusion: if this marriage is invalid," he went on, crooking one +finger, "then I have nothing to answer for; but if it is valid, no +matter! Abroad no one will know anything about it. Isn't that so? And +don't talk to me, don't, don't." + +"Seriously, you'd better drop it! You'll only get yourself into a mess!" + +"Go to the devil!" cried Anatole and, clutching his hair, left the room, +but returned at once and dropped into an armchair in front of Dolokhov +with his feet turned under him. "It's the very devil! What? Feel how it +beats!" He took Dolokhov's hand and put it on his heart. "What a foot, +my dear fellow! What a glance! A goddess!" he added in French. "What?" + +Dolokhov with a cold smile and a gleam in his handsome insolent eyes +looked at him--evidently wishing to get some more amusement out of him. + +"Well and when the money's gone, what then?" + +"What then? Eh?" repeated Anatole, sincerely perplexed by a thought of +the future. "What then?... Then, I don't know.... But why talk +nonsense!" He glanced at his watch. "It's time!" + +Anatole went into the back room. + +"Now then! Nearly ready? You're dawdling!" he shouted to the servants. + +Dolokhov put away the money, called a footman whom he ordered to bring +something for them to eat and drink before the journey, and went into +the room where Khvostikov and Makarin were sitting. + +Anatole lay on the sofa in the study leaning on his elbow and smiling +pensively, while his handsome lips muttered tenderly to himself. + +"Come and eat something. Have a drink!" Dolokhov shouted to him from the +other room. + +"I don't want to," answered Anatole continuing to smile. + +"Come! Balaga is here." + +Anatole rose and went into the dining room. Balaga was a famous troyka +driver who had known Dolokhov and Anatole some six years and had given +them good service with his troykas. More than once when Anatole's +regiment was stationed at Tver he had taken him from Tver in the +evening, brought him to Moscow by daybreak, and driven him back again +the next night. More than once he had enabled Dolokhov to escape when +pursued. More than once he had driven them through the town with gypsies +and "ladykins" as he called the cocottes. More than once in their +service he had run over pedestrians and upset vehicles in the streets of +Moscow and had always been protected from the consequences by "my +gentlemen" as he called them. He had ruined more than one horse in their +service. More than once they had beaten him, and more than once they had +made him drunk on champagne and Madeira, which he loved; and he knew +more than one thing about each of them which would long ago have sent an +ordinary man to Siberia. They often called Balaga into their orgies and +made him drink and dance at the gypsies', and more than one thousand +rubles of their money had passed through his hands. In their service he +risked his skin and his life twenty times a year, and in their service +had lost more horses than the money he had from them would buy. But he +liked them; liked that mad driving at twelve miles an hour, liked +upsetting a driver or running down a pedestrian, and flying at full +gallop through the Moscow streets. He liked to hear those wild, tipsy +shouts behind him: "Get on! Get on!" when it was impossible to go any +faster. He liked giving a painful lash on the neck to some peasant who, +more dead than alive, was already hurrying out of his way. "Real +gentlemen!" he considered them. + +Anatole and Dolokhov liked Balaga too for his masterly driving and +because he liked the things they liked. With others Balaga bargained, +charging twenty-five rubles for a two hours' drive, and rarely drove +himself, generally letting his young men do so. But with "his gentlemen" +he always drove himself and never demanded anything for his work. Only a +couple of times a year--when he knew from their valets that they had +money in hand--he would turn up of a morning quite sober and with a deep +bow would ask them to help him. The gentlemen always made him sit down. + +"Do help me out, Theodore Ivanych, sir," or "your excellency," he would +say. "I am quite out of horses. Let me have what you can to go to the +fair." + +And Anatole and Dolokhov, when they had money, would give him a thousand +or a couple of thousand rubles. + +Balaga was a fair-haired, short, and snub-nosed peasant of about twenty- +seven; red-faced, with a particularly red thick neck, glittering little +eyes, and a small beard. He wore a fine, dark-blue, silk-lined cloth +coat over a sheepskin. + +On entering the room now he crossed himself, turning toward the front +corner of the room, and went up to Dolokhov, holding out a small, black +hand. + +"Theodore Ivanych!" he said, bowing. + +"How d'you do, friend? Well, here he is!" + +"Good day, your excellency!" he said, again holding out his hand to +Anatole who had just come in. + +"I say, Balaga," said Anatole, putting his hands on the man's shoulders, +"do you care for me or not? Eh? Now, do me a service.... What horses +have you come with? Eh?" + +"As your messenger ordered, your special beasts," replied Balaga. + +"Well, listen, Balaga! Drive all three to death but get me there in +three hours. Eh?" + +"When they are dead, what shall I drive?" said Balaga with a wink. + +"Mind, I'll smash your face in! Don't make jokes!" cried Anatole, +suddenly rolling his eyes. + +"Why joke?" said the driver, laughing. "As if I'd grudge my gentlemen +anything! As fast as ever the horses can gallop, so fast we'll go!" + +"Ah!" said Anatole. "Well, sit down." + +"Yes, sit down!" said Dolokhov. + +"I'll stand, Theodore Ivanych." + +"Sit down; nonsense! Have a drink!" said Anatole, and filled a large +glass of Madeira for him. + +The driver's eyes sparkled at the sight of the wine. After refusing it +for manners' sake, he drank it and wiped his mouth with a red silk +handkerchief he took out of his cap. + +"And when are we to start, your excellency?" + +"Well..." Anatole looked at his watch. "We'll start at once. Mind, +Balaga! You'll get there in time? Eh?" + +"That depends on our luck in starting, else why shouldn't we be there in +time?" replied Balaga. "Didn't we get you to Tver in seven hours? I +think you remember that, your excellency?" + +"Do you know, one Christmas I drove from Tver," said Anatole, smilingly +at the recollection and turning to Makarin who gazed rapturously at him +with wide-open eyes. "Will you believe it, Makarka, it took one's breath +away, the rate we flew. We came across a train of loaded sleighs and +drove right over two of them. Eh?" + +"Those were horses!" Balaga continued the tale. "That time I'd harnessed +two young side horses with the bay in the shafts," he went on, turning +to Dolokhov. "Will you believe it, Theodore Ivanych, those animals flew +forty miles? I couldn't hold them in, my hands grew numb in the sharp +frost so that I threw down the reins--'Catch hold yourself, your +excellency!' says I, and I just tumbled on the bottom of the sleigh and +sprawled there. It wasn't a case of urging them on, there was no holding +them in till we reached the place. The devils took us there in three +hours! Only the near one died of it." + + + + +CHAPTER XVII + +Anatole went out of the room and returned a few minutes later wearing a +fur coat girt with a silver belt, and a sable cap jauntily set on one +side and very becoming to his handsome face. Having looked in a mirror, +and standing before Dolokhov in the same pose he had assumed before it, +he lifted a glass of wine. + +"Well, good-by, Theodore. Thank you for everything and farewell!" said +Anatole. "Well, comrades and friends..." he considered for a moment +"...of my youth, farewell!" he said, turning to Makarin and the others. + +Though they were all going with him, Anatole evidently wished to make +something touching and solemn out of this address to his comrades. He +spoke slowly in a loud voice and throwing out his chest slightly swayed +one leg. + +"All take glasses; you too, Balaga. Well, comrades and friends of my +youth, we've had our fling and lived and reveled. Eh? And now, when +shall we meet again? I am going abroad. We have had a good time--now +farewell, lads! To our health! Hurrah!..." he cried, and emptying his +glass flung it on the floor. + +"To your health!" said Balaga who also emptied his glass, and wiped his +mouth with his handkerchief. + +Makarin embraced Anatole with tears in his eyes. + +"Ah, Prince, how sorry I am to part from you! + +"Let's go. Let's go!" cried Anatole. + +Balaga was about to leave the room. + +"No, stop!" said Anatole. "Shut the door; we have first to sit down. +That's the way." + +They shut the door and all sat down. + +"Now, quick march, lads!" said Anatole, rising. + +Joseph, his valet, handed him his sabretache and saber, and they all +went out into the vestibule. + +"And where's the fur cloak?" asked Dolokhov. "Hey, Ignatka! Go to +Matrena Matrevna and ask her for the sable cloak. I have heard what +elopements are like," continued Dolokhov with a wink. "Why, she'll rush +out more dead than alive just in the things she is wearing; if you delay +at all there'll be tears and 'Papa' and 'Mamma,' and she's frozen in a +minute and must go back--but you wrap the fur cloak round her first +thing and carry her to the sleigh." + +The valet brought a woman's fox-lined cloak. + +"Fool, I told you the sable one! Hey, Matrena, the sable!" he shouted so +that his voice rang far through the rooms. + +A handsome, slim, and pale-faced gypsy girl with glittering black eyes +and curly blue-black hair, wearing a red shawl, ran out with a sable +mantle on her arm. + +"Here, I don't grudge it--take it!" she said, evidently afraid of her +master and yet regretful of her cloak. + +Dolokhov, without answering, took the cloak, threw it over Matrena, and +wrapped her up in it. + +"That's the way," said Dolokhov, "and then so!" and he turned the collar +up round her head, leaving only a little of the face uncovered. "And +then so, do you see?" and he pushed Anatole's head forward to meet the +gap left by the collar, through which Matrena's brilliant smile was +seen. + +"Well, good-by, Matrena," said Anatole, kissing her. "Ah, my revels here +are over. Remember me to Steshka. There, good-by! Good-bye, Matrena, +wish me luck!" + +"Well, Prince, may God give you great luck!" said Matrena in her gypsy +accent. + +Two troykas were standing before the porch and two young drivers were +holding the horses. Balaga took his seat in the front one and holding +his elbows high arranged the reins deliberately. Anatole and Dolokhov +got in with him. Makarin, Khvostikov, and a valet seated themselves in +the other sleigh. + +"Well, are you ready?" asked Balaga. + +"Go!" he cried, twisting the reins round his hands, and the troyka tore +down the Nikitski Boulevard. + +"Tproo! Get out of the way! Hi!... Tproo!..." The shouting of Balaga and +of the sturdy young fellow seated on the box was all that could be +heard. On the Arbat Square the troyka caught against a carriage; +something cracked, shouts were heard, and the troyka flew along the +Arbat Street. + +After taking a turn along the Podnovinski Boulevard, Balaga began to +rein in, and turning back drew up at the crossing of the old Konyusheny +Street. + +The young fellow on the box jumped down to hold the horses and Anatole +and Dolokhov went along the pavement. When they reached the gate +Dolokhov whistled. The whistle was answered, and a maidservant ran out. + +"Come into the courtyard or you'll be seen; she'll come out directly," +said she. + +Dolokhov stayed by the gate. Anatole followed the maid into the +courtyard, turned the corner, and ran up into the porch. + +He was met by Gabriel, Marya Dmitrievna's gigantic footman. + +"Come to the mistress, please," said the footman in his deep bass, +intercepting any retreat. + +"To what Mistress? Who are you?" asked Anatole in a breathless whisper. + +"Kindly step in, my orders are to bring you in." + +"Kuragin! Come back!" shouted Dolokhov. "Betrayed! Back!" + +Dolokhov, after Anatole entered, had remained at the wicket gate and was +struggling with the yard porter who was trying to lock it. With a last +desperate effort Dolokhov pushed the porter aside, and when Anatole ran +back seized him by the arm, pulled him through the wicket, and ran back +with him to the troyka. + + + + +CHAPTER XVIII + +Marya Dmitrievna, having found Sonya weeping in the corridor, made her +confess everything, and intercepting the note to Natasha she read it and +went into Natasha's room with it in her hand. + +"You shameless good-for-nothing!" said she. "I won't hear a word." + +Pushing back Natasha who looked at her with astonished but tearless +eyes, she locked her in; and having given orders to the yard porter to +admit the persons who would be coming that evening, but not to let them +out again, and having told the footman to bring them up to her, she +seated herself in the drawing room to await the abductors. + +When Gabriel came to inform her that the men who had come had run away +again, she rose frowning, and clasping her hands behind her paced +through the rooms a long time considering what she should do. Toward +midnight she went to Natasha's room fingering the key in her pocket. +Sonya was sitting sobbing in the corridor. "Marya Dmitrievna, for God's +sake let me in to her!" she pleaded, but Marya Dmitrievna unlocked the +door and went in without giving her an answer.... "Disgusting, +abominable... In my house... horrid girl, hussy! I'm only sorry for her +father!" thought she, trying to restrain her wrath. "Hard as it may be, +I'll tell them all to hold their tongues and will hide it from the +count." She entered the room with resolute steps. Natasha lying on the +sofa, her head hidden in her hands, and she did not stir. She was in +just the same position in which Marya Dmitrievna had left her. + +"A nice girl! Very nice!" said Marya Dmitrievna. "Arranging meetings +with lovers in my house! It's no use pretending: you listen when I speak +to you!" And Marya Dmitrievna touched her arm. "Listen when I speak! +You've disgraced yourself like the lowest of hussies. I'd treat you +differently, but I'm sorry for your father, so I will conceal it." + +Natasha did not change her position, but her whole body heaved with +noiseless, convulsive sobs which choked her. Marya Dmitrievna glanced +round at Sonya and seated herself on the sofa beside Natasha. + +"It's lucky for him that he escaped me; but I'll find him!" she said in +her rough voice. "Do you hear what I am saying or not?" she added. + +She put her large hand under Natasha's face and turned it toward her. +Both Marya Dmitrievna and Sonya were amazed when they saw how Natasha +looked. Her eyes were dry and glistening, her lips compressed, her +cheeks sunken. + +"Let me be!... What is it to me?... I shall die!" she muttered, +wrenching herself from Marya Dmitrievna's hands with a vicious effort +and sinking down again into her former position. + +"Natalie!" said Marya Dmitrievna. "I wish for your good. Lie still, stay +like that then, I won't touch you. But listen. I won't tell you how +guilty you are. You know that yourself. But when your father comes back +tomorrow what am I to tell him? Eh?" + +Again Natasha's body shook with sobs. + +"Suppose he finds out, and your brother, and your betrothed?" + +"I have no betrothed: I have refused him!" cried Natasha. + +"That's all the same," continued Marya Dmitrievna. "If they hear of +this, will they let it pass? He, your father, I know him... if he +challenges him to a duel will that be all right? Eh?" + +"Oh, let me be! Why have you interfered at all? Why? Why? Who asked you +to?" shouted Natasha, raising herself on the sofa and looking +malignantly at Marya Dmitrievna. + +"But what did you want?" cried Marya Dmitrievna, growing angry again. +"Were you kept under lock and key? Who hindered his coming to the house? +Why carry you off as if you were some gypsy singing girl?... Well, if he +had carried you off... do you think they wouldn't have found him? Your +father, or brother, or your betrothed? And he's a scoundrel, a wretch-- +that's a fact!" + +"He is better than any of you!" exclaimed Natasha getting up. "If you +hadn't interfered... Oh, my God! What is it all? What is it? Sonya, +why?... Go away!" + +And she burst into sobs with the despairing vehemence with which people +bewail disasters they feel they have themselves occasioned. Marya +Dmitrievna was to speak again but Natasha cried out: + +"Go away! Go away! You all hate and despise me!" and she threw herself +back on the sofa. + +Marya Dmitrievna went on admonishing her for some time, enjoining on her +that it must all be kept from her father and assuring her that nobody +would know anything about it if only Natasha herself would undertake to +forget it all and not let anyone see that something had happened. +Natasha did not reply, nor did she sob any longer, but she grew cold and +had a shivering fit. Marya Dmitrievna put a pillow under her head, +covered her with two quilts, and herself brought her some lime-flower +water, but Natasha did not respond to her. + +"Well, let her sleep," said Marya Dmitrievna as she went out of the room +supposing Natasha to be asleep. + +But Natasha was not asleep; with pale face and fixed wide-open eyes she +looked straight before her. All that night she did not sleep or weep and +did not speak to Sonya who got up and went to her several times. + +Next day Count Rostov returned from his estate near Moscow in time for +lunch as he had promised. He was in very good spirits; the affair with +the purchaser was going on satisfactorily, and there was nothing to keep +him any longer in Moscow, away from the countess whom he missed. Marya +Dmitrievna met him and told him that Natasha had been very unwell the +day before and that they had sent for the doctor, but that she was +better now. Natasha had not left her room that morning. With compressed +and parched lips and dry fixed eyes, she sat at the window, uneasily +watching the people who drove past and hurriedly glancing round at +anyone who entered the room. She was evidently expecting news of him and +that he would come or would write to her. + +When the count came to see her she turned anxiously round at the sound +of a man's footstep, and then her face resumed its cold and malevolent +expression. She did not even get up to greet him. "What is the matter +with you, my angel? Are you ill?" asked the count. + +After a moment's silence Natasha answered: "Yes, ill." + +In reply to the count's anxious inquiries as to why she was so dejected +and whether anything had happened to her betrothed, she assured him that +nothing had happened and asked him not to worry. Marya Dmitrievna +confirmed Natasha's assurances that nothing had happened. From the +pretense of illness, from his daughter's distress, and by the +embarrassed faces of Sonya and Marya Dmitrievna, the count saw clearly +that something had gone wrong during his absence, but it was so terrible +for him to think that anything disgraceful had happened to his beloved +daughter, and he so prized his own cheerful tranquillity, that he +avoided inquiries and tried to assure himself that nothing particularly +had happened; and he was only dissatisfied that her indisposition +delayed their return to the country. + + + + +CHAPTER XIX + +From the day his wife arrived in Moscow Pierre had been intending to go +away somewhere, so as not to be near her. Soon after the Rostovs came to +Moscow the effect Natasha had on him made him hasten to carry out his +intention. He went to Tver to see Joseph Alexeevich's widow, who had +long since promised to hand over to him some papers of her deceased +husband's. + +When he returned to Moscow Pierre was handed a letter from Marya +Dmitrievna asking him to come and see her on a matter of great +importance relating to Andrew Bolkonski and his betrothed. Pierre had +been avoiding Natasha because it seemed to him that his feeling for her +was stronger than a married man's should be for his friend's fiancee. +Yet some fate constantly threw them together. + +"What can have happened? And what can they want with me?" thought he as +he dressed to go to Marya Dmitrievna's. "If only Prince Andrew would +hurry up and come and marry her!" thought he on his way to the house. + +On the Tverskoy Boulevard a familiar voice called to him. + +"Pierre! Been back long?" someone shouted. Pierre raised his head. In a +sleigh drawn by two gray trotting-horses that were bespattering the +dashboard with snow, Anatole and his constant companion Makarin dashed +past. Anatole was sitting upright in the classic pose of military +dandies, the lower part of his face hidden by his beaver collar and his +head slightly bent. His face was fresh and rosy, his white-plumed hat, +tilted to one side, disclosed his curled and pomaded hair besprinkled +with powdery snow. + +"Yes, indeed, that's a true sage," thought Pierre. "He sees nothing +beyond the pleasure of the moment, nothing troubles him and so he is +always cheerful, satisfied, and serene. What wouldn't I give to be like +him!" he thought enviously. + +In Marya Dmitrievna's anteroom the footman who helped him off with his +fur coat said that the mistress asked him to come to her bedroom. + +When he opened the ballroom door Pierre saw Natasha sitting at the +window, with a thin, pale, and spiteful face. She glanced round at him, +frowned, and left the room with an expression of cold dignity. + +"What has happened?" asked Pierre, entering Marya Dmitrievna's room. + +"Fine doings!" answered Dmitrievna. "For fifty-eight years have I lived +in this world and never known anything so disgraceful!" + +And having put him on his honor not to repeat anything she told him, +Marya Dmitrievna informed him that Natasha had refused Prince Andrew +without her parents' knowledge and that the cause of this was Anatole +Kuragin into whose society Pierre's wife had thrown her and with whom +Natasha had tried to elope during her father's absence, in order to be +married secretly. + +Pierre raised his shoulders and listened open-mouthed to what was told +him, scarcely able to believe his own ears. That Prince Andrew's deeply +loved affianced wife--the same Natasha Rostova who used to be so +charming--should give up Bolkonski for that fool Anatole who was already +secretly married (as Pierre knew), and should be so in love with him as +to agree to run away with him, was something Pierre could not conceive +and could not imagine. + +He could not reconcile the charming impression he had of Natasha, whom +he had known from a child, with this new conception of her baseness, +folly, and cruelty. He thought of his wife. "They are all alike!" he +said to himself, reflecting that he was not the only man unfortunate +enough to be tied to a bad woman. But still he pitied Prince Andrew to +the point of tears and sympathized with his wounded pride, and the more +he pitied his friend the more did he think with contempt and even with +disgust of that Natasha who had just passed him in the ballroom with +such a look of cold dignity. He did not know that Natasha's soul was +overflowing with despair, shame, and humiliation, and that it was not +her fault that her face happened to assume an expression of calm dignity +and severity. + +"But how get married?" said Pierre, in answer to Marya Dmitrievna. "He +could not marry--he is married!" + +"Things get worse from hour to hour!" ejaculated Marya Dmitrievna. "A +nice youth! What a scoundrel! And she's expecting him--expecting him +since yesterday. She must be told! Then at least she won't go on +expecting him." + +After hearing the details of Anatole's marriage from Pierre, and giving +vent to her anger against Anatole in words of abuse, Marya Dmitrievna +told Pierre why she had sent for him. She was afraid that the count or +Bolkonski, who might arrive at any moment, if they knew of this affair +(which she hoped to hide from them) might challenge Anatole to a duel, +and she therefore asked Pierre to tell his brother-in-law in her name to +leave Moscow and not dare to let her set eyes on him again. Pierre--only +now realizing the danger to the old count, Nicholas, and Prince Andrew-- +promised to do as she wished. Having briefly and exactly explained her +wishes to him, she let him go to the drawing room. + +"Mind, the count knows nothing. Behave as if you know nothing either," +she said. "And I will go and tell her it is no use expecting him! And +stay to dinner if you care to!" she called after Pierre. + +Pierre met the old count, who seemed nervous and upset. That morning +Natasha had told him that she had rejected Bolkonski. + +"Troubles, troubles, my dear fellow!" he said to Pierre. "What troubles +one has with these girls without their mother! I do so regret having +come here.... I will be frank with you. Have you heard she has broken +off her engagement without consulting anybody? It's true this engagement +never was much to my liking. Of course he is an excellent man, but +still, with his father's disapproval they wouldn't have been happy, and +Natasha won't lack suitors. Still, it has been going on so long, and to +take such a step without father's or mother's consent! And now she's +ill, and God knows what! It's hard, Count, hard to manage daughters in +their mother's absence...." + +Pierre saw that the count was much upset and tried to change the +subject, but the count returned to his troubles. + +Sonya entered the room with an agitated face. + +"Natasha is not quite well; she's in her room and would like to see you. +Marya Dmitrievna is with her and she too asks you to come." + +"Yes, you are a great friend of Bolkonski's, no doubt she wants to send +him a message," said the count. "Oh dear! Oh dear! How happy it all +was!" + +And clutching the spare gray locks on his temples the count left the +room. + +When Marya Dmitrievna told Natasha that Anatole was married, Natasha did +not wish to believe it and insisted on having it confirmed by Pierre +himself. Sonya told Pierre this as she led him along the corridor to +Natasha's room. + +Natasha, pale and stern, was sitting beside Marya Dmitrievna, and her +eyes, glittering feverishly, met Pierre with a questioning look the +moment he entered. She did not smile or nod, but only gazed fixedly at +him, and her look asked only one thing: was he a friend, or like the +others an enemy in regard to Anatole? As for Pierre, he evidently did +not exist for her. + +"He knows all about it," said Marya Dmitrievna pointing to Pierre and +addressing Natasha. "Let him tell you whether I have told the truth." + +Natasha looked from one to the other as a hunted and wounded animal +looks at the approaching dogs and sportsmen. + +"Natalya Ilynichna," Pierre began, dropping his eyes with a feeling of +pity for her and loathing for the thing he had to do, "whether it is +true or not should make no difference to you, because..." + +"Then it is not true that he's married!" + +"Yes, it is true." + +"Has he been married long?" she asked. "On your honor?..." + +Pierre gave his word of honor. + +"Is he still here?" she asked, quickly. + +"Yes, I have just seen him." + +She was evidently unable to speak and made a sign with her hands that +they should leave her alone. + + + + +CHAPTER XX + +Pierre did not stay for dinner, but left the room and went away at once. +He drove through the town seeking Anatole Kuragin, at the thought of +whom now the blood rushed to his heart and he felt a difficulty in +breathing. He was not at the ice hills, nor at the gypsies', nor at +Komoneno's. Pierre drove to the club. In the club all was going on as +usual. The members who were assembling for dinner were sitting about in +groups; they greeted Pierre and spoke of the town news. The footman +having greeted him, knowing his habits and his acquaintances, told him +there was a place left for him in the small dining room and that Prince +Michael Zakharych was in the library, but Paul Timofeevich had not yet +arrived. One of Pierre's acquaintances, while they were talking about +the weather, asked if he had heard of Kuragin's abduction of Rostova +which was talked of in the town, and was it true? Pierre laughed and +said it was nonsense for he had just come from the Rostovs'. He asked +everyone about Anatole. One man told him he had not come yet, and +another that he was coming to dinner. Pierre felt it strange to see this +calm, indifferent crowd of people unaware of what was going on in his +soul. He paced through the ballroom, waited till everyone had come, and +as Anatole had not turned up did not stay for dinner but drove home. + +Anatole, for whom Pierre was looking, dined that day with Dolokhov, +consulting him as to how to remedy this unfortunate affair. It seemed to +him essential to see Natasha. In the evening he drove to his sister's to +discuss with her how to arrange a meeting. When Pierre returned home +after vainly hunting all over Moscow, his valet informed him that Prince +Anatole was with the countess. The countess' drawing room was full of +guests. + +Pierre without greeting his wife whom he had not seen since his return-- +at that moment she was more repulsive to him than ever--entered the +drawing room and seeing Anatole went up to him. + +"Ah, Pierre," said the countess going up to her husband. "You don't know +what a plight our Anatole..." + +She stopped, seeing in the forward thrust of her husband's head, in his +glowing eyes and his resolute gait, the terrible indications of that +rage and strength which she knew and had herself experienced after his +duel with Dolokhov. + +"Where you are, there is vice and evil!" said Pierre to his wife. +"Anatole, come with me! I must speak to you," he added in French. + +Anatole glanced round at his sister and rose submissively, ready to +follow Pierre. Pierre, taking him by the arm, pulled him toward himself +and was leading him from the room. + +"If you allow yourself in my drawing room..." whispered Helene, but +Pierre did not reply and went out of the room. + +Anatole followed him with his usual jaunty step but his face betrayed +anxiety. + +Having entered his study Pierre closed the door and addressed Anatole +without looking at him. + +"You promised Countess Rostova to marry her and were about to elope with +her, is that so?" + +"Mon cher," answered Anatole (their whole conversation was in French), +"I don't consider myself bound to answer questions put to me in that +tone." + +Pierre's face, already pale, became distorted by fury. He seized Anatole +by the collar of his uniform with his big hand and shook him from side +to side till Anatole's face showed a sufficient degree of terror. + +"When I tell you that I must talk to you!..." repeated Pierre. + +"Come now, this is stupid. What?" said Anatole, fingering a button of +his collar that had been wrenched loose with a bit of the cloth. + +"You're a scoundrel and a blackguard, and I don't know what deprives me +from the pleasure of smashing your head with this!" said Pierre, +expressing himself so artificially because he was talking French. + +He took a heavy paperweight and lifted it threateningly, but at once put +it back in its place. + +"Did you promise to marry her?" + +"I... I didn't think of it. I never promised, because..." + +Pierre interrupted him. + +"Have you any letters of hers? Any letters?" he said, moving toward +Anatole. + +Anatole glanced at him and immediately thrust his hand into his pocket +and drew out his pocketbook. + +Pierre took the letter Anatole handed him and, pushing aside a table +that stood in his way, threw himself on the sofa. + +"I shan't be violent, don't be afraid!" said Pierre in answer to a +frightened gesture of Anatole's. "First, the letters," said he, as if +repeating a lesson to himself. "Secondly," he continued after a short +pause, again rising and again pacing the room, "tomorrow you must get +out of Moscow." + +"But how can I?..." + +"Thirdly," Pierre continued without listening to him, "you must never +breathe a word of what has passed between you and Countess Rostova. I +know I can't prevent your doing so, but if you have a spark of +conscience..." Pierre paced the room several times in silence. + +Anatole sat at a table frowning and biting his lips. + +"After all, you must understand that besides your pleasure there is such +a thing as other people's happiness and peace, and that you are ruining +a whole life for the sake of amusing yourself! Amuse yourself with women +like my wife--with them you are within your rights, for they know what +you want of them. They are armed against you by the same experience of +debauchery; but to promise a maid to marry her... to deceive, to +kidnap.... Don't you understand that it is as mean as beating an old man +or a child?..." + +Pierre paused and looked at Anatole no longer with an angry but with a +questioning look. + +"I don't know about that, eh?" said Anatole, growing more confident as +Pierre mastered his wrath. "I don't know that and don't want to," he +said, not looking at Pierre and with a slight tremor of his lower jaw, +"but you have used such words to me--'mean' and so on--which as a man of +honor I can't allow anyone to use." + +Pierre glanced at him with amazement, unable to understand what he +wanted. + +"Though it was tete-a-tete," Anatole continued, "still I can't..." + +"Is it satisfaction you want?" said Pierre ironically. + +"You could at least take back your words. What? If you want me to do as +you wish, eh?" + +"I take them back, I take them back!" said Pierre, "and I ask you to +forgive me." Pierre involuntarily glanced at the loose button. "And if +you require money for your journey..." + +Anatole smiled. The expression of that base and cringing smile, which +Pierre knew so well in his wife, revolted him. + +"Oh, vile and heartless brood!" he exclaimed, and left the room. + +Next day Anatole left for Petersburg. + + + + +CHAPTER XXI + +Pierre drove to Marya Dmitrievna's to tell her of the fulfillment of her +wish that Kuragin should be banished from Moscow. The whole house was in +a state of alarm and commotion. Natasha was very ill, having, as Marya +Dmitrievna told him in secret, poisoned herself the night after she had +been told that Anatole was married, with some arsenic she had stealthily +procured. After swallowing a little she had been so frightened that she +woke Sonya and told her what she had done. The necessary antidotes had +been administered in time and she was now out of danger, though still so +weak that it was out of the question to move her to the country, and so +the countess had been sent for. Pierre saw the distracted count, and +Sonya, who had a tear-stained face, but he could not see Natasha. + +Pierre dined at the club that day and heard on all sides gossip about +the attempted abduction of Rostova. He resolutely denied these rumors, +assuring everyone that nothing had happened except that his brother-in- +law had proposed to her and been refused. It seemed to Pierre that it +was his duty to conceal the whole affair and re-establish Natasha's +reputation. + +He was awaiting Prince Andrew's return with dread and went every day to +the old prince's for news of him. + +Old Prince Bolkonski heard all the rumors current in the town from +Mademoiselle Bourienne and had read the note to Princess Mary in which +Natasha had broken off her engagement. He seemed in better spirits than +usual and awaited his son with great impatience. + +Some days after Anatole's departure Pierre received a note from Prince +Andrew, informing him of his arrival and asking him to come to see him. + +As soon as he reached Moscow, Prince Andrew had received from his father +Natasha's note to Princess Mary breaking off her engagement +(Mademoiselle Bourienne had purloined it from Princess Mary and given it +to the old prince), and he heard from him the story of Natasha's +elopement, with additions. + +Prince Andrew had arrived in the evening and Pierre came to see him next +morning. Pierre expected to find Prince Andrew in almost the same state +as Natasha and was therefore surprised on entering the drawing room to +hear him in the study talking in a loud animated voice about some +intrigue going on in Petersburg. The old prince's voice and another now +and then interrupted him. Princess Mary came out to meet Pierre. She +sighed, looking toward the door of the room where Prince Andrew was, +evidently intending to express her sympathy with his sorrow, but Pierre +saw by her face that she was glad both at what had happened and at the +way her brother had taken the news of Natasha's faithlessness. + +"He says he expected it," she remarked. "I know his pride will not let +him express his feelings, but still he has taken it better, far better, +than I expected. Evidently it had to be...." + +"But is it possible that all is really ended?" asked Pierre. + +Princess Mary looked at him with astonishment. She did not understand +how he could ask such a question. Pierre went into the study. Prince +Andrew, greatly changed and plainly in better health, but with a fresh +horizontal wrinkle between his brows, stood in civilian dress facing his +father and Prince Meshcherski, warmly disputing and vigorously +gesticulating. The conversation was about Speranski--the news of whose +sudden exile and alleged treachery had just reached Moscow. + +"Now he is censured and accused by all who were enthusiastic about him a +month ago," Prince Andrew was saying, "and by those who were unable to +understand his aims. To judge a man who is in disfavor and to throw on +him all the blame of other men's mistakes is very easy, but I maintain +that if anything good has been accomplished in this reign it was done by +him, by him alone." + +He paused at the sight of Pierre. His face quivered and immediately +assumed a vindictive expression. + +"Posterity will do him justice," he concluded, and at once turned to +Pierre. + +"Well, how are you? Still getting stouter?" he said with animation, but +the new wrinkle on his forehead deepened. "Yes, I am well," he said in +answer to Pierre's question, and smiled. + +To Pierre that smile said plainly: "I am well, but my health is now of +no use to anyone." + +After a few words to Pierre about the awful roads from the Polish +frontier, about people he had met in Switzerland who knew Pierre, and +about M. Dessalles, whom he had brought from abroad to be his son's +tutor, Prince Andrew again joined warmly in the conversation about +Speranski which was still going on between the two old men. + +"If there were treason, or proofs of secret relations with Napoleon, +they would have been made public," he said with warmth and haste. "I do +not, and never did, like Speranski personally, but I like justice!" + +Pierre now recognized in his friend a need with which he was only too +familiar, to get excited and to have arguments about extraneous matters +in order to stifle thoughts that were too oppressive and too intimate. +When Prince Meshcherski had left, Prince Andrew took Pierre's arm and +asked him into the room that had been assigned him. A bed had been made +up there, and some open portmanteaus and trunks stood about. Prince +Andrew went to one and took out a small casket, from which he drew a +packet wrapped in paper. He did it all silently and very quickly. He +stood up and coughed. His face was gloomy and his lips compressed. + +"Forgive me for troubling you..." + +Pierre saw that Prince Andrew was going to speak of Natasha, and his +broad face expressed pity and sympathy. This expression irritated Prince +Andrew, and in a determined, ringing, and unpleasant tone he continued: + +"I have received a refusal from Countess Rostova and have heard reports +of your brother-in-law having sought her hand, or something of that +kind. Is that true?" + +"Both true and untrue," Pierre began; but Prince Andrew interrupted him. + +"Here are her letters and her portrait," said he. + +He took the packet from the table and handed it to Pierre. + +"Give this to the countess... if you see her." + +"She is very ill," said Pierre. + +"Then she is here still?" said Prince Andrew. "And Prince Kuragin?" he +added quickly. + +"He left long ago. She has been at death's door." + +"I much regret her illness," said Prince Andrew; and he smiled like his +father, coldly, maliciously, and unpleasantly. + +"So Monsieur Kuragin has not honored Countess Rostova with his hand?" +said Prince Andrew, and he snorted several times. + +"He could not marry, for he was married already," said Pierre. + +Prince Andrew laughed disagreeably, again reminding one of his father. + +"And where is your brother-in-law now, if I may ask?" he said. + +"He has gone to Peters... But I don't know," said Pierre. + +"Well, it doesn't matter," said Prince Andrew. "Tell Countess Rostova +that she was and is perfectly free and that I wish her all that is +good." + +Pierre took the packet. Prince Andrew, as if trying to remember whether +he had something more to say, or waiting to see if Pierre would say +anything, looked fixedly at him. + +"I say, do you remember our discussion in Petersburg?" asked Pierre, +"about..." + +"Yes," returned Prince Andrew hastily. "I said that a fallen woman +should be forgiven, but I didn't say I could forgive her. I can't." + +"But can this be compared...?" said Pierre. + +Prince Andrew interrupted him and cried sharply: "Yes, ask her hand +again, be magnanimous, and so on?... Yes, that would be very noble, but +I am unable to follow in that gentleman's footsteps. If you wish to be +my friend never speak to me of that... of all that! Well, good-by. So +you'll give her the packet?" + +Pierre left the room and went to the old prince and Princess Mary. + +The old man seemed livelier than usual. Princess Mary was the same as +always, but beneath her sympathy for her brother, Pierre noticed her +satisfaction that the engagement had been broken off. Looking at them +Pierre realized what contempt and animosity they all felt for the +Rostovs, and that it was impossible in their presence even to mention +the name of her who could give up Prince Andrew for anyone else. + +At dinner the talk turned on the war, the approach of which was becoming +evident. Prince Andrew talked incessantly, arguing now with his father, +now with the Swiss tutor Dessalles, and showing an unnatural animation, +the cause of which Pierre so well understood. + + + + +CHAPTER XXII + +That same evening Pierre went to the Rostovs' to fulfill the commission +entrusted to him. Natasha was in bed, the count at the club, and Pierre, +after giving the letters to Sonya, went to Marya Dmitrievna who was +interested to know how Prince Andrew had taken the news. Ten minutes +later Sonya came to Marya Dmitrievna. + +"Natasha insists on seeing Count Peter Kirilovich," said she. + +"But how? Are we to take him up to her? The room there has not been +tidied up." + +"No, she has dressed and gone into the drawing room," said Sonya. + +Marya Dmitrievna only shrugged her shoulders. + +"When will her mother come? She has worried me to death! Now mind, don't +tell her everything!" said she to Pierre. "One hasn't the heart to scold +her, she is so much to be pitied, so much to be pitied." + +Natasha was standing in the middle of the drawing room, emaciated, with +a pale set face, but not at all shamefaced as Pierre expected to find +her. When he appeared at the door she grew flurried, evidently undecided +whether to go to meet him or to wait till he came up. + +Pierre hastened to her. He thought she would give him her hand as usual; +but she, stepping up to him, stopped, breathing heavily, her arms +hanging lifelessly just in the pose she used to stand in when she went +to the middle of the ballroom to sing, but with quite a different +expression of face. + +"Peter Kirilovich," she began rapidly, "Prince Bolkonski was your +friend--is your friend," she corrected herself. (It seemed to her that +everything that had once been must now be different.) "He told me once +to apply to you..." + +Pierre sniffed as he looked at her, but did not speak. Till then he had +reproached her in his heart and tried to despise her, but he now felt so +sorry for her that there was no room in his soul for reproach. + +"He is here now: tell him... to for... forgive me!" She stopped and +breathed still more quickly, but did not shed tears. + +"Yes... I will tell him," answered Pierre; "but..." + +He did not know what to say. + +Natasha was evidently dismayed at the thought of what he might think she +had meant. + +"No, I know all is over," she said hurriedly. "No, that can never be. +I'm only tormented by the wrong I have done him. Tell him only that I +beg him to forgive, forgive, forgive me for everything...." + +She trembled all over and sat down on a chair. + +A sense of pity he had never before known overflowed Pierre's heart. + +"I will tell him, I will tell him everything once more," said Pierre. +"But... I should like to know one thing...." + +"Know what?" Natasha's eyes asked. + +"I should like to know, did you love..." Pierre did not know how to +refer to Anatole and flushed at the thought of him--"did you love that +bad man?" + +"Don't call him bad!" said Natasha. "But I don't know, don't know at +all...." + +She began to cry and a still greater sense of pity, tenderness, and love +welled up in Pierre. He felt the tears trickle under his spectacles and +hoped they would not be noticed. + +"We won't speak of it any more, my dear," said Pierre, and his gentle, +cordial tone suddenly seemed very strange to Natasha. + +"We won't speak of it, my dear--I'll tell him everything; but one thing +I beg of you, consider me your friend and if you want help, advice, or +simply to open your heart to someone--not now, but when your mind is +clearer think of me!" He took her hand and kissed it. "I shall be happy +if it's in my power..." + +Pierre grew confused. + +"Don't speak to me like that. I am not worth it!" exclaimed Natasha and +turned to leave the room, but Pierre held her hand. + +He knew he had something more to say to her. But when he said it he was +amazed at his own words. + +"Stop, stop! You have your whole life before you," said he to her. + + +"Before me? No! All is over for me," she replied with shame and self- +abasement. + +"All over?" he repeated. "If I were not myself, but the handsomest, +cleverest, and best man in the world, and were free, I would this moment +ask on my knees for your hand and your love!" + +For the first time for many days Natasha wept tears of gratitude and +tenderness, and glancing at Pierre she went out of the room. + +Pierre too when she had gone almost ran into the anteroom, restraining +tears of tenderness and joy that choked him, and without finding the +sleeves of his fur cloak threw it on and got into his sleigh. + +"Where to now, your excellency?" asked the coachman. + +"Where to?" Pierre asked himself. "Where can I go now? Surely not to the +club or to pay calls?" All men seemed so pitiful, so poor, in comparison +with this feeling of tenderness and love he experienced: in comparison +with that softened, grateful, last look she had given him through her +tears. + +"Home!" said Pierre, and despite twenty-two degrees of frost Fahrenheit +he threw open the bearskin cloak from his broad chest and inhaled the +air with joy. + +It was clear and frosty. Above the dirty, ill-lit streets, above the +black roofs, stretched the dark starry sky. Only looking up at the sky +did Pierre cease to feel how sordid and humiliating were all mundane +things compared with the heights to which his soul had just been raised. +At the entrance to the Arbat Square an immense expanse of dark starry +sky presented itself to his eyes. Almost in the center of it, above the +Prechistenka Boulevard, surrounded and sprinkled on all sides by stars +but distinguished from them all by its nearness to the earth, its white +light, and its long uplifted tail, shone the enormous and brilliant +comet of 1812--the comet which was said to portend all kinds of woes and +the end of the world. In Pierre, however, that comet with its long +luminous tail aroused no feeling of fear. On the contrary he gazed +joyfully, his eyes moist with tears, at this bright comet which, having +traveled in its orbit with inconceivable velocity through immeasurable +space, seemed suddenly--like an arrow piercing the earth--to remain +fixed in a chosen spot, vigorously holding its tail erect, shining and +displaying its white light amid countless other scintillating stars. It +seemed to Pierre that this comet fully responded to what was passing in +his own softened and uplifted soul, now blossoming into a new life. + +BOOK NINE: 1812 + + + + +CHAPTER I + +From the close of the year 1811 intensified arming and concentrating of +the forces of Western Europe began, and in 1812 these forces--millions +of men, reckoning those transporting and feeding the army--moved from +the west eastwards to the Russian frontier, toward which since 1811 +Russian forces had been similarly drawn. On the twelfth of June, 1812, +the forces of Western Europe crossed the Russian frontier and war began, +that is, an event took place opposed to human reason and to human +nature. Millions of men perpetrated against one another such innumerable +crimes, frauds, treacheries, thefts, forgeries, issues of false money, +burglaries, incendiarisms, and murders as in whole centuries are not +recorded in the annals of all the law courts of the world, but which +those who committed them did not at the time regard as being crimes. + +What produced this extraordinary occurrence? What were its causes? The +historians tell us with naive assurance that its causes were the wrongs +inflicted on the Duke of Oldenburg, the nonobservance of the Continental +System, the ambition of Napoleon, the firmness of Alexander, the +mistakes of the diplomatists, and so on. + +Consequently, it would only have been necessary for Metternich, +Rumyantsev, or Talleyrand, between a levee and an evening party, to have +taken proper pains and written a more adroit note, or for Napoleon to +have written to Alexander: "My respected Brother, I consent to restore +the duchy to the Duke of Oldenburg"--and there would have been no war. + +We can understand that the matter seemed like that to contemporaries. It +naturally seemed to Napoleon that the war was caused by England's +intrigues (as in fact he said on the island of St. Helena). It naturally +seemed to members of the English Parliament that the cause of the war +was Napoleon's ambition; to the Duke of Oldenburg, that the cause of the +war was the violence done to him; to businessmen that the cause of the +war was the Continental System which was ruining Europe; to the generals +and old soldiers that the chief reason for the war was the necessity of +giving them employment; to the legitimists of that day that it was the +need of re-establishing les bons principes, and to the diplomatists of +that time that it all resulted from the fact that the alliance between +Russia and Austria in 1809 had not been sufficiently well concealed from +Napoleon, and from the awkward wording of Memorandum No. 178. It is +natural that these and a countless and infinite quantity of other +reasons, the number depending on the endless diversity of points of +view, presented themselves to the men of that day; but to us, to +posterity who view the thing that happened in all its magnitude and +perceive its plain and terrible meaning, these causes seem insufficient. +To us it is incomprehensible that millions of Christian men killed and +tortured each other either because Napoleon was ambitious or Alexander +was firm, or because England's policy was astute or the Duke of +Oldenburg wronged. We cannot grasp what connection such circumstances +have with the actual fact of slaughter and violence: why because the +Duke was wronged, thousands of men from the other side of Europe killed +and ruined the people of Smolensk and Moscow and were killed by them. + +To us, their descendants, who are not historians and are not carried +away by the process of research and can therefore regard the event with +unclouded common sense, an incalculable number of causes present +themselves. The deeper we delve in search of these causes the more of +them we find; and each separate cause or whole series of causes appears +to us equally valid in itself and equally false by its insignificance +compared to the magnitude of the events, and by its impotence--apart +from the cooperation of all the other coincident causes--to occasion the +event. To us, the wish or objection of this or that French corporal to +serve a second term appears as much a cause as Napoleon's refusal to +withdraw his troops beyond the Vistula and to restore the duchy of +Oldenburg; for had he not wished to serve, and had a second, a third, +and a thousandth corporal and private also refused, there would have +been so many less men in Napoleon's army and the war could not have +occurred. + +Had Napoleon not taken offense at the demand that he should withdraw +beyond the Vistula, and not ordered his troops to advance, there would +have been no war; but had all his sergeants objected to serving a second +term then also there could have been no war. Nor could there have been a +war had there been no English intrigues and no Duke of Oldenburg, and +had Alexander not felt insulted, and had there not been an autocratic +government in Russia, or a Revolution in France and a subsequent +dictatorship and Empire, or all the things that produced the French +Revolution, and so on. Without each of these causes nothing could have +happened. So all these causes--myriads of causes--coincided to bring it +about. And so there was no one cause for that occurrence, but it had to +occur because it had to. Millions of men, renouncing their human +feelings and reason, had to go from west to east to slay their fellows, +just as some centuries previously hordes of men had come from the east +to the west, slaying their fellows. + +The actions of Napoleon and Alexander, on whose words the event seemed +to hang, were as little voluntary as the actions of any soldier who was +drawn into the campaign by lot or by conscription. This could not be +otherwise, for in order that the will of Napoleon and Alexander (on whom +the event seemed to depend) should be carried out, the concurrence of +innumerable circumstances was needed without any one of which the event +could not have taken place. It was necessary that millions of men in +whose hands lay the real power--the soldiers who fired, or transported +provisions and guns--should consent to carry out the will of these weak +individuals, and should have been induced to do so by an infinite number +of diverse and complex causes. + +We are forced to fall back on fatalism as an explanation of irrational +events (that is to say, events the reasonableness of which we do not +understand). The more we try to explain such events in history +reasonably, the more unreasonable and incomprehensible do they become to +us. + +Each man lives for himself, using his freedom to attain his personal +aims, and feels with his whole being that he can now do or abstain from +doing this or that action; but as soon as he has done it, that action +performed at a certain moment in time becomes irrevocable and belongs to +history, in which it has not a free but a predestined significance. + +There are two sides to the life of every man, his individual life, which +is the more free the more abstract its interests, and his elemental hive +life in which he inevitably obeys laws laid down for him. + +Man lives consciously for himself, but is an unconscious instrument in +the attainment of the historic, universal, aims of humanity. A deed done +is irrevocable, and its result coinciding in time with the actions of +millions of other men assumes an historic significance. The higher a man +stands on the social ladder, the more people he is connected with and +the more power he has over others, the more evident is the +predestination and inevitability of his every action. + +"The king's heart is in the hands of the Lord." + +A king is history's slave. + +History, that is, the unconscious, general, hive life of mankind, uses +every moment of the life of kings as a tool for its own purposes. + +Though Napoleon at that time, in 1812, was more convinced than ever that +it depended on him, verser (ou ne pas verser) le sang de ses peuples *-- +as Alexander expressed it in the last letter he wrote him--he had never +been so much in the grip of inevitable laws, which compelled him, while +thinking that he was acting on his own volition, to perform for the hive +life--that is to say, for history--whatever had to be performed. + + +* "To shed (or not to shed) the blood of his peoples." + +The people of the west moved eastwards to slay their fellow men, and by +the law of coincidence thousands of minute causes fitted in and co- +ordinated to produce that movement and war: reproaches for the +nonobservance of the Continental System, the Duke of Oldenburg's wrongs, +the movement of troops into Prussia--undertaken (as it seemed to +Napoleon) only for the purpose of securing an armed peace, the French +Emperor's love and habit of war coinciding with his people's +inclinations, allurement by the grandeur of the preparations, and the +expenditure on those preparations and the need of obtaining advantages +to compensate for that expenditure, the intoxicating honors he received +in Dresden, the diplomatic negotiations which, in the opinion of +contemporaries, were carried on with a sincere desire to attain peace, +but which only wounded the self-love of both sides, and millions of +other causes that adapted themselves to the event that was happening or +coincided with it. + +When an apple has ripened and falls, why does it fall? Because of its +attraction to the earth, because its stalk withers, because it is dried +by the sun, because it grows heavier, because the wind shakes it, or +because the boy standing below wants to eat it? + +Nothing is the cause. All this is only the coincidence of conditions in +which all vital organic and elemental events occur. And the botanist who +finds that the apple falls because the cellular tissue decays and so +forth is equally right with the child who stands under the tree and says +the apple fell because he wanted to eat it and prayed for it. Equally +right or wrong is he who says that Napoleon went to Moscow because he +wanted to, and perished because Alexander desired his destruction, and +he who says that an undermined hill weighing a million tons fell because +the last navvy struck it for the last time with his mattock. In historic +events the so-called great men are labels giving names to events, and +like labels they have but the smallest connection with the event itself. + +Every act of theirs, which appears to them an act of their own will, is +in an historical sense involuntary and is related to the whole course of +history and predestined from eternity. + + + + +CHAPTER II + +On the twenty-ninth of May Napoleon left Dresden, where he had spent +three weeks surrounded by a court that included princes, dukes, kings, +and even an emperor. Before leaving, Napoleon showed favor to the +emperor, kings, and princes who had deserved it, reprimanded the kings +and princes with whom he was dissatisfied, presented pearls and diamonds +of his own--that is, which he had taken from other kings--to the Empress +of Austria, and having, as his historian tells us, tenderly embraced the +Empress Marie Louise--who regarded him as her husband, though he had +left another wife in Paris--left her grieved by the parting which she +seemed hardly able to bear. Though the diplomatists still firmly +believed in the possibility of peace and worked zealously to that end, +and though the Emperor Napoleon himself wrote a letter to Alexander, +calling him Monsieur mon frere, and sincerely assured him that he did +not want war and would always love and honor him--yet he set off to join +his army, and at every station gave fresh orders to accelerate the +movement of his troops from west to east. He went in a traveling coach +with six horses, surrounded by pages, aides-de-camp, and an escort, +along the road to Posen, Thorn, Danzig, and Konigsberg. At each of these +towns thousands of people met him with excitement and enthusiasm. + +The army was moving from west to east, and relays of six horses carried +him in the same direction. On the tenth of June, * coming up with the +army, he spent the night in apartments prepared for him on the estate of +a Polish count in the Vilkavisski forest. + + +* Old style. + +Next day, overtaking the army, he went in a carriage to the Niemen, and, +changing into a Polish uniform, he drove to the riverbank in order to +select a place for the crossing. + +Seeing, on the other side, some Cossacks (les Cosaques) and the wide- +spreading steppes in the midst of which lay the holy city of Moscow +(Moscou, la ville sainte), the capital of a realm such as the Scythia +into which Alexander the Great had marched--Napoleon unexpectedly, and +contrary alike to strategic and diplomatic considerations, ordered an +advance, and the next day his army began to cross the Niemen. + +Early in the morning of the twelfth of June he came out of his tent, +which was pitched that day on the steep left bank of the Niemen, and +looked through a spyglass at the streams of his troops pouring out of +the Vilkavisski forest and flowing over the three bridges thrown across +the river. The troops, knowing of the Emperor's presence, were on the +lookout for him, and when they caught sight of a figure in an overcoat +and a cocked hat standing apart from his suite in front of his tent on +the hill, they threw up their caps and shouted: "Vive l'Empereur!" and +one after another poured in a ceaseless stream out of the vast forest +that had concealed them and, separating, flowed on and on by the three +bridges to the other side. + +"Now we'll go into action. Oh, when he takes it in hand himself, things +get hot... by heaven!... There he is!... Vive l'Empereur! So these are +the steppes of Asia! It's a nasty country all the same. Au revoir, +Beauche; I'll keep the best palace in Moscow for you! Au revoir. Good +luck!... Did you see the Emperor? Vive l'Empereur!... preur!--If they +make me Governor of India, Gerard, I'll make you Minister of Kashmir-- +that's settled. Vive l'Empereur! Hurrah! hurrah! hurrah! The Cossacks-- +those rascals--see how they run! Vive l'Empereur! There he is, do you +see him? I've seen him twice, as I see you now. The little corporal... I +saw him give the cross to one of the veterans.... Vive l'Empereur!" came +the voices of men, old and young, of most diverse characters and social +positions. On the faces of all was one common expression of joy at the +commencement of the long-expected campaign and of rapture and devotion +to the man in the gray coat who was standing on the hill. + +On the thirteenth of June a rather small, thoroughbred Arab horse was +brought to Napoleon. He mounted it and rode at a gallop to one of the +bridges over the Niemen, deafened continually by incessant and rapturous +acclamations which he evidently endured only because it was impossible +to forbid the soldiers to express their love of him by such shouting, +but the shouting which accompanied him everywhere disturbed him and +distracted him from the military cares that had occupied him from the +time he joined the army. He rode across one of the swaying pontoon +bridges to the farther side, turned sharply to the left, and galloped in +the direction of Kovno, preceded by enraptured, mounted chasseurs of the +Guard who, breathless with delight, galloped ahead to clear a path for +him through the troops. On reaching the broad river Viliya, he stopped +near a regiment of Polish uhlans stationed by the river. + +"Vivat!" shouted the Poles, ecstatically, breaking their ranks and +pressing against one another to see him. + +Napoleon looked up and down the river, dismounted, and sat down on a log +that lay on the bank. At a mute sign from him, a telescope was handed +him which he rested on the back of a happy page who had run up to him, +and he gazed at the opposite bank. Then he became absorbed in a map laid +out on the logs. Without lifting his head he said something, and two of +his aides-de-camp galloped off to the Polish uhlans. + +"What? What did he say?" was heard in the ranks of the Polish uhlans +when one of the aides-de-camp rode up to them. + +The order was to find a ford and to cross the river. The colonel of the +Polish uhlans, a handsome old man, flushed and, fumbling in his speech +from excitement, asked the aide-de-camp whether he would be permitted to +swim the river with his uhlans instead of seeking a ford. In evident +fear of refusal, like a boy asking for permission to get on a horse, he +begged to be allowed to swim across the river before the Emperor's eyes. +The aide-de-camp replied that probably the Emperor would not be +displeased at this excess of zeal. + +As soon as the aide-de-camp had said this, the old mustached officer, +with happy face and sparkling eyes, raised his saber, shouted "Vivat!" +and, commanding the uhlans to follow him, spurred his horse and galloped +into the river. He gave an angry thrust to his horse, which had grown +restive under him, and plunged into the water, heading for the deepest +part where the current was swift. Hundreds of uhlans galloped in after +him. It was cold and uncanny in the rapid current in the middle of the +stream, and the uhlans caught hold of one another as they fell off their +horses. Some of the horses were drowned and some of the men; the others +tried to swim on, some in the saddle and some clinging to their horses' +manes. They tried to make their way forward to the opposite bank and, +though there was a ford one third of a mile away, were proud that they +were swimming and drowning in this river under the eyes of the man who +sat on the log and was not even looking at what they were doing. When +the aide-de-camp, having returned and choosing an opportune moment, +ventured to draw the Emperor's attention to the devotion of the Poles to +his person, the little man in the gray overcoat got up and, having +summoned Berthier, began pacing up and down the bank with him, giving +him instructions and occasionally glancing disapprovingly at the +drowning uhlans who distracted his attention. + +For him it was no new conviction that his presence in any part of the +world, from Africa to the steppes of Muscovy alike, was enough to +dumfound people and impel them to insane self-oblivion. He called for +his horse and rode to his quarters. + +Some forty uhlans were drowned in the river, though boats were sent to +their assistance. The majority struggled back to the bank from which +they had started. The colonel and some of his men got across and with +difficulty clambered out on the further bank. And as soon as they had +got out, in their soaked and streaming clothes, they shouted "Vivat!" +and looked ecstatically at the spot where Napoleon had been but where he +no longer was and at that moment considered themselves happy. + +That evening, between issuing one order that the forged Russian paper +money prepared for use in Russia should be delivered as quickly as +possible and another that a Saxon should be shot, on whom a letter +containing information about the orders to the French army had been +found, Napoleon also gave instructions that the Polish colonel who had +needlessly plunged into the river should be enrolled in the Legion +d'honneur of which Napoleon was himself the head. + +Quos vult perdere dementat. * + + +* Those whom (God) wishes to destroy he drives mad. + + + + +CHAPTER III + +The Emperor of Russia had, meanwhile, been in Vilna for more than a +month, reviewing troops and holding maneuvers. Nothing was ready for the +war that everyone expected and to prepare for which the Emperor had come +from Petersburg. There was no general plan of action. The vacillation +between the various plans that were proposed had even increased after +the Emperor had been at headquarters for a month. Each of the three +armies had its own commander-in-chief, but there was no supreme +commander of all the forces, and the Emperor did not assume that +responsibility himself. + +The longer the Emperor remained in Vilna the less did everybody--tired +of waiting--prepare for the war. All the efforts of those who surrounded +the sovereign seemed directed merely to making him spend his time +pleasantly and forget that war was impending. + +In June, after many balls and fetes given by the Polish magnates, by the +courtiers, and by the Emperor himself, it occurred to one of the Polish +aides-de-camp in attendance that a dinner and ball should be given for +the Emperor by his aides-de-camp. This idea was eagerly received. The +Emperor gave his consent. The aides-de-camp collected money by +subscription. The lady who was thought to be most pleasing to the +Emperor was invited to act as hostess. Count Bennigsen, being a +landowner in the Vilna province, offered his country house for the fete, +and the thirteenth of June was fixed for a ball, dinner, regatta, and +fireworks at Zakret, Count Bennigsen's country seat. + +The very day that Napoleon issued the order to cross the Niemen, and his +vanguard, driving off the Cossacks, crossed the Russian frontier, +Alexander spent the evening at the entertainment given by his aides-de- +camp at Bennigsen's country house. + +It was a gay and brilliant fete. Connoisseurs of such matters declared +that rarely had so many beautiful women been assembled in one place. +Countess Bezukhova was present among other Russian ladies who had +followed the sovereign from Petersburg to Vilna and eclipsed the refined +Polish ladies by her massive, so-called Russian type of beauty. The +Emperor noticed her and honored her with a dance. + +Boris Drubetskoy, having left his wife in Moscow and being for the +present en garcon (as he phrased it), was also there and, though not an +aide-de-camp, had subscribed a large sum toward the expenses. Boris was +now a rich man who had risen to high honors and no longer sought +patronage but stood on an equal footing with the highest of those of his +own age. He was meeting Helene in Vilna after not having seen her for a +long time and did not recall the past, but as Helene was enjoying the +favors of a very important personage and Boris had only recently +married, they met as good friends of long standing. + +At midnight dancing was still going on. Helene, not having a suitable +partner, herself offered to dance the mazurka with Boris. They were the +third couple. Boris, coolly looking at Helene's dazzling bare shoulders +which emerged from a dark, gold-embroidered, gauze gown, talked to her +of old acquaintances and at the same time, unaware of it himself and +unnoticed by others, never for an instant ceased to observe the Emperor +who was in the same room. The Emperor was not dancing, he stood in the +doorway, stopping now one pair and now another with gracious words which +he alone knew how to utter. + +As the mazurka began, Boris saw that Adjutant General Balashev, one of +those in closest attendance on the Emperor, went up to him and contrary +to court etiquette stood near him while he was talking to a Polish lady. +Having finished speaking to her, the Emperor looked inquiringly at +Balashev and, evidently understanding that he only acted thus because +there were important reasons for so doing, nodded slightly to the lady +and turned to him. Hardly had Balashev begun to speak before a look of +amazement appeared on the Emperor's face. He took Balashev by the arm +and crossed the room with him, unconsciously clearing a path seven yards +wide as the people on both sides made way for him. Boris noticed +Arakcheev's excited face when the sovereign went out with Balashev. +Arakcheev looked at the Emperor from under his brow and, sniffing with +his red nose, stepped forward from the crowd as if expecting the Emperor +to address him. (Boris understood that Arakcheev envied Balashev and was +displeased that evidently important news had reached the Emperor +otherwise than through himself.) + +But the Emperor and Balashev passed out into the illuminated garden +without noticing Arakcheev who, holding his sword and glancing +wrathfully around, followed some twenty paces behind them. + +All the time Boris was going through the figures of the mazurka, he was +worried by the question of what news Balashev had brought and how he +could find it out before others. In the figure in which he had to choose +two ladies, he whispered to Helene that he meant to choose Countess +Potocka who, he thought, had gone out onto the veranda, and glided over +the parquet to the door opening into the garden, where, seeing Balashev +and the Emperor returning to the veranda, he stood still. They were +moving toward the door. Boris, fluttering as if he had not had time to +withdraw, respectfully pressed close to the doorpost with bowed head. + +The Emperor, with the agitation of one who has been personally +affronted, was finishing with these words: + +"To enter Russia without declaring war! I will not make peace as long as +a single armed enemy remains in my country!" It seemed to Boris that it +gave the Emperor pleasure to utter these words. He was satisfied with +the form in which he had expressed his thoughts, but displeased that +Boris had overheard it. + +"Let no one know of it!" the Emperor added with a frown. + +Boris understood that this was meant for him and, closing his eyes, +slightly bowed his head. The Emperor re-entered the ballroom and +remained there about another half-hour. + +Boris was thus the first to learn the news that the French army had +crossed the Niemen and, thanks to this, was able to show certain +important personages that much that was concealed from others was +usually known to him, and by this means he rose higher in their +estimation. + +The unexpected news of the French having crossed the Niemen was +particularly startling after a month of unfulfilled expectations, and at +a ball. On first receiving the news, under the influence of indignation +and resentment the Emperor had found a phrase that pleased him, fully +expressed his feelings, and has since become famous. On returning home +at two o'clock that night he sent for his secretary, Shishkov, and told +him to write an order to the troops and a rescript to Field Marshal +Prince Saltykov, in which he insisted on the words being inserted that +he would not make peace so long as a single armed Frenchman remained on +Russian soil. + +Next day the following letter was sent to Napoleon: + +Monsieur mon frere, + +Yesterday I learned that, despite the loyalty with which I have kept my +engagements with Your Majesty, your troops have crossed the Russian +frontier, and I have this moment received from Petersburg a note, in +which Count Lauriston informs me, as a reason for this aggression, that +Your Majesty has considered yourself to be in a state of war with me +from the time Prince Kuragin asked for his passports. The reasons on +which the Duc de Bassano based his refusal to deliver them to him would +never have led me to suppose that that could serve as a pretext for +aggression. In fact, the ambassador, as he himself has declared, was +never authorized to make that demand, and as soon as I was informed of +it I let him know how much I disapproved of it and ordered him to remain +at his post. If Your Majesty does not intend to shed the blood of our +peoples for such a misunderstanding, and consents to withdraw your +troops from Russian territory, I will regard what has passed as not +having occurred and an understanding between us will be possible. In the +contrary case, Your Majesty, I shall see myself forced to repel an +attack that nothing on my part has provoked. It still depends on Your +Majesty to preserve humanity from the calamity of another war. I am, +etc., + +(signed) Alexander. + + + + +CHAPTER IV + +At two in the morning of the fourteenth of June, the Emperor, having +sent for Balashev and read him his letter to Napoleon, ordered him to +take it and hand it personally to the French Emperor. When dispatching +Balashev, the Emperor repeated to him the words that he would not make +peace so long as a single armed enemy remained on Russian soil and told +him to transmit those words to Napoleon. Alexander did not insert them +in his letter to Napoleon, because with his characteristic tact he felt +it would be injudicious to use them at a moment when a last attempt at +reconciliation was being made, but he definitely instructed Balashev to +repeat them personally to Napoleon. + +Having set off in the small hours of the fourteenth, accompanied by a +bugler and two Cossacks, Balashev reached the French outposts at the +village of Rykonty, on the Russian side of the Niemen, by dawn. There he +was stopped by French cavalry sentinels. + +A French noncommissioned officer of hussars, in crimson uniform and a +shaggy cap, shouted to the approaching Balashev to halt. Balashev did +not do so at once, but continued to advance along the road at a walking +pace. + +The noncommissioned officer frowned and, muttering words of abuse, +advanced his horse's chest against Balashev, put his hand to his saber, +and shouted rudely at the Russian general, asking: was he deaf that he +did not do as he was told? Balashev mentioned who he was. The +noncommissioned officer began talking with his comrades about regimental +matters without looking at the Russian general. + +After living at the seat of the highest authority and power, after +conversing with the Emperor less than three hours before, and in general +being accustomed to the respect due to his rank in the service, Balashev +found it very strange here on Russian soil to encounter this hostile, +and still more this disrespectful, application of brute force to +himself. + +The sun was only just appearing from behind the clouds, the air was +fresh and dewy. A herd of cattle was being driven along the road from +the village, and over the fields the larks rose trilling, one after +another, like bubbles rising in water. + +Balashev looked around him, awaiting the arrival of an officer from the +village. The Russian Cossacks and bugler and the French hussars looked +silently at one another from time to time. + +A French colonel of hussars, who had evidently just left his bed, came +riding from the village on a handsome sleek gray horse, accompanied by +two hussars. The officer, the soldiers, and their horses all looked +smart and well kept. + +It was that first period of a campaign when troops are still in full +trim, almost like that of peacetime maneuvers, but with a shade of +martial swagger in their clothes, and a touch of the gaiety and spirit +of enterprise which always accompany the opening of a campaign. + +The French colonel with difficulty repressed a yawn, but was polite and +evidently understood Balashev's importance. He led him past his soldiers +and behind the outposts and told him that his wish to be presented to +the Emperor would most likely be satisfied immediately, as the Emperor's +quarters were, he believed, not far off. + +They rode through the village of Rykonty, past tethered French hussar +horses, past sentinels and men who saluted their colonel and stared with +curiosity at a Russian uniform, and came out at the other end of the +village. The colonel said that the commander of the division was a mile +and a quarter away and would receive Balashev and conduct him to his +destination. + +The sun had by now risen and shone gaily on the bright verdure. + +They had hardly ridden up a hill, past a tavern, before they saw a group +of horsemen coming toward them. In front of the group, on a black horse +with trappings that glittered in the sun, rode a tall man with plumes in +his hat and black hair curling down to his shoulders. He wore a red +mantle, and stretched his long legs forward in French fashion. This man +rode toward Balashev at a gallop, his plumes flowing and his gems and +gold lace glittering in the bright June sunshine. + +Balashev was only two horses' length from the equestrian with the +bracelets, plumes, necklaces, and gold embroidery, who was galloping +toward him with a theatrically solemn countenance, when Julner, the +French colonel, whispered respectfully: "The King of Naples!" It was, in +fact, Murat, now called "King of Naples." Though it was quite +incomprehensible why he should be King of Naples, he was called so, and +was himself convinced that he was so, and therefore assumed a more +solemn and important air than formerly. He was so sure that he really +was the King of Naples that when, on the eve of his departure from that +city, while walking through the streets with his wife, some Italians +called out to him: "Viva il re!" * he turned to his wife with a pensive +smile and said: "Poor fellows, they don't know that I am leaving them +tomorrow!" + + +* "Long live the king." + +But though he firmly believed himself to be King of Naples and pitied +the grief felt by the subjects he was abandoning, latterly, after he had +been ordered to return to military service--and especially since his +last interview with Napoleon in Danzig, when his august brother-in-law +had told him: "I made you King that you should reign in my way, but not +in yours!"--he had cheerfully taken up his familiar business, and--like +a well-fed but not overfat horse that feels himself in harness and grows +skittish between the shafts--he dressed up in clothes as variegated and +expensive as possible, and gaily and contentedly galloped along the +roads of Poland, without himself knowing why or whither. + +On seeing the Russian general he threw back his head, with its long hair +curling to his shoulders, in a majestically royal manner, and looked +inquiringly at the French colonel. The colonel respectfully informed His +Majesty of Balashev's mission, whose name he could not pronounce. + +"De Bal-macheve!" said the King (overcoming by his assurance the +difficulty that had presented itself to the colonel). "Charmed to make +your acquaintance, General!" he added, with a gesture of kingly +condescension. + +As soon as the King began to speak loud and fast his royal dignity +instantly forsook him, and without noticing it he passed into his +natural tone of good-natured familiarity. He laid his hand on the +withers of Balashev's horse and said: + +"Well, General, it all looks like war," as if regretting a circumstance +of which he was unable to judge. + +"Your Majesty," replied Balashev, "my master, the Emperor, does not +desire war and as Your Majesty sees..." said Balashev, using the words +Your Majesty at every opportunity, with the affectation unavoidable in +frequently addressing one to whom the title was still a novelty. + +Murat's face beamed with stupid satisfaction as he listened to "Monsieur +de Bal-macheve." But royaute oblige! * and he felt it incumbent on him, +as a king and an ally, to confer on state affairs with Alexander's +envoy. He dismounted, took Balashev's arm, and moving a few steps away +from his suite, which waited respectfully, began to pace up and down +with him, trying to speak significantly. He referred to the fact that +the Emperor Napoleon had resented the demand that he should withdraw his +troops from Prussia, especially when that demand became generally known +and the dignity of France was thereby offended. + + +* "Royalty has its obligations." + +Balashev replied that there was "nothing offensive in the demand, +because..." but Murat interrupted him. + +"Then you don't consider the Emperor Alexander the aggressor?" he asked +unexpectedly, with a kindly and foolish smile. + +Balashev told him why he considered Napoleon to be the originator of the +war. + +"Oh, my dear general!" Murat again interrupted him, "with all my heart I +wish the Emperors may arrange the affair between them, and that the war +begun by no wish of mine may finish as quickly as possible!" said he, in +the tone of a servant who wants to remain good friends with another +despite a quarrel between their masters. + +And he went on to inquiries about the Grand Duke and the state of his +health, and to reminiscences of the gay and amusing times he had spent +with him in Naples. Then suddenly, as if remembering his royal dignity, +Murat solemnly drew himself up, assumed the pose in which he had stood +at his coronation, and, waving his right arm, said: + +"I won't detain you longer, General. I wish success to your mission," +and with his embroidered red mantle, his flowing feathers, and his +glittering ornaments, he rejoined his suite who were respectfully +awaiting him. + +Balashev rode on, supposing from Murat's words that he would very soon +be brought before Napoleon himself. But instead of that, at the next +village the sentinels of Davout's infantry corps detained him as the +pickets of the vanguard had done, and an adjutant of the corps +commander, who was fetched, conducted him into the village to Marshal +Davout. + + + + +CHAPTER V + +Davout was to Napoleon what Arakcheev was to Alexander--though not a +coward like Arakcheev, he was as precise, as cruel, and as unable to +express his devotion to his monarch except by cruelty. + +In the organism of states such men are necessary, as wolves are +necessary in the organism of nature, and they always exist, always +appear and hold their own, however incongruous their presence and their +proximity to the head of the government may be. This inevitability alone +can explain how the cruel Arakcheev, who tore out a grenadier's mustache +with his own hands, whose weak nerves rendered him unable to face +danger, and who was neither an educated man nor a courtier, was able to +maintain his powerful position with Alexander, whose own character was +chivalrous, noble, and gentle. + +Balashev found Davout seated on a barrel in the shed of a peasant's hut, +writing--he was auditing accounts. Better quarters could have been found +him, but Marshal Davout was one of those men who purposely put +themselves in most depressing conditions to have a justification for +being gloomy. For the same reason they are always hard at work and in a +hurry. "How can I think of the bright side of life when, as you see, I +am sitting on a barrel and working in a dirty shed?" the expression of +his face seemed to say. The chief pleasure and necessity of such men, +when they encounter anyone who shows animation, is to flaunt their own +dreary, persistent activity. Davout allowed himself that pleasure when +Balashev was brought in. He became still more absorbed in his task when +the Russian general entered, and after glancing over his spectacles at +Balashev's face, which was animated by the beauty of the morning and by +his talk with Murat, he did not rise or even stir, but scowled still +more and sneered malevolently. + +When he noticed in Balashev's face the disagreeable impression this +reception produced, Davout raised his head and coldly asked what he +wanted. + +Thinking he could have been received in such a manner only because +Davout did not know that he was adjutant general to the Emperor +Alexander and even his envoy to Napoleon, Balashev hastened to inform +him of his rank and mission. Contrary to his expectation, Davout, after +hearing him, became still surlier and ruder. + +"Where is your dispatch?" he inquired. "Give it to me. I will send it to +the Emperor." + +Balashev replied that he had been ordered to hand it personally to the +Emperor. + +"Your Emperor's orders are obeyed in your army, but here," said Davout, +"you must do as you're told." + +And, as if to make the Russian general still more conscious of his +dependence on brute force, Davout sent an adjutant to call the officer +on duty. + +Balashev took out the packet containing the Emperor's letter and laid it +on the table (made of a door with its hinges still hanging on it, laid +across two barrels). Davout took the packet and read the inscription. + +"You are perfectly at liberty to treat me with respect or not," +protested Balashev, "but permit me to observe that I have the honor to +be adjutant general to His Majesty...." + +Davout glanced at him silently and plainly derived pleasure from the +signs of agitation and confusion which appeared on Balashev's face. + +"You will be treated as is fitting," said he and, putting the packet in +his pocket, left the shed. + +A minute later the marshal's adjutant, de Castres, came in and conducted +Balashev to the quarters assigned him. + +That day he dined with the marshal, at the same board on the barrels. + +Next day Davout rode out early and, after asking Balashev to come to +him, peremptorily requested him to remain there, to move on with the +baggage train should orders come for it to move, and to talk to no one +except Monsieur de Castres. + +After four days of solitude, ennui, and consciousness of his impotence +and insignificance--particularly acute by contrast with the sphere of +power in which he had so lately moved--and after several marches with +the marshal's baggage and the French army, which occupied the whole +district, Balashev was brought to Vilna--now occupied by the French-- +through the very gate by which he had left it four days previously. + +Next day the imperial gentleman-in-waiting, the Comte de Turenne, came +to Balashev and informed him of the Emperor Napoleon's wish to honor him +with an audience. + +Four days before, sentinels of the Preobrazhensk regiment had stood in +front of the house to which Balashev was conducted, and now two French +grenadiers stood there in blue uniforms unfastened in front and with +shaggy caps on their heads, and an escort of hussars and uhlans and a +brilliant suite of aides-de-camp, pages, and generals, who were waiting +for Napoleon to come out, were standing at the porch, round his saddle +horse and his Mameluke, Rustan. Napoleon received Balashev in the very +house in Vilna from which Alexander had dispatched him on his mission. + + + + +CHAPTER VI + +Though Balashev was used to imperial pomp, he was amazed at the luxury +and magnificence of Napoleon's court. + +The Comte de Turenne showed him into a big reception room where many +generals, gentlemen-in-waiting, and Polish magnates--several of whom +Balashev had seen at the court of the Emperor of Russia--were waiting. +Duroc said that Napoleon would receive the Russian general before going +for his ride. + +After some minutes, the gentleman-in-waiting who was on duty came into +the great reception room and, bowing politely, asked Balashev to follow +him. + +Balashev went into a small reception room, one door of which led into a +study, the very one from which the Russian Emperor had dispatched him on +his mission. He stood a minute or two, waiting. He heard hurried +footsteps beyond the door, both halves of it were opened rapidly; all +was silent and then from the study the sound was heard of other steps, +firm and resolute--they were those of Napoleon. He had just finished +dressing for his ride, and wore a blue uniform, opening in front over a +white waistcoat so long that it covered his rotund stomach, white +leather breeches tightly fitting the fat thighs of his short legs, and +Hessian boots. His short hair had evidently just been brushed, but one +lock hung down in the middle of his broad forehead. His plump white neck +stood out sharply above the black collar of his uniform, and he smelled +of Eau de Cologne. His full face, rather young-looking, with its +prominent chin, wore a gracious and majestic expression of imperial +welcome. + +He entered briskly, with a jerk at every step and his head slightly +thrown back. His whole short corpulent figure with broad thick +shoulders, and chest and stomach involuntarily protruding, had that +imposing and stately appearance one sees in men of forty who live in +comfort. It was evident, too, that he was in the best of spirits that +day. + +He nodded in answer to Balashav's low and respectful bow, and coming up +to him at once began speaking like a man who values every moment of his +time and does not condescend to prepare what he has to say but is sure +he will always say the right thing and say it well. + +"Good day, General!" said he. "I have received the letter you brought +from the Emperor Alexander and am very glad to see you." He glanced with +his large eyes into Balashav's face and immediately looked past him. + +It was plain that Balashev's personality did not interest him at all. +Evidently only what took place within his own mind interested him. +Nothing outside himself had any significance for him, because everything +in the world, it seemed to him, depended entirely on his will. + +"I do not, and did not, desire war," he continued, "but it has been +forced on me. Even now" (he emphasized the word) "I am ready to receive +any explanations you can give me." + +And he began clearly and concisely to explain his reasons for +dissatisfaction with the Russian government. Judging by the calmly +moderate and amicable tone in which the French Emperor spoke, Balashev +was firmly persuaded that he wished for peace and intended to enter into +negotiations. + +When Napoleon, having finished speaking, looked inquiringly at the +Russian envoy, Balashev began a speech he had prepared long before: +"Sire! The Emperor, my master..." but the sight of the Emperor's eyes +bent on him confused him. "You are flurried--compose yourself!" Napoleon +seemed to say, as with a scarcely perceptible smile he looked at +Balashev's uniform and sword. + +Balashev recovered himself and began to speak. He said that the Emperor +Alexander did not consider Kurakin's demand for his passports a +sufficient cause for war; that Kurakin had acted on his own initiative +and without his sovereign's assent, that the Emperor Alexander did not +desire war, and had no relations with England. + +"Not yet!" interposed Napoleon, and, as if fearing to give vent to his +feelings, he frowned and nodded slightly as a sign that Balashev might +proceed. + +After saying all he had been instructed to say, Balashev added that the +Emperor Alexander wished for peace, but would not enter into +negotiations except on condition that... Here Balashev hesitated: he +remembered the words the Emperor Alexander had not written in his +letter, but had specially inserted in the rescript to Saltykov and had +told Balashev to repeat to Napoleon. Balashev remembered these words, +"So long as a single armed foe remains on Russian soil," but some +complex feeling restrained him. He could not utter them, though he +wished to do so. He grew confused and said: "On condition that the +French army retires beyond the Niemen." + +Napoleon noticed Balashev's embarrassment when uttering these last +words; his face twitched and the calf of his left leg began to quiver +rhythmically. Without moving from where he stood he began speaking in a +louder tone and more hurriedly than before. During the speech that +followed, Balashev, who more than once lowered his eyes, involuntarily +noticed the quivering of Napoleon's left leg which increased the more +Napoleon raised his voice. + +"I desire peace, no less than the Emperor Alexander," he began. "Have I +not for eighteen months been doing everything to obtain it? I have +waited eighteen months for explanations. But in order to begin +negotiations, what is demanded of me?" he said, frowning and making an +energetic gesture of inquiry with his small white plump hand. + +"The withdrawal of your army beyond the Niemen, sire," replied Balashev. + +"The Niemen?" repeated Napoleon. "So now you want me to retire beyond +the Niemen--only the Niemen?" repeated Napoleon, looking straight at +Balashev. + +The latter bowed his head respectfully. + +Instead of the demand of four months earlier to withdraw from Pomerania, +only a withdrawal beyond the Niemen was now demanded. Napoleon turned +quickly and began to pace the room. + +"You say the demand now is that I am to withdraw beyond the Niemen +before commencing negotiations, but in just the same way two months ago +the demand was that I should withdraw beyond the Vistula and the Oder, +and yet you are willing to negotiate." + +He went in silence from one corner of the room to the other and again +stopped in front of Balashev. Balashev noticed that his left leg was +quivering faster than before and his face seemed petrified in its stern +expression. This quivering of his left leg was a thing Napoleon was +conscious of. "The vibration of my left calf is a great sign with me," +he remarked at a later date. + +"Such demands as to retreat beyond the Vistula and Oder may be made to a +Prince of Baden, but not to me!" Napoleon almost screamed, quite to his +own surprise. "If you gave me Petersburg and Moscow I could not accept +such conditions. You say I have begun this war! But who first joined his +army? The Emperor Alexander, not I! And you offer me negotiations when I +have expended millions, when you are in alliance with England, and when +your position is a bad one. You offer me negotiations! But what is the +aim of your alliance with England? What has she given you?" he continued +hurriedly, evidently no longer trying to show the advantages of peace +and discuss its possibility, but only to prove his own rectitude and +power and Alexander's errors and duplicity. + +The commencement of his speech had obviously been made with the +intention of demonstrating the advantages of his position and showing +that he was nevertheless willing to negotiate. But he had begun talking, +and the more he talked the less could he control his words. + +The whole purport of his remarks now was evidently to exalt himself and +insult Alexander--just what he had least desired at the commencement of +the interview. + +"I hear you have made peace with Turkey?" + +Balashev bowed his head affirmatively. + +"Peace has been concluded..." he began. + +But Napoleon did not let him speak. He evidently wanted to do all the +talking himself, and continued to talk with the sort of eloquence and +unrestrained irritability to which spoiled people are so prone. + +"Yes, I know you have made peace with the Turks without obtaining +Moldavia and Wallachia; I would have given your sovereign those +provinces as I gave him Finland. Yes," he went on, "I promised and would +have given the Emperor Alexander Moldavia and Wallachia, and now he +won't have those splendid provinces. Yet he might have united them to +his empire and in a single reign would have extended Russia from the +Gulf of Bothnia to the mouths of the Danube. Catherine the Great could +not have done more," said Napoleon, growing more and more excited as he +paced up and down the room, repeating to Balashev almost the very words +he had used to Alexander himself at Tilsit. "All that, he would have +owed to my friendship. Oh, what a splendid reign!" he repeated several +times, then paused, drew from his pocket a gold snuffbox, lifted it to +his nose, and greedily sniffed at it. + +"What a splendid reign the Emperor Alexander's might have been!" + +He looked compassionately at Balashev, and as soon as the latter tried +to make some rejoinder hastily interrupted him. + +"What could he wish or look for that he would not have obtained through +my friendship?" demanded Napoleon, shrugging his shoulders in +perplexity. "But no, he has preferred to surround himself with my +enemies, and with whom? With Steins, Armfeldts, Bennigsens, and +Wintzingerodes! Stein, a traitor expelled from his own country; +Armfeldt, a rake and an intriguer; Wintzingerode, a fugitive French +subject; Bennigsen, rather more of a soldier than the others, but all +the same an incompetent who was unable to do anything in 1807 and who +should awaken terrible memories in the Emperor Alexander's mind.... +Granted that were they competent they might be made use of," continued +Napoleon--hardly able to keep pace in words with the rush of thoughts +that incessantly sprang up, proving how right and strong he was (in his +perception the two were one and the same)--"but they are not even that! +They are neither fit for war nor peace! Barclay is said to be the most +capable of them all, but I cannot say so, judging by his first +movements. And what are they doing, all these courtiers? Pfuel proposes, +Armfeldt disputes, Bennigsen considers, and Barclay, called on to act, +does not know what to decide on, and time passes bringing no result. +Bagration alone is a military man. He's stupid, but he has experience, a +quick eye, and resolution.... And what role is your young monarch +playing in that monstrous crowd? They compromise him and throw on him +the responsibility for all that happens. A sovereign should not be with +the army unless he is a general!" said Napoleon, evidently uttering +these words as a direct challenge to the Emperor. He knew how Alexander +desired to be a military commander. + +"The campaign began only a week ago, and you haven't even been able to +defend Vilna. You are cut in two and have been driven out of the Polish +provinces. Your army is grumbling." + +"On the contrary, Your Majesty," said Balashev, hardly able to remember +what had been said to him and following these verbal fireworks with +difficulty, "the troops are burning with eagerness..." + +"I know everything!" Napoleon interrupted him. "I know everything. I +know the number of your battalions as exactly as I know my own. You have +not two hundred thousand men, and I have three times that number. I give +you my word of honor," said Napoleon, forgetting that his word of honor +could carry no weight--"I give you my word of honor that I have five +hundred and thirty thousand men this side of the Vistula. The Turks will +be of no use to you; they are worth nothing and have shown it by making +peace with you. As for the Swedes--it is their fate to be governed by +mad kings. Their king was insane and they changed him for another-- +Bernadotte, who promptly went mad--for no Swede would ally himself with +Russia unless he were mad." + +Napoleon grinned maliciously and again raised his snuffbox to his nose. + +Balashev knew how to reply to each of Napoleon's remarks, and would have +done so; he continually made the gesture of a man wishing to say +something, but Napoleon always interrupted him. To the alleged insanity +of the Swedes, Balashev wished to reply that when Russia is on her side +Sweden is practically an island: but Napoleon gave an angry exclamation +to drown his voice. Napoleon was in that state of irritability in which +a man has to talk, talk, and talk, merely to convince himself that he is +in the right. Balashev began to feel uncomfortable: as envoy he feared +to demean his dignity and felt the necessity of replying; but, as a man, +he shrank before the transport of groundless wrath that had evidently +seized Napoleon. He knew that none of the words now uttered by Napoleon +had any significance, and that Napoleon himself would be ashamed of them +when he came to his senses. Balashev stood with downcast eyes, looking +at the movements of Napoleon's stout legs and trying to avoid meeting +his eyes. + +"But what do I care about your allies?" said Napoleon. "I have allies-- +the Poles. There are eighty thousand of them and they fight like lions. +And there will be two hundred thousand of them." + +And probably still more perturbed by the fact that he had uttered this +obvious falsehood, and that Balashev still stood silently before him in +the same attitude of submission to fate, Napoleon abruptly turned round, +drew close to Balashev's face, and, gesticulating rapidly and +energetically with his white hands, almost shouted: + +"Know that if you stir up Prussia against me, I'll wipe it off the map +of Europe!" he declared, his face pale and distorted by anger, and he +struck one of his small hands energetically with the other. "Yes, I will +throw you back beyond the Dvina and beyond the Dnieper, and will re- +erect against you that barrier which it was criminal and blind of Europe +to allow to be destroyed. Yes, that is what will happen to you. That is +what you have gained by alienating me!" And he walked silently several +times up and down the room, his fat shoulders twitching. + +He put his snuffbox into his waistcoat pocket, took it out again, lifted +it several times to his nose, and stopped in front of Balashev. He +paused, looked ironically straight into Balashev's eyes, and said in a +quiet voice: + +"And yet what a splendid reign your master might have had!" + +Balashev, feeling it incumbent on him to reply, said that from the +Russian side things did not appear in so gloomy a light. Napoleon was +silent, still looking derisively at him and evidently not listening to +him. Balashev said that in Russia the best results were expected from +the war. Napoleon nodded condescendingly, as if to say, "I know it's +your duty to say that, but you don't believe it yourself. I have +convinced you." + +When Balashev had ended, Napoleon again took out his snuffbox, sniffed +at it, and stamped his foot twice on the floor as a signal. The door +opened, a gentleman-in-waiting, bending respectfully, handed the Emperor +his hat and gloves; another brought him a pocket handkerchief. Napoleon, +without giving them a glance, turned to Balashev: + +"Assure the Emperor Alexander from me," said he, taking his hat, "that I +am as devoted to him as before: I know him thoroughly and very highly +esteem his lofty qualities. I will detain you no longer, General; you +shall receive my letter to the Emperor." + +And Napoleon went quickly to the door. Everyone in the reception room +rushed forward and descended the staircase. + + + + +CHAPTER VII + +After all that Napoleon had said to him--those bursts of anger and the +last dryly spoken words: "I will detain you no longer, General; you +shall receive my letter," Balashev felt convinced that Napoleon would +not wish to see him, and would even avoid another meeting with him--an +insulted envoy--especially as he had witnessed his unseemly anger. But, +to his surprise, Balashev received, through Duroc, an invitation to dine +with the Emperor that day. + +Bessieres, Caulaincourt, and Berthier were present at that dinner. + +Napoleon met Balashev cheerfully and amiably. He not only showed no sign +of constraint or self-reproach on account of his outburst that morning, +but, on the contrary, tried to reassure Balashev. It was evident that he +had long been convinced that it was impossible for him to make a +mistake, and that in his perception whatever he did was right, not +because it harmonized with any idea of right and wrong, but because he +did it. + +The Emperor was in very good spirits after his ride through Vilna, where +crowds of people had rapturously greeted and followed him. From all the +windows of the streets through which he rode, rugs, flags, and his +monogram were displayed, and the Polish ladies, welcoming him, waved +their handkerchiefs to him. + +At dinner, having placed Balashev beside him, Napoleon not only treated +him amiably but behaved as if Balashev were one of his own courtiers, +one of those who sympathized with his plans and ought to rejoice at his +success. In the course of conversation he mentioned Moscow and +questioned Balashev about the Russian capital, not merely as an +interested traveler asks about a new city he intends to visit, but as if +convinced that Balashev, as a Russian, must be flattered by his +curiosity. + +"How many inhabitants are there in Moscow? How many houses? Is it true +that Moscow is called 'Holy Moscow'? How many churches are there in +Moscow?" he asked. + +And receiving the reply that there were more than two hundred churches, +he remarked: + +"Why such a quantity of churches?" + +"The Russians are very devout," replied Balashev. + +"But a large number of monasteries and churches is always a sign of the +backwardness of a people," said Napoleon, turning to Caulaincourt for +appreciation of this remark. + +Balashev respectfully ventured to disagree with the French Emperor. + +"Every country has its own character," said he. + +"But nowhere in Europe is there anything like that," said Napoleon. + +"I beg your Majesty's pardon," returned Balashev, "besides Russia there +is Spain, where there are also many churches and monasteries." + +This reply of Balashev's, which hinted at the recent defeats of the +French in Spain, was much appreciated when he related it at Alexander's +court, but it was not much appreciated at Napoleon's dinner, where it +passed unnoticed. + +The uninterested and perplexed faces of the marshals showed that they +were puzzled as to what Balashev's tone suggested. "If there is a point +we don't see it, or it is not at all witty," their expressions seemed to +say. So little was his rejoinder appreciated that Napoleon did not +notice it at all and naively asked Balashev through what towns the +direct road from there to Moscow passed. Balashev, who was on the alert +all through the dinner, replied that just as "all roads lead to Rome," +so all roads lead to Moscow: there were many roads, and "among them the +road through Poltava, which Charles XII chose." Balashev involuntarily +flushed with pleasure at the aptitude of this reply, but hardly had he +uttered the word Poltava before Caulaincourt began speaking of the +badness of the road from Petersburg to Moscow and of his Petersburg +reminiscences. + +After dinner they went to drink coffee in Napoleon's study, which four +days previously had been that of the Emperor Alexander. Napoleon sat +down, toying with his Sevres coffee cup, and motioned Balashev to a +chair beside him. + +Napoleon was in that well-known after-dinner mood which, more than any +reasoned cause, makes a man contented with himself and disposed to +consider everyone his friend. It seemed to him that he was surrounded by +men who adored him: and he felt convinced that, after his dinner, +Balashev too was his friend and worshiper. Napoleon turned to him with a +pleasant, though slightly ironic, smile. + +"They tell me this is the room the Emperor Alexander occupied? Strange, +isn't it, General?" he said, evidently not doubting that this remark +would be agreeable to his hearer since it went to prove his, Napoleon's, +superiority to Alexander. + +Balashev made no reply and bowed his head in silence. + +"Yes. Four days ago in this room, Wintzingerode and Stein were +deliberating," continued Napoleon with the same derisive and self- +confident smile. "What I can't understand," he went on, "is that the +Emperor Alexander has surrounded himself with my personal enemies. That +I do not... understand. Has he not thought that I may do the same?" and +he turned inquiringly to Balashev, and evidently this thought turned him +back on to the track of his morning's anger, which was still fresh in +him. + +"And let him know that I will do so!" said Napoleon, rising and pushing +his cup away with his hand. "I'll drive all his Wurttemberg, Baden, and +Weimar relations out of Germany.... Yes. I'll drive them out. Let him +prepare an asylum for them in Russia!" + +Balashev bowed his head with an air indicating that he would like to +make his bow and leave, and only listened because he could not help +hearing what was said to him. Napoleon did not notice this expression; +he treated Balashev not as an envoy from his enemy, but as a man now +fully devoted to him and who must rejoice at his former master's +humiliation. + +"And why has the Emperor Alexander taken command of the armies? What is +the good of that? War is my profession, but his business is to reign and +not to command armies! Why has he taken on himself such a +responsibility?" + +Again Napoleon brought out his snuffbox, paced several times up and down +the room in silence, and then, suddenly and unexpectedly, went up to +Balashev and with a slight smile, as confidently, quickly, and simply as +if he were doing something not merely important but pleasing to +Balashev, he raised his hand to the forty-year-old Russian general's +face and, taking him by the ear, pulled it gently, smiling with his lips +only. + +To have one's ear pulled by the Emperor was considered the greatest +honor and mark of favor at the French court. + +"Well, adorer and courtier of the Emperor Alexander, why don't you say +anything?" said he, as if it was ridiculous, in his presence, to be the +adorer and courtier of anyone but himself, Napoleon. "Are the horses +ready for the general?" he added, with a slight inclination of his head +in reply to Balashev's bow. "Let him have mine, he has a long way to +go!" + +The letter taken by Balashev was the last Napoleon sent to Alexander. +Every detail of the interview was communicated to the Russian monarch, +and the war began... + + + + +CHAPTER VIII + +After his interview with Pierre in Moscow, Prince Andrew went to +Petersburg, on business as he told his family, but really to meet +Anatole Kuragin whom he felt it necessary to encounter. On reaching +Petersburg he inquired for Kuragin but the latter had already left the +city. Pierre had warned his brother-in-law that Prince Andrew was on his +track. Anatole Kuragin promptly obtained an appointment from the +Minister of War and went to join the army in Moldavia. While in +Petersburg Prince Andrew met Kutuzov, his former commander who was +always well disposed toward him, and Kutuzov suggested that he should +accompany him to the army in Moldavia, to which the old general had been +appointed commander-in-chief. So Prince Andrew, having received an +appointment on the headquarters staff, left for Turkey. + +Prince Andrew did not think it proper to write and challenge Kuragin. He +thought that if he challenged him without some fresh cause it might +compromise the young Countess Rostova and so he wanted to meet Kuragin +personally in order to find a fresh pretext for a duel. But he again +failed to meet Kuragin in Turkey, for soon after Prince Andrew arrived, +the latter returned to Russia. In a new country, amid new conditions, +Prince Andrew found life easier to bear. After his betrothed had broken +faith with him--which he felt the more acutely the more he tried to +conceal its effects--the surroundings in which he had been happy became +trying to him, and the freedom and independence he had once prized so +highly were still more so. Not only could he no longer think the +thoughts that had first come to him as he lay gazing at the sky on the +field of Austerlitz and had later enlarged upon with Pierre, and which +had filled his solitude at Bogucharovo and then in Switzerland and Rome, +but he even dreaded to recall them and the bright and boundless horizons +they had revealed. He was now concerned only with the nearest practical +matters unrelated to his past interests, and he seized on these the more +eagerly the more those past interests were closed to him. It was as if +that lofty, infinite canopy of heaven that had once towered above him +had suddenly turned into a low, solid vault that weighed him down, in +which all was clear, but nothing eternal or mysterious. + +Of the activities that presented themselves to him, army service was the +simplest and most familiar. As a general on duty on Kutuzov's staff, he +applied himself to business with zeal and perseverance and surprised +Kutuzov by his willingness and accuracy in work. Not having found +Kuragin in Turkey, Prince Andrew did not think it necessary to rush back +to Russia after him, but all the same he knew that however long it might +be before he met Kuragin, despite his contempt for him and despite all +the proofs he deduced to convince himself that it was not worth stooping +to a conflict with him--he knew that when he did meet him he would not +be able to resist calling him out, any more than a ravenous man can help +snatching at food. And the consciousness that the insult was not yet +avenged, that his rancor was still unspent, weighed on his heart and +poisoned the artificial tranquillity which he managed to obtain in +Turkey by means of restless, plodding, and rather vainglorious and +ambitious activity. + +In the year 1812, when news of the war with Napoleon reached Bucharest-- +where Kutuzov had been living for two months, passing his days and +nights with a Wallachian woman--Prince Andrew asked Kutuzov to transfer +him to the Western Army. Kutuzov, who was already weary of Bolkonski's +activity which seemed to reproach his own idleness, very readily let him +go and gave him a mission to Barclay de Tolly. + +Before joining the Western Army which was then, in May, encamped at +Drissa, Prince Andrew visited Bald Hills which was directly on his way, +being only two miles off the Smolensk highroad. During the last three +years there had been so many changes in his life, he had thought, felt, +and seen so much (having traveled both in the east and the west), that +on reaching Bald Hills it struck him as strange and unexpected to find +the way of life there unchanged and still the same in every detail. He +entered through the gates with their stone pillars and drove up the +avenue leading to the house as if he were entering an enchanted, +sleeping castle. The same old stateliness, the same cleanliness, the +same stillness reigned there, and inside there was the same furniture, +the same walls, sounds, and smell, and the same timid faces, only +somewhat older. Princess Mary was still the same timid, plain maiden +getting on in years, uselessly and joylessly passing the best years of +her life in fear and constant suffering. Mademoiselle Bourienne was the +same coquettish, self-satisfied girl, enjoying every moment of her +existence and full of joyous hopes for the future. She had merely become +more self-confident, Prince Andrew thought. Dessalles, the tutor he had +brought from Switzerland, was wearing a coat of Russian cut and talking +broken Russian to the servants, but was still the same narrowly +intelligent, conscientious, and pedantic preceptor. The old prince had +changed in appearance only by the loss of a tooth, which left a +noticeable gap on one side of his mouth; in character he was the same as +ever, only showing still more irritability and skepticism as to what was +happening in the world. Little Nicholas alone had changed. He had grown, +become rosier, had curly dark hair, and, when merry and laughing, quite +unconsciously lifted the upper lip of his pretty little mouth just as +the little princess used to do. He alone did not obey the law of +immutability in the enchanted, sleeping castle. But though externally +all remained as of old, the inner relations of all these people had +changed since Prince Andrew had seen them last. The household was +divided into two alien and hostile camps, who changed their habits for +his sake and only met because he was there. To the one camp belonged the +old prince, Mademoiselle Bourienne, and the architect; to the other +Princess Mary, Dessalles, little Nicholas, and all the old nurses and +maids. + +During his stay at Bald Hills all the family dined together, but they +were ill at ease and Prince Andrew felt that he was a visitor for whose +sake an exception was being made and that his presence made them all +feel awkward. Involuntarily feeling this at dinner on the first day, he +was taciturn, and the old prince noticing this also became morosely dumb +and retired to his apartments directly after dinner. In the evening, +when Prince Andrew went to him and, trying to rouse him, began to tell +him of the young Count Kamensky's campaign, the old prince began +unexpectedly to talk about Princess Mary, blaming her for her +superstitions and her dislike of Mademoiselle Bourienne, who, he said, +was the only person really attached to him. + +The old prince said that if he was ill it was only because of Princess +Mary: that she purposely worried and irritated him, and that by +indulgence and silly talk she was spoiling little Prince Nicholas. The +old prince knew very well that he tormented his daughter and that her +life was very hard, but he also knew that he could not help tormenting +her and that she deserved it. "Why does Prince Andrew, who sees this, +say nothing to me about his sister? Does he think me a scoundrel, or an +old fool who, without any reason, keeps his own daughter at a distance +and attaches this Frenchwoman to himself? He doesn't understand, so I +must explain it, and he must hear me out," thought the old prince. And +he began explaining why he could not put up with his daughter's +unreasonable character. + +"If you ask me," said Prince Andrew, without looking up (he was +censuring his father for the first time in his life), "I did not wish to +speak about it, but as you ask me I will give you my frank opinion. If +there is any misunderstanding and discord between you and Mary, I can't +blame her for it at all. I know how she loves and respects you. Since +you ask me," continued Prince Andrew, becoming irritable--as he was +always liable to do of late--"I can only say that if there are any +misunderstandings they are caused by that worthless woman, who is not +fit to be my sister's companion." + +The old man at first stared fixedly at his son, and an unnatural smile +disclosed the fresh gap between his teeth to which Prince Andrew could +not get accustomed. + +"What companion, my dear boy? Eh? You've already been talking it over! +Eh?" + +"Father, I did not want to judge," said Prince Andrew, in a hard and +bitter tone, "but you challenged me, and I have said, and always shall +say, that Mary is not to blame, but those to blame--the one to blame--is +that Frenchwoman." + +"Ah, he has passed judgment... passed judgement!" said the old man in a +low voice and, as it seemed to Prince Andrew, with some embarrassment, +but then he suddenly jumped up and cried: "Be off, be off! Let not a +trace of you remain here!..." + +Prince Andrew wished to leave at once, but Princess Mary persuaded him +to stay another day. That day he did not see his father, who did not +leave his room and admitted no one but Mademoiselle Bourienne and +Tikhon, but asked several times whether his son had gone. Next day, +before leaving, Prince Andrew went to his son's rooms. The boy, curly- +headed like his mother and glowing with health, sat on his knee, and +Prince Andrew began telling him the story of Bluebeard, but fell into a +reverie without finishing the story. He thought not of this pretty +child, his son whom he held on his knee, but of himself. He sought in +himself either remorse for having angered his father or regret at +leaving home for the first time in his life on bad terms with him, and +was horrified to find neither. What meant still more to him was that he +sought and did not find in himself the former tenderness for his son +which he had hoped to reawaken by caressing the boy and taking him on +his knee. + +"Well, go on!" said his son. + +Prince Andrew, without replying, put him down from his knee and went out +of the room. + +As soon as Prince Andrew had given up his daily occupations, and +especially on returning to the old conditions of life amid which he had +been happy, weariness of life overcame him with its former intensity, +and he hastened to escape from these memories and to find some work as +soon as possible. + +"So you've decided to go, Andrew?" asked his sister. + +"Thank God that I can," replied Prince Andrew. "I am very sorry you +can't." + +"Why do you say that?" replied Princess Mary. "Why do you say that, when +you are going to this terrible war, and he is so old? Mademoiselle +Bourienne says he has been asking about you...." + +As soon as she began to speak of that, her lips trembled and her tears +began to fall. Prince Andrew turned away and began pacing the room. + +"Ah, my God! my God! When one thinks who and what--what trash--can cause +people misery!" he said with a malignity that alarmed Princess Mary. + +She understood that when speaking of "trash" he referred not only to +Mademoiselle Bourienne, the cause of her misery, but also to the man who +had ruined his own happiness. + +"Andrew! One thing I beg, I entreat of you!" she said, touching his +elbow and looking at him with eyes that shone through her tears. "I +understand you" (she looked down). "Don't imagine that sorrow is the +work of men. Men are His tools." She looked a little above Prince +Andrew's head with the confident, accustomed look with which one looks +at the place where a familiar portrait hangs. "Sorrow is sent by Him, +not by men. Men are His instruments, they are not to blame. If you think +someone has wronged you, forget it and forgive! We have no right to +punish. And then you will know the happiness of forgiving." + +"If I were a woman I would do so, Mary. That is a woman's virtue. But a +man should not and cannot forgive and forget," he replied, and though +till that moment he had not been thinking of Kuragin, all his unexpended +anger suddenly swelled up in his heart. + +"If Mary is already persuading me to forgive, it means that I ought long +ago to have punished him," he thought. And giving her no further reply, +he began thinking of the glad vindictive moment when he would meet +Kuragin who he knew was now in the army. + +Princess Mary begged him to stay one day more, saying that she knew how +unhappy her father would be if Andrew left without being reconciled to +him, but Prince Andrew replied that he would probably soon be back again +from the army and would certainly write to his father, but that the +longer he stayed now the more embittered their differences would become. + +"Good-bye, Andrew! Remember that misfortunes come from God, and men are +never to blame," were the last words he heard from his sister when he +took leave of her. + +"Then it must be so!" thought Prince Andrew as he drove out of the +avenue from the house at Bald Hills. "She, poor innocent creature, is +left to be victimized by an old man who has outlived his wits. The old +man feels he is guilty, but cannot change himself. My boy is growing up +and rejoices in life, in which like everybody else he will deceive or be +deceived. And I am off to the army. Why? I myself don't know. I want to +meet that man whom I despise, so as to give him a chance to kill and +laugh at me!" + +These conditions of life had been the same before, but then they were +all connected, while now they had all tumbled to pieces. Only senseless +things, lacking coherence, presented themselves one after another to +Prince Andrew's mind. + + + + +CHAPTER IX + +Prince Andrew reached the general headquarters of the army at the end of +June. The first army, with which was the Emperor, occupied the fortified +camp at Drissa; the second army was retreating, trying to effect a +junction with the first one from which it was said to be cut off by +large French forces. Everyone was dissatisfied with the general course +of affairs in the Russian army, but no one anticipated any danger of +invasion of the Russian provinces, and no one thought the war would +extend farther than the western, the Polish, provinces. + +Prince Andrew found Barclay de Tolly, to whom he had been assigned, on +the bank of the Drissa. As there was not a single town or large village +in the vicinity of the camp, the immense number of generals and +courtiers accompanying the army were living in the best houses of the +villages on both sides of the river, over a radius of six miles. Barclay +de Tolly was quartered nearly three miles from the Emperor. He received +Bolkonski stiffly and coldly and told him in his foreign accent that he +would mention him to the Emperor for a decision as to his employment, +but asked him meanwhile to remain on his staff. Anatole Kuragin, whom +Prince Andrew had hoped to find with the army, was not there. He had +gone to Petersburg, but Prince Andrew was glad to hear this. His mind +was occupied by the interests of the center that was conducting a +gigantic war, and he was glad to be free for a while from the +distraction caused by the thought of Kuragin. During the first four +days, while no duties were required of him, Prince Andrew rode round the +whole fortified camp and, by the aid of his own knowledge and by talks +with experts, tried to form a definite opinion about it. But the +question whether the camp was advantageous or disadvantageous remained +for him undecided. Already from his military experience and what he had +seen in the Austrian campaign, he had come to the conclusion that in war +the most deeply considered plans have no significance and that all +depends on the way unexpected movements of the enemy--that cannot be +foreseen--are met, and on how and by whom the whole matter is handled. +To clear up this last point for himself, Prince Andrew, utilizing his +position and acquaintances, tried to fathom the character of the control +of the army and of the men and parties engaged in it, and he deduced for +himself the following of the state of affairs. + +While the Emperor had still been at Vilna, the forces had been divided +into three armies. First, the army under Barclay de Tolly, secondly, the +army under Bagration, and thirdly, the one commanded by Tormasov. The +Emperor was with the first army, but not as commander-in-chief. In the +orders issued it was stated, not that the Emperor would take command, +but only that he would be with the army. The Emperor, moreover, had with +him not a commander-in-chief's staff but the imperial headquarters +staff. In attendance on him was the head of the imperial staff, +Quartermaster General Prince Volkonski, as well as generals, imperial +aides-de-camp, diplomatic officials, and a large number of foreigners, +but not the army staff. Besides these, there were in attendance on the +Emperor without any definite appointments: Arakcheev, the ex-Minister of +War; Count Bennigsen, the senior general in rank; the Grand Duke +Tsarevich Constantine Pavlovich; Count Rumyantsev, the Chancellor; +Stein, a former Prussian minister; Armfeldt, a Swedish general; Pfuel, +the chief author of the plan of campaign; Paulucci, an adjutant general +and Sardinian emigre; Wolzogen--and many others. Though these men had no +military appointment in the army, their position gave them influence, +and often a corps commander, or even the commander-in-chief, did not +know in what capacity he was questioned by Bennigsen, the Grand Duke, +Arakcheev, or Prince Volkonski, or was given this or that advice and did +not know whether a certain order received in the form of advice emanated +from the man who gave it or from the Emperor and whether it had to be +executed or not. But this was only the external condition; the essential +significance of the presence of the Emperor and of all these people, +from a courtier's point of view (and in an Emperor's vicinity all became +courtiers), was clear to everyone. It was this: the Emperor did not +assume the title of commander-in-chief, but disposed of all the armies; +the men around him were his assistants. Arakcheev was a faithful +custodian to enforce order and acted as the sovereign's bodyguard. +Bennigsen was a landlord in the Vilna province who appeared to be doing +the honors of the district, but was in reality a good general, useful as +an adviser and ready at hand to replace Barclay. The Grand Duke was +there because it suited him to be. The ex-Minister Stein was there +because his advice was useful and the Emperor Alexander held him in high +esteem personally. Armfeldt virulently hated Napoleon and was a general +full of self-confidence, a quality that always influenced Alexander. +Paulucci was there because he was bold and decided in speech. The +adjutants general were there because they always accompanied the +Emperor, and lastly and chiefly Pfuel was there because he had drawn up +the plan of campaign against Napoleon and, having induced Alexander to +believe in the efficacy of that plan, was directing the whole business +of the war. With Pfuel was Wolzogen, who expressed Pfuel's thoughts in a +more comprehensible way than Pfuel himself (who was a harsh, bookish +theorist, self-confident to the point of despising everyone else) was +able to do. + +Besides these Russians and foreigners who propounded new and unexpected +ideas every day--especially the foreigners, who did so with a boldness +characteristic of people employed in a country not their own--there were +many secondary personages accompanying the army because their principals +were there. + +Among the opinions and voices in this immense, restless, brilliant, and +proud sphere, Prince Andrew noticed the following sharply defined +subdivisions of tendencies and parties: + +The first party consisted of Pfuel and his adherents--military theorists +who believed in a science of war with immutable laws--laws of oblique +movements, outflankings, and so forth. Pfuel and his adherents demanded +a retirement into the depths of the country in accordance with precise +laws defined by a pseudo-theory of war, and they saw only barbarism, +ignorance, or evil intention in every deviation from that theory. To +this party belonged the foreign nobles, Wolzogen, Wintzingerode, and +others, chiefly Germans. + +The second party was directly opposed to the first; one extreme, as +always happens, was met by representatives of the other. The members of +this party were those who had demanded an advance from Vilna into Poland +and freedom from all prearranged plans. Besides being advocates of bold +action, this section also represented nationalism, which made them still +more one-sided in the dispute. They were Russians: Bagration, Ermolov +(who was beginning to come to the front), and others. At that time a +famous joke of Ermolov's was being circulated, that as a great favor he +had petitioned the Emperor to make him a German. The men of that party, +remembering Suvorov, said that what one had to do was not to reason, or +stick pins into maps, but to fight, beat the enemy, keep him out of +Russia, and not let the army get discouraged. + +To the third party--in which the Emperor had most confidence--belonged +the courtiers who tried to arrange compromises between the other two. +The members of this party, chiefly civilians and to whom Arakcheev +belonged, thought and said what men who have no convictions but wish to +seem to have some generally say. They said that undoubtedly war, +particularly against such a genius as Bonaparte (they called him +Bonaparte now), needs most deeply devised plans and profound scientific +knowledge and in that respect Pfuel was a genius, but at the same time +it had to be acknowledged that the theorists are often one-sided, and +therefore one should not trust them absolutely, but should also listen +to what Pfuel's opponents and practical men of experience in warfare had +to say, and then choose a middle course. They insisted on the retention +of the camp at Drissa, according to Pfuel's plan, but on changing the +movements of the other armies. Though, by this course, neither one aim +nor the other could be attained, yet it seemed best to the adherents of +this third party. + +Of a fourth opinion the most conspicuous representative was the +Tsarevich, who could not forget his disillusionment at Austerlitz, where +he had ridden out at the head of the Guards, in his casque and cavalry +uniform as to a review, expecting to crush the French gallantly; but +unexpectedly finding himself in the front line had narrowly escaped amid +the general confusion. The men of this party had both the quality and +the defect of frankness in their opinions. They feared Napoleon, +recognized his strength and their own weakness, and frankly said so. +They said: "Nothing but sorrow, shame, and ruin will come of all this! +We have abandoned Vilna and Vitebsk and shall abandon Drissa. The only +reasonable thing left to do is to conclude peace as soon as possible, +before we are turned out of Petersburg." + +This view was very general in the upper army circles and found support +also in Petersburg and from the chancellor, Rumyantsev, who, for other +reasons of state, was in favor of peace. + +The fifth party consisted of those who were adherents of Barclay de +Tolly, not so much as a man but as minister of war and commander-in- +chief. "Be he what he may" (they always began like that), "he is an +honest, practical man and we have nobody better. Give him real power, +for war cannot be conducted successfully without unity of command, and +he will show what he can do, as he did in Finland. If our army is well +organized and strong and has withdrawn to Drissa without suffering any +defeats, we owe this entirely to Barclay. If Barclay is now to be +superseded by Bennigsen all will be lost, for Bennigsen showed his +incapacity already in 1807." + +The sixth party, the Bennigsenites, said, on the contrary, that at any +rate there was no one more active and experienced than Bennigsen: "and +twist about as you may, you will have to come to Bennigsen eventually. +Let the others make mistakes now!" said they, arguing that our +retirement to Drissa was a most shameful reverse and an unbroken series +of blunders. "The more mistakes that are made the better. It will at any +rate be understood all the sooner that things cannot go on like this. +What is wanted is not some Barclay or other, but a man like Bennigsen, +who made his mark in 1807, and to whom Napoleon himself did justice--a +man whose authority would be willingly recognized, and Bennigsen is the +only such man." + +The seventh party consisted of the sort of people who are always to be +found, especially around young sovereigns, and of whom there were +particularly many round Alexander--generals and imperial aides-de-camp +passionately devoted to the Emperor, not merely as a monarch but as a +man, adoring him sincerely and disinterestedly, as Rostov had done in +1805, and who saw in him not only all the virtues but all human +capabilities as well. These men, though enchanted with the sovereign for +refusing the command of the army, yet blamed him for such excessive +modesty, and only desired and insisted that their adored sovereign +should abandon his diffidence and openly announce that he would place +himself at the head of the army, gather round him a commander-in-chief's +staff, and, consulting experienced theoreticians and practical men where +necessary, would himself lead the troops, whose spirits would thereby be +raised to the highest pitch. + +The eighth and largest group, which in its enormous numbers was to the +others as ninety-nine to one, consisted of men who desired neither peace +nor war, neither an advance nor a defensive camp at the Drissa or +anywhere else, neither Barclay nor the Emperor, neither Pfuel nor +Bennigsen, but only the one most essential thing--as much advantage and +pleasure for themselves as possible. In the troubled waters of +conflicting and intersecting intrigues that eddied about the Emperor's +headquarters, it was possible to succeed in many ways unthinkable at +other times. A man who simply wished to retain his lucrative post would +today agree with Pfuel, tomorrow with his opponent, and the day after, +merely to avoid responsibility or to please the Emperor, would declare +that he had no opinion at all on the matter. Another who wished to gain +some advantage would attract the Emperor's attention by loudly +advocating the very thing the Emperor had hinted at the day before, and +would dispute and shout at the council, beating his breast and +challenging those who did not agree with him to duels, thereby proving +that he was prepared to sacrifice himself for the common good. A third, +in the absence of opponents, between two councils would simply solicit a +special gratuity for his faithful services, well knowing that at that +moment people would be too busy to refuse him. A fourth while seemingly +overwhelmed with work would often come accidentally under the Emperor's +eye. A fifth, to achieve his long-cherished aim of dining with the +Emperor, would stubbornly insist on the correctness or falsity of some +newly emerging opinion and for this object would produce arguments more +or less forcible and correct. + +All the men of this party were fishing for rubles, decorations, and +promotions, and in this pursuit watched only the weathercock of imperial +favor, and directly they noticed it turning in any direction, this whole +drone population of the army began blowing hard that way, so that it was +all the harder for the Emperor to turn it elsewhere. Amid the +uncertainties of the position, with the menace of serious danger giving +a peculiarly threatening character to everything, amid this vortex of +intrigue, egotism, conflict of views and feelings, and the diversity of +race among these people--this eighth and largest party of those +preoccupied with personal interests imparted great confusion and +obscurity to the common task. Whatever question arose, a swarm of these +drones, without having finished their buzzing on a previous theme, flew +over to the new one and by their hum drowned and obscured the voices of +those who were disputing honestly. + +From among all these parties, just at the time Prince Andrew reached the +army, another, a ninth party, was being formed and was beginning to +raise its voice. This was the party of the elders, reasonable men +experienced and capable in state affairs, who, without sharing any of +those conflicting opinions, were able to take a detached view of what +was going on at the staff at headquarters and to consider means of +escape from this muddle, indecision, intricacy, and weakness. + +The men of this party said and thought that what was wrong resulted +chiefly from the Emperor's presence in the army with his military court +and from the consequent presence there of an indefinite, conditional, +and unsteady fluctuation of relations, which is in place at court but +harmful in an army; that a sovereign should reign but not command the +army, and that the only way out of the position would be for the Emperor +and his court to leave the army; that the mere presence of the Emperor +paralyzed the action of fifty thousand men required to secure his +personal safety, and that the worst commander-in-chief, if independent, +would be better than the very best one trammeled by the presence and +authority of the monarch. + +Just at the time Prince Andrew was living unoccupied at Drissa, +Shishkov, the Secretary of State and one of the chief representatives of +this party, wrote a letter to the Emperor which Arakcheev and Balashev +agreed to sign. In this letter, availing himself of permission given him +by the Emperor to discuss the general course of affairs, he respectfully +suggested--on the plea that it was necessary for the sovereign to arouse +a warlike spirit in the people of the capital--that the Emperor should +leave the army. + +That arousing of the people by their sovereign and his call to them to +defend their country--the very incitement which was the chief cause of +Russia's triumph in so far as it was produced by the Tsar's personal +presence in Moscow--was suggested to the Emperor, and accepted by him, +as a pretext for quitting the army. + + + + +CHAPTER X + +This letter had not yet been presented to the Emperor when Barclay, one +day at dinner, informed Bolkonski that the sovereign wished to see him +personally, to question him about Turkey, and that Prince Andrew was to +present himself at Bennigsen's quarters at six that evening. + +News was received at the Emperor's quarters that very day of a fresh +movement by Napoleon which might endanger the army--news subsequently +found to be false. And that morning Colonel Michaud had ridden round the +Drissa fortifications with the Emperor and had pointed out to him that +this fortified camp constructed by Pfuel, and till then considered a +chef-d'oeuvre of tactical science which would ensure Napoleon's +destruction, was an absurdity, threatening the destruction of the +Russian army. + +Prince Andrew arrived at Bennigsen's quarters--a country gentleman's +house of moderate size, situated on the very banks of the river. Neither +Bennigsen nor the Emperor was there, but Chernyshev, the Emperor's aide- +de-camp, received Bolkonski and informed him that the Emperor, +accompanied by General Bennigsen and Marquis Paulucci, had gone a second +time that day to inspect the fortifications of the Drissa camp, of the +suitability of which serious doubts were beginning to be felt. + +Chernyshev was sitting at a window in the first room with a French novel +in his hand. This room had probably been a music room; there was still +an organ in it on which some rugs were piled, and in one corner stood +the folding bedstead of Bennigsen's adjutant. This adjutant was also +there and sat dozing on the rolled-up bedding, evidently exhausted by +work or by feasting. Two doors led from the room, one straight on into +what had been the drawing room, and another, on the right, to the study. +Through the first door came the sound of voices conversing in German and +occasionally in French. In that drawing room were gathered, by the +Emperor's wish, not a military council (the Emperor preferred +indefiniteness), but certain persons whose opinions he wished to know in +view of the impending difficulties. It was not a council of war, but, as +it were, a council to elucidate certain questions for the Emperor +personally. To this semicouncil had been invited the Swedish General +Armfeldt, Adjutant General Wolzogen, Wintzingerode (whom Napoleon had +referred to as a renegade French subject), Michaud, Toll, Count Stein +who was not a military man at all, and Pfuel himself, who, as Prince +Andrew had heard, was the mainspring of the whole affair. Prince Andrew +had an opportunity of getting a good look at him, for Pfuel arrived soon +after himself and, in passing through to the drawing room, stopped a +minute to speak to Chernyshev. + +At first sight, Pfuel, in his ill-made uniform of a Russian general, +which fitted him badly like a fancy costume, seemed familiar to Prince +Andrew, though he saw him now for the first time. There was about him +something of Weyrother, Mack, and Schmidt, and many other German +theorist-generals whom Prince Andrew had seen in 1805, but he was more +typical than any of them. Prince Andrew had never yet seen a German +theorist in whom all the characteristics of those others were united to +such an extent. + +Pfuel was short and very thin but broad-boned, of coarse, robust build, +broad in the hips, and with prominent shoulder blades. His face was much +wrinkled and his eyes deep set. His hair had evidently been hastily +brushed smooth in front of the temples, but stuck up behind in quaint +little tufts. He entered the room, looking restlessly and angrily +around, as if afraid of everything in that large apartment. Awkwardly +holding up his sword, he addressed Chernyshev and asked in German where +the Emperor was. One could see that he wished to pass through the rooms +as quickly as possible, finish with the bows and greetings, and sit down +to business in front of a map, where he would feel at home. He nodded +hurriedly in reply to Chernyshev, and smiled ironically on hearing that +the sovereign was inspecting the fortifications that he, Pfuel, had +planned in accord with his theory. He muttered something to himself +abruptly and in a bass voice, as self-assured Germans do--it might have +been "stupid fellow"... or "the whole affair will be ruined," or +"something absurd will come of it."... Prince Andrew did not catch what +he said and would have passed on, but Chernyshev introduced him to +Pfuel, remarking that Prince Andrew was just back from Turkey where the +war had terminated so fortunately. Pfuel barely glanced--not so much at +Prince Andrew as past him--and said, with a laugh: "That must have been +a fine tactical war"; and, laughing contemptuously, went on into the +room from which the sound of voices was heard. + +Pfuel, always inclined to be irritably sarcastic, was particularly +disturbed that day, evidently by the fact that they had dared to inspect +and criticize his camp in his absence. From this short interview with +Pfuel, Prince Andrew, thanks to his Austerlitz experiences, was able to +form a clear conception of the man. Pfuel was one of those hopelessly +and immutably self-confident men, self-confident to the point of +martyrdom as only Germans are, because only Germans are self-confident +on the basis of an abstract notion--science, that is, the supposed +knowledge of absolute truth. A Frenchman is self-assured because he +regards himself personally, both in mind and body, as irresistibly +attractive to men and women. An Englishman is self-assured, as being a +citizen of the best-organized state in the world, and therefore as an +Englishman always knows what he should do and knows that all he does as +an Englishman is undoubtedly correct. An Italian is self-assured because +he is excitable and easily forgets himself and other people. A Russian +is self-assured just because he knows nothing and does not want to know +anything, since he does not believe that anything can be known. The +German's self-assurance is worst of all, stronger and more repulsive +than any other, because he imagines that he knows the truth--science-- +which he himself has invented but which is for him the absolute truth. + +Pfuel was evidently of that sort. He had a science--the theory of +oblique movements deduced by him from the history of Frederick the +Great's wars, and all he came across in the history of more recent +warfare seemed to him absurd and barbarous--monstrous collisions in +which so many blunders were committed by both sides that these wars +could not be called wars, they did not accord with the theory, and +therefore could not serve as material for science. + +In 1806 Pfuel had been one of those responsible, for the plan of +campaign that ended in Jena and Auerstadt, but he did not see the least +proof of the fallibility of his theory in the disasters of that war. On +the contrary, the deviations made from his theory were, in his opinion, +the sole cause of the whole disaster, and with characteristically +gleeful sarcasm he would remark, "There, I said the whole affair would +go to the devil!" Pfuel was one of those theoreticians who so love their +theory that they lose sight of the theory's object--its practical +application. His love of theory made him hate everything practical, and +he would not listen to it. He was even pleased by failures, for failures +resulting from deviations in practice from the theory only proved to him +the accuracy of his theory. + +He said a few words to Prince Andrew and Chernyshev about the present +war, with the air of a man who knows beforehand that all will go wrong, +and who is not displeased that it should be so. The unbrushed tufts of +hair sticking up behind and the hastily brushed hair on his temples +expressed this most eloquently. + +He passed into the next room, and the deep, querulous sounds of his +voice were at once heard from there. + + + + +CHAPTER XI + +Prince Andrew's eyes were still following Pfuel out of the room when +Count Bennigsen entered hurriedly, and nodding to Bolkonski, but not +pausing, went into the study, giving instructions to his adjutant as he +went. The Emperor was following him, and Bennigsen had hastened on to +make some preparations and to be ready to receive the sovereign. +Chernyshev and Prince Andrew went out into the porch, where the Emperor, +who looked fatigued, was dismounting. Marquis Paulucci was talking to +him with particular warmth and the Emperor, with his head bent to the +left, was listening with a dissatisfied air. The Emperor moved forward +evidently wishing to end the conversation, but the flushed and excited +Italian, oblivious of decorum, followed him and continued to speak. + +"And as for the man who advised forming this camp--the Drissa camp," +said Paulucci, as the Emperor mounted the steps and noticing Prince +Andrew scanned his unfamiliar face, "as to that person, sire..." +continued Paulucci, desperately, apparently unable to restrain himself, +"the man who advised the Drissa camp--I see no alternative but the +lunatic asylum or the gallows!" + +Without heeding the end of the Italian's remarks, and as though not +hearing them, the Emperor, recognizing Bolkonski, addressed him +graciously. + +"I am very glad to see you! Go in there where they are meeting, and wait +for me." + +The Emperor went into the study. He was followed by Prince Peter +Mikhaylovich Volkonski and Baron Stein, and the door closed behind them. +Prince Andrew, taking advantage of the Emperor's permission, accompanied +Paulucci, whom he had known in Turkey, into the drawing room where the +council was assembled. + +Prince Peter Mikhaylovich Volkonski occupied the position, as it were, +of chief of the Emperor's staff. He came out of the study into the +drawing room with some maps which he spread on a table, and put +questions on which he wished to hear the opinion of the gentlemen +present. What had happened was that news (which afterwards proved to be +false) had been received during the night of a movement by the French to +outflank the Drissa camp. + +The first to speak was General Armfeldt who, to meet the difficulty that +presented itself, unexpectedly proposed a perfectly new position away +from the Petersburg and Moscow roads. The reason for this was +inexplicable (unless he wished to show that he, too, could have an +opinion), but he urged that at this point the army should unite and +there await the enemy. It was plain that Armfeldt had thought out that +plan long ago and now expounded it not so much to answer the questions +put--which, in fact, his plan did not answer--as to avail himself of the +opportunity to air it. It was one of the millions of proposals, one as +good as another, that could be made as long as it was quite unknown what +character the war would take. Some disputed his arguments, others +defended them. Young Count Toll objected to the Swedish general's views +more warmly than anyone else, and in the course of the dispute drew from +his side pocket a well-filled notebook, which he asked permission to +read to them. In these voluminous notes Toll suggested another scheme, +totally different from Armfeldt's or Pfuel's plan of campaign. In answer +to Toll, Paulucci suggested an advance and an attack, which, he urged, +could alone extricate us from the present uncertainty and from the trap +(as he called the Drissa camp) in which we were situated. + +During all these discussions Pfuel and his interpreter, Wolzogen (his +"bridge" in court relations), were silent. Pfuel only snorted +contemptuously and turned away, to show that he would never demean +himself by replying to such nonsense as he was now hearing. So when +Prince Volkonski, who was in the chair, called on him to give his +opinion, he merely said: + +"Why ask me? General Armfeldt has proposed a splendid position with an +exposed rear, or why not this Italian gentleman's attack--very fine, or +a retreat, also good! Why ask me?" said he. "Why, you yourselves know +everything better than I do." + +But when Volkonski said, with a frown, that it was in the Emperor's name +that he asked his opinion, Pfuel rose and, suddenly growing animated, +began to speak: + +"Everything has been spoiled, everything muddled, everybody thought they +knew better than I did, and now you come to me! How mend matters? There +is nothing to mend! The principles laid down by me must be strictly +adhered to," said he, drumming on the table with his bony fingers. "What +is the difficulty? Nonsense, childishness!" + +He went up to the map and speaking rapidly began proving that no +eventuality could alter the efficiency of the Drissa camp, that +everything had been foreseen, and that if the enemy were really going to +outflank it, the enemy would inevitably be destroyed. + +Paulucci, who did not know German, began questioning him in French. +Wolzogen came to the assistance of his chief, who spoke French badly, +and began translating for him, hardly able to keep pace with Pfuel, who +was rapidly demonstrating that not only all that had happened, but all +that could happen, had been foreseen in his scheme, and that if there +were now any difficulties the whole fault lay in the fact that his plan +had not been precisely executed. He kept laughing sarcastically, he +demonstrated, and at last contemptuously ceased to demonstrate, like a +mathematician who ceases to prove in various ways the accuracy of a +problem that has already been proved. Wolzogen took his place and +continued to explain his views in French, every now and then turning to +Pfuel and saying, "Is it not so, your excellency?" But Pfuel, like a man +heated in a fight who strikes those on his own side, shouted angrily at +his own supporter, Wolzogen: + +"Well, of course, what more is there to explain?" + +Paulucci and Michaud both attacked Wolzogen simultaneously in French. +Armfeldt addressed Pfuel in German. Toll explained to Volkonski in +Russian. Prince Andrew listened and observed in silence. + +Of all these men Prince Andrew sympathized most with Pfuel, angry, +determined, and absurdly self-confident as he was. Of all those present, +evidently he alone was not seeking anything for himself, nursed no +hatred against anyone, and only desired that the plan, formed on a +theory arrived at by years of toil, should be carried out. He was +ridiculous, and unpleasantly sarcastic, but yet he inspired involuntary +respect by his boundless devotion to an idea. Besides this, the remarks +of all except Pfuel had one common trait that had not been noticeable at +the council of war in 1805: there was now a panic fear of Napoleon's +genius, which, though concealed, was noticeable in every rejoinder. +Everything was assumed to be possible for Napoleon, they expected him +from every side, and invoked his terrible name to shatter each other's +proposals. Pfuel alone seemed to consider Napoleon a barbarian like +everyone else who opposed his theory. But besides this feeling of +respect, Pfuel evoked pity in Prince Andrew. From the tone in which the +courtiers addressed him and the way Paulucci had allowed himself to +speak of him to the Emperor, but above all from a certain desperation in +Pfuel's own expressions, it was clear that the others knew, and Pfuel +himself felt, that his fall was at hand. And despite his self-confidence +and grumpy German sarcasm he was pitiable, with his hair smoothly +brushed on the temples and sticking up in tufts behind. Though he +concealed the fact under a show of irritation and contempt, he was +evidently in despair that the sole remaining chance of verifying his +theory by a huge experiment and proving its soundness to the whole world +was slipping away from him. + +The discussions continued a long time, and the longer they lasted the +more heated became the disputes, culminating in shouts and +personalities, and the less was it possible to arrive at any general +conclusion from all that had been said. Prince Andrew, listening to this +polyglot talk and to these surmises, plans, refutations, and shouts, +felt nothing but amazement at what they were saying. A thought that had +long since and often occurred to him during his military activities--the +idea that there is not and cannot be any science of war, and that +therefore there can be no such thing as a military genius--now appeared +to him an obvious truth. "What theory and science is possible about a +matter the conditions and circumstances of which are unknown and cannot +be defined, especially when the strength of the acting forces cannot be +ascertained? No one was or is able to foresee in what condition our or +the enemy's armies will be in a day's time, and no one can gauge the +force of this or that detachment. Sometimes--when there is not a coward +at the front to shout, 'We are cut off!' and start running, but a brave +and jolly lad who shouts, 'Hurrah!'--a detachment of five thousand is +worth thirty thousand, as at Schon Grabern, while at times fifty +thousand run from eight thousand, as at Austerlitz. What science can +there be in a matter in which, as in all practical matters, nothing can +be defined and everything depends on innumerable conditions, the +significance of which is determined at a particular moment which arrives +no one knows when? Armfeldt says our army is cut in half, and Paulucci +says we have got the French army between two fires; Michaud says that +the worthlessness of the Drissa camp lies in having the river behind it, +and Pfuel says that is what constitutes its strength; Toll proposes one +plan, Armfeldt another, and they are all good and all bad, and the +advantages of any suggestions can be seen only at the moment of trial. +And why do they all speak of a 'military genius'? Is a man a genius who +can order bread to be brought up at the right time and say who is to go +to the right and who to the left? It is only because military men are +invested with pomp and power and crowds of sychophants flatter power, +attributing to it qualities of genius it does not possess. The best +generals I have known were, on the contrary, stupid or absent-minded +men. Bagration was the best, Napoleon himself admitted that. And of +Bonaparte himself! I remember his limited, self-satisfied face on the +field of Austerlitz. Not only does a good army commander not need any +special qualities, on the contrary he needs the absence of the highest +and best human attributes--love, poetry, tenderness, and philosophic +inquiring doubt. He should be limited, firmly convinced that what he is +doing is very important (otherwise he will not have sufficient +patience), and only then will he be a brave leader. God forbid that he +should be humane, should love, or pity, or think of what is just and +unjust. It is understandable that a theory of their 'genius' was +invented for them long ago because they have power! The success of a +military action depends not on them, but on the man in the ranks who +shouts, 'We are lost!' or who shouts, 'Hurrah!' And only in the ranks +can one serve with assurance of being useful." + +So thought Prince Andrew as he listened to the talking, and he roused +himself only when Paulucci called him and everyone was leaving. + +At the review next day the Emperor asked Prince Andrew where he would +like to serve, and Prince Andrew lost his standing in court circles +forever by not asking to remain attached to the sovereign's person, but +for permission to serve in the army. + + + + +CHAPTER XII + +Before the beginning of the campaign, Rostov had received a letter from +his parents in which they told him briefly of Natasha's illness and the +breaking off of her engagement to Prince Andrew (which they explained by +Natasha's having rejected him) and again asked Nicholas to retire from +the army and return home. On receiving this letter, Nicholas did not +even make any attempt to get leave of absence or to retire from the +army, but wrote to his parents that he was sorry Natasha was ill and her +engagement broken off, and that he would do all he could to meet their +wishes. To Sonya he wrote separately. + +"Adored friend of my soul!" he wrote. "Nothing but honor could keep me +from returning to the country. But now, at the commencement of the +campaign, I should feel dishonored, not only in my comrades' eyes but in +my own, if I preferred my own happiness to my love and duty to the +Fatherland. But this shall be our last separation. Believe me, directly +the war is over, if I am still alive and still loved by you, I will +throw up everything and fly to you, to press you forever to my ardent +breast." + +It was, in fact, only the commencement of the campaign that prevented +Rostov from returning home as he had promised and marrying Sonya. The +autumn in Otradnoe with the hunting, and the winter with the Christmas +holidays and Sonya's love, had opened out to him a vista of tranquil +rural joys and peace such as he had never known before, and which now +allured him. "A splendid wife, children, a good pack of hounds, a dozen +leashes of smart borzois, agriculture, neighbors, service by +election..." thought he. But now the campaign was beginning, and he had +to remain with his regiment. And since it had to be so, Nicholas Rostov, +as was natural to him, felt contented with the life he led in the +regiment and was able to find pleasure in that life. + +On his return from his furlough Nicholas, having been joyfully welcomed +by his comrades, was sent to obtain remounts and brought back from the +Ukraine excellent horses which pleased him and earned him commendation +from his commanders. During his absence he had been promoted captain, +and when the regiment was put on war footing with an increase in +numbers, he was again allotted his old squadron. + +The campaign began, the regiment was moved into Poland on double pay, +new officers arrived, new men and horses, and above all everybody was +infected with the merrily excited mood that goes with the commencement +of a war, and Rostov, conscious of his advantageous position in the +regiment, devoted himself entirely to the pleasures and interests of +military service, though he knew that sooner or later he would have to +relinquish them. + +The troops retired from Vilna for various complicated reasons of state, +political and strategic. Each step of the retreat was accompanied by a +complicated interplay of interests, arguments, and passions at +headquarters. For the Pavlograd hussars, however, the whole of this +retreat during the finest period of summer and with sufficient supplies +was a very simple and agreeable business. + +It was only at headquarters that there was depression, uneasiness, and +intriguing; in the body of the army they did not ask themselves where +they were going or why. If they regretted having to retreat, it was only +because they had to leave billets they had grown accustomed to, or some +pretty young Polish lady. If the thought that things looked bad chanced +to enter anyone's head, he tried to be as cheerful as befits a good +soldier and not to think of the general trend of affairs, but only of +the task nearest to hand. First they camped gaily before Vilna, making +acquaintance with the Polish landowners, preparing for reviews and being +reviewed by the Emperor and other high commanders. Then came an order to +retreat to Sventsyani and destroy any provisions they could not carry +away with them. Sventsyani was remembered by the hussars only as the +drunken camp, a name the whole army gave to their encampment there, and +because many complaints were made against the troops, who, taking +advantage of the order to collect provisions, took also horses, +carriages, and carpets from the Polish proprietors. Rostov remembered +Sventsyani, because on the first day of their arrival at that small town +he changed his sergeant major and was unable to manage all the drunken +men of his squadron who, unknown to him, had appropriated five barrels +of old beer. From Sventsyani they retired farther and farther to Drissa, +and thence again beyond Drissa, drawing near to the frontier of Russia +proper. + +On the thirteenth of July the Pavlograds took part in a serious action +for the first time. + +On the twelfth of July, on the eve of that action, there was a heavy +storm of rain and hail. In general, the summer of 1812 was remarkable +for its storms. + +The two Pavlograd squadrons were bivouacking on a field of rye, which +was already in ear but had been completely trodden down by cattle and +horses. The rain was descending in torrents, and Rostov, with a young +officer named Ilyin, his protege, was sitting in a hastily constructed +shelter. An officer of their regiment, with long mustaches extending +onto his cheeks, who after riding to the staff had been overtaken by the +rain, entered Rostov's shelter. + +"I have come from the staff, Count. Have you heard of Raevski's +exploit?" + +And the officer gave them details of the Saltanov battle, which he had +heard at the staff. + +Rostov, smoking his pipe and turning his head about as the water +trickled down his neck, listened inattentively, with an occasional +glance at Ilyin, who was pressing close to him. This officer, a lad of +sixteen who had recently joined the regiment, was now in the same +relation to Nicholas that Nicholas had been to Denisov seven years +before. Ilyin tried to imitate Rostov in everything and adored him as a +girl might have done. + +Zdrzhinski, the officer with the long mustache, spoke grandiloquently of +the Saltanov dam being "a Russian Thermopylae," and of how a deed worthy +of antiquity had been performed by General Raevski. He recounted how +Raevski had led his two sons onto the dam under terrific fire and had +charged with them beside him. Rostov heard the story and not only said +nothing to encourage Zdrzhinski's enthusiasm but, on the contrary, +looked like a man ashamed of what he was hearing, though with no +intention of contradicting it. Since the campaigns of Austerlitz and of +1807 Rostov knew by experience that men always lie when describing +military exploits, as he himself had done when recounting them; besides +that, he had experience enough to know that nothing happens in war at +all as we can imagine or relate it. And so he did not like Zdrzhinski's +tale, nor did he like Zdrzhinski himself who, with his mustaches +extending over his cheeks, bent low over the face of his hearer, as was +his habit, and crowded Rostov in the narrow shanty. Rostov looked at him +in silence. "In the first place, there must have been such a confusion +and crowding on the dam that was being attacked that if Raevski did lead +his sons there, it could have had no effect except perhaps on some dozen +men nearest to him," thought he, "the rest could not have seen how or +with whom Raevski came onto the dam. And even those who did see it would +not have been much stimulated by it, for what had they to do with +Raevski's tender paternal feelings when their own skins were in danger? +And besides, the fate of the Fatherland did not depend on whether they +took the Saltanov dam or not, as we are told was the case at +Thermopylae. So why should he have made such a sacrifice? And why expose +his own children in the battle? I would not have taken my brother Petya +there, or even Ilyin, who's a stranger to me but a nice lad, but would +have tried to put them somewhere under cover," Nicholas continued to +think, as he listened to Zdrzhinski. But he did not express his +thoughts, for in such matters, too, he had gained experience. He knew +that this tale redounded to the glory of our arms and so one had to +pretend not to doubt it. And he acted accordingly. + +"I can't stand this any more," said Ilyin, noticing that Rostov did not +relish Zdrzhinski's conversation. "My stockings and shirt... and the +water is running on my seat! I'll go and look for shelter. The rain +seems less heavy." + +Ilyin went out and Zdrzhinski rode away. + +Five minutes later Ilyin, splashing through the mud, came running back +to the shanty. + +"Hurrah! Rostov, come quick! I've found it! About two hundred yards away +there's a tavern where ours have already gathered. We can at least get +dry there, and Mary Hendrikhovna's there." + +Mary Hendrikhovna was the wife of the regimental doctor, a pretty young +German woman he had married in Poland. The doctor, whether from lack of +means or because he did not like to part from his young wife in the +early days of their marriage, took her about with him wherever the +hussar regiment went and his jealousy had become a standing joke among +the hussar officers. + +Rostov threw his cloak over his shoulders, shouted to Lavrushka to +follow with the things, and--now slipping in the mud, now splashing +right through it--set off with Ilyin in the lessening rain and the +darkness that was occasionally rent by distant lightning. + +"Rostov, where are you?" + +"Here. What lightning!" they called to one another. + + + + +CHAPTER XIII + +In the tavern, before which stood the doctor's covered cart, there were +already some five officers. Mary Hendrikhovna, a plump little blonde +German, in a dressing jacket and nightcap, was sitting on a broad bench +in the front corner. Her husband, the doctor, lay asleep behind her. +Rostov and Ilyin, on entering the room, were welcomed with merry shouts +and laughter. + +"Dear me, how jolly we are!" said Rostov laughing. + +"And why do you stand there gaping?" + +"What swells they are! Why, the water streams from them! Don't make our +drawing room so wet." + +"Don't mess Mary Hendrikhovna's dress!" cried other voices. + +Rostov and Ilyin hastened to find a corner where they could change into +dry clothes without offending Mary Hendrikhovna's modesty. They were +going into a tiny recess behind a partition to change, but found it +completely filled by three officers who sat playing cards by the light +of a solitary candle on an empty box, and these officers would on no +account yield their position. Mary Hendrikhovna obliged them with the +loan of a petticoat to be used as a curtain, and behind that screen +Rostov and Ilyin, helped by Lavrushka who had brought their kits, +changed their wet things for dry ones. + +A fire was made up in the dilapidated brick stove. A board was found, +fixed on two saddles and covered with a horsecloth, a small samovar was +produced and a cellaret and half a bottle of rum, and having asked Mary +Hendrikhovna to preside, they all crowded round her. One offered her a +clean handkerchief to wipe her charming hands, another spread a jacket +under her little feet to keep them from the damp, another hung his coat +over the window to keep out the draft, and yet another waved the flies +off her husband's face, lest he should wake up. + +"Leave him alone," said Mary Hendrikhovna, smiling timidly and happily. +"He is sleeping well as it is, after a sleepless night." + +"Oh, no, Mary Hendrikhovna," replied the officer, "one must look after +the doctor. Perhaps he'll take pity on me someday, when it comes to +cutting off a leg or an arm for me." + +There were only three tumblers, the water was so muddy that one could +not make out whether the tea was strong or weak, and the samovar held +only six tumblers of water, but this made it all the pleasanter to take +turns in order of seniority to receive one's tumbler from Mary +Hendrikhovna's plump little hands with their short and not overclean +nails. All the officers appeared to be, and really were, in love with +her that evening. Even those playing cards behind the partition soon +left their game and came over to the samovar, yielding to the general +mood of courting Mary Hendrikhovna. She, seeing herself surrounded by +such brilliant and polite young men, beamed with satisfaction, try as +she might to hide it, and perturbed as she evidently was each time her +husband moved in his sleep behind her. + +There was only one spoon, sugar was more plentiful than anything else, +but it took too long to dissolve, so it was decided that Mary +Hendrikhovna should stir the sugar for everyone in turn. Rostov received +his tumbler, and adding some rum to it asked Mary Hendrikhovna to stir +it. + +"But you take it without sugar?" she said, smiling all the time, as if +everything she said and everything the others said was very amusing and +had a double meaning. + +"It is not the sugar I want, but only that your little hand should stir +my tea." + +Mary Hendrikhovna assented and began looking for the spoon which someone +meanwhile had pounced on. + +"Use your finger, Mary Hendrikhovna, it will be still nicer," said +Rostov. + +"Too hot!" she replied, blushing with pleasure. + +Ilyin put a few drops of rum into the bucket of water and brought it to +Mary Hendrikhovna, asking her to stir it with her finger. + +"This is my cup," said he. "Only dip your finger in it and I'll drink it +all up." + +When they had emptied the samovar, Rostov took a pack of cards and +proposed that they should play "Kings" with Mary Hendrikhovna. They drew +lots to settle who should make up her set. At Rostov's suggestion it was +agreed that whoever became "King" should have the right to kiss Mary +Hendrikhovna's hand, and that the "Booby" should go to refill and reheat +the samovar for the doctor when the latter awoke. + +"Well, but supposing Mary Hendrikhovna is 'King'?" asked Ilyin. + +"As it is, she is Queen, and her word is law!" + +They had hardly begun to play before the doctor's disheveled head +suddenly appeared from behind Mary Hendrikhovna. He had been awake for +some time, listening to what was being said, and evidently found nothing +entertaining or amusing in what was going on. His face was sad and +depressed. Without greeting the officers, he scratched himself and asked +to be allowed to pass as they were blocking the way. As soon as he had +left the room all the officers burst into loud laughter and Mary +Hendrikhovna blushed till her eyes filled with tears and thereby became +still more attractive to them. Returning from the yard, the doctor told +his wife (who had ceased to smile so happily, and looked at him in +alarm, awaiting her sentence) that the rain had ceased and they must go +to sleep in their covered cart, or everything in it would be stolen. + +"But I'll send an orderly.... Two of them!" said Rostov. "What an idea, +doctor!" + +"I'll stand guard on it myself!" said Ilyin. + +"No, gentlemen, you have had your sleep, but I have not slept for two +nights," replied the doctor, and he sat down morosely beside his wife, +waiting for the game to end. + +Seeing his gloomy face as he frowned at his wife, the officers grew +still merrier, and some of them could not refrain from laughter, for +which they hurriedly sought plausible pretexts. When he had gone, taking +his wife with him, and had settled down with her in their covered cart, +the officers lay down in the tavern, covering themselves with their wet +cloaks, but they did not sleep for a long time; now they exchanged +remarks, recalling the doctor's uneasiness and his wife's delight, now +they ran out into the porch and reported what was taking place in the +covered trap. Several times Rostov, covering his head, tried to go to +sleep, but some remark would arouse him and conversation would be +resumed, to the accompaniment of unreasoning, merry, childlike laughter. + + + + +CHAPTER XIV + +It was nearly three o'clock but no one was yet asleep, when the +quartermaster appeared with an order to move on to the little town of +Ostrovna. Still laughing and talking, the officers began hurriedly +getting ready and again boiled some muddy water in the samovar. But +Rostov went off to his squadron without waiting for tea. Day was +breaking, the rain had ceased, and the clouds were dispersing. It felt +damp and cold, especially in clothes that were still moist. As they left +the tavern in the twilight of the dawn, Rostov and Ilyin both glanced +under the wet and glistening leather hood of the doctor's cart, from +under the apron of which his feet were sticking out, and in the middle +of which his wife's nightcap was visible and her sleepy breathing +audible. + +"She really is a dear little thing," said Rostov to Ilyin, who was +following him. + +"A charming woman!" said Ilyin, with all the gravity of a boy of +sixteen. + +Half an hour later the squadron was lined up on the road. The command +was heard to "mount" and the soldiers crossed themselves and mounted. +Rostov riding in front gave the order "Forward!" and the hussars, with +clanking sabers and subdued talk, their horses' hoofs splashing in the +mud, defiled in fours and moved along the broad road planted with birch +trees on each side, following the infantry and a battery that had gone +on in front. + +Tattered, blue-purple clouds, reddening in the east, were scudding +before the wind. It was growing lighter and lighter. That curly grass +which always grows by country roadsides became clearly visible, still +wet with the night's rain; the drooping branches of the birches, also +wet, swayed in the wind and flung down bright drops of water to one +side. The soldiers' faces were more and more clearly visible. Rostov, +always closely followed by Ilyin, rode along the side of the road +between two rows of birch trees. + +When campaigning, Rostov allowed himself the indulgence of riding not a +regimental but a Cossack horse. A judge of horses and a sportsman, he +had lately procured himself a large, fine, mettlesome, Donets horse, +dun-colored, with light mane and tail, and when he rode it no one could +outgallop him. To ride this horse was a pleasure to him, and he thought +of the horse, of the morning, of the doctor's wife, but not once of the +impending danger. + +Formerly, when going into action, Rostov had felt afraid; now he had not +the least feeling of fear. He was fearless, not because he had grown +used to being under fire (one cannot grow used to danger), but because +he had learned how to manage his thoughts when in danger. He had grown +accustomed when going into action to think about anything but what would +seem most likely to interest him--the impending danger. During the first +period of his service, hard as he tried and much as he reproached +himself with cowardice, he had not been able to do this, but with time +it had come of itself. Now he rode beside Ilyin under the birch trees, +occasionally plucking leaves from a branch that met his hand, sometimes +touching his horse's side with his foot, or, without turning round, +handing a pipe he had finished to an hussar riding behind him, with as +calm and careless an air as though he were merely out for a ride. He +glanced with pity at the excited face of Ilyin, who talked much and in +great agitation. He knew from experience the tormenting expectation of +terror and death the cornet was suffering and knew that only time could +help him. + +As soon as the sun appeared in a clear strip of sky beneath the clouds, +the wind fell, as if it dared not spoil the beauty of the summer morning +after the storm; drops still continued to fall, but vertically now, and +all was still. The whole sun appeared on the horizon and disappeared +behind a long narrow cloud that hung above it. A few minutes later it +reappeared brighter still from behind the top of the cloud, tearing its +edge. Everything grew bright and glittered. And with that light, and as +if in reply to it, came the sound of guns ahead of them. + +Before Rostov had had time to consider and determine the distance of +that firing, Count Ostermann-Tolstoy's adjutant came galloping from +Vitebsk with orders to advance at a trot along the road. + +The squadron overtook and passed the infantry and the battery--which had +also quickened their pace--rode down a hill, and passing through an +empty and deserted village again ascended. The horses began to lather +and the men to flush. + +"Halt! Dress your ranks!" the order of the regimental commander was +heard ahead. "Forward by the left. Walk, march!" came the order from in +front. + +And the hussars, passing along the line of troops on the left flank of +our position, halted behind our uhlans who were in the front line. To +the right stood our infantry in a dense column: they were the reserve. +Higher up the hill, on the very horizon, our guns were visible through +the wonderfully clear air, brightly illuminated by slanting morning +sunbeams. In front, beyond a hollow dale, could be seen the enemy's +columns and guns. Our advanced line, already in action, could be heard +briskly exchanging shots with the enemy in the dale. + +At these sounds, long unheard, Rostov's spirits rose, as at the strains +of the merriest music. Trap-ta-ta-tap! cracked the shots, now together, +now several quickly one after another. Again all was silent and then +again it sounded as if someone were walking on detonators and exploding +them. + +The hussars remained in the same place for about an hour. A cannonade +began. Count Ostermann with his suite rode up behind the squadron, +halted, spoke to the commander of the regiment, and rode up the hill to +the guns. + +After Ostermann had gone, a command rang out to the uhlans. + +"Form column! Prepare to charge!" + +The infantry in front of them parted into platoons to allow the cavalry +to pass. The uhlans started, the streamers on their spears fluttering, +and trotted downhill toward the French cavalry which was seen below to +the left. + +As soon as the uhlans descended the hill, the hussars were ordered up +the hill to support the battery. As they took the places vacated by the +uhlans, bullets came from the front, whining and whistling, but fell +spent without taking effect. + +The sounds, which he had not heard for so long, had an even more +pleasurable and exhilarating effect on Rostov than the previous sounds +of firing. Drawing himself up, he viewed the field of battle opening out +before him from the hill, and with his whole soul followed the movement +of the uhlans. They swooped down close to the French dragoons, something +confused happened there amid the smoke, and five minutes later our +uhlans were galloping back, not to the place they had occupied but more +to the left, and among the orange-colored uhlans on chestnut horses and +behind them, in a large group, blue French dragoons on gray horses could +be seen. + + + + +CHAPTER XV + +Rostov, with his keen sportsman's eye, was one of the first to catch +sight of these blue French dragoons pursuing our uhlans. Nearer and +nearer in disorderly crowds came the uhlans and the French dragoons +pursuing them. He could already see how these men, who looked so small +at the foot of the hill, jostled and overtook one another, waving their +arms and their sabers in the air. + +Rostov gazed at what was happening before him as at a hunt. He felt +instinctively that if the hussars struck at the French dragoons now, the +latter could not withstand them, but if a charge was to be made it must +be done now, at that very moment, or it would be too late. He looked +around. A captain, standing beside him, was gazing like himself with +eyes fixed on the cavalry below them. + +"Andrew Sevastyanych!" said Rostov. "You know, we could crush them...." + +"A fine thing too!" replied the captain, "and really..." + +Rostov, without waiting to hear him out, touched his horse, galloped to +the front of his squadron, and before he had time to finish giving the +word of command, the whole squadron, sharing his feeling, was following +him. Rostov himself did not know how or why he did it. He acted as he +did when hunting, without reflecting or considering. He saw the dragoons +near and that they were galloping in disorder; he knew they could not +withstand an attack--knew there was only that moment and that if he let +it slip it would not return. The bullets were whining and whistling so +stimulatingly around him and his horse was so eager to go that he could +not restrain himself. He touched his horse, gave the word of command, +and immediately, hearing behind him the tramp of the horses of his +deployed squadron, rode at full trot downhill toward the dragoons. +Hardly had they reached the bottom of the hill before their pace +instinctively changed to a gallop, which grew faster and faster as they +drew nearer to our uhlans and the French dragoons who galloped after +them. The dragoons were now close at hand. On seeing the hussars, the +foremost began to turn, while those behind began to halt. With the same +feeling with which he had galloped across the path of a wolf, Rostov +gave rein to his Donets horse and galloped to intersect the path of the +dragoons' disordered lines. One Uhlan stopped, another who was on foot +flung himself to the ground to avoid being knocked over, and a riderless +horse fell in among the hussars. Nearly all the French dragoons were +galloping back. Rostov, picking out one on a gray horse, dashed after +him. On the way he came upon a bush, his gallant horse cleared it, and +almost before he had righted himself in his saddle he saw that he would +immediately overtake the enemy he had selected. That Frenchman, by his +uniform an officer, was going at a gallop, crouching on his gray horse +and urging it on with his saber. In another moment Rostov's horse dashed +its breast against the hindquarters of the officer's horse, almost +knocking it over, and at the same instant Rostov, without knowing why, +raised his saber and struck the Frenchman with it. + +The instant he had done this, all Rostov's animation vanished. The +officer fell, not so much from the blow--which had but slightly cut his +arm above the elbow--as from the shock to his horse and from fright. +Rostov reined in his horse, and his eyes sought his foe to see whom he +had vanquished. The French dragoon officer was hopping with one foot on +the ground, the other being caught in the stirrup. His eyes, screwed up +with fear as if he every moment expected another blow, gazed up at +Rostov with shrinking terror. His pale and mud-stained face--fair and +young, with a dimple in the chin and light-blue eyes--was not an enemy's +face at all suited to a battlefield, but a most ordinary, homelike face. +Before Rostov had decided what to do with him, the officer cried, "I +surrender!" He hurriedly but vainly tried to get his foot out of the +stirrup and did not remove his frightened blue eyes from Rostov's face. +Some hussars who galloped up disengaged his foot and helped him into the +saddle. On all sides, the hussars were busy with the dragoons; one was +wounded, but though his face was bleeding, he would not give up his +horse; another was perched up behind an hussar with his arms round him; +a third was being helped by an hussar to mount his horse. In front, the +French infantry were firing as they ran. The hussars galloped hastily +back with their prisoners. Rostov galloped back with the rest, aware of +an unpleasant feeling of depression in his heart. Something vague and +confused, which he could not at all account for, had come over him with +the capture of that officer and the blow he had dealt him. + +Count Ostermann-Tolstoy met the returning hussars, sent for Rostov, +thanked him, and said he would report his gallant deed to the Emperor +and would recommend him for a St. George's Cross. When sent for by Count +Ostermann, Rostov, remembering that he had charged without orders, felt +sure his commander was sending for him to punish him for breach of +discipline. Ostermann's flattering words and promise of a reward should +therefore have struck him all the more pleasantly, but he still felt +that same vaguely disagreeable feeling of moral nausea. "But what on +earth is worrying me?" he asked himself as he rode back from the +general. "Ilyin? No, he's safe. Have I disgraced myself in any way? No, +that's not it." Something else, resembling remorse, tormented him. "Yes, +oh yes, that French officer with the dimple. And I remember how my arm +paused when I raised it." + +Rostov saw the prisoners being led away and galloped after them to have +a look at his Frenchman with the dimple on his chin. He was sitting in +his foreign uniform on an hussar packhorse and looked anxiously about +him; The sword cut on his arm could scarcely be called a wound. He +glanced at Rostov with a feigned smile and waved his hand in greeting. +Rostov still had the same indefinite feeling, as of shame. + +All that day and the next his friends and comrades noticed that Rostov, +without being dull or angry, was silent, thoughtful, and preoccupied. He +drank reluctantly, tried to remain alone, and kept turning something +over in his mind. + +Rostov was always thinking about that brilliant exploit of his, which to +his amazement had gained him the St. George's Cross and even given him a +reputation for bravery, and there was something he could not at all +understand. "So others are even more afraid than I am!" he thought. "So +that's all there is in what is called heroism! And did I do it for my +country's sake? And how was he to blame, with his dimple and blue eyes? +And how frightened he was! He thought that I should kill him. Why should +I kill him? My hand trembled. And they have given me a St. George's +Cross.... I can't make it out at all." + +But while Nicholas was considering these questions and still could reach +no clear solution of what puzzled him so, the wheel of fortune in the +service, as often happens, turned in his favor. After the affair at +Ostrovna he was brought into notice, received command of an hussar +battalion, and when a brave officer was needed he was chosen. + + + + +CHAPTER XVI + +On receiving news of Natasha's illness, the countess, though not quite +well yet and still weak, went to Moscow with Petya and the rest of the +household, and the whole family moved from Marya Dmitrievna's house to +their own and settled down in town. + +Natasha's illness was so serious that, fortunately for her and for her +parents, the consideration of all that had caused the illness, her +conduct and the breaking off of her engagement, receded into the +background. She was so ill that it was impossible for them to consider +in how far she was to blame for what had happened. She could not eat or +sleep, grew visibly thinner, coughed, and, as the doctors made them +feel, was in danger. They could not think of anything but how to help +her. Doctors came to see her singly and in consultation, talked much in +French, German, and Latin, blamed one another, and prescribed a great +variety of medicines for all the diseases known to them, but the simple +idea never occurred to any of them that they could not know the disease +Natasha was suffering from, as no disease suffered by a live man can be +known, for every living person has his own peculiarities and always has +his own peculiar, personal, novel, complicated disease, unknown to +medicine--not a disease of the lungs, liver, skin, heart, nerves, and so +on mentioned in medical books, but a disease consisting of one of the +innumerable combinations of the maladies of those organs. This simple +thought could not occur to the doctors (as it cannot occur to a wizard +that he is unable to work his charms) because the business of their +lives was to cure, and they received money for it and had spent the best +years of their lives on that business. But, above all, that thought was +kept out of their minds by the fact that they saw they were really +useful, as in fact they were to the whole Rostov family. Their +usefulness did not depend on making the patient swallow substances for +the most part harmful (the harm was scarcely perceptible, as they were +given in small doses), but they were useful, necessary, and +indispensable because they satisfied a mental need of the invalid and of +those who loved her--and that is why there are, and always will be, +pseudo-healers, wise women, homeopaths, and allopaths. They satisfied +that eternal human need for hope of relief, for sympathy, and that +something should be done, which is felt by those who are suffering. They +satisfied the need seen in its most elementary form in a child, when it +wants to have a place rubbed that has been hurt. A child knocks itself +and runs at once to the arms of its mother or nurse to have the aching +spot rubbed or kissed, and it feels better when this is done. The child +cannot believe that the strongest and wisest of its people have no +remedy for its pain, and the hope of relief and the expression of its +mother's sympathy while she rubs the bump comforts it. The doctors were +of use to Natasha because they kissed and rubbed her bump, assuring her +that it would soon pass if only the coachman went to the chemist's in +the Arbat and got a powder and some pills in a pretty box for a ruble +and seventy kopeks, and if she took those powders in boiled water at +intervals of precisely two hours, neither more nor less. + +What would Sonya and the count and countess have done, how would they +have looked, if nothing had been done, if there had not been those pills +to give by the clock, the warm drinks, the chicken cutlets, and all the +other details of life ordered by the doctors, the carrying out of which +supplied an occupation and consolation to the family circle? How would +the count have borne his dearly loved daughter's illness had he not +known that it was costing him a thousand rubles, and that he would not +grudge thousands more to benefit her, or had he not known that if her +illness continued he would not grudge yet other thousands and would take +her abroad for consultations there, and had he not been able to explain +the details of how Metivier and Feller had not understood the symptoms, +but Frise had, and Mudrov had diagnosed them even better? What would the +countess have done had she not been able sometimes to scold the invalid +for not strictly obeying the doctor's orders? + +"You'll never get well like that," she would say, forgetting her grief +in her vexation, "if you won't obey the doctor and take your medicine at +the right time! You mustn't trifle with it, you know, or it may turn to +pneumonia," she would go on, deriving much comfort from the utterance of +that foreign word, incomprehensible to others as well as to herself. + +What would Sonya have done without the glad consciousness that she had +not undressed during the first three nights, in order to be ready to +carry out all the doctor's injunctions with precision, and that she +still kept awake at night so as not to miss the proper time when the +slightly harmful pills in the little gilt box had to be administered? +Even to Natasha herself it was pleasant to see that so many sacrifices +were being made for her sake, and to know that she had to take medicine +at certain hours, though she declared that no medicine would cure her +and that it was all nonsense. And it was even pleasant to be able to +show, by disregarding the orders, that she did not believe in medical +treatment and did not value her life. + +The doctor came every day, felt her pulse, looked at her tongue, and +regardless of her grief-stricken face joked with her. But when he had +gone into another room, to which the countess hurriedly followed him, he +assumed a grave air and thoughtfully shaking his head said that though +there was danger, he had hopes of the effect of this last medicine and +one must wait and see, that the malady was chiefly mental, but... And +the countess, trying to conceal the action from herself and from him, +slipped a gold coin into his hand and always returned to the patient +with a more tranquil mind. + +The symptoms of Natasha's illness were that she ate little, slept +little, coughed, and was always low-spirited. The doctors said that she +could not get on without medical treatment, so they kept her in the +stifling atmosphere of the town, and the Rostovs did not move to the +country that summer of 1812. + +In spite of the many pills she swallowed and the drops and powders out +of the little bottles and boxes of which Madame Schoss who was fond of +such things made a large collection, and in spite of being deprived of +the country life to which she was accustomed, youth prevailed. Natasha's +grief began to be overlaid by the impressions of daily life, it ceased +to press so painfully on her heart, it gradually faded into the past, +and she began to recover physically. + + + + +CHAPTER XVII + +Natasha was calmer but no happier. She not merely avoided all external +forms of pleasure--balls, promenades, concerts, and theaters--but she +never laughed without a sound of tears in her laughter. She could not +sing. As soon as she began to laugh, or tried to sing by herself, tears +choked her: tears of remorse, tears at the recollection of those pure +times which could never return, tears of vexation that she should so +uselessly have ruined her young life which might have been so happy. +Laughter and singing in particular seemed to her like a blasphemy, in +face of her sorrow. Without any need of self-restraint, no wish to +coquet ever entered her head. She said and felt at that time that no man +was more to her than Nastasya Ivanovna, the buffoon. Something stood +sentinel within her and forbade her every joy. Besides, she had lost all +the old interests of her carefree girlish life that had been so full of +hope. The previous autumn, the hunting, "Uncle," and the Christmas +holidays spent with Nicholas at Otradnoe were what she recalled oftenest +and most painfully. What would she not have given to bring back even a +single day of that time! But it was gone forever. Her presentiment at +the time had not deceived her--that that state of freedom and readiness +for any enjoyment would not return again. Yet it was necessary to live +on. + +It comforted her to reflect that she was not better as she had formerly +imagined, but worse, much worse, than anybody else in the world. But +this was not enough. She knew that, and asked herself, "What next?" But +there was nothing to come. There was no joy in life, yet life was +passing. Natasha apparently tried not to be a burden or a hindrance to +anyone, but wanted nothing for herself. She kept away from everyone in +the house and felt at ease only with her brother Petya. She liked to be +with him better than with the others, and when alone with him she +sometimes laughed. She hardly ever left the house and of those who came +to see them was glad to see only one person, Pierre. It would have been +impossible to treat her with more delicacy, greater care, and at the +same time more seriously than did Count Bezukhov. Natasha unconsciously +felt this delicacy and so found great pleasure in his society. But she +was not even grateful to him for it; nothing good on Pierre's part +seemed to her to be an effort, it seemed so natural for him to be kind +to everyone that there was no merit in his kindness. Sometimes Natasha +noticed embarrassment and awkwardness on his part in her presence, +especially when he wanted to do something to please her, or feared that +something they spoke of would awaken memories distressing to her. She +noticed this and attributed it to his general kindness and shyness, +which she imagined must be the same toward everyone as it was to her. +After those involuntary words--that if he were free he would have asked +on his knees for her hand and her love--uttered at a moment when she was +so strongly agitated, Pierre never spoke to Natasha of his feelings; and +it seemed plain to her that those words, which had then so comforted +her, were spoken as all sorts of meaningless words are spoken to comfort +a crying child. It was not because Pierre was a married man, but because +Natasha felt very strongly with him that moral barrier the absence of +which she had experienced with Kuragin that it never entered her head +that the relations between him and herself could lead to love on her +part, still less on his, or even to the kind of tender, self-conscious, +romantic friendship between a man and a woman of which she had known +several instances. + +Before the end of the fast of St. Peter, Agrafena Ivanovna Belova, a +country neighbor of the Rostovs, came to Moscow to pay her devotions at +the shrines of the Moscow saints. She suggested that Natasha should fast +and prepare for Holy Communion, and Natasha gladly welcomed the idea. +Despite the doctor's orders that she should not go out early in the +morning, Natasha insisted on fasting and preparing for the sacrament, +not as they generally prepared for it in the Rostov family by attending +three services in their own house, but as Agrafena Ivanovna did, by +going to church every day for a week and not once missing Vespers, +Matins, or Mass. + +The countess was pleased with Natasha's zeal; after the poor results of +the medical treatment, in the depths of her heart she hoped that prayer +might help her daughter more than medicines and, though not without fear +and concealing it from the doctor, she agreed to Natasha's wish and +entrusted her to Belova. Agrafena Ivanovna used to come to wake Natasha +at three in the morning, but generally found her already awake. She was +afraid of being late for Matins. Hastily washing, and meekly putting on +her shabbiest dress and an old mantilla, Natasha, shivering in the fresh +air, went out into the deserted streets lit by the clear light of dawn. +By Agrafena Ivanovna's advice Natasha prepared herself not in their own +parish, but at a church where, according to the devout Agrafena +Ivanovna, the priest was a man of very severe and lofty life. There were +never many people in the church; Natasha always stood beside Belova in +the customary place before an icon of the Blessed Virgin, let into the +screen before the choir on the left side, and a feeling, new to her, of +humility before something great and incomprehensible, seized her when at +that unusual morning hour, gazing at the dark face of the Virgin +illuminated by the candles burning before it and by the morning light +falling from the window, she listened to the words of the service which +she tried to follow with understanding. When she understood them her +personal feeling became interwoven in the prayers with shades of its +own. When she did not understand, it was sweeter still to think that the +wish to understand everything is pride, that it is impossible to +understand all, that it is only necessary to believe and to commit +oneself to God, whom she felt guiding her soul at those moments. She +crossed herself, bowed low, and when she did not understand, in horror +at her own vileness, simply asked God to forgive her everything, +everything, to have mercy upon her. The prayers to which she surrendered +herself most of all were those of repentance. On her way home at an +early hour when she met no one but bricklayers going to work or men +sweeping the street, and everybody within the houses was still asleep, +Natasha experienced a feeling new to her, a sense of the possibility of +correcting her faults, the possibility of a new, clean life, and of +happiness. + +During the whole week she spent in this way, that feeling grew every +day. And the happiness of taking communion, or "communing" as Agrafena +Ivanovna, joyously playing with the word, called it, seemed to Natasha +so great that she felt she should never live till that blessed Sunday. + +But the happy day came, and on that memorable Sunday, when, dressed in +white muslin, she returned home after communion, for the first time for +many months she felt calm and not oppressed by the thought of the life +that lay before her. + +The doctor who came to see her that day ordered her to continue the +powders he had prescribed a fortnight previously. + +"She must certainly go on taking them morning and evening," said he, +evidently sincerely satisfied with his success. "Only, please be +particular about it. + +"Be quite easy," he continued playfully, as he adroitly took the gold +coin in his palm. "She will soon be singing and frolicking about. The +last medicine has done her a very great deal of good. She has freshened +up very much." + +The countess, with a cheerful expression on her face, looked down at her +nails and spat a little for luck as she returned to the drawing room. + + + + +CHAPTER XVIII + +At the beginning of July more and more disquieting reports about the war +began to spread in Moscow; people spoke of an appeal by the Emperor to +the people, and of his coming himself from the army to Moscow. And as up +to the eleventh of July no manifesto or appeal had been received, +exaggerated reports became current about them and about the position of +Russia. It was said that the Emperor was leaving the army because it was +in danger, it was said that Smolensk had surrendered, that Napoleon had +an army of a million and only a miracle could save Russia. + +On the eleventh of July, which was Saturday, the manifesto was received +but was not yet in print, and Pierre, who was at the Rostovs', promised +to come to dinner next day, Sunday, and bring a copy of the manifesto +and appeal, which he would obtain from Count Rostopchin. + +That Sunday, the Rostovs went to Mass at the Razumovskis' private chapel +as usual. It was a hot July day. Even at ten o'clock, when the Rostovs +got out of their carriage at the chapel, the sultry air, the shouts of +hawkers, the light and gay summer clothes of the crowd, the dusty leaves +of the trees on the boulevard, the sounds of the band and the white +trousers of a battalion marching to parade, the rattling of wheels on +the cobblestones, and the brilliant, hot sunshine were all full of that +summer languor, that content and discontent with the present, which is +most strongly felt on a bright, hot day in town. All the Moscow +notabilities, all the Rostovs' acquaintances, were at the Razumovskis' +chapel, for, as if expecting something to happen, many wealthy families +who usually left town for their country estates had not gone away that +summer. As Natasha, at her mother's side, passed through the crowd +behind a liveried footman who cleared the way for them, she heard a +young man speaking about her in too loud a whisper. + +"That's Rostova, the one who..." + +"She's much thinner, but all the same she's pretty!" + +She heard, or thought she heard, the names of Kuragin and Bolkonski. But +she was always imagining that. It always seemed to her that everyone who +looked at her was thinking only of what had happened to her. With a +sinking heart, wretched as she always was now when she found herself in +a crowd, Natasha in her lilac silk dress trimmed with black lace walked- +-as women can walk--with the more repose and stateliness the greater the +pain and shame in her soul. She knew for certain that she was pretty, +but this no longer gave her satisfaction as it used to. On the contrary +it tormented her more than anything else of late, and particularly so on +this bright, hot summer day in town. "It's Sunday again--another week +past," she thought, recalling that she had been here the Sunday before, +"and always the same life that is no life, and the same surroundings in +which it used to be so easy to live. I'm pretty, I'm young, and I know +that now I am good. I used to be bad, but now I know I am good," she +thought, "but yet my best years are slipping by and are no good to +anyone." She stood by her mother's side and exchanged nods with +acquaintances near her. From habit she scrutinized the ladies' dresses, +condemned the bearing of a lady standing close by who was not crossing +herself properly but in a cramped manner, and again she thought with +vexation that she was herself being judged and was judging others, and +suddenly, at the sound of the service, she felt horrified at her own +vileness, horrified that the former purity of her soul was again lost to +her. + +A comely, fresh-looking old man was conducting the service with that +mild solemnity which has so elevating and soothing an effect on the +souls of the worshipers. The gates of the sanctuary screen were closed, +the curtain was slowly drawn, and from behind it a soft mysterious voice +pronounced some words. Tears, the cause of which she herself did not +understand, made Natasha's breast heave, and a joyous but oppressive +feeling agitated her. + +"Teach me what I should do, how to live my life, how I may grow good +forever, forever!" she pleaded. + +The deacon came out onto the raised space before the altar screen and, +holding his thumb extended, drew his long hair from under his dalmatic +and, making the sign of the cross on his breast, began in a loud and +solemn voice to recite the words of the prayer... + +"In peace let us pray unto the Lord." + +"As one community, without distinction of class, without enmity, united +by brotherly love--let us pray!" thought Natasha. + +"For the peace that is from above, and for the salvation of our souls." + +"For the world of angels and all the spirits who dwell above us," prayed +Natasha. + +When they prayed for the warriors, she thought of her brother and +Denisov. When they prayed for all traveling by land and sea, she +remembered Prince Andrew, prayed for him, and asked God to forgive her +all the wrongs she had done him. When they prayed for those who love us, +she prayed for the members of her own family, her father and mother and +Sonya, realizing for the first time how wrongly she had acted toward +them, and feeling all the strength of her love for them. When they +prayed for those who hate us, she tried to think of her enemies and +people who hated her, in order to pray for them. She included among her +enemies the creditors and all who had business dealings with her father, +and always at the thought of enemies and those who hated her she +remembered Anatole who had done her so much harm--and though he did not +hate her she gladly prayed for him as for an enemy. Only at prayer did +she feel able to think clearly and calmly of Prince Andrew and Anatole, +as men for whom her feelings were as nothing compared with her awe and +devotion to God. When they prayed for the Imperial family and the Synod, +she bowed very low and made the sign of the cross, saying to herself +that even if she did not understand, still she could not doubt, and at +any rate loved the governing Synod and prayed for it. + +When he had finished the Litany the deacon crossed the stole over his +breast and said, "Let us commit ourselves and our whole lives to Christ +the Lord!" + +"Commit ourselves to God," Natasha inwardly repeated. "Lord God, I +submit myself to Thy will!" she thought. "I want nothing, wish for +nothing; teach me what to do and how to use my will! Take me, take me!" +prayed Natasha, with impatient emotion in her heart, not crossing +herself but letting her slender arms hang down as if expecting some +invisible power at any moment to take her and deliver her from herself, +from her regrets, desires, remorse, hopes, and sins. + +The countess looked round several times at her daughter's softened face +and shining eyes and prayed God to help her. + +Unexpectedly, in the middle of the service, and not in the usual order +Natasha knew so well, the deacon brought out a small stool, the one he +knelt on when praying on Trinity Sunday, and placed it before the doors +of the sanctuary screen. The priest came out with his purple velvet +biretta on his head, adjusted his hair, and knelt down with an effort. +Everybody followed his example and they looked at one another in +surprise. Then came the prayer just received from the Synod--a prayer +for the deliverance of Russia from hostile invasion. + +"Lord God of might, God of our salvation!" began the priest in that +voice, clear, not grandiloquent but mild, in which only the Slav clergy +read and which acts so irresistibly on a Russian heart. + +"Lord God of might, God of our salvation! Look this day in mercy and +blessing on Thy humble people, and graciously hear us, spare us, and +have mercy upon us! This foe confounding Thy land, desiring to lay waste +the whole world, rises against us; these lawless men are gathered +together to overthrow Thy kingdom, to destroy Thy dear Jerusalem, Thy +beloved Russia; to defile Thy temples, to overthrow Thine altars, and to +desecrate our holy shrines. How long, O Lord, how long shall the wicked +triumph? How long shall they wield unlawful power? + +"Lord God! Hear us when we pray to Thee; strengthen with Thy might our +most gracious sovereign lord, the Emperor Alexander Pavlovich; be +mindful of his uprightness and meekness, reward him according to his +righteousness, and let it preserve us, Thy chosen Israel! Bless his +counsels, his undertakings, and his work; strengthen his kingdom by +Thine almighty hand, and give him victory over his enemy, even as Thou +gavest Moses the victory over Amalek, Gideon over Midian, and David over +Goliath. Preserve his army, put a bow of brass in the hands of those who +have armed themselves in Thy Name, and gird their loins with strength +for the fight. Take up the spear and shield and arise to help us; +confound and put to shame those who have devised evil against us, may +they be before the faces of Thy faithful warriors as dust before the +wind, and may Thy mighty Angel confound them and put them to flight; may +they be ensnared when they know it not, and may the plots they have laid +in secret be turned against them; let them fall before Thy servants' +feet and be laid low by our hosts! Lord, Thou art able to save both +great and small; Thou art God, and man cannot prevail against Thee! + +"God of our fathers! Remember Thy bounteous mercy and loving-kindness +which are from of old; turn not Thy face from us, but be gracious to our +unworthiness, and in Thy great goodness and Thy many mercies regard not +our transgressions and iniquities! Create in us a clean heart and renew +a right spirit within us, strengthen us all in Thy faith, fortify our +hope, inspire us with true love one for another, arm us with unity of +spirit in the righteous defense of the heritage Thou gavest to us and to +our fathers, and let not the scepter of the wicked be exalted against +the destiny of those Thou hast sanctified. + +"O Lord our God, in whom we believe and in whom we put our trust, let us +not be confounded in our hope of Thy mercy, and give us a token of Thy +blessing, that those who hate us and our Orthodox faith may see it and +be put to shame and perish, and may all the nations know that Thou art +the Lord and we are Thy people. Show Thy mercy upon us this day, O Lord, +and grant us Thy salvation; make the hearts of Thy servants to rejoice +in Thy mercy; smite down our enemies and destroy them swiftly beneath +the feet of Thy faithful servants! For Thou art the defense, the succor, +and the victory of them that put their trust in Thee, and to Thee be all +glory, to Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, now and forever, world without +end. Amen." + +In Natasha's receptive condition of soul this prayer affected her +strongly. She listened to every word about the victory of Moses over +Amalek, of Gideon over Midian, and of David over Goliath, and about the +destruction of "Thy Jerusalem," and she prayed to God with the +tenderness and emotion with which her heart was overflowing, but without +fully understanding what she was asking of God in that prayer. She +shared with all her heart in the prayer for the spirit of righteousness, +for the strengthening of the heart by faith and hope, and its animation +by love. But she could not pray that her enemies might be trampled under +foot when but a few minutes before she had been wishing she had more of +them that she might pray for them. But neither could she doubt the +righteousness of the prayer that was being read on bended knees. She +felt in her heart a devout and tremulous awe at the thought of the +punishment that overtakes men for their sins, and especially of her own +sins, and she prayed to God to forgive them all, and her too, and to +give them all, and her too, peace and happiness. And it seemed to her +that God heard her prayer. + + + + +CHAPTER XIX + +From the day when Pierre, after leaving the Rostovs' with Natasha's +grateful look fresh in his mind, had gazed at the comet that seemed to +be fixed in the sky and felt that something new was appearing on his own +horizon--from that day the problem of the vanity and uselessness of all +earthly things, that had incessantly tormented him, no longer presented +itself. That terrible question "Why?" "Wherefore?" which had come to him +amid every occupation, was now replaced, not by another question or by a +reply to the former question, but by her image. When he listened to, or +himself took part in, trivial conversations, when he read or heard of +human baseness or folly, he was not horrified as formerly, and did not +ask himself why men struggled so about these things when all is so +transient and incomprehensible--but he remembered her as he had last +seen her, and all his doubts vanished--not because she had answered the +questions that had haunted him, but because his conception of her +transferred him instantly to another, a brighter, realm of spiritual +activity in which no one could be justified or guilty--a realm of beauty +and love which it was worth living for. Whatever worldly baseness +presented itself to him, he said to himself: + +"Well, supposing N. N. swindled the country and the Tsar, and the +country and the Tsar confer honors upon him, what does that matter? She +smiled at me yesterday and asked me to come again, and I love her, and +no one will ever know it." And his soul felt calm and peaceful. + +Pierre still went into society, drank as much and led the same idle and +dissipated life, because besides the hours he spent at the Rostovs' +there were other hours he had to spend somehow, and the habits and +acquaintances he had made in Moscow formed a current that bore him along +irresistibly. But latterly, when more and more disquieting reports came +from the seat of war and Natasha's health began to improve and she no +longer aroused in him the former feeling of careful pity, an ever- +increasing restlessness, which he could not explain, took possession of +him. He felt that the condition he was in could not continue long, that +a catastrophe was coming which would change his whole life, and he +impatiently sought everywhere for signs of that approaching catastrophe. +One of his brother Masons had revealed to Pierre the following prophecy +concerning Napoleon, drawn from the Revelation of St. John. + +In chapter 13, verse 18, of the Apocalypse, it is said: + +Here is wisdom. Let him that hath understanding count the number of the +beast: for it is the number of a man; and his number is Six hundred +threescore and six. + +And in the fifth verse of the same chapter: + +And there was given unto him a mouth speaking great things and +blasphemies; and power was given unto him to continue forty and two +months. + +The French alphabet, written out with the same numerical values as the +Hebrew, in which the first nine letters denote units and the others +tens, will have the following significance: + + +a b c d e f g h i k 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 +10 l m n o p q r s 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 +90 t u v w x y 100 110 120 130 140 150 z 160 + +Writing the words L'Empereur Napoleon in numbers, it appears that the +sum of them is 666, and that Napoleon was therefore the beast foretold +in the Apocalypse. Moreover, by applying the same system to the words +quarante-deux, * which was the term allowed to the beast that "spoke +great things and blasphemies," the same number 666 was obtained; from +which it followed that the limit fixed for Napoleon's power had come in +the year 1812 when the French emperor was forty-two. This prophecy +pleased Pierre very much and he often asked himself what would put an +end to the power of the beast, that is, of Napoleon, and tried by the +same system of using letters as numbers and adding them up, to find an +answer to the question that engrossed him. He wrote the words L'Empereur +Alexandre, La nation russe and added up their numbers, but the sums were +either more or less than 666. Once when making such calculations he +wrote down his own name in French, Comte Pierre Besouhoff, but the sum +of the numbers did not come right. Then he changed the spelling, +substituting a z for the s and adding de and the article le, still +without obtaining the desired result. Then it occurred to him: if the +answer to the question were contained in his name, his nationality would +also be given in the answer. So he wrote Le russe Besuhof and adding up +the numbers got 671. This was only five too much, and five was +represented by e, the very letter elided from the article le before the +word Empereur. By omitting the e, though incorrectly, Pierre got the +answer he sought. L'russe Besuhof made 666. This discovery excited him. +How, or by what means, he was connected with the great event foretold in +the Apocalypse he did not know, but he did not doubt that connection for +a moment. His love for Natasha, Antichrist, Napoleon, the invasion, the +comet, 666, L'Empereur Napoleon, and L'russe Besuhof--all this had to +mature and culminate, to lift him out of that spellbound, petty sphere +of Moscow habits in which he felt himself held captive and lead him to a +great achievement and great happiness. + + +* Forty-two. + +On the eve of the Sunday when the special prayer was read, Pierre had +promised the Rostovs to bring them, from Count Rostopchin whom he knew +well, both the appeal to the people and the news from the army. In the +morning, when he went to call at Rostopchin's he met there a courier +fresh from the army, an acquaintance of his own, who often danced at +Moscow balls. + +"Do, please, for heaven's sake, relieve me of something!" said the +courier. "I have a sackful of letters to parents." + +Among these letters was one from Nicholas Rostov to his father. Pierre +took that letter, and Rostopchin also gave him the Emperor's appeal to +Moscow, which had just been printed, the last army orders, and his own +most recent bulletin. Glancing through the army orders, Pierre found in +one of them, in the lists of killed, wounded, and rewarded, the name of +Nicholas Rostov, awarded a St. George's Cross of the Fourth Class for +courage shown in the Ostrovna affair, and in the same order the name of +Prince Andrew Bolkonski, appointed to the command of a regiment of +Chasseurs. Though he did not want to remind the Rostovs of Bolkonski, +Pierre could not refrain from making them happy by the news of their +son's having received a decoration, so he sent that printed army order +and Nicholas' letter to the Rostovs, keeping the appeal, the bulletin, +and the other orders to take with him when he went to dinner. + +His conversation with Count Rostopchin and the latter's tone of anxious +hurry, the meeting with the courier who talked casually of how badly +things were going in the army, the rumors of the discovery of spies in +Moscow and of a leaflet in circulation stating that Napoleon promised to +be in both the Russian capitals by the autumn, and the talk of the +Emperor's being expected to arrive next day--all aroused with fresh +force that feeling of agitation and expectation in Pierre which he had +been conscious of ever since the appearance of the comet, and especially +since the beginning of the war. + +He had long been thinking of entering the army and would have done so +had he not been hindered, first, by his membership of the Society of +Freemasons to which he was bound by oath and which preached perpetual +peace and the abolition of war, and secondly, by the fact that when he +saw the great mass of Muscovites who had donned uniform and were talking +patriotism, he somehow felt ashamed to take the step. But the chief +reason for not carrying out his intention to enter the army lay in the +vague idea that he was L'russe Besuhof who had the number of the beast, +666; that his part in the great affair of setting a limit to the power +of the beast that spoke great and blasphemous things had been +predestined from eternity, and that therefore he ought not to undertake +anything, but wait for what was bound to come to pass. + + + + +CHAPTER XX + +A few intimate friends were dining with the Rostovs that day, as usual +on Sundays. + +Pierre came early so as to find them alone. + +He had grown so stout this year that he would have been abnormal had he +not been so tall, so broad of limb, and so strong that he carried his +bulk with evident ease. + +He went up the stairs, puffing and muttering something. His coachman did +not even ask whether he was to wait. He knew that when his master was at +the Rostovs' he stayed till midnight. The Rostovs' footman rushed +eagerly forward to help him off with his cloak and take his hat and +stick. Pierre, from club habit, always left both hat and stick in the +anteroom. + +The first person he saw in the house was Natasha. Even before he saw +her, while taking off his cloak, he heard her. She was practicing solfa +exercises in the music room. He knew that she had not sung since her +illness, and so the sound of her voice surprised and delighted him. He +opened the door softly and saw her, in the lilac dress she had worn at +church, walking about the room singing. She had her back to him when he +opened the door, but when, turning quickly, she saw his broad, surprised +face, she blushed and came rapidly up to him. + +"I want to try to sing again," she said, adding as if by way of excuse, +"it is, at least, something to do." + +"That's capital!" + +"How glad I am you've come! I am so happy today," she said, with the old +animation Pierre had not seen in her for a long time. "You know Nicholas +has received a St. George's Cross? I am so proud of him." + +"Oh yes, I sent that announcement. But I don't want to interrupt you," +he added, and was about to go to the drawing room. + +Natasha stopped him. + +"Count, is it wrong of me to sing?" she said blushing, and fixing her +eyes inquiringly on him. + +"No... Why should it be? On the contrary... But why do you ask me?" + +"I don't know myself," Natasha answered quickly, "but I should not like +to do anything you disapproved of. I believe in you completely. You +don't know how important you are to me, how much you've done for me...." +She spoke rapidly and did not notice how Pierre flushed at her words. "I +saw in that same army order that he, Bolkonski" (she whispered the name +hastily), "is in Russia, and in the army again. What do you think?"--she +was speaking hurriedly, evidently afraid her strength might fail her-- +"Will he ever forgive me? Will he not always have a bitter feeling +toward me? What do you think? What do you think?" + +"I think..." Pierre replied, "that he has nothing to forgive.... If I +were in his place..." + +By association of ideas, Pierre was at once carried back to the day +when, trying to comfort her, he had said that if he were not himself but +the best man in the world and free, he would ask on his knees for her +hand; and the same feeling of pity, tenderness, and love took possession +of him and the same words rose to his lips. But she did not give him +time to say them. + +"Yes, you... you..." she said, uttering the word you rapturously-- +"that's a different thing. I know no one kinder, more generous, or +better than you; nobody could be! Had you not been there then, and now +too, I don't know what would have become of me, because..." + +Tears suddenly rose in her eyes, she turned away, lifted her music +before her eyes, began singing again, and again began walking up and +down the room. + +Just then Petya came running in from the drawing room. + +Petya was now a handsome rosy lad of fifteen with full red lips and +resembled Natasha. He was preparing to enter the university, but he and +his friend Obolenski had lately, in secret, agreed to join the hussars. + +Petya had come rushing out to talk to his namesake about this affair. He +had asked Pierre to find out whether he would be accepted in the +hussars. + +Pierre walked up and down the drawing room, not listening to what Petya +was saying. + +Petya pulled him by the arm to attract his attention. + +"Well, what about my plan? Peter Kirilych, for heaven's sake! You are my +only hope," said Petya. + +"Oh yes, your plan. To join the hussars? I'll mention it, I'll bring it +all up today." + +"Well, mon cher, have you got the manifesto?" asked the old count. "The +countess has been to Mass at the Razumovskis' and heard the new prayer. +She says it's very fine." + +"Yes, I've got it," said Pierre. "The Emperor is to be here tomorrow... +there's to be an Extraordinary Meeting of the nobility, and they are +talking of a levy of ten men per thousand. Oh yes, let me congratulate +you!" + +"Yes, yes, thank God! Well, and what news from the army?" + +"We are again retreating. They say we're already near Smolensk," replied +Pierre. + +"O Lord, O Lord!" exclaimed the count. "Where is the manifesto?" + +"The Emperor's appeal? Oh yes!" + +Pierre began feeling in his pockets for the papers, but could not find +them. Still slapping his pockets, he kissed the hand of the countess who +entered the room and glanced uneasily around, evidently expecting +Natasha, who had left off singing but had not yet come into the drawing +room. + +"On my word, I don't know what I've done with it," he said. + +"There he is, always losing everything!" remarked the countess. + +Natasha entered with a softened and agitated expression of face and sat +down looking silently at Pierre. As soon as she entered, Pierre's +features, which had been gloomy, suddenly lighted up, and while still +searching for the papers he glanced at her several times. + +"No, really! I'll drive home, I must have left them there. I'll +certainly..." + +"But you'll be late for dinner." + +"Oh! And my coachman has gone." + +But Sonya, who had gone to look for the papers in the anteroom, had +found them in Pierre's hat, where he had carefully tucked them under the +lining. Pierre was about to begin reading. + +"No, after dinner," said the old count, evidently expecting much +enjoyment from that reading. + +At dinner, at which champagne was drunk to the health of the new +chevalier of St. George, Shinshin told them the town news, of the +illness of the old Georgian princess, of Metivier's disappearance from +Moscow, and of how some German fellow had been brought to Rostopchin and +accused of being a French "spyer" (so Count Rostopchin had told the +story), and how Rostopchin let him go and assured the people that he was +"not a spire at all, but only an old German ruin." + +"People are being arrested..." said the count. "I've told the countess +she should not speak French so much. It's not the time for it now." + +"And have you heard?" Shinshin asked. "Prince Golitsyn has engaged a +master to teach him Russian. It is becoming dangerous to speak French in +the streets." + +"And how about you, Count Peter Kirilych? If they call up the militia, +you too will have to mount a horse," remarked the old count, addressing +Pierre. + +Pierre had been silent and preoccupied all through dinner, seeming not +to grasp what was said. He looked at the count. + +"Oh yes, the war," he said. "No! What sort of warrior should I make? And +yet everything is so strange, so strange! I can't make it out. I don't +know, I am very far from having military tastes, but in these times no +one can answer for himself." + +After dinner the count settled himself comfortably in an easy chair and +with a serious face asked Sonya, who was considered an excellent reader, +to read the appeal. + +"To Moscow, our ancient Capital! + +"The enemy has entered the borders of Russia with immense forces. He +comes to despoil our beloved country." + +Sonya read painstakingly in her high-pitched voice. The count listened +with closed eyes, heaving abrupt sighs at certain passages. + +Natasha sat erect, gazing with a searching look now at her father and +now at Pierre. + +Pierre felt her eyes on him and tried not to look round. The countess +shook her head disapprovingly and angrily at every solemn expression in +the manifesto. In all these words she saw only that the danger +threatening her son would not soon be over. Shinshin, with a sarcastic +smile on his lips, was evidently preparing to make fun of anything that +gave him the opportunity: Sonya's reading, any remark of the count's, or +even the manifesto itself should no better pretext present itself. + +After reading about the dangers that threatened Russia, the hopes the +Emperor placed on Moscow and especially on its illustrious nobility, +Sonya, with a quiver in her voice due chiefly to the attention that was +being paid to her, read the last words: + +"We ourselves will not delay to appear among our people in that Capital +and in other parts of our realm for consultation, and for the direction +of all our levies, both those now barring the enemy's path and those +freshly formed to defeat him wherever he may appear. May the ruin he +hopes to bring upon us recoil on his own head, and may Europe delivered +from bondage glorify the name of Russia!" + +"Yes, that's it!" cried the count, opening his moist eyes and sniffing +repeatedly, as if a strong vinaigrette had been held to his nose; and he +added, "Let the Emperor but say the word and we'll sacrifice everything +and begrudge nothing." + +Before Shinshin had time to utter the joke he was ready to make on the +count's patriotism, Natasha jumped up from her place and ran to her +father. + +"What a darling our Papa is!" she cried, kissing him, and she again +looked at Pierre with the unconscious coquetry that had returned to her +with her better spirits. + +"There! Here's a patriot for you!" said Shinshin. + +"Not a patriot at all, but simply..." Natasha replied in an injured +tone. "Everything seems funny to you, but this isn't at all a joke...." + +"A joke indeed!" put in the count. "Let him but say the word and we'll +all go.... We're not Germans!" + +"But did you notice, it says, 'for consultation'?" said Pierre. + +"Never mind what it's for...." + +At this moment, Petya, to whom nobody was paying any attention, came up +to his father with a very flushed face and said in his breaking voice +that was now deep and now shrill: + +"Well, Papa, I tell you definitely, and Mamma too, it's as you please, +but I say definitely that you must let me enter the army, because I +can't... that's all...." + +The countess, in dismay, looked up to heaven, clasped her hands, and +turned angrily to her husband. + +"That comes of your talking!" said she. + +But the count had already recovered from his excitement. + +"Come, come!" said he. "Here's a fine warrior! No! Nonsense! You must +study." + +"It's not nonsense, Papa. Fedya Obolenski is younger than I, and he's +going too. Besides, all the same I can't study now when..." Petya +stopped short, flushed till he perspired, but still got out the words, +"when our Fatherland is in danger." + +"That'll do, that'll do--nonsense...." + +"But you said yourself that we would sacrifice everything." + +"Petya! Be quiet, I tell you!" cried the count, with a glance at his +wife, who had turned pale and was staring fixedly at her son. + +"And I tell you--Peter Kirilych here will also tell you..." + +"Nonsense, I tell you. Your mother's milk has hardly dried on your lips +and you want to go into the army! There, there, I tell you," and the +count moved to go out of the room, taking the papers, probably to reread +them in his study before having a nap. + +"Well, Peter Kirilych, let's go and have a smoke," he said. + +Pierre was agitated and undecided. Natasha's unwontedly brilliant eyes, +continually glancing at him with a more than cordial look, had reduced +him to this condition. + +"No, I think I'll go home." + +"Home? Why, you meant to spend the evening with us.... You don't often +come nowadays as it is, and this girl of mine," said the count good- +naturedly, pointing to Natasha, "only brightens up when you're here." + +"Yes, I had forgotten... I really must go home... business..." said +Pierre hurriedly. + +"Well, then, au revoir!" said the count, and went out of the room. + +"Why are you going? Why are you upset?" asked Natasha, and she looked +challengingly into Pierre's eyes. + +"Because I love you!" was what he wanted to say, but he did not say it, +and only blushed till the tears came, and lowered his eyes. + +"Because it is better for me to come less often... because... No, simply +I have business...." + +"Why? No, tell me!" Natasha began resolutely and suddenly stopped. + +They looked at each other with dismayed and embarrassed faces. He tried +to smile but could not: his smile expressed suffering, and he silently +kissed her hand and went out. + +Pierre made up his mind not to go to the Rostovs' any more. + + + + +CHAPTER XXI + +After the definite refusal he had received, Petya went to his room and +there locked himself in and wept bitterly. When he came in to tea, +silent, morose, and with tear-stained face, everybody pretended not to +notice anything. + +Next day the Emperor arrived in Moscow, and several of the Rostovs' +domestic serfs begged permission to go to have a look at him. That +morning Petya was a long time dressing and arranging his hair and collar +to look like a grown-up man. He frowned before his looking glass, +gesticulated, shrugged his shoulders, and finally, without saying a word +to anyone, took his cap and left the house by the back door, trying to +avoid notice. Petya decided to go straight to where the Emperor was and +to explain frankly to some gentleman-in-waiting (he imagined the Emperor +to be always surrounded by gentlemen-in-waiting) that he, Count Rostov, +in spite of his youth wished to serve his country; that youth could be +no hindrance to loyalty, and that he was ready to... While dressing, +Petya had prepared many fine things he meant to say to the gentleman-in- +waiting. + +It was on the very fact of being so young that Petya counted for success +in reaching the Emperor--he even thought how surprised everyone would be +at his youthfulness--and yet in the arrangement of his collar and hair +and by his sedate deliberate walk he wished to appear a grown-up man. +But the farther he went and the more his attention was diverted by the +ever-increasing crowds moving toward the Kremlin, the less he remembered +to walk with the sedateness and deliberation of a man. As he approached +the Kremlin he even began to avoid being crushed and resolutely stuck +out his elbows in a menacing way. But within the Trinity Gateway he was +so pressed to the wall by people who probably were unaware of the +patriotic intentions with which he had come that in spite of all his +determination he had to give in, and stop while carriages passed in, +rumbling beneath the archway. Beside Petya stood a peasant woman, a +footman, two tradesmen, and a discharged soldier. After standing some +time in the gateway, Petya tried to move forward in front of the others +without waiting for all the carriages to pass, and he began resolutely +working his way with his elbows, but the woman just in front of him, who +was the first against whom he directed his efforts, angrily shouted at +him: + +"What are you shoving for, young lordling? Don't you see we're all +standing still? Then why push?" + +"Anybody can shove," said the footman, and also began working his elbows +to such effect that he pushed Petya into a very filthy corner of the +gateway. + +Petya wiped his perspiring face with his hands and pulled up the damp +collar which he had arranged so well at home to seem like a man's. + +He felt that he no longer looked presentable, and feared that if he were +now to approach the gentlemen-in-waiting in that plight he would not be +admitted to the Emperor. But it was impossible to smarten oneself up or +move to another place, because of the crowd. One of the generals who +drove past was an acquaintance of the Rostovs', and Petya thought of +asking his help, but came to the conclusion that that would not be a +manly thing to do. When the carriages had all passed in, the crowd, +carrying Petya with it, streamed forward into the Kremlin Square which +was already full of people. There were people not only in the square, +but everywhere--on the slopes and on the roofs. As soon as Petya found +himself in the square he clearly heard the sound of bells and the joyous +voices of the crowd that filled the whole Kremlin. + +For a while the crowd was less dense, but suddenly all heads were bared, +and everyone rushed forward in one direction. Petya was being pressed so +that he could scarcely breathe, and everybody shouted, "Hurrah! hurrah! +hurrah!" Petya stood on tiptoe and pushed and pinched, but could see +nothing except the people about him. + +All the faces bore the same expression of excitement and enthusiasm. A +tradesman's wife standing beside Petya sobbed, and the tears ran down +her cheeks. + +"Father! Angel! Dear one!" she kept repeating, wiping away her tears +with her fingers. + +"Hurrah!" was heard on all sides. + +For a moment the crowd stood still, but then it made another rush +forward. + +Quite beside himself, Petya, clinching his teeth and rolling his eyes +ferociously, pushed forward, elbowing his way and shouting "hurrah!" as +if he were prepared that instant to kill himself and everyone else, but +on both sides of him other people with similarly ferocious faces pushed +forward and everybody shouted "hurrah!" + +"So this is what the Emperor is!" thought Petya. "No, I can't petition +him myself--that would be too bold." But in spite of this he continued +to struggle desperately forward, and from between the backs of those in +front he caught glimpses of an open space with a strip of red cloth +spread out on it; but just then the crowd swayed back--the police in +front were pushing back those who had pressed too close to the +procession: the Emperor was passing from the palace to the Cathedral of +the Assumption--and Petya unexpectedly received such a blow on his side +and ribs and was squeezed so hard that suddenly everything grew dim +before his eyes and he lost consciousness. When he came to himself, a +man of clerical appearance with a tuft of gray hair at the back of his +head and wearing a shabby blue cassock--probably a church clerk and +chanter--was holding him under the arm with one hand while warding off +the pressure of the crowd with the other. + +"You've crushed the young gentleman!" said the clerk. "What are you up +to? Gently!... They've crushed him, crushed him!" + +The Emperor entered the Cathedral of the Assumption. The crowd spread +out again more evenly, and the clerk led Petya--pale and breathless--to +the Tsar-cannon. Several people were sorry for Petya, and suddenly a +crowd turned toward him and pressed round him. Those who stood nearest +him attended to him, unbuttoned his coat, seated him on the raised +platform of the cannon, and reproached those others (whoever they might +be) who had crushed him. + +"One might easily get killed that way! What do they mean by it? Killing +people! Poor dear, he's as white as a sheet!"--various voices were heard +saying. + +Petya soon came to himself, the color returned to his face, the pain had +passed, and at the cost of that temporary unpleasantness he had obtained +a place by the cannon from where he hoped to see the Emperor who would +be returning that way. Petya no longer thought of presenting his +petition. If he could only see the Emperor he would be happy! + +While the service was proceeding in the Cathedral of the Assumption--it +was a combined service of prayer on the occasion of the Emperor's +arrival and of thanksgiving for the conclusion of peace with the Turks-- +the crowd outside spread out and hawkers appeared, selling kvas, +gingerbread, and poppyseed sweets (of which Petya was particularly +fond), and ordinary conversation could again be heard. A tradesman's +wife was showing a rent in her shawl and telling how much the shawl had +cost; another was saying that all silk goods had now got dear. The clerk +who had rescued Petya was talking to a functionary about the priests who +were officiating that day with the bishop. The clerk several times used +the word "plenary" (of the service), a word Petya did not understand. +Two young citizens were joking with some serf girls who were cracking +nuts. All these conversations, especially the joking with the girls, +were such as might have had a particular charm for Petya at his age, but +they did not interest him now. He sat on his elevation--the pedestal of +the cannon--still agitated as before by the thought of the Emperor and +by his love for him. The feeling of pain and fear he had experienced +when he was being crushed, together with that of rapture, still further +intensified his sense of the importance of the occasion. + +Suddenly the sound of a firing of cannon was heard from the embankment, +to celebrate the signing of peace with the Turks, and the crowd rushed +impetuously toward the embankment to watch the firing. Petya too would +have run there, but the clerk who had taken the young gentleman under +his protection stopped him. The firing was still proceeding when +officers, generals, and gentlemen-in-waiting came running out of the +cathedral, and after them others in a more leisurely manner: caps were +again raised, and those who had run to look at the cannon ran back +again. At last four men in uniforms and sashes emerged from the +cathedral doors. "Hurrah! hurrah!" shouted the crowd again. + +"Which is he? Which?" asked Petya in a tearful voice, of those around +him, but no one answered him, everybody was too excited; and Petya, +fixing on one of those four men, whom he could not clearly see for the +tears of joy that filled his eyes, concentrated all his enthusiasm on +him--though it happened not to be the Emperor--frantically shouted +"Hurrah!" and resolved that tomorrow, come what might, he would join the +army. + +The crowd ran after the Emperor, followed him to the palace, and began +to disperse. It was already late, and Petya had not eaten anything and +was drenched with perspiration, yet he did not go home but stood with +that diminishing, but still considerable, crowd before the palace while +the Emperor dined--looking in at the palace windows, expecting he knew +not what, and envying alike the notables he saw arriving at the entrance +to dine with the Emperor and the court footmen who served at table, +glimpses of whom could be seen through the windows. + +While the Emperor was dining, Valuev, looking out of the window, said: + +"The people are still hoping to see Your Majesty again." + +The dinner was nearly over, and the Emperor, munching a biscuit, rose +and went out onto the balcony. The people, with Petya among them, rushed +toward the balcony. + +"Angel! Dear one! Hurrah! Father!..." cried the crowd, and Petya with +it, and again the women and men of weaker mold, Petya among them, wept +with joy. + +A largish piece of the biscuit the Emperor was holding in his hand broke +off, fell on the balcony parapet, and then to the ground. A coachman in +a jerkin, who stood nearest, sprang forward and snatched it up. Several +people in the crowd rushed at the coachman. Seeing this the Emperor had +a plateful of biscuits brought him and began throwing them down from the +balcony. Petya's eyes grew bloodshot, and still more excited by the +danger of being crushed, he rushed at the biscuits. He did not know why, +but he had to have a biscuit from the Tsar's hand and he felt that he +must not give way. He sprang forward and upset an old woman who was +catching at a biscuit; the old woman did not consider herself defeated +though she was lying on the ground--she grabbed at some biscuits but her +hand did not reach them. Petya pushed her hand away with his knee, +seized a biscuit, and as if fearing to be too late, again shouted +"Hurrah!" with a voice already hoarse. + +The Emperor went in, and after that the greater part of the crowd began +to disperse. + +"There! I said if only we waited--and so it was!" was being joyfully +said by various people. + +Happy as Petya was, he felt sad at having to go home knowing that all +the enjoyment of that day was over. He did not go straight home from the +Kremlin, but called on his friend Obolenski, who was fifteen and was +also entering the regiment. On returning home Petya announced resolutely +and firmly that if he was not allowed to enter the service he would run +away. And next day, Count Ilya Rostov--though he had not yet quite +yielded--went to inquire how he could arrange for Petya to serve where +there would be least danger. + + + + +CHAPTER XXII + +Two days later, on the fifteenth of July, an immense number of carriages +were standing outside the Sloboda Palace. + +The great halls were full. In the first were the nobility and gentry in +their uniforms, in the second bearded merchants in full-skirted coats of +blue cloth and wearing medals. In the noblemen's hall there was an +incessant movement and buzz of voices. The chief magnates sat on high- +backed chairs at a large table under the portrait of the Emperor, but +most of the gentry were strolling about the room. + +All these nobles, whom Pierre met every day at the club or in their own +houses, were in uniform--some in that of Catherine's day, others in that +of Emperor Paul, others again in the new uniforms of Alexander's time or +the ordinary uniform of the nobility, and the general characteristic of +being in uniform imparted something strange and fantastic to these +diverse and familiar personalities, both old and young. The old men, +dim-eyed, toothless, bald, sallow, and bloated, or gaunt and wrinkled, +were especially striking. For the most part they sat quietly in their +places and were silent, or, if they walked about and talked, attached +themselves to someone younger. On all these faces, as on the faces of +the crowd Petya had seen in the Square, there was a striking +contradiction: the general expectation of a solemn event, and at the +same time the everyday interests in a boston card party, Peter the cook, +Zinaida Dmitrievna's health, and so on. + +Pierre was there too, buttoned up since early morning in a nobleman's +uniform that had become too tight for him. He was agitated; this +extraordinary gathering not only of nobles but also of the merchant- +class--les etats generaux (States-General)--evoked in him a whole series +of ideas he had long laid aside but which were deeply graven in his +soul: thoughts of the Contrat Social and the French Revolution. The +words that had struck him in the Emperor's appeal--that the sovereign +was coming to the capital for consultation with his people--strengthened +this idea. And imagining that in this direction something important +which he had long awaited was drawing near, he strolled about watching +and listening to conversations, but nowhere finding any confirmation of +the ideas that occupied him. + +The Emperor's manifesto was read, evoking enthusiasm, and then all moved +about discussing it. Besides the ordinary topics of conversation, Pierre +heard questions of where the marshals of the nobility were to stand when +the Emperor entered, when a ball should be given in the Emperor's honor, +whether they should group themselves by districts or by whole +provinces... and so on; but as soon as the war was touched on, or what +the nobility had been convened for, the talk became undecided and +indefinite. Then all preferred listening to speaking. + +A middle-aged man, handsome and virile, in the uniform of a retired +naval officer, was speaking in one of the rooms, and a small crowd was +pressing round him. Pierre went up to the circle that had formed round +the speaker and listened. Count Ilya Rostov, in a military uniform of +Catherine's time, was sauntering with a pleasant smile among the crowd, +with all of whom he was acquainted. He too approached that group and +listened with a kindly smile and nods of approval, as he always did, to +what the speaker was saying. The retired naval man was speaking very +boldly, as was evident from the expression on the faces of the listeners +and from the fact that some people Pierre knew as the meekest and +quietest of men walked away disapprovingly or expressed disagreement +with him. Pierre pushed his way into the middle of the group, listened, +and convinced himself that the man was indeed a liberal, but of views +quite different from his own. The naval officer spoke in a particularly +sonorous, musical, and aristocratic baritone voice, pleasantly +swallowing his r's and generally slurring his consonants: the voice of a +man calling out to his servant, "Heah! Bwing me my pipe!" It was +indicative of dissipation and the exercise of authority. + +"What if the Smolensk people have offahd to waise militia for the +Empewah? Ah we to take Smolensk as our patte'n? If the noble awistocwacy +of the pwovince of Moscow thinks fit, it can show its loyalty to our +sov'weign the Empewah in other ways. Have we fo'gotten the waising of +the militia in the yeah 'seven? All that did was to enwich the pwiests' +sons and thieves and wobbahs...." + +Count Ilya Rostov smiled blandly and nodded approval. + +"And was our militia of any use to the Empia? Not at all! It only wuined +our farming! Bettah have another conscwiption... o' ou' men will wetu'n +neithah soldiers no' peasants, and we'll get only depwavity fwom them. +The nobility don't gwudge theah lives--evewy one of us will go and bwing +in more wecwuits, and the sov'weign" (that was the way he referred to +the Emperor) "need only say the word and we'll all die fo' him!" added +the orator with animation. + +Count Rostov's mouth watered with pleasure and he nudged Pierre, but +Pierre wanted to speak himself. He pushed forward, feeling stirred, but +not yet sure what stirred him or what he would say. Scarcely had he +opened his mouth when one of the senators, a man without a tooth in his +head, with a shrewd though angry expression, standing near the first +speaker, interrupted him. Evidently accustomed to managing debates and +to maintaining an argument, he began in low but distinct tones: + +"I imagine, sir," said he, mumbling with his toothless mouth, "that we +have been summoned here not to discuss whether it's best for the empire +at the present moment to adopt conscription or to call out the militia. +We have been summoned to reply to the appeal with which our sovereign +the Emperor has honored us. But to judge what is best--conscription or +the militia--we can leave to the supreme authority...." + +Pierre suddenly saw an outlet for his excitement. He hardened his heart +against the senator who was introducing this set and narrow attitude +into the deliberations of the nobility. Pierre stepped forward and +interrupted him. He himself did not yet know what he would say, but he +began to speak eagerly, occasionally lapsing into French or expressing +himself in bookish Russian. + +"Excuse me, your excellency," he began. (He was well acquainted with the +senator, but thought it necessary on this occasion to address him +formally.) "Though I don't agree with the gentleman..." (he hesitated: +he wished to say, "Mon tres honorable preopinant"--"My very honorable +opponent") "with the gentleman... whom I have not the honor of knowing, +I suppose that the nobility have been summoned not merely to express +their sympathy and enthusiasm but also to consider the means by which we +can assist our Fatherland! I imagine," he went on, warming to his +subject, "that the Emperor himself would not be satisfied to find in us +merely owners of serfs whom we are willing to devote to his service, and +chair a canon * we are ready to make of ourselves--and not to obtain +from us any co-co-counsel." + + +* "Food for cannon." + +Many persons withdrew from the circle, noticing the senator's sarcastic +smile and the freedom of Pierre's remarks. Only Count Rostov was pleased +with them as he had been pleased with those of the naval officer, the +senator, and in general with whatever speech he had last heard. + +"I think that before discussing these questions," Pierre continued, "we +should ask the Emperor--most respectfully ask His Majesty--to let us +know the number of our troops and the position in which our army and our +forces now are, and then..." + +But scarcely had Pierre uttered these words before he was attacked from +three sides. The most vigorous attack came from an old acquaintance, a +boston player who had always been well disposed toward him, Stepan +Stepanovich Adraksin. Adraksin was in uniform, and whether as a result +of the uniform or from some other cause Pierre saw before him quite a +different man. With a sudden expression of malevolence on his aged face, +Adraksin shouted at Pierre: + +"In the first place, I tell you we have no right to question the Emperor +about that, and secondly, if the Russian nobility had that right, the +Emperor could not answer such a question. The troops are moved according +to the enemy's movements and the number of men increases and +decreases..." + +Another voice, that of a nobleman of medium height and about forty years +of age, whom Pierre had formerly met at the gypsies' and knew as a bad +cardplayer, and who, also transformed by his uniform, came up to Pierre, +interrupted Adraksin. + +"Yes, and this is not a time for discussing," he continued, "but for +acting: there is war in Russia! The enemy is advancing to destroy +Russia, to desecrate the tombs of our fathers, to carry off our wives +and children." The nobleman smote his breast. "We will all arise, every +one of us will go, for our father the Tsar!" he shouted, rolling his +bloodshot eyes. Several approving voices were heard in the crowd. "We +are Russians and will not grudge our blood in defense of our faith, the +throne, and the Fatherland! We must cease raving if we are sons of our +Fatherland! We will show Europe how Russia rises to the defense of +Russia!" + +Pierre wished to reply, but could not get in a word. He felt that his +words, apart from what meaning they conveyed, were less audible than the +sound of his opponent's voice. + +Count Rostov at the back of the crowd was expressing approval; several +persons, briskly turning a shoulder to the orator at the end of a +phrase, said: + +"That's right, quite right! Just so!" + +Pierre wished to say that he was ready to sacrifice his money, his +serfs, or himself, only one ought to know the state of affairs in order +to be able to improve it, but he was unable to speak. Many voices +shouted and talked at the same time, so that Count Rostov had not time +to signify his approval of them all, and the group increased, dispersed, +re-formed, and then moved with a hum of talk into the largest hall and +to the big table. Not only was Pierre's attempt to speak unsuccessful, +but he was rudely interrupted, pushed aside, and people turned away from +him as from a common enemy. This happened not because they were +displeased by the substance of his speech, which had even been forgotten +after the many subsequent speeches, but to animate it the crowd needed a +tangible object to love and a tangible object to hate. Pierre became the +latter. Many other orators spoke after the excited nobleman, and all in +the same tone. Many spoke eloquently and with originality. + +Glinka, the editor of the Russian Messenger, who was recognized (cries +of "author! author!" were heard in the crowd), said that "hell must be +repulsed by hell," and that he had seen a child smiling at lightning +flashes and thunderclaps, but "we will not be that child." + +"Yes, yes, at thunderclaps!" was repeated approvingly in the back rows +of the crowd. + +The crowd drew up to the large table, at which sat gray-haired or bald +seventy-year-old magnates, uniformed and besashed almost all of whom +Pierre had seen in their own homes with their buffoons, or playing +boston at the clubs. With an incessant hum of voices the crowd advanced +to the table. Pressed by the throng against the high backs of the +chairs, the orators spoke one after another and sometimes two together. +Those standing behind noticed what a speaker omitted to say and hastened +to supply it. Others in that heat and crush racked their brains to find +some thought and hastened to utter it. The old magnates, whom Pierre +knew, sat and turned to look first at one and then at another, and their +faces for the most part only expressed the fact that they found it very +hot. Pierre, however, felt excited, and the general desire to show that +they were ready to go to all lengths--which found expression in the +tones and looks more than in the substance of the speeches--infected him +too. He did not renounce his opinions, but felt himself in some way to +blame and wished to justify himself. + +"I only said that it would be more to the purpose to make sacrifices +when we know what is needed!" said he, trying to be heard above the +other voices. + +One of the old men nearest to him looked round, but his attention was +immediately diverted by an exclamation at the other side of the table. + +"Yes, Moscow will be surrendered! She will be our expiation!" shouted +one man. + +"He is the enemy of mankind!" cried another. "Allow me to speak...." +"Gentlemen, you are crushing me!..." + + + + +CHAPTER XXIII + +At that moment Count Rostopchin with his protruding chin and alert eyes, +wearing the uniform of a general with sash over his shoulder, entered +the room, stepping briskly to the front of the crowd of gentry. + +"Our sovereign the Emperor will be here in a moment," said Rostopchin. +"I am straight from the palace. Seeing the position we are in, I think +there is little need for discussion. The Emperor has deigned to summon +us and the merchants. Millions will pour forth from there"--he pointed +to the merchants' hall--"but our business is to supply men and not spare +ourselves... That is the least we can do!" + +A conference took place confined to the magnates sitting at the table. +The whole consultation passed more than quietly. After all the preceding +noise the sound of their old voices saying one after another, "I agree," +or for variety, "I too am of that opinion," and so on had even a +mournful effect. + +The secretary was told to write down the resolution of the Moscow +nobility and gentry, that they would furnish ten men, fully equipped, +out of every thousand serfs, as the Smolensk gentry had done. Their +chairs made a scraping noise as the gentlemen who had conferred rose +with apparent relief, and began walking up and down, arm in arm, to +stretch their legs and converse in couples. + +"The Emperor! The Emperor!" a sudden cry resounded through the halls and +the whole throng hurried to the entrance. + +The Emperor entered the hall through a broad path between two lines of +nobles. Every face expressed respectful, awe-struck curiosity. Pierre +stood rather far off and could not hear all that the Emperor said. From +what he did hear he understood that the Emperor spoke of the danger +threatening the empire and of the hopes he placed on the Moscow +nobility. He was answered by a voice which informed him of the +resolution just arrived at. + +"Gentlemen!" said the Emperor with a quivering voice. + +There was a rustling among the crowd and it again subsided, so that +Pierre distinctly heard the pleasantly human voice of the Emperor saying +with emotion: + +"I never doubted the devotion of the Russian nobles, but today it has +surpassed my expectations. I thank you in the name of the Fatherland! +Gentlemen, let us act! Time is most precious..." + +The Emperor ceased speaking, the crowd began pressing round him, and +rapturous exclamations were heard from all sides. + +"Yes, most precious... a royal word," said Count Rostov, with a sob. He +stood at the back, and, though he had heard hardly anything, understood +everything in his own way. + +From the hall of the nobility the Emperor went to that of the merchants. +There he remained about ten minutes. Pierre was among those who saw him +come out from the merchants' hall with tears of emotion in his eyes. As +became known later, he had scarcely begun to address the merchants +before tears gushed from his eyes and he concluded in a trembling voice. +When Pierre saw the Emperor he was coming out accompanied by two +merchants, one of whom Pierre knew, a fat otkupshchik. The other was the +mayor, a man with a thin sallow face and narrow beard. Both were +weeping. Tears filled the thin man's eyes, and the fat otkupshchik +sobbed outright like a child and kept repeating: + +"Our lives and property--take them, Your Majesty!" + +Pierre's one feeling at the moment was a desire to show that he was +ready to go all lengths and was prepared to sacrifice everything. He now +felt ashamed of his speech with its constitutional tendency and sought +an opportunity of effacing it. Having heard that Count Mamonov was +furnishing a regiment, Bezukhov at once informed Rostopchin that he +would give a thousand men and their maintenance. + +Old Rostov could not tell his wife of what had passed without tears, and +at once consented to Petya's request and went himself to enter his name. + +Next day the Emperor left Moscow. The assembled nobles all took off +their uniforms and settled down again in their homes and clubs, and not +without some groans gave orders to their stewards about the enrollment, +feeling amazed themselves at what they had done. + +BOOK TEN: 1812 + + + + +CHAPTER I + +Napoleon began the war with Russia because he could not resist going to +Dresden, could not help having his head turned by the homage he +received, could not help donning a Polish uniform and yielding to the +stimulating influence of a June morning, and could not refrain from +bursts of anger in the presence of Kurakin and then of Balashev. + +Alexander refused negotiations because he felt himself to be personally +insulted. Barclay de Tolly tried to command the army in the best way, +because he wished to fulfill his duty and earn fame as a great +commander. Rostov charged the French because he could not restrain his +wish for a gallop across a level field; and in the same way the +innumerable people who took part in the war acted in accord with their +personal characteristics, habits, circumstances, and aims. They were +moved by fear or vanity, rejoiced or were indignant, reasoned, imagining +that they knew what they were doing and did it of their own free will, +but they all were involuntary tools of history, carrying on a work +concealed from them but comprehensible to us. Such is the inevitable +fate of men of action, and the higher they stand in the social hierarchy +the less are they free. + +The actors of 1812 have long since left the stage, their personal +interests have vanished leaving no trace, and nothing remains of that +time but its historic results. + +Providence compelled all these men, striving to attain personal aims, to +further the accomplishment of a stupendous result no one of them at all +expected--neither Napoleon, nor Alexander, nor still less any of those +who did the actual fighting. + +The cause of the destruction of the French army in 1812 is clear to us +now. No one will deny that that cause was, on the one hand, its advance +into the heart of Russia late in the season without any preparation for +a winter campaign and, on the other, the character given to the war by +the burning of Russian towns and the hatred of the foe this aroused +among the Russian people. But no one at the time foresaw (what now seems +so evident) that this was the only way an army of eight hundred thousand +men--the best in the world and led by the best general--could be +destroyed in conflict with a raw army of half its numerical strength, +and led by inexperienced commanders as the Russian army was. Not only +did no one see this, but on the Russian side every effort was made to +hinder the only thing that could save Russia, while on the French side, +despite Napoleon's experience and so-called military genius, every +effort was directed to pushing on to Moscow at the end of the summer, +that is, to doing the very thing that was bound to lead to destruction. + +In historical works on the year 1812 French writers are very fond of +saying that Napoleon felt the danger of extending his line, that he +sought a battle and that his marshals advised him to stop at Smolensk, +and of making similar statements to show that the danger of the campaign +was even then understood. Russian authors are still fonder of telling us +that from the commencement of the campaign a Scythian war plan was +adopted to lure Napoleon into the depths of Russia, and this plan some +of them attribute to Pfuel, others to a certain Frenchman, others to +Toll, and others again to Alexander himself--pointing to notes, +projects, and letters which contain hints of such a line of action. But +all these hints at what happened, both from the French side and the +Russian, are advanced only because they fit in with the event. Had that +event not occurred these hints would have been forgotten, as we have +forgotten the thousands and millions of hints and expectations to the +contrary which were current then but have now been forgotten because the +event falsified them. There are always so many conjectures as to the +issue of any event that however it may end there will always be people +to say: "I said then that it would be so," quite forgetting that amid +their innumerable conjectures many were to quite the contrary effect. + +Conjectures as to Napoleon's awareness of the danger of extending his +line, and (on the Russian side) as to luring the enemy into the depths +of Russia, are evidently of that kind, and only by much straining can +historians attribute such conceptions to Napoleon and his marshals, or +such plans to the Russian commanders. All the facts are in flat +contradiction to such conjectures. During the whole period of the war +not only was there no wish on the Russian side to draw the French into +the heart of the country, but from their first entry into Russia +everything was done to stop them. And not only was Napoleon not afraid +to extend his line, but he welcomed every step forward as a triumph and +did not seek battle as eagerly as in former campaigns, but very lazily. + +At the very beginning of the war our armies were divided, and our sole +aim was to unite them, though uniting the armies was no advantage if we +meant to retire and lure the enemy into the depths of the country. Our +Emperor joined the army to encourage it to defend every inch of Russian +soil and not to retreat. The enormous Drissa camp was formed on Pfuel's +plan, and there was no intention of retiring farther. The Emperor +reproached the commanders in chief for every step they retired. He could +not bear the idea of letting the enemy even reach Smolensk, still less +could he contemplate the burning of Moscow, and when our armies did +unite he was displeased that Smolensk was abandoned and burned without a +general engagement having been fought under its walls. + +So thought the Emperor, and the Russian commanders and people were still +more provoked at the thought that our forces were retreating into the +depths of the country. + +Napoleon having cut our armies apart advanced far into the country and +missed several chances of forcing an engagement. In August he was at +Smolensk and thought only of how to advance farther, though as we now +see that advance was evidently ruinous to him. + +The facts clearly show that Napoleon did not foresee the danger of the +advance on Moscow, nor did Alexander and the Russian commanders then +think of luring Napoleon on, but quite the contrary. The luring of +Napoleon into the depths of the country was not the result of any plan, +for no one believed it to be possible; it resulted from a most complex +interplay of intrigues, aims, and wishes among those who took part in +the war and had no perception whatever of the inevitable, or of the one +way of saving Russia. Everything came about fortuitously. The armies +were divided at the commencement of the campaign. We tried to unite +them, with the evident intention of giving battle and checking the +enemy's advance, and by this effort to unite them while avoiding battle +with a much stronger enemy, and necessarily withdrawing the armies at an +acute angle--we led the French on to Smolensk. But we withdrew at an +acute angle not only because the French advanced between our two armies; +the angle became still more acute and we withdrew still farther, because +Barclay de Tolly was an unpopular foreigner disliked by Bagration (who +would come under his command), and Bagration--being in command of the +second army--tried to postpone joining up and coming under Barclay's +command as long as he could. Bagration was slow in effecting the +junction--though that was the chief aim of all at headquarters--because, +as he alleged, he exposed his army to danger on this march, and it was +best for him to retire more to the left and more to the south, worrying +the enemy from flank and rear and securing from the Ukraine recruits for +his army; and it looks as if he planned this in order not to come under +the command of the detested foreigner Barclay, whose rank was inferior +to his own. + +The Emperor was with the army to encourage it, but his presence and +ignorance of what steps to take, and the enormous number of advisers and +plans, destroyed the first army's energy and it retired. + +The intention was to make a stand at the Drissa camp, but Paulucci, +aiming at becoming commander-in-chief, unexpectedly employed his energy +to influence Alexander, and Pfuel's whole plan was abandoned and the +command entrusted to Barclay. But as Barclay did not inspire confidence +his power was limited. The armies were divided, there was no unity of +command, and Barclay was unpopular; but from this confusion, division, +and the unpopularity of the foreign commander-in-chief, there resulted +on the one hand indecision and the avoidance of a battle (which we could +not have refrained from had the armies been united and had someone else, +instead of Barclay, been in command) and on the other an ever-increasing +indignation against the foreigners and an increase in patriotic zeal. + +At last the Emperor left the army, and as the most convenient and indeed +the only pretext for his departure it was decided that it was necessary +for him to inspire the people in the capitals and arouse the nation in +general to a patriotic war. And by this visit of the Emperor to Moscow +the strength of the Russian army was trebled. + +He left in order not to obstruct the commander-in-chief's undivided +control of the army, and hoping that more decisive action would then be +taken, but the command of the armies became still more confused and +enfeebled. Bennigsen, the Tsarevich, and a swarm of adjutants general +remained with the army to keep the commander-in-chief under observation +and arouse his energy, and Barclay, feeling less free than ever under +the observation of all these "eyes of the Emperor," became still more +cautious of undertaking any decisive action and avoided giving battle. + +Barclay stood for caution. The Tsarevich hinted at treachery and +demanded a general engagement. Lubomirski, Bronnitski, Wlocki, and the +others of that group stirred up so much trouble that Barclay, under +pretext of sending papers to the Emperor, dispatched these Polish +adjutants general to Petersburg and plunged into an open struggle with +Bennigsen and the Tsarevich. + +At Smolensk the armies at last reunited, much as Bagration disliked it. + +Bagration drove up in a carriage to the house occupied by Barclay. +Barclay donned his sash and came out to meet and report to his senior +officer Bagration. + +Despite his seniority in rank Bagration, in this contest of magnanimity, +took his orders from Barclay, but, having submitted, agreed with him +less than ever. By the Emperor's orders Bagration reported direct to +him. He wrote to Arakcheev, the Emperor's confidant: "It must be as my +sovereign pleases, but I cannot work with the Minister (meaning +Barclay). For God's sake send me somewhere else if only in command of a +regiment. I cannot stand it here. Headquarters are so full of Germans +that a Russian cannot exist and there is no sense in anything. I thought +I was really serving my sovereign and the Fatherland, but it turns out +that I am serving Barclay. I confess I do not want to." + +The swarm of Bronnitskis and Wintzingerodes and their like still further +embittered the relations between the commanders in chief, and even less +unity resulted. Preparations were made to fight the French before +Smolensk. A general was sent to survey the position. This general, +hating Barclay, rode to visit a friend of his own, a corps commander, +and, having spent the day with him, returned to Barclay and condemned, +as unsuitable from every point of view, the battleground he had not +seen. + +While disputes and intrigues were going on about the future field of +battle, and while we were looking for the French--having lost touch with +them--the French stumbled upon Neverovski's division and reached the +walls of Smolensk. + +It was necessary to fight an unexpected battle at Smolensk to save our +lines of communication. The battle was fought and thousands were killed +on both sides. + +Smolensk was abandoned contrary to the wishes of the Emperor and of the +whole people. But Smolensk was burned by its own inhabitants-who had +been misled by their governor. And these ruined inhabitants, setting an +example to other Russians, went to Moscow thinking only of their own +losses but kindling hatred of the foe. Napoleon advanced farther and we +retired, thus arriving at the very result which caused his destruction. + + + + +CHAPTER II + +The day after his son had left, Prince Nicholas sent for Princess Mary +to come to his study. + +"Well? Are you satisfied now?" said he. "You've made me quarrel with my +son! Satisfied, are you? That's all you wanted! Satisfied?... It hurts +me, it hurts. I'm old and weak and this is what you wanted. Well then, +gloat over it! Gloat over it!" + +After that Princess Mary did not see her father for a whole week. He was +ill and did not leave his study. + +Princess Mary noticed to her surprise that during this illness the old +prince not only excluded her from his room, but did not admit +Mademoiselle Bourienne either. Tikhon alone attended him. + +At the end of the week the prince reappeared and resumed his former way +of life, devoting himself with special activity to building operations +and the arrangement of the gardens and completely breaking off his +relations with Mademoiselle Bourienne. His looks and cold tone to his +daughter seemed to say: "There, you see? You plotted against me, you +lied to Prince Andrew about my relations with that Frenchwoman and made +me quarrel with him, but you see I need neither her nor you!" + +Princess Mary spent half of every day with little Nicholas, watching his +lessons, teaching him Russian and music herself, and talking to +Dessalles; the rest of the day she spent over her books, with her old +nurse, or with "God's folk" who sometimes came by the back door to see +her. + +Of the war Princess Mary thought as women do think about wars. She +feared for her brother who was in it, was horrified by and amazed at the +strange cruelty that impels men to kill one another, but she did not +understand the significance of this war, which seemed to her like all +previous wars. She did not realize the significance of this war, though +Dessalles with whom she constantly conversed was passionately interested +in its progress and tried to explain his own conception of it to her, +and though the "God's folk" who came to see her reported, in their own +way, the rumors current among the people of an invasion by Antichrist, +and though Julie (now Princess Drubetskaya), who had resumed +correspondence with her, wrote patriotic letters from Moscow. + +"I write you in Russian, my good friend," wrote Julie in her Frenchified +Russian, "because I have a detestation for all the French, and the same +for their language which I cannot support to hear spoken.... We in +Moscow are elated by enthusiasm for our adored Emperor. + +"My poor husband is enduring pains and hunger in Jewish taverns, but the +news which I have inspires me yet more. + +"You heard probably of the heroic exploit of Raevski, embracing his two +sons and saying: 'I will perish with them but we will not be shaken!' +And truly though the enemy was twice stronger than we, we were +unshakable. We pass the time as we can, but in war as in war! The +princesses Aline and Sophie sit whole days with me, and we, unhappy +widows of live men, make beautiful conversations over our 'charpie', +only you, my friend, are missing..." and so on. + +The chief reason Princess Mary did not realize the full significance of +this war was that the old prince never spoke of it, did not recognize +it, and laughed at Dessalles when he mentioned it at dinner. The +prince's tone was so calm and confident that Princess Mary +unhesitatingly believed him. + +All that July the old prince was exceedingly active and even animated. +He planned another garden and began a new building for the domestic +serfs. The only thing that made Princess Mary anxious about him was that +he slept very little and, instead of sleeping in his study as usual, +changed his sleeping place every day. One day he would order his camp +bed to be set up in the glass gallery, another day he remained on the +couch or on the lounge chair in the drawing room and dozed there without +undressing, while--instead of Mademoiselle Bourienne--a serf boy read to +him. Then again he would spend a night in the dining room. + +On August 1, a second letter was received from Prince Andrew. In his +first letter which came soon after he had left home, Prince Andrew had +dutifully asked his father's forgiveness for what he had allowed himself +to say and begged to be restored to his favor. To this letter the old +prince had replied affectionately, and from that time had kept the +Frenchwoman at a distance. Prince Andrew's second letter, written near +Vitebsk after the French had occupied that town, gave a brief account of +the whole campaign, enclosed for them a plan he had drawn and forecasts +as to the further progress of the war. In this letter Prince Andrew +pointed out to his father the danger of staying at Bald Hills, so near +the theater of war and on the army's direct line of march, and advised +him to move to Moscow. + +At dinner that day, on Dessalles' mentioning that the French were said +to have already entered Vitebsk, the old prince remembered his son's +letter. + +"There was a letter from Prince Andrew today," he said to Princess Mary- +-"Haven't you read it?" + +"No, Father," she replied in a frightened voice. + +She could not have read the letter as she did not even know it had +arrived. + +"He writes about this war," said the prince, with the ironic smile that +had become habitual to him in speaking of the present war. + +"That must be very interesting," said Dessalles. "Prince Andrew is in a +position to know..." + +"Oh, very interesting!" said Mademoiselle Bourienne. + +"Go and get it for me," said the old prince to Mademoiselle Bourienne. +"You know--under the paperweight on the little table." + +Mademoiselle Bourienne jumped up eagerly. + +"No, don't!" he exclaimed with a frown. "You go, Michael Ivanovich." + +Michael Ivanovich rose and went to the study. But as soon as he had left +the room the old prince, looking uneasily round, threw down his napkin +and went himself. + +"They can't do anything... always make some muddle," he muttered. + +While he was away Princess Mary, Dessalles, Mademoiselle Bourienne, and +even little Nicholas exchanged looks in silence. The old prince returned +with quick steps, accompanied by Michael Ivanovich, bringing the letter +and a plan. These he put down beside him--not letting anyone read them +at dinner. + +On moving to the drawing room he handed the letter to Princess Mary and, +spreading out before him the plan of the new building and fixing his +eyes upon it, told her to read the letter aloud. When she had done so +Princess Mary looked inquiringly at her father. He was examining the +plan, evidently engrossed in his own ideas. + +"What do you think of it, Prince?" Dessalles ventured to ask. + +"I? I?..." said the prince as if unpleasantly awakened, and not taking +his eyes from the plan of the building. + +"Very possibly the theater of war will move so near to us that..." + +"Ha ha ha! The theater of war!" said the prince. "I have said and still +say that the theater of war is Poland and the enemy will never get +beyond the Niemen." + +Dessalles looked in amazement at the prince, who was talking of the +Niemen when the enemy was already at the Dnieper, but Princess Mary, +forgetting the geographical position of the Niemen, thought that what +her father was saying was correct. + +"When the snow melts they'll sink in the Polish swamps. Only they could +fail to see it," the prince continued, evidently thinking of the +campaign of 1807 which seemed to him so recent. "Bennigsen should have +advanced into Prussia sooner, then things would have taken a different +turn..." + +"But, Prince," Dessalles began timidly, "the letter mentions +Vitebsk...." + +"Ah, the letter? Yes..." replied the prince peevishly. "Yes... yes..." +His face suddenly took on a morose expression. He paused. "Yes, he +writes that the French were beaten at... at... what river is it?" + +Dessalles dropped his eyes. + +"The prince says nothing about that," he remarked gently. + +"Doesn't he? But I didn't invent it myself." + +No one spoke for a long time. + +"Yes... yes... Well, Michael Ivanovich," he suddenly went on, raising +his head and pointing to the plan of the building, "tell me how you mean +to alter it...." + +Michael Ivanovich went up to the plan, and the prince after speaking to +him about the building looked angrily at Princess Mary and Dessalles and +went to his own room. + +Princess Mary saw Dessalles' embarrassed and astonished look fixed on +her father, noticed his silence, and was struck by the fact that her +father had forgotten his son's letter on the drawing-room table; but she +was not only afraid to speak of it and ask Dessalles the reason of his +confusion and silence, but was afraid even to think about it. + +In the evening Michael Ivanovich, sent by the prince, came to Princess +Mary for Prince Andrew's letter which had been forgotten in the drawing +room. She gave it to him and, unpleasant as it was to her to do so, +ventured to ask him what her father was doing. + +"Always busy," replied Michael Ivanovich with a respectfully ironic +smile which caused Princess Mary to turn pale. "He's worrying very much +about the new building. He has been reading a little, but now"--Michael +Ivanovich went on, lowering his voice--"now he's at his desk, busy with +his will, I expect." (One of the prince's favorite occupations of late +had been the preparation of some papers he meant to leave at his death +and which he called his "will.") + +"And Alpatych is being sent to Smolensk?" asked Princess Mary. + +"Oh, yes, he has been waiting to start for some time." + + + + +CHAPTER III + +When Michael Ivanovich returned to the study with the letter, the old +prince, with spectacles on and a shade over his eyes, was sitting at his +open bureau with screened candles, holding a paper in his outstretched +hand, and in a somewhat dramatic attitude was reading his manuscript-- +his "Remarks" as he termed it--which was to be transmitted to the +Emperor after his death. + +When Michael Ivanovich went in there were tears in the prince's eyes +evoked by the memory of the time when the paper he was now reading had +been written. He took the letter from Michael Ivanovich's hand, put it +in his pocket, folded up his papers, and called in Alpatych who had long +been waiting. + +The prince had a list of things to be bought in Smolensk and, walking up +and down the room past Alpatych who stood by the door, he gave his +instructions. + +"First, notepaper--do you hear? Eight quires, like this sample, gilt- +edged... it must be exactly like the sample. Varnish, sealing wax, as in +Michael Ivanovich's list." + +He paced up and down for a while and glanced at his notes. + +"Then hand to the governor in person a letter about the deed." + +Next, bolts for the doors of the new building were wanted and had to be +of a special shape the prince had himself designed, and a leather case +had to be ordered to keep the "will" in. + +The instructions to Alpatych took over two hours and still the prince +did not let him go. He sat down, sank into thought, closed his eyes, and +dozed off. Alpatych made a slight movement. + +"Well, go, go! If anything more is wanted I'll send after you." + +Alpatych went out. The prince again went to his bureau, glanced into it, +fingered his papers, closed the bureau again, and sat down at the table +to write to the governor. + +It was already late when he rose after sealing the letter. He wished to +sleep, but he knew he would not be able to and that most depressing +thoughts came to him in bed. So he called Tikhon and went through the +rooms with him to show him where to set up the bed for that night. + +He went about looking at every corner. Every place seemed +unsatisfactory, but worst of all was his customary couch in the study. +That couch was dreadful to him, probably because of the oppressive +thoughts he had had when lying there. It was unsatisfactory everywhere, +but the corner behind the piano in the sitting room was better than +other places: he had never slept there yet. + +With the help of a footman Tikhon brought in the bedstead and began +putting it up. + +"That's not right! That's not right!" cried the prince, and himself +pushed it a few inches from the corner and then closer in again. + +"Well, at last I've finished, now I'll rest," thought the prince, and +let Tikhon undress him. + +Frowning with vexation at the effort necessary to divest himself of his +coat and trousers, the prince undressed, sat down heavily on the bed, +and appeared to be meditating as he looked contemptuously at his +withered yellow legs. He was not meditating, but only deferring the +moment of making the effort to lift those legs up and turn over on the +bed. "Ugh, how hard it is! Oh, that this toil might end and you would +release me!" thought he. Pressing his lips together he made that effort +for the twenty-thousandth time and lay down. But hardly had he done so +before he felt the bed rocking backwards and forwards beneath him as if +it were breathing heavily and jolting. This happened to him almost every +night. He opened his eyes as they were closing. + +"No peace, damn them!" he muttered, angry he knew not with whom. "Ah +yes, there was something else important, very important, that I was +keeping till I should be in bed. The bolts? No, I told him about them. +No, it was something, something in the drawing room. Princess Mary +talked some nonsense. Dessalles, that fool, said something. Something in +my pocket--can't remember..." + +"Tikhon, what did we talk about at dinner?" + +"About Prince Michael..." + +"Be quiet, quiet!" The prince slapped his hand on the table. "Yes, I +know, Prince Andrew's letter! Princess Mary read it. Dessalles said +something about Vitebsk. Now I'll read it." + +He had the letter taken from his pocket and the table--on which stood a +glass of lemonade and a spiral wax candle--moved close to the bed, and +putting on his spectacles he began reading. Only now in the stillness of +the night, reading it by the faint light under the green shade, did he +grasp its meaning for a moment. + +"The French at Vitebsk, in four days' march they may be at Smolensk; +perhaps are already there! Tikhon!" Tikhon jumped up. "No, no, I don't +want anything!" he shouted. + +He put the letter under the candlestick and closed his eyes. And there +rose before him the Danube at bright noonday: reeds, the Russian camp, +and himself a young general without a wrinkle on his ruddy face, +vigorous and alert, entering Potemkin's gaily colored tent, and a +burning sense of jealousy of "the favorite" agitated him now as strongly +as it had done then. He recalled all the words spoken at that first +meeting with Potemkin. And he saw before him a plump, rather sallow- +faced, short, stout woman, the Empress Mother, with her smile and her +words at her first gracious reception of him, and then that same face on +the catafalque, and the encounter he had with Zubov over her coffin +about his right to kiss her hand. + +"Oh, quicker, quicker! To get back to that time and have done with all +the present! Quicker, quicker--and that they should leave me in peace!" + + + + +CHAPTER IV + +Bald Hills, Prince Nicholas Bolkonski's estate, lay forty miles east +from Smolensk and two miles from the main road to Moscow. + +The same evening that the prince gave his instructions to Alpatych, +Dessalles, having asked to see Princess Mary, told her that, as the +prince was not very well and was taking no steps to secure his safety, +though from Prince Andrew's letter it was evident that to remain at Bald +Hills might be dangerous, he respectfully advised her to send a letter +by Alpatych to the Provincial Governor at Smolensk, asking him to let +her know the state of affairs and the extent of the danger to which Bald +Hills was exposed. Dessalles wrote this letter to the Governor for +Princess Mary, she signed it, and it was given to Alpatych with +instructions to hand it to the Governor and to come back as quickly as +possible if there was danger. + +Having received all his orders Alpatych, wearing a white beaver hat--a +present from the prince--and carrying a stick as the prince did, went +out accompanied by his family. Three well-fed roans stood ready +harnessed to a small conveyance with a leather hood. + +The larger bell was muffled and the little bells on the harness stuffed +with paper. The prince allowed no one at Bald Hills to drive with +ringing bells; but on a long journey Alpatych liked to have them. His +satellites--the senior clerk, a countinghouse clerk, a scullery maid, a +cook, two old women, a little pageboy, the coachman, and various +domestic serfs--were seeing him off. + +His daughter placed chintz-covered down cushions for him to sit on and +behind his back. His old sister-in-law popped in a small bundle, and one +of the coachmen helped him into the vehicle. + +"There! There! Women's fuss! Women, women!" said Alpatych, puffing and +speaking rapidly just as the prince did, and he climbed into the trap. + +After giving the clerk orders about the work to be done, Alpatych, not +trying to imitate the prince now, lifted the hat from his bald head and +crossed himself three times. + +"If there is anything... come back, Yakov Alpatych! For Christ's sake +think of us!" cried his wife, referring to the rumors of war and the +enemy. + +"Women, women! Women's fuss!" muttered Alpatych to himself and started +on his journey, looking round at the fields of yellow rye and the still- +green, thickly growing oats, and at other quite black fields just being +plowed a second time. + +As he went along he looked with pleasure at the year's splendid crop of +corn, scrutinized the strips of ryefield which here and there were +already being reaped, made his calculations as to the sowing and the +harvest, and asked himself whether he had not forgotten any of the +prince's orders. + +Having baited the horses twice on the way, he arrived at the town toward +evening on the fourth of August. + +Alpatych kept meeting and overtaking baggage trains and troops on the +road. As he approached Smolensk he heard the sounds of distant firing, +but these did not impress him. What struck him most was the sight of a +splendid field of oats in which a camp had been pitched and which was +being mown down by the soldiers, evidently for fodder. This fact +impressed Alpatych, but in thinking about his own business he soon +forgot it. + +All the interests of his life for more than thirty years had been +bounded by the will of the prince, and he never went beyond that limit. +Everything not connected with the execution of the prince's orders did +not interest and did not even exist for Alpatych. + +On reaching Smolensk on the evening of the fourth of August he put up in +the Gachina suburb across the Dnieper, at the inn kept by Ferapontov, +where he had been in the habit of putting up for the last thirty years. +Some thirty years ago Ferapontov, by Alpatych's advice, had bought a +wood from the prince, had begun to trade, and now had a house, an inn, +and a corn dealer's shop in that province. He was a stout, dark, red- +faced peasant in the forties, with thick lips, a broad knob of a nose, +similar knobs over his black frowning brows, and a round belly. + +Wearing a waistcoat over his cotton shirt, Ferapontov was standing +before his shop which opened onto the street. On seeing Alpatych he went +up to him. + +"You're welcome, Yakov Alpatych. Folks are leaving the town, but you +have come to it," said he. + +"Why are they leaving the town?" asked Alpatych. + +"That's what I say. Folks are foolish! Always afraid of the French." + +"Women's fuss, women's fuss!" said Alpatych. + +"Just what I think, Yakov Alpatych. What I say is: orders have been +given not to let them in, so that must be right. And the peasants are +asking three rubles for carting--it isn't Christian!" + +Yakov Alpatych heard without heeding. He asked for a samovar and for hay +for his horses, and when he had had his tea he went to bed. + +All night long troops were moving past the inn. Next morning Alpatych +donned a jacket he wore only in town and went out on business. It was a +sunny morning and by eight o'clock it was already hot. "A good day for +harvesting," thought Alpatych. + +From beyond the town firing had been heard since early morning. At eight +o'clock the booming of cannon was added to the sound of musketry. Many +people were hurrying through the streets and there were many soldiers, +but cabs were still driving about, tradesmen stood at their shops, and +service was being held in the churches as usual. Alpatych went to the +shops, to government offices, to the post office, and to the Governor's. +In the offices and shops and at the post office everyone was talking +about the army and about the enemy who was already attacking the town, +everybody was asking what should be done, and all were trying to calm +one another. + +In front of the Governor's house Alpatych found a large number of +people, Cossacks, and a traveling carriage of the Governor's. At the +porch he met two of the landed gentry, one of whom he knew. This man, an +ex-captain of police, was saying angrily: + +"It's no joke, you know! It's all very well if you're single. 'One man +though undone is but one,' as the proverb says, but with thirteen in +your family and all the property... They've brought us to utter ruin! +What sort of governors are they to do that? They ought to be hanged--the +brigands!..." + +"Oh come, that's enough!" said the other. + +"What do I care? Let him hear! We're not dogs," said the ex-captain of +police, and looking round he noticed Alpatych. + +"Oh, Yakov Alpatych! What have you come for?" + +"To see the Governor by his excellency's order," answered Alpatych, +lifting his head and proudly thrusting his hand into the bosom of his +coat as he always did when he mentioned the prince.... "He has ordered +me to inquire into the position of affairs," he added. + +"Yes, go and find out!" shouted the angry gentleman. "They've brought +things to such a pass that there are no carts or anything!... There it +is again, do you hear?" said he, pointing in the direction whence came +the sounds of firing. + +"They've brought us all to ruin... the brigands!" he repeated, and +descended the porch steps. + +Alpatych swayed his head and went upstairs. In the waiting room were +tradesmen, women, and officials, looking silently at one another. The +door of the Governor's room opened and they all rose and moved forward. +An official ran out, said some words to a merchant, called a stout +official with a cross hanging on his neck to follow him, and vanished +again, evidently wishing to avoid the inquiring looks and questions +addressed to him. Alpatych moved forward and next time the official came +out addressed him, one hand placed in the breast of his buttoned coat, +and handed him two letters. + +"To his Honor Baron Asch, from General-in-Chief Prince Bolkonski," he +announced with such solemnity and significance that the official turned +to him and took the letters. + +A few minutes later the Governor received Alpatych and hurriedly said to +him: + +"Inform the prince and princess that I knew nothing: I acted on the +highest instructions--here..." and he handed a paper to Alpatych. +"Still, as the prince is unwell my advice is that they should go to +Moscow. I am just starting myself. Inform them..." + +But the Governor did not finish: a dusty perspiring officer ran into the +room and began to say something in French. The Governor's face expressed +terror. + +"Go," he said, nodding his head to Alpatych, and began questioning the +officer. + +Eager, frightened, helpless glances were turned on Alpatych when he came +out of the Governor's room. Involuntarily listening now to the firing, +which had drawn nearer and was increasing in strength, Alpatych hurried +to his inn. The paper handed to him by the Governor said this: + +"I assure you that the town of Smolensk is not in the slightest danger +as yet and it is unlikely that it will be threatened with any. I from +the one side and Prince Bagration from the other are marching to unite +our forces before Smolensk, which junction will be effected on the 22nd +instant, and both armies with their united forces will defend our +compatriots of the province entrusted to your care till our efforts +shall have beaten back the enemies of our Fatherland, or till the last +warrior in our valiant ranks has perished. From this you will see that +you have a perfect right to reassure the inhabitants of Smolensk, for +those defended by two such brave armies may feel assured of victory." +(Instructions from Barclay de Tolly to Baron Asch, the civil governor of +Smolensk, 1812.) + +People were anxiously roaming about the streets. + +Carts piled high with household utensils, chairs, and cupboards kept +emerging from the gates of the yards and moving along the streets. +Loaded carts stood at the house next to Ferapontov's and women were +wailing and lamenting as they said good-by. A small watchdog ran round +barking in front of the harnessed horses. + +Alpatych entered the innyard at a quicker pace than usual and went +straight to the shed where his horses and trap were. The coachman was +asleep. He woke him up, told him to harness, and went into the passage. +From the host's room came the sounds of a child crying, the despairing +sobs of a woman, and the hoarse angry shouting of Ferapontov. The cook +began running hither and thither in the passage like a frightened hen, +just as Alpatych entered. + +"He's done her to death. Killed the mistress!... Beat her... dragged her +about so!..." + +"What for?" asked Alpatych. + +"She kept begging to go away. She's a woman! 'Take me away,' says she, +'don't let me perish with my little children! Folks,' she says, 'are all +gone, so why,' she says, 'don't we go?' And he began beating and pulling +her about so!" + +At these words Alpatych nodded as if in approval, and not wishing to +hear more went to the door of the room opposite the innkeeper's, where +he had left his purchases. + +"You brute, you murderer!" screamed a thin, pale woman who, with a baby +in her arms and her kerchief torn from her head, burst through the door +at that moment and down the steps into the yard. + +Ferapontov came out after her, but on seeing Alpatych adjusted his +waistcoat, smoothed his hair, yawned, and followed Alpatych into the +opposite room. + +"Going already?" said he. + +Alpatych, without answering or looking at his host, sorted his packages +and asked how much he owed. + +"We'll reckon up! Well, have you been to the Governor's?" asked +Ferapontov. "What has been decided?" + +Alpatych replied that the Governor had not told him anything definite. + +"With our business, how can we get away?" said Ferapontov. "We'd have to +pay seven rubles a cartload to Dorogobuzh and I tell them they're not +Christians to ask it! Selivanov, now, did a good stroke last Thursday-- +sold flour to the army at nine rubles a sack. Will you have some tea?" +he added. + +While the horses were being harnessed Alpatych and Ferapontov over their +tea talked of the price of corn, the crops, and the good weather for +harvesting. + +"Well, it seems to be getting quieter," remarked Ferapontov, finishing +his third cup of tea and getting up. "Ours must have got the best of it. +The orders were not to let them in. So we're in force, it seems.... They +say the other day Matthew Ivanych Platov drove them into the river +Marina and drowned some eighteen thousand in one day." + +Alpatych collected his parcels, handed them to the coachman who had come +in, and settled up with the innkeeper. The noise of wheels, hoofs, and +bells was heard from the gateway as a little trap passed out. + +It was by now late in the afternoon. Half the street was in shadow, the +other half brightly lit by the sun. Alpatych looked out of the window +and went to the door. Suddenly the strange sound of a far-off whistling +and thud was heard, followed by a boom of cannon blending into a dull +roar that set the windows rattling. + +He went out into the street: two men were running past toward the +bridge. From different sides came whistling sounds and the thud of +cannon balls and bursting shells falling on the town. But these sounds +were hardly heard in comparison with the noise of the firing outside the +town and attracted little attention from the inhabitants. The town was +being bombarded by a hundred and thirty guns which Napoleon had ordered +up after four o'clock. The people did not at once realize the meaning of +this bombardment. + +At first the noise of the falling bombs and shells only aroused +curiosity. Ferapontov's wife, who till then had not ceased wailing under +the shed, became quiet and with the baby in her arms went to the gate, +listening to the sounds and looking in silence at the people. + +The cook and a shop assistant came to the gate. With lively curiosity +everyone tried to get a glimpse of the projectiles as they flew over +their heads. Several people came round the corner talking eagerly. + +"What force!" remarked one. "Knocked the roof and ceiling all to +splinters!" + +"Routed up the earth like a pig," said another. + +"That's grand, it bucks one up!" laughed the first. "Lucky you jumped +aside, or it would have wiped you out!" + +Others joined those men and stopped and told how cannon balls had fallen +on a house close to them. Meanwhile still more projectiles, now with the +swift sinister whistle of a cannon ball, now with the agreeable +intermittent whistle of a shell, flew over people's heads incessantly, +but not one fell close by, they all flew over. Alpatych was getting into +his trap. The innkeeper stood at the gate. + +"What are you staring at?" he shouted to the cook, who in her red skirt, +with sleeves rolled up, swinging her bare elbows, had stepped to the +corner to listen to what was being said. + +"What marvels!" she exclaimed, but hearing her master's voice she turned +back, pulling down her tucked-up skirt. + +Once more something whistled, but this time quite close, swooping +downwards like a little bird; a flame flashed in the middle of the +street, something exploded, and the street was shrouded in smoke. + +"Scoundrel, what are you doing?" shouted the innkeeper, rushing to the +cook. + +At that moment the pitiful wailing of women was heard from different +sides, the frightened baby began to cry, and people crowded silently +with pale faces round the cook. The loudest sound in that crowd was her +wailing. + +"Oh-h-h! Dear souls, dear kind souls! Don't let me die! My good +souls!..." + +Five minutes later no one remained in the street. The cook, with her +thigh broken by a shell splinter, had been carried into the kitchen. +Alpatych, his coachman, Ferapontov's wife and children and the house +porter were all sitting in the cellar, listening. The roar of guns, the +whistling of projectiles, and the piteous moaning of the cook, which +rose above the other sounds, did not cease for a moment. The mistress +rocked and hushed her baby and when anyone came into the cellar asked in +a pathetic whisper what had become of her husband who had remained in +the street. A shopman who entered told her that her husband had gone +with others to the cathedral, whence they were fetching the wonder- +working icon of Smolensk. + +Toward dusk the cannonade began to subside. Alpatych left the cellar and +stopped in the doorway. The evening sky that had been so clear was +clouded with smoke, through which, high up, the sickle of the new moon +shone strangely. Now that the terrible din of the guns had ceased a hush +seemed to reign over the town, broken only by the rustle of footsteps, +the moaning, the distant cries, and the crackle of fires which seemed +widespread everywhere. The cook's moans had now subsided. On two sides +black curling clouds of smoke rose and spread from the fires. Through +the streets soldiers in various uniforms walked or ran confusedly in +different directions like ants from a ruined ant-hill. Several of them +ran into Ferapontov's yard before Alpatych's eyes. Alpatych went out to +the gate. A retreating regiment, thronging and hurrying, blocked the +street. + +Noticing him, an officer said: "The town is being abandoned. Get away, +get away!" and then, turning to the soldiers, shouted: + +"I'll teach you to run into the yards!" + +Alpatych went back to the house, called the coachman, and told him to +set off. Ferapontov's whole household came out too, following Alpatych +and the coachman. The women, who had been silent till then, suddenly +began to wail as they looked at the fires--the smoke and even the flames +of which could be seen in the failing twilight--and as if in reply the +same kind of lamentation was heard from other parts of the street. +Inside the shed Alpatych and the coachman arranged the tangled reins and +traces of their horses with trembling hands. + +As Alpatych was driving out of the gate he saw some ten soldiers in +Ferapontov's open shop, talking loudly and filling their bags and +knapsacks with flour and sunflower seeds. Just then Ferapontov returned +and entered his shop. On seeing the soldiers he was about to shout at +them, but suddenly stopped and, clutching at his hair, burst into sobs +and laughter: + +"Loot everything, lads! Don't let those devils get it!" he cried, taking +some bags of flour himself and throwing them into the street. + +Some of the soldiers were frightened and ran away, others went on +filling their bags. On seeing Alpatych, Ferapontov turned to him: + +"Russia is done for!" he cried. "Alpatych, I'll set the place on fire +myself. We're done for!..." and Ferapontov ran into the yard. + +Soldiers were passing in a constant stream along the street blocking it +completely, so that Alpatych could not pass out and had to wait. +Ferapontov's wife and children were also sitting in a cart waiting till +it was possible to drive out. + +Night had come. There were stars in the sky and the new moon shone out +amid the smoke that screened it. On the sloping descent to the Dnieper +Alpatych's cart and that of the innkeeper's wife, which were slowly +moving amid the rows of soldiers and of other vehicles, had to stop. In +a side street near the crossroads where the vehicles had stopped, a +house and some shops were on fire. This fire was already burning itself +out. The flames now died down and were lost in the black smoke, now +suddenly flared up again brightly, lighting up with strange distinctness +the faces of the people crowding at the crossroads. Black figures +flitted about before the fire, and through the incessant crackling of +the flames talking and shouting could be heard. Seeing that his trap +would not be able to move on for some time, Alpatych got down and turned +into the side street to look at the fire. Soldiers were continually +rushing backwards and forwards near it, and he saw two of them and a man +in a frieze coat dragging burning beams into another yard across the +street, while others carried bundles of hay. + +Alpatych went up to a large crowd standing before a high barn which was +blazing briskly. The walls were all on fire and the back wall had fallen +in, the wooden roof was collapsing, and the rafters were alight. The +crowd was evidently watching for the roof to fall in, and Alpatych +watched for it too. + +"Alpatych!" a familiar voice suddenly hailed the old man. + +"Mercy on us! Your excellency!" answered Alpatych, immediately +recognizing the voice of his young prince. + +Prince Andrew in his riding cloak, mounted on a black horse, was looking +at Alpatych from the back of the crowd. + +"Why are you here?" he asked. + +"Your... your excellency," stammered Alpatych and broke into sobs. "Are +we really lost? Master!..." + +"Why are you here?" Prince Andrew repeated. + +At that moment the flames flared up and showed his young master's pale +worn face. Alpatych told how he had been sent there and how difficult it +was to get away. + +"Are we really quite lost, your excellency?" he asked again. + +Prince Andrew without replying took out a notebook and raising his knee +began writing in pencil on a page he tore out. He wrote to his sister: + +"Smolensk is being abandoned. Bald Hills will be occupied by the enemy +within a week. Set off immediately for Moscow. Let me know at once when +you will start. Send by special messenger to Usvyazh." + +Having written this and given the paper to Alpatych, he told him how to +arrange for departure of the prince, the princess, his son, and the +boy's tutor, and how and where to let him know immediately. Before he +had had time to finish giving these instructions, a chief of staff +followed by a suite galloped up to him. + +"You are a colonel?" shouted the chief of staff with a German accent, in +a voice familiar to Prince Andrew. "Houses are set on fire in your +presence and you stand by! What does this mean? You will answer for it!" +shouted Berg, who was now assistant to the chief of staff of the +commander of the left flank of the infantry of the first army, a place, +as Berg said, "very agreeable and well en evidence." + +Prince Andrew looked at him and without replying went on speaking to +Alpatych. + +"So tell them that I shall await a reply till the tenth, and if by the +tenth I don't receive news that they have all got away I shall have to +throw up everything and come myself to Bald Hills." + +"Prince," said Berg, recognizing Prince Andrew, "I only spoke because I +have to obey orders, because I always do obey exactly.... You must +please excuse me," he went on apologetically. + +Something cracked in the flames. The fire died down for a moment and +wreaths of black smoke rolled from under the roof. There was another +terrible crash and something huge collapsed. + +"Ou-rou-rou!" yelled the crowd, echoing the crash of the collapsing roof +of the barn, the burning grain in which diffused a cakelike aroma all +around. The flames flared up again, lighting the animated, delighted, +exhausted faces of the spectators. + +The man in the frieze coat raised his arms and shouted: + +"It's fine, lads! Now it's raging... It's fine!" + +"That's the owner himself," cried several voices. + +"Well then," continued Prince Andrew to Alpatych, "report to them as I +have told you"; and not replying a word to Berg who was now mute beside +him, he touched his horse and rode down the side street. + + + + +CHAPTER V + +From Smolensk the troops continued to retreat, followed by the enemy. On +the tenth of August the regiment Prince Andrew commanded was marching +along the highroad past the avenue leading to Bald Hills. Heat and +drought had continued for more than three weeks. Each day fleecy clouds +floated across the sky and occasionally veiled the sun, but toward +evening the sky cleared again and the sun set in reddish-brown mist. +Heavy night dews alone refreshed the earth. The unreaped corn was +scorched and shed its grain. The marshes dried up. The cattle lowed from +hunger, finding no food on the sun-parched meadows. Only at night and in +the forests while the dew lasted was there any freshness. But on the +road, the highroad along which the troops marched, there was no such +freshness even at night or when the road passed through the forest; the +dew was imperceptible on the sandy dust churned up more than six inches +deep. As soon as day dawned the march began. The artillery and baggage +wagons moved noiselessly through the deep dust that rose to the very +hubs of the wheels, and the infantry sank ankle-deep in that soft, +choking, hot dust that never cooled even at night. Some of this dust was +kneaded by the feet and wheels, while the rest rose and hung like a +cloud over the troops, settling in eyes, ears, hair, and nostrils, and +worst of all in the lungs of the men and beasts as they moved along that +road. The higher the sun rose the higher rose that cloud of dust, and +through the screen of its hot fine particles one could look with naked +eye at the sun, which showed like a huge crimson ball in the unclouded +sky. There was no wind, and the men choked in that motionless +atmosphere. They marched with handkerchiefs tied over their noses and +mouths. When they passed through a village they all rushed to the wells +and fought for the water and drank it down to the mud. + +Prince Andrew was in command of a regiment, and the management of that +regiment, the welfare of the men and the necessity of receiving and +giving orders, engrossed him. The burning of Smolensk and its +abandonment made an epoch in his life. A novel feeling of anger against +the foe made him forget his own sorrow. He was entirely devoted to the +affairs of his regiment and was considerate and kind to his men and +officers. In the regiment they called him "our prince," were proud of +him and loved him. But he was kind and gentle only to those of his +regiment, to Timokhin and the like--people quite new to him, belonging +to a different world and who could not know and understand his past. As +soon as he came across a former acquaintance or anyone from the staff, +he bristled up immediately and grew spiteful, ironical, and +contemptuous. Everything that reminded him of his past was repugnant to +him, and so in his relations with that former circle he confined himself +to trying to do his duty and not to be unfair. + +In truth everything presented itself in a dark and gloomy light to +Prince Andrew, especially after the abandonment of Smolensk on the sixth +of August (he considered that it could and should have been defended) +and after his sick father had had to flee to Moscow, abandoning to +pillage his dearly beloved Bald Hills which he had built and peopled. +But despite this, thanks to his regiment, Prince Andrew had something to +think about entirely apart from general questions. Two days previously +he had received news that his father, son, and sister had left for +Moscow; and though there was nothing for him to do at Bald Hills, Prince +Andrew with a characteristic desire to foment his own grief decided that +he must ride there. + +He ordered his horse to be saddled and, leaving his regiment on the +march, rode to his father's estate where he had been born and spent his +childhood. Riding past the pond where there used always to be dozens of +women chattering as they rinsed their linen or beat it with wooden +beetles, Prince Andrew noticed that there was not a soul about and that +the little washing wharf, torn from its place and half submerged, was +floating on its side in the middle of the pond. He rode to the keeper's +lodge. No one at the stone entrance gates of the drive and the door +stood open. Grass had already begun to grow on the garden paths, and +horses and calves were straying in the English park. Prince Andrew rode +up to the hothouse; some of the glass panes were broken, and of the +trees in tubs some were overturned and others dried up. He called for +Taras the gardener, but no one replied. Having gone round the corner of +the hothouse to the ornamental garden, he saw that the carved garden +fence was broken and branches of the plum trees had been torn off with +the fruit. An old peasant whom Prince Andrew in his childhood had often +seen at the gate was sitting on a green garden seat, plaiting a bast +shoe. + +He was deaf and did not hear Prince Andrew ride up. He was sitting on +the seat the old prince used to like to sit on, and beside him strips of +bast were hanging on the broken and withered branch of a magnolia. + +Prince Andrew rode up to the house. Several limes in the old garden had +been cut down and a piebald mare and her foal were wandering in front of +the house among the rosebushes. The shutters were all closed, except at +one window which was open. A little serf boy, seeing Prince Andrew, ran +into the house. Alpatych, having sent his family away, was alone at Bald +Hills and was sitting indoors reading the Lives of the Saints. On +hearing that Prince Andrew had come, he went out with his spectacles on +his nose, buttoning his coat, and, hastily stepping up, without a word +began weeping and kissing Prince Andrew's knee. + +Then, vexed at his own weakness, he turned away and began to report on +the position of affairs. Everything precious and valuable had been +removed to Bogucharovo. Seventy quarters of grain had also been carted +away. The hay and the spring corn, of which Alpatych said there had been +a remarkable crop that year, had been commandeered by the troops and +mown down while still green. The peasants were ruined; some of them too +had gone to Bogucharovo, only a few remained. + +Without waiting to hear him out, Prince Andrew asked: + +"When did my father and sister leave?" meaning when did they leave for +Moscow. + +Alpatych, understanding the question to refer to their departure for +Bogucharovo, replied that they had left on the seventh and again went +into details concerning the estate management, asking for instructions. + +"Am I to let the troops have the oats, and to take a receipt for them? +We have still six hundred quarters left," he inquired. + +"What am I to say to him?" thought Prince Andrew, looking down on the +old man's bald head shining in the sun and seeing by the expression on +his face that the old man himself understood how untimely such questions +were and only asked them to allay his grief. + +"Yes, let them have it," replied Prince Andrew. + +"If you noticed some disorder in the garden," said Alpatych, "it was +impossible to prevent it. Three regiments have been here and spent the +night, dragoons mostly. I took down the name and rank of their +commanding officer, to hand in a complaint about it." + +"Well, and what are you going to do? Will you stay here if the enemy +occupies the place?" asked Prince Andrew. + +Alpatych turned his face to Prince Andrew, looked at him, and suddenly +with a solemn gesture raised his arm. + +"He is my refuge! His will be done!" he exclaimed. + +A group of bareheaded peasants was approaching across the meadow toward +the prince. + +"Well, good-by!" said Prince Andrew, bending over to Alpatych. "You must +go away too, take away what you can and tell the serfs to go to the +Ryazan estate or to the one near Moscow." + +Alpatych clung to Prince Andrew's leg and burst into sobs. Gently +disengaging himself, the prince spurred his horse and rode down the +avenue at a gallop. + +The old man was still sitting in the ornamental garden, like a fly +impassive on the face of a loved one who is dead, tapping the last on +which he was making the bast shoe, and two little girls, running out +from the hot house carrying in their skirts plums they had plucked from +the trees there, came upon Prince Andrew. On seeing the young master, +the elder one with frightened look clutched her younger companion by the +hand and hid with her behind a birch tree, not stopping to pick up some +green plums they had dropped. + +Prince Andrew turned away with startled haste, unwilling to let them see +that they had been observed. He was sorry for the pretty frightened +little girl, was afraid of looking at her, and yet felt an irresistible +desire to do so. A new sensation of comfort and relief came over him +when, seeing these girls, he realized the existence of other human +interests entirely aloof from his own and just as legitimate as those +that occupied him. Evidently these girls passionately desired one thing- +-to carry away and eat those green plums without being caught--and +Prince Andrew shared their wish for the success of their enterprise. He +could not resist looking at them once more. Believing their danger past, +they sprang from their ambush and, chirruping something in their shrill +little voices and holding up their skirts, their bare little sunburned +feet scampered merrily and quickly across the meadow grass. + +Prince Andrew was somewhat refreshed by having ridden off the dusty +highroad along which the troops were moving. But not far from Bald Hills +he again came out on the road and overtook his regiment at its halting +place by the dam of a small pond. It was past one o'clock. The sun, a +red ball through the dust, burned and scorched his back intolerably +through his black coat. The dust always hung motionless above the buzz +of talk that came from the resting troops. There was no wind. As he +crossed the dam Prince Andrew smelled the ooze and freshness of the +pond. He longed to get into that water, however dirty it might be, and +he glanced round at the pool from whence came sounds of shrieks and +laughter. The small, muddy, green pond had risen visibly more than a +foot, flooding the dam, because it was full of the naked white bodies of +soldiers with brick-red hands, necks, and faces, who were splashing +about in it. All this naked white human flesh, laughing and shrieking, +floundered about in that dirty pool like carp stuffed into a watering +can, and the suggestion of merriment in that floundering mass rendered +it specially pathetic. + +One fair-haired young soldier of the third company, whom Prince Andrew +knew and who had a strap round the calf of one leg, crossed himself, +stepped back to get a good run, and plunged into the water; another, a +dark noncommissioned officer who was always shaggy, stood up to his +waist in the water joyfully wriggling his muscular figure and snorted +with satisfaction as he poured the water over his head with hands +blackened to the wrists. There were sounds of men slapping one another, +yelling, and puffing. + +Everywhere on the bank, on the dam, and in the pond, there was healthy, +white, muscular flesh. The officer, Timokhin, with his red little nose, +standing on the dam wiping himself with a towel, felt confused at seeing +the prince, but made up his mind to address him nevertheless. + +"It's very nice, your excellency! Wouldn't you like to?" said he. + +"It's dirty," replied Prince Andrew, making a grimace. + +"We'll clear it out for you in a minute," said Timokhin, and, still +undressed, ran off to clear the men out of the pond. + +"The prince wants to bathe." + +"What prince? Ours?" said many voices, and the men were in such haste to +clear out that the prince could hardly stop them. He decided that he +would rather wash himself with water in the barn. + +"Flesh, bodies, cannon fodder!" he thought, and he looked at his own +naked body and shuddered, not from cold but from a sense of disgust and +horror he did not himself understand, aroused by the sight of that +immense number of bodies splashing about in the dirty pond. + +On the seventh of August Prince Bagration wrote as follows from his +quarters at Mikhaylovna on the Smolensk road: + +Dear Count Alexis Andreevich--(He was writing to Arakcheev but knew that +his letter would be read by the Emperor, and therefore weighed every +word in it to the best of his ability.) + +I expect the Minister (Barclay de Tolly) has already reported the +abandonment of Smolensk to the enemy. It is pitiable and sad, and the +whole army is in despair that this most important place has been +wantonly abandoned. I, for my part, begged him personally most urgently +and finally wrote him, but nothing would induce him to consent. I swear +to you on my honor that Napoleon was in such a fix as never before and +might have lost half his army but could not have taken Smolensk. Our +troops fought, and are fighting, as never before. With fifteen thousand +men I held the enemy at bay for thirty-five hours and beat him; but he +would not hold out even for fourteen hours. It is disgraceful, a stain +on our army, and as for him, he ought, it seems to me, not to live. If +he reports that our losses were great, it is not true; perhaps about +four thousand, not more, and not even that; but even were they ten +thousand, that's war! But the enemy has lost masses... + +What would it have cost him to hold out for another two days? They would +have had to retire of their own accord, for they had no water for men or +horses. He gave me his word he would not retreat, but suddenly sent +instructions that he was retiring that night. We cannot fight in this +way, or we may soon bring the enemy to Moscow... + +There is a rumor that you are thinking of peace. God forbid that you +should make peace after all our sacrifices and such insane retreats! You +would set all Russia against you and every one of us would feel ashamed +to wear the uniform. If it has come to this--we must fight as long as +Russia can and as long as there are men able to stand... + +One man ought to be in command, and not two. Your Minister may perhaps +be good as a Minister, but as a general he is not merely bad but +execrable, yet to him is entrusted the fate of our whole country.... I +am really frantic with vexation; forgive my writing boldly. It is clear +that the man who advocates the conclusion of a peace, and that the +Minister should command the army, does not love our sovereign and +desires the ruin of us all. So I write you frankly: call out the +militia. For the Minister is leading these visitors after him to Moscow +in a most masterly way. The whole army feels great suspicion of the +Imperial aide-de-camp Wolzogen. He is said to be more Napoleon's man +than ours, and he is always advising the Minister. I am not merely civil +to him but obey him like a corporal, though I am his senior. This is +painful, but, loving my benefactor and sovereign, I submit. Only I am +sorry for the Emperor that he entrusts our fine army to such as he. +Consider that on our retreat we have lost by fatigue and left in the +hospital more than fifteen thousand men, and had we attacked this would +not have happened. Tell me, for God's sake, what will Russia, our mother +Russia, say to our being so frightened, and why are we abandoning our +good and gallant Fatherland to such rabble and implanting feelings of +hatred and shame in all our subjects? What are we scared at and of whom +are we afraid? I am not to blame that the Minister is vacillating, a +coward, dense, dilatory, and has all bad qualities. The whole army +bewails it and calls down curses upon him... + + + + +CHAPTER VI + +Among the innumerable categories applicable to the phenomena of human +life one may discriminate between those in which substance prevails and +those in which form prevails. To the latter--as distinguished from +village, country, provincial, or even Moscow life--we may allot +Petersburg life, and especially the life of its salons. That life of the +salons is unchanging. Since the year 1805 we had made peace and had +again quarreled with Bonaparte and had made constitutions and unmade +them again, but the salons of Anna Pavlovna and Helene remained just as +they had been--the one seven and the other five years before. At Anna +Pavlovna's they talked with perplexity of Bonaparte's successes just as +before and saw in them and in the subservience shown to him by the +European sovereigns a malicious conspiracy, the sole object of which was +to cause unpleasantness and anxiety to the court circle of which Anna +Pavlovna was the representative. And in Helene's salon, which Rumyantsev +himself honored with his visits, regarding Helene as a remarkably +intelligent woman, they talked with the same ecstasy in 1812 as in 1808 +of the "great nation" and the "great man," and regretted our rupture +with France, a rupture which, according to them, ought to be promptly +terminated by peace. + +Of late, since the Emperor's return from the army, there had been some +excitement in these conflicting salon circles and some demonstrations of +hostility to one another, but each camp retained its own tendency. In +Anna Pavlovna's circle only those Frenchmen were admitted who were deep- +rooted legitimists, and patriotic views were expressed to the effect +that one ought not to go to the French theater and that to maintain the +French troupe was costing the government as much as a whole army corps. +The progress of the war was eagerly followed, and only the reports most +flattering to our army were circulated. In the French circle of Helene +and Rumyantsev the reports of the cruelty of the enemy and of the war +were contradicted and all Napoleon's attempts at conciliation were +discussed. In that circle they discountenanced those who advised hurried +preparations for a removal to Kazan of the court and the girls' +educational establishments under the patronage of the Dowager Empress. +In Helene's circle the war in general was regarded as a series of formal +demonstrations which would very soon end in peace, and the view +prevailed expressed by Bilibin--who now in Petersburg was quite at home +in Helene's house, which every clever man was obliged to visit--that not +by gunpowder but by those who invented it would matters be settled. In +that circle the Moscow enthusiasm--news of which had reached Petersburg +simultaneously with the Emperor's return--was ridiculed sarcastically +and very cleverly, though with much caution. + +Anna Pavlovna's circle on the contrary was enraptured by this enthusiasm +and spoke of it as Plutarch speaks of the deeds of the ancients. Prince +Vasili, who still occupied his former important posts, formed a +connecting link between these two circles. He visited his "good friend +Anna Pavlovna" as well as his daughter's "diplomatic salon," and often +in his constant comings and goings between the two camps became confused +and said at Helene's what he should have said at Anna Pavlovna's and +vice versa. + +Soon after the Emperor's return Prince Vasili in a conversation about +the war at Anna Pavlovna's severely condemned Barclay de Tolly, but was +undecided as to who ought to be appointed commander-in-chief. One of the +visitors, usually spoken of as "a man of great merit," having described +how he had that day seen Kutuzov, the newly chosen chief of the +Petersburg militia, presiding over the enrollment of recruits at the +Treasury, cautiously ventured to suggest that Kutuzov would be the man +to satisfy all requirements. + +Anna Pavlovna remarked with a melancholy smile that Kutuzov had done +nothing but cause the Emperor annoyance. + +"I have talked and talked at the Assembly of the Nobility," Prince +Vasili interrupted, "but they did not listen to me. I told them his +election as chief of the militia would not please the Emperor. They did +not listen to me. + +"It's all this mania for opposition," he went on. "And who for? It is +all because we want to ape the foolish enthusiasm of those Muscovites," +Prince Vasili continued, forgetting for a moment that though at Helene's +one had to ridicule the Moscow enthusiasm, at Anna Pavlovna's one had to +be ecstatic about it. But he retrieved his mistake at once. "Now, is it +suitable that Count Kutuzov, the oldest general in Russia, should +preside at that tribunal? He will get nothing for his pains! How could +they make a man commander-in-chief who cannot mount a horse, who drops +asleep at a council, and has the very worst morals! A good reputation he +made for himself at Bucharest! I don't speak of his capacity as a +general, but at a time like this how they appoint a decrepit, blind old +man, positively blind? A fine idea to have a blind general! He can't see +anything. To play blindman's bluff? He can't see at all!" + +No one replied to his remarks. + +This was quite correct on the twenty-fourth of July. But on the twenty- +ninth of July Kutuzov received the title of Prince. This might indicate +a wish to get rid of him, and therefore Prince Vasili's opinion +continued to be correct though he was not now in any hurry to express +it. But on the eighth of August a committee, consisting of Field Marshal +Saltykov, Arakcheev, Vyazmitinov, Lopukhin, and Kochubey met to consider +the progress of the war. This committee came to the conclusion that our +failures were due to a want of unity in the command and though the +members of the committee were aware of the Emperor's dislike of Kutuzov, +after a short deliberation they agreed to advise his appointment as +commander in chief. That same day Kutuzov was appointed commander-in- +chief with full powers over the armies and over the whole region +occupied by them. + +On the ninth of August Prince Vasili at Anna Pavlovna's again met the +"man of great merit." The latter was very attentive to Anna Pavlovna +because he wanted to be appointed director of one of the educational +establishments for young ladies. Prince Vasili entered the room with the +air of a happy conqueror who has attained the object of his desires. + +"Well, have you heard the great news? Prince Kutuzov is field marshal! +All dissensions are at an end! I am so glad, so delighted! At last we +have a man!" said he, glancing sternly and significantly round at +everyone in the drawing room. + +The "man of great merit," despite his desire to obtain the post of +director, could not refrain from reminding Prince Vasili of his former +opinion. Though this was impolite to Prince Vasili in Anna Pavlovna's +drawing room, and also to Anna Pavlovna herself who had received the +news with delight, he could not resist the temptation. + +"But, Prince, they say he is blind!" said he, reminding Prince Vasili of +his own words. + +"Eh? Nonsense! He sees well enough," said Prince Vasili rapidly, in a +deep voice and with a slight cough--the voice and cough with which he +was wont to dispose of all difficulties. + +"He sees well enough," he added. "And what I am so pleased about," he +went on, "is that our sovereign has given him full powers over all the +armies and the whole region--powers no commander-in-chief ever had +before. He is a second autocrat," he concluded with a victorious smile. + +"God grant it! God grant it!" said Anna Pavlovna. + +The "man of great merit," who was still a novice in court circles, +wishing to flatter Anna Pavlovna by defending her former position on +this question, observed: + +"It is said that the Emperor was reluctant to give Kutuzov those powers. +They say he blushed like a girl to whom Joconde is read, when he said to +Kutuzov: 'Your Emperor and the Fatherland award you this honor.'" + +"Perhaps the heart took no part in that speech," said Anna Pavlovna. + +"Oh, no, no!" warmly rejoined Prince Vasili, who would not now yield +Kutuzov to anyone; in his opinion Kutuzov was not only admirable +himself, but was adored by everybody. "No, that's impossible," said he, +"for our sovereign appreciated him so highly before." + +"God grant only that Prince Kutuzov assumes real power and does not +allow anyone to put a spoke in his wheel," observed Anna Pavlovna. + +Understanding at once to whom she alluded, Prince Vasili said in a +whisper: + +"I know for a fact that Kutuzov made it an absolute condition that the +Tsarevich should not be with the army. Do you know what he said to the +Emperor?" + +And Prince Vasili repeated the words supposed to have been spoken by +Kutuzov to the Emperor. "I can neither punish him if he does wrong nor +reward him if he does right." + +"Oh, a very wise man is Prince Kutuzov! I have known him a long time!" + +"They even say," remarked the "man of great merit" who did not yet +possess courtly tact, "that his excellency made it an express condition +that the sovereign himself should not be with the army." + +As soon as he said this both Prince Vasili and Anna Pavlovna turned away +from him and glanced sadly at one another with a sigh at his naivete. + + + + +CHAPTER VII + +While this was taking place in Petersburg the French had already passed +Smolensk and were drawing nearer and nearer to Moscow. Napoleon's +historian Thiers, like other of his historians, trying to justify his +hero says that he was drawn to the walls of Moscow against his will. He +is as right as other historians who look for the explanation of historic +events in the will of one man; he is as right as the Russian historians +who maintain that Napoleon was drawn to Moscow by the skill of the +Russian commanders. Here besides the law of retrospection, which regards +all the past as a preparation for events that subsequently occur, the +law of reciprocity comes in, confusing the whole matter. A good +chessplayer having lost a game is sincerely convinced that his loss +resulted from a mistake he made and looks for that mistake in the +opening, but forgets that at each stage of the game there were similar +mistakes and that none of his moves were perfect. He only notices the +mistake to which he pays attention, because his opponent took advantage +of it. How much more complex than this is the game of war, which occurs +under certain limits of time, and where it is not one will that +manipulates lifeless objects, but everything results from innumerable +conflicts of various wills! + +After Smolensk Napoleon sought a battle beyond Dorogobuzh at Vyazma, and +then at Tsarevo-Zaymishche, but it happened that owing to a conjunction +of innumerable circumstances the Russians could not give battle till +they reached Borodino, seventy miles from Moscow. From Vyazma Napoleon +ordered a direct advance on Moscow. + +Moscou, la capitale asiatique de ce grand empire, la ville sacree des +peuples d'Alexandre, Moscou avec ses innombrables eglises en forme de +pagodes chinoises, * this Moscow gave Napoleon's imagination no rest. On +the march from Vyazma to Tsarevo-Zaymishche he rode his light bay +bobtailed ambler accompanied by his Guards, his bodyguard, his pages, +and aides-de-camp. Berthier, his chief of staff, dropped behind to +question a Russian prisoner captured by the cavalry. Followed by +Lelorgne d'Ideville, an interpreter, he overtook Napoleon at a gallop +and reined in his horse with an amused expression. + + +* "Moscow, the Asiatic capital of this great empire, the sacred city of +Alexander's people, Moscow with its innumerable churches shaped like +Chinese pagodas." + +"Well?" asked Napoleon. + +"One of Platov's Cossacks says that Platov's corps is joining up with +the main army and that Kutuzov has been appointed commander-in-chief. He +is a very shrewd and garrulous fellow." + +Napoleon smiled and told them to give the Cossack a horse and bring the +man to him. He wished to talk to him himself. Several adjutants galloped +off, and an hour later, Lavrushka, the serf Denisov had handed over to +Rostov, rode up to Napoleon in an orderly's jacket and on a French +cavalry saddle, with a merry, and tipsy face. Napoleon told him to ride +by his side and began questioning him. + +"You are a Cossack?" + +"Yes, a Cossack, your Honor." + +"The Cossack, not knowing in what company he was, for Napoleon's plain +appearance had nothing about it that would reveal to an Oriental mind +the presence of a monarch, talked with extreme familiarity of the +incidents of the war," says Thiers, narrating this episode. In reality +Lavrushka, having got drunk the day before and left his master +dinnerless, had been whipped and sent to the village in quest of +chickens, where he engaged in looting till the French took him prisoner. +Lavrushka was one of those coarse, bare-faced lackeys who have seen all +sorts of things, consider it necessary to do everything in a mean and +cunning way, are ready to render any sort of service to their master, +and are keen at guessing their master's baser impulses, especially those +prompted by vanity and pettiness. + +Finding himself in the company of Napoleon, whose identity he had easily +and surely recognized, Lavrushka was not in the least abashed but merely +did his utmost to gain his new master's favor. + +He knew very well that this was Napoleon, but Napoleon's presence could +no more intimidate him than Rostov's, or a sergeant major's with the +rods, would have done, for he had nothing that either the sergeant major +or Napoleon could deprive him of. + +So he rattled on, telling all the gossip he had heard among the +orderlies. Much of it true. But when Napoleon asked him whether the +Russians thought they would beat Bonaparte or not, Lavrushka screwed up +his eyes and considered. + +In this question he saw subtle cunning, as men of his type see cunning +in everything, so he frowned and did not answer immediately. + +"It's like this," he said thoughtfully, "if there's a battle soon, yours +will win. That's right. But if three days pass, then after that, well, +then that same battle will not soon be over." + +Lelorgne d'Ideville smilingly interpreted this speech to Napoleon thus: +"If a battle takes place within the next three days the French will win, +but if later, God knows what will happen." Napoleon did not smile, +though he was evidently in high good humor, and he ordered these words +to be repeated. + +Lavrushka noticed this and to entertain him further, pretending not to +know who Napoleon was, added: + +"We know that you have Bonaparte and that he has beaten everybody in the +world, but we are a different matter..."--without knowing why or how +this bit of boastful patriotism slipped out at the end. + +The interpreter translated these words without the last phrase, and +Bonaparte smiled. "The young Cossack made his mighty interlocutor +smile," says Thiers. After riding a few paces in silence, Napoleon +turned to Berthier and said he wished to see how the news that he was +talking to the Emperor himself, to that very Emperor who had written his +immortally victorious name on the Pyramids, would affect this enfant du +Don. * + + +* "Child of the Don." + +The fact was accordingly conveyed to Lavrushka. + +Lavrushka, understanding that this was done to perplex him and that +Napoleon expected him to be frightened, to gratify his new masters +promptly pretended to be astonished and awe-struck, opened his eyes +wide, and assumed the expression he usually put on when taken to be +whipped. "As soon as Napoleon's interpreter had spoken," says Thiers, +"the Cossack, seized by amazement, did not utter another word, but rode +on, his eyes fixed on the conqueror whose fame had reached him across +the steppes of the East. All his loquacity was suddenly arrested and +replaced by a naive and silent feeling of admiration. Napoleon, after +making the Cossack a present, had him set free like a bird restored to +its native fields." + +Napoleon rode on, dreaming of the Moscow that so appealed to his +imagination, and "the bird restored to its native fields" galloped to +our outposts, inventing on the way all that had not taken place but that +he meant to relate to his comrades. What had really taken place he did +not wish to relate because it seemed to him not worth telling. He found +the Cossacks, inquired for the regiment operating with Platov's +detachment and by evening found his master, Nicholas Rostov, quartered +at Yankovo. Rostov was just mounting to go for a ride round the +neighboring villages with Ilyin; he let Lavrushka have another horse and +took him along with him. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII + +Princess Mary was not in Moscow and out of danger as Prince Andrew +supposed. + +After the return of Alpatych from Smolensk the old prince suddenly +seemed to awake as from a dream. He ordered the militiamen to be called +up from the villages and armed, and wrote a letter to the commander-in- +chief informing him that he had resolved to remain at Bald Hills to the +last extremity and to defend it, leaving to the commander-in-chief's +discretion to take measures or not for the defense of Bald Hills, where +one of Russia's oldest generals would be captured or killed, and he +announced to his household that he would remain at Bald Hills. + +But while himself remaining, he gave instructions for the departure of +the princess and Dessalles with the little prince to Bogucharovo and +thence to Moscow. Princess Mary, alarmed by her father's feverish and +sleepless activity after his previous apathy, could not bring herself to +leave him alone and for the first time in her life ventured to disobey +him. She refused to go away and her father's fury broke over her in a +terrible storm. He repeated every injustice he had ever inflicted on +her. Trying to convict her, he told her she had worn him out, had caused +his quarrel with his son, had harbored nasty suspicions of him, making +it the object of her life to poison his existence, and he drove her from +his study telling her that if she did not go away it was all the same to +him. He declared that he did not wish to remember her existence and +warned her not to dare to let him see her. The fact that he did not, as +she had feared, order her to be carried away by force but only told her +not to let him see her cheered Princess Mary. She knew it was a proof +that in the depth of his soul he was glad she was remaining at home and +had not gone away. + +The morning after little Nicholas had left, the old prince donned his +full uniform and prepared to visit the commander-in-chief. His caleche +was already at the door. Princess Mary saw him walk out of the house in +his uniform wearing all his orders and go down the garden to review his +armed peasants and domestic serfs. She sat by the window listening to +his voice which reached her from the garden. Suddenly several men came +running up the avenue with frightened faces. + +Princess Mary ran out to the porch, down the flower-bordered path, and +into the avenue. A large crowd of militiamen and domestics were moving +toward her, and in their midst several men were supporting by the +armpits and dragging along a little old man in a uniform and +decorations. She ran up to him and, in the play of the sunlight that +fell in small round spots through the shade of the lime-tree avenue, +could not be sure what change there was in his face. All she could see +was that his former stern and determined expression had altered to one +of timidity and submission. On seeing his daughter he moved his helpless +lips and made a hoarse sound. It was impossible to make out what he +wanted. He was lifted up, carried to his study, and laid on the very +couch he had so feared of late. + +The doctor, who was fetched that same night, bled him and said that the +prince had had a seizure paralyzing his right side. + +It was becoming more and more dangerous to remain at Bald Hills, and +next day they moved the prince to Bogucharovo, the doctor accompanying +him. + +By the time they reached Bogucharovo, Dessalles and the little prince +had already left for Moscow. + +For three weeks the old prince lay stricken by paralysis in the new +house Prince Andrew had built at Bogucharovo, ever in the same state, +getting neither better nor worse. He was unconscious and lay like a +distorted corpse. He muttered unceasingly, his eyebrows and lips +twitching, and it was impossible to tell whether he understood what was +going on around him or not. One thing was certain--that he was suffering +and wished to say something. But what it was, no one could tell: it +might be some caprice of a sick and half-crazy man, or it might relate +to public affairs, or possibly to family concerns. + +The doctor said this restlessness did not mean anything and was due to +physical causes; but Princess Mary thought he wished to tell her +something, and the fact that her presence always increased his +restlessness confirmed her opinion. + +He was evidently suffering both physically and mentally. There was no +hope of recovery. It was impossible for him to travel, it would not do +to let him die on the road. "Would it not be better if the end did come, +the very end?" Princess Mary sometimes thought. Night and day, hardly +sleeping at all, she watched him and, terrible to say, often watched him +not with hope of finding signs of improvement but wishing to find +symptoms of the approach of the end. + +Strange as it was to her to acknowledge this feeling in herself, yet +there it was. And what seemed still more terrible to her was that since +her father's illness began (perhaps even sooner, when she stayed with +him expecting something to happen), all the personal desires and hopes +that had been forgotten or sleeping within her had awakened. Thoughts +that had not entered her mind for years--thoughts of a life free from +the fear of her father, and even the possibility of love and of family +happiness--floated continually in her imagination like temptations of +the devil. Thrust them aside as she would, questions continually +recurred to her as to how she would order her life now, after that. +These were temptations of the devil and Princess Mary knew it. She knew +that the sole weapon against him was prayer, and she tried to pray. She +assumed an attitude of prayer, looked at the icons, repeated the words +of a prayer, but she could not pray. She felt that a different world had +now taken possession of her--the life of a world of strenuous and free +activity, quite opposed to the spiritual world in which till now she had +been confined and in which her greatest comfort had been prayer. She +could not pray, could not weep, and worldly cares took possession of +her. + +It was becoming dangerous to remain in Bogucharovo. News of the approach +of the French came from all sides, and in one village, ten miles from +Bogucharovo, a homestead had been looted by French marauders. + +The doctor insisted on the necessity of moving the prince; the +provincial Marshal of the Nobility sent an official to Princess Mary to +persuade her to get away as quickly as possible, and the head of the +rural police having come to Bogucharovo urged the same thing, saying +that the French were only some twenty-five miles away, that French +proclamations were circulating in the villages, and that if the princess +did not take her father away before the fifteenth, he could not answer +for the consequences. + +The princess decided to leave on the fifteenth. The cares of preparation +and giving orders, for which everyone came to her, occupied her all day. +She spent the night of the fourteenth as usual, without undressing, in +the room next to the one where the prince lay. Several times, waking up, +she heard his groans and muttering, the creak of his bed, and the steps +of Tikhon and the doctor when they turned him over. Several times she +listened at the door, and it seemed to her that his mutterings were +louder than usual and that they turned him over oftener. She could not +sleep and several times went to the door and listened, wishing to enter +but not deciding to do so. Though he did not speak, Princess Mary saw +and knew how unpleasant every sign of anxiety on his account was to him. +She had noticed with what dissatisfaction he turned from the look she +sometimes involuntarily fixed on him. She knew that her going in during +the night at an unusual hour would irritate him. + +But never had she felt so grieved for him or so much afraid of losing +him. She recalled all her life with him and in every word and act of his +found an expression of his love of her. Occasionally amid these memories +temptations of the devil would surge into her imagination: thoughts of +how things would be after his death, and how her new, liberated life +would be ordered. But she drove these thoughts away with disgust. Toward +morning he became quiet and she fell asleep. + +She woke late. That sincerity which often comes with waking showed her +clearly what chiefly concerned her about her father's illness. On waking +she listened to what was going on behind the door and, hearing him +groan, said to herself with a sigh that things were still the same. + +"But what could have happened? What did I want? I want his death!" she +cried with a feeling of loathing for herself. + +She washed, dressed, said her prayers, and went out to the porch. In +front of it stood carriages without horses and things were being packed +into the vehicles. + +It was a warm, gray morning. Princess Mary stopped at the porch, still +horrified by her spiritual baseness and trying to arrange her thoughts +before going to her father. The doctor came downstairs and went out to +her. + +"He is a little better today," said he. "I was looking for you. One can +make out something of what he is saying. His head is clearer. Come in, +he is asking for you..." + +Princess Mary's heart beat so violently at this news that she grew pale +and leaned against the wall to keep from falling. To see him, talk to +him, feel his eyes on her now that her whole soul was overflowing with +those dreadful, wicked temptations, was a torment of joy and terror. + +"Come," said the doctor. + +Princess Mary entered her father's room and went up to his bed. He was +lying on his back propped up high, and his small bony hands with their +knotted purple veins were lying on the quilt; his left eye gazed +straight before him, his right eye was awry, and his brows and lips +motionless. He seemed altogether so thin, small, and pathetic. His face +seemed to have shriveled or melted; his features had grown smaller. +Princess Mary went up and kissed his hand. His left hand pressed hers so +that she understood that he had long been waiting for her to come. He +twitched her hand, and his brows and lips quivered angrily. + +She looked at him in dismay trying to guess what he wanted of her. When +she changed her position so that his left eye could see her face he +calmed down, not taking his eyes off her for some seconds. Then his lips +and tongue moved, sounds came, and he began to speak, gazing timidly and +imploringly at her, evidently afraid that she might not understand. + +Straining all her faculties Princess Mary looked at him. The comic +efforts with which he moved his tongue made her drop her eyes and with +difficulty repress the sobs that rose to her throat. He said something, +repeating the same words several times. She could not understand them, +but tried to guess what he was saying and inquiringly repeated the words +he uttered. + +"Mmm...ar...ate...ate..." he repeated several times. + +It was quite impossible to understand these sounds. The doctor thought +he had guessed them, and inquiringly repeated: "Mary, are you afraid?" +The prince shook his head, again repeated the same sounds. + +"My mind, my mind aches?" questioned Princess Mary. + +He made a mumbling sound in confirmation of this, took her hand, and +began pressing it to different parts of his breast as if trying to find +the right place for it. + +"Always thoughts... about you... thoughts..." he then uttered much more +clearly than he had done before, now that he was sure of being +understood. + +Princess Mary pressed her head against his hand, trying to hide her sobs +and tears. + +He moved his hand over her hair. + +"I have been calling you all night..." he brought out. + +"If only I had known..." she said through her tears. "I was afraid to +come in." + +He pressed her hand. + +"Weren't you asleep?" + +"No, I did not sleep," said Princess Mary, shaking her head. + +Unconsciously imitating her father, she now tried to express herself as +he did, as much as possible by signs, and her tongue too seemed to move +with difficulty. + +"Dear one... Dearest..." Princess Mary could not quite make out what he +had said, but from his look it was clear that he had uttered a tender +caressing word such as he had never used to her before. "Why didn't you +come in?" + +"And I was wishing for his death!" thought Princess Mary. + +He was silent awhile. + +"Thank you... daughter dear!... for all, for all... forgive!... thank +you!... forgive!... thank you!..." and tears began to flow from his +eyes. "Call Andrew!" he said suddenly, and a childish, timid expression +of doubt showed itself on his face as he spoke. + +He himself seemed aware that his demand was meaningless. So at least it +seemed to Princess Mary. + +"I have a letter from him," she replied. + +He glanced at her with timid surprise. + +"Where is he?" + +"He's with the army, Father, at Smolensk." + +He closed his eyes and remained silent a long time. Then as if in answer +to his doubts and to confirm the fact that now he understood and +remembered everything, he nodded his head and reopened his eyes. + +"Yes," he said, softly and distinctly. "Russia has perished. They've +destroyed her." + +And he began to sob, and again tears flowed from his eyes. Princess Mary +could no longer restrain herself and wept while she gazed at his face. + +Again he closed his eyes. His sobs ceased, he pointed to his eyes, and +Tikhon, understanding him, wiped away the tears. + +Then he again opened his eyes and said something none of them could +understand for a long time, till at last Tikhon understood and repeated +it. Princess Mary had sought the meaning of his words in the mood in +which he had just been speaking. She thought he was speaking of Russia, +or Prince Andrew, of herself, of his grandson, or of his own death, and +so she could not guess his words. + +"Put on your white dress. I like it," was what he said. + +Having understood this Princess Mary sobbed still louder, and the doctor +taking her arm led her out to the veranda, soothing her and trying to +persuade her to prepare for her journey. When she had left the room the +prince again began speaking about his son, about the war, and about the +Emperor, angrily twitching his brows and raising his hoarse voice, and +then he had a second and final stroke. + +Princess Mary stayed on the veranda. The day had cleared, it was hot and +sunny. She could understand nothing, think of nothing and feel nothing, +except passionate love for her father, love such as she thought she had +never felt till that moment. She ran out sobbing into the garden and as +far as the pond, along the avenues of young lime trees Prince Andrew had +planted. + +"Yes... I... I... I wished for his death! Yes, I wanted it to end +quicker.... I wished to be at peace.... And what will become of me? What +use will peace be when he is no longer here?" Princess Mary murmured, +pacing the garden with hurried steps and pressing her hands to her bosom +which heaved with convulsive sobs. + +When she had completed the tour of the garden, which brought her again +to the house, she saw Mademoiselle Bourienne--who had remained at +Bogucharovo and did not wish to leave it--coming toward her with a +stranger. This was the Marshal of the Nobility of the district, who had +come personally to point out to the princess the necessity for her +prompt departure. Princess Mary listened without understanding him; she +led him to the house, offered him lunch, and sat down with him. Then, +excusing herself, she went to the door of the old prince's room. The +doctor came out with an agitated face and said she could not enter. + +"Go away, Princess! Go away... go away!" + +She returned to the garden and sat down on the grass at the foot of the +slope by the pond, where no one could see her. She did not know how long +she had been there when she was aroused by the sound of a woman's +footsteps running along the path. She rose and saw Dunyasha her maid, +who was evidently looking for her, and who stopped suddenly as if in +alarm on seeing her mistress. + +"Please come, Princess... The Prince," said Dunyasha in a breaking +voice. + +"Immediately, I'm coming, I'm coming!" replied the princess hurriedly, +not giving Dunyasha time to finish what she was saying, and trying to +avoid seeing the girl she ran toward the house. + +"Princess, it's God's will! You must be prepared for everything," said +the Marshal, meeting her at the house door. + +"Let me alone; it's not true!" she cried angrily to him. + +The doctor tried to stop her. She pushed him aside and ran to her +father's door. "Why are these people with frightened faces stopping me? +I don't want any of them! And what are they doing here?" she thought. +She opened the door and the bright daylight in that previously darkened +room startled her. In the room were her nurse and other women. They all +drew back from the bed, making way for her. He was still lying on the +bed as before, but the stern expression of his quiet face made Princess +Mary stop short on the threshold. + +"No, he's not dead--it's impossible!" she told herself and approached +him, and repressing the terror that seized her, she pressed her lips to +his cheek. But she stepped back immediately. All the force of the +tenderness she had been feeling for him vanished instantly and was +replaced by a feeling of horror at what lay there before her. "No, he is +no more! He is not, but here where he was is something unfamiliar and +hostile, some dreadful, terrifying, and repellent mystery!" And hiding +her face in her hands, Princess Mary sank into the arms of the doctor, +who held her up. + +In the presence of Tikhon and the doctor the women washed what had been +the prince, tied his head up with a handkerchief that the mouth should +not stiffen while open, and with another handkerchief tied together the +legs that were already spreading apart. Then they dressed him in uniform +with his decorations and placed his shriveled little body on a table. +Heaven only knows who arranged all this and when, but it all got done as +if of its own accord. Toward night candles were burning round his +coffin, a pall was spread over it, the floor was strewn with sprays of +juniper, a printed band was tucked in under his shriveled head, and in a +corner of the room sat a chanter reading the psalms. + +Just as horses shy and snort and gather about a dead horse, so the +inmates of the house and strangers crowded into the drawing room round +the coffin--the Marshal, the village Elder, peasant women--and all with +fixed and frightened eyes, crossing themselves, bowed and kissed the old +prince's cold and stiffened hand. + + + + +CHAPTER IX + +Until Prince Andrew settled in Bogucharovo its owners had always been +absentees, and its peasants were of quite a different character from +those of Bald Hills. They differed from them in speech, dress, and +disposition. They were called steppe peasants. The old prince used to +approve of them for their endurance at work when they came to Bald Hills +to help with the harvest or to dig ponds, and ditches, but he disliked +them for their boorishness. + +Prince Andrew's last stay at Bogucharovo, when he introduced hospitals +and schools and reduced the quitrent the peasants had to pay, had not +softened their disposition but had on the contrary strengthened in them +the traits of character the old prince called boorishness. Various +obscure rumors were always current among them: at one time a rumor that +they would all be enrolled as Cossacks; at another of a new religion to +which they were all to be converted; then of some proclamation of the +Tsar's and of an oath to the Tsar Paul in 1797 (in connection with which +it was rumored that freedom had been granted them but the landowners had +stopped it), then of Peter Fedorovich's return to the throne in seven +years' time, when everything would be made free and so "simple" that +there would be no restrictions. Rumors of the war with Bonaparte and his +invasion were connected in their minds with the same sort of vague +notions of Antichrist, the end of the world, and "pure freedom." + +In the vicinity of Bogucharovo were large villages belonging to the +crown or to owners whose serfs paid quitrent and could work where they +pleased. There were very few resident landlords in the neighborhood and +also very few domestic or literate serfs, and in the lives of the +peasantry of those parts the mysterious undercurrents in the life of the +Russian people, the causes and meaning of which are so baffling to +contemporaries, were more clearly and strongly noticeable than among +others. One instance, which had occurred some twenty years before, was a +movement among the peasants to emigrate to some unknown "warm rivers." +Hundreds of peasants, among them the Bogucharovo folk, suddenly began +selling their cattle and moving in whole families toward the southeast. +As birds migrate to somewhere beyond the sea, so these men with their +wives and children streamed to the southeast, to parts where none of +them had ever been. They set off in caravans, bought their freedom one +by one or ran away, and drove or walked toward the "warm rivers." Many +of them were punished, some sent to Siberia, many died of cold and +hunger on the road, many returned of their own accord, and the movement +died down of itself just as it had sprung up, without apparent reason. +But such undercurrents still existed among the people and gathered new +forces ready to manifest themselves just as strangely, unexpectedly, and +at the same time simply, naturally, and forcibly. Now in 1812, to anyone +living in close touch with these people it was apparent that these +undercurrents were acting strongly and nearing an eruption. + +Alpatych, who had reached Bogucharovo shortly before the old prince's +death, noticed an agitation among the peasants, and that contrary to +what was happening in the Bald Hills district, where over a radius of +forty miles all the peasants were moving away and leaving their villages +to be devastated by the Cossacks, the peasants in the steppe region +round Bogucharovo were, it was rumored, in touch with the French, +received leaflets from them that passed from hand to hand, and did not +migrate. He learned from domestic serfs loyal to him that the peasant +Karp, who possessed great influence in the village commune and had +recently been away driving a government transport, had returned with +news that the Cossacks were destroying deserted villages, but that the +French did not harm them. Alpatych also knew that on the previous day +another peasant had even brought from the village of Visloukhovo, which +was occupied by the French, a proclamation by a French general that no +harm would be done to the inhabitants, and if they remained they would +be paid for anything taken from them. As proof of this the peasant had +brought from Visloukhovo a hundred rubles in notes (he did not know that +they were false) paid to him in advance for hay. + +More important still, Alpatych learned that on the morning of the very +day he gave the village Elder orders to collect carts to move the +princess' luggage from Bogucharovo, there had been a village meeting at +which it had been decided not to move but to wait. Yet there was no time +to waste. On the fifteenth, the day of the old prince's death, the +Marshal had insisted on Princess Mary's leaving at once, as it was +becoming dangerous. He had told her that after the sixteenth he could +not be responsible for what might happen. On the evening of the day the +old prince died the Marshal went away, promising to return next day for +the funeral. But this he was unable to do, for he received tidings that +the French had unexpectedly advanced, and had barely time to remove his +own family and valuables from his estate. + +For some thirty years Bogucharovo had been managed by the village Elder, +Dron, whom the old prince called by the diminutive "Dronushka." + +Dron was one of those physically and mentally vigorous peasants who grow +big beards as soon as they are of age and go on unchanged till they are +sixty or seventy, without a gray hair or the loss of a tooth, as +straight and strong at sixty as at thirty. + +Soon after the migration to the "warm rivers," in which he had taken +part like the rest, Dron was made village Elder and overseer of +Bogucharovo, and had since filled that post irreproachably for twenty- +three years. The peasants feared him more than they did their master. +The masters, both the old prince and the young, and the steward +respected him and jestingly called him "the Minister." During the whole +time of his service Dron had never been drunk or ill, never after +sleepless nights or the hardest tasks had he shown the least fatigue, +and though he could not read he had never forgotten a single money +account or the number of quarters of flour in any of the endless +cartloads he sold for the prince, nor a single shock of the whole corn +crop on any single acre of the Bogucharovo fields. + +Alpatych, arriving from the devastated Bald Hills estate, sent for his +Dron on the day of the prince's funeral and told him to have twelve +horses got ready for the princess' carriages and eighteen carts for the +things to be removed from Bogucharovo. Though the peasants paid +quitrent, Alpatych thought no difficulty would be made about complying +with this order, for there were two hundred and thirty households at +work in Bogucharovo and the peasants were well to do. But on hearing the +order Dron lowered his eyes and remained silent. Alpatych named certain +peasants he knew, from whom he told him to take the carts. + +Dron replied that the horses of these peasants were away carting. +Alpatych named others, but they too, according to Dron, had no horses +available: some horses were carting for the government, others were too +weak, and others had died for want of fodder. It seemed that no horses +could be had even for the carriages, much less for the carting. + +Alpatych looked intently at Dron and frowned. Just as Dron was a model +village Elder, so Alpatych had not managed the prince's estates for +twenty years in vain. He was a model steward, possessing in the highest +degree the faculty of divining the needs and instincts of those he dealt +with. Having glanced at Dron he at once understood that his answers did +not express his personal views but the general mood of the Bogucharovo +commune, by which the Elder had already been carried away. But he also +knew that Dron, who had acquired property and was hated by the commune, +must be hesitating between the two camps: the masters' and the serfs'. +He noticed this hesitation in Dron's look and therefore frowned and +moved closer up to him. + +"Now just listen, Dronushka," said he. "Don't talk nonsense to me. His +excellency Prince Andrew himself gave me orders to move all the people +away and not leave them with the enemy, and there is an order from the +Tsar about it too. Anyone who stays is a traitor to the Tsar. Do you +hear?" + +"I hear," Dron answered without lifting his eyes. + +Alpatych was not satisfied with this reply. + +"Eh, Dron, it will turn out badly!" he said, shaking his head. + +"The power is in your hands," Dron rejoined sadly. + +"Eh, Dron, drop it!" Alpatych repeated, withdrawing his hand from his +bosom and solemnly pointing to the floor at Dron's feet. "I can see +through you and three yards into the ground under you," he continued, +gazing at the floor in front of Dron. + +Dron was disconcerted, glanced furtively at Alpatych and again lowered +his eyes. + +"You drop this nonsense and tell the people to get ready to leave their +homes and go to Moscow and to get carts ready for tomorrow morning for +the princess' things. And don't go to any meeting yourself, do you +hear?" + +Dron suddenly fell on his knees. + +"Yakov Alpatych, discharge me! Take the keys from me and discharge me, +for Christ's sake!" + +"Stop that!" cried Alpatych sternly. "I see through you and three yards +under you," he repeated, knowing that his skill in beekeeping, his +knowledge of the right time to sow the oats, and the fact that he had +been able to retain the old prince's favor for twenty years had long +since gained him the reputation of being a wizard, and that the power of +seeing three yards under a man is considered an attribute of wizards. + +Dron got up and was about to say something, but Alpatych interrupted +him. + +"What is it you have got into your heads, eh?... What are you thinking +of, eh?" + +"What am I to do with the people?" said Dron. "They're quite beside +themselves; I have already told them..." + +"'Told them,' I dare say!" said Alpatych. "Are they drinking?" he asked +abruptly. + +"Quite beside themselves, Yakov Alpatych; they've fetched another +barrel." + +"Well, then, listen! I'll go to the police officer, and you tell them +so, and that they must stop this and the carts must be got ready." + +"I understand." + +Alpatych did not insist further. He had managed people for a long time +and knew that the chief way to make them obey is to show no suspicion +that they can possibly disobey. Having wrung a submissive "I understand" +from Dron, Alpatych contented himself with that, though he not only +doubted but felt almost certain that without the help of troops the +carts would not be forthcoming. + +And so it was, for when evening came no carts had been provided. In the +village, outside the drink shop, another meeting was being held, which +decided that the horses should be driven out into the woods and the +carts should not be provided. Without saying anything of this to the +princess, Alpatych had his own belongings taken out of the carts which +had arrived from Bald Hills and had those horses got ready for the +princess' carriages. Meanwhile he went himself to the police +authorities. + + + + +CHAPTER X + +After her father's funeral Princess Mary shut herself up in her room and +did not admit anyone. A maid came to the door to say that Alpatych was +asking for orders about their departure. (This was before his talk with +Dron.) Princess Mary raised herself on the sofa on which she had been +lying and replied through the closed door that she did not mean to go +away and begged to be left in peace. + +The windows of the room in which she was lying looked westward. She lay +on the sofa with her face to the wall, fingering the buttons of the +leather cushion and seeing nothing but that cushion, and her confused +thoughts were centered on one subject--the irrevocability of death and +her own spiritual baseness, which she had not suspected, but which had +shown itself during her father's illness. She wished to pray but did not +dare to, dared not in her present state of mind address herself to God. +She lay for a long time in that position. + +The sun had reached the other side of the house, and its slanting rays +shone into the open window, lighting up the room and part of the morocco +cushion at which Princess Mary was looking. The flow of her thoughts +suddenly stopped. Unconsciously she sat up, smoothed her hair, got up, +and went to the window, involuntarily inhaling the freshness of the +clear but windy evening. + +"Yes, you can well enjoy the evening now! He is gone and no one will +hinder you," she said to herself, and sinking into a chair she let her +head fall on the window sill. + +Someone spoke her name in a soft and tender voice from the garden and +kissed her head. She looked up. It was Mademoiselle Bourienne in a black +dress and weepers. She softly approached Princess Mary, sighed, kissed +her, and immediately began to cry. The princess looked up at her. All +their former disharmony and her own jealousy recurred to her mind. But +she remembered too how he had changed of late toward Mademoiselle +Bourienne and could not bear to see her, thereby showing how unjust were +the reproaches Princess Mary had mentally addressed to her. "Besides, is +it for me, for me who desired his death, to condemn anyone?" she +thought. + +Princess Mary vividly pictured to herself the position of Mademoiselle +Bourienne, whom she had of late kept at a distance, but who yet was +dependent on her and living in her house. She felt sorry for her and +held out her hand with a glance of gentle inquiry. Mademoiselle +Bourienne at once began crying again and kissed that hand, speaking of +the princess' sorrow and making herself a partner in it. She said her +only consolation was the fact that the princess allowed her to share her +sorrow, that all the old misunderstandings should sink into nothing but +this great grief; that she felt herself blameless in regard to everyone, +and that he, from above, saw her affection and gratitude. The princess +heard her, not heeding her words but occasionally looking up at her and +listening to the sound of her voice. + +"Your position is doubly terrible, dear princess," said Mademoiselle +Bourienne after a pause. "I understand that you could not, and cannot, +think of yourself, but with my love for you I must do so.... Has +Alpatych been to you? Has he spoken to you of going away?" she asked. + +Princess Mary did not answer. She did not understand who was to go or +where to. "Is it possible to plan or think of anything now? Is it not +all the same?" she thought, and did not reply. + +"You know, chere Marie," said Mademoiselle Bourienne, "that we are in +danger--are surrounded by the French. It would be dangerous to move now. +If we go we are almost sure to be taken prisoners, and God knows..." + +Princess Mary looked at her companion without understanding what she was +talking about. + +"Oh, if anyone knew how little anything matters to me now," she said. +"Of course I would on no account wish to go away from him.... Alpatych +did say something about going.... Speak to him; I can do nothing, +nothing, and don't want to...." + +"I've spoken to him. He hopes we should be in time to get away tomorrow, +but I think it would now be better to stay here," said Mademoiselle +Bourienne. "Because, you will agree, chere Marie, to fall into the hands +of the soldiers or of riotous peasants would be terrible." + +Mademoiselle Bourienne took from her reticule a proclamation (not +printed on ordinary Russian paper) of General Rameau's, telling people +not to leave their homes and that the French authorities would afford +them proper protection. She handed this to the princess. + +"I think it would be best to appeal to that general," she continued, +"and I am sure that all due respect would be shown you." + +Princess Mary read the paper, and her face began to quiver with stifled +sobs. + +"From whom did you get this?" she asked. + +"They probably recognized that I am French, by my name," replied +Mademoiselle Bourienne blushing. + +Princess Mary, with the paper in her hand, rose from the window and with +a pale face went out of the room and into what had been Prince Andrew's +study. + +"Dunyasha, send Alpatych, or Dronushka, or somebody to me!" she said, +"and tell Mademoiselle Bourienne not to come to me," she added, hearing +Mademoiselle Bourienne's voice. "We must go at once, at once!" she said, +appalled at the thought of being left in the hands of the French. + +"If Prince Andrew heard that I was in the power of the French! That I, +the daughter of Prince Nicholas Bolkonski, asked General Rameau for +protection and accepted his favor!" This idea horrified her, made her +shudder, blush, and feel such a rush of anger and pride as she had never +experienced before. All that was distressing, and especially all that +was humiliating, in her position rose vividly to her mind. "They, the +French, would settle in this house: M. le General Rameau would occupy +Prince Andrew's study and amuse himself by looking through and reading +his letters and papers. Mademoiselle Bourienne would do the honors of +Bogucharovo for him. I should be given a small room as a favor, the +soldiers would violate my father's newly dug grave to steal his crosses +and stars, they would tell me of their victories over the Russians, and +would pretend to sympathize with my sorrow..." thought Princess Mary, +not thinking her own thoughts but feeling bound to think like her father +and her brother. For herself she did not care where she remained or what +happened to her, but she felt herself the representative of her dead +father and of Prince Andrew. Involuntarily she thought their thoughts +and felt their feelings. What they would have said and what they would +have done she felt bound to say and do. She went into Prince Andrew's +study, trying to enter completely into his ideas, and considered her +position. + +The demands of life, which had seemed to her annihilated by her father's +death, all at once rose before her with a new, previously unknown force +and took possession of her. + +Agitated and flushed she paced the room, sending now for Michael +Ivanovich and now for Tikhon or Dron. Dunyasha, the nurse, and the other +maids could not say in how far Mademoiselle Bourienne's statement was +correct. Alpatych was not at home, he had gone to the police. Neither +could the architect Michael Ivanovich, who on being sent for came in +with sleepy eyes, tell Princess Mary anything. With just the same smile +of agreement with which for fifteen years he had been accustomed to +answer the old prince without expressing views of his own, he now +replied to Princess Mary, so that nothing definite could be got from his +answers. The old valet Tikhon, with sunken, emaciated face that bore the +stamp of inconsolable grief, replied: "Yes, Princess" to all Princess +Mary's questions and hardly refrained from sobbing as he looked at her. + +At length Dron, the village Elder, entered the room and with a deep bow +to Princess Mary came to a halt by the doorpost. + +Princess Mary walked up and down the room and stopped in front of him. + +"Dronushka," she said, regarding as a sure friend this Dronushka who +always used to bring a special kind of gingerbread from his visit to the +fair at Vyazma every year and smilingly offer it to her, "Dronushka, now +since our misfortune..." she began, but could not go on. + +"We are all in God's hands," said he, with a sigh. + +They were silent for a while. + +"Dronushka, Alpatych has gone off somewhere and I have no one to turn +to. Is it true, as they tell me, that I can't even go away?" + +"Why shouldn't you go away, your excellency? You can go," said Dron. + +"I was told it would be dangerous because of the enemy. Dear friend, I +can do nothing. I understand nothing. I have nobody! I want to go away +tonight or early tomorrow morning." + +Dron paused. He looked askance at Princess Mary and said: "There are no +horses; I told Yakov Alpatych so." + +"Why are there none?" asked the princess. + +"It's all God's scourge," said Dron. "What horses we had have been taken +for the army or have died--this is such a year! It's not a case of +feeding horses--we may die of hunger ourselves! As it is, some go three +days without eating. We've nothing, we've been ruined." + +Princess Mary listened attentively to what he told her. + +"The peasants are ruined? They have no bread?" she asked. + +"They're dying of hunger," said Dron. "It's not a case of carting." + +"But why didn't you tell me, Dronushka? Isn't it possible to help them? +I'll do all I can...." + +To Princess Mary it was strange that now, at a moment when such sorrow +was filling her soul, there could be rich people and poor, and the rich +could refrain from helping the poor. She had heard vaguely that there +was such a thing as "landlord's corn" which was sometimes given to the +peasants. She also knew that neither her father nor her brother would +refuse to help the peasants in need, she only feared to make some +mistake in speaking about the distribution of the grain she wished to +give. She was glad such cares presented themselves, enabling her without +scruple to forget her own grief. She began asking Dron about the +peasants' needs and what there was in Bogucharovo that belonged to the +landlord. + +"But we have grain belonging to my brother?" she said. + +"The landlord's grain is all safe," replied Dron proudly. "Our prince +did not order it to be sold." + +"Give it to the peasants, let them have all they need; I give you leave +in my brother's name," said she. + +Dron made no answer but sighed deeply. + +"Give them that corn if there is enough of it. Distribute it all. I give +this order in my brother's name; and tell them that what is ours is +theirs. We do not grudge them anything. Tell them so." + +Dron looked intently at the princess while she was speaking. + +"Discharge me, little mother, for God's sake! Order the keys to be taken +from me," said he. "I have served twenty-three years and have done no +wrong. Discharge me, for God's sake!" + +Princess Mary did not understand what he wanted of her or why he was +asking to be discharged. She replied that she had never doubted his +devotion and that she was ready to do anything for him and for the +peasants. + + + + +CHAPTER XI + +An hour later Dunyasha came to tell the princess that Dron had come, and +all the peasants had assembled at the barn by the princess' order and +wished to have word with their mistress. + +"But I never told them to come," said Princess Mary. "I only told Dron +to let them have the grain." + +"Only, for God's sake, Princess dear, have them sent away and don't go +out to them. It's all a trick," said Dunyasha, "and when Yakov Alpatych +returns let us get away... and please don't..." + +"What is a trick?" asked Princess Mary in surprise. + +"I know it is, only listen to me for God's sake! Ask nurse too. They say +they don't agree to leave Bogucharovo as you ordered." + +"You're making some mistake. I never ordered them to go away," said +Princess Mary. "Call Dronushka." + +Dron came and confirmed Dunyasha's words; the peasants had come by the +princess' order. + +"But I never sent for them," declared the princess. "You must have given +my message wrong. I only said that you were to give them the grain." + +Dron only sighed in reply. + +"If you order it they will go away," said he. + +"No, no. I'll go out to them," said Princess Mary, and in spite of the +nurse's and Dunyasha's protests she went out into the porch; Dron, +Dunyasha, the nurse, and Michael Ivanovich following her. + +"They probably think I am offering them the grain to bribe them to +remain here, while I myself go away leaving them to the mercy of the +French," thought Princess Mary. "I will offer them monthly rations and +housing at our Moscow estate. I am sure Andrew would do even more in my +place," she thought as she went out in the twilight toward the crowd +standing on the pasture by the barn. + +The men crowded closer together, stirred, and rapidly took off their +hats. Princess Mary lowered her eyes and, tripping over her skirt, came +close up to them. So many different eyes, old and young, were fixed on +her, and there were so many different faces, that she could not +distinguish any of them and, feeling that she must speak to them all at +once, did not know how to do it. But again the sense that she +represented her father and her brother gave her courage, and she boldly +began her speech. + +"I am very glad you have come," she said without raising her eyes, and +feeling her heart beating quickly and violently. "Dronushka tells me +that the war has ruined you. That is our common misfortune, and I shall +grudge nothing to help you. I am myself going away because it is +dangerous here... the enemy is near... because... I am giving you +everything, my friends, and I beg you to take everything, all our grain, +so that you may not suffer want! And if you have been told that I am +giving you the grain to keep you here--that is not true. On the +contrary, I ask you to go with all your belongings to our estate near +Moscow, and I promise you I will see to it that there you shall want for +nothing. You shall be given food and lodging." + +The princess stopped. Sighs were the only sound heard in the crowd. + +"I am not doing this on my own account," she continued, "I do it in the +name of my dead father, who was a good master to you, and of my brother +and his son." + +Again she paused. No one broke the silence. + +"Ours is a common misfortune and we will share it together. All that is +mine is yours," she concluded, scanning the faces before her. + +All eyes were gazing at her with one and the same expression. She could +not fathom whether it was curiosity, devotion, gratitude, or +apprehension and distrust--but the expression on all the faces was +identical. + +"We are all very thankful for your bounty, but it won't do for us to +take the landlord's grain," said a voice at the back of the crowd. + +"But why not?" asked the princess. + +No one replied and Princess Mary, looking round at the crowd, found that +every eye she met now was immediately dropped. + +"But why don't you want to take it?" she asked again. + +No one answered. + +The silence began to oppress the princess and she tried to catch +someone's eye. + +"Why don't you speak?" she inquired of a very old man who stood just in +front of her leaning on his stick. "If you think something more is +wanted, tell me! I will do anything," said she, catching his eye. + +But as if this angered him, he bent his head quite low and muttered: + +"Why should we agree? We don't want the grain." + +"Why should we give up everything? We don't agree. Don't agree.... We +are sorry for you, but we're not willing. Go away yourself, alone..." +came from various sides of the crowd. + +And again all the faces in that crowd bore an identical expression, +though now it was certainly not an expression of curiosity or gratitude, +but of angry resolve. + +"But you can't have understood me," said Princess Mary with a sad smile. +"Why don't you want to go? I promise to house and feed you, while here +the enemy would ruin you..." + +But her voice was drowned by the voices of the crowd. + +"We're not willing. Let them ruin us! We won't take your grain. We don't +agree." + +Again Princess Mary tried to catch someone's eye, but not a single eye +in the crowd was turned to her; evidently they were all trying to avoid +her look. She felt strange and awkward. + +"Oh yes, an artful tale! Follow her into slavery! Pull down your houses +and go into bondage! I dare say! 'I'll give you grain, indeed!' she +says," voices in the crowd were heard saying. + +With drooping head Princess Mary left the crowd and went back to the +house. Having repeated her order to Dron to have horses ready for her +departure next morning, she went to her room and remained alone with her +own thoughts. + + + + +CHAPTER XII + +For a long time that night Princess Mary sat by the open window of her +room hearing the sound of the peasants' voices that reached her from the +village, but it was not of them she was thinking. She felt that she +could not understand them however much she might think about them. She +thought only of one thing, her sorrow, which, after the break caused by +cares for the present, seemed already to belong to the past. Now she +could remember it and weep or pray. + +After sunset the wind had dropped. The night was calm and fresh. Toward +midnight the voices began to subside, a cock crowed, the full moon began +to show from behind the lime trees, a fresh white dewy mist began to +rise, and stillness reigned over the village and the house. + +Pictures of the near past--her father's illness and last moments--rose +one after another to her memory. With mournful pleasure she now lingered +over these images, repelling with horror only the last one, the picture +of his death, which she felt she could not contemplate even in +imagination at this still and mystic hour of night. And these pictures +presented themselves to her so clearly and in such detail that they +seemed now present, now past, and now future. + +She vividly recalled the moment when he had his first stroke and was +being dragged along by his armpits through the garden at Bald Hills, +muttering something with his helpless tongue, twitching his gray +eyebrows and looking uneasily and timidly at her. + +"Even then he wanted to tell me what he told me the day he died," she +thought. "He had always thought what he said then." And she recalled in +all its detail the night at Bald Hills before he had the last stroke, +when with a foreboding of disaster she had remained at home against his +will. She had not slept and had stolen downstairs on tiptoe, and going +to the door of the conservatory where he slept that night had listened +at the door. In a suffering and weary voice he was saying something to +Tikhon, speaking of the Crimea and its warm nights and of the Empress. +Evidently he had wanted to talk. "And why didn't he call me? Why didn't +he let me be there instead of Tikhon?" Princess Mary had thought and +thought again now. "Now he will never tell anyone what he had in his +soul. Never will that moment return for him or for me when he might have +said all he longed to say, and not Tikhon but I might have heard and +understood him. Why didn't I enter the room?" she thought. "Perhaps he +would then have said to me what he said the day he died. While talking +to Tikhon he asked about me twice. He wanted to see me, and I was +standing close by, outside the door. It was sad and painful for him to +talk to Tikhon who did not understand him. I remember how he began +speaking to him about Lise as if she were alive--he had forgotten she +was dead--and Tikhon reminded him that she was no more, and he shouted, +'Fool!' He was greatly depressed. From behind the door I heard how he +lay down on his bed groaning and loudly exclaimed, 'My God!' Why didn't +I go in then? What could he have done to me? What could I have lost? And +perhaps he would then have been comforted and would have said that word +to me." And Princess Mary uttered aloud the caressing word he had said +to her on the day of his death. "Dear-est!" she repeated, and began +sobbing, with tears that relieved her soul. She now saw his face before +her. And not the face she had known ever since she could remember and +had always seen at a distance, but the timid, feeble face she had seen +for the first time quite closely, with all its wrinkles and details, +when she stooped near to his mouth to catch what he said. + +"Dear-est!" she repeated again. + +"What was he thinking when he uttered that word? What is he thinking +now?" This question suddenly presented itself to her, and in answer she +saw him before her with the expression that was on his face as he lay in +his coffin with his chin bound up with a white handkerchief. And the +horror that had seized her when she touched him and convinced herself +that that was not he, but something mysterious and horrible, seized her +again. She tried to think of something else and to pray, but could do +neither. With wide-open eyes she gazed at the moonlight and the shadows, +expecting every moment to see his dead face, and she felt that the +silence brooding over the house and within it held her fast. + +"Dunyasha," she whispered. "Dunyasha!" she screamed wildly, and tearing +herself out of this silence she ran to the servants' quarters to meet +her old nurse and the maidservants who came running toward her. + + + + +CHAPTER XIII + +On the seventeenth of August Rostov and Ilyin, accompanied by Lavrushka +who had just returned from captivity and by an hussar orderly, left +their quarters at Yankovo, ten miles from Bogucharovo, and went for a +ride--to try a new horse Ilyin had bought and to find out whether there +was any hay to be had in the villages. + +For the last three days Bogucharovo had lain between the two hostile +armies, so that it was as easy for the Russian rearguard to get to it as +for the French vanguard; Rostov, as a careful squadron commander, wished +to take such provisions as remained at Bogucharovo before the French +could get them. + +Rostov and Ilyin were in the merriest of moods. On the way to +Bogucharovo, a princely estate with a dwelling house and farm where they +hoped to find many domestic serfs and pretty girls, they questioned +Lavrushka about Napoleon and laughed at his stories, and raced one +another to try Ilyin's horse. + +Rostov had no idea that the village he was entering was the property of +that very Bolkonski who had been engaged to his sister. + +Rostov and Ilyin gave rein to their horses for a last race along the +incline before reaching Bogucharovo, and Rostov, outstripping Ilyin, was +the first to gallop into the village street. + +"You're first!" cried Ilyin, flushed. + +"Yes, always first both on the grassland and here," answered Rostov, +stroking his heated Donets horse. + +"And I'd have won on my Frenchy, your excellency," said Lavrushka from +behind, alluding to his shabby cart horse, "only I didn't wish to +mortify you." + +They rode at a footpace to the barn, where a large crowd of peasants was +standing. + +Some of the men bared their heads, others stared at the new arrivals +without doffing their caps. Two tall old peasants with wrinkled faces +and scanty beards emerged from the tavern, smiling, staggering, and +singing some incoherent song, and approached the officers. + +"Fine fellows!" said Rostov laughing. "Is there any hay here?" + +"And how like one another," said Ilyin. + +"A mo-o-st me-r-r-y co-o-m-pa...!" sang one of the peasants with a +blissful smile. + +One of the men came out of the crowd and went up to Rostov. + +"Who do you belong to?" he asked. + +"The French," replied Ilyin jestingly, "and here is Napoleon himself"-- +and he pointed to Lavrushka. + +"Then you are Russians?" the peasant asked again. + +"And is there a large force of you here?" said another, a short man, +coming up. + +"Very large," answered Rostov. "But why have you collected here?" he +added. "Is it a holiday?" + +"The old men have met to talk over the business of the commune," replied +the peasant, moving away. + +At that moment, on the road leading from the big house, two women and a +man in a white hat were seen coming toward the officers. + +"The one in pink is mine, so keep off!" said Ilyin on seeing Dunyasha +running resolutely toward him. + +"She'll be ours!" said Lavrushka to Ilyin, winking. + +"What do you want, my pretty?" said Ilyin with a smile. + +"The princess ordered me to ask your regiment and your name." + +"This is Count Rostov, squadron commander, and I am your humble +servant." + +"Co-o-om-pa-ny!" roared the tipsy peasant with a beatific smile as he +looked at Ilyin talking to the girl. Following Dunyasha, Alpatych +advanced to Rostov, having bared his head while still at a distance. + +"May I make bold to trouble your honor?" said he respectfully, but with +a shade of contempt for the youthfulness of this officer and with a hand +thrust into his bosom. "My mistress, daughter of General in Chief Prince +Nicholas Bolkonski who died on the fifteenth of this month, finding +herself in difficulties owing to the boorishness of these people"--he +pointed to the peasants--"asks you to come up to the house.... Won't +you, please, ride on a little farther," said Alpatych with a melancholy +smile, "as it is not convenient in the presence of...?" He pointed to +the two peasants who kept as close to him as horseflies to a horse. + +"Ah!... Alpatych... Ah, Yakov Alpatych... Grand! Forgive us for Christ's +sake, eh?" said the peasants, smiling joyfully at him. + +Rostov looked at the tipsy peasants and smiled. + +"Or perhaps they amuse your honor?" remarked Alpatych with a staid air, +as he pointed at the old men with his free hand. + +"No, there's not much to be amused at here," said Rostov, and rode on a +little way. "What's the matter?" he asked. + +"I make bold to inform your honor that the rude peasants here don't wish +to let the mistress leave the estate, and threaten to unharness her +horses, so that though everything has been packed up since morning, her +excellency cannot get away." + +"Impossible!" exclaimed Rostov. + +"I have the honor to report to you the actual truth," said Alpatych. + +Rostov dismounted, gave his horse to the orderly, and followed Alpatych +to the house, questioning him as to the state of affairs. It appeared +that the princess' offer of corn to the peasants the previous day, and +her talk with Dron and at the meeting, had actually had so bad an effect +that Dron had finally given up the keys and joined the peasants and had +not appeared when Alpatych sent for him; and that in the morning when +the princess gave orders to harness for her journey, the peasants had +come in a large crowd to the barn and sent word that they would not let +her leave the village: that there was an order not to move, and that +they would unharness the horses. Alpatych had gone out to admonish them, +but was told (it was chiefly Karp who did the talking, Dron not showing +himself in the crowd) that they could not let the princess go, that +there was an order to the contrary, but that if she stayed they would +serve her as before and obey her in everything. + +At the moment when Rostov and Ilyin were galloping along the road, +Princess Mary, despite the dissuasions of Alpatych, her nurse, and the +maids, had given orders to harness and intended to start, but when the +cavalrymen were espied they were taken for Frenchmen, the coachman ran +away, and the women in the house began to wail. + +"Father! Benefactor! God has sent you!" exclaimed deeply moved voices as +Rostov passed through the anteroom. + +Princess Mary was sitting helpless and bewildered in the large sitting +room, when Rostov was shown in. She could not grasp who he was and why +he had come, or what was happening to her. When she saw his Russian +face, and by his walk and the first words he uttered recognized him as a +man of her own class, she glanced at him with her deep radiant look and +began speaking in a voice that faltered and trembled with emotion. This +meeting immediately struck Rostov as a romantic event. "A helpless girl +overwhelmed with grief, left to the mercy of coarse, rioting peasants! +And what a strange fate sent me here! What gentleness and nobility there +are in her features and expression!" thought he as he looked at her and +listened to her timid story. + +When she began to tell him that all this had happened the day after her +father's funeral, her voice trembled. She turned away, and then, as if +fearing he might take her words as meant to move him to pity, looked at +him with an apprehensive glance of inquiry. There were tears in Rostov's +eyes. Princess Mary noticed this and glanced gratefully at him with that +radiant look which caused the plainness of her face to be forgotten. + +"I cannot express, Princess, how glad I am that I happened to ride here +and am able to show my readiness to serve you," said Rostov, rising. "Go +when you please, and I give you my word of honor that no one shall dare +to cause you annoyance if only you will allow me to act as your escort." +And bowing respectfully, as if to a lady of royal blood, he moved toward +the door. + +Rostov's deferential tone seemed to indicate that though he would +consider himself happy to be acquainted with her, he did not wish to +take advantage of her misfortunes to intrude upon her. + +Princess Mary understood this and appreciated his delicacy. + +"I am very, very grateful to you," she said in French, "but I hope it +was all a misunderstanding and that no one is to blame for it." She +suddenly began to cry. + +"Excuse me!" she said. + +Rostov, knitting his brows, left the room with another low bow. + + + + +CHAPTER XIV + +"Well, is she pretty? Ah, friend--my pink one is delicious; her name is +Dunyasha...." + +But on glancing at Rostov's face Ilyin stopped short. He saw that his +hero and commander was following quite a different train of thought. + +Rostov glanced angrily at Ilyin and without replying strode off with +rapid steps to the village. + +"I'll show them; I'll give it to them, the brigands!" said he to +himself. + +Alpatych at a gliding trot, only just managing not to run, kept up with +him with difficulty. + +"What decision have you been pleased to come to?" said he. + +Rostov stopped and, clenching his fists, suddenly and sternly turned on +Alpatych. + +"Decision? What decision? Old dotard!..." cried he. "What have you been +about? Eh? The peasants are rioting, and you can't manage them? You're a +traitor yourself! I know you. I'll flay you all alive!..." And as if +afraid of wasting his store of anger, he left Alpatych and went rapidly +forward. Alpatych, mastering his offended feelings, kept pace with +Rostov at a gliding gait and continued to impart his views. He said the +peasants were obdurate and that at the present moment it would be +imprudent to "overresist" them without an armed force, and would it not +be better first to send for the military? + +"I'll give them armed force... I'll 'overresist' them!" uttered Rostov +meaninglessly, breathless with irrational animal fury and the need to +vent it. + +Without considering what he would do he moved unconciously with quick, +resolute steps toward the crowd. And the nearer he drew to it the more +Alpatych felt that this unreasonable action might produce good results. +The peasants in the crowd were similarly impressed when they saw +Rostov's rapid, firm steps and resolute, frowning face. + +After the hussars had come to the village and Rostov had gone to see the +princess, a certain confusion and dissension had arisen among the crowd. +Some of the peasants said that these new arrivals were Russians and +might take it amiss that the mistress was being detained. Dron was of +this opinion, but as soon as he expressed it Karp and others attacked +their ex-Elder. + +"How many years have you been fattening on the commune?" Karp shouted at +him. "It's all one to you! You'll dig up your pot of money and take it +away with you.... What does it matter to you whether our homes are +ruined or not?" + +"We've been told to keep order, and that no one is to leave their homes +or take away a single grain, and that's all about it!" cried another. + +"It was your son's turn to be conscripted, but no fear! You begrudged +your lump of a son," a little old man suddenly began attacking Dron-- +"and so they took my Vanka to be shaved for a soldier! But we all have +to die." + +"To be sure, we all have to die. I'm not against the commune," said +Dron. + +"That's it--not against it! You've filled your belly...." + +The two tall peasants had their say. As soon as Rostov, followed by +Ilyin, Lavrushka, and Alpatych, came up to the crowd, Karp, thrusting +his fingers into his belt and smiling a little, walked to the front. +Dron on the contrary retired to the rear and the crowd drew closer +together. + +"Who is your Elder here? Hey?" shouted Rostov, coming up to the crowd +with quick steps. + +"The Elder? What do you want with him?..." asked Karp. + +But before the words were well out of his mouth, his cap flew off and a +fierce blow jerked his head to one side. + +"Caps off, traitors!" shouted Rostov in a wrathful voice. "Where's the +Elder?" he cried furiously. + +"The Elder.... He wants the Elder!... Dron Zakharych, you!" meek and +flustered voices here and there were heard calling and caps began to +come off their heads. + +"We don't riot, we're following the orders," declared Karp, and at that +moment several voices began speaking together. + +"It's as the old men have decided--there's too many of you giving +orders." + +"Arguing? Mutiny!... Brigands! Traitors!" cried Rostov unmeaningly in a +voice not his own, gripping Karp by the collar. "Bind him, bind him!" he +shouted, though there was no one to bind him but Lavrushka and Alpatych. + +Lavrushka, however, ran up to Karp and seized him by the arms from +behind. + +"Shall I call up our men from beyond the hill?" he called out. + +Alpatych turned to the peasants and ordered two of them by name to come +and bind Karp. The men obediently came out of the crowd and began taking +off their belts. + +"Where's the Elder?" demanded Rostov in a loud voice. + +With a pale and frowning face Dron stepped out of the crowd. + +"Are you the Elder? Bind him, Lavrushka!" shouted Rostov, as if that +order, too, could not possibly meet with any opposition. + +And in fact two more peasants began binding Dron, who took off his own +belt and handed it to them, as if to aid them. + +"And you all listen to me!" said Rostov to the peasants. "Be off to your +houses at once, and don't let one of your voices be heard!" + +"Why, we've not done any harm! We did it just out of foolishness. It's +all nonsense... I said then that it was not in order," voices were heard +bickering with one another. + + +"There! What did I say?" said Alpatych, coming into his own again. "It's +wrong, lads!" + +"All our stupidity, Yakov Alpatych," came the answers, and the crowd +began at once to disperse through the village. + +The two bound men were led off to the master's house. The two drunken +peasants followed them. + +"Aye, when I look at you!..." said one of them to Karp. + +"How can one talk to the masters like that? What were you thinking of, +you fool?" added the other--"A real fool!" + +Two hours later the carts were standing in the courtyard of the +Bogucharovo house. The peasants were briskly carrying out the +proprietor's goods and packing them on the carts, and Dron, liberated at +Princess Mary's wish from the cupboard where he had been confined, was +standing in the yard directing the men. + +"Don't put it in so carelessly," said one of the peasants, a man with a +round smiling face, taking a casket from a housemaid. "You know it has +cost money! How can you chuck it in like that or shove it under the cord +where it'll get rubbed? I don't like that way of doing things. Let it +all be done properly, according to rule. Look here, put it under the +bast matting and cover it with hay--that's the way!" + +"Eh, books, books!" said another peasant, bringing out Prince Andrew's +library cupboards. "Don't catch up against it! It's heavy, lads--solid +books." + +"Yes, they worked all day and didn't play!" remarked the tall, round- +faced peasant gravely, pointing with a significant wink at the +dictionaries that were on the top. + +Unwilling to obtrude himself on the princess, Rostov did not go back to +the house but remained in the village awaiting her departure. When her +carriage drove out of the house, he mounted and accompanied her eight +miles from Bogucharovo to where the road was occupied by our troops. At +the inn at Yankovo he respectfully took leave of her, for the first time +permitting himself to kiss her hand. + +"How can you speak so!" he blushingly replied to Princess Mary's +expressions of gratitude for her deliverance, as she termed what had +occurred. "Any police officer would have done as much! If we had had +only peasants to fight, we should not have let the enemy come so far," +said he with a sense of shame and wishing to change the subject. "I am +only happy to have had the opportunity of making your acquaintance. +Good-bye, Princess. I wish you happiness and consolation and hope to +meet you again in happier circumstances. If you don't want to make me +blush, please don't thank me!" + +But the princess, if she did not again thank him in words, thanked him +with the whole expression of her face, radiant with gratitude and +tenderness. She could not believe that there was nothing to thank him +for. On the contrary, it seemed to her certain that had he not been +there she would have perished at the hands of the mutineers and of the +French, and that he had exposed himself to terrible and obvious danger +to save her, and even more certain was it that he was a man of lofty and +noble soul, able to understand her position and her sorrow. His kind, +honest eyes, with the tears rising in them when she herself had begun to +cry as she spoke of her loss, did not leave her memory. + +When she had taken leave of him and remained alone she suddenly felt her +eyes filling with tears, and then not for the first time the strange +question presented itself to her: did she love him? + +On the rest of the way to Moscow, though the princess' position was not +a cheerful one, Dunyasha, who went with her in the carriage, more than +once noticed that her mistress leaned out of the window and smiled at +something with an expression of mingled joy and sorrow. + +"Well, supposing I do love him?" thought Princess Mary. + +Ashamed as she was of acknowledging to herself that she had fallen in +love with a man who would perhaps never love her, she comforted herself +with the thought that no one would ever know it and that she would not +be to blame if, without ever speaking of it to anyone, she continued to +the end of her life to love the man with whom she had fallen in love for +the first and last time in her life. + +Sometimes when she recalled his looks, his sympathy, and his words, +happiness did not appear impossible to her. It was at those moments that +Dunyasha noticed her smiling as she looked out of the carriage window. + +"Was it not fate that brought him to Bogucharovo, and at that very +moment?" thought Princess Mary. "And that caused his sister to refuse my +brother?" And in all this Princess Mary saw the hand of Providence. + +The impression the princess made on Rostov was a very agreeable one. To +remember her gave him pleasure, and when his comrades, hearing of his +adventure at Bogucharovo, rallied him on having gone to look for hay and +having picked up one of the wealthiest heiresses in Russia, he grew +angry. It made him angry just because the idea of marrying the gentle +Princess Mary, who was attractive to him and had an enormous fortune, +had against his will more than once entered his head. For himself +personally Nicholas could not wish for a better wife: by marrying her he +would make the countess his mother happy, would be able to put his +father's affairs in order, and would even--he felt it--ensure Princess +Mary's happiness. + +But Sonya? And his plighted word? That was why Rostov grew angry when he +was rallied about Princess Bolkonskaya. + + + + +CHAPTER XV + +On receiving command of the armies Kutuzov remembered Prince Andrew and +sent an order for him to report at headquarters. + +Prince Andrew arrived at Tsarevo-Zaymishche on the very day and at the +very hour that Kutuzov was reviewing the troops for the first time. He +stopped in the village at the priest's house in front of which stood the +commander-in-chief's carriage, and he sat down on the bench at the gate +awaiting his Serene Highness, as everyone now called Kutuzov. From the +field beyond the village came now sounds of regimental music and now the +roar of many voices shouting "Hurrah!" to the new commander-in-chief. +Two orderlies, a courier and a major-domo, stood near by, some ten paces +from Prince Andrew, availing themselves of Kutuzov's absence and of the +fine weather. A short, swarthy lieutenant colonel of hussars with thick +mustaches and whiskers rode up to the gate and, glancing at Prince +Andrew, inquired whether his Serene Highness was putting up there and +whether he would soon be back. + +Prince Andrew replied that he was not on his Serene Highness' staff but +was himself a new arrival. The lieutenant colonel turned to a smart +orderly, who, with the peculiar contempt with which a commander-in- +chief's orderly speaks to officers, replied: + +"What? His Serene Highness? I expect he'll be here soon. What do you +want?" + +The lieutenant colonel of hussars smiled beneath his mustache at the +orderly's tone, dismounted, gave his horse to a dispatch runner, and +approached Bolkonski with a slight bow. Bolkonski made room for him on +the bench and the lieutenant colonel sat down beside him. + +"You're also waiting for the commander-in-chief?" said he. "They say he +weceives evewyone, thank God!... It's awful with those sausage eaters! +Ermolov had weason to ask to be pwomoted to be a German! Now p'waps +Wussians will get a look in. As it was, devil only knows what was +happening. We kept wetweating and wetweating. Did you take part in the +campaign?" he asked. + +"I had the pleasure," replied Prince Andrew, "not only of taking part in +the retreat but of losing in that retreat all I held dear--not to +mention the estate and home of my birth--my father, who died of grief. I +belong to the province of Smolensk." + +"Ah? You're Pwince Bolkonski? Vewy glad to make your acquaintance! I'm +Lieutenant Colonel Denisov, better known as 'Vaska,'" said Denisov, +pressing Prince Andrew's hand and looking into his face with a +particularly kindly attention. "Yes, I heard," said he sympathetically, +and after a short pause added: "Yes, it's Scythian warfare. It's all +vewy well--only not for those who get it in the neck. So you are Pwince +Andwew Bolkonski?" He swayed his head. "Vewy pleased, Pwince, to make +your acquaintance!" he repeated again, smiling sadly, and he again +pressed Prince Andrew's hand. + +Prince Andrew knew Denisov from what Natasha had told him of her first +suitor. This memory carried him sadly and sweetly back to those painful +feelings of which he had not thought lately, but which still found place +in his soul. Of late he had received so many new and very serious +impressions--such as the retreat from Smolensk, his visit to Bald Hills, +and the recent news of his father's death--and had experienced so many +emotions, that for a long time past those memories had not entered his +mind, and now that they did, they did not act on him with nearly their +former strength. For Denisov, too, the memories awakened by the name of +Bolkonski belonged to a distant, romantic past, when after supper and +after Natasha's singing he had proposed to a little girl of fifteen +without realizing what he was doing. He smiled at the recollection of +that time and of his love for Natasha, and passed at once to what now +interested him passionately and exclusively. This was a plan of campaign +he had devised while serving at the outposts during the retreat. He had +proposed that plan to Barclay de Tolly and now wished to propose it to +Kutuzov. The plan was based on the fact that the French line of +operation was too extended, and it proposed that instead of, or +concurrently with, action on the front to bar the advance of the French, +we should attack their line of communication. He began explaining his +plan to Prince Andrew. + +"They can't hold all that line. It's impossible. I will undertake to +bweak thwough. Give me five hundwed men and I will bweak the line, +that's certain! There's only one way--guewilla warfare!" + +Denisov rose and began gesticulating as he explained his plan to +Bolkonski. In the midst of his explanation shouts were heard from the +army, growing more incoherent and more diffused, mingling with music and +songs and coming from the field where the review was held. Sounds of +hoofs and shouts were nearing the village. + +"He's coming! He's coming!" shouted a Cossack standing at the gate. + +Bolkonski and Denisov moved to the gate, at which a knot of soldiers (a +guard of honor) was standing, and they saw Kutuzov coming down the +street mounted on a rather small sorrel horse. A huge suite of generals +rode behind him. Barclay was riding almost beside him, and a crowd of +officers ran after and around them shouting, "Hurrah!" + +His adjutants galloped into the yard before him. Kutuzov was impatiently +urging on his horse, which ambled smoothly under his weight, and he +raised his hand to his white Horse Guard's cap with a red band and no +peak, nodding his head continually. When he came up to the guard of +honor, a fine set of Grenadiers mostly wearing decorations, who were +giving him the salute, he looked at them silently and attentively for +nearly a minute with the steady gaze of a commander and then turned to +the crowd of generals and officers surrounding him. Suddenly his face +assumed a subtle expression, he shrugged his shoulders with an air of +perplexity. + +"And with such fine fellows to retreat and retreat! Well, good-by, +General," he added, and rode into the yard past Prince Andrew and +Denisov. + +"Hurrah! hurrah! hurrah!" shouted those behind him. + +Since Prince Andrew had last seen him Kutuzov had grown still more +corpulent, flaccid, and fat. But the bleached eyeball, the scar, and the +familiar weariness of his expression were still the same. He was wearing +the white Horse Guard's cap and a military overcoat with a whip hanging +over his shoulder by a thin strap. He sat heavily and swayed limply on +his brisk little horse. + +"Whew... whew... whew!" he whistled just audibly as he rode into the +yard. His face expressed the relief of relaxed strain felt by a man who +means to rest after a ceremony. He drew his left foot out of the stirrup +and, lurching with his whole body and puckering his face with the +effort, raised it with difficulty onto the saddle, leaned on his knee, +groaned, and slipped down into the arms of the Cossacks and adjutants +who stood ready to assist him. + +He pulled himself together, looked round, screwing up his eyes, glanced +at Prince Andrew, and, evidently not recognizing him, moved with his +waddling gait to the porch. "Whew... whew... whew!" he whistled, and +again glanced at Prince Andrew. As often occurs with old men, it was +only after some seconds that the impression produced by Prince Andrew's +face linked itself up with Kutuzov's remembrance of his personality. + +"Ah, how do you do, my dear prince? How do you do, my dear boy? Come +along..." said he, glancing wearily round, and he stepped onto the porch +which creaked under his weight. + +He unbuttoned his coat and sat down on a bench in the porch. + +"And how's your father?" + +"I received news of his death, yesterday," replied Prince Andrew +abruptly. + +Kutuzov looked at him with eyes wide open with dismay and then took off +his cap and crossed himself: + +"May the kingdom of Heaven be his! God's will be done to us all!" He +sighed deeply, his whole chest heaving, and was silent for a while. "I +loved him and respected him, and sympathize with you with all my heart." + +He embraced Prince Andrew, pressing him to his fat breast, and for some +time did not let him go. When he released him Prince Andrew saw that +Kutuzov's flabby lips were trembling and that tears were in his eyes. He +sighed and pressed on the bench with both hands to raise himself. + +"Come! Come with me, we'll have a talk," said he. + +But at that moment Denisov, no more intimidated by his superiors than by +the enemy, came with jingling spurs up the steps of the porch, despite +the angry whispers of the adjutants who tried to stop him. Kutuzov, his +hands still pressed on the seat, glanced at him glumly. Denisov, having +given his name, announced that he had to communicate to his Serene +Highness a matter of great importance for their country's welfare. +Kutuzov looked wearily at him and, lifting his hands with a gesture of +annoyance, folded them across his stomach, repeating the words: "For our +country's welfare? Well, what is it? Speak!" Denisov blushed like a girl +(it was strange to see the color rise in that shaggy, bibulous, time- +worn face) and boldly began to expound his plan of cutting the enemy's +lines of communication between Smolensk and Vyazma. Denisov came from +those parts and knew the country well. His plan seemed decidedly a good +one, especially from the strength of conviction with which he spoke. +Kutuzov looked down at his own legs, occasionally glancing at the door +of the adjoining hut as if expecting something unpleasant to emerge from +it. And from that hut, while Denisov was speaking, a general with a +portfolio under his arm really did appear. + +"What?" said Kutuzov, in the midst of Denisov's explanations, "are you +ready so soon?" + +"Ready, your Serene Highness," replied the general. + +Kutuzov swayed his head, as much as to say: "How is one man to deal with +it all?" and again listened to Denisov. + +"I give my word of honor as a Wussian officer," said Denisov, "that I +can bweak Napoleon's line of communication!" + +"What relation are you to Intendant General Kiril Andreevich Denisov?" +asked Kutuzov, interrupting him. + +"He is my uncle, your Sewene Highness." + +"Ah, we were friends," said Kutuzov cheerfully. "All right, all right, +friend, stay here at the staff and tomorrow we'll have a talk." + +With a nod to Denisov he turned away and put out his hand for the papers +Konovnitsyn had brought him. + +"Would not your Serene Highness like to come inside?" said the general +on duty in a discontented voice, "the plans must be examined and several +papers have to be signed." + +An adjutant came out and announced that everything was in readiness +within. But Kutuzov evidently did not wish to enter that room till he +was disengaged. He made a grimace... + +"No, tell them to bring a small table out here, my dear boy. I'll look +at them here," said he. "Don't go away," he added, turning to Prince +Andrew, who remained in the porch and listened to the general's report. + +While this was being given, Prince Andrew heard the whisper of a woman's +voice and the rustle of a silk dress behind the door. Several times on +glancing that way he noticed behind that door a plump, rosy, handsome +woman in a pink dress with a lilac silk kerchief on her head, holding a +dish and evidently awaiting the entrance of the commander-in-chief. +Kutuzov's adjutant whispered to Prince Andrew that this was the wife of +the priest whose home it was, and that she intended to offer his Serene +Highness bread and salt. "Her husband has welcomed his Serene Highness +with the cross at the church, and she intends to welcome him in the +house.... She's very pretty," added the adjutant with a smile. At those +words Kutuzov looked round. He was listening to the general's report-- +which consisted chiefly of a criticism of the position at Tsarevo- +Zaymishche--as he had listened to Denisov, and seven years previously +had listened to the discussion at the Austerlitz council of war. He +evidently listened only because he had ears which, though there was a +piece of tow in one of them, could not help hearing; but it was evident +that nothing the general could say would surprise or even interest him, +that he knew all that would be said beforehand, and heard it all only +because he had to, as one has to listen to the chanting of a service of +prayer. All that Denisov had said was clever and to the point. What the +general was saying was even more clever and to the point, but it was +evident that Kutuzov despised knowledge and cleverness, and knew of +something else that would decide the matter--something independent of +cleverness and knowledge. Prince Andrew watched the commander-in-chief's +face attentively, and the only expression he could see there was one of +boredom, curiosity as to the meaning of the feminine whispering behind +the door, and a desire to observe propriety. It was evident that Kutuzov +despised cleverness and learning and even the patriotic feeling shown by +Denisov, but despised them not because of his own intellect, feelings, +or knowledge--he did not try to display any of these--but because of +something else. He despised them because of his old age and experience +of life. The only instruction Kutuzov gave of his own accord during that +report referred to looting by the Russian troops. At the end of the +report the general put before him for signature a paper relating to the +recovery of payment from army commanders for green oats mown down by the +soldiers, when landowners lodged petitions for compensation. + +After hearing the matter, Kutuzov smacked his lips together and shook +his head. + +"Into the stove... into the fire with it! I tell you once for all, my +dear fellow," said he, "into the fire with all such things! Let them cut +the crops and burn wood to their hearts' content. I don't order it or +allow it, but I don't exact compensation either. One can't get on +without it. 'When wood is chopped the chips will fly.'" He looked at the +paper again. "Oh, this German precision!" he muttered, shaking his head. + + + + +CHAPTER XVI + +"Well, that's all!" said Kutuzov as he signed the last of the documents, +and rising heavily and smoothing out the folds in his fat white neck he +moved toward the door with a more cheerful expression. + +The priest's wife, flushing rosy red, caught up the dish she had after +all not managed to present at the right moment, though she had so long +been preparing for it, and with a low bow offered it to Kutuzov. + +He screwed up his eyes, smiled, lifted her chin with his hand, and said: + +"Ah, what a beauty! Thank you, sweetheart!" + +He took some gold pieces from his trouser pocket and put them on the +dish for her. "Well, my dear, and how are we getting on?" he asked, +moving to the door of the room assigned to him. The priest's wife +smiled, and with dimples in her rosy cheeks followed him into the room. +The adjutant came out to the porch and asked Prince Andrew to lunch with +him. Half an hour later Prince Andrew was again called to Kutuzov. He +found him reclining in an armchair, still in the same unbuttoned +overcoat. He had in his hand a French book which he closed as Prince +Andrew entered, marking the place with a knife. Prince Andrew saw by the +cover that it was Les Chevaliers du Cygne by Madame de Genlis. + +"Well, sit down, sit down here. Let's have a talk," said Kutuzov. "It's +sad, very sad. But remember, my dear fellow, that I am a father to you, +a second father...." + +Prince Andrew told Kutuzov all he knew of his father's death, and what +he had seen at Bald Hills when he passed through it. + +"What... what they have brought us to!" Kutuzov suddenly cried in an +agitated voice, evidently picturing vividly to himself from Prince +Andrew's story the condition Russia was in. "But give me time, give me +time!" he said with a grim look, evidently not wishing to continue this +agitating conversation, and added: "I sent for you to keep you with me." + +"I thank your Serene Highness, but I fear I am no longer fit for the +staff," replied Prince Andrew with a smile which Kutuzov noticed. + +Kutuzov glanced inquiringly at him. + +"But above all," added Prince Andrew, "I have grown used to my regiment, +am fond of the officers, and I fancy the men also like me. I should be +sorry to leave the regiment. If I decline the honor of being with you, +believe me..." + +A shrewd, kindly, yet subtly derisive expression lit up Kutuzov's podgy +face. He cut Bolkonski short. + +"I am sorry, for I need you. But you're right, you're right! It's not +here that men are needed. Advisers are always plentiful, but men are +not. The regiments would not be what they are if the would-be advisers +served there as you do. I remember you at Austerlitz.... I remember, +yes, I remember you with the standard!" said Kutuzov, and a flush of +pleasure suffused Prince Andrew's face at this recollection. + +Taking his hand and drawing him downwards, Kutuzov offered his cheek to +be kissed, and again Prince Andrew noticed tears in the old man's eyes. +Though Prince Andrew knew that Kutuzov's tears came easily, and that he +was particularly tender to and considerate of him from a wish to show +sympathy with his loss, yet this reminder of Austerlitz was both +pleasant and flattering to him. + +"Go your way and God be with you. I know your path is the path of +honor!" He paused. "I missed you at Bucharest, but I needed someone to +send." And changing the subject, Kutuzov began to speak of the Turkish +war and the peace that had been concluded. "Yes, I have been much +blamed," he said, "both for that war and the peace... but everything +came at the right time. Tout vient a point a celui qui sait attendre. * +And there were as many advisers there as here..." he went on, returning +to the subject of "advisers" which evidently occupied him. "Ah, those +advisers!" said he. "If we had listened to them all we should not have +made peace with Turkey and should not have been through with that war. +Everything in haste, but more haste, less speed. Kamenski would have +been lost if he had not died. He stormed fortresses with thirty thousand +men. It is not difficult to capture a fortress but it is difficult to +win a campaign. For that, not storming and attacking but patience and +time are wanted. Kamenski sent soldiers to Rustchuk, but I only employed +these two things and took more fortresses than Kamenski and made them +Turks eat horseflesh!" He swayed his head. "And the French shall too, +believe me," he went on, growing warmer and beating his chest, "I'll +make them eat horseflesh!" And tears again dimmed his eyes. + + +* "Everything comes in time to him who knows how to wait." + +"But shan't we have to accept battle?" remarked Prince Andrew. + +"We shall if everybody wants it; it can't be helped.... But believe me, +my dear boy, there is nothing stronger than those two: patience and +time, they will do it all. But the advisers n'entendent pas de cette +oreille, voila le mal. * Some want a thing--others don't. What's one to +do?" he asked, evidently expecting an answer. "Well, what do you want us +to do?" he repeated and his eye shone with a deep, shrewd look. "I'll +tell you what to do," he continued, as Prince Andrew still did not +reply: "I will tell you what to do, and what I do. Dans le doute, mon +cher," he paused, "abstiens-toi" *(2)--he articulated the French proverb +deliberately. + + +* "Don't see it that way, that's the trouble." + +* (2) "When in doubt, my dear fellow, do nothing." + +"Well, good-by, my dear fellow; remember that with all my heart I share +your sorrow, and that for you I am not a Serene Highness, nor a prince, +nor a commander-in-chief, but a father! If you want anything come +straight to me. Good-bye, my dear boy." + +Again he embraced and kissed Prince Andrew, but before the latter had +left the room Kutuzov gave a sigh of relief and went on with his +unfinished novel, Les Chevaliers du Cygne by Madame de Genlis. + +Prince Andrew could not have explained how or why it was, but after that +interview with Kutuzov he went back to his regiment reassured as to the +general course of affairs and as to the man to whom it had been +entrusted. The more he realized the absence of all personal motive in +that old man--in whom there seemed to remain only the habit of passions, +and in place of an intellect (grouping events and drawing conclusions) +only the capacity calmly to contemplate the course of events--the more +reassured he was that everything would be as it should. "He will not +bring in any plan of his own. He will not devise or undertake anything," +thought Prince Andrew, "but he will hear everything, remember +everything, and put everything in its place. He will not hinder anything +useful nor allow anything harmful. He understands that there is +something stronger and more important than his own will--the inevitable +course of events, and he can see them and grasp their significance, and +seeing that significance can refrain from meddling and renounce his +personal wish directed to something else. And above all," thought Prince +Andrew, "one believes in him because he's Russian, despite the novel by +Genlis and the French proverbs, and because his voice shook when he +said: 'What they have brought us to!' and had a sob in it when he said +he would 'make them eat horseflesh!'" + +On such feelings, more or less dimly shared by all, the unanimity and +general approval were founded with which, despite court influences, the +popular choice of Kutuzov as commander-in-chief was received. + + + + +CHAPTER XVII + +After the Emperor had left Moscow, life flowed on there in its usual +course, and its course was so very usual that it was difficult to +remember the recent days of patriotic elation and ardor, hard to believe +that Russia was really in danger and that the members of the English +Club were also sons of the Fatherland ready to sacrifice everything for +it. The one thing that recalled the patriotic fervor everyone had +displayed during the Emperor's stay was the call for contributions of +men and money, a necessity that as soon as the promises had been made +assumed a legal, official form and became unavoidable. + +With the enemy's approach to Moscow, the Moscovites' view of their +situation did not grow more serious but on the contrary became even more +frivolous, as always happens with people who see a great danger +approaching. At the approach of danger there are always two voices that +speak with equal power in the human soul: one very reasonably tells a +man to consider the nature of the danger and the means of escaping it; +the other, still more reasonably, says that it is too depressing and +painful to think of the danger, since it is not in man's power to +foresee everything and avert the general course of events, and it is +therefore better to disregard what is painful till it comes, and to +think about what is pleasant. In solitude a man generally listens to the +first voice, but in society to the second. So it was now with the +inhabitants of Moscow. It was long since people had been as gay in +Moscow as that year. + +Rostopchin's broadsheets, headed by woodcuts of a drink shop, a potman, +and a Moscow burgher called Karpushka Chigirin, "who--having been a +militiaman and having had rather too much at the pub--heard that +Napoleon wished to come to Moscow, grew angry, abused the French in very +bad language, came out of the drink shop, and, under the sign of the +eagle, began to address the assembled people," were read and discussed, +together with the latest of Vasili Lvovich Pushkin's bouts rimes. + +In the corner room at the club, members gathered to read these +broadsheets, and some liked the way Karpushka jeered at the French, +saying: "They will swell up with Russian cabbage, burst with our +buckwheat porridge, and choke themselves with cabbage soup. They are all +dwarfs and one peasant woman will toss three of them with a hayfork." +Others did not like that tone and said it was stupid and vulgar. It was +said that Rostopchin had expelled all Frenchmen and even all foreigners +from Moscow, and that there had been some spies and agents of Napoleon +among them; but this was told chiefly to introduce Rostopchin's witty +remark on that occasion. The foreigners were deported to Nizhni by boat, +and Rostopchin had said to them in French: "Rentrez en vousmemes; entrez +dans la barque, et n'en faites pas une barque de Charon." * There was +talk of all the government offices having been already removed from +Moscow, and to this Shinshin's witticism was added--that for that alone +Moscow ought to be grateful to Napoleon. It was said that Mamonov's +regiment would cost him eight hundred thousand rubles, and that Bezukhov +had spent even more on his, but that the best thing about Bezukhov's +action was that he himself was going to don a uniform and ride at the +head of his regiment without charging anything for the show. + + +* "Think it over; get into the barque, and take care not to make it a +barque of Charon." + +"You don't spare anyone," said Julie Drubetskaya as she collected and +pressed together a bunch of raveled lint with her thin, beringed +fingers. + +Julie was preparing to leave Moscow next day and was giving a farewell +soiree. + +"Bezukhov est ridicule, but he is so kind and good-natured. What +pleasure is there to be so caustique?" + +"A forfeit!" cried a young man in militia uniform whom Julie called "mon +chevalier," and who was going with her to Nizhni. + +In Julie's set, as in many other circles in Moscow, it had been agreed +that they would speak nothing but Russian and that those who made a slip +and spoke French should pay fines to the Committee of Voluntary +Contributions. + +"Another forfeit for a Gallicism," said a Russian writer who was +present. "'What pleasure is there to be' is not Russian!" + +"You spare no one," continued Julie to the young man without heeding the +author's remark. + +"For caustique--I am guilty and will pay, and I am prepared to pay again +for the pleasure of telling you the truth. For Gallicisms I won't be +responsible," she remarked, turning to the author: "I have neither the +money nor the time, like Prince Galitsyn, to engage a master to teach me +Russian!" + +"Ah, here he is!" she added. "Quand on... No, no," she said to the +militia officer, "you won't catch me. Speak of the sun and you see its +rays!" and she smiled amiably at Pierre. "We were just talking of you," +she said with the facility in lying natural to a society woman. "We were +saying that your regiment would be sure to be better than Mamonov's." + +"Oh, don't talk to me of my regiment," replied Pierre, kissing his +hostess' hand and taking a seat beside her. "I am so sick of it." + +"You will, of course, command it yourself?" said Julie, directing a sly, +sarcastic glance toward the militia officer. + +The latter in Pierre's presence had ceased to be caustic, and his face +expressed perplexity as to what Julie's smile might mean. In spite of +his absent-mindedness and good nature, Pierre's personality immediately +checked any attempt to ridicule him to his face. + +"No," said Pierre, with a laughing glance at his big, stout body. "I +should make too good a target for the French, besides I am afraid I +should hardly be able to climb onto a horse." + +Among those whom Julie's guests happened to choose to gossip about were +the Rostovs. + +"I hear that their affairs are in a very bad way," said Julie. "And he +is so unreasonable, the count himself I mean. The Razumovskis wanted to +buy his house and his estate near Moscow, but it drags on and on. He +asks too much." + +"No, I think the sale will come off in a few days," said someone. +"Though it is madness to buy anything in Moscow now." + +"Why?" asked Julie. "You don't think Moscow is in danger?" + +"Then why are you leaving?" + +"I? What a question! I am going because... well, because everyone is +going: and besides--I am not Joan of Arc or an Amazon." + +"Well, of course, of course! Let me have some more strips of linen." + +"If he manages the business properly he will be able to pay off all his +debts," said the militia officer, speaking of Rostov. + +"A kindly old man but not up to much. And why do they stay on so long in +Moscow? They meant to leave for the country long ago. Natalie is quite +well again now, isn't she?" Julie asked Pierre with a knowing smile. + +"They are waiting for their younger son," Pierre replied. "He joined +Obolenski's Cossacks and went to Belaya Tserkov where the regiment is +being formed. But now they have had him transferred to my regiment and +are expecting him every day. The count wanted to leave long ago, but the +countess won't on any account leave Moscow till her son returns." + +"I met them the day before yesterday at the Arkharovs'. Natalie has +recovered her looks and is brighter. She sang a song. How easily some +people get over everything!" + +"Get over what?" inquired Pierre, looking displeased. + +Julie smiled. + +"You know, Count, such knights as you are only found in Madame de +Souza's novels." + +"What knights? What do you mean?" demanded Pierre, blushing. + +"Oh, come, my dear count! C'est la fable de tout Moscou. Je vous admire, +ma parole d'honneur!" * + + +* "It is the talk of all Moscow. My word, I admire you!" + +"Forfeit, forfeit!" cried the militia officer. + +"All right, one can't talk--how tiresome!" + +"What is 'the talk of all Moscow'?" Pierre asked angrily, rising to his +feet. + +"Come now, Count, you know!" + +"I don't know anything about it," said Pierre. + +"I know you were friendly with Natalie, and so... but I was always more +friendly with Vera--that dear Vera." + +"No, madame!" Pierre continued in a tone of displeasure, "I have not +taken on myself the role of Natalie Rostova's knight at all, and have +not been to their house for nearly a month. But I cannot understand the +cruelty..." + +"Qui s'excuse s'accuse," * said Julie, smiling and waving the lint +triumphantly, and to have the last word she promptly changed the +subject. "Do you know what I heard today? Poor Mary Bolkonskaya arrived +in Moscow yesterday. Do you know that she has lost her father?" + + +* "Who excuses himself, accuses himself." + +"Really? Where is she? I should like very much to see her," said Pierre. + +"I spent the evening with her yesterday. She is going to their estate +near Moscow either today or tomorrow morning, with her nephew." + +"Well, and how is she?" asked Pierre. + +"She is well, but sad. But do you know who rescued her? It is quite a +romance. Nicholas Rostov! She was surrounded, and they wanted to kill +her and had wounded some of her people. He rushed in and saved her...." + +"Another romance," said the militia officer. "Really, this general +flight has been arranged to get all the old maids married off. Catiche +is one and Princess Bolkonskaya another." + +"Do you know, I really believe she is un petit peu amoureuse du jeune +homme." * + + +* "A little bit in love with the young man." + +"Forfeit, forfeit, forfeit!" + +"But how could one say that in Russian?" + + + + +CHAPTER XVIII + +When Pierre returned home he was handed two of Rostopchin's broadsheets +that had been brought that day. + +The first declared that the report that Count Rostopchin had forbidden +people to leave Moscow was false; on the contrary he was glad that +ladies and tradesmen's wives were leaving the city. "There will be less +panic and less gossip," ran the broadsheet "but I will stake my life on +it that scoundrel will not enter Moscow." These words showed Pierre +clearly for the first time that the French would enter Moscow. The +second broadsheet stated that our headquarters were at Vyazma, that +Count Wittgenstein had defeated the French, but that as many of the +inhabitants of Moscow wished to be armed, weapons were ready for them at +the arsenal: sabers, pistols, and muskets which could be had at a low +price. The tone of the proclamation was not as jocose as in the former +Chigirin talks. Pierre pondered over these broadsheets. Evidently the +terrible stormcloud he had desired with the whole strength of his soul +but which yet aroused involuntary horror in him was drawing near. + +"Shall I join the army and enter the service, or wait?" he asked himself +for the hundredth time. He took a pack of cards that lay on the table +and began to lay them out for a game of patience. + +"If this patience comes out," he said to himself after shuffling the +cards, holding them in his hand, and lifting his head, "if it comes out, +it means... what does it mean?" + +He had not decided what it should mean when he heard the voice of the +eldest princess at the door asking whether she might come in. + +"Then it will mean that I must go to the army," said Pierre to himself. +"Come in, come in!" he added to the princess. + +Only the eldest princess, the one with the stony face and long waist, +was still living in Pierre's house. The two younger ones had both +married. + +"Excuse my coming to you, cousin," she said in a reproachful and +agitated voice. "You know some decision must be come to. What is going +to happen? Everyone has left Moscow and the people are rioting. How is +it that we are staying on?" + +"On the contrary, things seem satisfactory, ma cousine," said Pierre in +the bantering tone he habitually adopted toward her, always feeling +uncomfortable in the role of her benefactor. + +"Satisfactory, indeed! Very satisfactory! Barbara Ivanovna told me today +how our troops are distinguishing themselves. It certainly does them +credit! And the people too are quite mutinous--they no longer obey, even +my maid has taken to being rude. At this rate they will soon begin +beating us. One can't walk in the streets. But, above all, the French +will be here any day now, so what are we waiting for? I ask just one +thing of you, cousin," she went on, "arrange for me to be taken to +Petersburg. Whatever I may be, I can't live under Bonaparte's rule." + +"Oh, come, ma cousine! Where do you get your information from? On the +contrary..." + +"I won't submit to your Napoleon! Others may if they please.... If you +don't want to do this..." + +"But I will, I'll give the order at once." + +The princess was apparently vexed at not having anyone to be angry with. +Muttering to herself, she sat down on a chair. + +"But you have been misinformed," said Pierre. "Everything is quiet in +the city and there is not the slightest danger. See! I've just been +reading..." He showed her the broadsheet. "Count Rostopchin writes that +he will stake his life on it that the enemy will not enter Moscow." + +"Oh, that count of yours!" said the princess malevolently. "He is a +hypocrite, a rascal who has himself roused the people to riot. Didn't he +write in those idiotic broadsheets that anyone, 'whoever it might be, +should be dragged to the lockup by his hair'? (How silly!) 'And honor +and glory to whoever captures him,' he says. This is what his cajolery +has brought us to! Barbara Ivanovna told me the mob near killed her +because she said something in French." + +"Oh, but it's so... You take everything so to heart," said Pierre, and +began laying out his cards for patience. + +Although that patience did come out, Pierre did not join the army, but +remained in deserted Moscow ever in the same state of agitation, +irresolution, and alarm, yet at the same time joyfully expecting +something terrible. + +Next day toward evening the princess set off, and Pierre's head steward +came to inform him that the money needed for the equipment of his +regiment could not be found without selling one of the estates. In +general the head steward made out to Pierre that his project of raising +a regiment would ruin him. Pierre listened to him, scarcely able to +repress a smile. + +"Well then, sell it," said he. "What's to be done? I can't draw back +now!" + +The worse everything became, especially his own affairs, the better was +Pierre pleased and the more evident was it that the catastrophe he +expected was approaching. Hardly anyone he knew was left in town. Julie +had gone, and so had Princess Mary. Of his intimate friends only the +Rostovs remained, but he did not go to see them. + +To distract his thoughts he drove that day to the village of Vorontsovo +to see the great balloon Leppich was constructing to destroy the foe, +and a trial balloon that was to go up next day. The balloon was not yet +ready, but Pierre learned that it was being constructed by the Emperor's +desire. The Emperor had written to Count Rostopchin as follows: + +As soon as Leppich is ready, get together a crew of reliable and +intelligent men for his car and send a courier to General Kutuzov to let +him know. I have informed him of the matter. + +Please impress upon Leppich to be very careful where he descends for the +first time, that he may not make a mistake and fall into the enemy's +hands. It is essential for him to combine his movements with those of +the commander-in-chief. + +On his way home from Vorontsovo, as he was passing the Bolotnoe Place +Pierre, seeing a large crowd round the Lobnoe Place, stopped and got out +of his trap. A French cook accused of being a spy was being flogged. The +flogging was only just over, and the executioner was releasing from the +flogging bench a stout man with red whiskers, in blue stockings and a +green jacket, who was moaning piteously. Another criminal, thin and +pale, stood near. Judging by their faces they were both Frenchmen. With +a frightened and suffering look resembling that on the thin Frenchman's +face, Pierre pushed his way in through the crowd. + +"What is it? Who is it? What is it for?" he kept asking. + +But the attention of the crowd--officials, burghers, shopkeepers, +peasants, and women in cloaks and in pelisses--was so eagerly centered +on what was passing in Lobnoe Place that no one answered him. The stout +man rose, frowned, shrugged his shoulders, and evidently trying to +appear firm began to pull on his jacket without looking about him, but +suddenly his lips trembled and he began to cry, in the way full-blooded +grown-up men cry, though angry with himself for doing so. In the crowd +people began talking loudly, to stifle their feelings of pity as it +seemed to Pierre. + +"He's cook to some prince." + +"Eh, mounseer, Russian sauce seems to be sour to a Frenchman... sets his +teeth on edge!" said a wrinkled clerk who was standing behind Pierre, +when the Frenchman began to cry. + +The clerk glanced round, evidently hoping that his joke would be +appreciated. Some people began to laugh, others continued to watch in +dismay the executioner who was undressing the other man. + +Pierre choked, his face puckered, and he turned hastily away, went back +to his trap muttering something to himself as he went, and took his +seat. As they drove along he shuddered and exclaimed several times so +audibly that the coachman asked him: + +"What is your pleasure?" + +"Where are you going?" shouted Pierre to the man, who was driving to +Lubyanka Street. + +"To the Governor's, as you ordered," answered the coachman. + +"Fool! Idiot!" shouted Pierre, abusing his coachman--a thing he rarely +did. "Home, I told you! And drive faster, blockhead!" "I must get away +this very day," he murmured to himself. + +At the sight of the tortured Frenchman and the crowd surrounding the +Lobnoe Place, Pierre had so definitely made up his mind that he could no +longer remain in Moscow and would leave for the army that very day that +it seemed to him that either he had told the coachman this or that the +man ought to have known it for himself. + +On reaching home Pierre gave orders to Evstafey--his head coachman who +knew everything, could do anything, and was known to all Moscow--that he +would leave that night for the army at Mozhaysk, and that his saddle +horses should be sent there. This could not all be arranged that day, so +on Evstafey's representation Pierre had to put off his departure till +next day to allow time for the relay horses to be sent on in advance. + +On the twenty-fourth the weather cleared up after a spell of rain, and +after dinner Pierre left Moscow. When changing horses that night in +Perkhushkovo, he learned that there had been a great battle that +evening. (This was the battle of Shevardino.) He was told that there in +Perkhushkovo the earth trembled from the firing, but nobody could answer +his questions as to who had won. At dawn next day Pierre was approaching +Mozhaysk. + +Every house in Mozhaysk had soldiers quartered in it, and at the hostel +where Pierre was met by his groom and coachman there was no room to be +had. It was full of officers. + +Everywhere in Mozhaysk and beyond it, troops were stationed or on the +march. Cossacks, foot and horse soldiers, wagons, caissons, and cannon +were everywhere. Pierre pushed forward as fast as he could, and the +farther he left Moscow behind and the deeper he plunged into that sea of +troops the more was he overcome by restless agitation and a new and +joyful feeling he had not experienced before. It was a feeling akin to +what he had felt at the Sloboda Palace during the Emperor's visit--a +sense of the necessity of undertaking something and sacrificing +something. He now experienced a glad consciousness that everything that +constitutes men's happiness--the comforts of life, wealth, even life +itself--is rubbish it is pleasant to throw away, compared with +something... With what? Pierre could not say, and he did not try to +determine for whom and for what he felt such particular delight in +sacrificing everything. He was not occupied with the question of what to +sacrifice for; the fact of sacrificing in itself afforded him a new and +joyous sensation. + + + + +CHAPTER XIX + +On the twenty-fourth of August the battle of the Shevardino Redoubt was +fought, on the twenty-fifth not a shot was fired by either side, and on +the twenty-sixth the battle of Borodino itself took place. + +Why and how were the battles of Shevardino and Borodino given and +accepted? Why was the battle of Borodino fought? There was not the least +sense in it for either the French or the Russians. Its immediate result +for the Russians was, and was bound to be, that we were brought nearer +to the destruction of Moscow--which we feared more than anything in the +world; and for the French its immediate result was that they were +brought nearer to the destruction of their whole army--which they feared +more than anything in the world. What the result must be was quite +obvious, and yet Napoleon offered and Kutuzov accepted that battle. + +If the commanders had been guided by reason, it would seem that it must +have been obvious to Napoleon that by advancing thirteen hundred miles +and giving battle with a probability of losing a quarter of his army, he +was advancing to certain destruction, and it must have been equally +clear to Kutuzov that by accepting battle and risking the loss of a +quarter of his army he would certainly lose Moscow. For Kutuzov this was +mathematically clear, as it is that if when playing draughts I have one +man less and go on exchanging, I shall certainly lose, and therefore +should not exchange. When my opponent has sixteen men and I have +fourteen, I am only one eighth weaker than he, but when I have exchanged +thirteen more men he will be three times as strong as I am. + +Before the battle of Borodino our strength in proportion to the French +was about as five to six, but after that battle it was little more than +one to two: previously we had a hundred thousand against a hundred and +twenty thousand; afterwards little more than fifty thousand against a +hundred thousand. Yet the shrewd and experienced Kutuzov accepted the +battle, while Napoleon, who was said to be a commander of genius, gave +it, losing a quarter of his army and lengthening his lines of +communication still more. If it is said that he expected to end the +campaign by occupying Moscow as he had ended a previous campaign by +occupying Vienna, there is much evidence to the contrary. Napoleon's +historians themselves tell us that from Smolensk onwards he wished to +stop, knew the danger of his extended position, and knew that the +occupation of Moscow would not be the end of the campaign, for he had +seen at Smolensk the state in which Russian towns were left to him, and +had not received a single reply to his repeated announcements of his +wish to negotiate. + +In giving and accepting battle at Borodino, Kutuzov acted involuntarily +and irrationally. But later on, to fit what had occurred, the historians +provided cunningly devised evidence of the foresight and genius of the +generals who, of all the blind tools of history were the most enslaved +and involuntary. + +The ancients have left us model heroic poems in which the heroes furnish +the whole interest of the story, and we are still unable to accustom +ourselves to the fact that for our epoch histories of that kind are +meaningless. + +On the other question, how the battle of Borodino and the preceding +battle of Shevardino were fought, there also exists a definite and well- +known, but quite false, conception. All the historians describe the +affair as follows: + +The Russian army, they say, in its retreat from Smolensk sought out for +itself the best position for a general engagement and found such a +position at Borodino. + +The Russians, they say, fortified this position in advance on the left +of the highroad (from Moscow to Smolensk) and almost at a right angle to +it, from Borodino to Utitsa, at the very place where the battle was +fought. + +In front of this position, they say, a fortified outpost was set up on +the Shevardino mound to observe the enemy. On the twenty-fourth, we are +told, Napoleon attacked this advanced post and took it, and, on the +twenty-sixth, attacked the whole Russian army, which was in position on +the field of Borodino. + +So the histories say, and it is all quite wrong, as anyone who cares to +look into the matter can easily convince himself. + +The Russians did not seek out the best position but, on the contrary, +during the retreat passed many positions better than Borodino. They did +not stop at any one of these positions because Kutuzov did not wish to +occupy a position he had not himself chosen, because the popular demand +for a battle had not yet expressed itself strongly enough, and because +Miloradovich had not yet arrived with the militia, and for many other +reasons. The fact is that other positions they had passed were stronger, +and that the position at Borodino (the one where the battle was fought), +far from being strong, was no more a position than any other spot one +might find in the Russian Empire by sticking a pin into the map at +hazard. + +Not only did the Russians not fortify the position on the field of +Borodino to the left of, and at a right angle to, the highroad (that is, +the position on which the battle took place), but never till the twenty- +fifth of August, 1812, did they think that a battle might be fought +there. This was shown first by the fact that there were no entrenchments +there by the twenty fifth and that those begun on the twenty-fifth and +twenty-sixth were not completed, and secondly, by the position of the +Shevardino Redoubt. That redoubt was quite senseless in front of the +position where the battle was accepted. Why was it more strongly +fortified than any other post? And why were all efforts exhausted and +six thousand men sacrificed to defend it till late at night on the +twenty-fourth? A Cossack patrol would have sufficed to observe the +enemy. Thirdly, as proof that the position on which the battle was +fought had not been foreseen and that the Shevardino Redoubt was not an +advanced post of that position, we have the fact that up to the twenty- +fifth, Barclay de Tolly and Bagration were convinced that the Shevardino +Redoubt was the left flank of the position, and that Kutuzov himself in +his report, written in hot haste after the battle, speaks of the +Shevardino Redoubt as the left flank of the position. It was much later, +when reports on the battle of Borodino were written at leisure, that the +incorrect and extraordinary statement was invented (probably to justify +the mistakes of a commander-in-chief who had to be represented as +infallible) that the Shevardino Redoubt was an advanced post--whereas in +reality it was simply a fortified point on the left flank--and that the +battle of Borodino was fought by us on an entrenched position previously +selected, where as it was fought on a quite unexpected spot which was +almost unentrenched. + +The case was evidently this: a position was selected along the river +Kolocha--which crosses the highroad not at a right angle but at an acute +angle--so that the left flank was at Shevardino, the right flank near +the village of Novoe, and the center at Borodino at the confluence of +the rivers Kolocha and Voyna. + +To anyone who looks at the field of Borodino without thinking of how the +battle was actually fought, this position, protected by the river +Kolocha, presents itself as obvious for an army whose object was to +prevent an enemy from advancing along the Smolensk road to Moscow. + +Napoleon, riding to Valuevo on the twenty-fourth, did not see (as the +history books say he did) the position of the Russians from Utitsa to +Borodino (he could not have seen that position because it did not +exist), nor did he see an advanced post of the Russian army, but while +pursuing the Russian rearguard he came upon the left flank of the +Russian position--at the Shevardino Redoubt--and unexpectedly for the +Russians moved his army across the Kolocha. And the Russians, not having +time to begin a general engagement, withdrew their left wing from the +position they had intended to occupy and took up a new position which +had not been foreseen and was not fortified. By crossing to the other +side of the Kolocha to the left of the highroad, Napoleon shifted the +whole forthcoming battle from right to left (looking from the Russian +side) and transferred it to the plain between Utitsa, Semenovsk, and +Borodino--a plain no more advantageous as a position than any other +plain in Russia--and there the whole battle of the twenty-sixth of +August took place. + +Had Napoleon not ridden out on the evening of the twenty-fourth to the +Kolocha, and had he not then ordered an immediate attack on the redoubt +but had begun the attack next morning, no one would have doubted that +the Shevardino Redoubt was the left flank of our position, and the +battle would have taken place where we expected it. In that case we +should probably have defended the Shevardino Redoubt--our left flank-- +still more obstinately. We should have attacked Napoleon in the center +or on the right, and the engagement would have taken place on the +twenty-fifth, in the position we intended and had fortified. But as the +attack on our left flank took place in the evening after the retreat of +our rear guard (that is, immediately after the fight at Gridneva), and +as the Russian commanders did not wish, or were not in time, to begin a +general engagement then on the evening of the twenty-fourth, the first +and chief action of the battle of Borodino was already lost on the +twenty-fourth, and obviously led to the loss of the one fought on the +twenty-sixth. + +After the loss of the Shevardino Redoubt, we found ourselves on the +morning of the twenty-fifth without a position for our left flank, and +were forced to bend it back and hastily entrench it where it chanced to +be. + +Not only was the Russian army on the twenty-sixth defended by weak, +unfinished entrenchments, but the disadvantage of that position was +increased by the fact that the Russian commanders--not having fully +realized what had happened, namely the loss of our position on the left +flank and the shifting of the whole field of the forthcoming battle from +right to left--maintained their extended position from the village of +Novoe to Utitsa, and consequently had to move their forces from right to +left during the battle. So it happened that throughout the whole battle +the Russians opposed the entire French army launched against our left +flank with but half as many men. (Poniatowski's action against Utitsa, +and Uvarov's on the right flank against the French, were actions +distinct from the main course of the battle.) So the battle of Borodino +did not take place at all as (in an effort to conceal our commanders' +mistakes even at the cost of diminishing the glory due to the Russian +army and people) it has been described. The battle of Borodino was not +fought on a chosen and entrenched position with forces only slightly +weaker than those of the enemy, but, as a result of the loss of the +Shevardino Redoubt, the Russians fought the battle of Borodino on an +open and almost unentrenched position, with forces only half as numerous +as the French; that is to say, under conditions in which it was not +merely unthinkable to fight for ten hours and secure an indecisive +result, but unthinkable to keep an army even from complete +disintegration and flight. + + + + +CHAPTER XX + +On the morning of the twenty-fifth Pierre was leaving Mozhaysk. At the +descent of the high steep hill, down which a winding road led out of the +town past the cathedral on the right, where a service was being held and +the bells were ringing, Pierre got out of his vehicle and proceeded on +foot. Behind him a cavalry regiment was coming down the hill preceded by +its singers. Coming up toward him was a train of carts carrying men who +had been wounded in the engagement the day before. The peasant drivers, +shouting and lashing their horses, kept crossing from side to side. The +carts, in each of which three or four wounded soldiers were lying or +sitting, jolted over the stones that had been thrown on the steep +incline to make it something like a road. The wounded, bandaged with +rags, with pale cheeks, compressed lips, and knitted brows, held on to +the sides of the carts as they were jolted against one another. Almost +all of them stared with naive, childlike curiosity at Pierre's white hat +and green swallow-tail coat. + +Pierre's coachman shouted angrily at the convoy of wounded to keep to +one side of the road. The cavalry regiment, as it descended the hill +with its singers, surrounded Pierre's carriage and blocked the road. +Pierre stopped, being pressed against the side of the cutting in which +the road ran. The sunshine from behind the hill did not penetrate into +the cutting and there it was cold and damp, but above Pierre's head was +the bright August sunshine and the bells sounded merrily. One of the +carts with wounded stopped by the side of the road close to Pierre. The +driver in his bast shoes ran panting up to it, placed a stone under one +of its tireless hind wheels, and began arranging the breech-band on his +little horse. + +One of the wounded, an old soldier with a bandaged arm who was following +the cart on foot, caught hold of it with his sound hand and turned to +look at Pierre. + +"I say, fellow countryman! Will they set us down here or take us on to +Moscow?" he asked. + +Pierre was so deep in thought that he did not hear the question. He was +looking now at the cavalry regiment that had met the convoy of wounded, +now at the cart by which he was standing, in which two wounded men were +sitting and one was lying. One of those sitting up in the cart had +probably been wounded in the cheek. His whole head was wrapped in rags +and one cheek was swollen to the size of a baby's head. His nose and +mouth were twisted to one side. This soldier was looking at the +cathedral and crossing himself. Another, a young lad, a fair-haired +recruit as white as though there was no blood in his thin face, looked +at Pierre kindly, with a fixed smile. The third lay prone so that his +face was not visible. The cavalry singers were passing close by: + + +Ah lost, quite lost... is my head so keen, Living in a foreign land. + +they sang their soldiers' dance song. + +As if responding to them but with a different sort of merriment, the +metallic sound of the bells reverberated high above and the hot rays of +the sun bathed the top of the opposite slope with yet another sort of +merriment. But beneath the slope, by the cart with the wounded near the +panting little nag where Pierre stood, it was damp, somber, and sad. + +The soldier with the swollen cheek looked angrily at the cavalry +singers. + +"Oh, the coxcombs!" he muttered reproachfully. + +"It's not the soldiers only, but I've seen peasants today, too.... The +peasants--even they have to go," said the soldier behind the cart, +addressing Pierre with a sad smile. "No distinctions made nowadays.... +They want the whole nation to fall on them--in a word, it's Moscow! They +want to make an end of it." + +In spite of the obscurity of the soldier's words Pierre understood what +he wanted to say and nodded approval. + +The road was clear again; Pierre descended the hill and drove on. + +He kept looking to either side of the road for familiar faces, but only +saw everywhere the unfamiliar faces of various military men of different +branches of the service, who all looked with astonishment at his white +hat and green tail coat. + +Having gone nearly three miles he at last met an acquaintance and +eagerly addressed him. This was one of the head army doctors. He was +driving toward Pierre in a covered gig, sitting beside a young surgeon, +and on recognizing Pierre he told the Cossack who occupied the driver's +seat to pull up. + +"Count! Your excellency, how come you to be here?" asked the doctor. + +"Well, you know, I wanted to see..." + +"Yes, yes, there will be something to see...." + +Pierre got out and talked to the doctor, explaining his intention of +taking part in a battle. + +The doctor advised him to apply direct to Kutuzov. + +"Why should you be God knows where out of sight, during the battle?" he +said, exchanging glances with his young companion. "Anyhow his Serene +Highness knows you and will receive you graciously. That's what you must +do." + +The doctor seemed tired and in a hurry. + +"You think so?... Ah, I also wanted to ask you where our position is +exactly?" said Pierre. + +"The position?" repeated the doctor. "Well, that's not my line. Drive +past Tatarinova, a lot of digging is going on there. Go up the hillock +and you'll see." + +"Can one see from there?... If you would..." + +But the doctor interrupted him and moved toward his gig. + +"I would go with you but on my honor I'm up to here"--and he pointed to +his throat. "I'm galloping to the commander of the corps. How do matters +stand?... You know, Count, there'll be a battle tomorrow. Out of an army +of a hundred thousand we must expect at least twenty thousand wounded, +and we haven't stretchers, or bunks, or dressers, or doctors enough for +six thousand. We have ten thousand carts, but we need other things as +well--we must manage as best we can!" + +The strange thought that of the thousands of men, young and old, who had +stared with merry surprise at his hat (perhaps the very men he had +noticed), twenty thousand were inevitably doomed to wounds and death +amazed Pierre. + +"They may die tomorrow; why are they thinking of anything but death?" +And by some latent sequence of thought the descent of the Mozhaysk hill, +the carts with the wounded, the ringing bells, the slanting rays of the +sun, and the songs of the cavalrymen vividly recurred to his mind. + +"The cavalry ride to battle and meet the wounded and do not for a moment +think of what awaits them, but pass by, winking at the wounded. Yet from +among these men twenty thousand are doomed to die, and they wonder at my +hat! Strange!" thought Pierre, continuing his way to Tatarinova. + +In front of a landowner's house to the left of the road stood carriages, +wagons, and crowds of orderlies and sentinels. The commander-in-chief +was putting up there, but just when Pierre arrived he was not in and +hardly any of the staff were there--they had gone to the church service. +Pierre drove on toward Gorki. + +When he had ascended the hill and reached the little village street, he +saw for the first time peasant militiamen in their white shirts and with +crosses on their caps, who, talking and laughing loudly, animated and +perspiring, were at work on a huge knoll overgrown with grass to the +right of the road. + +Some of them were digging, others were wheeling barrowloads of earth +along planks, while others stood about doing nothing. + +Two officers were standing on the knoll, directing the men. On seeing +these peasants, who were evidently still amused by the novelty of their +position as soldiers, Pierre once more thought of the wounded men at +Mozhaysk and understood what the soldier had meant when he said: "They +want the whole nation to fall on them." The sight of these bearded +peasants at work on the battlefield, with their queer, clumsy boots and +perspiring necks, and their shirts opening from the left toward the +middle, unfastened, exposing their sunburned collarbones, impressed +Pierre more strongly with the solemnity and importance of the moment +than anything he had yet seen or heard. + + + + +CHAPTER XXI + +Pierre stepped out of his carriage and, passing the toiling militiamen, +ascended the knoll from which, according to the doctor, the battlefield +could be seen. + +It was about eleven o'clock. The sun shone somewhat to the left and +behind him and brightly lit up the enormous panorama which, rising like +an amphitheater, extended before him in the clear rarefied atmosphere. + +From above on the left, bisecting that amphitheater, wound the Smolensk +highroad, passing through a village with a white church some five +hundred paces in front of the knoll and below it. This was Borodino. +Below the village the road crossed the river by a bridge and, winding +down and up, rose higher and higher to the village of Valuevo visible +about four miles away, where Napoleon was then stationed. Beyond Valuevo +the road disappeared into a yellowing forest on the horizon. Far in the +distance in that birch and fir forest to the right of the road, the +cross and belfry of the Kolocha Monastery gleamed in the sun. Here and +there over the whole of that blue expanse, to right and left of the +forest and the road, smoking campfires could be seen and indefinite +masses of troops--ours and the enemy's. The ground to the right--along +the course of the Kolocha and Moskva rivers--was broken and hilly. +Between the hollows the villages of Bezubova and Zakharino showed in the +distance. On the left the ground was more level; there were fields of +grain, and the smoking ruins of Semenovsk, which had been burned down, +could be seen. + +All that Pierre saw was so indefinite that neither the left nor the +right side of the field fully satisfied his expectations. Nowhere could +he see the battlefield he had expected to find, but only fields, +meadows, troops, woods, the smoke of campfires, villages, mounds, and +streams; and try as he would he could descry no military "position" in +this place which teemed with life, nor could he even distinguish our +troops from the enemy's. + +"I must ask someone who knows," he thought, and addressed an officer who +was looking with curiosity at his huge unmilitary figure. + +"May I ask you," said Pierre, "what village that is in front?" + +"Burdino, isn't it?" said the officer, turning to his companion. + +"Borodino," the other corrected him. + +The officer, evidently glad of an opportunity for a talk, moved up to +Pierre. + +"Are those our men there?" Pierre inquired. + +"Yes, and there, further on, are the French," said the officer. "There +they are, there... you can see them." + +"Where? Where?" asked Pierre. + +"One can see them with the naked eye... Why, there!" + +The officer pointed with his hand to the smoke visible on the left +beyond the river, and the same stern and serious expression that Pierre +had noticed on many of the faces he had met came into his face. + +"Ah, those are the French! And over there?..." Pierre pointed to a knoll +on the left, near which some troops could be seen. + +"Those are ours." + +"Ah, ours! And there?..." Pierre pointed to another knoll in the +distance with a big tree on it, near a village that lay in a hollow +where also some campfires were smoking and something black was visible. + +"That's his again," said the officer. (It was the Shevardino Redoubt.) +"It was ours yesterday, but now it is his." + +"Then how about our position?" + +"Our position?" replied the officer with a smile of satisfaction. "I can +tell you quite clearly, because I constructed nearly all our +entrenchments. There, you see? There's our center, at Borodino, just +there," and he pointed to the village in front of them with the white +church. "That's where one crosses the Kolocha. You see down there where +the rows of hay are lying in the hollow, there's the bridge. That's our +center. Our right flank is over there"--he pointed sharply to the right, +far away in the broken ground--"That's where the Moskva River is, and we +have thrown up three redoubts there, very strong ones. The left +flank..." here the officer paused. "Well, you see, that's difficult to +explain.... Yesterday our left flank was there at Shevardino, you see, +where the oak is, but now we have withdrawn our left wing--now it is +over there, do you see that village and the smoke? That's Semenovsk, +yes, there," he pointed to Raevski's knoll. "But the battle will hardly +be there. His having moved his troops there is only a ruse; he will +probably pass round to the right of the Moskva. But wherever it may be, +many a man will be missing tomorrow!" he remarked. + +An elderly sergeant who had approached the officer while he was giving +these explanations had waited in silence for him to finish speaking, but +at this point, evidently not liking the officer's remark, interrupted +him. + +"Gabions must be sent for," said he sternly. + +The officer appeared abashed, as though he understood that one might +think of how many men would be missing tomorrow but ought not to speak +of it. + +"Well, send number three company again," the officer replied hurriedly. + +"And you, are you one of the doctors?" + +"No, I've come on my own," answered Pierre, and he went down the hill +again, passing the militiamen. + +"Oh, those damned fellows!" muttered the officer who followed him, +holding his nose as he ran past the men at work. + +"There they are... bringing her, coming... There they are... They'll be +here in a minute..." voices were suddenly heard saying; and officers, +soldiers, and militiamen began running forward along the road. + +A church procession was coming up the hill from Borodino. First along +the dusty road came the infantry in ranks, bareheaded and with arms +reversed. From behind them came the sound of church singing. + +Soldiers and militiamen ran bareheaded past Pierre toward the +procession. + +"They are bringing her, our Protectress!... The Iberian Mother of God!" +someone cried. + +"The Smolensk Mother of God," another corrected him. + +The militiamen, both those who had been in the village and those who had +been at work on the battery, threw down their spades and ran to meet the +church procession. Following the battalion that marched along the dusty +road came priests in their vestments--one little old man in a hood with +attendants and singers. Behind them soldiers and officers bore a large, +dark-faced icon with an embossed metal cover. This was the icon that had +been brought from Smolensk and had since accompanied the army. Behind, +before, and on both sides, crowds of militiamen with bared heads walked, +ran, and bowed to the ground. + +At the summit of the hill they stopped with the icon; the men who had +been holding it up by the linen bands attached to it were relieved by +others, the chanters relit their censers, and service began. The hot +rays of the sun beat down vertically and a fresh soft wind played with +the hair of the bared heads and with the ribbons decorating the icon. +The singing did not sound loud under the open sky. An immense crowd of +bareheaded officers, soldiers, and militiamen surrounded the icon. +Behind the priest and a chanter stood the notabilities on a spot +reserved for them. A bald general with a St. George's Cross on his neck +stood just behind the priest's back, and without crossing himself (he +was evidently a German) patiently awaited the end of the service, which +he considered it necessary to hear to the end, probably to arouse the +patriotism of the Russian people. Another general stood in a martial +pose, crossing himself by shaking his hand in front of his chest while +looking about him. Standing among the crowd of peasants, Pierre +recognized several acquaintances among these notables, but did not look +at them--his whole attention was absorbed in watching the serious +expression on the faces of the crowd of soldiers and militiamen who were +all gazing eagerly at the icon. As soon as the tired chanters, who were +singing the service for the twentieth time that day, began lazily and +mechanically to sing: "Save from calamity Thy servants, O Mother of +God," and the priest and deacon chimed in: "For to Thee under God we all +flee as to an inviolable bulwark and protection," there again kindled in +all those faces the same expression of consciousness of the solemnity of +the impending moment that Pierre had seen on the faces at the foot of +the hill at Mozhaysk and momentarily on many and many faces he had met +that morning; and heads were bowed more frequently and hair tossed back, +and sighs and the sound men made as they crossed themselves were heard. + +The crowd round the icon suddenly parted and pressed against Pierre. +Someone, a very important personage judging by the haste with which way +was made for him, was approaching the icon. + +It was Kutuzov, who had been riding round the position and on his way +back to Tatarinova had stopped where the service was being held. Pierre +recognized him at once by his peculiar figure, which distinguished him +from everybody else. + +With a long overcoat on his exceedingly stout, round-shouldered body, +with uncovered white head and puffy face showing the white ball of the +eye he had lost, Kutuzov walked with plunging, swaying gait into the +crowd and stopped behind the priest. He crossed himself with an +accustomed movement, bent till he touched the ground with his hand, and +bowed his white head with a deep sigh. Behind Kutuzov was Bennigsen and +the suite. Despite the presence of the commander-in-chief, who attracted +the attention of all the superior officers, the militiamen and soldiers +continued their prayers without looking at him. + +When the service was over, Kutuzov stepped up to the icon, sank heavily +to his knees, bowed to the ground, and for a long time tried vainly to +rise, but could not do so on account of his weakness and weight. His +white head twitched with the effort. At last he rose, kissed the icon as +a child does with naively pouting lips, and again bowed till he touched +the ground with his hand. The other generals followed his example, then +the officers, and after them with excited faces, pressing on one +another, crowding, panting, and pushing, scrambled the soldiers and +militiamen. + + + + +CHAPTER XXII + +Staggering amid the crush, Pierre looked about him. + +"Count Peter Kirilovich! How did you get here?" said a voice. + +Pierre looked round. Boris Drubetskoy, brushing his knees with his hand +(he had probably soiled them when he, too, had knelt before the icon), +came up to him smiling. Boris was elegantly dressed, with a slightly +martial touch appropriate to a campaign. He wore a long coat and like +Kutuzov had a whip slung across his shoulder. + +Meanwhile Kutuzov had reached the village and seated himself in the +shade of the nearest house, on a bench which one Cossack had run to +fetch and another had hastily covered with a rug. An immense and +brilliant suite surrounded him. + +The icon was carried further, accompanied by the throng. Pierre stopped +some thirty paces from Kutuzov, talking to Boris. + +He explained his wish to be present at the battle and to see the +position. + +"This is what you must do," said Boris. "I will do the honors of the +camp to you. You will see everything best from where Count Bennigsen +will be. I am in attendance on him, you know; I'll mention it to him. +But if you want to ride round the position, come along with us. We are +just going to the left flank. Then when we get back, do spend the night +with me and we'll arrange a game of cards. Of course you know Dmitri +Sergeevich? Those are his quarters," and he pointed to the third house +in the village of Gorki. + +"But I should like to see the right flank. They say it's very strong," +said Pierre. "I should like to start from the Moskva River and ride +round the whole position." + +"Well, you can do that later, but the chief thing is the left flank." + +"Yes, yes. But where is Prince Bolkonski's regiment? Can you point it +out to me?" + +"Prince Andrew's? We shall pass it and I'll take you to him." + +"What about the left flank?" asked Pierre + +"To tell you the truth, between ourselves, God only knows what state our +left flank is in," said Boris confidentially lowering his voice. "It is +not at all what Count Bennigsen intended. He meant to fortify that knoll +quite differently, but..." Boris shrugged his shoulders, "his Serene +Highness would not have it, or someone persuaded him. You see..." but +Boris did not finish, for at that moment Kaysarov, Kutuzov's adjutant, +came up to Pierre. "Ah, Kaysarov!" said Boris, addressing him with an +unembarrassed smile, "I was just trying to explain our position to the +count. It is amazing how his Serene Highness could so foresee the +intentions of the French!" + +"You mean the left flank?" asked Kaysarov. + +"Yes, exactly; the left flank is now extremely strong." + +Though Kutuzov had dismissed all unnecessary men from the staff, Boris +had contrived to remain at headquarters after the changes. He had +established himself with Count Bennigsen, who, like all on whom Boris +had been in attendance, considered young Prince Drubetskoy an invaluable +man. + +In the higher command there were two sharply defined parties: Kutuzov's +party and that of Bennigsen, the chief of staff. Boris belonged to the +latter and no one else, while showing servile respect to Kutuzov, could +so create an impression that the old fellow was not much good and that +Bennigsen managed everything. Now the decisive moment of battle had come +when Kutuzov would be destroyed and the power pass to Bennigsen, or even +if Kutuzov won the battle it would be felt that everything was done by +Bennigsen. In any case many great rewards would have to be given for +tomorrow's action, and new men would come to the front. So Boris was +full of nervous vivacity all day. + +After Kaysarov, others whom Pierre knew came up to him, and he had not +time to reply to all the questions about Moscow that were showered upon +him, or to listen to all that was told him. The faces all expressed +animation and apprehension, but it seemed to Pierre that the cause of +the excitement shown in some of these faces lay chiefly in questions of +personal success; his mind, however, was occupied by the different +expression he saw on other faces--an expression that spoke not of +personal matters but of the universal questions of life and death. +Kutuzov noticed Pierre's figure and the group gathered round him. + +"Call him to me," said Kutuzov. + +An adjutant told Pierre of his Serene Highness' wish, and Pierre went +toward Kutuzov's bench. But a militiaman got there before him. It was +Dolokhov. + +"How did that fellow get here?" asked Pierre. + +"He's a creature that wriggles in anywhere!" was the answer. "He has +been degraded, you know. Now he wants to bob up again. He's been +proposing some scheme or other and has crawled into the enemy's picket +line at night.... He's a brave fellow." + +Pierre took off his hat and bowed respectfully to Kutuzov. + +"I concluded that if I reported to your Serene Highness you might send +me away or say that you knew what I was reporting, but then I shouldn't +lose anything..." Dolokhov was saying. + +"Yes, yes." + +"But if I were right, I should be rendering a service to my Fatherland +for which I am ready to die." + +"Yes, yes." + +"And should your Serene Highness require a man who will not spare his +skin, please think of me.... Perhaps I may prove useful to your Serene +Highness." + +"Yes... Yes..." Kutuzov repeated, his laughing eye narrowing more and +more as he looked at Pierre. + +Just then Boris, with his courtierlike adroitness, stepped up to +Pierre's side near Kutuzov and in a most natural manner, without raising +his voice, said to Pierre, as though continuing an interrupted +conversation: + +"The militia have put on clean white shirts to be ready to die. What +heroism, Count!" + +Boris evidently said this to Pierre in order to be overheard by his +Serene Highness. He knew Kutuzov's attention would be caught by those +words, and so it was. + +"What are you saying about the militia?" he asked Boris. + +"Preparing for tomorrow, your Serene Highness--for death--they have put +on clean shirts." + +"Ah... a wonderful, a matchless people!" said Kutuzov; and he closed his +eyes and swayed his head. "A matchless people!" he repeated with a sigh. + +"So you want to smell gunpowder?" he said to Pierre. "Yes, it's a +pleasant smell. I have the honor to be one of your wife's adorers. Is +she well? My quarters are at your service." + +And as often happens with old people, Kutuzov began looking about +absent-mindedly as if forgetting all he wanted to say or do. + +Then, evidently remembering what he wanted, he beckoned to Andrew +Kaysarov, his adjutant's brother. + +"Those verses... those verses of Marin's... how do they go, eh? Those he +wrote about Gerakov: 'Lectures for the corps inditing'... Recite them, +recite them!" said he, evidently preparing to laugh. + +Kaysarov recited.... Kutuzov smilingly nodded his head to the rhythm of +the verses. + +When Pierre had left Kutuzov, Dolokhov came up to him and took his hand. + +"I am very glad to meet you here, Count," he said aloud, regardless of +the presence of strangers and in a particularly resolute and solemn +tone. "On the eve of a day when God alone knows who of us is fated to +survive, I am glad of this opportunity to tell you that I regret the +misunderstandings that occurred between us and should wish you not to +have any ill feeling for me. I beg you to forgive me." + +Pierre looked at Dolokhov with a smile, not knowing what to say to him. +With tears in his eyes Dolokhov embraced Pierre and kissed him. + +Boris said a few words to his general, and Count Bennigsen turned to +Pierre and proposed that he should ride with him along the line. + +"It will interest you," said he. + +"Yes, very much," replied Pierre. + +Half an hour later Kutuzov left for Tatarinova, and Bennigsen and his +suite, with Pierre among them, set out on their ride along the line. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIII + +From Gorki, Bennigsen descended the highroad to the bridge which, when +they had looked at it from the hill, the officer had pointed out as +being the center of our position and where rows of fragrant new-mown hay +lay by the riverside. They rode across that bridge into the village of +Borodino and thence turned to the left, passing an enormous number of +troops and guns, and came to a high knoll where militiamen were digging. +This was the redoubt, as yet unnamed, which afterwards became known as +the Raevski Redoubt, or the Knoll Battery, but Pierre paid no special +attention to it. He did not know that it would become more memorable to +him than any other spot on the plain of Borodino. + +They then crossed the hollow to Semenovsk, where the soldiers were +dragging away the last logs from the huts and barns. Then they rode +downhill and uphill, across a ryefield trodden and beaten down as if by +hail, following a track freshly made by the artillery over the furrows +of the plowed land, and reached some fleches * which were still being +dug. + + +* A kind of entrenchment. + +At the fleches Bennigsen stopped and began looking at the Shevardino +Redoubt opposite, which had been ours the day before and where several +horsemen could be descried. The officers said that either Napoleon or +Murat was there, and they all gazed eagerly at this little group of +horsemen. Pierre also looked at them, trying to guess which of the +scarcely discernible figures was Napoleon. At last those mounted men +rode away from the mound and disappeared. + +Bennigsen spoke to a general who approached him, and began explaining +the whole position of our troops. Pierre listened to him, straining each +faculty to understand the essential points of the impending battle, but +was mortified to feel that his mental capacity was inadequate for the +task. He could make nothing of it. Bennigsen stopped speaking and, +noticing that Pierre was listening, suddenly said to him: + +"I don't think this interests you?" + +"On the contrary it's very interesting!" replied Pierre not quite +truthfully. + +From the fleches they rode still farther to the left, along a road +winding through a thick, low-growing birch wood. In the middle of the +wood a brown hare with white feet sprang out and, scared by the tramp of +the many horses, grew so confused that it leaped along the road in front +of them for some time, arousing general attention and laughter, and only +when several voices shouted at it did it dart to one side and disappear +in the thicket. After going through the wood for about a mile and a half +they came out on a glade where troops of Tuchkov's corps were stationed +to defend the left flank. + +Here, at the extreme left flank, Bennigsen talked a great deal and with +much heat, and, as it seemed to Pierre, gave orders of great military +importance. In front of Tuchkov's troops was some high ground not +occupied by troops. Bennigsen loudly criticized this mistake, saying +that it was madness to leave a height which commanded the country around +unoccupied and to place troops below it. Some of the generals expressed +the same opinion. One in particular declared with martial heat that they +were put there to be slaughtered. Bennigsen on his own authority ordered +the troops to occupy the high ground. This disposition on the left flank +increased Pierre's doubt of his own capacity to understand military +matters. Listening to Bennigsen and the generals criticizing the +position of the troops behind the hill, he quite understood them and +shared their opinion, but for that very reason he could not understand +how the man who put them there behind the hill could have made so gross +and palpable a blunder. + +Pierre did not know that these troops were not, as Bennigsen supposed, +put there to defend the position, but were in a concealed position as an +ambush, that they should not be seen and might be able to strike an +approaching enemy unexpectedly. Bennigsen did not know this and moved +the troops forward according to his own ideas without mentioning the +matter to the commander-in-chief. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIV + +On that bright evening of August 25, Prince Andrew lay leaning on his +elbow in a broken-down shed in the village of Knyazkovo at the further +end of his regiment's encampment. Through a gap in the broken wall he +could see, beside the wooden fence, a row of thirty year-old birches +with their lower branches lopped off, a field on which shocks of oats +were standing, and some bushes near which rose the smoke of campfires-- +the soldiers' kitchens. + +Narrow and burdensome and useless to anyone as his life now seemed to +him, Prince Andrew on the eve of battle felt agitated and irritable as +he had done seven years before at Austerlitz. + +He had received and given the orders for next day's battle and had +nothing more to do. But his thoughts--the simplest, clearest, and +therefore most terrible thoughts--would give him no peace. He knew that +tomorrow's battle would be the most terrible of all he had taken part +in, and for the first time in his life the possibility of death +presented itself to him--not in relation to any worldly matter or with +reference to its effect on others, but simply in relation to himself, to +his own soul--vividly, plainly, terribly, and almost as a certainty. And +from the height of this perception all that had previously tormented and +preoccupied him suddenly became illumined by a cold white light without +shadows, without perspective, without distinction of outline. All life +appeared to him like magic-lantern pictures at which he had long been +gazing by artificial light through a glass. Now he suddenly saw those +badly daubed pictures in clear daylight and without a glass. "Yes, yes! +There they are, those false images that agitated, enraptured, and +tormented me," said he to himself, passing in review the principal +pictures of the magic lantern of life and regarding them now in the cold +white daylight of his clear perception of death. "There they are, those +rudely painted figures that once seemed splendid and mysterious. Glory, +the good of society, love of a woman, the Fatherland itself--how +important these pictures appeared to me, with what profound meaning they +seemed to be filled! And it is all so simple, pale, and crude in the +cold white light of this morning which I feel is dawning for me." The +three great sorrows of his life held his attention in particular: his +love for a woman, his father's death, and the French invasion which had +overrun half Russia. "Love... that little girl who seemed to me brimming +over with mystic forces! Yes, indeed, I loved her. I made romantic plans +of love and happiness with her! Oh, what a boy I was!" he said aloud +bitterly. "Ah me! I believed in some ideal love which was to keep her +faithful to me for the whole year of my absence! Like the gentle dove in +the fable she was to pine apart from me.... But it was much simpler +really.... It was all very simple and horrible." + +"When my father built Bald Hills he thought the place was his: his land, +his air, his peasants. But Napoleon came and swept him aside, +unconscious of his existence, as he might brush a chip from his path, +and his Bald Hills and his whole life fell to pieces. Princess Mary says +it is a trial sent from above. What is the trial for, when he is not +here and will never return? He is not here! For whom then is the trial +intended? The Fatherland, the destruction of Moscow! And tomorrow I +shall be killed, perhaps not even by a Frenchman but by one of our own +men, by a soldier discharging a musket close to my ear as one of them +did yesterday, and the French will come and take me by head and heels +and fling me into a hole that I may not stink under their noses, and new +conditions of life will arise, which will seem quite ordinary to others +and about which I shall know nothing. I shall not exist..." + +He looked at the row of birches shining in the sunshine, with their +motionless green and yellow foliage and white bark. "To die... to be +killed tomorrow... That I should not exist... That all this should still +be, but no me...." + +And the birches with their light and shade, the curly clouds, the smoke +of the campfires, and all that was around him changed and seemed +terrible and menacing. A cold shiver ran down his spine. He rose +quickly, went out of the shed, and began to walk about. + +After he had returned, voices were heard outside the shed. "Who's that?" +he cried. + +The red-nosed Captain Timokhin, formerly Dolokhov's squadron commander, +but now from lack of officers a battalion commander, shyly entered the +shed followed by an adjutant and the regimental paymaster. + +Prince Andrew rose hastily, listened to the business they had come +about, gave them some further instructions, and was about to dismiss +them when he heard a familiar, lisping, voice behind the shed. + +"Devil take it!" said the voice of a man stumbling over something. + +Prince Andrew looked out of the shed and saw Pierre, who had tripped +over a pole on the ground and had nearly fallen, coming his way. It was +unpleasant to Prince Andrew to meet people of his own set in general, +and Pierre especially, for he reminded him of all the painful moments of +his last visit to Moscow. + +"You? What a surprise!" said he. "What brings you here? This is +unexpected!" + +As he said this his eyes and face expressed more than coldness--they +expressed hostility, which Pierre noticed at once. He had approached the +shed full of animation, but on seeing Prince Andrew's face he felt +constrained and ill at ease. + +"I have come... simply... you know... come... it interests me," said +Pierre, who had so often that day senselessly repeated that word +"interesting." "I wish to see the battle." + +"Oh yes, and what do the masonic brothers say about war? How would they +stop it?" said Prince Andrew sarcastically. "Well, and how's Moscow? And +my people? Have they reached Moscow at last?" he asked seriously. + +"Yes, they have. Julie Drubetskaya told me so. I went to see them, but +missed them. They have gone to your estate near Moscow." + + + + +CHAPTER XXV + +The officers were about to take leave, but Prince Andrew, apparently +reluctant to be left alone with his friend, asked them to stay and have +tea. Seats were brought in and so was the tea. The officers gazed with +surprise at Pierre's huge stout figure and listened to his talk of +Moscow and the position of our army, round which he had ridden. Prince +Andrew remained silent, and his expression was so forbidding that Pierre +addressed his remarks chiefly to the good-natured battalion commander. + +"So you understand the whole position of our troops?" Prince Andrew +interrupted him. + +"Yes--that is, how do you mean?" said Pierre. "Not being a military man +I can't say I have understood it fully, but I understand the general +position." + +"Well, then, you know more than anyone else, be it who it may," said +Prince Andrew. + +"Oh!" said Pierre, looking over his spectacles in perplexity at Prince +Andrew. "Well, and what do you think of Kutuzov's appointment?" he +asked. + +"I was very glad of his appointment, that's all I know," replied Prince +Andrew. + +"And tell me your opinion of Barclay de Tolly. In Moscow they are saying +heaven knows what about him.... What do you think of him?" + +"Ask them," replied Prince Andrew, indicating the officers. + +Pierre looked at Timokhin with the condescendingly interrogative smile +with which everybody involuntarily addressed that officer. + +"We see light again, since his Serenity has been appointed, your +excellency," said Timokhin timidly, and continually turning to glance at +his colonel. + +"Why so?" asked Pierre. + +"Well, to mention only firewood and fodder, let me inform you. Why, when +we were retreating from Sventsyani we dare not touch a stick or a wisp +of hay or anything. You see, we were going away, so he would get it all; +wasn't it so, your excellency?" and again Timokhin turned to the prince. +"But we daren't. In our regiment two officers were court-martialed for +that kind of thing. But when his Serenity took command everything became +straight forward. Now we see light..." + +"Then why was it forbidden?" + +Timokhin looked about in confusion, not knowing what or how to answer +such a question. Pierre put the same question to Prince Andrew. + +"Why, so as not to lay waste the country we were abandoning to the +enemy," said Prince Andrew with venomous irony. "It is very sound: one +can't permit the land to be pillaged and accustom the troops to +marauding. At Smolensk too he judged correctly that the French might +outflank us, as they had larger forces. But he could not understand +this," cried Prince Andrew in a shrill voice that seemed to escape him +involuntarily: "he could not understand that there, for the first time, +we were fighting for Russian soil, and that there was a spirit in the +men such as I had never seen before, that we had held the French for two +days, and that that success had increased our strength tenfold. He +ordered us to retreat, and all our efforts and losses went for nothing. +He had no thought of betraying us, he tried to do the best he could, he +thought out everything, and that is why he is unsuitable. He is +unsuitable now, just because he plans out everything very thoroughly and +accurately as every German has to. How can I explain?... Well, say your +father has a German valet, and he is a splendid valet and satisfies your +father's requirements better than you could, then it's all right to let +him serve. But if your father is mortally sick you'll send the valet +away and attend to your father with your own unpracticed, awkward hands, +and will soothe him better than a skilled man who is a stranger could. +So it has been with Barclay. While Russia was well, a foreigner could +serve her and be a splendid minister; but as soon as she is in danger +she needs one of her own kin. But in your club they have been making him +out a traitor! They slander him as a traitor, and the only result will +be that afterwards, ashamed of their false accusations, they will make +him out a hero or a genius instead of a traitor, and that will be still +more unjust. He is an honest and very punctilious German." + +"And they say he's a skillful commander," rejoined Pierre. + +"I don't understand what is meant by 'a skillful commander,'" replied +Prince Andrew ironically. + +"A skillful commander?" replied Pierre. "Why, one who foresees all +contingencies... and foresees the adversary's intentions." + +"But that's impossible," said Prince Andrew as if it were a matter +settled long ago. + +Pierre looked at him in surprise. + +"And yet they say that war is like a game of chess?" he remarked. + +"Yes," replied Prince Andrew, "but with this little difference, that in +chess you may think over each move as long as you please and are not +limited for time, and with this difference too, that a knight is always +stronger than a pawn, and two pawns are always stronger than one, while +in war a battalion is sometimes stronger than a division and sometimes +weaker than a company. The relative strength of bodies of troops can +never be known to anyone. Believe me," he went on, "if things depended +on arrangements made by the staff, I should be there making +arrangements, but instead of that I have the honor to serve here in the +regiment with these gentlemen, and I consider that on us tomorrow's +battle will depend and not on those others.... Success never depends, +and never will depend, on position, or equipment, or even on numbers, +and least of all on position." + +"But on what then?" + +"On the feeling that is in me and in him," he pointed to Timokhin, "and +in each soldier." + +Prince Andrew glanced at Timokhin, who looked at his commander in alarm +and bewilderment. In contrast to his former reticent taciturnity Prince +Andrew now seemed excited. He could apparently not refrain from +expressing the thoughts that had suddenly occurred to him. + +"A battle is won by those who firmly resolve to win it! Why did we lose +the battle at Austerlitz? The French losses were almost equal to ours, +but very early we said to ourselves that we were losing the battle, and +we did lose it. And we said so because we had nothing to fight for +there, we wanted to get away from the battlefield as soon as we could. +'We've lost, so let us run,' and we ran. If we had not said that till +the evening, heaven knows what might not have happened. But tomorrow we +shan't say it! You talk about our position, the left flank weak and the +right flank too extended," he went on. "That's all nonsense, there's +nothing of the kind. But what awaits us tomorrow? A hundred million most +diverse chances which will be decided on the instant by the fact that +our men or theirs run or do not run, and that this man or that man is +killed, but all that is being done at present is only play. The fact is +that those men with whom you have ridden round the position not only do +not help matters, but hinder. They are only concerned with their own +petty interests." + +"At such a moment?" said Pierre reproachfully. + +"At such a moment!" Prince Andrew repeated. "To them it is only a moment +affording opportunities to undermine a rival and obtain an extra cross +or ribbon. For me tomorrow means this: a Russian army of a hundred +thousand and a French army of a hundred thousand have met to fight, and +the thing is that these two hundred thousand men will fight and the side +that fights more fiercely and spares itself least will win. And if you +like I will tell you that whatever happens and whatever muddles those at +the top may make, we shall win tomorrow's battle. Tomorrow, happen what +may, we shall win!" + +"There now, your excellency! That's the truth, the real truth," said +Timokhin. "Who would spare himself now? The soldiers in my battalion, +believe me, wouldn't drink their vodka! 'It's not the day for that!' +they say." + +All were silent. The officers rose. Prince Andrew went out of the shed +with them, giving final orders to the adjutant. After they had gone +Pierre approached Prince Andrew and was about to start a conversation +when they heard the clatter of three horses' hoofs on the road not far +from the shed, and looking in that direction Prince Andrew recognized +Wolzogen and Clausewitz accompanied by a Cossack. They rode close by +continuing to converse, and Prince Andrew involuntarily heard these +words: + +"Der Krieg muss in Raum verlegt werden. Der Ansicht kann ich nicht genug +Preis geben," * said one of them. + + +* "The war must be extended widely. I cannot sufficiently commend that +view." + +"Oh, ja," said the other, "der Zweck ist nur den Feind zu schwachen, so +kann man gewiss nicht den Verlust der Privat-Personen in Achtung +nehmen." * + + +* "Oh, yes, the only aim is to weaken the enemy, so of course one cannot +take into account the loss of private individuals." + +"Oh, no," agreed the other. + +"Extend widely!" said Prince Andrew with an angry snort, when they had +ridden past. "In that 'extend' were my father, son, and sister, at Bald +Hills. That's all the same to him! That's what I was saying to you-- +those German gentlemen won't win the battle tomorrow but will only make +all the mess they can, because they have nothing in their German heads +but theories not worth an empty eggshell and haven't in their hearts the +one thing needed tomorrow--that which Timokhin has. They have yielded up +all Europe to him, and have now come to teach us. Fine teachers!" and +again his voice grew shrill. + +"So you think we shall win tomorrow's battle?" asked Pierre. + +"Yes, yes," answered Prince Andrew absently. "One thing I would do if I +had the power," he began again, "I would not take prisoners. Why take +prisoners? It's chivalry! The French have destroyed my home and are on +their way to destroy Moscow, they have outraged and are outraging me +every moment. They are my enemies. In my opinion they are all criminals. +And so thinks Timokhin and the whole army. They should be executed! +Since they are my foes they cannot be my friends, whatever may have been +said at Tilsit." + +"Yes, yes," muttered Pierre, looking with shining eyes at Prince Andrew. +"I quite agree with you!" + +The question that had perturbed Pierre on the Mozhaysk hill and all that +day now seemed to him quite clear and completely solved. He now +understood the whole meaning and importance of this war and of the +impending battle. All he had seen that day, all the significant and +stern expressions on the faces he had seen in passing, were lit up for +him by a new light. He understood that latent heat (as they say in +physics) of patriotism which was present in all these men he had seen, +and this explained to him why they all prepared for death calmly, and as +it were lightheartedly. + +"Not take prisoners," Prince Andrew continued: "That by itself would +quite change the whole war and make it less cruel. As it is we have +played at war--that's what's vile! We play at magnanimity and all that +stuff. Such magnanimity and sensibility are like the magnanimity and +sensibility of a lady who faints when she sees a calf being killed: she +is so kindhearted that she can't look at blood, but enjoys eating the +calf served up with sauce. They talk to us of the rules of war, of +chivalry, of flags of truce, of mercy to the unfortunate and so on. It's +all rubbish! I saw chivalry and flags of truce in 1805; they humbugged +us and we humbugged them. They plunder other people's houses, issue +false paper money, and worst of all they kill my children and my father, +and then talk of rules of war and magnanimity to foes! Take no +prisoners, but kill and be killed! He who has come to this as I have +through the same sufferings..." + +Prince Andrew, who had thought it was all the same to him whether or not +Moscow was taken as Smolensk had been, was suddenly checked in his +speech by an unexpected cramp in his throat. He paced up and down a few +times in silence, but his eyes glittered feverishly and his lips +quivered as he began speaking. + +"If there was none of this magnanimity in war, we should go to war only +when it was worth while going to certain death, as now. Then there would +not be war because Paul Ivanovich had offended Michael Ivanovich. And +when there was a war, like this one, it would be war! And then the +determination of the troops would be quite different. Then all these +Westphalians and Hessians whom Napoleon is leading would not follow him +into Russia, and we should not go to fight in Austria and Prussia +without knowing why. War is not courtesy but the most horrible thing in +life; and we ought to understand that and not play at war. We ought to +accept this terrible necessity sternly and seriously. It all lies in +that: get rid of falsehood and let war be war and not a game. As it is +now, war is the favorite pastime of the idle and frivolous. The military +calling is the most highly honored. + +"But what is war? What is needed for success in warfare? What are the +habits of the military? The aim of war is murder; the methods of war are +spying, treachery, and their encouragement, the ruin of a country's +inhabitants, robbing them or stealing to provision the army, and fraud +and falsehood termed military craft. The habits of the military class +are the absence of freedom, that is, discipline, idleness, ignorance, +cruelty, debauchery, and drunkenness. And in spite of all this it is the +highest class, respected by everyone. All the kings, except the Chinese, +wear military uniforms, and he who kills most people receives the +highest rewards. + +"They meet, as we shall meet tomorrow, to murder one another; they kill +and maim tens of thousands, and then have thanksgiving services for +having killed so many people (they even exaggerate the number), and they +announce a victory, supposing that the more people they have killed the +greater their achievement. How does God above look at them and hear +them?" exclaimed Prince Andrew in a shrill, piercing voice. "Ah, my +friend, it has of late become hard for me to live. I see that I have +begun to understand too much. And it doesn't do for man to taste of the +tree of knowledge of good and evil.... Ah, well, it's not for long!" he +added. + +"However, you're sleepy, and it's time for me to sleep. Go back to +Gorki!" said Prince Andrew suddenly. + +"Oh no!" Pierre replied, looking at Prince Andrew with frightened, +compassionate eyes. + +"Go, go! Before a battle one must have one's sleep out," repeated Prince +Andrew. + +He came quickly up to Pierre and embraced and kissed him. "Good-bye, be +off!" he shouted. "Whether we meet again or not..." and turning away +hurriedly he entered the shed. + +It was already dark, and Pierre could not make out whether the +expression of Prince Andrew's face was angry or tender. + +For some time he stood in silence considering whether he should follow +him or go away. "No, he does not want it!" Pierre concluded. "And I know +that this is our last meeting!" He sighed deeply and rode back to Gorki. + +On re-entering the shed Prince Andrew lay down on a rug, but he could +not sleep. + +He closed his eyes. One picture succeeded another in his imagination. On +one of them he dwelt long and joyfully. He vividly recalled an evening +in Petersburg. Natasha with animated and excited face was telling him +how she had gone to look for mushrooms the previous summer and had lost +her way in the big forest. She incoherently described the depths of the +forest, her feelings, and a talk with a beekeeper she met, and +constantly interrupted her story to say: "No, I can't! I'm not telling +it right; no, you don't understand," though he encouraged her by saying +that he did understand, and he really had understood all she wanted to +say. But Natasha was not satisfied with her own words: she felt that +they did not convey the passionately poetic feeling she had experienced +that day and wished to convey. "He was such a delightful old man, and it +was so dark in the forest... and he had such kind... No, I can't +describe it," she had said, flushed and excited. Prince Andrew smiled +now the same happy smile as then when he had looked into her eyes. "I +understood her," he thought. "I not only understood her, but it was just +that inner, spiritual force, that sincerity, that frankness of soul-- +that very soul of hers which seemed to be fettered by her body--it was +that soul I loved in her... loved so strongly and happily..." and +suddenly he remembered how his love had ended. "He did not need anything +of that kind. He neither saw nor understood anything of the sort. He +only saw in her a pretty and fresh young girl, with whom he did not +deign to unite his fate. And I?... and he is still alive and gay!" + +Prince Andrew jumped up as if someone had burned him, and again began +pacing up and down in front of the shed. + + + + +CHAPTER XXVI + +On August 25, the eve of the battle of Borodino, M. de Beausset, prefect +of the French Emperor's palace, arrived at Napoleon's quarters at +Valuevo with Colonel Fabvier, the former from Paris and the latter from +Madrid. + +Donning his court uniform, M. de Beausset ordered a box he had brought +for the Emperor to be carried before him and entered the first +compartment of Napoleon's tent, where he began opening the box while +conversing with Napoleon's aides-de-camp who surrounded him. + +Fabvier, not entering the tent, remained at the entrance talking to some +generals of his acquaintance. + +The Emperor Napoleon had not yet left his bedroom and was finishing his +toilet. Slightly snorting and grunting, he presented now his back and +now his plump hairy chest to the brush with which his valet was rubbing +him down. Another valet, with his finger over the mouth of a bottle, was +sprinkling Eau de Cologne on the Emperor's pampered body with an +expression which seemed to say that he alone knew where and how much Eau +de Cologne should be sprinkled. Napoleon's short hair was wet and matted +on the forehead, but his face, though puffy and yellow, expressed +physical satisfaction. "Go on, harder, go on!" he muttered to the valet +who was rubbing him, slightly twitching and grunting. An aide-de-camp, +who had entered the bedroom to report to the Emperor the number of +prisoners taken in yesterday's action, was standing by the door after +delivering his message, awaiting permission to withdraw. Napoleon, +frowning, looked at him from under his brows. + +"No prisoners!" said he, repeating the aide-de-camp's words. "They are +forcing us to exterminate them. So much the worse for the Russian +army.... Go on... harder, harder!" he muttered, hunching his back and +presenting his fat shoulders. + +"All right. Let Monsieur de Beausset enter, and Fabvier too," he said, +nodding to the aide-de-camp. + +"Yes, sire," and the aide-de-camp disappeared through the door of the +tent. + +Two valets rapidly dressed His Majesty, and wearing the blue uniform of +the Guards he went with firm quick steps to the reception room. + +De Beausset's hands meanwhile were busily engaged arranging the present +he had brought from the Empress, on two chairs directly in front of the +entrance. But Napoleon had dressed and come out with such unexpected +rapidity that he had not time to finish arranging the surprise. + +Napoleon noticed at once what they were about and guessed that they were +not ready. He did not wish to deprive them of the pleasure of giving him +a surprise, so he pretended not to see de Beausset and called Fabvier to +him, listening silently and with a stern frown to what Fabvier told him +of the heroism and devotion of his troops fighting at Salamanca, at the +other end of Europe, with but one thought--to be worthy of their +Emperor--and but one fear--to fail to please him. The result of that +battle had been deplorable. Napoleon made ironic remarks during +Fabvier's account, as if he had not expected that matters could go +otherwise in his absence. + +"I must make up for that in Moscow," said Napoleon. "I'll see you +later," he added, and summoned de Beausset, who by that time had +prepared the surprise, having placed something on the chairs and covered +it with a cloth. + +De Beausset bowed low, with that courtly French bow which only the old +retainers of the Bourbons knew how to make, and approached him, +presenting an envelope. + +Napoleon turned to him gaily and pulled his ear. + +"You have hurried here. I am very glad. Well, what is Paris saying?" he +asked, suddenly changing his former stern expression for a most cordial +tone. + +"Sire, all Paris regrets your absence," replied de Beausset as was +proper. + +But though Napoleon knew that de Beausset had to say something of this +kind, and though in his lucid moments he knew it was untrue, he was +pleased to hear it from him. Again he honored him by touching his ear. + +"I am very sorry to have made you travel so far," said he. + +"Sire, I expected nothing less than to find you at the gates of Moscow," +replied de Beausset. + +Napoleon smiled and, lifting his head absent-mindedly, glanced to the +right. An aide-de-camp approached with gliding steps and offered him a +gold snuffbox, which he took. + +"Yes, it has happened luckily for you," he said, raising the open +snuffbox to his nose. "You are fond of travel, and in three days you +will see Moscow. You surely did not expect to see that Asiatic capital. +You will have a pleasant journey." + +De Beausset bowed gratefully at this regard for his taste for travel (of +which he had not till then been aware). + +"Ha, what's this?" asked Napoleon, noticing that all the courtiers were +looking at something concealed under a cloth. + +With courtly adroitness de Beausset half turned and without turning his +back to the Emperor retired two steps, twitching off the cloth at the +same time, and said: + +"A present to Your Majesty from the Empress." + +It was a portrait, painted in bright colors by Gerard, of the son borne +to Napoleon by the daughter of the Emperor of Austria, the boy whom for +some reason everyone called "The King of Rome." + +A very pretty curly-headed boy with a look of the Christ in the Sistine +Madonna was depicted playing at stick and ball. The ball represented the +terrestrial globe and the stick in his other hand a scepter. + +Though it was not clear what the artist meant to express by depicting +the so-called King of Rome spiking the earth with a stick, the allegory +apparently seemed to Napoleon, as it had done to all who had seen it in +Paris, quite clear and very pleasing. + +"The King of Rome!" he said, pointing to the portrait with a graceful +gesture. "Admirable!" + +With the natural capacity of an Italian for changing the expression of +his face at will, he drew nearer to the portrait and assumed a look of +pensive tenderness. He felt that what he now said and did would be +historical, and it seemed to him that it would now be best for him-- +whose grandeur enabled his son to play stick and ball with the +terrestrial globe--to show, in contrast to that grandeur, the simplest +paternal tenderness. His eyes grew dim, he moved forward, glanced round +at a chair (which seemed to place itself under him), and sat down on it +before the portrait. At a single gesture from him everyone went out on +tiptoe, leaving the great man to himself and his emotion. + +Having sat still for a while he touched--himself not knowing why--the +thick spot of paint representing the highest light in the portrait, +rose, and recalled de Beausset and the officer on duty. He ordered the +portrait to be carried outside his tent, that the Old Guard, stationed +round it, might not be deprived of the pleasure of seeing the King of +Rome, the son and heir of their adored monarch. + +And while he was doing M. de Beausset the honor of breakfasting with +him, they heard, as Napoleon had anticipated, the rapturous cries of the +officers and men of the Old Guard who had run up to see the portrait. + +"Vive l'Empereur! Vive le roi de Rome! Vive l'Empereur!" came those +ecstatic cries. + +After breakfast Napoleon in de Beausset's presence dictated his order of +the day to the army. + +"Short and energetic!" he remarked when he had read over the +proclamation which he had dictated straight off without corrections. It +ran: + +Soldiers! This is the battle you have so longed for. Victory depends on +you. It is essential for us; it will give us all we need: comfortable +quarters and a speedy return to our country. Behave as you did at +Austerlitz, Friedland, Vitebsk, and Smolensk. Let our remotest posterity +recall your achievements this day with pride. Let it be said of each of +you: "He was in the great battle before Moscow!" + +"Before Moscow!" repeated Napoleon, and inviting M. de Beausset, who was +so fond of travel, to accompany him on his ride, he went out of the tent +to where the horses stood saddled. + +"Your Majesty is too kind!" replied de Beausset to the invitation to +accompany the Emperor; he wanted to sleep, did not know how to ride and +was afraid of doing so. + +But Napoleon nodded to the traveler, and de Beausset had to mount. When +Napoleon came out of the tent the shouting of the Guards before his +son's portrait grew still louder. Napoleon frowned. + +"Take him away!" he said, pointing with a gracefully majestic gesture to +the portrait. "It is too soon for him to see a field of battle." + +De Beausset closed his eyes, bowed his head, and sighed deeply, to +indicate how profoundly he valued and comprehended the Emperor's words. + + + + +CHAPTER XXVII + +On the twenty-fifth of August, so his historians tell us, Napoleon spent +the whole day on horseback inspecting the locality, considering plans +submitted to him by his marshals, and personally giving commands to his +generals. + +The original line of the Russian forces along the river Kolocha had been +dislocated by the capture of the Shevardino Redoubt on the twenty- +fourth, and part of the line--the left flank--had been drawn back. That +part of the line was not entrenched and in front of it the ground was +more open and level than elsewhere. It was evident to anyone, military +or not, that it was here the French should attack. It would seem that +not much consideration was needed to reach this conclusion, nor any +particular care or trouble on the part of the Emperor and his marshals, +nor was there any need of that special and supreme quality called genius +that people are so apt to ascribe to Napoleon; yet the historians who +described the event later and the men who then surrounded Napoleon, and +he himself, thought otherwise. + +Napoleon rode over the plain and surveyed the locality with a profound +air and in silence, nodded with approval or shook his head dubiously, +and without communicating to the generals around him the profound course +of ideas which guided his decisions merely gave them his final +conclusions in the form of commands. Having listened to a suggestion +from Davout, who was now called Prince d'Eckmuhl, to turn the Russian +left wing, Napoleon said it should not be done, without explaining why +not. To a proposal made by General Campan (who was to attack the +fleches) to lead his division through the woods, Napoleon agreed, though +the so-called Duke of Elchingen (Ney) ventured to remark that a movement +through the woods was dangerous and might disorder the division. + +Having inspected the country opposite the Shevardino Redoubt, Napoleon +pondered a little in silence and then indicated the spots where two +batteries should be set up by the morrow to act against the Russian +entrenchments, and the places where, in line with them, the field +artillery should be placed. + +After giving these and other commands he returned to his tent, and the +dispositions for the battle were written down from his dictation. + +These dispositions, of which the French historians write with enthusiasm +and other historians with profound respect, were as follows: + +At dawn the two new batteries established during the night on the plain +occupied by the Prince d'Eckmuhl will open fire on the opposing +batteries of the enemy. + +At the same time the commander of the artillery of the 1st Corps, +General Pernetti, with thirty cannon of Campan's division and all the +howitzers of Dessaix's and Friant's divisions, will move forward, open +fire, and overwhelm with shellfire the enemy's battery, against which +will operate: + + +24 guns of the artillery of the Guards 30 guns of Campan's division + +and 8 guns of Friant's and Dessaix's divisions -- + +in all 62 guns. + +The commander of the artillery of the 3rd Corps, General Fouche, will +place the howitzers of the 3rd and 8th Corps, sixteen in all, on the +flanks of the battery that is to bombard the entrenchment on the left, +which will have forty guns in all directed against it. + +General Sorbier must be ready at the first order to advance with all the +howitzers of the Guard's artillery against either one or other of the +entrenchments. + +During the cannonade Prince Poniatowski is to advance through the wood +on the village and turn the enemy's position. + +General Campan will move through the wood to seize the first +fortification. + +After the advance has begun in this manner, orders will be given in +accordance with the enemy's movements. + +The cannonade on the left flank will begin as soon as the guns of the +right wing are heard. The sharpshooters of Morand's division and of the +vice-King's division will open a heavy fire on seeing the attack +commence on the right wing. + +The vice-King will occupy the village and cross by its three bridges, +advancing to the same heights as Morand's and Gibrard's divisions, which +under his leadership will be directed against the redoubt and come into +line with the rest of the forces. + +All this must be done in good order (le tout se fera avec ordre et +methode) as far as possible retaining troops in reserve. + +The Imperial Camp near Mozhaysk, + +September, 6, 1812. + +These dispositions, which are very obscure and confused if one allows +oneself to regard the arrangements without religious awe of his genius, +related to Napoleon's orders to deal with four points--four different +orders. Not one of these was, or could be, carried out. + +In the disposition it is said first that the batteries placed on the +spot chosen by Napoleon, with the guns of Pernetti and Fouche; which +were to come in line with them, 102 guns in all, were to open fire and +shower shells on the Russian fleches and redoubts. This could not be +done, as from the spots selected by Napoleon the projectiles did not +carry to the Russian works, and those 102 guns shot into the air until +the nearest commander, contrary to Napoleon's instructions, moved them +forward. + +The second order was that Poniatowski, moving to the village through the +wood, should turn the Russian left flank. This could not be done and was +not done, because Poniatowski, advancing on the village through the +wood, met Tuchkov there barring his way, and could not and did not turn +the Russian position. + +The third order was: General Campan will move through the wood to seize +the first fortification. General Campan's division did not seize the +first fortification but was driven back, for on emerging from the wood +it had to reform under grapeshot, of which Napoleon was unaware. + +The fourth order was: The vice-King will occupy the village (Borodino) +and cross by its three bridges, advancing to the same heights as +Morand's and Gibrard's divisions (for whose movements no directions are +given), which under his leadership will be directed against the redoubt +and come into line with the rest of the forces. + +As far as one can make out, not so much from this unintelligible +sentence as from the attempts the vice-King made to execute the orders +given him, he was to advance from the left through Borodino to the +redoubt while the divisions of Morand and Gerard were to advance +simultaneously from the front. + +All this, like the other parts of the disposition, was not and could not +be executed. After passing through Borodino the vice-King was driven +back to the Kolocha and could get no farther; while the divisions of +Morand and Gerard did not take the redoubt but were driven back, and the +redoubt was only taken at the end of the battle by the cavalry (a thing +probably unforeseen and not heard of by Napoleon). So not one of the +orders in the disposition was, or could be, executed. But in the +disposition it is said that, after the fight has commenced in this +manner, orders will be given in accordance with the enemy's movements, +and so it might be supposed that all necessary arrangements would be +made by Napoleon during the battle. But this was not and could not be +done, for during the whole battle Napoleon was so far away that, as +appeared later, he could not know the course of the battle and not one +of his orders during the fight could be executed. + + + + +CHAPTER XXVIII + +Many historians say that the French did not win the battle of Borodino +because Napoleon had a cold, and that if he had not had a cold the +orders he gave before and during the battle would have been still more +full of genius and Russia would have been lost and the face of the world +have been changed. To historians who believe that Russia was shaped by +the will of one man--Peter the Great--and that France from a republic +became an empire and French armies went to Russia at the will of one +man--Napoleon--to say that Russia remained a power because Napoleon had +a bad cold on the twenty-fourth of August may seem logical and +convincing. + +If it had depended on Napoleon's will to fight or not to fight the +battle of Borodino, and if this or that other arrangement depended on +his will, then evidently a cold affecting the manifestation of his will +might have saved Russia, and consequently the valet who omitted to bring +Napoleon his waterproof boots on the twenty-fourth would have been the +savior of Russia. Along that line of thought such a deduction is +indubitable, as indubitable as the deduction Voltaire made in jest +(without knowing what he was jesting at) when he saw that the Massacre +of St. Bartholomew was due to Charles IX's stomach being deranged. But +to men who do not admit that Russia was formed by the will of one man, +Peter I, or that the French Empire was formed and the war with Russia +begun by the will of one man, Napoleon, that argument seems not merely +untrue and irrational, but contrary to all human reality. To the +question of what causes historic events another answer presents itself, +namely, that the course of human events is predetermined from on high-- +depends on the coincidence of the wills of all who take part in the +events, and that a Napoleon's influence on the course of these events is +purely external and fictitious. + +Strange as at first glance it may seem to suppose that the Massacre of +St. Bartholomew was not due to Charles IX's will, though he gave the +order for it and thought it was done as a result of that order; and +strange as it may seem to suppose that the slaughter of eighty thousand +men at Borodino was not due to Napoleon's will, though he ordered the +commencement and conduct of the battle and thought it was done because +he ordered it; strange as these suppositions appear, yet human dignity-- +which tells me that each of us is, if not more at least not less a man +than the great Napoleon--demands the acceptance of that solution of the +question, and historic investigation abundantly confirms it. + +At the battle of Borodino Napoleon shot at no one and killed no one. +That was all done by the soldiers. Therefore it was not he who killed +people. + +The French soldiers went to kill and be killed at the battle of Borodino +not because of Napoleon's orders but by their own volition. The whole +army--French, Italian, German, Polish, and Dutch--hungry, ragged, and +weary of the campaign, felt at the sight of an army blocking their road +to Moscow that the wine was drawn and must be drunk. Had Napoleon then +forbidden them to fight the Russians, they would have killed him and +have proceeded to fight the Russians because it was inevitable. + +When they heard Napoleon's proclamation offering them, as compensation +for mutilation and death, the words of posterity about their having been +in the battle before Moscow, they cried "Vive l'Empereur!" just as they +had cried "Vive l'Empereur!" at the sight of the portrait of the boy +piercing the terrestrial globe with a toy stick, and just as they would +have cried "Vive l'Empereur!" at any nonsense that might be told them. +There was nothing left for them to do but cry "Vive l'Empereur!" and go +to fight, in order to get food and rest as conquerors in Moscow. So it +was not because of Napoleon's commands that they killed their fellow +men. + +And it was not Napoleon who directed the course of the battle, for none +of his orders were executed and during the battle he did not know what +was going on before him. So the way in which these people killed one +another was not decided by Napoleon's will but occurred independently of +him, in accord with the will of hundreds of thousands of people who took +part in the common action. It only seemed to Napoleon that it all took +place by his will. And so the question whether he had or had not a cold +has no more historic interest than the cold of the least of the +transport soldiers. + +Moreover, the assertion made by various writers that his cold was the +cause of his dispositions not being as well-planned as on former +occasions, and of his orders during the battle not being as good as +previously, is quite baseless, which again shows that Napoleon's cold on +the twenty-sixth of August was unimportant. + +The dispositions cited above are not at all worse, but are even better, +than previous dispositions by which he had won victories. His pseudo- +orders during the battle were also no worse than formerly, but much the +same as usual. These dispositions and orders only seem worse than +previous ones because the battle of Borodino was the first Napoleon did +not win. The profoundest and most excellent dispositions and orders seem +very bad, and every learned militarist criticizes them with looks of +importance, when they relate to a battle that has been lost, and the +very worst dispositions and orders seem very good, and serious people +fill whole volumes to demonstrate their merits, when they relate to a +battle that has been won. + +The dispositions drawn up by Weyrother for the battle of Austerlitz were +a model of perfection for that kind of composition, but still they were +criticized--criticized for their very perfection, for their excessive +minuteness. + +Napoleon at the battle of Borodino fulfilled his office as +representative of authority as well as, and even better than, at other +battles. He did nothing harmful to the progress of the battle; he +inclined to the most reasonable opinions, he made no confusion, did not +contradict himself, did not get frightened or run away from the field of +battle, but with his great tact and military experience carried out his +role of appearing to command, calmly and with dignity. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIX + +On returning from a second inspection of the lines, Napoleon remarked: + +"The chessmen are set up, the game will begin tomorrow!" + +Having ordered punch and summoned de Beausset, he began to talk to him +about Paris and about some changes he meant to make in the Empress' +household, surprising the prefect by his memory of minute details +relating to the court. + +He showed an interest in trifles, joked about de Beausset's love of +travel, and chatted carelessly, as a famous, self-confident surgeon who +knows his job does when turning up his sleeves and putting on his apron +while a patient is being strapped to the operating table. "The matter is +in my hands and is clear and definite in my head. When the time comes to +set to work I shall do it as no one else could, but now I can jest, and +the more I jest and the calmer I am the more tranquil and confident you +ought to be, and the more amazed at my genius." + +Having finished his second glass of punch, Napoleon went to rest before +the serious business which, he considered, awaited him next day. He was +so much interested in that task that he was unable to sleep, and in +spite of his cold which had grown worse from the dampness of the +evening, he went into the large division of the tent at three o'clock in +the morning, loudly blowing his nose. He asked whether the Russians had +not withdrawn, and was told that the enemy's fires were still in the +same places. He nodded approval. + +The adjutant in attendance came into the tent. + +"Well, Rapp, do you think we shall do good business today?" Napoleon +asked him. + +"Without doubt, sire," replied Rapp. + +Napoleon looked at him. + +"Do you remember, sire, what you did me the honor to say at Smolensk?" +continued Rapp. "The wine is drawn and must be drunk." + +Napoleon frowned and sat silent for a long time leaning his head on his +hand. + +"This poor army!" he suddenly remarked. "It has diminished greatly since +Smolensk. Fortune is frankly a courtesan, Rapp. I have always said so +and I am beginning to experience it. But the Guards, Rapp, the Guards +are intact?" he remarked interrogatively. + +"Yes, sire," replied Rapp. + +Napoleon took a lozenge, put it in his mouth, and glanced at his watch. +He was not sleepy and it was still not nearly morning. It was impossible +to give further orders for the sake of killing time, for the orders had +all been given and were now being executed. + +"Have the biscuits and rice been served out to the regiments of the +Guards?" asked Napoleon sternly. + +"Yes, sire." + +"The rice too?" + +Rapp replied that he had given the Emperor's order about the rice, but +Napoleon shook his head in dissatisfaction as if not believing that his +order had been executed. An attendant came in with punch. Napoleon +ordered another glass to be brought for Rapp, and silently sipped his +own. + +"I have neither taste nor smell," he remarked, sniffing at his glass. +"This cold is tiresome. They talk about medicine--what is the good of +medicine when it can't cure a cold! Corvisart gave me these lozenges but +they don't help at all. What can doctors cure? One can't cure anything. +Our body is a machine for living. It is organized for that, it is its +nature. Let life go on in it unhindered and let it defend itself, it +will do more than if you paralyze it by encumbering it with remedies. +Our body is like a perfect watch that should go for a certain time; the +watchmaker cannot open it, he can only adjust it by fumbling, and that +blindfold.... Yes, our body is just a machine for living, that is all." + +And having entered on the path of definition, of which he was fond, +Napoleon suddenly and unexpectedly gave a new one. + +"Do you know, Rapp, what military art is?" asked he. "It is the art of +being stronger than the enemy at a given moment. That's all." + +Rapp made no reply. + +"Tomorrow we shall have to deal with Kutuzov!" said Napoleon. "We shall +see! Do you remember at Braunau he commanded an army for three weeks and +did not once mount a horse to inspect his entrenchments.... We shall +see!" + +He looked at his watch. It was still only four o'clock. He did not feel +sleepy. The punch was finished and there was still nothing to do. He +rose, walked to and fro, put on a warm overcoat and a hat, and went out +of the tent. The night was dark and damp, a scarcely perceptible +moisture was descending from above. Near by, the campfires were dimly +burning among the French Guards, and in the distance those of the +Russian line shone through the smoke. The weather was calm, and the +rustle and tramp of the French troops already beginning to move to take +up their positions were clearly audible. + +Napoleon walked about in front of his tent, looked at the fires and +listened to these sounds, and as he was passing a tall guardsman in a +shaggy cap, who was standing sentinel before his tent and had drawn +himself up like a black pillar at sight of the Emperor, Napoleon stopped +in front of him. + +"What year did you enter the service?" he asked with that affectation of +military bluntness and geniality with which he always addressed the +soldiers. + +The man answered the question. + +"Ah! One of the old ones! Has your regiment had its rice?" + +"It has, Your Majesty." + +Napoleon nodded and walked away. + +At half-past five Napoleon rode to the village of Shevardino. + +It was growing light, the sky was clearing, only a single cloud lay in +the east. The abandoned campfires were burning themselves out in the +faint morning light. + +On the right a single deep report of a cannon resounded and died away in +the prevailing silence. Some minutes passed. A second and a third report +shook the air, then a fourth and a fifth boomed solemnly near by on the +right. + +The first shots had not yet ceased to reverberate before others rang out +and yet more were heard mingling with and overtaking one another. + +Napoleon with his suite rode up to the Shevardino Redoubt where he +dismounted. The game had begun. + + + + +CHAPTER XXX + +On returning to Gorki after having seen Prince Andrew, Pierre ordered +his groom to get the horses ready and to call him early in the morning, +and then immediately fell asleep behind a partition in a corner Boris +had given up to him. + +Before he was thoroughly awake next morning everybody had already left +the hut. The panes were rattling in the little windows and his groom was +shaking him. + +"Your excellency! Your excellency! Your excellency!" he kept repeating +pertinaciously while he shook Pierre by the shoulder without looking at +him, having apparently lost hope of getting him to wake up. + +"What? Has it begun? Is it time?" Pierre asked, waking up. + +"Hear the firing," said the groom, a discharged soldier. "All the +gentlemen have gone out, and his Serene Highness himself rode past long +ago." + +Pierre dressed hastily and ran out to the porch. Outside all was bright, +fresh, dewy, and cheerful. The sun, just bursting forth from behind a +cloud that had concealed it, was shining, with rays still half broken by +the clouds, over the roofs of the street opposite, on the dew- +besprinkled dust of the road, on the walls of the houses, on the +windows, the fence, and on Pierre's horses standing before the hut. The +roar of guns sounded more distinct outside. An adjutant accompanied by a +Cossack passed by at a sharp trot. + +"It's time, Count; it's time!" cried the adjutant. + +Telling the groom to follow him with the horses, Pierre went down the +street to the knoll from which he had looked at the field of battle the +day before. A crowd of military men was assembled there, members of the +staff could be heard conversing in French, and Kutuzov's gray head in a +white cap with a red band was visible, his gray nape sunk between his +shoulders. He was looking through a field glass down the highroad before +him. + +Mounting the steps to the knoll Pierre looked at the scene before him, +spellbound by beauty. It was the same panorama he had admired from that +spot the day before, but now the whole place was full of troops and +covered by smoke clouds from the guns, and the slanting rays of the +bright sun, rising slightly to the left behind Pierre, cast upon it +through the clear morning air penetrating streaks of rosy, golden-tinted +light and long dark shadows. The forest at the farthest extremity of the +panorama seemed carved in some precious stone of a yellowish-green +color; its undulating outline was silhouetted against the horizon and +was pierced beyond Valuevo by the Smolensk highroad crowded with troops. +Nearer at hand glittered golden cornfields interspersed with copses. +There were troops to be seen everywhere, in front and to the right and +left. All this was vivid, majestic, and unexpected; but what impressed +Pierre most of all was the view of the battlefield itself, of Borodino +and the hollows on both sides of the Kolocha. + +Above the Kolocha, in Borodino and on both sides of it, especially to +the left where the Voyna flowing between its marshy banks falls into the +Kolocha, a mist had spread which seemed to melt, to dissolve, and to +become translucent when the brilliant sun appeared and magically colored +and outlined everything. The smoke of the guns mingled with this mist, +and over the whole expanse and through that mist the rays of the morning +sun were reflected, flashing back like lightning from the water, from +the dew, and from the bayonets of the troops crowded together by the +riverbanks and in Borodino. A white church could be seen through the +mist, and here and there the roofs of huts in Borodino as well as dense +masses of soldiers, or green ammunition chests and ordnance. And all +this moved, or seemed to move, as the smoke and mist spread out over the +whole space. Just as in the mist-enveloped hollow near Borodino, so +along the entire line outside and above it and especially in the woods +and fields to the left, in the valleys and on the summits of the high +ground, clouds of powder smoke seemed continually to spring up out of +nothing, now singly, now several at a time, some translucent, others +dense, which, swelling, growing, rolling, and blending, extended over +the whole expanse. + +These puffs of smoke and (strange to say) the sound of the firing +produced the chief beauty of the spectacle. + +"Puff!"--suddenly a round compact cloud of smoke was seen merging from +violet into gray and milky white, and "boom!" came the report a second +later. + +"Puff! puff!"--and two clouds arose pushing one another and blending +together; and "boom, boom!" came the sounds confirming what the eye had +seen. + +Pierre glanced round at the first cloud, which he had seen as a round +compact ball, and in its place already were balloons of smoke floating +to one side, and--"puff" (with a pause)--"puff, puff!" three and then +four more appeared and then from each, with the same interval--"boom-- +boom, boom!" came the fine, firm, precise sounds in reply. It seemed as +if those smoke clouds sometimes ran and sometimes stood still while +woods, fields, and glittering bayonets ran past them. From the left, +over fields and bushes, those large balls of smoke were continually +appearing followed by their solemn reports, while nearer still, in the +hollows and woods, there burst from the muskets small cloudlets that had +no time to become balls, but had their little echoes in just the same +way. "Trakh-ta-ta-takh!" came the frequent crackle of musketry, but it +was irregular and feeble in comparison with the reports of the cannon. + +Pierre wished to be there with that smoke, those shining bayonets, that +movement, and those sounds. He turned to look at Kutuzov and his suite, +to compare his impressions with those of others. They were all looking +at the field of battle as he was, and, as it seemed to him, with the +same feelings. All their faces were now shining with that latent warmth +of feeling Pierre had noticed the day before and had fully understood +after his talk with Prince Andrew. + +"Go, my dear fellow, go... and Christ be with you!" Kutuzov was saying +to a general who stood beside him, not taking his eye from the +battlefield. + +Having received this order the general passed by Pierre on his way down +the knoll. + +"To the crossing!" said the general coldly and sternly in reply to one +of the staff who asked where he was going. + +"I'll go there too, I too!" thought Pierre, and followed the general. + +The general mounted a horse a Cossack had brought him. Pierre went to +his groom who was holding his horses and, asking which was the quietest, +clambered onto it, seized it by the mane, and turning out his toes +pressed his heels against its sides and, feeling that his spectacles +were slipping off but unable to let go of the mane and reins, he +galloped after the general, causing the staff officers to smile as they +watched him from the knoll. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXI + +Having descended the hill the general after whom Pierre was galloping +turned sharply to the left, and Pierre, losing sight of him, galloped in +among some ranks of infantry marching ahead of him. He tried to pass +either in front of them or to the right or left, but there were soldiers +everywhere, all with the same preoccupied expression and busy with some +unseen but evidently important task. They all gazed with the same +dissatisfied and inquiring expression at this stout man in a white hat, +who for some unknown reason threatened to trample them under his horse's +hoofs. + +"Why ride into the middle of the battalion?" one of them shouted at him. + +Another prodded his horse with the butt end of a musket, and Pierre, +bending over his saddlebow and hardly able to control his shying horse, +galloped ahead of the soldiers where there was a free space. + +There was a bridge ahead of him, where other soldiers stood firing. +Pierre rode up to them. Without being aware of it he had come to the +bridge across the Kolocha between Gorki and Borodino, which the French +(having occupied Borodino) were attacking in the first phase of the +battle. Pierre saw that there was a bridge in front of him and that +soldiers were doing something on both sides of it and in the meadow, +among the rows of new-mown hay which he had taken no notice of amid the +smoke of the campfires the day before; but despite the incessant firing +going on there he had no idea that this was the field of battle. He did +not notice the sound of the bullets whistling from every side, or the +projectiles that flew over him, did not see the enemy on the other side +of the river, and for a long time did not notice the killed and wounded, +though many fell near him. He looked about him with a smile which did +not leave his face. + +"Why's that fellow in front of the line?" shouted somebody at him again. + +"To the left!... Keep to the right!" the men shouted to him. + +Pierre went to the right, and unexpectedly encountered one of Raevski's +adjutants whom he knew. The adjutant looked angrily at him, evidently +also intending to shout at him, but on recognizing him he nodded. + +"How have you got here?" he said, and galloped on. + +Pierre, feeling out of place there, having nothing to do, and afraid of +getting in someone's way again, galloped after the adjutant. + +"What's happening here? May I come with you?" he asked. + +"One moment, one moment!" replied the adjutant, and riding up to a stout +colonel who was standing in the meadow, he gave him some message and +then addressed Pierre. + +"Why have you come here, Count?" he asked with a smile. "Still +inquisitive?" + +"Yes, yes," assented Pierre. + +But the adjutant turned his horse about and rode on. + +"Here it's tolerable," said he, "but with Bagration on the left flank +they're getting it frightfully hot." + +"Really?" said Pierre. "Where is that?" + +"Come along with me to our knoll. We can get a view from there and in +our battery it is still bearable," said the adjutant. "Will you come?" + +"Yes, I'll come with you," replied Pierre, looking round for his groom. + +It was only now that he noticed wounded men staggering along or being +carried on stretchers. On that very meadow he had ridden over the day +before, a soldier was lying athwart the rows of scented hay, with his +head thrown awkwardly back and his shako off. + +"Why haven't they carried him away?" Pierre was about to ask, but seeing +the stern expression of the adjutant who was also looking that way, he +checked himself. + +Pierre did not find his groom and rode along the hollow with the +adjutant to Raevski's Redoubt. His horse lagged behind the adjutant's +and jolted him at every step. + +"You don't seem to be used to riding, Count?" remarked the adjutant. + +"No it's not that, but her action seems so jerky," said Pierre in a +puzzled tone. + +"Why... she's wounded!" said the adjutant. "In the off foreleg above the +knee. A bullet, no doubt. I congratulate you, Count, on your baptism of +fire!" + +Having ridden in the smoke past the Sixth Corps, behind the artillery +which had been moved forward and was in action, deafening them with the +noise of firing, they came to a small wood. There it was cool and quiet, +with a scent of autumn. Pierre and the adjutant dismounted and walked up +the hill on foot. + +"Is the general here?" asked the adjutant on reaching the knoll. + +"He was here a minute ago but has just gone that way," someone told him, +pointing to the right. + +The adjutant looked at Pierre as if puzzled what to do with him now. + +"Don't trouble about me," said Pierre. "I'll go up onto the knoll if I +may?" + +"Yes, do. You'll see everything from there and it's less dangerous, and +I'll come for you." + +Pierre went to the battery and the adjutant rode on. They did not meet +again, and only much later did Pierre learn that he lost an arm that +day. + +The knoll to which Pierre ascended was that famous one afterwards known +to the Russians as the Knoll Battery or Raevski's Redoubt, and to the +French as la grande redoute, la fatale redoute, la redoute du centre, +around which tens of thousands fell, and which the French regarded as +the key to the whole position. + +This redoubt consisted of a knoll, on three sides of which trenches had +been dug. Within the entrenchment stood ten guns that were being fired +through openings in the earthwork. + +In line with the knoll on both sides stood other guns which also fired +incessantly. A little behind the guns stood infantry. When ascending +that knoll Pierre had no notion that this spot, on which small trenches +had been dug and from which a few guns were firing, was the most +important point of the battle. + +On the contrary, just because he happened to be there he thought it one +of the least significant parts of the field. + +Having reached the knoll, Pierre sat down at one end of a trench +surrounding the battery and gazed at what was going on around him with +an unconsciously happy smile. Occasionally he rose and walked about the +battery still with that same smile, trying not to obstruct the soldiers +who were loading, hauling the guns, and continually running past him +with bags and charges. The guns of that battery were being fired +continually one after another with a deafening roar, enveloping the +whole neighborhood in powder smoke. + +In contrast with the dread felt by the infantrymen placed in support, +here in the battery where a small number of men busy at their work were +separated from the rest by a trench, everyone experienced a common and +as it were family feeling of animation. + +The intrusion of Pierre's nonmilitary figure in a white hat made an +unpleasant impression at first. The soldiers looked askance at him with +surprise and even alarm as they went past him. The senior artillery +officer, a tall, long-legged, pockmarked man, moved over to Pierre as if +to see the action of the farthest gun and looked at him with curiosity. + +A young round-faced officer, quite a boy still and evidently only just +out of the Cadet College, who was zealously commanding the two guns +entrusted to him, addressed Pierre sternly. + +"Sir," he said, "permit me to ask you to stand aside. You must not be +here." + +The soldiers shook their heads disapprovingly as they looked at Pierre. +But when they had convinced themselves that this man in the white hat +was doing no harm, but either sat quietly on the slope of the trench +with a shy smile or, politely making way for the soldiers, paced up and +down the battery under fire as calmly as if he were on a boulevard, +their feeling of hostile distrust gradually began to change into a +kindly and bantering sympathy, such as soldiers feel for their dogs, +cocks, goats, and in general for the animals that live with the +regiment. The men soon accepted Pierre into their family, adopted him, +gave him a nickname ("our gentleman"), and made kindly fun of him among +themselves. + +A shell tore up the earth two paces from Pierre and he looked around +with a smile as he brushed from his clothes some earth it had thrown up. + +"And how's it you're not afraid, sir, really now?" a red-faced, broad- +shouldered soldier asked Pierre, with a grin that disclosed a set of +sound, white teeth. + +"Are you afraid, then?" said Pierre. + +"What else do you expect?" answered the soldier. "She has no mercy, you +know! When she comes spluttering down, out go your innards. One can't +help being afraid," he said laughing. + +Several of the men, with bright kindly faces, stopped beside Pierre. +They seemed not to have expected him to talk like anybody else, and the +discovery that he did so delighted them. + +"It's the business of us soldiers. But in a gentleman it's wonderful! +There's a gentleman for you!" + +"To your places!" cried the young officer to the men gathered round +Pierre. + +The young officer was evidently exercising his duties for the first or +second time and therefore treated both his superiors and the men with +great precision and formality. + +The booming cannonade and the fusillade of musketry were growing more +intense over the whole field, especially to the left where Bagration's +fleches were, but where Pierre was the smoke of the firing made it +almost impossible to distinguish anything. Moreover, his whole attention +was engrossed by watching the family circle--separated from all else-- +formed by the men in the battery. His first unconscious feeling of +joyful animation produced by the sights and sounds of the battlefield +was now replaced by another, especially since he had seen that soldier +lying alone in the hayfield. Now, seated on the slope of the trench, he +observed the faces of those around him. + +By ten o'clock some twenty men had already been carried away from the +battery; two guns were smashed and cannon balls fell more and more +frequently on the battery and spent bullets buzzed and whistled around. +But the men in the battery seemed not to notice this, and merry voices +and jokes were heard on all sides. + +"A live one!" shouted a man as a whistling shell approached. + +"Not this way! To the infantry!" added another with loud laughter, +seeing the shell fly past and fall into the ranks of the supports. + +"Are you bowing to a friend, eh?" remarked another, chaffing a peasant +who ducked low as a cannon ball flew over. + +Several soldiers gathered by the wall of the trench, looking out to see +what was happening in front. + +"They've withdrawn the front line, it has retired," said they, pointing +over the earthwork. + +"Mind your own business," an old sergeant shouted at them. "If they've +retired it's because there's work for them to do farther back." + +And the sergeant, taking one of the men by the shoulders, gave him a +shove with his knee. This was followed by a burst of laughter. + +"To the fifth gun, wheel it up!" came shouts from one side. + +"Now then, all together, like bargees!" rose the merry voices of those +who were moving the gun. + +"Oh, she nearly knocked our gentleman's hat off!" cried the red-faced +humorist, showing his teeth chaffing Pierre. "Awkward baggage!" he added +reproachfully to a cannon ball that struck a cannon wheel and a man's +leg. + +"Now then, you foxes!" said another, laughing at some militiamen who, +stooping low, entered the battery to carry away the wounded man. + +"So this gruel isn't to your taste? Oh, you crows! You're scared!" they +shouted at the militiamen who stood hesitating before the man whose leg +had been torn off. + +"There, lads... oh, oh!" they mimicked the peasants, "they don't like it +at all!" + +Pierre noticed that after every ball that hit the redoubt, and after +every loss, the liveliness increased more and more. + +As the flames of the fire hidden within come more and more vividly and +rapidly from an approaching thundercloud, so, as if in opposition to +what was taking place, the lightning of hidden fire growing more and +more intense glowed in the faces of these men. + +Pierre did not look out at the battlefield and was not concerned to know +what was happening there; he was entirely absorbed in watching this fire +which burned ever more brightly and which he felt was flaming up in the +same way in his own soul. + +At ten o'clock the infantry that had been among the bushes in front of +the battery and along the Kamenka streamlet retreated. From the battery +they could be seen running back past it carrying their wounded on their +muskets. A general with his suite came to the battery, and after +speaking to the colonel gave Pierre an angry look and went away again +having ordered the infantry supports behind the battery to lie down, so +as to be less exposed to fire. After this from amid the ranks of +infantry to the right of the battery came the sound of a drum and shouts +of command, and from the battery one saw how those ranks of infantry +moved forward. + +Pierre looked over the wall of the trench and was particularly struck by +a pale young officer who, letting his sword hang down, was walking +backwards and kept glancing uneasily around. + +The ranks of the infantry disappeared amid the smoke but their long- +drawn shout and rapid musketry firing could still be heard. A few +minutes later crowds of wounded men and stretcher-bearers came back from +that direction. Projectiles began to fall still more frequently in the +battery. Several men were lying about who had not been removed. Around +the cannon the men moved still more briskly and busily. No one any +longer took notice of Pierre. Once or twice he was shouted at for being +in the way. The senior officer moved with big, rapid strides from one +gun to another with a frowning face. The young officer, with his face +still more flushed, commanded the men more scrupulously than ever. The +soldiers handed up the charges, turned, loaded, and did their business +with strained smartness. They gave little jumps as they walked, as +though they were on springs. + +The stormcloud had come upon them, and in every face the fire which +Pierre had watched kindle burned up brightly. Pierre standing beside the +commanding officer. The young officer, his hand to his shako, ran up to +his superior. + +"I have the honor to report, sir, that only eight rounds are left. Are +we to continue firing?" he asked. + +"Grapeshot!" the senior shouted, without answering the question, looking +over the wall of the trench. + +Suddenly something happened: the young officer gave a gasp and bending +double sat down on the ground like a bird shot on the wing. Everything +became strange, confused, and misty in Pierre's eyes. + +One cannon ball after another whistled by and struck the earthwork, a +soldier, or a gun. Pierre, who had not noticed these sounds before, now +heard nothing else. On the right of the battery soldiers shouting +"Hurrah!" were running not forwards but backwards, it seemed to Pierre. + +A cannon ball struck the very end of the earth work by which he was +standing, crumbling down the earth; a black ball flashed before his eyes +and at the same instant plumped into something. Some militiamen who were +entering the battery ran back. + +"All with grapeshot!" shouted the officer. + +The sergeant ran up to the officer and in a frightened whisper informed +him (as a butler at dinner informs his master that there is no more of +some wine asked for) that there were no more charges. + +"The scoundrels! What are they doing?" shouted the officer, turning to +Pierre. + +The officer's face was red and perspiring and his eyes glittered under +his frowning brow. + +"Run to the reserves and bring up the ammunition boxes!" he yelled, +angrily avoiding Pierre with his eyes and speaking to his men. + +"I'll go," said Pierre. + +The officer, without answering him, strode across to the opposite side. + +"Don't fire.... Wait!" he shouted. + +The man who had been ordered to go for ammunition stumbled against +Pierre. + +"Eh, sir, this is no place for you," said he, and ran down the slope. + +Pierre ran after him, avoiding the spot where the young officer was +sitting. + +One cannon ball, another, and a third flew over him, falling in front, +beside, and behind him. Pierre ran down the slope. "Where am I going?" +he suddenly asked himself when he was already near the green ammunition +wagons. He halted irresolutely, not knowing whether to return or go on. +Suddenly a terrible concussion threw him backwards to the ground. At the +same instant he was dazzled by a great flash of flame, and immediately a +deafening roar, crackling, and whistling made his ears tingle. + +When he came to himself he was sitting on the ground leaning on his +hands; the ammunition wagons he had been approaching no longer existed, +only charred green boards and rags littered the scorched grass, and a +horse, dangling fragments of its shaft behind it, galloped past, while +another horse lay, like Pierre, on the ground, uttering prolonged and +piercing cries. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXII + +Beside himself with terror Pierre jumped up and ran back to the battery, +as to the only refuge from the horrors that surrounded him. + +On entering the earthwork he noticed that there were men doing something +there but that no shots were being fired from the battery. He had no +time to realize who these men were. He saw the senior officer lying on +the earth wall with his back turned as if he were examining something +down below and that one of the soldiers he had noticed before was +struggling forward shouting "Brothers!" and trying to free himself from +some men who were holding him by the arm. He also saw something else +that was strange. + +But he had not time to realize that the colonel had been killed, that +the soldier shouting "Brothers!" was a prisoner, and that another man +had been bayoneted in the back before his eyes, for hardly had he run +into the redoubt before a thin, sallow-faced, perspiring man in a blue +uniform rushed on him sword in hand, shouting something. Instinctively +guarding against the shock--for they had been running together at full +speed before they saw one another--Pierre put out his hands and seized +the man (a French officer) by the shoulder with one hand and by the +throat with the other. The officer, dropping his sword, seized Pierre by +his collar. + +For some seconds they gazed with frightened eyes at one another's +unfamiliar faces and both were perplexed at what they had done and what +they were to do next. "Am I taken prisoner or have I taken him +prisoner?" each was thinking. But the French officer was evidently more +inclined to think he had been taken prisoner because Pierre's strong +hand, impelled by instinctive fear, squeezed his throat ever tighter and +tighter. The Frenchman was about to say something, when just above their +heads, terrible and low, a cannon ball whistled, and it seemed to Pierre +that the French officer's head had been torn off, so swiftly had he +ducked it. + +Pierre too bent his head and let his hands fall. Without further thought +as to who had taken whom prisoner, the Frenchman ran back to the battery +and Pierre ran down the slope stumbling over the dead and wounded who, +it seemed to him, caught at his feet. But before he reached the foot of +the knoll he was met by a dense crowd of Russian soldiers who, +stumbling, tripping up, and shouting, ran merrily and wildly toward the +battery. (This was the attack for which Ermolov claimed the credit, +declaring that only his courage and good luck made such a feat possible: +it was the attack in which he was said to have thrown some St. George's +Crosses he had in his pocket into the battery for the first soldiers to +take who got there.) + +The French who had occupied the battery fled, and our troops shouting +"Hurrah!" pursued them so far beyond the battery that it was difficult +to call them back. + +The prisoners were brought down from the battery and among them was a +wounded French general, whom the officers surrounded. Crowds of wounded- +-some known to Pierre and some unknown--Russians and French, with faces +distorted by suffering, walked, crawled, and were carried on stretchers +from the battery. Pierre again went up onto the knoll where he had spent +over an hour, and of that family circle which had received him as a +member he did not find a single one. There were many dead whom he did +not know, but some he recognized. The young officer still sat in the +same way, bent double, in a pool of blood at the edge of the earth wall. +The red-faced man was still twitching, but they did not carry him away. + +Pierre ran down the slope once more. + +"Now they will stop it, now they will be horrified at what they have +done!" he thought, aimlessly going toward a crowd of stretcher bearers +moving from the battlefield. + +But behind the veil of smoke the sun was still high, and in front and +especially to the left, near Semenovsk, something seemed to be seething +in the smoke, and the roar of cannon and musketry did not diminish, but +even increased to desperation like a man who, straining himself, shrieks +with all his remaining strength. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXIII + +The chief action of the battle of Borodino was fought within the seven +thousand feet between Borodino and Bagration's fleches. Beyond that +space there was, on the one side, a demonstration made by the Russians +with Uvarov's cavalry at midday, and on the other side, beyond Utitsa, +Poniatowski's collision with Tuchkov; but these two were detached and +feeble actions in comparison with what took place in the center of the +battlefield. On the field between Borodino and the fleches, beside the +wood, the chief action of the day took place on an open space visible +from both sides and was fought in the simplest and most artless way. + +The battle began on both sides with a cannonade from several hundred +guns. + +Then when the whole field was covered with smoke, two divisions, +Campan's and Dessaix's, advanced from the French right, while Murat's +troops advanced on Borodino from their left. + +From the Shevardino Redoubt where Napoleon was standing the fleches were +two thirds of a mile away, and it was more than a mile as the crow flies +to Borodino, so that Napoleon could not see what was happening there, +especially as the smoke mingling with the mist hid the whole locality. +The soldiers of Dessaix's division advancing against the fleches could +only be seen till they had entered the hollow that lay between them and +the fleches. As soon as they had descended into that hollow, the smoke +of the guns and musketry on the fleches grew so dense that it covered +the whole approach on that side of it. Through the smoke glimpses could +be caught of something black--probably men--and at times the glint of +bayonets. But whether they were moving or stationary, whether they were +French or Russian, could not be discovered from the Shevardino Redoubt. + +The sun had risen brightly and its slanting rays struck straight into +Napoleon's face as, shading his eyes with his hand, he looked at the +fleches. The smoke spread out before them, and at times it looked as if +the smoke were moving, at times as if the troops moved. Sometimes shouts +were heard through the firing, but it was impossible to tell what was +being done there. + +Napoleon, standing on the knoll, looked through a field glass, and in +its small circlet saw smoke and men, sometimes his own and sometimes +Russians, but when he looked again with the naked eye, he could not tell +where what he had seen was. + +He descended the knoll and began walking up and down before it. + +Occasionally he stopped, listened to the firing, and gazed intently at +the battlefield. + +But not only was it impossible to make out what was happening from where +he was standing down below, or from the knoll above on which some of his +generals had taken their stand, but even from the fleches themselves--in +which by this time there were now Russian and now French soldiers, +alternately or together, dead, wounded, alive, frightened, or maddened-- +even at those fleches themselves it was impossible to make out what was +taking place. There for several hours amid incessant cannon and musketry +fire, now Russians were seen alone, now Frenchmen alone, now infantry, +and now cavalry: they appeared, fired, fell, collided, not knowing what +to do with one another, screamed, and ran back again. + +From the battlefield adjutants he had sent out, and orderlies from his +marshals, kept galloping up to Napoleon with reports of the progress of +the action, but all these reports were false, both because it was +impossible in the heat of battle to say what was happening at any given +moment and because many of the adjutants did not go to the actual place +of conflict but reported what they had heard from others; and also +because while an adjutant was riding more than a mile to Napoleon +circumstances changed and the news he brought was already becoming +false. Thus an adjutant galloped up from Murat with tidings that +Borodino had been occupied and the bridge over the Kolocha was in the +hands of the French. The adjutant asked whether Napoleon wished the +troops to cross it? Napoleon gave orders that the troops should form up +on the farther side and wait. But before that order was given--almost as +soon in fact as the adjutant had left Borodino--the bridge had been +retaken by the Russians and burned, in the very skirmish at which Pierre +had been present at the beginning of the battle. + +An adjutant galloped up from the fleches with a pale and frightened face +and reported to Napoleon that their attack had been repulsed, Campan +wounded, and Davout killed; yet at the very time the adjutant had been +told that the French had been repulsed, the fleches had in fact been +recaptured by other French troops, and Davout was alive and only +slightly bruised. On the basis of these necessarily untrustworthy +reports Napoleon gave his orders, which had either been executed before +he gave them or could not be and were not executed. + +The marshals and generals, who were nearer to the field of battle but, +like Napoleon, did not take part in the actual fighting and only +occasionally went within musket range, made their own arrangements +without asking Napoleon and issued orders where and in what direction to +fire and where cavalry should gallop and infantry should run. But even +their orders, like Napoleon's, were seldom carried out, and then but +partially. For the most part things happened contrary to their orders. +Soldiers ordered to advance ran back on meeting grapeshot; soldiers +ordered to remain where they were, suddenly, seeing Russians +unexpectedly before them, sometimes rushed back and sometimes forward, +and the cavalry dashed without orders in pursuit of the flying Russians. +In this way two cavalry regiments galloped through the Semenovsk hollow +and as soon as they reached the top of the incline turned round and +galloped full speed back again. The infantry moved in the same way, +sometimes running to quite other places than those they were ordered to +go to. All orders as to where and when to move the guns, when to send +infantry to shoot or horsemen to ride down the Russian infantry--all +such orders were given by the officers on the spot nearest to the units +concerned, without asking either Ney, Davout, or Murat, much less +Napoleon. They did not fear getting into trouble for not fulfilling +orders or for acting on their own initiative, for in battle what is at +stake is what is dearest to man--his own life--and it sometimes seems +that safety lies in running back, sometimes in running forward; and +these men who were right in the heat of the battle acted according to +the mood of the moment. In reality, however, all these movements forward +and backward did not improve or alter the position of the troops. All +their rushing and galloping at one another did little harm, the harm of +disablement and death was caused by the balls and bullets that flew over +the fields on which these men were floundering about. As soon as they +left the place where the balls and bullets were flying about, their +superiors, located in the background, re-formed them and brought them +under discipline and under the influence of that discipline led them +back to the zone of fire, where under the influence of fear of death +they lost their discipline and rushed about according to the chance +promptings of the throng. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXIV + +Napoleon's generals--Davout, Ney, and Murat, who were near that region +of fire and sometimes even entered it--repeatedly led into it huge +masses of well-ordered troops. But contrary to what had always happened +in their former battles, instead of the news they expected of the +enemy's flight, these orderly masses returned thence as disorganized and +terrified mobs. The generals re-formed them, but their numbers +constantly decreased. In the middle of the day Murat sent his adjutant +to Napoleon to demand reinforcements. + +Napoleon sat at the foot of the knoll, drinking punch, when Murat's +adjutant galloped up with an assurance that the Russians would be routed +if His Majesty would let him have another division. + +"Reinforcements?" said Napoleon in a tone of stern surprise, looking at +the adjutant--a handsome lad with long black curls arranged like Murat's +own--as though he did not understand his words. + +"Reinforcements!" thought Napoleon to himself. "How can they need +reinforcements when they already have half the army directed against a +weak, unentrenched Russian wing?" + +"Tell the King of Naples," said he sternly, "that it is not noon yet, +and I don't yet see my chessboard clearly. Go!..." + +The handsome boy adjutant with the long hair sighed deeply without +removing his hand from his hat and galloped back to where men were being +slaughtered. + +Napoleon rose and having summoned Caulaincourt and Berthier began +talking to them about matters unconnected with the battle. + +In the midst of this conversation, which was beginning to interest +Napoleon, Berthier's eyes turned to look at a general with a suite, who +was galloping toward the knoll on a lathering horse. It was Belliard. +Having dismounted he went up to the Emperor with rapid strides and in a +loud voice began boldly demonstrating the necessity of sending +reinforcements. He swore on his honor that the Russians were lost if the +Emperor would give another division. + +Napoleon shrugged his shoulders and continued to pace up and down +without replying. Belliard began talking loudly and eagerly to the +generals of the suite around him. + +"You are very fiery, Belliard," said Napoleon, when he again came up to +the general. "In the heat of a battle it is easy to make a mistake. Go +and have another look and then come back to me." + +Before Belliard was out of sight, a messenger from another part of the +battlefield galloped up. + +"Now then, what do you want?" asked Napoleon in the tone of a man +irritated at being continually disturbed. + +"Sire, the prince..." began the adjutant. + +"Asks for reinforcements?" said Napoleon with an angry gesture. + +The adjutant bent his head affirmatively and began to report, but the +Emperor turned from him, took a couple of steps, stopped, came back, and +called Berthier. + +"We must give reserves," he said, moving his arms slightly apart. "Who +do you think should be sent there?" he asked of Berthier (whom he +subsequently termed "that gosling I have made an eagle"). + +"Send Claparede's division, sire," replied Berthier, who knew all the +division's regiments, and battalions by heart. + +Napoleon nodded assent. + +The adjutant galloped to Claparede's division and a few minutes later +the Young Guards stationed behind the knoll moved forward. Napoleon +gazed silently in that direction. + +"No!" he suddenly said to Berthier. "I can't send Claparede. Send +Friant's division." + +Though there was no advantage in sending Friant's division instead of +Claparede's, and even an obvious inconvenience and delay in stopping +Claparede and sending Friant now, the order was carried out exactly. +Napoleon did not notice that in regard to his army he was playing the +part of a doctor who hinders by his medicines--a role he so justly +understood and condemned. + +Friant's division disappeared as the others had done into the smoke of +the battlefield. From all sides adjutants continued to arrive at a +gallop and as if by agreement all said the same thing. They all asked +for reinforcements and all said that the Russians were holding their +positions and maintaining a hellish fire under which the French army was +melting away. + +Napoleon sat on a campstool, wrapped in thought. + +M. de Beausset, the man so fond of travel, having fasted since morning, +came up to the Emperor and ventured respectfully to suggest lunch to His +Majesty. + +"I hope I may now congratulate Your Majesty on a victory?" said he. + +Napoleon silently shook his head in negation. Assuming the negation to +refer only to the victory and not to the lunch, M. de Beausset ventured +with respectful jocularity to remark that there is no reason for not +having lunch when one can get it. + +"Go away..." exclaimed Napoleon suddenly and morosely, and turned aside. + +A beatific smile of regret, repentance, and ecstasy beamed on M. de +Beausset's face and he glided away to the other generals. + +Napoleon was experiencing a feeling of depression like that of an ever- +lucky gambler who, after recklessly flinging money about and always +winning, suddenly just when he has calculated all the chances of the +game, finds that the more he considers his play the more surely he +loses. + +His troops were the same, his generals the same, the same preparations +had been made, the same dispositions, and the same proclamation courte +et energique, he himself was still the same: he knew that and knew that +he was now even more experienced and skillful than before. Even the +enemy was the same as at Austerlitz and Friedland--yet the terrible +stroke of his arm had supernaturally become impotent. + +All the old methods that had been unfailingly crowned with success: the +concentration of batteries on one point, an attack by reserves to break +the enemy's line, and a cavalry attack by "the men of iron," all these +methods had already been employed, yet not only was there no victory, +but from all sides came the same news of generals killed and wounded, of +reinforcements needed, of the impossibility of driving back the +Russians, and of disorganization among his own troops. + +Formerly, after he had given two or three orders and uttered a few +phrases, marshals and adjutants had come galloping up with +congratulations and happy faces, announcing the trophies taken, the +corps of prisoners, bundles of enemy eagles and standards, cannon and +stores, and Murat had only begged leave to loose the cavalry to gather +in the baggage wagons. So it had been at Lodi, Marengo, Arcola, Jena, +Austerlitz, Wagram, and so on. But now something strange was happening +to his troops. + +Despite news of the capture of the fleches, Napoleon saw that this was +not the same, not at all the same, as what had happened in his former +battles. He saw that what he was feeling was felt by all the men about +him experienced in the art of war. All their faces looked dejected, and +they all shunned one another's eyes--only a de Beausset could fail to +grasp the meaning of what was happening. + +But Napoleon with his long experience of war well knew the meaning of a +battle not gained by the attacking side in eight hours, after all +efforts had been expended. He knew that it was a lost battle and that +the least accident might now--with the fight balanced on such a strained +center--destroy him and his army. + +When he ran his mind over the whole of this strange Russian campaign in +which not one battle had been won, and in which not a flag, or cannon, +or army corps had been captured in two months, when he looked at the +concealed depression on the faces around him and heard reports of the +Russians still holding their ground--a terrible feeling like a nightmare +took possession of him, and all the unlucky accidents that might destroy +him occurred to his mind. The Russians might fall on his left wing, +might break through his center, he himself might be killed by a stray +cannon ball. All this was possible. In former battles he had only +considered the possibilities of success, but now innumerable unlucky +chances presented themselves, and he expected them all. Yes, it was like +a dream in which a man fancies that a ruffian is coming to attack him, +and raises his arm to strike that ruffian a terrible blow which he knows +should annihilate him, but then feels that his arm drops powerless and +limp like a rag, and the horror of unavoidable destruction seizes him in +his helplessness. + +The news that the Russians were attacking the left flank of the French +army aroused that horror in Napoleon. He sat silently on a campstool +below the knoll, with head bowed and elbows on his knees. Berthier +approached and suggested that they should ride along the line to +ascertain the position of affairs. + +"What? What do you say?" asked Napoleon. "Yes, tell them to bring me my +horse." + +He mounted and rode toward Semenovsk. + +Amid the powder smoke, slowly dispersing over the whole space through +which Napoleon rode, horses and men were lying in pools of blood, singly +or in heaps. Neither Napoleon nor any of his generals had ever before +seen such horrors or so many slain in such a small area. The roar of +guns, that had not ceased for ten hours, wearied the ear and gave a +peculiar significance to the spectacle, as music does to tableaux +vivants. Napoleon rode up the high ground at Semenovsk, and through the +smoke saw ranks of men in uniforms of a color unfamiliar to him. They +were Russians. + +The Russians stood in serried ranks behind Semenovsk village and its +knoll, and their guns boomed incessantly along their line and sent forth +clouds of smoke. It was no longer a battle: it was a continuous +slaughter which could be of no avail either to the French or the +Russians. Napoleon stopped his horse and again fell into the reverie +from which Berthier had aroused him. He could not stop what was going on +before him and around him and was supposed to be directed by him and to +depend on him, and from its lack of success this affair, for the first +time, seemed to him unnecessary and horrible. + +One of the generals rode up to Napoleon and ventured to offer to lead +the Old Guard into action. Ney and Berthier, standing near Napoleon, +exchanged looks and smiled contemptuously at this general's senseless +offer. + +Napoleon bowed his head and remained silent a long time. + +"At eight hundred leagues from France, I will not have my Guard +destroyed!" he said, and turning his horse rode back to Shevardino. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXV + +On the rug-covered bench where Pierre had seen him in the morning sat +Kutuzov, his gray head hanging, his heavy body relaxed. He gave no +orders, but only assented to or dissented from what others suggested. + +"Yes, yes, do that," he replied to various proposals. "Yes, yes: go, +dear boy, and have a look," he would say to one or another of those +about him; or, "No, don't, we'd better wait!" He listened to the reports +that were brought him and gave directions when his subordinates demanded +that of him; but when listening to the reports it seemed as if he were +not interested in the import of the words spoken, but rather in +something else--in the expression of face and tone of voice of those who +were reporting. By long years of military experience he knew, and with +the wisdom of age understood, that it is impossible for one man to +direct hundreds of thousands of others struggling with death, and he +knew that the result of a battle is decided not by the orders of a +commander-in-chief, nor the place where the troops are stationed, nor by +the number of cannon or of slaughtered men, but by that intangible force +called the spirit of the army, and he watched this force and guided it +in as far as that was in his power. + +Kutuzov's general expression was one of concentrated quiet attention, +and his face wore a strained look as if he found it difficult to master +the fatigue of his old and feeble body. + +At eleven o'clock they brought him news that the fleches captured by the +French had been retaken, but that Prince Bagration was wounded. Kutuzov +groaned and swayed his head. + +"Ride over to Prince Peter Ivanovich and find out about it exactly," he +said to one of his adjutants, and then turned to the Duke of Wurttemberg +who was standing behind him. + +"Will Your Highness please take command of the first army?" + +Soon after the duke's departure--before he could possibly have reached +Semenovsk--his adjutant came back from him and told Kutuzov that the +duke asked for more troops. + +Kutuzov made a grimace and sent an order to Dokhturov to take over the +command of the first army, and a request to the duke--whom he said he +could not spare at such an important moment--to return to him. When they +brought him news that Murat had been taken prisoner, and the staff +officers congratulated him, Kutuzov smiled. + +"Wait a little, gentlemen," said he. "The battle is won, and there is +nothing extraordinary in the capture of Murat. Still, it is better to +wait before we rejoice." + +But he sent an adjutant to take the news round the army. + +When Scherbinin came galloping from the left flank with news that the +French had captured the fleches and the village of Semenovsk, Kutuzov, +guessing by the sounds of the battle and by Scherbinin's looks that the +news was bad, rose as if to stretch his legs and, taking Scherbinin's +arm, led him aside. + +"Go, my dear fellow," he said to Ermolov, "and see whether something +can't be done." + +Kutuzov was in Gorki, near the center of the Russian position. The +attack directed by Napoleon against our left flank had been several +times repulsed. In the center the French had not got beyond Borodino, +and on their left flank Uvarov's cavalry had put the French to flight. + +Toward three o'clock the French attacks ceased. On the faces of all who +came from the field of battle, and of those who stood around him, +Kutuzov noticed an expression of extreme tension. He was satisfied with +the day's success--a success exceeding his expectations, but the old +man's strength was failing him. Several times his head dropped low as if +it were falling and he dozed off. Dinner was brought him. + +Adjutant General Wolzogen, the man who when riding past Prince Andrew +had said, "the war should be extended widely," and whom Bagration so +detested, rode up while Kutuzov was at dinner. Wolzogen had come from +Barclay de Tolly to report on the progress of affairs on the left flank. +The sagacious Barclay de Tolly, seeing crowds of wounded men running +back and the disordered rear of the army, weighed all the circumstances, +concluded that the battle was lost, and sent his favorite officer to the +commander in chief with that news. + +Kutuzov was chewing a piece of roast chicken with difficulty and glanced +at Wolzogen with eyes that brightened under their puckering lids. + +Wolzogen, nonchalantly stretching his legs, approached Kutuzov with a +half-contemptuous smile on his lips, scarcely touching the peak of his +cap. + +He treated his Serene Highness with a somewhat affected nonchalance +intended to show that, as a highly trained military man, he left it to +Russians to make an idol of this useless old man, but that he knew whom +he was dealing with. "Der alte Herr" (as in their own set the Germans +called Kutuzov) "is making himself very comfortable," thought Wolzogen, +and looking severely at the dishes in front of Kutuzov he began to +report to "the old gentleman" the position of affairs on the left flank +as Barclay had ordered him to and as he himself had seen and understood +it. + +"All the points of our position are in the enemy's hands and we cannot +dislodge them for lack of troops, the men are running away and it is +impossible to stop them," he reported. + +Kutuzov ceased chewing and fixed an astonished gaze on Wolzogen, as if +not understanding what was said to him. Wolzogen, noticing "the old +gentleman's" agitation, said with a smile: + +"I have not considered it right to conceal from your Serene Highness +what I have seen. The troops are in complete disorder..." + +"You have seen? You have seen?..." Kutuzov shouted. Frowning and rising +quickly, he went up to Wolzogen. + +"How... how dare you!..." he shouted, choking and making a threatening +gesture with his trembling arms: "How dare you, sir, say that to me? You +know nothing about it. Tell General Barclay from me that his information +is incorrect and that the real course of the battle is better known to +me, the commander-in-chief, than to him." + +Wolzogen was about to make a rejoinder, but Kutuzov interrupted him. + +"The enemy has been repulsed on the left and defeated on the right +flank. If you have seen amiss, sir, do not allow yourself to say what +you don't know! Be so good as to ride to General Barclay and inform him +of my firm intention to attack the enemy tomorrow," said Kutuzov +sternly. + +All were silent, and the only sound audible was the heavy breathing of +the panting old general. + +"They are repulsed everywhere, for which I thank God and our brave army! +The enemy is beaten, and tomorrow we shall drive him from the sacred +soil of Russia," said Kutuzov crossing himself, and he suddenly sobbed +as his eyes filled with tears. + +Wolzogen, shrugging his shoulders and curling his lips, stepped silently +aside, marveling at "the old gentleman's" conceited stupidity. + +"Ah, here he is, my hero!" said Kutuzov to a portly, handsome, dark- +haired general who was just ascending the knoll. + +This was Raevski, who had spent the whole day at the most important part +of the field of Borodino. + +Raevski reported that the troops were firmly holding their ground and +that the French no longer ventured to attack. + +After hearing him, Kutuzov said in French: + +"Then you do not think, like some others, that we must retreat?" + +"On the contrary, your Highness, in indecisive actions it is always the +most stubborn who remain victors," replied Raevski, "and in my +opinion..." + +"Kaysarov!" Kutuzov called to his adjutant. "Sit down and write out the +order of the day for tomorrow. And you," he continued, addressing +another, "ride along the line and announce that tomorrow we attack." + +While Kutuzov was talking to Raevski and dictating the order of the day, +Wolzogen returned from Barclay and said that General Barclay wished to +have written confirmation of the order the field marshal had given. + +Kutuzov, without looking at Wolzogen, gave directions for the order to +be written out which the former commander-in-chief, to avoid personal +responsibility, very judiciously wished to receive. + +And by means of that mysterious indefinable bond which maintains +throughout an army one and the same temper, known as "the spirit of the +army," and which constitutes the sinew of war, Kutuzov's words, his +order for a battle next day, immediately became known from one end of +the army to the other. + +It was far from being the same words or the same order that reached the +farthest links of that chain. The tales passing from mouth to mouth at +different ends of the army did not even resemble what Kutuzov had said, +but the sense of his words spread everywhere because what he said was +not the outcome of cunning calculations, but of a feeling that lay in +the commander-in-chief's soul as in that of every Russian. + +And on learning that tomorrow they were to attack the enemy, and hearing +from the highest quarters a confirmation of what they wanted to believe, +the exhausted, wavering men felt comforted and inspirited. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXVI + +Prince Andrew's regiment was among the reserves which till after one +o'clock were stationed inactive behind Semenovsk, under heavy artillery +fire. Toward two o'clock the regiment, having already lost more than two +hundred men, was moved forward into a trampled oatfield in the gap +between Semenovsk and the Knoll Battery, where thousands of men perished +that day and on which an intense, concentrated fire from several hundred +enemy guns was directed between one and two o'clock. + +Without moving from that spot or firing a single shot the regiment here +lost another third of its men. From in front and especially from the +right, in the unlifting smoke the guns boomed, and out of the mysterious +domain of smoke that overlay the whole space in front, quick hissing +cannon balls and slow whistling shells flew unceasingly. At times, as if +to allow them a respite, a quarter of an hour passed during which the +cannon balls and shells all flew overhead, but sometimes several men +were torn from the regiment in a minute and the slain were continually +being dragged away and the wounded carried off. + +With each fresh blow less and less chance of life remained for those not +yet killed. The regiment stood in columns of battalion, three hundred +paces apart, but nevertheless the men were always in one and the same +mood. All alike were taciturn and morose. Talk was rarely heard in the +ranks, and it ceased altogether every time the thud of a successful shot +and the cry of "stretchers!" was heard. Most of the time, by their +officers' order, the men sat on the ground. One, having taken off his +shako, carefully loosened the gathers of its lining and drew them tight +again; another, rubbing some dry clay between his palms, polished his +bayonet; another fingered the strap and pulled the buckle of his +bandolier, while another smoothed and refolded his leg bands and put his +boots on again. Some built little houses of the tufts in the plowed +ground, or plaited baskets from the straw in the cornfield. All seemed +fully absorbed in these pursuits. When men were killed or wounded, when +rows of stretchers went past, when some troops retreated, and when great +masses of the enemy came into view through the smoke, no one paid any +attention to these things. But when our artillery or cavalry advanced or +some of our infantry were seen to move forward, words of approval were +heard on all sides. But the liveliest attention was attracted by +occurrences quite apart from, and unconnected with, the battle. It was +as if the minds of these morally exhausted men found relief in everyday, +commonplace occurrences. A battery of artillery was passing in front of +the regiment. The horse of an ammunition cart put its leg over a trace. +"Hey, look at the trace horse!... Get her leg out! She'll fall.... Ah, +they don't see it!" came identical shouts from the ranks all along the +regiment. Another time, general attention was attracted by a small brown +dog, coming heaven knows whence, which trotted in a preoccupied manner +in front of the ranks with tail stiffly erect till suddenly a shell fell +close by, when it yelped, tucked its tail between its legs, and darted +aside. Yells and shrieks of laughter rose from the whole regiment. But +such distractions lasted only a moment, and for eight hours the men had +been inactive, without food, in constant fear of death, and their pale +and gloomy faces grew ever paler and gloomier. + +Prince Andrew, pale and gloomy like everyone in the regiment, paced up +and down from the border of one patch to another, at the edge of the +meadow beside an oatfield, with head bowed and arms behind his back. +There was nothing for him to do and no orders to be given. Everything +went on of itself. The killed were dragged from the front, the wounded +carried away, and the ranks closed up. If any soldiers ran to the rear +they returned immediately and hastily. At first Prince Andrew, +considering it his duty to rouse the courage of the men and to set them +an example, walked about among the ranks, but he soon became convinced +that this was unnecessary and that there was nothing he could teach +them. All the powers of his soul, as of every soldier there, were +unconsciously bent on avoiding the contemplation of the horrors of their +situation. He walked along the meadow, dragging his feet, rustling the +grass, and gazing at the dust that covered his boots; now he took big +strides trying to keep to the footprints left on the meadow by the +mowers, then he counted his steps, calculating how often he must walk +from one strip to another to walk a mile, then he stripped the flowers +from the wormwood that grew along a boundary rut, rubbed them in his +palms, and smelled their pungent, sweetly bitter scent. Nothing remained +of the previous day's thoughts. He thought of nothing. He listened with +weary ears to the ever-recurring sounds, distinguishing the whistle of +flying projectiles from the booming of the reports, glanced at the +tiresomely familiar faces of the men of the first battalion, and waited. +"Here it comes... this one is coming our way again!" he thought, +listening to an approaching whistle in the hidden region of smoke. "One, +another! Again! It has hit...." He stopped and looked at the ranks. "No, +it has gone over. But this one has hit!" And again he started trying to +reach the boundary strip in sixteen paces. A whizz and a thud! Five +paces from him, a cannon ball tore up the dry earth and disappeared. A +chill ran down his back. Again he glanced at the ranks. Probably many +had been hit--a large crowd had gathered near the second battalion. + +"Adjutant!" he shouted. "Order them not to crowd together." + +The adjutant, having obeyed this instruction, approached Prince Andrew. +From the other side a battalion commander rode up. + +"Look out!" came a frightened cry from a soldier and, like a bird +whirring in rapid flight and alighting on the ground, a shell dropped +with little noise within two steps of Prince Andrew and close to the +battalion commander's horse. The horse first, regardless of whether it +was right or wrong to show fear, snorted, reared almost throwing the +major, and galloped aside. The horse's terror infected the men. + +"Lie down!" cried the adjutant, throwing himself flat on the ground. + +Prince Andrew hesitated. The smoking shell spun like a top between him +and the prostrate adjutant, near a wormwood plant between the field and +the meadow. + +"Can this be death?" thought Prince Andrew, looking with a quite new, +envious glance at the grass, the wormwood, and the streamlet of smoke +that curled up from the rotating black ball. "I cannot, I do not wish to +die. I love life--I love this grass, this earth, this air...." He +thought this, and at the same time remembered that people were looking +at him. + +"It's shameful, sir!" he said to the adjutant. "What..." + +He did not finish speaking. At one and the same moment came the sound of +an explosion, a whistle of splinters as from a breaking window frame, a +suffocating smell of powder, and Prince Andrew started to one side, +raising his arm, and fell on his chest. Several officers ran up to him. +From the right side of his abdomen, blood was welling out making a large +stain on the grass. + +The militiamen with stretchers who were called up stood behind the +officers. Prince Andrew lay on his chest with his face in the grass, +breathing heavily and noisily. + +"What are you waiting for? Come along!" + +The peasants went up and took him by his shoulders and legs, but he +moaned piteously and, exchanging looks, they set him down again. + +"Pick him up, lift him, it's all the same!" cried someone. + +They again took him by the shoulders and laid him on the stretcher. + +"Ah, God! My God! What is it? The stomach? That means death! My God!"-- +voices among the officers were heard saying. + +"It flew a hair's breadth past my ear," said the adjutant. + +The peasants, adjusting the stretcher to their shoulders, started +hurriedly along the path they had trodden down, to the dressing station. + +"Keep in step! Ah... those peasants!" shouted an officer, seizing by +their shoulders and checking the peasants, who were walking unevenly and +jolting the stretcher. + +"Get into step, Fedor... I say, Fedor!" said the foremost peasant. + +"Now that's right!" said the one behind joyfully, when he had got into +step. + +"Your excellency! Eh, Prince!" said the trembling voice of Timokhin, who +had run up and was looking down on the stretcher. + +Prince Andrew opened his eyes and looked up at the speaker from the +stretcher into which his head had sunk deep and again his eyelids +drooped. + +The militiamen carried Prince Andrew to the dressing station by the +wood, where wagons were stationed. The dressing station consisted of +three tents with flaps turned back, pitched at the edge of a birch wood. +In the wood, wagons and horses were standing. The horses were eating +oats from their movable troughs and sparrows flew down and pecked the +grains that fell. Some crows, scenting blood, flew among the birch trees +cawing impatiently. Around the tents, over more than five acres, +bloodstained men in various garbs stood, sat, or lay. Around the wounded +stood crowds of soldier stretcher-bearers with dismal and attentive +faces, whom the officers keeping order tried in vain to drive from the +spot. Disregarding the officers' orders, the soldiers stood leaning +against their stretchers and gazing intently, as if trying to comprehend +the difficult problem of what was taking place before them. From the +tents came now loud angry cries and now plaintive groans. Occasionally +dressers ran out to fetch water, or to point out those who were to be +brought in next. The wounded men awaiting their turn outside the tents +groaned, sighed, wept, screamed, swore, or asked for vodka. Some were +delirious. Prince Andrew's bearers, stepping over the wounded who had +not yet been bandaged, took him, as a regimental commander, close up to +one of the tents and there stopped, awaiting instructions. Prince Andrew +opened his eyes and for a long time could not make out what was going on +around him. He remembered the meadow, the wormwood, the field, the +whirling black ball, and his sudden rush of passionate love of life. Two +steps from him, leaning against a branch and talking loudly and +attracting general attention, stood a tall, handsome, black-haired +noncommissioned officer with a bandaged head. He had been wounded in the +head and leg by bullets. Around him, eagerly listening to his talk, a +crowd of wounded and stretcher-bearers was gathered. + +"We kicked him out from there so that he chucked everything, we grabbed +the King himself!" cried he, looking around him with eyes that glittered +with fever. "If only reserves had come up just then, lads, there +wouldn't have been nothing left of him! I tell you surely..." + +Like all the others near the speaker, Prince Andrew looked at him with +shining eyes and experienced a sense of comfort. "But isn't it all the +same now?" thought he. "And what will be there, and what has there been +here? Why was I so reluctant to part with life? There was something in +this life I did not and do not understand." + + + + +CHAPTER XXXVII + +One of the doctors came out of the tent in a bloodstained apron, holding +a cigar between the thumb and little finger of one of his small +bloodstained hands, so as not to smear it. He raised his head and looked +about him, but above the level of the wounded men. He evidently wanted a +little respite. After turning his head from right to left for some time, +he sighed and looked down. + +"All right, immediately," he replied to a dresser who pointed Prince +Andrew out to him, and he told them to carry him into the tent. + +Murmurs arose among the wounded who were waiting. + +"It seems that even in the next world only the gentry are to have a +chance!" remarked one. + +Prince Andrew was carried in and laid on a table that had only just been +cleared and which a dresser was washing down. Prince Andrew could not +make out distinctly what was in that tent. The pitiful groans from all +sides and the torturing pain in his thigh, stomach, and back distracted +him. All he saw about him merged into a general impression of naked, +bleeding human bodies that seemed to fill the whole of the low tent, as +a few weeks previously, on that hot August day, such bodies had filled +the dirty pond beside the Smolensk road. Yes, it was the same flesh, the +same chair a canon, the sight of which had even then filled him with +horror, as by a presentiment. + +There were three operating tables in the tent. Two were occupied, and on +the third they placed Prince Andrew. For a little while he was left +alone and involuntarily witnessed what was taking place on the other two +tables. On the nearest one sat a Tartar, probably a Cossack, judging by +the uniform thrown down beside him. Four soldiers were holding him, and +a spectacled doctor was cutting into his muscular brown back. + +"Ooh, ooh, ooh!" grunted the Tartar, and suddenly lifting up his swarthy +snub-nosed face with its high cheekbones, and baring his white teeth, he +began to wriggle and twitch his body and utter piercing, ringing, and +prolonged yells. On the other table, round which many people were +crowding, a tall well-fed man lay on his back with his head thrown back. +His curly hair, its color, and the shape of his head seemed strangely +familiar to Prince Andrew. Several dressers were pressing on his chest +to hold him down. One large, white, plump leg twitched rapidly all the +time with a feverish tremor. The man was sobbing and choking +convulsively. Two doctors--one of whom was pale and trembling--were +silently doing something to this man's other, gory leg. When he had +finished with the Tartar, whom they covered with an overcoat, the +spectacled doctor came up to Prince Andrew, wiping his hands. + +He glanced at Prince Andrew's face and quickly turned away. + +"Undress him! What are you waiting for?" he cried angrily to the +dressers. + +His very first, remotest recollections of childhood came back to Prince +Andrew's mind when the dresser with sleeves rolled up began hastily to +undo the buttons of his clothes and undressed him. The doctor bent down +over the wound, felt it, and sighed deeply. Then he made a sign to +someone, and the torturing pain in his abdomen caused Prince Andrew to +lose consciousness. When he came to himself the splintered portions of +his thighbone had been extracted, the torn flesh cut away, and the wound +bandaged. Water was being sprinkled on his face. As soon as Prince +Andrew opened his eyes, the doctor bent over, kissed him silently on the +lips, and hurried away. + +After the sufferings he had been enduring, Prince Andrew enjoyed a +blissful feeling such as he had not experienced for a long time. All the +best and happiest moments of his life--especially his earliest +childhood, when he used to be undressed and put to bed, and when leaning +over him his nurse sang him to sleep and he, burying his head in the +pillow, felt happy in the mere consciousness of life--returned to his +memory, not merely as something past but as something present. + +The doctors were busily engaged with the wounded man the shape of whose +head seemed familiar to Prince Andrew: they were lifting him up and +trying to quiet him. + +"Show it to me.... Oh, ooh... Oh! Oh, ooh!" his frightened moans could +be heard, subdued by suffering and broken by sobs. + +Hearing those moans Prince Andrew wanted to weep. Whether because he was +dying without glory, or because he was sorry to part with life, or +because of those memories of a childhood that could not return, or +because he was suffering and others were suffering and that man near him +was groaning so piteously--he felt like weeping childlike, kindly, and +almost happy tears. + +The wounded man was shown his amputated leg stained with clotted blood +and with the boot still on. + +"Oh! Oh, ooh!" he sobbed, like a woman. + +The doctor who had been standing beside him, preventing Prince Andrew +from seeing his face, moved away. + +"My God! What is this? Why is he here?" said Prince Andrew to himself. + +In the miserable, sobbing, enfeebled man whose leg had just been +amputated, he recognized Anatole Kuragin. Men were supporting him in +their arms and offering him a glass of water, but his trembling, swollen +lips could not grasp its rim. Anatole was sobbing painfully. "Yes, it is +he! Yes, that man is somehow closely and painfully connected with me," +thought Prince Andrew, not yet clearly grasping what he saw before him. +"What is the connection of that man with my childhood and life?" he +asked himself without finding an answer. And suddenly a new unexpected +memory from that realm of pure and loving childhood presented itself to +him. He remembered Natasha as he had seen her for the first time at the +ball in 1810, with her slender neck and arms and with a frightened happy +face ready for rapture, and love and tenderness for her, stronger and +more vivid than ever, awoke in his soul. He now remembered the +connection that existed between himself and this man who was dimly +gazing at him through tears that filled his swollen eyes. He remembered +everything, and ecstatic pity and love for that man overflowed his happy +heart. + +Prince Andrew could no longer restrain himself and wept tender loving +tears for his fellow men, for himself, and for his own and their errors. + +"Compassion, love of our brothers, for those who love us and for those +who hate us, love of our enemies; yes, that love which God preached on +earth and which Princess Mary taught me and I did not understand--that +is what made me sorry to part with life, that is what remained for me +had I lived. But now it is too late. I know it!" + + + + +CHAPTER XXXVIII + +The terrible spectacle of the battlefield covered with dead and wounded, +together with the heaviness of his head and the news that some twenty +generals he knew personally had been killed or wounded, and the +consciousness of the impotence of his once mighty arm, produced an +unexpected impression on Napoleon who usually liked to look at the +killed and wounded, thereby, he considered, testing his strength of +mind. This day the horrible appearance of the battlefield overcame that +strength of mind which he thought constituted his merit and his +greatness. He rode hurriedly from the battlefield and returned to the +Shevardino knoll, where he sat on his campstool, his sallow face swollen +and heavy, his eyes dim, his nose red, and his voice hoarse, +involuntarily listening, with downcast eyes, to the sounds of firing. +With painful dejection he awaited the end of this action, in which he +regarded himself as a participant and which he was unable to arrest. A +personal, human feeling for a brief moment got the better of the +artificial phantasm of life he had served so long. He felt in his own +person the sufferings and death he had witnessed on the battlefield. The +heaviness of his head and chest reminded him of the possibility of +suffering and death for himself. At that moment he did not desire +Moscow, or victory, or glory (what need had he for any more glory?). The +one thing he wished for was rest, tranquillity, and freedom. But when he +had been on the Semenovsk heights the artillery commander had proposed +to him to bring several batteries of artillery up to those heights to +strengthen the fire on the Russian troops crowded in front of Knyazkovo. +Napoleon had assented and had given orders that news should be brought +to him of the effect those batteries produced. + +An adjutant came now to inform him that the fire of two hundred guns had +been concentrated on the Russians, as he had ordered, but that they +still held their ground. + +"Our fire is mowing them down by rows, but still they hold on," said the +adjutant. + +"They want more!..." said Napoleon in a hoarse voice. + +"Sire?" asked the adjutant who had not heard the remark. + +"They want more!" croaked Napoleon frowning. "Let them have it!" + +Even before he gave that order the thing he did not desire, and for +which he gave the order only because he thought it was expected of him, +was being done. And he fell back into that artificial realm of imaginary +greatness, and again--as a horse walking a treadmill thinks it is doing +something for itself--he submissively fulfilled the cruel, sad, gloomy, +and inhuman role predestined for him. + +And not for that day and hour alone were the mind and conscience +darkened of this man on whom the responsibility for what was happening +lay more than on all the others who took part in it. Never to the end of +his life could he understand goodness, beauty, or truth, or the +significance of his actions which were too contrary to goodness and +truth, too remote from everything human, for him ever to be able to +grasp their meaning. He could not disavow his actions, belauded as they +were by half the world, and so he had to repudiate truth, goodness, and +all humanity. + +Not only on that day, as he rode over the battlefield strewn with men +killed and maimed (by his will as he believed), did he reckon as he +looked at them how many Russians there were for each Frenchman and, +deceiving himself, find reason for rejoicing in the calculation that +there were five Russians for every Frenchman. Not on that day alone did +he write in a letter to Paris that "the battle field was superb," +because fifty thousand corpses lay there, but even on the island of St. +Helena in the peaceful solitude where he said he intended to devote his +leisure to an account of the great deeds he had done, he wrote: + +The Russian war should have been the most popular war of modern times: +it was a war of good sense, for real interests, for the tranquillity and +security of all; it was purely pacific and conservative. + +It was a war for a great cause, the end of uncertainties and the +beginning of security. A new horizon and new labors were opening out, +full of well-being and prosperity for all. The European system was +already founded; all that remained was to organize it. + +Satisfied on these great points and with tranquility everywhere, I too +should have had my Congress and my Holy Alliance. Those ideas were +stolen from me. In that reunion of great sovereigns we should have +discussed our interests like one family, and have rendered account to +the peoples as clerk to master. + +Europe would in this way soon have been, in fact, but one people, and +anyone who traveled anywhere would have found himself always in the +common fatherland. I should have demanded the freedom of all navigable +rivers for everybody, that the seas should be common to all, and that +the great standing armies should be reduced henceforth to mere guards +for the sovereigns. + +On returning to France, to the bosom of the great, strong, magnificent, +peaceful, and glorious fatherland, I should have proclaimed her +frontiers immutable; all future wars purely defensive, all +aggrandizement antinational. I should have associated my son in the +Empire; my dictatorship would have been finished, and his constitutional +reign would have begun. + +Paris would have been the capital of the world, and the French the envy +of the nations! + +My leisure then, and my old age, would have been devoted, in company +with the Empress and during the royal apprenticeship of my son, to +leisurely visiting, with our own horses and like a true country couple, +every corner of the Empire, receiving complaints, redressing wrongs, and +scattering public buildings and benefactions on all sides and +everywhere. + +Napoleon, predestined by Providence for the gloomy role of executioner +of the peoples, assured himself that the aim of his actions had been the +peoples' welfare and that he could control the fate of millions and by +the employment of power confer benefactions. + +"Of four hundred thousand who crossed the Vistula," he wrote further of +the Russian war, "half were Austrians, Prussians, Saxons, Poles, +Bavarians, Wurttembergers, Mecklenburgers, Spaniards, Italians, and +Neapolitans. The Imperial army, strictly speaking, was one third +composed of Dutch, Belgians, men from the borders of the Rhine, +Piedmontese, Swiss, Genevese, Tuscans, Romans, inhabitants of the +Thirty-second Military Division, of Bremen, of Hamburg, and so on: it +included scarcely a hundred and forty thousand who spoke French. The +Russian expedition actually cost France less than fifty thousand men; +the Russian army in its retreat from Vilna to Moscow lost in the various +battles four times more men than the French army; the burning of Moscow +cost the lives of a hundred thousand Russians who died of cold and want +in the woods; finally, in its march from Moscow to the Oder the Russian +army also suffered from the severity of the season; so that by the time +it reached Vilna it numbered only fifty thousand, and at Kalisch less +than eighteen thousand." + +He imagined that the war with Russia came about by his will, and the +horrors that occurred did not stagger his soul. He boldly took the whole +responsibility for what happened, and his darkened mind found +justification in the belief that among the hundreds of thousands who +perished there were fewer Frenchmen than Hessians and Bavarians. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXIX + +Several tens of thousands of the slain lay in diverse postures and +various uniforms on the fields and meadows belonging to the Davydov +family and to the crown serfs--those fields and meadows where for +hundreds of years the peasants of Borodino, Gorki, Shevardino, and +Semenovsk had reaped their harvests and pastured their cattle. At the +dressing stations the grass and earth were soaked with blood for a space +of some three acres around. Crowds of men of various arms, wounded and +unwounded, with frightened faces, dragged themselves back to Mozhaysk +from the one army and back to Valuevo from the other. Other crowds, +exhausted and hungry, went forward led by their officers. Others held +their ground and continued to fire. + +Over the whole field, previously so gaily beautiful with the glitter of +bayonets and cloudlets of smoke in the morning sun, there now spread a +mist of damp and smoke and a strange acid smell of saltpeter and blood. +Clouds gathered and drops of rain began to fall on the dead and wounded, +on the frightened, exhausted, and hesitating men, as if to say: "Enough, +men! Enough! Cease... bethink yourselves! What are you doing?" + +To the men of both sides alike, worn out by want of food and rest, it +began equally to appear doubtful whether they should continue to +slaughter one another; all the faces expressed hesitation, and the +question arose in every soul: "For what, for whom, must I kill and be +killed?... You may go and kill whom you please, but I don't want to do +so anymore!" By evening this thought had ripened in every soul. At any +moment these men might have been seized with horror at what they were +doing and might have thrown up everything and run away anywhere. + +But though toward the end of the battle the men felt all the horror of +what they were doing, though they would have been glad to leave off, +some incomprehensible, mysterious power continued to control them, and +they still brought up the charges, loaded, aimed, and applied the match, +though only one artilleryman survived out of every three, and though +they stumbled and panted with fatigue, perspiring and stained with blood +and powder. The cannon balls flew just as swiftly and cruelly from both +sides, crushing human bodies, and that terrible work which was not done +by the will of a man but at the will of Him who governs men and worlds +continued. + +Anyone looking at the disorganized rear of the Russian army would have +said that, if only the French made one more slight effort, it would +disappear; and anyone looking at the rear of the French army would have +said that the Russians need only make one more slight effort and the +French would be destroyed. But neither the French nor the Russians made +that effort, and the flame of battle burned slowly out. + +The Russians did not make that effort because they were not attacking +the French. At the beginning of the battle they stood blocking the way +to Moscow and they still did so at the end of the battle as at the +beginning. But even had the aim of the Russians been to drive the French +from their positions, they could not have made this last effort, for all +the Russian troops had been broken up, there was no part of the Russian +army that had not suffered in the battle, and though still holding their +positions they had lost ONE HALF of their army. + +The French, with the memory of all their former victories during fifteen +years, with the assurance of Napoleon's invincibility, with the +consciousness that they had captured part of the battlefield and had +lost only a quarter of their men and still had their Guards intact, +twenty thousand strong, might easily have made that effort. The French +who had attacked the Russian army in order to drive it from its position +ought to have made that effort, for as long as the Russians continued to +block the road to Moscow as before, the aim of the French had not been +attained and all their efforts and losses were in vain. But the French +did not make that effort. Some historians say that Napoleon need only +have used his Old Guards, who were intact, and the battle would have +been won. To speak of what would have happened had Napoleon sent his +Guards is like talking of what would happen if autumn became spring. It +could not be. Napoleon did not give his Guards, not because he did not +want to, but because it could not be done. All the generals, officers, +and soldiers of the French army knew it could not be done, because the +flagging spirit of the troops would not permit it. + +It was not Napoleon alone who had experienced that nightmare feeling of +the mighty arm being stricken powerless, but all the generals and +soldiers of his army whether they had taken part in the battle or not, +after all their experience of previous battles--when after one tenth of +such efforts the enemy had fled--experienced a similar feeling of terror +before an enemy who, after losing HALF his men, stood as threateningly +at the end as at the beginning of the battle. The moral force of the +attacking French army was exhausted. Not that sort of victory which is +defined by the capture of pieces of material fastened to sticks, called +standards, and of the ground on which the troops had stood and were +standing, but a moral victory that convinces the enemy of the moral +superiority of his opponent and of his own impotence was gained by the +Russians at Borodino. The French invaders, like an infuriated animal +that has in its onslaught received a mortal wound, felt that they were +perishing, but could not stop, any more than the Russian army, weaker by +one half, could help swerving. By impetus gained, the French army was +still able to roll forward to Moscow, but there, without further effort +on the part of the Russians, it had to perish, bleeding from the mortal +wound it had received at Borodino. The direct consequence of the battle +of Borodino was Napoleon's senseless flight from Moscow, his retreat +along the old Smolensk road, the destruction of the invading army of +five hundred thousand men, and the downfall of Napoleonic France, on +which at Borodino for the first time the hand of an opponent of stronger +spirit had been laid. + +BOOK ELEVEN: 1812 + + + + +CHAPTER I + +Absolute continuity of motion is not comprehensible to the human mind. +Laws of motion of any kind become comprehensible to man only when he +examines arbitrarily selected elements of that motion; but at the same +time, a large proportion of human error comes from the arbitrary +division of continuous motion into discontinuous elements. There is a +well known, so-called sophism of the ancients consisting in this, that +Achilles could never catch up with a tortoise he was following, in spite +of the fact that he traveled ten times as fast as the tortoise. By the +time Achilles has covered the distance that separated him from the +tortoise, the tortoise has covered one tenth of that distance ahead of +him: when Achilles has covered that tenth, the tortoise has covered +another one hundredth, and so on forever. This problem seemed to the +ancients insoluble. The absurd answer (that Achilles could never +overtake the tortoise) resulted from this: that motion was arbitrarily +divided into discontinuous elements, whereas the motion both of Achilles +and of the tortoise was continuous. + +By adopting smaller and smaller elements of motion we only approach a +solution of the problem, but never reach it. Only when we have admitted +the conception of the infinitely small, and the resulting geometrical +progression with a common ratio of one tenth, and have found the sum of +this progression to infinity, do we reach a solution of the problem. + +A modern branch of mathematics having achieved the art of dealing with +the infinitely small can now yield solutions in other more complex +problems of motion which used to appear insoluble. + +This modern branch of mathematics, unknown to the ancients, when dealing +with problems of motion admits the conception of the infinitely small, +and so conforms to the chief condition of motion (absolute continuity) +and thereby corrects the inevitable error which the human mind cannot +avoid when it deals with separate elements of motion instead of +examining continuous motion. + +In seeking the laws of historical movement just the same thing happens. +The movement of humanity, arising as it does from innumerable arbitrary +human wills, is continuous. + +To understand the laws of this continuous movement is the aim of +history. But to arrive at these laws, resulting from the sum of all +those human wills, man's mind postulates arbitrary and disconnected +units. The first method of history is to take an arbitrarily selected +series of continuous events and examine it apart from others, though +there is and can be no beginning to any event, for one event always +flows uninterruptedly from another. + +The second method is to consider the actions of some one man--a king or +a commander--as equivalent to the sum of many individual wills; whereas +the sum of individual wills is never expressed by the activity of a +single historic personage. + +Historical science in its endeavor to draw nearer to truth continually +takes smaller and smaller units for examination. But however small the +units it takes, we feel that to take any unit disconnected from others, +or to assume a beginning of any phenomenon, or to say that the will of +many men is expressed by the actions of any one historic personage, is +in itself false. + +It needs no critical exertion to reduce utterly to dust any deductions +drawn from history. It is merely necessary to select some larger or +smaller unit as the subject of observation--as criticism has every right +to do, seeing that whatever unit history observes must always be +arbitrarily selected. + +Only by taking infinitesimally small units for observation (the +differential of history, that is, the individual tendencies of men) and +attaining to the art of integrating them (that is, finding the sum of +these infinitesimals) can we hope to arrive at the laws of history. + +The first fifteen years of the nineteenth century in Europe present an +extraordinary movement of millions of people. Men leave their customary +pursuits, hasten from one side of Europe to the other, plunder and +slaughter one another, triumph and are plunged in despair, and for some +years the whole course of life is altered and presents an intensive +movement which first increases and then slackens. What was the cause of +this movement, by what laws was it governed? asks the mind of man. + +The historians, replying to this question, lay before us the sayings and +doings of a few dozen men in a building in the city of Paris, calling +these sayings and doings "the Revolution"; then they give a detailed +biography of Napoleon and of certain people favorable or hostile to him; +tell of the influence some of these people had on others, and say: that +is why this movement took place and those are its laws. + +But the mind of man not only refuses to believe this explanation, but +plainly says that this method of explanation is fallacious, because in +it a weaker phenomenon is taken as the cause of a stronger. The sum of +human wills produced the Revolution and Napoleon, and only the sum of +those wills first tolerated and then destroyed them. + +"But every time there have been conquests there have been conquerors; +every time there has been a revolution in any state there have been +great men," says history. And, indeed, human reason replies: every time +conquerors appear there have been wars, but this does not prove that the +conquerors caused the wars and that it is possible to find the laws of a +war in the personal activity of a single man. Whenever I look at my +watch and its hands point to ten, I hear the bells of the neighboring +church; but because the bells begin to ring when the hands of the clock +reach ten, I have no right to assume that the movement of the bells is +caused by the position of the hands of the watch. + +Whenever I see the movement of a locomotive I hear the whistle and see +the valves opening and wheels turning; but I have no right to conclude +that the whistling and the turning of wheels are the cause of the +movement of the engine. + +The peasants say that a cold wind blows in late spring because the oaks +are budding, and really every spring cold winds do blow when the oak is +budding. But though I do not know what causes the cold winds to blow +when the oak buds unfold, I cannot agree with the peasants that the +unfolding of the oak buds is the cause of the cold wind, for the force +of the wind is beyond the influence of the buds. I see only a +coincidence of occurrences such as happens with all the phenomena of +life, and I see that however much and however carefully I observe the +hands of the watch, and the valves and wheels of the engine, and the +oak, I shall not discover the cause of the bells ringing, the engine +moving, or of the winds of spring. To that I must entirely change my +point of view and study the laws of the movement of steam, of the bells, +and of the wind. History must do the same. And attempts in this +direction have already been made. + +To study the laws of history we must completely change the subject of +our observation, must leave aside kings, ministers, and generals, and +study the common, infinitesimally small elements by which the masses are +moved. No one can say in how far it is possible for man to advance in +this way toward an understanding of the laws of history; but it is +evident that only along that path does the possibility of discovering +the laws of history lie, and that as yet not a millionth part as much +mental effort has been applied in this direction by historians as has +been devoted to describing the actions of various kings, commanders, and +ministers and propounding the historians' own reflections concerning +these actions. + + + + +CHAPTER II + +The forces of a dozen European nations burst into Russia. The Russian +army and people avoided a collision till Smolensk was reached, and again +from Smolensk to Borodino. The French army pushed on to Moscow, its +goal, its impetus ever increasing as it neared its aim, just as the +velocity of a falling body increases as it approaches the earth. Behind +it were seven hundred miles of hunger-stricken, hostile country; ahead +were a few dozen miles separating it from its goal. Every soldier in +Napoleon's army felt this and the invasion moved on by its own momentum. + +The more the Russian army retreated the more fiercely a spirit of hatred +of the enemy flared up, and while it retreated the army increased and +consolidated. At Borodino a collision took place. Neither army was +broken up, but the Russian army retreated immediately after the +collision as inevitably as a ball recoils after colliding with another +having a greater momentum, and with equal inevitability the ball of +invasion that had advanced with such momentum rolled on for some +distance, though the collision had deprived it of all its force. + +The Russians retreated eighty miles--to beyond Moscow--and the French +reached Moscow and there came to a standstill. For five weeks after that +there was not a single battle. The French did not move. As a bleeding, +mortally wounded animal licks its wounds, they remained inert in Moscow +for five weeks, and then suddenly, with no fresh reason, fled back: they +made a dash for the Kaluga road, and (after a victory--for at Malo- +Yaroslavets the field of conflict again remained theirs) without +undertaking a single serious battle, they fled still more rapidly back +to Smolensk, beyond Smolensk, beyond the Berezina, beyond Vilna, and +farther still. + +On the evening of the twenty-sixth of August, Kutuzov and the whole +Russian army were convinced that the battle of Borodino was a victory. +Kutuzov reported so to the Emperor. He gave orders to prepare for a +fresh conflict to finish the enemy and did this not to deceive anyone, +but because he knew that the enemy was beaten, as everyone who had taken +part in the battle knew it. + +But all that evening and next day reports came in one after another of +unheard-of losses, of the loss of half the army, and a fresh battle +proved physically impossible. + +It was impossible to give battle before information had been collected, +the wounded gathered in, the supplies of ammunition replenished, the +slain reckoned up, new officers appointed to replace those who had been +killed, and before the men had had food and sleep. And meanwhile, the +very next morning after the battle, the French army advanced of itself +upon the Russians, carried forward by the force of its own momentum now +seemingly increased in inverse proportion to the square of the distance +from its aim. Kutuzov's wish was to attack next day, and the whole army +desired to do so. But to make an attack the wish to do so is not +sufficient, there must also be a possibility of doing it, and that +possibility did not exist. It was impossible not to retreat a day's +march, and then in the same way it was impossible not to retreat another +and a third day's march, and at last, on the first of September when the +army drew near Moscow--despite the strength of the feeling that had +arisen in all ranks--the force of circumstances compelled it to retire +beyond Moscow. And the troops retired one more, last, day's march, and +abandoned Moscow to the enemy. + +For people accustomed to think that plans of campaign and battles are +made by generals--as any one of us sitting over a map in his study may +imagine how he would have arranged things in this or that battle--the +questions present themselves: Why did Kutuzov during the retreat not do +this or that? Why did he not take up a position before reaching Fili? +Why did he not retire at once by the Kaluga road, abandoning Moscow? and +so on. People accustomed to think in that way forget, or do not know, +the inevitable conditions which always limit the activities of any +commander in chief. The activity of a commander-in-chief does not at all +resemble the activity we imagine to ourselves when we sit at ease in our +studies examining some campaign on the map, with a certain number of +troops on this and that side in a certain known locality, and begin our +plans from some given moment. A commander-in-chief is never dealing with +the beginning of any event--the position from which we always +contemplate it. The commander-in-chief is always in the midst of a +series of shifting events and so he never can at any moment consider the +whole import of an event that is occurring. Moment by moment the event +is imperceptibly shaping itself, and at every moment of this continuous, +uninterrupted shaping of events the commander-in-chief is in the midst +of a most complex play of intrigues, worries, contingencies, +authorities, projects, counsels, threats, and deceptions and is +continually obliged to reply to innumerable questions addressed to him, +which constantly conflict with one another. + +Learned military authorities quite seriously tell us that Kutuzov should +have moved his army to the Kaluga road long before reaching Fili, and +that somebody actually submitted such a proposal to him. But a commander +in chief, especially at a difficult moment, has always before him not +one proposal but dozens simultaneously. And all these proposals, based +on strategics and tactics, contradict each other. + +A commander-in-chief's business, it would seem, is simply to choose one +of these projects. But even that he cannot do. Events and time do not +wait. For instance, on the twenty-eighth it is suggested to him to cross +to the Kaluga road, but just then an adjutant gallops up from +Miloradovich asking whether he is to engage the French or retire. An +order must be given him at once, that instant. And the order to retreat +carries us past the turn to the Kaluga road. And after the adjutant +comes the commissary general asking where the stores are to be taken, +and the chief of the hospitals asks where the wounded are to go, and a +courier from Petersburg brings a letter from the sovereign which does +not admit of the possibility of abandoning Moscow, and the commander-in- +chief's rival, the man who is undermining him (and there are always not +merely one but several such), presents a new project diametrically +opposed to that of turning to the Kaluga road, and the commander-in- +chief himself needs sleep and refreshment to maintain his energy and a +respectable general who has been overlooked in the distribution of +rewards comes to complain, and the inhabitants of the district pray to +be defended, and an officer sent to inspect the locality comes in and +gives a report quite contrary to what was said by the officer previously +sent; and a spy, a prisoner, and a general who has been on +reconnaissance, all describe the position of the enemy's army +differently. People accustomed to misunderstand or to forget these +inevitable conditions of a commander-in-chief's actions describe to us, +for instance, the position of the army at Fili and assume that the +commander-in-chief could, on the first of September, quite freely decide +whether to abandon Moscow or defend it; whereas, with the Russian army +less than four miles from Moscow, no such question existed. When had +that question been settled? At Drissa and at Smolensk and most palpably +of all on the twenty-fourth of August at Shevardino and on the twenty- +sixth at Borodino, and each day and hour and minute of the retreat from +Borodino to Fili. + + + + +CHAPTER III + +When Ermolov, having been sent by Kutuzov to inspect the position, told +the field marshal that it was impossible to fight there before Moscow +and that they must retreat, Kutuzov looked at him in silence. + +"Give me your hand," said he and, turning it over so as to feel the +pulse, added: "You are not well, my dear fellow. Think what you are +saying!" + +Kutuzov could not yet admit the possibility of retreating beyond Moscow +without a battle. + +On the Poklonny Hill, four miles from the Dorogomilov gate of Moscow, +Kutuzov got out of his carriage and sat down on a bench by the roadside. +A great crowd of generals gathered round him, and Count Rostopchin, who +had come out from Moscow, joined them. This brilliant company separated +into several groups who all discussed the advantages and disadvantages +of the position, the state of the army, the plans suggested, the +situation of Moscow, and military questions generally. Though they had +not been summoned for the purpose, and though it was not so called, they +all felt that this was really a council of war. The conversations all +dealt with public questions. If anyone gave or asked for personal news, +it was done in a whisper and they immediately reverted to general +matters. No jokes, or laughter, or smiles even, were seen among all +these men. They evidently all made an effort to hold themselves at the +height the situation demanded. And all these groups, while talking among +themselves, tried to keep near the commander-in-chief (whose bench +formed the center of the gathering) and to speak so that he might +overhear them. The commander in chief listened to what was being said +and sometimes asked them to repeat their remarks, but did not himself +take part in the conversations or express any opinion. After hearing +what was being said by one or other of these groups he generally turned +away with an air of disappointment, as though they were not speaking of +anything he wished to hear. Some discussed the position that had been +chosen, criticizing not the position itself so much as the mental +capacity of those who had chosen it. Others argued that a mistake had +been made earlier and that a battle should have been fought two days +before. Others again spoke of the battle of Salamanca, which was +described by Crosart, a newly arrived Frenchman in a Spanish uniform. +(This Frenchman and one of the German princes serving with the Russian +army were discussing the siege of Saragossa and considering the +possibility of defending Moscow in a similar manner.) Count Rostopchin +was telling a fourth group that he was prepared to die with the city +train bands under the walls of the capital, but that he still could not +help regretting having been left in ignorance of what was happening, and +that had he known it sooner things would have been different.... A fifth +group, displaying the profundity of their strategic perceptions, +discussed the direction the troops would now have to take. A sixth group +was talking absolute nonsense. Kutuzov's expression grew more and more +preoccupied and gloomy. From all this talk he saw only one thing: that +to defend Moscow was a physical impossibility in the full meaning of +those words, that is to say, so utterly impossible that if any senseless +commander were to give orders to fight, confusion would result but the +battle would still not take place. It would not take place because the +commanders not merely all recognized the position to be impossible, but +in their conversations were only discussing what would happen after its +inevitable abandonment. How could the commanders lead their troops to a +field of battle they considered impossible to hold? The lower-grade +officers and even the soldiers (who too reason) also considered the +position impossible and therefore could not go to fight, fully convinced +as they were of defeat. If Bennigsen insisted on the position being +defended and others still discussed it, the question was no longer +important in itself but only as a pretext for disputes and intrigue. +This Kutuzov knew well. + +Bennigsen, who had chosen the position, warmly displayed his Russian +patriotism (Kutuzov could not listen to this without wincing) by +insisting that Moscow must be defended. His aim was as clear as daylight +to Kutuzov: if the defense failed, to throw the blame on Kutuzov who had +brought the army as far as the Sparrow Hills without giving battle; if +it succeeded, to claim the success as his own; or if battle were not +given, to clear himself of the crime of abandoning Moscow. But this +intrigue did not now occupy the old man's mind. One terrible question +absorbed him and to that question he heard no reply from anyone. The +question for him now was: "Have I really allowed Napoleon to reach +Moscow, and when did I do so? When was it decided? Can it have been +yesterday when I ordered Platov to retreat, or was it the evening +before, when I had a nap and told Bennigsen to issue orders? Or was it +earlier still?... When, when was this terrible affair decided? Moscow +must be abandoned. The army must retreat and the order to do so must be +given." To give that terrible order seemed to him equivalent to +resigning the command of the army. And not only did he love power to +which he was accustomed (the honours awarded to Prince Prozorovski, +under whom he had served in Turkey, galled him), but he was convinced +that he was destined to save Russia and that that was why, against the +Emperor's wish and by the will of the people, he had been chosen +commander-in-chief. He was convinced that he alone could maintain +command of the army in these difficult circumstances, and that in all +the world he alone could encounter the invincible Napoleon without fear, +and he was horrified at the thought of the order he had to issue. But +something had to be decided, and these conversations around him which +were assuming too free a character must be stopped. + +He called the most important generals to him. + +"My head, be it good or bad, must depend on itself," said he, rising +from the bench, and he rode to Fili where his carriages were waiting. + + + + +CHAPTER IV + +The Council of War began to assemble at two in the afternoon in the +better and roomier part of Andrew Savostyanov's hut. The men, women, and +children of the large peasant family crowded into the back room across +the passage. Only Malasha, Andrew's six-year-old granddaughter whom his +Serene Highness had petted and to whom he had given a lump of sugar +while drinking his tea, remained on the top of the brick oven in the +larger room. Malasha looked down from the oven with shy delight at the +faces, uniforms, and decorations of the generals, who one after another +came into the room and sat down on the broad benches in the corner under +the icons. "Granddad" himself, as Malasha in her own mind called +Kutuzov, sat apart in a dark corner behind the oven. He sat, sunk deep +in a folding armchair, and continually cleared his throat and pulled at +the collar of his coat which, though it was unbuttoned, still seemed to +pinch his neck. Those who entered went up one by one to the field +marshal; he pressed the hands of some and nodded to others. His adjutant +Kaysarov was about to draw back the curtain of the window facing +Kutuzov, but the latter moved his hand angrily and Kaysarov understood +that his Serene Highness did not wish his face to be seen. + +Round the peasant's deal table, on which lay maps, plans, pencils, and +papers, so many people gathered that the orderlies brought in another +bench and put it beside the table. Ermolov, Kaysarov, and Toll, who had +just arrived, sat down on this bench. In the foremost place, immediately +under the icons, sat Barclay de Tolly, his high forehead merging into +his bald crown. He had a St. George's Cross round his neck and looked +pale and ill. He had been feverish for two days and was now shivering +and in pain. Beside him sat Uvarov, who with rapid gesticulations was +giving him some information, speaking in low tones as they all did. +Chubby little Dokhturov was listening attentively with eyebrows raised +and arms folded on his stomach. On the other side sat Count Ostermann- +Tolstoy, seemingly absorbed in his own thoughts. His broad head with its +bold features and glittering eyes was resting on his hand. Raevski, +twitching forward the black hair on his temples as was his habit, +glanced now at Kutuzov and now at the door with a look of impatience. +Konovnitsyn's firm, handsome, and kindly face was lit up by a tender, +sly smile. His glance met Malasha's, and the expression of his eyes +caused the little girl to smile. + +They were all waiting for Bennigsen, who on the pretext of inspecting +the position was finishing his savory dinner. They waited for him from +four till six o'clock and did not begin their deliberations all that +time but talked in low tones of other matters. + +Only when Bennigsen had entered the hut did Kutuzov leave his corner and +draw toward the table, but not near enough for the candles that had been +placed there to light up his face. + +Bennigsen opened the council with the question: "Are we to abandon +Russia's ancient and sacred capital without a struggle, or are we to +defend it?" A prolonged and general silence followed. There was a frown +on every face and only Kutuzov's angry grunts and occasional cough broke +the silence. All eyes were gazing at him. Malasha too looked at +"Granddad." She was nearest to him and saw how his face puckered; he +seemed about to cry, but this did not last long. + +"Russia's ancient and sacred capital!" he suddenly said, repeating +Bennigsen's words in an angry voice and thereby drawing attention to the +false note in them. "Allow me to tell you, your excellency, that that +question has no meaning for a Russian." (He lurched his heavy body +forward.) "Such a question cannot be put; it is senseless! The question +I have asked these gentlemen to meet to discuss is a military one. The +question is that of saving Russia. Is it better to give up Moscow +without a battle, or by accepting battle to risk losing the army as well +as Moscow? That is the question on which I want your opinion," and he +sank back in his chair. + +The discussion began. Bennigsen did not yet consider his game lost. +Admitting the view of Barclay and others that a defensive battle at Fili +was impossible, but imbued with Russian patriotism and the love of +Moscow, he proposed to move troops from the right to the left flank +during the night and attack the French right flank the following day. +Opinions were divided, and arguments were advanced for and against that +project. Ermolov, Dokhturov, and Raevski agreed with Bennigsen. Whether +feeling it necessary to make a sacrifice before abandoning the capital +or guided by other, personal considerations, these generals seemed not +to understand that this council could not alter the inevitable course of +events and that Moscow was in effect already abandoned. The other +generals, however, understood it and, leaving aside the question of +Moscow, spoke of the direction the army should take in its retreat. +Malasha, who kept her eyes fixed on what was going on before her, +understood the meaning of the council differently. It seemed to her that +it was only a personal struggle between "Granddad" and "Long-coat" as +she termed Bennigsen. She saw that they grew spiteful when they spoke to +one another, and in her heart she sided with "Granddad." In the midst of +the conversation she noticed "Granddad" give Bennigsen a quick, subtle +glance, and then to her joys she saw that "Granddad" said something to +"Long-coat" which settled him. Bennigsen suddenly reddened and paced +angrily up and down the room. What so affected him was Kutuzov's calm +and quiet comment on the advantage or disadvantage of Bennigsen's +proposal to move troops by night from the right to the left flank to +attack the French right wing. + +"Gentlemen," said Kutuzov, "I cannot approve of the count's plan. Moving +troops in close proximity to an enemy is always dangerous, and military +history supports that view. For instance..." Kutuzov seemed to reflect, +searching for an example, then with a clear, naive look at Bennigsen he +added: "Oh yes; take the battle of Friedland, which I think the count +well remembers, and which was... not fully successful, only because our +troops were rearranged too near the enemy..." + +There followed a momentary pause, which seemed very long to them all. + +The discussion recommenced, but pauses frequently occurred and they all +felt that there was no more to be said. + +During one of these pauses Kutuzov heaved a deep sigh as if preparing to +speak. They all looked at him. + +"Well, gentlemen, I see that it is I who will have to pay for the broken +crockery," said he, and rising slowly he moved to the table. "Gentlemen, +I have heard your views. Some of you will not agree with me. But I," he +paused, "by the authority entrusted to me by my Sovereign and country, +order a retreat." + +After that the generals began to disperse with the solemnity and +circumspect silence of people who are leaving, after a funeral. + +Some of the generals, in low tones and in a strain very different from +the way they had spoken during the council, communicated something to +their commander-in-chief. + +Malasha, who had long been expected for supper, climbed carefully +backwards down from the oven, her bare little feet catching at its +projections, and slipping between the legs of the generals she darted +out of the room. + +When he had dismissed the generals Kutuzov sat a long time with his +elbows on the table, thinking always of the same terrible question: +"When, when did the abandonment of Moscow become inevitable? When was +that done which settled the matter? And who was to blame for it?" + +"I did not expect this," said he to his adjutant Schneider when the +latter came in late that night. "I did not expect this! I did not think +this would happen." + +"You should take some rest, your Serene Highness," replied Schneider. + +"But no! They shall eat horseflesh yet, like the Turks!" exclaimed +Kutuzov without replying, striking the table with his podgy fist. "They +shall too, if only..." + + + + +CHAPTER V + +At that very time, in circumstances even more important than retreating +without a battle, namely the evacuation and burning of Moscow, +Rostopchin, who is usually represented as being the instigator of that +event, acted in an altogether different manner from Kutuzov. + +After the battle of Borodino the abandonment and burning of Moscow was +as inevitable as the retreat of the army beyond Moscow without fighting. + +Every Russian might have predicted it, not by reasoning but by the +feeling implanted in each of us and in our fathers. + +The same thing that took place in Moscow had happened in all the towns +and villages on Russian soil beginning with Smolensk, without the +participation of Count Rostopchin and his broadsheets. The people +awaited the enemy unconcernedly, did not riot or become excited or tear +anyone to pieces, but faced its fate, feeling within it the strength to +find what it should do at that most difficult moment. And as soon as the +enemy drew near the wealthy classes went away abandoning their property, +while the poorer remained and burned and destroyed what was left. + +The consciousness that this would be so and would always be so was and +is present in the heart of every Russian. And a consciousness of this, +and a foreboding that Moscow would be taken, was present in Russian +Moscow society in 1812. Those who had quitted Moscow already in July and +at the beginning of August showed that they expected this. Those who +went away, taking what they could and abandoning their houses and half +their belongings, did so from the latent patriotism which expresses +itself not by phrases or by giving one's children to save the fatherland +and similar unnatural exploits, but unobtrusively, simply, organically, +and therefore in the way that always produces the most powerful results. + +"It is disgraceful to run away from danger; only cowards are running +away from Moscow," they were told. In his broadsheets Rostopchin +impressed on them that to leave Moscow was shameful. They were ashamed +to be called cowards, ashamed to leave, but still they left, knowing it +had to be done. Why did they go? It is impossible to suppose that +Rostopchin had scared them by his accounts of horrors Napoleon had +committed in conquered countries. The first people to go away were the +rich educated people who knew quite well that Vienna and Berlin had +remained intact and that during Napoleon's occupation the inhabitants +had spent their time pleasantly in the company of the charming Frenchmen +whom the Russians, and especially the Russian ladies, then liked so +much. + +They went away because for Russians there could be no question as to +whether things would go well or ill under French rule in Moscow. It was +out of the question to be under French rule, it would be the worst thing +that could happen. They went away even before the battle of Borodino and +still more rapidly after it, despite Rostopchin's calls to defend Moscow +or the announcement of his intention to take the wonder-working icon of +the Iberian Mother of God and go to fight, or of the balloons that were +to destroy the French, and despite all the nonsense Rostopchin wrote in +his broadsheets. They knew that it was for the army to fight, and that +if it could not succeed it would not do to take young ladies and house +serfs to the Three Hills quarter of Moscow to fight Napoleon, and that +they must go away, sorry as they were to abandon their property to +destruction. They went away without thinking of the tremendous +significance of that immense and wealthy city being given over to +destruction, for a great city with wooden buildings was certain when +abandoned by its inhabitants to be burned. They went away each on his +own account, and yet it was only in consequence of their going away that +the momentous event was accomplished that will always remain the +greatest glory of the Russian people. The lady who, afraid of being +stopped by Count Rostopchin's orders, had already in June moved with her +Negroes and her women jesters from Moscow to her Saratov estate, with a +vague consciousness that she was not Bonaparte's servant, was really, +simply, and truly carrying out the great work which saved Russia. But +Count Rostopchin, who now taunted those who left Moscow and now had the +government offices removed; now distributed quite useless weapons to the +drunken rabble; now had processions displaying the icons, and now +forbade Father Augustin to remove icons or the relics of saints; now +seized all the private carts in Moscow and on one hundred and thirty-six +of them removed the balloon that was being constructed by Leppich; now +hinted that he would burn Moscow and related how he had set fire to his +own house; now wrote a proclamation to the French solemnly upbraiding +them for having destroyed his Orphanage; now claimed the glory of having +hinted that he would burn Moscow and now repudiated the deed; now +ordered the people to catch all spies and bring them to him, and now +reproached them for doing so; now expelled all the French residents from +Moscow, and now allowed Madame Aubert-Chalme (the center of the whole +French colony in Moscow) to remain, but ordered the venerable old +postmaster Klyucharev to be arrested and exiled for no particular +offense; now assembled the people at the Three Hills to fight the French +and now, to get rid of them, handed over to them a man to be killed and +himself drove away by a back gate; now declared that he would not +survive the fall of Moscow, and now wrote French verses in albums +concerning his share in the affair--this man did not understand the +meaning of what was happening but merely wanted to do something himself +that would astonish people, to perform some patriotically heroic feat; +and like a child he made sport of the momentous, and unavoidable event-- +the abandonment and burning of Moscow--and tried with his puny hand now +to speed and now to stay the enormous, popular tide that bore him along +with it. + + + + +CHAPTER VI + +Helene, having returned with the court from Vilna to Petersburg, found +herself in a difficult position. + +In Petersburg she had enjoyed the special protection of a grandee who +occupied one of the highest posts in the Empire. In Vilna she had formed +an intimacy with a young foreign prince. When she returned to Petersburg +both the magnate and the prince were there, and both claimed their +rights. Helene was faced by a new problem--how to preserve her intimacy +with both without offending either. + +What would have seemed difficult or even impossible to another woman did +not cause the least embarrassment to Countess Bezukhova, who evidently +deserved her reputation of being a very clever woman. Had she attempted +concealment, or tried to extricate herself from her awkward position by +cunning, she would have spoiled her case by acknowledging herself +guilty. But Helene, like a really great man who can do whatever he +pleases, at once assumed her own position to be correct, as she +sincerely believed it to be, and that everyone else was to blame. + +The first time the young foreigner allowed himself to reproach her, she +lifted her beautiful head and, half turning to him, said firmly: "That's +just like a man--selfish and cruel! I expected nothing else. A woman +sacrifices herself for you, she suffers, and this is her reward! What +right have you, monseigneur, to demand an account of my attachments and +friendships? He is a man who has been more than a father to me!" The +prince was about to say something, but Helene interrupted him. + +"Well, yes," said she, "it may be that he has other sentiments for me +than those of a father, but that is not a reason for me to shut my door +on him. I am not a man, that I should repay kindness with ingratitude! +Know, monseigneur, that in all that relates to my intimate feelings I +render account only to God and to my conscience," she concluded, laying +her hand on her beautiful, fully expanded bosom and looking up to +heaven. + +"But for heaven's sake listen to me!" + +"Marry me, and I will be your slave!" + +"But that's impossible." + +"You won't deign to demean yourself by marrying me, you..." said Helene, +beginning to cry. + +The prince tried to comfort her, but Helene, as if quite distraught, +said through her tears that there was nothing to prevent her marrying, +that there were precedents (there were up to that time very few, but she +mentioned Napoleon and some other exalted personages), that she had +never been her husband's wife, and that she had been sacrificed. + +"But the law, religion..." said the prince, already yielding. + +"The law, religion... What have they been invented for if they can't +arrange that?" said Helene. + +The prince was surprised that so simple an idea had not occurred to him, +and he applied for advice to the holy brethren of the Society of Jesus, +with whom he was on intimate terms. + +A few days later at one of those enchanting fetes which Helene gave at +her country house on the Stone Island, the charming Monsieur de Jobert, +a man no longer young, with snow white hair and brilliant black eyes, a +Jesuit a robe courte * was presented to her, and in the garden by the +light of the illuminations and to the sound of music talked to her for a +long time of the love of God, of Christ, of the Sacred Heart, and of the +consolations the one true Catholic religion affords in this world and +the next. Helene was touched, and more than once tears rose to her eyes +and to those of Monsieur de Jobert and their voices trembled. A dance, +for which her partner came to seek her, put an end to her discourse with +her future directeur de conscience, but the next evening Monsieur de +Jobert came to see Helene when she was alone, and after that often came +again. + + +* Lay member of the Society of Jesus. + +One day he took the countess to a Roman Catholic church, where she knelt +down before the altar to which she was led. The enchanting, middle-aged +Frenchman laid his hands on her head and, as she herself afterward +described it, she felt something like a fresh breeze wafted into her +soul. It was explained to her that this was la grace. + +After that a long-frocked abbe was brought to her. She confessed to him, +and he absolved her from her sins. Next day she received a box +containing the Sacred Host, which was left at her house for her to +partake of. A few days later Helene learned with pleasure that she had +now been admitted to the true Catholic Church and that in a few days the +Pope himself would hear of her and would send her a certain document. + +All that was done around her and to her at this time, all the attention +devoted to her by so many clever men and expressed in such pleasant, +refined ways, and the state of dove-like purity she was now in (she wore +only white dresses and white ribbons all that time) gave her pleasure, +but her pleasure did not cause her for a moment to forget her aim. And +as it always happens in contests of cunning that a stupid person gets +the better of cleverer ones, Helene--having realized that the main +object of all these words and all this trouble was, after converting her +to Catholicism, to obtain money from her for Jesuit institutions (as to +which she received indications)-before parting with her money insisted +that the various operations necessary to free her from her husband +should be performed. In her view the aim of every religion was merely to +preserve certain proprieties while affording satisfaction to human +desires. And with this aim, in one of her talks with her Father +Confessor, she insisted on an answer to the question, in how far was she +bound by her marriage? + +They were sitting in the twilight by a window in the drawing room. The +scent of flowers came in at the window. Helene was wearing a white +dress, transparent over her shoulders and bosom. The abbe, a well-fed +man with a plump, clean-shaven chin, a pleasant firm mouth, and white +hands meekly folded on his knees, sat close to Helene and, with a subtle +smile on his lips and a peaceful look of delight at her beauty, +occasionally glanced at her face as he explained his opinion on the +subject. Helene with an uneasy smile looked at his curly hair and his +plump, clean-shaven, blackish cheeks and every moment expected the +conversation to take a fresh turn. But the abbe, though he evidently +enjoyed the beauty of his companion, was absorbed in his mastery of the +matter. + +The course of the Father Confessor's arguments ran as follows: "Ignorant +of the import of what you were undertaking, you made a vow of conjugal +fidelity to a man who on his part, by entering the married state without +faith in the religious significance of marriage, committed an act of +sacrilege. That marriage lacked the dual significance it should have +had. Yet in spite of this your vow was binding. You swerved from it. +What did you commit by so acting? A venial, or a mortal, sin? A venial +sin, for you acted without evil intention. If now you married again with +the object of bearing children, your sin might be forgiven. But the +question is again a twofold one: firstly..." + +But suddenly Helene, who was getting bored, said with one of her +bewitching smiles: "But I think that having espoused the true religion I +cannot be bound by what a false religion laid upon me." + +The director of her conscience was astounded at having the case +presented to him thus with the simplicity of Columbus' egg. He was +delighted at the unexpected rapidity of his pupil's progress, but could +not abandon the edifice of argument he had laboriously constructed. + +"Let us understand one another, Countess," said he with a smile, and +began refuting his spiritual daughter's arguments. + + + + +CHAPTER VII + +Helene understood that the question was very simple and easy from the +ecclesiastical point of view, and that her directors were making +difficulties only because they were apprehensive as to how the matter +would be regarded by the secular authorities. + +So she decided that it was necessary to prepare the opinion of society. +She provoked the jealousy of the elderly magnate and told him what she +had told her other suitor; that is, she put the matter so that the only +way for him to obtain a right over her was to marry her. The elderly +magnate was at first as much taken aback by this suggestion of marriage +with a woman whose husband was alive, as the younger man had been, but +Helene's imperturbable conviction that it was as simple and natural as +marrying a maiden had its effect on him too. Had Helene herself shown +the least sign of hesitation, shame, or secrecy, her cause would +certainly have been lost; but not only did she show no signs of secrecy +or shame, on the contrary, with good-natured naivete she told her +intimate friends (and these were all Petersburg) that both the prince +and the magnate had proposed to her and that she loved both and was +afraid of grieving either. + +A rumor immediately spread in Petersburg, not that Helene wanted to be +divorced from her husband (had such a report spread many would have +opposed so illegal an intention) but simply that the unfortunate and +interesting Helene was in doubt which of the two men she should marry. +The question was no longer whether this was possible, but only which was +the better match and how the matter would be regarded at court. There +were, it is true, some rigid individuals unable to rise to the height of +such a question, who saw in the project a desecration of the sacrament +of marriage, but there were not many such and they remained silent, +while the majority were interested in Helene's good fortune and in the +question which match would be the more advantageous. Whether it was +right or wrong to remarry while one had a husband living they did not +discuss, for that question had evidently been settled by people "wiser +than you or me," as they said, and to doubt the correctness of that +decision would be to risk exposing one's stupidity and incapacity to +live in society. + +Only Marya Dmitrievna Akhrosimova, who had come to Petersburg that +summer to see one of her sons, allowed herself plainly to express an +opinion contrary to the general one. Meeting Helene at a ball she +stopped her in the middle of the room and, amid general silence, said in +her gruff voice: "So wives of living men have started marrying again! +Perhaps you think you have invented a novelty? You have been +forestalled, my dear! It was thought of long ago. It is done in all the +brothels," and with these words Marya Dmitrievna, turning up her wide +sleeves with her usual threatening gesture and glancing sternly round, +moved across the room. + +Though people were afraid of Marya Dmitrievna she was regarded in +Petersburg as a buffoon, and so of what she had said they only noticed, +and repeated in a whisper, the one coarse word she had used, supposing +the whole sting of her remark to lie in that word. + +Prince Vasili, who of late very often forgot what he had said and +repeated one and the same thing a hundred times, remarked to his +daughter whenever he chanced to see her: + +"Helene, I have a word to say to you," and he would lead her aside, +drawing her hand downward. "I have heard of certain projects +concerning... you know. Well my dear child, you know how your father's +heart rejoices to know that you... You have suffered so much.... But, my +dear child, consult only your own heart. That is all I have to say," and +concealing his unvarying emotion he would press his cheek against his +daughter's and move away. + +Bilibin, who had not lost his reputation of an exceedingly clever man, +and who was one of the disinterested friends so brilliant a woman as +Helene always has--men friends who can never change into lovers--once +gave her his view of the matter at a small and intimate gathering. + +"Listen, Bilibin," said Helene (she always called friends of that sort +by their surnames), and she touched his coat sleeve with her white, +beringed fingers. "Tell me, as you would a sister, what I ought to do. +Which of the two?" + +Bilibin wrinkled up the skin over his eyebrows and pondered, with a +smile on his lips. + +"You are not taking me unawares, you know," said he. "As a true friend, +I have thought and thought again about your affair. You see, if you +marry the prince"--he meant the younger man--and he crooked one finger, +"you forever lose the chance of marrying the other, and you will +displease the court besides. (You know there is some kind of +connection.) But if you marry the old count you will make his last days +happy, and as widow of the Grand... the prince would no longer be making +a mesalliance by marrying you," and Bilibin smoothed out his forehead. + +"That's a true friend!" said Helene beaming, and again touching +Bilibin's sleeve. "But I love them, you know, and don't want to distress +either of them. I would give my life for the happiness of them both." + +Bilibin shrugged his shoulders, as much as to say that not even he could +help in that difficulty. + +"Une maitresse-femme! * That's what is called putting things squarely. +She would like to be married to all three at the same time," thought he. + + +* A masterly woman. + +"But tell me, how will your husband look at the matter?" Bilibin asked, +his reputation being so well established that he did not fear to ask so +naive a question. "Will he agree?" + +"Oh, he loves me so!" said Helene, who for some reason imagined that +Pierre too loved her. "He will do anything for me." + +Bilibin puckered his skin in preparation for something witty. + +"Even divorce you?" said he. + +Helene laughed. + +Among those who ventured to doubt the justifiability of the proposed +marriage was Helene's mother, Princess Kuragina. She was continually +tormented by jealousy of her daughter, and now that jealousy concerned a +subject near to her own heart, she could not reconcile herself to the +idea. She consulted a Russian priest as to the possibility of divorce +and remarriage during a husband's lifetime, and the priest told her that +it was impossible, and to her delight showed her a text in the Gospel +which (as it seemed to him) plainly forbids remarriage while the husband +is alive. + +Armed with these arguments, which appeared to her unanswerable, she +drove to her daughter's early one morning so as to find her alone. + +Having listened to her mother's objections, Helene smiled blandly and +ironically. + +"But it says plainly: 'Whosoever shall marry her that is divorced...'" +said the old princess. + +"Ah, Maman, ne dites pas de betises. Vous ne comprenez rien. Dans ma +position j'ai des devoirs," * said Helene changing from Russian, in +which language she always felt that her case did not sound quite clear, +into French which suited it better. + + +* "Oh, Mamma, don't talk nonsense! You don't understand anything. In my +position I have obligations." + +"But, my dear...." + +"Oh, Mamma, how is it you don't understand that the Holy Father, who has +the right to grant dispensations..." + +Just then the lady companion who lived with Helene came in to announce +that His Highness was in the ballroom and wished to see her. + +"Non, dites-lui que je ne veux pas le voir, que je suis furieuse contre +lui, parce qu'il m'a manque parole." * + + +* "No, tell him I don't wish to see him, I am furious with him for not +keeping his word to me." + +"Comtesse, a tout peche misericorde," * said a fair-haired young man +with a long face and nose, as he entered the room. + + +* "Countess, there is mercy for every sin." + +The old princess rose respectfully and curtsied. The young man who had +entered took no notice of her. The princess nodded to her daughter and +sidled out of the room. + +"Yes, she is right," thought the old princess, all her convictions +dissipated by the appearance of His Highness. "She is right, but how is +it that we in our irrecoverable youth did not know it? Yet it is so +simple," she thought as she got into her carriage. + +By the beginning of August Helene's affairs were clearly defined and she +wrote a letter to her husband--who, as she imagined, loved her very +much--informing him of her intention to marry N.N. and of her having +embraced the one true faith, and asking him to carry out all the +formalities necessary for a divorce, which would be explained to him by +the bearer of the letter. + +And so I pray God to have you, my friend, in His holy and powerful +keeping--Your friend Helene. + +This letter was brought to Pierre's house when he was on the field of +Borodino. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII + +Toward the end of the battle of Borodino, Pierre, having run down from +Raevski's battery a second time, made his way through a gully to +Knyazkovo with a crowd of soldiers, reached the dressing station, and +seeing blood and hearing cries and groans hurried on, still entangled in +the crowds of soldiers. + +The one thing he now desired with his whole soul was to get away quickly +from the terrible sensations amid which he had lived that day and return +to ordinary conditions of life and sleep quietly in a room in his own +bed. He felt that only in the ordinary conditions of life would he be +able to understand himself and all he had seen and felt. But such +ordinary conditions of life were nowhere to be found. + +Though shells and bullets did not whistle over the road along which he +was going, still on all sides there was what there had been on the field +of battle. There were still the same suffering, exhausted, and sometimes +strangely indifferent faces, the same blood, the same soldiers' +overcoats, the same sounds of firing which, though distant now, still +aroused terror, and besides this there were the foul air and the dust. + +Having gone a couple of miles along the Mozhaysk road, Pierre sat down +by the roadside. + +Dusk had fallen, and the roar of guns died away. Pierre lay leaning on +his elbow for a long time, gazing at the shadows that moved past him in +the darkness. He was continually imagining that a cannon ball was flying +toward him with a terrific whizz, and then he shuddered and sat up. He +had no idea how long he had been there. In the middle of the night three +soldiers, having brought some firewood, settled down near him and began +lighting a fire. + +The soldiers, who threw sidelong glances at Pierre, got the fire to burn +and placed an iron pot on it into which they broke some dried bread and +put a little dripping. The pleasant odor of greasy viands mingled with +the smell of smoke. Pierre sat up and sighed. The three soldiers were +eating and talking among themselves, taking no notice of him. + +"And who may you be?" one of them suddenly asked Pierre, evidently +meaning what Pierre himself had in mind, namely: "If you want to eat +we'll give you some food, only let us know whether you are an honest +man." + +"I, I..." said Pierre, feeling it necessary to minimize his social +position as much as possible so as to be nearer to the soldiers and +better understood by them. "By rights I am a militia officer, but my men +are not here. I came to the battle and have lost them." + +"There now!" said one of the soldiers. + +Another shook his head. + +"Would you like a little mash?" the first soldier asked, and handed +Pierre a wooden spoon after licking it clean. + +Pierre sat down by the fire and began eating the mash, as they called +the food in the cauldron, and he thought it more delicious than any food +he had ever tasted. As he sat bending greedily over it, helping himself +to large spoonfuls and chewing one after another, his face was lit up by +the fire and the soldiers looked at him in silence. + +"Where have you to go to? Tell us!" said one of them. + +"To Mozhaysk." + +"You're a gentleman, aren't you?" + +"Yes." + +"And what's your name?" + +"Peter Kirilych." + +"Well then, Peter Kirilych, come along with us, we'll take you there." + +In the total darkness the soldiers walked with Pierre to Mozhaysk. + +By the time they got near Mozhaysk and began ascending the steep hill +into the town, the cocks were already crowing. Pierre went on with the +soldiers, quite forgetting that his inn was at the bottom of the hill +and that he had already passed it. He would not soon have remembered +this, such was his state of forgetfulness, had he not halfway up the +hill stumbled upon his groom, who had been to look for him in the town +and was returning to the inn. The groom recognized Pierre in the +darkness by his white hat. + +"Your excellency!" he said. "Why, we were beginning to despair! How is +it you are on foot? And where are you going, please?" + +"Oh, yes!" said Pierre. + +The soldiers stopped. + +"So you've found your folk?" said one of them. "Well, good-by, Peter +Kirilych--isn't it?" + +"Good-bye, Peter Kirilych!" Pierre heard the other voices repeat. + +"Good-bye!" he said and turned with his groom toward the inn. + +"I ought to give them something!" he thought, and felt in his pocket. +"No, better not!" said another, inner voice. + +There was not a room to be had at the inn, they were all occupied. +Pierre went out into the yard and, covering himself up head and all, lay +down in his carriage. + + + + +CHAPTER IX + +Scarcely had Pierre laid his head on the pillow before he felt himself +falling asleep, but suddenly, almost with the distinctness of reality, +he heard the boom, boom, boom of firing, the thud of projectiles, groans +and cries, and smelled blood and powder, and a feeling of horror and +dread of death seized him. Filled with fright he opened his eyes and +lifted his head from under his cloak. All was tranquil in the yard. Only +someone's orderly passed through the gateway, splashing through the mud, +and talked to the innkeeper. Above Pierre's head some pigeons, disturbed +by the movement he had made in sitting up, fluttered under the dark roof +of the penthouse. The whole courtyard was permeated by a strong peaceful +smell of stable yards, delightful to Pierre at that moment. He could see +the clear starry sky between the dark roofs of two penthouses. + +"Thank God, there is no more of that!" he thought, covering up his head +again. "Oh, what a terrible thing is fear, and how shamefully I yielded +to it! But they... they were steady and calm all the time, to the +end..." thought he. + +They, in Pierre's mind, were the soldiers, those who had been at the +battery, those who had given him food, and those who had prayed before +the icon. They, those strange men he had not previously known, stood out +clearly and sharply from everyone else. + +"To be a soldier, just a soldier!" thought Pierre as he fell asleep, "to +enter communal life completely, to be imbued by what makes them what +they are. But how cast off all the superfluous, devilish burden of my +outer man? There was a time when I could have done it. I could have run +away from my father, as I wanted to. Or I might have been sent to serve +as a soldier after the duel with Dolokhov." And the memory of the dinner +at the English Club when he had challenged Dolokhov flashed through +Pierre's mind, and then he remembered his benefactor at Torzhok. And now +a picture of a solemn meeting of the lodge presented itself to his mind. +It was taking place at the English Club and someone near and dear to him +sat at the end of the table. "Yes, that is he! It is my benefactor. But +he died!" thought Pierre. "Yes, he died, and I did not know he was +alive. How sorry I am that he died, and how glad I am that he is alive +again!" On one side of the table sat Anatole, Dolokhov, Nesvitski, +Denisov, and others like them (in his dream the category to which these +men belonged was as clearly defined in his mind as the category of those +he termed they), and he heard those people, Anatole and Dolokhov, +shouting and singing loudly; yet through their shouting the voice of his +benefactor was heard speaking all the time and the sound of his words +was as weighty and uninterrupted as the booming on the battlefield, but +pleasant and comforting. Pierre did not understand what his benefactor +was saying, but he knew (the categories of thoughts were also quite +distinct in his dream) that he was talking of goodness and the +possibility of being what they were. And they with their simple, kind, +firm faces surrounded his benefactor on all sides. But though they were +kindly they did not look at Pierre and did not know him. Wishing to +speak and to attract their attention, he got up, but at that moment his +legs grew cold and bare. + +He felt ashamed, and with one arm covered his legs from which his cloak +had in fact slipped. For a moment as he was rearranging his cloak Pierre +opened his eyes and saw the same penthouse roofs, posts, and yard, but +now they were all bluish, lit up, and glittering with frost or dew. + +"It is dawn," thought Pierre. "But that's not what I want. I want to +hear and understand my benefactor's words." Again he covered himself up +with his cloak, but now neither the lodge nor his benefactor was there. +There were only thoughts clearly expressed in words, thoughts that +someone was uttering or that he himself was formulating. + +Afterwards when he recalled those thoughts Pierre was convinced that +someone outside himself had spoken them, though the impressions of that +day had evoked them. He had never, it seemed to him, been able to think +and express his thoughts like that when awake. + +"To endure war is the most difficult subordination of man's freedom to +the law of God," the voice had said. "Simplicity is submission to the +will of God; you cannot escape from Him. And they are simple. They do +not talk, but act. The spoken word is silver but the unspoken is golden. +Man can be master of nothing while he fears death, but he who does not +fear it possesses all. If there were no suffering, man would not know +his limitations, would not know himself. The hardest thing (Pierre went +on thinking, or hearing, in his dream) is to be able in your soul to +unite the meaning of all. To unite all?" he asked himself. "No, not to +unite. Thoughts cannot be united, but to harness all these thoughts +together is what we need! Yes, one must harness them, must harness +them!" he repeated to himself with inward rapture, feeling that these +words and they alone expressed what he wanted to say and solved the +question that tormented him. + +"Yes, one must harness, it is time to harness." + +"Time to harness, time to harness, your excellency! Your excellency!" +some voice was repeating. "We must harness, it is time to harness...." + +It was the voice of the groom, trying to wake him. The sun shone +straight into Pierre's face. He glanced at the dirty innyard in the +middle of which soldiers were watering their lean horses at the pump +while carts were passing out of the gate. Pierre turned away with +repugnance, and closing his eyes quickly fell back on the carriage seat. +"No, I don't want that, I don't want to see and understand that. I want +to understand what was revealing itself to me in my dream. One second +more and I should have understood it all! But what am I to do? Harness, +but how can I harness everything?" and Pierre felt with horror that the +meaning of all he had seen and thought in the dream had been destroyed. + +The groom, the coachman, and the innkeeper told Pierre that an officer +had come with news that the French were already near Mozhaysk and that +our men were leaving it. + +Pierre got up and, having told them to harness and overtake him, went on +foot through the town. + +The troops were moving on, leaving about ten thousand wounded behind +them. There were wounded in the yards, at the windows of the houses, and +the streets were crowded with them. In the streets, around carts that +were to take some of the wounded away, shouts, curses, and blows could +be heard. Pierre offered the use of his carriage, which had overtaken +him, to a wounded general he knew, and drove with him to Moscow. On the +way Pierre was told of the death of his brother-in-law Anatole and of +that of Prince Andrew. + + + + +CHAPTER X + +On the thirteenth of August Pierre reached Moscow. Close to the gates of +the city he was met by Count Rostopchin's adjutant. + +"We have been looking for you everywhere," said the adjutant. "The count +wants to see you particularly. He asks you to come to him at once on a +very important matter." + +Without going home, Pierre took a cab and drove to see the Moscow +commander-in-chief. + +Count Rostopchin had only that morning returned to town from his summer +villa at Sokolniki. The anteroom and reception room of his house were +full of officials who had been summoned or had come for orders. +Vasilchikov and Platov had already seen the count and explained to him +that it was impossible to defend Moscow and that it would have to be +surrendered. Though this news was being concealed from the inhabitants, +the officials--the heads of the various government departments--knew +that Moscow would soon be in the enemy's hands, just as Count Rostopchin +himself knew it, and to escape personal responsibility they had all come +to the governor to ask how they were to deal with their various +departments. + +As Pierre was entering the reception room a courier from the army came +out of Rostopchin's private room. + +In answer to questions with which he was greeted, the courier made a +despairing gesture with his hand and passed through the room. + +While waiting in the reception room Pierre with weary eyes watched the +various officials, old and young, military and civilian, who were there. +They all seemed dissatisfied and uneasy. Pierre went up to a group of +men, one of whom he knew. After greeting Pierre they continued their +conversation. + +"If they're sent out and brought back again later on it will do no harm, +but as things are now one can't answer for anything." + +"But you see what he writes..." said another, pointing to a printed +sheet he held in his hand. + +"That's another matter. That's necessary for the people," said the +first. + +"What is it?" asked Pierre. + +"Oh, it's a fresh broadsheet." + +Pierre took it and began reading. + +His Serene Highness has passed through Mozhaysk in order to join up with +the troops moving toward him and has taken up a strong position where +the enemy will not soon attack him. Forty eight guns with ammunition +have been sent him from here, and his Serene Highness says he will +defend Moscow to the last drop of blood and is even ready to fight in +the streets. Do not be upset, brothers, that the law courts are closed; +things have to be put in order, and we will deal with villains in our +own way! When the time comes I shall want both town and peasant lads and +will raise the cry a day or two beforehand, but they are not wanted yet +so I hold my peace. An ax will be useful, a hunting spear not bad, but a +three-pronged fork will be best of all: a Frenchman is no heavier than a +sheaf of rye. Tomorrow after dinner I shall take the Iberian icon of the +Mother of God to the wounded in the Catherine Hospital where we will +have some water blessed. That will help them to get well quicker. I, +too, am well now: one of my eyes was sore but now I am on the lookout +with both. + +"But military men have told me that it is impossible to fight in the +town," said Pierre, "and that the position..." + +"Well, of course! That's what we were saying," replied the first +speaker. + +"And what does he mean by 'One of my eyes was sore but now I am on the +lookout with both'?" asked Pierre. + +"The count had a sty," replied the adjutant smiling, "and was very much +upset when I told him people had come to ask what was the matter with +him. By the by, Count," he added suddenly, addressing Pierre with a +smile, "we heard that you have family troubles and that the countess, +your wife..." + +"I have heard nothing," Pierre replied unconcernedly. "But what have you +heard?" + +"Oh, well, you know people often invent things. I only say what I +heard." + +"But what did you hear?" + +"Well, they say," continued the adjutant with the same smile, "that the +countess, your wife, is preparing to go abroad. I expect it's +nonsense...." + +"Possibly," remarked Pierre, looking about him absent-mindedly. "And who +is that?" he asked, indicating a short old man in a clean blue peasant +overcoat, with a big snow-white beard and eyebrows and a ruddy face. + +"He? That's a tradesman, that is to say, he's the restaurant keeper, +Vereshchagin. Perhaps you have heard of that affair with the +proclamation." + +"Oh, so that is Vereshchagin!" said Pierre, looking at the firm, calm +face of the old man and seeking any indication of his being a traitor. + +"That's not he himself, that's the father of the fellow who wrote the +proclamation," said the adjutant. "The young man is in prison and I +expect it will go hard with him." + +An old gentleman wearing a star and another official, a German wearing a +cross round his neck, approached the speaker. + + +"It's a complicated story, you know," said the adjutant. "That +proclamation appeared about two months ago. The count was informed of +it. He gave orders to investigate the matter. Gabriel Ivanovich here +made the inquiries. The proclamation had passed through exactly sixty- +three hands. He asked one, 'From whom did you get it?' 'From so-and-so.' +He went to the next one. 'From whom did you get it?' and so on till he +reached Vereshchagin, a half educated tradesman, you know, 'a pet of a +trader,'" said the adjutant smiling. "They asked him, 'Who gave it you?' +And the point is that we knew whom he had it from. He could only have +had it from the Postmaster. But evidently they had come to some +understanding. He replied: 'From no one; I made it up myself.' They +threatened and questioned him, but he stuck to that: 'I made it up +myself.' And so it was reported to the count, who sent for the man. +'From whom did you get the proclamation?' 'I wrote it myself.' Well, you +know the count," said the adjutant cheerfully, with a smile of pride, +"he flared up dreadfully--and just think of the fellow's audacity, +lying, and obstinacy!" + +"And the count wanted him to say it was from Klyucharev? I understand!" +said Pierre. + +"Not at all," rejoined the adjutant in dismay. "Klyucharev had his own +sins to answer for without that and that is why he has been banished. +But the point is that the count was much annoyed. 'How could you have +written it yourself?' said he, and he took up the Hamburg Gazette that +was lying on the table. 'Here it is! You did not write it yourself but +translated it, and translated it abominably, because you don't even know +French, you fool.' And what do you think? 'No,' said he, 'I have not +read any papers, I made it up myself.' 'If that's so, you're a traitor +and I'll have you tried, and you'll be hanged! Say from whom you had +it.' 'I have seen no papers, I made it up myself.' And that was the end +of it. The count had the father fetched, but the fellow stuck to it. He +was sent for trial and condemned to hard labor, I believe. Now the +father has come to intercede for him. But he's a good-for-nothing lad! +You know that sort of tradesman's son, a dandy and lady-killer. He +attended some lectures somewhere and imagines that the devil is no match +for him. That's the sort of fellow he is. His father keeps a cookshop +here by the Stone Bridge, and you know there was a large icon of God +Almighty painted with a scepter in one hand and an orb in the other. +Well, he took that icon home with him for a few days and what did he do? +He found some scoundrel of a painter..." + + + + +CHAPTER XI + +In the middle of this fresh tale Pierre was summoned to the commander in +chief. + +When he entered the private room Count Rostopchin, puckering his face, +was rubbing his forehead and eyes with his hand. A short man was saying +something, but when Pierre entered he stopped speaking and went out. + +"Ah, how do you do, great warrior?" said Rostopchin as soon as the short +man had left the room. "We have heard of your prowess. But that's not +the point. Between ourselves, mon cher, do you belong to the Masons?" he +went on severely, as though there were something wrong about it which he +nevertheless intended to pardon. Pierre remained silent. "I am well +informed, my friend, but I am aware that there are Masons and I hope +that you are not one of those who on pretense of saving mankind wish to +ruin Russia." + +"Yes, I am a Mason," Pierre replied. + +"There, you see, mon cher! I expect you know that Messrs. Speranski and +Magnitski have been deported to their proper place. Mr. Klyucharev has +been treated in the same way, and so have others who on the plea of +building up the temple of Solomon have tried to destroy the temple of +their fatherland. You can understand that there are reasons for this and +that I could not have exiled the Postmaster had he not been a harmful +person. It has now come to my knowledge that you lent him your carriage +for his removal from town, and that you have even accepted papers from +him for safe custody. I like you and don't wish you any harm and--as you +are only half my age--I advise you, as a father would, to cease all +communication with men of that stamp and to leave here as soon as +possible." + +"But what did Klyucharev do wrong, Count?" asked Pierre. + +"That is for me to know, but not for you to ask," shouted Rostopchin. + +"If he is accused of circulating Napoleon's proclamation it is not +proved that he did so," said Pierre without looking at Rostopchin, "and +Vereshchagin..." + +"There we are!" Rostopchin shouted at Pierre louder than before, +frowning suddenly. "Vereshchagin is a renegade and a traitor who will be +punished as he deserves," said he with the vindictive heat with which +people speak when recalling an insult. "But I did not summon you to +discuss my actions, but to give you advice--or an order if you prefer +it. I beg you to leave the town and break off all communication with +such men as Klyucharev. And I will knock the nonsense out of anybody"-- +but probably realizing that he was shouting at Bezukhov who so far was +not guilty of anything, he added, taking Pierre's hand in a friendly +manner, "We are on the eve of a public disaster and I haven't time to be +polite to everybody who has business with me. My head is sometimes in a +whirl. Well, mon cher, what are you doing personally?" + +"Why, nothing," answered Pierre without raising his eyes or changing the +thoughtful expression of his face. + +The count frowned. + +"A word of friendly advice, mon cher. Be off as soon as you can, that's +all I have to tell you. Happy he who has ears to hear. Good-bye, my dear +fellow. Oh, by the by!" he shouted through the doorway after Pierre, "is +it true that the countess has fallen into the clutches of the holy +fathers of the Society of Jesus?" + +Pierre did not answer and left Rostopchin's room more sullen and angry +than he had ever before shown himself. + +When he reached home it was already getting dark. Some eight people had +come to see him that evening: the secretary of a committee, the colonel +of his battalion, his steward, his major-domo, and various petitioners. +They all had business with Pierre and wanted decisions from him. Pierre +did not understand and was not interested in any of these questions and +only answered them in order to get rid of these people. When left alone +at last he opened and read his wife's letter. + +"They, the soldiers at the battery, Prince Andrew killed... that old +man... Simplicity is submission to God. Suffering is necessary... the +meaning of all... one must harness... my wife is getting married... One +must forget and understand..." And going to his bed he threw himself on +it without undressing and immediately fell asleep. + +When he awoke next morning the major-domo came to inform him that a +special messenger, a police officer, had come from Count Rostopchin to +know whether Count Bezukhov had left or was leaving the town. + +A dozen persons who had business with Pierre were awaiting him in the +drawing room. Pierre dressed hurriedly and, instead of going to see +them, went to the back porch and out through the gate. + +From that time till the end of the destruction of Moscow no one of +Bezukhov's household, despite all the search they made, saw Pierre again +or knew where he was. + + + + +CHAPTER XII + +The Rostovs remained in Moscow till the first of September, that is, +till the eve of the enemy's entry into the city. + +After Petya had joined Obolenski's regiment of Cossacks and left for +Belaya Tserkov where that regiment was forming, the countess was seized +with terror. The thought that both her sons were at the war, had both +gone from under her wing, that today or tomorrow either or both of them +might be killed like the three sons of one of her acquaintances, struck +her that summer for the first time with cruel clearness. She tried to +get Nicholas back and wished to go herself to join Petya, or to get him +an appointment somewhere in Petersburg, but neither of these proved +possible. Petya could not return unless his regiment did so or unless he +was transferred to another regiment on active service. Nicholas was +somewhere with the army and had not sent a word since his last letter, +in which he had given a detailed account of his meeting with Princess +Mary. The countess did not sleep at night, or when she did fall asleep +dreamed that she saw her sons lying dead. After many consultations and +conversations, the count at last devised means to tranquillize her. He +got Petya transferred from Obolenski's regiment to Bezukhov's, which was +in training near Moscow. Though Petya would remain in the service, this +transfer would give the countess the consolation of seeing at least one +of her sons under her wing, and she hoped to arrange matters for her +Petya so as not to let him go again, but always get him appointed to +places where he could not possibly take part in a battle. As long as +Nicholas alone was in danger the countess imagined that she loved her +first-born more than all her other children and even reproached herself +for it; but when her youngest: the scapegrace who had been bad at +lessons, was always breaking things in the house and making himself a +nuisance to everybody, that snub-nosed Petya with his merry black eyes +and fresh rosy cheeks where soft down was just beginning to show--when +he was thrown amid those big, dreadful, cruel men who were fighting +somewhere about something and apparently finding pleasure in it--then +his mother thought she loved him more, much more, than all her other +children. The nearer the time came for Petya to return, the more uneasy +grew the countess. She began to think she would never live to see such +happiness. The presence of Sonya, of her beloved Natasha, or even of her +husband irritated her. "What do I want with them? I want no one but +Petya," she thought. + +At the end of August the Rostovs received another letter from Nicholas. +He wrote from the province of Voronezh where he had been sent to procure +remounts, but that letter did not set the countess at ease. Knowing that +one son was out of danger she became the more anxious about Petya. + +Though by the twentieth of August nearly all the Rostovs' acquaintances +had left Moscow, and though everybody tried to persuade the countess to +get away as quickly as possible, she would not hear of leaving before +her treasure, her adored Petya, returned. On the twenty-eighth of August +he arrived. The passionate tenderness with which his mother received him +did not please the sixteen-year-old officer. Though she concealed from +him her intention of keeping him under her wing, Petya guessed her +designs, and instinctively fearing that he might give way to emotion +when with her--might "become womanish" as he termed it to himself--he +treated her coldly, avoided her, and during his stay in Moscow attached +himself exclusively to Natasha for whom he had always had a particularly +brotherly tenderness, almost lover-like. + +Owing to the count's customary carelessness nothing was ready for their +departure by the twenty-eighth of August and the carts that were to come +from their Ryazan and Moscow estates to remove their household +belongings did not arrive till the thirtieth. + +From the twenty-eighth till the thirty-first all Moscow was in a bustle +and commotion. Every day thousands of men wounded at Borodino were +brought in by the Dorogomilov gate and taken to various parts of Moscow, +and thousands of carts conveyed the inhabitants and their possessions +out by the other gates. In spite of Rostopchin's broadsheets, or because +of them or independently of them, the strangest and most contradictory +rumors were current in the town. Some said that no one was to be allowed +to leave the city, others on the contrary said that all the icons had +been taken out of the churches and everybody was to be ordered to leave. +Some said there had been another battle after Borodino at which the +French had been routed, while others on the contrary reported that the +Russian army had been destroyed. Some talked about the Moscow militia +which, preceded by the clergy, would go to the Three Hills; others +whispered that Augustin had been forbidden to leave, that traitors had +been seized, that the peasants were rioting and robbing people on their +way from Moscow, and so on. But all this was only talk; in reality +(though the Council of Fili, at which it was decided to abandon Moscow, +had not yet been held) both those who went away and those who remained +behind felt, though they did not show it, that Moscow would certainly be +abandoned, and that they ought to get away as quickly as possible and +save their belongings. It was felt that everything would suddenly break +up and change, but up to the first of September nothing had done so. As +a criminal who is being led to execution knows that he must die +immediately, but yet looks about him and straightens the cap that is +awry on his head, so Moscow involuntarily continued its wonted life, +though it knew that the time of its destruction was near when the +conditions of life to which its people were accustomed to submit would +be completely upset. + +During the three days preceding the occupation of Moscow the whole +Rostov family was absorbed in various activities. The head of the +family, Count Ilya Rostov, continually drove about the city collecting +the current rumors from all sides and gave superficial and hasty orders +at home about the preparations for their departure. + +The countess watched the things being packed, was dissatisfied with +everything, was constantly in pursuit of Petya who was always running +away from her, and was jealous of Natasha with whom he spent all his +time. Sonya alone directed the practical side of matters by getting +things packed. But of late Sonya had been particularly sad and silent. +Nicholas' letter in which he mentioned Princess Mary had elicited, in +her presence, joyous comments from the countess, who saw an intervention +of Providence in this meeting of the princess and Nicholas. + +"I was never pleased at Bolkonski's engagement to Natasha," said the +countess, "but I always wanted Nicholas to marry the princess, and had a +presentiment that it would happen. What a good thing it would be!" + +Sonya felt that this was true: that the only possibility of retrieving +the Rostovs' affairs was by Nicholas marrying a rich woman, and that the +princess was a good match. It was very bitter for her. But despite her +grief, or perhaps just because of it, she took on herself all the +difficult work of directing the storing and packing of their things and +was busy for whole days. The count and countess turned to her when they +had any orders to give. Petya and Natasha on the contrary, far from +helping their parents, were generally a nuisance and a hindrance to +everyone. Almost all day long the house resounded with their running +feet, their cries, and their spontaneous laughter. They laughed and were +gay not because there was any reason to laugh, but because gaiety and +mirth were in their hearts and so everything that happened was a cause +for gaiety and laughter to them. Petya was in high spirits because +having left home a boy he had returned (as everybody told him) a fine +young man, because he was at home, because he had left Belaya Tserkov +where there was no hope of soon taking part in a battle and had come to +Moscow where there was to be fighting in a few days, and chiefly because +Natasha, whose lead he always followed, was in high spirits. Natasha was +gay because she had been sad too long and now nothing reminded her of +the cause of her sadness, and because she was feeling well. She was also +happy because she had someone to adore her: the adoration of others was +a lubricant the wheels of her machine needed to make them run freely-- +and Petya adored her. Above all, they were gay because there was a war +near Moscow, there would be fighting at the town gates, arms were being +given out, everybody was escaping--going away somewhere, and in general +something extraordinary was happening, and that is always exciting, +especially to the young. + + + + +CHAPTER XIII + +On Saturday, the thirty-first of August, everything in the Rostovs' +house seemed topsy-turvy. All the doors were open, all the furniture was +being carried out or moved about, and the mirrors and pictures had been +taken down. There were trunks in the rooms, and hay, wrapping paper, and +ropes were scattered about. The peasants and house serfs carrying out +the things were treading heavily on the parquet floors. The yard was +crowded with peasant carts, some loaded high and already corded up, +others still empty. + +The voices and footsteps of the many servants and of the peasants who +had come with the carts resounded as they shouted to one another in the +yard and in the house. The count had been out since morning. The +countess had a headache brought on by all the noise and turmoil and was +lying down in the new sitting room with a vinegar compress on her head. +Petya was not at home, he had gone to visit a friend with whom he meant +to obtain a transfer from the militia to the active army. Sonya was in +the ballroom looking after the packing of the glass and china. Natasha +was sitting on the floor of her dismantled room with dresses, ribbons, +and scarves strewn all about her, gazing fixedly at the floor and +holding in her hands the old ball dress (already out of fashion) which +she had worn at her first Petersburg ball. + +Natasha was ashamed of doing nothing when everyone else was so busy, and +several times that morning had tried to set to work, but her heart was +not in it, and she could not and did not know how to do anything except +with all her heart and all her might. For a while she had stood beside +Sonya while the china was being packed and tried to help, but soon gave +it up and went to her room to pack her own things. At first she found it +amusing to give away dresses and ribbons to the maids, but when that was +done and what was left had still to be packed, she found it dull. + +"Dunyasha, you pack! You will, won't you, dear?" And when Dunyasha +willingly promised to do it all for her, Natasha sat down on the floor, +took her old ball dress, and fell into a reverie quite unrelated to what +ought to have occupied her thoughts now. She was roused from her reverie +by the talk of the maids in the next room (which was theirs) and by the +sound of their hurried footsteps going to the back porch. Natasha got up +and looked out of the window. An enormously long row of carts full of +wounded men had stopped in the street. + +The housekeeper, the old nurse, the cooks, coachmen, maids, footmen, +postilions, and scullions stood at the gate, staring at the wounded. + +Natasha, throwing a clean pocket handkerchief over her hair and holding +an end of it in each hand, went out into the street. + +The former housekeeper, old Mavra Kuzminichna, had stepped out of the +crowd by the gate, gone up to a cart with a hood constructed of bast +mats, and was speaking to a pale young officer who lay inside. Natasha +moved a few steps forward and stopped shyly, still holding her +handkerchief, and listened to what the housekeeper was saying. + +"Then you have nobody in Moscow?" she was saying. "You would be more +comfortable somewhere in a house... in ours, for instance... the family +are leaving." + +"I don't know if it would be allowed," replied the officer in a weak +voice. "Here is our commanding officer... ask him," and he pointed to a +stout major who was walking back along the street past the row of carts. + +Natasha glanced with frightened eyes at the face of the wounded officer +and at once went to meet the major. + +"May the wounded men stay in our house?" she asked. + +The major raised his hand to his cap with a smile. + +"Which one do you want, Ma'am'selle?" said he, screwing up his eyes and +smiling. + +Natasha quietly repeated her question, and her face and whole manner +were so serious, though she was still holding the ends of her +handkerchief, that the major ceased smiling and after some reflection-- +as if considering in how far the thing was possible--replied in the +affirmative. + +"Oh yes, why not? They may," he said. + +With a slight inclination of her head, Natasha stepped back quickly to +Mavra Kuzminichna, who stood talking compassionately to the officer. + +"They may. He says they may!" whispered Natasha. + +The cart in which the officer lay was turned into the Rostovs' yard, and +dozens of carts with wounded men began at the invitation of the +townsfolk to turn into the yards and to draw up at the entrances of the +houses in Povarskaya Street. Natasha was evidently pleased to be dealing +with new people outside the ordinary routine of her life. She and Mavra +Kuzminichna tried to get as many of the wounded as possible into their +yard. + +"Your Papa must be told, though," said Mavra Kuzminichna. + +"Never mind, never mind, what does it matter? For one day we can move +into the drawing room. They can have all our half of the house." + +"There now, young lady, you do take things into your head! Even if we +put them into the wing, the men's room, or the nurse's room, we must ask +permission." + +"Well, I'll ask." + +Natasha ran into the house and went on tiptoe through the half-open door +into the sitting room, where there was a smell of vinegar and Hoffman's +drops. + +"Are you asleep, Mamma?" + +"Oh, what sleep-?" said the countess, waking up just as she was dropping +into a doze. + +"Mamma darling!" said Natasha, kneeling by her mother and bringing her +face close to her mother's, "I am sorry, forgive me, I'll never do it +again; I woke you up! Mavra Kuzminichna has sent me: they have brought +some wounded here--officers. Will you let them come? They have nowhere +to go. I knew you'd let them come!" she said quickly all in one breath. + +"What officers? Whom have they brought? I don't understand anything +about it," said the countess. + +Natasha laughed, and the countess too smiled slightly. + +"I knew you'd give permission... so I'll tell them," and, having kissed +her mother, Natasha got up and went to the door. + +In the hall she met her father, who had returned with bad news. + +"We've stayed too long!" said the count with involuntary vexation. "The +club is closed and the police are leaving." + +"Papa, is it all right--I've invited some of the wounded into the +house?" said Natasha. + +"Of course it is," he answered absently. "That's not the point. I beg +you not to indulge in trifles now, but to help to pack, and tomorrow we +must go, go, go!...." + +And the count gave a similar order to the major-domo and the servants. + +At dinner Petya having returned home told them the news he had heard. He +said the people had been getting arms in the Kremlin, and that though +Rostopchin's broadsheet had said that he would sound a call two or three +days in advance, the order had certainly already been given for everyone +to go armed to the Three Hills tomorrow, and that there would be a big +battle there. + +The countess looked with timid horror at her son's eager, excited face +as he said this. She realized that if she said a word about his not +going to the battle (she knew he enjoyed the thought of the impending +engagement) he would say something about men, honor, and the fatherland- +-something senseless, masculine, and obstinate which there would be no +contradicting, and her plans would be spoiled; and so, hoping to arrange +to leave before then and take Petya with her as their protector and +defender, she did not answer him, but after dinner called the count +aside and implored him with tears to take her away quickly, that very +night if possible. With a woman's involuntary loving cunning she, who +till then had not shown any alarm, said that she would die of fright if +they did not leave that very night. Without any pretense she was now +afraid of everything. + + + + +CHAPTER XIV + +Madame Schoss, who had been out to visit her daughter, increased the +countess' fears still more by telling what she had seen at a spirit +dealer's in Myasnitski Street. When returning by that street she had +been unable to pass because of a drunken crowd rioting in front of the +shop. She had taken a cab and driven home by a side street and the +cabman had told her that the people were breaking open the barrels at +the drink store, having received orders to do so. + +After dinner the whole Rostov household set to work with enthusiastic +haste packing their belongings and preparing for their departure. The +old count, suddenly setting to work, kept passing from the yard to the +house and back again, shouting confused instructions to the hurrying +people, and flurrying them still more. Petya directed things in the +yard. Sonya, owing to the count's contradictory orders, lost her head +and did not know what to do. The servants ran noisily about the house +and yard, shouting and disputing. Natasha, with the ardor characteristic +of all she did suddenly set to work too. At first her intervention in +the business of packing was received skeptically. Everybody expected +some prank from her and did not wish to obey her; but she resolutely and +passionately demanded obedience, grew angry and nearly cried because +they did not heed her, and at last succeeded in making them believe her. +Her first exploit, which cost her immense effort and established her +authority, was the packing of the carpets. The count had valuable +Gobelin tapestries and Persian carpets in the house. When Natasha set to +work two cases were standing open in the ballroom, one almost full up +with crockery, the other with carpets. There was also much china +standing on the tables, and still more was being brought in from the +storeroom. A third case was needed and servants had gone to fetch it. + +"Sonya, wait a bit--we'll pack everything into these," said Natasha. + +"You can't, Miss, we have tried to," said the butler's assistant. + +"No, wait a minute, please." + +And Natasha began rapidly taking out of the case dishes and plates +wrapped in paper. + +"The dishes must go in here among the carpets," said she. + +"Why, it's a mercy if we can get the carpets alone into three cases," +said the butler's assistant. + +"Oh, wait, please!" And Natasha began rapidly and deftly sorting out the +things. "These aren't needed," said she, putting aside some plates of +Kiev ware. "These--yes, these must go among the carpets," she said, +referring to the Saxony china dishes. + +"Don't, Natasha! Leave it alone! We'll get it all packed," urged Sonya +reproachfully. + +"What a young lady she is!" remarked the major-domo. + +But Natasha would not give in. She turned everything out and began +quickly repacking, deciding that the inferior Russian carpets and +unnecessary crockery should not be taken at all. When everything had +been taken out of the cases, they recommenced packing, and it turned out +that when the cheaper things not worth taking had nearly all been +rejected, the valuable ones really did all go into the two cases. Only +the lid of the case containing the carpets would not shut down. A few +more things might have been taken out, but Natasha insisted on having +her own way. She packed, repacked, pressed, made the butler's assistant +and Petya--whom she had drawn into the business of packing--press on the +lid, and made desperate efforts herself. + +"That's enough, Natasha," said Sonya. "I see you were right, but just +take out the top one." + +"I won't!" cried Natasha, with one hand holding back the hair that hung +over her perspiring face, while with the other she pressed down the +carpets. "Now press, Petya! Press, Vasilich, press hard!" she cried. + +The carpets yielded and the lid closed; Natasha, clapping her hands, +screamed with delight and tears fell from her eyes. But this only lasted +a moment. She at once set to work afresh and they now trusted her +completely. The count was not angry even when they told him that Natasha +had countermanded an order of his, and the servants now came to her to +ask whether a cart was sufficiently loaded, and whether it might be +corded up. Thanks to Natasha's directions the work now went on +expeditiously, unnecessary things were left, and the most valuable +packed as compactly as possible. + +But hard as they all worked till quite late that night, they could not +get everything packed. The countess had fallen asleep and the count, +having put off their departure till next morning, went to bed. + +Sonya and Natasha slept in the sitting room without undressing. + +That night another wounded man was driven down the Povarskaya, and Mavra +Kuzminichna, who was standing at the gate, had him brought into the +Rostovs' yard. Mavra Kuzminichna concluded that he was a very important +man. He was being conveyed in a caleche with a raised hood, and was +quite covered by an apron. On the box beside the driver sat a venerable +old attendant. A doctor and two soldiers followed the carriage in a +cart. + +"Please come in here. The masters are going away and the whole house +will be empty," said the old woman to the old attendant. + +"Well, perhaps," said he with a sigh. "We don't expect to get him home +alive! We have a house of our own in Moscow, but it's a long way from +here, and there's nobody living in it." + +"Do us the honor to come in, there's plenty of everything in the +master's house. Come in," said Mavra Kuzminichna. "Is he very ill?" she +asked. + +The attendant made a hopeless gesture. + +"We don't expect to get him home! We must ask the doctor." + +And the old servant got down from the box and went up to the cart. + +"All right!" said the doctor. + +The old servant returned to the caleche, looked into it, shook his head +disconsolately, told the driver to turn into the yard, and stopped +beside Mavra Kuzminichna. + +"O, Lord Jesus Christ!" she murmured. + +She invited them to take the wounded man into the house. + +"The masters won't object..." she said. + +But they had to avoid carrying the man upstairs, and so they took him +into the wing and put him in the room that had been Madame Schoss'. + +This wounded man was Prince Andrew Bolkonski. + + + + +CHAPTER XV + +Moscow's last day had come. It was a clear bright autumn day, a Sunday. +The church bells everywhere were ringing for service, just as usual on +Sundays. Nobody seemed yet to realize what awaited the city. + +Only two things indicated the social condition of Moscow--the rabble, +that is the poor people, and the price of commodities. An enormous crowd +of factory hands, house serfs, and peasants, with whom some officials, +seminarists, and gentry were mingled, had gone early that morning to the +Three Hills. Having waited there for Rostopchin who did not turn up, +they became convinced that Moscow would be surrendered, and then +dispersed all about the town to the public houses and cookshops. Prices +too that day indicated the state of affairs. The price of weapons, of +gold, of carts and horses, kept rising, but the value of paper money and +city articles kept falling, so that by midday there were instances of +carters removing valuable goods, such as cloth, and receiving in payment +a half of what they carted, while peasant horses were fetching five +hundred rubles each, and furniture, mirrors, and bronzes were being +given away for nothing. + +In the Rostovs' staid old-fashioned house the dissolution of former +conditions of life was but little noticeable. As to the serfs the only +indication was that three out of their huge retinue disappeared during +the night, but nothing was stolen; and as to the value of their +possessions, the thirty peasant carts that had come in from their +estates and which many people envied proved to be extremely valuable and +they were offered enormous sums of money for them. Not only were huge +sums offered for the horses and carts, but on the previous evening and +early in the morning of the first of September, orderlies and servants +sent by wounded officers came to the Rostovs' and wounded men dragged +themselves there from the Rostovs' and from neighboring houses where +they were accommodated, entreating the servants to try to get them a +lift out of Moscow. The major-domo to whom these entreaties were +addressed, though he was sorry for the wounded, resolutely refused, +saying that he dare not even mention the matter to the count. Pity these +wounded men as one might, it was evident that if they were given one +cart there would be no reason to refuse another, or all the carts and +one's own carriages as well. Thirty carts could not save all the wounded +and in the general catastrophe one could not disregard oneself and one's +own family. So thought the major-domo on his master's behalf. + +On waking up that morning Count Ilya Rostov left his bedroom softly, so +as not to wake the countess who had fallen asleep only toward morning, +and came out to the porch in his lilac silk dressing gown. In the yard +stood the carts ready corded. The carriages were at the front porch. The +major-domo stood at the porch talking to an elderly orderly and to a +pale young officer with a bandaged arm. On seeing the count the major- +domo made a significant and stern gesture to them both to go away. + +"Well, Vasilich, is everything ready?" asked the count, and stroking his +bald head he looked good-naturedly at the officer and the orderly and +nodded to them. (He liked to see new faces.) + +"We can harness at once, your excellency." + +"Well, that's right. As soon as the countess wakes we'll be off, God +willing! What is it, gentlemen?" he added, turning to the officer. "Are +you staying in my house?" + +The officer came nearer and suddenly his face flushed crimson. + +"Count, be so good as to allow me... for God's sake, to get into some +corner of one of your carts! I have nothing here with me.... I shall be +all right on a loaded cart..." + +Before the officer had finished speaking the orderly made the same +request on behalf of his master. + +"Oh, yes, yes, yes!" said the count hastily. "I shall be very pleased, +very pleased. Vasilich, you'll see to it. Just unload one or two carts. +Well, what of it... do what's necessary..." said the count, muttering +some indefinite order. + +But at the same moment an expression of warm gratitude on the officer's +face had already sealed the order. The count looked around him. In the +yard, at the gates, at the window of the wings, wounded officers and +their orderlies were to be seen. They were all looking at the count and +moving toward the porch. + +"Please step into the gallery, your excellency," said the major-domo. +"What are your orders about the pictures?" + +The count went into the house with him, repeating his order not to +refuse the wounded who asked for a lift. + +"Well, never mind, some of the things can be unloaded," he added in a +soft, confidential voice, as though afraid of being overheard. + +At nine o'clock the countess woke up, and Matrena Timofeevna, who had +been her lady's maid before her marriage and now performed a sort of +chief gendarme's duty for her, came to say that Madame Schoss was much +offended and the young ladies' summer dresses could not be left behind. +On inquiry, the countess learned that Madame Schoss was offended because +her trunk had been taken down from its cart, and all the loads were +being uncorded and the luggage taken out of the carts to make room for +wounded men whom the count in the simplicity of his heart had ordered +that they should take with them. The countess sent for her husband. + +"What is this, my dear? I hear that the luggage is being unloaded." + +"You know, love, I wanted to tell you... Countess dear... an officer +came to me to ask for a few carts for the wounded. After all, ours are +things that can be bought but think what being left behind means to +them!... Really now, in our own yard--we asked them in ourselves and +there are officers among them.... You know, I think, my dear... let them +be taken... where's the hurry?" + +The count spoke timidly, as he always did when talking of money matters. +The countess was accustomed to this tone as a precursor of news of +something detrimental to the children's interests, such as the building +of a new gallery or conservatory, the inauguration of a private theater +or an orchestra. She was accustomed always to oppose anything announced +in that timid tone and considered it her duty to do so. + +She assumed her dolefully submissive manner and said to her husband: +"Listen to me, Count, you have managed matters so that we are getting +nothing for the house, and now you wish to throw away all our--all the +children's property! You said yourself that we have a hundred thousand +rubles' worth of things in the house. I don't consent, my dear, I don't! +Do as you please! It's the government's business to look after the +wounded; they know that. Look at the Lopukhins opposite, they cleared +out everything two days ago. That's what other people do. It's only we +who are such fools. If you have no pity on me, have some for the +children." + +Flourishing his arms in despair the count left the room without +replying. + +"Papa, what are you doing that for?" asked Natasha, who had followed him +into her mother's room. + +"Nothing! What business is it of yours?" muttered the count angrily. + +"But I heard," said Natasha. "Why does Mamma object?" + +"What business is it of yours?" cried the count. + +Natasha stepped up to the window and pondered. + +"Papa! Here's Berg coming to see us," said she, looking out of the +window. + + + + +CHAPTER XVI + +Berg, the Rostovs' son-in-law, was already a colonel wearing the orders +of Vladimir and Anna, and he still filled the quiet and agreeable post +of assistant to the head of the staff of the assistant commander of the +first division of the Second Army. + +On the first of September he had come to Moscow from the army. + +He had nothing to do in Moscow, but he had noticed that everyone in the +army was asking for leave to visit Moscow and had something to do there. +So he considered it necessary to ask for leave of absence for family and +domestic reasons. + +Berg drove up to his father-in-law's house in his spruce little trap +with a pair of sleek roans, exactly like those of a certain prince. He +looked attentively at the carts in the yard and while going up to the +porch took out a clean pocket handkerchief and tied a knot in it. + +From the anteroom Berg ran with smooth though impatient steps into the +drawing room, where he embraced the count, kissed the hands of Natasha +and Sonya, and hastened to inquire after "Mamma's" health. + +"Health, at a time like this?" said the count. "Come, tell us the news! +Is the army retreating or will there be another battle?" + +"God Almighty alone can decide the fate of our fatherland, Papa," said +Berg. "The army is burning with a spirit of heroism and the leaders, so +to say, have now assembled in council. No one knows what is coming. But +in general I can tell you, Papa, that such a heroic spirit, the truly +antique valor of the Russian army, which they--which it" (he corrected +himself) "has shown or displayed in the battle of the twenty-sixth-- +there are no words worthy to do it justice! I tell you, Papa" (he smote +himself on the breast as a general he had heard speaking had done, but +Berg did it a trifle late for he should have struck his breast at the +words "Russian army"), "I tell you frankly that we, the commanders, far +from having to urge the men on or anything of that kind, could hardly +restrain those... those... yes, those exploits of antique valor," he +went on rapidly. "General Barclay de Tolly risked his life everywhere at +the head of the troops, I can assure you. Our corps was stationed on a +hillside. You can imagine!" + +And Berg related all that he remembered of the various tales he had +heard those days. Natasha watched him with an intent gaze that confused +him, as if she were trying to find in his face the answer to some +question. + +"Altogether such heroism as was displayed by the Russian warriors cannot +be imagined or adequately praised!" said Berg, glancing round at +Natasha, and as if anxious to conciliate her, replying to her intent +look with a smile. "'Russia is not in Moscow, she lives in the hearts of +her sons!' Isn't it so, Papa?" said he. + +Just then the countess came in from the sitting room with a weary and +dissatisfied expression. Berg hurriedly jumped up, kissed her hand, +asked about her health, and, swaying his head from side to side to +express sympathy, remained standing beside her. + +"Yes, Mamma, I tell you sincerely that these are hard and sad times for +every Russian. But why are you so anxious? You have still time to get +away...." + +"I can't think what the servants are about," said the countess, turning +to her husband. "I have just been told that nothing is ready yet. +Somebody after all must see to things. One misses Mitenka at such times. +There won't be any end to it." + +The count was about to say something, but evidently restrained himself. +He got up from his chair and went to the door. + +At that moment Berg drew out his handkerchief as if to blow his nose +and, seeing the knot in it, pondered, shaking his head sadly and +significantly. + +"And I have a great favor to ask of you, Papa," said he. + +"Hm..." said the count, and stopped. + +"I was driving past Yusupov's house just now," said Berg with a laugh, +"when the steward, a man I know, ran out and asked me whether I wouldn't +buy something. I went in out of curiosity, you know, and there is a +small chiffonier and a dressing table. You know how dear Vera wanted a +chiffonier like that and how we had a dispute about it." (At the mention +of the chiffonier and dressing table Berg involuntarily changed his tone +to one of pleasure at his admirable domestic arrangements.) "And it's +such a beauty! It pulls out and has a secret English drawer, you know! +And dear Vera has long wanted one. I wish to give her a surprise, you +see. I saw so many of those peasant carts in your yard. Please let me +have one, I will pay the man well, and..." + +The count frowned and coughed. + +"Ask the countess, I don't give orders." + +"If it's inconvenient, please don't," said Berg. "Only I so wanted it, +for dear Vera's sake." + +"Oh, go to the devil, all of you! To the devil, the devil, the devil..." +cried the old count. "My head's in a whirl!" + +And he left the room. The countess began to cry. + +"Yes, Mamma! Yes, these are very hard times!" said Berg. + +Natasha left the room with her father and, as if finding it difficult to +reach some decision, first followed him and then ran downstairs. + +Petya was in the porch, engaged in giving out weapons to the servants +who were to leave Moscow. The loaded carts were still standing in the +yard. Two of them had been uncorded and a wounded officer was climbing +into one of them helped by an orderly. + +"Do you know what it's about?" Petya asked Natasha. + +She understood that he meant what were their parents quarreling about. +She did not answer. + +"It's because Papa wanted to give up all the carts to the wounded," said +Petya. "Vasilich told me. I consider..." + +"I consider," Natasha suddenly almost shouted, turning her angry face to +Petya, "I consider it so horrid, so abominable, so... I don't know what. +Are we despicable Germans?" + +Her throat quivered with convulsive sobs and, afraid of weakening and +letting the force of her anger run to waste, she turned and rushed +headlong up the stairs. + +Berg was sitting beside the countess consoling her with the respectful +attention of a relative. The count, pipe in hand, was pacing up and down +the room, when Natasha, her face distorted by anger, burst in like a +tempest and approached her mother with rapid steps. + +"It's horrid! It's abominable!" she screamed. "You can't possibly have +ordered it!" + +Berg and the countess looked at her, perplexed and frightened. The count +stood still at the window and listened. + +"Mamma, it's impossible: see what is going on in the yard!" she cried. +"They will be left!..." + +"What's the matter with you? Who are 'they'? What do you want?" + +"Why, the wounded! It's impossible, Mamma. It's monstrous!... No, Mamma +darling, it's not the thing. Please forgive me, darling.... Mamma, what +does it matter what we take away? Only look what is going on in the +yard... Mamma!... It's impossible!" + +The count stood by the window and listened without turning round. +Suddenly he sniffed and put his face closer to the window. + +The countess glanced at her daughter, saw her face full of shame for her +mother, saw her agitation, and understood why her husband did not turn +to look at her now, and she glanced round quite disconcerted. + +"Oh, do as you like! Am I hindering anyone?" she said, not surrendering +at once. + +"Mamma, darling, forgive me!" + +But the countess pushed her daughter away and went up to her husband. + +"My dear, you order what is right.... You know I don't understand about +it," said she, dropping her eyes shamefacedly. + +"The eggs... the eggs are teaching the hen," muttered the count through +tears of joy, and he embraced his wife who was glad to hide her look of +shame on his breast. + +"Papa! Mamma! May I see to it? May I?..." asked Natasha. "We will still +take all the most necessary things." + +The count nodded affirmatively, and Natasha, at the rapid pace at which +she used to run when playing at tag, ran through the ballroom to the +anteroom and downstairs into the yard. + +The servants gathered round Natasha, but could not believe the strange +order she brought them until the count himself, in his wife's name, +confirmed the order to give up all the carts to the wounded and take the +trunks to the storerooms. When they understood that order the servants +set to work at this new task with pleasure and zeal. It no longer seemed +strange to them but on the contrary it seemed the only thing that could +be done, just as a quarter of an hour before it had not seemed strange +to anyone that the wounded should be left behind and the goods carted +away but that had seemed the only thing to do. + +The whole household, as if to atone for not having done it sooner, set +eagerly to work at the new task of placing the wounded in the carts. The +wounded dragged themselves out of their rooms and stood with pale but +happy faces round the carts. The news that carts were to be had spread +to the neighboring houses, from which wounded men began to come into the +Rostovs' yard. Many of the wounded asked them not to unload the carts +but only to let them sit on the top of the things. But the work of +unloading, once started, could not be arrested. It seemed not to matter +whether all or only half the things were left behind. Cases full of +china, bronzes, pictures, and mirrors that had been so carefully packed +the night before now lay about the yard, and still they went on +searching for and finding possibilities of unloading this or that and +letting the wounded have another and yet another cart. + +"We can take four more men," said the steward. "They can have my trap, +or else what is to become of them?" + +"Let them have my wardrobe cart," said the countess. "Dunyasha can go +with me in the carriage." + +They unloaded the wardrobe cart and sent it to take wounded men from a +house two doors off. The whole household, servants included, was bright +and animated. Natasha was in a state of rapturous excitement such as she +had not known for a long time. + +"What could we fasten this onto?" asked the servants, trying to fix a +trunk on the narrow footboard behind a carriage. "We must keep at least +one cart." + +"What's in it?" asked Natasha. + +"The count's books." + +"Leave it, Vasilich will put it away. It's not wanted." + +The phaeton was full of people and there was a doubt as to where Count +Peter could sit. + +"On the box. You'll sit on the box, won't you, Petya?" cried Natasha. + +Sonya too was busy all this time, but the aim of her efforts was quite +different from Natasha's. She was putting away the things that had to be +left behind and making a list of them as the countess wished, and she +tried to get as much taken away with them as possible. + + + + +CHAPTER XVII + +Before two o'clock in the afternoon the Rostovs' four carriages, packed +full and with the horses harnessed, stood at the front door. One by one +the carts with the wounded had moved out of the yard. + +The caleche in which Prince Andrew was being taken attracted Sonya's +attention as it passed the front porch. With the help of a maid she was +arranging a seat for the countess in the huge high coach that stood at +the entrance. + +"Whose caleche is that?" she inquired, leaning out of the carriage +window. + +"Why, didn't you know, Miss?" replied the maid. "The wounded prince: he +spent the night in our house and is going with us." + +"But who is it? What's his name?" + +"It's our intended that was--Prince Bolkonski himself! They say he is +dying," replied the maid with a sigh. + +Sonya jumped out of the coach and ran to the countess. The countess, +tired out and already dressed in shawl and bonnet for her journey, was +pacing up and down the drawing room, waiting for the household to +assemble for the usual silent prayer with closed doors before starting. +Natasha was not in the room. + +"Mamma," said Sonya, "Prince Andrew is here, mortally wounded. He is +going with us." + +The countess opened her eyes in dismay and, seizing Sonya's arm, glanced +around. + +"Natasha?" she murmured. + +At that moment this news had only one significance for both of them. +They knew their Natasha, and alarm as to what would happen if she heard +this news stifled all sympathy for the man they both liked. + +"Natasha does not know yet, but he is going with us," said Sonya. + +"You say he is dying?" + +Sonya nodded. + +The countess put her arms around Sonya and began to cry. + +"The ways of God are past finding out!" she thought, feeling that the +Almighty Hand, hitherto unseen, was becoming manifest in all that was +now taking place. + +"Well, Mamma? Everything is ready. What's the matter?" asked Natasha, as +with animated face she ran into the room. + +"Nothing," answered the countess. "If everything is ready let us start." + +And the countess bent over her reticule to hide her agitated face. Sonya +embraced Natasha and kissed her. + +Natasha looked at her inquiringly. + +"What is it? What has happened?" + +"Nothing... No..." + +"Is it something very bad for me? What is it?" persisted Natasha with +her quick intuition. + +Sonya sighed and made no reply. The count, Petya, Madame Schoss, Mavra +Kuzminichna, and Vasilich came into the drawing room and, having closed +the doors, they all sat down and remained for some moments silently +seated without looking at one another. + +The count was the first to rise, and with a loud sigh crossed himself +before the icon. All the others did the same. Then the count embraced +Mavra Kuzminichna and Vasilich, who were to remain in Moscow, and while +they caught at his hand and kissed his shoulder he patted their backs +lightly with some vaguely affectionate and comforting words. The +countess went into the oratory and there Sonya found her on her knees +before the icons that had been left here and there hanging on the wall. +(The most precious ones, with which some family tradition was connected, +were being taken with them.) + +In the porch and in the yard the men whom Petya had armed with swords +and daggers, with trousers tucked inside their high boots and with belts +and girdles tightened, were taking leave of those remaining behind. + +As is always the case at a departure, much had been forgotten or put in +the wrong place, and for a long time two menservants stood one on each +side of the open door and the carriage steps waiting to help the +countess in, while maids rushed with cushions and bundles from the house +to the carriages, the caleche, the phaeton, and back again. + +"They always will forget everything!" said the countess. "Don't you know +I can't sit like that?" + +And Dunyasha, with clenched teeth, without replying but with an +aggrieved look on her face, hastily got into the coach to rearrange the +seat. + +"Oh, those servants!" said the count, swaying his head. + +Efim, the old coachman, who was the only one the countess trusted to +drive her, sat perched up high on the box and did not so much as glance +round at what was going on behind him. From thirty years' experience he +knew it would be some time yet before the order, "Be off, in God's +name!" would be given him: and he knew that even when it was said he +would be stopped once or twice more while they sent back to fetch +something that had been forgotten, and even after that he would again be +stopped and the countess herself would lean out of the window and beg +him for the love of heaven to drive carefully down the hill. He knew all +this and therefore waited calmly for what would happen, with more +patience than the horses, especially the near one, the chestnut Falcon, +who was pawing the ground and champing his bit. At last all were seated, +the carriage steps were folded and pulled up, the door was shut, +somebody was sent for a traveling case, and the countess leaned out and +said what she had to say. Then Efim deliberately doffed his hat and +began crossing himself. The postilion and all the other servants did the +same. "Off, in God's name!" said Efim, putting on his hat. "Start!" The +postilion started the horses, the off pole horse tugged at his collar, +the high springs creaked, and the body of the coach swayed. The footman +sprang onto the box of the moving coach which jolted as it passed out of +the yard onto the uneven roadway; the other vehicles jolted in their +turn, and the procession of carriages moved up the street. In the +carriages, the caleche, and the phaeton, all crossed themselves as they +passed the church opposite the house. Those who were to remain in Moscow +walked on either side of the vehicles seeing the travelers off. + +Rarely had Natasha experienced so joyful a feeling as now, sitting in +the carriage beside the countess and gazing at the slowly receding walls +of forsaken, agitated Moscow. Occasionally she leaned out of the +carriage window and looked back and then forward at the long train of +wounded in front of them. Almost at the head of the line she could see +the raised hood of Prince Andrew's caleche. She did not know who was in +it, but each time she looked at the procession her eyes sought that +caleche. She knew it was right in front. + +In Kudrino, from the Nikitski, Presnya, and Podnovinsk Streets came +several other trains of vehicles similar to the Rostovs', and as they +passed along the Sadovaya Street the carriages and carts formed two rows +abreast. + +As they were going round the Sukharev water tower Natasha, who was +inquisitively and alertly scrutinizing the people driving or walking +past, suddenly cried out in joyful surprise: + +"Dear me! Mamma, Sonya, look, it's he!" + +"Who? Who?" + +"Look! Yes, on my word, it's Bezukhov!" said Natasha, putting her head +out of the carriage and staring at a tall, stout man in a coachman's +long coat, who from his manner of walking and moving was evidently a +gentleman in disguise, and who was passing under the arch of the +Sukharev tower accompanied by a small, sallow-faced, beardless old man +in a frieze coat. + +"Yes, it really is Bezukhov in a coachman's coat, with a queer-looking +old boy. Really," said Natasha, "look, look!" + +"No, it's not he. How can you talk such nonsense?" + +"Mamma," screamed Natasha, "I'll stake my head it's he! I assure you! +Stop, stop!" she cried to the coachman. + +But the coachman could not stop, for from the Meshchanski Street came +more carts and carriages, and the Rostovs were being shouted at to move +on and not block the way. + +In fact, however, though now much farther off than before, the Rostovs +all saw Pierre--or someone extraordinarily like him--in a coachman's +coat, going down the street with head bent and a serious face beside a +small, beardless old man who looked like a footman. That old man noticed +a face thrust out of the carriage window gazing at them, and +respectfully touching Pierre's elbow said something to him and pointed +to the carriage. Pierre, evidently engrossed in thought, could not at +first understand him. At length when he had understood and looked in the +direction the old man indicated, he recognized Natasha, and following +his first impulse stepped instantly and rapidly toward the coach. But +having taken a dozen steps he seemed to remember something and stopped. + +Natasha's face, leaning out of the window, beamed with quizzical +kindliness. + +"Peter Kirilovich, come here! We have recognized you! This is +wonderful!" she cried, holding out her hand to him. "What are you doing? +Why are you like this?" + +Pierre took her outstretched hand and kissed it awkwardly as he walked +along beside her while the coach still moved on. + +"What is the matter, Count?" asked the countess in a surprised and +commiserating tone. + +"What? What? Why? Don't ask me," said Pierre, and looked round at +Natasha whose radiant, happy expression--of which he was conscious +without looking at her--filled him with enchantment. + +"Are you remaining in Moscow, then?" + +Pierre hesitated. + +"In Moscow?" he said in a questioning tone. "Yes, in Moscow. Good-bye!" + +"Ah, if only I were a man! I'd certainly stay with you. How splendid!" +said Natasha. "Mamma, if you'll let me, I'll stay!" + +Pierre glanced absently at Natasha and was about to say something, but +the countess interrupted him. + +"You were at the battle, we heard." + +"Yes, I was," Pierre answered. "There will be another battle +tomorrow..." he began, but Natasha interrupted him. + +"But what is the matter with you, Count? You are not like yourself...." + +"Oh, don't ask me, don't ask me! I don't know myself. Tomorrow... But +no! Good-bye, good-by!" he muttered. "It's an awful time!" and dropping +behind the carriage he stepped onto the pavement. + +Natasha continued to lean out of the window for a long time, beaming at +him with her kindly, slightly quizzical, happy smile. + + + + +CHAPTER XVIII + +For the last two days, ever since leaving home, Pierre had been living +in the empty house of his deceased benefactor, Bazdeev. This is how it +happened. + +When he woke up on the morning after his return to Moscow and his +interview with Count Rostopchin, he could not for some time make out +where he was and what was expected of him. When he was informed that +among others awaiting him in his reception room there was a Frenchman +who had brought a letter from his wife, the Countess Helene, he felt +suddenly overcome by that sense of confusion and hopelessness to which +he was apt to succumb. He felt that everything was now at an end, all +was in confusion and crumbling to pieces, that nobody was right or +wrong, the future held nothing, and there was no escape from this +position. Smiling unnaturally and muttering to himself, he first sat +down on the sofa in an attitude of despair, then rose, went to the door +of the reception room and peeped through the crack, returned flourishing +his arms, and took up a book. His major-domo came in a second time to +say that the Frenchman who had brought the letter from the countess was +very anxious to see him if only for a minute, and that someone from +Bazdeev's widow had called to ask Pierre to take charge of her husband's +books, as she herself was leaving for the country. + +"Oh, yes, in a minute; wait... or no! No, of course... go and say I will +come directly," Pierre replied to the major-domo. + +But as soon as the man had left the room Pierre took up his hat which +was lying on the table and went out of his study by the other door. +There was no one in the passage. He went along the whole length of this +passage to the stairs and, frowning and rubbing his forehead with both +hands, went down as far as the first landing. The hall porter was +standing at the front door. From the landing where Pierre stood there +was a second staircase leading to the back entrance. He went down that +staircase and out into the yard. No one had seen him. But there were +some carriages waiting, and as soon as Pierre stepped out of the gate +the coachmen and the yard porter noticed him and raised their caps to +him. When he felt he was being looked at he behaved like an ostrich +which hides its head in a bush in order not to be seen: he hung his head +and quickening his pace went down the street. + +Of all the affairs awaiting Pierre that day the sorting of Joseph +Bazdeev's books and papers appeared to him the most necessary. + +He hired the first cab he met and told the driver to go to the +Patriarch's Ponds, where the widow Bazdeev's house was. + +Continually turning round to look at the rows of loaded carts that were +making their way from all sides out of Moscow, and balancing his bulky +body so as not to slip out of the ramshackle old vehicle, Pierre, +experiencing the joyful feeling of a boy escaping from school, began to +talk to his driver. + +The man told him that arms were being distributed today at the Kremlin +and that tomorrow everyone would be sent out beyond the Three Hills +gates and a great battle would be fought there. + +Having reached the Patriarch's Ponds Pierre found the Bazdeevs' house, +where he had not been for a long time past. He went up to the gate. +Gerasim, that sallow beardless old man Pierre had seen at Torzhok five +years before with Joseph Bazdeev, came out in answer to his knock. + +"At home?" asked Pierre. + +"Owing to the present state of things Sophia Danilovna has gone to the +Torzhok estate with the children, your excellency." + +"I will come in all the same, I have to look through the books," said +Pierre. + +"Be so good as to step in. Makar Alexeevich, the brother of my late +master--may the kingdom of heaven be his--has remained here, but he is +in a weak state as you know," said the old servant. + +Pierre knew that Makar Alexeevich was Joseph Bazdeev's half-insane +brother and a hard drinker. + +"Yes, yes, I know. Let us go in..." said Pierre and entered the house. + +A tall, bald-headed old man with a red nose, wearing a dressing gown and +with galoshes on his bare feet, stood in the anteroom. On seeing Pierre +he muttered something angrily and went away along the passage. + +"He was a very clever man but has now grown quite feeble, as your honor +sees," said Gerasim. "Will you step into the study?" Pierre nodded. "As +it was sealed up so it has remained, but Sophia Danilovna gave orders +that if anyone should come from you they were to have the books." + +Pierre went into that gloomy study which he had entered with such +trepidation in his benefactor's lifetime. The room, dusty and untouched +since the death of Joseph Bazdeev was now even gloomier. + +Gerasim opened one of the shutters and left the room on tiptoe. Pierre +went round the study, approached the cupboard in which the manuscripts +were kept, and took out what had once been one of the most important, +the holy of holies of the order. This was the authentic Scotch Acts with +Bazdeev's notes and explanations. He sat down at the dusty writing +table, and, having laid the manuscripts before him, opened them out, +closed them, finally pushed them away, and resting his head on his hand +sank into meditation. + +Gerasim looked cautiously into the study several times and saw Pierre +always sitting in the same attitude. + +More than two hours passed and Gerasim took the liberty of making a +slight noise at the door to attract his attention, but Pierre did not +hear him. + +"Is the cabman to be discharged, your honor?" + +"Oh yes!" said Pierre, rousing himself and rising hurriedly. "Look +here," he added, taking Gerasim by a button of his coat and looking down +at the old man with moist, shining, and ecstatic eyes, "I say, do you +know that there is going to be a battle tomorrow?" + +"We heard so," replied the man. + +"I beg you not to tell anyone who I am, and to do what I ask you." + +"Yes, your excellency," replied Gerasim. "Will you have something to +eat?" + +"No, but I want something else. I want peasant clothes and a pistol," +said Pierre, unexpectedly blushing. + +"Yes, your excellency," said Gerasim after thinking for a moment. + +All the rest of that day Pierre spent alone in his benefactor's study, +and Gerasim heard him pacing restlessly from one corner to another and +talking to himself. And he spent the night on a bed made up for him +there. + +Gerasim, being a servant who in his time had seen many strange things, +accepted Pierre's taking up his residence in the house without surprise, +and seemed pleased to have someone to wait on. That same evening-- +without even asking himself what they were wanted for--he procured a +coachman's coat and cap for Pierre, and promised to get him the pistol +next day. Makar Alexeevich came twice that evening shuffling along in +his galoshes as far as the door and stopped and looked ingratiatingly at +Pierre. But as soon as Pierre turned toward him he wrapped his dressing +gown around him with a shamefaced and angry look and hurried away. It +was when Pierre (wearing the coachman's coat which Gerasim had procured +for him and had disinfected by steam) was on his way with the old man to +buy the pistol at the Sukharev market that he met the Rostovs. + + + + +CHAPTER XIX + +Kutuzov's order to retreat through Moscow to the Ryazan road was issued +at night on the first of September. + +The first troops started at once, and during the night they marched +slowly and steadily without hurry. At daybreak, however, those nearing +the town at the Dorogomilov bridge saw ahead of them masses of soldiers +crowding and hurrying across the bridge, ascending on the opposite side +and blocking the streets and alleys, while endless masses of troops were +bearing down on them from behind, and an unreasoning hurry and alarm +overcame them. They all rushed forward to the bridge, onto it, and to +the fords and the boats. Kutuzov himself had driven round by side +streets to the other side of Moscow. + +By ten o'clock in the morning of the second of September, only the rear +guard remained in the Dorogomilov suburb, where they had ample room. The +main army was on the other side of Moscow or beyond it. + +At that very time, at ten in the morning of the second of September, +Napoleon was standing among his troops on the Poklonny Hill looking at +the panorama spread out before him. From the twenty-sixth of August to +the second of September, that is from the battle of Borodino to the +entry of the French into Moscow, during the whole of that agitating, +memorable week, there had been the extraordinary autumn weather that +always comes as a surprise, when the sun hangs low and gives more heat +than in spring, when everything shines so brightly in the rare clear +atmosphere that the eyes smart, when the lungs are strengthened and +refreshed by inhaling the aromatic autumn air, when even the nights are +warm, and when in those dark warm nights, golden stars startle and +delight us continually by falling from the sky. + +At ten in the morning of the second of September this weather still +held. + +The brightness of the morning was magical. Moscow seen from the Poklonny +Hill lay spaciously spread out with her river, her gardens, and her +churches, and she seemed to be living her usual life, her cupolas +glittering like stars in the sunlight. + +The view of the strange city with its peculiar architecture, such as he +had never seen before, filled Napoleon with the rather envious and +uneasy curiosity men feel when they see an alien form of life that has +no knowledge of them. This city was evidently living with the full force +of its own life. By the indefinite signs which, even at a distance, +distinguish a living body from a dead one, Napoleon from the Poklonny +Hill perceived the throb of life in the town and felt, as it were, the +breathing of that great and beautiful body. + +Every Russian looking at Moscow feels her to be a mother; every +foreigner who sees her, even if ignorant of her significance as the +mother city, must feel her feminine character, and Napoleon felt it. + +"Cette ville asiatique aux innombrables eglises, Moscou la sainte. La +voila done enfin, cette fameuse ville! Il etait temps," * said he, and +dismounting he ordered a plan of Moscow to be spread out before him, and +summoned Lelorgne d'Ideville, the interpreter. + + +* "That Asiatic city of the innumerable churches, holy Moscow! Here it +is then at last, that famous city. It was high time." + +"A town captured by the enemy is like a maid who has lost her honor," +thought he (he had said so to Tuchkov at Smolensk). From that point of +view he gazed at the Oriental beauty he had not seen before. It seemed +strange to him that his long-felt wish, which had seemed unattainable, +had at last been realized. In the clear morning light he gazed now at +the city and now at the plan, considering its details, and the assurance +of possessing it agitated and awed him. + +"But could it be otherwise?" he thought. "Here is this capital at my +feet. Where is Alexander now, and of what is he thinking? A strange, +beautiful, and majestic city; and a strange and majestic moment! In what +light must I appear to them!" thought he, thinking of his troops. "Here +she is, the reward for all those fainthearted men," he reflected, +glancing at those near him and at the troops who were approaching and +forming up. "One word from me, one movement of my hand, and that ancient +capital of the Tsars would perish. But my clemency is always ready to +descend upon the vanquished. I must be magnanimous and truly great. But +no, it can't be true that I am in Moscow," he suddenly thought. "Yet +here she is lying at my feet, with her golden domes and crosses +scintillating and twinkling in the sunshine. But I shall spare her. On +the ancient monuments of barbarism and despotism I will inscribe great +words of justice and mercy.... It is just this which Alexander will feel +most painfully, I know him." (It seemed to Napoleon that the chief +import of what was taking place lay in the personal struggle between +himself and Alexander.) "From the height of the Kremlin--yes, there is +the Kremlin, yes--I will give them just laws; I will teach them the +meaning of true civilization, I will make generations of boyars remember +their conqueror with love. I will tell the deputation that I did not, +and do not, desire war, that I have waged war only against the false +policy of their court; that I love and respect Alexander and that in +Moscow I will accept terms of peace worthy of myself and of my people. I +do not wish to utilize the fortunes of war to humiliate an honored +monarch. 'Boyars,' I will say to them, 'I do not desire war, I desire +the peace and welfare of all my subjects.' However, I know their +presence will inspire me, and I shall speak to them as I always do: +clearly, impressively, and majestically. But can it be true that I am in +Moscow? Yes, there she lies." + +"Qu'on m'amene les boyars," * said he to his suite. + + +* "Bring the boyars to me." + +A general with a brilliant suite galloped off at once to fetch the +boyars. + +Two hours passed. Napoleon had lunched and was again standing in the +same place on the Poklonny Hill awaiting the deputation. His speech to +the boyars had already taken definite shape in his imagination. That +speech was full of dignity and greatness as Napoleon understood it. + +He was himself carried away by the tone of magnanimity he intended to +adopt toward Moscow. In his imagination he appointed days for assemblies +at the palace of the Tsars, at which Russian notables and his own would +mingle. He mentally appointed a governor, one who would win the hearts +of the people. Having learned that there were many charitable +institutions in Moscow he mentally decided that he would shower favors +on them all. He thought that, as in Africa he had to put on a burnoose +and sit in a mosque, so in Moscow he must be beneficent like the Tsars. +And in order finally to touch the hearts of the Russians--and being like +all Frenchmen unable to imagine anything sentimental without a reference +to ma chere, ma tendre, ma pauvre mere * --he decided that he would +place an inscription on all these establishments in large letters: "This +establishment is dedicated to my dear mother." Or no, it should be +simply: Maison de ma Mere, *(2) he concluded. "But am I really in +Moscow? Yes, here it lies before me, but why is the deputation from the +city so long in appearing?" he wondered. + + +* "My dear, my tender, my poor mother." + +* (2) "House of my Mother." + +Meanwhile an agitated consultation was being carried on in whispers +among his generals and marshals at the rear of his suite. Those sent to +fetch the deputation had returned with the news that Moscow was empty, +that everyone had left it. The faces of those who were not conferring +together were pale and perturbed. They were not alarmed by the fact that +Moscow had been abandoned by its inhabitants (grave as that fact +seemed), but by the question how to tell the Emperor--without putting +him in the terrible position of appearing ridiculous--that he had been +awaiting the boyars so long in vain: that there were drunken mobs left +in Moscow but no one else. Some said that a deputation of some sort must +be scraped together, others disputed that opinion and maintained that +the Emperor should first be carefully and skillfully prepared, and then +told the truth. + +"He will have to be told, all the same," said some gentlemen of the +suite. "But, gentlemen..." + +The position was the more awkward because the Emperor, meditating upon +his magnanimous plans, was pacing patiently up and down before the +outspread map, occasionally glancing along the road to Moscow from under +his lifted hand with a bright and proud smile. + +"But it's impossible..." declared the gentlemen of the suite, shrugging +their shoulders but not venturing to utter the implied word--le +ridicule... + +At last the Emperor, tired of futile expectation, his actor's instinct +suggesting to him that the sublime moment having been too long drawn out +was beginning to lose its sublimity, gave a sign with his hand. A single +report of a signaling gun followed, and the troops, who were already +spread out on different sides of Moscow, moved into the city through +Tver, Kaluga, and Dorogomilov gates. Faster and faster, vying with one +another, they moved at the double or at a trot, vanishing amid the +clouds of dust they raised and making the air ring with a deafening roar +of mingling shouts. + +Drawn on by the movement of his troops Napoleon rode with them as far as +the Dorogomilov gate, but there again stopped and, dismounting from his +horse, paced for a long time by the Kammer-Kollezski rampart, awaiting +the deputation. + + + + +CHAPTER XX + +Meanwhile Moscow was empty. There were still people in it, perhaps a +fiftieth part of its former inhabitants had remained, but it was empty. +It was empty in the sense that a dying queenless hive is empty. + +In a queenless hive no life is left though to a superficial glance it +seems as much alive as other hives. + +The bees circle round a queenless hive in the hot beams of the midday +sun as gaily as around the living hives; from a distance it smells of +honey like the others, and bees fly in and out in the same way. But one +has only to observe that hive to realize that there is no longer any +life in it. The bees do not fly in the same way, the smell and the sound +that meet the beekeeper are not the same. To the beekeeper's tap on the +wall of the sick hive, instead of the former instant unanimous humming +of tens of thousands of bees with their abdomens threateningly +compressed, and producing by the rapid vibration of their wings an +aerial living sound, the only reply is a disconnected buzzing from +different parts of the deserted hive. From the alighting board, instead +of the former spirituous fragrant smell of honey and venom, and the warm +whiffs of crowded life, comes an odor of emptiness and decay mingling +with the smell of honey. There are no longer sentinels sounding the +alarm with their abdomens raised, and ready to die in defense of the +hive. There is no longer the measured quiet sound of throbbing activity, +like the sound of boiling water, but diverse discordant sounds of +disorder. In and out of the hive long black robber bees smeared with +honey fly timidly and shiftily. They do not sting, but crawl away from +danger. Formerly only bees laden with honey flew into the hive, and they +flew out empty; now they fly out laden. The beekeeper opens the lower +part of the hive and peers in. Instead of black, glossy bees--tamed by +toil, clinging to one another's legs and drawing out the wax, with a +ceaseless hum of labor--that used to hang in long clusters down to the +floor of the hive, drowsy shriveled bees crawl about separately in +various directions on the floor and walls of the hive. Instead of a +neatly glued floor, swept by the bees with the fanning of their wings, +there is a floor littered with bits of wax, excrement, dying bees +scarcely moving their legs, and dead ones that have not been cleared +away. + +The beekeeper opens the upper part of the hive and examines the super. +Instead of serried rows of bees sealing up every gap in the combs and +keeping the brood warm, he sees the skillful complex structures of the +combs, but no longer in their former state of purity. All is neglected +and foul. Black robber bees are swiftly and stealthily prowling about +the combs, and the short home bees, shriveled and listless as if they +were old, creep slowly about without trying to hinder the robbers, +having lost all motive and all sense of life. Drones, bumblebees, wasps, +and butterflies knock awkwardly against the walls of the hive in their +flight. Here and there among the cells containing dead brood and honey +an angry buzzing can sometimes be heard. Here and there a couple of +bees, by force of habit and custom cleaning out the brood cells, with +efforts beyond their strength laboriously drag away a dead bee or +bumblebee without knowing why they do it. In another corner two old bees +are languidly fighting, or cleaning themselves, or feeding one another, +without themselves knowing whether they do it with friendly or hostile +intent. In a third place a crowd of bees, crushing one another, attack +some victim and fight and smother it, and the victim, enfeebled or +killed, drops from above slowly and lightly as a feather, among the heap +of corpses. The keeper opens the two center partitions to examine the +brood cells. In place of the former close dark circles formed by +thousands of bees sitting back to back and guarding the high mystery of +generation, he sees hundreds of dull, listless, and sleepy shells of +bees. They have almost all died unawares, sitting in the sanctuary they +had guarded and which is now no more. They reek of decay and death. Only +a few of them still move, rise, and feebly fly to settle on the enemy's +hand, lacking the spirit to die stinging him; the rest are dead and fall +as lightly as fish scales. The beekeeper closes the hive, chalks a mark +on it, and when he has time tears out its contents and burns it clean. + +So in the same way Moscow was empty when Napoleon, weary, uneasy, and +morose, paced up and down in front of the Kammer-Kollezski rampart, +awaiting what to his mind was a necessary, if but formal, observance of +the proprieties--a deputation. + +In various corners of Moscow there still remained a few people aimlessly +moving about, following their old habits and hardly aware of what they +were doing. + +When with due circumspection Napoleon was informed that Moscow was +empty, he looked angrily at his informant, turned away, and silently +continued to walk to and fro. + +"My carriage!" he said. + +He took his seat beside the aide-de-camp on duty and drove into the +suburb. "Moscow deserted!" he said to himself. "What an incredible +event!" + +He did not drive into the town, but put up at an inn in the Dorogomilov +suburb. + +The coup de theatre had not come off. + + + + +CHAPTER XXI + +The Russian troops were passing through Moscow from two o'clock at night +till two in the afternoon and bore away with them the wounded and the +last of the inhabitants who were leaving. + +The greatest crush during the movement of the troops took place at the +Stone, Moskva, and Yauza bridges. + +While the troops, dividing into two parts when passing around the +Kremlin, were thronging the Moskva and the Stone bridges, a great many +soldiers, taking advantage of the stoppage and congestion, turned back +from the bridges and slipped stealthily and silently past the church of +Vasili the Beatified and under the Borovitski gate, back up the hill to +the Red Square where some instinct told them they could easily take +things not belonging to them. Crowds of the kind seen at cheap sales +filled all the passages and alleys of the Bazaar. But there were no +dealers with voices of ingratiating affability inviting customers to +enter; there were no hawkers, nor the usual motley crowd of female +purchasers--but only soldiers, in uniforms and overcoats though without +muskets, entering the Bazaar empty-handed and silently making their way +out through its passages with bundles. Tradesmen and their assistants +(of whom there were but few) moved about among the soldiers quite +bewildered. They unlocked their shops and locked them up again, and +themselves carried goods away with the help of their assistants. On the +square in front of the Bazaar were drummers beating the muster call. But +the roll of the drums did not make the looting soldiers run in the +direction of the drum as formerly, but made them, on the contrary, run +farther away. Among the soldiers in the shops and passages some men were +to be seen in gray coats, with closely shaven heads. Two officers, one +with a scarf over his uniform and mounted on a lean, dark-gray horse, +the other in an overcoat and on foot, stood at the corner of Ilyinka +Street, talking. A third officer galloped up to them. + +"The general orders them all to be driven out at once, without fail. +This is outrageous! Half the men have dispersed." + +"Where are you off to?... Where?..." he shouted to three infantrymen +without muskets who, holding up the skirts of their overcoats, were +slipping past him into the Bazaar passage. "Stop, you rascals!" + +"But how are you going to stop them?" replied another officer. "There is +no getting them together. The army should push on before the rest bolt, +that's all!" + +"How can one push on? They are stuck there, wedged on the bridge, and +don't move. Shouldn't we put a cordon round to prevent the rest from +running away?" + +"Come, go in there and drive them out!" shouted the senior officer. + +The officer in the scarf dismounted, called up a drummer, and went with +him into the arcade. Some soldiers started running away in a group. A +shopkeeper with red pimples on his cheeks near the nose, and a calm, +persistent, calculating expression on his plump face, hurriedly and +ostentatiously approached the officer, swinging his arms. + +"Your honor!" said he. "Be so good as to protect us! We won't grudge +trifles, you are welcome to anything--we shall be delighted! Pray!... +I'll fetch a piece of cloth at once for such an honorable gentleman, or +even two pieces with pleasure. For we feel how it is; but what's all +this--sheer robbery! If you please, could not guards be placed if only +to let us close the shop...." + +Several shopkeepers crowded round the officer. + +"Eh, what twaddle!" said one of them, a thin, stern-looking man. "When +one's head is gone one doesn't weep for one's hair! Take what any of you +like!" And flourishing his arm energetically he turned sideways to the +officer. + +"It's all very well for you, Ivan Sidorych, to talk," said the first +tradesman angrily. "Please step inside, your honor!" + +"Talk indeed!" cried the thin one. "In my three shops here I have a +hundred thousand rubles' worth of goods. Can they be saved when the army +has gone? Eh, what people! 'Against God's might our hands can't fight.'" + +"Come inside, your honor!" repeated the tradesman, bowing. + +The officer stood perplexed and his face showed indecision. + +"It's not my business!" he exclaimed, and strode on quickly down one of +the passages. + +From one open shop came the sound of blows and vituperation, and just as +the officer came up to it a man in a gray coat with a shaven head was +flung out violently. + +This man, bent double, rushed past the tradesman and the officer. The +officer pounced on the soldiers who were in the shops, but at that +moment fearful screams reached them from the huge crowd on the Moskva +bridge and the officer ran out into the square. + +"What is it? What is it?" he asked, but his comrade was already +galloping off past Vasili the Beatified in the direction from which the +screams came. + +The officer mounted his horse and rode after him. When he reached the +bridge he saw two unlimbered guns, the infantry crossing the bridge, +several overturned carts, and frightened and laughing faces among the +troops. Beside the cannon a cart was standing to which two horses were +harnessed. Four borzois with collars were pressing close to the wheels. +The cart was loaded high, and at the very top, beside a child's chair +with its legs in the air, sat a peasant woman uttering piercing and +desperate shrieks. He was told by his fellow officers that the screams +of the crowd and the shrieks of the woman were due to the fact that +General Ermolov, coming up to the crowd and learning that soldiers were +dispersing among the shops while crowds of civilians blocked the bridge, +had ordered two guns to be unlimbered and made a show of firing at the +bridge. The crowd, crushing one another, upsetting carts, and shouting +and squeezing desperately, had cleared off the bridge and the troops +were now moving forward. + + + + +CHAPTER XXII + +Meanwhile, the city itself was deserted. There was hardly anyone in the +streets. The gates and shops were all closed, only here and there round +the taverns solitary shouts or drunken songs could be heard. Nobody +drove through the streets and footsteps were rarely heard. The +Povarskaya was quite still and deserted. The huge courtyard of the +Rostovs' house was littered with wisps of hay and with dung from the +horses, and not a soul was to be seen there. In the great drawing room +of the house, which had been left with all it contained, were two +people. They were the yard porter Ignat, and the page boy Mishka, +Vasilich's grandson who had stayed in Moscow with his grandfather. +Mishka had opened the clavichord and was strumming on it with one +finger. The yard porter, his arms akimbo, stood smiling with +satisfaction before the large mirror. + +"Isn't it fine, eh, Uncle Ignat?" said the boy, suddenly beginning to +strike the keyboard with both hands. + +"Only fancy!" answered Ignat, surprised at the broadening grin on his +face in the mirror. + +"Impudence! Impudence!" they heard behind them the voice of Mavra +Kuzminichna who had entered silently. "How he's grinning, the fat mug! +Is that what you're here for? Nothing's cleared away down there and +Vasilich is worn out. Just you wait a bit!" + +Ignat left off smiling, adjusted his belt, and went out of the room with +meekly downcast eyes. + +"Aunt, I did it gently," said the boy. + +"I'll give you something gently, you monkey you!" cried Mavra +Kuzminichna, raising her arm threateningly. "Go and get the samovar to +boil for your grandfather." + +Mavra Kuzminichna flicked the dust off the clavichord and closed it, and +with a deep sigh left the drawing room and locked its main door. + +Going out into the yard she paused to consider where she should go next- +-to drink tea in the servants' wing with Vasilich, or into the storeroom +to put away what still lay about. + +She heard the sound of quick footsteps in the quiet street. Someone +stopped at the gate, and the latch rattled as someone tried to open it. +Mavra Kuzminichna went to the gate. + +"Who do you want?" + +"The count--Count Ilya Andreevich Rostov." + +"And who are you?" + +"An officer, I have to see him," came the reply in a pleasant, well-bred +Russian voice. + +Mavra Kuzminichna opened the gate and an officer of eighteen, with the +round face of a Rostov, entered the yard. + +"They have gone away, sir. Went away yesterday at vespertime," said +Mavra Kuzminichna cordially. + +The young officer standing in the gateway, as if hesitating whether to +enter or not, clicked his tongue. + +"Ah, how annoying!" he muttered. "I should have come yesterday.... Ah, +what a pity." + +Meanwhile, Mavra Kuzminichna was attentively and sympathetically +examining the familiar Rostov features of the young man's face, his +tattered coat and trodden-down boots. + +"What did you want to see the count for?" she asked. + +"Oh well... it can't be helped!" said he in a tone of vexation and +placed his hand on the gate as if to leave. + +He again paused in indecision. + +"You see," he suddenly said, "I am a kinsman of the count's and he has +been very kind to me. As you see" (he glanced with an amused air and +good-natured smile at his coat and boots) "my things are worn out and I +have no money, so I was going to ask the count..." + +Mavra Kuzminichna did not let him finish. + +"Just wait a minute, sir. One little moment," said she. + +And as soon as the officer let go of the gate handle she turned and, +hurrying away on her old legs, went through the back yard to the +servants' quarters. + +While Mavra Kuzminichna was running to her room the officer walked about +the yard gazing at his worn-out boots with lowered head and a faint +smile on his lips. "What a pity I've missed Uncle! What a nice old +woman! Where has she run off to? And how am I to find the nearest way to +overtake my regiment, which must by now be getting near the Rogozhski +gate?" thought he. Just then Mavra Kuzminichna appeared from behind the +corner of the house with a frightened yet resolute look, carrying a +rolled-up check kerchief in her hand. While still a few steps from the +officer she unfolded the kerchief and took out of it a white twenty- +five-ruble assignat and hastily handed it to him. + +"If his excellency had been at home, as a kinsman he would of course... +but as it is..." + +Mavra Kuzminichna grew abashed and confused. The officer did not +decline, but took the note quietly and thanked her. + +"If the count had been at home..." Mavra Kuzminichna went on +apologetically. "Christ be with you, sir! May God preserve you!" said +she, bowing as she saw him out. + +Swaying his head and smiling as if amused at himself, the officer ran +almost at a trot through the deserted streets toward the Yauza bridge to +overtake his regiment. + +But Mavra Kuzminichna stood at the closed gate for some time with moist +eyes, pensively swaying her head and feeling an unexpected flow of +motherly tenderness and pity for the unknown young officer. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIII + +From an unfinished house on the Varvarka, the ground floor of which was +a dramshop, came drunken shouts and songs. On benches round the tables +in a dirty little room sat some ten factory hands. Tipsy and perspiring, +with dim eyes and wide-open mouths, they were all laboriously singing +some song or other. They were singing discordantly, arduously, and with +great effort, evidently not because they wished to sing, but because +they wanted to show they were drunk and on a spree. One, a tall, fair- +haired lad in a clean blue coat, was standing over the others. His face +with its fine straight nose would have been handsome had it not been for +his thin, compressed, twitching lips and dull, gloomy, fixed eyes. +Evidently possessed by some idea, he stood over those who were singing, +and solemnly and jerkily flourished above their heads his white arm with +the sleeve turned up to the elbow, trying unnaturally to spread out his +dirty fingers. The sleeve of his coat kept slipping down and he always +carefully rolled it up again with his left hand, as if it were most +important that the sinewy white arm he was flourishing should be bare. +In the midst of the song cries were heard, and fighting and blows in the +passage and porch. The tall lad waved his arm. + +"Stop it!" he exclaimed peremptorily. "There's a fight, lads!" And, +still rolling up his sleeve, he went out to the porch. + +The factory hands followed him. These men, who under the leadership of +the tall lad were drinking in the dramshop that morning, had brought the +publican some skins from the factory and for this had had drink served +them. The blacksmiths from a neighboring smithy, hearing the sounds of +revelry in the tavern and supposing it to have been broken into, wished +to force their way in too and a fight in the porch had resulted. + +The publican was fighting one of the smiths at the door, and when the +workmen came out the smith, wrenching himself free from the tavern +keeper, fell face downward on the pavement. + +Another smith tried to enter the doorway, pressing against the publican +with his chest. + +The lad with the turned-up sleeve gave the smith a blow in the face and +cried wildly: "They're fighting us, lads!" + +At that moment the first smith got up and, scratching his bruised face +to make it bleed, shouted in a tearful voice: "Police! Murder!... +They've killed a man, lads!" + +"Oh, gracious me, a man beaten to death--killed!..." screamed a woman +coming out of a gate close by. + +A crowd gathered round the bloodstained smith. + +"Haven't you robbed people enough--taking their last shirts?" said a +voice addressing the publican. "What have you killed a man for, you +thief?" + +The tall lad, standing in the porch, turned his bleared eyes from the +publican to the smith and back again as if considering whom he ought to +fight now. + +"Murderer!" he shouted suddenly to the publican. "Bind him, lads!" + +"I daresay you would like to bind me!" shouted the publican, pushing +away the men advancing on him, and snatching his cap from his head he +flung it on the ground. + +As if this action had some mysterious and menacing significance, the +workmen surrounding the publican paused in indecision. + +"I know the law very well, mates! I'll take the matter to the captain of +police. You think I won't get to him? Robbery is not permitted to +anybody now a days!" shouted the publican, picking up his cap. + +"Come along then! Come along then!" the publican and the tall young +fellow repeated one after the other, and they moved up the street +together. + +The bloodstained smith went beside them. The factory hands and others +followed behind, talking and shouting. + +At the corner of the Moroseyka, opposite a large house with closed +shutters and bearing a bootmaker's signboard, stood a score of thin, +worn-out, gloomy-faced bootmakers, wearing overalls and long tattered +coats. + +"He should pay folks off properly," a thin workingman, with frowning +brows and a straggly beard, was saying. + +"But he's sucked our blood and now he thinks he's quit of us. He's been +misleading us all the week and now that he's brought us to this pass +he's made off." + +On seeing the crowd and the bloodstained man the workman ceased +speaking, and with eager curiosity all the bootmakers joined the moving +crowd. + +"Where are all the folks going?" + +"Why, to the police, of course!" + +"I say, is it true that we have been beaten?" "And what did you think? +Look what folks are saying." + +Questions and answers were heard. The publican, taking advantage of the +increased crowd, dropped behind and returned to his tavern. + +The tall youth, not noticing the disappearance of his foe, waved his +bare arm and went on talking incessantly, attracting general attention +to himself. It was around him that the people chiefly crowded, expecting +answers from him to the questions that occupied all their minds. + +"He must keep order, keep the law, that's what the government is there +for. Am I not right, good Christians?" said the tall youth, with a +scarcely perceptible smile. "He thinks there's no government! How can +one do without government? Or else there would be plenty who'd rob us." + +"Why talk nonsense?" rejoined voices in the crowd. "Will they give up +Moscow like this? They told you that for fun, and you believed it! +Aren't there plenty of troops on the march? Let him in, indeed! That's +what the government is for. You'd better listen to what people are +saying," said some of the mob pointing to the tall youth. + +By the wall of China-Town a smaller group of people were gathered round +a man in a frieze coat who held a paper in his hand. + +"An ukase, they are reading an ukase! Reading an ukase!" cried voices in +the crowd, and the people rushed toward the reader. + +The man in the frieze coat was reading the broadsheet of August 31. When +the crowd collected round him he seemed confused, but at the demand of +the tall lad who had pushed his way up to him, he began in a rather +tremulous voice to read the sheet from the beginning. + +"Early tomorrow I shall go to his Serene Highness," he read ("Sirin +Highness," said the tall fellow with a triumphant smile on his lips and +a frown on his brow), "to consult with him to act, and to aid the army +to exterminate these scoundrels. We too will take part..." the reader +went on, and then paused ("Do you see," shouted the youth victoriously, +"he's going to clear up the whole affair for you...."), "in destroying +them, and will send these visitors to the devil. I will come back to +dinner, and we'll set to work. We will do, completely do, and undo these +scoundrels." + +The last words were read out in the midst of complete silence. The tall +lad hung his head gloomily. It was evident that no one had understood +the last part. In particular, the words "I will come back to dinner," +evidently displeased both reader and audience. The people's minds were +tuned to a high pitch and this was too simple and needlessly +comprehensible--it was what any one of them might have said and +therefore was what an ukase emanating from the highest authority should +not say. + +They all stood despondent and silent. The tall youth moved his lips and +swayed from side to side. + +"We should ask him... that's he himself?"... "Yes, ask him indeed!... +Why not? He'll explain"... voices in the rear of the crowd were suddenly +heard saying, and the general attention turned to the police +superintendent's trap which drove into the square attended by two +mounted dragoons. + +The superintendent of police, who had gone that morning by Count +Rostopchin's orders to burn the barges and had in connection with that +matter acquired a large sum of money which was at that moment in his +pocket, on seeing a crowd bearing down upon him told his coachman to +stop. + +"What people are these?" he shouted to the men, who were moving singly +and timidly in the direction of his trap. + +"What people are these?" he shouted again, receiving no answer. + +"Your honor..." replied the shopman in the frieze coat, "your honor, in +accord with the proclamation of his highest excellency the count, they +desire to serve, not sparing their lives, and it is not any kind of +riot, but as his highest excellence said..." + +"The count has not left, he is here, and an order will be issued +concerning you," said the superintendent of police. "Go on!" he ordered +his coachman. + +The crowd halted, pressing around those who had heard what the +superintendent had said, and looking at the departing trap. + +The superintendent of police turned round at that moment with a scared +look, said something to his coachman, and his horses increased their +speed. + +"It's a fraud, lads! Lead the way to him, himself!" shouted the tall +youth. "Don't let him go, lads! Let him answer us! Keep him!" shouted +different people and the people dashed in pursuit of the trap. + +Following the superintendent of police and talking loudly the crowd went +in the direction of the Lubyanka Street. + +"There now, the gentry and merchants have gone away and left us to +perish. Do they think we're dogs?" voices in the crowd were heard saying +more and more frequently. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIV + +On the evening of the first of September, after his interview with +Kutuzov, Count Rostopchin had returned to Moscow mortified and offended +because he had not been invited to attend the council of war, and +because Kutuzov had paid no attention to his offer to take part in the +defense of the city; amazed also at the novel outlook revealed to him at +the camp, which treated the tranquillity of the capital and its +patriotic fervor as not merely secondary but quite irrelevant and +unimportant matters. Distressed, offended, and surprised by all this, +Rostopchin had returned to Moscow. After supper he lay down on a sofa +without undressing, and was awakened soon after midnight by a courier +bringing him a letter from Kutuzov. This letter requested the count to +send police officers to guide the troops through the town, as the army +was retreating to the Ryazan road beyond Moscow. This was not news to +Rostopchin. He had known that Moscow would be abandoned not merely since +his interview the previous day with Kutuzov on the Poklonny Hill but +ever since the battle of Borodino, for all the generals who came to +Moscow after that battle had said unanimously that it was impossible to +fight another battle, and since then the government property had been +removed every night, and half the inhabitants had left the city with +Rostopchin's own permission. Yet all the same this information +astonished and irritated the count, coming as it did in the form of a +simple note with an order from Kutuzov, and received at night, breaking +in on his beauty sleep. + +When later on in his memoirs Count Rostopchin explained his actions at +this time, he repeatedly says that he was then actuated by two important +considerations: to maintain tranquillity in Moscow and expedite the +departure of the inhabitants. If one accepts this twofold aim all +Rostopchin's actions appear irreproachable. "Why were the holy relics, +the arms, ammunition, gunpowder, and stores of corn not removed? Why +were thousands of inhabitants deceived into believing that Moscow would +not be given up--and thereby ruined?" "To preserve the tranquillity of +the city," explains Count Rostopchin. "Why were bundles of useless +papers from the government offices, and Leppich's balloon and other +articles removed?" "To leave the town empty," explains Count Rostopchin. +One need only admit that public tranquillity is in danger and any action +finds a justification. + +All the horrors of the reign of terror were based only on solicitude for +public tranquillity. + +On what, then, was Count Rostopchin's fear for the tranquillity of +Moscow based in 1812? What reason was there for assuming any probability +of an uprising in the city? The inhabitants were leaving it and the +retreating troops were filling it. Why should that cause the masses to +riot? + +Neither in Moscow nor anywhere in Russia did anything resembling an +insurrection ever occur when the enemy entered a town. More than ten +thousand people were still in Moscow on the first and second of +September, and except for a mob in the governor's courtyard, assembled +there at his bidding, nothing happened. It is obvious that there would +have been even less reason to expect a disturbance among the people if +after the battle of Borodino, when the surrender of Moscow became +certain or at least probable, Rostopchin instead of exciting the people +by distributing arms and broadsheets had taken steps to remove all the +holy relics, the gunpowder, munitions, and money, and had told the +population plainly that the town would be abandoned. + +Rostopchin, though he had patriotic sentiments, was a sanguine and +impulsive man who had always moved in the highest administrative circles +and had no understanding at all of the people he supposed himself to be +guiding. Ever since the enemy's entry into Smolensk he had in +imagination been playing the role of director of the popular feeling of +"the heart of Russia." Not only did it seem to him (as to all +administrators) that he controlled the external actions of Moscow's +inhabitants, but he also thought he controlled their mental attitude by +means of his broadsheets and posters, written in a coarse tone which the +people despise in their own class and do not understand from those in +authority. Rostopchin was so pleased with the fine role of leader of +popular feeling, and had grown so used to it, that the necessity of +relinquishing that role and abandoning Moscow without any heroic display +took him unawares and he suddenly felt the ground slip away from under +his feet, so that he positively did not know what to do. Though he knew +it was coming, he did not till the last moment wholeheartedly believe +that Moscow would be abandoned, and did not prepare for it. The +inhabitants left against his wishes. If the government offices were +removed, this was only done on the demand of officials to whom the count +yielded reluctantly. He was absorbed in the role he had created for +himself. As is often the case with those gifted with an ardent +imagination, though he had long known that Moscow would be abandoned he +knew it only with his intellect, he did not believe it in his heart and +did not adapt himself mentally to this new position of affairs. + +All his painstaking and energetic activity (in how far it was useful and +had any effect on the people is another question) had been simply +directed toward arousing in the masses his own feeling of patriotic +hatred of the French. + +But when events assumed their true historical character, when expressing +hatred for the French in words proved insufficient, when it was not even +possible to express that hatred by fighting a battle, when self- +confidence was of no avail in relation to the one question before +Moscow, when the whole population streamed out of Moscow as one man, +abandoning their belongings and proving by that negative action all the +depth of their national feeling, then the role chosen by Rostopchin +suddenly appeared senseless. He unexpectedly felt himself ridiculous, +weak, and alone, with no ground to stand on. + +When, awakened from his sleep, he received that cold, peremptory note +from Kutuzov, he felt the more irritated the more he felt himself to +blame. All that he had been specially put in charge of, the state +property which he should have removed, was still in Moscow and it was no +longer possible to take the whole of it away. + +"Who is to blame for it? Who has let things come to such a pass?" he +ruminated. "Not I, of course. I had everything ready. I had Moscow +firmly in hand. And this is what they have let it come to! Villains! +Traitors!" he thought, without clearly defining who the villains and +traitors were, but feeling it necessary to hate those traitors whoever +they might be who were to blame for the false and ridiculous position in +which he found himself. + +All that night Count Rostopchin issued orders, for which people came to +him from all parts of Moscow. Those about him had never seen the count +so morose and irritable. + +"Your excellency, the Director of the Registrar's Department has sent +for instructions... From the Consistory, from the Senate, from the +University, from the Foundling Hospital, the Suffragan has sent... +asking for information.... What are your orders about the Fire Brigade? +From the governor of the prison... from the superintendent of the +lunatic asylum..." All night long such announcements were continually +being received by the count. + +To all these inquiries he gave brief and angry replies indicating that +orders from him were not now needed, that the whole affair, carefully +prepared by him, had now been ruined by somebody, and that that somebody +would have to bear the whole responsibility for all that might happen. + +"Oh, tell that blockhead," he said in reply to the question from the +Registrar's Department, "that he should remain to guard his documents. +Now why are you asking silly questions about the Fire Brigade? They have +horses, let them be off to Vladimir, and not leave them to the French." + +"Your excellency, the superintendent of the lunatic asylum has come: +what are your commands?" + +"My commands? Let them go away, that's all.... And let the lunatics out +into the town. When lunatics command our armies God evidently means +these other madmen to be free." + +In reply to an inquiry about the convicts in the prison, Count +Rostopchin shouted angrily at the governor: + +"Do you expect me to give you two battalions--which we have not got--for +a convoy? Release them, that's all about it!" + +"Your excellency, there are some political prisoners, Meshkov, +Vereshchagin..." + +"Vereshchagin! Hasn't he been hanged yet?" shouted Rostopchin. "Bring +him to me!" + + + + +CHAPTER XXV + +Toward nine o'clock in the morning, when the troops were already moving +through Moscow, nobody came to the count any more for instructions. +Those who were able to get away were going of their own accord, those +who remained behind decided for themselves what they must do. + +The count ordered his carriage that he might drive to Sokolniki, and sat +in his study with folded hands, morose, sallow, and taciturn. + +In quiet and untroubled times it seems to every administrator that it is +only by his efforts that the whole population under his rule is kept +going, and in this consciousness of being indispensable every +administrator finds the chief reward of his labor and efforts. While the +sea of history remains calm the ruler-administrator in his frail bark, +holding on with a boat hook to the ship of the people and himself +moving, naturally imagines that his efforts move the ship he is holding +on to. But as soon as a storm arises and the sea begins to heave and the +ship to move, such a delusion is no longer possible. The ship moves +independently with its own enormous motion, the boat hook no longer +reaches the moving vessel, and suddenly the administrator, instead of +appearing a ruler and a source of power, becomes an insignificant, +useless, feeble man. + +Rostopchin felt this, and it was this which exasperated him. + +The superintendent of police, whom the crowd had stopped, went in to see +him at the same time as an adjutant who informed the count that the +horses were harnessed. They were both pale, and the superintendent of +police, after reporting that he had executed the instructions he had +received, informed the count that an immense crowd had collected in the +courtyard and wished to see him. + +Without saying a word Rostopchin rose and walked hastily to his light, +luxurious drawing room, went to the balcony door, took hold of the +handle, let it go again, and went to the window from which he had a +better view of the whole crowd. The tall lad was standing in front, +flourishing his arm and saying something with a stern look. The blood- +stained smith stood beside him with a gloomy face. A drone of voices was +audible through the closed window. + +"Is my carriage ready?" asked Rostopchin, stepping back from the window. + +"It is, your excellency," replied the adjutant. + +Rostopchin went again to the balcony door. + +"But what do they want?" he asked the superintendent of police. + +"Your excellency, they say they have got ready, according to your +orders, to go against the French, and they shouted something about +treachery. But it is a turbulent crowd, your excellency--I hardly +managed to get away from it. Your excellency, I venture to suggest..." + +"You may go. I don't need you to tell me what to do!" exclaimed +Rostopchin angrily. + +He stood by the balcony door looking at the crowd. + +"This is what they have done with Russia! This is what they have done +with me!" thought he, full of an irrepressible fury that welled up +within him against the someone to whom what was happening might be +attributed. As often happens with passionate people, he was mastered by +anger but was still seeking an object on which to vent it. "Here is that +mob, the dregs of the people," he thought as he gazed at the crowd: +"this rabble they have roused by their folly! They want a victim," he +thought as he looked at the tall lad flourishing his arm. And this +thought occurred to him just because he himself desired a victim, +something on which to vent his rage. + +"Is the carriage ready?" he asked again. + +"Yes, your excellency. What are your orders about Vereshchagin? He is +waiting at the porch," said the adjutant. + +"Ah!" exclaimed Rostopchin, as if struck by an unexpected recollection. + +And rapidly opening the door he went resolutely out onto the balcony. +The talking instantly ceased, hats and caps were doffed, and all eyes +were raised to the count. + +"Good morning, lads!" said the count briskly and loudly. "Thank you for +coming. I'll come out to you in a moment, but we must first settle with +the villain. We must punish the villain who has caused the ruin of +Moscow. Wait for me!" + +And the count stepped as briskly back into the room and slammed the door +behind him. + +A murmur of approbation and satisfaction ran through the crowd. "He'll +settle with all the villains, you'll see! And you said the French... +He'll show you what law is!" the mob were saying as if reproving one +another for their lack of confidence. + +A few minutes later an officer came hurriedly out of the front door, +gave an order, and the dragoons formed up in line. The crowd moved +eagerly from the balcony toward the porch. Rostopchin, coming out there +with quick angry steps, looked hastily around as if seeking someone. + +"Where is he?" he inquired. And as he spoke he saw a young man coming +round the corner of the house between two dragoons. He had a long thin +neck, and his head, that had been half shaved, was again covered by +short hair. This young man was dressed in a threadbare blue cloth coat +lined with fox fur, that had once been smart, and dirty hempen convict +trousers, over which were pulled his thin, dirty, trodden-down boots. On +his thin, weak legs were heavy chains which hampered his irresolute +movements. + +"Ah!" said Rostopchin, hurriedly turning away his eyes from the young +man in the fur-lined coat and pointing to the bottom step of the porch. +"Put him there." + +The young man in his clattering chains stepped clumsily to the spot +indicated, holding away with one finger the coat collar which chafed his +neck, turned his long neck twice this way and that, sighed, and +submissively folded before him his thin hands, unused to work. + +For several seconds while the young man was taking his place on the step +the silence continued. Only among the back rows of the people, who were +all pressing toward the one spot, could sighs, groans, and the shuffling +of feet be heard. + +While waiting for the young man to take his place on the step Rostopchin +stood frowning and rubbing his face with his hand. + +"Lads!" said he, with a metallic ring in his voice. "This man, +Vereshchagin, is the scoundrel by whose doing Moscow is perishing." + +The young man in the fur-lined coat, stooping a little, stood in a +submissive attitude, his fingers clasped before him. His emaciated young +face, disfigured by the half-shaven head, hung down hopelessly. At the +count's first words he raised it slowly and looked up at him as if +wishing to say something or at least to meet his eye. But Rostopchin did +not look at him. A vein in the young man's long thin neck swelled like a +cord and went blue behind the ear, and suddenly his face flushed. + +All eyes were fixed on him. He looked at the crowd, and rendered more +hopeful by the expression he read on the faces there, he smiled sadly +and timidly, and lowering his head shifted his feet on the step. + +"He has betrayed his Tsar and his country, he has gone over to +Bonaparte. He alone of all the Russians has disgraced the Russian name, +he has caused Moscow to perish," said Rostopchin in a sharp, even voice, +but suddenly he glanced down at Vereshchagin who continued to stand in +the same submissive attitude. As if inflamed by the sight, he raised his +arm and addressed the people, almost shouting: + +"Deal with him as you think fit! I hand him over to you." + +The crowd remained silent and only pressed closer and closer to one +another. To keep one another back, to breathe in that stifling +atmosphere, to be unable to stir, and to await something unknown, +uncomprehended, and terrible, was becoming unbearable. Those standing in +front, who had seen and heard what had taken place before them, all +stood with wide-open eyes and mouths, straining with all their strength, +and held back the crowd that was pushing behind them. + +"Beat him!... Let the traitor perish and not disgrace the Russian name!" +shouted Rostopchin. "Cut him down. I command it." + +Hearing not so much the words as the angry tone of Rostopchin's voice, +the crowd moaned and heaved forward, but again paused. + +"Count!" exclaimed the timid yet theatrical voice of Vereshchagin in the +midst of the momentary silence that ensued, "Count! One God is above us +both...." He lifted his head and again the thick vein in his thin neck +filled with blood and the color rapidly came and went in his face. + +He did not finish what he wished to say. + +"Cut him down! I command it..." shouted Rostopchin, suddenly growing +pale like Vereshchagin. + +"Draw sabers!" cried the dragoon officer, drawing his own. + +Another still stronger wave flowed through the crowd and reaching the +front ranks carried it swaying to the very steps of the porch. The tall +youth, with a stony look on his face, and rigid and uplifted arm, stood +beside Vereshchagin. + +"Saber him!" the dragoon officer almost whispered. + +And one of the soldiers, his face all at once distorted with fury, +struck Vereshchagin on the head with the blunt side of his saber. + +"Ah!" cried Vereshchagin in meek surprise, looking round with a +frightened glance as if not understanding why this was done to him. A +similar moan of surprise and horror ran through the crowd. "O Lord!" +exclaimed a sorrowful voice. + +But after the exclamation of surprise that had escaped from Vereshchagin +he uttered a plaintive cry of pain, and that cry was fatal. The barrier +of human feeling, strained to the utmost, that had held the crowd in +check suddenly broke. The crime had begun and must now be completed. The +plaintive moan of reproach was drowned by the threatening and angry roar +of the crowd. Like the seventh and last wave that shatters a ship, that +last irresistible wave burst from the rear and reached the front ranks, +carrying them off their feet and engulfing them all. The dragoon was +about to repeat his blow. Vereshchagin with a cry of horror, covering +his head with his hands, rushed toward the crowd. The tall youth, +against whom he stumbled, seized his thin neck with his hands and, +yelling wildly, fell with him under the feet of the pressing, struggling +crowd. + +Some beat and tore at Vereshchagin, others at the tall youth. And the +screams of those that were being trampled on and of those who tried to +rescue the tall lad only increased the fury of the crowd. It was a long +time before the dragoons could extricate the bleeding youth, beaten +almost to death. And for a long time, despite the feverish haste with +which the mob tried to end the work that had been begun, those who were +hitting, throttling, and tearing at Vereshchagin were unable to kill +him, for the crowd pressed from all sides, swaying as one mass with them +in the center and rendering it impossible for them either to kill him or +let him go. + +"Hit him with an ax, eh!... Crushed?... Traitor, he sold Christ.... +Still alive... tenacious... serves him right! Torture serves a thief +right. Use the hatchet!... What--still alive?" + +Only when the victim ceased to struggle and his cries changed to a long- +drawn, measured death rattle did the crowd around his prostrate, +bleeding corpse begin rapidly to change places. Each one came up, +glanced at what had been done, and with horror, reproach, and +astonishment pushed back again. + +"O Lord! The people are like wild beasts! How could he be alive?" voices +in the crowd could be heard saying. "Quite a young fellow too... must +have been a merchant's son. What men!... and they say he's not the right +one.... How not the right one?... O Lord! And there's another has been +beaten too--they say he's nearly done for.... Oh, the people... Aren't +they afraid of sinning?..." said the same mob now, looking with pained +distress at the dead body with its long, thin, half-severed neck and its +livid face stained with blood and dust. + +A painstaking police officer, considering the presence of a corpse in +his excellency's courtyard unseemly, told the dragoons to take it away. +Two dragoons took it by its distorted legs and dragged it along the +ground. The gory, dust-stained, half-shaven head with its long neck +trailed twisting along the ground. The crowd shrank back from it. + +At the moment when Vereshchagin fell and the crowd closed in with savage +yells and swayed about him, Rostopchin suddenly turned pale and, instead +of going to the back entrance where his carriage awaited him, went with +hurried steps and bent head, not knowing where and why, along the +passage leading to the rooms on the ground floor. The count's face was +white and he could not control the feverish twitching of his lower jaw. + +"This way, your excellency... Where are you going?... This way, +please..." said a trembling, frightened voice behind him. + +Count Rostopchin was unable to reply and, turning obediently, went in +the direction indicated. At the back entrance stood his caleche. The +distant roar of the yelling crowd was audible even there. He hastily +took his seat and told the coachman to drive him to his country house in +Sokolniki. + +When they reached the Myasnitski Street and could no longer hear the +shouts of the mob, the count began to repent. He remembered with +dissatisfaction the agitation and fear he had betrayed before his +subordinates. "The mob is terrible--disgusting," he said to himself in +French. "They are like wolves whom nothing but flesh can appease." +"Count! One God is above us both!"--Vereshchagin's words suddenly +recurred to him, and a disagreeable shiver ran down his back. But this +was only a momentary feeling and Count Rostopchin smiled disdainfully at +himself. "I had other duties," thought he. "The people had to be +appeased. Many other victims have perished and are perishing for the +public good"--and he began thinking of his social duties to his family +and to the city entrusted to him, and of himself--not himself as +Theodore Vasilyevich Rostopchin (he fancied that Theodore Vasilyevich +Rostopchin was sacrificing himself for the public good) but himself as +governor, the representative of authority and of the Tsar. "Had I been +simply Theodore Vasilyevich my course of action would have been quite +different, but it was my duty to safeguard my life and dignity as +commander-in-chief." + +Lightly swaying on the flexible springs of his carriage and no longer +hearing the terrible sounds of the crowd, Rostopchin grew physically +calm and, as always happens, as soon as he became physically tranquil +his mind devised reasons why he should be mentally tranquil too. The +thought which tranquillized Rostopchin was not a new one. Since the +world began and men have killed one another no one has ever committed +such a crime against his fellow man without comforting himself with this +same idea. This idea is le bien public, the hypothetical welfare of +other people. + +To a man not swayed by passion that welfare is never certain, but he who +commits such a crime always knows just where that welfare lies. And +Rostopchin now knew it. + +Not only did his reason not reproach him for what he had done, but he +even found cause for self-satisfaction in having so successfully +contrived to avail himself of a convenient opportunity to punish a +criminal and at the same time pacify the mob. + +"Vereshchagin was tried and condemned to death," thought Rostopchin +(though the Senate had only condemned Vereshchagin to hard labor), "he +was a traitor and a spy. I could not let him go unpunished and so I have +killed two birds with one stone: to appease the mob I gave them a victim +and at the same time punished a miscreant." + +Having reached his country house and begun to give orders about domestic +arrangements, the count grew quite tranquil. + +Half an hour later he was driving with his fast horses across the +Sokolniki field, no longer thinking of what had occurred but considering +what was to come. He was driving to the Yauza bridge where he had heard +that Kutuzov was. Count Rostopchin was mentally preparing the angry and +stinging reproaches he meant to address to Kutuzov for his deception. He +would make that foxy old courtier feel that the responsibility for all +the calamities that would follow the abandonment of the city and the +ruin of Russia (as Rostopchin regarded it) would fall upon his doting +old head. Planning beforehand what he would say to Kutuzov, Rostopchin +turned angrily in his caleche and gazed sternly from side to side. + +The Sokolniki field was deserted. Only at the end of it, in front of the +almshouse and the lunatic asylum, could be seen some people in white and +others like them walking singly across the field shouting and +gesticulating. + +One of these was running to cross the path of Count Rostopchin's +carriage, and the count himself, his coachman, and his dragoons looked +with vague horror and curiosity at these released lunatics and +especially at the one running toward them. + +Swaying from side to side on his long, thin legs in his fluttering +dressing gown, this lunatic was running impetuously, his gaze fixed on +Rostopchin, shouting something in a hoarse voice and making signs to him +to stop. The lunatic's solemn, gloomy face was thin and yellow, with its +beard growing in uneven tufts. His black, agate pupils with saffron- +yellow whites moved restlessly near the lower eyelids. + +"Stop! Pull up, I tell you!" he cried in a piercing voice, and again +shouted something breathlessly with emphatic intonations and gestures. + +Coming abreast of the caleche he ran beside it. + +"Thrice have they slain me, thrice have I risen from the dead. They +stoned me, crucified me... I shall rise... shall rise... shall rise. +They have torn my body. The kingdom of God will be overthrown... Thrice +will I overthrow it and thrice re-establish it!" he cried, raising his +voice higher and higher. + +Count Rostopchin suddenly grew pale as he had done when the crowd closed +in on Vereshchagin. He turned away. "Go fas... faster!" he cried in a +trembling voice to his coachman. The caleche flew over the ground as +fast as the horses could draw it, but for a long time Count Rostopchin +still heard the insane despairing screams growing fainter in the +distance, while his eyes saw nothing but the astonished, frightened, +bloodstained face of "the traitor" in the fur-lined coat. + +Recent as that mental picture was, Rostopchin already felt that it had +cut deep into his heart and drawn blood. Even now he felt clearly that +the gory trace of that recollection would not pass with time, but that +the terrible memory would, on the contrary, dwell in his heart ever more +cruelly and painfully to the end of his life. He seemed still to hear +the sound of his own words: "Cut him down! I command it...." + +"Why did I utter those words? It was by some accident I said them.... I +need not have said them," he thought. "And then nothing would have +happened." He saw the frightened and then infuriated face of the dragoon +who dealt the blow, the look of silent, timid reproach that boy in the +fur-lined coat had turned upon him. "But I did not do it for my own +sake. I was bound to act that way.... The mob, the traitor... the public +welfare," thought he. + +Troops were still crowding at the Yauza bridge. It was hot. Kutuzov, +dejected and frowning, sat on a bench by the bridge toying with his whip +in the sand when a caleche dashed up noisily. A man in a general's +uniform with plumes in his hat went up to Kutuzov and said something in +French. It was Count Rostopchin. He told Kutuzov that he had come +because Moscow, the capital, was no more and only the army remained. + +"Things would have been different if your Serene Highness had not told +me that you would not abandon Moscow without another battle; all this +would not have happened," he said. + +Kutuzov looked at Rostopchin as if, not grasping what was said to him, +he was trying to read something peculiar written at that moment on the +face of the man addressing him. Rostopchin grew confused and became +silent. Kutuzov slightly shook his head and not taking his penetrating +gaze from Rostopchin's face muttered softly: + +"No! I shall not give up Moscow without a battle!" + +Whether Kutuzov was thinking of something entirely different when he +spoke those words, or uttered them purposely, knowing them to be +meaningless, at any rate Rostopchin made no reply and hastily left him. +And strange to say, the Governor of Moscow, the proud Count Rostopchin, +took up a Cossack whip and went to the bridge where he began with shouts +to drive on the carts that blocked the way. + + + + +CHAPTER XXVI + +Toward four o'clock in the afternoon Murat's troops were entering +Moscow. In front rode a detachment of Wurttemberg hussars and behind +them rode the King of Naples himself accompanied by a numerous suite. + +About the middle of the Arbat Street, near the Church of the Miraculous +Icon of St. Nicholas, Murat halted to await news from the advanced +detachment as to the condition in which they had found the citadel, le +Kremlin. + +Around Murat gathered a group of those who had remained in Moscow. They +all stared in timid bewilderment at the strange, long-haired commander +dressed up in feathers and gold. + +"Is that their Tsar himself? He's not bad!" low voices could be heard +saying. + +An interpreter rode up to the group. + +"Take off your cap... your caps!" These words went from one to another +in the crowd. The interpreter addressed an old porter and asked if it +was far to the Kremlin. The porter, listening in perplexity to the +unfamiliar Polish accent and not realizing that the interpreter was +speaking Russian, did not understand what was being said to him and +slipped behind the others. + +Murat approached the interpreter and told him to ask where the Russian +army was. One of the Russians understood what was asked and several +voices at once began answering the interpreter. A French officer, +returning from the advanced detachment, rode up to Murat and reported +that the gates of the citadel had been barricaded and that there was +probably an ambuscade there. + +"Good!" said Murat and, turning to one of the gentlemen in his suite, +ordered four light guns to be moved forward to fire at the gates. + +The guns emerged at a trot from the column following Murat and advanced +up the Arbat. When they reached the end of the Vozdvizhenka Street they +halted and drew in the Square. Several French officers superintended the +placing of the guns and looked at the Kremlin through field glasses. + +The bells in the Kremlin were ringing for vespers, and this sound +troubled the French. They imagined it to be a call to arms. A few +infantrymen ran to the Kutafyev Gate. Beams and wooden screens had been +put there, and two musket shots rang out from under the gate as soon as +an officer and men began to run toward it. A general who was standing by +the guns shouted some words of command to the officer, and the latter +ran back again with his men. + +The sound of three more shots came from the gate. + +One shot struck a French soldier's foot, and from behind the screens +came the strange sound of a few voices shouting. Instantly as at a word +of command the expression of cheerful serenity on the faces of the +French general, officers, and men changed to one of determined +concentrated readiness for strife and suffering. To all of them from the +marshal to the least soldier, that place was not the Vozdvizhenka, +Mokhavaya, or Kutafyev Street, nor the Troitsa Gate (places familiar in +Moscow), but a new battlefield which would probably prove sanguinary. +And all made ready for that battle. The cries from the gates ceased. The +guns were advanced, the artillerymen blew the ash off their linstocks, +and an officer gave the word "Fire!" This was followed by two whistling +sounds of canister shot, one after another. The shot rattled against the +stone of the gate and upon the wooden beams and screens, and two +wavering clouds of smoke rose over the Square. + +A few instants after the echo of the reports resounding over the stone- +built Kremlin had died away the French heard a strange sound above their +head. Thousands of crows rose above the walls and circled in the air, +cawing and noisily flapping their wings. Together with that sound came a +solitary human cry from the gateway and amid the smoke appeared the +figure of a bareheaded man in a peasant's coat. He grasped a musket and +took aim at the French. "Fire!" repeated the officer once more, and the +reports of a musket and of two cannon shots were heard simultaneously. +The gate was again hidden by smoke. + +Nothing more stirred behind the screens and the French infantry soldiers +and officers advanced to the gate. In the gateway lay three wounded and +four dead. Two men in peasant coats ran away at the foot of the wall, +toward the Znamenka. + +"Clear that away!" said the officer, pointing to the beams and the +corpses, and the French soldiers, after dispatching the wounded, threw +the corpses over the parapet. + +Who these men were nobody knew. "Clear that away!" was all that was said +of them, and they were thrown over the parapet and removed later on that +they might not stink. Thiers alone dedicates a few eloquent lines to +their memory: "These wretches had occupied the sacred citadel, having +supplied themselves with guns from the arsenal, and fired" (the +wretches) "at the French. Some of them were sabered and the Kremlin was +purged of their presence." + +Murat was informed that the way had been cleared. The French entered the +gates and began pitching their camp in the Senate Square. Out of the +windows of the Senate House the soldiers threw chairs into the Square +for fuel and kindled fires there. + +Other detachments passed through the Kremlin and encamped along the +Moroseyka, the Lubyanka, and Pokrovka Streets. Others quartered +themselves along the Vozdvizhenka, the Nikolski, and the Tverskoy +Streets. No masters of the houses being found anywhere, the French were +not billeted on the inhabitants as is usual in towns but lived in it as +in a camp. + +Though tattered, hungry, worn out, and reduced to a third of their +original number, the French entered Moscow in good marching order. It +was a weary and famished, but still a fighting and menacing army. But it +remained an army only until its soldiers had dispersed into their +different lodgings. As soon as the men of the various regiments began to +disperse among the wealthy and deserted houses, the army was lost +forever and there came into being something nondescript, neither +citizens nor soldiers but what are known as marauders. When five weeks +later these same men left Moscow, they no longer formed an army. They +were a mob of marauders, each carrying a quantity of articles which +seemed to him valuable or useful. The aim of each man when he left +Moscow was no longer, as it had been, to conquer, but merely to keep +what he had acquired. Like a monkey which puts its paw into the narrow +neck of a jug, and having seized a handful of nuts will not open its +fist for fear of losing what it holds, and therefore perishes, the +French when they left Moscow had inevitably to perish because they +carried their loot with them, yet to abandon what they had stolen was as +impossible for them as it is for the monkey to open its paw and let go +of its nuts. Ten minutes after each regiment had entered a Moscow +district, not a soldier or officer was left. Men in military uniforms +and Hessian boots could be seen through the windows, laughing and +walking through the rooms. In cellars and storerooms similar men were +busy among the provisions, and in the yards unlocking or breaking open +coach house and stable doors, lighting fires in kitchens and kneading +and baking bread with rolled-up sleeves, and cooking; or frightening, +amusing, or caressing women and children. There were many such men both +in the shops and houses--but there was no army. + +Order after order was issued by the French commanders that day +forbidding the men to disperse about the town, sternly forbidding any +violence to the inhabitants or any looting, and announcing a roll call +for that very evening. But despite all these measures the men, who had +till then constituted an army, flowed all over the wealthy, deserted +city with its comforts and plentiful supplies. As a hungry herd of +cattle keeps well together when crossing a barren field, but gets out of +hand and at once disperses uncontrollably as soon as it reaches rich +pastures, so did the army disperse all over the wealthy city. + +No residents were left in Moscow, and the soldiers--like water +percolating through sand--spread irresistibly through the city in all +directions from the Kremlin into which they had first marched. The +cavalry, on entering a merchant's house that had been abandoned and +finding there stabling more than sufficient for their horses, went on, +all the same, to the next house which seemed to them better. Many of +them appropriated several houses, chalked their names on them, and +quarreled and even fought with other companies for them. Before they had +had time to secure quarters the soldiers ran out into the streets to see +the city and, hearing that everything had been abandoned, rushed to +places where valuables were to be had for the taking. The officers +followed to check the soldiers and were involuntarily drawn into doing +the same. In Carriage Row carriages had been left in the shops, and +generals flocked there to select caleches and coaches for themselves. +The few inhabitants who had remained invited commanding officers to +their houses, hoping thereby to secure themselves from being plundered. +There were masses of wealth and there seemed no end to it. All around +the quarters occupied by the French were other regions still unexplored +and unoccupied where, they thought, yet greater riches might be found. +And Moscow engulfed the army ever deeper and deeper. When water is +spilled on dry ground both the dry ground and the water disappear and +mud results; and in the same way the entry of the famished army into the +rich and deserted city resulted in fires and looting and the destruction +of both the army and the wealthy city. + +The French attributed the Fire of Moscow au patriotisme feroce de +Rostopchine, * the Russians to the barbarity of the French. In reality, +however, it was not, and could not be, possible to explain the burning +of Moscow by making any individual, or any group of people, responsible +for it. Moscow was burned because it found itself in a position in which +any town built of wood was bound to burn, quite apart from whether it +had, or had not, a hundred and thirty inferior fire engines. Deserted +Moscow had to burn as inevitably as a heap of shavings has to burn on +which sparks continually fall for several days. A town built of wood, +where scarcely a day passes without conflagrations when the house owners +are in residence and a police force is present, cannot help burning when +its inhabitants have left it and it is occupied by soldiers who smoke +pipes, make campfires of the Senate chairs in the Senate Square, and +cook themselves meals twice a day. In peacetime it is only necessary to +billet troops in the villages of any district and the number of fires in +that district immediately increases. How much then must the probability +of fire be increased in an abandoned, wooden town where foreign troops +are quartered. "Le patriotisme feroce de Rostopchine" and the barbarity +of the French were not to blame in the matter. Moscow was set on fire by +the soldiers' pipes, kitchens, and campfires, and by the carelessness of +enemy soldiers occupying houses they did not own. Even if there was any +arson (which is very doubtful, for no one had any reason to burn the +houses--in any case a troublesome and dangerous thing to do), arson +cannot be regarded as the cause, for the same thing would have happened +without any incendiarism. + + +* To Rostopchin's ferocious patriotism. + +However tempting it might be for the French to blame Rostopchin's +ferocity and for Russians to blame the scoundrel Bonaparte, or later on +to place an heroic torch in the hands of their own people, it is +impossible not to see that there could be no such direct cause of the +fire, for Moscow had to burn as every village, factory, or house must +burn which is left by its owners and in which strangers are allowed to +live and cook their porridge. Moscow was burned by its inhabitants, it +is true, but by those who had abandoned it and not by those who remained +in it. Moscow when occupied by the enemy did not remain intact like +Berlin, Vienna, and other towns, simply because its inhabitants +abandoned it and did not welcome the French with bread and salt, nor +bring them the keys of the city. + + + + +CHAPTER XXVII + +The absorption of the French by Moscow, radiating starwise as it did, +only reached the quarter where Pierre was staying by the evening of the +second of September. + +After the last two days spent in solitude and unusual circumstances, +Pierre was in a state bordering on insanity. He was completely obsessed +by one persistent thought. He did not know how or when this thought had +taken such possession of him, but he remembered nothing of the past, +understood nothing of the present, and all he saw and heard appeared to +him like a dream. + +He had left home only to escape the intricate tangle of life's demands +that enmeshed him, and which in his present condition he was unable to +unravel. He had gone to Joseph Alexeevich's house, on the plea of +sorting the deceased's books and papers, only in search of rest from +life's turmoil, for in his mind the memory of Joseph Alexeevich was +connected with a world of eternal, solemn, and calm thoughts, quite +contrary to the restless confusion into which he felt himself being +drawn. He sought a quiet refuge, and in Joseph Alexeevich's study he +really found it. When he sat with his elbows on the dusty writing table +in the deathlike stillness of the study, calm and significant memories +of the last few days rose one after another in his imagination, +particularly of the battle of Borodino and of that vague sense of his +own insignificance and insincerity compared with the truth, simplicity, +and strength of the class of men he mentally classed as they. When +Gerasim roused him from his reverie the idea occurred to him of taking +part in the popular defense of Moscow which he knew was projected. And +with that object he had asked Gerasim to get him a peasant's coat and a +pistol, confiding to him his intentions of remaining in Joseph +Alexeevich's house and keeping his name secret. Then during the first +day spent in inaction and solitude (he tried several times to fix his +attention on the masonic manuscripts, but was unable to do so) the idea +that had previously occurred to him of the cabalistic significance of +his name in connection with Bonaparte's more than once vaguely presented +itself. But the idea that he, L'russe Besuhof, was destined to set a +limit to the power of the Beast was as yet only one of the fancies that +often passed through his mind and left no trace behind. + +When, having bought the coat merely with the object of taking part among +the people in the defense of Moscow, Pierre had met the Rostovs and +Natasha had said to him: "Are you remaining in Moscow?... How splendid!" +the thought flashed into his mind that it really would be a good thing, +even if Moscow were taken, for him to remain there and do what he was +predestined to do. + +Next day, with the sole idea of not sparing himself and not lagging in +any way behind them, Pierre went to the Three Hills gate. But when he +returned to the house convinced that Moscow would not be defended, he +suddenly felt that what before had seemed to him merely a possibility +had now become absolutely necessary and inevitable. He must remain in +Moscow, concealing his name, and must meet Napoleon and kill him, and +either perish or put an end to the misery of all Europe--which it seemed +to him was solely due to Napoleon. + +Pierre knew all the details of the attempt on Bonaparte's life in 1809 +by a German student in Vienna, and knew that the student had been shot. +And the risk to which he would expose his life by carrying out his +design excited him still more. + +Two equally strong feelings drew Pierre irresistibly to this purpose. +The first was a feeling of the necessity of sacrifice and suffering in +view of the common calamity, the same feeling that had caused him to go +to Mozhaysk on the twenty-fifth and to make his way to the very thick of +the battle and had now caused him to run away from his home and, in +place of the luxury and comfort to which he was accustomed, to sleep on +a hard sofa without undressing and eat the same food as Gerasim. The +other was that vague and quite Russian feeling of contempt for +everything conventional, artificial, and human--for everything the +majority of men regard as the greatest good in the world. Pierre had +first experienced this strange and fascinating feeling at the Sloboda +Palace, when he had suddenly felt that wealth, power, and life--all that +men so painstakingly acquire and guard--if it has any worth has so only +by reason of the joy with which it can all be renounced. + +It was the feeling that induces a volunteer recruit to spend his last +penny on drink, and a drunken man to smash mirrors or glasses for no +apparent reason and knowing that it will cost him all the money he +possesses: the feeling which causes a man to perform actions which from +an ordinary point of view are insane, to test, as it were, his personal +power and strength, affirming the existence of a higher, nonhuman +criterion of life. + +From the very day Pierre had experienced this feeling for the first time +at the Sloboda Palace he had been continuously under its influence, but +only now found full satisfaction for it. Moreover, at this moment Pierre +was supported in his design and prevented from renouncing it by what he +had already done in that direction. If he were now to leave Moscow like +everyone else, his flight from home, the peasant coat, the pistol, and +his announcement to the Rostovs that he would remain in Moscow would all +become not merely meaningless but contemptible and ridiculous, and to +this Pierre was very sensitive. + +Pierre's physical condition, as is always the case, corresponded to his +mental state. The unaccustomed coarse food, the vodka he drank during +those days, the absence of wine and cigars, his dirty unchanged linen, +two almost sleepless nights passed on a short sofa without bedding--all +this kept him in a state of excitement bordering on insanity. + +It was two o'clock in the afternoon. The French had already entered +Moscow. Pierre knew this, but instead of acting he only thought about +his undertaking, going over its minutest details in his mind. In his +fancy he did not clearly picture to himself either the striking of the +blow or the death of Napoleon, but with extraordinary vividness and +melancholy enjoyment imagined his own destruction and heroic endurance. + +"Yes, alone, for the sake of all, I must do it or perish!" he thought. +"Yes, I will approach... and then suddenly... with pistol or dagger? But +that is all the same! 'It is not I but the hand of Providence that +punishes thee,' I shall say," thought he, imagining what he would say +when killing Napoleon. "Well then, take me and execute me!" he went on, +speaking to himself and bowing his head with a sad but firm expression. + +While Pierre, standing in the middle of the room, was talking to himself +in this way, the study door opened and on the threshold appeared the +figure of Makar Alexeevich, always so timid before but now quite +transformed. + +His dressing gown was unfastened, his face red and distorted. He was +obviously drunk. On seeing Pierre he grew confused at first, but +noticing embarrassment on Pierre's face immediately grew bold and, +staggering on his thin legs, advanced into the middle of the room. + +"They're frightened," he said confidentially in a hoarse voice. "I say I +won't surrender, I say... Am I not right, sir?" + +He paused and then suddenly seeing the pistol on the table seized it +with unexpected rapidity and ran out into the corridor. + +Gerasim and the porter, who had followed Makar Alexeevich, stopped him +in the vestibule and tried to take the pistol from him. Pierre, coming +out into the corridor, looked with pity and repulsion at the half-crazy +old man. Makar Alexeevich, frowning with exertion, held on to the pistol +and screamed hoarsely, evidently with some heroic fancy in his head. + +"To arms! Board them! No, you shan't get it," he yelled. + +"That will do, please, that will do. Have the goodness--please, sir, to +let go! Please, sir..." pleaded Gerasim, trying carefully to steer Makar +Alexeevich by the elbows back to the door. + +"Who are you? Bonaparte!..." shouted Makar Alexeevich. + +"That's not right, sir. Come to your room, please, and rest. Allow me to +have the pistol." + +"Be off, thou base slave! Touch me not! See this?" shouted Makar +Alexeevich, brandishing the pistol. "Board them!" + +"Catch hold!" whispered Gerasim to the porter. + +They seized Makar Alexeevich by the arms and dragged him to the door. + +The vestibule was filled with the discordant sounds of a struggle and of +a tipsy, hoarse voice. + +Suddenly a fresh sound, a piercing feminine scream, reverberated from +the porch and the cook came running into the vestibule. + +"It's them! Gracious heavens! O Lord, four of them, horsemen!" she +cried. + +Gerasim and the porter let Makar Alexeevich go, and in the now silent +corridor the sound of several hands knocking at the front door could be +heard. + + + + +CHAPTER XXVIII + +Pierre, having decided that until he had carried out his design he would +disclose neither his identity nor his knowledge of French, stood at the +half-open door of the corridor, intending to conceal himself as soon as +the French entered. But the French entered and still Pierre did not +retire--an irresistible curiosity kept him there. + +There were two of them. One was an officer--a tall, soldierly, handsome +man--the other evidently a private or an orderly, sunburned, short, and +thin, with sunken cheeks and a dull expression. The officer walked in +front, leaning on a stick and slightly limping. When he had advanced a +few steps he stopped, having apparently decided that these were good +quarters, turned round to the soldiers standing at the entrance, and in +a loud voice of command ordered them to put up the horses. Having done +that, the officer, lifting his elbow with a smart gesture, stroked his +mustache and lightly touched his hat. + +"Bonjour, la compagnie!" * said he gaily, smiling and looking about him. + + +* "Good day, everybody!" + +No one gave any reply. + +"Vous etes le bourgeois?" * the officer asked Gerasim. + + +* "Are you the master here?" + +Gerasim gazed at the officer with an alarmed and inquiring look. + +"Quartier, quartier, logement!" said the officer, looking down at the +little man with a condescending and good-natured smile. "Les francais +sont de bons enfants. Que diable! Voyons! Ne nous fachons pas, mon +vieux!" * added he, clapping the scared and silent Gerasim on the +shoulder. "Well, does no one speak French in this establishment?" he +asked again in French, looking around and meeting Pierre's eyes. Pierre +moved away from the door. + + +* "Quarters, quarters, lodgings! The French are good fellows. What the +devil! There, don't let us be cross, old fellow!" + +Again the officer turned to Gerasim and asked him to show him the rooms +in the house. + +"Master, not here--don't understand... me, you..." said Gerasim, trying +to render his words more comprehensible by contorting them. + +Still smiling, the French officer spread out his hands before Gerasim's +nose, intimating that he did not understand him either, and moved, +limping, to the door at which Pierre was standing. Pierre wished to go +away and conceal himself, but at that moment he saw Makar Alexeevich +appearing at the open kitchen door with the pistol in his hand. With a +madman's cunning, Makar Alexeevich eyed the Frenchman, raised his +pistol, and took aim. + +"Board them!" yelled the tipsy man, trying to press the trigger. Hearing +the yell the officer turned round, and at the same moment Pierre threw +himself on the drunkard. Just when Pierre snatched at and struck up the +pistol Makar Alexeevich at last got his fingers on the trigger, there +was a deafening report, and all were enveloped in a cloud of smoke. The +Frenchman turned pale and rushed to the door. + +Forgetting his intention of concealing his knowledge of French, Pierre, +snatching away the pistol and throwing it down, ran up to the officer +and addressed him in French. + +"You are not wounded?" he asked. + +"I think not," answered the Frenchman, feeling himself over. "But I have +had a lucky escape this time," he added, pointing to the damaged plaster +of the wall. "Who is that man?" said he, looking sternly at Pierre. + +"Oh, I am really in despair at what has occurred," said Pierre rapidly, +quite forgetting the part he had intended to play. "He is an unfortunate +madman who did not know what he was doing." + +The officer went up to Makar Alexeevich and took him by the collar. + +Makar Alexeevich was standing with parted lips, swaying, as if about to +fall asleep, as he leaned against the wall. + +"Brigand! You shall pay for this," said the Frenchman, letting go of +him. "We French are merciful after victory, but we do not pardon +traitors," he added, with a look of gloomy dignity and a fine energetic +gesture. + +Pierre continued, in French, to persuade the officer not to hold that +drunken imbecile to account. The Frenchman listened in silence with the +same gloomy expression, but suddenly turned to Pierre with a smile. For +a few seconds he looked at him in silence. His handsome face assumed a +melodramatically gentle expression and he held out his hand. + +"You have saved my life. You are French," said he. + +For a Frenchman that deduction was indubitable. Only a Frenchman could +perform a great deed, and to save his life--the life of M. Ramballe, +captain of the 13th Light Regiment--was undoubtedly a very great deed. + +But however indubitable that conclusion and the officer's conviction +based upon it, Pierre felt it necessary to disillusion him. + +"I am Russian," he said quickly. + +"Tut, tut, tut! Tell that to others," said the officer, waving his +finger before his nose and smiling. "You shall tell me all about that +presently. I am delighted to meet a compatriot. Well, and what are we to +do with this man?" he added, addressing himself to Pierre as to a +brother. + +Even if Pierre were not a Frenchman, having once received that loftiest +of human appellations he could not renounce it, said the officer's look +and tone. In reply to his last question Pierre again explained who Makar +Alexeevich was and how just before their arrival that drunken imbecile +had seized the loaded pistol which they had not had time to recover from +him, and begged the officer to let the deed go unpunished. + +The Frenchman expanded his chest and made a majestic gesture with his +arm. + +"You have saved my life! You are French. You ask his pardon? I grant it +you. Lead that man away!" said he quickly and energetically, and taking +the arm of Pierre whom he had promoted to be a Frenchman for saving his +life, he went with him into the room. + +The soldiers in the yard, hearing the shot, came into the passage asking +what had happened, and expressed their readiness to punish the culprits, +but the officer sternly checked them. + +"You will be called in when you are wanted," he said. + +The soldiers went out again, and the orderly, who had meanwhile had time +to visit the kitchen, came up to his officer. + +"Captain, there is soup and a leg of mutton in the kitchen," said he. +"Shall I serve them up?" + +"Yes, and some wine," answered the captain. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIX + +When the French officer went into the room with Pierre the latter again +thought it his duty to assure him that he was not French and wished to +go away, but the officer would not hear of it. He was so very polite, +amiable, good-natured, and genuinely grateful to Pierre for saving his +life that Pierre had not the heart to refuse, and sat down with him in +the parlor--the first room they entered. To Pierre's assurances that he +was not a Frenchman, the captain, evidently not understanding how anyone +could decline so flattering an appellation, shrugged his shoulders and +said that if Pierre absolutely insisted on passing for a Russian let it +be so, but for all that he would be forever bound to Pierre by gratitude +for saving his life. + +Had this man been endowed with the slightest capacity for perceiving the +feelings of others, and had he at all understood what Pierre's feelings +were, the latter would probably have left him, but the man's animated +obtuseness to everything other than himself disarmed Pierre. + +"A Frenchman or a Russian prince incognito," said the officer, looking +at Pierre's fine though dirty linen and at the ring on his finger. "I +owe my life to you and offer you my friendship. A Frenchman never +forgets either an insult or a service. I offer you my friendship. That +is all I can say." + +There was so much good nature and nobility (in the French sense of the +word) in the officer's voice, in the expression of his face and in his +gestures, that Pierre, unconsciously smiling in response to the +Frenchman's smile, pressed the hand held out to him. + +"Captain Ramballe, of the 13th Light Regiment, Chevalier of the Legion +of Honor for the affair on the seventh of September," he introduced +himself, a self-satisfied irrepressible smile puckering his lips under +his mustache. "Will you now be so good as to tell me with whom I have +the honor of conversing so pleasantly, instead of being in the ambulance +with that maniac's bullet in my body?" + +Pierre replied that he could not tell him his name and, blushing, began +to try to invent a name and to say something about his reason for +concealing it, but the Frenchman hastily interrupted him. + +"Oh, please!" said he. "I understand your reasons. You are an officer... +a superior officer perhaps. You have borne arms against us. That's not +my business. I owe you my life. That is enough for me. I am quite at +your service. You belong to the gentry?" he concluded with a shade of +inquiry in his tone. Pierre bent his head. "Your baptismal name, if you +please. That is all I ask. Monsieur Pierre, you say.... That's all I +want to know." + +When the mutton and an omelet had been served and a samovar and vodka +brought, with some wine which the French had taken from a Russian cellar +and brought with them, Ramballe invited Pierre to share his dinner, and +himself began to eat greedily and quickly like a healthy and hungry man, +munching his food rapidly with his strong teeth, continually smacking +his lips, and repeating--"Excellent! Delicious!" His face grew red and +was covered with perspiration. Pierre was hungry and shared the dinner +with pleasure. Morel, the orderly, brought some hot water in a saucepan +and placed a bottle of claret in it. He also brought a bottle of kvass, +taken from the kitchen for them to try. That beverage was already known +to the French and had been given a special name. They called it limonade +de cochon (pig's lemonade), and Morel spoke well of the limonade de +cochon he had found in the kitchen. But as the captain had the wine they +had taken while passing through Moscow, he left the kvass to Morel and +applied himself to the bottle of Bordeaux. He wrapped the bottle up to +its neck in a table napkin and poured out wine for himself and for +Pierre. The satisfaction of his hunger and the wine rendered the captain +still more lively and he chatted incessantly all through dinner. + +"Yes, my dear Monsieur Pierre, I owe you a fine votive candle for saving +me from that maniac.... You see, I have bullets enough in my body +already. Here is one I got at Wagram" (he touched his side) "and a +second at Smolensk"--he showed a scar on his cheek--"and this leg which +as you see does not want to march, I got that on the seventh at the +great battle of la Moskowa. Sacre Dieu! It was splendid! That deluge of +fire was worth seeing. It was a tough job you set us there, my word! You +may be proud of it! And on my honor, in spite of the cough I caught +there, I should be ready to begin again. I pity those who did not see +it." + +"I was there," said Pierre. + +"Bah, really? So much the better! You are certainly brave foes. The +great redoubt held out well, by my pipe!" continued the Frenchman. "And +you made us pay dear for it. I was at it three times--sure as I sit +here. Three times we reached the guns and three times we were thrown +back like cardboard figures. Oh, it was beautiful, Monsieur Pierre! Your +grenadiers were splendid, by heaven! I saw them close up their ranks six +times in succession and march as if on parade. Fine fellows! Our King of +Naples, who knows what's what, cried 'Bravo!' Ha, ha! So you are one of +us soldiers!" he added, smiling, after a momentary pause. "So much the +better, so much the better, Monsieur Pierre! Terrible in battle... +gallant... with the fair" (he winked and smiled), "that's what the +French are, Monsieur Pierre, aren't they?" + +The captain was so naively and good-humoredly gay, so real, and so +pleased with himself that Pierre almost winked back as he looked merrily +at him. Probably the word "gallant" turned the captain's thoughts to the +state of Moscow. + +"Apropos, tell me please, is it true that the women have all left +Moscow? What a queer idea! What had they to be afraid of?" + +"Would not the French ladies leave Paris if the Russians entered it?" +asked Pierre. + +"Ha, ha, ha!" The Frenchman emitted a merry, sanguine chuckle, patting +Pierre on the shoulder. "What a thing to say!" he exclaimed. "Paris?... +But Paris, Paris..." + +"Paris--the capital of the world," Pierre finished his remark for him. + +The captain looked at Pierre. He had a habit of stopping short in the +middle of his talk and gazing intently with his laughing, kindly eyes. + +"Well, if you hadn't told me you were Russian, I should have wagered +that you were Parisian! You have that... I don't know what, that..." and +having uttered this compliment, he again gazed at him in silence. + +"I have been in Paris. I spent years there," said Pierre. + +"Oh yes, one sees that plainly. Paris!... A man who doesn't know Paris +is a savage. You can tell a Parisian two leagues off. Paris is Talma, la +Duchenois, Potier, the Sorbonne, the boulevards," and noticing that his +conclusion was weaker than what had gone before, he added quickly: +"There is only one Paris in the world. You have been to Paris and have +remained Russian. Well, I don't esteem you the less for it." + +Under the influence of the wine he had drunk, and after the days he had +spent alone with his depressing thoughts, Pierre involuntarily enjoyed +talking with this cheerful and good-natured man. + +"To return to your ladies--I hear they are lovely. What a wretched idea +to go and bury themselves in the steppes when the French army is in +Moscow. What a chance those girls have missed! Your peasants, now-- +that's another thing; but you civilized people, you ought to know us +better than that. We took Vienna, Berlin, Madrid, Naples, Rome, Warsaw, +all the world's capitals.... We are feared, but we are loved. We are +nice to know. And then the Emperor..." he began, but Pierre interrupted +him. + +"The Emperor," Pierre repeated, and his face suddenly became sad and +embarrassed, "is the Emperor...?" + +"The Emperor? He is generosity, mercy, justice, order, genius--that's +what the Emperor is! It is I, Ramballe, who tell you so.... I assure you +I was his enemy eight years ago. My father was an emigrant count.... But +that man has vanquished me. He has taken hold of me. I could not resist +the sight of the grandeur and glory with which he has covered France. +When I understood what he wanted--when I saw that he was preparing a bed +of laurels for us, you know, I said to myself: 'That is a monarch,' and +I devoted myself to him! So there! Oh yes, mon cher, he is the greatest +man of the ages past or future." + +"Is he in Moscow?" Pierre stammered with a guilty look. + +The Frenchman looked at his guilty face and smiled. + +"No, he will make his entry tomorrow," he replied, and continued his +talk. + +Their conversation was interrupted by the cries of several voices at the +gate and by Morel, who came to say that some Wurttemberg hussars had +come and wanted to put up their horses in the yard where the captain's +horses were. This difficulty had arisen chiefly because the hussars did +not understand what was said to them in French. + +The captain had their senior sergeant called in, and in a stern voice +asked him to what regiment he belonged, who was his commanding officer, +and by what right he allowed himself to claim quarters that were already +occupied. The German who knew little French, answered the two first +questions by giving the names of his regiment and of his commanding +officer, but in reply to the third question which he did not understand +said, introducing broken French into his own German, that he was the +quartermaster of the regiment and his commander had ordered him to +occupy all the houses one after another. Pierre, who knew German, +translated what the German said to the captain and gave the captain's +reply to the Wurttemberg hussar in German. When he had understood what +was said to him, the German submitted and took his men elsewhere. The +captain went out into the porch and gave some orders in a loud voice. + +When he returned to the room Pierre was sitting in the same place as +before, with his head in his hands. His face expressed suffering. He +really was suffering at that moment. When the captain went out and he +was left alone, suddenly he came to himself and realized the position he +was in. It was not that Moscow had been taken or that the happy +conquerors were masters in it and were patronizing him. Painful as that +was it was not that which tormented Pierre at the moment. He was +tormented by the consciousness of his own weakness. The few glasses of +wine he had drunk and the conversation with this good-natured man had +destroyed the mood of concentrated gloom in which he had spent the last +few days and which was essential for the execution of his design. The +pistol, dagger, and peasant coat were ready. Napoleon was to enter the +town next day. Pierre still considered that it would be a useful and +worthy action to slay the evildoer, but now he felt that he would not do +it. He did not know why, but he felt a foreboding that he would not +carry out his intention. He struggled against the confession of his +weakness but dimly felt that he could not overcome it and that his +former gloomy frame of mind, concerning vengeance, killing, and self- +sacrifice, had been dispersed like dust by contact with the first man he +met. + +The captain returned to the room, limping slightly and whistling a tune. + +The Frenchman's chatter which had previously amused Pierre now repelled +him. The tune he was whistling, his gait, and the gesture with which he +twirled his mustache, all now seemed offensive. "I will go away +immediately. I won't say another word to him," thought Pierre. He +thought this, but still sat in the same place. A strange feeling of +weakness tied him to the spot; he wished to get up and go away, but +could not do so. + +The captain, on the other hand, seemed very cheerful. He paced up and +down the room twice. His eyes shone and his mustache twitched as if he +were smiling to himself at some amusing thought. + +"The colonel of those Wurttembergers is delightful," he suddenly said. +"He's a German, but a nice fellow all the same.... But he's a German." +He sat down facing Pierre. "By the way, you know German, then?" + +Pierre looked at him in silence. + +"What is the German for 'shelter'?" + +"Shelter?" Pierre repeated. "The German for shelter is Unterkunft." + +"How do you say it?" the captain asked quickly and doubtfully. + +"Unterkunft," Pierre repeated. + +"Onterkoff," said the captain and looked at Pierre for some seconds with +laughing eyes. "These Germans are first-rate fools, don't you think so, +Monsieur Pierre?" he concluded. + +"Well, let's have another bottle of this Moscow Bordeaux, shall we? +Morel will warm us up another little bottle. Morel!" he called out +gaily. + +Morel brought candles and a bottle of wine. The captain looked at Pierre +by the candlelight and was evidently struck by the troubled expression +on his companion's face. Ramballe, with genuine distress and sympathy in +his face, went up to Pierre and bent over him. + +"There now, we're sad," said he, touching Pierre's hand. "Have I upset +you? No, really, have you anything against me?" he asked Pierre. +"Perhaps it's the state of affairs?" + +Pierre did not answer, but looked cordially into the Frenchman's eyes +whose expression of sympathy was pleasing to him. + +"Honestly, without speaking of what I owe you, I feel friendship for +you. Can I do anything for you? Dispose of me. It is for life and death. +I say it with my hand on my heart!" said he, striking his chest. + +"Thank you," said Pierre. + +The captain gazed intently at him as he had done when he learned that +"shelter" was Unterkunft in German, and his face suddenly brightened. + +"Well, in that case, I drink to our friendship!" he cried gaily, filling +two glasses with wine. + +Pierre took one of the glasses and emptied it. Ramballe emptied his too, +again pressed Pierre's hand, and leaned his elbows on the table in a +pensive attitude. + +"Yes, my dear friend," he began, "such is fortune's caprice. Who would +have said that I should be a soldier and a captain of dragoons in the +service of Bonaparte, as we used to call him? Yet here I am in Moscow +with him. I must tell you, mon cher," he continued in the sad and +measured tones of a man who intends to tell a long story, "that our name +is one of the most ancient in France." + +And with a Frenchman's easy and naive frankness the captain told Pierre +the story of his ancestors, his childhood, youth, and manhood, and all +about his relations and his financial and family affairs, "ma pauvre +mere" playing of course an important part in the story. + +"But all that is only life's setting, the real thing is love--love! Am I +not right, Monsieur Pierre?" said he, growing animated. "Another glass?" + +Pierre again emptied his glass and poured himself out a third. + +"Oh, women, women!" and the captain, looking with glistening eyes at +Pierre, began talking of love and of his love affairs. + +There were very many of these, as one could easily believe, looking at +the officer's handsome, self-satisfied face, and noting the eager +enthusiasm with which he spoke of women. Though all Ramballe's love +stories had the sensual character which Frenchmen regard as the special +charm and poetry of love, yet he told his story with such sincere +conviction that he alone had experienced and known all the charm of love +and he described women so alluringly that Pierre listened to him with +curiosity. + +It was plain that l'amour which the Frenchman was so fond of was not +that low and simple kind that Pierre had once felt for his wife, nor was +it the romantic love stimulated by himself that he experienced for +Natasha. (Ramballe despised both these kinds of love equally: the one he +considered the "love of clodhoppers" and the other the "love of +simpletons.") L'amour which the Frenchman worshiped consisted +principally in the unnaturalness of his relation to the woman and in a +combination of incongruities giving the chief charm to the feeling. + +Thus the captain touchingly recounted the story of his love for a +fascinating marquise of thirty-five and at the same time for a charming, +innocent child of seventeen, daughter of the bewitching marquise. The +conflict of magnanimity between the mother and the daughter, ending in +the mother's sacrificing herself and offering her daughter in marriage +to her lover, even now agitated the captain, though it was the memory of +a distant past. Then he recounted an episode in which the husband played +the part of the lover, and he--the lover--assumed the role of the +husband, as well as several droll incidents from his recollections of +Germany, where "shelter" is called Unterkunft and where the husbands eat +sauerkraut and the young girls are "too blonde." + +Finally, the latest episode in Poland still fresh in the captain's +memory, and which he narrated with rapid gestures and glowing face, was +of how he had saved the life of a Pole (in general, the saving of life +continually occurred in the captain's stories) and the Pole had +entrusted to him his enchanting wife (parisienne de coeur) while himself +entering the French service. The captain was happy, the enchanting +Polish lady wished to elope with him, but, prompted by magnanimity, the +captain restored the wife to the husband, saying as he did so: "I have +saved your life, and I save your honor!" Having repeated these words the +captain wiped his eyes and gave himself a shake, as if driving away the +weakness which assailed him at this touching recollection. + +Listening to the captain's tales, Pierre--as often happens late in the +evening and under the influence of wine--followed all that was told him, +understood it all, and at the same time followed a train of personal +memories which, he knew not why, suddenly arose in his mind. While +listening to these love stories his own love for Natasha unexpectedly +rose to his mind, and going over the pictures of that love in his +imagination he mentally compared them with Ramballe's tales. Listening +to the story of the struggle between love and duty, Pierre saw before +his eyes every minutest detail of his last meeting with the object of +his love at the Sukharev water tower. At the time of that meeting it had +not produced an effect upon him--he had not even once recalled it. But +now it seemed to him that that meeting had had in it something very +important and poetic. + +"Peter Kirilovich, come here! We have recognized you," he now seemed to +hear the words she had uttered and to see before him her eyes, her +smile, her traveling hood, and a stray lock of her hair... and there +seemed to him something pathetic and touching in all this. + +Having finished his tale about the enchanting Polish lady, the captain +asked Pierre if he had ever experienced a similar impulse to sacrifice +himself for love and a feeling of envy of the legitimate husband. + +Challenged by this question Pierre raised his head and felt a need to +express the thoughts that filled his mind. He began to explain that he +understood love for a women somewhat differently. He said that in all +his life he had loved and still loved only one woman, and that she could +never be his. + +"Tiens!" said the captain. + +Pierre then explained that he had loved this woman from his earliest +years, but that he had not dared to think of her because she was too +young, and because he had been an illegitimate son without a name. +Afterwards when he had received a name and wealth he dared not think of +her because he loved her too well, placing her far above everything in +the world, and especially therefore above himself. + +When he had reached this point, Pierre asked the captain whether he +understood that. + +The captain made a gesture signifying that even if he did not understand +it he begged Pierre to continue. + +"Platonic love, clouds..." he muttered. + +Whether it was the wine he had drunk, or an impulse of frankness, or the +thought that this man did not, and never would, know any of those who +played a part in his story, or whether it was all these things together, +something loosened Pierre's tongue. Speaking thickly and with a faraway +look in his shining eyes, he told the whole story of his life: his +marriage, Natasha's love for his best friend, her betrayal of him, and +all his own simple relations with her. Urged on by Ramballe's questions +he also told what he had at first concealed--his own position and even +his name. + +More than anything else in Pierre's story the captain was impressed by +the fact that Pierre was very rich, had two mansions in Moscow, and that +he had abandoned everything and not left the city, but remained there +concealing his name and station. + +When it was late at night they went out together into the street. The +night was warm and light. To the left of the house on the Pokrovka a +fire glowed--the first of those that were beginning in Moscow. To the +right and high up in the sky was the sickle of the waning moon and +opposite to it hung that bright comet which was connected in Pierre's +heart with his love. At the gate stood Gerasim, the cook, and two +Frenchmen. Their laughter and their mutually incomprehensible remarks in +two languages could be heard. They were looking at the glow seen in the +town. + +There was nothing terrible in the one small, distant fire in the immense +city. + +Gazing at the high starry sky, at the moon, at the comet, and at the +glow from the fire, Pierre experienced a joyful emotion. "There now, how +good it is, what more does one need?" thought he. And suddenly +remembering his intention he grew dizzy and felt so faint that he leaned +against the fence to save himself from falling. + +Without taking leave of his new friend, Pierre left the gate with +unsteady steps and returning to his room lay down on the sofa and +immediately fell asleep. + + + + +CHAPTER XXX + +The glow of the first fire that began on the second of September was +watched from the various roads by the fugitive Muscovites and by the +retreating troops, with many different feelings. + +The Rostov party spent the night at Mytishchi, fourteen miles from +Moscow. They had started so late on the first of September, the road had +been so blocked by vehicles and troops, so many things had been +forgotten for which servants were sent back, that they had decided to +spend that night at a place three miles out of Moscow. The next morning +they woke late and were again delayed so often that they only got as far +as Great Mytishchi. At ten o'clock that evening the Rostov family and +the wounded traveling with them were all distributed in the yards and +huts of that large village. The Rostovs' servants and coachmen and the +orderlies of the wounded officers, after attending to their masters, had +supper, fed the horses, and came out into the porches. + +In a neighboring hut lay Raevski's adjutant with a fractured wrist. The +awful pain he suffered made him moan incessantly and piteously, and his +moaning sounded terrible in the darkness of the autumn night. He had +spent the first night in the same yard as the Rostovs. The countess said +she had been unable to close her eyes on account of his moaning, and at +Mytishchi she moved into a worse hut simply to be farther away from the +wounded man. + +In the darkness of the night one of the servants noticed, above the high +body of a coach standing before the porch, the small glow of another +fire. One glow had long been visible and everybody knew that it was +Little Mytishchi burning--set on fire by Mamonov's Cossacks. + +"But look here, brothers, there's another fire!" remarked an orderly. + +All turned their attention to the glow. + +"But they told us Little Mytishchi had been set on fire by Mamonov's +Cossacks." + +"But that's not Mytishchi, it's farther away." + +"Look, it must be in Moscow!" + +Two of the gazers went round to the other side of the coach and sat down +on its steps. + +"It's more to the left, why, Little Mytishchi is over there, and this is +right on the other side." + +Several men joined the first two. + +"See how it's flaring," said one. "That's a fire in Moscow: either in +the Sushchevski or the Rogozhski quarter." + +No one replied to this remark and for some time they all gazed silently +at the spreading flames of the second fire in the distance. + +Old Daniel Terentich, the count's valet (as he was called), came up to +the group and shouted at Mishka. + +"What are you staring at, you good-for-nothing?... The count will be +calling and there's nobody there; go and gather the clothes together." + +"I only ran out to get some water," said Mishka. + +"But what do you think, Daniel Terentich? Doesn't it look as if that +glow were in Moscow?" remarked one of the footmen. + +Daniel Terentich made no reply, and again for a long time they were all +silent. The glow spread, rising and falling, farther and farther still. + +"God have mercy.... It's windy and dry..." said another voice. + +"Just look! See what it's doing now. O Lord! You can even see the crows +flying. Lord have mercy on us sinners!" + +"They'll put it out, no fear!" + +"Who's to put it out?" Daniel Terentich, who had hitherto been silent, +was heard to say. His voice was calm and deliberate. "Moscow it is, +brothers," said he. "Mother Moscow, the white..." his voice faltered, +and he gave way to an old man's sob. + +And it was as if they had all only waited for this to realize the +significance for them of the glow they were watching. Sighs were heard, +words of prayer, and the sobbing of the count's old valet. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXI + +The valet, returning to the cottage, informed the count that Moscow was +burning. The count donned his dressing gown and went out to look. Sonya +and Madame Schoss, who had not yet undressed, went out with him. Only +Natasha and the countess remained in the room. Petya was no longer with +the family, he had gone on with his regiment which was making for +Troitsa. + +The countess, on hearing that Moscow was on fire, began to cry. Natasha, +pale, with a fixed look, was sitting on the bench under the icons just +where she had sat down on arriving and paid no attention to her father's +words. She was listening to the ceaseless moaning of the adjutant, three +houses off. + +"Oh, how terrible," said Sonya returning from the yard chilled and +frightened. "I believe the whole of Moscow will burn, there's an awful +glow! Natasha, do look! You can see it from the window," she said to her +cousin, evidently wishing to distract her mind. + +But Natasha looked at her as if not understanding what was said to her +and again fixed her eyes on the corner of the stove. She had been in +this condition of stupor since the morning, when Sonya, to the surprise +and annoyance of the countess, had for some unaccountable reason found +it necessary to tell Natasha of Prince Andrew's wound and of his being +with their party. The countess had seldom been so angry with anyone as +she was with Sonya. Sonya had cried and begged to be forgiven and now, +as if trying to atone for her fault, paid unceasing attention to her +cousin. + +"Look, Natasha, how dreadfully it is burning!" said she. + +"What's burning?" asked Natasha. "Oh, yes, Moscow." + +And as if in order not to offend Sonya and to get rid of her, she turned +her face to the window, looked out in such a way that it was evident +that she could not see anything, and again settled down in her former +attitude. + +"But you didn't see it!" + +"Yes, really I did," Natasha replied in a voice that pleaded to be left +in peace. + +Both the countess and Sonya understood that, naturally, neither Moscow +nor the burning of Moscow nor anything else could seem of importance to +Natasha. + +The count returned and lay down behind the partition. The countess went +up to her daughter and touched her head with the back of her hand as she +was wont to do when Natasha was ill, then touched her forehead with her +lips as if to feel whether she was feverish, and finally kissed her. + +"You are cold. You are trembling all over. You'd better lie down," said +the countess. + +"Lie down? All right, I will. I'll lie down at once," said Natasha. + +When Natasha had been told that morning that Prince Andrew was seriously +wounded and was traveling with their party, she had at first asked many +questions: Where was he going? How was he wounded? Was it serious? And +could she see him? But after she had been told that she could not see +him, that he was seriously wounded but that his life was not in danger, +she ceased to ask questions or to speak at all, evidently disbelieving +what they told her, and convinced that say what she might she would +still be told the same. All the way she had sat motionless in a corner +of the coach with wide open eyes, and the expression in them which the +countess knew so well and feared so much, and now she sat in the same +way on the bench where she had seated herself on arriving. She was +planning something and either deciding or had already decided something +in her mind. The countess knew this, but what it might be she did not +know, and this alarmed and tormented her. + +"Natasha, undress, darling; lie down on my bed." + +A bed had been made on a bedstead for the countess only. Madame Schoss +and the two girls were to sleep on some hay on the floor. + +"No, Mamma, I will lie down here on the floor," Natasha replied +irritably and she went to the window and opened it. Through the open +window the moans of the adjutant could be heard more distinctly. She put +her head out into the damp night air, and the countess saw her slim neck +shaking with sobs and throbbing against the window frame. Natasha knew +it was not Prince Andrew who was moaning. She knew Prince Andrew was in +the same yard as themselves and in a part of the hut across the passage; +but this dreadful incessant moaning made her sob. The countess exchanged +a look with Sonya. + +"Lie down, darling; lie down, my pet," said the countess, softly +touching Natasha's shoulders. "Come, lie down." + +"Oh, yes... I'll lie down at once," said Natasha, and began hurriedly +undressing, tugging at the tapes of her petticoat. + +When she had thrown off her dress and put on a dressing jacket, she sat +down with her foot under her on the bed that had been made up on the +floor, jerked her thin and rather short plait of hair to the front, and +began replaiting it. Her long, thin, practiced fingers rapidly +unplaited, replaited, and tied up her plait. Her head moved from side to +side from habit, but her eyes, feverishly wide, looked fixedly before +her. When her toilet for the night was finished she sank gently onto the +sheet spread over the hay on the side nearest the door. + +"Natasha, you'd better lie in the middle," said Sonya. + +"I'll stay here," muttered Natasha. "Do lie down," she added crossly, +and buried her face in the pillow. + +The countess, Madame Schoss, and Sonya undressed hastily and lay down. +The small lamp in front of the icons was the only light left in the +room. But in the yard there was a light from the fire at Little +Mytishchi a mile and a half away, and through the night came the noise +of people shouting at a tavern Mamonov's Cossacks had set up across the +street, and the adjutant's unceasing moans could still be heard. + +For a long time Natasha listened attentively to the sounds that reached +her from inside and outside the room and did not move. First she heard +her mother praying and sighing and the creaking of her bed under her, +then Madame Schoss' familiar whistling snore and Sonya's gentle +breathing. Then the countess called to Natasha. Natasha did not answer. + +"I think she's asleep, Mamma," said Sonya softly. + +After a short silence the countess spoke again but this time no one +replied. + +Soon after that Natasha heard her mother's even breathing. Natasha did +not move, though her little bare foot, thrust out from under the quilt, +was growing cold on the bare floor. + +As if to celebrate a victory over everybody, a cricket chirped in a +crack in the wall. A cock crowed far off and another replied near by. +The shouting in the tavern had died down; only the moaning of the +adjutant was heard. Natasha sat up. + +"Sonya, are you asleep? Mamma?" she whispered. + +No one replied. Natasha rose slowly and carefully, crossed herself, and +stepped cautiously on the cold and dirty floor with her slim, supple, +bare feet. The boards of the floor creaked. Stepping cautiously from one +foot to the other she ran like a kitten the few steps to the door and +grasped the cold door handle. + +It seemed to her that something heavy was beating rhythmically against +all the walls of the room: it was her own heart, sinking with alarm and +terror and overflowing with love. + +She opened the door and stepped across the threshold and onto the cold, +damp earthen floor of the passage. The cold she felt refreshed her. With +her bare feet she touched a sleeping man, stepped over him, and opened +the door into the part of the hut where Prince Andrew lay. It was dark +in there. In the farthest corner, on a bench beside a bed on which +something was lying, stood a tallow candle with a long, thick, and +smoldering wick. + +From the moment she had been told that morning of Prince Andrew's wound +and his presence there, Natasha had resolved to see him. She did not +know why she had to, she knew the meeting would be painful, but felt the +more convinced that it was necessary. + +All day she had lived only in hope of seeing him that night. But now +that the moment had come she was filled with dread of what she might +see. How was he maimed? What was left of him? Was he like that incessant +moaning of the adjutant's? Yes, he was altogether like that. In her +imagination he was that terrible moaning personified. When she saw an +indistinct shape in the corner, and mistook his knees raised under the +quilt for his shoulders, she imagined a horrible body there, and stood +still in terror. But an irresistible impulse drew her forward. She +cautiously took one step and then another, and found herself in the +middle of a small room containing baggage. Another man--Timokhin--was +lying in a corner on the benches beneath the icons, and two others--the +doctor and a valet--lay on the floor. + +The valet sat up and whispered something. Timokhin, kept awake by the +pain in his wounded leg, gazed with wide-open eyes at this strange +apparition of a girl in a white chemise, dressing jacket, and nightcap. +The valet's sleepy, frightened exclamation, "What do you want? What's +the matter?" made Natasha approach more swiftly to what was lying in the +corner. Horribly unlike a man as that body looked, she must see him. She +passed the valet, the snuff fell from the candle wick, and she saw +Prince Andrew clearly with his arms outside the quilt, and such as she +had always seen him. + +He was the same as ever, but the feverish color of his face, his +glittering eyes rapturously turned toward her, and especially his neck, +delicate as a child's, revealed by the turn-down collar of his shirt, +gave him a peculiarly innocent, childlike look, such as she had never +seen on him before. She went up to him and with a swift, flexible, +youthful movement dropped on her knees. + +He smiled and held out his hand to her. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXII + +Seven days had passed since Prince Andrew found himself in the ambulance +station on the field of Borodino. His feverish state and the +inflammation of his bowels, which were injured, were in the doctor's +opinion sure to carry him off. But on the seventh day he ate with +pleasure a piece of bread with some tea, and the doctor noticed that his +temperature was lower. He had regained consciousness that morning. The +first night after they left Moscow had been fairly warm and he had +remained in the caleche, but at Mytishchi the wounded man himself asked +to be taken out and given some tea. The pain caused by his removal into +the hut had made him groan aloud and again lose consciousness. When he +had been placed on his camp bed he lay for a long time motionless with +closed eyes. Then he opened them and whispered softly: "And the tea?" +His remembering such a small detail of everyday life astonished the +doctor. He felt Prince Andrew's pulse, and to his surprise and +dissatisfaction found it had improved. He was dissatisfied because he +knew by experience that if his patient did not die now, he would do so a +little later with greater suffering. Timokhin, the red-nosed major of +Prince Andrew's regiment, had joined him in Moscow and was being taken +along with him, having been wounded in the leg at the battle of +Borodino. They were accompanied by a doctor, Prince Andrew's valet, his +coachman, and two orderlies. + +They gave Prince Andrew some tea. He drank it eagerly, looking with +feverish eyes at the door in front of him as if trying to understand and +remember something. + +"I don't want any more. Is Timokhin here?" he asked. + +Timokhin crept along the bench to him. + +"I am here, your excellency." + +"How's your wound?" + +"Mine, sir? All right. But how about you?" + +Prince Andrew again pondered as if trying to remember something. + +"Couldn't one get a book?" he asked. + +"What book?" + +"The Gospels. I haven't one." + +The doctor promised to procure it for him and began to ask how he was +feeling. Prince Andrew answered all his questions reluctantly but +reasonably, and then said he wanted a bolster placed under him as he was +uncomfortable and in great pain. The doctor and valet lifted the cloak +with which he was covered and, making wry faces at the noisome smell of +mortifying flesh that came from the wound, began examining that dreadful +place. The doctor was very much displeased about something and made a +change in the dressings, turning the wounded man over so that he groaned +again and grew unconscious and delirious from the agony. He kept asking +them to get him the book and put it under him. + +"What trouble would it be to you?" he said. "I have not got one. Please +get it for me and put it under for a moment," he pleaded in a piteous +voice. + +The doctor went into the passage to wash his hands. + +"You fellows have no conscience," said he to the valet who was pouring +water over his hands. "For just one moment I didn't look after you... +It's such pain, you know, that I wonder how he can bear it." + +"By the Lord Jesus Christ, I thought we had put something under him!" +said the valet. + +The first time Prince Andrew understood where he was and what was the +matter with him and remembered being wounded and how was when he asked +to be carried into the hut after his caleche had stopped at Mytishchi. +After growing confused from pain while being carried into the hut he +again regained consciousness, and while drinking tea once more recalled +all that had happened to him, and above all vividly remembered the +moment at the ambulance station when, at the sight of the sufferings of +a man he disliked, those new thoughts had come to him which promised him +happiness. And those thoughts, though now vague and indefinite, again +possessed his soul. He remembered that he had now a new source of +happiness and that this happiness had something to do with the Gospels. +That was why he asked for a copy of them. The uncomfortable position in +which they had put him and turned him over again confused his thoughts, +and when he came to himself a third time it was in the complete +stillness of the night. Everybody near him was sleeping. A cricket +chirped from across the passage; someone was shouting and singing in the +street; cockroaches rustled on the table, on the icons, and on the +walls, and a big fly flopped at the head of the bed and around the +candle beside him, the wick of which was charred and had shaped itself +like a mushroom. + +His mind was not in a normal state. A healthy man usually thinks of, +feels, and remembers innumerable things simultaneously, but has the +power and will to select one sequence of thoughts or events on which to +fix his whole attention. A healthy man can tear himself away from the +deepest reflections to say a civil word to someone who comes in and can +then return again to his own thoughts. But Prince Andrew's mind was not +in a normal state in that respect. All the powers of his mind were more +active and clearer than ever, but they acted apart from his will. Most +diverse thoughts and images occupied him simultaneously. At times his +brain suddenly began to work with a vigor, clearness, and depth it had +never reached when he was in health, but suddenly in the midst of its +work it would turn to some unexpected idea and he had not the strength +to turn it back again. + +"Yes, a new happiness was revealed to me of which man cannot be +deprived," he thought as he lay in the semidarkness of the quiet hut, +gazing fixedly before him with feverish wide open eyes. "A happiness +lying beyond material forces, outside the material influences that act +on man--a happiness of the soul alone, the happiness of loving. Every +man can understand it, but to conceive it and enjoin it was possible +only for God. But how did God enjoin that law? And why was the Son...?" + +And suddenly the sequence of these thoughts broke off, and Prince Andrew +heard (without knowing whether it was a delusion or reality) a soft +whispering voice incessantly and rhythmically repeating "piti-piti- +piti," and then "titi," and then again "piti-piti-piti," and "ti-ti" +once more. At the same time he felt that above his face, above the very +middle of it, some strange airy structure was being erected out of +slender needles or splinters, to the sound of this whispered music. He +felt that he had to balance carefully (though it was difficult) so that +this airy structure should not collapse; but nevertheless it kept +collapsing and again slowly rising to the sound of whispered rhythmic +music--"it stretches, stretches, spreading out and stretching," said +Prince Andrew to himself. While listening to this whispering and feeling +the sensation of this drawing out and the construction of this edifice +of needles, he also saw by glimpses a red halo round the candle, and +heard the rustle of the cockroaches and the buzzing of the fly that +flopped against his pillow and his face. Each time the fly touched his +face it gave him a burning sensation and yet to his surprise it did not +destroy the structure, though it knocked against the very region of his +face where it was rising. But besides this there was something else of +importance. It was something white by the door--the statue of a sphinx, +which also oppressed him. + +"But perhaps that's my shirt on the table," he thought, "and that's my +legs, and that is the door, but why is it always stretching and drawing +itself out, and 'piti-piti-piti' and 'ti-ti' and 'piti-piti-piti'...? +That's enough, please leave off!" Prince Andrew painfully entreated +someone. And suddenly thoughts and feelings again swam to the surface of +his mind with peculiar clearness and force. + +"Yes--love," he thought again quite clearly. "But not love which loves +for something, for some quality, for some purpose, or for some reason, +but the love which I--while dying--first experienced when I saw my enemy +and yet loved him. I experienced that feeling of love which is the very +essence of the soul and does not require an object. Now again I feel +that bliss. To love one's neighbors, to love one's enemies, to love +everything, to love God in all His manifestations. It is possible to +love someone dear to you with human love, but an enemy can only be loved +by divine love. That is why I experienced such joy when I felt that I +loved that man. What has become of him? Is he alive?... + +"When loving with human love one may pass from love to hatred, but +divine love cannot change. No, neither death nor anything else can +destroy it. It is the very essence of the soul. Yet how many people have +I hated in my life? And of them all, I loved and hated none as I did +her." And he vividly pictured to himself Natasha, not as he had done in +the past with nothing but her charms which gave him delight, but for the +first time picturing to himself her soul. And he understood her +feelings, her sufferings, shame, and remorse. He now understood for the +first time all the cruelty of his rejection of her, the cruelty of his +rupture with her. "If only it were possible for me to see her once more! +Just once, looking into those eyes to say..." + +"Piti-piti-piti and ti-ti and piti-piti-piti boom!" flopped the fly... +And his attention was suddenly carried into another world, a world of +reality and delirium in which something particular was happening. In +that world some structure was still being erected and did not fall, +something was still stretching out, and the candle with its red halo was +still burning, and the same shirtlike sphinx lay near the door; but +besides all this something creaked, there was a whiff of fresh air, and +a new white sphinx appeared, standing at the door. And that sphinx had +the pale face and shining eyes of the very Natasha of whom he had just +been thinking. + +"Oh, how oppressive this continual delirium is," thought Prince Andrew, +trying to drive that face from his imagination. But the face remained +before him with the force of reality and drew nearer. Prince Andrew +wished to return to that former world of pure thought, but he could not, +and delirium drew him back into its domain. The soft whispering voice +continued its rhythmic murmur, something oppressed him and stretched +out, and the strange face was before him. Prince Andrew collected all +his strength in an effort to recover his senses, he moved a little, and +suddenly there was a ringing in his ears, a dimness in his eyes, and +like a man plunged into water he lost consciousness. When he came to +himself, Natasha, that same living Natasha whom of all people he most +longed to love with this new pure divine love that had been revealed to +him, was kneeling before him. He realized that it was the real living +Natasha, and he was not surprised but quietly happy. Natasha, motionless +on her knees (she was unable to stir), with frightened eyes riveted on +him, was restraining her sobs. Her face was pale and rigid. Only in the +lower part of it something quivered. + +Prince Andrew sighed with relief, smiled, and held out his hand. + +"You?" he said. "How fortunate!" + +With a rapid but careful movement Natasha drew nearer to him on her +knees and, taking his hand carefully, bent her face over it and began +kissing it, just touching it lightly with her lips. + +"Forgive me!" she whispered, raising her head and glancing at him. +"Forgive me!" + +"I love you," said Prince Andrew. + +"Forgive...!" + +"Forgive what?" he asked. + +"Forgive me for what I ha-ve do-ne!" faltered Natasha in a scarcely +audible, broken whisper, and began kissing his hand more rapidly, just +touching it with her lips. + +"I love you more, better than before," said Prince Andrew, lifting her +face with his hand so as to look into her eyes. + +Those eyes, filled with happy tears, gazed at him timidly, +compassionately, and with joyous love. Natasha's thin pale face, with +its swollen lips, was more than plain--it was dreadful. But Prince +Andrew did not see that, he saw her shining eyes which were beautiful. +They heard the sound of voices behind them. + +Peter the valet, who was now wide awake, had roused the doctor. +Timokhin, who had not slept at all because of the pain in his leg, had +long been watching all that was going on, carefully covering his bare +body with the sheet as he huddled up on his bench. + +"What's this?" said the doctor, rising from his bed. "Please go away, +madam!" + +At that moment a maid sent by the countess, who had noticed her +daughter's absence, knocked at the door. + +Like a somnambulist aroused from her sleep Natasha went out of the room +and, returning to her hut, fell sobbing on her bed. + +From that time, during all the rest of the Rostovs' journey, at every +halting place and wherever they spent a night, Natasha never left the +wounded Bolkonski, and the doctor had to admit that he had not expected +from a young girl either such firmness or such skill in nursing a +wounded man. + +Dreadful as the countess imagined it would be should Prince Andrew die +in her daughter's arms during the journey--as, judging by what the +doctor said, it seemed might easily happen--she could not oppose +Natasha. Though with the intimacy now established between the wounded +man and Natasha the thought occurred that should he recover their former +engagement would be renewed, no one--least of all Natasha and Prince +Andrew--spoke of this: the unsettled question of life and death, which +hung not only over Bolkonski but over all Russia, shut out all other +considerations. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXIII + +On the third of September Pierre awoke late. His head was aching, the +clothes in which he had slept without undressing felt uncomfortable on +his body, and his mind had a dim consciousness of something shameful he +had done the day before. That something shameful was his yesterday's +conversation with Captain Ramballe. + +It was eleven by the clock, but it seemed peculiarly dark out of doors. +Pierre rose, rubbed his eyes, and seeing the pistol with an engraved +stock which Gerasim had replaced on the writing table, he remembered +where he was and what lay before him that very day. + +"Am I not too late?" he thought. "No, probably he won't make his entry +into Moscow before noon." + +Pierre did not allow himself to reflect on what lay before him, but +hastened to act. + +After arranging his clothes, he took the pistol and was about to go out. +But it then occurred to him for the first time that he certainly could +not carry the weapon in his hand through the streets. It was difficult +to hide such a big pistol even under his wide coat. He could not carry +it unnoticed in his belt or under his arm. Besides, it had been +discharged, and he had not had time to reload it. "No matter, dagger +will do," he said to himself, though when planning his design he had +more than once come to the conclusion that the chief mistake made by the +student in 1809 had been to try to kill Napoleon with a dagger. But as +his chief aim consisted not in carrying out his design, but in proving +to himself that he would not abandon his intention and was doing all he +could to achieve it, Pierre hastily took the blunt jagged dagger in a +green sheath which he had bought at the Sukharev market with the pistol, +and hid it under his waistcoat. + +Having tied a girdle over his coat and pulled his cap low on his head, +Pierre went down the corridor, trying to avoid making a noise or meeting +the captain, and passed out into the street. + +The conflagration, at which he had looked with so much indifference the +evening before, had greatly increased during the night. Moscow was on +fire in several places. The buildings in Carriage Row, across the river, +in the Bazaar and the Povarskoy, as well as the barges on the Moskva +River and the timber yards by the Dorogomilov Bridge, were all ablaze. + +Pierre's way led through side streets to the Povarskoy and from there to +the church of St. Nicholas on the Arbat, where he had long before +decided that the deed should be done. The gates of most of the houses +were locked and the shutters up. The streets and lanes were deserted. +The air was full of smoke and the smell of burning. Now and then he met +Russians with anxious and timid faces, and Frenchmen with an air not of +the city but of the camp, walking in the middle of the streets. Both the +Russians and the French looked at Pierre with surprise. Besides his +height and stoutness, and the strange morose look of suffering in his +face and whole figure, the Russians stared at Pierre because they could +not make out to what class he could belong. The French followed him with +astonishment in their eyes chiefly because Pierre, unlike all the other +Russians who gazed at the French with fear and curiosity, paid no +attention to them. At the gate of one house three Frenchmen, who were +explaining something to some Russians who did not understand them, +stopped Pierre asking if he did not know French. + +Pierre shook his head and went on. In another side street a sentinel +standing beside a green caisson shouted at him, but only when the shout +was threateningly repeated and he heard the click of the man's musket as +he raised it did Pierre understand that he had to pass on the other side +of the street. He heard nothing and saw nothing of what went on around +him. He carried his resolution within himself in terror and haste, like +something dreadful and alien to him, for, after the previous night's +experience, he was afraid of losing it. But he was not destined to bring +his mood safely to his destination. And even had he not been hindered by +anything on the way, his intention could not now have been carried out, +for Napoleon had passed the Arbat more than four hours previously on his +way from the Dorogomilov suburb to the Kremlin, and was now sitting in a +very gloomy frame of mind in a royal study in the Kremlin, giving +detailed and exact orders as to measures to be taken immediately to +extinguish the fire, to prevent looting, and to reassure the +inhabitants. But Pierre did not know this; he was entirely absorbed in +what lay before him, and was tortured--as those are who obstinately +undertake a task that is impossible for them not because of its +difficulty but because of its incompatibility with their natures--by the +fear of weakening at the decisive moment and so losing his self-esteem. + +Though he heard and saw nothing around him he found his way by instinct +and did not go wrong in the side streets that led to the Povarskoy. + +As Pierre approached that street the smoke became denser and denser--he +even felt the heat of the fire. Occasionally curly tongues of flame rose +from under the roofs of the houses. He met more people in the streets +and they were more excited. But Pierre, though he felt that something +unusual was happening around him, did not realize that he was +approaching the fire. As he was going along a foot path across a wide- +open space adjoining the Povarskoy on one side and the gardens of Prince +Gruzinski's house on the other, Pierre suddenly heard the desperate +weeping of a woman close to him. He stopped as if awakening from a dream +and lifted his head. + +By the side of the path, on the dusty dry grass, all sorts of household +goods lay in a heap: featherbeds, a samovar, icons, and trunks. On the +ground, beside the trunks, sat a thin woman no longer young, with long, +prominent upper teeth, and wearing a black cloak and cap. This woman, +swaying to and fro and muttering something, was choking with sobs. Two +girls of about ten and twelve, dressed in dirty short frocks and cloaks, +were staring at their mother with a look of stupefaction on their pale +frightened faces. The youngest child, a boy of about seven, who wore an +overcoat and an immense cap evidently not his own, was crying in his old +nurse's arms. A dirty, barefooted maid was sitting on a trunk, and, +having undone her pale-colored plait, was pulling it straight and +sniffing at her singed hair. The woman's husband, a short, round- +shouldered man in the undress uniform of a civilian official, with +sausage-shaped whiskers and showing under his square-set cap the hair +smoothly brushed forward over his temples, with expressionless face was +moving the trunks, which were placed one on another, and was dragging +some garments from under them. + +As soon as she saw Pierre, the woman almost threw herself at his feet. + +"Dear people, good Christians, save me, help me, dear friends... help +us, somebody," she muttered between her sobs. "My girl... My daughter! +My youngest daughter is left behind. She's burned! Ooh! Was it for this +I nursed you.... Ooh!" + +"Don't, Mary Nikolievna!" said her husband to her in a low voice, +evidently only to justify himself before the stranger. "Sister must have +taken her, or else where can she be?" he added. + +"Monster! Villain!" shouted the woman angrily, suddenly ceasing to weep. +"You have no heart, you don't feel for your own child! Another man would +have rescued her from the fire. But this is a monster and neither a man +nor a father! You, honored sir, are a noble man," she went on, +addressing Pierre rapidly between her sobs. "The fire broke out +alongside, and blew our way, the maid called out 'Fire!' and we rushed +to collect our things. We ran out just as we were.... This is what we +have brought away.... The icons, and my dowry bed, all the rest is lost. +We seized the children. But not Katie! Ooh! O Lord!..." and again she +began to sob. "My child, my dear one! Burned, burned!" + +"But where was she left?" asked Pierre. + +From the expression of his animated face the woman saw that this man +might help her. + +"Oh, dear sir!" she cried, seizing him by the legs. "My benefactor, set +my heart at ease.... Aniska, go, you horrid girl, show him the way!" she +cried to the maid, angrily opening her mouth and still farther exposing +her long teeth. + +"Show me the way, show me, I... I'll do it," gasped Pierre rapidly. + +The dirty maidservant stepped from behind the trunk, put up her plait, +sighed, and went on her short, bare feet along the path. Pierre felt as +if he had come back to life after a heavy swoon. He held his head +higher, his eyes shone with the light of life, and with swift steps he +followed the maid, overtook her, and came out on the Povarskoy. The +whole street was full of clouds of black smoke. Tongues of flame here +and there broke through that cloud. A great number of people crowded in +front of the conflagration. In the middle of the street stood a French +general saying something to those around him. Pierre, accompanied by the +maid, was advancing to the spot where the general stood, but the French +soldiers stopped him. + +"On ne passe pas!" * cried a voice. + + +* "You can't pass!" + +"This way, uncle," cried the girl. "We'll pass through the side street, +by the Nikulins'!" + +Pierre turned back, giving a spring now and then to keep up with her. +She ran across the street, turned down a side street to the left, and, +passing three houses, turned into a yard on the right. + +"It's here, close by," said she and, running across the yard, opened a +gate in a wooden fence and, stopping, pointed out to him a small wooden +wing of the house, which was burning brightly and fiercely. One of its +sides had fallen in, another was on fire, and bright flames issued from +the openings of the windows and from under the roof. + +As Pierre passed through the fence gate, he was enveloped by hot air and +involuntarily stopped. + +"Which is it? Which is your house?" he asked. + +"Ooh!" wailed the girl, pointing to the wing. "That's it, that was our +lodging. You've burned to death, our treasure, Katie, my precious little +missy! Ooh!" lamented Aniska, who at the sight of the fire felt that she +too must give expression to her feelings. + +Pierre rushed to the wing, but the heat was so great that he +involuntarily passed round in a curve and came upon the large house that +was as yet burning only at one end, just below the roof, and around +which swarmed a crowd of Frenchmen. At first Pierre did not realize what +these men, who were dragging something out, were about; but seeing +before him a Frenchman hitting a peasant with a blunt saber and trying +to take from him a fox-fur coat, he vaguely understood that looting was +going on there, but he had no time to dwell on that idea. + +The sounds of crackling and the din of falling walls and ceilings, the +whistle and hiss of the flames, the excited shouts of the people, and +the sight of the swaying smoke, now gathering into thick black clouds +and now soaring up with glittering sparks, with here and there dense +sheaves of flame (now red and now like golden fish scales creeping along +the walls), and the heat and smoke and rapidity of motion, produced on +Pierre the usual animating effects of a conflagration. It had a +peculiarly strong effect on him because at the sight of the fire he felt +himself suddenly freed from the ideas that had weighed him down. He felt +young, bright, adroit, and resolute. He ran round to the other side of +the lodge and was about to dash into that part of it which was still +standing, when just above his head he heard several voices shouting and +then a cracking sound and the ring of something heavy falling close +beside him. + +Pierre looked up and saw at a window of the large house some Frenchmen +who had just thrown out the drawer of a chest, filled with metal +articles. Other French soldiers standing below went up to the drawer. + +"What does this fellow want?" shouted one of them referring to Pierre. + +"There's a child in that house. Haven't you seen a child?" cried Pierre. + +"What's he talking about? Get along!" said several voices, and one of +the soldiers, evidently afraid that Pierre might want to take from them +some of the plate and bronzes that were in the drawer, moved +threateningly toward him. + +"A child?" shouted a Frenchman from above. "I did hear something +squealing in the garden. Perhaps it's his brat that the fellow is +looking for. After all, one must be human, you know...." + +"Where is it? Where?" said Pierre. + +"There! There!" shouted the Frenchman at the window, pointing to the +garden at the back of the house. "Wait a bit--I'm coming down." + +And a minute or two later the Frenchman, a black-eyed fellow with a spot +on his cheek, in shirt sleeves, really did jump out of a window on the +ground floor, and clapping Pierre on the shoulder ran with him into the +garden. + +"Hurry up, you others!" he called out to his comrades. "It's getting +hot." + +When they reached a gravel path behind the house the Frenchman pulled +Pierre by the arm and pointed to a round, graveled space where a three- +year-old girl in a pink dress was lying under a seat. + +"There is your child! Oh, a girl, so much the better!" said the +Frenchman. "Good-bye, Fatty. We must be human, we are all mortal you +know!" and the Frenchman with the spot on his cheek ran back to his +comrades. + +Breathless with joy, Pierre ran to the little girl and was going to take +her in his arms. But seeing a stranger the sickly, scrofulous-looking +child, unattractively like her mother, began to yell and run away. +Pierre, however, seized her and lifted her in his arms. She screamed +desperately and angrily and tried with her little hands to pull Pierre's +hands away and to bite them with her slobbering mouth. Pierre was seized +by a sense of horror and repulsion such as he had experienced when +touching some nasty little animal. But he made an effort not to throw +the child down and ran with her to the large house. It was now, however, +impossible to get back the way he had come; the maid, Aniska, was no +longer there, and Pierre with a feeling of pity and disgust pressed the +wet, painfully sobbing child to himself as tenderly as he could and ran +with her through the garden seeking another way out. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXIV + +Having run through different yards and side streets, Pierre got back +with his little burden to the Gruzinski garden at the corner of the +Povarskoy. He did not at first recognize the place from which he had set +out to look for the child, so crowded was it now with people and goods +that had been dragged out of the houses. Besides Russian families who +had taken refuge here from the fire with their belongings, there were +several French soldiers in a variety of clothing. Pierre took no notice +of them. He hurried to find the family of that civil servant in order to +restore the daughter to her mother and go to save someone else. Pierre +felt that he had still much to do and to do quickly. Glowing with the +heat and from running, he felt at that moment more strongly than ever +the sense of youth, animation, and determination that had come on him +when he ran to save the child. She had now become quiet and, clinging +with her little hands to Pierre's coat, sat on his arm gazing about her +like some little wild animal. He glanced at her occasionally with a +slight smile. He fancied he saw something pathetically innocent in that +frightened, sickly little face. + +He did not find the civil servant or his wife where he had left them. He +walked among the crowd with rapid steps, scanning the various faces he +met. Involuntarily he noticed a Georgian or Armenian family consisting +of a very handsome old man of Oriental type, wearing a new, cloth- +covered, sheepskin coat and new boots, an old woman of similar type, and +a young woman. That very young woman seemed to Pierre the perfection of +Oriental beauty, with her sharply outlined, arched, black eyebrows and +the extraordinarily soft, bright color of her long, beautiful, +expressionless face. Amid the scattered property and the crowd on the +open space, she, in her rich satin cloak with a bright lilac shawl on +her head, suggested a delicate exotic plant thrown out onto the snow. +She was sitting on some bundles a little behind the old woman, and +looked from under her long lashes with motionless, large, almond-shaped +eyes at the ground before her. Evidently she was aware of her beauty and +fearful because of it. Her face struck Pierre and, hurrying along by the +fence, he turned several times to look at her. When he had reached the +fence, still without finding those he sought, he stopped and looked +about him. + +With the child in his arms his figure was now more conspicuous than +before, and a group of Russians, both men and women, gathered about him. + +"Have you lost anyone, my dear fellow? You're of the gentry yourself, +aren't you? Whose child is it?" they asked him. + +Pierre replied that the child belonged to a woman in a black coat who +had been sitting there with her other children, and he asked whether +anyone knew where she had gone. + +"Why, that must be the Anferovs," said an old deacon, addressing a +pockmarked peasant woman. "Lord have mercy, Lord have mercy!" he added +in his customary bass. + +"The Anferovs? No," said the woman. "They left in the morning. That must +be either Mary Nikolievna's or the Ivanovs'!" + +"He says 'a woman,' and Mary Nikolievna is a lady," remarked a house +serf. + +"Do you know her? She's thin, with long teeth," said Pierre. + +"That's Mary Nikolievna! They went inside the garden when these wolves +swooped down," said the woman, pointing to the French soldiers. + +"O Lord, have mercy!" added the deacon. + +"Go over that way, they're there. It's she! She kept on lamenting and +crying," continued the woman. "It's she. Here, this way!" + +But Pierre was not listening to the woman. He had for some seconds been +intently watching what was going on a few steps away. He was looking at +the Armenian family and at two French soldiers who had gone up to them. +One of these, a nimble little man, was wearing a blue coat tied round +the waist with a rope. He had a nightcap on his head and his feet were +bare. The other, whose appearance particularly struck Pierre, was a +long, lank, round-shouldered, fair-haired man, slow in his movements and +with an idiotic expression of face. He wore a woman's loose gown of +frieze, blue trousers, and large torn Hessian boots. The little +barefooted Frenchman in the blue coat went up to the Armenians and, +saying something, immediately seized the old man by his legs and the old +man at once began pulling off his boots. The other in the frieze gown +stopped in front of the beautiful Armenian girl and with his hands in +his pockets stood staring at her, motionless and silent. + +"Here, take the child!" said Pierre peremptorily and hurriedly to the +woman, handing the little girl to her. "Give her back to them, give her +back!" he almost shouted, putting the child, who began screaming, on the +ground, and again looking at the Frenchman and the Armenian family. + +The old man was already sitting barefoot. The little Frenchman had +secured his second boot and was slapping one boot against the other. The +old man was saying something in a voice broken by sobs, but Pierre +caught but a glimpse of this, his whole attention was directed to the +Frenchman in the frieze gown who meanwhile, swaying slowly from side to +side, had drawn nearer to the young woman and taking his hands from his +pockets had seized her by the neck. + +The beautiful Armenian still sat motionless and in the same attitude, +with her long lashes drooping as if she did not see or feel what the +soldier was doing to her. + +While Pierre was running the few steps that separated him from the +Frenchman, the tall marauder in the frieze gown was already tearing from +her neck the necklace the young Armenian was wearing, and the young +woman, clutching at her neck, screamed piercingly. + +"Let that woman alone!" exclaimed Pierre hoarsely in a furious voice, +seizing the soldier by his round shoulders and throwing him aside. + +The soldier fell, got up, and ran away. But his comrade, throwing down +the boots and drawing his sword, moved threateningly toward Pierre. + +"Voyons, Pas de betises!" * he cried. + + +* "Look here, no nonsense!" + +Pierre was in such a transport of rage that he remembered nothing and +his strength increased tenfold. He rushed at the barefooted Frenchman +and, before the latter had time to draw his sword, knocked him off his +feet and hammered him with his fists. Shouts of approval were heard from +the crowd around, and at the same moment a mounted patrol of French +uhlans appeared from round the corner. The uhlans came up at a trot to +Pierre and the Frenchman and surrounded them. Pierre remembered nothing +of what happened after that. He only remembered beating someone and +being beaten and finally feeling that his hands were bound and that a +crowd of French soldiers stood around him and were searching him. + +"Lieutenant, he has a dagger," were the first words Pierre understood. + +"Ah, a weapon?" said the officer and turned to the barefooted soldier +who had been arrested with Pierre. "All right, you can tell all about it +at the court-martial." Then he turned to Pierre. "Do you speak French?" + +Pierre looked around him with bloodshot eyes and did not reply. His face +probably looked very terrible, for the officer said something in a +whisper and four more uhlans left the ranks and placed themselves on +both sides of Pierre. + +"Do you speak French?" the officer asked again, keeping at a distance +from Pierre. "Call the interpreter." + +A little man in Russian civilian clothes rode out from the ranks, and by +his clothes and manner of speaking Pierre at once knew him to be a +French salesman from one of the Moscow shops. + +"He does not look like a common man," said the interpreter, after a +searching look at Pierre. + +"Ah, he looks very much like an incendiary," remarked the officer. "And +ask him who he is," he added. + +"Who are you?" asked the interpreter in poor Russian. "You must answer +the chief." + +"I will not tell you who I am. I am your prisoner--take me!" Pierre +suddenly replied in French. + +"Ah, ah!" muttered the officer with a frown. "Well then, march!" + +A crowd had collected round the uhlans. Nearest to Pierre stood the +pockmarked peasant woman with the little girl, and when the patrol +started she moved forward. + +"Where are they taking you to, you poor dear?" said she. "And the little +girl, the little girl, what am I to do with her if she's not theirs?" +said the woman. + +"What does that woman want?" asked the officer. + +Pierre was as if intoxicated. His elation increased at the sight of the +little girl he had saved. + +"What does she want?" he murmured. "She is bringing me my daughter whom +I have just saved from the flames," said he. "Good-bye!" And without +knowing how this aimless lie had escaped him, he went along with +resolute and triumphant steps between the French soldiers. + +The French patrol was one of those sent out through the various streets +of Moscow by Durosnel's order to put a stop to the pillage, and +especially to catch the incendiaries who, according to the general +opinion which had that day originated among the higher French officers, +were the cause of the conflagrations. After marching through a number of +streets the patrol arrested five more Russian suspects: a small +shopkeeper, two seminary students, a peasant, and a house serf, besides +several looters. But of all these various suspected characters, Pierre +was considered to be the most suspicious of all. When they had all been +brought for the night to a large house on the Zubov Rampart that was +being used as a guardhouse, Pierre was placed apart under strict guard. + +BOOK TWELVE: 1812 + + + + +CHAPTER I + +In Petersburg at that time a complicated struggle was being carried on +with greater heat than ever in the highest circles, between the parties +of Rumyantsev, the French, Marya Fedorovna, the Tsarevich, and others, +drowned as usual by the buzzing of the court drones. But the calm, +luxurious life of Petersburg, concerned only about phantoms and +reflections of real life, went on in its old way and made it hard, +except by a great effort, to realize the danger and the difficult +position of the Russian people. There were the same receptions and +balls, the same French theater, the same court interests and service +interests and intrigues as usual. Only in the very highest circles were +attempts made to keep in mind the difficulties of the actual position. +Stories were whispered of how differently the two Empresses behaved in +these difficult circumstances. The Empress Marya, concerned for the +welfare of the charitable and educational institutions under her +patronage, had given directions that they should all be removed to +Kazan, and the things belonging to these institutions had already been +packed up. The Empress Elisabeth, however, when asked what instructions +she would be pleased to give--with her characteristic Russian patriotism +had replied that she could give no directions about state institutions +for that was the affair of the sovereign, but as far as she personally +was concerned she would be the last to quit Petersburg. + +At Anna Pavlovna's on the twenty-sixth of August, the very day of the +battle of Borodino, there was a soiree, the chief feature of which was +to be the reading of a letter from His Lordship the Bishop when sending +the Emperor an icon of the Venerable Sergius. It was regarded as a model +of ecclesiastical, patriotic eloquence. Prince Vasili himself, famed for +his elocution, was to read it. (He used to read at the Empress'.) The +art of his reading was supposed to lie in rolling out the words, quite +independently of their meaning, in a loud and singsong voice alternating +between a despairing wail and a tender murmur, so that the wail fell +quite at random on one word and the murmur on another. This reading, as +was always the case at Anna Pavlovna's soirees, had a political +significance. That evening she expected several important personages who +had to be made ashamed of their visits to the French theater and aroused +to a patriotic temper. A good many people had already arrived, but Anna +Pavlovna, not yet seeing all those whom she wanted in her drawing room, +did not let the reading begin but wound up the springs of a general +conversation. + +The news of the day in Petersburg was the illness of Countess Bezukhova. +She had fallen ill unexpectedly a few days previously, had missed +several gatherings of which she was usually ornament, and was said to be +receiving no one, and instead of the celebrated Petersburg doctors who +usually attended her had entrusted herself to some Italian doctor who +was treating her in some new and unusual way. + +They all knew very well that the enchanting countess' illness arose from +an inconvenience resulting from marrying two husbands at the same time, +and that the Italian's cure consisted in removing such inconvenience; +but in Anna Pavlovna's presence no one dared to think of this or even +appear to know it. + +"They say the poor countess is very ill. The doctor says it is angina +pectoris." + +"Angina? Oh, that's a terrible illness!" + +"They say that the rivals are reconciled, thanks to the angina..." and +the word angina was repeated with great satisfaction. + +"The count is pathetic, they say. He cried like a child when the doctor +told him the case was dangerous." + +"Oh, it would be a terrible loss, she is an enchanting woman." + +"You are speaking of the poor countess?" said Anna Pavlovna, coming up +just then. "I sent to ask for news, and hear that she is a little +better. Oh, she is certainly the most charming woman in the world," she +went on, with a smile at her own enthusiasm. "We belong to different +camps, but that does not prevent my esteeming her as she deserves. She +is very unfortunate!" added Anna Pavlovna. + +Supposing that by these words Anna Pavlovna was somewhat lifting the +veil from the secret of the countess' malady, an unwary young man +ventured to express surprise that well known doctors had not been called +in and that the countess was being attended by a charlatan who might +employ dangerous remedies. + +"Your information may be better than mine," Anna Pavlovna suddenly and +venomously retorted on the inexperienced young man, "but I know on good +authority that this doctor is a very learned and able man. He is private +physician to the Queen of Spain." + +And having thus demolished the young man, Anna Pavlovna turned to +another group where Bilibin was talking about the Austrians: having +wrinkled up his face he was evidently preparing to smooth it out again +and utter one of his mots. + +"I think it is delightful," he said, referring to a diplomatic note that +had been sent to Vienna with some Austrian banners captured from the +French by Wittgenstein, "the hero of Petropol" as he was then called in +Petersburg. + +"What? What's that?" asked Anna Pavlovna, securing silence for the mot, +which she had heard before. + +And Bilibin repeated the actual words of the diplomatic dispatch, which +he had himself composed. + +"The Emperor returns these Austrian banners," said Bilibin, "friendly +banners gone astray and found on a wrong path," and his brow became +smooth again. + +"Charming, charming!" observed Prince Vasili. + +"The path to Warsaw, perhaps," Prince Hippolyte remarked loudly and +unexpectedly. Everybody looked at him, understanding what he meant. +Prince Hippolyte himself glanced around with amused surprise. He knew no +more than the others what his words meant. During his diplomatic career +he had more than once noticed that such utterances were received as very +witty, and at every opportunity he uttered in that way the first words +that entered his head. "It may turn out very well," he thought, "but if +not, they'll know how to arrange matters." And really, during the +awkward silence that ensued, that insufficiently patriotic person +entered whom Anna Pavlovna had been waiting for and wished to convert, +and she, smiling and shaking a finger at Hippolyte, invited Prince +Vasili to the table and bringing him two candles and the manuscript +begged him to begin. Everyone became silent. + +"Most Gracious Sovereign and Emperor!" Prince Vasili sternly declaimed, +looking round at his audience as if to inquire whether anyone had +anything to say to the contrary. But no one said anything. "Moscow, our +ancient capital, the New Jerusalem, receives her Christ"--he placed a +sudden emphasis on the word her--"as a mother receives her zealous sons +into her arms, and through the gathering mists, foreseeing the brilliant +glory of thy rule, sings in exultation, 'Hosanna, blessed is he that +cometh!'" + +Prince Vasili pronounced these last words in a tearful voice. + +Bilibin attentively examined his nails, and many of those present +appeared intimidated, as if asking in what they were to blame. Anna +Pavlovna whispered the next words in advance, like an old woman +muttering the prayer at Communion: "Let the bold and insolent +Goliath..." she whispered. + +Prince Vasili continued. + +"Let the bold and insolent Goliath from the borders of France encompass +the realms of Russia with death-bearing terrors; humble Faith, the sling +of the Russian David, shall suddenly smite his head in his bloodthirsty +pride. This icon of the Venerable Sergius, the servant of God and +zealous champion of old of our country's weal, is offered to Your +Imperial Majesty. I grieve that my waning strength prevents rejoicing in +the sight of your most gracious presence. I raise fervent prayers to +Heaven that the Almighty may exalt the race of the just, and mercifully +fulfill the desires of Your Majesty." + +"What force! What a style!" was uttered in approval both of reader and +of author. + +Animated by that address Anna Pavlovna's guests talked for a long time +of the state of the fatherland and offered various conjectures as to the +result of the battle to be fought in a few days. + +"You will see," said Anna Pavlovna, "that tomorrow, on the Emperor's +birthday, we shall receive news. I have a favorable presentiment!" + + + + +CHAPTER II + +Anna Pavlovna's presentiment was in fact fulfilled. Next day during the +service at the palace church in honor of the Emperor's birthday, Prince +Volkonski was called out of the church and received a dispatch from +Prince Kutuzov. It was Kutuzov's report, written from Tatarinova on the +day of the battle. Kutuzov wrote that the Russians had not retreated a +step, that the French losses were much heavier than ours, and that he +was writing in haste from the field of battle before collecting full +information. It followed that there must have been a victory. And at +once, without leaving the church, thanks were rendered to the Creator +for His help and for the victory. + +Anna Pavlovna's presentiment was justified, and all that morning a +joyously festive mood reigned in the city. Everyone believed the victory +to have been complete, and some even spoke of Napoleon's having been +captured, of his deposition, and of the choice of a new ruler for +France. + +It is very difficult for events to be reflected in their real strength +and completeness amid the conditions of court life and far from the +scene of action. General events involuntarily group themselves around +some particular incident. So now the courtiers' pleasure was based as +much on the fact that the news had arrived on the Emperor's birthday as +on the fact of the victory itself. It was like a successfully arranged +surprise. Mention was made in Kutuzov's report of the Russian losses, +among which figured the names of Tuchkov, Bagration, and Kutaysov. In +the Petersburg world this sad side of the affair again involuntarily +centered round a single incident: Kutaysov's death. Everybody knew him, +the Emperor liked him, and he was young and interesting. That day +everyone met with the words: + +"What a wonderful coincidence! Just during the service. But what a loss +Kutaysov is! How sorry I am!" + +"What did I tell about Kutuzov?" Prince Vasili now said with a prophet's +pride. "I always said he was the only man capable of defeating +Napoleon." + +But next day no news arrived from the army and the public mood grew +anxious. The courtiers suffered because of the suffering the suspense +occasioned the Emperor. + +"Fancy the Emperor's position!" said they, and instead of extolling +Kutuzov as they had done the day before, they condemned him as the cause +of the Emperor's anxiety. That day Prince Vasili no longer boasted of +his protege Kutuzov, but remained silent when the commander-in-chief was +mentioned. Moreover, toward evening, as if everything conspired to make +Petersburg society anxious and uneasy, a terrible piece of news was +added. Countess Helene Bezukhova had suddenly died of that terrible +malady it had been so agreeable to mention. Officially, at large +gatherings, everyone said that Countess Bezukhova had died of a terrible +attack of angina pectoris, but in intimate circles details were +mentioned of how the private physician of the Queen of Spain had +prescribed small doses of a certain drug to produce a certain effect; +but Helene, tortured by the fact that the old count suspected her and +that her husband to whom she had written (that wretched, profligate +Pierre) had not replied, had suddenly taken a very large dose of the +drug, and had died in agony before assistance could be rendered her. It +was said that Prince Vasili and the old count had turned upon the +Italian, but the latter had produced such letters from the unfortunate +deceased that they had immediately let the matter drop. + +Talk in general centered round three melancholy facts: the Emperor's +lack of news, the loss of Kutaysov, and the death of Helene. + +On the third day after Kutuzov's report a country gentleman arrived from +Moscow, and news of the surrender of Moscow to the French spread through +the whole town. This was terrible! What a position for the Emperor to be +in! Kutuzov was a traitor, and Prince Vasili during the visits of +condolence paid to him on the occasion of his daughter's death said of +Kutuzov, whom he had formerly praised (it was excusable for him in his +grief to forget what he had said), that it was impossible to expect +anything else from a blind and depraved old man. + +"I only wonder that the fate of Russia could have been entrusted to such +a man." + +As long as this news remained unofficial it was possible to doubt it, +but the next day the following communication was received from Count +Rostopchin: + +Prince Kutuzov's adjutant has brought me a letter in which he demands +police officers to guide the army to the Ryazan road. He writes that he +is regretfully abandoning Moscow. Sire! Kutuzov's action decides the +fate of the capital and of your empire! Russia will shudder to learn of +the abandonment of the city in which her greatness is centered and in +which lie the ashes of your ancestors! I shall follow the army. I have +had everything removed, and it only remains for me to weep over the fate +of my fatherland. + +On receiving this dispatch the Emperor sent Prince Volkonski to Kutuzov +with the following rescript: + +Prince Michael Ilarionovich! Since the twenty-ninth of August I have +received no communication from you, yet on the first of September I +received from the commander-in-chief of Moscow, via Yaroslavl, the sad +news that you, with the army, have decided to abandon Moscow. You can +yourself imagine the effect this news has had on me, and your silence +increases my astonishment. I am sending this by Adjutant-General Prince +Volkonski, to hear from you the situation of the army and the reasons +that have induced you to take this melancholy decision. + + + + +CHAPTER III + +Nine days after the abandonment of Moscow, a messenger from Kutuzov +reached Petersburg with the official announcement of that event. This +messenger was Michaud, a Frenchman who did not know Russian, but who was +quoique etranger, russe de coeur et d'ame, * as he said of himself. + + +* Though a foreigner, Russian in heart and soul. + +The Emperor at once received this messenger in his study at the palace +on Stone Island. Michaud, who had never seen Moscow before the campaign +and who did not know Russian, yet felt deeply moved (as he wrote) when +he appeared before notre tres gracieux souverain * with the news of the +burning of Moscow, dont les flammes eclairaient sa route. *(2) + + +* Our most gracious sovereign. + +* (2) Whose flames illumined his route. + +Though the source of M. Michaud's chagrin must have been different from +that which caused Russians to grieve, he had such a sad face when shown +into the Emperor's study that the latter at once asked: + +"Have you brought me sad news, Colonel?" + +"Very sad, sire," replied Michaud, lowering his eyes with a sigh. "The +abandonment of Moscow." + +"Have they surrendered my ancient capital without a battle?" asked the +Emperor quickly, his face suddenly flushing. + +Michaud respectfully delivered the message Kutuzov had entrusted to him, +which was that it had been impossible to fight before Moscow, and that +as the only remaining choice was between losing the army as well as +Moscow, or losing Moscow alone, the field marshal had to choose the +latter. + +The Emperor listened in silence, not looking at Michaud. + +"Has the enemy entered the city?" he asked. + +"Yes, sire, and Moscow is now in ashes. I left it all in flames," +replied Michaud in a decided tone, but glancing at the Emperor he was +frightened by what he had done. + +The Emperor began to breathe heavily and rapidly, his lower lip +trembled, and tears instantly appeared in his fine blue eyes. + +But this lasted only a moment. He suddenly frowned, as if blaming +himself for his weakness, and raising his head addressed Michaud in a +firm voice: + +"I see, Colonel, from all that is happening, that Providence requires +great sacrifices of us... I am ready to submit myself in all things to +His will; but tell me, Michaud, how did you leave the army when it saw +my ancient capital abandoned without a battle? Did you not notice +discouragement?..." + +Seeing that his most gracious ruler was calm once more, Michaud also +grew calm, but was not immediately ready to reply to the Emperor's +direct and relevant question which required a direct answer. + +"Sire, will you allow me to speak frankly as befits a loyal soldier?" he +asked to gain time. + +"Colonel, I always require it," replied the Emperor. "Conceal nothing +from me, I wish to know absolutely how things are." + +"Sire!" said Michaud with a subtle, scarcely perceptible smile on his +lips, having now prepared a well-phrased reply, "sire, I left the whole +army, from its chiefs to the lowest soldier, without exception in +desperate and agonized terror..." + +"How is that?" the Emperor interrupted him, frowning sternly. "Would +misfortune make my Russians lose heart?... Never!" + +Michaud had only waited for this to bring out the phrase he had +prepared. + +"Sire," he said, with respectful playfulness, "they are only afraid lest +Your Majesty, in the goodness of your heart, should allow yourself to be +persuaded to make peace. They are burning for the combat," declared this +representative of the Russian nation, "and to prove to Your Majesty by +the sacrifice of their lives how devoted they are...." + +"Ah!" said the Emperor reassured, and with a kindly gleam in his eyes, +he patted Michaud on the shoulder. "You set me at ease, Colonel." + +He bent his head and was silent for some time. + +"Well, then, go back to the army," he said, drawing himself up to his +full height and addressing Michaud with a gracious and majestic gesture, +"and tell our brave men and all my good subjects wherever you go that +when I have not a soldier left I shall put myself at the head of my +beloved nobility and my good peasants and so use the last resources of +my empire. It still offers me more than my enemies suppose," said the +Emperor growing more and more animated; "but should it ever be ordained +by Divine Providence," he continued, raising to heaven his fine eyes +shining with emotion, "that my dynasty should cease to reign on the +throne of my ancestors, then after exhausting all the means at my +command, I shall let my beard grow to here" (he pointed halfway down his +chest) "and go and eat potatoes with the meanest of my peasants, rather +than sign the disgrace of my country and of my beloved people whose +sacrifices I know how to appreciate." + +Having uttered these words in an agitated voice the Emperor suddenly +turned away as if to hide from Michaud the tears that rose to his eyes, +and went to the further end of his study. Having stood there a few +moments, he strode back to Michaud and pressed his arm below the elbow +with a vigorous movement. The Emperor's mild and handsome face was +flushed and his eyes gleamed with resolution and anger. + +"Colonel Michaud, do not forget what I say to you here, perhaps we may +recall it with pleasure someday... Napoleon or I," said the Emperor, +touching his breast. "We can no longer both reign together. I have +learned to know him, and he will not deceive me any more...." + +And the Emperor paused, with a frown. + +When he heard these words and saw the expression of firm resolution in +the Emperor's eyes, Michaud--quoique etranger, russe de coeur et d'ame-- +at that solemn moment felt himself enraptured by all that he had heard +(as he used afterwards to say), and gave expression to his own feelings +and those of the Russian people whose representative he considered +himself to be, in the following words: + +"Sire!" said he, "Your Majesty is at this moment signing the glory of +the nation and the salvation of Europe!" + +With an inclination of the head the Emperor dismissed him. + + + + +CHAPTER IV + +It is natural for us who were not living in those days to imagine that +when half Russia had been conquered and the inhabitants were fleeing to +distant provinces, and one levy after another was being raised for the +defense of the fatherland, all Russians from the greatest to the least +were solely engaged in sacrificing themselves, saving their fatherland, +or weeping over its downfall. The tales and descriptions of that time +without exception speak only of the self-sacrifice, patriotic devotion, +despair, grief, and the heroism of the Russians. But it was not really +so. It appears so to us because we see only the general historic +interest of that time and do not see all the personal human interests +that people had. Yet in reality those personal interests of the moment +so much transcend the general interests that they always prevent the +public interest from being felt or even noticed. Most of the people at +that time paid no attention to the general progress of events but were +guided only by their private interests, and they were the very people +whose activities at that period were most useful. + +Those who tried to understand the general course of events and to take +part in it by self-sacrifice and heroism were the most useless members +of society, they saw everything upside down, and all they did for the +common good turned out to be useless and foolish--like Pierre's and +Mamonov's regiments which looted Russian villages, and the lint the +young ladies prepared and that never reached the wounded, and so on. +Even those, fond of intellectual talk and of expressing their feelings, +who discussed Russia's position at the time involuntarily introduced +into their conversation either a shade of pretense and falsehood or +useless condemnation and anger directed against people accused of +actions no one could possibly be guilty of. In historic events the rule +forbidding us to eat of the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge is specially +applicable. Only unconscious action bears fruit, and he who plays a part +in an historic event never understands its significance. If he tries to +realize it his efforts are fruitless. + +The more closely a man was engaged in the events then taking place in +Russia the less did he realize their significance. In Petersburg and in +the provinces at a distance from Moscow, ladies, and gentlemen in +militia uniforms, wept for Russia and its ancient capital and talked of +self-sacrifice and so on; but in the army which retired beyond Moscow +there was little talk or thought of Moscow, and when they caught sight +of its burned ruins no one swore to be avenged on the French, but they +thought about their next pay, their next quarters, of Matreshka the +vivandiere, and like matters. + +As the war had caught him in the service, Nicholas Rostov took a close +and prolonged part in the defense of his country, but did so casually, +without any aim at self-sacrifice, and he therefore looked at what was +going on in Russia without despair and without dismally racking his +brains over it. Had he been asked what he thought of the state of +Russia, he would have said that it was not his business to think about +it, that Kutuzov and others were there for that purpose, but that he had +heard that the regiments were to be made up to their full strength, that +fighting would probably go on for a long time yet, and that things being +so it was quite likely he might be in command of a regiment in a couple +of years' time. + +As he looked at the matter in this way, he learned that he was being +sent to Voronezh to buy remounts for his division, not only without +regret at being prevented from taking part in the coming battle, but +with the greatest pleasure--which he did not conceal and which his +comrades fully understood. + +A few days before the battle of Borodino, Nicholas received the +necessary money and warrants, and having sent some hussars on in +advance, he set out with post horses for Voronezh. + +Only a man who has experienced it--that is, has passed some months +continuously in an atmosphere of campaigning and war--can understand the +delight Nicholas felt when he escaped from the region covered by the +army's foraging operations, provision trains, and hospitals. When--free +from soldiers, wagons, and the filthy traces of a camp--he saw villages +with peasants and peasant women, gentlemen's country houses, fields +where cattle were grazing, posthouses with stationmasters asleep in +them, he rejoiced as though seeing all this for the first time. What for +a long while specially surprised and delighted him were the women, young +and healthy, without a dozen officers making up to each of them; women, +too, who were pleased and flattered that a passing officer should joke +with them. + +In the highest spirits Nicholas arrived at night at a hotel in Voronezh, +ordered things he had long been deprived of in camp, and next day, very +clean-shaven and in a full-dress uniform he had not worn for a long +time, went to present himself to the authorities. + +The commander of the militia was a civilian general, an old man who was +evidently pleased with his military designation and rank. He received +Nicholas brusquely (imagining this to be characteristically military) +and questioned him with an important air, as if considering the general +progress of affairs and approving and disapproving with full right to do +so. Nicholas was in such good spirits that this merely amused him. + +From the commander of the militia he drove to the governor. The governor +was a brisk little man, very simple and affable. He indicated the stud +farms at which Nicholas might procure horses, recommended to him a horse +dealer in the town and a landowner fourteen miles out of town who had +the best horses, and promised to assist him in every way. + +"You are Count Ilya Rostov's son? My wife was a great friend of your +mother's. We are at home on Thursdays--today is Thursday, so please come +and see us quite informally," said the governor, taking leave of him. + +Immediately on leaving the governor's, Nicholas hired post horses and, +taking his squadron quartermaster with him, drove at a gallop to the +landowner, fourteen miles away, who had the stud. Everything seemed to +him pleasant and easy during that first part of his stay in Voronezh +and, as usually happens when a man is in a pleasant state of mind, +everything went well and easily. + +The landowner to whom Nicholas went was a bachelor, an old cavalryman, a +horse fancier, a sportsman, the possessor of some century-old brandy and +some old Hungarian wine, who had a snuggery where he smoked, and who +owned some splendid horses. + +In very few words Nicholas bought seventeen picked stallions for six +thousand rubles--to serve, as he said, as samples of his remounts. After +dining and taking rather too much of the Hungarian wine, Nicholas-- +having exchanged kisses with the landowner, with whom he was already on +the friendliest terms--galloped back over abominable roads, in the +brightest frame of mind, continually urging on the driver so as to be in +time for the governor's party. + +When he had changed, poured water over his head, and scented himself, +Nicholas arrived at the governor's rather late, but with the phrase +"better late than never" on his lips. + +It was not a ball, nor had dancing been announced, but everyone knew +that Catherine Petrovna would play valses and the ecossaise on the +clavichord and that there would be dancing, and so everyone had come as +to a ball. + +Provincial life in 1812 went on very much as usual, but with this +difference, that it was livelier in the towns in consequence of the +arrival of many wealthy families from Moscow, and as in everything that +went on in Russia at that time a special recklessness was noticeable, an +"in for a penny, in for a pound--who cares?" spirit, and the inevitable +small talk, instead of turning on the weather and mutual acquaintances, +now turned on Moscow, the army, and Napoleon. + +The society gathered together at the governor's was the best in +Voronezh. + +There were a great many ladies and some of Nicholas' Moscow +acquaintances, but there were no men who could at all vie with the +cavalier of St. George, the hussar remount officer, the good-natured and +well-bred Count Rostov. Among the men was an Italian prisoner, an +officer of the French army; and Nicholas felt that the presence of that +prisoner enhanced his own importance as a Russian hero. The Italian was, +as it were, a war trophy. Nicholas felt this, it seemed to him that +everyone regarded the Italian in the same light, and he treated him +cordially though with dignity and restraint. + +As soon as Nicholas entered in his hussar uniform, diffusing around him +a fragrance of perfume and wine, and had uttered the words "better late +than never" and heard them repeated several times by others, people +clustered around him; all eyes turned on him, and he felt at once that +he had entered into his proper position in the province--that of a +universal favorite: a very pleasant position, and intoxicatingly so +after his long privations. At posting stations, at inns, and in the +landowner's snuggery, maidservants had been flattered by his notice, and +here too at the governor's party there were (as it seemed to Nicholas) +an inexhaustible number of pretty young women, married and unmarried, +impatiently awaiting his notice. The women and girls flirted with him +and, from the first day, the people concerned themselves to get this +fine young daredevil of an hussar married and settled down. Among these +was the governor's wife herself, who welcomed Rostov as a near relative +and called him "Nicholas." + +Catherine Petrovna did actually play valses and the ecossaise, and +dancing began in which Nicholas still further captivated the provincial +society by his agility. His particularly free manner of dancing even +surprised them all. Nicholas was himself rather surprised at the way he +danced that evening. He had never danced like that in Moscow and would +even have considered such a very free and easy manner improper and in +bad form, but here he felt it incumbent on him to astonish them all by +something unusual, something they would have to accept as the regular +thing in the capital though new to them in the provinces. + +All the evening Nicholas paid attention to a blue-eyed, plump and +pleasing little blonde, the wife of one of the provincial officials. +With the naive conviction of young men in a merry mood that other men's +wives were created for them, Rostov did not leave the lady's side and +treated her husband in a friendly and conspiratorial style, as if, +without speaking of it, they knew how capitally Nicholas and the lady +would get on together. The husband, however, did not seem to share that +conviction and tried to behave morosely with Rostov. But the latter's +good-natured naivete was so boundless that sometimes even he +involuntarily yielded to Nicholas' good humor. Toward the end of the +evening, however, as the wife's face grew more flushed and animated, the +husband's became more and more melancholy and solemn, as though there +were but a given amount of animation between them and as the wife's +share increased the husband's diminished. + + + + +CHAPTER V + +Nicholas sat leaning slightly forward in an armchair, bending closely +over the blonde lady and paying her mythological compliments with a +smile that never left his face. Jauntily shifting the position of his +legs in their tight riding breeches, diffusing an odor of perfume, and +admiring his partner, himself, and the fine outlines of his legs in +their well-fitting Hessian boots, Nicholas told the blonde lady that he +wished to run away with a certain lady here in Voronezh. + +"Which lady?" + +"A charming lady, a divine one. Her eyes" (Nicholas looked at his +partner) "are blue, her mouth coral and ivory; her figure" (he glanced +at her shoulders) "like Diana's...." + +The husband came up and sullenly asked his wife what she was talking +about. + +"Ah, Nikita Ivanych!" cried Nicholas, rising politely, and as if wishing +Nikita Ivanych to share his joke, he began to tell him of his intention +to elope with a blonde lady. + +The husband smiled gloomily, the wife gaily. The governor's good-natured +wife came up with a look of disapproval. + +"Anna Ignatyevna wants to see you, Nicholas," said she, pronouncing the +name so that Nicholas at once understood that Anna Ignatyevna was a very +important person. "Come, Nicholas! You know you let me call you so?" + +"Oh, yes, Aunt. Who is she?" + +"Anna Ignatyevna Malvintseva. She has heard from her niece how you +rescued her... Can you guess?" + +"I rescued such a lot of them!" said Nicholas. + +"Her niece, Princess Bolkonskaya. She is here in Voronezh with her aunt. +Oho! How you blush. Why, are...?" + +"Not a bit! Please don't, Aunt!" + +"Very well, very well!... Oh, what a fellow you are!" + +The governor's wife led him up to a tall and very stout old lady with a +blue headdress, who had just finished her game of cards with the most +important personages of the town. This was Malvintseva, Princess Mary's +aunt on her mother's side, a rich, childless widow who always lived in +Voronezh. When Rostov approached her she was standing settling up for +the game. She looked at him and, screwing up her eyes sternly, continued +to upbraid the general who had won from her. + +"Very pleased, mon cher," she then said, holding out her hand to +Nicholas. "Pray come and see me." + +After a few words about Princess Mary and her late father, whom +Malvintseva had evidently not liked, and having asked what Nicholas knew +of Prince Andrew, who also was evidently no favorite of hers, the +important old lady dismissed Nicholas after repeating her invitation to +come to see her. + +Nicholas promised to come and blushed again as he bowed. At the mention +of Princess Mary he experienced a feeling of shyness and even of fear, +which he himself did not understand. + +When he had parted from Malvintseva Nicholas wished to return to the +dancing, but the governor's little wife placed her plump hand on his +sleeve and, saying that she wanted to have a talk with him, led him to +her sitting room, from which those who were there immediately withdrew +so as not to be in her way. + +"Do you know, dear boy," began the governor's wife with a serious +expression on her kind little face, "that really would be the match for +you: would you like me to arrange it?" + +"Whom do you mean, Aunt?" asked Nicholas. + +"I will make a match for you with the princess. Catherine Petrovna +speaks of Lily, but I say, no--the princess! Do you want me to do it? I +am sure your mother will be grateful to me. What a charming girl she is, +really! And she is not at all so plain, either." + +"Not at all," replied Nicholas as if offended at the idea. "As befits a +soldier, Aunt, I don't force myself on anyone or refuse anything," he +said before he had time to consider what he was saying. + +"Well then, remember, this is not a joke!" + +"Of course not!" + +"Yes, yes," the governor's wife said as if talking to herself. "But, my +dear boy, among other things you are too attentive to the other, the +blonde. One is sorry for the husband, really...." + +"Oh no, we are good friends with him," said Nicholas in the simplicity +of his heart; it did not enter his head that a pastime so pleasant to +himself might not be pleasant to someone else. + +"But what nonsense I have been saying to the governor's wife!" thought +Nicholas suddenly at supper. "She will really begin to arrange a +match... and Sonya...?" And on taking leave of the governor's wife, when +she again smilingly said to him, "Well then, remember!" he drew her +aside. + +"But see here, to tell the truth, Aunt..." + +"What is it, my dear? Come, let's sit down here," said she. + +Nicholas suddenly felt a desire and need to tell his most intimate +thoughts (which he would not have told to his mother, his sister, or his +friend) to this woman who was almost a stranger. When he afterwards +recalled that impulse to unsolicited and inexplicable frankness which +had very important results for him, it seemed to him--as it seems to +everyone in such cases--that it was merely some silly whim that seized +him: yet that burst of frankness, together with other trifling events, +had immense consequences for him and for all his family. + +"You see, Aunt, Mamma has long wanted me to marry an heiress, but the +very idea of marrying for money is repugnant to me." + +"Oh yes, I understand," said the governor's wife. + +"But Princess Bolkonskaya--that's another matter. I will tell you the +truth. In the first place I like her very much, I feel drawn to her; and +then, after I met her under such circumstances--so strangely, the idea +often occurred to me: 'This is fate.' Especially if you remember that +Mamma had long been thinking of it; but I had never happened to meet her +before, somehow it had always happened that we did not meet. And as long +as my sister Natasha was engaged to her brother it was of course out of +the question for me to think of marrying her. And it must needs happen +that I should meet her just when Natasha's engagement had been broken +off... and then everything... So you see... I never told this to anyone +and never will, only to you." + +The governor's wife pressed his elbow gratefully. + +"You know Sonya, my cousin? I love her, and promised to marry her, and +will do so.... So you see there can be no question about-" said Nicholas +incoherently and blushing. + +"My dear boy, what a way to look at it! You know Sonya has nothing and +you yourself say your Papa's affairs are in a very bad way. And what +about your mother? It would kill her, that's one thing. And what sort of +life would it be for Sonya--if she's a girl with a heart? Your mother in +despair, and you all ruined.... No, my dear, you and Sonya ought to +understand that." + +Nicholas remained silent. It comforted him to hear these arguments. + +"All the same, Aunt, it is impossible," he rejoined with a sigh, after a +short pause. "Besides, would the princess have me? And besides, she is +now in mourning. How can one think of it!" + +"But you don't suppose I'm going to get you married at once? There is +always a right way of doing things," replied the governor's wife. + +"What a matchmaker you are, Aunt..." said Nicholas, kissing her plump +little hand. + + + + +CHAPTER VI + +On reaching Moscow after her meeting with Rostov, Princess Mary had +found her nephew there with his tutor, and a letter from Prince Andrew +giving her instructions how to get to her Aunt Malvintseva at Voronezh. +That feeling akin to temptation which had tormented her during her +father's illness, since his death, and especially since her meeting with +Rostov was smothered by arrangements for the journey, anxiety about her +brother, settling in a new house, meeting new people, and attending to +her nephew's education. She was sad. Now, after a month passed in quiet +surroundings, she felt more and more deeply the loss of her father which +was associated in her mind with the ruin of Russia. She was agitated and +incessantly tortured by the thought of the dangers to which her brother, +the only intimate person now remaining to her, was exposed. She was +worried too about her nephew's education for which she had always felt +herself incompetent, but in the depths of her soul she felt at peace--a +peace arising from consciousness of having stifled those personal dreams +and hopes that had been on the point of awakening within her and were +related to her meeting with Rostov. + +The day after her party the governor's wife came to see Malvintseva and, +after discussing her plan with the aunt, remarked that though under +present circumstances a formal betrothal was, of course, not to be +thought of, all the same the young people might be brought together and +could get to know one another. Malvintseva expressed approval, and the +governor's wife began to speak of Rostov in Mary's presence, praising +him and telling how he had blushed when Princess Mary's name was +mentioned. But Princess Mary experienced a painful rather than a joyful +feeling--her mental tranquillity was destroyed, and desires, doubts, +self-reproach, and hopes reawoke. + +During the two days that elapsed before Rostov called, Princess Mary +continually thought of how she ought to behave to him. First she decided +not to come to the drawing room when he called to see her aunt--that it +would not be proper for her, in her deep mourning, to receive visitors; +then she thought this would be rude after what he had done for her; then +it occurred to her that her aunt and the governor's wife had intentions +concerning herself and Rostov--their looks and words at times seemed to +confirm this supposition--then she told herself that only she, with her +sinful nature, could think this of them: they could not forget that +situated as she was, while still wearing deep mourning, such matchmaking +would be an insult to her and to her father's memory. Assuming that she +did go down to see him, Princess Mary imagined the words he would say to +her and what she would say to him, and these words sometimes seemed +undeservedly cold and then to mean too much. More than anything she +feared lest the confusion she felt might overwhelm her and betray her as +soon as she saw him. + +But when on Sunday after church the footman announced in the drawing +room that Count Rostov had called, the princess showed no confusion, +only a slight blush suffused her cheeks and her eyes lit up with a new +and radiant light. + +"You have met him, Aunt?" said she in a calm voice, unable herself to +understand that she could be outwardly so calm and natural. + +When Rostov entered the room, the princess dropped her eyes for an +instant, as if to give the visitor time to greet her aunt, and then just +as Nicholas turned to her she raised her head and met his look with +shining eyes. With a movement full of dignity and grace she half rose +with a smile of pleasure, held out her slender, delicate hand to him, +and began to speak in a voice in which for the first time new deep +womanly notes vibrated. Mademoiselle Bourienne, who was in the drawing +room, looked at Princess Mary in bewildered surprise. Herself a +consummate coquette, she could not have maneuvered better on meeting a +man she wished to attract. + +"Either black is particularly becoming to her or she really has greatly +improved without my having noticed it. And above all, what tact and +grace!" thought Mademoiselle Bourienne. + +Had Princess Mary been capable of reflection at that moment, she would +have been more surprised than Mademoiselle Bourienne at the change that +had taken place in herself. From the moment she recognized that dear, +loved face, a new life force took possession of her and compelled her to +speak and act apart from her own will. From the time Rostov entered, her +face became suddenly transformed. It was as if a light had been kindled +in a carved and painted lantern and the intricate, skillful, artistic +work on its sides, that previously seemed dark, coarse, and meaningless, +was suddenly shown up in unexpected and striking beauty. For the first +time all that pure, spiritual, inward travail through which she had +lived appeared on the surface. All her inward labor, her dissatisfaction +with herself, her sufferings, her strivings after goodness, her +meekness, love, and self-sacrifice--all this now shone in those radiant +eyes, in her delicate smile, and in every trait of her gentle face. + +Rostov saw all this as clearly as if he had known her whole life. He +felt that the being before him was quite different from, and better +than, anyone he had met before, and above all better than himself. + +Their conversation was very simple and unimportant. They spoke of the +war, and like everyone else unconsciously exaggerated their sorrow about +it; they spoke of their last meeting--Nicholas trying to change the +subject--they talked of the governor's kind wife, of Nicholas' +relations, and of Princess Mary's. + +She did not talk about her brother, diverting the conversation as soon +as her aunt mentioned Andrew. Evidently she could speak of Russia's +misfortunes with a certain artificiality, but her brother was too near +her heart and she neither could nor would speak lightly of him. Nicholas +noticed this, as he noticed every shade of Princess Mary's character +with an observation unusual to him, and everything confirmed his +conviction that she was a quite unusual and extraordinary being. +Nicholas blushed and was confused when people spoke to him about the +princess (as she did when he was mentioned) and even when he thought of +her, but in her presence he felt quite at ease, and said not at all what +he had prepared, but what, quite appropriately, occurred to him at the +moment. + +When a pause occurred during his short visit, Nicholas, as is usual when +there are children, turned to Prince Andrew's little son, caressing him +and asking whether he would like to be an hussar. He took the boy on his +knee, played with him, and looked round at Princess Mary. With a +softened, happy, timid look she watched the boy she loved in the arms of +the man she loved. Nicholas also noticed that look and, as if +understanding it, flushed with pleasure and began to kiss the boy with +good natured playfulness. + +As she was in mourning Princess Mary did not go out into society, and +Nicholas did not think it the proper thing to visit her again; but all +the same the governor's wife went on with her matchmaking, passing on to +Nicholas the flattering things Princess Mary said of him and vice versa, +and insisting on his declaring himself to Princess Mary. For this +purpose she arranged a meeting between the young people at the bishop's +house before Mass. + +Though Rostov told the governor's wife that he would not make any +declaration to Princess Mary, he promised to go. + +As at Tilsit Rostov had not allowed himself to doubt that what everybody +considered right was right, so now, after a short but sincere struggle +between his effort to arrange his life by his own sense of justice, and +in obedient submission to circumstances, he chose the latter and yielded +to the power he felt irresistibly carrying him he knew not where. He +knew that after his promise to Sonya it would be what he deemed base to +declare his feelings to Princess Mary. And he knew that he would never +act basely. But he also knew (or rather felt at the bottom of his heart) +that by resigning himself now to the force of circumstances and to those +who were guiding him, he was not only doing nothing wrong, but was doing +something very important--more important than anything he had ever done +in his life. + +After meeting Princess Mary, though the course of his life went on +externally as before, all his former amusements lost their charm for him +and he often thought about her. But he never thought about her as he had +thought of all the young ladies without exception whom he had met in +society, nor as he had for a long time, and at one time rapturously, +thought about Sonya. He had pictured each of those young ladies as +almost all honest-hearted young men do, that is, as a possible wife, +adapting her in his imagination to all the conditions of married life: a +white dressing gown, his wife at the tea table, his wife's carriage, +little ones, Mamma and Papa, their relations to her, and so on--and +these pictures of the future had given him pleasure. But with Princess +Mary, to whom they were trying to get him engaged, he could never +picture anything of future married life. If he tried, his pictures +seemed incongruous and false. It made him afraid. + + + + +CHAPTER VII + +The dreadful news of the battle of Borodino, of our losses in killed and +wounded, and the still more terrible news of the loss of Moscow reached +Voronezh in the middle of September. Princess Mary, having learned of +her brother's wound only from the Gazette and having no definite news of +him, prepared (so Nicholas heard, he had not seen her again himself) to +set off in search of Prince Andrew. + +When he received the news of the battle of Borodino and the abandonment +of Moscow, Rostov was not seized with despair, anger, the desire for +vengeance, or any feeling of that kind, but everything in Voronezh +suddenly seemed to him dull and tiresome, and he experienced an +indefinite feeling of shame and awkwardness. The conversations he heard +seemed to him insincere; he did not know how to judge all these affairs +and felt that only in the regiment would everything again become clear +to him. He made haste to finish buying the horses, and often became +unreasonably angry with his servant and squadron quartermaster. + +A few days before his departure a special thanksgiving, at which +Nicholas was present, was held in the cathedral for the Russian victory. +He stood a little behind the governor and held himself with military +decorum through the service, meditating on a great variety of subjects. +When the service was over the governor's wife beckoned him to her. + +"Have you seen the princess?" she asked, indicating with a movement of +her head a lady standing on the opposite side, beyond the choir. + +Nicholas immediately recognized Princess Mary not so much by the profile +he saw under her bonnet as by the feeling of solicitude, timidity, and +pity that immediately overcame him. Princess Mary, evidently engrossed +by her thoughts, was crossing herself for the last time before leaving +the church. + +Nicholas looked at her face with surprise. It was the same face he had +seen before, there was the same general expression of refined, inner, +spiritual labor, but now it was quite differently lit up. There was a +pathetic expression of sorrow, prayer, and hope in it. As had occurred +before when she was present, Nicholas went up to her without waiting to +be prompted by the governor's wife and not asking himself whether or not +it was right and proper to address her here in church, and told her he +had heard of her trouble and sympathized with his whole soul. As soon as +she heard his voice a vivid glow kindled in her face, lighting up both +her sorrow and her joy. + +"There is one thing I wanted to tell you, Princess," said Rostov. "It is +that if your brother, Prince Andrew Nikolievich, were not living, it +would have been at once announced in the Gazette, as he is a colonel." + +The princess looked at him, not grasping what he was saying, but cheered +by the expression of regretful sympathy on his face. + +"And I have known so many cases of a splinter wound" (the Gazette said +it was a shell) "either proving fatal at once or being very slight," +continued Nicholas. "We must hope for the best, and I am sure..." + +Princess Mary interrupted him. + +"Oh, that would be so dread..." she began and, prevented by agitation +from finishing, she bent her head with a movement as graceful as +everything she did in his presence and, looking up at him gratefully, +went out, following her aunt. + +That evening Nicholas did not go out, but stayed at home to settle some +accounts with the horse dealers. When he had finished that business it +was already too late to go anywhere but still too early to go to bed, +and for a long time he paced up and down the room, reflecting on his +life, a thing he rarely did. + +Princess Mary had made an agreeable impression on him when he had met +her in Smolensk province. His having encountered her in such exceptional +circumstances, and his mother having at one time mentioned her to him as +a good match, had drawn his particular attention to her. When he met her +again in Voronezh the impression she made on him was not merely pleasing +but powerful. Nicholas had been struck by the peculiar moral beauty he +observed in her at this time. He was, however, preparing to go away and +it had not entered his head to regret that he was thus depriving himself +of chances of meeting her. But that day's encounter in church had, he +felt, sunk deeper than was desirable for his peace of mind. That pale, +sad, refined face, that radiant look, those gentle graceful gestures, +and especially the deep and tender sorrow expressed in all her features +agitated him and evoked his sympathy. In men Rostov could not bear to +see the expression of a higher spiritual life (that was why he did not +like Prince Andrew) and he referred to it contemptuously as philosophy +and dreaminess, but in Princess Mary that very sorrow which revealed the +depth of a whole spiritual world foreign to him was an irresistible +attraction. + +"She must be a wonderful woman. A real angel!" he said to himself. "Why +am I not free? Why was I in such a hurry with Sonya?" And he +involuntarily compared the two: the lack of spirituality in the one and +the abundance of it in the other--a spirituality he himself lacked and +therefore valued most highly. He tried to picture what would happen were +he free. How he would propose to her and how she would become his wife. +But no, he could not imagine that. He felt awed, and no clear picture +presented itself to his mind. He had long ago pictured to himself a +future with Sonya, and that was all clear and simple just because it had +all been thought out and he knew all there was in Sonya, but it was +impossible to picture a future with Princess Mary, because he did not +understand her but simply loved her. + +Reveries about Sonya had had something merry and playful in them, but to +dream of Princess Mary was always difficult and a little frightening. + +"How she prayed!" he thought. "It was plain that her whole soul was in +her prayer. Yes, that was the prayer that moves mountains, and I am sure +her prayer will be answered. Why don't I pray for what I want?" he +suddenly thought. "What do I want? To be free, released from Sonya... +She was right," he thought, remembering what the governor's wife had +said: "Nothing but misfortune can come of marrying Sonya. Muddles, grief +for Mamma... business difficulties... muddles, terrible muddles! +Besides, I don't love her--not as I should. O, God! release me from this +dreadful, inextricable position!" he suddenly began to pray. "Yes, +prayer can move mountains, but one must have faith and not pray as +Natasha and I used to as children, that the snow might turn into sugar-- +and then run out into the yard to see whether it had done so. No, but I +am not praying for trifles now," he thought as he put his pipe down in a +corner, and folding his hands placed himself before the icon. Softened +by memories of Princess Mary he began to pray as he had not done for a +long time. Tears were in his eyes and in his throat when the door opened +and Lavrushka came in with some papers. + +"Blockhead! Why do you come in without being called?" cried Nicholas, +quickly changing his attitude. + +"From the governor," said Lavrushka in a sleepy voice. "A courier has +arrived and there's a letter for you." + +"Well, all right, thanks. You can go!" + +Nicholas took the two letters, one of which was from his mother and the +other from Sonya. He recognized them by the handwriting and opened +Sonya's first. He had read only a few lines when he turned pale and his +eyes opened wide with fear and joy. + +"No, it's not possible!" he cried aloud. + +Unable to sit still he paced up and down the room holding the letter and +reading it. He glanced through it, then read it again, and then again, +and standing still in the middle of the room he raised his shoulders, +stretching out his hands, with his mouth wide open and his eyes fixed. +What he had just been praying for with confidence that God would hear +him had come to pass; but Nicholas was as much astonished as if it were +something extraordinary and unexpected, and as if the very fact that it +had happened so quickly proved that it had not come from God to whom he +had prayed, but by some ordinary coincidence. + +This unexpected and, as it seemed to Nicholas, quite voluntary letter +from Sonya freed him from the knot that fettered him and from which +there had seemed no escape. She wrote that the last unfortunate events-- +the loss of almost the whole of the Rostovs' Moscow property--and the +countess' repeatedly expressed wish that Nicholas should marry Princess +Bolkonskaya, together with his silence and coldness of late, had all +combined to make her decide to release him from his promise and set him +completely free. + +It would be too painful to me to think that I might be a cause of sorrow +or discord in the family that has been so good to me (she wrote), and my +love has no aim but the happiness of those I love; so, Nicholas, I beg +you to consider yourself free, and to be assured that, in spite of +everything, no one can love you more than does + +Your Sonya + +Both letters were written from Troitsa. The other, from the countess, +described their last days in Moscow, their departure, the fire, and the +destruction of all their property. In this letter the countess also +mentioned that Prince Andrew was among the wounded traveling with them; +his state was very critical, but the doctor said there was now more +hope. Sonya and Natasha were nursing him. + +Next day Nicholas took his mother's letter and went to see Princess +Mary. Neither he nor she said a word about what "Natasha nursing him" +might mean, but thanks to this letter Nicholas suddenly became almost as +intimate with the princess as if they were relations. + +The following day he saw Princess Mary off on her journey to Yaroslavl, +and a few days later left to rejoin his regiment. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII + +Sonya's letter written from Troitsa, which had come as an answer to +Nicholas' prayer, was prompted by this: the thought of getting Nicholas +married to an heiress occupied the old countess' mind more and more. She +knew that Sonya was the chief obstacle to this happening, and Sonya's +life in the countess' house had grown harder and harder, especially +after they had received a letter from Nicholas telling of his meeting +with Princess Mary in Bogucharovo. The countess let no occasion slip of +making humiliating or cruel allusions to Sonya. + +But a few days before they left Moscow, moved and excited by all that +was going on, she called Sonya to her and, instead of reproaching and +making demands on her, tearfully implored her to sacrifice herself and +repay all that the family had done for her by breaking off her +engagement with Nicholas. + +"I shall not be at peace till you promise me this." + +Sonya burst into hysterical tears and replied through her sobs that she +would do anything and was prepared for anything, but gave no actual +promise and could not bring herself to decide to do what was demanded of +her. She must sacrifice herself for the family that had reared and +brought her up. To sacrifice herself for others was Sonya's habit. Her +position in the house was such that only by sacrifice could she show her +worth, and she was accustomed to this and loved doing it. But in all her +former acts of self-sacrifice she had been happily conscious that they +raised her in her own esteem and in that of others, and so made her more +worthy of Nicholas whom she loved more than anything in the world. But +now they wanted her to sacrifice the very thing that constituted the +whole reward for her self-sacrifice and the whole meaning of her life. +And for the first time she felt bitterness against those who had been +her benefactors only to torture her the more painfully; she felt jealous +of Natasha who had never experienced anything of this sort, had never +needed to sacrifice herself, but made others sacrifice themselves for +her and yet was beloved by everybody. And for the first time Sonya felt +that out of her pure, quiet love for Nicholas a passionate feeling was +beginning to grow up which was stronger than principle, virtue, or +religion. Under the influence of this feeling Sonya, whose life of +dependence had taught her involuntarily to be secretive, having answered +the countess in vague general terms, avoided talking with her and +resolved to wait till she should see Nicholas, not in order to set him +free but on the contrary at that meeting to bind him to her forever. + +The bustle and terror of the Rostovs' last days in Moscow stifled the +gloomy thoughts that oppressed Sonya. She was glad to find escape from +them in practical activity. But when she heard of Prince Andrew's +presence in their house, despite her sincere pity for him and for +Natasha, she was seized by a joyful and superstitious feeling that God +did not intend her to be separated from Nicholas. She knew that Natasha +loved no one but Prince Andrew and had never ceased to love him. She +knew that being thrown together again under such terrible circumstances +they would again fall in love with one another, and that Nicholas would +then not be able to marry Princess Mary as they would be within the +prohibited degrees of affinity. Despite all the terror of what had +happened during those last days and during the first days of their +journey, this feeling that Providence was intervening in her personal +affairs cheered Sonya. + +At the Troitsa monastery the Rostovs first broke their journey for a +whole day. + +Three large rooms were assigned to them in the monastery hostelry, one +of which was occupied by Prince Andrew. The wounded man was much better +that day and Natasha was sitting with him. In the next room sat the +count and countess respectfully conversing with the prior, who was +calling on them as old acquaintances and benefactors of the monastery. +Sonya was there too, tormented by curiosity as to what Prince Andrew and +Natasha were talking about. She heard the sound of their voices through +the door. That door opened and Natasha came out, looking excited. Not +noticing the monk, who had risen to greet her and was drawing back the +wide sleeve on his right arm, she went up to Sonya and took her hand. + +"Natasha, what are you about? Come here!" said the countess. + +Natasha went up to the monk for his blessing, and he advised her to pray +for aid to God and His saint. + +As soon as the prior withdrew, Natasha took her friend by the hand and +went with her into the unoccupied room. + +"Sonya, will he live?" she asked. "Sonya, how happy I am, and how +unhappy!... Sonya, dovey, everything is as it used to be. If only he +lives! He cannot... because... because... of" and Natasha burst into +tears. + +"Yes! I knew it! Thank God!" murmured Sonya. "He will live." + +Sonya was not less agitated than her friend by the latter's fear and +grief and by her own personal feelings which she shared with no one. +Sobbing, she kissed and comforted Natasha. "If only he lives!" she +thought. Having wept, talked, and wiped away their tears, the two +friends went together to Prince Andrew's door. Natasha opened it +cautiously and glanced into the room, Sonya standing beside her at the +half-open door. + +Prince Andrew was lying raised high on three pillows. His pale face was +calm, his eyes closed, and they could see his regular breathing. + +"O, Natasha!" Sonya suddenly almost screamed, catching her companion's +arm and stepping back from the door. + +"What? What is it?" asked Natasha. + +"It's that, that..." said Sonya, with a white face and trembling lips. + +Natasha softly closed the door and went with Sonya to the window, not +yet understanding what the latter was telling her. + +"You remember," said Sonya with a solemn and frightened expression. "You +remember when I looked in the mirror for you... at Otradnoe at +Christmas? Do you remember what I saw?" + +"Yes, yes!" cried Natasha opening her eyes wide, and vaguely recalling +that Sonya had told her something about Prince Andrew whom she had seen +lying down. + +"You remember?" Sonya went on. "I saw it then and told everybody, you +and Dunyasha. I saw him lying on a bed," said she, making a gesture with +her hand and a lifted finger at each detail, "and that he had his eyes +closed and was covered just with a pink quilt, and that his hands were +folded," she concluded, convincing herself that the details she had just +seen were exactly what she had seen in the mirror. + +She had in fact seen nothing then but had mentioned the first thing that +came into her head, but what she had invented then seemed to her now as +real as any other recollection. She not only remembered what she had +then said--that he turned to look at her and smiled and was covered with +something red--but was firmly convinced that she had then seen and said +that he was covered with a pink quilt and that his eyes were closed. + +"Yes, yes, it really was pink!" cried Natasha, who now thought she too +remembered the word pink being used, and saw in this the most +extraordinary and mysterious part of the prediction. + +"But what does it mean?" she added meditatively. + +"Oh, I don't know, it is all so strange," replied Sonya, clutching at +her head. + +A few minutes later Prince Andrew rang and Natasha went to him, but +Sonya, feeling unusually excited and touched, remained at the window +thinking about the strangeness of what had occurred. + +They had an opportunity that day to send letters to the army, and the +countess was writing to her son. + +"Sonya!" said the countess, raising her eyes from her letter as her +niece passed, "Sonya, won't you write to Nicholas?" She spoke in a soft, +tremulous voice, and in the weary eyes that looked over her spectacles +Sonya read all that the countess meant to convey with these words. Those +eyes expressed entreaty, shame at having to ask, fear of a refusal, and +readiness for relentless hatred in case of such refusal. + +Sonya went up to the countess and, kneeling down, kissed her hand. + +"Yes, Mamma, I will write," said she. + +Sonya was softened, excited, and touched by all that had occurred that +day, especially by the mysterious fulfillment she had just seen of her +vision. Now that she knew that the renewal of Natasha's relations with +Prince Andrew would prevent Nicholas from marrying Princess Mary, she +was joyfully conscious of a return of that self-sacrificing spirit in +which she was accustomed to live and loved to live. So with a joyful +consciousness of performing a magnanimous deed--interrupted several +times by the tears that dimmed her velvety black eyes--she wrote that +touching letter the arrival of which had so amazed Nicholas. + + + + +CHAPTER IX + +The officer and soldiers who had arrested Pierre treated him with +hostility but yet with respect, in the guardhouse to which he was taken. +In their attitude toward him could still be felt both uncertainty as to +who he might be--perhaps a very important person--and hostility as a +result of their recent personal conflict with him. + +But when the guard was relieved next morning, Pierre felt that for the +new guard--both officers and men--he was not as interesting as he had +been to his captors; and in fact the guard of the second day did not +recognize in this big, stout man in a peasant coat the vigorous person +who had fought so desperately with the marauder and the convoy and had +uttered those solemn words about saving a child; they saw in him only +No. 17 of the captured Russians, arrested and detained for some reason +by order of the Higher Command. If they noticed anything remarkable +about Pierre, it was only his unabashed, meditative concentration and +thoughtfulness, and the way he spoke French, which struck them as +surprisingly good. In spite of this he was placed that day with the +other arrested suspects, as the separate room he had occupied was +required by an officer. + +All the Russians confined with Pierre were men of the lowest class and, +recognizing him as a gentleman, they all avoided him, more especially as +he spoke French. Pierre felt sad at hearing them making fun of him. + +That evening he learned that all these prisoners (he, probably, among +them) were to be tried for incendiarism. On the third day he was taken +with the others to a house where a French general with a white mustache +sat with two colonels and other Frenchmen with scarves on their arms. +With the precision and definiteness customary in addressing prisoners, +and which is supposed to preclude human frailty, Pierre like the others +was questioned as to who he was, where he had been, with what object, +and so on. + +These questions, like questions put at trials generally, left the +essence of the matter aside, shut out the possibility of that essence's +being revealed, and were designed only to form a channel through which +the judges wished the answers of the accused to flow so as to lead to +the desired result, namely a conviction. As soon as Pierre began to say +anything that did not fit in with that aim, the channel was removed and +the water could flow to waste. Pierre felt, moreover, what the accused +always feel at their trial, perplexity as to why these questions were +put to him. He had a feeling that it was only out of condescension or a +kind of civility that this device of placing a channel was employed. He +knew he was in these men's power, that only by force had they brought +him there, that force alone gave them the right to demand answers to +their questions, and that the sole object of that assembly was to +inculpate him. And so, as they had the power and wish to inculpate him, +this expedient of an inquiry and trial seemed unnecessary. It was +evident that any answer would lead to conviction. When asked what he was +doing when he was arrested, Pierre replied in a rather tragic manner +that he was restoring to its parents a child he had saved from the +flames. Why had he fought the marauder? Pierre answered that he "was +protecting a woman," and that "to protect a woman who was being insulted +was the duty of every man; that..." They interrupted him, for this was +not to the point. Why was he in the yard of a burning house where +witnesses had seen him? He replied that he had gone out to see what was +happening in Moscow. Again they interrupted him: they had not asked +where he was going, but why he was found near the fire? Who was he? they +asked, repeating their first question, which he had declined to answer. +Again he replied that he could not answer it. + +"Put that down, that's bad... very bad," sternly remarked the general +with the white mustache and red flushed face. + +On the fourth day fires broke out on the Zubovski rampart. + +Pierre and thirteen others were moved to the coach house of a merchant's +house near the Crimean bridge. On his way through the streets Pierre +felt stifled by the smoke which seemed to hang over the whole city. +Fires were visible on all sides. He did not then realize the +significance of the burning of Moscow, and looked at the fires with +horror. + +He passed four days in the coach house near the Crimean bridge and +during that time learned, from the talk of the French soldiers, that all +those confined there were awaiting a decision which might come any day +from the marshal. What marshal this was, Pierre could not learn from the +soldiers. Evidently for them "the marshal" represented a very high and +rather mysterious power. + +These first days, before the eighth of September when the prisoners were +had up for a second examination, were the hardest of all for Pierre. + + + + +CHAPTER X + +On the eighth of September an officer--a very important one judging by +the respect the guards showed him--entered the coach house where the +prisoners were. This officer, probably someone on the staff, was holding +a paper in his hand, and called over all the Russians there, naming +Pierre as "the man who does not give his name." Glancing indolently and +indifferently at all the prisoners, he ordered the officer in charge to +have them decently dressed and tidied up before taking them to the +marshal. An hour later a squad of soldiers arrived and Pierre with +thirteen others was led to the Virgin's Field. It was a fine day, sunny +after rain, and the air was unusually pure. The smoke did not hang low +as on the day when Pierre had been taken from the guardhouse on the +Zubovski rampart, but rose through the pure air in columns. No flames +were seen, but columns of smoke rose on all sides, and all Moscow as far +as Pierre could see was one vast charred ruin. On all sides there were +waste spaces with only stoves and chimney stacks still standing, and +here and there the blackened walls of some brick houses. Pierre gazed at +the ruins and did not recognize districts he had known well. Here and +there he could see churches that had not been burned. The Kremlin, which +was not destroyed, gleamed white in the distance with its towers and the +belfry of Ivan the Great. The domes of the New Convent of the Virgin +glittered brightly and its bells were ringing particularly clearly. +These bells reminded Pierre that it was Sunday and the feast of the +Nativity of the Virgin. But there seemed to be no one to celebrate this +holiday: everywhere were blackened ruins, and the few Russians to be +seen were tattered and frightened people who tried to hide when they saw +the French. + +It was plain that the Russian nest was ruined and destroyed, but in +place of the Russian order of life that had been destroyed, Pierre +unconsciously felt that a quite different, firm, French order had been +established over this ruined nest. He felt this in the looks of the +soldiers who, marching in regular ranks briskly and gaily, were +escorting him and the other criminals; he felt it in the looks of an +important French official in a carriage and pair driven by a soldier, +whom they met on the way. He felt it in the merry sounds of regimental +music he heard from the left side of the field, and felt and realized it +especially from the list of prisoners the French officer had read out +when he came that morning. Pierre had been taken by one set of soldiers +and led first to one and then to another place with dozens of other men, +and it seemed that they might have forgotten him, or confused him with +the others. But no: the answers he had given when questioned had come +back to him in his designation as "the man who does not give his name," +and under that appellation, which to Pierre seemed terrible, they were +now leading him somewhere with unhesitating assurance on their faces +that he and all the other prisoners were exactly the ones they wanted +and that they were being taken to the proper place. Pierre felt himself +to be an insignificant chip fallen among the wheels of a machine whose +action he did not understand but which was working well. + +He and the other prisoners were taken to the right side of the Virgin's +Field, to a large white house with an immense garden not far from the +convent. This was Prince Shcherbitov's house, where Pierre had often +been in other days, and which, as he learned from the talk of the +soldiers, was now occupied by the marshal, the Duke of Eckmuhl (Davout). + +They were taken to the entrance and led into the house one by one. +Pierre was the sixth to enter. He was conducted through a glass gallery, +an anteroom, and a hall, which were familiar to him, into a long low +study at the door of which stood an adjutant. + +Davout, spectacles on nose, sat bent over a table at the further end of +the room. Pierre went close up to him, but Davout, evidently consulting +a paper that lay before him, did not look up. Without raising his eyes, +he said in a low voice: + +"Who are you?" + +Pierre was silent because he was incapable of uttering a word. To him +Davout was not merely a French general, but a man notorious for his +cruelty. Looking at his cold face, as he sat like a stern schoolmaster +who was prepared to wait awhile for an answer, Pierre felt that every +instant of delay might cost him his life; but he did not know what to +say. He did not venture to repeat what he had said at his first +examination, yet to disclose his rank and position was dangerous and +embarrassing. So he was silent. But before he had decided what to do, +Davout raised his head, pushed his spectacles back on his forehead, +screwed up his eyes, and looked intently at him. + +"I know that man," he said in a cold, measured tone, evidently +calculated to frighten Pierre. + +The chill that had been running down Pierre's back now seized his head +as in a vise. + +"You cannot know me, General, I have never seen you..." + +"He is a Russian spy," Davout interrupted, addressing another general +who was present, but whom Pierre had not noticed. + +Davout turned away. With an unexpected reverberation in his voice Pierre +rapidly began: + +"No, monseigneur," he said, suddenly remembering that Davout was a duke. +"No, monseigneur, you cannot have known me. I am a militia officer and +have not quitted Moscow." + +"Your name?" asked Davout. + +"Bezukhov." + +"What proof have I that you are not lying?" + +"Monseigneur!" exclaimed Pierre, not in an offended but in a pleading +voice. + +Davout looked up and gazed intently at him. For some seconds they looked +at one another, and that look saved Pierre. Apart from conditions of war +and law, that look established human relations between the two men. At +that moment an immense number of things passed dimly through both their +minds, and they realized that they were both children of humanity and +were brothers. + +At the first glance, when Davout had only raised his head from the +papers where human affairs and lives were indicated by numbers, Pierre +was merely a circumstance, and Davout could have shot him without +burdening his conscience with an evil deed, but now he saw in him a +human being. He reflected for a moment. + +"How can you show me that you are telling the truth?" said Davout +coldly. + +Pierre remembered Ramballe, and named him and his regiment and the +street where the house was. + +"You are not what you say," returned Davout. + +In a trembling, faltering voice Pierre began adducing proofs of the +truth of his statements. + +But at that moment an adjutant entered and reported something to Davout. + +Davout brightened up at the news the adjutant brought, and began +buttoning up his uniform. It seemed that he had quite forgotten Pierre. + +When the adjutant reminded him of the prisoner, he jerked his head in +Pierre's direction with a frown and ordered him to be led away. But +where they were to take him Pierre did not know: back to the coach house +or to the place of execution his companions had pointed out to him as +they crossed the Virgin's Field. + +He turned his head and saw that the adjutant was putting another +question to Davout. + +"Yes, of course!" replied Davout, but what this "yes" meant, Pierre did +not know. + +Pierre could not afterwards remember how he went, whether it was far, or +in which direction. His faculties were quite numbed, he was stupefied, +and noticing nothing around him went on moving his legs as the others +did till they all stopped and he stopped too. The only thought in his +mind at that time was: who was it that had really sentenced him to +death? Not the men on the commission that had first examined him--not +one of them wished to or, evidently, could have done it. It was not +Davout, who had looked at him in so human a way. In another moment +Davout would have realized that he was doing wrong, but just then the +adjutant had come in and interrupted him. The adjutant, also, had +evidently had no evil intent though he might have refrained from coming +in. Then who was executing him, killing him, depriving him of life--him, +Pierre, with all his memories, aspirations, hopes, and thoughts? Who was +doing this? And Pierre felt that it was no one. + +It was a system--a concurrence of circumstances. + +A system of some sort was killing him--Pierre--depriving him of life, of +everything, annihilating him. + + + + +CHAPTER XI + +From Prince Shcherbatov's house the prisoners were led straight down the +Virgin's Field, to the left of the nunnery, as far as a kitchen garden +in which a post had been set up. Beyond that post a fresh pit had been +dug in the ground, and near the post and the pit a large crowd stood in +a semicircle. The crowd consisted of a few Russians and many of +Napoleon's soldiers who were not on duty--Germans, Italians, and +Frenchmen, in a variety of uniforms. To the right and left of the post +stood rows of French troops in blue uniforms with red epaulets and high +boots and shakos. + +The prisoners were placed in a certain order, according to the list +(Pierre was sixth), and were led to the post. Several drums suddenly +began to beat on both sides of them, and at that sound Pierre felt as if +part of his soul had been torn away. He lost the power of thinking or +understanding. He could only hear and see. And he had only one wish-- +that the frightful thing that had to happen should happen quickly. +Pierre looked round at his fellow prisoners and scrutinized them. + +The two first were convicts with shaven heads. One was tall and thin, +the other dark, shaggy, and sinewy, with a flat nose. The third was a +domestic serf, about forty-five years old, with grizzled hair and a +plump, well-nourished body. The fourth was a peasant, a very handsome +man with a broad, light-brown beard and black eyes. The fifth was a +factory hand, a thin, sallow-faced lad of eighteen in a loose coat. + +Pierre heard the French consulting whether to shoot them separately or +two at a time. "In couples," replied the officer in command in a calm +voice. There was a stir in the ranks of the soldiers and it was evident +that they were all hurrying--not as men hurry to do something they +understand, but as people hurry to finish a necessary but unpleasant and +incomprehensible task. + +A French official wearing a scarf came up to the right of the row of +prisoners and read out the sentence in Russian and in French. + +Then two pairs of Frenchmen approached the criminals and at the +officer's command took the two convicts who stood first in the row. The +convicts stopped when they reached the post and, while sacks were being +brought, looked dumbly around as a wounded beast looks at an approaching +huntsman. One crossed himself continually, the other scratched his back +and made a movement of the lips resembling a smile. With hurried hands +the soldiers blindfolded them, drawing the sacks over their heads, and +bound them to the post. + +Twelve sharpshooters with muskets stepped out of the ranks with a firm +regular tread and halted eight paces from the post. Pierre turned away +to avoid seeing what was going to happen. Suddenly a crackling, rolling +noise was heard which seemed to him louder than the most terrific +thunder, and he looked round. There was some smoke, and the Frenchmen +were doing something near the pit, with pale faces and trembling hands. +Two more prisoners were led up. In the same way and with similar looks, +these two glanced vainly at the onlookers with only a silent appeal for +protection in their eyes, evidently unable to understand or believe what +was going to happen to them. They could not believe it because they +alone knew what their life meant to them, and so they neither understood +nor believed that it could be taken from them. + +Again Pierre did not wish to look and again turned away; but again the +sound as of a frightful explosion struck his ear, and at the same moment +he saw smoke, blood, and the pale, scared faces of the Frenchmen who +were again doing something by the post, their trembling hands impeding +one another. Pierre, breathing heavily, looked around as if asking what +it meant. The same question was expressed in all the looks that met his. + +On the faces of all the Russians and of the French soldiers and officers +without exception, he read the same dismay, horror, and conflict that +were in his own heart. "But who, after all, is doing this? They are all +suffering as I am. Who then is it? Who?" flashed for an instant through +his mind. + +"Sharpshooters of the 86th, forward!" shouted someone. The fifth +prisoner, the one next to Pierre, was led away--alone. Pierre did not +understand that he was saved, that he and the rest had been brought +there only to witness the execution. With ever-growing horror, and no +sense of joy or relief, he gazed at what was taking place. The fifth man +was the factory lad in the loose cloak. The moment they laid hands on +him he sprang aside in terror and clutched at Pierre. (Pierre shuddered +and shook himself free.) The lad was unable to walk. They dragged him +along, holding him up under the arms, and he screamed. When they got him +to the post he grew quiet, as if he suddenly understood something. +Whether he understood that screaming was useless or whether he thought +it incredible that men should kill him, at any rate he took his stand at +the post, waiting to be blindfolded like the others, and like a wounded +animal looked around him with glittering eyes. + +Pierre was no longer able to turn away and close his eyes. His curiosity +and agitation, like that of the whole crowd, reached the highest pitch +at this fifth murder. Like the others this fifth man seemed calm; he +wrapped his loose cloak closer and rubbed one bare foot with the other. + +When they began to blindfold him he himself adjusted the knot which hurt +the back of his head; then when they propped him against the +bloodstained post, he leaned back and, not being comfortable in that +position, straightened himself, adjusted his feet, and leaned back again +more comfortably. Pierre did not take his eyes from him and did not miss +his slightest movement. + +Probably a word of command was given and was followed by the reports of +eight muskets; but try as he would Pierre could not afterwards remember +having heard the slightest sound of the shots. He only saw how the +workman suddenly sank down on the cords that held him, how blood showed +itself in two places, how the ropes slackened under the weight of the +hanging body, and how the workman sat down, his head hanging unnaturally +and one leg bent under him. Pierre ran up to the post. No one hindered +him. Pale, frightened people were doing something around the workman. +The lower jaw of an old Frenchman with a thick mustache trembled as he +untied the ropes. The body collapsed. The soldiers dragged it awkwardly +from the post and began pushing it into the pit. + +They all plainly and certainly knew that they were criminals who must +hide the traces of their guilt as quickly as possible. + +Pierre glanced into the pit and saw that the factory lad was lying with +his knees close up to his head and one shoulder higher than the other. +That shoulder rose and fell rhythmically and convulsively, but spadefuls +of earth were already being thrown over the whole body. One of the +soldiers, evidently suffering, shouted gruffly and angrily at Pierre to +go back. But Pierre did not understand him and remained near the post, +and no one drove him away. + +When the pit had been filled up a command was given. Pierre was taken +back to his place, and the rows of troops on both sides of the post made +a half turn and went past it at a measured pace. The twenty-four +sharpshooters with discharged muskets, standing in the center of the +circle, ran back to their places as the companies passed by. + +Pierre gazed now with dazed eyes at these sharpshooters who ran in +couples out of the circle. All but one rejoined their companies. This +one, a young soldier, his face deadly pale, his shako pushed back, and +his musket resting on the ground, still stood near the pit at the spot +from which he had fired. He swayed like a drunken man, taking some steps +forward and back to save himself from falling. An old, noncommissioned +officer ran out of the ranks and taking him by the elbow dragged him to +his company. The crowd of Russians and Frenchmen began to disperse. They +all went away silently and with drooping heads. + +"That will teach them to start fires," said one of the Frenchmen. + +Pierre glanced round at the speaker and saw that it was a soldier who +was trying to find some relief after what had been done, but was not +able to do so. Without finishing what he had begun to say he made a +hopeless movement with his arm and went away. + + + + +CHAPTER XII + +After the execution Pierre was separated from the rest of the prisoners +and placed alone in a small, ruined, and befouled church. + +Toward evening a noncommissioned officer entered with two soldiers and +told him that he had been pardoned and would now go to the barracks for +the prisoners of war. Without understanding what was said to him, Pierre +got up and went with the soldiers. They took him to the upper end of the +field, where there were some sheds built of charred planks, beams, and +battens, and led him into one of them. In the darkness some twenty +different men surrounded Pierre. He looked at them without understanding +who they were, why they were there, or what they wanted of him. He heard +what they said, but did not understand the meaning of the words and made +no kind of deduction from or application of them. He replied to +questions they put to him, but did not consider who was listening to his +replies, nor how they would understand them. He looked at their faces +and figures, but they all seemed to him equally meaningless. + +From the moment Pierre had witnessed those terrible murders committed by +men who did not wish to commit them, it was as if the mainspring of his +life, on which everything depended and which made everything appear +alive, had suddenly been wrenched out and everything had collapsed into +a heap of meaningless rubbish. Though he did not acknowledge it to +himself, his faith in the right ordering of the universe, in humanity, +in his own soul, and in God, had been destroyed. He had experienced this +before, but never so strongly as now. When similar doubts had assailed +him before, they had been the result of his own wrongdoing, and at the +bottom of his heart he had felt that relief from his despair and from +those doubts was to be found within himself. But now he felt that the +universe had crumbled before his eyes and only meaningless ruins +remained, and this not by any fault of his own. He felt that it was not +in his power to regain faith in the meaning of life. + +Around him in the darkness men were standing and evidently something +about him interested them greatly. They were telling him something and +asking him something. Then they led him away somewhere, and at last he +found himself in a corner of the shed among men who were laughing and +talking on all sides. + +"Well, then, mates... that very prince who..." some voice at the other +end of the shed was saying, with a strong emphasis on the word who. + +Sitting silent and motionless on a heap of straw against the wall, +Pierre sometimes opened and sometimes closed his eyes. But as soon as he +closed them he saw before him the dreadful face of the factory lad-- +especially dreadful because of its simplicity--and the faces of the +murderers, even more dreadful because of their disquiet. And he opened +his eyes again and stared vacantly into the darkness around him. + +Beside him in a stooping position sat a small man of whose presence he +was first made aware by a strong smell of perspiration which came from +him every time he moved. This man was doing something to his legs in the +darkness, and though Pierre could not see his face he felt that the man +continually glanced at him. On growing used to the darkness Pierre saw +that the man was taking off his leg bands, and the way he did it aroused +Pierre's interest. + +Having unwound the string that tied the band on one leg, he carefully +coiled it up and immediately set to work on the other leg, glancing up +at Pierre. While one hand hung up the first string the other was already +unwinding the band on the second leg. In this way, having carefully +removed the leg bands by deft circular motions of his arm following one +another uninterruptedly, the man hung the leg bands up on some pegs +fixed above his head. Then he took out a knife, cut something, closed +the knife, placed it under the head of his bed, and, seating himself +comfortably, clasped his arms round his lifted knees and fixed his eyes +on Pierre. The latter was conscious of something pleasant, comforting, +and well-rounded in these deft movements, in the man's well-ordered +arrangements in his corner, and even in his very smell, and he looked at +the man without taking his eyes from him. + +"You've seen a lot of trouble, sir, eh?" the little man suddenly said. + +And there was so much kindliness and simplicity in his singsong voice +that Pierre tried to reply, but his jaw trembled and he felt tears +rising to his eyes. The little fellow, giving Pierre no time to betray +his confusion, instantly continued in the same pleasant tones: + +"Eh, lad, don't fret!" said he, in the tender singsong caressing voice +old Russian peasant women employ. "Don't fret, friend--'suffer an hour, +live for an age!' that's how it is, my dear fellow. And here we live, +thank heaven, without offense. Among these folk, too, there are good men +as well as bad," said he, and still speaking, he turned on his knees +with a supple movement, got up, coughed, and went off to another part of +the shed. + +"Eh, you rascal!" Pierre heard the same kind voice saying at the other +end of the shed. "So you've come, you rascal? She remembers... Now, now, +that'll do!" + +And the soldier, pushing away a little dog that was jumping up at him, +returned to his place and sat down. In his hands he had something +wrapped in a rag. + +"Here, eat a bit, sir," said he, resuming his former respectful tone as +he unwrapped and offered Pierre some baked potatoes. "We had soup for +dinner and the potatoes are grand!" + +Pierre had not eaten all day and the smell of the potatoes seemed +extremely pleasant to him. He thanked the soldier and began to eat. + +"Well, are they all right?" said the soldier with a smile. "You should +do like this." + +He took a potato, drew out his clasp knife, cut the potato into two +equal halves on the palm of his hand, sprinkled some salt on it from the +rag, and handed it to Pierre. + +"The potatoes are grand!" he said once more. "Eat some like that!" + +Pierre thought he had never eaten anything that tasted better. + +"Oh, I'm all right," said he, "but why did they shoot those poor +fellows? The last one was hardly twenty." + +"Tss, tt...!" said the little man. "Ah, what a sin... what a sin!" he +added quickly, and as if his words were always waiting ready in his +mouth and flew out involuntarily he went on: "How was it, sir, that you +stayed in Moscow?" + +"I didn't think they would come so soon. I stayed accidentally," replied +Pierre. + +"And how did they arrest you, dear lad? At your house?" + +"No, I went to look at the fire, and they arrested me there, and tried +me as an incendiary." + +"Where there's law there's injustice," put in the little man. + +"And have you been here long?" Pierre asked as he munched the last of +the potato. + +"I? It was last Sunday they took me, out of a hospital in Moscow." + +"Why, are you a soldier then?" + +"Yes, we are soldiers of the Apsheron regiment. I was dying of fever. We +weren't told anything. There were some twenty of us lying there. We had +no idea, never guessed at all." + +"And do you feel sad here?" Pierre inquired. + +"How can one help it, lad? My name is Platon, and the surname is +Karataev," he added, evidently wishing to make it easier for Pierre to +address him. "They call me 'little falcon' in the regiment. How is one +to help feeling sad? Moscow--she's the mother of cities. How can one see +all this and not feel sad? But 'the maggot gnaws the cabbage, yet dies +first'; that's what the old folks used to tell us," he added rapidly. + +"What? What did you say?" asked Pierre. + +"Who? I?" said Karataev. "I say things happen not as we plan but as God +judges," he replied, thinking that he was repeating what he had said +before, and immediately continued: + +"Well, and you, have you a family estate, sir? And a house? So you have +abundance, then? And a housewife? And your old parents, are they still +living?" he asked. + +And though it was too dark for Pierre to see, he felt that a suppressed +smile of kindliness puckered the soldier's lips as he put these +questions. He seemed grieved that Pierre had no parents, especially that +he had no mother. + +"A wife for counsel, a mother-in-law for welcome, but there's none as +dear as one's own mother!" said he. "Well, and have you little ones?" he +went on asking. + +Again Pierre's negative answer seemed to distress him, and he hastened +to add: + +"Never mind! You're young folks yet, and please God may still have some. +The great thing is to live in harmony...." + +"But it's all the same now," Pierre could not help saying. + +"Ah, my dear fellow!" rejoined Karataev, "never decline a prison or a +beggar's sack!" + +He seated himself more comfortably and coughed, evidently preparing to +tell a long story. + +"Well, my dear fellow, I was still living at home," he began. "We had a +well-to-do homestead, plenty of land, we peasants lived well and our +house was one to thank God for. When Father and we went out mowing there +were seven of us. We lived well. We were real peasants. It so +happened..." + +And Platon Karataev told a long story of how he had gone into someone's +copse to take wood, how he had been caught by the keeper, had been +tried, flogged, and sent to serve as a soldier. + +"Well, lad," and a smile changed the tone of his voice "we thought it +was a misfortune but it turned out a blessing! If it had not been for my +sin, my brother would have had to go as a soldier. But he, my younger +brother, had five little ones, while I, you see, only left a wife +behind. We had a little girl, but God took her before I went as a +soldier. I come home on leave and I'll tell you how it was, I look and +see that they are living better than before. The yard full of cattle, +the women at home, two brothers away earning wages, and only Michael the +youngest, at home. Father, he says, 'All my children are the same to me: +it hurts the same whichever finger gets bitten. But if Platon hadn't +been shaved for a soldier, Michael would have had to go.' called us all +to him and, will you believe it, placed us in front of the icons. +'Michael,' he says, 'come here and bow down to his feet; and you, young +woman, you bow down too; and you, grandchildren, also bow down before +him! Do you understand?' he says. That's how it is, dear fellow. Fate +looks for a head. But we are always judging, 'that's not well--that's +not right!' Our luck is like water in a dragnet: you pull at it and it +bulges, but when you've drawn it out it's empty! That's how it is." + +And Platon shifted his seat on the straw. + +After a short silence he rose. + +"Well, I think you must be sleepy," said he, and began rapidly crossing +himself and repeating: + +"Lord Jesus Christ, holy Saint Nicholas, Frola and Lavra! Lord Jesus +Christ, holy Saint Nicholas, Frola and Lavra! Lord Jesus Christ, have +mercy on us and save us!" he concluded, then bowed to the ground, got +up, sighed, and sat down again on his heap of straw. "That's the way. +Lay me down like a stone, O God, and raise me up like a loaf," he +muttered as he lay down, pulling his coat over him. + +"What prayer was that you were saying?" asked Pierre. + +"Eh?" murmured Platon, who had almost fallen asleep. "What was I saying? +I was praying. Don't you pray?" + +"Yes, I do," said Pierre. "But what was that you said: Frola and Lavra?" + +"Well, of course," replied Platon quickly, "the horses' saints. One must +pity the animals too. Eh, the rascal! Now you've curled up and got warm, +you daughter of a bitch!" said Karataev, touching the dog that lay at +his feet, and again turning over he fell asleep immediately. + +Sounds of crying and screaming came from somewhere in the distance +outside, and flames were visible through the cracks of the shed, but +inside it was quiet and dark. For a long time Pierre did not sleep, but +lay with eyes open in the darkness, listening to the regular snoring of +Platon who lay beside him, and he felt that the world that had been +shattered was once more stirring in his soul with a new beauty and on +new and unshakable foundations. + + + + +CHAPTER XIII + +Twenty-three soldiers, three officers, and two officials were confined +in the shed in which Pierre had been placed and where he remained for +four weeks. + +When Pierre remembered them afterwards they all seemed misty figures to +him except Platon Karataev, who always remained in his mind a most vivid +and precious memory and the personification of everything Russian, +kindly, and round. When Pierre saw his neighbor next morning at dawn the +first impression of him, as of something round, was fully confirmed: +Platon's whole figure--in a French overcoat girdled with a cord, a +soldier's cap, and bast shoes--was round. His head was quite round, his +back, chest, shoulders, and even his arms, which he held as if ever +ready to embrace something, were rounded, his pleasant smile and his +large, gentle brown eyes were also round. + +Platon Karataev must have been fifty, judging by his stories of +campaigns he had been in, told as by an old soldier. He did not himself +know his age and was quite unable to determine it. But his brilliantly +white, strong teeth which showed in two unbroken semicircles when he +laughed--as he often did--were all sound and good, there was not a gray +hair in his beard or on his head, and his whole body gave an impression +of suppleness and especially of firmness and endurance. + +His face, despite its fine, rounded wrinkles, had an expression of +innocence and youth, his voice was pleasant and musical. But the chief +peculiarity of his speech was its directness and appositeness. It was +evident that he never considered what he had said or was going to say, +and consequently the rapidity and justice of his intonation had an +irresistible persuasiveness. + +His physical strength and agility during the first days of his +imprisonment were such that he seemed not to know what fatigue and +sickness meant. Every night before lying down, he said: "Lord, lay me +down as a stone and raise me up as a loaf!" and every morning on getting +up, he said: "I lay down and curled up, I get up and shake myself." And +indeed he only had to lie down, to fall asleep like a stone, and he only +had to shake himself, to be ready without a moment's delay for some +work, just as children are ready to play directly they awake. He could +do everything, not very well but not badly. He baked, cooked, sewed, +planed, and mended boots. He was always busy, and only at night allowed +himself conversation--of which he was fond--and songs. He did not sing +like a trained singer who knows he is listened to, but like the birds, +evidently giving vent to the sounds in the same way that one stretches +oneself or walks about to get rid of stiffness, and the sounds were +always high-pitched, mournful, delicate, and almost feminine, and his +face at such times was very serious. + +Having been taken prisoner and allowed his beard to grow, he seemed to +have thrown off all that had been forced upon him--everything military +and alien to himself--and had returned to his former peasant habits. + +"A soldier on leave--a shirt outside breeches," he would say. + +He did not like talking about his life as a soldier, though he did not +complain, and often mentioned that he had not been flogged once during +the whole of his army service. When he related anything it was generally +some old and evidently precious memory of his "Christian" life, as he +called his peasant existence. The proverbs, of which his talk was full, +were for the most part not the coarse and indecent saws soldiers employ, +but those folk sayings which taken without a context seem so +insignificant, but when used appositely suddenly acquire a significance +of profound wisdom. + +He would often say the exact opposite of what he had said on a previous +occasion, yet both would be right. He liked to talk and he talked well, +adorning his speech with terms of endearment and with folk sayings which +Pierre thought he invented himself, but the chief charm of his talk lay +in the fact that the commonest events--sometimes just such as Pierre had +witnessed without taking notice of them--assumed in Karataev's a +character of solemn fitness. He liked to hear the folk tales one of the +soldiers used to tell of an evening (they were always the same), but +most of all he liked to hear stories of real life. He would smile +joyfully when listening to such stories, now and then putting in a word +or asking a question to make the moral beauty of what he was told clear +to himself. Karataev had no attachments, friendships, or love, as Pierre +understood them, but loved and lived affectionately with everything life +brought him in contact with, particularly with man--not any particular +man, but those with whom he happened to be. He loved his dog, his +comrades, the French, and Pierre who was his neighbor, but Pierre felt +that in spite of Karataev's affectionate tenderness for him (by which he +unconsciously gave Pierre's spiritual life its due) he would not have +grieved for a moment at parting from him. And Pierre began to feel in +the same way toward Karataev. + +To all the other prisoners Platon Karataev seemed a most ordinary +soldier. They called him "little falcon" or "Platosha," chaffed him +good-naturedly, and sent him on errands. But to Pierre he always +remained what he had seemed that first night: an unfathomable, rounded, +eternal personification of the spirit of simplicity and truth. + +Platon Karataev knew nothing by heart except his prayers. When he began +to speak he seemed not to know how he would conclude. + +Sometimes Pierre, struck by the meaning of his words, would ask him to +repeat them, but Platon could never recall what he had said a moment +before, just as he never could repeat to Pierre the words of his +favorite song: native and birch tree and my heart is sick occurred in +it, but when spoken and not sung, no meaning could be got out of it. He +did not, and could not, understand the meaning of words apart from their +context. Every word and action of his was the manifestation of an +activity unknown to him, which was his life. But his life, as he +regarded it, had no meaning as a separate thing. It had meaning only as +part of a whole of which he was always conscious. His words and actions +flowed from him as evenly, inevitably, and spontaneously as fragrance +exhales from a flower. He could not understand the value or significance +of any word or deed taken separately. + + + + +CHAPTER XIV + +When Princess Mary heard from Nicholas that her brother was with the +Rostovs at Yaroslavl she at once prepared to go there, in spite of her +aunt's efforts to dissuade her--and not merely to go herself but to take +her nephew with her. Whether it were difficult or easy, possible or +impossible, she did not ask and did not want to know: it was her duty, +not only to herself, to be near her brother who was perhaps dying, but +to do everything possible to take his son to him, and so she prepared to +set off. That she had not heard from Prince Andrew himself, Princess +Mary attributed to his being too weak to write or to his considering the +long journey too hard and too dangerous for her and his son. + +In a few days Princess Mary was ready to start. Her equipages were the +huge family coach in which she had traveled to Voronezh, a semiopen +trap, and a baggage cart. With her traveled Mademoiselle Bourienne, +little Nicholas and his tutor, her old nurse, three maids, Tikhon, and a +young footman and courier her aunt had sent to accompany her. + +The usual route through Moscow could not be thought of, and the +roundabout way Princess Mary was obliged to take through Lipetsk, +Ryazan, Vladimir, and Shuya was very long and, as post horses were not +everywhere obtainable, very difficult, and near Ryazan where the French +were said to have shown themselves was even dangerous. + +During this difficult journey Mademoiselle Bourienne, Dessalles, and +Princess Mary's servants were astonished at her energy and firmness of +spirit. She went to bed later and rose earlier than any of them, and no +difficulties daunted her. Thanks to her activity and energy, which +infected her fellow travelers, they approached Yaroslavl by the end of +the second week. + +The last days of her stay in Voronezh had been the happiest of her life. +Her love for Rostov no longer tormented or agitated her. It filled her +whole soul, had become an integral part of herself, and she no longer +struggled against it. Latterly she had become convinced that she loved +and was beloved, though she never said this definitely to herself in +words. She had become convinced of it at her last interview with +Nicholas, when he had come to tell her that her brother was with the +Rostovs. Not by a single word had Nicholas alluded to the fact that +Prince Andrew's relations with Natasha might, if he recovered, be +renewed, but Princess Mary saw by his face that he knew and thought of +this. + +Yet in spite of that, his relation to her--considerate, delicate, and +loving--not only remained unchanged, but it sometimes seemed to Princess +Mary that he was even glad that the family connection between them +allowed him to express his friendship more freely. She knew that she +loved for the first and only time in her life and felt that she was +beloved, and was happy in regard to it. + +But this happiness on one side of her spiritual nature did not prevent +her feeling grief for her brother with full force; on the contrary, that +spiritual tranquility on the one side made it the more possible for her +to give full play to her feeling for her brother. That feeling was so +strong at the moment of leaving Voronezh that those who saw her off, as +they looked at her careworn, despairing face, felt sure she would fall +ill on the journey. But the very difficulties and preoccupations of the +journey, which she took so actively in hand, saved her for a while from +her grief and gave her strength. + +As always happens when traveling, Princess Mary thought only of the +journey itself, forgetting its object. But as she approached Yaroslavl +the thought of what might await her there--not after many days, but that +very evening--again presented itself to her and her agitation increased +to its utmost limit. + +The courier who had been sent on in advance to find out where the +Rostovs were staying in Yaroslavl, and in what condition Prince Andrew +was, when he met the big coach just entering the town gates was appalled +by the terrible pallor of the princess' face that looked out at him from +the window. + +"I have found out everything, your excellency: the Rostovs are staying +at the merchant Bronnikov's house, in the Square not far from here, +right above the Volga," said the courier. + +Princess Mary looked at him with frightened inquiry, not understanding +why he did not reply to what she chiefly wanted to know: how was her +brother? Mademoiselle Bourienne put that question for her. + +"How is the prince?" she asked. + +"His excellency is staying in the same house with them." + +"Then he is alive," thought Princess Mary, and asked in a low voice: +"How is he?" + +"The servants say he is still the same." + +What "still the same" might mean Princess Mary did not ask, but with an +unnoticed glance at little seven-year-old Nicholas, who was sitting in +front of her looking with pleasure at the town, she bowed her head and +did not raise it again till the heavy coach, rumbling, shaking and +swaying, came to a stop. The carriage steps clattered as they were let +down. + +The carriage door was opened. On the left there was water--a great +river--and on the right a porch. There were people at the entrance: +servants, and a rosy girl with a large plait of black hair, smiling as +it seemed to Princess Mary in an unpleasantly affected way. (This was +Sonya.) Princess Mary ran up the steps. "This way, this way!" said the +girl, with the same artificial smile, and the princess found herself in +the hall facing an elderly woman of Oriental type, who came rapidly to +meet her with a look of emotion. This was the countess. She embraced +Princess Mary and kissed her. + +"Mon enfant!" she muttered, "je vous aime et vous connais depuis +longtemps." * + + +* "My child! I love you and have known you a long time." + + +Despite her excitement, Princess Mary realized that this was the +countess and that it was necessary to say something to her. Hardly +knowing how she did it, she contrived to utter a few polite phrases in +French in the same tone as those that had been addressed to her, and +asked: "How is he?" + +"The doctor says that he is not in danger," said the countess, but as +she spoke she raised her eyes with a sigh, and her gesture conveyed a +contradiction of her words. + +"Where is he? Can I see him--can I?" asked the princess. + +"One moment, Princess, one moment, my dear! Is this his son?" said the +countess, turning to little Nicholas who was coming in with Dessalles. +"There will be room for everybody, this is a big house. Oh, what a +lovely boy!" + +The countess took Princess Mary into the drawing room, where Sonya was +talking to Mademoiselle Bourienne. The countess caressed the boy, and +the old count came in and welcomed the princess. He had changed very +much since Princess Mary had last seen him. Then he had been a brisk, +cheerful, self-assured old man; now he seemed a pitiful, bewildered +person. While talking to Princess Mary he continually looked round as if +asking everyone whether he was doing the right thing. After the +destruction of Moscow and of his property, thrown out of his accustomed +groove he seemed to have lost the sense of his own significance and to +feel that there was no longer a place for him in life. + +In spite of her one desire to see her brother as soon as possible, and +her vexation that at the moment when all she wanted was to see him they +should be trying to entertain her and pretending to admire her nephew, +the princess noticed all that was going on around her and felt the +necessity of submitting, for a time, to this new order of things which +she had entered. She knew it to be necessary, and though it was hard for +her she was not vexed with these people. + +"This is my niece," said the count, introducing Sonya--"You don't know +her, Princess?" + +Princess Mary turned to Sonya and, trying to stifle the hostile feeling +that arose in her toward the girl, she kissed her. But she felt +oppressed by the fact that the mood of everyone around her was so far +from what was in her own heart. + +"Where is he?" she asked again, addressing them all. + +"He is downstairs. Natasha is with him," answered Sonya, flushing. "We +have sent to ask. I think you must be tired, Princess." + +Tears of vexation showed themselves in Princess Mary's eyes. She turned +away and was about to ask the countess again how to go to him, when +light, impetuous, and seemingly buoyant steps were heard at the door. +The princess looked round and saw Natasha coming in, almost running-- +that Natasha whom she had liked so little at their meeting in Moscow +long since. + +But hardly had the princess looked at Natasha's face before she realized +that here was a real comrade in her grief, and consequently a friend. +She ran to meet her, embraced her, and began to cry on her shoulder. + +As soon as Natasha, sitting at the head of Prince Andrew's bed, heard of +Princess Mary's arrival, she softly left his room and hastened to her +with those swift steps that had sounded buoyant to Princess Mary. + +There was only one expression on her agitated face when she ran into the +drawing room--that of love--boundless love for him, for her, and for all +that was near to the man she loved; and of pity, suffering for others, +and passionate desire to give herself entirely to helping them. It was +plain that at that moment there was in Natasha's heart no thought of +herself or of her own relations with Prince Andrew. + +Princess Mary, with her acute sensibility, understood all this at the +first glance at Natasha's face, and wept on her shoulder with sorrowful +pleasure. + +"Come, come to him, Mary," said Natasha, leading her into the other +room. + +Princess Mary raised her head, dried her eyes, and turned to Natasha. +She felt that from her she would be able to understand and learn +everything. + +"How..." she began her question but stopped short. + +She felt that it was impossible to ask, or to answer, in words. +Natasha's face and eyes would have to tell her all more clearly and +profoundly. + +Natasha was gazing at her, but seemed afraid and in doubt whether to say +all she knew or not; she seemed to feel that before those luminous eyes +which penetrated into the very depths of her heart, it was impossible +not to tell the whole truth which she saw. And suddenly, Natasha's lips +twitched, ugly wrinkles gathered round her mouth, and covering her face +with her hands she burst into sobs. + +Princess Mary understood. + +But she still hoped, and asked, in words she herself did not trust: + +"But how is his wound? What is his general condition?" + +"You, you... will see," was all Natasha could say. + +They sat a little while downstairs near his room till they had left off +crying and were able to go to him with calm faces. + +"How has his whole illness gone? Is it long since he grew worse? When +did this happen?" Princess Mary inquired. + +Natasha told her that at first there had been danger from his feverish +condition and the pain he suffered, but at Troitsa that had passed and +the doctor had only been afraid of gangrene. That danger had also +passed. When they reached Yaroslavl the wound had begun to fester +(Natasha knew all about such things as festering) and the doctor had +said that the festering might take a normal course. Then fever set in, +but the doctor had said the fever was not very serious. + +"But two days ago this suddenly happened," said Natasha, struggling with +her sobs. "I don't know why, but you will see what he is like." + +"Is he weaker? Thinner?" asked the princess. + +"No, it's not that, but worse. You will see. O, Mary, he is too good, he +cannot, cannot live, because..." + + + + +CHAPTER XV + +When Natasha opened Prince Andrew's door with a familiar movement and +let Princess Mary pass into the room before her, the princess felt the +sobs in her throat. Hard as she had tried to prepare herself, and now +tried to remain tranquil, she knew that she would be unable to look at +him without tears. + +The princess understood what Natasha had meant by the words: "two days +ago this suddenly happened." She understood those words to mean that he +had suddenly softened and that this softening and gentleness were signs +of approaching death. As she stepped to the door she already saw in +imagination Andrew's face as she remembered it in childhood, a gentle, +mild, sympathetic face which he had rarely shown, and which therefore +affected her very strongly. She was sure he would speak soft, tender +words to her such as her father had uttered before his death, and that +she would not be able to bear it and would burst into sobs in his +presence. Yet sooner or later it had to be, and she went in. The sobs +rose higher and higher in her throat as she more and more clearly +distinguished his form and her shortsighted eyes tried to make out his +features, and then she saw his face and met his gaze. + +He was lying in a squirrel-fur dressing gown on a divan, surrounded by +pillows. He was thin and pale. In one thin, translucently white hand he +held a handkerchief, while with the other he stroked the delicate +mustache he had grown, moving his fingers slowly. His eyes gazed at them +as they entered. + +On seeing his face and meeting his eyes Princess Mary's pace suddenly +slackened, she felt her tears dry up and her sobs ceased. She suddenly +felt guilty and grew timid on catching the expression of his face and +eyes. + +"But in what am I to blame?" she asked herself. And his cold, stern look +replied: "Because you are alive and thinking of the living, while I..." + +In the deep gaze that seemed to look not outwards but inwards there was +an almost hostile expression as he slowly regarded his sister and +Natasha. + +He kissed his sister, holding her hand in his as was their wont. + +"How are you, Mary? How did you manage to get here?" said he in a voice +as calm and aloof as his look. + +Had he screamed in agony, that scream would not have struck such horror +into Princess Mary's heart as the tone of his voice. + +"And have you brought little Nicholas?" he asked in the same slow, quiet +manner and with an obvious effort to remember. + +"How are you now?" said Princess Mary, herself surprised at what she was +saying. + +"That, my dear, you must ask the doctor," he replied, and again making +an evident effort to be affectionate, he said with his lips only (his +words clearly did not correspond to his thoughts): + +"Merci, chere amie, d'etre venue." * + + +* "Thank you for coming, my dear." + +Princess Mary pressed his hand. The pressure made him wince just +perceptibly. He was silent, and she did not know what to say. She now +understood what had happened to him two days before. In his words, his +tone, and especially in that calm, almost antagonistic look could be +felt an estrangement from everything belonging to this world, terrible +in one who is alive. Evidently only with an effort did he understand +anything living; but it was obvious that he failed to understand, not +because he lacked the power to do so but because he understood something +else--something the living did not and could not understand--and which +wholly occupied his mind. + +"There, you see how strangely fate has brought us together," said he, +breaking the silence and pointing to Natasha. "She looks after me all +the time." + +Princess Mary heard him and did not understand how he could say such a +thing. He, the sensitive, tender Prince Andrew, how could he say that, +before her whom he loved and who loved him? Had he expected to live he +could not have said those words in that offensively cold tone. If he had +not known that he was dying, how could he have failed to pity her and +how could he speak like that in her presence? The only explanation was +that he was indifferent, because something else, much more important, +had been revealed to him. + +The conversation was cold and disconnected and continually broke off. + +"Mary came by way of Ryazan," said Natasha. + +Prince Andrew did not notice that she called his sister Mary, and only +after calling her so in his presence did Natasha notice it herself. + +"Really?" he asked. + +"They told her that all Moscow has been burned down, and that..." + +Natasha stopped. It was impossible to talk. It was plain that he was +making an effort to listen, but could not do so. + +"Yes, they say it's burned," he said. "It's a great pity," and he gazed +straight before him, absently stroking his mustache with his fingers. + +"And so you have met Count Nicholas, Mary?" Prince Andrew suddenly said, +evidently wishing to speak pleasantly to them. "He wrote here that he +took a great liking to you," he went on simply and calmly, evidently +unable to understand all the complex significance his words had for +living people. "If you liked him too, it would be a good thing for you +to get married," he added rather more quickly, as if pleased at having +found words he had long been seeking. + +Princess Mary heard his words but they had no meaning for her, except as +a proof of how far away he now was from everything living. + +"Why talk of me?" she said quietly and glanced at Natasha. + +Natasha, who felt her glance, did not look at her. All three were again +silent. + +"Andrew, would you like..." Princess Mary suddenly said in a trembling +voice, "would you like to see little Nicholas? He is always talking +about you!" + +Prince Andrew smiled just perceptibly and for the first time, but +Princess Mary, who knew his face so well, saw with horror that he did +not smile with pleasure or affection for his son, but with quiet, gentle +irony because he thought she was trying what she believed to be the last +means of arousing him. + +"Yes, I shall be very glad to see him. Is he quite well?" + +When little Nicholas was brought into Prince Andrew's room he looked at +his father with frightened eyes, but did not cry, because no one else +was crying. Prince Andrew kissed him and evidently did not know what to +say to him. + +When Nicholas had been led away, Princess Mary again went up to her +brother, kissed him, and unable to restrain her tears any longer began +to cry. + +He looked at her attentively. + +"Is it about Nicholas?" he asked. + +Princess Mary nodded her head, weeping. + +"Mary, you know the Gosp..." but he broke off. + +"What did you say?" + +"Nothing. You mustn't cry here," he said, looking at her with the same +cold expression. + +When Princess Mary began to cry, he understood that she was crying at +the thought that little Nicholas would be left without a father. With a +great effort he tried to return to life and to see things from their +point of view. + +"Yes, to them it must seem sad!" he thought. "But how simple it is. + +"The fowls of the air sow not, neither do they reap, yet your Father +feedeth them," he said to himself and wished to say to Princess Mary; +"but no, they will take it their own way, they won't understand! They +can't understand that all those feelings they prize so--all our +feelings, all those ideas that seem so important to us, are unnecessary. +We cannot understand one another," and he remained silent. + +Prince Andrew's little son was seven. He could scarcely read, and knew +nothing. After that day he lived through many things, gaining knowledge, +observation, and experience, but had he possessed all the faculties he +afterwards acquired, he could not have had a better or more profound +understanding of the meaning of the scene he had witnessed between his +father, Mary, and Natasha, than he had then. He understood it +completely, and, leaving the room without crying, went silently up to +Natasha who had come out with him and looked shyly at her with his +beautiful, thoughtful eyes, then his uplifted, rosy upper lip trembled +and leaning his head against her he began to cry. + +After that he avoided Dessalles and the countess who caressed him and +either sat alone or came timidly to Princess Mary, or to Natasha of whom +he seemed even fonder than of his aunt, and clung to them quietly and +shyly. + +When Princess Mary had left Prince Andrew she fully understood what +Natasha's face had told her. She did not speak any more to Natasha of +hopes of saving his life. She took turns with her beside his sofa, and +did not cry any more, but prayed continually, turning in soul to that +Eternal and Unfathomable, whose presence above the dying man was now so +evident. + + + + +CHAPTER XVI + +Not only did Prince Andrew know he would die, but he felt that he was +dying and was already half dead. He was conscious of an aloofness from +everything earthly and a strange and joyous lightness of existence. +Without haste or agitation he awaited what was coming. That inexorable, +eternal, distant, and unknown the presence of which he had felt +continually all his life--was now near to him and, by the strange +lightness he experienced, almost comprehensible and palpable... + + +Formerly he had feared the end. He had twice experienced that terribly +tormenting fear of death--the end--but now he no longer understood that +fear. + +He had felt it for the first time when the shell spun like a top before +him, and he looked at the fallow field, the bushes, and the sky, and +knew that he was face to face with death. When he came to himself after +being wounded and the flower of eternal, unfettered love had instantly +unfolded itself in his soul as if freed from the bondage of life that +had restrained it, he no longer feared death and ceased to think about +it. + +During the hours of solitude, suffering, and partial delirium he spent +after he was wounded, the more deeply he penetrated into the new +principle of eternal love revealed to him, the more he unconsciously +detached himself from earthly life. To love everything and everybody and +always to sacrifice oneself for love meant not to love anyone, not to +live this earthly life. And the more imbued he became with that +principle of love, the more he renounced life and the more completely he +destroyed that dreadful barrier which--in the absence of such love-- +stands between life and death. When during those first days he +remembered that he would have to die, he said to himself: "Well, what of +it? So much the better!" + +But after the night in Mytishchi when, half delirious, he had seen her +for whom he longed appear before him and, having pressed her hand to his +lips, had shed gentle, happy tears, love for a particular woman again +crept unobserved into his heart and once more bound him to life. And +joyful and agitating thoughts began to occupy his mind. Recalling the +moment at the ambulance station when he had seen Kuragin, he could not +now regain the feeling he then had, but was tormented by the question +whether Kuragin was alive. And he dared not inquire. + +His illness pursued its normal physical course, but what Natasha +referred to when she said: "This suddenly happened," had occurred two +days before Princess Mary arrived. It was the last spiritual struggle +between life and death, in which death gained the victory. It was the +unexpected realization of the fact that he still valued life as +presented to him in the form of his love for Natasha, and a last, though +ultimately vanquished, attack of terror before the unknown. + +It was evening. As usual after dinner he was slightly feverish, and his +thoughts were preternaturally clear. Sonya was sitting by the table. He +began to doze. Suddenly a feeling of happiness seized him. + +"Ah, she has come!" thought he. + +And so it was: in Sonya's place sat Natasha who had just come in +noiselessly. + +Since she had begun looking after him, he had always experienced this +physical consciousness of her nearness. She was sitting in an armchair +placed sideways, screening the light of the candle from him, and was +knitting a stocking. She had learned to knit stockings since Prince +Andrew had casually mentioned that no one nursed the sick so well as old +nurses who knit stockings, and that there is something soothing in the +knitting of stockings. The needles clicked lightly in her slender, +rapidly moving hands, and he could clearly see the thoughtful profile of +her drooping face. She moved, and the ball rolled off her knees. She +started, glanced round at him, and screening the candle with her hand +stooped carefully with a supple and exact movement, picked up the ball, +and regained her former position. + +He looked at her without moving and saw that she wanted to draw a deep +breath after stooping, but refrained from doing so and breathed +cautiously. + +At the Troitsa monastery they had spoken of the past, and he had told +her that if he lived he would always thank God for his wound which had +brought them together again, but after that they never spoke of the +future. + +"Can it or can it not be?" he now thought as he looked at her and +listened to the light click of the steel needles. "Can fate have brought +me to her so strangely only for me to die?... Is it possible that the +truth of life has been revealed to me only to show me that I have spent +my life in falsity? I love her more than anything in the world! But what +am I to do if I love her?" he thought, and he involuntarily groaned, +from a habit acquired during his sufferings. + +On hearing that sound Natasha put down the stocking, leaned nearer to +him, and suddenly, noticing his shining eyes, stepped lightly up to him +and bent over him. + +"You are not asleep?" + +"No, I have been looking at you a long time. I felt you come in. No one +else gives me that sense of soft tranquillity that you do... that light. +I want to weep for joy." + +Natasha drew closer to him. Her face shone with rapturous joy. + +"Natasha, I love you too much! More than anything in the world." + +"And I!"--She turned away for an instant. "Why too much?" she asked. + +"Why too much?... Well, what do you, what do you feel in your soul, your +whole soul--shall I live? What do you think?" + +"I am sure of it, sure!" Natasha almost shouted, taking hold of both his +hands with a passionate movement. + +He remained silent awhile. + +"How good it would be!" and taking her hand he kissed it. + +Natasha felt happy and agitated, but at once remembered that this would +not do and that he had to be quiet. + +"But you have not slept," she said, repressing her joy. "Try to sleep... +please!" + +He pressed her hand and released it, and she went back to the candle and +sat down again in her former position. Twice she turned and looked at +him, and her eyes met his beaming at her. She set herself a task on her +stocking and resolved not to turn round till it was finished. + +Soon he really shut his eyes and fell asleep. He did not sleep long and +suddenly awoke with a start and in a cold perspiration. + +As he fell asleep he had still been thinking of the subject that now +always occupied his mind--about life and death, and chiefly about death. +He felt himself nearer to it. + +"Love? What is love?" he thought. + +"Love hinders death. Love is life. All, everything that I understand, I +understand only because I love. Everything is, everything exists, only +because I love. Everything is united by it alone. Love is God, and to +die means that I, a particle of love, shall return to the general and +eternal source." These thoughts seemed to him comforting. But they were +only thoughts. Something was lacking in them, they were not clear, they +were too one-sidedly personal and brain-spun. And there was the former +agitation and obscurity. He fell asleep. + +He dreamed that he was lying in the room he really was in, but that he +was quite well and unwounded. Many various, indifferent, and +insignificant people appeared before him. He talked to them and +discussed something trivial. They were preparing to go away somewhere. +Prince Andrew dimly realized that all this was trivial and that he had +more important cares, but he continued to speak, surprising them by +empty witticisms. Gradually, unnoticed, all these persons began to +disappear and a single question, that of the closed door, superseded all +else. He rose and went to the door to bolt and lock it. Everything +depended on whether he was, or was not, in time to lock it. He went, and +tried to hurry, but his legs refused to move and he knew he would not be +in time to lock the door though he painfully strained all his powers. He +was seized by an agonizing fear. And that fear was the fear of death. It +stood behind the door. But just when he was clumsily creeping toward the +door, that dreadful something on the other side was already pressing +against it and forcing its way in. Something not human--death--was +breaking in through that door, and had to be kept out. He seized the +door, making a final effort to hold it back--to lock it was no longer +possible--but his efforts were weak and clumsy and the door, pushed from +behind by that terror, opened and closed again. + +Once again it pushed from outside. His last superhuman efforts were vain +and both halves of the door noiselessly opened. It entered, and it was +death, and Prince Andrew died. + +But at the instant he died, Prince Andrew remembered that he was asleep, +and at the very instant he died, having made an effort, he awoke. + +"Yes, it was death! I died--and woke up. Yes, death is an awakening!" +And all at once it grew light in his soul and the veil that had till +then concealed the unknown was lifted from his spiritual vision. He felt +as if powers till then confined within him had been liberated, and that +strange lightness did not again leave him. + +When, waking in a cold perspiration, he moved on the divan, Natasha went +up and asked him what was the matter. He did not answer and looked at +her strangely, not understanding. + +That was what had happened to him two days before Princess Mary's +arrival. From that day, as the doctor expressed it, the wasting fever +assumed a malignant character, but what the doctor said did not interest +Natasha, she saw the terrible moral symptoms which to her were more +convincing. + +From that day an awakening from life came to Prince Andrew together with +his awakening from sleep. And compared to the duration of life it did +not seem to him slower than an awakening from sleep compared to the +duration of a dream. + +There was nothing terrible or violent in this comparatively slow +awakening. + +His last days and hours passed in an ordinary and simple way. Both +Princess Mary and Natasha, who did not leave him, felt this. They did +not weep or shudder and during these last days they themselves felt that +they were not attending on him (he was no longer there, he had left +them) but on what reminded them most closely of him--his body. Both felt +this so strongly that the outward and terrible side of death did not +affect them and they did not feel it necessary to foment their grief. +Neither in his presence nor out of it did they weep, nor did they ever +talk to one another about him. They felt that they could not express in +words what they understood. + +They both saw that he was sinking slowly and quietly, deeper and deeper, +away from them, and they both knew that this had to be so and that it +was right. + +He confessed, and received communion: everyone came to take leave of +him. When they brought his son to him, he pressed his lips to the boy's +and turned away, not because he felt it hard and sad (Princess Mary and +Natasha understood that) but simply because he thought it was all that +was required of him, but when they told him to bless the boy, he did +what was demanded and looked round as if asking whether there was +anything else he should do. + +When the last convulsions of the body, which the spirit was leaving, +occurred, Princess Mary and Natasha were present. + +"Is it over?" said Princess Mary when his body had for a few minutes +lain motionless, growing cold before them. Natasha went up, looked at +the dead eyes, and hastened to close them. She closed them but did not +kiss them, but clung to that which reminded her most nearly of him--his +body. + +"Where has he gone? Where is he now?..." + +When the body, washed and dressed, lay in the coffin on a table, +everyone came to take leave of him and they all wept. + +Little Nicholas cried because his heart was rent by painful perplexity. +The countess and Sonya cried from pity for Natasha and because he was no +more. The old count cried because he felt that before long, he, too, +must take the same terrible step. + +Natasha and Princess Mary also wept now, but not because of their own +personal grief; they wept with a reverent and softening emotion which +had taken possession of their souls at the consciousness of the simple +and solemn mystery of death that had been accomplished in their +presence. + +BOOK THIRTEEN: 1812 + + + + +CHAPTER I + +Man's mind cannot grasp the causes of events in their completeness, but +the desire to find those causes is implanted in man's soul. And without +considering the multiplicity and complexity of the conditions any one of +which taken separately may seem to be the cause, he snatches at the +first approximation to a cause that seems to him intelligible and says: +"This is the cause!" In historical events (where the actions of men are +the subject of observation) the first and most primitive approximation +to present itself was the will of the gods and, after that, the will of +those who stood in the most prominent position--the heroes of history. +But we need only penetrate to the essence of any historic event--which +lies in the activity of the general mass of men who take part in it--to +be convinced that the will of the historic hero does not control the +actions of the mass but is itself continually controlled. It may seem to +be a matter of indifference whether we understand the meaning of +historical events this way or that; yet there is the same difference +between a man who says that the people of the West moved on the East +because Napoleon wished it and a man who says that this happened because +it had to happen, as there is between those who declared that the earth +was stationary and that the planets moved round it and those who +admitted that they did not know what upheld the earth, but knew there +were laws directing its movement and that of the other planets. There +is, and can be, no cause of an historical event except the one cause of +all causes. But there are laws directing events, and some of these laws +are known to us while we are conscious of others we cannot comprehend. +The discovery of these laws is only possible when we have quite +abandoned the attempt to find the cause in the will of some one man, +just as the discovery of the laws of the motion of the planets was +possible only when men abandoned the conception of the fixity of the +earth. + +The historians consider that, next to the battle of Borodino and the +occupation of Moscow by the enemy and its destruction by fire, the most +important episode of the war of 1812 was the movement of the Russian +army from the Ryazana to the Kaluga road and to the Tarutino camp--the +so-called flank march across the Krasnaya Pakhra River. They ascribe the +glory of that achievement of genius to different men and dispute as to +whom the honor is due. Even foreign historians, including the French, +acknowledge the genius of the Russian commanders when they speak of that +flank march. But it is hard to understand why military writers, and +following them others, consider this flank march to be the profound +conception of some one man who saved Russia and destroyed Napoleon. In +the first place it is hard to understand where the profundity and genius +of this movement lay, for not much mental effort was needed to see that +the best position for an army when it is not being attacked is where +there are most provisions; and even a dull boy of thirteen could have +guessed that the best position for an army after its retreat from Moscow +in 1812 was on the Kaluga road. So it is impossible to understand by +what reasoning the historians reach the conclusion that this maneuver +was a profound one. And it is even more difficult to understand just why +they think that this maneuver was calculated to save Russia and destroy +the French; for this flank march, had it been preceded, accompanied, or +followed by other circumstances, might have proved ruinous to the +Russians and salutary for the French. If the position of the Russian +army really began to improve from the time of that march, it does not at +all follow that the march was the cause of it. + +That flank march might not only have failed to give any advantage to the +Russian army, but might in other circumstances have led to its +destruction. What would have happened had Moscow not burned down? If +Murat had not lost sight of the Russians? If Napoleon had not remained +inactive? If the Russian army at Krasnaya Pakhra had given battle as +Bennigsen and Barclay advised? What would have happened had the French +attacked the Russians while they were marching beyond the Pakhra? What +would have happened if on approaching Tarutino, Napoleon had attacked +the Russians with but a tenth of the energy he had shown when he +attacked them at Smolensk? What would have happened had the French moved +on Petersburg?... In any of these eventualities the flank march that +brought salvation might have proved disastrous. + +The third and most incomprehensible thing is that people studying +history deliberately avoid seeing that this flank march cannot be +attributed to any one man, that no one ever foresaw it, and that in +reality, like the retreat from Fili, it did not suggest itself to anyone +in its entirety, but resulted--moment by moment, step by step, event by +event--from an endless number of most diverse circumstances and was only +seen in its entirety when it had been accomplished and belonged to the +past. + +At the council at Fili the prevailing thought in the minds of the +Russian commanders was the one naturally suggesting itself, namely, a +direct retreat by the Nizhni road. In proof of this there is the fact +that the majority of the council voted for such a retreat, and above all +there is the well-known conversation after the council, between the +commander in chief and Lanskoy, who was in charge of the commissariat +department. Lanskoy informed the commander-in-chief that the army +supplies were for the most part stored along the Oka in the Tula and +Ryazan provinces, and that if they retreated on Nizhni the army would be +separated from its supplies by the broad river Oka, which cannot be +crossed early in winter. This was the first indication of the necessity +of deviating from what had previously seemed the most natural course--a +direct retreat on Nizhni-Novgorod. The army turned more to the south, +along the Ryazan road and nearer to its supplies. Subsequently the +inactivity of the French (who even lost sight of the Russian army), +concern for the safety of the arsenal at Tula, and especially the +advantages of drawing nearer to its supplies caused the army to turn +still further south to the Tula road. Having crossed over, by a forced +march, to the Tula road beyond the Pakhra, the Russian commanders +intended to remain at Podolsk and had no thought of the Tarutino +position; but innumerable circumstances and the reappearance of French +troops who had for a time lost touch with the Russians, and projects of +giving battle, and above all the abundance of provisions in Kaluga +province, obliged our army to turn still more to the south and to cross +from the Tula to the Kaluga road and go to Tarutino, which was between +the roads along which those supplies lay. Just as it is impossible to +say when it was decided to abandon Moscow, so it is impossible to say +precisely when, or by whom, it was decided to move to Tarutino. Only +when the army had got there, as the result of innumerable and varying +forces, did people begin to assure themselves that they had desired this +movement and long ago foreseen its result. + + + + +CHAPTER II + +The famous flank movement merely consisted in this: after the advance of +the French had ceased, the Russian army, which had been continually +retreating straight back from the invaders, deviated from that direct +course and, not finding itself pursued, was naturally drawn toward the +district where supplies were abundant. + +If instead of imagining to ourselves commanders of genius leading the +Russian army, we picture that army without any leaders, it could not +have done anything but make a return movement toward Moscow, describing +an arc in the direction where most provisions were to be found and where +the country was richest. + +That movement from the Nizhni to the Ryazan, Tula, and Kaluga roads was +so natural that even the Russian marauders moved in that direction, and +demands were sent from Petersburg for Kutuzov to take his army that way. +At Tarutino Kutuzov received what was almost a reprimand from the +Emperor for having moved his army along the Ryazan road, and the +Emperor's letter indicated to him the very position he had already +occupied near Kaluga. + +Having rolled like a ball in the direction of the impetus given by the +whole campaign and by the battle of Borodino, the Russian army--when the +strength of that impetus was exhausted and no fresh push was received-- +assumed the position natural to it. + +Kutuzov's merit lay, not in any strategic maneuver of genius, as it is +called, but in the fact that he alone understood the significance of +what had happened. He alone then understood the meaning of the French +army's inactivity, he alone continued to assert that the battle of +Borodino had been a victory, he alone--who as commander-in-chief might +have been expected to be eager to attack--employed his whole strength to +restrain the Russian army from useless engagements. + +The beast wounded at Borodino was lying where the fleeing hunter had +left him; but whether he was still alive, whether he was strong and +merely lying low, the hunter did not know. Suddenly the beast was heard +to moan. + +The moan of that wounded beast (the French army) which betrayed its +calamitous condition was the sending of Lauriston to Kutuzov's camp with +overtures for peace. + +Napoleon, with his usual assurance that whatever entered his head was +right, wrote to Kutuzov the first words that occurred to him, though +they were meaningless. + +MONSIEUR LE PRINCE KOUTOUZOV: I am sending one of my adjutants-general +to discuss several interesting questions with you. I beg your Highness +to credit what he says to you, especially when he expresses the +sentiment of esteem and special regard I have long entertained for your +person. This letter having no other object, I pray God, monsieur le +Prince Koutouzov, to keep you in His holy and gracious protection! + +NAPOLEON MOSCOW, OCTOBER 30, 1812 + +Kutuzov replied: "I should be cursed by posterity were I looked on as +the initiator of a settlement of any sort. Such is the present spirit of +my nation." But he continued to exert all his powers to restrain his +troops from attacking. + +During the month that the French troops were pillaging in Moscow and the +Russian troops were quietly encamped at Tarutino, a change had taken +place in the relative strength of the two armies--both in spirit and in +number--as a result of which the superiority had passed to the Russian +side. Though the condition and numbers of the French army were unknown +to the Russians, as soon as that change occurred the need of attacking +at once showed itself by countless signs. These signs were: Lauriston's +mission; the abundance of provisions at Tarutino; the reports coming in +from all sides of the inactivity and disorder of the French; the flow of +recruits to our regiments; the fine weather; the long rest the Russian +soldiers had enjoyed, and the impatience to do what they had been +assembled for, which usually shows itself in an army that has been +resting; curiosity as to what the French army, so long lost sight of, +was doing; the boldness with which our outposts now scouted close up to +the French stationed at Tarutino; the news of easy successes gained by +peasants and guerrilla troops over the French, the envy aroused by this; +the desire for revenge that lay in the heart of every Russian as long as +the French were in Moscow, and (above all) a dim consciousness in every +soldier's mind that the relative strength of the armies had changed and +that the advantage was now on our side. There was a substantial change +in the relative strength, and an advance had become inevitable. And at +once, as a clock begins to strike and chime as soon as the minute hand +has completed a full circle, this change was shown by an increased +activity, whirring, and chiming in the higher spheres. + + + + +CHAPTER III + +The Russian army was commanded by Kutuzov and his staff, and also by the +Emperor from Petersburg. Before the news of the abandonment of Moscow +had been received in Petersburg, a detailed plan of the whole campaign +had been drawn up and sent to Kutuzov for his guidance. Though this plan +had been drawn up on the supposition that Moscow was still in our hands, +it was approved by the staff and accepted as a basis for action. Kutuzov +only replied that movements arranged from a distance were always +difficult to execute. So fresh instructions were sent for the solution +of difficulties that might be encountered, as well as fresh people who +were to watch Kutuzov's actions and report upon them. + +Besides this, the whole staff of the Russian army was now reorganized. +The posts left vacant by Bagration, who had been killed, and by Barclay, +who had gone away in dudgeon, had to be filled. Very serious +consideration was given to the question whether it would be better to +put A in B's place and B in D's, or on the contrary to put D in A's +place, and so on--as if anything more than A's or B's satisfaction +depended on this. + +As a result of the hostility between Kutuzov and Bennigsen, his Chief of +Staff, the presence of confidential representatives of the Emperor, and +these transfers, a more than usually complicated play of parties was +going on among the staff of the army. A was undermining B, D was +undermining C, and so on in all possible combinations and permutations. +In all these plottings the subject of intrigue was generally the conduct +of the war, which all these men believed they were directing; but this +affair of the war went on independently of them, as it had to go: that +is, never in the way people devised, but flowing always from the +essential attitude of the masses. Only in the highest spheres did all +these schemes, crossings, and interminglings appear to be a true +reflection of what had to happen. + +Prince Michael Ilarionovich! (wrote the Emperor on the second of October +in a letter that reached Kutuzov after the battle at Tarutino) Since +September 2 Moscow has been in the hands of the enemy. Your last reports +were written on the twentieth, and during all this time not only has no +action been taken against the enemy or for the relief of the ancient +capital, but according to your last report you have even retreated +farther. Serpukhov is already occupied by an enemy detachment and Tula +with its famous arsenal so indispensable to the army, is in danger. From +General Wintzingerode's reports, I see that an enemy corps of ten +thousand men is moving on the Petersburg road. Another corps of several +thousand men is moving on Dmitrov. A third has advanced along the +Vladimir road, and a fourth, rather considerable detachment is stationed +between Ruza and Mozhaysk. Napoleon himself was in Moscow as late as the +twenty-fifth. In view of all this information, when the enemy has +scattered his forces in large detachments, and with Napoleon and his +Guards in Moscow, is it possible that the enemy's forces confronting you +are so considerable as not to allow of your taking the offensive? On the +contrary, he is probably pursuing you with detachments, or at most with +an army corps much weaker than the army entrusted to you. It would seem +that, availing yourself of these circumstances, you might advantageously +attack a weaker one and annihilate him, or at least oblige him to +retreat, retaining in our hands an important part of the provinces now +occupied by the enemy, and thereby averting danger from Tula and other +towns in the interior. You will be responsible if the enemy is able to +direct a force of any size against Petersburg to threaten this capital +in which it has not been possible to retain many troops; for with the +army entrusted to you, and acting with resolution and energy, you have +ample means to avert this fresh calamity. Remember that you have still +to answer to our offended country for the loss of Moscow. You have +experienced my readiness to reward you. That readiness will not weaken +in me, but I and Russia have a right to expect from you all the zeal, +firmness, and success which your intellect, military talent, and the +courage of the troops you command justify us in expecting. + +But by the time this letter, which proved that the real relation of the +forces had already made itself felt in Petersburg, was dispatched, +Kutuzov had found himself unable any longer to restrain the army he +commanded from attacking and a battle had taken place. + +On the second of October a Cossack, Shapovalov, who was out scouting, +killed one hare and wounded another. Following the wounded hare he made +his way far into the forest and came upon the left flank of Murat's +army, encamped there without any precautions. The Cossack laughingly +told his comrades how he had almost fallen into the hands of the French. +A cornet, hearing the story, informed his commander. + +The Cossack was sent for and questioned. The Cossack officers wished to +take advantage of this chance to capture some horses, but one of the +superior officers, who was acquainted with the higher authorities, +reported the incident to a general on the staff. The state of things on +the staff had of late been exceedingly strained. Ermolov had been to see +Bennigsen a few days previously and had entreated him to use his +influence with the commander-in-chief to induce him to take the +offensive. + +"If I did not know you I should think you did not want what you are +asking for. I need only advise anything and his Highness is sure to do +the opposite," replied Bennigsen. + +The Cossack's report, confirmed by horse patrols who were sent out, was +the final proof that events had matured. The tightly coiled spring was +released, the clock began to whirr and the chimes to play. Despite all +his supposed power, his intellect, his experience, and his knowledge of +men, Kutuzov--having taken into consideration the Cossack's report, a +note from Bennigsen who sent personal reports to the Emperor, the wishes +he supposed the Emperor to hold, and the fact that all the generals +expressed the same wish--could no longer check the inevitable movement, +and gave the order to do what he regarded as useless and harmful--gave +his approval, that is, to the accomplished fact. + + + + +CHAPTER IV + +Bennigsen's note and the Cossack's information that the left flank of +the French was unguarded were merely final indications that it was +necessary to order an attack, and it was fixed for the fifth of October. + +On the morning of the fourth of October Kutuzov signed the dispositions. +Toll read them to Ermolov, asking him to attend to the further +arrangements. + +"All right--all right. I haven't time just now," replied Ermolov, and +left the hut. + +The dispositions drawn up by Toll were very good. As in the Austerlitz +dispositions, it was written--though not in German this time: + +"The First Column will march here and here," "the Second Column will +march there and there," and so on; and on paper, all these columns +arrived at their places at the appointed time and destroyed the enemy. +Everything had been admirably thought out as is usual in dispositions, +and as is always the case, not a single column reached its place at the +appointed time. + +When the necessary number of copies of the dispositions had been +prepared, an officer was summoned and sent to deliver them to Ermolov to +deal with. A young officer of the Horse Guards, Kutuzov's orderly, +pleased at the importance of the mission entrusted to him, went to +Ermolov's quarters. + +"Gone away," said Ermolov's orderly. + +The officer of the Horse Guards went to a general with whom Ermolov was +often to be found. + +"No, and the general's out too." + +The officer, mounting his horse, rode off to someone else. + +"No, he's gone out." + +"If only they don't make me responsible for this delay! What a nuisance +it is!" thought the officer, and he rode round the whole camp. One man +said he had seen Ermolov ride past with some other generals, others said +he must have returned home. The officer searched till six o'clock in the +evening without even stopping to eat. Ermolov was nowhere to be found +and no one knew where he was. The officer snatched a little food at a +comrade's, and rode again to the vanguard to find Miloradovich. +Miloradovich too was away, but here he was told that he had gone to a +ball at General Kikin's and that Ermolov was probably there too. + +"But where is it?" + +"Why, there, over at Echkino," said a Cossack officer, pointing to a +country house in the far distance. + +"What, outside our line?" + +"They've put two regiments as outposts, and they're having such a spree +there, it's awful! Two bands and three sets of singers!" + +The officer rode out beyond our lines to Echkino. While still at a +distance he heard as he rode the merry sounds of a soldier's dance song +proceeding from the house. + +"In the meadows... in the meadows!" he heard, accompanied by whistling +and the sound of a torban, drowned every now and then by shouts. These +sounds made his spirits rise, but at the same time he was afraid that he +would be blamed for not having executed sooner the important order +entrusted to him. It was already past eight o'clock. He dismounted and +went up into the porch of a large country house which had remained +intact between the Russian and French forces. In the refreshment room +and the hall, footmen were bustling about with wine and viands. Groups +of singers stood outside the windows. The officer was admitted and +immediately saw all the chief generals of the army together, and among +them Ermolov's big imposing figure. They all had their coats unbuttoned +and were standing in a semicircle with flushed and animated faces, +laughing loudly. In the middle of the room a short handsome general with +a red face was dancing the trepak with much spirit and agility. + +"Ha, ha, ha! Bravo, Nicholas Ivanych! Ha, ha, ha!" + +The officer felt that by arriving with important orders at such a moment +he was doubly to blame, and he would have preferred to wait; but one of +the generals espied him and, hearing what he had come about, informed +Ermolov. + +Ermolov came forward with a frown on his face and, hearing what the +officer had to say, took the papers from him without a word. + +"You think he went off just by chance?" said a comrade, who was on the +staff that evening, to the officer of the Horse Guards, referring to +Ermolov. "It was a trick. It was done on purpose to get Konovnitsyn into +trouble. You'll see what a mess there'll be tomorrow." + + + + +CHAPTER V + +Next day the decrepit Kutuzov, having given orders to be called early, +said his prayers, dressed, and, with an unpleasant consciousness of +having to direct a battle he did not approve of, got into his caleche +and drove from Letashovka (a village three and a half miles from +Tarutino) to the place where the attacking columns were to meet. He sat +in the caleche, dozing and waking up by turns, and listening for any +sound of firing on the right as an indication that the action had begun. +But all was still quiet. A damp dull autumn morning was just dawning. On +approaching Tarutino Kutuzov noticed cavalrymen leading their horses to +water across the road along which he was driving. Kutuzov looked at them +searchingly, stopped his carriage, and inquired what regiment they +belonged to. They belonged to a column that should have been far in +front and in ambush long before then. "It may be a mistake," thought the +old commander-in-chief. But a little further on he saw infantry +regiments with their arms piled and the soldiers, only partly dressed, +eating their rye porridge and carrying fuel. He sent for an officer. The +officer reported that no order to advance had been received. + +"How! Not rec..." Kutuzov began, but checked himself immediately and +sent for a senior officer. Getting out of his caleche, he waited with +drooping head and breathing heavily, pacing silently up and down. When +Eykhen, the officer of the general staff whom he had summoned, appeared, +Kutuzov went purple in the face, not because that officer was to blame +for the mistake, but because he was an object of sufficient importance +for him to vent his wrath on. Trembling and panting the old man fell +into that state of fury in which he sometimes used to roll on the +ground, and he fell upon Eykhen, threatening him with his hands, +shouting and loading him with gross abuse. Another man, Captain Brozin, +who happened to turn up and who was not at all to blame, suffered the +same fate. + +"What sort of another blackguard are you? I'll have you shot! +Scoundrels!" yelled Kutuzov in a hoarse voice, waving his arms and +reeling. + +He was suffering physically. He, the commander-in-chief, a Serene +Highness who everybody said possessed powers such as no man had ever had +in Russia, to be placed in this position--made the laughingstock of the +whole army! "I needn't have been in such a hurry to pray about today, or +have kept awake thinking everything over all night," thought he to +himself. "When I was a chit of an officer no one would have dared to +mock me so... and now!" He was in a state of physical suffering as if +from corporal punishment, and could not avoid expressing it by cries of +anger and distress. But his strength soon began to fail him, and looking +about him, conscious of having said much that was amiss, he again got +into his caleche and drove back in silence. + +His wrath, once expended, did not return, and blinking feebly he +listened to excuses and self-justifications (Ermolov did not come to see +him till the next day) and to the insistence of Bennigsen, Konovnitsyn, +and Toll that the movement that had miscarried should be executed next +day. And once more Kutuzov had to consent. + + + + +CHAPTER VI + +Next day the troops assembled in their appointed places in the evening +and advanced during the night. It was an autumn night with dark purple +clouds, but no rain. The ground was damp but not muddy, and the troops +advanced noiselessly, only occasionally a jingling of the artillery +could be faintly heard. The men were forbidden to talk out loud, to +smoke their pipes, or to strike a light, and they tried to prevent their +horses neighing. The secrecy of the undertaking heightened its charm and +they marched gaily. Some columns, supposing they had reached their +destination, halted, piled arms, and settled down on the cold ground, +but the majority marched all night and arrived at places where they +evidently should not have been. + +Only Count Orlov-Denisov with his Cossacks (the least important +detachment of all) got to his appointed place at the right time. This +detachment halted at the outskirts of a forest, on the path leading from +the village of Stromilova to Dmitrovsk. + +Toward dawn, Count Orlov-Denisov, who had dozed off, was awakened by a +deserter from the French army being brought to him. This was a Polish +sergeant of Poniatowski's corps, who explained in Polish that he had +come over because he had been slighted in the service: that he ought +long ago to have been made an officer, that he was braver than any of +them, and so he had left them and wished to pay them out. He said that +Murat was spending the night less than a mile from where they were, and +that if they would let him have a convoy of a hundred men he would +capture him alive. Count Orlov-Denisov consulted his fellow officers. + +The offer was too tempting to be refused. Everyone volunteered to go and +everybody advised making the attempt. After much disputing and arguing, +Major-General Grekov with two Cossack regiments decided to go with the +Polish sergeant. + +"Now, remember," said Count Orlov-Denisov to the sergeant at parting, +"if you have been lying I'll have you hanged like a dog; but if it's +true you shall have a hundred gold pieces!" + +Without replying, the sergeant, with a resolute air, mounted and rode +away with Grekov whose men had quickly assembled. They disappeared into +the forest, and Count Orlov-Denisov, having seen Grekov off, returned, +shivering from the freshness of the early dawn and excited by what he +had undertaken on his own responsibility, and began looking at the enemy +camp, now just visible in the deceptive light of dawn and the dying +campfires. Our columns ought to have begun to appear on an open +declivity to his right. He looked in that direction, but though the +columns would have been visible quite far off, they were not to be seen. +It seemed to the count that things were beginning to stir in the French +camp, and his keen-sighted adjutant confirmed this. + +"Oh, it is really too late," said Count Orlov, looking at the camp. + +As often happens when someone we have trusted is no longer before our +eyes, it suddenly seemed quite clear and obvious to him that the +sergeant was an impostor, that he had lied, and that the whole Russian +attack would be ruined by the absence of those two regiments, which he +would lead away heaven only knew where. How could one capture a +commander-in-chief from among such a mass of troops! + +"I am sure that rascal was lying," said the count. + +"They can still be called back," said one of his suite, who like Count +Orlov felt distrustful of the adventure when he looked at the enemy's +camp. + +"Eh? Really... what do you think? Should we let them go on or not?" + +"Will you have them fetched back?" + +"Fetch them back, fetch them back!" said Count Orlov with sudden +determination, looking at his watch. "It will be too late. It is quite +light." + +And the adjutant galloped through the forest after Grekov. When Grekov +returned, Count Orlov-Denisov, excited both by the abandoned attempt and +by vainly awaiting the infantry columns that still did not appear, as +well as by the proximity of the enemy, resolved to advance. All his men +felt the same excitement. + +"Mount!" he commanded in a whisper. The men took their places and +crossed themselves.... "Forward, with God's aid!" + +"Hurrah-ah-ah!" reverberated in the forest, and the Cossack companies, +trailing their lances and advancing one after another as if poured out +of a sack, dashed gaily across the brook toward the camp. + +One desperate, frightened yell from the first French soldier who saw the +Cossacks, and all who were in the camp, undressed and only just waking +up, ran off in all directions, abandoning cannons, muskets, and horses. + +Had the Cossacks pursued the French, without heeding what was behind and +around them, they would have captured Murat and everything there. That +was what the officers desired. But it was impossible to make the +Cossacks budge when once they had got booty and prisoners. None of them +listened to orders. Fifteen hundred prisoners and thirty-eight guns were +taken on the spot, besides standards and (what seemed most important to +the Cossacks) horses, saddles, horsecloths, and the like. All this had +to be dealt with, the prisoners and guns secured, the booty divided--not +without some shouting and even a little fighting among themselves--and +it was on this that the Cossacks all busied themselves. + +The French, not being farther pursued, began to recover themselves: they +formed into detachments and began firing. Orlov-Denisov, still waiting +for the other columns to arrive, advanced no further. + +Meantime, according to the dispositions which said that "the First +Column will march" and so on, the infantry of the belated columns, +commanded by Bennigsen and directed by Toll, had started in due order +and, as always happens, had got somewhere, but not to their appointed +places. As always happens the men, starting cheerfully, began to halt; +murmurs were heard, there was a sense of confusion, and finally a +backward movement. Adjutants and generals galloped about, shouted, grew +angry, quarreled, said they had come quite wrong and were late, gave +vent to a little abuse, and at last gave it all up and went forward, +simply to get somewhere. "We shall get somewhere or other!" And they did +indeed get somewhere, though not to their right places; a few eventually +even got to their right place, but too late to be of any use and only in +time to be fired at. Toll, who in this battle played the part of +Weyrother at Austerlitz, galloped assiduously from place to place, +finding everything upside down everywhere. Thus he stumbled on Bagovut's +corps in a wood when it was already broad daylight, though the corps +should long before have joined Orlov-Denisov. Excited and vexed by the +failure and supposing that someone must be responsible for it, Toll +galloped up to the commander of the corps and began upbraiding him +severely, saying that he ought to be shot. General Bagovut, a fighting +old soldier of placid temperament, being also upset by all the delay, +confusion, and cross-purposes, fell into a rage to everybody's surprise +and quite contrary to his usual character and said disagreeable things +to Toll. + +"I prefer not to take lessons from anyone, but I can die with my men as +well as anybody," he said, and advanced with a single division. + +Coming out onto a field under the enemy's fire, this brave general went +straight ahead, leading his men under fire, without considering in his +agitation whether going into action now, with a single division, would +be of any use or no. Danger, cannon balls, and bullets were just what he +needed in his angry mood. One of the first bullets killed him, and other +bullets killed many of his men. And his division remained under fire for +some time quite uselessly. + + + + +CHAPTER VII + +Meanwhile another column was to have attacked the French from the front, +but Kutuzov accompanied that column. He well knew that nothing but +confusion would come of this battle undertaken against his will, and as +far as was in his power held the troops back. He did not advance. + +He rode silently on his small gray horse, indolently answering +suggestions that they should attack. + +"The word attack is always on your tongue, but you don't see that we are +unable to execute complicated maneuvers," said he to Miloradovich who +asked permission to advance. + +"We couldn't take Murat prisoner this morning or get to the place in +time, and nothing can be done now!" he replied to someone else. + +When Kutuzov was informed that at the French rear--where according to +the reports of the Cossacks there had previously been nobody--there were +now two battalions of Poles, he gave a sidelong glance at Ermolov who +was behind him and to whom he had not spoken since the previous day. + +"You see! They are asking to attack and making plans of all kinds, but +as soon as one gets to business nothing is ready, and the enemy, +forewarned, takes measures accordingly." + +Ermolov screwed up his eyes and smiled faintly on hearing these words. +He understood that for him the storm had blown over, and that Kutuzov +would content himself with that hint. + +"He's having a little fun at my expense," said Ermolov softly, nudging +with his knee Raevski who was at his side. + +Soon after this, Ermolov moved up to Kutuzov and respectfully remarked: + +"It is not too late yet, your Highness--the enemy has not gone away--if +you were to order an attack! If not, the Guards will not so much as see +a little smoke." + +Kutuzov did not reply, but when they reported to him that Murat's troops +were in retreat he ordered an advance, though at every hundred paces he +halted for three quarters of an hour. + +The whole battle consisted in what Orlov-Denisov's Cossacks had done: +the rest of the army merely lost some hundreds of men uselessly. + +In consequence of this battle Kutuzov received a diamond decoration, and +Bennigsen some diamonds and a hundred thousand rubles, others also +received pleasant recognitions corresponding to their various grades, +and following the battle fresh changes were made in the staff. + +"That's how everything is done with us, all topsy-turvy!" said the +Russian officers and generals after the Tarutino battle, letting it be +understood that some fool there is doing things all wrong but that we +ourselves should not have done so, just as people speak today. But +people who talk like that either do not know what they are talking about +or deliberately deceive themselves. No battle--Tarutino, Borodino, or +Austerlitz--takes place as those who planned it anticipated. That is an +essential condition. + +A countless number of free forces (for nowhere is man freer than during +a battle, where it is a question of life and death) influence the course +taken by the fight, and that course never can be known in advance and +never coincides with the direction of any one force. + +If many simultaneously and variously directed forces act on a given +body, the direction of its motion cannot coincide with any one of those +forces, but will always be a mean--what in mechanics is represented by +the diagonal of a parallelogram of forces. + +If in the descriptions given by historians, especially French ones, we +find their wars and battles carried out in accordance with previously +formed plans, the only conclusion to be drawn is that those descriptions +are false. + +The battle of Tarutino obviously did not attain the aim Toll had in +view--to lead the troops into action in the order prescribed by the +dispositions; nor that which Count Orlov-Denisov may have had in view-- +to take Murat prisoner; nor the result of immediately destroying the +whole corps, which Bennigsen and others may have had in view; nor the +aim of the officer who wished to go into action to distinguish himself; +nor that of the Cossack who wanted more booty than he got, and so on. +But if the aim of the battle was what actually resulted and what all the +Russians of that day desired--to drive the French out of Russia and +destroy their army--it is quite clear that the battle of Tarutino, just +because of its incongruities, was exactly what was wanted at that stage +of the campaign. It would be difficult and even impossible to imagine +any result more opportune than the actual outcome of this battle. With a +minimum of effort and insignificant losses, despite the greatest +confusion, the most important results of the whole campaign were +attained: the transition from retreat to advance, an exposure of the +weakness of the French, and the administration of that shock which +Napoleon's army had only awaited to begin its flight. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII + +Napoleon enters Moscow after the brilliant victory de la Moskowa; there +can be no doubt about the victory for the battlefield remains in the +hands of the French. The Russians retreat and abandon their ancient +capital. Moscow, abounding in provisions, arms, munitions, and +incalculable wealth, is in Napoleon's hands. The Russian army, only half +the strength of the French, does not make a single attempt to attack for +a whole month. Napoleon's position is most brilliant. He can either fall +on the Russian army with double its strength and destroy it; negotiate +an advantageous peace, or in case of a refusal make a menacing move on +Petersburg, or even, in the case of a reverse, return to Smolensk or +Vilna; or remain in Moscow; in short, no special genius would seem to be +required to retain the brilliant position the French held at that time. +For that, only very simple and easy steps were necessary: not to allow +the troops to loot, to prepare winter clothing--of which there was +sufficient in Moscow for the whole army--and methodically to collect the +provisions, of which (according to the French historians) there were +enough in Moscow to supply the whole army for six months. Yet Napoleon, +that greatest of all geniuses, who the historians declare had control of +the army, took none of these steps. + +He not merely did nothing of the kind, but on the contrary he used his +power to select the most foolish and ruinous of all the courses open to +him. Of all that Napoleon might have done: wintering in Moscow, +advancing on Petersburg or on Nizhni-Novgorod, or retiring by a more +northerly or more southerly route (say by the road Kutuzov afterwards +took), nothing more stupid or disastrous can be imagined than what he +actually did. He remained in Moscow till October, letting the troops +plunder the city; then, hesitating whether to leave a garrison behind +him, he quitted Moscow, approached Kutuzov without joining battle, +turned to the right and reached Malo-Yaroslavets, again without +attempting to break through and take the road Kutuzov took, but retiring +instead to Mozhaysk along the devastated Smolensk road. Nothing more +stupid than that could have been devised, or more disastrous for the +army, as the sequel showed. Had Napoleon's aim been to destroy his army, +the most skillful strategist could hardly have devised any series of +actions that would so completely have accomplished that purpose, +independently of anything the Russian army might do. + +Napoleon, the man of genius, did this! But to say that he destroyed his +army because he wished to, or because he was very stupid, would be as +unjust as to say that he had brought his troops to Moscow because he +wished to and because he was very clever and a genius. + +In both cases his personal activity, having no more force than the +personal activity of any soldier, merely coincided with the laws that +guided the event. + +The historians quite falsely represent Napoleon's faculties as having +weakened in Moscow, and do so only because the results did not justify +his actions. He employed all his ability and strength to do the best he +could for himself and his army, as he had done previously and as he did +subsequently in 1813. His activity at that time was no less astounding +than it was in Egypt, in Italy, in Austria, and in Prussia. We do not +know for certain in how far his genius was genuine in Egypt--where forty +centuries looked down upon his grandeur--for his great exploits there +are all told us by Frenchmen. We cannot accurately estimate his genius +in Austria or Prussia, for we have to draw our information from French +or German sources, and the incomprehensible surrender of whole corps +without fighting and of fortresses without a siege must incline Germans +to recognize his genius as the only explanation of the war carried on in +Germany. But we, thank God, have no need to recognize his genius in +order to hide our shame. We have paid for the right to look at the +matter plainly and simply, and we will not abandon that right. + +His activity in Moscow was as amazing and as full of genius as +elsewhere. Order after order and plan after plan were issued by him from +the time he entered Moscow till the time he left it. The absence of +citizens and of a deputation, and even the burning of Moscow, did not +disconcert him. He did not lose sight either of the welfare of his army +or of the doings of the enemy, or of the welfare of the people of +Russia, or of the direction of affairs in Paris, or of diplomatic +considerations concerning the terms of the anticipated peace. + + + + +CHAPTER IX + +With regard to military matters, Napoleon immediately on his entry into +Moscow gave General Sabastiani strict orders to observe the movements of +the Russian army, sent army corps out along the different roads, and +charged Murat to find Kutuzov. Then he gave careful directions about the +fortification of the Kremlin, and drew up a brilliant plan for a future +campaign over the whole map of Russia. + +With regard to diplomatic questions, Napoleon summoned Captain Yakovlev, +who had been robbed and was in rags and did not know how to get out of +Moscow, minutely explained to him his whole policy and his magnanimity, +and having written a letter to the Emperor Alexander in which he +considered it his duty to inform his Friend and Brother that Rostopchin +had managed affairs badly in Moscow, he dispatched Yakovlev to +Petersburg. + +Having similarly explained his views and his magnanimity to Tutolmin, he +dispatched that old man also to Petersburg to negotiate. + +With regard to legal matters, immediately after the fires he gave orders +to find and execute the incendiaries. And the scoundrel Rostopchin was +punished by an order to burn down his houses. + +With regard to administrative matters, Moscow was granted a +constitution. A municipality was established and the following +announcement issued: + +INHABITANTS OF MOSCOW! + +Your misfortunes are cruel, but His Majesty the Emperor and King desires +to arrest their course. Terrible examples have taught you how he +punishes disobedience and crime. Strict measures have been taken to put +an end to disorder and to re-establish public security. A paternal +administration, chosen from among yourselves, will form your +municipality or city government. It will take care of you, of your +needs, and of your welfare. Its members will be distinguished by a red +ribbon worn across the shoulder, and the mayor of the city will wear a +white belt as well. But when not on duty they will only wear a red +ribbon round the left arm. + +The city police is established on its former footing, and better order +already prevails in consequence of its activity. The government has +appointed two commissaries general, or chiefs of police, and twenty +commissaries or captains of wards have been appointed to the different +wards of the city. You will recognize them by the white ribbon they will +wear on the left arm. Several churches of different denominations are +open, and divine service is performed in them unhindered. Your fellow +citizens are returning every day to their homes and orders have been +given that they should find in them the help and protection due to their +misfortunes. These are the measures the government has adopted to re- +establish order and relieve your condition. But to achieve this aim it +is necessary that you should add your efforts and should, if possible, +forget the misfortunes you have suffered, should entertain the hope of a +less cruel fate, should be certain that inevitable and ignominious death +awaits those who make any attempt on your persons or on what remains of +your property, and finally that you should not doubt that these will be +safeguarded, since such is the will of the greatest and most just of +monarchs. Soldiers and citizens, of whatever nation you may be, re- +establish public confidence, the source of the welfare of a state, live +like brothers, render mutual aid and protection one to another, unite to +defeat the intentions of the evil-minded, obey the military and civil +authorities, and your tears will soon cease to flow! + +With regard to supplies for the army, Napoleon decreed that all the +troops in turn should enter Moscow a la maraude * to obtain provisions +for themselves, so that the army might have its future provided for. + + +* As looters. + +With regard to religion, Napoleon ordered the priests to be brought back +and services to be again performed in the churches. + +With regard to commerce and to provisioning the army, the following was +placarded everywhere: + +PROCLAMATION! + +You, peaceful inhabitants of Moscow, artisans and workmen whom +misfortune has driven from the city, and you scattered tillers of the +soil, still kept out in the fields by groundless fear, listen! +Tranquillity is returning to this capital and order is being restored in +it. Your fellow countrymen are emerging boldly from their hiding places +on finding that they are respected. Any violence to them or to their +property is promptly punished. His Majesty the Emperor and King protects +them, and considers no one among you his enemy except those who disobey +his orders. He desires to end your misfortunes and restore you to your +homes and families. Respond, therefore, to his benevolent intentions and +come to us without fear. Inhabitants, return with confidence to your +abodes! You will soon find means of satisfying your needs. Craftsmen and +industrious artisans, return to your work, your houses, your shops, +where the protection of guards awaits you! You shall receive proper pay +for your work. And lastly you too, peasants, come from the forests where +you are hiding in terror, return to your huts without fear, in full +assurance that you will find protection! Markets are established in the +city where peasants can bring their surplus supplies and the products of +the soil. The government has taken the following steps to ensure freedom +of sale for them: (1) From today, peasants, husbandmen, and those living +in the neighborhood of Moscow may without any danger bring their +supplies of all kinds to two appointed markets, of which one is on the +Mokhovaya Street and the other at the Provision Market. (2) Such +supplies will be bought from them at such prices as seller and buyer may +agree on, and if a seller is unable to obtain a fair price he will be +free to take his goods back to his village and no one may hinder him +under any pretense. (3) Sunday and Wednesday of each week are appointed +as the chief market days and to that end a sufficient number of troops +will be stationed along the highroads on Tuesdays and Saturdays at such +distances from the town as to protect the carts. (4) Similar measures +will be taken that peasants with their carts and horses may meet with no +hindrance on their return journey. (5) Steps will immediately be taken +to re-establish ordinary trading. + +Inhabitants of the city and villages, and you, workingmen and artisans, +to whatever nation you belong, you are called on to carry out the +paternal intentions of His Majesty the Emperor and King and to co- +operate with him for the public welfare! Lay your respect and confidence +at his feet and do not delay to unite with us! + +With the object of raising the spirits of the troops and of the people, +reviews were constantly held and rewards distributed. The Emperor rode +through the streets to comfort the inhabitants, and, despite his +preoccupation with state affairs, himself visited the theaters that were +established by his order. + +In regard to philanthropy, the greatest virtue of crowned heads, +Napoleon also did all in his power. He caused the words Maison de ma +Mere to be inscribed on the charitable institutions, thereby combining +tender filial affection with the majestic benevolence of a monarch. He +visited the Foundling Hospital and, allowing the orphans saved by him to +kiss his white hands, graciously conversed with Tutolmin. Then, as +Thiers eloquently recounts, he ordered his soldiers to be paid in forged +Russian money which he had prepared: "Raising the use of these means by +an act worthy of himself and of the French army, he let relief be +distributed to those who had been burned out. But as food was too +precious to be given to foreigners, who were for the most part enemies, +Napoleon preferred to supply them with money with which to purchase food +from outside, and had paper rubles distributed to them." + +With reference to army discipline, orders were continually being issued +to inflict severe punishment for the nonperformance of military duties +and to suppress robbery. + + + + +CHAPTER X + +But strange to say, all these measures, efforts, and plans--which were +not at all worse than others issued in similar circumstances--did not +affect the essence of the matter but, like the hands of a clock detached +from the mechanism, swung about in an arbitrary and aimless way without +engaging the cogwheels. + +With reference to the military side--the plan of campaign--that work of +genius of which Thiers remarks that, "His genius never devised anything +more profound, more skillful, or more admirable," and enters into a +polemic with M. Fain to prove that this work of genius must be referred +not to the fourth but to the fifteenth of October--that plan never was +or could be executed, for it was quite out of touch with the facts of +the case. The fortifying of the Kremlin, for which la Mosquee (as +Napoleon termed the church of Basil the Beatified) was to have been +razed to the ground, proved quite useless. The mining of the Kremlin +only helped toward fulfilling Napoleon's wish that it should be blown up +when he left Moscow--as a child wants the floor on which he has hurt +himself to be beaten. The pursuit of the Russian army, about which +Napoleon was so concerned, produced an unheard-of result. The French +generals lost touch with the Russian army of sixty thousand men, and +according to Thiers it was only eventually found, like a lost pin, by +the skill--and apparently the genius--of Murat. + +With reference to diplomacy, all Napoleon's arguments as to his +magnanimity and justice, both to Tutolmin and to Yakovlev (whose chief +concern was to obtain a greatcoat and a conveyance), proved useless; +Alexander did not receive these envoys and did not reply to their +embassage. + +With regard to legal matters, after the execution of the supposed +incendiaries the rest of Moscow burned down. + +With regard to administrative matters, the establishment of a +municipality did not stop the robberies and was only of use to certain +people who formed part of that municipality and under pretext of +preserving order looted Moscow or saved their own property from being +looted. + +With regard to religion, as to which in Egypt matters had so easily been +settled by Napoleon's visit to a mosque, no results were achieved. Two +or three priests who were found in Moscow did try to carry out +Napoleon's wish, but one of them was slapped in the face by a French +soldier while conducting service, and a French official reported of +another that: "The priest whom I found and invited to say Mass cleaned +and locked up the church. That night the doors were again broken open, +the padlocks smashed, the books mutilated, and other disorders +perpetrated." + +With reference to commerce, the proclamation to industrious workmen and +to peasants evoked no response. There were no industrious workmen, and +the peasants caught the commissaries who ventured too far out of town +with the proclamation and killed them. + +As to the theaters for the entertainment of the people and the troops, +these did not meet with success either. The theaters set up in the +Kremlin and in Posnyakov's house were closed again at once because the +actors and actresses were robbed. + +Even philanthropy did not have the desired effect. The genuine as well +as the false paper money which flooded Moscow lost its value. The +French, collecting booty, cared only for gold. Not only was the paper +money valueless which Napoleon so graciously distributed to the +unfortunate, but even silver lost its value in relation to gold. + +But the most amazing example of the ineffectiveness of the orders given +by the authorities at that time was Napoleon's attempt to stop the +looting and re-establish discipline. + +This is what the army authorities were reporting: + +"Looting continues in the city despite the decrees against it. Order is +not yet restored and not a single merchant is carrying on trade in a +lawful manner. The sutlers alone venture to trade, and they sell stolen +goods." + +"The neighborhood of my ward continues to be pillaged by soldiers of the +3rd Corps who, not satisfied with taking from the unfortunate +inhabitants hiding in the cellars the little they have left, even have +the ferocity to wound them with their sabers, as I have repeatedly +witnessed." + +"Nothing new, except that the soldiers are robbing and pillaging-- +October 9." + +"Robbery and pillaging continue. There is a band of thieves in our +district who ought to be arrested by a strong force--October 11." + +"The Emperor is extremely displeased that despite the strict orders to +stop pillage, parties of marauding Guards are continually seen returning +to the Kremlin. Among the Old Guard disorder and pillage were renewed +more violently than ever yesterday evening, last night, and today. The +Emperor sees with regret that the picked soldiers appointed to guard his +person, who should set an example of discipline, carry disobedience to +such a point that they break into the cellars and stores containing army +supplies. Others have disgraced themselves to the extent of disobeying +sentinels and officers, and have abused and beaten them." + +"The Grand Marshal of the palace," wrote the governor, "complains +bitterly that in spite of repeated orders, the soldiers continue to +commit nuisances in all the courtyards and even under the very windows +of the Emperor." + +That army, like a herd of cattle run wild and trampling underfoot the +provender which might have saved it from starvation, disintegrated and +perished with each additional day it remained in Moscow. But it did not +go away. + +It began to run away only when suddenly seized by a panic caused by the +capture of transport trains on the Smolensk road, and by the battle of +Tarutino. The news of that battle of Tarutino, unexpectedly received by +Napoleon at a review, evoked in him a desire to punish the Russians +(Thiers says), and he issued the order for departure which the whole +army was demanding. + +Fleeing from Moscow the soldiers took with them everything they had +stolen. Napoleon, too, carried away his own personal tresor, but on +seeing the baggage trains that impeded the army, he was (Thiers says) +horror-struck. And yet with his experience of war he did not order all +the superfluous vehicles to be burned, as he had done with those of a +certain marshal when approaching Moscow. He gazed at the caleches and +carriages in which soldiers were riding and remarked that it was a very +good thing, as those vehicles could be used to carry provisions, the +sick, and the wounded. + +The plight of the whole army resembled that of a wounded animal which +feels it is perishing and does not know what it is doing. To study the +skillful tactics and aims of Napoleon and his army from the time it +entered Moscow till it was destroyed is like studying the dying leaps +and shudders of a mortally wounded animal. Very often a wounded animal, +hearing a rustle, rushes straight at the hunter's gun, runs forward and +back again, and hastens its own end. Napoleon, under pressure from his +whole army, did the same thing. The rustle of the battle of Tarutino +frightened the beast, and it rushed forward onto the hunter's gun, +reached him, turned back, and finally--like any wild beast--ran back +along the most disadvantageous and dangerous path, where the old scent +was familiar. + +During the whole of that period Napoleon, who seems to us to have been +the leader of all these movements--as the figurehead of a ship may seem +to a savage to guide the vessel--acted like a child who, holding a +couple of strings inside a carriage, thinks he is driving it. + + + + +CHAPTER XI + +Early in the morning of the sixth of October Pierre went out of the +shed, and on returning stopped by the door to play with a little blue- +gray dog, with a long body and short bandy legs, that jumped about him. +This little dog lived in their shed, sleeping beside Karataev at night; +it sometimes made excursions into the town but always returned again. +Probably it had never had an owner, and it still belonged to nobody and +had no name. The French called it Azor; the soldier who told stories +called it Femgalka; Karataev and others called it Gray, or sometimes +Flabby. Its lack of a master, a name, or even of a breed or any definite +color did not seem to trouble the blue-gray dog in the least. Its furry +tail stood up firm and round as a plume, its bandy legs served it so +well that it would often gracefully lift a hind leg and run very easily +and quickly on three legs, as if disdaining to use all four. Everything +pleased it. Now it would roll on its back, yelping with delight, now +bask in the sun with a thoughtful air of importance, and now frolic +about playing with a chip of wood or a straw. + +Pierre's attire by now consisted of a dirty torn shirt (the only remnant +of his former clothing), a pair of soldier's trousers which by +Karataev's advice he tied with string round the ankles for warmth, and a +peasant coat and cap. Physically he had changed much during this time. +He no longer seemed stout, though he still had the appearance of +solidity and strength hereditary in his family. A beard and mustache +covered the lower part of his face, and a tangle of hair, infested with +lice, curled round his head like a cap. The look of his eyes was +resolute, calm, and animatedly alert, as never before. The former +slackness which had shown itself even in his eyes was now replaced by an +energetic readiness for action and resistance. His feet were bare. + +Pierre first looked down the field across which vehicles and horsemen +were passing that morning, then into the distance across the river, then +at the dog who was pretending to be in earnest about biting him, and +then at his bare feet which he placed with pleasure in various +positions, moving his dirty thick big toes. Every time he looked at his +bare feet a smile of animated self-satisfaction flitted across his face. +The sight of them reminded him of all he had experienced and learned +during these weeks and this recollection was pleasant to him. + +For some days the weather had been calm and clear with slight frosts in +the mornings--what is called an "old wives' summer." + +In the sunshine the air was warm, and that warmth was particularly +pleasant with the invigorating freshness of the morning frost still in +the air. + +On everything--far and near--lay the magic crystal glitter seen only at +that time of autumn. The Sparrow Hills were visible in the distance, +with the village, the church, and the large white house. The bare trees, +the sand, the bricks and roofs of the houses, the green church spire, +and the corners of the white house in the distance, all stood out in the +transparent air in most delicate outline and with unnatural clearness. +Near by could be seen the familiar ruins of a half-burned mansion +occupied by the French, with lilac bushes still showing dark green +beside the fence. And even that ruined and befouled house--which in dull +weather was repulsively ugly--seemed quietly beautiful now, in the +clear, motionless brilliance. + +A French corporal, with coat unbuttoned in a homely way, a skullcap on +his head, and a short pipe in his mouth, came from behind a corner of +the shed and approached Pierre with a friendly wink. + +"What sunshine, Monsieur Kiril!" (Their name for Pierre.) "Eh? Just like +spring!" + +And the corporal leaned against the door and offered Pierre his pipe, +though whenever he offered it Pierre always declined it. + +"To be on the march in such weather..." he began. + +Pierre inquired what was being said about leaving, and the corporal told +him that nearly all the troops were starting and there ought to be an +order about the prisoners that day. Sokolov, one of the soldiers in the +shed with Pierre, was dying, and Pierre told the corporal that something +should be done about him. The corporal replied that Pierre need not +worry about that as they had an ambulance and a permanent hospital and +arrangements would be made for the sick, and that in general everything +that could happen had been foreseen by the authorities. + +"Besides, Monsieur Kiril, you have only to say a word to the captain, +you know. He is a man who never forgets anything. Speak to the captain +when he makes his round, he will do anything for you." + +(The captain of whom the corporal spoke often had long chats with Pierre +and showed him all sorts of favors.) + +"'You see, St. Thomas,' he said to me the other day. 'Monsieur Kiril is +a man of education, who speaks French. He is a Russian seigneur who has +had misfortunes, but he is a man. He knows what's what.... If he wants +anything and asks me, he won't get a refusal. When one has studied, you +see, one likes education and well-bred people.' It is for your sake I +mention it, Monsieur Kiril. The other day if it had not been for you +that affair would have ended ill." + +And after chatting a while longer, the corporal went away. (The affair +he had alluded to had happened a few days before--a fight between the +prisoners and the French soldiers, in which Pierre had succeeded in +pacifying his comrades.) Some of the prisoners who had heard Pierre +talking to the corporal immediately asked what the Frenchman had said. +While Pierre was repeating what he had been told about the army leaving +Moscow, a thin, sallow, tattered French soldier came up to the door of +the shed. Rapidly and timidly raising his fingers to his forehead by way +of greeting, he asked Pierre whether the soldier Platoche to whom he had +given a shirt to sew was in that shed. + +A week before the French had had boot leather and linen issued to them, +which they had given out to the prisoners to make up into boots and +shirts for them. + +"Ready, ready, dear fellow!" said Karataev, coming out with a neatly +folded shirt. + +Karataev, on account of the warm weather and for convenience at work, +was wearing only trousers and a tattered shirt as black as soot. His +hair was bound round, workman fashion, with a wisp of lime-tree bast, +and his round face seemed rounder and pleasanter than ever. + +"A promise is own brother to performance! I said Friday and here it is, +ready," said Platon, smiling and unfolding the shirt he had sewn. + +The Frenchman glanced around uneasily and then, as if overcoming his +hesitation, rapidly threw off his uniform and put on the shirt. He had a +long, greasy, flowered silk waistcoat next to his sallow, thin bare +body, but no shirt. He was evidently afraid the prisoners looking on +would laugh at him, and thrust his head into the shirt hurriedly. None +of the prisoners said a word. + +"See, it fits well!" Platon kept repeating, pulling the shirt straight. + +The Frenchman, having pushed his head and hands through, without raising +his eyes, looked down at the shirt and examined the seams. + +"You see, dear man, this is not a sewing shop, and I had no proper +tools; and, as they say, one needs a tool even to kill a louse," said +Platon with one of his round smiles, obviously pleased with his work. + +"It's good, quite good, thank you," said the Frenchman, in French, "but +there must be some linen left over." + +"It will fit better still when it sets to your body," said Karataev, +still admiring his handiwork. "You'll be nice and comfortable...." + +"Thanks, thanks, old fellow.... But the bits left over?" said the +Frenchman again and smiled. He took out an assignation ruble note and +gave it to Karataev. "But give me the pieces that are over." + +Pierre saw that Platon did not want to understand what the Frenchman was +saying, and he looked on without interfering. Karataev thanked the +Frenchman for the money and went on admiring his own work. The Frenchman +insisted on having the pieces returned that were left over and asked +Pierre to translate what he said. + +"What does he want the bits for?" said Karataev. "They'd make fine leg +bands for us. Well, never mind." + +And Karataev, with a suddenly changed and saddened expression, took a +small bundle of scraps from inside his shirt and gave it to the +Frenchman without looking at him. "Oh dear!" muttered Karataev and went +away. The Frenchman looked at the linen, considered for a moment, then +looked inquiringly at Pierre and, as if Pierre's look had told him +something, suddenly blushed and shouted in a squeaky voice: + +"Platoche! Eh, Platoche! Keep them yourself!" And handing back the odd +bits he turned and went out. + +"There, look at that," said Karataev, swaying his head. "People said +they were not Christians, but they too have souls. It's what the old +folk used to say: 'A sweating hand's an open hand, a dry hand's close.' +He's naked, but yet he's given it back." + +Karataev smiled thoughtfully and was silent awhile looking at the +pieces. + +"But they'll make grand leg bands, dear friend," he said, and went back +into the shed. + + + + +CHAPTER XII + +Four weeks had passed since Pierre had been taken prisoner and though +the French had offered to move him from the men's to the officers' shed, +he had stayed in the shed where he was first put. + +In burned and devastated Moscow Pierre experienced almost the extreme +limits of privation a man can endure; but thanks to his physical +strength and health, of which he had till then been unconscious, and +thanks especially to the fact that the privations came so gradually that +it was impossible to say when they began, he endured his position not +only lightly but joyfully. And just at this time he obtained the +tranquillity and ease of mind he had formerly striven in vain to reach. +He had long sought in different ways that tranquillity of mind, that +inner harmony which had so impressed him in the soldiers at the battle +of Borodino. He had sought it in philanthropy, in Freemasonry, in the +dissipations of town life, in wine, in heroic feats of self-sacrifice, +and in romantic love for Natasha; he had sought it by reasoning--and all +these quests and experiments had failed him. And now without thinking +about it he had found that peace and inner harmony only through the +horror of death, through privation, and through what he recognized in +Karataev. + +Those dreadful moments he had lived through at the executions had as it +were forever washed away from his imagination and memory the agitating +thoughts and feelings that had formerly seemed so important. It did not +now occur to him to think of Russia, or the war, or politics, or +Napoleon. It was plain to him that all these things were no business of +his, and that he was not called on to judge concerning them and +therefore could not do so. "Russia and summer weather are not bound +together," he thought, repeating words of Karataev's which he found +strangely consoling. His intention of killing Napoleon and his +calculations of the cabalistic number of the beast of the Apocalypse now +seemed to him meaningless and even ridiculous. His anger with his wife +and anxiety that his name should not be smirched now seemed not merely +trivial but even amusing. What concern was it of his that somewhere or +other that woman was leading the life she preferred? What did it matter +to anybody, and especially to him, whether or not they found out that +their prisoner's name was Count Bezukhov? + +He now often remembered his conversation with Prince Andrew and quite +agreed with him, though he understood Prince Andrew's thoughts somewhat +differently. Prince Andrew had thought and said that happiness could +only be negative, but had said it with a shade of bitterness and irony +as though he was really saying that all desire for positive happiness is +implanted in us merely to torment us and never be satisfied. But Pierre +believed it without any mental reservation. The absence of suffering, +the satisfaction of one's needs and consequent freedom in the choice of +one's occupation, that is, of one's way of life, now seemed to Pierre to +be indubitably man's highest happiness. Here and now for the first time +he fully appreciated the enjoyment of eating when he wanted to eat, +drinking when he wanted to drink, sleeping when he wanted to sleep, of +warmth when he was cold, of talking to a fellow man when he wished to +talk and to hear a human voice. The satisfaction of one's needs--good +food, cleanliness, and freedom--now that he was deprived of all this, +seemed to Pierre to constitute perfect happiness; and the choice of +occupation, that is, of his way of life--now that that was so +restricted--seemed to him such an easy matter that he forgot that a +superfluity of the comforts of life destroys all joy in satisfying one's +needs, while great freedom in the choice of occupation--such freedom as +his wealth, his education, and his social position had given him in his +own life--is just what makes the choice of occupation insolubly +difficult and destroys the desire and possibility of having an +occupation. + +All Pierre's daydreams now turned on the time when he would be free. Yet +subsequently, and for the rest of his life, he thought and spoke with +enthusiasm of that month of captivity, of those irrecoverable, strong, +joyful sensations, and chiefly of the complete peace of mind and inner +freedom which he experienced only during those weeks. + +When on the first day he got up early, went out of the shed at dawn, and +saw the cupolas and crosses of the New Convent of the Virgin still dark +at first, the hoarfrost on the dusty grass, the Sparrow Hills, and the +wooded banks above the winding river vanishing in the purple distance, +when he felt the contact of the fresh air and heard the noise of the +crows flying from Moscow across the field, and when afterwards light +gleamed from the east and the sun's rim appeared solemnly from behind a +cloud, and the cupolas and crosses, the hoarfrost, the distance and the +river, all began to sparkle in the glad light--Pierre felt a new joy and +strength in life such as he had never before known. And this not only +stayed with him during the whole of his imprisonment, but even grew in +strength as the hardships of his position increased. + +That feeling of alertness and of readiness for anything was still +further strengthened in him by the high opinion his fellow prisoners +formed of him soon after his arrival at the shed. With his knowledge of +languages, the respect shown him by the French, his simplicity, his +readiness to give anything asked of him (he received the allowance of +three rubles a week made to officers); with his strength, which he +showed to the soldiers by pressing nails into the walls of the hut; his +gentleness to his companions, and his capacity for sitting still and +thinking without doing anything (which seemed to them incomprehensible), +he appeared to them a rather mysterious and superior being. The very +qualities that had been a hindrance, if not actually harmful, to him in +the world he had lived in--his strength, his disdain for the comforts of +life, his absent-mindedness and simplicity--here among these people gave +him almost the status of a hero. And Pierre felt that their opinion +placed responsibilities upon him. + + + + +CHAPTER XIII + +The French evacuation began on the night between the sixth and seventh +of October: kitchens and sheds were dismantled, carts loaded, and troops +and baggage trains started. + +At seven in the morning a French convoy in marching trim, wearing shakos +and carrying muskets, knapsacks, and enormous sacks, stood in front of +the sheds, and animated French talk mingled with curses sounded all +along the lines. + +In the shed everyone was ready, dressed, belted, shod, and only awaited +the order to start. The sick soldier, Sokolov, pale and thin with dark +shadows round his eyes, alone sat in his place barefoot and not dressed. +His eyes, prominent from the emaciation of his face, gazed inquiringly +at his comrades who were paying no attention to him, and he moaned +regularly and quietly. It was evidently not so much his sufferings that +caused him to moan (he had dysentery) as his fear and grief at being +left alone. + +Pierre, girt with a rope round his waist and wearing shoes Karataev had +made for him from some leather a French soldier had torn off a tea chest +and brought to have his boots mended with, went up to the sick man and +squatted down beside him. + +"You know, Sokolov, they are not all going away! They have a hospital +here. You may be better off than we others," said Pierre. + +"O Lord! Oh, it will be the death of me! O Lord!" moaned the man in a +louder voice. + +"I'll go and ask them again directly," said Pierre, rising and going to +the door of the shed. + +Just as Pierre reached the door, the corporal who had offered him a pipe +the day before came up to it with two soldiers. The corporal and +soldiers were in marching kit with knapsacks and shakos that had metal +straps, and these changed their familiar faces. + +The corporal came, according to orders, to shut the door. The prisoners +had to be counted before being let out. + +"Corporal, what will they do with the sick man?..." Pierre began. + +But even as he spoke he began to doubt whether this was the corporal he +knew or a stranger, so unlike himself did the corporal seem at that +moment. Moreover, just as Pierre was speaking a sharp rattle of drums +was suddenly heard from both sides. The corporal frowned at Pierre's +words and, uttering some meaningless oaths, slammed the door. The shed +became semidark, and the sharp rattle of the drums on two sides drowned +the sick man's groans. + +"There it is!... It again!..." said Pierre to himself, and an +involuntary shudder ran down his spine. In the corporal's changed face, +in the sound of his voice, in the stirring and deafening noise of the +drums, he recognized that mysterious, callous force which compelled +people against their will to kill their fellow men--that force the +effect of which he had witnessed during the executions. To fear or to +try to escape that force, to address entreaties or exhortations to those +who served as its tools, was useless. Pierre knew this now. One had to +wait and endure. He did not again go to the sick man, nor turn to look +at him, but stood frowning by the door of the hut. + +When that door was opened and the prisoners, crowding against one +another like a flock of sheep, squeezed into the exit, Pierre pushed his +way forward and approached that very captain who as the corporal had +assured him was ready to do anything for him. The captain was also in +marching kit, and on his cold face appeared that same it which Pierre +had recognized in the corporal's words and in the roll of the drums. + +"Pass on, pass on!" the captain reiterated, frowning sternly, and +looking at the prisoners who thronged past him. + +Pierre went up to him, though he knew his attempt would be vain. + +"What now?" the officer asked with a cold look as if not recognizing +Pierre. + +Pierre told him about the sick man. + +"He'll manage to walk, devil take him!" said the captain. "Pass on, pass +on!" he continued without looking at Pierre. + +"But he is dying," Pierre again began. + +"Be so good..." shouted the captain, frowning angrily. + +"Dram-da-da-dam, dam-dam..." rattled the drums, and Pierre understood +that this mysterious force completely controlled these men and that it +was now useless to say any more. + +The officer prisoners were separated from the soldiers and told to march +in front. There were about thirty officers, with Pierre among them, and +about three hundred men. + +The officers, who had come from the other sheds, were all strangers to +Pierre and much better dressed than he. They looked at him and at his +shoes mistrustfully, as at an alien. Not far from him walked a fat major +with a sallow, bloated, angry face, who was wearing a Kazan dressing +gown tied round with a towel, and who evidently enjoyed the respect of +his fellow prisoners. He kept one hand, in which he clasped his tobacco +pouch, inside the bosom of his dressing gown and held the stem of his +pipe firmly with the other. Panting and puffing, the major grumbled and +growled at everybody because he thought he was being pushed and that +they were all hurrying when they had nowhere to hurry to and were all +surprised at something when there was nothing to be surprised at. +Another, a thin little officer, was speaking to everyone, conjecturing +where they were now being taken and how far they would get that day. An +official in felt boots and wearing a commissariat uniform ran round from +side to side and gazed at the ruins of Moscow, loudly announcing his +observations as to what had been burned down and what this or that part +of the city was that they could see. A third officer, who by his accent +was a Pole, disputed with the commissariat officer, arguing that he was +mistaken in his identification of the different wards of Moscow. + +"What are you disputing about?" said the major angrily. "What does it +matter whether it is St. Nicholas or St. Blasius? You see it's burned +down, and there's an end of it.... What are you pushing for? Isn't the +road wide enough?" said he, turning to a man behind him who was not +pushing him at all. + +"Oh, oh, oh! What have they done?" the prisoners on one side and another +were heard saying as they gazed on the charred ruins. "All beyond the +river, and Zubova, and in the Kremlin.... Just look! There's not half of +it left. Yes, I told you--the whole quarter beyond the river, and so it +is." + +"Well, you know it's burned, so what's the use of talking?" said the +major. + +As they passed near a church in the Khamovniki (one of the few unburned +quarters of Moscow) the whole mass of prisoners suddenly started to one +side and exclamations of horror and disgust were heard. + +"Ah, the villains! What heathens! Yes; dead, dead, so he is... And +smeared with something!" + +Pierre too drew near the church where the thing was that evoked these +exclamations, and dimly made out something leaning against the palings +surrounding the church. From the words of his comrades who saw better +than he did, he found that this was the body of a man, set upright +against the palings with its face smeared with soot. + +"Go on! What the devil... Go on! Thirty thousand devils!..." the convoy +guards began cursing and the French soldiers, with fresh virulence, +drove away with their swords the crowd of prisoners who were gazing at +the dead man. + + + + +CHAPTER XIV + +Through the cross streets of the Khamovniki quarter the prisoners +marched, followed only by their escort and the vehicles and wagons +belonging to that escort, but when they reached the supply stores they +came among a huge and closely packed train of artillery mingled with +private vehicles. + +At the bridge they all halted, waiting for those in front to get across. +From the bridge they had a view of endless lines of moving baggage +trains before and behind them. To the right, where the Kaluga road turns +near Neskuchny, endless rows of troops and carts stretched away into the +distance. These were troops of Beauharnais' corps which had started +before any of the others. Behind, along the riverside and across the +Stone Bridge, were Ney's troops and transport. + +Davout's troops, in whose charge were the prisoners, were crossing the +Crimean bridge and some were already debouching into the Kaluga road. +But the baggage trains stretched out so that the last of Beauharnais' +train had not yet got out of Moscow and reached the Kaluga road when the +vanguard of Ney's army was already emerging from the Great Ordynka +Street. + +When they had crossed the Crimean bridge the prisoners moved a few steps +forward, halted, and again moved on, and from all sides vehicles and men +crowded closer and closer together. They advanced the few hundred paces +that separated the bridge from the Kaluga road, taking more than an hour +to do so, and came out upon the square where the streets of the +Transmoskva ward and the Kaluga road converge, and the prisoners jammed +close together had to stand for some hours at that crossway. From all +sides, like the roar of the sea, were heard the rattle of wheels, the +tramp of feet, and incessant shouts of anger and abuse. Pierre stood +pressed against the wall of a charred house, listening to that noise +which mingled in his imagination with the roll of the drums. + +To get a better view, several officer prisoners climbed onto the wall of +the half-burned house against which Pierre was leaning. + +"What crowds! Just look at the crowds!... They've loaded goods even on +the cannon! Look there, those are furs!" they exclaimed. "Just see what +the blackguards have looted.... There! See what that one has behind in +the cart.... Why, those are settings taken from some icons, by +heaven!... Oh, the rascals!... See how that fellow has loaded himself +up, he can hardly walk! Good lord, they've even grabbed those +chaises!... See that fellow there sitting on the trunks.... Heavens! +They're fighting." + +"That's right, hit him on the snout--on his snout! Like this, we shan't +get away before evening. Look, look there.... Why, that must be +Napoleon's own. See what horses! And the monograms with a crown! It's +like a portable house.... That fellow's dropped his sack and doesn't see +it. Fighting again... A woman with a baby, and not bad-looking either! +Yes, I dare say, that's the way they'll let you pass... Just look, +there's no end to it. Russian wenches, by heaven, so they are! In +carriages--see how comfortably they've settled themselves!" + +Again, as at the church in Khamovniki, a wave of general curiosity bore +all the prisoners forward onto the road, and Pierre, thanks to his +stature, saw over the heads of the others what so attracted their +curiosity. In three carriages involved among the munition carts, closely +squeezed together, sat women with rouged faces, dressed in glaring +colors, who were shouting something in shrill voices. + +From the moment Pierre had recognized the appearance of the mysterious +force nothing had seemed to him strange or dreadful: neither the corpse +smeared with soot for fun nor these women hurrying away nor the burned +ruins of Moscow. All that he now witnessed scarcely made an impression +on him--as if his soul, making ready for a hard struggle, refused to +receive impressions that might weaken it. + +The women's vehicles drove by. Behind them came more carts, soldiers, +wagons, soldiers, gun carriages, carriages, soldiers, ammunition carts, +more soldiers, and now and then women. + +Pierre did not see the people as individuals but saw their movement. + +All these people and horses seemed driven forward by some invisible +power. During the hour Pierre watched them they all came flowing from +the different streets with one and the same desire to get on quickly; +they all jostled one another, began to grow angry and to fight, white +teeth gleamed, brows frowned, ever the same words of abuse flew from +side to side, and all the faces bore the same swaggeringly resolute and +coldly cruel expression that had struck Pierre that morning on the +corporal's face when the drums were beating. + +It was not till nearly evening that the officer commanding the escort +collected his men and with shouts and quarrels forced his way in among +the baggage trains, and the prisoners, hemmed in on all sides, emerged +onto the Kaluga road. + +They marched very quickly, without resting, and halted only when the sun +began to set. The baggage carts drew up close together and the men began +to prepare for their night's rest. They all appeared angry and +dissatisfied. For a long time, oaths, angry shouts, and fighting could +be heard from all sides. A carriage that followed the escort ran into +one of the carts and knocked a hole in it with its pole. Several +soldiers ran toward the cart from different sides: some beat the +carriage horses on their heads, turning them aside, others fought among +themselves, and Pierre saw that one German was badly wounded on the head +by a sword. + +It seemed that all these men, now that they had stopped amid fields in +the chill dusk of the autumn evening, experienced one and the same +feeling of unpleasant awakening from the hurry and eagerness to push on +that had seized them at the start. Once at a standstill they all seemed +to understand that they did not yet know where they were going, and that +much that was painful and difficult awaited them on this journey. + +During this halt the escort treated the prisoners even worse than they +had done at the start. It was here that the prisoners for the first time +received horseflesh for their meat ration. + +From the officer down to the lowest soldier they showed what seemed like +personal spite against each of the prisoners, in unexpected contrast to +their former friendly relations. + +This spite increased still more when, on calling over the roll of +prisoners, it was found that in the bustle of leaving Moscow one Russian +soldier, who had pretended to suffer from colic, had escaped. Pierre saw +a Frenchman beat a Russian soldier cruelly for straying too far from the +road, and heard his friend the captain reprimand and threaten to court- +martial a noncommissioned officer on account of the escape of the +Russian. To the noncommissioned officer's excuse that the prisoner was +ill and could not walk, the officer replied that the order was to shoot +those who lagged behind. Pierre felt that that fatal force which had +crushed him during the executions, but which he had not felt during his +imprisonment, now again controlled his existence. It was terrible, but +he felt that in proportion to the efforts of that fatal force to crush +him, there grew and strengthened in his soul a power of life independent +of it. + +He ate his supper of buckwheat soup with horseflesh and chatted with his +comrades. + +Neither Pierre nor any of the others spoke of what they had seen in +Moscow, or of the roughness of their treatment by the French, or of the +order to shoot them which had been announced to them. As if in reaction +against the worsening of their position they were all particularly +animated and gay. They spoke of personal reminiscences, of amusing +scenes they had witnessed during the campaign, and avoided all talk of +their present situation. + +The sun had set long since. Bright stars shone out here and there in the +sky. A red glow as of a conflagration spread above the horizon from the +rising full moon, and that vast red ball swayed strangely in the gray +haze. It grew light. The evening was ending, but the night had not yet +come. Pierre got up and left his new companions, crossing between the +campfires to the other side of the road where he had been told the +common soldier prisoners were stationed. He wanted to talk to them. On +the road he was stopped by a French sentinel who ordered him back. + +Pierre turned back, not to his companions by the campfire, but to an +unharnessed cart where there was nobody. Tucking his legs under him and +dropping his head he sat down on the cold ground by the wheel of the +cart and remained motionless a long while sunk in thought. Suddenly he +burst out into a fit of his broad, good-natured laughter, so loud that +men from various sides turned with surprise to see what this strange and +evidently solitary laughter could mean. + +"Ha-ha-ha!" laughed Pierre. And he said aloud to himself: "The soldier +did not let me pass. They took me and shut me up. They hold me captive. +What, me? Me? My immortal soul? Ha-ha-ha! Ha-ha-ha!..." and he laughed +till tears started to his eyes. + +A man got up and came to see what this queer big fellow was laughing at +all by himself. Pierre stopped laughing, got up, went farther away from +the inquisitive man, and looked around him. + +The huge, endless bivouac that had previously resounded with the +crackling of campfires and the voices of many men had grown quiet, the +red campfires were growing paler and dying down. High up in the light +sky hung the full moon. Forests and fields beyond the camp, unseen +before, were now visible in the distance. And farther still, beyond +those forests and fields, the bright, oscillating, limitless distance +lured one to itself. Pierre glanced up at the sky and the twinkling +stars in its faraway depths. "And all that is me, all that is within me, +and it is all I!" thought Pierre. "And they caught all that and put it +into a shed boarded up with planks!" He smiled, and went and lay down to +sleep beside his companions. + + + + +CHAPTER XV + +In the early days of October another envoy came to Kutuzov with a letter +from Napoleon proposing peace and falsely dated from Moscow, though +Napoleon was already not far from Kutuzov on the old Kaluga road. +Kutuzov replied to this letter as he had done to the one formerly +brought by Lauriston, saying that there could be no question of peace. + +Soon after that a report was received from Dorokhov's guerrilla +detachment operating to the left of Tarutino that troops of Broussier's +division had been seen at Forminsk and that being separated from the +rest of the French army they might easily be destroyed. The soldiers and +officers again demanded action. Generals on the staff, excited by the +memory of the easy victory at Tarutino, urged Kutuzov to carry out +Dorokhov's suggestion. Kutuzov did not consider any offensive necessary. +The result was a compromise which was inevitable: a small detachment was +sent to Forminsk to attack Broussier. + +By a strange coincidence, this task, which turned out to be a most +difficult and important one, was entrusted to Dokhturov--that same +modest little Dokhturov whom no one had described to us as drawing up +plans of battles, dashing about in front of regiments, showering crosses +on batteries, and so on, and who was thought to be and was spoken of as +undecided and undiscerning--but whom we find commanding wherever the +position was most difficult all through the Russo-French wars from +Austerlitz to the year 1813. At Austerlitz he remained last at the +Augezd dam, rallying the regiments, saving what was possible when all +were flying and perishing and not a single general was left in the rear +guard. Ill with fever he went to Smolensk with twenty thousand men to +defend the town against Napoleon's whole army. In Smolensk, at the +Malakhov Gate, he had hardly dozed off in a paroxysm of fever before he +was awakened by the bombardment of the town--and Smolensk held out all +day long. At the battle of Borodino, when Bagration was killed and nine +tenths of the men of our left flank had fallen and the full force of the +French artillery fire was directed against it, the man sent there was +this same irresolute and undiscerning Dokhturov--Kutuzov hastening to +rectify a mistake he had made by sending someone else there first. And +the quiet little Dokhturov rode thither, and Borodino became the +greatest glory of the Russian army. Many heroes have been described to +us in verse and prose, but of Dokhturov scarcely a word has been said. + +It was Dokhturov again whom they sent to Forminsk and from there to +Malo-Yaroslavets, the place where the last battle with the French was +fought and where the obvious disintegration of the French army began; +and we are told of many geniuses and heroes of that period of the +campaign, but of Dokhturov nothing or very little is said and that +dubiously. And this silence about Dokhturov is the clearest testimony to +his merit. + +It is natural for a man who does not understand the workings of a +machine to imagine that a shaving that has fallen into it by chance and +is interfering with its action and tossing about in it is its most +important part. The man who does not understand the construction of the +machine cannot conceive that the small connecting cogwheel which +revolves quietly is one of the most essential parts of the machine, and +not the shaving which merely harms and hinders the working. + +On the tenth of October when Dokhturov had gone halfway to Forminsk and +stopped at the village of Aristovo, preparing faithfully to execute the +orders he had received, the whole French army having, in its convulsive +movement, reached Murat's position apparently in order to give battle-- +suddenly without any reason turned off to the left onto the new Kaluga +road and began to enter Forminsk, where only Broussier had been till +then. At that time Dokhturov had under his command, besides Dorokhov's +detachment, the two small guerrilla detachments of Figner and Seslavin. + +On the evening of October 11 Seslavin came to the Aristovo headquarters +with a French guardsman he had captured. The prisoner said that the +troops that had entered Forminsk that day were the vanguard of the whole +army, that Napoleon was there and the whole army had left Moscow four +days previously. That same evening a house serf who had come from +Borovsk said he had seen an immense army entering the town. Some +Cossacks of Dokhturov's detachment reported having sighted the French +Guards marching along the road to Borovsk. From all these reports it was +evident that where they had expected to meet a single division there was +now the whole French army marching from Moscow in an unexpected +direction--along the Kaluga road. Dokhturov was unwilling to undertake +any action, as it was not clear to him now what he ought to do. He had +been ordered to attack Forminsk. But only Broussier had been there at +that time and now the whole French army was there. Ermolov wished to act +on his own judgment, but Dokhturov insisted that he must have Kutuzov's +instructions. So it was decided to send a dispatch to the staff. + +For this purpose a capable officer, Bolkhovitinov, was chosen, who was +to explain the whole affair by word of mouth, besides delivering a +written report. Toward midnight Bolkhovitinov, having received the +dispatch and verbal instructions, galloped off to the General Staff +accompanied by a Cossack with spare horses. + + + + +CHAPTER XVI + +It was a warm, dark, autumn night. It had been raining for four days. +Having changed horses twice and galloped twenty miles in an hour and a +half over a sticky, muddy road, Bolkhovitinov reached Litashevka after +one o'clock at night. Dismounting at a cottage on whose wattle fence +hung a signboard, GENERAL STAFF, and throwing down his reins, he entered +a dark passage. + +"The general on duty, quick! It's very important!" said he to someone +who had risen and was sniffing in the dark passage. + +"He has been very unwell since the evening and this is the third night +he has not slept," said the orderly pleadingly in a whisper. "You should +wake the captain first." + +"But this is very important, from General Dokhturov," said +Bolkhovitinov, entering the open door which he had found by feeling in +the dark. + +The orderly had gone in before him and began waking somebody. + +"Your honor, your honor! A courier." + +"What? What's that? From whom?" came a sleepy voice. + +"From Dokhturov and from Alexey Petrovich. Napoleon is at Forminsk," +said Bolkhovitinov, unable to see in the dark who was speaking but +guessing by the voice that it was not Konovnitsyn. + +The man who had wakened yawned and stretched himself. + +"I don't like waking him," he said, fumbling for something. "He is very +ill. Perhaps this is only a rumor." + +"Here is the dispatch," said Bolkhovitinov. "My orders are to give it at +once to the general on duty." + +"Wait a moment, I'll light a candle. You damned rascal, where do you +always hide it?" said the voice of the man who was stretching himself, +to the orderly. (This was Shcherbinin, Konovnitsyn's adjutant.) "I've +found it, I've found it!" he added. + +The orderly was striking a light and Shcherbinin was fumbling for +something on the candlestick. + +"Oh, the nasty beasts!" said he with disgust. + +By the light of the sparks Bolkhovitinov saw Shcherbinin's youthful face +as he held the candle, and the face of another man who was still asleep. +This was Konovnitsyn. + +When the flame of the sulphur splinters kindled by the tinder burned up, +first blue and then red, Shcherbinin lit the tallow candle, from the +candlestick of which the cockroaches that had been gnawing it were +running away, and looked at the messenger. Bolkhovitinov was bespattered +all over with mud and had smeared his face by wiping it with his sleeve. + +"Who gave the report?" inquired Shcherbinin, taking the envelope. + +"The news is reliable," said Bolkhovitinov. "Prisoners, Cossacks, and +the scouts all say the same thing." + +"There's nothing to be done, we'll have to wake him," said Shcherbinin, +rising and going up to the man in the nightcap who lay covered by a +greatcoat. "Peter Petrovich!" said he. (Konovnitsyn did not stir.) "To +the General Staff!" he said with a smile, knowing that those words would +be sure to arouse him. + +And in fact the head in the nightcap was lifted at once. On +Konovnitsyn's handsome, resolute face with cheeks flushed by fever, +there still remained for an instant a faraway dreamy expression remote +from present affairs, but then he suddenly started and his face assumed +its habitual calm and firm appearance. + +"Well, what is it? From whom?" he asked immediately but without hurry, +blinking at the light. + +While listening to the officer's report Konovnitsyn broke the seal and +read the dispatch. Hardly had he done so before he lowered his legs in +their woolen stockings to the earthen floor and began putting on his +boots. Then he took off his nightcap, combed his hair over his temples, +and donned his cap. + +"Did you get here quickly? Let us go to his Highness." + +Konovnitsyn had understood at once that the news brought was of great +importance and that no time must be lost. He did not consider or ask +himself whether the news was good or bad. That did not interest him. He +regarded the whole business of the war not with his intelligence or his +reason but by something else. There was within him a deep unexpressed +conviction that all would be well, but that one must not trust to this +and still less speak about it, but must only attend to one's own work. +And he did his work, giving his whole strength to the task. + +Peter Petrovich Konovnitsyn, like Dokhturov, seems to have been included +merely for propriety's sake in the list of the so-called heroes of 1812- +-the Barclays, Raevskis, Ermolovs, Platovs, and Miloradoviches. Like +Dokhturov he had the reputation of being a man of very limited capacity +and information, and like Dokhturov he never made plans of battle but +was always found where the situation was most difficult. Since his +appointment as general on duty he had always slept with his door open, +giving orders that every messenger should be allowed to wake him up. In +battle he was always under fire, so that Kutuzov reproved him for it and +feared to send him to the front, and like Dokhturov he was one of those +unnoticed cogwheels that, without clatter or noise, constitute the most +essential part of the machine. + +Coming out of the hut into the damp, dark night Konovnitsyn frowned-- +partly from an increased pain in his head and partly at the unpleasant +thought that occurred to him, of how all that nest of influential men on +the staff would be stirred up by this news, especially Bennigsen, who +ever since Tarutino had been at daggers drawn with Kutuzov; and how they +would make suggestions, quarrel, issue orders, and rescind them. And +this premonition was disagreeable to him though he knew it could not be +helped. + +And in fact Toll, to whom he went to communicate the news, immediately +began to expound his plans to a general sharing his quarters, until +Konovnitsyn, who listened in weary silence, reminded him that they must +go to see his Highness. + + + + +CHAPTER XVII + +Kutuzov like all old people did not sleep much at night. He often fell +asleep unexpectedly in the daytime, but at night, lying on his bed +without undressing, he generally remained awake thinking. + +So he lay now on his bed, supporting his large, heavy, scarred head on +his plump hand, with his one eye open, meditating and peering into the +darkness. + +Since Bennigsen, who corresponded with the Emperor and had more +influence than anyone else on the staff, had begun to avoid him, Kutuzov +was more at ease as to the possibility of himself and his troops being +obliged to take part in useless aggressive movements. The lesson of the +Tarutino battle and of the day before it, which Kutuzov remembered with +pain, must, he thought, have some effect on others too. + +"They must understand that we can only lose by taking the offensive. +Patience and time are my warriors, my champions," thought Kutuzov. He +knew that an apple should not be plucked while it is green. It will fall +of itself when ripe, but if picked unripe the apple is spoiled, the tree +is harmed, and your teeth are set on edge. Like an experienced sportsman +he knew that the beast was wounded, and wounded as only the whole +strength of Russia could have wounded it, but whether it was mortally +wounded or not was still an undecided question. Now by the fact of +Lauriston and Barthelemi having been sent, and by the reports of the +guerrillas, Kutuzov was almost sure that the wound was mortal. But he +needed further proofs and it was necessary to wait. + +"They want to run to see how they have wounded it. Wait and we shall +see! Continual maneuvers, continual advances!" thought he. "What for? +Only to distinguish themselves! As if fighting were fun. They are like +children from whom one can't get any sensible account of what has +happened because they all want to show how well they can fight. But +that's not what is needed now. + +"And what ingenious maneuvers they all propose to me! It seems to them +that when they have thought of two or three contingencies" (he +remembered the general plan sent him from Petersburg) "they have +foreseen everything. But the contingencies are endless." + +The undecided question as to whether the wound inflicted at Borodino was +mortal or not had hung over Kutuzov's head for a whole month. On the one +hand the French had occupied Moscow. On the other Kutuzov felt assured +with all his being that the terrible blow into which he and all the +Russians had put their whole strength must have been mortal. But in any +case proofs were needed; he had waited a whole month for them and grew +more impatient the longer he waited. Lying on his bed during those +sleepless nights he did just what he reproached those younger generals +for doing. He imagined all sorts of possible contingencies, just like +the younger men, but with this difference, that he saw thousands of +contingencies instead of two or three and based nothing on them. The +longer he thought the more contingencies presented themselves. He +imagined all sorts of movements of the Napoleonic army as a whole or in +sections--against Petersburg, or against him, or to outflank him. He +thought too of the possibility (which he feared most of all) that +Napoleon might fight him with his own weapon and remain in Moscow +awaiting him. Kutuzov even imagined that Napoleon's army might turn back +through Medyn and Yukhnov, but the one thing he could not foresee was +what happened--the insane, convulsive stampede of Napoleon's army during +its first eleven days after leaving Moscow: a stampede which made +possible what Kutuzov had not yet even dared to think of--the complete +extermination of the French. Dorokhov's report about Broussier's +division, the guerrillas' reports of distress in Napoleon's army, rumors +of preparations for leaving Moscow, all confirmed the supposition that +the French army was beaten and preparing for flight. But these were only +suppositions, which seemed important to the younger men but not to +Kutuzov. With his sixty years' experience he knew what value to attach +to rumors, knew how apt people who desire anything are to group all news +so that it appears to confirm what they desire, and he knew how readily +in such cases they omit all that makes for the contrary. And the more he +desired it the less he allowed himself to believe it. This question +absorbed all his mental powers. All else was to him only life's +customary routine. To such customary routine belonged his conversations +with the staff, the letters he wrote from Tarutino to Madame de Stael, +the reading of novels, the distribution of awards, his correspondence +with Petersburg, and so on. But the destruction of the French, which he +alone foresaw, was his heart's one desire. + +On the night of the eleventh of October he lay leaning on his arm and +thinking of that. + +There was a stir in the next room and he heard the steps of Toll, +Konovnitsyn, and Bolkhovitinov. + +"Eh, who's there? Come in, come in! What news?" the field marshal called +out to them. + +While a footman was lighting a candle, Toll communicated the substance +of the news. + +"Who brought it?" asked Kutuzov with a look which, when the candle was +lit, struck Toll by its cold severity. + +"There can be no doubt about it, your Highness." + +"Call him in, call him here." + +Kutuzov sat up with one leg hanging down from the bed and his big paunch +resting against the other which was doubled under him. He screwed up his +seeing eye to scrutinize the messenger more carefully, as if wishing to +read in his face what preoccupied his own mind. + +"Tell me, tell me, friend," said he to Bolkhovitinov in his low, aged +voice, as he pulled together the shirt which gaped open on his chest, +"come nearer--nearer. What news have you brought me? Eh? That Napoleon +has left Moscow? Are you sure? Eh?" + +Bolkhovitinov gave a detailed account from the beginning of all he had +been told to report. + +"Speak quicker, quicker! Don't torture me!" Kutuzov interrupted him. + +Bolkhovitinov told him everything and was then silent, awaiting +instructions. Toll was beginning to say something but Kutuzov checked +him. He tried to say something, but his face suddenly puckered and +wrinkled; he waved his arm at Toll and turned to the opposite side of +the room, to the corner darkened by the icons that hung there. + +"O Lord, my Creator, Thou has heard our prayer..." said he in a +tremulous voice with folded hands. "Russia is saved. I thank Thee, O +Lord!" and he wept. + + + + +CHAPTER XVIII + +From the time he received this news to the end of the campaign all +Kutuzov's activity was directed toward restraining his troops, by +authority, by guile, and by entreaty, from useless attacks, maneuvers, +or encounters with the perishing enemy. Dokhturov went to Malo- +Yaroslavets, but Kutuzov lingered with the main army and gave orders for +the evacuation of Kaluga--a retreat beyond which town seemed to him +quite possible. + +Everywhere Kutuzov retreated, but the enemy without waiting for his +retreat fled in the opposite direction. + +Napoleon's historians describe to us his skilled maneuvers at Tarutino +and Malo-Yaroslavets, and make conjectures as to what would have +happened had Napoleon been in time to penetrate into the rich southern +provinces. + +But not to speak of the fact that nothing prevented him from advancing +into those southern provinces (for the Russian army did not bar his +way), the historians forget that nothing could have saved his army, for +then already it bore within itself the germs of inevitable ruin. How +could that army--which had found abundant supplies in Moscow and had +trampled them underfoot instead of keeping them, and on arriving at +Smolensk had looted provisions instead of storing them--how could that +army recuperate in Kaluga province, which was inhabited by Russians such +as those who lived in Moscow, and where fire had the same property of +consuming what was set ablaze? + +That army could not recover anywhere. Since the battle of Borodino and +the pillage of Moscow it had borne within itself, as it were, the +chemical elements of dissolution. + +The members of what had once been an army--Napoleon himself and all his +soldiers fled--without knowing whither, each concerned only to make his +escape as quickly as possible from this position, of the hopelessness of +which they were all more or less vaguely conscious. + +So it came about that at the council at Malo-Yaroslavets, when the +generals pretending to confer together expressed various opinions, all +mouths were closed by the opinion uttered by the simple-minded soldier +Mouton who, speaking last, said what they all felt: that the one thing +needful was to get away as quickly as possible; and no one, not even +Napoleon, could say anything against that truth which they all +recognized. + +But though they all realized that it was necessary to get away, there +still remained a feeling of shame at admitting that they must flee. An +external shock was needed to overcome that shame, and this shock came in +due time. It was what the French called "le hourra de l'Empereur." + +The day after the council at Malo-Yaroslavets Napoleon rode out early in +the morning amid the lines of his army with his suite of marshals and an +escort, on the pretext of inspecting the army and the scene of the +previous and of the impending battle. Some Cossacks on the prowl for +booty fell in with the Emperor and very nearly captured him. If the +Cossacks did not capture Napoleon then, what saved him was the very +thing that was destroying the French army, the booty on which the +Cossacks fell. Here as at Tarutino they went after plunder, leaving the +men. Disregarding Napoleon they rushed after the plunder and Napoleon +managed to escape. + +When les enfants du Don might so easily have taken the Emperor himself +in the midst of his army, it was clear that there was nothing for it but +to fly as fast as possible along the nearest, familiar road. Napoleon +with his forty-year-old stomach understood that hint, not feeling his +former agility and boldness, and under the influence of the fright the +Cossacks had given him he at once agreed with Mouton and issued orders-- +as the historians tell us--to retreat by the Smolensk road. + +That Napoleon agreed with Mouton, and that the army retreated, does not +prove that Napoleon caused it to retreat, but that the forces which +influenced the whole army and directed it along the Mozhaysk (that is, +the Smolensk) road acted simultaneously on him also. + + + + +CHAPTER XIX + +A man in motion always devises an aim for that motion. To be able to go +a thousand miles he must imagine that something good awaits him at the +end of those thousand miles. One must have the prospect of a promised +land to have the strength to move. + +The promised land for the French during their advance had been Moscow, +during their retreat it was their native land. But that native land was +too far off, and for a man going a thousand miles it is absolutely +necessary to set aside his final goal and to say to himself: "Today I +shall get to a place twenty-five miles off where I shall rest and spend +the night," and during the first day's journey that resting place +eclipses his ultimate goal and attracts all his hopes and desires. And +the impulses felt by a single person are always magnified in a crowd. + +For the French retreating along the old Smolensk road, the final goal-- +their native land--was too remote, and their immediate goal was +Smolensk, toward which all their desires and hopes, enormously +intensified in the mass, urged them on. It was not that they knew that +much food and fresh troops awaited them in Smolensk, nor that they were +told so (on the contrary their superior officers, and Napoleon himself, +knew that provisions were scarce there), but because this alone could +give them strength to move on and endure their present privations. So +both those who knew and those who did not know deceived themselves, and +pushed on to Smolensk as to a promised land. + +Coming out onto the highroad the French fled with surprising energy and +unheard-of rapidity toward the goal they had fixed on. Besides the +common impulse which bound the whole crowd of French into one mass and +supplied them with a certain energy, there was another cause binding +them together--their great numbers. As with the physical law of gravity, +their enormous mass drew the individual human atoms to itself. In their +hundreds of thousands they moved like a whole nation. + +Each of them desired nothing more than to give himself up as a prisoner +to escape from all this horror and misery; but on the one hand the force +of this common attraction to Smolensk, their goal, drew each of them in +the same direction; on the other hand an army corps could not surrender +to a company, and though the French availed themselves of every +convenient opportunity to detach themselves and to surrender on the +slightest decent pretext, such pretexts did not always occur. Their very +numbers and their crowded and swift movement deprived them of that +possibility and rendered it not only difficult but impossible for the +Russians to stop this movement, to which the French were directing all +their energies. Beyond a certain limit no mechanical disruption of the +body could hasten the process of decomposition. + +A lump of snow cannot be melted instantaneously. There is a certain +limit of time in less than which no amount of heat can melt the snow. On +the contrary the greater the heat the more solidified the remaining snow +becomes. + +Of the Russian commanders Kutuzov alone understood this. When the flight +of the French army along the Smolensk road became well defined, what +Konovnitsyn had foreseen on the night of the eleventh of October began +to occur. The superior officers all wanted to distinguish themselves, to +cut off, to seize, to capture, and to overthrow the French, and all +clamored for action. + +Kutuzov alone used all his power (and such power is very limited in the +case of any commander-in-chief) to prevent an attack. + +He could not tell them what we say now: "Why fight, why block the road, +losing our own men and inhumanly slaughtering unfortunate wretches? What +is the use of that, when a third of their army has melted away on the +road from Moscow to Vyazma without any battle?" But drawing from his +aged wisdom what they could understand, he told them of the golden +bridge, and they laughed at and slandered him, flinging themselves on, +rending and exulting over the dying beast. + +Ermolov, Miloradovich, Platov, and others in proximity to the French +near Vyazma could not resist their desire to cut off and break up two +French corps, and by way of reporting their intention to Kutuzov they +sent him a blank sheet of paper in an envelope. + +And try as Kutuzov might to restrain the troops, our men attacked, +trying to bar the road. Infantry regiments, we are told, advanced to the +attack with music and with drums beating, and killed and lost thousands +of men. + +But they did not cut off or overthrow anybody and the French army, +closing up more firmly at the danger, continued, while steadily melting +away, to pursue its fatal path to Smolensk. + +BOOK FOURTEEN: 1812 + + + + +CHAPTER I + +The Battle of Borodino, with the occupation of Moscow that followed it +and the flight of the French without further conflicts, is one of the +most instructive phenomena in history. + +All historians agree that the external activity of states and nations in +their conflicts with one another is expressed in wars, and that as a +direct result of greater or less success in war the political strength +of states and nations increases or decreases. + +Strange as may be the historical account of how some king or emperor, +having quarreled with another, collects an army, fights his enemy's +army, gains a victory by killing three, five, or ten thousand men, and +subjugates a kingdom and an entire nation of several millions, all the +facts of history (as far as we know it) confirm the truth of the +statement that the greater or lesser success of one army against another +is the cause, or at least an essential indication, of an increase or +decrease in the strength of the nation--even though it is unintelligible +why the defeat of an army--a hundredth part of a nation--should oblige +that whole nation to submit. An army gains a victory, and at once the +rights of the conquering nation have increased to the detriment of the +defeated. An army has suffered defeat, and at once a people loses its +rights in proportion to the severity of the reverse, and if its army +suffers a complete defeat the nation is quite subjugated. + +So according to history it has been found from the most ancient times, +and so it is to our own day. All Napoleon's wars serve to confirm this +rule. In proportion to the defeat of the Austrian army Austria loses its +rights, and the rights and the strength of France increase. The +victories of the French at Jena and Auerstadt destroy the independent +existence of Prussia. + +But then, in 1812, the French gain a victory near Moscow. Moscow is +taken and after that, with no further battles, it is not Russia that +ceases to exist, but the French army of six hundred thousand, and then +Napoleonic France itself. To strain the facts to fit the rules of +history: to say that the field of battle at Borodino remained in the +hands of the Russians, or that after Moscow there were other battles +that destroyed Napoleon's army, is impossible. + +After the French victory at Borodino there was no general engagement nor +any that were at all serious, yet the French army ceased to exist. What +does this mean? If it were an example taken from the history of China, +we might say that it was not an historic phenomenon (which is the +historians' usual expedient when anything does not fit their standards); +if the matter concerned some brief conflict in which only a small number +of troops took part, we might treat it as an exception; but this event +occurred before our fathers' eyes, and for them it was a question of the +life or death of their fatherland, and it happened in the greatest of +all known wars. + +The period of the campaign of 1812 from the battle of Borodino to the +expulsion of the French proved that the winning of a battle does not +produce a conquest and is not even an invariable indication of conquest; +it proved that the force which decides the fate of peoples lies not in +the conquerors, nor even in armies and battles, but in something else. + +The French historians, describing the condition of the French army +before it left Moscow, affirm that all was in order in the Grand Army, +except the cavalry, the artillery, and the transport--there was no +forage for the horses or the cattle. That was a misfortune no one could +remedy, for the peasants of the district burned their hay rather than +let the French have it. + +The victory gained did not bring the usual results because the peasants +Karp and Vlas (who after the French had evacuated Moscow drove in their +carts to pillage the town, and in general personally failed to manifest +any heroic feelings), and the whole innumerable multitude of such +peasants, did not bring their hay to Moscow for the high price offered +them, but burned it instead. + +Let us imagine two men who have come out to fight a duel with rapiers +according to all the rules of the art of fencing. The fencing has gone +on for some time; suddenly one of the combatants, feeling himself +wounded and understanding that the matter is no joke but concerns his +life, throws down his rapier, and seizing the first cudgel that comes to +hand begins to brandish it. Then let us imagine that the combatant who +so sensibly employed the best and simplest means to attain his end was +at the same time influenced by traditions of chivalry and, desiring to +conceal the facts of the case, insisted that he had gained his victory +with the rapier according to all the rules of art. One can imagine what +confusion and obscurity would result from such an account of the duel. + +The fencer who demanded a contest according to the rules of fencing was +the French army; his opponent who threw away the rapier and snatched up +the cudgel was the Russian people; those who try to explain the matter +according to the rules of fencing are the historians who have described +the event. + +After the burning of Smolensk a war began which did not follow any +previous traditions of war. The burning of towns and villages, the +retreats after battles, the blow dealt at Borodino and the renewed +retreat, the burning of Moscow, the capture of marauders, the seizure of +transports, and the guerrilla war were all departures from the rules. + +Napoleon felt this, and from the time he took up the correct fencing +attitude in Moscow and instead of his opponent's rapier saw a cudgel +raised above his head, he did not cease to complain to Kutuzov and to +the Emperor Alexander that the war was being carried on contrary to all +the rules--as if there were any rules for killing people. In spite of +the complaints of the French as to the nonobservance of the rules, in +spite of the fact that to some highly placed Russians it seemed rather +disgraceful to fight with a cudgel and they wanted to assume a pose en +quarte or en tierce according to all the rules, and to make an adroit +thrust en prime, and so on--the cudgel of the people's war was lifted +with all its menacing and majestic strength, and without consulting +anyone's tastes or rules and regardless of anything else, it rose and +fell with stupid simplicity, but consistently, and belabored the French +till the whole invasion had perished. + +And it is well for a people who do not--as the French did in 1813-- +salute according to all the rules of art, and, presenting the hilt of +their rapier gracefully and politely, hand it to their magnanimous +conqueror, but at the moment of trial, without asking what rules others +have adopted in similar cases, simply and easily pick up the first +cudgel that comes to hand and strike with it till the feeling of +resentment and revenge in their soul yields to a feeling of contempt and +compassion. + + + + +CHAPTER II + +One of the most obvious and advantageous departures from the so-called +laws of war is the action of scattered groups against men pressed +together in a mass. Such action always occurs in wars that take on a +national character. In such actions, instead of two crowds opposing each +other, the men disperse, attack singly, run away when attacked by +stronger forces, but again attack when opportunity offers. This was done +by the guerrillas in Spain, by the mountain tribes in the Caucasus, and +by the Russians in 1812. + +People have called this kind of war "guerrilla warfare" and assume that +by so calling it they have explained its meaning. But such a war does +not fit in under any rule and is directly opposed to a well-known rule +of tactics which is accepted as infallible. That rule says that an +attacker should concentrate his forces in order to be stronger than his +opponent at the moment of conflict. + +Guerrilla war (always successful, as history shows) directly infringes +that rule. + +This contradiction arises from the fact that military science assumes +the strength of an army to be identical with its numbers. Military +science says that the more troops the greater the strength. Les gros +bataillons ont toujours raison. * + + +* Large battalions are always victorious. + +For military science to say this is like defining momentum in mechanics +by reference to the mass only: stating that momenta are equal or unequal +to each other simply because the masses involved are equal or unequal. + +Momentum (quantity of motion) is the product of mass and velocity. + +In military affairs the strength of an army is the product of its mass +and some unknown x. + +Military science, seeing in history innumerable instances of the fact +that the size of any army does not coincide with its strength and that +small detachments defeat larger ones, obscurely admits the existence of +this unknown factor and tries to discover it--now in a geometric +formation, now in the equipment employed, now, and most usually, in the +genius of the commanders. But the assignment of these various meanings +to the factor does not yield results which accord with the historic +facts. + +Yet it is only necessary to abandon the false view (adopted to gratify +the "heroes") of the efficacy of the directions issued in wartime by +commanders, in order to find this unknown quantity. + +That unknown quantity is the spirit of the army, that is to say, the +greater or lesser readiness to fight and face danger felt by all the men +composing an army, quite independently of whether they are, or are not, +fighting under the command of a genius, in two--or three-line formation, +with cudgels or with rifles that repeat thirty times a minute. Men who +want to fight will always put themselves in the most advantageous +conditions for fighting. + +The spirit of an army is the factor which multiplied by the mass gives +the resulting force. To define and express the significance of this +unknown factor--the spirit of an army--is a problem for science. + +This problem is only solvable if we cease arbitrarily to substitute for +the unknown x itself the conditions under which that force becomes +apparent--such as the commands of the general, the equipment employed, +and so on--mistaking these for the real significance of the factor, and +if we recognize this unknown quantity in its entirety as being the +greater or lesser desire to fight and to face danger. Only then, +expressing known historic facts by equations and comparing the relative +significance of this factor, can we hope to define the unknown. + +Ten men, battalions, or divisions, fighting fifteen men, battalions, or +divisions, conquer--that is, kill or take captive--all the others, while +themselves losing four, so that on the one side four and on the other +fifteen were lost. Consequently the four were equal to the fifteen, and +therefore 4x = 15y. Consequently x/y = 15/4. This equation does not give +us the value of the unknown factor but gives us a ratio between two +unknowns. And by bringing variously selected historic units (battles, +campaigns, periods of war) into such equations, a series of numbers +could be obtained in which certain laws should exist and might be +discovered. + +The tactical rule that an army should act in masses when attacking, and +in smaller groups in retreat, unconsciously confirms the truth that the +strength of an army depends on its spirit. To lead men forward under +fire more discipline (obtainable only by movement in masses) is needed +than is needed to resist attacks. But this rule which leaves out of +account the spirit of the army continually proves incorrect and is in +particularly striking contrast to the facts when some strong rise or +fall in the spirit of the troops occurs, as in all national wars. + +The French, retreating in 1812--though according to tactics they should +have separated into detachments to defend themselves--congregated into a +mass because the spirit of the army had so fallen that only the mass +held the army together. The Russians, on the contrary, ought according +to tactics to have attacked in mass, but in fact they split up into +small units, because their spirit had so risen that separate +individuals, without orders, dealt blows at the French without needing +any compulsion to induce them to expose themselves to hardships and +dangers. + + + + +CHAPTER III + +The so-called partisan war began with the entry of the French into +Smolensk. + +Before partisan warfare had been officially recognized by the +government, thousands of enemy stragglers, marauders, and foragers had +been destroyed by the Cossacks and the peasants, who killed them off as +instinctively as dogs worry a stray mad dog to death. Denis Davydov, +with his Russian instinct, was the first to recognize the value of this +terrible cudgel which regardless of the rules of military science +destroyed the French, and to him belongs the credit for taking the first +step toward regularizing this method of warfare. + +On August 24 Davydov's first partisan detachment was formed and then +others were recognized. The further the campaign progressed the more +numerous these detachments became. + +The irregulars destroyed the great army piecemeal. They gathered the +fallen leaves that dropped of themselves from that withered tree--the +French army--and sometimes shook that tree itself. By October, when the +French were fleeing toward Smolensk, there were hundreds of such +companies, of various sizes and characters. There were some that adopted +all the army methods and had infantry, artillery, staffs, and the +comforts of life. Others consisted solely of Cossack cavalry. There were +also small scratch groups of foot and horse, and groups of peasants and +landowners that remained unknown. A sacristan commanded one party which +captured several hundred prisoners in the course of a month; and there +was Vasilisa, the wife of a village elder, who slew hundreds of the +French. + +The partisan warfare flamed up most fiercely in the latter days of +October. Its first period had passed: when the partisans themselves, +amazed at their own boldness, feared every minute to be surrounded and +captured by the French, and hid in the forests without unsaddling, +hardly daring to dismount and always expecting to be pursued. By the end +of October this kind of warfare had taken definite shape: it had become +clear to all what could be ventured against the French and what could +not. Now only the commanders of detachments with staffs, and moving +according to rules at a distance from the French, still regarded many +things as impossible. The small bands that had started their activities +long before and had already observed the French closely considered +things possible which the commanders of the big detachments did not dare +to contemplate. The Cossacks and peasants who crept in among the French +now considered everything possible. + +On October 22, Denisov (who was one of the irregulars) was with his +group at the height of the guerrilla enthusiasm. Since early morning he +and his party had been on the move. All day long he had been watching +from the forest that skirted the highroad a large French convoy of +cavalry baggage and Russian prisoners separated from the rest of the +army, which--as was learned from spies and prisoners--was moving under a +strong escort to Smolensk. Besides Denisov and Dolokhov (who also led a +small party and moved in Denisov's vicinity), the commanders of some +large divisions with staffs also knew of this convoy and, as Denisov +expressed it, were sharpening their teeth for it. Two of the commanders +of large parties--one a Pole and the other a German--sent invitations to +Denisov almost simultaneously, requesting him to join up with their +divisions to attack the convoy. + +"No, bwother, I have gwown mustaches myself," said Denisov on reading +these documents, and he wrote to the German that, despite his heartfelt +desire to serve under so valiant and renowned a general, he had to forgo +that pleasure because he was already under the command of the Polish +general. To the Polish general he replied to the same effect, informing +him that he was already under the command of the German. + +Having arranged matters thus, Denisov and Dolokhov intended, without +reporting matters to the higher command, to attack and seize that convoy +with their own small forces. On October 22 it was moving from the +village of Mikulino to that of Shamshevo. To the left of the road +between Mikulino and Shamshevo there were large forests, extending in +some places up to the road itself though in others a mile or more back +from it. Through these forests Denisov and his party rode all day, +sometimes keeping well back in them and sometimes coming to the very +edge, but never losing sight of the moving French. That morning, +Cossacks of Denisov's party had seized and carried off into the forest +two wagons loaded with cavalry saddles, which had stuck in the mud not +far from Mikulino where the forest ran close to the road. Since then, +and until evening, the party had watched the movements of the French +without attacking. It was necessary to let the French reach Shamshevo +quietly without alarming them and then, after joining Dolokhov who was +to come that evening to a consultation at a watchman's hut in the forest +less than a mile from Shamshevo, to surprise the French at dawn, falling +like an avalanche on their heads from two sides, and rout and capture +them all at one blow. + +In their rear, more than a mile from Mikulino where the forest came +right up to the road, six Cossacks were posted to report if any fresh +columns of French should show themselves. + +Beyond Shamshevo, Dolokhov was to observe the road in the same way, to +find out at what distance there were other French troops. They reckoned +that the convoy had fifteen hundred men. Denisov had two hundred, and +Dolokhov might have as many more, but the disparity of numbers did not +deter Denisov. All that he now wanted to know was what troops these were +and to learn that he had to capture a "tongue"--that is, a man from the +enemy column. That morning's attack on the wagons had been made so +hastily that the Frenchmen with the wagons had all been killed; only a +little drummer boy had been taken alive, and as he was a straggler he +could tell them nothing definite about the troops in that column. + +Denisov considered it dangerous to make a second attack for fear of +putting the whole column on the alert, so he sent Tikhon Shcherbaty, a +peasant of his party, to Shamshevo to try and seize at least one of the +French quartermasters who had been sent on in advance. + + + + +CHAPTER IV + +It was a warm rainy autumn day. The sky and the horizon were both the +color of muddy water. At times a sort of mist descended, and then +suddenly heavy slanting rain came down. + +Denisov in a felt cloak and a sheepskin cap from which the rain ran down +was riding a thin thoroughbred horse with sunken sides. Like his horse, +which turned its head and laid its ears back, he shrank from the driving +rain and gazed anxiously before him. His thin face with its short, thick +black beard looked angry. + +Beside Denisov rode an esaul, * Denisov's fellow worker, also in felt +cloak and sheepskin cap, and riding a large sleek Don horse. + + +* A captain of Cossacks. + +Esaul Lovayski the Third was a tall man as straight as an arrow, pale- +faced, fair-haired, with narrow light eyes and with calm self- +satisfaction in his face and bearing. Though it was impossible to say in +what the peculiarity of the horse and rider lay, yet at first glance at +the esaul and Denisov one saw that the latter was wet and uncomfortable +and was a man mounted on a horse, while looking at the esaul one saw +that he was as comfortable and as much at ease as always and that he was +not a man who had mounted a horse, but a man who was one with his horse, +a being consequently possessed of twofold strength. + +A little ahead of them walked a peasant guide, wet to the skin and +wearing a gray peasant coat and a white knitted cap. + +A little behind, on a poor, small, lean Kirghiz mount with an enormous +tail and mane and a bleeding mouth, rode a young officer in a blue +French overcoat. + +Beside him rode an hussar, with a boy in a tattered French uniform and +blue cap behind him on the crupper of his horse. The boy held on to the +hussar with cold, red hands, and raising his eyebrows gazed about him +with surprise. This was the French drummer boy captured that morning. + +Behind them along the narrow, sodden, cutup forest road came hussars in +threes and fours, and then Cossacks: some in felt cloaks, some in French +greatcoats, and some with horsecloths over their heads. The horses, +being drenched by the rain, all looked black whether chestnut or bay. +Their necks, with their wet, close-clinging manes, looked strangely +thin. Steam rose from them. Clothes, saddles, reins, were all wet, +slippery, and sodden, like the ground and the fallen leaves that strewed +the road. The men sat huddled up trying not to stir, so as to warm the +water that had trickled to their bodies and not admit the fresh cold +water that was leaking in under their seats, their knees, and at the +back of their necks. In the midst of the outspread line of Cossacks two +wagons, drawn by French horses and by saddled Cossack horses that had +been hitched on in front, rumbled over the tree stumps and branches and +splashed through the water that lay in the ruts. + +Denisov's horse swerved aside to avoid a pool in the track and bumped +his rider's knee against a tree. + +"Oh, the devil!" exclaimed Denisov angrily, and showing his teeth he +struck his horse three times with his whip, splashing himself and his +comrades with mud. + +Denisov was out of sorts both because of the rain and also from hunger +(none of them had eaten anything since morning), and yet more because he +still had no news from Dolokhov and the man sent to capture a "tongue" +had not returned. + +"There'll hardly be another such chance to fall on a transport as today. +It's too risky to attack them by oneself, and if we put it off till +another day one of the big guerrilla detachments will snatch the prey +from under our noses," thought Denisov, continually peering forward, +hoping to see a messenger from Dolokhov. + +On coming to a path in the forest along which he could see far to the +right, Denisov stopped. + +"There's someone coming," said he. + +The esaul looked in the direction Denisov indicated. + +"There are two, an officer and a Cossack. But it is not presupposable +that it is the lieutenant colonel himself," said the esaul, who was fond +of using words the Cossacks did not know. + +The approaching riders having descended a decline were no longer +visible, but they reappeared a few minutes later. In front, at a weary +gallop and using his leather whip, rode an officer, disheveled and +drenched, whose trousers had worked up to above his knees. Behind him, +standing in the stirrups, trotted a Cossack. The officer, a very young +lad with a broad rosy face and keen merry eyes, galloped up to Denisov +and handed him a sodden envelope. + +"From the general," said the officer. "Please excuse its not being quite +dry." + +Denisov, frowning, took the envelope and opened it. + +"There, they kept telling us: 'It's dangerous, it's dangerous,'" said +the officer, addressing the esaul while Denisov was reading the +dispatch. "But Komarov and I"--he pointed to the Cossack--"were +prepared. We have each of us two pistols.... But what's this?" he asked, +noticing the French drummer boy. "A prisoner? You've already been in +action? May I speak to him?" + +"Wostov! Petya!" exclaimed Denisov, having run through the dispatch. +"Why didn't you say who you were?" and turning with a smile he held out +his hand to the lad. + +The officer was Petya Rostov. + +All the way Petya had been preparing himself to behave with Denisov as +befitted a grownup man and an officer--without hinting at their previous +acquaintance. But as soon as Denisov smiled at him Petya brightened up, +blushed with pleasure, forgot the official manner he had been +rehearsing, and began telling him how he had already been in a battle +near Vyazma and how a certain hussar had distinguished himself there. + +"Well, I am glad to see you," Denisov interrupted him, and his face +again assumed its anxious expression. + +"Michael Feoklitych," said he to the esaul, "this is again fwom that +German, you know. He"--he indicated Petya--"is serving under him." + +And Denisov told the esaul that the dispatch just delivered was a +repetition of the German general's demand that he should join forces +with him for an attack on the transport. + +"If we don't take it tomowwow, he'll snatch it fwom under our noses," he +added. + +While Denisov was talking to the esaul, Petya--abashed by Denisov's cold +tone and supposing that it was due to the condition of his trousers-- +furtively tried to pull them down under his greatcoat so that no one +should notice it, while maintaining as martial an air as possible. + +"Will there be any orders, your honor?" he asked Denisov, holding his +hand at the salute and resuming the game of adjutant and general for +which he had prepared himself, "or shall I remain with your honor?" + +"Orders?" Denisov repeated thoughtfully. "But can you stay till +tomowwow?" + +"Oh, please... May I stay with you?" cried Petya. + +"But, just what did the genewal tell you? To weturn at once?" asked +Denisov. + +Petya blushed. + +"He gave me no instructions. I think I could?" he returned, inquiringly. + +"Well, all wight," said Denisov. + +And turning to his men he directed a party to go on to the halting place +arranged near the watchman's hut in the forest, and told the officer on +the Kirghiz horse (who performed the duties of an adjutant) to go and +find out where Dolokhov was and whether he would come that evening. +Denisov himself intended going with the esaul and Petya to the edge of +the forest where it reached out to Shamshevo, to have a look at the part +of the French bivouac they were to attack next day. + +"Well, old fellow," said he to the peasant guide, "lead us to +Shamshevo." + +Denisov, Petya, and the esaul, accompanied by some Cossacks and the +hussar who had the prisoner, rode to the left across a ravine to the +edge of the forest. + + + + +CHAPTER V + +The rain had stopped, and only the mist was falling and drops from the +trees. Denisov, the esaul, and Petya rode silently, following the +peasant in the knitted cap who, stepping lightly with outturned toes and +moving noiselessly in his bast shoes over the roots and wet leaves, +silently led them to the edge of the forest. + +He ascended an incline, stopped, looked about him, and advanced to where +the screen of trees was less dense. On reaching a large oak tree that +had not yet shed its leaves, he stopped and beckoned mysteriously to +them with his hand. + +Denisov and Petya rode up to him. From the spot where the peasant was +standing they could see the French. Immediately beyond the forest, on a +downward slope, lay a field of spring rye. To the right, beyond a steep +ravine, was a small village and a landowner's house with a broken roof. +In the village, in the house, in the garden, by the well, by the pond, +over all the rising ground, and all along the road uphill from the +bridge leading to the village, not more than five hundred yards away, +crowds of men could be seen through the shimmering mist. Their un- +Russian shouting at their horses which were straining uphill with the +carts, and their calls to one another, could be clearly heard. + +"Bwing the prisoner here," said Denisov in a low voice, not taking his +eyes off the French. + +A Cossack dismounted, lifted the boy down, and took him to Denisov. +Pointing to the French troops, Denisov asked him what these and those of +them were. The boy, thrusting his cold hands into his pockets and +lifting his eyebrows, looked at Denisov in affright, but in spite of an +evident desire to say all he knew gave confused answers, merely +assenting to everything Denisov asked him. Denisov turned away from him +frowning and addressed the esaul, conveying his own conjectures to him. + +Petya, rapidly turning his head, looked now at the drummer boy, now at +Denisov, now at the esaul, and now at the French in the village and +along the road, trying not to miss anything of importance. + +"Whether Dolokhov comes or not, we must seize it, eh?" said Denisov with +a merry sparkle in his eyes. + +"It is a very suitable spot," said the esaul. + +"We'll send the infantwy down by the swamps," Denisov continued. +"They'll cweep up to the garden; you'll wide up fwom there with the +Cossacks"--he pointed to a spot in the forest beyond the village--"and I +with my hussars fwom here. And at the signal shot..." + +"The hollow is impassable--there's a swamp there," said the esaul. "The +horses would sink. We must ride round more to the left...." + +While they were talking in undertones the crack of a shot sounded from +the low ground by the pond, a puff of white smoke appeared, then +another, and the sound of hundreds of seemingly merry French voices +shouting together came up from the slope. For a moment Denisov and the +esaul drew back. They were so near that they thought they were the cause +of the firing and shouting. But the firing and shouting did not relate +to them. Down below, a man wearing something red was running through the +marsh. The French were evidently firing and shouting at him. + +"Why, that's our Tikhon," said the esaul. + +"So it is! It is!" + +"The wascal!" said Denisov. + +"He'll get away!" said the esaul, screwing up his eyes. + +The man whom they called Tikhon, having run to the stream, plunged in so +that the water splashed in the air, and, having disappeared for an +instant, scrambled out on all fours, all black with the wet, and ran on. +The French who had been pursuing him stopped. + +"Smart, that!" said the esaul. + +"What a beast!" said Denisov with his former look of vexation. "What has +he been doing all this time?" + +"Who is he?" asked Petya. + +"He's our plastun. I sent him to capture a 'tongue.'" + +"Oh, yes," said Petya, nodding at the first words Denisov uttered as if +he understood it all, though he really did not understand anything of +it. + +Tikhon Shcherbaty was one of the most indispensable men in their band. +He was a peasant from Pokrovsk, near the river Gzhat. When Denisov had +come to Pokrovsk at the beginning of his operations and had as usual +summoned the village elder and asked him what he knew about the French, +the elder, as though shielding himself, had replied, as all village +elders did, that he had neither seen nor heard anything of them. But +when Denisov explained that his purpose was to kill the French, and +asked if no French had strayed that way, the elder replied that some +"more-orderers" had really been at their village, but that Tikhon +Shcherbaty was the only man who dealt with such matters. Denisov had +Tikhon called and, having praised him for his activity, said a few words +in the elder's presence about loyalty to the Tsar and the country and +the hatred of the French that all sons of the fatherland should cherish. + +"We don't do the French any harm," said Tikhon, evidently frightened by +Denisov's words. "We only fooled about with the lads for fun, you know! +We killed a score or so of 'more-orderers,' but we did no harm else..." + +Next day when Denisov had left Pokrovsk, having quite forgotten about +this peasant, it was reported to him that Tikhon had attached himself to +their party and asked to be allowed to remain with it. Denisov gave +orders to let him do so. + +Tikhon, who at first did rough work, laying campfires, fetching water, +flaying dead horses, and so on, soon showed a great liking and aptitude +for partisan warfare. At night he would go out for booty and always +brought back French clothing and weapons, and when told to would bring +in French captives also. Denisov then relieved him from drudgery and +began taking him with him when he went out on expeditions and had him +enrolled among the Cossacks. + +Tikhon did not like riding, and always went on foot, never lagging +behind the cavalry. He was armed with a musketoon (which he carried +rather as a joke), a pike and an ax, which latter he used as a wolf uses +its teeth, with equal ease picking fleas out of its fur or crunching +thick bones. Tikhon with equal accuracy would split logs with blows at +arm's length, or holding the head of the ax would cut thin little pegs +or carve spoons. In Denisov's party he held a peculiar and exceptional +position. When anything particularly difficult or nasty had to be done-- +to push a cart out of the mud with one's shoulders, pull a horse out of +a swamp by its tail, skin it, slink in among the French, or walk more +than thirty miles in a day--everybody pointed laughingly at Tikhon. + +"It won't hurt that devil--he's as strong as a horse!" they said of him. + +Once a Frenchman Tikhon was trying to capture fired a pistol at him and +shot him in the fleshy part of the back. That wound (which Tikhon +treated only with internal and external applications of vodka) was the +subject of the liveliest jokes by the whole detachment--jokes in which +Tikhon readily joined. + +"Hallo, mate! Never again? Gave you a twist?" the Cossacks would banter +him. And Tikhon, purposely writhing and making faces, pretended to be +angry and swore at the French with the funniest curses. The only effect +of this incident on Tikhon was that after being wounded he seldom +brought in prisoners. + +He was the bravest and most useful man in the party. No one found more +opportunities for attacking, no one captured or killed more Frenchmen, +and consequently he was made the buffoon of all the Cossacks and hussars +and willingly accepted that role. Now he had been sent by Denisov +overnight to Shamshevo to capture a "tongue." But whether because he had +not been content to take only one Frenchman or because he had slept +through the night, he had crept by day into some bushes right among the +French and, as Denisov had witnessed from above, had been detected by +them. + + + + +CHAPTER VI + +After talking for some time with the esaul about next day's attack, +which now, seeing how near they were to the French, he seemed to have +definitely decided on, Denisov turned his horse and rode back. + +"Now, my lad, we'll go and get dwy," he said to Petya. + +As they approached the watchhouse Denisov stopped, peering into the +forest. Among the trees a man with long legs and long, swinging arms, +wearing a short jacket, bast shoes, and a Kazan hat, was approaching +with long, light steps. He had a musketoon over his shoulder and an ax +stuck in his girdle. When he espied Denisov he hastily threw something +into the bushes, removed his sodden hat by its floppy brim, and +approached his commander. It was Tikhon. His wrinkled and pockmarked +face and narrow little eyes beamed with self-satisfied merriment. He +lifted his head high and gazed at Denisov as if repressing a laugh. + +"Well, where did you disappear to?" inquired Denisov. + +"Where did I disappear to? I went to get Frenchmen," answered Tikhon +boldly and hurriedly, in a husky but melodious bass voice. + +"Why did you push yourself in there by daylight? You ass! Well, why +haven't you taken one?" + +"Oh, I took one all right," said Tikhon. + +"Where is he?" + +"You see, I took him first thing at dawn," Tikhon continued, spreading +out his flat feet with outturned toes in their bast shoes. "I took him +into the forest. Then I see he's no good and think I'll go and fetch a +likelier one." + +"You see?... What a wogue--it's just as I thought," said Denisov to the +esaul. "Why didn't you bwing that one?" + +"What was the good of bringing him?" Tikhon interrupted hastily and +angrily--"that one wouldn't have done for you. As if I don't know what +sort you want!" + +"What a bwute you are!... Well?" + +"I went for another one," Tikhon continued, "and I crept like this +through the wood and lay down." (He suddenly lay down on his stomach +with a supple movement to show how he had done it.) "One turned up and I +grabbed him, like this." (He jumped up quickly and lightly.) "'Come +along to the colonel,' I said. He starts yelling, and suddenly there +were four of them. They rushed at me with their little swords. So I went +for them with my ax, this way: 'What are you up to?' says I. 'Christ be +with you!'" shouted Tikhon, waving his arms with an angry scowl and +throwing out his chest. + +"Yes, we saw from the hill how you took to your heels through the +puddles!" said the esaul, screwing up his glittering eyes. + +Petya badly wanted to laugh, but noticed that they all refrained from +laughing. He turned his eyes rapidly from Tikhon's face to the esaul's +and Denisov's, unable to make out what it all meant. + +"Don't play the fool!" said Denisov, coughing angrily. "Why didn't you +bwing the first one?" + +Tikhon scratched his back with one hand and his head with the other, +then suddenly his whole face expanded into a beaming, foolish grin, +disclosing a gap where he had lost a tooth (that was why he was called +Shcherbaty--the gap-toothed). Denisov smiled, and Petya burst into a +peal of merry laughter in which Tikhon himself joined. + +"Oh, but he was a regular good-for-nothing," said Tikhon. "The clothes +on him--poor stuff! How could I bring him? And so rude, your honor! Why, +he says: 'I'm a general's son myself, I won't go!' he says." + +"You are a bwute!" said Denisov. "I wanted to question..." + +"But I questioned him," said Tikhon. "He said he didn't know much. +'There are a lot of us,' he says, 'but all poor stuff--only soldiers in +name,' he says. 'Shout loud at them,' he says, 'and you'll take them +all,'" Tikhon concluded, looking cheerfully and resolutely into +Denisov's eyes. + +"I'll give you a hundwed sharp lashes--that'll teach you to play the +fool!" said Denisov severely. + +"But why are you angry?" remonstrated Tikhon, "just as if I'd never seen +your Frenchmen! Only wait till it gets dark and I'll fetch you any of +them you want--three if you like." + +"Well, let's go," said Denisov, and rode all the way to the watchhouse +in silence and frowning angrily. + +Tikhon followed behind and Petya heard the Cossacks laughing with him +and at him, about some pair of boots he had thrown into the bushes. + +When the fit of laughter that had seized him at Tikhon's words and smile +had passed and Petya realized for a moment that this Tikhon had killed a +man, he felt uneasy. He looked round at the captive drummer boy and felt +a pang in his heart. But this uneasiness lasted only a moment. He felt +it necessary to hold his head higher, to brace himself, and to question +the esaul with an air of importance about tomorrow's undertaking, that +he might not be unworthy of the company in which he found himself. + +The officer who had been sent to inquire met Denisov on the way with the +news that Dolokhov was soon coming and that all was well with him. + +Denisov at once cheered up and, calling Petya to him, said: "Well, tell +me about yourself." + + + + +CHAPTER VII + +Petya, having left his people after their departure from Moscow, joined +his regiment and was soon taken as orderly by a general commanding a +large guerrilla detachment. From the time he received his commission, +and especially since he had joined the active army and taken part in the +battle of Vyazma, Petya had been in a constant state of blissful +excitement at being grown-up and in a perpetual ecstatic hurry not to +miss any chance to do something really heroic. He was highly delighted +with what he saw and experienced in the army, but at the same time it +always seemed to him that the really heroic exploits were being +performed just where he did not happen to be. And he was always in a +hurry to get where he was not. + +When on the twenty-first of October his general expressed a wish to send +somebody to Denisov's detachment, Petya begged so piteously to be sent +that the general could not refuse. But when dispatching him he recalled +Petya's mad action at the battle of Vyazma, where instead of riding by +the road to the place to which he had been sent, he had galloped to the +advanced line under the fire of the French and had there twice fired his +pistol. So now the general explicitly forbade his taking part in any +action whatever of Denisov's. That was why Petya had blushed and grown +confused when Denisov asked him whether he could stay. Before they had +ridden to the outskirts of the forest Petya had considered he must carry +out his instructions strictly and return at once. But when he saw the +French and saw Tikhon and learned that there would certainly be an +attack that night, he decided, with the rapidity with which young people +change their views, that the general, whom he had greatly respected till +then, was a rubbishy German, that Denisov was a hero, the esaul a hero, +and Tikhon a hero too, and that it would be shameful for him to leave +them at a moment of difficulty. + +It was already growing dusk when Denisov, Petya, and the esaul rode up +to the watchhouse. In the twilight saddled horses could be seen, and +Cossacks and hussars who had rigged up rough shelters in the glade and +were kindling glowing fires in a hollow of the forest where the French +could not see the smoke. In the passage of the small watchhouse a +Cossack with sleeves rolled up was chopping some mutton. In the room +three officers of Denisov's band were converting a door into a tabletop. +Petya took off his wet clothes, gave them to be dried, and at once began +helping the officers to fix up the dinner table. + +In ten minutes the table was ready and a napkin spread on it. On the +table were vodka, a flask of rum, white bread, roast mutton, and salt. + +Sitting at table with the officers and tearing the fat savory mutton +with his hands, down which the grease trickled, Petya was in an ecstatic +childish state of love for all men, and consequently of confidence that +others loved him in the same way. + +"So then what do you think, Vasili Dmitrich?" said he to Denisov. "It's +all right my staying a day with you?" And not waiting for a reply he +answered his own question: "You see I was told to find out--well, I am +finding out.... Only do let me into the very... into the chief... I +don't want a reward... But I want..." + +Petya clenched his teeth and looked around, throwing back his head and +flourishing his arms. + +"Into the vewy chief..." Denisov repeated with a smile. + +"Only, please let me command something, so that I may really command..." +Petya went on. "What would it be to you?... Oh, you want a knife?" he +said, turning to an officer who wished to cut himself a piece of mutton. + +And he handed him his clasp knife. The officer admired it. + +"Please keep it. I have several like it," said Petya, blushing. +"Heavens! I was quite forgetting!" he suddenly cried. "I have some +raisins, fine ones; you know, seedless ones. We have a new sutler and he +has such capital things. I bought ten pounds. I am used to something +sweet. Would you like some?..." and Petya ran out into the passage to +his Cossack and brought back some bags which contained about five pounds +of raisins. "Have some, gentlemen, have some!" + +"You want a coffeepot, don't you?" he asked the esaul. "I bought a +capital one from our sutler! He has splendid things. And he's very +honest, that's the chief thing. I'll be sure to send it to you. Or +perhaps your flints are giving out, or are worn out--that happens +sometimes, you know. I have brought some with me, here they are"--and he +showed a bag--"a hundred flints. I bought them very cheap. Please take +as many as you want, or all if you like...." + +Then suddenly, dismayed lest he had said too much, Petya stopped and +blushed. + +He tried to remember whether he had not done anything else that was +foolish. And running over the events of the day he remembered the French +drummer boy. "It's capital for us here, but what of him? Where have they +put him? Have they fed him? Haven't they hurt his feelings?" he thought. +But having caught himself saying too much about the flints, he was now +afraid to speak out. + +"I might ask," he thought, "but they'll say: 'He's a boy himself and so +he pities the boy.' I'll show them tomorrow whether I'm a boy. Will it +seem odd if I ask?" Petya thought. "Well, never mind!" and immediately, +blushing and looking anxiously at the officers to see if they appeared +ironical, he said: + +"May I call in that boy who was taken prisoner and give him something to +eat?... Perhaps..." + +"Yes, he's a poor little fellow," said Denisov, who evidently saw +nothing shameful in this reminder. "Call him in. His name is Vincent +Bosse. Have him fetched." + +"I'll call him," said Petya. + +"Yes, yes, call him. A poor little fellow," Denisov repeated. + +Petya was standing at the door when Denisov said this. He slipped in +between the officers, came close to Denisov, and said: + +"Let me kiss you, dear old fellow! Oh, how fine, how splendid!" + +And having kissed Denisov he ran out of the hut. + +"Bosse! Vincent!" Petya cried, stopping outside the door. + +"Who do you want, sir?" asked a voice in the darkness. + +Petya replied that he wanted the French lad who had been captured that +day. + +"Ah, Vesenny?" said a Cossack. + +Vincent, the boy's name, had already been changed by the Cossacks into +Vesenny (vernal) and into Vesenya by the peasants and soldiers. In both +these adaptations the reference to spring (vesna) matched the impression +made by the young lad. + +"He is warming himself there by the bonfire. Ho, Vesenya! Vesenya!-- +Vesenny!" laughing voices were heard calling to one another in the +darkness. + +"He's a smart lad," said an hussar standing near Petya. "We gave him +something to eat a while ago. He was awfully hungry!" + +The sound of bare feet splashing through the mud was heard in the +darkness, and the drummer boy came to the door. + +"Ah, c'est vous!" said Petya. "Voulez-vous manger? N'ayez pas peur, on +ne vous fera pas de mal," * he added shyly and affectionately, touching +the boy's hand. "Entrez, entrez." *(2) + + +* "Ah, it's you! Do you want something to eat? Don't be afraid, they +won't hurt you." + +* (2) "Come in, come in." + +"Merci, monsieur," * said the drummer boy in a trembling almost childish +voice, and he began scraping his dirty feet on the threshold. + + +* "Thank you, sir." + +There were many things Petya wanted to say to the drummer boy, but did +not dare to. He stood irresolutely beside him in the passage. Then in +the darkness he took the boy's hand and pressed it. + +"Come in, come in!" he repeated in a gentle whisper. "Oh, what can I do +for him?" he thought, and opening the door he let the boy pass in first. + +When the boy had entered the hut, Petya sat down at a distance from him, +considering it beneath his dignity to pay attention to him. But he +fingered the money in his pocket and wondered whether it would seem +ridiculous to give some to the drummer boy. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII + +The arrival of Dolokhov diverted Petya's attention from the drummer boy, +to whom Denisov had had some mutton and vodka given, and whom he had had +dressed in a Russian coat so that he might be kept with their band and +not sent away with the other prisoners. Petya had heard in the army many +stories of Dolokhov's extraordinary bravery and of his cruelty to the +French, so from the moment he entered the hut Petya did not take his +eyes from him, but braced himself up more and more and held his head +high, that he might not be unworthy even of such company. + +Dolokhov's appearance amazed Petya by its simplicity. + +Denisov wore a Cossack coat, had a beard, had an icon of Nicholas the +Wonder-Worker on his breast, and his way of speaking and everything he +did indicated his unusual position. But Dolokhov, who in Moscow had worn +a Persian costume, had now the appearance of a most correct officer of +the Guards. He was clean-shaven and wore a Guardsman's padded coat with +an Order of St. George at his buttonhole and a plain forage cap set +straight on his head. He took off his wet felt cloak in a corner of the +room, and without greeting anyone went up to Denisov and began +questioning him about the matter in hand. Denisov told him of the +designs the large detachments had on the transport, of the message Petya +had brought, and his own replies to both generals. Then he told him all +he knew of the French detachment. + +"That's so. But we must know what troops they are and their numbers," +said Dolokhov. "It will be necessary to go there. We can't start the +affair without knowing for certain how many there are. I like to work +accurately. Here now--wouldn't one of these gentlemen like to ride over +to the French camp with me? I have brought a spare uniform." + +"I, I... I'll go with you!" cried Petya. + +"There's no need for you to go at all," said Denisov, addressing +Dolokhov, "and as for him, I won't let him go on any account." + +"I like that!" exclaimed Petya. "Why shouldn't I go?" + +"Because it's useless." + +"Well, you must excuse me, because... because... I shall go, and that's +all. You'll take me, won't you?" he said, turning to Dolokhov. + +"Why not?" Dolokhov answered absently, scrutinizing the face of the +French drummer boy. "Have you had that youngster with you long?" he +asked Denisov. + +"He was taken today but he knows nothing. I'm keeping him with me." + +"Yes, and where do you put the others?" inquired Dolokhov. + +"Where? I send them away and take a weceipt for them," shouted Denisov, +suddenly flushing. "And I say boldly that I have not a single man's life +on my conscience. Would it be difficult for you to send thirty or thwee +hundwed men to town under escort, instead of staining--I speak bluntly-- +staining the honor of a soldier?" + +"That kind of amiable talk would be suitable from this young count of +sixteen," said Dolokhov with cold irony, "but it's time for you to drop +it." + +"Why, I've not said anything! I only say that I'll certainly go with +you," said Petya shyly. + +"But for you and me, old fellow, it's time to drop these amenities," +continued Dolokhov, as if he found particular pleasure in speaking of +this subject which irritated Denisov. "Now, why have you kept this lad?" +he went on, swaying his head. "Because you are sorry for him! Don't we +know those 'receipts' of yours? You send a hundred men away, and thirty +get there. The rest either starve or get killed. So isn't it all the +same not to send them?" + +The esaul, screwing up his light-colored eyes, nodded approvingly. + +"That's not the point. I'm not going to discuss the matter. I do not +wish to take it on my conscience. You say they'll die. All wight. Only +not by my fault!" + +Dolokhov began laughing. + +"Who has told them not to capture me these twenty times over? But if +they did catch me they'd string me up to an aspen tree, and with all +your chivalry just the same." He paused. "However, we must get to work. +Tell the Cossack to fetch my kit. I have two French uniforms in it. +Well, are you coming with me?" he asked Petya. + +"I? Yes, yes, certainly!" cried Petya, blushing almost to tears and +glancing at Denisov. + +While Dolokhov had been disputing with Denisov what should be done with +prisoners, Petya had once more felt awkward and restless; but again he +had no time to grasp fully what they were talking about. "If grown-up, +distinguished men think so, it must be necessary and right," thought he. +"But above all Denisov must not dare to imagine that I'll obey him and +that he can order me about. I will certainly go to the French camp with +Dolokhov. If he can, so can I!" + +And to all Denisov's persuasions, Petya replied that he too was +accustomed to do everything accurately and not just anyhow, and that he +never considered personal danger. + +"For you'll admit that if we don't know for sure how many of them there +are... hundreds of lives may depend on it, while there are only two of +us. Besides, I want to go very much and certainly will go, so don't +hinder me," said he. "It will only make things worse..." + + + + +CHAPTER IX + +Having put on French greatcoats and shakos, Petya and Dolokhov rode to +the clearing from which Denisov had reconnoitered the French camp, and +emerging from the forest in pitch darkness they descended into the +hollow. On reaching the bottom, Dolokhov told the Cossacks accompanying +him to await him there and rode on at a quick trot along the road to the +bridge. Petya, his heart in his mouth with excitement, rode by his side. + +"If we're caught, I won't be taken alive! I have a pistol," whispered +he. + +"Don't talk Russian," said Dolokhov in a hurried whisper, and at that +very moment they heard through the darkness the challenge: "Qui vive?" * +and the click of a musket. + + +* "Who goes there?" + +The blood rushed to Petya's face and he grasped his pistol. + +"Lanciers du 6-me," * replied Dolokhov, neither hastening nor slackening +his horse's pace. + + +* "Lancers of the 6th Regiment." + +The black figure of a sentinel stood on the bridge. + +"Mot d'ordre." * + + +* "Password." + +Dolokhov reined in his horse and advanced at a walk. + +"Dites donc, le colonel Gerard est ici?" * he asked. + + +* "Tell me, is Colonel Gerard here?" + +"Mot d'ordre," repeated the sentinel, barring the way and not replying. + +"Quand un officier fait sa ronde, les sentinelles ne demandent pas le +mot d'ordre..." cried Dolokhov suddenly flaring up and riding straight +at the sentinel. "Je vous demande si le colonel est ici." * + + +* "When an officer is making his round, sentinels don't ask him for the +password.... I am asking you if the colonel is here." + +And without waiting for an answer from the sentinel, who had stepped +aside, Dolokhov rode up the incline at a walk. + +Noticing the black outline of a man crossing the road, Dolokhov stopped +him and inquired where the commander and officers were. The man, a +soldier with a sack over his shoulder, stopped, came close up to +Dolokhov's horse, touched it with his hand, and explained simply and in +a friendly way that the commander and the officers were higher up the +hill to the right in the courtyard of the farm, as he called the +landowner's house. + +Having ridden up the road, on both sides of which French talk could be +heard around the campfires, Dolokhov turned into the courtyard of the +landowner's house. Having ridden in, he dismounted and approached a big +blazing campfire, around which sat several men talking noisily. +Something was boiling in a small cauldron at the edge of the fire and a +soldier in a peaked cap and blue overcoat, lit up by the fire, was +kneeling beside it stirring its contents with a ramrod. + +"Oh, he's a hard nut to crack," said one of the officers who was sitting +in the shadow at the other side of the fire. + +"He'll make them get a move on, those fellows!" said another, laughing. + +Both fell silent, peering out through the darkness at the sound of +Dolokhov's and Petya's steps as they advanced to the fire leading their +horses. + +"Bonjour, messieurs!" * said Dolokhov loudly and clearly. + + +* "Good day, gentlemen." + +There was a stir among the officers in the shadow beyond the fire, and +one tall, long-necked officer, walking round the fire, came up to +Dolokhov. + +"Is that you, Clement?" he asked. "Where the devil...?" But, noticing +his mistake, he broke off short and, with a frown, greeted Dolokhov as a +stranger, asking what he could do for him. + +Dolokhov said that he and his companion were trying to overtake their +regiment, and addressing the company in general asked whether they knew +anything of the 6th Regiment. None of them knew anything, and Petya +thought the officers were beginning to look at him and Dolokhov with +hostility and suspicion. For some seconds all were silent. + +"If you were counting on the evening soup, you have come too late," said +a voice from behind the fire with a repressed laugh. + +Dolokhov replied that they were not hungry and must push on farther that +night. + +He handed the horses over to the soldier who was stirring the pot and +squatted down on his heels by the fire beside the officer with the long +neck. That officer did not take his eyes from Dolokhov and again asked +to what regiment he belonged. Dolokhov, as if he had not heard the +question, did not reply, but lighting a short French pipe which he took +from his pocket began asking the officer in how far the road before them +was safe from Cossacks. + +"Those brigands are everywhere," replied an officer from behind the +fire. + +Dolokhov remarked that the Cossacks were a danger only to stragglers +such as his companion and himself, "but probably they would not dare to +attack large detachments?" he added inquiringly. No one replied. + +"Well, now he'll come away," Petya thought every moment as he stood by +the campfire listening to the talk. + +But Dolokhov restarted the conversation which had dropped and began +putting direct questions as to how many men there were in the battalion, +how many battalions, and how many prisoners. Asking about the Russian +prisoners with that detachment, Dolokhov said: + +"A horrid business dragging these corpses about with one! It would be +better to shoot such rabble," and burst into loud laughter, so strange +that Petya thought the French would immediately detect their disguise, +and involuntarily took a step back from the campfire. + +No one replied a word to Dolokhov's laughter, and a French officer whom +they could not see (he lay wrapped in a greatcoat) rose and whispered +something to a companion. Dolokhov got up and called to the soldier who +was holding their horses. + +"Will they bring our horses or not?" thought Petya, instinctively +drawing nearer to Dolokhov. + +The horses were brought. + +"Good evening, gentlemen," said Dolokhov. + +Petya wished to say "Good night" but could not utter a word. The +officers were whispering together. Dolokhov was a long time mounting his +horse which would not stand still, then he rode out of the yard at a +footpace. Petya rode beside him, longing to look round to see whether or +not the French were running after them, but not daring to. + +Coming out onto the road Dolokhov did not ride back across the open +country, but through the village. At one spot he stopped and listened. +"Do you hear?" he asked. Petya recognized the sound of Russian voices +and saw the dark figures of Russian prisoners round their campfires. +When they had descended to the bridge Petya and Dolokhov rode past the +sentinel, who without saying a word paced morosely up and down it, then +they descended into the hollow where the Cossacks awaited them. + +"Well now, good-by. Tell Denisov, 'at the first shot at daybreak,'" said +Dolokhov and was about to ride away, but Petya seized hold of him. + +"Really!" he cried, "you are such a hero! Oh, how fine, how splendid! +How I love you!" + +"All right, all right!" said Dolokhov. But Petya did not let go of him +and Dolokhov saw through the gloom that Petya was bending toward him and +wanted to kiss him. Dolokhov kissed him, laughed, turned his horse, and +vanished into the darkness. + + + + +CHAPTER X + +Having returned to the watchman's hut, Petya found Denisov in the +passage. He was awaiting Petya's return in a state of agitation, +anxiety, and self-reproach for having let him go. + +"Thank God!" he exclaimed. "Yes, thank God!" he repeated, listening to +Petya's rapturous account. "But, devil take you, I haven't slept because +of you! Well, thank God. Now lie down. We can still get a nap before +morning." + +"But... no," said Petya, "I don't want to sleep yet. Besides I know +myself, if I fall asleep it's finished. And then I am used to not +sleeping before a battle." + +He sat awhile in the hut joyfully recalling the details of his +expedition and vividly picturing to himself what would happen next day. + +Then, noticing that Denisov was asleep, he rose and went out of doors. + +It was still quite dark outside. The rain was over, but drops were still +falling from the trees. Near the watchman's hut the black shapes of the +Cossacks' shanties and of horses tethered together could be seen. Behind +the hut the dark shapes of the two wagons with their horses beside them +were discernible, and in the hollow the dying campfire gleamed red. Not +all the Cossacks and hussars were asleep; here and there, amid the +sounds of falling drops and the munching of the horses near by, could be +heard low voices which seemed to be whispering. + +Petya came out, peered into the darkness, and went up to the wagons. +Someone was snoring under them, and around them stood saddled horses +munching their oats. In the dark Petya recognized his own horse, which +he called "Karabakh" though it was of Ukranian breed, and went up to it. + +"Well, Karabakh! We'll do some service tomorrow," said he, sniffing its +nostrils and kissing it. + +"Why aren't you asleep, sir?" said a Cossack who was sitting under a +wagon. + +"No, ah... Likhachev--isn't that your name? Do you know I have only just +come back! We've been into the French camp." + +And Petya gave the Cossack a detailed account not only of his ride but +also of his object, and why he considered it better to risk his life +than to act "just anyhow." + +"Well, you should get some sleep now," said the Cossack. + +"No, I am used to this," said Petya. "I say, aren't the flints in your +pistols worn out? I brought some with me. Don't you want any? You can +have some." + +The Cossack bent forward from under the wagon to get a closer look at +Petya. + +"Because I am accustomed to doing everything accurately," said Petya. +"Some fellows do things just anyhow, without preparation, and then +they're sorry for it afterwards. I don't like that." + +"Just so," said the Cossack. + +"Oh yes, another thing! Please, my dear fellow, will you sharpen my +saber for me? It's got bl..." (Petya feared to tell a lie, and the saber +never had been sharpened.) "Can you do it?" + +"Of course I can." + +Likhachev got up, rummaged in his pack, and soon Petya heard the warlike +sound of steel on whetstone. He climbed onto the wagon and sat on its +edge. The Cossack was sharpening the saber under the wagon. + +"I say! Are the lads asleep?" asked Petya. + +"Some are, and some aren't--like us." + +"Well, and that boy?" + +"Vesenny? Oh, he's thrown himself down there in the passage. Fast asleep +after his fright. He was that glad!" + +After that Petya remained silent for a long time, listening to the +sounds. He heard footsteps in the darkness and a black figure appeared. + +"What are you sharpening?" asked a man coming up to the wagon. + +"Why, this gentleman's saber." + +"That's right," said the man, whom Petya took to be an hussar. "Was the +cup left here?" + +"There, by the wheel!" + +The hussar took the cup. + +"It must be daylight soon," said he, yawning, and went away. + +Petya ought to have known that he was in a forest with Denisov's +guerrilla band, less than a mile from the road, sitting on a wagon +captured from the French beside which horses were tethered, that under +it Likhachev was sitting sharpening a saber for him, that the big dark +blotch to the right was the watchman's hut, and the red blotch below to +the left was the dying embers of a campfire, that the man who had come +for the cup was an hussar who wanted a drink; but he neither knew nor +waited to know anything of all this. He was in a fairy kingdom where +nothing resembled reality. The big dark blotch might really be the +watchman's hut or it might be a cavern leading to the very depths of the +earth. Perhaps the red spot was a fire, or it might be the eye of an +enormous monster. Perhaps he was really sitting on a wagon, but it might +very well be that he was not sitting on a wagon but on a terribly high +tower from which, if he fell, he would have to fall for a whole day or a +whole month, or go on falling and never reach the bottom. Perhaps it was +just the Cossack, Likhachev, who was sitting under the wagon, but it +might be the kindest, bravest, most wonderful, most splendid man in the +world, whom no one knew of. It might really have been that the hussar +came for water and went back into the hollow, but perhaps he had simply +vanished--disappeared altogether and dissolved into nothingness. + +Nothing Petya could have seen now would have surprised him. He was in a +fairy kingdom where everything was possible. + +He looked up at the sky. And the sky was a fairy realm like the earth. +It was clearing, and over the tops of the trees clouds were swiftly +sailing as if unveiling the stars. Sometimes it looked as if the clouds +were passing, and a clear black sky appeared. Sometimes it seemed as if +the black spaces were clouds. Sometimes the sky seemed to be rising +high, high overhead, and then it seemed to sink so low that one could +touch it with one's hand. + +Petya's eyes began to close and he swayed a little. + +The trees were dripping. Quiet talking was heard. The horses neighed and +jostled one another. Someone snored. + +"Ozheg-zheg, Ozheg-zheg..." hissed the saber against the whetstone, and +suddenly Petya heard an harmonious orchestra playing some unknown, +sweetly solemn hymn. Petya was as musical as Natasha and more so than +Nicholas, but had never learned music or thought about it, and so the +melody that unexpectedly came to his mind seemed to him particularly +fresh and attractive. The music became more and more audible. The melody +grew and passed from one instrument to another. And what was played was +a fugue--though Petya had not the least conception of what a fugue is. +Each instrument--now resembling a violin and now a horn, but better and +clearer than violin or horn--played its own part, and before it had +finished the melody merged with another instrument that began almost the +same air, and then with a third and a fourth; and they all blended into +one and again became separate and again blended, now into solemn church +music, now into something dazzlingly brilliant and triumphant. + +"Oh--why, that was in a dream!" Petya said to himself, as he lurched +forward. "It's in my ears. But perhaps it's music of my own. Well, go +on, my music! Now!..." + +He closed his eyes, and, from all sides as if from a distance, sounds +fluttered, grew into harmonies, separated, blended, and again all +mingled into the same sweet and solemn hymn. "Oh, this is delightful! As +much as I like and as I like!" said Petya to himself. He tried to +conduct that enormous orchestra. + +"Now softly, softly die away!" and the sounds obeyed him. "Now fuller, +more joyful. Still more and more joyful!" And from an unknown depth rose +increasingly triumphant sounds. "Now voices join in!" ordered Petya. And +at first from afar he heard men's voices and then women's. The voices +grew in harmonious triumphant strength, and Petya listened to their +surpassing beauty in awe and joy. + +With a solemn triumphal march there mingled a song, the drip from the +trees, and the hissing of the saber, "Ozheg-zheg-zheg..." and again the +horses jostled one another and neighed, not disturbing the choir but +joining in it. + +Petya did not know how long this lasted: he enjoyed himself all the +time, wondered at his enjoyment and regretted that there was no one to +share it. He was awakened by Likhachev's kindly voice. + +"It's ready, your honor; you can split a Frenchman in half with it!" + +Petya woke up. + +"It's getting light, it's really getting light!" he exclaimed. + +The horses that had previously been invisible could now be seen to their +very tails, and a watery light showed itself through the bare branches. +Petya shook himself, jumped up, took a ruble from his pocket and gave it +to Likhachev; then he flourished the saber, tested it, and sheathed it. +The Cossacks were untying their horses and tightening their saddle +girths. + +"And here's the commander," said Likhachev. + +Denisov came out of the watchman's hut and, having called Petya, gave +orders to get ready. + + + + +CHAPTER XI + +The men rapidly picked out their horses in the semidarkness, tightened +their saddle girths, and formed companies. Denisov stood by the +watchman's hut giving final orders. The infantry of the detachment +passed along the road and quickly disappeared amid the trees in the mist +of early dawn, hundreds of feet splashing through the mud. The esaul +gave some orders to his men. Petya held his horse by the bridle, +impatiently awaiting the order to mount. His face, having been bathed in +cold water, was all aglow, and his eyes were particularly brilliant. +Cold shivers ran down his spine and his whole body pulsed rhythmically. + +"Well, is ev'wything weady?" asked Denisov. "Bwing the horses." + +The horses were brought. Denisov was angry with the Cossack because the +saddle girths were too slack, reproved him, and mounted. Petya put his +foot in the stirrup. His horse by habit made as if to nip his leg, but +Petya leaped quickly into the saddle unconscious of his own weight and, +turning to look at the hussars starting in the darkness behind him, rode +up to Denisov. + +"Vasili Dmitrich, entrust me with some commission! Please... for God's +sake...!" said he. + +Denisov seemed to have forgotten Petya's very existence. He turned to +glance at him. + +"I ask one thing of you," he said sternly, "to obey me and not shove +yourself forward anywhere." + +He did not say another word to Petya but rode in silence all the way. +When they had come to the edge of the forest it was noticeably growing +light over the field. Denisov talked in whispers with the esaul and the +Cossacks rode past Petya and Denisov. When they had all ridden by, +Denisov touched his horse and rode down the hill. Slipping onto their +haunches and sliding, the horses descended with their riders into the +ravine. Petya rode beside Denisov, the pulsation of his body constantly +increasing. It was getting lighter and lighter, but the mist still hid +distant objects. Having reached the valley, Denisov looked back and +nodded to a Cossack beside him. + +"The signal!" said he. + +The Cossack raised his arm and a shot rang out. In an instant the tramp +of horses galloping forward was heard, shouts came from various sides, +and then more shots. + +At the first sound of trampling hoofs and shouting, Petya lashed his +horse and loosening his rein galloped forward, not heeding Denisov who +shouted at him. It seemed to Petya that at the moment the shot was fired +it suddenly became as bright as noon. He galloped to the bridge. +Cossacks were galloping along the road in front of him. On the bridge he +collided with a Cossack who had fallen behind, but he galloped on. In +front of him soldiers, probably Frenchmen, were running from right to +left across the road. One of them fell in the mud under his horse's +feet. + +Cossacks were crowding about a hut, busy with something. From the midst +of that crowd terrible screams arose. Petya galloped up, and the first +thing he saw was the pale face and trembling jaw of a Frenchman, +clutching the handle of a lance that had been aimed at him. + +"Hurrah!... Lads!... ours!" shouted Petya, and giving rein to his +excited horse he galloped forward along the village street. + +He could hear shooting ahead of him. Cossacks, hussars, and ragged +Russian prisoners, who had come running from both sides of the road, +were shouting something loudly and incoherently. A gallant-looking +Frenchman, in a blue overcoat, capless, and with a frowning red face, +had been defending himself against the hussars. When Petya galloped up +the Frenchman had already fallen. "Too late again!" flashed through +Petya's mind and he galloped on to the place from which the rapid firing +could be heard. The shots came from the yard of the landowner's house he +had visited the night before with Dolokhov. The French were making a +stand there behind a wattle fence in a garden thickly overgrown with +bushes and were firing at the Cossacks who crowded at the gateway. +Through the smoke, as he approached the gate, Petya saw Dolokhov, whose +face was of a pale-greenish tint, shouting to his men. "Go round! Wait +for the infantry!" he exclaimed as Petya rode up to him. + +"Wait?... Hurrah-ah-ah!" shouted Petya, and without pausing a moment +galloped to the place whence came the sounds of firing and where the +smoke was thickest. + +A volley was heard, and some bullets whistled past, while others plashed +against something. The Cossacks and Dolokhov galloped after Petya into +the gateway of the courtyard. In the dense wavering smoke some of the +French threw down their arms and ran out of the bushes to meet the +Cossacks, while others ran down the hill toward the pond. Petya was +galloping along the courtyard, but instead of holding the reins he waved +both his arms about rapidly and strangely, slipping farther and farther +to one side in his saddle. His horse, having galloped up to a campfire +that was smoldering in the morning light, stopped suddenly, and Petya +fell heavily on to the wet ground. The Cossacks saw that his arms and +legs jerked rapidly though his head was quite motionless. A bullet had +pierced his skull. + +After speaking to the senior French officer, who came out of the house +with a white handkerchief tied to his sword and announced that they +surrendered, Dolokhov dismounted and went up to Petya, who lay +motionless with outstretched arms. + +"Done for!" he said with a frown, and went to the gate to meet Denisov +who was riding toward him. + +"Killed?" cried Denisov, recognizing from a distance the unmistakably +lifeless attitude--very familiar to him--in which Petya's body was +lying. + +"Done for!" repeated Dolokhov as if the utterance of these words +afforded him pleasure, and he went quickly up to the prisoners, who were +surrounded by Cossacks who had hurried up. "We won't take them!" he +called out to Denisov. + +Denisov did not reply; he rode up to Petya, dismounted, and with +trembling hands turned toward himself the bloodstained, mud-bespattered +face which had already gone white. + +"I am used to something sweet. Raisins, fine ones... take them all!" he +recalled Petya's words. And the Cossacks looked round in surprise at the +sound, like the yelp of a dog, with which Denisov turned away, walked to +the wattle fence, and seized hold of it. + +Among the Russian prisoners rescued by Denisov and Dolokhov was Pierre +Bezukhov. + + + + +CHAPTER XII + +During the whole of their march from Moscow no fresh orders had been +issued by the French authorities concerning the party of prisoners among +whom was Pierre. On the twenty-second of October that party was no +longer with the same troops and baggage trains with which it had left +Moscow. Half the wagons laden with hardtack that had traveled the first +stages with them had been captured by Cossacks, the other half had gone +on ahead. Not one of those dismounted cavalrymen who had marched in +front of the prisoners was left; they had all disappeared. The artillery +the prisoners had seen in front of them during the first days was now +replaced by Marshal Junot's enormous baggage train, convoyed by +Westphalians. Behind the prisoners came a cavalry baggage train. + +From Vyazma onwards the French army, which had till then moved in three +columns, went on as a single group. The symptoms of disorder that Pierre +had noticed at their first halting place after leaving Moscow had now +reached the utmost limit. + +The road along which they moved was bordered on both sides by dead +horses; ragged men who had fallen behind from various regiments +continually changed about, now joining the moving column, now again +lagging behind it. + +Several times during the march false alarms had been given and the +soldiers of the escort had raised their muskets, fired, and run +headlong, crushing one another, but had afterwards reassembled and +abused each other for their causeless panic. + +These three groups traveling together--the cavalry stores, the convoy of +prisoners, and Junot's baggage train--still constituted a separate and +united whole, though each of the groups was rapidly melting away. + +Of the artillery baggage train which had consisted of a hundred and +twenty wagons, not more than sixty now remained; the rest had been +captured or left behind. Some of Junot's wagons also had been captured +or abandoned. Three wagons had been raided and robbed by stragglers from +Davout's corps. From the talk of the Germans Pierre learned that a +larger guard had been allotted to that baggage train than to the +prisoners, and that one of their comrades, a German soldier, had been +shot by the marshal's own order because a silver spoon belonging to the +marshal had been found in his possession. + +The group of prisoners had melted away most of all. Of the three hundred +and thirty men who had set out from Moscow fewer than a hundred now +remained. The prisoners were more burdensome to the escort than even the +cavalry saddles or Junot's baggage. They understood that the saddles and +Junot's spoon might be of some use, but that cold and hungry soldiers +should have to stand and guard equally cold and hungry Russians who +froze and lagged behind on the road (in which case the order was to +shoot them) was not merely incomprehensible but revolting. And the +escort, as if afraid, in the grievous condition they themselves were in, +of giving way to the pity they felt for the prisoners and so rendering +their own plight still worse, treated them with particular moroseness +and severity. + +At Dorogobuzh while the soldiers of the convoy, after locking the +prisoners in a stable, had gone off to pillage their own stores, several +of the soldier prisoners tunneled under the wall and ran away, but were +recaptured by the French and shot. + +The arrangement adopted when they started, that the officer prisoners +should be kept separate from the rest, had long since been abandoned. +All who could walk went together, and after the third stage Pierre had +rejoined Karataev and the gray-blue bandy-legged dog that had chosen +Karataev for its master. + +On the third day after leaving Moscow Karataev again fell ill with the +fever he had suffered from in the hospital in Moscow, and as he grew +gradually weaker Pierre kept away from him. Pierre did not know why, but +since Karataev had begun to grow weaker it had cost him an effort to go +near him. When he did so and heard the subdued moaning with which +Karataev generally lay down at the halting places, and when he smelled +the odor emanating from him which was now stronger than before, Pierre +moved farther away and did not think about him. + +While imprisoned in the shed Pierre had learned not with his intellect +but with his whole being, by life itself, that man is created for +happiness, that happiness is within him, in the satisfaction of simple +human needs, and that all unhappiness arises not from privation but from +superfluity. And now during these last three weeks of the march he had +learned still another new, consolatory truth--that nothing in this world +is terrible. He had learned that as there is no condition in which man +can be happy and entirely free, so there is no condition in which he +need be unhappy and lack freedom. He learned that suffering and freedom +have their limits and that those limits are very near together; that the +person in a bed of roses with one crumpled petal suffered as keenly as +he now, sleeping on the bare damp earth with one side growing chilled +while the other was warming; and that when he had put on tight dancing +shoes he had suffered just as he did now when he walked with bare feet +that were covered with sores--his footgear having long since fallen to +pieces. He discovered that when he had married his wife--of his own free +will as it had seemed to him--he had been no more free than now when +they locked him up at night in a stable. Of all that he himself +subsequently termed his sufferings, but which at the time he scarcely +felt, the worst was the state of his bare, raw, and scab-covered feet. +(The horseflesh was appetizing and nourishing, the saltpeter flavor of +the gunpowder they used instead of salt was even pleasant; there was no +great cold, it was always warm walking in the daytime, and at night +there were the campfires; the lice that devoured him warmed his body.) +The one thing that was at first hard to bear was his feet. + +After the second day's march Pierre, having examined his feet by the +campfire, thought it would be impossible to walk on them; but when +everybody got up he went along, limping, and, when he had warmed up, +walked without feeling the pain, though at night his feet were more +terrible to look at than before. However, he did not look at them now, +but thought of other things. + +Only now did Pierre realize the full strength of life in man and the +saving power he has of transferring his attention from one thing to +another, which is like the safety valve of a boiler that allows +superfluous steam to blow off when the pressure exceeds a certain limit. + +He did not see and did not hear how they shot the prisoners who lagged +behind, though more than a hundred perished in that way. He did not +think of Karataev who grew weaker every day and evidently would soon +have to share that fate. Still less did Pierre think about himself. The +harder his position became and the more terrible the future, the more +independent of that position in which he found himself were the joyful +and comforting thoughts, memories, and imaginings that came to him. + + + + +CHAPTER XIII + +At midday on the twenty-second of October Pierre was going uphill along +the muddy, slippery road, looking at his feet and at the roughness of +the way. Occasionally he glanced at the familiar crowd around him and +then again at his feet. The former and the latter were alike familiar +and his own. The blue-gray bandy legged dog ran merrily along the side +of the road, sometimes in proof of its agility and self-satisfaction +lifting one hind leg and hopping along on three, and then again going on +all four and rushing to bark at the crows that sat on the carrion. The +dog was merrier and sleeker than it had been in Moscow. All around lay +the flesh of different animals--from men to horses--in various stages of +decomposition; and as the wolves were kept off by the passing men the +dog could eat all it wanted. + +It had been raining since morning and had seemed as if at any moment it +might cease and the sky clear, but after a short break it began raining +harder than before. The saturated road no longer absorbed the water, +which ran along the ruts in streams. + +Pierre walked along, looking from side to side, counting his steps in +threes, and reckoning them off on his fingers. Mentally addressing the +rain, he repeated: "Now then, now then, go on! Pelt harder!" + +It seemed to him that he was thinking of nothing, but far down and deep +within him his soul was occupied with something important and +comforting. This something was a most subtle spiritual deduction from a +conversation with Karataev the day before. + +At their yesterday's halting place, feeling chilly by a dying campfire, +Pierre had got up and gone to the next one, which was burning better. +There Platon Karataev was sitting covered up--head and all--with his +greatcoat as if it were a vestment, telling the soldiers in his +effective and pleasant though now feeble voice a story Pierre knew. It +was already past midnight, the hour when Karataev was usually free of +his fever and particularly lively. When Pierre reached the fire and +heard Platon's voice enfeebled by illness, and saw his pathetic face +brightly lit up by the blaze, he felt a painful prick at his heart. His +feeling of pity for this man frightened him and he wished to go away, +but there was no other fire, and Pierre sat down, trying not to look at +Platon. + +"Well, how are you?" he asked. + +"How am I? If we grumble at sickness, God won't grant us death," replied +Platon, and at once resumed the story he had begun. + +"And so, brother," he continued, with a smile on his pale emaciated face +and a particularly happy light in his eyes, "you see, brother..." + +Pierre had long been familiar with that story. Karataev had told it to +him alone some half-dozen times and always with a specially joyful +emotion. But well as he knew it, Pierre now listened to that tale as to +something new, and the quiet rapture Karataev evidently felt as he told +it communicated itself also to Pierre. The story was of an old merchant +who lived a good and God-fearing life with his family, and who went once +to the Nizhni fair with a companion--a rich merchant. + +Having put up at an inn they both went to sleep, and next morning his +companion was found robbed and with his throat cut. A bloodstained knife +was found under the old merchant's pillow. He was tried, knouted, and +his nostrils having been torn off, "all in due form" as Karataev put it, +he was sent to hard labor in Siberia. + +"And so, brother" (it was at this point that Pierre came up), "ten years +or more passed by. The old man was living as a convict, submitting as he +should and doing no wrong. Only he prayed to God for death. Well, one +night the convicts were gathered just as we are, with the old man among +them. And they began telling what each was suffering for, and how they +had sinned against God. One told how he had taken a life, another had +taken two, a third had set a house on fire, while another had simply +been a vagrant and had done nothing. So they asked the old man: 'What +are you being punished for, Daddy?'--'I, my dear brothers,' said he, 'am +being punished for my own and other men's sins. But I have not killed +anyone or taken anything that was not mine, but have only helped my +poorer brothers. I was a merchant, my dear brothers, and had much +property. 'And he went on to tell them all about it in due order. 'I +don't grieve for myself,' he says, 'God, it seems, has chastened me. +Only I am sorry for my old wife and the children,' and the old man began +to weep. Now it happened that in the group was the very man who had +killed the other merchant. 'Where did it happen, Daddy?' he said. 'When, +and in what month?' He asked all about it and his heart began to ache. +So he comes up to the old man like this, and falls down at his feet! +'You are perishing because of me, Daddy,' he says. 'It's quite true, +lads, that this man,' he says, 'is being tortured innocently and for +nothing! I,' he says, 'did that deed, and I put the knife under your +head while you were asleep. Forgive me, Daddy,' he says, 'for Christ's +sake!'" + +Karataev paused, smiling joyously as he gazed into the fire, and he drew +the logs together. + +"And the old man said, 'God will forgive you, we are all sinners in His +sight. I suffer for my own sins,' and he wept bitter tears. Well, and +what do you think, dear friends?" Karataev continued, his face +brightening more and more with a rapturous smile as if what he now had +to tell contained the chief charm and the whole meaning of his story: +"What do you think, dear fellows? That murderer confessed to the +authorities. 'I have taken six lives,' he says (he was a great sinner), +'but what I am most sorry for is this old man. Don't let him suffer +because of me.' So he confessed and it was all written down and the +papers sent off in due form. The place was a long way off, and while +they were judging, what with one thing and another, filling in the +papers all in due form--the authorities I mean--time passed. The affair +reached the Tsar. After a while the Tsar's decree came: to set the +merchant free and give him a compensation that had been awarded. The +paper arrived and they began to look for the old man. 'Where is the old +man who has been suffering innocently and in vain? A paper has come from +the Tsar!' so they began looking for him," here Karataev's lower jaw +trembled, "but God had already forgiven him--he was dead! That's how it +was, dear fellows!" Karataev concluded and sat for a long time silent, +gazing before him with a smile. + +And Pierre's soul was dimly but joyfully filled not by the story itself +but by its mysterious significance: by the rapturous joy that lit up +Karataev's face as he told it, and the mystic significance of that joy. + + + + +CHAPTER XIV + +"A vos places!" * suddenly cried a voice. + + +* "To your places." + +A pleasant feeling of excitement and an expectation of something joyful +and solemn was aroused among the soldiers of the convoy and the +prisoners. From all sides came shouts of command, and from the left came +smartly dressed cavalrymen on good horses, passing the prisoners at a +trot. The expression on all faces showed the tension people feel at the +approach of those in authority. The prisoners thronged together and were +pushed off the road. The convoy formed up. + +"The Emperor! The Emperor! The Marshal! The Duke!" and hardly had the +sleek cavalry passed, before a carriage drawn by six gray horses rattled +by. Pierre caught a glimpse of a man in a three-cornered hat with a +tranquil look on his handsome, plump, white face. It was one of the +marshals. His eye fell on Pierre's large and striking figure, and in the +expression with which he frowned and looked away Pierre thought he +detected sympathy and a desire to conceal that sympathy. + +The general in charge of the stores galloped after the carriage with a +red and frightened face, whipping up his skinny horse. Several officers +formed a group and some soldiers crowded round them. Their faces all +looked excited and worried. + +"What did he say? What did he say?" Pierre heard them ask. + +While the marshal was passing, the prisoners had huddled together in a +crowd, and Pierre saw Karataev whom he had not yet seen that morning. He +sat in his short overcoat leaning against a birch tree. On his face, +besides the look of joyful emotion it had worn yesterday while telling +the tale of the merchant who suffered innocently, there was now an +expression of quiet solemnity. + +Karataev looked at Pierre with his kindly round eyes now filled with +tears, evidently wishing him to come near that he might say something to +him. But Pierre was not sufficiently sure of himself. He made as if he +did not notice that look and moved hastily away. + +When the prisoners again went forward Pierre looked round. Karataev was +still sitting at the side of the road under the birch tree and two +Frenchmen were talking over his head. Pierre did not look round again +but went limping up the hill. + +From behind, where Karataev had been sitting, came the sound of a shot. +Pierre heard it plainly, but at that moment he remembered that he had +not yet finished reckoning up how many stages still remained to +Smolensk--a calculation he had begun before the marshal went by. And he +again started reckoning. Two French soldiers ran past Pierre, one of +whom carried a lowered and smoking gun. They both looked pale, and in +the expression on their faces--one of them glanced timidly at Pierre-- +there was something resembling what he had seen on the face of the young +soldier at the execution. Pierre looked at the soldier and remembered +that, two days before, that man had burned his shirt while drying it at +the fire and how they had laughed at him. + +Behind him, where Karataev had been sitting, the dog began to howl. +"What a stupid beast! Why is it howling?" thought Pierre. + +His comrades, the prisoner soldiers walking beside him, avoided looking +back at the place where the shot had been fired and the dog was howling, +just as Pierre did, but there was a set look on all their faces. + + + + +CHAPTER XV + +The stores, the prisoners, and the marshal's baggage train stopped at +the village of Shamshevo. The men crowded together round the campfires. +Pierre went up to the fire, ate some roast horseflesh, lay down with his +back to the fire, and immediately fell asleep. He again slept as he had +done at Mozhaysk after the battle of Borodino. + +Again real events mingled with dreams and again someone, he or another, +gave expression to his thoughts, and even to the same thoughts that had +been expressed in his dream at Mozhaysk. + +"Life is everything. Life is God. Everything changes and moves and that +movement is God. And while there is life there is joy in consciousness +of the divine. To love life is to love God. Harder and more blessed than +all else is to love this life in one's sufferings, in innocent +sufferings." + +"Karataev!" came to Pierre's mind. + +And suddenly he saw vividly before him a long-forgotten, kindly old man +who had given him geography lessons in Switzerland. "Wait a bit," said +the old man, and showed Pierre a globe. This globe was alive--a +vibrating ball without fixed dimensions. Its whole surface consisted of +drops closely pressed together, and all these drops moved and changed +places, sometimes several of them merging into one, sometimes one +dividing into many. Each drop tried to spread out and occupy as much +space as possible, but others striving to do the same compressed it, +sometimes destroyed it, and sometimes merged with it. + +"That is life," said the old teacher. + +"How simple and clear it is," thought Pierre. "How is it I did not know +it before?" + +"God is in the midst, and each drop tries to expand so as to reflect Him +to the greatest extent. And it grows, merges, disappears from the +surface, sinks to the depths, and again emerges. There now, Karataev has +spread out and disappeared. Do you understand, my child?" said the +teacher. + +"Do you understand, damn you?" shouted a voice, and Pierre woke up. + +He lifted himself and sat up. A Frenchman who had just pushed a Russian +soldier away was squatting by the fire, engaged in roasting a piece of +meat stuck on a ramrod. His sleeves were rolled up and his sinewy, +hairy, red hands with their short fingers deftly turned the ramrod. His +brown morose face with frowning brows was clearly visible by the glow of +the charcoal. + +"It's all the same to him," he muttered, turning quickly to a soldier +who stood behind him. "Brigand! Get away!" + +And twisting the ramrod he looked gloomily at Pierre, who turned away +and gazed into the darkness. A prisoner, the Russian soldier the +Frenchman had pushed away, was sitting near the fire patting something +with his hand. Looking more closely Pierre recognized the blue-gray dog, +sitting beside the soldier, wagging its tail. + +"Ah, he's come?" said Pierre. "And Plat-" he began, but did not finish. + +Suddenly and simultaneously a crowd of memories awoke in his fancy--of +the look Platon had given him as he sat under the tree, of the shot +heard from that spot, of the dog's howl, of the guilty faces of the two +Frenchmen as they ran past him, of the lowered and smoking gun, and of +Karataev's absence at this halt--and he was on the point of realizing +that Karataev had been killed, but just at that instant, he knew not +why, the recollection came to his mind of a summer evening he had spent +with a beautiful Polish lady on the veranda of his house in Kiev. And +without linking up the events of the day or drawing a conclusion from +them, Pierre closed his eyes, seeing a vision of the country in +summertime mingled with memories of bathing and of the liquid, vibrating +globe, and he sank into water so that it closed over his head. + +Before sunrise he was awakened by shouts and loud and rapid firing. +French soldiers were running past him. + +"The Cossacks!" one of them shouted, and a moment later a crowd of +Russians surrounded Pierre. + +For a long time he could not understand what was happening to him. All +around he heard his comrades sobbing with joy. + +"Brothers! Dear fellows! Darlings!" old soldiers exclaimed, weeping, as +they embraced Cossacks and hussars. + +The hussars and Cossacks crowded round the prisoners; one offered them +clothes, another boots, and a third bread. Pierre sobbed as he sat among +them and could not utter a word. He hugged the first soldier who +approached him, and kissed him, weeping. + +Dolokhov stood at the gate of the ruined house, letting a crowd of +disarmed Frenchmen pass by. The French, excited by all that had +happened, were talking loudly among themselves, but as they passed +Dolokhov who gently switched his boots with his whip and watched them +with cold glassy eyes that boded no good, they became silent. On the +opposite side stood Dolokhov's Cossack, counting the prisoners and +marking off each hundred with a chalk line on the gate. + +"How many?" Dolokhov asked the Cossack. + +"The second hundred," replied the Cossack. + +"Filez, filez!" * Dolokhov kept saying, having adopted this expression +from the French, and when his eyes met those of the prisoners they +flashed with a cruel light. + + +* "Get along, get along!" + +Denisov, bareheaded and with a gloomy face, walked behind some Cossacks +who were carrying the body of Petya Rostov to a hole that had been dug +in the garden. + + + + +CHAPTER XVI + +After the twenty-eighth of October when the frosts began, the flight of +the French assumed a still more tragic character, with men freezing, or +roasting themselves to death at the campfires, while carriages with +people dressed in furs continued to drive past, carrying away the +property that had been stolen by the Emperor, kings, and dukes; but the +process of the flight and disintegration of the French army went on +essentially as before. + +From Moscow to Vyazma the French army of seventy-three thousand men not +reckoning the Guards (who did nothing during the whole war but pillage) +was reduced to thirty-six thousand, though not more than five thousand +had fallen in battle. From this beginning the succeeding terms of the +progression could be determined mathematically. The French army melted +away and perished at the same rate from Moscow to Vyazma, from Vyazma to +Smolensk, from Smolensk to the Berezina, and from the Berezina to Vilna- +-independently of the greater or lesser intensity of the cold, the +pursuit, the barring of the way, or any other particular conditions. +Beyond Vyazma the French army instead of moving in three columns huddled +together into one mass, and so went on to the end. Berthier wrote to his +Emperor (we know how far commanding officers allow themselves to diverge +from the truth in describing the condition of an army) and this is what +he said: + +I deem it my duty to report to Your Majesty the condition of the various +corps I have had occasion to observe during different stages of the last +two or three days' march. They are almost disbanded. Scarcely a quarter +of the soldiers remain with the standards of their regiments, the others +go off by themselves in different directions hoping to find food and +escape discipline. In general they regard Smolensk as the place where +they hope to recover. During the last few days many of the men have been +seen to throw away their cartridges and their arms. In such a state of +affairs, whatever your ultimate plans may be, the interest of Your +Majesty's service demands that the army should be rallied at Smolensk +and should first of all be freed from ineffectives, such as dismounted +cavalry, unnecessary baggage, and artillery material that is no longer +in proportion to the present forces. The soldiers, who are worn out with +hunger and fatigue, need these supplies as well as a few days' rest. +Many have died these last days on the road or at the bivouacs. This +state of things is continually becoming worse and makes one fear that +unless a prompt remedy is applied the troops will no longer be under +control in case of an engagement. + +November 9: twenty miles from Smolensk. + +After staggering into Smolensk which seemed to them a promised land, the +French, searching for food, killed one another, sacked their own stores, +and when everything had been plundered fled farther. + +They all went without knowing whither or why they were going. Still less +did that genius, Napoleon, know it, for no one issued any orders to him. +But still he and those about him retained their old habits: wrote +commands, letters, reports, and orders of the day; called one another +sire, mon cousin, prince d'Eckmuhl, roi de Naples, and so on. But these +orders and reports were only on paper, nothing in them was acted upon +for they could not be carried out, and though they entitled one another +Majesties, Highnesses, or Cousins, they all felt that they were +miserable wretches who had done much evil for which they had now to pay. +And though they pretended to be concerned about the army, each was +thinking only of himself and of how to get away quickly and save +himself. + + + + +CHAPTER XVII + +The movements of the Russian and French armies during the campaign from +Moscow back to the Niemen were like those in a game of Russian +blindman's bluff, in which two players are blindfolded and one of them +occasionally rings a little bell to inform the catcher of his +whereabouts. First he rings his bell fearlessly, but when he gets into a +tight place he runs away as quietly as he can, and often thinking to +escape runs straight into his opponent's arms. + +At first while they were still moving along the Kaluga road, Napoleon's +armies made their presence known, but later when they reached the +Smolensk road they ran holding the clapper of their bell tight--and +often thinking they were escaping ran right into the Russians. + +Owing to the rapidity of the French flight and the Russian pursuit and +the consequent exhaustion of the horses, the chief means of +approximately ascertaining the enemy's position--by cavalry scouting-- +was not available. Besides, as a result of the frequent and rapid change +of position by each army, even what information was obtained could not +be delivered in time. If news was received one day that the enemy had +been in a certain position the day before, by the third day when +something could have been done, that army was already two days' march +farther on and in quite another position. + +One army fled and the other pursued. Beyond Smolensk there were several +different roads available for the French, and one would have thought +that during their stay of four days they might have learned where the +enemy was, might have arranged some more advantageous plan and +undertaken something new. But after a four days' halt the mob, with no +maneuvers or plans, again began running along the beaten track, neither +to the right nor to the left but along the old--the worst--road, through +Krasnoe and Orsha. + +Expecting the enemy from behind and not in front, the French separated +in their flight and spread out over a distance of twenty-four hours. In +front of them all fled the Emperor, then the kings, then the dukes. The +Russian army, expecting Napoleon to take the road to the right beyond +the Dnieper--which was the only reasonable thing for him to do-- +themselves turned to the right and came out onto the highroad at +Krasnoe. And here as in a game of blindman's buff the French ran into +our vanguard. Seeing their enemy unexpectedly the French fell into +confusion and stopped short from the sudden fright, but then they +resumed their flight, abandoning their comrades who were farther behind. +Then for three days separate portions of the French army--first Murat's +(the vice-king's), then Davout's, and then Ney's--ran, as it were, the +gauntlet of the Russian army. They abandoned one another, abandoned all +their heavy baggage, their artillery, and half their men, and fled, +getting past the Russians by night by making semicircles to the right. + +Ney, who came last, had been busying himself blowing up the walls of +Smolensk which were in nobody's way, because despite the unfortunate +plight of the French or because of it, they wished to punish the floor +against which they had hurt themselves. Ney, who had had a corps of ten +thousand men, reached Napoleon at Orsha with only one thousand men left, +having abandoned all the rest and all his cannon, and having crossed the +Dnieper at night by stealth at a wooded spot. + +From Orsha they fled farther along the road to Vilna, still playing at +blindman's buff with the pursuing army. At the Berezina they again +became disorganized, many were drowned and many surrendered, but those +who got across the river fled farther. Their supreme chief donned a fur +coat and, having seated himself in a sleigh, galloped on alone, +abandoning his companions. The others who could do so drove away too, +leaving those who could not to surrender or die. + + + + +CHAPTER XVIII + +This campaign consisted in a flight of the French during which they did +all they could to destroy themselves. From the time they turned onto the +Kaluga road to the day their leader fled from the army, none of the +movements of the crowd had any sense. So one might have thought that +regarding this period of the campaign the historians, who attributed the +actions of the mass to the will of one man, would have found it +impossible to make the story of the retreat fit their theory. But no! +Mountains of books have been written by the historians about this +campaign, and everywhere are described Napoleon's arrangements, the +maneuvers, and his profound plans which guided the army, as well as the +military genius shown by his marshals. + +The retreat from Malo-Yaroslavets when he had a free road into a well- +supplied district and the parallel road was open to him along which +Kutuzov afterwards pursued him--this unnecessary retreat along a +devastated road--is explained to us as being due to profound +considerations. Similarly profound considerations are given for his +retreat from Smolensk to Orsha. Then his heroism at Krasnoe is +described, where he is reported to have been prepared to accept battle +and take personal command, and to have walked about with a birch stick +and said: + +"J'ai assez fait l'empereur; il est temps de faire le general," * but +nevertheless immediately ran away again, abandoning to its fate the +scattered fragments of the army he left behind. + + +* "I have acted the Emperor long enough; it is time to act the general." + +Then we are told of the greatness of soul of the marshals, especially of +Ney--a greatness of soul consisting in this: that he made his way by +night around through the forest and across the Dnieper and escaped to +Orsha, abandoning standards, artillery, and nine tenths of his men. + +And lastly, the final departure of the great Emperor from his heroic +army is presented to us by the historians as something great and +characteristic of genius. Even that final running away, described in +ordinary language as the lowest depth of baseness which every child is +taught to be ashamed of--even that act finds justification in the +historians' language. + +When it is impossible to stretch the very elastic threads of historical +ratiocination any farther, when actions are clearly contrary to all that +humanity calls right or even just, the historians produce a saving +conception of "greatness." "Greatness," it seems, excludes the standards +of right and wrong. For the "great" man nothing is wrong, there is no +atrocity for which a "great" man can be blamed. + +"C'est grand!" * say the historians, and there no longer exists either +good or evil but only "grand" and "not grand." Grand is good, not grand +is bad. Grand is the characteristic, in their conception, of some +special animals called "heroes." And Napoleon, escaping home in a warm +fur coat and leaving to perish those who were not merely his comrades +but were (in his opinion) men he had brought there, feels que c'est +grand, *(2) and his soul is tranquil. + + +* "It is great." + +* (2) That it is great. + +"Du sublime (he saw something sublime in himself) au ridicule il n'y a +qu'un pas," * said he. And the whole world for fifty years has been +repeating: "Sublime! Grand! Napoleon le Grand!" Du sublime au ridicule +il n'y a qu'un pas. + + +* "From the sublime to the ridiculous is but a step." + +And it occurs to no one that to admit a greatness not commensurable with +the standard of right and wrong is merely to admit one's own nothingness +and immeasurable meanness. + +For us with the standard of good and evil given us by Christ, no human +actions are incommensurable. And there is no greatness where simplicity, +goodness, and truth are absent. + + + + +CHAPTER XIX + +What Russian, reading the account of the last part of the campaign of +1812, has not experienced an uncomfortable feeling of regret, +dissatisfaction, and perplexity? Who has not asked himself how it is +that the French were not all captured or destroyed when our three armies +surrounded them in superior numbers, when the disordered French, hungry +and freezing, surrendered in crowds, and when (as the historians relate) +the aim of the Russians was to stop the French, to cut them off, and +capture them all? + +How was it that the Russian army, which when numerically weaker than the +French had given battle at Borodino, did not achieve its purpose when it +had surrounded the French on three sides and when its aim was to capture +them? Can the French be so enormously superior to us that when we had +surrounded them with superior forces we could not beat them? How could +that happen? + +History (or what is called by that name) replying to these questions +says that this occurred because Kutuzov and Tormasov and Chichagov, and +this man and that man, did not execute such and such maneuvers... + +But why did they not execute those maneuvers? And why if they were +guilty of not carrying out a prearranged plan were they not tried and +punished? But even if we admitted that Kutuzov, Chichagov, and others +were the cause of the Russian failures, it is still incomprehensible +why, the position of the Russian army being what it was at Krasnoe and +at the Berezina (in both cases we had superior forces), the French army +with its marshals, kings, and Emperor was not captured, if that was what +the Russians aimed at. + +The explanation of this strange fact given by Russian military +historians (to the effect that Kutuzov hindered an attack) is unfounded, +for we know that he could not restrain the troops from attacking at +Vyazma and Tarutino. + +Why was the Russian army--which with inferior forces had withstood the +enemy in full strength at Borodino--defeated at Krasnoe and the Berezina +by the disorganized crowds of the French when it was numerically +superior? + +If the aim of the Russians consisted in cutting off and capturing +Napoleon and his marshals--and that aim was not merely frustrated but +all attempts to attain it were most shamefully baffled--then this last +period of the campaign is quite rightly considered by the French to be a +series of victories, and quite wrongly considered victorious by Russian +historians. + +The Russian military historians in so far as they submit to claims of +logic must admit that conclusion, and in spite of their lyrical +rhapsodies about valor, devotion, and so forth, must reluctantly admit +that the French retreat from Moscow was a series of victories for +Napoleon and defeats for Kutuzov. + +But putting national vanity entirely aside one feels that such a +conclusion involves a contradiction, since the series of French +victories brought the French complete destruction, while the series of +Russian defeats led to the total destruction of their enemy and the +liberation of their country. + +The source of this contradiction lies in the fact that the historians +studying the events from the letters of the sovereigns and the generals, +from memoirs, reports, projects, and so forth, have attributed to this +last period of the war of 1812 an aim that never existed, namely that of +cutting off and capturing Napoleon with his marshals and his army. + +There never was or could have been such an aim, for it would have been +senseless and its attainment quite impossible. + +It would have been senseless, first because Napoleon's disorganized army +was flying from Russia with all possible speed, that is to say, was +doing just what every Russian desired. So what was the use of performing +various operations on the French who were running away as fast as they +possibly could? + +Secondly, it would have been senseless to block the passage of men whose +whole energy was directed to flight. + +Thirdly, it would have been senseless to sacrifice one's own troops in +order to destroy the French army, which without external interference +was destroying itself at such a rate that, though its path was not +blocked, it could not carry across the frontier more than it actually +did in December, namely a hundredth part of the original army. + +Fourthly, it would have been senseless to wish to take captive the +Emperor, kings, and dukes--whose capture would have been in the highest +degree embarrassing for the Russians, as the most adroit diplomatists of +the time (Joseph de Maistre and others) recognized. Still more senseless +would have been the wish to capture army corps of the French, when our +own army had melted away to half before reaching Krasnoe and a whole +division would have been needed to convoy the corps of prisoners, and +when our men were not always getting full rations and the prisoners +already taken were perishing of hunger. + +All the profound plans about cutting off and capturing Napoleon and his +army were like the plan of a market gardener who, when driving out of +his garden a cow that had trampled down the beds he had planted, should +run to the gate and hit the cow on the head. The only thing to be said +in excuse of that gardener would be that he was very angry. But not even +that could be said for those who drew up this project, for it was not +they who had suffered from the trampled beds. + +But besides the fact that cutting off Napoleon with his army would have +been senseless, it was impossible. + +It was impossible first because--as experience shows that a three-mile +movement of columns on a battlefield never coincides with the plans--the +probability of Chichagov, Kutuzov, and Wittgenstein effecting a junction +on time at an appointed place was so remote as to be tantamount to +impossibility, as in fact thought Kutuzov, who when he received the plan +remarked that diversions planned over great distances do not yield the +desired results. + +Secondly it was impossible, because to paralyze the momentum with which +Napoleon's army was retiring, incomparably greater forces than the +Russians possessed would have been required. + +Thirdly it was impossible, because the military term "to cut off" has no +meaning. One can cut off a slice of bread, but not an army. To cut off +an army--to bar its road--is quite impossible, for there is always +plenty of room to avoid capture and there is the night when nothing can +be seen, as the military scientists might convince themselves by the +example of Krasnoe and of the Berezina. It is only possible to capture +prisoners if they agree to be captured, just as it is only possible to +catch a swallow if it settles on one's hand. Men can only be taken +prisoners if they surrender according to the rules of strategy and +tactics, as the Germans did. But the French troops quite rightly did not +consider that this suited them, since death by hunger and cold awaited +them in flight or captivity alike. + +Fourthly and chiefly it was impossible, because never since the world +began has a war been fought under such conditions as those that obtained +in 1812, and the Russian army in its pursuit of the French strained its +strength to the utmost and could not have done more without destroying +itself. + +During the movement of the Russian army from Tarutino to Krasnoe it lost +fifty thousand sick or stragglers, that is a number equal to the +population of a large provincial town. Half the men fell out of the army +without a battle. + +And it is of this period of the campaign--when the army lacked boots and +sheepskin coats, was short of provisions and without vodka, and was +camping out at night for months in the snow with fifteen degrees of +frost, when there were only seven or eight hours of daylight and the +rest was night in which the influence of discipline cannot be +maintained, when men were taken into that region of death where +discipline fails, not for a few hours only as in a battle, but for +months, where they were every moment fighting death from hunger and +cold, when half the army perished in a single month--it is of this +period of the campaign that the historians tell us how Miloradovich +should have made a flank march to such and such a place, Tormasov to +another place, and Chichagov should have crossed (more than knee-deep in +snow) to somewhere else, and how so-and-so "routed" and "cut off" the +French and so on and so on. + +The Russians, half of whom died, did all that could and should have been +done to attain an end worthy of the nation, and they are not to blame +because other Russians, sitting in warm rooms, proposed that they should +do what was impossible. + +All that strange contradiction now difficult to understand between the +facts and the historical accounts only arises because the historians +dealing with the matter have written the history of the beautiful words +and sentiments of various generals, and not the history of the events. + +To them the words of Miloradovich seem very interesting, and so do their +surmises and the rewards this or that general received; but the question +of those fifty thousand men who were left in hospitals and in graves +does not even interest them, for it does not come within the range of +their investigation. + +Yet one need only discard the study of the reports and general plans and +consider the movement of those hundreds of thousands of men who took a +direct part in the events, and all the questions that seemed insoluble +easily and simply receive an immediate and certain solution. + +The aim of cutting off Napoleon and his army never existed except in the +imaginations of a dozen people. It could not exist because it was +senseless and unattainable. + +The people had a single aim: to free their land from invasion. That aim +was attained in the first place of itself, as the French ran away, and +so it was only necessary not to stop their flight. Secondly it was +attained by the guerrilla warfare which was destroying the French, and +thirdly by the fact that a large Russian army was following the French, +ready to use its strength in case their movement stopped. + +The Russian army had to act like a whip to a running animal. And the +experienced driver knew it was better to hold the whip raised as a +menace than to strike the running animal on the head. + +BOOK FIFTEEN: 1812 - 13 + + + + +CHAPTER I + +When seeing a dying animal a man feels a sense of horror: substance +similar to his own is perishing before his eyes. But when it is a +beloved and intimate human being that is dying, besides this horror at +the extinction of life there is a severance, a spiritual wound, which +like a physical wound is sometimes fatal and sometimes heals, but always +aches and shrinks at any external irritating touch. + +After Prince Andrew's death Natasha and Princess Mary alike felt this. +Drooping in spirit and closing their eyes before the menacing cloud of +death that overhung them, they dared not look life in the face. They +carefully guarded their open wounds from any rough and painful contact. +Everything: a carriage passing rapidly in the street, a summons to +dinner, the maid's inquiry what dress to prepare, or worse still any +word of insincere or feeble sympathy, seemed an insult, painfully +irritated the wound, interrupting that necessary quiet in which they +both tried to listen to the stern and dreadful choir that still +resounded in their imagination, and hindered their gazing into those +mysterious limitless vistas that for an instant had opened out before +them. + +Only when alone together were they free from such outrage and pain. They +spoke little even to one another, and when they did it was of very +unimportant matters. + +Both avoided any allusion to the future. To admit the possibility of a +future seemed to them to insult his memory. Still more carefully did +they avoid anything relating to him who was dead. It seemed to them that +what they had lived through and experienced could not be expressed in +words, and that any reference to the details of his life infringed the +majesty and sacredness of the mystery that had been accomplished before +their eyes. + +Continued abstention from speech, and constant avoidance of everything +that might lead up to the subject--this halting on all sides at the +boundary of what they might not mention--brought before their minds with +still greater purity and clearness what they were both feeling. + +But pure and complete sorrow is as impossible as pure and complete joy. +Princess Mary, in her position as absolute and independent arbiter of +her own fate and guardian and instructor of her nephew, was the first to +be called back to life from that realm of sorrow in which she had dwelt +for the first fortnight. She received letters from her relations to +which she had to reply; the room in which little Nicholas had been put +was damp and he began to cough; Alpatych came to Yaroslavl with reports +on the state of their affairs and with advice and suggestions that they +should return to Moscow to the house on the Vozdvizhenka Street, which +had remained uninjured and needed only slight repairs. Life did not +stand still and it was necessary to live. Hard as it was for Princess +Mary to emerge from the realm of secluded contemplation in which she had +lived till then, and sorry and almost ashamed as she felt to leave +Natasha alone, yet the cares of life demanded her attention and she +involuntarily yielded to them. She went through the accounts with +Alpatych, conferred with Dessalles about her nephew, and gave orders and +made preparations for the journey to Moscow. + +Natasha remained alone and, from the time Princess Mary began making +preparations for departure, held aloof from her too. + +Princess Mary asked the countess to let Natasha go with her to Moscow, +and both parents gladly accepted this offer, for they saw their daughter +losing strength every day and thought that a change of scene and the +advice of Moscow doctors would be good for her. + +"I am not going anywhere," Natasha replied when this was proposed to +her. "Do please just leave me alone!" And she ran out of the room, with +difficulty refraining from tears of vexation and irritation rather than +of sorrow. + +After she felt herself deserted by Princes Mary and alone in her grief, +Natasha spent most of the time in her room by herself, sitting huddled +up feet and all in the corner of the sofa, tearing and twisting +something with her slender nervous fingers and gazing intently and +fixedly at whatever her eyes chanced to fall on. This solitude exhausted +and tormented her but she was in absolute need of it. As soon as anyone +entered she got up quickly, changed her position and expression, and +picked up a book or some sewing, evidently waiting impatiently for the +intruder to go. + +She felt all the time as if she might at any moment penetrate that on +which--with a terrible questioning too great for her strength--her +spiritual gaze was fixed. + +One day toward the end of December Natasha, pale and thin, dressed in a +black woolen gown, her plaited hair negligently twisted into a knot, was +crouched feet and all in the corner of her sofa, nervously crumpling and +smoothing out the end of her sash while she looked at a corner of the +door. + +She was gazing in the direction in which he had gone--to the other side +of life. And that other side of life, of which she had never before +thought and which had formerly seemed to her so far away and improbable, +was now nearer and more akin and more comprehensible than this side of +life, where everything was either emptiness and desolation or suffering +and indignity. + +She was gazing where she knew him to be; but she could not imagine him +otherwise than as he had been here. She now saw him again as he had been +at Mytishchi, at Troitsa, and at Yaroslavl. + +She saw his face, heard his voice, repeated his words and her own, and +sometimes devised other words they might have spoken. + +There he is lying back in an armchair in his velvet cloak, leaning his +head on his thin pale hand. His chest is dreadfully hollow and his +shoulders raised. His lips are firmly closed, his eyes glitter, and a +wrinkle comes and goes on his pale forehead. One of his legs twitches +just perceptibly, but rapidly. Natasha knows that he is struggling with +terrible pain. "What is that pain like? Why does he have that pain? What +does he feel? How does it hurt him?" thought Natasha. He noticed her +watching him, raised his eyes, and began to speak seriously: + +"One thing would be terrible," said he: "to bind oneself forever to a +suffering man. It would be continual torture." And he looked searchingly +at her. Natasha as usual answered before she had time to think what she +would say. She said: "This can't go on--it won't. You will get well-- +quite well." + +She now saw him from the commencement of that scene and relived what she +had then felt. She recalled his long sad and severe look at those words +and understood the meaning of the rebuke and despair in that protracted +gaze. + +"I agreed," Natasha now said to herself, "that it would be dreadful if +he always continued to suffer. I said it then only because it would have +been dreadful for him, but he understood it differently. He thought it +would be dreadful for me. He then still wished to live and feared death. +And I said it so awkwardly and stupidly! I did not say what I meant. I +thought quite differently. Had I said what I thought, I should have +said: even if he had to go on dying, to die continually before my eyes, +I should have been happy compared with what I am now. Now there is +nothing... nobody. Did he know that? No, he did not and never will know +it. And now it will never, never be possible to put it right." And now +he again seemed to be saying the same words to her, only in her +imagination Natasha this time gave him a different answer. She stopped +him and said: "Terrible for you, but not for me! You know that for me +there is nothing in life but you, and to suffer with you is the greatest +happiness for me," and he took her hand and pressed it as he had pressed +it that terrible evening four days before his death. And in her +imagination she said other tender and loving words which she might have +said then but only spoke now: "I love thee!... thee! I love, love..." +she said, convulsively pressing her hands and setting her teeth with a +desperate effort... + +She was overcome by sweet sorrow and tears were already rising in her +eyes; then she suddenly asked herself to whom she was saying this. Again +everything was shrouded in hard, dry perplexity, and again with a +strained frown she peered toward the world where he was. And now, now it +seemed to her she was penetrating the mystery.... But at the instant +when it seemed that the incomprehensible was revealing itself to her a +loud rattle of the door handle struck painfully on her ears. Dunyasha, +her maid, entered the room quickly and abruptly with a frightened look +on her face and showing no concern for her mistress. + +"Come to your Papa at once, please!" said she with a strange, excited +look. "A misfortune... about Peter Ilynich... a letter," she finished +with a sob. + + + + +CHAPTER II + +Besides a feeling of aloofness from everybody Natasha was feeling a +special estrangement from the members of her own family. All of them-- +her father, mother, and Sonya--were so near to her, so familiar, so +commonplace, that all their words and feelings seemed an insult to the +world in which she had been living of late, and she felt not merely +indifferent to them but regarded them with hostility. She heard +Dunyasha's words about Peter Ilynich and a misfortune, but did not grasp +them. + +"What misfortune? What misfortune can happen to them? They just live +their own old, quiet, and commonplace life," thought Natasha. + +As she entered the ballroom her father was hurriedly coming out of her +mother's room. His face was puckered up and wet with tears. He had +evidently run out of that room to give vent to the sobs that were +choking him. When he saw Natasha he waved his arms despairingly and +burst into convulsively painful sobs that distorted his soft round face. + +"Pe... Petya... Go, go, she... is calling..." and weeping like a child +and quickly shuffling on his feeble legs to a chair, he almost fell into +it, covering his face with his hands. + +Suddenly an electric shock seemed to run through Natasha's whole being. +Terrible anguish struck her heart, she felt a dreadful ache as if +something was being torn inside her and she were dying. But the pain was +immediately followed by a feeling of release from the oppressive +constraint that had prevented her taking part in life. The sight of her +father, the terribly wild cries of her mother that she heard through the +door, made her immediately forget herself and her own grief. + +She ran to her father, but he feebly waved his arm, pointing to her +mother's door. Princess Mary, pale and with quivering chin, came out +from that room and taking Natasha by the arm said something to her. +Natasha neither saw nor heard her. She went in with rapid steps, pausing +at the door for an instant as if struggling with herself, and then ran +to her mother. + +The countess was lying in an armchair in a strange and awkward position, +stretching out and beating her head against the wall. Sonya and the +maids were holding her arms. + +"Natasha! Natasha!..." cried the countess. "It's not true... it's not +true... He's lying... Natasha!" she shrieked, pushing those around her +away. "Go away, all of you; it's not true! Killed!... ha, ha, ha!... +It's not true!" + +Natasha put one knee on the armchair, stooped over her mother, embraced +her, and with unexpected strength raised her, turned her face toward +herself, and clung to her. + +"Mummy!... darling!... I am here, my dearest Mummy," she kept on +whispering, not pausing an instant. + +She did not let go of her mother but struggled tenderly with her, +demanded a pillow and hot water, and unfastened and tore open her +mother's dress. + +"My dearest darling... Mummy, my precious!..." she whispered +incessantly, kissing her head, her hands, her face, and feeling her own +irrepressible and streaming tears tickling her nose and cheeks. + +The countess pressed her daughter's hand, closed her eyes, and became +quiet for a moment. Suddenly she sat up with unaccustomed swiftness, +glanced vacantly around her, and seeing Natasha began to press her +daughter's head with all her strength. Then she turned toward her +daughter's face which was wincing with pain and gazed long at it. + +"Natasha, you love me?" she said in a soft trustful whisper. "Natasha, +you would not deceive me? You'll tell me the whole truth?" + +Natasha looked at her with eyes full of tears and in her look there was +nothing but love and an entreaty for forgiveness. + +"My darling Mummy!" she repeated, straining all the power of her love to +find some way of taking on herself the excess of grief that crushed her +mother. + +And again in a futile struggle with reality her mother, refusing to +believe that she could live when her beloved boy was killed in the bloom +of life, escaped from reality into a world of delirium. + +Natasha did not remember how that day passed nor that night, nor the +next day and night. She did not sleep and did not leave her mother. Her +persevering and patient love seemed completely to surround the countess +every moment, not explaining or consoling, but recalling her to life. + +During the third night the countess kept very quiet for a few minutes, +and Natasha rested her head on the arm of her chair and closed her eyes, +but opened them again on hearing the bedstead creak. The countess was +sitting up in bed and speaking softly. + +"How glad I am you have come. You are tired. Won't you have some tea?" +Natasha went up to her. "You have improved in looks and grown more +manly," continued the countess, taking her daughter's hand. + +"Mamma! What are you saying..." + +"Natasha, he is no more, no more!" + +And embracing her daughter, the countess began to weep for the first +time. + + + + +CHAPTER III + +Princess Mary postponed her departure. Sonya and the count tried to +replace Natasha but could not. They saw that she alone was able to +restrain her mother from unreasoning despair. For three weeks Natasha +remained constantly at her mother's side, sleeping on a lounge chair in +her room, making her eat and drink, and talking to her incessantly +because the mere sound of her tender, caressing tones soothed her +mother. + +The mother's wounded spirit could not heal. Petya's death had torn from +her half her life. When the news of Petya's death had come she had been +a fresh and vigorous woman of fifty, but a month later she left her room +a listless old woman taking no interest in life. But the same blow that +almost killed the countess, this second blow, restored Natasha to life. + +A spiritual wound produced by a rending of the spiritual body is like a +physical wound and, strange as it may seem, just as a deep wound may +heal and its edges join, physical and spiritual wounds alike can yet +heal completely only as the result of a vital force from within. + +Natasha's wound healed in that way. She thought her life was ended, but +her love for her mother unexpectedly showed her that the essence of +life--love--was still active within her. Love awoke and so did life. + +Prince Andrew's last days had bound Princess Mary and Natasha together; +this new sorrow brought them still closer to one another. Princess Mary +put off her departure, and for three weeks looked after Natasha as if +she had been a sick child. The last weeks passed in her mother's bedroom +had strained Natasha's physical strength. + +One afternoon noticing Natasha shivering with fever, Princess Mary took +her to her own room and made her lie down on the bed. Natasha lay down, +but when Princess Mary had drawn the blinds and was going away she +called her back. + +"I don't want to sleep, Mary, sit by me a little." + +"You are tired--try to sleep." + +"No, no. Why did you bring me away? She will be asking for me." + +"She is much better. She spoke so well today," said Princess Mary. + +Natasha lay on the bed and in the semidarkness of the room scanned +Princess Mary's face. + +"Is she like him?" thought Natasha. "Yes, like and yet not like. But she +is quite original, strange, new, and unknown. And she loves me. What is +in her heart? All that is good. But how? What is her mind like? What +does she think about me? Yes, she is splendid!" + +"Mary," she said timidly, drawing Princess Mary's hand to herself, +"Mary, you mustn't think me wicked. No? Mary darling, how I love you! +Let us be quite, quite friends." + +And Natasha, embracing her, began kissing her face and hands, making +Princess Mary feel shy but happy by this demonstration of her feelings. + +From that day a tender and passionate friendship such as exists only +between women was established between Princess Mary and Natasha. They +were continually kissing and saying tender things to one another and +spent most of their time together. When one went out the other became +restless and hastened to rejoin her. Together they felt more in harmony +with one another than either of them felt with herself when alone. A +feeling stronger than friendship sprang up between them; an exclusive +feeling of life being possible only in each other's presence. + +Sometimes they were silent for hours; sometimes after they were already +in bed they would begin talking and go on till morning. They spoke most +of what was long past. Princess Mary spoke of her childhood, of her +mother, her father, and her daydreams; and Natasha, who with a passive +lack of understanding had formerly turned away from that life of +devotion, submission, and the poetry of Christian self-sacrifice, now +feeling herself bound to Princess Mary by affection, learned to love her +past too and to understand a side of life previously incomprehensible to +her. She did not think of applying submission and self-abnegation to her +own life, for she was accustomed to seek other joys, but she understood +and loved in another those previously incomprehensible virtues. For +Princess Mary, listening to Natasha's tales of childhood and early +youth, there also opened out a new and hitherto uncomprehended side of +life: belief in life and its enjoyment. + +Just as before, they never mentioned him so as not to lower (as they +thought) their exalted feelings by words; but this silence about him had +the effect of making them gradually begin to forget him without being +conscious of it. + +Natasha had grown thin and pale and physically so weak that they all +talked about her health, and this pleased her. But sometimes she was +suddenly overcome by fear not only of death but of sickness, weakness, +and loss of good looks, and involuntarily she examined her bare arm +carefully, surprised at its thinness, and in the morning noticed her +drawn and, as it seemed to her, piteous face in her glass. It seemed to +her that things must be so, and yet it was dreadfully sad. + +One day she went quickly upstairs and found herself out of breath. +Unconsciously she immediately invented a reason for going down, and +then, testing her strength, ran upstairs again, observing the result. + +Another time when she called Dunyasha her voice trembled, so she called +again--though she could hear Dunyasha coming--called her in the deep +chest tones in which she had been wont to sing, and listened attentively +to herself. + +She did not know and would not have believed it, but beneath the layer +of slime that covered her soul and seemed to her impenetrable, delicate +young shoots of grass were already sprouting, which taking root would so +cover with their living verdure the grief that weighed her down that it +would soon no longer be seen or noticed. The wound had begun to heal +from within. + +At the end of January Princess Mary left for Moscow, and the count +insisted on Natasha's going with her to consult the doctors. + + + + +CHAPTER IV + +After the encounter at Vyazma, where Kutuzov had been unable to hold +back his troops in their anxiety to overwhelm and cut off the enemy and +so on, the farther movement of the fleeing French, and of the Russians +who pursued them, continued as far as Krasnoe without a battle. The +flight was so rapid that the Russian army pursuing the French could not +keep up with them; cavalry and artillery horses broke down, and the +information received of the movements of the French was never reliable. + +The men in the Russian army were so worn out by this continuous marching +at the rate of twenty-seven miles a day that they could not go any +faster. + +To realize the degree of exhaustion of the Russian army it is only +necessary to grasp clearly the meaning of the fact that, while not +losing more than five thousand killed and wounded after Tarutino and +less than a hundred prisoners, the Russian army which left that place a +hundred thousand strong reached Krasnoe with only fifty thousand. + +The rapidity of the Russian pursuit was just as destructive to our army +as the flight of the French was to theirs. The only difference was that +the Russian army moved voluntarily, with no such threat of destruction +as hung over the French, and that the sick Frenchmen were left behind in +enemy hands while the sick Russians left behind were among their own +people. The chief cause of the wastage of Napoleon's army was the +rapidity of its movement, and a convincing proof of this is the +corresponding decrease of the Russian army. + +Kutuzov as far as was in his power, instead of trying to check the +movement of the French as was desired in Petersburg and by the Russian +army generals, directed his whole activity here, as he had done at +Tarutino and Vyazma, to hastening it on while easing the movement of our +army. + +But besides this, since the exhaustion and enormous diminution of the +army caused by the rapidity of the advance had become evident, another +reason for slackening the pace and delaying presented itself to Kutuzov. +The aim of the Russian army was to pursue the French. The road the +French would take was unknown, and so the closer our troops trod on +their heels the greater distance they had to cover. Only by following at +some distance could one cut across the zigzag path of the French. All +the artful maneuvers suggested by our generals meant fresh movements of +the army and a lengthening of its marches, whereas the only reasonable +aim was to shorten those marches. To that end Kutuzov's activity was +directed during the whole campaign from Moscow to Vilna--not casually or +intermittently but so consistently that he never once deviated from it. + +Kutuzov felt and knew--not by reasoning or science but with the whole of +his Russian being--what every Russian soldier felt: that the French were +beaten, that the enemy was flying and must be driven out; but at the +same time he like the soldiers realized all the hardship of this march, +the rapidity of which was unparalleled for such a time of the year. + +But to the generals, especially the foreign ones in the Russian army, +who wished to distinguish themselves, to astonish somebody, and for some +reason to capture a king or a duke--it seemed that now--when any battle +must be horrible and senseless--was the very time to fight and conquer +somebody. Kutuzov merely shrugged his shoulders when one after another +they presented projects of maneuvers to be made with those soldiers-- +ill-shod, insufficiently clad, and half starved--who within a month and +without fighting a battle had dwindled to half their number, and who at +the best if the flight continued would have to go a greater distance +than they had already traversed, before they reached the frontier. + +This longing to distinguish themselves, to maneuver, to overthrow, and +to cut off showed itself particularly whenever the Russians stumbled on +the French army. + +So it was at Krasnoe, where they expected to find one of the three +French columns and stumbled instead on Napoleon himself with sixteen +thousand men. Despite all Kutuzov's efforts to avoid that ruinous +encounter and to preserve his troops, the massacre of the broken mob of +French soldiers by worn-out Russians continued at Krasnoe for three +days. + +Toll wrote a disposition: "The first column will march to so and so," +etc. And as usual nothing happened in accord with the disposition. +Prince Eugene of Wurttemberg fired from a hill over the French crowds +that were running past, and demanded reinforcements which did not +arrive. The French, avoiding the Russians, dispersed and hid themselves +in the forest by night, making their way round as best they could, and +continued their flight. + +Miloradovich, who said he did not want to know anything about the +commissariat affairs of his detachment, and could never be found when he +was wanted--that chevalier sans peur et sans reproche * as he styled +himself--who was fond of parleys with the French, sent envoys demanding +their surrender, wasted time, and did not do what he was ordered to do. + + +* Knight without fear and without reproach. + +"I give you that column, lads," he said, riding up to the troops and +pointing out the French to the cavalry. + +And the cavalry, with spurs and sabers urging on horses that could +scarcely move, trotted with much effort to the column presented to them- +-that is to say, to a crowd of Frenchmen stark with cold, frost-bitten, +and starving--and the column that had been presented to them threw down +its arms and surrendered as it had long been anxious to do. + +At Krasnoe they took twenty-six thousand prisoners, several hundred +cannon, and a stick called a "marshal's staff," and disputed as to who +had distinguished himself and were pleased with their achievement-- +though they much regretted not having taken Napoleon, or at least a +marshal or a hero of some sort, and reproached one another and +especially Kutuzov for having failed to do so. + +These men, carried away by their passions, were but blind tools of the +most melancholy law of necessity, but considered themselves heroes and +imagined that they were accomplishing a most noble and honorable deed. +They blamed Kutuzov and said that from the very beginning of the +campaign he had prevented their vanquishing Napoleon, that he thought of +nothing but satisfying his passions and would not advance from the Linen +Factories because he was comfortable there, that at Krasnoe he checked +the advance because on learning that Napoleon was there he had quite +lost his head, and that it was probable that he had an understanding +with Napoleon and had been bribed by him, and so on, and so on. + +Not only did his contemporaries, carried away by their passions, talk in +this way, but posterity and history have acclaimed Napoleon as grand, +while Kutuzov is described by foreigners as a crafty, dissolute, weak +old courtier, and by Russians as something indefinite--a sort of puppet +useful only because he had a Russian name. + + + + +CHAPTER V + +In 1812 and 1813 Kutuzov was openly accused of blundering. The Emperor +was dissatisfied with him. And in a history recently written by order of +the Highest Authorities it is said that Kutuzov was a cunning court +liar, frightened of the name of Napoleon, and that by his blunders at +Krasnoe and the Berezina he deprived the Russian army of the glory of +complete victory over the French. * + + +* History of the year 1812. The character of Kutuzov and reflections on +the unsatisfactory results of the battles at Krasnoe, by Bogdanovich. + +Such is the fate not of great men (grands hommes) whom the Russian mind +does not acknowledge, but of those rare and always solitary individuals +who, discerning the will of Providence, submit their personal will to +it. The hatred and contempt of the crowd punish such men for discerning +the higher laws. + +For Russian historians, strange and terrible to say, Napoleon--that most +insignificant tool of history who never anywhere, even in exile, showed +human dignity--Napoleon is the object of adulation and enthusiasm; he is +grand. But Kutuzov--the man who from the beginning to the end of his +activity in 1812, never once swerving by word or deed from Borodino to +Vilna, presented an example exceptional in history of self-sacrifice and +a present consciousness of the future importance of what was happening-- +Kutuzov seems to them something indefinite and pitiful, and when +speaking of him and of the year 1812 they always seem a little ashamed. + +And yet it is difficult to imagine an historical character whose +activity was so unswervingly directed to a single aim; and it would be +difficult to imagine any aim more worthy or more consonant with the will +of the whole people. Still more difficult would it be to find an +instance in history of the aim of an historical personage being so +completely accomplished as that to which all Kutuzov's efforts were +directed in 1812. + +Kutuzov never talked of "forty centuries looking down from the +Pyramids," of the sacrifices he offered for the fatherland, or of what +he intended to accomplish or had accomplished; in general he said +nothing about himself, adopted no pose, always appeared to be the +simplest and most ordinary of men, and said the simplest and most +ordinary things. He wrote letters to his daughters and to Madame de +Stael, read novels, liked the society of pretty women, jested with +generals, officers, and soldiers, and never contradicted those who tried +to prove anything to him. When Count Rostopchin at the Yauza bridge +galloped up to Kutuzov with personal reproaches for having caused the +destruction of Moscow, and said: "How was it you promised not to abandon +Moscow without a battle?" Kutuzov replied: "And I shall not abandon +Moscow without a battle," though Moscow was then already abandoned. When +Arakcheev, coming to him from the Emperor, said that Ermolov ought to be +appointed chief of the artillery, Kutuzov replied: "Yes, I was just +saying so myself," though a moment before he had said quite the +contrary. What did it matter to him--who then alone amid a senseless +crowd understood the whole tremendous significance of what was +happening--what did it matter to him whether Rostopchin attributed the +calamities of Moscow to him or to himself? Still less could it matter to +him who was appointed chief of the artillery. + +Not merely in these cases but continually did that old man--who by +experience of life had reached the conviction that thoughts and the +words serving as their expression are not what move people--use quite +meaningless words that happened to enter his head. + +But that man, so heedless of his words, did not once during the whole +time of his activity utter one word inconsistent with the single aim +toward which he moved throughout the whole war. Obviously in spite of +himself, in very diverse circumstances, he repeatedly expressed his real +thoughts with the bitter conviction that he would not be understood. +Beginning with the battle of Borodino, from which time his disagreement +with those about him began, he alone said that the battle of Borodino +was a victory, and repeated this both verbally and in his dispatches and +reports up to the time of his death. He alone said that the loss of +Moscow is not the loss of Russia. In reply to Lauriston's proposal of +peace, he said: There can be no peace, for such is the people's will. He +alone during the retreat of the French said that all our maneuvers are +useless, everything is being accomplished of itself better than we could +desire; that the enemy must be offered "a golden bridge"; that neither +the Tarutino, the Vyazma, nor the Krasnoe battles were necessary; that +we must keep some force to reach the frontier with, and that he would +not sacrifice a single Russian for ten Frenchmen. + +And this courtier, as he is described to us, who lies to Arakcheev to +please the Emperor, he alone--incurring thereby the Emperor's +displeasure--said in Vilna that to carry the war beyond the frontier is +useless and harmful. + +Nor do words alone prove that only he understood the meaning of the +events. His actions--without the smallest deviation--were all directed +to one and the same threefold end: (1) to brace all his strength for +conflict with the French, (2) to defeat them, and (3) to drive them out +of Russia, minimizing as far as possible the sufferings of our people +and of our army. + +This procrastinator Kutuzov, whose motto was "Patience and Time," this +enemy of decisive action, gave battle at Borodino, investing the +preparations for it with unparalleled solemnity. This Kutuzov who before +the battle of Austerlitz began said that it would be lost, he alone, in +contradiction to everyone else, declared till his death that Borodino +was a victory, despite the assurance of generals that the battle was +lost and despite the fact that for an army to have to retire after +winning a battle was unprecedented. He alone during the whole retreat +insisted that battles, which were useless then, should not be fought, +and that a new war should not be begun nor the frontiers of Russia +crossed. + +It is easy now to understand the significance of these events--if only +we abstain from attributing to the activity of the mass aims that +existed only in the heads of a dozen individuals--for the events and +results now lie before us. + +But how did that old man, alone, in opposition to the general opinion, +so truly discern the importance of the people's view of the events that +in all his activity he was never once untrue to it? + +The source of that extraordinary power of penetrating the meaning of the +events then occuring lay in the national feeling which he possessed in +full purity and strength. + +Only the recognition of the fact that he possessed this feeling caused +the people in so strange a manner, contrary to the Tsar's wish, to +select him--an old man in disfavor--to be their representative in the +national war. And only that feeling placed him on that highest human +pedestal from which he, the commander-in-chief, devoted all his powers +not to slaying and destroying men but to saving and showing pity on +them. + +That simple, modest, and therefore truly great, figure could not be cast +in the false mold of a European hero--the supposed ruler of men--that +history has invented. + +To a lackey no man can be great, for a lackey has his own conception of +greatness. + + + + +CHAPTER VI + +The fifth of November was the first day of what is called the battle of +Krasnoe. Toward evening--after much disputing and many mistakes made by +generals who did not go to their proper places, and after adjutants had +been sent about with counterorders--when it had become plain that the +enemy was everywhere in flight and that there could and would be no +battle, Kutuzov left Krasnoe and went to Dobroe whither his headquarters +had that day been transferred. + +The day was clear and frosty. Kutuzov rode to Dobroe on his plump little +white horse, followed by an enormous suite of discontented generals who +whispered among themselves behind his back. All along the road groups of +French prisoners captured that day (there were seven thousand of them) +were crowding to warm themselves at campfires. Near Dobroe an immense +crowd of tattered prisoners, buzzing with talk and wrapped and bandaged +in anything they had been able to get hold of, were standing in the road +beside a long row of unharnessed French guns. At the approach of the +commander-in-chief the buzz of talk ceased and all eyes were fixed on +Kutuzov who, wearing a white cap with a red band and a padded overcoat +that bulged on his round shoulders, moved slowly along the road on his +white horse. One of the generals was reporting to him where the guns and +prisoners had been captured. + +Kutuzov seemed preoccupied and did not listen to what the general was +saying. He screwed up his eyes with a dissatisfied look as he gazed +attentively and fixedly at these prisoners, who presented a specially +wretched appearance. Most of them were disfigured by frost-bitten noses +and cheeks, and nearly all had red, swollen and festering eyes. + +One group of the French stood close to the road, and two of them, one of +whom had his face covered with sores, were tearing a piece of raw flesh +with their hands. There was something horrible and bestial in the +fleeting glance they threw at the riders and in the malevolent +expression with which, after a glance at Kutuzov, the soldier with the +sores immediately turned away and went on with what he was doing. + +Kutuzov looked long and intently at these two soldiers. He puckered his +face, screwed up his eyes, and pensively swayed his head. At another +spot he noticed a Russian soldier laughingly patting a Frenchman on the +shoulder, saying something to him in a friendly manner, and Kutuzov with +the same expression on his face again swayed his head. + +"What were you saying?" he asked the general, who continuing his report +directed the commander-in-chief's attention to some standards captured +from the French and standing in front of the Preobrazhensk regiment. + +"Ah, the standards!" said Kutuzov, evidently detaching himself with +difficulty from the thoughts that preoccupied him. + +He looked about him absently. Thousands of eyes were looking at him from +all sides awaiting a word from him. + +He stopped in front of the Preobrazhensk regiment, sighed deeply, and +closed his eyes. One of his suite beckoned to the soldiers carrying the +standards to advance and surround the commander-in-chief with them. +Kutuzov was silent for a few seconds and then, submitting with evident +reluctance to the duty imposed by his position, raised his head and +began to speak. A throng of officers surrounded him. He looked +attentively around at the circle of officers, recognizing several of +them. + +"I thank you all!" he said, addressing the soldiers and then again the +officers. In the stillness around him his slowly uttered words were +distinctly heard. "I thank you all for your hard and faithful service. +The victory is complete and Russia will not forget you! Honor to you +forever." + +He paused and looked around. + +"Lower its head, lower it!" he said to a soldier who had accidentally +lowered the French eagle he was holding before the Preobrazhensk +standards. "Lower, lower, that's it. Hurrah lads!" he added, addressing +the men with a rapid movement of his chin. + +"Hur-r-rah!" roared thousands of voices. + +While the soldiers were shouting Kutuzov leaned forward in his saddle +and bowed his head, and his eye lit up with a mild and apparently ironic +gleam. + +"You see, brothers..." said he when the shouts had ceased... and all at +once his voice and the expression of his face changed. It was no longer +the commander-in-chief speaking but an ordinary old man who wanted to +tell his comrades something very important. + +There was a stir among the throng of officers and in the ranks of the +soldiers, who moved that they might hear better what he was going to +say. + +"You see, brothers, I know it's hard for you, but it can't be helped! +Bear up; it won't be for long now! We'll see our visitors off and then +we'll rest. The Tsar won't forget your service. It is hard for you, but +still you are at home while they--you see what they have come to," said +he, pointing to the prisoners. "Worse off than our poorest beggars. +While they were strong we didn't spare ourselves, but now we may even +pity them. They are human beings too. Isn't it so, lads?" + +He looked around, and in the direct, respectful, wondering gaze fixed +upon him he read sympathy with what he had said. His face grew brighter +and brighter with an old man's mild smile, which drew the corners of his +lips and eyes into a cluster of wrinkles. He ceased speaking and bowed +his head as if in perplexity. + +"But after all who asked them here? Serves them right, the bloody +bastards!" he cried, suddenly lifting his head. + +And flourishing his whip he rode off at a gallop for the first time +during the whole campaign, and left the broken ranks of the soldiers +laughing joyfully and shouting "Hurrah!" + +Kutuzov's words were hardly understood by the troops. No one could have +repeated the field marshal's address, begun solemnly and then changing +into an old man's simplehearted talk; but the hearty sincerity of that +speech, the feeling of majestic triumph combined with pity for the foe +and consciousness of the justice of our cause, exactly expressed by that +old man's good-natured expletives, was not merely understood but lay in +the soul of every soldier and found expression in their joyous and long- +sustained shouts. Afterwards when one of the generals addressed Kutuzov +asking whether he wished his caleche to be sent for, Kutuzov in +answering unexpectedly gave a sob, being evidently greatly moved. + + + + +CHAPTER VII + +When the troops reached their night's halting place on the eighth of +November, the last day of the Krasnoe battles, it was already growing +dusk. All day it had been calm and frosty with occasional lightly +falling snow and toward evening it began to clear. Through the falling +snow a purple-black and starry sky showed itself and the frost grew +keener. + +An infantry regiment which had left Tarutino three thousand strong but +now numbered only nine hundred was one of the first to arrive that night +at its halting place--a village on the highroad. The quartermasters who +met the regiment announced that all the huts were full of sick and dead +Frenchmen, cavalrymen, and members of the staff. There was only one hut +available for the regimental commander. + +The commander rode up to his hut. The regiment passed through the +village and stacked its arms in front of the last huts. + +Like some huge many-limbed animal, the regiment began to prepare its +lair and its food. One part of it dispersed and waded knee-deep through +the snow into a birch forest to the right of the village, and +immediately the sound of axes and swords, the crashing of branches, and +merry voices could be heard from there. Another section amid the +regimental wagons and horses which were standing in a group was busy +getting out caldrons and rye biscuit, and feeding the horses. A third +section scattered through the village arranging quarters for the staff +officers, carrying out the French corpses that were in the huts, and +dragging away boards, dry wood, and thatch from the roofs, for the +campfires, or wattle fences to serve for shelter. + +Some fifteen men with merry shouts were shaking down the high wattle +wall of a shed, the roof of which had already been removed. + +"Now then, all together--shove!" cried the voices, and the huge surface +of the wall, sprinkled with snow and creaking with frost, was seen +swaying in the gloom of the night. The lower stakes cracked more and +more and at last the wall fell, and with it the men who had been pushing +it. Loud, coarse laughter and joyous shouts ensued. + +"Now then, catch hold in twos! Hand up the lever! That's it... Where are +you shoving to?" + +"Now, all together! But wait a moment, boys... With a song!" + +All stood silent, and a soft, pleasant velvety voice began to sing. At +the end of the third verse as the last note died away, twenty voices +roared out at once: "Oo-oo-oo-oo! That's it. All together! Heave away, +boys!..." but despite their united efforts the wattle hardly moved, and +in the silence that followed the heavy breathing of the men was audible. + +"Here, you of the Sixth Company! Devils that you are! Lend a hand... +will you? You may want us one of these days." + +Some twenty men of the Sixth Company who were on their way into the +village joined the haulers, and the wattle wall, which was about thirty- +five feet long and seven feet high, moved forward along the village +street, swaying, pressing upon and cutting the shoulders of the gasping +men. + +"Get along... Falling? What are you stopping for? There now..." + +Merry senseless words of abuse flowed freely. + +"What are you up to?" suddenly came the authoritative voice of a +sergeant major who came upon the men who were hauling their burden. +"There are gentry here; the general himself is in that hut, and you +foul-mouthed devils, you brutes, I'll give it to you!" shouted he, +hitting the first man who came in his way a swinging blow on the back. +"Can't you make less noise?" + +The men became silent. The soldier who had been struck groaned and wiped +his face, which had been scratched till it bled by his falling against +the wattle. + +"There, how that devil hits out! He's made my face all bloody," said he +in a frightened whisper when the sergeant major had passed on. + +"Don't you like it?" said a laughing voice, and moderating their tones +the men moved forward. + +When they were out of the village they began talking again as loud as +before, interlarding their talk with the same aimless expletives. + +In the hut which the men had passed, the chief officers had gathered and +were in animated talk over their tea about the events of the day and the +maneuvers suggested for tomorrow. It was proposed to make a flank march +to the left, cut off the Vice-King (Murat) and capture him. + +By the time the soldiers had dragged the wattle fence to its place the +campfires were blazing on all sides ready for cooking, the wood +crackled, the snow was melting, and black shadows of soldiers flitted to +and fro all over the occupied space where the snow had been trodden +down. + +Axes and choppers were plied all around. Everything was done without any +orders being given. Stores of wood were brought for the night, shelters +were rigged up for the officers, caldrons were being boiled, and muskets +and accouterments put in order. + +The wattle wall the men had brought was set up in a semicircle by the +Eighth Company as a shelter from the north, propped up by musket rests, +and a campfire was built before it. They beat the tattoo, called the +roll, had supper, and settled down round the fires for the night--some +repairing their footgear, some smoking pipes, and some stripping +themselves naked to steam the lice out of their shirts. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII + +One would have thought that under the almost incredibly wretched +conditions the Russian soldiers were in at that time--lacking warm boots +and sheepskin coats, without a roof over their heads, in the snow with +eighteen degrees of frost, and without even full rations (the +commissariat did not always keep up with the troops)--they would have +presented a very sad and depressing spectacle. + +On the contrary, the army had never under the best material conditions +presented a more cheerful and animated aspect. This was because all who +began to grow depressed or who lost strength were sifted out of the army +day by day. All the physically or morally weak had long since been left +behind and only the flower of the army--physically and mentally-- +remained. + +More men collected behind the wattle fence of the Eighth Company than +anywhere else. Two sergeants major were sitting with them and their +campfire blazed brighter than others. For leave to sit by their wattle +they demanded contributions of fuel. + +"Eh, Makeev! What has become of you, you son of a bitch? Are you lost or +have the wolves eaten you? Fetch some more wood!" shouted a red-haired +and red-faced man, screwing up his eyes and blinking because of the +smoke but not moving back from the fire. "And you, Jackdaw, go and fetch +some wood!" said he to another soldier. + +This red-haired man was neither a sergeant nor a corporal, but being +robust he ordered about those weaker than himself. The soldier they +called "Jackdaw," a thin little fellow with a sharp nose, rose +obediently and was about to go but at that instant there came into the +light of the fire the slender, handsome figure of a young soldier +carrying a load of wood. + +"Bring it here--that's fine!" + +They split up the wood, pressed it down on the fire, blew at it with +their mouths, and fanned it with the skirts of their greatcoats, making +the flames hiss and crackle. The men drew nearer and lit their pipes. +The handsome young soldier who had brought the wood, setting his arms +akimbo, began stamping his cold feet rapidly and deftly on the spot +where he stood. + +"Mother! The dew is cold but clear.... It's well that I'm a +musketeer..." he sang, pretending to hiccough after each syllable. + +"Look out, your soles will fly off!" shouted the red-haired man, +noticing that the sole of the dancer's boot was hanging loose. "What a +fellow you are for dancing!" + +The dancer stopped, pulled off the loose piece of leather, and threw it +on the fire. + +"Right enough, friend," said he, and, having sat down, took out of his +knapsack a scrap of blue French cloth, and wrapped it round his foot. +"It's the steam that spoils them," he added, stretching out his feet +toward the fire. + +"They'll soon be issuing us new ones. They say that when we've finished +hammering them, we're to receive double kits!" + +"And that son of a bitch Petrov has lagged behind after all, it seems," +said one sergeant major. + +"I've had an eye on him this long while," said the other. + +"Well, he's a poor sort of soldier..." + +"But in the Third Company they say nine men were missing yesterday." + +"Yes, it's all very well, but when a man's feet are frozen how can he +walk?" + +"Eh? Don't talk nonsense!" said a sergeant major. + +"Do you want to be doing the same?" said an old soldier, turning +reproachfully to the man who had spoken of frozen feet. + +"Well, you know," said the sharp-nosed man they called Jackdaw in a +squeaky and unsteady voice, raising himself at the other side of the +fire, "a plump man gets thin, but for a thin one it's death. Take me, +now! I've got no strength left," he added, with sudden resolution +turning to the sergeant major. "Tell them to send me to hospital; I'm +aching all over; anyway I shan't be able to keep up." + +"That'll do, that'll do!" replied the sergeant major quietly. + +The soldier said no more and the talk went on. + +"What a lot of those Frenchies were taken today, and the fact is that +not one of them had what you might call real boots on," said a soldier, +starting a new theme. "They were no more than make-believes." + +"The Cossacks have taken their boots. They were clearing the hut for the +colonel and carried them out. It was pitiful to see them, boys," put in +the dancer. "As they turned them over one seemed still alive and, would +you believe it, he jabbered something in their lingo." + +"But they're a clean folk, lads," the first man went on; "he was white-- +as white as birchbark--and some of them are such fine fellows, you might +think they were nobles." + +"Well, what do you think? They make soldiers of all classes there." + +"But they don't understand our talk at all," said the dancer with a +puzzled smile. "I asked him whose subject he was, and he jabbered in his +own way. A queer lot!" + +"But it's strange, friends," continued the man who had wondered at their +whiteness, "the peasants at Mozhaysk were saying that when they began +burying the dead--where the battle was you know--well, those dead had +been lying there for nearly a month, and says the peasant, 'they lie as +white as paper, clean, and not as much smell as a puff of powder +smoke.'" + +"Was it from the cold?" asked someone. + +"You're a clever fellow! From the cold indeed! Why, it was hot. If it +had been from the cold, ours would not have rotted either. 'But,' he +says, 'go up to ours and they are all rotten and maggoty. So,' he says, +'we tie our faces up with kerchiefs and turn our heads away as we drag +them off: we can hardly do it. But theirs,' he says, 'are white as paper +and not so much smell as a whiff of gunpowder.'" + +All were silent. + +"It must be from their food," said the sergeant major. "They used to +gobble the same food as the gentry." + +No one contradicted him. + +"That peasant near Mozhaysk where the battle was said the men were all +called up from ten villages around and they carted for twenty days and +still didn't finish carting the dead away. And as for the wolves, he +says..." + +"That was a real battle," said an old soldier. "It's the only one worth +remembering; but since that... it's only been tormenting folk." + +"And do you know, Daddy, the day before yesterday we ran at them and, my +word, they didn't let us get near before they just threw down their +muskets and went on their knees. 'Pardon!' they say. That's only one +case. They say Platov took 'Poleon himself twice. But he didn't know the +right charm. He catches him and catches him--no good! He turns into a +bird in his hands and flies away. And there's no way of killing him +either." + +"You're a first-class liar, Kiselev, when I come to look at you!" + +"Liar, indeed! It's the real truth." + +"If he fell into my hands, when I'd caught him I'd bury him in the +ground with an aspen stake to fix him down. What a lot of men he's +ruined!" + +"Well, anyhow we're going to end it. He won't come here again," remarked +the old soldier, yawning. + +The conversation flagged, and the soldiers began settling down to sleep. + +"Look at the stars. It's wonderful how they shine! You would think the +women had spread out their linen," said one of the men, gazing with +admiration at the Milky Way. + +"That's a sign of a good harvest next year." + +"We shall want some more wood." + +"You warm your back and your belly gets frozen. That's queer." + +"O Lord!" + +"What are you pushing for? Is the fire only for you? Look how he's +sprawling!" + +In the silence that ensued, the snoring of those who had fallen asleep +could be heard. Others turned over and warmed themselves, now and again +exchanging a few words. From a campfire a hundred paces off came a sound +of general, merry laughter. + +"Hark at them roaring there in the Fifth Company!" said one of the +soldiers, "and what a lot of them there are!" + +One of the men got up and went over to the Fifth Company. + +"They're having such fun," said he, coming back. "Two Frenchies have +turned up. One's quite frozen and the other's an awful swaggerer. He's +singing songs...." + +"Oh, I'll go across and have a look...." + +And several of the men went over to the Fifth Company. + + + + +CHAPTER IX + +The fifth company was bivouacking at the very edge of the forest. A huge +campfire was blazing brightly in the midst of the snow, lighting up the +branches of trees heavy with hoarfrost. + +About midnight they heard the sound of steps in the snow of the forest, +and the crackling of dry branches. + +"A bear, lads," said one of the men. + +They all raised their heads to listen, and out of the forest into the +bright firelight stepped two strangely clad human figures clinging to +one another. + +These were two Frenchmen who had been hiding in the forest. They came up +to the fire, hoarsely uttering something in a language our soldiers did +not understand. One was taller than the other; he wore an officer's hat +and seemed quite exhausted. On approaching the fire he had been going to +sit down, but fell. The other, a short sturdy soldier with a shawl tied +round his head, was stronger. He raised his companion and said +something, pointing to his mouth. The soldiers surrounded the Frenchmen, +spread a greatcoat on the ground for the sick man, and brought some +buckwheat porridge and vodka for both of them. + +The exhausted French officer was Ramballe and the man with his head +wrapped in the shawl was Morel, his orderly. + +When Morel had drunk some vodka and finished his bowl of porridge he +suddenly became unnaturally merry and chattered incessantly to the +soldiers, who could not understand him. Ramballe refused food and +resting his head on his elbow lay silent beside the campfire, looking at +the Russian soldiers with red and vacant eyes. Occasionally he emitted a +long-drawn groan and then again became silent. Morel, pointing to his +shoulders, tried to impress on the soldiers the fact that Ramballe was +an officer and ought to be warmed. A Russian officer who had come up to +the fire sent to ask his colonel whether he would not take a French +officer into his hut to warm him, and when the messenger returned and +said that the colonel wished the officer to be brought to him, Ramballe +was told to go. He rose and tried to walk, but staggered and would have +fallen had not a soldier standing by held him up. + +"You won't do it again, eh?" said one of the soldiers, winking and +turning mockingly to Ramballe. + +"Oh, you fool! Why talk rubbish, lout that you are--a real peasant!" +came rebukes from all sides addressed to the jesting soldier. + +They surrounded Ramballe, lifted him on the crossed arms of two +soldiers, and carried him to the hut. Ramballe put his arms around their +necks while they carried him and began wailing plaintively: + +"Oh, you fine fellows, my kind, kind friends! These are men! Oh, my +brave, kind friends," and he leaned his head against the shoulder of one +of the men like a child. + +Meanwhile Morel was sitting in the best place by the fire, surrounded by +the soldiers. + +Morel, a short sturdy Frenchman with inflamed and streaming eyes, was +wearing a woman's cloak and had a shawl tied woman fashion round his +head over his cap. He was evidently tipsy, and was singing a French song +in a hoarse broken voice, with an arm thrown round the nearest soldier. +The soldiers simply held their sides as they watched him. + +"Now then, now then, teach us how it goes! I'll soon pick it up. How is +it?" said the man--a singer and a wag--whom Morel was embracing. + +"Vive Henri Quatre! Vive ce roi valiant!" sang Morel, winking. "Ce +diable a quatre..." * + + +* "Long live Henry the Fourth, that valiant king! That rowdy devil." + +"Vivarika! Vif-seruvaru! Sedyablyaka!" repeated the soldier, flourishing +his arm and really catching the tune. + +"Bravo! Ha, ha, ha!" rose their rough, joyous laughter from all sides. + +Morel, wrinkling up his face, laughed too. + +"Well, go on, go on!" + + +"Qui eut le triple talent, De boire, de battre, Et d'etre un vert +galant." * + + +* Who had a triple talent For drinking, for fighting, And for being a +gallant old boy... + +"It goes smoothly, too. Well, now, Zaletaev!" + +"Ke..." Zaletaev, brought out with effort: "ke-e-e-e," he drawled, +laboriously pursing his lips, "le-trip-ta-la-de-bu-de-ba, e de-tra-va- +ga-la" he sang. + +"Fine! Just like the Frenchie! Oh, ho ho! Do you want some more to eat?" + +"Give him some porridge: it takes a long time to get filled up after +starving." + +They gave him some more porridge and Morel with a laugh set to work on +his third bowl. All the young soldiers smiled gaily as they watched him. +The older men, who thought it undignified to amuse themselves with such +nonsense, continued to lie at the opposite side of the fire, but one +would occasionally raise himself on an elbow and glance at Morel with a +smile. + +"They are men too," said one of them as he wrapped himself up in his +coat. "Even wormwood grows on its own root." + +"O Lord, O Lord! How starry it is! Tremendous! That means a hard +frost...." + +They all grew silent. The stars, as if knowing that no one was looking +at them, began to disport themselves in the dark sky: now flaring up, +now vanishing, now trembling, they were busy whispering something +gladsome and mysterious to one another. + + + + +CHAPTER X + +The French army melted away at the uniform rate of a mathematical +progression; and that crossing of the Berezina about which so much has +been written was only one intermediate stage in its destruction, and not +at all the decisive episode of the campaign. If so much has been and +still is written about the Berezina, on the French side this is only +because at the broken bridge across that river the calamities their army +had been previously enduring were suddenly concentrated at one moment +into a tragic spectacle that remained in every memory, and on the +Russian side merely because in Petersburg--far from the seat of war--a +plan (again one of Pfuel's) had been devised to catch Napoleon in a +strategic trap at the Berezina River. Everyone assured himself that all +would happen according to plan, and therefore insisted that it was just +the crossing of the Berezina that destroyed the French army. In reality +the results of the crossing were much less disastrous to the French--in +guns and men lost--than Krasnoe had been, as the figures show. + +The sole importance of the crossing of the Berezina lies in the fact +that it plainly and indubitably proved the fallacy of all the plans for +cutting off the enemy's retreat and the soundness of the only possible +line of action--the one Kutuzov and the general mass of the army +demanded--namely, simply to follow the enemy up. The French crowd fled +at a continually increasing speed and all its energy was directed to +reaching its goal. It fled like a wounded animal and it was impossible +to block its path. This was shown not so much by the arrangements it +made for crossing as by what took place at the bridges. When the bridges +broke down, unarmed soldiers, people from Moscow and women with children +who were with the French transport, all--carried on by vis inertiae-- +pressed forward into boats and into the ice-covered water and did not, +surrender. + +That impulse was reasonable. The condition of fugitives and of pursuers +was equally bad. As long as they remained with their own people each +might hope for help from his fellows and the definite place he held +among them. But those who surrendered, while remaining in the same +pitiful plight, would be on a lower level to claim a share in the +necessities of life. The French did not need to be informed of the fact +that half the prisoners--with whom the Russians did not know what to do- +-perished of cold and hunger despite their captors' desire to save them; +they felt that it could not be otherwise. The most compassionate Russian +commanders, those favorable to the French--and even the Frenchmen in the +Russian service--could do nothing for the prisoners. The French perished +from the conditions to which the Russian army was itself exposed. It was +impossible to take bread and clothes from our hungry and indispensable +soldiers to give to the French who, though not harmful, or hated, or +guilty, were simply unnecessary. Some Russians even did that, but they +were exceptions. + +Certain destruction lay behind the French but in front there was hope. +Their ships had been burned, there was no salvation save in collective +flight, and on that the whole strength of the French was concentrated. + +The farther they fled the more wretched became the plight of the +remnant, especially after the Berezina, on which (in consequence of the +Petersburg plan) special hopes had been placed by the Russians, and the +keener grew the passions of the Russian commanders, who blamed one +another and Kutuzov most of all. Anticipation that the failure of the +Petersburg Berezina plan would be attributed to Kutuzov led to +dissatisfaction, contempt, and ridicule, more and more strongly +expressed. The ridicule and contempt were of course expressed in a +respectful form, making it impossible for him to ask wherein he was to +blame. They did not talk seriously to him; when reporting to him or +asking for his sanction they appeared to be fulfilling a regrettable +formality, but they winked behind his back and tried to mislead him at +every turn. + +Because they could not understand him all these people assumed that it +was useless to talk to the old man; that he would never grasp the +profundity of their plans, that he would answer with his phrases (which +they thought were mere phrases) about a "golden bridge," about the +impossibility of crossing the frontier with a crowd of tatterdemalions, +and so forth. They had heard all that before. And all he said--that it +was necessary to await provisions, or that the men had no boots--was so +simple, while what they proposed was so complicated and clever, that it +was evident that he was old and stupid and that they, though not in +power, were commanders of genius. + +After the junction with the army of the brilliant admiral and Petersburg +hero Wittgenstein, this mood and the gossip of the staff reached their +maximum. Kutuzov saw this and merely sighed and shrugged his shoulders. +Only once, after the affair of the Berezina, did he get angry and write +to Bennigsen (who reported separately to the Emperor) the following +letter: + +"On account of your spells of ill health, will your excellency please be +so good as to set off for Kaluga on receipt of this, and there await +further commands and appointments from His Imperial Majesty." + +But after Bennigsen's departure, the Grand Duke Tsarevich Constantine +Pavlovich joined the army. He had taken part in the beginning of the +campaign but had subsequently been removed from the army by Kutuzov. Now +having come to the army, he informed Kutuzov of the Emperor's +displeasure at the poor success of our forces and the slowness of their +advance. The Emperor intended to join the army personally in a few days' +time. + +The old man, experienced in court as well as in military affairs--this +same Kutuzov who in August had been chosen commander-in-chief against +the sovereign's wishes and who had removed the Grand Duke and heir-- +apparent from the army--who on his own authority and contrary to the +Emperor's will had decided on the abandonment of Moscow, now realized at +once that his day was over, that his part was played, and that the power +he was supposed to hold was no longer his. And he understood this not +merely from the attitude of the court. He saw on the one hand that the +military business in which he had played his part was ended and felt +that his mission was accomplished; and at the same time he began to be +conscious of the physical weariness of his aged body and of the +necessity of physical rest. + +On the twenty-ninth of November Kutuzov entered Vilna--his "dear Vilna" +as he called it. Twice during his career Kutuzov had been governor of +Vilna. In that wealthy town, which had not been injured, he found old +friends and associations, besides the comforts of life of which he had +so long been deprived. And he suddenly turned from the cares of army and +state and, as far as the passions that seethed around him allowed, +immersed himself in the quiet life to which he had formerly been +accustomed, as if all that was taking place and all that had still to be +done in the realm of history did not concern him at all. + +Chichagov, one of the most zealous "cutters-off" and "breakers-up," who +had first wanted to effect a diversion in Greece and then in Warsaw but +never wished to go where he was sent: Chichagov, noted for the boldness +with which he spoke to the Emperor, and who considered Kutuzov to be +under an obligation to him because when he was sent to make peace with +Turkey in 1811 independently of Kutuzov, and found that peace had +already been concluded, he admitted to the Emperor that the merit of +securing that peace was really Kutuzov's; this Chichagov was the first +to meet Kutuzov at the castle where the latter was to stay. In undress +naval uniform, with a dirk, and holding his cap under his arm, he handed +Kutuzov a garrison report and the keys of the town. The contemptuously +respectful attitude of the younger men to the old man in his dotage was +expressed in the highest degree by the behavior of Chichagov, who knew +of the accusations that were being directed against Kutuzov. + +When speaking to Chichagov, Kutuzov incidentally mentioned that the +vehicles packed with china that had been captured from him at Borisov +had been recovered and would be restored to him. + +"You mean to imply that I have nothing to eat out of.... On the +contrary, I can supply you with everything even if you want to give +dinner parties," warmly replied Chichagov, who tried by every word he +spoke to prove his own rectitude and therefore imagined Kutuzov to be +animated by the same desire. + +Kutuzov, shrugging his shoulders, replied with his subtle penetrating +smile: "I meant merely to say what I said." + +Contrary to the Emperor's wish Kutuzov detained the greater part of the +army at Vilna. Those about him said that he became extraordinarily slack +and physically feeble during his stay in that town. He attended to army +affairs reluctantly, left everything to his generals, and while awaiting +the Emperor's arrival led a dissipated life. + +Having left Petersburg on the seventh of December with his suite--Count +Tolstoy, Prince Volkonski, Arakcheev, and others--the Emperor reached +Vilna on the eleventh, and in his traveling sleigh drove straight to the +castle. In spite of the severe frost some hundred generals and staff +officers in full parade uniform stood in front of the castle, as well as +a guard of honor of the Semenov regiment. + +A courier who galloped to the castle in advance, in a troyka with three +foam-flecked horses, shouted "Coming!" and Konovnitsyn rushed into the +vestibule to inform Kutuzov, who was waiting in the hall porter's little +lodge. + +A minute later the old man's large stout figure in full-dress uniform, +his chest covered with orders and a scarf drawn round his stomach, +waddled out into the porch. He put on his hat with its peaks to the +sides and, holding his gloves in his hand and walking with an effort +sideways down the steps to the level of the street, took in his hand the +report he had prepared for the Emperor. + +There was running to and fro and whispering; another troyka flew +furiously up, and then all eyes were turned on an approaching sleigh in +which the figures of the Emperor and Volkonski could already be +descried. + +From the habit of fifty years all this had a physically agitating effect +on the old general. He carefully and hastily felt himself all over, +readjusted his hat, and pulling himself together drew himself up and, at +the very moment when the Emperor, having alighted from the sleigh, +lifted his eyes to him, handed him the report and began speaking in his +smooth, ingratiating voice. + +The Emperor with a rapid glance scanned Kutuzov from head to foot, +frowned for an instant, but immediately mastering himself went up to the +old man, extended his arms and embraced him. And this embrace too, owing +to a long-standing impression related to his innermost feelings, had its +usual effect on Kutuzov and he gave a sob. + +The Emperor greeted the officers and the Semenov guard, and again +pressing the old man's hand went with him into the castle. + +When alone with the field marshal the Emperor expressed his +dissatisfaction at the slowness of the pursuit and at the mistakes made +at Krasnoe and the Berezina, and informed him of his intentions for a +future campaign abroad. Kutuzov made no rejoinder or remark. The same +submissive, expressionless look with which he had listened to the +Emperor's commands on the field of Austerlitz seven years before settled +on his face now. + +When Kutuzov came out of the study and with lowered head was crossing +the ballroom with his heavy waddling gait, he was arrested by someone's +voice saying: + +"Your Serene Highness!" + +Kutuzov raised his head and looked for a long while into the eyes of +Count Tolstoy, who stood before him holding a silver salver on which lay +a small object. Kutuzov seemed not to understand what was expected of +him. + +Suddenly he seemed to remember; a scarcely perceptible smile flashed +across his puffy face, and bowing low and respectfully he took the +object that lay on the salver. It was the Order of St. George of the +First Class. + + + + +CHAPTER XI + +Next day the field marshal gave a dinner and ball which the Emperor +honored by his presence. Kutuzov had received the Order of St. George of +the First Class and the Emperor showed him the highest honors, but +everyone knew of the imperial dissatisfaction with him. The proprieties +were observed and the Emperor was the first to set that example, but +everybody understood that the old man was blameworthy and good-for- +nothing. When Kutuzov, conforming to a custom of Catherine's day, +ordered the standards that had been captured to be lowered at the +Emperor's feet on his entering the ballroom, the Emperor made a wry face +and muttered something in which some people caught the words, "the old +comedian." + +The Emperor's displeasure with Kutuzov was specially increased at Vilna +by the fact that Kutuzov evidently could not or would not understand the +importance of the coming campaign. + +When on the following morning the Emperor said to the officers assembled +about him: "You have not only saved Russia, you have saved Europe!" they +all understood that the war was not ended. + +Kutuzov alone would not see this and openly expressed his opinion that +no fresh war could improve the position or add to the glory of Russia, +but could only spoil and lower the glorious position that Russia had +gained. He tried to prove to the Emperor the impossibility of levying +fresh troops, spoke of the hardships already endured by the people, of +the possibility of failure and so forth. + +This being the field marshal's frame of mind he was naturally regarded +as merely a hindrance and obstacle to the impending war. + +To avoid unpleasant encounters with the old man, the natural method was +to do what had been done with him at Austerlitz and with Barclay at the +beginning of the Russian campaign--to transfer the authority to the +Emperor himself, thus cutting the ground from under the commander in +chief's feet without upsetting the old man by informing him of the +change. + +With this object his staff was gradually reconstructed and its real +strength removed and transferred to the Emperor. Toll, Konovnitsyn, and +Ermolov received fresh appointments. Everyone spoke loudly of the field +marshal's great weakness and failing health. + +His health had to be bad for his place to be taken away and given to +another. And in fact his health was poor. + +So naturally, simply, and gradually--just as he had come from Turkey to +the Treasury in Petersburg to recruit the militia, and then to the army +when he was needed there--now when his part was played out, Kutuzov's +place was taken by a new and necessary performer. + +The war of 1812, besides its national significance dear to every Russian +heart, was now to assume another, a European, significance. + +The movement of peoples from west to east was to be succeeded by a +movement of peoples from east to west, and for this fresh war another +leader was necessary, having qualities and views differing from +Kutuzov's and animated by different motives. + +Alexander I was as necessary for the movement of the peoples from east +to west and for the refixing of national frontiers as Kutuzov had been +for the salvation and glory of Russia. + +Kutuzov did not understand what Europe, the balance of power, or +Napoleon meant. He could not understand it. For the representative of +the Russian people, after the enemy had been destroyed and Russia had +been liberated and raised to the summit of her glory, there was nothing +left to do as a Russian. Nothing remained for the representative of the +national war but to die, and Kutuzov died. + + + + +CHAPTER XII + +As generally happens, Pierre did not feel the full effects of the +physical privation and strain he had suffered as prisoner until after +they were over. After his liberation he reached Orel, and on the third +day there, when preparing to go to Kiev, he fell ill and was laid up for +three months. He had what the doctors termed "bilious fever." But +despite the fact that the doctors treated him, bled him, and gave him +medicines to drink, he recovered. + +Scarcely any impression was left on Pierre's mind by all that happened +to him from the time of his rescue till his illness. He remembered only +the dull gray weather now rainy and now snowy, internal physical +distress, and pains in his feet and side. He remembered a general +impression of the misfortunes and sufferings of people and of being +worried by the curiosity of officers and generals who questioned him, he +also remembered his difficulty in procuring a conveyance and horses, and +above all he remembered his incapacity to think and feel all that time. +On the day of his rescue he had seen the body of Petya Rostov. That same +day he had learned that Prince Andrew, after surviving the battle of +Borodino for more than a month had recently died in the Rostovs' house +at Yaroslavl, and Denisov who told him this news also mentioned Helene's +death, supposing that Pierre had heard of it long before. All this at +the time seemed merely strange to Pierre: he felt he could not grasp its +significance. Just then he was only anxious to get away as quickly as +possible from places where people were killing one another, to some +peaceful refuge where he could recover himself, rest, and think over all +the strange new facts he had learned; but on reaching Orel he +immediately fell ill. When he came to himself after his illness he saw +in attendance on him two of his servants, Terenty and Vaska, who had +come from Moscow; and also his cousin the eldest princess, who had been +living on his estate at Elets and hearing of his rescue and illness had +come to look after him. + +It was only gradually during his convalescence that Pierre lost the +impressions he had become accustomed to during the last few months and +got used to the idea that no one would oblige him to go anywhere +tomorrow, that no one would deprive him of his warm bed, and that he +would be sure to get his dinner, tea, and supper. But for a long time in +his dreams he still saw himself in the conditions of captivity. In the +same way little by little he came to understand the news he had been +told after his rescue, about the death of Prince Andrew, the death of +his wife, and the destruction of the French. + +A joyous feeling of freedom--that complete inalienable freedom natural +to man which he had first experienced at the first halt outside Moscow-- +filled Pierre's soul during his convalescence. He was surprised to find +that this inner freedom, which was independent of external conditions, +now had as it were an additional setting of external liberty. He was +alone in a strange town, without acquaintances. No one demanded anything +of him or sent him anywhere. He had all he wanted: the thought of his +wife which had been a continual torment to him was no longer there, +since she was no more. + +"Oh, how good! How splendid!" said he to himself when a cleanly laid +table was moved up to him with savory beef tea, or when he lay down for +the night on a soft clean bed, or when he remembered that the French had +gone and that his wife was no more. "Oh, how good, how splendid!" + +And by old habit he asked himself the question: "Well, and what then? +What am I going to do?" And he immediately gave himself the answer: +"Well, I shall live. Ah, how splendid!" + +The very question that had formerly tormented him, the thing he had +continually sought to find--the aim of life--no longer existed for him +now. That search for the aim of life had not merely disappeared +temporarily--he felt that it no longer existed for him and could not +present itself again. And this very absence of an aim gave him the +complete, joyous sense of freedom which constituted his happiness at +this time. + +He could not see an aim, for he now had faith--not faith in any kind of +rule, or words, or ideas, but faith in an ever-living, ever-manifest +God. Formerly he had sought Him in aims he set himself. That search for +an aim had been simply a search for God, and suddenly in his captivity +he had learned not by words or reasoning but by direct feeling what his +nurse had told him long ago: that God is here and everywhere. In his +captivity he had learned that in Karataev God was greater, more infinite +and unfathomable than in the Architect of the Universe recognized by the +Freemasons. He felt like a man who after straining his eyes to see into +the far distance finds what he sought at his very feet. All his life he +had looked over the heads of the men around him, when he should have +merely looked in front of him without straining his eyes. + +In the past he had never been able to find that great inscrutable +infinite something. He had only felt that it must exist somewhere and +had looked for it. In everything near and comprehensible he had only +what was limited, petty, commonplace, and senseless. He had equipped +himself with a mental telescope and looked into remote space, where +petty worldliness hiding itself in misty distance had seemed to him +great and infinite merely because it was not clearly seen. And such had +European life, politics, Freemasonry, philosophy, and philanthropy +seemed to him. But even then, at moments of weakness as he had accounted +them, his mind had penetrated to those distances and he had there seen +the same pettiness, worldliness, and senselessness. Now, however, he had +learned to see the great, eternal, and infinite in everything, and +therefore--to see it and enjoy its contemplation--he naturally threw +away the telescope through which he had till now gazed over men's heads, +and gladly regarded the ever-changing, eternally great, unfathomable, +and infinite life around him. And the closer he looked the more tranquil +and happy he became. That dreadful question, "What for?" which had +formerly destroyed all his mental edifices, no longer existed for him. +To that question, "What for?" a simple answer was now always ready in +his soul: "Because there is a God, that God without whose will not one +hair falls from a man's head." + + + + +CHAPTER XIII + +In external ways Pierre had hardly changed at all. In appearance he was +just what he used to be. As before he was absent-minded and seemed +occupied not with what was before his eyes but with something special of +his own. The difference between his former and present self was that +formerly when he did not grasp what lay before him or was said to him, +he had puckered his forehead painfully as if vainly seeking to +distinguish something at a distance. At present he still forgot what was +said to him and still did not see what was before his eyes, but he now +looked with a scarcely perceptible and seemingly ironic smile at what +was before him and listened to what was said, though evidently seeing +and hearing something quite different. Formerly he had appeared to be a +kindhearted but unhappy man, and so people had been inclined to avoid +him. Now a smile at the joy of life always played round his lips, and +sympathy for others, shone in his eyes with a questioning look as to +whether they were as contented as he was, and people felt pleased by his +presence. + +Previously he had talked a great deal, grew excited when he talked, and +seldom listened; now he was seldom carried away in conversation and knew +how to listen so that people readily told him their most intimate +secrets. + +The princess, who had never liked Pierre and had been particularly +hostile to him since she had felt herself under obligations to him after +the old count's death, now after staying a short time in Orel--where she +had come intending to show Pierre that in spite of his ingratitude she +considered it her duty to nurse him--felt to her surprise and vexation +that she had become fond of him. Pierre did not in any way seek her +approval, he merely studied her with interest. Formerly she had felt +that he regarded her with indifference and irony, and so had shrunk into +herself as she did with others and had shown him only the combative side +of her nature; but now he seemed to be trying to understand the most +intimate places of her heart, and, mistrustfully at first but afterwards +gratefully, she let him see the hidden, kindly sides of her character. + +The most cunning man could not have crept into her confidence more +successfully, evoking memories of the best times of her youth and +showing sympathy with them. Yet Pierre's cunning consisted simply in +finding pleasure in drawing out the human qualities of the embittered, +hard, and (in her own way) proud princess. + +"Yes, he is a very, very kind man when he is not under the influence of +bad people but of people such as myself," thought she. + +His servants too--Terenty and Vaska--in their own way noticed the change +that had taken place in Pierre. They considered that he had become much +"simpler." Terenty, when he had helped him undress and wished him good +night, often lingered with his master's boots in his hands and clothes +over his arm, to see whether he would not start a talk. And Pierre, +noticing that Terenty wanted a chat, generally kept him there. + +"Well, tell me... now, how did you get food?" he would ask. + +And Terenty would begin talking of the destruction of Moscow, and of the +old count, and would stand for a long time holding the clothes and +talking, or sometimes listening to Pierre's stories, and then would go +out into the hall with a pleasant sense of intimacy with his master and +affection for him. + +The doctor who attended Pierre and visited him every day, though he +considered it his duty as a doctor to pose as a man whose every moment +was of value to suffering humanity, would sit for hours with Pierre +telling him his favorite anecdotes and his observations on the +characters of his patients in general, and especially of the ladies. + +"It's a pleasure to talk to a man like that; he is not like our +provincials," he would say. + +There were several prisoners from the French army in Orel, and the +doctor brought one of them, a young Italian, to see Pierre. + +This officer began visiting Pierre, and the princess used to make fun of +the tenderness the Italian expressed for him. + +The Italian seemed happy only when he could come to see Pierre, talk +with him, tell him about his past, his life at home, and his love, and +pour out to him his indignation against the French and especially +against Napoleon. + +"If all Russians are in the least like you, it is sacrilege to fight +such a nation," he said to Pierre. "You, who have suffered so from the +French, do not even feel animosity toward them." + +Pierre had evoked the passionate affection of the Italian merely by +evoking the best side of his nature and taking a pleasure in so doing. + +During the last days of Pierre's stay in Orel his old masonic +acquaintance Count Willarski, who had introduced him to the lodge in +1807, came to see him. Willarski was married to a Russian heiress who +had a large estate in Orel province, and he occupied a temporary post in +the commissariat department in that town. + +Hearing that Bezukhov was in Orel, Willarski, though they had never been +intimate, came to him with the professions of friendship and intimacy +that people who meet in a desert generally express for one another. +Willarski felt dull in Orel and was pleased to meet a man of his own +circle and, as he supposed, of similar interests. + +But to his surprise Willarski soon noticed that Pierre had lagged much +behind the times, and had sunk, as he expressed it to himself, into +apathy and egotism. + +"You are letting yourself go, my dear fellow," he said. + +But for all that Willarski found it pleasanter now than it had been +formerly to be with Pierre, and came to see him every day. To Pierre as +he looked at and listened to Willarski, it seemed strange to think that +he had been like that himself but a short time before. + +Willarski was a married man with a family, busy with his family affairs, +his wife's affairs, and his official duties. He regarded all these +occupations as hindrances to life, and considered that they were all +contemptible because their aim was the welfare of himself and his +family. Military, administrative, political, and masonic interests +continually absorbed his attention. And Pierre, without trying to change +the other's views and without condemning him, but with the quiet, +joyful, and amused smile now habitual to him, was interested in this +strange though very familiar phenomenon. + +There was a new feature in Pierre's relations with Willarski, with the +princess, with the doctor, and with all the people he now met, which +gained for him the general good will. This was his acknowledgment of the +impossibility of changing a man's convictions by words, and his +recognition of the possibility of everyone thinking, feeling, and seeing +things each from his own point of view. This legitimate peculiarity of +each individual which used to excite and irritate Pierre now became a +basis of the sympathy he felt for, and the interest he took in, other +people. The difference, and sometimes complete contradiction, between +men's opinions and their lives, and between one man and another, pleased +him and drew from him an amused and gentle smile. + +In practical matters Pierre unexpectedly felt within himself a center of +gravity he had previously lacked. Formerly all pecuniary questions, +especially requests for money to which, as an extremely wealthy man, he +was very exposed, produced in him a state of hopeless agitation and +perplexity. "To give or not to give?" he had asked himself. "I have it +and he needs it. But someone else needs it still more. Who needs it +most? And perhaps they are both impostors?" In the old days he had been +unable to find a way out of all these surmises and had given to all who +asked as long as he had anything to give. Formerly he had been in a +similar state of perplexity with regard to every question concerning his +property, when one person advised one thing and another something else. + +Now to his surprise he found that he no longer felt either doubt or +perplexity about these questions. There was now within him a judge who +by some rule unknown to him decided what should or should not be done. + +He was as indifferent as heretofore to money matters, but now he felt +certain of what ought and what ought not to be done. The first time he +had recourse to his new judge was when a French prisoner, a colonel, +came to him and, after talking a great deal about his exploits, +concluded by making what amounted to a demand that Pierre should give +him four thousand francs to send to his wife and children. Pierre +refused without the least difficulty or effort, and was afterwards +surprised how simple and easy had been what used to appear so +insurmountably difficult. At the same time that he refused the colonel's +demand he made up his mind that he must have recourse to artifice when +leaving Orel, to induce the Italian officer to accept some money of +which he was evidently in need. A further proof to Pierre of his own +more settled outlook on practical matters was furnished by his decision +with regard to his wife's debts and to the rebuilding of his houses in +and near Moscow. + +His head steward came to him at Orel and Pierre reckoned up with him his +diminished income. The burning of Moscow had cost him, according to the +head steward's calculation, about two million rubles. + +To console Pierre for these losses the head steward gave him an estimate +showing that despite these losses his income would not be diminished but +would even be increased if he refused to pay his wife's debts which he +was under no obligation to meet, and did not rebuild his Moscow house +and the country house on his Moscow estate, which had cost him eighty +thousand rubles a year and brought in nothing. + +"Yes, of course that's true," said Pierre with a cheerful smile. "I +don't need all that at all. By being ruined I have become much richer." + +But in January Savelich came from Moscow and gave him an account of the +state of things there, and spoke of the estimate an architect had made +of the cost of rebuilding the town and country houses, speaking of this +as of a settled matter. About the same time he received letters from +Prince Vasili and other Petersburg acquaintances speaking of his wife's +debts. And Pierre decided that the steward's proposals which had so +pleased him were wrong and that he must go to Petersburg and settle his +wife's affairs and must rebuild in Moscow. Why this was necessary he did +not know, but he knew for certain that it was necessary. His income +would be reduced by three fourths, but he felt it must be done. + +Willarski was going to Moscow and they agreed to travel together. + +During the whole time of his convalescence in Orel Pierre had +experienced a feeling of joy, freedom, and life; but when during his +journey he found himself in the open world and saw hundreds of new +faces, that feeling was intensified. Throughout his journey he felt like +a schoolboy on holiday. Everyone--the stagecoach driver, the post-house +overseers, the peasants on the roads and in the villages--had a new +significance for him. The presence and remarks of Willarski who +continually deplored the ignorance and poverty of Russia and its +backwardness compared with Europe only heightened Pierre's pleasure. +Where Willarski saw deadness Pierre saw an extraordinary strength and +vitality--the strength which in that vast space amid the snows +maintained the life of this original, peculiar, and unique people. He +did not contradict Willarski and even seemed to agree with him--an +apparent agreement being the simplest way to avoid discussions that +could lead to nothing--and he smiled joyfully as he listened to him. + + + + +CHAPTER XIV + +It would be difficult to explain why and whither ants whose heap has +been destroyed are hurrying: some from the heap dragging bits of +rubbish, larvae, and corpses, others back to the heap, or why they +jostle, overtake one another, and fight, and it would be equally +difficult to explain what caused the Russians after the departure of the +French to throng to the place that had formerly been Moscow. But when we +watch the ants round their ruined heap, the tenacity, energy, and +immense number of the delving insects prove that despite the destruction +of the heap, something indestructible, which though intangible is the +real strength of the colony, still exists; and similarly, though in +Moscow in the month of October there was no government and no churches, +shrines, riches, or houses--it was still the Moscow it had been in +August. All was destroyed, except something intangible yet powerful and +indestructible. + +The motives of those who thronged from all sides to Moscow after it had +been cleared of the enemy were most diverse and personal, and at first +for the most part savage and brutal. One motive only they all had in +common: a desire to get to the place that had been called Moscow, to +apply their activities there. + +Within a week Moscow already had fifteen thousand inhabitants, in a +fortnight twenty-five thousand, and so on. By the autumn of 1813 the +number, ever increasing and increasing, exceeded what it had been in +1812. + +The first Russians to enter Moscow were the Cossacks of Wintzingerode's +detachment, peasants from the adjacent villages, and residents who had +fled from Moscow and had been hiding in its vicinity. The Russians who +entered Moscow, finding it plundered, plundered it in their turn. They +continued what the French had begun. Trains of peasant carts came to +Moscow to carry off to the villages what had been abandoned in the +ruined houses and the streets. The Cossacks carried off what they could +to their camps, and the householders seized all they could find in other +houses and moved it to their own, pretending that it was their property. + +But the first plunderers were followed by a second and a third +contingent, and with increasing numbers plundering became more and more +difficult and assumed more definite forms. + +The French found Moscow abandoned but with all the organizations of +regular life, with diverse branches of commerce and craftsmanship, with +luxury, and governmental and religious institutions. These forms were +lifeless but still existed. There were bazaars, shops, warehouses, +market stalls, granaries--for the most part still stocked with goods-- +and there were factories and workshops, palaces and wealthy houses +filled with luxuries, hospitals, prisons, government offices, churches, +and cathedrals. The longer the French remained the more these forms of +town life perished, until finally all was merged into one confused, +lifeless scene of plunder. + +The more the plundering by the French continued, the more both the +wealth of Moscow and the strength of its plunderers was destroyed. But +plundering by the Russians, with which the reoccupation of the city +began, had an opposite effect: the longer it continued and the greater +the number of people taking part in it the more rapidly was the wealth +of the city and its regular life restored. + +Besides the plunderers, very various people, some drawn by curiosity, +some by official duties, some by self-interest--house owners, clergy, +officials of all kinds, tradesmen, artisans, and peasants--streamed into +Moscow as blood flows to the heart. + +Within a week the peasants who came with empty carts to carry off +plunder were stopped by the authorities and made to cart the corpses out +of the town. Other peasants, having heard of their comrades' +discomfiture, came to town bringing rye, oats, and hay, and beat down +one another's prices to below what they had been in former days. Gangs +of carpenters hoping for high pay arrived in Moscow every day, and on +all sides logs were being hewn, new houses built, and old, charred ones +repaired. Tradesmen began trading in booths. Cookshops and taverns were +opened in partially burned houses. The clergy resumed the services in +many churches that had not been burned. Donors contributed Church +property that had been stolen. Government clerks set up their baize- +covered tables and their pigeonholes of documents in small rooms. The +higher authorities and the police organized the distribution of goods +left behind by the French. The owners of houses in which much property +had been left, brought there from other houses, complained of the +injustice of taking everything to the Faceted Palace in the Kremlin; +others insisted that as the French had gathered things from different +houses into this or that house, it would be unfair to allow its owner to +keep all that was found there. They abused the police and bribed them, +made out estimates at ten times their value for government stores that +had perished in the fire, and demanded relief. And Count Rostopchin +wrote proclamations. + + + + +CHAPTER XV + +At the end of January Pierre went to Moscow and stayed in an annex of +his house which had not been burned. He called on Count Rostopchin and +on some acquaintances who were back in Moscow, and he intended to leave +for Petersburg two days later. Everybody was celebrating the victory, +everything was bubbling with life in the ruined but reviving city. +Everyone was pleased to see Pierre, everyone wished to meet him, and +everyone questioned him about what he had seen. Pierre felt particularly +well disposed toward them all, but was now instinctively on his guard +for fear of binding himself in any way. To all questions put to him-- +whether important or quite trifling--such as: Where would he live? Was +he going to rebuild? When was he going to Petersburg and would he mind +taking a parcel for someone?--he replied: "Yes, perhaps," or, "I think +so," and so on. + +He had heard that the Rostovs were at Kostroma but the thought of +Natasha seldom occurred to him. If it did it was only as a pleasant +memory of the distant past. He felt himself not only free from social +obligations but also from that feeling which, it seemed to him, he had +aroused in himself. + +On the third day after his arrival he heard from the Drubetskoys that +Princess Mary was in Moscow. The death, sufferings, and last days of +Prince Andrew had often occupied Pierre's thoughts and now recurred to +him with fresh vividness. Having heard at dinner that Princess Mary was +in Moscow and living in her house--which had not been burned--in +Vozdvizhenka Street, he drove that same evening to see her. + +On his way to the house Pierre kept thinking of Prince Andrew, of their +friendship, of his various meetings with him, and especially of the last +one at Borodino. + +"Is it possible that he died in the bitter frame of mind he was then in? +Is it possible that the meaning of life was not disclosed to him before +he died?" thought Pierre. He recalled Karataev and his death and +involuntarily began to compare these two men, so different, and yet so +similar in that they had both lived and both died and in the love he +felt for both of them. + +Pierre drove up to the house of the old prince in a most serious mood. +The house had escaped the fire; it showed signs of damage but its +general aspect was unchanged. The old footman, who met Pierre with a +stern face as if wishing to make the visitor feel that the absence of +the old prince had not disturbed the order of things in the house, +informed him that the princess had gone to her own apartments, and that +she received on Sundays. + +"Announce me. Perhaps she will see me," said Pierre. + +"Yes, sir," said the man. "Please step into the portrait gallery." + +A few minutes later the footman returned with Dessalles, who brought +word from the princess that she would be very glad to see Pierre if he +would excuse her want of ceremony and come upstairs to her apartment. + +In a rather low room lit by one candle sat the princess and with her +another person dressed in black. Pierre remembered that the princess +always had lady companions, but who they were and what they were like he +never knew or remembered. "This must be one of her companions," he +thought, glancing at the lady in the black dress. + +The princess rose quickly to meet him and held out her hand. + +"Yes," she said, looking at his altered face after he had kissed her +hand, "so this is how we meet again. He spoke of you even at the very +last," she went on, turning her eyes from Pierre to her companion with a +shyness that surprised him for an instant. + +"I was so glad to hear of your safety. It was the first piece of good +news we had received for a long time." + +Again the princess glanced round at her companion with even more +uneasiness in her manner and was about to add something, but Pierre +interrupted her. + +"Just imagine--I knew nothing about him!" said he. "I thought he had +been killed. All I know I heard at second hand from others. I only know +that he fell in with the Rostovs.... What a strange coincidence!" + +Pierre spoke rapidly and with animation. He glanced once at the +companion's face, saw her attentive and kindly gaze fixed on him, and, +as often happens when one is talking, felt somehow that this companion +in the black dress was a good, kind, excellent creature who would not +hinder his conversing freely with Princess Mary. + +But when he mentioned the Rostovs, Princess Mary's face expressed still +greater embarrassment. She again glanced rapidly from Pierre's face to +that of the lady in the black dress and said: + +"Do you really not recognize her?" + +Pierre looked again at the companion's pale, delicate face with its +black eyes and peculiar mouth, and something near to him, long forgotten +and more than sweet, looked at him from those attentive eyes. + +"But no, it can't be!" he thought. "This stern, thin, pale face that +looks so much older! It cannot be she. It merely reminds me of her." But +at that moment Princess Mary said, "Natasha!" And with difficulty, +effort, and stress, like the opening of a door grown rusty on its +hinges, a smile appeared on the face with the attentive eyes, and from +that opening door came a breath of fragrance which suffused Pierre with +a happiness he had long forgotten and of which he had not even been +thinking--especially at that moment. It suffused him, seized him, and +enveloped him completely. When she smiled doubt was no longer possible, +it was Natasha and he loved her. + +At that moment Pierre involuntarily betrayed to her, to Princess Mary, +and above all to himself, a secret of which he himself had been unaware. +He flushed joyfully yet with painful distress. He tried to hide his +agitation. But the more he tried to hide it the more clearly--clearer +than any words could have done--did he betray to himself, to her, and to +Princess Mary that he loved her. + +"No, it's only the unexpectedness of it," thought Pierre. But as soon as +he tried to continue the conversation he had begun with Princess Mary he +again glanced at Natasha, and a still-deeper flush suffused his face and +a still-stronger agitation of mingled joy and fear seized his soul. He +became confused in his speech and stopped in the middle of what he was +saying. + +Pierre had failed to notice Natasha because he did not at all expect to +see her there, but he had failed to recognize her because the change in +her since he last saw her was immense. She had grown thin and pale, but +that was not what made her unrecognizable; she was unrecognizable at the +moment he entered because on that face whose eyes had always shone with +a suppressed smile of the joy of life, now when he first entered and +glanced at her there was not the least shadow of a smile: only her eyes +were kindly attentive and sadly interrogative. + +Pierre's confusion was not reflected by any confusion on Natasha's part, +but only by the pleasure that just perceptibly lit up her whole face. + + + + +CHAPTER XVI + +"She has come to stay with me," said Princess Mary. "The count and +countess will be here in a few days. The countess is in a dreadful +state; but it was necessary for Natasha herself to see a doctor. They +insisted on her coming with me." + +"Yes, is there a family free from sorrow now?" said Pierre, addressing +Natasha. "You know it happened the very day we were rescued. I saw him. +What a delightful boy he was!" + +Natasha looked at him, and by way of answer to his words her eyes +widened and lit up. + +"What can one say or think of as a consolation?" said Pierre. "Nothing! +Why had such a splendid boy, so full of life, to die?" + +"Yes, in these days it would be hard to live without faith..." remarked +Princess Mary. + +"Yes, yes, that is really true," Pierre hastily interrupted her. + +"Why is it true?" Natasha asked, looking attentively into Pierre's eyes. + +"How can you ask why?" said Princess Mary. "The thought alone of what +awaits..." + +Natasha without waiting for Princess Mary to finish again looked +inquiringly at Pierre. + +"And because," Pierre continued, "only one who believes that there is a +God ruling us can bear a loss such as hers and... yours." + +Natasha had already opened her mouth to speak but suddenly stopped. +Pierre hurriedly turned away from her and again addressed Princess Mary, +asking about his friend's last days. + +Pierre's confusion had now almost vanished, but at the same time he felt +that his freedom had also completely gone. He felt that there was now a +judge of his every word and action whose judgment mattered more to him +than that of all the rest of the world. As he spoke now he was +considering what impression his words would make on Natasha. He did not +purposely say things to please her, but whatever he was saying he +regarded from her standpoint. + +Princess Mary--reluctantly as is usual in such cases--began telling of +the condition in which she had found Prince Andrew. But Pierre's face +quivering with emotion, his questions and his eager restless expression, +gradually compelled her to go into details which she feared to recall +for her own sake. + +"Yes, yes, and so...?" Pierre kept saying as he leaned toward her with +his whole body and eagerly listened to her story. "Yes, yes... so he +grew tranquil and softened? With all his soul he had always sought one +thing--to be perfectly good--so he could not be afraid of death. The +faults he had--if he had any--were not of his making. So he did +soften?... What a happy thing that he saw you again," he added, suddenly +turning to Natasha and looking at her with eyes full of tears. + +Natasha's face twitched. She frowned and lowered her eyes for a moment. +She hesitated for an instant whether to speak or not. + +"Yes, that was happiness," she then said in her quiet voice with its +deep chest notes. "For me it certainly was happiness." She paused. "And +he... he... he said he was wishing for it at the very moment I entered +the room...." + +Natasha's voice broke. She blushed, pressed her clasped hands on her +knees, and then controlling herself with an evident effort lifted her +head and began to speak rapidly. + +"We knew nothing of it when we started from Moscow. I did not dare to +ask about him. Then suddenly Sonya told me he was traveling with us. I +had no idea and could not imagine what state he was in, all I wanted was +to see him and be with him," she said, trembling, and breathing quickly. + +And not letting them interrupt her she went on to tell what she had +never yet mentioned to anyone--all she had lived through during those +three weeks of their journey and life at Yaroslavl. + +Pierre listened to her with lips parted and eyes fixed upon her full of +tears. As he listened he did not think of Prince Andrew, nor of death, +nor of what she was telling. He listened to her and felt only pity for +her, for what she was suffering now while she was speaking. + +Princess Mary, frowning in her effort to hold back her tears, sat beside +Natasha, and heard for the first time the story of those last days of +her brother's and Natasha's love. + +Evidently Natasha needed to tell that painful yet joyful tale. + +She spoke, mingling most trifling details with the intimate secrets of +her soul, and it seemed as if she could never finish. Several times she +repeated the same thing twice. + +Dessalles' voice was heard outside the door asking whether little +Nicholas might come in to say good night. + +"Well, that's all--everything," said Natasha. + +She got up quickly just as Nicholas entered, almost ran to the door +which was hidden by curtains, struck her head against it, and rushed +from the room with a moan either of pain or sorrow. + +Pierre gazed at the door through which she had disappeared and did not +understand why he suddenly felt all alone in the world. + +Princess Mary roused him from his abstraction by drawing his attention +to her nephew who had entered the room. + +At that moment of emotional tenderness young Nicholas' face, which +resembled his father's, affected Pierre so much that when he had kissed +the boy he got up quickly, took out his handkerchief, and went to the +window. He wished to take leave of Princess Mary, but she would not let +him go. + +"No, Natasha and I sometimes don't go to sleep till after two, so please +don't go. I will order supper. Go downstairs, we will come immediately." + +Before Pierre left the room Princess Mary told him: "This is the first +time she has talked of him like that." + + + + +CHAPTER XVII + +Pierre was shown into the large, brightly lit dining room; a few minutes +later he heard footsteps and Princess Mary entered with Natasha. Natasha +was calm, though a severe and grave expression had again settled on her +face. They all three of them now experienced that feeling of awkwardness +which usually follows after a serious and heartfelt talk. It is +impossible to go back to the same conversation, to talk of trifles is +awkward, and yet the desire to speak is there and silence seems like +affectation. They went silently to table. The footmen drew back the +chairs and pushed them up again. Pierre unfolded his cold table napkin +and, resolving to break the silence, looked at Natasha and at Princess +Mary. They had evidently both formed the same resolution; the eyes of +both shone with satisfaction and a confession that besides sorrow life +also has joy. + +"Do you take vodka, Count?" asked Princess Mary, and those words +suddenly banished the shadows of the past. "Now tell us about yourself," +said she. "One hears such improbable wonders about you." + +"Yes," replied Pierre with the smile of mild irony now habitual to him. +"They even tell me wonders I myself never dreamed of! Mary Abramovna +invited me to her house and kept telling me what had happened, or ought +to have happened, to me. Stepan Stepanych also instructed me how I ought +to tell of my experiences. In general I have noticed that it is very +easy to be an interesting man (I am an interesting man now); people +invite me out and tell me all about myself." + +Natasha smiled and was on the point of speaking. + +"We have been told," Princess Mary interrupted her, "that you lost two +millions in Moscow. Is that true?" + +"But I am three times as rich as before," returned Pierre. + +Though the position was now altered by his decision to pay his wife's +debts and to rebuild his houses, Pierre still maintained that he had +become three times as rich as before. + +"What I have certainly gained is freedom," he began seriously, but did +not continue, noticing that this theme was too egotistic. + +"And are you building?" + +"Yes. Savelich says I must!" + +"Tell me, you did not know of the countess' death when you decided to +remain in Moscow?" asked Princess Mary and immediately blushed, noticing +that her question, following his mention of freedom, ascribed to his +words a meaning he had perhaps not intended. + +"No," answered Pierre, evidently not considering awkward the meaning +Princess Mary had given to his words. "I heard of it in Orel and you +cannot imagine how it shocked me. We were not an exemplary couple," he +added quickly, glancing at Natasha and noticing on her face curiosity as +to how he would speak of his wife, "but her death shocked me terribly. +When two people quarrel they are always both in fault, and one's own +guilt suddenly becomes terribly serious when the other is no longer +alive. And then such a death... without friends and without consolation! +I am very, very sorry for her," he concluded, and was pleased to notice +a look of glad approval on Natasha's face. + +"Yes, and so you are once more an eligible bachelor," said Princess +Mary. + +Pierre suddenly flushed crimson and for a long time tried not to look at +Natasha. When he ventured to glance her way again her face was cold, +stern, and he fancied even contemptuous. + +"And did you really see and speak to Napoleon, as we have been told?" +said Princess Mary. + +Pierre laughed. + +"No, not once! Everybody seems to imagine that being taken prisoner +means being Napoleon's guest. Not only did I never see him but I heard +nothing about him--I was in much lower company!" + +Supper was over, and Pierre who at first declined to speak about his +captivity was gradually led on to do so. + +"But it's true that you remained in Moscow to kill Napoleon?" Natasha +asked with a slight smile. "I guessed it then when we met at the +Sukharev tower, do you remember?" + +Pierre admitted that it was true, and from that was gradually led by +Princess Mary's questions and especially by Natasha's into giving a +detailed account of his adventures. + +At first he spoke with the amused and mild irony now customary with him +toward everybody and especially toward himself, but when he came to +describe the horrors and sufferings he had witnessed he was +unconsciously carried away and began speaking with the suppressed +emotion of a man re-experiencing in recollection strong impressions he +has lived through. + +Princess Mary with a gentle smile looked now at Pierre and now at +Natasha. In the whole narrative she saw only Pierre and his goodness. +Natasha, leaning on her elbow, the expression of her face constantly +changing with the narrative, watched Pierre with an attention that never +wandered--evidently herself experiencing all that he described. Not only +her look, but her exclamations and the brief questions she put, showed +Pierre that she understood just what he wished to convey. It was clear +that she understood not only what he said but also what he wished to, +but could not, express in words. The account Pierre gave of the incident +with the child and the woman for protecting whom he was arrested was +this: "It was an awful sight--children abandoned, some in the flames... +One was snatched out before my eyes... and there were women who had +their things snatched off and their earrings torn out..." he flushed and +grew confused. "Then a patrol arrived and all the men--all those who +were not looting, that is--were arrested, and I among them." + +"I am sure you're not telling us everything; I am sure you did +something..." said Natasha and pausing added, "something fine?" + +Pierre continued. When he spoke of the execution he wanted to pass over +the horrible details, but Natasha insisted that he should not omit +anything. + +Pierre began to tell about Karataev, but paused. By this time he had +risen from the table and was pacing the room, Natasha following him with +her eyes. Then he added: + +"No, you can't understand what I learned from that illiterate man--that +simple fellow." + +"Yes, yes, go on!" said Natasha. "Where is he?" + +"They killed him almost before my eyes." + +And Pierre, his voice trembling continually, went on to tell of the last +days of their retreat, of Karataev's illness and his death. + +He told of his adventures as he had never yet recalled them. He now, as +it were, saw a new meaning in all he had gone through. Now that he was +telling it all to Natasha he experienced that pleasure which a man has +when women listen to him--not clever women who when listening either try +to remember what they hear to enrich their minds and when opportunity +offers to retell it, or who wish to adopt it to some thought of their +own and promptly contribute their own clever comments prepared in their +little mental workshop--but the pleasure given by real women gifted with +a capacity to select and absorb the very best a man shows of himself. +Natasha without knowing it was all attention: she did not lose a word, +no single quiver in Pierre's voice, no look, no twitch of a muscle in +his face, nor a single gesture. She caught the unfinished word in its +flight and took it straight into her open heart, divining the secret +meaning of all Pierre's mental travail. + +Princess Mary understood his story and sympathized with him, but she now +saw something else that absorbed all her attention. She saw the +possibility of love and happiness between Natasha and Pierre, and the +first thought of this filled her heart with gladness. + +It was three o'clock in the morning. The footmen came in with sad and +stern faces to change the candles, but no one noticed them. + +Pierre finished his story. Natasha continued to look at him intently +with bright, attentive, and animated eyes, as if trying to understand +something more which he had perhaps left untold. Pierre in shamefaced +and happy confusion glanced occasionally at her, and tried to think what +to say next to introduce a fresh subject. Princess Mary was silent. It +occurred to none of them that it was three o'clock and time to go to +bed. + +"People speak of misfortunes and sufferings," remarked Pierre, "but if +at this moment I were asked: 'Would you rather be what you were before +you were taken prisoner, or go through all this again?' then for +heaven's sake let me again have captivity and horseflesh! We imagine +that when we are thrown out of our usual ruts all is lost, but it is +only then that what is new and good begins. While there is life there is +happiness. There is much, much before us. I say this to you," he added, +turning to Natasha. + +"Yes, yes," she said, answering something quite different. "I too should +wish nothing but to relive it all from the beginning." + +Pierre looked intently at her. + +"Yes, and nothing more," said Natasha. + +"It's not true, not true!" cried Pierre. "I am not to blame for being +alive and wishing to live--nor you either." + +Suddenly Natasha bent her head, covered her face with her hands, and +began to cry. + +"What is it, Natasha?" said Princess Mary. + +"Nothing, nothing." She smiled at Pierre through her tears. "Good night! +It is time for bed." + +Pierre rose and took his leave. + +Princess Mary and Natasha met as usual in the bedroom. They talked of +what Pierre had told them. Princess Mary did not express her opinion of +Pierre nor did Natasha speak of him. + +"Well, good night, Mary!" said Natasha. "Do you know, I am often afraid +that by not speaking of him" (she meant Prince Andrew) "for fear of not +doing justice to our feelings, we forget him." + +Princess Mary sighed deeply and thereby acknowledged the justice of +Natasha's remark, but she did not express agreement in words. + +"Is it possible to forget?" said she. + +"It did me so much good to tell all about it today. It was hard and +painful, but good, very good!" said Natasha. "I am sure he really loved +him. That is why I told him... Was it all right?" she added, suddenly +blushing. + +"To tell Pierre? Oh, yes. What a splendid man he is!" said Princess +Mary. + +"Do you know, Mary..." Natasha suddenly said with a mischievous smile +such as Princess Mary had not seen on her face for a long time, "he has +somehow grown so clean, smooth, and fresh--as if he had just come out of +a Russian bath; do you understand? Out of a moral bath. Isn't it true?" + +"Yes," replied Princess Mary. "He has greatly improved." + +"With a short coat and his hair cropped; just as if, well, just as if he +had come straight from the bath... Papa used to..." + +"I understand why he" (Prince Andrew) "liked no one so much as him," +said Princess Mary. + +"Yes, and yet he is quite different. They say men are friends when they +are quite different. That must be true. Really he is quite unlike him-- +in everything." + +"Yes, but he's wonderful." + +"Well, good night," said Natasha. + +And the same mischievous smile lingered for a long time on her face as +if it had been forgotten there. + + + + +CHAPTER XVIII + +It was a long time before Pierre could fall asleep that night. He paced +up and down his room, now turning his thoughts on a difficult problem +and frowning, now suddenly shrugging his shoulders and wincing, and now +smiling happily. + +He was thinking of Prince Andrew, of Natasha, and of their love, at one +moment jealous of her past, then reproaching himself for that feeling. +It was already six in the morning and he still paced up and down the +room. + +"Well, what's to be done if it cannot be avoided? What's to be done? +Evidently it has to be so," said he to himself, and hastily undressing +he got into bed, happy and agitated but free from hesitation or +indecision. + +"Strange and impossible as such happiness seems, I must do everything +that she and I may be man and wife," he told himself. + +A few days previously Pierre had decided to go to Petersburg on the +Friday. When he awoke on the Thursday, Savelich came to ask him about +packing for the journey. + +"What, to Petersburg? What is Petersburg? Who is there in Petersburg?" +he asked involuntarily, though only to himself. "Oh, yes, long ago +before this happened I did for some reason mean to go to Petersburg," he +reflected. "Why? But perhaps I shall go. What a good fellow he is and +how attentive, and how he remembers everything," he thought, looking at +Savelich's old face, "and what a pleasant smile he has!" + +"Well, Savelich, do you still not wish to accept your freedom?" Pierre +asked him. + +"What's the good of freedom to me, your excellency? We lived under the +late count--the kingdom of heaven be his!--and we have lived under you +too, without ever being wronged." + +"And your children?" + +"The children will live just the same. With such masters one can live." + +"But what about my heirs?" said Pierre. "Supposing I suddenly marry... +it might happen," he added with an involuntary smile. + +"If I may take the liberty, your excellency, it would be a good thing." + +"How easy he thinks it," thought Pierre. "He doesn't know how terrible +it is and how dangerous. Too soon or too late... it is terrible!" + +"So what are your orders? Are you starting tomorrow?" asked Savelich. + +"No, I'll put it off for a bit. I'll tell you later. You must forgive +the trouble I have put you to," said Pierre, and seeing Savelich smile, +he thought: "But how strange it is that he should not know that now +there is no Petersburg for me, and that that must be settled first of +all! But probably he knows it well enough and is only pretending. Shall +I have a talk with him and see what he thinks?" Pierre reflected. "No, +another time." + +At breakfast Pierre told the princess, his cousin, that he had been to +see Princess Mary the day before and had there met--"Whom do you think? +Natasha Rostova!" + +The princess seemed to see nothing more extraordinary in that than if he +had seen Anna Semenovna. + +"Do you know her?" asked Pierre. + +"I have seen the princess," she replied. "I heard that they were +arranging a match for her with young Rostov. It would be a very good +thing for the Rostovs, they are said to be utterly ruined." + +"No; I mean do you know Natasha Rostova?" + +"I heard about that affair of hers at the time. It was a great pity." + +"No, she either doesn't understand or is pretending," thought Pierre. +"Better not say anything to her either." + +The princess too had prepared provisions for Pierre's journey. + +"How kind they all are," thought Pierre. "What is surprising is that +they should trouble about these things now when it can no longer be of +interest to them. And all for me!" + +On the same day the Chief of Police came to Pierre, inviting him to send +a representative to the Faceted Palace to recover things that were to be +returned to their owners that day. + +"And this man too," thought Pierre, looking into the face of the Chief +of Police. "What a fine, good-looking officer and how kind. Fancy +bothering about such trifles now! And they actually say he is not honest +and takes bribes. What nonsense! Besides, why shouldn't he take bribes? +That's the way he was brought up, and everybody does it. But what a +kind, pleasant face and how he smiles as he looks at me." + +Pierre went to Princess Mary's to dinner. + +As he drove through the streets past the houses that had been burned +down, he was surprised by the beauty of those ruins. The picturesqueness +of the chimney stacks and tumble-down walls of the burned-out quarters +of the town, stretching out and concealing one another, reminded him of +the Rhine and the Colosseum. The cabmen he met and their passengers, the +carpenters cutting the timber for new houses with axes, the women +hawkers, and the shopkeepers, all looked at him with cheerful beaming +eyes that seemed to say: "Ah, there he is! Let's see what will come of +it!" + +At the entrance to Princess Mary's house Pierre felt doubtful whether he +had really been there the night before and really seen Natasha and +talked to her. "Perhaps I imagined it; perhaps I shall go in and find no +one there." But he had hardly entered the room before he felt her +presence with his whole being by the loss of his sense of freedom. She +was in the same black dress with soft folds and her hair was done the +same way as the day before, yet she was quite different. Had she been +like this when he entered the day before he could not for a moment have +failed to recognize her. + +She was as he had known her almost as a child and later on as Prince +Andrew's fiancee. A bright questioning light shone in her eyes, and on +her face was a friendly and strangely roguish expression. + +Pierre dined with them and would have spent the whole evening there, but +Princess Mary was going to vespers and Pierre left the house with her. + +Next day he came early, dined, and stayed the whole evening. Though +Princess Mary and Natasha were evidently glad to see their visitor and +though all Pierre's interest was now centered in that house, by the +evening they had talked over everything and the conversation passed from +one trivial topic to another and repeatedly broke off. He stayed so long +that Princess Mary and Natasha exchanged glances, evidently wondering +when he would go. Pierre noticed this but could not go. He felt uneasy +and embarrassed, but sat on because he simply could not get up and take +his leave. + +Princess Mary, foreseeing no end to this, rose first, and complaining of +a headache began to say good night. + +"So you are going to Petersburg tomorrow?" she asked. + +"No, I am not going," Pierre replied hastily, in a surprised tone and as +though offended. "Yes... no... to Petersburg? Tomorrow--but I won't say +good-by yet. I will call round in case you have any commissions for me," +said he, standing before Princess Mary and turning red, but not taking +his departure. + +Natasha gave him her hand and went out. Princess Mary on the other hand +instead of going away sank into an armchair, and looked sternly and +intently at him with her deep, radiant eyes. The weariness she had +plainly shown before had now quite passed off. With a deep and long- +drawn sigh she seemed to be prepared for a lengthy talk. + +When Natasha left the room Pierre's confusion and awkwardness +immediately vanished and were replaced by eager excitement. He quickly +moved an armchair toward Princess Mary. + +"Yes, I wanted to tell you," said he, answering her look as if she had +spoken. "Princess, help me! What am I to do? Can I hope? Princess, my +dear friend, listen! I know it all. I know I am not worthy of her, I +know it's impossible to speak of it now. But I want to be a brother to +her. No, not that, I don't, I can't..." + +He paused and rubbed his face and eyes with his hands. + +"Well," he went on with an evident effort at self-control and coherence. +"I don't know when I began to love her, but I have loved her and her +alone all my life, and I love her so that I cannot imagine life without +her. I cannot propose to her at present, but the thought that perhaps +she might someday be my wife and that I may be missing that +possibility... that possibility... is terrible. Tell me, can I hope? +Tell me what I am to do, dear princess!" he added after a pause, and +touched her hand as she did not reply. + +"I am thinking of what you have told me," answered Princess Mary. "This +is what I will say. You are right that to speak to her of love at +present..." + +Princess Mary stopped. She was going to say that to speak of love was +impossible, but she stopped because she had seen by the sudden change in +Natasha two days before that she would not only not be hurt if Pierre +spoke of his love, but that it was the very thing she wished for. + +"To speak to her now wouldn't do," said the princess all the same. + +"But what am I to do?" + +"Leave it to me," said Princess Mary. "I know..." + +Pierre was looking into Princess Mary's eyes. + +"Well?... Well?..." he said. + +"I know that she loves... will love you," Princess Mary corrected +herself. + +Before her words were out, Pierre had sprung up and with a frightened +expression seized Princess Mary's hand. + +"What makes you think so? You think I may hope? You think...?" + +"Yes, I think so," said Princess Mary with a smile. "Write to her +parents, and leave it to me. I will tell her when I can. I wish it to +happen and my heart tells me it will." + +"No, it cannot be! How happy I am! But it can't be.... How happy I am! +No, it can't be!" Pierre kept saying as he kissed Princess Mary's hands. + +"Go to Petersburg, that will be best. And I will write to you," she +said. + +"To Petersburg? Go there? Very well, I'll go. But I may come again +tomorrow?" + +Next day Pierre came to say good-by. Natasha was less animated than she +had been the day before; but that day as he looked at her Pierre +sometimes felt as if he was vanishing and that neither he nor she +existed any longer, that nothing existed but happiness. "Is it possible? +No, it can't be," he told himself at every look, gesture, and word that +filled his soul with joy. + +When on saying good-by he took her thin, slender hand, he could not help +holding it a little longer in his own. + +"Is it possible that this hand, that face, those eyes, all this treasure +of feminine charm so strange to me now, is it possible that it will one +day be mine forever, as familiar to me as I am to myself?... No, that's +impossible!..." + +"Good-bye, Count," she said aloud. "I shall look forward very much to +your return," she added in a whisper. + +And these simple words, her look, and the expression on her face which +accompanied them, formed for two months the subject of inexhaustible +memories, interpretations, and happy meditations for Pierre. "'I shall +look forward very much to your return....' Yes, yes, how did she say it? +Yes, 'I shall look forward very much to your return.' Oh, how happy I +am! What is happening to me? How happy I am!" said Pierre to himself. + + + + +CHAPTER XIX + +There was nothing in Pierre's soul now at all like what had troubled it +during his courtship of Helene. + +He did not repeat to himself with a sickening feeling of shame the words +he had spoken, or say: "Oh, why did I not say that?" and, "Whatever made +me say 'Je vous aime'?" On the contrary, he now repeated in imagination +every word that he or Natasha had spoken and pictured every detail of +her face and smile, and did not wish to diminish or add anything, but +only to repeat it again and again. There was now not a shadow of doubt +in his mind as to whether what he had undertaken was right or wrong. +Only one terrible doubt sometimes crossed his mind: "Wasn't it all a +dream? Isn't Princess Mary mistaken? Am I not too conceited and self- +confident? I believe all this--and suddenly Princess Mary will tell her, +and she will be sure to smile and say: 'How strange! He must be deluding +himself. Doesn't he know that he is a man, just a man, while I...? I am +something altogether different and higher.'" + +That was the only doubt often troubling Pierre. He did not now make any +plans. The happiness before him appeared so inconceivable that if only +he could attain it, it would be the end of all things. Everything ended +with that. + +A joyful, unexpected frenzy, of which he had thought himself incapable, +possessed him. The whole meaning of life--not for him alone but for the +whole world--seemed to him centered in his love and the possibility of +being loved by her. At times everybody seemed to him to be occupied with +one thing only--his future happiness. Sometimes it seemed to him that +other people were all as pleased as he was himself and merely tried to +hide that pleasure by pretending to be busy with other interests. In +every word and gesture he saw allusions to his happiness. He often +surprised those he met by his significantly happy looks and smiles which +seemed to express a secret understanding between him and them. And when +he realized that people might not be aware of his happiness, he pitied +them with his whole heart and felt a desire somehow to explain to them +that all that occupied them was a mere frivolous trifle unworthy of +attention. + +When it was suggested to him that he should enter the civil service, or +when the war or any general political affairs were discussed on the +assumption that everybody's welfare depended on this or that issue of +events, he would listen with a mild and pitying smile and surprise +people by his strange comments. But at this time he saw everybody--both +those who, as he imagined, understood the real meaning of life (that is, +what he was feeling) and those unfortunates who evidently did not +understand it--in the bright light of the emotion that shone within +himself, and at once without any effort saw in everyone he met +everything that was good and worthy of being loved. + +When dealing with the affairs and papers of his dead wife, her memory +aroused in him no feeling but pity that she had not known the bliss he +now knew. Prince Vasili, who having obtained a new post and some fresh +decorations was particularly proud at this time, seemed to him a +pathetic, kindly old man much to be pitied. + +Often in afterlife Pierre recalled this period of blissful insanity. All +the views he formed of men and circumstances at this time remained true +for him always. He not only did not renounce them subsequently, but when +he was in doubt or inwardly at variance, he referred to the views he had +held at this time of his madness and they always proved correct. + +"I may have appeared strange and queer then," he thought, "but I was not +so mad as I seemed. On the contrary I was then wiser and had more +insight than at any other time, and understood all that is worth +understanding in life, because... because I was happy." + +Pierre's insanity consisted in not waiting, as he used to do, to +discover personal attributes which he termed "good qualities" in people +before loving them; his heart was now overflowing with love, and by +loving people without cause he discovered indubitable causes for loving +them. + + + + +CHAPTER XX + +After Pierre's departure that first evening, when Natasha had said to +Princess Mary with a gaily mocking smile: "He looks just, yes, just as +if he had come out of a Russian bath--in a short coat and with his hair +cropped," something hidden and unknown to herself, but irrepressible, +awoke in Natasha's soul. + +Everything: her face, walk, look, and voice, was suddenly altered. To +her own surprise a power of life and hope of happiness rose to the +surface and demanded satisfaction. From that evening she seemed to have +forgotten all that had happened to her. She no longer complained of her +position, did not say a word about the past, and no longer feared to +make happy plans for the future. She spoke little of Pierre, but when +Princess Mary mentioned him a long-extinguished light once more kindled +in her eyes and her lips curved with a strange smile. + + +The change that took place in Natasha at first surprised Princess Mary; +but when she understood its meaning it grieved her. "Can she have loved +my brother so little as to be able to forget him so soon?" she thought +when she reflected on the change. But when she was with Natasha she was +not vexed with her and did not reproach her. The reawakened power of +life that had seized Natasha was so evidently irrepressible and +unexpected by her that in her presence Princess Mary felt that she had +no right to reproach her even in her heart. + +Natasha gave herself up so fully and frankly to this new feeling that +she did not try to hide the fact that she was no longer sad, but bright +and cheerful. + +When Princess Mary returned to her room after her nocturnal talk with +Pierre, Natasha met her on the threshold. + +"He has spoken? Yes? He has spoken?" she repeated. + +And a joyful yet pathetic expression which seemed to beg forgiveness for +her joy settled on Natasha's face. + +"I wanted to listen at the door, but I knew you would tell me." + +Understandable and touching as the look with which Natasha gazed at her +seemed to Princess Mary, and sorry as she was to see her agitation, +these words pained her for a moment. She remembered her brother and his +love. + +"But what's to be done? She can't help it," thought the princess. + +And with a sad and rather stern look she told Natasha all that Pierre +had said. On hearing that he was going to Petersburg Natasha was +astounded. + +"To Petersburg!" she repeated as if unable to understand. + +But noticing the grieved expression on Princess Mary's face she guessed +the reason of that sadness and suddenly began to cry. + +"Mary," said she, "tell me what I should do! I am afraid of being bad. +Whatever you tell me, I will do. Tell me...." + +"You love him?" + +"Yes," whispered Natasha. + +"Then why are you crying? I am happy for your sake," said Princess Mary, +who because of those tears quite forgave Natasha's joy. + +"It won't be just yet--someday. Think what fun it will be when I am his +wife and you marry Nicholas!" + +"Natasha, I have asked you not to speak of that. Let us talk about you." + +They were silent awhile. + +"But why go to Petersburg?" Natasha suddenly asked, and hastily replied +to her own question. "But no, no, he must... Yes, Mary, He must...." + +FIRST EPILOGUE: 1813 - 20 + + + + +CHAPTER I + +Seven years had passed. The storm-tossed sea of European history had +subsided within its shores and seemed to have become calm. But the +mysterious forces that move humanity (mysterious because the laws of +their motion are unknown to us) continued to operate. + +Though the surface of the sea of history seemed motionless, the movement +of humanity went on as unceasingly as the flow of time. Various groups +of people formed and dissolved, the coming formation and dissolution of +kingdoms and displacement of peoples was in course of preparation. + +The sea of history was not driven spasmodically from shore to shore as +previously. It was seething in its depths. Historic figures were not +borne by the waves from one shore to another as before. They now seemed +to rotate on one spot. The historical figures at the head of armies, who +formerly reflected the movement of the masses by ordering wars, +campaigns, and battles, now reflected the restless movement by political +and diplomatic combinations, laws, and treaties. + +The historians call this activity of the historical figures "the +reaction." + +In dealing with this period they sternly condemn the historical +personages who, in their opinion, caused what they describe as the +reaction. All the well-known people of that period, from Alexander and +Napoleon to Madame de Stael, Photius, Schelling, Fichte, Chateaubriand, +and the rest, pass before their stern judgment seat and are acquitted or +condemned according to whether they conduced to progress or to reaction. + +According to their accounts a reaction took place at that time in Russia +also, and the chief culprit was Alexander I, the same man who according +to them was the chief cause of the liberal movement at the commencement +of his reign, being the savior of Russia. + +There is no one in Russian literature now, from schoolboy essayist to +learned historian, who does not throw his little stone at Alexander for +things he did wrong at this period of his reign. + +"He ought to have acted in this way and in that way. In this case he did +well and in that case badly. He behaved admirably at the beginning of +his reign and during 1812, but acted badly by giving a constitution to +Poland, forming the Holy Alliance, entrusting power to Arakcheev, +favoring Golitsyn and mysticism, and afterwards Shishkov and Photius. He +also acted badly by concerning himself with the active army and +disbanding the Semenov regiment." + +It would take a dozen pages to enumerate all the reproaches the +historians address to him, based on their knowledge of what is good for +humanity. + +What do these reproaches mean? + +Do not the very actions for which the historians praise Alexander I (the +liberal attempts at the beginning of his reign, his struggle with +Napoleon, the firmness he displayed in 1812 and the campaign of 1813) +flow from the same sources--the circumstances of his birth, education, +and life--that made his personality what it was and from which the +actions for which they blame him (the Holy Alliance, the restoration of +Poland, and the reaction of 1820 and later) also flowed? + +In what does the substance of those reproaches lie? + +It lies in the fact that an historic character like Alexander I, +standing on the highest possible pinnacle of human power with the +blinding light of history focused upon him; a character exposed to those +strongest of all influences: the intrigues, flattery, and self-deception +inseparable from power; a character who at every moment of his life felt +a responsibility for all that was happening in Europe; and not a +fictitious but a live character who like every man had his personal +habits, passions, and impulses toward goodness, beauty, and truth--that +this character--though not lacking in virtue (the historians do not +accuse him of that)--had not the same conception of the welfare of +humanity fifty years ago as a present-day professor who from his youth +upwards has been occupied with learning: that is, with books and +lectures and with taking notes from them. + +But even if we assume that fifty years ago Alexander I was mistaken in +his view of what was good for the people, we must inevitably assume that +the historian who judges Alexander will also after the lapse of some +time turn out to be mistaken in his view of what is good for humanity. +This assumption is all the more natural and inevitable because, watching +the movement of history, we see that every year and with each new +writer, opinion as to what is good for mankind changes; so that what +once seemed good, ten years later seems bad, and vice versa. And what is +more, we find at one and the same time quite contradictory views as to +what is bad and what is good in history: some people regard giving a +constitution to Poland and forming the Holy Alliance as praiseworthy in +Alexander, while others regard it as blameworthy. + +The activity of Alexander or of Napoleon cannot be called useful or +harmful, for it is impossible to say for what it was useful or harmful. +If that activity displeases somebody, this is only because it does not +agree with his limited understanding of what is good. Whether the +preservation of my father's house in Moscow, or the glory of the Russian +arms, or the prosperity of the Petersburg and other universities, or the +freedom of Poland or the greatness of Russia, or the balance of power in +Europe, or a certain kind of European culture called "progress" appear +to me to be good or bad, I must admit that besides these things the +action of every historic character has other more general purposes +inaccessible to me. + +But let us assume that what is called science can harmonize all +contradictions and possesses an unchanging standard of good and bad by +which to try historic characters and events; let us say that Alexander +could have done everything differently; let us say that with guidance +from those who blame him and who profess to know the ultimate aim of the +movement of humanity, he might have arranged matters according to the +program his present accusers would have given him--of nationality, +freedom, equality, and progress (these, I think, cover the ground). Let +us assume that this program was possible and had then been formulated, +and that Alexander had acted on it. What would then have become of the +activity of all those who opposed the tendency that then prevailed in +the government--an activity that in the opinion of the historians was +good and beneficent? Their activity would not have existed: there would +have been no life, there would have been nothing. + +If we admit that human life can be ruled by reason, the possibility of +life is destroyed. + + + + +CHAPTER II + +If we assume as the historians do that great men lead humanity to the +attainment of certain ends--the greatness of Russia or of France, the +balance of power in Europe, the diffusion of the ideas of the +Revolution, general progress, or anything else--then it is impossible to +explain the facts of history without introducing the conceptions of +chance and genius. + +If the aim of the European wars at the beginning of the nineteenth +century had been the aggrandizement of Russia, that aim might have been +accomplished without all the preceding wars and without the invasion. If +the aim was the aggrandizement of France, that might have been attained +without the Revolution and without the Empire. If the aim was the +dissemination of ideas, the printing press could have accomplished that +much better than warfare. If the aim was the progress of civilization, +it is easy to see that there are other ways of diffusing civilization +more expedient than by the destruction of wealth and of human lives. + +Why did it happen in this and not in some other way? + +Because it happened so! "Chance created the situation; genius utilized +it," says history. + +But what is chance? What is genius? + +The words chance and genius do not denote any really existing thing and +therefore cannot be defined. Those words only denote a certain stage of +understanding of phenomena. I do not know why a certain event occurs; I +think that I cannot know it; so I do not try to know it and I talk about +chance. I see a force producing effects beyond the scope of ordinary +human agencies; I do not understand why this occurs and I talk of +genius. + +To a herd of rams, the ram the herdsman drives each evening into a +special enclosure to feed and that becomes twice as fat as the others +must seem to be a genius. And it must appear an astonishing conjunction +of genius with a whole series of extraordinary chances that this ram, +who instead of getting into the general fold every evening goes into a +special enclosure where there are oats--that this very ram, swelling +with fat, is killed for meat. + +But the rams need only cease to suppose that all that happens to them +happens solely for the attainment of their sheepish aims; they need only +admit that what happens to them may also have purposes beyond their ken, +and they will at once perceive a unity and coherence in what happened to +the ram that was fattened. Even if they do not know for what purpose +they are fattened, they will at least know that all that happened to the +ram did not happen accidentally, and will no longer need the conceptions +of chance or genius. + +Only by renouncing our claim to discern a purpose immediately +intelligible to us, and admitting the ultimate purpose to be beyond our +ken, may we discern the sequence of experiences in the lives of historic +characters and perceive the cause of the effect they produce +(incommensurable with ordinary human capabilities), and then the words +chance and genius become superfluous. + +We need only confess that we do not know the purpose of the European +convulsions and that we know only the facts--that is, the murders, first +in France, then in Italy, in Africa, in Prussia, in Austria, in Spain, +and in Russia--and that the movements from the west to the east and from +the east to the west form the essence and purpose of these events, and +not only shall we have no need to see exceptional ability and genius in +Napoleon and Alexander, but we shall be unable to consider them to be +anything but like other men, and we shall not be obliged to have +recourse to chance for an explanation of those small events which made +these people what they were, but it will be clear that all those small +events were inevitable. + +By discarding a claim to knowledge of the ultimate purpose, we shall +clearly perceive that just as one cannot imagine a blossom or seed for +any single plant better suited to it than those it produces, so it is +impossible to imagine any two people more completely adapted down to the +smallest detail for the purpose they had to fulfill, than Napoleon and +Alexander with all their antecedents. + + + + +CHAPTER III + +The fundamental and essential significance of the European events of the +beginning of the nineteenth century lies in the movement of the mass of +the European peoples from west to east and afterwards from east to west. +The commencement of that movement was the movement from west to east. +For the peoples of the west to be able to make their warlike movement to +Moscow it was necessary: (1) that they should form themselves into a +military group of a size able to endure a collision with the warlike +military group of the east, (2) that they should abandon all established +traditions and customs, and (3) that during their military movement they +should have at their head a man who could justify to himself and to them +the deceptions, robberies, and murders which would have to be committed +during that movement. + +And beginning with the French Revolution the old inadequately large +group was destroyed, as well as the old habits and traditions, and step +by step a group was formed of larger dimensions with new customs and +traditions, and a man was produced who would stand at the head of the +coming movement and bear the responsibility for all that had to be done. + +A man without convictions, without habits, without traditions, without a +name, and not even a Frenchman, emerges--by what seem the strangest +chances--from among all the seething French parties, and without joining +any one of them is borne forward to a prominent position. + +The ignorance of his colleagues, the weakness and insignificance of his +opponents, the frankness of his falsehoods, and the dazzling and self- +confident limitations of this man raise him to the head of the army. The +brilliant qualities of the soldiers of the army sent to Italy, his +opponents' reluctance to fight, and his own childish audacity and self- +confidence secure him military fame. Innumerable so-called chances +accompany him everywhere. The disfavor into which he falls with the +rulers of France turns to his advantage. His attempts to avoid his +predestined path are unsuccessful: he is not received into the Russian +service, and the appointment he seeks in Turkey comes to nothing. During +the war in Italy he is several times on the verge of destruction and +each time is saved in an unexpected manner. Owing to various diplomatic +considerations the Russian armies--just those which might have destroyed +his prestige--do not appear upon the scene till he is no longer there. + +On his return from Italy he finds the government in Paris in a process +of dissolution in which all those who are in it are inevitably wiped out +and destroyed. And by chance an escape from this dangerous position +presents itself in the form of an aimless and senseless expedition to +Africa. Again so-called chance accompanies him. Impregnable Malta +surrenders without a shot; his most reckless schemes are crowned with +success. The enemy's fleet, which subsequently did not let a single boat +pass, allows his entire army to elude it. In Africa a whole series of +outrages are committed against the almost unarmed inhabitants. And the +men who commit these crimes, especially their leader, assure themselves +that this is admirable, this is glory--it resembles Caesar and Alexander +the Great and is therefore good. + +This ideal of glory and grandeur--which consists not merely in +considering nothing wrong that one does but in priding oneself on every +crime one commits, ascribing to it an incomprehensible supernatural +significance--that ideal, destined to guide this man and his associates, +had scope for its development in Africa. Whatever he does succeeds. The +plague does not touch him. The cruelty of murdering prisoners is not +imputed to him as a fault. His childishly rash, uncalled-for, and +ignoble departure from Africa, leaving his comrades in distress, is set +down to his credit, and again the enemy's fleet twice lets him slip +past. When, intoxicated by the crimes he has committed so successfully, +he reaches Paris, the dissolution of the republican government, which a +year earlier might have ruined him, has reached its extreme limit, and +his presence there now as a newcomer free from party entanglements can +only serve to exalt him--and though he himself has no plan, he is quite +ready for his new role. + +He had no plan, he was afraid of everything, but the parties snatched at +him and demanded his participation. + +He alone--with his ideal of glory and grandeur developed in Italy and +Egypt, his insane self-adulation, his boldness in crime and frankness in +lying--he alone could justify what had to be done. + +He is needed for the place that awaits him, and so almost apart from his +will and despite his indecision, his lack of a plan, and all his +mistakes, he is drawn into a conspiracy that aims at seizing power and +the conspiracy is crowned with success. + +He is pushed into a meeting of the legislature. In alarm he wishes to +flee, considering himself lost. He pretends to fall into a swoon and +says senseless things that should have ruined him. But the once proud +and shrewd rulers of France, feeling that their part is played out, are +even more bewildered than he, and do not say the words they should have +said to destroy him and retain their power. + +Chance, millions of chances, give him power, and all men as if by +agreement co-operate to confirm that power. Chance forms the characters +of the rulers of France, who submit to him; chance forms the character +of Paul I of Russia who recognizes his government; chance contrives a +plot against him which not only fails to harm him but confirms his +power. Chance puts the Duc d'Enghien in his hands and unexpectedly +causes him to kill him--thereby convincing the mob more forcibly than in +any other way that he had the right, since he had the might. Chance +contrives that though he directs all his efforts to prepare an +expedition against England (which would inevitably have ruined him) he +never carries out that intention, but unexpectedly falls upon Mack and +the Austrians, who surrender without a battle. Chance and genius give +him the victory at Austerlitz; and by chance all men, not only the +French but all Europe--except England which does not take part in the +events about to happen--despite their former horror and detestation of +his crimes, now recognize his authority, the title he has given himself, +and his ideal of grandeur and glory, which seems excellent and +reasonable to them all. + +As if measuring themselves and preparing for the coming movement, the +western forces push toward the east several times in 1805, 1806, 1807, +and 1809, gaining strength and growing. In 1811 the group of people that +had formed in France unites into one group with the peoples of Central +Europe. The strength of the justification of the man who stands at the +head of the movement grows with the increased size of the group. During +the ten-year preparatory period this man had formed relations with all +the crowned heads of Europe. The discredited rulers of the world can +oppose no reasonable ideal to the insensate Napoleonic ideal of glory +and grandeur. One after another they hasten to display their +insignificance before him. The King of Prussia sends his wife to seek +the great man's mercy; the Emperor of Austria considers it a favor that +this man receives a daughter of the Caesars into his bed; the Pope, the +guardian of all that the nations hold sacred, utilizes religion for the +aggrandizement of the great man. It is not Napoleon who prepares himself +for the accomplishment of his role, so much as all those round him who +prepare him to take on himself the whole responsibility for what is +happening and has to happen. There is no step, no crime or petty fraud +he commits, which in the mouths of those around him is not at once +represented as a great deed. The most suitable fete the Germans can +devise for him is a celebration of Jena and Auerstadt. Not only is he +great, but so are his ancestors, his brothers, his stepsons, and his +brothers-in-law. Everything is done to deprive him of the remains of his +reason and to prepare him for his terrible part. And when he is ready so +too are the forces. + +The invasion pushes eastward and reaches its final goal--Moscow. That +city is taken; the Russian army suffers heavier losses than the opposing +armies had suffered in the former war from Austerlitz to Wagram. But +suddenly instead of those chances and that genius which hitherto had so +consistently led him by an uninterrupted series of successes to the +predestined goal, an innumerable sequence of inverse chances occur--from +the cold in his head at Borodino to the sparks which set Moscow on fire, +and the frosts--and instead of genius, stupidity and immeasurable +baseness become evident. + +The invaders flee, turn back, flee again, and all the chances are now +not for Napoleon but always against him. + +A countermovement is then accomplished from east to west with a +remarkable resemblance to the preceding movement from west to east. +Attempted drives from east to west--similar to the contrary movements of +1805, 1807, and 1809--precede the great westward movement; there is the +same coalescence into a group of enormous dimensions; the same adhesion +of the people of Central Europe to the movement; the same hesitation +midway, and the same increasing rapidity as the goal is approached. + +Paris, the ultimate goal, is reached. The Napoleonic government and army +are destroyed. Napoleon himself is no longer of any account; all his +actions are evidently pitiful and mean, but again an inexplicable chance +occurs. The allies detest Napoleon whom they regard as the cause of +their sufferings. Deprived of power and authority, his crimes and his +craft exposed, he should have appeared to them what he appeared ten +years previously and one year later--an outlawed brigand. But by some +strange chance no one perceives this. His part is not yet ended. The man +who ten years before and a year later was considered an outlawed brigand +is sent to an island two days' sail from France, which for some reason +is presented to him as his dominion, and guards are given to him and +millions of money are paid him. + + + + +CHAPTER IV + +The flood of nations begins to subside into its normal channels. The +waves of the great movement abate, and on the calm surface eddies are +formed in which float the diplomatists, who imagine that they have +caused the floods to abate. + +But the smooth sea again suddenly becomes disturbed. The diplomatists +think that their disagreements are the cause of this fresh pressure of +natural forces; they anticipate war between their sovereigns; the +position seems to them insoluble. But the wave they feel to be rising +does not come from the quarter they expect. It rises again from the same +point as before--Paris. The last backwash of the movement from the west +occurs: a backwash which serves to solve the apparently insuperable +diplomatic difficulties and ends the military movement of that period of +history. + +The man who had devastated France returns to France alone, without any +conspiracy and without soldiers. Any guard might arrest him, but by +strange chance no one does so and all rapturously greet the man they +cursed the day before and will curse again a month later. + +This man is still needed to justify the final collective act. + +That act is performed. + +The last role is played. The actor is bidden to disrobe and wash off his +powder and paint: he will not be wanted any more. + +And some years pass during which he plays a pitiful comedy to himself in +solitude on his island, justifying his actions by intrigues and lies +when the justification is no longer needed, and displaying to the whole +world what it was that people had mistaken for strength as long as an +unseen hand directed his actions. + +The manager having brought the drama to a close and stripped the actor +shows him to us. + +"See what you believed in! This is he! Do you now see that it was not he +but I who moved you?" + +But dazed by the force of the movement, it was long before people +understood this. + +Still greater coherence and inevitability is seen in the life of +Alexander I, the man who stood at the head of the countermovement from +east to west. + +What was needed for him who, overshadowing others, stood at the head of +that movement from east to west? + +What was needed was a sense of justice and a sympathy with European +affairs, but a remote sympathy not dulled by petty interests; a moral +superiority over those sovereigns of the day who co-operated with him; a +mild and attractive personality; and a personal grievance against +Napoleon. And all this was found in Alexander I; all this had been +prepared by innumerable so-called chances in his life: his education, +his early liberalism, the advisers who surrounded him, and by +Austerlitz, and Tilsit, and Erfurt. + +During the national war he was inactive because he was not needed. But +as soon as the necessity for a general European war presented itself he +appeared in his place at the given moment and, uniting the nations of +Europe, led them to the goal. + +The goal is reached. After the final war of 1815 Alexander possesses all +possible power. How does he use it? + +Alexander I--the pacifier of Europe, the man who from his early years +had striven only for his people's welfare, the originator of the liberal +innovations in his fatherland--now that he seemed to possess the utmost +power and therefore to have the possibility of bringing about the +welfare of his peoples--at the time when Napoleon in exile was drawing +up childish and mendacious plans of how he would have made mankind happy +had he retained power--Alexander I, having fulfilled his mission and +feeling the hand of God upon him, suddenly recognizes the insignificance +of that supposed power, turns away from it, and gives it into the hands +of contemptible men whom he despises, saying only: + +"Not unto us, not unto us, but unto Thy Name!... I too am a man like the +rest of you. Let me live like a man and think of my soul and of God." + +As the sun and each atom of ether is a sphere complete in itself, and +yet at the same time only a part of a whole too immense for man to +comprehend, so each individual has within himself his own aims and yet +has them to serve a general purpose incomprehensible to man. + +A bee settling on a flower has stung a child. And the child is afraid of +bees and declares that bees exist to sting people. A poet admires the +bee sucking from the chalice of a flower and says it exists to suck the +fragrance of flowers. A beekeeper, seeing the bee collect pollen from +flowers and carry it to the hive, says that it exists to gather honey. +Another beekeeper who has studied the life of the hive more closely says +that the bee gathers pollen dust to feed the young bees and rear a +queen, and that it exists to perpetuate its race. A botanist notices +that the bee flying with the pollen of a male flower to a pistil +fertilizes the latter, and sees in this the purpose of the bee's +existence. Another, observing the migration of plants, notices that the +bee helps in this work, and may say that in this lies the purpose of the +bee. But the ultimate purpose of the bee is not exhausted by the first, +the second, or any of the processes the human mind can discern. The +higher the human intellect rises in the discovery of these purposes, the +more obvious it becomes, that the ultimate purpose is beyond our +comprehension. + +All that is accessible to man is the relation of the life of the bee to +other manifestations of life. And so it is with the purpose of historic +characters and nations. + + + + +CHAPTER V + +Natasha's wedding to Bezukhov, which took place in 1813, was the last +happy event in the family of the old Rostovs. Count Ilya Rostov died +that same year and, as always happens, after the father's death the +family group broke up. + +The events of the previous year: the burning of Moscow and the flight +from it, the death of Prince Andrew, Natasha's despair, Petya's death, +and the old countess' grief fell blow after blow on the old count's +head. He seemed to be unable to understand the meaning of all these +events, and bowed his old head in a spiritual sense as if expecting and +inviting further blows which would finish him. He seemed now frightened +and distraught and now unnaturally animated and enterprising. + +The arrangements for Natasha's marriage occupied him for a while. He +ordered dinners and suppers and obviously tried to appear cheerful, but +his cheerfulness was not infectious as it used to be: on the contrary it +evoked the compassion of those who knew and liked him. + +When Pierre and his wife had left, he grew very quiet and began to +complain of depression. A few days later he fell ill and took to his +bed. He realized from the first that he would not get up again, despite +the doctor's encouragement. The countess passed a fortnight in an +armchair by his pillow without undressing. Every time she gave him his +medicine he sobbed and silently kissed her hand. On his last day, +sobbing, he asked her and his absent son to forgive him for having +dissipated their property--that being the chief fault of which he was +conscious. After receiving communion and unction he quietly died; and +next day a throng of acquaintances who came to pay their last respects +to the deceased filled the house rented by the Rostovs. All these +acquaintances, who had so often dined and danced at his house and had so +often laughed at him, now said, with a common feeling of self-reproach +and emotion, as if justifying themselves: "Well, whatever he may have +been he was a most worthy man. You don't meet such men nowadays.... And +which of us has not weaknesses of his own?" + +It was just when the count's affairs had become so involved that it was +impossible to say what would happen if he lived another year that he +unexpectedly died. + +Nicholas was with the Russian army in Paris when the news of his +father's death reached him. He at once resigned his commission, and +without waiting for it to be accepted took leave of absence and went to +Moscow. The state of the count's affairs became quite obvious a month +after his death, surprising everyone by the immense total of small debts +the existence of which no one had suspected. The debts amounted to +double the value of the property. + +Friends and relations advised Nicholas to decline the inheritance. But +he regarded such a refusal as a slur on his father's memory, which he +held sacred, and therefore would not hear of refusing and accepted the +inheritance together with the obligation to pay the debts. + +The creditors who had so long been silent, restrained by a vague but +powerful influence exerted on them while he lived by the count's +careless good nature, all proceeded to enforce their claims at once. As +always happens in such cases rivalry sprang up as to which should get +paid first, and those who like Mitenka held promissory notes given them +as presents now became the most exacting of the creditors. Nicholas was +allowed no respite and no peace, and those who had seemed to pity the +old man--the cause of their losses (if they were losses)--now +remorselessly pursued the young heir who had voluntarily undertaken the +debts and was obviously not guilty of contracting them. + +Not one of the plans Nicholas tried succeeded; the estate was sold by +auction for half its value, and half the debts still remained unpaid. +Nicholas accepted thirty thousand rubles offered him by his brother-in- +law Bezukhov to pay off debts he regarded as genuinely due for value +received. And to avoid being imprisoned for the remainder, as the +creditors threatened, he re-entered the government service. + +He could not rejoin the army where he would have been made colonel at +the next vacancy, for his mother now clung to him as her one hold on +life; and so despite his reluctance to remain in Moscow among people who +had known him before, and despite his abhorrence of the civil service, +he accepted a post in Moscow in that service, doffed the uniform of +which he was so fond, and moved with his mother and Sonya to a small +house on the Sivtsev Vrazhek. + +Natasha and Pierre were living in Petersburg at the time and had no +clear idea of Nicholas' circumstances. Having borrowed money from his +brother-in-law, Nicholas tried to hide his wretched condition from him. +His position was the more difficult because with his salary of twelve +hundred rubles he had not only to keep himself, his mother, and Sonya, +but had to shield his mother from knowledge of their poverty. The +countess could not conceive of life without the luxurious conditions she +had been used to from childhood and, unable to realize how hard it was +for her son, kept demanding now a carriage (which they did not keep) to +send for a friend, now some expensive article of food for herself, or +wine for her son, or money to buy a present as a surprise for Natasha or +Sonya, or for Nicholas himself. + +Sonya kept house, attended on her aunt, read to her, put up with her +whims and secret ill-will, and helped Nicholas to conceal their poverty +from the old countess. Nicholas felt himself irredeemably indebted to +Sonya for all she was doing for his mother and greatly admired her +patience and devotion, but tried to keep aloof from her. + +He seemed in his heart to reproach her for being too perfect, and +because there was nothing to reproach her with. She had all that people +are valued for, but little that could have made him love her. He felt +that the more he valued her the less he loved her. He had taken her at +her word when she wrote giving him his freedom and now behaved as if all +that had passed between them had been long forgotten and could never in +any case be renewed. + +Nicholas' position became worse and worse. The idea of putting something +aside out of his salary proved a dream. Not only did he not save +anything, but to comply with his mother's demands he even incurred some +small debts. He could see no way out of this situation. The idea of +marrying some rich woman, which was suggested to him by his female +relations, was repugnant to him. The other way out--his mother's death-- +never entered his head. He wished for nothing and hoped for nothing, and +deep in his heart experienced a gloomy and stern satisfaction in an +uncomplaining endurance of his position. He tried to avoid his old +acquaintances with their commiseration and offensive offers of +assistance; he avoided all distraction and recreation, and even at home +did nothing but play cards with his mother, pace silently up and down +the room, and smoke one pipe after another. He seemed carefully to +cherish within himself the gloomy mood which alone enabled him to endure +his position. + + + + +CHAPTER VI + +At the beginning of winter Princess Mary came to Moscow. From reports +current in town she learned how the Rostovs were situated, and how "the +son has sacrificed himself for his mother," as people were saying. + +"I never expected anything else of him," said Princess Mary to herself, +feeling a joyous sense of her love for him. Remembering her friendly +relations with all the Rostovs which had made her almost a member of the +family, she thought it her duty to go to see them. But remembering her +relations with Nicholas in Voronezh she was shy about doing so. Making a +great effort she did however go to call on them a few weeks after her +arrival in Moscow. + +Nicholas was the first to meet her, as the countess' room could only be +reached through his. But instead of being greeted with pleasure as she +had expected, at his first glance at her his face assumed a cold, stiff, +proud expression she had not seen on it before. He inquired about her +health, led the way to his mother, and having sat there for five minutes +left the room. + +When the princess came out of the countess' room Nicholas met her again, +and with marked solemnity and stiffness accompanied her to the anteroom. +To her remarks about his mother's health he made no reply. "What's that +to you? Leave me in peace," his looks seemed to say. + +"Why does she come prowling here? What does she want? I can't bear these +ladies and all these civilities!" said he aloud in Sonya's presence, +evidently unable to repress his vexation, after the princess' carriage +had disappeared. + +"Oh, Nicholas, how can you talk like that?" cried Sonya, hardly able to +conceal her delight. "She is so kind and Mamma is so fond of her!" + +Nicholas did not reply and tried to avoid speaking of the princess any +more. But after her visit the old countess spoke of her several times a +day. + +She sang her praises, insisted that her son must call on her, expressed +a wish to see her often, but yet always became ill-humored when she +began to talk about her. + +Nicholas tried to keep silence when his mother spoke of the princess, +but his silence irritated her. + +"She is a very admirable and excellent young woman," said she, "and you +must go and call on her. You would at least be seeing somebody, and I +think it must be dull for you only seeing us." + +"But I don't in the least want to, Mamma." + +"You used to want to, and now you don't. Really I don't understand you, +my dear. One day you are dull, and the next you refuse to see anyone." + +"But I never said I was dull." + +"Why, you said yourself you don't want even to see her. She is a very +admirable young woman and you always liked her, but now suddenly you +have got some notion or other in your head. You hide everything from +me." + +"Not at all, Mamma." + +"If I were asking you to do something disagreeable now--but I only ask +you to return a call. One would think mere politeness required it.... +Well, I have asked you, and now I won't interfere any more since you +have secrets from your mother." + +"Well, then, I'll go if you wish it." + +"It doesn't matter to me. I only wish it for your sake." + +Nicholas sighed, bit his mustache, and laid out the cards for a +patience, trying to divert his mother's attention to another topic. + +The same conversation was repeated next day and the day after, and the +day after that. + +After her visit to the Rostovs and her unexpectedly chilly reception by +Nicholas, Princess Mary confessed to herself that she had been right in +not wishing to be the first to call. + +"I expected nothing else," she told herself, calling her pride to her +aid. "I have nothing to do with him and I only wanted to see the old +lady, who was always kind to me and to whom I am under many +obligations." + +But she could not pacify herself with these reflections; a feeling akin +to remorse troubled her when she thought of her visit. Though she had +firmly resolved not to call on the Rostovs again and to forget the whole +matter, she felt herself all the time in an awkward position. And when +she asked herself what distressed her, she had to admit that it was her +relation to Rostov. His cold, polite manner did not express his feeling +for her (she knew that) but it concealed something, and until she could +discover what that something was, she felt that she could not be at +ease. + +One day in midwinter when sitting in the schoolroom attending to her +nephew's lessons, she was informed that Rostov had called. With a firm +resolution not to betray herself and not show her agitation, she sent +for Mademoiselle Bourienne and went with her to the drawing room. + +Her first glance at Nicholas' face told her that he had only come to +fulfill the demands of politeness, and she firmly resolved to maintain +the tone in which he addressed her. + +They spoke of the countess' health, of their mutual friends, of the +latest war news, and when the ten minutes required by propriety had +elapsed after which a visitor may rise, Nicholas got up to say good-by. + +With Mademoiselle Bourienne's help the princess had maintained the +conversation very well, but at the very last moment, just when he rose, +she was so tired of talking of what did not interest her, and her mind +was so full of the question why she alone was granted so little +happiness in life, that in a fit of absent-mindedness she sat still, her +luminous eyes gazing fixedly before her, not noticing that he had risen. + +Nicholas glanced at her and, wishing to appear not to notice her +abstraction, made some remark to Mademoiselle Bourienne and then again +looked at the princess. She still sat motionless with a look of +suffering on her gentle face. He suddenly felt sorry for her and was +vaguely conscious that he might be the cause of the sadness her face +expressed. He wished to help her and say something pleasant, but could +think of nothing to say. + +"Good-bye, Princess!" said he. + +She started, flushed, and sighed deeply. + +"Oh, I beg your pardon," she said as if waking up. "Are you going +already, Count? Well then, good-by! Oh, but the cushion for the +countess!" + +"Wait a moment, I'll fetch it," said Mademoiselle Bourienne, and she +left the room. + +They both sat silent, with an occasional glance at one another. + +"Yes, Princess," said Nicholas at last with a sad smile, "it doesn't +seem long ago since we first met at Bogucharovo, but how much water has +flowed since then! In what distress we all seemed to be then, yet I +would give much to bring back that time... but there's no bringing it +back." + +Princess Mary gazed intently into his eyes with her own luminous ones as +he said this. She seemed to be trying to fathom the hidden meaning of +his words which would explain his feeling for her. + +"Yes, yes," said she, "but you have no reason to regret the past, Count. +As I understand your present life, I think you will always recall it +with satisfaction, because the self-sacrifice that fills it now..." + +"I cannot accept your praise," he interrupted her hurriedly. "On the +contrary I continually reproach myself.... But this is not at all an +interesting or cheerful subject." + +His face again resumed its former stiff and cold expression. But the +princess had caught a glimpse of the man she had known and loved, and it +was to him that she now spoke. + +"I thought you would allow me to tell you this," she said. "I had come +so near to you... and to all your family that I thought you would not +consider my sympathy misplaced, but I was mistaken," and suddenly her +voice trembled. "I don't know why," she continued, recovering herself, +"but you used to be different, and..." + +"There are a thousand reasons why," laying special emphasis on the why. +"Thank you, Princess," he added softly. "Sometimes it is hard." + +"So that's why! That's why!" a voice whispered in Princess Mary's soul. +"No, it was not only that gay, kind, and frank look, not only that +handsome exterior, that I loved in him. I divined his noble, resolute, +self-sacrificing spirit too," she said to herself. "Yes, he is poor now +and I am rich.... Yes, that's the only reason.... Yes, were it not for +that..." And remembering his former tenderness, and looking now at his +kind, sorrowful face, she suddenly understood the cause of his coldness. + +"But why, Count, why?" she almost cried, unconsciously moving closer to +him. "Why? Tell me. You must tell me!" + +He was silent. + +"I don't understand your why, Count," she continued, "but it's hard for +me... I confess it. For some reason you wish to deprive me of our former +friendship. And that hurts me." There were tears in her eyes and in her +voice. "I have had so little happiness in life that every loss is hard +for me to bear.... Excuse me, good-by!" and suddenly she began to cry +and was hurrying from the room. + +"Princess, for God's sake!" he exclaimed, trying to stop her. +"Princess!" + +She turned round. For a few seconds they gazed silently into one +another's eyes--and what had seemed impossible and remote suddenly +became possible, inevitable, and very near. + + + + +CHAPTER VII + +In the winter of 1813 Nicholas married Princess Mary and moved to Bald +Hills with his wife, his mother, and Sonya. + +Within four years he had paid off all his remaining debts without +selling any of his wife's property, and having received a small +inheritance on the death of a cousin he paid his debt to Pierre as well. + +In another three years, by 1820, he had so managed his affairs that he +was able to buy a small estate adjoining Bald Hills and was negotiating +to buy back Otradnoe--that being his pet dream. + +Having started farming from necessity, he soon grew so devoted to it +that it became his favorite and almost his sole occupation. Nicholas was +a plain farmer: he did not like innovations, especially the English ones +then coming into vogue. He laughed at theoretical treatises on estate +management, disliked factories, the raising of expensive products, and +the buying of expensive seed corn, and did not make a hobby of any +particular part of the work on his estate. He always had before his +mind's eye the estate as a whole and not any particular part of it. The +chief thing in his eyes was not the nitrogen in the soil, nor the oxygen +in the air, nor manures, nor special plows, but that most important +agent by which nitrogen, oxygen, manure, and plow were made effective-- +the peasant laborer. When Nicholas first began farming and began to +understand its different branches, it was the serf who especially +attracted his attention. The peasant seemed to him not merely a tool, +but also a judge of farming and an end in himself. At first he watched +the serfs, trying to understand their aims and what they considered good +and bad, and only pretended to direct them and give orders while in +reality learning from them their methods, their manner of speech, and +their judgment of what was good and bad. Only when he had understood the +peasants' tastes and aspirations, had learned to talk their language, to +grasp the hidden meaning of their words, and felt akin to them did he +begin boldly to manage his serfs, that is, to perform toward them the +duties demanded of him. And Nicholas' management produced very brilliant +results. + +Guided by some gift of insight, on taking up the management of the +estates he at once unerringly appointed as bailiff, village elder, and +delegate, the very men the serfs would themselves have chosen had they +had the right to choose, and these posts never changed hands. Before +analyzing the properties of manure, before entering into the debit and +credit (as he ironically called it), he found out how many cattle the +peasants had and increased the number by all possible means. He kept the +peasant families together in the largest groups possible, not allowing +the family groups to divide into separate households. He was hard alike +on the lazy, the depraved, and the weak, and tried to get them expelled +from the commune. + +He was as careful of the sowing and reaping of the peasants' hay and +corn as of his own, and few landowners had their crops sown and +harvested so early and so well, or got so good a return, as did +Nicholas. + +He disliked having anything to do with the domestic serfs--the "drones" +as he called them--and everyone said he spoiled them by his laxity. When +a decision had to be taken regarding a domestic serf, especially if one +had to be punished, he always felt undecided and consulted everybody in +the house; but when it was possible to have a domestic serf conscripted +instead of a land worker he did so without the least hesitation. He +never felt any hesitation in dealing with the peasants. He knew that his +every decision would be approved by them all with very few exceptions. + +He did not allow himself either to be hard on or punish a man, or to +make things easy for or reward anyone, merely because he felt inclined +to do so. He could not have said by what standard he judged what he +should or should not do, but the standard was quite firm and definite in +his own mind. + +Often, speaking with vexation of some failure or irregularity, he would +say: "What can one do with our Russian peasants?" and imagined that he +could not bear them. + +Yet he loved "our Russian peasants" and their way of life with his whole +soul, and for that very reason had understood and assimilated the one +way and manner of farming which produced good results. + +Countess Mary was jealous of this passion of her husband's and regretted +that she could not share it; but she could not understand the joys and +vexations he derived from that world, to her so remote and alien. She +could not understand why he was so particularly animated and happy when, +after getting up at daybreak and spending the whole morning in the +fields or on the threshing floor, he returned from the sowing or mowing +or reaping to have tea with her. She did not understand why he spoke +with such admiration and delight of the farming of the thrifty and well- +to-do peasant Matthew Ermishin, who with his family had carted corn all +night; or of the fact that his (Nicholas') sheaves were already stacked +before anyone else had his harvest in. She did not understand why he +stepped out from the window to the veranda and smiled under his mustache +and winked so joyfully, when warm steady rain began to fall on the dry +and thirsty shoots of the young oats, or why when the wind carried away +a threatening cloud during the hay harvest he would return from the +barn, flushed, sunburned, and perspiring, with a smell of wormwood and +gentian in his hair and, gleefully rubbing his hands, would say: "Well, +one more day and my grain and the peasants' will all be under cover." + +Still less did she understand why he, kindhearted and always ready to +anticipate her wishes, should become almost desperate when she brought +him a petition from some peasant men or women who had appealed to her to +be excused some work; why he, that kind Nicholas, should obstinately +refuse her, angrily asking her not to interfere in what was not her +business. She felt he had a world apart, which he loved passionately and +which had laws she had not fathomed. + +Sometimes when, trying to understand him, she spoke of the good work he +was doing for his serfs, he would be vexed and reply: "Not in the least; +it never entered my head and I wouldn't do that for their good! That's +all poetry and old wives' talk--all that doing good to one's neighbor! +What I want is that our children should not have to go begging. I must +put our affairs in order while I am alive, that's all. And to do that, +order and strictness are essential.... That's all about it!" said he, +clenching his vigorous fist. "And fairness, of course," he added, "for +if the peasant is naked and hungry and has only one miserable horse, he +can do no good either for himself or for me." + +And all Nicholas did was fruitful--probably just because he refused to +allow himself to think that he was doing good to others for virtue's +sake. His means increased rapidly; serfs from neighboring estates came +to beg him to buy them, and long after his death the memory of his +administration was devoutly preserved among the serfs. "He was a +master... the peasants' affairs first and then his own. Of course he was +not to be trifled with either--in a word, he was a real master!" + + + + +CHAPTER VIII + +One matter connected with his management sometimes worried Nicholas, and +that was his quick temper together with his old hussar habit of making +free use of his fists. At first he saw nothing reprehensible in this, +but in the second year of his marriage his view of that form of +punishment suddenly changed. + +Once in summer he had sent for the village elder from Bogucharovo, a man +who had succeeded to the post when Dron died and who was accused of +dishonesty and various irregularities. Nicholas went out into the porch +to question him, and immediately after the elder had given a few replies +the sound of cries and blows were heard. On returning to lunch Nicholas +went up to his wife, who sat with her head bent low over her embroidery +frame, and as usual began to tell her what he had been doing that +morning. Among other things he spoke of the Bogucharovo elder. Countess +Mary turned red and then pale, but continued to sit with head bowed and +lips compressed and gave her husband no reply. + +"Such an insolent scoundrel!" he cried, growing hot again at the mere +recollection of him. "If he had told me he was drunk and did not see... +But what is the matter with you, Mary?" he suddenly asked. + +Countess Mary raised her head and tried to speak, but hastily looked +down again and her lips puckered. + +"Why, whatever is the matter, my dearest?" + +The looks of the plain Countess Mary always improved when she was in +tears. She never cried from pain or vexation, but always from sorrow or +pity, and when she wept her radiant eyes acquired an irresistible charm. + +The moment Nicholas took her hand she could no longer restrain herself +and began to cry. + +"Nicholas, I saw it... he was to blame, but why do you... Nicholas!" and +she covered her face with her hands. + +Nicholas said nothing. He flushed crimson, left her side, and paced up +and down the room. He understood what she was weeping about, but could +not in his heart at once agree with her that what he had regarded from +childhood as quite an everyday event was wrong. "Is it just +sentimentality, old wives' tales, or is she right?" he asked himself. +Before he had solved that point he glanced again at her face filled with +love and pain, and he suddenly realized that she was right and that he +had long been sinning against himself. + +"Mary," he said softly, going up to her, "it will never happen again; I +give you my word. Never," he repeated in a trembling voice like a boy +asking for forgiveness. + +The tears flowed faster still from the countess' eyes. She took his hand +and kissed it. + +"Nicholas, when did you break your cameo?" she asked to change the +subject, looking at his finger on which he wore a ring with a cameo of +Laocoon's head. + +"Today--it was the same affair. Oh, Mary, don't remind me of it!" and +again he flushed. "I give you my word of honor it shan't occur again, +and let this always be a reminder to me," and he pointed to the broken +ring. + +After that, when in discussions with his village elders or stewards the +blood rushed to his face and his fists began to clench, Nicholas would +turn the broken ring on his finger and would drop his eyes before the +man who was making him angry. But he did forget himself once or twice +within a twelvemonth, and then he would go and confess to his wife, and +would again promise that this should really be the very last time. + +"Mary, you must despise me!" he would say. "I deserve it." + +"You should go, go away at once, if you don't feel strong enough to +control yourself," she would reply sadly, trying to comfort her husband. + +Among the gentry of the province Nicholas was respected but not liked. +He did not concern himself with the interests of his own class, and +consequently some thought him proud and others thought him stupid. The +whole summer, from spring sowing to harvest, he was busy with the work +on his farm. In autumn he gave himself up to hunting with the same +business-like seriousness--leaving home for a month, or even two, with +his hunt. In winter he visited his other villages or spent his time +reading. The books he read were chiefly historical, and on these he +spent a certain sum every year. He was collecting, as he said, a serious +library, and he made it a rule to read through all the books he bought. +He would sit in his study with a grave air, reading--a task he first +imposed upon himself as a duty, but which afterwards became a habit +affording him a special kind of pleasure and a consciousness of being +occupied with serious matters. In winter, except for business +excursions, he spent most of his time at home making himself one with +his family and entering into all the details of his children's relations +with their mother. The harmony between him and his wife grew closer and +closer and he daily discovered fresh spiritual treasures in her. + +From the time of his marriage Sonya had lived in his house. Before that, +Nicholas had told his wife all that had passed between himself and +Sonya, blaming himself and commending her. He had asked Princess Mary to +be gentle and kind to his cousin. She thoroughly realized the wrong he +had done Sonya, felt herself to blame toward her, and imagined that her +wealth had influenced Nicholas' choice. She could not find fault with +Sonya in any way and tried to be fond of her, but often felt ill-will +toward her which she could not overcome. + +Once she had a talk with her friend Natasha about Sonya and about her +own injustice toward her. + +"You know," said Natasha, "you have read the Gospels a great deal--there +is a passage in them that just fits Sonya." + +"What?" asked Countess Mary, surprised. + +"'To him that hath shall be given, and from him that hath not shall be +taken away.' You remember? She is one that hath not; why, I don't know. +Perhaps she lacks egotism, I don't know, but from her is taken away, and +everything has been taken away. Sometimes I am dreadfully sorry for her. +Formerly I very much wanted Nicholas to marry her, but I always had a +sort of presentiment that it would not come off. She is a sterile +flower, you know--like some strawberry blossoms. Sometimes I am sorry +for her, and sometimes I think she doesn't feel it as you or I would." + +Though Countess Mary told Natasha that those words in the Gospel must be +understood differently, yet looking at Sonya she agreed with Natasha's +explanation. It really seemed that Sonya did not feel her position +trying, and had grown quite reconciled to her lot as a sterile flower. +She seemed to be fond not so much of individuals as of the family as a +whole. Like a cat, she had attached herself not to the people but to the +home. She waited on the old countess, petted and spoiled the children, +was always ready to render the small services for which she had a gift, +and all this was unconsciously accepted from her with insufficient +gratitude. + +The country seat at Bald Hills had been rebuilt, though not on the same +scale as under the old prince. + +The buildings, begun under straitened circumstances, were more than +simple. The immense house on the old stone foundations was of wood, +plastered only inside. It had bare deal floors and was furnished with +very simple hard sofas, armchairs, tables, and chairs made by their own +serf carpenters out of their own birchwood. The house was spacious and +had rooms for the house serfs and apartments for visitors. Whole +families of the Rostovs' and Bolkonskis' relations sometimes came to +Bald Hills with sixteen horses and dozens of servants and stayed for +months. Besides that, four times a year, on the name days and birthdays +of the hosts, as many as a hundred visitors would gather there for a day +or two. The rest of the year life pursued its unbroken routine with its +ordinary occupations, and its breakfasts, lunches, dinners, and suppers, +provided out of the produce of the estate. + + + + +CHAPTER IX + +It was the eve of St. Nicholas, the fifth of December, 1820. Natasha had +been staying at her brother's with her husband and children since early +autumn. Pierre had gone to Petersburg on business of his own for three +weeks as he said, but had remained there nearly seven weeks and was +expected back every minute. + +Besides the Bezukhov family, Nicholas' old friend the retired General +Vasili Dmitrich Denisov was staying with the Rostovs this fifth of +December. + +On the sixth, which was his name day when the house would be full of +visitors, Nicholas knew he would have to exchange his Tartar tunic for a +tail coat, and put on narrow boots with pointed toes, and drive to the +new church he had built, and then receive visitors who would come to +congratulate him, offer them refreshments, and talk about the elections +of the nobility; but he considered himself entitled to spend the eve of +that day in his usual way. He examined the bailiff's accounts of the +village in Ryazan which belonged to his wife's nephew, wrote two +business letters, and walked over to the granaries, cattle yards and +stables before dinner. Having taken precautions against the general +drunkenness to be expected on the morrow because it was a great saint's +day, he returned to dinner, and without having time for a private talk +with his wife sat down at the long table laid for twenty persons, at +which the whole household had assembled. At that table were his mother, +his mother's old lady companion Belova, his wife, their three children +with their governess and tutor, his wife's nephew with his tutor, Sonya, +Denisov, Natasha, her three children, their governess, and old Michael +Ivanovich, the late prince's architect, who was living on in retirement +at Bald Hills. + +Countess Mary sat at the other end of the table. When her husband took +his place she concluded, from the rapid manner in which after taking up +his table napkin he pushed back the tumbler and wineglass standing +before him, that he was out of humor, as was sometimes the case when he +came in to dinner straight from the farm--especially before the soup. +Countess Mary well knew that mood of his, and when she herself was in a +good frame of mind quietly waited till he had had his soup and then +began to talk to him and make him admit that there was no cause for his +ill-humor. But today she quite forgot that and was hurt that he should +be angry with her without any reason, and she felt unhappy. She asked +him where he had been. He replied. She again inquired whether everything +was going well on the farm. Her unnatural tone made him wince +unpleasantly and he replied hastily. + +"Then I'm not mistaken," thought Countess Mary. "Why is he cross with +me?" She concluded from his tone that he was vexed with her and wished +to end the conversation. She knew her remarks sounded unnatural, but +could not refrain from asking some more questions. + +Thanks to Denisov the conversation at table soon became general and +lively, and she did not talk to her husband. When they left the table +and went as usual to thank the old countess, Countess Mary held out her +hand and kissed her husband, and asked him why he was angry with her. + +"You always have such strange fancies! I didn't even think of being +angry," he replied. + +But the word always seemed to her to imply: "Yes, I am angry but I won't +tell you why." + +Nicholas and his wife lived together so happily that even Sonya and the +old countess, who felt jealous and would have liked them to disagree, +could find nothing to reproach them with; but even they had their +moments of antagonism. Occasionally, and it was always just after they +had been happiest together, they suddenly had a feeling of estrangement +and hostility, which occurred most frequently during Countess Mary's +pregnancies, and this was such a time. + +"Well, messieurs et mesdames," said Nicholas loudly and with apparent +cheerfulness (it seemed to Countess Mary that he did it on purpose to +vex her), "I have been on my feet since six this morning. Tomorrow I +shall have to suffer, so today I'll go and rest." + +And without a word to his wife he went to the little sitting room and +lay down on the sofa. + +"That's always the way," thought Countess Mary. "He talks to everyone +except me. I see... I see that I am repulsive to him, especially when I +am in this condition." She looked down at her expanded figure and in the +glass at her pale, sallow, emaciated face in which her eyes now looked +larger than ever. + +And everything annoyed her--Denisov's shouting and laughter, Natasha's +talk, and especially a quick glance Sonya gave her. + +Sonya was always the first excuse Countess Mary found for feeling +irritated. + +Having sat awhile with her visitors without understanding anything of +what they were saying, she softly left the room and went to the nursery. + +The children were playing at "going to Moscow" in a carriage made of +chairs and invited her to go with them. She sat down and played with +them a little, but the thought of her husband and his unreasonable +crossness worried her. She got up and, walking on tiptoe with +difficulty, went to the small sitting room. + +"Perhaps he is not asleep; I'll have an explanation with him," she said +to herself. Little Andrew, her eldest boy, imitating his mother, +followed her on tiptoe. She did not notice him. + +"Mary, dear, I think he is asleep--he was so tired," said Sonya, meeting +her in the large sitting room (it seemed to Countess Mary that she +crossed her path everywhere). "Andrew may wake him." + +Countess Mary looked round, saw little Andrew following her, felt that +Sonya was right, and for that very reason flushed and with evident +difficulty refrained from saying something harsh. She made no reply, but +to avoid obeying Sonya beckoned to Andrew to follow her quietly and went +to the door. Sonya went away by another door. From the room in which +Nicholas was sleeping came the sound of his even breathing, every +slightest tone of which was familiar to his wife. As she listened to it +she saw before her his smooth handsome forehead, his mustache, and his +whole face, as she had so often seen it in the stillness of the night +when he slept. Nicholas suddenly moved and cleared his throat. And at +that moment little Andrew shouted from outside the door: "Papa! Mamma's +standing here!" Countess Mary turned pale with fright and made signs to +the boy. He grew silent, and quiet ensued for a moment, terrible to +Countess Mary. She knew how Nicholas disliked being waked. Then through +the door she heard Nicholas clearing his throat again and stirring, and +his voice said crossly: + +"I can't get a moment's peace.... Mary, is that you? Why did you bring +him here?" + +"I only came in to look and did not notice... forgive me..." + +Nicholas coughed and said no more. Countess Mary moved away from the +door and took the boy back to the nursery. Five minutes later little +black-eyed three-year-old Natasha, her father's pet, having learned from +her brother that Papa was asleep and Mamma was in the sitting room, ran +to her father unobserved by her mother. The dark-eyed little girl boldly +opened the creaking door, went up to the sofa with energetic steps of +her sturdy little legs, and having examined the position of her father, +who was asleep with his back to her, rose on tiptoe and kissed the hand +which lay under his head. Nicholas turned with a tender smile on his +face. + +"Natasha, Natasha!" came Countess Mary's frightened whisper from the +door. "Papa wants to sleep." + +"No, Mamma, he doesn't want to sleep," said little Natasha with +conviction. "He's laughing." + +Nicholas lowered his legs, rose, and took his daughter in his arms. + +"Come in, Mary," he said to his wife. + +She went in and sat down by her husband. + +"I did not notice him following me," she said timidly. "I just looked +in." + +Holding his little girl with one arm, Nicholas glanced at his wife and, +seeing her guilty expression, put his other arm around her and kissed +her hair. + +"May I kiss Mamma?" he asked Natasha. + +Natasha smiled bashfully. + +"Again!" she commanded, pointing with a peremptory gesture to the spot +where Nicholas had placed the kiss. + +"I don't know why you think I am cross," said Nicholas, replying to the +question he knew was in his wife's mind. + +"You have no idea how unhappy, how lonely, I feel when you are like +that. It always seems to me..." + +"Mary, don't talk nonsense. You ought to be ashamed of yourself!" he +said gaily. + +"It seems to be that you can't love me, that I am so plain... always... +and now... in this cond..." + +"Oh, how absurd you are! It is not beauty that endears, it's love that +makes us see beauty. It is only Malvinas and women of that kind who are +loved for their beauty. But do I love my wife? I don't love her, but... +I don't know how to put it. Without you, or when something comes between +us like this, I seem lost and can't do anything. Now do I love my +finger? I don't love it, but just try to cut it off!" + +"I'm not like that myself, but I understand. So you're not angry with +me?" + +"Awfully angry!" he said, smiling and getting up. And smoothing his hair +he began to pace the room. + +"Do you know, Mary, what I've been thinking?" he began, immediately +thinking aloud in his wife's presence now that they had made it up. + +He did not ask if she was ready to listen to him. He did not care. A +thought had occurred to him and so it belonged to her also. And he told +her of his intention to persuade Pierre to stay with them till spring. + +Countess Mary listened till he had finished, made some remark, and in +her turn began thinking aloud. Her thoughts were about the children. + +"You can see the woman in her already," she said in French, pointing to +little Natasha. "You reproach us women with being illogical. Here is our +logic. I say: 'Papa wants to sleep!' but she says, 'No, he's laughing.' +And she was right," said Countess Mary with a happy smile. + +"Yes, yes." And Nicholas, taking his little daughter in his strong hand, +lifted her high, placed her on his shoulder, held her by the legs, and +paced the room with her. There was an expression of carefree happiness +on the faces of both father and daughter. + +"But you know you may be unfair. You are too fond of this one," his wife +whispered in French. + +"Yes, but what am I to do?... I try not to show..." + +At that moment they heard the sound of the door pulley and footsteps in +the hall and anteroom, as if someone had arrived. + +"Somebody has come." + +"I am sure it is Pierre. I will go and see," said Countess Mary and left +the room. + +In her absence Nicholas allowed himself to give his little daughter a +gallop round the room. Out of breath, he took the laughing child quickly +from his shoulder and pressed her to his heart. His capers reminded him +of dancing, and looking at the child's round happy little face he +thought of what she would be like when he was an old man, taking her +into society and dancing the mazurka with her as his old father had +danced Daniel Cooper with his daughter. + +"It is he, it is he, Nicholas!" said Countess Mary, re-entering the room +a few minutes later. "Now our Natasha has come to life. You should have +seen her ecstasy, and how he caught it for having stayed away so long. +Well, come along now, quick, quick! It's time you two were parted," she +added, looking smilingly at the little girl who clung to her father. + +Nicholas went out holding the child by the hand. + +Countess Mary remained in the sitting room. + +"I should never, never have believed that one could be so happy," she +whispered to herself. A smile lit up her face but at the same time she +sighed, and her deep eyes expressed a quiet sadness as though she felt, +through her happiness, that there is another sort of happiness +unattainable in this life and of which she involuntarily thought at that +instant. + + + + +CHAPTER X + +Natasha had married in the early spring of 1813, and in 1820 already had +three daughters besides a son for whom she had longed and whom she was +now nursing. She had grown stouter and broader, so that it was difficult +to recognize in this robust, motherly woman the slim, lively Natasha of +former days. Her features were more defined and had a calm, soft, and +serene expression. In her face there was none of the ever-glowing +animation that had formerly burned there and constituted its charm. Now +her face and body were often all that one saw, and her soul was not +visible at all. All that struck the eye was a strong, handsome, and +fertile woman. The old fire very rarely kindled in her face now. That +happened only when, as was the case that day, her husband returned home, +or a sick child was convalescent, or when she and Countess Mary spoke of +Prince Andrew (she never mentioned him to her husband, who she imagined +was jealous of Prince Andrew's memory), or on the rare occasions when +something happened to induce her to sing, a practice she had quite +abandoned since her marriage. At the rare moments when the old fire did +kindle in her handsome, fully developed body she was even more +attractive than in former days. + +Since their marriage Natasha and her husband had lived in Moscow, in +Petersburg, on their estate near Moscow, or with her mother, that is to +say, in Nicholas' house. The young Countess Bezukhova was not often seen +in society, and those who met her there were not pleased with her and +found her neither attractive nor amiable. Not that Natasha liked +solitude--she did not know whether she liked it or not, she even thought +that she did not--but with her pregnancies, her confinements, the +nursing of her children, and sharing every moment of her husband's life, +she had demands on her time which could be satisfied only by renouncing +society. All who had known Natasha before her marriage wondered at the +change in her as at something extraordinary. Only the old countess with +her maternal instinct had realized that all Natasha's outbursts had been +due to her need of children and a husband--as she herself had once +exclaimed at Otradnoe not so much in fun as in earnest--and her mother +was now surprised at the surprise expressed by those who had never +understood Natasha, and she kept saying that she had always known that +Natasha would make an exemplary wife and mother. + +"Only she lets her love of her husband and children overflow all +bounds," said the countess, "so that it even becomes absurd." + +Natasha did not follow the golden rule advocated by clever folk, +especially by the French, which says that a girl should not let herself +go when she marries, should not neglect her accomplishments, should be +even more careful of her appearance than when she was unmarried, and +should fascinate her husband as much as she did before he became her +husband. Natasha on the contrary had at once abandoned all her witchery, +of which her singing had been an unusually powerful part. She gave it up +just because it was so powerfully seductive. She took no pains with her +manners or with delicacy of speech, or with her toilet, or to show +herself to her husband in her most becoming attitudes, or to avoid +inconveniencing him by being too exacting. She acted in contradiction to +all those rules. She felt that the allurements instinct had formerly +taught her to use would now be merely ridiculous in the eyes of her +husband, to whom she had from the first moment given herself up +entirely--that is, with her whole soul, leaving no corner of it hidden +from him. She felt that her unity with her husband was not maintained by +the poetic feelings that had attracted him to her, but by something +else--indefinite but firm as the bond between her own body and soul. + +To fluff out her curls, put on fashionable dresses, and sing romantic +songs to fascinate her husband would have seemed as strange as to adorn +herself to attract herself. To adorn herself for others might perhaps +have been agreeable--she did not know--but she had no time at all for +it. The chief reason for devoting no time either to singing, to dress, +or to choosing her words was that she really had no time to spare for +these things. + +We know that man has the faculty of becoming completely absorbed in a +subject however trivial it may be, and that there is no subject so +trivial that it will not grow to infinite proportions if one's entire +attention is devoted to it. + +The subject which wholly engrossed Natasha's attention was her family: +that is, her husband whom she had to keep so that he should belong +entirely to her and to the home, and the children whom she had to bear, +bring into the world, nurse, and bring up. + +And the deeper she penetrated, not with her mind only but with her whole +soul, her whole being, into the subject that absorbed her, the larger +did that subject grow and the weaker and more inadequate did her powers +appear, so that she concentrated them wholly on that one thing and yet +was unable to accomplish all that she considered necessary. + +There were then as now conversations and discussions about women's +rights, the relations of husband and wife and their freedom and rights, +though these themes were not yet termed questions as they are now; but +these topics were not merely uninteresting to Natasha, she positively +did not understand them. + +These questions, then as now, existed only for those who see nothing in +marriage but the pleasure married people get from one another, that is, +only the beginnings of marriage and not its whole significance, which +lies in the family. + +Discussions and questions of that kind, which are like the question of +how to get the greatest gratification from one's dinner, did not then +and do not now exist for those for whom the purpose of a dinner is the +nourishment it affords; and the purpose of marriage is the family. + +If the purpose of dinner is to nourish the body, a man who eats two +dinners at once may perhaps get more enjoyment but will not attain his +purpose, for his stomach will not digest the two dinners. + +If the purpose of marriage is the family, the person who wishes to have +many wives or husbands may perhaps obtain much pleasure, but in that +case will not have a family. + +If the purpose of food is nourishment and the purpose of marriage is the +family, the whole question resolves itself into not eating more than one +can digest, and not having more wives or husbands than are needed for +the family--that is, one wife or one husband. Natasha needed a husband. +A husband was given her and he gave her a family. And she not only saw +no need of any other or better husband, but as all the powers of her +soul were intent on serving that husband and family, she could not +imagine and saw no interest in imagining how it would be if things were +different. + +Natasha did not care for society in general, but prized the more the +society of her relatives--Countess Mary, and her brother, her mother, +and Sonya. She valued the company of those to whom she could come +striding disheveled from the nursery in her dressing gown, and with +joyful face show a yellow instead of a green stain on baby's napkin, and +from whom she could hear reassuring words to the effect that baby was +much better. + +To such an extent had Natasha let herself go that the way she dressed +and did her hair, her ill-chosen words, and her jealousy--she was +jealous of Sonya, of the governess, and of every woman, pretty or plain- +-were habitual subjects of jest to those about her. The general opinion +was that Pierre was under his wife's thumb, which was really true. From +the very first days of their married life Natasha had announced her +demands. Pierre was greatly surprised by his wife's view, to him a +perfectly novel one, that every moment of his life belonged to her and +to the family. His wife's demands astonished him, but they also +flattered him, and he submitted to them. + +Pierre's subjection consisted in the fact that he not only dared not +flirt with, but dared not even speak smilingly to, any other woman; did +not dare dine at the club as a pastime, did not dare spend money on a +whim, and did not dare absent himself for any length of time, except on +business--in which his wife included his intellectual pursuits, which +she did not in the least understand but to which she attributed great +importance. To make up for this, at home Pierre had the right to +regulate his life and that of the whole family exactly as he chose. At +home Natasha placed herself in the position of a slave to her husband, +and the whole household went on tiptoe when he was occupied--that is, +was reading or writing in his study. Pierre had but to show a partiality +for anything to get just what he liked done always. He had only to +express a wish and Natasha would jump up and run to fulfill it. + +The entire household was governed according to Pierre's supposed orders, +that is, by his wishes which Natasha tried to guess. Their way of life +and place of residence, their acquaintances and ties, Natasha's +occupations, the children's upbringing, were all selected not merely +with regard to Pierre's expressed wishes, but to what Natasha from the +thoughts he expressed in conversation supposed his wishes to be. And she +deduced the essentials of his wishes quite correctly, and having once +arrived at them clung to them tenaciously. When Pierre himself wanted to +change his mind she would fight him with his own weapons. + +Thus in a time of trouble ever memorable to him after the birth of their +first child who was delicate, when they had to change the wet nurse +three times and Natasha fell ill from despair, Pierre one day told her +of Rousseau's view, with which he quite agreed, that to have a wet nurse +is unnatural and harmful. When her next baby was born, despite the +opposition of her mother, the doctors, and even of her husband himself-- +who were all vigorously opposed to her nursing her baby herself, a thing +then unheard of and considered injurious--she insisted on having her own +way, and after that nursed all her babies herself. + +It very often happened that in a moment of irritation husband and wife +would have a dispute, but long afterwards Pierre to his surprise and +delight would find in his wife's ideas and actions the very thought +against which she had argued, but divested of everything superfluous +that in the excitement of the dispute he had added when expressing his +opinion. + +After seven years of marriage Pierre had the joyous and firm +consciousness that he was not a bad man, and he felt this because he saw +himself reflected in his wife. He felt the good and bad within himself +inextricably mingled and overlapping. But only what was really good in +him was reflected in his wife, all that was not quite good was rejected. +And this was not the result of logical reasoning but was a direct and +mysterious reflection. + + + + +CHAPTER XI + +Two months previously when Pierre was already staying with the Rostovs +he had received a letter from Prince Theodore, asking him to come to +Petersburg to confer on some important questions that were being +discussed there by a society of which Pierre was one of the principal +founders. + +On reading that letter (she always read her husband's letters) Natasha +herself suggested that he should go to Petersburg, though she would feel +his absence very acutely. She attributed immense importance to all her +husband's intellectual and abstract interests though she did not +understand them, and she always dreaded being a hindrance to him in such +matters. To Pierre's timid look of inquiry after reading the letter she +replied by asking him to go, but to fix a definite date for his return. +He was given four weeks' leave of absence. + +Ever since that leave of absence had expired, more than a fortnight +before, Natasha had been in a constant state of alarm, depression, and +irritability. + +Denisov, now a general on the retired list and much dissatisfied with +the present state of affairs, had arrived during that fortnight. He +looked at Natasha with sorrow and surprise as at a bad likeness of a +person once dear. A dull, dejected look, random replies, and talk about +the nursery was all he saw and heard from his former enchantress. + +Natasha was sad and irritable all that time, especially when her mother, +her brother, Sonya, or Countess Mary in their efforts to console her +tried to excuse Pierre and suggested reasons for his delay in returning. + +"It's all nonsense, all rubbish--those discussions which lead to nothing +and all those idiotic societies!" Natasha declared of the very affairs +in the immense importance of which she firmly believed. + +And she would go to the nursery to nurse Petya, her only boy. No one +else could tell her anything so comforting or so reasonable as this +little three-month-old creature when he lay at her breast and she was +conscious of the movement of his lips and the snuffling of his little +nose. That creature said: "You are angry, you are jealous, you would +like to pay him out, you are afraid--but here am I! And I am he..." and +that was unanswerable. It was more than true. + +During that fortnight of anxiety Natasha resorted to the baby for +comfort so often, and fussed over him so much, that she overfed him and +he fell ill. She was terrified by his illness, and yet that was just +what she needed. While attending to him she bore the anxiety about her +husband more easily. + +She was nursing her boy when the sound of Pierre's sleigh was heard at +the front door, and the old nurse--knowing how to please her mistress-- +entered the room inaudibly but hurriedly and with a beaming face. + +"Has he come?" Natasha asked quickly in a whisper, afraid to move lest +she should rouse the dozing baby. + +"He's come, ma'am," whispered the nurse. + +The blood rushed to Natasha's face and her feet involuntarily moved, but +she could not jump up and run out. The baby again opened his eyes and +looked at her. "You're here?" he seemed to be saying, and again lazily +smacked his lips. + +Cautiously withdrawing her breast, Natasha rocked him a little, handed +him to the nurse, and went with rapid steps toward the door. But at the +door she stopped as if her conscience reproached her for having in her +joy left the child too soon, and she glanced round. The nurse with +raised elbows was lifting the infant over the rail of his cot. + +"Go, ma'am! Don't worry, go!" she whispered, smiling, with the kind of +familiarity that grows up between a nurse and her mistress. + +Natasha ran with light footsteps to the anteroom. + +Denisov, who had come out of the study into the dancing room with his +pipe, now for the first time recognized the old Natasha. A flood of +brilliant, joyful light poured from her transfigured face. + +"He's come!" she exclaimed as she ran past, and Denisov felt that he too +was delighted that Pierre, whom he did not much care for, had returned. + +On reaching the vestibule Natasha saw a tall figure in a fur coat +unwinding his scarf. "It's he! It's really he! He has come!" she said to +herself, and rushing at him embraced him, pressed his head to her +breast, and then pushed him back and gazed at his ruddy, happy face, +covered with hoarfrost. "Yes, it is he, happy and contented..." + +Then all at once she remembered the tortures of suspense she had +experienced for the last fortnight, and the joy that had lit up her face +vanished; she frowned and overwhelmed Pierre with a torrent of +reproaches and angry words. + +"Yes, it's all very well for you. You are pleased, you've had a good +time.... But what about me? You might at least have shown consideration +for the children. I am nursing and my milk was spoiled.... Petya was at +death's door. But you were enjoying yourself. Yes, enjoying..." + +Pierre knew he was not to blame, for he could not have come sooner; he +knew this outburst was unseemly and would blow over in a minute or two; +above all he knew that he himself was bright and happy. He wanted to +smile but dared not even think of doing so. He made a piteous, +frightened face and bent down. + +"I could not, on my honor. But how is Petya?" + +"All right now. Come along! I wonder you're not ashamed! If only you +could see what I was like without you, how I suffered!" + +"You are well?" + +"Come, come!" she said, not letting go of his arm. And they went to +their rooms. + +When Nicholas and his wife came to look for Pierre he was in the nursery +holding his baby son, who was again awake, on his huge right palm and +dandling him. A blissful bright smile was fixed on the baby's broad face +with its toothless open mouth. The storm was long since over and there +was bright, joyous sunshine on Natasha's face as she gazed tenderly at +her husband and child. + +"And have you talked everything well over with Prince Theodore?" she +asked. + +"Yes, capitally." + +"You see, he holds it up." (She meant the baby's head.) "But how he did +frighten me... You've seen the princess? Is it true she's in love with +that..." + +"Yes, just fancy..." + +At that moment Nicholas and Countess Mary came in. Pierre with the baby +on his hand stooped, kissed them, and replied to their inquiries. But in +spite of much that was interesting and had to be discussed, the baby +with the little cap on its unsteady head evidently absorbed all his +attention. + +"How sweet!" said Countess Mary, looking at and playing with the baby. +"Now, Nicholas," she added, turning to her husband, "I can't understand +how it is you don't see the charm of these delicious marvels." + +"I don't and can't," replied Nicholas, looking coldly at the baby. "A +lump of flesh. Come along, Pierre!" + +"And yet he's such an affectionate father," said Countess Mary, +vindicating her husband, "but only after they are a year old or so..." + +"Now, Pierre nurses them splendidly," said Natasha. "He says his hand is +just made for a baby's seat. Just look!" + +"Only not for this..." Pierre suddenly exclaimed with a laugh, and +shifting the baby he gave him to the nurse. + + + + +CHAPTER XII + +As in every large household, there were at Bald Hills several perfectly +distinct worlds which merged into one harmonious whole, though each +retained its own peculiarities and made concessions to the others. Every +event, joyful or sad, that took place in that house was important to all +these worlds, but each had its own special reasons to rejoice or grieve +over that occurrence independently of the others. + +For instance, Pierre's return was a joyful and important event and they +all felt it to be so. + +The servants--the most reliable judges of their masters because they +judge not by their conversation or expressions of feeling but by their +acts and way of life--were glad of Pierre's return because they knew +that when he was there Count Nicholas would cease going every day to +attend to the estate, and would be in better spirits and temper, and +also because they would all receive handsome presents for the holidays. + +The children and their governesses were glad of Pierre's return because +no one else drew them into the social life of the household as he did. +He alone could play on the clavichord that ecossaise (his only piece) to +which, as he said, all possible dances could be danced, and they felt +sure he had brought presents for them all. + +Young Nicholas, now a slim lad of fifteen, delicate and intelligent, +with curly light-brown hair and beautiful eyes, was delighted because +Uncle Pierre as he called him was the object of his rapturous and +passionate affection. No one had instilled into him this love for Pierre +whom he saw only occasionally. Countess Mary who had brought him up had +done her utmost to make him love her husband as she loved him, and +little Nicholas did love his uncle, but loved him with just a shade of +contempt. Pierre, however, he adored. He did not want to be an hussar or +a Knight of St. George like his uncle Nicholas; he wanted to be learned, +wise, and kind like Pierre. In Pierre's presence his face always shone +with pleasure and he flushed and was breathless when Pierre spoke to +him. He did not miss a single word he uttered, and would afterwards, +with Dessalles or by himself, recall and reconsider the meaning of +everything Pierre had said. Pierre's past life and his unhappiness prior +to 1812 (of which young Nicholas had formed a vague poetic picture from +some words he had overheard), his adventures in Moscow, his captivity, +Platon Karataev (of whom he had heard from Pierre), his love for Natasha +(of whom the lad was also particularly fond), and especially Pierre's +friendship with the father whom Nicholas could not remember--all this +made Pierre in his eyes a hero and a saint. + +From broken remarks about Natasha and his father, from the emotion with +which Pierre spoke of that dead father, and from the careful, reverent +tenderness with which Natasha spoke of him, the boy, who was only just +beginning to guess what love is, derived the notion that his father had +loved Natasha and when dying had left her to his friend. But the father +whom the boy did not remember appeared to him a divinity who could not +be pictured, and of whom he never thought without a swelling heart and +tears of sadness and rapture. So the boy also was happy that Pierre had +arrived. + +The guests welcomed Pierre because he always helped to enliven and unite +any company he was in. + +The grown-up members of the family, not to mention his wife, were +pleased to have back a friend whose presence made life run more smoothly +and peacefully. + +The old ladies were pleased with the presents he brought them, and +especially that Natasha would now be herself again. + +Pierre felt the different outlooks of these various worlds and made +haste to satisfy all their expectations. + +Though the most absent-minded and forgetful of men, Pierre, with the aid +of a list his wife drew up, had now bought everything, not forgetting +his mother--and brother-in-law's commissions, nor the dress material for +a present to Belova, nor toys for his wife's nephews. In the early days +of his marriage it had seemed strange to him that his wife should expect +him not to forget to procure all the things he undertook to buy, and he +had been taken aback by her serious annoyance when on his first trip he +forgot everything. But in time he grew used to this demand. Knowing that +Natasha asked nothing for herself, and gave him commissions for others +only when he himself had offered to undertake them, he now found an +unexpected and childlike pleasure in this purchase of presents for +everyone in the house, and never forgot anything. If he now incurred +Natasha's censure it was only for buying too many and too expensive +things. To her other defects (as most people thought them, but which to +Pierre were qualities) of untidiness and neglect of herself, she now +added stinginess. + +From the time that Pierre began life as a family man on a footing +entailing heavy expenditure, he had noticed to his surprise that he +spent only half as much as before, and that his affairs--which had been +in disorder of late, chiefly because of his first wife's debts--had +begun to improve. + +Life was cheaper because it was circumscribed: that most expensive +luxury, the kind of life that can be changed at any moment, was no +longer his nor did he wish for it. He felt that his way of life had now +been settled once for all till death and that to change it was not in +his power, and so that way of life proved economical. + +With a merry, smiling face Pierre was sorting his purchases. + +"What do you think of this?" said he, unrolling a piece of stuff like a +shopman. + +Natasha, who was sitting opposite to him with her eldest daughter on her +lap, turned her sparkling eyes swiftly from her husband to the things he +showed her. + +"That's for Belova? Excellent!" She felt the quality of the material. +"It was a ruble an arshin, I suppose?" + +Pierre told her the price. + +"Too dear!" Natasha remarked. "How pleased the children will be and +Mamma too! Only you need not have bought me this," she added, unable to +suppress a smile as she gazed admiringly at a gold comb set with pearls, +of a kind then just coming into fashion. + +"Adele tempted me: she kept on telling me to buy it," returned Pierre. + +"When am I to wear it?" and Natasha stuck it in her coil of hair. "When +I take little Masha into society? Perhaps they will be fashionable again +by then. Well, let's go now." + +And collecting the presents they went first to the nursery and then to +the old countess' rooms. + +The countess was sitting with her companion Belova, playing grand- +patience as usual, when Pierre and Natasha came into the drawing room +with parcels under their arms. + +The countess was now over sixty, was quite gray, and wore a cap with a +frill that surrounded her face. Her face had shriveled, her upper lip +had sunk in, and her eyes were dim. + +After the deaths of her son and husband in such rapid succession, she +felt herself a being accidentally forgotten in this world and left +without aim or object for her existence. She ate, drank, slept, or kept +awake, but did not live. Life gave her no new impressions. She wanted +nothing from life but tranquillity, and that tranquillity only death +could give her. But until death came she had to go on living, that is, +to use her vital forces. A peculiarity one sees in very young children +and very old people was particularly evident in her. Her life had no +external aims--only a need to exercise her various functions and +inclinations was apparent. She had to eat, sleep, think, speak, weep, +work, give vent to her anger, and so on, merely because she had a +stomach, a brain, muscles, nerves, and a liver. She did these things not +under any external impulse as people in the full vigor of life do, when +behind the purpose for which they strive that of exercising their +functions remains unnoticed. She talked only because she physically +needed to exercise her tongue and lungs. She cried as a child does, +because her nose had to be cleared, and so on. What for people in their +full vigor is an aim was for her evidently merely a pretext. + +Thus in the morning--especially if she had eaten anything rich the day +before--she felt a need of being angry and would choose as the handiest +pretext Belova's deafness. + +She would begin to say something to her in a low tone from the other end +of the room. + +"It seems a little warmer today, my dear," she would murmur. + +And when Belova replied: "Oh yes, they've come," she would mutter +angrily: "O Lord! How stupid and deaf she is!" + +Another pretext would be her snuff, which would seem too dry or too damp +or not rubbed fine enough. After these fits of irritability her face +would grow yellow, and her maids knew by infallible symptoms when Belova +would again be deaf, the snuff damp, and the countess' face yellow. Just +as she needed to work off her spleen so she had sometimes to exercise +her still-existing faculty of thinking--and the pretext for that was a +game of patience. When she needed to cry, the deceased count would be +the pretext. When she wanted to be agitated, Nicholas and his health +would be the pretext, and when she felt a need to speak spitefully, the +pretext would be Countess Mary. When her vocal organs needed exercise, +which was usually toward seven o'clock when she had had an after-dinner +rest in a darkened room, the pretext would be the retelling of the same +stories over and over again to the same audience. + +The old lady's condition was understood by the whole household though no +one ever spoke of it, and they all made every possible effort to satisfy +her needs. Only by a rare glance exchanged with a sad smile between +Nicholas, Pierre, Natasha, and Countess Mary was the common +understanding of her condition expressed. + +But those glances expressed something more: they said that she had +played her part in life, that what they now saw was not her whole self, +that we must all become like her, and that they were glad to yield to +her, to restrain themselves for this once precious being formerly as +full of life as themselves, but now so much to be pitied. "Memento +mori," said these glances. + +Only the really heartless, the stupid ones of that household, and the +little children failed to understand this and avoided her. + + + + +CHAPTER XIII + +When Pierre and his wife entered the drawing room the countess was in +one of her customary states in which she needed the mental exertion of +playing patience, and so--though by force of habit she greeted him with +the words she always used when Pierre or her son returned after an +absence: "High time, my dear, high time! We were all weary of waiting +for you. Well, thank God!" and received her presents with another +customary remark: "It's not the gift that's precious, my dear, but that +you give it to me, an old woman..."--yet it was evident that she was not +pleased by Pierre's arrival at that moment when it diverted her +attention from the unfinished game. + +She finished her game of patience and only then examined the presents. +They consisted of a box for cards, of splendid workmanship, a bright- +blue Sevres tea cup with shepherdesses depicted on it and with a lid, +and a gold snuffbox with the count's portrait on the lid which Pierre +had had done by a miniaturist in Petersburg. The countess had long +wished for such a box, but as she did not want to cry just then she +glanced indifferently at the portrait and gave her attention chiefly to +the box for cards. + +"Thank you, my dear, you have cheered me up," said she as she always +did. "But best of all you have brought yourself back--for I never saw +anything like it, you ought to give your wife a scolding! What are we to +do with her? She is like a mad woman when you are away. Doesn't see +anything, doesn't remember anything," she went on, repeating her usual +phrases. "Look, Anna Timofeevna," she added to her companion, "see what +a box for cards my son has brought us!" + +Belova admired the presents and was delighted with her dress material. + +Though Pierre, Natasha, Nicholas, Countess Mary, and Denisov had much to +talk about that they could not discuss before the old countess--not that +anything was hidden from her, but because she had dropped so far +behindhand in many things that had they begun to converse in her +presence they would have had to answer inopportune questions and to +repeat what they had already told her many times: that so-and-so was +dead and so-and-so was married, which she would again be unable to +remember--yet they sat at tea round the samovar in the drawing room from +habit, and Pierre answered the countess' questions as to whether Prince +Vasili had aged and whether Countess Mary Alexeevna had sent greetings +and still thought of them, and other matters that interested no one and +to which she herself was indifferent. + +Conversation of this kind, interesting to no one yet unavoidable, +continued all through teatime. All the grown-up members of the family +were assembled near the round tea table at which Sonya presided beside +the samovar. The children with their tutors and governesses had had tea +and their voices were audible from the next room. At tea all sat in +their accustomed places: Nicholas beside the stove at a small table +where his tea was handed to him; Milka, the old gray borzoi bitch +(daughter of the first Milka), with a quite gray face and large black +eyes that seemed more prominent than ever, lay on the armchair beside +him; Denisov, whose curly hair, mustache, and whiskers had turned half +gray, sat beside countess Mary with his general's tunic unbuttoned; +Pierre sat between his wife and the old countess. He spoke of what he +knew might interest the old lady and that she could understand. He told +her of external social events and of the people who had formed the +circle of her contemporaries and had once been a real, living, and +distinct group, but who were now for the most part scattered about the +world and like herself were garnering the last ears of the harvests they +had sown in earlier years. But to the old countess those contemporaries +of hers seemed to be the only serious and real society. Natasha saw by +Pierre's animation that his visit had been interesting and that he had +much to tell them but dare not say it before the old countess. Denisov, +not being a member of the family, did not understand Pierre's caution +and being, as a malcontent, much interested in what was occurring in +Petersburg, kept urging Pierre to tell them about what had happened in +the Semenovsk regiment, then about Arakcheev, and then about the Bible +Society. Once or twice Pierre was carried away and began to speak of +these things, but Nicholas and Natasha always brought him back to the +health of Prince Ivan and Countess Mary Alexeevna. + +"Well, and all this idiocy--Gossner and Tatawinova?" Denisov asked. "Is +that weally still going on?" + + +"Going on?" Pierre exclaimed. "Why more than ever! The Bible Society is +the whole government now!" + +"What is that, mon cher ami?" asked the countess, who had finished her +tea and evidently needed a pretext for being angry after her meal. "What +are you saying about the government? I don't understand." + +"Well, you know, Maman," Nicholas interposed, knowing how to translate +things into his mother's language, "Prince Alexander Golitsyn has +founded a society and in consequence has great influence, they say." + +"Arakcheev and Golitsyn," incautiously remarked Pierre, "are now the +whole government! And what a government! They see treason everywhere and +are afraid of everything." + +"Well, and how is Prince Alexander to blame? He is a most estimable man. +I used to meet him at Mary Antonovna's," said the countess in an +offended tone; and still more offended that they all remained silent, +she went on: "Nowadays everyone finds fault. A Gospel Society! Well, and +what harm is there in that?" and she rose (everybody else got up too) +and with a severe expression sailed back to her table in the sitting +room. + +The melancholy silence that followed was broken by the sounds of the +children's voices and laughter from the next room. Evidently some jolly +excitement was going on there. + +"Finished, finished!" little Natasha's gleeful yell rose above them all. + +Pierre exchanged glances with Countess Mary and Nicholas (Natasha he +never lost sight of) and smiled happily. + +"That's delightful music!" said he. + +"It means that Anna Makarovna has finished her stocking," said Countess +Mary. + +"Oh, I'll go and see," said Pierre, jumping up. "You know," he added, +stopping at the door, "why I'm especially fond of that music? It is +always the first thing that tells me all is well. When I was driving +here today, the nearer I got to the house the more anxious I grew. As I +entered the anteroom I heard Andrusha's peals of laughter and that meant +that all was well." + +"I know! I know that feeling," said Nicholas. "But I mustn't go there-- +those stockings are to be a surprise for me." + +Pierre went to the children, and the shouting and laughter grew still +louder. + +"Come, Anna Makarovna," Pierre's voice was heard saying, "come here into +the middle of the room and at the word of command, 'One, two,' and when +I say 'three'... You stand here, and you in my arms--well now! One, +two!..." said Pierre, and a silence followed: "three!" and a rapturously +breathless cry of children's voices filled the room. "Two, two!" they +shouted. + +This meant two stockings, which by a secret process known only to +herself Anna Makarovna used to knit at the same time on the same +needles, and which, when they were ready, she always triumphantly drew, +one out of the other, in the children's presence. + + + + +CHAPTER XIV + +Soon after this the children came in to say good night. They kissed +everyone, the tutors and governesses made their bows, and they went out. +Only young Nicholas and his tutor remained. Dessalles whispered to the +boy to come downstairs. + +"No, Monsieur Dessalles, I will ask my aunt to let me stay," replied +Nicholas Bolkonski also in a whisper. + +"Ma tante, please let me stay," said he, going up to his aunt. + +His face expressed entreaty, agitation, and ecstasy. Countess Mary +glanced at him and turned to Pierre. + +"When you are here he can't tear himself away," she said. + +"I will bring him to you directly, Monsieur Dessalles. Good night!" said +Pierre, giving his hand to the Swiss tutor, and he turned to young +Nicholas with a smile. "You and I haven't seen anything of one another +yet... How like he is growing, Mary!" he added, addressing Countess +Mary. + +"Like my father?" asked the boy, flushing crimson and looking up at +Pierre with bright, ecstatic eyes. + +Pierre nodded, and went on with what he had been saying when the +children had interrupted. Countess Mary sat down doing woolwork; Natasha +did not take her eyes off her husband. Nicholas and Denisov rose, asked +for their pipes, smoked, went to fetch more tea from Sonya--who sat +weary but resolute at the samovar--and questioned Pierre. The curly- +headed, delicate boy sat with shining eyes unnoticed in a corner, +starting every now and then and muttering something to himself, and +evidently experiencing a new and powerful emotion as he turned his curly +head, with his thin neck exposed by his turn-down collar, toward the +place where Pierre sat. + +The conversation turned on the contemporary gossip about those in power, +in which most people see the chief interest of home politics. Denisov, +dissatisfied with the government on account of his own disappointments +in the service, heard with pleasure of the things done in Petersburg +which seemed to him stupid, and made forcible and sharp comments on what +Pierre told them. + +"One used to have to be a German--now one must dance with Tatawinova and +Madame Kwudener, and wead Ecka'tshausen and the bwethwen. Oh, they +should let that fine fellow Bonaparte loose--he'd knock all this +nonsense out of them! Fancy giving the command of the Semenov wegiment +to a fellow like that Schwa'tz!" he cried. + +Nicholas, though free from Denisov's readiness to find fault with +everything, also thought that discussion of the government was a very +serious and weighty matter, and the fact that A had been appointed +Minister of This and B Governor General of That, and that the Emperor +had said so-and-so and this minister so-and-so, seemed to him very +important. And so he thought it necessary to take an interest in these +things and to question Pierre. The questions put by these two kept the +conversation from changing its ordinary character of gossip about the +higher government circles. + +But Natasha, knowing all her husband's ways and ideas, saw that he had +long been wishing but had been unable to divert the conversation to +another channel and express his own deeply felt idea for the sake of +which he had gone to Petersburg to consult with his new friend Prince +Theodore, and she helped him by asking how his affairs with Prince +Theodore had gone. + +"What was it about?" asked Nicholas. + +"Always the same thing," said Pierre, looking round at his listeners. +"Everybody sees that things are going so badly that they cannot be +allowed to go on so and that it is the duty of all decent men to +counteract it as far as they can." + +"What can decent men do?" Nicholas inquired, frowning slightly. "What +can be done?" + +"Why, this..." + +"Come into my study," said Nicholas. + +Natasha, who had long expected to be fetched to nurse her baby, now +heard the nurse calling her and went to the nursery. Countess Mary +followed her. The men went into the study and little Nicholas Bolkonski +followed them unnoticed by his uncle and sat down at the writing table +in a shady corner by the window. + +"Well, what would you do?" asked Denisov. + +"Always some fantastic schemes," said Nicholas. + +"Why this," began Pierre, not sitting down but pacing the room, +sometimes stopping short, gesticulating, and lisping: "the position in +Petersburg is this: the Emperor does not look into anything. He has +abandoned himself altogether to this mysticism" (Pierre could not +tolerate mysticism in anyone now). "He seeks only for peace, and only +these people sans foi ni loi * can give it him--people who recklessly +hack at and strangle everything--Magnitski, Arakcheev, and tutti +quanti.... You will agree that if you did not look after your estates +yourself but only wanted a quiet life, the harsher your steward was the +more readily your object might be attained," he said to Nicholas. + + +* Without faith or law. + +"Well, what does that lead up to?" said Nicholas. + +"Well, everything is going to ruin! Robbery in the law courts, in the +army nothing but flogging, drilling, and Military Settlements; the +people are tortured, enlightenment is suppressed. All that is young and +honest is crushed! Everyone sees that this cannot go on. Everything is +strained to such a degree that it will certainly break," said Pierre (as +those who examine the actions of any government have always said since +governments began). "I told them just one thing in Petersburg." + +"Told whom?" + +"Well, you know whom," said Pierre, with a meaning glance from under his +brows. "Prince Theodore and all those. To encourage culture and +philanthropy is all very well of course. The aim is excellent but in the +present circumstances something else is needed." + +At that moment Nicholas noticed the presence of his nephew. His face +darkened and he went up to the boy. + +"Why are you here?" + +"Why? Let him be," said Pierre, taking Nicholas by the arm and +continuing. "That is not enough, I told them. Something else is needed. +When you stand expecting the overstrained string to snap at any moment, +when everyone is expecting the inevitable catastrophe, as many as +possible must join hands as closely as they can to withstand the general +calamity. Everything that is young and strong is being enticed away and +depraved. One is lured by women, another by honors, a third by ambition +or money, and they go over to that camp. No independent men, such as you +or I, are left. What I say is widen the scope of our society, let the +mot d'ordre be not virtue alone but independence and action as well!" + +Nicholas, who had left his nephew, irritably pushed up an armchair, sat +down in it, and listened to Pierre, coughing discontentedly and frowning +more and more. + +"But action with what aim?" he cried. "And what position will you adopt +toward the government?" + +"Why, the position of assistants. The society need not be secret if the +government allows it. Not merely is it not hostile to government, but it +is a society of true conservatives--a society of gentlemen in the full +meaning of that word. It is only to prevent some Pugachev or other from +killing my children and yours, and Arakcheev from sending me off to some +Military Settlement. We join hands only for the public welfare and the +general safety." + +"Yes, but it's a secret society and therefore a hostile and harmful one +which can only cause harm." + +"Why? Did the Tugendbund which saved Europe" (they did not then venture +to suggest that Russia had saved Europe) "do any harm? The Tugendbund is +an alliance of virtue: it is love, mutual help... it is what Christ +preached on the Cross." + +Natasha, who had come in during the conversation, looked joyfully at her +husband. It was not what he was saying that pleased her--that did not +even interest her, for it seemed to her that was all extremely simple +and that she had known it a long time (it seemed so to her because she +knew that it sprang from Pierre's whole soul), but it was his animated +and enthusiastic appearance that made her glad. + +The boy with the thin neck stretching out from the turn-down collar-- +whom everyone had forgotten--gazed at Pierre with even greater and more +rapturous joy. Every word of Pierre's burned into his heart, and with a +nervous movement of his fingers he unconsciously broke the sealing wax +and quill pens his hands came upon on his uncle's table. + +"It is not at all what you suppose; but that is what the German +Tugendbund was, and what I am proposing." + +"No, my fwiend! The Tugendbund is all vewy well for the sausage eaters, +but I don't understand it and can't even pwonounce it," interposed +Denisov in a loud and resolute voice. "I agwee that evewything here is +wotten and howwible, but the Tugendbund I don't understand. If we're not +satisfied, let us have a bunt of our own. That's all wight. Je suis +vot'e homme!" * + + +* "I'm your man." + +Pierre smiled, Natasha began to laugh, but Nicholas knitted his brows +still more and began proving to Pierre that there was no prospect of any +great change and that all the danger he spoke of existed only in his +imagination. Pierre maintained the contrary, and as his mental faculties +were greater and more resourceful, Nicholas felt himself cornered. This +made him still angrier, for he was fully convinced, not by reasoning but +by something within him stronger than reason, of the justice of his +opinion. + +"I will tell you this," he said, rising and trying with nervously +twitching fingers to prop up his pipe in a corner, but finally +abandoning the attempt. "I can't prove it to you. You say that +everything here is rotten and that an overthrow is coming: I don't see +it. But you also say that our oath of allegiance is a conditional +matter, and to that I reply: 'You are my best friend, as you know, but +if you formed a secret society and began working against the government- +-be it what it may--I know it is my duty to obey the government. And if +Arakcheev ordered me to lead a squadron against you and cut you down, I +should not hesitate an instant, but should do it.' And you may argue +about that as you like!" + +An awkward silence followed these words. Natasha was the first to speak, +defending her husband and attacking her brother. Her defense was weak +and inapt but she attained her object. The conversation was resumed, and +no longer in the unpleasantly hostile tone of Nicholas' last remark. + +When they all got up to go in to supper, little Nicholas Bolkonski went +up to Pierre, pale and with shining, radiant eyes. + +"Uncle Pierre, you... no... If Papa were alive... would he agree with +you?" he asked. + +And Pierre suddenly realized what a special, independent, complex, and +powerful process of thought and feeling must have been going on in this +boy during that conversation, and remembering all he had said he +regretted that the lad should have heard him. He had, however, to give +him an answer. + +"Yes, I think so," he said reluctantly, and left the study. + +The lad looked down and seemed now for the first time to notice what he +had done to the things on the table. He flushed and went up to Nicholas. + +"Uncle, forgive me, I did that... unintentionally," he said, pointing to +the broken sealing wax and pens. + +Nicholas started angrily. + +"All right, all right," he said, throwing the bits under the table. + +And evidently suppressing his vexation with difficulty, he turned away +from the boy. + +"You ought not to have been here at all," he said. + + + + +CHAPTER XV + +The conversation at supper was not about politics or societies, but +turned on the subject Nicholas liked best--recollections of 1812. +Denisov started these and Pierre was particularly agreeable and amusing +about them. The family separated on the most friendly terms. + +After supper Nicholas, having undressed in his study and given +instructions to the steward who had been waiting for him, went to the +bedroom in his dressing gown, where he found his wife still at her +table, writing. + +"What are you writing, Mary?" Nicholas asked. + +Countess Mary blushed. She was afraid that what she was writing would +not be understood or approved by her husband. + +She had wanted to conceal what she was writing from him, but at the same +time was glad he had surprised her at it and that she would now have to +tell him. + +"A diary, Nicholas," she replied, handing him a blue exercise book +filled with her firm, bold writing. + +"A diary?" Nicholas repeated with a shade of irony, and he took up the +book. + +It was in French. + +December 4. Today when Andrusha (her eldest boy) woke up he did not wish +to dress and Mademoiselle Louise sent for me. He was naughty and +obstinate. I tried threats, but he only grew angrier. Then I took the +matter in hand: I left him alone and began with nurse's help to get the +other children up, telling him that I did not love him. For a long time +he was silent, as if astonished, then he jumped out of bed, ran to me in +his shirt, and sobbed so that I could not calm him for a long time. It +was plain that what troubled him most was that he had grieved me. +Afterwards in the evening when I gave him his ticket, he again began +crying piteously and kissing me. One can do anything with him by +tenderness. + +"What is a 'ticket'?" Nicholas inquired. + +"I have begun giving the elder ones marks every evening, showing how +they have behaved." + +Nicholas looked into the radiant eyes that were gazing at him, and +continued to turn over the pages and read. In the diary was set down +everything in the children's lives that seemed noteworthy to their +mother as showing their characters or suggesting general reflections on +educational methods. They were for the most part quite insignificant +trifles, but did not seem so to the mother or to the father either, now +that he read this diary about his children for the first time. + +Under the date "5" was entered: + +Mitya was naughty at table. Papa said he was to have no pudding. He had +none, but looked so unhappily and greedily at the others while they were +eating! I think that punishment by depriving children of sweets only +develops their greediness. Must tell Nicholas this. + +Nicholas put down the book and looked at his wife. The radiant eyes +gazed at him questioningly: would he approve or disapprove of her diary? +There could be no doubt not only of his approval but also of his +admiration for his wife. + +Perhaps it need not be done so pedantically, thought Nicholas, or even +done at all, but this untiring, continual spiritual effort of which the +sole aim was the children's moral welfare delighted him. Had Nicholas +been able to analyze his feelings he would have found that his steady, +tender, and proud love of his wife rested on his feeling of wonder at +her spirituality and at the lofty moral world, almost beyond his reach, +in which she had her being. + +He was proud of her intelligence and goodness, recognized his own +insignificance beside her in the spiritual world, and rejoiced all the +more that she with such a soul not only belonged to him but was part of +himself. + +"I quite, quite approve, my dearest!" said he with a significant look, +and after a short pause he added: "And I behaved badly today. You +weren't in the study. We began disputing--Pierre and I--and I lost my +temper. But he is impossible: such a child! I don't know what would +become of him if Natasha didn't keep him in hand.... Have you any idea +why he went to Petersburg? They have formed..." + +"Yes, I know," said Countess Mary. "Natasha told me." + +"Well, then, you know," Nicholas went on, growing hot at the mere +recollection of their discussion, "he wanted to convince me that it is +every honest man's duty to go against the government, and that the oath +of allegiance and duty... I am sorry you weren't there. They all fell on +me--Denisov and Natasha... Natasha is absurd. How she rules over him! +And yet there need only be a discussion and she has no words of her own +but only repeats his sayings..." added Nicholas, yielding to that +irresistible inclination which tempts us to judge those nearest and +dearest to us. He forgot that what he was saying about Natasha could +have been applied word for word to himself in relation to his wife. + +"Yes, I have noticed that," said Countess Mary. + +"When I told him that duty and the oath were above everything, he +started proving goodness knows what! A pity you were not there--what +would you have said?" + +"As I see it you were quite right, and I told Natasha so. Pierre says +everybody is suffering, tortured, and being corrupted, and that it is +our duty to help our neighbor. Of course he is right there," said +Countess Mary, "but he forgets that we have other duties nearer to us, +duties indicated to us by God Himself, and that though we might expose +ourselves to risks we must not risk our children." + +"Yes, that's it! That's just what I said to him," put in Nicholas, who +fancied he really had said it. "But they insisted on their own view: +love of one's neighbor and Christianity--and all this in the presence of +young Nicholas, who had gone into my study and broke all my things." + +"Ah, Nicholas, do you know I am often troubled about little Nicholas," +said Countess Mary. "He is such an exceptional boy. I am afraid I +neglect him in favor of my own: we all have children and relations while +he has no one. He is constantly alone with his thoughts." + +"Well, I don't think you need reproach yourself on his account. All that +the fondest mother could do for her son you have done and are doing for +him, and of course I am glad of it. He is a fine lad, a fine lad! This +evening he listened to Pierre in a sort of trance, and fancy--as we were +going in to supper I looked and he had broken everything on my table to +bits, and he told me of it himself at once! I never knew him to tell an +untruth. A fine lad, a fine lad!" repeated Nicholas, who at heart was +not fond of Nicholas Bolkonski but was always anxious to recognize that +he was a fine lad. + +"Still, I am not the same as his own mother," said Countess Mary. "I +feel I am not the same and it troubles me. A wonderful boy, but I am +dreadfully afraid for him. It would be good for him to have companions." + +"Well it won't be for long. Next summer I'll take him to Petersburg," +said Nicholas. "Yes, Pierre always was a dreamer and always will be," he +continued, returning to the talk in the study which had evidently +disturbed him. "Well, what business is it of mine what goes on there-- +whether Arakcheev is bad, and all that? What business was it of mine +when I married and was so deep in debt that I was threatened with +prison, and had a mother who could not see or understand it? And then +there are you and the children and our affairs. Is it for my own +pleasure that I am at the farm or in the office from morning to night? +No, but I know I must work to comfort my mother, to repay you, and not +to leave the children such beggars as I was." + +Countess Mary wanted to tell him that man does not live by bread alone +and that he attached too much importance to these matters. But she knew +she must not say this and that it would be useless to do so. She only +took his hand and kissed it. He took this as a sign of approval and a +confirmation of his thoughts, and after a few minutes' reflection +continued to think aloud. + +"You know, Mary, today Elias Mitrofanych" (this was his overseer) "came +back from the Tambov estate and told me they are already offering eighty +thousand rubles for the forest." + +And with an eager face Nicholas began to speak of the possibility of +repurchasing Otradnoe before long, and added: "Another ten years of life +and I shall leave the children... in an excellent position." + +Countess Mary listened to her husband and understood all that he told +her. She knew that when he thought aloud in this way he would sometimes +ask her what he had been saying, and be vexed if he noticed that she had +been thinking about something else. But she had to force herself to +attend, for what he was saying did not interest her at all. She looked +at him and did not think, but felt, about something different. She felt +a submissive tender love for this man who would never understand all +that she understood, and this seemed to make her love for him still +stronger and added a touch of passionate tenderness. Besides this +feeling which absorbed her altogether and hindered her from following +the details of her husband's plans, thoughts that had no connection with +what he was saying flitted through her mind. She thought of her nephew. +Her husband's account of the boy's agitation while Pierre was speaking +struck her forcibly, and various traits of his gentle, sensitive +character recurred to her mind; and while thinking of her nephew she +thought also of her own children. She did not compare them with him, but +compared her feeling for them with her feeling for him, and felt with +regret that there was something lacking in her feeling for young +Nicholas. + +Sometimes it seemed to her that this difference arose from the +difference in their ages, but she felt herself to blame toward him and +promised in her heart to do better and to accomplish the impossible--in +this life to love her husband, her children, little Nicholas, and all +her neighbors, as Christ loved mankind. Countess Mary's soul always +strove toward the infinite, the eternal, and the absolute, and could +therefore never be at peace. A stern expression of the lofty, secret +suffering of a soul burdened by the body appeared on her face. Nicholas +gazed at her. "O God! What will become of us if she dies, as I always +fear when her face is like that?" thought he, and placing himself before +the icon he began to say his evening prayers. + + + + +CHAPTER XVI + +Natasha and Pierre, left alone, also began to talk as only a husband and +wife can talk, that is, with extraordinary clearness and rapidity, +understanding and expressing each other's thoughts in ways contrary to +all rules of logic, without premises, deductions, or conclusions, and in +a quite peculiar way. Natasha was so used to this kind of talk with her +husband that for her it was the surest sign of something being wrong +between them if Pierre followed a line of logical reasoning. When he +began proving anything, or talking argumentatively and calmly and she, +led on by his example, began to do the same, she knew that they were on +the verge of a quarrel. + +From the moment they were alone and Natasha came up to him with wide- +open happy eyes, and quickly seizing his head pressed it to her bosom, +saying: "Now you are all mine, mine! You won't escape!"--from that +moment this conversation began, contrary to all the laws of logic and +contrary to them because quite different subjects were talked about at +one and the same time. This simultaneous discussion of many topics did +not prevent a clear understanding but on the contrary was the surest +sign that they fully understood one another. + +Just as in a dream when all is uncertain, unreasoning, and +contradictory, except the feeling that guides the dream, so in this +intercourse contrary to all laws of reason, the words themselves were +not consecutive and clear but only the feeling that prompted them. + +Natasha spoke to Pierre about her brother's life and doings, of how she +had suffered and lacked life during his own absence, and of how she was +fonder than ever of Mary, and how Mary was in every way better than +herself. In saying this Natasha was sincere in acknowledging Mary's +superiority, but at the same time by saying it she made a demand on +Pierre that he should, all the same, prefer her to Mary and to all other +women, and that now, especially after having seen many women in +Petersburg, he should tell her so afresh. + +Pierre, answering Natasha's words, told her how intolerable it had been +for him to meet ladies at dinners and balls in Petersburg. + +"I have quite lost the knack of talking to ladies," he said. "It was +simply dull. Besides, I was very busy." + +Natasha looked intently at him and went on: + +"Mary is so splendid," she said. "How she understands children! It is as +if she saw straight into their souls. Yesterday, for instance, Mitya was +naughty..." + +"How like his father he is," Pierre interjected. + +Natasha knew why he mentioned Mitya's likeness to Nicholas: the +recollection of his dispute with his brother-in-law was unpleasant and +he wanted to know what Natasha thought of it. + +"Nicholas has the weakness of never agreeing with anything not generally +accepted. But I understand that you value what opens up a fresh line," +said she, repeating words Pierre had once uttered. + +"No, the chief point is that to Nicholas ideas and discussions are an +amusement--almost a pastime," said Pierre. "For instance, he is +collecting a library and has made it a rule not to buy a new book till +he has read what he had already bought--Sismondi and Rousseau and +Montesquieu," he added with a smile. "You know how much I..." he began +to soften down what he had said; but Natasha interrupted him to show +that this was unnecessary. + +"So you say ideas are an amusement to him...." + +"Yes, and for me nothing else is serious. All the time in Petersburg I +saw everyone as in a dream. When I am taken up by a thought, all else is +mere amusement." + +"Ah, I'm so sorry I wasn't there when you met the children," said +Natasha. "Which was most delighted? Lisa, I'm sure." + +"Yes," Pierre replied, and went on with what was in his mind. "Nicholas +says we ought not to think. But I can't help it. Besides, when I was in +Petersburg I felt (I can say this to you) that the whole affair would go +to pieces without me--everyone was pulling his own way. But I succeeded +in uniting them all; and then my idea is so clear and simple. You see, I +don't say that we ought to oppose this and that. We may be mistaken. +What I say is: 'Join hands, you who love the right, and let there be but +one banner--that of active virtue.' Prince Sergey is a fine fellow and +clever." + +Natasha would have had no doubt as to the greatness of Pierre's idea, +but one thing disconcerted her. "Can a man so important and necessary to +society be also my husband? How did this happen?" She wished to express +this doubt to him. "Now who could decide whether he is really cleverer +than all the others?" she asked herself, and passed in review all those +whom Pierre most respected. Judging by what he had said there was no one +he had respected so highly as Platon Karataev. + +"Do you know what I am thinking about?" she asked. "About Platon +Karataev. Would he have approved of you now, do you think?" + +Pierre was not at all surprised at this question. He understood his +wife's line of thought. + +"Platon Karataev?" he repeated, and pondered, evidently sincerely trying +to imagine Karataev's opinion on the subject. "He would not have +understood... yet perhaps he would." + +"I love you awfully!" Natasha suddenly said. "Awfully, awfully!" + +"No, he would not have approved," said Pierre, after reflection. "What +he would have approved of is our family life. He was always so anxious +to find seemliness, happiness, and peace in everything, and I should +have been proud to let him see us. There now--you talk of my absence, +but you wouldn't believe what a special feeling I have for you after a +separation...." + +"Yes, I should think..." Natasha began. + +"No, it's not that. I never leave off loving you. And one couldn't love +more, but this is something special.... Yes, of course-" he did not +finish because their eyes meeting said the rest. + +"What nonsense it is," Natasha suddenly exclaimed, "about honeymoons, +and that the greatest happiness is at first! On the contrary, now is the +best of all. If only you did not go away! Do you remember how we +quarreled? And it was always my fault. Always mine. And what we +quarreled about--I don't even remember!" + +"Always about the same thing," said Pierre with a smile. "Jealo..." + +"Don't say it! I can't bear it!" Natasha cried, and her eyes glittered +coldly and vindictively. "Did you see her?" she added, after a pause. + +"No, and if I had I shouldn't have recognized her." + +They were silent for a while. + +"Oh, do you know? While you were talking in the study I was looking at +you," Natasha began, evidently anxious to disperse the cloud that had +come over them. "You are as like him as two peas--like the boy." (She +meant her little son.) "Oh, it's time to go to him.... The milk's +come.... But I'm sorry to leave you." + +They were silent for a few seconds. Then suddenly turning to one another +at the same time they both began to speak. Pierre began with self- +satisfaction and enthusiasm, Natasha with a quiet, happy smile. Having +interrupted one another they both stopped to let the other continue. + +"No. What did you say? Go on, go on." + +"No, you go on, I was talking nonsense," said Natasha. + +Pierre finished what he had begun. It was the sequel to his complacent +reflections on his success in Petersburg. At that moment it seemed to +him that he was chosen to give a new direction to the whole of Russian +society and to the whole world. + +"I only wished to say that ideas that have great results are always +simple ones. My whole idea is that if vicious people are united and +constitute a power, then honest folk must do the same. Now that's simple +enough." + +"Yes." + +"And what were you going to say?" + +"I? Only nonsense." + +"But all the same?" + +"Oh nothing, only a trifle," said Natasha, smilingly still more +brightly. "I only wanted to tell you about Petya: today nurse was coming +to take him from me, and he laughed, shut his eyes, and clung to me. I'm +sure he thought he was hiding. Awfully sweet! There, now he's crying. +Well, good-by!" and she left the room. + +Meanwhile downstairs in young Nicholas Bolkonski's bedroom a little lamp +was burning as usual. (The boy was afraid of the dark and they could not +cure him of it.) Dessalles slept propped up on four pillows and his +Roman nose emitted sounds of rhythmic snoring. Little Nicholas, who had +just waked up in a cold perspiration, sat up in bed and gazed before him +with wide-open eyes. He had awaked from a terrible dream. He had dreamed +that he and Uncle Pierre, wearing helmets such as were depicted in his +Plutarch, were leading a huge army. The army was made up of white +slanting lines that filled the air like the cobwebs that float about in +autumn and which Dessalles called les fils de la Vierge. In front was +Glory, which was similar to those threads but rather thicker. He and +Pierre were borne along lightly and joyously, nearer and nearer to their +goal. Suddenly the threads that moved them began to slacken and become +entangled and it grew difficult to move. And Uncle Nicholas stood before +them in a stern and threatening attitude. + +"Have you done this?" he said, pointing to some broken sealing wax and +pens. "I loved you, but I have orders from Arakcheev and will kill the +first of you who moves forward." Little Nicholas turned to look at +Pierre but Pierre was no longer there. In his place was his father-- +Prince Andrew--and his father had neither shape nor form, but he +existed, and when little Nicholas perceived him he grew faint with love: +he felt himself powerless, limp, and formless. His father caressed and +pitied him. But Uncle Nicholas came nearer and nearer to them. Terror +seized young Nicholas and he awoke. + +"My father!" he thought. (Though there were two good portraits of Prince +Andrew in the house, Nicholas never imagined him in human form.) "My +father has been with me and caressed me. He approved of me and of Uncle +Pierre. Whatever he may tell me, I will do it. Mucius Scaevola burned +his hand. Why should not the same sort of thing happen to me? I know +they want me to learn. And I will learn. But someday I shall have +finished learning, and then I will do something. I only pray God that +something may happen to me such as happened to Plutarch's men, and I +will act as they did. I will do better. Everyone shall know me, love me, +and be delighted with me!" And suddenly his bosom heaved with sobs and +he began to cry. + +"Are you ill?" he heard Dessalles' voice asking. + +"No," answered Nicholas, and lay back on his pillow. + +"He is good and kind and I am fond of him!" he thought of Dessalles. +"But Uncle Pierre! Oh, what a wonderful man he is! And my father? Oh, +Father, Father! Yes, I will do something with which even he would be +satisfied...." + +SECOND EPILOGUE + + + + +CHAPTER I + +History is the life of nations and of humanity. To seize and put into +words, to describe directly the life of humanity or even of a single +nation, appears impossible. + +The ancient historians all employed one and the same method to describe +and seize the apparently elusive--the life of a people. They described +the activity of individuals who ruled the people, and regarded the +activity of those men as representing the activity of the whole nation. + +The question: how did individuals make nations act as they wished and by +what was the will of these individuals themselves guided? the ancients +met by recognizing a divinity which subjected the nations to the will of +a chosen man, and guided the will of that chosen man so as to accomplish +ends that were predestined. + +For the ancients these questions were solved by a belief in the direct +participation of the Deity in human affairs. + +Modern history, in theory, rejects both these principles. + +It would seem that having rejected the belief of the ancients in man's +subjection to the Deity and in a predetermined aim toward which nations +are led, modern history should study not the manifestations of power but +the causes that produce it. But modern history has not done this. Having +in theory rejected the view held by the ancients, it still follows them +in practice. + +Instead of men endowed with divine authority and directly guided by the +will of God, modern history has given us either heroes endowed with +extraordinary, superhuman capacities, or simply men of very various +kinds, from monarchs to journalists, who lead the masses. Instead of the +former divinely appointed aims of the Jewish, Greek, or Roman nations, +which ancient historians regarded as representing the progress of +humanity, modern history has postulated its own aims--the welfare of the +French, German, or English people, or, in its highest abstraction, the +welfare and civilization of humanity in general, by which is usually +meant that of the peoples occupying a small northwesterly portion of a +large continent. + +Modern history has rejected the beliefs of the ancients without +replacing them by a new conception, and the logic of the situation has +obliged the historians, after they had apparently rejected the divine +authority of the kings and the "fate" of the ancients, to reach the same +conclusion by another road, that is, to recognize (1) nations guided by +individual men, and (2) the existence of a known aim to which these +nations and humanity at large are tending. + +At the basis of the works of all the modern historians from Gibbon to +Buckle, despite their seeming disagreements and the apparent novelty of +their outlooks, lie those two old, unavoidable assumptions. + +In the first place the historian describes the activity of individuals +who in his opinion have directed humanity (one historian considers only +monarchs, generals, and ministers as being such men, while another +includes also orators, learned men, reformers, philosophers, and poets). +Secondly, it is assumed that the goal toward which humanity is being led +is known to the historians: to one of them this goal is the greatness of +the Roman, Spanish, or French realm; to another it is liberty, equality, +and a certain kind of civilization of a small corner of the world called +Europe. + +In 1789 a ferment arises in Paris; it grows, spreads, and is expressed +by a movement of peoples from west to east. Several times it moves +eastward and collides with a countermovement from the east westward. In +1812 it reaches its extreme limit, Moscow, and then, with remarkable +symmetry, a countermovement occurs from east to west, attracting to it, +as the first movement had done, the nations of middle Europe. The +counter movement reaches the starting point of the first movement in the +west--Paris--and subsides. + +During that twenty-year period an immense number of fields were left +untilled, houses were burned, trade changed its direction, millions of +men migrated, were impoverished, or were enriched, and millions of +Christian men professing the law of love of their fellows slew one +another. + +What does all this mean? Why did it happen? What made those people burn +houses and slay their fellow men? What were the causes of these events? +What force made men act so? These are the instinctive, plain, and most +legitimate questions humanity asks itself when it encounters the +monuments and tradition of that period. + +For a reply to these questions the common sense of mankind turns to the +science of history, whose aim is to enable nations and humanity to know +themselves. + +If history had retained the conception of the ancients it would have +said that God, to reward or punish his people, gave Napoleon power and +directed his will to the fulfillment of the divine ends, and that reply +would have been clear and complete. One might believe or disbelieve in +the divine significance of Napoleon, but for anyone believing in it +there would have been nothing unintelligible in the history of that +period, nor would there have been any contradictions. + +But modern history cannot give that reply. Science does not admit the +conception of the ancients as to the direct participation of the Deity +in human affairs, and therefore history ought to give other answers. + +Modern history replying to these questions says: you want to know what +this movement means, what caused it, and what force produced these +events? Then listen: + +"Louis XIV was a very proud and self-confident man; he had such and such +mistresses and such and such ministers and he ruled France badly. His +descendants were weak men and they too ruled France badly. And they had +such and such favorites and such and such mistresses. Moreover, certain +men wrote some books at that time. At the end of the eighteenth century +there were a couple of dozen men in Paris who began to talk about all +men being free and equal. This caused people all over France to begin to +slash at and drown one another. They killed the king and many other +people. At that time there was in France a man of genius--Napoleon. He +conquered everybody everywhere--that is, he killed many people because +he was a great genius. And for some reason he went to kill Africans, and +killed them so well and was so cunning and wise that when he returned to +France he ordered everybody to obey him, and they all obeyed him. Having +become an Emperor he again went out to kill people in Italy, Austria, +and Prussia. And there too he killed a great many. In Russia there was +an Emperor, Alexander, who decided to restore order in Europe and +therefore fought against Napoleon. In 1807 he suddenly made friends with +him, but in 1811 they again quarreled and again began killing many +people. Napoleon led six hundred thousand men into Russia and captured +Moscow; then he suddenly ran away from Moscow, and the Emperor +Alexander, helped by the advice of Stein and others, united Europe to +arm against the disturber of its peace. All Napoleon's allies suddenly +became his enemies and their forces advanced against the fresh forces he +raised. The Allies defeated Napoleon, entered Paris, forced Napoleon to +abdicate, and sent him to the island of Elba, not depriving him of the +title of Emperor and showing him every respect, though five years before +and one year later they all regarded him as an outlaw and a brigand. +Then Louis XVIII, who till then had been the laughingstock both of the +French and the Allies, began to reign. And Napoleon, shedding tears +before his Old Guards, renounced the throne and went into exile. Then +the skillful statesmen and diplomatists (especially Talleyrand, who +managed to sit down in a particular chair before anyone else and thereby +extended the frontiers of France) talked in Vienna and by these +conversations made the nations happy or unhappy. Suddenly the +diplomatists and monarchs nearly quarreled and were on the point of +again ordering their armies to kill one another, but just then Napoleon +arrived in France with a battalion, and the French, who had been hating +him, immediately all submitted to him. But the Allied monarchs were +angry at this and went to fight the French once more. And they defeated +the genius Napoleon and, suddenly recognizing him as a brigand, sent him +to the island of St. Helena. And the exile, separated from the beloved +France so dear to his heart, died a lingering death on that rock and +bequeathed his great deeds to posterity. But in Europe a reaction +occurred and the sovereigns once again all began to oppress their +subjects." + +It would be a mistake to think that this is ironic--a caricature of the +historical accounts. On the contrary it is a very mild expression of the +contradictory replies, not meeting the questions, which all the +historians give, from the compilers of memoirs and the histories of +separate states to the writers of general histories and the new +histories of the culture of that period. + +The strangeness and absurdity of these replies arise from the fact that +modern history, like a deaf man, answers questions no one has asked. + +If the purpose of history be to give a description of the movement of +humanity and of the peoples, the first question--in the absence of a +reply to which all the rest will be incomprehensible--is: what is the +power that moves peoples? To this, modern history laboriously replies +either that Napoleon was a great genius, or that Louis XIV was very +proud, or that certain writers wrote certain books. + +All that may be so and mankind is ready to agree with it, but it is not +what was asked. All that would be interesting if we recognized a divine +power based on itself and always consistently directing its nations +through Napoleons, Louis-es, and writers; but we do not acknowledge such +a power, and therefore before speaking about Napoleons, Louis-es, and +authors, we ought to be shown the connection existing between these men +and the movement of the nations. + +If instead of a divine power some other force has appeared, it should be +explained in what this new force consists, for the whole interest of +history lies precisely in that force. + +History seems to assume that this force is self-evident and known to +everyone. But in spite of every desire to regard it as known, anyone +reading many historical works cannot help doubting whether this new +force, so variously understood by the historians themselves, is really +quite well known to everybody. + + + + +CHAPTER II + +What force moves the nations? + +Biographical historians and historians of separate nations understand +this force as a power inherent in heroes and rulers. In their narration +events occur solely by the will of a Napoleon, and Alexander, or in +general of the persons they describe. The answers given by this kind of +historian to the question of what force causes events to happen are +satisfactory only as long as there is but one historian to each event. +As soon as historians of different nationalities and tendencies begin to +describe the same event, the replies they give immediately lose all +meaning, for this force is understood by them all not only differently +but often in quite contradictory ways. One historian says that an event +was produced by Napoleon's power, another that it was produced by +Alexander's, a third that it was due to the power of some other person. +Besides this, historians of that kind contradict each other even in +their statement as to the force on which the authority of some +particular person was based. Thiers, a Bonapartist, says that Napoleon's +power was based on his virtue and genius. Lanfrey, a Republican, says it +was based on his trickery and deception of the people. So the historians +of this class, by mutually destroying one another's positions, destroy +the understanding of the force which produces events, and furnish no +reply to history's essential question. + +Writers of universal history who deal with all the nations seem to +recognize how erroneous is the specialist historians' view of the force +which produces events. They do not recognize it as a power inherent in +heroes and rulers, but as the resultant of a multiplicity of variously +directed forces. In describing a war or the subjugation of a people, a +general historian looks for the cause of the event not in the power of +one man, but in the interaction of many persons connected with the +event. + +According to this view the power of historical personages, represented +as the product of many forces, can no longer, it would seem, be regarded +as a force that itself produces events. Yet in most cases universal +historians still employ the conception of power as a force that itself +produces events, and treat it as their cause. In their exposition, an +historic character is first the product of his time, and his power only +the resultant of various forces, and then his power is itself a force +producing events. Gervinus, Schlosser, and others, for instance, at one +time prove Napoleon to be a product of the Revolution, of the ideas of +1789 and so forth, and at another plainly say that the campaign of 1812 +and other things they do not like were simply the product of Napoleon's +misdirected will, and that the very ideas of 1789 were arrested in their +development by Napoleon's caprice. The ideas of the Revolution and the +general temper of the age produced Napoleon's power. But Napoleon's +power suppressed the ideas of the Revolution and the general temper of +the age. + +This curious contradiction is not accidental. Not only does it occur at +every step, but the universal historians' accounts are all made up of a +chain of such contradictions. This contradiction occurs because after +entering the field of analysis the universal historians stop halfway. + +To find component forces equal to the composite or resultant force, the +sum of the components must equal the resultant. This condition is never +observed by the universal historians, and so to explain the resultant +forces they are obliged to admit, in addition to the insufficient +components, another unexplained force affecting the resultant action. + +Specialist historians describing the campaign of 1813 or the restoration +of the Bourbons plainly assert that these events were produced by the +will of Alexander. But the universal historian Gervinus, refuting this +opinion of the specialist historian, tries to prove that the campaign of +1813 and the restoration of the Bourbons were due to other things beside +Alexander's will--such as the activity of Stein, Metternich, Madame de +Stael, Talleyrand, Fichte, Chateaubriand, and others. The historian +evidently decomposes Alexander's power into the components: Talleyrand, +Chateaubriand, and the rest--but the sum of the components, that is, the +interactions of Chateaubriand, Talleyrand, Madame de Stael, and the +others, evidently does not equal the resultant, namely the phenomenon of +millions of Frenchmen submitting to the Bourbons. That Chateaubriand, +Madame de Stael, and others spoke certain words to one another only +affected their mutual relations but does not account for the submission +of millions. And therefore to explain how from these relations of theirs +the submission of millions of people resulted--that is, how component +forces equal to one A gave a resultant equal to a thousand times A--the +historian is again obliged to fall back on power--the force he had +denied--and to recognize it as the resultant of the forces, that is, he +has to admit an unexplained force acting on the resultant. And that is +just what the universal historians do, and consequently they not only +contradict the specialist historians but contradict themselves. + +Peasants having no clear idea of the cause of rain, say, according to +whether they want rain or fine weather: "The wind has blown the clouds +away," or, "The wind has brought up the clouds." And in the same way the +universal historians sometimes, when it pleases them and fits in with +their theory, say that power is the result of events, and sometimes, +when they want to prove something else, say that power produces events. + +A third class of historians--the so-called historians of culture-- +following the path laid down by the universal historians who sometimes +accept writers and ladies as forces producing events--again take that +force to be something quite different. They see it in what is called +culture--in mental activity. + +The historians of culture are quite consistent in regard to their +progenitors, the writers of universal histories, for if historical +events may be explained by the fact that certain persons treated one +another in such and such ways, why not explain them by the fact that +such and such people wrote such and such books? Of the immense number of +indications accompanying every vital phenomenon, these historians select +the indication of intellectual activity and say that this indication is +the cause. But despite their endeavors to prove that the cause of events +lies in intellectual activity, only by a great stretch can one admit +that there is any connection between intellectual activity and the +movement of peoples, and in no case can one admit that intellectual +activity controls people's actions, for that view is not confirmed by +such facts as the very cruel murders of the French Revolution resulting +from the doctrine of the equality of man, or the very cruel wars and +executions resulting from the preaching of love. + +But even admitting as correct all the cunningly devised arguments with +which these histories are filled--admitting that nations are governed by +some undefined force called an idea--history's essential question still +remains unanswered, and to the former power of monarchs and to the +influence of advisers and other people introduced by the universal +historians, another, newer force--the idea--is added, the connection of +which with the masses needs explanation. It is possible to understand +that Napoleon had power and so events occurred; with some effort one may +even conceive that Napoleon together with other influences was the cause +of an event; but how a book, Le Contrat Social, had the effect of making +Frenchmen begin to drown one another cannot be understood without an +explanation of the causal nexus of this new force with the event. + +Undoubtedly some relation exists between all who live contemporaneously, +and so it is possible to find some connection between the intellectual +activity of men and their historical movements, just as such a +connection may be found between the movements of humanity and commerce, +handicraft, gardening, or anything else you please. But why intellectual +activity is considered by the historians of culture to be the cause or +expression of the whole historical movement is hard to understand. Only +the following considerations can have led the historians to such a +conclusion: (1) that history is written by learned men, and so it is +natural and agreeable for them to think that the activity of their class +supplies the basis of the movement of all humanity, just as a similar +belief is natural and agreeable to traders, agriculturists, and soldiers +(if they do not express it, that is merely because traders and soldiers +do not write history), and (2) that spiritual activity, enlightenment, +civilization, culture, ideas, are all indistinct, indefinite conceptions +under whose banner it is very easy to use words having a still less +definite meaning, and which can therefore be readily introduced into any +theory. + +But not to speak of the intrinsic quality of histories of this kind +(which may possibly even be of use to someone for something) the +histories of culture, to which all general histories tend more and more +to approximate, are significant from the fact that after seriously and +minutely examining various religious, philosophic, and political +doctrines as causes of events, as soon as they have to describe an +actual historic event such as the campaign of 1812 for instance, they +involuntarily describe it as resulting from an exercise of power--and +say plainly that that was the result of Napoleon's will. Speaking so, +the historians of culture involuntarily contradict themselves, and show +that the new force they have devised does not account for what happens +in history, and that history can only be explained by introducing a +power which they apparently do not recognize. + + + + +CHAPTER III + +A locomotive is moving. Someone asks: "What moves it?" A peasant says +the devil moves it. Another man says the locomotive moves because its +wheels go round. A third asserts that the cause of its movement lies in +the smoke which the wind carries away. + +The peasant is irrefutable. He has devised a complete explanation. To +refute him someone would have to prove to him that there is no devil, or +another peasant would have to explain to him that it is not the devil +but a German, who moves the locomotive. Only then, as a result of the +contradiction, will they see that they are both wrong. But the man who +says that the movement of the wheels is the cause refutes himself, for +having once begun to analyze he ought to go on and explain further why +the wheels go round; and till he has reached the ultimate cause of the +movement of the locomotive in the pressure of steam in the boiler, he +has no right to stop in his search for the cause. The man who explains +the movement of the locomotive by the smoke that is carried back has +noticed that the wheels do not supply an explanation and has taken the +first sign that occurs to him and in his turn has offered that as an +explanation. + +The only conception that can explain the movement of the locomotive is +that of a force commensurate with the movement observed. + +The only conception that can explain the movement of the peoples is that +of some force commensurate with the whole movement of the peoples. + +Yet to supply this conception various historians take forces of +different kinds, all of which are incommensurate with the movement +observed. Some see it as a force directly inherent in heroes, as the +peasant sees the devil in the locomotive; others as a force resulting +from several other forces, like the movement of the wheels; others again +as an intellectual influence, like the smoke that is blown away. + +So long as histories are written of separate individuals, whether +Caesars, Alexanders, Luthers, or Voltaires, and not the histories of +all, absolutely all those who take part in an event, it is quite +impossible to describe the movement of humanity without the conception +of a force compelling men to direct their activity toward a certain end. +And the only such conception known to historians is that of power. + +This conception is the one handle by means of which the material of +history, as at present expounded, can be dealt with, and anyone who +breaks that handle off, as Buckle did, without finding some other method +of treating historical material, merely deprives himself of the one +possible way of dealing with it. The necessity of the conception of +power as an explanation of historical events is best demonstrated by the +universal historians and historians of culture themselves, for they +professedly reject that conception but inevitably have recourse to it at +every step. + +In dealing with humanity's inquiry, the science of history up to now is +like money in circulation--paper money and coin. The biographies and +special national histories are like paper money. They can be used and +can circulate and fulfill their purpose without harm to anyone and even +advantageously, as long as no one asks what is the security behind them. +You need only forget to ask how the will of heroes produces events, and +such histories as Thiers' will be interesting and instructive and may +perhaps even possess a tinge of poetry. But just as doubts of the real +value of paper money arise either because, being easy to make, too much +of it gets made or because people try to exchange it for gold, so also +doubts concerning the real value of such histories arise either because +too many of them are written or because in his simplicity of heart +someone inquires: by what force did Napoleon do this?--that is, wants to +exchange the current paper money for the real gold of actual +comprehension. + +The writers of universal histories and of the history of culture are +like people who, recognizing the defects of paper money, decide to +substitute for it money made of metal that has not the specific gravity +of gold. It may indeed make jingling coin, but will do no more than +that. Paper money may deceive the ignorant, but nobody is deceived by +tokens of base metal that have no value but merely jingle. As gold is +gold only if it is serviceable not merely for exchange but also for use, +so universal historians will be valuable only when they can reply to +history's essential question: what is power? The universal historians +give contradictory replies to that question, while the historians of +culture evade it and answer something quite different. And as counters +of imitation gold can be used only among a group of people who agree to +accept them as gold, or among those who do not know the nature of gold, +so universal historians and historians of culture, not answering +humanity's essential question, serve as currency for some purposes of +their own, only in universities and among the mass of readers who have a +taste for what they call "serious reading." + + + + +CHAPTER IV + +Having abandoned the conception of the ancients as to the divine +subjection of the will of a nation to some chosen man and the subjection +of that man's will to the Deity, history cannot without contradictions +take a single step till it has chosen one of two things: either a return +to the former belief in the direct intervention of the Deity in human +affairs or a definite explanation of the meaning of the force producing +historical events and termed "power." + +A return to the first is impossible, the belief has been destroyed; and +so it is essential to explain what is meant by power. + +Napoleon ordered an army to be raised and go to war. We are so +accustomed to that idea and have become so used to it that the question: +why did six hundred thousand men go to fight when Napoleon uttered +certain words, seems to us senseless. He had the power and so what he +ordered was done. + +This reply is quite satisfactory if we believe that the power was given +him by God. But as soon as we do not admit that, it becomes essential to +determine what is this power of one man over others. + +It cannot be the direct physical power of a strong man over a weak one-- +a domination based on the application or threat of physical force, like +the power of Hercules; nor can it be based on the effect of moral force, +as in their simplicity some historians think who say that the leading +figures in history are heroes, that is, men gifted with a special +strength of soul and mind called genius. This power cannot be based on +the predominance of moral strength, for, not to mention heroes such as +Napoleon about whose moral qualities opinions differ widely, history +shows us that neither a Louis XI nor a Metternich, who ruled over +millions of people, had any particular moral qualities, but on the +contrary were generally morally weaker than any of the millions they +ruled over. + +If the source of power lies neither in the physical nor in the moral +qualities of him who possesses it, it must evidently be looked for +elsewhere--in the relation to the people of the man who wields the +power. + +And that is how power is understood by the science of jurisprudence, +that exchange bank of history which offers to exchange history's +understanding of power for true gold. + +Power is the collective will of the people transferred, by expressed or +tacit consent, to their chosen rulers. + +In the domain of jurisprudence, which consists of discussions of how a +state and power might be arranged were it possible for all that to be +arranged, it is all very clear; but when applied to history that +definition of power needs explanation. + +The science of jurisprudence regards the state and power as the ancients +regarded fire--namely, as something existing absolutely. But for +history, the state and power are merely phenomena, just as for modern +physics fire is not an element but a phenomenon. + +From this fundamental difference between the view held by history and +that held by jurisprudence, it follows that jurisprudence can tell +minutely how in its opinion power should be constituted and what power-- +existing immutably outside time--is, but to history's questions about +the meaning of the mutations of power in time it can answer nothing. + +If power be the collective will of the people transferred to their +ruler, was Pugachev a representative of the will of the people? If not, +then why was Napoleon I? Why was Napoleon III a criminal when he was +taken prisoner at Boulogne, and why, later on, were those criminals whom +he arrested? + +Do palace revolutions--in which sometimes only two or three people take +part--transfer the will of the people to a new ruler? In international +relations, is the will of the people also transferred to their +conqueror? Was the will of the Confederation of the Rhine transferred to +Napoleon in 1806? Was the will of the Russian people transferred to +Napoleon in 1809, when our army in alliance with the French went to +fight the Austrians? + +To these questions three answers are possible: + +Either to assume (1) that the will of the people is always +unconditionally transferred to the ruler or rulers they have chosen, and +that therefore every emergence of a new power, every struggle against +the power once appointed, should be absolutely regarded as an +infringement of the real power; or (2) that the will of the people is +transferred to the rulers conditionally, under definite and known +conditions, and to show that all limitations, conflicts, and even +destructions of power result from a nonobservance by the rulers of the +conditions under which their power was entrusted to them; or (3) that +the will of the people is delegated to the rulers conditionally, but +that the conditions are unknown and indefinite, and that the appearance +of several authorities, their struggles and their falls, result solely +from the greater or lesser fulfillment by the rulers of these unknown +conditions on which the will of the people is transferred from some +people to others. + +And these are the three ways in which the historians do explain the +relation of the people to their rulers. + +Some historians--those biographical and specialist historians already +referred to--in their simplicity failing to understand the question of +the meaning of power, seem to consider that the collective will of the +people is unconditionally transferred to historical persons, and +therefore when describing some single state they assume that particular +power to be the one absolute and real power, and that any other force +opposing this is not a power but a violation of power--mere violence. + +Their theory, suitable for primitive and peaceful periods of history, +has the inconvenience--in application to complex and stormy periods in +the life of nations during which various powers arise simultaneously and +struggle with one another--that a Legitimist historian will prove that +the National Convention, the Directory, and Bonaparte were mere +infringers of the true power, while a Republican and a Bonapartist will +prove: the one that the Convention and the other that the Empire was the +real power, and that all the others were violations of power. Evidently +the explanations furnished by these historians being mutually +contradictory can only satisfy young children. + +Recognizing the falsity of this view of history, another set of +historians say that power rests on a conditional delegation of the will +of the people to their rulers, and that historical leaders have power +only conditionally on carrying out the program that the will of the +people has by tacit agreement prescribed to them. But what this program +consists in these historians do not say, or if they do they continually +contradict one another. + +Each historian, according to his view of what constitutes a nation's +progress, looks for these conditions in the greatness, wealth, freedom, +or enlightenment of citizens of France or some other country. But not to +mention the historians' contradictions as to the nature of this program- +-or even admitting that some one general program of these conditions +exists--the facts of history almost always contradict that theory. If +the conditions under which power is entrusted consist in the wealth, +freedom, and enlightenment of the people, how is it that Louis XIV and +Ivan the Terrible end their reigns tranquilly, while Louis XVI and +Charles I are executed by their people? To this question historians +reply that Louis XIV's activity, contrary to the program, reacted on +Louis XVI. But why did it not react on Louis XIV or on Louis XV--why +should it react just on Louis XVI? And what is the time limit for such +reactions? To these questions there are and can be no answers. Equally +little does this view explain why for several centuries the collective +will is not withdrawn from certain rulers and their heirs, and then +suddenly during a period of fifty years is transferred to the +Convention, to the Directory, to Napoleon, to Alexander, to Louis XVIII, +to Napoleon again, to Charles X, to Louis Philippe, to a Republican +government, and to Napoleon III. When explaining these rapid transfers +of the people's will from one individual to another, especially in view +of international relations, conquests, and alliances, the historians are +obliged to admit that some of these transfers are not normal delegations +of the people's will but are accidents dependent on cunning, on +mistakes, on craft, or on the weakness of a diplomatist, a ruler, or a +party leader. So that the greater part of the events of history--civil +wars, revolutions, and conquests--are presented by these historians not +as the results of free transferences of the people's will, but as +results of the ill-directed will of one or more individuals, that is, +once again, as usurpations of power. And so these historians also see +and admit historical events which are exceptions to the theory. + +These historians resemble a botanist who, having noticed that some +plants grow from seeds producing two cotyledons, should insist that all +that grows does so by sprouting into two leaves, and that the palm, the +mushroom, and even the oak, which blossom into full growth and no longer +resemble two leaves, are deviations from the theory. + +Historians of the third class assume that the will of the people is +transferred to historic personages conditionally, but that the +conditions are unknown to us. They say that historical personages have +power only because they fulfill the will of the people which has been +delegated to them. + +But in that case, if the force that moves nations lies not in the +historic leaders but in the nations themselves, what significance have +those leaders? + +The leaders, these historians tell us, express the will of the people: +the activity of the leaders represents the activity of the people. + +But in that case the question arises whether all the activity of the +leaders serves as an expression of the people's will or only some part +of it. If the whole activity of the leaders serves as the expression of +the people's will, as some historians suppose, then all the details of +the court scandals contained in the biographies of a Napoleon or a +Catherine serve to express the life of the nation, which is evident +nonsense; but if it is only some particular side of the activity of an +historical leader which serves to express the people's life, as other +so-called "philosophical" historians believe, then to determine which +side of the activity of a leader expresses the nation's life, we have +first of all to know in what the nation's life consists. + +Met by this difficulty historians of that class devise some most +obscure, impalpable, and general abstraction which can cover all +conceivable occurrences, and declare this abstraction to be the aim of +humanity's movement. The most usual generalizations adopted by almost +all the historians are: freedom, equality, enlightenment, progress, +civilization, and culture. Postulating some generalization as the goal +of the movement of humanity, the historians study the men of whom the +greatest number of monuments have remained: kings, ministers, generals, +authors, reformers, popes, and journalists, to the extent to which in +their opinion these persons have promoted or hindered that abstraction. +But as it is in no way proved that the aim of humanity does consist in +freedom, equality, enlightenment, or civilization, and as the connection +of the people with the rulers and enlighteners of humanity is only based +on the arbitrary assumption that the collective will of the people is +always transferred to the men whom we have noticed, it happens that the +activity of the millions who migrate, burn houses, abandon agriculture, +and destroy one another never is expressed in the account of the +activity of some dozen people who did not burn houses, practice +agriculture, or slay their fellow creatures. + +History proves this at every turn. Is the ferment of the peoples of the +west at the end of the eighteenth century and their drive eastward +explained by the activity of Louis XIV, XV, and XVI, their mistresses +and ministers, and by the lives of Napoleon, Rousseau, Diderot, +Beaumarchais, and others? + +Is the movement of the Russian people eastward to Kazan and Siberia +expressed by details of the morbid character of Ivan the Terrible and by +his correspondence with Kurbski? + +Is the movement of the peoples at the time of the Crusades explained by +the life and activity of the Godfreys and the Louis-es and their ladies? +For us that movement of the peoples from west to east, without leaders, +with a crowd of vagrants, and with Peter the Hermit, remains +incomprehensible. And yet more incomprehensible is the cessation of that +movement when a rational and sacred aim for the Crusade--the deliverance +of Jerusalem--had been clearly defined by historic leaders. Popes, +kings, and knights incited the peoples to free the Holy Land; but the +people did not go, for the unknown cause which had previously impelled +them to go no longer existed. The history of the Godfreys and the +Minnesingers can evidently not cover the life of the peoples. And the +history of the Godfreys and the Minnesingers has remained the history of +Godfreys and Minnesingers, but the history of the life of the peoples +and their impulses has remained unknown. + +Still less does the history of authors and reformers explain to us the +life of the peoples. + +The history of culture explains to us the impulses and conditions of +life and thought of a writer or a reformer. We learn that Luther had a +hot temper and said such and such things; we learn that Rousseau was +suspicious and wrote such and such books; but we do not learn why after +the Reformation the peoples massacred one another, nor why during the +French Revolution they guillotined one another. + +If we unite both these kinds of history, as is done by the newest +historians, we shall have the history of monarchs and writers, but not +the history of the life of the peoples. + + + + +CHAPTER V + +The life of the nations is not contained in the lives of a few men, for +the connection between those men and the nations has not been found. The +theory that this connection is based on the transference of the +collective will of a people to certain historical personages is an +hypothesis unconfirmed by the experience of history. + +The theory of the transference of the collective will of the people to +historic persons may perhaps explain much in the domain of jurisprudence +and be essential for its purposes, but in its application to history, as +soon as revolutions, conquests, or civil wars occur--that is, as soon as +history begins--that theory explains nothing. + +The theory seems irrefutable just because the act of transference of the +people's will cannot be verified, for it never occurred. + +Whatever happens and whoever may stand at the head of affairs, the +theory can always say that such and such a person took the lead because +the collective will was transferred to him. + +The replies this theory gives to historical questions are like the +replies of a man who, watching the movements of a herd of cattle and +paying no attention to the varying quality of the pasturage in different +parts of the field, or to the driving of the herdsman, should attribute +the direction the herd takes to what animal happens to be at its head. + +"The herd goes in that direction because the animal in front leads it +and the collective will of all the other animals is vested in that +leader." This is what historians of the first class say--those who +assume the unconditional transference of the people's will. + +"If the animals leading the herd change, this happens because the +collective will of all the animals is transferred from one leader to +another, according to whether the animal is or is not leading them in +the direction selected by the whole herd." Such is the reply historians +who assume that the collective will of the people is delegated to rulers +under conditions which they regard as known. (With this method of +observation it often happens that the observer, influenced by the +direction he himself prefers, regards those as leaders who, owing to the +people's change of direction, are no longer in front, but on one side, +or even in the rear.) + +"If the animals in front are continually changing and the direction of +the whole herd is constantly altered, this is because in order to follow +a given direction the animals transfer their will to the animals that +have attracted our attention, and to study the movements of the herd we +must watch the movements of all the prominent animals moving on all +sides of the herd." So say the third class of historians who regard all +historical persons, from monarchs to journalists, as the expression of +their age. + +The theory of the transference of the will of the people to historic +persons is merely a paraphrase--a restatement of the question in other +words. + +What causes historical events? Power. What is power? Power is the +collective will of the people transferred to one person. Under what +condition is the will of the people delegated to one person? On +condition that that person expresses the will of the whole people. That +is, power is power: in other words, power is a word the meaning of which +we do not understand. + +If the realm of human knowledge were confined to abstract reasoning, +then having subjected to criticism the explanation of "power" that +juridical science gives us, humanity would conclude that power is merely +a word and has no real existence. But to understand phenomena man has, +besides abstract reasoning, experience by which he verifies his +reflections. And experience tells us that power is not merely a word but +an actually existing phenomenon. + +Not to speak of the fact that no description of the collective activity +of men can do without the conception of power, the existence of power is +proved both by history and by observing contemporary events. + +Whenever an event occurs a man appears or men appear, by whose will the +event seems to have taken place. Napoleon III issues a decree and the +French go to Mexico. The King of Prussia and Bismarck issue decrees and +an army enters Bohemia. Napoleon I issues a decree and an army enters +Russia. Alexander I gives a command and the French submit to the +Bourbons. Experience shows us that whatever event occurs it is always +related to the will of one or of several men who have decreed it. + +The historians, in accord with the old habit of acknowledging divine +intervention in human affairs, want to see the cause of events in the +expression of the will of someone endowed with power, but that +supposition is not confirmed either by reason or by experience. + +On the one side reflection shows that the expression of a man's will-- +his words--are only part of the general activity expressed in an event, +as for instance in a war or a revolution, and so without assuming an +incomprehensible, supernatural force--a miracle--one cannot admit that +words can be the immediate cause of the movements of millions of men. On +the other hand, even if we admitted that words could be the cause of +events, history shows that the expression of the will of historical +personages does not in most cases produce any effect, that is to say, +their commands are often not executed, and sometimes the very opposite +of what they order occurs. + +Without admitting divine intervention in the affairs of humanity we +cannot regard "power" as the cause of events. + +Power, from the standpoint of experience, is merely the relation that +exists between the expression of someone's will and the execution of +that will by others. + +To explain the conditions of that relationship we must first establish a +conception of the expression of will, referring it to man and not to the +Deity. + +If the Deity issues a command, expresses His will, as ancient history +tells us, the expression of that will is independent of time and is not +caused by anything, for the Divinity is not controlled by an event. But +speaking of commands that are the expression of the will of men acting +in time and in relation to one another, to explain the connection of +commands with events we must restore: (1) the condition of all that +takes place: the continuity of movement in time both of the events and +of the person who commands, and (2) the inevitability of the connection +between the person commanding and those who execute his command. + + + + +CHAPTER VI + +Only the expression of the will of the Deity, not dependent on time, can +relate to a whole series of events occurring over a period of years or +centuries, and only the Deity, independent of everything, can by His +sole will determine the direction of humanity's movement; but man acts +in time and himself takes part in what occurs. + +Reinstating the first condition omitted, that of time, we see that no +command can be executed without some preceding order having been given +rendering the execution of the last command possible. + +No command ever appears spontaneously, or itself covers a whole series +of occurrences; but each command follows from another, and never refers +to a whole series of events but always to one moment only of an event. + +When, for instance, we say that Napoleon ordered armies to go to war, we +combine in one simultaneous expression a whole series of consecutive +commands dependent one on another. Napoleon could not have commanded an +invasion of Russia and never did so. Today he ordered such and such +papers to be written to Vienna, to Berlin, and to Petersburg; tomorrow +such and such decrees and orders to the army, the fleet, the +commissariat, and so on and so on--millions of commands, which formed a +whole series corresponding to a series of events which brought the +French armies into Russia. + +If throughout his reign Napoleon gave commands concerning an invasion of +England and expended on no other undertaking so much time and effort, +and yet during his whole reign never once attempted to execute that +design but undertook an expedition into Russia, with which country he +considered it desirable to be in alliance (a conviction he repeatedly +expressed)--this came about because his commands did not correspond to +the course of events in the first case, but did so correspond in the +latter. + +For an order to be certainly executed, it is necessary that a man should +order what can be executed. But to know what can and what cannot be +executed is impossible, not only in the case of Napoleon's invasion of +Russia in which millions participated, but even in the simplest event, +for in either case millions of obstacles may arise to prevent its +execution. Every order executed is always one of an immense number +unexecuted. All the impossible orders inconsistent with the course of +events remain unexecuted. Only the possible ones get linked up with a +consecutive series of commands corresponding to a series of events, and +are executed. + +Our false conception that an event is caused by a command which precedes +it is due to the fact that when the event has taken place and out of +thousands of others those few commands which were consistent with that +event have been executed, we forget about the others that were not +executed because they could not be. Apart from that, the chief source of +our error in this matter is due to the fact that in the historical +accounts a whole series of innumerable, diverse, and petty events, such +for instance as all those which led the French armies to Russia, is +generalized into one event in accord with the result produced by that +series of events, and corresponding with this generalization the whole +series of commands is also generalized into a single expression of will. + +We say that Napoleon wished to invade Russia and invaded it. In reality +in all Napoleon's activity we never find anything resembling an +expression of that wish, but find a series of orders, or expressions of +his will, very variously and indefinitely directed. Amid a long series +of unexecuted orders of Napoleon's one series, for the campaign of 1812, +was carried out--not because those orders differed in any way from the +other, unexecuted orders but because they coincided with the course of +events that led the French army into Russia; just as in stencil work +this or that figure comes out not because the color was laid on from +this side or in that way, but because it was laid on from all sides over +the figure cut in the stencil. + +So that examining the relation in time of the commands to the events, we +find that a command can never be the cause of the event, but that a +certain definite dependence exists between the two. + +To understand in what this dependence consists it is necessary to +reinstate another omitted condition of every command proceeding not from +the Deity but from a man, which is, that the man who gives the command +himself takes part in the event. + +This relation of the commander to those he commands is just what is +called power. This relation consists in the following: + +For common action people always unite in certain combinations, in which +regardless of the difference of the aims set for the common action, the +relation between those taking part in it is always the same. + +Men uniting in these combinations always assume such relations toward +one another that the larger number take a more direct share, and the +smaller number a less direct share, in the collective action for which +they have combined. + +Of all the combinations in which men unite for collective action one of +the most striking and definite examples is an army. + +Every army is composed of lower grades of the service--the rank and +file--of whom there are always the greatest number; of the next higher +military rank--corporals and noncommissioned officers of whom there are +fewer, and of still-higher officers of whom there are still fewer, and +so on to the highest military command which is concentrated in one +person. + +A military organization may be quite correctly compared to a cone, of +which the base with the largest diameter consists of the rank and file; +the next higher and smaller section of the cone consists of the next +higher grades of the army, and so on to the apex, the point of which +will represent the commander-in-chief. + +The soldiers, of whom there are the most, form the lower section of the +cone and its base. The soldier himself does the stabbing, hacking, +burning, and pillaging, and always receives orders for these actions +from men above him; he himself never gives an order. The noncommissioned +officers (of whom there are fewer) perform the action itself less +frequently than the soldiers, but they already give commands. An officer +still less often acts directly himself, but commands still more +frequently. A general does nothing but command the troops, indicates the +objective, and hardly ever uses a weapon himself. The commander-in-chief +never takes direct part in the action itself, but only gives general +orders concerning the movement of the mass of the troops. A similar +relation of people to one another is seen in every combination of men +for common activity--in agriculture, trade, and every administration. + +And so without particularly analyzing all the contiguous sections of a +cone and of the ranks of an army, or the ranks and positions in any +administrative or public business whatever from the lowest to the +highest, we see a law by which men, to take associated action, combine +in such relations that the more directly they participate in performing +the action the less they can command and the more numerous they are, +while the less their direct participation in the action itself, the more +they command and the fewer of them there are; rising in this way from +the lowest ranks to the man at the top, who takes the least direct share +in the action and directs his activity chiefly to commanding. + +This relation of the men who command to those they command is what +constitutes the essence of the conception called power. + +Having restored the condition of time under which all events occur, we +find that a command is executed only when it is related to a +corresponding series of events. Restoring the essential condition of +relation between those who command and those who execute, we find that +by the very nature of the case those who command take the smallest part +in the action itself and that their activity is exclusively directed to +commanding. + + + + +CHAPTER VII + +When an event is taking place people express their opinions and wishes +about it, and as the event results from the collective activity of many +people, some one of the opinions or wishes expressed is sure to be +fulfilled if but approximately. When one of the opinions expressed is +fulfilled, that opinion gets connected with the event as a command +preceding it. + +Men are hauling a log. Each of them expresses his opinion as to how and +where to haul it. They haul the log away, and it happens that this is +done as one of them said. He ordered it. There we have command and power +in their primary form. The man who worked most with his hands could not +think so much about what he was doing, or reflect on or command what +would result from the common activity; while the man who commanded more +would evidently work less with his hands on account of his greater +verbal activity. + +When some larger concourse of men direct their activity to a common aim +there is a yet sharper division of those who, because their activity is +given to directing and commanding, take less part in the direct work. + +When a man works alone he always has a certain set of reflections which +as it seems to him directed his past activity, justify his present +activity, and guide him in planning his future actions. Just the same is +done by a concourse of people, allowing those who do not take a direct +part in the activity to devise considerations, justifications, and +surmises concerning their collective activity. + +For reasons known or unknown to us the French began to drown and kill +one another. And corresponding to the event its justification appears in +people's belief that this was necessary for the welfare of France, for +liberty, and for equality. People ceased to kill one another, and this +event was accompanied by its justification in the necessity for a +centralization of power, resistance to Europe, and so on. Men went from +the west to the east killing their fellow men, and the event was +accompanied by phrases about the glory of France, the baseness of +England, and so on. History shows us that these justifications of the +events have no common sense and are all contradictory, as in the case of +killing a man as the result of recognizing his rights, and the killing +of millions in Russia for the humiliation of England. But these +justifications have a very necessary significance in their own day. + +These justifications release those who produce the events from moral +responsibility. These temporary aims are like the broom fixed in front +of a locomotive to clear the snow from the rails in front: they clear +men's moral responsibilities from their path. + +Without such justification there would be no reply to the simplest +question that presents itself when examining each historical event. How +is it that millions of men commit collective crimes--make war, commit +murder, and so on? + +With the present complex forms of political and social life in Europe +can any event that is not prescribed, decreed, or ordered by monarchs, +ministers, parliaments, or newspapers be imagined? Is there any +collective action which cannot find its justification in political +unity, in patriotism, in the balance of power, or in civilization? So +that every event that occurs inevitably coincides with some expressed +wish and, receiving a justification, presents itself as the result of +the will of one man or of several men. + +In whatever direction a ship moves, the flow of the waves it cuts will +always be noticeable ahead of it. To those on board the ship the +movement of those waves will be the only perceptible motion. + +Only by watching closely moment by moment the movement of that flow and +comparing it with the movement of the ship do we convince ourselves that +every bit of it is occasioned by the forward movement of the ship, and +that we were led into error by the fact that we ourselves were +imperceptibly moving. + +We see the same if we watch moment by moment the movement of historical +characters (that is, re-establish the inevitable condition of all that +occurs--the continuity of movement in time) and do not lose sight of the +essential connection of historical persons with the masses. + +When the ship moves in one direction there is one and the same wave +ahead of it, when it turns frequently the wave ahead of it also turns +frequently. But wherever it may turn there always will be the wave +anticipating its movement. + +Whatever happens it always appears that just that event was foreseen and +decreed. Wherever the ship may go, the rush of water which neither +directs nor increases its movement foams ahead of it, and at a distance +seems to us not merely to move of itself but to govern the ship's +movement also. + +Examining only those expressions of the will of historical persons +which, as commands, were related to events, historians have assumed that +the events depended on those commands. But examining the events +themselves and the connection in which the historical persons stood to +the people, we have found that they and their orders were dependent on +events. The incontestable proof of this deduction is that, however many +commands were issued, the event does not take place unless there are +other causes for it, but as soon as an event occurs--be it what it may-- +then out of all the continually expressed wishes of different people +some will always be found which by their meaning and their time of +utterance are related as commands to the events. + +Arriving at this conclusion we can reply directly and positively to +these two essential questions of history: + +(1) What is power? + +(2) What force produces the movement of the nations? + +(1) Power is the relation of a given person to other individuals, in +which the more this person expresses opinions, predictions, and +justifications of the collective action that is performed, the less is +his participation in that action. + +(2) The movement of nations is caused not by power, nor by intellectual +activity, nor even by a combination of the two as historians have +supposed, but by the activity of all the people who participate in the +events, and who always combine in such a way that those taking the +largest direct share in the event take on themselves the least +responsibility and vice versa. + +Morally the wielder of power appears to cause the event; physically it +is those who submit to the power. But as the moral activity is +inconceivable without the physical, the cause of the event is neither in +the one nor in the other but in the union of the two. + +Or in other words, the conception of a cause is inapplicable to the +phenomena we are examining. + +In the last analysis we reach the circle of infinity--that final limit +to which in every domain of thought man's reason arrives if it is not +playing with the subject. Electricity produces heat, heat produces +electricity. Atoms attract each other and atoms repel one another. + +Speaking of the interaction of heat and electricity and of atoms, we +cannot say why this occurs, and we say that it is so because it is +inconceivable otherwise, because it must be so and that it is a law. The +same applies to historical events. Why war and revolution occur we do +not know. We only know that to produce the one or the other action, +people combine in a certain formation in which they all take part, and +we say that this is so because it is unthinkable otherwise, or in other +words that it is a law. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII + +If history dealt only with external phenomena, the establishment of this +simple and obvious law would suffice and we should have finished our +argument. But the law of history relates to man. A particle of matter +cannot tell us that it does not feel the law of attraction or repulsion +and that that law is untrue, but man, who is the subject of history, +says plainly: I am free and am therefore not subject to the law. + +The presence of the problem of man's free will, though unexpressed, is +felt at every step of history. + +All seriously thinking historians have involuntarily encountered this +question. All the contradictions and obscurities of history and the +false path historical science has followed are due solely to the lack of +a solution of that question. + +If the will of every man were free, that is, if each man could act as he +pleased, all history would be a series of disconnected incidents. + +If in a thousand years even one man in a million could act freely, that +is, as he chose, it is evident that one single free act of that man's in +violation of the laws governing human action would destroy the +possibility of the existence of any laws for the whole of humanity. + +If there be a single law governing the actions of men, free will cannot +exist, for then man's will is subject to that law. + +In this contradiction lies the problem of free will, which from most +ancient times has occupied the best human minds and from most ancient +times has been presented in its whole tremendous significance. + +The problem is that regarding man as a subject of observation from +whatever point of view--theological, historical, ethical, or +philosophic--we find a general law of necessity to which he (like all +that exists) is subject. But regarding him from within ourselves as what +we are conscious of, we feel ourselves to be free. + +This consciousness is a source of self-cognition quite apart from and +independent of reason. Through his reason man observes himself, but only +through consciousness does he know himself. + +Apart from consciousness of self no observation or application of reason +is conceivable. + +To understand, observe, and draw conclusions, man must first of all be +conscious of himself as living. A man is only conscious of himself as a +living being by the fact that he wills, that is, is conscious of his +volition. But his will--which forms the essence of his life--man +recognizes (and can but recognize) as free. + +If, observing himself, man sees that his will is always directed by one +and the same law (whether he observes the necessity of taking food, +using his brain, or anything else) he cannot recognize this never- +varying direction of his will otherwise than as a limitation of it. Were +it not free it could not be limited. A man's will seems to him to be +limited just because he is not conscious of it except as free. + +You say: I am not free. But I have lifted my hand and let it fall. +Everyone understands that this illogical reply is an irrefutable +demonstration of freedom. + +That reply is the expression of a consciousness that is not subject to +reason. + +If the consciousness of freedom were not a separate and independent +source of self-consciousness it would be subject to reasoning and to +experience, but in fact such subjection does not exist and is +inconceivable. + +A series of experiments and arguments proves to every man that he, as an +object of observation, is subject to certain laws, and man submits to +them and never resists the laws of gravity or impermeability once he has +become acquainted with them. But the same series of experiments and +arguments proves to him that the complete freedom of which he is +conscious in himself is impossible, and that his every action depends on +his organization, his character, and the motives acting upon him; yet +man never submits to the deductions of these experiments and arguments. +Having learned from experiment and argument that a stone falls +downwards, a man indubitably believes this and always expects the law +that he has learned to be fulfilled. + +But learning just as certainly that his will is subject to laws, he does +not and cannot believe this. + +However often experiment and reasoning may show a man that under the +same conditions and with the same character he will do the same thing as +before, yet when under the same conditions and with the same character +he approaches for the thousandth time the action that always ends in the +same way, he feels as certainly convinced as before the experiment that +he can act as he pleases. Every man, savage or sage, however +incontestably reason and experiment may prove to him that it is +impossible to imagine two different courses of action in precisely the +same conditions, feels that without this irrational conception (which +constitutes the essence of freedom) he cannot imagine life. He feels +that however impossible it may be, it is so, for without this conception +of freedom not only would he be unable to understand life, but he would +be unable to live for a single moment. + +He could not live, because all man's efforts, all his impulses to life, +are only efforts to increase freedom. Wealth and poverty, fame and +obscurity, power and subordination, strength and weakness, health and +disease, culture and ignorance, work and leisure, repletion and hunger, +virtue and vice, are only greater or lesser degrees of freedom. + +A man having no freedom cannot be conceived of except as deprived of +life. + +If the conception of freedom appears to reason to be a senseless +contradiction like the possibility of performing two actions at one and +the same instant of time, or of an effect without a cause, that only +proves that consciousness is not subject to reason. + +This unshakable, irrefutable consciousness of freedom, uncontrolled by +experiment or argument, recognized by all thinkers and felt by everyone +without exception, this consciousness without which no conception of man +is possible constitutes the other side of the question. + +Man is the creation of an all-powerful, all-good, and all-seeing God. +What is sin, the conception of which arises from the consciousness of +man's freedom? That is a question for theology. + +The actions of men are subject to general immutable laws expressed in +statistics. What is man's responsibility to society, the conception of +which results from the conception of freedom? That is a question for +jurisprudence. + +Man's actions proceed from his innate character and the motives acting +upon him. What is conscience and the perception of right and wrong in +actions that follows from the consciousness of freedom? That is a +question for ethics. + +Man in connection with the general life of humanity appears subject to +laws which determine that life. But the same man apart from that +connection appears to be free. How should the past life of nations and +of humanity be regarded--as the result of the free, or as the result of +the constrained, activity of man? That is a question for history. + +Only in our self-confident day of the popularization of knowledge-- +thanks to that most powerful engine of ignorance, the diffusion of +printed matter--has the question of the freedom of will been put on a +level on which the question itself cannot exist. In our time the +majority of so-called advanced people--that is, the crowd of +ignoramuses--have taken the work of the naturalists who deal with one +side of the question for a solution of the whole problem. + +They say and write and print that the soul and freedom do not exist, for +the life of man is expressed by muscular movements and muscular +movements are conditioned by the activity of the nerves; the soul and +free will do not exist because at an unknown period of time we sprang +from the apes. They say this, not at all suspecting that thousands of +years ago that same law of necessity which with such ardor they are now +trying to prove by physiology and comparative zoology was not merely +acknowledged by all the religions and all the thinkers, but has never +been denied. They do not see that the role of the natural sciences in +this matter is merely to serve as an instrument for the illumination of +one side of it. For the fact that, from the point of view of +observation, reason and the will are merely secretions of the brain, and +that man following the general law may have developed from lower animals +at some unknown period of time, only explains from a fresh side the +truth admitted thousands of years ago by all the religious and +philosophic theories--that from the point of view of reason man is +subject to the law of necessity; but it does not advance by a hair's +breadth the solution of the question, which has another, opposite, side, +based on the consciousness of freedom. + +If men descended from the apes at an unknown period of time, that is as +comprehensible as that they were made from a handful of earth at a +certain period of time (in the first case the unknown quantity is the +time, in the second case it is the origin); and the question of how +man's consciousness of freedom is to be reconciled with the law of +necessity to which he is subject cannot be solved by comparative +physiology and zoology, for in a frog, a rabbit, or an ape, we can +observe only the muscular nervous activity, but in man we observe +consciousness as well as the muscular and nervous activity. + +The naturalists and their followers, thinking they can solve this +question, are like plasterers set to plaster one side of the walls of a +church who, availing themselves of the absence of the chief +superintendent of the work, should in an access of zeal plaster over the +windows, icons, woodwork, and still unbuttressed walls, and should be +delighted that from their point of view as plasterers, everything is now +so smooth and regular. + + + + +CHAPTER IX + +For the solution of the question of free will or inevitability, history +has this advantage over other branches of knowledge in which the +question is dealt with, that for history this question does not refer to +the essence of man's free will but its manifestation in the past and +under certain conditions. + +In regard to this question, history stands to the other sciences as +experimental science stands to abstract science. + +The subject for history is not man's will itself but our presentation of +it. + +And so for history, the insoluble mystery presented by the +incompatibility of free will and inevitability does not exist as it does +for theology, ethics, and philosophy. History surveys a presentation of +man's life in which the union of these two contradictions has already +taken place. + +In actual life each historic event, each human action, is very clearly +and definitely understood without any sense of contradiction, although +each event presents itself as partly free and partly compulsory. + +To solve the question of how freedom and necessity are combined and what +constitutes the essence of these two conceptions, the philosophy of +history can and should follow a path contrary to that taken by other +sciences. Instead of first defining the conceptions of freedom and +inevitability in themselves, and then ranging the phenomena of life +under those definitions, history should deduce a definition of the +conception of freedom and inevitability themselves from the immense +quantity of phenomena of which it is cognizant and that always appear +dependent on these two elements. + +Whatever presentation of the activity of many men or of an individual we +may consider, we always regard it as the result partly of man's free +will and partly of the law of inevitability. + +Whether we speak of the migration of the peoples and the incursions of +the barbarians, or of the decrees of Napoleon III, or of someone's +action an hour ago in choosing one direction out of several for his +walk, we are unconscious of any contradiction. The degree of freedom and +inevitability governing the actions of these people is clearly defined +for us. + +Our conception of the degree of freedom often varies according to +differences in the point of view from which we regard the event, but +every human action appears to us as a certain combination of freedom and +inevitability. In every action we examine we see a certain measure of +freedom and a certain measure of inevitability. And always the more +freedom we see in any action the less inevitability do we perceive, and +the more inevitability the less freedom. + +The proportion of freedom to inevitability decreases and increases +according to the point of view from which the action is regarded, but +their relation is always one of inverse proportion. + +A sinking man who clutches at another and drowns him; or a hungry mother +exhausted by feeding her baby, who steals some food; or a man trained to +discipline who on duty at the word of command kills a defenseless man-- +seem less guilty, that is, less free and more subject to the law of +necessity, to one who knows the circumstances in which these people were +placed, and more free to one who does not know that the man was himself +drowning, that the mother was hungry, that the soldier was in the ranks, +and so on. Similarly a man who committed a murder twenty years ago and +has since lived peaceably and harmlessly in society seems less guilty +and his action more due to the law of inevitability, to someone who +considers his action after twenty years have elapsed than to one who +examined it the day after it was committed. And in the same way every +action of an insane, intoxicated, or highly excited man appears less +free and more inevitable to one who knows the mental condition of him +who committed the action, and seems more free and less inevitable to one +who does not know it. In all these cases the conception of freedom is +increased or diminished and the conception of compulsion is +correspondingly decreased or increased, according to the point of view +from which the action is regarded. So that the greater the conception of +necessity the smaller the conception of freedom and vice versa. + +Religion, the common sense of mankind, the science of jurisprudence, and +history itself understand alike this relation between necessity and +freedom. + +All cases without exception in which our conception of freedom and +necessity is increased and diminished depend on three considerations: + +(1) The relation to the external world of the man who commits the deeds. + +(2) His relation to time. + +(3) His relation to the causes leading to the action. + +The first consideration is the clearness of our perception of the man's +relation to the external world and the greater or lesser clearness of +our understanding of the definite position occupied by the man in +relation to everything coexisting with him. This is what makes it +evident that a drowning man is less free and more subject to necessity +than one standing on dry ground, and that makes the actions of a man +closely connected with others in a thickly populated district, or of one +bound by family, official, or business duties, seem certainly less free +and more subject to necessity than those of a man living in solitude and +seclusion. + +If we consider a man alone, apart from his relation to everything around +him, each action of his seems to us free. But if we see his relation to +anything around him, if we see his connection with anything whatever-- +with a man who speaks to him, a book he reads, the work on which he is +engaged, even with the air he breathes or the light that falls on the +things about him--we see that each of these circumstances has an +influence on him and controls at least some side of his activity. And +the more we perceive of these influences the more our conception of his +freedom diminishes and the more our conception of the necessity that +weighs on him increases. + +The second consideration is the more or less evident time relation of +the man to the world and the clearness of our perception of the place +the man's action occupies in time. That is the ground which makes the +fall of the first man, resulting in the production of the human race, +appear evidently less free than a man's entry into marriage today. It is +the reason why the life and activity of people who lived centuries ago +and are connected with me in time cannot seem to me as free as the life +of a contemporary, the consequences of which are still unknown to me. + +The degree of our conception of freedom or inevitability depends in this +respect on the greater or lesser lapse of time between the performance +of the action and our judgment of it. + +If I examine an act I performed a moment ago in approximately the same +circumstances as those I am in now, my action appears to me undoubtedly +free. But if I examine an act performed a month ago, then being in +different circumstances, I cannot help recognizing that if that act had +not been committed much that resulted from it--good, agreeable, and even +essential--would not have taken place. If I reflect on an action still +more remote, ten years ago or more, then the consequences of my action +are still plainer to me and I find it hard to imagine what would have +happened had that action not been performed. The farther I go back in +memory, or what is the same thing the farther I go forward in my +judgment, the more doubtful becomes my belief in the freedom of my +action. + +In history we find a very similar progress of conviction concerning the +part played by free will in the general affairs of humanity. A +contemporary event seems to us to be indubitably the doing of all the +known participants, but with a more remote event we already see its +inevitable results which prevent our considering anything else possible. +And the farther we go back in examining events the less arbitrary do +they appear. + +The Austro-Prussian war appears to us undoubtedly the result of the +crafty conduct of Bismarck, and so on. The Napoleonic wars still seem to +us, though already questionably, to be the outcome of their heroes' +will. But in the Crusades we already see an event occupying its definite +place in history and without which we cannot imagine the modern history +of Europe, though to the chroniclers of the Crusades that event appeared +as merely due to the will of certain people. In regard to the migration +of the peoples it does not enter anyone's head today to suppose that the +renovation of the European world depended on Attila's caprice. The +farther back in history the object of our observation lies, the more +doubtful does the free will of those concerned in the event become and +the more manifest the law of inevitability. + +The third consideration is the degree to which we apprehend that endless +chain of causation inevitably demanded by reason, in which each +phenomenon comprehended, and therefore man's every action, must have its +definite place as a result of what has gone before and as a cause of +what will follow. + +The better we are acquainted with the physiological, psychological, and +historical laws deduced by observation and by which man is controlled, +and the more correctly we perceive the physiological, psychological, and +historical causes of the action, and the simpler the action we are +observing and the less complex the character and mind of the man in +question, the more subject to inevitability and the less free do our +actions and those of others appear. + +When we do not at all understand the cause of an action, whether a +crime, a good action, or even one that is simply nonmoral, we ascribe a +greater amount of freedom to it. In the case of a crime we most urgently +demand the punishment for such an act; in the case of a virtuous act we +rate its merit most highly. In an indifferent case we recognize in it +more individuality, originality, and independence. But if even one of +the innumerable causes of the act is known to us we recognize a certain +element of necessity and are less insistent on punishment for the crime, +or the acknowledgment of the merit of the virtuous act, or the freedom +of the apparently original action. That a criminal was reared among male +factors mitigates his fault in our eyes. The self-sacrifice of a father +or mother, or self-sacrifice with the possibility of a reward, is more +comprehensible than gratuitous self-sacrifice, and therefore seems less +deserving of sympathy and less the result of free will. The founder of a +sect or party, or an inventor, impresses us less when we know how or by +what the way was prepared for his activity. If we have a large range of +examples, if our observation is constantly directed to seeking the +correlation of cause and effect in people's actions, their actions +appear to us more under compulsion and less free the more correctly we +connect the effects with the causes. If we examined simple actions and +had a vast number of such actions under observation, our conception of +their inevitability would be still greater. The dishonest conduct of the +son of a dishonest father, the misconduct of a woman who had fallen into +bad company, a drunkard's relapse into drunkenness, and so on are +actions that seem to us less free the better we understand their cause. +If the man whose actions we are considering is on a very low stage of +mental development, like a child, a madman, or a simpleton--then, +knowing the causes of the act and the simplicity of the character and +intelligence in question, we see so large an element of necessity and so +little free will that as soon as we know the cause prompting the action +we can foretell the result. + +On these three considerations alone is based the conception of +irresponsibility for crimes and the extenuating circumstances admitted +by all legislative codes. The responsibility appears greater or less +according to our greater or lesser knowledge of the circumstances in +which the man was placed whose action is being judged, and according to +the greater or lesser interval of time between the commission of the +action and its investigation, and according to the greater or lesser +understanding of the causes that led to the action. + + + + +CHAPTER X + +Thus our conception of free will and inevitability gradually diminishes +or increases according to the greater or lesser connection with the +external world, the greater or lesser remoteness of time, and the +greater or lesser dependence on the causes in relation to which we +contemplate a man's life. + +So that if we examine the case of a man whose connection with the +external world is well known, where the time between the action and its +examination is great, and where the causes of the action are most +accessible, we get the conception of a maximum of inevitability and a +minimum of free will. If we examine a man little dependent on external +conditions, whose action was performed very recently, and the causes of +whose action are beyond our ken, we get the conception of a minimum of +inevitability and a maximum of freedom. + +In neither case--however we may change our point of view, however plain +we may make to ourselves the connection between the man and the external +world, however inaccessible it may be to us, however long or short the +period of time, however intelligible or incomprehensible the causes of +the action may be--can we ever conceive either complete freedom or +complete necessity. + +(1) To whatever degree we may imagine a man to be exempt from the +influence of the external world, we never get a conception of freedom in +space. Every human action is inevitably conditioned by what surrounds +him and by his own body. I lift my arm and let it fall. My action seems +to me free; but asking myself whether I could raise my arm in every +direction, I see that I raised it in the direction in which there was +least obstruction to that action either from things around me or from +the construction of my own body. I chose one out of all the possible +directions because in it there were fewest obstacles. For my action to +be free it was necessary that it should encounter no obstacles. To +conceive of a man being free we must imagine him outside space, which is +evidently impossible. + +(2) However much we approximate the time of judgment to the time of the +deed, we never get a conception of freedom in time. For if I examine an +action committed a second ago I must still recognize it as not being +free, for it is irrevocably linked to the moment at which it was +committed. Can I lift my arm? I lift it, but ask myself: could I have +abstained from lifting my arm at the moment that has already passed? To +convince myself of this I do not lift it the next moment. But I am not +now abstaining from doing so at the first moment when I asked the +question. Time has gone by which I could not detain, the arm I then +lifted is no longer the same as the arm I now refrain from lifting, nor +is the air in which I lifted it the same that now surrounds me. The +moment in which the first movement was made is irrevocable, and at that +moment I could make only one movement, and whatever movement I made +would be the only one. That I did not lift my arm a moment later does +not prove that I could have abstained from lifting it then. And since I +could make only one movement at that single moment of time, it could not +have been any other. To imagine it as free, it is necessary to imagine +it in the present, on the boundary between the past and the future--that +is, outside time, which is impossible. + +(3) However much the difficulty of understanding the causes may be +increased, we never reach a conception of complete freedom, that is, an +absence of cause. However inaccessible to us may be the cause of the +expression of will in any action, our own or another's, the first demand +of reason is the assumption of and search for a cause, for without a +cause no phenomenon is conceivable. I raise my arm to perform an action +independently of any cause, but my wish to perform an action without a +cause is the cause of my action. + +But even if--imagining a man quite exempt from all influences, examining +only his momentary action in the present, unevoked by any cause--we were +to admit so infinitely small a remainder of inevitability as equaled +zero, we should even then not have arrived at the conception of complete +freedom in man, for a being uninfluenced by the external world, standing +outside of time and independent of cause, is no longer a man. + +In the same way we can never imagine the action of a man quite devoid of +freedom and entirely subject to the law of inevitability. + +(1) However we may increase our knowledge of the conditions of space in +which man is situated, that knowledge can never be complete, for the +number of those conditions is as infinite as the infinity of space. And +therefore so long as not all the conditions influencing men are defined, +there is no complete inevitability but a certain measure of freedom +remains. + +(2) However we may prolong the period of time between the action we are +examining and the judgment upon it, that period will be finite, while +time is infinite, and so in this respect too there can never be absolute +inevitability. + +(3) However accessible may be the chain of causation of any action, we +shall never know the whole chain since it is endless, and so again we +never reach absolute inevitability. + +But besides this, even if, admitting the remaining minimum of freedom to +equal zero, we assumed in some given case--as for instance in that of a +dying man, an unborn babe, or an idiot--complete absence of freedom, by +so doing we should destroy the very conception of man in the case we are +examining, for as soon as there is no freedom there is also no man. And +so the conception of the action of a man subject solely to the law of +inevitability without any element of freedom is just as impossible as +the conception of a man's completely free action. + +And so to imagine the action of a man entirely subject to the law of +inevitability without any freedom, we must assume the knowledge of an +infinite number of space relations, an infinitely long period of time, +and an infinite series of causes. + +To imagine a man perfectly free and not subject to the law of +inevitability, we must imagine him all alone, beyond space, beyond time, +and free from dependence on cause. + +In the first case, if inevitability were possible without freedom we +should have reached a definition of inevitability by the laws of +inevitability itself, that is, a mere form without content. + +In the second case, if freedom were possible without inevitability we +should have arrived at unconditioned freedom beyond space, time, and +cause, which by the fact of its being unconditioned and unlimited would +be nothing, or mere content without form. + +We should in fact have reached those two fundamentals of which man's +whole outlook on the universe is constructed--the incomprehensible +essence of life, and the laws defining that essence. + +Reason says: (1) space with all the forms of matter that give it +visibility is infinite, and cannot be imagined otherwise. (2) Time is +infinite motion without a moment of rest and is unthinkable otherwise. +(3) The connection between cause and effect has no beginning and can +have no end. + +Consciousness says: (1) I alone am, and all that exists is but me, +consequently I include space. (2) I measure flowing time by the fixed +moment of the present in which alone I am conscious of myself as living, +consequently I am outside time. (3) I am beyond cause, for I feel myself +to be the cause of every manifestation of my life. + +Reason gives expression to the laws of inevitability. Consciousness +gives expression to the essence of freedom. + +Freedom not limited by anything is the essence of life, in man's +consciousness. Inevitability without content is man's reason in its +three forms. + +Freedom is the thing examined. Inevitability is what examines. Freedom +is the content. Inevitability is the form. + +Only by separating the two sources of cognition, related to one another +as form to content, do we get the mutually exclusive and separately +incomprehensible conceptions of freedom and inevitability. + +Only by uniting them do we get a clear conception of man's life. + +Apart from these two concepts which in their union mutually define one +another as form and content, no conception of life is possible. + +All that we know of the life of man is merely a certain relation of free +will to inevitability, that is, of consciousness to the laws of reason. + +All that we know of the external world of nature is only a certain +relation of the forces of nature to inevitability, or of the essence of +life to the laws of reason. + +The great natural forces lie outside us and we are not conscious of +them; we call those forces gravitation, inertia, electricity, animal +force, and so on, but we are conscious of the force of life in man and +we call that freedom. + +But just as the force of gravitation, incomprehensible in itself but +felt by every man, is understood by us only to the extent to which we +know the laws of inevitability to which it is subject (from the first +knowledge that all bodies have weight, up to Newton's law), so too the +force of free will, incomprehensible in itself but of which everyone is +conscious, is intelligible to us only in as far as we know the laws of +inevitability to which it is subject (from the fact that every man dies, +up to the knowledge of the most complex economic and historic laws). + +All knowledge is merely a bringing of this essence of life under the +laws of reason. + +Man's free will differs from every other force in that man is directly +conscious of it, but in the eyes of reason it in no way differs from any +other force. The forces of gravitation, electricity, or chemical +affinity are only distinguished from one another in that they are +differently defined by reason. Just so the force of man's free will is +distinguished by reason from the other forces of nature only by the +definition reason gives it. Freedom, apart from necessity, that is, +apart from the laws of reason that define it, differs in no way from +gravitation, or heat, or the force that makes things grow; for reason, +it is only a momentary undefinable sensation of life. + +And as the undefinable essence of the force moving the heavenly bodies, +the undefinable essence of the forces of heat and electricity, or of +chemical affinity, or of the vital force, forms the content of +astronomy, physics, chemistry, botany, zoology, and so on, just in the +same way does the force of free will form the content of history. But +just as the subject of every science is the manifestation of this +unknown essence of life while that essence itself can only be the +subject of metaphysics, even the manifestation of the force of free will +in human beings in space, in time, and in dependence on cause forms the +subject of history, while free will itself is the subject of +metaphysics. + +In the experimental sciences what we know we call the laws of +inevitability, what is unknown to us we call vital force. Vital force is +only an expression for the unknown remainder over and above what we know +of the essence of life. + +So also in history what is known to us we call laws of inevitability, +what is unknown we call free will. Free will is for history only an +expression for the unknown remainder of what we know about the laws of +human life. + + + + +CHAPTER XI + +History examines the manifestations of man's free will in connection +with the external world in time and in dependence on cause, that is, it +defines this freedom by the laws of reason, and so history is a science +only in so far as this free will is defined by those laws. + +The recognition of man's free will as something capable of influencing +historical events, that is, as not subject to laws, is the same for +history as the recognition of a free force moving the heavenly bodies +would be for astronomy. + +That assumption would destroy the possibility of the existence of laws, +that is, of any science whatever. If there is even a single body moving +freely, then the laws of Kepler and Newton are negatived and no +conception of the movement of the heavenly bodies any longer exists. If +any single action is due to free will, then not a single historical law +can exist, nor any conception of historical events. + +For history, lines exist of the movement of human wills, one end of +which is hidden in the unknown but at the other end of which a +consciousness of man's will in the present moves in space, time, and +dependence on cause. + +The more this field of motion spreads out before our eyes, the more +evident are the laws of that movement. To discover and define those laws +is the problem of history. + +From the standpoint from which the science of history now regards its +subject on the path it now follows, seeking the causes of events in +man's freewill, a scientific enunciation of those laws is impossible, +for however man's free will may be restricted, as soon as we recognize +it as a force not subject to law, the existence of law becomes +impossible. + +Only by reducing this element of free will to the infinitesimal, that +is, by regarding it as an infinitely small quantity, can we convince +ourselves of the absolute inaccessibility of the causes, and then +instead of seeking causes, history will take the discovery of laws as +its problem. + +The search for these laws has long been begun and the new methods of +thought which history must adopt are being worked out simultaneously +with the self-destruction toward which--ever dissecting and dissecting +the causes of phenomena--the old method of history is moving. + +All human sciences have traveled along that path. Arriving at +infinitesimals, mathematics, the most exact of sciences, abandons the +process of analysis and enters on the new process of the integration of +unknown, infinitely small, quantities. Abandoning the conception of +cause, mathematics seeks law, that is, the property common to all +unknown, infinitely small, elements. + +In another form but along the same path of reflection the other sciences +have proceeded. When Newton enunciated the law of gravity he did not say +that the sun or the earth had a property of attraction; he said that all +bodies from the largest to the smallest have the property of attracting +one another, that is, leaving aside the question of the cause of the +movement of the bodies, he expressed the property common to all bodies +from the infinitely large to the infinitely small. The same is done by +the natural sciences: leaving aside the question of cause, they seek for +laws. History stands on the same path. And if history has for its object +the study of the movement of the nations and of humanity and not the +narration of episodes in the lives of individuals, it too, setting aside +the conception of cause, should seek the laws common to all the +inseparably interconnected infinitesimal elements of free will. + + + + +CHAPTER XII + +From the time the law of Copernicus was discovered and proved, the mere +recognition of the fact that it was not the sun but the earth that moves +sufficed to destroy the whole cosmography of the ancients. By disproving +that law it might have been possible to retain the old conception of the +movements of the bodies, but without disproving it, it would seem +impossible to continue studying the Ptolemaic worlds. But even after the +discovery of the law of Copernicus the Ptolemaic worlds were still +studied for a long time. + +From the time the first person said and proved that the number of births +or of crimes is subject to mathematical laws, and that this or that mode +of government is determined by certain geographical and economic +conditions, and that certain relations of population to soil produce +migrations of peoples, the foundations on which history had been built +were destroyed in their essence. + +By refuting these new laws the former view of history might have been +retained; but without refuting them it would seem impossible to continue +studying historic events as the results of man's free will. For if a +certain mode of government was established or certain migrations of +peoples took place in consequence of such and such geographic, +ethnographic, or economic conditions, then the free will of those +individuals who appear to us to have established that mode of government +or occasioned the migrations can no longer be regarded as the cause. + +And yet the former history continues to be studied side by side with the +laws of statistics, geography, political economy, comparative philology, +and geology, which directly contradict its assumptions. + +The struggle between the old views and the new was long and stubbornly +fought out in physical philosophy. Theology stood on guard for the old +views and accused the new of violating revelation. But when truth +conquered, theology established itself just as firmly on the new +foundation. + +Just as prolonged and stubborn is the struggle now proceeding between +the old and the new conception of history, and theology in the same way +stands on guard for the old view, and accuses the new view of subverting +revelation. + +In the one case as in the other, on both sides the struggle provokes +passion and stifles truth. On the one hand there is fear and regret for +the loss of the whole edifice constructed through the ages, on the other +is the passion for destruction. + +To the men who fought against the rising truths of physical philosophy, +it seemed that if they admitted that truth it would destroy faith in +God, in the creation of the firmament, and in the miracle of Joshua the +son of Nun. To the defenders of the laws of Copernicus and Newton, to +Voltaire for example, it seemed that the laws of astronomy destroyed +religion, and he utilized the law of gravitation as a weapon against +religion. + +Just so it now seems as if we have only to admit the law of +inevitability, to destroy the conception of the soul, of good and evil, +and all the institutions of state and church that have been built up on +those conceptions. + +So too, like Voltaire in his time, uninvited defenders of the law of +inevitability today use that law as a weapon against religion, though +the law of inevitability in history, like the law of Copernicus in +astronomy, far from destroying, even strengthens the foundation on which +the institutions of state and church are erected. + +As in the question of astronomy then, so in the question of history now, +the whole difference of opinion is based on the recognition or +nonrecognition of something absolute, serving as the measure of visible +phenomena. In astronomy it was the immovability of the earth, in history +it is the independence of personality--free will. + +As with astronomy the difficulty of recognizing the motion of the earth +lay in abandoning the immediate sensation of the earth's fixity and of +the motion of the planets, so in history the difficulty of recognizing +the subjection of personality to the laws of space, time, and cause lies +in renouncing the direct feeling of the independence of one's own +personality. But as in astronomy the new view said: "It is true that we +do not feel the movement of the earth, but by admitting its immobility +we arrive at absurdity, while by admitting its motion (which we do not +feel) we arrive at laws," so also in history the new view says: "It is +true that we are not conscious of our dependence, but by admitting our +free will we arrive at absurdity, while by admitting our dependence on +the external world, on time, and on cause, we arrive at laws." + +In the first case it was necessary to renounce the consciousness of an +unreal immobility in space and to recognize a motion we did not feel; in +the present case it is similarly necessary to renounce a freedom that +does not exist, and to recognize a dependence of which we are not +conscious. + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of War and Peace, by Leo Tolstoy + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WAR AND PEACE *** + +***** This file should be named 2600-8.txt or 2600-8.zip ***** This and +all associated files of various formats will be found in: +http://www.gutenberg.org/2/6/0/2600/ + +An Anonymous Volunteer, and David Widger + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will be +renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no one +owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation (and +you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without permission +and without paying copyright royalties. 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Your output differs as follows (from diff.out):" > /dev/stderr + cat diff.out +else + echo "Passed test" > /dev/stderr +fi + diff --git a/src/main/test-mr.sh b/src/main/test-mr.sh new file mode 100755 index 0000000..2c5211d --- /dev/null +++ b/src/main/test-mr.sh @@ -0,0 +1,21 @@ +#!/bin/bash +here=$(dirname "$0") +[[ "$here" = /* ]] || here="$PWD/$here" +export GOPATH="$here/../../" +echo "" +echo "==> Part I" +go test -run Sequential mapreduce/... +echo "" +echo "==> Part II" +(cd "$here" && ./test-wc.sh > /dev/null) +echo "" +echo "==> Part III" +go test -run TestBasic mapreduce/... +echo "" +echo "==> Part IV" +go test -run Failure mapreduce/... +echo "" +echo "==> Part V (challenge)" +(cd "$here" && ./test-ii.sh > /dev/null) + +rm "$here"/mrtmp.* "$here"/diff.out diff --git a/src/main/test-wc.sh b/src/main/test-wc.sh new file mode 100755 index 0000000..d69c189 --- /dev/null +++ b/src/main/test-wc.sh @@ -0,0 +1,11 @@ +#!/bin/bash +go run wc.go master sequential pg-*.txt +sort -n -k2 mrtmp.wcseq | tail -10 | diff - mr-testout.txt > diff.out +if [ -s diff.out ] +then +echo "Failed test. Output should be as in mr-testout.txt. Your output differs as follows (from diff.out):" > /dev/stderr + cat diff.out +else + echo "Passed test" > /dev/stderr +fi + diff --git a/src/main/viewd.go b/src/main/viewd.go new file mode 100644 index 0000000..0d9b6ec --- /dev/null +++ b/src/main/viewd.go @@ -0,0 +1,23 @@ +package main + +// +// see directions in pbc.go +// + +import "time" +import "viewservice" +import "os" +import "fmt" + +func main() { + if len(os.Args) != 2 { + fmt.Printf("Usage: viewd port\n") + os.Exit(1) + } + + viewservice.StartServer(os.Args[1]) + + for { + time.Sleep(100 * time.Second) + } +} diff --git a/src/main/wc.go b/src/main/wc.go new file mode 100644 index 0000000..53b1759 --- /dev/null +++ b/src/main/wc.go @@ -0,0 +1,42 @@ +package main + +import ( + "fmt" + "mapreduce" + "os" +) + +// The mapping function is called once for each piece of the input. +// In this framework, the key is the name of the file that is being processed, +// and the value is the file's contents. The return value should be a slice of +// key/value pairs, each represented by a mapreduce.KeyValue. +func mapF(document string, value string) (res []mapreduce.KeyValue) { + // TODO: you have to write this function +} + +// The reduce function is called once for each key generated by Map, with a +// list of that key's string value (merged across all inputs). The return value +// should be a single output value for that key. +func reduceF(key string, values []string) string { + // TODO: you also have to write this function +} + +// Can be run in 3 ways: +// 1) Sequential (e.g., go run wc.go master sequential x1.txt .. xN.txt) +// 2) Master (e.g., go run wc.go master localhost:7777 x1.txt .. xN.txt) +// 3) Worker (e.g., go run wc.go worker localhost:7777 localhost:7778 &) +func main() { + if len(os.Args) < 4 { + fmt.Printf("%s: see usage comments in file\n", os.Args[0]) + } else if os.Args[1] == "master" { + var mr *mapreduce.Master + if os.Args[2] == "sequential" { + mr = mapreduce.Sequential("wcseq", os.Args[3:], 3, mapF, reduceF) + } else { + mr = mapreduce.Distributed("wcseq", os.Args[3:], 3, os.Args[2]) + } + mr.Wait() + } else { + mapreduce.RunWorker(os.Args[2], os.Args[3], mapF, reduceF, 100) + } +} diff --git a/src/mapreduce/824-mrinput-0.txt b/src/mapreduce/824-mrinput-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..a414760 --- /dev/null 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fmt.Printf(format, a...) + } + return +} + +// jobPhase indicates whether a task is scheduled as a map or reduce task. +type jobPhase string + +const ( + mapPhase jobPhase = "Map" + reducePhase = "Reduce" +) + +// KeyValue is a type used to hold the key/value pairs passed to the map and +// reduce functions. +type KeyValue struct { + Key string + Value string +} + +// reduceName constructs the name of the intermediate file which map task +// produces for reduce task . +func reduceName(jobName string, mapTask int, reduceTask int) string { + return "mrtmp." + jobName + "-" + strconv.Itoa(mapTask) + "-" + strconv.Itoa(reduceTask) +} + +// mergeName constructs the name of the output file of reduce task +func mergeName(jobName string, reduceTask int) string { + return "mrtmp." + jobName + "-res-" + strconv.Itoa(reduceTask) +} diff --git a/src/mapreduce/common_map.go b/src/mapreduce/common_map.go new file mode 100644 index 0000000..1124bd2 --- /dev/null +++ b/src/mapreduce/common_map.go @@ -0,0 +1,49 @@ +package mapreduce + +import ( + "hash/fnv" +) + +// doMap does the job of a map worker: it reads one of the input files +// (inFile), calls the user-defined map function (mapF) for that file's +// contents, and partitions the output into nReduce intermediate files. +func doMap( + jobName string, // the name of the MapReduce job + mapTaskNumber int, // which map task this is + inFile string, + nReduce int, // the number of reduce task that will be run ("R" in the paper) + mapF func(file string, contents string) []KeyValue, +) { + // TODO: + // You will need to write this function. + // You can find the filename for this map task's input to reduce task number + // r using reduceName(jobName, mapTaskNumber, r). The ihash function (given + // below doMap) should be used to decide which file a given key belongs into. + // + // The intermediate output of a map task is stored in the file + // system as multiple files whose name indicates which map task produced + // them, as well as which reduce task they are for. Coming up with a + // scheme for how to store the key/value pairs on disk can be tricky, + // especially when taking into account that both keys and values could + // contain newlines, quotes, and any other character you can think of. + // + // One format often used for serializing data to a byte stream that the + // other end can correctly reconstruct is JSON. You are not required to + // use JSON, but as the output of the reduce tasks *must* be JSON, + // familiarizing yourself with it here may prove useful. You can write + // out a data structure as a JSON string to a file using the commented + // code below. The corresponding decoding functions can be found in + // common_reduce.go. + // + // enc := json.NewEncoder(file) + // for _, kv := ... { + // err := enc.Encode(&kv) + // + // Remember to close the file after you have written all the values! +} + +func ihash(s string) uint32 { + h := fnv.New32a() + h.Write([]byte(s)) + return h.Sum32() +} diff --git a/src/mapreduce/common_reduce.go b/src/mapreduce/common_reduce.go new file mode 100644 index 0000000..1503376 --- /dev/null +++ b/src/mapreduce/common_reduce.go @@ -0,0 +1,34 @@ +package mapreduce + +// doReduce does the job of a reduce worker: it reads the intermediate +// key/value pairs (produced by the map phase) for this task, sorts the +// intermediate key/value pairs by key, calls the user-defined reduce function +// (reduceF) for each key, and writes the output to disk. +func doReduce( + jobName string, // the name of the whole MapReduce job + reduceTaskNumber int, // which reduce task this is + nMap int, // the number of map tasks that were run ("M" in the paper) + reduceF func(key string, values []string) string, +) { + // TODO: + // You will need to write this function. + // You can find the intermediate file for this reduce task from map task number + // m using reduceName(jobName, m, reduceTaskNumber). + // Remember that you've encoded the values in the intermediate files, so you + // will need to decode them. If you chose to use JSON, you can read out + // multiple decoded values by creating a decoder, and then repeatedly calling + // .Decode() on it until Decode() returns an error. + // + // You should write the reduced output in as JSON encoded KeyValue + // objects to a file named mergeName(jobName, reduceTaskNumber). We require + // you to use JSON here because that is what the merger than combines the + // output from all the reduce tasks expects. There is nothing "special" about + // JSON -- it is just the marshalling format we chose to use. It will look + // something like this: + // + // enc := json.NewEncoder(mergeFile) + // for key in ... { + // enc.Encode(KeyValue{key, reduceF(...)}) + // } + // file.Close() +} diff --git a/src/mapreduce/common_rpc.go b/src/mapreduce/common_rpc.go new file mode 100644 index 0000000..3823729 --- /dev/null +++ b/src/mapreduce/common_rpc.go @@ -0,0 +1,66 @@ +package mapreduce + +import ( + "fmt" + "net/rpc" +) + +// What follows are RPC types and methods. +// Field names must start with capital letters, otherwise RPC will break. + +// DoTaskArgs holds the arguments that are passed to a worker when a job is +// scheduled on it. +type DoTaskArgs struct { + JobName string + File string // the file to process + Phase jobPhase // are we in mapPhase or reducePhase? + TaskNumber int // this task's index in the current phase + + // NumOtherPhase is the total number of tasks in other phase; mappers + // need this to compute the number of output bins, and reducers needs + // this to know how many input files to collect. + NumOtherPhase int +} + +// ShutdownReply is the response to a WorkerShutdown. +// It holds the number of tasks this worker has processed since it was started. +type ShutdownReply struct { + Ntasks int +} + +// RegisterArgs is the argument passed when a worker registers with the master. +type RegisterArgs struct { + Worker string +} + +// call() sends an RPC to the rpcname handler on server srv +// with arguments args, waits for the reply, and leaves the +// reply in reply. the reply argument should be the address +// of a reply structure. +// +// call() returns true if the server responded, and false +// if call() was not able to contact the server. in particular, +// reply's contents are valid if and only if call() returned true. +// +// you should assume that call() will time out and return an +// error after a while if it doesn't get a reply from the server. +// +// please use call() to send all RPCs, in master.go, mapreduce.go, +// and worker.go. please don't change this function. +// +func call(srv string, rpcname string, + args interface{}, reply interface{}) bool { + c, errx := rpc.Dial("unix", srv) + if errx != nil { + return false + } + defer c.Close() + + err := c.Call(rpcname, args, reply) + if err == nil { + return true + } + + fmt.Println(err) + return false +} diff --git a/src/mapreduce/master.go b/src/mapreduce/master.go new file mode 100644 index 0000000..230647e --- /dev/null +++ b/src/mapreduce/master.go @@ -0,0 +1,144 @@ +package mapreduce + +import ( + "fmt" + "net" + "sync" +) + +// Master holds all the state that the master needs to keep track of. Of +// particular importance is registerChannel, the channel that notifies the +// master of workers that have gone idle and are in need of new work. +type Master struct { + sync.Mutex + + address string + registerChannel chan string + doneChannel chan bool + workers []string // protected by the mutex + + // Per-task information + jobName string // Name of currently executing job + files []string // Input files + nReduce int // Number of reduce partitions + + shutdown chan struct{} + l net.Listener + stats []int +} + +// Register is an RPC method that is called by workers after they have started +// up to report that they are ready to receive tasks. +func (mr *Master) Register(args *RegisterArgs, _ *struct{}) error { + mr.Lock() + defer mr.Unlock() + debug("Register: worker %s\n", args.Worker) + mr.workers = append(mr.workers, args.Worker) + go func() { + mr.registerChannel <- args.Worker + }() + return nil +} + +// newMaster initializes a new Map/Reduce Master +func newMaster(master string) (mr *Master) { + mr = new(Master) + mr.address = master + mr.shutdown = make(chan struct{}) + mr.registerChannel = make(chan string) + mr.doneChannel = make(chan bool) + return +} + +// Sequential runs map and reduce tasks sequentially, waiting for each task to +// complete before scheduling the next. +func Sequential(jobName string, files []string, nreduce int, + mapF func(string, string) []KeyValue, + reduceF func(string, []string) string, +) (mr *Master) { + mr = newMaster("master") + go mr.run(jobName, files, nreduce, func(phase jobPhase) { + switch phase { + case mapPhase: + for i, f := range mr.files { + doMap(mr.jobName, i, f, mr.nReduce, mapF) + } + case reducePhase: + for i := 0; i < mr.nReduce; i++ { + doReduce(mr.jobName, i, len(mr.files), reduceF) + } + } + }, func() { + mr.stats = []int{len(files) + nreduce} + }) + return +} + +// Distributed schedules map and reduce tasks on workers that register with the +// master over RPC. +func Distributed(jobName string, files []string, nreduce int, master string) (mr *Master) { + mr = newMaster(master) + mr.startRPCServer() + go mr.run(jobName, files, nreduce, mr.schedule, func() { + mr.stats = mr.killWorkers() + mr.stopRPCServer() + }) + return +} + +// run executes a mapreduce job on the given number of mappers and reducers. +// +// First, it divides up the input file among the given number of mappers, and +// schedules each task on workers as they become available. Each map task bins +// its output in a number of bins equal to the given number of reduce tasks. +// Once all the mappers have finished, workers are assigned reduce tasks. +// +// When all tasks have been completed, the reducer outputs are merged, +// statistics are collected, and the master is shut down. +// +// Note that this implementation assumes a shared file system. +func (mr *Master) run(jobName string, files []string, nreduce int, + schedule func(phase jobPhase), + finish func(), +) { + mr.jobName = jobName + mr.files = files + mr.nReduce = nreduce + + debug("%s: Starting Map/Reduce task %s\n", mr.address, mr.jobName) + + schedule(mapPhase) + schedule(reducePhase) + finish() + mr.merge() + + debug("%s: Map/Reduce task completed\n", mr.address) + + mr.doneChannel <- true +} + +// Wait blocks until the currently scheduled work has completed. +// This happens when all tasks have scheduled and completed, the final output +// have been computed, and all workers have been shut down. +func (mr *Master) Wait() { + <-mr.doneChannel +} + +// killWorkers cleans up all workers by sending each one a Shutdown RPC. +// It also collects and returns the number of tasks each worker has performed. +func (mr *Master) killWorkers() []int { + mr.Lock() + defer mr.Unlock() + ntasks := make([]int, 0, len(mr.workers)) + for _, w := range mr.workers { + debug("Master: shutdown worker %s\n", w) + var reply ShutdownReply + ok := call(w, "Worker.Shutdown", new(struct{}), &reply) + if ok == false { + fmt.Printf("Master: RPC %s shutdown error\n", w) + } else { + ntasks = append(ntasks, reply.Ntasks) + } + } + return ntasks +} diff --git a/src/mapreduce/master_rpc.go b/src/mapreduce/master_rpc.go new file mode 100644 index 0000000..70ac671 --- /dev/null +++ b/src/mapreduce/master_rpc.go @@ -0,0 +1,66 @@ +package mapreduce + +import ( + "fmt" + "log" + "net" + "net/rpc" + "os" +) + +// Shutdown is an RPC method that shuts down the Master's RPC server. +func (mr *Master) Shutdown(_, _ *struct{}) error { + debug("Shutdown: registration server\n") + close(mr.shutdown) + mr.l.Close() // causes the Accept to fail + return nil +} + +// startRPCServer staarts the Master's RPC server. It continues accepting RPC +// calls (Register in particular) for as long as the worker is alive. +func (mr *Master) startRPCServer() { + rpcs := rpc.NewServer() + rpcs.Register(mr) + os.Remove(mr.address) // only needed for "unix" + l, e := net.Listen("unix", mr.address) + if e != nil { + log.Fatal("RegstrationServer", mr.address, " error: ", e) + } + mr.l = l + + // now that we are listening on the master address, can fork off + // accepting connections to another thread. + go func() { + loop: + for { + select { + case <-mr.shutdown: + break loop + default: + } + conn, err := mr.l.Accept() + if err == nil { + go func() { + rpcs.ServeConn(conn) + conn.Close() + }() + } else { + debug("RegistrationServer: accept error", err) + break + } + } + debug("RegistrationServer: done\n") + }() +} + +// stopRPCServer stops the master RPC server. +// This must be done through an RPC to avoid race conditions between the RPC +// server thread and the current thread. +func (mr *Master) stopRPCServer() { + var reply ShutdownReply + ok := call(mr.address, "Master.Shutdown", new(struct{}), &reply) + if ok == false { + fmt.Printf("Cleanup: RPC %s error\n", mr.address) + } + debug("cleanupRegistration: done\n") +} diff --git a/src/mapreduce/master_splitmerge.go b/src/mapreduce/master_splitmerge.go new file mode 100644 index 0000000..06f21a4 --- /dev/null +++ b/src/mapreduce/master_splitmerge.go @@ -0,0 +1,72 @@ +package mapreduce + +import ( + "bufio" + "encoding/json" + "fmt" + "log" + "os" + "sort" +) + +// merge combines the results of the many reduce jobs into a single output file +// XXX use merge sort +func (mr *Master) merge() { + debug("Merge phase") + kvs := make(map[string]string) + for i := 0; i < mr.nReduce; i++ { + p := mergeName(mr.jobName, i) + debug("Merge: read %s\n", p) + file, err := os.Open(p) + if err != nil { + log.Fatal("Merge: ", err) + } + dec := json.NewDecoder(file) + for { + var kv KeyValue + err = dec.Decode(&kv) + if err != nil { + break + } + kvs[kv.Key] = kv.Value + } + file.Close() + } + var keys []string + for k := range kvs { + keys = append(keys, k) + } + sort.Strings(keys) + + file, err := os.Create("mrtmp." + mr.jobName) + if err != nil { + log.Fatal("Merge: create ", err) + } + w := bufio.NewWriter(file) + for _, k := range keys { + fmt.Fprintf(w, "%s: %s\n", k, kvs[k]) + } + w.Flush() + file.Close() +} + +// removeFile is a simple wrapper around os.Remove that logs errors. +func removeFile(n string) { + err := os.Remove(n) + if err != nil { + log.Fatal("CleanupFiles ", err) + } +} + +// CleanupFiles removes all intermediate files produced by running mapreduce. +func (mr *Master) CleanupFiles() { + for i := range mr.files { + for j := 0; j < mr.nReduce; j++ { + removeFile(reduceName(mr.jobName, i, j)) + } + } + for i := 0; i < mr.nReduce; i++ { + removeFile(mergeName(mr.jobName, i)) + } + removeFile("mrtmp." + mr.jobName) +} diff --git a/src/mapreduce/readme.go b/src/mapreduce/readme.go new file mode 100644 index 0000000..25f2d1a --- /dev/null +++ b/src/mapreduce/readme.go @@ -0,0 +1,45 @@ +// Package mapreduce provides a simple mapreduce library with a sequential +// implementation. Applications should normally call Distributed() [located in +// master.go] to start a job, but may instead call Sequential() [also in +// master.go] to get a sequential execution for debugging purposes. +// +// The flow of the mapreduce implementation is as follows: +// +// 1. The application provides a number of input files, a map function, a +// reduce function, and the number of reduce tasks (nReduce). +// 2. A master is created with this knowledge. It spins up an RPC server (see +// master_rpc.go), and waits for workers to register (using the RPC call +// Register() [defined in master.go]). As tasks become available (in steps +// 4 and 5), schedule() [schedule.go] decides how to assign those tasks to +// workers, and how to handle worker failures. +// 3. The master considers each input file one map tasks, and makes a call to +// doMap() [common_map.go] at least once for each task. It does so either +// directly (when using Sequential()) or by issuing the DoJob RPC on a +// worker [worker.go]. Each call to doMap() reads the appropriate file, +// calls the map function on that file's contents, and produces nReduce +// files for each map file. Thus, there will be #files x nReduce files +// after all map tasks are done: +// +// f0-0, ..., f0-0, f0-, ..., +// f<#files-1>-0, ... f<#files-1>-. +// +// 4. The master next makes a call to doReduce() [common_reduce.go] at least +// once for each reduce task. As for doMap(), it does so either directly or +// through a worker. doReduce() collects nReduce reduce files from each +// map (f-*-), and runs the reduce function on those files. This +// produces nReduce result files. +// 5. The master calls mr.merge() [master_splitmerge.go], which merges all +// the nReduce files produced by the previous step into a single output. +// 6. The master sends a Shutdown RPC to each of its workers, and then shuts +// down its own RPC server. +// +// TODO: +// You will have to write/modify doMap, doReduce, and schedule yourself. These +// are located in common_map.go, common_reduce.go, and schedule.go +// respectively. You will also have to write the map and reduce functions in +// ../main/wc.go. +// +// You should not need to modify any other files, but reading them might be +// useful in order to understand how the other methods fit into the overall +// architecture of the system. +package mapreduce diff --git a/src/mapreduce/schedule.go b/src/mapreduce/schedule.go new file mode 100644 index 0000000..526fdbe --- /dev/null +++ b/src/mapreduce/schedule.go @@ -0,0 +1,26 @@ +package mapreduce + +// schedule starts and waits for all tasks in the given phase (Map or Reduce). +func (mr *Master) schedule(phase jobPhase) { + var ntasks int + var nios int // number of inputs (for reduce) or outputs (for map) + switch phase { + case mapPhase: + ntasks = len(mr.files) + nios = mr.nReduce + case reducePhase: + ntasks = mr.nReduce + nios = len(mr.files) + } + + debug("Schedule: %v %v tasks (%d I/Os)\n", ntasks, phase, nios) + + // All ntasks tasks have to be scheduled on workers, and only once all of + // them have been completed successfully should the function return. + // Remember that workers may fail, and that any given worker may finish + // multiple tasks. + // + // TODO TODO TODO TODO TODO TODO TODO TODO TODO TODO TODO TODO TODO + // + debug("Schedule: %v phase done\n", phase) +} diff --git a/src/mapreduce/test_test.go b/src/mapreduce/test_test.go new file mode 100644 index 0000000..c4d01b4 --- /dev/null +++ b/src/mapreduce/test_test.go @@ -0,0 +1,208 @@ +package mapreduce + +import ( + "fmt" + "testing" + "time" + + "bufio" + "log" + "os" + "sort" + "strconv" + "strings" +) + +const ( + nNumber = 100000 + nMap = 100 + nReduce = 50 +) + +// Create input file with N numbers +// Check if we have N numbers in output file + +// Split in words +func MapFunc(file string, value string) (res []KeyValue) { + debug("Map %v\n", value) + words := strings.Fields(value) + for _, w := range words { + kv := KeyValue{w, ""} + res = append(res, kv) + } + return +} + +// Just return key +func ReduceFunc(key string, values []string) string { + for _, e := range values { + debug("Reduce %s %v\n", key, e) + } + return "" +} + +// Checks input file agaist output file: each input number should show up +// in the output file in string sorted order +func check(t *testing.T, files []string) { + output, err := os.Open("mrtmp.test") + if err != nil { + log.Fatal("check: ", err) + } + defer output.Close() + + var lines []string + for _, f := range files { + input, err := os.Open(f) + if err != nil { + log.Fatal("check: ", err) + } + defer input.Close() + inputScanner := bufio.NewScanner(input) + for inputScanner.Scan() { + lines = append(lines, inputScanner.Text()) + } + } + + sort.Strings(lines) + + outputScanner := bufio.NewScanner(output) + i := 0 + for outputScanner.Scan() { + var v1 int + var v2 int + text := outputScanner.Text() + n, err := fmt.Sscanf(lines[i], "%d", &v1) + if n == 1 && err == nil { + n, err = fmt.Sscanf(text, "%d", &v2) + } + if err != nil || v1 != v2 { + t.Fatalf("line %d: %d != %d err %v\n", i, v1, v2, err) + } + i++ + } + if i != nNumber { + t.Fatalf("Expected %d lines in output\n", nNumber) + } +} + +// Workers report back how many RPCs they have processed in the Shutdown reply. +// Check that they processed at least 1 RPC. +func checkWorker(t *testing.T, l []int) { + for _, tasks := range l { + if tasks == 0 { + t.Fatalf("Some worker didn't do any work\n") + } + } +} + +// Make input file +func makeInputs(num int) []string { + var names []string + var i = 0 + for f := 0; f < num; f++ { + names = append(names, fmt.Sprintf("824-mrinput-%d.txt", f)) + file, err := os.Create(names[f]) + if err != nil { + log.Fatal("mkInput: ", err) + } + w := bufio.NewWriter(file) + for i < (f+1)*(nNumber/num) { + fmt.Fprintf(w, "%d\n", i) + i++ + } + w.Flush() + file.Close() + } + return names +} + +// Cook up a unique-ish UNIX-domain socket name +// in /var/tmp. can't use current directory since +// AFS doesn't support UNIX-domain sockets. +func port(suffix string) string { + s := "/var/tmp/824-" + s += strconv.Itoa(os.Getuid()) + "/" + os.Mkdir(s, 0777) + s += "mr" + s += strconv.Itoa(os.Getpid()) + "-" + s += suffix + return s +} + +func setup() *Master { + files := makeInputs(nMap) + master := port("master") + mr := Distributed("test", files, nReduce, master) + return mr +} + +func cleanup(mr *Master) { + mr.CleanupFiles() + for _, f := range mr.files { + removeFile(f) + } +} + +func TestSequentialSingle(t *testing.T) { + mr := Sequential("test", makeInputs(1), 1, MapFunc, ReduceFunc) + mr.Wait() + check(t, mr.files) + checkWorker(t, mr.stats) + cleanup(mr) +} + +func TestSequentialMany(t *testing.T) { + mr := Sequential("test", makeInputs(5), 3, MapFunc, ReduceFunc) + mr.Wait() + check(t, mr.files) + checkWorker(t, mr.stats) + cleanup(mr) +} + +func TestBasic(t *testing.T) { + mr := setup() + for i := 0; i < 2; i++ { + go RunWorker(mr.address, port("worker"+strconv.Itoa(i)), + MapFunc, ReduceFunc, -1) + } + mr.Wait() + check(t, mr.files) + checkWorker(t, mr.stats) + cleanup(mr) +} + +func TestOneFailure(t *testing.T) { + mr := setup() + // Start 2 workers that fail after 10 tasks + go RunWorker(mr.address, port("worker"+strconv.Itoa(0)), + MapFunc, ReduceFunc, 10) + go RunWorker(mr.address, port("worker"+strconv.Itoa(1)), + MapFunc, ReduceFunc, -1) + mr.Wait() + check(t, mr.files) + checkWorker(t, mr.stats) + cleanup(mr) +} + +func TestManyFailures(t *testing.T) { + mr := setup() + i := 0 + done := false + for !done { + select { + case done = <-mr.doneChannel: + check(t, mr.files) + cleanup(mr) + break + default: + // Start 2 workers each sec. The workers fail after 10 tasks + w := port("worker" + strconv.Itoa(i)) + go RunWorker(mr.address, w, MapFunc, ReduceFunc, 10) + i++ + w = port("worker" + strconv.Itoa(i)) + go RunWorker(mr.address, w, MapFunc, ReduceFunc, 10) + i++ + time.Sleep(1 * time.Second) + } + } +} diff --git a/src/mapreduce/worker.go b/src/mapreduce/worker.go new file mode 100644 index 0000000..82af4c8 --- /dev/null +++ b/src/mapreduce/worker.go @@ -0,0 +1,109 @@ +package mapreduce + +import ( + "fmt" + "log" + "net" + "net/rpc" + "os" + "sync" +) + +// Worker holds the state for a server waiting for DoTask or Shutdown RPCs +type Worker struct { + sync.Mutex + + name string + Map func(string, string) []KeyValue + Reduce func(string, []string) string + nRPC int // protected by mutex + nTasks int // protected by mutex + l net.Listener +} + +// DoTask is called by the master when a new task is being scheduled on this +// worker. +func (wk *Worker) DoTask(arg *DoTaskArgs, _ *struct{}) error { + debug("%s: given %v task #%d on file %s (nios: %d)\n", + wk.name, arg.Phase, arg.TaskNumber, arg.File, arg.NumOtherPhase) + + switch arg.Phase { + case mapPhase: + doMap(arg.JobName, arg.TaskNumber, arg.File, arg.NumOtherPhase, wk.Map) + case reducePhase: + doReduce(arg.JobName, arg.TaskNumber, arg.NumOtherPhase, wk.Reduce) + } + + debug("%s: %v task #%d done\n", wk.name, arg.Phase, arg.TaskNumber) + return nil +} + +// Shutdown is called by the master when all work has been completed. +// We should respond with the number of tasks we have processed. +func (wk *Worker) Shutdown(_ *struct{}, res *ShutdownReply) error { + debug("Shutdown %s\n", wk.name) + wk.Lock() + defer wk.Unlock() + res.Ntasks = wk.nTasks + wk.nRPC = 1 + wk.nTasks-- // Don't count the shutdown RPC + return nil +} + +// Tell the master we exist and ready to work +func (wk *Worker) register(master string) { + args := new(RegisterArgs) + args.Worker = wk.name + ok := call(master, "Master.Register", args, new(struct{})) + if ok == false { + fmt.Printf("Register: RPC %s register error\n", master) + } +} + +// RunWorker sets up a connection with the master, registers its address, and +// waits for tasks to be scheduled. +func RunWorker(MasterAddress string, me string, + MapFunc func(string, string) []KeyValue, + ReduceFunc func(string, []string) string, + nRPC int, +) { + debug("RunWorker %s\n", me) + wk := new(Worker) + wk.name = me + wk.Map = MapFunc + wk.Reduce = ReduceFunc + wk.nRPC = nRPC + rpcs := rpc.NewServer() + rpcs.Register(wk) + os.Remove(me) // only needed for "unix" + l, e := net.Listen("unix", me) + if e != nil { + log.Fatal("RunWorker: worker ", me, " error: ", e) + } + wk.l = l + wk.register(MasterAddress) + + // DON'T MODIFY CODE BELOW + for { + wk.Lock() + if wk.nRPC == 0 { + wk.Unlock() + break + } + wk.Unlock() + conn, err := wk.l.Accept() + if err == nil { + wk.Lock() + wk.nRPC-- + wk.Unlock() + go rpcs.ServeConn(conn) + wk.Lock() + wk.nTasks++ + wk.Unlock() + } else { + break + } + } + wk.l.Close() + debug("RunWorker %s exit\n", me) +} diff --git a/src/paxos-shardkv/client.go b/src/paxos-shardkv/client.go new file mode 100644 index 0000000..8158fd4 --- /dev/null +++ b/src/paxos-shardkv/client.go @@ -0,0 +1,165 @@ +package shardkv + +import "shardmaster" +import "net/rpc" +import "time" +import "sync" +import "fmt" +import "crypto/rand" +import "math/big" + +type Clerk struct { + mu sync.Mutex // one RPC at a time + sm *shardmaster.Clerk + config shardmaster.Config + // You'll have to modify Clerk. +} + +func nrand() int64 { + max := big.NewInt(int64(1) << 62) + bigx, _ := rand.Int(rand.Reader, max) + x := bigx.Int64() + return x +} + +func MakeClerk(shardmasters []string) *Clerk { + ck := new(Clerk) + ck.sm = shardmaster.MakeClerk(shardmasters) + // You'll have to modify MakeClerk. + return ck +} + +// +// call() sends an RPC to the rpcname handler on server srv +// with arguments args, waits for the reply, and leaves the +// reply in reply. the reply argument should be a pointer +// to a reply structure. +// +// the return value is true if the server responded, and false +// if call() was not able to contact the server. in particular, +// the reply's contents are only valid if call() returned true. +// +// you should assume that call() will return an +// error after a while if the server is dead. +// don't provide your own time-out mechanism. +// +// please use call() to send all RPCs, in client.go and server.go. +// please don't change this function. +// +func call(srv string, rpcname string, + args interface{}, reply interface{}) bool { + c, errx := rpc.Dial("unix", srv) + if errx != nil { + return false + } + defer c.Close() + + err := c.Call(rpcname, args, reply) + if err == nil { + return true + } + + fmt.Println(err) + return false +} + +// +// which shard is a key in? +// please use this function, +// and please do not change it. +// +func key2shard(key string) int { + shard := 0 + if len(key) > 0 { + shard = int(key[0]) + } + shard %= shardmaster.NShards + return shard +} + +// +// fetch the current value for a key. +// returns "" if the key does not exist. +// keeps trying forever in the face of all other errors. +// +func (ck *Clerk) Get(key string) string { + ck.mu.Lock() + defer ck.mu.Unlock() + + // You'll have to modify Get(). + + for { + shard := key2shard(key) + + gid := ck.config.Shards[shard] + + servers, ok := ck.config.Groups[gid] + + if ok { + // try each server in the shard's replication group. + for _, srv := range servers { + args := &GetArgs{} + args.Key = key + var reply GetReply + ok := call(srv, "ShardKV.Get", args, &reply) + if ok && (reply.Err == OK || reply.Err == ErrNoKey) { + return reply.Value + } + if ok && (reply.Err == ErrWrongGroup) { + break + } + } + } + + time.Sleep(100 * time.Millisecond) + + // ask master for a new configuration. + ck.config = ck.sm.Query(-1) + } +} + +// send a Put or Append request. +func (ck *Clerk) PutAppend(key string, value string, op string) { + ck.mu.Lock() + defer ck.mu.Unlock() + + // You'll have to modify PutAppend(). + + for { + shard := key2shard(key) + + gid := ck.config.Shards[shard] + + servers, ok := ck.config.Groups[gid] + + if ok { + // try each server in the shard's replication group. + for _, srv := range servers { + args := &PutAppendArgs{} + args.Key = key + args.Value = value + args.Op = op + var reply PutAppendReply + ok := call(srv, "ShardKV.PutAppend", args, &reply) + if ok && reply.Err == OK { + return + } + if ok && (reply.Err == ErrWrongGroup) { + break + } + } + } + + time.Sleep(100 * time.Millisecond) + + // ask master for a new configuration. + ck.config = ck.sm.Query(-1) + } +} + +func (ck *Clerk) Put(key string, value string) { + ck.PutAppend(key, value, "Put") +} +func (ck *Clerk) Append(key string, value string) { + ck.PutAppend(key, value, "Append") +} diff --git a/src/paxos-shardkv/common.go b/src/paxos-shardkv/common.go new file mode 100644 index 0000000..ec5a34c --- /dev/null +++ b/src/paxos-shardkv/common.go @@ -0,0 +1,43 @@ +package shardkv + +// +// Sharded key/value server. +// Lots of replica groups, each running op-at-a-time paxos. +// Shardmaster decides which group serves each shard. +// Shardmaster may change shard assignment from time to time. +// +// You will have to modify these definitions. +// + +const ( + OK = "OK" + ErrNoKey = "ErrNoKey" + ErrWrongGroup = "ErrWrongGroup" +) + +type Err string + +type PutAppendArgs struct { + Key string + Value string + Op string // "Put" or "Append" + // You'll have to add definitions here. + // Field names must start with capital letters, + // otherwise RPC will break. + +} + +type PutAppendReply struct { + Err Err +} + +type GetArgs struct { + Key string + // You'll have to add definitions here. +} + +type GetReply struct { + Err Err + Value string +} + diff --git a/src/paxos-shardkv/server.go b/src/paxos-shardkv/server.go new file mode 100644 index 0000000..66ee1af --- /dev/null +++ b/src/paxos-shardkv/server.go @@ -0,0 +1,166 @@ +package shardkv + +import "net" +import "fmt" +import "net/rpc" +import "log" +import "time" +import "paxos" +import "sync" +import "sync/atomic" +import "os" +import "syscall" +import "encoding/gob" +import "math/rand" +import "shardmaster" + + +const Debug = 0 + +func DPrintf(format string, a ...interface{}) (n int, err error) { + if Debug > 0 { + log.Printf(format, a...) + } + return +} + + +type Op struct { + // Your definitions here. +} + + +type ShardKV struct { + mu sync.Mutex + l net.Listener + me int + dead int32 // for testing + unreliable int32 // for testing + sm *shardmaster.Clerk + px *paxos.Paxos + + gid int64 // my replica group ID + + // Your definitions here. +} + + +func (kv *ShardKV) Get(args *GetArgs, reply *GetReply) error { + // Your code here. + return nil +} + +// RPC handler for client Put and Append requests +func (kv *ShardKV) PutAppend(args *PutAppendArgs, reply *PutAppendReply) error { + // Your code here. + return nil +} + +// +// Ask the shardmaster if there's a new configuration; +// if so, re-configure. +// +func (kv *ShardKV) tick() { +} + +// tell the server to shut itself down. +// please don't change these two functions. +func (kv *ShardKV) kill() { + atomic.StoreInt32(&kv.dead, 1) + kv.l.Close() + kv.px.Kill() +} + +// call this to find out if the server is dead. +func (kv *ShardKV) isdead() bool { + return atomic.LoadInt32(&kv.dead) != 0 +} + +// please do not change these two functions. +func (kv *ShardKV) Setunreliable(what bool) { + if what { + atomic.StoreInt32(&kv.unreliable, 1) + } else { + atomic.StoreInt32(&kv.unreliable, 0) + } +} + +func (kv *ShardKV) isunreliable() bool { + return atomic.LoadInt32(&kv.unreliable) != 0 +} + +// +// Start a shardkv server. +// gid is the ID of the server's replica group. +// shardmasters[] contains the ports of the +// servers that implement the shardmaster. +// servers[] contains the ports of the servers +// in this replica group. +// Me is the index of this server in servers[]. +// +func StartServer(gid int64, shardmasters []string, + servers []string, me int) *ShardKV { + gob.Register(Op{}) + + kv := new(ShardKV) + kv.me = me + kv.gid = gid + kv.sm = shardmaster.MakeClerk(shardmasters) + + // Your initialization code here. + // Don't call Join(). + + rpcs := rpc.NewServer() + rpcs.Register(kv) + + kv.px = paxos.Make(servers, me, rpcs) + + + os.Remove(servers[me]) + l, e := net.Listen("unix", servers[me]) + if e != nil { + log.Fatal("listen error: ", e) + } + kv.l = l + + // please do not change any of the following code, + // or do anything to subvert it. + + go func() { + for kv.isdead() == false { + conn, err := kv.l.Accept() + if err == nil && kv.isdead() == false { + if kv.isunreliable() && (rand.Int63()%1000) < 100 { + // discard the request. + conn.Close() + } else if kv.isunreliable() && (rand.Int63()%1000) < 200 { + // process the request but force discard of reply. + c1 := conn.(*net.UnixConn) + f, _ := c1.File() + err := syscall.Shutdown(int(f.Fd()), syscall.SHUT_WR) + if err != nil { + fmt.Printf("shutdown: %v\n", err) + } + go rpcs.ServeConn(conn) + } else { + go rpcs.ServeConn(conn) + } + } else if err == nil { + conn.Close() + } + if err != nil && kv.isdead() == false { + fmt.Printf("ShardKV(%v) accept: %v\n", me, err.Error()) + kv.kill() + } + } + }() + + go func() { + for kv.isdead() == false { + kv.tick() + time.Sleep(250 * time.Millisecond) + } + }() + + return kv +} diff --git a/src/paxos-shardkv/test_test.go b/src/paxos-shardkv/test_test.go new file mode 100644 index 0000000..f785110 --- /dev/null +++ b/src/paxos-shardkv/test_test.go @@ -0,0 +1,360 @@ +package shardkv + +import "testing" +import "shardmaster" +import "runtime" +import "strconv" +import "os" +import "time" +import "fmt" +import "sync" +import "sync/atomic" +import "math/rand" + +// information about the servers of one replica group. +type tGroup struct { + gid int64 + servers []*ShardKV + ports []string +} + +// information about all the servers of a k/v cluster. +type tCluster struct { + t *testing.T + masters []*shardmaster.ShardMaster + mck *shardmaster.Clerk + masterports []string + groups []*tGroup +} + +func port(tag string, host int) string { + s := "/var/tmp/824-" + s += strconv.Itoa(os.Getuid()) + "/" + os.Mkdir(s, 0777) + s += "skv-" + s += strconv.Itoa(os.Getpid()) + "-" + s += tag + "-" + s += strconv.Itoa(host) + return s +} + +// +// start a k/v replica server thread. +// +func (tc *tCluster) start1(gi int, si int, unreliable bool) { + s := StartServer(tc.groups[gi].gid, tc.masterports, tc.groups[gi].ports, si) + tc.groups[gi].servers[si] = s + s.Setunreliable(unreliable) +} + +func (tc *tCluster) cleanup() { + for gi := 0; gi < len(tc.groups); gi++ { + g := tc.groups[gi] + for si := 0; si < len(g.servers); si++ { + if g.servers[si] != nil { + g.servers[si].kill() + } + } + } + + for i := 0; i < len(tc.masters); i++ { + if tc.masters[i] != nil { + tc.masters[i].Kill() + } + } +} + +func (tc *tCluster) shardclerk() *shardmaster.Clerk { + return shardmaster.MakeClerk(tc.masterports) +} + +func (tc *tCluster) clerk() *Clerk { + return MakeClerk(tc.masterports) +} + +func (tc *tCluster) join(gi int) { + tc.mck.Join(tc.groups[gi].gid, tc.groups[gi].ports) +} + +func (tc *tCluster) leave(gi int) { + tc.mck.Leave(tc.groups[gi].gid) +} + +func setup(t *testing.T, tag string, unreliable bool) *tCluster { + runtime.GOMAXPROCS(4) + + const nmasters = 3 + const ngroups = 3 // replica groups + const nreplicas = 3 // servers per group + + tc := &tCluster{} + tc.t = t + tc.masters = make([]*shardmaster.ShardMaster, nmasters) + tc.masterports = make([]string, nmasters) + + for i := 0; i < nmasters; i++ { + tc.masterports[i] = port(tag+"m", i) + } + for i := 0; i < nmasters; i++ { + tc.masters[i] = shardmaster.StartServer(tc.masterports, i) + } + tc.mck = tc.shardclerk() + + tc.groups = make([]*tGroup, ngroups) + + for i := 0; i < ngroups; i++ { + tc.groups[i] = &tGroup{} + tc.groups[i].gid = int64(i + 100) + tc.groups[i].servers = make([]*ShardKV, nreplicas) + tc.groups[i].ports = make([]string, nreplicas) + for j := 0; j < nreplicas; j++ { + tc.groups[i].ports[j] = port(tag+"s", (i*nreplicas)+j) + } + for j := 0; j < nreplicas; j++ { + tc.start1(i, j, unreliable) + } + } + + // return smh, gids, ha, sa, clean + return tc +} + +func TestBasic(t *testing.T) { + tc := setup(t, "basic", false) + defer tc.cleanup() + + fmt.Printf("Test: Basic Join/Leave ...\n") + + tc.join(0) + + ck := tc.clerk() + + ck.Put("a", "x") + ck.Append("a", "b") + if ck.Get("a") != "xb" { + t.Fatalf("Get got wrong value") + } + + keys := make([]string, 10) + vals := make([]string, len(keys)) + for i := 0; i < len(keys); i++ { + keys[i] = strconv.Itoa(rand.Int()) + vals[i] = strconv.Itoa(rand.Int()) + ck.Put(keys[i], vals[i]) + } + + // are keys still there after joins? + for g := 1; g < len(tc.groups); g++ { + tc.join(g) + time.Sleep(1 * time.Second) + for i := 0; i < len(keys); i++ { + v := ck.Get(keys[i]) + if v != vals[i] { + t.Fatalf("joining; wrong value; g=%v k=%v wanted=%v got=%v", + g, keys[i], vals[i], v) + } + vals[i] = strconv.Itoa(rand.Int()) + ck.Put(keys[i], vals[i]) + } + } + + // are keys still there after leaves? + for g := 0; g < len(tc.groups)-1; g++ { + tc.leave(g) + time.Sleep(1 * time.Second) + for i := 0; i < len(keys); i++ { + v := ck.Get(keys[i]) + if v != vals[i] { + t.Fatalf("leaving; wrong value; g=%v k=%v wanted=%v got=%v", + g, keys[i], vals[i], v) + } + vals[i] = strconv.Itoa(rand.Int()) + ck.Put(keys[i], vals[i]) + } + } + + fmt.Printf(" ... Passed\n") +} + +func TestMove(t *testing.T) { + tc := setup(t, "move", false) + defer tc.cleanup() + + fmt.Printf("Test: Shards really move ...\n") + + tc.join(0) + + ck := tc.clerk() + + // insert one key per shard + for i := 0; i < shardmaster.NShards; i++ { + ck.Put(string('0'+i), string('0'+i)) + } + + // add group 1. + tc.join(1) + time.Sleep(5 * time.Second) + + // check that keys are still there. + for i := 0; i < shardmaster.NShards; i++ { + if ck.Get(string('0'+i)) != string('0'+i) { + t.Fatalf("missing key/value") + } + } + + // remove sockets from group 0. + for _, port := range tc.groups[0].ports { + os.Remove(port) + } + + count := int32(0) + var mu sync.Mutex + for i := 0; i < shardmaster.NShards; i++ { + go func(me int) { + myck := tc.clerk() + v := myck.Get(string('0' + me)) + if v == string('0'+me) { + mu.Lock() + atomic.AddInt32(&count, 1) + mu.Unlock() + } else { + t.Fatalf("Get(%v) yielded %v\n", me, v) + } + }(i) + } + + time.Sleep(10 * time.Second) + + ccc := atomic.LoadInt32(&count) + if ccc > shardmaster.NShards/3 && ccc < 2*(shardmaster.NShards/3) { + fmt.Printf(" ... Passed\n") + } else { + t.Fatalf("%v keys worked after killing 1/2 of groups; wanted %v", + ccc, shardmaster.NShards/2) + } +} + +func TestLimp(t *testing.T) { + tc := setup(t, "limp", false) + defer tc.cleanup() + + fmt.Printf("Test: Reconfiguration with some dead replicas ...\n") + + tc.join(0) + + ck := tc.clerk() + + ck.Put("a", "b") + if ck.Get("a") != "b" { + t.Fatalf("got wrong value") + } + + // kill one server from each replica group. + for gi := 0; gi < len(tc.groups); gi++ { + sa := tc.groups[gi].servers + ns := len(sa) + sa[rand.Int()%ns].kill() + } + + keys := make([]string, 10) + vals := make([]string, len(keys)) + for i := 0; i < len(keys); i++ { + keys[i] = strconv.Itoa(rand.Int()) + vals[i] = strconv.Itoa(rand.Int()) + ck.Put(keys[i], vals[i]) + } + + // are keys still there after joins? + for g := 1; g < len(tc.groups); g++ { + tc.join(g) + time.Sleep(1 * time.Second) + for i := 0; i < len(keys); i++ { + v := ck.Get(keys[i]) + if v != vals[i] { + t.Fatalf("joining; wrong value; g=%v k=%v wanted=%v got=%v", + g, keys[i], vals[i], v) + } + vals[i] = strconv.Itoa(rand.Int()) + ck.Put(keys[i], vals[i]) + } + } + + // are keys still there after leaves? + for gi := 0; gi < len(tc.groups)-1; gi++ { + tc.leave(gi) + time.Sleep(2 * time.Second) + g := tc.groups[gi] + for i := 0; i < len(g.servers); i++ { + g.servers[i].kill() + } + for i := 0; i < len(keys); i++ { + v := ck.Get(keys[i]) + if v != vals[i] { + t.Fatalf("leaving; wrong value; g=%v k=%v wanted=%v got=%v", + g, keys[i], vals[i], v) + } + vals[i] = strconv.Itoa(rand.Int()) + ck.Put(keys[i], vals[i]) + } + } + + fmt.Printf(" ... Passed\n") +} + +func doConcurrent(t *testing.T, unreliable bool) { + tc := setup(t, "concurrent-"+strconv.FormatBool(unreliable), unreliable) + defer tc.cleanup() + + for i := 0; i < len(tc.groups); i++ { + tc.join(i) + } + + const npara = 11 + var ca [npara]chan bool + for i := 0; i < npara; i++ { + ca[i] = make(chan bool) + go func(me int) { + ok := true + defer func() { ca[me] <- ok }() + ck := tc.clerk() + mymck := tc.shardclerk() + key := strconv.Itoa(me) + last := "" + for iters := 0; iters < 3; iters++ { + nv := strconv.Itoa(rand.Int()) + ck.Append(key, nv) + last = last + nv + v := ck.Get(key) + if v != last { + ok = false + t.Fatalf("Get(%v) expected %v got %v\n", key, last, v) + } + + gi := rand.Int() % len(tc.groups) + gid := tc.groups[gi].gid + mymck.Move(rand.Int()%shardmaster.NShards, gid) + + time.Sleep(time.Duration(rand.Int()%30) * time.Millisecond) + } + }(i) + } + + for i := 0; i < npara; i++ { + x := <-ca[i] + if x == false { + t.Fatalf("something is wrong") + } + } +} + +func TestConcurrent(t *testing.T) { + fmt.Printf("Test: Concurrent Put/Get/Move ...\n") + doConcurrent(t, false) + fmt.Printf(" ... Passed\n") +} + +func TestConcurrentUnreliable(t *testing.T) { + fmt.Printf("Test: Concurrent Put/Get/Move (unreliable) ...\n") + doConcurrent(t, true) + fmt.Printf(" ... Passed\n") +} diff --git a/src/paxos-shardmaster/client.go b/src/paxos-shardmaster/client.go new file mode 100644 index 0000000..8a9e782 --- /dev/null +++ b/src/paxos-shardmaster/client.go @@ -0,0 +1,120 @@ +package shardmaster + +// +// Shardmaster clerk. +// Please don't change this file. +// + +import "net/rpc" +import "time" +import "fmt" + +type Clerk struct { + servers []string // shardmaster replicas +} + +func MakeClerk(servers []string) *Clerk { + ck := new(Clerk) + ck.servers = servers + return ck +} + +// +// call() sends an RPC to the rpcname handler on server srv +// with arguments args, waits for the reply, and leaves the +// reply in reply. the reply argument should be a pointer +// to a reply structure. +// +// the return value is true if the server responded, and false +// if call() was not able to contact the server. in particular, +// the reply's contents are only valid if call() returned true. +// +// you should assume that call() will return an +// error after a while if the server is dead. +// don't provide your own time-out mechanism. +// +// please use call() to send all RPCs, in client.go and server.go. +// please don't change this function. +// +func call(srv string, rpcname string, + args interface{}, reply interface{}) bool { + c, errx := rpc.Dial("unix", srv) + if errx != nil { + return false + } + defer c.Close() + + err := c.Call(rpcname, args, reply) + if err == nil { + return true + } + + fmt.Println(err) + return false +} + +func (ck *Clerk) Query(num int) Config { + for { + // try each known server. + for _, srv := range ck.servers { + args := &QueryArgs{} + args.Num = num + var reply QueryReply + ok := call(srv, "ShardMaster.Query", args, &reply) + if ok { + return reply.Config + } + } + time.Sleep(100 * time.Millisecond) + } +} + +func (ck *Clerk) Join(gid int64, servers []string) { + for { + // try each known server. + for _, srv := range ck.servers { + args := &JoinArgs{} + args.GID = gid + args.Servers = servers + var reply JoinReply + ok := call(srv, "ShardMaster.Join", args, &reply) + if ok { + return + } + } + time.Sleep(100 * time.Millisecond) + } +} + +func (ck *Clerk) Leave(gid int64) { + for { + // try each known server. + for _, srv := range ck.servers { + args := &LeaveArgs{} + args.GID = gid + var reply LeaveReply + ok := call(srv, "ShardMaster.Leave", args, &reply) + if ok { + return + } + } + time.Sleep(100 * time.Millisecond) + } +} + +func (ck *Clerk) Move(shard int, gid int64) { + for { + // try each known server. + for _, srv := range ck.servers { + args := &MoveArgs{} + args.Shard = shard + args.GID = gid + var reply MoveReply + ok := call(srv, "ShardMaster.Move", args, &reply) + if ok { + return + } + } + time.Sleep(100 * time.Millisecond) + } +} diff --git a/src/paxos-shardmaster/common.go b/src/paxos-shardmaster/common.go new file mode 100644 index 0000000..2413af3 --- /dev/null +++ b/src/paxos-shardmaster/common.go @@ -0,0 +1,60 @@ +package shardmaster + +// +// Master shard server: assigns shards to replication groups. +// +// RPC interface: +// Join(gid, servers) -- replica group gid is joining, give it some shards. +// Leave(gid) -- replica group gid is retiring, hand off all its shards. +// Move(shard, gid) -- hand off one shard from current owner to gid. +// Query(num) -> fetch Config # num, or latest config if num==-1. +// +// A Config (configuration) describes a set of replica groups, and the +// replica group responsible for each shard. Configs are numbered. Config +// #0 is the initial configuration, with no groups and all shards +// assigned to group 0 (the invalid group). +// +// A GID is a replica group ID. GIDs must be uniqe and > 0. +// Once a GID joins, and leaves, it should never join again. +// +// Please don't change this file. +// + +const NShards = 10 + +type Config struct { + Num int // config number + Shards [NShards]int64 // shard -> gid + Groups map[int64][]string // gid -> servers[] +} + +type JoinArgs struct { + GID int64 // unique replica group ID + Servers []string // group server ports +} + +type JoinReply struct { +} + +type LeaveArgs struct { + GID int64 +} + +type LeaveReply struct { +} + +type MoveArgs struct { + Shard int + GID int64 +} + +type MoveReply struct { +} + +type QueryArgs struct { + Num int // desired config number +} + +type QueryReply struct { + Config Config +} diff --git a/src/paxos-shardmaster/server.go b/src/paxos-shardmaster/server.go new file mode 100644 index 0000000..f31b7f1 --- /dev/null +++ b/src/paxos-shardmaster/server.go @@ -0,0 +1,141 @@ +package shardmaster + +import "net" +import "fmt" +import "net/rpc" +import "log" + +import "paxos" +import "sync" +import "sync/atomic" +import "os" +import "syscall" +import "encoding/gob" +import "math/rand" + +type ShardMaster struct { + mu sync.Mutex + l net.Listener + me int + dead int32 // for testing + unreliable int32 // for testing + px *paxos.Paxos + + configs []Config // indexed by config num +} + + +type Op struct { + // Your data here. +} + + +func (sm *ShardMaster) Join(args *JoinArgs, reply *JoinReply) error { + // Your code here. + + return nil +} + +func (sm *ShardMaster) Leave(args *LeaveArgs, reply *LeaveReply) error { + // Your code here. + + return nil +} + +func (sm *ShardMaster) Move(args *MoveArgs, reply *MoveReply) error { + // Your code here. + + return nil +} + +func (sm *ShardMaster) Query(args *QueryArgs, reply *QueryReply) error { + // Your code here. + + return nil +} + +// please don't change these two functions. +func (sm *ShardMaster) Kill() { + atomic.StoreInt32(&sm.dead, 1) + sm.l.Close() + sm.px.Kill() +} + +// call this to find out if the server is dead. +func (sm *ShardMaster) isdead() bool { + return atomic.LoadInt32(&sm.dead) != 0 +} + +// please do not change these two functions. +func (sm *ShardMaster) setunreliable(what bool) { + if what { + atomic.StoreInt32(&sm.unreliable, 1) + } else { + atomic.StoreInt32(&sm.unreliable, 0) + } +} + +func (sm *ShardMaster) isunreliable() bool { + return atomic.LoadInt32(&sm.unreliable) != 0 +} + +// +// servers[] contains the ports of the set of +// servers that will cooperate via Paxos to +// form the fault-tolerant shardmaster service. +// me is the index of the current server in servers[]. +// +func StartServer(servers []string, me int) *ShardMaster { + sm := new(ShardMaster) + sm.me = me + + sm.configs = make([]Config, 1) + sm.configs[0].Groups = map[int64][]string{} + + rpcs := rpc.NewServer() + + gob.Register(Op{}) + rpcs.Register(sm) + sm.px = paxos.Make(servers, me, rpcs) + + os.Remove(servers[me]) + l, e := net.Listen("unix", servers[me]) + if e != nil { + log.Fatal("listen error: ", e) + } + sm.l = l + + // please do not change any of the following code, + // or do anything to subvert it. + + go func() { + for sm.isdead() == false { + conn, err := sm.l.Accept() + if err == nil && sm.isdead() == false { + if sm.isunreliable() && (rand.Int63()%1000) < 100 { + // discard the request. + conn.Close() + } else if sm.isunreliable() && (rand.Int63()%1000) < 200 { + // process the request but force discard of reply. + c1 := conn.(*net.UnixConn) + f, _ := c1.File() + err := syscall.Shutdown(int(f.Fd()), syscall.SHUT_WR) + if err != nil { + fmt.Printf("shutdown: %v\n", err) + } + go rpcs.ServeConn(conn) + } else { + go rpcs.ServeConn(conn) + } + } else if err == nil { + conn.Close() + } + if err != nil && sm.isdead() == false { + fmt.Printf("ShardMaster(%v) accept: %v\n", me, err.Error()) + sm.Kill() + } + } + }() + + return sm +} diff --git a/src/paxos-shardmaster/test_test.go b/src/paxos-shardmaster/test_test.go new file mode 100644 index 0000000..3a07354 --- /dev/null +++ b/src/paxos-shardmaster/test_test.go @@ -0,0 +1,372 @@ +package shardmaster + +import "testing" +import "runtime" +import "strconv" +import "os" + +// import "time" +import "fmt" +import "math/rand" + +func port(tag string, host int) string { + s := "/var/tmp/824-" + s += strconv.Itoa(os.Getuid()) + "/" + os.Mkdir(s, 0777) + s += "sm-" + s += strconv.Itoa(os.Getpid()) + "-" + s += tag + "-" + s += strconv.Itoa(host) + return s +} + +func cleanup(sma []*ShardMaster) { + for i := 0; i < len(sma); i++ { + if sma[i] != nil { + sma[i].Kill() + } + } +} + +// +// maybe should take a cka[] and find the server with +// the highest Num. +// +func check(t *testing.T, groups []int64, ck *Clerk) { + c := ck.Query(-1) + if len(c.Groups) != len(groups) { + t.Fatalf("wanted %v groups, got %v", len(groups), len(c.Groups)) + } + + // are the groups as expected? + for _, g := range groups { + _, ok := c.Groups[g] + if ok != true { + t.Fatalf("missing group %v", g) + } + } + + // any un-allocated shards? + if len(groups) > 0 { + for s, g := range c.Shards { + _, ok := c.Groups[g] + if ok == false { + t.Fatalf("shard %v -> invalid group %v", s, g) + } + } + } + + // more or less balanced sharding? + counts := map[int64]int{} + for _, g := range c.Shards { + counts[g] += 1 + } + min := 257 + max := 0 + for g, _ := range c.Groups { + if counts[g] > max { + max = counts[g] + } + if counts[g] < min { + min = counts[g] + } + } + if max > min+1 { + t.Fatalf("max %v too much larger than min %v", max, min) + } +} + +func TestBasic(t *testing.T) { + runtime.GOMAXPROCS(4) + + const nservers = 3 + var sma []*ShardMaster = make([]*ShardMaster, nservers) + var kvh []string = make([]string, nservers) + defer cleanup(sma) + + for i := 0; i < nservers; i++ { + kvh[i] = port("basic", i) + } + for i := 0; i < nservers; i++ { + sma[i] = StartServer(kvh, i) + } + + ck := MakeClerk(kvh) + var cka [nservers]*Clerk + for i := 0; i < nservers; i++ { + cka[i] = MakeClerk([]string{kvh[i]}) + } + + fmt.Printf("Test: Basic leave/join ...\n") + + cfa := make([]Config, 6) + cfa[0] = ck.Query(-1) + + check(t, []int64{}, ck) + + var gid1 int64 = 1 + ck.Join(gid1, []string{"x", "y", "z"}) + check(t, []int64{gid1}, ck) + cfa[1] = ck.Query(-1) + + var gid2 int64 = 2 + ck.Join(gid2, []string{"a", "b", "c"}) + check(t, []int64{gid1, gid2}, ck) + cfa[2] = ck.Query(-1) + + ck.Join(gid2, []string{"a", "b", "c"}) + check(t, []int64{gid1, gid2}, ck) + cfa[3] = ck.Query(-1) + + cfx := ck.Query(-1) + sa1 := cfx.Groups[gid1] + if len(sa1) != 3 || sa1[0] != "x" || sa1[1] != "y" || sa1[2] != "z" { + t.Fatalf("wrong servers for gid %v: %v\n", gid1, sa1) + } + sa2 := cfx.Groups[gid2] + if len(sa2) != 3 || sa2[0] != "a" || sa2[1] != "b" || sa2[2] != "c" { + t.Fatalf("wrong servers for gid %v: %v\n", gid2, sa2) + } + + ck.Leave(gid1) + check(t, []int64{gid2}, ck) + cfa[4] = ck.Query(-1) + + ck.Leave(gid1) + check(t, []int64{gid2}, ck) + cfa[5] = ck.Query(-1) + + fmt.Printf(" ... Passed\n") + + fmt.Printf("Test: Historical queries ...\n") + + for i := 0; i < len(cfa); i++ { + c := ck.Query(cfa[i].Num) + if c.Num != cfa[i].Num { + t.Fatalf("historical Num wrong") + } + if c.Shards != cfa[i].Shards { + t.Fatalf("historical Shards wrong") + } + if len(c.Groups) != len(cfa[i].Groups) { + t.Fatalf("number of historical Groups is wrong") + } + for gid, sa := range c.Groups { + sa1, ok := cfa[i].Groups[gid] + if ok == false || len(sa1) != len(sa) { + t.Fatalf("historical len(Groups) wrong") + } + if ok && len(sa1) == len(sa) { + for j := 0; j < len(sa); j++ { + if sa[j] != sa1[j] { + t.Fatalf("historical Groups wrong") + } + } + } + } + } + + fmt.Printf(" ... Passed\n") + + fmt.Printf("Test: Move ...\n") + { + var gid3 int64 = 503 + ck.Join(gid3, []string{"3a", "3b", "3c"}) + var gid4 int64 = 504 + ck.Join(gid4, []string{"4a", "4b", "4c"}) + for i := 0; i < NShards; i++ { + cf := ck.Query(-1) + if i < NShards/2 { + ck.Move(i, gid3) + if cf.Shards[i] != gid3 { + cf1 := ck.Query(-1) + if cf1.Num <= cf.Num { + t.Fatalf("Move should increase Config.Num") + } + } + } else { + ck.Move(i, gid4) + if cf.Shards[i] != gid4 { + cf1 := ck.Query(-1) + if cf1.Num <= cf.Num { + t.Fatalf("Move should increase Config.Num") + } + } + } + } + cf2 := ck.Query(-1) + for i := 0; i < NShards; i++ { + if i < NShards/2 { + if cf2.Shards[i] != gid3 { + t.Fatalf("expected shard %v on gid %v actually %v", + i, gid3, cf2.Shards[i]) + } + } else { + if cf2.Shards[i] != gid4 { + t.Fatalf("expected shard %v on gid %v actually %v", + i, gid4, cf2.Shards[i]) + } + } + } + ck.Leave(gid3) + ck.Leave(gid4) + } + fmt.Printf(" ... Passed\n") + + fmt.Printf("Test: Concurrent leave/join ...\n") + + const npara = 10 + gids := make([]int64, npara) + var ca [npara]chan bool + for xi := 0; xi < npara; xi++ { + gids[xi] = int64(xi + 1) + ca[xi] = make(chan bool) + go func(i int) { + defer func() { ca[i] <- true }() + var gid int64 = gids[i] + cka[(i+0)%nservers].Join(gid+1000, []string{"a", "b", "c"}) + cka[(i+0)%nservers].Join(gid, []string{"a", "b", "c"}) + cka[(i+1)%nservers].Leave(gid + 1000) + }(xi) + } + for i := 0; i < npara; i++ { + <-ca[i] + } + check(t, gids, ck) + + fmt.Printf(" ... Passed\n") + + fmt.Printf("Test: Min advances after joins ...\n") + + for i, sm := range sma { + if sm.px.Min() <= 0 { + t.Fatalf("Min() for %s did not advance", kvh[i]) + } + } + + fmt.Printf(" ... Passed\n") + + fmt.Printf("Test: Minimal transfers after joins ...\n") + + c1 := ck.Query(-1) + for i := 0; i < 5; i++ { + ck.Join(int64(npara+1+i), []string{"a", "b", "c"}) + } + c2 := ck.Query(-1) + for i := int64(1); i <= npara; i++ { + for j := 0; j < len(c1.Shards); j++ { + if c2.Shards[j] == i { + if c1.Shards[j] != i { + t.Fatalf("non-minimal transfer after Join()s") + } + } + } + } + + fmt.Printf(" ... Passed\n") + + fmt.Printf("Test: Minimal transfers after leaves ...\n") + + for i := 0; i < 5; i++ { + ck.Leave(int64(npara + 1 + i)) + } + c3 := ck.Query(-1) + for i := int64(1); i <= npara; i++ { + for j := 0; j < len(c1.Shards); j++ { + if c2.Shards[j] == i { + if c3.Shards[j] != i { + t.Fatalf("non-minimal transfer after Leave()s") + } + } + } + } + + fmt.Printf(" ... Passed\n") +} + +func TestUnreliable(t *testing.T) { + runtime.GOMAXPROCS(4) + + const nservers = 3 + var sma []*ShardMaster = make([]*ShardMaster, nservers) + var kvh []string = make([]string, nservers) + defer cleanup(sma) + + for i := 0; i < nservers; i++ { + kvh[i] = port("unrel", i) + } + for i := 0; i < nservers; i++ { + sma[i] = StartServer(kvh, i) + // don't turn on unreliable because the assignment + // doesn't require the shardmaster to detect duplicate + // client requests. + // sma[i].setunreliable(true) + } + + ck := MakeClerk(kvh) + var cka [nservers]*Clerk + for i := 0; i < nservers; i++ { + cka[i] = MakeClerk([]string{kvh[i]}) + } + + fmt.Printf("Test: Concurrent leave/join, failure ...\n") + + const npara = 20 + gids := make([]int64, npara) + var ca [npara]chan bool + for xi := 0; xi < npara; xi++ { + gids[xi] = int64(xi + 1) + ca[xi] = make(chan bool) + go func(i int) { + defer func() { ca[i] <- true }() + var gid int64 = gids[i] + cka[1+(rand.Int()%2)].Join(gid+1000, []string{"a", "b", "c"}) + cka[1+(rand.Int()%2)].Join(gid, []string{"a", "b", "c"}) + cka[1+(rand.Int()%2)].Leave(gid + 1000) + // server 0 won't be able to hear any RPCs. + os.Remove(kvh[0]) + }(xi) + } + for i := 0; i < npara; i++ { + <-ca[i] + } + check(t, gids, ck) + + fmt.Printf(" ... Passed\n") +} + +func TestFreshQuery(t *testing.T) { + runtime.GOMAXPROCS(4) + + const nservers = 3 + var sma []*ShardMaster = make([]*ShardMaster, nservers) + var kvh []string = make([]string, nservers) + defer cleanup(sma) + + for i := 0; i < nservers; i++ { + kvh[i] = port("fresh", i) + } + for i := 0; i < nservers; i++ { + sma[i] = StartServer(kvh, i) + } + + ck1 := MakeClerk([]string{kvh[1]}) + + fmt.Printf("Test: Query() returns latest configuration ...\n") + + portx := kvh[0] + strconv.Itoa(rand.Int()) + if os.Rename(kvh[0], portx) != nil { + t.Fatalf("os.Rename() failed") + } + ck0 := MakeClerk([]string{portx}) + + ck1.Join(1001, []string{"a", "b", "c"}) + c := ck0.Query(-1) + _, ok := c.Groups[1001] + if ok == false { + t.Fatalf("Query(-1) produced a stale configuration") + } + + fmt.Printf(" ... Passed\n") + os.Remove(portx) +} diff --git a/src/paxos/paxos.go b/src/paxos/paxos.go new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6156596 --- /dev/null +++ b/src/paxos/paxos.go @@ -0,0 +1,273 @@ +package paxos + +// +// Paxos library, to be included in an application. +// Multiple applications will run, each including +// a Paxos peer. +// +// Manages a sequence of agreed-on values. +// The set of peers is fixed. +// Copes with network failures (partition, msg loss, &c). +// Does not store anything persistently, so cannot handle crash+restart. +// +// The application interface: +// +// px = paxos.Make(peers []string, me int) +// px.Start(seq int, v interface{}) -- start agreement on new instance +// px.Status(seq int) (Fate, v interface{}) -- get info about an instance +// px.Done(seq int) -- ok to forget all instances <= seq +// px.Max() int -- highest instance seq known, or -1 +// px.Min() int -- instances before this seq have been forgotten +// + +import "net" +import "net/rpc" +import "log" + +import "os" +import "syscall" +import "sync" +import "sync/atomic" +import "fmt" +import "math/rand" + + +// px.Status() return values, indicating +// whether an agreement has been decided, +// or Paxos has not yet reached agreement, +// or it was agreed but forgotten (i.e. < Min()). +type Fate int + +const ( + Decided Fate = iota + 1 + Pending // not yet decided. + Forgotten // decided but forgotten. +) + +type Paxos struct { + mu sync.Mutex + l net.Listener + dead int32 // for testing + unreliable int32 // for testing + rpcCount int32 // for testing + peers []string + me int // index into peers[] + + + // Your data here. +} + +// +// call() sends an RPC to the rpcname handler on server srv +// with arguments args, waits for the reply, and leaves the +// reply in reply. the reply argument should be a pointer +// to a reply structure. +// +// the return value is true if the server responded, and false +// if call() was not able to contact the server. in particular, +// the replys contents are only valid if call() returned true. +// +// you should assume that call() will time out and return an +// error after a while if it does not get a reply from the server. +// +// please use call() to send all RPCs, in client.go and server.go. +// please do not change this function. +// +func call(srv string, name string, args interface{}, reply interface{}) bool { + c, err := rpc.Dial("unix", srv) + if err != nil { + err1 := err.(*net.OpError) + if err1.Err != syscall.ENOENT && err1.Err != syscall.ECONNREFUSED { + fmt.Printf("paxos Dial() failed: %v\n", err1) + } + return false + } + defer c.Close() + + err = c.Call(name, args, reply) + if err == nil { + return true + } + + fmt.Println(err) + return false +} + + +// +// the application wants paxos to start agreement on +// instance seq, with proposed value v. +// Start() returns right away; the application will +// call Status() to find out if/when agreement +// is reached. +// +func (px *Paxos) Start(seq int, v interface{}) { + // Your code here. +} + +// +// the application on this machine is done with +// all instances <= seq. +// +// see the comments for Min() for more explanation. +// +func (px *Paxos) Done(seq int) { + // Your code here. +} + +// +// the application wants to know the +// highest instance sequence known to +// this peer. +// +func (px *Paxos) Max() int { + // Your code here. + return 0 +} + +// +// Min() should return one more than the minimum among z_i, +// where z_i is the highest number ever passed +// to Done() on peer i. A peers z_i is -1 if it has +// never called Done(). +// +// Paxos is required to have forgotten all information +// about any instances it knows that are < Min(). +// The point is to free up memory in long-running +// Paxos-based servers. +// +// Paxos peers need to exchange their highest Done() +// arguments in order to implement Min(). These +// exchanges can be piggybacked on ordinary Paxos +// agreement protocol messages, so it is OK if one +// peers Min does not reflect another Peers Done() +// until after the next instance is agreed to. +// +// The fact that Min() is defined as a minimum over +// *all* Paxos peers means that Min() cannot increase until +// all peers have been heard from. So if a peer is dead +// or unreachable, other peers Min()s will not increase +// even if all reachable peers call Done. The reason for +// this is that when the unreachable peer comes back to +// life, it will need to catch up on instances that it +// missed -- the other peers therefor cannot forget these +// instances. +// +func (px *Paxos) Min() int { + // You code here. + return 0 +} + +// +// the application wants to know whether this +// peer thinks an instance has been decided, +// and if so what the agreed value is. Status() +// should just inspect the local peer state; +// it should not contact other Paxos peers. +// +func (px *Paxos) Status(seq int) (Fate, interface{}) { + // Your code here. + return Pending, nil +} + + + +// +// tell the peer to shut itself down. +// for testing. +// please do not change these two functions. +// +func (px *Paxos) Kill() { + atomic.StoreInt32(&px.dead, 1) + if px.l != nil { + px.l.Close() + } +} + +// +// has this peer been asked to shut down? +// +func (px *Paxos) isdead() bool { + return atomic.LoadInt32(&px.dead) != 0 +} + +// please do not change these two functions. +func (px *Paxos) setunreliable(what bool) { + if what { + atomic.StoreInt32(&px.unreliable, 1) + } else { + atomic.StoreInt32(&px.unreliable, 0) + } +} + +func (px *Paxos) isunreliable() bool { + return atomic.LoadInt32(&px.unreliable) != 0 +} + +// +// the application wants to create a paxos peer. +// the ports of all the paxos peers (including this one) +// are in peers[]. this servers port is peers[me]. +// +func Make(peers []string, me int, rpcs *rpc.Server) *Paxos { + px := &Paxos{} + px.peers = peers + px.me = me + + + // Your initialization code here. + + if rpcs != nil { + // caller will create socket &c + rpcs.Register(px) + } else { + rpcs = rpc.NewServer() + rpcs.Register(px) + + // prepare to receive connections from clients. + // change "unix" to "tcp" to use over a network. + os.Remove(peers[me]) // only needed for "unix" + l, e := net.Listen("unix", peers[me]) + if e != nil { + log.Fatal("listen error: ", e) + } + px.l = l + + // please do not change any of the following code, + // or do anything to subvert it. + + // create a thread to accept RPC connections + go func() { + for px.isdead() == false { + conn, err := px.l.Accept() + if err == nil && px.isdead() == false { + if px.isunreliable() && (rand.Int63()%1000) < 100 { + // discard the request. + conn.Close() + } else if px.isunreliable() && (rand.Int63()%1000) < 200 { + // process the request but force discard of reply. + c1 := conn.(*net.UnixConn) + f, _ := c1.File() + err := syscall.Shutdown(int(f.Fd()), syscall.SHUT_WR) + if err != nil { + fmt.Printf("shutdown: %v\n", err) + } + atomic.AddInt32(&px.rpcCount, 1) + go rpcs.ServeConn(conn) + } else { + atomic.AddInt32(&px.rpcCount, 1) + go rpcs.ServeConn(conn) + } + } else if err == nil { + conn.Close() + } + if err != nil && px.isdead() == false { + fmt.Printf("Paxos(%v) accept: %v\n", me, err.Error()) + } + } + }() + } + + + return px +} diff --git a/src/paxos/test_test.go b/src/paxos/test_test.go new file mode 100644 index 0000000..d07e4fa --- /dev/null +++ b/src/paxos/test_test.go @@ -0,0 +1,957 @@ +package paxos + +import "testing" +import "runtime" +import "strconv" +import "os" +import "time" +import "fmt" +import "math/rand" +import crand "crypto/rand" +import "encoding/base64" +import "sync/atomic" + +func randstring(n int) string { + b := make([]byte, 2*n) + crand.Read(b) + s := base64.URLEncoding.EncodeToString(b) + return s[0:n] +} + +func port(tag string, host int) string { + s := "/var/tmp/824-" + s += strconv.Itoa(os.Getuid()) + "/" + os.Mkdir(s, 0777) + s += "px-" + s += strconv.Itoa(os.Getpid()) + "-" + s += tag + "-" + s += strconv.Itoa(host) + return s +} + +func ndecided(t *testing.T, pxa []*Paxos, seq int) int { + count := 0 + var v interface{} + for i := 0; i < len(pxa); i++ { + if pxa[i] != nil { + decided, v1 := pxa[i].Status(seq) + if decided == Decided { + if count > 0 && v != v1 { + t.Fatalf("decided values do not match; seq=%v i=%v v=%v v1=%v", + seq, i, v, v1) + } + count++ + v = v1 + } + } + } + return count +} + +func waitn(t *testing.T, pxa []*Paxos, seq int, wanted int) { + to := 10 * time.Millisecond + for iters := 0; iters < 30; iters++ { + if ndecided(t, pxa, seq) >= wanted { + break + } + time.Sleep(to) + if to < time.Second { + to *= 2 + } + } + nd := ndecided(t, pxa, seq) + if nd < wanted { + t.Fatalf("too few decided; seq=%v ndecided=%v wanted=%v", seq, nd, wanted) + } +} + +func waitmajority(t *testing.T, pxa []*Paxos, seq int) { + waitn(t, pxa, seq, (len(pxa)/2)+1) +} + +func checkmax(t *testing.T, pxa []*Paxos, seq int, max int) { + time.Sleep(3 * time.Second) + nd := ndecided(t, pxa, seq) + if nd > max { + t.Fatalf("too many decided; seq=%v ndecided=%v max=%v", seq, nd, max) + } +} + +func cleanup(pxa []*Paxos) { + for i := 0; i < len(pxa); i++ { + if pxa[i] != nil { + pxa[i].Kill() + } + } +} + +func noTestSpeed(t *testing.T) { + runtime.GOMAXPROCS(4) + + const npaxos = 3 + var pxa []*Paxos = make([]*Paxos, npaxos) + var pxh []string = make([]string, npaxos) + defer cleanup(pxa) + + for i := 0; i < npaxos; i++ { + pxh[i] = port("time", i) + } + for i := 0; i < npaxos; i++ { + pxa[i] = Make(pxh, i, nil) + } + + t0 := time.Now() + + for i := 0; i < 20; i++ { + pxa[0].Start(i, "x") + waitn(t, pxa, i, npaxos) + } + + d := time.Since(t0) + fmt.Printf("20 agreements %v seconds\n", d.Seconds()) +} + +func TestBasic(t *testing.T) { + runtime.GOMAXPROCS(4) + + const npaxos = 3 + var pxa []*Paxos = make([]*Paxos, npaxos) + var pxh []string = make([]string, npaxos) + defer cleanup(pxa) + + for i := 0; i < npaxos; i++ { + pxh[i] = port("basic", i) + } + for i := 0; i < npaxos; i++ { + pxa[i] = Make(pxh, i, nil) + } + + fmt.Printf("Test: Single proposer ...\n") + + pxa[0].Start(0, "hello") + waitn(t, pxa, 0, npaxos) + + fmt.Printf(" ... Passed\n") + + fmt.Printf("Test: Many proposers, same value ...\n") + + for i := 0; i < npaxos; i++ { + pxa[i].Start(1, 77) + } + waitn(t, pxa, 1, npaxos) + + fmt.Printf(" ... Passed\n") + + fmt.Printf("Test: Many proposers, different values ...\n") + + pxa[0].Start(2, 100) + pxa[1].Start(2, 101) + pxa[2].Start(2, 102) + waitn(t, pxa, 2, npaxos) + + fmt.Printf(" ... Passed\n") + + fmt.Printf("Test: Out-of-order instances ...\n") + + pxa[0].Start(7, 700) + pxa[0].Start(6, 600) + pxa[1].Start(5, 500) + waitn(t, pxa, 7, npaxos) + pxa[0].Start(4, 400) + pxa[1].Start(3, 300) + waitn(t, pxa, 6, npaxos) + waitn(t, pxa, 5, npaxos) + waitn(t, pxa, 4, npaxos) + waitn(t, pxa, 3, npaxos) + + if pxa[0].Max() != 7 { + t.Fatalf("wrong Max()") + } + + fmt.Printf(" ... Passed\n") +} + +func TestDeaf(t *testing.T) { + runtime.GOMAXPROCS(4) + + const npaxos = 5 + var pxa []*Paxos = make([]*Paxos, npaxos) + var pxh []string = make([]string, npaxos) + defer cleanup(pxa) + + for i := 0; i < npaxos; i++ { + pxh[i] = port("deaf", i) + } + for i := 0; i < npaxos; i++ { + pxa[i] = Make(pxh, i, nil) + } + + fmt.Printf("Test: Deaf proposer ...\n") + + pxa[0].Start(0, "hello") + waitn(t, pxa, 0, npaxos) + + os.Remove(pxh[0]) + os.Remove(pxh[npaxos-1]) + + pxa[1].Start(1, "goodbye") + waitmajority(t, pxa, 1) + time.Sleep(1 * time.Second) + if ndecided(t, pxa, 1) != npaxos-2 { + t.Fatalf("a deaf peer heard about a decision") + } + + pxa[0].Start(1, "xxx") + waitn(t, pxa, 1, npaxos-1) + time.Sleep(1 * time.Second) + if ndecided(t, pxa, 1) != npaxos-1 { + t.Fatalf("a deaf peer heard about a decision") + } + + pxa[npaxos-1].Start(1, "yyy") + waitn(t, pxa, 1, npaxos) + + fmt.Printf(" ... Passed\n") +} + +func TestForget(t *testing.T) { + runtime.GOMAXPROCS(4) + + const npaxos = 6 + var pxa []*Paxos = make([]*Paxos, npaxos) + var pxh []string = make([]string, npaxos) + defer cleanup(pxa) + + for i := 0; i < npaxos; i++ { + pxh[i] = port("gc", i) + } + for i := 0; i < npaxos; i++ { + pxa[i] = Make(pxh, i, nil) + } + + fmt.Printf("Test: Forgetting ...\n") + + // initial Min() correct? + for i := 0; i < npaxos; i++ { + m := pxa[i].Min() + if m > 0 { + t.Fatalf("wrong initial Min() %v", m) + } + } + + pxa[0].Start(0, "00") + pxa[1].Start(1, "11") + pxa[2].Start(2, "22") + pxa[0].Start(6, "66") + pxa[1].Start(7, "77") + + waitn(t, pxa, 0, npaxos) + + // Min() correct? + for i := 0; i < npaxos; i++ { + m := pxa[i].Min() + if m != 0 { + t.Fatalf("wrong Min() %v; expected 0", m) + } + } + + waitn(t, pxa, 1, npaxos) + + // Min() correct? + for i := 0; i < npaxos; i++ { + m := pxa[i].Min() + if m != 0 { + t.Fatalf("wrong Min() %v; expected 0", m) + } + } + + // everyone Done() -> Min() changes? + for i := 0; i < npaxos; i++ { + pxa[i].Done(0) + } + for i := 1; i < npaxos; i++ { + pxa[i].Done(1) + } + for i := 0; i < npaxos; i++ { + pxa[i].Start(8+i, "xx") + } + allok := false + for iters := 0; iters < 12; iters++ { + allok = true + for i := 0; i < npaxos; i++ { + s := pxa[i].Min() + if s != 1 { + allok = false + } + } + if allok { + break + } + time.Sleep(1 * time.Second) + } + if allok != true { + t.Fatalf("Min() did not advance after Done()") + } + + fmt.Printf(" ... Passed\n") +} + +func TestManyForget(t *testing.T) { + runtime.GOMAXPROCS(4) + + const npaxos = 3 + var pxa []*Paxos = make([]*Paxos, npaxos) + var pxh []string = make([]string, npaxos) + defer cleanup(pxa) + + for i := 0; i < npaxos; i++ { + pxh[i] = port("manygc", i) + } + for i := 0; i < npaxos; i++ { + pxa[i] = Make(pxh, i, nil) + pxa[i].setunreliable(true) + } + + fmt.Printf("Test: Lots of forgetting ...\n") + + const maxseq = 20 + + go func() { + na := rand.Perm(maxseq) + for i := 0; i < len(na); i++ { + seq := na[i] + j := (rand.Int() % npaxos) + v := rand.Int() + pxa[j].Start(seq, v) + runtime.Gosched() + } + }() + + done := make(chan bool) + go func() { + for { + select { + case <-done: + return + default: + } + seq := (rand.Int() % maxseq) + i := (rand.Int() % npaxos) + if seq >= pxa[i].Min() { + decided, _ := pxa[i].Status(seq) + if decided == Decided { + pxa[i].Done(seq) + } + } + runtime.Gosched() + } + }() + + time.Sleep(5 * time.Second) + done <- true + for i := 0; i < npaxos; i++ { + pxa[i].setunreliable(false) + } + time.Sleep(2 * time.Second) + + for seq := 0; seq < maxseq; seq++ { + for i := 0; i < npaxos; i++ { + if seq >= pxa[i].Min() { + pxa[i].Status(seq) + } + } + } + + fmt.Printf(" ... Passed\n") +} + +// +// does paxos forgetting actually free the memory? +// +func TestForgetMem(t *testing.T) { + runtime.GOMAXPROCS(4) + + fmt.Printf("Test: Paxos frees forgotten instance memory ...\n") + + const npaxos = 3 + var pxa []*Paxos = make([]*Paxos, npaxos) + var pxh []string = make([]string, npaxos) + defer cleanup(pxa) + + for i := 0; i < npaxos; i++ { + pxh[i] = port("gcmem", i) + } + for i := 0; i < npaxos; i++ { + pxa[i] = Make(pxh, i, nil) + } + + pxa[0].Start(0, "x") + waitn(t, pxa, 0, npaxos) + + runtime.GC() + var m0 runtime.MemStats + runtime.ReadMemStats(&m0) + // m0.Alloc about a megabyte + + for i := 1; i <= 10; i++ { + big := make([]byte, 1000000) + for j := 0; j < len(big); j++ { + big[j] = byte('a' + rand.Int()%26) + } + pxa[0].Start(i, string(big)) + waitn(t, pxa, i, npaxos) + } + + runtime.GC() + var m1 runtime.MemStats + runtime.ReadMemStats(&m1) + // m1.Alloc about 90 megabytes + + for i := 0; i < npaxos; i++ { + pxa[i].Done(10) + } + for i := 0; i < npaxos; i++ { + pxa[i].Start(11+i, "z") + } + time.Sleep(3 * time.Second) + for i := 0; i < npaxos; i++ { + if pxa[i].Min() != 11 { + t.Fatalf("expected Min() %v, got %v\n", 11, pxa[i].Min()) + } + } + + runtime.GC() + var m2 runtime.MemStats + runtime.ReadMemStats(&m2) + // m2.Alloc about 10 megabytes + + if m2.Alloc > (m1.Alloc / 2) { + t.Fatalf("memory use did not shrink enough") + } + + again := make([]string, 10) + for seq := 0; seq < npaxos && seq < 10; seq++ { + again[seq] = randstring(20) + for i := 0; i < npaxos; i++ { + fate, _ := pxa[i].Status(seq) + if fate != Forgotten { + t.Fatalf("seq %d < Min() %d but not Forgotten", seq, pxa[i].Min()) + } + pxa[i].Start(seq, again[seq]) + } + } + time.Sleep(1 * time.Second) + for seq := 0; seq < npaxos && seq < 10; seq++ { + for i := 0; i < npaxos; i++ { + fate, v := pxa[i].Status(seq) + if fate != Forgotten || v == again[seq] { + t.Fatalf("seq %d < Min() %d but not Forgotten", seq, pxa[i].Min()) + } + } + } + + fmt.Printf(" ... Passed\n") +} + +// +// does Max() work after Done()s? +// +func TestDoneMax(t *testing.T) { + runtime.GOMAXPROCS(4) + + fmt.Printf("Test: Paxos Max() after Done()s ...\n") + + const npaxos = 3 + var pxa []*Paxos = make([]*Paxos, npaxos) + var pxh []string = make([]string, npaxos) + defer cleanup(pxa) + + for i := 0; i < npaxos; i++ { + pxh[i] = port("donemax", i) + } + for i := 0; i < npaxos; i++ { + pxa[i] = Make(pxh, i, nil) + } + + pxa[0].Start(0, "x") + waitn(t, pxa, 0, npaxos) + + for i := 1; i <= 10; i++ { + pxa[0].Start(i, "y") + waitn(t, pxa, i, npaxos) + } + + for i := 0; i < npaxos; i++ { + pxa[i].Done(10) + } + + // Propagate messages so everyone knows about Done(10) + for i := 0; i < npaxos; i++ { + pxa[i].Start(10, "z") + } + time.Sleep(2 * time.Second) + for i := 0; i < npaxos; i++ { + mx := pxa[i].Max() + if mx != 10 { + t.Fatalf("Max() did not return correct result %d after calling Done(); returned %d", 10, mx) + } + } + + fmt.Printf(" ... Passed\n") +} + +func TestRPCCount(t *testing.T) { + runtime.GOMAXPROCS(4) + + fmt.Printf("Test: RPC counts aren't too high ...\n") + + const npaxos = 3 + var pxa []*Paxos = make([]*Paxos, npaxos) + var pxh []string = make([]string, npaxos) + defer cleanup(pxa) + + for i := 0; i < npaxos; i++ { + pxh[i] = port("count", i) + } + for i := 0; i < npaxos; i++ { + pxa[i] = Make(pxh, i, nil) + } + + ninst1 := 5 + seq := 0 + for i := 0; i < ninst1; i++ { + pxa[0].Start(seq, "x") + waitn(t, pxa, seq, npaxos) + seq++ + } + + time.Sleep(2 * time.Second) + + total1 := int32(0) + for j := 0; j < npaxos; j++ { + total1 += atomic.LoadInt32(&pxa[j].rpcCount) + } + + // per agreement: + // 3 prepares + // 3 accepts + // 3 decides + expected1 := int32(ninst1 * npaxos * npaxos) + if total1 > expected1 { + t.Fatalf("too many RPCs for serial Start()s; %v instances, got %v, expected %v", + ninst1, total1, expected1) + } + + ninst2 := 5 + for i := 0; i < ninst2; i++ { + for j := 0; j < npaxos; j++ { + go pxa[j].Start(seq, j+(i*10)) + } + waitn(t, pxa, seq, npaxos) + seq++ + } + + time.Sleep(2 * time.Second) + + total2 := int32(0) + for j := 0; j < npaxos; j++ { + total2 += atomic.LoadInt32(&pxa[j].rpcCount) + } + total2 -= total1 + + // worst case per agreement: + // Proposer 1: 3 prep, 3 acc, 3 decides. + // Proposer 2: 3 prep, 3 acc, 3 prep, 3 acc, 3 decides. + // Proposer 3: 3 prep, 3 acc, 3 prep, 3 acc, 3 prep, 3 acc, 3 decides. + expected2 := int32(ninst2 * npaxos * 15) + if total2 > expected2 { + t.Fatalf("too many RPCs for concurrent Start()s; %v instances, got %v, expected %v", + ninst2, total2, expected2) + } + + fmt.Printf(" ... Passed\n") +} + +// +// many agreements (without failures) +// +func TestMany(t *testing.T) { + runtime.GOMAXPROCS(4) + + fmt.Printf("Test: Many instances ...\n") + + const npaxos = 3 + var pxa []*Paxos = make([]*Paxos, npaxos) + var pxh []string = make([]string, npaxos) + defer cleanup(pxa) + + for i := 0; i < npaxos; i++ { + pxh[i] = port("many", i) + } + for i := 0; i < npaxos; i++ { + pxa[i] = Make(pxh, i, nil) + pxa[i].Start(0, 0) + } + + const ninst = 50 + for seq := 1; seq < ninst; seq++ { + // only 5 active instances, to limit the + // number of file descriptors. + for seq >= 5 && ndecided(t, pxa, seq-5) < npaxos { + time.Sleep(20 * time.Millisecond) + } + for i := 0; i < npaxos; i++ { + pxa[i].Start(seq, (seq*10)+i) + } + } + + for { + done := true + for seq := 1; seq < ninst; seq++ { + if ndecided(t, pxa, seq) < npaxos { + done = false + } + } + if done { + break + } + time.Sleep(100 * time.Millisecond) + } + + fmt.Printf(" ... Passed\n") +} + +// +// a peer starts up, with proposal, after others decide. +// then another peer starts, without a proposal. +// +func TestOld(t *testing.T) { + runtime.GOMAXPROCS(4) + + fmt.Printf("Test: Minority proposal ignored ...\n") + + const npaxos = 5 + var pxa []*Paxos = make([]*Paxos, npaxos) + var pxh []string = make([]string, npaxos) + defer cleanup(pxa) + + for i := 0; i < npaxos; i++ { + pxh[i] = port("old", i) + } + + pxa[1] = Make(pxh, 1, nil) + pxa[2] = Make(pxh, 2, nil) + pxa[3] = Make(pxh, 3, nil) + pxa[1].Start(1, 111) + + waitmajority(t, pxa, 1) + + pxa[0] = Make(pxh, 0, nil) + pxa[0].Start(1, 222) + + waitn(t, pxa, 1, 4) + + if false { + pxa[4] = Make(pxh, 4, nil) + waitn(t, pxa, 1, npaxos) + } + + fmt.Printf(" ... Passed\n") +} + +// +// many agreements, with unreliable RPC +// +func TestManyUnreliable(t *testing.T) { + runtime.GOMAXPROCS(4) + + fmt.Printf("Test: Many instances, unreliable RPC ...\n") + + const npaxos = 3 + var pxa []*Paxos = make([]*Paxos, npaxos) + var pxh []string = make([]string, npaxos) + defer cleanup(pxa) + + for i := 0; i < npaxos; i++ { + pxh[i] = port("manyun", i) + } + for i := 0; i < npaxos; i++ { + pxa[i] = Make(pxh, i, nil) + pxa[i].setunreliable(true) + pxa[i].Start(0, 0) + } + + const ninst = 50 + for seq := 1; seq < ninst; seq++ { + // only 3 active instances, to limit the + // number of file descriptors. + for seq >= 3 && ndecided(t, pxa, seq-3) < npaxos { + time.Sleep(20 * time.Millisecond) + } + for i := 0; i < npaxos; i++ { + pxa[i].Start(seq, (seq*10)+i) + } + } + + for { + done := true + for seq := 1; seq < ninst; seq++ { + if ndecided(t, pxa, seq) < npaxos { + done = false + } + } + if done { + break + } + time.Sleep(100 * time.Millisecond) + } + + fmt.Printf(" ... Passed\n") +} + +func pp(tag string, src int, dst int) string { + s := "/var/tmp/824-" + s += strconv.Itoa(os.Getuid()) + "/" + s += "px-" + tag + "-" + s += strconv.Itoa(os.Getpid()) + "-" + s += strconv.Itoa(src) + "-" + s += strconv.Itoa(dst) + return s +} + +func cleanpp(tag string, n int) { + for i := 0; i < n; i++ { + for j := 0; j < n; j++ { + ij := pp(tag, i, j) + os.Remove(ij) + } + } +} + +func part(t *testing.T, tag string, npaxos int, p1 []int, p2 []int, p3 []int) { + cleanpp(tag, npaxos) + + pa := [][]int{p1, p2, p3} + for pi := 0; pi < len(pa); pi++ { + p := pa[pi] + for i := 0; i < len(p); i++ { + for j := 0; j < len(p); j++ { + ij := pp(tag, p[i], p[j]) + pj := port(tag, p[j]) + err := os.Link(pj, ij) + if err != nil { + // one reason this link can fail is if the + // corresponding Paxos peer has prematurely quit and + // deleted its socket file (e.g., called px.Kill()). + t.Fatalf("os.Link(%v, %v): %v\n", pj, ij, err) + } + } + } + } +} + +func TestPartition(t *testing.T) { + runtime.GOMAXPROCS(4) + + tag := "partition" + const npaxos = 5 + var pxa []*Paxos = make([]*Paxos, npaxos) + defer cleanup(pxa) + defer cleanpp(tag, npaxos) + + for i := 0; i < npaxos; i++ { + var pxh []string = make([]string, npaxos) + for j := 0; j < npaxos; j++ { + if j == i { + pxh[j] = port(tag, i) + } else { + pxh[j] = pp(tag, i, j) + } + } + pxa[i] = Make(pxh, i, nil) + } + defer part(t, tag, npaxos, []int{}, []int{}, []int{}) + + seq := 0 + + fmt.Printf("Test: No decision if partitioned ...\n") + + part(t, tag, npaxos, []int{0, 2}, []int{1, 3}, []int{4}) + pxa[1].Start(seq, 111) + checkmax(t, pxa, seq, 0) + + fmt.Printf(" ... Passed\n") + + fmt.Printf("Test: Decision in majority partition ...\n") + + part(t, tag, npaxos, []int{0}, []int{1, 2, 3}, []int{4}) + time.Sleep(2 * time.Second) + waitmajority(t, pxa, seq) + + fmt.Printf(" ... Passed\n") + + fmt.Printf("Test: All agree after full heal ...\n") + + pxa[0].Start(seq, 1000) // poke them + pxa[4].Start(seq, 1004) + part(t, tag, npaxos, []int{0, 1, 2, 3, 4}, []int{}, []int{}) + + waitn(t, pxa, seq, npaxos) + + fmt.Printf(" ... Passed\n") + + fmt.Printf("Test: One peer switches partitions ...\n") + + for iters := 0; iters < 20; iters++ { + seq++ + + part(t, tag, npaxos, []int{0, 1, 2}, []int{3, 4}, []int{}) + pxa[0].Start(seq, seq*10) + pxa[3].Start(seq, (seq*10)+1) + waitmajority(t, pxa, seq) + if ndecided(t, pxa, seq) > 3 { + t.Fatalf("too many decided") + } + + part(t, tag, npaxos, []int{0, 1}, []int{2, 3, 4}, []int{}) + waitn(t, pxa, seq, npaxos) + } + + fmt.Printf(" ... Passed\n") + + fmt.Printf("Test: One peer switches partitions, unreliable ...\n") + + for iters := 0; iters < 20; iters++ { + seq++ + + for i := 0; i < npaxos; i++ { + pxa[i].setunreliable(true) + } + + part(t, tag, npaxos, []int{0, 1, 2}, []int{3, 4}, []int{}) + for i := 0; i < npaxos; i++ { + pxa[i].Start(seq, (seq*10)+i) + } + waitn(t, pxa, seq, 3) + if ndecided(t, pxa, seq) > 3 { + t.Fatalf("too many decided") + } + + part(t, tag, npaxos, []int{0, 1}, []int{2, 3, 4}, []int{}) + + for i := 0; i < npaxos; i++ { + pxa[i].setunreliable(false) + } + + waitn(t, pxa, seq, 5) + } + + fmt.Printf(" ... Passed\n") +} + +func TestLots(t *testing.T) { + runtime.GOMAXPROCS(4) + + fmt.Printf("Test: Many requests, changing partitions ...\n") + + tag := "lots" + const npaxos = 5 + var pxa []*Paxos = make([]*Paxos, npaxos) + defer cleanup(pxa) + defer cleanpp(tag, npaxos) + + for i := 0; i < npaxos; i++ { + var pxh []string = make([]string, npaxos) + for j := 0; j < npaxos; j++ { + if j == i { + pxh[j] = port(tag, i) + } else { + pxh[j] = pp(tag, i, j) + } + } + pxa[i] = Make(pxh, i, nil) + pxa[i].setunreliable(true) + } + defer part(t, tag, npaxos, []int{}, []int{}, []int{}) + + done := int32(0) + + // re-partition periodically + ch1 := make(chan bool) + go func() { + defer func() { ch1 <- true }() + for atomic.LoadInt32(&done) == 0 { + var a [npaxos]int + for i := 0; i < npaxos; i++ { + a[i] = (rand.Int() % 3) + } + pa := make([][]int, 3) + for i := 0; i < 3; i++ { + pa[i] = make([]int, 0) + for j := 0; j < npaxos; j++ { + if a[j] == i { + pa[i] = append(pa[i], j) + } + } + } + part(t, tag, npaxos, pa[0], pa[1], pa[2]) + time.Sleep(time.Duration(rand.Int63()%200) * time.Millisecond) + } + }() + + seq := int32(0) + + // periodically start a new instance + ch2 := make(chan bool) + go func() { + defer func() { ch2 <- true }() + for atomic.LoadInt32(&done) == 0 { + // how many instances are in progress? + nd := 0 + sq := int(atomic.LoadInt32(&seq)) + for i := 0; i < sq; i++ { + if ndecided(t, pxa, i) == npaxos { + nd++ + } + } + if sq-nd < 10 { + for i := 0; i < npaxos; i++ { + pxa[i].Start(sq, rand.Int()%10) + } + atomic.AddInt32(&seq, 1) + } + time.Sleep(time.Duration(rand.Int63()%300) * time.Millisecond) + } + }() + + // periodically check that decisions are consistent + ch3 := make(chan bool) + go func() { + defer func() { ch3 <- true }() + for atomic.LoadInt32(&done) == 0 { + for i := 0; i < int(atomic.LoadInt32(&seq)); i++ { + ndecided(t, pxa, i) + } + time.Sleep(time.Duration(rand.Int63()%300) * time.Millisecond) + } + }() + + time.Sleep(20 * time.Second) + atomic.StoreInt32(&done, 1) + <-ch1 + <-ch2 + <-ch3 + + // repair, then check that all instances decided. + for i := 0; i < npaxos; i++ { + pxa[i].setunreliable(false) + } + part(t, tag, npaxos, []int{0, 1, 2, 3, 4}, []int{}, []int{}) + time.Sleep(5 * time.Second) + + for i := 0; i < int(atomic.LoadInt32(&seq)); i++ { + waitmajority(t, pxa, i) + } + + fmt.Printf(" ... Passed\n") +} diff --git a/src/pbservice/client.go b/src/pbservice/client.go new file mode 100644 index 0000000..05bb7a2 --- /dev/null +++ b/src/pbservice/client.go @@ -0,0 +1,103 @@ +package pbservice + +import "viewservice" +import "net/rpc" +import "fmt" + +import "crypto/rand" +import "math/big" + + +type Clerk struct { + vs *viewservice.Clerk + // Your declarations here +} + +// this may come in handy. +func nrand() int64 { + max := big.NewInt(int64(1) << 62) + bigx, _ := rand.Int(rand.Reader, max) + x := bigx.Int64() + return x +} + +func MakeClerk(vshost string, me string) *Clerk { + ck := new(Clerk) + ck.vs = viewservice.MakeClerk(me, vshost) + // Your ck.* initializations here + + return ck +} + + +// +// call() sends an RPC to the rpcname handler on server srv +// with arguments args, waits for the reply, and leaves the +// reply in reply. the reply argument should be a pointer +// to a reply structure. +// +// the return value is true if the server responded, and false +// if call() was not able to contact the server. in particular, +// the reply's contents are only valid if call() returned true. +// +// you should assume that call() will return an +// error after a while if the server is dead. +// don't provide your own time-out mechanism. +// +// please use call() to send all RPCs, in client.go and server.go. +// please don't change this function. +// +func call(srv string, rpcname string, + args interface{}, reply interface{}) bool { + c, errx := rpc.Dial("unix", srv) + if errx != nil { + return false + } + defer c.Close() + + err := c.Call(rpcname, args, reply) + if err == nil { + return true + } + + fmt.Println(err) + return false +} + +// +// fetch a key's value from the current primary; +// if they key has never been set, return "". +// Get() must keep trying until it either the +// primary replies with the value or the primary +// says the key doesn't exist (has never been Put(). +// +func (ck *Clerk) Get(key string) string { + + // Your code here. + + return "???" +} + +// +// send a Put or Append RPC +// +func (ck *Clerk) PutAppend(key string, value string, op string) { + + // Your code here. +} + +// +// tell the primary to update key's value. +// must keep trying until it succeeds. +// +func (ck *Clerk) Put(key string, value string) { + ck.PutAppend(key, value, "Put") +} + +// +// tell the primary to append to key's value. +// must keep trying until it succeeds. +// +func (ck *Clerk) Append(key string, value string) { + ck.PutAppend(key, value, "Append") +} diff --git a/src/pbservice/common.go b/src/pbservice/common.go new file mode 100644 index 0000000..03af651 --- /dev/null +++ b/src/pbservice/common.go @@ -0,0 +1,36 @@ +package pbservice + +const ( + OK = "OK" + ErrNoKey = "ErrNoKey" + ErrWrongServer = "ErrWrongServer" +) + +type Err string + +// Put or Append +type PutAppendArgs struct { + Key string + Value string + // You'll have to add definitions here. + + // Field names must start with capital letters, + // otherwise RPC will break. +} + +type PutAppendReply struct { + Err Err +} + +type GetArgs struct { + Key string + // You'll have to add definitions here. +} + +type GetReply struct { + Err Err + Value string +} + + +// Your RPC definitions here. diff --git a/src/pbservice/server.go b/src/pbservice/server.go new file mode 100644 index 0000000..38eddb0 --- /dev/null +++ b/src/pbservice/server.go @@ -0,0 +1,138 @@ +package pbservice + +import "net" +import "fmt" +import "net/rpc" +import "log" +import "time" +import "viewservice" +import "sync" +import "sync/atomic" +import "os" +import "syscall" +import "math/rand" + + + +type PBServer struct { + mu sync.Mutex + l net.Listener + dead int32 // for testing + unreliable int32 // for testing + me string + vs *viewservice.Clerk + // Your declarations here. +} + + +func (pb *PBServer) Get(args *GetArgs, reply *GetReply) error { + + // Your code here. + + return nil +} + + +func (pb *PBServer) PutAppend(args *PutAppendArgs, reply *PutAppendReply) error { + + // Your code here. + + + return nil +} + + +// +// ping the viewserver periodically. +// if view changed: +// transition to new view. +// manage transfer of state from primary to new backup. +// +func (pb *PBServer) tick() { + + // Your code here. +} + +// tell the server to shut itself down. +// please do not change these two functions. +func (pb *PBServer) kill() { + atomic.StoreInt32(&pb.dead, 1) + pb.l.Close() +} + +// call this to find out if the server is dead. +func (pb *PBServer) isdead() bool { + return atomic.LoadInt32(&pb.dead) != 0 +} + +// please do not change these two functions. +func (pb *PBServer) setunreliable(what bool) { + if what { + atomic.StoreInt32(&pb.unreliable, 1) + } else { + atomic.StoreInt32(&pb.unreliable, 0) + } +} + +func (pb *PBServer) isunreliable() bool { + return atomic.LoadInt32(&pb.unreliable) != 0 +} + + +func StartServer(vshost string, me string) *PBServer { + pb := new(PBServer) + pb.me = me + pb.vs = viewservice.MakeClerk(me, vshost) + // Your pb.* initializations here. + + rpcs := rpc.NewServer() + rpcs.Register(pb) + + os.Remove(pb.me) + l, e := net.Listen("unix", pb.me) + if e != nil { + log.Fatal("listen error: ", e) + } + pb.l = l + + // please do not change any of the following code, + // or do anything to subvert it. + + go func() { + for pb.isdead() == false { + conn, err := pb.l.Accept() + if err == nil && pb.isdead() == false { + if pb.isunreliable() && (rand.Int63()%1000) < 100 { + // discard the request. + conn.Close() + } else if pb.isunreliable() && (rand.Int63()%1000) < 200 { + // process the request but force discard of reply. + c1 := conn.(*net.UnixConn) + f, _ := c1.File() + err := syscall.Shutdown(int(f.Fd()), syscall.SHUT_WR) + if err != nil { + fmt.Printf("shutdown: %v\n", err) + } + go rpcs.ServeConn(conn) + } else { + go rpcs.ServeConn(conn) + } + } else if err == nil { + conn.Close() + } + if err != nil && pb.isdead() == false { + fmt.Printf("PBServer(%v) accept: %v\n", me, err.Error()) + pb.kill() + } + } + }() + + go func() { + for pb.isdead() == false { + pb.tick() + time.Sleep(viewservice.PingInterval) + } + }() + + return pb +} diff --git a/src/pbservice/test_test.go b/src/pbservice/test_test.go new file mode 100644 index 0000000..c080465 --- /dev/null +++ b/src/pbservice/test_test.go @@ -0,0 +1,1143 @@ +package pbservice + +import "viewservice" +import "fmt" +import "io" +import "net" +import "testing" +import "time" +import "log" +import "runtime" +import "math/rand" +import "os" +import "sync" +import "strconv" +import "strings" +import "sync/atomic" + +func check(ck *Clerk, key string, value string) { + v := ck.Get(key) + if v != value { + log.Fatalf("Get(%v) -> %v, expected %v", key, v, value) + } +} + +func port(tag string, host int) string { + s := "/var/tmp/824-" + s += strconv.Itoa(os.Getuid()) + "/" + os.Mkdir(s, 0777) + s += "pb-" + s += strconv.Itoa(os.Getpid()) + "-" + s += tag + "-" + s += strconv.Itoa(host) + return s +} + +func TestBasicFail(t *testing.T) { + runtime.GOMAXPROCS(4) + + tag := "basic" + vshost := port(tag+"v", 1) + vs := viewservice.StartServer(vshost) + time.Sleep(time.Second) + vck := viewservice.MakeClerk("", vshost) + + ck := MakeClerk(vshost, "") + + fmt.Printf("Test: Single primary, no backup ...\n") + + s1 := StartServer(vshost, port(tag, 1)) + + deadtime := viewservice.PingInterval * viewservice.DeadPings + time.Sleep(deadtime * 2) + if vck.Primary() != s1.me { + t.Fatal("first primary never formed view") + } + + ck.Put("111", "v1") + check(ck, "111", "v1") + + ck.Put("2", "v2") + check(ck, "2", "v2") + + ck.Put("1", "v1a") + check(ck, "1", "v1a") + + ck.Append("ak", "hello") + check(ck, "ak", "hello") + ck.Put("ak", "xx") + ck.Append("ak", "yy") + check(ck, "ak", "xxyy") + + fmt.Printf(" ... Passed\n") + + // add a backup + + fmt.Printf("Test: Add a backup ...\n") + + s2 := StartServer(vshost, port(tag, 2)) + for i := 0; i < viewservice.DeadPings*2; i++ { + v, _ := vck.Get() + if v.Backup == s2.me { + break + } + time.Sleep(viewservice.PingInterval) + } + v, _ := vck.Get() + if v.Backup != s2.me { + t.Fatal("backup never came up") + } + + ck.Put("3", "33") + check(ck, "3", "33") + + // give the backup time to initialize + time.Sleep(3 * viewservice.PingInterval) + + ck.Put("4", "44") + check(ck, "4", "44") + + fmt.Printf(" ... Passed\n") + + fmt.Printf("Test: Count RPCs to viewserver ...\n") + + // verify that the client or server doesn't contact the + // viewserver for every request -- i.e. that both client + // and servers cache the current view and only refresh + // it when something seems to be wrong. this test allows + // each server to Ping() the viewserver 10 times / second. + + count1 := int(vs.GetRPCCount()) + t1 := time.Now() + for i := 0; i < 100; i++ { + ck.Put("xk"+strconv.Itoa(i), strconv.Itoa(i)) + } + count2 := int(vs.GetRPCCount()) + t2 := time.Now() + dt := t2.Sub(t1) + allowed := 2 * (dt / (100 * time.Millisecond)) // two servers tick()ing 10/second + if (count2 - count1) > int(allowed)+20 { + t.Fatal("too many viewserver RPCs") + } + + fmt.Printf(" ... Passed\n") + + // kill the primary + + fmt.Printf("Test: Primary failure ...\n") + + s1.kill() + for i := 0; i < viewservice.DeadPings*2; i++ { + v, _ := vck.Get() + if v.Primary == s2.me { + break + } + time.Sleep(viewservice.PingInterval) + } + v, _ = vck.Get() + if v.Primary != s2.me { + t.Fatal("backup never switched to primary") + } + + check(ck, "1", "v1a") + check(ck, "3", "33") + check(ck, "4", "44") + + fmt.Printf(" ... Passed\n") + + // kill solo server, start new server, check that + // it does not start serving as primary + + fmt.Printf("Test: Kill last server, new one should not be active ...\n") + + s2.kill() + s3 := StartServer(vshost, port(tag, 3)) + time.Sleep(1 * time.Second) + get_done := make(chan bool) + go func() { + ck.Get("1") + get_done <- true + }() + + select { + case <-get_done: + t.Fatalf("ck.Get() returned even though no initialized primary") + case <-time.After(2 * time.Second): + } + + fmt.Printf(" ... Passed\n") + + s1.kill() + s2.kill() + s3.kill() + time.Sleep(time.Second) + vs.Kill() + time.Sleep(time.Second) +} + +func TestAtMostOnce(t *testing.T) { + runtime.GOMAXPROCS(4) + + tag := "tamo" + vshost := port(tag+"v", 1) + vs := viewservice.StartServer(vshost) + time.Sleep(time.Second) + vck := viewservice.MakeClerk("", vshost) + + fmt.Printf("Test: at-most-once Append; unreliable ...\n") + + const nservers = 1 + var sa [nservers]*PBServer + for i := 0; i < nservers; i++ { + sa[i] = StartServer(vshost, port(tag, i+1)) + sa[i].setunreliable(true) + } + + for iters := 0; iters < viewservice.DeadPings*2; iters++ { + view, _ := vck.Get() + if view.Primary != "" && view.Backup != "" { + break + } + time.Sleep(viewservice.PingInterval) + } + + // give p+b time to ack, initialize + time.Sleep(viewservice.PingInterval * viewservice.DeadPings) + + ck := MakeClerk(vshost, "") + k := "counter" + val := "" + for i := 0; i < 100; i++ { + v := strconv.Itoa(i) + ck.Append(k, v) + val = val + v + } + + v := ck.Get(k) + if v != val { + t.Fatalf("ck.Get() returned %v but expected %v\n", v, val) + } + + fmt.Printf(" ... Passed\n") + + for i := 0; i < nservers; i++ { + sa[i].kill() + } + time.Sleep(time.Second) + vs.Kill() + time.Sleep(time.Second) +} + +// Put right after a backup dies. +func TestFailPut(t *testing.T) { + runtime.GOMAXPROCS(4) + + tag := "failput" + vshost := port(tag+"v", 1) + vs := viewservice.StartServer(vshost) + time.Sleep(time.Second) + vck := viewservice.MakeClerk("", vshost) + + s1 := StartServer(vshost, port(tag, 1)) + time.Sleep(time.Second) + s2 := StartServer(vshost, port(tag, 2)) + time.Sleep(time.Second) + s3 := StartServer(vshost, port(tag, 3)) + + for i := 0; i < viewservice.DeadPings*3; i++ { + v, _ := vck.Get() + if v.Primary != "" && v.Backup != "" { + break + } + time.Sleep(viewservice.PingInterval) + } + time.Sleep(time.Second) // wait for backup initializion + v1, _ := vck.Get() + if v1.Primary != s1.me || v1.Backup != s2.me { + t.Fatalf("wrong primary or backup") + } + + ck := MakeClerk(vshost, "") + + ck.Put("a", "aa") + ck.Put("b", "bb") + ck.Put("c", "cc") + check(ck, "a", "aa") + check(ck, "b", "bb") + check(ck, "c", "cc") + + // kill backup, then immediate Put + fmt.Printf("Test: Put() immediately after backup failure ...\n") + s2.kill() + ck.Put("a", "aaa") + check(ck, "a", "aaa") + + for i := 0; i < viewservice.DeadPings*3; i++ { + v, _ := vck.Get() + if v.Viewnum > v1.Viewnum && v.Primary != "" && v.Backup != "" { + break + } + time.Sleep(viewservice.PingInterval) + } + time.Sleep(time.Second) // wait for backup initialization + v2, _ := vck.Get() + if v2.Primary != s1.me || v2.Backup != s3.me { + t.Fatal("wrong primary or backup") + } + + check(ck, "a", "aaa") + fmt.Printf(" ... Passed\n") + + // kill primary, then immediate Put + fmt.Printf("Test: Put() immediately after primary failure ...\n") + s1.kill() + ck.Put("b", "bbb") + check(ck, "b", "bbb") + + for i := 0; i < viewservice.DeadPings*3; i++ { + v, _ := vck.Get() + if v.Viewnum > v2.Viewnum && v.Primary != "" { + break + } + time.Sleep(viewservice.PingInterval) + } + time.Sleep(time.Second) + + check(ck, "a", "aaa") + check(ck, "b", "bbb") + check(ck, "c", "cc") + fmt.Printf(" ... Passed\n") + + s1.kill() + s2.kill() + s3.kill() + time.Sleep(viewservice.PingInterval * 2) + vs.Kill() +} + +// do a bunch of concurrent Put()s on the same key, +// then check that primary and backup have identical values. +// i.e. that they processed the Put()s in the same order. +func TestConcurrentSame(t *testing.T) { + runtime.GOMAXPROCS(4) + + tag := "cs" + vshost := port(tag+"v", 1) + vs := viewservice.StartServer(vshost) + time.Sleep(time.Second) + vck := viewservice.MakeClerk("", vshost) + + fmt.Printf("Test: Concurrent Put()s to the same key ...\n") + + const nservers = 2 + var sa [nservers]*PBServer + for i := 0; i < nservers; i++ { + sa[i] = StartServer(vshost, port(tag, i+1)) + } + + for iters := 0; iters < viewservice.DeadPings*2; iters++ { + view, _ := vck.Get() + if view.Primary != "" && view.Backup != "" { + break + } + time.Sleep(viewservice.PingInterval) + } + + // give p+b time to ack, initialize + time.Sleep(viewservice.PingInterval * viewservice.DeadPings) + + done := int32(0) + + view1, _ := vck.Get() + const nclients = 3 + const nkeys = 2 + for xi := 0; xi < nclients; xi++ { + go func(i int) { + ck := MakeClerk(vshost, "") + rr := rand.New(rand.NewSource(int64(os.Getpid() + i))) + for atomic.LoadInt32(&done) == 0 { + k := strconv.Itoa(rr.Int() % nkeys) + v := strconv.Itoa(rr.Int()) + ck.Put(k, v) + } + }(xi) + } + + time.Sleep(5 * time.Second) + atomic.StoreInt32(&done, 1) + time.Sleep(time.Second) + + // read from primary + ck := MakeClerk(vshost, "") + var vals [nkeys]string + for i := 0; i < nkeys; i++ { + vals[i] = ck.Get(strconv.Itoa(i)) + if vals[i] == "" { + t.Fatalf("Get(%v) failed from primary", i) + } + } + + // kill the primary + for i := 0; i < nservers; i++ { + if view1.Primary == sa[i].me { + sa[i].kill() + break + } + } + for iters := 0; iters < viewservice.DeadPings*2; iters++ { + view, _ := vck.Get() + if view.Primary == view1.Backup { + break + } + time.Sleep(viewservice.PingInterval) + } + view2, _ := vck.Get() + if view2.Primary != view1.Backup { + t.Fatal("wrong Primary") + } + + // read from old backup + for i := 0; i < nkeys; i++ { + z := ck.Get(strconv.Itoa(i)) + if z != vals[i] { + t.Fatalf("Get(%v) from backup; wanted %v, got %v", i, vals[i], z) + } + } + + fmt.Printf(" ... Passed\n") + + for i := 0; i < nservers; i++ { + sa[i].kill() + } + time.Sleep(time.Second) + vs.Kill() + time.Sleep(time.Second) +} + +// check that all known appends are present in a value, +// and are in order for each concurrent client. +func checkAppends(t *testing.T, v string, counts []int) { + nclients := len(counts) + for i := 0; i < nclients; i++ { + lastoff := -1 + for j := 0; j < counts[i]; j++ { + wanted := "x " + strconv.Itoa(i) + " " + strconv.Itoa(j) + " y" + off := strings.Index(v, wanted) + if off < 0 { + t.Fatalf("missing element in Append result") + } + off1 := strings.LastIndex(v, wanted) + if off1 != off { + t.Fatalf("duplicate element in Append result") + } + if off <= lastoff { + t.Fatalf("wrong order for element in Append result") + } + lastoff = off + } + } +} + +// do a bunch of concurrent Append()s on the same key, +// then check that primary and backup have identical values. +// i.e. that they processed the Append()s in the same order. +func TestConcurrentSameAppend(t *testing.T) { + runtime.GOMAXPROCS(4) + + tag := "csa" + vshost := port(tag+"v", 1) + vs := viewservice.StartServer(vshost) + time.Sleep(time.Second) + vck := viewservice.MakeClerk("", vshost) + + fmt.Printf("Test: Concurrent Append()s to the same key ...\n") + + const nservers = 2 + var sa [nservers]*PBServer + for i := 0; i < nservers; i++ { + sa[i] = StartServer(vshost, port(tag, i+1)) + } + + for iters := 0; iters < viewservice.DeadPings*2; iters++ { + view, _ := vck.Get() + if view.Primary != "" && view.Backup != "" { + break + } + time.Sleep(viewservice.PingInterval) + } + + // give p+b time to ack, initialize + time.Sleep(viewservice.PingInterval * viewservice.DeadPings) + + view1, _ := vck.Get() + + // code for i'th concurrent client thread. + ff := func(i int, ch chan int) { + ret := -1 + defer func() { ch <- ret }() + ck := MakeClerk(vshost, "") + n := 0 + for n < 50 { + v := "x " + strconv.Itoa(i) + " " + strconv.Itoa(n) + " y" + ck.Append("k", v) + n += 1 + } + ret = n + } + + // start the concurrent clients + const nclients = 3 + chans := []chan int{} + for i := 0; i < nclients; i++ { + chans = append(chans, make(chan int)) + go ff(i, chans[i]) + } + + // wait for the clients, accumulate Append counts. + counts := []int{} + for i := 0; i < nclients; i++ { + n := <-chans[i] + if n < 0 { + t.Fatalf("child failed") + } + counts = append(counts, n) + } + + ck := MakeClerk(vshost, "") + + // check that primary's copy of the value has all + // the Append()s. + primaryv := ck.Get("k") + checkAppends(t, primaryv, counts) + + // kill the primary so we can check the backup + for i := 0; i < nservers; i++ { + if view1.Primary == sa[i].me { + sa[i].kill() + break + } + } + for iters := 0; iters < viewservice.DeadPings*2; iters++ { + view, _ := vck.Get() + if view.Primary == view1.Backup { + break + } + time.Sleep(viewservice.PingInterval) + } + view2, _ := vck.Get() + if view2.Primary != view1.Backup { + t.Fatal("wrong Primary") + } + + // check that backup's copy of the value has all + // the Append()s. + backupv := ck.Get("k") + checkAppends(t, backupv, counts) + + if backupv != primaryv { + t.Fatal("primary and backup had different values") + } + + fmt.Printf(" ... Passed\n") + + for i := 0; i < nservers; i++ { + sa[i].kill() + } + time.Sleep(time.Second) + vs.Kill() + time.Sleep(time.Second) +} + +func TestConcurrentSameUnreliable(t *testing.T) { + runtime.GOMAXPROCS(4) + + tag := "csu" + vshost := port(tag+"v", 1) + vs := viewservice.StartServer(vshost) + time.Sleep(time.Second) + vck := viewservice.MakeClerk("", vshost) + + fmt.Printf("Test: Concurrent Put()s to the same key; unreliable ...\n") + + const nservers = 2 + var sa [nservers]*PBServer + for i := 0; i < nservers; i++ { + sa[i] = StartServer(vshost, port(tag, i+1)) + sa[i].setunreliable(true) + } + + for iters := 0; iters < viewservice.DeadPings*2; iters++ { + view, _ := vck.Get() + if view.Primary != "" && view.Backup != "" { + break + } + time.Sleep(viewservice.PingInterval) + } + + // give p+b time to ack, initialize + time.Sleep(viewservice.PingInterval * viewservice.DeadPings) + + { + ck := MakeClerk(vshost, "") + ck.Put("0", "x") + ck.Put("1", "x") + } + + done := int32(0) + + view1, _ := vck.Get() + const nclients = 3 + const nkeys = 2 + cha := []chan bool{} + for xi := 0; xi < nclients; xi++ { + cha = append(cha, make(chan bool)) + go func(i int, ch chan bool) { + ok := false + defer func() { ch <- ok }() + ck := MakeClerk(vshost, "") + rr := rand.New(rand.NewSource(int64(os.Getpid() + i))) + for atomic.LoadInt32(&done) == 0 { + k := strconv.Itoa(rr.Int() % nkeys) + v := strconv.Itoa(rr.Int()) + ck.Put(k, v) + } + ok = true + }(xi, cha[xi]) + } + + time.Sleep(5 * time.Second) + atomic.StoreInt32(&done, 1) + + for i := 0; i < len(cha); i++ { + ok := <-cha[i] + if ok == false { + t.Fatalf("child failed") + } + } + + // read from primary + ck := MakeClerk(vshost, "") + var vals [nkeys]string + for i := 0; i < nkeys; i++ { + vals[i] = ck.Get(strconv.Itoa(i)) + if vals[i] == "" { + t.Fatalf("Get(%v) failed from primary", i) + } + } + + // kill the primary + for i := 0; i < nservers; i++ { + if view1.Primary == sa[i].me { + sa[i].kill() + break + } + } + for iters := 0; iters < viewservice.DeadPings*2; iters++ { + view, _ := vck.Get() + if view.Primary == view1.Backup { + break + } + time.Sleep(viewservice.PingInterval) + } + view2, _ := vck.Get() + if view2.Primary != view1.Backup { + t.Fatal("wrong Primary") + } + + // read from old backup + for i := 0; i < nkeys; i++ { + z := ck.Get(strconv.Itoa(i)) + if z != vals[i] { + t.Fatalf("Get(%v) from backup; wanted %v, got %v", i, vals[i], z) + } + } + + fmt.Printf(" ... Passed\n") + + for i := 0; i < nservers; i++ { + sa[i].kill() + } + time.Sleep(time.Second) + vs.Kill() + time.Sleep(time.Second) +} + +// constant put/get while crashing and restarting servers +func TestRepeatedCrash(t *testing.T) { + runtime.GOMAXPROCS(4) + + tag := "rc" + vshost := port(tag+"v", 1) + vs := viewservice.StartServer(vshost) + time.Sleep(time.Second) + vck := viewservice.MakeClerk("", vshost) + + fmt.Printf("Test: Repeated failures/restarts ...\n") + + const nservers = 3 + var sa [nservers]*PBServer + samu := sync.Mutex{} + for i := 0; i < nservers; i++ { + sa[i] = StartServer(vshost, port(tag, i+1)) + } + + for i := 0; i < viewservice.DeadPings; i++ { + v, _ := vck.Get() + if v.Primary != "" && v.Backup != "" { + break + } + time.Sleep(viewservice.PingInterval) + } + + // wait a bit for primary to initialize backup + time.Sleep(viewservice.DeadPings * viewservice.PingInterval) + + done := int32(0) + + go func() { + // kill and restart servers + rr := rand.New(rand.NewSource(int64(os.Getpid()))) + for atomic.LoadInt32(&done) == 0 { + i := rr.Int() % nservers + // fmt.Printf("%v killing %v\n", ts(), 5001+i) + sa[i].kill() + + // wait long enough for new view to form, backup to be initialized + time.Sleep(2 * viewservice.PingInterval * viewservice.DeadPings) + + sss := StartServer(vshost, port(tag, i+1)) + samu.Lock() + sa[i] = sss + samu.Unlock() + + // wait long enough for new view to form, backup to be initialized + time.Sleep(2 * viewservice.PingInterval * viewservice.DeadPings) + } + }() + + const nth = 2 + var cha [nth]chan bool + for xi := 0; xi < nth; xi++ { + cha[xi] = make(chan bool) + go func(i int) { + ok := false + defer func() { cha[i] <- ok }() + ck := MakeClerk(vshost, "") + data := map[string]string{} + rr := rand.New(rand.NewSource(int64(os.Getpid() + i))) + for atomic.LoadInt32(&done) == 0 { + k := strconv.Itoa((i * 1000000) + (rr.Int() % 10)) + wanted, ok := data[k] + if ok { + v := ck.Get(k) + if v != wanted { + t.Fatalf("key=%v wanted=%v got=%v", k, wanted, v) + } + } + nv := strconv.Itoa(rr.Int()) + ck.Put(k, nv) + data[k] = nv + // if no sleep here, then server tick() threads do not get + // enough time to Ping the viewserver. + time.Sleep(10 * time.Millisecond) + } + ok = true + }(xi) + } + + time.Sleep(20 * time.Second) + atomic.StoreInt32(&done, 1) + + fmt.Printf(" ... Put/Gets done ... \n") + + for i := 0; i < nth; i++ { + ok := <-cha[i] + if ok == false { + t.Fatal("child failed") + } + } + + ck := MakeClerk(vshost, "") + ck.Put("aaa", "bbb") + if v := ck.Get("aaa"); v != "bbb" { + t.Fatalf("final Put/Get failed") + } + + fmt.Printf(" ... Passed\n") + + for i := 0; i < nservers; i++ { + samu.Lock() + sa[i].kill() + samu.Unlock() + } + time.Sleep(time.Second) + vs.Kill() + time.Sleep(time.Second) +} + +func TestRepeatedCrashUnreliable(t *testing.T) { + runtime.GOMAXPROCS(4) + + tag := "rcu" + vshost := port(tag+"v", 1) + vs := viewservice.StartServer(vshost) + time.Sleep(time.Second) + vck := viewservice.MakeClerk("", vshost) + + fmt.Printf("Test: Repeated failures/restarts with concurrent updates to same key; unreliable ...\n") + + const nservers = 3 + var sa [nservers]*PBServer + samu := sync.Mutex{} + for i := 0; i < nservers; i++ { + sa[i] = StartServer(vshost, port(tag, i+1)) + sa[i].setunreliable(true) + } + + for i := 0; i < viewservice.DeadPings; i++ { + v, _ := vck.Get() + if v.Primary != "" && v.Backup != "" { + break + } + time.Sleep(viewservice.PingInterval) + } + + // wait a bit for primary to initialize backup + time.Sleep(viewservice.DeadPings * viewservice.PingInterval) + + done := int32(0) + + go func() { + // kill and restart servers + rr := rand.New(rand.NewSource(int64(os.Getpid()))) + for atomic.LoadInt32(&done) == 0 { + i := rr.Int() % nservers + // fmt.Printf("%v killing %v\n", ts(), 5001+i) + sa[i].kill() + + // wait long enough for new view to form, backup to be initialized + time.Sleep(2 * viewservice.PingInterval * viewservice.DeadPings) + + sss := StartServer(vshost, port(tag, i+1)) + samu.Lock() + sa[i] = sss + samu.Unlock() + + // wait long enough for new view to form, backup to be initialized + time.Sleep(2 * viewservice.PingInterval * viewservice.DeadPings) + } + }() + + // concurrent client thread. + ff := func(i int, ch chan int) { + ret := -1 + defer func() { ch <- ret }() + ck := MakeClerk(vshost, "") + n := 0 + for atomic.LoadInt32(&done) == 0 { + v := "x " + strconv.Itoa(i) + " " + strconv.Itoa(n) + " y" + ck.Append("0", v) + // if no sleep here, then server tick() threads do not get + // enough time to Ping the viewserver. + time.Sleep(10 * time.Millisecond) + n++ + } + ret = n + } + + const nth = 2 + var cha [nth]chan int + for i := 0; i < nth; i++ { + cha[i] = make(chan int) + go ff(i, cha[i]) + } + + time.Sleep(20 * time.Second) + atomic.StoreInt32(&done, 1) + + fmt.Printf(" ... Appends done ... \n") + + counts := []int{} + for i := 0; i < nth; i++ { + n := <-cha[i] + if n < 0 { + t.Fatal("child failed") + } + counts = append(counts, n) + } + + ck := MakeClerk(vshost, "") + + checkAppends(t, ck.Get("0"), counts) + + ck.Put("aaa", "bbb") + if v := ck.Get("aaa"); v != "bbb" { + t.Fatalf("final Put/Get failed") + } + + fmt.Printf(" ... Passed\n") + + for i := 0; i < nservers; i++ { + samu.Lock() + sa[i].kill() + samu.Unlock() + } + time.Sleep(time.Second) + vs.Kill() + time.Sleep(time.Second) +} + +func proxy(t *testing.T, port string, delay *int32) { + portx := port + "x" + os.Remove(portx) + if os.Rename(port, portx) != nil { + t.Fatalf("proxy rename failed") + } + l, err := net.Listen("unix", port) + if err != nil { + t.Fatalf("proxy listen failed: %v", err) + } + go func() { + defer l.Close() + defer os.Remove(portx) + defer os.Remove(port) + for { + c1, err := l.Accept() + if err != nil { + t.Fatalf("proxy accept failed: %v\n", err) + } + time.Sleep(time.Duration(atomic.LoadInt32(delay)) * time.Second) + c2, err := net.Dial("unix", portx) + if err != nil { + t.Fatalf("proxy dial failed: %v\n", err) + } + + go func() { + for { + buf := make([]byte, 1000) + n, _ := c2.Read(buf) + if n == 0 { + break + } + n1, _ := c1.Write(buf[0:n]) + if n1 != n { + break + } + } + }() + for { + buf := make([]byte, 1000) + n, err := c1.Read(buf) + if err != nil && err != io.EOF { + t.Fatalf("proxy c1.Read: %v\n", err) + } + if n == 0 { + break + } + n1, err1 := c2.Write(buf[0:n]) + if err1 != nil || n1 != n { + t.Fatalf("proxy c2.Write: %v\n", err1) + } + } + + c1.Close() + c2.Close() + } + }() +} + +func TestPartition1(t *testing.T) { + runtime.GOMAXPROCS(4) + + tag := "part1" + vshost := port(tag+"v", 1) + vs := viewservice.StartServer(vshost) + time.Sleep(time.Second) + vck := viewservice.MakeClerk("", vshost) + + ck1 := MakeClerk(vshost, "") + + fmt.Printf("Test: Old primary does not serve Gets ...\n") + + vshosta := vshost + "a" + os.Link(vshost, vshosta) + + s1 := StartServer(vshosta, port(tag, 1)) + delay := int32(0) + proxy(t, port(tag, 1), &delay) + + deadtime := viewservice.PingInterval * viewservice.DeadPings + time.Sleep(deadtime * 2) + if vck.Primary() != s1.me { + t.Fatal("primary never formed initial view") + } + + s2 := StartServer(vshost, port(tag, 2)) + time.Sleep(deadtime * 2) + v1, _ := vck.Get() + if v1.Primary != s1.me || v1.Backup != s2.me { + t.Fatal("backup did not join view") + } + + ck1.Put("a", "1") + check(ck1, "a", "1") + + os.Remove(vshosta) + + // start a client Get(), but use proxy to delay it long + // enough that it won't reach s1 until after s1 is no + // longer the primary. + atomic.StoreInt32(&delay, 4) + stale_get := make(chan bool) + go func() { + local_stale := false + defer func() { stale_get <- local_stale }() + x := ck1.Get("a") + if x == "1" { + local_stale = true + } + }() + + // now s1 cannot talk to viewserver, so view will change, + // and s1 won't immediately realize. + + for iter := 0; iter < viewservice.DeadPings*3; iter++ { + if vck.Primary() == s2.me { + break + } + time.Sleep(viewservice.PingInterval) + } + if vck.Primary() != s2.me { + t.Fatalf("primary never changed") + } + + // wait long enough that s2 is guaranteed to have Pinged + // the viewservice, and thus that s2 must know about + // the new view. + time.Sleep(2 * viewservice.PingInterval) + + // change the value (on s2) so it's no longer "1". + ck2 := MakeClerk(vshost, "") + ck2.Put("a", "111") + check(ck2, "a", "111") + + // wait for the background Get to s1 to be delivered. + select { + case x := <-stale_get: + if x { + t.Fatalf("Get to old primary succeeded and produced stale value") + } + case <-time.After(5 * time.Second): + } + + check(ck2, "a", "111") + + fmt.Printf(" ... Passed\n") + + s1.kill() + s2.kill() + vs.Kill() +} + +func TestPartition2(t *testing.T) { + runtime.GOMAXPROCS(4) + + tag := "part2" + vshost := port(tag+"v", 1) + vs := viewservice.StartServer(vshost) + time.Sleep(time.Second) + vck := viewservice.MakeClerk("", vshost) + + ck1 := MakeClerk(vshost, "") + + vshosta := vshost + "a" + os.Link(vshost, vshosta) + + s1 := StartServer(vshosta, port(tag, 1)) + delay := int32(0) + proxy(t, port(tag, 1), &delay) + + fmt.Printf("Test: Partitioned old primary does not complete Gets ...\n") + + deadtime := viewservice.PingInterval * viewservice.DeadPings + time.Sleep(deadtime * 2) + if vck.Primary() != s1.me { + t.Fatal("primary never formed initial view") + } + + s2 := StartServer(vshost, port(tag, 2)) + time.Sleep(deadtime * 2) + v1, _ := vck.Get() + if v1.Primary != s1.me || v1.Backup != s2.me { + t.Fatal("backup did not join view") + } + + ck1.Put("a", "1") + check(ck1, "a", "1") + + os.Remove(vshosta) + + // start a client Get(), but use proxy to delay it long + // enough that it won't reach s1 until after s1 is no + // longer the primary. + atomic.StoreInt32(&delay, 5) + stale_get := make(chan bool) + go func() { + local_stale := false + defer func() { stale_get <- local_stale }() + x := ck1.Get("a") + if x == "1" { + local_stale = true + } + }() + + // now s1 cannot talk to viewserver, so view will change. + + for iter := 0; iter < viewservice.DeadPings*3; iter++ { + if vck.Primary() == s2.me { + break + } + time.Sleep(viewservice.PingInterval) + } + if vck.Primary() != s2.me { + t.Fatalf("primary never changed") + } + + s3 := StartServer(vshost, port(tag, 3)) + for iter := 0; iter < viewservice.DeadPings*3; iter++ { + v, _ := vck.Get() + if v.Backup == s3.me && v.Primary == s2.me { + break + } + time.Sleep(viewservice.PingInterval) + } + v2, _ := vck.Get() + if v2.Primary != s2.me || v2.Backup != s3.me { + t.Fatalf("new backup never joined") + } + time.Sleep(2 * time.Second) + + ck2 := MakeClerk(vshost, "") + ck2.Put("a", "2") + check(ck2, "a", "2") + + s2.kill() + + // wait for delayed get to s1 to complete. + select { + case x := <-stale_get: + if x { + t.Fatalf("partitioned primary replied to a Get with a stale value") + } + case <-time.After(6 * time.Second): + } + + check(ck2, "a", "2") + + fmt.Printf(" ... Passed\n") + + s1.kill() + s2.kill() + s3.kill() + vs.Kill() +} diff --git a/src/shardkv/client.go b/src/shardkv/client.go new file mode 100644 index 0000000..de220d2 --- /dev/null +++ b/src/shardkv/client.go @@ -0,0 +1,135 @@ +package shardkv + +// +// client code to talk to a sharded key/value service. +// +// the client first talks to the shardmaster to find out +// the assignment of shards (keys) to groups, and then +// talks to the group that holds the key's shard. +// + +import "labrpc" +import "crypto/rand" +import "math/big" +import "shardmaster" +import "time" + +// +// which shard is a key in? +// please use this function, +// and please do not change it. +// +func key2shard(key string) int { + shard := 0 + if len(key) > 0 { + shard = int(key[0]) + } + shard %= shardmaster.NShards + return shard +} + +func nrand() int64 { + max := big.NewInt(int64(1) << 62) + bigx, _ := rand.Int(rand.Reader, max) + x := bigx.Int64() + return x +} + +type Clerk struct { + sm *shardmaster.Clerk + config shardmaster.Config + make_end func(string) *labrpc.ClientEnd + // You will have to modify this struct. +} + +// +// the tester calls MakeClerk. +// +// masters[] is needed to call shardmaster.MakeClerk(). +// +// make_end(servername) turns a server name from a +// Config.Groups[gid][i] into a labrpc.ClientEnd on which you can +// send RPCs. +// +func MakeClerk(masters []*labrpc.ClientEnd, make_end func(string) *labrpc.ClientEnd) *Clerk { + ck := new(Clerk) + ck.sm = shardmaster.MakeClerk(masters) + ck.make_end = make_end + // You'll have to add code here. + return ck +} + +// +// fetch the current value for a key. +// returns "" if the key does not exist. +// keeps trying forever in the face of all other errors. +// You will have to modify this function. +// +func (ck *Clerk) Get(key string) string { + args := GetArgs{} + args.Key = key + + for { + shard := key2shard(key) + gid := ck.config.Shards[shard] + if servers, ok := ck.config.Groups[gid]; ok { + // try each server for the shard. + for si := 0; si < len(servers); si++ { + srv := ck.make_end(servers[si]) + var reply GetReply + ok := srv.Call("ShardKV.Get", &args, &reply) + if ok && reply.WrongLeader == false && (reply.Err == OK || reply.Err == ErrNoKey) { + return reply.Value + } + if ok && (reply.Err == ErrWrongGroup) { + break + } + } + } + time.Sleep(100 * time.Millisecond) + // ask master for the latest configuration. + ck.config = ck.sm.Query(-1) + } + + return "" +} + +// +// shared by Put and Append. +// You will have to modify this function. +// +func (ck *Clerk) PutAppend(key string, value string, op string) { + args := PutAppendArgs{} + args.Key = key + args.Value = value + args.Op = op + + + for { + shard := key2shard(key) + gid := ck.config.Shards[shard] + if servers, ok := ck.config.Groups[gid]; ok { + for si := 0; si < len(servers); si++ { + srv := ck.make_end(servers[si]) + var reply PutAppendReply + ok := srv.Call("ShardKV.PutAppend", &args, &reply) + if ok && reply.WrongLeader == false && reply.Err == OK { + return + } + if ok && reply.Err == ErrWrongGroup { + break + } + } + } + time.Sleep(100 * time.Millisecond) + // ask master for the latest configuration. + ck.config = ck.sm.Query(-1) + } +} + +func (ck *Clerk) Put(key string, value string) { + ck.PutAppend(key, value, "Put") +} +func (ck *Clerk) Append(key string, value string) { + ck.PutAppend(key, value, "Append") +} diff --git a/src/shardkv/common.go b/src/shardkv/common.go new file mode 100644 index 0000000..4849eeb --- /dev/null +++ b/src/shardkv/common.go @@ -0,0 +1,45 @@ +package shardkv + +// +// Sharded key/value server. +// Lots of replica groups, each running op-at-a-time paxos. +// Shardmaster decides which group serves each shard. +// Shardmaster may change shard assignment from time to time. +// +// You will have to modify these definitions. +// + +const ( + OK = "OK" + ErrNoKey = "ErrNoKey" + ErrWrongGroup = "ErrWrongGroup" +) + +type Err string + +// Put or Append +type PutAppendArgs struct { + // You'll have to add definitions here. + Key string + Value string + Op string // "Put" or "Append" + // You'll have to add definitions here. + // Field names must start with capital letters, + // otherwise RPC will break. +} + +type PutAppendReply struct { + WrongLeader bool + Err Err +} + +type GetArgs struct { + Key string + // You'll have to add definitions here. +} + +type GetReply struct { + WrongLeader bool + Err Err + Value string +} diff --git a/src/shardkv/config.go b/src/shardkv/config.go new file mode 100644 index 0000000..fb6a45f --- /dev/null +++ b/src/shardkv/config.go @@ -0,0 +1,350 @@ +package shardkv + +import "shardmaster" +import "labrpc" +import "testing" +import "os" + +// import "log" +import crand "crypto/rand" +import "math/rand" +import "encoding/base64" +import "sync" +import "runtime" +import "raft" +import "strconv" + +func randstring(n int) string { + b := make([]byte, 2*n) + crand.Read(b) + s := base64.URLEncoding.EncodeToString(b) + return s[0:n] +} + +// Randomize server handles +func random_handles(kvh []*labrpc.ClientEnd) []*labrpc.ClientEnd { + sa := make([]*labrpc.ClientEnd, len(kvh)) + copy(sa, kvh) + for i := range sa { + j := rand.Intn(i + 1) + sa[i], sa[j] = sa[j], sa[i] + } + return sa +} + +type group struct { + gid int + servers []*ShardKV + saved []*raft.Persister + endnames [][]string + mendnames [][]string +} + +type config struct { + mu sync.Mutex + t *testing.T + net *labrpc.Network + + nmasters int + masterservers []*shardmaster.ShardMaster + mck *shardmaster.Clerk + + ngroups int + n int // servers per k/v group + groups []*group + + clerks map[*Clerk][]string + nextClientId int + maxraftstate int +} + +func (cfg *config) cleanup() { + for gi := 0; gi < cfg.ngroups; gi++ { + cfg.ShutdownGroup(gi) + } +} + +// check that no server's log is too big. +func (cfg *config) checklogs() { + for gi := 0; gi < cfg.ngroups; gi++ { + for i := 0; i < cfg.n; i++ { + raft := cfg.groups[gi].saved[i].RaftStateSize() + snap := len(cfg.groups[gi].saved[i].ReadSnapshot()) + if cfg.maxraftstate >= 0 && raft > 2*cfg.maxraftstate { + cfg.t.Fatalf("persister.RaftStateSize() %v, but maxraftstate %v", + raft, cfg.maxraftstate) + } + if cfg.maxraftstate < 0 && snap > 0 { + cfg.t.Fatalf("maxraftstate is -1, but snapshot is non-empty!") + } + } + } +} + +// master server name for labrpc. +func (cfg *config) mastername(i int) string { + return "master" + strconv.Itoa(i) +} + +// shard server name for labrpc. +// i'th server of group gid. +func (cfg *config) servername(gid int, i int) string { + return "server-" + strconv.Itoa(gid) + "-" + strconv.Itoa(i) +} + +func (cfg *config) makeClient() *Clerk { + cfg.mu.Lock() + defer cfg.mu.Unlock() + + // ClientEnds to talk to master service. + ends := make([]*labrpc.ClientEnd, cfg.nmasters) + endnames := make([]string, cfg.n) + for j := 0; j < cfg.nmasters; j++ { + endnames[j] = randstring(20) + ends[j] = cfg.net.MakeEnd(endnames[j]) + cfg.net.Connect(endnames[j], cfg.mastername(j)) + cfg.net.Enable(endnames[j], true) + } + + ck := MakeClerk(ends, func(servername string) *labrpc.ClientEnd { + name := randstring(20) + end := cfg.net.MakeEnd(name) + cfg.net.Connect(name, servername) + cfg.net.Enable(name, true) + return end + }) + cfg.clerks[ck] = endnames + cfg.nextClientId++ + return ck +} + +func (cfg *config) deleteClient(ck *Clerk) { + cfg.mu.Lock() + defer cfg.mu.Unlock() + + v := cfg.clerks[ck] + for i := 0; i < len(v); i++ { + os.Remove(v[i]) + } + delete(cfg.clerks, ck) +} + +// Shutdown i'th server of gi'th group, by isolating it +func (cfg *config) ShutdownServer(gi int, i int) { + cfg.mu.Lock() + defer cfg.mu.Unlock() + + gg := cfg.groups[gi] + + // prevent this server from sending + for j := 0; j < len(gg.servers); j++ { + name := gg.endnames[i][j] + cfg.net.Enable(name, false) + } + for j := 0; j < len(gg.mendnames[i]); j++ { + name := gg.mendnames[i][j] + cfg.net.Enable(name, false) + } + + // disable client connections to the server. + // it's important to do this before creating + // the new Persister in saved[i], to avoid + // the possibility of the server returning a + // positive reply to an Append but persisting + // the result in the superseded Persister. + cfg.net.DeleteServer(cfg.servername(gg.gid, i)) + + // a fresh persister, in case old instance + // continues to update the Persister. + // but copy old persister's content so that we always + // pass Make() the last persisted state. + if gg.saved[i] != nil { + gg.saved[i] = gg.saved[i].Copy() + } + + kv := gg.servers[i] + if kv != nil { + cfg.mu.Unlock() + kv.Kill() + cfg.mu.Lock() + gg.servers[i] = nil + } +} + +func (cfg *config) ShutdownGroup(gi int) { + for i := 0; i < cfg.n; i++ { + cfg.ShutdownServer(gi, i) + } +} + +// start i'th server in gi'th group +func (cfg *config) StartServer(gi int, i int) { + cfg.mu.Lock() + + gg := cfg.groups[gi] + + // a fresh set of outgoing ClientEnd names + // to talk to other servers in this group. + gg.endnames[i] = make([]string, cfg.n) + for j := 0; j < cfg.n; j++ { + gg.endnames[i][j] = randstring(20) + } + + // and the connections to other servers in this group. + ends := make([]*labrpc.ClientEnd, cfg.n) + for j := 0; j < cfg.n; j++ { + ends[j] = cfg.net.MakeEnd(gg.endnames[i][j]) + cfg.net.Connect(gg.endnames[i][j], cfg.servername(gg.gid, j)) + cfg.net.Enable(gg.endnames[i][j], true) + } + + // ends to talk to shardmaster service + mends := make([]*labrpc.ClientEnd, cfg.nmasters) + gg.mendnames[i] = make([]string, cfg.nmasters) + for j := 0; j < cfg.nmasters; j++ { + gg.mendnames[i][j] = randstring(20) + mends[j] = cfg.net.MakeEnd(gg.mendnames[i][j]) + cfg.net.Connect(gg.mendnames[i][j], cfg.mastername(j)) + cfg.net.Enable(gg.mendnames[i][j], true) + } + + // a fresh persister, so old instance doesn't overwrite + // new instance's persisted state. + // give the fresh persister a copy of the old persister's + // state, so that the spec is that we pass StartKVServer() + // the last persisted state. + if gg.saved[i] != nil { + gg.saved[i] = gg.saved[i].Copy() + } else { + gg.saved[i] = raft.MakePersister() + } + cfg.mu.Unlock() + + gg.servers[i] = StartServer(ends, i, gg.saved[i], cfg.maxraftstate, + gg.gid, mends, + func(servername string) *labrpc.ClientEnd { + name := randstring(20) + end := cfg.net.MakeEnd(name) + cfg.net.Connect(name, servername) + cfg.net.Enable(name, true) + return end + }) + + kvsvc := labrpc.MakeService(gg.servers[i]) + rfsvc := labrpc.MakeService(gg.servers[i].rf) + srv := labrpc.MakeServer() + srv.AddService(kvsvc) + srv.AddService(rfsvc) + cfg.net.AddServer(cfg.servername(gg.gid, i), srv) +} + +func (cfg *config) StartGroup(gi int) { + for i := 0; i < cfg.n; i++ { + cfg.StartServer(gi, i) + } +} + +func (cfg *config) StartMasterServer(i int) { + // ClientEnds to talk to other master replicas. + ends := make([]*labrpc.ClientEnd, cfg.nmasters) + for j := 0; j < cfg.nmasters; j++ { + endname := randstring(20) + ends[j] = cfg.net.MakeEnd(endname) + cfg.net.Connect(endname, cfg.mastername(j)) + cfg.net.Enable(endname, true) + } + + p := raft.MakePersister() + + cfg.masterservers[i] = shardmaster.StartServer(ends, i, p) + + msvc := labrpc.MakeService(cfg.masterservers[i]) + rfsvc := labrpc.MakeService(cfg.masterservers[i].Raft()) + srv := labrpc.MakeServer() + srv.AddService(msvc) + srv.AddService(rfsvc) + cfg.net.AddServer(cfg.mastername(i), srv) +} + +func (cfg *config) shardclerk() *shardmaster.Clerk { + // ClientEnds to talk to master service. + ends := make([]*labrpc.ClientEnd, cfg.nmasters) + for j := 0; j < cfg.nmasters; j++ { + name := randstring(20) + ends[j] = cfg.net.MakeEnd(name) + cfg.net.Connect(name, cfg.mastername(j)) + cfg.net.Enable(name, true) + } + + return shardmaster.MakeClerk(ends) +} + +// tell the shardmaster that a group is joining. +func (cfg *config) join(gi int) { + cfg.joinm([]int{gi}) +} + +func (cfg *config) joinm(gis []int) { + m := make(map[int][]string, len(gis)) + for _, g := range gis { + gid := cfg.groups[g].gid + servernames := make([]string, cfg.n) + for i := 0; i < cfg.n; i++ { + servernames[i] = cfg.servername(gid, i) + } + m[gid] = servernames + } + cfg.mck.Join(m) +} + +// tell the shardmaster that a group is leaving. +func (cfg *config) leave(gi int) { + cfg.leavem([]int{gi}) +} + +func (cfg *config) leavem(gis []int) { + gids := make([]int, 0, len(gis)) + for _, g := range gis { + gids = append(gids, cfg.groups[g].gid) + } + cfg.mck.Leave(gids) +} + +func make_config(t *testing.T, n int, unreliable bool, maxraftstate int) *config { + runtime.GOMAXPROCS(4) + cfg := &config{} + cfg.t = t + cfg.maxraftstate = maxraftstate + cfg.net = labrpc.MakeNetwork() + + // master + cfg.nmasters = 3 + cfg.masterservers = make([]*shardmaster.ShardMaster, cfg.nmasters) + for i := 0; i < cfg.nmasters; i++ { + cfg.StartMasterServer(i) + } + cfg.mck = cfg.shardclerk() + + cfg.ngroups = 3 + cfg.groups = make([]*group, cfg.ngroups) + cfg.n = n + for gi := 0; gi < cfg.ngroups; gi++ { + gg := &group{} + cfg.groups[gi] = gg + gg.gid = 100 + gi + gg.servers = make([]*ShardKV, cfg.n) + gg.saved = make([]*raft.Persister, cfg.n) + gg.endnames = make([][]string, cfg.n) + gg.mendnames = make([][]string, cfg.nmasters) + for i := 0; i < cfg.n; i++ { + cfg.StartServer(gi, i) + } + } + + cfg.clerks = make(map[*Clerk][]string) + cfg.nextClientId = cfg.n + 1000 // client ids start 1000 above the highest serverid + + cfg.net.Reliable(!unreliable) + + return cfg +} diff --git a/src/shardkv/server.go b/src/shardkv/server.go new file mode 100644 index 0000000..22223c4 --- /dev/null +++ b/src/shardkv/server.go @@ -0,0 +1,102 @@ +package shardkv + + +// import "shardmaster" +import "labrpc" +import "raft" +import "sync" +import "encoding/gob" + + + +type Op struct { + // Your definitions here. + // Field names must start with capital letters, + // otherwise RPC will break. +} + +type ShardKV struct { + mu sync.Mutex + me int + rf *raft.Raft + applyCh chan raft.ApplyMsg + make_end func(string) *labrpc.ClientEnd + gid int + masters []*labrpc.ClientEnd + maxraftstate int // snapshot if log grows this big + + // Your definitions here. +} + + +func (kv *ShardKV) Get(args *GetArgs, reply *GetReply) { + // Your code here. +} + +func (kv *ShardKV) PutAppend(args *PutAppendArgs, reply *PutAppendReply) { + // Your code here. +} + +// +// the tester calls Kill() when a ShardKV instance won't +// be needed again. you are not required to do anything +// in Kill(), but it might be convenient to (for example) +// turn off debug output from this instance. +// +func (kv *ShardKV) Kill() { + kv.rf.Kill() + // Your code here, if desired. +} + + +// +// servers[] contains the ports of the servers in this group. +// +// me is the index of the current server in servers[]. +// +// the k/v server should store snapshots with +// persister.SaveSnapshot(), and Raft should save its state (including +// log) with persister.SaveRaftState(). +// +// the k/v server should snapshot when Raft's saved state exceeds +// maxraftstate bytes, in order to allow Raft to garbage-collect its +// log. if maxraftstate is -1, you don't need to snapshot. +// +// gid is this group's GID, for interacting with the shardmaster. +// +// pass masters[] to shardmaster.MakeClerk() so you can send +// RPCs to the shardmaster. +// +// make_end(servername) turns a server name from a +// Config.Groups[gid][i] into a labrpc.ClientEnd on which you can +// send RPCs. You'll need this to send RPCs to other groups. +// +// look at client.go for examples of how to use masters[] +// and make_end() to send RPCs to the group owning a specific shard. +// +// StartServer() must return quickly, so it should start goroutines +// for any long-running work. +// +func StartServer(servers []*labrpc.ClientEnd, me int, persister *raft.Persister, maxraftstate int, gid int, masters []*labrpc.ClientEnd, make_end func(string) *labrpc.ClientEnd) *ShardKV { + // call gob.Register on structures you want + // Go's RPC library to marshall/unmarshall. + gob.Register(Op{}) + + kv := new(ShardKV) + kv.me = me + kv.maxraftstate = maxraftstate + kv.make_end = make_end + kv.gid = gid + kv.masters = masters + + // Your initialization code here. + + // Use something like this to talk to the shardmaster: + // kv.mck = shardmaster.MakeClerk(kv.masters) + + kv.applyCh = make(chan raft.ApplyMsg) + kv.rf = raft.Make(servers, me, persister, kv.applyCh) + + + return kv +} diff --git a/src/shardkv/test_test.go b/src/shardkv/test_test.go new file mode 100644 index 0000000..5b1be70 --- /dev/null +++ b/src/shardkv/test_test.go @@ -0,0 +1,830 @@ +package shardkv + +import "testing" +import "strconv" +import "time" +import "fmt" +import "sync/atomic" +import "math/rand" + +func check(t *testing.T, ck *Clerk, key string, value string) { + v := ck.Get(key) + if v != value { + t.Fatalf("Get(%v): expected:\n%v\nreceived:\n%v", key, value, v) + } +} + +// +// test static 2-way sharding, without shard movement. +// +func TestStaticShards(t *testing.T) { + fmt.Printf("Test: static shards ...\n") + + cfg := make_config(t, 3, false, -1) + defer cfg.cleanup() + + ck := cfg.makeClient() + + cfg.join(0) + cfg.join(1) + + n := 10 + ka := make([]string, n) + va := make([]string, n) + for i := 0; i < n; i++ { + ka[i] = strconv.Itoa(i) // ensure multiple shards + va[i] = randstring(20) + ck.Put(ka[i], va[i]) + } + for i := 0; i < n; i++ { + check(t, ck, ka[i], va[i]) + } + + // make sure that the data really is sharded by + // shutting down one shard and checking that some + // Get()s don't succeed. + cfg.ShutdownGroup(1) + cfg.checklogs() // forbid snapshots + + ch := make(chan bool) + for xi := 0; xi < n; xi++ { + ck1 := cfg.makeClient() // only one call allowed per client + go func(i int) { + defer func() { ch <- true }() + check(t, ck1, ka[i], va[i]) + }(xi) + } + + // wait a bit, only about half the Gets should succeed. + ndone := 0 + done := false + for done == false { + select { + case <-ch: + ndone += 1 + case <-time.After(time.Second * 2): + done = true + break + } + } + + if ndone != 5 { + t.Fatalf("expected 5 completions with one shard dead; got %v\n", ndone) + } + + // bring the crashed shard/group back to life. + cfg.StartGroup(1) + for i := 0; i < n; i++ { + check(t, ck, ka[i], va[i]) + } + + fmt.Printf(" ... Passed\n") +} + +func TestJoinLeave(t *testing.T) { + fmt.Printf("Test: join then leave ...\n") + + cfg := make_config(t, 3, false, -1) + defer cfg.cleanup() + + ck := cfg.makeClient() + + cfg.join(0) + + n := 10 + ka := make([]string, n) + va := make([]string, n) + for i := 0; i < n; i++ { + ka[i] = strconv.Itoa(i) // ensure multiple shards + va[i] = randstring(5) + ck.Put(ka[i], va[i]) + } + for i := 0; i < n; i++ { + check(t, ck, ka[i], va[i]) + } + + cfg.join(1) + + for i := 0; i < n; i++ { + check(t, ck, ka[i], va[i]) + x := randstring(5) + ck.Append(ka[i], x) + va[i] += x + } + + cfg.leave(0) + + for i := 0; i < n; i++ { + check(t, ck, ka[i], va[i]) + x := randstring(5) + ck.Append(ka[i], x) + va[i] += x + } + + // allow time for shards to transfer. + time.Sleep(1 * time.Second) + + cfg.checklogs() + cfg.ShutdownGroup(0) + + for i := 0; i < n; i++ { + check(t, ck, ka[i], va[i]) + } + + fmt.Printf(" ... Passed\n") +} + +func TestSnapshot(t *testing.T) { + fmt.Printf("Test: snapshots, join, and leave ...\n") + + cfg := make_config(t, 3, false, 1000) + defer cfg.cleanup() + + ck := cfg.makeClient() + + cfg.join(0) + + n := 30 + ka := make([]string, n) + va := make([]string, n) + for i := 0; i < n; i++ { + ka[i] = strconv.Itoa(i) // ensure multiple shards + va[i] = randstring(20) + ck.Put(ka[i], va[i]) + } + for i := 0; i < n; i++ { + check(t, ck, ka[i], va[i]) + } + + cfg.join(1) + cfg.join(2) + cfg.leave(0) + + for i := 0; i < n; i++ { + check(t, ck, ka[i], va[i]) + x := randstring(20) + ck.Append(ka[i], x) + va[i] += x + } + + cfg.leave(1) + cfg.join(0) + + for i := 0; i < n; i++ { + check(t, ck, ka[i], va[i]) + x := randstring(20) + ck.Append(ka[i], x) + va[i] += x + } + + time.Sleep(1 * time.Second) + + for i := 0; i < n; i++ { + check(t, ck, ka[i], va[i]) + } + + time.Sleep(1 * time.Second) + + cfg.checklogs() + + cfg.ShutdownGroup(0) + cfg.ShutdownGroup(1) + cfg.ShutdownGroup(2) + + cfg.StartGroup(0) + cfg.StartGroup(1) + cfg.StartGroup(2) + + for i := 0; i < n; i++ { + check(t, ck, ka[i], va[i]) + } + + fmt.Printf(" ... Passed\n") +} + +func TestMissChange(t *testing.T) { + fmt.Printf("Test: servers miss configuration changes...\n") + + cfg := make_config(t, 3, false, 1000) + defer cfg.cleanup() + + ck := cfg.makeClient() + + cfg.join(0) + + n := 10 + ka := make([]string, n) + va := make([]string, n) + for i := 0; i < n; i++ { + ka[i] = strconv.Itoa(i) // ensure multiple shards + va[i] = randstring(20) + ck.Put(ka[i], va[i]) + } + for i := 0; i < n; i++ { + check(t, ck, ka[i], va[i]) + } + + cfg.join(1) + + cfg.ShutdownServer(0, 0) + cfg.ShutdownServer(1, 0) + cfg.ShutdownServer(2, 0) + + cfg.join(2) + cfg.leave(1) + cfg.leave(0) + + for i := 0; i < n; i++ { + check(t, ck, ka[i], va[i]) + x := randstring(20) + ck.Append(ka[i], x) + va[i] += x + } + + cfg.join(1) + + for i := 0; i < n; i++ { + check(t, ck, ka[i], va[i]) + x := randstring(20) + ck.Append(ka[i], x) + va[i] += x + } + + cfg.StartServer(0, 0) + cfg.StartServer(1, 0) + cfg.StartServer(2, 0) + + for i := 0; i < n; i++ { + check(t, ck, ka[i], va[i]) + x := randstring(20) + ck.Append(ka[i], x) + va[i] += x + } + + time.Sleep(2 * time.Second) + + cfg.ShutdownServer(0, 1) + cfg.ShutdownServer(1, 1) + cfg.ShutdownServer(2, 1) + + cfg.join(0) + cfg.leave(2) + + for i := 0; i < n; i++ { + check(t, ck, ka[i], va[i]) + x := randstring(20) + ck.Append(ka[i], x) + va[i] += x + } + + cfg.StartServer(0, 1) + cfg.StartServer(1, 1) + cfg.StartServer(2, 1) + + for i := 0; i < n; i++ { + check(t, ck, ka[i], va[i]) + } + + fmt.Printf(" ... Passed\n") +} + +func TestConcurrent1(t *testing.T) { + fmt.Printf("Test: concurrent puts and configuration changes...\n") + + cfg := make_config(t, 3, false, 100) + defer cfg.cleanup() + + ck := cfg.makeClient() + + cfg.join(0) + + n := 10 + ka := make([]string, n) + va := make([]string, n) + for i := 0; i < n; i++ { + ka[i] = strconv.Itoa(i) // ensure multiple shards + va[i] = randstring(5) + ck.Put(ka[i], va[i]) + } + + var done int32 + ch := make(chan bool) + + ff := func(i int) { + defer func() { ch <- true }() + ck1 := cfg.makeClient() + for atomic.LoadInt32(&done) == 0 { + x := randstring(5) + ck1.Append(ka[i], x) + va[i] += x + time.Sleep(10 * time.Millisecond) + } + } + + for i := 0; i < n; i++ { + go ff(i) + } + + time.Sleep(150 * time.Millisecond) + cfg.join(1) + time.Sleep(500 * time.Millisecond) + cfg.join(2) + time.Sleep(500 * time.Millisecond) + cfg.leave(0) + + cfg.ShutdownGroup(0) + time.Sleep(100 * time.Millisecond) + cfg.ShutdownGroup(1) + time.Sleep(100 * time.Millisecond) + cfg.ShutdownGroup(2) + + cfg.leave(2) + + time.Sleep(100 * time.Millisecond) + cfg.StartGroup(0) + cfg.StartGroup(1) + cfg.StartGroup(2) + + time.Sleep(100 * time.Millisecond) + cfg.join(0) + cfg.leave(1) + time.Sleep(500 * time.Millisecond) + cfg.join(1) + + time.Sleep(1 * time.Second) + + atomic.StoreInt32(&done, 1) + for i := 0; i < n; i++ { + <-ch + } + + for i := 0; i < n; i++ { + check(t, ck, ka[i], va[i]) + } + + fmt.Printf(" ... Passed\n") +} + +// +// this tests the various sources from which a re-starting +// group might need to fetch shard contents. +// +func TestConcurrent2(t *testing.T) { + fmt.Printf("Test: more concurrent puts and configuration changes...\n") + + cfg := make_config(t, 3, false, -1) + defer cfg.cleanup() + + ck := cfg.makeClient() + + cfg.join(1) + cfg.join(0) + cfg.join(2) + + n := 10 + ka := make([]string, n) + va := make([]string, n) + for i := 0; i < n; i++ { + ka[i] = strconv.Itoa(i) // ensure multiple shards + va[i] = randstring(1) + ck.Put(ka[i], va[i]) + } + + var done int32 + ch := make(chan bool) + + ff := func(i int, ck1 *Clerk) { + defer func() { ch <- true }() + for atomic.LoadInt32(&done) == 0 { + x := randstring(1) + ck1.Append(ka[i], x) + va[i] += x + time.Sleep(50 * time.Millisecond) + } + } + + for i := 0; i < n; i++ { + ck1 := cfg.makeClient() + go ff(i, ck1) + } + + cfg.leave(0) + cfg.leave(2) + time.Sleep(3000 * time.Millisecond) + cfg.join(0) + cfg.join(2) + cfg.leave(1) + time.Sleep(3000 * time.Millisecond) + cfg.join(1) + cfg.leave(0) + cfg.leave(2) + time.Sleep(3000 * time.Millisecond) + + cfg.ShutdownGroup(1) + cfg.ShutdownGroup(2) + time.Sleep(1000 * time.Millisecond) + cfg.StartGroup(1) + cfg.StartGroup(2) + + time.Sleep(2 * time.Second) + + atomic.StoreInt32(&done, 1) + for i := 0; i < n; i++ { + <-ch + } + + for i := 0; i < n; i++ { + check(t, ck, ka[i], va[i]) + } + + fmt.Printf(" ... Passed\n") +} + +func TestUnreliable1(t *testing.T) { + fmt.Printf("Test: unreliable 1...\n") + + cfg := make_config(t, 3, true, 100) + defer cfg.cleanup() + + ck := cfg.makeClient() + + cfg.join(0) + + n := 10 + ka := make([]string, n) + va := make([]string, n) + for i := 0; i < n; i++ { + ka[i] = strconv.Itoa(i) // ensure multiple shards + va[i] = randstring(5) + ck.Put(ka[i], va[i]) + } + + cfg.join(1) + cfg.join(2) + cfg.leave(0) + + for ii := 0; ii < n*2; ii++ { + i := ii % n + check(t, ck, ka[i], va[i]) + x := randstring(5) + ck.Append(ka[i], x) + va[i] += x + } + + cfg.join(0) + cfg.leave(1) + + for ii := 0; ii < n*2; ii++ { + i := ii % n + check(t, ck, ka[i], va[i]) + } + + fmt.Printf(" ... Passed\n") +} + +func TestUnreliable2(t *testing.T) { + fmt.Printf("Test: unreliable 2...\n") + + cfg := make_config(t, 3, true, 100) + defer cfg.cleanup() + + ck := cfg.makeClient() + + cfg.join(0) + + n := 10 + ka := make([]string, n) + va := make([]string, n) + for i := 0; i < n; i++ { + ka[i] = strconv.Itoa(i) // ensure multiple shards + va[i] = randstring(5) + ck.Put(ka[i], va[i]) + } + + var done int32 + ch := make(chan bool) + + ff := func(i int) { + defer func() { ch <- true }() + ck1 := cfg.makeClient() + for atomic.LoadInt32(&done) == 0 { + x := randstring(5) + ck1.Append(ka[i], x) + va[i] += x + } + } + + for i := 0; i < n; i++ { + go ff(i) + } + + time.Sleep(150 * time.Millisecond) + cfg.join(1) + time.Sleep(500 * time.Millisecond) + cfg.join(2) + time.Sleep(500 * time.Millisecond) + cfg.leave(0) + time.Sleep(500 * time.Millisecond) + cfg.leave(1) + time.Sleep(500 * time.Millisecond) + cfg.join(1) + cfg.join(0) + + time.Sleep(2 * time.Second) + + atomic.StoreInt32(&done, 1) + cfg.net.Reliable(true) + for i := 0; i < n; i++ { + <-ch + } + + for i := 0; i < n; i++ { + check(t, ck, ka[i], va[i]) + } + + fmt.Printf(" ... Passed\n") +} + +// +// optional test to see whether servers are deleting +// shards for which they are no longer responsible. +// +func TestChallenge1Delete(t *testing.T) { + fmt.Printf("Test: shard deletion (challenge 1) ...\n") + + // "1" means force snapshot after every log entry. + cfg := make_config(t, 3, false, 1) + defer cfg.cleanup() + + ck := cfg.makeClient() + + cfg.join(0) + + // 30,000 bytes of total values. + n := 30 + ka := make([]string, n) + va := make([]string, n) + for i := 0; i < n; i++ { + ka[i] = strconv.Itoa(i) + va[i] = randstring(1000) + ck.Put(ka[i], va[i]) + } + for i := 0; i < 3; i++ { + check(t, ck, ka[i], va[i]) + } + + for iters := 0; iters < 2; iters++ { + cfg.join(1) + cfg.leave(0) + cfg.join(2) + time.Sleep(3 * time.Second) + for i := 0; i < 3; i++ { + check(t, ck, ka[i], va[i]) + } + cfg.leave(1) + cfg.join(0) + cfg.leave(2) + time.Sleep(3 * time.Second) + for i := 0; i < 3; i++ { + check(t, ck, ka[i], va[i]) + } + } + + cfg.join(1) + cfg.join(2) + time.Sleep(1 * time.Second) + for i := 0; i < 3; i++ { + check(t, ck, ka[i], va[i]) + } + time.Sleep(1 * time.Second) + for i := 0; i < 3; i++ { + check(t, ck, ka[i], va[i]) + } + time.Sleep(1 * time.Second) + for i := 0; i < 3; i++ { + check(t, ck, ka[i], va[i]) + } + + total := 0 + for gi := 0; gi < cfg.ngroups; gi++ { + for i := 0; i < cfg.n; i++ { + raft := cfg.groups[gi].saved[i].RaftStateSize() + snap := len(cfg.groups[gi].saved[i].ReadSnapshot()) + total += raft + snap + } + } + + // 27 keys should be stored once. + // 3 keys should also be stored in client dup tables. + // everything on 3 replicas. + // plus slop. + expected := 3 * (((n - 3) * 1000) + 2*3*1000 + 6000) + if total > expected { + t.Fatalf("snapshot + persisted Raft state are too big: %v > %v\n", total, expected) + } + + for i := 0; i < n; i++ { + check(t, ck, ka[i], va[i]) + } + + fmt.Printf(" ... Passed\n") +} + +func TestChallenge1Concurrent(t *testing.T) { + fmt.Printf("Test: concurrent configuration change and restart (challenge 1)...\n") + + cfg := make_config(t, 3, false, 300) + defer cfg.cleanup() + + ck := cfg.makeClient() + + cfg.join(0) + + n := 10 + ka := make([]string, n) + va := make([]string, n) + for i := 0; i < n; i++ { + ka[i] = strconv.Itoa(i) + va[i] = randstring(1) + ck.Put(ka[i], va[i]) + } + + var done int32 + ch := make(chan bool) + + ff := func(i int, ck1 *Clerk) { + defer func() { ch <- true }() + for atomic.LoadInt32(&done) == 0 { + x := randstring(1) + ck1.Append(ka[i], x) + va[i] += x + } + } + + for i := 0; i < n; i++ { + ck1 := cfg.makeClient() + go ff(i, ck1) + } + + t0 := time.Now() + for time.Since(t0) < 12*time.Second { + cfg.join(2) + cfg.join(1) + time.Sleep(time.Duration(rand.Int()%900) * time.Millisecond) + cfg.ShutdownGroup(0) + cfg.ShutdownGroup(1) + cfg.ShutdownGroup(2) + cfg.StartGroup(0) + cfg.StartGroup(1) + cfg.StartGroup(2) + + time.Sleep(time.Duration(rand.Int()%900) * time.Millisecond) + cfg.leave(1) + cfg.leave(2) + time.Sleep(time.Duration(rand.Int()%900) * time.Millisecond) + } + + time.Sleep(2 * time.Second) + + atomic.StoreInt32(&done, 1) + for i := 0; i < n; i++ { + <-ch + } + + for i := 0; i < n; i++ { + check(t, ck, ka[i], va[i]) + } + + fmt.Printf(" ... Passed\n") +} + +// +// optional test to see whether servers can handle +// shards that are not affected by a config change +// while the config change is underway +// +func TestChallenge2Unaffected(t *testing.T) { + fmt.Printf("Test: unaffected shard access (challenge 2) ...\n") + + cfg := make_config(t, 3, true, 100) + defer cfg.cleanup() + + ck := cfg.makeClient() + + // JOIN 100 + cfg.join(0) + + // Do a bunch of puts to keys in all shards + n := 10 + ka := make([]string, n) + va := make([]string, n) + for i := 0; i < n; i++ { + ka[i] = strconv.Itoa(i) // ensure multiple shards + va[i] = "100" + ck.Put(ka[i], va[i]) + } + + // JOIN 101 + cfg.join(1) + + // QUERY to find shards now owned by 101 + c := cfg.mck.Query(-1) + owned := make(map[int]bool, n) + for s, gid := range c.Shards { + owned[s] = gid == cfg.groups[1].gid + } + + // Wait for migration to new config to complete, and for clients to + // start using this updated config. Gets to any key k such that + // owned[shard(k)] == true should now be served by group 101. + <-time.After(1 * time.Second) + for i := 0; i < n; i++ { + if owned[i] { + va[i] = "101" + ck.Put(ka[i], va[i]) + } + } + + // KILL 100 + cfg.ShutdownGroup(0) + + // LEAVE 100 + // 101 doesn't get a chance to migrate things previously owned by 100 + cfg.leave(0) + + // Wait to make sure clients see new config + <-time.After(1 * time.Second) + + // And finally: check that gets/puts for 101-owned keys still complete + for i := 0; i < n; i++ { + shard := int(ka[i][0]) % 10 + if owned[shard] { + check(t, ck, ka[i], va[i]) + ck.Put(ka[i], va[i]+"-1") + check(t, ck, ka[i], va[i]+"-1") + } + } + + fmt.Printf(" ... Passed\n") +} + +// +// optional test to see whether servers can handle operations on shards that +// have been received as a part of a config migration when the entire migration +// has not yet completed. +// +func TestChallenge2Partial(t *testing.T) { + fmt.Printf("Test: partial migration shard access (challenge 2) ...\n") + + cfg := make_config(t, 3, true, 100) + defer cfg.cleanup() + + ck := cfg.makeClient() + + // JOIN 100 + 101 + 102 + cfg.joinm([]int{0, 1, 2}) + + // Give the implementation some time to reconfigure + <-time.After(1 * time.Second) + + // Do a bunch of puts to keys in all shards + n := 10 + ka := make([]string, n) + va := make([]string, n) + for i := 0; i < n; i++ { + ka[i] = strconv.Itoa(i) // ensure multiple shards + va[i] = "100" + ck.Put(ka[i], va[i]) + } + + // QUERY to find shards owned by 102 + c := cfg.mck.Query(-1) + owned := make(map[int]bool, n) + for s, gid := range c.Shards { + owned[s] = gid == cfg.groups[2].gid + } + + // KILL 100 + cfg.ShutdownGroup(0) + + // LEAVE 100 + 102 + // 101 can get old shards from 102, but not from 100. 101 should start + // serving shards that used to belong to 102 as soon as possible + cfg.leavem([]int{0, 2}) + + // Give the implementation some time to start reconfiguration + // And to migrate 102 -> 101 + <-time.After(1 * time.Second) + + // And finally: check that gets/puts for 101-owned keys now complete + for i := 0; i < n; i++ { + shard := key2shard(ka[i]) + if owned[shard] { + check(t, ck, ka[i], va[i]) + ck.Put(ka[i], va[i]+"-2") + check(t, ck, ka[i], va[i]+"-2") + } + } + + fmt.Printf(" ... Passed\n") +} diff --git a/src/shardmaster/client.go b/src/shardmaster/client.go new file mode 100644 index 0000000..d43c6a1 --- /dev/null +++ b/src/shardmaster/client.go @@ -0,0 +1,101 @@ +package shardmaster + +// +// Shardmaster clerk. +// + +import "labrpc" +import "time" +import "crypto/rand" +import "math/big" + +type Clerk struct { + servers []*labrpc.ClientEnd + // Your data here. +} + +func nrand() int64 { + max := big.NewInt(int64(1) << 62) + bigx, _ := rand.Int(rand.Reader, max) + x := bigx.Int64() + return x +} + +func MakeClerk(servers []*labrpc.ClientEnd) *Clerk { + ck := new(Clerk) + ck.servers = servers + // Your code here. + return ck +} + +func (ck *Clerk) Query(num int) Config { + args := &QueryArgs{} + // Your code here. + args.Num = num + for { + // try each known server. + for _, srv := range ck.servers { + var reply QueryReply + ok := srv.Call("ShardMaster.Query", args, &reply) + if ok && reply.WrongLeader == false { + return reply.Config + } + } + time.Sleep(100 * time.Millisecond) + } +} + +func (ck *Clerk) Join(servers map[int][]string) { + args := &JoinArgs{} + // Your code here. + args.Servers = servers + + for { + // try each known server. + for _, srv := range ck.servers { + var reply JoinReply + ok := srv.Call("ShardMaster.Join", args, &reply) + if ok && reply.WrongLeader == false { + return + } + } + time.Sleep(100 * time.Millisecond) + } +} + +func (ck *Clerk) Leave(gids []int) { + args := &LeaveArgs{} + // Your code here. + args.GIDs = gids + + for { + // try each known server. + for _, srv := range ck.servers { + var reply LeaveReply + ok := srv.Call("ShardMaster.Leave", args, &reply) + if ok && reply.WrongLeader == false { + return + } + } + time.Sleep(100 * time.Millisecond) + } +} + +func (ck *Clerk) Move(shard int, gid int) { + args := &MoveArgs{} + // Your code here. + args.Shard = shard + args.GID = gid + + for { + // try each known server. + for _, srv := range ck.servers { + var reply MoveReply + ok := srv.Call("ShardMaster.Move", args, &reply) + if ok && reply.WrongLeader == false { + return + } + } + time.Sleep(100 * time.Millisecond) + } +} diff --git a/src/shardmaster/common.go b/src/shardmaster/common.go new file mode 100644 index 0000000..10e2b69 --- /dev/null +++ b/src/shardmaster/common.go @@ -0,0 +1,76 @@ +package shardmaster + +// +// Master shard server: assigns shards to replication groups. +// +// RPC interface: +// Join(servers) -- add a set of groups (gid -> server-list mapping). +// Leave(gids) -- delete a set of groups. +// Move(shard, gid) -- hand off one shard from current owner to gid. +// Query(num) -> fetch Config # num, or latest config if num==-1. +// +// A Config (configuration) describes a set of replica groups, and the +// replica group responsible for each shard. Configs are numbered. Config +// #0 is the initial configuration, with no groups and all shards +// assigned to group 0 (the invalid group). +// +// A GID is a replica group ID. GIDs must be uniqe and > 0. +// Once a GID joins, and leaves, it should never join again. +// +// You will need to add fields to the RPC arguments. +// + +// The number of shards. +const NShards = 10 + +// A configuration -- an assignment of shards to groups. +// Please don't change this. +type Config struct { + Num int // config number + Shards [NShards]int // shard -> gid + Groups map[int][]string // gid -> servers[] +} + +const ( + OK = "OK" +) + +type Err string + +type JoinArgs struct { + Servers map[int][]string // new GID -> servers mappings +} + +type JoinReply struct { + WrongLeader bool + Err Err +} + +type LeaveArgs struct { + GIDs []int +} + +type LeaveReply struct { + WrongLeader bool + Err Err +} + +type MoveArgs struct { + Shard int + GID int +} + +type MoveReply struct { + WrongLeader bool + Err Err +} + +type QueryArgs struct { + Num int // desired config number +} + +type QueryReply struct { + WrongLeader bool + Err Err + Config Config +} diff --git a/src/shardmaster/config.go b/src/shardmaster/config.go new file mode 100644 index 0000000..4e5861c --- /dev/null +++ b/src/shardmaster/config.go @@ -0,0 +1,343 @@ +package shardmaster + +import "labrpc" +import "raft" +import "testing" +import "os" + +// import "log" +import crand "crypto/rand" +import "math/rand" +import "encoding/base64" +import "sync" +import "runtime" + +func randstring(n int) string { + b := make([]byte, 2*n) + crand.Read(b) + s := base64.URLEncoding.EncodeToString(b) + return s[0:n] +} + +// Randomize server handles +func random_handles(kvh []*labrpc.ClientEnd) []*labrpc.ClientEnd { + sa := make([]*labrpc.ClientEnd, len(kvh)) + copy(sa, kvh) + for i := range sa { + j := rand.Intn(i + 1) + sa[i], sa[j] = sa[j], sa[i] + } + return sa +} + +type config struct { + mu sync.Mutex + t *testing.T + net *labrpc.Network + n int + servers []*ShardMaster + saved []*raft.Persister + endnames [][]string // names of each server's sending ClientEnds + clerks map[*Clerk][]string + nextClientId int +} + +func (cfg *config) cleanup() { + cfg.mu.Lock() + defer cfg.mu.Unlock() + for i := 0; i < len(cfg.servers); i++ { + if cfg.servers[i] != nil { + cfg.servers[i].Kill() + } + } +} + +// Maximum log size across all servers +func (cfg *config) LogSize() int { + logsize := 0 + for i := 0; i < cfg.n; i++ { + n := cfg.saved[i].RaftStateSize() + if n > logsize { + logsize = n + } + } + return logsize +} + +// attach server i to servers listed in to +// caller must hold cfg.mu +func (cfg *config) connectUnlocked(i int, to []int) { + // log.Printf("connect peer %d to %v\n", i, to) + + // outgoing socket files + for j := 0; j < len(to); j++ { + endname := cfg.endnames[i][to[j]] + cfg.net.Enable(endname, true) + } + + // incoming socket files + for j := 0; j < len(to); j++ { + endname := cfg.endnames[to[j]][i] + cfg.net.Enable(endname, true) + } +} + +func (cfg *config) connect(i int, to []int) { + cfg.mu.Lock() + defer cfg.mu.Unlock() + cfg.connectUnlocked(i, to) +} + +// detach server i from the servers listed in from +// caller must hold cfg.mu +func (cfg *config) disconnectUnlocked(i int, from []int) { + // log.Printf("disconnect peer %d from %v\n", i, from) + + // outgoing socket files + for j := 0; j < len(from); j++ { + if cfg.endnames[i] != nil { + endname := cfg.endnames[i][from[j]] + cfg.net.Enable(endname, false) + } + } + + // incoming socket files + for j := 0; j < len(from); j++ { + if cfg.endnames[j] != nil { + endname := cfg.endnames[from[j]][i] + cfg.net.Enable(endname, false) + } + } +} + +func (cfg *config) disconnect(i int, from []int) { + cfg.mu.Lock() + defer cfg.mu.Unlock() + cfg.disconnectUnlocked(i, from) +} + +func (cfg *config) All() []int { + all := make([]int, cfg.n) + for i := 0; i < cfg.n; i++ { + all[i] = i + } + return all +} + +func (cfg *config) ConnectAll() { + cfg.mu.Lock() + defer cfg.mu.Unlock() + for i := 0; i < cfg.n; i++ { + cfg.connectUnlocked(i, cfg.All()) + } +} + +// Sets up 2 partitions with connectivity between servers in each partition. +func (cfg *config) partition(p1 []int, p2 []int) { + cfg.mu.Lock() + defer cfg.mu.Unlock() + // log.Printf("partition servers into: %v %v\n", p1, p2) + for i := 0; i < len(p1); i++ { + cfg.disconnectUnlocked(p1[i], p2) + cfg.connectUnlocked(p1[i], p1) + } + for i := 0; i < len(p2); i++ { + cfg.disconnectUnlocked(p2[i], p1) + cfg.connectUnlocked(p2[i], p2) + } +} + +// Create a clerk with clerk specific server names. +// Give it connections to all of the servers, but for +// now enable only connections to servers in to[]. +func (cfg *config) makeClient(to []int) *Clerk { + cfg.mu.Lock() + defer cfg.mu.Unlock() + + // a fresh set of ClientEnds. + ends := make([]*labrpc.ClientEnd, cfg.n) + endnames := make([]string, cfg.n) + for j := 0; j < cfg.n; j++ { + endnames[j] = randstring(20) + ends[j] = cfg.net.MakeEnd(endnames[j]) + cfg.net.Connect(endnames[j], j) + } + + ck := MakeClerk(random_handles(ends)) + cfg.clerks[ck] = endnames + cfg.nextClientId++ + cfg.ConnectClientUnlocked(ck, to) + return ck +} + +func (cfg *config) deleteClient(ck *Clerk) { + cfg.mu.Lock() + defer cfg.mu.Unlock() + + v := cfg.clerks[ck] + for i := 0; i < len(v); i++ { + os.Remove(v[i]) + } + delete(cfg.clerks, ck) +} + +// caller should hold cfg.mu +func (cfg *config) ConnectClientUnlocked(ck *Clerk, to []int) { + // log.Printf("ConnectClient %v to %v\n", ck, to) + endnames := cfg.clerks[ck] + for j := 0; j < len(to); j++ { + s := endnames[to[j]] + cfg.net.Enable(s, true) + } +} + +func (cfg *config) ConnectClient(ck *Clerk, to []int) { + cfg.mu.Lock() + defer cfg.mu.Unlock() + cfg.ConnectClientUnlocked(ck, to) +} + +// caller should hold cfg.mu +func (cfg *config) DisconnectClientUnlocked(ck *Clerk, from []int) { + // log.Printf("DisconnectClient %v from %v\n", ck, from) + endnames := cfg.clerks[ck] + for j := 0; j < len(from); j++ { + s := endnames[from[j]] + cfg.net.Enable(s, false) + } +} + +func (cfg *config) DisconnectClient(ck *Clerk, from []int) { + cfg.mu.Lock() + defer cfg.mu.Unlock() + cfg.DisconnectClientUnlocked(ck, from) +} + +// Shutdown a server by isolating it +func (cfg *config) ShutdownServer(i int) { + cfg.mu.Lock() + defer cfg.mu.Unlock() + + cfg.disconnectUnlocked(i, cfg.All()) + + // disable client connections to the server. + // it's important to do this before creating + // the new Persister in saved[i], to avoid + // the possibility of the server returning a + // positive reply to an Append but persisting + // the result in the superseded Persister. + cfg.net.DeleteServer(i) + + // a fresh persister, in case old instance + // continues to update the Persister. + // but copy old persister's content so that we always + // pass Make() the last persisted state. + if cfg.saved[i] != nil { + cfg.saved[i] = cfg.saved[i].Copy() + } + + kv := cfg.servers[i] + if kv != nil { + cfg.mu.Unlock() + kv.Kill() + cfg.mu.Lock() + cfg.servers[i] = nil + } +} + +// If restart servers, first call ShutdownServer +func (cfg *config) StartServer(i int) { + cfg.mu.Lock() + + // a fresh set of outgoing ClientEnd names. + cfg.endnames[i] = make([]string, cfg.n) + for j := 0; j < cfg.n; j++ { + cfg.endnames[i][j] = randstring(20) + } + + // a fresh set of ClientEnds. + ends := make([]*labrpc.ClientEnd, cfg.n) + for j := 0; j < cfg.n; j++ { + ends[j] = cfg.net.MakeEnd(cfg.endnames[i][j]) + cfg.net.Connect(cfg.endnames[i][j], j) + } + + // a fresh persister, so old instance doesn't overwrite + // new instance's persisted state. + // give the fresh persister a copy of the old persister's + // state, so that the spec is that we pass StartKVServer() + // the last persisted state. + if cfg.saved[i] != nil { + cfg.saved[i] = cfg.saved[i].Copy() + } else { + cfg.saved[i] = raft.MakePersister() + } + + cfg.mu.Unlock() + + cfg.servers[i] = StartServer(ends, i, cfg.saved[i]) + + kvsvc := labrpc.MakeService(cfg.servers[i]) + rfsvc := labrpc.MakeService(cfg.servers[i].rf) + srv := labrpc.MakeServer() + srv.AddService(kvsvc) + srv.AddService(rfsvc) + cfg.net.AddServer(i, srv) +} + +func (cfg *config) Leader() (bool, int) { + cfg.mu.Lock() + defer cfg.mu.Unlock() + + for i := 0; i < cfg.n; i++ { + _, is_leader := cfg.servers[i].rf.GetState() + if is_leader { + return true, i + } + } + return false, 0 +} + +// Partition servers into 2 groups and put current leader in minority +func (cfg *config) make_partition() ([]int, []int) { + _, l := cfg.Leader() + p1 := make([]int, cfg.n/2+1) + p2 := make([]int, cfg.n/2) + j := 0 + for i := 0; i < cfg.n; i++ { + if i != l { + if j < len(p1) { + p1[j] = i + } else { + p2[j-len(p1)] = i + } + j++ + } + } + p2[len(p2)-1] = l + return p1, p2 +} + +func make_config(t *testing.T, n int, unreliable bool) *config { + runtime.GOMAXPROCS(4) + cfg := &config{} + cfg.t = t + cfg.net = labrpc.MakeNetwork() + cfg.n = n + cfg.servers = make([]*ShardMaster, cfg.n) + cfg.saved = make([]*raft.Persister, cfg.n) + cfg.endnames = make([][]string, cfg.n) + cfg.clerks = make(map[*Clerk][]string) + cfg.nextClientId = cfg.n + 1000 // client ids start 1000 above the highest serverid + + // create a full set of KV servers. + for i := 0; i < cfg.n; i++ { + cfg.StartServer(i) + } + + cfg.ConnectAll() + + cfg.net.Reliable(!unreliable) + + return cfg +} diff --git a/src/shardmaster/server.go b/src/shardmaster/server.go new file mode 100644 index 0000000..a1ac68f --- /dev/null +++ b/src/shardmaster/server.go @@ -0,0 +1,80 @@ +package shardmaster + + +import "raft" +import "labrpc" +import "sync" +import "encoding/gob" + + +type ShardMaster struct { + mu sync.Mutex + me int + rf *raft.Raft + applyCh chan raft.ApplyMsg + + // Your data here. + + configs []Config // indexed by config num +} + + +type Op struct { + // Your data here. +} + + +func (sm *ShardMaster) Join(args *JoinArgs, reply *JoinReply) { + // Your code here. +} + +func (sm *ShardMaster) Leave(args *LeaveArgs, reply *LeaveReply) { + // Your code here. +} + +func (sm *ShardMaster) Move(args *MoveArgs, reply *MoveReply) { + // Your code here. +} + +func (sm *ShardMaster) Query(args *QueryArgs, reply *QueryReply) { + // Your code here. +} + + +// +// the tester calls Kill() when a ShardMaster instance won't +// be needed again. you are not required to do anything +// in Kill(), but it might be convenient to (for example) +// turn off debug output from this instance. +// +func (sm *ShardMaster) Kill() { + sm.rf.Kill() + // Your code here, if desired. +} + +// needed by shardkv tester +func (sm *ShardMaster) Raft() *raft.Raft { + return sm.rf +} + +// +// servers[] contains the ports of the set of +// servers that will cooperate via Paxos to +// form the fault-tolerant shardmaster service. +// me is the index of the current server in servers[]. +// +func StartServer(servers []*labrpc.ClientEnd, me int, persister *raft.Persister) *ShardMaster { + sm := new(ShardMaster) + sm.me = me + + sm.configs = make([]Config, 1) + sm.configs[0].Groups = map[int][]string{} + + gob.Register(Op{}) + sm.applyCh = make(chan raft.ApplyMsg) + sm.rf = raft.Make(servers, me, persister, sm.applyCh) + + // Your code here. + + return sm +} diff --git a/src/shardmaster/test_test.go b/src/shardmaster/test_test.go new file mode 100644 index 0000000..3c133f0 --- /dev/null +++ b/src/shardmaster/test_test.go @@ -0,0 +1,377 @@ +package shardmaster + +import ( + "sync" + "testing" +) + +// import "time" +import "fmt" + +func check(t *testing.T, groups []int, ck *Clerk) { + c := ck.Query(-1) + if len(c.Groups) != len(groups) { + t.Fatalf("wanted %v groups, got %v", len(groups), len(c.Groups)) + } + + // are the groups as expected? + for _, g := range groups { + _, ok := c.Groups[g] + if ok != true { + t.Fatalf("missing group %v", g) + } + } + + // any un-allocated shards? + if len(groups) > 0 { + for s, g := range c.Shards { + _, ok := c.Groups[g] + if ok == false { + t.Fatalf("shard %v -> invalid group %v", s, g) + } + } + } + + // more or less balanced sharding? + counts := map[int]int{} + for _, g := range c.Shards { + counts[g] += 1 + } + min := 257 + max := 0 + for g, _ := range c.Groups { + if counts[g] > max { + max = counts[g] + } + if counts[g] < min { + min = counts[g] + } + } + if max > min+1 { + t.Fatalf("max %v too much larger than min %v", max, min) + } +} + +func check_same_config(t *testing.T, c1 Config, c2 Config) { + if c1.Num != c2.Num { + t.Fatalf("Num wrong") + } + if c1.Shards != c2.Shards { + t.Fatalf("Shards wrong") + } + if len(c1.Groups) != len(c2.Groups) { + t.Fatalf("number of Groups is wrong") + } + for gid, sa := range c1.Groups { + sa1, ok := c2.Groups[gid] + if ok == false || len(sa1) != len(sa) { + t.Fatalf("len(Groups) wrong") + } + if ok && len(sa1) == len(sa) { + for j := 0; j < len(sa); j++ { + if sa[j] != sa1[j] { + t.Fatalf("Groups wrong") + } + } + } + } +} + +func TestBasic(t *testing.T) { + const nservers = 3 + cfg := make_config(t, nservers, false) + defer cfg.cleanup() + + ck := cfg.makeClient(cfg.All()) + + fmt.Printf("Test: Basic leave/join ...\n") + + cfa := make([]Config, 6) + cfa[0] = ck.Query(-1) + + check(t, []int{}, ck) + + var gid1 int = 1 + ck.Join(map[int][]string{gid1: []string{"x", "y", "z"}}) + check(t, []int{gid1}, ck) + cfa[1] = ck.Query(-1) + + var gid2 int = 2 + ck.Join(map[int][]string{gid2: []string{"a", "b", "c"}}) + check(t, []int{gid1, gid2}, ck) + cfa[2] = ck.Query(-1) + + ck.Join(map[int][]string{gid2: []string{"a", "b", "c"}}) + check(t, []int{gid1, gid2}, ck) + cfa[3] = ck.Query(-1) + + cfx := ck.Query(-1) + sa1 := cfx.Groups[gid1] + if len(sa1) != 3 || sa1[0] != "x" || sa1[1] != "y" || sa1[2] != "z" { + t.Fatalf("wrong servers for gid %v: %v\n", gid1, sa1) + } + sa2 := cfx.Groups[gid2] + if len(sa2) != 3 || sa2[0] != "a" || sa2[1] != "b" || sa2[2] != "c" { + t.Fatalf("wrong servers for gid %v: %v\n", gid2, sa2) + } + + ck.Leave([]int{gid1}) + check(t, []int{gid2}, ck) + cfa[4] = ck.Query(-1) + + ck.Leave([]int{gid1}) + check(t, []int{gid2}, ck) + cfa[5] = ck.Query(-1) + + fmt.Printf(" ... Passed\n") + + fmt.Printf("Test: Historical queries ...\n") + + for s := 0; s < nservers; s++ { + cfg.ShutdownServer(s) + for i := 0; i < len(cfa); i++ { + c := ck.Query(cfa[i].Num) + check_same_config(t, c, cfa[i]) + } + cfg.StartServer(s) + cfg.ConnectAll() + } + + fmt.Printf(" ... Passed\n") + + fmt.Printf("Test: Move ...\n") + { + var gid3 int = 503 + ck.Join(map[int][]string{gid3: []string{"3a", "3b", "3c"}}) + var gid4 int = 504 + ck.Join(map[int][]string{gid4: []string{"4a", "4b", "4c"}}) + for i := 0; i < NShards; i++ { + cf := ck.Query(-1) + if i < NShards/2 { + ck.Move(i, gid3) + if cf.Shards[i] != gid3 { + cf1 := ck.Query(-1) + if cf1.Num <= cf.Num { + t.Fatalf("Move should increase Config.Num") + } + } + } else { + ck.Move(i, gid4) + if cf.Shards[i] != gid4 { + cf1 := ck.Query(-1) + if cf1.Num <= cf.Num { + t.Fatalf("Move should increase Config.Num") + } + } + } + } + cf2 := ck.Query(-1) + for i := 0; i < NShards; i++ { + if i < NShards/2 { + if cf2.Shards[i] != gid3 { + t.Fatalf("expected shard %v on gid %v actually %v", + i, gid3, cf2.Shards[i]) + } + } else { + if cf2.Shards[i] != gid4 { + t.Fatalf("expected shard %v on gid %v actually %v", + i, gid4, cf2.Shards[i]) + } + } + } + ck.Leave([]int{gid3}) + ck.Leave([]int{gid4}) + } + fmt.Printf(" ... Passed\n") + + fmt.Printf("Test: Concurrent leave/join ...\n") + + const npara = 10 + var cka [npara]*Clerk + for i := 0; i < len(cka); i++ { + cka[i] = cfg.makeClient(cfg.All()) + } + gids := make([]int, npara) + ch := make(chan bool) + for xi := 0; xi < npara; xi++ { + gids[xi] = int(xi + 1) + go func(i int) { + defer func() { ch <- true }() + var gid int = gids[i] + cka[i].Join(map[int][]string{gid + 1000: []string{"a", "b", "c"}}) + cka[i].Join(map[int][]string{gid: []string{"a", "b", "c"}}) + cka[i].Leave([]int{gid + 1000}) + }(xi) + } + for i := 0; i < npara; i++ { + <-ch + } + check(t, gids, ck) + + fmt.Printf(" ... Passed\n") + + fmt.Printf("Test: Minimal transfers after joins ...\n") + + c1 := ck.Query(-1) + for i := 0; i < 5; i++ { + ck.Join(map[int][]string{int(npara + 1 + i): []string{"a", "b", "c"}}) + } + c2 := ck.Query(-1) + for i := int(1); i <= npara; i++ { + for j := 0; j < len(c1.Shards); j++ { + if c2.Shards[j] == i { + if c1.Shards[j] != i { + t.Fatalf("non-minimal transfer after Join()s") + } + } + } + } + + fmt.Printf(" ... Passed\n") + + fmt.Printf("Test: Minimal transfers after leaves ...\n") + + for i := 0; i < 5; i++ { + ck.Leave([]int{int(npara + 1 + i)}) + } + c3 := ck.Query(-1) + for i := int(1); i <= npara; i++ { + for j := 0; j < len(c1.Shards); j++ { + if c2.Shards[j] == i { + if c3.Shards[j] != i { + t.Fatalf("non-minimal transfer after Leave()s") + } + } + } + } + + fmt.Printf(" ... Passed\n") +} + +func TestMulti(t *testing.T) { + const nservers = 3 + cfg := make_config(t, nservers, false) + defer cfg.cleanup() + + ck := cfg.makeClient(cfg.All()) + + fmt.Printf("Test: Multi-group join/leave ...\n") + + cfa := make([]Config, 6) + cfa[0] = ck.Query(-1) + + check(t, []int{}, ck) + + var gid1 int = 1 + var gid2 int = 2 + ck.Join(map[int][]string{ + gid1: []string{"x", "y", "z"}, + gid2: []string{"a", "b", "c"}, + }) + check(t, []int{gid1, gid2}, ck) + cfa[1] = ck.Query(-1) + + var gid3 int = 3 + ck.Join(map[int][]string{gid3: []string{"j", "k", "l"}}) + check(t, []int{gid1, gid2, gid3}, ck) + cfa[2] = ck.Query(-1) + + ck.Join(map[int][]string{gid2: []string{"a", "b", "c"}}) + check(t, []int{gid1, gid2, gid3}, ck) + cfa[3] = ck.Query(-1) + + cfx := ck.Query(-1) + sa1 := cfx.Groups[gid1] + if len(sa1) != 3 || sa1[0] != "x" || sa1[1] != "y" || sa1[2] != "z" { + t.Fatalf("wrong servers for gid %v: %v\n", gid1, sa1) + } + sa2 := cfx.Groups[gid2] + if len(sa2) != 3 || sa2[0] != "a" || sa2[1] != "b" || sa2[2] != "c" { + t.Fatalf("wrong servers for gid %v: %v\n", gid2, sa2) + } + sa3 := cfx.Groups[gid3] + if len(sa3) != 3 || sa3[0] != "j" || sa3[1] != "k" || sa3[2] != "l" { + t.Fatalf("wrong servers for gid %v: %v\n", gid3, sa3) + } + + ck.Leave([]int{gid1, gid3}) + check(t, []int{gid2}, ck) + cfa[4] = ck.Query(-1) + + cfx = ck.Query(-1) + sa2 = cfx.Groups[gid2] + if len(sa2) != 3 || sa2[0] != "a" || sa2[1] != "b" || sa2[2] != "c" { + t.Fatalf("wrong servers for gid %v: %v\n", gid2, sa2) + } + + fmt.Printf(" ... Passed\n") + + fmt.Printf("Test: Concurrent multi leave/join ...\n") + + const npara = 10 + var cka [npara]*Clerk + for i := 0; i < len(cka); i++ { + cka[i] = cfg.makeClient(cfg.All()) + } + gids := make([]int, npara) + var wg sync.WaitGroup + for xi := 0; xi < npara; xi++ { + wg.Add(1) + gids[xi] = int(xi + 1) + go func(i int) { + defer wg.Done() + var gid int = gids[i] + cka[i].Join(map[int][]string{ + gid: []string{"a", "b", "c"}, + gid + 1000: []string{"a", "b", "c"}, + gid + 2000: []string{"a", "b", "c"}, + }) + cka[i].Leave([]int{gid + 1000, gid + 2000}) + }(xi) + } + wg.Wait() + check(t, gids, ck) + + fmt.Printf(" ... Passed\n") + + fmt.Printf("Test: Minimal transfers after multijoins ...\n") + + c1 := ck.Query(-1) + m := make(map[int][]string) + for i := 0; i < 5; i++ { + m[npara+1+i] = []string{"a", "b", "c"} + } + ck.Join(m) + c2 := ck.Query(-1) + for i := int(1); i <= npara; i++ { + for j := 0; j < len(c1.Shards); j++ { + if c2.Shards[j] == i { + if c1.Shards[j] != i { + t.Fatalf("non-minimal transfer after Join()s") + } + } + } + } + + fmt.Printf(" ... Passed\n") + + fmt.Printf("Test: Minimal transfers after multileaves ...\n") + + var l []int + for i := 0; i < 5; i++ { + l = append(l, npara+1+i) + } + ck.Leave(l) + c3 := ck.Query(-1) + for i := int(1); i <= npara; i++ { + for j := 0; j < len(c1.Shards); j++ { + if c2.Shards[j] == i { + if c3.Shards[j] != i { + t.Fatalf("non-minimal transfer after Leave()s") + } + } + } + } + + fmt.Printf(" ... Passed\n") +} diff --git a/src/viewservice/client.go b/src/viewservice/client.go new file mode 100644 index 0000000..83a4538 --- /dev/null +++ b/src/viewservice/client.go @@ -0,0 +1,88 @@ +package viewservice + +import "net/rpc" +import "fmt" + +// +// the viewservice Clerk lives in the client +// and maintains a little state. +// +type Clerk struct { + me string // client's name (host:port) + server string // viewservice's host:port +} + +func MakeClerk(me string, server string) *Clerk { + ck := new(Clerk) + ck.me = me + ck.server = server + return ck +} + +// +// call() sends an RPC to the rpcname handler on server srv +// with arguments args, waits for the reply, and leaves the +// reply in reply. the reply argument should be a pointer +// to a reply structure. +// +// the return value is true if the server responded, and false +// if call() was not able to contact the server. in particular, +// the reply's contents are only valid if call() returned true. +// +// you should assume that call() will return an +// error after a while if the server is dead. +// don't provide your own time-out mechanism. +// +// please use call() to send all RPCs, in client.go and server.go. +// please don't change this function. +// +func call(srv string, rpcname string, + args interface{}, reply interface{}) bool { + c, errx := rpc.Dial("unix", srv) + if errx != nil { + return false + } + defer c.Close() + + err := c.Call(rpcname, args, reply) + if err == nil { + return true + } + + fmt.Println(err) + return false +} + +func (ck *Clerk) Ping(viewnum uint) (View, error) { + // prepare the arguments. + args := &PingArgs{} + args.Me = ck.me + args.Viewnum = viewnum + var reply PingReply + + // send an RPC request, wait for the reply. + ok := call(ck.server, "ViewServer.Ping", args, &reply) + if ok == false { + return View{}, fmt.Errorf("Ping(%v) failed", viewnum) + } + + return reply.View, nil +} + +func (ck *Clerk) Get() (View, bool) { + args := &GetArgs{} + var reply GetReply + ok := call(ck.server, "ViewServer.Get", args, &reply) + if ok == false { + return View{}, false + } + return reply.View, true +} + +func (ck *Clerk) Primary() string { + v, ok := ck.Get() + if ok { + return v.Primary + } + return "" +} diff --git a/src/viewservice/common.go b/src/viewservice/common.go new file mode 100644 index 0000000..c7f8b69 --- /dev/null +++ b/src/viewservice/common.go @@ -0,0 +1,80 @@ +package viewservice + +import "time" + +// +// This is a non-replicated view service for a simple +// primary/backup system. +// +// The view service goes through a sequence of numbered +// views, each with a primary and (if possible) a backup. +// A view consists of a view number and the host:port of +// the view's primary and backup p/b servers. +// +// The primary in a view is always either the primary +// or the backup of the previous view (in order to ensure +// that the p/b service's state is preserved). +// +// Each p/b server should send a Ping RPC once per PingInterval. +// The view server replies with a description of the current +// view. The Pings let the view server know that the p/b +// server is still alive; inform the p/b server of the current +// view; and inform the view server of the most recent view +// that the p/b server knows about. +// +// The view server proceeds to a new view when either it hasn't +// received a ping from the primary or backup for a while, or +// if there was no backup and a new server starts Pinging. +// +// The view server will not proceed to a new view until +// the primary from the current view acknowledges +// that it is operating in the current view. This helps +// ensure that there's at most one p/b primary operating at +// a time. +// + +type View struct { + Viewnum uint + Primary string + Backup string +} + +// clients should send a Ping RPC this often, +// to tell the viewservice that the client is alive. +const PingInterval = time.Millisecond * 100 + +// the viewserver will declare a client dead if it misses +// this many Ping RPCs in a row. +const DeadPings = 5 + +// +// Ping(): called by a primary/backup server to tell the +// view service it is alive, to indicate whether p/b server +// has seen the latest view, and for p/b server to learn +// the latest view. +// +// If Viewnum is zero, the caller is signalling that it is +// alive and could become backup if needed. +// + +type PingArgs struct { + Me string // "host:port" + Viewnum uint // caller's notion of current view # +} + +type PingReply struct { + View View +} + +// +// Get(): fetch the current view, without volunteering +// to be a server. mostly for clients of the p/b service, +// and for testing. +// + +type GetArgs struct { +} + +type GetReply struct { + View View +} diff --git a/src/viewservice/server.go b/src/viewservice/server.go new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6710536 --- /dev/null +++ b/src/viewservice/server.go @@ -0,0 +1,123 @@ +package viewservice + +import "net" +import "net/rpc" +import "log" +import "time" +import "sync" +import "fmt" +import "os" +import "sync/atomic" + +type ViewServer struct { + mu sync.Mutex + l net.Listener + dead int32 // for testing + rpccount int32 // for testing + me string + + + // Your declarations here. +} + +// +// server Ping RPC handler. +// +func (vs *ViewServer) Ping(args *PingArgs, reply *PingReply) error { + + // Your code here. + + return nil +} + +// +// server Get() RPC handler. +// +func (vs *ViewServer) Get(args *GetArgs, reply *GetReply) error { + + // Your code here. + + return nil +} + + +// +// tick() is called once per PingInterval; it should notice +// if servers have died or recovered, and change the view +// accordingly. +// +func (vs *ViewServer) tick() { + + // Your code here. +} + +// +// tell the server to shut itself down. +// for testing. +// please don't change these two functions. +// +func (vs *ViewServer) Kill() { + atomic.StoreInt32(&vs.dead, 1) + vs.l.Close() +} + +// +// has this server been asked to shut down? +// +func (vs *ViewServer) isdead() bool { + return atomic.LoadInt32(&vs.dead) != 0 +} + +// please don't change this function. +func (vs *ViewServer) GetRPCCount() int32 { + return atomic.LoadInt32(&vs.rpccount) +} + +func StartServer(me string) *ViewServer { + vs := new(ViewServer) + vs.me = me + // Your vs.* initializations here. + + // tell net/rpc about our RPC server and handlers. + rpcs := rpc.NewServer() + rpcs.Register(vs) + + // prepare to receive connections from clients. + // change "unix" to "tcp" to use over a network. + os.Remove(vs.me) // only needed for "unix" + l, e := net.Listen("unix", vs.me) + if e != nil { + log.Fatal("listen error: ", e) + } + vs.l = l + + // please don't change any of the following code, + // or do anything to subvert it. + + // create a thread to accept RPC connections from clients. + go func() { + for vs.isdead() == false { + conn, err := vs.l.Accept() + if err == nil && vs.isdead() == false { + atomic.AddInt32(&vs.rpccount, 1) + go rpcs.ServeConn(conn) + } else if err == nil { + conn.Close() + } + if err != nil && vs.isdead() == false { + fmt.Printf("ViewServer(%v) accept: %v\n", me, err.Error()) + vs.Kill() + } + } + }() + + // create a thread to call tick() periodically. + go func() { + for vs.isdead() == false { + vs.tick() + time.Sleep(PingInterval) + } + }() + + return vs +} diff --git a/src/viewservice/test_test.go b/src/viewservice/test_test.go new file mode 100644 index 0000000..88b0aab --- /dev/null +++ b/src/viewservice/test_test.go @@ -0,0 +1,235 @@ +package viewservice + +import "testing" +import "runtime" +import "time" +import "fmt" +import "os" +import "strconv" + +func check(t *testing.T, ck *Clerk, p string, b string, n uint) { + view, _ := ck.Get() + if view.Primary != p { + t.Fatalf("wanted primary %v, got %v", p, view.Primary) + } + if view.Backup != b { + t.Fatalf("wanted backup %v, got %v", b, view.Backup) + } + if n != 0 && n != view.Viewnum { + t.Fatalf("wanted viewnum %v, got %v", n, view.Viewnum) + } + if ck.Primary() != p { + t.Fatalf("wanted primary %v, got %v", p, ck.Primary()) + } +} + +func port(suffix string) string { + s := "/var/tmp/824-" + s += strconv.Itoa(os.Getuid()) + "/" + os.Mkdir(s, 0777) + s += "viewserver-" + s += strconv.Itoa(os.Getpid()) + "-" + s += suffix + return s +} + +func Test1(t *testing.T) { + runtime.GOMAXPROCS(4) + + vshost := port("v") + vs := StartServer(vshost) + + ck1 := MakeClerk(port("1"), vshost) + ck2 := MakeClerk(port("2"), vshost) + ck3 := MakeClerk(port("3"), vshost) + + // + + if ck1.Primary() != "" { + t.Fatalf("there was a primary too soon") + } + + // very first primary + fmt.Printf("Test: First primary ...\n") + + for i := 0; i < DeadPings*2; i++ { + view, _ := ck1.Ping(0) + if view.Primary == ck1.me { + break + } + time.Sleep(PingInterval) + } + check(t, ck1, ck1.me, "", 1) + fmt.Printf(" ... Passed\n") + + // very first backup + fmt.Printf("Test: First backup ...\n") + + { + vx, _ := ck1.Get() + for i := 0; i < DeadPings*2; i++ { + ck1.Ping(1) + view, _ := ck2.Ping(0) + if view.Backup == ck2.me { + break + } + time.Sleep(PingInterval) + } + check(t, ck1, ck1.me, ck2.me, vx.Viewnum+1) + } + fmt.Printf(" ... Passed\n") + + // primary dies, backup should take over + fmt.Printf("Test: Backup takes over if primary fails ...\n") + + { + ck1.Ping(2) + vx, _ := ck2.Ping(2) + for i := 0; i < DeadPings*2; i++ { + v, _ := ck2.Ping(vx.Viewnum) + if v.Primary == ck2.me && v.Backup == "" { + break + } + time.Sleep(PingInterval) + } + check(t, ck2, ck2.me, "", vx.Viewnum+1) + } + fmt.Printf(" ... Passed\n") + + // revive ck1, should become backup + fmt.Printf("Test: Restarted server becomes backup ...\n") + + { + vx, _ := ck2.Get() + ck2.Ping(vx.Viewnum) + for i := 0; i < DeadPings*2; i++ { + ck1.Ping(0) + v, _ := ck2.Ping(vx.Viewnum) + if v.Primary == ck2.me && v.Backup == ck1.me { + break + } + time.Sleep(PingInterval) + } + check(t, ck2, ck2.me, ck1.me, vx.Viewnum+1) + } + fmt.Printf(" ... Passed\n") + + // start ck3, kill the primary (ck2), the previous backup (ck1) + // should become the server, and ck3 the backup. + // this should happen in a single view change, without + // any period in which there's no backup. + fmt.Printf("Test: Idle third server becomes backup if primary fails ...\n") + + { + vx, _ := ck2.Get() + ck2.Ping(vx.Viewnum) + for i := 0; i < DeadPings*2; i++ { + ck3.Ping(0) + v, _ := ck1.Ping(vx.Viewnum) + if v.Primary == ck1.me && v.Backup == ck3.me { + break + } + vx = v + time.Sleep(PingInterval) + } + check(t, ck1, ck1.me, ck3.me, vx.Viewnum+1) + } + fmt.Printf(" ... Passed\n") + + // kill and immediately restart the primary -- does viewservice + // conclude primary is down even though it's pinging? + fmt.Printf("Test: Restarted primary treated as dead ...\n") + + { + vx, _ := ck1.Get() + ck1.Ping(vx.Viewnum) + for i := 0; i < DeadPings*2; i++ { + ck1.Ping(0) + ck3.Ping(vx.Viewnum) + v, _ := ck3.Get() + if v.Primary != ck1.me { + break + } + time.Sleep(PingInterval) + } + vy, _ := ck3.Get() + if vy.Primary != ck3.me { + t.Fatalf("expected primary=%v, got %v\n", ck3.me, vy.Primary) + } + } + fmt.Printf(" ... Passed\n") + + fmt.Printf("Test: Dead backup is removed from view ...\n") + + // set up a view with just 3 as primary, + // to prepare for the next test. + { + for i := 0; i < DeadPings*3; i++ { + vx, _ := ck3.Get() + ck3.Ping(vx.Viewnum) + time.Sleep(PingInterval) + } + v, _ := ck3.Get() + if v.Primary != ck3.me || v.Backup != "" { + t.Fatalf("wrong primary or backup") + } + } + fmt.Printf(" ... Passed\n") + + // does viewserver wait for ack of previous view before + // starting the next one? + fmt.Printf("Test: Viewserver waits for primary to ack view ...\n") + + { + // set up p=ck3 b=ck1, but + // but do not ack + vx, _ := ck1.Get() + for i := 0; i < DeadPings*3; i++ { + ck1.Ping(0) + ck3.Ping(vx.Viewnum) + v, _ := ck1.Get() + if v.Viewnum > vx.Viewnum { + break + } + time.Sleep(PingInterval) + } + check(t, ck1, ck3.me, ck1.me, vx.Viewnum+1) + vy, _ := ck1.Get() + // ck3 is the primary, but it never acked. + // let ck3 die. check that ck1 is not promoted. + for i := 0; i < DeadPings*3; i++ { + v, _ := ck1.Ping(vy.Viewnum) + if v.Viewnum > vy.Viewnum { + break + } + time.Sleep(PingInterval) + } + check(t, ck2, ck3.me, ck1.me, vy.Viewnum) + } + fmt.Printf(" ... Passed\n") + + // if old servers die, check that a new (uninitialized) server + // cannot take over. + fmt.Printf("Test: Uninitialized server can't become primary ...\n") + + { + for i := 0; i < DeadPings*2; i++ { + v, _ := ck1.Get() + ck1.Ping(v.Viewnum) + ck2.Ping(0) + ck3.Ping(v.Viewnum) + time.Sleep(PingInterval) + } + for i := 0; i < DeadPings*2; i++ { + ck2.Ping(0) + time.Sleep(PingInterval) + } + vz, _ := ck2.Get() + if vz.Primary == ck2.me { + t.Fatalf("uninitialized backup promoted to primary") + } + } + fmt.Printf(" ... Passed\n") + + vs.Kill() +}

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